Open Threads

To get you in the mood for a cocktail, this should be the new Lincoln Project ad (via my daughter):

Second, I think it’s about time invent a new cocktail, called the “Karen“, after the woman who would call the bar manager to complain about her drink. It should be, in the words of the great poets Big Head Todd and the Monsters, “more sweet than bitter, more bitter than sweet.” Please put your suggestions in the comments.

Here’s mine: Naturally, I start with the White Lady, which is two parts gin, one part lemon juice and one part orange liqueur, shaken and served up. (Some versions add egg white for some froth.) It’s a perfect cocktail, but is there a way make it a homage to the bitterness of the complaining soccer mom without ruining it? Adding some bitters – say Fee’s Barrel Aged Orange – would be one way to go. Another would be to make it 3/4 part lemon juice and 1/4 part Campari. (Or maybe 1/4 part Fernet Branca?) I think I’ll try the Campari version tonight and report back.

Update: The Campari version is quite good. I’ll take the Cynar suggestion from the comments and try that, too.

Cocktail Recipe NeededPost + Comments (145)

The Post has a good story about one white kid who was arrested for his role in the rioting in Pittsburgh:

Police identified Brian Jordan Bartels, 20, of Allison Park, Pa., as having “kicked off” the escalation in Pittsburgh, one of several examples of peaceful assemblies against police violence creating opportunities for pandemonium. […]

In footage that spread widely online, a man identified as Bartels, who faces charges of vandalism and rioting, wore a bandanna emblazoned with the symbol of the Animal Liberation Front, a leaderless international resistance movement that pushes for animal rights. In the footage, he raised his middle fingers to black protesters who begged him to stop. At Bartels’s home in a Pittsburgh suburb, officers found spray paint and firearms, according to an arrest warrant reviewed by The Washington Post.

[…] [A] friend, a 17-year-old who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared online harassment, said Bartels was militant about veganism but otherwise espouses views that do not fall neatly along ideological lines. Another teenager who moved in the city’s pop-punk scene with Bartels said Bartels loathed establishment forces, no matter their partisan makeup. But neither understood why Bartels would have smashed a police vehicle in broad daylight, as police accuse him of doing.

The story talks about a pattern seen in other cities (including my home town of Rochester) of white people with different agendas (right-wing, left-wing, whatever) using protests as an excuse to start chucking rocks and tagging.

Speaking of white, entitled idiots who want to leverage protests for their own ends, it was good to see that both the Post (expected) and the Times* (unexpected) front pages were clear that Trump had peaceful protesters tear gassed so he could have a photo op. Also, there was little discussion of his threat to call out the Army, but here’s my question on that: how, exactly, would that work? Do they just roll into states and cities that Trump thinks have a problem, no matter what the governor or mayors say? The answer is, simply, that it wouldn’t work, and Trump has no intention of calling out the Army — it was just something to say on the TeeVee, just like the bible was something to hold in a picture. (More on that from Jennifer Rubin.)

* The Times lead front-page headline “Trump threatens force; Police and Protesters are Injured” is still much worse than the Post’s “Protests intensify across US” because the story is the protesters, not Trump, who pretty much absented himself for a couple of days until his manhood was questioned, then lashed out. And, I’m guessing that far few police were injured than protesters. So it’s still a smelly Baquet of shit, as usual.

Militant Vegan MilitiaPost + Comments (127)

This is a good ad about what shouldn’t be a controversial subject — the stars and bars. I’m regularly amazed and infuriated that New Yorkers will display this fucking thing, after we lost almost 50,000 soldiers in the Civil War, the most of any state in the Union. The last time I saw it around here was some old white fart on a mobility scooter who had two flags waving.

Here are a couple of good hits addressing Trump’s cowering in the White House (via SteveM):

I don’t like the #BunkerBitch hashtag, but I’m fine with #BunkerBaby or #BunkerBoy,

As Dick Nixon said about Barbara Bush — these guys know how to hate. Joe Walsh is a fucking moron, and Rick Wilson was responsible for the execrable campaign against Max Cleland. But they’ve come to have a goddamn fight, and they know who they’re fighting against. Come November, I don’t think I’ll have to suffer through an op-ed from them telling me why, actually, they’re going to vote for Trump since Biden’s VP pick once sat in on a seminar about Marx in college. In 2020, I have to respect that.

Let’s Hear from Some Quality Never TrumpersPost + Comments (123)

Fuck Mondays and Double Fuck 2020.

A Thorough Depiction of My Current MoodPost + Comments (68)