Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

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

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

This fight is for everything.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

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

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

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

The words do not have to be perfect.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

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Squishable Morning Open Thread

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Say you’re a flack for an organization that’s weathering a PR nightmare. For example, you represent a canned beans company, and a customer posted a viral TikTok of finding a dead rat in a can of your beans. You know a rival organization plans a high-profile media attack that includes a rat-free beans ad.

So, what’s your strategy? Maybe you’d line up your best spokespeople to offer a counter narrative. Perhaps you’d skip town and keep quiet, hoping the whole thing blows over.

What you probably wouldn’t do is let the most clownish dopes in your organization lead the response. But that’s what the Republican Party did yesterday. Via Rolling Stone:

Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) don’t feel too bad about what happened on Jan. 6. The far-right lawmakers on Thursday hosted what they described as the Republican “response” to a slate of Democratic events commemorating the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Predictably, they said some really dumb, damaging things. They downplayed the mayhem Trump supporters caused and made wild accusations, such as that the FBI fomented the riot.

But in this case, it’s hard to imagine the seemingly poor crisis communications strategy causing a ripple. Gaetz and Greene, two of the most odious individuals in Congress, are echoing the twice-impeached, two-time popular vote loser who is their party’s leader. Also, their message isn’t appreciably crazier than what up-and-coming party leaders like Ron DeSantis are saying.

It all makes sense when you know the Republican Party isn’t selling a product to a broad consumer base, something like canned beans. The rat is the product.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

451Comments

  6. 6.

    The Thin Black Duke

    OT, but I wanted to thank everybody for the kind words last night. I am both humbled and honored, and I hope not to disappoint anybody in the future. By the way, if you don’t hear from me in the next few days, it’s because I’m buried in a snowbank.

  11. 11.

    NotMax

    I believe the expression “bringing the hammer down” applies.

    A judge said Thursday he will fine Cyber Ninjas, the contractor that led Arizona Republicans’ 2020 election review, $50,000 a day if the firm doesn’t immediately turn over public records related to the unprecedented inquiry.

    The judge found Cyber Ninjas in contempt for its failure to turn over documents, which two Maricopa County judges and the state Court of Appeals have ruled are subject to the public records law.

    The $50,000 daily fine imposed by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah far exceeds the $1,000 levy suggested by a lawyer for The Arizona Republic newspaper, which filed the public records lawsuit earlier this year. Hannah said the lower amount would be “grossly insufficient” to coerce Cyber Ninjas to comply with his orders.

    A lawyer for Cyber Ninjas, Jack Wilenchik, said the company is insolvent, has laid off all employees, including former CEO Doug Logan, and can’t afford to sift through its records to find those related to the audit.

    Hannah said the $50,000 daily fine would begin accruing on Friday and warned that, if necessary, he will apply the fine to individuals, not just the Cyber Ninjas corporation.

    “The court is not going to accept the assertion that Cyber Ninjas is an empty shell and that no one is responsible for seeing that it complies,” Hannah said. Source

  16. 16.

    NotMax

    Things are looking up.

    In a discovery truly out of this world, researchers with Keck Observatory said they watched, for the first time, the death of a star.

    Using the technology of telescopes on Mauna Kea and Haleakala, they logged what happened in the days leading up to the red supergiant’s end, saying it was an episode of “rapid self-destruction” before collapsing into a type II supernova. Source

  17. 17.

    debbie

    @NotMax:

    I can’t tell from the article whether they’re referring to records the state had to give to Cyber Ninjas which they refuse to return or Cyber Ninjas’ own records of their “research.” ??‍♀️

  19. 19.

    Kay

    Tim Miller
    @Timodc
    ·21h
    The fbi theory is so stupid and doesn’t even vindicate them if it were true. Imagine if you put a few informants in the women’s March and had them tell everyone to CHARGE THE CAPITOL. the participants would call the cops on the insane freaks not start spearing Capitol police.

    Funny and also extra points for the comparison to the Women’s March (actually a good comparison)

    It is true that they never take the FBI conspiracy out- “so the FBI plants some agitators who tell the Trumpists to storm the building and they do it“.

    It’s not even a defense! We’re back to the same problem! They’re still insurrectionists.

  22. 22.

    Geminid

    President Biden will fly to Denver today, then tour a neighborhood in Louisville, Colorado, ravaged by the Marshall Fire. (from Politico Playbook)

  24. 24.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    Cyber Ninjas have real problems though. It’s not a game. They can’t just tire of it after sanctions go in and walk away.

  26. 26.

    Gin & Tonic

    The President of Kazakhstan has issued a shoot-to-kill order to quell anti-government protests going on there this week.

  29. 29.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    There should be a list of how many people have been or are in various flavors of legal trouble after association with the Trump Family. It’s thousands. The cult demands a lot of cult members.

  35. 35.

    geg6

    @Kay:

    Yeah, my gob is kinda smacked.  Since when is “we shut down and nobody is there to find the paperwork” an excuse for refusing to turn over documents subject to a court order that has been affirmed all the way up the judicial ladder?  What kind of lawyer argues this shit?

  40. 40.

    debbie

    Stephen Colbert has refused to refer to TFG by name since Biden took office. Fans have tweeted him all kinds of replacement names which he’s using (some are listed here). Some are really very funny. Now, because he’s tired of imitating TFG’s speaking style, he’s resorted to hiring a 7-year-old to read all those stupid statements.

    You can see both at about 7:20 in last night’s monologue.

  41. 41.

    stinger

    @Benw: Hah! I didn’t even think of that!

    My nym is derived from a favorite line in Ball of Fire. “One rough, impetuous bee….”

  43. 43.

    Cermet

    For the right wing there is no shame, remorse or even the slightest feelings of regret about Jan 6; many, of course, deny it happen, and more think it was just a fun get-together; just a a lark that no one should bother about. Until fake news (aka fox) is utterly destroyed our country is doomed for massive division that is leading to destruction of our civil society and our so-called democracy.

  45. 45.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: I heard he was doing this today, and my first thought was it’s so nice to have a president who won’t be gross in a situation like that, and start throwing paper towels or obsessing over a grounded boat!

  49. 49.

    Butter Emails

    Republicans put rats in their beans.

    Republicans to the base: Guaranteed rat in every can of beans. Guaranteed to make the libs cry.

    Republicans to Media: It’s outrageous that anyone would suggest that there are rats in our beans.

    Media: Republicans confirm that their cans of beans contain only 100% Grade A beans.

    Republicans to everyone: The Demoncrap Party uses aborted babies in their Pork and Beans.

    Democrats: WTF

    Media: Here’s a panel of Republicans to discuss the serious accusations of aborted baby parts in Democratic Party beans

  51. 51.

    Kay

    @geg6:

    They wanted to be a fake state election authority- pretend they were doing an audit. They have to take it all the way. Of course newspapers and others want the records. They’re entitled to them. Such ridiculous people-the whole reason they exist was supposedly to serve as a “check” for the state and local employees they smeared and they didn’t keep records? Good thing they’re not actually running elections!

  57. 57.

    Ken

    @The Thin Black Duke: By the way, if you don’t hear from me in the next few days, it’s because I’m buried in a snowbank.

    Give you time to read all the orientation materials and go through the blog-mandated training videos that Cole has provided.  “Lesson 7: How to Bigfoot”…

  59. 59.

    Soprano2

    Ok, I’m going to be the the old woman yelling get off my lawn for a few minutes here. I swear, if today’s people had to fight WWII I think we would just give up because it was too hard. If three snowflakes come out of the sky, they cancel school because they’ve got 10 snow days built into the calendar, so it doesn’t cost them anything to cancel. My Jazzercize studio cancelled two classes this morning even though all the main roads are clear and it only snowed an inch on Wednesday! I guess this is my age showing, but places are much more likely to cancel things now the minute the weather is a little bit worse than normal; it seems “weenieish” to me. I know that when I was a kid Springfield never would have cancelled school over an inch of snow, and even most rural districts probably would have gone. When I was young I determined that I was going to learn to drive when the roads were bad because I didn’t want to be trapped or at the mercy of others to help me get around.

  61. 61.

    Ken

    @Soprano2: There is of course an xkcd for this. It even has the right state!

    I learned to drive in Missouri in the late 70s, and drivers could definitely handle snow. Maybe they’re losing the ability because they see it less. In twenty years, it may be like Dallas or Atlanta, where an inch of snow paralyzes the city.

  62. 62.

    numfar

    Someone smarter than me said “Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated”.

  65. 65.

    RobertB

    @Soprano2: This old geezer grew up in a town where they didn’t plow the side streets unless it got really deep, and even then they wouldn’t plow them all the way clear.  They would use sawdust or cinders to make the streets a little less slick.  Studded snow tires and chains were a thing.

  66. 66.

    Geminid

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Ex-Seminole County Tax Collector and former Gaetz wingman Joel Greenberg pleaded guilty to six federal counts last May. One was a charge of sex trafficking a minor. In October, federal prosecurors asked for a second delay for Greenberg’s sentencing, to this coming March:

    “This is an unusual request, but I think this is an unusual case,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Hadburg told the judge. “The evidence takes us places, and frankly, it takes us places we did not anticipate.”

    ClickOrlando.com Oct.18 2021

    The crimes Greenberg pleaded guilty to carry a minimum of 12 yers imprisonment, but could be reduced based on his cooperation. Last month two of Greenberg’s associates were charged with federal crimes, and Greenberg agreed to pay $1.9 million in restitution to Seminole County.

    So it seems that if Gaetz gets charged, it will be in the next three months. Gaetz’s dad has the money to hire top defense attorneys, so prosecutors will need a solid case.

  68. 68.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Oh, the “election crimes” office makes me sad. Political prosecutions.

    Ugh, imagine how wingnutty and corrupt it will be at the county level, and they won’t be able to afford a good defense.

  69. 69.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Thanks for telling me about the election crimes office, though. It’s the kind of thing I follow and they won’t be able to hide who they charge and what they charge on. If it gets super-bad there can be a referral to the DOJ to investigate and look for politically motivated prosecutions. It’s “public corruption”.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    If approved, the new office would be the first in any state dedicated to investigating and prosecuting election-related crimes, said Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, which promotes legislation restricting voting access.
    Von Spakovsky, a polarizing figure in the world of voting rights who was on Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, likes the idea of an Office of Election Crime and Security.

    Gross. The respected and respectable Wall Street Journal promoted this clown for years. They’re nearly solely responsible for “Hans von Spakovsky”. They should all be ashamed.

  74. 74.

    Taken4Granite

    @Soprano2: I sympathize with your point of view, but I don’t think the snow days are to protect the kids from the snow. It’s to protect the kids from the idiots who think their all-wheel-drive SUVs can handle the snow just fine. (It’s not enough.) A decade or so ago, a school bus in my school district (I live in New Hampshire) was forced off a major highway by one of these idiots. I can understand the school superintendent being a bit more gun shy after that happened.

    I never had need to drive in snow until I moved to New Hampshire (I grew up in Florida). By the end of my first winter here I knew how to drive in snow, because it was assumed that I already knew. But I try not to be an idiot behind the wheel. Far too many people can’t manage that.

  76. 76.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Just One More Canuck: Withdrawing from representation is not always easy.  Especially in the middle of a trial.  They may be a wingnut law firm, they may be chasing a paycheck, or they may just be stuck making the best arguments available.

  77. 77.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @debbie:

    In reading some of the old Balloon Juice anniversary stuff I saw a nickname that I had forgotten but still appeals to me: Dolt 45. Snappier than “TFG.”

  78. 78.

    geg6

    @Taken4Granite:
    Exactly right.  The way the idiots around here drive in the snow, I’m surprised kids aren’t killed every day there is snow and it’s not because the bus drivers can’t drive in the snow.  It’s because 90% of people who own SUVs think they don’t have to change their driving during a snow event because “I have a manly, he-man, most he-manly vehicle and I can do whatever I want because of it.”  It’s like guns.  The SUVs are their penis replacements.  I am of the opinion that SUVs should be outlawed completely.  I’d say the same about pickups, but I can actually see the utility of a pickup.  Can’t say the same about the most dangerous passenger vehicles on the road.​
     
    ETA: And that doesn’t even take into account all the transplanted assholes from Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana who have come here to work at the new cracker plant. You know, the one that was supposed to provide tons of good local jobs? Yeah, lots of good local jobs that all went to assholes from everywhere south of the Mason Dixon and not to anyone from Pennsylvania, let alone Western PA or Beaver County.

  79. 79.

    sab

    @geg6: Back when I was having to commute 35 miles towards Cleveland at every snowstorm I would see SUVs all over, slid off the highway and stuck.

    Unfortunately if you have kids you don’t have much choice since station wagons went out of fashion.

  80. 80.

    mrmoshpotato

    Say you’re a flack for an organization that’s weathering a PR nightmare. For example, you represent a canned beans company, and a customer posted a viral TikTok of finding a dead rat in a can of your beans.

    How is that the first thing that comes to mind? ?  Do I want to know? ??< vibrating phone for “shudder” apparently.

    ETA – oh, I see.  Clever twist.  But canned beans are off the menu for a while.

  81. 81.

    mrmoshpotato

    @NotMax:

    A judge said Thursday he will fine Cyber Ninjas, the contractor that led Arizona Republicans’ 2020 election review, $50,000 a day if the firm doesn’t immediately turn over public records related to the unprecedented inquiry. 

    Look out Power Rangers!  You’re next!

  84. 84.

    VOR

    The likes of Gaetz and Empty G are not subject to the orders of the institutional Republican party. There is nobody to be the adult in the room or the voice of reason when TFG is the true leader of the Republican party

    Boehner ran into this buzz saw as Speaker when he could not control the Tea Party types in his caucus. He tired of the game and retired.

  85. 85.

    LeftCoastYankee

    PR flack for a group of adults who thought Cyber Ninjas was a good name….

    We’re in the lower circles of hell now.

  86. 86.

    Ramalama

    @sab: SAME – but commuting from Boston to Montreal. You’d see all these SUVs in the center ditches of the highway (Route 89, thank you very much).

    Quebec enforces that every car and truck wear snow tires as of Dec 15th. Cops do checks of cars in town and also on highway exits.

    Various company parking lots in Vermont are littered with Subarus. Vermonters are resilient that way. I am guessing that the cars that joined the SUVs on the wipe out section in Vermont may have been visitors.

    I drive a turbo Subaru and absolutely love it (fun!) and hate it (delicate! expensive!) – and the subaru dealer in our town is just the worst.

    I say this as a driver who spent years commuting via Toyota Corolla until I finally came to Jesus and got something awd.

  87. 87.

    J R in WV

    Brilliant! For Republicans:

    The Rat IS the product!

    Sometimes, late at night, when I browse Balloon Juice with my little tablet at 4 am, I dream of being promoted to the Front Page status. Then I wake up and go back to bed, after seeing Betty Cracker’s work.

    “The Rat IS the product!”

    Brilliant! Thanks Betty. Best of luck to Woodrow and The Thin Black Duke…

    Nearly a foot of snow here in our tiny hollow, Big Dogs were shocked this morning, came back in pretty quickly after doing their business out in the woods.

    Clyde would have spent the night outside on the back porch, with snow building up on top of him — that dog loved snow,  the colder the better, would rub his face into the snow and burrow into it. We had to beg him to come in, he loved being out in it. Clyde had a coat that Siberian dogs would have been jealous of, black, thick fur. Was a beauty with snow on.

  89. 89.

    Kirk Spencer

    @sab:

    But always remember they went out of fashion to own the libs. SUVs are trucks and trucks don’t have to mind those liberal gas mileage rules.

  93. 93.

    Barney

    The rat is indeed the product – from the Brand New Monty Python Bok:

    Rat Recipes:
    Rat souffle:
    Make sure that the rat s squeals are not audible from the street, particularly in areas where the Anti-Souffle League and similar do-gooders are out to persecute the innocent pleasures of the table…
    Bits of rat hidden under a chair:
    This isn’t so much a recipe as a bit of advice in the event of members of the Anti-Souffle League or its simpering lackeys breaking into your flat. Your wife (or a friend’s) should engage the pusillanimous toadies from the League in conversation, perhaps turning the chat to the price of corn and the terrible damage inflicted by all kinds of rodents on personal property, and rats attacking small babies (this always lakes the steam out of them) and you should have time to get any rat-bits safely out of sight. Incidentally do make sure that your current copy of The Rat Gourmet hasn’t been left lying around, otherwise all will be in vain, and the braying hounds of the culinary killjoys will be unleashed upon the things you cherish: your chopping-board …

    http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Salient37021974-t1-body-d25.html

    49 years ago, and the Monty Python team captured the sense of persecution of the Republicans while they do awful things perfectly …

  94. 94.

    Ruckus

    @Taken4Granite:

    But I try not to be an idiot behind the wheel. Far too many people can’t manage that.

    I wonder if they can manage to not be idiots at any time? It may be far beyond their capabilities.

  103. 103.

    satby

    And in case anyone wants to say a tangible thank you to Lady Ruby Freeman and her daughter for standing strong in spite of the hell they were put through, there’s a Gofundme that they were hoping to use to move and regain some safety. It’s exploded since her testimony, but I’m sure their expenses will be more. Plus I hope she uses some of it to hire really good lawyers to go after those who smeared her.

  105. 105.

    Shalimar

    So Ivanka and Jared lied to the committee.  That’s a felony.

    Did they all forget they gave on-camera interviews on January 6th?  I know it was a busy day, but damn.

  110. 110.

    Steeplejack

    @satby:

    Good to see there’s a GoFundMe. I was wondering about that last night. It’s up to almost $89,000 now. I’ma kick in a bit.

  111. 111.

    Dangerman

    Learning of a video of the Trumpers criming on the Summer Solstice does my soul good.

  112. 112.

    bbleh

    I just … cannot conceive of the galactic level of stupidity on the part of the Trump people necessary to allow this to happen.   I mean, I learned about “hubris” in the context of various literature, and yes Trump’s ego is so monstrous as to be a major disease, but … OMG.  And the lawyers couldn’t even put some boundaries on it …?

    There is a whole story here just in the making of the story.

    And I think we can safely bet on the hearings going a little bit longer than initially estimated …

  115. 115.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    @satby: “you get a felony, and you get a felony, and YOU get a felony too!” Plenty to go around.

     

    All are whiners and all must have felonies!

  116. 116.

    Dangerman

    @bbleh: Yeah, where were the lawyers screaming that videotaping their dirty deeds was a seriously bad idea.

    We have our Butterfield. Now we need a Derp Throat.

  117. 117.

    satby

    @Steeplejack: I read she started it during the initial harassment in December but it got very few donations, it’s exploded during the last 24 hours. I donated, I needed to acknowledge and thank them in some small way. They should never have had to live through that.

  118. 118.

    satby

    @satby: Plus I hope she uses some of it to hire really good lawyers to go after those who smeared her.

    On second thought, I hope some really top level law firm represents them pro bono.

  119. 119.

    lowtechcyclist

    I’m getting a “I just can’t believe Jared and Ivanka weren’t straight with us all along!” vibe from the FTFNYT quotes.

    What idiots.

  122. 122.

    debbie

    @satby:

    They already have attorneys. I’ll try and find the link again, but they appear to specialize in conspiracy theory cases, ie, Seth Rich.

  123. 123.

    Scout211

    I think it’s more likely that Javanka were telling the truth under oath but lied to the cameras. This family is all about appearances, so there is very little they actually say that is factual or truth. They are like one large reality show and that documentary was likely one more attempt to spin Trump and his family into some sort of “heroic family, fighting against all odds to emerge the victor!” Ugh.

    So likely not a felony, just a bunch of shallow, narcissistic  liars.

    YMMV

  124. 124.

    Ken

    @satby: “you get a felony, and you get a felony, and YOU get a felony too!” Plenty to go around.

    Well sure, if you’re going to treat every lie to Congress or the FBI as a felony…

    (Weren’t we mocking some Republican (natch) congressman just a couple weeks ago, for saying something like that?)

  128. 128.

    Scout211

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Dismissed with prejudice after settlement.

    Plaintiffs and the OAN Defendants have entered into a settlement agreement (‘Settlement Agreement’) to resolve Plaintiffs’ claims against the OAN Defendants,” according to a subsequent filing dated Tues., May 10.  “Pursuant to the Settlement Agreement, Plaintiffs wish to dismiss, with prejudice, the OAN Defendants from the above captioned litigation, with each of Plaintiffs and the OAN Defendants to bear their own costs and expenses, including attorneys’ fees.”

    The May 10 filing makes clear that Giuliani “is not a party to the Settlement Agreement, and Plaintiffs wish to continue prosecuting their claims against Defendant Giuliani.”

  131. 131.

    bbleh

    @Scout211: BO-ring!  I’m gonna go with, Ivanka has a serious case of Dissociative Identity Disorder, and the “sources close to Ivanka” in fact are not Ivanka and Jared collaborating with the reporters to conceal their identities but rather are Ivanka’s other personalities.

  132. 132.

    Ken

    @bbleh: I understand her father, “Barron”, had the same problem, which also manifested chiefly when talking to reporters.

  134. 134.

    Kay

    @Scout211:

     against Defendant Giuliani

    Who doesn’t have any money. I’m glad they settled with OAN. Giuliani is uncollectable. I don’t know how one grifts off of 9/11 for 20 years and ends up with more mortgages than money, but he has managed it.

  135. 135.

    satby

    @PAM Dirac: Thank you! Great idea to throw them some coin too. I think they’re going to be kept busy this fall.

    @ debbie, and thank you too! The perils of reading from the bottom up

  138. 138.

    OzarkHillbilly

    And this year marks the 35th anniversary of one of the most striking picks in the NBA draft’s long history. In 1987, the Washington Bullets picked Muggsy Bogues – all 5ft 3in of him – with the 12th overall pick.

    Bullets fans had reason to doubt their team’s pick. Bogues is still the shortest NBA player ever, a fact which caused many scouts to doubt Bogues’s ability to survive, let alone thrive, in the league. For context, the average height of an NBA player when Bogues was drafted was 6ft 7in. At 5ft 9in, Isaiah Thomas, the shortest player in the NBA last season, towers six inches over Bogues.

    Any fears about Bogues were soon dispelled. He went on to play in the league for 14 years, most notably for a 10-season stretch with the Charlotte Hornets. And the draft never fails to bring back memories of the moment his name was called.
    ……………………………
    Bogues’ favorite aspect of his own career, however, appears to be neither his statistical excellence nor his highlight-worthy defense against Dream Team alumni. Rather, he is especially fond of the influence he’s had on younger generations. “That’s the coolest thing,” he says, “changing kids’ perspectives.”

    Among those kids was reigning NBA finals MVP Stephen Curry. “When you’re a kid, you’re like, ‘All right 5ft 3in’. How much longer until I’m 5ft 3in and then maybe I can play in the NBA?’” writes Curry in the introduction to Bogues’ memoir. Such is the lingering effect of Bogues’ career on smaller players – he provided them not only with a role model, but with a chance to dream.

    I’d like to say, “I remember when…” but the truth is I had forgotten about Muggsy and his storied career. I blame it on the fact that I’m not much of a basketball fan.

  141. 141.

    lowtechcyclist

    Happy Birthday, Cole!

    How old are you this year? Are you playing with a full deck, numerically speaking?

  145. 145.

    Ken

    @Kay: Giuliani is uncollectable.

    Anyone know: Assume there’s a judgment against him, where does it fall in the ordering of his existing obligations?  For example, behind alimony but ahead of mortgage.

    I have this vague memory that court-ordered payments rank pretty high, plus you can be sent to prison if you don’t make them.

  146. 146.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: Indeed. From the article:

    Bogues’ triumphant story, however, can sometimes overshadow his extraordinary ability on the court. That is a shame, as aspects of Bogues’ game are unique. To put it bluntly, Bogues has the safest hands to ever control an NBA basketball.

    It’s a big claim, but the evidence supports it. A statistic called the Assist/Turnover (Ast/T) ratio places a player’s passing ability within the context of their tendency to commit turnovers. It’s an imperfect statistic, but it gives a sense of a player’s ability to marshal the ball. An Ast/T ratio of 2.5, for example, describes a player who averages two and half assists for every turnover they commit.

    Bogues’ career Ast/T ratio is 4.69, which is by far the highest among the NBA’s top 100 leaders in career assists. The only other player among the top 100 with a Ast/T above 4.0 is Point God Chris Paul. In fact, Bogues still tops the Ast/T rankings even if the list is expanded to include the top 200 players in career assists. Or the top 300. Or 400. Bogues is proud of his record. “I take pride in taking care of the basketball, making sure that we had more opportunities to score,” he says. “As a point guard, it’s your responsibility to take care of the basketball.”

    Until this past season, Bogues also held the NBA record for the most games with at least 10 assists and zero turnovers. That statistic lacks a nickname like “triple-double” or “maddux.” Perhaps, given Bogues’ decades-long dominance of the category, a 10-assist, zero-turnover performance should be called a “muggsy”.

  147. 147.

    Ken

    @lowtechcyclist: Are you playing with a full deck, numerically speaking?

    You have heard the mustard and mopping stories?

    Happy birthday, He Who Brought Us All Together.

  148. 148.

    raven

    @OzarkHillbilly: The Wire

    Bogues was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and grew up in the Lafayette Court housing projects.[2]His mother was 4 ft 11 in (1.50 m) and his father was 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m). He had three older siblings.[3]

    Bogues’s childhood was troubled. At five years old, he was hit by stray buckshot in his neighborhood and had to be hospitalized.[4] As a child, he witnessed a man get beaten to death with a baseball bat, a sight that haunted him into adulthood.[5] When Bogues was 12 years old, his father was sentenced to twenty years in prison for armed robbery.[3] Around the same time, his brother Chuckie began using hard drugs.[4]

  154. 154.

    satby

    @Steeplejack: Turns out a podcaster named Sharon McMahon has taken a real interest in this and contributed $30k herself. Former high school government and law teacher now “on a mission to combat political misinformation”. I don’t normally listen to podcasts, but hers sound interesting and I’m going to have to tune in to a few.

  155. 155.

    ian

    It is almost like the ‘Ivanka was checked out’ was WWE style staged theater.  Wonder where the Trumps learned that?

  157. 157.

    JWR

    @bbleh:

    Ivanka’s other personalities.

    YOU get a straight jacket, and YOU get a straight jacket, and YOU get a… etc. ;)

  160. 160.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Wow.

    Fox Corporation’s most recent financial statement shows that Fox’s cable
    programming was responsible for “all” of Fox Corporation’s profits.

  161. 161.

    Soprano2

    What you’re seeing from Ivanka is the behavior of extremely wealthy people who know their chances of ever being held accountable for their crimes is vanishingly small. Why should they always do the right thing when they know the chances of getting away with whatever is self-serving today is about 98%? She said the most self-serving thing to the documentary filmmaker, and the most self-serving thing in her testimony to the 1/6 panel, and the fact that these things contradict each other is of little concern to her. I mean, she and Jared already got away with a crime in NYC around their property, why shouldn’t they think they can get away with it again? I’ll be surprised if she’s ever charged with a crime

    ETA – I’m going to encourage people to find that “Hidden Brain” podcast where he interviewed a wealth manager about her experiences with billionaires. It helps you understand their behavior when you realize they live in a completely different world than we do; laws and countries mean little to these people.

  162. 162.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Love the Dominion lawsuit. I like to think about how insane they all were, those horrible Fox personalities, just lying their asses off day after day confident there would be no accountability, ever.

    Uh, oh. Dominion is pretty SERIOUS about this :)

  163. 163.

    SuzieC

    @PAM Dirac: Why isn’t she suing Trump?  He told Raffensberger she was a professional vote scammer and hustler.  Textbook defamation.

  165. 165.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I hope they get billions of dollars from Fox News. The lies Fox News personalities told on air destroyed their business completely. They’ll never be able to sell another voting machine again, at least not in the U.S. They deserve compensation for that.

  166. 166.

    kalakal

    In news from across the pond. The rail workers have gone on strike and the head of their union, a guy called Mick Lynch is knocking it out of the park on the TeeeVeee. Here’s a collection of him demolishing a Tory Minister, a Politics chat show host and Wonderbread made flesh, Piers Morgan.

    https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2022/06/22/piers-morgan-tried-to-take-down-mick-lynch-with-a-thunderbirds-puppet-and-was-owned-into-next-week/

    The Daily Fail has decided it is all the fault of the Labour govt and is urging its readers to vote them out of office. Daily Fail readers for some strange reason are very poorly informed and are unaware that it has been 12 years since Labour was in Govt. Not linking to their site as I don’t want them to get the hits

  168. 168.

    Cameron

    Sorry, Ms. Cracker, but I respectfully disagree.  Donald Trump represented millions and millions, a very bigly number, of voiceless voters.  Of course, they were voiceless because they didn’t actually exist, but….

  169. 169.

    Soprano2

    It was predictable that Biden would back something like a federal gas tax holiday, but it’s a dumb idea that probably won’t lower prices much at all since the tax is paid by the refiners, not at the pump. There’s nothing to keep the refiners from pocketing that money. All the news I’ve read about gas prices is bad; refinery capacity is lower, and there won’t be any more built because they can see the writing on the wall and aren’t about to sink millions of dollars into a facility that will have a relatively short life span. Every time gas prices have gone up like this they’ve eventually gone back down, but I’m not so sure that will happen this time because we’re on the downward slope of demand for gasoline, and the oil companies know it.

  172. 172.

    Shalimar

    @rikyrah: Already 84 in NW Florida.  I normally stay home on hot days, but I have a doctor’s appointment later when it will be 94.

  175. 175.

    CaseyL

    It’s JC’s birthday?

    It’s JC’s birthday!

    Happy Birthday, John!

    Happy birthday to a mensch, a good egg, a real fine guy!

  176. 176.

    SuzieC

    @Scout211: No it was definitely Trump in his call to Raffensberger.  The J6 Committee played the clip yesterday.  Of course Guiliani probably repeated the same slanderous lie.

  178. 178.

    satby

    @Soprano2: But Biden’s move does two things: puts pressure on the oil companies to lower prices by cutting profits a smidge, since it will be clear that taxes aren’t part of the increase; and it may pressure some states (like IN, where I read state taxes add 80¢/gal) to cut theirs temporarily too.

    I mean, it’s not like they’re actually using that money to benefit their citizens with better roads, the infrastructure package is doing most of the work on that now.

  179. 179.

    japa21

    @Soprano2: ​
     Don’t know about elsewhere, but but in the Chicago area, prices have either stabilized or dropped a little. Interesting that it coincides with Biden calling out the oil companies for not bringing refining capacity ba k up and possibly gouging. As for the gas tax, highly unlikely oil companies would not pass it on. If they didn’t it would be a win for Democrats. They could point out that the GOP voted against the bill to stop gouging.

  181. 181.

    Betty Cracker

    @satby: Ron DeSantis said he’s going to cut FL’s gas tax in October. Why October? Well, it’s definitely not because he’ll be up for reelection in November! He says it’s to make sure residents rather than tourists benefit the most. Because there are definitely no snowbirds and tourists flocking to Florida when it gets cold up north. It’s an absurd lie and an insult to everyone’s intelligence, but his cult will buy it.

  182. 182.

    satby

    @japa21: exactly! The Democrats (and regular people) have been pretty good in pushing back that Republicans uniformly opposed the price gouging bill,that oil company profits have been through the roof, and that the correlation between price per barrel of crude and gallon of gas aren’t tracking as they once did. The oil companies are starting to feel the heat. They used the war in Ukraine as a cover for price gouging, and they’re getting slammed for it.

  186. 186.

    cmorenc

    @OzarkHillbilly: Muggsy played his college ball at Wake Forest, and opposing coaches would advise their players that when they had the ball, don’t put the ball on the floor when you don’t see Muggsy Bogues (i.e. and you can verify he isn’t nearby enough to steal it from you on the dribble)..

  191. 191.

    gene108

    Ivanka’s comments quoted in the excerpt are pretty milquetoast anodyne statements supporting her father. They’d be easy for her to wiggle out of as a professional liar.

    I believed Bill Barr, but I felt obligated to support my father’s plans to sue about election results in court, which was perfectly legal.

    I can’t get worked up about it.  I don’t think she did much regarding the coup.  She seems lazy. I think Jared is the more industrious of the two. He got Qatar to bail him out of a bad real estate deal. He got Saudi Arabia to sink a couple billion U.S. dollars into his hedge fund.

    *****************

    Happy Birthday John G. Cole, Jr.!!!

  192. 192.

    Another Scott

    @Soprano2:

    Things are a little different this time, so him urging Congress to take action makes sense – if only to get it out of the news for a while (and that’s very important). WH.gov:

    The price of gas is up dramatically around the world, and by almost $2 per gallon in America, since Putin began amassing troops on the border of Ukraine. President Biden understands that high gas prices pose a significant challenge for working families. That’s why he has taken action in recent months to boost the supply of oil and gas, including an historic release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and encouraging oil companies and refiners to boost capacity and output to get more supply on the market.

    Today, he is calling on Congress and states to take additional legislative action to provide direct relief to American consumers who have been hit with Putin’s Price Hike. Specifically, he is calling on Congress to suspend the federal gas tax for three months, through September, without taking any money away from the Highway Trust Fund. And he is calling on states to take similar action to provide some direct relief, whether suspending their own gas taxes or helping consumers in other ways.

    […]

    I’m surprised he’s proposing only for 3 months – at least through the end of the year would probably make more sense politically. Maybe Congress will make the period longer.

    I assume it will be memory holed about 2 days after he signs whatever Congress sends him. As was the oil releases from the SPR. (sigh)

    We’ll see!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  193. 193.

    satby

    @Baud: But, as I frequently say about my people, we’re always up for a good fight. Marty Lynch (god, I hope he’s a distant cousin) showed her for the bad faith fool she was.

  194. 194.

    artem1s

    @satby: ​
     
    ACLU should be all over this. It’s more than civil. It’s criminal. This was a violation of these women’s constitutional right to a fair trial. They were also paid workers on election day. It’s a violation of labor law too. You can’t punish workers (fire, demote, dock pay) for a perceived criminal offense (theft, etc). You have to prove it in a court of law first. If the FBI had to step in, they have a case for reckless endangerment too. But the State AG has to want to make that happen.

  195. 195.

    Brachiator

    The Times notes that Ivanka sang a different tune during the January 6 committee interview, when she appeared in the form of a weeping stone cemetery angel…

    Weeping angels. Cool reference to the deceptive, extremely dangerous Doctor Who villains. And very apt.

  198. 198.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Soprano2: Yes, but the US military is still going to need jet fuel and diesel for a very long time to come. I feel like it would be in our national security interests for the US government to pick up a few of the shuddered refineries. The biggest argument in favor of nationalizing something is when the market is increasingly reluctant to provide a necessary thing.

  199. 199.

    Another Scott

    @satby: Yup.  It looks like July gasoline futures prices are down about 12 cents a gallon in the last 12 hours or so.  (As I read this).

    Perceptions drive prices.

    Biden going to KSA (and Israel) in July is also driving futures prices down. The traders have taken the easy money while they can and are getting out.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  200. 200.

    Betty Cracker

    Here’s some good news I missed yesterday:

    Jason Ravnsborg, the South Dakota attorney general who ran over and killed a man on a highway in 2020, was convicted in an impeachment trial by state lawmakers on Tuesday, effectively ending his career.

    The South Dakota Senate voted 24-9 to affirm count one against Ravnsborg, meeting the two-thirds majority needed to convict him and remove him from office. He was also convicted on the second count, 31-2, and two 33-0 votes barred him from ever holding office again.

    Good. He fucking killed a guy due to scrolling Newsmax while driving.

  201. 201.

    SFAW

    Mr. Cole –

    Happy Birthday, young man.

    And thanks for keeping this joint open for biz, and for giving us all the great Front Pagers.

  202. 202.

    Tony Jay

    @kalakal:

    Heh, yeah. Mick Lynch is doing such a bang-up job making the Union’s case that the strike is warranted that the general public seems to be in their corner, which is unexpected and has the added bonus of making Sir Where? Starmer’s cowardly refusal to back the striking rail workers look an even worse (but entirely in character) political mis-step). In response the Guardian’s online Starmerstans spent much of yesterday frantically regurgitating every Right Wing smear and insult about Unions they could get their pudgy little mouths around, because that’s who and what they are.

    Apparently, only Far-Left dinosaurs call strikes, the RMT Union’s leadership backed Brexit in 2016 so fuck those workers, every ‘moderate’ voter in the UK will be repulsed by workers demanding pay rises so striking = campaigning for the Tories…

    Honest to Grot, sometimes I think they have to be a bunch of Tory Central office trolls masquerading as Blairite Ultras, but then I remember that there’s functionally no difference between the two anyway and I stop worrying about it.

  204. 204.

    SFAW

    when she appeared in the form of a weeping stone cemetery angel

    Just make sure she stays away from Karen Gillan.

  205. 205.

    gene108

    @ian:

    It is almost like the ‘Ivanka was checked out’ was WWE style staged theater. Wonder where the Trumps learned that?

    Donald Trump, Sr. is in the WWE Hall of Fame.

  208. 208.

    FelonyGovt

    What gets me about all the election bullshit from Trump is that he -again- lost the popular vote by a significant amount. All this nonsense was to try to rig enough votes to -again- squeak by the Electoral College. So what’s with this BS about poor disenfranchised, silenced MAGA’s.

    Happy Birthday to John Cole!

  209. 209.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Thanks for the article on Bogues. I hadn’t thought of him for a long time.

    By the way: I thought of you the other day, whilst playing a word game called “Hurdle.”

    “Why?” you may ask.

    Because one of the words I used as a guess was “blech,” and the game’s dictionary accepted it.

  210. 210.

    Geminid

    Yesterday was primary day in Virginia. Seventh Congressional District Republicans picked Prince William County Supervisor Yesli Vega to face incumbent Abigail Spanberger, who won the seat in 2018. Spanberger was the first Democrat to represent the 7th since the party realignment of the 1970s.

    It was a low turnout Republican primary. Vega won with 10,875 votes out of 37,569 votes cast. By contrast, Spanber won her 2018 primary with 35,000 votes and the second place finisher had 20,000.

    Vega was supported by Ted Cruz, Ken Cuccinelli, 5th District Congressman Bob Good, and the ubiquitous Ginni Thomas. The district is rated D+2 or D+7, depending on how the 2020 and 2021 elections are weighted, I think. It streches from the Blue Ridge to the I-95 corridor, with most of the voters in the counties along I-95.

  211. 211.

    Ken

    @Betty Cracker: I haven’t heard whether there’s a vehicular manslaughter trial in his future. I wonder if he’ll have the gall to complain that he’s been punished enough by the impeachment.

  212. 212.

    Brachiator

    @kalakal:

    Daily Fail readers for some strange reason are very poorly informed and are unaware that it has been 12 years since Labour was in Govt.

    Enjoyed the snark. The UK has a long tradition of clearly biased newspapers. Readers are also aware of this and make their subscriptions accordingly.

    There have been some hints that Boris Johnson is not unhappy with the strike and believes that he can gain some political benefit from it.

    Johnson is also imitating Trump, who often spouted crap that he was the best president ever and did things that no president had done before. This let him gloss over failures of previous Republican administrations.

    Boris Johnson poses as the Best Tory ever, absurdly trying to make past Conservative Party failures appear to be the fault of Labour. He does this all the time. It is his standard fall back position during Prime Minister Questions.

  213. 213.

    Immanentize

    @Raven: That is the amazing part of this. People complain complain complain about the cost of gas, but it seems everyone is happily filling up their White F350s that have pristine beds as often as ever.

  214. 214.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Also, State Senator Jennifer Kiggans won the 2nd CD primary and will face Congresswoman Elaine Luria. That is one of the tougher districts Democratic incumbents must defend this year. Both Kiggans and Luria are retired Navy officers.

  215. 215.

    Eunicecycle

    @Soprano2: our county in Ohio just purchased machines from Dominion. I was pretty shocked it went through. The election board recommended them and our commissioners tried to get them to change, and it went to the Supreme Court (Ohio). And the SC said they had to follow the election board recommendations. Since we are pretty red I thought there might be more hissy fits around this but I haven’t heard anything.

  216. 216.

    Betty Cracker

    @Ken: The impression I got from the article was he won’t face legal charges. He was convicted of traffic violations and settled a civil case with the victim’s widow, and that’s the end of it.

  217. 217.

    gene108

    @Another Scott:

    I’m surprised he’s proposing only for 3 months

    Summer months are the busiest driving time of the year, and gas prices are generally higher in summer versus fall and winter, so reducing or stop gas taxes now and then having them restart in the fall shouldn’t be very noticeable to consumers. The price, I guess in theory, would just remain flat from summer to fall.

  218. 218.

    SFAW

    @Immanentize: ​

    but it seems everyone is happily filling up their White F350s that have pristine beds

    As well as their Land Rovers — with the not-a-scratch-on-them front brush guards — which they use to tool around Beantown (et al.)

  219. 219.

    narya

    Happy birthday, John! I’d bake you a cake (or whatever you want) if I weren’t 900 miles away. Thanks for opening this place!

  220. 220.

    Immanentize

    @Betty Cracker:

    “I thought I hit a deer,” he said, although the dead man’s eyeglasses were later found in Ravnsborg’s car after the deceased went through his windshield.

  222. 222.

    SFAW

    @narya: ​
     

    Happy birthday, John! I’d bake you a cake (or whatever you want) if I weren’t 900 miles away.

    Quit whining. If you REALLY cared, you’d bake it in your almost-new kitchen, then drive it to West-by-god-Virginia.

  223. 223.

    Another Scott

    @Geminid:

    My Congressman, Don Beyer, VA08, was the top vote-getter in the state, in his uncompetitive primary. His challenger got more votes than the GQP winner in VA07.

    Doesn’t look like there’s a lot of enthusiasm on the GQP side in VA.

    BlueVirginia.US

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  225. 225.

    Soprano2

    @Raven: Yes, not now, but I read an article yesterday about how the oil companies know that the industry is going toward electric vehicles, so they aren’t willing to sink more money into oil refineries. Cole wrote a blog post about it last night; he must have read the same article I did. So even though demand is up, oil companies are unwilling to build more refineries, which means we’re probably stuck with the situation we have now.

  226. 226.

    J.

    @OzarkHillbilly: Thank you for sharing this. I’m 5’2″ (on a good day) and absolutely loved Muggsy Bogues, even though I was a Bulls fan at the time. He was great fun to watch and seemed like a good guy.

  228. 228.

    Immanentize

    Serious question — do people suspect Peter Baker does not write his own pro-Trump family articles? They always come out just a bit early and miss the real story entirely that I have to believe they are the product of the Javanka PR shop.

    The biggest one was his eagerness to talk Hunter in Ukraine that he missed the coersion by Trump story entirely.

  230. 230.

    Geminid

    @Eunicecycle: This morning’s Politico Playbook has an item titled “Billionaire Buckeye Battle.” It links to an article about “the proxy spending battle between former PayPal execs and friends Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman that is playing out in the Ohio Senate race.”

  231. 231.

    Soprano2

    @Another Scott: Well, if that would actually get it out of the news it might be worth it, but I guarantee you that as long as they can film that sign in CA where people are paying $8.00+ for a gallon of gas, they’ll continue to talk about it regardless of what Biden does. They’ll also do their usual not great job of telling people what the cause of the high price is. They’re going to keep talking about inflation and high gas prices until the election, and maybe even beyond that, because it’s what’s at the top of people’s minds.

  233. 233.

    Immanentize

    @SFAW: I admit my spite hobby is checking out the gates and beds on big ass pickemup trucks to see if they are ever used as, you know, trucks. Not too many are.

  236. 236.

    Soprano2

    @Immanentize: I have to agree with this. I’ve been looking at the city buses for the past couple of days, and it doesn’t seem that ridership is up much. When gas got to almost $4.00/gal before, bus ridership went way up. I don’t know what’s different this time, but something is different.

  237. 237.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: oh, you are so right. But why stop my wild speculations at just one sweet beat reporter! I’m on a roll!

  239. 239.

    Another Scott

    @Soprano2: It’s just an excuse.

    There is a shopping/residential development north of Alexandria that’s built on an old railway yard.  The development has a 20 year lease – meaning the railroad could tear it all down when the lease is up.  That didn’t stop a bunch of big-name stores from building there.

    Oil companies will work to maximize profits now and in the near term.  (In the long run, we’re all dead.)  I suspect that smaller outfits will expand their refineries, and the larger companies will buy them up.  That’s what usually happens these days.

    There’s a lot of money to be made when energy transitions happen.  Look at whale oil. TheOilDrum:

    […]

    There is a reasonable explanation for these differences. First of all, neither whale oil nor whale bone were so crucial for life in 19th century as crude oil is today for us. There were alternative fuels for lamps: animal fat or vegetable oil, a little more expensive and considered as inferior products; but usable. Then, starting in the 1870s, crude oil started to be commonly available as lamp fuel. It probably had an effect in keeping down the price of whale oil. For whale bone, instead, a replacement didn’t really exist except for steel, which was probably much more expensive during the period that we are considering. But stiffeners for ladies’ clothes were hardly something that people couldn’t live without.

    In comparison, crude oil is such a basic commodity in our world that it is not surprising that prices have risen so steeply. Airlines, for instance, have no choice in between collapsing and buying oil at any price. For other activities, the conditions of the choice may not be so stark, but still we can’t survive without oil. If the exponential rise of oil prices were to continue unabated for a few more years, we would be seeing some kind of demand destruction, indeed.

    But the historical data for whaling tell us that an exponential rise of the prices is not the only feature of the post-peak market. The prominent feature is, rather, the presence of very strong price oscillations. We can attribute these oscillations to a general characteristic of systems dominated by feedback and time delays. Prices are supposed to mediate between offer and demand, but tend to overcorrect on one side or another. The result is an alternance of demand destruction (high prices) and offer destruction (low prices).

    What we are seeing at present with crude oil is, most likely, one of these price spikes. Eventually, it will overdo its job of curbing demand and turn into a price collapse. We can imagine how, in the collapsing phase, everyone will start screaming that the “oil crisis” of the first decades of 21st century was just a hoax, just as it was said for the crisis of the 1970s. Then, a new upward spike will start.

    Here, too, the history of whaling can teach us something in terms of the difficulty that people have in understanding depletion. In Starbuck’s book, we never find mention that whales had become scarce. On the contrary, the decline of the catch was attributed to such factors as the whales’ “shyness” and the declining “character of the men engaged”. Starbuck seems to think that the crisis of the whaling industry of his times can be solved by means of governmental subsidies. Some things never change.

    In the end, the history of whaling tells us that what is happening now to crude oil shouldn’t have taken us by surprise. The future can never be exactly predicted but, at least, it can be understood from the lessons of the past. One of these lessons, however, seems to be that we never seem to be able to learn from the past.

    (Emphasis added.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  240. 240.

    gene108

    @Immanentize:

    Serious question — do people suspect Peter Baker does not write his own pro-Trump family articles? They always come out just a bit early and miss the real story entirely that I have to believe they are the product of the Javanka PR shop.

    The biggest one was his eagerness to talk Hunter in Ukraine that he missed the coersion by Trump story entirely.

    I don’t know about the first part of your statement. My gut feeling is Ivanka and Jared have contacts with people at the NYT. They can launder rough drafts to certain reporters, who polish things up for publication.

    On Hunter Biden, I recall the entire MSM was gearing up for a new round of “But Her Emails” with Hunter’s work in Ukraine, but then the whistleblower complaint reached Congress and Democrats acted quickly to hold hearings on those complaints, and then impeach TFG, which knocked “Hunter in Ukraine” off the MSM’s radar.

  241. 241.

    JanieM

    @OzarkHillbilly: Spud Webb, from the same era, was exactly my height and weight. I used to think, “If Spud can dunk, why can’t I?”

    I’m sure it was just because I was 13 years older…. ;-)

  242. 242.

    germy shoemangler

    @Soprano2:  . I don’t know what’s different this time, but something is different.

    Is covid keeping people away from public transportation?

    I saw a woman complaining online about wearing a mask on a bus, and three unmasked people seated behind her coughing loudly for the whole ride to make fun of her.

  245. 245.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steeplejack:

    I just went there, and it was at $124,970. I tossed in $30 and had the pleasure of watching the odometer roll over to $125,000! Lots of lovely zeros

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY IN ALL CAPS, JOHN!!

  247. 247.

    Immanentize

    @germy shoemangler: Covid might be part of it and, at least in Boston, the T subway system is practically in federal receivership for the many safety fails.

    But I think people got used to different ways of getting around during COVID, plus people ended up with savings that they are now spending. An example — I got my current car in May of 2019, and it has only 13K miles on it! I saved enough there to rent a beach place this summer.

    Although I doubt I’ll actually do that. :-)

  248. 248.

    Soprano2

    @germy shoemangler: I doubt that’s much of a factor here, since I live in a 60% TFG-supporting city. A bigger factor is how many people think riding the bus is a marker for being poor.

  249. 249.

    Soprano2

    @Another Scott: That’s interesting, thanks for posting it. I’m just repeating what the companies said in the article. I can understand not wanting to sink millions of dollars into a refinery for something where you can see that demand is eventually going to decline permanently.

  250. 250.

    Brachiator

    @Tony Jay:

    Honest to Grot, sometimes I think they have to be a bunch of Tory Central office trolls masquerading as Blairite Ultras, but then I remember that there’s functionally no difference between the two anyway and I stop worrying about it.

    There are people over here who say something similar, that there is no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. This is a big lie.

    Boris Johnson is incompetent and corrupt. He openly flaunts his disdain for ordinary people. His policies do nothing but add to misery and ruin.

    If people believe that Labour is no better, then people might as well keep voting for the Conservative Party. If Scotland succeeds in breaking away, then it will leave an English rump state whose people apparently believe that they are little more than serfs who deserve the boot up the backside that they are getting.

    ETA. If people believe that they deserve a better Labour Party, they should get to it.

  251. 251.

    Mike in NC

    Everything about Trump is cloaked in secrecy: his wealth, his taxes, his health, his school grades, etc. Many people believe he raped his own daughter. We’ll never know, will we?

  253. 253.

    Geminid

    @Immanentize: The engine Rudolph Diesel showed at the 1900 Paris World Fair ran on peanut oil. It won’t be long before you’ll be able to grow peanuts in upstate New York. Just sayin’.

  254. 254.

    SFAW

    @Immanentize: ​

    I’m with you.
    I remember seeing a short-bed F150 (I think) some years ago. When I say “short-bed,” I mean that it probably couldn’t hold a 4 x 4 sheet of plywood, unless is was on edge and going from front-left to rear-right of the bed. Kinda like the Honda Ridgeline — a pretend pickup.

    ETA: My brother-in-law had an F150 Lariat for a number of years. I remember going with him to get a load of drywall; it fit in the bed no problem.

  255. 255.

    Ken

    @Soprano2: My metric is idling cars parked outside stores. I figure gas can’t be that high if people are leaving the car running so their kids can sit in the air-conditioning while they run into the store.

  256. 256.

    Kay

    A lot of us read this great ProPublica article about how a group of professional conservative operatives and white parents chased a black educator out of a public school system, and then followed her to another one to chase her out there, too.

    Four of the conservative activists went on to run for school board. All four lost:

    Christoper Rufo is embraced and promoted by the NYTimes and elite pundits like Andrew Sullivan, but Christoper Rufo’s candidates do not actually fare well in school board elections.

    Cherokee County voters completed their rejection of a group of firebrand school board candidates that attempted to stoke fears over critical race theory while railing against social emotional learning as a means of taking control from parents.

  258. 258.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Cameron:

    Sorry, Ms. Cracker, but I respectfully disagree.  Donald Trump represented millions and millions, a very bigly number, of voiceless voters.  Of course, they were voiceless because they didn’t actually exist, but….

    And there were at least 11,780 of them in Georgia! ;)

  259. 259.

    SFAW

    @Kay: ​

    elite pundits like Andrew Sullivan

    You and I have different definitions of “elite.” [Kidding; I’m pretty sure I know how you feel about Sullivan. In other words, I’m assuming the “elite” was ironic.]

  261. 261.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott:

    It seems like only yesterday, when the global economy had slowed down because of the pandemic, that we were reading about tankers full of oil aimlessly floating around, unable to unload due to a decrease in demand. The price of gas lowered a bit, but didn’t drop through the floor. This always makes me skeptical about gas price fluctuations. And there always seems to be enough oil available, even adjusting for the operation of refineries.

  264. 264.

    Kay

    @Amir Khalid:

    Oh, sure. Those “cigar bars” and tons of booze in fancy restaurants adds up. Also- he has no real job and has not had one for decades. Grifting is not consistent income, so if he lacks self discipline (sort of the poster boy for that) he can’t handle getting a big grift payoff all in one chunk. He’ll burn thru it.

  266. 266.

    satby

    @Kristine: Cutting the cord is patriotic! I haven’t missed anything but TMC, and even the streaming channels are starting to show old movies more now. And I love not giving a thin nickel to the Pravda of the States.

  267. 267.

    frosty

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’m not in any way a basketball fan but given that I’m only an inch taller I love Muggsy’s story. In junior high I thought about going out for basketball and playing the game under all the tall guys – exactly what he did. I never went through with it because it would have required speed and talent LOL.

  269. 269.

    JPL

    @Kay: That was good news and thank you sharing it.   Trump’s endorsements lost and, in my district, someone running to the right of McCormick lost.   Because they redrew the 6th district, I lost McGrath and now will have a right winger.   ugh.

  270. 270.

    Cameron

    I’m agnostic on the price of gas, since I’ve never driven and am very impressed with the local public transit system (hybrid diesel-electric buses, haven’t raised the fares since I got here, discounts not just for us old farts but for low-income people, free masks for those who want them, etc.).  Ridership might be up slightly – mask use is definitely down, although MCAT does encourage it.

  272. 272.

    Tony Jay

    @Brachiator:

    I didn’t say that there’s no difference between Labour and Conservative. That’s why I’m a member of the Labour Party.

    I said that there’s functionally no difference between the Blairite Ultras who troll the comment sites spewing bile about ‘militant Unions’ and ‘Far-Left extremists’ during a strike for worker’s pay and the Conservative drones who do exactly the same thing.

    When someone shows you who they are, repeatedly, then I believe them. The fact that they’re not as disgusting as Alexander Johnson has zero relevance when we’re talking about what they believe in. Rory Stewart aapparently disagrees with Johnson’s fascist tendencies, it doesn’t mean he’s not a Tory.

  273. 273.

    Ken

    @dc: The plaintiffs can’t file another suit against those defendants, at least about this matter.  It’s not a judgment about the merit, or lack, of either side’s claims, just a statement that this matter has been settled.

  276. 276.

    Kay

    @JPL:

    It’s a very conservative place. If they can’t win there they aren’t going to be able to take over public schools like they hope.

    That school district should be a slam dunk for Rufo and his followers.

  277. 277.

    Gin & Tonic

    Interesting thread here purporting to show a Ukrainian drone strike on a russian oil refinery, and the subsequent fire. This refinery is/was owned by Viktor Medvedchuk, a key russian asset in Ukraine.

    Reportedly footage of a Ukrainian UAV kamikaze strike on a Russian oil refinery in Novoshakhtinsk, Rostov Oblast. https://t.co/SYsD7oQTwr pic.twitter.com/1MjamL30uV— Rob Lee (@RALee85) June 22, 2022

  278. 278.

    JPL

    In Georgia, the Fulton County district attorney wants testimony from Kanye’s former publicist.   The publicist went to Ruby’s house and threatened her.    I hope the publicist ties Kanye to the scheme, because they could lead to a big payout for Ruby.

  280. 280.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I was heartened by something that happened here this month; a rumor started going around that three newer school board members were going to try to get rid of the DEI program by zeroing it out of the school budget; a lot of parents showed up at the last school board meeting to protest that, to tell them to keep it in because they want that program for the teachers and kids. It sounds like the school board members backed off and even denied they had been thinking about doing it (I don’t believe that for a second, they were definitely thinking about trying to do it on the sly). Parents in most school districts want that for their kids, just like they want social emotional learning. We should tell people that Republicans want schools to quit teaching kids to get along with each other, because that’s what getting rid of social emotional learning would do. It’s dumb.

  281. 281.

    lowtechcyclist

    @SFAW:

    Because one of the words I used as a guess was “blech,” and the game’s dictionary accepted it.

    I used ‘blech’ as a guess on Wordle a couple of months back, and it was accepted there too.

    Of course, after words like ‘zesty’ and ‘primo’ have been recent Wordles, my sense is they’re pretty liberal in what they’ll accept.

  283. 283.

    tom

    @frosty: the son of a friend of mine played basketball in high school, even though he was all of 5’5″. He didn’t start, but he still lead the team in steals and was a pretty decent scorer as well since he had an uncanny ability to elude the bigger guys and get open.

  284. 284.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: That’s excellent news! Also, I wish journalists would stop using “firebrand” to describe these people when “fanatic” is more accurate. ;-)

    The ProPublica writer had a Twitter thread about reactions after the story was published, and it sounds like a ton of people in that district had absolutely no idea what was happening there. I don’t know that area, so I have no idea if the problem was that it wasn’t covered in local papers (if those still exist there) or if people just weren’t paying attention. Anyway, I’m glad voters woke up and bounced those assholes.

  287. 287.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    Panics usually burn out and it’s harder to smear all public schools in a national campaign because schools are so intensely local.

  289. 289.

    Geminid

    @Anyway: I did not read the linked article, but the Politico Playbook item said that Hoffman is supporting Tim Ryan. Evidently Hoffman is looking at the larger set of “rust belt” states and using the Ohio Senate race to test tactics that he hopes will have wider application.

  294. 294.

    JPL

    Because of uproar a few years ago, GA schools are technically charter schools.   With the new ruling by the supremes, I assume that religious schools can now become charter schools and receive state funding.  I’m not sure, but if that is the case, public schools will die in most of GA.   The public schools in my area are solid, so they might survive.  It’s a backdoor entry into segregating schools.

  297. 297.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Ken: I don’t know the etymology of “kamikaze” but pretty clearly the sense is that the UAV destroyed itself in the attack, which is not ideal behavior if you are husbanding your aerial resources. I’m sure the Tweet’s author will be happy to hear from you, though.

  298. 298.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Well, the voters in the district are a bigger group than the parents with children in the schools so I think it’s likely most voters didn’t know what the Rufo freaks were doing at the school-pounding on the windows, etc.

    I think local law enforcement could have nipped some of this in the bud with “disorderly” charges for insane Right wingers who disrupt schools at the outset, but as we know local law enforcement often seem to be sympathetic to insane Right wingers. Just charge them with a minor misdemeanor. It will get dropped, probably, but at least it sends a message you can’t scream and yell and threaten in schools with no repercussions.

  300. 300.

    ...now I try to be amused

    @Ken:

    Doesn’t seem quite the right term, since “U” is unmanned.

    I think of suicide drones — and cruise missiles — as robot kamikazes. This is one job where it’s good to be replaced by a robot! :)

  301. 301.

    Kent

    @Kay:Christoper Rufo is embraced and promoted by the NYTimes and elite pundits like Andrew Sullivan, but Christoper Rufo’s candidates do not actually fare well in school board elections.

    Unfortunately they sometimes do.  Here in the Pacific Northwest in the town of Newberg, which is a purplish exurb of Portland the MAGA fanatics have absolutely taken over the school board and resisted a recall election.  Basically because most people don’t actually give a shit.  I have relatives who live in Newberg and it is a very average exurban/suburban town.  Trump won Yamhill County by 4 points in the 2020 election but Biden won the actual town of Newberg by about 4-5 points so it isn’t MAGA land.  Yet the freak show completely controls the local school board.

    https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2022/01/newberg-school-board-members-who-led-ban-on-black-lives-matter-symbols-survive-recall.html

  302. 302.

    Kristine

    @satby: I felt good knowing I wasn’t helping support Fox anymore.

    I’m also saving a boatload of $$. I was a Comcast Triple Play customer for years–yeah, I know, but it was convenient and I always had good service. But it simply became too expensive for what I was getting. So far, T-Mobile Wireless internet is working well.

  303. 303.

    JPL

    @Kay:  Our city council races are non-partisan and I was quite involved until they supported a fanatic who demonstrated at Fulton Cty school board meetings.   She is an anti-masker.  I dropped out because of that.

    Young couples flocked to Cherokee County in the last few decades, because of the lower cost of housing.   They might have made a difference.

  305. 305.

    satby

    @Kristine: So far, T-Mobile Wireless internet is working well.

    Good to know, because I really want to switch to that soon. It’s available here. Thanks for that.

  308. 308.

    Mo Salad

    @satby: ​
     Sharon McMahon may have some gift tax filing issues. Two donations totalling $34,432.

    Also, Patricia Arquette is in for $10,000.

  309. 309.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: One of my regular Jazzercize instructors is a teacher who works with young kids who have problematic homes (sounds like they are 4-6 years old). She told me last week that she really loves our new (black female) superintendent, but is surprised she has lasted a whole year and got her contract renewed already. I had to agree with her; I think the three newbies on the school board who were elected last year will try to get rid of her in the next year or two. Not saying they will succeed, but I’m sure they would be much more comfortable with a white person as superintendent.

  311. 311.

    Immanentize

    @Gin & Tonic: Rostov? Not Ukraine.

    I have friends in Rostov. They thought they were far enough from Moscow but too close to Chechnya. Times change.

    ETA The Cossacks have always chosen the wrong side in every fight.

  315. 315.

    Brachiator

    @Soprano2:

    You’re right. Gas prices dropped during the pandemic in a number of states. From one news story.

    Customers in at least a dozen states are seeing gas prices for under a $1 as the demand has dropped during this COVID-19 pandemic.

    Prices are at their lowest level in over a decade, with the average price across the country sitting at $1.82 a gallon. The average is a dollar less than this time last year.

    Not too sure what was happening overseas.

  317. 317.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @germy shoemangler: COVID may well be a factor in reduced mass-transit ridership. I know it is for me – I don’t have a car in Athens and I was normally using the Athens Metro regularly to get to destinations in the outskirts of the city. Now, it’s a last-resort choice, even though I’m double-boosted and using FFP2 masks whenever I’m out anywhere. And I’ve seen that buses are much less crowded now than pre-COVID.

  318. 318.

    Immanentize

    @Brachiator: I will say this again — if we hadn’t suppressed normal inflation with zero-bound interest rates for a decade (blip up in 2017-19 to only 2.5%) we would have gas prices hovering around 8 or 9 dollars nationally. The inflation shock is that it all happened at once rather than over 10 years.

  320. 320.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Immanentize: Correct, not Ukraine. If the facts bear this out, it is a fairly long way across russian and russian-occupied territory to hit that refinery.

  321. 321.

    JAFD

    Happy Birthday, Mr. Cole, you young sprout ! And many many more !
    Essex County, NJ, went to paper ballots and scanners from Dominion Voting, two years ago. Seem to be working well.

  322. 322.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud:

    I was told she was a moderating influence in the White House. 

    “To crime a ton, or to crime a shitton?  That is the question for our Soviet shitpile mobster crime family.”

    Profuse apologies to Billy Shakes.

  323. 323.

    Brachiator

    @Tony Jay:

    I didn’t say that there’s no difference between Labour and Conservative. That’s why I’m a member of the Labour Party.

    Distinction noted. I have been reading stuff from some UK supposed lefties who seem to believe that 100 years of Tory rule is preferable until a sufficiently pure Labour Party can be established.

  324. 324.

    Soprano2

    @Immanentize: I hope there is. The response to the rumor about getting rid of DEI was encouraging to me; those same people will come out if the school board starts making noises about the superintendent, and those people are influential (ask me how I know that!). Even though it’s conservative here, true troublemakers don’t usually last more than one term on the school board or city council. People want their problems to be solved; even here they aren’t keen on people riding hobby horses on the school board or city council.

  325. 325.

    JPL

    This is the person who harassed Ruby.   I wish that grand jury testimony was open, because I want to know who she throws under the bus.    link

  335. 335.

    CaseyL

    @Kristine:

    @satby:

    Another big thumbs-up for T-Mobile wireless internet!  I switched as soon as I saw it was being offered, since I’d been wanting to cut the cord for quite a long time!

    The only problem I have is the internet connection intermittently goes out – but that could easily be the fault of my laptop, which is about 10 years old.  ANCIENT in computer years.

    (Comcast/Xfinity was my previous provider.  I’d asked them for an internet-only service for at least a year, and they always said they didn’t have one.  When I told them I was cancelling my service altogether, suddenly they had an internet-only package.  Fuckers.)

  338. 338.

    Ruckus

    @Baud:

    Having actually worked upon the molds for Barbie I can very honestly say that Barbie looks far more human than whatever the hell she is.

  339. 339.

    Jackie

    Happy Anniversary of the Day of Your Birth!
    Hope you’re doing something FUN to celebrate!

  340. 340.

    James E Powell

    @Shalimar:

    So Ivanka and Jared lied to the committee.  That’s a felony.

    Not if you’re a Republican.

    Also too, the way we know for sure that Ivanka wasn’t “checked out” of Trump’s efforts to overturn the election is that Trump said she was “checked out” – every word is a lie, including “and” and “the” – and it is nauseating how the media still prop her up.

  343. 343.

    Barbara

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: The DC Metro estimates that ridership is now at more or less pre-pandemic levels.  It had already slipped before then, so it is likely below where it was pre-car share services, which as in other areas, have siphoned off mass transit as well as taxi business.

    Someone recently told me that they spent $50 one way for an Uber to work.  That’s like twice what the parking garage charges, and you only pay for that once, not each way.  He doesn’t own a car — that’s why he lives in the city — and he still doesn’t trust Metro.  But still, $100 a day for commuting is unsustainable.  So my guess is that now that Uber and Lyft are charging way more than they used to, more people will go back to what they used to do, unless they can continue to work 100% remote.

  344. 344.

    J R in WV

    @dc: ​

    What does dismissed with prejudice mean?

    It means the case that was dismissed cannot be brought again. A case dismissed without prejudice may be resumed later on. Being a legal question, I’m sure there’s a ton of detail available there if one cares to look for it.

     

    ALSO: Happy Birthday, John Cole. You are a mensch of a guy and we all thank you for creating this place for us!!!

  345. 345.

    Barbara

    @James E Powell: As someone said upthread, the lies are squishy. Perjury is hard to prove, and has to really be something you can show is provably false — exaggerating about the degree to which you “believed” something at a specific time is not worth prosecuting.  IMHO.

    Regarding propping up Ivanka — clearly there is a very strong co-dependency between Trump and Ivanka, in which they both get a lot out of pretending that she is strong, successful and independent.  It allows her to maintain her self-esteem and it allows him to pretend that her support is objective and meaningful.

  348. 348.

    Cameron

    I just saw a news item about the earthquake in Afghanistan.  Sounds really bad.  Is there anything those folks haven’t suffered through?

  349. 349.

    Geminid

    @Barbara: The U.Va. Medical Center took a small  step into mass transit. They now run shuttle buses from Staunton to the medical center in Charlottesville, with stops in Fishersville and Waynesboro. They have a lot of employees and patients in the Valley. Fares are low, and the Medical Center can easily afford to subsidize them.

  351. 351.

    Ruckus

    @Scout211:

    The fact that they are shallow, narcissistic liars who played way, way above their limits, in a very, very dangerous game, with the lives of a lot of people on both sides, in ways that were very dangerous for an entire country, I hope that you are wrong about the outcome for them. They need to pay for their bullshit, that caused people to die and serious laws to be broken and a country to become rather more dangerous for most of it’s citizens.

  354. 354.

    West of the Rockies

    Happy Birthday, John.  Is your middle name Fred or Frank?  You’d be JFC, which seems appropriate.   

  355. 355.

    ian

    @Another Scott:

     But stiffeners for ladies’ clothes were hardly something that people couldn’t live without.

    Tell me Kevin Drum doesn’t understand 1800s social and cultural practices without telling me…

  356. 356.

    Ken

    @Kathleen: @Baud: I can’t decide if the letter from Mattel’s lawyers is going to tell you both you’re being sued for trademark infringement, or offer you a fee to license your idea for a new release.

    “Fascist Barbie comes with Hugo Boss ensemble and Luger! Fascist Ken, in brown shirt, has real ‘Heil’ arm action!  Shown with Barbie ‘Domination Dungeon’ playset, sold separately.”

  358. 358.

    James E Powell

    @satby:

    Tax holidays are a problem because they have to end sometime and it turns into one of those “let’s kick it down the road” things.

    People get used to the lower cost very quickly and view any increase as wrong, unjust, and a reason to vote for fascists.

    It’s largely forgotten, but one of the major issues that drove the recall of California governor Grey Davis was that he allowed a “temporary” reduction of the vehicle license fees to expire.

  360. 360.

    Ruckus

    @Soprano2:

    And one of the reasons they get away with it is that they can hire many lawyers to wear down most any opposition. The court they have landed in is not most any opposition. There is dramatically less likelihood that their story and crimes will not be exposed.

  361. 361.

    catclub

    @Ken: ​
     

    Doesn’t seem quite the right term, since “U” is unmanned.

    You are behind the times. I saw ‘unpersoned’ autonomous vehicle on a photo label in a museum. I would say ‘unpiloted’.

  365. 365.

    Soprano2

    @James E Powell: This is another reason it’s a really bad idea. Good luck getting it reinstated once you stop collecting it. It’s dumb, and probably won’t result in much of a reduction in the price at the pump.

  367. 367.

    catclub

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Yes, but the US military is still going to need jet fuel and diesel for a very long time to come.

     

    OTOH: the US military is much more forward looking in at least trying to phase them out (or planning how to ) than other US organizations. The US military is similarly aware of climate change, in particular melting icecaps.

  368. 368.

    catclub

    @Soprano2: ​
     

    It’s dumb, and probably won’t result in much of a reduction in the price at the pump.

    But will result in increased profits for refineries!

  369. 369.

    Brachiator

    @Ken:

    “Fascist Barbie comes with Hugo Boss ensemble and Luger! Fascist Ken, in brown shirt, has real ‘Heil’ arm action!  Shown with Barbie ‘Domination Dungeon’ playset, sold separately.”

    Sounds like kinky fun. Undoubtedly a limited edition set.

    The Domination Dungeon playset also goes with BDSM Barbie.

  371. 371.

    Cameron

    @James E Powell: Unfortunately, that seems all too correct to me.  I’m baffled, because although I’m in a county dominated by Republicans, it’s actually a pretty nice place to live.

  372. 372.

    trollhattan

    The DeSantis Branding Effort seems to have worked to some extent. Goodie.

    June 22, 2022 at 12:19 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard

    A new University of New Hampshire poll finds Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) leading Donald Trump (R) in a Republican presidential primary, 39% to 37%.

    Support for DeSantis has more than doubled since October.

    DeSantis runs better against Joe Biden than does Trump, a further sign of Trump’s weakening support.

  373. 373.

    Miss Bianca

    @SFAW: We have a short-bed F250 here at the Mountain Hacienda. Pal D specifically wanted a short bed because with the twists and turns in the driveway, it would have been impossible to park a long-bed in the parking spaces we have available to us.

    But you better believe it gets regular actual truck use, short bed or no.

  378. 378.

    Old School

    @Soprano2:

    It’s dumb, and probably won’t result in much of a reduction in the price at the pump.

    The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents.  It’s going to be weird seeing all the gas prices changed to have .5 cents at the end.

  379. 379.

    Captain C

    @bbleh:

    I’m gonna go with, Ivanka has a serious case of Dissociative Identity Disorder,

    Given the trauma her father (and possibly Epstein and others) probably put her through as a child, I wouldn’t be surprised if this turned out to be true.

  380. 380.

    Geminid

    @Cameron:  A double digit DeSantis win would certainly be a departure from recent history. The last three Governor’s races in Florida have been decided by 60,000, 65,000, and less than 40,000 votes. I guess it could happen if Florida Democrats are sufficiently demoralized, though.

  382. 382.

    James E Powell

    @trollhattan:

    I suppose the key moment will be when DeSantis says or does something that separates him from Trump. He will suffer if he is seen as a traitor.

  384. 384.

    Captain C

    @Kay:

    Who doesn’t have any money. I’m glad they settled with OAN. Giuliani is uncollectable. I don’t know how one grifts off of 9/11 for 20 years and ends up with more mortgages than money, but he has managed it.

    Apparently (as in according to court filings in, IIRC, his most recent divorce), he has a burn rate of $250,000/month.  Not sure what he’s spending it on, but that’s what, $3 million/year over 20 years, so, roughly $60 million if it’s been constant between then and now.  That’s pretty damn impressive.  I would like to think that if I made his bucks I’d save enough ($500K/year over 20 years, say?  That’s $10 million before you account for any gains/interest) to be comfortable forever.  Guess those high end steaks, cigars, and booze bottles* don’t pay for themselves.

    I’m reminded of Chris Rock’s comparison between being wealthy and rich, roughly, you can’t get rid of wealth (cf. Bezos’ ex-wife); you can stop being rich in one bad summer with a drug habit.

    *And who knows what other illegal habits he may have…

  385. 385.

    Cameron

    @Geminid: I’d like to see him lose outright.  If Trump is still making the rounds, it would be perfect if he kneecapped the guv.  But Trump may have problems of his own at that point.  I’d be happy with any Democrat, but I think DeSantis will be able to use the tax flimflam to good advantage, if not to a double digit win.

  386. 386.

    Gvg

    @Ken: No, I would say it’s summer when people have vacation time and kids are out of school. Disney World changed the old pattern completely. Orlando has multiple parks not even Disney and people always went to the beaches too.

    The winter tourists aren’t as noticeable or as many. They mostly arrive after Christmas.

    There is also a large population of retirees, but they count as residents.

    There is no time of year when we have no tourists.

  387. 387.

    Ruckus

    @Cameron:

    All the public transit here in SoCal require masks. Of course not everyone complies but the bus drivers sit in the same air as the riders and you have to walk past them to get on, so I’d say it’s over 90% compliance. The commuter train has less compliance but still it’s likely around 75%. Most stores have about 75% mask wearers. All the ones that don’t I call republicans. They are stupid enough….

  388. 388.

    James E Powell

    @Geminid:

    What impact will the indictment Andrew Gillum have? Any? None?

    No disrespect to our Florida jackals, who I respect & admire, but that state’s Democrats haven’t been right for a long time now. They let the Bush crime family walk all over them in 2000 and – Obama’s wins notwithstanding – have watched their swing state turn deep red. Cf. My beloved home state of Ohio.

    The fact that DeSantis took on Disney and did not suffer any loss in popularity shows that he is pretty much unbeatable.

  389. 389.

    Another Scott

    @Captain C: Google tells me that Rudy G’s net worth is estimated (by who knows who) at $40-90M.

    How?  Beats me.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  390. 390.

    Betty Cracker

    @James E Powell: I’m not at all optimistic about the upcoming FL gubernatorial race (particularly if Charlie Crist gets the nom, which seems likely) but no one is “unbeatable,” and I don’t think there’s sufficient data to conclude DeSantis’s hard-right turn hasn’t dinged his popularity.

    As for Gillum, the silver lining I see there is that at least HE won’t try to run for anything in FL again. Only Republicans can get away with a scandal involving a naked photo with meth addicts.

  391. 391.

    Gvg

    @Soprano2: The pandemic killed bus ridership here and it has not rebounded. Also bus drivers are still getting sick and they don’t have enough for the ridership they have. There are fewer routes and they run fewer hours.

    There are a lot more scooters than there used to be and ebikes are showing up. This is a college town and the authorities spent decades encouraging buses….it was working pretty well before. Now? I am not sure I will get back on one.

  392. 392.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    in re DeSantis

    Steve Kornacki @SteveKornacki 1h
    New UNH survey of “like NH GOP primary voters” for 2024 (n=318):

    DeSantis 39%
    Trump 37%
    Pence 9%
    Haley 6%
    Pompeo 1%
    Noem 1%
    Cruz 1%

    Last October:
    Trump 43%
    DeSantis 18%
    Haley 6%

    The other day people were passing around a quote from a long-form article on DeSantis where one of his oldest friends is quoted as saying, roughly: of course nobody likes him. Where’s that article again?

  393. 393.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Another Scott:

    Google tells me that Rudy G’s net worth is estimated (by who knows who) at $40-90M.

    How?  Beats me.

    20 year$ of trading on the dead of 9/11 with everything from lobbying to paid speeches to selling gold and reverse mortgages on Fox Business Weekend?

    And was that before or after Judi Nathan’s lawyer gave his a list of all the things she would put in a book unless he was willing to negotiate a very expensive NDA?

  395. 395.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @satby: Thank you for posting this.  I just kicked in a donation and was pleased to do it.

  399. 399.

    germy shoemangler

    question:

    hard to fathom how far Rudy Giuliani has fallen, and why

    — John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) June 21, 2022

    answer:

    He instigated a 1/6-style precursor riot by cops on NYC city hall before he was even Mayor.

    He's always been an amoral racist cretin. Now he's just also senile.

    You're just nostalgic for the day he had working cameras around him while firefighters had broken radios. https://t.co/Rwxm669U5Z

    — zeddy (@Zeddary) June 21, 2022

  400. 400.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @catclub: 

    The US military is definitely trying to reduce energy usage. They won’t be able to eliminate the need for diesel and jet fuel completely, though, even if they replaced all their current vehicles with newer models tomorrow. They operate in places without electricity or with unstable electricity. They have to be nimble and they use stuff that requires a lot of power/fuel.

  401. 401.

    raven

    I had a femoral nerve block and 10, came home and slept for two hours , now to see how it worked.

  402. 402.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:  Looks like Trump’s batshit crazy base is staying with him but the rest of the Republican voters are moving on.

    As far as this year’s Florida governor’s election and deSantis goes, the MSM has made it clear The Narrative is DeSantis is the National Savior whatever happens for a year now.

  403. 403.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    DeSantis is a threat. The only upside to the very slow progress in prosecuting Trump is he may still be around to attack DeSantis. When Trump is whining about how ‘wronged’ he is, his followers start tuning out. They love watching him trash his opponents, though. If given the chance, Trump will be viscous.

  406. 406.

    germy shoemangler

    the real paradox of left wing electoralism is that w every left wing government in Latin America, Florida becomes more difficult to win for democrats because of the sudden influx of thousands of right wing DJs and real estate professionals

    — BO H (@bo_austin_) June 19, 2022

  408. 408.

    Geminid

    @Major Major Major Major: I don’t have anything at hand to cite, but I recall post-2020 election analysis showing that Joe Biden carried a majority of the non-Cuban Latino vote in Florida. This would be in line with reports that a majority of neighboring  Georgia’s Latino voters voted for Biden. Democrats clearly need to up their game with these voters, though.

    There is a trend in Florida towards Republican presidential candidates, but I would call it a gradual one. In 2012, Barack Obama carried the state by 75,000 out of 8.4 million votes cast. In 2016, Trump won Florida by 113,000 out of 9.1 million votes cast. And in 2020, Trump won again, this time by 370,000 out of 11 million votes cast.

    I still consider a state falling within a 4% winning margin a purple state. But we’re all entitled to our own political taxonomy, so I’m not going to kick if someone wants to call Florida a “deep red” state, although I think that term is better applied to Arkansas or West Virginia. It doesn’t really matter anyway; “a Rose by any other name,” etc.

  410. 410.

    Geminid

    @rikyrah: I think the winner, Katie Britt, was outgoing Senator Richard Shelby’s Chief of Staff. She was more or less the Republic establishment candidate, not as feral as Brooks.

  412. 412.

    Cameron

    @rikyrah: He claims she’s a RINO or a closet Democrat.  I don’t think Trump would have endorsed her, though, if that were the case.

  413. 413.

    Brachiator

    @Geminid:

    I don’t have anything at hand to cite, but I recall post-2020 election analysis showing that Joe Biden carried a majority of the non-Cuban Latino vote in Florida.

    From one analysis

    President Donald Trump didn’t win the majority of the Latino vote in any state for which we have exit polling data by race, but he came closest in Florida, where the Cuban-American vote was decisive, breaking 56-41 for the Republican incumbent compared to an even 49-49 split between non-Cuban voters.

  414. 414.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @James E Powell:

    He is headed for a double digit win and the national political press is going to treat him like the savior of the nation.

    You don’t know that. Why wouldn’t high gas prices, etc be blamed on him? He’s in charge of the state after all

  415. 415.

    Dan B

    Happy Birthday Sir Cole (if the mustard was Grey Poupon), Mr. Cole (if yellow).

    I “lost” my Prik King Curry paste yesterday.  The Jalapeño Jelly, in the same jar, worked fine, with some soy and vinegar, as a dipping sauce for my chicken wraps.  Hope your day works out as well despite the daily obstacles.

  416. 416.

    Dan B

    @Soprano2: Electric vehicles are less than 1% sales so they are a smokescreen.  Maybe by the time sales double the fossil fuel oligarchies will see a difference in the bottom line but in the meanwhile they have to be protected from evil socialist  Hunter  Joe.  They alone can save the greatest country on earth from collapse.*

    *BTW they might be obfuscating their role in kneecapping the future.

  418. 418.

    Geminid

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Economist Robert Pollin wrote about efforts by the DOD to find alternative fuels starting in the Obama administration. These include plant or algae based products. Pollin described the overall clean energy efforts under Obama as “Green New Deal 1.0.”*

    The Air Force Times reported on plans to install a small nuclear plant at a remote Alaskan air base later this decade. Besides environmental reasons, they want to replace the coal fired powerr plant because they have to store the coal in a big heated barn.

    *Robert Pollin, “We Need a Better Green New Deal, March 2019, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. A very informative 15 minute read.

  420. 420.

    Dan B

    @Geminid: I am gobsmacked that Thiel’s racism / elitism is so strong he believes the GQP will not “protect” his children from his, and his husband’s grooming.  They’re obviously molesting them and/or selling to friends for orgies.

    Hard to sort out who’s more demented, Thiel or the right wingers who see perversion in every place but their own loins (and hearts).

  422. 422.

    catclub

    @Gvg: ​
     

    There is also a large population of retirees, but they count as residents.

    and vote illegally in two states.

  424. 424.

    Geminid

    @Dan B: Thiel does seem a little nutty. But just like gay people are everywhere, so are Republicans in greater or lesser numbers. Last year a friend told me about some trump-voting lesbians she encountered on the Eastern Shore. Joan’s an ardent Democrat, but she did not seem at all surprised.

  425. 425.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Geminid:

    I don’t have anything at hand to cite, but I recall post-2020 election analysis showing that Joe Biden carried a majority of the non-Cuban Latino vote in Florida. This would be in line with reports that a majority of neighboring Georgia’s Latino voters voted for Biden. Democrats clearly need to up their game with these voters, though.

    The Trumpward shift was mostly observed among Tejanos in the Rio Grande Valley (+55 points in one county!) and several groups of Latinos in Miami (not just Cubans), but,

    It was clear after the election that Trump had made gains among Latino voters in places like Florida’s Miami-Dade County and Texas’s Rio Grande Valley. The newest and most detailed data yet shows that the trend was nationwide. According to a recent report by the Democratic data firm Catalist, the number of Latinos who cast votes increased by 31 percent from 2016 to 2020, accounting for a 10th of the electorate. A comfortable majority of Latinos — an estimated 61 percent — supported President Joe Biden, but there was about an 8 percentage-point swing toward Trump, based on data on votes cast for either the Democratic or Republican nominees in 2016 and 2020.

  430. 430.

    Geminid

    @Major Major Major Major: A couple months ago Politico had a good article about the concerted effort Republicans are making to turn the Rio Grande Valley red, centering on Latino women leading the effort. Evidently, the RNC has assigned twenty paid organizers to the push. One of the people featured in the article was Cassie Garcia, who will try to unseat Henry Cuellar in the Texas 28th CD.

    As you cite, the shift in some of these heavily Latino counties is striking. One county had a majority Republican vote for the first time in over a century. The 28th and other RGV districts will definitely be battlegrounds this fall. A Texas commenter said last night that Austin Republicans drew the new district boundaries with this in mind.

  432. 432.

    Elie

    Happy Birthday, Cole  — wishing you all the best — and the best for all of us in these years to come –

    Have fun today though —

  433. 433.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Traditionally you’d see what the voters want and try to meet them where they’re at. It seems to have worked for Trump.

    In the end, Trump’s success in peeling off Latino votes in South Texas had everything to do with not talking to them as Latinos. His campaign spoke to them as Tejanos, who may be traditionally Democratic but have a set of specific concerns—among them, the oil and gas industry, gun rights and even abortion—amenable to the Republican Party’s positions, and it resonated.

  435. 435.

    Geminid

    @debbie: I’m hoping that Rochelle Garza, the Democratic candidate for Attorney General, can campaign with good effect in the Rio Grande Valley. Garza is the only Latino and only woman on either party’s ticket.

  436. 436.

    Urban Suburbanite

    The Discovery Institute (the creationist front group who turned a failed Seattle city council candidate into the idiot “mastermind” leading anti-trans hatred) really found a quality with their latest addition – a former local reporter named Jonathan Choe. He worked for the local Sinclair station until he got fired for his gushing coverage of a Proud Boys rally, in order to become a discount copy of Andy Ngo. When he’s not posting scare pieces about homeless people and crawling up the mayor’s colon, he’s picking fights for online clout or kissing up to scum like Raichik and Desantis. He’s also been lurking around men’s bathrooms and angrily posting about someone putting up stickers calling him a “wet bitch”.

    Real quality hire.

  438. 438.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Major Major Major Major:

    What does the oil and gas industry mean in this context? And frankly, I’m not sure how we could meet them where they’re at without screwing over significant portions of our base

    I think it needs to be made clear to them that guns are what is destroying the social fabric of this country, that outlawing abortion will lead to a loss of the right to privacy and other human rights, that fossil fuels are a threat to human civilization via climate change, and that the GOP is a white supremacist authoritarian party that will absolutely turn on them the minute it becomes convenient, no matter how “white” they consider themselves

  439. 439.

    Ben Cisco

    @Geminid: She’s gone native – totally in the tank w/Dump. Billboards and ads touting his endorsement.

    She’s going to be worse, to keep the job once she gets it.

  440. 440.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Barbara: More that Ivanka as a “success” allows Trump to believe in eugenics, despite his eldest two sons.

  442. 442.

    Geminid

    @Major Major Major Major:  New Mexico is a good example of Democrats working with the oil industry. A big chunk of the state budget comes directly from royalties, and it’s a major industry in a poor state. This did not keep Democrats from passing an ambitious clean power package in 2019, but the idea is to manage a transition. In 2018 the IPCC called for a carbon neutral world economy by 2050. We’re in a marathon, not a sprint, and if we we want a sustainable planet we need a sustainable political program to get there.

  445. 445.

    Gvg

    @catclub: not usually. Most of them are not wealthy, just OK. They only have the one home. Some do of course. The ones with 2 homes are the snowbirds.

  449. 449.

    Another Scott

    I hope we don’t have to wait too long for things like the Carver S+ to be available and safe to drive on US roads.

    80 kph (50 mph) top speed, 100 km (60 mile) range, 3 hours to charge 80%

    Around 14,500 Euros (around $15,300).

    Only for sale in the Netherlands at the moment. :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  450. 450.

    SFAW

    @Miss Bianca: ​ Glad it gets real use. Here in the backwoods of near-to-Boston, as well as the wilds of Hartford (and similar), the ones I’ve seen are, shall we say, “underutilized” vis-a-vis what pickups are intended for.​ 
    ETA:​ “Underutilized” == no scratches, dings, dents, scrapes, or any other indication that it’s used any more than commuting the 3 miles from the home garage to the climate-controlled parking garage at work.​

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