Ds must tie all Rs to the lies they have enabled and the ludicrous stunts of the former president. Candidates for office who remain allied with an authoritarian movement led by a crackpot should expect to be mocked, shamed and denounced.https://t.co/6Uv4thHk8P
— Jennifer 'pro-voting' Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) September 19, 2021
I don’t think respectable conservative ladies like Ms. Rubin permit themselves (at least in public) to flip off those who have offended them. But after this weekend’s Media Mudlarks mean-girl kerfuffle, this seems to me like a reasonable substitute:
Republicans haven’t made many allies nor changed many minds since President Biden took office. To the contrary, they remain invested in opposing overwhelmingly popular measures. Biden’s economic agenda maintains a high level of support (generally 60 percent or more); the GOP’s unfavorable ratings are sky-high; and voters consider Republicans more extreme than Democrats. Republicans have drawn a line in the sand on vaccine mandates — which a large majority of Americans support. Certainly, Biden’s poll numbers are down — but that has not inured to Republicans’ advantage in any noticeable way, in part because they insist on sticking to their unpopular, ludicrous positions (e.g., downplaying or denying domestic terrorists’ Jan. 6 insurrection).
As for the Republicans’ anti-mandate hysteria, the death tolls and misery are practically off the charts in deep-red states. And governors endangering children and other residents by blocking mask and vaccine requirements have seen their popularity plummet.
Meanwhile, the MAGA crowd still fanning the flames of the “big lie” have been on an embarrassing losing streak (though one would be hard-pressed to find “Republicans in Disarray” headlines)…
None of this means that the Trumpist threat is gone or that the majority of Republicans have emerged from the alternative universe constructed by right-wing media. We surely have not defused Republican efforts to suppress voting and install mechanisms to overturn unfavorable results. House members still wink and nod at, if not embrace, violence. However, when a movement depends on the triumphant victory and constant “winning” to feed toxic masculinity, losses — embarrassing losses — can be especially debilitating. Fizzled rallies deplete the MAGA crowd’s excitement and allure.
Democratic strategist James Carville has counseled candidates to throw drowning opponents an “anvil.” How should Democrats (and those defending democracy) put that into practice?
First, a massive show of police force worked on Saturday. Law enforcement with consequences for criminal conduct is essential. Keep the peace. Investigate wrongdoing and domestic terrorist plots. Prosecute where appropriate. (That should apply to the instigators, enablers and funders of the Jan. 6 riot, up to and including the former president.) We will need a robust security presence to prevent voter intimidation and violence during and after elections.
Second, Democrats must tie every single Republican on the ballot for House and Senate to the lies they have enabled and the ludicrous stunts of the former president. (A letter telling the secretary of state of Georgia to decertify the election takes the cake.) Republicans have rationalized or simply tried to ignore indefensible conduct; now they must be held accountable for their loyalty to a dangerous cult leader. Candidates for office who remain allied with an authoritarian movement led by a crackpot should expect to be mocked, shamed and denounced.
Third, it’s precisely the right time to make adjustments in the Senate filibuster rules to enable passage of basic voting rights legislation. Democrats have replete evidence of Republicans’ utter unreasonableness and irresponsibility (e.g., refusal to agree to the Jan. 6 commission, refusal to raise the debt ceiling). They have examples of the GOP’s intent to impose minority rule by whatever means necessary. Accordingly, Democrats wary of reforming the filibuster in the MAGA era should feel compelled to give up the notion that the filibuster is sacrosanct…
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
debbie
Agreed. Make them own it, in public and in full light. Like the cockroaches they are.
Baud
The GOP knows that if they are noisy enough, some marginal voters on our side will just throw up their hands and tune out. It’s important for us to remain focused.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
SiubhanDuinne
I don’t understand the “Media Mudlarks mean-girl kerfuffle” reference, and clicking through doesn’t help because Twitter has now made it impossible for non-subscribers to pursue a thread or replies that might provide some context. Can anyone explain what went on, or point me to a friendlier link than Twitter? Thx.
rikyrah
Chris Hahn (@ChristopherHahn) tweeted at 0:34 PM on Sun, Sep 19, 2021:
Fox News Poll is clear Democrats must make Republican obstruction of Vaccine and Mask Mandates more of a issue.
Hold the GOP responsible for COVID. It would be over by now but for their actions.
(https://twitter.com/ChristopherHahn/status/1439644197699604485?s=03)
NotMax
A little day music. It’s zitherrific!
MJS
@SiubhanDuinne:
As far as I can tell, Politico did their usual crap job on a piece on Jennifer Rubin, asked for comment from Rubin prior to publishing, Rubin responded with an email titled “Off the Record” dragging Politico, Politico published the email in its entirety. Seems like Politico thought it would make Rubin look bad, but it actually had the opposite effect.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Brits Dominate Emmys (Again) With More Than Half Of Primetime Awards Given To UK Series & Talent
British talent and shows in general will be celebrating after another night of dominating America’s top television awards night. More than half of the Primetime Emmy Awards were given to Brits, with Deadline’s calculations counting 14 of the 27 awards. That’s not even counting the Best Comedy Series award for Ted Lasso, a very British show about football, or Jason Sudekis Lead Actor in a Comedy Series win (although we are counting Gillian Anderson, who grew up in the UK, and New Zealand director Jessica Hobbs’ wins for The Crown).
Baud
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
The British Invasion.
MomSense
I’m not going to shed a single tear for J Rubin or act like it’s a big fucking deal that she is finally engaging with reality by supporting Democrats. Her criticism of President Obama was racist AF and I haven’t seen any reflection on that part of her former self.
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
Anne Laurie
@SiubhanDuinne: Sorry, I forget not everybody is as OCD as I am…
Long story (not) short (enough), a Politico hack — but I repeat myself — decided the end of the High Holy Day observance would be a great time to pester Rubin about Politico‘s upcoming ‘She *used* to be a Republican, you know, but now she can’t sit with us any more’ hit piece. Rubin responded by telling him that wasn’t journalism, it was mud-flinging. Whereupon a great many Extremely Serious Villagers (including Maggie Haberman and, you guessed it, Glemm Greenwild) proceeded to throw vast kabuki performances on Twitter about the *incivility* of not showing due respect for Politico, especially from somebody who used to be a Republican, not that they wanted her back or anything…
(Neera Tanden spoke up for Rubin, if that adds anything to your understanding of the situation.)
There are people who will never forgive Rubin for things she said about President Obama, and I respect that, but this latest social-media exercise is a pretty good example of why sane people don’t let their friends vote Republican any more.
Baud
@Anne Laurie:
I didn’t follow the story either, so thanks for the explanation. And holy cow, that line-up of characters is something else!
debbie
@Anne Laurie:
Umm, when has Politico ever earned any respect?
zhena gogolia
@SiubhanDuinne: Maggie Haberman was sniping at Rubin.
SiubhanDuinne
@MJS:
Thanks very much. I rarely read Politico, and hadn’t seen this at all.
germy
@debbie:
They’re apparently more horrible now, with their new owner.
zhena gogolia
@Anne Laurie: What did she say about Obama? I only remember her as a standard Repub, nothing special. I must have missed this because I never watch TV news.
Woodrow/asim
@MomSense: I’m not going to shed a single tear for J Rubin
You don’t have to. It’s 1000% true that Rubin is not coming to terms with how she acted out under Obama, in a weird inverse of Sullivan. Certainly, if someone acted this way towards me, I’d be side-eyeing them for the rest of my natural life.
Yet it’s important to recognize that Politico is going down a dangerous path, regardless of whom they are attacking. Journalism in America (and elsewhere) only works by a set of conventions and legal agreements. Start breaking those for clickbait and “gotcha” column inches, and we’re all in even more trouble than we already are.
debbie
@rikyrah:
NPR seems to be doing that: connecting Trump to the GQPers, even McConnell. They’re using Woodward’s book to trace the linkage.
SiubhanDuinne
@Anne Laurie:
Maybe just CDO about different things :-)
Thank you for the explainer. It was clear and comprehensive. Wonder how MoDo avoided getting caught up in it.
Kay
@Anne Laurie:
I love how Glenn Greenwald comments on everything now. There is no event too small or petty for Glenn Greenwald to weigh in on, writing citations on every infraction and slapping them on windshields.
He really should have been a prosecutor, or a cop. He has the mindset. I think he’s always enraged because he doesn’t have real police power and can only lecture.
Anne Laurie
@zhena gogolia: To be honest, I wasn’t paying particular attention to Rubin back then either, so I can’t speak to specifics. But just on this thread, there are people who *did*, so…
Not for me to argue about the past, but I’ll accept converts to our cause, especially first thing on a Monday morning (when I’m on my way to bed, dammit).
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
This surprises me not a whit.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Anne Laurie: I have a lot of neighbors who are hereditary Rs. Their parents voted R and so do they. In terms of beliefs, their natural home is Mitt Romney Republicanism. They’re old and would be hard to change anyway, but the constant stream of garbage they consume from FOX makes them impossible even to talk to about politics.
FOX is the default channel in the cafe downstairs. Every time I pass it, I remember how much I want FOX blocked.
Steeplejack
Turned on the 8:00 replay of the (6:00) start of Morning Joe. A little shtick from Cedric the Entertainer at the Emmys—love Ceddy!—and then Mika set the agenda with an overheated list of “crises” “threatening” Biden’s presidency. Eek! The French are beaucoup mad about submarines. Eek! Biden has to talk to the U.N. Okay, over to HGTV. Let’s see what stupid choices the house hunters are making.
Baud
@Steeplejack:
See my comment at # 3. The media often promotes the GOP agenda by portraying challenges facing the country as out of control when a Dem is president. Sadly, I also think liberals on social media also fall into that trap.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Steeplejack: When I see House Hunters, I always wonder where these people are getting their money—their parents or drug sales?
I did see an amusing episode set in England once. The prospective buyer buyer observed there was a hole in the roof but that wasn’t a deal breaker.
Geminid
Polital scientist Rachel Bitecofer has concentrated on demographic data and it’s relation to voting patterns. She also has some interesting things to say about messaging in general. While polling may show that voters dislike and resent negative political ads, Bitecofer says that other data shows that these ads are still effective, and that Republicans have been ahead in this game. She liked Democrats’ “GOP style” messaging in the Newsome recall election, which she called “threat-emotion-stakes” framing.
Bitecofer started out at Christopher Newport University with a fresh Ph.D from the University of Georgia. When her department denied her a tenure track position, Bitecofer cut loose and turned her hand to political engineering. She now has her own political action commitee, StrikePac, that crowdfunds polling and political ads. Bitecofer has an informative Twitter feed complete with pictures of her dog Hammie, and still writes longer pieces of political analysis.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Have you thought about going to the cafe wearing a white dress with TAX THE RICH written in big red letters on the back? Tit for tat, I say.
Percysowner
WaPo’s “fact checker” todayBlinken’s claim that Biden ‘did not inherit a plan’ for Afghan withdrawal Basically, Blinken and the Biden administration say there was no plan, Trump and his people say yes there was. What to do? What to do? says the “fact checker”. Should be believe the administration that has been pretty damn honest or Trump who lied 31,000 times by their count. They decide to call it “he said/he said” and declare they can’t tell who is telling the truth. Holy Hannah, protecting “both sides do it” to the nth degree.
Baud
@Percysowner:
WTF? If you don’t want to rely on trust and can’t get independent confirmation, don’t run the piece.
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack:
France is mad because they had a deal to supply nuclear subs to the Aussies, who have now decided on American subs instead. I guess I’d be mad too.
Geminid
@Kay: Glen Greenwald is one of the most bitter people I have ever seen.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
I suppose the US would be mad if France did that to us, but I personally still wouldn’t care.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: He always did, though. AFAIK, there isn’t a more thin-skinned person on earth, with the possible exception of Donald Trump. GG once materialized on this very blog to criticize me for something he thought I said that I didn’t say. (I can’t even remember what the foofaraw was about; I just remember being surprised that he’d bother attempting to slap down a rando such as myself.)
rikyrah
Come on
Approve it on October 1st.
Let’s get these babies vaccinated ????
Ana Cabrera (@AnaCabrera) tweeted at 5:50 AM on Mon, Sep 20, 2021:
JUST IN: Covid-19 vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds is safe and shows “robust” antibody response, Pfizer says
(https://twitter.com/AnaCabrera/status/1439904887018508293?s=03)
raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor: We’re in the middle of gutting our rental and doing major reconfiguration and a completely new floor system. The only way we can do it is to refi.
jonas
@Amir Khalid:
Actually, the issue is that the French subs were diesel-powered, meant for shorter, near-shore missions. The Aussies decided they wanted deep water nuclear subs like the US and Britain. The whole blowup was, to be sure, partly about France being made to look like a second-rate world power whose naval technology no-one wants, but also about Macron defending jobs and domestic industry. If France did something similar, and it cost a bunch of jobs in a swing state here, you can be sure the congressional delegation would by howling for blood, demanding sanctions, tariffs, etc.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@rikyrah: That would be excellent!
My DIL taught kindergarten remotely all last year, and is teaching it FTF this year. She’s worried that if any of her students get sick, the school will ask her to do both at once. She knows how to do both, but they’re not the same.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@rikyrah: I’ve been watching this anxiously. The grandkids are 7 and 4, but the 4-year-old turns 5 in January. I will be enormously relieved to see them vaccinated.
raven
@jonas: And noisy!
Robert Sneddon
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
There is no-one who views a house and decides to purchase it without deciding they’re going to remodel and change things around, build new bits, take that wall out etc. If the roof is going to be replaced five minutes after the deeds are handed over, an existing hole in said roof is not a deal-breaker.
Saying that, the brother of a friend was part of a small consortium of builders and handymen here in the UK who specialised in stepping in when someone’s dream-home remodelling aspirations ran into the buffers. For mere money they’d ground the starry-eyed original designs in reality, redo all the amateur-hour wiring and plumbing and bring it up to code and reinstall the load-bearing joists that were needed to stop the upper bedrooms collapsing into the basement. They could turn a years-long rolling trainwreck of a project into a livable home in under three months, sometimes less. Their favourite words were “barn conversion”.
Rusty
@Amir Khalid: They were to supply diesel electrics, the US is to supply nuclear. That was the big reason for the switch by the Aussies.
PST
Rubin has another column up today that is worth reading, if only to explain where she’s coming from. Among the conservative never-Trumpers, the ones who despised him early and did not waver, I think there is a difference between those like David Frum whose politics are basically unchanged but don’t think Trump embodies their conservative values, and those like Rubin who actually seem permanently altered by the Trump experience. I’ve read her stuff for a long time because I feel an obligation to keep track of opposing views. I went from “Grrr. What is that crazy Rubin woman saying today” to “Oh boy! I can’t wait to see what my Jen is saying today.” I exaggerate a bit, and I think I am realistic that she now inhabits space at the right wing of the democratic party. She especially praises in her column the somewhat conservative new democratic women in congress with national security experience. I think what changed her may be more Trump’s misogyny than anything else. Anyway, I find it hard to disagree with her these days. For what it’s worth, I have always been a huge fan of PBO, and while I bridled at her anti-Obama columns, I never came away with the view that they were based on racism. She sure didn’t like Bill Clinton either.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I would have characterized your exchange as Greenwald punching down at an uppity woman. Now, though, he’d be punching up.
Steeplejack
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I was using “house hunters” generically, but I take your point. On a lot of these shows I think I must be poorer than I think, because where are these seemingly “ordinary” people getting all that money?!
As for House Hunters in particular, I can’t even hate-watch it anymore. They set the drama/conflict level so high—“He wants a hipster brownstone in Brooklyn! She wants a Manhattan penthouse! What will they choose?”—that usually I can’t even believe the couple ever got together, much less that they are buying a house.
I like My Lottery Dream Home (which is on now), because the “clients” are ordinary schmoes who lucked into some money. I worry that a lot of them are making bad choices (overspending), but I don’t hate them.
jonas
I know, right? “Dave and Summer are a young couple growing their family and looking for a new place with more room than the one-bedroom walkup they currently have. They’re just starting out, so they’ll have to be realistic. Their budget is $800,000.”
gvg
@Amir Khalid:
Actually the French subs were non nuclear (powered not weapons) which I think might have been a significant reason for taking the American offer. Also I think I saw an Aussie official indicate that they had been concerned about how much the French subs cost.
I am not impressed with the French reasons for a tantrum, this time. It’s way too much for the situation.
Geminid
@Amir Khalid: As another commenter points out, the French negotiated a deal to sell their advanced conventionally powered submarines. The nuclear subs they will buy from the U.S. will be more capable (and expensive) nucleared poeered ships. It appears that the U.S.’s negotiations were kept secret and sprung on the French without a heads up. In this case, I think France’s anger may justified.
jonas
@PST:
I never read Rubin much — and still don’t — but my impression was that her beef with Obama was primarily that he wasn’t pro-Israel enough. I don’t recall her ever promoting the birtherism horseshit or anything like that, but, like I said, I never followed her that closely, especially when she was writing as the in-house conservative at WaPo.
Max Boot is another who didn’t just leave the GOP, but turned his back on the whole Right period. I might put former GOP operative Stuart Stevens in that category as well.
jonas
@raven: Yep. Mainly for shore patrol, not open water missions or anything to do with intelligence gathering and that sort of thing. I think they took a look at what China’s been up to the past several years and realized these French subs just weren’t going to cut it.
hueyplong
@PST: Agree, but I’d say it was a one-two punch of misogyny and Charlottesville. The idea that Trump was offering something more than mere silence in support of the anti-Semitism of the hard right set all sorts of red lights to blinking for Jen.
The misogyny part probably influenced her conversion to Democratic policies, but the Charlottesville eye opener set her to opposing Trumpism as an existential threat to the country.
For me, she’s now the love that dare not speak its name (due to her Obama-related past).
Steeplejack
@SiubhanDuinne:
Others have responded, but here’s the Politico Twitter thread (by Alex Thompson) that started it all. News flash: Jennifer Rubin was a flaming conservative 10 years ago! Political Twitter went nuts.
Note: They added Rubin’s response at the top of the thread later. I think she was unwise to preëmptively send something marked “Off the record”—it’s a two-way agreement—but I’m sure she acted in the heat of the moment. And Politico used that to add another dick move.
Robert Sneddon
@jonas: Australia faces onto the southern Pacific ocean with more coastline to defend than the US has on the eastern Pacific coast. To cover that area with Naval assets they had the locally-produced Collins-class diesel subs, the largest long-range conventionally-powered submarines ever built but which are now worn out and obsolete.
Rather than design a new class of diesel/AIP subs similar to the Collins they went to the French who came up with a diesel-powered version of their own nuclear subs, even bigger than the Collins-class, the so-called “Shortfin Barracuda”. Australia wants to build these subs at home and not buy in subs from abroad for national reasons, jobs etc. so they signed a deal with the French for, I think, a dozen or so subs based on this licenced design. Things went badly wrong, politics and corruption and inadequate dockyard and fabrication facilities and price hikes etc.
The US got involved because until now that area of the Pacific was covered by the Collins-class subs under the NATO treaty. If there was no credible Royal Australian Navy sub force available either the US would have to step in and deploy several of their own limited number of subs there to cover the perceived threat from China or force the Aussies to get their finger out and obtain suitable subs from somewhere else tout suite. This resulted in the US/UK announcement from nowhere, sandbagging the French who were deliberately kept out of the discussions by their NATO allies and not informed about what was going on.
Moving to nuclear subs means the Australians won’t need as many subs to provide patrol cover of the southern Pacific resulting in less crewing and other operational benefits. However they can’t build nuclear subs all by themselves hence the US/UK agreement. They could buy in Russian or Chinese nuclear sub tech, of course…
hueyplong
@jonas: A helpful dividing line is to see what anti-Trump GOPers think about the Supreme Court. As best I can tell, Rubin is the best of the lot on that point.
Betty Cracker
Regarding the dust-up with France over the submarine deal, there’s an interesting conversation about it over at TPM. I think it’s behind a paywall, but here’s Marshall’s initial take, and he publishes a series of responses from readers after that.
An Australian reader’s take was particularly informative, IMO: the person writing in says it’s not about propulsion technology at all since the initial discussions with France included a proposal for the French to supply nuclear subs but the Aussie government “specifically requested” a diesel/electric package instead. More:
Fascinating if true. Were I making decisions for the Aussies, I’m not sure I’d choose to throw in my lot with the U.S. at this juncture.
Steeplejack
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
I’ve got to say that Halston with Ewan McGregor (who won an Emmy for it last night) is pretty damn good. Seems like it has flown under the radar. This reminds me that I need to finish watching it!
Steeplejack
@SiubhanDuinne:
I feel like MoDo doesn’t understand how Twitter works. Sort of like she didn’t understand how cannabis edibles work.
Dowd is almost exactly my age, but she feels about 10 years older.
ETA: Oops, no offense to hipster you!
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I’m certainly no expert, but China flexing its muscles recently may have led to a rethink of the long-term vision.
Also, too, “blindly following US/UK policy” seems like a loaded phrase to use in what otherwise seems like an objective analysis.
raven
@Steeplejack: He killed it in a double role in Fargo.
PST
@jonas: I think you’re right that Rubin’s biggest beef with Obama was his policy toward Israel (same with Boot), although she was a Romney-style republican across the board and had plenty of other criticisms. There is no doubt that Rubin has sharp elbows. One of the things she said in her column today:
She was unsparing and sometimes unfair in her criticisms before, but at least that hasn’t changed.
Barbara
@SiubhanDuinne: If you clear your cache the annoying Twitter blockade will most likely go away.
Baud
@PST:
Rubin’s a newbie to our side, so she doesn’t remember that, in the past, attacking the GOP pre-Trump was often met with “I need something to vote for!” responses. So it’s always been a balancing act for Dems, in a way that the GOP doesn’t have to worry about.
rikyrah
???
Ryan Devereaux (@rdevro) tweeted at 6:28 PM on Sun, Sep 19, 2021:
Border Patrol agents on horseback cracking whips and charging into crowds of Haitian asylum seekers in Texas, shouting at them to go back to Mexico — strong reporting from @psskow on the situation in Del Rio/Ciudad Acuña
https://t.co/ZVeS6j3gnM
(https://twitter.com/rdevro/status/1439733206455050243?s=03)
Robert Sneddon
Scotland — 2,917 new cases reported today but the number is not certain due to continuing technical issues with some COVID-19 case reporting. The test positivity rate is 10.8%, also affected by the technical issue. There were zero new deaths reported overnight (noting that Register Offices are now generally closed at weekends). ICU bed occupancy numbers are 97, down three from yesterday while hospitalisations are 1,088, up 14. Today is a local holiday in many parts of Scotland so case reporting may not catch up with reality until Wednesday.
There were over 6,300 vaccinations carried out in Scotland yesterday (Saturday) with about 40% of these being first vaccinations. 91.2% of 16+ adults are now vaccinated with their first dose and 83.8% are fully vaccinated. 69.2% of 16 and 17-year-olds have now received their first vaccination, up 1.6% from yesterday. It looks like the 16 and 17-year-old age group will soon exceed the percentage of 18-29 year olds in Scotland who have received their first vaccination (76%).
Barbara
@Percysowner: WaPo fact checker is now mostly garbage, pseudo-editorializing and totally failing to consider scale and nature of lies. I don’t read it at all anymore.
PST
@hueyplong: I agree with you about Charlottesville and the one-two punch rather than misogyny alone. She realizes, as she and everyone should, that anti-Semitism is in the DNA of authoritarian and fascist movements. It might not be a logical necessity of such movements, but they always go there eventually. As TFG got more and more anti-democratic and could not bring himself to denounce even the crudest of overt anti-Semites the red flares went off in my mind and any sensible person’s.
Soprano2
I spent about 5 hours yesterday going through my mother’s desk. I found a lot more political stuff. If you saw it, you’d understand their absolute paranoia right now. It’s all about CRT and the 1619 Project (guess their viewpoint!), Biden/Harris (lots about Harris, I think they’re disappointed she isn’t actually president), and the border, with a few exceptions. They don’t seem to have any actual policies anymore – it’s all a reaction to whatever liberals are doing or saying. She had multiple copies of the same small publication! She also kept everything, which is both good and bad – I filled a large shopping bag with papers to recycle, but I also have every receipt for everything she did to the house, which will be handy when I sell it. She made lists of books to buy and movies/TV programs to get DVD’s of; there were pages and pages of that stuff. I’m glad that’s done – I was dreading it, so decided to do it next
ETA – I found a diary of hers from when she was 9 years old, which was touching and funny in a weird way. No revelations, just lots of talking about what she did and what clothes my grandmother bought for her, the kind of stuff that’s important to kids. It’s weird to think of my mother as a 9-year-old girl.
Soprano2
@rikyrah: And in spite of all this, on Fox News they’ll be reporting that the borders are completely open and Biden is just letting everyone in.
Betty
But, but we can’t call out Republicans because bipartisanship is too important – per Manchin and Sinema! What a dilemma.
VOR
@Geminid: France has nuclear powered subs, both ballistic missile subs and attack subs. So theoretically they could have supplied Australia with nuclear subs. Going nuclear is not the reason the Australian government turned to the US and UK.
Barbara
@Robert Sneddon: The people who signed a contract to buy the to-be-newly-constructed house next door wanted such an extreme (for the neighborhood and lot size) landscaping plan that they asked me to cut down my 30-year old tree because it was “encroaching ” on the back corner of their lot, where they planned to park a swimming pool. Apparently, my refusal made them give up and break the contract. I’m so done with house beautiful.
Keith P.
@Kay: He reminds me of Jonathan Turley – his rants seem curiously aligned to GOP talking points in spit of protestations otherwise
Steeplejack
@SiubhanDuinne:
Re your comment about consonant digraphs yesterday, I was trying to remember the Balloon Juice commenter whose nym always hits me like that. And here he is this morning: hueyplong, which I always read not as “Huey P. Long” but “Huey Plong.”
Citizen_X
@Geminid: Honestly, I think this was a bit of a Biden diplomatic fuckup. They should have seen this reaction coming and done something to soften the blow.
Still, I like to imagine a mirror-image of angry French right wingers tossing hamburgers into the Seine and burning Jerry Lewis blue rays.
rikyrah
Any word from BillinCA?
Wapiti
@PST: I think Rubin changed after the Charleston mob was screaming “Jews will not replace us!” and Trump – and the Republicans, generally – gave it a shrug.
Butter Emails!
If the Australian sub deal had happened under Trump, the media would have lauded as winning bigly, trumpeted his business acumen and glorified in sticking it to the Frenchies. It happened under Biden, so it’s apparently a crisis.
rikyrah
@Soprano2:
The entire scenario just doesn’t smell right in any way, shape, or form.
Haiti is an ISLAND.
AN ISLAND.
I repeat – an ISLAND.
How do all these desperate poor people from an ISLAND,
get to Mexico, in order to get to the TEXAS border?
Why aren’t they hovering off the coast of FLORIDA?
And, I was told , over the weekend, that a lot of them came from Brazil.
BRAZIL?
First, we had them from MEXICO.
Now, we have poor, desperate Haitians going to BRAZIL.
and, from BRAZIL, suddenly popping up in Mexico on the Texas Border.
STILL, nobody has made sense of this for me. Because the logistics don’t add up.
Steeplejack
@raven:
Yep!
Barbara
@jonas: Rubin didn’t embrace birtherism but she didn’t call it out and she certainly didn’t see it as an example of the incipient threat it posed to democratic process and institutions, as in, manipulating both voters and institutions through the use of the big lie. I’ll take her current iteration over her previous one, but she should give us some kind of accounting.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker:
Pretty loaded language there.
Subs are the most survivable weapons system, at present. They’re for deterrence – if you blow up my country, I’ll still be able to blow you up. Were they used for offensive purposes, the offender would still risk getting blown up in retaliation. So, they’re really not any more “by their nature” offensive weapons than any other weapons platform, and probably objectively less so.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
hueyplong
@Steeplejack: Frankly, Trump’s 2016 win had me re-thinking the name because he puts Long in a different light and makes more obvious the FDR comment about the two most dangerous people in America (Long and MacArthur).
But laziness won out as is the norm.
bbleh
@germy: Politico! Now EVEN MORE horrible! Click here for VIP access!
Ksmiami
@Baud: I think times have changed a lot though and we could all be happy if the Dems take a page from Newsom and point out the Dems are trying to help while tying the GOP to Trump’s merry band of treasonous trumpeters
raven
@Another Scott: MAD!!!
debbie
@rikyrah:
Yep, Trump loyalists persist.
OzarkHillbilly
@Barbara: Good on you. Trees are people too.
Barbara
@Ksmiami: I am never going to win any prizes for clever political advertising but I don’t know why the message shouldn’t be, “Why would you vote for someone who doesn’t care if you or your kids die?”
debbie
@Soprano2:
Did she like the clothes her mother bought for her? I still remember hating the stuff my mother made me wear.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Lecturing us from his villa in Brazil.
Technocrat
The fact that Haberman and Greenwald are criticizing JRub makes her this week’s national hero, as far as I’m concerned. The Village is salty that one of their own is calling out their fatuous stenography and I’m 100% here for it.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: The NYT has an article about that here that might be worth blowing a freebie click on. To sum up, it says that after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Chile and Brazil offered “humanitarian” visas to tens of thousands of Haitians because those countries lacked sufficient numbers of workers who were desperate enough to accept shit wages. But when the pandemic crashed their economies, opportunities dried up in those countries, and anti-immigrant sentiment rose. Supposedly, there was also a lot of disinfo and rumors about opportunities in the U.S., so a lot of folks made the incredibly perilous journey north.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
This hits me. My family used to live at Laughlin AFB, just outside Del Rio, in the mid-’60s. We used to have picnics at a rest area at Sycamore Creek, and my brothers and I would hike over a mile or so and swim in the Rio Grande. Bet you can’t do that now!
Anyway
@jonas:
Exactly. Rubin was a bog-standard neo-con and always suspicious of Democrats/Pres.Obama’s support of Israel. Don’t buy into the racist criticism.
Robert Sneddon
@VOR:
The Aussies want(ed) to build their own subs, not buy them in ready-built from somewhere else. They don’t have the engineering infrastructure to build their own nuclear-powered subs and for various reasons Australia is vehemently anti-nuclear (they have lots and lots of coal though, they burn a lot of it themselves and sell lots more to other Pacific Rim nations like Indonesia and Japan).
They need a big sub to be able to patrol deep into the southern Pacific to protect their trade routes, not just cover the coastline. Having the French-designed “conventional” sub project fall apart leaves them with virtually no usable subs at all now as their old Collins-class subs wear out. Whether they build nuclear subs locally with US or UK-provided reactors and propulsion systems or simply buy in complete subs is still to be announced (I suspect the decision has already been made though).
The current-build US Block V Virginia SSNs are too much gun for ocean patrol subs, they’re intended for shore bombardment with big cruise missile magazines, a role which is not part of the Aussie requirement. The British-built Astute hunter/killer SSN, the other contender for the project is a better fit for the Aussies as well as being smaller and easier to build in Adelaide dockyards compared to the super-sized Virginias.
rikyrah
The Cross Connection with Tiffany Cross (@CrossConnection) tweeted at 10:31 AM on Sat, Sep 18, 2021:
“I wouldn’t trust them with my Netflix password,” @RepKenyatta says of his #GOP colleagues in the Pennsylvania statehouse who are launching an election “audit” that could compromise voter’s personal identifying information. #CrossConnection https://t.co/njQiXIsztw
(https://twitter.com/CrossConnection/status/1439250730125299722?s=03)
Jeffro
Nickel bet says that within a month, the Biden Administration finds a couple billion in spare change to spend on French exports of something or other. Hopefully it’ll be announced that we found the money just by not covering trumpov’s golf-related expenses anymore. =)
dave319
@rikyrah: Morning, gang. I f we’re soliciting suggestions in re: how to make the GOP drown in their own feces, I humbly suggest going full blast on Fox News: Commerce investigates the sh*t outta their licensing fees, which have a severe anti-competition threat baked in, for antitrust; Justice opens investigations into actual COVID deaths in which the victims openly and publicly embraced Carlson, Hannity, and the rest of the scumbags and their scurrilous propaganda, citing it specifically as the reason for not getting the jab–c’mon, journos and 3L law students, you know there are hundreds of these idjits all over social media, FFS!– and hanging a depraved indifference/manslaughter criminal charge around both the individual and the collective organization. (Sounds far-fetched, but the International Criminal Court tried and convicted very high-profile Serbs and Rwandans of responsibility for deaths springing from their words); ore immediately boot Fox outta the White House press pool for being entertainers, not journalists–we see over and over again how top-line Fox players hide behind the protective judicial precedent that “nobody in their right mind would actually take (Fox dink’s name here) seriously,” invoked to dismiss any and every claim against Fox. QED, not press, but comedians? See ya, Doocy, ya waste of oxygen!
The press could do their part as a body, by mounting a full-court, no letup campaign to dismiss, disdain, and deplatform Fox as legitimate news gatherers. (This is about 25 years overdue, but then, so’s an overhaul of our national legacy press.)Give the bastards a taste of their own 2 Minutes Hate but 24/7/365, through all the megaphones.
Elected Democratic officeholders and candidates should be provided with a Gavin Newsome derived script. “The GOP is actually killing your children because they think they can gut Joe Biden’s presidency by sustaining COVID. Many GOpers have said exactly that. (Roll soundbite quote tape of DeSantis, Abbot, Noeme, et al, pillorying themselves with their own words) Every. Single. Democrat, every hour of the day, every time a mic or a camera is pointed, and at every political function Democrats participate in. It’s a litmus test, like demanding every GOP officeholder and candidate agree Biden really won the election.
To hell with any public Democrat so dozy(DiFi!) or play-naive, who tries to deny that the horrible cynicism and nihilist evil of the real Republican Party is plain to see. No, nobody should ever again think, “Oh, my next door neighbor’s a Republican, and he/she/they’d never actually go THAT far, deliberately killing people to smear a political opponent!” We all know better than that by now. Full stop. See ya, phony “polite” Democratic Leadership Council and Third Way douchebag centrists, who are plainly the biggest reason American voters distrust the Democratic brand. These ambitious phonies are plainly Republicans in drag, existing only to deliver their rich backers all the donor services the donors want, and–hey! twofer!–consciously with malice aforethought torpedoing the policies most Americans approve of and would support, like taxing the rich more and beefing up the IRS.
Democrats, stand up and be proud fighting Democrats, and no bullshit, no mo’!
SiubhanDuinne
@Steeplejack:
Well, at ten years MoDo’s (and your) senior, I don’t understand Twitter either, but I do understand how cannabis edibles work.
Query: Can one be both a hipster and a mob enforcer?
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that too.
Elizabelle
@Barbara: You dodged a bullet. May your 30 year old tree thrive for decades longer.
@rikyrah: Good morning. What’s up with Bill in CA?
Betty Cracker
@Another Scott: The TPM reader frames their definition of “offensive” in the sentence after the one you excerpted. I’m no expert either, and maybe that’s not the proper term, but are you saying any weapon that could be used for deterrence is a defensive weapon?
When I think of “defensive” weapons, I think of something like a land-based anti-aircraft system — not effective at attacking an enemy where the enemy is based but rather designed to repel an attack. I guess the TPM reader is lumping conventionally powered subs in with that because they don’t project power abroad? I’m not sure that makes sense either.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
So, all of a sudden, all these Haitians just decided to make the journey FROM BRAZIL
TO MEXICO
AND, TO THE US BORDER.
All at once.
No way that I can look at this, and it make any real kind of sense.
It just smells.
Period.
rikyrah
@Elizabelle:
Going through some housing issues.
SiubhanDuinne
@Barbara:
Twitter isn’t that big a deal for me, and I don’t want to have to re-enter a lot of useful saved information by erasing my history. But I appreciate the suggestion. Thanks very much.
Steeplejack
@hueyplong:
Your nym is fine! It’s just funny that I always get a flash picture of some mythical Laotian-American person.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: Ah. Thank you. Good luck to Bill.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: Relatedly, some musings at ForeignPolicy:
Another new story says that the first sub won’t be built until 2040, so there’s time for things to change.
Cheers,
Scott.
Barbara
@Elizabelle: Unfortunately, it was hit by lightning and lost a big branch. We were waiting to see how aggressive they were going to be before we spent big dollars trying to save it, and we are hoping the new buyers (have not met) are just happy having a nice lawn space where they can put bushes and flowers, and, hopefully, enjoy the shade from our tree.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: It sure is suspicious, and this comment by a guy who works with Haitian migrants makes me wonder who’s behind this too:
False info and misinfo from whom? Well, when I ask myself who benefits…
Ken
“Green Acres, we are there!”
Elizabelle
I think we should open a lot of visas to Haitian immigrants. Lot of talented, wonderful people in that country who could thrive in the US. If they end up sending remittances back to their island home, so much the better.
I think we have a moral duty to assist the Haitians, and take some pressure off that beleagured country.
Barbara
@SiubhanDuinne: You can clear the cache without clearing cookies, which is what really makes you lose information. I needed to do this last night because something was interfering with my installation of an updated app, and it worked like a charm for Twitter as well.
Subsole
@Steeplejack:
I’m pretty sure it’s pronounced “throat-warbler maingrove”.
JoyceH
@Ken: I used to watch HGTV a lot, and now don’t watch it at all. Does anyone else miss the days when they’d come in and just, y’know, redecorate a room? Now if they’re not knocking down walls, it’s like what’s the point?
LadySuzy
@jonas: Stuart Stevens is not the only one. Reed Galen for example is not going back I think.
I listen regularly to the Lincoln Project stuff. Their “Lunch with Lincoln” is particularly interesting… lots of good guests. And it is fascinating sometimes to listen to them talking about policy. They still see themselves as conservatives but they sound like democrats. They’re now concerned about income inequality and supply-side economics I kid you not !
They are out of the republican political apparatus and the group-think that goes with it. Being out of the bubble has allowed them to open their mind and take a second look at things.
SiubhanDuinne
@Steeplejack:
I always do exactly the same!
Subsole
@rikyrah: How did he afford that, again??
Ken
And I admire Australia’s defense strategy of flooding the internet with memes to create the impression that anyone attempting an invasion will be slaughtered by the venomous fauna and their bodies eaten by millions of field mice. It’s a brilliant deception, comparable to Operation Bodyguard in WWII.
Just One More Canuck
@Barbara: I would bet they even wanted you to pay for it to be taken down. How long did that conversation last?
PST
@Barbara:
I was curious enough to google for old columns, although I got bored pretty quickly. Rubin was calling out “birtherism nuttery” back in 2011, and mentioning Trump by name, but the context was how the republicans were hurting their own chances with that kind of crap, and how the best of them wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. So she seemed to view it as an incipient threat to electing her favored candidate rather than to the democratic process. That’s not great, but I have to admit that as repelled as I was by birtherism, I didn’t really see all it portended back in 2011.
Barbara
@Ken: Well, I read somewhere that when they do that show the people have usually already signed a contract for a house they have compromised on, and the “hunt” is a post hoc reconstruction of whatever conflict they might have had along the way, mostly to highlight the kinds of choices people are making in that metropolitan area between size, cost and convenience. The funniest ones highlight Americans trying to navigate living in a foreign country. What, only one bathroom? Or, my favorite, “but how can I ride my bike to work so far in the Dutch winter?” Says agent: “With waterproof outer layers. Everyone else does it.”
Steeplejack
@SiubhanDuinne:
Of course. Tarantino proved that.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
I saw that interview (I always enjoy Mr Kenyatta). When he said that, I literally laughed out loud.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: Defensive strategic weapons are destabilizing. Things like ABM and SDI and so forth encourage arms races and encourage overbuilding of offensive weapons (to try to overwhelm defenses).
Nuclear subs aren’t “offensive” – they’re retaliatory. They’re hard to find, at present, so are likely to survive any mass hostilities. They don’t need to be on a hair-trigger (like land-based missiles) to prevent them being destroyed in a sneak attack. They can’t be stopped by fixed air defenses like bombers. But using them first would invite retaliation because they cannot guarantee 100% success in an attack.
Diesel subs are much noisier than nuclear. They are much easier to find and not as effective as a deterrent system.
It’s easy to shade these discussion with loaded language. The TPM reader excerpt you cite is doing that (as am I, but I think mine is much more objective – YMMV. ;-). The potential proliferation issues are a much bigger concern to me than them being “offensive” weapons systems (I don’t think they are).
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
@Subsole:
By not paying taxes here in America..LOL
chrome agnomen
@Steeplejack: i’m late to this thread, but i have to say that i think Rubin’s off-the-record request was a deliberate baiting that absolutely worked. she successfully made he editor look like the jerk that he is, and get himself severely ratioed.
Barbara
@Just One More Canuck: No, they were going to pay for it. The problem is that even if they agreed to pay to take it down and put something else there, as I explained, it would never actually be a replacement for what we were losing. There is a certain mindset to some homeowners, to the effect that if they are paying a lot of money for a house, they somehow should have greater prerogatives to demand concessions from their neighbors. I have since found out that someone else who built a new house up the street asked their neighbors to cut down mature trees so they would have a better view of the downtown in the summer. Ixnay as well.
Steeplejack
@JoyceH:
Hey, they’ve got No Demo Reno now!
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: I agree, but what obligation does the Biden admin have to avoid handing the GOP a weapon they could use to club our candidates to pieces in 2022 and replace Biden with a GOP sociopath in 2024? I hate it, but we have to factor that sort of thing in. (Well, WE don’t, but THEY do.)
SiubhanDuinne
@Barbara:
Really? Well, thanks! I’ll have to find out how to do that on an iPhone.
Robert Sneddon
If the Australians are going to buy in nuclear propulsion technology for their subs, both UK and US systems use sealed-for-life reactors that are designed to provide power for 30 years plus, the effective life of the submarine in service. There won’t be any access to the reactors and their fuel for refuelling operations and thus there is no need for production of reactor fuel in Australia. Operating nuclear subs of this kind isn’t a step towards nuclear weapons proliferation.
French nuclear subs don’t work that way, they require complex refuelling operations every ten years or so (usually carried out during a scheduled major refit) and that would have to be done in a radiologically-secure dockyard facility which the Australians don’t possess.
rikyrah
Shayla Davis (@JournalistShay) tweeted at 10:15 PM on Sun, Sep 19, 2021:
I’m shaking reading about the discovery of Gabby Petito’s body in Wyoming. While we’re watching this case unfold, please take 5 seconds to read about Daniel Robinson, a geologist who went missing in the desert outside Buckeye three months ago. His father is still looking for him. https://t.co/5RWrcMpMng
(https://twitter.com/JournalistShay/status/1439790247479496707?s=03)
rikyrah
Dr. Theresa Chapple (@Theresa_Chapple) tweeted at 7:11 AM on Mon, Sep 20, 2021:
Nearly 30,000 kids were hospitalized with COVID in August.
Pfizer says their vaccine is safe and effective for kids 5-11.
Let’s begin building vaccine confidence among parents so that we can see good uptake of this vaccine in children.
(https://twitter.com/Theresa_Chapple/status/1439925198380273671?s=03)
Steeplejack
@Barbara:
House Hunters International has its own special craziness. The Americans all want U.S.-level amenities in a €1,500 apartment with a view of the Eiffel Tower.
Subsole
@rikyrah: Ay-mazing.
Steeplejack
@chrome agnomen:
Good point. ?
Ken
@Steeplejack: They’ve probably gotten the idea from movies and TV that absolutely every window in Paris has a magnificent view of the Eiffel Tower.
mali muso
@rikyrah: My kiddo turns 5 around Thanksgiving. Hoping that one of her birthday presents can be a COVID vaccine!
Another Scott
@Robert Sneddon: Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ken
@mali muso: And four weeks later is Christmas, just in time for the booster!
Just One More Canuck
@Barbara: It wouldn’t have surprised me if they had wanted you to pay for it, based on conversations with my now thankfully former neighbour, conversations that generally lasted long enough for my wife to say, “no damn way”
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack:
I know! And my Google-fu has not helped me find any noteworthy Americans named Plong.
Geminid
@Robert Sneddon: A Forbes Magazine article on the submarine deal says that Australia has “robust” shipbuilding capacity. Maybe the Audtralians will use U.S. nuclear propulsion technology for a submarine hull they design and build themselves. The propulsion technology and some components would be supplied by U.S. contractors, as well as the weapons systems.
mali muso
@Ken:
Starting off the new year with a fully vaccinated kiddo would be a serious bright spot. :)
Steeplejack
@Ken:
True.
satby
@rikyrah: After the earthquake in 2010, many Haitians immigrated all over, they didn’t just climb on board boats to Florida. Because they share an island with the Dominican Republic, many Haitians speak at least some Spanish but not much English, and so going to South America was a good option for them. But the dream for many would be to reunite with family members here in the US. The Biden admin is more friendly to immigration in general, so here they now are, hoping for a chance.
BC in Illinois
@jonas:
@LadySuzy:
Stuart Stevens has given (on Chris Hayes) the one-sentence summary of the Republican Party:
NeenerNeener
@Steeplejack: My favorite episode from about 12 years back was a couple that bought a ruin on a cliff on the Amalfi coast. Supplies had to be carried up the hill by donkey and Italian law wouldn’t let them build beyond the existing foundation. They were rich Americans, of course. I wonder if they ever finished the rebuild…
Geminid
Afghanistan may have faded from the headlines, but Qatar announced yesterday that a fourth chartered flight carrying refugees had flown from Afganistan to that country. The 230 passengers included Afghans as well as citizens of the U.S., Canada and eight European nations.
Soprano2
@rikyrah: What I read is that many of these Hatians have been in Brazil and Central America for years, and crossed U.S. border just recently. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it’s what I read.
Soprano2
@debbie: Some of them she did. The entries that I read were short, because the room in the diary was small. It was one of those 5-year diaries, where there were 5 spaces on each day and you wrote the year in each space, so not much room to write.
Viva BrisVegas
@Geminid: I don’t know about “robust”. Military shipbuilding is basically a boondoggle for the state of South Australia, which is the closest thing we have to a rust belt state. The country could save a lot of money by scrapping the industry.
The most expeditious and inexpensive solution would be for the submarines to be built in the US, matching US specifications. Particularly since their main purpose is interoperability with the US Pacific Fleet.
But that won’t happen. There might not be much industry in SA, but there are still votes.
As for nuclear weapons, it’s often overlooked that Australia had all the infrastructure and expertise to build fission bombs in the early 70s, except for a breeder reactor which they had started to construct at Jervis Bay.
The US told us rather forcefully that we didn’t need nukes, since they already had plenty. So the project was scrapped.
Ken
@NeenerNeener: Mysterious wealthy US couple buys ancient Italian villa to restore it? That sounds more like the hook for a Trail of Cthulhu scenario than a home remodeling show.
montanareddog
@Ken: I think it was Guy de Maupassant who snarked that he ate lunch every day at the restaurant on the first level of the Eiffel Tower because is was the only place in Paris he could eat without having to look at the damned thing.
And in great establishing shot clichés, I love the Eiffel Tower through the apartment window accompanied by the caption, “Paris, France”, or the helicopter shot of Tower Bridge with “London, England” as if there is a replica of Tower Bridge in London, Ontario.
Rocks
In addition to TFG, Ginny Thomas (the wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas) reputedly spent thousands of dollars to transport and house many of the criminals of the Jaunary 6 insurrection. Let’s add her to the list of enablers that need some quiet reflection time at government expense.
Ken
@montanareddog: Some movie — it might have been Top Secret! or The Naked Gun series — had fun with that trope, showing a shot of a landmark with a different caption. The Eiffel Tower with “Rome, Italy”, or the Pyramids with “London”.
Jay
@Amir Khalid:
not nuclear, AIP diesel.
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
No, the French-supplied subs were to be modern-engineered conventionally powered subs, as opposed to nuclear-powered.
The FR version subs would be quieter, probably, as nuke-powered subs must circulate cooling fluids constantly, while conventionally powered subs can completely shut down to be completely silent.
A Swedish modern conventionally powered sub destroyed a USN Carrier Group several times in major war games not long ago because passive sonar didn’t hear a thing. Was interesting!!
My nephew currently serves as an officer on a Sea-wolf class nuke as a nuke officer, but that doesn’t give me a leg up, he won’t speak to me as I’m an antiwar hippy commie and he’s a RWNJ… like his dad, my younger brother, RWNJ NRA Life Member who moved to TX and loves it there…
JoyceH
@Ken:
What’s funny about that is that the contemporary artistic community of Paris was up in arms about the construction of the Eiffel Tower when it was proposed. It wasn’t built to be attractive but to show what you could do with iron construction, but whole lots of artists signed a petition against it because they didn’t want the lovely views of Paris blighted by that Eiffel eyesore.
I predict that wind farms will undergo the same transformation. “Wind farm views!”
JustRuss
@Percysowner: Of course Trump had a plan for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Nobody’s seen it because it lives in Canada.
JoyceH
@Steeplejack:
Had to google it – that does sound like something more my style. They used to have a show I liked called My First Place. It was basically about decorating your first place, and the assumption was that you were renting an apartment and couldn’t rip out fixtures or even paint, and it had low budget ideas that could make a starter place look nice.
Those sort of shows seemed more geared to giving people ideas they could actually use, whereas the shows now tend to be more voyeuristic, just watch what these other people with enormous budgets did.
Same thing with Food Network, now that I think of it. When was the last time someone over there actually showed you how to cook something?
Another Scott
@JoyceH: I “like” that all the folks who “demanded” open floor plans (because guys like watching demolition) are now crying because they need quiet offices for teleworking…
Cheers,
Scott.
JoyceH
@Another Scott: I think open floor plans came about to make smaller and narrower places like urban townhouses look bigger, but when they do them for these huge barn-like places it’s just weird.
There are so many design ideas that look great in a magazine or a show model, but fall down at working with the way we really live. Do you really WANT your kitchen to be visible from the front door? And those glass fronted cabinets, or worse, open shelves – those only work if everything you use in your daily life is display-worthy.
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
Actually, fearing imminent eviction without enough income to replace his living space + his landlord appears to be nuts, won’t share even a mailing address with his tenant.
So, a sad situation. Wish there was a go-fund-me for his rent…
NeenerNeener
@Ken: Yeah…and this place really was a ruin. I think the roof and walls were mostly gone except for two actual “rooms”. The rest was just the stone foundation.
The actual backstory that you didn’t get from HGTV was that they had been vacationing on the Amalfi coast off and on for a few years and always admired that hillside where the ruin was. They found out who owned the ruin and had their lawyer approach that family. When the family finally decided to sell a few years later the San Fran couple jumped on it.
Every once in awhile I remember to search the web to see if there’s any reported progress. The wife posted something shortly after the episode aired, and they hadn’t been able to get much done at that point. I haven’t seen any reports since.
My Dad used to watch the decorating shows with Sabrina and Sophie on HGTV. He was annoyed when those shows disappeared and were replaced with first-time buyer shows and then reno shows.
dailydillydallier
@jonas: Perfect.
That, or:
Host: “Aiden and Jess need to replace all of the plumbing and upgrade the old post-and-tube wiring to modern standards, and patch the rotted places in floor with new matching hardwood flooring. It looks like they’re going to need a new roof and some foundation work, too. They also want to knock a wall down between the living and dining room and put in a new kitchen with custom cabinets, stone counters and tile backsplash, totally gut the bathrooms and replace with modern fixtures while expanding the master bathroom to a 5-piece suite.”
Contractor: ”What’s their budget?”
Host: “60 thousand.”
Contractor: “I think we can do it.”
dailydillydallier
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
The hole itself isn’t but the water damage, mold and rot that are inevitable consequence often are.
A hole in the roof is a huge red flag to look very carefully for other far more serious problems lurking elsewhere in the house.
“It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the landing”.
Chief Oshkosh
@PST: How soon we forget “Jenghazi.”
We’ve noted here that Jen-Jen went after Billy and Barry, but I always thought she really tried extra hard to rip Hillary. Mean girl.
Darkrose
@PST: I’d argue that she’s moved to the center, and center-left on certain topics. She’s been supportive of Stacey Abrams for a while; when people said she didn’t have enough experience to be considered for Biden’s running mate, Rubin wrote multiple columns in her defense. My jaw literally dropped when she used the words “systemic racism”. Until I dropped my WaPo subscription, she was a must-read for me. I would like to see her acknowledge her role in attacking Obama and supporting Bush’s right-wing endless wars, but she has definitely changed.
Darkrose
@Wapiti: It was before that. She said she could no longer call herself a Republican when Trump was nominated in 2016, and to her credit she never looked back.
gene108
@PST:
The anti-semitism unleashed by Trump probably scared the holy shit out of her, more than anything else.
Rubin’s got a basic instinct for self-preservation, and Republicans whole heartedly embracing Trump were also embracing the Trump supporters in Charlottesville, and others who committed anti-Jewish acts from defiling graves to shooting up synagogues.
Uncle Cosmo
@montanareddog:
Post-WW2 the Poles’ new Soviet “friends,” as part of the rebuilding of Warszawa, constructed for them smack in downtown the “Palace of Culture and Science (Polish: Pałac Kultury i Nauki; abbreviated PKiN), a Stalinist wedding-cake monstrosity 778 feet tall.
I bring this up simply to note that Varsovians are happy to tell whoever will listen that the best view of Warszawa is from the 30th floor terrace – because it’s the only place for miles around where one cannot see PKiN. :^D
Uncle Cosmo
I predict you’ll be wrong, at least so long as propellor-on-steroids wind turbines are the mechanisms of choice. These are notoriously noisy, and by the time they’re far enough away to be effectively silent, they’re just a bunch of teeny-tiny towers on the horizon – not much to look at at all.
Steeplejack
@JoyceH:
Yeah, the “shelter shows” have experienced feature creep over the years.
You might also like Unsellable Houses. Two Seattle-area sisters invest some money to help clients spruce up their places, then they and the clients split the eventual profit above “unsellable” price plus sisters’ investment. Quick turnaround, so very little demolition. Pretty good design, and the sisters’ shtick is all right.
There was an old show that I liked called, I think, This Small Space, which was sort of like the one you described. Modest projects in small houses or apartments. . . . Huh, I see that it’s apparently available on the IMDB channel at Amazon Prime and also on Apple TV.
As for “actually show you how to cook something” shows, I think they’re mostly on PBS now. America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country are the flagships, and I also like Simply Ming, Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street and whatever Jacques Pépin show is on.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
So funny. I once had like a 12 hour fight with his assistant on this blog. I can fight …forever. I was thinking “I will OUTLAST you” – I had the goods on their non-profit :)
I didn’t know John Cole that well and I thought he would be mad that I was fighting with his friend, but thankfully he doesn’t give a shit.
WaterGirl
@J R in WV:
Good news to report on that front. The immediate eviction crisis has been averted.
I worked with one of our BJ peeps – who wishes to remain nameless – to get Bill enough money to pay the 2 months of back rent. So thanks to his generosity, that money is in Bill’s account today.
I contacted one of our awesome BJ attorneys in CA to let him know about Bill’s situation, and he offered to help Bill at no charge, to write a letter to the landlord if Bill would like him to, and to connect Bill with a tenant attorney the he knows personally.
Bill is applying for some of the resources that are available in CA. So it may be that between those resources and the back rent from our unnamed BJ angel, Bill will be in good shape. If not, then we can put up a post once Bill has a clearer picture of where things stand.
Balloon Juice really does have the best people.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@J R in WV: Pretty good summery of my landlord, just an update for folk. I applied for the California Rental Relief program and invited my landlord to join me in my application. She responded via text to ask for the link to the program’s website. I provided her with the link. That’s where things stand as of today.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl:
This is true, and thanks for providing a more complete summery of where we stand up to this point.
Just Chuck
@Anne Laurie: I think it’s as simple as that he’s desperate for attention, and that he equates it with legitimacy.
Gravenstone
@dailydillydallier:
eddie blake
@Another Scott: you’re confusing a few things and i think conflating a few others.
“nuclear” in this context, is in regards to propulsion. these crafts aren’t going to be ssbns. they’re not gonna be carrying city-cracking MIRV’s.
also, modern diesel subs can be quite quiet.
not to mention the stirling-engine diesels that are practically invisible when submerged.
tl:dr? the aussies shoulda been talking to sweden.
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-swedish-sub-ran-rings-around-us-aircraft-carrier-escorts-2021-7
eta- of COURSE submarines can be offensive weapons. there’s a sub class called attack subs.
dailydillydallier
@Another Scott:
That’d be my 2 cents’ worth too.
Gunboat diplomacy don’t work so well if there are subs lurking about capable of sending said gunboats to the bottom tout de suite.
JCNZ
Eric Boehlert’s Press Run has a good explanation – although the headline is confusing:
Link
WaterGirl
@JCNZ: The naked link was so long that it breaks the margins on mobile devices. So i moved your URL to the word “Link”.
brantl
@Another Scott: They can flee a launch in a pretty difficult-to-follow method?
Falk
@Soprano2: heard an interview today and the guy was speaking Portuguese
glory b
@Robert Sneddon: There is an HGTV show about the same thing. It’s called something like “Help! I Ruined My House!”
Wanna be do-it-yourselfers who get in over their heads, professionals come in to finish the job.
glory b
@JoyceH: I also understand that those open concept living spaces are noisy, nothing to block out the conversations that you don’t want to be part of, and echoing too.
Also, hard to heat or keep cool, there’s a reason that houses used to be built with walls and doors, keep the heat in the rooms where people are, don’t heat rooms that are empty.
People talk about wanting to be able to see their kids playing, doing homework, etc. need to be advised that in a few years, adolescence hits and the last thing they want to do is hang out where you can always see them.