Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Not all heroes wear capes.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Come on, man.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

Infrastructure week. at last.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

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

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

After roe, women are no longer free.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

You are here: Home / Politics / GOP Death Cult / Saturday Morning Open Thread: The Politico Cartoon Universe

Saturday Morning Open Thread: The Politico Cartoon Universe

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: The <em>Politico</em> Cartoon Universe

(Nick Anderson via GoComics.com)

I was defending comic books as a valid art form before some of y’all were born, but let’s be honest: Most of the ticket-buyers for tentpole movies in the MCU (Marvel Comics Universe) and DCU (DC Comics Universe) just want bright uniforms, exaggerated speeches, and plenty of explosions.

The sociopaths behind Politico — and too many of their ‘respectable’ media fellows, following them like ducklings — have decided that politics should be like this, too. And, unfortunately, the eternal middle-schoolers who find this plausible also believe that a really great supervillain is so much more fun than some boring do-gooder rattling on about Truth and Justice and the American Way.

Mitch McConnell as Lex Luthor / The Joker, but for (chronological) grown-ups! (He’d be honored, to be sure.)

Reader Interactions

207Comments

  2. 2.

    NotMax

    Stark white cubicle for one, sir? Take notice of the silent dining companion option.

    (I try to save linking to relatively longer items which might be of interest and/or amusement for the weekends.)

  3. 3.

    Jeffro

    I’m starting to think that Dem presidents should just skip the nominating process (whether for SCOTUS or these national security positions still waiting for conformation) while McConnell, Cruz, Hawley, etc are around. Just tell their nominee where to show up for work on Monday morning and off they go! It’d be no less revolutionary than what Mitch is doing.

  4. 4.

    Betty Cracker

    Politico truly is a flaming bag of poop. They’re determined to fluff DeSantis straight into the White House, never mind the 53K dead constituents. I read that the outfit that bought them is hard right, so I guess they’ll get worse? I have faith they can become so!

  5. 5.

    Geminid

    The political reporting elite doesn’t care who wins, they just want a good game. Their favoritism to the Republicans makes me think of sports reporters who also run a betting site. After spotting Republicans so many points, they tell their audience, “Maybe you should take the Republicans and the points.”

  13. 13.

    Ken

    @Baud: That’s why the BJU will have a reboot that re-imagines the origin story of the baby-blood-drinking commie-nazi pedophiles.

  14. 14.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud: Not all! However, any time a Democrat is less than boring, they get shit on, even by some members of their own team.

  15. 15.

    PsiFighter37

    There’s going to be a huge celebration on the Internet when Moscow Mitch finally bites it. I for one will have to find a fine bottle of champagne for the occasion.

  19. 19.

    Betty Cracker

    Speaking of how much Politico sucks:

    Elder got absolutely CRUSHED, but yeah, a force like no other in a generation! FFS.

  21. 21.

    Starfish

    Best summary of Conor Friedersdorf’s career that I have ever seen:

    and if you *do* know it and pretend to be a credulous dope for the engagement or whatever, you’re a bad actor and a dishonest scumbag. so take your pick: stupid, or dishonest?
    — BESTCOASTMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) September 24, 2021

  25. 25.

    Ken

    @Immanentize: The author probably had it written before the crushing and didn’t want to waste material. The delay was because they had to slightly edit the waste material.

  26. 26.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: The Axel Springer publishing house owns German media outlets including Bild and Die Welt. Axel Springer was founded in 1946, some say with CIA funding. If so, their purchase of Politico would be kind of a homecoming.

  29. 29.

    trnc

    @Jeffro: ​
     
    Seconded, sort of. Biden should declare any nominee defaults to acceptance 30 days after nomination. When the media asks how he can do that, he can say it’s the Biden rule.

  30. 30.

    NotMax

    Repeated from downstairs.

    Began the final season of Goliath, which dropped Friday on Prime. Appears early on that the writers and producers took advantage of the extensive pandemic delay in production to catch up on some heavy duty drugs.

    Trippy as hell so far.

    ;)

  31. 31.

    Jeffro

    @trnc:Biden should declare any nominee defaults to acceptance 30 days after nomination. When the media asks how he can do that, he can say it’s the Biden rule.

    I absolutely LOVE this – excellent!

  33. 33.

    Ten Bears

    The other thing I remember about the dime comix were they, the “heros”, were there, in particular Batman, for the little-guy; going after slum-lords and loan-sharks, muggers and murderers. Polluters. There weren’t any of these spectacular other-worldly intelligences and entities, smashing up whole cities. The smartest bad-guy was Lex Luthor and seriously, he just wasn’t that smart.

    Dick Tracy had smarter bad-guys.

  34. 34.

    Immanentize

    @Ken: Well, the Politico article has at least one good dig in it — Schwarzenegger previously said that the California Republican Party was getting killed at the box office. In the article he says the Party is now “direct-to-video.”

  35. 35.

    Immanentize

    @NotMax:

    the writers and producers took advantage of the extensive pandemic delay in production to catch up on some heavy duty drugs.

    I should have thought of that path in September, 2020.

  36. 36.

    Betty Cracker

    @Immanentize: To be fairer to the hack-sheet rag than it deserves, the thrust of the article is that Republicans will keep losing in California because they’ve gone down an extremist rabbit hole. But still, it’s who’s winning, blah blah blah, when it should be THESE FUCKING PEOPLE ARE CRAZE-BALLS!

  38. 38.

    NotMax

    It really is a whole new world. Documentary running in the background on Tubi. One of the short ads inserted opens with this dialogue:

    “Welcome to my vagina.”

    (Absolutely no relation whatsoever to the history topic of the program.)

  43. 43.

    Gin & Tonic

    This blog used to be interesting. Now it’s nothing but “ we’re doomed” 24/7.

    Have a happy weekend.

  44. 44.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: You’re so right about that. It’s a real problem since most people only see the headlines, news alerts, tweets, etc.

  47. 47.

    frosty

    @Ken: Do you mean the sandwich, the sex act, the school, or the cinematic universe?

    Thanks for the larf in the middle of this depressing post.​
    ETA @Baud: ​  You too!​​

  51. 51.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Ten Bears: The smartest bad-guy was Lex Luthor and seriously, he just wasn’t that smart.

    We were fans of the 90s Lois and Clark TV series (first season anyway, before they kicked off the show creator and changed a bunch of stuff), very different take on the characters from the comic books of my childhood. One of the things I enjoyed about it was that Lex was (so the world thought) a good guy, and he was very obviously smarter than Clark Kent, who clearly did not have all that much going on upstairs.

    In retrospect, the casting of Dean Cain was perfect for that version of Superman.

  52. 52.

    Barbara

    Tiger Beat on the Potomac has only intensified its fan boy approach to politics, and the actual articles of substance seem to be fewer and further in between. I’m really not sure why anyone would feel the need to read what is basically just endless speculation about the future.​

  53. 53.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Baud: A new non hormonal birth control using citric acid, lactic acid and some other acidic substance. Side effects include bladder and kidney infection ( No fkn ty)

    Its a clever commercial, tho

    ( its on youtube if you’re so inclined)

  54. 54.

    dmsilev

    @Betty Cracker: That’s absurd. Elder lost by roughly the same margin as the 2018 gubernatorial race, and did only slightly better than Trump last year. I guess ‘GOP statewide candidate performs at the level seen by other GOP statewide candidates’ isn’t a sexy story.

  55. 55.

    NeenerNeener

    @NotMax: Yeah, I’m watching the end of the last episode right now and I’m still not sure he didn’t die at the end of Season 3 and Season 4 is Billy in Hell. I’m waiting for Tom Ellis to show up as Lucifer.

  58. 58.

    Edmund Dantes

    @Starfish: shorter “cater to me!!! Cater to me!!!!”

     

    it really is getting annoying how often people complain.

    “this ship used to have the best deck chairs arrangements. Now it’s all just ‘iceberg this, iceberg that’.”

  61. 61.

    debbie

    @MagdaInBlack:

    I don’t think this sounds like a sound method of birth control. A Betadine douche would seem more effective. Snake oil nonsense has no place in the 21st century IMHO.

  62. 62.

    Starfish

    @Edmund Dantes: Anne Laurie gives us several threads every damn day. If I had to do that, it would be, “Good morning, I am having pancakes, and this rich city council candidate is suing a bunch of people I know because they made him look bad by quoting his own words” or “Good morning, some anti-medicine crackpots are trying to recall several of our best school board members for not being anti-mask.”

  64. 64.

    MagdaInBlack

    @debbie: I know sponges soaked in lemon juice or vinegar were used before we had reliable protection. Not to say it worked, just saying they were used.

  67. 67.

    Geminid

    @Barbara: I thought the Politico article, “Inside the Machine to turn out the Latino Vote- and Turn Arizona Blue,” (November 1 2020) was really good. It would have been even better if the editors had sent reporter Lauren Barron-Lopez back to Arizona after the election to follow up. But they were off chasing newer headlines.

    An interesting aspect of the story was in the lead paragraph describing activist Lucia Salinas doing door to door campaigning in a mask and face shield.  She worked in her free time outside her job, and was visiting around 40 homes each day, as many as 90 some days in the summer. Democrats generally forswore in person campaigning because of the pandemic. (Republicans were not so scrupulous). But Arizona organizers said they considered in-person outreach essential to turning out Latino voters.

    I think it’s a good thing they and others “went rogue,” as one analyst put it. Defeating trump was the single most consequential means of suppressing the pandemic, and we almost did not pull it off.

  68. 68.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud: We need a BJU.

    @Ken: Do you mean the sandwich, the sex act, the school, or the cinematic universe?

    @Baud: I would like to find a way to combine all those things into one.

    I’m looking forward to the day they teach the sex act in question at Bob Jones University.

  69. 69.

    germy

    Jen Psaki says President Biden won't invoke executive privilege on Trump's behalf to shield his records from the Jan. 6 committee."The president has already concluded that it would not be appropriate to assert executive privilege." https://t.co/CLGzYNsJ92

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 25, 2021

    And now, let the wild rumpus start.

  74. 74.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Geminid:

    Democrats generally forswore in person campaigning because of the pandemic.

    Even at the time, I was going, WTF?! Just ring the doorbell and step back six feet, fercryinoutloud!

    Because by September if not sooner, it was clear that you were unlikely to transmit Covid outdoors, except maybe in a crowd.  So sure, have your volunteers mask up, but assuming that, there was zero reason to not go door to door.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that didn’t cost us a few close races.

  77. 77.

    NotMax

    @zherna gogolia

    There has been an uptick in commenters whose sole purpose would seem to be to bring a ray of shitshine.

    I don’t pie but do skim over them whenever I see the particular nyms.

  78. 78.

    Scout211

    @Gin & Tonic:

    This blog used to be interesting. Now it’s nothing but “ we’re doomed” 24/7.

    Maybe. But the Republican base has been whipped up into a frenzy over the past few years (decades?) by that very notion. That fear has motivated their voters to show up at the polls to protect themselves and democracy from that scary “liberal agenda.”

    Just look at our recent recall election here in California.  We were all complacent and felt certain Newsom would prevail.  Then the polls showed a dead heat.  Once the Democratic voters felt threatened that the Republican crazies might just win the governorship, the voters suddenly got very motivated.  When there is a reason to fight (“democracy is doomed!”) voters get motivated to fight.

    Yes, it’s mostly psychological but political advisors and consultants get this and use it constantly.  Because it works.

  81. 81.

    AWOL

    @Ten Bears: Do you still think that ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ was written by Jews? And if so, what are you doing on a site that is doing its best to tamp down insane conspiracy theories such as the one you used to espouse on various Left sites, such as Yaz’s?

  83. 83.

    Starfish

    @zhena gogolia: People are having a hard time right now, and this behavior is grating.

    Talking about the horror of political nonsense is the light conversation when “My sister who is not even 40 yet is probably going to die of cancer in the next few years.” Yesterday, a coworker said he might be harder to reach because his mom is about to get diagnosed with the same cancer my younger sister has.

    That is the depressing conversation, so you got to understand that “These Republicans are absolute shit weasels,” and “Can we do the trolley problem with Manchin tied to one track and Sinema tied to the other?” is the lighter conversation.

  85. 85.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @germy:

    As I understand these concepts, Executive Privilege (which shouldn’t be a thing, at all) only exists as to the current office. Prior officeholders no longer get to invoke it, since it is meant to allow room for decision making by consensus opinion within the Executive Branch.

  88. 88.

    zhena gogolia

    @NotMax: It’s a scream. I think Dern improvised all his dialogue. It’s on Prime — check it out! I saw it when it came out, at the drive-in with giggling high-school friends. I recently watched it on Prime and it hasn’t lost its mojo.

    The premise is that Dern is the head of a motorcycle gang, and he gets mad at an artist who’s been drawing sketches of their activities. He seems to think that the “vice squad” can use these drawings as some kind of evidence against them, so he vows to disable the artist. Meanwhile the artist gets involved with Melody Patterson, of “F Troop” fame. It’s a masterpiece.

  90. 90.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    The MCU was always a hell of a lot more relatable to me. No fantasy cities in America – everything had the right name, and the characters had some complexity.

  94. 94.

    Starfish

    @zhena gogolia: It’s rough. She just finished chemotherapy less than a month ago, and they want to do a scan after a recent blood test. We all fear the worst. I should find a therapist.

  102. 102.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Sure Lurkalot: Hilarious.

    Scrolling down in stream (but off-thread), a legit question is asked;

    We’re 9 months into the Biden presidency. Why is Louis DeJoy still postmaster general?

  103. 103.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Charlie Pierce had these poltroons nailed nearly a decade ago: “Tiger Beat on the Potomac.”

  104. 104.

    zhena gogolia

    @Starfish: Whatever help you can get, please get it.

    ETA: I know what you mean about politics sometimes seeming like the lighthearted diversion, even when it’s bad.

  105. 105.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Betty Cracker:  i think Neel Kashnkarry got crushed even more by Jerry Brown. I think it was so embarrassing that I would be surprised if Kashnkarry ever runs for elected office again.

  110. 110.

    Lyrebird

    @Villago Delenda Est: Yes true!  But my parents still read it…  Sigh.

     

    I wonder if we will have a Senate fundraising post soon.  I’m currently pretty strongly in favor of Demings and Lamb, and I need to get a clue about North Carolina.

  111. 111.

    germy

    A recruiter was trying to get me to move to DC. He said "in NYC you have to be in finance or the arts to be important. Here, lawyers are the big shots!" and I thought "this is exactly why I don't want to move to DC." https://t.co/aJYRTHWcl5

    — Sarah T., disagreeable leftist stranger (@saraht_74) September 25, 2021

  112. 112.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: At the time, critics of the lack of door to door campaigning by Democrats called it “unilateral disarmament.” Political scientist Rachel Bitecofer among others said we were conceding a valuable GOTV arena to the Republicans, and commended local organizations including some in Wisconsin that “went rogue.” Forswearing in-person campaigning may well have cost us some close races. Had Joe Biden come up a couple hundred thousand votes short in the wrong states, Democrats would still be hollering about our misguided virtue.

    Georgia Democrats did do a lot of in-person outreach for the Georgia Senate runoffs. My Atlanta friend dropped off a lot of literature before he tripped over a curb and broke his wrist. I think he hit doorbells, too, and then stepped back and briefly talked up Warnock and Ossoff.

  113. 113.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @germy:

    That looks an awful lot like the harbor at Loutro in Crete, but a lot of Greek harbors look like that.

    I like how the little beggars are eagerly awaiting a free meal.

  119. 119.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: To be fair, we didn’t know as much about the virus at the time, and there’s still a lot we don’t know. Any losses the lack of canvassing might have caused have to be weighed against the value gained by being seen (and actually being) the party that took the pandemic seriously.

  123. 123.

    Geminid

    @raven: How did the runoff vote go in Athens? I read that statewide the Democratic vote dropoff from November was only 100,000, while Republican dropoff was 200,000 and this made the difference. I remember listening to WSB out of Atlanta on election night. One of their reporters said he had talked to some rural county Republican leaders, and descibed them as “chagrined” over turnout.

  128. 128.

    zhena gogolia

    @Immanentize:

    And I think this (ETA: Bruce Dern plays Roy and he’s great):

    The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
    Night Caller
    Episode aired Jan 31, 1964

    Felicia Farr in The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962)
    Marcia Fowler is sunbathing in her backyard when she spots a new neighbor, Roy Bullock, eyeing her. Frightened, she calls the police, who take her to the Bullock house and warn Roy not to be a peeping Tom. Marcia also asks her husband Jack to admonish Roy, but Jack finds Roy to b… Read all

  132. 132.

    opiejeanne

    @zhena gogolia: 
    Also, Republicans have ALWAYS shown up to vote. It’s their thing. It’s surprising to me when they don’t, and I wonder if these are really the hard-shell, scaly Republicans of my youth or some newer, lazier, more easily discouraged version.

  133. 133.

    Immanentize

    @opiejeanne: There was some analysis from California suggesting that many Republicans stayed home because they were told the vote would be rigged. Who knows if this is true? But it was republican strategists saying so.

  135. 135.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @germy:
    “HERR HITLER AT HOME IN THE CLOUDS; High up on his favorite mountain he finds time for politics, solitude and frequent official parties.”
    – NYT, August 1939

  137. 137.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    “HITLER, DRIVING FORCE IN GERMANY’S FASCISM; His Fiery Oratory Has Won Men of All Classes to Support Doctrine of ‘National Bolshevism’ Spectacular Rise to Power. He Has Energy and Reserve. GERMANY’S ‘DUCE’”

    – NYT, 1930

  139. 139.

    Immanentize

    On the big positive news front — our school’s building’s air conditioning broke and we had to zoom for the latter part of the week (that’s not the good news)…. So I used my extra found commuting time to recondition my turntable. It’s an old Yamaha linear tracking table which needed new belts and also needed the now unavailable main arm transport belt to be flipped and have the tension increased. I also used some belt dressing on it.

    It now moves smooth and steady. Lands in the right place and auto returns and turns off. What a peach! It has a moving coil stylus, so my son bought me a sweet pre-amp for my b-day this summer. Let the vinyl spin!

  140. 140.

    Cermet

    @Chief Oshkosh: As I understand it because he doesn’t serve at the leisure of the sitting President but serves a specific term; only the post office governing group can dismiss him for cause and the majority aren’t Dem’s.

  141. 141.

    Major Major Major Major

    Dems should just use reconciliation to raise it by a hundred trillion dollars and be done with it. This has the benefit of being a cartoonish amount that might make attack ads bounce off the viewers. Easy to spin a $2T raise as “increased the national debt by $2T” but nobody’s gonna buy that at 100T

  142. 142.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: I am not condemning the policy of forgoing in-person campaigning, but I will question it. This was a choice, and I think a judicious use of that tool might have been the lesser of two evils. It is generally a good thing for Democrats to demonstrate responsibilty. If Biden had lost a close election, we still could have claimed a moral victory. But like I’ve said, defeating trump was the most effective means to suppress the pandemic.

  143. 143.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @MomSense: I thought he was a tool as most people know, but I did not see any reason that he should have been banned.  We were told that some stuff happened in offline situations, but I have no knowledge of the details.  I will say the some of the newer front pagers have/had different ideas of what constituted a banning offense than the longer term ones.

  146. 146.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Betty Cracker: ​
      To be the Party that was arguing in favor science and common sense and then to ask people to go door to door whe we were supposed to isolating would have been a bit much. Being the good guys does mean that we sometimes must fight with one hand tied behind our backs.

  147. 147.

    Another Scott

    OT, but a kind and decent reminder thread. There will be gloomy days and setbacks ahead. We’re all human, no matter how bad or misguided our politics or arguments here.

    We don’t know what’s going on on the other side of the keyboard.

    Trigger warning – talking about loss and stuff so skip this if it's a difficult subject for you..

    — HappyToast ★ (@IamHappyToast) September 25, 2021

    Have a good weekend. Forward!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  156. 156.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Danielx: Fall days are like that in Oregon, but there’s something missing from a New York/New England fall day.  Those are just the best.

  158. 158.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    He somehow pissed off Cheryl Rofer was the best that I could figure out. I think there were murmurings about his IP address or some such.

    I found his frontier gibberish maddening but not ban-worthy.

  159. 159.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Immanentize: I’m sorry if I have you confused, but didn’t you restore an espresso machine a while back? And now a turntable? How did/do you learn to do such things? How do you find parts? I’m totally intrigued!

  160. 160.

    Immanentize

    @Haydnseek: i have a special WOMAD disc that starts with “Raindrops Pattering on Banana Leaves.” I’m sadly cutting a deep groove on that. I also pulled out my wife’s amazing vinyl collection of Bowie albums. There is, no exaggeration, 12″ of common to rare discs in that group. I.e. yes I have the Peter and the Wolf recording.

  161. 161.

    Haydnseek

    @Immanentize: Man, that’s a ton of Bowie.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that!  My Bowie LP’s run through the Ziggy Stardust era and it’s CD’s after that.  Nice to see another vinyl head here.

  162. 162.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @germy: ​
     The Vichy Times apparently is trying to figure out why the US media is having credibility problems, and how to correct them. The correct answer in their case is to defenestrate Baquet, Pinch, and Haberhack. Also too Brooks, Douchehat, MoDo, Friedman, Baker, Stephens, and Collins.

  163. 163.

    MisterForkbeard

    @zhena gogolia: He was annoying but sometimes had decent ideas. As others stated, he was banned for other reasons.

    Hell, we have other trolls here who are way WAY worse and purposefully destructive and they’re not gone, so Dialect Man must have had some other stuff go down on the side

  164. 164.

    James E Powell

    @Betty Cracker:

    Elder got absolutely CRUSHED, but yeah, a force like no other in a generation!

    Being spectacularly wrong about such things has no impact on them or the people who read them. It’s like National Enquirer in the old days.

  165. 165.

    Immanentize

    @Sure Lurkalot: my son was the major driver behind the espresso machine rebuild. It came out so fine. They are really quite simple machines, so the question was parts (and some adaptations) and the machine (Rancillio Silvia) is still in production.

    The turntable was more difficult — but pretty much everything can be learned online if you are motivated and willing to watch numerous absolutely useless YouTube’s and read stupid comments on forums. Luckily, I am that guy! Seriously, most machines are pretty simple. The Yamaha has a big motherboard and some smaller boards, but those were never the problem. If they were, I could not have done anything to fix it. My job then, was simply to fix the mechanicals while not breaking the electronics.

  167. 167.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    You walked down the hill from St Catherine’s? Damn.

    I think they’re having a kind of mini-marathon this weekend, but also a run up to White Mountain for maniacs.

    I’m still in recovery from quad surgery; I couldn’t see even hiking to Sweetwater so we took the ferry (best beach ever). Earlier in the trip, we had a guide take us to an overlook at Balos on the northwest side – I’m lucky to have not spent my vacation in the hospital, as we got off even the goat path.

  170. 170.

    Geminid

    @Omnes Omnibus: I would not advocate violating local and state social distancing mandates. But were door to door canvassing would not be a violation, I think a judicious use of this tool- standing off for a brief pitch, then dropping off literature- would not have undercut general messaging about the pandemic.

  172. 172.

    kindness

    I would like to think liberals give Politico too much importance.  I mean, is Politico at the same level as the NYT or the WaPo or other news operations?  No.  But enough Washington Daddies like the cut of their jib because they repeat the memes those Daddies want to see that Politico get’s more coverage than it’s actual level of importance in the MSM stew.  So, while I would like to think Politico is overblown and do think Politico is overblown too many MSM insiders love blowing smoke up it’s bum to make it larger than it is.  We’re stuck with a facade too much of the MSM insists is real, for their own egos purposes

  173. 173.

    Immanentize

    @Haydnseek: There is this New Yorker (?) cartoon which shows two hipster guys in front of some stereo equipment with one saying:

    “What attracted me to vinyl was it’s high cost and impracticality.”

    I have some great new wave era albums too — like the Talking Heads, Rauschenberg issue of “Speaking in Tongues” album on clear vinyl. I only play that occasionally as it really is art.

  174. 174.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @James E Powell:

    All of the Right’s contradictions, its conspiracy theories and self-destructive behavior, are designed to serve as cudgels against reform and progress. They are necessarily incoherent [so] as to create strife and distrust and provide openings for consolidation of power.

    — Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) September 24, 2021

  175. 175.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Baud:

    None – easy peasy. Download The Verifly app if you’re flying American, and make sure to fill out your Passenger Locator Form off the Visit Greece app in advance with all your vaccination data.

    We arranged the mandatory return rapid test in Athens ahead of time, but plenty of walkins wandered up while we were there. Twenty minutes to print out, 40 minutes to email.

  176. 176.

    Haydnseek

    @Immanentize: Great cartoon.  I cut it out of the magazine with the intent of having it enlarged and printed, but it wound up in one of the ever shifting drifts of ephemera that comprise my domestic landscape.

  178. 178.

    J R in WV

    @Chief Oshkosh: ​

    Scrolling down in stream (but off-thread), a legit question is asked;

    We’re 9 months into the Biden presidency. Why is Louis DeJoy still postmaster general?

    Because the postmaster general doesn’t serve at the will and pleasure of the President — he is appointed by a USPS oversight board. Biden has appointed some new members to that board, turns out some of the new appointees weren’t necessarily sold on firing Dejoy.

    A better and more appropriate question would be “Why isn’t Dejoy in jail for interfering in the prompt delivery of first class mail?” because a postal inspector and a US District Attorney could get that done in an afternoon.

    ETA: Or for the obvious shitty contracting spending shoveling money to Dejoy’s friends!! That might take a forensic accountant and a little more time, but that’s OK. Once that investigation becomes public, his resignation can be required.

  181. 181.

    Nancy

    RE: PoliticoMy husband is the researcher and I followed his lead. I learn a lot from Wikipedia.

    Politico is owned by Axel Springer SE, “a German digital and popular periodical publishing house which is the largest in Europe, with numerous multimedia news brands, such as Bild, Die Welt, and Fakt and more than 15,000 employees. It generated total revenues of about €3.3 billion and an EBITDA of €559 million in the financial year 2015.

    Springer SE is owned by a hedge fund, “KKR & Co. Inc. (formerly known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and KKR & Co. L.P.) is an American global investment company that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit, and, through its strategic partners, hedge funds. We may want to make our assumptions based on this information.

    I’m guessing that clicks and the bottom line are now the driving force. Journalism comes in last.​

  183. 183.

    opiejeanne

    @Omnes Omnibus: My kids wore out a lot of my vinyl, and the girls blew out a speaker by playing one of the PDQ Bach recordings at too high volume, the one with popping balloons and IIRC, shotguns?

    I do have a “Billy and the Boingers” record somewhere, and a few of the “pocket records” from the 1960s on flexible vinyl, but to play them you have to disable the return on the turntable.

  185. 185.

    J R in WV

    @Immanentize:

    My turntable was (is) a B&O for which B&O no longer makes new cartridges. Of which it needs a new one. And the MacIntosh amp tends to blow one channel’s power transistor, for which I have shipped it back to Binghampton NY for replacement twice, not cheap.

    So now I leave the vinyl in the dark cool basement closet, and listen to digital tracks with new equipment.

  186. 186.

    Geminid

    @Major Major Major Major: Social scientists may find no effect from this kind of outreach,* but people closer to the ground believe in it. Some organizers described in the Politico article I reference above thought it was the best means they knew for mobilizing Arizona’s Democratic Latino voters.

    *One advocate  of more in-person outreach last fall was political scientist Rachel Biticofer. She has good base of social science knowledge, and thinks in-person outreach is an effective tool in the GOTV toolbox.

  189. 189.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Geminid: This is probably a real “both sides” argument.  We did what we did in 2020.  The reasons for the decision made sense at the time.  But it is no longer 2020 and we need to be looking at what give us the best chance going forward.

  191. 191.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Geminid:

    Social scientists may find no effect from this kind of outreach,* but people closer to the ground believe in it.

    50 million cigarette smokers can’t be wrong!

    As that Vox article notes, there’s decent evidence for canvassing’s effect on local elections, but basically none for national ones. So it makes sense that local organizers think it works–for most of their work, it does! However, their experiences maybe shouldn’t dictate how to spend presidential campaign resources.

  193. 193.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Steeplejack (phone): A person upset about a 24-hour time out should not email the blogmaster saying he knows where he lives. Did Cheryl think he was a subclinical troll, and that subclinical trolls should be banned? Sure, okay, and I disagreed with her (though we did agree on TenguPhule, fuck him). Is this behavior acceptable in a grown man who we want in our clubhouse? No.

  196. 196.

    MomSense

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Cheryl accused me of being a troll because I made a comment agreeing about the characterization of a video that a mostly lurker, infrequent commenter mentioned. She said I was a troll and that we were likely spreading misinformation.  So I posted the video.

  199. 199.

    Soprano2

    @Starfish: I’m so sorry your sister is sick. You never expect the one who is younger than you to be worse off than you are. I’ll be crossing my fingers that you get good news about her.

  201. 201.

    Geminid

    @Major Major Major Major: Local organizers are national campaign resources. I’m not saying that the experience of local organizers should dictate national campaign tactics, but I think they should at least inform national strategists.

    But like I said, it would be a good thing if someone did an good study of the effectiveness of the outreach described in “Inside the Machine to Turn Out the Latino Vote- and Turn Arizona Blue,” Politico November 1, 2020. I’ve gotten some answers from general state reporting, and probably would find out more with more research.

  203. 203.

    Ruckus

    So, we have 2 political parties.

    The what works for the vast majority party. Sensible, workable, the best for the most.

    And the life is a cartoon party. Sort of Tom and Jerry, but with a much lower success ratio for Tom. Reality is something to be laughed at, and to be discarded at all costs.

  204. 204.

    Geminid

    @Major Major Major Major: The Vox article is an interesting discussion of the efficacy of different modes of campaign outreach, in the context of the Biden campaign’s decision to forgo in-person campaigning. There were two points that struck me.

    One was that while in-person outreach has a negligible effect in persuasion of swing voters it was found to be substantially better than phonebanking in mobilizing Democratic voters to come out and vote. The author did argue that phonebanking might still be as effective dollar-for-dollar as in-person work.

    The second point was that campaign chief Jen O’Malley Dillon greenlighted renewed in-person outreach on October 1st of last year. What changed her mind? Did public health conditions change? or was she getting an earful from state- and local-level Democratic workers about ceding this part of the battleground to the opposition? She may have been doing this just to humor malcontents, but I think she realized that the election would be very close and that Democrats could not afford to leave any votes on the table.

  207. 207.

    Just Chuck

    What I like about records is that the covers are art, and browsing someone’s record collection is a wonderful sort of social ritual that you don’t get from scrolling through their shared playlists.

    Other than that I’m happy to ditch physical media and get the convenience of streaming.  If I want the human touch and social experience back in my music, I’ll just hop over to a bar and see a live show.

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