.
Karen Tumulty, in the Washington Post:
There is something about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that allows her to unnerve President Trump as seemingly no one else can.
“I pray for the president of the United States,” she said on Thursday. “I wish that his family or his administration or his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country. Maybe he wants to take a leave of absence.”
The proof that she had hit the giant bull’s eye of Trump’s insecurities was his response: “I am an extremely stable genius.”
Exchanging insults with Trump is not an endeavor that is normally productive, as many others who tried it have found. But Pelosi is a dangerous foil for a president who operates on impulse and outburst. While Trump succeeds in making everyone else around him dizzy, Pelosi’s unique talent is an ability to keep her focus on the endgame.
Her current goal is to assure that the president vacates the Oval Office, as swiftly and as surely as possible.
That means Pelosi must do two things at once: Keep Trump off balance, and restrain those within her Democratic caucus who are urging a precipitous drive toward impeachment.
Pelosi knows that unless and until there is overwhelming, bipartisan support for such an effort, it will end with Trump’s acquittal in the Senate. And that would only help him win another four years in office. “He wants to be impeached so he can be exonerated by the Senate,” she told top Democrats in a private meeting. “His actions are villainous to the Constitution of the United States.”
The speaker argues for another course: Continuing congressional oversight and relying on the courts to provide air cover as six different House committees seek documents and testimony from a stonewalling administration. While not as gratifying to those who are eager to begin impeachment proceedings, and who argue that anything less is a dereliction of Congress’s duty to hold Trump accountable, it is the more likely path to defeating him in 2020…
So, in the end, I don’t think Pelosi is fundamentally opposed to an impeachment inquiry. I think she wants it on her terms, on her timetable, and only after Trump behaves so badly that he shifts public attitudes, much as he did during the shutdown. 6/
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) May 23, 2019
Because, Jay, it is unreasonable to ask why Democrats are not rushing into the trap you’re hoping they’ll spring. I hope they’re going to impeach, but I understand if they’re not willing to do it on your schedule and for your reasons. https://t.co/IXekyJbTRq
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 25, 2019
Everybody’s laughing except Joy, who’s just all “yep.” She knows, y’all.
— wine-stained lens (@winestainedlens) May 25, 2019
Michael Flynn walking through the halls of Congress would be described like the actual Crucifixion
— Please, Falcons… (@newanimeavi) May 27, 2019
I may have to stay away from Twitter if I continue to be so annoyed that so many people are insisting that if we try to find out number of hostages, hostage takers, floor plan, etc., vs having the hostage rescue team barge in immediately, that we reward hostage taking.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) May 24, 2019
Glad to just hear @ezraklein describe Pelosi as not opposing impeachment, but letting things play out to see if support would fade or if it will grow, & that she’s pushing him in ways that will build support.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) May 24, 2019
I do think the House should move toward impeaching Barr.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) May 24, 2019
A quick one on how narcissists respond to ego injury.
Nancy Pelosi implied Trump is unwell and in need of an intervention.
Trump immediately responded with a bizarre, clumsy, awkward insistence that it’s actually Pelosi who isn’t quite all there.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) May 24, 2019
It is likely Trump knows fully well he is indeed losing a step – and also knows Alzheimer’s runs in his family – and is terrified not of his declining faculties per se but of the inevitable loss of esteem he’ll suffer if that becomes known.
Pelosi found the kryptonite.
7/
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) May 24, 2019
Sorry but @SpeakerPelosi had this idea first! https://t.co/BhOcJCAthN
— Ronald Klain (@RonaldKlain) May 27, 2019
On the Road and In Your Backyard
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
rikyrah
Mr. Bunch, who led the creation of the Blacksonian??
Bravo, Sir.
CNN (@CNN) Tweeted:
The Smithsonian Institution names its first African American leader in its 172-year history
https://t.co/kHPdqHkCgP https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1133676817963991040?s=17
Cermet
As I’ve said twice already; start impeachment/hearings in mid October to Impeach the orange fart cloud in January so the courts can then start on jailing his lying, traitorous worthless bastard the instance he leaves office in January. Won’t be a good morning in amerika until that floating pile of human shit is out of office (through cheney, to date, was worse as far as murderous traitors go).
Lapassionara
@Cermet: Worse to whom? I don’t remember Cheney separating families at the border. Or unleashing ICE on long-time residents of the US. Or mocking the disabled. Or . . ..
Good morning.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Acquittal in the Senate is not exoneration(though Trump would paint it that way), Bill Clinton lost his law license after his Senate trail.
Amir Khalid
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Trump, alas, has no law licence to lose.
Kay
This country is becoming a horrible place to work.
CNN offers them financing on their own paycheck, thru Citi. So CNN added a layer of fees and processing between them and the wages they already earned. They screwed them twice. They’re paying Citi to get paid by CNN.
Go look at what some of the cable personalities earn annually. I don’t think it’s a big mystery why we can’t pay anyone a decent wage with fair payment terms in this country- the top 1% take it all. ALL. There’s nothing left to “trickle down”.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: He has something much more important to him than that, a court could sanction his business.
Kay
Can everyone do this? I have two employees. Can I pay them NINETY DAYS after they earned the wages?
So the rip offs and scams are limited to only the richest companies? Everyone else has to pay people for the work they do?
Obviously, they need to be heavily regulated. They’re disgusting and greedy and can’t police themselves.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
West of the Rockies
Thank you, AL, for your usual effort in writing and assembling other voices on an important subject.
Number me among those who want impeachment but on slow, workable, and effective terms.
OTOH, if bloated Bill Barr croaks tomorrow, I will dance a damn jig.
Baud
Here on out, the chief quality I’m looking for in a Democratic leader is the ability and will to say “no” to Internet people.
Baud
@Kay:
Is there a law governing when payment of wages is due?
I think CNN views freelancers as independent contractors, so that might be how they get away with it.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
One last grand use of civil forfeiture before we abolish the practice.
Nicole
@Kay: I read somewhere on the intertoobs (here? Twitter? Anyway…) that the problem isn’t that there’s not enough for the poor; it’s that there’s never enough for the rich.
debbie
If you’ve been forced to endure Trump for years or decades, then you already know how much he hates women and hates them standing up to him. Should he ever become better at dealing with her needling (doubtful), ask him about Leona Helmsley and watch him spin off in fury all over again.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay: They’re independent contractors, so they bill for the job and are not paid a wage. A lot of businesses are classifying what should be employees as independent contractors. What CNN is doing is extra scummy.
NotMax
Shunning Jared.
Morocco and Jordan also have both not yet agreed or disagreed to show up. Should Jordan, especially, do as Russia and China, stamp D.O.A. in big red letters in indelible ink on anything from Kushner.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: That might cause problems with a virtual candidate like Baud!2020!
Baud
@NotMax:
TIL that Manama is the capital of Bahrain.
I intially thought they misspelled Panama.
debbie
@Baud:
Surprisingly, employment contracts are one of the very few things not covered by the UCC.
rikyrah
@Kay:
90 Days is phucking ridiculous ?
debbie
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Just like after the financial crisis hit: Every job became an “internship” with zero to little pay or benefits. I was out of work then and reading their “requirements,” I realized they were looking for lots of work for very little cost.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I don’t know. The NYT shits in their liberal subscriber base all the time and their subscribers keep on growing. It could work for me too.
NotMax
Malaysia says “Enough!” Litterally.
Kay
@Baud:
That’s how everyone gets away with everything. What if everyone did this? Just decided to have no real employees and pay them …whenever? It’ll be a much worse country! It will suck to work in this country! We may want to reconsider our opposition to immigration. People will be begging to leave and go work in some non-gross, less greedy country. Bring us your tired…
trnc
@Lapassionara:
My Murderous Asshole Calculator is in the shop, but my gut tells me starting a war that kills almost a million civilians and 5000 US military personnel is at least as bad. Not that DT isn’t up for the challenge of starting a war with Other People’s People.
Baud
@Kay:
They’d be Uber.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
They aren’t employees, they’re contractors. The gig economy strikes again.
“Don’t piss on me and call it rain.”
rikyrah
I believe Nancy Smash unnerves Dolt45 because she approaches him as a petulant child for whom she has little patience. She doesn’t excuse him, but points out how wrong he is. She does it from the role of stern grandmother. I don’t say this to diminish what she does. I think it is brilliant and brutal. Mainly because she can get away with it and not lose the stature of being Speaker. Don’t kid yourself – it is a skill.
I believe that Kamala Harris attacks Dolt45 through a prosecutor ‘s posture. That works for her.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@debbie: My niece had an internship after she graduated from college, after a year she said hire me or I’m outa here. She left. They would have kept her in that unpaid internship forever.
ETA: I’m having problems typing well, as I noted in the OTR, I’ve not been feeling well.
rikyrah
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Feel better ?
Get to a doctor to get checked out.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
In this case, though, have freelancers always been contractors? I don’t know. Misclassification is a problem today, but there have always been people who have been independent contractors.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I think there’s something going around.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@rikyrah: No insurance.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I think it may be a mild case of food poisoning.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Classifying freelancers as contractors is almost certainly how they get away with it. The 90-day pay thing is outrageous, though. I hope the freelancers band together and force a reasonable pay turnaround time, but given the environment, CNN has all the leverage.
I’ve been a freelancer for well over a decade, and it works out for me because of personal circumstances most other “contractors” don’t enjoy, such as access to health insurance through my husband’s job. But I’ve been watching the rise of the “gig” economy with alarm because I know a lot of young folks who are thrust into that environment aren’t prepared for it and are getting screwed big time.
It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a taxation crisis at some point as “contractor” status becomes the norm, which it will if employers think they can get away with it, and so far, they have. Things like paying estimated taxes and the self-employment tax to make up for Social Security and Medicare contributions an employer would otherwise pay can be a nasty surprise to a 22-year-old Uber driver who’s barely scraping by on shit wages.
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah: I loved it when K Conway complained that Nancy treated her like she was NP’s maid. My immediate thought was, “No, she treats you like you are trump’s maid, which is what you are, going around “cleaning” up his messes.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Yes, freelancers have always been contractors.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
If I could remake the world, I’d get rid of all employment-based benefits in favor of social programs not tied to employment. Employment benefits are a drag on mobility and, therefore, employee bargaining power and competition.
But people are used to their employee benefits, so that’s what we have to deal with.
Raven Onthill
@Baud: That’s all the “new economy” firms. I have a grand unified theory of these companies involving things like “contractors not employees,” so no responsibility to their workforces, “contractors provide capital assets,” so no large capitalization, and “take a cut.”
It doesn’t look like a sustainable business model, does it?
germy
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
If you say that three times, Steve in the (Wherever the fuck he is) will show up.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Raven Onthill: It’s actually worse than that, companies may hide behind the contractor relationship of they’re sued for the contractor’s work.
Baud
I was going to go to Disney world but I didn’t want to stand in the long summer lines, so I decided to climb Mt. Everest instead. :-\
?BillinGlendaleCA
@germy: Goat fucking turtle.
Raven Onthill
I wonder if Pelosi is waiting until the election is closer, so that it makes bad publicity during Trump’s campaign. Problem is, she could lose the country while waiting her moment.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
I’ve got bad news for ya Baud…
MomSense
@Baud:
Have you run that by your base? We’re all internet people.
NotMax
@Baud
Brings new meaning to “E ticket.”
;)
Baud
@Raven Onthill:
I don’t think this is accurate. Uber, for example, requires a huge amount of capital investment to stay afloat.
guachi
@rikyrah: I think this is key. Being able to attack Trump while not being seen to stoop to his level is important for anyone who wants to oppose him. Attack Trump in a way that doesn’t belittle yourself.
Baud
@Raven Onthill:
She could lose the country by moving too quickly. There’s no instruction manual here.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: Interesting trivia, The Beatles were originally title the final album that they recorded “Everest”, but the logistics of getting the boys there for a photo shoot for the album cover proved to be too much, so they went outside the studio and took a picture walking across the crosswalk and called the album “Abbey Road”.
Matt
Shorter Pelosi: “I’m such a donor-fluffing hack that I only enforce the rules when they tell me”
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
And the difference between you and other contractors is you admit the one job makes the contractor job feasible.
We call if “find the health insurance” in this office. Behind all those bootstrapping pickup truck “independents” is a spouse with a job with benefits :)
Always. Usually a teacher, a nurse, or a government employee of some kind.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
There is, Nixon’s impeachment hearings.
OzarkHillbilly
Boris Johnson to appear in court over Brexit misconduct claims
If we had such a law here, trump would be looking at Life + 3,000 years.
Baud
Shorter Matt: I earned five rubles by posting this comment.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven Onthill: She’s not waiting for anything.
Kay
@Baud:
Yeah, but why is that? They don’t employ drivers or purchase equipment. UPS requires a huge investment, pays people decently with benefits and somehow manages to still make money. Uber shifts the whole cost and risk to their contractors and still needs tons of upfront money? WTF? They need it to lobby against employment rules? For huge pay packages for executives?
Butter emails!!!
@Baud: There’s also a 3rd option. She could play this perfectly and still lose the country.
NotMax
@Baud
Payable in 90 days.
:)
Dave
@Kay: If there is one modern disease that’s ubiquitous it is the absolute refusal to think about any consequences of our decisions beyond the immediate. And there has been significant effort in propagandizing greed and short sighted selfishness. Even enlightened self-interest is looked on as a fools game. And man does it piss me off
OzarkHillbilly
The US is not Nancy’s to lose, it’s ours to lose. If you are still looking for a superwo/man to come rescue you from trump and the GOP you weren’t around for the Mueller report release.
Baud
@NotMax:
Heh.
Immanentize
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
*Nixon Impeachment Hearings*
Which did not end in any impeachment.
Call what is happening Impeachment Hearings if it makes you feel warm and happy. It wasn’t the name of the hearings that led Nixon to resign.
I was rather neutral on impeachment until it was pointed out that if the House impeached, Democratic Presidential Candidates will never be allowed to say another word on any other subject. Senator Harris, what is your opinion on what Congressman Nadler said? Sen. Warren, do you support Member Omar’s comments about the rule of law? Mr. Biden, do you think there are too many men on the Judiciary Committee? Etc. Nothing else.
No, I do not relish that scene.
Kay
The nice part of Biden is, I don’t think it matters. The Trump Standard means Biden himself could attack Trump for his deferments and that’s completely acceptable. After all, Trump attacked Hillary Clinton for Bill Clinton’s infidelity WHILE Trump was actively covering up Stormy Daniels.
There’s the assumption that Democratic base voters will go by the “old rules” while Republican base voters go by the new lower Trump standard, but I don’t think Democratic base voters buy that. They’ll compare Biden TO TRUMP, because it’s a one or the other choice, not some hypothetical president with integrity. They see that as fair, and it is fair.
That’s what lower standards means- they apply across the board. If they don’t Democrats will (rightly) believe that their candidate is being held to a higher standard than Trump, and they want to win. They’re not responsible for upholding standards. That doesn’t work out for them.
Msb
@ rickyrah
Both Nancy Smash and Kamala are doing the same thing: staying factual, keeping their eyes on the ball and not the BS. Just doing it in different ways. Not that I plan to vote for him (unless he becomes the nominee), but Mayor Pete does the same, and Elizabeth Warren’s doing it more and more. Keep it up, D’s!
Baud
@Kay: Don’t know where their money goes.
@Butter emails!!!: Yep. No guarantees with any of this.
@OzarkHillbilly: Agreed.
Kay
@Dave:
They should have to admit that a “gig economy” employee with a decent life is relying on another employer to pick up the costs Uber won’t pay.
Employers who pay actual salaries and wages are propping up Uber executives. They are free riders. Not their contractors, who I don’t blame at all, but the people who came up with the concept and are making the big bucks. Their business model depends on a certain share of decent employers who are NOT them.
Must be nice to be so free and disruptive, right? Except someone has to pay for it.
snoey
@Kay: They aren’t investing. They’re burning through investment capitol paying expenses since they lose money on almost every ride. The “idea” is to buy market dominance and make the money back with self driving cabs.
Baud
@Kay:
This is true as a rule, but our marginal voter who was influenced by anti-Hillary propaganda is what makes the difference in the election. That’s what the media will seize on until we prove ourselves collectively by winning and then winning again.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: It’s true! I worry about the young folks, though. My daughter, who grew up watching me toil away at the dining room table and curse over quarterly tax filings, has a low-pay “contractor” gig now and was surprised to learn about her new tax burden and obligations, which her non-employer forgot to mention. Good thing she had me to give her a heads-up, or she’d be in for a nasty surprise next April!
Maybe schools should start teaching kids these things, since we’ve apparently all agreed to live in a crappy country where 10% of the people own 70% of the shit and will go to any lengths to maximize their ROI on the backs of the peasants. “AP Serfdom” or something.
Plato
@Kay:
Corporations are also people, my friend.
Kay
@Dave:
I love how Uber advertises that they hire teachers. They hire teachers because the teachers real employer is picking up the costs of Uber’s employees. They REQUIRE real employers. They don’t pay for it, but they get the benefits.
What if everyone did that? We have a shitty, low wage country and people have no security and can’t plan, so probably become even more politically and socially reactive, lashing out all over the place.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
I loved her comeback against the crypt keeper. She was like
“She’s a muthaphuckin’ non-factor. Next question.??”
Chyron HR
@Matt:
Thank god The Left is still able to maintain their laser-like focus on the true cause of all of humanity’s ills,
HillaryPandoraNancy Pelosi.Immanentize
@Kay:
The question of who is an “employee” and who is a “contractor” differs from State to State. This used to be a big deal to Unions, and in states like Mass., the definition of employee is very broad. So we have many fewer contractors which means that companies end up paying more salaries and taxes, etc. but the safety net holds. Also, as mentioned above, when an employee does something on the job (like assault a rider in their car) the company can be on the hook.
Just One More Canuck
@Kay: it may (and I emphasise MAY) not be that simple. I do some freelance work for Ginormous Accounting. My contract is actually with a third party. I get paid by the third party company within a few days of submitting my invoice, however the third party company doesn’t get paid by Ginormous Accounting for 90 days. It works for them because of the number of people they place there. This is apparently a fairly widespread practice
Again, this is just my experience. If CNN is just sitting on invoices or time sheets for 90 days, that is pretty scummy
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker:
It’s an exaggeration but we know that’s where they want to go.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Yeah, Kay…WTF do they need the money for?
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
My daughter had her health care employer sold to a new company – she has a contract- and the new employer told her she has to sign a non-compete. I object. The new employer bought the whole company, including her existing contract. She’s doing really well as her own lawyer! I think if she hires one then they bring in their lawyers and it gets harder for her :)
So far, she’s following my stratergy. Noncompetes are of the devil. Her specialty is in demand and she shouldn’t have to stay there if she can make more elsewhere.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
In the nineties, the Republicans wanted to change the law so that people had to file tax returns every month. The idea is that people would hate that and become anti-tax Republicans.
OzarkHillbilly
From Psycho to The 39 Steps: on set with Alfred Hitchcock – in pictures , this little bit of info I did not know:
Jeebus crisco, it’s a wonder she wasn’t permanently pruned after all that time in the water.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
And it’s fair. The contract is fair. She agreed to stay there two years – which is good for them, her thing is in demand- and they agreed to comply with the terms of her contract, which did not include a noncompete.
They want everything. They won’t take reasonable terms that benefit both sides. It’s greed.
rikyrah
I can imagine what they are doing with these babies….can you???
Rewire.News (@Rewire_News) Tweeted:
Some asylum seekers in the Western District of Texas who have given birth in USMS custody were forced to hand over their newborns to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
https://t.co/3BcZF7HmmL https://twitter.com/Rewire_News/status/1133367276240084992?s=17
Immanentize
Probably reported here earlier, but the Go-Fund-Me border wall was hit with a cease and desist order for failing to get a permit and for being over the allowable height limit.
Tear Down That Wall!
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
“You got any dreams? We want them too.”
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly:
Hitchcock was a Notorious perv.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Speaking of rain, how did yesterday’s (expected) storms affect you, if at all? (We sorta chatted about it yesterday AM, and I didn’t circle back to find out.)
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
That’s why I feel something close to rage when Biden claims he had it harder than young people. They had stable jobs, his generation. That leads directly to “stable” everything else. They could PLAN. Take away peoples’ ability to plan and it’s chaos. He’s just wrong.
Sab
@Kay: My stepson went to machinist school a few years back. A number of local companies liked to hire the students right out of school. Every last one of them insisted on a noncompete clause for all hires. WTF? We paid the tuition. These companies didn’t. The kid has lived here his whole life. So if the first job doesn’t work out he’s supposed to leave the area to get another job? So he decided the whole idea was bad and walked away from his training. And meanwhile all the local employers are whining to the press that they can’t find anyone to hire.
Kay
@Immanentize:
They’re builders! The best builders!
Kay
@Sab:
Toledo nurses are on strike right now partly as a result of a noncompete. It keeps wages lower because they would have to leave the whole area to look for a better job, so all the providers can just collude on one lower wage.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: They got held up in the I-70 traffic. Now expected to arrive after 3 pm today. Still calling for ‘heavy rain and large hail’. I’m not sure of the definition of large hail but to me that’s at least golf ball sized. I took measures to give at least some of the plants in my garden protection. We’ll see.
O. Felix Culpa
@rikyrah:
Excellent observations. I love how these women unnerve the petty orange man.
And, good morning! Just sitting down to the ritual coffee and oatmeal and enjoying the BJ commentariat.
Kay
@Sab:
Tell him to train as a lineman or wind turbine mechanic. If he doesn’t mind climbing they are desperate for those, but he won’t work in the same place every day. Like a 100 mile radius, which they don’t mind unless there’s weather and then they have to stay at the job. So, like, all of winter for example :)
Emma
@Kay: And some of their pay traps are ridiculous. I have been taking Uber to and from work for a while now. One of their tricks is that when you share a ride through Uber Pool the driver is paid in full for only the first person. They give the driver about $1.50 for the second since “the ride is in the same direction, so the driver’s expenses are the same”. They pocket the rest.
And, btw, same direction my tochis. Once we went out of our way for several miles to pick up someone and then several more to drop him off. “Same direction” was like “you’re both heading somewhat south.”
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker:
Happened to my older son during the Great Recession. He lost his first “real” job just out of college and scraped by holding down 4 part-time gigs. No weekends, no vacation, no insurance, of course. And then what he owed in taxes, including of course on his paltry unemployment “benefits.” It was criminal.
khead
Re: Kay’s comments. Just gonna drop in to say….
Yes, that’s how this country works now if you don’t have the protection of the govt or a union. Or a really good lawyer on retainer. Maybe there’s a Democratic candidate out there who can make this sort of thing an issue.
Also, will repeat this again because I want credit someday for my “shit theory of labor” that I have posted here. Truckers, nurses, and teachers should absolutely unite to revitalize the labor movement.
Honus
@Lapassionara: or killing 250,000 Iraqis and 4000 American soldiers and destabilizing the Middle East for at least two generations.
Joey Maloney
@rikyrah: And Elizabeth Warren attacks him as a professor, dealing with a particularly dull, lazy, and arrogant undergraduate.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@rikyrah: Pelosi has a dignity and gravitas that Trump would like to believe he has but never will. She never stoops to his level, but manages to get her point in anyway. His digs bounce off her and his ineffectualness drives him crazy.
From what I’ve seen of her in hearings, Harris has the same unflappable certainty.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I w@BillinGlendaleCA: I came home from WisCon with what’s lovingly called “conference crud.” I’m seeing my cardiologist this afternoon and then traveling again to see a friend, so this is bad timing.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Yes, he is.
Kay
Last night’s Democratic meeting was a disaster and it’s my fault. We have a float we pull in parades. There are a lot of parades here, so this is a big job. One of our members made the float- it’s a trailer, like one would use for mowers. He puts a huge amount of work into this thing- new wood, new tires, etc. So he complained that no one helps him, which is true, and issued an ultimatum- either he gets help with it this weekend or he stops doing this job and we should sell trailer. So no one volunteered. Long silence. Like 3 to 5 minutes. So I pipe up and say we should sell it. He gets really mad and says “I didn’t mean throw in the towel!” and stomps out. Except he did say throw in the towel, basically. I thought I was letting him off the hook! I just completely misread his fake ultimatum, but if you’re going to issue those, well, someone might take you up on it!
That went well. He’ll probably vote for Trump now.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud:
If I started a company which made widgets for $5 and sold them for $3 it would need capital to stay afloat as well.
Original Lee
@Kay: I remember a short story I read a long time ago where there were no clocks any more. Instead, every room had a buzzer controlled by a higher authority, which would sound the buzzer when it was time for the next thing (start of lunch break, end of lunch break, etc.). Then the main character finds a watch and figures out that he can use it to plan his day better, and he starts doing really well compared to his peers. Pretty soon his peers in the same room are watching him and are doing better than his peers in other rooms. Which is how he gets caught. It was always all about control.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Good luck. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the garden (and the house and you/family, of course) come through it all OK.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Bad girl, Kay, bad girl!
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker:
It’s a good start!
Perhaps the hard-working souls in the ‘both sides’ media could find a good angle (or eight) for stories on this trend, now that it’s gobbling them up too. Or they could report on George Papadoplous in his bathrobe and Hope Hicks’ existential crisis of whether or not to answer a subpoena. Up to you, media types!
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: It it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all…
khead
@Kay:
Just be glad your local folks weren’t stupid enough to wave a sign that said “My uterus is more important than your gun” in the Memorial Day parade. From a trailer that touted the local “Democrat Party”.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I apologized to the room but they were like “we love Chuck. Good job”. Not in so many words, but that was the feeling.
Sadly, they looked at me. He can’t bluff! I’m not a mindreader.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: A buddy of mine had a saying that I have stolen: “I don’t take hints.”
Kay
@khead:
Ours write really long slogans, but I’m trying not to be such a pain in the ass so I let it go. Not a slogan! TOO long. That’s like a mission statement. People hate those :)
We’d have to park the trailer and give people 5 minutes to read. All they see is like “we believe..”
SFAW
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
On the other hand, the Traitor-in-Chief has enough mass that he might have own gravitational field. Not as strong as Jupiter’s, but still.
ETA: And, for the science pedants: I have no idea if Jupiter’s gravity is greater or less than Earth’s.
Betty Cracker
So, Trump is on Twitter this morning telling MAGAbama voters not to nominate the pedophile to run against Doug Jones again. LOL! Hopefully dark money groups are funding Moore on the down-low…
brantl
@Lapassionara: Cheney was responsible for 1,000,000 Iraqis dying for a mistake.
rikyrah
Newsweek (@Newsweek) Tweeted:
The Trump administration is thinking about changing medical leave to ‘reduce burden on employers’ https://t.co/vjHY51PySY https://twitter.com/Newsweek/status/1133646680946028544?s=17
SFAW
@Gin & Tonic:
Well, there’s this guy named Milo who might be able to help you do it without the capital. [No, no that fascist Yiannopoulos.]
jeffreyw
@OzarkHillbilly:
Serves me right to suffer
Ixnay
@rikyrah: I knew Lonnie II in the 7th and 8th grade in Lincoln Park NJ. He was a science teacher and guidance counselor. Great guy. Drove a TR-3. I hope he’s around on some plane to appreciate his son’s achievement. Cool news.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I like Doug Jones a lot. I don’t match with him ideologically but he just exudes “decent person”. Come on, Alabama. Aim higher.
NotMax
@Kay
Private school, then college, then graduated law school in ’68, elected to county council in ’69, elected to the Senate in ’72.
Strange definition of harder.
JGabriel
Amir Khalid:
So we take his freedom.
Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up!
Gin & Tonic
@SFAW:
You rang?
It is greater, but the problem in defining terms is that Jupiter has no clearly-defined “surface,” as Earth does.
Kay
@rikyrah:
No way. This is a passionate interest of one Ivanka Trump and she is very powerful and has a real job in the Trump Administration. VERY influential.
Leave is her passion. She loves families. Her publicist says so, frequently. She promised to expand leave, not take it away!
raven
@jeffreyw: The Alabama King Snake!
plato
Good call.
Kay
@NotMax:
I’m sick of it. Just admit it’s harder for them. All this finger wagging at them because they’re supposedly not good with money. They can’t fucking PLAN. They need consistent money over time. The time is what they can’t buy.
Middle class people REQUIRE X money over Y span of time. They need BOTH, because they have less money!
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: MUCH greater.
burnspbesq
@OzarkHillbilly:
… it would be blatantly unconstitutional. Recall that our Bill of Rights was a reaction to perceived deficiencies in English law, many of which have never been fixed.
Gin & Tonic
@plato: There was an interesting story not all that long ago, which I am too lazy to look for, about how the NYC chapter was basically gentrified out of its home in the East Village. They owned a building on East 3rd St., between 1st and 2nd Ave, for years and years, but have been priced out of the neighborhood. Kind of a shame, actually, because for a long time when that was a crappy neighborhood, their block was safe and secure (my mother lived on that block when she was elderly, and they were always nice to her.) They have their business disputes and territorial conflicts, but never where they live.
schrodingers_cat
deleted double comment
O. Felix Culpa
@brantl:
Not a mistake. A deliberate – albeit badly botched – plan.
schrodingers_cat
@SFAW: Gravitational force is directly proportional to mass, Jupiter is the 300 times more massive than earth, so yes you will weigh much more on Jupiter than on earth.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Ugh, I missed that astoundingly tone-deaf pronouncement somehow. I hope to Christ someone in the overcrowded field — Warren, Harris, anyone who isn’t prone to saying dumb shit that pisses off crucial constituencies that we NEED to show up in 2020 — manages to break through. The conventional wisdom is Biden is the “safe” choice. I don’t believe it for a second.
NotMax
@Kay
Yup. He was twenty-effing-nine when he won that first senatorial election. Didn’t reach the statutory age to serve in the office until after the election. His experience working in the private sector doesn’t even rise to the level of a rounding error.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
Why stop there Kay? Might as well wish for the moon, the stars, and a magic rainbow farting unicorn too.
OzarkHillbilly
@burnspbesq:
No shit Sherlock. I guess the absurd is beyond you at this early hour.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud:
Other than the Constitution…
Cheryl Rofer
Quinerly
@Cheryl Rofer: and will take no questions. I’m wondering if this concerns Michael Wolff’s new book.
SFAW
@Kay:
You know what efg would say about them.
Seriously: unless you’re a moron, you don’t try to bluff your friends like that (if that’s what it was), and you don’t issue an ultimatum if you’re not ready to carry it out.
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
Thanks.
Quinerly
@Cheryl Rofer: and will take no questions. I’m wondering if this concerns Michael Wolff’s new book. WH saying not caught off guard by Mueller announcing he will make a statement.
JGabriel
@rikyrah:
Right, because when people are ill, or maimed, or otherwise incapacitated or disabled, it’s the hardship their employers suffer that we need to worry about.
Those poor, put-upon, employers and shareholders.
Betty Cracker
@Cheryl Rofer: Gonna have to tune in to that for sure!
Jerzy Russian
@Gin & Tonic: The gravitational potential of Jupiter is of course much greater than the gravitational potential of Earth. This means that a test mass experiences a much greater force at a distance d from Jupiter’s center compared to the same distance d from the Earth’s center.
Chief Oshkosh
@Sab: Non-compete clauses for machinists?! That’s insane. Machinists these days are similar to artisans and craftsmen (and I’ve always thought of them that way wrt to those doing small jobber work). Many don’t work at massive corporations. They often work in multiple small shops concurrently.
Betty Cracker
@Quinerly: Pffft, I bet you’re right. Scratch the “tune in” comment above.
bemused
@rikyrah:
I feel sick to my stomach. The people doing this have no souls, evil incarnate.
Jerzy Russian
@schrodingers_cat: The radius of the body matters. There are stars where the acceleration due to gravity at the “surface” is 1000 times less than on Earth. Of course the gas in these stars near their “surfaces” is pretty diffuse…
SFAW
@JGabriel:
Back when companies used to compete for employees by offering all sorts of perqs (Friday beer blasts, various non-traditional benefits, and so forth), there was some complaining about how the employees are squeezing the employers, and how it wasn’t proper (or some such). My response, whenever someone said this to me or within earshot, was: Until recently, the employers had all, or almost all, of the power in the relationship, and they treated employees poorly. At some point in the future, they will have that power again, and they will go back to that behavior — never having learned from the current situation, nor realizing that MAYBE they shouldn’t screw over their employees.
I wish I had been wrong.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Yes, it is. Unlike the MSM, as part of the Democratic base…we will take the direct comparison of our eventual nominee and Dolt45….
SFAW
I don’t know if I’m embarrassed or proud that I turned a relatively off-hand jape about Trump having a gravitational field into a semi-full-blown discussion re: Jovian mass, etc.
Can’t you guys [sic] focus on the important stuff, like … I don’t know, the Mets?
Jerzy Russian
@SFAW:
The gravitational pull of the Mets is much less than that of the Earth.
Speaking of which, here is my special diet in which you can eat as much as you want and still lose weight: eat the Earth. In the limit where you consume the entire Earth, you will end up weightless.
rikyrah
@Emma:
I didn’t know the scam about the shared rides when it comes to the driver. Thanks for telling me.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I do want Warren to confront and unload on Biden because of the student loan /bankruptcy issue.
SFAW
@Jerzy Russian:
Outside-the-box thinking like that will probably get you an appointment to be “Secretary of Thinking Big Thoughts but Those Thoughts Aren’t as Big as the Ones Thought Up by The Stable Genius Which Are HUUUUGE,” in Shitgibbon’s maladministration.
schrodingers_cat
@Jerzy Russian: Yes it does, my answer is just a first approximation. I hadn’t actually crunched the numbers.
With numbers:
gravitational acceleration on Jupiter is 24.5 m/s^2
On earth it is 9.8 m/s^2
So you will weigh approximately 2.5 times more on Jupiter than on earth.
Jerzy Russian
@SFAW: I should have gotten this in writing, but I was promised some kind of position in the Baud! administration.
Uncle Cosmo
Speaker Pelosi’s “slow dance on the impeachment-&-removal ground” reminds me of a story told many years ago in a totally different context. I haven’t been able to track it down on the Intertoobz, so allow me (not that you could prevent me ;^D) to relate if from memory:
I can well imagine the Speaker saying sadly, Oh, little man, how the game has passed you by, & Agolf Twitler detonating like a blasting cap struck with a ball-peen hammer…
J R in WV
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
We’ll be glad to have you not typing well, typos are in order if necessary.
Do get checked out, though! Best wishes for a speedy recovery!!!
Uncle Cosmo
@?BillinGlendaleCA: SOP for the barely-legal palaces of theft that call themselves American businesses. I once worked for a technical consulting firm with offices all over the country that screamed at its clients for payment the instant a report was delivered, while routinely taking its satellite offices to the brink of utilities shutdown by refusing to pay the G&E bills until the very last moment. Like when you deposit your paycheck & the bank grabs the $$$ at the speed of light, but tells you you can’t have the money for the next few days – while they use it “on the float” to make money for themselves. Mortar-forking crooks.
jackmac
@Baud: As someone who has freelanced for dozens of organizations around the country, I’ve ALWAYS been viewed as an independent contractor working on per assignment basis and with no additional benefits. So I don’t see how the CNN “freelancers” would be any different.
J R in WV
@Raven Onthill:
Unfortunately for your opinion, that’s not how dramatic tension works in the real world. Madam Speaker Pelosi is a master of drama, timing, and phrasing, and will have no trouble leading the Congress along the formal investigative pathway destined to end up with an impeachment vote at the perfect moment to positively influence voting by patriotic Americans in fall 2020.
I suspect you are a right-wing troll fearful of a future with a black woman in charge of our world. I, on the other hand, can’t wait for that glorious future. Of course, no one has developed technology to detect intention from typed words, so maybe not. Maybe you’re just fearful of everything. But I think you’re leaning towards right wing trolldom intentionally.
john fremont
@Sab: Yep. I see those memes on Facebook all the time about encouraging kids to go into trades. When I bring up stories like yours , that trade/vocational schools have gotten pretty expensive and then graduates have to deal with stuff like non compete clauses they don’t believe me. I was told by a coworker that his classmates at his aircraft mechanic school were one paycheck from living out of their cars due to tuition payments aND normal living expenses. The guys that weren’t were the veterans using their GI Bill bennies.
J R in WV
@brantl:
Not at all! You are factually wrong!
There was no mistake made by Cheney, it was a deliberate intentional campaign of lies intended to foment a war for profit. Then they flew C-130s loaded with (instead of M1 Abrams tanks) pallets of shrink wrapped cash money, with no accounting of who got what pallet load of $100 bills.
I’m shocked you would think it was a mistake! Or perhaps you’re part of the war crime coverup campaign?
J R in WV
@Jerzy Russian:
Warm, too!!
SFAW
@J R in WV:
Not if you go there at night.