Here’s some hurricane trivia you probably don’t know if you’ve never lived in Florida or happened to be visiting when a hurricane is near: The weather is relatively pleasant for people lucky enough to dodge the bullet. Since the storms occur in the hot and steamy months, a cloudy, breezy day outside the path is a welcome relief, tempered by survivors’ guilt.
Shifting to a different kind of hullabaloo, it looks like Stormy Daniels may visit Capitol Hill this fall. From TPM:
House Dems Will Shift Focus To Trump’s Alleged Role In Hush Money Scheme
House Democrats plan to shift their focus this fall to President Trump’s alleged role in the hush money scheme that led to the imprisonment of his former lawyer, the Washington Post reported.
As early as October, the House Judiciary Committee intends to hold hearings and call in witnesses involved in the scheme to keep both porn actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal quiet about alleged affairs with Trump ahead of the 2016 election. According to people familiar with the plans who spoke to the Post, Democrats on the panel believe there is enough proof from special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings to name Trump as co-conspirator in the case that put Michael Cohen in prison for campaign finance violations. He’s currently serving a three-year sentence for the hush payment ordeal, as well as for other financial wrongdoing and lying to Congress.
Democrats will reportedly point their laser focus on Trump’s involvement in the whole ordeal and they plan to dig into whether they can charge Trump if it weren’t for the Justice Department’s rule that prevents the indictment of a sitting president.
Trump’s “National Enquirer” pal, the aptly named David Pecker, may also be called to testify, according to the TPM report.
Is it a good idea to air this load of sordid laundry or nah? I’m not sure how it will play politically, but it’s about damned time, IMO. I’m old enough to remember when a candidate paying off women with whom he’d had an “affair” to keep quiet in the run-up to a presidential election would have been big news.
Maybe it’s old-fashioned, but I’m down with Making Blatant Campaign Finance Violations Scandalous Again. The real issue here is the corruption, and if the “corruption” entree needs “tawdry” as a piquant condiment to make it palatable to a public benumbed by routine corruption, so be it.
Open thread.
Spanky
I thought the Nat’l Inquirer guy kicked the bucket, or am I confusing corpses?
wasabi gasp
Be buoyant Betty.
Elizabelle
And another one bites the dust. Another pasty, heavy white guy representing Texas, that is. (Will Hurd is the exception there.)
I hope his seat is a pickup opportunity.
Spanky
@Elizabelle: If Trump only won by 56%, I suspect it really is in play.
Depends on the players, of course.
Elizabelle
@Spanky: Yeah. That 56% was encouraging.
Mike in NC
I’m old enough to remember Gary Hart. How quaint those days seems today when the most corrupt person in the country sits in the Oval Office.
Spanky
@Mike in NC: I disagree with that assessment. Trump only appears to be the most corrupt because he’s both insanely incompetent and narcissistically unable to keep his mouth shut.
ETA: I would volunteer some senators for that title (and also edited typos.)
wasabi gasp
@Mike in NC: Disagree that he’s the most corrupt person in the country, by a long shot. He is the most visible corrupt person in the country. An idiot bug in the sun holding a magnifying glass up to itself.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mike in NC:
Oh hellz, I’m old enough to remember Wilbur Mills and Fanne Foxe.
The Moar You Know
I’m thinking not, strikes me as being past the sell-by date, but you never know what will send the RageBaby into a fit that will shave another few tenths of a percent off his approval rating, so I guess go for it.
oh, it will be again the day a Democrat graces the halls of the White House. It will be the most scandalous thing in our nation’s history.
TenguPhule
@wasabi gasp:
Sorry, the correct response is “All of em, Katie” and must be in the form of a question.
TenguPhule
Pity we no longer having a working FEC to actually do that anymore.
MJS
Yes, it is a great idea to air this dirty laundry. Focus on the payment, and the timing of it. Don’t go all Ken Starr on the vomit inducing actions that led to the payment (the fact that Ms. Daniels was able to act her way through that should have earned her an Oscar).
wasabi gasp
Spanky and I share underwear.
JPL
If it does nothing more than make trump uncomfortable, I’m okay with it. It will give Melania an excuse to return to Trump Tower for a few days, and trump himself will just hit the campaign trail.
rikyrah
Why the demise of North Carolina’s gerrymandered map is so important
09/04/19 11:20 AM—UPDATED 09/04/19 11:27 AM
By Steve Benen
North Carolina’s state legislative map, heavily and carefully gerrymandered to protect the Republican majority, was rejected yesterday by a three-judge panel. It’s a big win for advocates of voting rights, which will likely have an effect that extends beyond the Tar Heel State.
…………………
All of which suggests voters will next year elect state representatives in North Carolina using a fair map featuring fair district boundaries, increasing the odds of Democratic gains. And why does that matter? Because a year later, state lawmakers in North Carolina will be responsible for drawing the district lines for legislative races based on 2020 census data.
rikyrah
Trump takes $3.6 billion from Pentagon to pay for border barriers
09/04/19 12:52 PM—UPDATED 09/04/19 01:24 PM
By Steve Benen
The Washington Post reported last week that Donald Trump is so desperate to expand border barriers ahead of his 2020 campaign that he’s directed aides to “aggressively seize private land and disregard environmental rules.” Those who were caught running afoul of the law, the president added, would also be rewarded with presidential pardons.
Confronted with questions about contracting procedures and the proper use of eminent domain, the Republican reportedly replied that he expected administration officials to simply “take the land.”
The White House later seemed to confirm the crux of the story, though presidential aides said Trump was joking about the pardons. It wasn’t much of a defense.
But the desperation campaign continues, and it now includes the administration diverting $3.6 billion away from the Pentagon to pay for border barriers.
Philbert
@MJS: agreed. An emphasis on the corruption, and the secret planned coordination to hide the money. Corruption should be the point, not the sex, we are ok with that if it’s a Republican. And then tie that to public policy being changed to hurt people as a result of the corruption. Coal miners’ back pay and pension and black lung compensation, just f’rinstance.
Kay
One of the things that came out in the Whitey Bulger trial (besides the fact of corruption in the FBI) was that Bulger had a special room set up at an all-girls Catholic high school so he and others could secretly watch the girls change clothes. The allegation was they needed cooperation from school officials and/or local law enforcement to do this, and, obviously, if they did that what else did they do to those girls?
You just wonder how really widespread this abuse of young girls by powerful men is. This shit really needs to see the light of day and trials are one way to do that- increasingly, they are the only way to do that.
Spanky
@wasabi gasp: Could you at least wash it once in a while? Please?
justawriter
As GOP wheezebags suddenly learn the value of privacy and not rehashing the same old bullshit over and over and over and over again it may be time to reread Fools for Scandal refresh my memory so I can remind them how drawn out the Clinton nothingburgers of the 1990s were drawn out (including firing prosecutors who go too close to closing the interminable investigations.).
Betty Cracker
Y’all. Trump and the White House Twitter account just tweeted a “hurricane update” from Trump, in which he said nothing but “Florida got lucky” blah blah blah, so you might be wondering, why bother? Here’s why: Trump pretends to spontaneously ask an aide seated nearby for a chart showing the projected path from several days ago onto which someone drew an extension of the cone to include Alabama!
Trump is still butt-hurt about the National Weather Service in Alabama correcting his idiotic comments the other day about Alabama being in the path of the storm. Days later, after who knows how many people have died and countless lives disrupted, Trump assembles people in the Oval Office to conduct this passive-aggressive charade because of a corrective tweet someone at the Alabama branch of the NWS had to send out to clean up his drooling on-camera idiocy.
I mean, on the one hand, it’s kind of funny! He went to such lengths to be super-casual about asking for that chart! And he and his minions thought no one would notice that someone took a Sharpie and extended the dimensions of the “cone of concern” to include the south-most, east-most corner of Alabama.
On the other hand, what the fucking fuck? Even though we’re talking about extremely low-quality hires here, don’t these people have better things to do? My God.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
After a lawerly “asked and answered” all I can add is it’s all babysitting all the time. And they’re really shitty at it, like hiring a 14YO neighbor girl with a bong collection to watch your three-year old.
The Dangerman
@Mike in NC:
Mitch McConnell on Line 2 for you.
Mitch is corrupt to his core; Trump is corrupt, no doubt, but his issues are more being an ignorant fuck as opposed to being just corrupt.
Duane
@The Moar You Know: Keep throwing Trumpov’s crap against the wall. Constantly remind people how dishonest, untrustworthy and corrupt the cheating, lying SOB is.
There’s a reason he paid those women to be quiet.
Kay
How funny is it that the socialist is a MUCH better example of a competitive meritocracy than the spokesperson for conservatism.
Bernie’s a fucking bootstrapper compared to the over-promoted, otherwise unemployable nepotism hires on the Right. He should lecture her about the competitive aspects of markets in talent. Quality. They lack it.
Bill Arnold
@Spanky:
You are confusing corpses. From another thread week(s) ago, Jerry George, Pecker’s “right hand man”, was found outside with blunt head trauma near his house, no witnesses. I don’t know if the investigation turned up anything suspicious. It was not widely reported. Naturally, there were/are suspicions but a widower is involved so be sensitive.
Foul play unlikely in death of National Enquirer’s Jerry George: cops (Keith J. Kelly, August 20, 2019 )
SiubhanDuinne
My ex and I had moved to Florida only a few weeks earlier (1969) when Hurricane Camille grew in the Gulf, threatened and eventually struck Alabama and Mississippi. As I recall, we got some lashings of rain in the Tampa area, but it didn’t seem all that threatening — and, in fact, it wasn’t. I was a Yankee girl anyhow and didn’t know from hurricanes, but fortunately my Miami-born-and-raised husband was an old hand at tracking storm coordinates and knowing exactly what had to be done for preparation or eventual evacuation.
trollhattan
@The Dangerman:
Crooked plus rapist (and who can guess how many other types of physical assault). Trump “wins” running away.
The Moar You Know
@Kay: I have been hearing for decades, mostly from the lunatic fringe, about how this has been a massive thing and that all the elites are in on it. And I always thought that was lunatic fringe, crock of shit material.
Then came Epstein. And it wasn’t so much his vile acts, or those around him, but how fast the media leapt to clamp the fuck down on any suggestions that this went any further than him. And the justice system doing the same thing. And, when they couldn’t keep giving him the country-club weekend prison treatment any longer because of some pesky reporters and he was going to have to do a real trial with a real judge and real victims, they allowed Epstein to kill himself.
I no longer think this is lunatic fringe material. I think it’s real, it’s huge, it’s worldwide, I think thousands are involved and this has been going on for decades. And it still is.
Kay
That’s what all America is asking, don’t you think? Who is the Republican pick for the Democratic nominee?
These people. Unfuckingbelievable. Coddled, swaddled like infants, so long they actually believe their own bullshit that they are somehow The Real Americans.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
Trump’s core supporters don’t care. They have even pre-forgiven anything else that might come up in the future.
So I guess we are left with the secondary and tertiary effects you note here, Trump Hulk rage eruptions and nicking away at his approval rating.
I don’t think this is a big deal, but I guess it’s something.
Cheryl Rofer
Kay
@The Moar You Know:
There was another Catholic girl’s high school case where the victims (now in their sixties) said they were turned over to Baltimore cops for sex. I found the women extremely credible and it makes sense as a criminal conspiracy- it explains a lot.
I assume the lead abusers at the school co-opted local police by having them commit the same crime, thereby assuring the state would turn a blind eye. And the state did. It wasn’t a state action. It was a private lawsuit, for damages.
They can’t settle. If they settle it will stay hidden. There need to be TRIALS. That’s key.
SiubhanDuinne
@The Dangerman:
Exactly so. Moscow Mitch is corrupt on principle. Trump is corrupt because it enriches him and serves his psychopathologies; but if he could get rich and feel better by being honest and straightforward, that’s what he’d do.
TL;DR: I detest Trump, but of the two I hate Mitch more.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Which is why there suddenly so many “suicides” before trial.
TenguPhule
@Cheryl Rofer:
We live in a timeline where nothing matters anymore.
zhena gogolia
@The Moar You Know:
It’s scary. I’m reading the Connie Bruck New Yorker article on Dershowitz and it’s making me sick.
SiubhanDuinne
@Cheryl Rofer:
I think this actually began on January 20, 2017, when Trump said it was raining when it wasn’t, or wasn’t raining when it was, or something.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Then you need a new legal system.
The current one we have is designed to encourage settlements because trials cost money and time and the system isn’t actually designed to give everyone their day in court.
Bill Arnold
@The Moar You Know:
Yep. The scrambling and fear about Epstein has been epic. It has been enlightening and disturbing to watch. And when you say thousands, that’s just the upper tiers of the very rich and(/or, but mostly and) powerful. (And it’s probably at least tens of thousands even there; big world.)
Still wondering about the broken cameras near Epstein’s cell.
rikyrah
@Cheryl Rofer:
of course, it is…..
sigh…
rikyrah
@Bill Arnold:
cause, they’re involved. One way or the other.
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
Look, its either create fake pictures for Trump or wiping his ass on the toilet. What do you think they picked?
Spanky
WEATHER FORECASTS ARE FAKE NEWS!!11!!
#InB4Trump
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
He commits the crimes in public, captured in electronic format, but our institutions are helpless.
This is not an incentive to preserve the systems.
patrick II
The first judge to hear Nadler’s case to force witnesses to testify before congress was not decided quickly because of a Trump judge and Trump’s claim of executive privilege. The Cohen payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal happened before Trump was president and he can’t claim executive privilege and the Cohen part of the case has already been proven. So they should able to testify.
That’s all well and good, but I don’t think anyone doesn’t believe the women took bribes from Trump now, and those who still won’t believe it are unpersuadable.
The hearing that could make a difference, because it has to do with the important myth of Trump’s money-making abilities (or lack thereof) is the one before Chairman Neal’s Ways and Means committee. The Atty General of NY was on Rachel last week and said that Neal has not yet asked for Trump’s NY state tax returns. I have heard various stories of why he doesn’t want to ask — but there really is no reason good enough. You have a liar, cheat, traitor, and destroyer of democracy in the White House and Neal sits there either from cowardice or outdated ideas of comity, and nothing gets done.
Elizabelle
From The Onion (via Cole’s twitter feed): the visual is hilarious.
Democrats Launch New ‘Listen Up, Hayseeds’ Campaign To Connect With Rural Voters
Too close, though. I would not be surprised to see some RWNJs put up this very billboard. Hits all their sweet spots.
Spanky
@TenguPhule:
Phrasing!
Gravenstone
@Kay:
Not quite yet. But his health appears to be for shit, and thus he’s retiring. So yeah, Bernie – who can you work with again?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ll say “nah”. The people who pretended to be outraged about the Clenis were really outraged about “the Sixties”, and gays in the military (even Orrin Hatch was cool with that when they led him out of office with promises of a duck-filled pond). And Tom Delay (with a boost from Monsignor Russert and Mother Superior St Cokie of the Boggs and the Rasputinish Brother Tweety) probably saved Clinton’s term in office by insisting on impeachment. Anything involving the First Toadstool gives the sort of CNN-viewing trump-and-impeachment-opposing lumpenmittel who like to shrug and say “it’s all just politics”, or “it’s just sex” an excuse to go back to college football and dancing with the stars. Focus on the self-enrichment and asking “what’s he hiding in his tax returns?”, “what is he so afraid of?”. I can’t believe people’s natural and gossipy curiosity hasn’t led them down this track already, but what I don’t understand about this fucking country is a bigger file every year.
When all this first came out, and somebody leaked that trump was worried about Melania’s reaction, I laughed out loud. Later it occurred to me that they were trying to use the Edwards case as a political (maybe legal? IANAL) precedent: He wasn’t trying to deceive the public, he was worried about his wife, the loving, wide-eyed innocent who fell madly in love with a paunchy, fake-tanned, dye-job 30 years her senior at first sight! Campaign law is too obscure and full of loopholes to motivate those who don’t want to pay attention.
TenguPhule
@patrick II:
He still does. It depends on whether or not the judge is a Republican appointee as to whether that’s accepted.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
It’s completely predictable. Conservatism is all about protecting privilege, while socialism is about providing opportunity. Conservatives only like talking about meritocracy because it’s a convenient way of blaming poor people for their own problems.
TenguPhule
@Elizabelle:
Cole is feeling optimistic today.
Spanky
@Gravenstone: Soooo, this is telling me that it’s bad for people’s health to work with Bernie. Is that the right thing to take away from this?
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Sigh. Trump can never be wrong. Not even about trivial crap. And yet, his staff knows that they must always scurry to keep the angry man baby happy.
This is not good. There’s always the risk that Trump will make a supremely bad decision about something critical. Oh wait, this is already happening almost every day.
I guess we just have to hold on until we can dump his sorry ass.
Quaker in a Basement
“I’m old enough to remember when a candidate paying off women with whom he’d had an “affair” to keep quiet in the run-up to a presidential election would have been big news.”
John Edwards says to tell you, “Hey.”
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
What I would say is that not all of the elites are in on this kind of thing, but that any elite who wants to be in on it can manage without getting caught. And, of course, “this kind of thing” covers a lot of territory beyond raping teenage girls.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Kind of OT, but maybe worth adding to the corruption pile on: One of the (many, shifting) reasons Pence gave for staying at The Beast’s money-losing hotel was he’s a son of the Auld Sod of Doonbeg…
another excuse: Dublin couldn’t handle his security needs
Spanky
Today I got an email from “Unwanted Belly Fat”. Apparently it’s been stalking me through the intertoobs.
TenguPhule
The French Version of Undercover Boss.
Say hello to a police officer who is about to have the worst day of the rest of their probably very short professional life.
rikyrah
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Whereas Dublin handled the security needs of how many previous Presidents ?
uh huh
uh huh
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
Right, it’s like Ireland has no history of violence nor any notion of how to put security in place.
TenguPhule
@SiubhanDuinne:
Trump: See, they can’t even keep their Lucky Charms safe from those creepy green men!
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Between Irish Pence and Scottish-German Trump, I am thoroughly ashamed of my own ancestry.
SiubhanDuinne
@TenguPhule:
“Magically delicious!”
Or is that Irish Spring? I always forget.
Brachiator
@Cheryl Rofer:
Wow. I didn’t know this.
Is this where some Trump apologist pops up to say, “Well, Trump is president, so he can falsify a forecast if he wants to.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I hope they’re more than just irked and exasperated
Trump had been irked that he was being blamed for the fallout for Pence’s accommodations, sources told CNN, and Pence — who keeps a close eye on his media coverage — was also exasperated by the negative attention.
and of course, it’s not just the corruption, it’s the incompetence
I can just see the CNN segment, “After the break, does the profanity of the Irish press undermine their case against Brexit and the Backstop?”
Kay
@TenguPhule:
I’m an Epstein suicide truther. I believe he committed suicide.
I love how people are like “but our jails are always run so well!” Yeah. Sure they are. Prisoners in our local jail regularly destroyed the fire sprinkler heads in their cells. They’re bored out of their fucking minds and destructive.
gbbalto
@Betty Cracker: It wasn’t just the extension that was fake – it was the cone showing a hit on and across Florida. I’ve watched the NWS updates for days and they never predicted that.
Spanky
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I have never seen an Irish town as desolate as Doonbeg is in that video. Definitely a message to Pence.
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
Soap with marshmallow bits seems like a product yet to be marketed. Somebody, quick!
SiubhanDuinne
Heads-up: tomorrow on NPR’s Fresh Air, Terry Gross will interview David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post. Check your local station for times.
Fahrenthold’s brilliant and painstaking reporting is one of the reasons I continue to support the WaPo, despite the execrable Marc Thiessen and Megan McArdle and others. Fahrenthold is a treasure.
rikyrah
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Then, someone, as indicated by the Morning Thread tweets, had added up the $$$$ that Pence had put in Dolt45’s pockets, outside of this trip.
prostratedragon
@Betty Cracker: So we can add Moon of Alabama to his list of titles and epithets.
trollhattan
@Kay:
At the very least I’m going with “artfully neglected” to aid his suicidal urges. “Everybody was napping.” Yup.
MattF
@Cheryl Rofer: He’s not falsifying the forecast, he’s correcting it. No more Fake Forecasts!!
Kathleen
@Kay: I’m thinking it is the norm, especially when you factor in abuse of boys. I’m almost up the point of seeing this as the reason the Catholic Church has been structured as it is and how it has operated for centuries. I say this as one who was raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools from kindergarten through college.
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan:
Satby? You listening?
Kay
Just another day at work for the low quality hires. Imagine how horrible it is to work there. Hundreds of adults are spending thousands of hours lying and frantically covering for this douchebag. And he hates all of them and screams at them constantly and blames them for everything.
Steve in the ATL
@SiubhanDuinne:
And the marriage didn’t last? No one could have predicted!
Steve who is currently sitting at ATL waiting for his flight
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker: Also – on the chart, the hurricane’s path drastically shrinks when it gets to Alabama, like it was scared to wreck too much of Alabama.
“I’ll destroy the panhandle, but won’t wreck too much of Alabama.”
Betty Cracker
@patrick II: I heard a plausible theory about Neal’s inaction from the Obama Bros podcast (I think) the other day. Basically, he’s the wrong man for the job. He sat on that boring-ass committee for years hoping for a chance to write tax policy, and BOOM, a scammy reality TV host lands in the White House with a shitload of corruption to investigate, and Neal just wants…to write tax policy. Pretty much 100% useless on oversight so far.
Bill Arnold
@Betty Cracker:
and “we got lucky in Florida, very very lucky indeed”.
This is the precise inverse of the truth in at least two dimensions.
Is this POTUS in any way redeemable? I’m converging on No, and I’m pretty big on forgiveness/redemption.
Pathetic.
Also, that forecast cone centered on Mar-a-Lago was only for a few (maybe 2) forecasting runs, which are done several times per day.
rikyrah
@SiubhanDuinne:
Fahrenthold gets under their skin, and I love it. I have to admit, I became a fan, looking at the tweets of the legal pads when he was doing the Foundation Scam research.
patrick II
@TenguPhule:
Of course he does. What was I thinking? Anyhow, even a republican judge will have a stretch to allow a claim of executive privilege before he was an executive for the purpose of paying women for sex unless the republican judge thinks it’s one of the duties of the office.
Calouste
@Kay: Well, conservatives aren’t for competitive meritocracy, unless the competitive part solely consists of who your parents are.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
The number of oddities in Epstein’s case pushes the suspension of disbelief to the limit.
Its possible he committed suicide, but the cascade of failures that just so happened to leave him alone with the material he wasn’t supposed to have and the cameras all out by his cell disabled right when he suffered that fatal injury are improbable.
Kathleen
@Kay: Did you see the Netflic documentary The Secret, which covers this case? It’s riveting.
RobertB
@gbbalto: I thought the same thing, but…
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2019/DORIAN_graphics.php?product=5day_cone_no_line
ETA: Miserable POS picked the 8/29 11 AM graph.
The three-day cones were more accurate.
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2019/DORIAN_graphics.php?product=3day_cone_no_line
TenguPhule
@trollhattan:
And the cameras were out for that specific period and area.
Kay
@Kathleen:
I differ a little on that, the focus on Catholic entities. I think it’s broader than that. The worse case of systemic, organizationally entrenched child abuse I have ever read about was in a Texas juvenile facility that was run primarily by women. I want to back up a little, widen the frame. In a way I think the focus on “Catholic” has obscured the picture. Forest, trees. I get it- it’s a huge organization and they ran schools, hence, the focus but I don’t want to go down narrow roads.
It’s about power.
TenguPhule
@Kathleen:
Nunneries were historically Catholic brothels for the priesthood and nobility.
So just returning to their roots.
MattF
@Kay: I could believe that Epstein wanted to commit suicide and had some expert help.
Kay
@Kathleen:
I did. I sort of loved those women. And the dawning realization that the one who seemed the most unhinged was probably telling the truth. Her credibility started low and then (to me) just built, and that almost never happens. She had this dreamlike quality to her recitation that made me think initially “this is woo woo- seems like a nice lady, but this story is just unbelievable” THEN I was like “uh, oh. Okay, that’s verified. This is bad”. I changed my mind about her.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
IMO, the big issue was why he wasn’t on suicide watch. He had already tried to commit suicide once, and there are established procedures to prevent people from trying. So was the failure to apply those procedures a matter of neglect, or did somebody want to give him a second chance? The first seems perfectly plausible given how awful our prisons are, but we should certainly investigate the second possibility.
gbbalto
@RobertB: You’re right – I forgot some of the earlier ones.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@TenguPhule:
Late one night several years ago when we lived in Paris, we heard and saw a man beating a woman in the street outside our apartment window. We frantically called the police and described the situation to an officer – who said, with obvious boredom, “oh really? Well, I’m sure they’ll work it out. Good night, madame.” And hung up on me. We called back, got a different officer, and held the phone out the window so he could hear the woman’s screams. Same reaction: “it’s a domestic affair. Good night, madame.”
Obviously nothing has changed. Fucking bastards.
trollhattan
Okay, actually The Onion but utterly believable, yes?
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: I came a-runnin here just as soon as I saw that blowing up on Twitter, Betty…seriously? SERIOUSLY?? This clown is so pathetically insecure AND dumb that he uses a Sharpie to extend an official (and old) forecast and ‘make’ himself right.
But then again, that’s the just trumpov way: spout off something stupid, take stupid action(s) to support stupid pronouncement, insist that others praise me, quote those others as proof THATIMNOTSTUPIDIMNOT!!1!, and proceed as if everything is normal.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
I don’t know that he tried:
Kay
@Roger Moore:
“Semi conscious” is probably self-reported or observed. It doesn’t mean anything.
trollhattan
@TenguPhule:
Even frickin’ Giuliani said he’d be interested in seeing the videos before that convenient “oopsie” came out. Oliver Stone would option the script just based on what details we already know.
Yarrow
Was just a matter of time. Link.
germy
Leto
Another bit of hurricane trivia: the stars are exceptionally bright because power has been knocked out for at least a few dozen miles. All the ambient light pollution isn’t there. After Katrina the night sky was absolutely brilliant. Didn’t have all the light pollution from the casinos shitting up the sky (Biloxi area). Just something I remember.
Kay
Another brave patriot. Me, me, me.
Fuck them and their books. We don’t need any more books about this disaster by the people who set it in motion. The paydays should end. The only book I want to read is a trial transcript, where they’re witnesses or defendants.
MattF
@trollhattan: Yeah, the last sentence gave it away.
germy
@Yarrow:
All the evil shit he’s been doing for the past few years, and the only consequences he faces is selling securities? I thought he’d be arrested for fraud after his last stunt (or the one before it)
SFAW
It’s A Process Crime!! Leave him alo-o-o-o-o-o-ne!!!!
Kay
It’s pathetic that the President and his low quality hires spend the workday altering a weather map, but at this point anyone who believes a word these people utter is a fool, and no practical use to anyone. We’ll have to go on without that 42% of people polled, or whatever. There’s no cure for stupid. Moving on.
Yarrow
@germy: So far. I’m not complaining if he’s being arrested for something.
germy
MAGA!
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jacob-wohl-wanted-on-felony-arrest-warrant
TenguPhule
@trollhattan: What’s interesting to me is that if Epstein did suicide, he botched the job. Hanging is supposed to kill you by breaking your neck, not strangling you till you suffocate. But far too many people get their ideas of hanging from film & tv.
The Moar You Know
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: We have a wonderful phrase in SoCal for that particular phenomena:
“Daughter or bought her?”
Jay
SiubhanDuinne
@Steve in the ATL:
Not only that — he was a Virgo!
Gin & Tonic
@Yarrow: Thoughts and prayers.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
I’d settle for their obituaries.
rikyrah
@Kay:
John Kelly ain’t shyt.
Ain’t been shyt since the beginning.
dexwood
@Kathleen:
It’s called The Keepers about the murdered nun who taught at Archbishop Keough HS where the abuse took place. At the time, I was a student at the Catholic boys school, Cardinal Gibbons, up the road from Keough. I knew quite a few girls at Keough, many from my neighborhood, but I never heard any of them speak about the abusive priest at the heart of the story.
TenguPhule
Pentagon defers 127 building projects to fund border wall
Cut the military’s funding of senior officer pensions and perks. Its the only thing that will get through to them.
The Moar You Know
@TenguPhule: He didn’t botch it. You can’t do a “long-drop” hanging in a prison cell, or hotel room. Or anyplace that doesn’t have at least a twelve foot ceiling and a method to get your feet at least five feet off the ground.
When you’re in a regular sized room, short-drop – strangulation – is the only option.
Very few people even know the difference and expect that hanging is about strangulation. I’ve known three people in my lifetime – two in the last decade – who’ve hung themselves. None of them broke their necks.
I wish that all three of them could see what it did to their families. I doubt they would have done it if they could.
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
Loved that researcher who determined Kelly’s immigrant Italian granny never learned English. “Rules for thee, not for me.”
trollhattan
@TenguPhule:
Raytheon is beginning to wish they’d gone into general contracting.
Kay
@rikyrah:
He’s afraid the President will tweet mean things about him. So he has to wait a while to cash in on a book. While he’s waiting he’ll collect a paycheck from some kiddie prisons. “In foster care or whatever”.
The level of public service is just so admirable.
chopper
@Betty Cracker:
this is just fucking amazing. my god, what a WATB.
TenguPhule
Trump says China will suffer, but data shows tariffs hurting U.S.
rikyrah
Students Repeatedly Posed in Blackface and Threatened Black Classmates. Their School Ignored, Lawsuit Alleges.
Six students, ages 7 to 18, filed a civil-rights suit against their school, claiming administrators exhibited “deliberate indifference” to repeated complaints of racist bullying.
Olivia Messer
Reporter
Published 09.04.19 2:35PM ET
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
This works only if you have a sufficient drop, at least 4 feet, depending on body weight.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Never ever EVER should he be allowed to walk away from this comment.
NEVER.
JOHN.KELLY.AIN’T.SHYT.
Jeffro
@Kay: @TenguPhule: “It wouldn’t pain me more to bury you rich, than to bury you poor” – Soundgarden
“…or just bury you, period.” – TP
“…with your stupid can’t-tell-all tell-all book.” – Kay
“…where is my bat?” – Jeffro
To Kay’s point up above re: people like Kelly wanting to wait until trumpov leaves office before telling all…how can any reporter not totally POUNCE on that? “So what you’re saying, SIR, is that you have a lot to tell about our current CINC’s complete unfitness for office…but you’re going to hold on for another year or five until he can’t mean-tweet at you about it? Is that right?”
prostratedragon
Don Knotts, the Nervous Weatherman
TenguPhule
Big Soda is not pleased.
Jay
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Back in the day, when the VPD didn’t care too much about “domestic abuse”, ( or assault, or rape), in the Downtown East Side,
when we called in an assault in our neighborhood, ( always get their name and badge number first), and would get the “brush off”, our response to the Officer was:
“Well if you arn’t going to intervene, I guess me and my 4 roomates will have to”.
“The paperwork will be epic!”
Now a days, I probably wouldn’t call 911 for a event. That whole “A Cops First Job Is To Make Sure They Go Home At The End Of A Shift” bs. along with the militarization of response has made a bunch of Cops violent up here too.
“Officer Eric Cartman” is not the guy you want on the other end of 911.
Kay
@Jeffro:
No one is going to want to read about this so soon anyway. We lived it. The last thing we need is the perpetrators selling self-serving narratives and clouding up the record. Just shut up. They were too scared and/or self-interested to speak when it mattered. They lost their chance.
The NYTimes book about Clinton just kills me. It wasn’t bad enough reading their shitty coverage of the email scandal the first time? They’ll now regurgitate it in a book and a tv show? What’s the limit on profiteering? Is there one?
Speak now or forever hold your peace. Let real historians handle it.
germy
germy
Baud
@germy:
Did those other maps call him “Sir.”?
Brachiator
@germy:
What a strange, pathetic little man. Once he gets a factoid in his feeble mind, he can’t let go.
The despicable thing is that people must enable him, to keep their jobs, and to keep him happy.
He is not fit to be president, but there’s not a damn thing we can do about it yet.
The Moar You Know
@germy: NPD. Can’t be wrong and will go to insane lengths to never admit being so.
@Baud: You fucking know it. I’m shocked he hasn’t barfed that tell out yet. He will.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
There is nothing better for them to do. Sucking various things of or about his person is why he hired them. There is no other reason.
hitchhiker
I want Trump Corruption Hearings. It doesn’t even matter which of his many acts of theft and dishonesty they highlight, as long as the framework is him + corruption.
Paid not one but two women (that we know of) to keep quiet about having sex with him so the public wouldn’t know. Corrupt and dishonest.
Routinely charges taxpayers for his out-of-all-control vacationing at his own properties.
Corrupt and dishonest.
Hires multiple senior staff who are exposed as thieves of the public.
Corrupt and dishonest.
Tried to use his campaign to get a deal with Moscow for a luxury hotel and then lied about it.
Corrupt and dishonest.
It could go on from tomorrow until the day his sorry carcass exits the premises. It’s the repetition and focus that we need. Trust me on this … I taught high school math and I can promise that you must find ways to say the same thing about 20 times before anyone is able to process it, much less retain it.
The public is primed to hear this (except the Fox/Breitbart/Rush folk, but they’re not the target) after the last few years of chaos and ugliness. They’ll be grateful.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Bravo.
Ruckus
@Kay:
I’ve noticed that BS only looks in anyway acceptable if you compare him with drumpy.
Or maybe the hippie chick running for whatever it is, because it isn’t president, I think she’s running because she’s too stoned to find her way home.
Kay
Have we ever had a more embarrassing AG? “Sir, we’re having our party at your wonderful hotel”
We have a county commissioner here who rules the local GOP with an iron fist. He’s a clown. I have to ride in the courthouse elevator with him sometimes- he knows me but he won’t look at me. I knew his mother and she was a decent person so maybe he’s ashamed. He’s a slumlord with this hinky “real estate business” and they all use his shitty services to curry favor. That’s the same as the attorney general of the US. This crew is akin to county commissioners in a county of 30k people. That’s the level.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
Not a link; more an association. And there may be other factors at work.
Still, it’s probably good if people cut back.
I wonder if other sweetened drinks, like iced tea, are also problematic.
Ruckus
@The Moar You Know
You sound a bit out there. Except, it all seems so possible, given what we see every day. It seems more strange now when we hear about normal. Does money come with perversion? Or is it that basackwards?
Jay
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Tony Soprano was very careful to never say a word to Richie Aprile about the garbage routes.
JustRuss
@Roger Moore:
You may not be the best James Bond, but very well said.
Jay
trollhattan
Better, betterist. Proudly open, brazen theft is the best theft.
Fair Economist
@Brachiator:
I also worry about the exact cause. Possibilities besides the artificial sweeteners (which we know affect appetite) include phosphorus (high in many although not all sodas, and definitely bad with reduced kidney function) and carbonation per se (not too likely IMO but you never know). I’ve already ditched almost everything other than flavored water so I’m probably OK but it’s good to be more sure.
Jay
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
Odds that the captain would have been paid? Email increases odds perhaps.
Jay
@Bill Arnold:
Hmmmmmm, piss off Dolt 45’s State Department by refusing to hijack your own ship, ( piracy and half a dozen other charges, Iran probably hangs Pirates out side of talk like a Pirate Day),…..
Or piss off the IRGC by committing piracy,
Pretty much a no-brainer.
Brachiator
@Fair Economist:
Currently, there is NO cause, no firm connection with anything. There is simply a possible association between soda and some health outcomes.
It will be interesting to see what future research might reveal.
Amir Khalid
@trollhattan:
Quick! Email this idea to satby right away!
J R in WV
@The Moar You Know:
I think Epstein is just an early warning sign, the least of the whole set of major conspiracy to rape young beautiful children.
Catholic priests were caught, and shuffled around to new parishes. And Nuns in the laundries in Ireland, abusing pregnant girls, never the rapists, just the victims. A system wide problem within a wide variey of strict patriarchal churches. The Calvinists and Fundamentalist and Evangelical churches, where women aren’t allowed to participate in leadership, because they might complain about their daughters being raped and abused systematically.
Then the Boy Scouts of America, same same, Scout Masters prowling the campground at 2 or 3 am, looking for a boy who wouldn’t complain too much.
I agree, this is a cesspool of patriarchal monsters who can even convince the women in their cults to go along with abusing youngsters, raping children under pretext of church discipline.
The “Pizzagate” and “QAnon” cults are the sign that this thing is real, and those cults are the foundation of the projection, and an attempt to make it look like “everybody does it” when it’s really just the religious RWNJs of all flavors who all do it.
If we put them all in jail for 30-50 years, society would be cleaned up, kids would learn how to be normal good people. How can we expect a whole generation of church-going abused children to grow up to be healthy citizens and wise voters. They don’t know who to believe, they don’t know there are good leaders out there that they can trust because the only leaders they have personal experience of is evil abusers. The private religious segregated schools are full of over-controlling religious nut jobs, the churches are patriarchal theocratic cesspools of perverted sexual urges… It’s sickening, and it’s all around us.