Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

After roe, women are no longer free.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

The revolution will be supervised.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

The willow is too close to the house.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Everybody saw this coming.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Republicans do not pay their debts.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Friday Morning Open Thread: Thirsting for the Weekend

Friday Morning Open Thread: Thirsting for the Weekend

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To which us American cynics respond: Step it up, feral pigs of Florida / Texas / Arkansas!

******
Well, where would you rather visit in January — San Juan, or Des Moines?

… Adding to Puerto Rico’s political value, Gov. Ricardo Rosselló is backing a plan to move the 2020 primary from early June to one of the final two weekends in March. Just as candidates wax on about corn in Iowa, Rosselló hopes they pay attention to what’s important in Puerto Rico: federal recovery efforts and the governor’s push for statehood for the island, although he’s expressed frustration with candidates who won’t weigh in clearly on the issue…

With 64 delegates at stake and a population of about 3.2 million, Puerto Rico is larger than 21 other states — and it’s also a springboard to reach the growing Boricua diaspora in Florida and New York, as well as the smaller communities in California, Pennsylvania and Illinois.

(Seriously: Puerto Rico can use all the help / dollars it can get, and Puerto Ricans are American citizens who deserve more media attention.)

******

Finally, book news!

… The Washington Post is teaming up with Simon & Schuster imprint Scribner on “The Mueller Report,” which will be available in e-book and paperback form within days of the release of the highly anticipated document, The Post and Scribner announced Thursday.

The book will include the report itself along with context from The Post, edited by national security Editor Peter Finn, including an introduction by investigative reporters Rosalind S. Helderman and Matt Zapotosky, a timeline of key events, and a rundown of the cast of characters involved in the drama.

Expect the e-book within two to three days of the report and the paperback in five to eight days, per a Scribner spokesman.

Post Executive Editor Martin Baron, who hatched the idea for the project, says the format will give readers a fuller understanding of the report — the release of which could bring down workplace productivity around the globe…

With luck, Mueller will release his report on a Wednesday or Thursday, and we can block out our weekend plans early.

Reader Interactions

253Comments

  3. 3.

    Joey Maloney

    Step it up, feral pigs of Florida / Texas / Arkansas!

    Hey, what’s Hawaii, chopped spam?

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    With 64 delegates at stake and a population of about 3.2 million, Puerto Rico is larger than 21 other states —

    Population of Wyoming- 579,315

    Jus’ sayin’.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    I like Hakeem Jeffries. So much so that I hope he doesn’t ever run for president! Pelosi is mentoring him — he might make a wonderful Speaker of the House one day.

  8. 8.

    NotMax

    Say what now?

    A Tennessee homeowner’s association (HOA) just tried to fine a couple US$100 for the phallic shape their Honda Insight left in a snowy parking lot after they moved their car. Source

  10. 10.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: And here I thought she might be the half of that couple with a smidge of political sense since she prevented her husband from demonstrating the moonwalk during that disastrous press conference…

  14. 14.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I don’t know how it’s playing in Virginia, but the story (or spin) I read was that it was a feature of the general tour for all visitors to try to get them to empathize with the tough life slaves lived. Most of the articles give the impression it was directed at the AA school children. FWIW.

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: That was my take as well. But to not have it occur to them that African Americans might take offense? It’s the Whitesplaining. Like I said, blind spot.

  19. 19.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: I think a lot of white people, naturally enough, have something of a blind spot when it comes to race. Growing up where and when I did, I certainly did/do, and even tho I have learned to pretty well STFU that’s not to say I am immune to stepping on my dick.

  22. 22.

    Bobby Thomson

    Drop the “may be” already. Assets don’t have to know they’re assets. And frankly, there’s enough to show Trump at a minimum has a massive conflict of interest.

  25. 25.

    JMG

    Let’s see. Three-four inches of snow tonight. Six-12 inches Sunday night and Monday, followed by a week of subfreezing temperatures. Boston winter is miserable for a really long time each year, but not often the kind of cataclysmically bad winter weather you can at least brag about surviving. Worst of both worlds.

  26. 26.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly: @Baud:
    If she really wanted to make her point, she could have had white people pick cotton for just two days with a mean Sack Shaker. My FiL picked cotton when he was young, and tells me the first few days of the season, the spines in the bolls tear your palms to pieces. It takes a week or more to scab over/get callouses.

    That might be a helpful cotton lesson.

  27. 27.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: We had freezing rain and sleet yesterday. Saturday night/Sunday morn we’re supposed to get 4-8″ with temps dropping into the single digits at night till Wednesday. Generally I enjoy a good winter, but the firewood is running low and I am tired of my hands being little more than clubs in the AM.

  29. 29.

    Baud

    @Immanentize: Perhaps that would be educational, but not really realistic. In general, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to emphasize just how hard American slavery was on slaves. There is a lot of Confederate mythology that tries to portray the treatment of slaves as something less than horrible.

  33. 33.

    germy

    Back around 1982 my father bought an inexpensive snow shovel. I inherited it when my parents passed. I’ve been using it ever since. Yesterday, a piece of the shovel finally broke off. It lasted all those years.

    Meanwhile, the expensive one I bought three years ago from the hardware store in my town… the handle is now split. Won’t be lasting much longer.

  34. 34.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: I agree completely. My point was that not only were the conditions horrible — the work was horrible. Johnny Cash didn’t sing, “I’ll never Pick Cotton” for nothin’

    And in not-quite slavery, I’m sure you know about Caesar Chavez and the short hoe.

  35. 35.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud: I’m sure the owner’s manual clearly states “Not responsible for any snow-related dick-shaped spots left under vehicle when moved.”

  36. 36.

    Immanentize

    @germy: That is truly one of the great curses of home ownership in snow country. Shovelling the driveway skirt.

  37. 37.

    satby

    @JMG: @OzarkHillbilly: @Immanentize: if we just get through this next week, the rest of the month looks like it will moderate into more “normal” spring weather, at least here in S. Bend. But the highs Monday and Tuesday will be 13° and 10° so getting through the week will be tough. I’m so ready for spring.

  41. 41.

    HeartlandLiberal

    A little quick googling reveals that the feral drunk pig as become a meme, but is reportedly based on a true incident from 1913 in Australia. Here is a nice article giving the background, and, sadly, the report that the pig in question was found dead shortly after the incident, roadkill by a highway.

    https://gawker.com/swino-the-beer-stealing-cow-fighting-australian-pig-1441980191

    Let us all lift a beer to the memory of the feral swine who demolished three six packs.

  42. 42.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud:

    Perhaps that would be educational, but not really realistic.

    Whippings would be cheaper.

  44. 44.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: If Puerto Rico were a state, it would have about four or five seats in the House of Representatives–so many people emigrated after Hurricane Maria that that might have made a difference.

  45. 45.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: The last couple years, by this point my crocuses had been up for the better part of 2 weeks. Of course, that is testament to how mild those winters were, not how bad or how long this winter is. This one is just normal.

  47. 47.

    Patricia Kayden

    Loving the discussion about Mark Meadows this morning on “Morning Joe”. Using a Black woman as a prop at a hearing is outrageous. Republicans are clueless when it comes to race.

  48. 48.

    Keith P.

    @OzarkHillbilly: Interesting note about Henry Hill – I bought several paintings from him right before he died. I mean literally, the day after I got a shipping notice, he died. And they’re pretty cool water paintings, too. He wasn’t a very experienced painter, but he was expressive and used a lot of color (plus they were all Goodfellas-themed…stuff like rats with speech balloons saying “Fuck you, pay me”)

  49. 49.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    I can only speak for Ohio, but the differences between the way slavery was handled when I was in grade school (fact of life, move along) and when my nieces and nephew were in grade school was huge. I was really moved by their sadness and inability to understand how it could have happened.

  52. 52.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: it’s a normal length, true; but I don’t really remember polar vortexes happening as often or as long as they seem to now. A normal, slow warm-up spring would be nice though.
    I got my high intensity grow light, but not the hangers for it. It’s bigger than I expected, so I can’t put it where I originally planned. So that’s going to be my project for today. Seed starting to commence!

  54. 54.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: pretty amazing story of cruelty, no? They forced the farmworkers to perform literally back breaking work.

  55. 55.

    WereBear

    @germy: One of the small, yet incredibly frustrating, elements of the Crapsack World we live in now is how buying even the simplest item is a casino-style gamble: and we usually lose.

  56. 56.

    Sab

    @Immanentize: This year our city’s snow plows blocked off whole cul de sacs, not just the driveways. Too bad. I kind of like our new mayor, but I doubt he will survive the next primary.

  57. 57.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud:

    There is a lot of Confederate mythology that tries to portray the treatment of slaves as something less than horrible.

    If you’ve never been on a plantation tour, you should try one. It’s very educational, but not about slavery.

    The next time I go down to NOLA, I intend to stop at the Whitney Plantation for a day. As far as I know it is the only one that tells the tale from the slaves POV.

  58. 58.

    Immanentize

    @debbie:

    How could she just stand there like that?

    I had the sad feeling that she is used to being a prop at the Trump Organization.

  59. 59.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Patriots owner Robert Kraft pleads not guilty to prostitution charges

    Florida police say in court documents that Kraft was chauffeured to the Orchids of Asia Day Spa on the evening of 19 January, where investigators say they videotaped him engaging in a sex act and then handing over an undetermined amount of cash. Kraft returned to the spa 17 hours later, again in a chauffeured car, the documents said. Kraft, who is worth $6bn, was videotaped engaging in sex acts before paying with a $100 bill and another bill, police said. He then flew to Kansas City to watch the Patriots defeat the Chiefs in the AFC title game hours later. Kraft’s team then defeated the Los Angeles Rams in the Super Bowl two weeks later.

    “That money wasn’t for sex, it was for the parking!”

  63. 63.

    Baud

    @Immanentize:

    They always fucking say they’ll go out of business, and they almost never do. It could easily be the biggest like in American history, and there’s a lot of competition there.

  64. 64.

    CliosFanboy

    @OzarkHillbilly: more recent stories say this is BS. She passed around cotton to every student in the group and talked about the pain of slavery…

  65. 65.

    Kay

    The snow shovels with the really wide blades are pretty amazing! You have to get used to pushing rather than lifting but you can do your driveway in about ten minutes. You could clear a parking lot by hand with one of these.

  66. 66.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: My tomas, peppers, and eggplants are all up. I had some germination failure from last years held over seed (normal). Trying to decide if I should start any again. Probably not. The Amish Paste are the only ones I really need and I think I’ll just fill in with greenhouse romas.

  67. 67.

    Ken

    @Matt McIrvin:

    If Puerto Rico were a state

    “A” state? I’m kind of hoping for a Dakota Territory reprise, where it comes in as two – it certainly has more than enough people.

  68. 68.

    CliosFanboy

    @OzarkHillbilly: I can’t tailor my classes to avoid offending the most sensitive person in the room. I’ll end up teaching a 1st grade version of history. Anybody who is offended because I passed around a ball of unprocessed cotton should get a life. I am pretty fing explicit about the horrors of slavery because my white students need to hear it. I’m not “whitesplaing” to my black students, I am trying to get it through to my white students…

  69. 69.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: My late grandma was a history teacher who loved road trips, and she dragged us on many a plantation tour when we were children. This was back in the 70s, and I remember there were frequently young ladies strolling around in hoop-skirt get-ups as if they’d just walked off the set of “Gone with the Wind.” The mythology was strong in those days.

  71. 71.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: Charles Dickens, Hard Times, 1854:

    The wonder was, it was there at all. It had been ruined so often, that it was amazing how it had borne so many shocks. Surely there never was such fragile china-ware as that of which the millers of Coketown were made. Handle them never so lightly, and they fell to pieces with such ease that you might suspect them of having been flawed before. They were ruined, when they were required to send labouring children to school; they were ruined when inspectors were appointed to look into their works; they were ruined, when such inspectors considered it doubtful whether they were quite justified in chopping people up with their machinery; they were utterly undone, when it was hinted that perhaps they need not always make quite so much smoke. Besides Mr. Bounderby’s gold spoon which was generally received in Coketown, another prevalent fiction was very popular there. It took the form of a threat. Whenever a Coketowner felt he was ill-used — that is to say, whenever he was not left entirely alone, and it was proposed to hold him accountable for the consequences of any of his acts — he was sure to come out with the awful menace, that he would ‘sooner pitch his property into the Atlantic.’ This had terrified the Home Secretary within an inch of his life, on several occasions.

    Note there’s actually a whine about environmental regulations in there.

  72. 72.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Sab: In STL they have “Snow Routes” that get plowed, everyone else is on their own. And dawg help you if you are parked on a snow route during a storm. You’re car will not only be buried in hard packed snow, you’ll have a heft parking fine too.

  75. 75.

    JPL

    @debbie: My Catholic school history of the reconstruction era was sorely lacking, and thought ending it was the correct thing to do.

  77. 77.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: I had to hold myself back from starting them too early ? Starting the first week in March puts them at 8 weeks in the beginning of May. I tempt fate by planting around the third week of May, last frost date here is between the 15th to the 30.

  80. 80.

    Matt McIrvin

    @CliosFanboy: and 41 states with fewer people than Los Angeles County.

    To be fair, Los Angeles County has enough of the population of California that it effectively has about half a senator, a full quarter of the representation that those states get.

  83. 83.

    debbie

    @JPL:

    I took many history classes, but the best one was the American History class I took as a freshman in college. The instructor’s first words: “Everything you learned in high school American History is not what happened.” He was right. I felt shame at just knowing wrong things.

  84. 84.

    JPL

    @Sab: When we lived in CT on a cul de sac, I discovered that if my two year old stood by the storm door, the plows didn’t just dump the snow at the end of my driveway. It became a game, and I joyfully convinced the little one that watching the plows was great fun. Cookies might have been involved.

  88. 88.

    Kay

    “President Trump’s refusal to blame Kim Jong-un for the death of Otto Warmbier, an American student who died in 2017 after being imprisoned in North Korea, set off anger and sympathy for the young man’s family among political leaders in the United States on Thursday.”

    Why is he such a kiss-ass to authoritarian leaders? Putin we get- the Trump family coffers- but he cowers before all of them. It’s not like he gets anything- the “deals” never materialize. He gets absolutely nothing for this and he does it over and over. Is he literally afraid of them?

  89. 89.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: Me too, but our last frost date is 4/15. The last 2 years we had frosts after I planted my maters and the afternoon/eve before I had to run around with swatches of plant tent fabric covering them. :-(

  91. 91.

    Patricia Kayden

    As we already know, terrorism in the U.S. is mostly rightwing in nature. Yet Trump and his ilk try to demonize the Muslim and Latino community as people we should fear.

    https://twitter.com/cjwerleman/status/1101420032628670464

    All terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in 2018 were rightwing. House Democrats need to hold a hearing on this issue since it will only get worse as we near the presidential election and it becomes obvious that Trump isn’t going to remain in office.

  92. 92.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: People in STL always complain about how the Cards don’t go big in their deals. One look at what Dexter Fowler did last year explains why (knock on wood, I’m really hopeful he has a big year to make up for last, he’s a good guy)

  93. 93.

    WereBear

    @Kay: Why is he such a kiss-ass to authoritarian leaders? Putin we get- the Trump family coffers- but he cowers before all of them. It’s not like he gets anything- the “deals” never materialize. He gets absolutely nothing for this and he does it over and over. Is he literally afraid of them?

    Yes. Malignant narcissists are easily frightened of anyone with actual power, and that’s only ONE of his psychological diseases, according to the book by a group of mental health professionals.

    I’m reading it a little at a time, and DAMN.

  95. 95.

    Baud

    @Patricia Kayden:

    All terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in 2018 were rightwing. 

    But all terrorist attacks in wingnuts’ minds are left-wing black Muslim gay environmentalists.

  97. 97.

    Kay

    We have a city income tax. Workers under 18 years old don’t have to file or pay this tax, but as of this year they have to file a form stating that they are under 18 so won’t be filing. My youngest got one.

    I am FOR tax enforcement so I’m fine with this- he’ll do it. But how can I tell him to follow the rules when we hear daily about wealthy people who are tax cheats and nothing happens to them for years and years until they are investigated for something else? What happens if people stop complying? This thing runs on consent. If people get the idea the laws don’t apply to wealthy and powerful people why wouldn’t they make an exception for themselves too? I mean, it can be handled- policed- if it’s 5% of filers or 10% of filers or whatever it is, but if we start seeing 30 or 40 or 50% due to this general lawlessness? Our city prosecutor wouldn’t do anything else. She wouldn’t have time to do anything else.

    How did Donald Trump get away with this so long?

  98. 98.

    montanareddog

    @Kay:

    Is he literally afraid of them?

    6’3″ 239lb* alpha-male* is simply reflecting his pack rank when facing 5’7″ KJU, 5’7″ Vladimir Putin and 5’4″ Rodrigo Duterte who are literal murderers (OK, MBS is tall).

  101. 101.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: black Muslim gay environmentalists from Central and South America crossing our wall less southern border.

  102. 102.

    JPL

    The president is tweeting that Cohen tried to push a manuscript praising the president so that proves he didn’t go rogue because of Charlottesville or Helsinki.
    So is trump admitting that Charlottesville and Helsinki were reasons for one to realize the president holds extreme fascist views.

  103. 103.

    Baud

    @Kay: You’re thinking of this wrong, Kay. When wealthy people like Trump get away with breaking the law, that incentives everyone else to become wealthy, which creates more jobs. Why do you hate job creators, Kay?

  104. 104.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Honus: I liked Mose: “puttin’ that cotton in a ‘leven-foot sack/with a twelve gauge shotgun at my back.”

  105. 105.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: I have had to do the same “cover run” when I tried to plant earlier in May, so starting later this year should delay my tendency to put them out too early.
    I have a lot of garden cleanup to do this year anyway; I pretty much let the raised beds go to hell in last summer’s oppressive heat and humidity.

  106. 106.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: Cheating on taxes is as American as Apple pie, Kay. What am I saying, more American than apple pie.

  107. 107.

    Kay

    @montanareddog:

    It’s weird, isn’t it? I was thinking it’s his cruelty- the odd emptiness at the center of him that inspires him to take out newspaper ads calling for the summary execution of teenage boys. He doesn’t really care what happened to Otto, what happens to anyone. That awful “sucks to be you!” attitude that is so prevalent among fake tough guys. That he thinks standing with them makes him in that group of people he admires.

  111. 111.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Baud: I’ve been wondering how the huge D field will affect the Iowa caucuses. Actually, the way the caucus is structured is probably good for winnowing down a huge number. Caucuses are by precinct. Each precinct gets 7 delegates to send to the next level (county, I think), and a candidate has to have at least 1/7 of the voters present voting for them to get a delegate. If they don’t have that, they’re declared non-viable. So that’s about 15% as a floor. With this many candidates, most won’t make it.

  113. 113.

    montanareddog

    @Kay: The emptiness of his soul and his relentless self-absorption means he cannot distinguish between the person of Donald Trump and the position of US President. He thinks meeting with these punks confers status on him, Donald Trump. Not on them, being treated as equals by the US President.

  114. 114.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Tax evasion is at the center of the criminal cases against two associates of the president, Paul Manafort and Michael D. Cohen. The sheer scale of their efforts to avoid paying the government has given rise to a head-scratching question: How were they able to cheat the Internal Revenue Service for so many years?
    The answer, researchers and former government auditors say, is simple. The I.R.S. pursues fewer cases of tax evasion than it did less than 10 years ago. Provided you’re not a close associate of President Trump, there may never be a better time to be a tax cheat.
    Last year, the I.R.S.’s criminal division brought 795 cases in which tax fraud was the primary crime, a decline of almost a quarter since 2010. “That is a startling number,” Don Fort, the chief of criminal investigations for the I.R.S., acknowledged at a New York University tax conference in June.

    This is actually key to the whole US justice system:

    Bringing cases against people who evade taxes on legal income is central to the revenue service’s mission. In addition to recouping lost revenue, such cases are supposed “to influence taxpayer behavior for the hundreds of millions of American citizens filing tax returns,” Mr. Fort said. With fewer cases, experts fear, Americans will get the message that it’s all right to break the law.

    It’s partly to get the cheats. But it’s mostly because MOST people are voluntarily complying and it is absolutely essential that most people comply. None of it will work without it. They can’t prosecute 50 million people. It collapses without the voluntary component.

    I really like AOC for focusing on this. It’s not complicated and people will understand it. It has to be perceived as fair, or they won’t continue complying. HAS to be.

  115. 115.

    JPL

    @debbie: He’s trying to tweet that the democrats can’t ask for financial statements because Cohen is lying. This witch hunt must end. Nothing about Jared making deals to save his empire while abroad though.

  117. 117.

    The Midnight Lurker

    Parents say Pam Northam handed cotton to students on a tour of the governor’s mansion and asked them to imagine picking it

    Okay… this is a new level of stupid. Don’t they have staff, or at least children, with a nodding acquaintance of acceptable social standards?

    There has to be a gas leak in the Governor’s Mansion.

  118. 118.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @guachi:

    She was a teacher in this context.

    And Ivanka was teaching me about the virtues of hard work the other day.

  119. 119.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    With fewer cases, experts fear, Americans will get the message that it’s all right to break the law.

    Hence the gutting of the IRS.

  120. 120.

    Brickley Paiste

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    @Ocotillo:

    I understand that the perpetual outrage machine is mighty sore that Northam didn’t immediately accede to all of its demands, but, c’mon is this really an issue?

    Are spouses back in the mix so it was fair game to talk about what a sleazy harasser Bill Clinton was in reference to the Hillary’s run for president?

    My 6th grade teacher (in a northern state where cotton doesn’t grow) brought a big bag of cotton bolls still on the stem to our class so we could pick the bolls from the burrs and separate the seeds. The sharp edged burrs on the stems were no joke. Teacher also brought an empty 11 foot sack that pickers/slaves dragged behind them to fill up so you had a tiny insight into just how tedious cotton picking was.

  121. 121.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I just looked at Trump’s morning tweets (I’ll spare you) and it finally dawned on me why the Rs might have been babbling about Cohen being a Clinton conspiracy: His attorney is Lanny Davis.

  125. 125.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Okay, that made me laugh. It also made me remember that I used to call the Ford Probe the Ford Pe-nis. I will also note that I never once saw a female driving the Ford Probe/Pe-nis.

  126. 126.

    chopper

    @Kay:

    he’s jealous of the lack of criticism in their home countries. trump talks shit about NK because he has to, but he imagines an america where everybody is forced by the rule of law to love him.

    it wouldn’t make him happy, mind you, because he’d still end up miserable.

  127. 127.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Brickley Paiste: I have stated what I think is wrong with the optics here. If after reading everything I’ve said, and I do mean everything, you still disagree, fine.

    But I do want to point out that I never called for the resignation of Ralph Northam over a stupid 30/40 year old stunt, that I’ve never said much of anything about it because it is an issue for Virgina voters and especially VA black voters to decide.

  131. 131.

    chopper

    @Ocotillo:

    seems like a standard type of tour: imagine how shitty it was, picking cotton for free all day long, here’s some cotton to see what it was like, etc etc.

    problem is, given the shit that’s been pouring over the governor’s mansion in the last month or so, did it not strike these people to maybe shave down this sort of stuff? this sort of lack of foresight just adds to the general tone-deafness and dickstepping that had amplified northam’s fuckups even more.

    i dunno. we’re sitting in a whirlwind of ratfucking right now so i’ve taken on the practice of waiting a little bit longer before i start making judgments. i have a bad feeling this is gonna be a full-blown category 5 by the time the election comes around.

  132. 132.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kay: I think it’s supposed to be part of his “strength” act: “To be a leader you have to get tough sometimes or no one will respect you.” So when another country’s leader does something “tough” his instinct is to praise it because at least the “tough” leader isn’t being a teary-eyed politically-correct wussbag. I think he believes that Great Men are a little club that gets to do these things with impunity, and that he’s one of them.

  133. 133.

    Brickley Paiste

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    From the article you linked:

    Pam Northam gave a tour of the executive mansion this month to students who had served as pages for the state senate.

    The governor’s office told the Post she did not single out black students, but simply handed it to young people who were nearby and wanted them to feel the sharpness of the plant in order to better understand how painful it would be to pick all day.

    “I regret that I have upset anyone,” Pam Northam said in a statement to Wavy.

    She said she had worked to tell the full story of the mansion’s history by including a visit to its historic kitchen and telling visitors about the slaves who worked at the site, and would consult historians about the most appropriate way to convey those experiences to visitors in the future.

    “I believe it does a disservice to Virginians to omit the stories of the enslaved people who lived and worked there – that’s why I have been engaged in an effort to thoughtfully and honestly share this important story since I arrived in Richmond,” she said.

    I hadn’t read the article when I put up my first post, but this SOUNDS exactly what my teacher did all those years ago.

    Was she just not supposed to do this at all? Or just hand it only to the white students? There’s some really bad optics for you.

  134. 134.

    danielx

    @satby:

    Kind of what I thought after reading about CPAC last night, only there’s nothing fresh about CPAC – it’s where young conservatives* go to get their freak on. And if that thought gives rise to horrible images for you, you’re not alone.

    *whatever the hell “young conservative” means these days – young Republicans or Hitler Youth? It’s so hard to tell.

  135. 135.

    guachi

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Pam Northam was a former middle school teacher.

    And if you have a problem with someone wanting to highlight how awful picking cotton was by handing it out and having people pass it around, well, that’s a position one can hold, I guess.

  136. 136.

    Patricia Kayden

    @OzarkHillbilly: Something is seriously wrong with the Northams. Who does something like this and thinks that it’s okay? Especially when your husband is in the middle of a blackface scandal which has already damaged his reputation. Sigh.

  137. 137.

    schrodingers_cat

    Can anyone shed more light on the latest Ds in disarray story? About procedural votes, AOC threatening moderates etc etc. Is it a storm in a teacup or something serious.

  138. 138.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @guachi: @Brickley Paiste: How about this: In the wake of her husbands blackface faux pas, hand this part over to a black staffer? Or is that too obvious?

    This is about the political optics, not teaching.

  139. 139.

    Bemused senior

    @OzarkHillbilly: Definitely worth a visit. I visited about four years ago. The memorial to the enslaved children who died there, many burned to death while stirring the cauldrons of sugar cane boiling down the raw sugar; the lists showing where people came from (many sold from Virginia); implements of control and punishment. The iron box (made in New York — slavery’s profits weren’t just for the south) in which people were locked. Everyone should go there on a pilgrimage.

  140. 140.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @schrodingers_cat: I think a lot of people on both sides of the aisle find AOC threatening, just because she hasn’t been involved in politics long enough to respect all the undrawn lines everybody knows are there but don’t speak of.

  141. 141.

    The Midnight Lurker

    @chopper:

    problem is, given the shit that’s been pouring over the governor’s mansion in the last month or so, did it not strike these people to maybe shave down this sort of stuff? this sort of lack of foresight just adds to the general tone-deafness and dickstepping that had amplified northam’s fuckups even more.

    Seriously! Is there NO ONE in these people’s lives that can whisper in their ear, “When you’re walking on eggshells…”

    Gas leak I’m tellin’ ya!

  143. 143.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @chris: I like pointing and laughing as much as the next person, so thanks for the link. What I’d like even more is some analysis of what power and influence these loons might have. The NRA seems to be in decline. Anything else?

  145. 145.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @The Midnight Lurker: Governor’s publicist: “Ok, the cotton thing was viewed as insensitive. How about if we demonstrate our sensitivity by having the Governor pick some cotton. And he can do it in blackface and moonwalk. And Mrs. Northam can read the kids Little Black Sambo.”

  147. 147.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: I read somewhere the other day that about $10B in tax revenues are vaporized every year because the 10 year collections limit on taxes owed is reached, mostly thanks to wealthy tax cheats dragging the process out. It really does make the rest of us look like suckers, huh?

  149. 149.

    Barbara`

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: I have not been following, but this sort of thing is really hard to get right. If you don’t stress or make real the horror of slavery, you are burnishing a false historical narrative, but if you make it too real then you are, potentially, emotionally burdening the descendants of people who were slaves. Colonial Williamsburg was criticized for not incorporating the indispensable role of slavery in the colonial experience, but when it did so by actually having a contingent dressed as slaves and not just white people dressed up as colonists, many (including but not limited to African Americans) found the realism to be upsetting.

  150. 150.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Kay:
    He doesn’t cower, he fawns. Trump thinks brutal dictators are cool. He admires them. He thinks this is how the world should work, that the guy in charge should be able to have anyone he dislikes killed, and force the rest to praise him. He has a record of making comments about it, like when Duerte ordered those mass executions. Trump is the little dog going “You and me is friends, ain’t we George?”

    It’s also another small piece of evidence he’s a Nazi. If you are such a hate-filled asshole that you think brutal dictators are admirable, and you’re a white supremacist to boot, Hitler’s going to be your personal hero.

  151. 151.

    JPL

    Otto Warmbier’s family released a statement about Kim and his evil regime disagreeing with the president . The statement laid the blame on Kim and his evil regime.

  152. 152.

    chopper

    @JPL:

    well, the warmbiers are far enough up trump’s ass that even if they back up a good amount they still won’t be seeing daylight.

  153. 153.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Robert Mercer owes SEVEN BILLION IN TAXES.

    No, I didn’t type wrong..

    And, yet, this muthaphucka isn’t IN JAIL FOR NOT PAYING.

  154. 154.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    It really does make the rest of us look like suckers, huh?

    It does. The savvy dealmaker move is to cheat on taxes. ULTRA sophisticated.

    I just find AOC so refreshing for piping up about it. Not to be a jerk but her voice is the perfect example of “piping up” :)

    The sophisticated move is to hand wave “oh, they ALL cheat” – she’s asking people to start thinking about how this is NOT FAIR, which is a powerful political argument. It isn’t fair that the vast majority of low and middle income people pay voluntarily and we make exceptions for people like Trump and Cohen. I want them prosecuted. It’s that simple. I also want to replace the top law enforcement people who looked the other way while this was going on. They’re bad at their jobs. It’s a big country. We can find and hire better people.

  155. 155.

    Betty Cracker

    @Frankensteinbeck: That rings true. Remember the day after Trump fired Comey when he met with the Russians in the Oval Office? I remember doing a double-take when I saw the photos from that meeting because I saw a look on Trump’s ugly mug I’d never seen before. He looked like the assistant VP who just got a key to the executive men’s room. He was fawning over the Russians and avid for clues on how to act. It was weird.

  156. 156.

    StringOnAStick

    @germy: t That’s the funny thing about snow and what makes avalanches so dangerous: once you move it around after it has fallen, the points of the snowflakes melt from the pressure of moving and then freeze into cement basically. The fluffiest stuff completely changes from snowplow or avalanche; I’ve helped dig out avalanche victims and what was light and fluffy prior to the slide turns into cemented stuff that is a huge effort to move, adrenaline rush or not.

  157. 157.

    SenyorDave

    Sean Hannity to Trump in tonight’s interview, on Michael Cohen and the hush-money payments: “I can tell you personally, he said to me at least a dozen times, that he made the decision on the payments and he didn’t tell you.”

    As multiple people have pointed out, Hannity just basically volunteered itself (refuse to use a human pronoun here) as a witness. Subpoena him and let him say this under oath.

  158. 158.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    One county east of here they jail people for not paying a city income tax. Often they had no idea they had to file a city income tax return. It’s ALL low wage people. 15,16,17k a year. Prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Hammered, for tax bills of 124 dollars.

    If we’re going to be a lawless country, let’s at least apply this low standard to everyone. This isn’t just wrong, that we’re ignoring our own laws when it comes to the rich and powerful, it’s brutally unfair.

  160. 160.

    Kay

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    When I’m feeling hopeful I sometimes think that Trump may pay big dividends. He may end the era of admiring amoral assholes. He may discredit that whole thing. That would be a goddamned gift to the country. We can go back to admiring people who actually have good qualities.

  162. 162.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Betty Cracker:
    He glows with joy when he’s having a friendly conversation with a dictator. This on the most sullen son-of-a-bitch I’ve ever seen. Even at rallies, Trump doesn’t look all that happy. The vast majority of photos, he’s scowling, looking miserable and angry. But if Kim or Putin or MBS smile at him, he beams with joy. It doesn’t happen with leaders of any democratic nation, either. Only dictators, and the most murderously evil ones at that.

  165. 165.

    Haroldo

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I think a lot of white people, naturally enough, have something of a blind spot when it comes to race. Growing up where and when I did, I certainly did/do, and even tho I have learned to pretty well STFU that’s not to say I am immune to stepping on my dick.

    Thanks for this jewel of concision. It describes by fumbling relationship with race and racism so well.

  166. 166.

    Jeffro

    @OzarkHillbilly: @CliosFanboy: @Matt McIrvin: Jamelle Bouie has a very good piece up in The Bad Paper today about the history of the Electoral College and how we as a country have been clunking along with it for over 200 years.

    A Threat To Democracy since 1804:

    …The system worked as intended in two elections: 1789, when George Washington won his first time, and 1792, when he won again. Its flaws were apparent by 1796, when John Adams became president with the runner-up Thomas Jefferson as his vice president, despite being opponents who had running mates aligned with their political factions. The following year, in response to this fiasco, a South Carolina congressman introduced an amendment requiring each elector to cast separate votes for president and vice president.

    It would take deadlock to force action. In 1800, Jefferson ran again against Adams with Aaron Burr as his running mate. Their party, the Democratic-Republicans, won a majority of voters (a scant 67,282 ballots out of a free white male population of roughly one million and a total adult population of more than two million) and electors. But those electors cast an equal number of votes for Jefferson and Burr, forcing the election into the House of Representatives, where a lame-duck Federalist majority saw its chance to stymie Jefferson.

    Burr was poised to become president despite not actually standing for the office. It took months of heated political conflict — with Alexander Hamilton, a Federalist, lobbying the House to choose Jefferson — to resolve the standoff. After dozens of ballots, Jefferson was elected president. To keep another such crisis from blowing up the political system, Congress passed the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1804, which distinguished clearly between votes for president and vice president and streamlined other elements of the process.

    The history of the Electoral College from this point is of Americans working around the institution, grafting majoritarian norms and procedures onto the political process and hoping, every four years, for a sensible outcome. And on an almost regular schedule, it has done just the opposite. The presidency went to the popular-vote loser in 1824 (John Quincy Adams; his opponent, Andrew Jackson, also won the most electoral votes), 1876 and 1888. In the 20th century, Americans had close calls in the elections of 1948, 1960, 1968 and 1976, with near splits in the popular and electoral vote. Despite winning the popular vote in six of the past seven presidential elections, Democrats have held the presidency for only four of those terms, under Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

    This obvious dysfunction is why the Electoral College has been a source of persistent dissatisfaction, with generations of lawmakers introducing new proposals for modifying or abolishing the system outright. Indeed, after the 1968 election, a commission of the American Bar Association recommended “direct popular election of the president,” calling the “Electoral College method of electing a president of the United States archaic, undemocratic, complex, ambiguous, indirect, and dangerous.”

    None of this has changed. The Electoral College routinely threatens or produces perverse outcomes, where the will of the voters is thwarted by an ill-considered 18th-century electoral device. It has no place in a democracy that strives for a standard of “one person, one vote.” And most Americans still don’t like it. In a 2018 survey from the Public Religion Research Institute, 65 percent said presidents should be elected by popular vote.

    Let’s go, Dems – keep this visible, keep it a top issue until we get the National Popular Vote compact in place or the EC removed by amendment!

  167. 167.

    Kay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I love how the GOP were all outraged that Cohen defrauded lenders. Lenders are supposed to do their own due diligence. It’s half their job. If they got snowed by these crooks that’s a problem for their executives and shareholders, it’s not a public rip-off. Tax enforcement, on the other hand, is wholly governmental. It’s not the same thing. Rob a fucking BANK and they’re calling for his head- rob the public treasury and it’s a wink and a nod.

  168. 168.

    stinger

    @NotMax:

    A Tennessee homeowner’s association (HOA) just tried to fine a couple US$100 for the phallic shape their Honda Insight left in a snowy parking lot after they moved their car. Source

    I call BS. Where are the tire tracks of the car as it was backed out and driven away through the “snow”? Where are the footprints of the owners as they left the sidewalk and climbed into the car? Either the owners moved their car by helicopter airlift, or the image has been heavily photoshopped.

  169. 169.

    Jeffro

    @CliosFanboy: I live in Fairfax also and it still boggles my mind that I had ‘better’/more federal representation back when I lived in Delaware, which even today has fewer than 1M people (Fairfax has 1.1M)

  171. 171.

    Jeffro

    Parents of Otto Warmbier have released a statement and they are NOT happy with trumpov:

    “Kim and his evil regime are responsible the death of our son Otto. Kim and his evil regime are responsible for unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity. No excuses or lavish praise can change that.”

  172. 172.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @stinger: Good catch! But let me offer this theory of how it might have happened: The car was parked there, plenty hot from a long drive, some hours before the snow began to fall. They left just before/as the snow began to fall. The pavement in the parking lot had reached 30 degrees but the pavement where their car was parked remained above the freezing point due to the residual heat from the car.

    I’m not sure that works, but it is a theory.

  173. 173.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: A Study in Contrasts

    A few weeks back, Dan Drezner tweeted admiring how good AOC is at Twitter—replying to attempts to “own” her with awesome rejoinders that not only embarrassed the opponent but reinforced her Progressive message. I replied that, at worst, she had a staff that was very good at it. Some of her fanboys jumped in berating me for daring to challenge the notion that a young woman could be good at something. No, I replied, it was actually intended as a compliment. AOC is clearly quick on her feet and incredibly poised. But it’s much important for a leader to be able to utilize a team to achieve their goals. I frankly don’t want my political leaders sitting around on social media all day coming up with clever quips. To the extent she has surrounded herself with a good team and allows them to serve her well, it enhances, not diminishes, her.

  174. 174.

    StringOnAStick

    @stinger: While the car was parked there it was both radiating the heat from it’s engine and exhaust system from when it was last driven, plus it being there also interfered with radiant heat loss from the ground by having the “insulating layer” of the car when it was parked over the space. If they moved the car and then the snow fell, it could have left this image because the area under the car was just warm enough to melt it as it fell, thus leaving the outline. So, it is possible this is the result of these natural phenomena; it’s also possible it is a Pshop deal too.

    We used to live in an HOA community and I was stupid enough to get elected to the HOA board; you would not believe the petty dictator BS and general nose-in-everyone’s-business that goes on with HOA boards until you’ve lived it. We moved away from that place into a non-HOA neighborhood and have sworn we will never, ever, live in one again. Man, did that suck! So that part of this story, Pshop or not, makes perfect sense to me.

    ETA: Ozark got there first!

  175. 175.

    The Moar You Know

    Otto Warmbier’s family released a statement about Kim and his evil regime disagreeing with the president . The statement laid the blame on Kim and his evil regime.

    @JPL: Chickenshit GOP-loving cowards to the end. I’m sure they blame Obama.

  176. 176.

    piratedan

    @OzarkHillbilly: You got Goldschmidt, you’re gonna love him. Not only does he hit, field and run, he’s an all around good citizen. Lots of very good work for the Children’s Hospital in Phoenix, doesn’t seek the limelight, takes ownership of his mistakes and failings. In short, he’s the type of player that kids could be idolizing without any shame.

  177. 177.

    Doug R

    During the 2004 election, a bear drank 36 Rainer beers and stayed away from the the Busch

    BAKER LAKE, Wash. — When state Fish and Wildlife agents recently found a black bear passed out on the lawn of Baker Lake Resort, there were some clues scattered nearby — dozens of empty cans of Rainier Beer.

    The bear apparently got into campers’ coolers and used his claws and teeth to puncture the cans. And not just any cans.

    “He drank the Rainier and wouldn’t drink the Busch beer,” said Lisa Broxson, bookkeeper at the campground and cabins resort east of Mount Baker.

    Fish and Wildlife enforcement Sgt. Bill Heinck said the bear did try one can of Busch, but ignored the rest. The beast then consumed about 36 cans of Rainier.

    A wildlife agent tried to chase the bear from the campground but the animal just climbed a tree to sleep it off for another four hours. Agents finally herded the bear away, but it returned the next morning.

    Bear downs 36 beers, passes out at campground
    Rainier, not Busch, the beverage of choice for thirsty black bear

  178. 178.

    Barbara

    @Kay:

    Why is he such a kiss-ass to authoritarian leaders?

    He wishes he had their power. He admires them for having the kind of power he would like for himself.

  179. 179.

    catclub

    @Matt McIrvin:

    so many people emigrated after Hurricane Maria that that might have made a difference.

    yeah, right. Florida kept its democratic senator and got a new democratic governor.
    or maybe new York and new jersey got more liberal.

  180. 180.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @piratedan: Yeah, for one year anyway. Here’s hoping they can find a way to sign him up for another 4-5 years, and that he can continue to perform in a manner commensurate with his talent and age**. The Cards dodged a bullet when they let Pujols walk with his 10 year contract demands, and another when they were unable to sign an extension with Heyward. These things are hard to predict but I’d wager 5 years on Goldschmidt.

    ** unlike a lot of Cards fans I don’t expect a 36 yo ballplayer to play as well as he did at 29 or 30.

  181. 181.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Doug R:

    “He drank the Rainier and wouldn’t drink the Busch beer,”

    I wouldn’t either. To quote an old friend, “Life’s too short to drink cheap beer.”

  184. 184.

    Matt McIrvin

    @catclub: I’ve heard that not many of those people from Puerto Rico voted in the midterm. But it looks like the population of PR itself dropped from Connecticut-sized (5 reps) to Utah-sized (4 reps); that was what I meant.

  185. 185.

    A Ghost To Most

    @StringOnAStick: I second that. We will never live in an HOA area again.

    That said, We are gearing up for Denver Water to install a 54″ water main 15′ from the front of our house this summer, and both they and our insurance company say they won’t cover damages to our house. So we got that to look forward to.

  186. 186.

    Barbara

    @Baud: My first comment got moderated, not sure why. It’s really hard to get this just right — if you don’t stress the horrors of the peculiar institution (which was the euphemism used in the South) then you are accused (rightly) of pushing a false historical narrative, but if you are too realistic, you really can burden someone emotionally, especially if they are descendants of African Americans who were emancipated. This has happened at Colonial Williamsburg, which has struggled to walk a fine line. I don’t know what happened here, but it is absolutely the truth that the cotton gin reinvigorated the economics of the agrarian South in the mid-19th century. It’s also why the South thought that they might be able to rely on England to continue its trading relationship, because there was a huge cloth manufacturing presence in the north of England.

  187. 187.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @A Ghost To Most:

    both they and our insurance company say they won’t cover damages to our house.

    Say what? I can see the insurance company saying that (the language in their policies is pretty damn specific) but the utility too? I would at least talk to a lawyer.

  188. 188.

    A Ghost To Most

    @OzarkHillbilly: We will be. We went to the planning commission meeting, and were informed our insurance would cover it, and they weren’t responsible. The insurance company says no way, no how, we can’t even buy extra coverage. They’re going to dig a 14′ deep ditch 15′ from our foundation. What could go wrong?

  189. 189.

    Barbara

    @OzarkHillbilly: My mother had a lot of work done on the the sewage and water main pipes leading to and from her house. It might be possible to get insurance to cover this when something goes wrong (for instance, the gas company sells insurance for gas lines), but, typically, a utility’s responsibility stops at the hook-up from the street. A lot of people are unpleasantly surprised to learn this.

  190. 190.

    Haroldo

    @Barbara:

    @Kay:

    Why is he such a kiss-ass to authoritarian leaders?

    He wishes he had their power. He admires them for having the kind of power he would like for himself.

    In addition, I’d guess his behavior is also a replay of his relationship with his daddy, tho’ this is obviously conjecture. His whole psychology is so twisted that a lot of it’s gotta be inspired by childhood trauma.

  192. 192.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @A Ghost To Most: A few questions some you may not be able to answer.

    I’m trying to remember, Montana?
    Do you have a basement?
    What kind of soil do you have?
    I’ll think of more later.

    14′ is deep and because they have to step the ditch horizontally as they go down the top of the ditch will be much closer to your house than 15′ (trying to remember my OSHA training on the W/D ratio and drawing a blank. that was 20-30 yrs ago and as a framing/hanging carpenter I never needed it) (gonna see if I can google it)

  193. 193.

    Gin & Tonic

    @A Ghost To Most: Is the work going to be done by employees of the city/town or by a contractor? Either entity will (should) carry liability insurance, but municipalities sometimes “self-insure”, which means it will be harder to collect. But if they do damage your property, this seems like the type of case an ambulance-chaser would love.

  194. 194.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Barbara: Yes, and this is not for my home water, sewer, or gas, although it will disrupt all of them. Our house was built on a 1930’s water right of way, a fact the previous owner played down. There are already a 30″ pipe from the 30s, a 48″ pipe from the 90s, so the only space left is closest to our house. This summer promises to be a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

  196. 196.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Gin & Tonic: I got a lawyer who helped when the previous owner refused to move out. He seems tuned into real estate matters around here, so I’ll talk to him first.

    It’s a good thing we love our house and location. This will surely test it.

  197. 197.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @A Ghost To Most: OSHA’s web site is no help. No doubt they will use shoring for the bottom 5 or 6 feet but that still leaves 8 or 9 feet that have to be stepped back or angled back more than a little. I wish I could remember more. The deepest holes I ever worked in was 8 or9 feet and that was forming up a foundation. Trenches are a whole different kind of beast and to me (who never had to work in one) they are very scary.

    @Barbara:

    but, typically, a utility’s responsibility stops at the hook-up from the street.

    Yes, but this is the installation of a 54″ water main. That is ALL the utility’s

  198. 198.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I don’t recommend this as a first step, but when the city tore up our sidewalk and then left it that way all winter, I finally took pics and posted them on my social media and theirs. They were in contact immediately.

  200. 200.

    StringOnAStick

    @A Ghost To Most: Oh, my sincere condolences. Looks like a rough summer for you and yours.

    It’s interesting that a home is typically our largest asset, and also the one that people get away with lying their asses off about when they go to sell it. Cases in point: (1) when we bought into the HOA community they and the self managed HOA board did not reveal that a big special assessment was likely coming in order to deal with serious swelling soils issues that weren’t visible in our unit (the sellers knew all about it, that’s why they were selling), and (2) when my not-yet husband bought a house with an addition that turned out to just be walls around the old concrete slab porch that then settled, cracked and had a 6″ hump in middle of the floor, the sold the place by covering it with heavy wall to wall and put a couch on top of it for the showings. The things you find out long after you have any legal recourse…

  202. 202.

    jimmiraybob

    Is anybody performing under Feral Pigs of MO yet? Asking for a friend considering starting a new R&R band.

  203. 203.

    A Ghost To Most

    @OzarkHillbilly: The main runs several miles (7?) From a reservoir to a treatment plant, so the prescribed depth at our house is 14′. They must need to shore it somehow. I’ll be taking abundant pictures for the curious. They have said they will be boring under two main streets to keep them open, but no such luck for us.

  204. 204.

    The Moar You Know

    We went to the planning commission meeting, and were informed our insurance would cover it, and they weren’t responsible.

    @A Ghost To Most: Doubt any court in the land will see it that way, FWIW. Find a lawyer. A GOOD lawyer. I suspect you’re gonna need one once the “construction” is done.

  206. 206.

    StringOnAStick

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’ve seen the use of steel forms to support the walls of deep trenches, so maybe that will be employed for Ghost’s place and reduce how much they have to step back the trench walls. I’m not sure how easy it is to put in such a huge waterline around the horizontal supports that keep the plates apart though, so who knows if the task at hand precludes their use. The best suggestion I’ve seen is the one about contacting a lawyer, who can then demand some information from the building department about exactly how they plan on doing this project.

  210. 210.

    Brachiator

    @Barbara:

    Why is he such a kiss-ass to authoritarian leaders?

    He wishes he had their power. He admires them for having the kind of power he would like for himself.

    Along with a ton of other stuff, this certainly makes Trump one of the oddest US presidents ever. He not only admires autocrats, he actively makes excuses for them. It’s like he apparently loves America (because it is Number One or something), but he doesn’t particularly care for democracy or the lives of people who are not executives or members of his club.

  211. 211.

    A Ghost To Most

    @StringOnAStick: This has been a slippery eel for years. They talk a lot but rarely offer specifics because a contractor is doing the work. Which contractor? We dunno yet. Exactly when has been slipping for years, but now they seem to have convinced themselves that THIS is the year.

    These guys build water tunnels under the Continental Divide, but it takes forever to lay a pipe in the flats.

  212. 212.

    Plato

    Russians trashing their clueless corrupt puppet.

    Russian state-controlled media – once quite the fans of Donald Trump – were scathing about the US president’s performance at the talks.

    A Channel One report from the summit said it had “failed miserably, dealing another blow to the reputation of the American leader”.

    Over on Rossiya 1 TV, a presenter said the outcome was “predictable”, as Mr Trump had “arrived at the new summit with old tactics”, while NTV pointed out that Russia had warned Washington’s “position of ultimatums” would not work.

    One Rossiya 1 presenter suggested Mr Trump had only been interested in distracting people from the testimony of his former lawyer, Michael Cohen.

    In the papers, the independent Novaya Gazeta looks on the bright side, saying that the leaders – while “still extremely far from the Nobel Peace Prize” – have at least stopped swapping insults.

    But in mass tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets, one pundit is withering, saying one “has to understand the core of a subject to make compromises, while Trump is the most ignorant head of state in US history”.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47418956

    Bummer.

  213. 213.

    Ruckus

    @Immanentize:
    It doesn’t take 2 days. Granted that may be a better lesson but 10 minutes was more than enough for me when I was 7-8 yrs old.

  214. 214.

    Steve in the ATL

    @A Ghost To Most: as OzarkHillbilly, Esq., notes, just because Denver Water says it is not liable does not mean that it is not liable.

    Much like those signs in parking lots or on the back of dump trucks that say “not responsible for any damage”.

  215. 215.

    Brachiator

    @Plato:

    But in mass tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets, one pundit is withering, saying one “has to understand the core of a subject to make compromises, while Trump is the most ignorant head of state in US history”.

    Wow. More truth in Russian tabloids than any US media source.

    I listened to a bit of a right leaning talk radio show yesterday. They were desperate to try to read Trump’s performance as a “win.” After a while, they gave up and started indulging in some weird rumination about Trump being jet lagged and spending all his spare time watching Cohen’s testimony before Congress.

  217. 217.

    Ruckus

    @Haroldo:

    His whole psychology is so twisted

    He is one messed up ass. And BTW that messed up ass part, that I believe he inherited from dear old. I heard stories long ago about dad and it doesn’t look like the shit fell far from the ass.

  218. 218.

    Kay

    erica orden
    ‏Verified account
    @eorden
    25m25 minutes ago
    More
    The IRS analyst who was charged last month with leaking Michael Cohen’s SARs was indicted on Thurs. He was indicted on 4 counts: one of unauthorized disclosure of a SAR, 2 counts of misuse of a computer and one count of use of a social security number.

    Well, that case went lickety-split. Weird how it’s so incredibly hard to prosecute higher level white collar crimes but we always nab these lower level perps in a matter of weeks. No justice delayed here! They’ll be packing this guy off to prison on the fast track. The fast track is BELOW the agonizingly slow elite track in this instance.

  219. 219.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Brachiator: Even before Trump, US evangelicals were calling Putin “a strong leader who loves his country” and saying they preferred him to Obama. They were being directly propagandized, of course, but it reminds me of pro-Hitler sentiment here before WWII. There’s always going to be some contingent that sees tyranny as robust manhood– they want to identify with the leader, I guess.

  220. 220.

    japa21

    @StringOnAStick: Some states have very strict laws requiring sellers to explain all issues current and upcoming (assuming the seller is aware) and penalties can be quite severe if they are not disclosed to the buyer.

    When we bought our current house that was not the case and we had frequent flooding of our downstairs due to the way the house was constructed. We were able to resolve the problem after several thousands of dollars spent on creating drainage all around the house. Haven’t had a problem in the last 5 years, but we will still be mentioning it when we sell the house. My guess is that if we got a once in a millennium rainstorm it could overwhelm the drainage system.

  221. 221.

    J R in WV

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Yesterday we went out to pick up the car from it’s annual oil change. We admired the 2 or 3 daffydills about to bloom right by the house. Then driving south along the driveway, there were hundreds of bright yellow blooms along the driveway, where they get a little more sun each evening!

    It was like mid spring the day before yesterday, 68-72 in town, no jacket necessary at all. Now raining and 37… sigh.

  223. 223.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Matt McIrvin: US evangelicals love Putin because he hates the fags and the darkies and he kisses up to the church. He’s just like them – no indication that he’s actually a believer, personally, but he puts on a good show.

  224. 224.

    Brickley Paiste

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Yes, much better to have a black person telling students about picking cotton. Perhaps she could wear a cute costume with a kerchief or something, too.

    These are not the optics you are looking for.

  225. 225.

    Haroldo

    @Ruckus:

    He is one messed up ass. And BTW that messed up ass part, that I believe he inherited from dear old. I heard stories long ago about dad and it doesn’t look like the shit fell far from the ass.

    And from all the photos (particularly those of him in golf attire), it looks to be an awfully floppy one.

  226. 226.

    J R in WV

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    @Kay: Cheating on taxes is as American as Apple pie, Kay. What am I saying, more American than apple pie.

    How odd!! I don’ t recall putting YOU in the pie filter!?!? ;-)

  227. 227.

    satby

    @A Ghost To Most: @Steve in the ATL: LOL! I ‘m not a lawyer, but the summer I was in 8th grade we moved to a suburban house and three months later the Metropolitan Sanitary District started digging for the Chicago Deep Tunnel project. We came home from a week’s vacation to find out the street had collapsed right in front of our new house. All the houses in that street sustained damage from the project, and all of them got significant repairs paid for by the MSD. I’m sure it was frightful for my parents, but in the end that house was in better shape than when we bought it. Hope Ghost doesn’t have the same problems, but I bet the utility would be liable for damage.

  230. 230.

    Brachiator

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Even before Trump, US evangelicals were calling Putin “a strong leader who loves his country” and saying they preferred him to Obama.

    Yeah, but this was uninformed nonsense. I expect more from a US president. However, you raise a good issue in that, again, Trump seems to be very much as stupid as his dumbest, most ill informed supporters.

  231. 231.

    MattF

    @Brachiator: I wouldn’t recommend reading Marc Thiessen’s latest WaPo column, but he does try various arguments to excuse the failed NK summit. Thiessen’s ‘best’ (i.e., weirdest) argument is that the hush money payoff wasn’t actually illegal because Trump didn’t expect to win the election. It’s a ‘tell it to the judge’ moment.

  232. 232.

    Mandalay

    Biden was for Mike Pence before he was against him:

    Former Vice President Joe Biden’s tendency to talk about his good relationships with Republicans landed him in trouble Thursday when he called his successor, Mike Pence, a “decent guy.”

    The comment was quickly criticized by fellow Democrats, including actress and activist Cynthia Nixon, who tweeted that Biden had complimented “America’s most anti-LGBT elected leader,” forcing Biden to walk back his comment.

    “You’re right, Cynthia. I was making a point in a foreign policy context, that under normal circumstances a Vice President wouldn’t be given a silent reaction on the world stage,” Biden tweeted. “But there is nothing decent about being anti-LGBTQ rights, and that includes the Vice President.”

    Well good for Biden for backtracking I suppose, but it never should have been necessary. Folks here freak out about Howard Schultz running in 2020, but Biden running would be a far bigger danger.

  234. 234.

    Miss Bianca

    @Brachiator: This is what makes me sick and crazy – that white America got so freaked out by a Black Man in the White House, ZOMG!!11!! – that they went out of their way – took pains – lied, cheated, and stole – to put not just a white guy in the White House again, but the crassest, crudest, sleaziest, most racist/sexist/xenophobic/ignorant ur-Birther mutherfucker they could *find* into the White House. One explicitly targeting everything Obama ever achieved or stood for. It’s America-Firsters pissing on the rest of us, and making the US both a national disgrace and an international menace/laughingstock.

  236. 236.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:
    Trump is fine, as long as you kiss his large and flabby ass and give him money. He used to be better at this but he’s thrown away so much through stupidity and bullshit that he’s lost sight of what dad taught him, “Take it all and shit on anyone you don’t like.” I mean he still tries to do this with everyone but most are on to him by now and are at least learning that the only thing to give him is piss on his shoes. But having grabbed for the big dollar sign in the sky and having it hit him square upon the noggin – knocking him even dumber, that particular move is not available. The gullible rubes are in awe of him for having pulled off his latest caper and are trying desperately to grab a coat tail for the ride. Some of them are finding out that the ride is a lot more costly than the loose change in their pockets.

  238. 238.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Miss Bianca:

    they went out of their way – took pains – lied, cheated, and stole – to put not just a white guy in the White House again, but the crassest, crudest, sleaziest, most racist/sexist/xenophobic/ignorant ur-Birther mutherfucker they could *find* into the White House.

    Yes. Trump’s stupidity, corruption, all of his horrible traits – they are not accidents. He was picked for them, by tens of millions of racist assholes who wanted to prove the worst white man – someone just like themselves – is better than the best black man. They WANTED the things we think they should be embarrassed by, and still do.

  239. 239.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    Trump seems to be very much as stupid as his dumbest, most ill informed supporters.

    He is! That’s why they like him, he’s one of them. They have finally been vindicated for being themselves, one of them ran for President and won. Finally some pride in the racist, stupid side of the aisle. One of theirs made it big.
    @schrodingers_cat:
    Exactly, he thinks like they do, believes the same bullshit, he is one of them. If they had money they’d load up their houses with gold plated crap as well. They like shinny. What turd is more polished than Trump?

  242. 242.

    Leto

    @Ruckus: It was much easier pre-internet/social media, when the only thing that might report on you was the local print rag. With 24/7 TV and internet, Trumpov’s schtick was seen a mile away. It’s not that reporting became better, it was he was seen so many times that he wore out his welcome long ago.

  243. 243.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @CliosFanboy: There are 13 states whose current populations are a smaller percentage of the US population than was Baltimore City’s in 1950 (949,000 of 152,300,000). FWIW.

  244. 244.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Brickley Paiste: It’s rare that I find myself in agreement with you against the rest of the commentariat. :)

    This is stupid, and I even thought he should resign over the blackface. There’s a regular tour of the mansion. It regularly displays the kitchen area (and notes that slaves attended there) and emphasizes that slavery is evil. They regularly hand cotton to some of the tour-goers, specifically to point out how spiky it is and how much it would have sucked to be forced to pick it. I’m not sure but I believe this has been the practice before Northam’s administration as well.

    It’s only tone-deaf if you’re not willing to give any benefit of the doubt at all, and it’s incredibly weird to say it’s evidence of racism.

    EDIT: I can agree that apparently it was a bad idea because people seem to care about it. But it seems… very wrong to me for anyone to treat this as more than a “huh, okay” at worst. There’s way worse stuff Northam’s said and done recently.

  245. 245.

    ruemara

    @Brickley Paiste: I don’t want to bust your superior bubble, but there are AA docents who do that. And while I view this current tempest as largely a result of her husband’s nonsense, it’s part of being in the political eye.

  246. 246.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Showing children how much it sucked to be a slave seems like a good thing to me. However, I’m not the people being hurt. I don’t give a shit about what anyone but the AA community thinks here, and if they think it’s bad, it should be stopped and I’ll try to learn a lesson from it. About how I’ve felt about the rest of this, really. If you’re ignorant, listen to the people who know.

  247. 247.

    Brachiator

    @MisterForkbeard:

    It’s only tone-deaf if you’re not willing to give any benefit of the doubt at all, and it’s incredibly weird to say it’s evidence of racism.

    I don’t know. I kinda like the Root posting that explains it for the terminally tone-deaf.

    I also liked a couple of the comments

    Pretty damn evil to tell an innocent kid “I want you to imagine how horrible life as a slave is! And remember that’s how we treated your ancestors! Think about it, and have some cotton.”

    and

    “The first lady’s intent was to show the horrors of slavery and to make sure everyone felt the pain they felt in some small measure,”

    Something black children in America obviously don’t have to deal with every single moment of their lives.

    ETA: And no, I do not think that this was the most evil or most racist thing ever, or that the governor’s wife intended to inflict pain on anyone.

  248. 248.

    Ruckus

    @Leto:
    He and his dad wore out their welcome to me decades ago. The info was out there but some just actually like who he is and want him or someone like him in charge. I think a big part of the problem was that he was perceived to have money, maybe because his dad did or because he just lied about it and no one did or could easily check. And money talks, we all know that. It’s not supposed to but let’s be real, money talks and a lot of people listen intently.

  249. 249.

    Barbara

    @Brachiator: As I said above, it isn’t only African American children who are in these groups and, as has been historically the case, when these kinds of tours fail to communicate the role and impact of slavery they are accused of trying to wipe out the bad stuff from American history. So they do stuff like this, but stuff like this sometimes hurts kids who might feel it more personally than their white peers. It is very difficult to walk this line.

  250. 250.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:
    Why is he afraid of them?
    One word. DAD.
    His dad was an ass of epic proportions. He made his money as a slum lord. And he taught his son everything son could learn. And treated him like a possession. Authoritarians are just more dads. And he had to cower to his dad and he does what he knows when he mets another one.

  251. 251.

    catclub

    @StringOnAStick:

    The things you find out long after you have any legal recourse…

    1. Home inspector?
    2. A general form for declaration of conditions – radon, mold, foundation issues, etc?

  252. 252.

    Brachiator

    @Barbara:

    As I said above, it isn’t only African American children who are in these groups and, as has been historically the case, when these kinds of tours fail to communicate the role and impact of slavery they are accused of trying to wipe out the bad stuff from American history. So they do stuff like this, but stuff like this sometimes hurts kids who might feel it more personally than their white peers. It is very difficult to walk this line.

    You cannot always have a “one size fits all” patter when discussing history.

    And I think the original story noted that the governor’s wife was not the trained docent that conducts the tour.

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