Give her what she really wants this Valentine’s Day – Reproductive rights, an ancient tome of curses, the souls of her enemies, and pockets in every dress.
— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) February 7, 2022
I am thrilled to officially announce that I have joined @CNN as a Political Commentator. As a @FAMU_1887 student, I applied for the coveted VJ program at @CNN and didn’t get in. To now join the team nearly 30 yrs later is a reminder that a dream deferred is never a dream denied.
— Keisha Lance Bottoms (@KeishaBottoms) February 7, 2022
Lowest level in 25 years. https://t.co/cmjfieB9f1
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) February 7, 2022
I’ve said all along it was possible. Malevolent clowns who’ll win GOP primaries won’t be many people’s idea of Generic Republican. We’ll have more $. Congressional map (as was obvious a year ago) is much better. Last redistricting midterm (2002) POTUS’s party went +2 Sen/+8House https://t.co/lJcMTs8OxO
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) February 7, 2022
First lady Jill Biden was disappointed that the president’s efforts to pass a massive social-spending bill had yet to bear fruit. ‘Congress hasn't passed the Build Back Better legislation… yet. And free community college is no longer part of that package,’ she said pic.twitter.com/DkFLocZRX8
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 8, 2022
Take a sip from your new mug as you read the news… https://t.co/7vfORxQviQ pic.twitter.com/HblDXCpsW8
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 7, 2022
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Ken
Mandatory Psaki: “Which observers? Can you name any?”
Oh, and good morning.
Baud
I guess that’s why CNN hired that right winger (Jonah Goldberg?). Balance!
NotMax
Is this any way to run
a railroadanything?Fooey on just in time governmenting.
opiejeanne
@rikyrah: Good morning.
And blech.
Baud
@NotMax:
The Senate’s commitment to the filibuster is the biggest problem in American democracy. And we have a lot of problems.
opiejeanne
@NotMax: They don’t name the top Democrat? Lousy reporting, and they should be pointing out how long it’s been since we passed an actual budget.
NotMax
And now for something completely different.
“Hey, where’d the ocean go? I am so screwed.”
;)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@opiejeanne: I saw that you had chainsawing happen in front of your house in the middle of the night. Is your bridge still there?
Geminid
After lunch with Vice President Harris, President Biden will appear this afternoon with Transportation Secretary Buttigieg and Energy Secretary Granholm. They will be discussing initiatives in the area of supply chain enhancement and energy efficiency. This should be an interesting event even though it may not generate big headlines. Buttigieg and Granholm are both excellent communicators.
NotMax
@opiejeanne
Name appears within the body of the article — House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.
Can forgive the writer’s opening description of “top Democrat” as the name may not be readily recognizable from frequently being in the news.
SiubhanDuinne
@opiejeanne:
Deleted. NotMax got there first, and better.
lowtechcyclist
@opiejeanne: To be fair, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) isn’t exactly a household name in Hawaii. Hell, she’s not a household name in Maryland.
ETA: NotMax was there first, of course.
mrmoshpotato
@Ken:
Ummmmmm….. Uhhhhhhh…… Many Peoples?
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
Probably Geminid. He’s always pessimistic.
Gin & Tonic
Does anyone know why US -born Olympic figure skater Zhu Yi had to renounce her American citizenship to compete for China, but US-born skier Eileen (Ailing) Gu appears not to have?
mrmoshpotato
That’s right! What other internet troll did they hire the other day? Skipping my mind here.
mrmoshpotato
@opiejeanne: Ozark, you’re looking very Pacific Northwesty this morning.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
I have no idea. But if I had to guess, it’s that one had dual citizenship at birth while the other one had to get naturalized as a Chinese citizen which entails forfeiting U.S. citizenship.
Gin & Tonic
Boy, almost had a crisis with today’s Wordle. Some kind of mental block, I had three greens since round 3, and got no letters right in turns 4 or 5. Finally got it on the last turn.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax:
Groovy.
Spanky
A headline writer’s job is to drive readers into the article. Probably SOP to make the headline a teaser.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: China does not permit dual citizenship.
Anyway
OT – Eric Lander, POTUS’ top science adviser (who was the subject of many questions to Jen Psaki ) resigned yesterday.
Leto
@Gin & Tonic: I read an article about her yesterday saying that Gu had renounced her citizenship, but it was done via tweet and that tweet is now deleted. So good question.
SF-born ski star Eileen Gu’s decision to represent China at the 2022 Olympics called ‘opportunistic’
Also not sure how much of this was in her control as she was 15 at the time.
Geminid
@Gin & Tonic: Turkey does allow dual citizenship, and Doctor Oz is a citizen of both the U.S. and Turkey. I suspect that this fact will be amplified by his opponents as the Republican Pennsylvania Senate race heats up. Or, more likely, amplified by third party advertising.
mrmoshpotato
@Anyway: And further details?
germy
@Anyway:
Well, Biden promised he’d have zero tolerance for any misbehavior or bullying by any member of his administration. He keeps his word.
germy
@mrmoshpotato:
Bad behavior from someone who wasn’t as indispensable as he thought he was.
germy
White House science adviser resigns and acknowledges ‘disrespectful and demeaning’ behavior after investigation
Baud
@germy:
Good. We get rid of problem employees rather than promoting them.
Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan
@rikyrah: Good morning!
Baud
@Leto:
Athletes country-shopping is nothing new.
Leto
@Baud: that’s not the question G&T asked, and when Gu is directly asked about it, she avoids the question.
Gin & Tonic
@Leto: If you intend to continue to live primarily in the US (Gu is, or is going to be, a student at Stanford) then renouncing American citizenship makes your life considerably more complicated. It’s not like you can say “oops, my bad, I want it back.”
Baud
@Leto:
I was responding to the “opportunistic” quote in your comment.
germy
Asparagus Aspersions
@germy:
It is so refreshing to see this. At the same time, the gap between the standards of Democratic and GOP administrations is so fathomless, it is almost incomprehensible. For a GOPer, this would be the first step towards running for Congress.
Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan
That mug gives off a sardonic vibe; good on her for it.
I can’t even imagine what witnessing the last seven years has been like for her.
sab
@Baud: My BIL has been in the US for 30+ years on a green card, because if he gets US citizenship he will lose his Chinese citizenship and probably also lose his apartment in China. Scary choice under Trump.
Baud
@Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan:
I wish I was as tough as she is.
Baud
@sab:
Immigrants always face tough choices.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: To renounce US citizenship you have to appear in person at a US consulate in another country and explain your reasoning to a consular officer. It is not some simple bureaucratic step, and it has significant consequences, especially if you intend to be a citizen of a non-visa-waiver country.
Chetan Murthy
@Gin & Tonic: I realize that de facto the US does allow dual citizenship, but when we were naturalizing in 1983, the oath of naturalization sure makes it look like you must give up any other citizenship (which is what we did — mailed those Indian passports to the embassy). I was always proud to be an unhyphenated American …. until these last five years, when I just feel like a chump.
Shoulda kept those passports.
opiejeanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It’s still dark out, not quite 6am yet. I will go look when the sun comes up.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Interesting. So if someone becomes a citizen of another country, the U.S. will still consider that person a citizen if they don’t undertake the steps?
So do China insist on that to avoid the possibility of dual citizenship.
Soprano2
@Baud: I wish we did that here. Our PTB had a chance to get rid of a problem employee, but they promoted him instead! If he hadn’t gotten that job, he probably would have retired, solving the problem all of us have with him, that he’s an asshole.
sab
@Baud: US wants them to keep on paying their American income taxes
ETA Wasn’t there a lefty American who took Mexican citizenship and our government deported her? It was comsidered unusual at the time. I remember hearing abour it under Reagan but I can’t remember if that is when it happened.
germy
@Soprano2:
I’ve had a few bosses that were formerly problem employees who’d been nudged up the ladder. Middle managers who were pushed to one side but above us on the org chart.
I remember one being finally escorted out the door after a power struggle with a relative of someone higher up. And a few years later I checked his linkedin page (just to be nosy) and he lied about the timeline. Made it sound like he’d lasted at the company five years longer than he really did.
I’m glad Biden doesn’t run his government like a business, is what i’m saying.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@sab: The US didn’t used to allow dual citizenship. At least, they didn’t allow me or my siblings to be dual Americans/Canadians when we were born, despite my father being Canadian. They do allow it now, even, at this late date, for me. But I’d have to do a lot of paperwork.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: I know in Ukraine, which does not allow dual citizenship, you need to demonstrate that you have renounced the “other” in order to complete the naturalization. I don’t know about China.
sdhays
@Gin & Tonic: Well, Eilleen Gu is a fashion model and the makings of a superstar. Rules are bent for such people.
I think it’s all a farce, but I don’t “get” the Olympics, so what do I know?
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: My Canadian niece rushed off to Canada to register her new baby born in California.
Starfish
@sab:
There was that Eduardo Saverin, but I think you are talking about someone else.
snoey
@Dorothy A. Winsor: There are limits to what the US can allow. Went to college with a guy who had a Greek citizenship he couldn’t renounce. Grandparents had emigrated, but the home village kept them, their children and grandchildren on the rolls. Greece had a draft, and that way the village elders could “draft” people like Leon but nobody actually had to go. Which was fine for everybody but Leon, who would be arrested as a draft dodger if he ever went there.
germy
Maybe “scammed” is too harsh a word. She was definitely persistent, though.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: I check the President’s calendar first thing every morning to see if there’s an event we might want to watch. I scheduled the post as a speech by Biden, which Buttigieg and Granholm will attend.
But it looks to me like it will be just Biden speaking because they have Jen Psaki’s press briefing scheduled 15 minutes after the Biden speech.
Because of the timing, and because Jen sometimes has cabinet members and other high-ranking officials speak at the beginning of press briefings, I think there’s a good chance that Buttigieg and Granholm might both talk at the beginning of the press briefing.
If you saw something that indicated that Biden, Buttigieg and Granholm will be holding their discussion at the Biden event at 1:45 this afternoon, can you share a link?
Otherwise, I am guessing that the 3 of them are having a long discussion today (I saw something about Buttigieg and Granholm arriving by 7 am!), followed by a speech by Biden.
Baud
@germy:
I missed that story. Funny video though.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: I hate when that happens!
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I got this info from Politico Playbook’s daily Presidential schedule..
WaterGirl
@Geminid: I just googled that and nothing comes up that looks like a schedule. Do you happen to have a link?
germy
WaterGirl
@Anyway: It did look a bit questionable that there were multiple complaints, all from women, and he appeared to have been given another chance.
After Biden said something like “I’ll fire you on the spot if you’re being disrespectful in the work place.”
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Easy to find if you look up Politico, then Politico Playbook. I think they said that Biden would “deliver remarks.” Secretaries Buttigieg and Granhom are good communications assets, so I expect they will be talking also, maybe taking questions
The Playbook typically gives the President’s schedule about halfway through the daily post.
Kay
@sab:
The Canadians here all do it too- we have quite a few because they work for companies with locations in both countries. They want the dual status. I get it. I would want it too.
WaterGirl
@germy: Yeah, that looks similar to what I use, which is the president’s official schedule on Factbase.
Geminid’s info appeared to be different from what i had seen, so I was trying to go directly to his/her source.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: I am not a Politico person so that wasn’t obvious to me.
I think it’s just Biden speaking since they have Jen Psaki scheduled 15 minutes after the Biden speech. But I love Buttigieg and Granholm, so I hope you’re right.
Starfish
@WaterGirl: Who could have predicted that Eric Lander would be an embarassment?
sab
@Starfish: Whoever it was was an American woman who married a Mexican.
Booger
@mrmoshpotato: I would be very cautious under the circumstances.
Jeffro
Hey how about that Texas Lt. Governor, the Florida Governor, and a certain former guy stirring up domestic unrest in the capital city of one of our closest allies?
Gee, I wonder why they would do something like that?
It’s a mystery.
Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan
@Baud: You and me both brother!
OzarkHillbilly
Item # 1,392,446 in the list of things men never think about.
H.E.Wolf
@mrmoshpotato: “@Anyway: And further details?”
Details, per this morning’s electoral-vote.com report:
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2022/Senate/Maps/Feb08.html#item-1
tl;dr: White male jerk (E-V’s description) resigns from Biden administration, in contrast to many of same who remained in place in previous administration. :)
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Not just any pockets either. There are good and bad pockets. I once didn’t buy a dress (online) because one of the reviewers said the pockets were “weird”. Red flag! I don’t need that kind of risk.
OzarkHillbilly
@Chetan Murthy: My wife still has hers (Spain).
Nelle
@Anyway: Lander doesn’t come off well in The Code Breaker, by Walter Isaacson. That’s the story of Jennifer Doudna (who won the Nobel prize) and gene editing.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Yeah, I’ve had some pants with bad pockets, not many but some.
It just struck me that I had never really thought about the lack of pockets on most dresses and how inconvenient I would find that.
Jeffro
They are! I don’t track it closely, but it seems like this WH is making more use of its ‘bench’ a little more now than last year, and more than perhaps previous (normal) ones did. Which is a good thing.
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: Designers don’t like them because it makes the dress look lumpy if you actually use them.
Baud
Baud! 20XX! To Do List: Develop policy on pocket mandate.
Baud
@Jeffro:
I think they are following Kay’s advice to shift the focus away from Congress, given where S&M are at.
Note Jill’s speech in the OP.
sab
@Kay: I wear men’s jeans because women’s jeans often have such tiny pockets. They’re jeans. Make their pockets normal.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I could see Secretaries Buttegieg and Granholm starting work at White House today, at 7am. Maybe beginning with a working breakfast with Chief of Staff Ron Klain and others. Their cabinet portfolios cover a lot of area that includes the clean energy transition. Democrats in Congress will once again try to push through clean energy measures this spring. And the midterms are coming, and the President will need his people out selling Democratic accomplishments. Buttegieg and Granholm are a fairly dynamic duo that can represent the administration well.
Jeffro
@germy: I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that Thiel decided he liked Vance…so he seeded a pro-Vance PAC with $10M.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jeffro: ???
Matt McIrvin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I think there were always corner cases where dual citizenship was allowed, but it was generally frowned upon and disallowed if there were ways of avoiding it. I recall a lot of kids having to choose which citizenship to maintain on reaching majority.
gvg
@Chetan Murthy: When you become a US citizen by naturalization, you are required to give up your other prior citizenships. Other countries have their own laws however and it is possible for people to be born with multiple citizenships. It may also be possible for you to add another country after American. Each country has it’s own laws. Quite a few allow you to claim them if you had an ancestor from there within a certain number of generations. There is also marriage.
Geminid
@Jeffro: Thiel seems to want to be a more hardcore Koch Brother. He’s got another Senate candidate that he is supporting in Arizona.
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: That sounds pretty misogynistic to me. Lumpy pockets on men’s pants don’t bother them.
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/recode/22332045/peter-thiel-jd-vance-ohio-senate-donation
Kay
@sab:
They have good women’s jeans now. Revealuate! There have been advances :)
I think younger women stopped putting up with ridiculous clothes so the market responded. Now it just needs to travel down to girls clothes, which are still lower quality and weird compared to boys clothes unless they’re higher end.
laura
It bears repeating – Pockets in all the dresses!
OzarkHillbilly
No you aren’t. My wife didn’t.
OzarkHillbilly
@SiubhanDuinne: No, @Jeffro: referred to
eta: and now I finally figured out what he’s referring to: Ottawa.
Omnes Omnibus
@gvg: Renouncing other loyalties is in the citizenship oath. I know people frequently keep their passports from their prior countries and no one makes a fuss about it, but if push came to shove the US could insist that the choice is binary.
sab
@SiubhanDuinne: Just what Ohio needs. A senator bought and paid for by a single very odd donor.
ETA Maybe we can set up a competition so that Thiel and the Timkins blow through their fortunes.
narya
@OzarkHillbilly: What’s really nice is the occasional dress that has a pocket with a zipper, generally along a seam. But yeah; pockets are important. I’ve reached the point that I even try to buy running tights and shirts with pockets.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
So where are you getting you dresses-with-good-pockets? And do they fit you OK?
Omnes Omnibus
@OzarkHillbilly: What does this mean then? I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jeffro: here’s an AZ state legislator basically calling on trumpy truckers to shut down the Super Bowl. I suspect Ted Cruz’s advisors would tell him to let this one lie, but who knows? as the article suggests, Tribblehead Rand Paul would be the Senator to watch on this one.
Anyway
@gvg:
I know dual Israeli and US (naturalized) citizens.
OzarkHillbilly
Rightwing lobby group Alec driving laws to blacklist companies that boycott the oil industry
I can not think of a clearer example of Frank Wilhoit’s, “There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: I buy all my dresses at Goodwill or Amvets. And buddy let me tell, I am smokin’ in red!
sab
@Anyway: I cannot remember the exact mechanics, but Israel set up its naturalization law specifically so that Americans would not endanger their American citizenship by becoming Israeli citizens
ETA It might be that there is no requirement to renounce loyalty elsewhere, as we require.
thalarctosMaritimus
@OzarkHillbilly:
Freedom truck convoy 2022: Ottawa declares state of emergency over COVID protests
OzarkHillbilly
Not a damn thing, just empty words.
When my wife told me that she hadn’t had to give up her Spanish citizenship, I didn’t believe her (she is very fluent in English, but it is her 4th language). So I looked it up on govt websites (I don’t recall which ones, this was over 15 years ago) and there it was in black and white.
We here should all know that an oath in America is not enforceable. After all there a whole lot of people walking around today who swore an oath to “defend and protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.” and not one of them have committed Seppuku or been arrested.
Back when my wife still had family in Spain that she cared about, it was her common practice to fly there on her Spanish passport and return on her US passport. Never a problem.
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wikipedia tells me that there are 2 million semi trucks in the U.S. If 99.5% of American truckers just go about their usual business, that leaves 10,000 to make trouble, and it is likely that some owner-operators will. There is planning for a convoy that will leave Southern California early next month, headed for DC.
Reuters reported that protesters at the Ottawa event numbered 5,000 people with 1000 trucks this weekend, down from 3,000 trucks and 15,000 people the weekend before.
OzarkHillbilly
@thalarctosMaritimus: Thanx, I finally figured it out a bit ago. I blame my morning’s slowness on PT.
Jeffro
@OzarkHillbilly: my bad (cringe)…will include more details or a link next time!
Jeffro
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: can’t be much more transparent about her motives, either, since she tweeted “it would be payback for Kaepernick kneeling” What was that, back in 2017 or so? earlier? Crazy.
what a bunch of always-angry wackaloons
OzarkHillbilly
@Jeffro: No biggee, whenever I can’t figure stuff out, somebody comes thru.
Gin & Tonic
Good story about Gu here. The tl;dr is that she’s being manipulated by the Chinese and is either hopelessly naive or completely mercenary.
Omnes Omnibus
@OzarkHillbilly: As I said, I know it is common practice to keep other passports. My ex did. Nevertheless, US naturalization technically incompatible with maintaining citizenship elsewhere.
opiejeanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I checked and the little bridge is still there. I can’t figure out what they did with that chainsaw in the wee hours, or why it was such an emergency, except it looks like they threw a couple of birch branches over the fence into our yard and maybe cut one of them in half first, but it’s hard to tell. There is no brush growing in the ditch but there are some leaves, and there’s plenty of room for water, if we ever get enough to fill up a ditch 4 feet wide and 2 1/2 feet deep.
opiejeanne
@OzarkHillbilly: My youngest was trying on wedding dresses and almost bought the one with pockets, just because it had pockets. It didn’t look as good on her as some of the others and she chose to look good, but I was all for pockets in a wedding dress. We couldn’t find another one with them, though.
Geminid
@opiejeanne: Maybe that road crew got called out on a report of an obstructed ditch, saw what it was, and decided not to touch the bridge. If they cut a branch they could say they did something.
I suggest you blast out out Colonel Bogie’s March (from the Bridge over the River Kwai) at your neighbor, just to rub it in. Or maybe just whistle it when he’s around.
Ohio Mom
@Omnes Omnibus: Maybe they changed the naturalization rules sometime? OH’s wife arrived a while back. Just a question, this is far from any area of my expertise.
Geminid
@opiejeanne: Now I recall you saying that the bridge is on your neighbor’s property. Maybe whistle Colonel Bogie’s March softly.
raven
And her in Athens
Conservatives Believe in Local Control, Unless the Locals Are Progressive
Omnes Omnibus
@Ohio Mom: It’s the same oath. BTW I would not be surprised to see this issue get weaponized at some point. “Oh, I see you still have a foreign passport, Ms Naturalized Citizen Who We Don’t Like. You obviously did not mean it when you took the Naturalization Oath. Your citizenship is revoked. You are being deported.” But, yeah, the whole thing is meaningless as OH says.
dnfree
@Gin & Tonic: I don’t remember which day it was that I had the last four letters, IGHT, at three tries. So which was it? LIGHT? RIGHT? MIGHT? SIGHT? NIGHT? It’s easy to lose with some combinations.
WaterGirl
@Starfish: Some of the articles are saying that the administration was warned about Dr. Lander before they brought him on board. Could be this was an own goal.
RaflW
@Leto: Semi-related: Watching the opening ceremonies I noted that Puerto Rico had its own team and spot in the procession. At least one other US Territory (can’t recall which now) was also spotted.
I think it’s great. But I just wonder what the mechanics of that is at the IOC and relative to the US Olympic Team.
Brachiator
@OzarkHillbilly:
RE: and pockets in every dress.
There was a story on NPR I once ran across noting how the presence or absence of pockets (I think) on one style of dress was entirely due to tariffs on foreign goods, and a price differential for having a pocket. The style continued long after the tariffs disappeared.
cain
@Chetan Murthy:
Still got my Indian passports which came in handy to get my OCI card .. of course they are all expired but I suppose if I ever wanted to get my Indian citizenship back I could …
cain
@Omnes Omnibus:
The Indian govt requires that you show canceled Indian passports if you apply for an OCI card or even a visa ..
Too many Indians are using their Indian passports and masquerading as Indian citizens .. then leveraging their financial power from a rich country to buy land and general exploitation.
Starfish
@sab: I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Starfish
@WaterGirl: That is what I am seeing too.