I just don't think if you work for a POTUS who has trouble condemning Nazis, loves ripping apart families and has no problem taking away healthcare you get to play the "I had affection for the man and I didn't tune in to the policies" card. https://t.co/Y5Troe0EFP
— Schooley (@Rschooley) March 19, 2018
Trump’s White House assistants are progressing to the “working on their best wide-eyed innocence” stage of self-defence. Perhaps because professional character assassin Olivia Nuzzi was the first reporter to notice the importance of Hicks to the inner circle, hers is the Big Get, for NYMag:
On the morning of Wednesday, February 28, Hope Hicks arrived at the White House just after 8 a.m. Within a week, it would be snowing in Washington, D.C., but she was dressed for spring in a bouquet of purple, yellow, and blue, as if willing the end of winter with her miniskirt. She held on to her iPhone in the West Wing, in violation of a rule that normally diverted it to a locker secured by a shiny silver key, then retreated to her office, a first-floor broom closet that in the past had been assigned to presidential secretaries.
When the administration began 13 months before, competition among some staffers had manifested as a struggle for real estate here; Omarosa Manigault, a perennial reality-TV contestant, had gone so far as to steal a room that had been designated for Anthony Scaramucci, “the Mooch,” a hedge-fund millionaire obsessed with astrology and the word fuck, because of its status-confirming glimpse of the Washington Monument. Both of them were eventually fired, along with a procession of others who failed to maneuver the chaotic status hierarchy President Trump seemed to cultivate out of boredom.
A view of duck-tour buses circling the mall wasn’t needed for Hicks to know her standing. What her office lacked in flair it made up for in proximity. While others were left wondering what the president was thinking, Hicks could often hear him shouting, even with her door closed. “Hope!” he’d scream. “Hopey!” “Hopester!” “Get in here!”
Many requests were mundane. “He doesn’t write anything down,” one source close to the White House told me. “He doesn’t type, he dictates. ‘Take this down, take this down: Trump: richest man on Earth.’” A second source who meets regularly with the president told me that Hicks acted almost as an embodiment of the faculties the Trump lacked — like memory. “He’ll be talking, and then right in the middle he’ll be like, ‘Hope, what was that … thing?’ ” When the name of a senator or congressman or journalist came up, Trump would prompt Hicks to provide a history of their interactions, asking, “Do we like him?” “And she fucking remembers!” (Trump has said his own memory is “one of the greatest memories of all time.”) “She’s the only person he trusts,” the second source continued. “He doesn’t trust any men and never has. He doesn’t like men, you see. He has no male friends. I was just with one of them the other day, someone who’s described as one of his closest friends, and he doesn’t know him very well. But a small number of women, including his longtime assistant back in New York, he really listens to them — especially if he’s not banging them. Because, like a lot of men but more so, Trump really does compartmentalize the sex and the emotional part.”…
Hicks took out one of her notebooks, black leather with the Trump name embossed in gold on the front. She’d prayed a lot over the weekend, and also written two lists in the same bubbly print that had recently been photographed on a note card in Trump’s hand, reminding him to tell survivors of a school shooting, among other things, “I hear you.” One list contained reasons to resign as White House communications director immediately; the other, reasons to wait to resign. Not resigning at all wasn’t a consideration.She’d come close twice before. Over dinner in Bedminster in early August, she told Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump that she was unhappy. She’d thought that being in the White House would feel different than the campaign, but instead, surrounded by eccentrics, maniacs, divas, and guys from the Republican National Committee who seemed to think they were managing a Best Buy in Kenosha, it was somehow sicker there in the stillness of it all. She suggested removing herself from the belly of the psychodrama to work elsewhere in the administration. Sharing her frustrations, Jared and Ivanka engaged her idea with caution; they asked her to give General John Kelly, the new chief of staff, a chance to change the West Wing for the better.
But as time went on, it became clear that the sickness was a feature, that anyone who entered the building became a little sick themselves. And no matter how dead any of the eccentrics or maniacs or divas appeared to be, how far away from the president their status as fired or resigned or never-hired-in-the-first-place should have logically rendered them, nobody was ever truly gone. The people who were problems on the campaign or on the inside continued to be problems. The president’s taste for the other and the new was so established that the most driven among them knew that all they had to do was wait for an opening, or shrewdly create one — a weakened staffer, a particularly demoralizing news cycle — and they could worm their way back in. The madness engulfing the White House, in other words, was not just a matter of staff infighting or factional ideological rivalries, as it was often portrayed in the press, but also, in part, the result of manipulation from the fringes of Trumpworld…
Longish piece, but rich, in a not-particularly-good-for-you way. Principal villains discretely targeted: Corey Lewandowski, violent nutball; John Kelly, who’s gonna get his; and the ultra-conservative, married-to-CPAC-director woman Kelly ‘is said’ to prefer in Hicks’ role, Mercedes ‘(No) Mercy’ Schlapp, who only thinks she’s the most vicious word-ninja inside the Beltway.
For your further delection consideration, this closer:
… “She is the one person he thinks is totally on his side. And I happen to think that he’s right,” the source who meets regularly with the president told me. “Trump’s main problem with other people is he sees them as competition, and he doesn’t see Hope that way, because she’s not.” The source went on, “This is why he’s fired all these people. This is why he hated Bannon, the problem with Scaramucci. They were seeking to eclipse him and he can’t handle that.”
Trump also had a different relationship with Hicks than he did with his children, who keep what the source called “ironic distance” from their father. “He knows that Ivanka has a separate agenda. Ivanka refers to him as ‘DJT’ just like the boys do, and Ivanka understands that her father is gonna be dead in ten years.”…
satby
She’s an ice cold chip off the old block isn’t she?
Major Major Major Major
God, he’s like the villain from a Muppets movie or something.
Gin & Tonic
Please, pretty please, can we accelerate that schedule?
MattF
Psychodrama was never my thing. FWIW, Hope sounds like a nice young lady who isn’t so young any more.
Chyron HR
What would be described in lesser families as “out of striking distance”.
MJS
@Gin & Tonic: Well, we can take comfort in the fact that, technically, if he dies tomorrow, he will be dead in 10 years, too.
Patricia Kayden
Ivanka and Jared had a scare recently with one of two engines of the plane on which they were flying shutting down. Trump may outlive all of us.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
The thing that worries me the most is that these people aren’t going to be shunned the way they should. Anybody who has anything to do with this homunculus should lose every friend they ever had. This would work even better than jail, I think, because it would apply to everybody. Jail only works for people who break the law. If people found themselves cast out of society after this, others would think twice from here on out about signing on with these people. People are social. Well, people other than the president are social. They want to be liked. They don’t want to be pariahs. We need to see that nobody who works for Trump ever gets to go to parties again. None of these people should get to write for the New York Times. None of these people should get to become partners at tony law firms or lobbying businesses. I don’t have the first damned clue how we bring this about.
germy
The NYMag article is written by Nuzzi, a well-known friend of Milo.
She should know.
germy
@Patricia Kayden: Kissinger still lives.
Quinerly
Lawfare piece worth a read: https://www.lawfareblog.com/president-and-his-lawyers-part-ii-attorney-general-and-saturday-night-pre-massacre
Tenar Arha
Thinking Jamelle Bouie has a good suggestion here. Also, I’d call this a pretty nice companion piece to the Hicks profile.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-mitchell-brianna-brochu-roommate_us_5aabfb61e4b0337adf83827f
ETA in case it’s unclear, as far as I’m concerned Hope Hicks has been intimately involved with these people long enough to not be remotely innocent or forgiven, & needs to serve time for her likely participation in either conspiracy or coverups or both.
Marcopolo
I read this piece last night mostly cause I was trying to get to sleep. I didn’t learn anything new & worthwhile & I don’t have any sympathy for HH or any other WH player. I did fall asleep a little later so there’s that.
So here’s what I did this morning & I welcome all other jackals to join me—I called Flake’s office (yeah, I’m in MO but he wants to run for Prez in 2020) and said if he really wants to show his independence from Trump he can line up some fellow R’s (McCain, Corker, Paul, Graham, Sasse, Collins) and pass legislation this week, along with D support to protect the Mueller investigation. I told his staffer that he can go to NH and say nasty things about Trump all he wants but he needs to do more than just talk the talk.
Anyways, probably won’t work but I felt better. Here’s the Senate switchboard number in case you want to speak to one of the other R senators as well:
(202)224-2131
And have a nice morning—folks in IL get your asses out to vote tomorrow. I plan to start volunteering for the guy running against Mike Bost starting in April. Taking his seat back is doable.
brendancalling
None of this is going to end well. None of it.
Smiling Mortician
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Maybe something like this?
Ryan
@Gin & Tonic: With votes!
Yarrow
Not a fan of Olivia Nuzzi.
Brad the Impala
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Even if we could bring all that about, they’d still be very welcome on FOX News, I’m sure.
Quinerly
I’m not prone to Nazi/Hitler references. This, however, is worth a read: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article205750864.html
Brownian
“[Trump] said he hoped she would go make a lot of money.”
It’s uncanny how much he sounds like Jesus. I bet President Pious keeps a little copy of the Three Commandments on his desk: Always. Be. Closing.
sdhays
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I read somewhere that ex-staffers and want-to-be-ex staffers are having trouble finding post-White House work. Nobody wants to hire them. So maybe they’re getting a small piece of the shunning they deserve.
NotMax
Too many words wasted on an unqualified sycophant.
aimai
@Marcopolo: Very well done! Ask five friends to do the same during the same hour. This is advice we were given here by someone who deals with our state house and our reps all the time. Its the volume of comment per hour that affects them.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: a toad would be worth a bunch of words if it was the president’s closest confidante.
The Thin Black Duke
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I dunno. Heard from Sean Spicer lately?
But her emails!!!
*violent retching*
WTF is this? Hope Hicks wasn’t some girl plucked at random from the provinces. She knew what she was getting into. Plus these lines are so flowery and saccharine, they only work if the next paragraph involves eating human flesh or feeding a live puppy to a snapping turtle.
kindness
10 years? 10 YEARS???? I’m not waiting 10 years to be rid of Trump. I will give it to January 2021 and not a month later.
Let’s face it. Even if Democrats win huge in the House & Senate there will be no impeachement. Democrats aren’t vicious like that although many of us wish they would be from time to time.
Ian G.
@Gin & Tonic:
I’ve been wondering myself when the 12 diet cokes a day would catch up with him. It’s the easiest way to be rid of him and doesn’t require any spine on the part of the GOP.
On another note, since I’m not a sociopath like Lolita Trump, I’ve been thinking about my own dad’s remaining time on earth since he turns 70 this coming Saturday. I’m hoping he can make it to see his two infant grandchildren graduate enter college.
waspuppet
@Major Major Major Major: He’s not even the richest real estate developer in New York.
And of COURSE his self-described greatest-ever memory is actually thank to a woman who gets no credit for it.
aimai
@Tenar Arha: The huffington post piece isn’t as good as I hoped it would be but it does point towards some better work on the subject and it does make a great companion piece to the Hope Hicks piece, i hope someone can write the linking article that this deserves! I think there is something to be written about specifically about the way white youth/beauty/femaleness is exalted as a state of innocence. I don’t think its uninflected with internal white racism/sexism/ageism/lookism because I’m not sure the same “presumption of innocence” is afforded ugly/non christian/old women. Hard to say. But I’d definitely say that the latency period for white people in general is assumed to be much longer than the latency period for non whites–Jared and Hope Hicks are routinely referred to as though they are adolescents, while Tamir Rice (an actual child) was treated as though he were a hardened adult criminal and we know this kind of misattribution of adulthood/culpability is widespread when it comes to children of color.
Roger Moore
@Marcopolo:
He can line up the support, but he can’t get the legislation passed. McConnell will never let it see the floor of the Senate, even if there’s enough bipartisan support to get it past every other procedural hurdle, including a veto threat. McConnell is too deeply implicated himself to do anything bu give Trump cover for whatever he wants to do.
Ridnik Chrome
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Everyone who had anything to do with the torture program under Bush-Cheney should have been kicked out of respectable society, too. But the effing New York Times is still giving people like John Yoo prime real estate on its op-ed page.
The Moar You Know
Somewhat OT: Looks like Putin had a party to celebrate his “win”.
And then possibly a chaser.
Scary times, folks.
But her emails!!!
@Roger Moore:
If they really want to get it done, Flake and McCain could both flip sides and toss the turtle out on his ass.
marcopolo
@aimai: In 2017 I was rabid about making weekly (and sometimes more often than weekly) phone calls to my US Senators & Rep about how they needed to vote on various issues. Since January, I am maybe making one call a month on a specific issue–instead, I am spending anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple hours a day doing direct actions to get Democrats elected. Most of that over the past two months has been writing postcards (Postcards to Voters) for MO special elections (and now to help out a Dem Congressional campaign over by KC). We also did GOTV postcards for Conor Lamb & Doug Jones. I am committed to working for D candidates in MO but our primary here isn’t until August. The next best thing will be driving across the river to help the winner of tomorrow’s D primary, who I expect will be Brendan Kelly.
Anyways, I encourage everyone to go to Postcards for Voters and try to write 10/month for various D candidates around the US.
Gex
@aimai: Yep. W and his supporters described antics from his 40’s as youthful indiscretions. Don Jr. has also been described as “just a kid.” White men get the greatest benefit of this, but white women absolutely benefit as well.
Leto
@sdhays: It would be no small thing if every one of them spent the rest of their lives roaming the earth doing small tasks like shoveling manure from animal stalls, fetching water for families from the single well that’s 20 miles away, or testing footpaths for landmines. They should be shunned from every part of society.
Magda in Black
Hope Hicks, who dated both Corey Lewandowski and Rob Portman. This tells me all I need to know about her values and judgement.
germy
@Gex: Nuzzi, the author of this NYMag article, was born in 1993.
So she apparently includes herself (along with Milo, Ivanka, Jared and Hicks) as being young and innocent.
marcopolo
@Roger Moore: Perhaps you’ve heard there is a huge appropriations bill that needs to be voted on by March 23rd in order for the gov’t to stay funded for 2018.
If there are 60 or 60+ senators that want to add an amendment to the bill to protect the Mueller investigation it could be added on then. That would be the leverage point over McConnell. He wants that bill to pass.
cosima
@Quinerly: I don’t understand how the attorneys involved in this shitshow seem to feel that they’re immune from disbarment, prison, etc. IANAL, but there seems to be an awful lot of very clear behaviour that crosses legal & ethical lines and boundaries. So, does someone like Sessions feel like it will never catch up with him, has he stacked the courts in question to a degree that he feels insures/ensures (both are applicable) that, or does his hate (racism, xenophobia, etc) outweigh all of that? You’d think there wouldn’t be enough money involved to insulate him in the event that he is ever held accountable.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Magda in Black: Rob Porter. Sen. Portman is no prize, but I don’t believe he’s violent. /ID pedant.
germy
@cosima:
rikyrah
Sons of Rich Black Families Fare No Better Than Sons of Working-Class Whites
By EMILY BADGER, CLAIRE CAIN MILLER, ADAM PEARCE and KEVIN QUEALY
MARCH 19, 2018
Black boys raised in America, even in the wealthiest families and living in some of the most well-to-do neighborhoods, still earn less in adulthood than white boys with similar backgrounds, according to a sweeping new study that traced the lives of millions of children.
White boys who grow up rich are likely to remain that way. Black boys raised at the top, however, are more likely to become poor than to stay wealthy in their own adult households.
Even when children grow up next to each other with parents who earn similar incomes, black boys fare worse than white boys in 99 percent of America. And the gaps only worsen in the kind of neighborhoods that promise low poverty and good schools.
According to the study, led by researchers at Stanford, Harvard and the Census Bureau, income inequality between blacks and whites is driven entirely by what is happening among these boys and the men they become. Black and white girls from families with comparable earnings attain similar individual incomes as adults.
cosima
@The Moar You Know: I shared that one about the pilot a few threads down. There are a lot of bodies piling up on my side of the pond. Coincidence? Warning? Shoddy craftsmanship? At least the UK gov is getting more strident & firm with each b.s. accusation/excuse that Russia rolls out, and the rest of the EU is feeling the same, speaking the same, and acting the same — everyone on the same page over here re: Russian hijinks.
I was particularly pleased to see the SNP rep in Westminster calling out that ratf*cker Alex Salmond and his bullshyt ‘show’ for RT, asking for it to be banned here in the UK. I looked on in horror at his shitstirring re: Scottish independence, and then Brexit, and have a deep & abiding loathing for him and his right-hand woman, Nicola Sturgeon (who has not come out against Alex and his new sideline with RT). Complete & total bawbags.
rikyrah
UH HUH
BREAKING: Facebook & Cambridge Analytica have threatened to sue Channel 4 News if they air an exposé showing how the company used “stolen data” to influence voters. This is YUGE!
Facebook’s own lawyers admitted that Cambridge Analytica had acquired the data illegitimately.
— Ed Krassenstein ? (@EdKrassen) March 19, 2018
rikyrah
TEE HEE HEE
‘They melted down’: MSNBC’s Mika says Trump and his lawyers ‘freaked out’ after seeing Mueller’s questions https://t.co/VWkhiXVcra
— Raw Story (@RawStory) March 19, 2018
Magda in Black
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho:
…realized my mis-naming too late to edit.
Thank you.
rikyrah
BOOM
Government officials in the U.S. and Europe are demanding answers from Facebook over the Cambridge Analytica reports.
“It’s clear these platforms can’t police themselves,” Senator Amy Klobuchar said. https://t.co/ioczI48B3M
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 19, 2018
jimmiraybob
A lotta good those McD’s cheeseburgers and fries are doing the nation.
rikyrah
UH HUH
BREAKING REPORT: Cambridge Analytica was meeting with Corey Lewandowski in 2015 before Trump had even announced his candidacy.
— The Anon Journal (@TheAnonJournal) March 19, 2018
Corner Stone
@marcopolo:
Even if there are not, all D’s should be vocally pressing for it to be added. And if the R’s do not agree then they each should be asked why not?
The Dangerman
@rikyrah:
The Wicked Witch Of The West Wing?
cosima
@germy: Yes, I’ve been sharing those lately. However, the OFC family being insulated is one thing, I don’t get how Sessions and the other attorneys involved (inside & outside the government) can feel that they are completely insulated from all professional & personal repercussions. I just don’t think they’re bright enough to have thought out all of the angles. I could be wrong. This is where I keep hoping for a charge from the left of that program that Eric Holder & Obama were supposed to be working on re: constitutional law, protecting voters’ rights, etc. Lawsuits lawsuits lawsuits. Where are they?
Corner Stone
@rikyrah:
It’s been clear for years, Senator. It is also clear they have nothing but contempt for Congress. Stop taking their lobbyist’s money and start passing regulations on them.
No Drought No More
“A total WITCH HUNT with massive conflicts of interest!”.
I’ve heard stuck pigs squeal less.
Still, I’m prepared to meet Trump halfway, as should be Mueller Inc. That said, I propose that Trump be tied to a millstone and thrown mid-river into the Potomac. If he floats, he’s right. He’ll then be owed an apology, and the investigations ended. If not, then Mueller gets to run the list of those he intends to indict to see if they can also float so encumbered. Or not. Those that do walk scot free, their lives to be to be left forever undisturbed by a nation they were once suspected of having betrayed. Those that don’t will receive the punishment they ALL so richly deserve.
Either that, or Trump should simply STFU and let Mueller get on with the job. Furthermore, call on on Pelosi and Schumer to endorse the proposal, or be replaced by democrats who will.
vhh
@Magda in Black: Porter
JGabriel
Benedict Donald’s parents both made it to their 90’s, albeit with extreme senile dementia. Ivanka may have to wait 20-25 years for Clusterfuck Caligula to kick off. SAD!
germy
@cosima:
I’ve been wondering the same thing. When I first read news of their efforts it gave me hope.
JGabriel
via rikyrah:
… to Americans.
Trump was telling the Russians he was considering a run as early as the 2013 Miss Universe pageant.
aimai
@Corner Stone: By all means lets attack democrats for the literal sins of the republican party. The most important thing is to attack the people closest to you on the largest number of topics, rather than our actual enemies.
danielx
@Major Major Major Major:
Thinks he’s Lex Luthor, is Captain Queeg.
Princess
Yeah, I thought this was a fluffy puff piece attempting to whitewash Hicks by telling us all she cared about was which boy she was dating and to make her look too stupid to collude. But kudos to whoever she hired to do PR for getting this article done. Ivanka should take note.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
I just misread a pied comment to think it was talking about pee. I was hoping we had tape.
germy
@Princess: Nuzzi is complicit.
satby
@kindness: if we take the House and the Senate, you can practically count on an impeachment. If they could impeach Pence too we’d get Pres. Nancy Smash!
Betty Cracker
@cosima & @germy: Just got an email from Eric Holder a few days ago on this. Here’s the text:
There was also an ActBlue link to contribute.
Raoul
I know Bruce Bartlett has been both apostate and relatively irrelevant in GOP circles for some time. But he doesn’t mince words this morning.
When a Reagan and H.W. Bush advisor, very blue-blood sort of fellow is calling Miss Lindsey a whore on the twitt-box, things are getting pretty tense.
germy
@Betty Cracker: Thank you.
cosima
@Betty Cracker: That’s what I’m talking about!!!!!!!!!! I don’t get ActBlue emails anymore, so glad to see that. Thanks.
Betty Cracker
@germy & @cosima: Here’s the site for the organization if you’re interested in seeing their short and long-term plans. It’ll be a slog for sure — Republicans didn’t rig voting in a day, and undoing their handiwork will take years too.
Roger Moore
@satby:
But not conviction, which requires a 2/3 vote in the Senate. IMO we should do it anyway, if only to force the Republicans to stand up and back Trump even in the face of all the evidence of his wrongdoing.
chris
The number of ratfuckers is astonishing…
Corner Stone
@aimai: Are you off your nut?
boatboy_srq
@Major Major Major Major: Every bad businessman stereotype from the last hundred years.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: Thanks for the reminder. Donated.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@Magda in Black: That was my thought too. I mean, she dates mean, violent men. She admires and likes Trump. She screams co-dependency. I bet her father is a real piece of work too because that crap is learned behavior.
cosima
@Betty Cracker: Thanks. Have added it to my links.
cosima
@chris: Thanks. Sent to my daughter to share around to her ‘young’ friends.
GregB
Wapo has the tick tock transcripts of GOPers talking about Russia, Trump and all.
McCarthy says: Russians hacked DNC.
Elizabelle
The WaPost is loading really, really slowly for me this morning, when it comes up at all, on my MacBook.
Anyone else having that issue? Other news sites, including the dreaded FTF NY Vichy Times, load rapidly.
Tech problems, an upgrade, or under attack? This has been going on for at least an hour.
Mike in DC
This “there were no questions about collusion” spin comes from Trump’s lawyers, who know Mueller will not publicly refute that assertion.
Magda in Black
@Ms. D. Ranged in AZ:
I would bet money on the ” thats just how men are” enabling mindset; as you say, learned behavior.”
bystander
@NotMax: What little I read above confirmed what I think of Nuzzi. It also explains the hypergloss lipstick.
cosima
@Elizabelle: Maybe lots of traffic due to the transcripts GregB mentions at #80?
boatboy_srq
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Reminder: the segment of “society” that let them in includes the Kochs, Mercers, Adelson and the rest of that cadre. Shunning only drives them further into that corner. Also, the US’ only class distinction mechanism is wealth: they will still be People With Money sans convictions, so shunning without clawbacks carries little weight in this century.
MattF
@Mike in DC: The Trumpites are fishing for a response of some kind. But Mueller knows better.
gene108
@Corner Stone:
Congress isn’t tech-savvy enough to figure out what might be effective, and by the time it gets passed to full implementation, Facebook, et al will have a new con.
Betty Cracker
@GregB: Didn’t see it on the front page at The Post. Can you provide a link or article title?
@Elizabelle: Loads up instantly for me.
randy khan
@waspuppet:
He may not be in the top 25. There are real estate developers in D.C. (say, the Lerners, who own the Nationals, although they’re not the only ones) who are richer than him.
Gelfling 545
@germy: But it’s a cursed life because of the unicorn blood.
scav
The “enabling” locution / framing is just a little too smooth and ingenue for me, especially in this case. This woman is going along to get ahead: that’s at least abetting. Bit of a brown-noser, a yes-man, etc. only with the stealth-technology of eyelashes and boobs that reassures certain men as a sign of innate inferiority while also providing office decor indicative of virility.
aimai
@marcopolo: I”m not about discouraging any direct action but I’m taking a class in state policy right now and our professor, who works closely with both state and federal officials on things like the budget and new laws is all about focusing on the people you actually vote for or, at most, people whose interests are aligned with yours within your own state. For the most part those political figures will pay the most attention to your phone calls and postcards. And i think the ROI on letters to other democratic voters in other states is slim to none.
MattF
@randy khan: One assumes Trump is adding in his own estimate of the value of the ‘Trump’ brand.
aimai
@chris: Why do people tweet out something this confusing? How am i supposed to toggle back and forth between two pages to figure out what is wrong with one of them? Christ, just give us a clear accounting of what is going wrong.
hilts
Jared Kushner scumbag update
h/t Kushner Companies Filed False Documents About Rent-Regulated Tenants https://www.wnyc.org/story/kushner-companies-filed-false-documents-about-rent-regulated-tenants
randy khan
@germy:
This is, by the way, a great example of how Republicans argue issues. They point to the number of cloture votes as if it’s a useful metric, neglecting to mention two key reasons there weren’t as many cloture votes before: Early in the Obama Administration, judicial nominees were still subject to filibuster, so unless the Dems could count 60 votes, there was no reason to invoke cloture; and late in the Obama Administration the Republicans simply sat on nominations in committee, so there was no opportunity for a cloture vote.
They’re weasels.
Lyrebird
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Agreed. Not that I have a clue how to make it happen.
And I think this applies for people hanging out with out-and-out Nazis, no matter how goodlookin, how compellingly they write, or how well they dress.
Another Scott
@Elizabelle: It seems fine here on my MBP (Chrome). Have you tried Shift-Refresh (hold the shift key while you click the refresh/reload button)?
Cheers,
Scott.
different-church-lady
@MattF: A “nice young lady” with utterly no skills in evaluating human decency?
MattF
@hilts: You can call them liars until you’re blue in the face– but still, they lie, and lie some more, and then get away with it.
Gelfling 545
@Elizabelle: I had a lot of trouble with it yesterday. I figured they were getting overloaded. Seems ok now.
randy khan
@Mike in DC:
There wouldn’t be questions about collusion anyway. They’d be about conspiracy.
Magda in Black
@scav:
Just one piece of the framing….plus, enabling is, or can be, manipulative.
She’s no innocent ingenue, agreed. It’s a mask that has served her well, tho.
MattF
@different-church-lady: Well, taking ‘nice’, ‘young’, and ‘lady’ and burying them with several truckloads of salt. People (with some exceptions) want to be able to picture themselves as moral actors. But at some point it just gets absurd.
Kay
This is the person she admires:
That’s why all Trump hires are low quality. The only qualification is admiring Donald Trump, and admiring Donald Trump means you’re an asshole.
I bet they all talk like this and they all treat one another like shit and it’s an absolutely fucking miserable place to work, but they’re assholes, so they don’t recognize that.
Corner Stone
@gene108:
That’s why you have staff. And also invite experts in for QA or testimony. Getting anything useful passed while R’s have majority is certainly the stumbling block, but I’m not sure there is any valid reason to just let it be as is. My hope is that Sen Klobuchar and others are building coalitions on this issue, behind the scenes, and are speaking out a little now to start setting the table. My comment was to the point that just because we have a shiny whistleblower spilling everything, the fact that FB was a media company and content provider has been known for some time and it’s a disgrace that everyone takes their money and sits on their hands.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ms. D. Ranged in AZ:
Well, her daddy was in charge of PR for the NFL during the height of the domestic abuse years. From Hope’s Wikipedia bio:
Maybe not dispositive, but suggestive.
MattF
@Corner Stone: It’s been pointed out that the horrible, unprecedented, ‘violating our terms of service’ things that Cambridge Analytica did are just Facebook’s standard business practices.
hilts
@MattF:
The good govt advocates need to keep the pressure on Javanka regarding their conflicts of interest and their sleazy actions so that we can get them the fuck out of the White House.
Elizabelle
Thank you all, re WaPost access. It loaded quickly a few moments ago for me; photos and images take longer.
Think it might be an internet speed issue, but I was puzzled that other newspaper sites were loading well throughout. What script does the WaPost have that makes it so slow?
Now: what link to what transcripts? I’ll join the crowd in looking at them.
Kay
The character and personalities of the low quality Trump hires is for me summed up by this Jared Kuchner quote:
Badasssss. A bunch of coddled, privileged nepotism-promoted mediocrities who think they have “badass moves”
I bet it sounds like a movie script in that White House. And they’re all the stars.
Our elites suck. They’re bad people. We might need a revolution and just to start over or they’ll keep having children and keep promoting each other’s children and it will get worse with each successive generation.
Magda in Black
@SiubhanDuinne:
Would it be irresponsible to speculate that she has been steeped in macho assholery since birth?
jc
@satby: For some reason, in my mind’s eye, I picture Ivanka and Mike Pence with lizard tongues peeking out of their mouths.
Kay
It’s bad for kids to see all this gross nepotism and lack of merit among our elites because they have to believe that merit means something or they won’t work hard and try hard.
Whether it’s true or not that people CAN rise on merit is an open question these days, but it is important for kids to believe that they might have some shot at dislodging some of these people from their unearned positions, no matter how remote.
The Moar You Know
@Kay: As “badass” as borrowing 4 billion RussiaBucks that you can’t repay from a coterie of known murderers? Because, if done properly, that’s a badass move. Problem is, he didn’t do it properly.
I got news for Mr. “Badass” Kushner, if he misses a loan payment – which is apparently in the cards – being the president’s son-in-law is not going to save him. Might not even save his family.
Kay
Here’s an example. Now, there are LITERALLY millions of Americans who know more about STEM than the President’s daughter and actually worked hard to get there.
She’s taking a place that could and should go to someone who earned it. It’s bad for children to see this over and over.
If she wants a fake job why doesn’t she at least stay away from middle and lower class children? They will need to work hard and try. They can’t skate.
FlipYrWhig
I don’t trust Olivia Nuzzi at all. I think she’s been spending far too long currying favor with the Pretty Girls Of TrumpCo and consequently she’s “gone native.”
trollhattan
@hilts:
That dovetails perfectly with the reports on the Kushner Company suing former tenants for breaking their contracts when, in fact, they had followed the agreements and left under the previous owners. The little pipsqueak is a monster in a blue blazer.
Kay
@The Moar You Know:
Ivanka has this practiced thing she does with her hands in photographs. It’s meant to appear “thoughtful”.
It just kills me that these people were trained since BIRTH to occupy these positions of power their incredibly shameless parents thought they were entitled to. That this coddling is passed off as “love” or “devotion” is the most fucked up thing about it. I don’t know what it is but it isn’t “devotion”. It’s much more like “my children are actually ME” – passive receptacles of parental ambition and ego. They’re interchangeable, really. She could be “Ivanka” or she could be “Emily”- doesn’t matter. It’s the daddy that matters.
J R in WV
@Betty Cracker:
Betty, can we have the ActBlue link to contribute? ‘Cause that’s the kind of race I want to make a difference in!!
Thanks for all you do for B-J !!!
Aleta
I can’t help thinking the opposite whenever these sunbeam stories materialize about HH and IT walking in the Easter parade with their bunny rabbits. And baby come on, a first paragraph burbling about a shiny silver key that does nothing?
“She retreats to her broom closet clutching only a humble miniskirt.” Under the surface they’re still furiously paddling away from the hopeychangything that was pressing his pants. Imo.
chris
@aimai: Um, second tweet in thread…
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
I don’t like the political media snarkiness. It doesn’t wear well. There are so many funny “outsiders” on the internet. We don’t need them to pretend they’re in that group.
The NYTimes political team have this horrible sarcasm. It seems like such an easy call- just report straight. That they have to inject their PERSON into it is an intrusion. It’s out of bounds.
No Drought No More
“He’ll be talking, and then right in the middle he’ll be like, ‘Hope, what was that … thing?’ ”
A very similar question was once posed by Montgomery Burns to Waylon Smithers. After numerous stabs at it by Smithers, the correct answer proved to be “Rory Calhoun”.
tobie
@Kay: This is a little off topic but I was wondering if anyone knows whether federal employees can appeal a recommendation for firing. I’ve been a bit surprised at how cautious people like Ron Klain and Ben Wittes have been to defend McCabe on process grounds. (The guy may be a shit for all I know but I would think he’s entitled to contest his firing.) Not only has the IG’s report not been released to the public yet; a mere portion was culled from it to justify the firing; the whole report has not yet been finalized; and finally it doesn’t seem like McCabe was given an opportunity to appeal the recommendation.
J R in WV
@Betty Cracker:
OK, thanks, never mind. I should never comment without going all the way through a thread!!
rikyrah
@Yarrow:
Me either.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
I like him because he’s a pro. I don’t get any sense of his “personhood” reading him, which is oddly appealing. He may have a personal life ! I’m sure he does! But he’s not letting you in on it, because he is at work :)
You could read him for a hundred years. No sarcasm. No insidery nudge and wink.
Elizabelle
Kay: glad you are pointing out nepotism’s very real dangers.
And it is important for young people and all of us to feel that work and action will lead to better opportunities and outcomes. That is stifled daily by the status quo, who mostly got there by rigging the system.
Hard to motivate people to work for “chump change” if it’s where they will stay.
Our safety net is greatly inferior to Europe’s. Gonna be a lot of unrest and damage next economic shock.
rikyrah
@kindness:
Hell muthaphuckin’ YES, there better be impeachment.
Even if you can’t get the conviction in the Senate, there sure in hell better be impeachment.
Magda in Black
@Kay:
I can point to a dozen people in my corp headquarters, to which this applies: people who have no business in the position but knew the right people.
It is disheartening at any age, in any situation, but I’ve come to expect it.
That I’ve/we’ve come to expect it, is the sad part.
Kay
@tobie:
I don’t know a thing about contesting firing in public jobs but there was a lot of seemingly knowing commentary that he could sue on the pension and win. I would imagine he WOULD have a good case, especially because the big mouth moron who is President tweeted that this was timed to screw him out his pension.
A pension in Ohio is “deferred compensation”. That’s how it’s analyzed as property and rights. You own the compensation when you earn it, not when it’s distributed or transferred to a deferred account.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: And vicious has nothing to do with it.
Impeachment is the penalty for an unfit POTUS. We have one.
I want to see the whole GOP and NRA edifice come down. It’s a danger to our democracy.
Fox News and rightwing media, too. Hide behind the First Amendment, and drown out everyone else’s speech.
If it takes vicious to overturn Citizens United, I am all for it. Vicious can be effective, when employed in a just cause.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Add me to that list. I don’t like Nazi whisperers.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: @Elizabelle: Agreed. The constant negativity and the din of we are already toast makes me cranky.
Kay
@Magda in Black:
I worked for a small family business who hired family members as managers. It was bad. They weren’t all bad but all of them put this kind of burden on other workers, because they are defensive about this position they didn’t earn, which means you have to put them at ease and pretend they earned the position. I resented being thrust into their horrible family dynamic. I have my own horrible family dynamic to deal with- I don’t want theirs. It’s an imposition.
tobie
@Kay: Thanks. I’ll be very interested to see what tack McCabe takes and whether he challenges his firing on process grounds or for other reasons.
Magda in Black
@Kay:
In other words, we’re to cater to their incompetence, which is quite clearly what much of our media and congress-critters, are doing with Trump and Co.
Leaving us to clean up after the elephants. ?
TenguPhule
@MattF:
NIce? The woman needs to die horribly in prison for her sins just like the rest of the Trumpers.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Trump is showing them all that crime pays, you just have to throw away any sense of shame or regret.
catclub
@Roger Moore:
Flake would probably have a VERY good chance at winning AZ senate if he ran as a Democrat. But that would never happen.
I think his chances to run for Prez as a Republican in 2020 are nearly zero ( not necessarily higher than zero, also). As a democrat, slightly better.
LAO
So, it appears Trump has added a new lawyer to his personal time. NYT link. Wow. He seems nice (and not insane at all).
ETA: Lead paragraph
President Trump has decided to hire the longtime Washington lawyer Joseph E. diGenova, who has pushed the theory on television that Mr. Trump was framed by F.B.I. and Justice Department officials, to bolster his legal team, according to three people told of the decision.
SiubhanDuinne
@Magda in Black:
It would be irresponsible not to!
catclub
@tobie: 1. I think Kevin Drum has the right approach: We don’t need to wait for IG report to be released to know that the reason derived from it – ‘insufficient candor’ – is totally bogus. We should act accordingly.
2. I think somebody has offered to hire him as a federal employee for a few days to qualify for the pension – maybe a Democratic House member?
Corner Stone
@catclub:
If Flake really had an interest in a 2020 run he could test the waters right now. Start voting the same way he gives speeches on the Sen floor and pressers with Chuckles Todd. Plant your flag, Flake!
ruemara
@MattF: Stop. Giving. Pretty. White. Women. A. Pass.
Another Scott
@Elizabelle: Are you using an adblocker? Lots of bad ads out there do things like you’ve experienced (slow loading, etc.). If you’re on a relatively slow connection, an adblocker is nearly a must.
I use uBlock Origin myself. It tells you how many requests are blocked (e.g. 177 on my Amazon tab, 10 here on B-J, 20 at WaPo, 17 at FTFNYT, 14 at Reuters, etc.).
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Corner Stone
@catclub:
I think at least two House D’s have made similar offers. But, IMO, it is much more beneficial for him to not take any job, fight for his pension and then get the book deal. His story hinges on the unfairness of his firing and basically the shoddy way Trump has treated him after his glorious 20 year career laying his life on the line for *us*, The American People!
If he takes a sympathy offer then he’s just a sellout for the cash and can/will be dismissed as such.
tobie
@catclub: I’ll look for Kevin Drum’s post. Haven’t seen it. What I have noticed i how sloppy media people are when talking about the grounds of McCabe’s firing. “Insufficient candor” is made synonymous with “not telling the truth” and “lying.” The slippage is actually dangerous. And I’d still be shocked if federal employees didn’t have a mechanism to contest their firing. Heck even private universities allow people to contest negative tenure decisions. I would expect career civil servants have some appeals process written into their contracts.
But her emails!!!
@Corner Stone: At this point, I think he would be out for revenge anyway. He seemed willing to go quietly up to this point, but Trump and Sessions decided to get cute, so I would say the gloves are off.
hilts
@Patricia Kayden:
Not with his fucking diet.
Magda in Black
@tobie:
I’m confident the “slippage” is no accident.
GregB
DiGenova is the bottom of the gutter in power fluffing lawyer scumbaggery.
hilts
@ruemara: @MattF:
i have a simple rule of thumb regarding anyone who’s worked in Trump’s White House. Every one of these individuals is pure, unadulterated SCUM and none of these people is worthy of my sympathy.
Fuck Hope Hicks and fuck every other asshole who currently works in the White House and fuck anyone who joins the White House while Trump remains President.
TenguPhule
@GregB:
The gutter has a verified bottom?
Corner Stone
@hilts: Beyond the clerical staff (secretaries, etc), who need the paycheck, I would agree that you simply can not be a decent person and still be working in this WH. Or agree to join in the future. What kind of world class scumbag asshole would even consider an offer of joining this WH now, at anything above a receptionist type level?
catclub
@But her emails!!!:
yep, just let him retire quietly.
Irony is when Trump’s downfall is due to his lashing out at McCabe and Stormy Daniels – and the reaction to that.
Brachiator
Breaking news: We have a fatality involving a self-driving car:
Ruckus
@aimai:
A very good point.
These are adults. At least chronologically. drumpf is for sure an adult, chronologically anyway. Look at it another way, drumpf never acts like an adult, why should his kids? And kids of color? Of course they are born criminal masterminds, everyone knows that. Logic, truth, reality, normalcy, decency – all of these are completely foreign to the drumpf clan, and their supporters.
Seanly
@satby:
Do we really have to wait that long?
As a counterpoint though somehow the evilest muthafuggers hang on forever. Cheney, Phyllis Schaffly (as an example, she thankfully did kick the bucket), Kissinger…
catclub
I still go to Zerohedge ( just like in Camelot when they wanted to know what simple folk do, in this case paranoid and simply crazy folk, think)
and am reporting back the mangos.
It is all crazy.
Ruckus
@The Moar You Know:
Hasn’t he gotten 75% of the vote every time he’s “run” for office? Won’t he get 75% of the vote, right up until the time they slide him into his tomb on red square?
He doesn’t live in or own a democracy, everyone there knows it isn’t one, why do some here think that it is?
Another Scott
ICYMI, BooMan has a wild “script” for a movie about Felix Sater
It makes my head spin… :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike in DC
On a side note, can we stop being all doom and gloom that the GOP won’t do anything to check Trump? WE KNOW THIS ALREADY. The real question is, what are WE going to do to check Trump, above and beyond voting in November?
GregB
Looks like today is the day of The Digital Reckoning.
The Dow is in weeee! mode.
Corner Stone
@Brachiator: I saw that earlier. Details seem to be a little fuzzy on exactly what happened – except for somebody ended up dead. Self-driving cars are all such a farrago of greed, libertarianism, and Uber is scum to their core.
different-church-lady
@Corner Stone: Come sit next to me. Forever.
catclub
@GregB: AND Google has put in the borked new version of their finance page. It arrived last weekend, then
disappeared for a while, and now is back. We hates it like Gollum hates.
ETA: in before Cornerstone! ha!
Corner Stone
@GregB:
Speaking of which, I hate the new Google Finance interface and I hate even more that they keep toggling from the (good) older interface to the (horrible, no good, very bad) new interface at fucking random.
catclub
@GregB:
pants pissing weeee or rollercoaster wheeeeee. Either way bouncy ahead.
Ruckus
@Leto:
Those things you mention are very valuable services. They are the kinds of things they should be doing. But the people you are talking about are incapable of actually doing them. It would require someone to accompany them and show them repeatedly how to do those tasks and that would defeat the purpose that you rightfully intended, that of taking far worse than plain useless people and making them useful to the least among us.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@ruemara: This. Thank you.
Ruckus
@cosima:
Yes, yes it does. SATSQ
Calouste
@Magda in Black: A lot of media and congress are nepotism hires as well.
Uncle Cosmo
@Major Major Major Major: You are aware that there is “a long history” of Sesame Street mocking “Donald Grump”? (Google it – this fucking browser won’t let me copy the URL.)
No Drought No More
“[Hope Hicks] even sounded a little like him sometimes, uttering words like loser in her sugary voice”.
What inmate wouldn’t want to share a dormitory or prison cell with a sugar voiced beauty uttering words like “loser” year after year?
I remain mercilessly unsympathetic to any American that betrays this country.* Hang ’em ALL high.
*(see:War in Iraq).
catclub
@Raoul: wow
ruemara
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: I can’t even get a coffee date, because black. I can’t be considered talented, smart or anything other than an emotional mule to be discarded when an appropriate (not black) person comes along. So I reserve the right to be tetchy when people fucking bend over backwards to justify a horrible woman being part of a horrible thing because she’s pretty and relatively young.
Magda in Black
@Calouste:
A bottomless pit of uselessness.
Uncle Cosmo
@LAO: DiGenova… What is it with these fucking goombahs? My people (FTR I am cento per cento Italian by descent) are the worst of the worst – quickest to pull up the ladder behind them, fastest with a racist or sexist joke, shrillest denying that there ever was such a thing as the Mafia (until the Sopranos made it culturally “chick”), etc. etc. ad nauseum…
We weren’t even considered “white” by the WASPs until post-1945 & now we act like this?? Fa in culo, assholes!
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: I remember that the Rachel Maddow interview of Jon Stewart was not well-received and most people faulted him for being a douche to her, but in one sense he made a good point. IIRC she said that she thought she and he had similar jobs coming up with sarcastic takes on the day’s news. He squirmed at that and said they didn’t have similar jobs, that hers was different, and if she thought they had the same job he was making a mistake.
Found the transcript. This is from 2010:
TenguPhule
I hate Trump supporters so fucking much.
They’re even stealing “TIck tock” from us.
They’re using it as a reference against Mccabe.
FlipYrWhig
@TenguPhule: They are really not clear on what McCabe *did*, are they? Trump clearly has no idea.
tobie
@catclub: I did a bit of digging about appeals processes for federal employees and found the following at the Merit System Protection Board website:
This doesn’t answer my question about what kind of hearing you are entitled to after the IG makes his recommendation but that may be beside the point. You appeal actions, not recommendations, and at that stage, I guess, you can question process. I.e., were you given sufficient time to review and respond to reports recommending your termination of employment. IANAL…so this is all speculation.
Citizen Alan
@Kay:
Jesus, yes! I am still angry over that time Ivanka sat in her father’s place at some trade conference like it was no big deal while shitgibbon was off somewhere making an ass of himself. Chelsea Clinton has a f****** doctorate in international relations and she would never have been so presumptuous as to sit in a chair reserved for world leaders.
Gravenstone
@Mike in DC: Trumpites say “collusion”, Mueller et al say “conspiracy”. Hardly the same thing at all …
/whistles past this lovely graveyard
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
It could also be some where in your pipeline there is a restriction, a server down or an older piece of system. It’s not a straight connection, but you go through a series of servers and optical fiber networks, any one of which can have an issue. It can explain why people in other areas are working fine while you are having issues. It could even be your computer for a number of reasons or say as in my case that I live in an apartment building, if everyone is downloading a lot our building pipeline/server could be overloaded as we only have one supplier to the building. In theory periods of heavy traffic should be handled fine but reality like that costs money that most providers don’t like to spend at all.
Citizen Alan
@Magda in Black:
It was pointed out to me years ago that, depending upon the degree pursued, the actual quality of education you get at Harvard is probably no better than what you would get at any of the 100 best state schools but for a fraction of the money. The real advantage of Harvard lies in the fact that you stand a very real possibility of having a future senator or Fortune 500 CEO as your freshman roommate.
r€nato
Hope Hicks’ disclaimers remind me very much of the many, many Germans who claimed they didn’t know what the Nazis were getting up to.
And I am sure some – quite a few even – didn’t. But a lot of them were exactly like today’s MAGAts. They had an idea of it to some extent and didn’t care because they weren’t personally affected; or, they knew and liked it.
Roger Moore
@LAO:
This is Trump’s hiring practices in a nutshell: he cares far more about getting people who agree with him than about competence or any other qualification. May this earn him the quality of legal representation he deserves.
trollhattan
O/T need another reason to hate Uber? They don’t want you walking anywhere!
ThotsNprars, yo.
Nelle
@Citizen Alan: A friend of mine got his doctorate there and later got a McArthur genius grant. He told me that the education there was no better than at the public university where he did his undergrad ed. But the people he met were the ones that changed the trajectory of his life.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
I just emailed you a link to some escapist literature I started reading last night. The first 5 chapters are already making me look forward to the scene where the heroine gets to tell off all of the white dudes who’ve been condescending to her. And that scene is coming, because it turns out she’s a goddamn Princess Shuri who didn’t know it.
Roger Moore
@Ruckus:
They should spend the rest of their days in the kind of for-profit prison they’ve advocated.
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore:
Showered with piss in the bed and electrocuted in the showers?
Ruckus
@Citizen Alan:
That’s because she has a f****** doctorate in international relations that she actually has an idea what she does and doesn’t know. Everyone on the drumpf side has an idea that they are great because they didn’t burn down the school when they were in kindergarten. They also were at their high point of school (and emotional and intellectual growth) when they were in kindergarten and it’s been downhill for them and us since.
They celebrate stupidity and mediocracy because that’s all they have and think that everyone below them on the monetary scale has even less because money is the linchpin of everything. It’s why drumpf used to say he had ten, no eleven, no twelve billion dollars. Notice that since Forbes or whoever knocked that way down he hasn’t spoken about it at all. He didn’t even defend his claims of wealth. He may actually know how much he owes to the russians and how much of the wealth he supposedly has is browed. I’d bet it’s over 100%. They really do own him. And he’s giving them….. us.
germy
@Uncle Cosmo:
That’s such a weird comment.
When the ridiculous Rob Goldstone came to light, I didn’t see any Jewish commenters here saying “Oh, just look at him! We’re such horrible people!” When the supremacists marched with torches I didn’t see any WASP commenters here say “We’re the worst of the worst!” Have any Irish Balloon-Juicers called themselves “the worst of the worst” when discussing the vile Steve Bannon?
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Now we’re talking!
ETA or it could also be somewhere like LA county central jail. Heard two guys on the metro talking about the food and conditions in central. It sounded lovely.
Kayla Rudbek
@Uncle Cosmo: we’re trying too hard to fit in with the Irish and the WASPs and running away from the Italian anarchist image. I saw that with my grandpa who was first-generation US born (his parents being immigrants).
different-church-lady
@Ruckus:
I think you’ve missed the mark badly here: not burning down the school is the only regret they have in life.
Kayla Rudbek
@germy: more recently immigrants so a big inferiority complex combined with “dammit you’re making _all of us_ look bad” – I think that the Jewish equivalent is “ein shanda fur die goyim”
TenguPhule
@Ruckus:
Are we sure? Records are sealed for juveniles.
Fair Economist
@Corner Stone:
Yes, but self-driving cars are probably still safer than person-driven cars. They are certainly safer for the passengers. I haven’t seen anything on the rate of pedestrian fatalities, but they are (sadly) not uncommon so 1 in a large-scale trial is at least not particularly bad. Supposedly she was outside of the crosswalk so I am guessing it’s a programming failure, but we will see.
TenguPhule
@Fair Economist:
How many horror movies about killer cars started out with that line?
different-church-lady
@Fair Economist:
My god! That never happens! How were they expected to program for such an unusual occurance?
Clearly the only solution here is robot pedestrians.
Corner Stone
@Fair Economist:
We know this because of a hyper limited sample size of a few months in a few locations?
different-church-lady
@TenguPhule: Except they left out “probably”.
Fair Economist
@Elizabelle: My experience for some time has been that slow loading is usually the fault of ads. I couldn’t tell you whether it’s malware ads, poorly written ads, or just ads with with a backed-up server, but it’s the ads. Ad-blockers make almost all the loading problems go away.
Roger Moore
@Ruckus:
I want it to be a private for-profit prison because of the poetic justice aspect. A prison run by a Joe Arpaio or David Clarke wannabe would also be acceptable.
Corner Stone
@Fair Economist:
“Listen up, HOO-man! You will adhere to the rules regarding your inferior bipedal locomotion at all times. Or else our mighty horde will crush you like the weakling you are!”
/extreme robot voice
different-church-lady
@Fair Economist: When you get right down to it, ads are probably the cause of 90% of the world’s problems.
trollhattan
@Fair Economist:
Brother went to a lecture last year at MIT where one of the experts in the field warned “perfecting the left turn could be a decade away.”
We’re having the technology shoved down our throats (borrowing a Republican favorite phrase) before it’s ready. Arizona and Nevada have been trying to siphon the testing away from California because the hippies aren’t giving them free enough reins.
Roger Moore
OT: Cynthia Nixon has officially declared her intentions of running against Cuomo in the NY Gov primary.
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
First, we kill all the advertising executives?
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
But then that would lead to robot lawyers.
different-church-lady
@TenguPhule: House flippers.
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore:
But then those assholes would be happy. I want an option where none of them are happy.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
That’s the excuse they’re using, but I think the autonomous car companies just want easier testing conditions than the kind of traffic you get in downtown SF or LA freeways.
different-church-lady
@TenguPhule: Yes, I think you’re starting to get it now.
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
Gonna need a bigger renovation.
different-church-lady
@TenguPhule:
That sounds like where they’re at now.
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore:
They want the cars to actually get more then 3 mpg during rush hour?
Fair Economist
@Corner Stone: We know the semi-automated driving has had an extraordinarily low rate of both accidents and fatalities. The risk for pedestrians depends on how large the trials were. About 15 pedestrians are killed by cars every day; it’s not an uncommon occurrence.
TenguPhule
@Fair Economist:
Wait a minute. I know I’ve read about several accidents involving self-driving cars. And they’re aren’t that many self-driving cars.
different-church-lady
@Fair Economist: Gosh, you’d almost think some person skilled in mathematics could take the number of autonomous cars on the road and compare the death and accident rate there to the number of human operated cars and come up with some sort of ratio or something…
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
say WHA
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
Not unhappy enough. They can still smile.
different-church-lady
@TenguPhule: Is it us? It’s him, right?
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: My only issue is you shouldn’t need to be a princess to be treated with basic respect. fuck reality.
@Roger Moore: That should be interesting. TBH, I would’ve preferred if she started with an Assembly Seat, but you know what, if she can win, good on her.
Ninedragonspot
@Fair Economist: but is the rate lower than that of non-automated driving? That seems to me to be the crucial metric.
Corner Stone
@different-church-lady:
As a society we are going to have to decide to de-link from technology for certain activities or certain timeframes. Driving being #1.
different-church-lady
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): Pee tape futures rising as we speak…
Roger Moore
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
So CA are branching out from analytics to dirty tricks. Quelle surprise!
Fair Economist
@trollhattan:
One of the nice parts about living in CA is that they aren’t going to be able to run those things here apart from trials until they can convince CA they are safe, and CA will insist on decent tests.
If it’s just left turns in traffic (dangerous for people, too) expect a big move against left turns, which wouldn’t be all that bad. Admittedly if they can’t handle left turns there will probably be other issues they can’t deal with either.
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady: I can’t tell anymore. This timeline doesn’t make any sense.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
I thought it was voting.
different-church-lady
@Corner Stone: I’m kind of dissapointed the Y2K bug didn’t solve more of this for us.
Fair Economist
@Ninedragonspot:
Waymo has reported an at-fault rate 10 times better than human drivers.
Edit: to be fair, the driving tests are in less-challenging situations. I’m not aware of any attempt to adjust for that.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
Wouldn’t surprise me. I had to navigate my way through a suburban intersection when the signals were out, awhile back. Two major arterials with multiple lanes in each direction plus double left-turn lanes. Nobody could know when it was “their turn.” Finally clenched my teeth and went through alongside a really big pickup.
I can’t envision any way to program that hot mess.
Corner Stone
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): I have never wanted to be a politician as much as I do right now.
TenguPhule
Wheee, 395 point drop in the Dow. 51 point drop to the S&P 500.
rikyrah
THIS is why they wanted to stop the airing of this piece:
Revealed: Trump’s election consultants filmed saying they use bribes and sex workers to entrap politicians
An undercover investigation by Channel 4 News reveals how Cambridge Analytica secretly campaigns in elections across the world. Bosses were filmed talking about using bribes, ex-spies, fake IDs and sex workers.
19 Mar 2018
Senior executives at Cambridge Analytica – the data company that credits itself with Donald Trump’s presidential victory – have been secretly filmed saying they could entrap politicians in compromising situations with bribes and Ukrainian sex workers.
In an undercover investigation by Channel 4 News, the company’s chief executive Alexander Nix said the British firm secretly campaigns in elections across the world. This includes operating through a web of shadowy front companies, or by using sub-contractors.
In one exchange, when asked about digging up material on political opponents, Mr Nix said they could “send some girls around to the candidate’s house”, adding that Ukrainian girls “are very beautiful, I find that works very well”.
catclub
@Corner Stone:
My understanding is that Tesla, through its monitoring program, has racked up many millions if not 100’s of millions of vehicle miles.
Now it takes about 100M vehicle miles to have an expectation of one fatality ( which they have gotten!). ON the autonomous front, they might be racking up more vehicle miles than you suspect.
As a rough guess, bicycle fatalities are about 1000/yr and I think pedestrian fatalities are about the same, so one would expect a pedestrian fatality
about every 100M * 30/1 [30k motorist fatalities/ 1k ped fatalities per year] = a big number! of miles
TenguPhule
@Fair Economist:
So like missile defense, the testers used every method possible to ensure success.
And still had failures.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Reality sucks, but that doesn’t mean we can’t visit Wakanda and dream of a different reality when this one gets to be too much.
Brachiator
@different-church-lady:
There are some common and consistent ways of doing these comparisons. One study:
The study itself: Automated Vehicle Crash Rate Comparison Using Naturalistic Data
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
You are aware Wakanda is scheduled to be blown up to hell and back in Infinity War, yes?
Fair Economist
@rikyrah:
That escort in Thailand claiming information on just that sort of thing is from Belorussia, next to Ukraine and with many similarities.
different-church-lady
@catclub:
I have probably driven a million miles in my lifetime, and I have never killed anyone. Therefore, I should drive all cars.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
Here’s the escapist read I just sent to ruemara: A Princess in Theory, by Alyssa Cole.
I really think that the author looked at all of the Black Panther hype and thought to herself, But what if it was a romance? It’s fun so far — I’m at chapter 6.
catclub
@Fair Economist:
my estimate was off by a factor of 5. I had guessed 1000 ped fatalities per year – it is more like 5000.
Ninedragonspot
@Fair Economist: and counterpoint
Waymo’s study, though valuable for self-promotion, is still much too small.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: Wakanda is interesting to me, because there’s so much folks are missing. This conflict is truly between ruling classes and then I was reading the Coates’ Black Panther run this weekend and, wooo. But I’m trying to not lose myself in too much fantasy. There’s too much to do right here.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
So was NYC. Multiple times. Strangely, NYC is still there.
different-church-lady
*FOREHEAD SLAP*
Uber isn’t interesed in solving their we need humans to drive our cars problem: they’re interested in solving their our drivers rape women problem.
Fair Economist
@trollhattan:
Hunh, that happened on the stroad providing access to my neighborhood last year and people did pretty well with “who’s turn is it”. The backup was epic, though, because throughput was far lower.
I would also bet that would freak out a self-driving car, though.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Fair enough. Just recommending it for when you need a break from all of the bullshit that you know is going to have a happy ending.
ETA: Obviously, as someone who’s trying to write romance, I’m biased in favor of providing a little escapism, especially if it also addresses a few of the issues readers may be trying to escape from.
catclub
@different-church-lady: but the expectation for average is 100M miles and one fatality or 600M miles before one pedestrian fatality. Not a mere 1M miles you may have driven. Is my sarcasm meter mal-adjusted?
OTOH: driving is safer than living. It would take many lifetimes of driving at 60mph to get to 100M miles.
rikyrah
BREAKING: The Federal courts in Pennsylvania have ruled that they will NOT block the new congressional district map that the Republicans had sought to kill. This is a YUGE win for the Democrats and for our overall Democracy.
— Ed Krassenstein ? (@EdKrassen) March 19, 2018
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
If the trailers are to be believed, not for much longer.
Mike in DC
@rikyrah:
I expect Mueller to issue some new subpoenas on this front, and they seem a likely candidate for a conspiracy charge with the Russians.
Corner Stone
@Fair Economist: I have a few problems with that study but thanks for the link. One of issues society will have to deal with is interaction between self-driving cars and people driving cars. Alot of the time it may be my turn but I look over and see the asshole already charging into the intersection. Or, here in TX, at every red light if you don’t wait at least two seconds after it goes green you will get t-boned by somebody running their light. Usually three somebodies. As for pedestrians, if they are near a crosswalk or intersection I always try to make eye contact with them to make sure they know I’m holding for them.
I’m sure some programming can address issues like these but it’s going to be a rough go for quite a while. I also have a contention with the claim that drivers age 60 – 69 are the safest category. IMO, they cause as many accidents as any other category and they drive much fewer miles on average.
Fair Economist
@different-church-lady:
I think this is a “porque no los dos” situation. Uber is not financially sustainable if drivers get even minimum wage after expenses, and they’re sustainable when drivers rape passengers either.
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
Not even that. They were perfectly happy about ignoring that as long as they could.
different-church-lady
@catclub:
What do you think?
Corner Stone
The best argument for self-driving cars, IMO, is density and drunk driving. Increase density and reduce the amount of drunk drivers on the road.
Corner Stone
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to hop into my 10 year old CR-V and go to the store.
Elizabelle
@different-church-lady: Isn’t it actually a gambit to avoid paying human labor?
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
Whoever came up with that claim is lying.
Citizen Alan
@germy:
For what it’s worth, I live my entire life in rural Mississippi. Like Clarice Starling, I am at best one generation removed from poor white trash. And I have no problem believing and saying that on the whole my demographic group consists of the worst people who ever lived in the history of the world.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
Only until we invent a robot smart enough to get drunk.
lgerard
@tobie:
Except that Board doesn’t actually exist as no one has been confirmed to it. Typical republican strategy to refuse to nominate or confirm anyone to these types of boards and commissions, thus rendering them impotent. I don’t see republicans in any hurry to confirm anyone who has any interest in employee rights to this one.
TenguPhule
@Citizen Alan:
I think the Huns have that one locked up in perpetuity. Unless your demographic builds a literal hill of skulls.
Citizen Alan
@TenguPhule:
AFAIK, all the movies about killer cars are primmest on demonic possession rather than bad programming.
Fair Economist
@Corner Stone: Right, a self-driving car can’t make eye contact with a pedestrian and that does add a major risk factor. Self-driving cars will probably need a standardized way to signal to pedestrians “you go first” and also “OK, I’ll go”. I wonder how they will figure out whether somebody standing on a curb is planning to step off? That’s a pretty hard problem.
I can’t find anything definitive on the total number of miles driven in automated driving trials but I’m going to withdraw my claim that a similar size trial of human drivers would have been expected to kill a pedestrian because they don’t seem offhand to be that large. So maybe they are more risky for pedestrians at present.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
Oh, no! Not the elite special force Ukrainian sex workers! The politicians didn’t stand a chance.
It’s crazy. Shit like this makes the recent jennifer Lawrence movie “Red Sparrow” seem like a documentary.
Mike in DC
@Citizen Alan: In the remake, Sarah Connor will be killed by her Uber.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: Oh, yeah, I’m planning to restart writing the second ep of my series with hopes to film soon and I thought of a good rom-com plot where hopefully I won’t completely fail again at getting past page 5..
I’ve read a few of these types of romances before and you know, I’m not exactly the target demo, but damn if it wasn’t time for it. I went and paid money to see Everything, Everything just because it presented a young black girl as smart, emotional, desirable and worthy of being romanced. I am not pooh poohing it at all. If anything, I’m resisting the urge to hide beneath a cover of books and video games. It’s too enticing.
TenguPhule
@Citizen Alan:
How could we tell the difference?
TenguPhule
@Fair Economist:
Unless they can also brake on a dime linked to a proximity sensor, I don’t think that will be enough.
TenguPhule
@Mike in DC:
Only because she never looked up from her Iphone in time.
different-church-lady
@Fair Economist: I’m from Boston: what is this “you go first” concept all about?
TenguPhule
Why do you do this to us, Wapo? Stop trying to be the FYNYT!
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
Would you like me to run you down now or later?
Citizen Alan
@TenguPhule:
No, but they would bring back chattel slavery and legalized lynching tomorrow if they could get away with it.
different-church-lady
@Fair Economist:
In Boston, it’s pretty simple: if they’re staring off into the street, they’re not going to step off. If they’re looking down at their phone, they are going to step off. (There are no times when they’re looking at the traffic.)
rikyrah
@ruemara:
BRAVO
Another Scott
@Brachiator: Thanks for the pointer. The study, rightly, talks about self-driving cars in “autonomous mode”. Lots and lots of the self-driving cars out there still have humans on board for ‘engagement’ – to take over when the car is confused or does something unexpected or dangerous. IOW, something would have to be really, really wrong for the self-driving cars in those carefully selected situations not to be safer than the full universe of human-driven cars in the USA.
Also, that study is from 2016. Things are changing quickly (but not quickly enough to think that they’re going to be ready for use in cities any time soon).
Yes, they will get better. But “self-driving” cars aren’t ready now, won’t be ready soon for operation in general driving situations in cities, and they’re going to kill a lot more people if regulatory bodies don’t stop buying the hype that they’re just around the corner.
Cheers,
Scott.
ruemara
@Citizen Alan: This is true and when you study the incarceration laws, you see that they never truly ended slavery to begin with.
Citizen Alan
@Citizen Alan:
“Premised” obviously. The voice recognition on my phone is insane.
different-church-lady
2023: Uber to add signal lights to indicate if a rapist is hiding in their driverless taxis.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@ruemara: It pisses me off, and I’m white. Or, as was written in a (pro se) pleading sing me once:
Yet I also reserve the right to be offended by the privilege.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Black romance author writing about two Black characters — this time, you actually are the target demo!
And I think you will identify with the hard-working, put-upon heroine, which will make her victory at the end that much sweeter.
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
Survival of the Fittest!
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
Well played.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
I want it to be a prison that is owned by a government, because that will make it that much harder for them to buy better conditions/food. Especially if it was in a blue state. The people who own for profit prison companies are just like them, and I bet can be bought and paid for. I want them to eat dry white bread with one slice of american cheese for lunch for every day of their 5 yrs and baked surprise for dinner. I want them to have to walk among the very people that they think are not worthy of breathing, to have to sleep in a room big enough for ten, with no sheets, one scratchy wool blanket, with 20 of their new friends on bunk beds and one toilet that the 20 of them take turns on, one shower and lots of fun.
different-church-lady
@Another Scott:
Is there any chance they’re changing slowly enough that I’ll be dead before everything goes completely to shit?
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
Not unless your deadline was in 2016.
different-church-lady
@Citizen Alan:
AND YET SOMEHOW DRIVERLESS CARS ARE GOING TO TOTALLY WORK.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: More like there’s no magic, no zombies & no space ships. And I get pissed at black + black. It feels like when folks want me to meet someone who’s the other black person they know & happens to be male. It’s like, hey, predicate this on who you know I am, not on my skin shade. but that’s just my internal biases. For once, I’d like to the attempt to be “Hey, they like taiko & speak french!” as opposed to “Hey, …look, it’s our black friend with a penis!”.
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
As long as humans are not involved in the equation nothing can go wrong go wrong.
Another Scott
@different-church-lady: J and her sister were at SXSW last week. They met some guy who knew some bands and were leaving one (free) show to go to another – about 0.8 miles away. They were going to catch a bus, but he said, “No, we’ll Uber!”
He started up the app, said where they wanted to go, and some driver responded.
45 minutes later, he picked them up. :-/
It seems that the app shows the customer where the driver is with decent accuracy, but not the other way around. So he was driving around for all that time trying to find them.
All for a $3.00 fare. And tips are verboten, of course.
It seems like a good way to impoverish their drivers and annoy their customers. I would have thought that a fundamental flaw like that would have been fixed long ago. (The driver said they should always enter their current location along with where they want to go, kinda like the way you do with a taxi…)
Cheers,
Scott.
different-church-lady
2057: Robot cop arrests robot rapist hiding in self-driving flying car.
Ruckus
@catclub:
How many of those were of pedestrians in cross walks and how many pedestrians were crossing the street against the light? How many were walking where it clearly states no pedestrians? I see this all the time in my walks around a town that preferences walking as much as anyplace in the US I’ve seen. Not saying the drivers are right but pedestrians are human as well and do the wrong but possibly expedient thing all the time. Just like drivers.
different-church-lady
@Another Scott: Uber is the Napster of the taxi industry.
Facebook is cigarettes for your mind.
different-church-lady
@Ruckus: “First, assume a spherical cow…”
SFAW
Haven’t seen this elsewhere in this joint, but apparently the SCOTUS has rejected the PA GOP’s attempt to prevent the UN-gerrymandered map that (we hope) will be implemented for the 2018 vote.
I think it would have been good humor if the SCOTUS, as part of their kicking the case, had fined each of the GOPer assholes $1M “for wasting our time, you fucking morons.” Well, a boy can dream, right?
Mnemosyne
@Another Scott:
I’ve only ever used Lyft, and their app encouraged me to add a tip after each ride. Does Uber actually not allow tips? If so, that’s crazy.
SFAW
@different-church-lady:
In college physics, we were taught about massless elephants and frictionless boulders.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
I’ve driven in Boston a few times and you are 100000% correct. There is no, “You go first,” with or without the please. Unfortunately I’ve also driven in a large number of other cities and will confirm that Boston is not alone in this small detail. Hell it happens quite often in many cities of the hellhole that is hippy CA.
Another Scott
@Mnemosyne: I’ve never used Uber (or Lyft). Apparently they have ways to take tips in certain locations.
FWIW. HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Uber supposedly changed their app to allow tips, but I haven’t used the service in a long time, so cannot tell you how well it works.
The few times I used Uber when I could not tip, I tried to take the time to post a very detailed favorable review.
Gin & Tonic
@Another Scott:
Not to be flip, but are they disabled?
Gin & Tonic
@Brachiator: I use Uber once in a while. It allows you to tip.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: It used to. I selected Lyft as the less toxic of these apps based on the flood of Uber bad press.
@Gin & Tonic: Probably lazy. I’ll walk for under 3 miles and my friends think I’m crazy for that.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
I likey.
Mnemosyne
@Another Scott:
@Brachiator:
I now feel even more justified in choosing Lyft over Uber when I was visiting SF. The app allowed me to add a tip up to 72 hours after the ride.
WhatsMyNym
@Another Scott: And the Uber car had a safety driver behind the wheel at the time of the accident.
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: No. They also thought about walking (they’ve both run the Boston Marathon (as unregistered participants)). I guess he didn’t want to walk.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@different-church-lady:
Is that a bad thing?
Napster ultimately led to music streaming services, which a lot of people love, even though it screws over musicians. But people want to pay $9.99 a month to get infinite amounts of music forever. And they happily eliminate the middle men (and women) and all the other people who had jobs in the music industry.
And then there’s Netflix….
different-church-lady
@Brachiator:
Didn’t you answer your own question there?
Roger Moore
@Ruckus:
From my experience as a pedestrian, I would guess most of the pedestrians killed were obeying traffic rules. The times when I’ve come closest to being hit were when I was crossing with the right of way and a car didn’t notice me. When I knowingly break the rules, it’s because I’ve looked around and made damn sure it’s safe.
different-church-lady
@Roger Moore:
Yes, but you’re a sane person, so you’re probably throwing off the data.
Another Scott
@WhatsMyNym: Not surprising, really. The cars aren’t ready.
I was on a business trip recently, on a 40 mph road in the left lane with a minivan up ahead to my right. I thought I caught a momentary glimpse of a guy on the sidewalk step off in front of the van in the middle of the block. The van honked, I knew enough to slow down so that I wouldn’t run over the guy – even though I didn’t really see him until he kept walking and crossed my lane. :-/
And that was around 3 PM in the afternoon on a sunny day.
Pedestrians do lots of dangerous things – especially on multi-lane roads. It’s really hard to program all of the various potential situations, and that’s assuming all the sensors work well enough all the time. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were some limited visibility issue in this accident (it was late at night) – one that the driver didn’t notice because he wasn’t paying attention because he trusted the car to be safe all the time. And the poor woman died as a result.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
I just checked my email.
Why do I get junk mail from Dennison Romney, who died 14 yrs ago? This is not the first time. Anyone else have the displeasure of getting this?
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
The mean!
/pedant
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Roger, that’s you being realistic. Lots of people I see don’t look around and make sure it’s safe. They are like the drivers that just expect others to see them and not hit them. Either that or they are total fatalists.
different-church-lady
@TenguPhule: I was going to go with something about being an outlier, but it didn’t scan as well.
MoxieM
Remote family-brag: my niece in law (SIL’s niece) took that Reuter’s photo at the top… it’s all over. She’s young and starting out. Very happy for her.
As for Hope Hicks, Feh, trash.
Roger Moore
@different-church-lady:
My experience may also be unrepresentative because I live in the same city as Ruckus (Pasadena, CA), which really does try to make things pleasant and safe for pedestrians. My experience might be different if I lived somewhere that lacks convenient pedestrian crossings, usable sidewalks, etc.
different-church-lady
@MoxieM: I had to look at it several times because it looked assembled like a “hero shot” ad for a reality program. Some good work there.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
I decided to use Lyft when I was in SF since they’re marginally less evil. They seemed to work out fine. I took regular taxis a couple of times and they were fine, too.
MoxieM
@different-church-lady: Thanks! I love the way she caught all the assembled photogs angling for a shot.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: The BBC “Beyond 100 Days” show just showed video from the local ABC affiliate. The car was a Volvo SUV-like thing with a dent in the hood and grill. The woman was apparently on a bicycle (they showed it on the sidewalk with the front wheel mangled).
This is worse, in some ways, than hitting a pedestrian because bicyclists have as much right to the road as SUVs…
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
JaneSays
@kindness: It isn’t so much a matter of Democrats lacking a sufficient “level of viciousness” to oust Dolt45 by constitutional means as it is just a frustrating mathematical reality. While impeachment is absolutely a viable possibility in the house (and one I think they will pursue), even if they succeed in that endeavor, there’s roughly a 0.00% chance they’ll be able to secure the 67 votes they’ll need to get a conviction in the senate. Even if they were to completely run the table and win every single Republican-held senate seat up for grabs in November, they would still be 9 votes shy of the necessary 67. And there’s absolutely no chance they’ll win all 9 of those seats, and probably no more than 2 or 3, at best.
Regardless of whether or not every single Democrat in Congress wants Trump gone right after they start their new session in January, they would still never be able to get the 15-18 Republican senators whose votes they would need to actually give Cheetolini the boot.
Chet Murthy
@Quinerly: Q, thank you for that. And we -should- be using references to the Nazis. B/c it’s happening here. I recently read Gellately’s _Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany_. He studies newspaper stories and police&Gestapo reports. And what he concludes, is two things:
(a) the Nazis had to move slowly to educate the public in their eliminationist racism. B/c the public was resistant at first to large changes. Boil that frog.
(b) at every step, the police state needed denouncers from the public at large. The Gestapo were great at executing people, torturing people. But terrible at -finding- them. It needed the citizenry to rat out their fellows, for the Gestapo to be effective.
Yeah, we’re doing better as a nation than the Germans did. But if we don’t take back our government in January, I think the next great battle is going to be action to shut down ICE. Civil disobedience to make their work impossible. B/c undocumented immigrants are just the weakest, and the wolves are gonna separate them from the herd first. I don’t know how that happens, but for sure, I know California is gonna be first.
Who knew we were gonna be tested like this. Who knew.
ETA: On and one other thing he concludes: at every step, the Nazis used a combination of -not- disclosing the truth of the death camps in the papers, *and* disclosing enough, that every citizen could do the math. So every citizen knew, but it wasn’t discussed. This forced every citizen to be complicit. This again, is something we have to prevent. Gina Haspel (spit) and the torturers have to be discussed in the open. B/c again, that’s the softly-softly-and-then-you’re-caught in action.
Chet Murthy
@germy: DAMN FUCKING STRAIGHT, she’s complicit.