Last week at the White House, President Biden met with several historians to get their take on the “multiple crises facing his presidency,” as the WaPo report puts it. Those in attendance included Princeton history professor Sean Wilentz, UVA historian Allida Black, journalist Anne Applebaum and presidential historian Michael Beschloss. The report suggests the atmospherics matched the tone of the discussion:
The conversation during a ferocious lightning storm on Aug. 4 unfolded as a sort of Socratic dialogue between the commander in chief and a select group of scholars, who painted the current moment as among the most perilous in modern history for democratic governance, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private meeting.
Comparisons were made to the years before the 1860 election when Abraham Lincoln warned that a “house divided against itself cannot stand” and the lead-up to the 1940 election, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt battled rising domestic sympathy for European fascism and resistance to the United States joining World War II.
Biden understands the peril of the moment, and who knows, maybe becoming president after decades of chasing the office frees him to address the threats with less calculation than a younger man still consumed with ambition might. Being a truly consequential president is probably a matter of timing as much as talent.
I wish presidents hadn’t had the opportunity to be “transformational” so often in my lifetime. But here we are, and no one can deny that Biden’s presidency is unfolding in interesting times.
According to The Post, similar meetings with historians have taken place in every administration since at least Reagan, though the sessions “fell out of favor” during the Trump years, which is probably the least surprising thing you’ll read all day.
Here’s what a hyper-ambitious asshole who rolled out of the cradle burning with the desire to be the pro-insurrection party’s nominee had to say about Biden’s meeting: [Source: Florida Politics]
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio returned to Fox News again Wednesday night [Laura Ingraham’s White Power Hour], where he accused historians who met with President Joe Biden of being “snobs” working against the interest of “everyday people.”
“Let me translate it for you,” Rubio said, before mocking what these historians purportedly told President Biden.
“‘Mr. President, there’s millions and millions of everyday Americans out there, and they’re good meaning but they’re uneducated, they’re backwards they don’t know what’s good for them and they’re falling into the trap of really evil people convincing them of things like real democracy, rule of law, enforcing borders all these things are terrible, and Mr. President, it’s important for us not to let these people—translation, it’s important for us not to let the American people, working everyday people and their common sense play a role in our decision making.’”
Emphasis mine because anyone who uses that grating phrase as incessantly as Marco Rubio does might as well tattoo SNOB in block letters on his forehead. Not everyone who uses the phrase is a snobbish asshole, but it has a derogatory connotation that Hillary Clinton recognized during her presidential campaign. She argued about the phrase with her speechwriters. I’ll always love her for that.*
As for the odious Marco Rubio, who will never be president, his elitism and self-regard are on display every time he utters the phrase, and also in one treasured anecdote he never fails to barf up in a stump speech, which is that his mother was a maid and his father was a bartender.
He announces this, pauses to let the shocking fact sink in, and then reverently notes how wondrous it is that these humble people’s son grew up to be a U.S. senator. As if one capable maid or talented bartender isn’t more useful and responsible for more happiness than every Republican senator combined and multiplied by infinity! What a fucking snob!
Open thread.
*Of course, since it was Hillary Clinton being a human being, which is never allowed, wingnut political operatives conflated her distaste for the phrase “everyday Americans” with contempt for ordinary citizens. I’ll never stop being mad about the raw fucking deal Hillary Clinton got.
Fair Economist
I posted Tuesday we’d had 5 days of amazing good news in a row, and only needed two more days for a week straight. And
Wednesday comes in with ZERO consumer inflation. And now:
Thursday comes in with NEGATIVE 0.5% producer inflation.
All this winning! But I’m not tired of it. On to House passage of the IRA tomorrow.
Baud
Come sit next to me.
Ken
1860, 1940, 2020. A definite pattern here.
80 years would be long enough for almost everyone who remembers how bad it was last time to die. It may be similar to the rise of anti-vaxxers, as all the people who grew up with, and remember, what measles did before vaccination died off.
MP
Rubio has been yapping so much lately I’m wondering if his internals aren’t looking so hot.
Suzanne
What/who constitutes an “everyday person”? I mean, every day, I wake up, and I am still a person. I have not transmogrified into a flamingo.
Fair Economist
@MP: I’m thinking, based on Rubio catering to the nutjobs, that their enthusiasm is low. Great if true.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
These kind of class/credential feuds are mildly interesting to me within the GOP, aside from teh now-standard GOP rhetoric that the elites aren’t the billionaires we suck up to, it’s them college perfessers who look down on you! Among the wannabes and never-gonnas who are his political peers, Marco probably feels insecure around the ones who went to “first-tier Ivies” (Cruz, Hawley, Cotton, Sasse and most of all DeSantis, who Marco probably thinks took what should have been his). And I can totally see Cruz, an overgrown would-be bully if ever there was one, as the type who drops his Ivies into not-so casual conversation just to watch Marco’s jaw clench.
MattF
Rubio, after all, was considered a serious political candidate among the pack of gormless wannabes who Trump managed to beat in 2016. Along with Cruz and Christie… Christie still has that stunned look. And Jeb! Brinks trucks!
Mag
Um, “real democracy”?
You mean like only white male property owners being permitted to vote and hold office?
JR
I’ll always remember Wilenz for the embarrassing series of articles he wrote during the 2008 Democratic primaries.
Ken
I think I’ve spotted why your bona fides as an “everyday person” are suspect. My morning routine does not include a flamingo check. Or maybe I’m the one out of step?
Anyway, we all know when Rubio says “everyday person”, he means “(R) voter”.
Jill
@Baud:
we’re going to need a bigger room
WereBear
@Ken: I’ve thought so to. Just reading about early 19th century outbreaks, like the meningitis in Texas, made me a believer.
But, like with the Dobbs decision, some have to see it to believe it.
PST
@Fair Economist: Speaking of good economic news, the market has loved what it’s hearing the last few days. I’m not one to confuse the DJIA with the state of the economy, but from a political perspective, this could help sway some of the fortunate ones with assets to maybe let their usual, incurable belief that Republicans are better at managing the economy take a back seat to saving democracy this election. You can always hope.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MattF: I was recovering from rotator cuff surgery in the spring of 2016, when all outcomes of the GOP primary seemed equally unlikely, and I downloaded McKay Coppins’ book on the GOP* and the biggest surprise was seeing Marco Rubio– who I think by then pretty much had “Li’l Marco” branded on his forehead and had been ethereal by Chris Christie– portrayed as a big, swinging dick in FL politics.
*I’ve already forgotten the title, and never finished it, I bailed after the chapter on Paul Ryan that read as if it had been written by his campaign manager and revised by his mother.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne:
So you say….
Ken
Is it Charles Pierce who throws in “and obvious pseudonym” with some names? Reince Priebus was a frequent target.
Immanentize
@Suzanne:
Well, to start:
There is a blue one who can’t accept
The green one for living with
A fat one tryin’ to be a skinny one
Different strokes for different folks
And so on and so on and scooby-dooby-dooby
Immanentize
@WereBear: uhhh. Polio?
Mr. Longform
The chances of a random maid and a random bartender of producing a Marco Rubio are eleventy-gazillion to one, so his status as a unicorn among dodos is well-deserved, and we should just declare him President for life; because what we everyday people want more than anything is for an entitled egomaniac with no talent, no brains, and no charisma to lead us into the land of milk and high fructose corn syrup.
Mr. Longform
@Ken:
I believe it’s “obvious anagram”
Van Buren
I have not transmogrified into a flamingo.
But it is high on my Bucket List
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus:
Robert Burns:
SiubhanDuinne
I would just like to take this moment to heartily curse the person who linked to “Marion the Librarian” in the morning thread, because now that motherfucking song’s been stuck in my head for two motherfucking hours. Aaaarrggghhh!!
UncleEbeneezer
Speaking of these assholes, we may have to relocate to Texas in order to help get my in-laws situated into some sort of Assisted-Living housing. Mother-in-law is doing okay and about to move out of ICU, but the reality is that she is going to need major assistance even under the best scenario for recovery, and is also likely to have more events like the organ rejection/infection and mini-strokes she suffered recently. The writing is on the wall that she probably doesn’t have a whole lot of time and my Father-In-Law has tons of medical issues himself as well as Bipolar disorder. IE- he can barely manage himself right now, let alone, care for someone else. Anyways, we are bummed that we may have to postpone our Hudson Valley move and be sentenced to a year or two in Shit-hole Texas and then eventually to NY, but it is what it is.
So my wife just reached out to a place she saw on Zillow and the woman said “I see you are in Pasadena. Are you moving here because we have Gov Abbott and you have Gov. Yin-Yang?” At which point my wife responded “No and you can fuck right off” and hung up and blocked her number. She’s also gonna report her to Zillow. WTF is wrong with these people?
lowtechcyclist
Does she do actual journalism? She’s had an op-ed column since I don’t know when.
She wrote a column a day or two before the 2004 election where she said that which candidate won mattered less than that we didn’t have a repeat of 2000’s extended election night. I stopped reading her after that.
Pappenheimer
@Ken: obvious anagram, I believe
Omnes Omnibus
@Immanentize: Hey, man, different strokes for different folks. You dig?
lowtechcyclist
@SiubhanDuinne:
What can I do, my dear, to make it clear…
[runs away]
Mike in NC
Thirsty Micro Rubio might have run the most laughable presidential campaign in modern history. He’s funded by a couple of right-wing Florida billionaires who own multiple car dealerships. That’s it.
prostratedragon
@Immanentize:
You know I was tempted. Thanks .
satby
@Baud: & @BCracker: Word.
Mike E
@Pappenheimer: Reince Priebus when disemvoweled reads RNC PR BS
cain
@Fair Economist: I don’t think catering to nut jobs is going to help him in a general election. Maybe the gerrymandered areas. But nobody is excited by water gulping Rubio.
MisterForkbeard
@Fair Economist: I’ve been seeing lots of newsfolk saying “Well sure there’s zero inflation, but that’s highly misleading because the inflation didn’t drop to exactly where it was a year ago!”
Our media sucks, is what I’m saying. But the economic news is very good.
@MP: The polls between him and Deming are pretty close, after Dobbs.
Lyrebird
Thank you once again Betty!
And the soon-to-be-former Senator saying “real democracy”?? “rule of law”?? Gotta wash your mouth out, with votes of course, and wash off those ideals you have crapped on like the insurrectionists you are trying to cozy up to.
PAM Dirac
@Van Buren:
I haven’t be able to calibrate my transmogrification incantations that precisely. I’d settle for any avian species that prefers a shallow water habitat.
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus: i do so deeply dig.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
one of funny things about trump’s rallies (or it would be funny if it didn’t somehow work) was watching trump start bragging about how he was so much richer than the so-called elites, then he’d remember he was supposed to be a regular guy. Not that it mattered, they seemed to see his tacky opulence as a victory for them
prostratedragon
@UncleEbeneezer: Oh please do! People didn’t always feel so free to inject themselves into unrelated business conversations and it needs to stop.
Sorry to hear about your circumstances, but at least you’re in a position to help the folks.
Bobby Thomson
I was just thinking yesterday that every 80 years something happens that fundamentally changes what the United States is and the course it follows. I think a former president trying to set himself up as king for life qualifies as sufficiently momentous, but the end game is unclear. We possibly might get another constitutional convention where the Kochs, Mercers, etc. try to make things even worse and wind up breaking up the empire, with some states becoming hellholes, Yellowstone and other national parks disappearing and being sold for scrap, California becoming the leader of significantly more North American economies, etc., etc. We could get a rough equivalent of the EU.
Bobby Thomson
@Omnes Omnibus: But you must dig that it is not a fashion
prostratedragon
@PAM Dirac: Perhaps something in an Egyptian tomb inscription?
SFAW
@Baud:
One hopes you will “dress up” (i.e., wear pants) for the occasion.
Tenar Arha
@SiubhanDuinne: Here, have some Spanish dance music recommended by Jorts the Cat, maybe it’ll counter program enough to stop the ear worm.
Mi Gente https://youtu.be/wnJ6LuUFpMo
Bobby Thomson
Also 1789 – though 1775 was when the shooting started
MisterForkbeard
@UncleEbeneezer: One of the key features of modern republicanism is that they know everyone agrees with them and INSIST you agree with them, especially when it has no real bearing on the conversation.
And then win either way – if you agree with them, they’re validated. If you tell them they’re assholes, they successfully triggered a lib. They’re just dysfunctional and amoral people, sad to say.
schrodingers_cat
@Jill: An arena.
Suzanne
@Mike E:
I forgot about that motherfucker.
SFAW
All you flamingo-wannabes: I was wondering how you’d post here (after said transmogrification), but then I realized you could use the hunt-and-peck method.
I’ll show myself out.
Barbara
@UncleEbeneezer: Did she reach out to a real estate agent? WTF? You should report her to Zillow and to whatever agency she works with. That is so unprofessional.
Cacti
MAGA terrorist firing shots at the Cincinnati FBI offfice.
MisterForkbeard
@PAM Dirac: This is why all transmogrification efforts should use a cardboard box with a dial on the side. Much more exact.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Suzanne: An ordinary Democratic person is a person randomly chosen off the street who happens to be a Democrat.
An ordinary Republican person is a local party chair, candidate for office, or $10000 donor. Randomly chosen off the street of course.
brendancalling
FBI attacked in Cincinnati, suspect on the run, cops in pursuit.
Jeffro
That’s so funny – I was just sharing that same article on FB and tweeting it around on Twitter. Hard to picture any modern president except PBO taking the time to listen to experts (and on so many issues, too).
(trumpov and W really defined deviancy downwards for the GOP, that’s for sure).
Anyway, it’s a good read!
Suzanne
@SFAW: I don’t necessarily *want* to be transmogrified into a flamingo. I’d make an awesome cockatoo.
trollhattan
@Cacti: Ooh, please tell us they’re firing back.
UncleEbeneezer
@MisterForkbeard: Yup. So immature. Both of us have so little patience for these assholes. If we do have to move to Texas it’s going to be really hard. I will have to start leaning heavily into “Well bless your ignorant, racist heart…am I saying that right?”
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
He was a very forgettable motherfucker.
Suzanne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Do everyday people eat in diners in Ohio?
I eat at a Mediterranean restaurant in Mt. Lebanon, does that make me a flamingo?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@UncleEbeneezer: My DIL is dealing with similar issues with her parents.
Before deciding to move 1) close to our only child and 2) in an over-55 building with options for assistance when we need it, we talked to a friend in a similar facility about the timing of the move. He said you can do it too soon or too late, and too soon is better. I see the truth of that every day in my neighbors.
I’m sorry you’re in this position.
SFAW
@Suzanne:
I think you’re already pretty awesome, but if you feel the need to transmogrify, who am I to disagree?
CaseyL
@Suzanne:
@Omnes Omnibus:
On the internet, no one knows if you’re a
dogflamingo.Jeffro
@Cacti:
@brendancalling:
The media shouldn’t amplify the GOP’s crazed anti-FBI rhetoric
Yup. Any FBI blood shed is on your heads, Fox/GOP
JPL
@brendancalling:At approximately 9 AM this morning an armed subject attempted to breach the Visitor Screening Facility at #FBI Cincinnati. After an alarm and a response by FBI special agents, the subject fled north onto Interstate 71.
FBI Cincinnati (@FBICincinnati) / Twitter
lowtechcyclist
@CaseyL:
Unless it kicks off a discussion on an almost top-10,000 blog.
UncleEbeneezer
@Barbara: No real estate agent. If there was trust me we would be reaching out to them.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JPL: Cripes. I can’t say I’m surprised.
Cacti
@trollhattan: At this point, he’s hiding in a cornfield, having a shootout with the Ohio highway patrol.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@brendancalling: Firing on cops and FBI but still alive and they’re bringing in the negotiators.
I wonder why I’m thinking this is a white guy?
SiubhanDuinne
@Tenar Arha:
Thank you! You are a good person and so is Jorts.
Baud
@JPL:
So it sounds like he didn’t fire at the FBI building, but shots were exchanged in the subsequent pursuit.
Time to back the blue.
Kay
Haberman covered Trump and Chozick covered Clinton. They both sold books. Neither has ever addressed this garbage work they churned out which all the rest of media followed and parroted.
It took a lot of people to make Donald Trump but some had larger roles than others.
Baud
@Cacti:
I wonder if that’s similar to the real story behind how Cole’s car ended up in that field.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@SFAW:
Always kind of liked that song.
MinuteMan
@Suzanne: Nor metamorphized into a beetle!
lee
@Mike in NC:
I have not followed his career at at, but isn’t his current position an example of 1) being in the right place at the right time 2) failing upwards?
UncleEbeneezer
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Thanks. Honestly it’s more about how do we handle Dad once Mom is gone. MIL is double-lung transplant survivor already past the typical range of extended life post-op, so we know the clock is ticking fast on her and there’s really nothing much we can do about that. She’s not even technically out of the woods of her current situation yet. I doubt we will be able to move before she passes, frankly.
JPL
@Baud: The person fired a nail gun, and John did do construction on his house.
full disclosure: I have a nail gun.
JPL
duplicate
Baud
@Kay:
I’m glad Chozick’s stupid TV show failed.
trollhattan
@Cacti: I realize the hardcore Trumpers embedded in the bureau are unconvinced, but I hope the more sane agents now realize that Klan Trump are not their friends and in fact are happy to try and kill any feds who get in the path of their precious. If they didn’t know this already “Look, it’s Antifa!”
Kay
Just writing down and promoting this families bullshit. LOL. That’s the last 50 years of NY media coverage of Trump. God I hope they got paid.
Barbara
@JPL: And the irony is that the critical mass of FBI agents are right wing oriented — a friend’s kid was so repulsed by the outright anti-Clinton sentiments she encountered in 2016 that she refused to return for a second summer in a highly prestigious internship.
Kathleen
@Immanentize: Oooh. Cha Cha. I’m sure someone already beat me to it. Always 3 chapters behind the plot twist.
Baud
@Kay:
All you need now is for Eric to quote the NYT’s reporting of his comments as proof of Biden’s involvement and we can invade Iraq again.
Cacti
@trollhattan: I wonder which piece of shit Republican politician will be first to pretend that this wasn’t what they wanted.
Baud
@Barbara:
You notice the NYC field office is not getting attacked.
oldgold
I am not a Floridian, but I own property along its sandy coastline. A few months ago I wrote a series of observations here, about my interactions with denizens of the Sunshine State.
One thing I neglected to discuss, having been diverted by my amusement with octogenarian mating habits and Redneck culture, is why Florida continues to elect climate change deniers like Rubio.
No state has more to lose as a consequence of rising seas. Except for gondoliers and saltwater crocs, in 20 years things could be tough.
Kay
@Baud:
I used to hate read her Twitter so I followed her attempt to recast the book as a madcap, zany feminist tale of surviving in a demanding workplace. Chozick’s workplace, not Clinton’s, because as you know they are their own favorite subject. Apparently HBO wasn’t buying.
If you’re going to crib all your work from “Clinton Cash” shouldn’t you have the decency not to announce it proudly? They sent the NYTimes reporter a copy of the Bash Clinton book. Is this like a… skill?
different-church-lady
Resentment is a hell of a drug, and they’re gonna traffic that drug to the bitter end.
Jackie
Breaking: CHESTER TOWNSHIP, Ohio —
“A pursuit and ongoing police situation in Clinton County has shut down two highways and prompted an area lockdown Thursday. It all started after a potential threat was made at a FBI building in Cincinnati.“
Apparently shots are being exchanged between gun man and police.
https://www.wlwt.com/article/shots-fired-clinton-county-pursuit-suspect-police-shooting/40869695#
ETA I see JPL beat me.
different-church-lady
@Bobby Thomson: 80 years is about when the living memory of some significant event totally passes.
(ETA: which is exactly what you were saying, and I would have known that if I had bothered to read your entire comment…)
Ceci n est pas mon nym
With the usual warnings about trusting early reporting in a chaotic situation, this report says he waved an AR-15 and shot a nail gun at personnel in the FBI office.
Richard Grant
@lowtechcyclist: 2004. That’s the same year that The Atlantic staff writer Anne Applebaum won a Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction for Gulag: A History.
Baud
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I guess that’s better than the other way around.
Scout211
Long read, but worth a few moments of your time. On the front page of NBC.com is a report from NBC news in collaboration with ProPublica and published by the Texas Tribune. A young man from an evangelical household in Texas was rejected by his parents when he came out as gay. He accepted it and moved on with his life but when he realized that his mother was a public activist behind banning books in his former local community he decided to go public.
different-church-lady
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Trump really knows how to shake all the crazy out of the tree, doesn’t he?
Kay
My 2 year old granddaughter in NY has covid. I’m sure she’ll be fine but they had a vacation planned in Colorado which is now off. She was really excited about the plane ride. I may just fly her around when she’s better – we can go NY to Toledo :)
Ken
Could be that the owner of the cornfield is white, and they’re trying to avoid destruction of his property.
JPL
@Scout211: That article was so sad. How can you be so homophobic, that you toss your son aside.
Baud
@JPL:
Some people value their social network more than their family.
different-church-lady
It’s kinda interesting how Rubio unintentionally gives the problem away. Historians go to the president and tell him democracy is in danger, and Rubio is all “Hey, that’s what everyday people want!”
Mai Naem mobile
Luckily for us Biden is the right president for the right time. As usual many Americans refuse to appreciate this.
CaseyL
@JPL: Per the article, she and her husband are nutball hard-shell Xtian fundamentalists. My impression of such people is that they’re empty shells who need their “faith” the way an addict needs meth. That means, it’s easy to toss aside human relationships – just as meth addicts do.
Roger Moore
@Mike in NC:
Honestly, this is the biggest single problem with our politics. Money is so important, and the Supreme Court has so thoroughly gutted any attempt to keep the ultra-rich from pouring money into politics, that someone can become a viable candidate just because they have the right backer(s). It’s incredibly corrupt, and it got that way solely by Supreme Court fiat.
Kathleen
@Cacti: Holy Crap. I live in Cincy and this is the first I’ve heard of this.
Salty Sam
You just made my day!
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
That’s why I come to Balloon Juice!
Betty Cracker
According to CNN, the supposedly cordial June meeting at Disgraceland between the feds, Trump and his henchmen was occasioned by a criminal investigation and grand jury subpoena:
Moral of the story? Don’t fuck with librarians, man.
Kay
I did not know how bad it has gotten targeting this magistrate. I think it’s the magistrate although the idiot Fox celebrities are using “judge”.so maybe that has some meaning or is it just an easier word? Are there any grownups left on the Right? They’re going to sit on their asses until this poor man is killed?
They take home millions of dollars a year for this. Just total moral and ethical collapse and decadence.
Dorothy A. Winsor
June. WTF?
ETA: Or what Betty Cracket said
mrmoshpotato
@UncleEbeneezer:
Sorry to hear about your in-laws’ health problems. Wishing you all the best.
And to hell with that TexASS asshole on Zillow.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
The problem with Haberman covering Trump is that her mom served as his PR flack, so she saw her job as being continuing the family business rather than actual reporting.
prostratedragon
@UncleEbeneezer: Just the other day a Missouri cousin, generally a free-speaker, gave up and said of TFG “Bless his heart” in a way that could really work for you.
mrmoshpotato
@Cacti:
@brendancalling: Dumbass is gonna wind up dead or in prison for a LONG time. Attacking an FBI office – genius.
Barbara
@UncleEbeneezer: I am so sorry about your mother in law, even if it seems like she has run the table pretty well on some pretty serious medical conditions. My dad had bipolar symptoms but I don’t know if he ever had a diagnosis. They abated as he got older, especially after he was able to retire and his stress level dropped a lot. However, I don’t know what we would have done if my mother had died first. He had no insight into the effect of his “moods” on the rest of us, and no interest in developing any either. Dealing with a family member’s mental illness is so difficult. Wishing you the best.
mrmoshpotato
@Suzanne: When did 8/11 become the new 4/20? 😁
Barbara
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Basically, they kept trying to work with them and then apparently realized that the other side wasn’t acting in good faith and decided to just take them back to avoid the potential for misuse or further harm.
Barbara
@mrmoshpotato: I thought it was 4/19? Oh, I see what you did there. Sometimes I am pretty literal and slow . . .
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Aw, poor kiddo! I hope she is symptom free.
WereBear
@Immanentize: Of course, I visited the Smithsonian exhibit. But I’ve met people who vaguely recall that as something that got fixed.
I’m talking about readers of Little House on the Prairie who manage to miss all the “fevers.”
They just screen it out. I think I mentioned meningitis because I was in the middle of an outbreak and went to my fictitious to get vaccinated. Done. But no one size was.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
Maybe. Maybe they just give favorable coverage to Republicans because they are Right leaning themselves and/or it’s more profitable, because it certainly is profitable. That place will look like a funeral if they don’t get the Red Wave they’re promoting/expecting. All that work kissing GOP ass for naught.
It’s just amusing to me that this supposedly adversarial “tough” NY media gave this asshole a special pass for 50 years. Not so tough after all. Kind of pushovers, really.
UncleEbeneezer
@Barbara: FIL was an absolute nightmare to my wife when she was out there, until she finally got his meds delivered and they started kicking in. Since then he’s been fine. But he still has limited ability to take care of anyone else. The big challenge is that every thing is in such a constant state of flux that it’s really hard to plan.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Her adorable curly (giant) head is stuffed up but that’s all. She says “my curls” and flips them out of her eyes. Hysterical.
Geminid
So I hear Ron DeSantis will be taking his show on the road in coming weeks. States that DeSantis will campaign in and Republicans he’ll campaign for include New Mexico (Yvette Harrell NM-2), Arizona (Masters and Lake) and Pennsylvania (Mastriano).
Barbara
@UncleEbeneezer: My dad was one of those people who would stop taking his medications. I think he liked his manic episodes and felt like he was taking them mostly for the rest of us not his own well-being. Ugh.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
I just find it amazing that the NYT thinks it’s fine for the daughter of Trump’s former PR flack to cover Trump, as if there’s no possible conflict of interest. They don’t even think it’s important enough to mention in her bio or include as a caveat on her articles.
randy khan
Every Republican Senator makes the gap between the maid or the bartender and the combined Republicans even wider, since they all add negative value. (On a good day, Murkowski or Romney might come out at zero, but that’s only on a good day and only them.)
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: If the Democratic gubernatorial nominee can’t make hay out of that presumptuous ass DeSantis galivanting around the nation to prop up Trump’s hand-picked freakshow candidates, we’re truly in a hopeless state. The ads practically write themselves: “While you’re desperately wondering how you’ll afford your rent or pay your homeowners insurance and sending your kids to a school staffed by part-time baristas with an associate’s degree…”
Kay
@Roger Moore:
It feels like right before Oklahoma City to me which is worrying me.
I don’t understand why they are promoting this madness. We will pay for this indulgent recklessness and greed. We always do.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: “My opponent thinks our citizens are stepping stones! I will be the full time governor Floridians need and deserve!”
Ghost of Joe Liebling’s Dog
@SFAW: “He types like the eagle; he circles before he swoops.”
— John LeCarré (I think)
Soprano2
@prostratedragon: Yeah, right now I’m having heartburn because a customer who friended me on Facebook is mad about something I posted there. I’m going to have to figure out how to make it so she doesn’t see stuff I post on my news feed. It’s ridiculous.
Barry
@oldgold: ”
One thing I neglected to discuss, having been diverted by my amusement with octogenarian mating habits and Redneck culture, is why Florida continues to elect climate change deniers like Rubio.
No state has more to lose as a consequence of rising seas. Except for gondoliers and saltwater crocs, in 20 years things could be tough.”
That’s why. A vast amount of real estate money literally built on sand, and many little people terrified that their house values are like fragile butterflies.
Chris T.
@Suzanne:
I’m only a person on alternate Tuesdays.
J R in WV
@Suzanne:
But I bet you would make a beautiful flamingo, or even a cockatoo…
. . . . . . . . ;~)
Ruckus
@Ken:
I remember what measles did and I remember what polio did. I went to school with a girl who had polio, 2 of my friends moms had polio with iron lungs in their front rooms – too big to move anywhere else in the house after getting through the front door – yes I saw both of them. I had measles and one of the side effects of that – encephalitis, at 7. I didn’t grow from 7 to 12. Smallest kid in my freshman HS class. I grew later and am normal height but my torso is smaller than my arm length and inseam suggest I should be by a noticeable amount.
Someone tells me they don’t believe in Covid or all the common diseases of when I was a kid gets a very strong fuck you asshole from me. I know what many diseases can do to people, at my 50th HS reunion we talked about all the diseases that we all had and I am in no way the only one with a story like mine above.
Ruckus
@PST:
I think that a lot of the rethuglicans see the economy crap out on a semi regular basis and think that’s just normal adjustment. They don’t connect politics to the economy because if they did over the last 70-80 yrs they’d find that those fantastic leaders they like to vote for have fucked the economy every time and the democrats come along and fix it, maybe not as good as Joe is doing currently but still they make it better. However that often is at a minor expense to the extremely wealthy and those folks often/always fight back, getting rethuglicans back in and cycle repeats. SFB is just the worst example they’ve ever had in presidential or human terms.