The confirmation hearings for the dishonest right-wing SCOTUS nominee of the corrupt president just started. Here’s a YouTube livestream if you want to watch it:
You might want to hold off — Graham is simpering hypocritically at the moment. Open thread.
PS: As the screen grab shows, the judge has crazy eyes like Michele Bachmann. This will not end well.
germy
Lindsey Graham opens the proceedings by saying “to all the people going to work today, I hope your employer is providing healthcare.”
Okay, then….
germy
Amy’s eyes remind me of Michelle Bachmann.
Betty Cracker
@germy: I updated the post to note the Michele Bachmann crazy eyes resemblance about 2 minutes before you wrote that comment. :)
Kay
Biden should pass a robust new VRA as the first order of business. The far Right judges know they can’t win an election and they’re going to restrict access to the ballot as soon as they can.
Get that done and then worry about the rest, because the rest won’t matter if they’re successful in excluding voters from the process.
Cheryl Rofer
Nope. Nope, nope, nope
I watch the Orange Menace a fair bit because he is a continuous and unpredictable danger. We know exactly the danger Amy Coney Barrett presents, which is why the Republicans are trying to rush her confirmation through.
And I am so angry at the Republican desire to make everyone sick that I probably would throw something at the screen.
MattF
Barrett sees herself as a harder-line Scalia. And she’s certainly smart enough to evade any dangerous questions. After all, she’s a lawyer.
germy
germy
Kay
@germy:
Nonsense. She’s a moderate humble centrist who just happens to believe Justice Scalia was too liberal, according to the words she wrote and published.
But don’t say it- it’s an attack on her religion. Any question of any kind is an attack on her religion, so we’re giving her a taxpayer funded forum to campaign for Donald Trump in these Potemkin “hearings” because all substantive questions are offensive and off limits.
Kay
@germy:
Her personal life and biography inform her work on the court, but only the parts that are politically marketable to swing voters. The rest does not. That’s the Right’s position. It makes absolutely no sense, but they’ve pegged an entire legal movement on it.
germy
Ella in New Mexico
I can’t Lindsay Graham today. Or tomorrow. Or ever if I can avoid it.
All I ever want to hear about Lindsay Graham again is that he gave a an even more whiny, rambling, self-immolating concession speech November 4th than Donald Trump did.
Given this hearing and Barrett’s confirmation is a done deal, there’s nothing short of dropping a nuclear bomb on the Capital to stop it.
So I’m keeping my eyes on the prize right now. November 4 can’t come fast enough.
germy
Barrett was maskless during the Rose Garden shindig, but she’s wearing a mask now?
Maybe someone nudged her and said “I know masks are bullshit, but Just do it, okay?”
geg6
@Ella in New Mexico:
This. Only this. Any hearing fireworks will be nothing but sound and fury signifying nothing. It’s baked in at this point and all we can do is keep moving ahead and take these mother fuckers out in three weeks.
MattF
Wingers haven’t forgotten what happened to Robert Bork. The fact that Bork evolved into a totally nutso RW troll is, somehow, irrelevant. Barrett will be evasive about her views.
PST
There is a terrific video comment from Pete Buttigieg embedded in a tweet here. I sure hope Joe and Kamala find a good use for him. I understand why he doesn’t connect with everyone, but his detractors need to grant how good he is at explaining issues like why “originalism” is bunk to those who haven’t thought much about the subject (which is probably most people). He needs to be in the big tent.
germy
Kay
@germy:
It was required politically to not wear a mask before they infected 40 people at the party, and it is now required politically to wear one. That’s the difference. She’s a far Right political candidate who chose not to run for political office but instead intends to impose her agenda by court order, because that works out better for her.
Bodacious
She is just a bridge too far. I’m fine with just about any religion……no religion, in a court candidate, but belief in speaking in tongues – No-Can-Do. Anyone who claims to communicate with gibberish shouldn’t be interpreting at the highest levels, or the lowest levels, of our judicial system.
No, just no!!
germy
I like the PBS coverage because they’re doing split screen and I can see Barrett’s reactions to the statements.
Pigdog
I dream of a world where I never have to think about Lindsey Graham ever again.
my most fervent hope is that he gets voted out and can then live his life as an everyday, liberated, out man.
Kay
@germy:
I’m glad. I’d need to see the test administered before I’d believe the Trump people or their judge. I’m sorry only that they infected some innocent people- the people who pick up after them.
germy
@Kay:
I’ve been enjoying your comments on Barrett, and I look forward to what you have to say as the hearings continue.
germy
@MattF:
And Bork was granted a hearing. He received down votes from Republicans as well as Democrats.
They’re mad about nothing.
Ohio Mom
Yes her eyes are creepy. So are her children. There is something about how she dresses them — where does she find those clothes, no children dress like that around here, even on dress-up occasions — and how they stand and sit rigidly, silently, apart.
There is no camraderie among those siblings, no playful jostling and knowing looks and silly faces. The big ones don’t look after the little ones. They are unnaturally somber.
Quinerly
@germy: MSNBC has split screen.
Grassley really stumbling over his written statement. Don’t think he read it beforehand.
“Mother of 7!”
Drink!!
Betty Cracker
@PST: Saw that yesterday, and here it is for anyone who doesn’t want to get out of the boat:
Buttigieg is really great at this, and I hope Biden gives him a prominent role if he wins. Buttigieg is too big a talent to be stuck in a red state.
Patricia Kayden
WaterGirl
I can’t bear to watch this. My eyes tear up and I feel sick to my stomach just thinking about it.
Glad this is up, though, so I can hear about it from people who are stronger than I am.
WaterGirl
@germy: Lindsey Graham is no doubt trying to create a few “moments” for himself that he can use in his political ads. He is also surely trying to remind his constituents that he is important and is working hard (gag) for them.
Quinerly
Leahy virtual. I’m not sure any Dems there in person but DiFi.
JPL
@WaterGirl: Same.
Betty Cracker
I’m glad the Dems are putting faces on Barrett’s future victims — the folks who will lose their ACA coverage.
germy
With unemployment numbers where they are, he may have miscalculated telling voters he hopes their employers are taking care of their healthcare.
John S.
@Quinerly: Which is ironic, because DiFi really hasn’t “been there” for quite some time now.
Betty Cracker
@germy: Yeah, what was up with that? Maybe it was in anticipation of the criticism of the unsafe way he’s running this hearing? Leahy slammed Graham for it, and good for him.
There go two miscreants
Covid? No, I’ve started calling her Amy Coathanger Barrett.
PST
@MattF:
I have great admiration for Laurence Tribe, the constitutional law expert, for many reasons. But what impresses me the most was the way he stepped up at the time of the Bork nomination and spoke out against him for his reactionary judicial views. He must have understood that doing so effectively nixed any chance that he might someday be nominated himself. Tribe was eminently qualified and very well connected, so the prospect was a realistic one, but he made himself anathema to the right at a personal level by speaking out when he did.
germy
This made me laugh:
She is a hero.
germy
@There go two miscreants:
Amy Semple McPherson Coney Barrett
Quinerly
@John S.: agreed. She should have retired last go around.
John S.
@germy: There’s only a couple hundred thousand people unemployed in South Carolina, and their UC rate was recently the highest since they began keeping records.
So no big deal!
Immanentize
OT, but this cracked me up:
debbie
@germy:
“That sounds like a nice number.” Fuck you, you not-subtle asshole.
Just One More Canuck
@Kay: It’s a ridiculous position – her judicial philosophy is informed almost entirely by her faith – of course it should be a point of questioning
Quinerly
Durbin there in person.
Jerzy Russian
@Betty Cracker: Damn, that was good. Does anybody have a cigarette?
Gretchen
I’m glad somebody besides me sees the crazy eyes.
Steeplejack (phone)
I have mentioned this a couple of times, but I keep dropping it in dying threads. Finally the perfect spot!
Amy Coney Barrett is sitting in a stolen seat right now. Obama nominated Myra Selby to the U.S. Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit on January 12, 2016. Mitch McConnell never let the nomination proceed—for over a year—and Barrett was installed on November 2, 2017.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: Buttigieg has mastered the art of breathing in the middle of sentences and rushing through the ends and beginnings. He gets way more talk time because it is hard to interrupt him.
Kathleen
@Betty Cracker: He has really grown on me.
Immanentize
Betty Cracker
Durbin is the most effective so far, IMO.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Gretchen: Same here, that’s one creepy look she’s got there. Sort of reminds of the line from the song “It an’t me” about star spangled eyes.
Again, what it is with these people they don’t see it that there is something visibly wrong with someone like that?
Kathleen
@WaterGirl: I’m with you WaterGirl. I wish I could figure out how to access Grimacing Poop Emoji.
Jerzy Russian
@Immanentize: Two things: 1. That is funny. 2. There is paraphrase software?
Along those lines, I vaguely remember a post somewhere many years ago that discussed some winger sites that substituted the word “homosexual” for the word “gay” as a matter of policy. The famous singer Marvin Homosexual was featured in one of the articles.
Jerzy Russian
@Immanentize: I did not watch, but I was rooting for the Chicago Cubs.
Humanities Prof
@Immanentize: Nice.
I don’t know what pisses me off more about students who try to cheat in my classes–the fact that they do it in the first place, or the fact that they’re so laughably bad at it. Honestly, I think it’s more the latter than the former, because that implies that they think I’m so fucking dumb I won’t notice.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Gretchen: It’s not just the eyes. It’s the set of her face. You can just see she’s not a nice person by the way she holds her face. She looks like the kind of person who seems nice at first but is actually super duper mean. One of those holier than thou in the worst sort of way people, and because she’s holier you ain’t worth worrying about.
Immanentize
@Jerzy Russian: ?
Betty Cracker
Durbin called Barrett out for participating in a shameful process initiated by a corrupt president to enact a specific far-right, unpopular agenda that Republicans can’t effect through legislation without getting tossed out of office. Good for him!
RSA
@germy:
Graham is one of the tiny fraction of Americans who can do more than hope for employers to provide healthcare. Legislation could ensure it. Spare us the hypocrisy, Senator.
Jerzy Russian
@Humanities Prof: As I tell my students on the first day of class “If you E-mail me a Word document, remove the metadata that indicates your friend wrote that document. If you are going to cheat, at least do a good job of it.”
UncleEbeneezer
@Betty Cracker: This along with the 2 clips from FoxNews have convinced me that he is a great spokesperson. He has that ability to make a blistering point in a very clear way and do it with a smile and folksy charm. His “we-need-to-work-with-Republicans” schtick bugs me some times (as it does when Biden, Pelosi, Schumer etc. use it too) but I also get why it is needed so as long as he is willing to fight the GOP when they won’t come to the table, rather than pander to them, I’m ok with it. He’s very good about not getting side-tracked by the interviewers too. In the FoxNews clip the interviewer tried to interrupt him several times but Pete just plugged ahead and didn’t give him any space to do so.
Steeplejack (phone)
@germy:
UncleEbeneezer
@Immanentize: Exactly. And it prevents anyone from interrupting him before he’s finished.
Immanentize
@Humanities Prof: My son has had to listen to me rant about plagiarizing his whole life. I am not a harsh checker of every paper, but when it is so reason-defyingly obvious, one must give the student the punishment they so obviously seek.
My joke with my son has been, I really only send something through plagiarism software when I run across the correct use of a semicolon.
The Thin Black Duke
@geg6: Yes. If we can’t have victory, then let us have vengeance.
MazeDancer
Barrett has eyes like Bachmann for the same reason: Possessed.
Overrun with the addiction to hits from religious highs. Can express as an overly pious nun or Torquemada. Possessed.
Alas, besides crazy, Barret is also smart. Dangerously smart.
One shudders to think what happens to those seven children.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I honestly don’t know what we should do about packing the court…my thought is wait until these folks make a sufficient number of bad decisions that it becomes a popular idea. Honestly Justice Crazy Eyes might just rule that Social Security is unconstitutional…she’s written that it could be under an originalist reading of the Constitution. If such were to happen more than half the GOP base would be clamoring for an extra half dozen liberal justices to restore sanity and make sure their checks keep coming.
The other approach, rather than expanding the court, is to prosecute Trump for crimes and once we’ve nailed him as a criminal, impeach and remove all the Justices he appointed on the grounds that we can’t have a large chunk of the Federal Judiciary appointed by a criminal.
Betty Cracker
I’ve got Senator Lee of Utah muted on my TV, but he looks febrile and sweaty. He’s one of the senators who picked up Covid at the SCOTUS super-spreader event, but there he is in the chamber, shouting and sweating with no mask on. WTF? Glad Senator Harris is joining the proceedings remotely.
John S.
@UncleEbeneezer: He ran unsuccessfully for DNC chair, but he would be good on that role. Perez (who defeated him) has been ok, but not great. Though he will certainly be given a lot of credit if this election is a blowout.
Immanentize
@UncleEbeneezer: It is a really fine talent. So many on TV get into interruption arguments because of that pause between sentences.
germy
Graham just made a joke about Lee’s “full recovery”
artem1s
@germy:
Holy Crap. Talk about dog whistles. He’s going full metal Jess Helms now. First with the Conservative BLM remark last week and now health care for the serfs but not for you lazy people on COVID unemployment and welfare queens. I doubt his seat is really in danger but it warmed my heart to see 270toWin pull his seat out of the ‘safe’ list and put it in ‘leaning red’.
Immanentize
@MazeDancer: Just like the kids in any sitcom, those kids will end up with addiction and abuse issues until they die. Often early. Sometimes by their own hand. She seems hard, but her husband seems worse.
Betty Cracker
Oooo, Whitehouse is up. He’s always worth hearing.
John S.
@Betty Cracker: As my people say, this entire thing is a shanda.
Betty Cracker
Whitehouse: Barrett is a “judicial torpedo” aimed at the ACA.
Immanentize
@John S.: Considering how messed up the DNC was when Perez took over, he has done an amazing job. Truly heroic. But he is the after-hours janitor, so he will never get the respect or recognition he deserves.
Other MJS
@WaterGirl: You said it better than I could have. I’m protecting my mental health. Kudos to the jackals who can bear it and report here.
germy
All those stories Democrats are telling about constituents who would have been bankrupt without the Affordable Care Act. I wonder if Barrett is unmoved by them because she believes the solution is private charity from religious organizations.
Immanentize
@John S.: Yes, but a shanda for whom?
donnah
I was a Mayor Pete fan from Day One and I’m so pleased to see him really showing his smarts. And something else, he goes on FOX news, right into the muck, and he kicks ass all over the place. Not many Democrats can do it, but he owns them.
John S.
@Immanentize: Fair point.
Searcher
Unacceptably broad; there is no such thing as an incorrect use of a semicolon; merely readers who are too small-minded; to understand the glory; of the semicolon.
piratedan
seven kids, seven horcruxes……
Immanentize
@germy: the Democrats have no chance to stop this train, absent some deus ex machina not yet revealed. But they can make it hurt for Trump and the Senate Republicans. Every ACA story is an arrow aimed at Graham.
Betty Cracker
Whitehouse calling out Cornyn to his face
ETA: Calls the proceeding an ugly, hypocritical power grab.
Omnes Omnibus
@Immanentize: It’s really hard to do. I am not naturally a fast speaker. As a result, every time I try to do it, it sounds like I am in a newsroom in a 1940s movie in my head and I usually don’t have the dame reporter around for the rest of the snappy dialog. The William F. Buckley/John Kerry school of public oratory is as quick as some of us can get.
Other MJS
@Betty Cracker:
That’s perfect. I saw a suggestion elsewhere that Dems ask her to explain the emoluments clause, the Hatch act, etc., and then address the entirely non-hypothetical behavior of the tRump admin.
John S.
@Immanentize: It’s not necessarily a shanda for anyone in particular — just a general disgrace. But of course in this context, shanda fur die Goyim, would not be appropriate since there isn’t a Jew shaming themselves in front of non-Jews. If anything, it’s the reverse.
ETA: Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller’s existence are the textbook examples of shanda fur die Goyim.
artem1s
@PST:
I have no problem with Mayor Pete generally. Just thought he had zero chance of winning a national election with no name recognition. If he keeps up what he’s doing, puts in some grunt work like Beto, and proves that he’s more than a (white male) hairdo, then I think he may be a substantive player in the party in the future. If he decides he’d rather be the next George Stephanolpoulous, I wish him well but the party should ignore him and any advice he gives from on high via the media firmament. FWIW, Beto has proven himself the real deal. He’s the one who the party should have their eye on for a key position in the party or administration.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Quinerly:
I seriously wonder if Grassley is senile. He posts weird, trivial stuff on Twitter that seems like only one step above butt-typing.
This one had the Qberts in an uproar because apparently Q posted a hint about 10/10 being a significant date.
Immanentize
@Searcher: ok. Laughing.
My son texted me about three weeks ago after writing his first college English class paper —
“I thought about using a semicolon in the essay. I resisted that temptation.”
I texted back that he could have used a semicolon in that text.
germy
@Betty Cracker:
Cornyn took off his mask, like he was about to respond, but instead he just smirked and shook his head at Graham. No interruption.
Quinerly
@Betty Cracker: I’m catching back up. Whitehouse very, very good.
Cruz up.. Welcoming the 7 children.
Drink!
Immanentize
@John S.: I agree, it is our collective shaming. Except for those who are so obviously sinverguenza.
Other MJS
@Searcher: Agreed; go for it; identify!
germy
I want a nominee with seven cats.
John S.
@Quinerly: Much like the Barrett family felt it was important to expand their family to meet the growing needs of society, so too must the SCOTUS expand.
Searcher
Honestly I think that as long as Republicans have the “we can’t sully ourselves by working with Demon-crats” brand, the “I’m happy to work with Republicans” styling is smart branding first because it doesn’t force us to buy into the us-versus-them narrative, and secondly because there is a swatch of flip-floppy “independent” voters who can be picked up pretty easily just with sweet words about coming together as a nation and working together and blah blah blah.
I just hope to see it as part of a standard construction.
“We want to work with Republicans in the spirit of bipartisanship, but they just won’t meet us in the middle, so we had no choice but to pass the Voting Rights Enforcement Act without them.”
“We want to work with Republicans in the spirit of bipartisanship, but they just can’t seem to negotiate in good faith, so we had no choice but to expand the Supreme Court to 21 seats,”
“We want to work with Republicans in the spirit of bipartisanship, but they just refuse to compromise even a little, so we had no choice but to admit DC to the Union as a State.”
MomSense
Even through I’m only listening to this bullshit, I can picture the fucking smarmy penis nosed asshole Cruz from his stupid arrogant voice.
Mike Lee attending in person is reprehensible. I hate every single one of these Republicans.
JWR
@Kay:
Probably due to her voice. (it’s that of a 14 year old girl’s trapped in the body of a 48 year old woman, which, for some reason, always sounds worse coming from the mouth of a zealot.)
randy khan
@Bodacious:
So you’re saying no originalists on the courts?
germy
People like Ted Cruz who demand the rest of us “open up and go back to work” and then the fucker does his job from the safety of his man cave.
John S.
@Immanentize: Or as we like to call them, schmucks. ?
TS (the original)
@WaterGirl:
Probably listened to Jamie Harrison this morning -The latter said Graham hadn’t had a town hall for 3 years, spent all his time big noting himself in DC & did nothing to help the people of South Carolina, while he (Jamie) was going to work for them/represent them all the time when he was elected.
Quinerly
@Steeplejack (phone): strange.
(I hate this Q shit for lots of reasons. My personal reason, though, is “Q” was my nickname from college on. “The Q” if we were being formal. ?)
Calouste
@Immanentize: Looks like they inherited the addiction gene from their parents. The kids probably won’t be so lucky to be just addicted to religion though.
Quinerly
@John S.: stealing this!
MomSense
Now penis nose is talking about ObamaCare. This motherfucker didn’t even understand the moral of the Dr. Seuss picture book Green Eggs and Ham.
Immanentize
@germy: Well he had/has Covid. He at least is a better person than Lee or Graham for staying away.
Mary G
I am not watching; my rage is bad enough.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Immanentize:
Perfect!
Kathleen
@Immanentize: Yes! He could have. (Rusty English Major)
PPCLI
@MattF: Evolved? He was a nutso troll all along. This was a guy who, during the debate over the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, described the principle that businesses shouldn’t discriminate on the basis of color as a “principle of unsurpassed ugliness”.
Unsurpassed. Jim Crow? Enforced segregation of public bathrooms? Effective disenfranchisement of the entire black community of southern states? Not worse. Maybe better.
The guy was a reptile. Just because he was a very book-smart reptile doesn’t make it better.
Calouste
@Steeplejack (phone): We’re two days past 10/10, I can’t remember anything significant happening that day, can you?
Betty Cracker
Klobuchar expressing appropriate levels of disgust. Slamming Trump and tying Barrett to him. Excellent.
MomSense
@randy khan:
Can we make a shortlist of all the things that didn’t exist when the constitution was ratified?
We can even just list all the things are a part of the hearing.
Electricity, microphones, lights, cameras, computers, internet, satellites
I don’t think the founders would approve!!!’
jimmiraybob
I see that I’m not the only one.
WaterGirl
@germy: Good point!
Kathleen
@MomSense: I wonder if Rand Paul let Cruz borrow “The Dead Thing On His Head” to put on his face.
cain
@John S.:
She’s coming towards the end of her govt career so she’ll want to sit in on some historical events. Maybe even pull a rabbit out of a hat for this one. If she’s been keeping her powder dry up till now, this would be a good time to use it. (she’s quite capable of blowing shit up if she wants to)
eric
@MomSense: the Franchise for women, people of color, LGBTQ+. seems like that is a big change….no ownership of people. another biggie. The fact that they allowed those things suggests to me that their moral superiority and wisdom might not rise to all-glory heights.
(Sorry, no semicolon; though, admittedly, I considered it.)
SiubhanDuinne
I am liking this Amy Klobuchar very much!
Steeplejack (phone)
@Searcher:
Delete your account.
TS (the original)
@germy:
Which you can only get by becoming one of the faithful
Betty Cracker
Well, Senator Klobuchar didn’t get the memo that she wasn’t supposed to be critical of Trump’s nominee!
SiubhanDuinne
@eric:
Ha! ?????
cain
I think the same principle stands. I don’t see any reason why she should leave if she’s still sound in mind and body as an objective view. I personally would like to see another person there, but I respect her decision to stay on even though she’s like in her 90s.
artem1s
@Searcher:
“We want to work with Republicans
in the spirit of bipartisanship, but they just refuse to compromise even a little, so we had no choice but to admit DC to the Union as a State.”but denying millions of American’s a voice in their own governing has nothing to do with bipartisanship and is not negotiable, so we fully support the admission of DC and Puerto Rico as the 51st and 52nd states in the Union. Next up, Guam!MomSense
@Kathleen:
They look like scared pubes.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: I had glommed on to the fact that it was his speaking style, and that whatever it was about his speaking style didn’t seem to give them a way to jump in and interrupt.
I had not yet worked out the detail that the timing of his breathing is the determining factor. I will watch it again.
He really is super good at all of this.
cain
I was enthusiastically cheering on the Portland Timbers.
germy
Sasse so condescending.
sdhays
@Steeplejack (phone): This is important context, and I hope you keep putting it in every single thread we have about Covid Amy.
Kay in the previous thread was saying that Amy would be a good Senate candidate, but I think it’s pretty obvious why she’s not. She’s a real nut who’s a member of a very weird cult, and if she had to go through an actual Senate campaign, she would not be able to pretend that she’s normal. She would have trouble winning even in Indiana, and it would be ugly.
She needs to be protected by a quick moving corrupt Republican cocoon.
Immanentize
@Mary G: go get yourself a tall glass of rage-ahol. You’ll feel better.
Betty Cracker
Klobuchar, after asking voters who are disgusted with “this sham” to call their senators: “This isn’t Donald Trump’s country; it is yours. This shouldn’t be Donald Trump’s pick on the Supreme Court, it should be yours.”
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Durbin is my senator. Can you say more?
Steeplejack (phone)
@Quinerly:
Qondolences.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack (phone): Quite so.
Quinerly
@cain: agree to disagree. Personally, I think we need some younger women in these powerful positions.
Immanentize
@MomSense: my two — expressly NOT in the Constitution — the Air Force and Space Force (nor the Marines as their own branch). All unconstitutional.
WaterGirl
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I would have said cold-hearted bitch if bitch wasn’t such a sexist term.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
She is good. She’s also a sort of political weathervane for Democrats as far as what they think will play in states like Minnesota, and she apparently thinks this approach will play. I say “weathervane” not in a bad way- I think she really understands her state.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Calouste:
Nothing ever does. It’s just another lap on the conspiracy hamster wheel.
cain
He probably should be in the white house. I’m not sure if he would make a good press secretary or if that role is beneath him – but something of that nature. This won’t be his last run for President. We’ll be seeing him again in 4 years. Give him something that will put him in front of the public.
Quinerly
@Steeplejack (phone): ?
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: He laid out the stakes of the confirmation (blowing up the ACA most of all) and didn’t give Barrett unearned deference because Republicans have been preemptively wailing about her extra-dainty feelings. TBH, Whitehouse and Klobuchar were better, but Durbin stopped dancing around Barrett’s complicity in this charade first, so I appreciated that. :)
Omnes Omnibus
@Immanentize: Marines are a part of the navy.
Quinerly
“Catholic moms giving parenting advice”
Drink?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Oh good lord I just saw a picture of Barrett standing up; she’s a small but busty woman. These GOPer pecker heads don’t see the crazy eyes because they aren’t looking up there.
Want to bet Trump chose Barrett for her enormous legal opinions?
germy
Sasse is now attacking Biden in these hearings.
Kay
I do love when the lies of the congressional and judicial branch of MAGA are contradicted by the MAGA leader himself, with his own but different lies.
Trump has been saying all week that his judge will intervene in an election contest and throw it to him and also that she will abolish the ACA, while the other wing of the Trump Party, the judges and congress, deny both things.
The three groups of MAGA liars can no longer keep their stories straight.
Kay
@germy:
Because the hearings are a Trump campaign event, with the judge as the main Trump surrogate. She’s good with this.
cain
@Quinerly:
Tell me any relation to a galactic being who caused havoc on a space ship?
Immanentize
@eric: the Originalist would argue that those things are in the constitution now. They got there the proper way — through amendment. So they are original too. But originalists will also say the 14th amendment only applies to African Americans with a connection to slavery in 1865. (Not Ilan Omar for example).
Searcher
@artem1s: I’m currently abstaining on bringing up Puerto Rico because I don’t know what Puerto Ricans actually want, but in any case I’d like to see at least two or three months between new States being admitted to the Union, just because I want to force everyone to buy 51-star flags before changing them out for 52-star flags. There were some neat 51-star flag designs and it’d be a shame to skip over them.
cain
I’m not really disagreeing with you – I’m just saying that we generally ask women to leave to make space for younger, but we don’t ask the men to. There are plenty of men of the R persuasion that should be leaving who are as old as her.
Elizabelle
This seems like such a good week to take an internet fast. Except for recipes and friends and stuff.
Hoping this attempt fails, and that it has the most Pyrrhic effect ever on the Republican thieves pulling this event. Make it another superspreader occasion, too.
Aleta
@Immanentize: A VP becoming President, instead of just assuming the duties, after a Pres. steps down, etc.
cain
I don’t think the court has such powers anyways. Even if they do it would be the ultimate in activist judges. In the end, I’m hoping Roberts will be the adult in the room. But that poor fucker will be stuck dealing with a number of crazies on his side. I see him siding with the liberal justices more.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize:
They aren’t, they’re part of the Navy.
eric
@Immanentize: my point is different. My point is the deference to moral worth of The Founders more broadly.
Quinerly
@cain: I feel the same way about the men.
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus: They were, for sure (lobsters and all). But are they now? They are their own branch, independently budgeted — but still have some link to Naval admin. That is a closer call, but the air force is clearly a not-constitutional force.
SiubhanDuinne
@MomSense:
Water in plastic bottles!
germy
“Harris hates the Knights of Columbus!”
SiubhanDuinne
Wow. I’ve not paid much attention to Senator Josh Hawley before this, but he’s a smarmy one, isn’t he?
Aleta
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Acc. to the Marines in my family, they are administered (? correct word?*) by the Navy but are their own branch.
eta * I forget the verb my nephew used. It seems important to Marines to distinguish. (eta what imm. said)
Immanentize
@eric:. I agree of course. For one, the founders hated the military as a standing force. They feared and stood in awe of other nations and wished mostly to stay out of international intrigues. They generally considered the native populations as disposable non-human. Etc.
Quinerly
@SiubhanDuinne: POS.
Took Claire’s seat.
SiubhanDuinne
@Searcher:
Fifty-two states should give us some really neat playing card decks!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Aleta: 25th Amendment, Section 1.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SiubhanDuinne: he scares me– I think Cruz and Cotton are too that-boy-ain’t-right to win a national election, Rubio and Sasse and Haley not “tough” enough to win a GOP primary, but Hawley might just hit the sweet spot to make the Electoral College competitive
Immanentize
@Aleta: Yes, this is how it is set up — originally to avoid a constitutional problem. Just like the air force started out as the “army air corps” for the same reasons.
SiubhanDuinne
@Quinerly:
Double ick!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Aleta: I really should visit the Marine Academy.
Miss Bianca
@PST: Count me as one of those who’ve completely come around on Pete Buttigieg, btw.
Jager
Is it just me or does Lindsey Graham look like a heavy drinker?
God damn, Josh Hawley is an asshole
Immanentize
@germy: Who doesn’t? Catholic mafia, where I grew up.
Aleta
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Ratified in the 60s wasn’t it? I’m not well-informed but I recently read that (after my partner mentioned Harrison died after a series of quack treatments… ).
Quinerly
@Jager: I’ve always thought he might be a drinker. Actually, I think his parents owned a bar and he grew up above it kind of thing. Seem to recall this when he was running for POTUS.
germy
They will.
She’s trolling at this point.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Aleta: Well if you want to get rid of all the amendments, you’re talking about Vice President Hillary Clinton.
germy
The Thin Black Duke
@germy: Let’s hope the voters in Maine do The Right Thing this time.
Steeplejack
Pete Buttigieg has been doing a great job as a Dem spokesman. My main problem with him was his thin résumé for presidential consideration. Give him a term as a cabinet secretary or some such and then let him try again. (Looking at you, U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley.)
Quinerly
Looks like Trump has Tweeted/Retweeted 40 times this AM. Is this a record?
Omnes Omnibus
@Immanentize: @Aleta: Okay, there is an easy way to answer this. The awards system for the marines is the navy system. They get Navy Achievement Medals, Navy Commendation Medals, and the medal award to a marine who did something not quite worthy of a Medal of Honor is the Navy Cross. All the separate branches have their own versions of those medals. The marines don’t.
Gravenstone
@germy: Woman’s got her schtick and has to stay with it.
germy
germy
@Gravenstone:
She’s really committed to the bit!
catclub
Actually, they have. Ted Kennedy outlined what Bork had actually written, and he got a vote, and republicans voted against him. Merrick garland should be so lucky.
germy
John S.
@SiubhanDuinne: Hee-Hawley? Yeah, he’s pretty awful.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Oh my lord. Can you even imagine what a circus that would be?
Searcher
@germy: IIRC it was also the Knights of Columbus who gave us “IN GOD WE TRUST” and “UNDER GOD”.
LurkerNoLonger
Working on a holiday? Boy these evil fuckers are really desperate.
catclub
@SiubhanDuinne: paper clips! zippers! air conditioning!
BC in Illinois
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I never checked it, but I once heard a member of the Navy tell a member of the Marine Corps to look at where his paycheck came from. Department of the Navy. (So I’m told.)
BC in Illinois, USN HM2 (1969-1973)
(I spent my entire Navy career in Great Lakes IL and Bethesda MD.)
catclub
@germy: it all depends on who gets the smallpox infected blankets this time.
Immanentize
https://balloon-juice.com/2020/10/12/amy-covid-barrett-hearings/?updated=1602517549#comment-7901518
ok, O2, so I can call marines, “seamen?” I like knowing that the Navy still pays them.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Aleta: Marines are administered by the Department of the Navy, Marine detachments deploy aboard (but are not assigned to) Navy Amphibious Assault ships (LSTs, LHDs, LHAs, etc) which are crewed by Navy personnel and commanded by Navy personnel. See “gator frieghter”
Marine detachments are also deployed on aircraft carriers.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jager:
I often get that vibe off him, “hungover tired”, to quote Bart Simpson
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Immanentize: Ummm, not to their face I wouldn’t…
trnc
IMHO, there are zero reasons not to start the process on at noon on Jan 20. If we wait until there are bad decisions, that’s that many more decisions that have to be undone and that takes time no matter how many votes we have.
One thing I would suggest to dems is that they point out that since the last time the SC was expanded in 1869, congress has added more than 200 members. Would also be good to talk about the number of cases that have been turned down every year due to a full docket, but I can’t find that number.
Aleta
@?BillinGlendaleCA: tip: don’t call anyone seaman or petty officer :) #sotouchy (jk)
I actually don’t know what the Marine Academy is. Maybe your point is that Marines prepare to be officers at the Naval Academy?– good point. But separate OCS of course.
brantl
I think Whithouse is carrying the democratic cause. He made Corny purse his prissy little lips.
Immanentize
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: I just found out that the Marines were separated from the Navy for a while and attached to the Army during WWI. INTERESTING!
germy
@brantl:
I saw him last week on “Firing Line With Margaret Hoover” and he was good against the “But what about liberal groups??” talking points she kept throwing at him.
Leto
@Omnes Omnibus: I will happily let you tell the Marines that they’re the Navy Auxiliary. I’m sure Admiral James Mattis will appreciate that :p
On a more somber O/T note, found out that a friend of mine from high school her dad passed away from Covid. He was a retired AF officer, math professor, and survived the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon. While I didn’t know him, I’m thinking about this quite a bit in relation to my own accident, and in the larger context of vets who survive wars but then die at home from just random shit. Just fuck Trumpov and all his enablers.
BC in Illinois
@Immanentize:
I wouldn’t recommend it.
Aleta
@Immanentize: wait, my joke! oh well.. ? respect
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@BC in Illinois: EmbraceYourInnerCrone, USN DP1, (1980-2000)
Jacksonville FL, Pearl Harbor Hawaii, Bremerton WA, San Diego CA, Guam, Long Beach CA (married a snipe, MM1 , heaven help me)
Immanentize
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: I know. My close family almost-relative was a marine sargeant in Viet Nam. My Dad was in the Navy. What fun those two had going at each other. Great entertainment and I picked up some new swears.
Baud
@brantl: Whitehouse has been strong on Supreme Court issues for years.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT: I don’t know how many movable and very on-line voters there are in South Carolina, but here’s Lindsey getting Fleetwood Mac’ed. Contains footage of I AM JOHN MCCAIN’S DAUGHTER!, but being disappointed, not threatening to support trump if Joy Behar is mean to her.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Immanentize: It really is! I like how the Marine hymn manages to put in a little dig at the Army and the Navy at the end:
“If the Army and the Navy
Ever look on Heaven’s scenes,
They will find the streets are guarded
By United States Marines.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: Whitehouse is generally under-appreciated, IMHO
Immanentize
@Leto: I am sharing your grief, but from a further distance. My friend’s Dad recently died of Covid — an Army vet (korea). And there have been these horrible deaths — 76! — at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home
Immanentize
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: No rivalry there!
Aleta
@Immanentize: Both my partner’s parents were Marines in WW2. She joined after her husband (a different Marine) was killed, taught navigation to troops leaving for overseas.
J R in WV
@Ohio Mom:
There is a religious movement among the Theocratic Nut Jobs to take very literally the text in the Bible about “Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child” — to use corporeal punishment on children as soon as they resist, as in pre-toddler aged babies. The specific age number I saw was 8 months. Here’s their favorite text, and note that it only addresses sons, daughters don’t count as they are as sheep, plain old property:
It’s in the Bible. If you don’t beat your kids, you hate them, but those who beat their kids, love them. It isn’t the most hateful instruction in the Bible, but it’s pretty close. So these kids have learned that they will be hurt for the slightest failure to obey any requirement of any adult. They have been spanked and beaten with switches. Rods. Stand at attention or get hit. With a stick, lest you hurt your hand.
In boot camp, the Drill Instructors are not allowed to hit adult recruits. They may not be allowed to use profanity any more, although I learned a good bit of creative cursing in Boot Camp. But little kids, infants, THOSE LITTLE BABIES, you are instructed, required, to beat them, in Amy Covid Barrett’s religion.
I suppose it is too much to hope for that, since all they are allowed to ask about is her wonderful family, she will get remorselessly questioned about child rearing and corporeal punishments. And then i hope Child Protective Services comes to take those kids away and provide them with counseling and love, because sure to God they aren’t getting any love but the beating kind at home right now.
I guess I should say here at the end, I don’t know for a fact that Amy and her master/husband use corporeal punishment on their kids, but I would bet thousands of dollars on it. It is a pretty common requirement among fundamentalist religious, and it’s common knowledge that she belongs to one of the more fundamental sects of Catholicism, was in fact a Handmaid in that primitive sect.
Now I’ll read the rest of the comments.
Leto
@Immanentize: there was a WaPo feature, I think it was shared here?, about the veterans home that’s two miles from me that had a lot of vets die from covid. Just really shitty practices. They tried hydroxichloroquin but weren’t authorized to do it. They kept infected patients with non-infected. Other basic procedures weren’t followed. The facility is run by a private firm in combination with the PA Army National Guard (or something like that).
It’s continually disheartening to learn that we’re just not going to be taken care of, that no matter where we are in our service we’re just not going to be taken care of. I want all seniors to be taken care of and our society just won’t do it. It’s obscene.
Kay
@SiubhanDuinne:
There’s a whole group of younger, preachy sanctimonious conservatives – they scold. They’re worse than the older ones, IMO. Barrett is in the group.
germy
@Kay:
2024 presidential candidates.
And people like Chuck Todd will love them.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
FT etc.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
Yes, they’re dreadful. Where do they come from? (Rhetorical.)
Leto
@Immanentize: Here’s the articles on the PA veterans home:
The ‘Covid Cocktail’: Inside a Pa. nursing home that gave some veterans hydroxychloroquine even without covid-19 testing
After hundreds of covid-19 deaths in state-run veterans homes, lawmakers press VA to adhere to science
I mean, 1) we’re treated like fucking lab rats and 2) it was being done because Trumpov kept pushing it. I have more stuff going on this morning but I’m already in an internal rage and it just keeps going up.
Aleta
@?BillinGlendaleCA: tempting, but no. don’t want to.
trollhattan
@Leto: Jesus, that’s literally criminal.
Betty Cracker
New hearings/open thread up in case anyone’s interested.
trollhattan
@Ohio Mom:
Anything like the Santorum spawn? (Am not watching)
Aleta
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: thanks.
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks. I’d better tell them about their medals (jk)
Immanentize
@Leto: ugh. Wouldn’t it be grand if Biden actually tried to make it better for vets? I am certain he believes it should be.
UncleEbeneezer
@Searcher: Totally agree.
J R in WV
@Quinerly:
So! Now we know who Q is… amazed I am. ;~)
Kay
I went to exchange cars with my son last night at the house of a friend of his. The friend has a sign on his front door- “don’t the cats out or the cops in”
I love that.
Nicole
@J R in WV: I’m not religious, but the “spare the rod spoil the child” isn’t even really in the Bible, at least not as it’s been interpreted:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2005-03-13-0503120312-story.html
Which makes these douchecanoes even worse. It’s the cruelty they want.
Aleta
@Leto:
2019 Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Reports: three Trump family trusts had investments in the Dodge & Cox International Stock Fund. (OGE link)
(NYT) Sanofi, the drug manufacturer, is [ed: i.e., was in April] Dodge & Cox ISF ‘s largest individual holding.
Somewhere I read that Hannity and some other T associates were invested in Sanofi too.
Helen
@Immanentize: A friend’s father was career Coast Guard who served in the Navy during WW2 and Korea. I was impressed with all the names that he had for Marines. And the names they had for Navy!
Audie
@germy: I’ve known a few people with similar looks in their eyes, religious fanatics all; most were not Catholic, but no matter.
Origuy
@Searcher: The act of Congress which set the process of adding stars to the flag says that the star will be added on the 4th of July following the admission of the State. So if DC is added in 2021 before the 4th, the flag will have 51 stars for at least a year. I can’t see Puerto Rico having a referendum on the subject for at least a year.
Kathleen
@MomSense: Ha! I trust we can find it in our hearts to relate!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Origuy:
It’s on the ballot this year.
Origuy
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I didn’t know that. I stand corrected.
J R in WV
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Sweet, Bill. Thanks!!
sgrAstar
@germy: Bork fired Archibald Cox, the unassailable archetype of probity. According to wikipedia, Bork later revealed that Nixon had offered him a SCOTUS seat as an incentive. Bork was deeply unworthy and no amount of rw handwringing will ever change that fact.
?
Original Lee
@Bodacious: I have been informed by various people I know who are Pentecostals, that speaking in tongues IS just babble without an interpreter. If the Spirit is truly present, someone else in the room will be able to translate, otherwise it’s not valid.