"No thank you, Mr. Attorney General. We do not need your interpretation. Show us the report," Nancy Pelosi says about the Mueller report.
"It was condescending, it was arrogant, and it wasn't the right thing to do." Via CBS pic.twitter.com/f9GsgeG66V
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 28, 2019
I’m impressed w Pelosi’s message discipline when talking about Trump. She seldom misses an opportunity to describe him as a weak coward. https://t.co/Z4b37idcmS
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 28, 2019
***********
The National Museum of African American History and Culture will display a new portrait of the legendary abolitionist that “adds significantly to what we know about this fierce abolitionist.”https://t.co/B5pyaHPJS9
— hyperallergic (@hyperallergic) March 23, 2019
And on a historical note, per Smithsonian Magazine:
The power exuded by a previously unknown portrait of Harriet Tubman is tangible. The escaped slave, who repeatedly returned to the South risking her life to bring hundreds of enslaved people North to freedom, stares defiantly into the camera. Her eyes are clear, piercing and focused. Her tightly waved hair is pulled back neatly from her face. But it is her expression—full of her strength, power and suffering—that stops viewers in their tracks.
“Suddenly, there was a picture of Harriet Tubman as a young woman, and as soon as I saw it I was stunned,” says a grinning Lonnie Bunch, founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. He’s talking about a portrait of Tubman contained in an 1860s-era photography album belonging to abolitionist Emily Howland…
“There’s a youthful exuberance. There is a sense that you could actually look at that picture and say, ‘Now I understand that this woman was tough and resilient.’ A picture like that does a couple of things. First,” Bunch says thoughtfully,” it reminds people that someone like Harriet Tubman was an ordinary person who did extraordinary things. So, this means you too can change the world. . . . But I also think one of the real challenges of history is that sometimes we forget to humanize the people we talk about . . . and I think that picture humanizes her in a way that I would have never imagined.”
In the photograph, Tubman is wearing a pleated, buttoned blouse with ruffles at her forearms and wrists, and a flowing skirt. Bunch says it is clearly the attire of a middle-class black woman, and she could well afford the clothing.
“She had a pension from working for the Union government, being a spy, that sort of thing. But more importantly she had a little farm,” Bunch explains, “so she was able to sell eggs. . . . But there was also support coming in from abolitionists. They would send her money, they would celebrate her. . . . I think the most important thing is that she had to find a way to make a living, and she did.”…
This should be a thing pic.twitter.com/eW6uRQrBpw
— Capt.bagel (@Captbagel) March 28, 2019
(I’m pretty sure that illo is based on a Leo & Diane Dillon drawing, but my google-fu is weak)
OzarkHillbilly
Gonna rain all day. The same for tomorrow. Blech.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Blech indeed.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: ?
We’re getting that tonight and all through the weekend. Cooler too, after a high of 60 yesterday back down into the 40s over the weekend. Boo!
Harriet Tubman was a beautiful woman when she was younger, wasn’t she?
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: And then the temps drop. March, in like a lion, out like an asshole.
Patricia Kayden
That portrait of Ms. Tubman is just another excuse for me to revisit the African American museum. Wonderful! That should be the portrait on our $20 bills.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Funny thing about that photo, they keep saying it was made in ’68 or ’69, yet the album was gifted to Howland on New Years day, 1964. According to the Smithsonian article Howland and Tubman were teaching at a school in upstate NY in the late ’60s so I guess that was when the photo was taken and added to the album? They never really quite explain it.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: I was laughing watching all the people out in t-shirts and shorts bar-b-queing over the last two days of sunny 55-60° weather thinking of the warmer climate jackals bundled in down jackets for the exact same temperatures.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: 1860s you mean, but I imagine she was gifted the album and added photos through the years like you said.
satby
I’ve been up since 4:30, but my elderly crew of canines has determinedly slept on. They’re just now making grumbly waking up noises. I guess it’s time to go out ?.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: At those temps, I am working outside, wearing a t-shirt and sweating, while my Mediterranean wife is huddled up with a blanket and a dog next to the woodstove and wouldn’t dare venture outside with out a down jacket.
Raven
I hope the weather is decent in London, the princess should jus about be there!
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: Just in time for the Great Buggering! At this point I don’t see how they get out of it. I hope your wife has a better time of it than they will
satby
@Raven: after a long day like yesterday I hope she was able to sleep on the plane and gets an almost full day of sightseeing in.
NotMax
Phew. Powerful cinema viewed last night. Süskind, Amazon Prime.
Dog Mom
I think I missed the Thankfullness post this week, so I will throw this in here. One of my three ‘broke-down’ dogs had a horrible, huge, bloody, zombie brains wart growing from her cheek. We finally got it removed on Tuesday. She is 12 with Atypical Cushing’s and a sensitive liver, so anesthesia was a concern. She came through it fine, though with a line of stitches from just below her eye to the bottom of her cheek – now she is the Bride of Frankenstein. She is a tough little cookie of a beagle and wearing her lampshade and taking her meds without complaint. No guarantees that they got all the margins, that it won’t grow back or that it is not something nastier than a papilloma, but it is gone. Sorry for the grossness so early in the morning.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: @satby:
I had a pleasant moment I agining it was the 1960s and H. Tubman was also photographed with Angela Davis and Huey Newton.
raven
@satby: She was having awful sinus issues on the first flight so I hope it went better.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Rain forecast for Friday here as well. Right now outside it’s that everything is still, anticipatory of a storm type of weather.
Immanentize
I’m going to try to get my tax crap to the tax guy this morning. Then he can tell me how many checks to send where. One of course to him. Next year will be much easier after all the chaos of 2018.
raven
@Dog Mom: Poor pupster!
Immanentize
@NotMax: One of my students is from Oahu, and she was trying to describe some crazy corruption case against the DA and her Sheriff husband. I haven’t looked it up yet, but it’s nice to know that crazy reaches all the way to paradise.
OzarkHillbilly
Headline on opinion piece at the Guardian: Will Rachel Maddow face a reckoning over her Trump-Russia coverage?
Really guys? If i was that into self flagellation I could just go to Breitbart.
Immanentize
@Dog Mom: I hope she gets better quick. The image of a beagle in a cone of shame boldly taking her meds is a tale of a good girl.
Immanentize
As for weather, here just north of Boston, we may have turned the corner to spring. Yes, we will have some rain on and off for the next week, but temps will be in the fifties with maybe no nights below freezing all week. Garden, here I come!
NotMax
@Immanentize
Oh, those wacky big city folk.
:)
satby
@Dog Mom: Good for her and relief for you. That is good news!
@Immanentize: ?
@NotMax: on the list.
Dog Mom
@raven: Thank you – like I said she’s a tough cookie!
Kay
CliosFanboy
@Dog Mom: I hope she’ll be OK!!!! Sounds like she will…
Jay
@OzarkHillbilly:
He’s a leftier than thou, proving the Horseshoe theory.
CliosFanboy
there’s a decent novel about John Brown’s Raid succeeding because Tubman was with him and she was a far better strategist. The author’s politics get in the way sometime (they seem well to the left of Stein and Bernie) but the part of the novel that takes places in 1859-1860 is exciting.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Pretty sure their parents would call them a couple of “chips off the old blocks”.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jay: You are a braver man than I, reading that claptrap. I’m not at all certain my veins and arteries could handle the surge in blood pressure that would be sure to assault them if I read it.
debbie
That is the $20 bill this country deserves. I want it!
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Yep. It’s astounding to realize that, as horrible as she is, Betsy DeVos isn’t even the worst of her litter, at least in terms of body count.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: Betsy’s body count is measured in generational terms.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
debbie
@Immanentize:
Betsy’s taking the hits for these things, but they obviously come from Trump.
Betty Cracker
It’s Friday! Woohoo! I’ve got a busy day ahead, and I also need to find time to go to the grocery store. We’ve got a nephew coming up for the weekend. I’m going to make lasagna for dinner and then cook a big breakfast in the morning to send the guys off well-nourished for a day of fishing. My husband loves to fish, and I don’t fish at all, so it’s always good when we have visitors who can serve as fishing buddies.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: I read something from Waldman (iirc) the other day that stated more or less that trump is a policy void into which a bunch of grifters and ideologues have put into action their most depraved fever dreams. I could not disagree.
satby
@Betty Cracker: if you wanted to you can make a quick batch of home made ricotta cheese that’s way better than store bought. Only takes about an hour or so, depending on how dry you want it.
I made goat cheese the other night and now I probably will only make my own of that too. Fresh, not feta. I have to find a recipe to turn my next batch into feta.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Still, I feel like we dodged a bullet with her. If she were at all persuasive or appealing or interesting her ideas might become more mainstream with the national platform. She just lacks that whole set of abilities. She’s so easily offended that she no longer gives interviews to anyone outside far Right media- she’s reduced to meeting with, like, a local Christian radio host in Indiana. She hasn’t been able to use the national platform at all. She was more effective when she was threatening Michigan lawmakers privately and acting as a behind the scenes conservative operative. They never should have rolled her out publicly.
She bought the job, and it shows. She’s just really, really bad at it.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Except he was spouting this same kind of crap as far back as the 1980s.
Gin & Tonic
@satby: I thought feta was sheep’s milk, like the eastern European bryndzia/brenca.
satby
@satby: I make it using a gallon of whole milk and a pint of half and half for a pan of lasagna. 6 tablespoons of lemon juice, or a scant 1/4 cup. YUM!
satby
@Gin & Tonic: I think it is, but it can also be made with cow or goat milk. I wanted to try the goat milk since I won’t be able to find sheep milk.
Gin & Tonic
@satby: Are you sure of measurements? 1/4 cup is 4 tablespoons, 1/2 cup is 8, so you’re halfway between 1/4 and 1/2.
Jay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I skim, see the dogwhistles in current context, then google the author.
Saves time,
Less brain bleach needed,
Saves on Amazon Priority Shipping,
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: In the 1980s trump was still capable of coherent thought. That is no longer true.
Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
Feta’s just a type/method of making a fresh cheese.
Any milk will do except Magnesia.
satby
@Gin & Tonic: nope, I was SWAGing it ?. I’m often at a loss for where my measuring spoons are, but can always find my 1/4 cup. I’m a pinch of this type of cook, I try to translate that into actual measures for other people, but I am also really mediocre at math.
My bad.
Betty Cracker
@satby: My husband makes ricotta sometimes, and you’re right, it is better. His lasagna is really good — he makes his own sauce, uses homemade ricotta, fresh mozzarella, fresh herbs, etc. He calls my version “cracker lasagna,” and it’s a different dish altogether. His is an all-day affair. I can throw mine together in under an hour.
@Kay: She really is horrible, and you’re right — we’re lucky she has the charisma of a damp Kleenex. It’s hilarious that Trump threw her under the bus on the Special Olympics thing. There’s one little measure of justice for his vile toadies and hangers-on — they live in fear of that thump-thump while total obsequiousness is required of them.
satby
@Jay: feta is a little more complicated. I have to get rennet and something called Mesophilic culture. Which takes it from a simple quick recipe to a project.
One of these days…
Tata
This may sound crazy, but I am 100% certain I saw that portrait years ago, within the last decade. Love the $20.
Making your own cheese is the absolute best. Can we haz cheese thread?
OzarkHillbilly
The boy on a raft in Manila Bay – in pictures At dawn, Reymark Cavesirano makes a perilous journey out to sea to meet the fishing boats in a bid to help his family survive
A photo essay
In exchange for cleaning nets and boats, he is allowed to collect the tiny fish that are left tangled in the nylon after the catch is emptied out. After spending three hours going around different boats on his borrowed craft, he heads back to land and divides up the catch for his family to eat .
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
The Special Olympics proposal was her Right wing posturing on fiscal conservatism. They make showy, preachy (and tiny) cuts to programs they don’t care about. Special Olympics is a rounding error. To pontificate about cutting it is theater. She’s all fucking ego, which is why she’s horrible at the job. Perpetually offended.
Completely dishonest too. That wasn’t “misreported”- it’s her budget proposal, as written and submitted. That it would never pass doesn’t matter, the rest of her crackpot schemes won’t pass the Dem House either. That’s the proposed budget she submitted.
rikyrah
@Dog Mom:
Just glad to hear the positive results ?
rikyrah
Nancy Smash rocks ?? ?
rikyrah
@Kay:
It is the proposal that she submitted.
And then, as with the rest of these arrogant, low quality hires, didn’t even know how many people it would affect.
THEN, did that right wing bullshyt of the private charity could make up that loss of funding.
I loathe this woman.??
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
??????
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: What I notice about DeVos is this big smile she wears while being questioned. I assume it’s a social reflex but it’s inappropriate for the situation.
Leto
@Immanentize: Weather here outside Philly will be in the mid 60’s for the next two days, supposedly rain and cooler temps on Sunday, and then in the 50s for next week. I’m going to really enjoy today and tomorrow and use that as outdoor PT time :)
Love the $20. I miss U.K. and Euro money that have portraits of scientists or literary figures. Made good conversation starters with the kid.
Libraryguy
I posted this previously, but wanted to just throw it out regarding whether The Nation is far-left:
” Though to be fair to The Nation’s current image, they do also have 2 new essays: Aaron Mate’s RIP, Russiagate and Stephen F Cohen’s The Real Costs of Russiagate.
The subtitles tell it all: Mate is “The implosion of the collusion theory is a humiliation for everyone who promoted it.”
Cohen: “Its perpetrators, not Putin or Trump, “attacked American democracy.””
Both, based on Barr’s letter and nothing else, and ignoring everything that has been publicly revealed over the last 3 years.
rikyrah
Yes…???
Tell that truth about the “coastal elites” to Mayor Pete
https://twitter.com/Soulkeeper43/status/1111476307337064448
Kay
I wen to the 4 county Dem dinner last night and had a conversation with the first Democrat I’ve encountered who rejects Mayor Pete on account of the fact that he’s gay. He didn’t say that overtly but there was this eyebrow raise that saddened me- I feel like I know what it means. He’s young too- he was 2 years behind my daughter in high school which makes him late twenties. He’s a Teamster but not a driver Teamster, a food service Teamster. Also, I regret to inform you that Biden is popular here because I think Biden will lose the general if he’s the nominee. I just think he was a mediocre Dem Senator and is a horrible campaigner. Obama carried Biden, not the other way around. I think Trump will cream him. All in all not a great night for Team D.
plato
@Libraryguy:
Major credit for that goes to bob fucking mueller, the incompetent. He proved to be no different from james fucking comey.
Tenar Arha
@Dog Mom: My best wishes to you, and lots of get well soon pets to the Bride of Frankenstein in her cone.
JPL
@Kay: CNN said funding Special Olympics is five Mar-a-Lago trips.
JAFD
Happy Piano Day, everyone ! *
The DJ at WQXR(.org) also reminds us that their website hath a list of ’30 Essential Women Composers’ with links to recordings of their music.
( *88th day of the year, don’ya’know)
Kay
@plato:
I just think they’re so vested in protecting “the institutions” that they’ve forgotten what the institutions are supposed to do, who they’re supposed to serve. They don’t have any value just as entities. Protecting the reputation and credibility isn’t the point- the work is the point. I think it happens a lot, in all kinds of organizations. All of this anguish over credibility seems to end at “protect credibility”. Trust is FOR something. It’s the condition that precedes the necessary action, not the action.
I think they’re failing because they’re focused on the wrong thing.
Immanentize
@JAFD: Don’t tell the neo-nazis it’s day 88 of the year… Ooops. Looks like they already know (NO LINK!)
Kay
@JPL:
She wanted to make a big showboaty Right wing point about how philanthropy can replace government. She’s an ideologue. Luckily for us she’s not a persuasive or appealing or particularly smart ideologue. It wasn’t a merit hire, even on political operative terms.
Steeplejack
@Raven:
Partly cloudy and 60° in London today, according to my weather page. Then 62° tomorrow and low 50s through Wednesday. Not much chance of rain until Tuesday.
Immanentize
@Kay: Partly, it’s because she is lazy, too. DeVos could have announced that she was going to head up, personally, Special Olympic fundraising efforts as part of a show of the power of philanthropy. And she could easily have personally pledged 100K for the next five years. Then she probably could have pulled this off.
But she didn’t. She is lazy and cheap. So she was reduced to saying the totally unconvincing “I even myself supported the SO in the past.” Low quality hire indeed!
Immanentize
@Kay: I think there is something further. I agree with you that there is a real end outside of the work. But I also believe professional ethics are a very important thing — especially for lawyers.
It is not OK to howl about leaks from the NY FBI or the leaks to Nunes and then beg for leaks from Mueller.
ETA. Mueller is the anti-Comey, keeping his mouth shut as required by professionalism. Barr is Comey, putting his finger on the scale.
O. Felix Culpa
@satby: Bookmarked! Thank you. I worked for a time at a goat dairy farm, milking goats and making cheese. A great experience, especially feeding the babies, except for getting up at an ungodly hour and freezing my digits while tossing hay in the dark. Farming, even on a small scale, is relentless hard work.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Well, that’s discouraging. I agree wholeheartedly that Obama carried Biden — not only in both elections, but Obama’s cache gave Biden’s image a makeover he could have never achieved on his own. I give Biden some credit because he really was a strong and supportive VP. He was a good VP, but that doesn’t mean he’d be a good presidential candidate.
I don’t know if he’d lose to Trump. Maybe. We know he was never a great campaigner on a solo basis. If he’s the nominee, that may rob the ticket of the enthusiasm of a lot of women and younger folks, regardless of whom he picks as VP, and in a close race, that could make all the difference. He can’t credibly run as a “change” candidate. Ugh. I hope he just doesn’t run at all, but all signs point to yes…
JPL
@Kay: The education budget includes major shifts to funding private schools which is terrifying in itself. When questioned about funding poorly managed charter schools, she said their would be some failures but that’s okay.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: I’m predicting he will not run. Part of this is hope, I admit. But he is not getting the financial backing he needs. And he knows it.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: From your keyboard to all the FSM’s noodly appendages!
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Biden would need a strong Vice and from the list of those running, he could choose one.
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah: I don’t have the time to listen to the radio spot (28 mins long and it keeps locking up) but their interview of him is summarized thusly:
Not “coastal elites”, and when it comes to the view a lot of DEMs have of midwesterners, it is pretty much a caricature. Like all good caricatures there are some truths behind it, but it is still an exaggeration.
Dan Merica said,
Notice he does not quote Buttigieg using the phrase “coastal elites” and what he does quote from Buttigieg is, in my experience, true.
If I could get the damn thing to play I could say for certain one way or the other. At this point I am skeptical of the interpretations people are putting forth of Buttigieg’s views on various issues. I just detect an anti Buttigieg slant in much of social media wherein no matter what he actually says, certain people will put the worst spin possible on it. Similar to what the anti Beto or the pro Bernie crowds are doing.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
That’s a great thread with some links to other Prince/DeVos weirdness.
Immanentize
@JPL:
All his trial balloons just reinforce what a poor candidate he is:
I will pick a groovy black woman as VP.
I will only serve one term because of my age.
Both of these scream the privilege attendant to forced retirement. “Please, just one more show?!”
Immanentize
@Steeplejack:
Please tell me that is not an brother/sister love site?
Immanentize
@Steeplejack: Please tell me that is not a brother/sister love site?
Steeplejack
Malcolm Gladwell meets Joe Scarborough to talk about modern music. This is a nightmare I never thought I would have to worry about.
Gin & Tonic
@Libraryguy: Ste[hen Cohen has been a consistent apologist for the Kremlin since the Brezhnev era. One might say “fellow traveler.”
JPL
@Immanentize: I definitely agree. We should know soon, because I read he was waiting to announce in April after others have filed their campaign contributions. He was afraid of a poor showing. duh
H.E.Wolf
Anne Laurie is right!
@Tata: is right, too!
Here’s a link to the book cover:
https://cargocollective.com/chloefoglia/Harriet-Tubman
Elizabelle
@Dog Mom: Be well, brave little beagle. Keep us posted.
Happy Friday, jackals. What used to be news dump day …
Gin & Tonic
@Steeplejack: Easy to avoid, though.
MomSense
My kid is doing a planned parenthood fundraiser next week – bunch of bands performing Gillian Welch songs. I think there is another one coming up (not sure of the music) for We Speak About It which is a consensual sex education organization. The kids are alright.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: I asked yesterday, but too late – are you in Yurp permanently now?
MomSense
@Steeplejack:
Oh god.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: there’s a homophobic element to the anti-Pete stuff too, but as Kay says, it’s subtle.
People spend a lot of time tearing him down considering he’s very much a long shot even as a potential VP choice. Makes you wonder why.
Edited to add: ‘ve heard Mayor Pete speak pretty often since I live in his town, and never once have I heard him use the term coastal elites. That’s someone putting their spin on his speech.
H.E.Wolf
@satby:
Yes. And she was beautiful when she was an old woman, too. Here is a photo of her in her mid/late 80s:
http://www.blackhistoryheroes.com/2013/08/what-harriet-tubman-teaches-us-today.html
I’d be happy with either image on our $20 bill, when the promised re-design occurs.
schrodingers_cat
Centuries of white privilege (and myths of supremacy) condensed in one sentence.
says Jeremy Hunt, the guy hoping to replace May.
As one of the peoples that was the receiving end of that “shaping” may I offer the heartiest of fuck yous to this entitled Tory.
H.E.Wolf
Elizabeth Catlett, an African-American artist with a long and deservedly celebrated career, created a series of gorgeous woodcuts featuring Harriet Tubman.
In Catlett’s woodcuts, Harriet Tubman is often reaching out of the frame to pull the viewer (and/or the people she is rescuing) to freedom.
https://hbcustory.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/art-as-activism-the-hbcustory-of-howard-alumna-elizabeth-catlett-mora/
I would bet that the Dillons, who knew their art history, paid homage to Catlett with their own illustration of Tubman.
satby
@H.E.Wolf: I love to see pictures of heros from the past as younger people in their prime! Often we see only the photos captured when they’re old and at the end of their lives, and we have to imagine them doing what they’ve accomplished.
artem1s
BTW, I was promised Tubmans. Where are my Tubmans? When are we going to phase out the old $20?
Steeplejack
@Gin & Tonic:
It came upon me unaware, and then I could not look away.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Remember the first time you heard that term? Coastal Elites? No doubt it was a Republican saying it, and they drummed it into the ground for a couple decades. Now they’ve got lefties using it too.
Job of splitting well done GOP.
Betty Cracker
@JPL: True, there are many strong VP choices available among the current field, but if Biden were to get the nomination and choose one of them, I am skeptical that it would make the needed difference, even if he chose someone really compelling like Stacey Abrams. People just don’t vote on VP, at least not in the numbers needed to make up a giant deficit at the top of the ticket.
Of course, none of this may matter if we get a recession, which seems a strong possibility. If Trump can no longer coast on PBO’s economy, he won’t get votes beyond his base and he’ll lose. But it will be even more maddening (to me, at least) if the Democrats find themselves in such favorable territory and use that opportunity to install a retread.
Anya
@Kay: we really did dodge a bullet there. Imagine the damage she would’ve inflicted if she was what the media considers charismatic or engaging, which usually means shameless. Imagine if she was able to abrasively lie like Kellyanne or Marsha Blackburn. Her entitled, rich lady attitude is our saving grace.
Betty Cracker
@artem1s: I think Trump killed the program. Seriously.
H.E.Wolf
Re: Joe Biden – I don’t believe it’s likely that he’ll win the Democratic nomination in 2020.
Biden was born in 1942. He’d be on the (exhausting) campaign trail at age 78, and in his 80s while in the 2nd half of his first (exhausting) presidential term.
I don’t think that’s going to play well in the aggregrate of Democratic primaries.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: I read it was delayed for further study, or some such BS. At the time I just took it as, “After 2020”.
schrodingers_cat
This answers a lot of questions about Pete Buttgieg, this quote is from a publication based in Indiana.
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly & @satby: Agreed the knives are out for Mayor Pete, and the criticism is mostly bullshit. I already hate the fucking 2020 primary campaign, and thinking of how long this shit is going to stretch out is depressing as hell.
JAFD
@Immanentize: It may be noted that ‘live from the Met’ tomorrow is Wagner’s -Die Walküre_ (Starts at 12:00 pm ET)
‘QXR also has ‘three-minute plot summaries’ for the upcoming operas. This one concludes with “Isn’t Wotan telling Brunhilde ‘You’ll be kept asleep in A Ring of Magical Fire until The Invincible Hero Comes’ way cooler then ‘You’re grounded’.
Also Sir William Walton’s birthday. And since yesterday was Opening Day, a mixtape question:
How do they pay the Queen her salary ?
They give her a reign cheque.
.
H.E.Wolf
@satby:
I agree with you! It’s a thrill to see the photo of a young Tubman, when previously we had only illustrations from wanted posters and the like.
I also get a thrill from photos of people in very old age, which is another time when their essential character/personality is often visible.
It is awe-inspiring to see one of my childhood (and adulthood) heroes in two very different stages of her life… and recognizably the same person inwardly.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: You may have standing to cast stones at 37-year-olds for dumb ideas they had 19 years ago, but I damn sure don’t. People evolve. If Buttigieg is a Bernie Bro, he sure has a funny way of showing it, running against his idol.
rikyrah
‘She can’t row or anything like that’: Kimora Lee Simmons shades Lori Loughlin as she celebrates her daughter Aoki getting into Harvard at the age of 16 on merit
Kimora Lee Simmons threw shade at actress Lori Loughlin as she celebrated her daughter Aoki’s acceptance into Harvard University on Thursday night
‘She really did it on her own merit and we’re really so proud because Aoki can’t row or anything like that,’ Simmons said as she gushed on Instagram
Loughlin and her husband are accused of paying a $500,000 bribe to get their daughters into USC while posing as crew recruits
Simmons showed her daughter crying at the computer as she read her Harvard acceptance e-mail, welcoming her to the Class of 2023
The fashion designer pointed out to her fans that Aoki is just 16
By MARLENE LENTHANG FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 01:48 EDT, 29 March 2019 | UPDATED: 09:07 EDT, 29 March 2019
rikyrah
@JPL:
I love this, actually. Them putting it in the simplest of terms.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Thank you, Kay.
Matt McIrvin
@Immanentize: That “one-term pledge” idea is on the list of perennial possibilities that excite political reporters but don’t happen.
Related:
1. “co-presidents”
2. second-term President stepping down voluntarily, without scandal, to give the VP a “head start”
3. the Lawrence Lessig-type pledge to get elected and then step down immediately so the VP can be the actual President
Also, the return of the brokered convention, though right now a bunch of them are saying that recent Democratic Party rule changes mean that it REALLY COULD TOTALLY HAPPEN this time; they’re not kidding like before. I guess we’ll see.
Citizen Alan
@Gin & Tonic:
I thought that said Stephen Colbert and was utterly confused.
rikyrah
skeptical brotha ? (@skepticalbrotha) Tweeted:
A recipe for a democratic death spiral.
https://t.co/i2YbeaYagQ via @slate
https://twitter.com/skepticalbrotha/status/1111043768059334657?s=17
satby
@Betty Cracker: I agree with you.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: It is to be expected I guess, but yeah, depressing as hell. And very tiresome.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: I have no idea whether BS is his idol right now but the excessive concern about the feelings of Midwestern T voters over life and death issues faced by those in T’s cross-hairs, like immigrants and many minorities mirrors those of his childhood idol.
T’s most potent issue since he announced was blatant bigotry against immigrants and xenophobia. I don’t want a D standard bearer who wants me to get along with people who want me dead. YMMV.
H.E.Wolf
@artem1s:
According to Wikipedia, that cartoon supervillain, Steven Mnuchin (Secretary of the Treasury, with a cartoon villain 3rd wife) has postponed the rollout indefinitely, while targeting Alexander Hamilton to be erased from the $10 bill.
(I wonder who Mnuchin wants to put onto the $10? Goldfinger?)
Leto
@H.E.Wolf: Wow, powerful works from a powerful woman. Thanks for sharing!
OzarkHillbilly
@JAFD:
Ouch, 40 lashes with a cat-o-nine noodles.
Dog Mom
Thanks for all the good wishes for the BoF Beagle – Lulu. She is enjoying her morning siesta.
Kay
Political media recites what they’re told by Trump’s campaign:
It’s bullshit. Donald Trump is campaigning in Grand Rapids, Michigan which is Right wing Trump country and akin to Elizabeth Warren drawing a sympathetic crowd in Brooklyn. It’s a given. He’s not even confident he has 20k spare votes in Michigan, let alone flipping Virginia. I take him seriously as an opponent but this is just a campaign press release disguised as journalism.
I think the Trump campaign believe he is weak in the rust belt states. They’re nervous about this. I don’t know it it’s polling or what, but they aren’t acting like confident people although they brag and bluster. Trump is supposedly so hugely successful in the rust belt he should have it sewn up and be expanding to Detroit suburbs instead of preaching to his base in Grand Rapids.
He’s weaker than Politico and the NYTimes are letting on.
satby
@Betty Cracker: a senior in high school and talking about an essay from 2000?
Jeezus.
I don’t suppose we can say we like this or that surprising candidate without having to proclaim over and over that we also like other ones? I have room to like lots of the candidates right now, and dislike others, but it will winnow down as time goes on. What doesn’t incline me favorably to a candidate is spurious bullshit about potential opponents.
Which is why I hate Wilmer, for example.
OzarkHillbilly
@H.E.Wolf:
Who else? trump.
satby
@JAFD: @OzarkHillbilly: ???
Citizen Alan
@OzarkHillbilly:
Do the Coastal Elites have a “New York sense of humor”?
Kay
Hence, Grand Rapids. His base.
mad citizen
@rikyrah: She does indeed rock, but watching the video I was jarred with the weakness in her voice, etc. She just turned 79. I hope she has trained the replacements well, and hope she can last another two years as an effective Speaker.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
I know he is. He barely won in PA, MI and WI and has done his best to piss off as many people as he could while doing absolutely nothing for the swing voters there who pulled the lever for him.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: Trump wouldn’t appear on something as low class as a 10, they’d bring back the $100,000 bill and put Trump on it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Citizen Alan: …with San Francisco Values.
satby
@Kay: home base of the DeVos family.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: It’s not true that Buttigieg privileges T voters over immigrants. He’s actually been pretty great about pushing back on Trump’s hateful, anti-immigrant policies as mayor, and he’s called this administration out for their horrible behavior as a candidate. Now, he’s a Midwestern guy, so in interviews, Buttigieg is invariably asked about red state voters, and he naturally has his opinions that are formed by his experience as a progressive politician in a red state. So that gets more play than the fact that he addressed South Bend’s immigrant community — where appropriate, in Spanish — and assured them that he wasn’t going to let the feds use the city’s cops to round people up and told them they belong and have his support. Cherry-picked quotes can paint a false portrait of Buttigieg — and any other candidate, as 2016 demonstrated. We shouldn’t fall for this shit this time.
Kay
@satby:
Exactly. Grand Rapids and west are completely different than Detroit and east. If he’s not still popular in Grand Rapids he’s going to lose Michigan, forget expanding into Virginia.
Betty Cracker
@satby: I am seriously worried about Sanders’ primary strategy after seeing who he hired as communications chiefs. It looks like he intends to go scorched earth.
Citizen Alan
@Betty Cracker:
The only possible reason to choose a VP at this point is if s/he is a highly skilled attack dog. The absolute best moment of Joe Biden’s career, IMO, was in the 2008 VP debate when he literally laughed at ZEGS’s comments and proposals on live television. That moment I realized I couldn’t vote Gore in 2000 (I was in Mississippi so my vote hardly mattered) was when Dick Cheney had the unmitigated gall to say that Halliburton’s success had nothing to do with government handouts when it was actually completely dependent on government contracts … and Holy Joe just sat there like a lump and didn’t even respond.
OzarkHillbilly
Douglas Durst is a NYC real estate developer (and long time competitor of trump’s) and the brother of serial killer Robert Durst.
That left a mark.
rikyrah
UH HUH
UH HUH
Dorothy A. Winsor
Grand Rapids is Betsy DeVos’s home town. Deep Dutch Reform Christian territory.
rikyrah
Taxpayer money ???
Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) Tweeted:
SEEMA VERMA – who’s pushed Medicaid work rules and other controversial policies – has spent millions of taxpayer dollars on GOP communications consultants to help with her PR and image. https://t.co/XDu21Br7VZ Exclusive with @adamcancryn https://twitter.com/ddiamond/status/1111578215661924353?s=17
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: I think Trump would rather have Bernie Goetz on the $20.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Seema, should know that nothing can change the ugly within.
satby
@Betty Cracker: Oh, he does, which is why it’s great that Beto specifically pulls from former Wilmer voters. With any luck (and an insistence on releasing his tax returns) Wilmer will be gone early from the primaries.
rikyrah
???
Elaina Plott (@elainaplott) Tweeted:
Source says RNC and America First are prepared to attack reporters. “Any reporter who tries [to attack Trump] will be hit with 30-second spots of all their ridiculous claims about collusion. Their tweets have all been screencapped. It’s all ready to go.” https://t.co/qbSijmXztA https://twitter.com/elainaplott/status/1111351703805276162?s=17
Uncle Cosmo
@playdough: Not sure if you’re a fucking imbecile or just another troll.
@Kay: Mueller was tasked with a counterintelligence investigation. To whatever extent his report stops short of allegations that most of us are morally certain are true, it is highly probable (just short of a lead-pipe-cinch) that he knows them to be true as well, but was unable to assemble convincing evidence that would not involve revealing “sources & methods”. He was never going to do that. (That may in fact be Putin’s deep game here – you can save your republic but only at the price of destroying your intelligence capabilities for a generation.)
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: Also Buttigieg, but with the full quote in context, via WaPo’s Plum Line:
I encourage Buttigieg’s detractors to go read the whole thing, in which he addresses immigration, white nationalism, etc. He’s not wrong.
Leto
@Betty Cracker:
Republicans don’t need to divide us when we’re so inclined to do it ourselves. A progressive trying to govern a red state populace faces a whole different set of challenges and will have a different perspective. So far it seems he agrees with like, 95% of everything Juicers like/stand for. Again, this ties back into how do you reach the people who will listen and get them back into the sane fold? How do we support allies like this, out in the red desert, who are trying to help bring about change? Or do we abandon them too like we’ve done most of the south? I don’t exactly have answers to these but it doesn’t seem like most of us here do either.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
People on the coasts? WTF is he obsessing about? I can’t even figure out what the definition of elite is. Is it money? Education? Proximity to ocean?
ETA I know many people who fish and lobster (doesn’t get more on the coast than that) who are trump supporters even as their livelihoods are being destroyed by the stupid tariffs. News flash: their support has nothing to do with economic anxiety.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker:
T voters are on an average wealthier. This argument is bullshit. Rs are the party of rich people. Most working class voters vote D.
Immanentize
@H.E.Wolf:
PS. I predict the Tubman 20 is going to be a very big 2020 campaign issue. No I’m not joking. Trump Treasury refuses to say if they still plan on issuing it.
If I were running a white supremecy campaign of grievance….
H.E.Wolf
@Leto:
You’re welcome!
Harriet Tubman’s motto: “Keep going.” I ought to post that in 60-point font, someplace where I can see it daily.
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah: I encourage the RNC to produce a whole series of 30 sec spots highlighting the corruption of their Dear Leader.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
Let’s say it AGAIN for the bleacher seats…
The number of regular Democratic voters who were denied the franchise in 2016, due to VOTER SUPPRESSION in these three states was 2-3 times the size of Dolt45’s ‘margin of victory’ in these states.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: “On average” and “most” are doing a lot of work in your rebuttal. No one is saying declining prospects and social dislocation (“where your place is,” i.e., status anxiety) inevitably lead to extremism, but it is a condition that allows it to flourish, not just in America but all over the planet.
rikyrah
Not This Ish Again (@ish_not) Tweeted:
PSA: When you shade HRC you are essentially telling the 94% Black women who voted for her that we have no fucking idea what we were doing.
WE don’t like that shit.
At least 2 things WE know very well: making good potato salad and voting for the BEST candidate
Get it together. https://twitter.com/ish_not/status/1108505334275022848?s=17
DropDminus
So this thread with the rather unnecessary attack quotes and friendly fire blowback has raised an issue that I’ve been kicking around about Mayor Pete. I find him interesting because he has that Obama calm and reasonable thing going on, although he’s way down on my personal list (imho we need a prosecutor not a conciliator this time).
The question I have, is a delicate one for me to ask in light of the fact that I am neither African American, gay, or even slightly religious. Given the axiom that African American women are the backbone of the Democratic Party now, and that there is still a strong homophobic strain of theology in black churches, is there a real risk of depressed turnout in those communities for a ticket with a gay VP candidate (let’s say paired up with Kamala Harris)?
Immanentize
@rikyrah: Please continue to say this. Because the real question is how do we stop some of that suppression and re-enfranchise voters???
I have a sabbatical in Spring 2020. I am thinking of joining up with Holder, etc. to do what I can on that issue.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Betty Cracker: Thank you, Betty.
Let’s not let the media divide us. They’re gonna be gaslighting us about what a political genius Dump is for the next year and a half anyhow…
“Listen to the candidates”
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: People keep comparing Trump’s approval now to when he took office, January 2017. But the more relevant consideration is to November 2016, when he won. He’s *more* popular now than he was then (going by personal approval). He gained a lot as a consequence of winning.
tobie
@rikyrah: I would like to wake up one morning and not feel like I have to defend democracy because it’s facing an existential threat. So now the RNC is going to go after anyone who attacks ‘dear leader.’ Every Federalist Society member, every country club Republican who contributes to the party, every supposed libertarian who supports Republicans is a henchman killing democracy. These people have no political philosophy; it’s not a question of competing ideologies. It’s a naked assertion that might makes right.
rikyrah
New: House Dems are preparing for battle to get the full Mueller report—including grand jury material, which Barr is now scrubbing from the report in a “very elaborate redaction process,” per Dem staffers. Nadler willing to go to court to get it. https://t.co/XmhVpNlQEQ
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) March 29, 2019
Immanentize
@DropDminus: I think rikyrah’s comment right above yours is the best way to read the black woman electorate. They will choose rather than disparage, is my guess. The homophobia, in my of course limited experience as a old white guy but in those communities, is that the hard edged homophobia is more a male trait than a female perspective. Regardless of who is on the down low. Although a good friend of mine who came out — no joke! — to James Baldwin himself, was still in the closet to his grandparents until their death, so generational issues too. (That is my friend’s explanation for Booker). I also think Kamala Harris has done a LOT of work in that community. Super Tuesday will tell.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: They should probably go to court NOW. It will delay the report, but they will get more in the end.
The grand jury material does not belong to the prosecutors/DOJ. Grand jury materials belong to the Grand Jury. And the grand jury is a creature of the courts, not the executive (no matter how prosecutors behave). Rule 6(e) which precludes prosecutors from revealing Grand Jury materials is actually a recognition of this fact — rather than a rule supporting prosecutorial ownership of grand jury material.
tobie
Okay…if we’re going to discuss Presidential campaigns, I would like to put forward my dream ticket which is any combination of Stacey Abrams and Adam Schiff, the two smartest people in politics today with a moral authority that no one can rival. They won’t do it but if they surprised everyone and announced that they were running as a joint ticket now I would pick up and move to Iowa to help out in the campaign. By the way: most of the others are good too but these two take the cake.
plato
Aaand Theresa May becomes a 3-time loser.
Gin & Tonic
@plato: So what is it now, a no-deal hard Brexit?
plato
@Gin & Tonic: If only it were that simple.
Immanentize
Calling Betty Cracker!!!!!
Time to break the glass and front page Tony Jay!
Mandalay
@schrodingers_cat: Ciompletely OT, did you see this: Churchill’s policies contributed to 1943 Bengal famine – study
ThresherK
Doooo iiiiittttttt. The idea of dropping a few Tubmans in certain stores really appeals to me.
schrodingers_cat
Mark my words, Pete B is running to be the Bernie 2.0 of this cycle.
schrodingers_cat
@Mandalay: This has been a well known fact for a while now. And 50 million Indians died during the glorious Victorian age because of British policies in the 19th century.
Mandalay
@schrodingers_cat: Not the use of climate data to make the case it AFAIK.
DropDminus
@Immanentize: Yeah, I realize it’s more internally complex within the AA community and suggesting Harris as the top line candidate probably makes that a non issue. I think my question arose from the fact that winning is all that matters and the reactions to Buttigieg that I’ve see from some regular commenters raised my eyebrows a bit and made me wonder if there’s something there…
JAFD
IMHO, Mayor Buttigieg is running for Governor or Senator from Indiana in 2 or 4 years (and I wish him the best in that endavor). This Pesidential bid is primarily a way to get national attention and support, and make him ‘Indiana’s favorite son’. So he’s not going to say anything that would displease Hoosier voters. Allow him that.
To paraphrase Bill Buckley, ‘Nominate the most liberal candidate _who can win in a given district/state_’
schrodingers_cat
@Mandalay: I think you are right and I will take a look. I was speaking of Churchill’s complicity. If Hitler had kept his killing outside Europe, PBS would be making a soft focus miniseries about him.
ETA: There is almost nothing that the Nazis did that the British or the other colonial powers hadn’t tried before, from concentration camps to genocide.
JoeyJoeJoe
@Kay: Northern Virginia is growing and moving hard to the left. In 2017, the region dumped almost every single one of its Republican delegates in the state house. The part of the state that is trending Republican is the slowest growing part. Republicans haven’t won statewide in ten years. They’re delusional if they think they can win by making up for losing the Midwest with Virginia. Any reporter who repeats that idea uncritically doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. They need to be ignored and prevented from influencing the political narrative
rikyrah
@DropDminus:
The answer to your question is no.
but, here is the problem with Mayor Pete and this bullshyt about Trump voters.
This is written by another poster at another blog, but I feel it in my chest what she said:
Word
rikyrah
@Matt McIrvin:
Actually,
being America, what we need to keep an eye on is the polling in the 50 states. We need to keep an eye out on 50 different approval ratings.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: I wrote something similar on this very thread.
L85NJGT
South Bend is no longer an industrial city – sure there is some manufacturing and distribution, but those don’t have the head counts like the good old day. Luckily it has a major higher ed institution, is a regional medical center and a county seat. These clusters are the fly-over employers of the 21st century. I don’t know the answer for fly over communities without them, but fetishizing mid 20th century industrial production ain’t it.
rikyrah
@plato:
It’s rare that I even muster up enough feelings for another country’s leader, but, damn, I despise her.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat & @rikyrah: Y’all and Buttigieg’s detractors on Twitter who keep peddling out of context quotes remind me of the people at this blog who freaked out about Marie Kondo. Marie’s not coming for their books, and Mayor Pete isn’t asking you to become close personal friends with Trump voters. Jesus.
DropDminus
@rikyrah: Thank you. I suspect that much like the major D candidates, we’re not that far apart on most things. Like I said, winning is what matters. I hope to someday have debates about whether the new Democratic administration’s hearings should be more of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission or a straight up Nuremberg set up.
L85NJGT
@JoeyJoeJoe:
I think it’s more about this year’s state lege elections. That’s why they went hard at the scandals – trying to hold off the inevitable.
rikyrah
@DropDminus:
I can tell you from the bottom of my heart, that I don’t give two shyts that he’s gay.
I DO however, give two shyts about him peddling voters that are hostile to my very EXISTENCE.
And, the whole ‘coastal elites’ bothers me, because I’ve been an urban dweller all my life. And, spent the first 21 years of my life traveling several times a year to the South..the Deep South…
So, what someone White can tell ME about rural White people can be put into a thimble. I understood that that was where my family was from, and, I respected the ancestors and what they went through, and that, literally, they built this country with their blood…but, I vowed when the last of my close relatives died that I would never return to those places, and I haven’t. And, you can get different feelings within the same family, because my older sister wouldn’t mind moving down there at all, and still visits.
But, trying to sell me on the ‘nobility’ of rural White folks…naw, Son…that dog ain’t NEVER gonna hunt with me.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
I know…you understand, and have been consistent from the get go on this topic.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
You say peddling out of context….I say we see what he’s saying and don’t like it…and won’t pretend to. One time, is possibly out of context. But, time and time again… ‘ out of context’?
Yeah, ok with that.
Peale
@schrodingers_cat: If we’re going to win back the white house, it will be with some combination of liberal midwestern whites, midwestern african amercians, hispanic Americans and other naturualized citizens turning out in greater numbers than they did in 2016 in places like Wiscsonsin and Michigan or Florida and Arizona. There isn’t a whole lot of room otherwise. Pete is not trying to convince Trump voters or die hard Trump supporters and I’ve read nothing about him that indicates he’s going to pull a Rahm Immanuel and try becoming Mr. “Law and Order” mayor to appeal to whites who turned to Trump because they thought there was an immigrant crime wave and african americans were out of control with their concerns over police violence.
@rikyrah: And that twitter tweet – don’t get me started. Oh yeah, we know. Gay rights are a “gift” that those “better than the other liberals” of New York and San Francisco gave to the country? What a bunch of hogwash and that isn’t how the movement worked. This idea that liberalism in its best pure form exists in New Yorkers is actually part of the problem. In order to win over new york liberals, you need to play to their provincialism, and let them know how disappointed you are in yourself for not being a new yorker. I get that. But its seriously a messed up view of the world that isn’t any different than some hick from boonesville demanding that the candidate extol the virtues of country music and barbecued pork before considering whether or not a candidate is likable enough.
I think Mayor Pete is probably too inexperienced to be president, although I’d vote for him over old men like Bernie and Biden. But I’m thinking of paying more attention to him now that big boys in the City have decided he’s too hick for them.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Did you see his comment about chick-fil-A, why is he framing the debate in RWNJ terms? Boycotting chick-fil-A is virtue signalling, apparently.
trnc
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I assume it’s because she’s a goddamn lunatic.
chopper
@JAFD:
since it’s the 88th day of the year we should all listen to a bunch of 88 Fingers Louie.
L85NJGT
South Bend isn’t an industrial city. Sure there is some manufacturing, but the days of Bendix and Studebaker as primary employers are long gone. It’s lucky to have higher ed, be a regional medical center and a county seat. These are the employment drivers of the 21st century.
satby
@Betty Cracker: You’re right but best to just ignore it at this point. They keep insisting he’s said things he hasn’t and nothing will convince them otherwise. I think it will end up being a non-issue anyway so it’s puzzling that this much angst is wasted on the subject.
chopper
@rikyrah:
yeah, what would a gay man know about that sentiment.
look, any democratic politician who writes off red state voters is going to be seen as committing political malpractice. some people are going to focus on democrats and then shift gears after the primary, some are going to focus more broadly before the primary. pete is probably setting himself up for a nice VP spot, so it’s not a bad move to show off the broad appeal now.
chopper
@satby:
mayor pete could come out and declare a huge swath of trump supporters to be ‘deplorables’, we all know how well that worked last time.
J R in WV
@Immanentize:
So, lawyer question — what would be the repercussions of the Grand Jury itself publishing all their data? Could that be feasible / possible even?
sukabi
Mama shark do do dododo, Mama shark do do dododo… Let’s go hunt…
Go Nancy !
schrodingers_cat
Paul Waldman summarizes my thoughts about Pete B
It would also be nice not to get the condescending crescendo, oh but you don’t get the nuance from fellow commenters.