Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Call the National Guard if your insurrection lasts more than four hours.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

It’s not even safe to go out and pick up 2 days worth of poop anymore.

They are all Michael Cohen now.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Everybody saw this coming.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

I swear, each month of 2020 will have its own history degree.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

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

We have all the best words.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

How do you get liars to care about the truth?

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Biden-Harris 2020 / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Prepping for A Party

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Prepping for A Party

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No better start to a grand party than a drumline, unless it includes a brass band and maybe some bagpipes…

…[W]ith the coronavirus raging, unemployment claims soaring and partisan divisions sharpening, Biden faces a fraught moment as he prepares to deliver a speech that aides say he wants to use to “call Americans to unity.”

“The situation he faces is absolutely brutal,” said Cody Keenan, who served as a chief speechwriter for Obama and assisted with his two inaugural addresses. He added that Biden in many ways is ”the perfect president for the moment, because he is not hyperbolic, he’s not a bomb thrower, he’s surrounded himself with policy wonks who already have all these plans. I think what we are going to hear him talk about is ‘Here’s where we are, here’s what we have to get done.’ I think that’s going to go a long way just to making people feel better.”…

The inaugural address is as much a celebration of the peaceful handover of power as it is a set piece for a new or reelected president to lay out a vision for the nation. In recent memory, inaugural addresses have followed a predictable structure: The nation has challenges but there is hope to solve the problems if the president’s agenda is embraced…

Sounds extremely on-point for the current circumstances!

Reader Interactions

210Comments

  3. 3.

    satby

    I took tomorrow off so I could pop the cork on the champagne I have chilling and play this as I watch the traitor fly off in the morning.

    Ok, maybe coffee for that and save the champagne for Joe and Kamala’s swearing in. Either way, there will be day drinking.

  4. 4.

    Matt McIrvin

    Burns me up that after starting his administration by lying about his own inaugural crowds, Trump has made it so Biden can’t even have a crowd. His sabotage casts a pall over everything.

    Already seeing the complaints about how this is a “waste of taxpayer money” though of course it’s not paid for with taxpayer money.

  5. 5.

    Nicole

    Oh my God, I cannot believe the last four years are finally almost over.

    The day the election was called for Biden and we went outside and people were dancing and cheering in the streets, and the local restaurant handed out free shots and someone was blasting “Celebration” from their apartment above the street- that was a good day. Tomorrow will be a good day, too.

  8. 8.

    JPL

    @satby: I’d join you but I purchased a small bottle of Prosecco, in order to make two mimosas.   I’ll probably still nap most of the afternoon.

  10. 10.

    RandomMonster

    Take comfort in the fact that Trump’s sad, flaccid sendoff will have maximum contrast with Biden’s star-studded, professionally produced event.

  11. 11.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I’m in the hospital for a minor procedure tomorrow. It’s scheduled for 11:30. So when they knock me out trump will still be president but when I wake up…

    I probably won’t be able to appreciate it. I hate those drugs.

  13. 13.

    SFAW

    @Nicole:

    Oh my God, I cannot believe the last four years are finally almost over.

    I was pondering (so to speak) how I will handle not having the Traitor-/Murderer-/Grifter-/Liar-in-Chief “to kick around any more,” and realized I’ll be so relieved not to be constantly on edge over his latest insanities.

    Unfortunately, the GOPoRT (Grand Old Party of Racists and Traitors) will still be around, doubtless harshing my mellow (almost) every day. But Trump gone is a start.

  21. 21.

    Baud

    Poll: Republican support for convicting Trump in Senate growing

     

    About 20 percent of Republicans said they “strongly” or “somewhat” approved of a Senate conviction in the latest poll, conducted between Jan. 15-17.

  22. 22.

    rikyrah

    Biden announces the nomination of Dr. Rachel Levine to serve as Assistant Secretary for Health at HHS. Levine would be the first openly transgender Senate-confirmed federal official.— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) January 19, 2021

  23. 23.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    But will he give in to the temptation- the very real temptation to close by saying at the end:

    ”Donald, you’re fired”.

  24. 24.

    SFAW

    @prostratedragon:

    Good luck with it. I had one Election Day to remove an annoyance.

    As did the country, although I’d characterize him as more than an “annoyance.” More like “an existential threat to the USA.” [No, I’m not talking about Ozark, wise guy.]

  25. 25.

    rikyrah

    As he leaves office, Mike Pompeo has been titled by a number of officials and analysts as the worst secretary of state in American history. That will come back to haunt him as he considers running for president in 2024 or seeking another elected office. https://t.co/Vilpt6N7Y5— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 18, 2021

  28. 28.

    OzarkHillbilly

    In other news: Local woman makes the big time! Sullivan Woman Charged In Riot At US Capitol

    According to court documents, three individuals submitted tips to the FBI based on a widely-circulated video by ITV News, a television news network based in the United Kingdom.
    ……………………..
    At approximately the 2:47 mark, a female with brown hair, round sunglasses and a white and gray winter hat, appears to be standing near the same office with the curved entryway. The sign was not there. The person — allegedly Hernandez — appears to hold up a broken engraved piece of wood and a white manila envelope. The fractured wood appeared to be a piece of the same wooden sign previously seen above the Speaker’s office.

    Tipster 1 submitted a photograph taken from Hernandez’s Facebook page to the FBI. It appears to depict Hernandez wearing the same hat worn by the person inside and outside the Capitol.

    Tipster 2 submitted an online tip to the FBI containing a video depicting what appears to be Hernandez wearing the same hat and sunglasses with the dome of the Capitol building rotunda above her.

    Hernandez allegedly posted videos of herself in the Capitol in possession of a fractured piece of wood and a red sign. The tipster is one of Hernandez’s Snapchat friends.

    With friends like these…

    My only question is, who went with her? Generally speaking, 20 yr old girls do not travel across the country by themselves.

  38. 38.

    geg6

    @Baud:

    That’s our Secretary of Health here in PA!  Yay for Dr. Levine!  She’s great and has endured sooooooo much through this pandemic, with the GOP and other cretins threatening her at every turn.

  39. 39.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @SFAW: [No, I’m not talking about Ozark, wise guy.]

    Damn, and here I was about to thank you for the compliment.

  40. 40.

    SFAW

    @Punchy:

    Is Pittbull expected to play at the National Maul?

    NotMax either approves that remark, or is pissed he didn’t get there first.

  41. 41.

    JPL

    @Baud:  Prepare for 24/7 coverage of caravans making their way north to the border with little money left to defend it, because of the deficit.

  45. 45.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Damn, and here I was about to thank you for the compliment.

    If it will make you feel better: I consider you an existential threat to Misery. You gotta work on your game if you want to expand it beyond the Misery borders, however.

  56. 56.

    Baud

    President-elect Joe Biden is heading to Washington on Tuesday following a farewell event in Wilmington, Del, where he has been conducting his transition. On the final full day of his White House tenure, President Trump is expected to release a video and could issue scores of pardons.

     

    Senate confirmation hearings will be held for five of Biden’s Cabinet nominees throughout the day on a heavily fortified Capitol Hill, where preparations also continue for Biden’s swearing-in at noon on Wednesday.

  58. 58.

    rikyrah

    Reporting out of the Senate today that Ga Senators-elect Ossoff & Warnock will be sworn in tomorrow afternoon shortly after Biden/Harris take their oathsVice President Kamala Harris will swear them in -elevating Schumer to Senate Majority Leader after 40 yrs in Congress— Mona (@Monaheart1229) January 19, 2021

  61. 61.

    prostratedragon

    @SFAW:  Yeah, I had choices, and when Nov. 3 was offered as a proximate date I thought, “Now this is perfect.” Endoscopy, i.e. something bothering my gut, but fortunately noncancerous and therefore not as evil as Some.

  62. 62.

    Baud

    @rikyrah:

    Can’t wait to see Nancy and Kamala behind Joe at the first State of the Union speech.

    It’ll probably have to be next year because of COVID though.

  71. 71.

    Spanky

    The thing about Wednesday’s forecast for around noon is while temps hit 40, there’s also a wind in the teens gusting into the 30s. That’ll be fun.

  72. 72.

    Tenterhooks

    @satby:

    I plan to take the day off too to focus on the festivities. I am sooooo psyched and can’t wait.  Laid in some California bubbly to toast Joe and Kamala (and us) at noon after the swearing-in.

    I haven’t watched much teevee and am going to soak in the sights. Too bad travel to DC is ruled out….

  75. 75.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah: Oh, they’re going to try.  We won’t let them.

    “We’re about to see a whole political party do a large-scale version of ‘New phone, who dis?’” says Sarah Isgur, a former top spokesperson for the Trump Justice Department. “It will be like that boyfriend you should never have dated—the mistake that shall not be mentioned.”
    The plan might seem implausible, but I’ve heard it floated repeatedly in recent days by Republican strategists who are counting down the minutes of the Trump presidency. The hardcore MAGA crowd will stay loyal, of course, and those few who have consistently opposed Trump will escape with their reputations intact. But for the majority of GOP officials, apparatchiks, and commentators who sacrificed their dignity at the altar of Trump, a collective case of amnesia seems destined to set in the moment he leaves office.

  76. 76.

    JMG

    I think that after Biden and Harris are sworn in I’m going to celebrate with a nap. When significant stress is lifted from my mind, I usually react by feeling very sleepy.

  77. 77.

    Punchy

    @JPL: and when they run out of actual caravan stories,, they’ll just roll tape of soccer moms in Dodge Caravans.  The base is far too stupid to understand the difference.

  78. 78.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    We’re meeting some neighbors outside to drink a champagne toast tomorrow at noon Central Time. That lets us watch the Inauguration and make sure it really happens. I have no idea what the weather will be except it will be cold

  79. 79.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    So I skimmed the laughable 1776 Commission Report, and it looks like every bullshit history text that misled me about events, ideas and trends during grade school during the 60s and early 70s. Further, it looks to be written on a 5th grade level, perfect for inclusion as an “official” document in Christian private schools, the Texas state curriculum, etc.

    It’ll take on an authoritative tone, not unlike that of that nut Skousen’s “Communist Goals” that got read into the Congressional Record.

    The only things missing were a gigantic section about the evils of carpetbaggers and moving depictions of devout Confederate officers kneeling in prayer next to horses.

  83. 83.

    RR Mikey

    @Matt McIrvin: – and you know that at some point in time, the anus mouthed orange shitgibbon will say, in that soft, annoying voice he uses, “nobody came, nobody came…I had a milyeeon people at my inauguration…noboby came for his….”  Bastard…

  89. 89.

    Betty Cracker

    An infuriating (to me, anyway) excerpt from the AP article linked above:

    The inaugural address is as much a celebration of the peaceful handover of power as it is a set piece for a new or reelected president to lay out a vision for the nation…

    Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary for President George W. Bush, said there are still ways that Biden’s speechwriting team can continue the tradition of honoring the peaceful transition of power by simply giving a nod to the past presidents and Vice President Mike Pence, who are expected to be at the Capitol for the address.

    First, an obligatory “fuck you” to that lying POS Ari Fleischer, who should never presume to advise anyone else about anything, ever. Here’s the thing: we didn’t have a peaceful transfer of power, so we can’t celebrate that this year. We were DENIED a peaceful transfer of power by a violent mob that Donald Trump wound up and sent down Pennsylvania Avenue.

    Therefore, the “nod” suggested by Fleischer would be dishonest if the speech didn’t also acknowledge that it’s taking place at a crime scene and that unity and democracy are only possible when we can agree on fundamental facts, like who won the fucking election, and there is accountability for fascist coup attempts. Biden seems to get that; his “big lie” comments are on point. This can all be acknowledged along with a call to unity AND accountability.

  92. 92.

    Immanentize

    • Here is the Howard Drumline practicing yesterday on the DC streets:

    Howard University’s marching band rehearses for the Inauguration, representing the alma mater of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. pic.twitter.com/b2ZHjIMFN0— Samantha Schmidt (@schmidtsam7) January 18, 2021

    I love drumlines. I was in band in Highschool and for some reason, great drumlines choke me up. Souza marches too.

  98. 98.

    zhena gogolia

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    But interestingly, I did an informal poll of friends the other day, and all of them who went to public high schools, not just in MO, LA, and NC, but also Brooklyn, got the “carpetbaggers” and “Lost Cause” version of the Civil War and Reconstruction. It seems to have been a national thing.

  99. 99.

    Gin & Tonic

    At some duty-free shop in late summer of 2016, I bought an expensive bottle of whisky for toasting Hillary Clinton’s inevitable victory over that clown Trump. Well, um…

    It has sat unopened. I’m thinking noon tomorrow may not be an ideal time for opening it, but later in the day is very likely.

  100. 100.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @zhena gogolia:

    To it’s credit, my social justice adjacent blue collar Catholic high school insisted on better text material for historical events, so it undid my elementary school misunderstandings (undoubtedly related to the Texas stranglehold on public school textbook publishing).

  101. 101.

    citizen dave (aka mad citizen)

    Good morning jackals!  I’m your Citizen Dave and I welcome you to Tommy’s Holiday Camp!  (Sorry, having a Who flashback).  It’s been 4 years and 1 month for me in this wonderful place.  Aside from a couple of music groups/sites (usernames), I’d never chosen a “nym” before and had to think fast.  The 1975 movie Network must have stuck with me, because in Dec. 2016 at my core I was a “mad citizen”, so I became that.  (Howard Beale speech below).

    But, it’s time to no longer be mad, and I thought one small positive thing would be to not make everyone read the word “mad” every time I post something.  So, I’ve transitioned to simply “citizen dave” as of today–no longer constantly mad, at least.  It is time to celebrate!  27 hours to go!

    I’ve never liked the “I’m taking my country back” phrase, employed by the right more than the left.  The engaged people get mad.  We’re mad on our side, too.  We voted.  We won.  I hope everyone who voted stays engaged and becomes even more engaged as citizens on all levels.

    Howard Beale speech in Network: “I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work, or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter, punks are running wild in the street, and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it! We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be! We know things are bad — worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is: ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’ Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get MAD! I don’t want you to protest, I don’t want you to riot, I don’t want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first, you’ve got to get mad! [shouting] You’ve got to say: ‘I’m a human being, goddammit! My life has value!’ So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out, and yell: I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE! I want you to get up right now. Sit up. Go to your windows. Open them and stick your head out and yell: ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!…You’ve got to say: I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE! Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis! But first, get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”

  102. 102.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly:  I’m honestly surprised that there haven’t yet been multiple arrests of people from the Ozarks. I’m sure some people from here went, since Trump’s support is so strong down here. It still boggles my mind to see how they thought there would be no consequences for what they did.

  103. 103.

    sab

    @zhena gogolia: We all had the Texas school books, everywhere in America.

    My brilliant older sister went to a fancy elite boarding school. She had a year of French class where they taught American history from French textbooks. Very different from what she learned in the regular American history taught from American textbooks.

  106. 106.

    zhena gogolia

    @citizen dave (aka mad citizen):

    Yeah, the NYT has a cover article about “smoldering rage” this morning. I was hoping it was going to be about OUR SMOLDERING RAGE, but no, it’s once again the hurt fee-fees of the PEOPLE WHO WANTED TO OVERTURN OUR ELECTION.

  107. 107.

    Skepticat

    I’m still have high anxiety about the potential for violence at and around the inauguration. I always plan for the worst and hope for the best, but the current craziness and the insurrection have made me think I might not be worried enough. I’m certainly hoping for a pleasant surprise.

  108. 108.

    sab

    It wasn’t until college that I learned that the reason the British burned Washington in the War of 1812 is that we had burned Toronto and most of the towns in the Ontario peninsula in February the year before.

  111. 111.

    Princess

    @Jeffro: Good luck because the press will be abetting them every single step. Bill Barr is already laundering his reputation, on Axios yesterday and today in ITV. It will work too. A nation that forgot his role in Iran Contra will forget his role with Trump. And same for all the rest. Betting on amnesia is a safe bet.

  112. 112.

    sab

    My natural gas generator just started its weekly test run. It is very loud. Shadow the Meankitty’s eyes almost popped out of her head. Starscream the tuxedo just moaned and rolled over in his sleep.

  113. 113.

    Soprano2

    @zhena gogolia: But interestingly, I did an informal poll of friends the other day, and all of them who went to public high schools, not just in MO, LA, and NC, but also Brooklyn, got the “carpetbaggers” and “Lost Cause” version of the Civil War and Reconstruction. It seems to have been a national thing.

    I got that, too – public school late 1960’s thru 1970’s. Didn’t know Reconstruction wasn’t a bad thing until I had a college history course. I shudder now when I remember some of the “history” I was taught in school.

  116. 116.

    burnspbesq

    @SFAW:

    The Truth and Retribution Commission grand jury will have more work than they can accomplish in two years.

    FTFY.

  117. 117.

    JPL

    @zhena gogolia:  F.K  it..     No matter how hard they try,  The NYPost will still be the paper for the wingers.

    A friend often mentions how sad it is to see the NYPost become so right wing.   Rupert ruins everything though.

  119. 119.

    Princess

    @sab: Given the way the news people compared the insurrection to 1812, my guess is that most Americans still don’t know that 1812 was a war in which they were the aggressors and then they lost.

  123. 123.

    Spanky

    @sab: Yep, although it was called York at the time.

    As Sheaffe’s men left Fort York, they lit their abandoned supplies on fire to keep valuable gunpowder out of the hands of the invading Americans.

    When fire met a magazine containing hundreds of barrels of gunpowder, it set off a devastating explosion. Americans, who were rounding up prisoners near the fort were devastated by the explosion, which pelted debris through the air, wounding or killing over 200 Americans. Among the dead was General Pike, and as a result, vengeful Americans ransacked the town of York, burning public buildings and businesses. This aggressive act would later be repaid when the British burned Washington D.C. in 1814.

  124. 124.

    Matt McIrvin

    @zhena gogolia: I got an interestingly ambiguous version in 1980s Northern Virginia. The textbook was an infamous product of the Dunning School that had been somewhat softened for a post-civil-rights-movement era, but it still had all this stuff about the nasty carpetbaggers and how off-puttingly extreme the abolitionists were. But the teacher was this proud Mainer who tried to stamp out Lost Cause mythology where he could. …But the students included a lot of obvious Confederate sympathizers. So, yeah, it was a land of contrasts.

  126. 126.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    We went to the building gym for our early morning appointment. On our way back, Mr DAW stopped at the cafe, as usual, to dig the channel changer out of its hiding place and change the TV from Fox to CNN.

    The folks we’re toasting with tomorrow are like a secret cabal of Democrats in our very R building. They all change the channel when they can.

  127. 127.

    sab

    @Another Scott: When I was a kid in Florida they actually taught us that Canadians were jealous and wanted to be American. My grandmother had Canadian first cousins so I knew that was nonsense.

  131. 131.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soprano2: It still boggles my mind to see how they thought there would be no consequences for what they did.

    White privilege is a powerful drug.

  132. 132.

    Matt McIrvin

    @sab: A note about Dresden and Vonnegut: while his account was largely based on personal experience, the numbers he gives to argue that Dresden got hit worse than Hiroshima were based on discredited work by Holocaust denier David Irving. So some caution is warranted there.

  134. 134.

    Geminid

    @catclub: Pompeo was Congressman from Wichita, Kansas, home of Koch Industries. So I think he’ll have plenty of money behind him. He’ll be one of the front runners for sure.. Chris Christy could be another one, although the trump cultists won’t like him. I just hope the nomination contest is acrimonious, protracted, and divisive.                     This year’s statewide Virginia races might give a snapshot of where the party is going post-trump.

  135. 135.

    Spanky

    @Princess: I don’t think you can rightly say we lost. England was just sick of war at that point (mainly with Napoleon), and just sorta lost interest.

  136. 136.

    sab

    @Princess: I thought it was a tie for everyone except Native Americans. That is what opened up Ohio for settlement. They couldn’t even teach us that in Ohio history because they couldn’t say that we had done bad things to them. They did say that the Indians started it.

  137. 137.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @rikyrah: Facebook wasn’t really Trump’s thing. It was Twitter were Trump could just order is his caddy to spam out one sentence troll tweets until he got a reaction that enabled this nonsense. Facebook posts are to much work for Trump’s lazy ass.

  139. 139.

    mali muso

    @satby: I will also be taking the day to celebrate.  Day drinking will be happening to be sure. :)

    Kind of thinking to order some takeout from the local Indian place for lunch and Jamaican for dinner.  Gotta celebrate our new VP’s heritage!

  140. 140.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @zhena gogolia: Yes, that version was taught at least through the 1980s, maybe into the 2000s. A good antidote is to read Ron Chernow’s biography of Ulysses S. Grant, who was considered one of the very worst Presidents when I was a child in the 1970s and ’80s, solely on the strength of “Lost Cause” revisionist history.

    Grant is now considered one of our better Presidents. He tried very hard to reform the South and his post-Presidency set a model for unofficial international diplomacy. I actually think there’s an argument that he’s top 10 and maybe should be ranked higher than Teddy Roosevelt.

  141. 141.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @rikyrah: Oh, that’s another prediction that came true; that Trump would break threw the polling floor Nixon established.

  142. 142.

    artem1s

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Already seeing the complaints about how this is a “waste of taxpayer money” though of course it’s not paid for with taxpayer money.

    unlike the golf carts at MAL that Grifter45 billed the Secret Service for.

  143. 143.

    Spanky

    @Matt McIrvin: Irving wasn’t the first. Germany inflated the numbers from the get-go.

    Wikipedia:

    In March 1945, the German government ordered its press to publish a falsified casualty figure of 200,000 for the Dresden raids, and death tolls as high as 500,000 have been claimed.[15][16][17] The city authorities at the time estimated up to 25,000 victims, a figure that subsequent investigations supported, including a 2010 study commissioned by the city council.[18] One of the main authors responsible for inflated figures being disseminated in the West was Holocaust denier David Irving, who subsequently announced that he had discovered that the documentation he had worked from had been forged, and the real figures supported the 25,000 number.[19]

  144. 144.

    Baud

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    The folks we’re toasting with tomorrow are like a secret cabal of Democrats in our very R building.

    Have you considered invading the management office to effectuate a coup? You can always make a plea for unity if it doesn’t work out.

  145. 145.

    Another Scott

    @sab: J and I vacationed in Quebec one summer in the Before Times and saw some of the war sites.  It was interesting to see the guides gently explain to us stupid Americans that no we weren’t the blameless virtuous gentle souls at the time…

    J was annoyed by the waiters there who frequently tried to correct her excellent (French) French.

    ;-)

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  146. 146.

    artem1s

    @SFAW:

    Unfortunately, the GOPoRT (Grand Old Party of Racists and Traitors) will still be around, doubtless harshing my mellow (almost) every day. But Trump gone is a start.

    Not for them.  May they wear the stick of his rot forever.

  148. 148.

    natem

    @Betty Cracker: Speaking of pieces of shit during the W administration, I bring you…

    None other than the Chimp Himself!

    Politico Playbook: “SPOTTED: GEORGE W. BUSH and TUCKER CARLSON having dinner at the private home of a neighbor on the exclusive Gasparilla Island, Fla., where they both have homes…”

    — Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) January 19, 2021

  150. 150.

    Immanentize

    @sab: Yes. That is a great novel.  We firebombed Dresden, not really a military target in the waning days of the war because (it is said), the Germans bombed the civilian city of Coventry in England during the blitz as a last attempt to break the English.

  158. 158.

    OzarkHillbilly

    This is good: Pink seesaws across US-Mexico border named Design of the Year 2020

    A collection of bright pink seesaws that allowed people to interact over the US-Mexico border has won the prestigious Design of the Year award, with its creators saying they hoped the work encourages people to build bridges between communities.

    The Teeter Totter Wall, which bridged across El Paso in Texas and Ciudad Juárez in Mexico during a 40-minute session, was described as not only feeling “symbolically important” but also highlighting “the possibility of things” by the judging panel.

    The creators of the seesaws, Ronald Rael, a professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and Virginia San Fratello, an associate professor of design at San José State University, first came up with the idea a decade ago after the Secure Fence Act 2006, which started large-scale building on the border.

    They said they hoped the design would help people reassess the effectiveness of borders and encourage dialogue rather than division. San Fratello said: “I think it’s become increasingly clear with the recent events in our country that we don’t need to build walls we need to build bridges.”

  159. 159.

    prostratedragon

    @Immanentize:  If Chicago is typical, too many urban public schools have defunded programs like band in general elementary and high schools, which has way reduced the number of Black kids who get early musical instrument training. I did notice that UM had several Asian drummers in that line.

  160. 160.

    jonas

    @Matt McIrvin:  Already seeing the complaints about how this is a “waste of taxpayer money”

    …no doubt being made by people who had no problem with the government paying Trump’s own businesses for over a year’s equivalent of golfing time. Not to mention that we’re just now starting to get to the bottom of all the hinky stuff that was going on with Trump’s own inaugural committee and fundraising.

    There will probably still be ongoing investigations ten years from now into the corruption of the past four years. Unwinding this shit will be a generational task.

  161. 161.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Baud:

    I think I saw, though, that he’s addressing a joint Session of Congress sometime in February. Not, technically, a SOTU, but both the VP and Speaker will be seated behind him, and that will be a moment for the ages.

  167. 167.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Another Scott: One of Mr DAW’s colleagues was stationed in France for a while. His kids went to the regular high school, where among other classes, they had to take English. It annoyed them that the teacher marked them down for US spelling.

  168. 168.

    Nicole

    @OzarkHillbilly: 
    Best wishes for a smooth procedure tomorrow! I have trouble with anesthesia, too (the gas makes me really nauseated), so I send best wishes you wake feeling like you’ve just had a long nap and oh look, hi, President Biden!

  173. 173.

    sab

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: A classmate of mine in high school had a brother who emigrated to Norway during the Vietnam war. Their mother was Norwegian. He thought he would at least be able to teach English, but they didn’t think he spoke English. He spoke some dialect of it.

  176. 176.

    Nicole

    @zhena gogolia:

    But interestingly, I did an informal poll of friends the other day, and all of them who went to public high schools, not just in MO, LA, and NC, but also Brooklyn, got the “carpetbaggers” and “Lost Cause” version of the Civil War and Reconstruction. It seems to have been a national thing.

    I remember my high school textbook (public school, Pennsylvania, 1980s) had a side box presenting arguments for why the Civil War was NOT about slavery.  And yeah, a whole chapter devoted to “Carpetbaggers and Scallywags.”

    Lotta American Exceptionalism in those textbooks, I recall.

  177. 177.

    NotMax

    Looks as if the sunshine will reappear here just about concurrent with noon in the east on Wednesday. Been windy, chilly and gray here for 48 hours – major winter rainstorm. Road closures due to flooding, landslides and downed trees. Some locales have reported 10 or more inches of rain since this storm rolled in on Sunday; 4 inches (more or less) thus far in the immediate neighborhood.

  178. 178.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Oh, that’s another prediction that came true; that Trump would break threw the polling floor Nixon established.

    He hasn’t. Nixon’s job approval was in the mid-twenties when he resigned. Averaged over all the polls, Trump isn’t even polling as badly as Jimmy Carter did toward the end.

    It’s possible that Trump’s job approval could fall some more in his final polls, but he’s out of time, so we’ll never know how low it could go. I suppose people will keep polling personal approval, if we care.

  179. 179.

    sab

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: I was late too a thread a few days ago, when you said conservatives loathe San Francisco Republicans. Can you clarify why? Too nutz? Not nutz enough? RINO? Anti-RINO? My brother is a suburban SF Republican that I can’t even speak to any more, and I am wondering what happened to him.

  180. 180.

    germy

    “No one is going to want to see my Donald Trump” now, Atamanuik says. “Anyone who is seeking Trump comedy after Jan. 21, I just feel bad for them.” https://t.co/wDCUWrK4fA— ARREST TRUMP (@TonyAtamanuik) January 16, 2021

    His trump impression was the best, but fortunately he’s got about a million other voices and impressions he can do.

  181. 181.

    Aleta

    Janet Yellen’s hearing at Senate Finance Committee is live now. (Grassley just finished going on and on and on about what he believes and about R ‘accomplishments.’)

  182. 182.

    Matt McIrvin

    @germy: Atamanuik did the bit about Trump screaming that he was robbed and having to be dragged out of the White House years ago.

  186. 186.

    sixthdoctor

    @Gin & Tonic: I stupidly didn’t take off work tomorrow, but I may allow myself a couple of teensy sips of my bottle of excellent Ron Zacapa rum, one at noon and one in the morning when that black-hearted bastard gets on the plane to Florida.

  187. 187.

    burnspbesq

    Just a reminder that today is Confederate Heroes Day in Texas.

    Patrick and Paxton ordered up an entire week of shitty weather in honor of Joe and Kamala’s inauguration. Abbott was, as usual, nowhere to be seen. Allen West complained that the weather wasn’t shitty enough.

  189. 189.

    TomatoQueen

    My memory of what was taught in US Hist II is a little vague now, but there was a required textbook, which the History dept hated so the volumes were kept in the big classroom storage cabinet by the door.  All of us wondered why we spent so much time on the causes of the war, and so little on the war itself, and our teacher said there was not enough time in the school year to do both, so we got causes, a battle or two, nothing in particular about Reconstruction that I remember except no Lost Cause fantasizing, and somehow we’re at the panic of 1876. This was the same course in which I learned about historical criticism (Hofstadter? Hofstedter? god what a bore for a 15 year old) the causes of WWI, and George Mortimer Pullman, who was a classroom figure of fun cos of there being Pullman everything–nothing about the Pullman porters, mind you, a suburban high school in 1970s Connecticut, as well-resourced as it was, wasn’t going to tell us everything we should’ve known, or indeed might not have been capable of such at the time.  I always hesitate to mention it, because people become unnecessarily condescending, but Ken Burns taught me more about that period than I learned in high school, after I lived in Florida for ten years. Twenty years of living in Alexandria, VA,  has taught me a bit more–there’s a bloody history in the bricks of Old Town.

  190. 190.

    PPCLI

    @sab:

    @Princess:

    I remember learning in school that the Americans expected an easy victory because they wrongly expected the natives of Canada to join them and rise up in rebellion against the British.

    The “They will greet us as liberators” delusion goes way back.

  192. 192.

    gvg

    I went to school in 70’s Florida and I do not recall even hearing about the lost cause stuff. the Civil was was about slavery with some economics that were also related to slavery. Reconstruction did get some bad press for corruption and also not being followed through on.  I did pick up the idea that it is a universal human trait to resent outsiders telling your what to do which means all the colonial type wars we fought (Vietnam for example) had built in difficulty. I knew Iraq war was not going to result in flowers for example.  I wonder why I got lucky.  I know I did read a lot of history on my own but the Civil War never really interested me so I don’t know.  My parents watched the news and commented to me all through the late 60’s and 70’s explaining things like civil rights…maybe I kind of already knew and possibly my fellow students did too.

  193. 193.

    sab

    @gvg: Where in Florida?  We were central east coast and my sister says it was definitely not insanely Confederate. She remembers the focus being on the Spanish heritage. I was in elementary school so we didn’t get much history. But we were in the sixties, not the seventies.

  196. 196.

    karen marie

    a celebration of the peaceful handover of power

    Except it’s not.

    Calling it such excuses the Republican party’s violent insurrection.

  198. 198.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Princess: In the United States, the War of 1812 is taught as a war between the US and the British Empire over such issues as freedom of the seas, in which the British were the aggressors and the US won.

    In Canada, the War of 1812 is taught as a war between the United States and Canada, in which the US tried to conquer Canada and lost.

  199. 199.

    Barry

    @Spanky: ” I don’t think you can rightly say we lost. England was just sick of war at that point (mainly with Napoleon), and just sorta lost interest.”

     

    IMHO, the USA realized that we would now get the undivided attention of the British Empire.  Ending the war then was a mutually agreeable project.

  200. 200.

    cain

    @Matt McIrvin: Already seeing the complaints about how this is a “waste of taxpayer money” though of course it’s not paid for with taxpayer money.

    Ah yes, our conservative friends have suddenly found their dicks and now waving it of behalf of tax payers everywhere. Having said nothing for the sheer amount of tax payer waste throughout the four years. We should show them the costs of all that secret service so he can go golfing, or the cost staying in someone’s basement because the first family doesn’t want them to use the bathrooms.

    This lament must be destroyed by shouting these people down every time. Morons.

  201. 201.

    catclub

    @PPCLI: The “They will greet us as liberators” delusion goes way back.

     

    Napoleon thought that about invading Spain to overthrow Catholic Royalism, too.   Instead, we get the word ‘guerilla’.

  202. 202.

    MisterForkbeard

    @cain: The taxpayer money complains I’ve seen are all around the national guard presence. “Why doesn’t Biden just have a secret inauguration, if he really cared about waste!” etc.

    Except that the guards aren’t there to protect or celebrate Biden. They’re present because Republicans are threatening to throw riots and destroy the Capitol again after a failed coup attempt. If they’re worried about a price tag, it’s on THEM, not us.

  203. 203.

    StringOnAStick

    All it took to get me to read something other than the TX approved “history” was an excellent young history teacher in high school. Once I graduated I somehow picked up a copy of Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee and had my eyes seriously opened about “approved history” as taught in schools, on TV, in movies.

    I have a 42 yo friend raised in TX who was angry when I told her the Alamo was about trying to keep TX as a slave owning area; she still believed what she was taught while a kid there.  I hope she’s done some deeper reading but we no longer live anywhere near them so I can hope that I piqued her curiosity.

  204. 204.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Barry:

    In 1812, all the Empire could count on were tactical victories that would wear down the public appetite for war – they were in no way an existential threat, which is why the Star Spangled Banner sucks as a national anthem.

    I still prefer the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

  205. 205.

    J R in WV

    @Immanentize:

    I love drumlines. I was in band in Highschool and for some reason, great drumlines choke me up. Souza marches too.

    Me too, Sousaphone player, graduated from HS in great shape thanks to marching with 55 pounds of silver plated brass AND playing a giant horn at the same time.

  206. 206.

    J R in WV

    @sab:

    My natural gas generator just started its weekly test run. It is very loud.

    Mine too, early afternoon every Tuesday. They installed it on Tuesday… so glad to have it. We live way out on the edge of the electrical grid, and lose power pretty often.

  207. 207.

    patroclus

    @Matt McIrvin: And in the U.K., the War of 1812 is regarded as a minor theater in the Napoleonic Wars which they won (twice) and in which they negotiated the cessation of hostilities with the U.S. and resumed trade with the Treaty of Ghent.

  208. 208.

    patroclus

    @StringOnAStick: Well, I’ve done further reading on the subject of the Texas Revolutionary War and there was a lot more at stake than slavery – perhaps you should do some further reading as well.  Maybe it could include Sam Houston’s time living with Native Americans and marrying a Native and his attitude towards Natives generally; the empresarios’ original deal with the new “liberal” Mexican state which guaranteed them a degree of autonomy, the Nationalist coup by Santa Anna, his punitive wars of extermination, the plans to de-autonomize Texas and combine it with Coauhila as a new state, the sending of Austin as a negotiator and his 1-year long imprisonment, the quartering of Mexican soldiers in homes, the expropriation of assets, the new taxes, the treatment by the Mexicans of Natives and meztizos and, of course, the massacres without quarter at Goliad and San Antonio.  If you truly believe it was only about preserving slavery, I think you should read deeper.

  209. 209.

    JAFD

    Pierre Bertin has written a multi-volume history of ‘the War of 1812’ from the Canadian viewpoint.

    TLDR = the USAn’s and Brits fought to a draw, the Native Americans lost, and the Canadians won – wuch of what is uniquely Canadian resulted from the conflict.

    So, here’s to “Peace, Prosperity and Good Government!”

  210. 210.

    dww44

    @OzarkHillbilly:Besr wishes to you tomorrow. I too am wary of going under anesthesia. May you awake to a new era of hope and possibilities. Be sure to let us know how it goes.

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