Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
You all would do this shit on the one weekend I have absolutely no time to participate. I just got done delivering all the stuff to the tailgate, shuttling people around, and now I am making some broccoli cheese soup for everyone to have something warm after the football game, which doesn’t start until 4:30 so people are going to be tired and cold and need something to warm them up. I’ll catch up with you all later.
Saturday, October 19
3:30 – 5 pm Eastern
Be there or be square. :-)
RSVP with email to WaterGirl
Reggie in my $2 thrift store find this week.
I see from Twitter that John Roberts is having a bad summer. Slate link to the article here.
Fuck him and the corrupted justices he rode in on.
I’ve walked the dogs and now I must get some gardening done. Gonna harvest the green tomatoes today. No chance of a freeze anytime soon, but I need to get the garden cleaned up before I leave town.
Here’s an open thread to discuss whatever.
Open Thread: Because Stuff is Still Going OnPost + Comments (73)
While John and Joelle are busy with Homecoming, I thought it would be fun to throw them a virtual shower that they can enjoy reading together once all the homecoming festivities subside.
I also thought it would be nice to give them a little boost so they can have a nice honeymoon or buy a new refrigerator, whatever makes them happiest. Links at the bottom of the post on how give gifts.
To get things started, I asked the other Front Pagers to send me their origin stories, how they came to know Cole and ended up being front pagers.
***
ETA: We’ve got a late entry! Tom Levenson is now here:
I was a top 1,000,000 blogger back in the day (The Inverse Square Blog). There I wrote a lot in a particular subgenre—what I called McArdle-gigging. (This was when she was writing at The Atlantic.) It was an enjoyable if frustrating sideline (it took a lot of work to unpack her bad faith, and she could flood the zone faster than I could pump it out). But there was one interesting result: TimF, John’s first co-blogger (I think) noticed those posts and blogged about them here. And from there, I started spending much more time over here, commenting and generally having a good time, and Tim and on occasion John would link back to some new outpouring of bile over at my place.
One thing led to another, and as I understand it, Tim suggested to John that I start blogging here and John thought that was OK and so I did.
It’s been a great ride since. The Jackaltariat has been nothing but kind to me (not always the case for some Front Pagers, I know) and John has been a perfect host—correcting me gently on one or two occasions when I screwed up, and otherwise letting me have my eccentric way with his fine creation. Thanks to all…and happiness, health and a long time to enjoy both for Joelle and John.
***
First up, Anne Laurie:
When Cole invited me to become the first female front pager back in 2008, he made it clear that I was neither his first nor second choice. Since those women already had sufficient tsuris in their lives, however, he was gracious enough to tell me that my frequent & ‘sensible’ comments had been noticed… especially since so many of them showed up during the late night / early morning hours.
I would repay his invitation by giving him (and MisterMix, and probably other previous dashboard denizens) a metric ton of aggravation with my pathetic tech skillz. My first post, IIRC, was a book recommendation…
And still! If this is the blog where Everybody Knows Your Nym, there are worse roles than Carla Tortelli. Cheers!
***
MisterMix joins the chat:
At the dawn of blogging, around 2006, I started a blog covering New York’s 29th district. At that time, Eric Massa was making a bid to flip the R+7 district where I lived, and I’ve always been interested in politics and writing, so I was able to run a small, focused blog that had a few readers who were as interested as me.
I met DougJ through that blog, and he recommended me to John.
MisterMix working hard at his annonimity
John has been nothing but supportive and kind to me over the years, no matter what I’ve written, and Balloon-Juice has been a fun outlet for my interest in politics and writing. He’s a one-of-a-kind, and I’m glad he’s found Joelle, and I wish them a happy future together.
***
Of course, the inimitable Betty Cracker sent me a butter lamb with her story:
My message to every little girl across our nation on International Day of the Girl:
Dream with ambition and lead with conviction. We will applaud you every step of the way. pic.twitter.com/VpllUuSJjb
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 11, 2024
Sometime after TaMara’s 11pm post and 5am EDT, there was A Server Incident, which lasted until just before 9am EDT. (Thanks to WaterGirl for notifying the developers so promptly on a Saturday morning.) I’m sure the front-pagers who understand such things will update us all, but I’ll just assume we’re all hoping it won’t happen again… at least until sometime after the inauguration!
A lot of legacy media outlets should be absolutely embarrassed that it was Univision that beat them to a question on long Covid, medical debt and homelessness. It’s not surprising but Harris keeps doing so much more without them than with. https://t.co/vJvIh75mfD
— Jason Karsh (@jkarsh) October 11, 2024
Stevie Wonder is a longtime friend of mine.
I thank him for being a part of our fight for the future.
Join us at https://t.co/MKvOQGgN2t. pic.twitter.com/caCuvbTXro
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 11, 2024
Detroit is a city of resilience and hard work.
Donald Trump knows nothing about that.
Watch our new ad: pic.twitter.com/OGILiahTDe
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 11, 2024
The national pundits who think they understand Michigan politics because they've had a layover at DTW and believe this is a good strategy didn't notice that the well-off Republican crowd absolutely hated this line.
A lot has changed in the last decade. https://t.co/lkxrD14jjA
— Susan J. Demas ?? (@sjdemas) October 11, 2024
The governors of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan released a joint statement Friday, admonishing Donald Trump for giving Putin American COVID-19 supplies during the pandemic:
“Former President Trump betrayed us.” pic.twitter.com/moTIZPUIup
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) October 11, 2024
Republicans are going to extraordinary lengths right now – red wave polls, releasing "internals," Polymarket voodoo – to try to make it look like Trump is winning the election when he isn't. Democrats should not be helping them. https://t.co/0VfjNmaz0m
— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) October 10, 2024
Remember the thing Republicans did in 2020 where they flooded the zone with absolute junk polls to make it look like Trump was winning?
Yeah, they’re doing that again. This time, one of them even removed Philly from their PA poll.
Polls don’t vote. Stupid red hats don’t vote.
— Angry Staffer ?? (@Angry_Staffer) October 11, 2024
*Finally* Saturday Morning Open Thread: Be Of Good Cheer!Post + Comments (137)
Busy couple of days. Made an enormous vat of sauce, and made 25lbs of meatballs for the homecoming tailgate and party tomorrow. In other news, I can still carry a keg of beer, because I had to make the beer run for the brothers staying down the street. I gotta take it a bit slower and make sure I do not throw out the shoulders, but I can still do it, so that is something.
My mother and father hosted a luncheon for Joelle and three of her sorority sisters, and they had a lovely time. Dad made quiche and a pasta salad, and they had brownies and ice cream for dessert. I suggested it a couple of weeks ago because mom knows some of the girls from when they went here and mom was teaching, dad always loves company and does not get out as often as he used to, and it would give Joelle some more time with the parents without me (I spend a lot of time with her mom alone, so I thought this would be good). Plus, since my parents are on a need to know basis about much of my life, it gave them an opportunity to interrogate Joelle about me.
Somehow or another, despite the keg and all the food being down at the other house, the party has come to my house, and there are about twenty rowdies downstairs making a ruckus. I stayed for as long as I could and then fucked off up here to say hi. I think I have a good thirty minutes to decompress before someone notices I have fled.
And Watergirl is wrong WRONG WRONG. You do not need to watch just four minutes of that Obama speech. You need to watch the whole thing. I listened to it twice while at the gym today.
I could listen to him body Donald Trump for 45 minutes every single day. I miss that man so much.
A quick housekeeping note: We’re still safely residing at the hotel. The girls are on the bed next to me and mom is listening to Kol Nidre live streamed from the Park Avenue Synagogue.
Our home owner’s association board contacted everyone earlier today. There’s between two and three feet of water in the streets in our neighborhood. The people who stayed have indicated that no water has gotten into their homes. However, the board has asked that no one drives in our out until the water recedes so as not to push water into homes or to cause cars to get flooded and stuck. My house sits almost eleven feet above sea level. The last time we had two to three feet of water in the street in front of my house it went up about 1/3rd of the way up my driveway. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the person who was going to check on my house can’t get in to do so because even though she has a truck, they don’t want anyone driving into or out of the neighborhood. Also, the power has been out since Wednesday at 4 PM EDT and while Tampa Electric has indicated they’re doing the damage assessments and have begun making repairs, there’s no estimate as to when the power will be back on.
We’re sitting tight at the hotel.
Obligatory:
Here’s the butcher’s bill from Russia’s attack on Odesa last night:
⚡️ Four people, including a child, were killed and 10 others injured in a Russian attack on Odesa tonight, according to the State Emergency Service.
📷: SESU pic.twitter.com/RMYClVc6LC
— UNITED24 Media (@United24media) October 11, 2024
Russia attacked Odesa region with ballistic missiles last night.
Four people have been killed, 16-year-old girl among them. 10 more people have been injured – regional military administration.
A two-story residential building was destroyed.
📹: SESU pic.twitter.com/GD77XsQajr
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) October 11, 2024
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
War for Ukraine Day 961: The Butcher’s Bill from OdesaPost + Comments (14)