Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

People are complicated. Love is not.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Bark louder, little dog.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

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

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Let’s finish the job.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Infrastructure

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Infrastructure

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Elsewhere, metaphorical ankle-biter shares her Serious Media thoughts:


Professional jealousy is a terrible thing, Linskey.

Reader Interactions

213Comments

  6. 6.

    Anne Laurie

    @satby: I hope you tweeted that at her.

    I’m (still) not on Twitter — I can post here, or there, but there’s only so many hours in a day.

    But feel free to use my line, if you wanna reply to her!

  8. 8.

    SFAW

    @burnspbesq:

    It’s early, but I expect this will be the strangest thing I read today.

    Matt Gaetz says “Hold my beer.”

    ETA: Vis-a-vis Gaetz and the “blackmailz!!” thing: how can you get blackmailed for something you didn’t do? Is a puzzlement.

  11. 11.

    burnspbesq

    I’m perfectly happy to wait until the fall to see the tax proposals. Unraveling Trump’s 2017 dumpster fire without unintended consequences will be a challenge. Better to do it right than do it fast.

  12. 12.

    Ken

    @burnspbesq: It’s early, but I expect this will be the strangest thing I read today.

    Don’t tempt whatever trickster gods are awake at this hour.

  14. 14.

    Ken

    @SFAW: Vis-a-vis Gaetz and the “blackmailz!!” thing: how can you get blackmailed for something you didn’t do? Is a puzzlement.

    Theory from last night was that he was trying to buy a pardon from TFG, or someone from TFG’s DOJ was trying to sell him a pardon, and the “blackmail” was the asking price to make the charges go away

    Also noted from last night, it’s a big mistake to try to get your story out before the charges drop. You might accidentally reveal too much with statements like “No photos exist of me with child prostitutes”. (Aaron Rupar, via Kay)

  17. 17.

    debbie

    @SFAW:

    Gaetz even made the news on my local Fox station last night. They usually gloss over RWNJ-related news to maintain their T**** cred.

  19. 19.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @NotMax: Here’s the vid you wanted.​

    Leave well enough alone!
    Leave well enough alone!
    I’ve got me butter and bread
    And a roof over my head.
    Leave well enough alone –
    Why should I want to roam?
    I know me stuff and I’m smart enough
    To leave well enough alone!!

    (Wayull doggies, that was a trip waaaay down memory lane – from an 11″ B&W console TV on some Saturday morning in the late 1950s…)

  24. 24.

    Geminid

    @debbie: I think the Congressional Democratic Caucuses will hang together to pass these tax increases. Republicans will oppose them simply because they are tax increases. But I think polling is going to show that the Republicans will again be championing a minority position, as they did on the $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill. The tax increases are good policy, and perhaps good political strategy as well.

  26. 26.

    Ken

    @MomSense: I’m sitting in the Walmart pharmacy wait for my Fauci ouchie.

    Congratulations, both for the ouchie and for an outstanding first line of a hit country song. Meter needs a little work, though.

  27. 27.

    RandomMonster

    Those corporate and individual tax rate proposals, as well as the global and capital gains changes, are music to my ears.

  28. 28.

    rikyrah

    The one thing missing from the Obama Recovery was a big infrastructure portion. We not only need it, because our infrastructure sucks, but these are good jobs that Americans can do. And, it also shows what good Government can do.

  31. 31.

    Nicole

    I actually subjected myself to a few minutes of Tucker Carlson via Twitter last night because his interview with Gaetz was… something.  My favorite moment was when Gaetz said to him, well hey, you also know what it’s like to be accused of a sex crime, and then continued to babble for another minute while Carlson just sat there with this look on his face.

    SNL, please get Cecily Strong to brush up on a Gaetz impression, stat.

  32. 32.

    Ken

    @rikyrah: The one downside is that my blood pressure will go up, when I see the inevitable pictures of Republicans at groundbreaking ceremonies, taking credit for a bill they voted against.

  33. 33.

    NotMax

    @Ken

    Hmm. Suddenly occurs to me that V-A-C-C-I-N-E scans the same as Aretha’s R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

    Far removed from country, however.

  34. 34.

    Ken

    @Nicole: Hasn’t Gaetz announced plans to join OAN? I’m surprised he hasn’t been declared persona non grata at Fox. I guess the first sign will be the Fox chyron blaring “FEDS ARREST REP. GAETZ (D-FL) FOR SEX CRIMES”.

  36. 36.

    germy

    @Ken:

    He was thinking of joining Newsmax

    But aren’t they being sued by Dominion?  If so, they might not be able to afford his salary.

    Unless he wants to be an unpaid intern.

  37. 37.

    JMG

    My guess is maybe half the Biden plan’s spending gets through the House, and maybe 10 percent of the tax increases. Then Joe Manchin will whittle it down a notch in the Senate. That’s still a pretty big bill on the historical scale of such things, but nowhere near enough to move votes. Why do some Democrats think “I promise you half a loaf, or maybe a third” is good politics?

  39. 39.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @burnspbesq: The artist Hieronymus Bosch is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more …

  44. 44.

    MomSense

    @Ken: 
    Go ‘head tell COVID ‘bout my Fauci Ouchi shot
    I think it’ll understand
    Go ‘head and tell COVID ‘bout my Fauci Ouchie Shot
    It won’t kill this woman!

  48. 48.

    Jeffro

    So I see that ‘Navarro’ is trending on Twitter, and it’s because Crazy Pete Navarro went on Fox News last night calling COVID-19 the “Fauci Virus” and calling Fauci “the father of” the virus and accusing him of allowing China and the People’s Liberation Army to “genetically engineer” COVID-19. Dude is just. fucking. nuts. and also very, very stupid.

    Can you say, “multi-million-dollar, Dominion-style lawsuit?” Good! I know Fauci can.

    Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy probably will get off light, reading disclaimers for the next week or so.

  51. 51.

    Geminid

    @JMG: This infrastructure investment/tax increase package can be passed by fifty Senate votes under reconciliation rules.  Manchin is on record as opposing the last cut in the Corporate Income Tax, said he did not vote for the 2017 Republican tax cut package for that reason. And Manchin is a proponent of even larger infrastructure investment. So I would not rule out Senate passage of the entire bill, perhaps with alterations that do not effect it’s total size.

    As for the House, I don’t see why the Democratic Caucus won’t hang together to pass this, just like they passed the Covid relief package. I don’t think you could pick four more widely popular tax increases.

  52. 52.

    Cameron

    I thought Gaetz was the guy with the “adopted son.”  Do I have him mixed up with somebody else?

  53. 53.

    Betty Cracker

    I am hoping this Gaetz business is just the opening salvo of a criminal investigation that explodes like a bomb in FL GOP politics. The allegations against Gaetz are skeezy enough, but there’s a lot more to it, including the link to disgraced former Seminole Co. tax collector Joel Greenberg, who will almost certainly be going to jail for a very long time on all kinds of charges after his trial this summer. Greenberg is an astoundingly corrupt piece of shit whose crimes might very well ensnare additional FL Republicans. That is my hope, anyway. Maddow did a good job covering this last night.

  54. 54.

    JMG

    @Geminid: You could be right. Manchin is indeed more of a traditional 1950s-60s Democrat on economic matters than he’s given credit for. But I think the House will be the difficult part of the exercise, as I hinted but unfortunately did not say outright in my previous post.

  55. 55.

    narya

    FYI, to celebrate Transgender Day of Visibility (today) Penzey’s is having a sale on rainbow spices, with all proceeds going to the Trevor Project. It looks like it’s cayenne, curry, garlic, parsley, poppy seed, and something called Potato of Love.

  60. 60.

    NotMax

    @narya

    Potato of Love

    Originally released in, um, select theaters as Behind the Greengrocer’s Door.

    :)

    (IRL, there really is a mainstream film titled Sex Lives of the Potato Men.)

  61. 61.

    Kathleen

    @SFAW:  The Circle of Rethuglican Stenographic Sycophants requires that members create and promulgate “scandals” about Democrats  to counteract coverage of Rethuglicans being investigated for sex trafficking because “balance” .

  62. 62.

    Josie

    @MomSense: ​
     I’m so happy for you. My daughter-in-law gets hers Saturday. She’s the youngest and the last of our extended family group. We can all give a big sigh of relief.

  63. 63.

    John S.

    @Betty Cracker: I sure hope so. We need something to break our way here on the politics front before we are consumed by the Deathsantis cult followers who continue leading our state over a cliff.

  65. 65.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @John S.:

    Were it up to me, I’d do it in tranches of 8, one batch west coast one batch east, then spreading out from there.

  66. 66.

    Nicole

    @MomSense: I’m so happy for you, and I totally get the emotional reaction.  I told the woman who gave me my shot that I felt like I did on my wedding day and she laughed.  But I did!  The best kind of happy anxious.

    And right on schedule, one of the travel sites I get updates from send an email noting that Iceland will allow visitors who provide proof of vaccination (and children only need a negative test result before departing and upon arrival; no quarantine if negative) so I’m already daydreaming.  Technically, we could go now (my husband and I had Covid and have proof of antibodies, which Iceland will also accept in lieu of vaccination) but maybe… maybe… maybe in the fall.  It’s nice to daydream about travel again.

  68. 68.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    My Moderna #2 reaction has subsided – fatigue, headache and earache subsided later last evening, and the tinnitus wore down to a more acceptable level in the right ear only, which was preexisting intermittently after my little dive incident several years ago.

  69. 69.

    SFAW

    @burnspbesq:

    Gaetz is a plain vanilla perv. Disgusting, but not interesting.

    That’s not what was strange. That he went on Cucker and talked about (purportedly false) accusations made against Cucker — and thus Cucker should know how pore Matty felt — while Carlson looked more baffled than usual, was strange

    ETA: Or what Nicole said at 31

  71. 71.

    The Thin Black Duke

    I think the Democrats collectively understand now that you can’t negotiate with lunatics who tried to kill you, so why pretend that the Republicans are a viable political entity anymore? Hey, might as well go big, right?

  72. 72.

    jonas

    @Betty Cracker: People up here in NY are always complaining how corrupt things are in Albany, and I’m like “Have you ever been to Florida?” Or Texas? Or any other red state where it’s all just one huge grift for right-wing wackos from governor down to dogcatcher? For some reason, however, you always hold Democratic administrations accountable for corruption, but with Republicans, it’s all just lol ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

    But I’m also confused by the Gaetz business. So he was being blackmailed by someone from *inside* the FBI or DOJ or whatever, which the FBI was investigating, which involved getting his *dad* to wear a wire, something, something, and anyway, there’s nothing illegal about flying your girlfriend out to see you even if she looks suspiciously young. Did I miss anything?

    .

  73. 73.

    SFAW

    @Ken:  @germy:

    Yes, I understand/understood all that. My point was: I understand someone getting blackmailed for something illegal or embarrassing that he/she did, but how does “I’m going to blackmail you for the sex trafficking (or whatever) that you never committed” work?

    In other words, Gaetz is saying “I never done that, nosirree! But someone’s blackmailing me over it.” Not that the Partei of Traitors ever does anything logical, but this would seem to be a stretch, even for a mofo like Gaetz.

    On the other hand, Gaetz is a fucking moron, so …

  74. 74.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @John S.:  love the scene in the film “In Bruges” where Ken and Harry go to the museum and see one of Bosch’s Last Judgements.

  75. 75.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    It was vaccination, I know,
    And it might have kept me
    Immune from the germ;
    Just a glancing jab,
    Just a simple stab,
    Just an upper arm, soft
    But trying to be firmly;

    It was vaccination, I know,
    Just a little shot from
    A sterile syringe;
    Then the doctor lunged
    Straight at me with the needle:
    Vaccination made me cringe.

    :-)

  76. 76.

    Ken

    @SFAW: Think of it like the immune system.  Gaetz has detected that he’s in trouble (=virus), so he’s frantically generating dozens, perhaps hundreds of random stories (=antibodies) in the hopes that one of them will work (=bind to the virus).  Once he finds a story that works, he’ll go all-in on it (=amplification by immune cells).

    Since “works” here means convincing enough of his Q-addled followers, there’s a rather wide scope for the stories and they don’t have to make sense. If “I’m being blackmailed by the FBI because I have a laptop with evidence that Hillary Clinton wore a mask of my face while draining the blood from child prostitutes to use in pizza sauce” works, that’s what we’ll be hearing.

  77. 77.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    My advice to all of my clients is the same: if you are ever the subject of a federal sex trafficking investigation, immediately start tweeting out a convoluted tale of criminal intrigue that poses more questions than it answers.
    https://t.co/4hRMUelXnl

    — Law Boy, Esq. (@The_Law_Boy) March 31, 2021

    Funny comment thread.

  78. 78.

    Ohio Mom

    I think Potato of Love was the freebie the Penzey’s sales clerk threw in our bag a couple of years ago: freezed dried very small cubes of potatoes dyed lavender.

    Could not find a use for them. Maybe if there had been a six year old girl in our family…

  80. 80.

    artem1s

    @Ken:

    The one downside is that my blood pressure will go up, when I see the inevitable pictures of Republicans at groundbreaking ceremonies, taking credit for a bill they voted against.

    Let me tell you, it’s also seizure inducing when your Republican (LP) Governor turns down stimulus money just to make a show and score points so he can run for President in a couple of years.  Kasich refused $750M in research dollars from the Obama relief bill. He shut down funding the renewed interest in rebuilding OHs train infrastructure after suburbanites had to commute hundreds of miles in the SUVs when gas was $4+/gal and W crashed the economy in the mall communities.  I’m sure he was one of the guys who fleeced the LP.  I won’t even have to wait for the bill to be passed to get a Kasich related BP spike.  I fully expect to see him on Fox this weekend weeping about the deficit and taking credit for Biden’s win (when Kasich spectacularly failed to flip his home state).

  81. 81.

    jonas

    And since we’re talking about sex scandals, underage kids, and disgrace among people who have no shame about it because they’ve already “been forgiven,” there’s this long form piece from Nancy French (wife of David French — a noted anti-Trump evangelical) on a huge Christian summer camp in the Ozarks whose most popular counselor turns out to have been…wait for it…an insane sex abuser. This was all 10-15 years ago (the guy’s in prison today), but the extent of his actions and number of victims is just now coming to light. As they say, read the whole thing. People have always said that stuff that has gone on in the world of evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity will dwarf the Catholic Church sex scandal. If the Frenches are right that this is just the tip of the iceberg, we could be in (finally) for a real reckoning in the coming months and years.

  82. 82.

    germy

    Here’s an informative thread on transportation infrastructure:

    I would much rather be tweeting about government policy that really matters.

    So I'm reading the Biden admin's white paper on the "American Jobs Plan" – their $2 trillion infrastructure package, and there's a lot to unpack here. https://t.co/RZMqrjbuqZ

    — Chester A. Arthur (@ZacAKAMadu) March 31, 2021

  83. 83.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Ken:

    You mean like this?

    Happy to announce that NC-11 was awarded grants from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

    – Appalachian Mountain Community Health Centers was given $2,458,000

    – Western North Carolina Community Health Services Inc. was given $4,622,375

    (1/2)

    — Rep. Madison Cawthorn (@RepCawthorn) March 30, 2021

    He’s getting dragged in the comments.

  87. 87.

    NotMax

    @Steeplejack

    Saw your comment re: back spacing. I don’t use my keyboard for navigation, but thanks. Not a happy camper that Firefox has axed the back arrow, so remapped one of the buttons on the mouse to do the same thing as the back arrow.

    Took a bit of time to tease out of memory what FF config setting to change in order to have a new tab open to the right of any already existing tabs rather than adjacent to the current one when I click on a link, but the proverbial light bulb did eventually sputter to life.

  88. 88.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @jonas:

    When I was about 11 or 12 and being sent to a Baptist church by my RWNJ mom, the choir director, youth pastor was unceremoniously canned after an ill-considered fling. They didn’t do a good job of containment on the story, but the young woman involved didn’t fare badly over it (she was 15-16, IIRC). He was a hairy, kinda homely 30-something.

  90. 90.

    Betty Cracker

    @jonas: Crazy, right? Maddow had the NYT reporter who broke the story on her show last night (Katie Benner), and from that and other things I’ve read on it, I assume Gaetz blew up an ongoing FBI investigation into alleged extortion of the Gaetzes essentially to create a squid ink cloud to obscure the fact that Matt Gaetz was a subject in a Turnip-era DOJ probe. Gaetz is trying to make it all about the alleged extortion, but that’s really a sidebar.

    IIRC, Benner said that the person who was allegedly extorting the Gaetzes found out about the DOJ probe but is not directly involved in it and is now in private practice. It sounded to me like the DOJ probe is/was targeting Greenberg, who is close to Gaetz, who is close to DeSantis and Turnip.

    Maybe it won’t amount to anything, but there’s potential there because Greenberg is such an enterprising crook! He was stealing taxpayer IDs, funneling money to cronies, trafficking teenage girls, peddling blockchain and cryptocurrency schemes, etc. — all from his perch as an elected Republican (before he was forced to resign).

    It would be a beautiful thing if Greenberg’s rampant criminality eventually implicates a bunch of other crooked FL Republicans, which is basically ALL of them…

  91. 91.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @jonas:

    When I was about 11 or 12 and being sent to a Baptist church by my RWNJ mom, the choir director, youth pastor was unceremoniously canned after an ill-considered fling. They didn’t do a good job of containment on the story, but the young woman involved didn’t fare badly over it (she was 15-16, IIRC). He was a hairy, kinda homely 30-something.

    ETA – Dude had an unexpectedly common name, hadn’t thought about him in years, so I just tried to find him to no success.

  95. 95.

    Geminid

    @jonas: I just heard Hew Hewitt replay the Gaetz/Carlson interview. Hewitt interrupted a couple times, once to observe that one could prove nothing from examining travel records, after Gaetz had asserted that his travel records would prove his innocence. And when Gaetz would not answer Carlson’s  question, when did you first hear of this investigation? Hewitt pointed out that Gaetz was not responsive, and that changing the subject instead of answering a simple question did not look good.

    Hewitt concluded that at this point he could not say what the truth of this matter is. But if he had been Gaetz’s attorney, he would have told his client not to go on TV.

  98. 98.

    germy

    @Betty Cracker:

    Gaetz reminds me of wealthy “boss’s dad” guys I worked with years ago.

    Musk made an actual pun: “elongate”

    Gaetz guffaws and replies with his own joke, except it really doesn’t work as a pun or a joke.

    It reminds me of every time the boss’s son would join in with employee banter:  Say something unfunny, but do it loudly and confidently.  Then nervous chuckles or embarrassed silence from the underlings.

  99. 99.

    Ken

    @Geminid: But if he had been Gaetz’s attorney, he would have told his client not to go on TV.

    Maybe Gaetz’s attorney did give him that advice. I suspect the only thing that could keep Gaetz away from a camera is handcuffs and leg irons; maybe I’ll get to find out someday.

    See also the threads from yesterday, where Jeffro quoted Jamelle Bouie: ‘the extent to which conservative politics revolves around conservative media and not the other way around is a huge unreported story’.

  100. 100.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    Stolen from someone on Facebook and flipped around:

    “Biden has a minor Major problem. Gaetz has a major minor problem.”

  101. 101.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @rikyrah: Me too.  At least the one I went to had a segregated pharmacy waiting area. Spouse’s shots were at an older store and he said he sat in the middle of a grocery line.

  102. 102.

    germy

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR:

    Whether it’s Biden bringing Major to the White House or Matt Gaetz bringing minors to hotel rooms, both sides have made some questionable decisions.

    — New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) March 31, 2021

    Not a big Matt Gaetz fan but the timing here seems very suspicious. Looks an awful lot like an attempt to distract people from Major's second biting incident.

    — New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) March 31, 2021

  103. 103.

    Barbara

    @smith: ​My sister’s employer fired an employee who did not get vaccinated. Ostensibly, he was not fired because he refused to get vaccinated, though he did refuse, but because he came to work with symptoms of flu/COVID, and tested positive for COVID. She works with a medically fragile population, and since the vaccine is not 100% effective, her employer was more or less required to have every staff member and patient retested for COVID after the refusing employee tested positive. To say that this is not a sustainable business model in a very low margin enterprise is a gross understatement. This is what refuseniks are going to find out — that those entities that can do so will indeed push back on being expected to bear the cost of vaccine refusal.  For school based vaccine exemptions, basically, anti-vaxxers have gotten away with not having to pay for their antisocial behavior. Private employers will not be nearly as pliable.
    She tells me the employee in question was popular with clients, and that he exhibits something she has become used to in her job, which is that powerless people assert what power they have, which is not necessarily constructive to them or anyone around them. It’s a dispiriting situation all the way around.​

  104. 104.

    sdhays

    @Geminid: No less than Joe Manchin has said he wants tax increases, and tax increases are definitely in the parameters of reconciliation. I even recall Wall St. deciding last year that some tax increases were an acceptable cost compared to the corrupt insanity of Dump/GQP governance.

  105. 105.

    Betty Cracker

    @germy: Yep. Gaetz is very much the boss’s son. The only reason that revolting pecksniff ever got on our TVs in the first place is that his corrupt former state senate president father sleazed him into that House seat.

    PS: WaPo has a good summary of the Greenberg business here. Greenberg is currently in the clink awaiting trial because he broke the conditions of his pre-trial release by leaving the house to round up his wife by stalking her on social media, and his MIL called the cops. LOL!

  106. 106.

    satby

    @smith: Been working WAY too much and haven’t been able to keep up here. But yes, I saw that article, thanks. Doctor wants a full staff of available replacements trained before anyone gets a final warning and dismissal, and her recent surgery complicated all that.

    Plus, @Nicole: have been all over unsold.com booking hotel vouchers good for up to 24 months… I’m dreaming about travel too. So far London, Marrakech, and Bangkok. 2022 is gonna be lit, I hope.

  109. 109.

    Barbara

    @Betty Cracker: ​It’s the sociopathic behavior that gets to me — and the voters who seem to condone it — as if they too would love to spend tax dollars on million dollar security equipment for themselves. I can understand disagreement about tax policy, but I can’t understand how anybody can find it acceptable for an elected official to engage in rank corruption. It took an indictment to get this guy out of office.

  110. 110.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker: I knew Papa Gaetz was enough of a player to protect and promote his large-headed son, but I didn’t know the old man had dough. Wiki says he sold his medical corporation for nearly half a billion? Florida has an odd fondness for Medicare profiteers.

  112. 112.

    L85NJGT

    @germy:

    The focus is on repair and replacement of existing infrastructure, rather than new build. IMO that’s better from a practical perspective, and better serves issue of justice for many American communities, but lacks political gee whiz.

    The biggest new build is probably beefing up backhaul on the power grid. I think the need case is self evident now, even to Tejanos. ?

  114. 114.

    Barbara

    @L85NJGT: ​Except that Tejanos or their elected officials don’t want the back up if it means they have to join the national system. So I guess the plan is to keep doing their own thing and hope the tape and glue holds things in place better next time. I wouldn’t mind helping individual Texans deal with the aftermath but I don’t see why federal money should prop up a system built on the idea that Texas doesn’t want to be part of the federally supported infrastructure. It’s not just that they want to go it alone without help, but it also means they are not in a position to help others that might need it. Maybe I am wrong and Texas will change its policy.

  115. 115.

    L85NJGT

    That dog got weaned too early. It’s happens to puppy mill dogs, and then they end up in rescue because they are “nippy”. More training needed. Maybe they should call Cesar Millan.

  116. 116.

    germy

    @L85NJGT:

    Repairing public transportation infrastructure in a smarter, multi-use way.  Not just road paving, but a redesign.

    Tearing down old freeways that divided minority neighborhoods.  Electric government vehicles.

    I’m optimistic.  I hope it doesn’t get whittled down too much.

  117. 117.

    karen marie

    @burnspbesq: It’s only “a controversy” because grifters are making bank on it. Somebody put together a list of “glorifications of Satan” in popular culture – none of which raised an eyebrow. NasX being gay wouldn’t have been as much of an accelerant if he’d had the Christian decency to not be black too.

  118. 118.

    lowtechcyclist

    @NotMax:

    Suddenly occurs to me that V-A-C-C-I-N-E scans the same as Aretha’s R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

    And “Covid-19” scans the same as “Come on Eileen.”

    Wash your hands please

    ’cause of Covid-19

    and observe quarantine,

    it means everything

    There’s your morning earworm. :D

  119. 119.

    satby

    @SiubhanDuinne: How cool would that be? And I’m already planning on going to GA to pass out water (and other voter assistance) if that stupid law doesn’t get tossed so I may be asking for couch surfing spots ?

  120. 120.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Josie: I’m still waiting on becoming eligible here in MD despite the fact that I’m NOT the youngest in my extended family and my wife is a front line health care worker, and I live with and care for my mother in law who is an 81 year old cancer survivor with memory issues. Thankfully wife and MIL have been vaccinated but none of those factors do me any good here. Neither does being almost 52 years old, at least so far. Every other single adult in my extended family has gotten at least the first dose except me. PA, OH, MI, VT, NH…they’re all vaccinating people younger than me but MD is just about to go 55 plus (which still leaves me out). Vaccine envy, I haz it. It wouldn’t be so bad except Larry Hogan opened the State up completely a few weeks back and cases are exploding – for no good fucking reason whatsoever – while I wait for my chance at a shot.

  121. 121.

    sdhays

    I just have to comment how absurdly clownish Tucker Carlson is, just in visual presentation. He has perfected the combined “super-constipated and perpetually confused” look to such an extent that his face seems to have literally frozen like that. If the prominence of his white-supremacist ass wasn’t so disturbing, it would be hilarious.

    How does anyone flip on the TV thinking “Yippee, it’s FINALLY time for confused constipation hour!!”?

  125. 125.

    TomatoQueen

    @NotMax: Please to be posting this about:config thing in some findable way. Fireyfox Does Unaccountable Things and I put up with most of them, but this one grinds my old lady gears. Thank you.

  126. 126.

    karen marie

    @SFAW: How can you be blackmailed in March for something that’s been under investigation for four months or longer? How is it blackmail if they’re selling you a pardon?

    Gaetz has been sniffing his own farts for too long.

    Where’s the fiancee he acquired in December? Shouldn’t a date have been set

    So many questions, so many stupid answers.

  129. 129.

    Soprano2

    @jonas: I saw that Camp Kanakuk was coming back into the news; there was a story about this story in Monday’s paper, because of course for me this is a local story. I’m not one bit surprised, not one bit at all. If I had a kid I don’t think I would send them to any camp at all, especially not a religious one, unless I could vet it extensively.

  132. 132.

    Betty Cracker

    @Barbara: I ask myself the same question all the time, especially since I returned to my hometown a few years back. Republican corruption is rampant here too, albeit on a smaller and less lurid scale. Everyone knows it, but they mostly keep voting for the same old crooks.

    My sense is voters vote for these shitheads more out of culture war bullshit solidarity than widespread aspirations for their own corrupt fiefdoms. But who knows?

  133. 133.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Spring cleaning has begun!

    Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan will purge more than 40 outside experts appointed by President Donald Trump from two key advisory panels, a move he says will help restore the role of science at the agency and reduce the heavy influence of industry over environmental regulations.
    The unusual decision, announced Wednesday, will sweep away outside researchers picked under the previous administration whose expert advice helped the agency craft regulations related to air pollution, fracking and other issues.

  135. 135.

    J R in WV

    @Betty Cracker: ​
     

    Greenberg is an astoundingly corrupt piece of shit whose crimes might very well ensnare additional FL Republicans. That is my hope, anyway. Maddow did a good job covering this last night.

    Greenberg’s story was long and involved and detailed, which Rachael loves. Hiring his friends into the tax Dept adn making everyone wear guns was strange enough, and then you get to the stealing IDs and fake IDs from Canada and THEN you get to the sex trafficking parts.

    I was a little confused about why she was going with it, small town crooked pol from nowhere in FLA… then BOOM Matt Gaetz appears like majik~!!~ Well done, Rachael, well done!

  136. 136.

    Steeplejack

    @Betty Cracker:

    Could it be “Better the shitbirds you know . . .”?

    “Yeah, these guys are corrupt, but the Democrats would be way worse!”

    Oh, hell, I think it’s just that a lot of people don’t follow politics; they just show up and vote GQP like they have forever.

  137. 137.

    mrmoshpotato

    @narya:

    It looks like it’s cayenne, curry, garlic, parsley, poppy seed, and something called Potato of Love. 

    Silly parsley.

  141. 141.

    sdhays

    @Betty Cracker: The older I get, the more I become aware of how much casual corruption exists in American society. White supremacy itself is an intense form of corruption, and I think a lot of follow on corruption flows from that, just because expectations of what people can expect from each other, businesses, and government are corrupted.

    People think corruption is normal and not even “real” corruption.

  142. 142.

    mrmoshpotato

    @sdhays:

    He has perfected the combined “super-constipated and perpetually confused” look to such an extent that his face seems to have literally frozen like that. 

    Welp, “dog being shown a card trick” can be retired.  It had a good run.

    BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

  144. 144.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Boo – our dog has heartworms and will need treatment.

  145. 145.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Steeplejack: Right, but that’s a spice mix of its own.*

    *Not getting into which spices, how much of each, or whether curry powder itself is an abomination and people should mix their own damn spices it’s not that hard and the flavo[u]rs are so much better….

  146. 146.

    zhena gogolia

    @germy:

    I live in a town that is on the banks of a great river. But our downtown is completely shut off from said river by a freeway. It is tragic.

  150. 150.

    Miss Bianca

    @NotMax:

    Hmm. Suddenly occurs to me that V-A-C-C-I-N-E scans the same as Aretha’s R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

    V-A-C-C-I-N-E

    Find out what it means to me…

    Now if only mrmoshpotato would come along and tell me what to do to make those little musical notes appear, my life would be complete.

  153. 153.

    Barbara

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: ​Virginia isn’t vaccinating people under 65 unless they meet an employment or health exception. I have at least one friend who lied about health conditions for her son and it’s not like anyone is checking. My view is that if they aren’t checking for exceptions they should just open it up.

  154. 154.

    L85NJGT

    @sdhays:

    The grift generally collapses when social, political and economic reality diverge far enough from it that it causes significant societal tension.

    End of the USSR, end of the Jim Crow south, etc.

  155. 155.

    zhena gogolia

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    My husband has been doing 95% of the cooking all through the pandemic, which suits me just fine. You’re telling me I have to tell him to mix his own damn spices instead of using the delicious Penzey’s curry powder?

  158. 158.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Miss Bianca: Hi! ?

    Comment from your phone.

    On my Android, I hold down the keyboard’s smiley button in the lower left corner then choose the smiley face from the popup menu.  Then you can search for the notes emojis.

    ????

  160. 160.

    Steeplejack

    @Miss Bianca:

    ? V-A-C-C-I-N-E ??

    ETA: [WinKey] + [Period] gets you the emoticon menu in Windows. Dunno about Mac. Would look it up, but I have to don the tactical gear (pants!) to go pick up someone at the airport.

  161. 161.

    PST

    @Cheryl from Maryland:

    love the scene in the film “In Bruges” where Ken and Harry go to the museum and see one of Bosch’s Last Judgements.

    One of my favorite movies. The painting that I can’t forget, which the lads also saw, is The Judgement of Cambyses, which features a crooked judge being flayed alive. That one gave me nightmares when I saw it in person, and I fully expected it to show up eventually when I watched In Bruges.

  162. 162.

    Miss Bianca

    @SFAW:

    In other words, Gaetz is saying “I never done that, nosirree! But someone’s blackmailing me over it.”

    Forget it, Jake, we’ll be getting into “have you stopped blackmailing your wife?” territory before you know it.

  165. 165.

    lowtechcyclist

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:

    MD is just about to go 55 plus (which still leaves me out). Vaccine envy, I haz it. It wouldn’t be so bad except Larry Hogan opened the State up completely a few weeks back and cases are exploding – for no good fucking reason whatsoever – while I wait for my chance at a shot.

    Fuck Hogan with rusty farm implements.  Holding off opening up everything for even a few more weeks would have made a huge difference.

    My wife’s in the same position, though she’s just over 55.  But it’s still nearly 2 weeks (April 13) before that makes her eligible.  So she’s jealous of me with my mid-1950s birth certificate and two Moderna shots.

  168. 168.

    jonas

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:  I don’t know if he still does it, but for a long time Dan Savage had a regular feature called “Youth Pastor Watch” that highlighted stories from around the country about this stuff, mostly just to rub godbotherers’ noses in the irony and hypocrisy. He had plenty of material to work with each week.

  170. 170.

    Barbara

    @Miss Bianca: Pretty clearly, he knows that someone somewhere has actual receipts of his payment for hotel and maybe transportation for a minor female.  He all but said so and tried to suggest that he was being penalized for his generosity.  Yeah, sure.  I mean, whether I believe he did anything wrong or not is irrelevant.  It’s all in what can be proven.

  171. 171.

    jonas

    @PST: The funny thing about that painting is that the condemned judge is secured to a table while the executioners appear to be stripping the skin off his leg in an oddly surgical fashion while the victim has a look on his face that says “Sigh. Could this day get any worse?” Mildly annoyed more than agonizing.

  173. 173.

    mrmoshpotato

    @WaterGirl:

    (Psst: you can also copy the note from any comment that includes it.) 

    All first comments now must include musical notes as a public service.

  178. 178.

    Mel

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I hear you. I just got my first dose of Pfizer a little over a week ago, despite being in my 50s, on immunosuppressants, and having several comorbidities.

    My 30-something sister-in-law who is in perfect health got her vaccine nearly three weeks before me, as did my 30-something brother-in-law in perfect health, because a friend of theirs who works at a pharmacy called them and other young, healthy friends when there were going to be leftover vaccine doses due to cancelled appointments. As opposed to, say, first calling actually eligible people on the list for the following week, and offering them the chance to come for the shot later that day.

    They were both gloating (to my hubby (who is on major immunosuppressant meds and has a heart rhythm issue) about jumping the line and getting the vaccine before “people on the list” – in other words, us and thousands of other high-risk individuals in our community. The pandemic has certainly revealed which family members I really don’t care if I ever see again once I’m able to see anyone.

  179. 179.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Barbara: “I’m being blackmailed for being a good, upstanding, generous citizen who does not, and has never, banged a teenage girl after transporting her across state lines!”

  180. 180.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Vince:

    Shorter Evangelical: “Satan might be the father of all evil, but he’s a manly man and totally not a homo!”

  181. 181.

    sdhays

    @mrmoshpotato: “And, besides, what’s the point of STATES RIGHTS if you can’t cross state lines to bang your ‘girlfriend’ ‘legally’? Why do we even have different standards of ‘legal’ if you can’t shop around??”

  182. 182.

    Barbara

    @Mel: ​Yes, I know what you mean, but really, this is all so unnecessary. Once the very highest risk people have been vaccinated, it’s almost counterproductive to keep stratifying people whose risk profiles are not that far apart. The most important thing is that as many people get vaccinated as fast as possible. Most healthy people don’t really know how hard Covid would hit them. My dry cleaner’s teenage son nearly died and is facing months of rehab, whereas his 50 something parents had very mild cases.

  184. 184.

    mrmoshpotato

    @sdhays: “Not that I’ve ever looked into any of this, since I never transported an underage girl across state lines for sex!  And Tucker Carlson knows all about it!”

  188. 188.

    Ken

    @mrmoshpotato: All first comments now must include musical notes as a public service.

    Also please include “WINKING HIPPOPOTAMUS (SKIN TONE 4)”, I often find myself wanting to use that one.

  189. 189.

    Ken

    @zhena gogolia: God, I love it when Tucker says he doesn’t remember Gaetz’s date.

    “But you must, man! You and I were in the back of the limo with the three girls — women, I mean women, they were only dressed in the Girl Scout outfits because we were, were… going to a costume party! And you tipped the limo driver a hundred dollars thinking it was a ten, and got in that fight with him when you asked for it back.”

  190. 190.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ken:

    Also please include “WINKING HIPPOPOTAMUS (SKIN TONE 4)”, I often find myself wanting to use that one. 

    Is that the follow-up to Mambo  No. 5?

  191. 191.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ken: “Matt, you forgot about the fourth girl…errr of-age, age-appropriate woman in the sexy pizza costume.  I mean, I totally don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  192. 192.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Barbara: I mean, I don’t want to lie but if they’re not checking and everyone else is it kind of makes me feel like the world’s biggest sucker not to.

     

    @lowtechcyclist: Yeah Larry Hogan better never come within arm’s reach of me unless he likes being beaten like a rented mule. Some people are into that. I’ve basically told him (not that it matters as he’s not eligible to run again anyway) and everyone on down through my State Assembly reps to the County Executive and my County Council members that if they don’t give me a crack at the vaccine before making healthy people under 40 eligible none of them are ever getting my vote, ever again. And I mean it. I’m not going to vote for anyone in TFG’s party but that doesn’t mean I have to vote for the current occupants of those offices.

  193. 193.

    Nicole

    @satby:

    have been all over unsold.com booking hotel vouchers good for up to 24 months… I’m dreaming about travel too. So far London, Marrakech, and Bangkok. 2022 is gonna be lit, I hope.

    Boy oh boy, do I hear you.   I saw some very reasonable packages to Iceland for September, and that’s one of the big months to see the Northern Lights, so I’m really, really thinking about it.    It’s so nice to be able to think about travel with a timeline in mind again.

  195. 195.

    rikyrah

    Gaetz phucked around and found out.

    Messing with Liz Cheney.

    Her father is Satan’s Valet.
    And that spoiled muthaphucka, who never had to deal with anything in his life because his Daddy took care of everything for him..thought, he could take on the Evil One and his Spawn.

    BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

  198. 198.

    Mel

    @Barbara: Here in Ohio, we had a truly bizarre stratification process that left out vast numbers of truly at-risk individuals (chemo patients, type-2 diabetics with severe disease, patients with serious organ disease but no transplant yet, minority communities with limited access to healthcare or financial and mobility challenges, asthmatics with severe disease but who hadn’t been inpatient hospitalized in 12 months, people with MS and other autoimmune diseases, who are on potent immunosuppressive drugs, people with serious coagulation disorders and a history of dvt, etc) in the first tiers, and selected for some high-risk but rather rare illnesses in the top tiers instead.

    In addition, the entire roll-out was poorly planned and even more poorly executed.

    I’ve lost a family member and two friends to Covid- 19, nearly lost my only sibling who was likely exposed while at work as a teacher, and like Ohio Mom, have been living in fear of being exposed (for me, at necessary medical appointments) and bringing it home to my equally high-risk hubby.

    When I spoke to a person in a leadership position at my local health department, he said that midway through the rollout, the state still couldn’t or wouldn’t justify its category choices, and that local health departments still had no idea what the rollout plan would even be in the following weeks or month, or even the following day.

    Health departments and city government where I live have stepped in to try to fill the gaping void created by the state’s handling of the rollout, but they have had an uphill battle all the way.

    I agree with you that the stratification system didn’t work well. I understand that limited amounts of vaccine early on make for very difficult choices needing to be made.

    What I cannot agree with is the relatively random nature of the entire process in my state, the apparent lack of comprehension about what is high-risk versus not on the part of those making these life or death decisions about distribution, and the lack of any real order, record-keeping, or accountability in the process itself until very, very recently.

    If it seems personal to me as well as being a criticism of how state authorities handled the process, well, it truly is. Because of mishandling of the process, my young cousin has lost his beloved grandmother, I have lost two friends (one of whom a nurse who helped to save my life when I first became seriously ill some years ago), my sibling has been left with long-covid, and I haven’t been able to see my sib, my elderly parent, or my nieces and nephews in over a year, and countless neighbors and friends in my diverse neighborhood are still struggling to find vaccine appointments that they can actually access around very real mobility, transportation, and work constraints.

    I do understand that symptoms and outcomes are not always predictable, and that tier systems by nature don’t necessarily cover those outside the obvious risk groups. A friend’s otherwise healthy 40-ish son felt mildly fatigued for a day or two, no other symptoms, and dropped dead of a sudden cardiac arrest. He was eventually resuscitated by first responders, but was without oxygen and without a pulse for so long that there were concerns about the severity of brain damage. He was in the ICU in an induced coma for a very long time, and in rehab for weeks after that. He is a young father and an artist who is now struggling with lifelong cognitive and physical disability.  It is a tragic situation, but one that has played out far too many times in one iteration or another for people and families of all ages, and so much more frequently in  disabled, minority, and LGBTQ+ communities.

    That being said, tier systems are sometimes necessary, but they have to be managed apolitically, by medical and civic authorities who truly understand the illness, the at-risk communities and groups, and efficient and accountable roll-out.

    It could have been handled so much better in my state. Lives could have been saved. And yes, I still believe that someone with multiple high-risk conditions or someone who is living or working in a high-risk situation should be vaccinated before healthy, financially well-off 30 year olds who are able to isolate safely and afford proper PPE.

  199. 199.

    evodevo

    @jonas: ​
      FFRF’s monthly newspaper/publication has a section labeled “Black Collar Crime” listing all the religious-related perps arrested/convicted for the month – it usually fills two pages with details in very small font to accommodate all of them…it’s an eye-opener…

  202. 202.

    rikyrah

    There's so much exciting going on in New York. The City is opening back up. We have a NYC mayoral election, a legal marijuana industry to set up, billions heading our way for subways, bridges, tunnels. I have no more time for the stupid "Cuomogate" story. I declare it dead.— Chester A. Arthur (@ZacAKAMadu) March 31, 2021

  203. 203.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    @mrmoshpotato:“I’m being blackmailed for being a good, upstanding, generous citizen who does not, and has never, banged a teenage girl after transporting her across state lines!”

    And, FSM willing, will never have a chance to do so in the future.

  204. 204.

    Ken

    @Miss Bianca: Oh, you think the Cheneys are behind this?

    Here’s the thing: If they are, we’ll never know. Everyone in Republican politics will know, because the Cheneys will make sure they know. But there will be absolutely no evidence, and no one will dare speak up.

  205. 205.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    @sdhays:  Could someone jog my vodka-soaked memory and tell us if the Mann Act is still in force?

  206. 206.

    Ken

    @rikyrah: In the “More Tweets”, someone retweets a Gaetz defender (??) saying “17 years old? What is even the big deal”.

    I really hadn’t expected “it’s only statutory rape” to be trotted out this early. I wish I could say I hadn’t expected it to be trotted out at all.

  208. 208.

    cain

    @jonas:

    And since we’re talking about sex scandals, underage kids, and disgrace among people who have no shame about it because they’ve already “been forgiven,” there’s this long form piece from Nancy French (wife of David French — a noted anti-Trump evangelical) on a huge Christian summer camp in the Ozarks whose most popular counselor turns out to have been…wait for it…an insane sex abuser. This was all 10-15 years ago (the guy’s in prison today), but the extent of his actions and number of victims is just now coming to light. As they say, read the whole thing. People have always said that stuff that has gone on in the world of evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity will dwarf the Catholic Church sex scandal. If the Frenches are right that this is just the tip of the iceberg, we could be in (finally) for a real reckoning in the coming months and years.

    And it should come out like crazy – give the GOP more fronts to battle on. Evangelicals coming under fire for sexual abuse will be interesting – of course, they’ll see themselves as victims too.

  209. 209.

    cain

    @germy: ​
     
    There is so much fuck yeah in this that I’m just really excited for the future. I want to see transformative change instead this bullshit that we’ve been enduring since Reagan.

  212. 212.

    Mel

    @Ken:

    Wow. That’s both horrible beyond words, and yet exactly what I would expect from the MAGA evangelical crowd.

    The whole “quiverfull movement” is a nest of misogynists and pedophiles, and they wasted no time in defending Roy Moore. Sadly, I suspect that the same will prove to be the case with Gaetz and any others implicated.

    Samantha Field, an escaped / reformed fundie, has written about the “quiverfull” movement and similar movements in some evangelical church organizations. It is horrific both in the permanent, terrible harm it does to children and to girls and women in particular, but also in the utter, blind acceptance of and laissez-faire attitude taken towards child sexual abuse.

  213. 213.

    NotMax

    @TomatoQueen

    The thing to alter to have new tabs open to the right?

    Go in to about:config
    Find this item: browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent
    Use the toggle icon on that line to change it from true to false
    .

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