Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

In my day, never was longer.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

An almost top 10,000 blog!

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

… among the most cringeworthy communications in the history of the alphabet!

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

We’re not going back!

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Republicans in disarray!

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

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Russiagate Open Thread: When Even Andrea Mitchell Is Giving You Side-Eye…

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188Comments

  2. 2.

    Corner Stone

    And I can barely stand to watch Ben Wittes on TV. He’s a really bad interview. Plus, he’s a faux centrist type.

  3. 3.

    Corner Stone

    has no intention of firing” Sessions or Rosenstein but doesn’t rule it out depending on where Mueller probe goes

    “Until they come after me, specifically.”

  12. 12.

    japa21

    @Corner Stone: What did you order? That special they had last weekend went so well they ran out of jars and a lot of the orders are on backorder. Normally, they ship within 24-48 hours. Last weekend was the busiest online weekend they have ever had.

  17. 17.

    Steeplejack

    I’ve got to stop reading to watch Unforgotten on PBS. For some reason it requires my non-multitasking attention. I believe that’s a good thing, but it’s unexpected.

    ETA: Corner Stone can have my ration of blogspace while I’m gone.

  18. 18.

    delk

    Family Guy just did a 50’s parody. They were listening to the radio and the announcer said, “And now a word from our sponsor, Fred Trump Apartments—If you don’t want to live with blacks….” then it faded out.

  20. 20.

    RedDirtGirl

    I’ve got a cat question that might be an engineering question, too. Alice has started pulling the wet food out of her bowl and eating it from her paw. Most of it falls on the floor and she won’t eat that so her food area gets nasty pretty quickly. Have other jackals encountered this and found a solution?

  21. 21.

    Mousebumples

    I was in Penzey’s today to get my rain check for the Soul box (we were buried in snow last weekend so our local store was closed) and was told they’d hopefully have more in stock in mid May for redemption.

    Not shipping details, but yeah… They are swamped to say the least.

  27. 27.

    Jeffro

    I love it! Middle of the afternoon, his previous tweets were on other topics, and Twitler just sorta fires off “A complete Witch Hunt!”

    He must be helping someone, somewhere win a bet or something. Maybe Don Jr.? Maybe Ivanka? Maybe they’re all just messing with poor Eric??

    Don Jr: Eric, I’m telling you, I have psychic powers! Sometime in the next hour Dad’s gonna spout off about the ‘witch hunt’…seriously!
    Eric: No way dude, he is on this North Korea thing and if he’s not, look at the time! He’s probably taking a nap. You’re on for $5
    (DJT tweets)
    Eric: DANG IT!!
    Don Jr: lolz

  28. 28.

    germy

    @RedDirtGirl: I have a thick mat that we keep under her food dish, one of those black things for putting shoes on. Every few days I take it outside and wipe it down with a clorox wipe, and then dry it with a cloth.

  29. 29.

    oatler.

    Andrea Mitchell reminds us we’re all corpuscles swimming in the bloodstream of The Corporation.

  30. 30.

    Ruckus

    There has to be a political person in the WH who has at least the maturity of an 8 yr old.
    OK I know that would be a huge improvement but still, not one?

  32. 32.

    Sab

    So I am finally putting my 93 year old father in a nursing home next month. He’s too old to be in a three storey house. Especially with dementia.

    He thought he was going for a car ride instead of an assessment interview. He was pissed when he found out what was up.

    They asked him how he was feeling. He said “skeptical.” They asked “skeptical of what?” He said “my daughter.” Sigh.

    Anyone got any advice about this lovely rite of passage?

    ETA typos

  33. 33.

    lollipopguild

    I know this is off topic but trump changes his mind every 5 seconds,minutes, hours, days, weeks, months. It really does not matter what he says at any time because you know it will change. Sorry to disrupt your thread about Pen#$ sex boxes.

  34. 34.

    Percysowner

    @Corner Stone: Usually not that long, but they had a big freebie giveaway and that seems to have sold out really quickly, so if your looking for that, it may take a while. If you ordered something else, they may be swamped trying to get the freebie shipped.

  35. 35.

    Peale

    At least in Russia they don’t overuse sriracha and have no awful flavor called “buffalo”. I’m thinking a little submission to their food hegemony might help make us bland again.

  37. 37.

    Corner Stone

    @Peale:

    I’m thinking a little submission to their food hegemony might help make us bland again.

    Sorry to tell you this, but if you’re looking to Make America Midwest Again you are out of luck.

  39. 39.

    germy

    Sean Hannity’s chosen investment strategy is confirmed by thousands of pages of public records reviewed by the Guardian, which detail a real estate portfolio of remarkable scale that has not previously been reported.

    The records link Hannity to a group of shell companies that spent at least $90m on more than 870 homes in seven states over the past decade. The properties range from luxurious mansions to rentals for low-income families. Hannity is the hidden owner behind some of the shell companies and his attorney did not dispute that he owns all of them.

    Dozens of the properties were bought at a discount in 2013, after banks foreclosed on their previous owners for defaulting on mortgages. Before and after then, Hannity sharply criticised Barack Obama for the US foreclosure rate. In January 2016, Hannity said there were “millions more Americans suffering under this president” partly because of foreclosures.

    Hannity, 56, also amassed part of his property collection with support from the US Department for Housing and Urban Development (Hud), a fact he did not disclose when praising Ben Carson, the Hud secretary, on his television show last year.

  40. 40.

    Ruckus

    @Sab:
    Hang tough is all I’ve got. He’s been your dad for a while and he’s not used to, first, the kids being in charge and second, dementia is not any more fun to go through than it is to have. As someone who has seen up close, a grandmother, a father and mom at the very end go through it I think I can honestly say it’s no walk in the park from either side of the fence.

  42. 42.

    Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)

    @Sab: You have to do it. They calm down after a while.

    ETA: Mr DAW’s family told his 95 year old mother she could visit for two weeks and then go home if she wanted. They had no intention of taking her to her split level house again and she never tried to leave on her own. She eventually was happy, but at first she was mad–mad at them but really mad at what life was doing to her.

  43. 43.

    Jay

    @RedDirtGirl:

    We use a recycled rubber mat under the food and water dishes.

    We feed dry food only though, but one of our cat’s pulls food out of the dish, onto the mat, to eat it.

  45. 45.

    Denali

    @Sab,

    Be good to yourself during this difficult process. The important thing is your Dad’s safety. He probably knows that it is time – you are not to blame.

  47. 47.

    laura

    @Sab: left foot, right foot, breathe, breathe breathe.
    I hope that he eases into this new situation. It is so hard to not feel guilty, but if his care and safety are beyond your abilities, and this provides him with the level of care he needs, this is the right decision. I wish he could bring his cat.

  48. 48.

    Josie

    @Sab: Just grit your teeth and go through with it. You are doing the right thing, and he will eventually adjust. I had to do this with my mother. She was pissed at me for a while, but she wound up liking the place because they gave her all the ice cream she wanted, among other reasons. When you are dealing with dementia, at some point it becomes impossible to keep them safe 24/7, so assisted living is the only good answer. I will think good thoughts for you.

  49. 49.

    Corner Stone

    Man, I’ve been trying to watch Sons of Anarchy but it’s just not good. They all go to Ireland to look for shitheel’s baby son and think that’s going to work out? They run a criminal enterprise but never have any money? Almost every single criminal they know always needs “six” AK’s, right away? And all the damn hugging. I mean, if they cut out all they man-hugging scenes they could do each episode in about 1/3rd the time.

  50. 50.

    Ruckus

    @RedDirtGirl:
    Lived in homes with a couple cats and one of them didn’t waste any food. The other was the pickiest eater I’ve ever seen. Wet, dry, if she didn’t love it she wasn’t eating it. Her chief wasn’t a big help, but that cat was picky.

  51. 51.

    White & Gold Purgatorian

    @RedDirtGirl: you could try elevating her bowl a little, to a more convenient height for eating. If this is new behavior, there is probably a reason that makes sense to the cat, if not to you. Is she an older cat?

  57. 57.

    Adam L Silverman

    @germy: To all of our legal fleegles: Alright counselors, or as the President would say Councilors, explain to me why you need more than 20 shell companies to manage one’s real estate holdings if one isn’t the mob?

  58. 58.

    Anne Laurie

    @RedDirtGirl:

    I’ve got a cat question that might be an engineering question, too. Alice has started pulling the wet food out of her bowl and eating it from her paw. Most of it falls on the floor and she won’t eat that so her food area gets nasty pretty quickly. Have other jackals encountered this and found a solution?

    Get a mat or a ‘boot tray’ to put under her bowl, and just be prepared to wash the mat after every meal.

    Have you changed the food lately? Has the manufacturer changed its formulation? In the past, when a cat’s suddenly started doing this, it seemed to mean that they’d decided there was something “wrong” (different) about the stuff — once it was that the texture had changed slightly, from chunky-pate to smooth-pate.

    Depending on how Alice is acting otherwise, you might want to be sure it’s not a medical problem… blocked nose (doesn’t smell right!) or teeth problems or digestive issues. Unfortunately, as the descendents of small wild predators, cats are designed to “hide” health issues until they’ve turned into something serious.

  60. 60.

    Anne Laurie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    To all of our legal fleegles: Alright counselors, or as the President would say Councilors, explain to me why you need more than 20 shell companies to manage one’s real estate holdings if one isn’t the mob?

    IANAL, but my immediate thought was that either Hannity is gaming regulations meant to encourage local investment / buyers below a certain income level, or he’s been hiding some of his profits from the IRS. Maybe both!

  61. 61.

    RedDirtGirl

    And thanks for the various suggestions/comments re: the feline. She is getting older.

  64. 64.

    Rand Careaga

    @Sab: My father retained his wits until the end, but became physically quite frail. His four adult children staged an “intervention” in an attempt to persuade him to move into “senior living,” but he resisted until, a few months later, he took a fall in the bathroom and remained there for thirty-six hours. After that, he reluctantly agreed to the move and then, to his surprise, enjoyed the new place: made friends, and enjoyed the cuisine after twenty-five years of frozen dinners. A year later he fell again, this time breaking his hip, and after that he had to go to “assisted living,” and he never warmed to the new facility. What he hated, and what I quite understand, was the loss of agency. At the end, a week after he grumblingly consented to a third move, this time to hospice care, he decided that the staff was insufficiently deferential, and demanded that we find him another place, but before I could telephone him to break the news that this wasn’t going to happen, he died in his sleep that night. As my brother said, “At T minus twelve hours he was still attempting to bend the universe to his will.”

    Not much in the way of advice here, I’m afraid. Ultimately, here as in childrearing (or so they tell me) we are all obliged to re-invent the wheel of karma. Good to you.

  65. 65.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    IANAL but you only need shell companies when you have something to hide. Income, involvement in questionable dealings, are a slumlord, don’t want anyone to know any of the above because it might cause problems in your day job that might cause trouble with the coverup.

  66. 66.

    germy

    @Adam L Silverman:

    explain to me why you need more than 20 shell companies to manage one’s real estate holdings

    He doesn’t want his tenants knowing they’re paying rent to the obnoxious thumbhead on TV?

  68. 68.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    Does anybody have an opinion on Issue 1 that’s going to be on the ballot in Ohio this May?

    Ohio Issue 1: Congressional Redistricting Procedures Amendment

    Ohio Issue 1, the Congressional Redistricting Procedures Amendment, is on the ballot in Ohio as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment on May 8, 2018.[1]

    A “yes” vote supports changing the vote requirements to pass congressional redistricting maps and the standards used in congressional redistricting in Ohio. To learn more about what changes Issue 1 would make, see the measure design section (click here).

    A “no” vote opposes new congressional redistricting procedures and standards, thus allowing the Ohio General Assembly to continue adopting congressional redistricting plans through a simple majority vote.
    Overview

    What’s the current congressional redistricting system in Ohio?

    As of 2018, the Ohio General Assembly is responsible for adopting the state’s congressional redistricting plan, subject to the governor’s veto or citizen-initiated veto referendum. Redistricting is the process by which new congressional and state legislative district boundaries are drawn. Adopting a congressional redistricting plan requires a simple majority vote in both chambers of the state General Assembly. The last time the state General Assembly adopted congressional maps was in 2011, which followed the 2010 U.S. Census. Republicans controlled the state Senate, state House, and governor’s office, thus holding a trifecta in state government. Republicans adopted a congressional redistricting plan with the support of 4 of 50 legislative Democrats (8 percent).[2]

    What would Issue 1 change about congressional redistricting?

    Issue 1 would create the following process for congressional redistricting in Ohio:

    The measure would require the state legislature to adopt a 10-year congressional redistricting plan with 60 percent of members in each chamber voting in favor and 50 percent of Republicans and 50 percent of Democrats (or whichever two parties have the most members in the legislature) voting in favor.

    Should the state legislature fail to meet these vote requirements, then the seven-member Ohio Redistricting Commission, established via Issue 1 in 2015, would get a chance to adopt a 10-year congressional redistricting plan, with support from at least two members of the minority party.
    Should the commission fail to adopt a plan, the legislature would get a second opportunity to adopt a 10-year plan, but with a lesser requirement of one-third of the members from the two major parties supporting the proposal.

    Failure at this stage would result in the legislature adopting a plan through a simple majority vote, with no bipartisan vote requirement but stricter criteria, and with the plan lasting two general election cycles (four years), rather than 10 years.
    Issue 1 would take effect on January 1, 2021, and apply to congressional redistricting following the 2020 U.S. Census.[1]

    I’m leaning towards thinking this is a good idea. The trouble is this is a primary election and might have less of a chance of passing than if it were in a general election.

  69. 69.

    Anne Laurie

    @Corner Stone:

    Tom Nichols can shut his fucking piehole.

    I wouldn’t trust Nichols for advice, but I frequently enjoy his snark — sometimes even when it’s aimed at people I have more in common with politically.

    On the other hand, I would pay a modest sum to watch you & him go mano-a-mano, live or on twitter!

  72. 72.

    SFAW

    @Ruckus:

    I’m taking it that being a rank amateur to an insufferably arrogant person in the same line of work is the preferred rank.

    Well, I guess that raises the question: Does the “rank amateur” actually aspire to be “better” (i.e., more insufferably arrogant) than the person against whom he compared himself?

  74. 74.

    schrodingers_cat

    Next week I go to my first Town Meeting, we vote on budgetary issues and such. Town meeting is to be held in the elementary school. It will probably be pretty boring but I am excited. We can has direct democracy!

  75. 75.

    cain

    man, that shooter who shot up the waffle house is one cray cray. He once claimed that Taylor Swift was hounding him. The fact that he has a clear mental illness and his father gave his guns back is spectacular in how bad the father has fucked up. He’s responsible for all those deaths as much as the son.

  76. 76.

    Corner Stone

    @Anne Laurie: I am a SME on something he knows nothing about. I doubt our back and forth would get very far. He’s a climate change denier, for one thing. Hard to argue with that “expertise” mindset.

  81. 81.

    RedDirtGirl

    Alright, good night, gang. Off to bed. Starting my second month at a new job (in the same company) that i’m pretty happy about! Really makes Sunday nights so much nicer.

  83. 83.

    cain

    @Adam L Silverman:

    @Corner Stone: I’m an insufferably arrogant national security professional and he makes me look like a rank amateur.

    I follow Nichols because he amuses me. His tirade about people taking their shoes off in airplanes was especially hilarious. You just need to read him in a very superficial level. I like to give him some backhanded compliments while on a thread.

  85. 85.

    Corner Stone

    @cain: Hmmmm…
    “Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson said there was no clear motive, though Reinking may have “mental issues.”

  92. 92.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Every time he thinks something important is going to break vis a vis the Mueller investigation he tweets out something like this:

    Lately he’s taken to wearing one of these whenever he’s on the air:

    Given that he’s Brookings Senior Fellow for legal stuff, I figured all you lawyers got a memo.

  93. 93.

    Corner Stone

    So Over This
    ‏ @Johngcole
    6m6 minutes ago

    a snoring dog is the most beautiful sound on the planet

    Poor ABC. Never stood a chance.

  94. 94.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @schrodingers_cat:
    That must be cool to live around that much history. Modern NE Ohio is fairly old but not that old. Where I live it wasn’t until 50-60 years ago the township i live jn became urbanized. Before it was farmland.

  95. 95.

    Sab

    @laura: Cat is allowed to visit. Also we just adopted my uncle’s dog who has been friends with the cat for about ten years. Cat should be okay.

  98. 98.

    Tenar Arha

    @Sab:
    I’d recommend finding any local caregivers support group if you haven’t already. It might help, or at least suggest other strategies.

    My father died last year at 91. Before his last year or two he was pretty darned competent & opinionated even if he was declining. He positively and explicitly refused to leave the 2 story, split level house he & my mother built when I was like 2 years old in front of his own doctor & us. He basically implied that my sibling and myself better hope to gosh he was gaga (his word, not mine) if we removed him against his wishes from his home. Mostly, we were able to respect that, but each fall or major issue(s) during his last year meant we were always playing catch-up with getting enough home care aides. He did, however, die at home as he wished.

    You have my sympathy. I’m sorry. It’s very hard, no matter the diagnosis. There’s no way not to take it personally, even if both of you know you’ve got no good choices, because it’s your father. And if you are close…well….

  99. 99.

    Another Scott

    @Corner Stone: I ordered for the first time during their recent “$35 box for free” sale. I ordered a bunch of other stuff too. Got it all on Saturday. I’m in NoVA.

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  100. 100.

    joel hanes

    @RedDirtGirl:

    Cats sometimes develop aversion to contact between bowl and whiskers.

    I would:
    – get a plastic cafeteria tray to go on the floor
    – feed wet food on flat plates, placed on cafeteria tray.

  101. 101.

    Anne Laurie

    @Corner Stone:

    I mean, if they cut out all they man-hugging scenes they could do each episode in about 1/3rd the time.

    But then, what would the manly-men totally-not-pussified fanbase fap to? Apart from the gun scenes, of course.

  102. 102.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: Who knows. He’s a smart guy. But his experience was working as a staffer in Congress, not operational within the national security realm. It doesn’t really make a difference in terms of his credentials, but the impression I get from reading his stuff, including his twitter feed, is someone who is quite insecure. And the bluster, etc is a front.

  103. 103.

    oldgold

    Why doesn’t Todd ask when presented with this baloney: “Would you agree it is an excellent idea to purchase and install a fire extinguisher before your house is on fire?”

  105. 105.

    SectionH

    @RedDirtGirl: I have a cat who used to drink water from her paw that way, which clearly is not a problem the way food would be. She’s almost 18 now, and eating a lot more messily than she used to. I keep a litter-catching mat – it’s plastic coated, but ridged to help shake the litter out as the cat walks across it, where she gets fed, and have a hand held cordless vac* which I use daily. The wet food would be trickier I were in a place with more humidity, but it dries out here pdq.

    It could be that Alice is finding a problem with her food now – FSM knows my food reactions are changing as I get older – but the eating from paw thing may just be a way she entertains herself. Layna has 3 water bowls: kitchen, BR, and in the shower, and by far her favorite is the shower water. She still loves to pull the bowl around, paw in it, etc.

    Cats. Good luck!

    ETA *Black & Decker, it was pretty much top-rated when I bought it, and the most useful appliance I think I’ve ever
    owned. How did I have all those cats all those years without one?

  109. 109.

    Anne Laurie

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Next week I go to my first Town Meeting, we vote on budgetary issues and such. Town meeting is to be held in the elementary school. It will probably be pretty boring but I am excited.

    Congratulations!

    According to people I know whose towns use that form of democracy, you may want to bring something to keep your hands busy (cross stitch, knitting, solitaire-type phone game) during the tedious stretches where the board is reading out the changes to SubSection XIV, para iv, as mandated by charter. Nothing that will distract you entirely, just something that will keep you from losing track of what’s to come next.

    Also be prepared for IRL versions of some of BJ’s more obnoxious commentors: The guy with a grievance, which may or may not be related to anything on-topic for the evening; the woman who thinks you all got together especially to hear her explain why it is totally unfair that her trash doesn’t get picked up until Wednesday when the neighbors on the next block get theirs removed on Monday; the ranting nutball convinced that the Men in Black are sending thuggish-looking strangers (or possibly racoons) to walk up & down the sidewalk in front of his house…

  111. 111.

    debbie

    @debbie:

    Linking seems to be a problem. The primary issue is the Legislature’s attempt to head off the citizens’ initiative scheduled for the November ballot.

  112. 112.

    Sab

    @Sab: Googled Issue 1 in Ohio. Taft and Strickland both like it. Both parties support it. So does the League of Women Voters. Only voice against it seems to be some guy on Daily Kos.

    I was trying to respond to Goku, not myself.

  114. 114.

    dimmsdale

    @Sab: Seconding Tenar Abha’s suggestion about support groups; my mom was sharp as a tack mentally but strength, endurance and balance started fleeing her around age 84; there was so much elder-stuff for me to catch up on that I was soon overwhelmed. Found a ‘caregivers group’ attached to the geriatric care dept. at the local hospital, led by a CSW; it was a great place to vent (people without frail elderly parents don’t really get it, I found) and both pick up and share info and experience. Met once a week, and free to boot. Good luck with your situation; one of the key things I learned there was that it’s not only his/her rite of passage, it’s also YOURS….and it’s vital to honor that fully as possible.

  116. 116.

    MomSense

    @Anne Laurie:

    My personal favorite town meeting was the one where this guy stood up and stopped approval to build a small playground at the dump because in his day kids had chores. It snowballed into an hour of the town curmudgeons play shaming little kids.

  117. 117.

    Sab

    @dimmsdale: I’ve been through this before with my frail but sharp mother.

    Dementia however is a whole different ballgame. Everyone is angry. Everyone is frustrated. It’s like dealing with a giant toddler who will never grow up or improve or behave. And that toddler is as angry and frusyrated as you are. And yet you remember who they used to be, but they barely remember who they or you are.

  119. 119.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:

    is someone who is quite insecure. And the bluster, etc is a front.

    You’d expect someone quite insecure to be a church mouse but often they compensate with bluster, hoping no one ever calls them on it. They seem to confuse bluster as the opposite of insecurity.

  121. 121.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Corner Stone: That’s the bit that gets me. I realize everyone has blind spots, but when you make your entire gimmick about the need to respect expertise and listen to the experts and then decide that you can just ignore an entire group because their expertise conflicts with your ideology and theology, then you’ve got a problem.

  123. 123.

    Gvg

    @RedDirtGirl: I had a cat who got nose and cheek infections from the vet said plastic bowls. I used a ceramic one after that. My sister the doctor noticed that there are no regulations on pet food dishes safety. She recomends using people bowls. Given the problems for instance for pet products from China, I think she has a point. My preference is stainless steel due to a cat that liked to steal others food breaking a few ceramic dishes.

  126. 126.

    Ruckus

    @Sab:
    Dementia is hard. When dad had Alzheimers I figured out that it is infancy in reverse with the added “benefit” that the toddler’s body has grown. Think of the first 2 or 3 years of a child’s life learning but backwards. They forget how to use the toilet, they forget how to chew food, they forget how to walk and have to be helped. But they don’t get stronger, bigger, they get frailer and stay the same size. And it’s cute when infants wrap their tiny fingers around yours, it’s not when they have no clue how strong they really still are.
    I’m not trying to discourage you but to inform you. It can be done, but like a lot of life, it helps to know some of the pitfalls.

  127. 127.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: I see you and raise you:

  129. 129.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    If it was that difficult for the chief to come up with that line after a loon walks into a Awful House and shoots 4 people with no pants on and the guy had his guns taken away once before, maybe the police chief has issues as well.

  132. 132.

    Feathers

    @RedDirtGirl: We started giving the wet cat food as a separate feeding, not leaving it in the bowl. There is also the trick of spreading the food out on a plate in several bite sized dollops.

  133. 133.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: It is what it is. I may be completely wrong. I’ve never met the guy, so my take may be completely wrong. I think a lot of his national security analysis is solid from a professional perspective. But he seems to be a charter member of the young fogies club. The strangest things seem to set him to ranting and raving. I’m sure I’ve got my own things that set me to ranting and raving, so… But I know my fair share of war college professors. I’ve been one. And the ones that are all bluster and noise, etc have issues.

  134. 134.

    satby

    @Sab: no advice, just hang tough. It’s hard and their failing minds are angry with everybody because they’re unable to control their lives. But you’re doing what’s best and safest for him.

  135. 135.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And the ones that are all bluster and noise, etc have issues.

    As it is in real life.
    ETA On the ship I was on for 2 yrs there was a chief (E7) who was an asshole and used his rank to fuck with people who didn’t meet up to his standards and he was far from meeting up to them as well. It’s a cancer on life that assholes get some level of power and abuse it because they are chickenshit assholes.

  136. 136.

    Brachiator

    @Adam L Silverman:

    That’s the bit that gets me. I realize everyone has blind spots, but when you make your entire gimmick about the need to respect expertise and listen to the experts and then decide that you can just ignore an entire group because their expertise conflicts with your ideology and theology, then you’ve got a problem.

    But this is a common intellectual dodge of fraudulent pundits, particularly conservative ones. You claim to care only for the facts and where they lead you, but cherry pick “experts” who share your ideological bent, or reject out of hand those who disagree with you.

    This appears to be “classier” than pundits who dismiss experts because they are “liberal,” but it’s just a variation of the same tired bullshit.

  138. 138.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:
    Pundits seem to be people who have no expertise in anything but bullshit and dislike it when people with any knowledge call them on their bullshit. IOW people with an agenda and a bullhorn and they understood that was spelled bullshithorn.

  139. 139.

    MoxieM

    @Gin & Tonic: are you a Westie? I was a Westie for decades…now I’m in the 413 boonies, altho’ I still have my 781 phone, which brands me as an eeeevil one of those types. At least it’s not a 617!

    Masshole Peccadillos for 3, please.

  140. 140.

    FlyingToaster

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: A bunch of us live up here in the Frozen NorthEast. And we generally have a great deal of direct democracy. Frankly, for most of us, politics is a contact sport.

    So we had people protesting the zoning commmission when they hired someone to help them write regulations to “gentrify” the town. Ahem. I have a bright [redacted color] house, used by all of my neighbors as a landmark when giving directions. That color is on no consultant’s pallette. It is, however, directly cribbed from an insanely expensive Victorian in North Cambridge.

    We also successfully fought the stupid-ass development idea a block away; it’s getting developed, but at about 3/5 the original size. There were 300 people at the Zoning Board’s meeting on the original development, and 250 at the “revised submission” that made them move the damn driveway to opposite the other new development across the corridor.

  141. 141.

    lgerard

    @Adam L Silverman:

    explain to me why you need more than 20 shell companies to manage one’s real estate holdings if one isn’t the mob?

    You would have a separate LLC for each property to limit your legal liability to the asset value of that property, thus protecting your other properties.

    That was the original idea behind the concept of the LLC until it was noticed that the minimal reporting obligations associated with the ownership of the LLC (they are “regulated” by states) made them ideal for obscuring ownership. Thus the concept of the shell corporation was born.

    I have one for a piece of undeveloped property in North Carolina just to protect me from being sued by a trespasser shooting himself while hunting. I filed a one page document that only included a description of the property and a name and phone number of a contact person.

  142. 142.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus:

    Pundits seem to be people who have no expertise in anything but bullshit and dislike it when people with any knowledge call them on their bullshit.

    I think the idea was supposed to be that pundits were seasoned journalists and others who had accrued some wisdom that let them comment on the events of the day. But there were always intellectual scoundrels among them.

    And I think it was columnist William Safire who once wrote that he didn’t have to be right about the facts precisely because he was a pundit. This is, of course, circular bullshit.

  143. 143.

    J R in WV

    @RedDirtGirl:

    We mix the dry kibble (1/4 cup) with a big spoonful of meaty bits in gravy, and stir well. We do have one cat that likes to dip he paw in the water dish and lick the water off, sometimes. Not always, can’t figure out why one day and not the other. That’s dinner. Often the two cats get a early snack, we split the 1/4 cup more to the more active cat and less to the fat lazy cat.

    OT this afternoon just before we left for town, dinner and a concert (Gov’t Mule) there was a squirrel walking up and down the corner of the house, barking. Cat was interested, lurking on the back deck which the corner was right beside. I threw a stick at the squirrel, and suddenly he was walking along the side of the deck. Cat lunged and nearly caught him as Sq jumped off the deck.

    Neighbor’s small dog was below the deck, and interested in the falling squirrel, who made it to the tree. Very shortly later we were out front of the house getting in the car, when our larger, active hunter dog walked by with squirrel in mouth. Glad our critters are fully vaccinated!!

    Don’t miss the squirrel if he was going to be hanging around the house!!

    Good luck figuring out the cat’s issues. We feed our cats seperately so the greedy lazy bigger one can’t bully the smaller more active one, who can fend for herself, but won’t really, over dinner. Go figure. Any other time she’s game, but dinner, nope. You can have it. ?? Really??

  146. 146.

    J R in WV

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:

    You need to actually read the fine print details of how the measure # 1 would work. It sounds like hokum a little… I don’t know how other states have adopted non-partisan reapportionment plans, but I suspect CA and others have a less obscure method.

  147. 147.

    Yutsano

    @Omnes Omnibus: Dammit you beat me to it. Hiding assets via LLC shells is a common scheme to hide income and assets. I wonder if Hannity has a revenue officer on his tail.

  149. 149.

    jeannedalbret

    @RedDirtGirl: Check her mouth and teeth. My Inky had a mouth growth under his tongue that meant he had trouble keeping food in his mouth, hence super-messy around (wet) food bowl.

  150. 150.

    Ruckus

    @J R in WV:
    Soapbox time, the following is not directed at you in any way. Just has your name at the top.
    Any time anything about voting is obscure in any way, it is wrong. Even if the concept of the law is good, obscurity is wrong. It can in no way be left up to an elected or appointed official, even for seemingly mundane sections. All the bits and pieces have to be open. There has to be checks and crosschecks laid out in public view. If it isn’t, someone is trying to hide something. Voting isn’t difficult, registering voters isn’t difficult, it is time consuming but the concept isn’t difficult. If someone is trying to make it that way there is something wrong.
    ETA CA now has more registered voters than 46 states have populations. It isn’t difficult it is time consuming.

  154. 154.

    Xenos

    @Adam L Silverman: 20 holding companies, for USD 90 million in real estate investments taking place over a period of time, sounds pretty normal to me. FWIW, I work in the holdco management business in what some would all a tax haven. I expect each holdco would hold a specific investment or portfolio and and the accounting would all consolidate into a couple or a few companies directly held by Hannity or his family business, trust, what have you. This all sounds pretty normal from a structuring point of view. you can build a lot of crookedness into the structure, but the existence of a structure is not weird.

  156. 156.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Xenos: My guess is this is less kosher:

  157. 157.

    Mnemosyne

    @Xenos:

    I think that, as with so many things in Trumpworld, you’re going to end up being amazed at how much wrongness they were able to pack into an otherwise normal structure. Especially since Trump’s fixer Cohen was apparently doing the structuring.

  158. 158.

    burnspbesq

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Having every property in a separate legal entity is commonplace among commercial developers. It’s primarily about liability protection; suppose, for example, that Alina Ibragimova slips on the ice in front of 20 Main Street, breaks her wrist, and can never play the violin again. You can lose all the assets of Twenty Main, LLC, but not any of your other properties.

  161. 161.

    Aleta

    @RedDirtGirl: If she’s bothered by a bowl that moves when she eats, you could try a heavier dish (stoneware is good) whose bottom and top rim are about the same size. Like a square baking dish or a bowl w/ a flat wide bottom. Portugal seems to be firing and exporting a lot of them cheaply w/safer glaze than China.

    Lately I put food bowls on a piece of cardboard with a rim (like the cardboard that comes under flats of canned food bought 8-12 at a time). I replace it whenever we get a new flat. Or our store puts them out in front for people to use to carry groceries out.

  162. 162.

    Millard Filmore

    @burnspbesq:

    You can lose all the assets of Twenty Main, LLC, but not any of your other properties.

    Is this what conservative capitalists call Taking Responsibility For Your Actions? Sorry, I am cranky today. Obviously socalism needs to be strictly reserved for the rich.

  163. 163.

    Ruckus

    @burnspbesq:
    And I used to know a senior partner at a large LA firm who said it was easy to pierce the corporate veil, it just took time. Of course this person passed away before he could tell me how it was done. Also this was before the advent of the LLC, at least in CA.

  166. 166.

    Chet Murthy

    @Millard Filmore:

    Is this [the corporate veil] what conservative capitalists call Taking Responsibility For Your Actions? Sorry, I am cranky today. Obviously socalism needs to be strictly reserved for the rich.

    Once upon a time, the corporate tax was a way for society to recoup the losses it suffered from the explicit “socialize losses, private gains” inherent in the corporate veil. But then, well, that kinda died, didn’t it? I used to bait (what used to be) my libertarian friends with that one. They always had to resort to “it’s the only way to foster investment” or other such bullshit (certainly not justified on the nearly-theocratic grounds they use for everything else). Funny, such utilitarian arguments never hold for stuff like education, health care, not even for slavery.

  168. 168.

    Millard Filmore

    @Chet Murthy: Yep. When you, as a job creator, have your stockpile of raw materials catch fire and explode, killing 15, wounding and maiming 200, destroying 500 homes …. Declare your company bankrupt, turn your back, and walk away. The law makes it so easy to take responsibility.

  169. 169.

    SectionH

    @burnspbesq: I’ve only heard a quick take on the Guardian arkle, but from that, it’s not just having properties as a separate legal entities. It’s churning money through HUD loans in srsly sketchy ways. And How Much was that before it started and similar shit. But the last bit I heard was taking properties with affordable housing units, doing something sketchy, and Hey! Presto! all of those are now fine with being sold off as Condos.

    Sounds like Shannity was well in the shitpool. Remember his first comment about his relationship with Cohen? “We only talked about real estate?”

  170. 170.

    Xenos

    @Mnemosyne: there was no way that mook Cohen was doing anything like proper structuring. He could not even keep his own name off the llc docs for the Stormy payoff.

    If Hannity went to Cohen for that work it was to keep the rest of the deal secret… a reputable lawyer, investigating the source of funds, might not have taken the business. My employer would have reported him to the authorities, without telling Hannity, as the law here in the EU does not permit it.

  172. 172.

    Aleta

    @Ruckus: Or the ones who do have some knowledge or skill in a subject. But a weird leap of their pundit brain, accelerated by the pay, concludes they’re an expert at anything they want to be.

    It seems similar to what sometimes happens to grad students who get assigned to teach for an assistantship but misattribute the attention of captive students to mean they must be a genius! (Also perhaps the fault of graduate education itself, which teaches how to talk off the top of your head as though you have an answer to whatever comes up, in order to be convincing at your thesis defense.) Perhaps pundits never develop the humility to see through themselves.

  174. 174.

    Aleta

    @Ruckus: Hm, or maybe pundits are people who think knowledge is a possession of theirs instead of a cooperative effort.

  175. 175.

    SectionH

    @Xenos: Sadly, we’re not the EU…

    I want to look at the actual properties involved. If they really were “all over the country” as the Gruaniad said, it makes a difference. $90M in NYC real estate may be chump change, but if a lot of those transactions involved properties in places like Tulsa or Tupelo or Toledo, a cut of 90M of laundered (?) money through places with those property values could make Shannity happy, esp. if he felt protected doing that level of fuckery.

    And y’know, apart from the rest, if he was sleazing out of places which “only” were supposed to have had long-term affordable housing units in them, and sleazed out from that, fuck him 17 ways to Sunday.

  176. 176.

    Kathleen

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: A few years ago a bill proposing new process for redistricting of state legislature passed. This proposal is new process for redistricting congressional districts. Ohio Democratic Party is supporting this. The previous bill passed easily.

  178. 178.

    A non mouse

    @wkwv:

    This is a bipartisan issue – both Ds & Rs are for it. My congressional critter is Warren Davidson, asshole supreme & even he is in favor.

  180. 180.

    JayK

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:

    I’m a regular lurker here and live in the Cleveland area. I’ve dedicated countless hours the past year to ending gerrymandering in Ohio and fully support Issue 1! The Fair Districts Fair Elections coalition in Ohio (which includes the League of Women Voters and Common Cause) helped negotiate Issue 1 and it is a good plan.

    Vote for Issue 1, and tell all your Ohio friends and family to do the same! We can win this crucial fight.

  182. 182.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Another Scott: I ordered on 4/14-15 and didn’t receive either a shipping or a delayed shipping email. I only received the first email that my order had been received.

  183. 183.

    cmorenc

    @Adam L Silverman:

    @germy: To all of our legal fleegles: Alright counselors, or as the President would say Councilors, explain to me why you need more than 20 shell companies to manage one’s real estate holdings if one isn’t the mob?

    One legit reason for doing so would be to divvy up your property holdings into several separate corporate entities would be to insulate each entities’ holdings from the liabilities and debts of the others, as well as to potentially insulate Hannity from personal liability for any of them. The corporations own the property, and the properties are managed nominally as corporate business property, and Hannity owns the corporations as shareholder, rather than owning the real estate in his individual name. Then in principal, for transactional purposes, third parties (renters, lessees, potential buyers, etc) nominally deal. with the corporations, not Hannity personally, unless (the big caveat) e.g. a bank lender insists Hannity sign personally as guarantor of a loan made to one of the corporations. Otherwise, so long as sufficient appearances are kept up for the corporations as distinct business entities from each other and from Hannity’s individual dealings, Hannity doesn’t risk losing everything if one or two of them go bad and default.

    Of course, there are other less savory reasons for shell companies, such as playing tax-avoidance games and masking the true ownership of property from being easily discernible without some effort expended digging through county property records and state corporate records and then figuring out how the dots connect. Muddying up the ownership trail can also help facilitate any money laundering involved in the funding for the property purchase.

  188. 188.

    Original Lee

    @Sab: In my limited experience, when they’re at the point where they can’t live alone any more but are still have enough mental capacity to think that they can (sort of a Peter Principle for dementia, I guess), you have to go with what works best. For my grandfather, who didn’t recognize my grandmother any longer and was getting increasingly fed up with “the housekeeper the landlord insisted on hiring,” we had to lie and tell him that the rent had been raised so much that he wouldn’t be able to afford it any more, and that we had found a new place for him. By the end of the week in the Alzheimer’s facility, he had decided he was in the poorhouse and was waiting for my grandmother to join him. I think we dropped the ball then, because we should have prepared him for getting a roommate who was not my grandmother, and we didn’t. He attacked his new roommate and had to be moved into the violent patient wing, but at least he had a single room then. For my father, because he was having significant problems with his balance, we were able to tell him part of the truth, which was that he was too big and heavy for my mother to help him if he fell, so he agreed to go to rehab to get his balance back. He did keep asking when he would be well enough to go home, and for that we had to lie a bit and give him a benchmark, but around the time that it was obvious he would never hit the benchmark, he decided he was in some kind of National Guard hospital where he was being kept in shape for the next big emergency, and he stopped asking to go home.

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