Open Thread: And If I Were A Foot Taller, My BMI Would Be Admirable!

by 4:24 pm. It has 99 Comments.

We’re doomed. Financially as well, because the Repubs don’t want a President, they want a god-emperor. And the top applicant for that position turned out to be — surprise! — insane. Per the Washington Post:

… Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, and White House trade director Peter Navarro between them appeared on all five Sunday morning shows to defend the president’s economic record and argue that his trade offensive against China isn’t harming American producers or consumers.

Their push came days after bond market investors sent a powerful signal that they see a potential downturn looming, and economists from Wall Street and beyond further whittled growth forecasts for a record-length economic expansion that appears to be slowing.

“I don’t see a recession at all,” Kudlow said on “Fox News Sunday.” On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he urged Americans, “Let’s not be afraid of optimism.”

“Consumers are working at higher wages,” Kudlow said. “They are spending at a rapid pace. They’re actually saving also while they’re spending. That’s an ideal situation. So I think actually the second half, the economy’s going to be very good in 2019.”

On ABC News’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Navarro maintained that a recession could be staved off if the Federal Reserve stops raising interest rates and banks in Europe and in China make similar moves…

Actual economists insist that neither of these mooks are capable of predicting a bathroom run after an all-night boozer, but the important part of their job is telling the Oval Office Occupant that his every passing delusional outburst is a work of unparalleled brilliance.





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Floriduh! Woman: Concealed Carry Edition

by 11:09 pm. It has 60 Comments.

I don’t think this is allowed even with a valid Florida Concealed Weapons License!

Take it away WNDU!

PUNTA GORDA, Fla. (AP) – Officials say a Florida woman who pulled a small alligator from her yoga pants during a traffic stop and illegally possessed numerous other wild animals has been sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to four charges.

Florida prosecutors say a Charlotte County sheriff’s deputy stopped a pickup truck in May after it ran a stop sign. The driver, 22-year-old driver Michael Clemons, told the deputy he and his 25-year-old passenger, Ariel Machan-Le Quire, were collecting frogs and snakes under an overpass. He gave the deputy permission to search bags in the truck.

When the deputy found 41 3-stripe turtles in a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle” backpack, he asked if Machan-Le Quire had anything else. She pulled the 1-foot gator from her pants.

Officials say the Clemons case is pending.

I hope she was at least using a holster!

Open thread!





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Orville and Wilbur Update

by 6:58 pm. It has 38 Comments.

Apparently the cat bleg for Orville and Wilbur was successful. Here are the details from Robin:

HUGE thanks to you and the Balloon Juice community, Adam! My daughter and I just dropped Orv and Willy off with Jenny and her daughter-in-law. We met up in St. Louis and the boys are Topeka bound!

Reid, you did it!

You guys housed my cats!!!

They’re Kansas kitties now.

Seriously, thank you so much.

I cannot thank you enough!

Robin

I’m not sure if the adopter is a commenter or a lurker, but hopefully they’ll sound of in the comments and let us know how things are going.

Here are the pictures Robin sent across.

Open thread!





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Open Thread: Moscow Mitch / Massacre Mitch

by 3:55 pm. It has 146 Comments.

(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)
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Adam K. Raymond, in NYMag — “How ‘Moscow Mitch’ Is Helping Democrats”:

… Wednesday marks two weeks since the KDP began selling its line of Moscow Mitch merch, headlined by a red T-shirt with the slogan “Just say nyet to Moscow Mitch.” In that time, the party, which is also selling beer koozies, shot glasses, and Cossack-style hats, has brought in $500,000 on 13,526 unique sales. Each of those is a donation to the KDP, and more than 90 percent have come from people like Weedon who have never before given to the state party.

“We knew he was underwater, but this really gave us an indication of how angry the people are,” said Nicole Erwin, communications director for the KDP. She added that the Moscow Mitch items are the largest merch campaign the party has ever done. “It blows everything else out of the water,” she said.

Erwin traced the idea for the Moscow Mitch merch back to Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony last month. The former special counsel warned of the Russian government’s continued “efforts to interfere in our election,” and McConnell, who had infamously stopped the Obama administration from making a bipartisan condemnation of Russian election interference in 2016, responded by blocking two pieces of election-security legislation in the Senate…

“We felt like the KDP was in a really unique position to hold the Senate majority leader accountable,” Erwin said. “We’ve really seen the sales take off, and we feel like it’s largely because we have this warning that we need to do something to ramp up election security. And even though bipartisan election security has been proposed, Mitch McConnell refuses to take a stand.”…

(Jeff Danziger via GoComics.com)
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Open Thread: Some Candidates Can Walk *and* Chew Gum..

by 9:53 am. It has 91 Comments.

… In a letter to Barrack, the lawmaker highlighted deals the financier’s Colony Capital Inc. arranged after he met with Saudi officials including Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman while serving as head of Trump’s inaugural committee and as an adviser to the presidential transition team. The transactions were the subject of a recent Bloomberg article…

Bloomberg reported on Aug. 1 that a vehicle co-managed by Colony focusing on digital infrastructure investments had received backing from the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund, and that Barrack’s firm was in talks regarding a media venture that would make PIF a co-investor in a Hollywood studio. Such a stake would fulfill the Saudis’ longtime goal of getting a foothold in the entertainment business…

Warren, a contender for the Democratic nomination to challenge Trump in next year’s election, has been pushing for legislation to enhance ethics requirements for presidential transition teams. Her letter asks Barrack to respond by Aug. 23 with a description of his Los Angeles-based firm’s involvement with the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, including a timeline of their talks and information on whether administration officials were aware of them.

Among other questions, she asked Barrack:

– why he didn’t register as an agent of a foreign government;

– whether he is advising the president on policies including a potential nuclear cooperation agreement with the Saudi government;

– whether Barrack or Colony employees are in talks with the president or his administration over digital infrastructure; and

– whether Barrack has used any non-public information gleaned from administration sources for business purposes…

And yet…

… Some of these Democrats prefer Mr. Biden, viewing him as an acceptable option to a cross-section of voters, but others are eager to find a middle ground between the consensus-oriented former vice president and progressive firebrands like Ms. Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders.

“If it were completely up to me, I’d vote for her,” said Jessie Sagona, who also came to see Ms. Warren last month in New Hampshire. “But I kind of feel like, do we need somebody in the middle like Kamala or Pete,” referring to Ms. Harris and Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Ms. Sagona said she had not fully made up her mind but was weighing the importance of “thinking strategically.”…

I’ve said before that I doubt Warren would consider serving with Kamala or Pete (or Cory or Beto) as the worst possible fate. And as yet, most voters aren’t really paying attention, although… Charlie Pierce, for Esquire:

… She draws enormous crowds and enormous ovations from those crowds. People see her and holler, unbidden, “Big Structural Change!”—the tagline for all her now-famous syllabus of plans. They chant, “Two cents!”, the amount of each dollar over $50 million she proposes to tax to finance the implementation of those plans. (This is reminiscent of the night at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, when the crowd chanted, “Consumer Finance Protection Bureau,” at her, which was not an easy thing to chant.) And, in the polls, she can’t be said to have had a “moment” yet, but her rise has been steady, easing fears that she might be peaking too soon. She is now a solid second to Joe Biden, and it is still only August of 2019.

But the thing that’s sold Elizabeth Warren to Iowa is primarily Elizabeth Warren. None of the candidates seems to be having as much fun as she is. The endless selfies after speeches. The pinky-swears with young girls about how what girls do is run for president. Her willingness to hold town halls anywhere. That loose-limbed, almost goofy wave with which she steps onto every stage. In a gloomy political time, with a humorless sociopathic bully in the White House, and with all the worst impulses of the national Id come out to play, Senator Professor Warren is the campaign’s happy warrior, the teacher everybody hopes they get when school starts up again in the fall. People respond to the good feeling around her campaign as much as they respond to the blizzard of policy proposals that campaign has loosed upon the electorate…

And the people who come expecting a Dukakis or a Kerry come away happily surprised. And the people who come away expecting an ivory-tower Harvard lecturer leave feeling smarter, and experiencing the conquest of learning in a way they haven’t felt it since elementary school. None of this is to say what may happen when the guns really open up on her, but it is to say, for now, that Elizabeth Warren is running a campaign of hope and optimism and enthusiasm as surely as did Ronald Reagan, that ol’ Iowa radio guy, in 1980, and as surely as Barack Obama did in 2008…





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