ram it through and run on it. it is the least complicated calculation since the united states decided to maybe defeat the axis powers if we had a minute or two to spare.
ram it through, run on it, and let them own opposition to it. this advice is good and free, by the way. https://t.co/fIl0lJfvjy
— Peloton InfoSec Analyst (Incident Response) (@CalmSporting) February 10, 2021
Music to Biden's ears, from Fed Chair Powell today:
Returning to maximum employment “will require a society-wide commitment, with contributions from across government and the private sector… benefits of investing in our nation’s workforce are immense.”https://t.co/OgGFyrdJi9
— Saleha Mohsin (@SalehaMohsin) February 10, 2021
Although the former occupant of the Oval Office did his best to degrade the honor, Eugene Goodman should be given a Medal of Freedom as soon as the proper ceremony can be arranged:
This is very likely a video of Eugene Goodman saving @MittRomney's life. https://t.co/fAeNI9gZbE
— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) February 10, 2021
… Goodman, who was named the new acting deputy Senate sergeant-at-arms on Inauguration Day, was in the Senate Chamber Wednesday as House impeachment managers laid out their case over several hours of tense arguments. The managers played several clips of previously unreleased security footage inside the Capitol on the day of the siege, including a video of Vice President Mike Pence being evacuated and scenes of what police officers endured as the mob overtook the building.
As the managers played the footage of Romney and Goodman, the senator could be seen “blinking rapidly” and “watching intently,” according to a pool report. Goodman stood by a doorway in a navy suit, pink necktie and black mask with a blue stripe as the it played…
Blue Lives Matter mask is quite the choice https://t.co/UD8dxoKtDb
— Mister Jay Em (@MisterJayEm) February 11, 2021
“10-33 is the police emergency code: Need immediate assistance.”
Can we please not ignore that Brian Sicknick WAS killed because of Trump? “Almost killed” is awful but a cop is literally dead because of that man. https://t.co/GXJ4KgZfNt
— jokelley (@jokelley) February 10, 2021
AxelFoley
First!
debbie
Any chance the managers will bring up information about the Trump campaign’s financing of the rally/riot through shell companies?
Low Key Swagger
Good morning. Helluva presentation yesterday.
debbie
I’m curious what people who understand physics and firearms think of this statement from the county sheriff after the results of an autopsy were released:
Seriously, is this even a possibility? A shot in the back may not always be a shot in the back?
Baud
Hmmm.
I didn’t click. Is it as bad as it sounds.
mali muso
More snow last night…not enough to play in, just enough to make the roads dangerous. Yay
I haven’t been able to get into the right mental/emotional place to watch any of the impeachment proceedings. Still just starting to be able to sleep through the night after four years. But I do appreciate the roundups, summaries and commentary here!
OzarkHillbilly
@Low Key Swagger: For whatever good it will do. Not that it isn’t important, it is always important to put markers on history, I just wonder how many people* will be swayed by it. Some I guess, hopefully enough to make a difference come ’22 and ’24.
*i say people, not senators
NotMax
To be perfectly blunt. no thank you.
:)
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: A shot in the back is always a shot in the back, but that fact alone does not tell the whole story. Angle of entry makes a difference. Relationship to other wounds may also.
Like so much in forensics, an autopsy is not always as definitive as people think and open to interpretation.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
Ummmm, because it does work elsewhere? How’s about that? Or is the USA the be all of the world?
I don’t blame you for not clicking on it.
Low Key Swagger
@OzarkHillbilly: Which might just be the most important part of these proceedings. Disqualifying T*** from holding office, codifying, if you will, his guilt is the preferred outcome of course, but I’m squarely in the camp that does not believe he is ever again electable. He has other legal proceedings ahead that have far more penalty attached, and that is where i want to see a guilty verdict.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Hey now, I’d be knockout in those. People would be dropping like flies all around me.
NotMax
Expect the numbers from Wednesday will end up seeing a jump.
Found on the same site. FYI.
Amir Khalid
It is the eve of the lunar new year (Chinese New Year, we call it here). Some idiot scofflaw in the neighbourhood just set off his firecrackers. It sounded like a gunfight, as always.
Hoodie
@OzarkHillbilly: Didn’t read the piece so don’t know if the argument holds any water. Does seem that socialism or progressivism generally works better in places with crappy weather.
John S.
@Baud: Yes. SATSQ.
OzarkHillbilly
It is the reason for this. We all know the GQP is too craven to convict, but there should be a price attached to their cowardice. The DEMs in Congress are trying to make that price as steep as they can and I hope they are very successful at it. I know they aren’t going to change many opinions out here though.
Betty Cracker
Any bets on Republicans who will vote to convict, if any? We can probably assume that all who voted that the trial is unconstitutional will use that tattered fig leaf to acquit. That leaves six possible Rep senators: Cassidy, Collins, Murkowski, Romney, Sasse and Toomey.
My guess is Romney and Murkowski will vote to convict, and possibly even Collins, depending on which way the wind is blowing that day. The rest will say that while what Trump did was reckless and regrettable it did not meet the incitement standard and tout their vote to hear the case as a signal of how mavericky they are.
If they could hold the vote in secret, Trump would be convicted overwhelmingly. But Republicans have a collective action problem.
JAFD
Greetings from New Jersey, fellow jackals !
A week from today, I shall be readying to head out for Jab #2
Thirty-seven days away is the spring equinox
I am hibernating. Almost literally. At some point in near future must Get Out And Do Stuf (like, buy food…), but most plans are waiting on immunity and warm weather. So think I’ll take a morning nap.
Stay healthy, happy and hydrated, everyone.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Ooh, mental note made to swing by the Post Office. The Chinese New Year stamps are often quite pretty.
Although under DeJoy post office branches may not receive them to sell until July.
OzarkHillbilly
And without Republicans.
Matt McIrvin
The talk of “progressivism not working” and of over-spending reminds me of something I saw via Carlos Yu on Twitter last week–an explanation of the great 1970s stagflation that I hadn’t heard before:
https://voxeu.org/article/what-really-drives-inflation
Apparently, until the very end of the 70s, a legal limit called Regulation Q put an artificial ceiling on the interest that banks could offer to ordinary folks in savings accounts. For most of the 20th century, the ceiling was set high enough that this wasn’t a problem. But from about 1965 to 1978, it was effectively low enough that the Fed could set their interest rates as high as they wanted and it still wouldn’t create any incentive for ordinary people to save money.
So there was an inflationary spiral in which inflation meant that putting your money in the bank was just pissing it away, which meant the best people could do was to spend it, which drove inflation higher, even though their finances were being stressed by the spending. Meanwhile, the high Fed rates meant that wealthy investors were socking their money away, causing stagnation.
What changed it was that the Regulation Q limit was finally lifted, so that suddenly the high interest rates were things that ordinary people could take advantage of: the Fed rate was effectively transmitted to households. I remember those days in the early 80s, when you could make serious money putting your cash in simple financial instruments at the bank. I had no idea that they were made possible by a recent regulatory change. There was a wicked recession in Reagan’s first term but on the other side of it, the high inflation had been killed.
What this implies (if it’s the correct explanation) is that the specter of Carter-era inflation coming back is an unlikely one unless we do something similarly stupid.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Inconceivable!
John S.
@Betty Cracker: Romney is the only one that seems a lock. Especially after watching the footage yesterday of how close he came to death. Murkowski and Sasse are extremely likely. The other 3 are likely, but we should all know better than to count on Concerned Collins.
After Lee’s little poutrage political theater last night, I don’t think Republicans who will vote to convict reaches double digits.
NotMax
@Baud
About all OPEC can overnight quadruple the price of today is sand.
//
satby
@JAFD: Thirty seven days away feels like forever. It’s been cold and snowy here every day for more than a week, and it’s going to continue all the way to next Tuesday. Good ya got the first dose in! Keep well JAFD!
Nelle
@Matt McIrvin: We didn’t have much income, but had already been frugal so put our savings into a T bill at 20% interest.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
The impeachment managers have been doing a magnificent job. They are building an exhaustive, irrefutable, and compelling case for convicting Trump. Those millions of Americans now following the case are going to come away expecting Trump to be convicted. If Senate Republicans refuse to vote for conviction, aren’t people going to be outraged? Won’t the party look bad?
Chyron HR
@Matt McIrvin:
Wait, I thought that was the one that says Trump will become President of the Corporation of America on March 32.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
satby
Yes, and yes. But Senate Republicans don’t care, because their voters are unhinged gun nuts, and they’re afraid of them.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Yup. For daytime programming, those numbers are salutary.
Geminid
@debbie: Democratic impeachment investigators may not have time to develop hard information concerning shell companies financing the insurrection and their connections. Federal prosecutors and grand juries will have the time and resources to expose these facts, though. And those activities that are not indictable can still be laid bare by journalists, not to mention Congressional hearings. The impeachment trial may not achieve the desired result, but the broader efforts to bring bad actors to justice are just beginning, and they will be thorough, I think.
O. Felix Culpa
No jab in sight for me for a good long time, but 30 days until I’m no longer county party chair! Yay! (Sets off dog-friendly fireworks and other signs of jubilation.)
raven
@O. Felix Culpa: I got #2 yesterday. I feel a little punky but nothing serious.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Betty Cracker
My husband and I were discussing the Senate trial yesterday, and we were both pleased by how the House impeachment managers emphasized the Big Lie about the stolen election. The 1/6 violence flowed from that lie, and it’s just as relevant today because millions of dopes still believe it and the worst Trumpy pols are still pushing it.
The House impeachment team has made reference to how the insurrection damaged America’s image abroad a few times, but it hasn’t been a major theme so far. Maybe it should be and will be. There’s some polling data that indicates one of the things non-Dems disliked most about Trump is how he beclowned the U.S. abroad.
Also, that argument might appeal to the more neoconnish Reps, not just in the Senate but among voters, who like to lecture other countries about how they run THEIR democracies. For example, it was more than a bit awkward for the U.S. to call out the Myanmar military coup when a month ago our president fomented an insurrection to cling to power. We lost standing due to Trump.
rikyrah
@JAFD:
Yeah for the second jab????
rikyrah
@raven:
Yeah ????
rikyrah
@Geminid:
Which is why we need a fully functioning Justice Dept.
O. Felix Culpa
@raven: Congratulations! I’m glad that the side effects are minimal.
NotMax
Crossed the mind as to whether Dolt 45’s minions were in contact with Liberty U. to recommend graduates of their law program and were told to take a hike.
// :)
trnc
@Betty Cracker:
In a just world, the consequence for forcing a vote on the constitutionality of the trial and then losing that vote would take that reason off the table, but obviously, they don’t have to give any reason at all.
When it comes right down to it, they’ll choose whichever reason they think will piss off the libs more – either no reason, or the unconstitutionality.
O. Felix Culpa
@trnc: In this instance, I think the GQP Senate nay votes will be less to piss off the libs than to appease their rabid base.
trnc
@Geminid:
Which is probably why Graham is so desperate to block any AG nominee.
rikyrah
@mali muso:
The ???? through the night ?
I want it back on a consistent basis.
I don’t think it’s coming for me until I get vaccinated. I got an appointment for March 4, but hoping to find an earlier one now that the Governor has expanded the vaccination pool categories.
Immanentize
@raven: I have a favor to ask of you. Can you please send me a link to that excellent dying pup cartoon? I have a student — older, was in the navy for 20 before he went back to school. His pup just died and the next day he was diagnosed with Covid (his wife is in health care). He is doing OK, but feeling kinda low (and he can’t smell or taste anything). The cartoon will help.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
One of the cruxes of the problem is that (bald-faced guesstimate) 60% of Americans cannot differentiate an impeachment trial from a criminal trial.
rikyrah
This is true ??
Amir Khalid
@satby:
So, to avoid the wrath of unhinged Trumpist gun nuts, they are willing to discredit themselves and their party in everyone else’s eyes. I’m not sure I see the point in surviving their primaries by handicapping themselves like that for the election proper.
Immanentize
@trnc: They DOJ doesn’t need a confirmed AG to do that investigation. It is already well under way.
Betty Cracker
@trnc: & @O. Felix Culpa: Agree they’ll acquit to appease the rabid base, but those who represent states that aren’t Alabama also have to walk a fine line to avoid upsetting Republican voters who are pissed off about the insurrection. They do exist, even though the kooks have mostly taken over. Even Hawley claims he was fucking with the peaceful transfer of power to represent his voters who are concerned about election fraud; he’s not alleging massive fraud himself. Most Republican senators seem to be wary of outright embracing the Big Lie.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Logic is not their strong point. Would be lucky to find employment as assistant telephone sanitizers on Vulcan.
raven
@rikyrah: We were at a Cedric show here a few years back. We were the only white folks there and, when I went to get a snack before the show, a woman I had officiated basketball with stood up and said “MY BROTHER! and gave me a big hug! Early in he show Cedric picked us out and gave us a little ribbing and then it was on with the show!
CliosFanBoy
@NotMax: Just got them, Year of the Ox. very striking design.
trnc
@Betty Cracker:
That won’t sway any senators, but maybe you think there won’t be another time to have this many people paying attention? Even so, I fear it would distract.
germy
They do this for fun I assume? It has to be just a fun thing they enjoy.
Ken
I see the Biden relief package didn’t just break through the crazification factor, but smashed it, with around 35% of the 27% thinking it’s a good idea. I doubt that will hold for other issues, but I have seen a few recent polls that dip a few points below 27%. I blame unleaded gasoline.
TS (the original)
@Betty Cracker:
So the senators accept the truth of a valid election – but are happy to accept the view that those they represent think there is massive fraud. They are tarred with the same brush as trump – one and all.
germy
Yesterday, just about every news outlet I saw featured a breathless “Bruce Springsteen DWI!!” story. Since the citation was months ago, I was curious about the timing. This morning I saw more details:
Ken
Somehow I doubt that concern for his voters’ opinions will translate to anything else, such as their incredibly high approval of the relief bill.
Matt McIrvin
@Nelle: Yeah, it was kind of amazing! You definitely can’t get those kinds of returns now.
Matt McIrvin
@NotMax: Those oil shocks definitely didn’t help! But these people argue that that wasn’t the whole story because inflation had already started exploding during the Nixon era before the first oil crisis.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I would even bet on there being enough Republicans to convict if given 7-1 odds. I count only 5 or so possibles at this point. But Mitch McConnell is a ruthless sonofabitch, and if he decided trump was a bigger longterm threat to his party unconvicted than convicted, I could see him bringing along enough of his caucus. Four are retiring, and twenty will not face a primary until 2026. Others, like Romney and Murkowski, may not fear a primary. A conviction could start a civil war in the Republican party, except for the fact that this war has already begun, and McConnell knows it.
sanjeevs
@Matt McIrvin: Inflation was high throughout Western Europe during the sixties and seventies
Dagaetch
@Baud: I read the Ezra Klein article. It’s not his best work for sure, but it’s not terrible. Just another in a long line of “California is so liberal, why haven’t they gotten everything right already?” articles from disappointed wonks. Focused on education and housing policy, talks about structural impediments and NIMBYism, etc. Not worth getting annoyed by, instantly forgettable and will have no impact on any conversation anywhere.
germy
Soprano2
I have a comment for the thread John posted overnight, but I’m going to put it here since that thread is pretty much dead. I have a co-worker who I could easily see slipping into the Trumpublican camp. She’s already about halfway there. I was talking to her the other day, and she told me she has a lot of resentment toward people who she believes are not doing what they should be doing to make money and take care of themselves. She said she has a relative who got a teaching degree, but after teaching a few years decided she didn’t like it so she quit. This relative moved in with her parents, and does odd jobs to make money. She has a kid, too. My co-worker says this person complains about not having enough money, but she doesn’t feel any sympathy for her because she quit teaching! She said to me “They’re looking for substitute teachers, why doesn’t she do that?” I said I didn’t think it was a good idea to have people who don’t want to teach doing it (I don’t think people realize that subs don’t make the kind of money regular teachers do. Here a lot of subs are hired through temp services.) She said to me “Well, I was a single mother after my husband died, and I didn’t move back in with my parents even though I could have. I managed just fine by working, why can’t she do that?” As best as I can tell, she’s resentful of anyone who takes advantage of an opportunity to be helped because she thinks everyone should just gut it up and suffer rather than take help that’s offered, because that’s the more responsible way to be and it’s what she did. (At least that’s what I got from her, I was rather confused at what she was resentful about because this person is working, not “getting welfare”). My co-worker is a nice person, always ready to help , not particularly political, but she and her husband have had a run of bad luck. Her son got in a car accident last year that injured him (not seriously, luckily) and totaled his vehicle. Then she was rear-ended by someone, which totaled her 2004 Jeep that was paid for. Another car they had broke down and was too expensive to fix. So, they went from having 4 vehicles to 1 in a month. She had a couple of deaths in her family last year, too, and I think there are other things going on that I don’t know about because they’re none of my business. They both have good jobs working for the city, so it’s not like they’re on the edge of insolvency (at least as far as I know). I think she feels like there is no one to help her with any of her problems, so why should other people get help? She told me yesterday that she’s getting more bitter about this stuff. I don’t know what to do about people like that. She also thinks the riot at the Capitol wasn’t that bad “because look at all those riots last year and all that burning down of cities and looting, no one cared about that”. This isn’t a person who watches a lot of Fox News or listens to right-wing talk radio, but she absorbs the messages that are around her. There are a lot of people out there like that, who feel like help is for everyone except them, and they resent it a lot.
Matt McIrvin
@sanjeevs: They did the international comparison too, argued that other countries that saw high inflation had similar regulations preventing interest rates from being propagated to individual households–and that the inflation was milder in countries where this wasn’t an issue.
zhena gogolia
I can’t say I’m watching every minute, but I’m puzzled by the dearth of references to Officer Sicknick’s death.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker:
This is important. I think a salient (and probably intended) effect of the impeachment trial is to put a dagger through the big lie and box GQP senators in, so they can’t get away with their cynical nihilist rhetoric. The Dems are doing a masterful job in presenting the narrative arc of what happened, how, and why, and particularly in outlining the propaganda techniques that Trump and his co-conspirators deployed.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Betty Cracker: Ima say 8 will vote for conviction. That’s a huge number for a party that has simultaneously given up on democracy and reality.
Although if more Republicans would like to vote for conviction but fear their voters, why not all band together and make it a unanimous 100-0 vote for conviction? Sorta the Ben Franklin strategy, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
O. Felix Culpa
@zhena gogolia: I’m watching/listening almost every minute and they have referred to Officer Sicknick’s death by name and indirectly numerous times.
germy
@zhena gogolia:
Sensitivity to the family? I don’t know.
They mentioned the deaths many times, but I didn’t hear them mention him directly.
germy
Okay, my viewing was interrupted a few times. I missed that.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Mr DAW keeps saying they should make it a secret ballot because then Trump would be convicted.
O. Felix Culpa
@germy: I don’t want to overstate how often they mention Officer Sicknick by name, but they have done it more than once. You’re probably right that they’re trying to be sensitive to the family and possibly also not damage testimony for any pending murder trials (has anyone been arrested for that yet?). I haven’t seen footage of the attack on Officer Sicknick. Congress is covered with cameras, so I suspect they’re deliberately holding that back for multiple reasons.
Amir Khalid
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Can they do that?
Jeffro
This is definitely their all-purpose excuse. It’s beyond-peak “both sides”.
O. Felix Culpa
@Amir Khalid: I don’t think so.
ByRookorbyCrook
I just noticed that Officer Goodman, is literally named Good Man. The writers are getting super lazy in our reality. He was like Superman on 1/6. Senate doors still open with the mob coming up the stairs? Goodman is there to lead them away. Romney in the hall about to walk into the maw of insurrection, here comes Goodman.
WhatsMyNym
Inflation was high in the 60’s and 70’s because the population boom was entering the peek time of costs – college, young adults setting out on their own, and boomers having children. A lot of big ticket items were being bought across the country, huge expansion of the suburbs, early rejuvenation of the cities by older boomers.
OzarkHillbilly
For all too many, the primary is the election proper.
guachi
@Dorothy A. Winsor: People keep saying this but I don’t think it’s true. Even if the vote were secret there would be only a handful of Republicans voting to convict.
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: actually, they can do whatever 51 senators agree to do.
Betty Cracker
@Soprano2: Wow, your coworker sounds exactly like my Trump-voting aunt, who has had a tough life in some ways and whose self-esteem seems closely tied to her ability to muddle through without help. And resiliency is a good thing — I understand that sense of pride! I just wish it weren’t expressed in resentment.
I’ve tried to get her to see that the people who are really fucking U.S. taxpayers aren’t families on welfare or people she knows who draw a disability check when they could work. It’s corporations who buy pols by the bushel for favorable tax and regulatory treatment. She acknowledges that, but it’s not as visceral to her as people who are gaming the system or mooching off relatives or whatever. Those people do exist, and I think it’s important to acknowledge that when trying to persuade someone who’s imbibed wingnut outrage themes.
In my aunt’s case, racism is definitely a factor. It was a political masterstroke for Reagan to gas on about Cadillac-driving, steak-buying welfare queens to distract the public while he and his buddies shoveled more money at plutocrats.
But anyhoo, that’s the tactic I take when talking politics with someone who seems to share your coworker’s world view. Stipulate that there’s abuse (and in my aunt’s case, emphasize that it’s mostly old white folks who benefit from social welfare spending anyway) but point out that (Republican) politicians have a vested interest in making poor to middle-class people fight over crumbs while they’re hogging the entire feast.
I wish I could say that this approach has worked, but that wouldn’t be true. It does end arguments amicably, most of the time.
Soprano2
Don’t know if anyone has posted about this, that I heard about on “Morning Edition” this morning. https://www.npr.org/2021/02/11/966498544/a-scary-survey-finding-4-in-10-republicans-say-political-violence-may-be-necessa In spite of how much of the political landscape they control, they feel that the political system is stacked against them, and that their way of life might need defending with violence. Scary stuff, but not something we on this blog didn’t already know.
Betty Cracker
@guachi: It’s unknowable, but I agree with Mr. DAW. Trump is a millstone around Republicans’ necks, and the non-true believers know that. My guess is even Lindsey Graham would vote to convict in a secret ballot. Every one of the 2024 aspirants too.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: Ah, thank you for enlightening me on senatorial prerogative. :)
On a completely other note, would it be nuts for a person who is, shall we say, gliding past middle age to go to law school? Asking for a friend.
Winston
I guess one of the smartest things I did, back in the day, was to buy all of my vinyl to CDs and all the music I liked after that, up to about 1995 so I ended up with 500 or 600 cds. Then I copied all of that to my hard drive. I own all that music and it survived to this day with no scratches, etc. So now there is an app that is included on my recent reboot that will play all of that randomly. It’s called groove music. I love it and it goes on for days and days.
OzarkHillbilly
Because then their voters will just stay home.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
Haha, you’re right about Lindsay. I think Hawley would still acquit, though.
Raoul Paste
Just do it .
Okay, I’ll go out and shovel the snow
Mike in NC
Opposed to capital punishment in general, but could get behind dusting off an electric chair to fry Fat Bastard’s worthless fascist ass.
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: Absolutely not! Law school is a great way to expand the mind and end up with a useful and remunerative set of skills. It is, ultimately, a helping profession and a law degree allows you to help people in new ways not available to non-lawyers. But, the choice of how to use it is really individual….
I visited at New Mexico Law a while back. I love it, great teachers, and it is not expensive!
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: Also, if 100% voted to convict — it would not be anonymous.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Jeffro: At that point, I say I’m putting on my mom hat now. Then I say “Jimmy from up the street may have done the same thing or other bad things. But we’re not talking Jimmy right now. We’re talking about you.”
Baud
@Immanentize:
99-1. Every republican can claim to be the one.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Most people will accept a thousand beatings from someone of a higher social status before they will tolerate a single side eye from someone they consider beneath them.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: Thank you! This friend has also looked at the cost of UNM law school and found it refreshingly affordable. Purpose of study is ill-defined, other than it sounds interesting, my friend has the time, and is inclined to non- or lesser-remunerative works such as poverty law, i.e. good deed doing. If there exists such a thing in the legal profession. ;)
karen marie
@mali muso: I listened to it on the radio (NPR) yesterday afternoon. It is indeed terrible to hear but I felt a bit better after, knowing the details of Trump’s actions, statements, and failures to fulfill his duty are being heard by millions.
Ken
@Immanentize: I doubt they’d all vote to convict even with a secret ballot, but if they made a deal to keep it secret, they could choose one senator who would pledge to vote no.
I’ve heard that in executions by firing squad they give one person a blank cartridge, so that each member can console themselves with the idea they didn’t fire the fatal shot. A 99-1 vote would be like that, as Baud said above — except they’re lying to their constituents.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: I’ve had a theory for a while that one of the reasons middle-class white Americans think poor people are just lazy is that they’re reasoning from their experience of the most perpetually broke people in their own families–who had all the same advantages they did but screwed up anyway (maybe actually for mental-health reasons, but these aren’t necessarily visible). And then they assume that everyone who’s broke is like that.
Just One More Canuck
@O. Felix Culpa: Do for it! As someone who is in a lawyer-adjacent profession, I work with too many lawyers who clearly went into law for the wrong reasons. It’s always refreshing to work with someone who actually cares about the law and is interested in it
O. Felix Culpa
@Just One More Canuck: Thanks for the encouragement! Will give myself a year of actual retirement and then may fire up the application process.
Immanentize
@Baud: If McConnell whipped it right, it could be 68-32. Lots of room for cowards to wriggle.
sab
@Immanentize: I went to law school many years ago, actually passed a bar, practiced badly for four years, and then switched to tax accounting.
The law background has been really useful in accounting. I can read and write (rare accounting skills.) I understand the hierarchy of the courts. I know a lot of terminology. ( I had an accounting colleague ask me what ” intestate” meant. She was trying to move into trust and estate tax work.
Also lawyers are funny and very bright, although very argumentative, so mostly fun to be around.
And a lot of the basics are just useful to know for living your life. Property law, contract law, UCC applies to everyone.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: So true. It doesn’t make sense from a problem-solving perspective: if you want to address the issue (your taxes are too high, the government doesn’t do enough for your community, whatever), you tackle the big impediment first. But it’s not about solving problems, I guess. If it’s a search for reasons to feel superior, THAT I can understand, at least in other contexts! ;)
Immanentize
@Ken: They do/did do that with firing squads, but everyone who fired knew whether their gun had a bullet. Blanks feel different. So, in the end, no real consolation. Ever read Executioner’s Song? It’s really quite good
OzarkHillbilly
I think that’s a false tale. I’ve never fired a blank but a 180 grain slug has to recoil more than nothing.
Redshift
For the conviction vote, I do wonder about how the retiring GOP senators will vote. There is a clear pattern in the past few years of former Republican officials being much more likely to find their spine. Still probably not enough, though.
Geminid
@O. Felix Culpa: Congresswoman Debra Haaland (NM-1) earned her law degree from the Universty of New Mexico in 2006, at age 46. She’s not a member of the New Mexico Bar, but her legal education helped her in her work as the first chairman of the Laguna Pueblo Development Corporation, and as Tribal Administrator of San Felipe Pueblo. Haaland’s legal education should also stand her in good stead as she administers the Department of the Interior, and develops policy.
Ken
@Immanentize: @OzarkHillbilly: I had suspected they’d know whether or not they had the blank, thanks for the confirmation.
I’ve heard blanks don’t work in automatics, in that they don’t provide enough thrust to work the mechanism and chamber the next round — this is a frequent error in movies and TV.
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: Law is a general studies curriculum in the first year — all students have to take a full year of required courses covering a bunch of legal territory. Then in years two and three, students start to develop specialties or interest areas. UNM has fabulous clinics for upper level students interested in social justice practice after law school.
I’m not sure if UNM requires the LSAT anymore. If not, apply now for next fall! Doooo EEEEET!
Immanentize
@sab: I tell my students that a JD is always a good additional degree for a CPA because when someone is cooking the books, or has tax trouble, whatever a person tells a CPA alone is not secret but telling a lawyer/CPA is.
germy
The hearings begin at noon today?
Skepticat
I know perfectly well it was a waste of pixels, but I emailed “my” Senator Collins. She never has paid any attention to her constituents’ wishes, but I do want her staff to put me on the vote-to-convict list. I noted that she has a seat safe for six years (damn it) and that her vote would not change the outcome, as so many jurors guilty themselves will vote for acquittal, but I urged her to vote to convict to save some tiny shred of her reputation and to avoid tarnishing Maine’s any further. She’s always liked to cast what’s seen as a contrary vote as long as it won’t actually matter, and I hope she will this time. I’ll be tremendously shocked if she does, of course.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: When I find myself agreeing with you, I always run and check my temperature. Nope, no fever today!
germy
Redshift
@Soprano2: Rick Perlstein’s great This Is Us: Why the Trump Era Ended in Violence also addresses this point.
sab
@O. Felix Culpa: I went to law school right out of college. I was very young, and barely off my leash as an adult in the world.
A lifetime of living in the world is useful experience that many young lawyers don’t have yet.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Soprano2:
I know someone like that who has gone MAGAt. She lives in a rural community and she knows people who are basically cheating the system to get disability or WIC. Relative to poor people in urban areas, the benefits are the same, even though the cost of living is a lot lower. Enforcement of cheating is basically nonexistent, because it is too expensive to police those benefits in spread out low population areas. They see these cheaters living happy stable lives while they work hard and feel like they are one disaster shy of bankruptsy and it makes them bitter. I get it. I’ve told her it isn’t like that in the cities. She should see how poor the city poor really are. It would open her eyes. Personally, I think the tax payer expense of going after cheats in rural communities is worth the faith it gives people in the system as a whole. Otherwise, they believe everyone is cheating and want to tear down all the safety nets.
narya
@Soprano2: @Betty Cracker: Say hello to my brother . . . he sees how hard he works (and he does–as a mechanic, no less), and it grinds his gears to see anyone choosing to sit back and live off of his tax dollars. Unfortunately, the people he can actually SEE doing that are getting peanuts, relatively speaking; the wealthy people who are getting much more, and getting to keep much more of what they have, simply aren’t visible to him. He’s bright, but I suspect he doesn’t read much, and, because he enjoys sport shooting, ends up spending a lot of time around gun nuts (and kinda sorta is one himself, though he has the sense to keep it to himself around my parents and me). And, of course, his own privilege is completely invisible to him, and always will be. So, really, it’s no one thing, but each of those little things piles up, so it looks like “I’m busting my ass while that person sits around getting some of my money.” I try to do what Betty does, when conversations occur. And here’s hoping that he actually gets a Covid test, and recovers (we’re pretty sure he has it). I don’t think my parents would survive burying another child.
Redshift
@Skepticat: I’m told that calling is more effective than emailing. (There are too many click-to-email campaigns, so it tends not to be counted for much.) If you don’t want to talk to people, they all have an option to leave voice mail.
sab
@Immanentize: The only problem is the initial job market. Accountanting firms think you just want to get you CPA as a credential and then go back to law because it is so much more lucrative.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Good policy. Are you sure about the temp? Maybe the thermometer is broken.
O. Felix Culpa
@sab: I am a CPA, which I did whilst gliding into middle age. I enjoyed the required business law classes and the challenge of writing briefs. Afterwards did an MBA in evening and online classes. Am now ostensibly retired and it appears that going to school is a thing I do.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: Hehe! My spouse is looking askance at me, but a law school application just might accidentally happen.
ETA: I checked and UNM does require the LSAT.
Hugh Manatee
@NotMax: Oh, come on. You mean you haven’t gained a bunch of quarantine weight??
cain
@TS (the original):
Will the fool also vote against preventing hunting unicorns if his constituents also believe strongly that hunting unicorns is a good thing despite the fact that there is no such thing as unicorns?
TomatoQueen
@O. Felix Culpa: There’s plenty folk need a lawyer and can’t afford one. There are plenty non-profit agencies who need a lawyer on their board of directors. And the National Butterfly Center can always use a friend.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
With Castor (or was it Schoen? Who cares?) whining about the Murderer-in-Chief not getting “due process,” I think the House managers should oblige them, and interview the Rethug Senators as if they were potential jurors:
Manager: “Do you believe, and will you affirm, that Joe Biden won a free and fair election, and that there was no materially-significant occurrence of the so-called “vote fraud’? ”
Rethug: “NO” or perhaps “Well, it’s not clear blah blah blah etc”
Manager: “Dismissed”
ETA: I want them to go on record about it. Either they say there was fraud, thus tainting their vote to acquit and being on record as aiding-and-abetting Trump (not that it would matter), or they admit (indirectly) that they’ve been lying about it previously.
leeleeFL
@mali muso: I watched most of Wednesday. Riveting, when you see it all together you’re not sure if screaming, vomiting or crying should come first!
ETA: I agree with Jonah Goldberg, this one time anyway. Who knows? Maybe he is growing up, finally?
Officer Goodman should be honored for his selflessness and devotion to duty.
If other Officers are also, unknown as yet, heroes, we need to honor them as well.
We nearly lost it all on the urging of a POS who should be in jail.
mrmoshpotato
@germy: Yes. The Senate reconvenes at noon today.
Nora
@sab: When I was in law school, the first year class was divided into four sections. I was lucky enough to have all the older students in my section: the people who had been professors, doctors, psychiatrists, etc. For a youngster like me, fresh out of college, it was wonderful to be around people who had that kind of perspective. We were the section that didn’t take any shit from any professors.
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid: I knew that Deb went to UNM Law, but didn’t realize that she did it in her mid-forties. She’s had quite the career trajectory! She and I are both Emerge NM grads, although she did the program quite a few years ahead of me. Did you know that 99 women who graduated from Emerge NM are in public office today? 24 in the Roundhouse. The program started here 15 years ago and has had impressive success.
ETA: Emerge is a program that trains Democratic women to run for office. It exists in many but not all states, and NM has one of the strongest programs and track records.
@TomatoQueen: Law and butterflies! I love that combination.
germy
@mrmoshpotato:
Thank you.
Last day of Democratic testimony, I assume.
And then Trump’s legal dream team take over?
germy
stinger
@O. Felix Culpa: My niece is a Virginia lawyer, mother of young children, and was just named in a newspaper story for her and her colleagues’ good deed doing. After a decade of dealing with individual complaints, they were able to cobble together enough evidence finally to get a very very bad landlord some well deserved justice.
sab
@sab: Urk. Proofread before post.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I just saw a tweet that suggests blocking Fox on the TV in every hotel room you stay in from now on.
TS (the original)
@Soprano2:
I know many people like this & my standard response is of the form:
“I’m not wealthy but I have enough money to live as I want. I feel for those who do not have this – and am happy that there is help available so they have somewhere to live & food on the table. Be thankful for what you have. You are blessed not to need help from others”
They rarely agree – but it makes them stop crying their grievances in my presence.
Omnes Omnibus
@O. Felix Culpa: There was a dude in his late 70s in my law school class. He had always wished he had gone to law school, so, finally, he said fuck it and applied.
SFBayAreaGal
@rikyrah: Ha, I learned this many years ago. ???
stinger
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Yep. I have a brother like that. Takes advantage of the safety net himself but resents it in others.
CaseyL
@O. Felix Culpa: I would absolutely go for it – but please bear in mind that Law School is notoriously difficult, time-wise. The first year is said to be particularly brutal, so much so that students are advised not to try holding outside jobs. I don’t know what your finances are, but if you’re in a position to be able to attend Law School without needing to work at the same time, I say go for it!
Please note – depending on what kind of work you want to do, you might also consider a paralegal degree. Paralegals can’t offer legal advice, can’t try cases, but they can do nearly everything else. Lawyers depend on paralegals to do a lot of the grunt work: research, first drafts, client interviews, filing cases with the Court, etc. Paralegal degrees are 2-year degrees, and a lot less stressful.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Apparently, even on a secret ballot, if 10% vote to have the votes go on record, they go on record.
I learned this on a podcast this week, which was probably Preet but possibly Lawfare.
WaterGirl
@Amir Khalid: Yes, they can vote to do that.
Geminid
@O. Felix Culpa: On the other hand, a legal education is not exactly neccesary to judge a legal argument, at least according to North Carolina Senator Richard Burr. He was quoted as saying about Mr. Castor’s opening impeachment defense: “I ain’t a lawyer, but I know enough to know that was some bad stuff!”
raven
@O. Felix Culpa: When I hit my midlife crisis I was trying to figure out whether to go to law school or get a doctorate. Mt LSAT scores were not good enough to get in to UGA law so I went for the Ed D. I finished when I was 50 and managed a decent little career after that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Geminid:
Lots of people know far more about the law than lawyers. Just ask them.
raven
@germy: Great article, thanks. Three Women is a spectacular film and she is great in it.
Ruckus
@raven:
8 days, second jab for me.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: I sat with my brother and his buddies at his graduation ( I had just gotten my masters as well). He was night valedictorian and , by his accounts, didn’t really study much. Anyway his friends could not believe he and never lived together, he was one and I was eleven when my folks split up and I went with my old man. His friends said “you guys are exactly alike”! It may have been true but I never had the head for figures he does.
mrmoshpotato
@germy:
Not sure. I only watched the end part dealing with the insurrection. I was browsing comments here and saw people aghast at what they were watching. (Letting all of the Trump trash rot in prison would be too nice.)
I didn’t watch any the Rethuglican lawyer foolishness on day 1 (Tuesday).
raven
@Ruckus: I’m kind of tired and a bit wobbly but it’s part of the deal!
mrmoshpotato
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Hahaha. I’d heard of blocking it at older relatives’ houses, but never in hotel rooms. That’s genius.
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus: I wouldn’t be quite in my 70’s, but I might be making up for lost time. Youth is so terribly wasted on the young.
@CaseyL: Thanks for the info. I hadn’t thought about the paralegal option and will explore it. I’m quasi-retired, so I’d only be competing with the free time I could be enjoying.
@Geminid: Hehe. I ain’t a lawyer and don’t pretend to know the law. But I can recognize a bullshitter when I see one and Mr. Castor was in hyper-bullshit mode.
@raven: Sounds like that decision worked out well for you. It’s lovely when that happens.
@Omnes Omnibus: Heh. My elder son is a lawyer. Curiously, he has maintained from early childhood on that he knows more and better than I do. I have learned, more or less, not to argue.
...now I try to be amused
@Betty Cracker:
Indeed, how can they inherit Trump’s following if he won’t go away?
satby
This. I witnessed this moving to Michigassippi, and it was a source of deep resentment for me, even though I know it’s not as common. One person I know made $500 more per month on disability than I made working, while lovingly documenting her complete gut and rehab of her house on FB, done mostly by her “crippled”self.
ETA: it’s also behind the desire by some people to means test and drug test benefits, because they know people IRL who collect benefits while under reporting income and partying.
...now I try to be amused
@TS (the original):
Conservatives think, “That will never happen to me.” Liberals think, “There but for the grace of God go I.”
raven
@O. Felix Culpa: There was SO much luck involved. I got the job as an instructional designer because we we just starting to bud online courses and there was a great deal of resistance among faculty. The guy who hired me looked at my background in kids sports and said “if you can do that you can do anything”! He knew how crazy parent are and told me I could learn the technology but being able to work in a contentious environment was something hard do come by. It worked!
mrmoshpotato
@satby:
Is that around Ypsitucky?
satby
@O. Felix Culpa: I was a litigation paralegal for Mayer, Brown & Platt and Winston & Strawn for a few years before I switched to IT, hit me up if you want to ask about it.
satby
@mrmoshpotato: Near, but northish.
laura
@O. Felix Culpa: I glided into law school as a newly wed 36 to with no student debt. Graduated in 2000. Retired this last September. Still owe 38K in law school loans. Was offered a full ride fellowship for an advanced degree and graduated with that in 2002. Your mileage may vary. Loved law school, hated the vast majority of my classmates.
If there is some job you feel compelled to do that required a law degree that may justify the time and expense. I would not recommend law school in an oversaturated market unless expense was not a concern.
Geminid
@raven: Your story provides a good example of how work experience in a particular area, like youth sports, teaches some skills specific to that area, and also teaches other valuable skills that are transitive.
burnspbesq
@Immanentize:
But see Internal Revenue Code section 7525 (privilege for communications with certain non-lawyer tax practitioners).
SFBayAreaGal
@germy: If you can find Faerie Tale Theatre I highly recommend it.
germy
@SFBayAreaGal:
I remember it fondly.
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize: @sab: one of my college roommates is a lawyer/CPA. When he tried to tell us about his clerkship at the tax court, we all found excuses to leave the room!
@sab: I was 24 when I graduated from law school, after K-college at private schools, and oh my god was I ever unprepared for the real world.
SFBayAreaGal
@germy: I do too. It was so different and I loved her spin on fairy tales.
Miss Bianca
@O. Felix Culpa:
Hey, your friend wouldn’t happen to be me, right? ; )
Because I *have* been thinking about it – idly, perhaps, but still thinking. As in, “if I got another job at a University library, a University with a law school, then maybe…hmmm…”
There are times when I wish I had stayed at the NU Law Library long enough to take advantage of the employee discount if I passed the LSAT and got accepted to NU Law!
trnc
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, it hit me in the face on that day that Hawley wasn’t claiming voter fraud; he was objecting to the large turnout made possible by making voting easier for eligible voters. If that doesn’t show up in an election ad, that’s political malpractice.
O. Felix Culpa
@Miss Bianca: Hehe! Perhaps there are law-curious twins out there. I have somewhat similar regrets about B-School at the Univ. of Chicago. Dropped out after I left my job there because I couldn’t afford tuition without the employee discount. Hadn’t factored that in when I changed jobs because…young and dumb.
Bill Arnold
@ByRookorbyCrook:
These are just the scriptwriters tagging their work; they also have ongoing bets (hold-my-bear style) about the humanity’s threshold for recognizing the improbable. :-)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenreBlindness
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PropheticNames
I’m particularly fond of some of the (apparent) typos in the filings by Trump’s autocoup team, e.g. “plenty of perjury” by Lin Wood. (OK, a legal ally, but still.) Or more recently, misspelling “United States”.
Starboard Tack
@NotMax:
I’m happy to think of DeJoy starring in his own version of The Iron Shroud. It’s only a matter of time.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@O. Felix Culpa: Not nuts at all. Go for it! I once read an advice column where someone asked if they should spend 3 years training to be a teacher “because I’ll be 60 when I finish”. The response was “how old will you be in 3 years if you don’t get the training?”. IOW, this is your life. Live it!
Annie
@Soprano2:
my late uncle was just like this. He went to college on the GI Bill in the Fifties but hated some of his classmates who were veterans too, got GI Bill benefits but did not need that money.
why he thought they did not need it I don’t know.
Matt
@debbie:
Translation: “there’s the physical evidence, and then there’s the story the shooter tells us. We choose to believe the latter, no matter how implausible.”
See also “he shot himself in the head while his hands were cuffed behind his back in the back seat of a police car”
Skepticat
@Redshift: You’re correct, but I’m out of the country and not willing to call and waste more than pixels. Besides, the staff knows me by now. They usually do keep a yea/nay list, which is my true goal. Venting made me feel a bit better anyway.
andy
@Hoodie: the closer you get to the Arctic Circle, the more likely white people are capable of self-governance. i guess one could point to Alaska to refute that, but i’m not sure simply having your hand out is the same as actual socialism.