Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The house always wins.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Militantly superior in their own minds…

Reality always wins in the end.

We need fewer warriors in public service and more gardeners.

Shocking, but not surprising

Wetsuit optional.

Fuck if i know. i just get yelled at when i try it.

This is how realignments happen…

‘Forty-two’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

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

There will be lawyers.

Verified, but limited!

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

This fight is for everything.

This is a big f—–g deal.

I’m only here for the duck photos.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Something seems odd about that, but i have been drinking.

Everybody saw this coming.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Social vs. Anti-Social Media

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Social vs. Anti-Social Media

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Michelle Goldberg, smart person in the NYTimes, “Our National Emergency Turns 2”:

… I feared, at the beginning of this administration, that Trump would try to exploit American intelligence capabilities against his personal enemies, but instead he gets his intelligence from Fox News. The fact that so many high-level Trump associates have pleaded guilty to crimes is a sign of his corruption, but it also shows he hasn’t corrupted our entire system.

Trump has turned out to be the Norma Desmond of authoritarians, a senescent has-been whose delusions are propped up by obsequious retainers. From his fantasy world in the White House, he barks dictatorial and often illegal orders, floats conspiracy theories, tweets insults and lies unceasingly. But much of the time he’s not fully in charge. He has the instincts of a fascist but lacks both the discipline and the loyal lieutenants he’d need to create true autocracy.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the country isn’t coming undone. Trump’s bumbling incoherence, coupled with his declining political fortunes since the midterms, makes him seem less frightening than he once did. But, two years in, the jaded weariness many of us have developed might obscure how bad things are. We’re living through an unprecedented breakdown in America’s ability to function like a normal country.

The shutdown throws our crisis into high relief. For the first two years, Trump destroyed American norms, standards and conventions. Now he’s cavalierly destroying American lives…

Gropey Glenn Thrush wails: But mah NARRATIVE!…

Reader Interactions

235Comments

  3. 3.

    Derelict

    Sometimes I think the media is like that one “friend” of a severely abused wife–the one who “helps” by soothingly telling the battered victim “Now, honey, you just need to remember that he doesn’t like it when you leave a lump in his mashed potatoes. You just need to make sure they’re creamy and he won’t be hitting you.”

  4. 4.

    Lapassionara

    I do not know how to link, but saw on Twitter this am that house added another amount of money for “border security” and Trump is supposedly making an announcement this afternoon. He and Kushner met with McConnell yesterday. Whatever that is supposed to mean.

  5. 5.

    hells littlest angel

    Brilliant line by Michelle Goldberg. “Alright Mr Putin, I’m ready for my Black Sea dacha.”

  6. 6.

    m.j.

    I was watching Seth Meyers do one of his A Closer Looks and he made a joke about Trump’s reading from a teleprompter and closing his right eyelid.
    It begins about 2:18.
    I think Trump has diabetes and double vision. Feel free to make your own diagnoses.

  7. 7.

    raven

    Smith explained how Trump had taken ownership of the shutdown right from the beginning. “This back and forth thing is just not credible,” Smith said. “The president said: ‘I’m shutting down the government. I’ll own the shutdown. I’m proud to carry the mantle.’ And he shut the government down. And that’s that.”

    Wallace replied: “Well, I mean it takes two to tango.”

    Smith responded: “There’s no tango here. The president said, ’I’m shutting the government down.”

    Wallace argued Trump would “shut the government down unless they gave him funding for the wall, and they refused to give him funding for the wall. Both sides are party to this.”

    Smith noted, however, how Democrats ran in part during the 2018 midterm campaign on a promise that Trump would not receive funding for his proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

    “They won 40 seats plus in the House of Representatives and they’re not giving him a wall,” Smith said, adding that Trump “can reopen it tomorrow just like he closed it down. It’s all on him, isn’t it?”

  8. 8.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Lapassionara:

    He and Kushner met with McConnell yesterday. Whatever that is supposed to mean.

    It means they are negotiating with themselves, ie they aren’t negotiating at all. They are getting their messaging together.

    trump’s wh address: “It’s all the DEMs fault!”

  9. 9.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A 16-year-old Syrian refugee who was disfigured in a bomb attack on her home has been refused a visa to get medical treatment in the US because of Donald Trump’s travel ban, the Guardian can reveal.

    Marwa al-Shekh Ameen resettled with her family in Germany, but doctors there encouraged her to seek more sophisticated medical treatment in America following 13 operations to repair trauma from third-degree burns to her face, arms and chest.

    Shriners Hospitals for Children in Boston scheduled an appointment to treat Marwa in November 2018 and a volunteer agency in Massachusetts offered to provide temporary housing for her and her father. But the US government denied her visa on 20 December, claiming there was not enough evidence to prove she would return to Germany.

    I am sure ‘pro-life Jesus’ would approve.

  11. 11.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    It does mean they’re negotiating with themselves, but it leaves room for the negotiation to be “Trump, get off your ass and say you’ll sign something so I can remain Majority Leader” or “Please save me, Mitch!” I am reminded of how he begged the Mexican President in private for wall money because he was looking bad. So, it could be anything. We’ll see.

  12. 12.

    The Dangerman

    Now he’s cavalierly destroying American lives…

    It’s about time to call it what it is; it’s not hostage taking, it’s terrorism.

    I wake up early some mornings thinking maybe, just maybe this is the day our nightmare ends. Not yet today. Back to bed.

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    So, it could be anything.

    Yes, but it will be one thing and we all know what it is. trump’s gotta trump.

    @Baud: As I said in the very beginning, and trump will say DEMs caved, never mind the actual language in the bill.

  16. 16.

    JPL

    @OzarkHillbilly: All trump needs is fox and friends to agree.
    The dems should give extra money for border security to slow down the amount of dangerous drugs entering the country.

  19. 19.

    Jeffro

    I’m seeing an increasing number of stories about how it’s McConnell who is to blame, or for the shutdown and for enabling Trumpov in general.

    Then again, it’d almost have to be an increasing number as ANY number above zero is an increase from zero .

    Still… let’s hope this trend continues (and try to make that happen!)

  20. 20.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Oh nononononoooooo… Pro-life Jesus is very much concerned with all those messy lady parts from the very onset of messiness to the end of the messiness. Can’t have anything getting in the way of the messiness either. It’s in the Bible. Somewhere. I’m sure it is. They wouldn’t make up a thing like that out of thin air. Never.

  21. 21.

    JPL

    I hope today’s weather event doesn’t cause problems for the jackals. It appears that Anne will get less snow and more ice which will stay around for awhile considering the high on Monday is suppose to be nine.

  22. 22.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: No we can’t, and worrying about it is as much a waste of time as getting upset about it afterwards is a waste of energy. Our best response is to point and laugh.

  23. 23.

    Raven

    My colleague is attending a 3 day conference downtown Wed-Fri and had no idea the Super Bowl was here and that it was going to impact theATL!

  28. 28.

    ericblair

    @Derelict:

    Sometimes I think the media is like that one “friend” of a severely abused wife–the one who “helps” by soothingly telling the battered victim “Now, honey, you just need to remember that he doesn’t like it when you leave a lump in his mashed potatoes. You just need to make sure they’re creamy and he won’t be hitting you.”

    I think this has a great deal of truth to it; there are a lot of parallels between domestic abuse and authoritarian government. Most of the political reporting boils down to “bitch, just look at what you made him do now.”

  29. 29.

    Lapassionara

    @OzarkHillbilly: I wish someone would point out that US passengers entering the US on international flights do not have to declare what they purchased abroad, so that part of Customs is not operational. They could bring drugs, etc, and no one would make any effort to stop them. But we need a wall?

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    Orange is the new blech.

    @Lapassionara

    He and Kushner met with McConnell yesterday. Whatever that is supposed to mean.

    It means the T-shirts with a picture of Pelosi’s face with a circle and slash superimposed on top of it arrived and they couldn’t wait to tear open the box and model them for one another.

  34. 34.

    NotMax

    On a different, less terrifying topic –

    Not normally the type of fare I’d pick to watch, in this case was pleasantly surprised by Danny’s Doomsday on Amazon Prime (Danish with English subtitles).

    A friend recommended it as a family friendly flesh-eating mutants horror film. While I wouldn’t go quite that far, any gore or grisly violence is entirely off screen, the acting is solid, the tension is doled out well and the story is woven well.

  35. 35.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: I don’t recall, but the John Kelley rehabilitation project is getting underway: John Kelly shocked staff with speech ‘hostile’ to Trump, tell-all book reveals

    Book by ex-White House aide Cliff Sims, seen by Guardian, says chief of staff indicated ‘country first, president second’ approach

    In all fairness I have to point out that they are merely reporting about a book that is coming out and that talking heads everywhere will soon be wagging their tongues endlessly over the contents of this bombshell memoir.

    Still, I could have done without it.

  36. 36.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Jeffro:

    I’m seeing an increasing number of stories about how it’s McConnell who is to blame, or for the shutdown and for enabling Trumpov in general.

    Yes, and depending on who and what you read, the Both Sides Do It reflex is ever present. I’ll give grudging props to Portman (R-OH) he is at least trying, promoting “improvements” to border security for easing off on busting DACA folk. He may still be a two-bit ratfuck Republican, with some tiny glimmer of a soul in there.

  38. 38.

    OzarkHillbilly

    On Monday, dozens of regional and state emergency managers were scheduled to convene in Miami for a weeklong course preparing them for the upcoming extreme weather season. The annual Emergency Management Institute, as it is formally called, is the main way federal authorities train their state and local counterparts on the basics of navigating deadly natural disasters, including when to begin evacuations and how to prepare for the effect of a storm surge.

    But the course has been canceled this year and is unlikely to be rescheduled—another casualty of the government shutdown, which on Saturday became the longest in history. The Federal Emergency Management Authority, which conducts the training with specialists from the National Hurricane Center, “may only provide services that directly apply to the protection of human life or the protection of property,” a spokesperson tells Mother Jones. Day-to-day operations are close to fully staffed, but research, development, and training exercises—all key aspects of the outreach work these agencies do before hurricane season starts in May—have been suspended. Winter normally offers government staffers a reprieve from hurricane and tornado season, giving them time to update and test forecasting models, in addition to training first responders in the event of future natural disasters. But none of that work can be completed during the shutdown.

    “We’ve already lost three weeks. We’re likely to lose a fourth week,” says Eric Blake, union steward at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “You can’t recreate this time.”

    While Nero fiddled, Rome burned. (i know i know, Nero wasn’t even in Rome when it burned)

  40. 40.

    BruceFromOhio

    Good morning, rikyrah!

    I hope those of you in Indiana, Ohio, western PA are buckled down someplace warm with someone or something to snuggle up with, as the first real winter weather is upon us. The weather folk have been exercising all the gadgets and gizmos and scary language with exuberance, as the season has been pretty tame up to now. MrsFromOhio has some little projects lined up around the castle to keep me out of trouble, and there is binge watching, movies and the divisional championships slotted for tomorrow. Would love love love to see a Chiefs/Saints superb owl to cap Brees’ most excellent year, though the odds are not in my favor.

  42. 42.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Book by ex-White House aide Cliff Sims, seen by Guardian, says chief of staff indicated ‘country first, president second’ approach

    Really. Which country? Inquiring minds etc.

  43. 43.

    trnc

    @JPL:

    The dems should give extra money for border security to slow down the amount of dangerous drugs entering the country.

    Perhaps they should actually fund a new border gate, complete with all of the additional personnel, equipment and road required. After all, if the real problem is that most illegal drugs are getting in through existing border gates, doesn’t that indicate that the agents are overwhelmed? Plus, added bonus of getting wingnut heads to explode.

    #FundTheGate

  49. 49.

    Quinerly

    Second of three AM tweets from the insane asshole president. I guess Newt was on Fox.

    “@newtgingrich
    just stated that there has been no president since Abraham Lincoln who has been treated worse or more unfairly by the media than your favorite President, me! At the same time there has been no president who has accomplished more in his first two years in office!”

  50. 50.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: No, it was just the first thing to pop into my head when I saw the headline. A pretty obvious joke of course.

  53. 53.

    waratah

    @Lapassionara: when we returned from Rome last summer they did not require to fill a form for purchases. I learned while we were going through the process you entered information on a computer screen and they have really good exray machines. They seem to know what you have in your luggage. You do need to honest, and report you have cheese and wine etc.

  54. 54.

    plato

    Fascinating that Rudy Giuliani and Trump supporters are now taking Robert Mueller's office at their word about inaccuracies in the BuzzFeed report after attacking nearly every move that Mueller has made over the last year and a half. It's been an interesting night.

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 19, 2019

    Nothing ‘fascinating’ about this. Tails, I win, heads, you lose, has been the rethugs’ stand for ages.

  55. 55.

    JMG

    @OzarkHillbilly: Is there any literary genre less interesting than the Washington “bombshell memoir”? They all could run under the same title “If Only They’d Listened to Me.”

  59. 59.

    zhena gogolia

    @Immanentize:

    I have no idea what he’s doing, and I’m tired of feeling like a Kremlinologist in 1963 trying to read signs about the fate of MY OWN GODDAMNED COUNTRY. The American public deserves more than cryptic statements that mean nothing to anyone or everything to everyone..

    I guess we were burned so badly by Comey that I’m beginning to think Bobby Three Sticks is just another “noble” Repug who’s trying to save his party, not his country..

  65. 65.

    Immanentize

    @zhena gogolia: I don’t think that about the investigatory team. But the missive sounded like a statement required by a higher-up to stop the BuzzFeed Buzzsaw. Mueller’s statement is undoubtedly truthful, but who knows about what? I’m sure BuzzFeed doesn’t have all the facts, or all of them necessarily perfectly nailed down. So there is room for criticism. And surprisingly the criticism came from DOJ. Whitaker could have ordered Rosenstein to issue a denial and it took 24 hours to hash out the vague hash they would deliver.

    Mueller never issues a statement of the truth of, say, Guiliani’s obvious falsities. That would be improper and, what does he care? The normal path of a good prosecutor is “no comment” unless something threatens to seriously impact an investigation. Hmmm .

    But yes it feels like Kremlin tea reading

  67. 67.

    Yarrow

    @Immanentize: No. I’m more in this camp:

    Clarity. For two years, stories, whether accurate or not, had no political consequences b/c Ryan didn't do anything. When House Dems start to take news stories as potential evidence to start essentially legal proceedings, Mueller's office has an interest in correcting. https://t.co/6GYPhOVyQr— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) January 19, 2019

  69. 69.

    Immanentize

    @Quinerly:

    your favorite President, me!

    Fucking 6th grader. Unbelievable. Sadly, I can hear him say that. Picture him in the oval office saying that. To the people he has put out of work for this shutdown. And their families.

  74. 74.

    Immanentize

    @Yarrow:
    I believe that this is a new day too, but couldn’t Rosenstein have just communicated privately to Pelosi or Schiff not to get out over their skis based on BuzzFeed? Why a public media release?

    The Buzzfeed article, if actually fake news, was just the kind to upset an apple cart. Even Trump’s supporters could believe it “100% happened.”. The journos were pretty confident.

    I’m just thinking about Dan Rather right now.

  75. 75.

    debbie

    @BruceFromOhio:

    I’m in central Ohio and it’s just started spitting (as my Mamaw used to say). I walked over to the store this morning and grabbed some bread. I hate this weather.

  76. 76.

    debbie

    @satby:

    Yeah, but what he’s too fucking thick to realize is that it’s a mathematical impossibility that all 800,000 could be Dems. Even better, I’d bet some of the federal workers who are GOP will be switching sides based on their president’s dismissal of their difficulties.

  77. 77.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize:

    The normal path of a good prosecutor is “no comment” unless something threatens to seriously impact an investigation.

    That’s what I took it as.

  80. 80.

    Yarrow

    @Immanentize: Public statement needed to take pressure off Dems in Congress. Otherwise we’d all be “Why aren’t they investigating this?????!!!!!” and then be upset/angry that they weren’t.

    The journos we’re pretty confident.

    Also, I was and remain skeptical of Buzzfeed’s reporting. That it was Jason Leopold did not help. They’ve been involved in active measures in the past. I was not completely surprised to see what happened.

  81. 81.

    debbie

    @Immanentize:

    I am of course not an expert, but even if the article is wrong and it wasn’t Trump who directed Cohen to lie, I don’t think Trump will be able to insulate himself from his campaign’s misdeeds the way Reagan was able to following Iran Contra. He’s got too much anger to be genuinely sneaky and aloof like Reagan was.

  82. 82.

    Immanentize

    @Yarrow: Ok, so I am tracking, I think. Was this possibly put out right now to upset the Cohen testimony story — create the bombshell that will not play out?

    That’s pretty sophisticated for Trump and team, no?

  83. 83.

    Redshift

    @JPL:

    Stephen Miller wrote the state of the union speech and trump is determined to deliver it.

    It would be hilarious if denying him his big TV spot was the leverage that actually ended this. We all know who the actual chess master is here. Nancy SMASH!

  84. 84.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Yarrow: Read somebody somewhere this morn by someone who had at least some of the same info with a small difference: It was not trump himself telling Cohen to lie, it was the trump org. A distinction without a difference to us mere partisans, but big difference for a prosecutor.

  85. 85.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Can we talk non-Trump for a minute? Tech question.

    I’m in the middle of organizing a bunch of crap. I just found a wall adaptor that has two USB charging ports on it, labeled 1 A and 2.1 A. I don’t recall seeing a current rating on any device charger, either the official Apple ones or the cheapo ones you can find at the office supply store or the dollar store.

    So can I use that charger for any of my devices? Do I need to worry, especially about using the high-current port with any particular device?

  86. 86.

    Yarrow

    @Immanentize: It’s not sophisticated for Russia and their decades-long active measures campaign. So many in the media are compromised and are either knowing assets or possibly useful idiots. Buzzfeed has shown over the years that they are more in the “don’t trust” camp.

  87. 87.

    Raven

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: “I’m not sure what do you mean by 1 A and 2 A output but assuming that it means about electricity
    If you have 2 chargers both of 5 Volts one of them is: 1 Ampere and the second has 2 Amperes
    The Ampere is used to express the flow rate of electric charges
    In other words it is used to express the intensity of the electricity
    So If you have a phone and you plug it in with a 1 A charge for example it’s going to take one hour to charge but if you plug it in with a 2 A charge it will take a half an hour charge
    The only disadvantage of a 2 A output is that it will decrease the battery life faster”

    This is a cut and paste

  89. 89.

    Redshift

    Talked to a Dem this morning who said this story by @MarkLandler is setting off fire alarms on shutdown messaging.

    Is there anything weaker than a “Dems are worried” story that only has one Democrat who’s only willing to speak anonymously? Couldn’t even manage “some Democrats,” Glenn? Dollars to donuts “a Dem” isn’t an elected official but one of the campaign hacks who is also certain the key to victory is toning down these liberal proposals to win back the white working class.

  90. 90.

    Yarrow

    @OzarkHillbilly: It could be. People seem to forget that Allen Weisselberg, longtime Trump Org CFO was granted immunity. He goes all the way back to working for Trump’s dad. From Wikipedia:

    Following college, Weisselberg worked as an accountant for real estate magnate Fred Trump in the 1970s.[6] By the late 1980s, he was controller of the organization and worked under CFO Stephen Bollenbach.[5] In 2000, Weisselberg was named chief financial officer and Vice President of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts. He also served as treasurer of the Donald J. Trump Foundation, and has handled the household expenses of the Trump family.

    He knows a lot.

  91. 91.

    Immanentize

    @Yarrow:
    I still suspect, like Ozark says, that there is truth in the story, just not complete truth….

    But I still think Mueller might think Barr is his best bet to get the most done and the most released. Or get the best result (Trump does not run again?). So this public statement certainly helps Barr who was reportedly on shaky ground with Trump after his testimony. Then everyone pointing to Barr’s suborning purjury remarks and memo…. That can’t have pleased Trump.

  92. 92.

    Immanentize

    @Redshift: Not only that, so what on shut down messaging? It is actually completely synergistic with shutdown messaging — Trump is a criminal lie machine who shut down the government over nothing. Win Win.

  94. 94.

    Yarrow

    @Immanentize:

    I still suspect, like Ozark says, that there is truth in the story, just not complete truth….

    I completely agree. I said last night in that thread that the SCO’s statement was narrow. I read it that way. The article is not fully wrong it’s just not fully correct.

    It could have helped Barr. I don’t know about that as I’m not focusing on the political side of it all that much. If anything it seems like it kind of trapped Barr given the back and forth with Sen. Klobuchar. Trump isn’t going to nominate someone Dems like so he may be the least worst option.

  95. 95.

    Yarrow

    @Immanentize: I don’t know who “Trump Org” in this context might mean. Kushner is a traitor and guilty of many other things as well. He is up to his eyeballs in this whole thing. He and the traitor tots will not escape.

  96. 96.

    MazeDancer

    You don’t negotiate with terrorists. Until they take your child. Then you pay the ransom.

    People are hurting. They are willing to pay now. The media will treat whatever Trump offers as a signal to force Dems to stop the pain.

    As long as McConnell is able to use America’s systems against itself, and the press is invested in maintaining the fiction of “both sides”, Trump can win.

    Until the investigations are in full swing.

  97. 97.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Amar Bhidé, business professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, on what is next in Brexshit:

    It’s a completely bizarre situation that she’s in, which is that the leaders of both parties are out of sync with their own members of Parliament, and the members of the parliamentary parties are out of sync with large proportions of their constituents.

    I’m from India, so I am used to the idea of Brexits with a million people dead, which is what happened when the Brits left in 1947. So nothing would surprise me about the sheer incompetence of the British ruling class. Either May’s as clever as a fox and she’s basically going to play this out until March 29, or she really is as dumb as British leaders have been for hundreds of years.

  98. 98.

    Yarrow

    @Immanentize: Here’s a different take that possibly has merit:

    Ya know, the statement out of Mueller’s office was an excellent way to take the heat off Cohen at a moment when he was waffling on whether to testify in front Congress.

    Trump naturally over-read the lawyerly nothingburger and feels vindicated.

    Pressure comes off Cohen.
    — The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) January 19, 2019

  99. 99.

    Quinerly

    I’m reposting this. Feel like it’s impt and got so little press coverage the other day.
    “A Washington Post article on the resignation of deputy Housing and Urban Development Secretary Pam Patenaude, a housing policy professional who’s been de facto running the department under the vague auspices of Ben Carson, also contains the stunning information that President Trump attempted to illegally cut off federal disaster assistance to the island of Puerto Rico.” From Vox…https://www.vox.com/2019/1/17/18186818/trump-puerto-rico-hurricane-funds

  100. 100.

    Argiope

    @Raven: Some of us really are out of the sportsball loop. I remember years ago sitting in the unit breakroom eating and a colleague came in, noticed the football game on TV, and asked me “Where are they?” I replied, “somewhere on that green area down there”. The look he gave me was…rewarding. And it’s not always lack of exposure; I went to every home and away game for 5 years. Never did figure out the point beyond our halftime shows. Brain just isn’t wired to appreciate it, I guess, though I suspect I’m missing out.

  101. 101.

    schrodingers_cat

    @OzarkHillbilly: Make it several million dead and several more displaced. And the Brexiters think that the Empire was a boon to India, yes really.
    This is the death toll of 1947 alone. Bhide’ has not included the 50 million or so dead in the Victorian era due to famine because of British policy.

  102. 102.

    Lapassionara

    @waratah: maybe checked bags get xrayed in US. Not sure about Europe. But drugs don’t set off metal detectors, and clever smugglers can get things through checkpoints. Of course they also lie on custom declarations, so maybe any attempt to interdict is futile. But it seems ironic to me that the basic customs apparatus is currently not functioning.

  104. 104.

    eric

    I read the Mueller statement as follows: “We do not have the types of hard evidence that the story says or suggests that we have; so, there should be no allegation of malfeasance when that evidence is not turned over to the eventual (or current) defendants.”

  105. 105.

    plato

    Former president George W Bush has turned his hand to pizza delivery to help staff left unpaid by a government shutdown.

    Posts on social media showed Mr Bush bringing the food to his Secret Service detail.

    “It’s time for leaders on both sides to put politics aside, come together, and end this shutdown,” Mr Bush wrote on Instagram.

    The shutdown has entered a fifth week and is the longest in US history.

    FU shrub for bothsidesing it.

  106. 106.

    tobie

    @Immanentize: My thoughts exactly. The statement from Mueller’s office was so unusual and it came after more than 20 hours had passed since the Buzzfeed article that it’s hard not to believe that the statement wasn’t prompted by a request from outside. Barr and other members of the Republican establishment seem like likely suspects. Couple that with the fact that Buzzfeed shared the reporting with the SCO’s office before going public and they said nothing and you have a curious situation. The House committees on intelligence and the judiciary really need to go forward with public hearings soon. I have no faith in Mueller doing anything but submitting his report to Barr with the understanding that Barr will bury it.

  111. 111.

    MomSense

    I feel much better now. Just had a nice profanity riddled rant at Glenn’s thrush. If I go to twitter jail it will have been worth it.

    I see what autocorrect did to his name and I like it!

  113. 113.

    Immanentize

    @Yarrow:
    That makes sense. Protecting their witness.

    Once again, as Zhena alluded to — there are so many possible motives/rationales/interests all converging insanely at any one time, that it is crazy making to consider it all.

    I just have to hold onto my well-informed belief that the Mueller team is as good as anyone can hope for in this situation. And that there are MANY DOJ professionals still working ethically and with purpose.

  114. 114.

    Quinerly

    @JPL: any other time that story would have been a rather big story. I know the House is going to have investigative hearings on Puerto Rico. I just hope it all just doesn’t get buried in the avalanche of other scandals. Over 3,000 people died.

  115. 115.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Lapassionara:

    maybe checked bags get xrayed in US.

    As I understand it, some do, something less than 5%. In order to xray them all they’d have to spend billions more on equipment and personel or shut down the airports every 3rd day to catch up.

  117. 117.

    Emma

    So now, because of one single statement that disrupts our favored narrative, Mueller is a Republican monster that is actually trying to cover up for the President? OK, then.

  118. 118.

    sdhays

    @OzarkHillbilly: “Need more x-ray machines!” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as “Need wall!” But if he was a competent grifter, the ASSet would have figured out how to get in on that action too.

  119. 119.

    Immanentize

    @Quinerly: Well Trump has tried twice to cut off aid to California, too. And the Tax Bill was designed to punish blue states. Coincidence?

  120. 120.

    BR

    One key point @emptywheel and @joshtpm have made is that everyone was treating the BuzzFeed story as if it was the first evidence of pressuring / ordering someone to lie under oath, but it wasn’t (even though they themselves sold their story that way). There have been several other instances, and maybe it’s time to focus on those…

  124. 124.

    Immanentize

    I really need to research the history of the sealed indictment, John Doe indictments and DNA indictments. It looks like we might get snowed in tomorrow….

  125. 125.

    JPL

    @Immanentize: The tax thing is going to back fire because the property tax in Fulton Cty Georgia along with the local property taxes are quite high. For me it’s about 1,200 for every 100,000 valuation. A single person can deduct the max of $5,000.

  130. 130.

    Citizen Alan

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Shepard Smith is literally the only person at Fox who would survive if and when the revolution finally comes. Well maybe Shepard Smith and the janitorial staff, but that’s it.

  131. 131.

    opiejeanne

    @JPL: I’m fairly certain that part of the reason Orange County, CA turned blue for the election in November was the change in being able to deduct so much of their property taxes. Houses are expensive there too and a lot of property taxes top out above the limit.

  132. 132.

    MomSense

    @BR:

    In the Manafort and Cohen pleadings there are references to both men lying and coordinating with the White House. I don’t know what’s up with the buzzfeed article but it seemed that the media and members of Congress were latching on to it too tightly as though it were the first evidence of real obstruction. That was problematic.
    I’m still wondering why so many media personalities and Congress critters keep repeating that the AG can prevent the Congress from seeing the Special Counsel’s report when the authors of the special counsel statute have been saying all along that the AG cannot do that! Why would they repeat such a damaging falsehood?
    I don’t really trust anyone in this except Mueller’s team and Barack Obama. And since Obama is now a private citizen I’m just choosing to have faith in Mueller. He’s not going to solve our problem but hopefully he will give us the information to do what we need to do to save our country. The only way this was ever going to end was with we the people voting and organizing to get this trump crime family and all these neo NAZIs, Collaborators, Oligarch funded political mercenaries, Toxic Christianists, and white supremacists the fuck out of our government.

  135. 135.

    plato

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yup. The rethugs don’t give a shit about ‘others’. Never did. Never will.

    us of a and uk today are the prime examples of voting/nonvoting matters, which the the left never seems to get until it’s too late.

  137. 137.

    Juice Box

    @OzarkHillbilly: Theresa May really is as dumb as British leaders have always been. Another recent example was PM Rajoy sending the Guardia Civil to crack heads over the non-binding Catalan Independence vote that was going to result in a “no” vote until he got violent. The truth is that our leaders just have ordinary skills that can’t cope with complex problems.

  138. 138.

    MomSense

    @MomSense:

    Oh and I trust Maxine Waters, Ted Lieu, and Adam Schiff. There may be a few more like Chris Murphy, Kamala Harris, Sheldon Whitehouse, Amy Klobuchar, Richard Blumenthal, and Cory Booker.

  139. 139.

    dnfree

    Exactly one year ago today, this is what I posted on Facebook (so it reminds me). Nothing has improved.

    “The United States is not a good advertisement for how democracy should work. According to current polling, up to 87% of Americans support DACA, with conditions such as it already has. If a “clean” DACA bill were introduced in both houses of Congress, it would pass, as would a “clean” bill to reinstate funding for CHIP (children’s health).

    So why don’t we have either of those? Because the Republicans refuse to consider DACA as part of the government shutdown negotiations (like Charlie Brown and the football, they promise they’ll get to it “later”). In return, they’ve tied CHIP funding to the House bill.

    Democrats fear Republicans are lying and won’t get to it “later” and that this is their only leverage. Republicans say this shows Democrats favor immigrants over actual American children.

    Trump first favored a “clean” DACA bill, then he didn’t. He even explained recently that DACA and Dreamers aren’t the same thing. (They are.) Now he’s off to Mar-a-Lago to celebrate the anniversary of his inauguration with people who paid anywhere from $100,000 to $250,000 to celebrate with him.

    Ain’t it great? Aren’t you proud to live in such a well-run country?”

  140. 140.

    MomSense

    @Immanentize:

    Judging by the clusterfuck that is the grocery store, yes. Right now the forecast is for 2 feet with some amount of ice. I had to drag myself to the store because the flu has prevented me from doing a proper shopping run the last two weeks.

    For the southerners in our midst, pre- blizzard shopping is like pre-hurricane shopping except you are going to see the coffee brandy crowd and they do not usually shop at the same time as the rest of us.

    ETA – that’s Allen’s coffee brandy.

  143. 143.

    JPL

    @MomSense: We empty the shelves when there are snow flurries in the forecast. The city that I live in is hilly and snow removal equipment is sparse so it makes sense to prepare. At least the city has some snow removal equipment now.

  148. 148.

    MomSense

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Actually my one reservation about Nancy is that she could end up being our president and I’m not sure how strong the we need to look forward not back sentiment is with her. We cannot let this treachery go unpunished because it is a hydra that we cannot afford to fight again.

  149. 149.

    Amir Khalid

    Shock! Gasp! Liverpool trail 1-0 at halftime to visitors Crystal Palace, led by former Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson. Aagh!

  150. 150.

    MomSense

    @JPL:

    I’ve never understood flurry madness. We don’t plow our roads for flurries. Hell, by ge end of the winter the budget dictates that we wait until the end of the storm no matter how impassable the roads become. Even then towns are tempted to see if it melts before committing plow trucks.

  151. 151.

    Immanentize

    @MomSense: I am all shopped up. But I would like a Brandy!

    8″ here they say. Yesterday they said 2″…. We’ll see. Stay safe (and sorry about the flu bug. Ick).

  153. 153.

    Immanentize

    Just a factoid I’ve noticed. Since January 6, Trump has not tweeted “no collusion!” Even once. His new version, after a week of blessed collusion! silence is “real collusion is Hillary/Obama collusion with Russians” whatever that means.

    I find him dropping his favorite line to be very odd indeed.

  155. 155.

    Gelfling 545

    @OzarkHillbilly: They used to say the fire was blamed on the Christians. With the way Christians are acting, I’m beginning to think that was a distinct possibility.

  156. 156.

    JPL

    @MomSense: Imagine if you will driving behind someone while going up an icy hill and seeing the car’s brake lights in front of you come on. That’s when f.k, f.k, f.k comes out of my mouth.

  158. 158.

    Elizabelle

    @MomSense: I wish you felt better. Hope you and yours stay safe and warm during the snowstorm.

    Had never heard of Allen’s Coffee-Flavored Brandy. The choice of “vagrants”, teenagers, and women. It’s described as “an ideal food for crime.” And David Fahrenthold of the WaPost wrote about it! in January 2006.

    A Bittersweet ‘Champagne of Maine’

    PORTLAND, Maine — The dark-brown liquid that some people call “the champagne of Maine” tastes, to the uninitiated, like equal parts alcohol, sugar and coffee-pot slag. It puckers the cheeks, coats the tongue with syrupy sweetness and leaves a mouthwash feeling on the lips.

    This is coffee-flavored brandy. It is one of the odder stories of American imbibing, the number-one-for-20-years-running liquor obsession of Maine.

    The caffeine-infused spirit, largely unknown outside New England, is a staple at house parties, mill town bars and urban street corners here — popular enough that a Bangor newspaperman once suggested putting it on the back of Maine’s state quarter.

    … At Raena’s Pub in the northern city of Bangor, bartender Carrie Smith said she can easily spot the brandy drinkers.

    “Bleached-blonde, teased hair. . . . They always play the ‘Redneck Woman’ song” on the jukebox, she said, describing the typical drinker who orders a “sombrero,” or Allen’s mixed with milk. Smith said she once saw a woman dump her cocktail on the head of a beer-drinking man who referred to the drink by its nickname, “fat ass in a glass.”

    Mainers say Allen’s is sometimes favored by vagrants, who like its low price, or by teenagers, who mainly like beer but sometimes choose Allen’s because it lacks the burn of other hard stuff.

    But, in the world of coffee brandy drinkers, women seem to be the core customers.

    Do we know if this is one of the beverages that fueled Stephen King’s writing?

  159. 159.

    MomSense

    @Immanentize:

    A real brandy, yes! Have you ever tried the coffee kind?

    I don’t know what to think about the storm. The weather centers are super excited about it.

  162. 162.

    Immanentize

    @JPL: This exact thing happened to me in Binghamton NY when I was there for my uncle’s funeral. But it was the car two ahead of me. Total icy road and I have all wheel drive, but that minivan screwed everyone and no one could get up that hill.

  166. 166.

    JWR

    If anyone’s interested, the episode of Trackdown, (w/ Robert Culp), where a Mr. Trump promises to save the population from the end of the world by building a great Wall is on METV right now..

  167. 167.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Gelfling 545: having made my morning twitter rounds, I assumed when mentioned nasty “Christians” you were referring to these little Bret Kavanaughs who were bussed to DC from Kentucky to “march for life”, and brought along their MAGAt hats and decided to harass some Native Americans holding a rally of their own. This is getting a lot of play and I think their school and diocese is going to get some attention they don’t want and aren’t ready for.

  168. 168.

    Quinerly

    Haven’t read all the comments. Apologies if posted. Axios reporting Trump’s offer today: “The offer is expected to include Trump’s $5.7 billion demand for wall money in exchange for the BRIDGE Act — which would extend protections for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) — and also legislation to extend the legal status of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, according to a source with direct knowledge.”

  169. 169.

    MomSense

    @JPL:

    Wet leaves and pine needles do the same. I’ve been behind leaf peepers who do that and then it screws everyone else.

  174. 174.

    WaterGirl

    We were supposed to get 8-10 inches starting at midnight, but we only got an inch or two and now snow is out of the forecast.

  176. 176.

    Gelfling 545

    @Yarrow: The use of inaccurate rather than false would seem to suggest they’re on to something, just not quite right. I feel reasonably certain that Mueller is quite familiar with shades of meaning.

  178. 178.

    Bill Arnold

    @Jeffro:

    I’m seeing an increasing number of stories about how it’s McConnell who is to blame, or for the shutdown and for enabling Trumpov in general.

    McConnell blatantly tried to peddle the falsehood that there is no way to put a bill into law except by Presidential signature.
    Journalists, many of them, noticed this. It’s the blatant falsehoods that get to people, eventually. McConnell doesn’t generally blatantly lie like DJT does (though that WaPo OpEd was getting close), so there’s more contrast.
    [Hopefully somebody else said this too; still working through thread]

  179. 179.

    tobie

    @Quinerly: I expected something like this. The Republicans are desperate to shift blame to the Democrats for the shutdown and are making an offer without consulting with the Democrats so they can look like they’re the ones who are being flexible. BRIDGE is not enough of a win for Dems for them to authorize $5.7 billion for a useless wall. I guess I would ask for full citizenship for all DACA recipients plus work permits and a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented. Throw reauthorization of CHIP in there, too. And reactivation of the independent council statute.

  181. 181.

    Emma

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The amazing thing is that, as the drummer continues to play almost as if he were in a trance, paying no attention to the little snot, the little snot’s smirk begins to look more and more forced. He expected one sort of reaction and he’s not getting it and he doesn’t know wtf to do next. The other morons behind him are losing interest and he’s stuck doing his disgusting act on camera.

  183. 183.

    opiejeanne

    @Immanentize: Thanks. Kind of a funny story about the idiot.

    I used to have an inflatable turkey that was the running gag on Thanksgiving for a couple of years, but it sprang a leak that we couldn’t locate, and since it only cost $2, we recycled it. Like this one:
    Inflatable turkey

  186. 186.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Gelfling 545: just typed out a long comment and got borked by the damn link button again, but I find myself persuaded by this, from Susan Simpson, a lawyer far more comfortable in the weeds of all the published legal stuff than I. My small brain reduces her argument to “Cohen was told to lie by the trump camp but not, as far we know/can prove at this time, by The Beast itself”.

    Susan Simpson @ TheViewFromLL2
    Anyway, that’s my theory on the Buzzfeed mess. SCO objected because its evidence is not about Trump personally phoning up Cohen and ordering him to tell a precise lie, which is how the Buzzfeed story was being read.

    Instead, what SCO most likely has is evidence of Cohen’s false testimony being coordinated by actors within Trump World, and Cohen getting his marching orders on what the party line was going to be. /end

    Two more points: First, my hunch is that the inclusion of the word “personally” is where Buzzfeed strayed here. If Trump gave instructions for what needed to be lied about, but someone else coordinated the messaging and passed word to Cohen, then Buzzfeed’s article is wrong.

  188. 188.

    Quinerly

    Think Trump has delayed his “event” an hr. MSNBC on in the background. (I’m feverishly mounting pennies for this penny mosaic bathroom floor??)

  189. 189.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @tobie: BRIDGE is not enough of a win for Dems for them to authorize $5.7 billion for a useless wall. I guess I would ask for full citizenship for all DACA recipients plus work permits and a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented.

    I agree, I’m not opposed to a deal, but it has to have more than the BRIDGE act as I understand it, and something that would take us out of these blackmail-able shutdown/fiscal cliff situations for the next two years

  193. 193.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Emma: @opiejeanne: If you follow the thread down to the broader shot that shows the full mob effect, it was a lot more than one snot-nose, there’s a group of them hopping up and down in unison and chanting in a way that reminds me of HS football teams getting psyched up. Like I said, junior Kavanaughs. I’m sure there’s at least one PJ in the group.

  194. 194.

    debbie

    @MomSense:

    Hope you’re feeling better soon. Stay put!

    Here, they’re predicting 11 inches. I got most of my shopping done yesterday, (and they were running out of stuff I don’t eat), but I woke up remembering the bread in my fridge was a month old and really should be replaced.. I walked to the store at about 8:30 and it was deserted. My neighborhood does not believe in rising early on weekends.

  199. 199.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Immanentize:
    Mueller did this once before, releasing a “Don’t believe everything you hear” statement. He doesn’t give a shit about gasbags farting ‘wisdom’ on TV. When a news story with falsehoods about his investigation becomes nationally accepted, he cares. And that’s a story about his investigation, not what he’s turned up. He doesn’t want people to think his team is leaking.

    @Bill Arnold:
    McConnell blatantly lies all the time. All. The. Time. This time is unusual precisely because he’s being called on it.

  200. 200.

    feebog

    @Elizabelle:

    This is coffee-flavored brandy. It is one of the odder stories of American imbibing, the number-one-for-20-years-running liquor obsession of Maine.

    Huh, never heard of the stuff, but it sounds truly awful. One of those regional oddities.

  202. 202.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @oldmold: Fuck you & your concerns with a rusty chainsaw. Why hasn’t your WATB arse been banhammered out past the Oort cloud? C’mon some random FPer, get rid of this coprolite!

  204. 204.

    Emma

    @opiejeanne: You are being extremely kind. He’s a Catholic. I want him shipped to a Siberian monastery, being forced to live on bread and water while assigned to the toilet cleaning detail. AND praying the canonical hours on his bare feet and a plain cotton tunic.

  205. 205.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Elizabelle: once saw a woman dump her cocktail on the head of a beer-drinking man who referred to the drink by its nickname, “fat ass in a glass.”

    that made me laugh. I was intrigued by coffee-flavored brandy but this sounds almost like an alcohol-pop. There’s an espresso flavored vodka made by Van Gogh that is deceptively dessert-like, and dangerous. Cause it’s vodka.

  207. 207.

    opiejeanne

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yes, but they were supposedly there for their own protest/march. Why are they pestering the Native Americans? and yes, the adults seem to approve of this behavior, which I don’t get at all. I don’t see what they’re trying to accomplish with this harassment of the drummer and others. Do they think they own the space and no one else should be allowed to use it?

  208. 208.

    Brachiator

    @Quinerly:

    Politico piece on what Trump probably will be offering:…

    But Hill sources and people close to the president expect — and, frankly, hope — the president will announce he is trading immigration policies Democrats and some Republicans have longed for — think DACA, temporary protective status for refugees

    Trump has dangled DACA before the Democrats before. So he is just retreating to a former position and calling it a big deal and potential breakthrough?

    In exchange for what?

  210. 210.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @opiejeanne:

    I don’t see what they’re trying to accomplish with this harassment of the drummer and others.

    They are trying to put them in their place, you know, at the “Colored” drinking fountain. At the take out window in the back of the Woolworth’s. They will never pass up an opportunity to sneer at people they think are less than them. Punching down is as reflexive as breathing.

  211. 211.

    Steeplejack

    @Amir Khalid:

    Heh, your Liverpudlian lads should consider themselves lucky today! They barely pulled out a squeaker against a fired-up Palace side.

  212. 212.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @opiejeanne: the school’s twitter account is protected. I wonder when they made that decision….

    ETA: the school is in Park Hills, KY, a suburb of Cincinnati , I’m guessing of the leafy variety?

  214. 214.

    Immanentize

    @MomSense: some of those new drinks are garbage.

    But speaking of the olds — I never liked a cream drink, although I was a master at the frozen daquiri!

  216. 216.

    Immanentize

    @WaterGirl: The Immp has school on Monday — it’s a mixed boarding/day high school so they have special programming all day on MLK Day. And the Immp complains bitterly when a snowstorm arrives on the weekend and the streets are cleared by Monday — he believes he is then “owed a snow day.” It looks like Monday, although already a holiday for most kids (also a point of injustice for the Immp) may end up being a snow/ice day because most towns will not waste the dollars really cleaning up until Monday.

    — I shouldn’t paint him in a bad light, the Immp hates to miss school. I think he has had maybe a half dozen sick days and 1 college visit day for the whole of highschool. He just wants more official days off.

  217. 217.

    Brachiator

    From the Politico piece on Trump’s possible afternoon offer:

    THE PRESIDENT is also hosting a naturalization ceremony at 1 p.m. in the Oval Office.

    So, the main speech will be short, followed by a ceremony for the type of people that Trump thinks are worthy of becoming citizens?

  218. 218.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Vincent Schilling @ VinceSchilling
    VIDEO: Outrage as non-Native youth wearing #MAGA hats taunt and disrespect Native elder

    The Native man is Nathan Phillips, an Omaha keeper of a sacred pipe and a Vietnam Veteran.

  220. 220.

    Bill Arnold

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    McConnell blatantly lies all the time. All. The. Time.

    By blatant here, I mean something that can be refuted within a second by retrieving a memory. Like the time DJ Trump said that the NYC exchanges reopened on 2001/09/12. (NYSE was 2001/09/17). Just now I felt compelled to fucking fact check it again. (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-27/trump-says-grasso-opened-nyse-the-day-after-9-11-he-didn-t); blatant gaslighting of this sort is … to be fought, hard. (With Trump, it’s made-up-facts and challenging the viewer to disbelieve him, e.g. Quick! What Is 17 Times 6? (from 2006, when DJT’s brain worked better that it does now.)
    But yeah, it’s really good to see the pushback on McConnell’s current BS.

  222. 222.

    WaterGirl

    @Immanentize: I completely see the Immp’s point. The snow messes up his personal time.

    It’s like getting sick on a day that was supposed to be a vacation day. It’s not fair!

    Oh, and I’m pretty sure none of us will live to see the day that you paint the Immp in a bad light. :-)

  224. 224.

    Brachiator

    @Immanentize:

    Speech is at 3 so he can yell about people who did it the “right” way.

    Thanks. I had not seen the stuff about the change in speech time. I guess he is going to be conferring with Pence, Jared and some of the GOP leadership later today as well.

    What a mess. Doesn’t seem like much of a coherent offer here, and Trump wants the Democrats to react to his offer, but not be able to directly negotiate with him.

  225. 225.

    Ken

    As long as the Democratic response is “Fine, we’ll talk about that later. Now the Senate needs to pass the funding bills currently before it – which should be no problem since they’re the same as the one they unanimously passed in December – to reopen the government.”

  227. 227.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Ken: Agreed. “We’re happy to see that the President is now making offers rather than just demanding his own ineffective and wasteful policies. We will consider his request for wall funding in exchange for these basic human protections after he agrees to re-open the government, something he has said repeatedly he wants to do.”

  228. 228.

    Amir Khalid

    @Steeplejack:
    Liverpool have injury troubles in defence of late, which have left them with makeshift defenders like the midfielder Fabinho. And they know Palace is always a tough match because Palace defend against them with two rows of five. A season ago they would hav lost a match like this, but this time they hung on and won despite Milner’s late red card.

  231. 231.

    MomSense

    @Immanentize:

    There is a knitwear designer in your town who goes by Baby Cocktails – all her designs are named for drinks. Anyway she makes amazing cocktails. Her feed on Instagram is amazing. Her name is Thea Colman.

  232. 232.

    J R in WV

    @Quinerly:

    Regarding the MAGA Catholic boys from the all-boy high school in northern Kentucky/Cincinnati suburbs, what business did they have at a Women’s March for Pro-Life Lies? The “adults” supposed to be supervising the boys all seemed to go AWOL when their boys went off in public so shamefully.

    Perhaps the school administration will change dramatically next week? New principle? New councilors, new parents in charge of boys’ trips?

    Catholics seem to come in two big flavors, good hearted people willing to help others out when needed, and right-wing haters burning with a white-hot hate for everyone not willing to get down and worship the ground those haters stand on. Guess which crowd I dislike most….

  233. 233.

    WaterGirl

    @J R in WV: I know, I know!

    On a different note, I woke up thinking of you guys this morning. I’m sure you are plodding on through it, but it’s so hard to lose a beloved member of the family, furry or otherwise.

  234. 234.

    J R in WV

    @WaterGirl:

    Aw, thanks. We do still have 2 cats and a younger bigger white dog. Who is going to act out a little bit, probably. Alice went out at 6 am in the predawn darkness and just did come back from next door.

    So muddy! Rain and 40 here.

  235. 235.

    WaterGirl

    @J R in WV: You just never know how the other guys will react.

    Years ago, I thought my cocker spaniel would be absolutely devastated when he lost his big brother. But no. He initially acted light as air, as if he was relieved that his beloved AC had gone to a better place.

    But after a couple of weeks he got a skin condition that we just couldn’t fix, and he started walking with a limp that the vet could not find a cause for. That lasted for months until we got another dog. The limp was miraculously gone the next day, and the skin condition cleared up like magic.

    You just never know.

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