Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

There will be lawyers.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

… makes me wish i had hoarded more linguine

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

I don’t care how fun he is after a few whiskies. fuck that guy.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Saul Alinsky is my co-pilot.

Wetsuit optional.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

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

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Are you … from the future?

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Nevertheless, she persisted.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

The willow is too close to the house.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

The Newest Horror Narrative: Our Failing Global Supply Chain

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Seriously, if there’s some less-than-absolutely-essential item you *must* have — from a particular brand of food / beverage to a loved one’s holiday gift — stock up now, if you possibly can. If only because the swelling panic about shortages in the national media means that everybody else will be doing so!

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A Good Time for Some Pet Updates?

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Saturday afternoon seems like a good time for some pet updates.

My little Henry has been itching and scratching and getting ear infections, which says allergies to me.  So I talked with the vet and we did the blood testing for allergies.

I had guessed that Henry was allergic to the tomatoes he is always stealing from the garden, so that was no surprise.   I feed Tucker and Henry Pork & Peas dog food because Tucker is allergic to beef and chicken and lamb and rice.  But it turns out that Henry is allergic to peas.  Of course he is!

I literally snorted all those years ago when we got the allergy testing back from Tucker and his highest allergy was to cats, because of course I had just gotten my two kitties, Willow and Mr. Bear.

Anyway, I have pulled my tomatoes for the year, so we are good there, and I will have to find another food for Henry.  Then we’ll see how he does with all the other stuff he’s allergic to.  For Tucker, all it took was changing his food to the Pork & Peas and then he was able to deal with his cat allergies.

I haven’t heard anything more about Molly, and I think Raven will likely chime in with an update about Tai.

So what’s going on with all your pets?  Anyone thinking of adding another furry guy to your family?  If anyone wants to send a photo, I can add the first 10 to the post.

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: ‘Just Us’ Rally Day for the Insurrectionists

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… Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said at a news conference Friday it was difficult to say whether threats of violence at the event are credible, but he said that “chatter” online and elsewhere has been similar to intelligence that was missed in January.

A permit for the protest allows 700 people. Manger said he believes the most likely possibility for for violence Saturday will involve clashes between the protesters and counter-protesters who may show up…

After multiple missteps in January, law enforcement is out in full force. The fence around the Capitol is back up, temporarily. Police are preparing for the possibility that some demonstrators may arrive with weapons. The D.C. police department is at the ready, and U.S. Capitol Police have requested assistance from nearby law enforcement agencies.

The rally, organized by former Trump campaign strategist Matt Braynard, is aimed at supporting people who have been detained after the Jan. 6 insurrection — about 60 people held behind bars out of the more than 600 charged in the deadly riot. It’s the latest attempt to downplay and deny the January violence…

Many commenters on online platforms popular with the far right like Telegram disavowed the rally, saying they believed law enforcement was promoting the event to entrap Trump supporters. Some urged their followers not to attend what they said was a “false flag” event they believed was secretly organized by the FBI.

At the same time, however, some commenters continued to promote rallies planned for Saturday in cities and state capitals across the country…

I sincerely hope the counter-protestors, if any, don’t take the bait on offer. And that security forces at state houses are alert for the kind of Trumpist violence we’ve seen in places like Michigan and Oregon.

Not if the insurrections’ GodKing gets his way (speaking of people who should be under enforced supervision):

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COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Friday / Saturday, Sept. 17-18

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Late Night Open Thread: The Day the Music Died (in Wingnut World)

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No, Daily Wire dudes, while the music industry will never stop producing songs of angst, *you* will never be as successful, rich, or popular as President Obama. It isn’t a dog whistle, it’s a bull horn (of bitterness)…

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Friday Evening Open Thread: Ewww, Poor-People Cooties!

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I don’t think this explains all of the anti-vaccine mishuganas, but yeah, it’s a factor:

And just like the poor hate the poor, they hate the people who “have Covid,” which is POC. It’s just that they’re used to hating them, so we don’t think about it. white supremacy is a huge part of antivax for this reason – white people with covid are the aberration, not the rule.

The numbers don’t bear it out, of course, but they never do. An antivaxxer with Covid is like a temporarily embarrassed millionaire — that’s why they don’t want it on the death certificate or in the paper. Because they failed to uphold white supremacy by getting the illness.

So we can file antivax under the same pathology that brought you “white Republicans vote against their financial interest because hurting Black people is more important to them” and “West Virginia Senator blocks crucial bills that would save the poorest in his state”

We’re so used to seeing conservatives treat poverty like a disease but somehow we missed them treating this disease the same way they treat poverty. A big enough difference with enough sequelae that it’s worth recentering the whole conversation, in my opinion…

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Boosters Not for Youngsters

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The FDA’s vaccine advisory committee today voted to recommend Pfizer boosters for the over-65 crowd or high-risk only. Pfizer had requested approval for those over 16 who had finished immunizations 6 months earlier.

In other COVID news, the Post published an op-ed earlier this week from Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins who believes that natural immunity should be recognized as one way for people to opt-out of vaccination. I’ll outsource most of my commentary on the piece to Josh Marshall, but god damn I’m tired of people feeding into the notion that the vaccine is some kind of onerous burden. From what I’ve read, the type and duration of immunity that results from a COVID infection is hard to judge. Plus, there are lots of people who “had COVID” who may or may not have been tested, but will certainly claim that they did. Some of the Herman Cain Award recipients had claimed “natural immunity due to prior infection,” and they’re currently taking dirt naps.

Of course, the “just asking questions” people on my Twitter (not anti-vaxxers, just people skeptical of every single goddam mitigation strategy) were all over Makary’s piece, saying that we’ve been far too harsh and now that we “know” that immunity works, we can start letting those who have recovered skip shots, based on a couple small studies. What we “know” is that the free, safe vaccine works. Why don’t we just stick with that, instead of being a god damned pretend epidemiologist with degrees from Twitter U and the Graduate School of Instagram? It sure isn’t going to hurt to get at least one shot if you have had COVID, and we’re throwing thousands of doses away every week. Unless we invent some sort of just-in-time redistribution of soon-to-expire vaccine doses, the best places for those shots are in arms.

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