Twitter’s rationale for permabanning Trump makes this point:
Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.
Apparently it’s because Q is the 17th letter of the alphabet, not because the 17th is a weekend three days before the inaguration.
Read this piece and tell me if you think DC will be ready.
When Fortress D.C. was tested, it failed: An angry mob marched to the Capitol, broke in, and stayed for hours. Unrushed, they sat in the Speaker’s office with their feet up. Unbothered, they walked out with a senator’s computer. I can barely believe these things happened and not even in my wildest imagination would have I considered them possible before Wednesday. Fortress D.C. failed from a combination of factors that I’m sure will be investigated and enumerated and people will resign and be fired if they haven’t already. It turns out that yelling at bike commuters, stray tourists, and kids sledding did not prove to be a successful deterrent to a mob invasion that was announced ahead of time. Whatever the security plan was, it wasn’t sufficient to secure the building, deter the crowd, or prevent tragic and senseless deaths, including one of the Capitol Police officers whose superiors failed to adequately prepare for a clearly hostile crowd. Fortress D.C. was so sure of itself it preemptively rejected offers to help. It took local police to get things back under control and by that point the building, and the myth of the building’s inviolability, were completely wrecked.
Cowboy Diva
Mostly lurker just wants to say thanks for the Hair quote in the title.
raven
Four Blackhawks just flew over and the neighborhood facebook is freaking out!
RSA
Who knew that the Capitol was a soft target?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
if there’s anything both more stupid and more dangerous than trump, it’s apparently the fusion of his cult with Q.
A few weeks ago on NPR, I think it was Jane Coaston who said, you can’t even describe it without sounding crazy and stupid yourself. And it’s spreading like fucking wildfire on the right.
Leto
So I talked with my old boss last night (AF E9) and the National Guard is mobilizing 1k+ troops to be there for the Inauguration. He’s going to be on comm duty, but the bulk of those personnel will be security forces style detail. I don’t know what the security state will look like in the future here, but for the Inauguration they’re mobilizing a large security force.
Cermet
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:What’s funny is the Q belief is little different than all religious beliefs.
Kent
Remember those cell phone tracking maps from March where they showed where all the Florida Spring Breakers fanned out to around the country in the following weeks?
They need to do the same thing for Wednesday. Those who have all that phone location data need to put together a map of every phone that was on the Capitol Mall and Capitol Grounds on Weds and track where all the rats have fled to. It would be interesting and enlightening. Kind of like one of those sex offender maps.
I’m sure people would like to know if there are seditionists in their neighborhood.
raven
@Leto: One bat, that doesn’t seem like much?
Leto
@RSA: It’s a hard balance to strike. It’s the people’s house, but you’re also not trying to make it like many of the facilities that I used to work at. You want to let people see the work of government, of their representatives, but at the same time you have to vigorously protect them. It’s going to be like airports from here on out.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m thinking a lot of these people will change their plans if FBI agents knock on their doors, or even make a phone call, to inquire about this thing they posted on social media. What’s the gap between that crazy woman from San Diego who was shot and the one from Knoxville who was left in indignant and confused sobs when someone shoved her when she was trying storm the Capital because it’s a revolution
ETA: along those lines, a whole bunch of US Attys were posting that they would prosecute anyone who crossed state lines with violent criminal intent– IANAL so that’s shorthand from what I’ve gleaned from Twitter School of Law. I imagine this will inspire them, and local FBI offices and other offices to double down on letting these people know this ain’t cosplay.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Part of the strategy of Q and other similar fucking stupid theories is to be so fucking stupid that you need to expend time and energy to just discuss them. They have some similarities to a denial of service attack where bots try to eat up all the bandwidth on a part of the Internet.
CliosFanBoy
some years ago there was an elderly guard (white male, natch) from the Capitol Police who used to stand just outside the South Capital metro station and guarded the crossing for one of the Capitol office parking lots. There was a Walk/Don’t Walk signal there, necessary for the week, useless on weekends. if you tried to cross to get to the Library of Congress on a Saturday and dared cross on the Don’t Cross light he’d have a fit and try to stop you. A typical example of a petty little tryant.
Kent
@Cermet: I mean seriously. I grew up Christian but when you step back and squint there are vampires and cannibalism and zombies.
Wag
@Cermet:
You might be right, however the Caesars that the Bible rail against have been safely dead for 2000 years, and can’t be murdered by modern religious zealots.
different-church-lady
Fortress DC be like, “Don’t be ridiculous: white people never riot!”
CliosFanBoy
Unless it’s BATMAN!!!
rikyrah
????
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
I live in the DC area, and if these goons try again, well, we’d prefer to let the professionals handle it, but if starts to look like they’re faltering again, I’m inclined to believe those Trump jamokes will be met with an opposing mob of locals several times their size.
rikyrah
For those whining about “free speech”
Phuck Outta Here with that bullshyt ??
Anyone else would have been banned.
We know, because we have seen people banned for far less.
Let him be Parler’s problem ?
Baud
The Fortress DC article makes no sense. The preliminary consensus is that there were not sufficient resources to protect the Capitol. The article makes it seem like there were a ton of resources that all failed.
HinTN
@Cowboy Diva: I, too, like the lyric from Hair but it must be said that, “It was an inside job” would have been appropriate.
PsiFighter37
I have to think that Garland and Wray are going to be laser-focused on white supremacy as their #1 target for domestic observation when they get in. Given how stupid most of these people are about posting stuff online, it should be like shooting fish in the barrel for the feds, once they are led by competent / non-corrupt people.
Leto
@raven: it took me a long moment to realize you meant battalion and not bat (winged creature) or bat (baseball). I’m an Air Force guy! I don’t know, lets say that’s 800 security forces personnel in combination with X of federal law enforcement, state troopers, secret service… idk. There’s going to be air cover (those Blackhawks you saw), but what else would you suggest? Strykers? APCs? Abrams? Specter Gunships? Trust me, I want this as secure as can be but for that we might as well just have the ceremony at the Capitol and then the new admin heads straight to the WH and that’s it.
I just don’t know. Force protection on that scale is out of my realm.
Baud
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Yes, I was glad that it ended before people felt the need to come out themselves to help.
luc
I believe it is something uniquely American, that every little entity has its own police force. Universities have their own police, federal properties, the capitol,..
Seems very inefficient to me.
CliosFanBoy
@Baud: there are. Witness the guards around any liberal march in the area vs the thin blue line for the Maganuts. They can all ask the others for reinforcements. Capitol police, DC Metro, Park Police, DHS, the local police forces, DC National Guard, MD and VA National Guard… I’ve seen more police on the streets for crowd control after a Nats game than I saw at the Capitol.
Kent
I worked in DC and at the Capitol both before and after 9-11. They did a lot to harden it against things like truck bombs. But apparently not so much against a raging mob that they weren’t going to fire on.
I expect it will be remodeled to some extent such that most of the official front doors will be excessively hardened with multiple entry points such that they can push a button and steel curtain walls come crashing down. And you will have to pass through several levels of security to even get to the front door.
Meanwhile all members and staff will enter through nondescript staff-only entrances on the sides and underground like they do now.
What astonishes me in retrospect was that they didn’t have steel barriers that they could close. Even the high school where I work has big steel barriers they can pull down to close off various corridors so that when there are HS basketball games and such they can keep folks from wandering off through the rest of the school.
Benw
@different-church-lady: “white people never riot”
Fortress D.C. would have known better if they listened to The Clash!
Charluckles
Not only do I think they will be ready, I think they will be ready to bust some heads. Even the Trumper aligned security forces are going to be angry and embarrassed about a failed insurrection by a bunch of a-holes.
Suzanne
@rikyrah: I genuinely think that employment searches of the future will look for Parler accounts and will consider them immediate disqualifiers.
PsiFighter37
I would also note that McConnell adjourning the Senate ahead of 1/20 is another way to delay Biden’s nominees getting a hearing. In years past, the confirmation hearings would have been underway during this time. Now Biden is going to have literally no confirmed nominees on 1/20, because none of them have had hearings. I hope Schumer is timing the exact moment Warnock and Ossoff get their certifications from Georgia, because he is going to need to move nominations at lightspeed.
JPL
@raven: They often fly over my house going up to the mountains, but that is in the summer time. hmmm
LurkerNoLonger
The coup to overthrow the government and install Trump as president for life has failed. The coup to overthrow Balloon Juice and install Mistermix as the only one who ever posts here has succeeded.
Kent
Any thoughts on how this “white riot” might help or hurt the cause of DC Statehood?
Baud
@Charluckles:
The cop who died was a Trumper.
RSA
@Leto:
Agreed. No easy solutions.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent: the disparity between the preparations for BLM marches and the White Riot have been noted. But an NPR reporter said yesterday what struck her on Wed was the last time she had been on Capitol Hill was the opening of the Amy Semple McBarrett confirmation, and the place looked like a fortress.
ETA @Baud: I checked his name on twitter when it became public, and he’d never tweeted but his banner pic was trump’s jet against a sunset. Not AF1, the plane that said trump on it. The account’s been deleted
Punchy
I know Trump can order OUT the Natn Guard, but can he order them NOT to deploy? What if Trump desired another invasion….could he order all the security apparati to go home?
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Baud:
I took it as a statement that DC folks tolerated a bunch of petty tyranny because they thought that was the price of security, when in fact those petty tyrants were incompetent.
MattF
It should be noted that congressional representatives just got an up-close-and-personal view of armed right-wing terrorism, and they are in charge. Law enforcement won’t be able to step aside in the next round, their jobs are on the line. The personnel and equipment are there, there may well be serious casualties in a second round.
Leto
@Kent: yeah, a lot of money went into essentially bomb proofing facilities. Lot of concrete barricades and bollards in use to prevent vehicle IEDs. Also a response to Oklahoma City. Unfortunately it takes incidents like this revamp security measures. It’s happened with the military (Kobar Towers/USS Cole) and now this. I do agree regarding high schools: we’ve transformed those into mini-detention centers. I know a lot of the new school designs focus on making them anti-shooter. Part of how these right wing assholes have reshaped our society.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Baud:
Yesterday I posted a piece that included a letter to the editor written by him to advocate voting for Kerry in 2004. Do you have a source for this?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
If you haven’t seen Joe and Kamala’s Justice Department announcement press conference, you should. It will make you feel very good about the new Justice Department and their priorities and talents.
Leto
@Baud: He was but he died upholding his oath which is in stark contrast to the former military members there, as well as the other federal officials there. I have mixed feelings about this.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@PsiFighter37: One more sign of how important those Georgia elections were.
Do we think McConnell would have tried to indefinitely prevent every single nominee from getting a hearing if he had the power? Damn right he would have.
Punchy
@raven: Jeremy Roenick, Ed Belfour, Patrick Kane, and their goalie all on a plane together?
Baud
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
I read it somewhere. Didn’t save the cite. I thought it was a Dem Congress woman who said something.
PAM Dirac
@PsiFighter37:
Problem is that until noon on the 20th, Pence is still the tie-breaker in a 50-50 Senate. It also sounds like the certification will be no more than a day or two before the 20th, so unlikely to be worth trying to make a deal with Murkowski
Steeplejack (phone)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think others have mentioned this article, but I will boost the signal: “A Game Designer’s Analysis of QAnon.” It is very good.
Kelly
I hope the insurrectionists don’t get the Bundy treatment. Impunity in Nevada and Oregon. The ranchers that inspired the Malheur occupation may get grazing rights back after decades of scornining regulations and setting public land on fire.
Suzanne
@Leto: As an architect, I can tell you that hardening facilities of all types has been a huge concern over the past 5-10 years. Schools, hospitals, major retail centers, large office complexes, etc. This is a major topic in the architectural press.
MattF
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Well, McConnell has said publicly (before the GA runoff) that all of Biden’s nominees would get a floor vote. So, I think it comes down to counting the votes rather than McConnell blocking votes.
Kent
HS design goes WAY back before the shooter thing. They have always had steel corridor barriers to close off hallways. That’s not about school shootings, that’s about not wanting the public to wander through the whole school during after hours events. The modern nonsense about hardening for school shootings is different. That’s more about eliminating long hallways and hardening classroom doors and that sort of thing.
Most new HS design is about limiting the number of entrances to campus to prevent/screen outsiders. A lot of old schools in the 60s and 70s were built community college style with a collection of separate buildings scattered about with outdoor corridors, especially in the sunbelt. They are impossible to secure. Modern schools are built more inward looking with main secure entries. It is as much for things like crazy noncustodial parents trying to kidnap kids a school shootings.
PJ
@Leto: The thing that kills me is that we don’t have to live in a security state. It’s the incompetence (or, in this case, gross negligence and/or malicious intent) and fear that puts us there.
I lived in DC in the ’90’s and early ’00’s. On September 12, 1994, a guy, aiming for the White House, crashed his plane into the White House grounds. (This made the interior pages of the Post the next day – I guess Bush Admin members didn’t read the Post then.) I don’t know what additional security measures were made after that, or who was fired, but there were no visible external changes to the White House, visitor policies, the area around the White House, etc.
Then, in 1995, the Oklahoma City bombing happened, and Clinton, in a knee-jerk reaction, shut down Pennsylvania Avenue, which was a major cross-city thoroughfare, in front of the White House, beginning the bunkerization of our government. It was security theater – the White House is well set back from Pennsylvania Avenue, and the blast from a truck bomb would not reach it. But security consultants need to be paid.
And then there was 9/11. The Capitol grounds, which I used to run across every week (up and down the steps, pretty much everywhere around the building was accessible) was shut off from civilians while they built a massive underground entrance for visitors and is still very much cut off from the rest of the city, its residents, and citizens. I’ve been yelled at by Capitol Police for walking on the wrong sidewalk.
None of that made any fucking difference this Wednesday. As we saw, if the human element in security fails, or deliberately lets the bad guys in, all of that bunkerization is useless.
There is no pure state of safety in an open society; this is the price we pay for being open. (And police states are only safe for the police and the people who run them.) But this country survived a Civil War and two World Wars without putting our representatives and leaders behind walls and in bunkers because the human element in security worked. If we can’t rely on our police, military, and intelligence officials to protect us, all the concrete and barricades we can throw up will not make any difference.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Nancy Pelosi should not attend the inauguration and should instead be ensconced in a bunker.
Same for Grassley.
And Trump’s detail should drag his ass to that inaugural dais, in cuffs if need be, to guarantee no fuckery against the details for the others.
Leto
White man who drove into Iowa protesters avoids prison after guilty plea
Compare with:
Man, it’s good to white…
patrick II
I am very happy about D.C.’s gun laws. Watching video of some of the assaults on state houses and governor’s mansions by guys with long guns is disturbing.
An additional problem with gun laws now is that they are used to having them and playing cowboy or heroic revolutionary or whatever, and they will resist more than ever. In their minds, their “rights to a fair election” have been taken away and they see guns as their only response that can bring change.
This is not just Trump causing this, Republicans have been using distrust of the voting system to suppress votes forever, and they do not mind the desperation it has brought, because it will “justify” their coming moves to remove some of the easier access voting laws available during the pandemic.
They will only mind if they pay an electoral price.
trollhattan
@raven:
Kind of got used to Blackhawks (and 747s) flying over town during fire season last year (i.e., July through November) but in more normal times those suckers draw attention because they’re loud. Especially in formation.
PJ
@LurkerNoLonger: It’s insidious how they work.
Chyron HR
I wish a motherfucker would. It’s like if the Reichstag actually WAS burned down by the communists and also they documented everything.
trollhattan
@Leto:
That’s a thing? How about using a gun while possessing marijuana?
Kent
Before he became a judge, Merrick Garland was the lead Federal prosecutor who put away Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols after Oklahoma City. He was one of the leading Federal experts on white supremacy and extremist violence and supervised all the Federal domestic terrorism investigations and trials in the early 90s including Oklahoma City, the Unabomber, and the Atlanta Olympic Bombing.
There are few people in the country with more experience prosecuting white extremists than Garland.
JPL
@Leto: That makes me physically ill
Those that stormed the capitol will probably get the same sentence.
trollhattan
@Suzanne:
Kind of been front and center in the public eye ever since Sandy Hook. Which is a little ironic given the school was “hardened” to an extent and the fucker shot the door out to gain entry.
Leto
@trollhattan: how about driving a car through people with no repercussions? Kid with the gun and a joint do anything? No? Well that’s 10 years. Guy drove through a crowd of people with his car? Yes? Well he said he was sorry, so TOTES GOOD MAN!
Jinchi
That’s the get-out-of-jail-free move.
PsiFighter37
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Unsure. I think he would have flexed on someone like Neera Tanden for sure, but I do think he likely would have allowed most of them through. I think this is more of a typical McConnell ploy to delay / slow things down, now that he is going to be back in the minority. I honestly hope Schumer and Durbin (both of whom have been in leadership for a long time in the Senate, especially Durbin) are familiar with the rules and know how to cut off Mitch’s delay tactics as quickly as possible.
I do have to think that Susan Rice is annoyed, though – I have to think that she would have had a much better shot at being SoS if Democrats had taken the Senate on 11/3 instead of 1/5. Hopefully she can get some meaningful experience in domestic policy, which may suit her better if she does decide to enter electoral politics at some point.
Kent
I heard they were planning some sort of virtual inauguration without crowds because of covid. Before this even happened. Anyone know what is actually planned?
trollhattan
@Kent:
+1. I’m unruffled by the Garland selection, which seems well considered. He may have a quiet demeanor but his record seems well matched to the job, including the job in 2021. And his “deputies” that were introduced the other day all seem kick-ass.
RSA
@Kent:
I don’t know much about security, but I agree that physical infrastructure would be the way to go. It will slow down everyday access, but I expect it can be made to work. Something over 25,000 people go to work at the Pentagon every day, through just a few entrances, for comparison.
Suzanne
@Kent: This is not exactly accurate. The physical design of schools has evolved due to a number of best practices as research has shown that building design can have significant effect on student behavior and educational performance. But budgets have also been cut, and most modern schools are built incredibly cheaply. Steel corridors are not a thing in the vast majority of the country and never have been. Security concerns due to active shooters have changed a lot, but so has the rising cost of energy.
Amir Khalid
When I see the name Parler, I think of the French verb parler, to speak — an apt name for what the app does. Yet everyone pronounces it as the English word parlour, which I still find jarring.
I think Joe and Kamala should take their oaths of office on the White House grounds. Some place where Trump can see the whole thing from the windows of the residence. Let him suck on that.
Tim C.
My theory on Q:
trollhattan
@Leto:
The “right” to use a motor ve-hick-el would have been the 3rd amendment had they existed in the 18th century. Because they’re never used for ill-intent.
Tim C.
@Amir Khalid: I think I saw that Trump plans to leave the WH on January 19th for his resort and not return.
Suzanne
@trollhattan: Physical security of buildings has been a huge concern basically since the first WTC bombing and the Oklahoma City bombing. I actually have a colleague who was a specialty security consultant/architect. The general idea is that a highly multi-layered approach is needed, starting literally at the property line. I have been a part of numerous hardening efforts (I have spent my career in the healthcare and aviation markets), none of which most people would ever notice.
Benw
@trollhattan: I’m all in favor of a gun control law requiring a breathalyzer test before access to one’s weapon is granted that proves:
Less violent crimes, more snacks!
trollhattan
@Kelly:
I worry about that. Am also convinced the Bundys are “ready to roll” as soon as Biden is (falsely put) in office. They’ve been pretty sanguine the last four years for some reason and there’s a lot of federal land left to ruin.
Barbara
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: Mayor Bowser begged antifa to stay away and they did, but honestly, the Capitol would have been better protected if they had been there. It was basically the same in Charlottesville. And God help us if it turns out that Capitol police abetted the mob. They need to get on top of this now, and Sund should not be allowed to stick around.
Peale
@luc: it was meant to prevent the person in charge of the police from getting too powerful.
PJ
@Baud: I don’t know if you’ve been to DC in the last 25 years, but it has been deliberately, steadily turned into a fortress. As I note in a comment somewhere here, and as the article points out, all of that was utterly useless on Jan. 6. Cutting the government and public buildings off from the public did nothing to prevent the storming of the Capitol. It turns out harassing and inconveniencing citizens day in and day out does nothing to make anyone safer.
There are plenty of human resources security officials could have relied on to bolster the Capitol Police, including calling in all of the Capitol Police to work (there are more than two thousand of them to cover an area of a few city blocks, but it looks like only a couple hundred, at best, were at work on Wednesday), or calling in DC Police, Metro Transit Police, Park Police, and the DC, VA, and MD National Guards. None of that happened until after the Capitol had been assaulted, and then Trump’s appointees prevented them from being deployed. All of the security resources in the this country are utterly useless if the people in charge of them are incompetent and/or complicit.
snoey
@Kelly: Nevada prosecutions failed because the head of the BLM there was a crook himself – tried to shake down Burning Man – and lied enough about what he’d done with the Bundys that the USDA had to withdraw the case.
Oregon was jury nullification and that is something to worry about.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@trollhattan: I was intrigued by Biden’s comment that he offered Lisa Monaco (I think it was) a higher profile job and she turned it down.
I was surprised by the Garland pick, but the more I read about him, beyond the usual suspects screeching that Wm Brennan’s former law clerk is a Republican because Obama picked him, the more impressed I am. I have a hunch that Garland and Austin and a few others are there precisely to set their departmental houses in order
trollhattan
@Benw:
Yup, given the unwelcome choice of being around either a drunk dude or high dude with a gun, I’ll take the second door every time. “Dave’s not here, man.”
Leto
@Kent: I received an email invite to it, so I’m sure it’s happening.
Amir Khalid
@Tim C.:
Then Trump can suck on it in Florida. Still works for me.
Barbara
@Kelly: I expect that the more serious and visible wrongdoers will be brought to DC for prosecution, where jury nullification is highly unlikely.
raven
@trollhattan: Helicopters haven’t bothered me for a long time. They put a new pad in the hospital that is about 500 yards away and some neighbors are freaking out about the noise. I told this one dude ” they are taking kids to the children’s hospital in Atlanta, wanna shoot em down?
rikyrah
@Kent:
??????
PJ
@Kent: The ceremony will go on as usual, with all of the politicians and pomp, presumably, but early on they made the decision to exclude the masses of people who fill up the Mall for non-Trump inaugurations. (I know because I applied for tickets a few days after the election.)
Baud
@PJ:
The security was useless because it wasn’t deployed at he Capitol. What security measures would you eliminate as useless?
raven
@Kent: They said it would be modeled on the convention.
Suzanne
@PJ:
Yes.
There is no way to protect a damn thing if people are not on board.
Every “hardened door” in a school costs about $25K, by the time you factor electrical power and fire alarm tie-in into it. (That’s not counting the cost of the security system, either.) And it can be defeated by one person with a wooden wedge shoved under the door.
BTW, there is absolutely no public school district in the USA that’s gonna be like, YEAH LET’S TAKE THIS ON.
CaseyL
@Kent: It’s also possible there are at least two different plans in place for the purpose of faking out potential attackers.
jonas
@PsiFighter37: Have cabinet nominations ever been taken up before inauguration day in the past? I don’t think Biden can actually formally submit them for consideration until he’s sworn in.
PJ
@RSA: These changes to the physical infrastructure were actually made after 9/11 – there is now a whole underground complex that visitors are funneled through, and regular people are not allowed to walk across the Capitol grounds. It’s just that no one expected the Capitol Police to be so incompetent or complicit.
L85NJGT
@LurkerNoLonger:
photoshops Cole out of the picture…
I, for one, would like to welcome our new blog overlord!
MagdaInBlack
@Steeplejack (phone): I’m only halfway through and it already scares hell out of me.
Leto
@trollhattan: never! always the best intentions!
@Suzanne: after the Iran Embassy fiasco, the State Dept redid their entire approach to embassy architecture; went from distinct buildings to these fortress blobs. Had 3-4 similar designs based on the size of the embassy required.
I was part of the project team for our new building at my last assignment in England. Seeing all the different hardening aspects, both visible and non, was very interesting.
MattF
@Tim C.: I agree that the crazy accusations against the Clintons can’t be explained by simple partisanship, but I don’t know the history of political craziness well enough to judge their novelty.
Tim C.
@MattF: There’s always been crazy stuff. Joe McCarthy was a good example, the difference was, I think, the ability for bullshit to metastasize via social networking/email/etc. It used to required a lot more money, and people who even handed out pamphlets gave off a crazy vibe. Now, Uncle Cletus can post his crazy shit all over the interwebs to others. It’s no different than how ISIS and other terrorist groups operate.
That’s my theory anyhow.
Leto
@raven: we occasionally have Ospreys (CV-22) and Chinooks (Shithooks) fly over. I know they’re coming just from their distinctive prop sound and love seeing them. But I’m an aviation geek so /shrug
Fair Economist
@PsiFighter37: Schumer should give each nominee a committee hearing one day, all at the same time, and then bundle all the approvals together with a 2 hour debate time, per how McConnell has done it.
Kent
I don’t know. Every school I have ever worked at in TX, OR, and WA has had these sorts of steel corridor barriers. And they were all built before 2000. Basically exactly like the second photo down. My HS in Eugene OR had them in the 1970s.
https://www.cooksondoor.com/applications/schools-universities/cross-corridor-security
They roll up and down. Retrofit the Capitol with that sort of thing and at a push of a button, no mobs are going to be running up and down corridors. You can lock them all in like rats.
pajaro
You can call it the “people’s house” all you want, but the Capitol is not easy to enter and not open to the public through first-floor entrances. There’s a multi-million dollar visitor center below ground through which visitors must be screened. Large parts of the area on the east side of the building is closed to the public. The building itself is closed because of the pandemic. The doors should have been locked, it’s not as if the public are allowed to use them. Since 9/11 there has been no “balance” that has been struck in DC. There’s massive security, all over town. What happened this week was an incredible scandal, and there’s no freaking excuse for it.
PJ
@Baud: Did you read my comment? None of the security features put in place over the last 25 years made any fucking difference at the Capitol, so get rid of all of the bunkerization which just isolates citizens from their government. Get rid of all of it, and focus on the real problem, which is PEOPLE. Get rid of police officers and officials who show that they will violate their oath to support the Constitution. Properly police events where people have publicly announced that they intend to overthrow the government. JFC!
Making our society less open is not the answer. Right-wing insurrectionists and our police forces are the problem, not ordinary citizens.
Mike in NC
As long as he and his criminal children are free and walking the streets, Trump remains a threat to democracy.
Lock. Them. Up.
PsiFighter37
@jonas: Yes – just looking on Wikipedia, there are several Obama nominees who took office on 1/20. Same for Dubya’s administration as well. There is no way Biden is going to have any confirmed cabinet secretaries before the end of January, as Ossoff and Warnock will probably have their certifications drawn out until the latest possible (1/22) – I know Raffensperger said he wants to wrap up work quickly, but that fucker will drag things out as much as possible, just like the shitheel Republican he is.
Woodrow/asim
@Tim C.: Bill Clinton’s Presidency aligned with two things:
The “fever swamp” was always there — see the Dixiecrat Party, or Goldwater’s run. When Reagan got into office, those are the kinds of folx his Administration courted, the kinds of people who got validation, over and again.
They learned that a Father Conklin, or a McCarthy, could be done en masse, and on the cheap with modern tech. That you could now build multiple media and political empires, on the knife’s edge of lying in ways that sound truthful enough to propagandize. The kind of lies that empowered Jim Crow could and were modernized and reshaped for the then-current media landscape, over and again by Rush, Fox News, dozens of blogs, and so many more.
Add to that the fuel of behind-the-scenes funding — a model that had already been running thru the Conservative movement for decades, by the time Clinton is elected — and you have a process for seeding, over and again, falsehoods by the truckload into the popular discourse.
That was when the bones of the Q model were built, years before social media made this so cheap and easy it’s terrifying in some of its implications.
In other words — Clinton didn’t break anything, he was just the Democrat who came along when the Right-wing’s ability to inundate our discourse with then-new tech tools was available.
Kelly
Good point and comforting.
Auntie Anne
Our (DE) National Guard has already been asked to provide inauguration security – we’ve been in place in DC since Thursday or Friday. It’s not uncommon that the DE National Guard gets tapped to help . . . We’re fairly centrally located, and well, Joe Biden. I think I can safely say those troops will be loyal to Joe – the ties are long-standing, and the Biden family has long made their families a priority.
Kent
Yep. They know what they are doing. Confirmations are the least of my concerns with a 50 +1 Senate.
trnc
Not so funny when you consider religious beliefs are held by billions of people, but I hear ya. I would say one of the differences is that religions at least head fake toward peace and love, whereas Q is all about fucking shit up.
rikyrah
@Barbara:
They would have used Antifa as the excuse for martial law
Fair Economist
@Amir Khalid: I find the thought of American neofascist social media using the French pronunciation of “parler” hilarious. Never even crossed my mind to use anything besides the “parlor” pronunciation. Which is doubly appropriate, because the use of “parlor” faded because they were often used for viewing the dead and they got a bad association after getting so much use for that during the 1918 flu epidemic. What better name for the death cultist hangout.
Kelly
@Suzanne: I’ve watched video of two guys with 4’~5′ crowbars peel a gun safe apart in a couple minutes. Simple tools, knowing the weak spots and a lot of leverage.
PJ
@rikyrah: I’m afraid you are right. Trump would have said “very fine people on both sides” and the media, unfortunately, would have gone along with “the real problem is extremists on both sides” because there was no physical danger to them, unlike what happened on Wednesday.
Suzanne
@Kent: Having installed many Cookson doors in my life, I can assure you that most American schools do not have them at cross-corridor locations. They’re expensive, require considerable testing and maintenance, and most also require significant space in the plenum to install. Most schools have basic swinging double doors made of steel, on some sort of hold-open that may be tied into a fire alarm or a security system to allow for remote release. Won-doors (most of the side-pocketed-type doors) have similar problems.
trollhattan
@raven:
Oh, they want to shoot at them? Swell. Who lives in a city and doesn’t see police and television and air ambulance helis around all the time? Part of the landscape (skyscape?). Blackhawks and Chinooks, though, they shake the damn house, I guess shockwaves from the ginormous rotors.
They also fly these critters for firefighting.
raven
@Leto: Oh yea, I can feel em way before I see em.
Kent
Oregon was also incompetence by the Federal prosecutor. The Federal judges spanked them for incompetence and willful misconduct. https://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2017/12/rebuke_of_federal_us_attorneys.html
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
Counterprotesters would have been shot. Shot by Trumpers, shot by LEOs. Might have kept them out of the Capitol but I’m guessing a full-on bloodbath.
Sebastian
Had the Capitol been defended by a platoon or two of heavily armed soldiers with ample ammo that attack would have been over in less than 5 minutes. Because that’s how long it would have taken for each Marine to shoot half a dozen idiots, killing 120 of them in less than a minute sending every asshat running for their lives.
Draw a line, a figurative one, 200ft away from the building. Cross this line, you die. Snipers on rooftops.
If a mob tries to rush it like a zombie horde, two machine gun nests with overlapping firing zones will take care of this in less than two minutes.
When I see the videos of ZipTieGuy milling in a hotel lobby bar as if he was unwinding after a fay of corporate training I am wondering why was this fucking hotel not stormed by the FBI, or fuck me, the Marines? Why wasn’t everyone of these traitors shot on sight?
We are sitting here and wondering if there will be ANOTHER ATTACK ON THE UNITED STATES?
What the everloving fuck??
Wapiti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ve thought for a while that when the racists (or anarchists, I’m non denominational) riot in Portland, the Oregon police forces should just hold anybody from Washington until they can be transferred to WA State police. It might take a few days until WA gets there with a paddy wagon, but that’s what bologna sandwiches are for.
Kelly
I have a friend that intentionally bought his home under the flight pattern of the Hillsboro OR airport so he can sit in his back yard and watch aircraft.
Leto
@Auntie Anne: PA, NJ, and MD NG will be there as well. Then we also have the active duty side who will be doing things, so it’s fairly large on that side.
Amir Khalid
@Fair Economist:
Pronouncing Parler the French way would be a good way to get its users’ collective goat.
Suzanne
@Leto: One of the big challenges we have with hardening is also maintaining emergency egress. Corridors are the backbone of an egress system. You can’t just shut them down with barriers to catch someone. If those bad actors set a fire or some other hazard, how are people supposed to exit? So then you put in more emergency exits, maybe even secondary corridors to those exits (this is common in psychiatric hospitals), and all of a sudden you have a supermax prison.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
good on’em! (thread)
Kent
@Suzanne: I’m sure you would know then. I guess it’s just coincidence that all the big high schools where I’ve worked have had these still barriers. I assumed they were pretty standard and universal. I spent 10 years walking by them every morning and was always annoyed if I got to school too early and the janitors hadn’t raised them yet and I would have to go way around to get to my classroom.
L85NJGT
@Suzanne:
Campuses designed in the wake of the 60’s student protests are the worst. Keep the outside out, and deny students from having anywhere to assemble. New facades, paint jobs, and public spaces can only do so much.
raven
@trollhattan: I was being facetious.
Kent
Why would they do that? If you commit a crime in OR you get arrested by OR police, tried in OR and spend time in an OR courthouse and prison. It’s not the job of WA police to enforce OR laws or babysit WA residents. This isn’t like high school where the parents are called to come retrieve their misbehaving kids.
Leto
@Kelly: I’ve lived on/near bases for basically all my life. Grew up in Charleston, SC so was able to see C-141s and then C-17s when those came online (Charleston AFB was the first base to receive those); then I joined the AF and was stationed at Keesler AFB for basically my first year. C-130s (Hurricane Hunters) and those little Lear jets we use. Next was Shaw AFB. Non-stop F-16s, day and night, for 5 1/2 years; as well as anything else that came through: F-18s, A-10s, F-15s, F-22s, and every damn C model. Not to mention my year in Iraq where I became very familiar with Blackhawks and Chinooks. In essence, I hope to never be near another airfield again. Love, love, love planes, but I’m good! ;)
trollhattan
@Suzanne:
That magical day I return to the office may coincide with switching buildings from 1964 vintage to the state-of-the-art (or so they say) replacement they’re finishing out. I’ll be fascinated to look for those subtle and obvious security measures you describe. For sure it’s not easy to upgrade a 60+ YO building.
What cracks me up are the animated tours of the new space featuring folks wandering in off the streets completely unfettered as though they’re guests at Club Med. Uh, I don’t think so.
Also, too, three years ago they extolled the “exciting open office concept” (i.e., we’re cramming your asses together) design. Which might have made economic sense then but in the post-COVID world is going to seem absurd.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
I saw the same, but I thought it was a female staffer. Something about how Sicknick always greeted her so cheerfully, and comforted her about something once when she was upset, and was just such a nice, decent guy. She said in passing he was a Trump supporter, but it wasn’t a major part of her comment.
Suzanne
@Kent: Yeah, the standard is just a swing door, either single or double egress depending on a few different factors. Much easier to maintain and much less expensive. The big overhead doors or the big fancy side-pocketed ones are kind of a premium thing. The biggest concern with them is emergency egress, which has to be maintained even in a lockdown situation. So some of those big doors also have swing door leaves inside of them.
artem1s
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
we all tolerated petty tyranny in the form of Kabuki theater security in a lot of areas of our lives post 9/11. every gun owner who was brainwashed into believing that their homes were in imminent danger of invasion was party to the security theater of the last 20 years. the incompetence came from getting the masses to believe that the threat was coming from outsider (black, Mexican, Muslims), when the terrorists they should have been worried about were already inside the house.
rikyrah
@trollhattan:
And, thus used as the excuse for martial law?
germy
trollhattan
@Sebastian:
Ziptie Guy has been ID’d. Retired Air Force officer. Fucker.
I love that it is a Canadian doxxing a lot of these jerks.
Barbara
@rikyrah: Better protected either way, but I too think it was better that they weren’t there for the same reason. But if police were actively complicit then we can expect mayhem at future events. God damn all of them.
Kent
Have we had any recent threads to talk about Biden’s cabinet yet? For me…
MOST INSPIRED PICKS: Deb Haaland, Interior, Xavier Becerra for HHS, Miguel Cardona for Education.
LEAST INSPIRED PICKS: Tom Vilsack for Ag and Gina Raimondo for Commerce
sab
@SiubhanDuinne: I saw the same thing also. She said he comforted her after the 2016 election, although the had supported Trump.
Leto
@Suzanne:
Oh, I see you’ve worked with the military too :P
The primary training facilities, at least the largest ones, on Keesler AFB were the communication flights. We have these two story monolithic structures that were designed/built in the 1950s to survive low grade nuclear weapon attacks. The interiors are basically shaped like an H with an extra leg. Three long vertical hallways, with one center hallway that connects them. I was there for Hurricane Katrina, along with 900 other personnel/families. The buildings did really well, but we did have a number of water leaks, though as part of the after action report that the base/AF did with that determined, well those buildings were only rated for a cat 3 hurricane and people really should’ve have been there. It was really fun being part of that base commission and learning that. =/
And I wish I could tell you about the facilities in Italy. 180 design direction (prevent entry at all cost no matter what happens).
Kent
Yep, Ronan Farrow did a big story on him and how they found him in the New Yorker yesterday https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/an-air-force-combat-veteran-breached-the-senate
trollhattan
@Leto:
Grew up in Seattle, dad was a Boeing guy. My junior high looked down on Boeing Field and it was jetliners in and out all day, we could ID them by sound alone. Kids tend to like stuff that flies and it all seemed pretty normal.
Ksmiami
@Tim C.: As I’ve been saying since 2012, the GOP is a menace to America and the sooner we come down on the WHOLE party apparatus including their propagandizers like Fox, the better
Leto
@trollhattan: yeah, in Adam’s last thread we were discussing that. Two AF assholes who disregarded their oaths, 1 who didn’t (Officer Sicknick was former NJ Air National Guard, but he was also a Trump supporter so I don’t know how that weighs out).
trollhattan
@Kent:
“Those zipties? Found ’em.”
The mind of a guilty 15 YO in action.
Kent
@Suzanne: As I recall the steel mesh curtains all roll up automatically in the event of a fire and all the swinging corridor doors automatically shut. I’ve been through so many school fire drills, more than I can count.
In any event, they would never prevent one from exiting the building. Each section has its own emergency exits. They just prevent transiting from one wing to another.
SoupCatcher
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
It’s in a WaPo article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/brian-sicknick-capitol-police-officer-dies/2021/01/08/5552e036-51bc-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html
Suzanne
@trollhattan:
This is the essential tension in modern place-making, in my opinion. In every building type, people say they want openness and connection to one another. They want to not feel enclosed in walls, they want to see and get outside, they want the places they inhabit to facilitate relationships and chance meetings and collaboration and fast movement and all that stuff. They want to get away from old hierarchies and formalities (formal living spaces, corner offices, secure lobbies, 1980s-era shopping malls, etc etc etc). But those spaces obviously have problems: noisy, difficult to secure, and structurally difficult to build. Every time we make a major change in building typology, we’re fighting the last war.
For example, I now specialize in healthcare. We just spent almost two decades removing physical barriers between nurses and patients, between doctors and nurses, between visitors and patients. There was a lot of evidence to support that: patients felt safer discussing their personal medical issues with caregivers, they felt more supported and autonomous in very vulnerable situations, it improved collaboration between nurses and doctors, nurses were better able to surveil patients. Since COVID became a thing, we’re putting those fucken pieces of plexiglass (zero evidence that they have any effect at all, BTW) back up. Just in time to get the vaccine and then we’ll tear them all back out.
Sebastian
@Ksmiami:
Very much so. It’s time to take the trash out.
surfk9
@germy: I’d subscribe!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Woodrow/asim: Q-anon is that, but it’s also a fusion with the conspiracy theorists who been running their own subculture for decades. I well recognize most of the nonsense Q spews out from leaflets I was given on the street in Berkley California. Trump did was in his desperation to build up his bases numbers and hold into power was mainstream outright insane people.
ET
Suzanne
@Kent: Mesh curtains (more properly called security grilles) are a different animal than a typical Cookson (or McKeon or OverheadBrand) door. Those are a light-duty thing but they still require fire alarm tie-in, and they provide no level of bullet protection.
MattF
Alexandra Petri on making a principled stand.
Ken
Remind me – can he be un-retired, so he can explain what he was doing in a military court?
PsiFighter37
@Kent: I agree that Vilsack is the least inspiring by a long shot. However, what I am most pleased to see is that no Republican has been nominated for anything.
CarolDuhart2
@Kent: Yes, on my blog I’ve been following Biden’s inauguration. There will be a one-block military procession, an virtual inauguration parade. Only the swearing in is in the usual place. No word on balls, but the Convention Center where they are usually held is being converted into a sort of field hospital due to covid. There will be a review of troops shortly after the swearing in-and so far that’s it. Biden is coming in on Amtrak.
Brachiator
@Kent:
Yellen for Treasury is a great pick. Her expertise will be vitally needed to help rebuild the economy. I like his picks overall. And that the Democrats will control the Senate should make confirmation easier.
I also think that Biden should fast track judicial nominees. Get as many new and younger judges as possible into federal judgeships.
Kent
But would they not have prevented rioters from rampaging down Capitol corridors? They seem pretty damn secure to me at least from idiot rioters beating a them with baseball bats.
Something that the Capitol police could have just pulled down at the entrances to the capitol the moment things were getting out of hand?
Leto
@Ken: I’ll continue to post this:
SUPREME COURT: RETIREES CAN BE COURT-MARTIALED FOR CRIMES COMMITTED AFTER SERVICE
What that means is that all of their retirement benefits go POOF!
germy
@surfk9:
Someone in the replies calls it “Stacey’s List”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@trollhattan:
When I was 15, mom found my stash. I claimed I was holding it for the big brother of my friend two doors down, so I got killed twice – once by her and once by Jack after she told him that I tried to drop him in.
My lie was way more believable than this mook’s.
Geminid
@Baud: Thete was a story I read in which a Congressional staffer recounted how officer Sicknick comforted her the day after the2016 election, even though they had previously talked enough for her to know that he would vote for trump. I haven’t read anything about his current politics, although this may be reported.
Kent
As a former Commerce employee (NOAA) Raimondo seems pretty uninspired too. My impression is that she is some sort of finance/hedge fund type. Or close to that world. Made her chops in RI by beating up on unions. But I don’t really know that much about her.
Leto
@Brachiator: Did you just graduate law school? Here’s your lifetime tenured position. What’s that, Mitch? You can go fuck yourself? Yes, yes you can!
Kent
It seems that the Russian connection to Wed’s insurrection is starting to come out. Check this out:
Suzanne
@Leto: I’ve done simulation modeling for some of my projects, since an essential part of many building typologies is improving operational efficiency by reducing travel distances. So the goal is shorter corridors and better adjacencies of spaces. All this discussion of “hardening” schools has essentially gone nowhere because it increases cost and results in huuuuuuge spatial inefficiencies. One of the places I worked for had a large K12 studio and they were always working on hardening efforts. It usually ended up being cheaper to replace the whole school.
Brachiator
@Cowboy Diva:
The various planetary conjunctions and optimism over Biden’s election have had me humming tunes from Hair for a couple of months now.
When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
Age of Aquarius
Aquarius
Aquarius
Suzanne
@Kent: Dude, if you pull down a barrier to capture some fuckers in the corridor, how do you let out the other innocent people who happen to be trapped in there with them? Any built environment solution will have to be more sophisticated and multilayered than that.
germy
RSA
@PJ: Wow. I did not know that.
Abnormal Hiker
@Amir Khalid: The original meaning of parlour was ‘a place for speaking’.
Ken
Why the requirement that they have graduated law school? Several of Trump’s nominees were rated “unqualified” by the ABA, so law school is no guarantee of anything.
(I also have the impression that for a couple of the nominees, they only achieved “unqualified” because the ABA doesn’t have any lower rating, like “are you fucking kidding”.)
Lyrebird
@RSA: Well they fortified pretty effectively against people protesting Kavanaugh, and boy those ADAPT folks get the literal heave-ho, but not for the Trump Revolt.
ETA: I am sure that I am not saying anything you don’t know! I am sick of this sh_t, and have been for more than 4 years, including being sick on behalf of the families of people harmed because of Trump ego and greed.
kindness
I have to believe that the intruders got inside help. Too many reports of Capitol Police telling invaders where so & so’s office was, intruders flashing badges to Cops on the way in, intruders knowing the less known offices & spots. Those folk scare me. Termites buried within the house trying to take it down if it isn’t ‘their’ people in power. I don’t know that you can rid security forces or police from right wingers. Maybe they could just identify and get rid of the Seditionists then? It’d be a good start.
SiubhanDuinne
@sab:
That was it, of course! Thanks.
matt the somewhat reasonable
Maybe I’m over-optimistic, but I think the security forces will be a lot more prepared to use force this time and will not be walked over like Poland.
Kent
One of the schools where I currently work (I’m semi-retired and now sub at 6 different high schools) is being razed to the ground and a brand new school is being built in the football practice fields behind it because the old one was beyond fixing. It was a bunch of separate 1970s era buildings with all the classrooms opening to outdoor corridors so every time a kid comes and goes the heat goes out and cold air comes in. Ridiculous design for the Pacific Northwest. And also utterly impossible to secure. https://youtu.be/sYf3kn8n858
matt the somewhat reasonable
@germy: The Republican culture of destructive stupidity is killing this country.
Leto
@Suzanne: as always, love reading about this stuff and glad you’re here to share it.
Lyrebird
@germy: Glad the terror and pandemic sympathizers are on tape at least. Ugh. I hope Rep. Rochester & the others’ masks worked above specifications!
Brachiator
@Leto:
Biden hopefully will make smart choices. Many of Trump’s picks, rubber stamped by the Heritage Foundation, had about as much judicial experience as a wet rag.
ETA. I will give props to all the judges, liberal and conservative, who blasted Trump’s bullshit voter fraud lawsuits.
randy khan
@Leto:
It actually is like airports already – the only approved way into the Capitol for regular people is really a nicer-looking version of a TSA checkpoint. They spent an enormous amount of money to create the space (which also has hearing rooms, a cafeteria, and a museum – a friend worked on it).
The problem is that the actual building has a huge number of doors, and the plan the Capitol Police had depended on defending those doors, instead of a perimeter.
Ruckus
@PsiFighter37:
I would say even minimally competent / non-corrupt would be better because the current ones are maximally non-competent / corrupt.
Anyone actually competent / non-corrupt would be amazing.
rikyrah
@kindness:
Only 22% Of the force was on duty that day. I think that was part of the inside job
cain
What’s the point if the capitol police is corrupt and allows the mob entry – or hold the door open? There is a human problem here – LE has also been infiltrated and are also possible collaborators.
We should be very concerned that the very people tasked to protect us are also sympathetic to this cult.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Yes X100. If there’s one thing Biden knows from painful experience is how very fleeting a senate majority can be. They need to move quickly and aggressively while Mitch quietly weeps into his shell.
First question of each nominee: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Federalist Society? Yes? Good day to you.”
Kelly
Seconded. One of the good things about the internet is reading subject matter experts first hand. The hard part is sorting the experts from the bullshitters. Balloon Juice regulars I’ve read for years are the real deal.
Kent
You are the expert, not me. But I expect the Capitol police would have at least liked to have that tool on Weds. Rather than just have rioters run wild through the entire building. Closing corridors as they retreated out of the main rotunda to at least prevent access to the rest of the building.
Leto
@randy khan: That’s going to change in a big way, just beyond “lock the doors”. I’d put Suzanne in charge of it and know it’s in good hands (I can already hear her screaming, HELL NO! :P )
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@matt the somewhat reasonable: I’m thinking the same thing. I wish Gen Honoré were in charge. He strikes me as a man with a low nonsense threshold.
As to the cabinet: I’ve seen just about every opinion expressed on Vilsack, but the the majority opinion seems to be that whatever else, he’s a good administrator, and I that’s what Biden’s looking for, people to set their departments in order. I think you’re going to see a wave of retirements in 2022, maybe before the mid-terms to get their replacements confirmed
ETA: listening the New Abnormal podcast, and Rick Wilson is saying that there is already gossip about McConnell trying to flip Manchin. I’m skeptical, I don’t think he’ll flip on Joe Biden if he didn’t flip in 2017, but politicians are politicians and I wouldn’t be surprised if Manchin likes those rumors.
laura
@Kent: LEAST INSPIRED PICKS: Tom Vilsack for Ag and Gina Raimondo for Commerce
Would that be Gina Raimondo who refuses to fund public employee pensions including the “annual required contribution” to preserve the soundness of the fund that employee’s contribute to with each and every paycheck such that anti-public workers groups like the Arnold Group can then use to argue in favor of ending public pension funds? Yeah, NOT A FAN.
randy khan
I’m late to this thread, so somebody may have said this already, but security for inaugurations is several levels higher than what most of us ever have experienced. My office is three blocks from the Mall, and way far away from the Capitol, and for the last inauguration they closed off our street with Jersey barriers, closed off our parking garage with Jersey barriers (so people couldn’t park there before the street was closed and get out), and closed our building (which has line-of-sight to only a tiny sliver of the Mall from the roof). There are limited entrances to the Mall, and everybody who comes through one of them is run through a metal detector. Nobody without an actual ticket gets anywhere near close to the steps of the Capitol (and, again, those people go through metal detectors). The police, etc., presence is quite overwhelming, too.
So, a whole other thing.
Suzanne
@Kent: Yeah, lots of schools in the Sun Belt are designed as separate buildings. It made sense when energy was cheap, up until about 1980. Every school I attended in Arizona was some version of that. Corridors are much more expensive per square foot than classrooms due to the requirement to be fire rated, as they are typically the exit access component of an egress system. (Components being exit access, exit, and exit discharge to a public way.)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
It’s pretty obvious what happened. In all kinds of law enforcement agencies and so on people like Adam saw the coup attempt coming, took it to their small C Conservative Agency heads, who thanks these people for reports and set them aside telling themselves “American Conservatives attacking Congress? What nonsense, it’s Antifa or the Iranians we need watch out for…” and then Wednesday happened. It’s really a repeat of the Pearl Harbor intelligence break down.
So I suppose, like after Pearl Harbor/Oklahoma City Bombing/911 there will be a massive over reaction.
trollhattan
It occurs to me that Wednesday’s traitors accomplished something Bin Laden failed to on 9-11, if Flight 93 was intended to hit the Capitol and not the White House. Nice work, guys.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
This is fascinating stuff. What will architecture be like in an era of remote working and remote learning?
Will people want something different from the places they go to after being inside their homes for hours?
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I thought it was interesting when Biden said he had offered Lisa Monaco a couple of other high profile positions.
I think she feels so strongly about the DOJ that she wants to help restore it more than she wants a higher profile position. Imagine what it’s been like for people who love the Dept. of Justice to see what it’s become.
It would be like dedicating your life to animals through the Humane Society and then the new director runs a dog fighting ring out of it. Times 1 million.
Apropos of nothing, except that Preet has had Lisa Monaco on his show, it’s interesting that Preet has been offered nothing in the administration. I wonder if they will offer him his old job back?
Kent
@cain: Oh, for sure. Pelosi and Schumer in coordination with Merrick Gardner’s DOJ and FBI need to do a top to bottom review of the Capitol police with a colonoscope. And root out every last traitor. And rebuild the force from the ground up. At least for the next 2 years there are no GOP anywhere near the decision-making on this process.
Ian
@luc:
It isn’t designed with efficiency in mind. Our founding fathers were terrified of the connection between European central authority and their police arms, and went to great length to seperate the policing/judiciary from central executive authority.
We rarely hear about it today, but one of the most vigorous debates at the time was whether or not Congress or the Executive should nominate judges. The seemingly endless amount of police departments stems from this fear of centralized policing. The concept of the FBI would have terrified the founding fathers.
Sister Golden Bear
No one could’ve predicted….. NYT: Trump Regrets Committing To Peaceful Transfer (link goes to a third-party site that summarizes the story):
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: Even the metal gates that come down in malls and elsewhere are totally useless if there is a traitor on the inside who can raise them back up.
Suzanne
@Kent:
Yeah, I’m sure they would have loved to have that as a tool. But this is why we let them have input but not control over building designs. It’s the job of an architect to find a solution that works for everyone, when everyone’s needs are competing. A huge part of my job is doing design workshops with all of the different users of my buildings. Every single one of them has a different agenda and thinks their concerns are the most important. The security team would lock the whole place down behind barriers. The clinical teams need it to be open so they can see if someone falls and has a heart attack in the parking lot. The same is true at the Capitol. How to balance security, operational efficiency, and quite frankly, the aesthetic majesty and meaning of the place is not an easy task.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WaterGirl:
that we know of…? In my dreams, he, or someone with his reputed chops, is the special IG in Garland’s DoJ, or chair of the commission appointed by the House and Senate to investigate that malfeasance of the trump administration. I’ve read that Bharaha is quite wealthy and he might not want to go back in to government. Or if I’m right about Garland being a short-term clean-up guy….
LivingInExile
Wapo has an article about the Atlanta US Attorney being fired/quit, and being replaced by someone appointed by trump. More fuckery afoot?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kent:
Shit. Inauguration Day is going to be SUPER dangerous.
germy
A Truth Reckoning: Why We’re Holding Those Who Lied For Trump Accountable
The unemployables will need lots of wingnut welfare.
Ruckus
@luc:
In theory I believe that it is supposed to reduce the corruption and increase the security because one bad apple can’t spoil outside the one barrel. That might have been a not unreasonable concept 100 yrs ago without the level of communication/brotherhood that exists today. Also it keeps the control local, in theory the enforcement arm actually has communications with and similar goals with the guarded segment. Law enforcement has become, not an arm as much as an entire entity to itself, which leads to the same problems as little to no law enforcement, a common human defect – corruption of purpose/structure/effort/guidance. Law enforcement ends up existing for it’s own ends, uses it’s own means, is not answerable to the greater.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
QFT. Thank you for this neat and tidier summation than I could do.
Kent
@Suzanne: It seems to always go in cycles doesn’t it? Open wall-less classrooms were the worst idea and designed by no teacher ever. Just what you need is some knucklehead freshman trying to flirt with his girlfriend or goof with his buddies two classes away in a big open space. Most kids can’t really concentrate in a big distracting open environment. Most certainly not the easily distracted ADHD types.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t think Garland is short term unless he wants to be short term.
Gin & Tonic
@Kent: Dubinin (not Dybynyn) is a camera operator. He is actually wanted by the LNR separatists (Russian-backed) and would probably have a bad time of it if he went back to Donetsk or went to Russia.
Yes, he works for Medvedchuk’s channel, but personally I think it’s a real reach to ID him as an agent provocateur or something. He seems just an action junky, like a lot of combat photogs.
Tim C.
@Woodrow/asim: I agree with this analysis!
Kent
Speculation was that it was election-related. A clumsy attempt to open Federal election fraud investigations in GA or something like that. Maybe strong-arm the Georgia SOS. Part of Trump’s desperate flailing around to try to overturn the election in GA. But that opportunity has already passed them by. The new Trump appointee will be gone in 7 working days. Barely long enough to get his HR paperwork processed and office and computer set up in his new job before he gets terminated.
Suzanne
@Brachiator: The early evidence is that professional offices are expected to shrink by about 25%, and that personal workstations are going to get smaller and fewer in number and not be assigned to individuals. They’ll be what we call “hoteling stations” in the industry parlance, which will work because fewer people will be in the office at any one time. Instead, professional offices are expected to evolve to have more and better-outfitted collaboration and conference spaces. The idea being that you come into the office in person when you need to work with others, but then go do your individual work at home. At least, that’s what the consensus seems to be right now. The office is not going away.
Another Scott
Mayor Bowser has DC under a State of Emergency through 3 PM Thursday January 21. She’ll quickly reimpose a curfew if necessary.
A 7-foot high fence is going to be around the Capitol grounds for 30 days.
DC will be ready on the 17th.
Cheers,
Scott.
Sister Golden Bear
@Ian: At least in some parts of the country, lots of small local governments were encouraged by the robber barons.
A friend of mine lives outside Pittsburgh, where there’s dozens of little towns each with a police force with only a handful of officers.
According to her, the robber barons discouraged towns from consolidating because it made them easier to play off each other, e.g. “if you try to prevent us dumping industrial waste into the water supply, we’ll just move to the next town over.”
The “Lakewood Plan” system, of cities contracting out municipal systems, only only developed in the 1950s. It’s notable that it originated in rapidly suburbanizing SoCal. New suburban communities in Los Angeles County saw in contracting the means to preserve local authority without the huge expense of establishing stand-alone police departments, building divisions, or sanitation units.
Because many of these communities weren’t unincorporated yet, so there wasn’t entrenched interests, like there are in my Pennsylvania friend’s area, to fight contracting out services. I.e. no local police chiefs were going to lose their jobs. Plus contracting out enable many of these communities to incorporate due to the lower costs of running a city.
Kent
@Gin & Tonic: Do you think he works alone? And that footage of war and chaos play no role in larger efforts to sow chaos and confusion and fear around the world as a pretext for authoritarianism by Putin and his allies and lackeys?
Leto
@Suzanne:
I was part of the project team back in England for the new Intelligence Center that was going to be built on our base. 5 different intelligence agencies, plus the base component, coming together to give input on what they needed/wanted for this new super building. I’m sure you can imagine how those multi-hour meetings went.
Eventually big brain Devin Nunes got this entire enterprise shut down. Adam and I have some choice words about that.
artem1s
@Tim C.:
I gotta agree on the internet part but disagree on it being the GOP that was broken. Karl Rove tapped into it in a more systematic way than any other political operative has. But Perot and Ron Paul were essentially doing the same thing. They just didn’t have the internet to weaponize it the same way Trump did. And they were always going to lose whatever nominal control they had over it.
I have been hearing weird and insane conspiracy theories from my crazy uncle for as long as I’ve been alive. They were as foaming at the mouth crazy about the weirdest shit for as long as I can remember. I’m old enough to remember when all the secret stuff the government was lying to us about was hidden in Hanger 51 at Wright Patterson. It got swapped out for Area 51, I guess because it’s hard to hide all their secret shit in Dayton, OH. For years my uncle spent Thanksgiving ranting about black helicopters and secret messages on the back of highway signs. And that was long before Bill Clinton was elected or the internet was invented by Al Gore. The thing that is now just becoming evident to most people is that this batshit stuff has always been around. It can take hold of even the nicest people and turn them batshit crazy. And when it does, they never, ever stop believing something is out to get them. The stories essentially have the same seeds at their core but evolve over time with an ever changing cast of messianic saviors, minion coconspirators and evil agents of the devil, communism, and/or Jewish bankers. For almost a decade they fervently believed the GOP was going to elect a messiah that reinstate the gold standard and overturn the evil minions of the Rothschilds taking over the country. When Raygun didn’t fulfill the prophecy, they turned on the RINOs and Poppy Bush was the enemy now who was conspiring to let the New World Order, NATO, and the EU take over the country. The militias attacked conservative agencies in the US government on purpose. Oklahoma City, Ruby Ridge and Waco were a betrayal by the US government, not just liberals. The people who wept over Koresh’s downfall hated the GOP as fervently as they hated Bill Clinton. Timothy McVeigh attacked the US Government and FBI because they were seen as conspiring against the lawful real US government that would be established by their militias.
Every time the apocalypse was averted, or The Revolution didn’t come to pass, or they couldn’t start a race riot to over throw the government and re-enslave the Blacks, they turned their attention to a new messiah and a new enemy. Even if Bill, Hillary, Soros, chemtrails, vaccines, fluoride, and Obama don’t kill us this time – they will get us eventually and you better have your bunker and guns ready when they come for you.
Ken
I hope at least some of those tears are from realizing he did this to himself, by removing the filibuster for all judicial nominees. That would require self-reflection, so I’m not counting on it.
Chyron HR
@laura:
Yes, that would be the Gina Raimondo that you never heard of until 5 minutes ago but who all your twitter friends have assured you is history’s greatest monster. Thanks for checking.
trollhattan
@germy:
Heh, “serves you right to suffer.” Sean Spicer can start a support group. Let’s check in.
And not to forget the legacy of all those Melissa McCarthy bits. Everything Trump touches, dies.
Brachiator
@germy:
I just assumed that these people will be recycled back into Fox News and other right wing media organizations. A few may become NY Times op ed columnists because, balance or some such nonsense.
Suzanne
@Kent: Yep, cycles. But they’re never the exact same when we revisit it. Classrooms without walls don’t really work, for sure, for all the reasons you name and more. But the softer spaces, like cafeterias with roll-up doors to the outside, lobbies of auditoria that can open up…. those can be really nice spaces that I’ve seen in schools.
West of the Rockies
@Tim C.:
You say nothing about rightwing rage media. It’s Beck and his Overton Windows but not as he suggested. Starting in the mid 80s in Sacramento, Rush says thing X. It’s hyperbole; it’s got elements of truth (let’s say 50% truth). Hus listeners repeat it. It enters the fabric of fact and mythology.
Limbaugh continued the game. Sometimes speaking mostly truth, sometimes only 10%. Imitators follow. Limbaugh led to Fox News. Add Beck, Mslkin, Coulter, Dennis Miller, O’Reilly, Hannity, ad nauseam
They’ve all been fomenting rage, resentment, fear, and entitlement.
Yutsano
@Leto: It didn’t seem to have affected his job or his oath. There was a reason why he was beaten to death and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t collaboration. Regardless of his political beliefs I’ll remember Sicknick for standing up for America when it mattered.
OT but for the aviation geek: a plane in Indonesia went down today. It’s still really early but it does look like something catastrophic happened suddenly. My aviation guys on YouTube are all over it.
Kent
@Sister Golden Bear: Don’t forget the overwhelming role of race in all of that. It’s not just separate white police forces. It’s also separate white schools in each suburban town so white-flight suburbanites don’t have to see their precious Clair and Emily and Connor’s from mixing with the Shanices and DeShawns from the big city next door.
Gin & Tonic
@Kent: Inter TV is a news channel. This event was newsworthy. I’m willing to bet there were news crews there from other countries as well.
Sister Golden Bear
@Suzanne: Depends on the industry. Here in Silicon Valley there’s a number of companies talking about going fully virtual.
That said, I agree the office won’t be going away entirely for many of them, but they’re going to be significantly smaller. Just “hotel” workstations and conference rooms for when face-to-face meetings are needed. And probably just enough workstations to accommodate people who in the office for meetings that day.
Just saw an article yesterday speculating that most of tech company cafeteria are gonna go by the wayside because there won’t be enough people on campus to justify them. Although that’ll depend on location, e.g. Facebook is on the edge of the Bay wetlands, and there’s virtually no restaurants within walking distance, or even a short drive away.
Sister Golden Bear
@Kent: Oh absolutely. Ferguson, and the other small towns surrounding St. Louis, were a prime example of that.
bluehill
@Brachiator: I think so. Ironic if this makes WeWork viable again.
Kent
Yep, the best designed schools in my mind are the ones with formal classrooms but lots of open well-lit inviting open indoor and outdoor spaces as well. But you also have to be careful about too many hidden corners and such because all the druggies and couples find them like flies to honey. Boyfriend in classroom A and girlfriend in classroom B coordinate on their phones to get bathroom passes at the same time and spend the rest of the period making out in a hidden alcove someplace. Or vaping away.
Kelly
Apropos of nothing the milk in my fridge has a Jan 20 sell by date. It’s beginning to look at lot like Inauguration everywhere you go…
trollhattan
@germy:The Trump stench should–if there’s any justice to be had–last a lifetime for his enablers and sycophants. We’ll see, but in the meantime there’s the post WH career of one Sean Spicer.
All that, plus the Melissa McCarthy bits. Nice legacy.
Ken
I”ve only been to DC twice, both times as a tourist so didn’t really pay attention, but the overlapping jurisdictions must be nightmarish. For example, does the mayor’s curfew apply in the Federal zones? Can someone be arrested by DC police if they’re on the south side of a particular street, but not if they’re on the north side? It’s reminiscent of China Miéville’s The City and the City.
Kent
So is Fox. And Facebook is just a news portal. No one ever tries to use it to manipulate opinion.
Does Inter-TV send camera crews to every MAGA rally? Or just the ones that turn into insurrections?
Suzanne
@Brachiator: I sometimes forget that not everyone here spends time analyzing how the built environment is first and foremost a reflection of society, even more than it is a collection of bricks and sticks and concrete. The design professions are fundamentally about building “how we live today” with all of the contradictions and competing interests and constraints that accompany that. Nothing is the way it is by accident. If you look at something in isolation, like, “why don’t they just put more doors in the corridor?”, it’s easy to lose sight of the complexity of the issue.
germy
@Brachiator:
I believe you’re right.
Sister Golden Bear
@Yutsano: The Professional Pilots Rumour Network is also on it.
Like all forums you need to separate the wheat from the chaff, but there are folks with good insights (based on when I followed the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappearance there).
cain
Remember when OR was working on the replacement for the Columbia bridge? One of the arguments of not having rail/public transport into Vancouver was because Portland would bring their gangs and crime into Vancouver.
I got curious and I looked at the crime rate statistics – and jeezus, Vancouver has a higher crime rate than Portland did at the time and it’s really the other way around. Fast forward today, you can see WA is sending their racists repeatedly into our metro area to cause problems. If we had built that replacement bridge they would have come to metro easy peasy.
mali muso
@Yutsano: So sad. I lived in Indonesia for many years. Being a nation made of islands, air travel is a necessity but the safety quality of many of the airlines is pretty sketchy.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
This makes sense. And right now I do remote work for a company that does not have a physical presence anywhere. Everyone, from management to staff, work from homes all over the US. There is no office ever to go to.
I also wonder what people might want from the social spaces they go to before and after work. Here in Southern California, I loved the idea that more restaurants had added outdoor dining. It felt like a treat after being indoors.
And even after the vaccine, will people want shops and restaurants to have social distancing built in?
Kent
They have it all worked out. They have inter-jurisdictional agreements so I think basically any cop can arrest you anywhere. The Federal zones basically contain no residential or commercial areas. So they are always pretty empty at night when the museums and buildings close except for things like the 4th of July fireworks.
realbtl
I’m thinking that after the death of a fellow officer enforcement may be different if anything starts on 1-17.
Haroldo
@CarolDuhart2:
This scares me perhaps more than anything with respect to inauguration plans.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Rush Limbaugh has quit twitter to protest the Banning Of The trump. To which I say: Why isn’t that fucker dead yet? or at least wheezing on life support while the fourth wife he bought himself twenty years ago makes sad face while thinking “Come. ON! My “tennis instructor” isn’t going to be in his twenties forever!”
also, I. M. JOHN MCCAINS DAUGHTER! is preemptively pretending to be a victim of censorship.
Ken
IIRC, there wasn’t much wrong in principle, except the CEO followed the (strangely familiar) business model of paying as much of the investor’s money to himself as possible. They also vastly overstated the likely number of customers, to keep that investor money flowing.
Suzanne
@Sister Golden Bear: Yeah, I would not be surprised if a few tech companies go fully virtual. But that will be a very small minority of companies. I expect that most will go with a somewhat reduced physical footprint, but I don’t think that COVID is the impetus for the dissolution of the office.
There’s already a lot of research around this, and a lot of white-collar workers just plain miss their colleagues and want to get back to some sort of physical place. Not 40 hours a week, certainly, but maybe 20. One of the evolutions of American life that occurred once we all started working more is than now many of us primarily socialize with (some of) our colleagues.
laura
@Chyron HR: appreciate the response. I just retired after working for 20 years as a Union Rep for public sector workers and the prior 20 years as a grocery worker who witnessed the loss of post employment benefits. Public Pension systems – their funding, contribution, impact on state, local and special districts budgets- and those who depended upon them for a secure modest income in old age was my daily bread and butter. In fact, Gina has been on my radar for years. Please, do weigh in with your experience in negotiation on behalf of workers and how you threaded the needle of wages, health care costs and pension contributions. I’ll wait.
But thanks for the Snap.
Immanentize
@Amir Khalid:
That would be the French….
Jack Sparrow
PJ
@Kent: If a sufficient number of cops had been there – hell, if just half of the Capitol Police had been there – on Wednesday to put a sufficient barrier around the building, none of this would be an issue. The Capitol, and our other public buildings, including schools, shouldn’t be fortresses. If there is a public problem, whether it’s school shooters or insurrectionists, they need to be dealt with by laws and law enforcement. It’s because our politicians and officials refuse to deal with these problems, or actually want them to succeed, that we have this mindset that we all have to live in fear and work on turning every building into a bunker.
Leto
@Yutsano: Oh man, that’s awful. Hopefully the water isn’t too deep there.
Ken
@Kent: That makes sense, thanks. So (again inspired by Miéville’s novel) a sharpshooter doesn’t have to worry if the bullet crosses jurisdictions.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suzanne: I also wonder, beside the purely social aspect, about young workers being deprived of the kind of networking that you’re just not gonna get out of zoom and email
Ruckus
@Kent:
Anyone know what is actually planned?
Given the last few days as the culmination of the last 4 yrs, I’d bet the actual plans are not going to be announced, other than maybe extremely wide strokes, right up until it’s happening. And any leaks whatsoever will likely result in rather strong penalties with major plan alterations – which have already been planned. Our concept of relatively open communications and planning would seem to be maybe not so smart in a world with the available level of communications.
Another Scott
@Ken: To be clear, there’s no DC curfew at the moment. There was one from 6 PM 1/6 until 6 AM 1/7.
Since one cannot get to federal property in DC without entering the District boundaries, yes, any DC curfew would apply around federal buildings. (There are exceptions for “essential workers” so law enforcement would be able to do their jobs.)
There are probably dozens of law enforcement agencies (US Park Police, Capitol Police, DC police, WMATA police, various Navy facility police forces, FBI, etc., etc.) with jurisdiction over various pieces of property in DC. Plus, local area National Guard and State Police will help again if necessary (and faster). They have decades of experience working with each other. If/when the word comes, they will execute their plans and directions.
Cheers,
Scott.
cain
@Brachiator:
I literally grew up on the soundtrack of Hair. I know all the songs by heart. My parents took us to Hair when we were kids – and a lot of parents looked at us like “wtf, you bringing your kids to this?” – I don’t remember it myself.
The songs were pretty fun but very explicit for the time. Now of course, it’s like no worse than some hip hop or metal music.
germy
@laura:
Don’t take it personally. He swoops in every time anyone here says anything even mildly critical of a centrist Democrat.
Kent
I remember it exceedingly well. I live in Camas and had a front-row seat.
The “Crime Train” bullshit was all teabaggers on the WA side who were using race mongering to avoid seeing their taxes raised to support the expansion of mass transit into Vancouver.
The Portland metro area has basically gone all in on light rail as the main form of mass transit. But it is expensive and there is a separate Metro taxing authority for the 3 counties in Oregon (hence Tri-Met). The teabaggers knew that as long as the new bridge couldn’t accommodate light rail then they would never have to join into Tri-Met and pay taxes to support the whole network.
The Vancouver republicans (actually mostly they were from more rural parts of the county outside Vancouver) wanted unfettered car access into Portland for jobs. And Portland said, we don’t want all your damn tax-evading suburban commuters unless you are willing to put your big boy pants on and join with us on regional mass transit solutions. The final bridge plan was really a giant freeway expansion plan for miles on each side of the river but it contained light rail into Vancouver. So the rural Clark county teabaggers threw a conniption fit and got the GOP-held WA State Senate to pull the plug on funding. There are no longer any GOP-ers in any position of state or regional authority in either WA or OR anymore, so that won’t happen again when they finally get around to doing it a second time. And the second time is likely to contain a lot less freeway expansion and a lot more transit than the first time that they killed.
Ken
I think Fox has won court cases by arguing that they are not in fact news, but opinion and analysis, and so do not have to adhere to any journalistic standards. Of course they still call themselves a news organization in their advertising and when they want access to somewhere, so I guess Heisenberg is involved.
Suzanne
@Brachiator: This is an interesting question to me. So far, commercial and residential real estate prices are dropping in the expensive cities, and rapidly climbing in the so-called “second-tier” cities. The implication being that, if not tied so tightly by a job to a physical location, people are willing to move. But they aren’t moving en masse to rural areas. They’re going to less expensive urban areas or the suburbs of their existing city. So they still have access to major airports and connectivity, but they still have urban amenities. I think this is more of the future…. maybe smaller, atomized offices in more cities. More collaboration spaces. And the non-work social spaces are only getting more important, in my mind. I think we’ll see more pop-up retail and restaurants, too. As for social distancing…. not sure. Social distancing is expensive. All that space is expensive. I personally love it, but the overarching trend is trying to do more with expensive space.
Immanentize
@L85NJGT:
My son’s brutalist safe house dorm built in ’68.
Lovett Hall
laura
@germy: Working people is my life’s work. I am ready to cut a motherfucker at any time who flippantly dismisses legit concerns about keeping the promise of a shared responsibility for security after years of service. But I appreciate your kind words.
cain
@Sister Golden Bear:
So much for a new ‘tone’. Someone should be very very embarrassed to get suckered repeatedly – that someone is Dana Bash. JFC, she should be ashamed of herself and someone should repeatedly call her on it.
raven
@laura: Have you heard of Coleman Hawkins from Sacto? (he’s a basketball player on the Illinois team”
Leto
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m more than happy that all the fucking scum are leaving. You can’t name drop your way out of supporting insurrection, you worthless human.
Gin & Tonic
@Kent: Look, I have no doubt there were people intimately involved with the insurrection who are paid in rubles. Singling out a well-known cameraman as “proof” just makes one look foolish.
Yes, he filmed the destruction of the Donetsk airport. And if he ever goes back there, the people responsible for that will likely kill him.
Suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, for that reason and many others, I don’t think 100% work from home is likely or desirable for most. The companies that are looking at it are the ones with the most expensive physical offices. Most companies are not gonna go that route.
Ken
Toll bridge. “Just until the new bridge is paid for” is the usual way to sell it, then the steady income becomes so useful to the politicians that it never goes away. Then you can fiddle the price of the tolls and light transit tickets to push to whatever balance you prefer.
Immanentize
@trollhattan: Yeah, he picked them up to give to an officer…. You know they have non stop video of the guy as he took every step in the building.
He is actually not the ziptie guy I worry about — it’s the young fit one vaulting a railing in the chamber that I want to see arrested. Pronto!
PJ
@PJ: I should add that our politicians and officials refuse to deal with these problems because a substantial part of our population does not think that they are problems or doesn’t want to face the political consequences of the solution. Losing a few dozen students every year is preferable to taking guns away from lunatics.
germy
@raven:
Surely his parents were jazz music fans, giving him that first name.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
I kinda miss former colleagues, but I don’t miss the office politics or the long commute. I have also found that there is a growing niche of remote workers who have rarely been regular office workers. They have found ways to build online social communities, kinda like has happened with Balloon Juice.
And even at one of my previous employers I never visited the home office, but would mainly communicate with people via email and teleconference.
But yeah I don’t think that physical offices are going away. But the complement to the home office may evolve in many exciting and creative ways.
Immanentize
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m worried Honore might be a bit of a drunk. I’ve seen some videos/zoom interviews of him in which he seemed pretty toasted.
Gin & Tonic
@laura: Legit question, not looking for a fight, but what’s a solution to the public pension funding problem in a city like Central Falls?
Leto
@Immanentize: this looks like a lot of Federal buildings.
Kelly
When I worked in downtown Portland I had several colleagues that more or less said all of us on the high tax side of the river were fools. Also overheard discussions of how to get high dollar purchases from sales tax free Oregon to high sales tax/no income tax Washington. Also whining about paying Oregon income tax when they only worked there.
Feathers
@Suzanne: American companies are also designed for extroverts to succeed and be happy. How that superiority will be maintained when everyone is working remotely, I don’t know. I almost added mediocre in there, but I didn’t want to sound bitter.
What I’m really curious about is how will home design change. Already people are finding that their open floor plans are a nightmare. Someone at HGTV admitted that all their shows turn every home into an open floor plan just so that they can show the demolition and wall smashing, which are men’s favorite part of the show. So much of American suburbia is designed for families with small children and works for no one else, including families with teenagers. My ex used to build home theaters, my guess is that a lot of those people are shifting over to building soundproofed telework rooms. Or re-rigging the home theater so it is dual use as a home office.
Ruckus
@Tim C.:
None of that changed the people, it only allowed them to see that others were as stupid as them. Humans haven’t changed, they’ve just been able to band together in larger groups of like minded morons. The modern world isn’t different in it’s humanity or lack thereof, it’s different in the size and organization of it’s tribes.
There have always been tribes/gangs/groups/herds/whatever of all animals. Just like there have always been some loners. We just see them better, and they just have an easier time of gathering in place – be it in reality or in cyber space. And in seeing those we want to gather with or stop from gathering, before – during – and after they do. 20 yrs ago how many had cell phones? Now? Computers/internet? We are on a blog that goes around the world, it’s possible there are people reading this from most every continent, even if it’s only one or a very few in some. Life is no longer tiny, you can find your group/gang no matter where you live.
Immanentize
@laura: That’s why Raimondo is not at Labor, but my Boston brother, Mahty Wahsh is. Commerce is a very weird department. It both is in charge of promoting trade but also responsible for regulating it. It has lots of odds and ends under it, including the thing everyone leaves out of articles, the census. It has a lot of International extraterritorial jurisdiction responsibilities. It is a BIG and diverse department where the subs will be as important as the Secretary.
Suzanne
@Brachiator: A now-former colleague of mine just left my company to work for another, but he will be doing a mix of work-from-home with a trip in to the office (two hours away, overnight stay) every other week or so. He gets to keep his big spread in Erie but work for a bigger company in Cleveland. I think this kind of thing will be much more common.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Leto: Oh, Megs won’t get banned, but she’ll spend the next two weeks shrieking at Joy Behar that she’s being persecuted, and Whoopi will suck on her THC gummy bears and what for the director to tell her it’s time to call for a commercial
I don’t watch it but I gather this is 90% of The View
cain
@Kent:
That’s great to hear – on the Oregon side, we were pretty rage’y given that we had spent 14 million dollars and nothing to show for it. If such a thing were to happen again, I think Oregon will expect that WA will be a much more equitable partner given the amount of tax dollars that were spent.
But it seems like in the end the silver lining was a lot less freeway – and more public transport. I think I’m very happy about that. We just can’t keep expanding roads. It just causes more traffic, noise, and land grabbing in poor neighborhoods who can’t fight for themselves. (although I suspect things are a lot more sensitive with BLM)
Ken
Balloon Juice 2021 goal: Make sure someone in Antarctica has read the blog. I’m pretty sure the rest of the continents are covered.
Raven
@germy: Yea and he can pound the boards!
cain
@Ken:
Then they won’t mind the govt slapping an official label on them saying exactly that. Leverage the court cases and force them to put a chyron saying “entertainment purposes only, not accurate” –
We need to force these people to say what is and isn’t true when they blabber. Label that free speech they love so much and tell us what the ingredients are.
Suzanne
@Feathers: I have had the same thoughts about home design. American homes have grown dramatically since 1945. Formal living and dining spaces have gone away. The open-plan stuff, which I hate, really does make you feel less cooped up, but it’s noisy and messy AF. Most people don’t have enough space in their home for a dedicated home office, but they can hire an architect and have one built. :)
We’ll see how things change. Home prices are continuing to climb as a percentage of median income, but this can’t continue forever.
cain
@Suzanne:
I hear Lincoln, NE is the new bohemian bubble for the artsy type.
Leto
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I saw a piece about how Megs came back from maternity leave and the show basically went back to instant shit. Things were fine, she’s back for 5 mins and the entire set is on fire. Basically like the last season of Archer but IRL.
Kent
My upscale Camas neighborhood is full of people who moved here to avoid income taxes but keep the OR plates on their cars to avoid paying WA sales and car tab taxes. When I walk the dog I snap their plates with my iPhone and turn them into the state which has a web site just for that purpose. https://www.wsp.wa.gov/crime/report-something/license-fraud/ I’m always exploring new dog walking routes to find new tax cheats. My wife and I both live and work on the WA side of the river so it makes sense for us to live here. Only time we really go into OR is for music, Powell’s or to find vegan restaurants.
cain
@Kelly:
Oh yeah, we didn’t care much about these WA tax sheltering folks who whine about OR taxes while not paying any in WA and having tax free shopping.
But you know, they rather not pay anything but still want to enjoy the joys of living in a metro area.
Immanentize
Just a thought from something mentioned upthread. The whole of the District of Columbia “federal” area was designed specifically to thwart insurrection. No french revolution for the City planners! The mall is to muster troops, the wide avenues are for clear cannon and musket fire (no barricades) and the circles are for rotating cannon with clear firing lines.
Even the city’s historic architectural purpose was foiled.
Kelly
@cain: I’m not an engineer but when the bridge debate was going on I read a fascinating article about a tunnel instead of a bridge. I5 is close enough to PDX to limit the max height of the bridge. Ship traffic on the Columbia creates a min height if they eliminate a lift span. They really want to eliminate the lift span because it can be such a bottleneck. Much of the article was about tunnels in Norway which they preferred to icy bridges in the winter.
Immanentize
@Leto: It ends up being really the best on campus in a hurricane. Which means party time for college kids.
Baud
@Ruckus:
The sun never sets on the BJ Empire.
CarolDuhart2
@Haroldo: The train may be easier to guard than other means. The track and train can be watched and secured. Only the people who are part of security and the Bidens are on the track. And the route can be secured unlike a network of expressway exits and lanes.
Kent
@Kelly: That was analyzed, but as I recall, it was going to double the cost and be problematic for access into downtown Vancouver which is right along the river. They are starting the process all over again so I’m sure it will come up.
I’d like to see a low transit/bike/pedestrian bridge that can be a drawbridge so it doesn’t have to be so high to walk/bike over with separate flyover car/truck bridges that don’t close every time some yachtie with a tall sailboat wants to go up the Columbia. But I’m not in charge.
Leto
@Immanentize: you’re basically describing the Maginot Line.
Immanentize
@Leto: a bit different as the city layout was not stationary and goes all around the capital and white house. But I guess they did just sneak behind the design by mustering themselves on the mall.
I should write a piece for medium….
Kent
So, watching the NFL playoffs right now and I’m finding that I’m calibrating my rooting interest to my politics which I didn’t used to do anymore.
Right now Buffalo is playing Indianapolis. Buffalo is a blue city in a blue state. Indy is a redder city in a MAGA state. So I root for Buffalo. On Tuesday it is Alabama vs Ohio State. Both Red states but Alabama is way more MAGA than Columbus OH so I root for Ohio State.
I used to not be that way. As a Northwesterner I used to root against ANY teams from CA. Especially hated USC and Stanford and the Rams, Dodgers, Angels, Raiders, etc. Now I’m starting to root for CA teams when they play any MAGA states.
I fucking hate that Trump and MAGA land did that to me.
germy
I wonder what she’s up to lately.
boatboy_srq
@Kent: Speaking of cockroaches dispersing, it’s very telling that these QAnon Reichwingnuts think they can waltz into the Capitol, fvck sh!t up, and then bounce right back out to the airport and board a plane like they’ve just visited the Smithsonian or something with no consequence whatever.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Kent: California’s not so bad
(but I’m not a sports guy)
Uncle Cosmo
@Haroldo: Same here. That’s 100 miles of at-grade travel and every frackin’ inch of it is going to have to be examined and cleared of anything that might cause a derailment at speed. And they’ll need a tight security perimeter at least a few hundred yards to either side of the tracks to keep out any whackjob with a scoped rifle, let alone an RPG.
(Not to mention that the MD counties of Cecil and Harford, through which the track runs for ~20 miles, are home to some of the hardest-core RWNJs this side of Westbygodvirginia.)
Joe should fly in. Maybe by helicopter in a flight of 6-8 with air cover above. Even jet to Andrews & then chopper into town, clumsy as that sounds, would involve fewer protective assets and avoid a lot of places where things could go pear-shaped.
Kelly
At a party in the 1980’s I listened to an exasperated highway engineer explain why the problem with Portland freeways was too much access. As I recall engineers have known since the Germans built autobahns in1930’s that interchanges had to be a long way apart for freeways to flow. He figured Portland needed to close 75%of the interchanges for the freeways to flow. He also recounted losing arguments with county commissioners, city counselors and legislators that went ahead and built even more interchanges.
Feathers
@Ken: @Kent: The police for the DC subway system go to the police academy three times, DC, Maryland and Virginia. They take three exams and are fully sworn officers in all three jurisdictions. As someone with family in DMV (DC/Maryland/Virginia), there is both a huge and effective interoperability, combine with an equal amount of petty bullshit and turf squabbling. Interesting note. I know a guy who now works for a DMV police force. He would have never been eligible for any law enforcement job had he not been the (white) beneficiary of a petty turf fight between two cops when he did something incredibly stupid as a teen to impress a girl. Basically, one cop wanted to arrest him, but the other said, no this is my turf, I get to arrest him. When cop #1 agreed to this, cop #2 let him go. Officer X now works for police force #1. Good times all around.
I remember talking with someone from Europe who was astonished by all the jurisdictional bullshit we put up with. Especially between the armed forces. He had done a stint in his army and said that if anyone had ever pulled the sort of gumming up the works he’d seen here, there would have been hell to pay.
I think the US has gotten away with a lot of this sort of inefficiencies for a long time, but with a globalized world it just isn’t working, and has become very obvious. As inequality rises, we are seeing who the landed gentry (small(ish) local businesses and real estate owners) really are. They are the ones who stormed the Capitol and behind Trumpism. One of the reasons there were so many cops there is that they could afford to. Cops need to be on the same pay scale as teachers, and we need to figure out how to configure our forces so that the insane overtime payment isn’t there.
Just Chuck
@Kelly: Washingtonians are also coming to OR in droves to buy legal weed. The prices at the state-owned pot shops in WA are ludicrous, and OR is undercutting them by huge margins.
Feathers
@laura: Laura, I am completely on your side, but also see that a system where government employees are the only working people with a secure retirement is not sustainable. The unions need to realize this. Saying that we deserve a comfortable retirement to the vast majority of people who have worked their entire life only to end up with nothing is not a good look
ETA: And Rhode Island is insanely corrupt. How to thread the needle on keeping the unions and pensions and getting rid of the crooks ain’t easy, but I’m going to not be as hard on an anti-government unions person from Rhode Island as elsewhere. Something else we need to find a solution to.
Haroldo
@CarolDuhart2:
I’m not as sanguine as you. Granted, I’m not crazy about any means of Biden transport these days, but train tracks seem to me a severe constraint on the route itself.
Looking at a map I think I’d argue for air transport, but I don’t know if armored military helicopters can be provided to a president-elect.
ETA: Uncle Cosmo at 310 is of like mind. (Note to self: read all the comments,)
Matt McIrvin
@Tim C.: Most of the basic elements of QAnon were around 100 years ago: it’s bits of “white slavery” and the blood libel, “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and witch panics all rolled together on a new medium, and that none of it makes any fucking sense actually makes it stronger because arguing against it is like trying to nail jelly to the wall.
Calouste
Two Seattle police officers have been placed on administrative leave because it was reported that they were near the Capitol riot on Wednesday, and will be terminated if it’s clear they have actually been involved. Doesn’t surprise me in the least that SSPD officers are involved.
NotMax
@CarolDuhart2
Joseph, there are times when optics are short-sighted.
This is one of them.
Kent
So where does one go to buy weed in Portland? Any best shops to recommend? There are a bunch of weed shops scattered around Vancouver. I didn’t know they were state owned. But I don’t really pay that much attention. But I might like to pick up a couple of pre-rolled joints from time to time. I’m not into all the new creative products.
Another Scott
(via DevinCow)
Cheers,
Scott.
Kent
Yep, don’t they all live in places like Federal Way and Lynwood and commute into the “liberal cesspool” to beat on the libs?
Kent
I had a really great time visiting LA this summer during covid and the fires to do college visits with my daughter. We really liked Occidental, which is in a very cool part of LA. She didn’t like Pomona at all though, way too southern country-club feeling out there on the edge of the desert. Said it reminded her too much of Plano TX.
mayim
@Suzanne:
The issue of building design ~ access vs. security ~ is huge in the library world. Our whole model for functioning is that everyone is welcome.
But librarians are also mostly realists and know that not everyone who walks through our doors is sane and well-meaning.
The library I work at shares a parking lot with a major political/government building, complete with frequent protesters ~ who often use our building lobby washrooms because entrance to the building they are protesting at has controlled access. We’ve got a fair number of security measures in place but it’s still a somewhat worrisome situation, especially on protest days.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Another Scott: They really are idiots, aren’t they?
Brachiator
@cain:
Great parents! I had an audio cassette of the original cast album. Great songs and wonderful performances. Played the cassette to death, but never got a chance to see a stage performance.
Feathers
@Suzanne: I knew a design student who wanted to write about how our age of anxious, helicopter parenting was made worse by open floor home design. Basically, the idea was that by creating an environment of constant surveillance of children within the home far past the age where it was needed, the necessary emotional separation of parent and child as the child grew was disrupted. Don’t know if she went on to work on this or another topic.
I am also creeped out by the McMansions with enormous master suites (I know they are called primary bedrooms now, but this just seems the right term) and teeny tiny children’s bedrooms, barely larger than mom’s closet.
I worked at an open plan workplace where they put in freestanding soundproofed “phone booths” for people to make calls. Will not be surprised to see those being sold soon. Any bets on one being in the next IKEA catalog?
Gin & Tonic
@Feathers:
Curious: do you live here, or is this just something “everybody knows?”
citizen dave (aka mad citizen)
@Kent: Indy is not a red city (says someone watching the game and in a city adjacent to Indy). Indy had several R mayors, although the last one was a worldly ex-military guy. Currently a D mayor. City Council was fairly split but the Dems have the majority now. Congressman is Dem. Even my city was 49-48 for Biden.
Indy is purple I guess, but in the red/blue scheme that county is one of the 5-6 blue ones in Indiana.
Go Colts
But I get your rooting rules for sure. I don’t spend money and go to Colts games. In normal times, a lot of their fans in the stands are the mouthbreathers from MAGA-land, so I get it.
Kent
@Feathers: As a parent of teens, I can report that the open floor plans are the WORST fucking design possible when you have teenagers. We had one of those in TX and every time my daughter had friends over I was basically driven out of my living room because the space was all open and the kids really had no place go hang. Our new home in WA is more old school with a separate family room area with doors that close. Life saver when the teens have friends over and want to pay video games and such.
Chief Oshkosh
@Leto: Holy moly! The dude backed away from the protestors, drove around the block so that he had a better shot at them, turned off his lights, then ran right through them, hitting several and dragging one. HOW THE FUCK IS THAT NOT PREMEDITATED?
Goddam, I’ve known a lot of DAs, and sadly with the exception of ONE, they are racists as shit. This one is Iowa seems to be keeping the tradition going. And the fucking judge. I’d say “unbelievable,” except it’s not.
Kent
Well, OK, but the Colts basically market themselves as the STATE team of Indiana while the Bills have no such pretensions. So there’s that. I don’t know Indiana, but I expect you will find Colts stuff in every bar in every MAGA small town in Indiana. So I’m guessing that the Buffalo fan base is maybe more blue. But maybe that isn’t the case
As a Seahawks fan, I don’t really care about either of these teams, I just need to find some rooting angle.
And I don’t care how blue Dallas (or TX) gets, I ain’t rooting for the Cowboys.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
Totally makes sense. But some people assume that we will just get back to normal soon, or want to do so despite the pandemic. But limits on occupancy may continue, which allows for social distancing. This still makes space expensive, as you note, but it may be where we are headed.
And you are right about some people moving to smaller cities. They are seeing this hear in California as people move from San Francisco to Sacramento or smaller communities in Napa.
A wild outlier is the daughter of a friend. She is a private school teacher doing classes in California via Zoom while tending to property she owns in Pittsburgh. She’s been doing this for the past three months.
louc
@Another Scott: I just got back home from walking that 7-foot perimeter fence. Usually you can walk the sidewalks just outside the Capitol. No longer. And they’re fencing the Supreme Court as well. It’s the same fencing Trump put up around the White House during the BLM protests.
National Guard soldiers were sporadically stationed along the fencing.
Before then, they’ve had barricade fencing up, mostly open to the public, especially on the east side of the Capitol. The west side has been fenced off since October as they build the scaffolding for Inauguration.
You can see plywood covering some of the windows, presumably ones broken by the insurrectionists.
evodevo
@Kent: A bolt-cutter would probably have made short work of them…
Another Scott
@randy khan: Yup.
I remember thinking that I could take the Metro to L’Enfant Plaza and wander around toward the Capitol in January 1993 to see Clinton’s inauguration. Not get anywhere close, of course, since I didn’t have a ticket, but at least see some of it.
Nope.
Every possible sight line was blocked by something – buildings, trees, barriers, something.
I think I would have had to walk nearly down to the Washington Monument, or even farther west, just to cross to the north side of the Mall.
It was disappointing, but understandable.
I imagine it’s even worse now.
Cheers,
Scott.
Feathers
@Gin & Tonic: I live in Mass and worked for a civil engineering firm which built municipal projects. The common knowledge was that Massachusetts had real problems because projects were supervised by towns too small to be able to count on having people who knew how to run large projects. In New Hampshire everyone seemed nice, but always turned out to be completely crazy. Rhode Island was tempting to work for, but there would inevitably be problems with corruption. Some of it just being that everything was so insular, with personal ties ruling all. There was some discussion at the time of whether to bother bidding on Rhode Island projects.
All this is being said knowing how awful Mass can be. I remember the horrificness of the Big Dig and the bullshit that went down there. Heard about so much, two decades later no longer remember the details.
Another Scott
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: There’s more to it.
Bowser had requested – well before January 1 – that unarmed National Guard forces be on duty for the count (to direct traffic, etc.). The DoD dithered. Now part of that dithering may have made sense, because there supposedly was the concern that Donnie would have control of them and they didn’t want to give him forces that he could use to support any insurrection. Once Gov Northam pulled the trigger and sent over VA State Police and National Guard, then Gov Hogan did the same a while later, then it was “safe” for the DoD to finally activate (or whatever the term is) the DC National Guard.
Maybe? Dunno.
In short, it’s complicated. We’re not going to know what really happened with the law enforcement response for a while, and it’s likely to be more complicated than we think we know at the moment.
Cheers,
Scott.
Feathers
@Brachiator: I know people in small cities who are furious at how the gentrification. Someone in Portland, ME pointing out that there are no longer restaurants in the city for locals to eat at. Everything is priced and menu-ed for the summer crowd and ex-pats.
We really need to bring the minimum wage way up. If rent control has become impossible, pegging the local minimum wage to housing costs may have to be the solution. The American homesteader fantasy is not compatible with cities and a growing population.
Truly hoping Biden brings the nationwide broadband rollout we were promised (and have been paying our internet/cable companies for for decades).
Just Chuck
@Kent:
Heck if I know, I live in Colorado and have a friend in Portland. I could ask him, but ultimately I’d just check ads and go for the best deals. In some states, pot shops have specials for first-time customers, so if that’s the case, then the best answer is “All of them, Katie!”
Another Scott
@Feathers: “Yes, we’re going to take down this wall in the center of the house to have that beautiful Open Concept that we’re aiming for…
[ destruction noises ]
“Oh my!! Look at all that electrical and plumbing and HVAC ductwork!!1 And the joists change direction over this wall!!11 Whatever will we do!!?!!
[ 10 minute commercial break ]
“Let’s look on these architectural drawings that we just happen to have and figure out how we move everything and support the structure…”
:-/
Do they really think that we would accept that they wouldn’t have looked in the basement and at the floor above to figure out where are the utilities were before they start smashing everything??!
[ sigh ]
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Leto
@Another Scott: bit late to this reply but probably? I don’t really care as Hillary Farr designs amazing kitchens :) With “Love or List It” it comes closer to your preferred example: she (Hillary) lists out what she wants to do, the foreman goes back to consult with the architects, then comes back and says if it’s possible. If so: green light! If not: she works around that to still accomplish her vision. Not going to say there’s not some tv razzle dazzle involved but seems less?
citizen dave (aka mad citizen)
@Kent: The Colts did bring out a new “C” logo this year with an outline of the state inside of it, so yes they do market around the state I guess. There is a dividing line NW where Bears territory starts.
I’m a fair weather low interest fan for sure–follow and like the NBA and Pacers more.
I find random things to root for–I like the bright green highlights on the Seahawks unis. I like that the Rams got rid of the godawful gold and went back to yellow, but not sure they nailed yet. A good effort, though
ETA: The last few weeks the Colts have been playing a commercial featuring the owner (Jim Irsay) talking about their cause of help for addiction–removing the stigma of asking for help, with R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” playing in the background. It’s a very progressive ad for these parts. Irsay was clearly in his own addition spiral about 3 years–there was a public episode.
Another Scott
@Leto: I like Hillary and LioLi too. But, yeah, it’s TV. I remember one episode with her sitting in her car talking on her cell phone. One shot shows the Apple logo. Next shot shows it covered up. Next shot shows the Apple logo again… ;-)
It’s not as unrealistic as that Extreme Makeover Home Edition (or whatever it’s called), where 100 contractors and trades people swoop down on a family home and rebuilt everything in 48 hours or something. Um, measurements?? Permits?? Actually having all the stuff needed in stock??!
Home Town is pretty good, too, but also has issues. HT and Good Bones seem to be trying to push kitchens away from everything white and subway tiles. I guess that’s good, but it worries me a little because we’re (eventually!!) going to redo our kitchen and I can imagine finally deciding on a style only to discover that it’s somehow horribly dated 5-10 years later if we decide to sell… :-/ How will Hillary compete??!
[/first-world-problems]
Cheers,
Scott.