Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Let me file that under fuck it.

The words do not have to be perfect.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

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

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

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

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Breaking, Literally: Cambridge Analytica Skitters Away

Breaking, Literally: Cambridge Analytica Skitters Away

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TIME FOR A STRATEGIC REBRANDING, BOYZ!

Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy that worked for the Trump campaign and had come under attack for its use of personal Facebook data in other elections, announced on Wednesday it would cease operations and declare bankruptcy in the United States and United Kingdom.

The firm said it had lost clients because of revelations in March that it had improperly obtained the personal information of millions of Facebook users. “It is no longer viable to continue operating the business,” Cambridge Analytica said in a statement.

Cambridge Analytica defended its use of Facebook, saying it was “vilified for activities that are not only legal, but also widely accepted as a standard component of online advertising in both the political and commercial arenas.”

The decision by the firm comes as it continues to face potential investigations and sanctions from regulators around the world for charges…

Cambridge Analytica was born of as an American offshoot of London-based SCL Group, whose affiliates had worked in campaigns around the world, including Kenya, Nigeria and India. Initial funding for Cambridge Analytica came from Republican financier Robert Mercer, who invested at least $10 million in the company as it sought to help exclusively GOP candidates across a range of U.S. congressional and state legislative elections beginning in 2014. His daughter Rebekah Mercer was the company’s president for a time. Neither Mercer responded to requests for comment on Wednesday…

Even as it maintained its innocence, Cambridge Analytica acknowledged that the “siege of media coverage has driven away virtually all of the Company’s customers and suppliers.” SCL Elections, its parent, as well as Cambridge Analytica began insolvency proceedings in the UK, and said they would soon start bankruptcy proceedings in the United States.

Reader Interactions

145Comments

  4. 4.

    Roger Moore

    @Raoul:

    Oh, yeah, rebranding. That’ll save democracy.

    Saving democracy is not on their to-do list. Destroying it is.

  5. 5.

    trollhattan

    @Frankensteinbeck:
    Indeed.

    The chair of a UK parliament committee investigating the firm’s activities also raised concerns about Cambridge Analytica and SCL Elections’ move.

    “They are party to very serious investigations and those investigations cannot be impeded by the closure of these companies,” said Damian Collins MP.

    “I think it’s absolutely vital that the closure of these companies is not used as an excuse to try and limit or restrict the ability of the authorities to investigate what they were doing.”

    Earlier in the day, a cyber-security specialist had presented evidence to the UK parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee.

    Chris Vickery linked SCL and Cambridge Analytica to AggregateIQ – a Canadian data analytics firm, which Facebook has also suspended from using its platform.

    He added that “beyond a shadow of a doubt” AggregateIQ had been involved in “some form of collaboration or co-ordination” between various pro-Brexit groups during the UK’s EU referendum campaign.

    AIQ denies ever being part of Cambridge Analytica, its parent company SCL or accessing improperly obtained Facebook data.

    And representatives from Vote Leave and Leave.EU have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

    But the Electoral Commission and Information Commissioner’s Office are conducting their own investigations into the Canadian firm’s operations.
    -BBC

  6. 6.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    Breaking from me: I’m attending the Phillies-Nationals game tonight. Already into my first overpriced beer and preparing to meet some friends at the gate in a while.

  7. 7.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    Cambridge Analytica defended its use of Facebook, saying it was “vilified for activities that are not only legal, but also widely accepted as a standard component of online advertising in both the political and commercial arenas.”

    Even if that were true (I’m not familiar with campaign laws enough to know), that still doesn’t make it right. Justice and the law aren’t often the same thing.

  9. 9.

    oatler.

    We’re all just corpuscles in the bloodstream of The Corporation.
    >beer belch<

  13. 13.

    Elizabelle

    @Gin & Tonic: Lucky puppy. I love Stockholm. Happy jet trails.

    How late is daylight there now? Am hearing it’s light a long time in Germany these days …

  14. 14.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    If this were an ideal world, I’d want each Mercer waterboarded for what they know, followed by a quiet basement trip and anonymous burial. Do it out to about 3 generations, just to be sure.

    They’re even more evil than the Murdochs and the Kochs, who are only interested in money.

  16. 16.

    trollhattan

    Maybe Cole can report back from an event for the convicted not-quite-but-actually mass murderer running for senate. He’s a pistol.

    Don Blankenship, a former coal operator and for a while a resident of a federal penitentiary in connection with a fatal mine explosion, is reportedly struggling in his out-of-the-blue, anti-Establishment campaign to become a U.S. senator from West Virginia. So he’s really losing any inhibitions he might have originally harbored in going after his critics, notably the man whose party caucus he would join if he wins, Mitch McConnell.

    McConnell is reportedly helping to orchestrate a pretty powerful ad offensive against Blankenship. And so the extremely plainspoken candidate is responding with an unusually baroque insult, calling McConnell “Cocaine Mitch” in an ad posted on Facebook:

  19. 19.

    ruemara

    It probably is to limit any asset damages since I doubt Emerdata is named in any investigation. I also doubt the people in charge are named as well.

    Same evil clowns with a shiny new label.

  22. 22.

    MJS

    @Steeplejack (phone): You may want to either take it easy on the beer, or hop a jet for Florida. The team you’ll be seeing tonight is the Pirates. The Phillies are at the Marlins. ; )

  24. 24.

    TenguPhule

    @debbie:

    No self-respecting miner would vote for Blankenship.

    They traded that away when they supported Trump.

  25. 25.

    NotMax

    “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. While we install a new curtain over here.”

  26. 26.

    TenguPhule

    Iowa legislators just passed one of the most restrictive abortion bills in the U.S.

    The state’s “heartbeat” bill, passed by the predominantly Republican legislature, would ban abortion when a fetal heartbeat can be detected — usually around six weeks, before most women know they’re pregnant.

    Breaking at Wapo.

    Here comes the first litmus test of the current SC.

  28. 28.

    Baud

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    Breaking from me: I’m attending the Phillies-Nationals game tonight. Already into my first overpriced beer and preparing to meet some friends at the gate in a while.

    That is breaking news, since the Nats are playing the Pirates and don’t play the Phillies until Friday.

  31. 31.

    Aleta

    @Elizabelle: @Gin & Tonic: The buildings by the water in that long slow twilight. Amazing. In the summer we’d drive out of town to watch the whole sunset. Then drive back, not that far, and the sun would rise before we made it home. Though I was once there in the winter, and it was just brutally raw where we stayed.

  34. 34.

    Baud

    I think the new company should just go ahead and call themselves Ratfuckers, Inc.

  35. 35.

    I'll be Frank

    LLC’s are cheap and easily aborted. The bankruptcy part is annoying.

  36. 36.

    debbie

    Reposting from the dead thread about women’s equality because I didn’t see it being addressed: SHS, though ostensibly a woman, is still a dick.

    Anyone who listened to Terri Gross’s interview with Michelle Wolf yesterday knows that SHS was being dickish the entire evening. Prior to the televised segment, journalism awards were handed out. People stood up and applauded the winners; SHS pointedly did neither. There’s some context for the evening. SHS’s “simmering” wasn’t the result of Wolf’s remarks. Like Pence’s walking out of an earlier DC gathering, this was preplanned. I guarantee it.

  38. 38.

    Elizabelle

    @Aleta: Wow. That’s on the 4 year bucket list. I was there when the sun was setting at about 2:00 p.m. Still magical, whatever the light conditions.

  39. 39.

    scav

    Emerdata. Another moment where French bleeding though is ever so apropos. I read it as Emmerder-data.

  41. 41.

    Bill Arnold

    It should never be referred to as Emerdata. The press should refer to it as “Emerdata (formerly CambridgeAnalytica)”, or when feeling feisty, “”Emerdata (formerly the infamous CambridgeAnalytica alleged to have engaged in …)”

  43. 43.

    NotMax

    WaPo link.

    The Trump administration has chosen to ignore an executive order that requires the White House to issue an annual report on the number of civilians and enemy fighters killed by American counterterrorism strikes.

    The mandate for the report, which was due May 1, was established by former president Barack Obama in 2016 as part of a broader effort to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding drone operations in places such as Yemen, Somalia and Libya. The White House has not formally rescinded the Obama-era executive order but has chosen not to comply with some aspects of it.
    [snip]
    A separate requirement, imposed as part of last year’s defense budget, requires the Pentagon to submit to Congress by May 1 a list of all U.S. military operations that caused civilian deaths. The Pentagon plans to deliver the report to Congress by June 1, or one month behind schedule, a Pentagon spokesman said late Tuesday after the May 1 deadline had expired.

    Former U.S. counterterrorism officials expressed surprise at the Trump administration’s failure to deliver either report on time. “It is pretty remarkable that they would simply ignore an executive order that remains on the books and also a statutory requirement passed by Congress,” said Joshua Geltzer, a visiting law professor at Georgetown University and former senior counterterrorism official in the Obama administration. “That is just bad governance.” Source

  44. 44.

    Bill Arnold

    Jerry Brown Calls EPA Chief ‘Outlaw Pruitt’

    In announcing the latest legal maneuver against the EPA, Brown did something new: applying an insulting nickname to embattled EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, calling him “Outlaw Pruitt.” This ploy will inevitably lead to Brown’s being compared to the master of insults, Pruitt’s boss. But unlike some of Trump’s crude sobriquets for his enemies and critics, Brown’s has a clear embedded message: Pruitt is exceeding his statutory authority under the Clean Air Act to abruptly change regulations and standards, as the Sacramento Bee explains:…

    Well done, Jerry Brown. :-)
    May Mr Pruit’s sleep (continue to?) be disturbed by realistic nightmares, about a new dustbowl in Oklahoma, and much much worse.

  45. 45.

    TenguPhule

    @Baud:

    Maybe they sell absinthe too.

    That’s not a drink, that’s what you use to polish the silver.

  47. 47.

    NotMax

    Dismal would be an understatement.

    The Afghan War Isn’t Being Won, Says New Pentagon Audit

    A new summary of the country’s troubles by a special inspector general doesn’t paint an optimistic picture. Source</a.

  48. 48.

    TenguPhule

    Ige asks Trump to declare federal disaster after April floods damage 532 homes

    Gov. David Ige today asked Donald Trump to declare a major disaster for Hawaii following last month’s flooding and landslides that destroyed — or caused major damage — to more than 115 of homes on Kauai and Oahu.

    In all, 532 homes on Oahu and Kauai were “affected” by the storm from April 13-16, according to Hawaii Emergency Management Agency estimates released today. HI-EMA did not provide cost estimates for the amount of overall damage, but said that damage to public properties added up to more than $19.7 million. There are still no estimates for how many businesses were damaged or destroyed.

    “This disaster is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the state and affected county governments. Federal assistance is necessary,” Ige said in a statement.

    A damage assessment conducted between April 22 and April 27 found that 532 homes were affected by the flooding and landslides, HI-EMA said. Five of the structures are “second homes.”

    Would anyone like to wager on the chances of Trump obliging the Democratic governor of a Democratic state that will never ever vote for him?

  49. 49.

    TenguPhule

    @NotMax:

    The Afghan War Isn’t Being Won, Says New Pentagon Audit

    What, did they just copy and paste from the last one? And the one before that? //

  50. 50.

    TenguPhule

    @NotMax:

    “It is pretty remarkable that they would simply ignore an executive order that remains on the books and also a statutory requirement passed by Congress,” said Joshua Geltzer

    Has he not been paying any attention at all to the last 15 months?

  52. 52.

    Raoul

    @Roger Moore: Yup, I’m crystal clear on that. My cynicism was because CA should be pounded into the ground and the shards thrown into a volcano. Rebranding, and having Mercers as board members means the evil just got rearranged.

  53. 53.

    Baud

    @raven: I recently watched a good episode of Seal Team where they were in Afghanistan. May never have aired if we had left.

  54. 54.

    TenguPhule

    Fuck it. Burn it down. Burn it all down.

    House Republicans nominate Donald Trump for Nobel peace prize

    Eighteen House Republicans have nominated Donald Trump for the 2019 Nobel peace prize.

    In a letter spearheaded by the Indiana Republican Luke Messer and sent to the Norwegian Nobel committee, the lawmakers claim that Trump should “receive the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his work to end the Korean War, denuclearize the Korean peninsula and bring peace to the region”.

  55. 55.

    raven

    @Baud: Seals, aren’t they Navy? Check the map and tell me where there is water in Afghanistan.

  57. 57.

    TenguPhule


    Abortion ban: Iowa legislature passes nation’s most restrictive bill

    Non-paywall link

    Iowa’s Republican-controlled legislature has passed the most restrictive abortion ban in the United States, outlawing the procedure after a fetal heartbeat is detected, often at six weeks and before a woman realizes she is pregnant.

    The senate voted 29-17 to pass the House of Representatives-approved bill, according to the legislature’s online voting tallies. The bill now goes to the Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, an abortion opponent, who has not said publicly whether she will sign it into law.

    The legislation is aimed at triggering a challenge to Roe v Wade, the US supreme court’s 1973 landmark decision which established that women have a constitutional right to an abortion, activists on both sides of the issue said.

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    @raven

    Reminded of when Idi Amin raised a ruckus by claiming Great Britain was about to launch a naval invasion of Uganda, any day now.

    When someone publicly raised the point that Uganda is a land-locked country, Amin’s response was (paraphrasing from memory), “Just goes to show how stupid the British are.”

  63. 63.

    danielx

    Read about Cambridge Analytica shutting down earlier and my first thought was “big whoop, they’ll be doing business under another name in a week”.

  67. 67.

    Aleta

    From the WaPo article linked by Baud at 61:

    Shah Marai was one of nine journalists lost in a second blast that targeted those first at the scene.

    Marai, a veteran photographer who had been working in his home country for 22 years, started at AFP as a driver. Those 22 years included 17 years of war, starting in 2001.

    The father of six had just celebrated the birth of his first daughter, Khadija, 15 days before his death.

    “He was a gentle being, always smiling, always in a good mood. He was a tall man full of thoughtfulness,” said Polka’s director of photography, Dimitri Beck, who met Marai in Afghanistan in the early 2000s. “He was a great team leader. Always calm and serene, very professional. He was a great photographer in a country where news photography was a new thing at that time. His loss is a great one for the Afghan press. This attack is representative of the state of freedom in general and press freedom in particular in Afghanistan.”

  69. 69.

    Gravenstone

    @TenguPhule: To which the Nobel committee will politely accept the nomination paperwork, close the office door, have a good laugh then shred and burn it.

  70. 70.

    gene108

    @debbie:

    Set the narrative early and often. Reality will follow.

    Works for conservatives, they have been doing it for decades.

  71. 71.

    efgoldman

    @Gravenstone:

    the Nobel committee will politely accept the nomination paperwork, close the office door, have a good laugh

    How do you say “Christ, what an asshole” in Norwegian?

  72. 72.

    mad citizen

    @TenguPhule: How to be tactful about this (probably can’t)–the Indiana primary is next Tuesday and Messer of one of three R’s running, all of whom are in a contest to see who can wrap their lips the tightest around you know who/what. Messer just jumped into the lead.

    I early voted last Saturday. There are five D’s running for my district (Sen. Donnelly is not opposed); and for my County Council there were 8 running for 7 slots. I think those were the only real choices on the D side.

  75. 75.

    gene108

    @NotMax:

    Where has Joshua Geltzer been the last 35 years?

    Republicans have been ignoring laws they don’t like for decades. If they followed the law Iran-Contra would not have been a thing, we would not have tortured prisoners 15 years ago, and ignoring the law is what Trump has done his whole life.

    What an idiot.

  78. 78.

    jl

    Huh, looks like after Cobb resigned to reduce risk of getting sanctioned or worse if he goes in direction Trump wants (if I am reading between the lines correctly) the WH has retroactively decided that he is a loser and was fired for generally sucking at everything. I think I’ve seen that before.

  80. 80.

    efgoldman

    @jl:

    the WH has retroactively decided that he is a loser and was fired for generally sucking

    I can’t believe the new guy (who defended Bill Clinton) didn’t get a MONSTER retainer up front. Do you think Cobb or Dowd ever got paid a nickel?

  81. 81.

    NotMax

    (Does best Tevye impression.)

    On the one hand Maddow and O’Donnell on MSNBC, on the other hand the Maisie fest on TCM.

    Decisions, decisions.

  84. 84.

    danielx

    @mad citizen:

    Commentary in the local paper today about how apparently everybody in the world besides the three candidates is a liberal.

    The list of liberals has ranged from quarterback Colin Kaepernick to Democratic party bosses to members of the media. No surprise there. But these three Republican candidates have stretched the definition of liberal so far that it’s hard to find many people who don’t fit it.

    I know you are but what am I….lather, rinse, repeat.

    ETA: all three are gold plated assholes, not that this comes as any surprise to anyone. Joe Donnelly is nobody’s idea of a perfect Democratic senator, but nobody who would be is ever going to be elected as senator in this benighted state. Evan Bayh redux…

  85. 85.

    jl

    @efgoldman: Another reading between the lines of Cobb’s statements is that he decided to leave before he was only employable by mob bosses who were ready to smoke the local DA if things didn’t always go their way.

  87. 87.

    mad citizen

    I just replied to two trumpov tweets, a first for me. Why did the small chance he could read it feel so good? In one I asked him if he is not reading the daily briefs, why are they still producing them?

  89. 89.

    J R in WV

    @TenguPhule:

    You know the Norwegian committee in charge of approving Nobel Peace Prize awards won’t listen to a committee of self-appointed Republican congress members, right?

  90. 90.

    efgoldman

    @J R in WV:

    the Norwegian committee in charge of approving Nobel Peace Prize awards won’t listen to a committee of self-appointed Republican congress members

    They’ll nod politely and mock them in Norwegian.

  91. 91.

    Ruckus

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Murdochs and the Kochs, who are only interested in money.

    That is not even close. They are interested in money yes, but a lot of that interest is in what they can do with it. Much of which is not healthy for large groups of people, in one way or another.

  93. 93.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @TenguPhule: I could write a letter to the committee nominating Baud for the fucking award. It would get the same consideration. Trump actually has a better chance. Odds are that the Norskis believe that he would wear pants. With Baud….?

  94. 94.

    mad citizen

    @danielx: Yes, Donnelly doesn’t excite me–though I do like him much better than Evan Bayh–but will vote for him and hope he wins.

  95. 95.

    Ruckus

    @NotMax:

    “That is just bad governance.”

    Well fucking duh, ya think it might be?
    I wonder if it’s because they had no fucking clue, because who issued the executive order, no one in the WH knows how to make it happen, no one in the WH knows who is supposed to know who knows how to make it happen, etc, etc.

  96. 96.

    Elizabelle

    I want to take a moment and say how sad I am about the C-130 crash this afternoon, just after takeoff from Savannah. Owned by the Puerto Rico National Guard; possibly 9 on board. Somehow even sadder: it was on its final scheduled military flight. Was on its way to somewhere in Arizona, where it was to be decommissioned. Had been used for weather reconnaissance over the years; also a lot of work with transport and relief after the hurricane.

    As if Puerto Ricans are not struggling enough this year, this news is so sad. Prayers for the families and communities.

    Savannah local paper coverage: 9 killed in Port Wentworth military plane crash

    CNN has stories too.

  101. 101.

    Patricia Kayden

    @NotMax: Funny that you don’t hear much about drones after President Obama left office. Used to be one of the excuses to hate him, according to some on the left.

  103. 103.

    MomSense

    Just watched the new John Mullaney special on Netflix. It’s very funny and his way of explaining our current political situation is really clever.

  108. 108.

    TenguPhule

    @J R in WV:

    You know the Norwegian committee in charge of approving Nobel Peace Prize awards won’t listen to a committee of self-appointed Republican congress members, right?

    Who can tell these days?

  110. 110.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Things are going about as you might expect with Giuliani in charge.

  112. 112.

    Elizabelle

    @raven: I saw that footage. Impressed with the coolness and empathy of those watching.

    And you have been on a C-130. Way cool.

    I think this one was 60 years old, or older? I’d guessed they were Viet Nam era vintage … PR National Guard commander quoted that they have the oldest planes.

    I wondered if this one might have been destined for one of the AZ flight museums, Pima maybe??

  115. 115.

    WaterGirl

    @MomSense: I just searched on his name in Netflix and it brought up dozens of comedians, but nothing more recent than 2015 for him in particular. Any tips on what it is actually called so I can try again?

    edit: never mind. I just googled his name and netflix and it came up with kid gorgeous. Will watch it later.

  116. 116.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @TenguPhule: The Norwegians dealt with their fascists in 1945. They lived it.

    On another note, I want to reiterate that I side with the people who don’t look for the cloud around every silver lining. I get that some of you are scared of what may happen. I am too. Jebus, who wouldn’t be? If you purely focus on the negative, you will only see that. And the lurkers who read what we write will only see the negative. Fuck if I know if our comments influence them, but, as a former soldier, predicting disaster does fuck all for morale.

  119. 119.

    Elizabelle

    @Omnes Omnibus: Thank you. Agree with you. Deer in the headlights is not a good look here.

    Don’t demoralize those who are hanging on by you know not how slender a thread of hope.

    Mueller and DOJ and a lot of the dreaded government bureaucrats are way smarter than Trump and his hooligans; we have helpers in the shadows we do not see.

    Further, I’d guess the Supreme Court reads its share of history. They may get some crucial cases before them; history will be watching them, too. Not everyone is as awful a nihilist and Trump and his core cronies.

  120. 120.

    Jeffro

    @Cheryl Rofer: There was “tremendous pressure” on Trumpov simply because…Comey wouldn’t tell him he wasn’t a target of the investigation? And so Trumpov had no other way, no other tools in the toolbox, no other arms in the arsenal…except to fire Comey? And then go on live TV and admit he did it because Comey wouldn’t end the investigation?

    Rudy, go ahead, pull the other one. I’ll wait.

  123. 123.

    J R in WV

    @Elizabelle:

    There’s a squadron of C-130s based here in CRW, we see them flying often to keep everyone’s hours in the air up for payroll purposes, and to have an active log-book. They do touch-and-goes when there isn’t a commercial flight active coming in or heading out.

    CRW airport is three mountain tops pushed into the valley between them to create a large flat spot. But it’s still a mountain top, and so is more like a carrier landing than most airports. Except holding still, as opposed to bobbing up and down and trying to hold a steady course in a running sea.

    Pilots need to be very familiar with it to land here in the dark or in stormy weather.

    That crash in Savannah, that was pretty bad, like a load shifted or something, then straight down. Like that big cargo plane that crashed on takeoff in Afganistan some time back… when the cargo slid back, causing a stall that wasn’t recoverable.

  125. 125.

    WaterGirl

    @zhena gogolia: Thanks! I just pulled it up and left it open in a tab so I can listen to it later tonight when I’m too tired to watch TV.

  126. 126.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Elizabelle: Cynicism and learned helplessness are powerful drugs. Lots of people are good and decent. Let’s get them to the polls. In states like mine, let’s help people get the ID that they need. We can have a wave this November if we work for it.

  128. 128.

    Elizabelle

    @J R in WV: Very interesting re the CRW airport. I am impressed by all the safe flights in and out of treacherous airports that we take for granted, military and civilian.

    I never heard what might have caused that terrible crash (Mississippi?) that killed 15 Marines and a sailor.

  129. 129.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Elizabelle: I have a set of wings saying I did it. One exit from a C-141, you simply walk out of those. I prefer actually jumping.

  132. 132.

    Amir Khalid

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    That baffles me. Giuliani was a top federal prosecutor — per Wikipedia, he was US Attorney for SDNY. My education in American criminal law came via a TV set, and even I know that there is not a right to know if one is being investigated; that a prosecutor may well have good reason in a particular situation not to tell a person that.

  133. 133.

    SgrAstar

    @J R in WV: when I was in grad school, one of my committee members showed me the letter he received from the Nobel Prize committee, asking him to recommend a collaborator who was obviously on the NP- Physics short list. It was really cool, and the stationery was incredible. The process: solemn, serious. Yay science! I know that the science prizes are not awarded in the same process as the Peace Prizes…but there is a real depth of purpose there. The repulsive preznit does. not. stand. a. chance.

  135. 135.

    efgoldman

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    as a former soldier, predicting disaster does fuck all for morale.

    As I wrote late last nite, the RWNJ do not have magickal powers to cloud men’s minds. STOP COWERING

  137. 137.

    Mnemosyne

    @zhena gogolia:

    Keaton is having one of those days where he pukes on everything, but is otherwise fine. Annie is our kitty who had to get the lion cut because her coat got really matted when her pemphigus flared up. She’s feeling pretty good, except that the third cat (Charlotte) keeps trying to corner her and hiss at her. I think Charlotte is going to have to be locked back up in the bedroom until G gets home from work and can help me supervise them.

  139. 139.

    Procopius

    @Baud: Why wouldn’t it have aired? Have you forgotten it’s fiction? Do you realize we can still have episodes about Vietnam? You do understand that “24” was fiction, too, right? Dick Cheney didn’t.

  144. 144.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @MJS, @Baud:

    Yeah, Pirates. I had no idea who was playing and went by the e-mail sent to me by the less baseball-centric person in the couple that invited me. But it was a good game, and the Nats got a win.

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