Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

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

Second rate reporter says what?

I was promised a recession.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

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

We still have time to mess this up!

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

This fight is for everything.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Not all heroes wear capes.

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

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

No Justins, No Peace

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

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

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

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Resisting Repressive Regimes

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  2. 2.

    PST

    Good morning. Man is it cold here in Chicago. I need to relearn the art of picking up dog poop without taking off my winter gloves.

  3. 3.

    MJS

    I hope there were two briefings for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – one for everyone to hear, and the real one, out of earshot of the members of the traitor caucus.

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    ‘I thought I was a free man’: the engineer fighting Texas’s ban on boycotting Israel

    For more than two decades, Texan civil engineer Rasmy Hassouna was a contractor for the city of Houston. Hassouna has consulted the city on soil volatility in the nearby Gulf of Mexico – a much needed service to evaluate the structural stability of houses and other buildings.

    He was gearing up to renew his government contract when a particular legal clause caught his eye: a provision that effectively banned him or his company, A&R Engineering and Testing, Inc, from ever protesting the nation of Israel or its products so long as his company was a partner with the city of Houston.

    For Hassouna – a 59-year-old proud Palestinian American – it was a huge shock.

    “I came here and thought I was a free man. It’s not anybody’s business what I do or what I say, as long as I’m not harming anybody,” he told the Guardian. “Were you lying all this time? If I don’t want to buy anything at WalMart, who are you to tell me not to shop at WalMart? Why do I have to pledge allegiance to a foreign country?”

    But Hassouna’s reaction did not stop at anger. He took action, launching a case that is challenging the Texas law and – by example – similar provisions that have spread all over the US that seek to stop government contractors from boycotting Israel and can be found in more than 25 US states. Along with the Arkansas Times newspaper, A&R Engineering and Testing Inc is now one of only two companies fighting this kind of law in the nation.

    Hassouna’s case – which was filed on his behalf by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) – will be heard in federal court on Tuesday and is based on the idea that such laws violate free speech. If ruled unconstitutional, the 2019 ban on boycotting Israel will be illegal in the state of Texas.

    Reading his life’s story, one can not help but understand his… dislike of Israel. Yeah, that’s the word.

  5. 5.

    Kay

    When the Supreme Court heard arguments last week for a case that could upend abortion rights nationwide, Mehmet Oz—the TV doctor and accused “quack” turned Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania—suggested he was at peace that the Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade.
    But only two years earlier, Oz characterized efforts to overturn Roe as a misleading and possibly conspiratorial crusade. Not only was Oz supportive of abortion rights, he seemed puzzled that people would spend time fighting abortion rights—going so far as to say that, as a physician, he was “really worried” about the anti-abortion movement and that eliminating Roe would have negative effects on women’s health.
    “It’s, as a doctor—just putting my doctor hat on—it’s a big-time concern,” Oz said in the 2019 interview, which aired on the Breakfast Club radio show. “Because I went to medical school in Philadelphia, and I saw women who had coat-hanger events. And I mean really traumatic events that happened when they were younger, before Roe v. Wade. And many of them were harmed for life.”

    I guess he’s taking his doctor hat off and putting his GOP fraud hat on.
    They all took the lessons of Trump well- say anything from one day to the next, lie constantly, it won’t matter at all.
    The leading candidate in the Senate race in Ohio, Josh Mandel, is running on abolishing public schools. He’s the top candidate. These are the senate candidates they create in the GOP- absolute nutjobs who will say or do anything.

  6. 6.

    Chief Oshkosh

    Gupta: This is the third time in three decades where Texas has eliminated a Latino electoral opportunity in this same district despite previous court determinations that this violates the law

    And so what have we learned, Sec. Gupta?

    Crime pays.

  8. 8.

    Kay

    When The Daily Beast called Dr. Oz for comment, he picked up his phone and immediately ended the call. He then did not reply to a text message asking about his remarks in the abortion discussion.

    He’ll get away with it. Trump did. Low quality hires.

  16. 16.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Mr DAW has been playing bridge in person at a club where they all have to show proof of vaccination. Yesterday, they were all told that someone in the group that played Friday has tested positive. I’m not terribly worried about Mr DAW (fully vaccinated and boosted), but I hate how long this has dragged on.

  17. 17.

    NotMax

    Who knew? (WaPo link.)

    Petroleum stockpiles aren’t the only strategic reserves being tapped this season amid concerns of supply shortages and sky-high prices.

    The Canadian federation that controls close to three-quarters of the world’s maple syrup production recently announced it will release about 50 million pounds of maple syrup from its emergency stockpile — almost half of the reserve — to keep Quebec’s liquid gold flowing to breakfast tables worldwide. Source

    ;)

  18. 18.

    Kay

    A lot of people questioned the school’s response to the Michigan shooting, and I don’t know if the schools response was correct but I do know the efforts to come up with a consistent, predictable response to threats in public schools is really difficult because public schools serve a lot of different groups of people.

    This is an example of how hard it is:

    On the heels of these victories, the Parkland parents have turned their attention to several other pieces of legislation winding their way through Congress, holding more than a dozen meetings with lawmakers in Washington last month. These include the Luke and Alex School Safety Act (named for two of the students who died in the Parkland massacre), or LASSA, which would codify a federal clearinghouse to outline school security recommendations, and the EAGLES Act (named for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school mascot), which would establish a new program focused on violence prevention in schools at the National Threat Assessment Center, a division of the U.S. Secret Service.
    While Stand With Parkland hails both LASSA and the EAGLES Act as critical, proactive safety measures, coalitions of hundreds of civil rights, disability rights, and privacy groups have been working hard to stop those bills from becoming law. In a series of letters sent to Congress over the past year, advocates have criticized the bills for entrenching school safety with law enforcement and for their embrace of threat assessment, a violence prevention strategy pioneered by the Secret Service to protect the president and other public officials.

    “We are fundamentally opposed to the notion that behavioral interventions in schools begin with the assumption that the student is a threat and that a threat must be mitigated. … Students of color are over policed and disproportionately disciplined in schools and we should curb this problem rather than further entrenching ineffective and discriminatory systems.”

    Students of color are disproportionally disciplined in schools, so of course adding a whole new law-enforcement derived “threat assessment” is a concern. I tend to think “school security measures” are a dodge of the real issue, which is that we’re drowning in guns. This country loves to dump every problem on public schools and walk away, and we’ve done that with guns.

  25. 25.

    Matt McIrvin

    @NotMax: If I recall correctly, BiP had enough of a history that I suspect he may have been a dupe rather than a professional. But the effect was the same either way. For a while he turned every thread on the site into an argument with him over Ukraine.

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    An American hedge-fund billionaire has surrendered 180 looted and illegally smuggled antiquities valued at $70m and been handed an unprecedented lifetime ban on acquiring other relics as part of an agreement with the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

    Michael Steinhardt, one of the world’s largest collectors of ancient art, “displayed a rapacious appetite for plundered artefacts”, the district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr said on Monday.
    ……………………………………
    Vance said: “For decades, Michael Steinhardt displayed a rapacious appetite for plundered artefacts without concern for the legality of his actions, the legitimacy of the pieces he bought and sold or the grievous cultural damage he wrought across the globe. His pursuit of ‘new’ additions to showcase and sell knew no geographic or moral boundaries, as reflected in the sprawling underworld of antiquities traffickers, crime bosses, money launderers and tomb raiders he relied upon to expand his collection.”

    Such blatant criminality….

    Vance noted that the antiquities would be returned to their rightful owners rather than be held as evidence for the years necessary to complete a grand-jury indictment and trial.

    “This resolution also enables my office to shield the identity of the many witnesses here and abroad whose names would be released at any trial, to protect the integrity of parallel investigations in each of the 11 countries with whom we are conducting joint investigations,” he said.
    ……………………………….
    In a statement, Steinhardt’s lawyers said: “Mr Steinhardt is pleased that the district attorney’s years-long investigation has concluded without any charges, and that items wrongfully taken by others will be returned to their native countries.”

    Lipstick on a pig. Funny how money changes the equation. They are quite willing to subject a poor man to years of jail time without a trial, so they can pressure him into accepting a plea bargain regardless of actual innocence or guilt, while they will drop all charges to avoid a years long court battle with a rich man’s lawyers.

    Money talks.

  34. 34.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Kay: But they keep getting elected or to use your word hired because by the largest demographic group keeps voting for them.

    Have you tried your skills of persuasion on your Republican voting friends and family.

    I have tried to convince my BJP voting friends and family with little success.

  35. 35.

    Geminid

    @OzarkHillbilly: I hope Mr. Hassouna wins his case. Besides being unconstitutional, these anti-BDS laws are self-defeating. They tend to build sympathy for a movement that, objectively, has failed and would have failed without these stupid laws.

  36. 36.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @OzarkHillbilly: I had meant to note this above:

    Under the terms of the agreement, Steinhardt has surrendered The Stag’s Head Rhyton, a spectacular ceremonial vessel in the form of a stag’s head, which dates to 400BCE and appeared without provenance on the market following looting in Milas, Turkey. It is valued at $3.5m.

    Spectacular is a bit of an understatement.

  38. 38.

    Steve in the ATL

    Why isn’t the DOJ going after Georgia’s proposed redistricting as well?  It’s awful.

  39. 39.

    Kay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I don’t actually know if Mandel will win in Ohio. He’s awful enough he might be beatable. It’s not just the nutjob opinions and pandering to the ultra far Right- it’s that he’s a repellent person on every level.

  42. 42.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @OzarkHillbilly:  I suspect he will do it again, and they probably do as well. Men like that are arrogant. The minute he purchases another illicit antiquity, they will pounce. Meanwhile, the other investigations will net some of his suppliers.

  44. 44.

    RinaX

    Sometimes people suck. A LGBTQA+ (‽) friendly pastor from Indiana was effectively ostracized by many in his congregation for appearing in drag on the HBO show, “We’re Here.”

    And sometimes they don’t. A GoFundMe set up to help the pastor’s family out as they figure out next steps has already exceeded its goal.

  45. 45.

    Kay

    “It’s, as a doctor—just putting my doctor hat on—it’s a big-time concern,” Oz said in the 2019 interview, which aired on the Breakfast Club radio show. “Because I went to medical school in Philadelphia, and I saw women who had coat-hanger events. And I mean really traumatic events that happened when they were younger, before Roe v. Wade. And many of them were harmed for life.”

    Doctor Oz has “made peace” with this. He’s given it some thought and looked at some polling and he’s determined X number of women dying is something he can live with, in service to his political ambitions.

  46. 46.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Geminid: I suppose that’s the question.  I’ve been too depressed to look at it closely, buy my rep, who is black (the awesome Lucy McBath) is being forced into the same district as the other new Democrat in the northern suburbs (the awesome Carolyn Boudreaux).  In Cobb County (metro Atlanta), a slice of Democrats are being added to MTG’s nuthouse of a district to dilute their votes.  There’s a lot more, but as noted I haven’t been able to dig into it.  Maybe some of the other Georgia jackals can weigh in.

    These moves may not violate Clarence Thomas’s version of the VRA, which is that reducing representation for racial reasons violates it but doing so for political reasons does not.  Of course, god only knows what the new radical SCOTUS judges will do.

  47. 47.

    germy

    Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, Dr. Drew…  yeesh.

    I remember when Dr. Phil had an episode devoted to “ideal beauty” and he actually had an expert with a pair of calipers come out of the audience to measure the facial structure of the panelists.  An old man with a little smirk on his face that I’ve seen on older racists. I remember another episode of Dr. Phil, when he had a psychic as a guest.

    A few years ago the New Yorker did a profile on Dr. Oz.  They talked to some doctors he used to work with.  They all admitted they would not choose him for their healthcare.

    Dr. Drew.  Early in the pandemic he said the whole covid thing was overblown by the media.

  48. 48.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    They had tons of recordings on Trump. They still turned him into their God-King. This “belief system” is endlessly flexible. What’s a couple of blatant lies? Trump told thousands. 70-some per cent of them think Trump won.

  49. 49.

    dmsilev

    @NotMax: I learned of the existence of that reserve some years back, because it was in the news due to a daring heist which ripped off umpteen million dollars worth of the stuff:

    The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist (French: vol de sirop d’érable du siècle, lit. ’maple syrup heist of the century’) was the theft over several months in 2011 and 2012 of nearly 3,000 tonnes (3,000 long tons; 3,300 short tons) of maple syrup, valued at C$18.7 million from a storage facility in Quebec.

  50. 50.

    Geminid

    @Kay: Mandel is not helped by the money other Republicans are spending to tear him down. Now a similar process has begun in Georgia, where former Senator David Perdue is challenging incumbent Governor Brian Kemp. That will be a bitter race to the bottom, and a gift for Stacey Abrams.

  51. 51.

    danielx

    Seventeen degrees…..I have to admit I thought heated seats were something I would never use when we got a new vehicle a few months back. I have since revised that opinion.

  53. 53.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I suspect he will do it again, and they probably do as well. Men like that are arrogant.

    Wouldn’t surprise me in the least, he got away with it once and all he lost was couch change.

    The minute he purchases another illicit antiquity, they will pounce.

    Like a tabby cat playing with a toy.

    Meanwhile, the other investigations will net some of his suppliers.

    Maybe. Maybe not. I have my doubts that anything of consequence will happen to them.

  54. 54.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: Yeah, but what I mean is that one of his primary opponents will use it against him to turn the MAGA voters against him. I agree, if he actually wins the primary those voters won’t care that he said it anymore.

  55. 55.

    Soprano2

    @danielx: Heated seats are the best when it’s really cold! I had a 2012 Sonata that had heated back seats. My current Sonata doesn’t have that feature, but I do have the heated front seats.

  58. 58.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    I don’t know about Georgia but it’s the best one could ask for in Ohio. It helps. Maybe not enough but it helps. We need some luck. Tim Ryan has a good campaign. It’s like Sherrod’s campaigns- not flashy but dogged. He’s a good fit for this state.

  61. 61.

    Kay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    So who cares?

    They’re all completely cavalier about it, including the GOP justices. It’s really misleading. It’s a profound change and it will impact the whole country, just like their radical lurch Right on guns and voting impacted the whole country. We don’t actually live in a country where each state is an independent entity. That’s imaginary.

  62. 62.

    Geminid

    @Kay: Every now and then I catch a bit of Tim Ryan speaking on the House floor, firing back at some stupid Republican. I like Ryan’s style: folksy and emphatic.

  64. 64.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2: I could see a Democrat using those words against Oz in the general election. Or maybe an outside group like NARAL.

    But I tend to discount Oz’s chances to be the nominee. A fat cat hedge fund owner, David MacIntosh, is said to be ready to jump in. He’s like Virginia’s Youngkin: plenty of money to spread around, and no record to defend.

  65. 65.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    I think he knows that most of his voters aren’t online. I have to adjust to it myself at local D meetings. They watch “the news”, so not cable. The big, free news. It’s kind of nice to switch gears. I can say it changes how you view things. I wasn’t “online” for politics in the 2004 Presidential race and I think I had a more accurate impression, was much less optimistic.

  66. 66.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Do you think Oz has a shot at knocking the repulsive Mandel out of the GOP primary frontrunner position? Seems like Mandel would be more beatable in the general, but on the other hand, it’s nauseating to think a nut like that would have a less than zero change of becoming the next senator.

  67. 67.

    Spanky

    The late, lamented Jetta had heated seats, until the back element went out. Was great on those occasional Maryland mornings.

    What I really want to see are cooled seats becoming common. Summers here are a lot longer and fiercer than our winters. And likely to get worse, obvs.

  68. 68.

    Betty Cracker

    Maybe some MAGA kook will challenge Marco Rubio in the primary. He became a Trump toady after 2016, but he did imply Emperor Tang has a small dick on national TV that time.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    I listen to local news in the car- most of it is slightly repacked national news, I assume they buy clips or something- and I’m always struck by how Right wing it is, just consistently and casually. Commercial country music stations deliver a consistent Right wing message – it becomes less of a mystery why people who are not engaged politically still internalize these really political themes. It’s all around them.

    It’s why I jeer so much at the “cancel culture” people who think “The Left” has taken over something or other. I know where they live if they believe this :)

    It isn’t the reality most places.

  75. 75.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @OzarkHillbilly: Hedge Fund Manger, quite likely that they took his loot away made him cry because stealing shit is all that kind cares about. Also keep in mind the actual crime was committed in other countries so Mr Master of the Universe might be facing extradition

    And there is also a good chance a lot of his artifacts are fakes anyway. Like that stag’s head looks suspiciously modern in it’s lack of patina and general art style for something from Hittite Empire.

  77. 77.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soprano2: ​Heated seats are the best when it’s really cold!

    You know what’s better than heated seats? Heated steering wheel.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    The side benefit of the Ohio race is you get to watch JD Vance and his fancy backers be humiliated.

    Jesus Christ, the MAGAS even pegged him as a fraud and an empty suit. How stupid are his wealthy backers?

  79. 79.

    PST

    @Kay:

    I don’t actually know if Mandel will win in Ohio. He’s awful enough he might be beatable. It’s not just the nutjob opinions and pandering to the ultra far Right- it’s that he’s a repellent person on every level.

    In addition, the repellent base that this repellent candidate is pandering to contains plenty of antisemites. Some fraction of the “Jews will not replace us” crowd isn’t going to turn out for him. It’s no accident that none of our ten incumbent Jewish senators is a Republican. In the lizard brains of some of these yahoos, Tim Ryan may seem more “one of us” even though he’s a pretty good Democrat, especially given the realities of Ohio political leanings.

  80. 80.

    SteveinPHX

    @NotMax:

     
    OMG! That should have been in Melatonia’s WH Xmas display of phantasmagoria. TFG would have thought it beeyoutifull!

  81. 81.

    germy

    @Kay:

    My local news is very subtle with editing and how they describe issues.  For example, if Biden passes a good law, they report “Biden claims [law x] will solve [problem x].”  They try to make him sound like a lying child.

    And after the “Biden (or any Democrat) claims [x]” they’ll give a Republican the last word, to say how problematic the new law is.

    It’s a template they follow every time.

  82. 82.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @germy: My God is Oliver right on the British Museum, particularly it’s Egyptian Collection, the exhibit I saw was easily a depressing 50% of it was “providence unknown” ie “we bought it from a looter”

  83. 83.

    PST

    @Kay:

    Doctor Oz has “made peace” with this. He’s given it some thought and looked at some polling and he’s determined X number of women dying is something he can live with, in service to his political ambitions.

    Much as he has made peace with running under the banner of a party that has made fear and hatred of Muslims a big part of its brand. Oz proved long ago that he is shameless when his ambitions are at stake, so this should not surprise.

  84. 84.

    Kristine

    @danielx: Heated seats were part of an options package that I bought because of the other options back when I got my Forester in ‘02. I’ve used them every winter.

    They also come in handy if my back is acting up.

  85. 85.

    Geminid

    @PST: Ohio voters refusing to vote for the Jewish Mandel could be a factor. Some conservative evangelicals ardently support the Jewish people in Israel, but are more ambivalent about the Jewish people here. This could make a difference in a close race, and Ohio’s Senate race will probably be close.

    I always thought that some Republican evangelical voters stayed home in 2012 because Romney was LDS. They might not turn out for Mandel either.

  86. 86.

    senyordave

    @Kay: Jesus Christ, the MAGAS even pegged him as a fraud and an empty suit. How stupid are his wealthy backers?

    Peter Thiel is his main man, and Thiel is supposedly enamored with Ann Coulter.  How’s that for stupid?  But Thiel’s worth billions, so its just a drop in the bucket.

     

    .

  89. 89.

    rikyrah

    Always doing the work!


    Rep. Lauren Underwood (@RepUnderwood) tweeted at 7:25 AM on Tue, Dec 07, 2021:
    Today I’m joining the @VP and other maternal health champions at the @WhiteHouse to discuss the historic #Momnibus provisions in the #BuildBackBetter Act. We have a once-in-a-generation chance to pass the largest investment in history to save moms’ lives – the time to act is now.
    (https://twitter.com/RepUnderwood/status/1468210031850147845?t=ObmZSUSp5z4F3PN8LAWccw&s=03)

  91. 91.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: You know what’s better than heated seats? Heated steering wheel.

    Now I’m imagining how that will be used in a Christine remake.

    I guess in the remake, it doesn’t have to be demonic possession; the car’s computer could become sentient.  Maybe it spreads by the built-in wifi…  Yes, I think I finally have my outline for the Cars prequel.

  92. 92.

    rikyrah

    All the while, their Orange Savior is fully vaccinated and boostered.

    Uh huh

     

    John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) tweeted at 8:15 AM on Mon, Dec 06, 2021: persuasion and mandates have gradually pushed up vaccinations among those initially hesistant, including Blacks and Hispanics they haven’t melted hard-core resistance among Republicans, who now make up 60% of unvaccinated Americans, according to @KFF https://t.co/vX2r7TcRXO (https://twitter.com/JohnJHarwood/status/1467860354545893380?t=OG2ATPef7-d4oQqT0_7vRQ&s=03)

  93. 93.

    Spanky

    DougJ must have a new gig! Actual cnn.com headline:

    ‘Unbelievable’: Revelation about Trump’s condition angers Maggie Haberman

  95. 95.

    Geminid

    @rikyrah: I’m glad to see that Lauren Underwood is beginning to get the recognition she deserves. I respected her just for flipping a red seat in 2018, but her legislative work since then has been impressive.

  97. 97.

    Kay

    So I have developed a friendship with my daughter in law’s grandmother, who is Danish but is in her 90’s and lives in Arizona. It started at their wedding in Chicago where she grasped my hand when we first met and said “I had a dream about you“. She’s a little eccentric but lovely.

    There’s this “family christening dress” from 1890 or something, it was in Denmark but traveled to Michigan and then Arizona with the grandmother and I’m bringing it back to Denmark to give to my daughter in law at the grandmother’s request. It has the wildest little shoes. Like a narrow women’s low heeled leather boot but TINY, with a fur collar, rabbit, I think. I just don’t see broad baby feet fitting in this shoe. Did they just jam them in?

  98. 98.

    burnspbesq

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Why isn’t the DOJ going after Georgia’s proposed redistricting as well?

    Who says they’re not? DOJ under Garland is, happily, very close to leakproof.

    Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

  99. 99.

    rikyrah

    MVP’s bluetooth ‘ scandal’…. another example of how the MSM ain’t shyt.

     

    We had a President of the United States who routinely went around making phone calls on UNSECURED PHONES

     

    UN-SECURED PHONES

     

    I don’t remember them being hysterical about that.

     

    Yeah, got receipts for days on these clowns.

  103. 103.

    Another Scott

    @rikyrah:

    Obligatory, …

    My three-year-old asked me “daddy why does the vice president use wired headphones” and when I told him “because she doesn’t trust Bluetooth”, he started crying.

    — New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) December 7, 2021

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  104. 104.

    Geminid

    @germy: @Xeni (Jardin)’s tweets about the Maxwell trial have been interesting. Maxwell, Jardin contends, was a “boss.” and her and Epstein’s criminal activities had an intelligence aspect that affected national security.

    Jardin provides links to people who are covering the trial more extensively. She shares her own insights as a sexual abuse survivor and as someone who was involved with the Edge Foundation that brought Epstein into contact with various tech titans. I’m hoping that when she gets back to serious journalism, Jardin will write more extensively about these matters.

  106. 106.

    Kay

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — New measures that restrict how race is addressed in classrooms have spread confusion and anxiety among many educators, who in some cases have begun pulling books and canceling lessons for fear of being penalized.
    Education officials have nixed a contemporary issues class in a Tennessee district, removed Frederick Douglass’ autobiography from reading lists in an Oklahoma school system and, in one Texas case, advised teachers to present “opposing” views of the Holocaust.
    At least a dozen states have passed measures this year restricting how schools teach about racism, sexism and other topics. While educators are still waiting to see how they will be enforced, the vagueness of some of the measures, coupled with stiff penalties including potential loss of teaching licenses, already are chilling conversations on race in schools and, in some cases, having consequences that likely go well beyond the intent of those approving the measures.

    Mission accomplished. You should see the garbage they’re replacing it with. Junk books written by conservative political activists in the 1980s. Books they had to hand out at Reagan rallies because no one would pay for them. You’ll all be paying for them now! Required reading.

  108. 108.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Kristine: On Sunday, when it was sunny and in the mid 40’s I went for a spin in the convertible and was very thankful for heated seats.

  109. 109.

    James E Powell

    @Kay: 

    I get local news listening to sports talk radio on my morning commute. It basically the world according to Limbaugh news.

  110. 110.

    Soprano2

    @Spanky: I have those cooled seats, but I forget to use them. It’s not hard to remember the heated seats. I have a heated steering wheel too, which really only works well if you have on gloves.

  112. 112.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: We could compete for who has the worst Republican Senate candidates in their state. There was just a story about Greitens, that he has violated campaign finance law again. Then there’s the man of the “point a gun at peaceful protesters walking past our house” couple, who is another Senate candidate. My local rep, who never has town hall meetings with his constituents, is running, as is our attorney general who hasn’t seen a local or school mask mandate he won’t file a lawsuit against. It goes on…..

  113. 113.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soprano2: I’m jealous.

    When I got my latest truck, I had no idea it had heated seats. I mean c’mon, it’s a work truck. Then I accidentally hit the button. Ruined me forever. A heated steering wheel would destroy my last vestige of manliness. ;-)

  117. 117.

    geg6

    @Kay:

    Well, in case you’ve never seen him or read anything about him, Peter Thiel is not the brightest bulb in the box, AFAICT.

  118. 118.

    laura

    @rikyrah: You and I both know that it’s not the headphones, the quality cookware, the please wait outside my office. You and I both know that Kamala Harris represents a shift in power to non white non male non extreme wealth and privilige and as such she is a threat to those who presume that power is their alone.

    I’m disappointed that the hot take is about the stuff when the reality is so plainly obvious the vast right wing conspirators are out to destroy our Vice President in the lead up to 2024 and 2028 and make her the most reviled woman in America. They use her strengths against her, they rumor monger and use unnamed sources Not on my watch. I’m going to be a broken record on this subject and without apology.

  119. 119.

    Soprano2

    @germy: I notice the “try” template being used a lot with Democrats, like “The Biden administration will try to do ‘x'” when really they could say “the Biden administration will do ‘x'”. I hear this over and over again in news stories. I don’t seem to hear it much in association with Republicans.

  121. 121.

    artem1s

    @Geminid:

    @Kay: Mandel is not helped by the money other Republicans are spending to tear him down. Now a similar process has begun in Georgia, where former Senator David Perdue is challenging incumbent Governor Brian Kemp. That will be a bitter race to the bottom, and a gift for Stacey Abrams.

    where is that Lincoln Project f**cker John Kasich when you could really use him? He could end the GOP’s chances to keep that seat if he’d declare as an independent and split the last remaining quasi-moderate GOPer vote. Ryan might have a chance then. As it is he doesn’t have a chance in hell once the GOP decides which deplorable will own the libs better – Mandel or Vance.

  123. 123.

    J R in WV

    My last trip to AZ back before the Trumpian plague, my cousin and I rented a Ram 1500 4×4 truck, which was surprisingly great. I could have cooled seats (I run a little hot!) while cousin could have heated seats, he runs a little cold. The V-8 truck got something like 26 mpg which was really good for a 4×4 truck that we ran off road quite a bit to get to our cabin.

    It also had a total readout of all computer monitored data on the dashboard, you could scroll through tranny temp, oil pressure/temp, steering fluid temp, etc, etc. Was amazing. I know all modern vehicles have those sensors, this was the first one I saw that had the detailed read out available on the dash.

    If I thought it would last several hundred thousand miles and many years I would be all over buying one. But it’s a Dodge product… so…?

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