Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Our messy unity will be our strength.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

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

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Repub Venality Open Thread: Grifting Their Groceries

Repub Venality Open Thread: Grifting Their Groceries

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Puts this reminder back in the news:

… Stone was on his way to federal prison in July 2020 when then-president Trump commuted his sentence. Stone was sentenced earlier that year to serve 40 months in prison for lying to Congress about his efforts to connect with WikiLeaks in hopes of digging up dirt on Trump’s 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton. The lead prosecutor in the case said Stone had lied because the “truth looked bad for Donald Trump.” Stone was convicted of all seven counts against him…

The Stones deposited more than $1 million in accounts belonging to a commercial entity, Drake Ventures, instead of personal accounts, thereby frustrating collection efforts, the government said in the filing.

From those accounts, the pair covered a down payment on a Fort Lauderdale condominium, paid for personal expenses and covered some of their tax liabilities, the lawsuit alleges, calling the entity an “alter ego” of the Stones…

===========
And while Roger Stone might be dismissed as just another GOP Death Cult has-been, here’s news of their 2024 Most Pompous Presidential Hopeful:

It’s petty-ante corruption, because the Pompeos are petty-ante people. As was widely discussed when this investigation began, Mike and Susan wanted to live in the style of the rich people they were running with, but they didn’t have a private family fortune behind them. It was easier for them to pester their government-appointed ’employees’ than, as my Nana would’ve said, to cut their coats according to their cloth… but that only works over the long term for people who treat their associates with at least a minimum of respect.

Per the Washington Post, company paper for the town where national politics is the monopoly industry:

… The internal watchdog report, released Friday, concluded that the Pompeos made more than 100 requests that “appeared to be personal in nature” and violated regulations. The report did not recommend any punishment for Pompeo, as he no longer works in the department. But it said the department should set up a new system for staffers to report such violations by government employees.

Pompeo, a close ally of former president Donald Trump, harbors future political ambitions and is often mentioned among other Republicans as a 2024 presidential contender…

The internal watchdog office, charged with investigating alleged corruption and wrongdoing, had a notably strained relationship with Pompeo ever since he orchestrated the firing of the office’s longtime leader, Steve Linick, last May and called him a “bad actor” who was not a team player. Linick was succeeded by Stephen Akard, who served less than three months after coming under congressional scrutiny for alleged conflicts of interest and close ties to Vice President Mike Pence. Matthew Klimow succeeded Akard, who also left after roughly three months resulting in the promotion of another acting IG, Diana Shaw.

The State Department did not weigh in on the specific findings of the report, but said it accepts its recommendations…

It’s all petty little crap, says Pompeo! Yeah, and ‘petty little corner-cutting crap collector’ is exactly the look a would-be GOP nominee dreams of…


You can get away with $40K ‘Madison dinners‘, or you can demand civil servants address your Christmas cards, but not both. Especially when you’ve excised the magic words ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ from your vocabulary.

Handing your enemies a stick to beat you with…

Reader Interactions

149Comments

  1. 1.

    Wapiti

    Seriously, why couldn’t his spouse make the reservation? Is he desperate to impress her, too?

  2. 2.

    debbie

    Since there’s a grifters tag, CNN reports that MTG has scrapped her proposal for an Anglo-Saxon caucus based on leadership’s pursed lips. She’s blaming her staff and says she never read the proposal (can’t link on iPad, sorry).

  3. 3.

    smith

    Requiring a senior level professional to perform menial tasks is also a way to demean them. It’s a show of power as much as it is a way to get those little chores done.

  4. 4.

    Suzanne

    “the Secretary directed a career employee to make a reservation for a Sunday brunch for him and his wife at the Cheesecake Factory”

    Good Lord. Trash with (some) money, apparently. The Cheesecake Factory is about the grossest restaurant ever.

    A lot of these tasks sound perfectly reasonable for a personal assistant. I don’t know why they didn’t just hire one.

  5. 5.

    Ken

    @Wapiti: The people the Pompeos were trying to imitate don’t call restaurants. They have their employees do that. However, they didn’t notice that those people don’t go to the Cheesecake Factory.

  7. 7.

    hells littlest angel

    A little penny-ante cheating here and a little penny-ante cheating there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real corruption. Stone and Pompousasseo should both be facing criminal charges.

  8. 8.

    Jeffro

    Ahhhhh, just inhaled some drunken noodles and am now settling in for a night of doing not much…

  9. 9.

    Mike in NC

    Every single individual who ever aspired to be in Trump’s orbit had to display staggering levels of venality, dishonesty, and lack of ethics in his presence.

    Sort of like how Admiral Rickover insisted on personally interviewing every naval officer who aspired to train in nuclear submarines.

  10. 10.

    neldob

    Corruption is gross and destroys democracy. Did he get prosecuted for the Madison Dinners? convicted? Yech. just reading about this makes me feel scuzzy. They shouldn’t be allowed in polite society. Of course they’re not.

  12. 12.

    mrmoshpotato

    IG says Mrs. Pompeo asked her security detail to lean on a restaurant to avoid an $8 fee for serving outside food.

    Eight dollars?!  1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 dollars?!

  13. 13.

    WereBear

    Mike and Susan wanted to live in the style of the rich people they were running with, but they didn’t have a private family fortune behind them.

    A Jackal a few days ago revealed that Tucker Carlson is a trust fund baby by marriage. His father married an heiress; he’s her stepchild.

    I know he’ll never miss a meal in any case, but he’s working at Fox. It’s got to dig at him, I just know it.

    I was recently explaining this to someone using Karl Rove as an example. He was at the heights during the W Admin.

    Partying with the rich! Having his romantic/rental person posing as a journalist! Creating his own reality!

    But he was always “the help.” He’s making real money at Fox… but it’s not helicopter on my yacht money.

    He’s still a servant. Bottom crust.

  14. 14.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Suzanne:

    A lot of these tasks sound perfectly reasonable for a personal assistant. I don’t know why they didn’t just hire one.

    They’re cheap fuckers.

  19. 19.

    mrmoshpotato

    @hells littlest angel: ?With a cheat cheat here, and a cheat cheat there, Here a cheat, there a cheat, everywhere a cheat cheat, Ol’ McTrumptrash stole some shit, beat them with the book?

  20. 20.

    RSA

    IG says Mrs. Pompeo asked her security detail to lean on a restaurant to avoid an $8 fee for serving outside food.

    Some enterprising muckraker could contact restaurant personnel who might have worked these events. I’m guessing they got stiffed on tips.

  23. 23.

    WereBear

    “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

    The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

  24. 24.

    Nelle

    @Mike in NC: One of those Rickover interviewed was my husband, who never aspired to the nuclear sub’s.  Rickover chose him when he was at the Naval Academy.  He had three years in subs, then one year in Vietnam.  Then got stop-lossed for another two years in Vietnam.

    My husband wanted to fly.  Alas, he wasn’t near the bottom of his class, as McCain was.  McCain, who destroyed five planes.  This household had a chip on the shoulder about McCain and destroyed planes.

  25. 25.

    Brachiator

    “One year, a senior adviser to the secretary and a senior Foreign Service officer came in on a weekend “to envelope, address, and mail personal Christmas cards for the Pompeos,” the report states.”

    When you run a government like a business, apparently, you get to treat government employees like flunkies.

    And the loyal GOP base applauds this abuse of people. It is how many of them would act if they had the opportunity.

  27. 27.

    NotMax

    @Suzanne

    “Mike, darling, just to let you know we’ll be changing dry cleaners again. Once more I’m finding mysterious stains on the clothes your flunky brought back.”

    //

  29. 29.

    MisterForkbeard

    @debbie: And I guess neither did Gaetz, Boebert, Gohmert, Gosar, or any of the other racists who signed on. Man, it’s just a total mystery how they all signed on to an explicitly racist caucus, right?

  34. 34.

    Alex in FL

    @Mike in NC: Rickover, despite being the ultimate control freak, didn’t try to enrich himself or look to use his power to climb up the political ladder. While less than perfect, the Nuclear Sub deterrence that scared the bejeezus out of the Russians during the height of the Cold War was largely his doing. Flawed man? Yes….Patriot? Absolutely.

  35. 35.

    Alex in FL

    @Mike in NC: Rickover, despite being the ultimate control freak, didn’t try to enrich himself or look to use his power to climb up the political ladder. While less than perfect, the Nuclear Sub deterrence that scared the bejeezus out of the Russians during the height of the Cold War was largely his doing. Flawed man? Yes….Patriot? Absolutely.

     

    @mrmoshpotato:

  36. 36.

    jl

    ” including groceries and dentist bills.”

    The dentist part is surprising. Apparently they take care of their teeth. Why can’t they do the same on covid? Why are they submitting to the totalitarian orders of Big Dentist, which threaten our freedom.

    Brush and floss every day!!?? I’ll brush and floss when and if I damn well please.

    And, also too, overmore, many people tell me, top people, that bad medieval teeth is one of the pillars of Anglo-Saxon tradition.

    Edit: though I read someplace in a history of medicine recently that bad early medieval teeth is a myth. That came in with widespread use of sugar and refined flour. Dentistry didn’t have to deal with an epidemic of cavities. We need to go back to the good old days when barbers, dentists, and surgeons were all wrapped up in the same guild of pulling shit out and cutting shit out, and stopping bleeding, with a plentiful supply of alcohol.

  37. 37.

    RSA

    @Brachiator:

    “One year, a senior adviser to the secretary and a senior Foreign Service officer came in on a weekend “to envelope, address, and mail personal Christmas cards for the Pompeos,” the report states.”

    Wow. To put this roughly in context, a senior Foreign Service position is at least equivalent to an O7 military rank, which in the Army is a one-star general. Addressing Christmas cards.

  39. 39.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    When Pompeo was at the CIA, his wife called herself “First Lady of the CIA”, a title she made up, and commandeered a large office on the top floor of HQ– down the hall from the Director’s offcie– to run the family support organization, a volunteer organization that had never had space in the building before. I think she’s everything the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy convinced themselves Hillary Clinton was as First Lady.

    @WereBear:

    A Jackal a few days ago revealed that Tucker Carlson is a trust fund baby by marriage. His father married an heiress; he’s her stepchild

    Tucker was I think ten when his father married the Frozen Dinner Princess. A couple of years ago, one of his rants was about men who  are emasculated by wives who earn more money than they do. I think that was a peek into Tucker’s psyche

  40. 40.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Give Pompeo a break, how is he supposed to pay an $8 fee on his paltry salary of $221,240.

  43. 43.

    jl

    @Baud: They realized that the Anglo Saxons were cucks. Danegeld and all that.

    Sadly there were some Anglo-Saxon traditions that are very attractive to today’s trendy GOP reactionaries. I’ll have to go find the tweet on that.

  45. 45.

    patrick II

    It seems that from Trump on down they are not just criminals but compulsive in their criminality. They are compelled to commit crimes over and over again at any opportunity whether or not it results in an actual gain. Like compulsive gamblers they just cannot stop themselves. There is the story of the guy who could stand there and tell you the truth or climb a tree to tell a lie — he climbs the tree. That is what being a member of the Republican party is like now.

  47. 47.

    jl

    The British History Podcast @BritishPodcast

    ‘ Here are some of my favorite “Anglo-Saxon political traditions”

    – Missing your own coronation party because you’re having a mother/daughter three way

    – Kidnapping and marrying nuns

    – Killing your cousin/brother/father/uncle

    – Carrying a corpse around for decades. For reasons. ‘

    https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1383195724423258115

    Found via Josh Marshall twitter

  48. 48.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Not doing their own X-mas cards certainly sounds like a War on Christmas.

    Certainly a true believer would cherish the opportunity to celebrate Jesus’ birthday.

  49. 49.

    Steeplejack

    @debbie:

    She’s blaming her staff and says she never read the proposal [. . .].

    That’s odd, because [checks notes] last night she was blaming Jake Sherman for “taking #AngloSaxon out of context to mean racist [. . .] the same as the idiots that lied about me and #JewishSpaceLasers.” And of course lit up the hashtags so that her minions could follow them.

  51. 51.

    Steeplejack

    @Jeffro:

    Chinese for me: hot and sour soup, egg rolls, chicken fried rice. Celebrating acquisition of Pfizer #2 shot appointment for Tuesday.

  52. 52.

    jl

    Anglo-Saxons were also cucked multi-culturalists, fricken ‘woked’ losers. They thought that they were the western European counterpart of India, admired early Christian church and saints in India.

    Dr Caitlin Green @caitlinrgreen

    King Alfred and India: an Anglo-Saxon embassy to southern India in the ninth century AD — new post by me :) https://caitlingreen.org/2019/04/king-alfred-and-india.html…

    https://twitter.com/caitlinrgreen/status/1123307246522392576

    The whole Anglo-Saxon thing is a mixed bag. They should have done their research, but they never do. I think balance comes down on cucked wokes, but libertine sexy time among the ruling class has advantages. Too bad it didn’t work out for the sake of the perks of the latter, at least for people like Gaetz and Stone.

  53. 53.

    Suzanne

    So Spawn the Youngest has a couple of annoying/charming toddler habits. One of them is that, when she wants to be calm and snuggly, she sort of burrows in next to someone, and then her left thumb goes in her mouth, while she grabs your earlobe with her right. And she just loves to rub and stroke your earlobe, over and over. She’s doing it right now. Like I said, it’s annoying, but I know that in short order, she will not want to be near me at all. So I’ll endure.

  55. 55.

    Chyron HR

    @jl:

    Missing your own coronation party because you’re having a mother/daughter three way

    Goals, tbh.

  56. 56.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Alex in FL: The explanation I heard about Rickover was he was micromanager and felt it was important to have as few accidents with reactors as possible, thus all the interviews.

  60. 60.

    Brachiator

    @jl:

    Missing your own coronation party because you’re having a mother/daughter three way

    King Eadwig was 16 when this supposedly happened. He married the daughter, only to have their marriage annulled, probably by supporters of Dunstan, the English bishop who had dragged him away from the three-way.

  63. 63.

    Spanky

    Something many of us were worried about. Via WaPo:

    By Ellen Nakashima
    April 17 at 4:59 PM ET
    Michael Ellis, a former Republican political operative, resigned Friday as the National Security Agency’s top lawyer, having been sidelined for three months after President Biden took office.
    The NSA director, Gen. Paul Nakasone, had placed Ellis on administrative leave the day President Donald Trump left the White House — just as Ellis was taking up the position. The reasons: a pending Pentagon inspector general probe, an official told The Washington Post at the time, and a security inquiry into Ellis’s handling of classified information, according to a letter from Ellis’s attorney to Nakasone, a copy of which was obtained by The Post.
    Nakasone had agreed to install Ellis as general counsel just days earlier under orders from Trump’s acting defense secretary. The role does not require Senate confirmation.
    The inspector general inquiry into the circumstances of Ellis’s selection remains open, Nakasone told Congress on Thursday.
    Now Ellis has given up waiting for a resolution.
    “I have been on administrative leave for nearly three months without any explanation or updates, and there is no sign that NSA will attempt to resolve the issue,” Ellis said in a letter to Nakasone on Friday, a copy of which was obtained by The Post. “I therefore resign my position, effective immediately.

  65. 65.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Missing your own coronation party because you’re having a mother/daughter three way

    I think I saw that film, IIRC it starred Nicole Aniston and Sasha Grey

  68. 68.

    Suzanne

    @debbie: She has sharp little fingernails! She can also sometimes get sooooooo close. There has been no social distancing with the Doodlebug.

  71. 71.

    Ruckus

    @mrmoshpotato:

    He and his wife, outside eating charge $8 x 2 = $16

    Now they could be so fucking cheap that it was $8 for the 2 of them and it still was an abomination, I mean after all, don’t you know who they are!

    It’s was a joke man, don’t take it too seriously…..

  72. 72.

    West of the Rockies

    @Brachiator:

    That’s what always baffles me:  the GOP base is composed of stupid, stupid people who vote against their own true interests because they want to be money and power-adjacent.  Their desire to see someone else get shit on (and that list of someones is long) outweighs their desire for equity and honor.

    Piggy Pompeo and Roger “The Schnoz” Stone are a waste of oxygen.

  76. 76.

    jl

    @Baud: “Completely opposite to the approach I would have taken.”

    Baud the Innovator, some interesting stories about his reign in the Baudist Chronicles. Some may be legend, some may be true.

  81. 81.

    mrmoshpotato

    @jl:

    Baud the Innovator, some interesting stories about his reign in the Baudist Chronicles. Some may be legend, some may be true. 

    But they all involve reactor meltdowns!

  85. 85.

    Spanky

    @smith:

    There are legends about Mr. and Mrs. Stone that rival King Eadwig’s.

    Does Mrs Stone have a tattoo of Pat Nixon on her back?

  89. 89.

    Redshift

    @debbie:

    She’s blaming her staff and says she never read the proposal 

    Sadly, it’s entirely believable that she never read the proposal (or anything else.) But that doesn’t change the fact that she is clearly a fervent believer in all the racist bullshit that caused the backlash.

  90. 90.

    Redshift

    @Mike in NC:

    My dad worked under Rickover (civilian, not military.) I actually didn’t hear a lot of stories, other than him being tough and no-nonsense, though I might be able to find out more now if I asked.

  91. 91.

    Bill Arnold

    I am enjoying observing Mr Stone trying to squirm out of trouble. (He fucked over some people that … he should not have.) There’s also this association, bold mine. Perhaps nothing :-), but it at least looks bad:
    Matt Gaetz’s Wingman Paid Dozens of Young Women—and a 17-Year-Old – Venmo payment records reveal a vast network of young women received money from Rep. Matt Gaetz’s associate, the accused sex trafficker Joel Greenberg. (Jose Pagliery, Roger Sollenberger, Apr. 14, 2021)

    In the memo field for one $500 payment to a woman on Friday July 7, 2017, Greenberg used only the policewoman emoji (“?”). County records show he had used his government-issued, taxpayer-funded American Express card at the time to cover a “weekend hotel stay” at the Four Seasons in Miami, from July 7 to July 9. And that Saturday, July 8, Gaetz and Greenberg each shared a picture of themselves at dinner with Roger Stone.

  94. 94.

    Another Scott

    @Steeplejack: Ah.  Missed that.  Thanks.

    I specifically asked The Injector at the South County Government Center what I should do if I didn’t get the email for the 2nd shot in 3 weeks based on your experience.  She said that shouldn’t happen, but call if it does.  She said the 2nd shot might be at a different location as they might not be giving Pfizer there at that time.

    Fingers crossed!

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  95. 95.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I laughed

    pixelatedboat aka “mr tweets” @pixelatedboat 37m

    Petition for Elton John to write Candle In The Wind 2021 about Prince Philip

  97. 97.

    NotMax

    @Steeplejack

    High on the list of things to do once the fershlugginer time travel machine is operational is to go back to visit the Inn of the Eight Immortals at the Seven Corners shopping center in Falls Church for their Pa Hsien Special Steak. Which one could also order as take-out delivery! The menu.

    ;)

  98. 98.

    Gin & Tonic

    This is pretty funny, in a dark kind of way. The Czech Republic has expelled 18 Russian intelligence agents working under diplomatic cover, because of Russia’s apparent involvement in the 2014 explosion at a Czech ammunition depot in Vrbětice. The funny part is that the two key dramatis personae are these guys:

    “We were just tourists. Vrběticích had one of Europe’s most famous ammunition depots…” pic.twitter.com/mYS5SokQ2O
    — Euan MacDonald (@Euan_MacDonald) April 17, 2021

    whom some of you may recall from the attempted poisoning assassination of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England

    ETA: MacDonald uses the wrong declension.

  101. 101.

    Steeplejack

    @Another Scott:

    LOL, I hope she specified whether to call Inova or Fairfax County. (I’m assuming your shots are through Inova.)

    The weird thing is that when I logged on to the Inova site as a “member” (had to set up an account originally to register for the first shot) there was a notice waiting for me that I had an appointment to schedule (for the second shot), but the links from there didn’t work, and, as I said before, I had never gotten an e-mail notification. No date on the notice, so I don’t know how long it had been sitting there. Finally found a link that worked somewhere else on the site.

  102. 102.

    Another Scott

    @Steeplejack: No, mine was directly through the county health department.  The local Inova hospital wasn’t on the list, I don’t think.  A couple of Wegmans and other things were listed, but they were farther away.

    One would think that a hospital chain would be good about keeping track of appointments!!  :-)

    Good luck!

    I expect that in 6-9 months no more appointments will be needed and people can just go to their local pharmacy and get a shot/booster, like with the flu vaccine.  It should be much less stressful then.

    I hope that we’ll be flooding the rest of the world with vaccine sooner than expected as well.

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  104. 104.

    Steeplejack

    @NotMax:

    You’re going to be disappointed. I live half a mile from Seven Corners, and there hasn’t been a restaurant with that name there in at least 15 years. Even the very good Chinese restaurant that was there, Fortune, closed a few years ago when the owners retired. Lots of great Vietnamese food across Arlington Boulevard at Eden Center, though.

    ETA: You might want to laminate that menu from 1969!

  105. 105.

    zhena gogolia

    We just watched the 1968 Zeffirelli Romeo and Juliet, which I adored when I was a young maid. I was afraid I would find it cheesy. No such thing. A masterpiece.

  106. 106.

    NotMax

    @Gin & Tonic

    Place went bye-bye long ago. Prices (which flirted with the costs at chi-chi dining establishments at the time) on the menu pic kind of a dead giveaway.

    ;)

  107. 107.

    Another Scott

    @Steeplejack: You’ve got lots of great eateries nearby.  We used to enjoy Duangrat’s a lot, but haven’t been in ages. We should put it back on the list once we get closer to crushing the spread.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  108. 108.

    Steeplejack

    @Another Scott:

    I registered with Fairfax County too, and when I got the notice for the first shot it steered me to Inova.

    Irony: the very evening after I got the first shot I got an e-mail from my HMO, Kaiser, saying that I could schedule a shot with them. That would have been way more convenient. But before that they had basically been saying “You’re on your own,” and even they recommended signing up with the state or Fairfax County.
    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  111. 111.

    Another Scott

    @Steeplejack: It’s been crazy.  I registered with DC weeks ago and only get occasional unrelated spam from the mayor.  About a week ago we learned that we could indeed (after them telling us for months that we couldn’t) get in the queue for shots through our larger employer, but the county was faster for me.

    In my group of roughly 10 people, I’m probably the last one or two to get their first shot, and I’m about the oldest.  These youngsters don’t let “no” get in the way, even if it means driving to NC…  ;-)

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  112. 112.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    I saw that movie in a giant wide-screen theater in Tokyo with Japanese subtitles running down the right side. My (Air Force) family, stationed on Okinawa, was visiting the family that had lived next to us at our previous base. I went with their daughter, same age as me, on whom I long had a crush.

  116. 116.

    zhena gogolia

    @James E Powell:

    WOW!!!

    I loved her in Black Christmas too.

    I don’t think anyone has ever been more beautiful than she was as Juliet. Not even Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca.

  117. 117.

    Steeplejack

    @Another Scott:

    Duangrat’s! Good restaurant. Running joke with my brother: “Uncle, I know your dream has been to open a restaurant in America and have it bear your name, but I beseech you to reconsider. Golden Temple, perhaps?”

    And it’s just down the street from the Peking Gourmet Inn, where Bush senior liked to eat back in the day.

  120. 120.

    Jeffro

    Btw the neighborhood owl appears to be hooting its brains out tonight…I’m sure I’ll sleep just fine even if it keeps going, but man, this thing is either insomniac or hungry or horny as hell.

  121. 121.

    James E Powell

    @zhena gogolia:

    Completely agree. Imagine the turmoil in my Roman Catholic self when she appeared as the Virgin Mary in Zefferelli’s Jesus of Nazareth.

  122. 122.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    Unfortunately, not a thing. Probably should have put “unrequited” in my previous comment.

    Actually, that’s not quite right. There was mutual attraction, I think, but we were two emotionally awkward 16-year-olds who had known each other since we were awkward 12-year-olds. Ngrr!

    Jeepers, this has taken me down Memory Lane! But this has been one of the hallmarks of my pandemic experience: rumination over people and events from random points in the past. It’s like my brain is: “Okay, no new business? Let’s rehash old business, then.”

  123. 123.

    Jeffro

    @Another Scott:  I expect that in 6-9 months no more appointments will be needed and people can just go to their local pharmacy and get a shot/booster, like with the flu vaccine.  It should be much less stressful then.  I hope that we’ll be flooding the rest of the world with vaccine sooner than expected as well.

    God I hope so on both counts.  For the latter, especially: crush the variants!!!

  125. 125.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Jeffro:

    Btw the neighborhood owl appears to be hooting its brains out tonight…I’m sure I’ll sleep just fine even if it keeps going, but man, this thing is either insomniac or hungry or horny as hell.

    Why not all three?

  127. 127.

    Jeffro

    @mrmoshpotato: You never know, right?

    I’m busy looking up various owl hoots and screeches trying to figure out what it is, but it’s probably best saved for tomorrow.

  128. 128.

    Ohio Mom

    Oh, I remember swooning to the Romeo and Juliet movie. Saw it with my friends, not my class, though my junior high English teacher did take us to see Camelot.

    I don’t think teachers do movie theater trips anymore, at least not here in suburban Ohio. Ohio Son saw movies but in school via DVD. Seems a loss.

  129. 129.

    Steeplejack

    @Jeffro:

    It really is a cornucopia: everything from bubble-tea and banh mi sandwich shops to quickie pho places and nice sit-down restaurants. I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. I try to hit new places, but the old favorites (e.g., Huong Viet) keep dragging me back.​

    ETA: This just hit me—I had lunch with efgoldman and his charming wife at Huong Viet about a year before he died. They were great company.

  130. 130.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Ohio Mom:

    I don’t think teachers do movie theater trips anymore, at least not here in suburban Ohio. Ohio Son saw movies but in school via DVD. Seems a loss.

    I don’t ever remember going to a movie with a school group ( I’m 53). A couple of concerts, maybe a play? We watched the Zeffirelli R&J on tape. Watching movies in class was better than having a substitute: Nap time!

  131. 131.

    NotMax

    @Another Scott

    Time was dance- and song-free West Side Story type rumbles threatened to break out between factions in the D.C. area if an innocent visitor inquired as to whether the rum buns served at The Flagship or at Hogate’s were superior.

  132. 132.

    Ken

    @Another Scott: I registered with DC weeks ago and only get occasional unrelated spam from the mayor.

    Thanks for the reminder to un-register with my county, state, and primary healthcare sites, all of which were similarly good only for spam.

  134. 134.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Ohio Mom: I don’t think teachers do movie theater trips anymore…. Seems a loss.

    I first saw Dr Zhivago on a school trip to the Mayfair Theater on Howard Street in downtown Baltimore in (I think) early 1966. And during the intermission** I met my Lara, whom I chased for the next two decades & nearly caught – till she met the love of her life, who saved me from impending doom*** by marrying her…

    ** Yes there was an intermission. The frackin’ flick was three and a half hours long fer dogsake!

    *** I.e., marrying her. She’d’ve made my life a living hell for not being TLOHL & made off with at least half of what I owned in two years max. I count myself consistently fortunate that none of the women I wanted to marry ever took me up on the notion.

  136. 136.

    trnc

    I bet that any other SOS (including Tillerson) walks into that restaurant and wants to bring a birthday cake in, the manager would wave the plate charge. The reason pompy had to get a staffer to make reservations is because they wouldn’t take his.

    Mike: “That’s weird. That’s the 17th time this month the steak house said they have to close early.”

  137. 137.

    Shakti

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    If Wikipedia is to believed, he’s been sober and off cigarettes for approximately two decades, but the kind of person who constantly chews nicotine gum.

    Also his bio mom noped out of her marriage and being a parent to Tucker when he was six.

  138. 138.

    Kent

    @Mike in NC: Wait what?  You are comparing Trump to Rickover?  I thought Rickover was difficult and unpopular but at least competent as hell and managed to develop the nuclear navy with zero major fuckups of any kind

  139. 139.

    Kent

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Most modern classrooms either have a big screen LCD TV or else an even larger LCD projector.  And with internet you can either play DVDs or stream pretty much anything.

    Why would anyone take kids to a theater?

  142. 142.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    Completely opposite to the approach I would have taken.

    Well, in fairness, wouldn’t your way eventually result in Godzilla (and not necessarily the “good” one, fucking movie revisionism)? Or giant ants in the desert? Or something similar?

  143. 143.

    SFAW

    @trnc:

    Mike: “That’s weird. That’s the 17th time this month the steak house said they have to close early.”

    Well in fairness, sometimes the restaurant had to wash their hair. Or floss their cat. Or watch a really good episode of Friends. Or contemplate the neo-Proustian ramifications of paleocentric something-or-other-ism.

  144. 144.

    Barry

    <a href="#comment-8145578" @Enhanced Voting Techniques: ​
     

    “The explanation I heard about Rickover was he was micromanager and felt it was important to have as few accidents with reactors as possible, thus all the interviews.”

    Also, this was all new. By the 1950’s, presumably the Navy knew how to select, train and develop officers for the surface fleet. The submarine fleet was still young (basically, WWII), and nuclear reactors were even newer.

  146. 146.

    WaterGirl

    @planetjanet: For real?  Do you have a link for that?  I would love to be able to look up some locations.

    Maybe you are thinking of daily new cases per 100k, rather than the infection rate, which is typically called R, and is usually 1.xx, even in the really bad areas?

  147. 147.

    kindness

    What you bet that Right wingers are now going to claim a Presidential commutation covers all crimes done for all eternity. Why it’s a perpetual Get Out Of Jail card! Says so in the Constitution (not)!

  149. 149.

    Another Scott

    In other news, … AlJazeera:

    Senior Saudi and Iranian officials held direct talks in a bid to repair relations between the two regional rivals, according to a report in the Financial Times which quoted officials briefed on the discussions.

    The first round of the reported talks, held four years after both sides cut off diplomatic ties, took place in Baghdad on April 9 and included discussions about attacks on Saudi Arabia by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi group.

    The unnamed official quoted in the report said the Saudi delegation was led by Khalid bin Ali al-Humaidan, the kingdom’s intelligence chief, and another round of talks was also scheduled.

    There has been no comment from either side following the publishing of the report.

    […]

    Interesting.

    All 3 countries want stable and increasing oil prices. They see that the world economy is starting to recover and want a piece of the increasing oil demand (at least until electrification puts a serious squeeze on demand). Hard-headed economics is probably going to drive a lot of hold – our – nose – and – end – the – proxy – battle stuff in coming months/years. That’s a good thing.

    It’ll be interesting to see how Putin and Maduro, and the conflicts in the South China Sea, evolve in coming months.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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