Biden walks into the East Room wearing a mask, the first time that he's been spotted wearing one in the WH since May.
He notes that he didn't have to wear one yesterday in PA because people there got vaccinated.
— Annie Linskey (@AnnieLinskey) July 29, 2021
Best thing you can say about the GOP Death Cultists’ middle-school-level performances: At least while they’re stunting for selfies, they’re not actively making other peoples’ lives worse…
awww that’s cute they’re LARPing as their capitol terrorist heroes https://t.co/XJSH4wexOD
— kilgore trout, terminal hiccups patient (@KT_So_It_Goes) July 29, 2021
The group planned to be in the chamber when Sen. Mike Lee delivered a speech about House rules on wearing masks. pic.twitter.com/aFSMUUO15I
— Chris Cioffi (@ReporterCioffi) July 29, 2021
Don’t worry, dude. You’ll get your chance to see inside. https://t.co/Rx1JsMdvlr
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) July 29, 2021
I would pay to see Louie Gohmert flash his ID to try and get into Groom Lake to see the aliens. https://t.co/x4zCzF68rM
— Jim Swift (@JimSwiftDC) July 29, 2021
Baud
Their children?
dmsilev
“Gaetz, Greene, Gohmert, and Gosar”. Can we have a moratorium on additional idiots with last names beginning with G? I feel we have a lifetime supply already.
nclurker
on a earlier thread,someone mentioned barbara boxer being mugged,in broad daylight.
i have also read that the thieves just stole her phone,and then jumped into a waiting
get away car.
makes me wonder what is on that phone,and who knew where she would be?
cheers all
Mary G
The threat of being sent to live in a tent in the garage has spurred the housemate teen to move his first vaccination up to the day after tomorrow. Thanks to the covid threads and early morning crowd for the support. I’ve watched him charm his way out of any amount of trouble over the years and it’s good for him to know it won’t always work. It doesn’t hurt that I am pissed off as fuck.
Baud
@Mary G: ?
Tony Jay
Stunt! Stunt! Stunt!
It’s all a big old game of “Piss off the squares” that earns them scratch in the underworld community they’ve chosen to live in due to the lack of opportunity their kind experiences when competing out in the Real World.
Legislate? There’ll be plenty of time for that when/if they get the majority back. Until then it’s Festival!
Baud
@Tony Jay:
It is a stunt, but it’s also trolling the Dems who tried to investigate the kids in cages last year by visiting the facilities on the border.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: Actually Congressman Bob Goode (R-VA) was also there. Oh My Gawd!!!! Gaetz, Greene, Gohmert, Goode, and Gosar…That’s 5G!!!!!
Adam L Silverman
Current mood!
The Moar You Know
@nclurker: no need to go all CT on this one. Rich old lady walking around Jack London square talking on her cell? Of course she got robbed. That shit happens literally every day there. My brother got mugged there. My ex girlfriend got mugged there. Her friend got shot in the face there. My guitar player watched a guy get shot to death ten feet in front of him there, and if the dude hadn’t run out of bullets he’d have shot my friend too. Oakland is a fucking hellhole. It’s gentrifying but all that means at the moment is “more victims”. Boxer was fucking stupid wandering around there like that, you gotta have situational awareness in Oakland. All the time.
Rocks
“They were ordered to leave or be arrested for trespassing, which they did.” Which one? I’m rooting for b. And as a bonus, they could check out the conditions first hand.
MomSense
@Mary G:
Yes! Accountability is a good lesson to learn.
Adam L Silverman
@Rocks: They left. The only members of Congress who ever get arrested are the members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Especially the female members.
Baud
@The Moar You Know: maybe all those other crimes are designed to cover up the fact that they were targeting Boxer.
JPL
@Mary G: I’m so pleased. After his first shot, I’ll definitely do my version of Elmo’s happy dance.
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: Hank Johnson would disagree with that, cuz they do arrest black males too. You did say especially, so you get a pass.
Tony Jay
@Baud:
Yup. Cosplaying a ‘both sides’ scenario for the titillation of their fucked up audience.
Over here their ideological brethren are in power and dog-whistling attacks on volunteer sea-rescue crews for acting as ‘migrant taxis’ when they save the lives of brown kids in dinghies who lack royal blue Brexitanian passports.
I really hate these people, and I don’t feel in the least bad about that. It’s very much the right thing to do.
Adam L Silverman
@Adam L Silverman: Without a doubt they arrest the men in the CBC too. But they seem to always get the women in the CBC.
Adam L Silverman
@Tony Jay: How much damage is Cummings going to do/be able to do/likely do to the Flobalob with the interviews and the disclosure of the texts and emails and notes?
Just Chuck
@The Moar You Know: I used to live in a nice part of Oakland, Adams Point, which was a skip and a jump from JLS. Soon as you crossed the freeway, it got super sketchy. Could be worse though, could be International.
tokyokie
@Adam L Silverman:
I knew there was something hinky about the 5G network.
JPL
@tokyokie: Let me guess.. China. ?♀️?♀️?♀️?♀️?♀️
mrmoshpotato
@Mary G:
Good to hear!
nclurker
@The Moar You Know: i still wonder why they didn’t take every thing she had.you know,cash,rings,purse,etc.
a quick grab of just a phone strikes me as ,well,strange.
mugging a retired senator,blindly walking thru a high crime area,who knows.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mary G: Job well done.
Mary G
@JPL: I hope WaterGirl is still doing “I got the shot’ and will give me all the stickers.
dr. bloor
@Baud: Federal penal code expressly prohibits future residents from measuring for drapes before being sentenced.
MomSense
@Mary G:
We need a new MaryG is a BOSS BITCH sticker just for you.
frosty
@Mary G: Good news! I’m glad the snarling mass of vitriolic vicious jackals could help – you came to the right place!
trollhattan
@nclurker:
This is the only posted article I’ve seen. Sounds like a crime of opportunity and not a targeting of Boxer, but we may yet learn more, especially if security cameras captured it.
Mary G
@nclurker: Somebody needing a fix sees the latest iPhone and grabs it and runs. Trying to take more hurts his/her chances of getting away. Also, too, she doesn’t wear a lot of jewelry IRL. I know you want a spy thriller, but forget it, Jake, it’s Oakland.
Tony Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
If this were back in the Before Time his testimony would already be devastating. No PM or their Government could have survived the revelations coming from such a trusted, high-level advisor, it would have been all of the News all of the time until blood was shed.
But it’s not the Before Times. This is the Era of Infotainment and everything is viewed and weighed in terms of how these political optics play amongst the only people who matter – Conservative MPs and their donor class. The Public probably would be incandescent if they were properly informed about what’s been revealed and what it actually means, but that’s not the way things work these days.
The Press and TV News are doing that thing where ‘savvy’ is all there is. Johnson is a liar who only cares about tomorrow’s headlines, Cummings is a liar who is probably telling the truth about all this. Johnson’s Cabinet are all skirmishing and briefing and dog-whistling like mad to their particular fan-clubs. These things are all ‘known’ and priced into the background of coverage that always skews favourable, because policy is boring and it’s so much easier to rely on anonymous briefings and to cover everything as Reality TV.
What that means is that Johnson will survive and maintain his cosy relationship with the Media until the day after internal Tory Party politics remove him, at which point some of the damaging revelations that are currently being ignored will form the basis of chin stroking retrospectives that inevitably conclude with good-natured bafflement at just how Johnson managed to survive so long when all this dirt was ‘known’, with the suggestion hung out there that it was all the Public’s fault for not caring about the things their trusted News outlets neglected to cover.
If all of this sounds familiar, it’s supposed to. Just as the USMSM loved some Trump, the UKMSM love some Flobalob. So many stories, so much product, so little work.
nclurker
jeebus, i read bj every day,and you wonder why i’ve become suspicious?
Geminid
@dmsilev: Good (R-VA5th). Now I see Mr. Silverman beat me to it.
I’m stuck with that asshole until January 2023. Then he’s going back to Liberty U., where he’ll fit right in with the other assholes.
debbie
@Mary G:
Good. Now make sure he shows you his vaccination card.
Caphilldcne
@Mary G: wow! You go!!!
debbie
@JPL:
The women were arrested a couple of weeks ago for protesting voting restrictions on Capitol grounds.
Caphilldcne
@The Moar You Know: the Jack London bar is pretty cool tho.
Honus
@Adam L Silverman: it’s Good. Virgil Goode was the 5th Dist congressman for several terms before Good
Caphilldcne
@nclurker: it’s not like there’s gonna be classified information on her private phone. She’s a freakin’ 80 yo. She’s retired And even if she’s active in politics I’m pretty sure most of her texts are going to be about yea or something. This is just a random crime from some thugs who are now like, “oh s&@$#, I robbed a Senator.”
Another Scott
He obviously doesn’t read Balloon-Juice.
(via darth)
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike in NC
@Caphilldcne: Yeah, we stopped at the Jack London bar 20 years ago when visiting my wife’s uncle.
debbie
@Another Scott:
Do they realize how privileged they sound? ??♀️
Bill Arnold
Funny article:
‘Comically Minimal Ego-Stroking’: Inside The Bumble Takedown Of A Violent Capitol Rioter – Andrew Taake was arrested for pepper-spraying and attacking police officers with a whip at the U.S. Capitol. Here’s how a Bumble dating app user reeled him in. (Ryan J. Reilly, 07/29/2021)
Martin
@Mary G: Can’t even use the phone. Best you can do is get a few parts out of it.
Jay
Any body up to speed on Alberta’s new insanity?
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/alberta-covid-hinshaw-july-28/wcm/0a45c74e-6610-4d21-8bcc-70db0c35539d/amp/
Caphilldcne
@Tony Jay: this makes me so ill. I lived in England from 88-90 but they had a rip-roaring left and I don’t understand what happened. BTW you’ll laugh I was in the USAF at Greenham Common – I was considered a bit of a pinko then and have shifted considerably left since.
Caphilldcne
@Mike in NC: apparently in Jack’s time there it was level ground. But personally I love the slanted earthquake floor and they just rebuilt the bar and keep humping drinks!
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: Next time just call me and put him on the phone. I could’ve saved you a whole lot of aggro.
sdhays
@Jay: I see Alberta is hell-bent on being Canada’s Floriduh as well as its Texass (sic).
planetjanet
And….. kickoff for USA women’s rugby against Australia to win the pool.
Obvious Russian Troll
@Jay: Forget it, Jay. It’s Alberta.
(I don’t follow Albertan politics at all closely, but I assume it’s Kenney pandering to his UCP base. Doug Ford has to be thankful for the competition for worst premier.)
Yutsano
Senator Droopy Dog is at it again:
Adam L Silverman
@planetjanet: Always nice when they CAN’T BE BOTHERED to actually list it on the broadcast schedule!
https://www.nbcolympics.com/schedule/sport/rugby
Dan B
@Adam L Silverman: Groan!
But then again my phone is working the intertubes since my partner (smootch, hero!) turned off 5G.
Suzanne
@Mary G: GOOD. I’m glad you put pressure on him.
debbie
@Yutsano:
Isn’t that question illegal?
Amir Khalid
Dusty Hil, ZZ Top’s bassist, has died in his sleep at 72. RIP.
Betsy
Keep f*’in’ that chicken, GOPrs.
Soprano2
The maskholes were demonstrating in front of the hospital when I visited my mom tonight. I’m sure they got on the news, which is why they do it. I flipped them off as I drove by.
mrmoshpotato
@debbie:
And what stupid, whiny children they sound like too.
Betsy
@Mary G: That is awesome. Stay safe and I hope the kid is maybe even better off for life from this :)
Gravenstone
@Honus: Does that mean the next reprobate to hold the seat will just be Rep. Goo?
HumboldtBlue
@planetjanet:
And it’s won!
I’m really really loving Rugby sevens, 3×3 basketball and skateboarding. For being the asshole ahead of the games who said he wouldn’t watch cuz they should be postponed I’ve watched nothing else. So much great competition so many great athletes on display.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Be fun to see trump publicly state this opinion before walking into a room alone with anyone of those officers, after having signed an NDA of his own, for five minutes. I’d even let him send Don Jr in his place.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: i hate, hate, Good
Another Scott
Meanwhile, in Ohio 11th (the Fighting 11th!!):
The election is on Tuesday August 3. Here’s hoping Shontel Brown wins, but Ohio voters have to make it happen.
Cheers,
Scott.
Yutsano
@HumboldtBlue: The number of small countries that have been scoring golds has been amazing. I think if Tunisia hadn’t blocked videos of their swimmer winning gold*, it might have cooled things down, as they’re in the middle of a massive political crisis right now. I’m hoping that gets resolved soon. Tunisia led off the Arab Spring and didn’t fall into a more fundamentalist mindset.
*I have no idea if the broadcast itself was blocked. It was a great moment tho.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Dr Jha has been very calm about a lot of big stories lately, this one and the idea that omigod we all need booster shots! (and it looks like he’s still putting this thread together)
featheredsprite
@Amir Khalid: I noticed Dusty’s death.
“All the girls crazy about a sharp-dressed man.”
Edmund Dantes
@nclurker: I was driving down the street today and saw a guy break into a car in broad daylight on a super busy street in San Francisco. It’s pretty brazen.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Aw c’mon. It’s just locker room talk. //
planetjanet
@Adam L Silverman: We won Pool C!! Defeating the defending gold medal winners Australia. Real come from behind 0-12.
WaterGirl
@Mary G: Is it for sure on Saturday? We can definitely do another I Got the Shot! thread.
planetjanet
@HumboldtBlue: There is a cool picture on Twitter of the USA men watching the women play while on the bus from the airport returning from Tokyo. The men finished sixth. The women are in good position for a medal. France is the big surprise. They only qualified through repechage, but won Pool B.
https://twitter.com/USARugby/status/1420930775940100099?s=20
HumboldtBlue
@planetjanet:
The men absolutely folded against Great Britain.
Matt McIrvin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The CDC slides say very little you don’t already know if you were reading between the lines. I liked Dr. Jha’s back-of-the-envelope estimate of efficacy; it’s pretty much in line with the British and Canadian data, not with the Israeli paper that freaked everyone out.
But reading that Washington Post story, I know it’s going to be antivaxxer fodder anyway. With the third-party interviews particularly, it’s possible to read in this false insinuation that they’ve been withholding something sinister about the vaccines not working.
The one interesting revelation here is that the CDC’s reversal on masks genuinely seems to be about vaccinated people transmitting Delta (specifically in the Provincetown outbreak), and not about unvaccinated people lying and going unmasked–there’s no secret chessplaying going on. The CDC said vaccinated people could go unmasked specifically because they had evidence that vaxxed people with mild breakthrough infections weren’t emitting a lot of virus, but with Delta, they do, so that no longer applies.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
SuzieC
@Another Scott: I get desperate fund raising emails from Nina Turner 3 times a day, at least. They all scream about the dark money pouring in to her race, implying that her opponent is a dark money Trump stooge. Her opponent is Shontel Brown, the former D Chair of the Cuyahoga Co. D. party. I find Nina’s tactics despicable. Shontel has been endorsed by Sherrod Brown and other notable Ohio Dems, which probably explains Nina’s fury.
trollhattan
Finally track & field. LFG!
Programming note: in a repeat of the 2019 WWC final, US meets Netherlands in the quarter-final round @ 4:00 a.m. PT. Miedema awaits. Very nervous about this one.
Planetjanet
@HumboldtBlue: GB wiped them out at the Los Angeles 7s in June. You could see that coming.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SuzieC: She should have run as an “Our Revolution” candidate, as should most of her celebrity endorsers. The Democratic Party would be stronger without them.
And even if I don’t like most of her most of her endorsers, none of them have quite the history of shape-shifting and back-stabbing she does.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Matt McIrvin: one thing: Whoever introduced “As contagious as Ebola” into the conversation needs a vacation
Yutsano
ICYMI: Conor Lamb is in.
I personally think Fetterman is going to steamroll over him but I guess we’ll see what happens.
The Pale Scot
@Adam L Silverman:
None. Murdock has his venom injectors deep into the psyche and the BBC has been reduced to the Regis Philban morning show 24/7/365. There are big thick books teaching marketers how to manipulate the id written by psychologists. The tactic has marinated the whole media universe. The only counter is to take out the satellites and cut the cables to have a chance. The only sure way is
nuke it from orbitwith an EMP pulseTEL
@The Moar You Know: This comment makes me wonder if you’ve actually spent any time in Oakland? I lived there from 2001-2017 (and still spend time there), I’ve been to Jack London Square more times than I can count, and this description you’re giving is highly deceptive of what the city is actually like. Yes crime happens in Oakland. Yes you have to use common sense in some parts of Oakland and either choose the time of day you’re there carefully, or watch your belongings. What happened to Boxer is she was in a public place, wasn’t paying attention, had her phone grabbed and got knocked to the ground. You can count on the police presence at JLS being enormous for some time because of it, limiting any opportunities like that for some time. I will add that I still love Oakland and would still live there if my job weren’t in the North Bay.
The Pale Scot
@debbie:
Speaking for the what is apparently the majority of Jackaldom, YES DAMN IT PANTS ARE TYRANNY!
NotMax
@Another Scott
“How can anybody not like her? She’s been the real deal since she was working with Ike.
“Huh, whuzzat?
“Oh. Nina Turner.
“Never mind.”
/E. Litella
The Pale Scot
@Caphilldcne:
End of the Cold War. Uk went from a major world player to just another average industrialized country. Big attitude adjustment that the establishment couldn’t handle.
Dog I wish we’d stop refurbishing their SLBMs.
frosty
@Yutsano: Lamb’s going for Senate, huh? I agree with you re: Fetterman (who is my choice).
Nettoyeur
@Baud: Insurrectionists who threatened Pence and Congress with hanging, and also shat on the rug, are not the same as little kids in cages.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@frosty:
He can’t run for both at once, at least for the primary period?
Adam L Silverman
@planetjanet: I watched it while waiting for them to show the final round of the women’s gymnastics.
Yutsano
Oh man. A big name in Democratic politics just passed. RIP Carl.
Adam L Silverman
@SuzieC: She’s toxic and a psychopath. If she gets elected she won’t caucus with the Democrats and, essentially, be the left version of Greene. And I guarantee that if she’s elected she’ll get to the Capitol and appoint herself in charge of the Squad.
Another Scott
It’s about time Critical Germ Theory is confronted, amirite??!
DeSantis is no doubt carefully studying the legislation.
(sigh)
(via Popehat)
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: It’s about ethics in critical germ theory.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman:
I’ve run into a bit of that mindset here. “What’s the bigs? Sure she campaigned against both Democratic nominees in the era of trump, but we need to let it go!”
And to be fair, it’s less that she needs a job. She needs a high profile job where she can get attention by attacking Democrats.
also, too:
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: She’s got the crazy eyes!
Craig
@nclurker: dude, it’s Oakland.
Tony Jay
@Caphilldcne:
In no particular order:
1) A truly pustulent Media establishment trained and paid to see ‘The Left’ as at once a disorganised rabble of lazy perma-protestors who all need a bath and a dogmatic cult of messianic wreckers who will crash the economy and raid everyone’s bank accounts if they ever get into power. The only figures on ‘the Left’ who get any kind of non-hostile Media coverage are either faux-extremist nutcases or ‘common-sense centrists’ with ambitions in the wider world of TV celebrity, and both types exist only to bash the rest of ‘the Left’ as sell-outs/unserious ideologues.
2) A main ‘Party of the Left’ with a numerically small but institutionally overpowered centre-right wing that has proven itself to be intractably hostile to the rest of the Party and more than happy to live by a ‘Rule or Ruin’ credo, confident that the News Media will work overtime to present their sabotage in the best possible light. It’s a very limited skill-set and doesn’t include political nous or electoral attractiveness, but as long as it keeps the Tories in power and the very rich comfortably untaxed it’s a transaction favourable to everyone that matters .
3) The Tory Party is in the pocket of Dark Money, often the same Dark Money backing the Republicans, and that buys a LOT of institutional heft and auxiliary firepower on the social media battlefield, something the Left simply doesn’t have. The UK as a country is frankly sodden with slanted propaganda. It used to be just the scummy tabloids and the centre-right bias of the BBC, but now it’s much harder Right than that and it’s everywhere. The politically unengaged marinate in a soup of resentment and finger-pointing so all-encompassing that, come election time, many voters have a whole smorgasbord of ‘Things they just know are true and are somehow really angry about for reasons they’re not sure of’ that centre-Left arguments simply can’t scratch.
4) Witchcraft. I’m not sure how, but I’m sure there must be evidence of it somewhere. Like, where are all the earthworms, man? Where did they go?!? 8-)
Opinions may differ, but these are the things I put it down to.