Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

We still have time to mess this up!

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

This blog will pay for itself.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

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

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

People are complicated. Love is not.

Donald Jessica Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Sad Trombone Noises

Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Sad Trombone Noises

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Dude sounds like he’s been wailing all afternoon… Dear Leader will be SO disappointed…



Can’t catch a break!

Can catch the ‘Rona…

But at least The GRIFT GOES ON:

Reader Interactions

229Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    $208 mil thrown away by morons to help Trump fight election results in court. 

    The only good argument for means testing social security.

  6. 6.

    MisterForkbeard

    @debbie: Didn’t he refer it to the court?

    I think he just didn’t want to put his name on it after it failed disastrously.

  13. 13.

    JaneE

    I fully expect to see at least one Trump in politics for the rest of my life. The money is too easy to come by and the oversight (lol) is too lax to make it unattractive for a family that has never been more than con artists, grifters, and panderers for at least three generations. At least the bordello was honest pandering.

  14. 14.

    Cermet

    Dump got dumped by the inferior court; win/win and LOL. He is the biggest loser in history; first, by total votes, then by the vote margin and now by more court cases lost than any one in amerikan history. What a whinner … I mean winner.

  15. 15.

    Geoduck

    Next up, the SCOTUS lawsuit from the Texas AG that says other states can’t run their own elections if they hurt Texas’s feelings by voting incorrectly.

  16. 16.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @JaneE:

    I don’t see them doing well in elected office. But I can envision the next Republican President appointing Don Jr. or Jarvanka to a Cabinet post, which experience would set them up nicely for a Presidential run.

  17. 17.

    geg6

    @Geoduck:

    That one is just nuts.  Of course, my guess is it’s a major play for a pardon for that criminal asshole in Texas.  It, too, will go down in flames.

  18. 18.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Geoduck: That one has been docketed, which doesn’t mean shit.  It’s just sitting there.  Paxton will be shooed away.

  19. 19.

    Punchy

    For reals the PAC can pay Trump anything?  Could it just gift him all $200 Very Large and call it a bonus?   That seems crazy.  Would it be taxable (not that he’d pay that tax)?

  20. 20.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @JaneE:

    I fully expect to see at least one Trump in politics for the rest of my life.

    Oh, Hell, no.  They don’t have Daddy Dearest’s ability to do the Your Racist Uncle At Thanksgiving rant, so the base will have no use for them.

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I can envision the next Republican President appointing Don Jr. or Jarvanka to a Cabinet post

    And the party establishment holds them all in contempt.  The second Trump can’t hold the voting base over their head, elected Republicans will kick all his spawn to the curb.

  21. 21.

    bbleh

    $208 mil thrown away by morons to help Trump fight election results in court.

    More specifically, thrown away by morons told that it’s to help Trump fight election results in court.

    It’s their money.  They want to blow it on a pathetically obvious scam, that’s their prerogative.

    But don’t call them stupid!  They’re not stupid!!11!!

  24. 24.

    burnspbesq

    We have truly reached the point where a complaint is nothing but a tweet with payment of the filing fee attached. As a lawyer, I find it pretty fucking disgusting.

    These complaints make some of the pro se Tax Court petitions that hit my desk when I worked for the Office of Chief Counsel of the IRS look like scholarly masterpieces.

  25. 25.

    Citizen_X

    The Supreme Court just rejected a Republican effort to undo Joe Biden’s win in Pennsylvania with a one-line order

    “Get the fuck out of here” is one line. Just saying.

  26. 26.

    MomSense

    I was really busy today and didn’t have time to look into the Steny Hoyer statement about the Republican caucus not acknowledging Biden as president elect.  Can someone tell me what this means?  Are there legislative shenanigans afoot that could actually work?

  27. 27.

    Roger Moore

    @bbleh:

    It’s their money. They want to blow it on a pathetically obvious scam, that’s their prerogative.

    I believe we ought to vigorously enforce our fraud statutes.  Nobody is such a sucker that they deserve to be conned out of their money.

  28. 28.

    rikyrah

    I've known Lloyd Austin for 15 years, and worked closely with him from both the Senate and as Secretary of State. He will make history, and serve this country well.— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) December 8, 2020

  29. 29.

    MomSense

    @burnspbesq:

    I’ve seen enough of the pro se child protective pleadings to appreciate your comment.  My favorites are the ones that quote scripture.

  31. 31.

    Yutsano

    @burnspbesq: We all have crosses to bear bub. I have a mob lawyer as my commissioner who should be fired on day one for blatantly breaking the law. Chuck doesn’t have the dignity to resign.

  33. 33.

    Barbara

    @JaneE: Right.  They must all be kicking themselves every day that they hadn’t thought of this before 2015.  The whole family is on the payroll!

  36. 36.

    Barbara

    @Immanentize: I can’t remember the ins and outs of Supreme Court procedure, but this case was so clearly outside of the jurisdictional boundaries of the Supreme Court that I don’t know that he would have even needed to do that, but I am sure he did. I mean, what they were asking the court to do would have in effect reversed some of the PennHurst decisions.

  38. 38.

    Barbara

    @SiubhanDuinne: I don’t know that they will win, but they have discovered that you can raise money out of losing — Lara Trump is looking at a possible NC senate seat, and Don Jr. supposedly had his eye on the open senate seat in PA.  I do not see any Republican president appointing any of them to a cabinet position.  Besides, you can’t run a PAC as the head of a cabinet.  I have no doubt in my mind that whatever else anyone else thinks this is about, for the Trump family, it is exclusively, 100% about money.

    ETA:  Well, maybe also avoiding jail time or civil suits, but money will help with that as well.

  39. 39.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @zhena gogolia:

    ETA: plus you almost always turn out to be right.

    I’ve seriously considered doing a victory lap on all the sky-is-falling predictions that were wrong and I was right about.  I feel like I should wait until Biden is inaugurated.  God knows it’s been four years of Hell, but there’s been a steady stream of panicky predictions on top of that which consistently did not happen.

  40. 40.

    Mary G

    Very long, but entertaining thread on how stupid one of the affidavits submitted to some court on some lawsuit in aid of Twitler is:

    Hoo boy. I finally took a look at the affidavit from “Spyder”—supposedly a pseudonym for a white hat hacker with a military intelligence background—from Sidney Powell’s “Kraken” lawsuits, and it is absolutely crazier than a bag of cats. https://t.co/gO8DRBsCAV— Julian Sanchez (@normative) December 8, 2020

  41. 41.

    Redshift

    @bbleh:

    More specifically, thrown away by morons told that it’s to help Trump fight election results in court. 

    It’s not like this is new with Trump; conservative groups have been doing this for decades. I got introduced to it early when some friends got summer jobs doing clerical work for (iirc) the Fund for a Conservative Majority. They were in the same office with the boiler room group who were scamming people out of their Social Security checks with a pitch that “Ronald Reagan needs your help right now to fight (some issue that was actually decided months before.)”

    They were so disgusted that they quit en masse and (because they were teenagers) did their best to make a mess of the filing system in their way out.

  43. 43.

    Ohio Mom

    I don’t worry about a Trump Dynasty. After the old man dies, that’s it.

    The kids will squabble among themselves and fade into obscurity. Okay, they will show up in gossip magazines here and there.

  45. 45.

    satby

    @Frankensteinbeck: God knows it’s been four years of Hell, but there’s been a steady stream of panicky predictions on top of that which consistently did not happen.

    Yep. And after a while it started to seem like people just got off on that hysteria. Weird.

  54. 54.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Mary G:

    Hoo boy. I finally took a look at the affidavit from “Spyder”—supposedly a pseudonym for a white hat hacker with a military intelligence background

    I’m calling it right now. “Spyder” is Adam trolling Powell

  55. 55.

    Geminid

    Today’s Washington Post has a long article on legal groups like The Thomas More Society and it spinoff Amistad Project that are contesting election results, ostensibly independent of the trump campaign. The Amistad Project hired the Virginia based Voter Integrity Fund to prepare data analyses showing voter fraud. The Fund’s head, Matt Brainard appeared before courts in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin. “Brainard has disclosed to each court that he was being paid a flat fee of $40,000 to serve as an expert witness,” says the Post.       Nice work if you can get it.

  56. 56.

    VOR

    @Punchy: IANAL but my understanding is the PAC money can be used for a lot of things with little oversight. Hold events at Trump properties and pay high fees for the privilege? Sure. Rent office space at Trump Tower? Sure. Reimburse Trump and family for travel expenses? Yep. On and on.

  58. 58.

    Bill Arnold

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I feel like I should wait until Biden is inaugurated.

    Likewise.
    The longer-game things I’m looking at include:
    (1) Why did polling not narrow in the last month or two of the presidential election cycle, as it almost always does?
    (2) Is the anti-vaxxer campaign in the US entirely grass-roots, or is it in part an influence operation (foreign and/or domestic) to prevent herd immunity(by vaccination) and cripple a US economic recovery relative other countries?
    (3) Iran, Israel, KSA, UAE, US, etc.
    (4) UK/Brexit

  59. 59.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Martin:

    Do you think Fox News will be hurt long-term or will they just pivot to become even more right-wing? I’m guessing the latter

  61. 61.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Bill Arnold:

    Why did polling not narrow in the last month or two of the presidential election cycle, as it almost always does?

    I’d like to know the answer to this too. And why was polling so off compared to final election results? Especially in Senate races? I’m guessing pollsters assumed too many people were “undecided” than there actually were?

  62. 62.

    Gravenstone

    @Bill Arnold: Is anything in this country truly grass roots any more? Whatever the batshit crazy idea, some foreign entity is likely to throw money at it to increase the potential chaos. It’s a cheap investment in destabilization  that can reap truly outsized rewards.

  64. 64.

    Martin

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They’re walking a tightrope. Their viewers want them more feral, but advertisers aren’t willing to be associated with that. I mean, some are, but they don’t pay  well.

    Newsmax can pull it off because it’s either a lower budget operation (nobody is pulling in Tucker Carlson money) or because it’s being propped up by some billionaire, or both. So Fox has a choice to make – follow the viewers and lose the money, or follow the money and lose the viewers.

    And this is always the risk of radicalizing your audience/customers. You basically prep them to be radicalized by someone even more radical than you.

  65. 65.

    The Moar You Know

    Do you think Fox News will be hurt long-term or will they just pivot to become even more right-wing? I’m guessing the latter

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):  Fox’s short-term future is pretty complex.  They exist to support the Republican Party.  Once Trump is gone, Trump is not the Republican party.  And most of the Republican party is seethingly pissed off about all the sweet monies and spoils they’ve been missing out on for the last four years, as Trump is not the sharing type, and is also pretty pissed off as he may have fucked their chances of staying in power pretty badly for the next few years.

    But he has those sweet, sweet voters!  What to do?

    ETA:  Martin’s answer is far better than mine.

  66. 66.

    mrmoshpotato

    $208 mil thrown away by morons to help Trump fight election results in court. Rudy only bills $200,000 a day, and probably a lot less now. The rest of it is going to the PAC, which can pay Trump whatever salary it wants. Everything is a grift. Everything!

    I’d feel sorry for the Trump trash if they didn’t vote (possibly twice!) for a disgustingly obvious Soviet shitpile mobster conman, and if they weren’t Trump humpers.

    Thankfully, Putin’s bitch can’t grift himself or his pile of shit crime family out of state charges.  SAD!

  68. 68.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Gravenstone:

    It’s a cheap investment in destabilization  that can reap truly outsized rewards

    I think it’s incredibly stupid and shortsighted without any regard for the lives of innocent people or the planet itself (not that you’d disagree I’m sure). Destabilizing one of the world’s major economies isn’t smart imo when we’re looking at massive climate change that will affect everyone 

    But then I’m not Vladimir Putin or any other autocrat shitbird

  69. 69.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Why was polling so off compared to final election results?

    This was one of the few things I was afraid of.  This election was structurally unlike any other.  The moment that happens, polling accuracy goes out the door.  Just for starters, you don’t know how many people who say they’re going to vote actually will.

    I also do think we (and I did not see this coming myself) did not factor in how conservatives saw themselves within inches of absolute, permanent victory, and how they swarmed out in hordes at the prospect of grinding down everyone they hate forever.

  70. 70.

    cain

    @Punchy:

    For reals the PAC can pay Trump anything?  Could it just gift him all $200 Very Large and call it a bonus?   That seems crazy.  Would it be taxable (not that he’d pay that tax)?

    Let’s wait till the audit is done before we ask that question.

  71. 71.

    Ninedragonspot

    @Mary G: I saw parts of this affidavit a couple days ago because some particularly berserk Taiwanese Trumpers took it as evidence of something-something.  They screenshot the part of p. 10 that allegedly shows dominion machines pointing towards a Chinese domain:

    “dvscopr.台灣 [CHINESE DOMAIN]”

    … but of course 台灣 is merely the Chinese word for “Taiwan”.  It’s therefore a Taiwanese domain.  Since Taiwanese Trumpers love the guy because they think he’d guarantee Taiwanese independence, it was a remarkable own goal.

  73. 73.

    mrmoshpotato

    @bbleh:

    But don’t call them stupid!  They’re not stupid!!11!! 

    Objection!  The facts and evidence shows that they’re very stupid!

  74. 74.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Martin:

    Saw earlier this morning on the COVID thread that many Moscow-baser medics are refusing to take that Sputnik vaccine. Could these influence ops backfire on the originators?

    Also, thanks for your Fox answer

     

    @The Moar You Know: Thanks for your answer too

  75. 75.

    NotMax

    @Martin

    They don’t have to become more nutsy when they can coast by being reflexively anti-Biden. Feeding the beast is made easy when the beast isn’t a picky eater and Fox knows from experience it can turn a profit by dishing out a generic brand of Crazy Chow.

  76. 76.

    Baud

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I also do think we (and I did not see this coming myself) did not factor in how conservatives saw themselves within inches of absolute, permanent victory, and how they swarmed out in hordes at the prospect of grinding down everyone they hate forever

     

    That’s my theory too.

  77. 77.

    jl

    ” Rudy only bills $200,000 a day, and probably a lot less now. ”

    Seriously? I got some time on my hands, I can do just as good a job. IANAL, but I can find some lawyer TV shows on youtube. I’ll be good to go after a couple of days.

     

    Edit: Oops. I’ll wear a mask. That better be OK.

  78. 78.

    Barbara

    @Mary G: Yeah, this was entertaining.  There is a lot there, but my favorite tidbit is the part about the affidavit stating that because there are foreign domains with the phrase “dominion voting” in them:

    Dominon was “certainly compromised by rogue actors,” which… makes no sense. It’s literally the logical equivalent of “I found a Chinese website with the word ‘apple’ in it, therefore China has hacked your iPhone.”

    None of them could possibly be operating in good faith at this point.

  79. 79.

    dmsilev

    @Martin: Fox makes a fair amount of money off ads to be sure, but their real bread and butter are the fees that cable companies pay them to carry the channel. Cable TV is steadily losing subscribers as more and more people migrate to various streaming services, so that’s going to start biting Fox in the wallet.

    Also, if any cable companies decide to try a la carte rather than bundles, expect Fox to get hammered by that. See also: sports networks.

  80. 80.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Roger Moore:

    Nobody is such a sucker that they deserve to be conned out of their money. 

    What about the racists, fascists and pussy-grabbing piles of shit who went and voted for one of their own (possibly twice!)?

  83. 83.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    That makes a lot of sense actually. In that light, I wonder how accurate the Georgia polling giving Dems a slight edge is? It will come down turnout no matter what

  84. 84.

    Scout211

    @Punchy:

    Appparently, it is a “Leadership PAC” which is described by Open Secrets:

    https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=q03

    A leadership PAC is a political action committee that can be established by current and former members of Congress as well as other prominent political figures. Leadership PACs are designed for two things: to make money and to make friends, both of which are crucial to ambitious politicians looking to advance their careers.

    Leadership PACs are used to fund expenses that are ineligible to be paid by campaign committees or congressional offices. Those costs can include travel to raise a politician’s profile, for instance. Democratic leadership PACs are also used to fund fellow Democrats’ campaigns, especially threatened incumbents or challengers trying to win seats that were previously held by the GOP. Politicians often use their PACs to donate to other candidates because they are considering seeking a leadership position in Congress, a higher office, or leverage within their own party as they show off their fundraising ability. [Read more Background]

  86. 86.

    Dan B

    @Villago Delenda Est: The TX Solicitor General has not put his name on Paxton’s suit.  Since the Solicitor General is the one who argues before the Supremes it doesn’t look promising for felonius Paxton.

  87. 87.

    Mary G

    The streak continues:

    BREAKING:

    The Supreme Court of Arizona REJECTS Republicans’ election contest.

    “IT IS ORDERED affirming the trial court decision and confirming the election of the Biden Electors.” cc: @LawCrimeNews pic.twitter.com/7gCtMLajxI
    — Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) December 9, 2020

    “[T]he challenge fails to present any evidence of ‘misconduct,’ ‘illegal votes’ or that the Biden Electors ‘did not in fact receive the highest number of votes for office,'” the unanimous panel found, plainly.
    — Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) December 9, 2020

  89. 89.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I wonder how accurate the Georgia polling giving Dems a slight edge is?

    I doubt there is any remotely reliable way to predict what is still a nearly-unprecedented electoral situation.  I’m definitely way out on a limb with that statement, however.  I am no polling expert.

  90. 90.

    RSA

    It’s funny, sort of, to think that Trump now has a golden opportunity to consider why some of the rules in the Constitution were put in place, such as lifetime tenure for Supreme Court justices to insulate them from political pressure.

    (Narrator: He will not notice. Nor would he care.)

  92. 92.

    Subsole

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I would expect Moscow-based medics to be intimately acquainted with the shortcomings of Moscow-based engineering.

    More seriously, I can totally see disinfo campaigns rebounding on their user. A lie is like a virus, and virii don’t care much for nationality…which is a major reason we try not to use them on each other.

  94. 94.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Martin: Fox News managed to negotiate a sweet, sweet “carriage fee” deals with cable and satellite providers, in which each subscribing household pays about $20/yr regardless of whether they watch Fox News or not—twice as much as CNN, and 3x what MSNBC gets.

    This revenue stream makes up the bulk of its revenue and it’s a major reason Fox News didn’t dial things back in the face of advertiser boycotts.

    Where Fox News is vulnerable is if they start bleeding viewers—since it was the die-hard loyalty of its viewers that allowed them to negotiate such high carriage fees, so of which are coming up for renewal in 2021.

    I’m assuming OAN and Newsmax probably have backers who don’t might losing money for the cause, so they’re similar immune from advertiser pressure.

  95. 95.

    artem1s

    @Ohio Mom:

    Okay, they will show up in gossip magazines here and there.

    and divorce, custody and civil court cases too. I’m betting they will squander away whatever remains of the Trump Empire ™ suing each other. Five to one Ivanka tries to commit daddy as soon as she can make a case for his incompetence (as soon as he leaves the WH in other words). Hopefully they will decide to sue everyone in the GOP for being insufficiently loyal and failing to properly steal the election. If they will sue to overturn the vote in Wayne County, why not?  I’d love to see Lindsey and Barr tied up in nonsense suits with the Trumps for the rest of their miserable lives.

  96. 96.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @trollhattan:

    Hey, Mt Everest had a growth spurt of about a meter. New height: 8,848.86m (29,032 ft).

    They grow so fast, and before you know it they’re the highest mountain in the world…

  97. 97.

    Barbara

    @Dan B: They appended the opinion of a statistician claiming that there was only a one in quadrillion chance that Trump could have lost in PA, MI and WI after being ahead on Election night.  I didn’t read it, but, as described, it assumes that (1) Biden could never receive more votes than Hillary Clinton, and (2) the late counted mail-in ballots cam from the exact same distribution of voters as the earlier counted votes.  Well duh, if Trump was ahead on Tuesday night, and I assume that the votes that were subsequently counted had the same distribution of voters then Trump had to have won.  Oh yes, sunshine, I think that’s what even us non-statisticians might refer to as “assuming the conclusion.” My experience with experts tells me that a real statistician might actually have signed this, putting great weight on the idea that it was accurate if its assumptions were made clear, even if they are batshit crazy.

  99. 99.

    Ken

    @SiubhanDuinne: I can envision the next Republican President appointing Don Jr. or Jarvanka to a Cabinet post, which experience would set them up nicely for a Presidential run.

    Who needs to run?  I’m sure once one of the spawn is in the legal line of succession, they’d be thinking in terms of a Kind Hearts and Coronets scenario.  The giveaway: when they volunteer to be the cabinet secretary who doesn’t attend the State of the Union.

  100. 100.

    Barbara

    @The Moar You Know: They won’t consider them until someone applies for them.  But they will award them if someone asks.  These counties and states are hiring high priced lawyers, not all of whom are working for free.  Every time they run into court and argue that an anonymous “expert” opinion totally proves the election was compromised, someone spends thousands of dollars having to respond.  That one in Arizona, in particular, should result in someone asking for sanctions.

  102. 102.

    Dan B

    @Frankensteinbeck: There are many “reasons” to believe the sky is falling – or – the world is ending tomorrow!!  It’s sometimes helpful to check them out.  There are some problems that are more likely to be dangerous.  Being aware of those is good strategy.

    My feeling is that Tang’s base is being riled up.  There are knife- edge crazies and so called militias that become more likely to act out.  We just had one taken down in next door to WA Idaho.  I’m glad to see the FBI catch them but I’d rather we got to the root cause, unregulated social Media.  Law enforcement can’t catch them all.

    Fortunately Rebecca MacKinnon published a piece at Slate about some great research on how to regulate social media and improve free speech.  I hope it gets the attention of the Biden / Harris administration.

  103. 103.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Bill Arnold: I’ll take a whack at this.

    1. Polling is horribly imprecise. Households once had landlines that people answered when it rang. That’s gone the way of the buggy whip.
    2. It started as a bunch of bible-humpers wanting to get theirs, and is a big fat ripe target for some Russians. Could be wrong, but what a great opportunity to destabilize a G7 competitor, and test various message-delivery systems.
    3. Ain’t touching that one.
    4. UK’s imports to the US are roughly 2% of all goods imported. We’re good with them, they’re good with us. The impact is when UK gets left behind because they’re led by idiots, and London ceases to be a center of financial activity as the action moves to Brussels or Berlin. UK’s divorce from EU is like watching the neighbors getting split – of course there is political fallout, but the economic factors that directly impact the US are minimal.
  105. 105.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @jl:

    ” Rudy only bills $200,000 a day, and probably a lot less now. ”

    For once in my life, I get to use “order of magnitude” correctly and precisely. Rudy’s asking daily fee is $20,000, not $200,000. Still an insane, and completely unwarranted, amount, but at least a number it’s possible to wrap one’s head around!

  106. 106.

    Martin

    @dmsilev: Fox’s sub fees are pretty standard. ESPN is the real outlier. Fox News and ESPN have roughly the same audience size, but ESPN gets 6x the sub fees that Fox does. They then both have ad revenue from ads run by the cable company plus ad revenue directly to the network – which is pretty high as both have lots of national advertisers and not as many local ones.

    So the subs can keep Fox floated to some degree, but the ads are what pays everyone’s high salaries. And Fox isn’t shy about that – say something and lose your advertisers and you get booted off the network. Talent salaries and ad revenue during their show seem to be more highly correlated than at most other networks.

  107. 107.

    BruceFromOhio

    “Joe Biden now clearly the President-elect of the United States”

    Yes, because 40+ court actions previously it wasn’t clear. Because 7 million+ votes for Biden over Trump it wasn’t clear. Because swing states reporting vote counts wasn’t clear. Because I cry myself to sleep every night wishing for a fascist oligarchy it wasn’t clear.

    Hold the phone, lads: more clarity is on the way. Gonna shove some clarity into every day for the rest of your sorry existence. Then it will be really clear!

  109. 109.

    Dan B

    @Bill Arnold: Good questions.  I’d say that #2 is part of social media vs. First Amendment.  How do we update our media regulations and responsibilities?  If we shine a bright light on the anti-vaccers it could dampen their influence, especially if the illumination comes from credible sources.  And some imagery of kids who did not get vaccinated, or could not and were vulnerable.

  113. 113.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The Georgia runoff is such a weird situation that purely mechanical voting problems, voter confusion, etc. may be a factor on top of all the COVID-induced trouble we already have. I just heard that many voters are confused about the fact that there are TWO runoffs, that they can vote for both Ossoff and Warnock, and think they have to choose one.

  114. 114.

    Martin

    Hey, you know what state doesn’t contribute anything toward agriculture policy? Fucking Iowa. They have 3 ag streams – corn, soybeans, and hogs. They’re all highly industrialized, highly commoditized, and one of them is actually more of a carbon emitting fuel than a food source (about ⅔ of the corn grown in Iowa is turned to methanol, not food, not even livestock feed). Stop giving Iowans AG secretary slots since that only means propping up the corn economy, not actually dealing with the full slate of agriculture issues.

    CA has 3 million agriculture jobs, which is about the entire population of Iowa. And those jobs are vastly more diverse in function than Iowa, and vastly more critical to US trade. Fisheries, dairy, beef, countless different crops, many of which are the majority of the nations output. We have labor issues because so much of it is highly labor intensive, we have water issues, climate change issues, trade issues – everything. Every year we pack up nearly every honeybee in the US and truck them to CA. It’s such a big industry that we actually have a bee rustling problem.

    I understand our Ag secretary is being  considered for USDA, but she really deserves the bigger job because holy shit, midwest Ag is a cakewalk compared to so many other states.

  116. 116.

    mrmoshpotato

    Spot on.

    The Trump legal team is like a bunch of geniuses who saw "The Producers" and said: "Let's build the worst imaginable legal team and it will be a terrible failure and yet we will still make money because our supporters are so dumb they will contribute hundreds of millions to us."— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) December 9, 2020

  117. 117.

    Mary G

    Good Lord, fellow Californians. No wonder they sent the disaster alert.

    (LA Times)

    California has again demolished a daily record for newly confirmed coronavirus cases, continuing a relentless onslaught of infections that has already sent more people to the hospital than at any point during the pandemic.

    The state reported 34,490 new daily coronavirus cases Monday, a figure stratospherically higher than any daily case count, according to data compiled by The Times.

    So large is the gap between Monday’s report and the previous single-day record — set Friday, when 22,369 cases were tallied — that the difference of the two numbers, 12,121, would have ranked among California’s highest before the latest surge.

  119. 119.

    Bill Arnold

    @BruceFromOhio:

    Polling is horribly imprecise. Households once had landlines that people answered when it rang. That’s gone the way of the buggy whip.

    But tracking polls, that ask the same questions, should show changes, even if the absolute poll numbers are don’t match election results.
    That’s the question; why didn’t the tracking polls narrow? For instance, was it in part the long-planned Hunter Biden ratfucking falling apart? Was it the constant injections of Trump scandals in the news cycles, preventing Republican dominance of the final month or two of news cycles? Etc.

  121. 121.

    PsiFighter37

    @Martin: Too bad for you – looks like Tom Vilsack is getting his old job back. I don’t really understand the logic, unless Biden feels he needs someone who knows the agency from Day One and can hit the ground running without any training. I thought Heitkamp would be a better choice (and would be a reward for someone who stuck with us on every hard choice while running for re-election). Oh well.

  122. 122.

    Bill Arnold

    @BruceFromOhio:

    London ceases to be a center of financial activity as the action moves to Brussels or Berlin.

    What happens to the real estate market in London? Could Brexit trigger a financial collapse, for that or other reasons? (I don’t know, to be clear.)

  124. 124.

    Dan B

    @Barbara:  So… A Texas Solicitor General is sharper than a Texas statistician?

    Or, depending upon your viewpoint: the reverse.

    There must be plenty of TX statisticians who’ve spent too much time in the hot sun (or earned their degrees from the Jesus Rode Dinosaurs Institute at Liberty University.

  126. 126.

    mrmoshpotato

    @BruceFromOhio: January 20, 2021 12:01PM EST:

    “Joe Biden now clearly the President of the United States”

    No shit, you fucking assclowns!  He just took the oath of office!

  128. 128.

    Brachiator

    @Barbara:

    Oh yes, sunshine, I think that’s what even us non-statisticians might refer to as “assuming the conclusion.”

    I’m curious who this supposed statistician was. Every person claiming that the numbers prove Trump won have been shown to either be incompetent or guilty of basic errors. It’s almost as if Trump can only attract charlatans to defend him.

  130. 130.

    Martin

    @Mary G: Yeah, they’re really sounding the alarms. Relatedly, my county is receiving 25K doses next Monday, so we should at least have all hospital workers immunized next week. It seems to take about 10 days after inoculation for the vaccine to actually do it’s thing.

  137. 137.

    Dan B

    @Martin: Great reminder!  I drove across Iowa a couple times in the 70’s.  It was, at least in the east, many 100 acre family farms.  That’s undoubtedly changed.  Plus Vilsak ignored Latino farmers’ and farmworkers’ issues and I don’t recall any climate / water – weather issues being addressed.  They’re all important for CA now.  Climate crises will be issues in Iowa very soon as Arctic ice melts and the Jet Stream goes completely haywire.

  138. 138.

    Martin

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Oh, yeah. I had a work requirement to get a flu shot by Nov 30. First time they’ve done that. Apparently they wanted to eliminate variables that might make it hard to figure out if someone had covid or not based on symptoms.

    I’m expecting that once we get a larger rollout schedule I’ll have a requirement to get the vaccine before I can return to on-site work, and one before we resume in-person classes.

  139. 139.

    Bill Arnold

    @BruceFromOhio:

    Could be wrong, but what a great opportunity to destabilize a G7 competitor, and test various message-delivery systems.

    A year or two ago there was a curious case of some polished-looking anti-vaxxer propaganda targeted at some US ultra-Ortodox Jewish communities.
    We Read The Guide Fueling Ultra-Orthodox Fears Of Pig Blood In Measles Vaccines (Aiden Pink and Ari Feldman, April 11, 2019)

    I haven’t read that the identities of the PEACH people were ever revealed; it is possible that it was one or more talented in-community propagandists. Or not.
    There was some pushback, eventually, e.g.
    A Slice of PIE – Making PIEs Out of PEACH:MMR Edition – Bringing Current and Reliable Vaccine Information to Frum Families

    Anyway, a lot of anti-vaxxer stuff is spread via twitter, which is very friendly to analysis looking for propaganda networks (APIs make it easy to map networks). Serious effort should be put into vivisecting anti-vaxxer propaganda networks, if it hasn’t already been done.

  141. 141.

    Brachiator

    @Bill Arnold:

    What happens to the real estate market in London? Could Brexit trigger a financial collapse, for that or other reasons? (I don’t know, to be clear.)

    The City of London is a very small area within metropolitan London and will probably continue to be extremely pricey. BREXIT does not cover financial services, but the toxic anti-immigrant sentiment and larger lack of any conclusion to this thing has led to many companies fleeing the country. The crazy thing is that the political, social and business elites keep acting as though BREXIT is no big deal even though various experts predict shortages and chaos.

  142. 142.

    Kent

    @trollhattan:That’s $207.5 million not being spent on ammo.

    Or going to evangelical churches.

    Or senior night at the local casino.

    It’s not like the money was ever going to be put to any productive use.

  144. 144.

    dmsilev

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: As far as I can tell, The Times is comparing Monday vs. Sunday; they do their own statewide tallying from county numbers, and right now fewer than half of the counties have today’s numbers on the dashboard. Their dashboard usually is only updated a few times a day, so big lags like this are normal.

  146. 146.

    trollhattan

    @Bill Arnold:

    I have a hunch they’ll find themselves with a surplus of commercial real estate (something we’ll be seeing here in the States). No idea if that might carry over to housing, place is packed pretty tight.

  147. 147.

    dmsilev

    @Martin: We also had a flu shot requirement for anyone working on campus this fall. Self-reported, so it’d be easy enough to evade if you were an antivax(*) loon, but hopefully I don’t have too many of those among my coworkers. No word on vaccine availability, but since we don’t have a med school or anything like that it won’t be soon.

    (*) autocorrect wanted either anti-ax or anti-axle. I for one stand firmly opposed to all rotating shafts.

  148. 148.

    trollhattan

    @Dan B:

    They have a heavy Hispanic population representation due to agriculture and limited hospital resources. Their ICU capacity is an eye-popping 5.6%, the worst region in the state by far.

  150. 150.

    Bill Arnold

    @trollhattan:

    commercial real estate

    Amoral commercial real estate interests have been/will be interested in reducing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to their assets. This could include playing pro-death politics to block or blunt closures, lockdowns, work-from-home, making unemployment stingy, etc. And financing propaganda/marketing operations with similar pro-commercial-real-estate/pro death effects. Something to watch for, for sure.

  152. 152.

    PsiFighter37

    @Brachiator: I am pretty sure Brexit will have a very long-running impact on financial services, especially if there is no deal in place that allows for passporting, equivalence, or any of the other things that makes London the global hub for finance (even over NYC). There is a reason so many large banks have been setting up offices in the Continent, and in the long run, it will only be a boon to Dublin, Frankfurt, Paris, and many of the other EU cities that will benefit from London’s slow decay. Will London become irrelevant overnight? No – but without the huge concentration of high finance jobs, it will be a starkly less attractive place for talent to come, and I don’t see where the UK makes up the lost tax base. Becoming “Singapore on the Thames” is a nice sounding slogan but a total pipe dream.

  153. 153.

    Redshift

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    In that light, I wonder how accurate the Georgia polling giving Dems a slight edge is? It will come down turnout no matter what 

    Yeah, don’t think the details of polling are at all informative beyond “it’s close enough that either candidate can potentially win.” As long as it’s not a blowout (which many runoffs are), turnout is the only thing that will matter, not a point or two in the polls.

  154. 154.

    raven

    @zhena gogolia: So I read you were going to leave because of me and then folks persuaded you to stay. You may have me pied so this could be a waste of time but here goes. I had no intention of given you a hard time today which, if you look, it why I didn’t use your name or reply to you. I have an issue with the notion that no one is ever silenced here and it said so. As for some time back, you wrote such a heartfelt rationale for your feelings that I was seriously moved and never said another word to you about that. I get that you felt “bullied” today and even though I don’t think I said anything to you that comes close to that you have every right to feel however you do. I won’t belabor this but I always enjoy you presence here and am glad you decided not to leave.  I pie people here and if you 86 me I get that too. All the best.

  155. 155.

    TS (the original)

    enjoyed this take on the issues

    With all the recounts, Biden has now won several states multiple times bringing his electoral college total up to 432. I think he’s got a path to 900 if he just keep doing what he’s doing.
    — L.E.A.P. 44 (@leap441) December 8, 2020

  159. 159.

    Roger Moore

    @artem1s:

    Five to one Ivanka tries to commit daddy as soon as she can make a case for his incompetence (as soon as he leaves the WH in other words).

    Make that as soon as the first indictment lands and I’ll agree.  Trump is going to go from being the smartest businessman and canniest politician ever to being too far gone in dementia to participate in his own criminal defense faster than you can believe.

  162. 162.

    Roger Moore

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    NBC4 had a news report up today, “Can your boss fire you if you refuse to take the vaccine?”. Yup, he or she sure can.

    I saw somebody else saying depending on where you work, it’s not clear that your boss can require you to get the COVID vaccine.  The key was that it’s not a regularly licensed vaccine; it’s being released under an emergency use authorization, which makes it legally dicier for employers to force their employees to be vaccinated.

  166. 166.

    Roger Moore

    @Gin & Tonic:

    With Trump, it will take only a bit of exaggeration to get him there.  I’m sure he’s at least in the early stages of senile dementia. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he fails that dementia test he was so proud of acing as soon as he can’t threaten to fire the doctor who gives it to him.

  168. 168.

    Suzanne

    Does anyone think I could start a GoFundMe to say that I was going to do some MAGA shit and fight to overturn the election, but then take the money and repay my student loans?

  170. 170.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Suzanne:

    As tempting as that would be, I wouldn’t recommend it. That guy behind “We Build the Wall” got caught and he used GoFundMe

  177. 177.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Bill Arnold:

    Anyway, a lot of anti-vaxxer stuff is spread via twitter, which is very friendly to analysis looking for propaganda networks (APIs make it easy to map networks). Serious effort should be put into vivisecting anti-vaxxer propaganda networks, if it hasn’t already been done.

    I’m thinking of a research project to hook some marketing folks up to the “white hat” crew. For fun!

  178. 178.

    Luciamia

    @Geoduck: Hope never dies. The Trump faithful are convinced that SCOTUS only denied the PA case cause the Texas suit is the REAL one they’re waiting for!

  184. 184.

    dww44

    @PsiFighter37: I’d really like to understand this one. What does he bring to the table that warrants giving him another round at the helm of the Dept of Agriculture?

    I remember him most for his quick abandonment of Shirley Sherrod when she was misrepresented by Breitbart in the early days of the Obama Administration.

  186. 186.

    Jay

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    “The Wall” dude set it up as a 503 Non Profit to make the grift seem more legit. That has some legal requirements.

    Then he and the Board, ( notable wingers like Bannon, added for the additional Deplorable attraction), got caught with their hands in the cookie jar after promising to work for free.

    So, they have been charged with fraud.

    There are lots of ways to grift legally with a 501 or 503, as long as your bookeeping is accurate and you don’t make stupid promises like working for free. There are lots of 501’s and 503’s who’s biggest expenses are Salary, Overhead, ( ritzy offices), Travel and Fundraising, with a tiny dollar amount actually spent on why they supposedly exist.

    As long as Suzanne’s Go Fund Me had all the right majick winger words and CT due jour, and as long as she actually files to the Courts she promises to file to, Go Fund Me can’t touch her.

    She can “pay herself” for legal costs including her time, billing at Rudy Tutti Fruity Ghoulianni verb noun 9 + 11 rates, then use that income to pay her student loans, housing, a new car, a Danish, ( not Swedish) buff “massage therapist”.

  187. 187.

    zhena gogolia

    @raven:

    Okay, thanks for explaining. I think we both were upset about other things. I had a bad experience this past week (still ongoing) with a professional e-mail list, and I realized later you were talking about somebody else, not yourself.

  189. 189.

    Jay

    ??BREAKING: A unanimous Arizona Supreme Court AFFIRMS "the trial court decision and confirming the election of the Biden Electors under A.R.S. § 16-676(B)." Arizona is DONE!!!Trump and his allies remain 1-51 in post-election litigation.https://t.co/gXiCj2xUR1— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) December 9, 2020

  194. 194.

    Ken

    @Jay: Trump and his allies remain 1-51

    So on average, he’s lost the election another 1.5 times every day since the election.

  196. 196.

    Jay

    @debbie:

    the GrOpeRs are either running and hiding when asked,

    or mealy mouthed BSing,

    can’t afford to offend Hair Twitler less he sic’s his Winged Deplorable Monkeys on them.

    Wingnuttia would be more than happy to kill a RINO and mount their heads, even more than Antifa, ( who scares them and makes them piss their pants).

    Nobody want’s to be the last, ( or First) ReThug to die for American Democracy.

  198. 198.

    Jay

    @HumboldtBlue:

    nope, the ritual splits it 45/30/25 between, in descending order, both Canada Geese, ( Lesser and Greater), Wolverines, ( including the Marvel Character), and our Hockey Defensemen.

  201. 201.

    Brachiator

    @PsiFighter37:

    I am pretty sure Brexit will have a very long-running impact on financial services

    This is true. However, neither the Withdrawal Agreement nor any trade agreement covers services. But how BREXIT overall is handled will have an impact on the financial services sector.

    And again it is odd that the financial services industry has not (apparently) lobbied hard for any approach to BREXIT which might be good for the economy.

  202. 202.

    Kent

    @zhena gogolia: He speaks about 8 languages as I remember, so that makes sense.  He and his husband would make great American Ambassadors to someplace important.  Where clear expressions of American policy are necessary.

  204. 204.

    Kent

    @Brachiator:

    This is true. However, neither the Withdrawal Agreement nor any trade agreement covers services. But how BREXIT overall is handled will have an impact on the financial services sector.

    And again it is odd that the financial services industry has not (apparently) lobbied hard for any approach to BREXIT which might be good for the economy.

    But financial services are not disconnected from the rest of the trade economy.  Much of the “financial services” they provide in terms of finance, banking, consulting, and insurance, is provided to real firms that are indeed affected by Brexit.

    If all the corporate headquarters are leaving, the financial services firms will quickly follow.

  206. 206.

    Original Lee

    @Martin:  Co-sign. As a beekeeper, I am kinda pissed off about the huge commercial beehive migration to California for the almond crop, because that’s where the honeybees swap verroa mites and other bee diseases and bring them back to their home states. Fortunately, Maryland’s state apiarist is awesome, but even she can only really stay sort of on top of really obviously bad infestations of certain pests, and she’s really on top of American foulbrood. She’s trained two dogs to detect American foulbrood in commercial beehive shipments, and that is huge: the dogs can clear over 1000 colonies a day, which is better for the bees than their pallets of hive boxes sitting in a field for a week.

  207. 207.

    Jay

    @Brachiator:

    Stock Exchanges and Financial Services are no longer tied to the economy.

    The more people unemployed, the more people evicted, the more bankruptcies,  the more assets and labour to be gained at pennies on the dollar.

    the full accounting of the 2008 Recession resulted in the largest transfer of wealth upwards in history.

    Brexit and Covid 19 are on pace to make 2008 look like a piker.

  211. 211.

    burnspbesq

    @Yutsano:

    Respectfully disagree about Chuck. He’s a good guy. He would have bailed if he’d been asked to do anything inappropriate.

    I don’t think much of Desmond. Erin Collins, the Taxpayer Advocate, is 31 flavors of awesome.

  212. 212.

    Jay

    @Original Lee:

    there shouldn’t be a Commercial Migratory Bee Industry.

    every local should have it’s own hives, and an array of seasonal blooms to support both the seasonal commercial needs, and wild pollinator populations.

    Basically, a “bee tax” on farmers and other “users”.

  213. 213.

    J R in WV

    @raven:

    Dude, this is well said. Thanks!

    I like zhena gogolia too, wide ranging knowledge and perspective, like G&T only less acerbic. Wish I had their knowledge of other parts of the world!

  215. 215.

    Original Lee

    @Jay: Totally agree. Unfortunately, the industry became migratory because of various bee diseases that wiped out honeybees in certain areas. The short term solution even locally to colonies dying is to “borrow” bees from elsewhere; this just sort of grew like Topsy when almonds became such a huge cash crop.

    Around here, and in a few other areas, companies hire apiarists to take care of beehives that are permanently sited on their properties, but this practice is not as simple and cheap as renting hives for a few weeks every year. I think there’s a tax break in some localities to make it more attractive.

  218. 218.

    Jay

    @Original Lee:

    depending on where you are, the “Industry” became migratory long before the Verroa Mite or Colony Collapse.

    Monoculture was the driving force. When almost all the arable land is planted in one crop, thousands of hectares, that all needs pollination at the same time, you have to “import” bees for the two, three short weeks.

    About 30 years ago, because of high alfalfa prices, a mass of my neighbours took out their woodlots a verge, to get that extra 10 acres of harvest.

    In the process, they trashed the ecosystem for short term gain. Luckily, the place I came to own was abandoned because of overgrazing, and as nature does, she filled a void.

    From day one, for us it was Ecosystem Management, not “farming”, and we never set up hives, because with some significant amendments, and proper verge and woodlot management, we had more enough wild pollinators, ( 27 species of bumble bee, including one they had thought had gone extinct in BC in the ‘50’s), to do the job.

  219. 219.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Jay:

    I had no issue with the hit at the time, I just wished the Flyers had someone who would do the same.

    And the changes were for the better. I checked out of hockey for a while and only in the past two seasons have I watched regularly.

  221. 221.

    Jay

    @HumboldtBlue:

    I stopped watching, ( not playing), after the last Canucks run.

    Veterans got them to the 1994 playoffs. Rookies brought up from the minors to replace injured Veterans, carried them through to the finale.

    Then, they sold/traded the rookies for has beens, for pennies on the dollar in the after season. Other teams built dynasties around the Rookies when the Canucks should have.

  223. 223.

    2liberal

    i would like to thank WaterGirl for the fantastic pie filter.  that was something I always asked for in the request threads for the new site and they did a great job.

  225. 225.

    danjos

    @JaneE: Our only hope is that combined, Eric, Don Jr and Ivanka, are dumber than a rock.   That and they have the charisma of a rock as well.   They can make a lot of noise but their 15 minutes are nearly over.

     

    @Frankensteinbeck: That and the fact the Don Jr, Ivanka and Eric combined are dumber than a rock, with charisma to match.

  227. 227.

    Miss Bianca

    @HumboldtBlue: Wow, that’s amazing, considering that Springs is *the* most blood-red metro area in Colorado. It’s a byword for rabid conservatism in the rest of the state.

  228. 228.

    Miss Bianca

    @burnspbesq: The worst part is that the bees produce SO MUCH almond blossom honey, the orchards basically can’t even give it away. Because it tastes so overwhelmingly almond-y.

    I’ve actually been thinking about getting a bucket or two to make mead with. It would sort of taste like Amaretto, I think. (that is the almond-flavored liqueur, right?)

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