Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

The willow is too close to the house.

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

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

You are here: Home / Politics / Glibertarianism / Late Night Open Thread: Masks Off

Late Night Open Thread: Masks Off

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Ruuuuudy!

TFG —

Hard times for the ‘genteel’ fascists…

Not to mention their comrades on the other leg of the horseshoe:

Reader Interactions

71Comments

  1. 1.

    sab

    Four deer jumped the fence into my yard and spent about two hours trimming shrubbery in the snow. Beautiful and much needed. Thanks deer. Pitbull was furious and frightened. We completely forgot about the deer Covid aspect, but had no intention of getting near them anyway.

    ETA None of them had masks, but they were outside.

  3. 3.

    Debbie(Aussie)

    It would appear that the ?  is going to hell in a hand-basket.

    we have idiots protesting in Canberra. Only problem is, I don’t think they, as a group, know what they are protesting. You have the RWNJ/nazis, the anti-vaxers/masks and the disaffected. There are some grey nomads, who are just confused and lost because the LNP(right wing) doesn’t know its’ ass from its’ elbow.

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    Well, well, well. Received a phone message on the answering machine from “the fraud division” of my credit card company, including instructions to call back an unfamiliar to me phone number.

    Not being a complete numbskull, called the number printed on the back of the credit card instead to check out what’s up.

    Turns out the first call was legitimate and there were several charges against my card which I did not make or otherwise authorize. Went over a month’s worth of charges item by item with the helpful person on the other end of the line and was assured the fraudulent ones will go bye-bye. Seems to be all sorted out (although will intently scrutinize next month’s bill more closely than normally do). As I haven’t mailed out a check for the last bill received yet I also wanted assurance that payment would be properly credited to the new account number.

    New card on its way, current one is kaput. Fortunately I don’t use a credit card very often, primarily pay with cash or check. Biggest hassle (and really not all that big) will be spending an afternoon or evening updating the card info online for places such as Amazon, Netflix and the like.

  5. 5.

    opiejeanne

    @NotMax: Such a nuisance. The first time we had someone using our card number she bought a plane ticket to Vegas, bought a bunch of stuff at a beauty supply place, like $300 worth, tried to buy 2 gift cards at $600 each at Walmart (which is how we found out when their security guy called us) and tried to buy a used car. With a credit card that she only had the number for and no ID with our name on it. Southwest didn’t want to share the buyer’s name with the cops at first, but everything was taken care of for us by B of A. Can’t say enough nice about their CC department, even though we moved all the rest of our banking business to a Credit Union.

    Second time, was a different and much longer story. Much worse, and we canceled that card permanently after they treated us badly because of it.

    .

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    @opiejeanne

    Not quite as egregious a charge-a-thon with whomever tried using mine. One large amount — $400-plus at Amazon — all the rest were diddly stuff. Papa John’s pizza and KFC the ones I remember, but there were others along those lines too.

  7. 7.

    evodevo

    @NotMax: Happened to me last month outta the blue.  Never had that happen before. USAA fixed it immediately and sent new card and instituted an investigation.  Still haven’t heard any results. One of the charges was to a pool supply place somewhere, and I have never had a pool.

  8. 8.

    opiejeanne

    @NotMax: Many years ago I found a charge for about $18 on our bill, for baby supplies we didn’t need, in a town in that I’d never been to. Someone said that they sometimes try small purchases to see if you notice, but I don’t think that makes sense, because why not just go for the big purchase before they know they’ve got a problem.

  9. 9.

    opiejeanne

    @evodevo: The second time it happened to us,  the thief bought a bunch of bedroom furniture for about $8,000 and had it delivered to a warehouse not far from the shop.

    There’s a lot more to the story, but we never knew for sure who it was, never knew if the cops figured it out. The first time, we actually found out the name of the thief, the cops had all of the info, and we never heard how it was resolved.

  10. 10.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @opiejeanne: Someone said that they sometimes try small purchases to see if you notice, but I don’t think that makes sense, because why not just go for the big purchase before they know they’ve got a problem.

    It’s a common practice. The one time it happened to me I had a bunch of small on line charges suddenly appear, one for a piddly $1.17. Apparently more than a few people actually use their cards that way. I don’t, so the CC company picked up on it right away.

    Didn’t make any sense to me either but the CC security guy I dealt with said they see it a lot.

  11. 11.

    Spanky

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yep. Three dollar charge at a California McDonald’s was the flag, me not having left MD.

    But take heart, Kiddies! At least no one is opening accounts with your SS number! I’ve been playing Whack-a-Mole with that for the past couple of weeks. Things seem quiet now that the credit agencies have the fraud alert.

  12. 12.

    Amir Khalid

    I wonder how dinnertime at Mar-a-Lago will go with TFG as DJ. Somehow, it’s hard to to imagine him with headphones and turntables.

  13. 13.

    NeenerNeener

    The first time it happened to me they bought 2 Apple gift cards for $200 each and then tried to buy $60,000 worth of cleaning supplies at an office supply store. MBNA stopped the 60k one right away and reversed the charges for the Apple gift cards.

    The second time it happened, years later, somebody was buying multiple copies of some $1200 home architect software and having it delivered to some Slavic-sounding name in Brooklyn. I found out about it before I saw the bill because I was getting calls from DHL when the delivery address had my phone number on the other end of the state. The credit card company reversed all those charges too.

  25. 25.

    Spanky

    Hookers all across the Pittsburgh area are in mourning today, with Politico reporting the RNC is no longer considering the city for the Republican convention.

  31. 31.

    Amir Khalid

    Thank you guys for the warm welcome back. Stay tuned: I may have some news on the GAS front.

  38. 38.

    Tony Jay

    @Amir Khalid:

    Welcome back!

    You have cyborg implants now? I understand that’s what ‘The Agency’ was doing to you during your absence.

    Just in time for the Mane v Salah AfCon Final!

  39. 39.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Amir Khalid: ​
     

    I wonder how dinnertime at Mar-a-Lago will go with TFG as DJ. Somehow, it’s hard to to imagine him with headphones and turntables.

    He is the evening deejay on W-O-L-D-D-D-D…

    Glad to have you back! IIRC, you were going to be in the hospital for a few days, but that was awhile back. As you’ve undoubtedly noticed by now, you were missed. Better now?

  41. 41.

    satby

    Here in the frozen north, we’re getting another 1-3 inches of lake effect snow on top of the 13 inches already on the ground. But Amir is back, so I’m ?, even though I just dug the car out yesterday.

  43. 43.

    laura

    It’s 4:17 in the am and this gal with insomnia is shedding a few happy tears because a wayward jackal with gas has returned to the pack. Oh Frabjous day- callou callay!

  45. 45.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Spanky:

    But take heart, Kiddies! At least no one is opening accounts with your SS number! I’ve been playing Whack-a-Mole with that for the past couple of weeks. Things seem quiet now that the credit agencies have the fraud alert.

    Yipes! Good luck with that.

    I remember back in the 1990s, my account number at my credit union was my SSN. Glad that practice has gone by the boards.

    Only credit card fraud issue I’ve ever had was just last March. I had a $20 charge to Boost Mobile on my credit card statement, and my phone’s on a family account with Verizon under my wife’s name, so this charge was obviously bogus.

    Credit union got me a new card right away, closed the old account, credited me the $20, and I’ve long since memorized the new number, expiration date, and CVV code, so everything’s good.

  46. 46.

    Rachel Bakes

    @NotMax: Someone had a physical card of ours-no idea how as we hadn’t lost it. Shopped at Walmart (where we don’t shop) and bought gas at about 5 places in Easter CT and MA. Not sure what flagged it to the fraud department but they were great.

  50. 50.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @NotMax: I got this text a couple days ago: “Order Placed AMZ8541868 for LG Front Load WashTower 2396 Amount of $1767 will be deducted from your card. Not you call us +18773540852”

    Whaddya think, legit? The bad English really sells it.

    Sometimes I try to imagine how the con works.

    “Hello yes this is bank. What is bank name? Yes we are that one. Give credit card number pliz and we remove charge…”

  52. 52.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Rachel Bakes: My pocket was picked in the Paris Metro. We spent our last couple hours in Paris on hold for hours, cancelling cards.

    Citibank was awful. They left the card active and thousands of dollars of charges went through AFTER the supposed cancellation. I spent days on the phone (still on vacation) trying to sort that out.

    And then at the end, a month later, they told me they decided $1000 in charges were not fraudulent. Despite the fact that they were 90 minutes after my reporting the card stolen.

    I opened a case with the CFPB. Citibank refunded instantly.

  54. 54.

    debbie

    @NotMax:

    Funny, years ago Amex called me to report $1,500.00 had been charged to my card for phone calls made from HI. “Your spending patterns don’t support these charges.” Indeed.

  57. 57.

    Kalakal

    I once got a phone call at my house in England from Barclays checking to see if I was in Paris. Even as we were speaking someone was trying to buy 5,000 worth of luxury goods in some shop in Paris on a clone of my card

  58. 58.

    Percysowner

    @NotMax: I had that happen last month. I’m still having places that are on recurring payments send me emails saying they can’t process my payment. It’s a real pain, but at least I didn’t lose any money. The thief went for a big payout first, so that was my only problem.

    At least it got me to get a password manager and change my vulnerable passwords to make it less likely to happen again.

  63. 63.

    Miss Bianca

    @Amir Khalid: YOU’RE BACK!! YOU’RE BACK!!

    We missed you! We were so worried! Hope you’re doing ok.

    That is all, thank you.

    ETA: And GAS too? Do tell!

  65. 65.

    Soprano2

    Just last month I got an email about hubby’s Discover card that he had a Doordash charge. It wasn’t ours, and he couldn’t find the card. Getting it resolved was no problem.

    Remember when credit card companies used to send you credit line checks in the mail? I had someone steal them out of our mailbox. They got caught because a) they tried to pay someone else they stole from with one of them and b) the checks said “not good for less than $1,000” on their face but the “geniuses ” wrote them for $800, $800, and $850. One was used to order a bunch of stuff from the Speigle catalog. I don’t know if they ever caught the thieves, but it was a PITA for sure.

  67. 67.

    PaulWartenberg

    If the book burning taking place in Tennessee doesn’t terrify you, the latest state bill from Iowa making it a crime to be a librarian should!

    https://iowastartingline.com/2022/02/04/gop-legislators-target-librarians-for-prosecution-fines-under-new-bill/

    As a librarian, I am absolutely enraged. If Iowa passes that bill, and it survives all the court challenges – knowing this 6-to-3 conservative majority at SCOTUS, it well could – all the other Republican-controlled states will pass similar laws within a heartbeat.

  68. 68.

    J R in WV

    @Amir Khalid: ​
     

    I am also V glad to see you return, so nice to have the happy ending~!!~

    And with such a casual post, also too ! Hoping you are felling well, suspect you must be if you are having an attack of GAS — what are you looking for? National Steel?

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