HARRIS
LEAHY
BOOKER
DURBIN
Here’s a live feed:
Sen Patrick Leahy to Judge Brett Kavanaugh, "Sir, I was born at night, but not last night." This hearing has gone off the rails.
— Rodrick Gonzalez (@B_RODcastLive) September 6, 2018
Brett Kavanaugh watching Senator Kamala Harris slowly remove each of her earrings and place them on the bench in front of her, as she lets him know she has the receipts for the secret meeting he doesn't want to talk about. pic.twitter.com/Bq7A20Ru2p
— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) September 6, 2018
Open thread
Mike in DC
Sen. Harris is to be commended for doing the Lord’s work here.
yam
She’s gonna make him recuse himself from protecting Trump. Trump gonna kick his ass to the curb…
danielx
Preparing to open an extremely large can of whoop ass….
cmorenc
If Kavanaugh is confirmed, what he ought to do and what he can do without effective repercussion as a SCOTUS member (beyond outraged criticism from Democrats, but did that ever stop Scalia or Thomas?) are two very distinctly different things. THAT SAID, consider that Kavanaugh might turn out to be canny enough to vote against Trump in some key matters regarding Mueller, precisely in order to shore up his standing to vote to enact a radical-right 5-4 agenda overturning precedents going all the way back to the New Deal.
Soprano2
Wow, Corey Booker is my hero today!!! More of that, please – Republicans aren’t playing by any of the rules anymore, why should Democrats?
Calouste
@yam: Yep. The shitgibbon doesn’t care about all that other stuff, just about his own survival. Most likely though, Kavanaugh will just perjured himself again and say he will recluse himself, with no intention of actually doing so. Then someone has to convince the paranoid narcissist that that is what is actually going to happen, a task that got a whole lot harder in the last two days.
Humdog
I read Booker was threatening to release some of the “committee confidential” documents and risk being expelled from the Senate. Cornyn was reading aloud the penalty of releasing it and several Dems spoke up to say they were considering risking it, too.
But then Hirono went and released some clearly marked committee confidential regarding Kavanaugh and discrimination against Hawaiians. There was nothing legitimately confidential about what she released, just slightly damaging to the nominee.
So, will we see Democrats removed from office for exposing Rs misusing the confidential classification?
Still not saving nyms for commenting? Dang
RedDirtGirl
Kavan-nope looks a little green around the gills. It’s a good look on him.
Julia Grey
I love that gesture. It will CERTAINLY not be lost on the “backbone” of our party, black women!
The Moar You Know
If she takes off her shoes that slightly cleaned-up edition of Steve Bannon better run for his motherfucking life.
Elizabelle
The only problem with watching the hearings is having to watch … Kavanaugh.
I hope he flames out and the nomination gets pulled. A girl can hope.
Cheryl Rofer
Booker: BRING IT!
debbie
@yam:
Yep, i sure hope so! Go get ’em, Kamala!
I am so enjoying the GOP get its just desserts. Cheating, underhanded shit ain’t just for the Conservatives!
Betty Cracker
Saw speculation on Twitter that the person Harris is referring to — the person with whom Kavanaugh allegedly discussed the Mueller probe — is none other than Joe Lieberman, who apparently works at that firm.
TaMara (HFG)
@Cheryl Rofer:
Me right now:
Mnemosyne
The one thing I find frustrating about this entire hearing process is that the Democrats are basically setting up giant flashing neon signs for the MSM that say “DIG HERE!!!” and as far as I can tell, not a single MSM reporter is interested in following those leads. What the fuck do they need, an engraved invitation?!?
SiubhanDuinne
Should have posted this yesterday, but didn’t write it until this morning. And since TaMara said it’s an open thread….
hueyplong
Harris and Booker have been making me proud today. The “me too” when Booker did his thing was encouraging as well.
It’s fun to see what putting up an actual fight can do for morale. There should be a greater than 50% audience this fall for “I’m sick of this shit.”
Mnemosyne
@Humdog:
Removing a Senator from office requires a 2/3rds majority, and Republicans don’t hold 2/3rds of the seats.
It’s a bluff, and everyone sitting on that committee knows it. Including Grassley.
TaMara (HFG)
Gelfling 545
@Cheryl Rofer: As people have noted it’s unlikely Booker and the others would be expelled but still, it’s not impossible. That they will risk it is a very good indicator of just how great the danger is.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: Fabulous! Well done, S. Diane!
kindness
Since we’ve now seen proof from Kavanaugh’s own e-mails that he lied to the Senate I can not fathom him being advanced to the full Senate. He will though. I pray there are reasoned Republicans willing to vote against him. Yea, I’m a dumb ass that way. Still we only need 2 Republicans.
Fair Economist
@SiubhanDuinne: OUTSTANDING! When does it come out on iTunes?
Elizabelle
@kindness: I think we can get them. These Senators are not as “bulletproof” as they think, and Kavanaugh is a horrible nominee.
No need to rush through the nominee of a TOTUS whose staff hides paperwork from him.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: Needs to be frontpaged at cocktail hour.
patroclus
So he wasn’t involved in the torture policy, but he was involved in the McCain Amendment signing statement and the Hamdi decision response? I’m not sure I see the distinction. Basically, he engaged in sophistry at the 2006 hearing, which, substantively, amounted to a lie.
Cheryl Rofer
@Gelfling 545: The more senators stand behind Booker, the unlikelier it is.
Booker has been very quiet for some time. I have hoped that it is because he was waiting for an appropriate moment to speak out. Speaking out too soon can be a mistake – you get written off as a grandstander, and the more you say, the more likely you are to make a misstep. Remaining quiet gives more force to what you say when you do speak out.
Looks like he’s decided that this is the appropriate moment. The president is weakened, and the Democrats have the goods on Kavanaugh and the corrupt Republican process.
Another Scott
@Mnemosyne: +1
Cheers,
Scott.
Humdog
@Mnemosyne: Huh, a 2/3 majority requirement in the Senate that actually works for us, for a change? Thanks for the info.
Roger Moore
It’s really too bad the minority on the committee can’t refer him for prosecution for perjury. He really ought to be impeached, convicted, disbarred, and sent to prison for such blatant lying during his confirmation hearing.
debit
Hey, where are all the ratfuckers who were here the last few days wailing and screaming about how Democrats aren’t fighting? It’s a puzzler.
debit
@SiubhanDuinne: Well done!!
JPL
So anything happen during this morning’s hearing? I leave for a few hours and return to discover that Booker showed dems how to fight back. Wow
OT ICE is requesting voting records and ballots from North Carolina. Where’s an old fashion IBM counting machine when you need one. (sick joke I know)
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article217846725.html
O. Felix Culpa
I’m delighted that the Democratic Senators have come out swinging, having recognized both the danger of Kavanaugh and the demise of normal order, thanks to the GOP. And I am terribly sad that our governance has come to this. We have to do a better job of cleansing and regrouping than the post-Civil War era.
Elizabelle
@Cheryl Rofer: That was a good clip. Sounded like Senator Blumenthal’s response was going to be on point too. So they cut it.
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: Brava!
Another Scott
@Fair Economist: + Eleventy.
Fabulous job, Subaru Diane!!
Cheers,
Scott.
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: Elizabelle is correct that it needs to be front paged during cocktail hour.
Although cocktail hour keeps changing these days.
Steeplejack (phone)
@SiubhanDuinne:
Excellent!
To the tune of “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida,” right?
Fair Economist
Oh looky! Documented evidence of Kavanaugh perjuring himself.
jacy
@JPL:
As long as it’s perpetual Infrastructure week, it’ll be perpetual cocktail hour ???
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Tire swing. And it’s shut down.
The Moar You Know
@JPL: THAT is a problem. They have zero need for such records, but the aim is quite obvious.
On the other hand, I think they’re taking the talk of Dems disbanding their Gestapo Part II organization seriously. Which is good. I’m dead serious about that.
Omnes Omnibus
@JPL: Not to be nitpicky, but Booker didn’t show Dems how to fight back. He simply took advantage of an opportunity. Dems are wimps is a narrative that annoys me.
Jeffro
@TaMara (HFG): Coons is the bomb. I mean, he’s boring, but he is tenacious, he’s smart, and he gets right to the heart of the BS they’re trying to pull here.
trollhattan
@kindness:
I’m getting whiffs of Harriet Miers here. Can some D senator ask, “Judge, do you find President George W. Bush dreamy, and if so, how dreamy?”
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: It’s swathed in mourning colors this week.
I rather like the idea of all the media careerists suddenly figuring out they cannot safely offer up the Republican framing on everything. Because it’s rotted through.
tobie
The GOP grumbled when Feinstein released Glenn Simpson’s testimony to the public, but did nothing in the end. They’ll grumble now and hit all the news shows with deep concerns about the unbecoming conduct of Democratic Senators but won’t be able to do much else.
Another Scott
@Steeplejack (phone): Doris Day would like a word…
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
Good christ I need to see the video of my senator preparing to kick ass.
@Mnemosyne: My experience is that good political reporters toil away completely removed from everyone’s view until they drop the bomb. Have faith – Trump has created a new generation of investigative reporters and I delight seeing them do their thing. (I could watch Natasha Bertrand and Katie Tur all day.)
Lee
On another website someone made this comment: “Welp it looks like Gillibrand is going to have to Franken Booker”
I got a chuckle from that.
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: I was thinking yesterday how we would likely be safer with Harriet Miers in place on the USSC.
The conservatards rebelled (albeit, she is not one of the great legal minds, but neither are Kennedy, Gorsuch, now Kava -whoever) — and we got Scalito, who is absolutely dreadful. Although reliably conservative.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
That’s a great image–tire swing with red, white and blue bunting and a little side table with a bottle of Canadian Club.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle: @Fair Economist: @debit: @Betty Cracker: @and everyone else who said nice things:
Thanks, all, for kind words!
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Co-signed. The odds that the Democrats did not sit down and have multiple strategy meetings where they discussed who would bring up which questions when and who would say X or Y are pretty much nil.
It ain’t a coincidence that the women and minorities on the committee are getting the best questions and the best grandstands to climb up on. The Democrats planned it that way.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
They demand a McCain royal spread of coffee, donuts and condemnation of Democrats.
pluky
@Julia Grey: oh yeah. now if she turns to Sen Hirono with a “girl, hold my gold” request Kavanaugh better run before things get real!
TenguPhule
@tobie:
Things have changed.
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: You’re so much more patriotic than I am. I’m seeing that swing draped in black or grey, with a sad, desiccated little cactus at the side.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: It sucked.*
*Someone has to do it.
Elizabelle
Nancy Pelosi is on the cover of Time magazine this week! The Persistence of Nancy Pelosi.
Karen Tumulty in the WaPost:
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
Hope you’re able to contain yourself and not compromise your speed of recovery, what with these hearings and all. I don’t know that I could do it!
Martin
@Mnemosyne: Absolutely. There’s nothing procedural Democrats can do to stop Kavanaughs confirmation, but they can use the occasion to motivate voters and signal their priorities. They’re doing a great job with that. I still expect him to be confirmed because Republicans are desperate here, the question is really how big a price are they going to pay for it.
tobie
Is anyone here scratching their heads wondering why Kennedy was willing to sacrifice whatever credibility he had for Kavanaugh? He’s had hundreds of clerks over the years, some of whom must be extraordinarily talented. This guy just seems so run of the mill. I hope a few young journalists dig into the relationship between Trump, the Russians, and Kennedy’s son at Deutsche Bank. There’s something fishy here.
Elizabelle
@Martin: I am just hoping Kavanaugh steps into something and the vote is delayed. Delay is good.
Is he sailing past that $200,000 credit card debt that was mysteriously paid? Is that still a thing?
Elizabelle
@tobie: Agreed. Journalists and maybe Team Mueller should be all over that. Deutsche Bank as a source of Trump financing. Nothing to see here. Not.
JPL
@The Moar You Know: When I read that , first instinct was to say, they can’t do that. Is that legal?
elliott.gorelick
Kavanaugh can be referred to the Bar for ethical violations by anyone. It’s a state investigation and not a federal so I bet he will be disbarred or censured.
Lee
@Elizabelle: That issue signal’s ‘Russian influence’ the most.
Edmund Dantes
They are nailing him on multiple perjuries, and none of it will matter unless two GOPers suddenly develop a spine or conscious.
Roger Moore
@tobie:
You should check out Josh Marshall’s comments on Kavanaugh. Marshall describes him as having been “raised in a test tube” to be a Supreme Court justice. Groups like the Federalist Society have been building what amounts to an incubator for Republican maximalist judges, and Kavanaugh is the first candidate to have spent his entire career within that system. He’s been groomed for this at least as far back as law school, and, since he comes from Republican DC privilege, very likely since his childhood.
Elizabelle
@Roger Moore: Yes. He was at that bullet-riddled high school, Georgetown Prep. He knows DC violence. He told us all so, yesterday.
Raised in a test tube is right. That hasn’t worked out real well for the Catholic Church either.
Elizabelle
(And yes, Catholics are overrepresented on the Supreme Court. Interesting factoid.)
geg6
@Martin:
I’m with you on Natasha Bertrand. But Katie Tur sucks donkey balls. She’s almost as stupid and insipid as Casey Hunt.
sdhays
@Edmund Dantes: Actually, we need 3 now, don’t we? With McCain no longer no voting.
TenguPhule
Oh for fucks sake, they’re back to stealing children from their parents again.
tobie
@Roger Moore: I could see how he is a test tube baby for the right. The problem is he’s operated in an ideological incubator for so long that he’s not used to being challenged. He comes off as a kiss-ass when answering Republican senator’s questions, and a deceitful and wimpy weasel when facing Kamala Harris. I expected John Roberts’s level of polish and charm at this hearing. That’s not what we’ve gotten.
Leto
@Humdog: @Mnemosyne: : Don’t worry, Yurtle is busy changing the rules to a simple majority vote. /s
Yutsano
@TaMara (HFG): “Hey, where’s Perry?”
:-)
The Moar You Know
@JPL: As with everything else with these goddamn people, I don’t think it is explicitly illegal. Not that such a thing would stop ICE, who show zero regard for laws and the courts.
Martin
@elliott.gorelick: In theory. Members of the state bars are not political idiots. Disbarring a USSC nominee is not something you do lightly.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Elizabelle: Hehehe the Time is dog piling on Trump with this one; Spanky is so desperate to get his face on the cover of Time, instead, it’s Nancy Pelosi. Ah the words of tear stained tweets.
Roger Moore
@sdhays:
Nope, only 2. The Senate is split 51-49 after Doug Jones’s victory in AL.
Roger Moore
@tobie:
Apparently the right wing incubator doesn’t include all the training it really requires. Oopsie!
sdhays
@Roger Moore: Ah, right you are. I had gotten mixed up thinking we were down an extra vote before his win. So there is still at least a path on paper to defeating this travesty.
Elizabelle
Whoah. The WaPost really knocks the stuffing out of Democrats WRT the confidential documents. Get a look at this:
What’s the timing on this one? Burck miraculously cleared the documents once it became clear the Democrats would use them? And they should not have been classified “confidential”, but now he gets to say “histrionics?
I don’t like the WaPost acting like this is theatre, only.
Gelfling 545
@pluky: I believe this is as much of the “real” as he has ever encountered in his lifetime. Let it be a lesson to him.
Mnemosyne
@debbie:
Fortunately, I naturally have very low blood pressure, so reading about this stuff only boosts me to the high end of normal. ? Plus the magic of the internet means I can follow it while laying down with an ice pack on my knee, so all is well.
TaMara (HFG)
GxB
@Roger Moore:
Let us put him over the ol’ Bunsen burner without a boiling chip and see what happens.
Leto
@TaMara (HFG): And here come the hammers. Pound away Senators, pound away!
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: Glad to hear your recovery is coming along well.
Are you getting some time in for recreational reading too? (I guess BJuice is that, but, I mean, actual print books …)
Annie
@Elizabelle:
AFAIK it’s fallen off the radar and I don’t know why. I’ve been a baseball fan since 1965 and I did not believe he spent that much buying baseball tickets. I still want to know what it was really for.
JPL
@TaMara (HFG): He lied about involvement with the Pryor nomination, he lied about Miranda documents, and he lied about involvement with John Yoo. Will Collins, Flake and Sasse say well that’s unfortunate.
Of course he couldn’t remember why he used racial spoils system in an oped piece.
Calouste
@Leto: I like that the Democrats are focusing on two issues:
1) He is a partisan hack.
2) He lies. A lot.
Any questions about why they didn’t focus on his actual opinions can be brushed aside by referring to point two. “The guy lies so much, how can you trust anything he says?”
Manyakitty
@Betty Cracker: Whoa. That could slow his Joementum.
trollhattan
Are there meaningful repercussions for lying before the senate? Is he under oath? Can he run around puttin pubic hairs on their Cokes and get confirmed anyway?
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Randy Rainbow’s day job is in no jeopardy!
Leto
@Annie: Which market was he buying them for, how many were there, and what level seat were they (outfield, 1st base line, VIP Skybox, etc…)?
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
I have a bunch queued up on my Kindle, plus a whole stack of paper books, but I haven’t started them yet. I actually have a project I promised to help with for my RWA chapter that I haven’t done yet, so I have to get my butt in gear and do that before I get to start reading.
I’m a very fast reader and tend to read genre fiction, so I could easily read 10 or 12 books between now and when I go back to work, so I’m not worried that I won’t have time to read.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: That’s good. I inhale Michael Connelly books. Genre is fun.
JPL
@Calouste: He lied under oath and that used to be disqualifying. If Harris has proof of discussions about the Mueller investigation, he will have to recluse himself. Of course, he could lie about that also.
scott (the other one)
@tobie: Yes. At the time I wondered if Russia had something on him. Now, between that and Kavanaugh’s debt, I’m nearly sure they’re both compromised.
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
Glad you’re coping!
Annie
@Leto:
I don’t know if any of this was ever brought out — a newspaper (the Post I think) reported his financial disclosure showed $200K in credit card debt across 3 cards, the White House said it was for baseball tickets, and that was that.
I’ve been in season ticket groups, and when I picked up my tickets from the purchaser, I paid for them (or I didn’t get the tickets!). So Kavanaugh should have been able to pay down that part of his card debt.
Annie
@Martin:
At least in California there’s also a long process. The State Bar files a charging document, the accused attorney files a response, then there’s a hearing, then a decision. It takes a while.
Brachiator
Jason Bateman should portray Brett Kavanaugh in the movie about the Trump Administration.
germy
@Elizabelle: So Grassley threatens Booker because he releases emails that were already cleared for release?
Martin
@Annie:
Yes, but you’ve got to remember that are just a simple farmer. A person of the land. The common clay of the new West. A nobody. You’re not a big important white male that is allowed to fail in the most spectacular of ways provided that you have the inside track to being able to regulate lady parts. A person like that is too valuable to be bothered with paying their $200 large debts. That’s why we’ve created this entirely practical system whereby the billionaires that want to regulate lady parts, but aren’t able to as part of their job can pay off the completely implausible season ticket debts of those who can. It’s called redistribution of wealth, and it’s an important progressive concept.
germy
Who was the mole?
Did they ever find out?
germy
rawstory headline:
Elizabelle
@germy: It is … curious.
burnspbesq
Who was Kavanaugh talking to at the Kasowitz firm? Well, Kasowitz himself represented Trump and the Trump Organization for many years.
Roger Moore
@Leto:
I took a quick look, and you could get to $200K pretty quickly. I checked for a midweek game, and the most expensive seats in the house were over $400 each. The same seat for a weekend game against a key opponent could be twice that. There are some discounts for getting a season ticked package, but those expensive seats could run $20K+ for a full 81 game season ticked package. Multiply by 10 seats, and you can get to $200K.
Of course that’s something that could be checked. Somebody could talk to the team and see if Kavanaugh is a season ticket holder and if so where his seats are in the park. If he were getting expensive seats right behind home plate, you could look for his mug on TV, and maybe even see who he was sitting with. I hope some enterprising reporter is doing this.
Raoul
@tobie: What is unbecoming is treating documents that are ‘committee confidential’ ONLY because they contain damaging information, not because they reveal any necessary secrets of government or protect other parties.
What the GOP has done in this mass-burial of a paper trail is shocking. And these days, I don’t shock easily.
Raoul
@JPL: One of the questions for this group: If this slimy GOP operative gets thru the nom process (and I think he will, because the crack team at the Orange Rage HQ has no backup nominee), can Roberts basically force Kav to recuse? Is there leverage, or only norms and opprobrium, which are quite obviously useless.
Martin
@burnspbesq: I’m going with Lieberman.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Elizabelle:
Just another indication of how screwy this process is. If these papers had been cleared in a timely fashion, super genius chairman Grassley should have been aware of it. Also, “cleared earlier Thursday morning”? WTF? That’s not even time enough to get them, much less read them, before the hearing. Fuck you, Bill Burck.
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack (phone): That’s my sense, re the timing.
danielx
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’d ask you to marry me but I’m already attached.
TenguPhule
@Raoul:
No. Recusal is dependent on the honor of the justice involved.
tobie
@Steeplejack (phone): This is called rewriting history after the fact. Neither Cornyn nor Grassley were aware the material was cleared for release this morning because it wasn’t cleared for release this morning. They decided at lunch to go with this line.
tobie
@Raoul: Agree wholeheartedly. The scandal is that these documents were declared confidential to being with.
Elizabelle
@tobie: And the WaPost reporters stenographed it, scolding Democrats. Thanks, WaPost!
Haroldo
@SiubhanDuinne: Sly and the Family Stone’s version of this is stellar. Thanks for the update – it’s stellar, too.
NobodySpecial
“Mr. Kavanaugh, is it your belief that perjurers should sit on the highest court in the land? And if not, when do you withdraw your nomination?”
Yutsano
@Martin: ¿Por que no los dos?
patroclus
It’s a bad sign that Flake is wussing out and not asking tough questions.
ARoomWithAMoose
@TaMara (HFG): These are documents from 2003 when the congressional Dems were still using the IT system provided by and run by the non-partisan congressional IT staff. If you’re old enough you’ll remember the Dems on the judiciary committee constantly being pantsed in this era during committee hearings when objecting to judicial nominees. If I remember the story correctly that IT system was also used by both parties on that committee to share documents for stuff to be discussed in committee (anyone on the committee had access to parts of it), one of the IT guys on the GOP side discovered the ACLs on various shares were set up wrong, and was providing the internal DEM talking points/questions to the GOP leadership well before committee meetings.
sigaba
@patroclus: Pope remains Catholic.
Calouste
@Roger Moore: There’s also the question how someone who makes about $150,000/year can get $200,000 in credit card limits.
Sandia Blanca
This is an open thread, right? There’s a wonderful man named Alan Dornan (age 79) who walks 2.2 miles every day in honor of immigrants, Dreamers, DACA kids, etc. He is challenging others to do “Mirror Walks” on Oct. 21. Please see his twitter feed for details and inspiration: https://twitter.com/ad81109
Calouste
@patroclus: Flake by name flake by nature.
nasruddin
@Elizabelle: It was and it’s worth finding and seeing.
Ksmiami
@O. Felix Culpa: burn it down leave no survivors
debit
Anyone still watching? What just happened? Lady behind K handed him a folded note, he read, then tucked it away and flipped a bunch of papers over.
debit
@debit: I should clarify, the front page of WaPo has video, but I have no speakers on my work computer.
Martin
@Roger Moore: I’m not saying you can’t spend $200K on tickets. Fuck, I know the Yankees exist. But if you have the assets to pay off a $200K debt, why would you keep it as debt and take the credit hit and the interest? I’m in his tax bracket so I can get some pretty favorable credit card rates and limits, and if I needed to spend $200K on something I’d go for a line of credit rather a credit card. And if I had the ability to immediately pay off a $200K credit card debt, then I wouldn’t have racked one up in the first place.
This is not how people normally behave. Something is odd here in the same way that Cohen taking out a HELOC to pay off Stormy Daniels was seen as odd.
Martin
@Yutsano: Yeah, they each bring something key the effort.
debit
@Martin: I could see it if there was some sort of cash back or points on his card. I mean, I would never buy groceries on credit, but my bank offered me a card with 2% back on certain categories, one of which is groceries. So I put them on my card, go home, log in to online banking and transfer the money from my checking to my card. Done, and I get a percentage back.
But to carry a 200 grand balance? That’s madness.
Mnemosyne
@patroclus:
You really expected Jeff Flake, the Spineless Wonder, to actually do something to actively oppose Trump rather than whining to the media and then doing what he’s told?
Mnemosyne
@debit:
I used to work with someone who did the math and realized that, if they put the new car they were ready to pay cash for on their credit card instead and took the points, they could essentially go to Hawaii for free for three years in a row. IIRC, it was a card that was issued by or somehow linked to the auto company, which is why it ended up being doable. They put it on the card and then paid it off immediately with the cash they had already saved.
Anya
@geg6: I am so glad someone agrees with me. I feel like pulling my hair whenever I have the misfortune of watching Tur sub for someone.
Aleta
@SiubhanDuinne: simply wonderful, thank you
debit
@Mnemosyne: That’s really the way to do it.
Jacel
@SiubhanDuinne: Wonderful! I conduct a concert band in t
Que Sera Sera” every few months, because one of the food servers at dinners we play for likes it a lot. One time we played that song on a street, and then noticed a natural food deli around the corner had the name Que So-Raw So-Raw.
ChrisH
I’ve been listening off and on today and it seems to be a series of Democrats asking questions Kavanaugh refuses to answer because they are too abstract or too concrete and Repbulicans who clearly would fail a civics 101 class, such as Lindsay Graham effectively arguing that Marbury v Madison should be overturned and John Cornyn not understanding how or why the administrative state works.
The only answers Kavanaugh has answered seem like they come from a law school exam, defining random terms or talking about what certain supreme court cases decided. It has led to my biased perspective to feel that Kavanaugh may be intelligent but he isn’t very smart, and I’m wondering if less partisan citizens see these hearings as the farce they are.