So, my daughter went to a Walmart earlier today (she wasn’t raised that way, but what can you do — it’s cheap), and there were cop cars all over the place. A man had been arrested for phoning in a mass shooting threat at that same Walmart right after the shootings in Texas and Ohio, so the kid wondered if another lunatic had phoned in a threat or worse. But nope, it turns out someone just stole a golf cart from a nearby trailer park and drove it into the store.
Welcome to Florida.
Here’s Badger sitting at the kitchen counter on a bar stool like a regular person.
He’s a good boy at the counter — never attempts to put his paws on the surface or lick anything — so it’s okay with me if he sits there. Poor Daisy is too old and fat to access bar seating. It doesn’t seem to occur to her, really. As long as treats are divided fairly (and they always are), she seems happy to lie on a rug instead.
MattF
Ah, youth. I used to sit on barstools, back in the day.
SiubhanDuinne
Badger has a very cute profile. And your house looks inviting and comfortable.
zhena gogolia
Set ’em up, Joe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en8Mwx1RJyQ
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m listening to Michael Isikoff’s new podcast series, Conspiracyland. This first episode is about the Seth Rich conspiracy theory. It’s pretty disgusting. How do these people sleep nights?
trollhattan
Our Dals, especially the boy, would sit with us at the dinner table. It was funny as hell once it stopped being peculiar. In winter a lap was much preferred, on accounta “We’ve got no fur, just look at us!” Dalmatians are lapdogs, y’all have been warned.
Just because shitgibbon is a moron, doesn’t mean he can’t still level devastation via his minions.
I want Teddy Roosevelt to come back and give these people the thrashing they richly deserve. Whether boxing or wrestling, he had a ring in the White House for just that.
prostratedragon
@trollhattan: Yeech, one of the areas where these “conservatives” have most worried me for a long time.
Also, from the end of the last thread:
More on the destruction of the USDA Economic Research Service.
danielx
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Quite well, I’m sure.
Betty Cracker
Fresh Iowa polls:
The story so far is Warren’s rise and Sanders’ plummet, both plot twists that I find pleasing! :)
Immanentize
@danielx:
I was thinking, “in a box with dirt from their Homeland.”
Jharp
A few years back we had a person arrested for drunk driving…. …..driving a Wal Mart shopping scooter.
Elizabelle
So: yesterday it was Peter Strzok, filing suit for reinstatement and damages. Today, it is Andrew McCabe.
WaPost, breaking:
I hope discovery is a bitch for the Trump (mal)administration.
And I hope the BLM career feds can slow walk any damage Pendley and his ilk want to do.
Elizabelle
@Immanentize: They are bloodsuckers.
How is young Immp today?
Jager
My mom’s younger brother, good ole Unca Jer, had both your dogs covered, several hours on the barstool (he wasn’t quiet) and the balance of the evening curled up on the rug. Aunt Dor, would sneer, “leave him there, I’ll stop by and get him in the morning”.
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
One of my very favourite songs. I’ll never forget Bette Midler crooning it to Johnny Carson on his last night as Tonight Show host.
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
Oh yes. Fully approve of this.
HAL
Reading a friend’s kumbaya Facebook post about not always being offended by someone else’s policital views and I responded for the first time in a long time. And damn that felt good. I know social media posting ain’t gonna change anyone’s mind, but Christ on a cracker, I am sick of Trump supporters constantly trying to separate their unadulterated support for that piece of shit as somehow not an endorsement for everything he does. Just because I support Trump doesn’t mean I’m a bigot! Yeah, sorry Stacy, but that’s exactly what it means.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
There are times I dare to dream that Iowa might be salvageable.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Dream, the Impossible Dream…
danielx
@trollhattan:
I am currently reading A Distant Mirror, by Barbara Tuchman, and that promoted me to learn more about the black plague. I’ve started to think of It as the Orange Bubo.
Ocotillo
Been away from BJ most of the day so I will throw this comment in that really applies more to the previous one. Two things:
I would like to see other lists of maxed out Trump donors published. Congresscritters don’t have to do it but CREW or somebody could do that for various communities around our fair land. Let the howler monkeys keep screaming.
Second, McCarthy alluding to Michelle Obama’s “when they go low, we go high” statement in the context of what happened to that behavior from Democrats, McCarthy is admitting they have gone low.
mrmoshpotato
B-A-D-G-E-R! B-A-D-G-E-R! B-A-D-G-E-R! And Badger is his name-oooooohhhh!
Ohio Mom
@Elizabelle: Yes, I like to think all the career feds being pushed out are carefully documenting their work and storing it safely so that when this interregnum is over, their work can be picked up again. I’m counting on this because I don’t want to consider the alternative scenario.
Baud
@HAL:
I guess, technically speaking, I’m not offended by people who support Trump. I just think they shouldn’t be respected and should be outvoted to the maximum extent possible.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
Squish.?
Peale
@HAL: Well, based on the above, some people are in it because they want poison added to their food. There’s that!
The Moar You Know
@Ocotillo: He’s not admitting it. He’s fucking proud of it. The GOP and their base of lead-poisoned rage addict useful idiots are, one and all, proud of that. And even happier that there are still a slew of idiot Dems who think that “going high” is the way to win.
chris
@HAL: You just reminded me of John Scalzi’s piece from 10 November 2016.
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2016/11/10/the-cinemax-theory-of-racism/
mrmoshpotato
@Immanentize:
How dare you associate Graf Orlok with these Repuklican bastards! :)
Ocotillo
@The Moar You Know: Touche.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Being offended by people means that they have some degree of power over you personally. Sometimes, that’s exactly what it is and you have to respond to the offense. But I try to minimize the influence they have over my feelings.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
Fixed.
trollhattan
@danielx:
On beds of fluffy hundreds, like Scrooge McDuck.
Ohio Mom
@Baud: I don’t think I used to be offended by Republicans. I might have looked at them funny, wondering what made them tick. They were foreign to me.
But having a child with a disability changed me. Ohio Dad and I won’t be around forever and when we are not, Ohio Son will be dependent on various aspects of the social service safety net. Or whatever is left of it if the Right isn’t soundly defeated.
I do have some Republicans in my circles and I try to give them wide berth. As far as I am concerned, their every vote is basically them taking a dump on my kid. So I would say they offend me.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
More Iowa fun.
Baud
@Ohio Mom:
Yeah. Completely fair.
MattF
Speaking of bars and barstools, a DC classic is closing down:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/bars-clubs/the-front-page-provided-cheap-food-and-drinks-for-dc-interns-since-1987-where-will-they-go-when-it-closes/2019/08/07/b4180dbe-b931-11e9-b3b4-2bb69e8c4e39_story.html
rikyrah
Badger is adorable ??
rikyrah
@Ohio Mom:
You see it clearly ??
OzarkHillbilly
@HAL:
I have to disagree, I think it means they just can’t be bothered to care. Which to me is even worse.
lamh36
If you don’t want to talk about slavery…DON’T VISIT A FUQ’N PLANTATION…muthaplucka
rikyrah
@HAL:
They want to not have their vote for him put in the light of it displaying THEIR lack of character….
Sorry, that’s how it shall be.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
That is who they are:
DISGUSTING ? HUMAN BEINGS
The entire lot of them
Jay
@trollhattan:
@Elizabelle:
The Common Clay of the West are in for a rude Awakening.
BLM grazing lands cost a rancher up to $1.15 a head.
Private grazing lands, up to $75.80 a head with way more restrictions and much more serious penalties.
lamh36
@lamh36:
Oh and while we’re at it… HELL NAW…don’t even fix yo mouf to ask me to be a bridesmaid in yo plantation wedding…FUQ THAT…FUQ U and FUQ yo wedding!
OzarkHillbilly
@Jay:
A whole lot of that BLM land is marginal at best (how much has been overgrazed for years?). That private land was the good stuff that people homesteaded and/or paid good money for.
Seanly
Like drive it INTO the store – smash, crash, I didn’t see the window. Or drove it in the store like beep, beep, coming through, hold the door?
Immanentize
@Elizabelle:
Not fabulous, but every day there is progress. Today was the first day he was allowed to drink more clear liquids than 30ml each hour. It seemed like winning the lottery! But being injured is a young person’s least tolerable condition.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Trust me, it ain’t too tolerable for us old fucks either.
Immanentize
@HAL:
The real Racist Friend by Specials AKA)*
* As opposed to that trite TMBG songy song.
Jay
They timed the raids for the first day of school to deliberately amplify the trauma to the children.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: Tru dat. But we fake better.
Immanentize
@mrmoshpotato: Badger, Mushroom, Snake
Kay (not the front-pager)
I need a picture of Badger with a martini glass in front of him. I understand why he can’t have the cigarette in a holder – he’s a dog, after all – but the martini glass is really necessary. Maybe with 1 raised eyebrow. H just has that world-weary, ’40s cinema star look.
We have always fed the cats on a small table to keep the chihuahua out of their food. The larger cat, at 20.8 lbs, needs to lose weight. He’s been on a diet, so now we feed the little (13 lb) cat on the center island. Big boy can get on the center island if someone leaves a stool out, but as long as they are pushed under the counter he can’t get up there. Oddly, little cat objects to being fed on the center island more than big boy minds not being able to access his food and treats.
Seanly
Here in Idaho, people who use BLM land are coming to the realization that selling off the land or transferring it to the state is bad. Who uses most of the BLM land out in Idaho? Ranchers who have livestock graze (both the high desert plains & the woods), hunters who go out in the BLM forests, outdoor enthusiasts who can drive up the two-lane roads and camp out the back of their car or in seasonal camping grounds. Many of these folks realize now that 1) the State of Idaho doesn’t have the resources or desire to administer the land like the BLM would, and 2) if the land is sold off to rich people, they would just install locks & fences and not do anything with it.
I once heard something similar from someone from Oklahoma farmland. Her parents didn’t own land but farmed on portions of bigger farms. Then Hollywood or Wall Street money bought up the big farms. No one lives on them and they don’t let anyone do anything with the land.
The Kochs, Romney’s, whoever just want more and more money and land and not allowing people to use it.
Jay
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Not me. I used to be the stoic suffer in silence type. Not anymore, if I’m in pain by god somebody’s gonna know about it!
Immanentize
@lamh36:
Ha! “Caucasity!”
Jay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Aside from riverbottom lands with water rights, which is rarely used for herd pasturage, ( haying and alfalfa instead),
That up to $75.80 pays for exactly the same land that the BLM leases out, with some minor improvements*.
( * the guys who lease out their land take better care of it than the BLM lands the cheap assed ranchers trash, and most of this care is fencing and forcing the cows to move).
TS (the original)
As usual, I am behind – just read this link from the last thread
Trump fundraisers put donors in a bind
and to quote
my bold – the media will NOT call him racist. Feeble hearted journalists.
Jay
Ladyraxterinok
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Lived in IA from 68 to 89. It was v progressive, democratic when we moved there.
Then religious right got compete control of IA GOP, and that pushedcrverything rightward.
A big part of that takeover and rightward shift was Reagan’s wining 80 and the major fight in the small towns in IA propagandizing for votes against IA voting for the federal ERA. The women of the Mormorn church were major leaders against the ERA in IA
Chris T.
One of my kitties sits at a chair, at the table, sometimes, when we have breakfast or dinner. Is very cute.
mrmoshpotato
@Immanentize: ? Oooooo it’s a snake and whatever the hell the other lyrics are there ?
Yutsano
I’m at work and don’t really have time to look it up, but does anyone have the results of the by-election in Wales that happened yesterday? I’m curious if Boris lost his majority.
Jay
J R in WV
Regarding Badger sitting at the bar all well-behaved…
We used to have a large (20 pounder, not fat!) white and red cat, named Rufus, for the red spots. He was a hiker with us on the farm, a hunter, and a well behaved dinner guest, especially when we had company for dinner.
He wanted his own chair, and we would put a saucer there, so he could have tiny slivers of whatever the main course was, if it was suitable for an obligate carnivore. He too was really well behaved, sat quietly and followed the conversation, never went to get up onto the table, didn’t beg.
We treated him like one of the guests, and he behaved as well as most guests do. He flickered out at the age of about 19, while wife was in hospital… it was hard. He started losing weight, finally I took him for that final trip to the vet.
I held it from wife as long as I could, but one day she asked directly how he was doing, and I had to tell her. I’m a terrible liar, just can’t do it.
Rufus was nearly a duplicate of an earlier cat we had named Ralph for the sound he made when coming in the door. Big white cat, fierce hunter, well behaved, you could leave him on a chair at the Vets to wait his turn, which always amazed the Vet the first time.
Almost makes me believe in reincarnation, Rufus appeared at the local hardware store and filling station about a year after Ralph died as a young tom kitten.
Jay
@Yutsano:
It went Lib-Dem, bad bad Boris with DUP has a majority of 1.
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
Normally I’d agree with you, because we’ve been going down this road for a long time and the elder rethuglicans didn’t say it out loud but today’s crowd is saying it out loud and it’s hard to miss hearing it. One has to have ones head up ones ass and ears plugged with shit not to hear it today.
So one really has to be working at not knowing that the sum total of republican ideology is racism and theft.
Jay
rikyrah
Zach Dorfman (@zachsdorfman) Tweeted:
They deported a schizophrenic diabetic who came to the US as a child, didn’t speak any Arabic, and was a member of a threatened religious minority and he died homeless on the streets of Iraq. I don’t know where to even begin.
https://t.co/kaQm9tunjw https://twitter.com/zachsdorfman/status/1159250289720877056?s=17
J R in WV
@trollhattan:
Attempting to appoint a lands manager who doesn’t believe in the federal government owning land is such a contradiction I can’t believe it will stand, nor his decisions stand either. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t actually have a belief there, but an intention to profit from his position, which is also kind of illegal. These are the folks we need to get out of government, and to prevent from profiting from their “service” in government.
@prostratedragon:
Regarding these folks quitting rather than move to Kansas or Missouri, I suspect there will be successful lawsuits against this move, since Mulvany acting chief of staff recently confessed that the intention of the move was to force resignations. It is illegal to undertake changes in work rules intended to force federal employees to resign, and I think they will get back pay and reinstatement.
They ordered the move without even locating a facility for them to move into, which is kind of a statement in itself.
No bottom to the despicable actions of all of these monsters.
Jay
Jay
Jay
J R in WV
@lamh36:
Love you, love your comments!!! Did you ace your currently ending classes again? Hoping so!
Dan B
@Ohio Mom: Kudos for putting the dislike of Republicans so well. I get upset with the very good progressive friends who dislike “identity politics”. They seem to be like Libertarians – white, well off. They can’t seem to comprehend that identity is something foisted on groups because they don’t like the group. Immigrants want to be treated well, not better than. They prefer to live their lives quietly. LGBT people prefer to be with people who care if they are gay, trans, or straight. Oppressors notice you as a minority group that can be played for power or just for sadistic jollies. They have decided that minorities are not deserving and force us into being political for existential reasons.
I believe I’m feeling dread of the release of the series The Family on Netflix. It’s out tomorrow. It’s about the National Prayer Breakfast folks who support “Death to Gays” laws worldwide. Who knows what they are up to in the USA. I hope it will feel better to know than to let the imagination go wild.
Ohio Mom
@Immanentize: I had to look that up: 30 ml is just two tablespoons!
I feel for Immp. Eating is one of life’s big pleasures, and a couple of tablespoons of clear liquid every hour is a boring diet.
All I can say is, keep on hanging on, things will eventually evolve into a new normal. We humans are ultimately very adaptable creatures.
I can’t help but imagine that Mrs. Immanentize would be thrilled to know Immp is doing what he can to make sure he can live a long, happy, satisfying life.
Dan B
@lamh36: So many degrees of racism. Every white person seems to have some but to be unwilling to listen and learn is a different level of horrible.
Too bad you can’t be fined or locked up for willful ignorance. Sensitivity training would be a start but this angry bride doesn’t seem susceptible.
Dan B
@Jay: You said I was racist! You forced me to beat you up! You betrayed your white heritage! You forced me to teach you a lesson!
MoxieM
Badger is adorable as always. He reminds me to get a new doggy registration for Murphy. (She has a new collar ID). The CT Reg of Vehicles managed to put the wrong birthdate o my driver’s license despite me providing them with my former state licence (which they took), my passport (they didn’t!) and sundry other ID. I am not looking forward to spending another day in their company.
On the plus side, I found a lovely spot on the river — the Big one around here, where Murphy will wade up to her armpits (dogpits?) and generally get out of the yard and smell new smells. (We have no alligators.) Being mostly DisaPYR and in a new area, I do not ever let her off leash. Oh well. Her life is very good otherwise!