Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

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

Let’s finish the job.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Let there be snark.

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

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

He really is that stupid.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

We still have time to mess this up!

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

It’s the corruption, stupid.

The revolution will be supervised.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Fighting Back

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Fighting Back

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  8. 8.

    Immanentize

    My view is everything is negotiated, except perhaps the moment we slip this mortal coil. Even then, we do try to play chess…

    I am not sure the majority of voters yet see voting rights reductions as mission critical. It is seeping into the general consciousness, but it’s not there yet. Linking bad things happening in Texas all year with voting rights is the best we have to show people not living in a total hellhole like that State. But it is hard to make it resonate. The irony of course is, if voting rights continue to be curtailed, when it is obvious to most how much it is hurting us, it will be too late for too many.

    But, fight on! It is the only option.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    @Immanentize:

    The internet has taught me is that going  on and on about how we have already lost is also an option. It’s not the option I choose, but it’s an option.

  16. 16.

    WereBear

    On the other hand, the MAGAts’ world is falling apart. Almost literally.

    In their cold, cynical, and narcissistic way, the leaders don’t care about these issues the way their followers do. Stirring up the rubes is solely to get them out to the polls and keep the supervillains in power.

    But now, I hope it has reached the point where the suburban women notice. Yes, Karen, they are coming for you. Getting your kids sick and cutting off heat and water during a cold spell while they escape to a sunny beach…

    Maybe it won’t feel so much like freedom any more.

  24. 24.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: I think the best case for not leaving Afghanistan would be to argue that the domestic consequences of Trump becoming President again would be so bad that Biden needed to be cautious to the point of paralysis until Trump is dead. But this is an invitation to small-ball government in every way.

  28. 28.

    germy

    Repeated stimulus payments & giveaway packages have encouraged people not to go to work. The Republicans seem to know how to get people to work and the Democrats seem to know how to tax your money and give it to people as an incentive not to work.

    — Franklin Graham (@Franklin_Graham) September 6, 2021

    The only thing Franklin Graham has in common with Jesus is that he only got where he is because of who his father was https://t.co/LdgnGxawQP

    — Frank Lesser (@sadmonsters) September 7, 2021

  29. 29.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    We keep saying our policies are popular.  We either need to get off our ass and prove it at election time or stop asking Dems to do big things.  But it seems like many of us are only comfortable being critics of every imperfection than being supportive when momentum moves slowly in our direction.

  34. 34.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: very good point. In Cole’s post last night, there was a lot of bemoaning today’s mean and selfish people. And they deserve our moans!

    But we should also bemoan all those who quit early when things get a little hard.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Our core is solid but our margins are flaky.  It’s not just the leftist either.  Centrist voters are not as loud but they also love finding imperfections to criticize.

  36. 36.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: Biden is actually a relatively bold President in terms of policy preferences! But he’s been dealt a structurally weak hand in terms of getting anything done, so the people on the left who want bold solutions can still knock him for not doing anything big. And in the one area where he has pretty much plenary executive power, the media raised on the Bush-era centrist foreign policy consensus have it in for him.

  37. 37.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I finally sent my Hurricane Ida refugees home yesterday. One of the restaurants my son works at has had a return of electricity, so he needs to get back down there and go to work. We bought them a generator and I was ready to drive it down there last Thursday when he called to say they were coming up. Thank dawg, I was not looking forward to trying to make my way thru flood ravaged MS and LA at all (according to MS and LA DOTs, 55 was open all the way to just north of Pontchartrain, but I couldn’t get much info on checkpoints) and then driving back the next day. Still, 2 adults, an infant, and 2 dogs (one of which is old, blind, and arthritic to the point where peeing inside is sometimes her only choice) helped to fill our smallish abode to the overflow. A little bit stressful, but not overwhelmingly. As sorry as I am to see them go, I can’t deny feeling a little relieved at their departure. They don’t know for sure if they have electricity at their house but the generator should take care of most of those concerns.

    I didn’t get to say goodbye because I had my 2nd set of pelvic stents put in yesterday. At least this time I wasn’t awake thru out the entire affair. The Doc said that this time was even worse than the other. Can’t say for sure as I was out but I know I felt significantly shittier in post op than I did after the first set. A whole lot of back pain in addition to the upper thigh, not to mention the hangover from the drugs. Finally they go to send my home, disconnecting the monitor and blood pressure cuff and O2, sit me up, and oh lordy, it’s a gusher down their. Femoral (vein, not arterial) bleeders are not for the faint of heart. So I got to spend another 15-20 minutes with a pretty girls’ hands in my junk as she applied pressure to stop the bleeding. That phrase, “15-20 minutes with a pretty girls’ hands in my junk” was never so unsexy.

    They finally cut me loose an hour later with a whole new drug regimen for my blood clots because the Doc found 3 small clots on the upstream side of the first stents they installed and he thinks the old thinner seems to have lost it’s effectiveness. I’m not sure if that contributes to my lightheadedness this AM or not. I know I had to take a vicodin last night and sleep with ice packs on my back and in my crotch, which I did not need after the first set went in. We’ll see how the day goes. I know I am taking it easy, not lifting anything over 10 pounds and not doing anything I don’t have to do.

    Tomorrow is another day.

  38. 38.

    Baud

    @Immanentize:

    Honestly, I’ve been on blogs since the early naughts, and the “I give up” voices have always been there.  The problem IMHO is that things are too precarious now to accommodate that message.

  43. 43.

    John S.

    @Baud: Republicans belong to a cult. Democrats belong to a political party. It’s pretty easy to set expectations for behavior based on those facts.

  44. 44.

    narya

    @Baud: I think part of it is that people in general have been trained to think of “politics” as a Bad Thing–as though there is some other magic way to sort through all of the facts and come up with a perfect solution that makes everyone happy. (And the examples of not even agreeing what the “facts” are–climate change, anyone?–are too numerous to count.) I try to reframe it as people trying to sort out what the problems are, what the possible solutions are, etc., and then to identify what MY guiding principles are. And to identify bad-faith folks as such. A close friend who clings to the “independent” label (in part because he grew up in WI when the R governor and legislature actually did things like conserve wildlife and clean up pollution) says he “hates” the politics, but I’ve come to see that what he mostly means is that he believes people should take principled stands, with the principles being something other than “more for me, the rest of you GTFO.” Luckily he also recognizes that one side of the aisle has nothing but bad faith at this point.

  45. 45.

    Baud

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I didn’t say the Rs will win.  I’m saying we need to more forcefully support our people when they move the ball forward to prevent the Rs from winning.  I honestly don’t know how things will shake out next year or in 2024.

  47. 47.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Genuinely baffled why “people on the Left” are being blamed for the Right and centrists in Congress blocking Biden’s agenda.

    Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) has privately warned the White House and congressional leaders that he has specific policy concerns with President Biden’s $3.5 trillion social spending dream — and he’ll support as little as $1 trillion of it —

    Michelle Obama
    @MichelleObama
    ·13h
    If we want to fight back against bills like this, we’ve got to organize state by state and block by block to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the For the People Act. I hope you’ll join me.

    “The Left” aren’t blocking this. Democrats on the Right are. Is this even a matter of debate? It’s arithmetic.

  48. 48.

    narya

    @OzarkHillbilly: My mom’s fistula (used for dialysis prior to her kidney transplant) needed replacement at one point; the resident ripped off a bandage before she could stop him, resulting in arterial bleeding all over the room. Terrifying. Here’s hoping your healing goes well and your pain goes away.

  50. 50.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @MomSense:

    ? It’s about the same; it’s only a couple of miles away. It just offends my inner OCD techno-weenie. If Google is gonna Big Brother me and track me around everywhere, at least get it right!

    And I’m sure it’s not only my paranoia that the notifications seem to have increased in frequency. They’re just screwing with me now.

  52. 52.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: I agree with you and I guess I was not clear. I was not criticizing you or your comment but commenting on last night’s thread.

  54. 54.

    Woodrow/asim

    @Baud: I’ve been on blogs since the early naughts, and the “I give up” voices have always been there. The problem IMHO is that things are too precarious now to accommodate that message.

    Same here, and SAME HERE.

    There’s an implicit assumption that voting can and should be enough. You see it, I think, in how people talk about Certain Senators, to pick a prime example. Or how people talk about “The Democrats” as though the recent GOP  lock-step isn’t, historically, a hell of an abberation.

    To come back to this post, the Obamas — and hell, John Lewis — come/came from a tradition that knows only consistent, public, and loud pressure gets critical change to happen. In that tradition: Giving into despair is human, and the trick is to ally yourself with people who haven’t given in.

    You can’t win when you cycle endlessly among other despairing voices. And that tends to happen to people for whom the realization of the situation is fairly new, and they lack a support system to manage that, and to direct their energy into action.

  55. 55.

    Kay

    President Biden’s $3.5 trillion social spending dream

    Good Lord. That’s not editorializing at all, huh? Odd how only domestic investment is a “dream”. Pouring billions into “nation building” in Afghanistan for 20 years was hard headed realism.

  58. 58.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: It’s more that I’m seeing another new wave of social-media leftists congratulating each other for recognizing that both parties are the same, Biden is only a tool of the oligarchy, etc. etc. They have no effect on the current situation but they will be making trouble in the elections down the road.

  62. 62.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Agree.  I don’t see the left being blamed for the right.  The left (largely in social media) is being blamed for their rhetoric, to the extent they are being blamed at all.

  67. 67.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: I follow many politically active black women on Twitter, also Jewish people and immigrants and those who advocate for them. There is a sense of urgency among them but not despair.

    Biden’s administration has been a respite for us after 4 years of the Orange Clown.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Ugh. Manchin wants to means test everything. Let’s work as hard as we can to ensure we put poor people into a neatly demonizable box. Set up another elaborate series of hoops to exclude the vast majority of voters from any benefit. That’s a winning recipe.

  74. 74.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I don’t think anything will pass of he gets his way. But I’m also refusing to pay attention to the sausage making.

  77. 77.

    Woodrow/asim

    @Matt McIrvin: I’m seeing another new wave of social-media leftists congratulating each other for recognizing that both parties are the same, Biden is only a tool of the oligarchy, etc. etc.

    Like @schrodingers_cat:, I also try to follow a lot of different folx on Twitter, esp. as Twitter is the place a lot of those folx feel comfortable. I’ve not read anyone of merit who is despairing, and that included the Pro-Choice activists I follow. Like I said the other day, they are tired, but ramping up for the fight, yet again!

    So, Matt and others: Put those people (and bots!) in the Rear View, y’all. The only healthy way to treat nay-saying is to not let it put your work to the side.

    Don’t just take it from me, listen to the words of Dr. King:

    While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work.

    Do the constructive work, y’all. Don’t spend too much time trying to parse out what the constant nay-sayers and bots are doing, because –to be certain — sapping your energy for the fight is a major reason these bots exist.

  81. 81.

    Kay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I don’t understand. Promoting the actual Biden agenda is now a “roadshow”? You object to where he’s going? You prefer the quiet and brutally effective undermining approach of Joe Manchin?

    Don’t worry. It won’t get covered. The Centrist Obstructionists get 90% of the media coverage that voters actually see.

  84. 84.

    satby

    comment field switched to white (not by me) and won’t let me choose black text color. How weird is that? Cosmic sign to gtf off the internet? I’m interpreting it that way, have a good day everyone.

  87. 87.

    sab

    @debbie: If we can replace Rob Portman with a Democrat then Manchin won’t matter so much. He’ll still be a Democrat, but not vote 50.

  88. 88.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Kay: In the Universe I live BS and his squad are media darlings everything they do does get covered.

    I asked you a specific question, which you chose not to answer and instead responded with an attack on Manchin. I am no fan of his but I realize that no one other than him can win that WV seat for the Ds.

    If we had more D senators, Manchin would have been a footnote. But that’s not the world we live in.

  91. 91.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: It may be Dawg’s way of telling you that you now comment from a higher plane of existence. I suggest you check your pulse.

  93. 93.

    raven

    @OzarkHillbilly: Hang tough dude! I have a dead femoral nerve and, since the spine surgery did not solve my problem, they may want to cut it.

    Our tenants moved out and we are having the floors replaced and then have to figure out how to deal with the mold! The contractor is a friend and we were lucky that he slipped us in between big jobs. He was happy that the floor joists we 2X12 until he found the post beetle’s in them! I guess the good news is that lumber prices have come down!

  95. 95.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven:

    he found the post beetle’s in them!

    Damn, man. If it weren’t for bad luck, you’d have no luck at all with that house.

    I guess the good news is that lumber prices have come down!

    Yeah but not enough to suit me. You’re still in for some sticker shock.

    I started this year with several “must do projects” but what with lumber prices so high I put them all on hold till the expected drop in Fall. Now, with my impending shoulder surgery, I’m not sure when they will happen before January. And my arthritic joints just love sub-freezing temps.

  96. 96.

    Soprano2

    @Steeplejack (phone): It was okay to leave. He just did it the wrong way.

    I can’t get over these people who think there was a perfect way to leave Afghanistan with no problems.  Now the press is obsessed with the chartered planes with people on them who don’t have the proper paperwork so evidently Qatar won’t let them come there. I heard a reporter on NPR last night say that Biden never should have let that happen and he should do something! It’s the Green Lantern theory of getting people out of Afghanistan – Biden should wave his magic wand and make everything work perfectly! I’m sure the same Republicans beating Biden up about this will pivot to hollering about all the unvetted Afghans on those planes as soon as they land somewhere

    The press has spent more time talking about Afghanistan the past month than they did the whole of the last 5 years, which tells you something.

  97. 97.

    Geminid

    @sab: There are also good chances for Democratic Senate pickups in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Florida next November. Democratic incumbents Cortez-Masto (NV), Hassan (NH), Warnock (GA), and Kelly (AZ) likely will have have tough reelections,  but I like our chances to get to a 52 Senator majority, maybe better.

  101. 101.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: There’s also the faction of the “left” who really ARE the right: Jimmy Dore, Elizabeth Bruenig et al. Right now, they’ve literally jumped from anti-anti-Trump to anti-anti-ivermectin on “leftist” grounds and it is profoundly weird.

  102. 102.

    Kay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    You asked me if Bernie Sander’s promoting Joe Biden’s agenda will work. I don’t know if it will work. But other than voting for Joe Biden’s agenda there’s nothing else senators can do so I’m not clear on why there’s an effectiveness test. It will work better than the centrist approach, which is “blocking Joe Biden’s agenda”, which happened to Obama (with a larger D majority) and is happening again here, because it always happens. To get past the centrists you probably need 60-65 senators, because their ranks increase as the number increases.

  103. 103.

    Cermet

    @OzarkHillbilly: Ugh, that is a lot to handle! Very glad you are out of there and hope the procedures solve the issue and you are done.

    Do warn your Son about the dangers of generators – both the fumes and need to be certain of a valid grounding of the electrical system (the external wires that come into the house, being down, don’t necessarily offer a proper ground.)

    Best of luck and hope you heal quickly with as little pain as possible.

  104. 104.

    Ken

    @Steeplejack (phone): My phone is still giving me weather updates from the wrong location.

    Any minute now, Rod Serling will step out and introduce the episode. Here’s hoping they play the funny-quirky music, and not the dark-scary music.

  107. 107.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    They use such dishonest language. People who “applied” for visas, because they want the implication that Biden himself somehow turned them down. There were a set number of visas. “Applying” for a visa doesn’t mean anything at all. Their deliberate and careful avoidance of any actual discussion of the Afghan Allies Act, which is the mechanism, and their conflating that with some undetermined moral duty which for some reason Congress either didn’t feel or didn’t do anything about for 20 years.

    They muddied the water. People know less now than they did when media started this campaign, because before they didn’t know anything and now they’ve been told a bunch of meaningless, vague bullshit that is sort of “bad” generally.

  110. 110.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: Bernie Sanders has always been far superior to his fans and even much of his inner circle. I question his judgment in letting them in in the first place because a lot of them are still out there causing trouble.

  111. 111.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    A lot of Leftism is “coolness”. They’re too cool to support the majority scientific community and public health. They do “next level” analysis. I sometimes go out of my way (locally, in person) to say things that I know they’ll find uncool just for pleasure.

    You can make them wince with how conventional you are :)

  112. 112.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Are they perhaps getting genderized based on the person they’re referring to? I don’t know anything about Duolingo, but all of my old Spanish books had oddball fake conversations to demonstrate stuff.

    “Hola, Juan! How are you today?”

    “I am fine, Inez. I am on my way to vote before the junta does a coup.”

    “That’s nice. For whom will you vote?”

    “I will vote for the strong republicano so that a coup will not be necessary. Are you a republicana?”

    “No, I am a democrata. I do not think a coup is good.”

    “Shut up, woman!”

    “Bastardo!”

  114. 114.

    debbie

    @Soprano2:

    What I wish these reporters would report is that the chaos was the result of the Afghani army folding like a cheap suit. They were expected to last at least a couple of weeks.

  115. 115.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: The withdrawal went damn near perfectly – more perfectly than we could have hoped for.  Yes 213 people died, and that was awful, but war is not roses, even when you are getting out.

  117. 117.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Oh, “letting them in”. Who let the centrists in? Living in mortal fear that anyone who makes more than 50k a year will get free community college. They exist to create elaborate schemes that make people hate government.

    You don’t bring up the bottom by pushing the middle down. That’s not the kind of “equity” we’re after.

  118. 118.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: Nightmare’s are hiding in that wall!

    One time my parents had tiles in their shower starting to let loose. I told them it was an easy fix I could take care of in just a few hours. Removed the tiles, started pulling away the rotted drywall and… O Joy O Joy, Termites!

    They had to remodel both their bathrooms as their floor plan had them side by side so they could share the plumbing.

  119. 119.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Woodrow/asim: You can’t win when you cycle endlessly among other despairing voices. And that tends to happen to people for whom the realization of the situation is fairly new, and they lack a support system to manage that, and to direct their energy into action.

     

    @Woodrow/asim: Do the constructive work, y’all. Don’t spend too much time trying to parse out what the constant nay-sayers and bots are doing, because –to be certain — sapping your energy for the fight is a major reason these bots exist.

     Amen. And thank you. These are words to live by.

  121. 121.

    Kay

    Murfreesboro Holler
    @TheBoroHoller
    · 14h
    ?WATCH: When A RUTHERFORD COUNTY STUDENT tells the board his grandmother, a former @rucoschools teacher, DIED OF COVID because someone wasn’t wearing a mask… anti-maskers behind him LAUGH and INTERRUPT HIM.

    Because it’s all about the kids. Who have no problem with masks! It’s just that these ridiculous adults have invaded their schools and won’t shut up.
    That’s why they hate the masks. A mask reduces the volume on their screeching and screaming. Not content with running their own households into the ground and killing their family members, they have branched out into schools where they demand the right to infect other people.

  122. 122.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Cermet: ​Do warn your Son about the dangers of generators –

    Yeah, after years and years of working with and around them, it was the first thing we went thru. Also proper gauge and length of extension cords.

  124. 124.

    Nicole

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    @raven:

    Your stories are making me remember my paternal grandparents’ wonderful, enormous old house that, when they finally moved out, they discovered was infested with carpenter ants.  The place had been for years; I guess maybe their aging eyes didn’t notice.  For me, growing up visiting  them, I thought finding a drowning ant or two in every bowl of my morning cereal was just one of those things.  But, as a child of the 1970s-1980s, it never occurred to me to say anything; I was afraid of being reprimanded.  My own kid would have no such issues.

  125. 125.

    Kay

    @Betty:

    Not to be an asshole, but the Homeland Security budget is obscene and they missed an insurrection. I’m sitting in NW Ohio and I knew they were going to do something. They told us they were. Over and over.

    How do you leave the capital police undefended for hours? 60 billion A YEAR and it increases every year.

  127. 127.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    “The Left” aren’t blocking this. Democrats on the Right are. Is this even a matter of debate? It’s arithmetic.

     

    I don’t even see ‘ the left’ being blamed.

    What drives me nuts is blaming’ Democrats’, when, in fact, you can literally NAME the people to blame.

    It’s not ‘ Democrats’, like there’s this huge group.

    No, it’s two muthaphuckas.

    NAME. THEM.

  130. 130.

    rikyrah

    @schrodingers_cat:

     

    @Baud: I follow many politically active black women on Twitter, also Jewish people and immigrants and those who advocate for them. There is a sense of urgency among them but not despair.

     

    don’t have time for despair.

    despair is an indulgence of privilege.

  132. 132.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

     

    Ugh. Manchin wants to means test everything. Let’s work as hard as we can to ensure we put poor people into a neatly demonizable box. Set up another elaborate series of hoops to exclude the vast majority of voters from any benefit. That’s a winning recipe

     

    He thinks someone is playing with him. Nobody is playing with his muthaphuckin’ azz

  137. 137.

    rikyrah

    @Soprano2:

     

    The press has spent more time talking about Afghanistan the past month than they did the whole of the last 5 years, which tells you something.

     

    Uh huh

    And, always, somehow, conveniently, leave out Stephen Miller, and how he completely phucked up the VISA Application process and the backlog. How the entire process was ground to ZERO during Dolt45’s term.

     

    And, the thought that Dolt45 would have given two shyts about bring those refugees here.

    And, when he left them there, the MSM wouldn’t have said SHYT.

    See, the KURDS /Turkey for reference.

  140. 140.

    Steeplejack

    LOL. A very young (22) George Takei on Perry Mason this morning (on MeTV). “The Case of the Blushing Pearls,” October 1959. Just his fourth screen appearance.

  141. 141.

    germy

    @Steeplejack:

    Leonard Nimoy shows up on a few old TV westerns.

    When we watch the Rifleman, we always notice character actors we’ve seen a million times, but we can’t recall their names.  Other character actors got lucky a few years later and we remember them.

    These “unknowns”… if they’d been cast in a lead role in a successful series would be household names today

    We saw one episode of the Rifleman that had Buddy Hackett of all people in a dramatic role.  And Sammy Davis, Jr. appeared twice, showing off his gunslinger skills.

  143. 143.

    JaneE

    Biden said “We can stop it from getting worse.”.

    Unfortunately, that is not quite true.  We can keep it from getting even more worse than the worse it will become with the CO2 currently in the atmosphere.  But it will still get worse from here, even if we stopped adding anything today.

    If we have already passed the tipping-point, we probably can’t even do that much.

    It is our children and grandchildren that will actually know if that were the case today or not.  What we know is that the changes are not slowing down any, but the reverse.

  144. 144.

    zhena gogolia

    @germy: This is one of the fun things about watching these shows. My brother saw Elaine Stritch on Wagon Train the other day.

  145. 145.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I was thinking about Cole’s post from last night where among the comments I asked “how are you (each individual you) going to handle it?”  Maybe some people are overwhelmed by the perceived size of the challenges facing us, but, if so, we just have to remember that there isn’t some one big thing that we need to do.  Every little thing helps.  Voting.  Donating.  Calling. Postcards.  They all add up.  No one has to fix it all at once or by themself.  Also just make a point of enjoying something each day.  A flower.  A song.  A pretty girl or boy.  The right is nasty and joyless; don’t let them take that away from us.  As individuals we can’t do much more than try to leave the campsite cleaner than we found it, but as a group – if we all do it – that will move mountains.

    Also, if you can’t drag yourself that far, AL’s suggestion of bloody-minded refusal to let the assholes win is a damn good substitute.

    Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.

  146. 146.

    Steeplejack

    @germy:

    Nimoy was on Perry Mason once, as was DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy).

    As you plow through all of those old series you see scores of “recognizable” actors whose names you hardly ever knew. And it looked like you could have a pretty good career just playing those supporting roles and never hitting it big.

    I just saw a MeTV promo for the Darling family coming up on The Andy Griffith Show. The patriarch is Denver Pyle, who is quintessentially one of those actors. Six appearances as Briscoe Darling, six guest shots on Perry Mason, 263 credits in all, according to IMDB. Most people would recognize him instantly but would be hard pressed to remember his name.

  147. 147.

    Soprano2

    I’m on hold with our local utility company right now; I hate how they keep saying, over and over, “you can visit our web site”. If I could take care of this at your web site, I would do that! I hate how companies do that, as if people are so stupid that they don’t know they can do things online, and they have to tell you over and over again. They make it SO OBVIOUS that WE DON’T WANT TO ACTUALLY TALK TO YOU PLEASE GO AWAY NOW!

  148. 148.

    zhena gogolia

    @Steeplejack: He’s in the very first season of PM, and does a damn good job.

    Then there’s the phenomenon that we Boomers grew up seeing people as sitcom or Western stars on TV without being aware of their illustrious film careers in the 1930s-50s. Fred MacMurray was My Three Sons. When I saw Double Indemnity I nearly fainted.

    One day my husband mentioned the Big Valley, then he said, “I think Barbara Stanwyck made some movies before that.” He got laughed pretty thoroughly out of the room.

  149. 149.

    NotMax

    FYI.

    The Satanic Temple challenges new Texas abortion law citing religious freedom

    The group, recognized as a church by the IRS, says the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act bans government from infringing on religion. Source

  150. 150.

    zhena gogolia

    @Soprano2: My pet peeve is when you finally get a person and they say, “I understand your frustration.” I DON’T CARE WHETHER OR NOT YOU UNDERSTAND MY FRUSTRATION this isn’t a therapy session just fix my problem.

    Five days straight my NYTimes hasn’t been delivered. I’ve gotten a lot of sympathy for my frustration, but no paper.

  151. 151.

    germy

    @zhena gogolia:

    Elaine Stritch!

    Here’s a bit of trivia about her:  She was at a banquet with James Thurber in 1961.  Thurber was suffering from an undiagnosed brain tumor.  Thurber stood up to give a speech, then collapsed and was rushed to a hospital.  He died a month later.

  152. 152.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Cermet: Yeah, but it’s good that you bring it up, most folks don’t think about those things. Some of the folks here surely wouldn’t.

  154. 154.

    germy

    @Steeplejack:

    It’s interesting when I see older women doing character roles in late 1950s/early 1960s TV westerns and comedies, because I know many of them were doing stage work in the 1910s and silent films in the 1920s.

  157. 157.

    Ocotillo

    President Manchin is enjoying his time in the spotlight.  He makes me grind my teeth a lot but I am more upset with Iowa, Maine, Wisconsin and Montana for sending GQPers to represent them instead of good Dems.  That is why we have to listen to Manchin and the unserious Sinema.

  158. 158.

    germy

    @Soprano2:

    One of my finest moments here (it’s been all downhill since) was when Betty Cracker complained her utility company told her to visit their website when her power was down.

    I said it was like a man with two broken legs calling a doctor, and being told to visit the walk-in clinic.

  160. 160.

    Ocotillo

    And thank God for Georgia and Stacey Abrams.  Who would have thought in this day and age there would be two Dems from Georgia.  Otherwise, the evil tortoise would be torturing us more than Manchin is.

  161. 161.

    germy

    @zhena gogolia:

    I recently saw a 1930s clip of a very young Stanwyck doing a brassy song and dance routine in some comedy film.

    She was one of the nicest people, apparently.  She’d show up early and get to know everyone in the crew, the behind the scenes people with the “little” jobs that most stars ignored.

  163. 163.

    James E Powell

    @Ocotillo:

    President Manchin is enjoying his time in the spotlight.  He makes me grind my teeth a lot but I am more upset with Iowa, Maine, Wisconsin and Montana for sending GQPers to represent them instead of good Dems.

    Agree completely. Our problem is not the elected Republicans, it’s the people who vote for them. And since they are increasingly out of touch with reality, it’s pretty hard to get them to change their ways.

  165. 165.

    zhena gogolia

    @germy: Yeah. I guess not so nice to her adopted son (not physically abusive, just kind of neglectful). I haven’t had the heart to finish reading the doorstopper biography I bought a few years ago, which only goes up to 1940. As far as I know the second volume hasn’t appeared. But the author has no sense of self-editing, so it’s a slog

    ETA: I mean the one by Victoria Wilson. I can’t see that the second vol. has appeared.

  166. 166.

    Betty Cracker

    @zhena gogolia: I hate that “I understand your frustration” bullshit too. I was dealing with two separate issues involving two different companies last week and got that same line from both. It must be all the rage with “customer de-escalation” scripts these days.

    It wasn’t even in response to any frustration I’d expressed; I always try to remain polite and calm when talking to customer service people because I recognize it’s not their fault — it’s their shitty company’s policies and agent’s lack of empowerment.

  168. 168.

    James E Powell

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Exactly. A good way, maybe the best way, to get through the darkest times is simply to do something that needs to be done.

    Also too, I do not know if it will work for everyone, but I deactivated twitter on September 1st and I noticed my agita went away.

  171. 171.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    Yeah, going from Fred MacMurray in My Three Sons and Son of Flubber to Double Indemnity with no preparation would be, uh, eye-opening.

    I hope you blew your husband’s mind when you made him watch Remember the Night. I know that’s one of your favorites.

  172. 172.

    PST

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I think the best case for not leaving Afghanistan would be to argue that the domestic consequences of Trump becoming President again would be so bad that Biden needed to be cautious to the point of paralysis until Trump is dead.

    I suppose that it would be the best case, but that would not have worked out well at all. The 2020-21 lull was not sustainable except as a prelude to promised withdrawal. We would have had to fight again, and to do that we would have need another surge. Biden’s prestige may have taken an blow — quite undeserved in my opinion — but it was quick and clean. We can trust the American attention span to leave Afghanistan behind. To stay would have meant casualty reports for the rest of Biden’s presidency, as well has legitimate criticism that he failed to keep his promise. There was no good argument for staying.

  173. 173.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: @zhena gogolia:

    My wife works at a cable company help desk. She understands people being frustrated (and is encouraged to hang up when it gets abusive) but it drives her nuts when she gets people who won’t do the simplest thing to help themselves. “Can you please unplug the modem.” is sure to send some folks over the wall.

  174. 174.

    Soprano2

    @rikyrah: Yes, yes, yes, completely! The press has pretty much completely disappeared the past 4 years under Trump when it comes to Afghanistan and the Afghan people applying for visas. They seem to think Trump would have done it better. I figure it would have been fucked up a lot worse, but since all the Republicans would have been praising it to the skies as wonderful, the press wouldn’t have been that critical. I think they believe they’ve found the issue where they can once again “prove” to conservatives that they aren’t liberal, and they’re going to pound on it for all they’re worth.

    Also, have you noticed that they pretty much never mention that Trump made the peace deal with the Taliban anymore, and they never talk about the 5,000 Taliban fighters that Trump made the Afghan government release last year.

  179. 179.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Betty Cracker: It’s something I used to say when I was working in IT help. It does help defuse things, if you’re not a robot when you say it.

    People will typically call when they have a problem so they’re automatically in a bad mood. Asking what the problem is and then following up with an acknowledgement that it sucks and you’ll do what you can to fix it will often help people calm down a bit.

    But if you read it off a script, then yeah: You’re just one more machine and not helpful at all.

  182. 182.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: Unplugging and plugging back in solves 87%* of connectivity issues, so yeah, customers should do that before even calling.

    That said, at my old house, there was one step cable help desk agents suggested that I refused to do, which was to find a cable cord, carry my laptop into the laundry room and crawl under some shelves to plug it directly into a relay box. Nope, I’d say — next step please! We always got it resolved without that one! :)

    *I totally made up that statistic.

  188. 188.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @germy:

    Back in the 1960s, I owned a book called Who Is That?, an illustrated compilation of hundreds of actors who played all kinds of bit parts — ethnic roles, gun molls, cowboy sidekicks, bespectacled nerds — the lot.

    https://www.amazon.com/Who-That-Warren-B-Meyers/dp/0517376059/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=who+is+that%3F+meyers&qid=1631112432&sr=8-3

    I recognised many of the faces, but few of the names. One name I did recognise was Jane Withers, who at the time was enjoying some latter-day celebrity as “Josephine the Plumber” in commercials for Comet

  189. 189.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: ​It’s the first step on every computer trouble shooter’s menu. Certainly the first thing she taught me. More often than she’d like, my wife finds herself trying to help a blind person. Things get very difficult, very quickly then.

  191. 191.

    Josie

    @Omnes Omnibus: ​
     Loved your ted talk. I may copy and paste it to my desktop. It was just what I needed today (I live in Texas). I have been in the dumps for several days now and have just decided to let that go and get busy in several different ways. Thank you.

  192. 192.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A little bit disconcerting. Just got a call from the Doc’s office scheduling an ultra sound for tomorrow. The first time they scheduled it for a week later. Paranoid minds go, “Hmmmmmm…”

  196. 196.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Soprano2:

    Yes, yes, yes, completely! The press has pretty much completely disappeared the past 4 years under Trump when it comes to Afghanistan and the Afghan people applying for visas pretty much anything.

    There [dusts hands in self-satisfied manner; walks off].

  197. 197.

    NotMax

    @SiubhanDuinne

    People such as J. Carrol Naish.

    Of Irish descent, he rarely played an Irishman, explaining, “When the part of an Irishman comes along, nobody ever thinks of me.” He portrayed numerous other ethnicities including Southern European, Eastern European, Latin American, Native American, Middle Eastern, South Asian, East Asian, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander—even African American, which earned him the moniker “Hollywood’s one-man U.N.” Source

    ;)

  198. 198.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WereBear: I’m telling myself that the reason it took so long the first time is because their preferred US lab was all booked up, and then not think about it any deeper. :-)

  200. 200.

    sab

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Ohio lost a young corpsman as one of tje thirteen killed in the bombing of the evacuation. His hometown is having a parade today as his body comes home from Dover AFB. I believe his fumeral will be tomorrow.

    We were supposed to have flags at half-staff all week. So far the only one I have seen are at the public schools and the public library. All the ostentatious flag displays aroumd town are still flying high. The Rubber Baron’s mansion museum ( Stan Hywet) full staff. The fancy flag display ( complete with nightime lighting and a weeping willow) on the traffic island in the richest neighborhood full staff. The retired national guardsman up the street full staff. The country club full staff. The auto dealerships full staff.

    I am starting to doubt our concern for our troops.

  203. 203.

    Jay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    actual thoughts and well, meditations. Take care of yourself, wishing you the best success. Heal up please, for yourself, your family, all the people you help, and us jackals,

    fuck 2021.

  205. 205.

    Steeplejack

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    Max hubba (possibly NSFW).

    Alfred Cheney Johnston is a very interesting artist. He was practically the court photographer for the Ziegfeld Follies, and during his career he photographed a Who’s Who of American beauties. He has a very distinctive style—often explicit but always tasteful. Google his name and click the Images tab.

  207. 207.

    Geminid

    @SiubhanDuinne: I saw the young Charles Bronson in a rerun of an early 50s TV western. He was credited under his given name, Charles Buchinski. In 1954 Bronson’s agent suggested he take a name that did not sound East European. The HUAC hearings were going on, and the agent thought Buchinski sounded like a commie name.

    Bronson roomed with Jack Klugman for a while when they both were trying to break into theater. Then Bronson went west to look for TV and film parts. The Magnificent Seven was his big breakthrough, as it was for other actors including James Coburn. Coburn looks like a young Beto O’Rourke in that movie.

  208. 208.

    NotMax

    @SiubhanDuinne

    The Last Days of Club Hubba Hubba

    With the renovation underway, one of the main questions was whether the developers would be able to keep the famous 11-foot-tall, six-foot-wide Club Hubba Hubba neon sign. For one thing, it’s against building code to have a sign on a building advertising something that doesn’t happen inside the building. But, with the help of supporters, including the perennial signage foe Outdoor Circle, Mason Architects, which is overseeing the renovation, was able to get a variance to keep the sign up. The sign was designed by famous Honolulu neon “bender” Robert “Bozo” Shigemura, who also made the Hawaii Theatre marquee and the neon sign for the Wo Fat Chop Sui restaurant in Chinatown. Right now, the plan is for the Hubba Hubba sign to be restored by Von Monroe, owner of Strictly Neon.

    “I’ve been looking forward to restoring the Club Hubba Hubba sign for years,” Monroe said. “Being a neon bender, I’m excited about it.”

    :)

  209. 209.

    Steeplejack

    @Geminid:

    Charles Bronson was in a Twilight Zone episode—opposite Elizabeth Montgomery! Two soldiers—enemies—in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.​

  215. 215.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    not lifting anything over 10 pounds and not doing anything I don’t have to do.

    You can get the same amount of conditioning by doing a lot of 12-ounce curls. Or 16-ounce, if you prefer. I find that IPAs and stout/porter are a little heavier per unit volume, than, say, water Coors, so you might get more of a workout that way..

  221. 221.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @germy: At least a decade back, a friend e-mailed me a photo of a billboard that read, in very large letters,

    ILLITERATE?
    Call xxx-yyy-zzzz!​

    Just FTR.

  222. 222.

    NotMax

    @zhena gogolia

    Lady of Burlesque. It’s available on free with limited ad breaks streaming service Tubi TV. As have mentioned in passing earlier, no requirement to sign up in order to stream, but by doing so the service will remember where you left off when watching stuff.

    (At the moment streaming the BBC’s Inspector Alleyn mysteries on that same service in the background. They’ve improved a lot in variety of offerings in the past few years, including a gamut of Brit stuff ranging from QI to Misfits.)

  223. 223.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    In the tales of customer service… I’m headed to aisle 11 to get some registers for heating vents… Two guys ask where A/C filters are, I say aisle 13… They follow me to aisle 11, stand there talking to each other in Armenian… I finish getting my order and look at them and ask “can I halp you”, they scurry off…

  224. 224.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Ocotillo: ​I have consistently defended Manchin as just about the best and most reliable Democratic Senator – and most reliable Democratic vote – we are liable to get from WV in what’s left of my mentally-acute non-demented lifetime (15 years max IMO).

    But I am under no illusion that he’s anywhere near a paragon of civic virtue. (My late ‘Eer cousin many years back clued me into the EpiPen fiasco that made his daughter a shit-ton of undeserved $$$.)

    And I am starting to suspect that some bazillionaire’s flunky whispered in his ear after the last election that another shit-ton of Wingnut Welfare awaits him at the end of his term so long as he doggedly derails President Uncle Joe’s agenda.

    I hope I’m wrong. I hope he’s smart enough to realize that once the Global Oligarchs have exhausted his usefulness, said shit-ton will vanish faster than a union-negotiated pension after the vulture capitalists buy up the company. But I’m beginning to have my doubts.

  225. 225.

    NotMax

    @BillinGlendaleCA

    One of my “favorite” customer service nightmares involved arranging to turn on the gas service when moved from one apartment to another in the same building.

    Called the gas company on a Thursday.

    Them: “You should have called on Tuesday.”

    Me: “It’s Thursday. I can’t ‘should have called on Tuesday’ on Thursday.”

  226. 226.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Betty Cracker: ​Customer service is one of the 5 basic occupations that anyone short of a bazillionaire can hold in this economy: Human Shield, absorbing all the rage and frustration that should have been vomited into the face of the upper executive who caused the problem.

    The other 4 are:

    Hostage: “If you make our company pay taxes, we’ll just close the plant and move it to Bumfuckistan and all your citizens will lose their jobs and pay no taxes while you’re giving them welfare.”

    Cannon Fodder: “Want to go to college but can’t afford it? Join the military, travel to distant lands, meet exotic people, and kill them – if they don’t kill you first.”

    The one that describes most of us: Cash Cow.

    And the one most of our MBAs and ambulance-chasers aspire to, though space is limited: Bazillionaire’s Factotum.)

  229. 229.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    Humorously notable that the lead role of Alleyn (though only in the pilot episode) was played by Simon Williams and the role of his primary police compatriot by William Simons.

  230. 230.

    Ksmiami

    @Kay: What the fuck is wrong with Joe Manchin? Just fuck him and if he defects I don’t even care. Let’s focus on more and better Democrats and he can eat lunch alone in a closet for all I care

  231. 231.

    Ksmiami

    @Josie: I’m ready to burn down every shit heel pathetic rural hick town in this state. It’s not like there’s anything worth saving. And these places are a resource drain

  232. 232.

    zhena gogolia

    @Steeplejack (phone): I just went ahead and bought it on Prime. I’m having trouble getting started, although it’s a soothing fairy tale (just not my genre), but it’s RA’s magnum opus so I can’t skip it.

  234. 234.

    Ksmiami

    @Ocotillo: Biden is starting to look like a patsy deferring to him. If I was the President I’d be visiting WVA all the time and setting up Manchin to take the fall(out)

  236. 236.

    Mel

    @OzarkHillbilly: Wow, that is rough’

    I’m so sorry you had to go through that. Please keep resting as much as possible, even when the resting gets frustrating / boring. Your health has to come first.

    I’m in Friday morning for a thyroidectomy. I’m scared, and trying to keep focused on the (hopefully) relief it should bring, versus worrying, but easier said than done.

    Binge watching “Escape to the Chateau” and working on quilt blocks for my nephew’s quilt are on the books for my “stay still, damn it” recovery days.

    Sending you good energy and hoping that you recuperate quickly. You’re good people.

  238. 238.

    Soprano2

    @SiubhanDuinne: Yep, I’ll give you that one. LOL Kind of the same way they have completely disappeared George W. Bush as if he was never president, and those 8 years didn’t happen except for 9-11.

  239. 239.

    J R in WV

    @OzarkHillbilly: ​

    Ozark, sorry your “routine procedure” was such a bummer. At least it was a pretty girl, as opposed to a big male with rough hands…

    Take care, hope all goes well over the next however many days it takes to get back on your feet. Don’t push things, do follow the post-op instructions carefully. Take it easy! Think about the grandkids…

  240. 240.

    stinger

    @zhena gogolia: Long dead thread, but I MUST respond when someone mentions my favorite film (and my two favorite actors)!

    Fred was also great with Katharine Hepburn in Alice Adams.

    I named my dog after him.

  243. 243.

    sab

    @Kay: In my blue city in NE Ohio there are a lot of Saunders devoted progressives. Saunders out there pushing for Biden will probably be very helpful in the midterms. And these guys follow their own sources, not the MSM spin. Successful politics requires thick hides and an ability to forgive and move on. So I am very happy to see him out there. I think he may have an impact.

  244. 244.

    stinger

    @zhena gogolia: Oh my gosh, every word of this comment! “Five of my sources say she lived on Elm Street during that period, but I have a note here from a sixth who says it was 4th Street; you decide.”

    I want to know more about Stanwyck’s life, but that book is torture.

  245. 245.

    zhena gogolia

    @stinger: There’s another one I read that was better written, but it was really focused on film interpretations and not her life so much.

    By Dan Callahan, Barbara Stanwyck: The Miracle Woman.

  247. 247.

    japa21

    @Ksmiami: He’s also a major reason the Dems hold a majority in the Senate. Push him too far and he jumps to the GOP. The voters of WV won’t mind.  I leave it the pros, which neither you nor I are, to handle him.

  249. 249.

    Ksmiami

    @Omnes Omnibus: devoted Dem in TX actually- we’ve seen this play out too often – we are up against actual fascists and this is not the time to undermine a Democratic President. I know you all think Manchin will come around but he’s damaging the President and the party with his BS. I’m so sick of him and others like him. We don’t need a  totally unified front but some team work would be good

  251. 251.

    J R in WV

    @Ken:

    People like that give all first-class passengers a bad name.

    Flying back from Italy on our second trip across the Atlantic, we had booked business class on Air France. My buddy Mike, retired ER doc and all around good guy/former hippy, was seated beside a young Indian woman with a fretful child in arms.

    Mike asked to take child, took it into his arms, child was almost instantly quiet, which continued for the rest of the trans-Atlantic flight. He has magic with kids, his kids are great!

  252. 252.

    J R in WV

    @NotMax:

    The Satanic Temple challenges new Texas abortion law citing religious freedom

    The group, recognized as a church by the IRS, says the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act bans government from infringing on religion. Source

    OK, now, this is great information. Other churches that believe in freedom for women to “indulge” in all the health care they need should file suit under that law, as well as the US constitution’s 1st amendment.

    The Satanic Temple is one of my favorite religious organizations… they exist solely to put RWNJ fundigelicals in their proper place, under the kitchen sink~!~  Works for me!!!

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