Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

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

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Days Since JD Vance Insulted Women Across America: Zero

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

In my day, never was longer.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Saturday Morning Open Thread: New Type of Affinity Fraud?

Saturday Morning Open Thread: New Type of Affinity Fraud?

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SRSLY:

Harvard Law graduate Sen. Tom Cotton got the NYTimes to publish his op-ed ‘suggestion’ that Greenland should sell itself to the United States. (Which would be like Puerto Rico deciding to sell itself to Denmark: Neither party would have any interest in the idea, even if there were a reason beyond ‘Repub Senator wants to position himself as an out-of-the-box thinker prior to his presidential run in 2024’.)

Some weeks later, Sen. Cotton’s office received a catfishing lure from, it is averred, Russian agents… which the TFG Administration seems to have responded to, predictably:

Of course, it’s more than possible that Sen. Cotton never saw the catfishing letter — some low-level staffer may have forwarded it to the White House after glancing at the (fake) letterhead. But if Cotton hadn’t decided to flap his mighty wings gums in the first place…

Tweet at top: How Tom Cotton sees himself; tweet below, well…

Reader Interactions

217Comments

  5. 5.

    NotMax

    Often enough the back to back listings on TCM are amusing, WTF-ing or both but hard pressed to recall a recent dichotomy as stark as this coming Tuesday’s schedule.

    I Am Curious (Yellow) followed by Destination Tokyo.

    ;)

  9. 9.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Dog rescued from collapsed Seattle home after six days

    The landslide on 7 January caused the house to slide off its foundation, leaving James Fritts trapped inside, while his wife Didi crawled to safety. Their other dog Lilly died in the collapse, the Seattle Times reported. Family members said they had returned daily to the house, hoping to hear the missing dog.

    Rescue workers heard the dog when they arrived, David Cuerpo, a spokesperson for the Seattle fire department, told the newspaper.

    They used chainsaws to cut through the home’s walls and flooring to get to the dog, working cautiously amid worries that the unstable home could suffer another collapse.
    ……………………………
    “My baby. My baby,” said home owner Didi Fritts when a person emerged from the house Thursday carrying her alert black Labrador mix Sammy, KING-TV reported.

    LASSIE & RODDY MCDOWALL LASSIE COME HOME 01/04/1943 CTC4146 Couples
    Dog saves day as ‘real-life Lassie’ leads rescuers to injured men after accident
    Read more

    On Thursday, the fire department in Seattle said on Twitter that firefighters had responded to reports of a dog possibly trapped inside the wreckage of the house.

    Veterinarians at the scene examined the dog, who seemed alert and wagged her tail after seeing Fritts, video from the TV station showed. The fire department described Sammy’s condition as stable.

  11. 11.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @germy: Looks like one is trying to console the other: “Hey, sorry about you losing your job. But look on the bright side. Now you have plenty of time to count the rain drops.”

  16. 16.

    germy

    @Baud:

    The bad often outweighs the good. But sometimes it’s the opposite.

    honestly, like 90% of political discourse on here is like "if I was a leader, I would simply Exercise Power."

    — Starfish Who Just Wants To Grill (@IRHotTakes) January 15, 2022

  17. 17.

    Gravenstone

    Say what you will about the Russians, but they seem to recognize an easy mark when they see one.

  20. 20.

    debbie

    I chuckle to think how many people have played TFG like a fiddle, even as he believed he was playing others. What a chump.

  23. 23.

    NotMax

    Noted for those who gravitate to things period and British, Lark Rise to Candleford appears to now have resurfaced on Hulu. Compact multi-season melodrama tied up with a bow.

  27. 27.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @germy: Heh, now I see a DEM wife trying to console her somewhat conservative husband over the downward spiral into insanity of the GOP, forcing him to vote for Hillary.

  29. 29.

    germy

    It of course was barely mentioned, but Democrats won a wave of special elections in Maine, Massachusetts, Virginia and Florida this week. A very good start to 2022 and that’s how we need to keep going.

    — Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) January 14, 2022

    I’m waiting for the headline:
    “Dems win special elections in 4 states—why that spells doom for President Biden”

    — TheeKnopeFanLing (@LingZhiTweet) January 14, 2022

  31. 31.

    Baud

    @germy:

    ?

    ETA: and to be fair, the Florida win was a cakewalk because of the nature of the district. Don’t know about the others.

  34. 34.

    Geminid

    Congressman John Katko (NY-25) announced yesterday that he would not seek a sixth term. One of ten Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, 59 year old Katko will join fellow Impeachers Anthony Gonzales (OH) and Adam Kinzinger (IL) in retirement.

    The Rage of Mar-a-Loco commented:

        Great news, another one bites the dust.

    Dave Wasserman of Cook’s Political Report had a slightly different take, tweeting:

    Katko is probably the only Republican who could have held this seat, especially if Dems draw it much bluer.

    New York’s redistricting commission deadlocked a couple weeks ago, so now the Democratic majority is free to aggressively gerrymander the state’s Congressional map. They will try to knock out three or more Republican Representatives including Claudia Tennant in the central 22nd District and Staten Island’s Stephanie Malliatokis

  43. 43.

    germy

    DOJ alum open letter to AG:

    “While the Attorney General rightly counseled patience as the Department moves the investigation toward higher-level actors, we urge him to preserve the public trust by holding culpable leaders to account as soon as possible.”https://t.co/rLEKjrD6oV

    — Leah McElrath ?️‍? (@leahmcelrath) January 14, 2022

    I don’t recall ever before seeing former Department of Justice staff speak out en masse like this.
    ?
    It reveals a level of concern—and even desperation—that one has to imagine is informed in part by the information they are hearing from staff who are currently still with DOJ.

    — Leah McElrath ?️‍? (@leahmcelrath) January 14, 2022

    To be clear:

    This is a SIGNED letter from DOJ alums.

    More than 1,110—so far.

    The signatories identify themselves by name and highest position held and include judges and former US attorneys.

    The list is being managed by @protctdemocracy:https://t.co/QIUptSdc5Y pic.twitter.com/CdVjdsoXKP

    — Leah McElrath ?️‍? (@leahmcelrath) January 14, 2022

  48. 48.

    oldgold

    Somehow I got it in my head Harvard Law graduates were smart people.

    Desantis, Cotton and McEnany have shattered that notion.

  51. 51.

    zhena gogolia

    Penzey’s newsletter is beautiful.

    Remember when Black Lives Matter started to have some success getting all of America to see how unfairly Black Americans are treated in this country and the importance of us all saying Black Lives Matter until Black lives start to be treated as though they do matter? Remember how Republicans, seeing the success BLM was having in moving America towards greater equality for Black people, in many ways the first real success since the time of Dr. King, remember how Republicans did all they could to derail that success by trying to drown out BLM’s message with shouts of all lives matter, and blue lives matter, and lying about the leaders of BLM being Marxists and Communists?

    Remember after George Floyd’s murder the anger and righteous outrage that swept across America? Remember how Black Lives Matter stepped in and redirected that anger into peaceful protests that millions of Americans from across all walks of life participated in, amassing a hundred million human-hours of peaceful protest? Remember how Republicans, going against a mountain of evidence to the contrary, once again lied and said BLM wasn’t a peaceful movement but instead terrorists inciting violence throughout the country and then raced out to buy a crapload of guns because maybe they were finally going to get their chance to shoot a Black person? What a bunch of racists.

    And I get it. If you are a Republican voter you are now cheesed off. You were promised that there would never be any accountability for your support of the party of open “textbook” racism. Sorry, but for the betterment of all Americans, you included, we’ve decided to end that rule. And I really don’t care what your race is or how many of your friends “happen to be” whatever. None of that excuses you.

    If you’re a part of a party that does everything it can to make it harder for Black people to vote, gerrymanders the value of minority votes down into a small fraction of the value of white votes in state houses and in the US House of Representatives, and are willing to vote for candidates of the party that nominated a man for president who explained why he was launching his campaign by saying: “Mexicans are rapists and murderers,” the Racist label is one you will deservingly wear every day you stand with them. Get used to it, or maybe instead, become a better person. The choice is yours. We will be here rooting for you to Choose Love.

  53. 53.

    Baud

    @germy:

    that one has to imagine is informed in part by the information they are hearing from staff who are currently still with DOJ.

     
    That sort of speculation isn’t helpful IMHO.

  55. 55.

    Ken

    @NotMax: Couldn’t have been Kirk, he wasn’t born until 1916. For that matter couldn’t have been Stephen, who died in 1861. Frederick was alive, though…

  56. 56.

    Kay

    The coverage of this is terrible and sloppy but I assume you all know that there are two voting rights laws Democrats are trying to pass:

    The first is a wide-ranging measure called the Freedom to Vote Act, a compromise bill crafted by Senate Democrats after Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said he wouldn’t support a more expansive House bill, the For the People Act.

    The second bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, is an update to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, signed on as a co-sponsor. A version of the legislation has already passed the House.

    They’re both compromise bills- the first was modified at Manchin’s direction and to his specifications and the second has a GOP co-sponsor.

    The John Lewis Voting Rights Act was never intended to “stop an insurrection”. It has nothing to do with whether Republicans plan to recognize election results next time. It’s simply a new Voting Rights Act to replace the Voting Rights Act that John Roberts and the Republicans on the Supreme Court gutted.

  57. 57.

    Betty Cracker

    @SiubhanDuinne: Was just reading about it this morning. To amplify the point Baud made at #31, it’s a rock-solid Dem seat, so the primary was the real race (and it was a single-digit squeaker). Contesting elections will be SOP for Republicans going forward, and they should be mercilessly derided as sore-loser crybabies for it. :)

  58. 58.

    germy

    @Baud:

    You’re right, she’s correct in reporting the article but then she veers off into conjecture.

    I assume DOJ past and present are a big club and like to keep in touch, but she doesn’t provide any evidence the letter was influenced by current DOJ people.

  60. 60.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    They should be mocked but, more importantly IMHO, we should point out that there is a party that doesn’t act this way and people should reward that.

  61. 61.

    Ken

    @SiubhanDuinne: Concession is a courtesy (explaining why the Republican isn’t doing it) but isn’t required by the process.

    Unfortunately I can’t help but worry that the idea is to yell “fraud”, have the Florida legislature overturn the election and install the Republican, and then have the Supreme Court rule that’s OK — all in time for the fall elections.

  62. 62.

    Kay

    Because the John Lewis Voting Rights Act is a replacement for the Voting Rights Act , passing a reform to the Electoral Count Act (a wholly unrelated law) does not restore the civil rights protections in the Voting Rights Act.

  66. 66.

    germy

    BREAKING: OAN is being dropped by DirecTV, majority owned by AT&T.

    This is huge news. 90% of OAN's revenue may disappear overnight. An OAN lawyer once told a court that if DirecTV dropped them, OAN "would go out of business tomorrow."

    I guess they're about to find out.

    — Tristan Snell (@TristanSnell) January 15, 2022

  67. 67.

    oldgold

    Speaking of the Harvard educated DeSantis, apparently Florida is not going to enforce the vaccine mandate on health care workers that was approved by the political hacks in black robes  this week.

    “The state of Florida is not going to serve as the Biden administration’s biomedical police,” Christina Pushaw, a spokesperson for DeSantis, wrote in an email Thursday.

  69. 69.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Illinois’ Democrats have already aggressively gerrymandered their state’s Congressional map. One result will be a primary contest between Republicans Rodney Davis and Mary Miller. The veteran Davis is an old fashioned Chamber of Commerce type, while freshman Mary Miller has aligned herself with Marjorie T-Greene and the radicals. She waited to get an endorsement from Trump before entering the race.

        The district stretches from the Mississippi River to the Indiana border, and [Miller] finds herself outside much of the much of the regions Republican establishment. Davis has already been endorsed by 32 of the 35 county chairmen.

    The Herald-Whig (Quincy Illinois)

    The story is by Rick Pearson of the Chicago Tribune, but I got a kick out finding it in the Herald-Whig. That newspaper’s name is a blast from the past!

  70. 70.

    Betty Cracker

    @germy: I’d also like to point out that the Oath Keeper founder who wears an eyepatch, Stewart Rhodes, lost his eye when he dropped a loaded handgun and accidentally shot himself in the face. So, Yale degree notwithstanding, he’s a dumbass.

    He should thank his lucky stars I’m not in charge of guest amenities at his place of incarceration because I’d acquire a digital copy of “A Christmas Story” and splice together every time someone says “you’ll shoot your eye out” and project it on loop into his cell.

  71. 71.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @oldgold: “The state of Florida is not going to serve as the Biden administration’s biomedical police,” Christina Pushaw, “We’ve got enough to do just being the hand maidens of Death.”

    Finished TFH.

  73. 73.

    MagdaInBlack

    My google-fu tells me that seeing a white owl represents change, transformation and inner wisdom.

    I’ll take it.

  74. 74.

    Mousebumples

    @Ramalama: penzey’s spices is a Milwaukee, Wisconsin based spice company. They’ve taken a very pro Democracy stand in their emails and offers.

  76. 76.

    Gravenstone

    @Baud: Yeah, maybe try confirming the genesis of the open letter with one or more of the individuals behind it? But no, “hot takes” get more retweets.

  80. 80.

    Betty Cracker

    @oldgold: I’m so looking forward to the coming Trump vs. DeSantis throwdown now that DeSantis has said he regrets not opposing Trump’s weak-ass efforts to control the spread in spring 2020. Best case scenario: they utterly destroy each other.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    @oldgold:

    The religious Right has gone absolutely full bore anti-vaxx. It’s on all their radio stations, I hear it from Right wing religious fundamentalists themselves, I even get emails on it from religious Righties I have worked with as a volunteer in public schools.

    People like Joe Rogan get all the attention but there’s this entire really hysterical anti-vaxx theme that has just taken off among religious fundamentalists. It’s way more intense now than it was a year ago. I think that’s what the Supreme Court and pols like DeSantis are responding to, not high profile “vaccine skeptics” in media, entertainment or sports, but broad based, grass roots anti-vaxx hysteria in the religious Right.

  84. 84.

    Ramalama

    Aside from the many brilliant and talented people who got their paper and was free from Harvard, many sons and daughters also failed in an upwards direction there.

    Harvard degrees were also conferred to these stooges: Jared, George W Bush, Mehmet Oz.

    Harvard continues to employ Alan Dershowitz.

    The Kennedy School also likes to polish over nearly-ruined reputations of certain characters like Sean Spicer. I know there are many, many other examples. There’s probably a list somewhere with “People who should be shunned but are somehow embraced by Harvard.”

    Just saying, let’s not ‘be surprised’ that malicious governmental representative N has a degree from there.

  86. 86.

    Ramalama

    @Mousebumples: OMG that’s … amazing. My brothers live in Madison, WI, and interact on a daily basis (ie jobs) with guys who are paranoid gun stashers. Q people. They cannot get away from them. Maybe they need to find new digs in Milwaukee. Easy for me to say up here in Quebecistan.

  87. 87.

    Kay

    @oldgold:

    I think that’s partly why government hasn’t been able to reach a huge chunk of vaxx holdouts- it would have to come from religious Right leaders, either the leaders themselves or the politicians they consider religious Right leaders. Joe Biden or a county health department aren’t going to make any inroads at all into this population- they have their own messengers.

  88. 88.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: The Orange Churl is starting what he hopes will be his comeback tour. There’ll be a rally in Florence, Arizona tonight, and another is scheduled two weeks from today in the Houston area.

  89. 89.

    germy

    Hey remember when you’re getting off your jokes (which I enjoy) about this asshole that he’s a Yale Law graduate.

    The enemies of democracy are not cartoon yokels. They often went to the same schools as our leaders. Where do you think they got their egos? https://t.co/BFIsAUhojN

    — Louisa ?? (@LouisatheLast) January 14, 2022

  90. 90.

    Kay

    They’re portraying the vaccine as apocalyptic. 

    The vaccine will destroy non believers and the only people left will be believers. It’s a variation of an end times story.

  91. 91.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Ramalama:

    Just saying, let’s not ‘be surprised’ that malicious governmental representative N has a degree from there.

    Every university has some alums who are turkeys.  The author of a book currently being discussed here at Balloon Juice is a 1985 graduate of HLS.

  92. 92.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us

    Boy easily duped Cotton (Harvard), the Oath keepers dude (Yale) and numerous other I could name…sure seems like our greatest, most selective academic institutions are taking smart people and turning them into morons. Or they’re taking morons and turning out morons with degrees. Either way they don’t seem to be living up to their reputations.

  94. 94.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Mousebumples:

    @Ramalama: penzey’s spices is a Milwaukee, Wisconsin based spice company. They’ve taken a very pro Democracy stand in their emails and offers.

    @zhena gogolia:

    @Ramalama: It’s a great spice company.

    Their spices are terrific, and I love their politics too.

    Two great tastes that taste great together!

  96. 96.

    Gvg

    @oldgold: I hope that doesn’t matter. Federal law trumps state and federal money pays for a lot of hospital costs. I am not an expert but I think in this case desantis doesn’t mean diddly. The hospitals need federal money and will have to comply or starve. Also I think there are quite a few levers they can use. It was never going to be police arresting nurses.

  98. 98.

    artem1s

    @OzarkHillbilly: cable companies pay for their content. cable packages force customers to take the channels that the cable companies have contracts with. customers are starting to protest being forced to put money in the pockets of ‘news’ outlets that spread lies. OAN contract was just dropped by DirectTV. Hopefully consumers can force the same issue with Fox now. The cable contracts are the major source of revenue since ad revenue from airwaves broadcasting is drying up

  104. 104.

    Starfish

    @Baud: I am on Twitter, and we are all being eaten by Wordle.

    The deal with Twitter is that it can be a very different experience for everyone.

    There can be a very nice curated bird Twitter that is just birds.

  105. 105.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    It’s been oddly comforting to me locally as an explanation because we had really widely credible and trusted people pushing the vaccine. There’s a crazy-popular physician here (and he really is a good man- he’s admired because he should be) who did radio ads begging people to get vaccinated. Our county health director is a nurse, she’s “active in the community”, is on every volunteer board and has been for decades, she’s run herself ragged begging them to get vaccinated. Nothing worked. Which is less surprising when you realize they were getting a very different message from the religious leaders they follow.

    If they want to reach the holdouts in red counties they would have to go thru the religious Right.

  106. 106.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Kay:

    They’re portraying the vaccine as apocalyptic. 

    The vaccine will destroy non believers and the only people left will be believers. It’s a variation of an end times story.

    But in general, they want the End Times to come, and soon. That’s why they support Israel, they’re going, “c’mon dudes, rebuild the Temple so we can get Raptured while everyone else gets stuck in the Tribulation!”

    Since the End Times story they tell themselves is one where the nonbelievers get wiped out unless they convert, while the believers escape unscathed, you’d think they’d be all for the vaccine, if this is their story about it.

    More broadly, my attitude towards the fundagelicals about their being anti-vax and anti-mask is that they’ve totally abandoned that business of loving your neighbor as yourself.  One of the two Great Commandments, according to Jesus Christ himself? So what, apparently.

  107. 107.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    The vaccine will destroy non believers and the only people left will be believers.

    How do they explain that we’re still here? And wasn’t it supposed to be the believers who got raptured?

    @Ken:

    I’m a little surprised QR codes haven’t been more controversial.

  109. 109.

    Baud

    @Starfish:

    So I’ve heard.  The other problem I have with twitter is that I don’t like the format.  A wall of disjointed tweets is too much for me.

  110. 110.

    sab

    @lowtechcyclist: Basically they have abandoned the entire New Testament except for Book of Revelation. They have certainly abandoned the Gospels. They want their angry patriarchal deity back.

  112. 112.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: I get more of a “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” vibe from from the far, off the edge of the world, religious right.

  113. 113.

    Ramalama

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Every university has some alums who are turkeys.  The author of a book currently being discussed here at Balloon Juice is a 1985 graduate of HLS.

    Yep indeed.

    There are so many, many stellar people from Harvard. Fiona Hill got her PhD at Harvard. But so many top dunces from there.

  114. 114.

    lowtechcyclist

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:  Every university has some alums who are turkeys.

    The turkeys bother me way less than the assholes, and those who are respected yet portray the assholes as justified in their assholery.

    In the case of my alma mater, that would be Tucker Carlson and George Will, respectively.

  115. 115.

    Ken

    @Baud:I’m a little surprised QR codes haven’t been more controversial.

    I imagine there were a number of conversations that ended with “You mean they scan that, and it sets them up for automatic recurring donations?”

  120. 120.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    You’ll be altered in some way that can’t be “reversed”. I keyed into that language in the SCOTUS opinion because I recognize it. Which is terrifying in its own way- it’s the same language I see in emails from religious nuts who are trying to save me.

    It’s odd because I don’t think normal people think of vaccines as “permanent”, they don’t worry about being altered by a vaccine, but that was so central to the Right wing argument in the SCOTUS case. Honestly for me I wish it was more “permanent”- I wouldn’t have to get a booster.

    I didn’t know, for example, that I was supposed to get boosters for the set of vaccines you get as a child (with the exception of tetanus, which I knew) until my daughter had a child and she insisted I get a round of boosters before I was around the baby.

  121. 121.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: He did a couple of rally type events in Florida last month (I think) that were poorly attended, even after they slashed ticket prices.

  124. 124.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud: What is the other one?

    “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength.”

  126. 126.

    zhena gogolia

    I wonder what this guy’s BJ nym is (WaPo link):

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/01/14/professor-covid-rant/

    Mehler, a history professor at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Mich., told his students he didn’t want to know anything about them, not even their names, because “you people are just vectors of disease to me.”

    The 74-year-old said it didn’t matter how hard they worked in his class since he randomly predetermined their grades.

    And if they didn’t like any of that?

    “Go complain to your dean … go ahead,” Mehler said. “I’m retiring at the end of this year and I [don’t care] any longer.”

    As of early Friday, the 14-minute profanity-laced video has been viewed more than 210,000 times since Mehler posted it on Sunday. Mehler has been placed on administrative leave while Ferris State University investigates the incident. In a statement to The Washington Post, university president David Eisler said he “was shocked and appalled” by the video.

  127. 127.

    Ken

    @sab: Basically they have abandoned the entire New Testament except for Book of Revelation.

    Not even that; a weird interpretation of it that’s less than two hundred years old.

    Now I’m imagining a time traveler trying to persuade Darby not to publish by describing the horror of nuclear war triggered by the first millennialist President — and noticing to his horror that Darby is taking notes.

    Or the same, with St. John of Patmos…

  130. 130.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ramalama: They must have a very specific and limited range of people that they meet at work.  Madison votes overwhelmingly Democratic (84% in 2020) and, if dissatisfied with Democrats, it is usually from the left.  You don’t move away from Madison to try to avoid right-wing nutcases.

  132. 132.

    Starfish

    @Baud: That one gets to my spouse too. The way that comments are hidden away. Sometimes we see very different things looking at the same stuff. Last night, there was something involving bobcats and furries that he thought was hilarious, but I just did not see the same things that he did.

  133. 133.

    cmorenc

    @oldgold:

    Somehow I got it in my head Harvard Law graduates were smart people.

    Desantis, Cotton and McEnany have shattered that notion.

    The core nature of law school is to teach analytical skills needed to recognize the leverages in the legal system available to people in various situations – and not to teach the moral underpinnings of a just society.  The skills law school equally teaches both sociopaths and altruistic reformers how to advantageously pursue their respective ends within the law.  Yes, so law schools do usually require at least a one semester course in legal ethics, but what that course is really about is learning what sorts of actions will vs will not jeopardize your law license, and not about ethics for a just society, despite the lip service nominally paid to such during the course.

    So it shouldn’t be surprising that Harvard Law (or any accredited law school) admits a portion of sociopaths in each entering class, and turns out about the same proportion of sociopaths in each graduating class.   When they graduate, they are still sociopaths, but now enhanced with their ability to recognize legal leverage points (including points where others lack sufficient leverage to stop you from doing amoral things).

  135. 135.

    sab

    @Baud: I have a twitter account but I am not actually on it.

    I can’t follow twitter at all. It just seems like disjointed comments out of context unless you choose to be sucked down their rabbit hole.

  136. 136.

    Kay

    Friday, January 14, 2022
    Former White House Advisor Pleads Guilty To Devising A Scheme To Steal $218,000 From Charter Schools He Founded
    Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that SETH ANDREW pled guilty today to wire fraud, before United States District Judge John P. Cronan, in Manhattan federal court.
    U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Seth Andrew, a former White House advisor, admitted today to devising a scheme to steal from the very same schools he helped create. Andrew now faces time in federal prison for abusing his position and robbing those he promised to help.”
    In 2005, SETH ANDREW helped create “School Network-1,” a series of public charter schools then based in New York City. In the Spring of 2013, ANDREW left School Network-1 and accepted a job in the United States Department of Education and, thereafter, as a senior advisor in the Office of Educational Technology at the White House. In November 2016, ANDREW left his role in the White House and, shortly thereafter, in January 2017, ANDREW officially severed his relationship with School Network-1.
    School Network-1’s New York based charter schools must maintain an “escrow account” that may be accessed only if the school dissolves. Three such escrow accounts, for three New York City based-School Network-1 schools, were opened by ANDREW and other School Network-1 employees, at “Bank-1” in 2009, 2011 and 2013. As to each of those three accounts ‑- Escrow Account-1, Escrow Account-2 and Escrow Account-3 — ANDREW was a signatory and had access to the funds in them. However, pursuant to the charter agreement, the funds in the Escrow Accounts were reserved in case the school dissolved, and the funds could not be moved by ANDREW, or anyone, without proper authorization.

    An Obama advisor. He took money from the school’s escrow account because he needed a (larger) down payment to purchase a really expensive apartment. He did this by walking into a bank branch and signing for it, which of course creates a paper record and also a video record.
    Really smart guy. Prestigious credentials. But a dumb criminal and greedy as hell.

    We should stop using “prestigious” or “exclusive” as a proxy for “good”. It’s not true.

  138. 138.

    Geminid

    @Ken: The origin of the Book of Revelations:

    A Patmos monk: “Oh no! John’s been eating the purple mushrooms again!”

  139. 139.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @oldgold: somehow I got it in my head Harvard Law graduates were smart people.

    Desantis, Cotton and McEnany have shattered that notion.

    I thought that De Santis was dumb during his gubernatorial campaign, the ads when he was reading his kids MAGA bed times stories and having them ‘build a wall’ with blocks, shit like that IIRC. I have since figured out that he is smart and maybe the most cynical demagogue I have ever seen. Literally willing to let people die if their survivors will blame Democrats for the death

    McEnany– looking to get rich, as she famously said, it’s a great time for pretty girls willing to shill for trump

    Cotton– crazy, creepy, will spend his life looking for witches to burn, but not dumb

  143. 143.

    lowtechcyclist

    @MazeDancer: ​
     

    Sorry to report there is a Wordle Archive.

    Every Wordle ever.

    That’s wonderful!

    I’d just gotten started with this the other day, and was already a bit frustrated by the one-a-day pace. So now I can do one whenever the mood strikes me.

    Just did the very first one, and got it on the third try. That was the sixth time I’ve played, and the first time I’ve gotten a word in less than four, so I’m patting myself on the back.

  148. 148.

    Citizen Alan

    @Baud:  There was a freak out over barcodes back in the seventies as I recall. I suspect there would be a bigger issue with QR codes if there was a way to say it was entirely the fault of democrats that they exist.

  152. 152.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Omnes Omnibus: in a mental file of mine with angry birds and candy crush

    in no small part because the last thing I need is another excuse to do nothing productive

    I have Balloon Juice for that

  158. 158.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Betty Cracker:

    He should thank his lucky stars I’m not in charge of guest amenities at his place of incarceration because I’d acquire a digital copy of “A Christmas Story” and splice together every time someone says “you’ll shoot your eye out” and project it on loop into his cell.

    Now that’s just cruel!

  159. 159.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Curious about how the Hell evangelicals could justify themselves against the Good Samaritan story, I looked up the variations.  There is a fair amount of ignoring, of course.  It’s easy to just plain not answer a question.  But they do have an answer:  Love thy neighbor is literal.  Not strangers far away.  You owe charity to people in front of you.  Pass out sandwiches at a poverty shelter and you can then personally strip all poverty shelters of funding and you have lived by Christ’s teaching.  Some of them go for ‘neighbor’ means only other evangelical Christians.  It was Christ receiving help, after all.  His poorest brother in need would also be a Christian, right?  No one else matters.

  160. 160.

    Kay

    I went to the “election professionals” convention in Ohio and the (GOP) head of one of the state organizations who actually run voting – bds of election- started her welcome with how they have to get over the 2020 election which was “a fair and accurate election”. Smattering of applause. “Smattering” might be too generous and it was probaby just raucous Democrats :)

    I always think it’s funny how Republicans just assume that whatever Republicans are screeching about is of vital interest to everyone else. It’s her tribe who are promoting this lie. Maybe she should talk to Dear Leader about it. Anyway- I took it as a sign that they might be thinking “the election was stolen!” has been juiced for all the gain possible, and it’s time to moderate.

  164. 164.

    James E Powell

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Yes, one tends to leave law school with the same morals and vision of world that one has upon entry.

    Yes, the same, only now fully supported with properly formatted footnotes.

  165. 165.

    Cermet

    Well, the russian FSB (aka KGB) certainly know who the really dumb ones are in our congress (hint, they always have an ‘R’ after their names in news reports.

  166. 166.

    James E Powell

    @Kay:

    I always think it’s funny how Republicans just assume that whatever Republicans are screeching about is of vital interest to everyone else.

    The press/media base all their news judgments on that assumption.

  168. 168.

    Kay

    I’ve been to this convention before and I can say that the rural (white) and urban (black) divide has gotten much worse in Ohio, among election officials and people who are employed by counties in elections.

    There’s no interaction at all now and election systems people are NOT particularly partisan – despite this popular myth that they’re all rabid partisans, they’re not. They’re much more like people who run a state recording process, which is what they are. Think “DMV” not “campaign headquarters”. So Trump has poisoned and made that worse too, in addition to his other “contributions” to this country.

  170. 170.

    Kay

    @James E Powell:

    I want to hear about early vote. I’m aware Republicans no longer accept election results. I think that’s an inside -the-Party discussion. DRAG us all into yet another loony tunes GOP problem.

  171. 171.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Frankensteinbeck: A Samaritan was intentionally chosen as being “an other” to the Jewish audience. As a group, each reviled the other. Yet a Samaritan helped a Jew who was down on their luck.

    It’s the whole point of the fucking story and these knuckleheads miss it entirely.

  173. 173.

    debbie

    @Citizen Alan:

    I hate QR codes. Design a beautiful layout, then someone slaps a QR code on it, and the page is ruined. And now, they’re on television ads. Can you really scan it if your television doesn’t have a high resolution?

  177. 177.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay:

    The vaccine will destroy non believers and the only people left will be believers. It’s a variation of an end times story.

    I’ve seen the opposite story with the virus coming from some liberals. The difference being that the virus actually does kill people. But it doesn’t kill a large fraction of people if we’re talking about depopulating the earth–the vast majority of antivaxxers will be left alive.

  178. 178.

    Geminid

    @Chief Oshkosh: I was interested to learn that the Samaritans are still around. They live on either side of the Green Line separating Israel and the West Bank. The 850 or so Samaritans are a survival of the northern Hebrew tribes, and still venerate the Torah and observe the old rites such as Passover.

    An English language Samaritan Cookbook was published last year, with 24 recipes. It’s based on a cookbook published in Hebrew with 272 recipes.

  180. 180.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us

    @Honus: I’m not saying they’re all morons by any means, but there’s a prominent fiction that they’re all brilliant, or at least somewhat smarter than average and is clearly not true.

  181. 181.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    I’m not, really. I was a poll worker last cycle and the GOP pollworkers were more annoyed at the Trumpsters questioning the voting equipment than the Democrats were.

    They’re a pain in the ass, bottom line.

    Conservatives have set a really low bar on this stuff and they want us to adopt the low standard. It’s fine that she wants Republicans to “believe” elections are valid, but that’s not the broader public interest or concern, is it? It’s not what they “believe” – they can think whatever they want. It’s what they do. So I would expect an election official to address what they do. What they do is threaten election workers and officials. She should say “that has to stop and I will ensure it stops”. Their “belief” is a partisan GOP issue- I don’t give a rat’s ass about it. What they DO is a public issue.

    Mitt Romney is not talking to me when he says the election wasn’t stolen. He’s talking to the GOP base. If he was talking to me he would tell me how he plans to mitigate or address the problems that belief causes. I don’t care about his base.

  183. 183.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    A lot of people “believed” 9/11 was an inside job. But there was no public import to that belief- it didn’t affect the public at all. Republicans believing Trump won the election has immediate, widespread and lasting negative effects. If Republicans want to now say he lost the election that’s not good enough- they have to address the public harm they caused.

  184. 184.

    zhena gogolia

    @PJ: That’s unfair. They are great institutions. Any large group of people is going to include a few Cruzes and Hawleys.

  187. 187.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    What we know about the GOP base and voter or election fraud is this- attempts to address their concerns with “ballot security” don’t even dent the beliefs. I think they may ADD fire to election fraud conspiracy theories, because they lend credibility to the claims of election fraud.

    We’ve had two decades now of Republicans changing state election law to enhance “ballot security”. It mattered NOT AT ALL in 2020. In fact, Republicans are much more likely to believe in election fraud now than they were 20 years ago, before Republicans put in all these security measures.

    It’s not a rational belief. It can’t be fixed with “ballot security” because it was never based in ballot insecurity. They can add as many “ballot security” measures as they want. It will only make it worse. All they do is signal to the base that there’s rampant election fraud, otherwise why would we need all this new “ballot security”?

  188. 188.

    J R in WV

    @Kay: ​
     

    Neighbors, good neighbors, will fire up a truck on a V cold dawn to help a neighbor out, didn’t get vaccinated. Whole family got Covid, father guy the worst case, kids not so bad. Still not vaccinated, “Oh, now we’re immune from having the disease!”

    Sorry Todd, that isn’t how this disease works — it isn’t like measles or chickenpox, one and done. Good luck, buddy!! Name changed to protect the sweet helpful dumbass. He is a great and helpful guy, but religious nuts also too.

  190. 190.

    Kay

    @J R in WV:

    My middle son, who is triple vaxxed, has tested positive for covid three times, twice after the vaccinations. He’s an electrician so exposed nearly constantly.

    The difference is he got quite sick before the vaxx was available and after he only found out he was positive because the contractor he works for mandates testing every week. He’s a healthy 25 year old. If anyone was getting immunity from infections he would.

  191. 191.

    PJ

    @zhena gogolia: I did not say that they were not “great institutions”, whatever that means to you.  I meant what I said, that education (or higher education at least), no matter how good, does not make people better morally.  (But I’m open to arguments that pre-K to elementary education might actually make children better morally.)

    However, many of these “great institutions” are centered around money and power.  They have vast endowments, and are intent on growing them.  They also function as gatekeepers to networks of power and money.  It is important to them that their graduates make lots of money so that they can later donate that money to the institution, and that their graduates gain and wield power, as that power also reflects on the institution.

    It’s not an accident that every member of the Supreme Court, whether they are morally upright or morally bankrupt, went to Harvard or Yale Law School.  There’s a reason why morally bankrupt professors like Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld at Yale encouraged their students to demean themselves by clerking for morally bankrupt judges like Brett Kavanaugh, and why this was encouraged or condoned by Yale Law School.  The pursuit of power and money, in and of themselves, tends to corrupt institutions as well as people, and the Ivies are in no way immune to this.

  195. 195.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    But here’s the thing. The people who actually get charged with fraud ARE ALWAYS REPUBLICANS. The clowns in The Villages, the guy in NC who ended up causing a whole new election, the guy in NH who managed to vote about 300 times, the GWB guy (McKinnon?) who tried to get the Gore campaign charged with stealing the Bush debate book (and then tried to lie his way out of having mailed it to them by claiming he thought he was mailing a Gap return for his daughter), etc. etc. ALWAYS REPUBLICANS. Every goddamn time. ?

  196. 196.

    Ruckus

    @What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us:

    They take not so smart assholes and turn them into somewhat smarter assholes, who like being assholes and who would be assholes no matter what school they went to. I’ve never seen any information whatsoever that any school can whip the asshole out of a human being and in fact a few schools seem to delight in actually creating assholes out of someone who could go either way when they started. And of course it should go without saying that someone that is not an asshole does not often convert to one, just because they attended a specific school. It can happen but if it does it is likely that they were pre-asshole to begin with.

  199. 199.

    StringOnAStick

    @PJ: The ivies definitely function as gatekeepers to power/money.  We’ve spent time recently with my husband’s cousins who he hasn’t seen since childhood.  The blood relative went to Dartmouth, met her husband there and they have local college buddies here; all are here because they made a fortune through those connections and this is one of their various homes while partially retired 60 yo’s.  When they talk about their college days and people they knew who were legacy admissions, the privilege just flows. They see themselves as the scrappy non legacies, but it’s obvious going there and making the right friends gave them an enormous wealth boost.

  200. 200.

    Ruckus

    @StringOnAStick:

    Giving them the options that your step cousins have is what the ivies are all about. Which is one reason that the wealthy are willing to pay a high price to get them in. One can make money without that degree but having one gives them paid for gravitas, rather than earned gravitas. It’s easier, it’s faster, and it’s profitable.

  203. 203.

    Kay

    Really good work from the Washington Post on an undercovered part of the new GOP election laws- the attempt to supress votes by rejecting registration applications:

    Election officials in one of the most populous counties in Texas have rejected about half of the applications for ballots because of the state’s new voting restrictions enacted by Republicans last year.
    The clerk’s office in Travis County, the fifth-most-populous county and home to the capital of Austin, cited the law’s recent changes to identification requirements in rejecting about half of the 700 mail-in applications.
    Other county clerk’s offices in the state, including those in Harris and Bexar counties, also are rejecting applications that fail to meet the new standard, or in which information doesn’t match the voter data on record.
    Texas Republicans last year passed the bill establishing new limits on voting over the objections of Democrats, part of a wave of efforts by GOP-led states to impose new restrictions. Many in the Republican Party echoed former president Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election in arguing for the new restrictions.

    Both ends of voting will require federal monitoring and oversight in these states- both registration and voting. They could arguably do much more damage on the front end of the process by suppressing registration for the period between elections, so look for it.

  204. 204.

    Ruckus

    @PJ:

    and the Ivies are in no way immune to this

    Your comment is very good in pointing out the rational of the ivies – it is self appeasement, they make large sums for doing it, they get unearned esteem and some of their graduates continue the process in creating a wealth class who attend the ivies because of it.

  206. 206.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: That was one of Ken Blackwell’s tricks in Ohio in 2004–he had people rejecting registrations that were printed on the wrong weight of paper.

  207. 207.

    Ramalama

    @dnfree: Yes, I’ve heard. I’ve visited quite a few times. It’s just that there’s also a population of people who are defensive, offensive, and also hair-trigger ready. But I don’t live there.

  208. 208.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The state hasn’t given voters any way to cure the error, either. They’re just rejected forever, apparently.

    Just ridiculous. They’re not running an election. They’re running a voter suppression operation.

  209. 209.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ramalama: Honestly, if Madison, WI, strikes you as too Q for comfort, there are very few places in the US where you would feel comfortable.  I also am pretty sure that you would find most of Canada problematic as well.

  213. 213.

    Geminid

    @Omnes Omnibus: The brothers are talking about people they work with in Madison. These gun nuts might live out in the country and drive in to work. But almost all communities will have every kind of person, just in different proportions.

  214. 214.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Geminid: Oddly, I understand that.  But I also have lived and worked in Madison for nearly 14 years.  To run into a lot of Q people in and around Madison requires going very far outside the mainstream of both the area’s professional/academic world and it’s working class community.  The first is one I am a part of and the second I know pretty well through my work.

  215. 215.

    Geminid

    @Omnes Omnibus: I did not think I was telling you anything you did not know, just putting out the observation for general benefit. Now I’m curious as to what the work place is. And how many Q-nuts are at issue. Just two would make me a little uncomfortable if I worked with them. But I’d still think Madison is about as good as it gets, if I was worried about living with rightwing fanatics.

  216. 216.

    evodevo

    @lowtechcyclist: Yep..I just had a robocall last night (real person involved, however) wanting me to contribute cash to feed “starving widows in Israel” – this is a scam that has been going on for quite awhile…as a mail carrier, I delivered junk mail with this same plea years ago…

    I immediately interrupted her saying that Israel has a very good social support system and there aren’t any “starving Jewish widows” and Xtians only want to “help” Israel because of their belief in the apocalypse when unbelieving Jews would be destroyed. Then I hung up on her….most people are unaware of what crazy ideas the religious right hold.  They are insane people…and there are a LOT of them.

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