Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

People are weird.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

No one could have predicted…

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

A consequence of cucumbers

Consistently wrong since 2002

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

We’re not going back!

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. don’t touch it.”

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

If you are in line to indict donald trump, stay in line.

“woke” is the new caravan.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Everybody saw this coming.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Afternoon Open Thread: This and That

Afternoon Open Thread: This and That

by | 60 Comments

This post is in: 

First things first, shoutout to Watergirl for doing something super kind for me today. It doesn’t take much to change a day, and she did that for me. ❤️ Much appreciated.

Seems like kind of a slow news day. Hopefully, by saying that,  there will be more bad news for the moldy orange one breaking later today.

In other news:

Image

This is in the category of about time and when are Manafort and Navarro going to see the inside of a jail cell?

When we take back the House, every one of these fuckers needs to be investigated for what they knew and when they knew they were disseminating Russian propaganda:

Afternoon Open Thread: This and That

If the MSM doesn’t cover this sham of witness 24/7 I won’t be surprised, because you know, Joe is old.

Did we cover the Quinnipiac poll earlier today? Seems like good news for Biden…

Biden 49, Trump 45 in new  QuinnipiacPoll

Top issue, democracy. 56% support Ukraine aid, and there’s massive support for NATO.

 

===========

A little fun to end the post.  I’m not a big fan of zoos, but I did enjoy this story.

Visitors are flocking to Zoo Negara to see Oyen, a cat which has developed a special bond with a herd of capybara. The zoo installed a new Oyen’s official sign in front of the capybara enclosure in conjunction with World Cat Day which is celebrated on Aug 8.

He is well taken care of by the vets and staff of the zoo and gets cat food. Capybaras are just amazing.

This is a free-for-all open thread

Reader Interactions

60Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    a cat which has developed a special bond with a herd of capybara

    They said gay marriage would lead to this.

  6. 6.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The only way to be sure about shutting up Alex Jones is the Ripley Solution.  But liquidating his entire estate is a good start.

  8. 8.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    People have explained pretty well what’s happening to the Orange Fart Cloud’s civil liabilities although I’ll believe he’s really paying something when his FL shit hole is taken from him.  Or they auction his NYC tower on the court house steps…or wtf the equivalent is in 2024.

    Soooo, can someone explain how the “liquidation of assets” works in this case?

    I’m like lots of people who think that while these verdicts are great in one way, the target never actually feels any of the intended financial pain.  In the case of this bastard, I don’t believe in the death penalty but have no problem chaining him up outside somewhere, in public, for the rest of his life, so that people can come by and spit on him, pelt him with garbage, etc.  Or this:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXbIDwLeeEo

  9. 9.

    PAM Dirac

    @Baud:

    They said gay marriage would lead to this.

    I thought gay marriage was going to lead to Beyoncé topping the county music charts.

  10. 10.

    TaMara

    @ETtheLibrarian: Am I missing something because it sounds like from the link you posted, the Supremes rejected the lawyers appeal and they will pay fines, etc.

    Not surprisingly, that ruling was appealed, but the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that conspiratorial allegations were baseless, and while the sanctions were partially rolled back, they remained largely intact. As NBC News’ report added, “The lawyers were ordered to pay legal fees, undertake new legal training and were referred to their respective state bar associations for any disciplinary procedures.”

    The lawyers appealed once more, to the U.S. Supreme Court, which this week rejected the case.

  11. 11.

    sab

    Well, Beyonce is a native Texan. I think the song and the video are really cute in a snide adult way, but I would have an issue with my grandaughter (age 10) listening to it. Not that she would want to.

    Basically, now it is an ear worm for me.

    My first husband played poker at a professional level and I hate poker and cards, but even our golden retriecers could be taught hold ’em

    ETA She isn’t what I listen to so I forget how talented she is.

  13. 13.

    Jeffro

    There’s a reason that Republican officials are convinced that a president’s son – and the president himself – would be on the take from foreign governments.

    There’s a reason that trumpov fervently believes that Biden would abuse and weaponize the DOJ.

    There’s a reason why the GOP media ardently pushes the line that President Biden is too old and too dementia-riddled to do the job.

    There’s a reason why all of them, from trumpov on down to the mouth-breathing RWNJ base, believe that if Joe Biden and the Democrats win in November, this country as we know it is over.

    And they’re all the same reason: PRO. JEC. TION.

  15. 15.

    Jeffro

    Stuart Stevens on Twitter:

     

    Vladimir Putin looked at Donald Trump as a weak man who would do anything for power.

    Donald Trump looked at Republican Party as weak men and women who would do anything for power.

    Both were right.

    A major American political party is now compromised and extending Russia’s power to attack the West. Nothing like this has ever happened in American history. Until we acknowledge it and respond, what it means to be an American will die a little more each day.

  19. 19.

    trollhattan

    Alabama has managed to stupefy the BBC, who spend a good long while reporting and discussing the notion a frozen embryo is a full-ass human being. Even cited some of the supreme court decision and its citing of Genesis, Thomas Aquinas and probably Billy Graham and David Koresh.

    “Because Gawd done says so” is becoming the law of the land.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    @Mr. Bemused Senior:

    This is bad writing. Misplaced modifier.

    Now we’re on to Hunter Biden, obviously the troubled son of a powerful politician whose life skidded into a longterm fugue of drugs and alcohol.

     

    This is spot on.

    In talking with David Kurtz before I started writing this David noted that we can’t really say Republicans and MAGA Republicans were duped. And that’s 100% right. The evolution of U.S. politics, egged along, skid-greased by helpful Russians, created a context in U.S. politics where these folks didn’t really have to be duped

  23. 23.

    sab

    @smith: IVF potential parents, like trans kids, are desparate  desperate but actually quite rare. Backlash won’t matter because they don’t have the votes.

  25. 25.

    jimmiraybob

    Joe Biden is obviously guilty.

    1) There has been much smoke discussed.  That, of course, means fire. Basic science!

    2) Also too, visions and dreams (spectral evidence).  Hey, it was good enough for our Puritan Founding Fathers when they stepped off the Mayflower to found the United States of America by writing the Constitution.

    Duh.

  28. 28.

    Peale

    @Jeffro: If I didn’t have to live here, its really has been a sight to behold how easily corrupted by foreign money the GOP has been.  Its probably less than $10 million per year to buy half of Congress.  That’s nothing.  Sure, I doubt that we could pool our money on this here blog and buy some senators and we’d need to poison a few just so they took us seriously, but this is cheap. A gratis hooker for the night and $10K and we could probably get 1/2 the Florida senators.

  31. 31.

    Citizen Alan

    @sab:

    I genuinely can’t comprehend the level of delusion it takes to seriously believe that a frozen embryo that has never been inside of a woman’s body post-fertilization is “a child.”

  33. 33.

    Suzanne

    @smith:

    University of Alabama Birmingham Hospital has already suspended IVF treatments. I expect the backlash on this one to be fierce. 

    Absolutely.
    They’re also coming for surrogacy, too.

    I had a coworker once who said — aloud, in the office, mind you — that infertility was God’s punishment for women who were too into their careers.

    I’ve known a few observant Christian women who had infertility struggles, including one who overheard that comment, and were deeply wounded.

  34. 34.

    Suzanne

    @sab: IVF is more common than you think. Fertility struggles of all kinds are pretty common. There’s a lot of shame around it, so people often don’t disclose.

    Miscarriage, abortion, ectopic pregnancy, fertility treatment…. I have been surprised multiple times in my life by how many people I have met who have gone through these things.

  35. 35.

    sab

    @Citizen Alan: It doesn’t need to make sense once it is statutory, and Alabama passed a weird minors’ rights statute, where rights start at fertilization instead of later at implantation.

    Biologically nuts but still the law. I do think fake scripture quoting was a bit over the top. Old Testament scripture has no problem with abortion and other real life pregnancy issues. New Testament scripture doesn’t even discuss pregnancy or abortion.

  36. 36.

    karen marie

    It’s a zoo, so they must have vets.  One of them needs to look at that cat.  Poor Oyen has wounds on his face, dirt inside his ears, and a distended belly – my guess, parasites.

    I’m off to run errands thanks to my mobile provider fucking up my phone remotely, forcing me to go to one of their stores to have a new sim card installed.  Oh, well.  I am out of honey anyway.

  37. 37.

    smith

    @Suzanne: I looked it up — 2% of births in the US are via IVF. It has even greater impact than that, I think, because many people are probably reassured to know that it exists as an option if they find in the future they can’t get pregnant any other way. Cutting off that potential option will not sit well with a lot of people.

  38. 38.

    sab

    @Suzanne: And yet people have no compunction in asking why I have no children. And I have no compunction in answering “It is none of your fucking business and either I didn’t want to or I couldn’t and you have no right to ask which.” I even say that to my own family. And also I to say to people at work. My current job has people with half birth kids and half adopted kids so they are not assholes.

  39. 39.

    Kathleen

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: Thank you so much for the link. It’s so easy to let junk news stories roll over us because we assume that most of what we hear is based on lies and it’s almost become white noise (speaking of political coverage and not disparaging other reporters who do real work). But Josh’s piece and his closing comments deserve to be pondered in more depth and promoted in more conversations.

  41. 41.

    Gravenstone

    @Suzanne: infertility was God’s punishment for women who were too into their careers

    Immediate question, if she had kids wouldn’t that indicate she wasn’t “serious” about her career?

  43. 43.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Baud: Yee haw!  This will piss off the racists mighty good.  And I hope she does a collaboration with Taylor Swift so we can watch the heads of both their fanbases explode too (members of both hives constantly talk shit about the other performer and try to pit them against each other, even though both women seem to like and respect each other).

  44. 44.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Citizen Alan: Did you see the movie he starred in a couple years ago?  I hate to give that a-hole clicks, but the trailer is pretty hilarious.  It’s exactly what you’d expect for a low-budget MAGA movie.

  46. 46.

    Nora

    It’s really amazing to me that the Alabama decision refers to the use of “God” in the Preamble to the Constitution when a ten second Google search would have told the judge (or their clerk) that that’s in theDeclaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution doesn’t use that language at all. That’s the kind of sloppiness that would get a high school kid dinged on a term paper.

  47. 47.

    Princess

    @sab: putting some numbers on that: roughly 240,000 people did IVF in 2021. Close to half a million if you add their partners as people invested in it. And 2021 has to have been a low year because of the pandemic. Not to mention potential grandparents. 42% of Americans say they know someone who has used IVF. You’re starting to talk about real numbers.

  50. 50.

    louc

    @sab:

    IVF potential parents, like trans kids, are desparate  desperate but actually quite rare. Backlash won’t matter because they don’t have the votes.

    My conservative Christian sister and her husband — who live in Alabama — tried for years with IVF before they gave up and went for adoption. She’s prolife enough to have refused a D&C after a miscarriage because she equated it with abortion. And learned the hard way when she ended up back in the hospital.

    So there are definitely lots of conservative types out there who’ve used IVF.

    The ironic thing is she now has a non-binary child.

  51. 51.

    sab

    @louc: If you have fertility issues and want kids the choices are very complicated and morally fraught. That is all I will say.

  52. 52.

    Suzanne

    @Gravenstone:

    Immediate question, if she had kids wouldn’t that indicate she wasn’t “serious” about her career? 

    The person who made this statement is one of the worst people I have ever encountered in my life. And yes, she had kids, and a rich husband. She was the kind of person who would just drop verbal bombs all the time. A fucking sociopath.

    She made this statement about “infertility being God’s punishment for career women” while sitting one cubicle over from a deeply observant Christian project manager, a lady who was not able to have kids of her own. That lady had to work with that piece of shit every day for years. Because statements like that are not considered harassing, apparently.

    I quit that job.

  54. 54.

    Suzanne

    The rate of twin births has increased dramatically in the US since IVF became a thing. I know one guy (former colleague) who has two sets of twins, both conceived via IVF. I have at least two couples in my family who have used IVF. In one case, they identified that it was the male partner with the medical issue, so I don’t like calling it “infertility” as that is imprecise.

    And, reminder: many Christians want to go back to teen girls getting “in trouble” and disappearing for a few months “to an aunt’s house”, so they can coerce them into giving up their infants to infertile couples.

  55. 55.

    Suzanne

    @Princess: There’s some interesting overall trends. The biggest trend around fertility is that the average age of uterus-havers at first childbirth has gone up a lot, and lots of bio females are having kids at older ages than they used to. Fertility does drop with age, so the use of various “assisted reproductive technologies” has gone up a lot.

    So IVF is kind of culturally associated with the kind of women who have kids later…. those who go to college, have careers, spend some time single, then marry. In short: the kind of women social conservatives hate, and want to punish.

  56. 56.

    frosty

    @Suzanne: Miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, IVF, and surrogacy. Yep between me and my two siblings we’ve covered it all. Damn these people to the hell they believe in.

  57. 57.

    louc

    @sab: ​

    @sab: ​
     What I mean is there are a lot of people like my sister in Alabama and there might be more pushback than you anticipate.

  59. 59.

    Eyeroller

    @Suzanne: “Infertility” is used for males as well. “Virility” tends to mean “can get an erection easily.”  The latter is a necessary but not sufficient condition for “fertility.”

    https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/male-infertility/symptoms-causes/syc-20374773

    I know one person who freely admitted to using IVF to have her child, and another whom I suspect but will never ask because it’s none of my damned business.

    It appears that “embryos” are best frozen around the blastocyst stage, so roughly when they would implant in a natural pregnancy.  That’s about 5-6 days after fertilization.

Comments are closed.