term limits are antithetical to a democratic society and this is ageist. and she’s gonna get fucking crushed like a bug. other than that, good job, dummy. https://t.co/26ryWtAIFM
— world famous art thief (@CalmSporting) February 16, 2023
[Warning: snark]
nikki haley’s campaign seems to be centered around the idea that old people fucking suck. interesting gambit considering that old people are the only reliable voting bloc in america
for the record i agree. ugh just die already, olds. https://t.co/M53NFWxW21
— world famous art thief (@CalmSporting) February 16, 2023
The consensus seems to be that Haley is actually running for vice president, or maybe as a warmup for a full-scale run in 2028, by which time TFG will be either nullified or dead. Keep in mind, Repubs believe that Vice-President Harris got a totally unwarranted reputational boost when Joe ‘senile old man’ Biden anointed her as his second, so why not try the same One Weird Trick with their very own brown lady?
(Also, the Palin example: Female politicians, at least in the GOP, have a much narrower sell-by date; Haley might not be enough of a MILF for Fox News in four more years.)
It’s not *much* of a patched-together argument, of course, but if you’re Nikki Haley, how much have you got to lose?
I'm with @RadioFreeTom, who says this GOP can't be trusted with power and Nikki Haley is a perfect example of why: "There is no way to know if she or any other candidate will withstand the antidemocratic demands of Republican primary voters." https://t.co/GzRinTFb7a
— Jill Lawrence (@JillDLawrence) February 16, 2023
I will admit, as a charter Never Trumper, that I was also an early adopter of “Never Haley.” This is because I attach never to any candidate in 2024 who feinted at opposing Trump and then bent the knee to him later. But even in a party of cowards and hucksters, few people can rival Haley when it comes to platinum-tier opportunism…
… We might attribute some of her later cringe-inducing sycophancy for Trump to her position in his White House, but even after the January 6 insurrection, as the former Republican operative Stuart Stevens noted recently, “Haley was openly embracing her inner MAGA.” In late 2021, months after the Capitol attack, she said of Trump that “we need him in the Republican Party” and “I don’t want us to go back to the days before Trump.” She’ll never snatch the green jacket from the Master’s Open in Sucking Up from Lindsey Graham, but she’s certainly putting in the effort…
One possibility is that she’s getting out in front and taking some heat from Trump as a way of providing top cover to other candidates who will then reward her with the vice-president spot. It’s also possible that she thinks she can win. But it seems that Haley is just another Republican politician who is willing to make deals with the MAGA base if doing so is the price of remaining in public life. Haley, like Graham, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Ohio Senator J. D. Vance, and so many others, sees principles as disposable, making her yet another example of why the GOP cannot be trusted with power. Haley knows how to say the right things about how the violence of January 6 was bad, but to this day she refuses to hold Trump accountable, and so there is no way to know if she or any other candidate will withstand the antidemocratic demands of Republican primary voters. For Republicans in elected office, the GOP base is now so hostile to our democratic institutions that loyalty to the Constitution has become an unaffordable political luxury.
Another warning sign is that Haley and others have no apparent interest in changing any of these views among the GOP electorate. For all her talk about “a new generation,” Haley knows that the Republican base doesn’t want to move on. Those voters, to judge from the polls, want Trump, unless he can’t win; in that case, they’d like a Trump who can win, a candidate who reeks of Trump’s cheap political cologne but who will wisely wear somewhat less of it while campaigning in the crowded spaces of a general election…
Donald Trump is still the leader of the GOP and its choice (so far) for president in 2024, and Haley, like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and others, is courting Trump’s base. This means appeasing people who refuse to hold Trump responsible for trying to overthrow our government. As I wrote when Trump ran for reelection in 2020, and as I will continue to insist so long as the GOP resists reckoning with his legacy, no person or party should ever get a second chance to betray the Constitution.
Speaking of old people…
Nikki Haley probably doesn’t want you to see this video of her calling to cut Social Security and Medicare. pic.twitter.com/5odqjLEOoY
— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) February 15, 2023
But the GOP wants us to know: they have a brown, female candidate, too!
Why does the media want Nikki Haley to be a thing. She's never going to be a thing. The national Republican electorate have never shown a shred of interest in her.
— Franklin Stove Expropriator (@agraybee) February 16, 2023
‘Career’?
Nikki Haley is putting her career on the line to stop Donald Trump or become his VP nominee, whichever turns out to be more feasible.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 15, 2023
Old School
“Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV.”
Suzanne
The existence of Nikki Haley allows Republicans to conceive of themselves as not sexist or racist.
ETA: But seriously, stop trying to make fetch happen.
Gravenstone
… and losing!
UncleEbeneezer
Feel the Hale-Bop-mentum!!
Fair Economist
As a California resident, I can testify term limits suck. Makes lobbyists incredibly powerful, since they’re the only ones who hang around enough to know what’s going on.
trollhattan
Hope Grassley threw something at her. “At,” given it would land on his foot.
Baud
Someone should ask her what she would do if Biden passed that test and Trump failed it.
JPL
trucktrump convinced her to run, so she could take some of the momentum from Desantis.JPL
@Baud: Easy, they will demand to see Biden’s but believe trump when he says he passed.
NotMax
Bobby Jindal with bazooms.
Too harsh?
//
WaterGirl
@Suzanne:
I have no idea what that means.
trollhattan
@Fair Economist: +1.
It’s not easy to learn the ins and outs of the legislature and yet, instead of having master politicians who learn the Assembly and then, the Senate, or advance to statewide office, they term out and wander off to…consult? Run for the House? Become mayor?
My senator termed out after leading the charge for mandatory vaccines in schools over the past decade-plus. He was replaced by a pretty sketchy overly ambitious city councilwoman. Le sigh.
Baud
I’m worried that her proposal to test old people’s brains will distract from the important work of monitoring female reproductive organs.
Brachiator
I regularly hear conservatives spout made up history about the Founders automatically returning to civilian life after a few short years of public service.
Why 75? Who says that Hayley could pass a mental competency test?
Also, how old is Trump now?
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
What is this “if” of which you speak?
oldgold
Noem and Reynolds are after that position as well.
They are not governing their states for the benefit of the citizenry, but to burnish their credentials for being nominated as VP.
trollhattan
@NotMax: They’re both boobs, so they’re left to fight over who’s the biggest boob.
Does anybody remember Bobby? Jindal, meet crater.
schrodingers_cat
From the morning thread
I have advice for the likes of Haley, Santos aide with advice for Harris on how to be more Indian and this Vivek dude. No amount of simping for RWNJs is going to make you white.
They don’t really like you and I don’t either.
-fellow Indian-American
Dangerman
Why 75? If someone is batshit (looking at you, George Santos), weed them out at any age:
Baud
@Dangerman:
Because it’s not a serious proposal.
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: You must have missed “Mean Girls”, which is an absolute classic.
STOP TRYING TO MAKE FETCH HAPPEN. IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@NotMax:
No. You win Teh Internetzez for today.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
It’s a meme (from a movie I have never watched). Here’s an explainer.
NotMax
@Brachiator
How dare that John Quincy Adams have the effrontery to serve nine terms in the House post-presidency?
;)
Brachiator
@Fair Economist:
Also, California politicians “informally” agree on who will move to a new position when someone is termed out. And potential successors are often hand-picked staffers or relatives.
In California, the promise of term limits was that new faces and progressive candidates would get a fair shot over incumbents.
But even for “good” politicians, this game is a tightly controlled racket.
Ken
I might get behind the idea of mental competency tests, but without any age restriction. There are plenty of younger nutcases in office.
However if I recall correctly it wouldn’t work at the federal level, as the Supreme Court has said that there can’t be restrictions beyond those in the constitution. Still, kudos for Haley to kick off her campaign with an unconstitutional proposal. Most Republicans take at least a week to roll one of those out.
Dangerman
@Baud: Should be. Can’t get a security clearance, try another line of work. Worked that way in my Aero days, goose and gander, etc
waspuppet
@JPL: She knows it will never be mandatory. The goal is for the Chuck Todds of our discourse to turn it into an EXPECTATION, which Biden will fulfill and Trump won’t. Just like his taxes.
That said, I will try, and I hope we all try, not to fall into the trap of spending more time and brainpower trying to figure out what a Republican’s Real Goal Is Here than they themselves do. Josh Marshall’s tweet above has it exactly right: Whatever buys them another year of not having to try to get a real job, that’s what they’ll do. I’m just saying, let’s not call this a “swipe at Trump” like CNN of course did last night. He’s thrilled she did this, I guarantee.
RaflW
As I mentioned the other night, she had the execrable and quite zealously nuts Pastor Hagee give the prayer at her announcement. She was already disqualified for her Trump-humping (as it were). But Hagee is off the charts, unvarnished far-right Christianist hoohey.
Suzanne
I am exhausted. Have been working toward a big deadline. Also, I got really excited about repainting some of the rooms in my house, and I’ve been spending hours reading paint color reviews. (Mr. Suzanne is sort of horrified that such a thing exists.) He is of the opinion that “walls should be white”, but of course, there is a universe of variation within the realm of white. So I just ordered a bunch of samples.
Yes, I am a person who has a spreadsheet documenting paint colors in my house. Imma make a binder, too.
NotMax
@RaflW
Hagee: “Oh Lord, we beseech thee…”
God: “Not on your tintype, bozo.”
Jeffro
x11,000
Also, you all will be interested to know that if it comes down to trumpov vs Biden in 2024, the ‘sage of the heartland’ Gary Abernathy just doesn’t know, man, just doesn’t know which way he’ll go.
(apparently trying to overthrow the government to stay in power isn’t the deal-breaker that it used to be)
“THE GUY WHO’LL GIMME WHAT I WANT…OR THE GUY WHO’LL ‘INFLICT LASTING DAMAGE ON
US WHITE GUYSTHE COUNTRY??? THANKS A HECKUVA LOT, LIBS!”But fear not! Mr. Abernathy has an idea of who might be our white knight, come to save us!
And he’ll
bore the shit out ofhit us with that gem next week. Shall we start a pool? I am guessing that it’s Sunnunu or Youngkin.UncleEbeneezer
I didn’t think it would be possible to have a more laughable and disgusting display than the 2016 GOP Primary, but with DeSantis, Pence and now Haley already in, we just might get there.
C Stars
Hey, who knows? Maybe in 2024 the GOP is tired of crazy and just wants a boring self-absorbed sycophant who is (kind of) nice to look at? Why’s everyone so negative about Nikki?
West of the Rockies
Haley is very much a non-Palin. Yes, they are brunette females, however, the comparison ends there. And say what you will about Palin, at least she had a personality (terrible) and (clearly for a lot of people), some sexual charisma. Haley is just a gray, amorphous Charlie Brown adult: “waaa-waaa-waaa.”
West of the Rockies
@UncleEbeneezer:
Don’t forget Piggy Pompeo!
zhena gogolia
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s well worth watching. Very cute and funny.
Jeffro
Has anyone asked Nikki Haley yet what she’ll do if it comes down to just her and trumpov on the RNC debate stage or primary ballot? Is she going to step aside and defer to “her friend”? Or is she going to graciously suggest that he tend to his various ahem legal affairs and let her press onward to
reward the rich with yet more tax breakssave the country from “woke-ism”?I’m serious. He declared first, and yet, she jumped in. What makes her think she’ll be standing longer than him, or even win the nomination?
Shorter: LET’S HAVE IT, SNOOZE MEDIA – ASK. QUESTIONS.
Baud
Baud! 20XX!: He’ll make fetch happen!
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: @Baud: That “test” is her being too cute by half.
“What?” “I didn’t say Biden was old and feeble.” “And I didn’t say that about Trump, either.”
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: @SiubhanDuinne:
I am apparently NOT aware of all internet traditions.
Ken
There are people whose careers are inventing new paint names, year after year after year. “Seafoam green… no, we used that five years ago….” I admire them; I would break after ten minutes.
As XKCD noted. (And the comic does use multiple shades of off-white.)
NotMax
@Suzanne
Went with Mustard Olive for the new front door. Quite pleased with the result; appears more towards the amber in some lighting, more soft touch of avocado in others. Might be a little much depending on size of room, though.
Was advised by the retailer it dries darker than it goes on, which is somewhat garish right out of the can.
JPL
Tim Scott might enter the race so the field is growing already. Pence is depending on a strong showing in Iowa, and I expect him to drop out by December.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: Nice color!
JPL
@Suzanne: Two jobs that I would never want would to work in the paint department or the shoe department.
NotMax
@JPL
Mike Pence is the anti-Transformer. Less than meets the eye.
UncleEbeneezer
Central Planning
@Suzanne: We are remodeling our kitchen and some adjacent rooms. The paint we got is a light gray (Benjamin Moore Metro Gray). I swear it looks like 7 different colors during the day – different LED bulbs contribute to that, as well as the sunlight at different times of the day.
It’s hard to say we picked a bad color when it changes all the time!
Baud
What exactly is Haley doing right now? Is this like her gap year?
Bill Arnold
@Ken:
One picks the lightest (off-white) chip in the stack, then specifically asks for 1/2 the pigment.
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
RE: Gary Abernathy
Turning the United States into a dictatorship or autocracy does not cause lasting damage?
Suzanne
@NotMax: We did CAROLINA GULL for the front door. It’s great.
When we moved in, the paint colors were varied and terrible. There was a different color carpet in each bedroom and it was all worn out and disgusting. I had a light greige (halfway between gray and beige) carpet put in on the second floor, wood put in on the first floor, and we painted everything in SWISS COFFEE (Benjamin Moore). I said that I wanted to live with the white for at least a year, to figure out the Pennsylvania light, understand the seasons and how they feel. In Phoenix, I always wanted the house to feel dim and cool and like a sensory retreat. In PGH, I want it to feel softer and more eclectic and like a sensory retreat.
So now I am evaluating every off-white known to the interior design trade. One of the colors is called BALLET WHITE, and it is not white at all. I asked Mr. Suzanne if he could live with it, considering that it isn’t white, he said, “It has white in the name!”.
HumboldtBlue
Nimrata thinks she’s a serious person who people take seriously.
Elsehwre:
Jeffro
@Brachiator: oh I know…”lasting damage to the country” vs “not having a country anymore, but a tinpot dictatorship” (and for TRUMP, for god’s sake)
I think the proper response to Gary is, “you fucking moron, even a tool like Mitt Romney knows what to do here”
Suzanne
@Bill Arnold: You laugh, but the McGees (interior designers who have that Netflix show and blog and line of stuff at Target) have posted the paint colors they use in their own home…..and they had Swiss Coffee mixed at 75% because it was just slightly too rich. LOL.
Warblewarble
Nikki Haley’s dealings with Jarvanka are worth a look. That’s Kushner the “Hidden Genius”
NotMax
@Suzanne
“So does Barry.”
:)
Suzanne
@NotMax: “I’m not black like Barry White, I’m white like Frank Black is.”
Manyakitty
@Suzanne: seriously. I had MSNBC on in the background and as soon as I saw them broadcast her ridiculous announcement rally live, I turned it off. Silence is so much better. 🤮
WaterGirl
@Bill Arnold: I do that, too. Not for off-white, but for any colors I like on a paint chip.
WaterGirl
@HumboldtBlue: I hope he’s out of a job, lickety-split!
Kelly
@Suzanne: Mrs Kelly is a painter of landscapes and floras. There are often a few patches of the next color she has in mind for wall. Most rooms have two colors and a white wall. She’s very skilled at blending her own colors which came in very handy when I bought a nice pair shoes this winter that I couldn’t find a polish to match. “No problem” she says and matched it perfectly blending three tins of polish we already had.
NotMax
@Suzanne
Mandatory Mr. Blandings paint clip.
;)
JPL
@NotMax: 😅😅😅😅
frosty
@Old School: “Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV.”That was my first thought too!
Amir Khalid
@HumboldtBlue:
Using Nikki Haley’s real first name as a kind of put-down is, well, problematic for me. It feels like people are doing it to emphasise her Punjabi Sikh origins, her otherness, rather than what’s really worth criticising about her: that she’s a conventional Republican with no ideas of her own, and no more inclination or courage than any other Republican to challenge Trump’s hold on the party.
Warblewarble
Axis of Evil. Kushner ,Halley, Bonesaws.
WaterGirl
@Kelly: Mrs. Kelly is a keeper!
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
👍
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: Perfection! Myrna, aaah.
Qrop Non Sequitur
Not if it’s a dictator who does stuff you like…
Sure Lurkalot
I confess to knowing just a handful of republicans and none of them would vote for Nikki Haley in a primary. Maybe not even a general…
Baud
Baud! 20XX!: A a dictator who’ll do stuff you like!
HumboldtBlue
@Amir Khalid:
She won’t use her given name, so I will. Fuck her and fuck her feelings. She’s a fucking kapo, a house negro, who will do all she can to cater to the racists and bigots who would spit on her if she used her given name. I’m sorry if that upsets you, but fuck the noise, the woman stands in opposition to all that is good, and whitewashing her very being isn’t going to change that one bit.
She’s a hypocrite and a proud member of the GOP. Fuck her.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: He is a DougJ parody come to life.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Once visited, on a private tour arranged with its occupants, a restored 19th century townhouse in Georgetown. Second story was almost entirely given over to a large space originally intended as a ballroom. Painted in what can only be described as Screaming Scarlet.
Absolutely stunning. In a good way.
tobie
I guess this news about Fetterman is out. I didn’t support him in the primaries but I’m very sorry to see he’s struggling with health problems that may be related to heart injury.
WaterGirl
@tobie: I don’t see anything about his heart in that article. ??
gene108
The problem with challenging Trump in a Republican primary is that the Republican Party, at every level, bent over backwards to declare TFG the greatest best president God ever gave Man on the face of this Earth.
No matter what the TFG did, pretty ever Republican in elected office sang his praises, while a few were so bold as not to comment because “they hadn’t seen Tweet”.
I’m not sure how anyone can be a “moderate” in the 2024 Republican primary. There is no center lane, because that would require some level of repudiation of ripping asylum seekers’ families apart, not actively try to ban immigration all together, not give away such a big tax cut to rich people, etc.
There’s no way for Republicans to get around the fact they can only be poor imitations of TFG, because to do otherwise would require being critical of what he did in office, and Republicans put too much effort into propping TFG up to walk it back now.
tobie
@WaterGirl: No, the article says nothing about his heart. But I’ve heard that one of the side effects of heart disease is depression. That’s all I meant.
Suzanne
@Kelly:
I admire people who live like that, but oh my God. I can’t deal.
To note: I have probably 20 black dresses and 30 gray sweaters.
NotMax
@gene108
But- but- what about Ramalamadingdong?
//
Dorothy A. Winsor
@tobie: They told us depression was a common side effect when I was in cardiac rehab.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Suzanne: Glad I’m not the only one. The clerk at Sherwin-Williams gave me the big color paint chip collection rather than having to keep looking up samples for me. I only look at Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore.
karen marie
@Suzanne: I love color.
The biggest mistake I made was painting a small-ish bathroom blood red. It was a nightmare walking in there to brush my teeth.
The best choices I made were painting my bedroom a bright robin’s egg blue and my living room an orangy-yellow, like a Tuscan sunset. Sadly, I now live in a rental and cannot paint anything, so I live with white walls, gray cabinets, and brown wall-to-wall carpet – ugh.
Danielx
@Baud: somebody has to do it, might as well be you.
Steeplejack
@tobie:
Depression apparently is also a side effect of a stroke, which Fetterman did have.
TheOtherHank
I think the people running TFG’s campaign know that he won the nomination in 2016 by having a bunch of people in the race dividing the not-Trump vote (as I recall he never got a majority in the primaries while it was still in doubt). Haley is being a team player and joining the fray to make sure that TFG can get all delegates without needing to get a majority of primary votes.
NotMax
@karen marie
Beats brown walls and white carpeting.
;)
Suzanne
@Cheryl from Maryland: So as an architect, my offices usually have the professional big chip books. It’s helpful.
This time, tho, I ordered big peel-and-stick samples from Samplize.
AlaskaReader
@West of the Rockies:
…stop it. Palin has exactly zero redeeming qualities.
Suzanne
@karen marie: I like color in other people’s houses. I like texture in my own.
I once saw a T-shirt that read, “My favorite colors are concrete, steel, and glass” and that is accurate for me. I do like that soft sage green and I have one grody bathroom and I might do that color in there.
Mike in NC
One of Nikki Haley’s dependable boosters is the awful pundit Kathleen Parker, who is apparently also a South Carolina native. She has repeatedly written of Haley being the first female president. Don’t see that happening in the next 20 years as long as MAGA rules. Fat Bastard will rip her face off and bury her in dog whistles (“Why did she change her name?” will be a rallying crowd to his worshippers).
karen marie
@NotMax: True that!
NotMax
@NotMax
BTW, brown is an illusion. (Long-ish video.)
;)
Brachiator
@Qrop Non Sequitur:
RE: Turning the United States into a dictatorship or autocracy does not cause lasting damage?
Problem with dictators is that they never stick to the script.
ETA: I truly believe that a lot of the Beltway press believe that they would not be suppressed under a Trump dictatorship.
karen marie
@Suzanne: I wanted to paint my bathroom sage green but could never find exactly the right shade – they were always too yellow or too blue. But that was 20 years ago. I think there are better options now.
I hate textured walls. That’s the other thing I’m currently stuck with. Since I live in a rental, I’m loath to put holes in a wall to make a climbing scheme for the cat. If I had smooth walls, I could use large stick-on hooks to hang platforms for her to jump around on.
Major Major Major Major
@Suzanne: I want to do an accent wall now that we’re homeowners, just ‘cuz, but I can’t decide which wall, to say nothing of which color… also this is a brand-new house so we should maybe just wait until something gets damaged enough to need a spackle & touch-up and do that wall… very new to the idea that I own something… but everything is just so beige-flavored…
When I was a kid we painted my room green and that was pretty cool. Too cave-like for me now but it was a fun task and interesting to live in.
trollhattan
So this is…interesting.
No word on if the cat is getting away in one of the boats, packing one of the guns. You know cats.
zhena gogolia
@Brachiator:
Absolutely. That’s also the philosophy of the New York Times.
I’m pissed at them for comparing Jennifer Coolidge to Peppa Pig. How insulting. They’re such assholes.
Danielx
I’m sort of looking forward to republican primaries, if for nothing else but full display of TFG’s shitflinging ability. Secondary benefit of putting his fourth grade mentality on equally full display.
Though I admit just the thought of seeing the miserable bastard in public again makes me tired.
NotMax
@karen marie
Once visited someone’s house whose living room looked as if both Timothy Leary and Peter Max had exploded.
Suzanne
@Major Major Major Major: I am personally anti-accent walls. I like COMMITMENT. Do the whole room whatever color.
I see images of colorful interiors and I like them, but they aren’t me. I have been drawn, as of late, to a lot of these rustic English country interiors, where everything is this sort of desaturated color palette and vaguely cattywompus.
trollhattan
@Danielx: Monster Truck Trump running everyone over in 2016 was fun, when I believed he had no chance.
2024 I picture Trump versus ten John Kasiches and just get depressed.
NotMax
@trollhattan
Worst. Cage match. Ever.
//
Suzanne
@karen marie: October Mist! It was Benjamin Moore’s Color of the Year a couple of years back. Also Silver Sage.
I hear you on the textured walls. This house still has some plaster-on-lath, and there is highly varying texture on those. The drywall walls are much smoother. In AZ, everything was that hideous orange peel texture. Just the worst.
NotMax
@Suzanne
“Everybody likes cottage cheese.”
//
Danielx
@NotMax: Back in the day when we were looking at houses in northern VA, we looked at one owned by a Vietnamese woman. My thought was east and west, never the twain shall meet. Every room a different (bright) color, with different (bright) colored carpet. That particular viewing took about ten minutes.
Another viewing: house was “professionally decorated”. Three different wallpaper patterns in the dining room…first unspoken thought, decorated by who, Ray Charles?
Geminid
@trollhattan: That would depress me too- if I were a Republican.
Trump might still be the 800lb gorilla of the Republican Party, but I think that to the general electorate he’ll be a 350lb mangy monkey.
trollhattan
@NotMax: Oh god, I know that house.
An acquaintance inherited mom’s ’60s rancher, a big one in a nice neighborhood. Every room had its own theme and had been dialed up to 11.
The purple room had purple shag, purple walls, psychedelic pattern purple and chrome wallpaper on the ceiling plus some kind of crazed multi-bulb light fixture just shy of “full disco.”
Repeat that for the orange room, the red room, the chartreuse room, and on and on. Each, its own world. The real crimes were committed in the bathrooms because she found fixtures in some pretty intense colors to anchor that room’s color theme.
Bet there was 2,000 ft sq of shag in total and I cannot guess how many discrete colors there were. (Not in the kitchen, though.)
He had begun the process of bringing the house back to planet earth, but had only undone three or so rooms the last time I visited. I sometimes wonder if he won, or mom won. Considering today’s market it would fetch $1.5 mil or more, if it been returned to sanity.
Brachiator
@HumboldtBlue:
I think that Nikki is her given middle name.
Danielx
@Suzanne:
Had to have a builder explain that to me. He said it’s a hell of of a lot cheaper to have somebody come in and spray stuff on the walls than to have a skilled drywall contractor do filling, sanding, etc etc. Deplored the esthetics, but…$$$.
Timill
@trollhattan: Could be the most valuable asset: http://www.webuyanycat.com/
Tim
karen marie
@trollhattan: How does one even vacuum shag carpeting? You can’t use a beater-type vacuum on it. My Shark upright would get jammed the minute it was turned on.
Honus
Since this is an open thread I need to note that THEM! is currently showing on TCM. Starring a 33 year old Hames Whitmore and with James Arness, Fess Parker and Leonard Nimoy.
trollhattan
@Geminid: Let’s hope.
I question his mimicking 2016 today. He obviously tires more easily and a Secret Master Plan of bring out Don Jr. to rev up the crowd before he comes out for ten minutes probably ain’t cutting it. Now Kimberly filling in for Junior, that I’d watch. (In horror, but I watch car wrecks too.)
NotMax
@DanielX
All I remember is eye-searing orange wall-to-wall shag carpet, an electric blue vinyl sofa and vinyl side chairs, one bright yellow, the other kiwi green. The rest must have been too hideous to store in the brainpan.
;)
Ruviana
@HumboldtBlue: Much of what you say is true but Nikki is her given middle name, is a Punjabi name, and has been called that all her life. Kind of like Beto. And a hat-tip to Brachiator, who got there ahead of me.
trollhattan
@karen marie: My last shag apartment (god, that’s fun to write) there was an upright Hoover available to check out from the offce, which I diligently did every month or so. Amazing how 1. much stuff gets hidden in there and 2. the yarn doesn’t come right up with it. Sturdier than it looks! ETA it had a height adjustment, which you’d set to “Stratosphere.”
The same complex looks unchanged decades later (very late ’60s vibe) and I am genuinely curious whether they ever replaced the stuff.
Danielx
@NotMax: Sometimes it’s a blessing when memories grow mercifully dim.
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: Sounds like the settings for Poe’s The Mask of the Red Death. The masked guests strolled from room to room, each of its own color and design … Free PDF from ASU.
trollhattan
@NotMax: One shorthand description that works is “Clockwork Orange Motif.” :-)
NotMax
@Honus
Borderline criminal not to give mention to Edmund Gwenn, who brought what gravitas there was to the hokum.
;)
trollhattan
@Honus: Do not bury the lede: ANTS, GIANT ANTS!
All those dudes. Am reminded of The Blob with Steve McQueen. Who plays a guy named…Steve.
Wyatt Salamanca
@Brachiator:
This April 2022 blog post by Dan Froomkin, responding to a Politico article, perfectly captures the mindset of the White House Corps with respect to their preference for Trump over Biden.
h/t https://presswatchers.org/2022/04/whiny-bored-white-house-reporters-evoke-no-sympathy/
Honus
@NotMax: good point. I was just overwhelmed by Matt Dillon, Daniel Boone and Mr. Spock in the same cast of a sci fi movie.
CaseyL
I like color, but I also don’t like my eyes to hurt :)
My two bathrooms are teal, as is the spare bedroom. My bedroom is a nice light purple. My living room is mint green. The entry hall and dining room are orange, the kitchen and transition from entry hall to living room is yellow, and the huge wall where the staircase climbs is a very light “sand.”
Writing that, it sounds garish. It really isn’t. For one thing, about half my walls are wood-panel, so the paint is one or two walls per room, not the entire room. And the yellow is pretty saturated, but everything else is toned down, though not to the point of pastel.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle: Oooh, perhaps!
I got a strong swingers vibe, and not the movie. That or raising a passel of damaged children. “But mommy, I don’t like the orange room. Can I sleep in pink?” “You know very well Timmy has a week left in pink.”
kalakal
@Suzanne: I have wonky colour vision, Mrs kalakal was a professional artist. Colour schemes are most definitely her domain chez kalakal.
NotMax
@trollhattan
Catchy Bacharach melody, also too.
;)
Geminid
@Honus: I thought Leonard Nimoy was pretty good in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He really fit the role.
bookworm1398
No one thought Trump had a chance in 2016. Nikki might figure, you never know, might as well as try.
Mu question is – when she left the Trump admin, it was because she said she needed a job with more money. But President doesn’t pay that much more, so has her financial situation changed?
zhena gogolia
@Honus: Best part is the little girl.
NotMax
@Geminid
No guilty love for Zombies of the Stratosphere?
;)
HumboldtBlue
@Ruviana:
Nimrata is her given first name. What you and Amir and Brachiator are gently asserting is that I should extend to her a measure of respect she actively refuses to extend to others.
Fuck that noise. She’s a member of a minority group, and she deliberately whitewashes that fact in order to enrich herself, and that entails doing harm to not only her minority group but every other minority group in this nation.
I’m tired of the Michelle Obama schtick that we go high when they go low. There is no low low enough for these fucks and if she’s willing to be a shitty person I’m more than happy to stand there and point out just how shitty of a person she is, and a good place to start is with her disgusting hypocrisy.
mrmoshpotato
No. Just no. This is soooooo un-Balloon Juice.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Possibly the only member of the cast who never had to stop and shout “Line!”
:)
David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch
“Nice guys finish last”
~
Leo DurocherMichael Dukakismrmoshpotato
I’m not ashamed that this got a loud “HA!” out of me.
WaterGirl
@tobie: Oh. I think trying to recover from a stroke and not recovering as quickly as you would like, or not fully recovering, could easily cause depression. But I guess none of us is equipped to diagnose the cause from afar. :-)
Tony Jay
@HumboldtBlue:
It still works. It might sound all morally pure and above it all, but when the ‘they’ in question are so far below the bottom of the barrel they’re splashing around in molten mantle, going high to their low can quite comfortably accommodate a wide range of subterranean brutalities.
Another Scott
@Suzanne:
rofl. Memmoooiieeeeeeees…
When we were deciding on what color to paint our walls, we wanted “white” but not hospital, zinc oxide, white. We agonized over dozens of shades of very light cream to very light sunrise yellow. We had swatches, but couldn’t decide.
We ended up going to a paint store, said we wanted something sorta between this and this. The counter person took a quart of base, punched some things in the machine, it added a little yellow. He put on the lid, shook it up thoroughly, said try this.
It was fine, and has been on the walls for close to 20 years now.
The agony isn’t worth it. ;-) The lighting changes during the day, and from season to season, and the paint will pick up reflected light from other stuff in the room. There is no perfect color.
My $0.02. Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Better a brainstormed Democrat than a brain damaged Republican.
//
mrmoshpotato
We Democrats knew this generations ago, Tommy!
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I’m just glad Senator Fetterman recognized the problem and is getting help. And rest also.
buggrit
I believe in going high when they go low: that way, you’re perfectly positioned to kick ’em in the teeth.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Suzanne: Interesting. I’ll have to check them out. I retired after 30 years as a museum exhibition professional at the Smithsonian. I learned to work with small paint chips and computer screen pdf-sized graphics, not to mention floor plans and CAD drawings. When I started, we had actual blueprints.
Wyatt Salamanca
Another possible VP nominee, Kristi Noem, sinks to a new level of stupid:
h/t https://www.mediaite.com/politics/were-not-dummies-kristi-noem-spins-theory-on-why-u-s-military-waited-to-shoot-down-chinese-spy-balloon/
oklahomo
@Wyatt Salamanca:
They’d be the first to be rounded up by Trump’s ersatzgruppen.
Wyatt Salamanca
@oklahomo:
For most White House reporters, dictatorship is simply much more exciting to cover than a normally functioning executive branch.
artem1s
let’s be honest about this. Nikki is running for a piece of the fundraising action. her tenure as a serious candidate will last exactly as long as the donations last and she isn’t edging to far into TFG’s piece of the action. I honestly don’t buy that Nikki wants to do the hard work needed for a real campaign. there are very few candidates who are actually interested in getting job and are willing to do the work. Pence (Jeebus help us) is one of those. And Florida Man. Everyone else is running to get more speaking fees on Faux News and the Sunday shows.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: Yes. I’m sure it’s terribly easy to get overwhelmed, and nothing good happens when you feel overwhelmed.
cmorenc
I will give Nikki Haley credit for one thing: successfully pushing through the state legislature the removal of the confederate battle flag from the South Carolina state house.
Aside from that…nothing, zero. And even on the confederate flag thing, the then-recent murder of nine black people in a Charleston AME church by a white supremacist rather put the pressure on her and the SC leg to do at least that one symbolic thing toward not alienating national / international businesses who otherwise might consider building facilities in South Carolina, because of the cheap labor.
Honus
@Geminid: I don’t remember him in that. Seen him on Gunsmoke a few times. He always plays a bad guy.
David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch
“Nikki Haley Is Running for (Vice) President”
Of which country?
Dump isn’t going to put her on the ticket.
cmorenc
@David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch:
On the contrary, if Dump thinks nominating Hailey will significantly help him with voters to retake the White House, he sure would nominate her, and think himself the smartest politician ever for doing so. And then if elected, completely ignore her except as window dressing, unless he needs her as a tie-breaker if the Senate is 50-50.
geg6
@tobie:
It is very common to experience depression after a stroke. I know this from experience with my John’s stroke.
Geminid
@Honus: Leonard Nimoy was in the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, along with Donald Sutherland.
Honus
@Tony Jay:I do it for me, not them. Also, in my experience it does work. Killing them with kindness really bothers them on a couple of levels. It makes it hard for them justify their meanness, and it shows they’re not really bothering you or causing pain. There’s a lot to that old saying “Love your enemies. It’ll drive them crazy”
Honus
@Geminid: that’s post TOS. Doesn’t really count.
geg6
@trollhattan:
HGTV has a great show hosted by the comedian Retta. It’s called the ugliest house in America. They compete for a makeover. It’s truly astounding and Retta is hilarious.
Chief Oshkosh
@Jeffro: Oddly enough, Gary never actually addresses these oh-so-awful Biden policies. Hell, his “analysis” is more shallow than any of the Fox talking heads. Now THAT is skill.
bookworm1398
Wyatt Salamanca
This is also my theory for why they didn’t shoot it down over land. So they could make sure pieces weren’t carried off by random citizens and anything the military wanted to keep secret could be kept secret. Since details of the tech used by spies are not generally considered public information.
Anyway
I don’t give a rat’s ass about N Haley. She’s a nobody. I am more concerned about Tulsi Gabbard or Andy Wang who can mount credible third party runs and leech off enough D votes to cause some damage. They both seem able to attract RW ratfucking donors.
The person that pisses me off more than all three is Alex Jones who’s somehow able to spew lies and hate on the public airways and get away with it and even monetize it. Fuck him.
That’s my list for today.
Anyway
@Geminid
Me too. Wish him the best.
Mike in NC
Nikki Haley is such a shameless opportunist she probably is a proud dues-paying member of the Daughters of the Confederacy. But would lie about it anyway.
Kay
@Another Scott:
I painted a (tiny) bathroom last weekend in the Michigan house i’m gradually moving to. I got involved in the whites at the paint store and it took me a very long time to choose. I finally chose “line dried” which is a cream color. The woman who mixed the paint said “oh, cream, always nice.”
So easy for her :)
Geminid
@Anyway: Yang doesn’t concern me, but Gabbard does. She will speak at an upcoming “peace rally,” and the “von Mises Caucus” that took over the Libertarian Party is listed as a “Silver Sponsor.”
That party consistently puts their presidential candidate on 35+ state ballots, so the LP and Gabbard is a worrisome combination to me.
Mai Naem mobile
So Nikki Haley’s announcement was on my news feed a couple of days ago with some pics. This isn’t something I would ordinarily notice but she seemed lighter skinned in her recent pics then her older pics. I am not saying she’s doing it intentionally and its not like Michael Jackson’s transformation. Its more subtle. It could be as simple as she’s living in DC or NY and not SC and getting less sun. Oh, and she has zero chance of being the GOP nominee even if Kamala is the nominee.
Kelly
@trollhattan: We once bought a 1925 bungalow that was well maintained and mostly unmolested. There were some lively paint color choices and orange, yellow and black shag carpet. We decided to pull up the carpet before moving our stuff in. Underneath was oak, in great shape, didn’t even need refinished.
Mr. Bemused Senior
I’m at the Adam Schiff event in SF, any other Jackals here?
Geminid
@Mr. Bemused Senior: What’s the crowd like?
Mr. Bemused Senior
Smallish venue, very crowded
WaterGirl
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I didn’t realize you guys were from CA.
WaterGirl
@Kelly: Didn’t even need to be refinished? Wow.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I’m jealous
Mr. Bemused Senior
@WaterGirl: I moved here in 1977, Carol was a Stanford student.
Kelly
@WaterGirl: Shag carpet and pad protected the oak very well.
Scout211
A footnote to the thread earlier today about the NYT and their anti-trans obsession, the management is not happy with staffers who signed the letter.
Wow. Just wow.
Baud
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
Tell Adam BJ says hi!
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Baud: of course
Baud
@Scout211:
Both the true and the false!
Sure Lurkalot
@Major Major Major Major: Congratulations on your home acquisition and may you find lots of love and laughter within its walls.
PS Go ahead, paint a wall. It’s one of the better aspects of ownership…your walls, your bad color choices, your do overs. FUN!
brantl
@NotMax: She’s got cheeks like bazooms.
David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch
@brantl:
What is this the Borscht Belt? You two, where these zingers written by Herschel Krustofsky?
David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch
@Geminid: anyone
@Anyway:
someone voting for Gabbard isn’t voting for Biden in the first place.
She draws votes from the sick lefty Hillary haters and Tankies who became Dump supporters
David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
Surely, you’ll post photos of the event.
And I apologies in advance for calling you Shirley.
NotMax
@David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch
Tip the waiter, try the gefilte fish.
;)
Geminid
@David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch: You are correct when talking in present tense. But right now most voters haven’t heard of Tulsi Gabbard any more than they heard of Gary Johnson 20 months before the 2016 election, and he got just under 4.5 million votes, 3.3%. This is not a matter of who you see now, but of who American voters see next year.
If I were Peter Thiel or a like minded billionaire wanting to sponsor a spoiler, I’d put my money on Gabbard. She’s a three term Congresswoman and an Army Reserve Lt. Colonel with at least one deployment in Iraq. Gabbard’s also a slick talker, and a “looker” whom many would describe as a thirst trap. A couple hundred million dollars could go a long way towards peeling off Independents and soft Democrats, and if she runs I think the money will be there.
JGreen
I’m a nice Jewish boy, but I never liked gefilte fish. You got any brisket?
NotMax
@JGreen
Brisket? You should’ve been here Tuesday.
:)
Anotherlurker
@Honus: In my humble opinion, “Them” is truly a masterpiece of the 1950s Sci-fi genre. It is also wonderfully written, produced, and acted. One of my favorite films.
NotMax
@Anotherlurker
it’s a dandy little popcorn (or Jujubes, if that’s one’s preference) flick.
Paul in KY
@SiubhanDuinne: Thank you!
Paul in KY
@Jeffro: DeSatanis is my pick
Paul in KY
@Amir Khalid: If only she’d put one more ‘k’ into Nikki, she’d be a shoe-in for the nom.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: My wife wants to do an accent wall. I’m meh about it as I’ve always painted all walls within a room the same colour.
Paul in KY
@karen marie: You don’t vacuum shag carpeting. You just rely on the shag to take care of it.
Paul in KY
@David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch: Poor Gov. Dukakis. I swear that if he’d only
Paul in KY
@oklahomo: Can you imagine the garish uniforms the ‘ersatzgruppen’ would have?
NotMax
@Paul in KY
Old enough to remember the Nixon White House’s foray into ‘palace guard’ uniforms?
Miss Bianca
@Wyatt Salamanca: Those sons (and daughters) of bitches. I’d be thrilled to be making what they’re making being “bored” by covering actual good governance.
Assholes.
Paul in KY
@NotMax: I saw those! They were so lame. Bet Trump’s would be even worse.