Remember that fucking idiot James O’Keefe — the failed conservative prankster who tends to record himself committing felonies when trying to expose liberal wrongdoing? He has attempted another sting operation, and in typical O’Keefe fashion, he pulled off the metaphorical equivalent of stuffing a hornet’s nest down his own pants.
Jane Mayer of The New Yorker has the goods here. To summarize, in March, O’Keefe targeted a woman who works for the George Soros-funded Open Society Foundation, leaving a phone message under a fake name, “Victor Kesh,” to try to set up a meeting so he could worm his way into her confidence and secretly record her (for subsequent deceptive editing, judging from O’Keefe’s usual M.O.).
But after leaving the message, O’Keefe/Kesh didn’t hang up the phone properly, so the intended victim was treated to a recording in which the O’Keefe brain trust laid out the entirety of their plan like the band of bumbling dipshits that they are:
The caller had failed to hang up, and Kesh, unaware that he was still being recorded, seemed to be conducting a meeting about how to perpetrate an elaborate sting on Soros. “What needs to happen,” he said, is for “someone other than me to make a hundred phone calls like that”—to Soros, to his employees, and to the Democracy Alliance, a club of wealthy liberal political donors that Soros helped to found, which is expected to play a large role in financing this year’s campaigns.
Kesh described sending into the Soros offices an “undercover” agent who could “talk the talk” with Open Society executives. Kesh’s goal wasn’t fully spelled out on the recording, but the gist was that an operative posing as a potential donor could penetrate Soros’s operation and make secret videos that exposed embarrassing activities. Soros, he assured the others, has “thousands of organizations” on the left in league with him. Kesh said that the name of his project was Discover the Networks.
[snip]The accidental recording reached farcical proportions when Kesh announced that he was opening Geraghty’s LinkedIn page on his computer. He planned to check her résumé and leverage the information to penetrate the Soros “octopus.”
Kesh said, “She’s probably going to call me back, and if she doesn’t I can create other points of entry.” Suddenly, Kesh realized that by opening Geraghty’s LinkedIn page he had accidentally revealed his own LinkedIn identity to her. (LinkedIn can let users see who has looked at their pages.) “Whoa!” an accomplice warned. “Log out!” The men anxiously reassured one another that no one checks their LinkedIn account anyway.
“Log out!” — LOL! Yeah, that’ll work. Jaysus, O’Keefe, you’re obviously no good at this sting business. Get a fucking real job already, preferably one that doesn’t require abstract thought.
big ol hound
Wonder what idiots like these guys do for an actual living? Who supplies income for them to have so much free time to try and pull this type of shit. They are the real assholes.
Poopyman
No, it probably actually was, given this moran’s mad planning skillz. Taking lessons from Wile E. Coyote might actually improve his success rate.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
The only self-awareness that these guys demonstrated was when one observed that nobody actually checks their linked in account.
Has there ever been a less useful product on the web?
Poopyman
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Your post made me go check my LinkedIn acct, but damned if I can remember the password.
ThresherK (GPad)
What is he qualified to do, exactly? This is his day job. He just sucks at it.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Poopyman:
Or the email that you used to start it with, I bet.
The venture capital meeting must’ve been marvelous.
MattF
@big ol hound: According to Wikipedia he’s a product of the ‘conservative activist’ pipeline. So, presumably, there’s a big-money ‘donor’ lurking in the background behind a few layers of deniability.
Schlemazel Khan
@big ol hound:
At one time he was part of Dimbarts clown car but I believe they let him go (I would have to verify that). There seems to be no lack of money for fools like O’Keefe though so their minions never go without.
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
linkedin was supposed to be facebook for jobs. I keep a profile out there that is not entirely accurate so if someone tries to pull that trick on me I have a better chance of spotting them. In technical fields it gets used by recruiters a lot. I am forever getting contacted by head hunters based off of that profile. It is probably useful for them and for job seekers in the way having your resume out on monster.com used to be.
MomSense
Love that their freak out was caught on tape because they forgot to hang up. I bet their freak out when they finally realized they hadn’t hung up the phone was delicious.
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel Khan: Breitbart was his first sponsor.
Matt McIrvin
I have actually found LinkedIn useful, for one thing and one thing only: re-establishing old professional contacts when I’m looking for a job. It’s like a Rolodex that updates itself. It may be that its usefulness for that is fading, but it worked the last couple of times I needed it.
qwerty42
@MomSense: … I bet their freak out when they finally realized they hadn’t hung up the phone was delicious.
Oh to have been there for that …. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Baud
@Poopyman:
Try Googling your password. It’s probably on the web somewhere.
SarahT
@Betty Cracker: “Whoa! Log out!”- needs to become a catchphrase for something or other. The new “D’oh!” maybe ?
Ultraviolet Thunder
I created a Linkedin account years ago. Got a load of cold contacts from recruiters so I deleted it. But I still get those cold contacts, so apparently the only one to whom it no longer exists is me. Linkedin is the herpes of social media.
Schlemazel Khan
@OzarkHillbilly:
He was not very breite though, to me he will always be Dimbart.
I seem to recall Jimmy’s daddy was well off, perhaps he is living on daddy’s money? Of course both Jimmy and daddy could be having their income supplemented by some whack job with a few million to spare.
Southern Beale
WOLVERINES!!!!!
I love this story. “Bumbling dipshits” doesn’t even begin to describe these fools.
MomSense
@qwerty42:
Let us savor.
bemused
My first thought was that the wealthy donors to O’Keefe’s smear operation and many others like it aren’t getting much for their money but they actually are. They know how eager their rubes are for dirt and who don’t care if it is fabricated.
MomSense
Next time that hollandaise bechamel troll shows up in a Bernie thread I might try it out.
Southern Beale
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
Like an idiot, I created a LinkedIn account many years ago, too. I was then inundated with “friend” requests (or whatever the LinkedIn version is) from people I didn’t know, didn’t want to know, had never heard of. It looked like a huge scam. I tried to delete my account and that’s when I realized the truth about LinkedIn: you can check in, you can never check out. THEY WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU ALONE.
I fucking hate LinkedIn and regret the day I ever created a profile.
Meanwhile, my sister out in California uses it all the time. I’ve never heard of anyone actually using LinkedIn for anything except to SPAM people. But maybe it’s a California thing.
germy shoemangler
linked in reminds me of AARP.
I joined and it was just a way for me to get spammed with insurance offers, and other products.
I got their worthless magazine and newspaper. They don’t even advocate for retired people because every editorial they write says “Don’t retire!”
One of the AARP founders started the colonial penn insurance company.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Southern Beale:
I ended up spamblocking all Linkedin emails. They constitute 15% of my spam folder.
When I was a contract IT programmer it made sense, but not any more.
OzarkHillbilly
@bemused:
2 words: Planned Parenthood.
debbie
I don’t understand what “embarrassing activities” he thought he’d find.
germy shoemangler
according to the jane mayer article, o’keefe receives hundreds of thousands of $ from various donors.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@debbie:
Advocacy in favor of liberal causes. Then he would twist that into treason and sell the resulting smear as fact.
That’s his MO.
Schlemazel Khan
@debbie:
He knew he didn’t need to find any embarrassing activities, he could edit the stuff he got until it appeared embarrassing and that is all it takes. They get a week of splashy headlines & then after the truth comes out the wingnuts ignore the truth and continue to peddle the lie. SEE: Planned Parenthood, NPR, ACORN
SarahT
@germy shoemangler: At least the AARP does some good: Their Medicare supplement plan has come through big time for my Mom on many occasions, and we got her a significantly better rate through their (Allstate) roadside assistance plan than she had with the AAA. Also, they took a lot of grief from wingnuts for their early backing of the ACA, so I give them full marks for standing up to that.
ThresherK
Looks like incompetent bad guy Dan Backslide has competition.
debbie
@Schlemazel Khan:
I know his MO, but abortion’s a pretty inflammatory issue. A liberal PAC supporting liberal causes should shock no one. I do hope that someone turns that voicemail into an ad. O’Keefe’s words played over that shot of him as a pimp, for instance: “This is the GOP’s brain trust.”
tjmn
@germy shoemangler: Not much of a return of investment there, eh? Should just use their money as tinder for a roaring bonfire.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
A job-hunting friend asked me to be a reference and to make a LinkedIn profile to make his friends web or whatever they call it look good. That was the first and the last that I really used it other than updating it when my then employer was sold and most of us laid off.
Most of the engineering employers here use a specific temp agency. It took some effort to get them to stop calling me fishing for opening leads, but I finally seem to have convinced them that I retired after that last layoff.
Ultraviolet Thunder
You know, it just occurred to me that I’ve been using a Radio Shack battery tester for decades and trusting it. But Radio Shack sells replacement batteries. Suddenly I see a problem there.
I suppose this would be excusable if I didn’t have a shop full of high tech electronic test equipment and “Engineer” on my business card.
I feel like such an O’Keefe.
Schlemazel Khan
@debbie:
I am sure he could make something unseemly out of it. Perhaps suggest that campaign laws were violated or that voter fraud was being managed, it would not take much to get the RWNJ army all up in arms & garner time on Today and all the cable news lobotomy hour shows.
p.a.
@SarahT: blog tag
p.a.
fuck
p.a.
fuck
Schlemazel Khan
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
I worked with a guy who wanted a 5 volt power source and decided the way he could get it was to short the terminals of a 9 volt battery together for a few seconds. When he measured the battery if was just a bit over 5 volts but for some reason when he plugged it into the circuit it went to zero volts.
He was such an O’Keefe
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Schlemazel Khan:
All he needed was a 9V battery and a LM7805 voltage regulator. $0.10 from Shenzhen or $2.49 from Radio Shack.
But he really needed to not short out 9V batteries. Those can source 1000ma, enough to cause a fire.
donnah
If there was a prison for stupid people, O’Keefe would have five consecutive life sentences.
Jeff
@big ol hound: Would think the Koch brothers would be a good sponsor for them.
kindness
Sometimes, we are blessed by the opponents we have.
Except the ones that lurvs them some Trump.
Schlemazel Khan
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
There were a lot of things he could have done but he was a real O’Keefe.
BTW – When I hunted I always carried a 9v battery & some steel wool. It is a great fire lighter in a survival situation. The battery will ignite the steel wool & that can get even damp wood started.
SFAW
@p.a.:
That sucks. Not a Brown fan, but losing a guy like that kind of puts a damper on things.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Schlemazel Khan:
Smart. When I was a kid we would start fires with steel wool soaked in methanol and a big 1.5V carbon/zinc telephone battery. It doesn’t take a lot of current to start steel wool burning and it will sustain combustion when it’s hot enough. Rechargeable batteries will source even more current due to their chemistry. I’ll bet it would be possible to make a decent reusable fire starter with a rechargeable backup battery pack.
Schlemazel Khan
The guy who was shot at the WH yesterday has been identified as Jesse Olivieri from Ashland PA. Reportedly he told medical personnel he intended to commit suicide by cop. This is another gun death that won’t be counted in the total for the year I suppose.
We need better mental health care in this nation
SFAW
I keep hoping O’Keefe tries his shit on someone like a latter-day Frank Salemme.
Of course, then Fox would probably grant him martyr status.
SFAW
@Schlemazel Khan: @Ultraviolet Thunder:
“Balloon Juice: come for the political commentary, stay for the engineering/survival tips!”
SarahT
@p.a.: That’ll work
bemused
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yup. O’Keefe’s getup attempting to look like a pimp was just pathetic and laughable. Well, laughable to most people.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@SarahT: Their main function is to advocate for the preservation and expansion of social security and medicare. The spam and magazine are just byproducts of their main function – the spam I’m sure is a deal with corporate donors – give us money to advocate for medicare and we’ll let you hock your medicare supplement program to our members. It’s annoying but they’re generally fighting for a good cause and have been fighting successfully for decades. Reagan couldn’t beat them, Bush couldn’t beat them, Newt couldn’t beat them, and they’re probably laughing at the idea of “policy wonk” Paul Ryan and his pack of incompetent vandals even trying to beat them right now. As if.
amk
Is this obvious fraud and ratfucker anyway relevant to the politics and upcoming elections?
Schlemazel Khan
Bennett has a good cartoon today, it perfectly depicts the threat that Drumps poses: here
Gin & Tonic
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Didn’t you ever test 9V batteries with your tongue?
Gin & Tonic
@Schlemazel Khan: I think there’s a chance it won’t be counted as a gun death because he’s not dead.
Schlemazel Khan
@amk:
Was the ACORN assault relevant? The Planned Parenthood attack? Sadly, yes, this piece of effluent disguised as a real boy could easily be relevant to many upcoming elections.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@germy shoemangler: A guy I went to grad school with somehow got on AARP’s mailing list when he was in his early 20s. It didn’t happen for me until I was in my 40s. They waste a mountain of money mailing stuff to people who don’t care. :-(
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
can’t make this stuff up
reality is always better than fiction
Gin & Tonic
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Steel wool soaked in paraffin makes a good fire starter and you can carry it around without soaking everything in methanol.
Schlemazel Khan
@Gin & Tonic:
Yeah, I got carried away. Hopefully he will get treatment for his depression & won’t feel like getting himself killed again.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Gin & Tonic:
Didn’t everyone? Reportedly some band roadies can tell what batteries will work in what devices just by the degree of tingle. I’m not that well calibrated.
I have one here that tests good and one that tests marginal. Gonna try to see if I can ‘taste’ a difference.
BRB
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
Yikes wow yeah. Not gonna do that again.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Ultraviolet Thunder: rofl. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
RandomMonster
Someone should pull a sting operation on O’Queef himself. You know, propose some irresistible liberal target and an elaborate plan that gets O’Queef to pay me $100 to kill someone or do some other crime. And then send him to jail.
Oh wait, I just described my plan in detail on this public forum! LOG OUT!
Gin & Tonic
@Ultraviolet Thunder: I think that’s something “everyone” does when they’re under a certain age. Or drunk.
Baud
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Protip:. Don’t try that with a car battery.
different-church-lady
@Gin & Tonic: Wait, do you have to soak your tongue in methanol first?
Poopyman
@Baud: Voice of experience?
Poopyman
@different-church-lady: Ethanol, please!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Schlemazel Khan: I had a feeling it was something like that. Agreed on your proposed solution as well (along with decreasing the economic insecurity that too many people still suffer and which contributes greatly to mental anguish).
Cheers,
Scott.
Gin & Tonic
@different-church-lady: Not really recommended, but I guess it depends on the effect you’re trying to achieve.
If you try it, make sure to send us a video.
different-church-lady
@Baud: a) What kind of professional are you that you know this??
b) Wouldn’t you need an awfully long tongue?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Clinton has hired some laid off Sanders staffers in these places. I guess electing legislators to enact progressive policies, and keep the ones we have in place, proves you’re a tool of the Establishment.
different-church-lady
@Gin & Tonic:
One of my great fears in life is becoming an internet meme. So, no.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Gin & Tonic:
Or didn’t have a mouth full of metal fillings.
Speaking of which, one more Tech Tip before I go make breakfast for Mrs. Thunder:
Those tiny interdental brushes are perfect for cleaning out electrical switches and sockets. Dab Caig D5 contact cleaner on one and scrub away. Just don’t put it in your mouth after that.
Mark B
@different-church-lady: I suppose you could contact one terminal with the battery and the other one with another part of your body that had been appropriately wetted. Since the current would likely flow through your torso, it would likely interfere with you heart rhythm and would at least knock you flat. Not to mention burns at the contact points. Sounds like something the guys at Mythbusters could try out with a dummy. An inanimate one, I mean.
germy shoemangler
O’Queefe and his team are young guys. And this is why I always get irritated when I see the meme repeated here by a commenter that “when the old boomers die out, this will usher in a golden age of progressivism.”
O’Queefe’s staff is all young bros. There’s no older generation of conservatives and racists who will die out, and then conservatism and racism will disappear. I can’t remember the nym of the commenter who pushes this logic, but I see it again and again.
Cain
@Matt McIrvin:
I am using it now, and it’s been helpful. Using it for PR for my conference and I got laid off from work last month. I got caught up in the big Intel layoffs and after 20 years find myself back on the job market. Luckily it is a upswing market and the skills I have are completely up to date and desired. I hope to have a job within the next month or so.
germy shoemangler
Johannes
O’Keefe et al are like a B plot from Archer–“Log out, Cyril! You’re in the DANGER ZONE!”
A Ghost To Most
Obama should make this PSA.
trollhattan
@efgoldman:
Is that a battery in your pocket or are you just gl…FIRE!
Cain
@Southern Beale:
Interesting..I never have gotten spam except for the requests. But my contacts are pretty high level executives as well as the occasional student. But then again my job has turned from engineer to public relations and so I guess for me dealing with strangers who might have interesting contacts is useful to me. I think it is just a matter of what you want it to do. Back in 2007, I had a conference I was looking for keynotes on and I wanted to get Sen. Obama and I was using LinkedIn to figure out who I know might have a contact that knows Obama. I did find a couple amazingly enough. Ultimately I wasn’t able to get him, but I nearly got Obama’s CIO but there was a last minute mini scandal about him and he wasn’t able to keynote for us. :(
piratedan
isn’t O’Keefe still on probation, how is this shit not a violation of the crap that he’s done before? Would love to see someone in our very litigious society sue this fucker to get out of this fucking game. Maybe it’s better off having the asshat we know versus getting someone truly competent, just the idea that well fuck it, i’ve been convicted pulling this shit twice in the past, but its all I know…..
Schlemazel Khan
@germy shoemangler:
It is a fairly common dilution. It is wrong for a couple of very obvious reasons. First is that there are plenty of backward, hate mongers under the age of 40. Second is that the human brain changes as it ages, a good example are the oldies stations on the radio, past a certain age people are not interested in hearing new stuff (yes, I know, #NotAllOldFarts). Coupled with the FAUX noise machine playing a tune they start out only fearing might be real but grow to know as the only truth as their brains age out and the propensity for us old farts to be more reliable voters it becomes obvious that the GOP will never ‘age out’. It may well die/be reborn as something slightly different but the hate, fear and ugly it is built on is not going to drop dead of old age any time soon.
Matt
TBH, I don’t get the purpose of things like the O’Keefe operation. They’re selling comforting lies to people who literally believe there’s an angry invisible man in the sky who is terribly concerned about which configurations of genitals shit in which bathrooms – they’re what you’d call “credulous” if you were being generous or “gullible poltroons” if you weren’t. There’s no need for elaborate “sting operations” when you can just make up total bullshit and have them lap it up (*cough* PP videos *cough*).
D58826
@Schlemazel Khan: Even if it doesn’t translate into an election outcome it still requires that people spend time and money on defending themselves rather than using the money for their core mission. Planned Parenthood surely has better places to spend it’s money than dealing with this scumbag and the various ‘investigations’ at the state level. ‘Investigations’ that have found no wrong doing but the accusations still continue.
Schlemazel Khan
@Matt:
But even morons start to become desensitized to the smell of bullshit. New, different, even more outrageous bullshit must be invented to keep the dial turned all the way up. O’Keefe is doing his part to keep the knob at 11.
@D58826:
Excellent point!
Cain
Someone needs to do a live action version of this story and post it on Youtube. :-) Easy karma. :)
germy shoemangler
One great thing about linked in is I get to see how people lie their asses off.
I had a boss in the ’90s. He was dishonest and everyone knew it. He finally got escorted out of the building when his bullshit reached the company owner. He then tried running his own business for a few years and it failed. Out of curiosity I recently took a trip down memory lane and looked at his linked in page and he fudges the dates. He erases his own business failure and moves the date up that he worked at our company by about four years.
Another co-worker that I had at the same place. He stole equipment and got into fights with other people in his dept. I remember him threatening to “knock your teeth down your throat” to an accountant; a mild-mannered dude who’d questioned something or another. Anyway, for fun I checked his page, and he makes no mention of the company. Instead, he expands the time from his previous employer to cover his time with us.
Schlemazel Khan
When I quoted that line from Blazing Saddles It reminded me of a different line from that movie that I thought fit our boy Jimmy. I had to look the lines up on IMDB but tell me you could not easily imagine these words falling from hid fat face:
“My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.”
“My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought, cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives…”
To which one of his bros would respond:
“God darnit Mr. O’Keefe, you use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore.”
Schlemazel Khan
@germy shoemangler:
In theory linkedin should curtail that sort of lying. Making your profile public should force you to be more honest as it is so easy to check, like you did. Then there is the concept of recommendations. Again in theory having a bunch of people vouch for someone should indicate a level of ability from coworkers. But there has not yet been a system devised by humans that humans couldn’t undermine for their own ends.
Shell
There was a time when I liked to “play spy.” When I was 8 years old.
Amaranthine RBG
Another window into Keefe – he made a big production of disclosing this information a couple of days ago. Presumably because they had fact-checked the story with him so he knew it was coming out and he wanted to scoop (reverse scoop?) Mayer.
Applejinx
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: This. I’m riding out a very nasty Friday and trying not to be suicidal (pro tip, when you get Berniebots to agree to vote for Clinton, try to KEEP THEM ALIVE for at least long enough to do that)
I am desperately trying to dig myself out of a credit card hole (not entirely caused by giving $ to bernie, mind you) and am expected to go visit my computer programmer brother on Sunday. I took my car into the shop because it was making some alarming scraping noises with the steering and I don’t want that giving out at 70 mph on Route 2: I’ve already had a wheel literally come loose and get jammed against the wheelwell at 60 and survived that. The mechanic fixed that very cheaply, and has also spotted a fuel leak into the cabin and fixed it, and fixed failed brakes due to rotted brake lines. Which brings me to
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
Mechanic who’s probably saved my life a couple times now, says it’s actually struts and strut bearings and not steering. Nothing’s likely to happen, come back next week.
I jump on the internet and start looking at struts and aftermarket struts. Sometimes I get to amuse myself with performance parts when I’m stuck with a big ugly car repair. Turns out KYBs are supposed to be stock replacements, but people have thrown massive fits getting ’em because they act a LOT stiffer than old OEM struts plus they apparently last longer in that state. Psych! Nothing else is remotely close to possible, but a complete set of KYBs (not sold separately at that price) are $290, no additional parts.
I turn up at the mechanic’s to reclaim my car (he refuses to charge me for the visit, will do when he installs the struts). He hasn’t changed the oil, which I’d wanted for the trip: mkay. Then his face just DROPS when I start talking about the KYB struts and my usual ‘get pseudo-or-genuine performance parts when I’m stuck making major repairs’ (I’ve got UEL headers in, because I had to replace the cat anyhow and it was comparable to the price of an OEM cat subassembly). Remember the internet-vs-Radio Shack numbers up there? He’s counting on being able to order parts through NAPA, and mark them up. He tells me this, because we’re on good enough terms that he can say it. He’s already started ordering parts, and some are on backorder.
I go home, stew for a minute, and hop in the car and return (he wants to finish up by 5 so I don’t want to drag him away by a phone call). I tell him I’m ordering the KYB struts because for this price I’m damn well getting the fancy struts I wanted, but I’m not getting any of the strut bearing plates (at least $50 already, before he marks them up) and he should get those from NAPA, and four (not two, or three: all). Turns out it’s those he has to order, and the struts (at least half again as much as I’m paying, and might not even be the ones I want) are just in stock and not a problem. So we have a plan, he’s getting SOMEWHAT compensated and I get to pick out ones I can pretend are ‘hot-rodding’ the scooby. And I’m going back into the most appalling CC debt and don’t know how I’m going to get non-bald tires by August when the car’s to be inspected.
This is our world now. I have to throw money at Amazon (which is hoarding billions of dollars in cash and acting as the digital Wal-Mart) to even be able to get stuff done the way I need it done: huge huge penalty for not doing it. I have to specially choose to not turn to the digital economy for all things just to keep the mechanic that’s probably saved my life and certainly saved my car, in business, and I have to see his face drop when I bring up things like the strut package. He said NAPA can’t even get close to prices like that. Nobody can. And NAPA’s a big-ass company… for now.
I’m going to have to depend on Hillary Clinton to figure out something to do about all this. I’m real, real close to dropping out of the economy (and/or life) in a final way, unable to even participate in the new-rich digital economy and completely priced out of what’s left of the old economy. Hillary needs to see what’s happening here. Capitalism is eating itself. It’s almost gone. Wal-Mart was not Peak Wal-Mart, and we’re all getting really really REALLY poor and resourceless, and the money is going somewhere. Panama, for instance.
Cain
@germy shoemangler:
Well, if you’re trying to sell yourself putting your faults out there is hardly a good way to do that. :-) But fudging your dates is clearly dishonest.
JustRuss
Eh, it’s understandable. The youngs, for the most part, aren’t that political, when I was 20-ish I assumed most of my friends were reasonably progressive, I mean they obviously weren’t like those cranky old stick-in-the-mud conservatives. Now I see them on Facebook and boy, was I wrong.
boatboy_srq
@tjmn: The very definition of Conspicuous Consumption. They’re Elect enough to enable idiots to hatch improbable schemes with predictably failure-ridden outcomes. The sad part is that they consider giving stupidity a lease on life some form of charity.
Gelfling 545
@amk: he’d like to be. Probably won’t be, though.
Cain
@JustRuss: interestingly enough, a lot of my high school friends have generally been progressive even the conservative ones. One of my high school acquaintances’s brother is the republican representative of the district to the Indiana House of Representatives. I never really saw that family to be particularly republican so it came as a bit of a surprise given the kind of shenanigans they were up to when they were kids. :-)
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Applejinx: It’s hard. :-(
Best of luck with your car and everything else. I know cars are a money pit and they often have issues at the worst possible. time. :-( It sounds like you’ve got a good mechanic. Can he work with you to string out the payments for a few months? “90 days same as cash” or something? It might not hurt to cautiously ask.
Things will get better and you’ll have exciting stories to tell years from now. :-)
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
D58826
@JustRuss: Well there is some hope for even the old fuddy duddies. My very conservative sister and BIL are on the pulpit committee selecting a new pastor. They are going to recommend a guy that they think very highly of. They also think his husband is a great guy also. AH AHH cough what ‘his husband’??? Glad I was sitting down and w/o coffee in my hand when I read that e-mail. These are the folks who were very put out about gay marriage not so long ago. Voting for Hillary is still a bridge to far but it is progress.
WaterGirl
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: My car guy is great and I adore him, but even he posts a big sign letting you know that the terms are “paid in full before the car drives off the lot”.
But it never hurts to ask.
J R in WV
@Applejinx:
Amazon carries nothing, no product, you can’t get at another dealer at about the same price, without contributing to Bezos’s fortune and management style. Books – try Powells Books, there are a couple of others.
Auto parts are out there too, just use Google and put [ -Amazon.com ] in the search to keep from being overloaded by results from Amazon. TireRack is one dealer I’ve used for years for snow tires, wheels and replacement summer tires, for example. They come up when you search for KYB Struts. Without knowing your make and model I can’t get closer to your specific parts, but I know you don’t have to go to Amazon.
They mistreat their warehouse staff, much like Walmart, so I won’t do business with them unless I’m trapped into it.
D58826
@WaterGirl: He might make an exception if your a regular customer
WaterGirl
@D58826: My guy does not – no exceptions. I know this because decades ago i tried to pay with my American Express card, only to discover that they didn’t take AmEx, and I had to get a 30-day loan from my bank in order to get my car back. :-)
Applejinx
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Thanks guys, I’ll hang in there. Today is about staying zero-rage and low-despair so I can’t read too much Balloon Juice (other than to repeat that I’m gonna be voting Hillary Clinton and hope she’s got some plans for all this).
This mechanic might/probably-would let me pay in installments, but I am damned if I’m going to ask him for that. I’ll just deal. I can’t let the credit card get too close to tapped out or they’ll suddenly slash the credit limit (seen it happen) and I can’t afford to have that happen, so I’m not sure what I’m going to do but it helps that I’m buying the struts separately. It’s not going to help the total cost but it means it’s in two stages. Probably I just have to limp around on broken bearings until I can afford to have the work done, and that’s probably after the first.
I hear ya, JR, but already placed the order. I’m in a funny position as I may end up trying to make side cash through Kindle, since I write very very large amounts of fiction. It’s weird to observe what Amazon is. In the upper levels they’re a Spartan warrior cult. They’re like if personified New York grew an additional set of testicles. I gotta wonder if that can be harnessed somehow. Amazon pretty much embodies post-Wal-Mart capitalism and they’re not going away or slowing down. They set the tone so from now on everybody has to be like them or take it up a notch like they did with Wal-Mart.
Linnaeus
That’s David Horowitz’s project. Maybe someone could ask Horowitz if O’Keefe is actually working for his organization or if he knows that someone other than him is using the name.
PaulWartenberg2016
I would have him charged with stalking and harassment. no deals, jail time.
O’Keefe is clearly a threat to people.
Villago Delenda Est
@amk: It’s always good to point and laugh at what passes for “competence” amongst the wingnuts.
Villago Delenda Est
@Linnaeus: Horowitz, who is also a worthless sack of reactionary shit, probably approves.
Origuy
My sister works for AARP in Indiana. They do education on avoiding scams, financial planning, etc.
Linnaeus
@Villago Delenda Est:
He probably does, but I suspect he’d deny that O’Keefe has anything to do with his organization.
Steve in the ATL
@Applejinx: Haven’t been impressed with the quality of NAPA parts. Try rockauto.com or pelicanparts.com.
tybee
@Steve in the ATL:
another vote for rockauto
Underpaid Propagandist
Any idea if James O’Keefe, raised in Ridgewood, NJ, is a relative of white supremacist/neo-Nazi Holocaust denier/former editor of he “IHR” and “Occidental Herald” madman Theodore J. O’Keefe of East Rutherford, NJ?
father pussbucket
Keystone Krooks.
PPCLI
@Schlemazel Khan: I am sure he could make something unseemly out of it. Perhaps suggest that campaign laws were violated or that voter fraud was being managed, it would not take much to get the RWNJ army all up in arms & garner time on Today and all the cable news lobotomy hour shows.
That’s putting it mildly. Let’s remember that the “shocking reveal” that got the howler monkeys up in arms 24/7 about NPR, and got a few high executives canned, was getting some liquored-up guy saying on tape that the Republican party had not only anti-muslim sentiment but even [GASP!] xenophobia in its ranks.
I remember a bunch of NPR people tripped over themselves to distance themselves from such a violation of both-siderism in a horrified open letter. I can’t remember all the signers, but I do recall that Mara Liasson was one of shocked-shocked ones who signed the letter. I generally turn off the radio whenever her smug voice comes on.
petesh
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Nice!
Lee
I’m pretty sure both my daughters could run a better sting than this nitwit and they are 16 & 19.
grandpa john
@big ol hound:
Applejinx
@tybee: Well, I’m getting the struts I wanted, ‘cos I’m getting those myself. The sorta top plate bearing things? Those are what my mechanic is going to get, and I’ve given him enough grief overriding the struts he was going to use. He can get whatever he thinks will work, with no quarrel from me. I’m making it up to him for his loss of the struts markup.
I had some fun this afternoon. It’s such a silly car (with all the breaking down and trying to kill me) that I’m rendering it a ‘one person’ car, that nobody else can be in. I stripped all the seats other than the driver seat out :) I will say it’s for hauling long lumber, or possibly loading firewood. Really it’s because it’s my little rally car now, plus nobody else would or should ride in it, beater that it is.
I shall see how much fuel mileage I get on the trip, since I can’t be driving on decent shocks etc. and it’s a shame I didn’t get the oil change for that, but I’m curious how it’s doing :)
Applejinx
@Applejinx: 27.4 mpg! :)