Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

This blog will pay for itself.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Bark louder, little dog.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thursday Evening Open Thread: When You’re Not Mad

Thursday Evening Open Thread: When You’re Not Mad

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I bow to DougJ’s mastery:

Save y’all a click:
Thursday Evening Open Thread: When You're Not Mad 2


Thursday Evening Open Thread: When You're Not Mad

On the bright side:Elsewhere…

ETA: The original now-meme tweet DougJ references in the top tweet:

(Thanks, Steeplejack!)

Reader Interactions

128Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    What does the NYT mean when it says “independent journalists”? Who are the journalists who are not independent?

  3. 3.

    geg6

    @Baud:

    Yeah, I’d really love to hear Punch or Pinch or Patch or whatever stupid name he’s called answer that one.  What an absolute wanker.

    ETA: Oh, and Bumiller, Nagourney and Baker can all go fuck themselves with rusty farm implements.

  6. 6.

    Anne Laurie

    @Baud: I actually don’t get Doug’s tweet. Explain.

    There’s a vintage Dril tweet that’s turned into a meme:  “I’m not mad.  Don’t put in your paper that I’m mad.”   Nate Silver has been *very* huffy recently about the Biden administration’s refusal to accept Nate Silver’s professional advice (mostly: stop pandering to ‘DEI advocates’, instead suck up to ‘potentially gettable’ GOP never-Trumpists like Chris Christie); seeing  hoi polloi on twitter mock The Very Serious NYTimes has sorely aggravated Mr. Silver’s general butthurt!

  7. 7.

    Gin & Tonic

    I guess none of them have friends who can whisper to them “it ain’t working.”

  9. 9.

    Another Scott

    @Baud:

    I assume it relates to this and the story behind it. (I.e. The boss is not mad, there are objective reasons!!! why FTFNYT reporting just happens to be so terrible for Biden and 38 stories about how absolutely god-awful OOOOLLLLDDDD Biden is is just good reporting.)

    Similarly, here.

    Dunno for sure, though.

    [eta:] Thanks, AL.  I’m yet another unfamiliar with all Twitter traditions.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  10. 10.

    HumboldtBlue

    Biden should do an interview with The Onion as a “Fuck You” to A.G. Sulzberger and The NY Times.

    Or…or… Wonkette, or, just follow up on what Joe said and do an interview with DougJ. That would be fucking wonderful. The heads that would explode!

  17. 17.

    geg6

    @Anne Laurie:

    The day I’d take Nate Silver’s advice on politics is the day I give you permission to involuntarily commit me to the closest mental ward.  Stat.

  19. 19.

    Elizabelle

    WRT the FTFNYTimes:  you could be forgiven for assuming Biden was in a Witness Protection program.

    He is the Invisible President.  That does not happen by accident.

  20. 20.

    RaflW

    The Times is really doing this. Huh.

    I would imagine that they must have been turned down again recently, in some way that really got under AG’s very thin skin. I can’t imagine that this whomping great self-own by the Times will get Biden to agree to a sit-down.

    I’d be embarrassed for the editors who report to AG’s hand picked leader Joseph Kahn, but they all seem to lap up their bullshit leadership so, nope!

  21. 21.

    Anne Laurie

    @Elizabelle: And now we have Putz.

    Some people say SulzTrey should be Pendejo (google primly translates as ‘a rude or contemptible person.’)

  22. 22.

    Gretchen

    @Anne Laurie: So  Nate has taken time out from being a covid expert and an economics expert to be a campaign advice expert? His covid origin opining arrogance was only outshone by its cluelessness.

  23. 23.

    rekoob

    For what it’s worth, Arthur Gregg Sulzberger (born 1980), is apparently nicknamed “Dash”. If he were at The New Yorker, perhaps he’d have a diacritic..

    Putz works for me.

  28. 28.

    scav

    Huh.  The self-appointed holy and inevitable and everlasting gatekeepers at TFNYFT are insisting they own All The Gallons Of Ink in a digit fight.

  30. 30.

    wjca

    @geg6: Oh, and Bumiller, Nagourney and Baker can all go fuck themselves with rusty farm implements.

    Glad to see you letting your kinder, gentler, side show. 😁

    Me, I’m originally a farm boy, so I have a soft spot for rusty (because they routinely are) farm implements.  But I expect that, if we work at it, we can come up with alternatives that are fit for purpose….

  31. 31.

    mr perfect

    Many years ago I worked security for a municipality where we were called about a youth soccer organization booking a small hall for the extremely young ones to play indoors during inclement weather.  However, the hall was being used for parents to consume copious amounts of beer and it turned out the previous caretaker had been bought off with beer and looked the other way.  He retired, and the new caretaker asked us to assist her.  I remember one meathead stating, “We’ve been drinking beer here for 20 years.  My boss’s response was, “Well, 20 years of drinking here just came to an end.”

    To me, that sums up the New York Times.  Their expectation of all presidents back to FDR having to kiss their ring has come to an end because Joe Biden didn’t need and doesn’t need them to win elections.  It hasn’t hit home yet to Sulzberger and his minions or it has but they are in denial.  I guess it’s difficult to realize your influence has waned as you slide to being Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard.  It won’t happen right away but then Tammany Hall isn’t influential anymore either.

  33. 33.

    Chet Murthy

    @HumboldtBlue: Imagine if Biden did an interview with DougJ, and at the end, he joked about how now FTFNYT would have to hire DougJ!  Pinch/Punch/Pooch/Tuchas/whatever would be *livid*!

  35. 35.

    danielx

    Ooooh – the pearls, they are clutched. That statement from the great and august NYT is the essence of butthurt.

    Wanker Sulzberger has yet to grasp that canny old Joe has weighed the Times in the balance and found it wanting. As in, there is absolutely nothing to be gained from doing a personal interview with an entity that can’t bring itself to use the word “fascism” to describe the public plans of the orange shitbag.

  36. 36.

    Ken

    @Baud: The NYT getting exposed?

    Exposed as what? We already knew they’ve been Nazi-curious since 1922.

    (Their first article about “Herr Hitler” and his oh-so-excellent policies for Germany.)

  37. 37.

    Elizabelle

    @Anne Laurie:

    The Absolutely True Adventures of Putz Pendejo Sulzberger:

    Day One:    got pantsed by the Pitchbot.

    Day Two:   got pantsed by the Pitchbot.

    Day Three:  got pantsed by the Pitchbot.  And Paul Krugman stole my lunch money.

    Day Four …

  38. 38.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    Might stay up tonight to watch Christmas in Connecticut at midnight on TCM. I have no idea why they’re playing it now, but, as we’ve discussed before, it’s a great vehicle for Barbara Stanwyck and the underrated Dennis Morgan.

  40. 40.

    moonbat

    Yeah, Biden is not betting that this Lucy will hold the football of hard-hitting unbiased journalism steady to be kicked only to pull it away for a solid hour of “Hur says you’re suffering from severe dementia. How do you respond?” questions.

    As the the FYNYT keeps pointing out, Biden wasn’t born yesterday. He ain’t going to play that game.

  41. 41.

    Elizabelle

    @Steeplejack:  Yeah.  I had to look that up too.

    Justin Hayward and John Lodge were replacements.

    Great band.  You probably know, but I don’t know anyone else who sounded like them.

  45. 45.

    HumboldtBlue

    DougJ from the logo!

    A Jets quarterback is making bold statements, the world’s biggest musical act just released a bloated double album, and student protesters are derailing the president’s reelection campaign. Is it 2024 or 1968?

  48. 48.

    Jeffro

    I’m going to do “Connections” and the mini crossword and “Wordle” one more time tomorrow morning, and then I’m going to cancel my NYT subscription (and equally important, a) tell them why and b) tell everyone else (in person, on social media, etc) that I did it and why I did it.

    Sorry but it’s “consequence culture” not cancel culture, NYT.  You earned it.

  50. 50.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    Someone else may have mentioned this in another thread and I missed it, but apparently this has happened:

    NEW: Travis County Attorney Delia Garza says as of now, her office has been presented with 46 criminal trespass arrests stemming from the protests at UT yesterday.

    The court has declined all of those cases for lack of probable cause and released the individuals from jail.

    Source, with an entire thread and a link to a story in the Austin Chronicle.

    How dare the courts of Travis County insist on not making a mockery of justice! Governor Abbott is feeling unsafe right now, I’m certain.

    ETA a link to the newspaper article, for those declining to enter the jungles of Twitter, and to clean up the html.

    story

  51. 51.

    Jeffro

    Related (as I mentioned in an earlier thread): I sure as heck hope that Joe Biden goes to the WH Correspondents’ dinner or whatever and finds the appropriate place to tell the Times to “fuck ALL the way off”

    Given how the vast majority of this country, right left or indifferent, loves to rail against our snooze media, I’m thinking this is worth 2-3% in the polls (minimum)    ;)

  54. 54.

    patrick II

    I remember when the NYTimes had a readers advocate to speak on behalf of the readers and then she spoke on behalf of the readers and was fired.

  56. 56.

    Steeplejack

    @Elizabelle:

    They had a singular sound.

    I think my “original member” surprise was because I momentarily forgot about their first start in 1964, with “Go Now.” Then they sort of disappeared (at least in my hearing range) until they hit big in 1968. By that time there were already replacements in the band, as you know.

  58. 58.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    If anyone wants some cuteness as a palate cleanser, here’s the most Canadian of all Canadian pet groomers taking on a litter of Bernese Mountain Dog puppies.

  59. 59.

    sdhays

    @Elizabelle: They did something similar with Hillary. Who can forget the press whining about the days since a press conference or whatever with Hillary, while the Trump White House Press Office basically went a whole year without giving them a briefing at all (and lying to when it did)? Not a peep.

    Oh, but Trump would yell at them over the sound of Marine One in the background, so woohoo!

  62. 62.

    Layer8Problem

    @patrick II:  Well, it turned out that they didn’t need her or anyone like her anymore, with the power of reader engagement and responses on the Twitter giving them all they needed.

    They did not reckon with Pitchbot.

  63. 63.

    sdhays

    @Another Scott: They had the Vice President in the building weeks ago, and they convinced her that taking to them was a colossal waste of time! Way to make your case, nimrods!

    They’re so arrogant that they couldn’t even try buttering her up to convince the bigger fish to bite.

  64. 64.

    Wave Function Collapse

    You would think that someone at the NYT would have heard of the First Rule of Holes.

  70. 70.

    Chet Murthy

    @DMcK: Oh noes!  I really like their music.  OK, so it wasn’t the greatest/greatest stuff, but still, I liked their music, and I sure don’t skip when it comes up on my home random jukebox.  Sigh.

  73. 73.

    Mousebumples

    @sdhays: They’re so arrogant that they couldn’t even try buttering her up to convince the bigger fish to bite.

    But she’s a woman! And Black/Not White. 😯

    Careful, NYT. Your misogyny and racism is showing..

    (in case it wasn’t clear, I love my MVP)

  74. 74.

    Chet Murthy

    @sdhays: Heh, I pay so little attention to FTFNYT that I didn’t even know (or at least, didn’t remember) that MVP had visited FTFNYT.  The fools.

  76. 76.

    sdhays

    @Chet Murthy: I didn’t know either, but I read the Politico article and that was one of the things they mentioned. Sulzberger apparently snagged her for a few minutes before she left and spent his time with one of the most powerful and interesting people in the country whining about getting Biden to sit down for an interview.

    MVP was, justifiably, annoyed.

  78. 78.

    sdhays

    @Mousebumples: I think she’d be a great President, but aside from that, one of the really awesome parts of her taking the oath of office in 2029 would just be watching these asshats’ heads explode.

  80. 80.

    Martin

    USC canceled their commencement. Called it a week ago.

    Christ, what a reliably disappointing institution.

  82. 82.

    wjca

    @sdhays: [Sutzberger] spent his time with one of the most powerful and interesting people in the country whining

    Whinging and whining.  Explains a lot — clearly he and TIFG are soulmates.

  84. 84.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @Tenar Arha: She has so many cute videos, of dogs and cats both, with a channel for shorter videos and one for longer ones, like that one.

  85. 85.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Martin:

    They discovered that some of their people were unhappy and, in the interest of fairness, decided to make all of them unhappy.

  88. 88.

    prostratedragon

    Seems there are a whole lot of repub politicians, under investigation or charged with violent felonies ans sexual assaults.

    Zack Scrivner, the Kern County Supervisor, is under investigation for allegedly sexually assaulting his pre-teen daughter, as stated by Sheriff Donny Youngblood during a press conference on Thursday.

    …

    Thirty guns, electronic devices, and psychedelic mushrooms were seized from Scrivner’s residence, leading to forensic examinations to determine potential influence.

  89. 89.

    piratedan

    What’s telling is that when shown what people are complaining about the Times pivots to:

    1.  There’s nothing wrong here with how we’re reporting this, despite your complaints
    2.  Even if you’re right,  we’re STILL the NYT motherfucker and we WILL break you!
    3.  ALL the IMPORTANT people get their narratives from us, there are NO other narratives
  90. 90.

    Martin

    @Melancholy Jaques: This is the same cohort of students that had their HS graduations cancelled due to covid in 2020. Just incredible callousness due to incompetence.

    So, they do their graduation ceremony in the LA Coliseum – which will be the location of the 2028 olympics closing ceremony. They know how to secure this building. It’s not hard. There’s no safety issue. It’s complete bullshit.

  91. 91.

    SFAW

    @Anne Laurie:

    Some people say SulzTrey should be Pendejo (google primly translates as ‘a rude or contemptible person.’)

    I have been calling him Pinche since it became clear that he was continuing dear ol’ dad’s hatred of all things Dem.

    [NB: The literal translation from Spanish is “scullion,” but mis amigos Tejanos used it a bit differently. Apparently Kendrick Lamar has also used the phrase “pinche cabron,” which is how I intend it.]

  93. 93.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    I’m thoroughly enjoying the fact that DougJ can troll the FTFNYT with such ease. I’m enjoying even more that they are now openly whining about the President ignoring their requests for an interview and that they have escalated it into the public view, as if they think the public gives a shit about what they have to say about Biden. Maybe Biden could schedule an interview with them after he wins this fall…lol!

    Maybe the NYT Pitchbot ought to make a bid public bid to interview Biden just to troll the FTFNYT some more.

  94. 94.

    piratedan

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: if the NYT cared as much about American institutions like say Democracy, freedom of the 4th Estate, not doxxing juries in high-profile criminal trials as they do about their own reputation, then I can understand their poutrage.

    They don’t.

  95. 95.

    mrmoshpotato

    I will celebrate Friday tomorrow by looking up the number for the fucking New York Shitstain Times.

    It’s well past time to tell someone to go fuck themselves over the phone.

  96. 96.

    Princess

    NYT believes they’ll get away with this nonsense because they still think no one can argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel. But we use pixels these days, not ink so it isn’t as lopsided as it once was.

    But be prepared for this nonsense all the way to the election. This is their new “issue.”

  97. 97.

    mrmoshpotato

    That AZ Republic paper needs to be framed!

    Oh, the piles of shit who suck Dump’s ass hole…

  98. 98.

    Fair Economist

    With Trump they bent over backwards so they’d have access. But somehow Biden is expected to bend over for them.

  101. 101.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    Glaring in its absences is any indication that Sulzberger or any of the editors considered why Biden or any president would not want to sit down for an interview with them. No indication that they went outside their tower of condescension to see is maybe, just maybe, there are good reasons why Biden is not interested in an interview.

    Maybe have drinks with their former public editor Margaret Sullivan, get her views. Or lunch with Professor Jay Rosen, he’s right there in the city.

  103. 103.

    scav

    @mrmoshpotato:

    You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick, and they won’t take notice. And if two people, two people do it—in harmony—they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t notice either of ’em. And three people do it—three, can you imagine?—three people callin’ in, singing a bar of DougJ’s Pitchbot and hanging up?—they may think it’s an organization. And can you—can you imagine fifty people a day—I said fifty people a day!—callin’ in, singin’ a bar of DougJ’s Pitchbot and hanging up. And friends, they may think it’s a movement!

  104. 104.

    Tony Jay

     “You haters are just jealous of my beauty!” snarled King Snaggletooth the Pustulant, as he tossed another orphan onto the fire and gestured for Coldplay to return to the stage.

    And we always will be, Putzy.

    Meanwhile, across the Pond, the next Prime Minister is giving exclusive interviews to Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids and running every single policy announcement through the “Will the RW News Media complain about this?” filter.

    Different strokes for different blokes, I guess.

  105. 105.

    Chet Murthy

    @HumboldtBlue: I don’t know what it’s like these days, but used-to-be, FTFNYT made it *very* difficult to end your subscription.  Like, you *had* to call and talk to an account mgmt drone to get it done, and even then they gave you the runaround.  Maybe that’s changed.  Given the economics of the newspaper biz, I gotta doubt it.

  107. 107.

    NotMax

    To clarify (and belabor the obvious), #106 should read

    NYT: We can serve any sh*t we want at Malice’s Restaurant.
    //

  109. 109.

    Martin

    Man, I still can’t get over this self-own by USC. The protests there didn’t really heat up until they canceled the valedictorian speech, then they cancelled the other speaker and the protests increased, and then they canceled the ceremony. That’s one whole graduating class of students that won’t be gifting.

    The entire clusterfuck is because a student, who was raised Muslim, worked hard and graduated at the top of her class. She never even got around to choosing a speech topic.

  110. 110.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Fair Economist:

    This exactly. They are used to the apologetic air of liberal Democrats towards holding and wielding power and afraid of the GOP who like honey badgers ‘don’t give a shit’.

    It is refreshing that the democratisation of general arseholery that is social media has at least one upside. The centre left doesn’t have to give a shit so much any more.

    Sucks to be a Sulzberger..

  111. 111.

    Chet Murthy

    @Aussie Sheila: I remember reading once an interview with AOC, where she said something like “we’ve grown up with these Repubs: we’re not afraid of them, and we don’t long for a bipartisan past, b/c we’ve never experienced that; all we’ve ever known from them is hatred, mendacity, cruelty, and greed.  We’re not afraid of them, and we’re certainly not looking to make friends with ’em.”

    Maybe Joe’s learning (sure, just a bit, not too much, b/c he’s still gonna try the bipartisan schtick, sure sure) from them.  I wonder.

  112. 112.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Chet Murthy:

    Let’s hope so. The Press media in the Anglo sphere has always been a right wing gas lighting exercise, but the pretensions of the NYT and until the last few years, the genuflection of US liberals to its news judgements has always grated. I’m so happy there has been an increasing and uncouth clap back from the stalls.

    DougJs Pitchbot persona has been a personal pleasure  for the last five or six years for me. It’s so good that they appear to have done a Streisand in the last days or so. A real pleasure.

  113. 113.

    Ruckus

    @Steeplejack:

    One of my siblings spoke Spanish as good or better than her native language – English. Studied it for 4 yrs HS and 4 yrs UCLA. Worked a year at an orphanage in Mexico. She would not have told you that meaning for pendejo. And I cannot remember ever hearing her swear. At least in English…..

    @Anne Laurie:

    Living as I do and have done for decades in SoCal and from that sister and from working over 50 yrs in machine shops I can reliably inform that pendejo is not used as a term of endearment.

  114. 114.

    🐾BillinGlendaleCA

    @Martin:

    Man, I still can’t get over this self-own by USC. The protests there didn’t really heat up until they canceled the valedictorian speech, then they cancelled the other speaker and the protests increased, and then they canceled the ceremony. That’s one whole graduating class of students that won’t be gifting.

    That’s SOP @ U$C.

    /a Bruin

  117. 117.

    Soprano2

    @Martin: I suspect the whole cluster fuck is because they were afraid someone would say something that pissed off some big donors. They care more about that than almost anything. If they had not made a big deal about it, there might have been a controversy, but nothing like this. I always knew the “safety” excuse was bullshit. I wonder, where are the free speech warriors now?

  118. 118.

    Chris Johnson

    @danielx: I figure that when the DOJ got hold of things like Alex Jones’ literal phone, and started digging into Russian influence on the 2016 election, and stuff started coming unravelled, they ended up with a LOT of info.

    Among which, extensive documentation that (in accordance with the MICE concept of who can be turned into an enemy agent) the NYT turned into Pravda West, intelligently run to dismantle anybody from Clinton on down, in line with good fascist principles.

    With the enthusiastic cooperation of higher-ups at the NYT.

    And capable enough at this job that (unlike for instance Trump) they could be trusted to work very tightly with Russia indeed. And so, they walked the line for decades, intelligently doing as much damage as they possibly could without burning their position as ‘the paper of record’, and our history is the testament to how much and how little that can do.

    Biden’s team would know this from myriad sources, and if they don’t have to pretend to maintain the fiction that the NYT is real, then power has shifted. Because if the NYT functionally still had power, Biden would be giving interviews and working around the bad faith. It’s not just bad faith, it’s enemy action, dating back decades.

    ‘butter emails’ indeed. They were probably getting taken over by Russia when BILL was President, or at least that was when it became crucial.

  120. 120.

    Liminal Owl

    @Chet Murthy: It’s not as difficult as it used to be. I canceled mine recently and was very pleased that the cancellation triggered a “tell us why you’re cancelling” questionnaire.  Which I did.

  123. 123.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Martin: I agree that it has nothing to do with safety. In fact, as has been true for many, many protests, violence only occurs when the cops show up. Poorly-trained, low-quality hires — but that’s another story.

    No, this is all about USC top administrators being scared for their jobs and scared about potential loss of donor dollars. Again, poorly-trained, low-quality hires.

  126. 126.

    Miss Bianca

    @Elizabelle:

    So we’ve had Punch and Pinch Sulzberger.

    And now we have Putz.

    Way late to the thread, but thank you for my first LOL of the morning!

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