Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Bark louder, little dog.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

I was promised a recession.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

No one could have predicted…

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Come on, man.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Squishable Early Morning Open Thread

Squishable Early Morning Open Thread

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If you’ve been married, no matter how many times, you probably have at least one cute engagement story. Maybe not as elaborate as this YouTube dude’s intricately choreographed proposal featuring more than a dozen lip-syncing dancers and a partial marching band. But you and/or your partner probably managed to express feelings that were romantic and hopeful or at a baseline human on such a momentous occasion.

Expressing romantic, hopeful or human emotions appears to be (like “paying off a porn star”) not in Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s self-reported “wheelhouse.” Here’s how he described his engagement to his wife during the Piers Morgan interview:

“She’d let it be known that she was happy and that we were ready to go to the next level, so I don’t think it was a super shock, but it was good to get that one in the win column, and I don’t think I could have done any better in life. Not just to have a friend — we have three wonderful kids, she’s a great mother, she’s a great First Lady. She’s really the whole package.”

I’m descended from a long line of emotionally constipated WASPs, and yet somehow I have more impassioned recollections of purchasing items such as a dog harness that features a built-in poop bag dispenser. Let me tell you, that was one for the old win column, booyah!

Also, now I want to see DeSantis’s long-form birth certificate, because how on earth can this insensate lump have Italian heritage?

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

161Comments

  2. 2.

    NotMax

    Sickening, in every sense.

    How Cigna Saves Millions by Having Its Doctors Reject Claims Without Reading Them

    Internal documents and former company executives reveal how Cigna doctors reject patients’ claims without opening their files. “We literally click and submit,” one former company doctor said. Source

  4. 4.

    Geo Wilcox

    Casey DeSantis is a combo of Barb Bush and Nancy Reagan wrapped in a Jackie O type skin. She’s the brains and gun barrel behind her man. He’d be NOTHING without her ambition.

  6. 6.

    Betsy

    Everything is a package to these grasping philistines.

    And women are, after all, just packages.

  8. 8.

    Betty

    The only marvel is that he has been successful politically so far. But then there are any number of Republican politicians who seem as awful.

  13. 13.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Romantic? Ummmm…

    I had come home from work, still in carpenter whites and lime green t-shirt, dusty, dirty, sweaty. Sat my ass atop the stove (making sure I didn’t accidentally turn on a burner) in the kitchen while my soon to be was doing dishes. We talked about this that and the other when it occurred to me that my previously expressed disinterest in ever getting married again had waned into nonexistence.

    “You wanna get married?”

    I had to dismount my perch and pick her up off the floor before I got an answer. I don’t remember what she said but it was in the affirmative.

    So no, romance is not in my repertoire.

  14. 14.

    Shalimar

    @Betty: The public image of DeSantis is a marketing product.  He has advisors who poll every possible action in depth to find out the reaction from the MAGA base, and he performs the necessary actions to get the deep emotional reaction that his whiny, aloof personality is incapable of generating in actual social settings

    edit: It’s depressing how dumb the Republican base is.  Yes, they’re fed a diet of hatred and they’re terrible people as a result.  But their leaders are all such obvious posers and grifters and the base doesn’t see through any of it.

  15. 15.

    Spanky

    @sab: At least Lady Macbeth had the humanity to go mad in the end

    ETA, of course we’re not at “the end” as far as Lady DeSadness is concerned.

  20. 20.

    Betty Cracker

    @Betty: Yep — I can’t think of a Repub gov in a former Confederate state who isn’t every bit as awful. There’s varying degrees of polish and capacity for cruel innovations to gain political power. Kemp in GA is an example of the former, and DeSantis and Abbott are examples of the latter. Not sure where that leaves a talking canned ham like Reeves of MS; I suspect he’s risen as far as he can.

  22. 22.

    Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride

    I’d like to think that comment would be enough to disqualify him from the nomination.  But then I used to think practically every word out of Trump’s mouth would do the same.

    In other news, installment #2 of the “St. Bees Saga”:

    There was an old man of St. Bees

    Who uncorked an uproarious sneeze.

    The blast blew down walls,

    Overturned market stalls,

    And scuppered six ships on the seas.

  23. 23.

    Baud

    I don’t know why but this

    She’d let it be known that she was happy and that we were ready to go to the next level,

    Is the funniest bit to me.

  27. 27.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud: It almost sounds as if he’s describing trying to get to “second base” during a makeout session.

  30. 30.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: I absolutely loathed the conventional idea of springing something as life-changing as a marriage proposal on somebody as a stage-managed surprise (or of deliberately suppressing discussion of what everyone knows is coming so it could be a non-surprise “surprise”), so what we ended up doing was just having a quiet discussion and agreeing to get married. But then it deprived my spouse of having a cool proposal story to tell people and I remember her coworkers chiding us for my lack of romance.

  32. 32.

    Geminid

    @Shalimar: So for, the marketing of DeSantis to Republican voters may have had some success. One of the few interesting anecdotes I saw from Trump’s Waco rally was the crowd’s reaction to Trump disparaging DeSantis. Unlike their cheering when Trump ripped Clinton or Bragg, the crowd was quiet. Several reporters noted this.

  34. 34.

    Shalimar

    @Baud: “I vaguely became aware that this other person actually felt things too, and it wasn’t just a yearning to go to Hardee’s. She liked me for some reason i couldn’t figure out….”

  36. 36.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Me. It was a small kitchen, no table, no chairs. If I wanted to spend a little time talking to her while resting my weary legs, that was my only choice.

    @zhena gogolia: You must be the type of person who thinks my describing my wife as fitting me like an old shoe is dialogue straight from a romance novel. And yes, I had to explain it too her.

  39. 39.

    Raven

    The first time I proposed to my second wife she walked me to the door and said “go finish your dissertation and we’ll talk”! It was a couple of years later and she was beginning to think it wasn’t going to happen. I brought her breakfast in bed with a ring on top of a strawberry and that, boys and girls, was it!

  41. 41.

    Suzanne

    we were ready to go to the next level

    He dodged all the Goombas and Koopas, jumped over pipes and lakes of fire, and was ready to find Bowser.

  42. 42.

    Betty Cracker

    Chris Christie, a Jersey bully boy, gets it:

    Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Monday that Republicans need a candidate who can take out Donald Trump in a single, brutal swipe like the one Christie delivered to a different rival in 2016…

    Trump will never step aside quietly, said Christie, who is mulling another run himself.

    “You better have somebody on that stage who can do to him what I did to Marco, because that’s the only thing that’s gonna defeat Donald Trump,” he said at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College. “And that means you have to be fearless, because he will come back, and right at you.”

    Voters need to think about who has the skills and guts to do that, Christie warned.

    Trump would probably make mincemeat of DeSantis, a weakling who punches down. Maybe Christie will take on the job himself. It says in the same article he’ll decide “in the next 45 to 60 days.”

    One theory Beltway hacks put forth is that rivals fear that if they attack Trump too directly, it will alienate his supporters. I think that misunderstands feral schoolyard social dynamics. If they attack Trump for being a deranged bigot, yeah, but a rival who calls him a washed up loser who can’t deliver could maybe inherit the mob.

  43. 43.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Matt McIrvin: ​ On one caving trip (we were in separate parties) my wife’s group stopped at an Arkansas wide spot for cave food. She walked to the cash register with her stuff and a fellow caver played the part of a gentleman by offering to pay for her snacks.

    A long time buddy said something along the lines of, “Oh, she’s used to paying for her stuff, she’s with Tom.”

  46. 46.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: ​I think that misunderstands feral schoolyard social dynamics. If they attack Trump for being a deranged bigot, yeah, but a rival who calls him a washed up loser who can’t deliver could inherit the mob.

    Exactly.

  48. 48.

    Suzanne

    @kalakal: I used to work with a dude who was very logical in his decision-making (a true engineer type working in architecture). I was telling him that his approach sometimes didn’t leave enough room for the “soft vision” of the buildings we work on…..aspirations, workplace culture, pride, all that stuff. He kept coming back to the budget, regulations, etc. I kept telling him that he needed to not discount the importance of things that can’t be so easily measured. I was like, “After all, you love your wife, and there isn’t a formula for that. You know what? Make her a spreadsheet for Valentine’s Day! I bet she’ll love it!”

    And then, because I’m nice and I didn’t want him to get in trouble, I told him not to do that and to stick with jewelry and flowers.

  49. 49.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Geminid:

    iswydt

    appreciate the smooth call back to yesterday’s use cringe use of “efforting”  by Nashville authorities, it fits so well the guy efforting pudding into his face with 3 fingers.

    and speaking of effort

    iirc last fall you also drew attention to the
    awesome phrase “margin of effort” as a better way to think about elections  within the pollster margin of error.
    Lots of folks here have been working the margin of effort in Wisconsin, getting out the vote with postcards, and supporting that with music and encouragement.
    next Tuesday night WaterGirl will have an update On Wisconsin efforts and election results.

    Today is the last day to mail out of state postcards, one more day for those in Wisconsin, for the win.

  50. 50.

    Nora

    Mr. Spock would have come up with a better proposal.

    My husband-to-be took me for a walk in the woods outside his family’s home (we were home from college for Christmas break).  The temperatures were so low the forecasters were warning people not to spend any time outside.  I was complaining about the cold.  We stopped in a clearing, he knelt down in the snow and asked me to marry him.

    Of course I said yes.

    Forty two years later, we’re still together.

    That’s MY romantic story.

  51. 51.

    lowtechcyclist

    Also, now I want to see DeSantis’s long-form birth certificate, because how on earth can this insensate lump have Italian heritage?

    I want to see his long-form birth certificate as proof that he’s descended from actual human beings, rather than being a robot that some alien invaders programmed.

  52. 52.

    Geminid

    @BlueGuitarist: There was a particular group that used that phrase, “margin of effort.” I forget who they were, but it was Rachel Bitecofer’s retweet of them that caught my attention.

  53. 53.

    kalakal

    @Suzanne:

    Make her a spreadsheet for Valentine’s Day! I bet she’ll love it!”

    Rofl!

    It’s a good thing your nice self relented 😄

    I have loved spreadsheets ever since the days of SuperCalc, they have saved me so much time, which being lazy, I love even more. However, even after all these years, they still fail to invoke a warm, romantic glow

  55. 55.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Raven:

    The first time I proposed to my second wife she walked me to the door and said “go finish your dissertation and we’ll talk”!

    I got a better deal than you did!  When my wife and I got married, I had just finished the last of my course work, and still groping around for a dissertation topic.

  56. 56.

    bjacques

    When Casey DeSantis hits the campaign trail for real like Melania did, she’ll have to spout the same angry, demented nonsense Governor Meatwad does now. She’ll go from Jackie O to Jackie Q (if she hasn’t already).

  57. 57.

    kalakal

    I can’t remember the exact words but I do remember the time and place I proposed to Mrs kalakal.

    We’d corresponded for years via skype & Facebook and finally met up in NYC. 2 days later we were walking in Central Park and I realised how I hadn’t felt so happy in years. I can’t remember exactly what I said but I do remember her smile

  60. 60.

    Joey Maloney

    @Nora: Mr. Spock would have come up with a better proposal.

    Actually on Vulcan, the woman proposes. We learned this in the first episode of Strange New Worlds.</nerdout>

  61. 61.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    We’re still not 100% sure what happened proposal wise. We joke that actually no, I wasn’t talking about marriage in that conversation, I just meant go out for coffee or something. What we know for sure is that a week after first meeting, we were agreeing that we would be together forever. Details to be worked out. (It would be another two years, after the masters degree she was just beginning).

    It goes something like this:

    Sunday we meet at the house of a friend who is throwing a barbecue. I go with a male friend. I get the impression she’s there with a date. We don’t strike up a conversation but later when she is passing by we do, and that conversation lasts well into the night after the party is over.

    Thursday we kind of sort of go out, but it’s not exactly a date as we are with a group. That movie is now an annual tradition in our house. We talk all night.

    Friday she gives me a ride to New York to see my ostensible girlfriend. We are not “together”, she’s just my ride.

    Saturday she completes her business, I complete mine, an awkward meeting with the “girlfriend”. We meet up at my aunt’s apartment. We tell her we are not “together”, she’s just my ride.

    Sunday we are driving back, still talking. Somewhere on that ride we both realize we are in fact together and that neither of us wants this to end. Somewhere on that ride we agree that we will marry in two years time, after her master’s.

    At the end of that ride I called my “girlfriend” to break up and moved in with my now wife. We have no memory of discussing that move. I just never left her side after that first week in 1978.

  63. 63.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: I think Chis Christie has it right. I don’t think he’s got the right stuff to win that nomination, though. I suspect he’ll pass on the race.

    Maybe Pompeo will be the one to beat up on Trump. He’s been trying out lines of attacks with smaller groups of Republicans.

    I think we’ll know about Christie’s and Pompeo’s plans by early July at the latest.

  64. 64.

    Betsy

    @Geminid: TFG’s supporters may have fallen quiet but they will just take it in stride like everything else about him that should be appalling to them.  They’re well accustomed to making excuses for TFG’s ineptitude, sexual misconduct, and criminality — he’s a “flawed vessel for God’s will,” etc.

    These folks have a tremendous capacity for denying reality.  They live in an epistemic bubble, they ignore science and provable facts, they can accommodate any degree of cognitive dissonance.

  65. 65.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Geminid:

    Mike Podhorzer, AFL-CIO strategist deserves credit for coining the phrase

    margin of effort

    popularized by Rachel Bitecofer and Anat Shenker-Osorio on Twitter and Geminid at Balloon-Juice.

  67. 67.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: The other thing was that the moment her mother knew, everything became very stressful because that woman had a million ideas. If we wanted a relatively low-key ceremony, we had to move fast to plan things just to manage her expectations.

    The wedding was great though, we had it outdoors at one of those places that hosts company picnics and the “reception” was a big barbecue with volleyball and horseshoes. I heard later that a lot of kids who were there were bitterly disappointed later when they went to a more conventional wedding and it wasn’t like that at all.

  69. 69.

    HeartlandLiberal

    @NotMax: ​
      For past several years, we had Cigna as our Part D provider for Rx under Medicare. Things just kept getting more expensive, and they were denying stuff. So wife switched to Silverscript by Aetna this year, and I switched to WellCare, got better deals and coverage. Some of my meds are now covered in the monthly premium. So, not surprised at this money grubbing revelation.

  72. 72.

    kalakal

    @Baud:

    Well the immigration process took 2 years after that so it slowed down a bit :(

    We spent a lot of time going backwards & forwards across the Atlantic in those 2 years

  73. 73.

    Geminid

    @Betsy: Many of Trump’s supporters- the true believers- are as you describe. Others may take a politically pragmatic view- they want a winner.

    I wonder what the relative numbers are, especially how big the first group is. They’re the ones liable to stay home next November if Trump is not the nominee.

  74. 74.

    frosty

    @OzarkHillbilly: Ha! Ours was equally romantic. Sitting at the kitchen table in the cut-up row house apartment we’d moved into; one of us said something like “Maybe we should get married.” I don’t remember who said it!

  75. 75.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    have you seen the screen cap of Faux News showing
    Magritte’s The Treachery of Images,
    Tucker Carlson looking like Tucker Carlson,
    with the chyron, all caps, “look at it. Sorry liberals that’s a pipe.”

  77. 77.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Matt McIrvin: As related upthread, our actual proposal story was ridiculous and nobody would believe it. But we did an actual “proposal” a year later, when we decided we’d tell our families. The announcement to her family is a story in itself. I did the whole thing of booking a dinner in an expensive restaurant (The Russian Tea Room), then getting down on one knee to present the ring and formally ask her to marry me.

    But it wasn’t exactly a surprise as she’d gone ring shopping with me.​

    @BlueGuitarist: ​

    have you seen the screen cap of Faux News showingMagritte’s The Treachery of Images,Tucker Carlson looking like Tucker Carlson,with the chyron, all caps, “look at it. Sorry liberals that’s a pipe.”

    Nope, haven’t seen it. Not surprising they wouldn’t get it though. I’d ask Carlson to try to light it.​

  79. 79.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Matt McIrvin: Our wedding was in a cave, the reception was in our camp and the food was potluck. We had 3 Bishops from the Church of Janus Karst officiating. Our vows were that my wife would have to say “My hero..” daily and I would have to learn how to say, “Yes Dear.” She doesn’t, and If I do I get whatever is in her hands thrown at me. Fortunately she has lousy aim.

  80. 80.

    kalakal

    @Geminid:

    Some of Trump’s supporters- the true believers- are as you describe. Others may take a politically pragmatic view- they want a winner.

    It’s the same with the creatures that hang around in the GOPVerse.

    I often wonder how many of them actually believe the bullshit and how many of them are cynical bastards who be all in for the Dems if the grift was better. Pretty sure this covers nearly all their media enablers

  81. 81.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Betty Cracker: I can think of one candidate who’s shown the ability to do that. Unfortunately for Christie and the GOP, that candidate is Joe Biden.

  84. 84.

    kalakal

    @Baud: You’re right we didn’t. Took 2 years of paperwork after that.

    We’d talked for hours and hours on Skype for ages before that

  86. 86.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: That’s the way to do it. Have a real proposal and then a Potemkin proposal you can tell everyone about.

    Technically the fun wedding I just mentioned was not a wedding, since the “officiant” was my wife’s former English teacher and we hadn’t arranged for it to be legal. We legally got married a couple of days later at the home of a justice of the peace in a 15-minute ceremony.

  92. 92.

    rikyrah

    UH HUH

     

    Ali Velshi (@AliVelshi) tweeted at 8:22 AM on Mon, Mar 27, 2023:
    Americans should watch developments in Israel, in which a sitting prime minister, facing criminal charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery, was returned to office, and is now attempting to pass laws that would, among other things, limit the ways in which he can be declared… https://t.co/YQ62Kh1Sm1
    (https://twitter.com/AliVelshi/status/1640343624926781447?t=Vi1bRJhn44eWLhNOUshJcA&s=03)

  93. 93.

    Soprano2

    Good morning, just dropped in to provide proof of life. I’m at an industry conference at Margaritaville at Lake of the Ozarks, learning stuff about wastewater.

  96. 96.

    rikyrah

    Call me suspicious or paranoid… but, I think that school where the shooting happened in Nashville, needs to be delved into more. I don’t think it was all that random.

  98. 98.

    rikyrah

    Madam Vice President Harris is THEE GOAT! (@flywithkamala) tweeted at 7:49 PM on Mon, Mar 27, 2023:
    The question was whether VP Kamala Harris’s trip to Ghana is to strengthen the ties between the nations or more about combating China and Russia’s growing influence on the continent.

    The answers by @VP and President Akufo-Addo were absolutely perfect. https://t.co/9TNXocIFaK
    (https://twitter.com/flywithkamala/status/1640516306611970050?t=3YciFtsWgZk8fViQXU67Bw&s=03)

  103. 103.

    Tony G

    DeSantis is an emotionless freak — but so is Trump and so was Nixon.  A lot of Americans are happy to vote for someone who hates the same people that they hate.

  105. 105.

    rikyrah

    CLAP CLAP CLAP

     

     Owning My Space  (@JuneSummer1) tweeted at 10:53 PM on Mon, Mar 27, 2023:
    CBS News aired a great segment discussing @VP Harris’ travel to Africa detailing policy and the administration’s priorities.

    I want to highlight the last question on the symbolism of the first woman Vice President of the U.S. in this moment.

    Full video in comments. #VPinAfrica https://t.co/XKyvymZMWY
    (https://twitter.com/JuneSummer1/status/1640562638009831424?t=mF0PL7-mn_6DIkWyGpOF6A&s=03)

  106. 106.

    rikyrah

    Because, of course

     

    𝐁𝐞𝐤𝐬 (@antifaoperative) tweeted at 11:01 AM on Mon, Mar 27, 2023:
    A Texas lawyer & former chairman of the Harris County Republican Party, who has been at the helm of of anti-LGBTQ and pro-life movements in Texas, knew for years of child sexual abuse claims against his law partner & continued to work w him for nearly a decade. https://t.co/8rFLF0vKwy
    (https://twitter.com/antifaoperative/status/1640383561059401729?t=SbIBJB79HdbbIoTZ57MUag&s=03)

  112. 112.

    gene108

    @Baud:

    Not being able to stand up to Trump is a purely Republican problem.

    The Republican problem is that it’s hard to standup to someone, when you are required to agree with 100% of what he’s done.

  113. 113.

    Amir Khalid

    I put a cat harness on Agent Scully today. She’s been wearing it all day and appears not to mind it. I’ll attach the leash tomorrow, and then we’ll try this “walk” thing.

    In the meantime, I am turning out to be a really mediocre photographer. But I shall keep trying until I get a picture that does her justice.

  114. 114.

    sdhays

    @Matt McIrvin: I’m totally with you on the idea conventional proposals being weird and uncomfortable. My wife and I agreed to get married similarly to how you describe it. We were living in separate countries at the time and I was visiting, so the next time I came I brought an engagement ring and we had dinner at a super fancy restaurant (which, to this day, we pretty much never do). It was nice.

  116. 116.

    Ken

    @Amir Khalid: I put a cat harness on Agent Scully today. She’s been wearing it all day and appears not to mind it.

    Pro tip: Check your shoes before putting them on tomorrow.

  117. 117.

    rikyrah

    @Betty Cracker:

    Kemp in GA is an example of the former, and DeSantis and Abbott are examples of the latter. Not sure where that leaves a talking canned ham like Reeves of MS; I suspect he’s risen as far as he can.

    Kemp is Old School Slave Owning Money. Has had generations to perfect his veneer.

     

    Reeves of MS looks like he should be managing the Piggly Wiggly. I stand by that.

  118. 118.

    PBK

    @Amir Khalid: Looking forward to a report and pictures.

    It is hard to photograph active kitties!  You can get them while they’re sleeping but then you don’t get their wonderful expressions.

  122. 122.

    Kathleen

    @Geminid: “Human is haaaaaaard.” Emotionally Constipated Wasps would be a great name for an Aryan Boomer punk metal tribute band.

  123. 123.

    Kathleen

    @Geminid: “Humaning is haaaaaaard.” Emotionally Constipated Wasps would be a great name for a Boomer punk metal tribute band.

  124. 124.

    frosty

    @Amir Khalid: ​ We could do a B-J Thermometer so you can hire a portrait photographer!​ We had one who specialized in pets many years ago who got our dogs to sit still next to us without leashes.

  130. 130.

    Gin & Tonic

    Way OT, for Amir and a couple of others – my daughter went to Liverpool, arrived this morning, for several days of shooting some sort of promo video with “some soccer player, named Virgil something.” She’s not much of a soccer fan.

  135. 135.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2:

     

    @OzarkHillbilly: Are either of you hearing much about Lucas Kunce’s Senate campaign? I see that former Lt. Governor Joe Maxwell endorsed him last week (stltoday.com). And on March 14 The Bulwark had a fairly long profile of Kunce and his challenge to “the fleet-footed” Josh Hawley titled, “Challenger to Hawley: ‘Quit Your Fake Populism.’ “

  136. 136.

    Pennsylvanian

    @Shalimar: Yes, clearly DeSantis has zero natural political instincts. He is a workshopped, focus-grouped, buzzword mad libs talking points generator. That’s about it.

    And his wife? Man, she doesn’t seem like she can read a room either. I think she fancies herself a Jackie O or Princess Di, but her vibe is more The Stepford Wives of the The Villages.

  138. 138.

    Spanish Moss

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Sounds similar to me and my husband. We worked in the same place and became close friends. Someone remarked on how much time we were spending together and I said “Nah, just friends, we aren’t attracted to each other”. Two weeks later after too many beers we went back to my place, and he never slept at his apartment again. There was no proposal or ring. We were inseparable and it was obvious we would spend our lives together. We married a year later at the courthouse, with his brother as the witness, because we were ready to have kids. Been happily married for over thirty years.

  139. 139.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Geminid: Not me, not lately. I preferred him over the Busch heiress last go ’round, but DEMs wouldn’t listen to me. I’m not sure he has what it takes to win in Misery, but I doubt any other DEM can do better than he.

  140. 140.

    Geminid

    @OzarkHillbilly: It sounds like Lucas Kunce is an energetic retail politician, so he’ll probably be rolling through your area before too long. He should be good for Democratic morale at least.

  144. 144.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Pennsylvanian:

    And his wife? Man, she doesn’t seem like she can read a room either. I think she fancies herself a Jackie O or Princess Di, but her vibe is more The Stepford Wives of the The Villages.

    The DeSantis camp really seems to have convinced themselves that she’s a huge campaign asset. It reeks of strain and effort to me, but I’m not the target audience.

    I think if Pompeo ever breaks through to 5% or higher, I think we’ll see something similar. They really tried to make Mrs P a thing, from “First Lady of the CIA” to the Madison Dinners.

  145. 145.

    gratuitous

    Wow, has it been 11 years (almost) since Isaac (the YouTube dude) did that? Time flies. If you’re particularly sharp-eyed you can spot my church’s pianist among the supporting cast.

    And that is my connection to fame.

  147. 147.

    cope

    @Gin & Tonic: I’m jealous of your daughter’s trip. I’ve been an LFC fan for about 15 years now, ever since my wife bought me a Liverpool t-shirt while on a holiday in Britain. “Virgil” would likely be Virgil Van Dijk, the Dutch defender who is arguably one of the best in the world. Well, this season, maybe not so much.  Go REDS, HUGE game with Man City coming up this weekend.

  148. 148.

    cope

    As for proposal stories, the one I have is that my future (and still) wife was working at Marshal Field’s in downtown Chicago and I came from the oilfields of the Rocky Mountains for a visit.  While having brunch at The Pump Room (now, sadly, gone) in the Ambassador East hotel, we had a very low-key discussion and decided to go ring shopping.  Her cousin’s wife worked at a jewelry shop downtown so we went and bought a ring from her for which I am sure I paid way too much.  I was in a big hurry to get to a bar somewhere to watch the Bear’s game and more focused on that than trying to be romantic. I’m not even sure where/when we made it formal by the donning of the ring but almost 50 years after first meeting in the Natural History Building at the University of Illinois, we’re still together and still in love.

  149. 149.

    sdhays

    @rikyrah: Unfortunately, the vast majority of white Mississippians are content with (hell-bent on?) Mississippi being the the Piggly Wiggly of states.

  151. 151.

    misterpuff

    but it was good to get that one in the win column

    Now he’s only two games behind Drumph!

  152. 152.

    lowtechcyclist

    @rikyrah:

    Alabama’s governor has proposed using more than $300 million from the state’s education budget for non-education expenses, including prison construction and a water park

    And that’s why Alabama will continue to be Alabama.

  155. 155.

    Paul in KY

    @rikyrah: The shooter was a former student, I believe. Saw some footage of them strutting around with their weapons. Get to be really tough when you are armed to the teeth at a daycare. What a POS loser. Just sucks to the max that someone like that can ruin so many lives in such a small amount of time.

    God, I worry about my little boy!!!

  158. 158.

    StringOnAStick

    We got married based on it improving our tax status.  Chose Halloween because it was the last holiday left between when we sold his house and bought the new place and because neither of us remembers birthdays or anniversaries very well.  $35 for a license, mission accomplished, let’s go have lunch.  That was 23 years ago.  Part of why we chose 2000 as the year was so it would be easy to remember.

  159. 159.

    Ruckus

    @Shalimar:

    His base is too close and fed pablum on a continuous basis so they “think” they are getting what they want. It’s like an insolent child. Oh wait it IS insolent children, just in adult bodies. They want a world that makes sense to them and one that isn’t complicated and outside their lane. And they think, as it’s the only lane they know, it must be right. They never see the bigger picture and likely wouldn’t understand it if they did, which is partially why they are who they are. In advertising it’s “The Next Great Thing.” In politics it’s “Never Change Anything, They Won’t Understand.”

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