Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Republicans don’t trust women.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Please don’t feed the bears.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

People are weird.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Donald Jessica Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

The US Supreme Court is on the ballot in november.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

The Supreme Court is corrupt. Democrats must win in November and force court reform.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

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

This fight is for everything.

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

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "Stories from the Road" / Monday Night Open Thread

Monday Night Open Thread

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At this point I am a nervous ball of anxiety walking around making sure I have not missed anything. I’m planning on just putting the cats in the car before bed and letting them acclimate over night while I am not around to hear their bullshit, so their space in the car is all ready to go:

Monday Night Open Thread 4

My luggage except my travel bag is in the carrier on top, in the front seat I have a small electric cooler to keep beverages and Steve’s insulin. Everything else is staying. I’m not really leaving any clothes because I didn’t bring a helluva lot of stuff, and besides, if I keep disciplined and continue to watch what I eat, none of them are going to fit in six months when I come back anyway.

Speaking of weight loss, I am down 32 lbs since what I refer to as “Peak John Cole” and I am down over 20 since I got here. I’ve really gotten quite used to this new way of doing things, which is basically to exercise a lot more, and I basically don’t eat during the day. After the first week or so, I don’t even really get hungry during the day- and I was never a big morning eater anyway. So basically I just exercise, drink tons of water, and then just eat from the hours of 4-9 pm. Will I always do this? I have no fucking idea. It’s working for now and I am definitively a “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” kind of guy. If I get super hungry I’ll have a healthful snack, but those times are few and far between. Am I grumpy during the day without eating? Yes, but that is because I am awake and not because I am hungry.

At any rate, I am sad to leave. The sun is a nice thing and I wish there was more of it back in West By God. I am also glad I am getting out of here before the sun becomes a weapon against all mankind. And it’s time to start getting things ready for the garden and I have to power wash the house, and the front porch needs to be painted, and Gerald ripped down 2/3 of my ridiculously sized deck because I could not afford either mentally or financially to keep repairing the thing and replacing boards every year and I never really used it anyway, so now I need to go paint it, and move all the plants that were surrounding the deck but are now just in the middle of the yard because there was no deck.

At any rate, I’ll holler at you from some Red Roof Inn or some other place in the midwest tomorrow night. Be nice to each other for a fucking change.

Reader Interactions

79Comments

  3. 3.

    BruceFromOhio

    Why checklists are invaluable. I already checked it and its good which relieves me of checking it nine more times before I finally turn the key and go.

  4. 4.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)

    Have a safe trip back with the furry ones. I look forward to hearing the adventures.

  7. 7.

    Lyrebird

    Good travels!  I know they won’t be as stylish as when you’re both traveling together, but definitely wishing you a peaceful journey to your WV home.  Now you have two homes!

  9. 9.

    lowtechcyclist

    Am I grumpy during the day without eating? Yes, but that is because I am awake John Cole and not because I am hungry.

    FTFY, surprised nobody beat me to it​ ;-)

  13. 13.

    TBone

    Steve Vladek on xitter:

    Chief Justice Roberts, acting alone, has turned away Peter Navarro’s emergency request to block his having to report to federal prison tomorrow.

    5:23 PM · Mar 18, 2024

    Too bad, so sad

  17. 17.

    Almost Retired

    When we had small rambunctious boys and a dog, our logistics and planning for a six hour drive to Phoenix to visit family would have been considered excessive even by Eisenhower on June 5, 1944.  But now that we’re petless empty nesters, we just get up early, pitch random shit in the trunk and take off.

  25. 25.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @TBone: [ Peter Navarro to prison ] ahhh. Next up, Steve Bannon? I’m trying to be patient.

    P.S., congrats and safe travels, John.

  26. 26.

    CaseyL

    You’ll be driving through various stages of Spring, and it will be glorious to see.  Hopefully, maybe; I’m not sure how much you’ll get to see from the interstate.

    Pity the kitties aren’t leash-trained, so you could walk them around a bit at rest-stops.  (Cole cats on leashes – oh, I do crack myself up sometimes.)

    Have a pleasant and safe journey.  I am looking forward to some serious road tripping myself later this year.

    So sorry to hear the deck didn’t work out: I remember the epic build.  (And the even more epic John-falling-through-the-old-deck.)

  27. 27.

    Jackie

    Off topic:

    Alito!!! Running to grab smelling salts!

    Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Monday extended an order barring Texas officials from detaining and jailing migrants suspected of crossing the U.S. southern border without authorization under a new state immigration law known as SB4 that the Biden administration has called unconstitutional.

    Minutes after a self-imposed deadline passed, Alito issued an order continuing to pause enforcement of the controversial Texas law, one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature immigration policies, on an administrative basis.

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-texas-immigration-law-sb4/

  29. 29.

    AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team

    Red Roof Inn?

    Fannnnnn-cy!

    I guess being a not-quite-top-10,000 blog has its privileges

  30. 30.

    AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team

    @WaterGirl: also too: I think that weight loss qualifies for the ‘Cole on a roll’ tag, wouldn’t you say?

  32. 32.

    H.E.Wolf

    Eastward ho! Thanks for these trip reports – it’s been lots of fun to read them. May all continue to go well with you and yours!

  35. 35.

    geg6

    Happy trails, Cole.  Be prepared!  We suddenly have the winter weather we didn’t get in all of February and most of March.  Not much snow (just dustings) but back below freezing.  This, after weeks of 50s, 60s and 70s and more sun than I’ve ever seen this time of year.

    I blame you.

  38. 38.

    NotMax

    Cole heading east to WV.

    OzarkHillbilly heading south to New Orleans (during Spring Break!).

    B-J on the move.

  39. 39.

    Ohio Mom

    @CaseyL: Your comment reminds me of the book, Chasing Spring. The author goes on a road trip at the beginning of spring, everywhere he goes it is a different stage of spring. It is like he is going back and forth in time.

    One day where he is, everything is leafed out — then he drives north and the trees are bare but ready to flower. Or so goes my vague memory.

  40. 40.

    TBone

    @Jackie: maybe Justice Breyer’s public missive is having an effect (coupled with public opinion that they’re trash and the investigative journalism on their various crimes ethics breaches).

  41. 41.

    Ohio Mom

    @geg6: No, I think it was the back deck. My memory is that was part of the problem, no one saw Cole submerged in the deck to know he needed help.

    Who is good at googling? The post is out there, somewhere, with the answer.

  42. 42.

    NotMax

    @Ohio Mom

    Bingo.

    He walked off after a bit and I went around back to go in and feed and water and walk the dog and… promptly fell through a rotten plank in the deck.

  43. 43.

    CaseyL

    @Ohio Mom:   I think people who live near New England do the same thing with Fall foliage, driving hither and yon to see trees in various stages of fancy dress.

    (Sounds like something I’d like to do, post-retirement!)

  44. 44.

    Suzanne

    Be nice to each other for a fucking change.

    I’m sorry, is this my annual performance review?!

  46. 46.

    cain

    At any rate, I am sad to leave. The sun is a nice thing and I wish there was more of it back in West By God. I am also glad I am getting out of here before the sun becomes a weapon against all mankind.

    And Joelle is nice too, right? :-) You know, that nice lady that decided to shack up with you? :-)

  47. 47.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    @Scout211: Hannity showed it within 3 minutes of his 9:00 start time.  It’s propaganda don’t ya’ know.  I’ve yet to see anyone explain what an auto industry blood bath would look like.  I’m guessing it would have to involve that new Cybertruck.

  48. 48.

    Mj_Oregon

    I don’t envy you the kitty chorus from the back of the car, but I used to love long distance car trips back before the roads were so damn full of idiots.  Cross country travel in the 70’s was sublime.

    Drive safely!

  49. 49.

    Rusty

    @Ohio Mom: Thats how I felt when we would pack up the kids during the April school break and drive from Rochester NY to the South Carolina coast to visit with my sister’s family.   We sometimes even left with snow on the ground, and as we worked our way south it was like having spring arrive from the tiny buds on trees in Pennsylvania,  to small leaves and cherry blossoms in West Virginia, to flowers, mid spring  and late spring as we hit Virginia,  North Carolina and finally the islands outside of Charleston.   It might be only 60 by the water but the kids would run screaming into the ocean while everyone else on the beach looked at us as if we were nuts.  Hell,  winter is long in upstate NY, it felt like summer to us!!

  50. 50.

    Jackie

    WTF?!!?!

    Judge Aileen Cannon appears to be inviting a future jury to pore over Donald Trump’s seized classified materials — despite them being national secrets — while putting constraints on her own duties.

    In her most recent filingMonday, Cannon also wants to task jurors with figuring out if the former president can rightfully consider the documents as his personal property — a claim she is supposed to be deciding after he used it as an argument for his case to be dismissed.

    “In prosecution of a former president for allegedly retaining documents,” her filing says, “… a jury is permitted to examine a record retained by a former president in his/her personal possession at the end of his/her presidency and make a factual finding as to whether the government has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that it is personal or presidential using the definitions set forth in the Presidential Records Act (PRA).”

    The filing was slammed by lawyer and Trump critic George Conway.

    “Okay, I’ve seen enough,” he wrote on Threads.

    “Not only should Aileen Cannon not be sitting on this case, but she should not be sitting on the federal bench at all. This is utterly nuts.”

    “This second scenario is legally insane,” wrote national security lawyer Brad Moses.

    “If that were the case, the just grant Trump’s motion to dismiss of PRA grounds so DOJ bring it to 11th Circuit for a quick reversal.”

    Cannon’s latest move leaves a great deal of interpretation and possibly some of her own responsibilities to others. And it’s being panned by some legal experts.

    Former impeachment lawyer Norm Eisen argued that the former president is making a desperate attempt to try to lean on the Presidential Records Act (PRA) to justify his actions. He said, that “doesn’t pass muster because that statute doesn’t actually have anything to do with the critical question of whether his possession of these documents was authorized.”

    “Cannon seems inclined to push the case to trial but is basically asking if she can stack the deck so Trump wins,” according to Eisen. “It’s clumsy [and] amateurish — seems to know she’s wobbly [and] she’s asking the parties for help with threshold things that are normally figured out by the judge.”

    Eisen is convinced that should Cannon proceed down this road of outsourcing some of her duties to others, she can be overruled.

    He notes that it would then involve special counsel Jack Smith, who “can and will go to the 11th Circuit… this [and] several other recent (threatened) blunders give him ammo to have her reversed [and] removed.”

    https://www.rawstory.com/aileen-cannon-trump-2667543182/

  51. 51.

    Quinerly

    @NotMax:

    Thanks for finding this. I remember when it happened.

    It’s always interesting to look back at posts that are several years old and to see the nyms of the regular commenters.

    With that said, does anyone know what happened to “Mnemosyne?”

  55. 55.

    Wag

    30 lbs of weight loss is excellent!  It distills and  concentrates you into a more amazing blog host.  Keep it up!

  56. 56.

    satby

    Safe travels John. Watch the weather reports, some nasty stuff working its way through the middle of the country for the next few days.

    @dexwood: I’m heading to ABQ at the end of April. Maybe a meetup?

  58. 58.

    frosty

    @BruceFromOhio: I got an app called Packing List and updated my old printed travel checklist which was so old it had (under Entertainment) – Walkman and tapes!

    It’s great! Saves me forgetting a lot of basic stuff. But my favorite checklist is all mental. When we hitch up the trailer I look at the hitch, chains, power cable, etc. I have a count of 10 things to look at and if I confirm them all we’re good to go.

  59. 59.

    Origuy

    @Anoniminous: The Hatfield and McCoy vendetta took place along the Kentucky/West Virginia border. John is from further east. While none of my direct ancestors were involved in the conflict, they were related to some who were.

  60. 60.

    frosty

    @Ohio Mom: I’ve given thought to returning from Snowbirding slowly enough that we see the same stage of Spring all the way up I-95. I’m sure Ms F would be up for it. She thinks we come back too early. Given that our nights will be in the 20s later this week I’m starting to come around to that idea.

  63. 63.

    geg6

    @Origuy:

    Yep.  He’s close to me, here in Western PA.  A bit over a hour when we brought Lovey (and Koda) for a visit.  The Kentucky/Ohio border where the feud took place is hours away. It’s southwest WVA where Cole’s Bethany is in the far corner of the northwest of the state.

  64. 64.

    Scout211

    @Jackie: Reading that excerpt, I have to say I don’t understand it at all.  Maybe it’s the way the article was written but I think I may have to wait until tomorrow when it’s spelled out for those of us who are non-lawyers.

    “This second scenario is legally insane,” wrote national security lawyer Brad Moses.

    Does the author mean Bradley Moss?

  66. 66.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    good luck with the road trip!  Keep us posted!

    Just saw the oddest work, Illinoise, a dance-musical based on a 2005 album by Sufjan Stevens: https://deadline.com/2023/11/sufjan-stevens-illinoise-illinois-1235614866

    anyhow the first half seems to be musical memories of growing up in rural Illinois watching TV (zombies! Superman!) and the second half is coming to terms with being a gay man who leaves home for NYC.

    Relevancy to this blog is that if you leave Illinois for NYC, there’s a lot of driving involved, staged here in the form of black-clad faceless stagehands who maneuver pairs of floating LED headlights on a darkened stage while the star (or his companion) stoically holds a disconnected steering wheel.

  68. 68.

    wjca

    @NotMax:

    One cross country trip (San Francisco to Boston), spent the 1st night in Salt Lake City.  Then drove straight thru, via Detroit, to Montreal.  Which was memorable because we pulled into a motel in Montreal, and when we went in to register the desk clerk looked at me (white) and my girl friend (East Asian), and said “We’re full.”  I note that the parking lot had a total of 2 cars in it.

    If I’d been in the US, I’d have known the rules and, even in the mid-70s, raised hell.  But I had no clue what Canadian law (then) was.  Got back in the car and continued down to Vermont.

  72. 72.

    Ohio Mom

    @Quinerly: She decided to dedicate her time to writing, and since bidding us adieu, has published several novels. Ruckus keep up with her (they live near each other) and in the past has assured us she’s okay.

    I wish I remembered her real name so I could link to her books.

  75. 75.

    Greg Ferguson

    You will miss the Sun’s Anvil ( & most of Monsoon), but we want you back, man. House looks beautiful. Much love to Joelle…  Be safe in travelling.

  76. 76.

    SW

    Yep.  This is about the right time to get out of Arizona.  Summers are brutal and they start early.

  77. 77.

    Paul in KY

    Best wishes on a safe trip home, John. Also, keep on keepin on with your exercise program!

  78. 78.

    Paul in KY

    @Jackie: Once he’s not President, he can’t have them anymore & any ‘declassification’ has to be written and from when he (unfortunately) was President.

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