Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

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

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Let there be snark.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

This blog will pay for itself.

When I was faster i was always behind.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

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

Nothing worth doing is easy.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

White supremacy is terrorism.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, it’s door #2)

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

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

You are here: Home / Elections / 2022 Elections / Monday Afternoon Open Thread: Remember to Breathe

Monday Afternoon Open Thread: Remember to Breathe

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I personally find this soothing, and not just for visualizing those gourds as various big dumb idiots’ misshapen heads…


NEVER FORGET… Four Seasons Landscaping, the presser:

Also… I wish I could believe this was parody:

Yesterday, I got a text from a close friend who is very involved in GOTV here.

There weren’t a ton of details, but she thought it was important I know that far right disruptors were showing up to progressive GOTV canvass events and harassing organizers.

The weirdest part was… they all seemed to be British and Australian?

They were derailing these canvass launches asking endless, bizarre, and granular questions about MiniVAN and US electoral procedure.

The initial assumption was, these were fascists showing up to sabotage GOTV events.

But no, it was so much weirder than thar.

Turns out, these were tourists that had PAID A COMPANY to deliver them a front seat at the US election zoo.

Cost: £3950.00
(Approx US $4500)

Anyway, it’s election eve and everyone on the ground is now scrambling to figure out how to protect their canvasses from weird intrusive election tourists in this, one of the most critical turn out areas in the country.

Cute!

Reader Interactions

140Comments

  2. 2.

    New Deal democrat

    Democrats are going to do better tomorrow than the economic fundamentals (especially real personal income) justify.

    Will they do better *enough* to hold on to the House and Senate? Dunno. Neither does anybody else.

  5. 5.

    Ohio Mom

    It is good to see the animals enjoying their pumpkins. Sometimes I look around at all the mounds of pumpkins for sale everywhere in October and think what a wasteful, profligate people we are. The proverbial children are starving in China and we are growing acres and acres of pumpkins just for entertainment.

    I should point out that there is one pumpkin on my front stoop and another decorating the coffee table. And I guess you could say all the same things of commercial flower growing.

    In other incidences of hypocrisy, a friend, knowing that I am isolating with Covid, texted asking if I had voted yet. I actually had, last week Ohio Dad went early on a whim. But I texted back that if I hadn’t voted last week, I would break my quarantine tomorrow, doubled masked.

  10. 10.

    cain

    @Qrop Non Sequitur: He’s trying to accelerate the demise as fast as possible while simultaneously getting the GOP to threaten advertisers to do twitter OR ELSE. lol.

    Meanwhile aussies and uk’ers watch and munch popcorn. Also the UK people should piss off considering the clown show going on over on their side of the pond.

  11. 11.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ohio Mom: The proverbial children are starving in China and we are growing acres and acres of pumpkins just for entertainment.

    No, we’re growing them for money. Do the starving children in China have money? Nah, if they did they wouldn’t be starving. Americans on the other hand have lots of money left over after grocery shopping to spend on Halloween.

  12. 12.

    Another Scott

    @schrodingers_cat: He needs the attention. He’s going for the record for most corporate value single-handedly destroyed in a month.

    These have been deleted. But this is an example of the kind of stuff advertisers are worried about. Very few brands would be OK with their ad running before or after this tweet. https://t.co/4Tw2Q9tGkm

    — Kurt Wagner (@KurtWagner8) November 7, 2022

    (via nycsouthpaw)

    I hope that our next giant Democratic majorities and 15-seat SCOTUS reverse Citizens United and institute proper reforms of the progressive tax code and corporate governance so that these narcissists are put back in their boxes and have less power over the rest of us…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  13. 13.

    columbusqueen

    Well, Mike & I have adopted two brother cats from someone moving. One of them escaped from his human when he first arrived & spent 3 days outside.  I borrowed a trap from a nearby rescue & caught him yesterday, but he’s now hiding in the house. Any advice is welcome. Am hoping his much more sociable brother will lure him out. Their names are Kermit & Quentin.

  14. 14.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @cain: He’s trying to accelerate the demise as fast as possible while simultaneously getting the GOP to threaten advertisers to do twitter OR ELSE. lol.

    I have a real hard time believing he wants to flush his tremendous investment down the toilet. A simpler explanation could be that he’s really just a stupid asshole.

  15. 15.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Qrop Non Sequitur: Let him be. Provide food and water. He will come out on his own. Whenever we moved our orange kitteh would hide for days. Letting us know how pissed she was with her new digs. It took her at least a week to forgive us and get used to the new place.

  19. 19.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @schrodingers_cat: He’s already far too out. I’d like for him to climb back under the rock into the emerald mine he came from

    Oh haha not my cat problem. I thought you were talking about Musk and wondering how that was the response.

  21. 21.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @columbusqueen:

    Borrow the trap again, lock his brother up with food, water, litter.  Trap the brother again.

    Then, but them both into a room where they can’t hid.  Leave water and litter but no food.  Come in regularly to provide food but hang around while they eat.  Eventually, probably won’t take that long given what you’ve said, they’ll both realize the great gig they’ve gotten and come around.

    I’ve trapped and tamed ferals for 15 years now with this kind of approach.

  23. 23.

    JPL

    So 3-year-old grand imp’s dad was reading the local free paper, and the little one pointed to a picture of Senator Warnock and said that’s Raphael.  He came to our school.   His school does go up to 6th grade so it’s possible.   If he had said Herschel, then I’d probably be watching him today so his parents could find another school.

  27. 27.

    trollhattan

    Kevin McCarthy continues to be smart.

    November 7, 2022 at 12:00 pm EST By Taegan Goddard

    “What Adam Schiff did to this nation — it’s treacherousry.”

    — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), on CNN.

  28. 28.

    Kay

    @cain:

    I love how it doesn’t occur to him that he might have to sell advertising.

    He could try that. How did Twitter get the advertisers in the first place?

  31. 31.

    cain

    @columbusqueen: This reminds me of my two scoundrels’ – one brother is very skittish and he escaped and it took us 3 hours trying to get him in the house. He’d just move from place to place, crying but would run away when we approached.

  33. 33.

    Ken

    @Kay: How did Twitter get the advertisers in the first place?

    Aren’t there laws requiring companies to advertise on Twitter?

  40. 40.

    Burnspbesq

    @Ken:

    Aren’t there laws requiring companies to advertise on Twitter?

    The Texas Legislature won’t be back in session until January.

  41. 41.

    raven

    Since I never use it how will I know if this gets me banned?

     

    Racist ass motherfucker, ban me you Musky piece of shit!

  44. 44.

    Burnspbesq

    @Alison Rose:

    Balloon Juice thermometer to raise $44 billion to buy Twitter.

    At the rate he’s going, if you win PowerBall on Wednesday, you’ll be able to buy Twitter on Thursday.

  53. 53.

    JMG

    If this has already been posted on another thread, I apologize, but I think it must be close to the ultimate expression of Beltway political “journalism.” Politico runs story on its last pre-election poll. Headline, “Voters Appear Ready to Punish Democrats for Economy, Inflation.” OK. Their guess is as good as mine. Then inside the story it is revealed, not in the first few paragraphs either, that their own poll had Democrats 48-Republicans 43 as its topline. Story called publication’s own poll an “outlier.” If they thought that was true, why the hell put it in the story? Better to trash a major expense by the publication than to ever, ever, doubt The Narrative. Hey, story could be right and poll all wrong. But you can’t put them in the same story and not look idiotic.

  54. 54.

    trollhattan

    @Baud: That, and the My Pillow Guy Special Edition Teslas with all-pillow interiors.

    SpaceX millionaire ride subscriptions?

  60. 60.

    SteverinoCT

    @cain: He does the selling of himself – ads is not his dept!

    “Once the rocket goes up, who cares where it comes down? That’s not my department,” says Werhner Von Braun.

    –Tom Lehrer

  61. 61.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Apparently even the pessimists are find no evidence of the predicted red wave.

    The thing I was noticing is this is the first election in like decades the Conservatives didn’t come up with some made up bullshit to be enraged over, like last year’s CRT panic.  I think at the end of the day this going to be quite boring election.

  62. 62.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @Ken: Do you all see ads on twitter? I still have never seen an ad on twitter! And I’ve got ad block set to allow them on that site too!

  64. 64.

    lashonharangue

    @Bill Arnold: I can imagine a lot of possible pairings with this technology:

    Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson
    Barack Obama and Ta-Nehisi Coates
    Robin Williams and Christopher Lloyd

    At some point someone could monetize this if you could put in your own pairings.  Kind of the ultimate madlibs.

  65. 65.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: You missed the nonexistent litter boxes for furry children?

    (And there’s always the increase in crime, which this time is actually real, though they’d say exactly the same things if it wasn’t.)

  67. 67.

    Steeplejack

    @Baud:

    It’s huge. If you take the cash option, even with the most draconian state taxes you’re looking at $511M 💰 in the Scrooge McDuck money bin. 😳

    It got me thinking about what constitutes “too big.” At some point it’s like keep a percentage and buy a few jets for Ukraine or something.

    Guess I don’t have the requisite billionaire mentality.

  68. 68.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @JMG: If this has already been posted on another thread, I apologize, but I think it must be close to the ultimate expression of Beltway political “journalism.” Politico runs story on its last pre-election poll. Headline, “Voters Appear Ready to Punish Democrats for Economy, Inflation.”

    The other thing is “inflation” is a bit meh next to crap the GOPers have been slinging every election since about 2002.  Liberals ’cause teh’ inflations  is like comfort food to a conservative, it don’t exactly rile those folks up.

  70. 70.

    Layer8Problem

    @Bill Arnold:  My god, that’s like putting oneself in a Borges story.  Stick someone into a sensory deprivation tank with only that playing and you’re writing your own indictment for a trip to the Hague.

  73. 73.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @Ken: Interesting, but I do have an account and still have never seen an ad on twitter, which I go to daily for the last 6 months.

    Ad Block says it is blocking 0 ads. Hmmm… Is someone paying for ads that Twitter doesn’t actually deliver?

  74. 74.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Matt McIrvin: Oh yes, but maybe School Litter Boxes is a derp to far for the right because it never seems to have taken off. It sure feels nothing like the Hour of Hate they had going with CRT.

    It also feels a lot of Democrats here in California are running on Get Tough on Crime. There seems to be this cage death match over the county DA with every candidate bragging about how they grew up scared  in the most exclusively distressed zip codes of Oakland, CA and were Jerry Brown’ s black or Asian friend when Brown was Oakland’s mayor.

  78. 78.

    Steeplejack

    What the actual fuck.

    New: Judge Nichols formally stays Steve Bannon’s contempt of Congress sentence, noting for the appeals court: “His appeal is not taken for the purpose of delay but rather raises a substantial question of law that is likely to result in a reversal or an order for a new trial.”

    — Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) November 7, 2022

  81. 81.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @rikyrah: Love his history lessons but it should be noted that Michael Harriot’s only tweet on 11/8/16 was a list of write-in candidates for President.  On April 30, 2018 he admitted “Sorry.  Didn’t vote for Hillary.  Didn’t give a damn about her or Trump.”  When it was time for all of us to step up and protect Affirmative Action by electing Hillary and keeping SCOTUS from turning hard-right, he couldn’t be bothered.

  85. 85.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @Old School: OK, I found some twitter ads! Even though Ad Block said it was blocking zero ads, it really was stopping promoted tweets! When I set it to not run on Twitrter at all, I finally saw an ad for Nexus hair care and shitty “25 things you never knew about common products before.”” posts. Now I’ll block the ads again

  86. 86.

    Baud

    Nancy Pelosi also indicated that the attack on her husband will factor into her decision about her own political future after the midterm elections

  88. 88.

    rikyrah

    @Another Scott:

     He needs the attention. He’s going for the record for most corporate value single-handedly destroyed in a month.

     

    I am sitting here, watching this, stunned. Makes no sense to me. He literally had no plan after he caught the car.

     

    I know that it was mostly other people’s money, but, 44 billion is still 44 billion.

  90. 90.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Baud: I have screenshots.  If there was an easy way to share them here I would have.  I really do love Harriot’s work, in general.  Super-informative and funny.  Which is what makes it so damn disappointing.  He was also recently shitting on editorials saying that “Democracy Is On The Line” and wrote a long thread about all the other times that it was on the line before and how white voters never care.  Fair point, but nobody is saying this is the first or only time it’s been on the line.  A better take-away would be that it is often (or even always) on the line and that given the shitty voting habits we can expect of the majority of white voters, it makes it all the more important for everyone else to take our voting responsibility seriously and GOTV.

  92. 92.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @rikyrah:

    He literally had no plan after he caught the car.

    He did.  It was a fantasy plan that he would walk in, be handed the secret bot account numbers, fire 3/4ths of the staff whose jobs were to oppress conservatives rather than do anything useful, repeal all content moderation rules, maybe throw out a couple of exciting twists only his genius could think of like charging for verified accounts, and watch a haven for free speech bloom, which would pour money and praise into his pockets.

    It’s hard to tell when any particular illusion crumbled.  He’s clearly still struggling with reality having no relation to his bullshit, egomaniacal conservative fantasies.

    EDIT – I hear he brought in a programming team from Tesla, and I bet their purpose was to find for him the secret algorithms that shadowban conservatives, and shit like that.  What is happening as that team discovers none of his fantasies exist, I cannot guess.

  93. 93.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @rikyrah: Oh yeah I know.  I think he’s one of those people who’s ego will never let him admit he fucked up.  Still love his history lessons and jokes tho.

  94. 94.

    Baud

    The nice thing about the Musk meltdown is that it reminds other companies not to piss off liberals too much.

  96. 96.

    Eyeroller

    @UncleEbeneezer: Mr. Harriot does live in Alabama where his particular vote wouldn’t matter, but he should not have been suggesting protest votes to his readers who lived in more competitive states.  This seems to be an evergreen issue with a portion of the left and it goes back decades if not centuries.

  99. 99.

    Anyway

    Remember the guy in W’s administration who said “We create our own reality” — something like that? Cons of the last 10+ years have really bought into that — that they can shape reality – no need for data, empiricism, results – they can gaslight their way through anything (and to a certain extent they do).

    See for example – the ads on crime/immigration/inflation/CRT etc etc

  100. 100.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Baud: Most ad-driven companies know they can’t chase away Black, Women, LGBTQ etc. customers if they want success.

  102. 102.

    different-church-lady

     

    @Frankensteinbeck: I have a recurring dream where I’m on stage with an instrument I don’t know how to play. But when the first number begins I just magically start playing the right notes and it’s great.

    I imagine Musk must have though it was going to go something like that.

  103. 103.

    Betty

    @rikyrah: The sick thing is that some red counties are refusing to check mail-in ballots before election day to determine if there are errors voters could correct.

  104. 104.

    Geminid

    @Baud: I think that Speaker Pelosi has made her mind up already, at least as to whether she will stand for a leadership post in the upcoming Caucus elections. The attack on her husband may be just one more reason for her decision. Although, Pelosi may be telegraphing that San Francisco will see a special Congressional election next year. I think we’ll know about the first decision later this week.

  105. 105.

    Kay

    @cain:

    He could give them a coupon. Buy one ad slot, get one free. Maybe take them out on his stupid boat or something.

    It just seems like telling all his current paying clients “everyone else is running away!” is not smart.

  106. 106.

    Martin

    @Frankensteinbeck: I hear he brought in a programming team from Tesla, and I bet their purpose was to find for him the secret algorithms that shadowban conservatives, and shit like that.  What is happening as that team discovers none of his fantasies exist, I cannot guess.

    No, the Tesla team was to figure out which Twitter employees wrote the fewest lines of code and fire them.

    If anyone was wondering why Tesla’s self driving doesn’t work, it’s because engineers there are evaluated based on their typing rather than programming skills.

  107. 107.

    persistentillusion

    @rikyrah: And some of the other investors have the power to make Elmo sorry he ever thought that acquiring the Bird was a good idea.

  109. 109.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Eyeroller: I don’t care.  I voted for Nader in 2000 from CA.  I’m still big enough to admit it was a mistake and change my ways going forward.  Because even though my CA vote didn’t make a difference, 97,000 voters in FL shared my same idiotic mentality did.  And who knows, somebody in Swing States where I have friends/family might have looked at the things I was saying and used it as a justification to do the same.

    My Dad is in SC and swears he didn’t vote for Trump in 2016.  Wouldn’t have mattered in his state either.  But I still hate the fact that when the rights and protections for all the Women, Black People, LGTBQ People etc., who I love was on the line, he refused to stand up and do the right thing.

    Maybe I’m petty but I absolutely judge people on that shit as a sign of their character and their commitment (or lack thereof) to fight for a better world.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    I think she’s done. I think she would have opted out last year except all of media would pounce and say she’s running away from a bad year for Democrats so she had to stay.

    A remarkable run for her. I hope historians give her her due as a congressional leader because she sure as shit didn’t get it while she was working. She didn’t get it because she’s female. They still slobber all over Newt Gingrich and he hasn’t worked or done anything productive at all in decades.

  112. 112.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Anyway: Just look at Antifa, which is a handful of white, anti-social/asshole dudes who like to create trouble at progressive protests, but the GOP and Media have turned it into this scary beast in the minds of voters.

  114. 114.

    Geminid

    @Frankensteinbeck: The story about the Tesla team working on Twitter could be problematic for Musk. Tesla is not his company. He might be the biggest shareholder- I don’t know- but other Tesla stockholders might object to using their company’s resources on another project.

    Tesla shares are overdue for a slide, I think, and  attorneys specializing in shareholder lawsuits may be licking their chops. Or whatever it is lawyers do when they see a big payday coming.

  116. 116.

    Kay

    What I hope happens to Twitter is it becomes 100% national media promoting themselves and their work and everyone else gets a new platform that isn’t owned and run by douchebags.

    They can sell each other Trump books and substacks about cancel culture and podcasts about how much they hate Zoomers on Twitter.

  118. 118.

    Zzyzx

    @Timill:

    seeing how we’re at 4 straight drawings over a billion and the first three had no winners, I think there’s a decent shot it wouldn’t be split.

    And, yeah, I’d take the annual payout to protect myself from doing something stupid and losing it all.

  120. 120.

    Zzyzx

    @Kay: I said this on an earlier thread, but I don’t think it’s possible to have an ethical social media company that has critical mass.

    Ultimately people don’t want to pay for this and the amount of servers and people needed to keep it running is a ton of money, so the ad tracking gets worse and worse.

  121. 121.

    columbusqueen

    @Miss Bianca: Only after Athena is gone. The Little Empress of the Universe will not abide another queen in her kingdom. Maybe I should have changed her name to Alice years ago. 🤔

  123. 123.

    Kay

    @Zzyzx:

    I don’t know anything about it. I do understand what people liked about Twitter though and I’m sorry he’s ruining it.

    I just resent Musk lying all the time. He’s working to elect Republicans. It’s insulting to pretend otherwise. This batant lying is a form of throwing their weight around- it says “I’m SO important I can peddle this complete bullshit and no one will call me on it”. It’s power.

  124. 124.

    Geminid

    @UncleEbeneezer: Sorry to hear Michael Harriot went astray in 2016. I still respect him though. He is a very passionate man who writes from the heart. And he is wicked funny when he wants to be. Harriot’s send up of Costco’s 5 gallon bucket of mac-n-cheese packages is hilarious. It begins, “Stop it, white people!”

    Harriot’s account of his phone call from Pete Buttegieg during the 2020 primaries was serious, and is especially good. He wrote it for The Root.

  127. 127.

    Another Scott

    @NoraLenderbee: Yup.

    Bertinelli and the rest just changed the text handle (the way Popehat does all the time) – not the @name – when they were having their fun.

    @elonmusk was the author of these deleted tweets, and the others.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  128. 128.

    🐾BillinGlendaleCA

    I know the unionization vote at a Home of the Orange Apron store in Philly was mentioned here, the vote was last Tuesday and this past Saturday, the vote for representation failed by a 3 to 1 margin.

  130. 130.

    Zzyzx

    @Kay: so far at least my Twitter feed isn’t too different. A few of my friends post less, but it looks pretty much like it did 3 weeks ago.

    Most of my friends are women and a lot of them are LBGT, so if harassment starts to increase, they’ll probably leave because they hate it, and I’ll see it quickly.

    I will say that I got my first response from a Nazi sympathizer last weekend; my name is David Steinberg so I can’t really hide my Jewishness. It was just the one so I could block. If it becomes 100 every time…

  132. 132.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Zzyzx:

    so far at least my Twitter feed isn’t too different.

    He hasn’t really done anything but fire people and whine that people aren’t being fair to him, yet.  Firing people has a lag time before it destroys everything.  Twitter is doomed just by that decision, but he didn’t leap in and instantly do the destructive shit he promised.  It looks like we’re in for more of a slide as his idiocy and vanity wrestle with advertisers telling him point-blank that they will sink his company if he fulfills his promises.

  135. 135.

    mrmoshpotato

    …dear fucking lord, I just noticed this: they’re promising to take these tourists TO THE POLLS tomorrow.

    Isn’t this illegal?

  136. 136.

    Kay

    @Zzyzx:

    I loved Twitter for lurking but I feel better having quit. I’m an adversarial person and all I was doing was hate-reading :)

    I had a whole list of media people to check and see what horrible and/or wrong thing they said.

  137. 137.

    Another Scott

    Scathing Popehat is the best Popehat:

    Correction: a federal court has dismissed Dave Portnoy’s defamation complaint for failure to plead facts supporting a plausible assertion of actual malice, and not, as I previously wrote, on the grounds that libel is legally impossible if none of his fans can read./1

    — NotElonMuskHat (@Popehat) November 7, 2022

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  138. 138.

    surfk9

    I am in Mendocino county RVing. When I was driving here yesterday from Sonoma county on this windy mountain road every third car I saw was a Tesla. Imagine all of those people learning that the company that they their car from was a raging asshole and a Nazi. I can envision many of those Tesla’s being traded in on one of the many new EV platforms that are due out next year. Tesla’s shareholders can’t be happy.

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