"Don't go near the castle, it is cursed," the people in the village said.
"In what way?"
"It traps you."
"How?"
"Most of us were passing through, like you; now we can't leave."
"Why?"
They conferred, then an elder spoke. "It has an amazing, huge library."
"I must see it!"
"Noo!"— Micro SF/F stories (@MicroSFF) September 8, 2019
===========
Good people:
Today we served our 100,000th #ChefsForBahamas meal. But it’s not just about delivering food to eat — it’s the message: We are all here for you during this difficult time. ?????? pic.twitter.com/y3XXmkndxK
— World Central Kitchen (@WCKitchen) September 10, 2019
Not sure if everyone understands how special this is. Not only is @WCKitchen feeding but the team is taking time and collecting social media notes, emails and intel of people needing help and trying to help and get answers! ?? Love my team. Good work ???? https://t.co/UMqCViY4ps
— Christina Espinosa (@SocialInnovate) September 8, 2019
Very, very bad person:
So it’s as bad as it looked then. https://t.co/BBdDebNY1y
— Schooley (@Rschooley) September 9, 2019
Trump can declare without evidence that desperate refugees were turned away because some were "bad people" and it isn't even really a top story. None of the historical precedents on this sort of move end well.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) September 9, 2019
I'm not going to make any Holocaust analogies, because only NYT editorial writers are allowed to make them, but man does turning away much of a boat of refugees back to danger and death sound like *certain* ships I could name.
— Zackary Berger, MD, PhD (@ZackBergerMDPhD) September 9, 2019
Mr. Pierce, at Esquire:
… This shouldn’t be about paperwork. But it’s about paperwork because the government of the United States is now dedicated to pulling up the drawbridge by whatever means necessary. You don’t even have to anticipate the kind of refugee crises that are coming as the climate crisis intensifies. You just have to look back through history and imagine, say, the coffin ships getting turned around because the starving Irish didn’t have the proper documents. Or you don’t have to use your imagination at all. Just google S.S. St. Louis. This country was born to take the fire out of desperation and devastation. Our government is toddlers playing with matches.
Pretty sure the only terrorists to use the Bahamas as a staging ground were the organizers of the Fyre Festival.
— ana marie cox (@anamariecox) September 9, 2019
satby
The stench of this inhumane monster’s administration will linger for years after we get rid of them.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
rikyrah
These racist muthaphuckas ???
Seeing those folks having to leave that ferry???
Tony Jay
You know, whenever I’m caught up in a natural disaster on the scale of Hurricane Dorian, my first thought is always to store all the appropriate citizenship documentation for myself and my family in sturdy waterproof packaging that can be strapped to our bodies in order to ensure that we don’t become part of the under-reported problem of ‘very bad people’ exploiting the “our homes are rubble” loophole to circumvent common-sense restrictions on border crossings.
Also, don’t be brown, but nature and an unwitting adherence to anti-miscegenation guidelines has dodged that bullet. Phew!
Make America Guilty Again!
This message has been approved by the VOTE TRUMP ON TRUMP 2020 Political Action Group
OzarkHillbilly
@Tony Jay:
I wouldn’t be too sure about that, all it takes is one drop.
ETA: Blech.
geg6
He is an inhuman, bloated piece of shit. His bigotry is killing people a thousand times better than he ever has been or ever will be. I hate him more than I ever thought possible. All I can do about it is give to WCKitchen.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
mrmoshpotato
Hahaha
@OzarkHillbilly: We were about to scream “Imposter!” but then the “Blech” was added.
Chyron HR
Maybe Senator Sanders can go down there and explain to the refugees that he had to keep Secretary Clinton out of the White House because of her speech transcripts.
OzarkHillbilly
Whatever did people do all day before smartphones?
germy
@OzarkHillbilly: Played solitaire on microsoft computers.
Hung out in AOL chat rooms.
OzarkHillbilly
Man accused of stealing 1,020 pastries worth $90,000 from New York bakery
Today’s contribution to the Headlines I Never Thought I’d See file.
Gvg
There have been a few commenters in the past raising the point Bush’s war killed more actual people than Trumps racism….but Trump actually is killing people, just in a more indirect way than we usually count. Have I mentioned how much I hate this guy?
OzarkHillbilly
@germy: I missed that phase in the computerization of our lives, so I have to ask, while at the beach?
germy
Kay
Ha. Good news.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Drugs.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Balloon Juice never sleeps.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Are you sure? I can’t quite remember, the 70s are just a blur.
NotMax
@Baud
Yes indeedy. Insomnia is baked in.
;)
satby
This is just an all around depressing day thanks to the grievous evil embedded in our government and society. I feel an “unplug for mental health” day coming on. Everyone try to have a good day.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: But I do, usually* between the hours of 8 PM and 4 AM.
*where usually means always.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Said the lady reminiscing on her 100th birthday.
;)
JPL
@Kay: Good news is always appreciated, but it’s still too high. If his numbers continue to be in the thirties expect him to run even more of a racist, misogynistic campaign. Buckle up folks, it’s going to uglier.
Tony Jay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Trust me. I’m so white I scare ghosts. It takes me a week in the tropics to get up to Pale Blue. The only brown my ancestors ever saw came in the form of gravy. And it’s not like swapping the green fields of Eire for Liverpool’s teeming international port might have changed anyth…
Rubs chin. Wonders again about those grainy photographs of great-great-grandfather Mo and his anachronistic Art Garfunkel tribute act.
Kay
@germy:
The whole thing is hysterical. I love how he whines about how they won’t donate enough to him:
OzarkHillbilly
Good news:
Lapassionara
@Tony Jay: The story I read said that the people turned away had passports and a copy of their criminal record, which were the documents required in the past. What the ferry staff were told is that, to get in the US, the people needed visas. VISAS!
Good morning.
JPL
@satby: My feeling exactly.
montanareddog
@geg6:
Oh, don’t waste your energy on hating that tub of semi-sentient lard. Hate the Republican Party which is facilitating the bottomless pit of malevolence. Hate Moscow Mitch.
waratah
@OzarkHillbilly: I always took a book to read when I went to the beach. Probably would have one of these phones today because I have kindle reader on my phone.
germy
@Kay: Jacob Wohl and some other character got into his conversation and complained about their situations, as well.
Kay
@JPL:
True, the Trump Administration almost always lash out when they feel threatened, but that’s because they feel threatened. It’s not strength, it’s weakness. They would like to be popular. It’s just that they can’t pull it off because they’re mean-spirited, nasty people. Not being liked or admired or respected is not proof they don’t want to be. It just means they can’t get there.
laura
@OzarkHillbilly: Vaccines cause adults. Thank you Dr. Pan and Governor Newsom.
Now, to launch from my warm bed, drive an hour plus, and pick up a picket sign. The strike is ON at Queen of the Valley.
debbie
@satby:
His supporters will never get the stink off of them. Ever.
Kay
@germy:
I saw that. Honestly he should be focusing on his defense. He should probably work the phones too- see which of his family members will put up money for his legal defense. He doesn’t have time to chit chat with the 1000 “racist teens” who make up his fan base.
JPL
@Kay: Do you have any sense that the nastiness will backfire and drive folks away?
Tony Jay
@Lapassionara:
That’s… wow. I couldn’t even make that shit up.
debbie
@Kay:
“Get a job, a**hole!”
Kay
@JPL:
Seriously? You believe they wake up in the morning and say “38 is good- maybe we can keep it up and drive it to 30”?
Donald Trump is an unpopular President. He and his low quality team of thieves and liars would much prefer to be popular.
They behave like this not because it’s a brilliant strategy but because they’re mean-spirited nasty people who don’t know how to behave any other way. They couldn’t pull anything else off. This is all they have. It’s been years. We’ve seen their entire range. Christ, half of them are in their 70’s and 80’s. This is what they are. They don’t have any choice.
There is no alternate “better” Trump Administration. In fact, they’re worse than they were a year ago. They lurched down a coupla notches just this summer, hence the lower poll numbers. Sometimes they lurch down a coupla notches but it’s always a slow overall slide. Think how desperate the (failed) “deal with the Taliban” was. He’s flailing around looking for something to garner headlines besides nastiness and corruption.
Baud
@Kay:
Race is such a powerful drug. These white nationalist leaders are such pathetic people that they would be laughed out of any legitimate endeavor.
JPL
@Kay: @Baud: On his schedule today
The President delivers remarks at the 2019 National Historically Black Colleges and Universities Week Conference
That should be interesting.
Jeffro
@OzarkHillbilly: Man…I can’t imagine buying a $9 pastry but that’s just me.
For some reason this report reminds me of some meme or joke my son showed me: a tractor-trailer full of ramen went off the road…police estimated the cargo was a complete, $15 loss.
Kay
@Baud:
I would be so ashamed if Wohl was my kid. “What’s Jacob doing”. Oh, he’s a…far Right grifter and professional racist.
How do you even follow that act? He thinks he turns 25 and somehow gets a real job? Would you hire him?
Baud
@JPL:
I assume they invited him. Maybe he’ll talk about Kanye.
rikyrah
Grandma was right ??
ReclaimingMyTime (@MonieTalks_1) Tweeted:
My grandmother told me days after PBO was elected that we would pay for electing him to the WH. In America, there is always a backlash to progress, even the symbolism of what progress can be. She was absolutely right. https://t.co/EdNlbspQBZ https://twitter.com/MonieTalks_1/status/1171217860259176450?s=17
OzarkHillbilly
@Tony Jay: Heh. My old man’s family comes from Slovenia. He was of raven curly hair and skin so dark one had to wonder how many Moors were in the old family tree. While my hair is ash blond it is kinky such that when I was younger I had a natural afro and my skin is so dark I even managed to get pulled over for DWB. When they were 4 and 6 my sons thought I was black, which led to some truly hilarious moments of befuddlement on the part of others. Once when a neighbor ended up in the hospital, I helped ferry her daughter to and from school. The morning after the first time I dropped her off at her grandmother’s in the projects she looked at me with great accusation and said, “You’re white!” I remembered the hard looks I’d gotten the previous evening and said, “Sheeit Girl, I’m blacker than you!” and held my arm up next to hers where upon her eyes widened at my 2-3 shades darker skin. Never heard another word of it from her.
bemused
@debbie:
I read comments in blogs and letters to ed in my local area and it’s mindblowing how local joe trump supporters are still all in for trumpism. They parrot trumpco lies and say all facts to the contrary is fake news. Maybe there are some trumpers who are stupid enough to believe that but I think most of them exactly the type of lowlifes trump and his administration are but simply don’t care. They love the insanity and the cruelty because it’s who they are too and anything goes if they think they “own the libs”.
rikyrah
@rikyrah:
A reply:
Marie Vieux (@DaughterduDusk) Tweeted:
@MonieTalks_1 I keep thinking that this is what it felt like for our ancestors living during the final years of the Reconstruction Era. https://twitter.com/DaughterduDusk/status/1171233537485225984?s=17
This has been my feeling too since November 2016
Baud
@rikyrah:
Agree. Except I don’t think the racists will succeed this time. But it’s a similar struggle.
Baud
@bemused:
This is who they are.
rikyrah
Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) Tweeted:
“Documents obtained from Scottish government agencies show that the Trump Organization, and Mr. Trump himself, played a direct role in setting up an arrangement between the Turnberry resort and officials at Glasgow Prestwick Airport.”
https://t.co/gRtpk4nigO https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1171230130456293376?s=17
Lapassionara
@Tony Jay: I remember applying for a visa to enter Czechoslovakia back when it was behind the “iron curtain.” It took weeks and I had to send a lot of documents, by snail mail of course. How does anyone undertake that sort of process from a hurricane ravaged island?
I’m trying to imagine how the Trump administration even managed to think to change the rules at a time like this. That takes some real evil intent. And then to claim that the people trying to board the ferry were criminals, or didn’t belong in the Bahamas, when they had both a passport and a copy of their criminal record, not to mention their infant children. And the press just lets him make this claim, with no push back or follow-up.
debbie
@bemused:
Or are too proud to admit their mistake.
rikyrah
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II (@RevDrBarber) Tweeted:
We have identified areas all over the country where, if just 2% of poor and low-wealth people and their allies are organized, it changes the political calculus and can make a huge electoral difference. https://t.co/r7VcwevCjs https://twitter.com/RevDrBarber/status/1171200259877457920?s=17
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
I guess that’s the pastry version of this epic Johnny Cash tale of staff pilferage.
Kay
@bemused:
We don’t know how big that group is, though. They’re loud but how many of them are there, really? I looked for Trump donations in my county on the FEC website and it’s the same 3 people over and over again. One woman made 80% of the donations, ’17 to ’19. Dem donations come up as “ACT BLUE” in a general search (I probably could have filtered) but there are more D donors in this county (people) than Trump donors. I think he will be hard to beat but I’m also not buying their representations of their “success”. They could be at 25% and they’d still be claiming success. They’re liars. They lie.
JPL
@Baud: He’s not racist because he has a black friend.
OzarkHillbilly
@waratah: When we go out for breakfast my wife will pop out her smartphone while I read the local news rag. I don’t really have anything against them, it’s just that wherever one goes, there they are. It’s like a mass addiction to being “connected”. There are people who, no matter what they are doing or who they are with, they will pull out their phone and check for their latest messages. Sometimes I wonder if they do this during sex.
shrug Different strokes and all that I guess.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
FTFY
OzarkHillbilly
@laura: honks horn and waves to the picket line walkers
Kay
The Bernie people are being real assholes at the Dem booth at the fair. I was starting to like Bernie again and then I mingled with his supporters again in real life and that small uptick has evaporated. They have a problem with this. The combination of smug patronizing certainty alternating with near-hysterical claims of unfairness is really unattractive.
By the end of the evening I was even finding his logo annoying. I hate first name candidates. I’m not your friend.
Baud
@Kay:
Truth be told, I think we make the same mistake when we look at crowd size or lawn signs.
Baud
@Kay:
Why were they at the Dem booth?
OzarkHillbilly
@Jeffro: HA! That made me laugh.
Baud
@Kay:
Stay strong, Kay.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: If there is a god, he’s going to turn 25 and get a private cell. As for planning for the future, he’s white. He thought that was all that was needed.
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: I’ve told this story before, I think, but I was having a quick snack and a glass of wine in the Boston airport waiting for a flight, and a couple of tables over was a family of five doing more or less the same thing. Mom, Pop, three kids aged from middle school to high school. In the time I sat there, I don’t think they looked at each other, let alone exchanged a word, each engrossed in his/her phone/tablet. Family togetherness FTW.
rikyrah
Stephanie Kennedy (@WordswithSteph) Tweeted:
A deeply disturbing, decades-long pattern of lies & deceit in the Trump family. It’s obscene. Melania is cozy in the WH, and migrant kids are in cages.
Melania’s ‘Einstein Visa’ Was Based on Her Having a College Degree — Which She Lied About Having https://t.co/yrgucIsc3p https://twitter.com/WordswithSteph/status/1170856851472355328?s=17
bemused
@Baud:
Yup. They’re just as phony and nasty as trump pretending to believe truth is fake news. They love that all the vile hate driven thoughts they’ve had all their adult lives has been brought out into the open and acted on by trump and his swamp creatures.
Kay
@Baud:
Right? They’re there because I put his stupid mason jar out so they have to supervise me as a member of the establishment.
They shouldn’t flatter themselves. It’s a fucking bean poll. I couldn’t care less. The leader is this retired teacher who I once had a huge screaming fight with because she wanted to put Occupy signage in an event that was planned and organized to overturn an anti-union law. At that point I wasn’t even an “official” but she’s not a Democrat and she believed I was, and I allowed her to believe that. It’s almost ten years later and I am still trying to be polite to this person. It isn’t even her county! Her county is east of here. Biden is winning the bean poll, by a mile. I’m a Warren supporter and I accept these results- why can’t these people?
Kay
@Baud:
I always liked Bernie. I was a little surprised he agreed to privatize part of the VA, which for some reason is never mentioned.
I think his supporters reflect him. I think that makes sense and is true. I don’t really mind cut throat politicians but I loathe whiners and I don’t respect his phony “my favorite uncle” act when he’s actually trying to cut people. They need to calm down.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@waratah: Come sit by me.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: A thrice told tale. I too have seen that exact scene.
rikyrah
@debbie: Those responsible for Dolt45 will NEVER EVER BE FORGIVEN ? ?
rikyrah
I Hate Bears (@RyanmEft) Tweeted:
@MidwinCharles @ericabelanger He’s in trouble over tariffs, funneling business to his properties, and trying to redefine executive power to mean the ability to ignore legal orders.
He’s going to quadruple down on the xenophobia between now and next November. It’s his only card, and sadly, it works. https://twitter.com/RyanmEft/status/1171165649193918464?s=17
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah:
Yep.
But we’re going to pay even more for having Drumpf as president.
Baud
@Kay:
You should have made Bernie’s jar smaller. What these people love most is to find proof for their conspiracies.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Christopher Walker and Dennis Hopper from “The Sicilians” in True Romance.
Heavy trigger warning!! DO NOT WATCH THIS IF YOU HAVE EVEN MODERATELY DELICATE SENSIBILITES
https://youtu.be/S3yon2GyoiM
zhena gogolia
I have to vote in our mayoral primary now. There’s an old-school woman Democrat, a young bright guy I know from church, a perfectly fine technocrat, and a repulsive conman who has the local slumlord put his signs right under his large Trump 2020 banner. I’d like to vote for the young guy, but last night my husband said, “He’s playing the Bernie role against the Hillary figure.” Okay, that did it, I’m voting for her!
Baud
@Kay:
His treatment of his staff in 2016 has gone down the memory hole too.
Raven
Complaining about technology on a blog is like fucking for Chastity.
PAM Dirac
@OzarkHillbilly:
Like most of those losers it is all he has. His delusion is that he thinks that all you should need. We should use the term “white delusions” in instead of “white supremacy”.
Baud
@Raven:
Who’s Chastity?
JPL
@zhena gogolia: Our current council members have been bought by developers.
Sab
@Lapassionara: When I saw the first tv news reports of the families going on to the ferry in the Bahamas, I thought to myself “Oh shit. Trump and his minions will see this and ‘fix’ whatever system allowed this normal, decent humanitarian activity to occur.” Guess I was right, only surprised at how quickly they could react.
TS (the original)
@Baud:
More likely someone on trump’s staff thought it would be good pr & demanded that he be invited. I so remember following all the events on President Obama’s calendar – at the White House, around the US and overseas. Actually having something other than executive time in the diary is a change for trump.
Dorothy A. Winsor
We had company yesterday and I’m way behind on news. I see John Ossoff is running against Purdue in Georgia. May the force be with him.
And with Dan McCready in NC today.
Amir Khalid
@rikyrah:
Imagine if some
recklessbrave soul at ICE were to decide to detain FLOTUS pending deportation for immgration fraud. Not gonna happen, but it’s a nice fantasy …TS (the original)
@Lapassionara:
This is who they are
RAVEN
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Perdue
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Great scene.
tarragon
Niiiice.
Related. Another site I read linked to this today.
The Buffalo Public Library in 1983 (written in 1883)
OzarkHillbilly
The Palin’s appear to be getting a divorce. Nobody saw that coming.//
Dorothy A. Winsor
@RAVEN: Yes. Him. Not the university.
Tony Jay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Reminds me of a school-friend of my partner who lived with us in a shared house way back in their University days. One of two sisters, her Mum was a pasty white Irish Catholic nurse and her Dad a former soldier from Jamaica. Now, thanks to how her genes shook out, she was white, like super-white. Red hair, blue eyes, skin like yoghurt, but she was INTENSELY into her black culture, while her sister, who was a coffee-and-cream skinned black girl with brown eyes, was a comic-book reading geek and a metal-head. Much frustration was expressed by the one who had to work mega-hard to be taken seriously as a ‘woman of colour’, and many eye-rolls from the one who had never been treated as anything else. Funny thing was, the ‘white’ sister was the spitting-image of her Dad, while the ‘black’ sister was a double for her Mum.
Colour, man. It’s ridiculous that people think it matters, and infuriating that it actually does matter, because some people have shit between their ears and other people are happy to exploit that defect.
Ben Cisco
@JPL: You misspelled “nauseating.”
Tony Jay
@Lapassionara:
Yup. Evil intent is exactly right. The cruelty is the point, but the aim is even more sinister.
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
I saw it coming years ago, and I’m sure so did a lot of people. I’m just surprised it took this long.
bemused
@Kay:
@debbie:
Some trump voters who are embarrassed they got conned and didn’t bargain for how insane the trump administration would be have just gone silent. True that the still out and proud trumpers are always the same people. I don’t know if they actually believe their inflated notion that they are a YUGE group but they sure act and say there a lot more of them than in reality.
Kay
@Baud:
I ran out of small jars so there are two bigger jars, but they’re third tier candidates. They went last. When I ran out of jars I was stopping.
When I cut DeBlasio :) Actually before I ran out of jars. I will cop to rigging! But it’s based on petty dislikes and how long I can stay attentive and on task. I don’t have a strategy. Mostly because the bean poll doesn’t matter.
Tata
@OzarkHillbilly: Life imitates art.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Today, I will tell the doctor what’s wrong with me. She will order a bunch of very unpleasant tests. After said tests, she will tell me I was right.
Kay
I had two middle aged women at the fair booth who told me they “can’t wait” to vote. In my experience this is how quieter nice people express rage at the incumbent. It’s a nice thing and fired up Democrats say it a lot. One of them told me her son told he and his wife were expecting a baby and when she heard the due date she though “that’s 2 days before the primary!” which she is ashamed of, but made me laugh.
Immanentize
@Tony Jay:
No Brexit update? If you could be so kind, I would love to hear your take.
Gin & Tonic
@satby:
I know I will, as my wife comes home from a long trip tonight.
Tony Jay
@Baud:
Cher’s daughter? Clearly that’s one hell of a GofundMe she’s running there.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Someone needs to get real paid in this world, no?
ETA Truly I hope it is only the tests that will be unpleasant and you are OK?
OzarkHillbilly
@Tony Jay: After our separation, my ex began dating a racist. Color became an issue. My oldest would look at me and say, “I don’t get it Pop. You’re black. We’re white.” I really didn’t know what to say, I only knew I didn’t want to give any credence to the idea that color was important, so I always said some variation of “Color doesn’t mean a thing.” even tho in our society it oh so obviously does.
Then one day my oldest looked at me and said, “I got it Pop, you’re just a whiter black.” The issue never came up again.
Tony Jay
@Immanentize:
I dropped a massive hunk of text into yesterday’s ‘Prorogue’ thread. It takes us up to yesterday afternoon.
I’ll be doing more once things start to happen, but with Ar-Flobazon the Golden closing down Parliament it’s going to be mostly He Said/She Said outrage in the run up to next month’s General Election.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: I’m ok. Just tired and whiny.
Amir Khalid
@Tony Jay:
Clearly you haven’t kept up with things. Cher’s daughter Chastity is now her son Chaz.
Tony Jay
@OzarkHillbilly:
It really is bizarre, isn’t it? It’s not something we should give a second thought to other than aesthetic preference (like preferring redheads, or brunettes, or hairy men with tattoos of John Denver on their inner thigh*) but we HAVE to think about it for a multitude of reasons that boil down to “Popularising racism as a vehicle for financial profit was a fucked up thing to do and I would like it to stop, thank you”
* niche, but thanks to the Interwebs they can find each other now.
Tony Jay
@Amir Khalid:
Damn it! I had a hind-brain niggle when I wrote that but didn’t stop to Google.
I blame Brexit
Betty Cracker
@Kay: LOL! Supervising a bean poll in Ohio! I really liked Sanders for years, but he ruined it for me in 2016. Mostly his whiny crybaby supporters ruined it. I resisted allowing them to influence my opinion of the candidate — every campaign has obnoxious asshole supporters, and at first, it didn’t seem fair to blame the candidate for them.
I still think that’s mostly true. I’ve had to mute some Harris people I formerly enjoyed following on Twitter because they’ve become so rabid and negative toward any other candidate — and I like Harris and am totally open to voting for her! But I do think it’s 100% fair to blame Sanders for his supporters now, especially since he brought trolls on as paid campaign staff.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Sanders deserves blame because, he stokes his supporters persecution complex and conspiracy theories through, at the very least, innuendo, and has done so since at least 2016. Contrast that with Hillary in 2008, where she left no doubt she didn’t stand with the PUMAs at the end of the primary.
OzarkHillbilly
@Tony Jay:
We did! How’d you know????
Kathleen
@JPL: Expect a picture of Trump with sharpied Frederick Douglass.
Leto
@Raven:
O/T: Apple programmed Siri to avoid the word “feminism”: In a cowardly move, Apple brass have ceded cultural terrain on basic gender equality to far-right sophists
Conservatives bitch and moan about “big tech” censoring them, all the while big tech is capitulating to their every whim. I’d ask who’s the bigger user of tech, overall, but at this point it doesn’t matter. Personally I’m ready to go back to tin cans and encyclopedias.
Baud
@Leto:
I wonder how Siri handles “vagina.”
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I am right there in the same place, Sister! I have to go to a University budget committee meeting this afternoon and I am afraid that I won’t be able to stay civil. I am considering various medication options….
Tony Jay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Sometimes it’s 3.30 am and you find yourself in places you never thought “Cheap – Used – Going on a Bear Hunt” would lead you.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: It wasn’t until I moved to Iowa State that I realized I was rude at meetings. Apparently I sighed and moaned and blurted out what I was really thinking. At one of my first meetings, two colleagues at the other end of the table burst out laughing. That was my first clue. I eventually just gave in and ran with it.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: @Baud:
I just have to say one word about the separation between Bernie supporters and Bernie:
Sirota.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: That has been my M.O. when in administration — the happy, clear eyed, incredulous, truth-telling fellow who says what others only dare think (at night while in a closet). Now, I am eyeing the room for potential weapons….
/s/ Really NFLTG
Baud
@Immanentize: Agree.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Rude is just another word for honest.
rikyrah
@Tony Jay:
Do you think Boris has a real plan, or is it as crazy as it looks from this pair of outside eyes.
Tony Jay
@Baud:
“I wonder how Siri handles “vagina.””
Really depends on what safeword you pick.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
It is funny. Yesterday they told me they don’t have anyone to watch it Sat AM. I’m not going! No one wants my cloudy mason jars and store brand lima beans. They’ll be sitting on that table until I put them back in a box. This is a gimmick. Do they not get that?
I’ve had other bad ideas. One year we gave out bottled water. Which is heavy and has to be kept cold. Disaster.
Kathleen
@Baud: As well as his theft of DNC data and failure to act when notified of Russian support on social media. I could go on and on about how loathsome he is.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s what I thought!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: Wait. You mean the Sanders people assigned someone to watch the bean poll table. Good lord. Don’t they have campaigning to do?
Kay
My youngest texted my husband this morning “what is the name of my car insurance?”
UNDERSTANDABLY my husband thought he had a car accident. He needs it for the parking sticker at the high school. Also? It’s in the car. Which is THE LAW. He only has two years to develop common sense. It isn’t going to happen, is it?
rikyrah
@Kay:
He’s young, Kay. I’m not gonna fault him for not knowing about the insurance. He has to learn these things.
rikyrah
@Kay:
How is your daughter’s pregnancy progressing? Any movement on her moving back?
Kay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
No, this was the regular Democrats. It’s contagious.
Kay
@rikyrah:
She’s doing really well. We went for a weekend in Cleveland which was fun. We did a whole day at their (lovely and huge) botanical garden. I used to take them to Toledo’s (small) garden when they were little. I wore her out though- she was asleep by nine. She’s always been a healthy person but now she’s a little obsessive about X fruits and Y vegs per day but I feel like it’s fine- I knew she would study up.
They’re not open to moving back here but they are open to moving somewhere where they can afford a house. She likes Cleveland and I do too.
Just One More Canuck
@Kay: Clearly, the bean poll is rigged by the establishment.
Leto
@Baud: Per Siri: “I don’t know what that word means. If you like, I can search the web for, “Siri, what’s a vagina?””
So basically like any other men’s rights dipshit. Way to go, Apple.
rikyrah
Homeless Crisis in Los Angeles Highlights the Fall of the Black Middle Class
Dara Sharif
Yesterday 10:30pm
Blacks make up just 9 percent of Los Angeles County’s population overall, but comprise 40 percent of the area’s homeless, pushed to the margins by decades of redlining, layoffs, mass incarceration and gentrification.
Among the homeless population, two-thirds live outside, some in whole tent communities filled with close-knit bands of men and women, according to the Los Angeles Times.
It’s a far cry from the thriving African-American suburban Los Angeles communities many of them grew up in beginning in the 1950s and ’60s, and policymakers are struggling to find working solutions.
Per the Times:
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
Sure he is Kay, just not soon enough for your sanity or before he moves out.
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: Briahana Joy Gray is as bad as Sirota. Both of them punch down at random people on Twitter who criticize Sanders and encourage their followers to dox people. A responsible candidate would have fired their asses for that. It’s one thing if they want to get in Twitter spats with Neera Tanden or someone else who is a paid public figure, but they openly gin up Twitter mobs to go after ordinary joes. Imagine people like that with access to the national security apparatus — hell, we don’t have to imagine it, we’ve got the Trumpists! I want that shit ended, not continued under someone whose policies I mostly agree with…
Leto
@Tony Jay: “Cacao!” – Portlandia reference
@Kay: I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen someone say they like Cleveland, outside of the Drew Carey Show theme song. ?
OzarkHillbilly
@Just One More Canuck: Fake Beans!!!
Eunicecycle
@Tony Jay: My brother said this about my new son-in-law: “I’ve never seen a guy so white. He’s…transparent!”
Baud
@Leto:
Maybe Siri got tired of hearing that question from incels.
rikyrah
Already an Awesome HBCU, Spelman College Receives Funding for STEM Center; Becomes Awesomer
Panama Jackson
Yesterday 2:00pm
VOR
@Tony Jay: April 2018 National Geographic article about a pair of twins where one appears white and the other appears black. Not just sisters but twins. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/race-twins-black-white-biggs/
Amir Khalid
@rikyrah:
My own belief is that BoJo is carrying on with Theresa May’s no-plan, Brexit-come-hell-or-high-water plan. He’s executing a bit differently, but that difference seems purely a matter of his personal style compared to hers.
rikyrah
RIP….she and her husband did so much for the city…
Joan Johnson, Who Co-Founded Johnson Products and Thus Co-Helped Us Live Our Best Black Lives, Has Died at 89
Panama Jackson
Yesterday 12:28pm
Universal blackness suffered a tremendous loss last week when Joan Johnson—who along with husband, George Johnson, founded Johnson Products—passed away at age 89. Johnson Products, which brought to us such omnipresent hair products as Afro Sheen, Ultra Sheen, and Gentle Treatment, could (and actually, probably, still can) literally be found in black bathrooms, kitchens, salons, and glove compartments for decades.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Joan Johnson passed away last Friday (Sept. 6) after dealing with “a combination of medical conditions stemming from a 2005 accident that sent her through five back surgeries.” Her husband, George Johnson, said via statement: “I have lost a lifelong friend and partner and the love of my life,” and that “Joan will be greatly missed by her family and all of those who have come to know her.”
The Johnsons leveled up an initial $250 dollar investment into a company that would become the first African-American company to be traded on the American Stock Exchange. Because true blackness loves more blackness, they were the first company to sponsor Soul Train, and I’m sure Don Cornelius really appreciated that. Joan Johnson was also a trustee of Spelman College; her family said they will continue to support the historically black, all-women college with an annual scholarship. And because you can’t create black hair care products and help the community maintain its flyness without being a style icon yourself, Johnson paid that forward by helping to sponsor and organize the Congressional Black Caucus Fashion Show. Basically, Johnson, both as an individual and through her company, was a believer in black excellence and uplift. And don’t even get me started on the Afro Sheen commercials.
rikyrah
Ok…they’re REALLY trying to get rid of Pence…
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA AH HA
Mike Pence’s ‘money hungry’ wife Karen – dubbed ‘the real VP’ – double-billed Trump’s inauguration committee for her ‘tacky’ ball gown and demanded $1.5M to redo the vice president’s residence, new book claims
Tom LoBianco writes Pence’s wife Karen, who he calls ‘Mother’, is the real VP in his upcoming book Piety & Power: Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House
LoBianco, a reporter who covered Pence as Indiana’s governor, claims Karen is so crafty she gives him advice on the phone so she won’t be seen hanging around him
The author claims that Trump’s team had no problem with Pence but were concerned about Karen, who they had heard ‘horror stories’ about
Trump was so impressed by Pence’s indifference to becoming his running mate in the 2016 Presidential Election, it earned him the job as VP
LoBianco writes that Trump yelled at Pence: ‘I need killers! Do you want this thing or not?’
Over breakfast in Indiana, Trump asked why Pence was even bothering to be in the race and Pence said: ‘You’re in my home, you tell me’
Trump said ‘Wow’ and was impressed by the indifference that Pence showed to him – earning him his spot on Trump’s ticket
Karen is also ‘obsessed with money and demanded $1.5 million from the Trump inauguration committee fund to renovate the Vice Presidential home’
By DANIEL BATES FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 13:51 EDT, 9 September 2019 | UPDATED: 19:31 EDT, 9 September 2019
Captain C
@OzarkHillbilly: $90 grand for a thousand pastries? That’s around 90 bucks a pop! Was there blow and/or gold in those crepes?
I mean, New York is an expensive town, but really…
Betty Cracker
Speaking of HBCUs, check out this clip of Patriots tight end Benjamin Watson schooling Laura Ingraham:
I bet Ingraham tore up some showrunner’s ass after that segment!
Betty
@Lapassionara: Simply heartrending! As many have noted, the Bahamas have always been open to Americans. Many have homes there, even own some of the small islands. It is an embarrassment to say the least.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: I don’t find it at all credible that Pence was indifferent to becoming VP. He was transparently desperate for it at the time, and he’s been an obsequious toady ever since.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
Never forget…Pence was MANAFORT’S CHOICE
Betty
@Betty Cracker: Benjamin was awesome. More like this for Miss Laura.
Amir Khalid
@Captain C:
Apparently these pastries are some kind of fashionable novelty — like “cronuts”, the croissant/doughnut hybrids of some years ago.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah: also pushed by Jared and Ivanka, IIRC
@Betty Cracker: also, Mother is depicted. in an account almost certainly leaked by Christie, as pushing Mike away when he tried to kiss her when trump was declared the winner on election night. “You got what you wanted, Mike”. Word in the tubes has always been he saw the Veep slot as an escape from embarrassment in Indiana.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
She may have Drano for blood. “Smile+seethe” is an interesting expression to pull off.
chopper
@Betty Cracker:
“black folk deliberately attending black colleges is segregation! my deliberate choice to buy a house in a white neighborhood, of course, is not”
Alien Radio
@rikyrah: Not Tony Jay, but the pair of us have pretty similar analysis.
Boris’ Plan AFAACT is to have BEEN Prime Minister, and get on the same gravy train Tony, Dave and Gideon did. Being Prime Minister is too much work but being a former Prime Minister is a fantastic wheeze.Given who he’s been meeting with on the golf course I would assume that we again have a carrot and stick set up. Boris’ narcissism is Strong enough that it’s quite easy to get him to do what you want with just the carrot, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a stick just out of view.
I had assumed that the fool left holding the bag when Brexit failed would be Jacob Rees-Mogg on the basis that whoever succeeded May was doomed, and Boris would be too smart to go for the poisoned chalice. The last tory leadership contest proved they do not have a deep bench, because Rory Stewart was the only one close to being sane and was obviously running for leader of the smoldering ruin of the Tory party post Boris.
Initially I had my doubts about whether Boris was compromised, but given that pretty much everyone in his cabinet works for a foreign power or massively corrupt organisation, I have to assume he does too. Trump’s Razor says there’s Kompromat, and that the panicked flop sweat he’s in is an indicator that he’s not just going to be a former prime Minister, he stands an awfully good chance of being accused of treason.
Boris has been receiving instructions. he’s failed at every step. He has never had a plan.
trollhattan
@Kay:
Take heart, he knows things about Minecraft you can only dream.
Mine has had her license for a year, does not know how to fuel the car. I have determined this is to our advantage, so not attending to the issue.
trollhattan
@Alien Radio:
If you’re PM for, say, seven hours like Boris seems to have accomplished, does the cash faucet still run?
He seems like someone who will always carry an asterisk in the history books.
*One must explain Boris Johnson.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Come sit by me, as the old internet tradition went
and figuring out insurance– auto, renters, homeowners and (shudder) health– was one of the slowest parts of learning to be an adult, I’m still not sure I have it figured out.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: trump is speaking at an HBCU conference today. I can’t imagine who, on either side, thought it would be a good idea to make (I’m guessing tradition and protocol) and accept (they were afraid to refuse) this invitation
Alien Radio
@trollhattan: I have 20 quid on Boris setting a record for shortest term as PM, I could have got better odds but mostly that bet exists as a Lever to tweek the Tory I made it with.
I’m expecting part of the post Brexit fallout will also result in bad news for Tony Blair.
rikyrah
@Alien Radio:
thanks for your take on it.
rikyrah
Gillian Anderson casting as Margaret Thatcher in The Crown prompts a VERY mixed response – with fans joking that they don’t want to ‘fancy the Iron Lady’
Gillian Anderson, 51, will play Margaret Thatcher in season four of Netflix drama
Actress will portray former prime minister from time in officer from 1979 to 1990
Social media users had mixed response to news, with one saying it’s ‘best choice’
Meanwhile, another called it a ‘travesty’ and vowed not to watch the new series
By CHLOE MORGAN FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 05:24 EDT, 10 September 2019 | UPDATED: 06:08 EDT, 10 September 2019
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Tony Jay
@rikyrah:
Oh, hell yes he has a plan.
1) Destroy. Divide. Denounce. Degrade.
2) ?
3) Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson wins a General Election.
It might not be a good one and it might not be working out as Team Flobalob intended, and it definitely isn’t a plan to ‘solve’ the rifts caused by driving a Brexit-branded bus through the middle of an already fractured society, but since that was never the intention it’s all good.
I’m fairly certain of a few things.
He doesn’t really want a No Deal. He’ll take one if he has to, and he’ll merrily gobble up all of the Wingnut Welfare thrown his way on the other side once everything First World about the UK has been chopped up and sold off for pennies, but his real preference would be to have No Deal blocked despite what looks like his best efforts to push it through.
His problem is that the reactionary Base shared between the Conservative Party and their ideological bedfellows in Farage’s BXP Limited Company wants a No Deal SO BADLY because they really, really believe that cutting Europe dead is some kind of ‘win’ for Britain that will lead to the collapse of the EU and something wonderful just over the horizon. It makes no sense and runs contrary to every single expert opinion and scrap of evidence out there, but the Bubble is large and its walls are thick and True Believers do not give a shit. He needs those votes to win a GE, he simply has to keep them loyal to him. From a glance at the opinion polls among the Gammon & Nut Pie sect his rhetoric is working, they’re with him, leaving Farage a bit out in the cold for now sniping from the side-lines, but that loyalty is very, very tenuous and won’t survive any kind of climb-down.
The Conservative Party itself was a problem for him, with its lack of a decent majority and ‘Remain/moderate’ wing that didn’t support him in the Leadership Race. He needed it purified of dissent and remolded as a vehicle as sensitive to his needs and ambitions as Farage’s BXT Ltd. That’s why he’s gone all out with the expulsions and threats straight out of the blocks, clearing away those who won’t toe the line in time for them to be replaced as candidates by a new breed of Tory selected by his campaign (who will probably turn out in the long run to be significantly less Brextemist than the Base currently suspects) who will fight the Election on his, Hard Brexit or No Deal terms.
The nub of the problem was always how to block No Deal without taking the blame himself. I’m pretty sure that the craziness we’ve seen was a deliberate plan to goad the Opposition into a Vote of No Confidence which Johnson, on current Parliamentary arithmetic, would lose. The Opposition would cobble together a fractious interim Government to request an extension from the EU and call a General Election, leaving him free as a bird to campaign on the Dolchstoßlegende myth and cobble together an electoral alliance of the Hard Right and the very Hard Right that would slip through the yawning democratic gaps in our First Past the Post system to win a lot of seats with 35% of the vote or so because Labour and the Liberal Democrats and the other Parties wouldn’t be able to agree an electoral pact.
The anti-No Deal front that managed to keep left-wing socialists and centre-right Tories unified in pursuing a legislative block on No Deal may have surprised the Johnson camp with its solidity, and he’s now in a seriously bad situation. I think the prorogation gambit was to impose an artificial time-limit on the legislative approach that would either leave scope for flaws in it that could be exploited in order for him to ignore its constraints, or at least be sufficient open to interpretation to get it challenged in a friendly court, and hopefully pressurise the Opposition into panicking and giving him the VONC he really wants. We’ll have to see how that works out.
If he gets a judicial stay on the constitutional legality of the Benn Act he can potentially go to the EU summit on 17th/18th October and NOT ask for an extension, which could lead to legal action and, certainly, a VONC at the earliest opportunity. If he doesn’t get a legal stay on the Act he might violate it anyway, banking that enough confusion has been injected into the system for him to ride out the legal challenges on the grounds that he’s fighting an Election, dammit!
Whatever happens, however it all shakes out, he can’t ask for that extension and keep the Tory/BXT alliance together, and if October 31st passes without us leaving the EU he’s prohibitively likely to see a large chunk of his electorate shift towards Farage. He HAS to break the system and get booted out of power by ‘traitorous Remainer saboteurs’ in a VONC at some point in October, which leads to other crazy possibilities that I’ll go into elsewhere.
tldr: Yeah, but it’s a bonkers plan because they are a bunch of arseholes.
Tony Jay
@Eunicecycle:
Do you even have eyebrows?
Ladyraxterinok
@Dorothy A. Winsor: In 70s/80s When my ex was on the faculty at IaState, the department moved their bi-monthly? meetings to Saturday morning because faculty started getting ready to leave after an hour or so to go home for supper when meetings started at end of afternoon classes on weekdays.
Ladyraxterinok
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Haven’t ‘upper classes’ always looked down on spying as something ‘proper nobility’ does not do? Trump aspires to what he imagines is that class.
Fair Economist
@Tony Jay: Given that Boris’ only hope at this point is to exploit the (typical) splits on the left to get a Parliamentary majority out of his voter minority, an opposition caretaker government could doom his plan by installing an IRV system or some similar arrangement. Given that Brexiteers are going to be a large minority for some time to come, some modification to FPTP is going to be essential to preventing a No Deal party seizing power via FPTP quirks and butchering Britain’s future. Even if Boris loses this election, the Mad Tories or the Brexit party might win the next, and the next might be relatively soon given that there are currently three big leftish parties, none of which get along well.
Uncle Cosmo
@Baud:
Something I learned in my days as a local political activist (roughly 1970-84) is that the main purpose of lawn signs, and bumperstickers, and workers handing out sample ballots at the polls on election day, is to validate the viability of the candidate.
Imagine the average politically-uninvolved voter walking up to the polling place. S/he’s thinking about voting for this obscure candidate – but s/he hasn’t seen a lawn sign or a bumper sticker & there’s no one handing out literature for her/him at the polls. S/he thinks, Maybe I’m throwing my vote away…
You didn’t need forests of signs or parking lots full of bumper stickers – just enough that the folks thinking of voting for you saw you as viable, someone worth spending their vote for. You didn’t need more than one worker at a polling place to “show the flag”. That’s all we had for the 1974 campaign, where a couple dozen (very talented & very hardworking) 20-somethings with a couple thousand bucks (mostly raised by crab feast) got another 20-something elected to the MD House of Delegates – breaking the generations-long stranglehold of the local Democratic Party machine.
(Oh, the other thing we did: Billboards. Two of them IIRC. Scrimped & saved for. Back in the pre-antisocial-media day nothing said “I’m a serious candidate” louder than a billboard on a busy highway.)
rikyrah
@Tony Jay:
Does he really want to dismantle NHS?
Do the pro-Brexit VOTERS understand that?
Tony Jay
@Fair Economist:
Theoretically, but vastly unlikely. Any interim Government is going to be well hampered by the consensus that it exists solely to ask for an extension and call a General Election. The kind of democratic legitimacy and political capital required to radically change our voting system (only a few years after we actually had a referendum on that very topic that voted against replacing FPTP) just wouldn’t be there. Never mind the time to organise and train the bodies supervising the national count.
Necessary, but not without a majority Government that had it on their Election manifesto.
And I’d dispute the description of the Lib-Dems as ‘left’. They’ve elected a centre to centre-right leader and are facing/courting an influx of Conservatives, they’re socially liberal but otherwise only leftish in an American context.
As to their Brexit stance, they’ve just abandoned the People’s Vote/New Referendum policy they’ve been unicorning around for the last two years in favour of a straight Revoke Article 50 policy that blows a hole in any potential coalition or other agreement.
And people tell me it’s rude to accuse the Lib Dem’s of preferring to go to war with Labour for the Remain vote than seriously plan to stop Brexit.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
A $1.5 million renovation budget?! The Property Brothers could take it down to the studs for $500,000 tops. Not to mention Chip and Joanne, who might be more Republican-y.
Tony Jay
@rikyrah:
Do Trump voters realise he’s making them poorer and shitting over their country in every conceivable way? Do they care?
It’s a cult, Rik. Smart people rules don’t apply.
Mart
Heaven forbid any of the desperate Haitians who fled to the Bahamas without papers get passage to the US after Dorian; while the Trump Admin is working to deport Haitians with papers in the US back to Haiti years after their devastating earthquake. So sad Norwegians don’t have natural disasters.
TenguPhule
@Tony Jay:
I see they want to repeat the whole College Fee fiasco.