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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Friday Morning Open Thread: ‘World, Meet Willow’

Friday Morning Open Thread: ‘World, Meet Willow’

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The *most* important news at the top of the morning:

The long-awaited White House cat has joined the Biden family — and her name is Willow. Michael LaRosa, a spokesman for first lady Jill Biden, confirmed the 2-year-old, gray-and-white short-haired tabby’s arrival, saying the cat is “settling into the White House with her favorite toys, treats and plenty of room to smell and explore.”

Willow is named after Jill Biden’s hometown of Willow Grove, Pa. The cat comes from an unnamed Western Pennsylvania farm where the Bidens made a campaign trip in 2020.

“Willow made quite an impression on Dr. Biden in 2020 when she jumped up on the stage and interrupted her remarks during a campaign stop,” wrote LaRosa in a news release. “Seeing their immediate bond, the owner of the farm knew that Willow belonged with Dr. Biden.”…

No word yet on if Willow has been introduced to Commander — and whether the pair get along.

Obviously not a cat to be spooked by the limelight! Not to mention, one who isn’t afraid to go for what she wants…

Reader Interactions

105Comments

  1. 1.

    Elizabelle

    Welcome Willow. Lovely cat.

    There’s been a bridge collapse in Pittsburgh. Not many details; I hope no injuries and fatalities. President Biden will be in Pittsburgh today to speak on infrastructure (previously scheduled).

  2. 2.

    Another Scott

    This is a sign that Teh Meteor is near, right?? Like the Cubs winning the World Series??!

    (Insert DougJBalloon tweet here.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  8. 8.

    Spanky

    I was going to post about that bridge too. Collapsed during rush hour, took down a commuter bus and at least 4 cars. Actually one of the younger bridges in Pgh.

  10. 10.

    germy

    When we move stuff faster through ports, when bridges don’t have weight restrictions, when there’s less traffic on our roads — that’s how we resolve supply chain problems and get goods to people quicker and cheaper.

    The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is helping make it happen.

    — President Biden (@POTUS) January 24, 2022

    I thought weight restrictions were a good idea. What am I missing here?

  11. 11.

    Ken

    @Elizabelle: I wonder which Fox News program will be the first to speculate the bridge collapse was engineered to support the speech

    (“Speculate” may be too strong. Breathlessly report that “some think” is more likely.)

  12. 12.

    Soprano2

    That cat is beautiful, about time they got the cat. I guess they had to make sure Willow and Commander can get along first.

    I don’t know why reporters keep asking those kind of questions; I guess they’re hoping that she’ll fall for it. Funny how the reporter couldn’t tell Psaki who is asking those questions. LOL And yeah, I hope the next press secretary does the same thing, because it’s effective.

  15. 15.

    Soprano2

    @germy: I think he’s talking about weight restrictions lower than what a bridge was initially built for because the condition of the bridge is so bad.

  16. 16.

    Nicole

    The articles say minor injuries, but no fatalities, so that’s a relief.  Also says the last inspection of the bridge said it was in “poor” condition.

  19. 19.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I know I’m not the only one who saw the title and thought something dire had happened with the tree in John’s back yard.

    ETA: And sure enough, DAW at #3 was on it immediately!

  20. 20.

    Ken

    @Spanky: Or further proof that it’s a false flag operation with crisis actors in the vehicles, all to provide something Biden can point to in his speech.

  21. 21.

    zhena gogolia

    First day at work and forgot to bring my lunch. Nothing’s open for faculty. Good thing I have a can of Pringles.

  25. 25.

    germy

    Thanks, all. Now I understand Biden’s bridge quote.   Fix the bridges so we’re not afraid to use them, basically.

  26. 26.

    Elizabelle

    Talk about an incredible backdrop for Biden’s speech today.  Toomey voted against the infrastructure bill, FWIW.

    And we’ve got a massive snowstorm on tap for the weekend.

    And:  today is the 100th anniversary of the Knickerbocker Theatre collapse in Washington DC.  Roof collapsed under the weight of a heavy snowfall.  98 dead.  28 inches of snow had fallen over a 2-3 day period; that record for a single snowstorm stands to this day.  Theatre held 1,000; only 300 in attendance because of the weather.  A Harold Lloyd film screened earlier that week.  WaPost article.
    How the Knickerbocker snowstorm became D.C.’s deadliest disaster 100 years ago

    PS:  Sorry to be stomping on the very happy news of cat Willow Biden and her new digs.  The bridge collapse caught my attention, though, and a friend and I were already following the Knickerbocker anniversary.

  27. 27.

    Spanky

    @Spanky: WTAE livestream:

    Fifty yar old bridge.

    Rated POOR on last inspection.

    10% of the bridges in Allegheny County are rated POOR. That’s over a hundred.

    Due to condition, weight limit of 26 tons was imposed, but in fact few vehicles were on it. (It’s snowing in Pgh.

    ETA: Only 10 people on bridge at the time, and 3 were injured. Big bullet dodged there

    ETA2: Prez is “grateful” for 1st responders. Still coming to town.

  30. 30.

    JMG

    Two feet of snow expected here tomorrow, with blizzard conditions all along the Massachusetts coastline. Probably major power outages on Cape Cod, where gusts of 70 mph or more are expected. We haven’t had a real buster of a major snowstorm in greater Boston for a few years. We were due. Did our food shopping yesterday. Will get gas for snowblower this morning. We have a plow service, but belt and suspenders is a snow prep habit.

  32. 32.

    O. Felix Culpa

    We got maybe an inch of snow in our little corner of New Mexico. Santa Fe, which is ~1000 feet higher, got five inches. The state has about three snow plows to clear the roads (slight exaggeration), so we’re staying home and admiring the wintry view for a while.

    ETA: Welcome, Willow!

  33. 33.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud: I think he’s saying fix/replace so that the bridges can at least carry the loads they were designed to carry originally. The load restrictions exist because many older bridges can no longer meet the original needs/design specs.

     

    ETA: Soprano2 at 15 said it better.

  34. 34.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Willow the Cat is beautiful and sounds like a curious and affectionate moggy. She’ll be a lovely addition to the Biden White House.

    That bridge collapse in Pittsburgh may have been predictable, but it’s still a terrible thing. I hope it doesn’t affect any of our area Jackals.

    Had a nice surprise a few minutes ago. I have a wallet that I love, absolutely adore, but after 30+ years it is really raggedy, just peeling and ugly and falling apart. So I was emptying it out, all the little pockets crammed with old business cards and long-expired membership cards and out-of-date IDs and so on, and discovered — wedged among and hidden behind the aforesaid detritus — five crisp, neatly folded, $50 bills! Two hundred fifty bucks in found money! Comes at a good time, too, as I’m going to the Southeastern Stamp Expo later today and hope to buy some stamps and FDCs for my collection, and now I won’t have to stop at the bank on the way. Thank you, Universe!

  36. 36.

    SFAW

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    New Mexico. Santa Fe, which is about 1000 higher, got five inches.

    Well, here in central MA, which is about 1000-plus miles higher (on the map, that is), we’re supposed to get 18-24 inches. The coast is supposed to get really slammed — heavy snow, high winds.

    Anne Laurie: I hope you get through this without losing power, and are able to stay off the roads tomorrow.

    Now, I have to toddle off to make sure my backup generator is working, and get my snow blower into the garage.

  37. 37.

    Geminid

    @Spanky: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a good write up of the bridge collapse. The part that fell spanned a park. One scary aspect was a ruptured natural gas line that “sounded like a jet engine.” The gas was shut off before it ignited.

    President Biden will fly into Allegheny   County Airport in West Mifflin, then travel to Hazelwood to make remairks on the supply chain and infrastructure at 2pm.

  39. 39.

    SFAW

    I am outraged that the Bidens apparently didn’t even consider a white male kitty. Yet another example of Lie-beral affirmative action quotas.

  43. 43.

    PST

    @Geminid: I believe I’ve walked across that bridge. Friends lived nearby until recently. (Like many people I know, they recently decided to grow old in a single story home.) It’s a beautiful park and a beautiful area.

  44. 44.

    Spanky

    @Geminid: The P-G and I have a hate-hate relationship, so I’m not going to look, but there are a number of popular trails running under that bridge, but no one was under there (we hope!) due to the poor weather. It looks like the gas line that went down with the bridge was shut down pretty fast

    Hopefully Suzanne will chime in, and that she wasn’t involved.

  45. 45.

    PST

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): To say that we ought to remove weight restrictions rather than that we ought to repair the bridges would be a very Trumpish-Deathsantish thing to say, wouldn’t it? Like testing less for Covid instead of vaccinating for it.

  46. 46.

    satby

    You know, at the moment (because rescues) I have 6 cats. And I just don’t give a shit about what pets the Bidens own, though it’s nice they do. I wish our failing news media and gnat-attention-span citizens cared as much about policy that affects their lives as they do frivolous things.

  49. 49.

    Spanky

    On the scene reporter on the WTAE website has a jackhammer going in the background. Also a couple of very large wreckers, so things are moving toot sweet.

  50. 50.

    satby

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It really does sound like Biden thinks weight restrictions are a bad idea

    No it doesn’t, unless you’re completely clueless about the national conversation about our crumbling bridges that’s been ongoing for the last 20 years.

  52. 52.

    Baud

    @satby:

    I wish our failing news media and gnat-attention-span citizens cared as much about policy that affects their lives as they do frivolous things

     

    They do, when it’s INFLATION!!!

  54. 54.

    Leto

    Jill Biden’s hometown of Willow Grove, Pa

    Well that’s pretty awesome. That’s where I retired out of, the former Willow Grove Air Base. It was a joint Navy/AF air base, but in the 2011 round of BRAC the military removed all planes from the base (F-18s and A-10s), the Navy gave control of the base to the AF, and the base changed its name to Horsham Air Guard Base. It’s now a very small base being mainly used as a communications hub.

    This has been your very local tidbit of trivia. We return you to cat pics and Psaki making clowns of our fourth estate.

  55. 55.

    PST

    Speaking of snow, we are having beautiful lake-effect snow here in Chicago this morning. I have seldom seen as many happy dogs as I did this morning around dawn walking with Bernie. Lots of frolicking. I’m sure if they’d had thumbs they would have thrown snowballs, but all they could do was bat the snow at one another. One golden I saw decided to become a snow gopher and tunnel. When we got home my wife called in a panic because the car was stuck, so I realize it wasn’t fun for everyone. But in some ways this kind of day is a reason to live in the temperate zone. The wife extricated herself, so now I feel like a kid taking a snow day again.

  56. 56.

    Suzanne

    @Spanky: Well, I got a call about 6 AM saying that the schools were going to 2-hour snow delay. Then just got call/text/tweet about 30 minutes ago that all the PreK-8th grades are doing a remote day instead.

  58. 58.

    BellyCat

    The bridge collapse is in my neighborhood. Major artery.

    Same day as President Biden comes to visit and talk about infrastructure. Coincidence?!?! Did he really need to have the Secret Service blow up a bridge to prove his point? It would be irresponsible to not speculate. // ?

    Stay tuned for this conspiracy to get floated, if it has not already.


    (Have not read the thread, so I imagine an astute jackal has pointed this out already)

  59. 59.

    Steeplejack

    @JMG:

    We’re supposed to get the edge of that storm here in the DMV, anywhere from a “dusting” to a couple of inches in my little corner of NoVA. I’m having lunch with a friend at noon today, and after that I’ll hit the grocery store. I’m due for a run anyway, and that will get me through any snow that we end up having.

  60. 60.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @satby:

    @Baud:

    While I understand your points, I can just imagine the bad faith actors out there running with something like this because it plays into so many BS right-wing narratives about Biden. And I’m sure a lot of low-info folks won’t know what was really meant either, they’ll have the same reaction germy and I did

  63. 63.

    Leto

    @Steeplejack: we currently have a light amount falling. It’s pretty, not sticking, but that will probably change around 4-5pm as the main body of the storm moves in. Hoping that the storm follows the US model versus the European one.

  64. 64.

    Spanky

    @Suzanne: Ah, so that’s where you are. There’s a couple of nearly unaltered Sears houses side by side on Pioneer Ave, one of which my uncle built before he married my aunt now nearly a hundred years ago. My cousin still lives there.

  65. 65.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steeplejack:

    Haha, they’re not even silver certificates. But I’ll bet they’ve been lurking there for a good four or five years!

    And they’re so crisp and crackling, I’m more concerned that the stamp dealers will think I just printed them :-)

  66. 66.

    Spanky

    BTW, I just took a Google Streetview drive over that bridge, and it looks appalling. I’d have concerns about going over it irl.

  67. 67.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Geminid:

    @satby:

    @Baud:

    Truth be told, it’s not a huge deal now that I think more about it. If it becomes anything, it will be forgotten about in a day or so and the vast majority of people will never even read this tweet

  69. 69.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Sweet! What year did those bills come out? I’ve always liked looking at old money

  72. 72.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    GOLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachi
    she’s one of the first press secretaries in recent memory who consistently challenges reporters when they use passive voice to try to play gotcha

    I love that she pushes back on “people are saying…”

    She’s very sharp

  74. 74.

    normal liberal

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Oh, for pity’s sake, let’s stop catering to the bad-faith merchants.  Anyone who regularly travels across a bridge knows what the tweet means. As to the constant critics, they will carp and complain no matter how carefully the tweet is composed. All the handwringing gives aid and comfort to the assholes.

  76. 76.

    WaterGirl

    @Suzanne: That’s scary.

    As it should be.  Minnesota cared about bridges for about 45 minutes after they had a bridge collapse.

    Hopefully the timing of this along with BBB and the bipartisan bill might help this be seen in a new light.

  77. 77.

    Spanky

    @Suzanne: Almost all the bridges ARE that shitty. 175 rated POOR in Allegheny County alone. I suspect that was a reason Biden was going there to begin with.

  78. 78.

    matt

    On the Psaki passive-voice thing – she’s showing the reporters how to do their jobs better, not that they’re interested.

  79. 79.

    Suzanne

    @Spanky: When I was a kid, the Mill Avenue rail bridge in Tempe washed out in a rain storm. I remember that still. Then some years later, the dam burst, about a quarter-mile further down the river.

  80. 80.

    James E Powell

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I don’t understand why Golikehellmachine thinks her cynicism is a negative. The general public doesn’t follow White House press. The only things they might hear about are the gotchas & the gaffes.

    And I reject the idea that Rs can attack & even promote violence against the press, but Ds have to be careful not to be cynical. The reporters who get those responses are a holes. Everyone knows that.

  81. 81.

    JoyceCB

    More trivia, more trivial than most:  I did not know that Jill Biden was from Willow Grove.  My mother grew up just down the road in Abington PA.  Grandparents lived there until the late 60’s.  I well remember seeing the aircraft on display at the gate to the Willow Grove Naval Air Station, as it was then.  My mother and her friends volunteered at a canteen on the station during the war.

  82. 82.

    Baud

    @James E Powell:

    I think that there are two ways people overreact to Republicans.  One is to think Republican assholery represents strength that should be emulated.  The other is to regard such assholery as an evil that we most avoid at all costs by forswearing any demonstration of strength, confidence, self-assurance or decisiveness in our actions and our words.

  84. 84.

    pat

    I haven’t read all the comments yet.

    I can’t be the only one to note that the WILLOW is finally INSIDE the HOUSE…..

    Heh.

  85. 85.

    VOR

    The reporter asking Psaki a question in that clip seems to conflate inflation with higher taxes. Not even remotely the same thing. Reminds me of the 2016 election when TFG didn’t understand the difference between the budget deficit and the trade deficit.

    Welcome Willow!

  87. 87.

    Edmund Dantes

    @germy: additional weight restrictions beyond the original design load.

    weight restrictions added because the bridge is in such bad shape from its deteriorating condition that you can’t have the normal load you would expect go over it.

  88. 88.

    Geminid

    @pat: And now Matt Iglesias will report that Democratic Senators are complaining that Willow is too close to the House.

  89. 89.

    Geminid

    @Spanky: Pennsylvania’s bad bridges are a good reason for Biden to make this appearance in Pittsburgh. Another is that the state has critical races for Governor and Senator this year.

    The administration seems to target battleground states for visits by the President and Vice President. I noticed that Vice President Harris made two appearances in North Carolina shortly after the Infrastructure bill passed. And maybe battleground Congressional districts. When President Biden flew to Kansas City to tout the Infrastructure bill, Representative Sharice Davids (KS-3) met him at the airport.

  90. 90.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Geminid:

    Speaking of, when do you think Infrastructure Bill money will begin to start flowing? I know there’s a process that has to be followed to allocate funding to specific projects, along with improvements being identified. I understand that’s well under way

  91. 91.

    Another Scott

    @VOR: So much reporting on the economy is so very bad.

    Yesterday evening on Marketplace on the radio, a reporter – who reports for a show about the economy and should know this stuff backwards and forwards – was talking about the new GDP numbers and she said something like “the growth numbers were high but were accompanied by inflation”, muddling the fact that the GDP numbers are “real” – meaning after inflation is taken into account.

    It’s malpractice and such an elementary thing that it makes one wonder if it’s deliberate…

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  93. 93.

    Tdjr

    I’m in Forest Hills PA just on the other side of Squirrel Hill. I’ve been over that bridge thousands of times. It wasn’t too surprising to have a bridge collapse in this area, since we have about 1200 or so. But that one is in an incredibly busy area between Squirrel Hill and Wilkinsburg. The fact that there were few injuries and no deaths is a miracle.

    Btw, I learned about the collapse here on BJ. ?

  95. 95.

    dww44

    @Another Scott:  while I didn’t hear this I’ve often listened to that show in the past.  They definitely tilt right and this misrepresentation was likely  intentional.  Maybe you could send in a request for a correction and/or clarification?

  96. 96.

    Geminid

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think some Infrastructure bill is flowing already. Senate Candidates Tim Ryan and Val Demings have made a number of appearances talking up the benefits of the Infrastructure bill they voted for, but that may be prospective.

    It’s worth looking up, though. Your state newspapers and TV stations will report on new projects; they like that kind of story.

  98. 98.

    Geminid

    @schrodingers_cat: And for now at least, Republicans seem to be using their shabby superpowers on each other. They still could close ranks after the primary season, but they will have spent a lot of money tearing each other down.

    Democrats, on the other hand, have a number of lightly contested primaries, and the contested ones don’t seem too divisive at this point.

  103. 103.

    J R in WV

    @sdhays: ​
     

    What condition do bridges have to be in to be closed down??

    They need to be like the Frick Park bridge in Pittsburgh, collapsed. Then they are closed.

  104. 104.

    dimmsdale

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I used to be infuriated on her behalf when the Young Whelp Doocey would “ask” her all those propagandistic questions. Lately I’ve been appreciating how adept she is at caroming off those questions into a display of good faith, good humor, and a re-statement of the WH message.

    By the way, who the hell WAS that “reporter”? I can’t find a name anyplace.

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