Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

American History and Black History can not be separated.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

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

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

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

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

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

People are weird.

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

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Whew!

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Whew!

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Happy National Cat Day!

President Biden is a good man, and a pretty fine politician…

Good (as can be expected) news:

Weekend watching..

Reader Interactions

92Comments

  1. 1.

    Raven

    We’re headed out for the last of 3 offshore trips! Lots of fish and I’ll probably wait to post some pics for Suzanne!

  2. 2.

    Baud

    Barack and I believe that everyone has a story worth telling

    I don’t, but it’s a nice sentiment.

  5. 5.

    lowtechcyclist

    Happy National Cat Day!

    Every day is cat day!

    Which reminds me, I need to go feed my feline overlords.  After that, one or both of them will probably be ready for some lap time.

  6. 6.

    satby

    Next week is the return to standard time and I’m looking forward to having daylight at 7:30 again. It’s pitch dark. BLECH!

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Man released from California prison after 38 years following DNA test

    At the time of the victim’s autopsy, the coroner conducted a sexual assault examination and semen was detected in an oral swab, the district attorney’s statement said.

    Hastings sought DNA testing in 2000 but the DA’s office denied the request. Hastings submitted a claim of innocence to the DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit last year and DNA testing last June found that the semen was not his.

    The DNA profile was put into a state database this month and matched that of a person convicted of an armed kidnapping in which a female victim was placed in a vehicle’s trunk, as well as the forced oral copulation of a woman.

    22 years because the DA was afraid to be proven wrong..

  9. 9.

    Tony Jay

    It is ‘amusing’ – in one sense of the word – that the US News Media (and their UK copycats) are basically reduced to elbowing the actual polling off the table and shouting over the objections with “Yeah, yeah, but I tossed some chicken bones last night and according to Magus Broder’s Grimoire of Gloom their pattern spelled doom aplenty for the Sons and Daughters of Demokratus.”

    I’m happy to be comfortably hopeful for you.

  10. 10.

    NeenerNeener

    Early voting starts at 9 am here today. I’m debating whether or not to wrestle my dad’s old Rollator into my car in case the lines are long and I need to sit for a bit.

  12. 12.

    WereBear

    @NeenerNeener: We also looked up the early voting. Two years ago it was 45 minutes away, but we went anyway to “bank” our vote.

    This time it’s only 15. I think different places take turns and the fairness part pleases me.

    Our turn!

  14. 14.

    OzarkHillbilly

    No early voting in Misery other than absentee, and for that one needs reasons. I could always lie but what’s the point? We live in a very sparsely populated precinct and it never takes more than 5 minutes.

  15. 15.

    Amir Khalid

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The state of California should compensate him for two decades nearly four decades of wrongful imprisonment. And dock the DA’s salary/pension to help pay for it. (Not, of course, that I expect either to happen.)

  17. 17.

    Gin & Tonic

    Early voting has been available here since the 19th, and for me it’s in town hall, which is about three minutes away on a route I have to take to go almost anywhere. Voting has always been very easy and convenient here in RI.

  20. 20.

    Mimi

    Voted by mail a couple of weeks ago. I don’t really miss voting in person. It’s a lot easier to have my computer handy to research candidates for offices I didn’t realize we were voting for. And judges

  23. 23.

    WereBear

    Glad to hear about Mr. Pelosi, but that’s awful for anyone to recover from, much less people at that age.

    It’s self-defense to vote blue now. Because the hordes have already been unleashed. We have to deal with them, because the other side created them.

    And, I know, are just as afraid of them.

  27. 27.

    Amir Khalid

    @Tony Jay:

    It appears to me that Rishi Sunak hasn’t had the best first week that a new PM might want. In particular, the argument over the reinstatement of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary has been using up a lot of the oxygen in the room. And the clamour for a new general election is not dying down, especially given the Tory party’s volte-face on previous policy. Is this troubled start down to Sunak, to the Conservative party’s general dysfunction? How do you reckon it will all play out?

  29. 29.

    Geminid

    Glenn Youngkin managed to get Republican congressional candidate Yesli Vega some national attention with his discreditable remarks about the attack on Paul Pelosi, made at a Vega rally.. Ms. Vega received another gift yesterday in the form of an endorsement from Donald Trump, on Truth Social. The Washington Post said Vega has steered clear of mentioning Trump throughout her campaign, and that she downplayed yesterday’s endorsement.

    Vega’s opponent, Representative Abigail Spanberger, was not shy about promoting it, tweeting:

    Tonight, my opponent was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Virginians are exhausted  by his division, lies, and hyperpartisanship.

    Spanberger was thought to be leading the race, but some analysts recently moved their rating to tossup. I think she’ll win, but she is new to 70% of the redrawn district so I have my fingers crossed.

  30. 30.

    Princess

    The Cohn- Silver dust up is fascinating. Cohn is basically reduced to saying KS must be an outlier because it messes with the NYT narrative. And the NV early vote continues to look like it may not be terrible for Dems. This one is certainly within  the margin of effort still.

  34. 34.

    Baud

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I am not a bum. I’m a jerk. I once had wealth, power, and the love of a beautiful woman. Now I only have two things: my friends, and… uh… my thermos. Huh? My story? Okay. It was never easy for me. I was born a poor black child. I remember the days, sittin’ on the porch with my family, singin’ and dancin’ down in Mississippi…

  36. 36.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    From The Republican Accountability Project via twitter:

    Tudor Dixon suggested that “the Covid-19 pandemic and protests in the summer of 2020 after the killing of George Floyd were part of a decades-long plan by the Democratic Party to ‘topple’ the United States as retaliation for losing the US Civil War.”

    I don’t even know where to start. As I recall, the Detroit News endorsed her. I hope they’re proud of themselves

  38. 38.

    davecb

    @Baud:  I used to think some folks had no story to tell. Since then I’ve come to see that I’ve often lacked the opportunity to hear the interesting things.

    I think maybe if you’re a human and alive, you have a story I’d like to hear. Or maybe just need to hear (;-))

  40. 40.

    Repatriated

    @Baud:

     

    I blame King Charles for staying alive.

    Place blame where it rightly belongs: the Bee Gees wrote and performed that.

  46. 46.

    catclub

    @mrmoshpotato: So today is more important than every other Caturday?

     

    Yes, because it is the only caturday we have right now. All the others are only in the metaverse.

  48. 48.

    catclub

    I watched the first 9 innings of the World Series game. What I noticed was there were lots of ads from the US government, on covid vaccines and … something else I have already forgotten?
    I thought this meant that ‘real’ advertisers were not bothering with the WS as advertising opportunity.​
     

    There was one crazy ad against Biden and against sending money to Ukraine by something like ‘Return to Sanity’ which I was certain is paid for by Putin and his sympathizers.

  54. 54.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Baud: Cue 3-part Strine falsetto:

    Whether he’s your sovereign or just a tabloid botherin’
    He’s staying alive, staying alive
    Londongrad is broken and Sushak is a token
    But he’s staying alive, staying alive
    Ah, ha, ha, ha, staying alive, staying alive…
     

  56. 56.

    JAFD

    Good morning, fellow jackals !

    Well, managed to get all my possessions out, left my place to the renovation crew.  Now on ‘vacation’ in friends’ basement in Philly suburbs.  Stressful month of packing, when I expected to be ensconced there till they carried me out feetfirst.  But first world problems …

    As lifelong Phillies fan, remembering the nailbiter NLCS series of ’80, have laid in good supply of popcorn.  Fortunately turned off in middle of the bottom of the 10th last night.  Do not  think my heart  could have stood it.

    Have great weekend, everyone, and happy Samhain / Halloween / All Saints’ / Dia de los Muertos

  57. 57.

    Van Buren

    @Geminid: My mom and sister were redrawn into the district. They voted yesterday, their votes will cancel each other out. Hoping Spanberger can win.

  58. 58.

    Kay

    Missouri House Rep. Crystal Quade has filed Sunshine Law requests with Attorney General Eric Schmitt, Gov. Mike Parson and the Department of Health and Senior Services to request records regarding an alleged investigation into Freeman Hospital in Joplin and Joplin resident Mylissa Farmer, who was unable to get treatment in Missouri in August when her water broke early and put her health at risk.
    Farmer, who eventually traveled to Illinois to terminate her pregnancy after it was deemed “not viable,” said she was unable to get help in Missouri, which about a month earlier had instituted a broad ban on abortion.
    Schmitt’s campaign, the governor’s office and DHSS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
    The Attorney General’s office said in an email that its office was not involved in the investigation.
    Quade also alleges in the letters that Eric Schmitt’s campaign, Schmitt for Senate, sent cease and desist letters to the television stations that aired an ad that featured Farmer stating she was denied an abortion due to Missouri law.
    Television stations continued to air the ad, and “it now appears that within days of this letter being sent, the state launched an investigation into the Missouri hospital where Ms. Farmer received medical care, and potentially into Ms. Farmer herself,” Quade said.
    Quade explains that the timing of the investigation “is suspicious and concerning to say the least, and suggests that the substantial taxpayer-funded investigative power of state government is being weaponized against citizens for political retaliation.”

  59. 59.

    Eunicecycle

    @davecb: My son and DIL purchased a subscription to Storyworth for Mother’s Day and they send me a new question each week to help me tell my story. I have discovered that I don’t have one and I am a very boring person!

  61. 61.

    narya

    Morning run AFTER the sunrise–one more week of dark, then a bit of a reprieve. Did the laundry yesterday while working, so today I can do other stuff (I loathe doing laundry). Veggies to roast (beets, sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts, mini pumpkins, small spaghetti squash), maybe bake something. Maybe go vote! I need to figure out the judges, but otherwise my choices are easy ones.

    Back when I used to socialize with other people, I went out by myself a lot, and I got pretty good at getting people to talk–and, yes, I heard some fascinating stories. I’ve always enjoyed finding the subject/question that will make someone start talking.

  62. 62.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @davecb: An old saw sez that every human has at least one novel inside themselves: The story of their own life.

    IMO – even if one ignores the average shmo’s inability to fashion a coherent tale out of that life – while every story might be worth telling, not all are worth expending the time and attention to listen to.​ There are surely tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands if not millions, of such “stories” that, beyond fundamentally trivial details, are distressingly (and depressingly) identical.

    And that IMO is the dire weakness of the Internet: Every shmo can put out that story however poorly s/he tells it, feels entitled to have it (no matter how banal) paid attention to, and too often gets angry enough to commit violence (with easily obtainable weapons) when it isn’t. As Tom Lehrer (may he live another 100,000 years!) once famously opined,

    If a person feels he can’t communicate, the least he can do is shut up about it.

  66. 66.

    mrmoshpotato

    @JAFD:

    Fortunately turned off in middle of the bottom of the 10th last night. Do not think my heart could have stood it. 

    You didn’t feel like cheering? :)

    Go Phillies!

  67. 67.

    Geminid

    @Van Buren: I also was drawn into the new Virginia 7th CD. I wasn’t wild about how the special masters drew Virginia’s congressional districts, but they did me a favor when the moved Greene County from the 5th District to the 7th.

    Their new General Assembly maps seem fairly neutral, and should be an improvement over the Republican maps in force since 2011. We’ll find out next year, when both houses are up for election.

  68. 68.

    Ken

    @Uncle Cosmo: Ah, obviously that’s why the Detroit News endorsed her. They mistakenly thought Dixon was a new car model and Ford was re-opening one of their Detroit-area plants to manufacture it.

  69. 69.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    It amazes me women come forward with these stories. They immediately become the target of Right wing nuts in government, media and the general public.

    I wouldn’t do it. I’d be afraid they would attempt to charge me with something or do some other retalitory action- loss of state license, etc. and that’s just the STATE action threat- an ordinary anti abortion nut could also be violent.

    Remember when national media and a state AG went after Ohio local media on the child rape/abortion story?

  70. 70.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Speaking of stories worth telling: Jerry Lee Lewis was a star who lived life dangerously close to the edge

    Jerry Lee Lewis was waiting in the lobby of the William Morris Agency, New York, one day in 1958. The receptionist was very attractive and, as he loved to, he began to tell her of life on the road, of how he nearly pushed Paul Anka off the roof of a hotel, all kinds of wildness. After a while, he paused. “What if I told you that none of that was true?” he asked her.

    She looked crestfallen. “Please don’t tell me that. That’s the Jerry Lee Lewis I know. The one people love.”

  71. 71.

    BC in Illinois

    Early voting in Missouri began this week. Mrs BC and I went on Thursday. St Louis County. A fairly steady line all the time we were there (3pm).

    Easy ballot to fill out.

    Actual candidates — Senate, Congress, State, Local — just look for the Democrat.

    Judicial retention — no one has raised any dust this time, so, whatever.

    Constitutional changes — No.

    Marijuana legalization — even the pro-weed people are split. I voted Yes.

    [Just for clarity, BC in Illinois has been in Missouri for seven years. I’ve never gotten around to changing the name or updating the email.]

    Edited to Add — Ozark is correct. Schmitt (our SofS) is scum.

  72. 72.

    Ken

    @BC in Illinois: If you’d stayed in Illinois, it would have been nearly as easy. We only had the one amendment, for collective bargaining rights, and that was an easy call.

    Even if I’d been unsure, the yard signs — my new go-to for quick political decisions — pointed in the right direction.  The “Vote No on 1” signs were always with signs for Republican candidates.

  73. 73.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: ​Schmitt is a particularly egregious example of the type.

    ‘Attempted intimidation’: Missouri AG sent five requests for MSU emails, records

    Jon Turner isn’t shy about sharing his opinion.

    An associate professor at Missouri State University in Springfield, Turner’s personal social media is typically filled with articles he shares about education or about his research focus of four-day school weeks.

    But occasionally Turner dips into politics, especially after Attorney General Eric Schmitt began suing, subpoenaing and investigating public schools.

    In April, after Schmitt launched a platform for parents to report “divisive” curriculum in their student’s school, Turner mused on Twitter that Schmitt used to be known as a moderate in the state legislature.

    “…now as our ATTORNEY GENERAL he is so ANTI-TEACHER I just can’t wrap my mind around the flip-flop,” wrote Turner, a former school administrator and teacher for 25 years. “I’m working to make sure this dangerous, hateful political jellyfish never gets elected to anything again.”

    A few days after that tweet, Missouri State University (MSU) got a letter from the attorney general’s office requesting all of Turner’s emails over the previous three months.

  76. 76.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Jesus. It’s terrifying. And, you’ll notice, completely ignored by the “cancel culture” crowd. They’re busy tracking poorly behaved Yale law students.

    In other news my Ryan and Kaptur yard signs were almost immediately stolen out of my front yard, which never used to happen. I knew I should have gotten spares.

  77. 77.

    J R in WV

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    From The Republican Accountability Project via twitter:

    Tudor Dixon suggested that “the Covid-19 pandemic and protests in the summer of 2020 after the killing of George Floyd were part of a decades-long plan by the Democratic Party to ‘topple’ the United States as retaliation for losing the US Civil War.”

    I don’t even know where to start. As I recall, the Detroit News endorsed her. I hope they’re proud of themselves
    </blockquote

    Well, as usual with fanatic ranting, there is a grain of truth in there, as the then Democratic Party of 1860 was pro-slavery, and did foment the First Civil War of 1860-65. And back the, over a century ago, Lincoln was a founder of the Republican party.

    But of course, over the course of the 20th century, the Democratic party pushed for liberalizing the nation, implementing Social Security, hated by the Republicans, the Civil Rights Act, hated by Republicans, Medicare and Medicaid, BOTH hated by Republicans, etc. While Republicans now attempt to keep people of color and women down and out of influence, rather than allowing them to be free and contribute to our society. They love slavery now, while Lincoln was none too fond of it.

    Could Lincoln win a Republican primary in today's electorate? Nope.

    Tudor seems as bright as a '57 Tudor Dodge, although not as useful.

  80. 80.

    J R in WV

    @Kay:

    In other news my Ryan and Kaptur yard signs were almost immediately stolen out of my front yard, which never used to happen. I knew I should have gotten spares.

    Sounds like you need a third sign  to say “Smile, you’re on Internet TV right now!” and perhaps also an inexpensive game camera for the traffic after dark. These grunts make me so angry, I may have trouble taking my nap this afternoon!

    We live up a farm road off of a dead end dirt county road, so a sign would be useless here. But on the positive side, we have very little strange drive by traffic.

  83. 83.

    kalakal

    @Amir Khalid: The Tories and the media is desperately pushing the ‘return to stability, competence after the craziness of the last month’ narrative. Everything is that stupid woman’s fault ( except when it’s Labours, Covid’s, Green protesters, the EU’s, Tofu eaters and the Grand Order of the Bavarian Illuminati’s). The last 12 years had nothing to do with them, and everyone will now have jam for tea. Basically no news is good news and they want everyone to get bored and chase after any squirrel they can conjure. The problem is the reality of  Brexit is now kicking them in the face, and they’re the same incompetent cementheads who’ve totally fucked the economy. Reinstating the vile Braverman is blowing in up his face.

    Here’s James O’Brien

    https://youtu.be/U1lRkbkXQ4g

    He’s delayed the budget statements because they’re a black hole but within a few weeks they’re going to have to make vicious spending cuts, raise taxes and the remaining wheel will fall off the wagon as the screams will be audible at Alpha Centauri

  84. 84.

    Tony Jay

    @Amir Khalid:

    Sorry! Super busy day getting weekend stuff done. I will be going into this at some exhaustive and interminable length next week, but for now, what Kalakal said.

  88. 88.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @kalakal: Axe him politely to open the Baud-pay doors, and jackals might never again be subjected to the indemnity of a donation thermometer…at least until his 401k runs out.​

  89. 89.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Kay: Screw the cameras, put in a bazillion-lumen carbon-arc lamp. I’d want any mouthbreathingknuckledragging sign-stealers staggering out of your yard clutching at the dribbling melted remnants of their eyeballs… ​

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