Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

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

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

Democrats are back in array!

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

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

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

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

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Taking a Breath, Venting about the Bad, and Having Some Fun Open Thread

Taking a Breath, Venting about the Bad, and Having Some Fun Open Thread

by | 169 Comments

This post is in: 

One of our (mostly) lurkers sent this to me.  Not the video, but the poem below. It’s pretty good!

(I do love it when our lurkers get involved in things.)

by Just Suze

You’re a mean one, Mr. Vance,
You really are a heel,
You’re as cuddly as a cactus, you’re as charming as an eel, Mr.Vance,
You’re a bad banana with a greasy black peel!

You’re a monster, Mr. Vance,
Your heart’s an empty hole,
Your brain is full of spiders, you have garlic in your soul, Mr. Vance,
I wouldn’t touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole!

You’re a foul one, Mr. Vance,
You have termites in your smile,
You have all the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile, Mr. Vance,
Given a choice between the two of you I’d take the seasick crocodile!

You’re a vile one, Mr. Vance,
You’re a nasty wasty skunk,
Your heart is full of unwashed socks, your soul is full of gunk, Mr. Vance,
The three words that best describe you are as follows, and I quote,
“Stink, stank, stunk”!

You’re a rotter, Mr. Vance,
You’re the king of sinful sots,
Your heart’s a dead tomato splotched with moldy purple spots, Mr. Vance,
Your soul is an appalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful
Assortment of rubbish imaginable mangled up in tangled up knots!

You nauseate me, Mr. Vance,
With a nauseous super “naus”!
You’re a crooked dirty jockey and you drive a crooked hoss, Mr. Vance,
You’re a three decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce!

I’d like to challenge some of our creative peeps – anybody have an ode to Biden, an ode to Kamala, an ode to Walz in there, just waiting to get out?  Ode is too high a bar?  How about a poem, a rhyme, a limerick.  There are so many words that rhyme with couch, am I right?  Positivity and mockery, as long as they are directed at the right people, are both welcome.

You can put them in the comments, or you can send them to me by email.  I’ll include the best of them in upcoming posts.

Otherwise, this is an open thread.

Reader Interactions

169Comments

  2. 2.

    Jeffro

    It’s not an ode, but I do like this “Six Reasons Why Walz was a GREAT Pick!”

    6. Unapologetic progressive

    5. Completely unpretentious…Mr. Heartland Guy

    4. Will make a great lobbyist for the Harris Administration up on Capitol Hill

    3. Both he and his wife are former teachers

    2. Sends a strong message on reproductive rights and IVF

    and #1…

    Here’s the thing about Minnesotans: They are proud of Spam, which is made in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. It’s sold at the airport, served at the state fair and happens to be hugely popular around the world. And food brings me to the simplest — and sixth — argument for putting Walz on the ticket.  People who meet Walz will sometimes pull him aside to thank him for that universal free school-lunch program. In some cases, they get a little emotional because they remember the stigma of not being able to pay their school lunch bills.

    Tim Walz is a man who figured out how to feed hungry kids in a land of plenty. Adults can dicker over the merits of liberal politics. Hunger will knock on anyone’s door, regardless of political affiliation.  This was a great choice for the Democratic ticket — and a good choice for America.

  3. 3.

    HumboldtBlue

    All in all you’re just a… ‘nother vote for Tim Walz

    We don’t need no couchy humpers
    We don’t need no weird-ass scolds
    No dark and savage hateful assholes
    Weirdos! Leave those kids alone!
    Hey! Weirdos! Leave those kids alone!

    All in all you’re just a… ‘nother vote for Tim Walz

    That’s off the top o’ the head.

  4. 4.

    jackmac

    “You’re a mean one, Mr. Vance”

    And the rest of today’s earworm is now the music to “You’re a mean one Mr. Grinch.”

  7. 7.

    BR

    I’ve been asking folks on here for their gut read of Walz from a Midwestern perspective because as a Californian I just really have such a different lived experience. Two anecdotes have been bouncing around my brain:

    * A friend from Minnesota was visiting us and started casually talking about how the previous weekend he and his wife loaded up their guns and went duck hunting. My wife, who also grew up in California, was horrified at him even talking about guns let alone hunting. To the Minnesota folks this was just a normal thing people did.

    * People are talking about how bold it was for Walz to mentor a Gay-Straight alliance in a high school in rural Minnesota in the late ’90s. I get it at an intellectual level why that was a big deal. But in the mid ’90s when I was in high school (coastal central California), our student body president was openly gay, and everyone loved him, and there were plenty of other openly gay students who would hang out with their partners on campus and nobody paid them a second glance.

  10. 10.

    Jeffro

    I must also share this choice tweet re: JV Vance from none other than AJ Delgado

    (Vance was trying to ‘swift-boat’ Tim Walz about his military service)

    Chucky, Tim had already completed his 20 yrs. Second, you only went (for six months!) bc you were a doing PUBLIC AFFAIRS work / press releases there. You were a glorified bitch w a clipboard and a pen and, of course, your eyeliner.

    OMG

  12. 12.

    raven

    @BR: The Trumpers uncovered some douche from his outfit who claimed he’s a traitor for retiring just before his outfit deployed to Iraq. Expect more of this.

  13. 13.

    Tim C.

    So, I took a long vacation in Europe the last month.  It included a visit to Normandy, France. (Escargot Pizza!!!)   Of course as an American I was obligated to visit the D-Day beaches.   Sunday July 21st was the day we went to Utah and Omaha and the Airborne Museum in St. Mere-Eglise.   Being nine hours ahead, we didn’t get the news till the late afternoon local time.

    I bring this up because at the time, I was pretty doom-n-gloomy about things.  My narrative was and is that Trump victory would be disastrously awful for all the many reasons long discussed here.   But while doing the tour I reminded myself of the bravery in the face of evil that so many Americans have faced in so many ways over the last couple of centuries.   That my mission was to do what I could in the place I was and even if the worst fears were realized, I still had a duty to persevere.

    So yeah, the last two weeks….

    One of the secrets of the Normandy Landings was what was called “Strategic Deception”  fooling the Nazis into thinking the landings were going to be at Calais instead.   I’m curious when the books get written in a few years about when and how Biden exactly decided to drop out.   It certainly seems to me that this was planned for a while.   Others have said the list of data points better than I can, but I think part of the GOP confusion and flailing is them realizing just how badly they got bamboozled.

    Hope everyone has a good one!

  14. 14.

    different-church-lady

    1) I think Vance was brought in to appeal to the significant portion of the electorate who wants mean shitheads in office. So pointing out he’s a shithead doesn’t do anything with that crowd.
    2) Then again, the shithead electorate portion is probably already topped out, and Vance won’t do anything to increase it.​

  15. 15.

    BR

    @raven:

    Eh, that’ll fire up the Fox crowd, but there isn’t a platform for them to get this out there anymore because the RNC has passed.

  16. 16.

    kindness

    Looks like someone has hacked the WaPo’s comments section.  All the article’s comment sections are now are locked up with a garbled message on top.

  18. 18.

    different-church-lady

    @Jeffro: ​That’s weird: aren’t we supposed to cower in fear that it might have some credibility instead of punching back?

  20. 20.

    Josie

    @BR: ​
     I’m from Texas, not the Midwest. Going duck hunting has been a popular sport as long as I can remember, along with dove, quail, and goose hunting. I learned to shoot a gun at camp when I was 12 or so and earned a number of riflery badges.
    Being gay was only recently deemed acceptable, at least in the parts of the state where I have lived.
    Having the football coaches teach history and government is a common practice in middle schools and high schools here. Some are better than others. Walz was obviously one of the best.

  22. 22.

    HumboldtBlue

    @raven: ​ 

    That bullshit ain’t sticking either, they were trying their damnedest yesterday to make it stick and people just pointed and laughed.

  23. 23.

    Steve LaBonne

    @BR: He reminds me a lot of Sherrod Brown. They’re both real human beings who can promote progressive policies but still get votes from people who people who wouldn’t vote for other Democrats, because they’re perceived as “one of us”. Both of them also rely on a solid base of union support. Perceptions like that matter everywhere in the region, which is a lot older, whiter, and more confotmist than California. And there is a long tradition of genuine, progressive rural populism to draw on,which has even now survived being completely drowned out by MAGA and phonies like JV Vance.

  24. 24.

    LifeInTheBonusRound

    @HumboldtBlue: You’re hired! Your first day of work is tomorrow. Please present yourself at the Harris/Walz office nearest you. And bring a harmonica!

  26. 26.

    raven

    @Tim C.: Douglas Fairbanks Jr’s book “A Hell of a War” gives information on “The Beach Jumpers”.

     

    Lieutenant Fairbanks was subsequently transferred to Virginia Beach, where he came under the command of Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, who was preparing U.S. naval forces for the invasion of North Africa. Fairbanks convinced Hewitt of the advantages of a military deception unit, then repeated the proposal at Hewitt’s behest to Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations. King thereupon issued a secret letter on March 5, 1943, charging the Vice Chief of Naval Operationswith the recruitment of 180 officers and 300 enlisted men for the Beach Jumpersprogram.

    The Beach Jumpers’ mission would simulate amphibious landings with a very limited force. Operating miles from the actual landing beaches and using their deception equipment, the Beach Jumpers would lure the enemy into believing that theirs was the principal landing.

  27. 27.

    SiubhanDuinne

    To the tune of THE BLUE DANUBE WALZ

    The melody calls
    (Tim Walz, Tim Walz)
    Resounds in the halls
    (Tim Walz, Tim Walz)
    The Orange One palls
    (Tim Walz, Tim Walz)
    His running mate galls
    (Tim Walz, Tim Walz).

    So Youse, Yinz, and Y’alls
    (Tim Walz, Tim Walz)
    Rejoice in the halls
    (Tim Walz, Tim Walz)
    Bring giggles and LOLs
    Bring your balls
    As we celebrate Tim Walz!

  30. 30.

    Captain C

    @raven: I wonder if he’s (the claimant) like that swift boat douche who was basically like, “Well, that’s what I heard*.  I have no idea what Kerry actually did because I turned and ran and abandoned my comrades when we came under fire.”

    *’Heard’ in this case likely means ‘made up’ or ‘pulled out his ass.”

  31. 31.

    FastEdD

    @Tim C.: I think you’re right. The guy on the street corner selling tRump flags used to make me furious. When Biden passed the baton this guy had only a fraction of the stuff he used to sell. Most of it was FJB items and you could actually see with your own eyes that they had nothing left and they didn’t know how to deal with Harris and they were out of time. My attitude now is merely, “It sucks to be you.”

  33. 33.

    SatanicPanic

    @BR: I have a cousin who grew up in the OC but moved up to Sacramento River delta and duck hunts. I grew up in rural CA so it’s not that weird. I think plenty of people can accept that rural people shooting guns at shit is fine. It’s the incel gun guys that everyone wants to take guns from. That shouldn’t be controversial but Republicans went so around the bend that they’re out of touch with reality.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    @Anoniminous:

    1. I believe AIPAC would be breaking the law if it funneled Israeli money into election spending.
    2.  Israel is a US ally and Russia is a US adversary, regardless of one’s feelings about US policy.
  36. 36.

    raven

    @Captain C: I’m not going to post his shit but his name is Thomas Behrends.  I think what really killed Kerry’s chances was when the POW’s  talked about how the felt when they heard his testimony before the Fulbright Commission.

  39. 39.

    karen gail

    @BR: re: people being not straight; step grandson in 2009 got beaten up even though he was wrestler for getting caught wearing a dress at home. The only reason his father hasn’t thrown him out of house is that he graduated early and left for college. He now is part of college theater and as such considered actor; so father no longer fears being questioned about if second son is gay.

    People in Wisconsin in many places still believe that “god made two sexes” and everything else is evil.

  40. 40.

    laura

    @Anoniminous: aand yet, it was her constituents who voted her out in favor of a better candidate. Her refusal to address real and pressing needs in her congressional district, along with her personal enrichment of over four million dollars  via insider trading, left her vulnerable to a credible challenge. Now she’s free to cheer on Hamas while Wesley Bell goes about the business of the general election. But sure, AIPAC.

  41. 41.

    Math Guy

    There once was a con man named trump,
    Who the people decided to dump,
    And replace with a man named Biden.
    Soon Smith will come riden,
    And trump will be hiden,                                                                                                                                         ‘Cause there ain’t no mercy for that chump.

  43. 43.

    Anonymous At Work

    Working on verses but need a good set of words that rhyme with “sofa” and “couch”.

    BONUS POINTS if you can think of how to fit Bar-co-lounger in there.

  46. 46.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Interesting things from Wiki about Wesley Bell:

    On October 29, 2020, Susan Petersen, one of Bell’s assistant prosecutors, filed a lawsuit under Missouri’s Human Rights Act claiming that Bell had fired her and forced out five other female attorneys in favor of male employees. The lawsuit further alleged that Bell had created a hostile work environment for female attorneys at the office. Bell responded by claiming that the prosecutor’s attorney was irresponsibly and unethically attempting to litigate her case in the media.

    On June 27, 2024, circuit Judge Bruce F. Hilton ruled that Bell would have to answer deposition questions about sexual relations occurring between a supervisor and multiple subordinates in Bell’s office and denied the county’s motion to delay the Petersen trial. The jury trial was rescheduled for January 27, 2025.

    Use of government resources

    Bell was criticized for his use of government resources while in office. In June 2019, KSDK, a local news outlet, reported that Bell had amassed nearly $800 in parking tickets though he was provided with a parking space. In response, Bell’s Chief of Staff informed the public that Bell and other staff members needed their cars adjacent to the office and not parked in the sectioned-off parking spaces—over one block away—because Bell, as a prosecuting attorney, needed both him and his agents to have immediate access to their cars in order to best secure justice for the county of which he was responsible. This Chief of Staff further advised that, for Bell and other employees, they could expect up to seven calls a day that would require them to travel to their car, and each of those seven calls would waste taxpayer dollars if they were to park further away from their office. Bell later paid off the parking tickets using his own money.

    In October 2019, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch conducted an investigation into Bell’s expenditures during the first ten months in office. The investigation uncovered that Bell had spent over $30,000 in government funds on travel and food during his first ten months in office. This included an $816 dinner at an expensive Miami steakhouse and a $300 meal at a Lake of the Ozarks steakhouse. In response, Bell informed the Dispatch that he repaid the Miami dinner immediately and refused to charge his office for any additional expenditures. Bell did not comment on the Ozarks meal directly, but informed the Post-Dispatch that, while he needed to get in the good graces of local law enforcement to perform his duties as prosecutor, Bell recognizes that the meal wasn’t a common expense during the previous prosecutor’s long tenure.

    However, Bell noted that he had to simultaneously work with the police and hold them to a higher standard, justifying the expense. Furthermore, the Post-Dispatch also reported on Bell’s efforts to hide details of his spending, such as omitting thousands of dollars of charges from requested records, charging the Post to provide requested documents, reimbursing expenditures only after records requests for those expenditures were made, and being nonresponsive to sunshine requests. Under pressure from his supporters, Bell ultimately apologized citing the actions as “missteps” and vowed to spend taxpayer money more appropriately in the future.

  47. 47.

    Anoniminous

    @Baud:

    Israel isn’t an ally.

    @laura:

    And you know this …. how?

     

    Both of you may be cool with genocide.  I’m not.  But you can be you

  48. 48.

    Ishiyama

    I couldn’t help noticing, in an earlier thread, that there are several Madisonions on this site. Myself, I bleed Badger red. When I was born, my parents lived in Crestwood. They welcomed Carson Gulley as a neighbor when he moved in across the street. Gaylord Nelson was from our neighborhood. Went to the U.W., lived on Williamson Street by the Coop in the 70s, then owned an old house near Vilas Park, on Chandler Street, for 20 years. I knew Tammy Baldwin when she was on the County Board, representing all of us dirty hippies on the Near East Side.

    I also remember how they City Fathers would tweak the election results by making sure that the hippie/student districts never had enough voting machines, so the lines would back up and people would give up before voting.

  51. 51.

    Kelly

    Mrs Kelly paid no attention the the Veepstakes. Why bother? Never heard of Walz until yesterday. She says yesterday felt like a weeks worth of Walz news. She’s been a just vote for the Democrats normie forever. Impressed by Walz and the smooth Biden/Harris to Harris/Walz transition.

  53. 53.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Gravenstone: Makes perfect sense if one is culturally more inclined to think of levity as a mode of attack rather than something to point out truth and bring people together.

  54. 54.

    wjca

    @BR: People are talking about how bold it was for Walz to mentor a Gay-Straight alliance in a high school in rural Minnesota in the late ’90s.

    The critical feature is that the Gay-Straight Alliance was being mentored by the football coach.  In that time and place, that was critically important.  As Walz was quite conscious.

  56. 56.

    narya

    @BR: My WI friend, upon learning as a kid that not everyone went hunting, wondered where those folks got their venison. Hell, I grew up in NJ and my dad hunted (rabbit and pheasant when I was a kid, but venison earlier in his life). I have no clue how common that is–I travel in very lefty circles and always have, so I’m not a good judge.

  58. 58.

    BR

    @wjca:

    Makes sense. As another sign of how different growing up in coastal central CA was from MN — many high schools in our area including mine didn’t even have football teams in the ’90s, only soccer teams, and that was the top sport at the school.

  59. 59.

    wjca

    @SatanicPanic:  I think plenty of people can accept that rural people shooting guns at shit is fine. It’s the incel gun guys that everyone wants to take guns from.

    Put another way, people are generally relaxed about gun owners who hunt.  EXCEPT if the are using, or intend to use, their guns to hunt people.

  60. 60.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Anoniminous: Other representatives have managed to take as strong a stand on I/P while doing the rest of their jobs well enough that they weren’t vulnerable to  a primary challenge.

  63. 63.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Damn, after so many days of not needing to pie anyone, I finally had to dish some out for AIPAC hysteria that’s much too reminiscent of Anti-Semitic tropes.

  66. 66.

    catclub

    @Anoniminous: If Russia had dumped $9 million in a primary people would be screaming.

     

    Are you sure? have you heard of the NRA? trivially easy methods for foreign nations to spend in US elections is a thing. 501c4 groups. establish  and fund a US corporation, then make donations from that. also whatever pipeline the Russians had through the NRA

  67. 67.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @laura: No organizations should be throwing around that kind of money to influence elections, regardless of their political objectives.

    This only seems controversial here when it’s AIPAC. Check your own biases.

  68. 68.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @wjca: I think a case may be made that some gun owners are weird about it.  And you don’t want to be one of those guys.

  72. 72.

    KatKapCC

    @Anoniminous: No one is “cool” with genocide, so don’t even try that. And there is a difference between war and genocide, but I understand that it’s less fun when you don’t get to accuse Jews of the thing that was done to them.

    Bush blamed the US for Hamas’ attack on October 7. She voted against a resolution condemning Hamas — a terrorist organization — and immediately began calling for a ceasefire after the attack with nary a word about what Hamas did that day, or about the hostages, many of whom are still being held, including children, elderly Holocaust survivors, and Americans. Jewish leaders in her area have said she has largely refused to work with or even converse with them her entire time in office, including ditching out on attending the opening of a Holocaust museum.

    It is pretty clear that she simply does not like Jews or have any concern or consideration for our lives. So spare me the “ooga booga AIPAC” rhetoric.

  73. 73.

    Barbara

    @Tim C.: I was also in Europe and just not reading news at all, and my son (who was traveling with me) called me to tell me that Biden had dropped out.  I didn’t sleep much.  Not rehashing anything, but happy that things have turned out so well.  It wasn’t inevitable.

  74. 74.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    There once was a mensch named Joe Biden

    Who sent Donald Trump’s prospects slidin’

    He swallowed his pride and then stepped aside

    Now Harris and Walz high are ridin’

    That’s all I got. More a limerick than an ode.

  75. 75.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @WaterGirl:

    I do it once a week now, especially after my Sec of State (OH) has been busy purging tens of thousands or more from the voting rolls

  78. 78.

    catclub

    @UncleEbeneezer: AIPAC funded ads because they want to make examples of single targets. Since it would be most effective to target things other than the Democratic Rep’s Israel positions in order to defeat them, they did that.  That seems like ordinary political optimization.

  79. 79.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @KatKapCC: People may not be cool with genocide, but many seem they would rather keep quiet about it than risk it hurting Democrats.

  87. 87.

    catclub

    @wjca: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Hungary.

    In competition for worst ‘ally’ of the US.

     

    Turkey seems to be getting less bad. I still remember ‘The Assault on the Liberty’ from the 1967 war. The book!, I was 7.

  88. 88.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Was just getting pastries and coffee and a woman complimented me on my Kamala shirt.  She used to work for the CA AG’s office when Harris was running the show and is thrilled at the enthusiasm.  She worried about Dems “not fucking it up” and I responded that it’s the voters I worry about, not Dems.  I told her about the great tee shirts they have at our local UDH (United Dem HQ’s) and even showed some pics I had of them on my phone.  She said she really wants the “Hope, Hate, Heal, Love” tee shirt but doesn’t want to have Trump’s face on it.  She started to explain and I was like “No, I get it.  I Totally agree” and suggested she could use a magic marker or something to scratch him out of it.  I’m loving that our energy has this stuff happening.  The enthusiasm is palpable in a way it hasn’t been since Obama.  That’s no slight against Hillary or Biden at all, it’s just a very unique and different time and set of conditions.

  90. 90.

    BR

    One thing I am convinced about — the best way to get young men excited is to talk about Walz legalizing cannabis. It’s the single biggest winner of an issue with that demographic, and Walz did it, doesn’t shy away from it, and can carry it as a messenger way better than Harris who as a prosecutor had to carry out some drug prosecutions.

  91. 91.

    eclare

    @wjca:

    Yep.  Especially if that school also had a chapter of FCA.  My high school did, and most of the football players were members

  93. 93.

    wjca

    @catclub: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Hungary.

    In competition for worst ‘ally’ of the US.

    I’d go with Saudi Arabia, with Isael closing fast.  Not an endorsement of Hungary.  But for the moment they are merely wanna-be worst.

  94. 94.

    eclare

    @BR:

    My high school in TN had a soccer club.  This was mid-eighties.  Football and to a lesser extent baseball were the big sports.

  96. 96.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @catclub: I despise AIPAC, but the way people make them into the boogie-man of insidious corruption, trickery and subversion of our govt, is a hard-no for me.  I know enough of the history of those sorts of tropes being used to stoke Anti-Semitism.  How we talk about these things matters to me.

  97. 97.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @wjca: I wrote once before, I’m glad my mother didn’t live to see the current state of Israel. It would break her heart.

  98. 98.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Sister Golden Bear: GOLIKEHELLMACHINE posits on BlueSky that she may be the first presidential candidate to have been to a post-punk show.  I say maybe Obama, but Harris surely has.

  102. 102.

    David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch

    Once upon a time…

    …. there was a son of a Korean war veteran who looked like Santa Claus who lived in rural Nebraska who joined the military the day after his 17th birthday, who went on to become a Sargent Major, graduating from a state college on the GI Bill, becoming a beloved high school teacher and football coach who would lead his team to a state championship, then as a staunch defender of public education he would win a seat in congress from a ruby red district that would propel him to become governor where he would legalize Mary Jane, enact universal free school breakfast and lunch, reproductive freedom, paid leave, background checks for gun purchases and become a political rock star, especially among the yoots, for his values, his sense of humor, his leadership and his take no prisoners attitude.

    The End​

  104. 104.

    Baud

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    She worried about Dems “not fucking it up” and I responded that it’s the voters I worry about, not Dems.

     
    Good.

    I’m happy about the enthusiasm but I’m mostly in a post-enthusiasm mindset. It’s hard for me to get excited about anything these days.

  105. 105.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @schrodingers_cat: I knew she lost, but I didn’t know she was whining about it. The media has been crediting AIPAC. They certainly helped, but I think its only one reason she lost. Democrats in the City of St. Louis are pretty much split between moderate/conserative Dems and younger votes who are VERY left wing. Because they only talk to each other and because they won a bunch of elections more recently (mainly due to having terrible or corrupt opponents), the progressives think the city is more progressive/leftest than it actually is. Bush was sincere and well meaning, but didn’t do the best job of representing a lot people in her district. Bell seems more moderate, though his actual policies don’t differ greatly. Bush lost me when she voted against the infrastructure bill. I don’t think Bell would make that mistake.

  109. 109.

    jonas

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: You just know that Trump probably shot some nasty putdown at Vance one time, probably in front of his wife and kids, and Vance just had to stand there and laugh like it was the wittiest thing in the world.

  110. 110.

    Lyrebird

    @schrodingers_cat: I saw that with relief; I confess I dislike the “squad” moniker because I don’t think they should be considered together, but that’s just me.  Rep. Bush came in as a reformer against a corrupt establishment, but asfaict got crosswise with her constituents from the get-go by clamoring to “defund the police” while hiring personal security services for herself.  When it came out that the contract for ?? some of ?? those security services was paying her own husband  – not great for someone who had campaigned against nepotism etc.  AOC is not my fave, I am so glad Walz got the VP nod instead, but she has been Doing The Work, and she let a key staffer go when there were concerns.

     

    @WaterGirl: I follow those convos even less than you do, but I was just noting how quickly some of the DKos comment thread went to a single divisive issue that in this case came way after Rep. Bush pissed off so many previously sympathetic people.

    ETA: Oh hey a commenter on the ground!

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Bush lost me when she voted against the infrastructure bill. I don’t think Bell would make that mistake.

    I was impressed with Bell and – did I imagine this – really happy when he switched from running against Kunce in the Senate primary to running against Rep. Bush.

  111. 111.

    Barbara

    @Baud: What was the basis for progressives voting against the infrastructure bill?  If I knew at some point I have forgotten.

  112. 112.

    Baud

    @laura:

    Elections have always been bought to some extent. That’s why they enacted campaign finance laws in the first place.

    But I agree on the idea that we should improve the system.

  113. 113.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Baud: That’s what she said too.  But to me, life is too short to refuse to hope/live in order to avoid disappointment.  That approach doesn’t prevent disappointment.  And hope, enthusiasm, fun etc., are all contagious and actually help our chances.

  115. 115.

    Baud

    @Barbara:

    Don’t recall for sure.  I remember some were upset that it was delinked from the bill that eventually became the Inflation Reduction Act.

  116. 116.

    Baud

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    Not being driven by enthusiasm has nothing to do with hoping or living. It’s about not deceiving oneself with what is essentially a false drug.

    You do you, though.

  117. 117.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Anoniminous: I live in her district. I voted against her happily because she voted against the infrastructure bill and is way too progressive to represent my wishes in Congress. AIPAC had nothing to do with my objection to her. I only voted for her the first time (reluctantly) because her incumbant opponent was basically MIA and didn’t seem to care much about his district. I thought she was too far out there then and still do.

  118. 118.

    Trollhattan

    @Leto:

    Just missing “and presented you with an 8 oz jar of French’s.”

    You were right about the 1500. Wowzers.

  119. 119.

    Leto

    @HumboldtBlue: from the article:

    U.S. Congressman Tim Walz of Minnesota authored the resolution along with U.S. Reps. McCollum, Ramstad, Ellison, Oberstar, Peterson, Kline and Bachmann. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar sponsored Concurrent Resolution 185 in the Senate, where it passed in July.

    Congressman Walz has a personal history with the Red Bulls, having retired in 2005 as command sergeant major for the 1-125th Battalion of the 1st Brigade Combat Team: “I served alongside these Soldiers for many years and I could not be more proud of them. They endured their extended deployment with patience and determination and their distinguished service record in Iraq speaks for itself. Today, every Minnesotan should be proud to call the Red Bulls our neighbors and friends.”

    Again, retirements at his level are a very coordinated affair. They’re not dropped at the last minute. They’re grasping at straws, and they look desperate as hell. Fuck’em.

  121. 121.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Leto: ​ 

    Again, retirements at his level are a very coordinated affair. They’re not dropped at the last minute. They’re grasping at straws, and they look desperate as hell. Fuck’em.

    Yup. Fuck the motherfucking fuckers.

  123. 123.

    Damien

    Changing of the Stars

    Folding quietly, unable to sustain but afraid to fall
    A colossal success, the faded sun reviewed its work
    Warmth, light, energy, its burn had fueled lives it would never know
    Unwilling to abandon the lives its work had nurtured
    The sun would not, could not, see its fading
    It would not, could not, see the footman with its coat
    Arrived and patient, the fearful rush of time implacable
    Fear.  Fear imperceptible in the lives it saved
    Fear of what might come once the sun took on the coat of eternity
    Fear readied the sun for darkest collapse
    Its love would kill the very lives it wished to save
    A maw of malevolent nothing on prowling periphery
    Accepting of its own time passing, the sun, the star, fought back
    In the only way it could anymore
    It gave up its dream of a few more years
    To sacrifice for new energy
    A bigger star
    A stronger light to fight the bitter blackness
    The sun gave up its place
    For a super nova

     

    Just my own two cents.

  124. 124.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Leto: Retiring six months prior to the deployment, meant that the new CSM was in on the planning, training, and other preparations for the deployment.  Retiring with 24 years in is reasonable.  Honestly, I had been his commander, I would have talked to everyone who was eligible for retirement about their options as soon as the orders came in.

  125. 125.

    Dave

    @Leto: Yeah he absolutely dropped his retirement papers at least a year out.  Could he have pulled them sure but there is no imperative to do that.

    I’m curious on personal level what is thoughts about Iraq were at the time but the only people I look side eyed at regarding not deploying are the guys who will in a heartbeat burn you for being a bit damaged from multiple tours and then turn around and seek your validation because they made the smart choice to avoid deployments or spent six months in Kuwait.

    Or the guys that do all the tough talking John Wayne always have a plan to kill everyone bullshit but managed to spend twenty years in a high op-tempo MOS and somehow never deploy.

    Walz is neither of those.

  127. 127.

    wjca

    @laura: I’m all in on overturning Citizens United and returning elections to ideas and policy instead of buying elections.

    This. And the sooner the better.

  128. 128.

    WaterGirl

    @laura: I have only been skimming the exchange between the two of you, so I’m not aware of everything that has been said.  If you can point me to the antisemitism, that can get a person a time-out on Balloon Juice.

  130. 130.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): This is a super Democratic district. Whoever wins the primary WILL win the election. I’ll add that the St. Louis Post Dispatch endorsed Bell enthusiastically, even though they are being quoted in that Wiki article. Given questions about Bush’s treatment of campaign funds, they really aren’t that different. The allegations about his office’s treatment of women concern me, but there isn’t much information available on it as it is still working its way through the court system. If the allegations had been confirmed, I probably would have voted for Chapelle-Nadal as a protest vote.

  132. 132.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Baud: I have no idea what you are trying to say.  Embracing enthusiasm is not the same as being driven or deceived by it.

  134. 134.

    Haroldo

    @Ishiyama:

    And then ol’ Paul (Soglin) became one of those city fathers himself.

    Signed,

    Yet another (former) Near East Side (ageing) Hippie

  136. 136.

    Baud

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    I’m saying I don’t I personally don’t embrace enthusiasm (or “vibes” for that matter) for myself because I find it a hollow sentiment.  I don’t need it to do the right thing when it comes to campaigns and elections.

  138. 138.

    jonas

    @Barbara: There was some stuff in it regarding renewable energy and some other items that didn’t make it into the final version in order to attract some nominal Republican support (and Manchin’s, iirc), and some members of “the Squad” called it a sell-out and so voted no.

  139. 139.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @EarthWindFire: Speaking of fun. I can’t find it at the moment, but there’s been image floating around social media with Harris Photoshopped into a band photo of Depeche Mode.

    If Harris ever appears on one of the late night talk shows, I’d love to see the host mock-seriously ask her about time playing with the band, just to see how she rolls with it.

  140. 140.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Trollhattan: People who dream of producing entertainment products flock to our city, more than any other.  We have great weather, iconic landscapes/settings, home of some of America’s most famous Olympic legends and an endless list of celebrities.  I think we’ll be good.

  142. 142.

    JCNZ

    @Jeffro: One of the things I liked about Al Gore was that he never pretended his time in Vietnam was anything but Public Affairs.

    This Vance guy is the very epitome of the Rear-Echelon Mother-Fucker.

  143. 143.

    ssdd

    @BR: dog parks? I mean, okay I guess but I’m not how hating on cats and dogs is gonna get them votes.

  144. 144.

    Ishiyama

    OMFG!!! (Sorry) I was watching the Eau Claire rally, and the band closed their set with a haunting version of “The Battle Cry of Freedom”. I teared up; Wisconsin earned its glory in the Iron Brigade!

  145. 145.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Maxim: Yeah, I’m not a fan of the eyeliner attacks either. Especially from our side.

    Vance may be odious, but men wearing eyeliner unapologetically widens what’s acceptably “masculine.”

  146. 146.

    FastEdD

    There once was a man with a couch

    All viral media would vouch

    He loved without measure

    The cushions he’d pleasure

    And even preferred to his spouse

  150. 150.

    Eunicecycle

    @BR: dog parks?? So they’re going after dog owners, too? I live in a red area but even we have a dog park.

  152. 152.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @UncleEbeneezer: We did pretty good latest time around in 1984.

    One thing I’d love to see though is the get the opening ceremonies out of the stadium a la Paris. We don’t have the Seine, but I bet we can figure something out. E.g. picture the parade of champions on Rose Parade style floats moving down Hollywood Boulevard.

  154. 154.

    Leto

    @Omnes Omnibus: that’s what I was telling Avalune. A functioning command structure would have already identified their next top level billet candidates, and they would’ve been working hand-in-hand with Walz on all that stuff. Walz doesn’t strike me as the type who would horde information to make sure he’s “irreplaceable”. He’s the type to ensure the next person up has every chance to succeed.

    @Dave: agreed.

     

    @Trollhattan: there’s been so many good ones! Lyles performance in the 100m final… absolute nail biter and just so good. I’m on my way back from an appointment, so I have a lot of good catch up to do.

  155. 155.

    laura

    @WaterGirl: Thanks for checking in, but I’m fairly certain the anonymous person is not in violation of the commenting policy. The gist of the tsursus was that my lackadaisical take on AIPAC meant I am a big fan of genocide.

  157. 157.

    tam1MI

    @schrodingers_cat: The Squad lost another member yesterday. Cori Bush lost her primary. And she is complaining  instead of conceding. And blaming AIPAC.

    Word d has it that, like Bowman, Bush thought it was more important to go on TV and bloviate than tend to her district. So while AIPAC probably helped her defeat along, the ultimate blame for it rests with her.

  158. 158.

    WaterGirl

    @Anoniminous:

    Both of you may be cool with genocide.  I’m not.

    That is one giant leap, from what was said to saying people are cool with genocide.

    If you want to engage in actual conversation, and maybe even change hearts or minds, that seems like the worst possible approach.

    Please dial it back.

  159. 159.

    tam1MI

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: No organizations should be throwing around that kind of money to influence elections, regardless of their political objectives.

    Personally, I think that as lousy as AIPAC and the NRA are, the fact that they give their money out in the open allows me to know who to vote against. It is the dark money groups that dump untraceable money into elections that I view as the greater danger.

  160. 160.

    4D*hiker

    @Damien:

    Wonderful poem which really captures the emotions of that dark three weeks in July. Worth more than your modest two cents, btw.

    Also be interested in seeing you write another one that captures the emotions subsequent to that “changing of the stars.” Like night and day, eh?

  162. 162.

    rmjohnston

    There once was a man with a couch

    And upon it he never would slouch

    All was stiff and upright

    Belly down in the night

    As the couch was despoiled by the grouch

  166. 166.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Anoniminous: Cori Bush should be conceding, if she hasn’t already. But she’s right to complain about AIPAC – they did intercede and dump a ton of money against her because she’s been very critical of the gaza war.

  169. 169.

    K-Mo

    All across this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
    The band is playing Taylor Swift, and people’s hearts are light;
    Women and men are laughing, while  children shout again,
    Mighty Casey moved the runner over; and Harris knocked him in.

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