Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

This is all too absurd to be reality, right?

Let there be snark.

Nevertheless, she persisted.

This really is a full service blog.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Good luck with your asparagus.

This blog will pay for itself.

The revolution will be supervised.

This fight is for everything.

Just a few bad apples.

The willow is too close to the house.

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

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

It might be fine, or it might be a clusterfuck.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

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

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

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We Might Want To Discuss This…

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It really isn’t 2016 anymore:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bernie Sanders endorsed Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy on Monday as he made a joint online appearance with the former vice president.

“I am asking all Americans, I’m asking every Democrat, I’m asking every independent, I’m asking a lot of Republicans to come together in this campaign to support your candidacy, which I endorse,” Sanders said.

“We’ve got to make Trump a one-term president,” Sanders added. “I will do all that I can to make that happen.”

Sanders dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination last week.

“We don’t have a choice, we’re going to have to come together,” Sanders said, “to work our way out of this crisis.”

We Might Want To Discuss This...

I’ve had my moments of Bernie (and especially -bro) F&L. But credit to the man. He didn’t waste time on this go around, and he clearly understands what’s at stake.

The running commentary on the livestream he did (is doing?) with Biden was…predictable: the dead enders still hitting their marks (nothing Biden can say will ever be enough; nothing Sanders says is persuasive). But fuck’em*.

They’re irrelevant at this point.

This is what matters: Trump is killing Americans by word and deed, and will continue to do so until he’s carted out the Oval.

All hands on deck. It’s lead, follow or get the hell out of the way time.  Kudos, sincerely, to Senator Bernie Sanders, for recognizing this urgency, and choosing to both lead and follow.

*Miss you still, e.f. goldman.

Image: Adolph von Menzel, Wellington and Blücher in the Battle of Waterloo, 1858

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Tentative Good News, John Prine Edition

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John Prine is one of the true giants of American songwriting. He’s been killing it for half a century, and over and over again he’s produced songs that are the musical expression of folk’s souls. Lots of members of this blog community have favorites, essential expressions of some part of their lives, experience, the people they’ve become.

So I know I wasn’t the only one kicked in the teeth to learn yesterday that John had contracted COVID-19, and had flipped intocritical condition, on a ventilator and, as a stomach-and-lung cancer survivor, not the most robust guy to begin with.

I feared the worst over the night, but a few hours ago, his wife, Fiona Whelan Prine sent this out:

I’m hoping, and sending all the good thoughts I can. Times like these, we can’t afford to lose any of our laureates. We need them to sing us home.

With that, let’s have some Prine.

First: Joan Baez singing this get-well cover:

Now, a tiny fraction of what I’d call favorites. Truly, Prine’s been so good so long, it’s hard just to pick a couple. Fill in all the many gaps in this list in the comments.

And because we can’t live by melancholy alone, and John Prine certainly loves him some goof:

https:

Over to y’all.

ETA: just banned a commenter who insisted on driving the thread off topic with a well litigated bit of dirty tricks. I’m going to remove the comments that responded to said troll; please don’t be offended. I’m hoping that this post and comments can become a place to take some hope and pleasure in a great American artist.

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Election 2020 Open Thread: Joe Biden Is Fortunate in His Enemies

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In New Hampshire? I’d give 50/50 odds it was a capital-L Libertarian, willing to ratfvck the primary in favor of whichever candidate offered them personally the most entertainment.

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Open Thread: BOO LOUDER –Their Bubble Is Very, Very Thick

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… And so are the Trump-defenders inside it. Special appearance by blog chewtoy Megan McArgleBargle, aka ‘Jane Galt’:

From the AP, “Ballpark boos a rarity for shielded president”:

… Unlike some of his predecessors, Trump has made little effort to join the Washington scene, with the singular exception of his visiting his hotel, a Republican-friendly oasis a few blocks from the White House. He has not eaten at a Washington restaurant beyond those in the hotel and has passed on attending some traditional social events such as the Kennedy Center Honors and White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

The White House has, at times, gone to significant lengths to keep Trump away from protesters, sometimes citing security concerns or a reluctance to snarl traffic as reasons to keep Trump away from hostile crowds.

During the presidential transition in late 2016, there was talk of Trump frequently returning to his home in Trump Tower while in office. But those plans were scrapped after it became apparent that Trump would face large, angry crowds in Manhattan.

In London this summer, Trump took repeated helicopter rides of just a few miles that kept him away from throngs of demonstrators, including a balloon that depicted the president as a baby.

And on Monday, Trump was shielded from the hundreds of protesters gathered near his speech at a police chiefs’ conference in Chicago and a fundraiser at the Trump International Hotel & Tower in downtown Chicago…

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread: The Tang of Terror

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(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
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From the Washington Post, paper of record for the company town where the monopoly industry is natioanl politics:

House Democrats said Monday that the House will vote Thursday to formalize procedures for the next phase of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

Democrats said the move would “ensure transparency and provide a clear path forward” as the inquiry continues.

The White House responded by taking a swipe at Democrats. Press secretary Stephanie Grisham accused them of “conducting an unauthorized impeachment proceeding” and declined to comment fully until the text of the resolution is released.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), meanwhile, said that a former deputy national security adviser had “no basis in law” to skip a deposition Monday and that his failure to appear was further evidence of Trump’s efforts to obstruct Congress…

Elsewhere in the Post, “‘It feels like a horror movie’: Republicans feel anxious and adrift defending Trump”:

Republican senators are lost and adrift as the impeachment inquiry enters its second month, navigating the grave threat to President Trump largely in the dark, frustrated by the absence of a credible case to defend his conduct and anxious about the historic reckoning that probably awaits them.

Recent days have delivered the most damaging testimony yet about Trump and his advisers commandeering Ukraine policy for the president’s personal political goals, which his allies on Capitol Hill sought to undermine by storming the deposition room and condemning the inquiry as secretive and corrupt.

Those theatrics belie the deepening unease many Republicans now say they feel — particularly those in the Senate who are dreading having to weigh their conscience against their political calculations in deciding whether to convict or acquit Trump should the Democratic-controlled House impeach the president.

In hushed conversations over the past week, GOP senators lamented that the fast-expanding probe is fraying their party, which remains completely in Trump’s grip. They voiced exasperation at the expectation that they defend the president against the troublesome picture that has been painted, with neither convincing arguments from the White House nor confidence that something worse won’t soon be discovered…

For Republicans, the political conundrum is a problem of their own making, argued William A. Galston, a senior fellow in governance at the Brookings Institution. “They normalized a president whose conduct they are now being asked to judge as so abnormal as to warrant his removal from office,” he said.

“To the extent that they quietly harbor conscientious objections to what the president is doing — or, even more spectacularly, how he’s doing it — they have to weigh the calling of conscience against political considerations,” Galston added. “There’s a reason why ‘Profiles in Courage’ is a very short book. Courage is not the norm. It’s the exception.”…

(This longish read is particularly worth a click; the details are schadenfreude-licious.)

Obvious conclusion: BOO HARDER, everybody!

(Jim Morin via GoComics.com)
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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Readership Capture

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Elsewhere:

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Excellent Read: “Nancy Pelosi, Political Grandmaster”

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There’s a famous Mark Twain quote: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

It always comes to mind when some Very Woke twitter analyst with a goldfish memory switches overnight from WHY WON’T PELOSI DO SOMETHING !!!RIGHT NOW!!! to WOOO SPEAKER & SHORTLY INTERIM PRESIDENT PELOSI IN!THE!HAWSE!!!. (Except, of course, those analysts usually switch right back to their first position, sometimes before I can finish reading down the thread.)

Abigail Tracy, in Vanity Fair, on “Nancy Pelosi, super Speaker, on Trump’s unfitness, the decision to impeach, and “weaving” her fractious caucus”:

Lost in the wilderness of the Trump era, Democrats looked long and hard for a champion: Robert Mueller, the media, even Michael Avenatti. But when the party retook the House in November and Nancy Pelosi began her historic second term as speaker, no one doubted the search was over. She’d been a GOP target and, some centrists thought, an electoral liability given her San Francisco roots. But now no one doubted that she was the indispensable Democrat, cheerfully jousting with AOC and “the Squad,” mediating the hoary conflict between the party’s left and its center (she describes herself as “a weaver,” which is a nice word for how she sometimes has to operate), winning with substance (her party’s focus on health care) and imagery (the famous Max Mara red coat, the donning of the sunglasses after her triumphant border wall meeting with Trump and Senator Chuck Schumer), and holding fire on impeachment until precisely the right moment. The Speaker talks to Abigail Tracy about the road to impeachment, how the Democrats won in 2018, why Trump is unique among presidents she’s known, and the work to be done after Trump is gone.

Tell me about the moment you reached the decision to go down the impeachment path.

I take a lot of guidance from the vision of our founders, and our founders fought very hard for our democracy, for our country, for our Constitution. In the dark days of revolution, Thomas Paine said, “The times have found us.” We believe that the times have found us to keep the republic from all enemies, foreign and domestic. And that would be those who say things like, “Article II says I can do whatever I want.” That’s not a republic, that’s a monarchy. That’s not what we have…

Some members in your caucus credit excitement from the base and a desire for a check on President Trump to your victory in the midterms in 2018. Others argue it was the messaging around issues like health care. What is your diagnosis?

Oh, it was health care. We had a very disciplined campaign in terms of a purpose. “For the people” was our agenda. We were going to lower health care costs by lowering costs of prescription drugs and preserving [protections for] preexisting conditions. Two, we were going to increase paychecks by building infrastructure in a green way. Three, we were going to have cleaner government by reducing the role of big dark money in politics and ending voter suppression others inserted in the bill. And the issue of health security, it’s just very dominant. People have determined it is “the issue” and this is the difference between Democrats and Republicans…

It is hard not to notice that he has rarely used a nickname for you.

Who cares? I don’t care if he has a nickname, maybe that’s why he didn’t do it.

I treat him with respect. I respect the office he holds. Sometimes I think I respect the office he holds more than he respects the office he holds. I try not to ask him to do something that isn’t in his interest. And it is in his interest to lower the cost of health care, to protect children, to build the infrastructure of America…

Have you been at all surprised by the behavior of the broader Republican party in the Trump era?

No. I’m not surprised. I mean, their oath of office is clearly to Donald Trump and not to the Constitution of the United States. Forgetting his personal grotesqueness, there is nothing he is about, in terms of the issues, that they haven’t been there longer and worse. Name any issue— climate, a woman’s right to choose, fairness in our economy, gun safety, how we treat immigrants. Any issue you can name, they have always been there and worse than he is. He is like their JFK. He is their guy…

Much has been made about a perceived conflict between the progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic caucus this Congress. Has anything really changed?

No. No, it’s been the same forever. We’ve always had a big tent, we’ve always had different elements of the party. I myself am a San Francisco liberal and I’m proud of that. Republicans bought 137,000 ads describing me as such during the 2018 campaign. It didn’t work for them. We won 40 seats in the most gerrymandered, voter-suppressed districts you can name.

We’ve always had our exuberances, but we’ve always had our common ground. And as I say, “Our diversity is our strength, our unity is our power,” and that’s what President Trump fears most…

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