Howard Schultz, the former CEO of Starbuck’s and another rich white guy who thinks that is enough to be president, joined Twitter today. He has three tweets so far.
Look at those ratios! I am much less worried about his candidacy than I was this morning.
Open thread!
Jeffro
F you, Howard. If you want to run in the center, then you run for the nomination of the center-center party – THE DEMS.
sdhays
OMG, we need another rich white guy to “share [his] truth”. I am so sick rich people being afforded the luxury of being able to share their “truth” with everyone and get paid for it.
Finally, some indication that no one’s buying this shit.
Yarrow
His campaign will go nowhere. At most it’ll take votes from Trump as those Republicans who are embarrassed by Trump are happy to vote for a rich white guy.
Cheryl Rofer
I should probably add a few responses that didn’t even make it into the ratio.
Amir Khalid
If you love your country, Mr Scultz, why did you dedicate your life to overcharging it for burned coffee? Answer me that.
WaterGirl
What are the first 2 symbols?
The third one is obviously a heart, so that would be likes
Baud
A chicken in every pot.
A frappachino in every cup.
Cheryl Rofer
@WaterGirl: Comments and retweets. When the comments approach or exceed retweets + likes, it’s usually because the comments are negative.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
My father is worried that Trump and the Republicans will somehow turn public opinion around on the Wall issue in 3 weeks. That Trump caving was a ploy or tactic, and pointed to Mick Mulvaney’s appearance on Meet the Press/Nation (?).
I’m skeptical, honestly. There’s a better chance Trump will declare a national emergency than turning public opinion against the Dems on “border security”.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Baud:
Tippecanoe and Howie too!
Cheryl Rofer
Jeffro
Hey Howard, NO health care system is free, and that’s not what Dems’ various proposals entail.
But you centrist savior you, Howard, why dontcha tell me why we pay twice as much (per capita) in this country and get the same or worse outcomes? Any thoughts on that?
Jackass
Mary G
Well, I just told him Ross Perot looked OK at first, then turned out to be a paranoid loon, and his fate will be the same if he does this. Part of me wants to go back and give him several more pieces of my mind, but I have better things to do with my time.
Yarrow
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Speaking of declaring a National Emergency:
Cheryl Rofer
It’s kinda nice to get interviews on 60 minutes AND the New York Times for your hobby.
HalfAssedHomesteader
Child, please!
Elizabelle
What a douche.
I am Starbucks free until this douche exits the race. (Not that I am a big customer. Prefer other “luxuries” spending.) He still owns a heck of a lot of Starbucks stock.
Also, didn’t we hear a while back that Dunkin Donuts is the preferred coffee of the GOP and Trump set, and Starbucks is for Dems? Kind of think so. Way to self-pwn, Howard.
Mary G
Ooh, this sounds good:
Dorothy A. Winsor
If a rich guy really wants to help the country, he’ll buy Fox news
Elizabelle
Rescue dogs.
Much more lovable than Howard the Delusional.
Cheryl Rofer
Cheryl Rofer
Since he’s over there and not here,
Elizabelle
But for anyone who still goes to Starbucks, maybe complete lack of choice in your neck of the woods: Be sure to give them your name as
Have them announce it. Loudly. Feign poor hearing if you must. Have them repeat it, louder.
Immanentize
I think Howard’s campaign motto should be:
“Pwn the libs, vote for Schultz!”
Amir Khalid
This is more or less that time in the presidential cycle when the vanity candidates show up, so I suppose Howard is right on schedule.
WaterGirl
@Cheryl Rofer: Got it! So the first tweet has a good ratio for him, but the other two do not bode well for him. thanks
Quinerly
Never been to a Starbucks. Never had Starbucks. Generally have a policy against chains (I have mentioned never been to McDonald’s or Burger King, either). Only frequent local, independent coffee houses, especially seeking them out when I travel. This guy sounds like a jerk. I don’t see his candidacy going far.
Ian R
@Elizabelle: That seems very unlikely, given Dunkin Donuts is primarily a Northeast chain.
ThresherK
@Cheryl Rofer: That’s a Tall order.
(i’ll show myself out)
Suzanne
I am so entirely and in all ways over this bullshit brain fart that someone who ran a business, large or small, is qualified to be the fucking POTUS. Like, come the fuck on.
Baud
@Cheryl Rofer: Twitter is too complicated for me.
WaterGirl
@Cheryl Rofer: The end of the first paragraph in Cole’s tweet made me snort out loud.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Yarrow:
Some have said, derisively of Rs, that they’re afraid of the tweet. I think that’s true. Some of these “moderate” Goopers aren’t totally insane, but they fear being singled out by Trump in a tweet. Why? Trump still has a very high approval rating with the R base and they would likely turn on anybody seen opposing Trump.
Cheryl Rofer
@WaterGirl: Nope, they’re all bad. I had to take a screenshot to get the numbers. The first is not as bad as the other two in the numbers up top, but at the moment it’s 3410: 245+1440. All are getting worse. You can find them at @HowardSchultz.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
Also Dunkin Donuts has better coffee than Starbucks imo. Suck on that Sgt. Schultz!
hells littlest angel
In other news:
Starbucks branches currently operate in 9 Russian cities. You can find Starbucks in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Krasnodar, Sochi, Yaroslavl, Ekaterinburg, Tyumen and Samara, according to the company’s Facebook page.
Plato
@Cheryl Rofer:
Ugh. Trust bs bot weigel to paint bs as ‘far left progressive’.
Juju
I wouldn’t vote for Schultz until he learns how to make decent coffee, and even then, probably not. Cheap beans roasted to a burnt tire flavor doesn’t cut it. I am impressed that he’s convinced so many people that this is good coffee, but he doesn’t seem to have any more an idea of how government works than the current occupant of the White House. So nope.
Yarrow
@Cheryl Rofer: They buy cheap beans and burn them. Then everyone loads their coffee up with sugar, flavor and cream or milk/milk substitute to hide the crappy flavor. Win for them.
sdhays
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: They’ve had 3 years and 2 elections to convince the public that the wall is absolutely critical, but for 2 years he couldn’t even convince his own caucus that it was a priority when they had total control. Hell, he could have had his wall in 2018 (with $25 billion!), but he blew up his own deal of DACA for Wall by larding it up with poison pills – the same poison pills he put in his “compromise” last week. So even he doesn’t consider the wall important enough to give up anything for it.
If there was a magic way to change everyone’s mind about the wall, they would already have deployed it long ago. Back in reality, the ASSet is still dumbfounded as to why his grand hostage plan totally failed. Wall is dead. The best Trump can get will be fence repair. The only question is: is he smart enough to take it and try to move on?
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Baud:
But how will you ever be the Supreme Leader of these United States without mastering the Twittertron?! A lonely, paranoid nation turns it’s eyes to you!
Sister Golden Bear
OT: But since people could use some levity while taking a break from over-burnt coffee, it’s been a while since we’ve had a Floriduh Man story:
Remind me not to drink the water if I ever have to visit again….
Immanentize
@Plato:
Aha! Cornerstone!
Gwangung
Howie knows as much about medical care systems as he does about running sports teams.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Immanentize:
Sorta related. I wonder what happened to TenguPhule?
Ajabu
I’m a lifelong Democrat and have had Starbucks coffee once. (When someone bought me a cup)
Leaned my lesson immediately.
I’m also a lifelong coffee drinker. And I make wonderful coffee at home. As the trombone player said when he missed the bus,”I rest my case.”
chris
Read somewhere that Schultz thinks the debt/deficit is the greatest threat facing the country. I laughed.
Trump, Macron and some of the British twits should have put paid to the idea that government should be run like a business by a businessman but I guess hope springs eternal.
Luthe
I know it’s a radical position to take, but I want someone who has actually worked in government to run the government.
(out of those candidates who do have governing experience, I want someone with good taste in personnel and decent policy positions)
Immanentize
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Although he had a penchant for the elimanitive, and an odd Israel thing going, he at least cared about his fellow commenters.
Mary G
Apparently the Jersey Whale also claims in his book that Twitler asked him to be VP more than once. Yeah, pull the other one, Chris.
dmsilev
The last two businessmen to be President were both disasters. Why should we take a chance on another one?
JR
I was never worried about his candidacy
Step one in being a candidate is having a constituency
schrodingers_cat
I don’t particularly care for coffee, but WTF is chai tea? Chai is tea, derived from Cha (tea in Chinese) chai tea is like saying tea tea.
/end rant.
Snarki, child of Loki
At last, the No Labels+Unite America candidate that they’ve been waiting for.
In other news, the word “gullible” is STILL in the dictionary.
sdhays
@chris: It’s always “interesting” how these rich guys who have more money than sense consider the debt/deficit the greatest threat facing the country, but it never involves people like them losing big chunks of their wealth. It’s always a burden that “the country”, aka the poor and middle class, needs to shoulder.
Elizabelle
@JR: LOL. Having a constituency.
Shades of Alexander Haig (remember him?) when folks were saying “I never could figure out his constituency — retired military officers?”
trollhattan
“Schultz presidency run galvanizes na
tionil.”Let me dig out my Sonics jersey before commenting. Here’s hoping he grabs George Shultz as VP.
Glorious bumper stickers–“Schultz-Shultz 20-20: I’m so confused.”
Ken
@Sister Golden Bear:
So Roger Stone gets a pass?
Gwangung
@sdhays: John Rogers’ comment about tech bros and their wealth also applies to other new wealth folks….
Yarrow
Is there going to be a PPV fight between Howard Schultz, Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg? Are there other billionaires entering the race that I’ve forgotten about? Is there going to be a Centrist Independent Billionaire Primary?
Gbbalto
@Amir Khalid: This 100 times
ETA I am trying to wean my brother at least to Areopress
Jeffro
The comments are about 95/5 brutal
?BillinGlendaleCA
@schrodingers_cat: It’s like the La Brea Tar Pits.
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan:
“I KNOW NOTHINK!”
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Just a way of offering tea with all the spices in it. Yet more marketing.
Mary G
@Jeffro: The 5% are from people who work for him.
schrodingers_cat
@Yarrow: It bears no resemblance to the real masala chai (spicy tea) and tastes horrible, besides having an obviously stupid name, tea tea.
raven
@Yarrow: Watch the ref in this fight.
MomSense
@Cheryl Rofer:
That is pure Cole poetry.
gene108
You sold the Sonics to an Oklahoma oil man, who everybody KNEW was going to move the team to Oklahoma.
That shows a serious lack of consideration for the people in your town. And now you expect us to believe you won’t sell the country out to the highest bidder?
Phat chance!
JanieM
@Ian R: I remember reading some years ago that Boston had more Dunkin Donuts shops (per capita? per sq mi? I forget) than Seattle had Starbucks. I live in rural Maine, and the nearest town of any size has a population of about 17,000 (admittedly with lots of people commuting into town for work) and six Dunkins. (Also two Starbucks and a Barnes and Noble, which sells Starbucks coffee. I don’t know how many independent outfits; I’m not a coffee drinker and I do my hanging out where there are books. Mostly B&N.)
eemom
I also dislike Starbucks. Even the air in the place smells burned.
The question then becomes, why the fuck was it as successful as it is, such as to enable a termite like this guy to emerge from the woodwork?
Immanentize
@schrodingers_cat:
Rio Grande River. Same problem.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: I agree. But they’ve marketed it successfully, just like they’ve marketed all sorts of other crappy products. One thing Starbucks is pretty good at is offering cheap, not-great products at inflated prices and making people want them enough to stand in line to get them.
Mr Stagger Lee
Howard The Fcuk ran the Seattle SuperSonics into the toilet then sold the team to some Oklahoma businessmen who then moved them to OKC. Fcuk Howard Shultz Hijo de Puta!
WaterGirl
@Cheryl Rofer: Good! I was just going by the numbers from the tweets you showed at the top.
Chief Oshkosh
@Cheryl Rofer: Why are so many people trying to convince me that Warren is far left? She’s nothing of the sort, as far as i can tell. She’s simply done the math and is trying to point out that there are few option for getting us out of the current Ponzi scheme. Along the way she’s also pointing out the players and the structure of the Ponzi scheme, but again, that’s not being a far left wacko. That’s just pointing out realities.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: Just so you know, bratwurst in the US is not the same as bratwurst in Germany.
gene108
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
TRUTH!!!!
Mr Stagger Lee
@gene108: Missed your post, Mea Culpa MeaCulpa, Mea Maximum Culpa.
chris
@Chief Oshkosh: Anyone who suggests raising taxes is a Communist!!!! Or Worse!!!//
gene108
@eemom:
Lots of other people apparently like it a lot. I do not think the commentariat here is representative of a large swath of society
WaterGirl
@chris: Is it wrong if I think we should just lock up all the billionaire’s?
Omnes Omnibus
@gene108: The number of people here who say they have never eaten at a McDonald’s indicates that.
chris
FFS. (thread)
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: So? What does that have to do with anything. Am I not supposed to have a negative opinion of a sub par Starbucks product.
chris
@WaterGirl: Not at all. Please be sure to get all the money ;-)
gene108
@Mr Stagger Lee: @Mr Stagger Lee:
Great minds think alike ????
The state of WA and city of Seattle should stage an unending protest, if he actually runs, in front of his main campaign office everyday because of the sale to the Sonics.
He was arrogant enough to view the Sonics as just another business investment and was hell bent on maximizing ROI, instead of fielding good teams or letting professionals run the organization.
If his only foray outside of selling coffee was an abject failure, because he thought he could run a basketball team like a Starbucks. I do not trust him to run a country.
Our last two CEO Presidents are the worst in my lifetime. I don’t want try a third times the charm experiment with that asshat
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat:
I would have thought that it was obvious, but, if not, just take it as information that may some day be handy to have.
I have never had a chai from Starbucks so I have no opinion on its quality.
gene108
@schrodingers_cat:
Partly marketing, and partly because Americans never thought of making tea with a lot of milk.
I think Americans have some distinction in their mind about the quantity of milk in tea that constitutes what their idea of tea should be, and Indian chai has a lot more milk than what they think is appropriate for actual tea.
Thus, since a distinction already existed, marketers exploited to up charge one type of tea versus another.
Searcher
There comes a time in every aging rich white guy’s life when you realize your obituary / Wikipedia entry is looking a little thin, and you need to pad it out.
gene108
@schrodingers_cat:
Rio is Mexican for River.
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
Just like American pizza isn’t much like the Italian real deal.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: Is one real and the other not?
Wolvesvalley
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
And “the hoi polloi”
Suzanne
@gene108:
Um no. This is definitely a narrow slice.
Fair Economist
@chris: Schultz says the debt is the greatest threat facing the country because it’s a threat to *him*. The government can always pay by raising taxes, and now that the rich have taken almost everything, it mean *he* will have to pay. So of course granny needs to eat pet food.
plato
Looks like Kamala Harris had a yuuuge campaign launch.
Hope she wins. A POC woman prez would go a long way in redeeming america’s name and would likely stroke out many rw’ers. A twofer.
Yarrow
@raven: Heh. That’s great. That’s me at the Billionaire PPV fight.
Fair Economist
@eemom: Starbucks was successful because when it hit it big, it was better than any other chain store’s coffee. It is still better than the blecherous stuff in most restaurants.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
They’re both the same amount of real.
— said by eedaughter to eeson back when they were little kids, in retort to the challenge “My backpack is realer than your backpack.”
geg6
@Yarrow:
To be fair to Steyer, he said he’s not running.
TS (the original)
@Cheryl Rofer: NYT still carrying water for trump. They are disgusting
chris
@Fair Economist: Yep. He’ll be picking both Bowles and Simpson as running mates. They all agree that raising taxes would destroy the world as they know it.
The Moar You Know
I worked for Starbucks a long time ago when he was the CEO. I can tell you this; if that company reflects his vision of society, he is looking to create a three-class, strictly segregated “cult of personality state” as frankly I imagine North Korea to be.
Corporate vs. stores vs. customers. Corporate tells the stores what to do and how, the stores get zero input on anything. The customers abuse everyone. It was quite an experience.
@Amir Khalid: It will probably make you very happy to know that the employees, in-house, refer to it as “charbucks”.
WaterGirl
@chris: Since when do we have to carry papers in the United States of America??????
Ksmiami
@WaterGirl: that’s not as fun as confiscating 70 percent of their wealth even though it would be oddly satisfying.
Chyron HR
“The time is now. The Nazis and the Jews are more divided than ever, and only I can find the sensible centrist common ground.”
MisterForkbeard
@plato: She did very well. Well enough that I’m seeing coordinated pushback from the usual suspects (BernieBros and conservatives). The interesting thing to me is that they’re both centering on dating Willie Brown (though the Bros are also talking about not being a perfect progressive, then applying a standard to her they won’t apply towards Bernie).
I’m seeing a ton of sexism in this already. Apparently no one is ever allowed to respect her because she dated Willie Brown and he admitted to trying to help her in her first race for a city-level position.
plato
WaterGirl
@Ksmiami: You guys never let me do anything *fun.
*Not that it wouldn’t be fun to take 70% of their wealth.
Hob
@Plato: I’m sure that from Weigel’s point of view, Sanders is as far left as left gets. We’re talking about a guy who voted for Ron Paul and Gary Johnson, and who said that the problem with McCain was that McCain wouldn’t be tough enough to stand up to Democrats, and that his idea of a really good Republican Presidential candidate would be Bob fucking Barr. That’s just off of his Wikipedia because right now I can’t remember all the other ridiculous shit Weigel has said. He’s not bad in terms of just writing and reporting facts, but he’s extremely politically confused.
Chyron HR
@Cheryl Rofer:
BERNIE
WOULDA WONWILLDA WIN!tomtofa
@eemom: Think adult milkshakes.
Few people order actual coffee there; it’s generally hot or cold coffee-based beverages with great amounts of flavoring, sugar, whipped cream. etc.
Jay
@eemom:
Because you could get an “ethnic” coffee drink outside of “ethnic” areas and in places where “coffee” passes as 4 hour old drip still sitting on the burner, or lightly flavoured water in a cup.
Hope, which is mostly a gas station on The Highway from Hell had 4 Starbucks decades before The Peoples Republic of East Vancouver had even one. Of course, it what became Little Italy, then The Peoples Republic of East Van, you could get a cappuchino to go from one of 18 storefronts back in 1902 when they were paving the streets with end grain Douglas Fir.
chris
@WaterGirl: Good question. A bar code would be easier, no?
Elizabelle
@The Moar You Know:
Charbucks. LOL.
chris
@Ksmiami:
Centrist! Take it all!
WaterGirl
@chris: Maybe they could tattoo something? I bet no one has ever thought of that. :: big angry sigh ::
Kay
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Trump operating in a vacuum is over. Everything he does or says there will be a response- a substantive response, where things happen- things like not giving him money for his wall or threatening to take his dumb speech away.
That period of his presidency is over. They all get two years and then they have to deal with reality, and the reality is he’s really unpopular and he lost the House. Trump had longer than most because Republicans utterly and completely abandoned any pretense of congressional independence, so as usual he got an unearned gimmee. But that’s over.
Now it gets hard for him, and he was barely performing the job when he had no opposition. Jared Kushner is his BEST negotiator. That’s the cream of the crop among the low quality hires. The rest are WORSE.
joel hanes
@Omnes Omnibus:
bratwurst in the US is not the same as bratwurst in Germany.
Unless you patronize Dittmer’s Gourmet Meats and Wurst Haus, which sells three varieties of echte Deutsche bratwurst (fine-minced, medium-minced, and Nurnberger).
That said, the Champion Bratwurst from Meisfeld’s in Sheboygan is a very fine foodstuff indeed.
No Web ordering, but the nice lady will be happy to take your order over the phone.
Mandalay
@schrodingers_cat:
I’ve never heard of “chai tea” either. In what context was it used? Is it possibly referring to Indian tea as opposed to Chinese tea?
Just to confuse things further, in London “cup of cha” is a very widely used phrase for referring to a cup of Indian (not Chinese) tea, or at least it was twenty or thirty years ago. I never heard anyone say “cup of chai“, even though Indian tea dominated the market.
joel hanes
@Amir Khalid:
American pizza isn’t much like the Italian real deal
ba.food once fell into a three-month rathole discussion of what constituted an “authentic” burrito
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
I don’t drink coffee so have never tasted their product but have been told by reliable tasters that it is crap. I did however used to travel a bit with a person who had to stop at the start of every trip and get her 3 cup mug filled. So I have had smoothies and blueberry scones or whatever they are and that’s not all that bad. Wouldn’t walk in without the addict though and now this so no more starbucks for me.
Just wondered if one can find anything in the US any more that hasn’t been touched by a wealthy asswipe. All the chains and big box stores seem to have the disease.
Jay
@Mandalay:
Chai tea is a milk, sugar and spice rich tea concoction served hot, cold or as a slurpee in many North American fast food/coffee/gas stations/quickee marts.
MisterForkbeard
@Mandalay: “Chai Tea” is just explanatory to people, and it gives a general idea of what kind of tea it is (not “traditional” american, basically). I hear it fairly often in the bay area, where people should know better.
Thoughtful David
@schrodingers_cat: Interesting bit of near-useless knowledge: in Portuguese, the word for tea is cha, obvs directly from the Chinese. It also appears as a root in the various Japanese words for teas, like bancha, sencha, etc. Somehow the Brits, French and Spanish got to calling it tea/the/te, but the vast majority of people in the world who drink tea call it cha or chai or some variant of that.
hilts
@Hob:
Dave Weigel is a pretty dim bulb as far as I can tell.
@Kay:
i look forward to the Kushmeister using his negotiation skills after he lands in the slammer.
Redshift
Anyone who, after the past two years, launches a campaign on a bothsiderist theme is actively on the side of evil.
His constituency is centrist pundits, which is good enough to get on TV, but not enough to get a significant number of votes. He’s also likely making the mistake of believing that most Independents are centrist, because they don’t affiliate with either party
Mandalay
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Trump’s cunning plan is to publicly fantasize about women being tied up and silenced with duct tape in the back of a van to win the serial rapist vote.
That will surely turn public opinion, but your father need not worry.
TomatoQueen
@joel hanes: It is in New Haven.
Kay
@Ruckus:
I feel like Starbucks successfully conned people. IMO they understaff their stores and because it’s supposedly a higher end product rather than regular fast food people don’t figure it out it takes too long because they don’t have enough people behind the counter. If they were perceived to be a fast food chain (which they are) people would think “why does it take so fucking long to get a medium coffee?”
JR
@eemom: Before Starbucks, most of America — pretty much all of it that was east of the Rockies — drank burned, stale coffee from drip coffee makers. People can bitch about Starbucks for many justifiable reasons but they basically made “good coffee” a thing for most of the country.
JWR
@Ruckus:
Peet’s? I know they’re expanding, and I haven’t been to a Peet’s in like forever, but at least the few people I know who’d been to the original Peet’s, (in Berzerkeley? Oakland?), always said it was way better than Charbucks.
pluky
Boston local here:
Dunkin’s for hot coffee
Au Bon Pain for iced
Starbucks – are you kidding? I drink it (hot or iced) black, no sugar. Their burnt shit is nasty!
JR
@joel hanes: Authenticity is fucking overrated. Good food is good food.
Ilefttxwhenannlost
@MisterForkbeard:
The same can be said for gavin newsom…except the dating part
Kay
@JR:
That’s true. I love coffee and I credit them with cardboard cups, which, come on, are better than styrofoam. They moved coffee cup technology forward.
They’d still be giving us those horrible cups without these visionaries and we wouldn’t know to complain :)
Jay
@JR:
?????? except, it was overroasted.
But lot’s of little places that hadn’t had a good cup of coffee since the chuck wagon had rolled on, had for once, real coffee.
And once there was a Starbucks in town, everbody had to up their coffee game, including many locals who learned how to make better coffee than Starbucks.
MisterForkbeard
@joel hanes: Weirdly enough, one of the best burritos I’ve ever had was a from this weird little mexican place near my work that would make a gorgonzola burrito with any meat or mix of veggies you wanted. By default it was chicken, gorgonzola, mushrooms, rice, beans, salsa and a couple other things. I have NO idea why it was as fantastic as it was. It should have been terrible.
Kirk Spencer
@JR: Unless, of course, you bought your coffee at Dunkin’s. But yeah, that was the start. And some honestly smart marketing was the major push upward.
MisterForkbeard
@Ilefttxwhenannlost: I haven’t seen a big push against Newsom, but that’s probably because I haven’t seen a big push FOR him either. I don’t think he has anyone super excited for him, though I could be wrong.
Harris seems to check a lot of boxes for big parts of the electorate, so she’s got a big target on her back.
JWR
@Redshift:
Back when most Dems (I’m looking at you, DiFi!) gave Bush the Smaller their blessing for his war of choice in Iraq, I re-registered as a “Decline To State” voter, mainly out of pique. I’ve long since returned to the Dem party because of, well, reality.
catclub
@Amir Khalid:
Doesn’t he treat the whole world that way. Esp China at the moment?
JR
@Kirk Spencer: I am a Boston native who never cared for Dunkins coffee. Always liked their chocolate glazed, though.
Ilefttxwhenannlost
@MisterForkbeard:
Gavin isn’t running in 2020…pretty sure he will later
Harris is excellent and yes checks lots of boxes…part of why she is excellent
catclub
@Redshift:
if a fake billionaire can get hours and hours of free Cable new coverage, think how many hours a real billionaire should get.
Although once Bloomberg is running too, they might get confused.
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
I look at it this way: American pizza really is American, but Italian pizza is actually das Echte.
Elizabelle
Did a jackal put up this comment on the WaPost story about Schultz’s possible run?
The WaPost’s suckworthy headline:
Wankers. The Democrats just lose all the time, don’t they?
ETA: I love the way the WaPost commenter got around its software with d!cks. Adding that to my repertoire.
Kay
I don’t understand announcing “seriously considering”. If he feels so strongly about it shouldn’t he have decided or just stay quiet until he does? Am I supposed to help him make his Big Earnest life decisions?
These people are insufferable, how seriously they take themselves. Get in line, buddy. You’re behind the Mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
Redshift
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: You’re right to be skeptical. Any worry based on the idea that Trump is doing something subtle and clever is bunk.
Trump isn’t going to turn public opinion against Dems on immigration because Dems have actual plans for addressing the real issues at the border, and all Trump has are racist slogans that, as has been shown repeatedly, don’t convince anyone beyond the racists who already support him.
Matt McIrvin
@JanieM: My Massachusetts city has a population of 63,000 and nine Dunkins (the nearest one used to be within easy walking distance but recently moved a little way down the street), so I guess that’s not quite as extreme a ratio. Only two Starbucks, one of which is inside a Target store.
wasabi gasp
In three emojis or less describe how you feel about Hillary blowing 2020. #stillbitter
Ruckus
@MisterForkbeard:
There is a place in East LA, El Tapeyac that makes a burrito called a Hollenbeck that is like that only the meat is pork. Not long ago we went for lunch in Covina to a small place that had a burrito called the Hollenbeck and the owner told me that it was inspired by El Tapeyac. Best as I can remember and with almost no taste left, the same. Extremely good and huge. It’s lunch and dinner all in one.
Jay
@Kay:
They also pushed china cups for instore, reusable cups for takeout.
Omnes Omnibus
@wasabi gasp: Fuck off. Did I get it right?
Matt McIrvin
@Redshift: I think a lot of Americans have an intuition that most other Americans are more anti-immigration than they actually are. Partly that is because they used to be. In particular there was a big upsurge in anti-immigrant sentiment after 9/11, but it’s gone now.
And of course Trump has emboldened xenophobes to act like they have a majority behind them.
JanieM
@Matt McIrvin: Yes, one of the ones I mentioned is inside a Target store too.
Redshift
@catclub:
I guess we’ll soon have an answer to the question of whether Trump got hours of free cable news coverage because he was a rich successful businessman or because he was an outrageous racist asshole whose one real skill is making people pay attention to him. I know which answer I’d bet on.
MisterForkbeard
@wasabi gasp: Sadly, theres no emoji for a question as stupid or unprovoked as this one.
BroD
Oh yeah, I remember Starbucks from back in the day–tried it, even. Is it still in business?
Jay
@MisterForkbeard: m
It’s just shit stirring by a troll.
wasabi gasp
@Omnes Omnibus: getting shit right ain’t your bag, dog.
wasabi gasp
@MisterForkbeard: check the newz.
MisterForkbeard
@Jay: Oh, I know. Some news group posted yet another poorly sourced BS article about how Hillary was thinking of getting into the race (she isn’t and has said so repeatedly) and Awful Troll over here thinks he can get a big rise out of people. Woo.
People like him are we need an eye roll emoji in the new version of balloon juice.
Omnes Omnibus
@wasabi gasp: And yet, you should still fuck off.
Kay
@Jay:
I have been drinking take out coffee long enough that there were cardboard cups, then they disappeared replaced with horrible styrofoam, then they reappeared with Starbucks. It’s funny how it changes. My mother in law gave me her giant set of “party” china from the 1950’s (she used to have huge parties, like, regularly) and the coffee cups and soup bowls look tiny.
I like black, slightly bitter coffee and Starbucks is fine – McDonalds is also good. I’m just so, so sick of these billionaires. Can’t he just be a wildly successful coffee merchant? Does he have to be a philosopher-king too?
wasabi gasp
@MisterForkbeard:
BJ assurance is a bad omen.
JWR
@Ruckus:
Oh yeah. Had many of those, usually on that small outdoors patio area. I think there was one in Eagle Rock, (maybe HP?), as well. In any case, the one in ELA rocked.
MisterForkbeard
@Omnes Omnibus: Its cool man! He just started talking about pie all the time now. Seems like a reasonable guy now. :)
encephalopath
If we wanted to pay off the national debt, we would pay off the national debt. Raise taxes on the top end and do it. There’s no mystery there. It’s not a difficult problem to solve. We could do it at any moment and were really close to doing it 30 years ago with a relatively modest top tax rate.
The only reason it hasn’t been done is that deficit peacocks need the deficit so they can go out in front of the cameras and get their deficit peacock on. Do what AOC suggested and we could pay the debt off in a hurry. Or in addition, implement Universal Healthcare and invest in higher education such that future generations aren’t impoverished with education debt and pay the debt down slightly slower.
We don’t need a Captain of Industry to save us from the national debt. We just need to stop pretending that we don’t know where the money is.
wasabi gasp
@Omnes Omnibus: boogie down, dog.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xqMY8UAGgg
Elizabelle
@Kay: Philosopher king. LOL.
I love your comments. You are not wrong about Howard and the billionaire boyz club.
dmsilev called him “Daddy Starbucks” on the new Adam thread.
Procopius
@schrodingers_cat: Well, Chai is a Hindi word, although you are right that it’s derived from Chinese. The difference is the spices that are added.
I believe a Chinese would be horrified at polluting good tea with those. Black peppercorns? I have no idea what Starbucks put in their Chai tea. I’m not even sure they sell it here in Thailand. I think it was last year, but it might have been the year before, I was in a Starbucks inside a shopping mall while I had to wait for a couple of hours for a niece to finish whatever she was doing there. I find their Coffee of the Day OK, but my taste buds were pretty well destroyed by sixty years of smoking and I usually drink instant coffee.
Procopius
@sdhays: The rich never seem to notice that “the debt” is also the entire national stock of interest-paying treasury bonds, which is an asset with an enormous demand. Also, too, the five times we seriously reduced the “debt” it caused a massive depression. The last time, under Clinton, we were luckier than the previous four times, in that the recession is caused was milder, but it has never failed.
Jay
@Procopius:
There should be a law against that.
I use a Bodum, also known as a French Press, 454 Horsepower Kicking Horse coffee, medium fresh grind, takes 5 minutes.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr2OVWFUJsI
If I had millions, I think there’s about 9 million projects I could spend the money on to fluff my Wiki, have a real impact on lives, than a vanity Political stunt.
Been doing it that way for over 40 years.
Darkrose
@eemom: Because their coffee is fine for people who don’t like coffee. Burnt beans don’t bother me much because I loathe black coffee and I’m just going to put a ton of stuff in it anyway. Also, Starbucks has better breakfast sandwiches than McDonald’s.
And there’s the advantage of chains: it’s familiar. No matter where I go, a Starbucks peppermint mocha will taste like a Starbucks peppermint mocha.
Darkrose
@JR: I lived in Boston for 13 years. I never liked Dunkin’s coffee but I always laugh at the idea that they’re the best ever when a “regular” includes milk and lots of sugar.
LC
@Thoughtful David: it’s based on where you got your tea. If it came over the silk road it was charged. But in port cities where the Dutch and English did business it was pronounced tea, so if it came overseas it was tea. (The Portuguese were in cha territory, so they didn’t get tea even if it came by boat.)
It’s the same word/character.
schrodingers_cat
@Procopius: For people from South Asia it is chai, whether or not it has spices. Tea with spices is masala chai. Masala chai is like flavored coffee, a treat, the staple is just hot tea with some milk and sugar. Masala == spice. It can be one spice, like cardamom or ginger or a mix of these two or more spices.
schrodingers_cat
@Procopius: For people from South Asia it is chai, whether or not it has spices. Tea with spices is masala chai. Masala chai is like flavored coffee, a treat, the staple is just hot tea with some milk and sugar. Masala == spice. It can be one spice, like cardamom or ginger or a mix of these two or more spices.