Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Bark louder, little dog.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Too little, too late, ftfnyt. fuck all the way off.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

“Alexa, change the president.”

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

In after Baud. Damn.

I don’t recall signing up for living in a dystopian sci-fi novel.

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147Comments

  3. 3.

    the Conster

    Back at work after a lovely 10 day romp through the Canadian maritimes. My train was delayed an hour because of someone on the tracks waiting to be hit. Damn, find a freight train and leave us commuters alone.

  7. 7.

    Betty Cracker

    About to embark on travel for a family adventure if I can wrap up all my loose ends today. Which I will. God, I’ve missed my mom so much this week. As with any big family event, there’s a lot of dumbfuckery going on in the preparations. She and I were not above cattily raking loved ones over the coals at times like this and laughing at the rampant stupidity on display. It won’t ever be the same without her.

  8. 8.

    Karen in GA

    @Betty Cracker: I usually end up coming to threads late, or I miss posts where you talk about your mom. I don’t think I’ve ever told you how sorry I am that you lost her — or at least, I haven’t emphasized it enough. She sounds like an amazing woman.

    She left behind amazing children, though, who will carry on her legacy of mocking rampant stupidity, and in doing so will do her proud. The world is better for her having been in it, and for you being in it now.

  16. 16.

    jayboat

    @Mnemosyne:
    Those two are wonderful. I have to ask- do you think they are related? I imagine they must be if found together, but- they sure don’t share much in the way of coloration. 8-]]]

    While we’re on the subject of found cats- I moved into a new place recently and there’s a very young kitten living under the place next door (bldgs are kinda close together). Can’t be more than 6-7 weeks old- well, maybe 10 now since I’ve been here for a bit. I immediately started leaving food and water out for him/her (and we know where that is gonna wind up). At first, scared to death of me, but now at least doesn’t run away at the first sign of a human, and this morning actually sat there and mewled at me for a bit as long as I didn’t make any moves in his/her direction. I take that as a good sign- guess the food is working some magic. Medium brown tabby markings with beautiful orange eyes. Will keep ya posted on any progress.

  17. 17.

    rikyrah

    Memo to Congress: Please don’t scuttle the recovery. Thanks.

    By Greg Sargent
    July 14 at 1:37 PM

    In recent days there’s been a bit of a debate in Beltway circles over whether Dems should refrain from talking about the recovery, because touting it too aggressively could backfire, given that widespread economic suffering continues.

    That may or may not be true. But here’s one way you probably will increasingly hear Dems talking about the economy. They will argue that one reason the recovery is gaining momentum is that destructive Republican fiscal brinksmanship has been vanquished, at least temporarily, and that this further underscores the folly of any future GOP-manufactured crises, which could imperil the recovery right when it appears poised to accelerate.

    This line of argument could take on particular urgency in the debate over the Highway Trust Fund. If it goes insolvent later this summer, the White House has warned, it could halt untold numbers of state infrastructure projects across the country and cause the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.

    The argument that failure to act on the Highway Trust Fund could scuttle the recovery is now getting a boost from independent economists.

    Daniel White, a senior economist with Moody’s Analytics, tells me that the current recovery is partly the result of the fact that we’ve had no debt ceiling or government shutdown brinksmanship this year, and that a Congressional showdown over the Highway Trust Fund could hurt the recovery. Indeed, White says the current uncertainty over the HTF may already be preventing the recovery from gaining the steam it otherwise might. White emails:

    washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/07/14/memo-to-congress-please-dont-scuttle-the-recovery-t…

  19. 19.

    rikyrah

    Meet a mother in D.C. who risked having her kids smuggled to her from Honduras

    By Pamela Constable July 13 at 9:19 PM 

    From the moment she fled poverty-stricken Honduras a decade ago, Allis Godoy knew she would find a way to be reunited with the children she left behind. She was desperate enough to have them smuggled across Mexico to the U.S. border, spending thousands of dollars and risking their lives so they could join her in Northwest Washington.

    Four years ago, her teenage son David made the hazardous trip. Two and a half months ago, her youngest daughter, Madison, finally reached her side. By then, the pixie-like 10-year-old had endured two failed smuggling attempts and a third that landed her in the custody of U.S. immigration agents in Texas on April 14. Two weeks later, she was flown to Washington by the federal government and greeted by the mother who had last seen her when she was 6 months old.

    It was the crowning achievement of Godoy’s life.

    “If people call this a crime, why is it a crime to want to give your children a better future?” asked Godoy, 39, who makes salads in a restaurant kitchen and lives in a tiny apartment in Columbia Heights. “I have only one goal in life,” she said. “To make sure my children never have to endure what I did as a child.”

    washingtonpost.com/local/meet-a-mother-in-dc-who-risked-having-her-kids-smuggled-to-her-from-hondura…

  20. 20.

    Mnemosyne

    @jayboat:

    We’re pretty sure they were sisters — because of the way cat reproduction works, it’s possible that they were technically half-sisters, but came from the same litter with the same mom. Unfortunately, Olive (the calico) got a bowel obstruction and died a couple of years ago, but Charlotte is still going strong.

    ETA: Olive was adopted by a friend of G’s because four cats in our small apartment was DEFINITELY going to be too much.

  21. 21.

    PurpleGirl

    @jayboat: They could well be related — same mom cat but different dads. In feral/community cats you often see these differences in coloration and markings. There’s one litter on cam right now which has an all black, a tortie, a tuxie, and two gingers, and a sixth one (which I forget her markings.). We know they are from the same mom cat because the birth was broadcast via cam. It provides endless conversation material for the cam watchers to talk about the colorings and differences in coat texture.

  22. 22.

    another Holocene human

    @the Conster: just jump off a bridge already and stop traumatizing transport workers. Except for the jfk skytrain there’s a human being in that cab who does s not want to watch you die.

  23. 23.

    Trollhattan

    @Mike in NC:
    Had moderately high expectations and am nevertheless amazed how good Oliver’s show is turning out. He’s allowed enough time to fully develop a topic, uninterrupted by ads and more ads, and is smart enough and has good enough writers to frequently knock it completely out of the ballpark.

  25. 25.

    gene108

    This is one of top featured articles on Yahoo!

    The celebrating began before the coroner could collect the bodies of Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo, the Las Vegas patrol officers ambushed and executed while eating at a pizzeria last month.

    “The good news is, there are two less police in the world,” read an entry on the Facebook page for CopBlock.org.

    The post was visible for less than a day, but it attracted at least 6,300 likes and comments by the time the page’s administrators removed it.

    Jerad Miller — who along with his wife, Amanda, gunned down the Vegas police officers before dying during a shootout with police — was one of Cop Block’s 780,000-plus Facebook fans.

    The decentralized advocacy group says it disavows violence while spreading a belief that “badges don’t grant extra rights.”

    But the Millers, described by investigators as anti-government extremists, had a deadly animosity for authority.

    “Bout time to start killing cops, eh?” Miller, 31, wrote in May when he shared a viral video of police brutality on Facebook. “Maybe if we can kill all these despotic goons they will turn on their masters and once again be public servants and we can end this madness.”

    After a historic decline in the number of police officers fatally shot last year, 2014 has rebounded to previous levels. Beck and Soldo are among 28 U.S. officers shot and killed in the line of duty so far this year. The most recent death came Sunday, when rookie Jersey City, N.J., Officer Melvin Santiago was ambushed by a gunman who reportedly told people he was “going to be famous” for killing a cop.

    Such shameless bravado — online and off — and an exploding right-wing movement are creating anxiety about attacks against police.

    news.yahoo.com/online-rants-rightwing-extremism-fuel-fears-for-us-cops-225012920.html

    As we are mostly a blog of people, no longer in what would be called a “youth demographic” the 1990’s seems like not that long ago.

    Does anyone around back then think these potentialactual cop killers will get the same criticism in the greater media that Ice-T and Body Count got for a song?

  26. 26.

    Gravenstone

    So, um, this showed up in my Facebook feed today. Sometimes, self publishing isn’t such a good thing. /facepalm

  28. 28.

    dmsilev

    Obama sent Jackson a “don’t be a dick” letter. It …obviously didn’t take.

    Obama added: “That’s why I have to express my disappointment at the cheap shot you took at Joe Biden via Twitter. It was unprofessional and beneath the office that you once held. It was also disrespectful to me and the many friends you had in our administration. You were the personal physician to the President of the United States as well as an admiral in the U.S. Navy. I expect better, and I hope upon reflection that you will expect more of yourself in the future.”

  29. 29.

    Jerzy Russian

    Trump was not worthy of substandard veterinary care, let alone elite human medicine.

    Funny and true.

    Related item #1: I wonder if there is an actual White House Veterinarian, given the current furry occupants.

    Related item #2: One thing I can give TFG credit for is making me aware of the word “gormless”. TFG spawned Ivanka, who at some point married Jared, who in turn was frequently described as “gormless”. Others also should receive credit for this of course, since it is rarely a single individual who does all of the work.

  30. 30.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    If I recall, the Spartans who first said “Come and take them” were completely wiped off the face of the earth.

    Not the smartest approach, I’d say.

  32. 32.

    MagdaInBlack

    Betty, I just read my Governor Pritzker had a few choice word for your Gov DeSantis, Saturday at the Democratic leadership conference in Tampa. I’m at work so can’t post the link. Saw it on Rawstory.

  33. 33.

    trollhattan

    PS: I’m thinking a drone could “come and get it” should that ever be necessary. Or at least render “it” a molten puddle incapable of firing hollow point rounds. Works for me!

    Having watched dozens of drone videos from Ukraine wherein off-the-shelf models drop grenades or mortar rounds on Russian tanks and such, Ronnyboy won’t know what hit him.

  34. 34.

    Jerzy Russian

    @dmsilev:

     

    Obama sent Jackson a “do not be a dick” letter.

    I changed the “don’t” to “do not”, since this reminds me of a Bullwinkle cartoon where Boris and Natasha receive orders regarding our favorite moose. Natasha reported that the note said “keel moose”, upon which Boris dropped a safe out of the window. Natasha then said something to the effect of “there are two more words on the paper”. Boris asked what those words were, and Natasha said “do not”, which of course made their orders “do not keel moose”. Boris then had to run down the stairs and intercept the safe before it landed on Bullwinkle.

    However, looking at Obama’s note, leaving off the first two words won’t make its meaning opposite of its intended meaning.

  37. 37.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Not just you.  The guys on PSAmerica talked about him and they were completely surprised because apparently he was a relatively normal dude when they worked with him during Obama’s administration.

  39. 39.

    lowtechcyclist

    Josh Marshall summed up Ronny Jackson’s message this way:

    Gun Nuts: I’m a law abiding citizen not threatening anyone and I have every right to own these weapons.

    Also Gun Nuts: If you pass a law to restrict or outlaw my chosen weapon I will murder you and anyone tasked with enforcing the law.

    And of course, Jackson’s far from the only GOPer to present like this.

    They’re law-abiding until they don’t like the law, they ‘back the blue’ until the blue is in their way.

  40. 40.

    trollhattan

    @UncleEbeneezer: Same thing happened to our county sheriff. He was normal then Trump happened and it was as if a switch got thrown in his head. Now I’d like to throw things at his head.

  41. 41.

    Gravenstone

    Saw the pic over at TPM, but didn’t read into the article to realize *that* is Ronnie Jackson. He’s rather let himself go, hasn’t he? Guess openly embracing your inner nutjob  and turning craven opportunist doesn’t do much for one’s appearance. As for the “come and take them” jibe, I can think of an assortment of means to do so. A well placed Hellfire on his private bunker, as alluded to in the OP being probably the most final one.

  43. 43.

    Jay

    Three people were fatally shot and two were injured Sunday evening at an Indiana mall after a man with a rifle opened fire in a food court and an armed civilian shot and killed him, police said.

    The man entered the Greenwood Park Mall with a rifle and several magazines of ammunition and began firing in the food court, Greenwood Police Department Chief Jim Ison said.

    cbc.ca/news/world/indiana-mall-shooting-1.6523656

  44. 44.

    Mike in NC

    I’m alarmed that this doofus Jackson graduated from medical school and got a Navy commission.

  45. 45.

    citizen dave

    @Jay: Good guy with a gun and all that, don’t you know.  Central Indiana resident here.  We started open carry in Indiana on July 1.  I’ve been in that mall.  I thought of an app that would tell you how many mass shooting sites that you have been at–maybe it’s a google maps extension.  Not sure of the purpose of the app.

    The police raided the shooter’s apartment today, because, you know (bad joke ahead), they wanted to know if he was doing something really bad, like providing abortions.

  46. 46.

    Ken

    These always remind me of that scene in Men in Black:

    Human: “You can have my gun when you pry it out of my cold dead hands.”

    Twelve-foot-tall alien monster: “Your offer is acceptable.”

    Human: (brief screams and wet squishy noises)

  47. 47.

    raven

    Fucking moron.

     

    Jackson held the Navy rank of captain from May 1, 2010, to October 1, 2016, until he was promoted to rear admiral (lower half).[27][20] Jackson was nominated for promotion to the two-star rank of rear admiral on March 20, 2018,[28][29]but the Senate Committee on Armed Services returned the nomination to the president on January 3, 2019, without action.[28] He was renominated by Trump for promotion again on January 15, 2019, but it was again returned to the president without action.[30] Jackson retired from the Navy on December 1, 2019, as a rear admiral (lower half).[20]

  48. 48.

    docNC

    Does he know he lives in Texas?

    How does playing the “They ain’t takin’ them” work in Texas, where, they ain’t trying to take them…?

    I mean, Texas….Texas

  51. 51.

    Bill K

    This “pry it from my cold, dead hands” posturing always struck me as funny.  I keep thinking of that scene in Red Dawn where a Cuban paratrooper does exactly that.  Ronny, our government can take all your toys away with frighteningly ease.  You can get your militia buddies with your AR-15s and Hellfire trigger adapters and I’ll get a squad of the 82nd airborne.  We’ll see how many minutes it takes to wipe you out.  I won’t even need to use all the other tools at our government’s disposal – drones, mortars, tanks etc.  The only thing all these guns are for is to terrorize other civilians.  As a rule of thumb – the more a person wants a gun, the less he should be allowed to have one.

  57. 57.

    The Moar You Know

    Performative virtue-signaling bullshit. So tired of conservatives. I can’t even understand them when they talk at me anymore, they speak in a code I do not comprehend and frankly am not going to make any effort to.

  58. 58.

    Roger Moore

    @Mike in NC:

    I’m alarmed that this doofus Jackson graduated from medical school and got a Navy commission.

    People do change.  If someone undergoes a radical personality change, you can’t blame other people from trusting them before the change.  It isn’t necessarily predictable.

  60. 60.

    prostratedragon

    @Mike in NC:  Considering that those attainments seem to require an acquiantance with psychological normality, he’s struck me lately as a poster boy for self-destruction. Think he’s about there.

    ETA: Also what Roger Moore said.

  61. 61.

    bbleh

    @trollhattan: Aw now that would be no fun!

    I realize it’s a RWNJ-type fantasy, but I’d like an AI-driven quadcopter with video/audio recording and a couple of fragmentation grenades first to present itself to him, like some sort of lethal mosquito, and record him bellowing about “mah constitooshunal rights!” and then trying to evade it until the AI works out his pattern and frags him.

    As penance I will try not to indulge in such fantasies again for at least 24 hours.

  62. 62.

    Soprano2

    People do change, as we well know. Maybe he was a normal, regular person before TFG. Think about all the people whose relatives have been swallowed by that QAnon or MAGA hole, who weren’t like that before.

  65. 65.

    bbleh

    @SiubhanDuinne: Lol yeah.  I think that may actually cause a couple of minutes of confusion for a substantial number of people for whom MAGA is a conjuring word.

  66. 66.

    Betty Cracker

    @MagdaInBlack: Pritzker joins Gavin Newsom in bashing DeSantis, and good for him! DeSantis is an officious, small-minded dickhead with the appearance and demeanor of a vice-principal at a failing evangelical day school. Fox News has puffed him up as if he’s a populist hero, but he’s really a small bully who picks on the vulnerable. There’s absolutely no downside to pointing that out.

  67. 67.

    different-church-lady

    Everything sucks, half the population of this country are sociopaths, and nobody knows what to do about it.​

  71. 71.

    different-church-lady

    Somewhere along the line I saw a headline that said something like “Jackson shoots himself in foot making ill-timed video” and so I was expecting to see him *actually* shoot himself in that vid.

  72. 72.

    bbleh

    @pat: @Scout211: well, unlike firearms, the Constitution is entirely silent on the matter of alcohol, and certainly alcohol has been a part of the national culture since before the revolution, so clearly any regulation by any entity — state or federal, legislative or executive — is presumptively unconstitutional, and hence any criticism of him for violation of any such putative regulation is actually a violation of his rights!

  74. 74.

    Albatrossity

    @trollhattan: I think that happened to a lot of folks, who saw that normal GOP greed, racism, and ignorance would not be enough to stay elected in the age of Trump.

    I wish we knew how to flip their switches back to normal GOP greed, racism and ignorance…

  76. 76.

    Cameron

    @Betty Cracker: Problem is, wingnuts love him. Not only do I think he’s going to waltz to reelection this fall (due largely to transplanted white Olds like me), but I think he’s got a real shot at the presidency in 2024. Totally agree that in a real state in a real country, his highest public office would be as the unpleasant oddball who somehow got elected to the county zoning commission.

  77. 77.

    gene108

    @Bill K:

    Ronny, our government can take all your toys away with frighteningly ease. You can get your militia buddies with your AR-15s and Hellfire trigger adapters and I’ll get a squad of the 82nd airborne. We’ll see how many minutes it takes to wipe you out.

    If it comes to that type of civil war, a lot of the military won’t stay loyal. They’ll take military equipment and join up with the rebels.

    We have history as a guide here.

  78. 78.

    different-church-lady

    It just occurred to me: all you have to do to get susceptible people to vote for the Leopards Eating Everyone’s Faces Party is to tell them they’re leopards too.

  81. 81.

    JML

    So, there’s a few things with some of these senior military guys either as they head to retirement or move out of it:
    1) Some of them really needed the chain of command and a superior officer looking over their shoulder to keep their worst instincts in check
    2) Some of them really can’t handle it when their career ascension gets capped out (I’ve seen this happen at lower ranks too; some officers can make peace with the fact that they are no longer going to get promoted and others can’t). Partly it seems to be the frustration of being denied, when they’ve been one of the golden children climbing the ranks for so long but others just don’t know how to deal with not having a new rank to strive for
    3) It’s super easy to get seduced by the cheers, and a lot of these guys are absolutely primed for it, having had long careers where people fought to do their bidding. It’s a like a drug to some people and even if Ronny Jackson never gave two craps about guns for most of his career…being the raving gun nut now gets him a return to adulation. It’s less about a cynical move than it is the need for acclamation.

    It’s one of the failings of an “up or out” system that it bakes in some of this reaction, but it’s also a reminder that we should be hyper-focused against nepotism in structures like the military so that the early warnings of unacceptable behavior don’t get covered up by the rabbi shepherding the career of a Ronny Jackson.

  83. 83.

    Betty Cracker

    @Cameron: I worry about that too, which is why I’m so glad to see people like Newsom and Pritzker piling on the beady-eyed sociopath and calling him out for what he is. The MAGA cult in Florida loves him, and Fox News is laying the groundwork for the MAGA cult nationwide to transfer its allegiance to him. That makes it all the more critical to expose him for what he really is.

  84. 84.

    Roger Moore

    @Soprano2: 
    TBH, I think a lot of the people who turned to QAnon and the like had something wrong with them well before that. I suspect there’s some kind of nasty feedback loop based on the person’s social environment. When they’re in a social environment that forces them to deal with people who disagree with them, it helps to keep them in touch with reality. If they’re ever isolated in an environment full of like-minded people, they can feed off each other and go completely off the rails. This is why social media is such a potent medium for radicalization. It lets people form isolated, like-minded groups where they can feed off each other’s crazy; it will even suggest groups for you to join where you don’t have to deal with anyone who disagrees with you.

  85. 85.

    prostratedragon

    @Betty Cracker:
    Starts out strong with “officious,” and builds until by “vice-principal at a failing evangelical day school” the audience was on its feet, cheering wildly.

  86. 86.

    frosty

    @Betty Cracker: DeSantis is an officious, small-minded dickhead with the appearance and demeanor of a vice-principal at a failing evangelical day school.

    I don’t know why I had to check who wrote that. Another excellent turn of phrase, BC!

  87. 87.

    CaseyL

    FFS, JFC, and other expletives:  The Washington State GOP and its more harebrained activists are putting signs up at ballot drop-off boxes all over the state, including deep Blue Seattle, saying that they are surveilling and recording everyone who drops off a ballot there.

    The object is, obviously, intimidation.

    I am going to tear down those signs everywhere I see them.  I may even go hunting for them

    And I welcome any confrontation I get over it.

  90. 90.

    Cameron

    @Betty Cracker: I’m glad he’s drawing some negative attention – he richly deserves it.  Have you by any chance heard the same story that I have, that there are thousands of public-school teaching positions going unfilled here because of GOP asshole education policies?  I have a niece who was a primary-school teacher in Ft. Myers, and she’s gone back to Pennsylvania.  I certainly wouldn’t want to be a teacher here.

  91. 91.

    Denali

    What hold does TFG have over these people. I really don’t understand why they sacrifice their reputation, their honor and their judgment to support him.

  94. 94.

    Urban Suburbanite

    @trollhattan: ISIS got a lot of practice weaponizing drones – some of them were taking out armored vehicles by dropping grenades through open windows. (There’s also scene in the movie Mosul where an Iraqi police unit is attacked with bomb drones)

  95. 95.

    Roger Moore

    @Denali:

    What hold does TFG have over these people. I really don’t understand why they sacrifice their reputation, their honor and their judgment to support him.

    Because they’re bigots, and Trump tells them it’s OK to let their bigotry out in public.

  96. 96.

    CaseyL

    @Cameron: I don’t see how it can be legal.  The County Prosecutor’s office says they’re “reviewing” the matter, but I have no idea how long that will take, or what they’ll be able to do about it.  I think they lack the personnel to go to every drop box in the county and tear down signs.

  98. 98.

    Captain C

    @Denali: TFG has been very good at manipulating people into his service (to their detriment) for most of his career; that’s one of his few actual talents, and probably the main reason, outside of his dad’s money and connections, that he’s not either a bankrupt asshole selling used cars at a dodgy lot in central Jersey or buried in a hidden hole somewhere.

    Also, I suspect that in at least some (and probably many) cases, TFG (or more likely, his handlers) have dirt on his slavering followers, most likely either financial and/or sexual.

    And never underestimate how many people will quickly and happily go into kiss-up-kick-down mode under the right circumstances.

  99. 99.

    Ken

    @Roger Moore: The 21st repeals the 18th, but it doesn’t guarantee any sort of right to buy, sell, or consume alcohol. It also says that individual stats can restrict alcohol.

  100. 100.

    West of the Rockies

    Once again I am bemused by the constant rightwing default setting of angry, resentful, whiny and pissy.  It must be some psycho-sexual need to see themselves as victims.  Palin was constantly talking about things being crammed down her throat.   It’s weird.

  102. 102.

    Ruckus

    @trollhattan:

    WOW. That is one strong ad against a politician. I’m not sure enough people will care or think reasonably in TX but damn that is a good ad.

  103. 103.

    Scout211

    I just re-read that NPR article about the Pentagon Inspector General report on Ronny Jackson. I just felt a need to share some bits:

    The word “alcohol” appears 56 times in the 37-page report, which draws on initial complaints and interviews with at least 60 witnesses who previously worked in the White House Medical Unit.

     

    The inspector general’s office concludes that on several occasions, Jackson took Ambien to sleep while flying on Air Force One. It adds that the practice prompted concern among his staff that he might not be able to perform his duties if he were called on to care for the president. The report calls for new “fitness for duty guidance” around using drugs such as Ambien.

     

    Drawing on witness testimony, the findings relate how during the trip to Manila, Jackson’s eyes were bloodshot and he was visibly drunk when he knocked on a female subordinate’s hotel room door around 1 or 2 a.m.

    The woman told the inspector general’s office, “when a drunk man comes to your room and they say, ‘I need you,’ your mind goes to the worst. I really felt it was a sexually inappropriate comment.”

    A male member of the medical staff said he came to see why Jackson was “pounding” on the woman’s door — and after he saw the look on his female colleague’s face, he told investigators that he tried to divert Jackson back to his own room. But, he said, Jackson insisted: “No, no. We need her. We need her. Get her. We need her.”

    The woman changed out of her pajamas and grabbed her medical bag, because she wasn’t sure what was going on. When she arrived in her boss’s room, she said, Jackson was evidently intent on eating balut, a Philippine specialty, as a sort of culinary challenge.

    As the report states, “Balut is a fertilized bird egg that is incubated for a period of 14 to 21 days depending on the local culture, and then boiled or steamed. The contents are eaten directly from the shell.”

    The female staff member described the scene in Jackson’s hotel room in an interview with the inspector general’s office.

    “Dr. Jackson was in [the room] holding this … grocery bag of … balut. [RDML Jackson] said, ‘Take my phone. Take my phone. We need to take pictures. I want to film this. I want to film myself eating these eggs.’ And he’s screaming. I kind of describe this is like frat boy type behavior.”

    Jackson’s attempt to eat the balut, which is often made with duck eggs, was short-lived.

    The physician to the president screamed, ” ‘It f***ing stinks. I can feel its f***ing feathers,’ ” the woman said. At that point, she recalled thinking, “I’m done. This is not where I want to be. I don’t know what this man was coming to my room for in the first place, but this is clearly not related to my job. I’m going.”

  104. 104.

    Cameron

    @West of the Rockies: Not just La Belle Sarah – all these bozos, male, female, or indifferent, seem to feel that any unpleasantry headed their way is being “crammed down their throats.”  A Sigmund Freud paradise enow.

  105. 105.

    Philbert

    WA drop box signs: We the unregulated free market can take care of it.

    Ronny Jackson and the Quadcopter: Milkshake him!  Safe and sane!

  106. 106.

    Betty Cracker

    @Cameron: Yep — thousands of teacher positions are unfilled. It was already bad enough for them having to cope with a pandemic and online learning, then the anti-mask, anti-vax screamers DeSantis & Co. directed to PTA and school meetings. Then FL Republicans made them afraid to teach history or say “gay.”

    The FL Dept. of Ed website is inviting former military members and their spouses who have the equivalent of an associate degree to teach school while completing their degree. The attitude is “how hard can it be?”

    I’ve said a million times I’m never leaving this state, but if I had a kid who was still in school, I probably would consider it.

  107. 107.

    Roger Moore

    @CaseyL:

    I think they lack the personnel to go to every drop box in the county and tear down signs.

    Somebody had better, since they need to visit those drop boxes regularly anyway.  At least where I live, they’re supposed to pick up ballots from those drop boxes daily.  They can tear down illegal signs while they’re there.

  109. 109.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Scout211:

    Pete Souza has on more than one occasion mentioned Jackson’s drinking and drug use on Twitter when Jackson is being particularly nasty.

  110. 110.

    jackmac

    I like my governor JB Pritzker for his competence and performance, the way he slips the shiv into foes (GOP nominee Darren Bailey and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis) but I’m especially moved by the man’s humanity.

    While taking DeSantis apart in appearance before Florida Dems, he switched gears and talked how the July 4 Highland Park shootings left a two-year-old toddler an orphan. It brought tears to my eyes. Priztker lost his parents before his 18th birthday. I lost one of mine when I was 8, the other died when I was 11.  His comments really resonated and reminded me how death motivated me to be there for my kids.

    “I can’t stop thinking about Aiden,” Pritzker said of the (Highland Park) boy who lost his parents. “I can’t stop thinking about how he will be forced to ‘navigate life as an orphan.’ I lost both of my parents before I turned 18. Let me tell you what it means to ‘navigate life as an orphan.’ It means you are always stalked by ghoulish anniversaries — their birthdays that are no longer celebrated but instead mark another 52 weeks that a parent has been gone. It means growing older while your parents never age.

    “It means never knowing them as an adult — never crossing the Rubicon from being a child to being a friend. It means approaching with unnatural guilt the day when you’ve lived longer than they did. It means going through every joyous life milestone – graduations, big birthdays, weddings, promotions – with an empty space beside you in a picture, a sense of being robbed.”

  113. 113.

    Jay

    We have 10000 packs of explosive hazard awareness cards printed and in Ukraine. We have our second generation cards newly printed and just organising transport over. Awareness of explosive hazards saves lives. Support us here t.co/MJrEgQSr6M pic.twitter.com/6bUC95tHoM— Explosive hazard awareness cards for Ukraine (@UkraineCards) July 16, 2022

    mobile.twitter.com/UkraineCards/status/1548345760466407424?cxt=HHwWgMCooYCR6vwqAAAA

    They have been running this program for a couple of months now.

  114. 114.

    CaseyL

    Well.  I called both the King County Election Office and the King County Prosecutor about the signs by the ballot drop boxes.

    The person I spoke to at the County Election Board said their office was taking it very seriously, and the Prosecutor’s Office was looking into it.

    The County Prosecutor office doesn’t have a human being answering their main number. The recording suggested sending an email.  I sent them an email expressing my dismay, asking them how posting those signs could possibly be legal, and whether I, as an individual citizen, could rip the signs down wherever I see them.

    I’ll let y ‘all know what response I get, if any.

  115. 115.

    West of the Rockies

    @Cameron:

    I guess that if it’s something one secretly, shamefully desires, having a thing crammed or rammed (is there a difference?) down one’s throat–or up one’s keister–gives you the desired experience without the complicity.

  118. 118.

    Cameron

    @Betty Cracker: Wow!  I didn’t know that the bar was that low.  Maybe I’ll get a teaching job to supplement my retirement check instead of being a register jockey at Publix.  Teaching lies to kids – how hard can it be?

  119. 119.

    Leto

    @Betty Cracker: I’ve spoken about this before, but I taught my job in the military. The basic requirement for that was an associate, then you had to pass the instructor’s course. After that you had your teaching evaluation period, then you were pretty much hands off.

    I was fortunate to have some really incredible people working with me, but I also saw people who just absolutely struggled. Our class sizes were, on avg, 10 students. And people had a hard time with that. Also each class was 10 business days long, so we were constantly getting 10 new kids all the time.

    Just my long round way of saying, this would be a disaster. But we knew that already.

  120. 120.

    J R in WV

    @bbleh: ​
     

    …the Constitution is entirely silent on the matter of alcohol, and certainly alcohol has been a part of the national culture since before the revolution…

    Actually, there was an Amendment to the Constitution banning the sale or consumption of intoxicating liquor, and then another amendment cancelling out that ban. So where does that leave us?

  122. 122.

    Ruckus

    @Mike in NC:

    You and I were, I believe, both in the USN. And you are telling me that you never met or knew of a person without any humanity? Really? I met and worked with and for some good people. I also worked for and with some real fucking assholes. Any place that can teach you the finer uses of the extremely descriptive words fucking asshole is going to have way too many examples of same. My enlistment sure did, on both sides of the continent.

  123. 123.

    sab

    OT from Akron. We have been having protests all week. They died down after the funeral.

    As part of the protests some young idiot spray painted “Fuck the pigs” on a building, I don’t know if private or municipal. The police arrested him, beat him up, held him without a phone call for 24 hours and then released him across town into the same neighborhood as the Jayland Walker murder chase started. He had to hoof it back a couple of miles to his car downtown.

    For the first time since this started, people I know are on opposite sides. Our circle of friends includes raging lefties,suburban lefties, middle aged Black mothers, and retired cops.

    We are split on this, but pretty much everyone except the lefties thinks ” Fuck the agitator. Cops were okay in this one instance.” By the way, the painting perp was white.

  124. 124.

    Jackie

    @CaseyL: I’m surprised there wasn’t one at the drop off box I used in very Red Kennewick! Maybe I voted too early for them – I dropped off my ballot early Sat. Had there been such a sign, I would have called the cops and stayed to make sure it was removed asap.

  125. 125.

    J R in WV

    @CaseyL:

    The Washington State GOP and its more harebrained activists are putting signs up at ballot drop-off boxes all over the state, including deep Blue Seattle, saying that they are surveilling and recording everyone who drops off a ballot there.

    So did no one suggest that some voters, having marked a ballot for some Dems and some Rs would see that sign, take that ballot away, and vote straight Democratic?

    That is what such a sign would do for me!!

    One could make a stencil “Vote Republican–Support Russia!” and spray that slogan on the signs, would be more accurate.

  127. 127.

    Chris T.

    @CaseyL:

    The Washington State GOP and its more harebrained activists are putting signs up at ballot drop-off boxes all over the state, including deep Blue Seattle, saying that they are surveilling and recording everyone who drops off a ballot there.

    Obvious target for mooning, finger, etc!

  128. 128.

    J R in WV

    @CaseyL:

    I don’t see how it can be legal. The County Prosecutor’s office says they’re “reviewing” the matter, but I have no idea how long that will take, or what they’ll be able to do about it. I think they lack the personnel to go to every drop box in the county and tear down signs.

    Hell with the signs, they cost $0.95 — find the cameras and destroy them, they cost real money !!!

  129. 129.

    satby

    @Betty Cracker: I think they’re doing the same thing in IN. Considering how bad the underfunded schools generally are here anyway, unqualified teachers may not make much difference.

  130. 130.

    CaseyL

    @J R in WV: Good point – but, if there is actual “surveillance” happening at all, it’s likely to be one of their nimrods with a cell phone rather than a camera mounted nearby.  I will, however, look for mounted cameras.

  131. 131.

    Roger Moore

    @J R in WV:

    Hell with the signs, they cost $0.95 — find the cameras and destroy them, they cost real money !!!

    I sincerely doubt there is actual surveillance.  They’re just putting up signs in the hope of scaring some people away.  Of course anyone who’s afraid of the sign and still wants to vote could just mail in their ballot.

  132. 132.

    Jay

    ‘@sab

    The police arrested him, beat him up, held him without a phone call for 24 hours and then released him across town into the same neighborhood as the Jayland Walker murder chase started.

    – beating while in custody

    – deprived of civil rights

    – a starlight tour

    Here, it’s a misdemeanour charge, a small fine, and they have to clean off the graffiti, (not an easy job).

    Once again it shows that many Cops believe themselves to be the judge, jury and executioner.

  133. 133.

    J R in WV

    @Ruckus: ​
     

    I worked on a team operating a heavy 30-ton boom crane on my ship, a sub-tender. We were laying the boom down on the boat deck for maintenance of the head gear. Bosun’s Mate 3rd class Collins was leading the team.

    I saw that the boom was likely to impact a giant ventilation fan, and tried to warn Collins, upon which he said “Shut the F up!” which was a direct order. I shut up, and the boom crushed the fan motor, which made a pretty satisfactory scream. Collins turned around, for the very first time, and ran away.

    Chief Bosun came running, “What the Hell happened here?” — there was no way I could have prevented it, I couldn’t push the boom, my line was slack on the deck. They wanted to make it my fault, but all the other guys said “He yelled at Collins, who told him to shut up, so he did.”

    Was the most fun disaster I witnessed in the USN. No one was blamed, Collins was a special pet of the Chief. I will never forget the look on Collins’s face when that Ventilator fan screamed at him! No injuries, just a lot of money wasted on an expensive motor…

  134. 134.

    sab

    Why I will probably never talk to my unmarried RWNJ brother again. For him this has all been about less taxes, and less regulation of companies his mutual fund invests in. His company is kind of a cult. That’s how they sell shares to investing rubes. They are actually very good at investing, but their sales are to rubes. It rubs off in management. So they are not con men, just extremely right wing nut jobs who invest. Also too racist. Asians okay, Black Americans absolutely not.

    For me, this has all been about personal freedom, for me, for my female mixed-race grandchildren, for my daughters-in-law who want kids but have wanky reproductive systems. Also too, I will never let my brother anywhere near my grandkids.

  135. 135.

    sab

    @Jay: I had high hopes for our new police chief, but his troops are seriously a mess.

    Their big concern right now is mass quitting.

    Our cop friend who started in 1970, 2700 applicants for 47 positions.

    Now many positions are unfilled.

  136. 136.

    Jay

    @sab:

    the “goal” of a “starlight tour”, is that ideally, they don’t make it back.

    They are infamous in both rural and urban Canada. The Cops take the noisy drunk, babbling addict, person suffering a mental break, “mouthy” rights person out of the cell, load them into the back of a vehicle, drive them out to vacant rural wheat fields, forests, downtown east side, drop them off, often unconscious, with no clothing to protect from the weather, ( often BIPOC persons),

    Hoping that at a later date, they will only have to deal with the dead body.

    LASD is accused of doing the same by dropping gang bangers off in the heart of a rival gangs turf.

  137. 137.

    Ohio Mom

    @citizen dave: I was thinking something similar. The world needs two websites, the first listing every shooting in the US.

    Maybe the shootings can be colored coded or in columns, for suicides, domestic killings, robberies and similar crimes, and mass shootings, and whatever other categories exist. Should also include year-to-tallies.

    The second site will list every pregnant person harmed by Dobbs. Again, breakouts of deaths and disability by condition, for example, ecoptic pregnancies, incomplete miscarriages, sepsis, etc., and y-t-d figures.

  139. 139.

    Urban Suburbanite

    @Jay: I worked at an auto parts warehouse with a manager who was ex-SPD. He proudly told me about macing homeless people for fun or dumping them at the docks, because in his words “they were close to death anyway”. I’m glad to know he has chronic pain.

  140. 140.

    Tony G

    @Roger Moore: This dweeb and General Flynn (to cite a couple of examples) make me wonder what percentage of U.S. military officers are fascist lunatics.  Any percentage higher than 0.0001% is higher than it should be.

  142. 142.

    Amir Khalid

    @Denali:

    TFG may have a Reality Distortion Field, like Steve Jobs’: the ability, whether innate or bestowed by circumstances, to bend others’ perception of facts and truth to suit his own purposes. Possession of an RDF seems to be part of every charismatic leader’s gift.

  143. 143.

    Noskilz

    I think its a sort of grifty cosplay – if you have absolutely no self-respect, celebrity maga-clown is an easy role to play: minimal costuming, a handful of props, and a moronically simple set of lines.

  144. 144.

    bbleh

    @Roger Moore: @J R in WV: [exasperated sigh]  One assumes you know that the 18th and 21st Amendments — the latter of which repeals the former — were added only during the 20th century, that the former was active only for a handful of years, that neither is deeply rooted in our nation’s history and traditions, not to mention anywhere near the Original Intent of the Founders (hallowed be their names), and hence that they are entirely irrelevant to the True Textual Meaning of the Constitution™.  Harrumph!

    (And honestly, these “amendments,” they are such a pain!  All this business about additional rights, and limiting the states, and letting women vote, and … they really just make a mess of things.  It’s like that pesky New Testament, with all the love-thy-neighbor stuff.  I’m not at all sure we should be paying any attention to those non-Original things.)

  145. 145.

    debbie

    Speaking of red-faced condemnations of the 1/6 hearings, why am I not finding them in any listings?

  146. 146.

    SFAW

    @CaseyL: ​
     
    I think the law enforcement officials should start by declaring it a terrorist activity: it’s designed to effect “political” change by instilling fear in a section of the populace/electorate. Arrest those “activists.”

    And, of course, these are the same people who demand the government leave them alone, etc. etc.

    Make them defend their actions.

  147. 147.

    ETtheLibrarian

    Sadly this pathetic display will likely convince/reinforce those he is targeting, that he is on their side. He doesn’t have to be convincing, he just has to be a bad copy of copy; to cosplay juuuust enough…

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