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Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

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

Not all heroes wear capes.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

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

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Consistently wrong since 2002

This blog will pay for itself.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

The next time the wall wtreet journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / At Long Last Friday Morning Open Thread: It’s Time to Play the Music…

At Long Last Friday Morning Open Thread: It’s Time to Play the Music…

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We *could* announce a new dress code (only the Blogmaster shall mop while naked, and that only after warning the proper authorities)…

… But probably it’s best to settle for achievable goals:


(“No quokkas or other repeat dine-and-dash offenders”)
 

And maybe watch a little educational tv:

Reader Interactions

144Comments

  4. 4.

    Scout211

    First he went after DeSantis, now Governor Newsom is going after Abbott.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom is running full-page ads in Texas newspapers Friday trolling Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to highlight a new California gun law modeled on the Lone Star State’s restrictive abortion law.
    The ads, first shared with NBC News, will run in the Austin American-Statesman, Houston Chronicle and El Paso Times. They modify an Abbott quote about the state’s abortion ban and promote “California’s answer to Texas’ perverse bill.”
    “If Texas can ban abortion and endanger lives, California can ban deadly weapons of war and save lives. If Governor Abbott truly wants to protect the right to life, we urge him to follow California’s lead,” the ad reads.
    The move is the latest example of Newsom’s foray into national politics after buying TV ads in Florida knocking GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis and decrying Democratic timidity while in Washington last week.

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    Flash out of the past.

    “Y’know, on second thought maybe hiring someone so closely associated professionally with giving people the heebie-jeebies as company spokesman wasn’t our best idea.”

    :)

  8. 8.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: Let us imagine that there is an open Democratic primary in 2024 (Biden pulls an LBJ). Do you really hope for a Harris v. Newsom California death match (loser leaves town!) I don’t.

  10. 10.

    RSA

    peruse verb 1a. to examine or consider with attention and in detail

    Yeah, I can imagine the kind of person who wants to peruse people’s dress…

  11. 11.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: i know that, it would be multitudes! But who else is going to join the Hunger Games? Any non-white women besides Harris?

  12. 12.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @RSA: The HOA president from hell

    ETA: Someone once said that fantasy often literalizes a metaphor. “HOA president from Hell” is a metaphor it would be fun to literalize in a story. The person is an actual devil

  17. 17.

    Scout211

    @Immanentize:  Culling the field before they run doesn’t make sense, IMHO. Harris ran against Biden in the primary and was highly criticized for going after him in one of the debates. They worked it out and all was forgiven.

    Both Newsom and Harris are skilled politicians.  They will be fine even if they run against each other. I am just glad a Democrat is prominently going after the awful GOP governors and their awful policies.

  19. 19.

    Jeffro

    @Baud: Jamelle Bouie continues (thank goodness) to highlight that the Electoral College will remain coup-friendly as long as it exists in its current form:

    it should be said that the reason that any of this is possible — the reason trump had a path to overturning the results of the election in the first place — is the antidemocratic aspect of the current system.
    Even with the provisions of this bill in place, the Electoral College provides any number of opportunities for mischief.
    The fact that an entire national election can turn on a few thousand votes in a handful of states is a powerful incentive to restrict the votes of your opponents and meddle with the process all the way down to the precinct level. The fact that the loser of the national popular vote can become the winner of a national election is an additional incentive to subvert the voting process and impede access to the ballot box. And the fact that a legislature could, before the election itself, simply allocate electors to the candidate of its choice without any input from the public is an ongoing and ever-present threat to electoral democracy.

    He could have added, “if the GOP had won the popular vote but lost in the EC in 2000 and 2016 – ie, if positions and parties were reversed – we would already have done away with it”, obvs.

  20. 20.

    dm

    Gregory Robinson (NASA Webb Telescope director) on approaching retirement: “I’m still exploring what I’m going to do when I grow up.”

  21. 21.

    Baud

    @Jeffro:

    I support national popular vote, but Congress can’t do that.  Besides amending the Constitution, the only way to get there is for a majority of electoral college states to allocate their electors to the national vote winner

    ETA:

    “if the GOP had won the popular vote but lost in the EC in 2000 and 2016 – ie, if positions and parties were reversed – we would already have done away with it”, obvs.

    Of course.  It’s much harder for Dems for Dems to stand in the way of good policy.

  22. 22.

    Starfish

    @Immanentize: Harris and Newsime have been talking to the wealthy Democratic donors in California together. I don’t think that they are going to go at each other. The donors would probably pull money from one before allowing it to happen.

  25. 25.

    Betty Cracker

    @Scout211: Same! I liked what Newsom had to say on the news for everyone in the party to unload on those awful policies. He’s right.

  28. 28.

    Ken

    @satby: Careful, quokkas might be one of those cute-looking animals that turns out to carry leprosy, or squirt urine everywhere, or fly into sudden face-eating rages.

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    @Baud

    ‘Twas ever thus. At least it wasn’t rushed into passage at warp 99 speed like the so-called PATRIOT Act.

  32. 32.

    phdesmond

    loved hearing what Gregory Robinson had to tell Trevor about the Webb telescope.  what a life story, too!  though it’s not a total surprise to hear him praise the high quality of the teachers he learned from in Virginia’s segregated school system.

  33. 33.

    Ken

    @Baud: Interestingly, Newsom and Harris and now Whitmer and Buttigieg can’t be on the ticket together.

    That’s what they said about Bush and Cheney, but it turns out that provision doesn’t apply if you’re a Republican you own two or more houses, since you can claim any of them as your state of residence.

    I’m more surprised by the number of Senators and would-be Senators who don’t live in their state, but again that’s explained because they’re Republicans the state laws don’t require residency, or don’t specify it carefully.

    “Why yes, yes, someday my wife and I plan to build a house on that property that my sister owns, and reside in the beautiful state that I so proudly represent. Wherever that is.”

  35. 35.

    Jeffro

    @Baud: I know Congress can’t do that (and didn’t say that it could?)

    I’m saying Dems would be smart to keep talking about the EC and pointing out the multiple ways it endangers democracy/devalues most of America’s voters/produces idiotic results.  Keep laying the groundwork for either an amendment or the NPVIC (preferably the former, since the Compact would likely be ruled unconstitutional by our current SCOTUS)

  36. 36.

    Jeffro

    @NotMax: agreed

    It’ll be funny to see the ‘no’ votes try and justify that position as anything other than wanting to leave the door open for trumpov to do it all. over. again.

  38. 38.

    Ken

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Wasn’t that an X-Files episode?  Googling… Close; in “Arcadia” the HOA enforced the rules with a supernatural creature, though not from the Christian mythos.

    Hmm, an HOA that was tied to the Cthulhu mythos…

  41. 41.

    sab

    @Ken: Since they are a variety of wallaby, don’t they just poop cubes?

    ETa Ooops. Those are wombats. Difficult to keep Australian fauma straight since all marsupials.

  43. 43.

    Kay

    @NotMax:

    I think there’s a fundamental problem with solving a coup attempt with a law. They knew it was lawless- they did it anyway. This was not a matter of statutory interpretation. We’ve had 8 hearings where many lawyers have explained they told Donald Trump that what he was plotting was illegal.

    I guess there’s no harm in it, other than Trump judges appointing other Trumpists to a panel, but they need to face the fact that these people were operating outside the law and I’m not clear why they would follow a better one.

    The most important thing they can do to avoid another coup attempt is to prosecute the coup planners.

  45. 45.

    Soprano2

    This story from Jonathan Swan at Axios is concerning. I’ve read some about it before, but evidently Trumpies are planning this time, and want to decapitate the civil service if TFG gets in office again so they can install complete loyalists in many more key positions, especially the Justice Department. They are convinced that the whole Federal government is against them, and if you leave out the law enforcement parts they’re probably not that wrong. What I’m afraid of is that all Republicans will start embracing this idea, and it will eventually happen.

  46. 46.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: The most important thing they can do to avoid another coup attempt is to prosecute the coup planners.

    Yep, make sure people know there is a price to pay for doing this. I do think they want people to know that they are concerned about it, and trying to do something.

  48. 48.

    Ken

    @sab: Difficult to keep Australian fauma straight since all marsupials.

    I have the same problem with eukaryotes.

  49. 49.

    NotMax

    @Kay

    As long as we’re stuck with the electoral college system, applying a coating of Kevlar to it is beneficial.

  50. 50.

    WereBear

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I picture the devil scorning the job at first: “Nitpick at people about how big their mailbox is? Do I look like a bureaucrat?”

    But then realizes just how annoying these stupid things can be. He it can lead to mayhem…

    Oh, it’s the haunted antique shop all over again…

  52. 52.

    Starfish

    @NotMax: The part where he said it worked well enough for 100+ years annoyed me because there was an opportunity to acknowledge people trying to overcome disenfranchisement in Mississippi during the 1960s.

    https://www.civilrightsteaching.org/voting-rights/1965-mississippi-congressional-challenge

    People need to feel that the elections are legitimate, and I am not sure how much legitimacy the courts and governor’s can bring with the games that are being played lately.

  53. 53.

    Ken

    @WereBear: That was Crowley’s view in Good Omens. Yes, you can spend hours crafting an ideal temptation to damn one person. But knocking out cell service in central London at lunchtime will cause millions of people to be shitty to one another, and nudge every one of them a little closer to hell.

    And they took it out on other people. In all kinds of vindictive little ways which, and here was the good bit, they thought up themselves.

  56. 56.

    Kay

    @NotMax:

    Right- as long as everyone understands that if they can find a far Right nutjob, unethical lawyer to exploit the imaginary “VP loophole” they can also find a far Right nutjob, unethical lawyer to exploit Sec C, sub a of the new longer law.

    A coup is an unlawful act. They don’t follow laws. By definition.

  58. 58.

    NotMax

    @prostratedragon

    In today’s milieu Folger’s would probably bring out a zombie Mrs. Olson.

    “Mmmm. Nearly as rich and luscious as (takes a sip) BRAINSSSS!”

  61. 61.

    trollhattan

    That face. Those little hands. Why does everyone not have a quokka at home? [refuses to look up quokka behavior and general fragrance]

    Dirty Muppeting for the win.

  62. 62.

    trollhattan

    @NotMax:

    We approves. At some point, a protagonist twists ankle, falls, lies helpless as Mrs. Olson approaches slowly, really really slowly, brandishing a pie cutter.

  63. 63.

    Matt McIrvin

    @NotMax: They can still get around it by having states pass laws legitimizing the legislature directly picking the electors, in advance of the election. But that means those legislators are on record as having done that–no hiding behind weird interpretations of constitutional language.

  67. 67.

    Jado

    If anyone wants to start a neighborhood dress code, I think Hugo Boss had some appropriate designs in the mid 1930s / early 1940s. They could check those out.

  68. 68.

    WereBear

    @Jado: This is especially funny to me, who now lives in pajamas (no job, no money, no need for new clothes!)

    When I go out, I wear those fake-pants: the leggings they painted pockets on. All I could find that was reasonable.

  70. 70.

    Citizen Alan

    @Jeffro:

    And I am saying that we will never get a constitutional amendment which decreases the electoral power of he smallest 25 States.  We would be better served by expanding the House of Representatives and thereby giving more electoral votes to the larger States that are currently underrepresented in the EC.

  71. 71.

    Roger Moore

    @Kay:

    I think there’s a fundamental problem with solving a coup attempt with a law. They knew it was lawless- they did it anyway.

    +100.  This is the most fundamental thing: you can’t prevent lawless people from doing what they want if they ever manage to take power.  The Constitution is ultimately just a bunch of words that require human agency to have any force.  You may be able to make it harder for people who hate the Constitution to be put in charge, but no amount of clever design will stop lawless people from doing what they want if they ever manage to take the reins of power.

  72. 72.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Citizen Alan: The small-state advantage is, from a purely partisan perspective, not the worst thing for us–more of the small states are Democratic-voting than you might think. They have the sparsely populated Western ones, but we have the dinky Eastern ones and Hawaii.

    It’s more that the EC gives outsize power to any slim majority in large, purple states, and the Republicans have been working hard to disenfranchise their Democratic voters and lock down most of them as permanently Republican in the past couple of cycles. With a popular-vote system that strategy would be harder to swing a presidential election with. Expanding the House to change the EC balance doesn’t actually help with that, in fact it makes it slightly worse.

  73. 73.

    Soprano2

    Gas prices are down another $0.10 here. It’s down $0.70 in the past 3 weeks. I have yet to year anything thank Biden for that! LOL

  74. 74.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @trollhattan: Oz, for a media guy, seems very poor at the whole “elect me” thing. One hopes this continues.

    He was a D-list Dr Phil, who was himself a D-list Oprah.  Apparently he was once a legit and respected doctor, but then again, so was Ben Carson, which is even scarier. I don’t get the lure of having a TV camera pointed at you. I turned down my one chance with a person-on-the-street local news crew, and the reporter seemed shocked that I said no.

  75. 75.

    Roger Moore

    @trollhattan:

    Oz, for a media guy, seems very poor at the whole “elect me” thing

    That’s because Oz is a different kind of media guy. He’s a con man who finds suckers and convinces them to believe in his woo.  Being a con man is about getting a small percentage of people to believe in you intensely rather than a majority of people to prefer you over the other guy.  It’s a fundamentally different goal from electoral politics.

  76. 76.

    prostratedragon

    @Kay: ​ I think of the laws as creating a structure for recourse. ‘Cause you-all are certainly right, the people who would do these things in the first place are not the kind to be restrained by law.

  78. 78.

    catclub

    @Soprano2: and want to decapitate the civil service if TFG gets in office again

     

    A civil service where black people can take a test and do well is anathema to them. Also women.

  79. 79.

    prostratedragon

    @WereBear:  Yes, I’m sure that gives some of the less marginal pause, which in turn reduces the chance of success for these gambits.  But as counterexamples there are enough other laws broken that I don’t think laws can be trusted to eliminate the behavior completely.

  80. 80.

    Kay

    @prostratedragon:

    That’s a really good point. When they break it they could hopefully be charged and detained immediately.

    Too, the next time there won’t be the two months of pretending what was happening was not happening. They probably only get that ridiculous window of credibility and deference once.

  81. 81.

    VOR

    @Baud: Neither can DeSantis and Donald Trump. Or Ivanka Trump, as IIRC she has moved to Miami Beach.

    Although back in 2000 Dick Cheney quickly shifted his residency back to Wyoming to be on a ticket with fellow Texan George W. Bush. And Mitt Romney moved his residence between Massachusetts and Utah as his political career required.

  83. 83.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: X Files already sort of went there. I didn’t watch a lot of X Files toward the end of its run, but I remember one episode where an HOA was using a literal demon to eliminate people who earned their wrath. My favorite scene is the one where Mulder is trying to commit as many simultaneous violations as possible to attract their attention.

    Edit: I see I’m not the only one to get there. Late to the party as usual.

  84. 84.

    Jeffro

    @Citizen Alan: I’m good with that for the interim.  Expand the House, add new states, all of it.  But we should always keep “abolish the EC” in the discussion, too.

  85. 85.

    Jeffro

    @Soprano2: there’s a funny political cartoon that I saw on Twitter, where a Republican elephant is trying to scrape one of those dumb Joe Biden “I did that!” stickers off of a gas pump (since prices are dropping rapidly)  =)

  86. 86.

    prostratedragon

    @catclub: Truly an old story, going back at least to Wilson, who gave it a big push. Just now, checking on a thing or two, I found a blue-chip article in QJE that documents some of the effects: “The Costs of Employment Segregation: Evidence from the Federal Government Under Woodrow Wilson,” Aneja and Guo. They found an increase of the racial income gap of between 3 and 7 percent during Wilson’s presidency. Apparently, a racist Postmaster General urged Wilson on in the Jim Crowization effort.

  89. 89.

    sab

    @RSA: You obviously didn’t go to my junior high school. The administrators were relentless, and the dress code was so out-of-date that girls couldn’t buy anything in stores that met the dress code. Circa 1969, Midwest small city.

    ETA Misread your comment. You can imagine such people.

  90. 90.

    Ghost of Joe Liebling’s Dog

    @Baud:

    Presumably you’re thinking of the old and long-since debunked interpretation of the misleading and vague language of the 12th Amendment.

    But ackshully, if the VP candidate could plausibly be supposed to be capable of imagining someday forming the intention of considering, preferably in the near future, the possibility of maybe moving to Wyoming, the 12th is satisfied and the electors can vote for both the Pee and the V-Pee.

    It is known

     

    (ETA : for certain values of “plausibly”.)

  91. 91.

    prostratedragon

    @Kay:  True, having an actual law or laws in place should eliminate those early recognition, etc., lags.

  92. 92.

    trollhattan

    @Jeffro:

    Now that I’m commuting and have ample opportunities for gas purchases, I can vouch premium is down a buck from late June.  NB Not to say it’s so cheap I’m getting that RAM 2500, but the psychological relief having it under six bucks counts for something.

  93. 93.

    schrodingers_cat

    Going to India this August and am tense as hell about it. We are going to do a trip down south with MIL and SIL visiting temples and their relatives for a week or so. There are religious, traditional and speak a language that I don’t understand beyond a few words

    They want to do at least 3 full days of religious ceremonies. I am non-believing agnostic. I hate these rituals which are laced in patriarchy.

  94. 94.

    trollhattan

    @sab: We had a rare for Seattle snow day when I was in junior high and a lot of girls showed up in jeans. All were sent home.

    Still baffled at the whole thing, not least because the place reminded me of a juvenile detention facility, based on the students’ general behavior.

  95. 95.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: Too, the next time there won’t be the two months of pretending what was happening was not happening.

    This is another thing that’s just insane to me. They were planning it out in the open on social media! They weren’t exactly hiding what they were doing. How could the FBI and Homeland Security not know what was happening? I swear, I hope the days of “they’re just a bunch of good ole boy white guys, they aren’t going to do anything bad” are gone forever after 1/6.

  97. 97.

    stinger

    Wasn’t able to watch the hearing live last night, so watching it now. Happened to have the closed captioning on, and although “Patsy Baloney” remains my favorite, “Pot Jerusalem” is giving it a run for the money.

  99. 99.

    Soprano2

    @Scout211: You know, Trump doesn’t have to be on Twitter, because reporters post everything he says there anyway. LOL I understand why they do it, and know it doesn’t have the same effect as him posting it, but still….

  105. 105.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ghost of Joe Liebling’s Dog: Yeah, the P and VP candidates can be from the same state, it’s just that the ticket forfeits that state’s electoral votes (which is bad). But it seems to be easy to get around by a nominal bullshit residency change at least if you’re a Republican.

  110. 110.

    schrodingers_cat

    @prostratedragon: That is one quality I have in extremely limited supply: patience.

    Oh and they will make passive aggressive quips about America and Americans. I just hope that Ceiling Cat will give me enough strength not to drop f-bombs on these sanctimonious Indian Temple Ladies and Lads.

  116. 116.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @phdesmond:

    Ah. It is blocked for me. “The uploader has not made this video available in your country.”

    I’m in the USA. Wonder where this is from.

  120. 120.

    zhena gogolia

    @Miss Bianca: YES YES YES But you might have to watch it three times or so to start to get it. And you need to watch a couple of Midsomer Murders episodes (I recommend “Tainted Fruit”) as well as Bad Boys II to really get it. But that’s not absolutely necessary.

    I teach it, so I’ve watched it about 1000 times, and I still laugh out loud.

    ETA: It also helps to watch Shaun of the Dead, because part of the joke in HF is that Simon Pegg usually plays (or did then) slacker characters as in Shaun, but in HF he’s a hyper-competent and professional police officer. (not policeman, please)

  123. 123.

    Miss Bianca

    @zhena gogolia: hmm, got it. I seem to be working my way backwards through the director’s oeuvre – was impressed by Last Night in Soho. Next up is Hot Fuzz, and I guess I will finally wind up at Shaun of the Dead. Good times!

  124. 124.

    Immanentize

    @James E Powell: I love that song so much but 2 things about the video:
    — love that Withers is just wearing a rugby shirt.
    — the back up singers never even pretend to sing, because there are no female back up vocals in the song. But they look good!

  125. 125.

    stinger

    @stinger: Also, during TFG’s attempt to record his non-concession speech, ” ‘yesterday’ is a Harvard word for me”.

  126. 126.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: Exactly. Also the “attacker” was a sad, drunk vet who needs help. Other Republican! candidates saw that and have vowed to help the guy.

  130. 130.

    James E Powell

    @Immanentize:

    I love Bill Withers. Sad that I never saw him live.

    I think that video was put together by the youtube poster using the record with a lip-synched TV performance.

  131. 131.

    Paul in KY

    In my old neighborhood, suggesting a dress code would be a surefire way to get your house egged.

  138. 138.

    persistentillusion

    @sab: My Jr Hi required that, if you were wearing a skirt, that the hem touched the floor as you knelt.  Asshats, all.

  144. 144.

    Ivan X

    Ok, so, whoever wrote that lives in the very last neighborhood in which I would want to live, but I do think there could be a little more attention paid to how we wrap the corporeal package. We don’t have to look good, but why don’t we want to? It’s one reason I love NYC — there’s no dress code, but people of all shapes and sizes put thought into how to express themselves authentically and attractively, in both conventional and unconventional ways.

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