Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

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

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

It’s the corruption, stupid.

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

Celebrate the fucking wins.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

How stupid are these people?

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

You cannot shame the shameless.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Bark louder, little dog.

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

Their freedom requires your slavery.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / End of An Era x 3

End of An Era x 3

by | 135 Comments

This post is in: 

I added that title when I saw this tweet from TBogg.  (h/t planet janet)  The idea of TBogg being gone from the public sphere makes me sad.

And then I found this on the same twitter feed.

This, too, represents the end of an era.  An era where 99.95% of all leaders were male.  If you watch the great clip above, you will see a very sexist question, and a wonderful response.   Not quite are you ladies going to take your purses and go to the bathroom together, but not too far off from that!  It’s worth watching the clip.  She has that same, finish what she’s saying and turn away from the questioner move that Jen Psaki has.

And then I saw this about a minute later.

I guess that’s a hat trick.  I loved Christine McVie’s music even before she joined Fleetwood Mac.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

135Comments

  3. 3.

    waspuppet

    You can hear that guy realize he has no real question right in the middle of asking it. Surprisingly common at press conferences, I’ve found, to put your hand up and figure it out later. I have no idea why that is.

  6. 6.

    CaseyL

    I’m going to miss TBogg something fierce.  He didn’t post much*, but at least there would always be bassets and pithy takes on non-basset subjects.  Sending good and healing thoughts his way.

    *Yes, I do still miss his blog.

  7. 7.

    MisterDancer

    Kay keeps talking about the reality that media ignores Women’s Issues, even as Women are dying.

    And this question from this “reporter” underlines why that shit keeps happening.

  9. 9.

    WaterGirl

    @waspuppet:

    You can hear that guy realize he has no real question right in the middle of asking it.

    I had exactly the same thought!  I wonder if we had it at the same exact moment

    Either that or he had the realization in real time that what he was actually going to say OUT LOUD was totally inappropriate and so he settled on what he did say.

  12. 12.

    oldster

    Did Sanna Marin sound a bit antipodean in her English, too?

    Anyhow — amazing answers from both Prime Ministers, showing why they are the rightful elected leaders of two flourishing democracies.
    Let’s face it: the battle that is occurring right now between autocracy and democracy, in Russia, China, Iran, and elsewhere, is equally a battle between patriarchy and equality. A victory for democracy is a victory for women.

  13. 13.

    Splitting Image

    Damned sad to hear about Christine McVie. I remember when Rick Wright passed away; Dave Gilmour remarked that he never got the attention he deserved because some of the pushier fellows up front were better at grabbing the spotlight. This is equally true of McVie. She was the quietest of the classic line-up but the band didn’t have a sound without her.

    Less sad to think that the days of idiot “journalists” asking sexist questions might be nearing an end though. I remember when a guy asked a tennis player who had just won a tournament to “do a little twirl”.

  14. 14.

    Brachiator

    Watch NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pick apart this reporter’s question during a joint press conference with Finnish PM Sanna Marin. He asked the pair ‘are you two meeting because you’re similar in age and got a lot of common stuff there?’

    This was as much about age as gender. Maybe more about age.

    While I know that these are mature, sober political leaders, the child in me imagines these two and Justin Trudeau partying like muthafuckers. Because they are young and hot.

    And yes I am aware of the dumbass criticism the Finnish PM got for partying by crusty ass wipes.

  15. 15.

    sab

    The one new thing I realized in the Trump years is how many men really dislike women. A much higher proportion than I had thought before.

  16. 16.

    scav

    @waspuppet: The sound of a guy suddenly about to realize mid-jump he’s aiming for the business end of an operating wood-chipper — with an international audience.

  19. 19.

    HumboldtBlue

    I came here to post the NZ PM presser, who the fuck, other than an 8-year-old, uses “stuff” when asking a multipart question?

    And Pelosi will now be referred to as Speaker Emerita.

    As for TBogg and Twitter, I sense most of us of a similar political and social bent will be leaving, the nasty lies, photoshops and downright hateful bullshit tide is only beginning to rise, and it will only get worse.

  20. 20.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @HumboldtBlue:

    And Pelosi will now be referred to as Speaker Emerita.

    Interesting. As Speaker, she didn’t serve on any committees, no? I wonder which ones she’ll ask for

  21. 21.

    Ohio Mom

    I remember when Tbogg’s blog was an everyday stop for me. I didn’t follow him to Twitter, though I stopped in a couple of times a year.

    He certainly made his contribution. There are a couple of posts I still remember vividly, particularly the one I think of as the “gum drops and unicorns and grow up” one, and another where he talks about growing up in a hunting family. I wonder if those posts are still googleable.

    I think he deserves to retire after what, 20, 25 years of blogging, or close to that.
    And he deserves the blogtopia version of a gold watch.

  26. 26.

    BruceFromOhio

     The idea of TBogg being gone from the public sphere makes me sad.

    when he decamped for FDL, that was tough: his rants on the neo-cons were epic, and the commentariat were splendid. When he bolted FDL, he was gone from my world (and also how I ended up here) May he find much joy and prosperity.

    RIP Ms McVie. Your words and voice are without parallel, and we shall not see the likes of you again in this life.

  29. 29.

    Old School

    @Paul in KY:

    The backbone of that band.

    Yep.  While they did tour without her in the past decade, it seems unlikely that they’d do so again.  Or would they try a Stevie Nicks/Neil Finn tour?

  31. 31.

    $8 blue check mistermix

    I watched a lot of Jacinda Ardern’s briefings during COVID, and she is major political talent.  Whip smart, quick on her feet and in full command of whatever facts she’s discussing.  No surprise to see her handle that question so well.

  32. 32.

    Scout211

    Will TBogg still be writing for Raw Story/Salon?  I saw his last article on Salon was September 30th, reposted from his story on Raw Story.

  34. 34.

    Barbara

    @Brachiator: Sorry, not the case.  Nancy Pelosi has been getting questions about whether she should step aside ever since she was re-elected Speaker in 2019.  Mitch McConnell receives no such questions

    And for what it’s worth, I do not recall Emmanuel Macron or Justin Trudeau being questioned based on their relative youth.  Feel free to point out examples to the contrary, but I can’t imagine someone asking them — if they were together, let’s say — whether they were meeting only because they happen to be younger than the average national leader.

  36. 36.

    J R in WV

    For a minute there I thought Watergirl was resigning from keeping Balloon Juice operational — which would be at least as big a tragedy as TBogg leaving the blogosphere… But then I read the whole post one more time, and knew better.​

  37. 37.

    Alison Rose

    Jeez. See, it’s a good thing I didn’t want to go into politics, because if a dude ever asked me something like that, I would have been far less professional in my response.

    “Because you’re similar in age” fucking a, dude, they’re not toddlers at a play group.

  43. 43.

    mali muso

    That reporter’s trailing off question sounded like what I imagine Wile E Coyote’s look of despair would “sound” like when he realizes that he’s pedaled off a cliff and is hanging in mid-air.

    Unrelated to anything, I am feeling very aggravated at Gmail yet again changing their layout and not allowing those of us who prefer to remain luddites to keep the old format.  I do most of my work from the email landing page with my chat boxes nicely lined up at the bottom of my screen to contact colleagues and now everything is all over the place.  *shakes fist at clouds

  44. 44.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Old School: Without Christine and Buckingham, that seems like a really hollowed out group, but who knows? I was in Chicago a while back, with a rental car, and on terrestrial radio (XRT) I was surprised to hear Mick Fleetwood doing ads for some FM cover band. I know cover bands have gotten a lot more popular in recent years. Not really my thing

  45. 45.

    Nelle

    @Anyway: i am so homesick for NZ.  Before Covid and grandchildren, I assumed we’d be here for four or five years and then move back, figuring on a visit every year.  Travel isn’t quite so carefree anymore.  May need to go this southern summer, if Covid doesn’t rear up.

    Journalism used to be smarter down there. I loved listening to an American song and dance politician run into Kim Hill (you can catch her on New Zealand National Radio).

    He almost asked them if they were going to get their nails done together.

  46. 46.

    Alison Rose

    @WaterGirl: Yep! She’s got skills.

    And you know, on the age thing…I do recall Obama getting some “he’s too young” shit when he started out, but like……. there just might have been a particular reason for that particular man getting that kind of crap.

  48. 48.

    Redshift

    @waspuppet:

    You can hear that guy realize he has no real question right in the middle of asking it. Surprisingly common at press conferences, I’ve found, to put your hand up and figure it out later. I have no idea why that is.

    I think it’s because it’s because press conferences, other than some disaster response and law enforcement ones, are not events where news happens. Similar to the White House press corps, the motivation is to be seen on TV asking a question, not getting an answer that is newsworthy.

  50. 50.

    Amir Khalid

    @Brachiator:

    It doesn’t take that much imagination to ask what concerns and opportunities Finland and New Zealand might share, and how the two countries are thinking about cooperating on those.

  51. 51.

    The Moar You Know

    I made the same decision TBogg made back in 2020; this is my only social media outlet, and frankly one of the few places I visit online that are not work related.  I don’t know what motivated him but for me it certainly had a lot to do with my dog.

    Too much time staring at a screen, while my dog’s life is very, very brief.

  52. 52.

    HumboldtBlue

    @West of the Rockies:

    He’s shown up to comment on pet deaths reported by front-pagers, particularly Cole. TBogg was one of the first lefty bloggers, maybe the only, who saw Cole’s transformation and pointed his readers here.

  55. 55.

    kindness

    I used to read FireDogLake.  It was fun for a bit but then it kind of imploded into itself and the principles there went a bit crazed.

  56. 56.

    Falling Diphthong

    @WaterGirl: The PM addressed that in her reply–no one asked Obama and similar-age men if they were meeting because they’re the same age.

  57. 57.

    CaseyL

    @kindness: FireDogLake was one of my go-tos in the ancient times of 15 (?) years ago.

    But they turned out to be the prototype of the Purity Progressive shitbags: the ones who did more damage to Democrats, deliberately, and were thinly veiled bigots of one type or another.

  58. 58.

    Sure Lurkalot

    I saw Fleetwood Mac in high school, in a gymnasium, (Danny Kirwan vintage, prior to Nicks/Buckingham). Christine McVie was on the left side of the stage, her keyboard and vocals seemingly effortless.

    When I met my spouse, we learned we were both Fleetwood Mac fans but his was the Peter Green vintage. Between us, we have a lot of their music on vinyl.

  59. 59.

    Ohio Mom

    On a whim, I googled “Tbogg blog,” and it’s still there. The first post is from September 2002.

    Also of note is the extensive blogroll, full of sites that don’t exist anymore, and some that do, including Balloon Juice! The link still works, brought me back to this very post. Feels like time travel.

  60. 60.

    Barbara

    @CaseyL: I thought FDL (Jane Hamsher?) became a Clinton dead ender, no matter that Hillary Clinton did everything within her power to support Obama as president.

  62. 62.

    Brachiator

    @WaterGirl:

    This will surely sound worse than I intend it, but I would be surprised if the women here agree that this was more about age than about gender.

    I suppose that is so. It’s not a point that I would fight to defend.

    I noted that the Finnish PM had been attacked for a video of her partying with friends. There were even accusations that she had been using recreational drugs. The implication was that her partying behavior was unseemly even though the video didn’t show anything that was outrageous or extreme.

    Would a male leader of the same age have been attacked for the same thing? Probably not. Bad faith journalists use whatever club they can find to bash a politician, especially if that political figure is a woman or nontraditional.

  63. 63.

    geg6

    @WaterGirl:

    Nope.  That was about gender with a soupçon of disrespect for age tossed on top.  Using the word “stuff” said it all.  After all, women, especially young women, can’t possibly have serious issues they want to discuss.  They probably want to talk about their favorite nail colors or how cute Justin Trudeau is or other icky girl things like that.

  65. 65.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Barbara: I don’t remember her as being a PUMA, but she was big on Kill The Bill!. I believe the BJ rotating tagline “I personally killed the public option” (if that’s it?) refers to Hamsher going apeshit on Cole for arguing that something was better than nothing.

    I also remember getting fund-raising emails for Rahm Emmanuel’s opponent in the Chicago mayor’s race from Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald tilted “STOP RAHM!” that never mentioned their candidate’s name. Kinda sums up what she became.

  66. 66.

    skerry

    @WaterGirl: As a woman older than both of these politicians, I would say the poorly worded question as asked was about age. However, the question was only asked because of gender. Male politicans don’t get these type of questions.

  67. 67.

    Hangö Kex

    re Sanna Marin: her government is having a rough time in that the MPs of one of the coalition parties have been voting against government proposals which is very, very bad form. It remains to be seen how (if) that can be patched up and if the coalition can continue.

  68. 68.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @CaseyL:

    Doing some reading on the Wiki page for FDL, the bigotry wasn’t thinly veiled apparently:

    Hamsher supported Ned Lamont in his successful run for the Democratic nomination in the 2006 U.S. Senate election in Connecticut, against ultimately successful incumbent senator Joe Lieberman, who ran independently as a third party candidate with the support of Connecticut for Lieberman. Although Hamsher was not on the campaign staff, she was among several bloggers who traveled with Lamont’s campaign, and she promoted Lamont’s candidacy and helped raise money for him through Firedoglake.

    After Hamsher posted an image depicting Lieberman in superimposed blackface embracing Bill Clinton created from a graphically edited photograph of Lieberman and Clinton in her guest blog in The Huffington Post, she was publicly criticized by Lieberman’s campaign and others for doing so. The Lieberman campaign objected publicly that it found the image offensive and racist, with Lieberman publicly calling the use of blackface in the image “one of the most disgusting and hurtful images that has been used in American history, it’s deeply offensive to people of all colors, and it has absolutely no place in the political arena today” and demanding that Lamont prohibit Hamsher from traveling with his campaign and to refuse any money that she might have raised for him.

    Questioned about the image and his campaign’s connections to Hamsher, Lamont responded, “I don’t know anything about the blogs. I’m not responsible for those. I have no comment on them”, but a spokesman for Lamont was quoted in The Washington Post as calling the image “offensive and inappropriate”. Hamsher removed the image after receiving a request from the Lamont campaign, later posting a statement on Firedoglake “apologiz[ing] to anyone who was genuinely offended by the choice of images”, and criticizing Lieberman for using the controversy about the image to score political points.

  69. 69.

    Tony G

    @sab: Yeah.  Trump as president basically gave permission to some of the worst people in the country to proudly display their hateful ignorance.  That included, of course, men who really don’t like women.  There’s a type of man that I’ve run into who really doesn’t even like women’s bodies.  They’ll disparage perfectly attractive women for not looking like Barbie Dolls.  I don’t get it.

  72. 72.

    Hoodie

    @Brachiator: Gender is embodied in the age question.  Age is brought up as a factor for women far more often than it is for men, which Ardern appeared to be referencing.  And, of course, the implication behind the question –  that Ardern and Marin would be more interested in talking about their potentially shared personal perspectives than dealing with serious government business – is blatantly sexist.  On the other hand, we have male leaders like Trump and GWB who, instead of doing their jobs, act out dick measuring dramas with figures like Putin and Xi without the press noting that they are acting like juvenile dunces.

  73. 73.

    Josie

    @WaterGirl: ​
     I think he started out to say “gender” and realized he was headed in a dangerous direction. He feebly changed the wording to “age”, but most women listening knew exactly what he was saying.

  74. 74.

    Sure Lurkalot

    I can’t imagine current America electing a Jacinda Ardern or Sanna Marin.

    If I were that reporter, I’d wear Groucho Marx glasses to my next few pressers in the hope no one would recognize me. Good on both PMs for ignoring the snark and putting him in his place simply by knowing and being excellent at their jobs. They both showed how shitty he is at his job.

  75. 75.

    Miss Bianca

    Open thread? Since we’re mentioning TBogg and his bassetts and all…

    So, I just got off the phone with some folks at the Humane Society where I adopted my Stella, because I had asked about a *very* senior Rottie-Shepherd mix like she was. Turns out there’s a couple in Denver who are interested in her, as it’s apparently now their mission to adopt senior dogs, and my first thought was, “oh, thank God!” because I wasn’t, actually, sure I could deal with the heartbreak of losing another elderly dog within a year or two.

    Well, *then* they asked me if I would be interested in adopting a girl they call “Lady Queen”- who’s apparently been languishing at the shelter for a little while. She’s another Rottie mix, about 7, and apparently very sweet and friendly. (and a bit of a chonk, as well, tho’ that would probably not last too long up here!) What do you all think of that face?

  76. 76.

    Kay

    Anti-woke cryptocurrency exchange Kraken will cut 30 percent of its staff as the company weathers the “crypto winter,” CEO Jesse Powell said in a blog post.

    The CEO already bragged on Fox in June that he fired all of the “woke employees” so that means the remaining employees were all rude, mean spirited assholes anyway.

  77. 77.

    Jacel

    @HumboldtBlue: On Pandagon (Jesse Taylor and Ezra Klein) a thread discussed where there were Conservative bloggers honest enough to be worth following. John Cole’s Balloon Juice was recommended by several, and I’ve been reading here ever since, transformation and all.

  79. 79.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Brachiator:

    Would a male leader of the same age have been attacked for the same thing? Probably not.

    Well, Boris would like a word, but in hindsight, the Tories probably wish they reinstalled him over Liz.

  85. 85.

    Kay

    @cain:

    Diversity and inclusion are dead! Let’s celebrate cementing the status quo where middle aged, bitter white men run everything!

    Thank GOD they stood astride the tracks and yelled stop! It will remain 2001 forever.

    I don’t know though- can they singlehandedly kill “inclusion”? What if I, a decent normal person who is not bitter and aggrieved, want to include all sorts of people rather than excluding them?  I think I can whether they give me permission or not!

  86. 86.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @CaseyL:

    But they turned out to be the prototype of the Purity Progressive shitbags: the ones who did more damage to Democrats, deliberately, and were thinly veiled bigots of one type or another.

    Yup.  That sums up what Calamity Jane and the Hamshers of the Apocalypse became.

  87. 87.

    Kay

    @cain:

    I’m amused that the anti-woke public intellectuals have now decided that “early childhood education” will solve racism. Really? It’s that easy? Vouchers for preschool and we can call it Mission Accomplished?

    Dabblers. They flit around like butterflies spreading these lazy, poorly informed opinions like pollen.

  88. 88.

    Kay

    @cain:

    75 years of public education hasn’t solved racism but the antiwoke dopes think a preschool voucher will take care of it.

  92. 92.

    Kay

    This is actually what happens in preschool and it’s why a voucher won’t fix it:

    They found that children in the Black/Hispanic poor and the Black nonpoor groups had significantly more teacher-identified behavioral problems than children in the White/Hispanic nonpoor group, even though the observation tool showed no differences in children’s objective disruptive behavior. The findings suggest that racial bias in the interpretation and reporting of child behavior by childcare providers may occur as early as preschool. In addition, regardless of race, children in the lower socioeconomic status group received more childcare provider behavioral complaints than children in the Black nonpoor and the White/Hispanic nonpoor groups, even though researchers saw no objective differences in behavior between the groups.

  93. 93.

    Tony Jay

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    Flobalob was (eventually) attacked for hosting riotous piss-ups at Downing St during a strict national lockdown, while his Government was lecturing the Public on how important it was to stick to the rules he was breaking, then lying about it over and over and over again.

    He was never, ever challenged for any of his drunken escapades outside of the pandemic. Not even when he ditched his official bodyguards in order to attend an orgy in a Russian oligarch’s Italian castle the day after a meeting about NATO’s future plans.

    There’s just no comparison between the way the pro-Opposition Media went after Marin and the latitude that odorous turd was always allowed in office.

  94. 94.

    Barbara

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I might be confusing Hamsher with someone else at Firedoglake or maybe even another blog altogether.  I can’t remember who it was that became a rabid PUMA in a blog I used to enjoy reading.  I did a random walk around the blog attic and was reminded of Jeralyn Merritt at TalkLeft — still there! Sitll linking to BJ!

  95. 95.

    Kay

    @cain:

    They do this ridiculous either/or thing. “We can’t have universal public preschool because we have affirmative action” What?

    I don’t know- are they OFFERING universal public preschool in exchange for affirmative action or is this just more of their sloppy, nonsensical logic?

  97. 97.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Jacel:

    That was TBogg’s take as well, and it was still early in Cole’s transformation. I didn’t start coming here regularly, surely not as a regular commenter, until Betty left RumpRoast (it was a small, wonderful little by the side of the road lefty blog that that came with the single funniest, smartest commenter I have ever encountered online, a dude named StrangeAppar8tus. His demons got to him one day, and he put a gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. Silly fucker needed to work on his aim cuz all he succeeded in doing was blinding himself, and we soon lost contact and to this day I’ve no idea what happened to him. But goddamn he was so quick, so sharp, so funny) and ended up here after RR’s original creator decided it was time to quit the blog game. I’ve been here ever since.

  101. 101.

    Ruckus

    @mali muso:

    I use gmail as my email provider but my mail viewing program is apple mail and it works just fine and hasn’t changed it’s basic format in over a decade. When I used windows computers I used a mail program rather than gmail’s and had the same results. It’s been long enough that I don’t remember which one I used.

  102. 102.

    Jess

    @Splitting Image:

    I remember when a guy asked a tennis player who had just won a tournament to “do a little twirl”.

    OMG. I had to explain to my uncle’s friend (nice guy, but totally clueless), breaking it down into baby steps, why this was wildly inappropriate and sexist. I don’t think he was able to wrap his flimsy brainpower around it. He looked like he was still wondering why women were so angry about being complemented on their looks, but was scared to ask me about it again.

  103. 103.

    Reverse tool order

    The takeaway for me is assurance that New Zealand and Finland have serious and capable leaders at this time. Which is, of course, perfectly possible to have with young females. And all too possible not to have with, for instance, older males.

    What some reporter says does not intrinsically merit much attention or thought.

  104. 104.

    stinger

    @geg6:

    They probably want to talk about their favorite nail colors or how cute Justin Trudeau is or other icky girl things like that.

    I suspect he was imagining pillow fights in their baby dolls.

  107. 107.

    Jess

    @Miss Bianca: She looks great! She looks just like the dog I adopted as a teen, Ivan, whom I believe was a coonhound/lab mix. He was awesome! A bit of a handful when he was young, but a calm, dignified gentleman as he got older. Very smart, very protective and savvy. I hope you get her!

  109. 109.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Barbara: Wasn’t she one of the people who made the 180-degree trip from 2008 Hillary Clinton PUMA to Obama-basher to anti-Democrat to anti-Hillary?

    (I have dim recollections of Glenn Greenwald, of all people, going through a similar progression, though in hindsight favoring Hillary in ’08, if he did, was probably just a pretext for bashing Democrats for him.)

  110. 110.

    kalakal

    @Sure Lurkalot: He’s older but Michael Gove was attacked for turning up alone at an Aberdeen nightclub just after his divorce. May simply have been justified criticism of his dancing but many thought he was off his face on something

    https://youtu.be/toYL4jjl4q4

    From the distant past ie 1976 George Brown ( who was well known to have a drink problem) literally had to be picked out of the gutter  in full view of the press after he resigned

    https://images.app.goo.gl/n77WAWqAP7bXzSgg9

    Marin’s partying looked positively wholesome and natural in comparison. Poor Brown died of alcoholism but his problem had been covered up by the press for years and was the origin of Private Eye’s “Tired and emotional” euphemism. Gove was temporarily embarrassed. Marin was attacked far more viciously for far less

  111. 111.

    GoBlueInOak

    @mali muso: As I was listening to that clip, one could almost hear the exact moment in the middle of the question, when the reporter’s brain caught up to his mouth and realized: “Ooooooh…..I f*cked uuuuuuupppp…..”

  116. 116.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    I can’t imagine current America electing a Jacinda Ardern or Sanna Marin.

    On the state level? Could happen in the right place. These are both countries of about 5 million people, about the size of Colorado or Minnesota.

  121. 121.

    persistentillusion

    @Ohio Mom: Tbogg was a large part of the retention of my sanity during the tenure of George the Lesser.  And shortly after that, I became politically active.

    Current count is 8 campaigns where I played a role ranging from volunteer to staff to campaign manager.  Now retired, I was pleased that the last campaign I interacted with, Stephanie Vigil for CO State House was a successful one.  Although she didn’t run on gender or orientation, she came fully out as queer following Club Q. Did I mention I’m from COS?

  122. 122.

    Ohio Mom

    persistentillusion:

    Oh yes, Tbogg helped me stay sane during the GW years too. Sometimes a bitter laugh does wonders.

  123. 123.

    StringOnAStick

    @HumboldtBlue: Tbogg pointed to here when Cole lost Tunch, telling his readers to go offer solace because of the awful way it happened.  I was already starting to hang around here and my heart sank when I read his post and request.  After Betty Cracker came here from Rumproast, which had been my home, I stayed here once Tbogg closed his blog.  Tbogg ‘s  blog was a classic and such a smart and witty writer.  I can’t blame him for bailing and trying to grab more real life; I’m trying to do the same.

  125. 125.

    kindness

    Who was the kid Jane Hampshire was running around with during Lamont’s campaign?  SpazeBall or something?  Never heard anything of him afterwards.  Of course by the time the site shut down I had gotten off the bus quite a bit back.  Internet fame affects some folks funny, if you know what I mean.

  128. 128.

    Nancy

    @Paul in KY: I agree.

    Her birth name was, just, well, perfect. Christine Perfect.  Perhaps not easy to carry. I wonder whether she may have used the traditional name change with marriage to escape from the label.

    Chicken Shack, her band before FMac, can be found on Youtube. Worth the effort to discover it.

  133. 133.

    The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion

    @Kay: 75 years of public education hasn’t solved racism, but it has damned sure made a dent.  Which is why the racist reactionary right is now having a stroke over “CRT”, by which they mean teaching kids that racism is wrong.  The integration of public schools, and the teaching of civil rights history in American classrooms, has reshaped the readiness of their children to swallow their toxic world-view, and it’s driving them to shrieking hysterics.

  134. 134.

    Nancy

    @WaterGirl:

    Buckingham Nicks was Lindsey Buckingham and  Stevie Nicks, both naked from the waist on the cover, eye candy for all.

    Frozen Love is the song I recall. Mid 70s release. How’d I get old so fast?

    To me Stevie Nicks’s persona was cute and safe, fluttering scarves and breathy vocals. Nothing amiss with that.

    Christine Perfect McVie was a powerful, elemental blues voice, singing about pain and passion.

    By now someone else probably addressed the confusion. Good to know that others loved Ms. McVie.

  135. 135.

    Nancy

    @Barbara:  I heard Oh Well, Part 1, on late night FM radio. Remember what FM radio used to be before it’s commercial potential was noticed and exploited?

    I still love original Fleetwood Mac, which used to be Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac.

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