Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I thought we were promised Infrastructure Week

This Blog Goes to 11…

Saul Alinsky is my co-pilot

Lighten up, Francis.

The revolution will be supervised.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

The Math Demands It!

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

This is how realignments happen…

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

We still have time to mess this up!

We Survived Breitbartpocalypse!

I personally stopped the public option…

It’s a tarp!

No one could have predicted…

Also, too.

I can see Russia from this blog!

Technically true, but collectively nonsense.

Good luck with your asparagus.

Verified, but limited!

Gastritis Broke My Calculator

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!

An almost top 10,000 blog!

We can agree to disagree, but I’m right.

You are here: Home / Archives for Anne Laurie

Anne Laurie has been a Balloon Juice writer since 2009.

Meet-Up Proposal in Seattle (with Bonus GOTV Action!)

by | 34 Comments

This post is in: ,

Message from commentor (& experienced meet-up planner!) Casey L:

H.E. Wolf and I would like to propose a Seattle meetup, but more of a working meetup than a social one. We want to get together with a smallish group of Seattle area jackals and do postcards for the “Postcards to Voters” political action group.

I’m pretty sure you’re familiar with them (I first heard about them on BJ) but in case not: People sign up online with the group, who then send them lists of voters in targeted cities, along with the wording to be used on the postcards. The postcards can be downloaded from the P-2-V site, or people can buy and use their own, within stated guidelines.

H E Wolf and I want to host a meetup during which we would explain the process, distribute and complete a small batch of cards, and also send people home with “starter kits” (5 postcards and postage) for them to complete and mail on their own. (We will pay for the cards and postage.)

The proposed dates are over President’s Day weekend: Sunday the 16th or Monday the 17th, at 12:30. The proposed location is Elliot Bay Brewery on Lake City Way in North Seattle (parking is free, a major consideration).

If you’re interested, leave a comment below, or send me a message via the ‘Contact Us’ link & I’ll forward it.

Meet-Up Proposal in Seattle (with Bonus GOTV Action!)Post + Comments (34)

Monday Morning Open Thread: That NYTimes Endorsement

by | 283 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

(Kinda contentious for a first-thing-in-the-morning thread, but I suspect it’s what everyone will want to talk about anyways… )

Give them full credit: Only the Thought Leaders at the NYTimes could irk me so much by nominating the same candidates *I* would’ve recommended. They wanted to go with the obvious choice for most of their paid subscribers — but they were terrified of nasty social-media pushback from people who are never voting for a Democrat, such as the Oval Office Occupant. They tried to split the difference, with the usual painful / comic result…

… The Democratic primary contest is often portrayed as a tussle between moderates and progressives. To some extent that’s true. But when we spent significant time with the leading candidates, the similarity of their platforms on fundamental issues became striking.

Nearly any of them would be the most progressive president in decades on issues like health care, the economy and government’s allocations of resources. Where they differ most significantly is not the what but the how, in whether they believe the country’s institutions and norms are up to the challenge of the moment…

Choosing who should face off against Mr. Trump also means acknowledging that Americans are being confronted with three models for how to govern this country, not two. Democrats must decide which of their two models would be most compelling for the American people and best suited for repairing the Republic…

Good news, then, that Elizabeth Warren has emerged as a standard-bearer for the Democratic left…

[Ten paragraphs decently recapping Warren’s message, and campaign to date.]

… Ms. [SENATOR!] Warren’s path to the nomination is challenging, but not hard to envision. The four front-runners are bunched together both in national polls and surveys in states holding the first votes, so small shifts in voter sentiment can have an outsize influence this early in the campaign. There are plenty of progressives who are hungry for major change but may harbor lingering concerns about a messenger as divisive as Mr. Sanders. At the same time, some moderate Democratic primary voters see Ms. Warren as someone who speaks to their concerns about inequality and corruption. Her earlier leaps in the polls suggest she can attract more of both…

[Eight paragraphs dismissing the remaining male candidates.]

… Good news, then, that Amy Klobuchar has emerged as a standard-bearer for the Democratic center. Her vision goes beyond the incremental. Given the polarization in Washington and beyond, the best chance to enact many progressive plans could be under a Klobuchar administration.

The senator from Minnesota is the very definition of Midwestern charisma, grit and sticktoitiveness. Her lengthy tenure in the Senate and bipartisan credentials would make her a deal maker (a real one) and uniter for the wings of the party — and perhaps the nation.

[Six paragraphs on Klobuchar.]

show full post on front page

Monday Morning Open Thread: That <em>NYTimes</em> EndorsementPost + Comments (283)

Late Night Open Thread: Mormon Humor, More Risque Than You Might’ve Expected

by | 53 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Toss the Jello Salad?…

… “The Governor understands the importance of the Utah Department of Health conducting a campaign to educate Utahns about HIV prevention,” his spokeswoman, Anna Lehnardt, told FOX 13 in a statement. “He does not, however, approve the use of sexual innuendo as part of a taxpayer-funded campaign, and our office has asked the department to rework the campaign’s branding.”

The condoms had wrappers that touted the “Greatest Sex on Earth” (a parody of Utah’s “Greatest Snow on Earth”); “This is the Place” (which was uttered by Brigham Young when pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley); the subversive “SL, UT” for Salt Lake, Utah; “Toss the Jello Salad;” and, of course, the local landmarks “Fillmore, Beaver.”

The campaign was a joint venture between the Utah Department of Health and Love Communications. Wyoming and Alaska have done similar campaigns using popular slogans native to their respective states…

About 100,000 of the condoms were to be distributed for free through local health departments, the Utah AIDS Foundation, bars and other community locations. In response, the Utah Department of Health said Wednesday night it has told those who would distribute the condoms to refrain from doing so while the campaign is re-worked…

[Insert your own ‘now a collector’s item’ joke here.]

Late Night Open Thread: Mormon Humor, More Risque Than You Might’ve ExpectedPost + Comments (53)

Election Year Open Thread: Cancel Iowa

by | 204 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

I’m sorry, Iowans, you’re lovely people and I’m sure you mean well, but this is not an optimal way to select the leadership for a country as large and diverse as ours. Because the rest of us are tired of finding euphemisms — unpredictable! — for the fact that too many of you are actually insulated from the effects of your choices:

And, no, you’re not responsible for the DNC’s weirder efforts to please all its warring factions, but if we weren’t all fixated on your antiquated caucus system (yes, and NH’s cranky insistence on being FRIST IN THE NATION, forty-nine other states be damned), the DNC would have a much more practical path…

… “I think that people need to idle their engines a little bit,” says Penny Rosfjord, an Iowa Democratic Party district chair. “A caucus was never meant to be smooth; it’s kind of a messy process. It’s not a straightforward, check a box and move on.”…

Of course, it’s never easy to give up a perceived entitlement...

… but once you’ve laid down this burden, we’ll all be happier voters!

Election Year Open Thread: Cancel IowaPost + Comments (204)

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: The Promise of Tulips

by | 78 Comments

This post is in: 

Thanks to WaterGirl (again) for a winter mood-brightener:

At my house, there are happy tulips everywhere you look in the spring!

These solid pink ones are my favorites, and the white ones really make everything else pop. The white ones are sensational at dusk, when they seem to jump out at you.

Double tulips

I can look up the name of the double tulips if anyone wants to know what they are. I just love them, even though they don’t really look like tulips.

tulips

I get all my bulbs from Colorblends, which satby turned me on to several years ago.

favorite pink tulip

***********
I’m trying a tulip experiment myself this year — I planted a bunch of double-tiered Angelique bulbs in a 20″ bowl planter, along with some little blue scilla for contrast. Both of us have really enjoyed the ‘spring roses’ (as the Spousal Unit dubbed them) when I’ve tried them before. But they’re effectively annuals in our yard, so I’m going to see if the bulbs survive the winter under conditions where I can just move the pot when they’re done flowering, and use the space for annuals.

Reminder: If you have garden pics that you never had the chance to send me last summer, this would be the *perfect* time to share them!

What’s going on in your garden (planning), this week?

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: The Promise of TulipsPost + Comments (78)

Election Year Open Thread: What A Coincidence, Guys!

by | 90 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

The media starts talking about Warren’s sterling debate performance, and suddenly it occurs to her competitors that she could very well be a useful second banana…

Still looking for the offer from Buttigieg’s team, but maybe he’s young enough not to automatically assume that any woman would automatically be flattered to be offered a job as his backup. Because Bernie and Biden both have the feeble, misogynistic ‘in my day’ excuse. Unlike, I suspect, the Bernie / Biden staffers who thought it would be smart marketing to put it out there at this point in the race…

Clownshow Mike, demonstrating their ‘rationale’:

Election Year Open Thread: What A Coincidence, Guys!Post + Comments (90)

Respite Open Thread: Can’t Teach Your Grandma…

by | 51 Comments

This post is in: 

… to rock a bitchin’ velociraptor costume!

Respite Open Thread: Can’t Teach Your Grandma…Post + Comments (51)

Repub Venality Open Thread: But Rod Rosenstein Had Only the *Best* Intentions!

by | 106 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

There is nobody within the Trump orbit who isn’t compromised. Another ‘with only the best intentions’ criminal steps forward in this week’s Friday night doc dump, per Politico:

Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein authorized the release to the media of text messages between two highly placed FBI employees who exchanged criticism of then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, the Justice Department has revealed in a new court filing.

Rosenstein also said in the court filing submitted shortly before midnight Friday that he made the decision to share the messages with the press in part to protect FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page from the drip effect of incremental releases of the texts by lawmakers or others…

Strzok and Page filed separate lawsuits against the Justice Department last year, alleging that the release of their text messages violated the Privacy Act — an almost half-century-old statute that safeguards information federal agencies hold about private individuals.

Despite the litigation, until Friday it remained unclear just who at Justice gave the final OK to give about 375 Strzok-Page texts to journalists — including a POLITICO reporter — on the evening of December 12, 2017.

In a formal declaration submitted as part of the government’s defense to Strzok’s suit, Rosenstein owned up to being the one who made the call. He said he did so in part because the texts’ public release by members of Congress was inevitable in connection with testimony he was set to give to the House Judiciary Committee the following day…

Rosenstein, who stepped down from his position as Justice’s No. 2 official last May, said in his new submission that his aides initially suggested he might want to delay sending the texts to Congress until after his House testimony. But the veteran prosecutor said he concluded it would be “inappropriate” to hold them back, even briefly, for that reason…

While Rosenstein said the disclosure to the media was aimed at putting the messages in context, Strzok and Page have noted that the set of fewer than 400 texts sent to the Hill and shared with reporters that night was just a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of messages the pair exchanged on work topics as well as personal matters…

Rosenstein’s statement does not indicate whether he consulted with Page, Strzok or their attorneys to seek their views on the planned release, but he had them informed that night that the disclosure was forthcoming. The former DOJ No. 2 official said he did have one of his top aides confirm with Justice’s top privacy official that the disclosure would not run afoul of the Privacy Act…

Special Counsel Robert Mueller removed Strzok from his senior role on the Trump-Russia probe after learning of the texts in the summer of 2017. Page, who worked on the earlier stages of the investigation, had already moved on to another assignment.

The FBI fired Strzok in 2018, while Page ultimately resigned from the agency.

In a statement published last month by the Daily Beast, Rosenstein argued the Justice Department was not responsible for the criticism Page has endured. However, without getting into detail or directly challenging Trump, the former DOJ official said some of the attacks on her had gone too far…

Sure, I gave a known character assassin a powerful metaphorical gun, along with the names & addresses of a couple of tempting victims. But you can’t blame me for the fact that he killed them! I only did it to protect them!

Repub Venality Open Thread: But Rod Rosenstein Had Only the *Best* Intentions!Post + Comments (106)

ICYMI Open Thread: The Impeachment Images

by | 46 Comments

This post is in: , , ,


(It’s not so much fun when they’ve got your boy in the spotlight, huh, Chief Justice?)


(Gonna be a loooong weekend for the Oval Office Occupant’s handlers… )


Prediction: The Repubs are not gonna worry about saying anything stupid. Quite the contrary.

ICYMI Open Thread: The Impeachment ImagesPost + Comments (46)

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Let This Be A Good Omen

by | 116 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

… Clinton appeared at the press tour in support of the Hulu four-part documentary series “Hillary,” which details the former U.S. Senator and Secretary of State’s time on the 2016 Presidential campaign trail through never-before-seen footage. The series also features interviews with Bill and Chelsea Clinton, as well as friends and journalists.

She fielded a range of questions from the audience, including what she feels the most important message of the series will ultimately be.

“I think the most important message is we are…in a real struggle with a form of politics that is incredibly negative, exclusive, mean-spirited, and its going to be up to every voter, not only people who vote in Democratic primaries to recognize that this is no ordinary time,” she said. “This is an election that will have such profound impact so take your vote seriously. And for the Democratic voters, try to vote for the person you think is most likely to win because at the end of the day that is what will matter. And not just the popular vote, but the electoral college too.”…

“It wasn’t so long ago that we actually had a President that we didn’t have to worry every morning when we woke up about what was going to happen that day, or what crazy tweet would threaten war or some other awful outcome,” she said.

“You can disagree with the facts, but there are facts,” she continued. “You can choose not to vaccinate your children but there are facts. You can choose not to believe in climate change, but there are facts. And somehow we’ve got to shoulder that responsibility not only at a political leadership level but literally at the citizen, activist, concerned human being level.”

 
Elsewhere, the end of the beginning.…

… The deadline for voting is still over a month away. But the chance to participate in the state’s first presidential primary since 1992 — and cast a ballot before first-in-the-nation contests have their say — was enough to motivate some voters to brave frigid temperatures and a looming snowstorm to show support for their candidate of choice.

“We can’t afford to wait,” said Sean Duckworth, a Joe Biden supporter who attended an early vote rally for a range of Democratic candidates in Ramsey County. “We need change now, and he’s the person who is best able to do it, so I’m here to vote for him.”

Votes in Minnesota won’t be counted until after the polls close March 3. And some other states, including New Hampshire, have already started accepting absentee ballots for voters who can’t make it out on Election Day. But Minnesota’s election calendar and early voting laws mean the state can “confidently say we’ll be the first state in the country to open up the presidential contest to all eligible voters,” said Secretary of State Steve Simon…

“There’s some kind of special magic to the idea of getting to be one of the first people to cast your vote,” said Mitchell Walstad, a Warren supporter. “I thought it would be kind of fun, to go make a tweet out of it … and have an opportunity to show my support and do it in a loud fashion.”

In Duluth, City Council Member Arik Forsman joined a handful of Klobuchar supporters who showed up at City Hall right as early primary voting opened Friday morning.

“I think she has a really great track record in Minnesota of bridging that rural/urban divide,” Forsman said.

In South St. Paul, two local officials showed up at the polling place early Friday to not only cast ballots for the primary but to symbolically mark the city’s legacy as the first place in the U.S. where women voted after the 19th Amendment went into effect in 1920, officials said…

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Let This Be A Good OmenPost + Comments (116)

Late Night Scary Nature Open Thread: Coyote Lucky

by | 53 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

I say Max, having proved his valor, should now retire with full honors. The Washington Post has a good write-up:

… What the coyotes didn’t know was that Max is a seasoned street life veteran. He survived alone in Long Beach before being adopted by his current family nearly four years ago, Maya Gurrin, his human, told The Washington Post. Max has probably seen and been involved in scuffles for which he has no words — or meows…

Gurrin and her husband, Eliot, saw some tails wagging through a glass door, and decided to go outside to investigate the noise.

“We thought it was a raccoon,” she said. “We went out and saw that he was surrounded by them. The coyotes hurried off when we went out there.”

Max walked back inside unfazed and unsullied.

“He wanted to go right back outside like a psycho,” Gurrin said…

Since his brush with death, Max has been inside, but the Gurrins know that they can’t keep him indoors forever, based on experience…

[T]he Gurrins are working out a compromise that would ensure Max’s safety and give him the freedom to smell the outdoors in the form of a catio or cat patio, which is an enclosed outdoor structure for cats still tapped into their wild side.

Max is very intelligent, according to Eliot, who said Max can open doors with horizontal handles.

“He’s a weird mix of friendly, of independent and loud and sensitive,” he said. “He’s a very hard cat to define. He’s super smart.” …

We’ve always done our best to ensure that our cats are indoor-only companions, but it can be difficult to outsmart a street-hardened rescue. We inherited six-pound Maine-Coon-type Kishkan when her previous owners moved to a country with a six-month pet quarantine. She’d come to live with them (despite one partner’s mild ailurophobia) by the simple expedient of waiting at their door & strolling in whenever it was opened. When they finally broke down & accepted their fate, their vet discovered she’d already been spayed, but nobody responded to their flyers. She was at least six years old when she came to live with us, and she lived another eight years before succumbing to kidney disease… despite regularly taking advantage of the dogs’ potty breaks to dart out for a walkabout. And she regularly brought back mice, voles, and baby bunnies to leave on the back stoop, just to show that we were not the boss of her.

Late Night Scary Nature Open Thread: Coyote LuckyPost + Comments (53)

Friday Night Horrorshow Open Thread: Pray for the LSU Team Members

by | 31 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

Even the three big dumb white dudes bro’ing each other are gonna end up with nightmares, remembering this.


I am reminded of a friend who referred to ‘That childhood moment in the car when you realize Daddy cares more about his booze than he does about your safety… ‘

Friday Night Horrorshow Open Thread: Pray for the LSU Team MembersPost + Comments (31)

Repub Venality Open Thread: Money Changes Everything Memories

by | 51 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , , , ,

Two weeks out from the 2016 elections, a first-time donor born in Ukraine lit up the map of the Republican Party with a $50,000 cash donation to Donald Trump’s joint fundraising committee.

By cutting just one check to Trump Victory Committee — well before he became a central figure in the impeachment of the president he helped elect — Lev Parnas left an indelible mark on two national and 20 state Republican entities.

Trump Victory subdivided his contribution into $33,400 for the Republican National Committee and $2,700 to Trump, the then-maximum allowable donations. The remainder went to GOP entities crisscrossing the country from New York to California, each receiving a modest sum of $661.90.

Official paperwork from the donation lists Parnas an employee of the Fraud Guarantee, the same company Parnas used to hire Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani in a relationship that has drawn scrutiny from federal prosecutors.

Three years later, down to the same month, the Justice Department on Oct. 10 unsealed an indictment of Parnas for using a straw donor and laundering foreign money into U.S. elections. Federal prosecutors claim he and his Fraud Guarantee co-owner, Igor Fruman, used the shell company Global Energy Producers to funnel $325,000 in foreign cash into America First Action, a Trump super-PAC.

show full post on front page

Repub Venality Open Thread: Money Changes <del>Everything</del> MemoriesPost + Comments (51)

Friday Morning Open Thread: Nevertheless…

by | 191 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Yes, I can hear you rolling your eyes so hard. But this is *my* happy place!

… Warren launched her campaign at a relative low point. She was polling in the single digits nationally and still trying to overcome recriminations over her decision to release a DNA test in attempt to rebut attacks over her claims of Native American heritage. Despite this, top operatives still flocked to join her campaign.

Her team was able to sort and sift through résumés, making a concerted effort to make hires based on finding candidates the team thought would be suited for the positive, ego-free workplace culture it was trying to build. One model for this approach was “The Cubs Way,” a book about how the Chicago Cubs finally won a World Series, as a guide for how to build an organization. The result is a staff devoted to its candidate, disinclined toward drama, and very disciplined.

The team has also built out its presence in the states holding primary contests in March and planned ahead to be able to take advantage of any momentum from early states. In contrast with past campaigns, in which staffers in states like Iowa and New Hampshire didn’t know their next assignment until after votes had been cast, these staffers have already been told their next destination. Further, Warren’s campaign has also consistently avoided issues with the nitty-gritty of qualifying for ballots in every state, which can often trip up campaigns. She was one of only two candidates to file a full delegate slate in Illinois…

Warren spent much of the race as the policy candidate, turning “I’ve got a plan for that” into an applause line on the stump to emphasize her intellectual bona fides.

Ian Sams, a Democratic strategist who was a top aide on Sen. Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, told Insider that Warren “successfully demonstrated proficiency, skill, and knowledge through her policy agenda, which blotted out ability for media to scrutinize anything but policy” and “forced her rivals to focus almost exclusively on policy.” He added, “The thing about her policy is that it’s all pretty popular.”…

Friday Morning Open Thread: <em>Nevertheless… </em>Post + Comments (191)

Open Thread: Late Night Notes on Lev Parnas

by | 26 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

Per an unreliable narrator:

But look how happy he was, at Mar-A-Lago!:

Open Thread: Late Night Notes on Lev ParnasPost + Comments (26)