Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

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

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Bark louder, little dog.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

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

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

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

People are weird.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

In after Baud. Damn.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

Republicans in disarray!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Time for a swim

Time for a swim

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71Comments

  4. 4.

    Jerry

    Felicity had no choice but to radically change her look, the FBI was onto her KGB spy ring. Did you know that Honey I Blew Up the Kid was her first assignment in the USA?

  5. 5.

    SpaceUnit

    @Scout211:

    I suppose the Trump family being deposed by an AG after their accounting firms bails out is not at all unlike a burning cargo ship being abandoned by its crew in the middle of the ocean.

    Spot on, as the Brits would say.

  7. 7.

    Baud

    Donald Trump, as well as his children Ivanka and Donald Jr

    Oh man, there’s going to be a cocaine shortage now.

    I blame Biden.

  10. 10.

    jonas

    @Scout211: Liz Dye over at Wonkette has an absolutely hilarious rundown of the absolute shitshow the hearing turned into. Trump sends three lawyers: two clowns whose asinine theatrics just piss off the judge and a third who actually knows how to argue in court. By the time the judge hears a not-insane legal argument from the third lawyer (which he still dismisses) he’s had to spend the better part of the hearing dealing with the two assholes performing for an audience of one and is, shall we say, not amused. I’m sure their ride home together was fun.

  12. 12.

    Leto

    @danielx: The Fast and Furious movies are an invaluable reference for car hijinks. I’m sure they’ve done something like that, so that’d be the first place I’d start.

  13. 13.

    Raoul Paste

    They are in the lifeboats quibbling over the movie rights as we speak

    But seriously, I would hate to be in a lifeboat in the middle of the damn Atlantic

  14. 14.

    Leto

    @jonas: You wonder why the judge wouldn’t throw out the assclowns. Or the fact that that legal strategy would spectacularly backfire in that the first two assclowns would so piss off the judge that he’d be out of fucks by the time “sane” lawyer was up to speak. Whatever. Dotard wants theatrics? Fuck around and find out.

  15. 15.

    The Moar You Know

    How does one get a 911 off a burning ship?

    @danielx: I’ve seen cars loaded for maritime transport, and they’re usually driven onto their designated deck and into a designated parking spot and then strapped down.

    You might be able to actually get a few off if they were in cargo containers, but that would in no way be a risk-free operation and certainly not worth what it would cost.

  17. 17.

    Ken

    @Baud: At least it’s not blocking a major shipping bottleneck.

    “Scientists were at a loss to explain why the burning ship drifted into the Narrows before exploding and sinking, completely blocking access to Upper New York Bay. ‘It moved against all the currents in the area,’ one said. ‘It was almost like some curse playing out.'”

  20. 20.

    Cermet

    @Raoul Paste: And a massive storm is sweeping East-Northeast across the US central & northern part and if they were following the northern route to/from Europe, could be in its path. That would be ugly.

  21. 21.

    Ken

    @The Moar You Know: “But what if the cars were secretly being used to smuggle uncut gemstones? Or plutonium?” — a screenwriter, unaware that he is about to be sued by the makers of Beyond the Poseidon Adventure.

  23. 23.

    Yarrow

    @Baud:  He’s gonna be so coked out that deposition is going to be very interesting. I hope it’s recorded and we get to see it! ?

    Poor Eric. Not important enough to make the deposition list.

  24. 24.

    Cermet

    @The Moar You Know: And all those cars have fuel. Gonna be an interesting fire as the interiors burn and released fuel causes even more cars to burn – a chemical chain-reaction leading to an interesting time on the ship. The tanks (all partly filled) so some are surely exploding creating a nice inferno below decks.

  25. 25.

    Ken

    @Yarrow: Poor Eric. Not important enough to make the deposition list.

    Or the secret inside informer.

    Naw, it’d never happen. But it would be funny if the thought got lodged in TFG’s head.

  26. 26.

    Burnspbesq

    YouTube Car Guy Matt Farah’s limited-edition Boxster Spyder is on that ship. It’s not the first time Porsche has lost special-order vehicles in maritime accidents. Their history is they make it good for everybody. Eventually.

  28. 28.

    Burnspbesq

    @Cermet:

    And a massive storm is sweeping East-Northeast across the US central & northern part and if they were following the northern route to/from Europe, could be in its path. That would be ugly.

    ship is off the Azores. Portuguese Navy ran the crew rescue.

  29. 29.

    Brachiator

    BREAKING: A giant cargo ship “Felicity Ace” is on fire in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
    It’s carrying a cargo of Porsche and VW automobiles.

    Would have been a hell of a Super Bowl commercial.

  30. 30.

    Burnspbesq

    @Cermet:

    And all those cars have fuel.

    Porsche is selling more Taycans than all other models combined. Interesting question about the behavior of big lithium-ion batteries in this situation.

  32. 32.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @Cermet: We just had Dudley which smacked the treacle out of us on the North West Coast (I live on the coast) Now we’ve got Eunice which will smack the treacle out of the South West Coast. Any it has been blowing a hooley for two days and tomorrow will be three. WHOO!

  33. 33.

    danielx

    @jonas:

    It is amazing TFG has stayed out of jail this long, but he usually had at least semi-competent legal counsel in the past. Evidently his rep for not paying the help has caught up with him.

  37. 37.

    trollhattan

    @Jerry:

    Talk about a 1/who she used to play role. And Elizabeth was the far more dangerous of the Jennings couple, to boot.

  39. 39.

    trollhattan

    Well, like, that’s just your opinion, man. Guess the check has cleared Rand, yeah?

    February 17, 2022 at 2:47 pm EST By Taegan Goddard

    Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) warned that he will block quick passage of a symbolic resolution supporting Ukraine and sending a warning to Russia unless it incorporates changes he wants, The Hill reports.

    Said Paul: “We have some amendments to it. We believe that it should say nothing in this resolution is to be construed as an authorization of war and nothing in this resolution is to be construed as authorizing the use of troops into Ukraine.”

  41. 41.

    trollhattan

    @jefft452: ​
    TBH my first thought was hey, VW and Porsche are pushing out EVs now. Wonder if….

    Gas cars ship with nearly empty tanks, not that there isn’t plastic and fabric and rubber aplenty.

  42. 42.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Leto: I recently gave a professional talk where I used the Fast and Furious movies as a metaphor for good server and application design. It was very silly and very well received.

    I don’t even like the movies but they’re applicable to everything :)

  44. 44.

    satby

    Second big snowstorm in two weeks. It was 50° yesterday and melted off the remainder of the snow and ice from the 13 inches we got Feb 3&4; it started raining early this morning, then sleeting about 1pm, and there’s already two inches of snow on the ground since 3 pm. We’re under flood and winter travel advisories. Again.

  45. 45.

    Jinchi

    @Baud: So is Eric relieved or upset to be off the target list?

    And lets spare a thought for poor Tiffany, the forgotten child.

  47. 47.

    Yarrow

    This story is the best thing I’ve read in ages.

    The adorable love story behind Wikipedia’s ‘high five’ photos

    …[T]he high-five Wikipedia page is among my very favorites not because of its writing, but because of its iconic photos — specifically the ones in the section on the “too slow” variation:

    I love the aughts fashion, the use of the word “victim,” and the fact that “finger-guns” gets a hyperlink in the last caption. The woman in the photo gives an Oscar-worthy performance in the final image — she looks like she’s on the verge of tears — and her male counterpart couldn’t look more smug. The pictures are endearing and capture a kind of humanity you don’t find in your average stock photo.

    Thanks to an overabundance of time alone with my laptop and a growing pile of responsibilities that I wanted to push off, I found myself fixated on these photos recently. I became increasingly convinced that there was nothing platonic about this high five — I mean, you can feel the chemistry through the screen. Just look at her smile in the first frame! Look at their gazes in the third frame! There’s no way two people so young and so beautiful could exchange such a flirty high five without feeling flutters of the heart.

    There are photos, a bit of internet sleuthing and a great conclusion. It’s a fun little story.

  48. 48.

    MagdaInBlack

    @satby: Up here in the NW suburbs, I took the day off because I just didn’t want to deal with a commute in what they were predicting. I felt a little guilty when I got up and nothing had happened, but i’s snowing pretty heavy now (and has been since about 1 pm) and I feel vindicated.

  50. 50.

    Burnspbesq

    @Jinchi:

    And lets spare a thought for poor Tiffany, the forgotten child.

    She is currently working as a research assistant for a professor at Georgetown Law. AFAIK, she is not a member of the bar in any state, which seems a wise move on her part.

  51. 51.

    Leto

    @Patricia Kayden: it was either Slate or Mother Jones that did a long investigative piece on how basically at least 50% of Florida’s law enforcement had white supremacist ties, including the prison guards. Personally, it was a shocking/not shocking moment.

    @MisterForkbeard: absolutely hilarious and I love it! Not a big FF fan, but I do like the ones starring The Rock. Just good action films.

  54. 54.

    Jeffro

    Oddly enough, Fox News does not appear to have a story up yet about the former guy and his adult kids having to sit for depositions about their years of fraudulent financial activities.

    Hmmm.

    Maybe their webmaster is on a break, or something.

    They DO, however, have stories up about 1) Fauci 2) people trying to smear Clarence Thomas 3) The ‘Squad’ 4) BLM and 5) some random guy saying President Biden is going to let all the immigrants in.

    I’m sure they’ll get to the trump deposition thing any moment now…

  57. 57.

    Kay

    So great

    Thousands of applications for mail-in ballots submitted by Texas voters have been delayed — and some voters may ultimately not receive ballots — because Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s campaign instructed eligible voters to send requests for absentee ballots to the Texas secretary of state’s office instead of their local elections offices.
    A mass mailing by Patrick went out to Republican voters across the state in January, ahead of the March primary, and included a two-page letter emblazoned with the seal of his office encouraging voters to submit the requests following “three easy steps.” The problem was the third step, which instructed voters to return the applications in an enclosed reply envelope that was addressed to the state.
    The lieutenant governor’s campaign said it used the secretary of state’s address because “many Republican voters are rightly suspicious of Blue County election officials.”
    But the campaign’s approach forced the secretary of state, which had a stated policy of rejecting applications erroneously sent its way, to sort and forward the Patrick-inspired forms to the counties where they should have been sent originally.

    State workers have been forwarding the waylaid applications to respective counties, which this week were still receiving packages containing hundreds of misdirected applications.

  60. 60.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Scout211:

    Former President Donald Trump, as well as his children Ivanka and Donald Jr., must sit for depositions in the New York attorney general’s civil investigation of their business practices, a New York judge ruled Thursday. 

    Salty balls, you mobster shitstains!

  61. 61.

    Kay

    “Generally speaking, we request that voters do not mail, fax, or email completed applications for Ballot by Mail to the Secretary of State Office,” wrote Sam Taylor, the spokesperson, noting that the office would forward applications to early voting clerks “as a courtesy to help the voter.”
    “It is not the voter’s fault if a third party put the incorrect return address on an ABBM, so we want to ensure voters are not adversely affected by that,” Taylor said.
    This appears to be a departure from the office’s previous stance on applications wrongly sent to its office. The secretary of state’s website previously warned voters against sending applications to its office, noting that “all applications received by this office will be rejected.” That language was removed from the website at the beginning of the month, according to a screenshot of the same page archived by the Wayback Machine.

    Those sneaky clerks in the Blue Counties again. They probably quietly changed the rule to admit thousands of GOP applications.
    The Texas Tribune is a good paper. Next they should find out how many applications were rejected before they changed the rule, but just for Republican voters.

  62. 62.

    mrmoshpotato

    @jonas: Beat them all with their own bones!  It’s tremendous bigly watching them getting punching in their fucking fascist faces!

  64. 64.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    Eric has already been deposed. WaPo story

    Eric Trump, another son of Trump’s who has served as an executive at the Trump Organization, asserted his Fifth Amendment right over 500 times when he was deposed in the same case, the attorney general’s office previously disclosed.

  69. 69.

    J R in WV

    Perhaps the sheer overwhelming stupidity of Republicans, esp R office holders, will interfere with their ability to win elections? We can hope so.

    We managed to pull the old deep well pump and install a new pump before the heavy rain began — a little shower was all we encountered. New pump was $1,400, other parts and labor pushed the total just of $2k. So glad to have running water again tho.

    Also, after raining hard all afternoon, we now have frogs chirping in the tiny 8’x12′ pond out the front door. Amazing in mid-February to have frogs chirping at nearly 9 pm.

  71. 71.

    PaulWartenberg

    @Ken:

    “Scientists were at a loss to explain why the burning ship drifted into the Narrows before exploding and sinking, completely blocking access to Upper New York Bay. ‘It moved against all the currents in the area,’ one said. ‘It was almost like some curse playing out.’”

    WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT MURDER GHOSTS?!?!?!

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