Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

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

“woke” is the new caravan.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

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

So many bastards, so little time.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2020 / Election Year Open Thread: Bleeding Iowa

Election Year Open Thread: Bleeding Iowa

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Final nail in Iowa’s coffin, IMO:

Not that the IDP needed any more ‘help’…



Silver lining, y’all!

Chaos created by a lack of timely reported caucus results demonstrated something that was voiced on the trail in Iowa for months: unity among the Democrats.

Friendship in the 2020 Democratic race proved to extend beyond camaraderie on the trail, as different former campaigns and politicos came together in a time of party vulnerability. After the reporting system broke down on Monday night, an all-call went out for help from the IDP, answered by former presidential candidates’ staff, Iowa elected officials, congressional campaign staff and others.

“I think that’s the beauty of this all, is Iowa comes together in times of need. And I think they have plenty of volunteers and so it’s whatever the leadership needs, I think the folks are here to help,” said J.D. Scholten, the Democrat running for Steve King’s seat in the U.S. Senate. “I think it was a great reaction to the difficulty of what’s happened.”…

Reader Interactions

127Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Here’s the thing, though: AT THIS POINT, WHO CARES?
    The Iowa result only matters because we decide to make such a big deal out of it.

    So: Bernie and Pete did well, Warren did OK, Biden not so good. There. We’re done

    QFT.

  2. 2.

    brantl

    Doesn’t all these assholes calling the hotlines with fakes amount to election fraud? What’s the Attorney General of Iowa, a democrat or a refug?

  3. 3.

    chopper

    Trump supporters flooded a hotline used by Iowa precinct chairs to report Democratic caucus results after the telephone number was posted online

    because of course they did. it’s 4channers and shitlords all the way down.

  6. 6.

    MisterForkbeard

    @brantl: It’s definitely interference with election results across state lines.

    Something that the feds could likely go after. Doesn’t have to be state authorities. Of course, both are Republican so they’re unlikely to do anything.

    ETA: Apparently they’re NOT Republican at the state level. Huh.

  7. 7.

    PJ

    @Baud: The only people who are really upset by this are 1) reporters/news outlets, who are deprived of their first big horse race narrative element; and 2) Berners, who because the result is currently uncertain, are deprived of being able to gleefully shout out, “Suck on this, shitlibs!  Bow down to King Bernie!” (if he “wins” Iowa), and so have to settle for declaring the whole thing a DNC-orchestrated sham that Hillary is behind (because there’s no way Bernie could come in second if the caucuses were run fairly, even though they were the ones who demanded the caucuses be run this way.)

  9. 9.

    Emma from FL

    I think the DNC should draw up contingency plans to deal with the ratf_ckers. And yes, paper ballots under guard if necessary.

  10. 10.

    Shalimar

    Maybe it would have worked better if the HQ had a list of all the precinct captains and called them one by one for results, instead of having them call in to a public line?

  11. 11.

    The Dangerman

    Trump supporters flooded a hotline…

    Make America Grate On Our Nerves Again?

    Too bad these folks can’t, say, have their bank amounts hacked down to, say, zero. As Susan Collins would say, lessons need to be learned.

  13. 13.

    Mnemosyne

    @PJ:

    As I’ve been saying since caucus night: this shitshow happened because the MSM demanded to know the results NOWNOWNOW. Every mistake that’s happened ties back to that.

    States need to tell the MSM to get stuffed because the results will be in after they’re double-checked and verified, and not a minute sooner. 

  15. 15.

    Shalimar

    @PJ: Berners have moved on to saying he won by 6000 votes and attacking anyone who won’t agree he won by 6000 votes.  Twitter and Disqus are shitshows, as usual.

  17. 17.

    TenguPhule

    This is why they should have held the Democratic primary last year. So we could have figured out who would be running against Trump and have the rest of the year to campaign against him.

    Instead, we get to look forward to a lot of unnecessary drama and much less time to unify around the final candidate.

  19. 19.

    Baud

    Isn’t the next debate Monday? Pete and Bernie can spend half an hour settling who won Iowa like men.  That’ll be some must watch TV.

  20. 20.

    Roger Moore

    @Mnemosyne:

    States need to tell the MSM to get stuffed because the results will be in after they’re double-checked and verified, and not a minute sooner.

    This is one of the things I really appreciate about California’s election system.  It’s very clear that the top priority is making sure everyone’s vote gets counted correctly.  County election officials have a month to get their counts in, and they’re encouraged to use as much of that month as necessary to do a good thorough job.

  21. 21.

    John Revolta

    “Well, there ain’t no tellin’ just what went wrong. That fast-talkin’ city feller who sold us the app said it’d count up all the votes and keep our kids from hangin’ ’round the pollin’ place
    all night with their knickerbockers buckled below their knees. Yessir, looks like we got trouble.”

  22. 22.

    debbie

    Enough of this fucking technology that no one can guarantee will work or will not be adversely manipulated. I demand paper ballots!

    Also, why is no one loudly reminding the country that the GOP had this same problem in the 2016 Iowa caucus? Stop letting them frame Dems as dumb and stupid!

    I will never recover my calmness after listening to asshole this afternoon.

  25. 25.

    germy

    The Miami-Dade Democratic Party has filed an official complaint with the Florida bar assocation against Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), one of Trump’s staunchest allies.

    The complaint hinges on Gaetz’s leading role in storming the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) where closed door depostions were held in October at the beginning of the House impeachment inquiry.

    The Democrats argue that Gaetz’s conduct is in violation of the bar’s rules and does not “reflect favorably” on him as a lawyer.

    The bar association previously investigated Gaetz’s conduct after he tweeted at former Trump attorney Michael Cohen in a way some interpreted as a threat. The bar did not take any disciplinary action, but told him not to do it again.

    Washington Post

    Meanwhile, Gaetz wants to press charges against Pelosi for ripping up drumpf’s speech.

  28. 28.

    kindness

    I can’t support Caucusses.  I never liked them but didn’t care as my state votes.  Now I think every state should just vote.  Sucks to be Iowa.

  30. 30.

    Yutsano

    @kindness: Hell I’ll even let them keep their stupid state law that says they can go first. Just let it be a primary. Then Iowa and New Hampshire can figure themselves out.

  31. 31.

    Roger Moore

    @Yutsano:

    Hell I’ll even let them keep their stupid state law that says they can go first.

    To hell with that.  No state should get to go first every time.  There should be some kind of rotation system so the state that went first this time goes last next time.

  32. 32.

    chris

    **Bitter chuckle.** Good article.

    Exclusive: A Fox News internal memo questions the credibility of several prominent Fox guests, accusing Fox contributor John Solomon of playing an "indispensable role" in a Ukrainian hoax and calling Giuliani "highly susceptible" to foreign disinformation. https://t.co/LlzSCuyCr5— Will Sommer (@willsommer) February 6, 2020

  33. 33.

    PsiFighter37

    I’ll start watching the debates once Bloomberg hits the stage. Whoever wins the first 4 states…yawn. If someone can decisively beat Bloomberg’s pile of money on Super Tuesday, that is worth paying attention to.

    And I will be very, very happy when Iowa gets ditched. In fact, I would keep the true swing states at the top (NH, as much as it is white, is a true swing state) – so keep Nevada as well. But I would add a swing state with a diverse population (thinking Georgia or North Carolina, instead of SC) and one deep-blue state at the top – Illinois might be the one.

    I think this also shows that Tom Perez has done what, exactly, since running the DNC? We really needed a Howard Dean type back in the seat.

  35. 35.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Not-so-bold prediction: Iowa will never go first again and will never have a caucus again.

    When Wilmer primaries Warren in 2024 he will “demand” retention of Iowa and the caucus system at the “Unity” extortion conference.

  37. 37.

    J R in WV

    So Iowa is so proud of how important their caucus results are, first in the nation, selecting a President all alone by themselves… and precinct chairs send their data in via the US Postal Service. A reliable government service to move things from place to place… but not the fastest method currently available.

    What a bunch of corn-fed asses~!!~

    ETA:
    Wife adds “Sneaker-net” — which isn’t quite the same as snail-mail, but close…

    Also, shouldn’t people be arrested for tampering with an election for calling that hot-line?? Across state lines makes that a federal crime!!! I’m sure AG Barr will be on that tomorrow morning early, right? Right?

  39. 39.

    WaterGirl

    @Shalimar: In 2008 for the caucus in Iowa, you called in as soon as you had your numbers.  Caucuses finish at different times, so it probably would not be efficient or effective if THEY called YOU.

  41. 41.

    scav

    Well, as has been proven by Senate Approval, there are no crimes if committed by Republicans in pursuit of partisan victory. And, all such victories gained by Perfect®™ phone calls are the most historic and unprecedented pure victories of all time, by definition.

  42. 42.

    dmsilev

    @germy:

    Meanwhile, Gaetz wants to press charges against Pelosi for ripping up drumpf’s speech.

    For what, littering? I’d say ‘lèse-majesté’, but that’s fancy Frenchified wordstuff and surely Gaetz wouldn’t do that.

  46. 46.

    joel hanes

    @debbie:

    I demand paper ballots!

    You are wise (or in other words, I agree completely).  Voting is best carried out on paper.

    Full disclosure: I had a forty-year career as a computer engineer; I worked for Microsoft for seven of those years, and Apple for twelve.

    There are accessibility problems for a tiny percentage of voters who can’t use paper ballots, and we need to make sure there’s a solution for them.

  52. 52.

    joel hanes

    @WaterGirl:

    In 2008 for the caucus in Iowa, you called in as soon as you had your numbers.

    and it worked just fine.

    “There’s an app for that” is one of the stupidest conventions of our time, but for some reason I guess that “there’s a secured web site for that” just doesn’t have the panache.

  54. 54.

    hitchhiker

    There’s almost nothing less boring than the results of the Iowa caucuses. The whole project reminds me in a bad way of the season I spent working for the Princeton Review. The PR was a company (still is, I think) designed to take advantage of the terrible college “entrance exam” known as the SAT.

    I’m an excellent test-taker, and I needed some dough, so I agreed to spend a series of evenings showing kids whose parents had $500 to blow how to game the thing.

    This is how the caucus strikes me. It’s a terrible system because it can be gamed. Yes, sometimes a few people make human connections with candidates that result in passionate advocacy and blah blah blah (Obama!) blah blah … but it’s just stupid to think this is a uniquely valuable way to do things. I mean, a LOT of people who met John Edwards in person were gaga over his special sauce, and he turned out to be a freaking idiot on a scale Bill Clinton could only have imagined.

    There is no perfect system. There are only ones that are more or less difficult to game. (The system we have, god help us, led to one of the worst men in America being handed the nuclear codes and the keys to the White House.)

    I’m glad this will be the last time Iowa gets all that special attention. Let’s see … the actuarial tables say that I’m probably good for another 15-20 years. That means I might witness four or five more national elections. I’m dead certain that whatever we do to improve the primaries, they’ll be gamed. The trick is to make that kind of thing apparent.

    Here’s the Princeton Review trick, if anyone cares: they start by giving a version of the test under timed conditions, exactly like the real thing. This, they say, is to create a baseline for awarding refunds. For the $500, they promise an increase of 100 points from that baseline. Their data shows that the process of taking that practice exam under realistic conditions is already worth 50 points on average, with no cramming or any other intervention … so the $20/hr “math section teachers” like me only needed to come up with 25 points, which amounted to getting a few more problems right. Just a few, and if the “English section teacher” did their job — boom, your kid’s score magically got high enough for that school you really can’t afford.

    Congratulations.

    Anyway, good riddance to caucuses. In WA we’re doing our first primary vote that counts ever, in just a month or so. I can’t wait.

  56. 56.

    clay

    @PsiFighter37:

    I think this also shows that Tom Perez has done what, exactly, since running the DNC? We really needed a Howard Dean type back in the seat.

    He oversaw the elections of 2017, 2018, and 2019.  Which, for the most part, turned out pretty well.

  59. 59.

    WaterGirl

    @NotMax: I hate you for posting that.  Before I could close the window they wanted me email or address or something.  Ugh. I saw a cute butt on a girl on the way out.

    I guess I should add a :-) so you know I don’t actually hate you, even if I’m sorry I clicked.

  60. 60.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @clay: this was a fuck-up by the Iowa state Dem party, followed by hysteria whipped up by the media and campaigns mad they didn’t get their victory speeches, which they gave anyway, now Perez is trying to calm the waters. I wish he would stay the hell off TV, he’s awful, but this really isn’t his fault. In fact, the DNC IT people tried to dissuade Iowa from using the app

  62. 62.

    germy

    On Thursday, Pelosi suggested that her handshake was to “extend a hand of friendship,” before Trump’s State of the Union address on Monday. And then the California Democrat suggested that Trump might have been high as a giraffe’s ass.
    “It was also an act of kindness because he looked to me like he was a little sedated,” Pelosi told reporters. She added, “He looked that way last year, too.”

  63. 63.

    MomSense

    @PsiFighter37:

    C’mon psi, the DNC doesn’t run the states’ primaries or caucuses.  Unlike previous DNC chairs he has funded organizers, voter registration and protection.

  65. 65.

    Shalimar

    @clay: You only think they turned put well, because Bernie wasn’t on the ballots to bitch about how rigged they were.

  67. 67.

    TenguPhule

    @hitchhiker: There’s almost nothing less boring than the results of the Iowa caucuses.

    Obviously there should be pedants in the audience who disagree. //

  68. 68.

    WaterGirl

    @PsiFighter37: @MomSense:

    Democrats Have Successfully Implemented a 50-State Strategy

    Following the debacle in Iowa and the refusal of Senate Republicans to hold Trump accountable, the “Democrats in disarray” crowd is having a field day. As someone who tends to chafe at conventional wisdom, I thought I’d go against the grain and bring you some good news about Democrats. Almost no one is noticing that the party has successfully implemented a 50-state strategy when it comes to fundraising.

    Howard Dean is the one who popularized the idea of a 50-state strategy back in 2005. What most people don’t know is that in promoting that idea, he was posing a direct challenge to the Democratic “establishment” of his day. Prior to his chairmanship of the DNC, the party was the focal point for fundraising and its leadership doled money out to candidates in a top-down strategy based on who they thought would be viable. Very little of that money was spent to support state parties or candidates in red states or districts that were deemed to be unviable.

    Dean’s 50-state strategy would remove that power from DNC leadership, sending it back to state parties and candidates. That is precisely why his candidacy for chair of the party was so hotly contested.

    Read the whole thing.

  71. 71.

    oldgold

    My grandmother, of pioneer Iowa stock, used to say, “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

    They tried to do that and failed horrifically by demanding quick and precise information from 1700 or so caucuses held in living rooms, school cafeterias and park pavilions across the Sate of Iowa that were hosted by volunteers, who for the most part are not tech savvy.

  72. 72.

    LuciaMia

    “Meanwhile, Gaetz wants to press charges against Pelosi for ripping up drumpf’s speech.”

    **********

    Of course he does. He never misses a chance to act like a tremendous dick.

  73. 73.

    Ella in New Mexico

    So now the Republicans new strategy for getting Trump re-elected is to illegally interfere in the ability of a state to conduct and election?

    And I was pissed at how they plan to get R’s to register as D’s and vote for Bernie in the SC Primary.

  77. 77.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Julia Azari @ julia_azari
    i’m gonna try to rant about this at more length later, but the idea that we are waiting on the “popular vote” of 170,000 people is fucking asinine. That’s an aldermanic district, not a presidential election.

    Having looked at the Iowa seats that flipped in ’18, that’s about how many votes Axne and Finkenauer got, so bit more than an alderman, but… the idea that 50 or 60K votes is somehow predictive of a GE vote… FWIW, per Wiki, Obama got about 820(+)K votes in IA in 08 and 12, trump got just over 800K in ’16

  78. 78.

    Belafon

    It’s up to the state to decide when their date will be, and the state decides what they’re going to pay for. Why would the iowa GOP decide to change things if it’s messing up the Democrats? The government will need to flip to make it better.

  79. 79.

    NotMax

    @WaterGirl

    “No prob.”
      – Parker Lewis

    (FYWP will doubtless insert an extra blank line between the quote and the attribution, a blank line that is not there in the original as typed.)

  81. 81.

    kindness

    Open primaries.  Why do I have this argument with (some of) my liberal friends?

    They say it’s fairer because you can then vote for who ever you want.  I say it isn’t a problem (here in California at least) changing your registration before the primary so you can vote for who ever you want and this way the party doesn’t get rat fuc’d by Republicans trying to screw the party over.

    Needless to say California went for open primaries about 5 years ago and we haven’t learned our lesson yet.

  84. 84.

    Zinsky

    The outcome of the Iowa caucuses doesn’t mean shit to a tree (to use an old Jefferson Airplane metaphor)!  It’s only value is in signaling voter interest and it’s done that already.  It’s predictive value for the general election is diddley-squat.  Move on and forget about Iowa!!

  86. 86.

    joel hanes

    @WaterGirl:

    please tell me you worked for Microsoft first, and then Apple.

    That is correct.   I kinda sidled into Microsoft … WebTV, then a wholly-owned subsidiary of MSFT, bought up the resources of the little game-box startup at which I was was working in 1997, and the entire team of 70 people were offered jobs trying to rescue the WebTV project from Microsoft’s ham-handedness.   That didn’t work out, but after Microsoft completely absorbed WebTV into the borg, the key members of my team went on to be the core of the current Xbox hardware team.    I worked on the Xbox 360 project, which was a sufficiently horrible experience to convince me to quit.  Mostly wrote C/assembler on Sun SPARC Unix.  A little FORTH, a little work on Windows using Visual Studio (ptui!)

    I joined Apple in 2007 and worked on all the main chips for every iPhone, iPad, and iWatch you’ve ever seen except the original iPhone.  Mostly wrote perl on Linux.  Retired in July.

  89. 89.

    Jeffro

    I see that #pettysburgaddress is trending on Twitter and I’m just gonna assume that refers to twitler’s hour long ranty rant earlier today while I howl and try to keep my sides from splitting.

     

    MORE SERIOUSLY

     

    …we are nine months out and it’s way clear that the trumpov cult is going for maximum chaos x eleventy on steroids*.  It wouldn’t hurt to try and figure out which (gag) bipartisan figures might step up and start beating the drum for a return to, oh, just regular election-type stuff.  Other suggestions welcome, but please hurry.

  93. 93.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    To explain further, FYWP treats this:

      – Parker Lewis

    as if it is a new paragraph, not as simply an additional line of text in the same paragraph.

  94. 94.

    different-church-lady

    Re: fake call flood: so once again Trump and his base have ratfucked democracy, and there will be absolutely NO repercussions.

    Tom Brady will pay a higher price for under-inflated footballs than Trump will ever pay for repeated sexual assaults.

  95. 95.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jeffro:

    I see that #pettysburgaddress is trending on Twitter and I’m just gonna assume that refers to twitler’s hour long ranty rant earlier today while I howl and try to keep my sides from splitting.f

    that’s fantastic

  98. 98.

    TriassicSands

    @Baud:

    If only it were that simple. Since we live in neither a vacuum nor a country with responsible media (Horse Race! Horse Race! Horse Race!) we can expect the “Democrats in Disarray” story to get considerable play. That is no good for the party (or the country).

    When running against a completely incompetent president, it’s a good idea to look competent. While this isn’t the fault of any of the candidates, life’s unfair rules say they get tainted by proximity.

    @chopper:

    i’m sure barr’s DOJ is gonna get right on it.

    In fact, he’s just appointed Archibald Cox as Special Prosecutor to investigate.

  99. 99.

    Baud

    @TriassicSands:

    No one disagrees it would have been better to look competent.  We disagree about whether wringing our hands over what happened is useful and productive.

  100. 100.

    Roger Moore

    @hitchhiker:

    I’m an excellent test-taker

    This, to me, is the core problem with standardized tests in general and the SAT in particular.  They do a much better job of testing whether you’re good at taking tests than whether you know the subject material.  I have aced multiple choice tests on subjects I didn’t know a lot about just because I knew all the test taking tricks.

  101. 101.

    Kent

    I propose a new DNC rule or law:   For every Iowan or New Hampshirite who goes on national news to complain about all the campaign ads on TV the primary in that state gets moved back one day.  And we keep doing that until we hit June.

    I can’t fucking stand those whiners.  It is the same number of ads on TV as before,  just more for Bloomberg and less for erectile dysfunction and  car insurance.  Use your damn TIVO.

  103. 103.

    gwangung

    @Roger Moore: Exactamundo.

    A lot of people forget that ANY measurement instrument (like standardized tests) will measure more than just what you think you’re measuring. A GOOD measuring instrument  will minimize factors other than the ones you’re interested in.

    Standardized tests like the SATs are not particularly good.

  104. 104.

    Kent

    @clay: Buttigieg is going to be tanned and rested after all this is over and will be looking for a job.  The DNC job was the one he originally wanted anyway.  Just saying.   If we dump Perez, put the young technocrat in charge

  105. 105.

    Roger Moore

    @kindness:

    Needless to say California went for open primaries about 5 years ago and we haven’t learned our lesson yet.

    We haven’t learned our lesson because the Republicans in California are too weak and disorganized to take full advantage of the potential for ratfucking.  If anything, the jungle primary has hurt the Republicans, because having important races with no Republican on the GE ballot has hurt their voter enthusiasm.

  107. 107.

    Kent

    @gwangung: For the most part they are better than you think they are.  I’m a science teacher and If I have a class of 10th graders, I can pull up their 9th grade state standardized science test scores and pretty well guess what they are going to be based on how they are doing in my class.  There are outliers of course.  But that’s why they are outliers.

    Although they probably do more measure innate intelligence than achievement.  The bright inattentive kid is probably still going to outscore the slow studious kid on standardized tests.

  108. 108.

    Roger Moore

    @gwangung:

    Standardized tests like the SATs are not particularly good.

    You’re being generous.  The SATs are terrible.  Any system where a quick test-prep course can raise your score by a meaningful amount is nearly useless as a measure.  The only reason we keep it is because it’s biased in favor of middle and upper class whites.

  109. 109.

    Amir Khalid

    @LuciaMia:

    Charges against Pelosi? Did he say what kind of charges? Or does he believe there are criminal penalties for disrespecting Trump?

  111. 111.

    tam1MI

    @Belafon: There are some things the DNC can do.  They can, for example, say that 0 delegates will be given from caucuses, delegates are only awarded from primaries.

  113. 113.

    hitchhiker

    @Roger Moore:

    Correct. High SAT scores don’t correlate with anything that matters. They don’t predict success in college, and they don’t predict success in job performance.

    They do correlate with family income, which means that’s what they’re measuring. I was an outlier … a poor kid who grew up in a house where the Reader’s Digest was highbrow literature and the music of choice was Sing Along with Mitch.

    That stream of 99th percentiles got me into college, but can you imagine how unprepared I was to enter academia?

  116. 116.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Jeffro: Shall we talk a bit about Moscow Mitch’s role in all this?

    Of course not.  This is the Village.  Moscow Mitch is one of their heroes.

  118. 118.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Roger Moore: We haven’t learned our lesson because the Republicans in California are too weak and disorganized

     

    The gift of Pete Wilson continues to pay off for Democrats.

  120. 120.

    Anne Laurie

    @NotMax: “… what Nanny Ogg would call a double-intender, although most of hers were single-intenders, and proud of it.”

    — Terry Pratchett (from memory)

  121. 121.

    J R in WV

    @NotMax:

    Screenshot showing it as originally typed. Note no extra intervening empty line.

    I understand that a shift/enter will provide a new line with no empty line. I’ll try it:

    First line…
    second line.

    There! Try it, you may like it. I forget who informed us of that function, but there it is.

    ETA:
    Well, it works in the edit window, and here for me. But NOT when displayed for others… dammit!!

  122. 122.

    NotMax

    @J R in WV

    Um, your example includes the extra empty line.

    BTW, same thing happens with the final line of a skein. Example (all the following lines are single-spaced in typing):

    Line the first
    Line the second
    Like the third
    Line the fourth
    Line the fifth.

  124. 124.

    TriassicSands

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    No Barr feels that a dead prosecutor is best for any investigation where you don’t care about the outcome.

    Besides, now that we have a monarch, investigations will soon be unnecessary. In the morning His Royal Big Ass will simply proclaim via Royal Tweet the names of guilty individuals and execution will take place using the White House lawn’s new permanent gallows. Given the perfection of the Big Ass, appeals are seen as unnecessary.

  127. 127.

    phdesmond

    @Amir Khalid: i believe the complaint had to do with “destruction of government documents,” i.e., one of the few thousand photocopies of the state of the union address’s text.

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