Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. don’t touch it.”

Tick tock motherfuckers!

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

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

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

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

I was promised a recession.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

“Let’s not pretend [Trump] wants to engage in high-minded discourse.”

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

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

… gradually, and then suddenly.

In my day, never was longer.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Saturday Afternoon Open Thread

Saturday Afternoon Open Thread

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I think Alexandra Petri is my favorite columnist at this point.

Dystopian nightmare! FBI obtains warrant, conducts search!

Imagine! The next time it appears that you have run afoul of the Presidential Records Act by taking classified documents home, the FBI will obtain a warrant from a judge to come to your combined residence and country club to search your safe — with cooperation from the Secret Service! There are millions of Americans out there right now reasonably saying to themselves, “All this time I have been storing classified materials pertaining to the office of the president, some too classified even to be described (which sounds like a koan), as I thought was my right as an average citizen. And now, I see what kind of hell scape I am living in! One where the former president is subject to laws, just as I, an average citizen, am subject to laws!”

Who are your favorite columnists?

Open thread.

Update:  bonus picture of the pudding I made yesterday.

Saturday Afternoon Open Thread 12

Reader Interactions

202Comments

  1. 1.

    J R in WV

    I have so many top secret documents, hidden under the toilet in the bathroom. No, they’re in the subbasement, under the basement. Well, maybe buried out in the woods… OK I don’t have any top secret docs…

    eta: OMG, first? whoop… later on tonight I’ll get last too!!!

    I’ll also go with Ms Petri right now. Great humor.

  2. 2.

    BC in Illinois

    Before we get to favorite columnists, let’s stick with Alexandra Petri:

    “No former president is safe,” tweeted Matt Gaetz, (R-Fla.) Too true! Too true! John Adams sitting there on his trove of documents. Benjamin Harrison, inciting all those insurrections. William Henry Harrison, being there! Any one of us could become a former president, if we play our cards wrong, and we must first ask ourselves: If the most powerful are not above the law, who can be? Is anyone? Shouldn’t someone be?

    ETA: Undisputed Second Place!

  3. 3.

    Captain C

    with cooperation from the Secret Service!

    In the crime-ier parts of TFG’s life, the muscle works for the boss and knows to keep their mouths shut and not cooperate with the law.  Unfortunately for him, once he took the Oval Office, his guards are paid by someone else (us taxpayers) and even if some are co-opted, they’ve all sworn an oath which comes with real legal penalties if broken.  He appears not to have realized this yet

    ETA:  It also doesn’t help that he has only been able to attract bottom-of-the-barrel legal assistance for years now.

  6. 6.

    wv blondie

    While I love Alexandra Petri, my personal favorite is Jennifer Rubin. She wields her keyboard like it’s a hot poker … Add your own visual.

  9. 9.

    Ken

    @Captain C: He appears not to have realized this yet.

    We’ll know when he does, because he’ll start aping his BFF Putin and won’t let anyone within fifty feet of him, even the Secret Service.

  14. 14.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Yes, the “If they can do it to Trump, they can do it to you!” refrain is one of the most inane arguments to come out of this event.  And yet, I can see why it was said and who it was said to.  As the prosecutions in the aftermath of Jan 6th have shown, there is a streak of conservatism who believe that white supremacy is a Get Out Of Jail Free card.  It is a horrifying shock to them that Trump can be criminally prosecuted, and speaks of a dystopian world where anyone, no matter how white, could face consequences for their actions.

  22. 22.

    WaterGirl

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    It is a horrifying shock to them that Trump can be criminally prosecuted, and speaks of a dystopian world where anyone, no matter how white, could face consequences for their actions.

    That is a most excellent sentence.  You know, you should consider taking up writing for a living. :-)

  23. 23.

    Scout211

    I don’t have an overall favorite, but Petri is high on the list. I usually can only read the excerpts here but she is good. I guess it depends on the day and the subject of the column.  Today it was  Daniel Dale at CNN.com.

    WashingtonCNN — 
    In response to the FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s home in Florida on Monday, Trump and his allies in Congress and right-wing media have returned to his preferred strategy for communicating in a crisis: say a whole bunch of nonsense in rapid succession.
    From his battles against impeachment to his effort to limit the political fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump has attempted to flood the zone with such a quantity and variety of lies, conspiracy theories and distractions that Americans will tune out, turn away or cease to know what is true and not. And he has regularly been joined by a large cast of eager defenders.

    Baseless conspiracy theories about the search
    Using his familiar just-asking-questions style of promoting conspiracy theories, Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday a suggestion that the FBI could have planted evidence. His legal team had already been suggesting the same thing. One Trump lawyer, Alina Habba, said on Fox on Tuesday: “I’m concerned that they may have planted something; you know, at this point, who knows?”
    Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky echoed this question on Wednesday, wondering on Fox how we know “they won’t put things into those boxes to entrap him.” Fox host Jesse Watters had gone further on Tuesday, saying the FBI was “probably” planting evidence, and Paul’s campaign had adopted the “probably” by Friday.
    There is just zero basis for any of this.

  24. 24.

    frosty

    @wv blondie: I’m with you with Jen Rubin – she’s the only one I read regularly. I’ll occasionally check in with the Plum Line guys too. Other than that, I read some opinions in the Grauniad but stay the hell away from Robert Reich.

  26. 26.

    cain

    @Captain C: ETA: It also doesn’t help that he has only been able to attract bottom-of-the-barrel legal assistance for years now.

    Oh no, it helps a lot! :D (with him getting convicted!) I will cheer on his bottom of the barrell legal assistance (of whom they will get no money from him and likely land up in legal hot water as well)

  29. 29.

    Layer8Problem

    Paul Krugman’s been my first-read for years.  Jennifer Rubin went from “why bother?” years ago to an incisive anti-RWNJ force and a tonic when one is gloomed out by concern trolls.  Ms. Petri absolutely wallops, with intelligence and wit that makes you wonder how much rhetorical damage she’d do with two martinis in her.

  32. 32.

    WaterGirl

    @Scout211: I fished you out before i saw this comment.  If you want to avoid that happening when you copy from newspapers, etc just choose “paste and match style” (or whatever your system calls it).

    You might have to add the blank line between paragraphs, but at least it removes links to everything.  Or you can just wait for someone to fish you out, that works, too!

  33. 33.

    Captain C

    @cain:

    Oh no, it helps a lot! :D (with him getting convicted!) I will cheer on his bottom of the barrell legal assistance (of whom they will get no money from him and likely land up in legal hot water as well)

    Agreed, it definitely helps the majority of us who aren’t using or caping for him.  And he does seem to have an ongoing pattern of lawyers getting in real legal trouble due to working for him.

  34. 34.

    Ken

    @WaterGirl: the awful columnist who has daddy issues.

    Gonna have to be more specific than that.

    BTW I’m glad you’ve refreshed yourself on the banhammer rules, since it makes me feel safe to admit something. When I saw “pudding”, for some reason my mind went to the British kind, and for a second my eyes insisted on seeing the photo as some sort of liver pie.

  37. 37.

    JMG

    I will confess I don’t read many columnists, even ones I know I’ll agree with like Krugman, because I know in advance what they’re gonna say on any given topic. Petri is an exception. In addition to being a superlative stylist, she has a most original mind. She can make a point of view held by millions fresh to the reader.

  39. 39.

    BigJimSlade

    Is that segregated pudding, vanilla on one side and chocolate on the other? In any case, it looks delicious!

  40. 40.

    WaterGirl

    @Ken: The one who went to Colorado and ate too many edibles in her hotel room.  The one whose Daddy issues became apparent when Barack Obama was president.  I consider it a blessing that I am drawing a blank on her name at the moment.

    I haven’t read her in years.

  41. 41.

    NotMax

    Rarely bother reading any columnists with anything approaching regularly.

    That said, Eugene Robinson and Fred Kaplan are worth checking out periodically. For level-headedness from the other side of the street, Daniel Larison used to merit the occasional look-see (although haven’t come across his scribblings in years)

  42. 42.

    Ken

    @Layer8Problem: how much rhetorical damage she’d do with two martinis in her.

    Molly Ivins is sorely missed. God knows what she would say about current Texas politics. (I mean that literally — I’m sure she’s giving him quite an earful.)

  43. 43.

    trollhattan

    @Ken: Probably Dowd, but I have my suspicions about Kathleen Parker and then there’s 5th of Gin by Noon Peggy “Nooners” Noonan.

  45. 45.

    trollhattan

    Wish some Major Paper would throw a wad of cash at TBogg; he’d leave a trail of bodies, and us on the floor laughing.

  48. 48.

    Captain C

    @WaterGirl: True believers, and maybe a few desperate enough (including for a little second-hand limelight) and delusional enough to still think that they are the ones who get paid (and these probably either rapidly become true believers if only because of sunk costs and/or kompromat or leave when their survival instincts tell them it’s a no-win situation).

    And all of them are apparently fine with sucking up to a narcissist

    ETA:  The second category seems like the kind of person who would have thought investing in Madoff securities was a good idea around 2009.

  49. 49.

    gwangung

    Open topic?

    My show, She Devil of the China Seas, opens tonight.

    Trailer here.

    Jackals welcome.
    (And if my tech are on the ball, there’ll be a video on demand stream in September….)

  50. 50.

    WaterGirl

    @BigJimSlade: Yes!  They are in separate containers in the fridge of course, but for eating I put both in side by side in the bowl and then eat from the center, so I get some chocolate and some vanilla in every bite.

    The chocolate is VERY chocolate.

    Sometimes more chocolate in a bite, sometimes more vanilla.  I love that combination.

  52. 52.

    HumboldtBlue

    As you would expect, having Lauren Boebert and family as neighbors is just as hellish as you can imagine.

    Garfield County Sheriff’s deputies decided to let neighbors of U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert settle a dispute between themselves and the congresswoman’s husband after he reportedly threatened them and destroyed their mailbox.
    But 911 calls from the incident, obtained by The Denver Post, show just how upset and nervous the neighbors were over their run-in with Boebert’s husband, Jayson Boebert.
    The calls also provide additional context into what the neighbors, in Silt, said amounted to excessive speeding, property damage, possible drunken driving and threats made from a man whose family openly and regularly carries their firearms.
    “I’m sure he’s loaded to the hilt. Do you know who his wife is? Lauren Boebert. She’s loaded. They all have guns,” one neighbor told a 911 dispatcher. “He just got chest to chest, face to face, looking to fight.”

    @gwangung:
    Hot damn! That is awesome!​

  53. 53.

    Dangerman

    I’ve got something appropriate* being chilled for when they arrest the motherfucker.

    * Root Beer. Doctors say no alcohol and no caffeine. I can only soothe the hurt in copious quantities of Ben and Jerrys.

  55. 55.

    Another Scott

    @WaterGirl: DougJ admitted in that interview that he had a few months back that Dowd is a guilty pleasure for him.  His Twitter posts in her style are a hoot.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  58. 58.

    Van Buren

    @Frankensteinbeck: Ties into the fact that a lot of them are angry about the IRS expanding staff. I know a lot of guys who run cash based businesses, they all cheat and will readily cop to it, but thought as long as Trump was prez they were safe.

  59. 59.

    WaterGirl

    @trollhattan: The one good thing about TBogg and Betty Cracker not having a gig at a major paper is that there is no risk of being co-opted once they got there.

    Though I do find it difficult to imagine either one of them selling out.

  60. 60.

    BigJimSlade

    @WaterGirl: Like I said, it looks delicious :-)
    The best I’ve made is the chocolate pudding from Cooks Illustrated. I’ve never made vanilla.

  61. 61.

    Mike in NC

    Apparently USA Today recently hired some hack named Ingrid Jacques who wrote a few days ago about how the FBI searching Fat Don’s shabby club in Palm Beach for unauthorized classified material “could help Trump, backfire on Dems”. I emailed her to congratulate her eagerness to fellate the Orange Pig. Per Google, she previously wrote for the Wall Street Journal and National (Socialist) Review and other right wing rags.

  62. 62.

    trollhattan

    @Another Scott: Dowd has Grade A mean girl chops, she just seldom uses them for good. IIRC in a now-distant interview I learned she comes from a long line of Irish cops, which could explain a lot.

  72. 72.

    Geminid

    Go west Florida Man! Ron DeSantis will begin his out of state tour tomorrow in Carlsbad, New Mexico at a rally for governor candidate Mark Finchem and NM 2nd CD Representative Yvette Harrell. Then it’s on to Phoenix where he’ll rally with candidate for Arizona governor Kari Lake and Senate hopeful Blake Masters.

    DeSantis’ tour is being organized by Turning Point Action’s Charlie Kirk, and apparently scheduling is not one of Kirk’s strong points. The New Mexico rally was originally announced for Roswell but now is in Carlsbad. The Phoenix rally was to be at the Madison Center for the Arts but, from the Phoenix New Times:

    Editor’s note: the story was updated August 10 to reflect that the rally was moved to Arizona Financial Center.

    The venue for DeSantis’ rally in Ohio with J.D. Vance next Saturday was to be the Maronite Center in Youngstown. But the center’s director said he had given his OK for a Friday rally but then organizers switched to Saturday. That’s when the Maronite Center has its own festival. So now the event will be at the Metroplex Expo Center in Liberty Township.

    DeSantis will also rally that with Doug Mastriano  in Pittsburgh. Or somewhere. The announced venue was the the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, but as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported,

    …there appeared to be a scheduling conflict, and the event’s location was listed as “to be announced.”

  73. 73.

    WaterGirl

    @Another Scott: I guess it’s been so long since I have read her that I don’t recognize when it’s in her style.  Unless DougJ adds “by Maureen Dowd”.  That would be a tipoff!

    Funny, I listened to the interview and I don’t remember that.

  75. 75.

    Layer8Problem

    Every once in a while my partner will say “Dowd wrote a good one, you should read it.”  I do not.  Occasionally acceptable columns do not make up for years of precious alliteration, half-witticisms, and bad takes.

  77. 77.

    Elizabelle

    I like Michelle Goldberg of the FTF NY Times a lot.  Although, she was on the “Biden is too old!” bandwagon a while back, and disappointed me there.

    Really seems like a lot of the edgier young female columnists don’t last long at FTF NYTimes.  It is built for (male) conventional wisdom purveyors.

    You will remember that Ta-Nehisi Coates did not stay there long, either.

  79. 79.

    WaterGirl

    @BigJimSlade: I’ve never tried Cooks Illustrated.

    My recipe originally came from Betty Cracker Betty Crocker, I think.  I use this for the cocoa and it’s totally worth it.

    Imported from France, our Bensdorp cocoa has a mahogany color, with a rich, full flavor; a classic European-style unsweetened cocoa powder.

    Bensdorp cocoa is “Dutch-processed” to lower its acidity. The result is a rich flavor that shines through and a darker, more chocolatey color in baked treats.

  80. 80.

    Dangerman

    @WaterGirl: La La La La Can’t hear you La La La

    Root Beer can have caffeine? Aieeee. Good news is I can have a little (where IS that dark chocolate bar? Oh, yeah, already ate it*). It’s the quad shots I used to do that are out. Dammit.

    *dropped another 5 lbs at the Doc’s yesterday, which calls for the premium ice cream

  81. 81.

    Elizabelle

    Re that Alexandra Petri at the NY Times:  she should change her byline to A. [Middle Name or just choose one already] Petri so fast.

    Or:  could that be a Four Seasons Landscaping level hiring error by The NY Times editors?  They’ll never tell.

  82. 82.

    japa21

    There is a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times I really, really, like. He publishes three times a week. He also has a blog where he posts something everyday. A lot of it is somewhat locally directed, but when ho talks about national topics, he is on fire.
    ​
     

    https://www.everygoddamnday.com/

  84. 84.

    gene108

    @Captain C:

    It also doesn’t help that he has only been able to attract bottom-of-the-barrel legal assistance for years now.

    His first attorneys were supposed to be very good. The ones who originally agreed to represent him in the Mueller probe.

    Unfortunately for TFG, he must be just awful to try and represent, especially because as President and as a former President he’s under much closer scrutiny than a below average shady NYC real estate developer.

    Can’t drop a campaign donation to the USAG to make a case go away, unlike DA’s who are elected to office.

  86. 86.

    CarolPW

    I really enjoyed Gail Collins during Romney’s presidential run (when I was still subscribing to FTF NYT) and every column she wrote (about the presidential race or about pretty much anything) somehow managed to incorporate Seamus and his jaunt on the roof.

  88. 88.

    Ken

    @NotMax: Another decedent missed is Jack Germond.

    A man of immense moral character and self-control, to sit next to Pat Buchanan on the McLaughlin Group for years and not once try to strangle the bastard.

  90. 90.

    oldgold

    My vote goes to someone who is not a columnist, but should be – Marcy Wheeler.

    It is a damn crime that a major news organization has not given her a prime platform to share her keen insights with a larger audience.

  93. 93.

    gwangung

    @Elizabelle: Yeah, its a really fascinating story. And if the pirate queen in question had been white, there would have been more than a few movies made about her already.

    Ah well. I have a theatre company. I can produce it myself (even though it’s a near unproduceable play…..).

  95. 95.

    Ken

    @Geminid: Charlie Kirk, and apparently scheduling is not one of Kirk’s strong points.

    Maybe DeSantis likes the boost TFG got from the Four Seasons Total Landscaping fiasco press conference.

  99. 99.

    RSA

    I regularly read Carolyn Hax and Judith Martin—oh, wait, you meant political columnists, not advice columnists.

    I like Jennifer Rubin, definitely, and most of the other Washington Post regulars, with obvious exceptions that I’ll sometimes hate-read (not Marc Thiessen, though—he pushes me over the edge with his invincible intellectual dishonesty).

  100. 100.

    Elizabelle

    Incidentally, Jen Rubin recently wrote a really good column about Abigail Spanberger.  If you did not see it: WaPost: What a difference a summer can make for a Democrat in a swing district

    Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a moderate Democrat in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, has never had easy races. The upcoming midterms will be no exception, but Spanberger says she’s feeling upbeat.
    “We’re going to win,” she tells me in a phone interview. Her confidence comes from her perception that voters in her district are intensely pragmatic. Their test, essentially, boils down to one question: “What have you done for me lately?”

    … Spanberger’s seat is a true swing district. She won in 2018 and 2020 with less than 51 percent of the vote. Her constituents voted for Donald Trump by six points in 2016 and for Joe Biden by one point in 2020. To make matters more dicey, the district’s borders have changed considerably thanks to redistricting, meaning Spanberger must introduce herself to a whole patch of new voters. (She lost some Richmond suburbs and picked up areas west to the Shenandoah and more of the outer D.C. suburbs.) Though some of her constituents were part of the old 7th District, hundreds of thousands were not.

    … Nevertheless, Spanberger faces a tough political environment in which inflation remains a top issue. She acknowledges voters’ pain and the cycle of “bad news after bad news” causing so much angst. She concedes that some people want to blame it all on President Biden and expect an instant solution. But, she says, “people recognize things are complicated.” And they want to know what she’s doing to solve the problems.

    Spanberger is betting voters are much less ideological and more results-oriented than the partisan media and politicians. If so, she could not ask for a better contrast from her opponent. As a moderate Democrat running against a radical MAGA candidate, Spanberger argues that voters want legislators who appreciate “nuance,” can get things done and are not driven by partisanship.

    Thanks to the run of legislative successes, Spanberger and other Democrats in tough races can at least show voters what they are doing to improve voters’ lives (e.g., lowering drug costs, building infrastructure, taking care of veterans, giving residents help to convert to clean energy). That will be critical in November as Democrats present voters with a choice between out-of-step MAGA candidates and pragmatic Democrats who have delivered for them.

    The most liked reader comments were very complimentary to Spanberger; WaPost readers know her.

    Will def help with her campaign although, alas, I got redistricted right out of her District. (So did Abigail.)

  102. 102.

    WaterGirl

    @Dangerman: I can’t figure out why anyone would eat anything but premium ice cream.  That fluffy whipped ice cream… yuck.

    Plus, I’m more content eating a smaller portion of something really good than a bigger portion of some mediocre dessert.

  103. 103.

    Fake Irishman

    @Mike in NC:

    oh God, that stupid hack polluted the horrific opinion section of the Detroit News for years. It’s obnoxious that she now has a national platform.

  104. 104.

    hells littlest angel

    @geg6: He’s come a looong way from Mouthpiece Theater and claiming he didn’t vote in order to maintain some sort of objectivity. I even feel a little guilty about mentioning Mouthpiece Theater — he has written a lot of good stuff since those bad old days,

  106. 106.

    WaterGirl

    @BigJimSlade: I usually cheat and use the dough cycle on the bread machine.  Looks like I couldn’t do that for the english muffin bread, but it doesn’t look too hard to do that one by hand.

    (I never actually bake in the bread machine, though.)

  107. 107.

    Fake Irishman

    Connie Schultz was a great read back in the day, winning a well-earned Pulitzer from her perch at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. She writes some nationally syndicated stuff now.

    Her husband is pretty cool too, FWIW

  108. 108.

    Chetan Murthy

    @hells littlest angel: I’m gettin’ old.  I remember when he and Cillizza were slagging on Hillary and shit, yukking it up on youtube.  I guess maybe he finally realized that things could get serious ….. I guess that’s progress.  Just wish these putzes would figure things out faster.

  115. 115.

    Another Scott

    @WaterGirl:

    A sample:

    Lake Roe-Be-Gone Days

    In Texas, all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are carried to term.

    by Maureen Dowd

    — New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) April 10, 2022

    Bizarre Love Triangle

    Sergey and Elon stood together in support of tech's new order, and then love tore them apart again.

    by Maureen Dowd

    — New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) July 25, 2022

    I’ve got one of Dowd’s books, bought long, long ago. She tells stories of people not understanding where’s she’s coming from – including her family. It’s kinda sad, but she seems to accept it and gets on with her life and her job.

    (I’m not a fan of most of her attempts at humor at the expense of good people (bad people are fair game, obviously!), but I’m happy that she inspires DougJ!)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  116. 116.

    Layer8Problem

    @WaterGirl:  I find that never buying more than a pint at a time keeps me in fighting trim, what with the daily walks to the market that requires.

  117. 117.

    Geminid

    @oldgold: Magdi Semrau is another good op-ed writer. She had a piece about her experience as a tuberculosis patient featured in Foreign Affairs. Dame Magazine and John Stoehr’s The Editorial Board also feature Semrau’s longer pieces.

    Semrau, aka Mangy Jay, also does a lot of good writing on Twitter. She can write a good essay in four tweets. I think I’ve learned a lot from her, about how to think and how to write.

    Semrau says she got her Twitter handle “Mangy Jay” from the young grade school kids she used to teach. Her maiden name was Magdalene Jacobs, and the children called her Mangy Jay.

  118. 118.

    Martin

    @WaterGirl: Cooks Illustrated is my go to. In short, if there’s 20 recipes for something and Cooks Illustrated has one, that’s where I start. Always.

  124. 124.

    persistentillusion

    @japa21: The Sun Times had Mike Rothko back in the day.  Also well worth reading.  I enjoyed that story, thanks for posting the link.

  126. 126.

    Geminid

    @gene108: DeSantis certainly is confident about his reelection, but this might be what the ancient Greeks called hubris. DeSantis may end up in a close race, and his obvious national ambition could come back to bite him.

    There is a good line of attack here for Crist or Fried: “My opponent thinks our citizens are stepping stones. I will be the full time Governor Floridians need and deserve!”

  129. 129.

    Geminid

    @NotMax: Leonard Pitts is good. His columns are still syndicated nationally. I catch him sometimes in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

  131. 131.

    BigJimSlade

    @WaterGirl: I just stir it with a wooden spoon until I can’t, which is only like 1-2 minutes – it’s pretty forgiving. It’s also delicious, if you don’t forget to…
    …
    …
    add the salt. DAMMIT! Anyway, with salted butter, or gravy, it will be fine.

  137. 137.

    Heidi Mom

     

    Since this is an open thread, can anyone with more medical knowledge than I have (in other words, any at all) offer an opinion on Salman Rushdie’s condition?  His injuries sound horrific, but he’s survived surgery and is now on a ventilator.  Post-Covid, the phrase “on a ventilator” seems to equate with “about to die,” but I don’t know if that’s the case here.  Dearly hoping not.

  138. 138.

    WaterGirl

    @BigJimSlade: I use salted butter for everything – they add something to unsalted butter as a preservative and the smell of unsalted butter is disgusting to me.

    But then you can leave the salt out of most recipes, or at least cut it way back.

    I may have to try that recipe.  There used to be a guy at the farmer’s market who made and sold english muffin bread, and it was so good.

    And I do love cornmeal.

  141. 141.

    WaterGirl

    @Heidi Mom:

    Post-Covid, the phrase “on a ventilator” seems to equate with “about to die,” but I don’t know if that’s the case here.

    I, too, hope he is okay.

    That’s definitely how it seemed with Covid, but I have absolutely no idea.  I keep wondering how someone with a knife was able to get that close to him?  Don’t they screen people at his public events?

  143. 143.

    WaterGirl

    @WereBear: I can totally understand a cocoa emergency!  I nearly had a vanilla emergency when I was making the pudding.

    I thought I had one more 4 oz. bottle of the good stuff but I did not.  I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough and I would have to break into the Mexican vanilla I had gotten years ago.  Luckily, I had just enough, and more is coming on Tuesday.  whew!

  145. 145.

    Abnormal Hiker

    @WaterGirl: when she was just a regular reporter at WaPo she hosted some sort of an internet discussion and DougJ called (texted??) in. She recognized right away that DougJ was tolling her and she responded in a very witty manner. My guess is that it was about 10 years ago. I have zero BJ searching skills to track it down..

  151. 151.

    Grumpy Old Railroader

    run afoul of the Presidential Records Act by taking classified documents home

    I am bewildered why so many people buy into the “classified documents” framing of this dumpster fire. The Presidential Records Act is not JUST about Classified material. It pertains to ALL records, whether classified or not. So it doesn’t matter one iota if Trump declassified documents or not! It’s like Trump hollers “squirrel” while hiding the ball and everybody turns to see where the squirrel is and forgets about the ball.

  152. 152.

    JAFD

    Am surprised no one has yet mentioned Michael Hiltzik (whose name I hope I’ve spelt correctly) of the LA Times

  155. 155.

    Mo MacArbie

    I haven’t read any newspaper columnists in a long time. Something about reading the firehose of opinion in the blogosphere—well-founded, unfounded, and every founded in between—just made the Op-Eds seem quaint.

  159. 159.

    prostratedragon

    I don’t have one favorite anything I think, but Krugman is a long favored, especially Shrill Krugman. Certainly like Petri and others mentioned, and relish the occasional McCall sighting (“The Horror of Rejection” is a non-political scream).

    @Captain C:  I’ve heard somewhere that MAGA stands for Make Attorneys Get Attorneys.

  160. 160.

    kalakal

    @gwangung:

    And if the pirate queen in question had been white, there would have been more than a few movies made about her already.

    So very true, she operated on a scale that makes Blackbeard, Roberts etc look like amateurs.

  161. 161.

    Jay C

    @WaterGirl:

    According to a report I read today, Rushdie was not particularly overcautious about his public appearances, and that the Chautauqua Institution – where he was giving his speech – didn’t go in for serious security measures, as they thought it didn’t mesh with the image they wished to present. The assailant (described, as usual,as the “quiet, unremarkable type who kept to himself” – no criminal record at all) simply bought a pass to the event, and walked  right in.

  164. 164.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    Who are your favorite columnists?

    Charles Blow – NY Times

    Jamelle Bouie –  NY Times

    Chauncey Devega – Salon

    Amanda Marcotte – Salon

    Elie Mystal – The Nation

    Leonard Pitts – Miami Herald

    Dick Polman – Independent columnist, formerly with Philadelphia Inquirer & WHYY https://www.dickpolman.net/

    Catherine Rampell – Washington Post

    Erin Gloria Ryan – Daily Beast

    Margaret Sullivan – Washington Post (Sadly, she’s leaving on Aug 24 to join the faculty of Duke University)

    Lucian Truscott – Salon

    Joan Walsh – The Nation

    D. Watkins – Salon

    Special mention

    Jennifer Mercieca – She’s not a columnist, she’s a professor of communications at Texas A&M University and author of Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump.  I like to check out her Twitter feed https://twitter.com/jenmercieca

  166. 166.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    Whole Foods CEO and co-founder, John Mackey, is still a fucking nut case:

    The “socialists are taking over” Whole Foods’ CEO and co-founder, John Mackey, has lamented in a recent podcast interview.

    “They’re marching through the institutions. They’re taking everything over. They’re taking over education. It looks like they’ve taken over a lot of corporations. It looks like they’ve taken over the military, and it’s just continuing,” he told the libertarian magazine Reason in a podcast released on Wednesday.

    “I feel like with the way freedom of speech is today, the movement on gun control, a lot of the liberties that I’ve taken for granted most of my life, I think are under threat,” Mackey said.

    Mackey pegged the candid sharing of his political opinions to his upcoming retirement as Whole Foods’ chief executive in September.

    “In six weeks, I will retire from Whole Foods, and I have muzzled myself ever since 2009,” Mackey said, referring to the op-ed he penned for the Wall Street Journal that year where he compared Obamacare to fascism.

    “My board basically shut me down. It’s like a father, they started attacking the child, and I was intimidated enough to shut up,” Mackey told Reason.

    h/t https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/11/whole-foods-ceo-john-mackey-socialists-taking-over

  167. 167.

    Abnormal Hiker

    @WaterGirl: Back in the mists of time when Cole first saw the light there was a troll called Atanarjuat (Fast runner in Inuktitut). Without question he was the best troll ever. I have always wondered if he was DougJ

  168. 168.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    Mom used to make it for dinner. I went hungry rather than eat that swill. She also used to cook Brussels Sprouts. I hated them more than the L&O. I once had my portion served 3 days in a row, to eat before any thing else served. I held out 3 days, she threw them out. Never tried to serve them to me again. Later on I served in the Navy. One learned how to eat pretty much anything. We did come very close to having a mutiny on the destroyer one evening over dinner. Only thing that stopped that was one lifer taking his tray up to the wardroom, walking in, setting the tray down in front of the capt and making this statement – “This is my dinner, this is all I get, what the fuck are you going to do about it?” Surprisingly the guy didn’t get in trouble. But lifers were discussing braking into the gun locker and having mutiny for dinner. It was a bad situation, to say the least. Aww, the memory of good times…… And people wonder why so many of us loved the military…..

  169. 169.

    FelonyGov

    The LA Times has some great columnists. Some, like Steve Lopez and Gustavo Arrellano, write mostly aboutlocal issue but we also have Robin Abcarian, Michael Hiltzik, and others. Makes it worth subscribing.

  170. 170.

    FelonyGovt

    Redoing a comment that disappeared from moderation…

    The LA Times has a lot of good columnists  some, like Steve Lopez and Gustavo Arrellano, write mostly about local matters, but check out Michael Hiltzik and Robin Abcarian (among others).

  171. 171.

    Elizabelle

    Rushdie is off the ventilator, talking and joking.  Guessing they put him on the ventilator to give his lungs some time to heal?

    AP:
    MAYVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — “The Satanic Verses” author Salman Rushdie was taken off a ventilator and able to talk Saturday, a day after he was stabbed as he prepared to give a lecture in upstate New York.
    Rushdie remained hospitalized with serious injuries, but fellow author Aatish Taseer tweeted in the evening that he was “off the ventilator and talking (and joking).” Rushdie’s agent, Andrew Wylie, confirmed that information without offering further details.

  172. 172.

    bjacques

    @gwangung: cool! I think she featured in a Doctor Who episode this year, if we’re talking about the same one. Went up against the Sea Devils!

  175. 175.

    Brachiator

    @frosty:

    I read some opinions in the Grauniad but stay the hell away from Robert Reich.

    What’s the problem with Robert Reich?

  177. 177.

    p.a.

    From Indianexpress dot com:

    “… In July 1991, Hitoshi Igarashi, the novel’s Japanese translator, was stabbed dead in Japan, and its Italian translator, Ettore Capriolo, was injured in a knife attack in Milan. In October 1993, the Norwegian publisher of ‘The Satanic Verses’, William Nygaard, was shot and wounded in Oslo…”

    Don’t know how many legit threats Rushdie’s security has dealt with over the years, but after 29 years without an actual attack I can understand letting your guard down.

  178. 178.

    Feathers

    This is when I’m going to confess I was a fan of Maureen Dowd. Back in the 70s, when she was a reporter at the Washington Star, DC’s defunct afternoon paper. She did lifestyle and entertainment writing. She went to London for the wedding of Charles and Diana. When everyone else was just writing fluff, she wrote about a lot of the Camilla stuff (like Diana finding jewelry that was meant for Camilla) that only became mainstream years later. Sad that she went to FTFNYT instead of Vanity Fair, which would have played to her strengths. She has been beyond awful there.

     

    @WaterGirl: Cook’s Illustrated is the same people as America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country. It’s interesting to see how they take the same dish and do recipes at varying difficulty levels (all tasty). Cooks Illustrated is the most elaborate, ATK tends towards weeknight friendly, there are also some ATK Family cookbooks, which are even more simple versions. I have all the ATKF cookbooks, because they are easy and never fail. There is an ATKF Baking cookbook worth its weight in gold.

    Salted butter? Here’s a really good video from Adam Ragusea about the history of salted butter, why the difference used to be a big deal, but isn’t as much now, and Julia Child says they are interchangeable except for frosting (which needs unsalted). Link

  180. 180.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Geminid: ​…the event’s location was listed as “to be announced.”

    As opposed to the event’s content, which is “to be denounced,” loudly and lustily.

  183. 183.

    Jackie

    @Geminid: I’m really hopeful DeSantis’ arrogance bites him HARD. He’s basically telling Floridians he’s so sure of being re-elected, he doesn’t need to waste his time at home.

    Campaigning for TFG’s governor picks is gonna piss off the already pissed off guy who’s on the verge of being charged for espionage.

  187. 187.

    Elizabelle

    The attack on Salman Rushdie Is going to turn out like the attempted removal of Maus from libraries. Already seeing  that Rushdie’s works are in demand, as people check them out.

    He may lose an eye, his liver has been injured, and nerves in one of his arms have been severed. Still, at 75, he will have many more emotional and financial resources to deal with this.  Wish him the fullest recovery possible, and maybe he will write some more books.

  189. 189.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus:

    Later on I served in the Navy. One learned how to eat pretty much anything. We did come very close to having a mutiny on the destroyer one evening over dinner.

    One of the many reasons, if trivial, that I never even considered the military.

    In college, I was on a full meal plan, and the food was generally great, except for a inedible beef strip served some evenings which everyone dismissed as “London Toil.” This was an automatic pizza night.

    Breakfast was especially divine, particularly the weekend Breakfast.

    In elementary school, the school lunches were so spectacular that the week’s menu was regularly printed in the local newspaper on Monday. There were even ice cream sandwiches for dessert. Then we moved to California, where school lunch was dreary institutional food.

    Aww, the memory of good times…… And people wonder why so many of us loved the military…..

    Even though you didn’t make the military your career, your service seems to have had a significant impact on your life and perspective on things.

  191. 191.

    JAFD

    @Ruckus: I like Brussels Sprouts.

    But they don’t like me.

    I eat them for dinner, at 3AM they start staging a protest march around my guts …

    My father didn’t like liver and onions.  So I never had it until I went away to college, and found I like it.  (Very fond of liverwurst and onion sandwiches, he was, tho … )

  193. 193.

    different-church-lady

    @NotMax: Ugh. I recently developed orange juice rage upon discovering a typical carton is now only 52 ounces.

  194. 194.

    Brachiator

    I don’t buy physical newspapers anymore and I don’t currently subscribe to any online newspapers. I will read individual stories at various news sites that are not under a pay wall.

    But I no longer read columnists, except for the occasional link here from a front pager or new post.

    I had been listening to the LA Times podcast to see if I might want to subscribe to the paper again, but the selection of items for the podcast is so wretched that it has eliminated any interest I had in the paper.

    The closest to a favorite columnist is Phil [Forgot last name] who does the A Different Bias commentary on BREXIT and British politics on YouTube. He is a former school teacher who discusses politics with keen insight. It is strange that most British people simply accept the tradition that most mainstream newspapers will be biased, and choose their poison based on their own political ideology.

  196. 196.

    The Lodger

    @Geminid: Wow, campaigning really is all about giving your money to the right people, no matter how incompetent they are. Not just the candidates, but the event producers can be complete numpties too.

    Wait, this is Bialystock and Bloom with worse politics.

  197. 197.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    It actually isn’t the food the military buys, it is the cooks, the volumes necessary and sometimes the length of time between restockings. We had a very good cook on board the DDG I was on for 2 yrs, except he retired 2-3 months after I reported on board.

    I think I put in the effort to do the job I agreed to when I joined. Depending on any one’s particular circumstances it isn’t that difficult to attempt a positive attitude and to do the job. Most of my fellow sailors did that and I imagine most did in all branches. Make the best of what you’ve got, it can almost always be worse, even as it can almost always be better. And in the military that doesn’t mean you have to like it. But yes I try, because I find in the long run that it’s far more satisfying to try and fail than it is to give up and always fail.

    Your point about the service having an impact can come from many directions for the participant. For me I did 3 NATO cruises, and got to visit many cities in parts of the world that are spectacular. And enjoyable. I visited the artist Rubin’s home while on a walk with a retired gentleman who stoped by the ship and offered a tour. I’ve been to what 6 of us thought was a restaurant in Naples, but turned out to be a, well there is no other word, whorehouse, and we left, to be accosted 2 minutes later by 2 knife welding guys wanting our money and we talked our way out of that. I got experiences, lots of them, that I otherwise wouldn’t have. Was it fun? Well for sure not all the time or even most of the time, but sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Athens a block away from centuries old buildings open to the public, having tea and desert wasn’t bad.

    A lot of this is my attitude, you can’t make a good time out of every day but you can make many, but only if you actually try. We get one shot at life, you can make the best of it, or it can suck donkey balls, it’s up to you. What’s that song, The Bright Side of Life…..

  198. 198.

    Another Scott

    @Ruckus: When my dad was finishing up college and was in danger of being drafted if he didn’t volunteer, he signed up for the Navy because he thought/heard they had better food.

    ;-)

    He did his time as a Lt and was in the reserves after that, but never talked about it much.  I did hear from mom that he had a problem with getting seasick and was a devotee of Dramamine for the rest of his life whenever he was out on the water.

    :-)

    I remember being a young teenager in the early ’70s, wondering if the war was ever going to end, wondering if I was going to be drafted…  Things are different now, and every generation has its trials and tribulations, but fear of the draft and figuring out what to do about it marked a lot of people back then…

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  200. 200.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:

    I signed up 2 days before they announced the draft drawing. They told me when I enlisted that it would be about 4 months at least until I actually went in. So I figured that because I’d signed up my number would be in the 300 range. Wrong. 15th. I was going one way or another, at least i got to choose, salt water, or mud. At the time they were taking 30-50% of draftees into the Marines and that sent you automatically to Vietnam. Good times. And they did have better food, better being a relative term. I’ve crossed the Atlantic 6 times and the last time, coming back was a massive storm. Unless one wants to be sunk you have to go into the storm. We did, a 5 day crossing took 10 days, and we ended up about the St Lawrence Seaway instead of Charleston, SC. So that was 3 days sailing south after 7-8 days of 40-50 ft seas. I was one of 4 or 5 on board who didn’t get sick. Never had to stand in line for chow either.

    Everyone who served has stories, some have tried unsuccessfully to forget them. This is the stuff that stays with you for a long, long time. I  know, I’ve sat with enough vets at the VA to hear quite a bit of that stuff. There are bits, mostly combat bits, that no one wants to remember. But living through a real horror movie is never forgotten, only accepted. And that is not in any way an easy accomplishment. Those of us who didn’t see combat were lucky, very lucky.

  201. 201.

    Nancy

    I like Jennifer Rubin, Alexander Petri, The Plum Line, and Paul Krugman.

    No More Mister Nice Blog and the Rude Pundit.

    I miss Bob Bateman, not sure of his title now, and TBogg.

     

    On another topic, the draft. I had friends in school, boyfriends, my brother, all facing the draft.

    I knew a guy who was cleary expecting not to come back. He talked about dangerous activities he did before he had to report. The one I remember is taking his car out on the interstate and crawling across the hood from one window to the other, then across the seat back to the wheel. Presumably while going fast.

    Later I saw the notice that he was inducted, then that he died.

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