Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Consistently wrong since 2002

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

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

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Everybody saw this coming.

We still have time to mess this up!

In my day, never was longer.

Books are my comfort food!

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

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

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

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

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

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Republicans in disarray!

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread

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Speaking of must-see tv:


Mad props, literally:

Meanwhile…

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83Comments

  2. 2.

    bbleh

    Perhaps, but the real animating issues for Republicans are Those People mooching off My Hard-Earned Tax Dollars™, with a side of Icky-Sex People molesting The Children.

    It’s the old favorites that always get ’em out on the dance floor.

  3. 3.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I woke up from a dream in which I had just determined the Three Best Names for Geese:

    Jolene

    Mabel Lou

    Dorcas

    I haven’t changed my mind. You’re welcome

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    Media note. Links are to trailers on YouTube.

    While neither could be deemed a blockbuster, two films of meticulous construction new (AFAIK) to Prime to check out, each of a decidedly different tone yet both finely, even affectionately, produced. And not a screaming car chase nor cloud-scorching fireball in sight.

    Secure in being modest, a cozy, of the old school little diversion: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris.

    While there is brief mayhem near the end, it’s something (like Chekhov’s proverbial gun) always lurking in the background and entirely in context: Dinner Rush. Must have been a continuity nightmare, seeing as it mostly takes place inside a very crowded restaurant.

  8. 8.

    Ken

    @Baud: I do wonder where Harris finds the time to secretly run the country. Maybe she delegates her cabal duties to Hillary Clinton when she’s out of the country?

  9. 9.

    Baud

    @Ken:

    One of the good things about being woke is that you don’t need a lot of sleep.  More time for despotism.

  11. 11.

    Geminid

    @bbleh: Younger people don’t seem that interested in dancing to those Republican tunes. The issues you mention may seem like “Golden Oldies” before too long. It’s like they are being generated by a think tank located in Branson, Missouri.

  12. 12.

    Soprano2

    I went to a luncheon put on by my bank for investors last Friday. The guy who did the presentation is a pretty straight shooter; he’s not infected by the Fox “News” crap. He thinks we’ll have a recession at the beginning of next year. He pointed out something interesting; almost all recessions since the 1920’s have happened in the first and last year of a president’s term. There have been no recessions in the third year of any president’s term in that time period. He didn’t know why that was, he just knew it was a fact. He also thinks crypto is pretty much a scam, because I asked him how the collapse of so much crypto would affect the markets.

  22. 22.

    Jeffro

    Mr. Al-Zaidi, I’m right there with you in being still furious about the Iraq War.

    The Post had an article up a few days ago that noted where all of the nation’s $31T national debt came from.  $4-6T of that was courtesy of ol’ W’s great Mesopotamian misadventure.  I think his tax cuts were another $2.5T.  Unreal.

  23. 23.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: You assume that there are people who could run a think tank in Branson. I am here to assure you that there probably aren’t. They’d be in Springfield! LOL

  25. 25.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: He thinks if it happens it will be relatively shallow and not that long. I think they’re all bumfuzzled by the economy right now because it’s not behaving in a normal manner – inflation is high, interest rates are going up, but consumption is still going gangbusters and unemployment is at historic lows. I also pointed out to him that no one could have predicted in 2019 what would happen in 2020. I think he cringed a little bit when I said that.

  27. 27.

    Betty Cracker

    @SiubhanDuinne: Excellent geese names! A neighbor down the road keeps geese, who often charge the fence and honk angrily when I walk past. I will start calling them by these names and see if that changes their attitudes toward me.

  28. 28.

    Jeffro

    Btw if any front-pager wants to post it, Anand Giridharadas (author of Winner Take All and The Persuaders) has a funny Tweet thread up about how awesome it is to do business with “woke” banks.  The replies are also hysterical.

    Sample:

    ”When I apply for a mortgage at my woke bank, there’s none of the usual paperwork.  They just give you a quiz about the history of redlining.  If you pass – mortgage!”

    ”One down side: the lines are long because there’s always a bunch of burly men waiting to take out their money for sex change operations”

    “Another down side: every debit card’s PIN at Woke Bank is 1619, and you can’t change it”

    LMAO

  30. 30.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    early 2023 and the animating issues for Republicans are:

    1) a war in which no American troops have fought

    2) an environmental disaster that has claimed no lives

    3) a recession that does not exist

    I’m all for the Republicans running on these issues. Once any individual voter sees Republicans are running on bullshit nightmare fantasy, they can’t easily unsee it.

  31. 31.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2: That’s kind of encouraging. I think a mild recession would not impair Biden’s chances for reelection, especially if we start to come out of it by Summer, 2024.

    And there might not be a recession at all, or even a spell of flat economic growth. My amateur political-economic theory is that Democrats got their counter-cyclic spending in early, with the Infrastructure, CHIPS+ and “Inflation Reduction Act” legislation.

  32. 32.

    Betty Cracker

    @Soprano2: You’re right about people being bumfuzzled about the economy because historical patterns are broken, which makes prognostication challenging. As we’ve discussed here, the same holds true in politics recently, and probably in other spheres too. The past isn’t predictive, yet poor pattern-seeking creatures that we are, we keep looking to it for clues in the Age of Uncertainty.

  33. 33.

    Jeffro

    @Baud: “When you apply for a commercial loan at Woke Bank, you don’t even have to tell them how you plan to make money – you just mutter the letters ‘ESG’ and you’re approved!”

    ”I get a bonus 0.001% interest rate for every tree I plant!  I’m 30% of the way to reforesting the Amazon!”

    Ok, I’ll stop.  But still…mocking the shit out of the wokety-woke-woke boogeymen is fuuuuuuun! 😁

  35. 35.

    Baud

    Jesus Fucking Christ! Tony Blinken just fucking hands the GOP the keys to the castle in 2024.

    Font Wars Spread After State Department Replaces Times New Roman With Calibri

    ‘I’m banging my head against the wall;’ camps divided in fallout from government efforts to make documents easier to read.

  36. 36.

    Old School

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — A new Tennessee bill would allow law enforcement officers to use mechanical restraints, such as belts and handcuffs, on students with disabilities.

    …

    OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH) — A bill that sought to end corporal punishment in schools for students with disabilities failed in a close vote in the Oklahoma House of Representatives on Tuesday.

  38. 38.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Geminid:

    Yes, it’s lovely today. I have a whole bunch of birds feeding on the deck, and the shy little feral cat is wondering when I’ll put out treats for her. (She completely ignores the birds, and they ignore her right back.)

  41. 41.

    NotMax

    @Betty Cracker

    Pareidolia. Used to include a frequent coda about that phenomenon on my late blog under the heading “Pareidolia On Parade.”

    “That rust stain is the spitting image of Jesus!”
    :)
    .

  42. 42.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I just filled out my mail-in ballot for the April 3 local election (school board, library board, village trustee, etc). I was aided by the postcards that right wingers sent me because they narrowed down my choices. Here’s hoping the good guys win.

  44. 44.

    WaterGirl

    @Ken:

    I do wonder where Harris finds the time to secretly run the country.

    I can’t keep up.  I thought the current media complaint was that Harris doesn’t do anything?

  48. 48.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud:   If everything is woke, nothing is woke.

    These people bleat about each thing in succession, until whatever the catch word is no longer means anything.

    shaking my head

    edit: Apparently I am talking to myself.  I see that there is a new post up.  I apparently need to get up earlier.

  50. 50.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @NotMax:

    the smoldering ruins of Seattle.

    Don’t get me started.  They really think this is true.  They don’t even think it’s been covered up, they think it’s established, universally known fact.

  56. 56.

    satby

    @NotMax: Speaking of the *not* smoldering ruins of Seattle, going to mention again that I’ll be there from the night of the 3rd to the late afternoon of the 6th, and am cooking up a meetup with opiejeanne and Dan B. Any local jackals interested in joining us can email me at skinluvvers at g mail dot com so we can get a consensus of date and time that will work. Alas, not a weekend, so unlikely the legendary Yutsano can join us.

  61. 61.

    kalakal

    @NotMax: It’s from The Book of Merlyn by T. H. White. It’s a coda to The Once and Future King published after his death. It has a beautifully written part where Merlin transforms Arthur into a goose. Lyo-Lyok is the goose who shows him the world according to geese

  63. 63.

    rikyrah

    With the NY Supreme Court letting that second company’s lawsuit against Fox go forward, I see the same kinds of things will be found during discovery. I don’t give a crap how much sway the Murdoch family has over that company, if you cost a company 4.3 BILLION, and that’s just the basic damages their asking for, not any additional damages that the judge can give…

     

    Somebody’s gotta be the patsy for that. Someone’s gotta be held responsible for that. And, I mean, some of the ON-AIR TALENT.

  64. 64.

    schrodingers_cat

    Okay I watched RRR and I have a lot to say. In a nutshell.

    It is an attractive glossy packaging of half-truths and lies of omission, and appropriation of the struggle of India’s indigenous tribes to sell the  Hindutva (BJP-RSS) version of the freedom struggle.

  65. 65.

    NotMax

    @rikyrah

    They’re insured up the wazoo. Not for what the entire bill might end up being but a goodly chunk o’ change won’t come from company coffers. $4 billion will be a blow to shareholders but will not necessarily impact operations an iota.

    Fox gross profit for the twelve months ending December 31, 2022 was $5.222B, a 8.12% increase year-over-year. Source

  67. 67.

    rikyrah

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I just filled out my mail-in ballot for the April 3 local election (school board, library board, village trustee, etc). I was aided by the postcards that right wingers sent me because they narrowed down my choices. Here’s hoping the good guys win.

     

    You’re in Illinois.

    Election day is April 4th.

  77. 77.

    Jay C

    @WaterGirl:

    Well, obviously VP Harris is secretly running the country AND doing nothing. At the same time!!!

    That’s what makes her so dangerous….  😜

  78. 78.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: When he talked about how fast we recovered from the “Covid recession” as opposed to what happened in 2008-2012, and he speculated about what was different, I had to suppress the urge to yell out “Congress didn’t think everyone should have to suffer in 2020 like they did in 2009, so the government spent enough money to make sure we didn’t crash the economy”, or to say “Republicans forced Obama to do sequestration, that’s why that recovery took so long”. That would not have been a popular viewpoint in that room.

  79. 79.

    Jeffro

    @Jay C: VP Harris is secretly running the country AND doing nothing. At the same time!!!

    I’m sure she learned well from the master of sheer bumbling incompetency/ultimate supreme liberal overlord, Brandon.

  80. 80.

    oatler

    @kalakal:

    Memory is faint. but i think that Lyo Lyuk part is from “The Sword in the Stone” novel that White incorporated into The Once & Future King.

  81. 81.

    Jeffro

    Somewhat OT but with this current banking crisis (or should I say ‘crisis’) I am thinking about Biden 2024 campaign ads:

    • Joe led us competently out of the pandemic with eighty gazillion shots in arms
    • fought inflation back to 2020 (or whatever) levels
    • enacted bazillions in infrastructure spending
    • solved the supply chain crisis
    • solved the baby formula crisis
    • got us out of Afghanistan after 20 years
    • brought gas prices back down to normal after SEVERE oil company price gouging
    • helped Ukraine repel Russian aggression and re-united NATO
    • OH…AND kept a cool head in this latest banking crisis

    What else am I forgetting?  It’s like the guy has had to deal with a major crisis twice a month (which unfortunately means we have time for about forty more before the election, gulp) and CRUSHED IT every time.

    He can either frame it as “look at all the things I did” or “for the love of heaven, can ya imagine if trump had been present during _____?”  Either works equally well.

  83. 83.

    kalakal

    @oatler: We’re both right, she’s in both.

    A lot of The Book of Merlyn has bits from the other books. White never wanted it published in his lifetime.

    It’s been a very long time since I read the books, I loved them in my teens, and I’m a little scared to read them decades later in case I don’t like them now

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