Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

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

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

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

The revolution will be supervised.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

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

Consistently wrong since 2002

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Let there be snark.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Republicans in disarray!

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: Oh, No, Mo

Open Thread: Oh, No, Mo

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Is it sedition now?

Oh, No, Mo

You sure hate to see it, right? LOL  Is Mo Brooks toast now in his election bid?

 

Image

Let the fur continue to fly.

This is an open thread

 

Reader Interactions

228Comments

  2. 2.

    Ken

    January 6 was the final election contest verdict

    Does anyone else find that ambiguous?

    Generously, he means the House certified the election results.

    Non-generously, that the coup attempt failed; and had it worked, Brooks would be bowing and scraping to God-Emperor Trump as Brooks sought appointment as Satrap of Alabama Province.

  7. 7.

    Old School

    Trump doesn’t want to endorse a loser.  He thinks Brooks will lose and doesn’t want his brand associated anymore.

  9. 9.

    Ken

    @TaMara: Sure, but whom among us hasn’t attempted to board a flight to a country with no extradition to the U.S., using a revoked passport?

  12. 12.

    Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)

    The intra-republican schadenfreude is fun, but the end result is that something crazy is found not crazy enough, making the party even crazier. How is this democracy even going to stay alive now that vote-rejection, insurrection and coups are sine qua non for republicanism?

  13. 13.

    Ken

    @germy: After “Congratulations. You are now holding a duck,” they really should add “Hope you are wearing something washable.”

  15. 15.

    Betty Cracker

    By all means, let’s haul this specimen before the select committee to  testify that Trump personally asked him, a member of the US House, to illegally overturn the election. It’s win-win: if Brooks backtracks, he looks like even more of a lying fool. If he tells the truth, he implicates Trump in a crime. 

  16. 16.

    jonas

    John Marshall has pointed out over at TPM that if what Brooks is saying Trump asked him to do is true, it’s really a textbook case of sedition. Unless of course Merrick Garland determines that being an ex-president gives you a pass on that sort of thing…

  17. 17.

    Matt McIrvin

    @germy: All’s I know is the answer to how to get down off an elephant, which is that you don’t get down off an elephant, you get down off a duck.

  19. 19.

    germy

    @Ken:

    “I find that a duck’s opinion of me is influenced by whether or not I have bread. A duck loves bread, but he does not have the capability to buy a loaf. That’s the biggest joke on the duck ever. If I worked at a convenience store, and a duck came in and stole a loaf of bread, I would let him go. I’d say, “Come back tomorrow, bring your friends!” When I think of a duck’s friends, I think of other ducks. But he could have, say, a beaver in tow.” – Mitch Hedberg

  20. 20.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Baud:

    Trump-endorsed candidates have not actually done that well.  I do not think it’s a coincidence that days after the Trump guy lost in Texas, Republicans went ahead with a Covid package Trump hated.  Most of the party elect doesn’t give a shit what he wants anymore.  They have their own reasons for pushing ‘Democrats stole the election’ rhetoric and he is only a coincidental benefactor.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    @jonas:

    While I’m happy that Josh Marshall is now the chief authority of what the law is, the U.S. criminal code defines sedition to require the use of force.  The ravings of a madman for a rep to do something he has no authority to do wouldn’t be enough.

  23. 23.

    Chief Oshkosh

    I don’t follow MoBo closely. What was the sequence of events? MoBo trying to move on from the election (tamping down on The Big Lie), and so losing Trump’s endorsement, and thus the statement laying out the sedition? Or are there other popcorn-munching-events sprinkled about?

  25. 25.

    PPCLI

    @Old School: Exactly. Brooks made remarks about “look forward, the 2020 election is a closed book” months ago. What has happened in the interim is that his popularity has plummeted.

  30. 30.

    jonas

    @Baud: I guess he doesn’t say “Trump told me to lock and load, gather a band of fighters, and *then* go remove Joe Biden from the White House, etc.” but I don’t see how you can ask someone to extrajudicially remove a sitting president without implying that violence would be needed. Maybe he meant impeach Biden? Seems unlikely.

  32. 32.

    zhena gogolia

    @Alison Rose ???: Adam keeps talking about WWIII started a long time ago. I feel the entire TFG presidency was an episode in that war. Trump was our Yanukovych.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    @jonas:

    but I don’t see how you can ask someone to extrajudicially remove a sitting president without implying that violence would be needed. Maybe he meant impeach Biden? Seems unlikely.

    Some wingnuts have been asking states to decertify the election.  Not a thing that has any legal meaning, but also not violent.

  37. 37.

    trollhattan

    “I kvit.”
    “No, I don’t letting you kvit. You stay.”
    “Okay then, boss.”
    Awkward.

    March 23, 2022 at 1:23 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard

    “Russia’s highly regarded central bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina sought to resign after Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine, only to be told by the president to stay,” Bloomberg reports.

    “Nominated for a new five-year term last week, Nabiullina’s current views couldn’t be learned. She is left to manage the fallout from a war that’s quickly undone much of what’s she’s accomplished in the nine years since she took office. The people said departure now would be seen as a betrayal by the president, with whom she has worked closely for nearly two decades.”

  38. 38.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @zhena gogolia:

    I’m certain of it.

    AFAIC, she has earned a place in the pantheon. I was lucky enough to hear her speak once. It wasn’t policy; it was deeply personal, interspersed with some of the stories she later related in her book about the brooches she wore. One of Bill Clinton’s best decisions was naming her SoS.

  40. 40.

    germy

    Somehow Graham is pissier and more unhinged today than he was yesterday.

    He just asked Jackson how she'd feel if she were treated the way Kavanaugh was treated — as if she too has been credibly accused of assaulting someone when she was in high school. pic.twitter.com/Z1tmfD6Wis

    — Steven Mazie (@stevenmazie) March 23, 2022

    She should be so lucky as to be graded on the Kavanaugh curve, and everybody there knows it! https://t.co/uwGaelDKX4

    — Mollie W. O'Reilly (@MollieOReilly) March 23, 2022

    Not that she needs anybody to cut her any slack, but this is one of those times when the GOP's commitment to lying about recent events is driving me batty. Kavanaugh disgraced himself at his hearings, and that's even if you imagine the questions were unfair, which they were not!

    — Mollie W. O'Reilly (@MollieOReilly) March 23, 2022

    When a Republican president nominates someone to the court, everybody behaves as though that person was anointed from birth to rule over us and only a total boor would question his fitness. Clarence Thomas knew the play. So did Kavanaugh.

    — Mollie W. O'Reilly (@MollieOReilly) March 23, 2022

    But when a Democrat nominates someone, the GOP throws a fit, because they are operating from their bedrock position that only conservatives can legitimately exercise power. And everyone goes along with that too, because it's just how it works!

    — Mollie W. O'Reilly (@MollieOReilly) March 23, 2022

  41. 41.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I am verklempt that TFG withdrew his endorsement of Mo Brooks. Talk among yourselves. Perhaps Barbara will come along to cheer me up.

  45. 45.

    scav

    Another fine example of the conservative moral high-ground and clear expression of priorities.

    The US’s most powerful pro-Israel lobby group has been accused of putting support for Israel before American democracy after it declared its backing for the election campaigns of three dozen Republican members of Congress who tried to block President Biden’s presidential victory.
    But the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) has defended the move by saying that support for the Jewish state overrides other issues and that it is “no moment for the pro-Israel movement to become selective about its friends”.
    Guardian

    Isn’t Israel fan-girling Russia too?

  49. 49.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Villago Delenda Est: Well, Trump does in some respects represent the scorpion in the parable. And to mix metaphors, I guess Brooks learned the hard way that he’s not immune to leopard-eating-your-face-itis.

  52. 52.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Baud: Heaven won’t take him and Hell has a long waiting list. Limbaugh must have jumped the queue.

  53. 53.

    Steeplejack

    Is the Clarence Thomas story starting to smell? Maybe a li’l bit. From the AP today:

    The Supreme Court declined to say Wednesday whether 73-year-old Justice Clarence Thomas remains in the hospital, though he had been expected to be released by Tuesday evening.

    The court said Sunday that Thomas had been admitted to Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington on Friday after experiencing “flu-like symptoms,” and he was diagnosed with an infection. His “symptoms are abating,” and he was expected to be released Monday or Tuesday, the court said in a statement at the time. But on Wednesday morning, court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe said she had no update to provide.

    The court heard arguments Wednesday morning and Chief Justice John Roberts said, as he has for the past two days, that while Thomas was not present he would participate in the case by reviewing the arguments’ transcript and briefs. Roberts said Thomas was “unable to be present today” without explanation.

    Thomas did not have COVID-19 and his infection was being treated with intravenous antibiotics, the court has said.

    Some have said that we should respect Thomas’s right to privacy, but when you have a lifetime position where many incumbents’ apparent retirement plan is “feet first,” it seems like some interest is warranted. To be clear, what is fishy to me is that the court is trying to forestall questions with vague statements that actually raise more questions than they answer.

  54. 54.

    germy

    @Steeplejack:

    I’m sure he’s fine.  It’s just that he and his peers receive a level of care that we’d only get if we were knocking on heaven’s door.

  57. 57.

    hueyplong

    @Steeplejack: If he dies, they won’t be able to hide it.  Until then, the majority will manipulate his vote regardless of the condition he is in.

    So there is no news until/unless there is an obituary.

  58. 58.

    Ken

    @Steeplejack: I don’t think they’d try to get away with a “Weekend at Bernie’s” scenario, though if they could make it work with anyone, Thomas would be it.

    “The famously-reticent Justice did not ask any questions or make any remarks during the arguments, which he attended via conference call, as has been his custom since March of 2022. He is expected to vote with the conservative majority, as usual.”

  63. 63.

    Skepticat

    @Ken: Sure, but whom among us hasn’t attempted to board a flight to a country with no extradition to the U.S., using a revoked passport?

    We may well be seeing more of it, and I hope all the gate personnel are as alert.

     

  65. 65.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @germy: I, on the other hand, hope he’s not fine and in serious pain that even the Sacklers can’t fix.

  67. 67.

    prostratedragon

    @Steeplejack:  In my experience 1) IV antibiotics mean something has really got hold of you and 2) whether IV or oral,  you’re going to be on them for more than the couple of days they were originally pretending.

  69. 69.

    germy

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    It’s just that people see he’s still in the hospital and think “It must be pretty bad!” because if you or I spent that much time in a hospital it would mean we were seriously ill.  Because if we weren’t seriously ill we would have been kicked out after the first day.

    The rich and powerful get a different standard of care.  Sometimes we project our own experience on to them.

  70. 70.

    Skepticat

    @SiubhanDuinne: Madeleine Albright has died, aged 84. RIP to a remarkable woman.

    This really saddened me as well, as she was indeed amazing. I take comfort in only she won’t have to see more of the horrors of the world as it is now.

  72. 72.

    gratuitous

    Just for the fun of it, I’ll credit Brooks’ account of being approached by the former guy with a despicable and criminal request to nullify the 2020 election, overturn the will of the people, and illegally install the former guy for a second term as president. Let’s say that’s 100% true.

    Why does Brooks want the former guy’s endorsement, then?

  77. 77.

    germy

    Sen. Durbin called yesterday's Supreme Court confirmation hearing "a testing ground for conspiracy theories and culture war theories."

    “These are not theories that are in the mainstream of America, but they have been presented here as such,” he said. pic.twitter.com/KRbJtqGcK2

    — POLITICO (@politico) March 23, 2022

  78. 78.

    Cacti

    @Steeplejack: Some have said that we should respect Thomas’s right to privacy, but when you have a lifetime position where many incumbents’ apparent retirement plan is “feet first,” it seems like some interest is warranted. To be clear, what is fishy to me is that the court is trying to forestall questions with vague statements that actually raise more questions than they answer.

    The fact that the court is being so mum and cagey about it makes me suspect he’s in a bad way.

  79. 79.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    It must have been great fun for the museum folks to curate and design the exhibit. Somewhere (well, in storage) I have a copy of the book, Read My Pins.

  80. 80.

    germy

    Listen, I’m not saying that Paul Manafort was in the process of fleeing to a country without an extradition treaty with the US…

    But Paul Manafort was in the process of fleeing to a country without an extradition treaty with the US.

    — Santiago Mayer ? (@santiagomayer_) March 23, 2022

  81. 81.

    Martin

    So, Russia is trying to address their economic problems. Effective now, anyone wanting to buy oil or gas from Russia needs to pay in rubles. This is perfectly reasonable for them to demand, the US does it as a means to stabilize the value of the dollar because it forces everyone to hold dollars in reserve.

    So here’s Europes problem. They now need to buy rubles, raising the value of the currency, in order to buy oil and gas. And that infusion of rubles will fund the war in Ukraine. So Germany sends rockets to Ukraine to kill Russian vehicles that were paid for by Germany. I know Germany is trying to move fast to remedy this problem, but they aren’t moving fast enough, nor is the rest of Europe. Putin can change policies faster than Europe can respond to them, because the responses aren’t policy, they’re infrastructure, and behavior, and prioritization.

  82. 82.

    scav

    I do hope plans are well underway for the results of all sporting events to be run — in real-time, of course! — by his ultimate authority over all Ron DeSantis.  That goes for you too, all you weekend Monopoly players that collect $400 when you land directly on GO.

  83. 83.

    trollhattan

    @Cacti: I’ll guess no matter what his condition, Ginni will throw a wrench in the communications so as to not give his Liberal enemies any pleasure, or useful information.

  84. 84.

    Martin

    @gratuitous: Because he values winning more than he values the constitution, you know, that oath you say after winning.

    So, now that we know Brooks doesn’t care one whit about the oath he takes to the constitution, what does that say about his voters?

  85. 85.

    Baud

    @Martin:

    Remember Bill Barr, during his rehab tour, talked about Trump’s attempt to overthrow the election and then said he would support Trump over any Democrat in the next election.

  86. 86.

    Martin

    @germy: I’m sticking with my theory that Ginny threw a fire extinguisher at him and stabbed him with an American flag.

  87. 87.

    geg6

    @Baud:

    I think Josh is right and you are wrong.  I am quite sure that the Smith Act (aka Alien Registration Act) is still law and it doesn’t say anything about use of force.  Just to advocate or teach the desirability to overthrow the U.S. government is enough, if I’m remembering correctly.  What Brooks is describing, as far as I can see, is seditious conspiracy.

  91. 91.

    Baud

    @geg6:

    18 U.S. Code § 2384 – Seditious conspiracy

    If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

    I suppose there is an argument that “overthrow” and “put down” are not restricted to “by force.”

     

     

     

    18 U.S. Code § 2385 – Advocating overthrow of Government

    Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or

    Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or

    Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—

    Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

    If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

    As used in this section, the terms “organizes” and “organize”, with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.

    I think this is harder to read as applying to advocacy that doesn’t involve force or violence.

  92. 92.

    Geminid

    @Skepticat: I’m not sure whether Manafort was kept from flying to Dubai because he had a previously revoked passport, or if his passport was revoked when he tried to leave, possibly because the Justice Department is about to indict him. I guess I need to reread what Marcy Wheeler and others are saying about the matter.

  94. 94.

    fancycwabs

    So Mo Brooks (along with many, many others) had firsthand knowledge that Trump had committed sedition and voted not to impeach him anyway.

  95. 95.

    Martin

    @geg6: It’s advocacy of overthrow of government by force or violence.

    ‘Force’ as a legal term doesn’t require physical violence. Eg. ‘force of law’. One of those things that should be a no-brainer for a court to rule against Brooks, but who knows what USSC would do – they’re completely off the rails. They’re just making shit up now. “State courts don’t have the authority to overrule state legislatures, but we federal court officials have full rein to overrule Congress.”

  96. 96.

    Baud

    @fancycwabs:

    I don’t know what Mo Brooks knew at the time of impeachment, but the statement in the post refers to his conversations with Trump after Biden was in office, because it talks about removing Biden.

  98. 98.

    White & Gold Purgatorian

    Mo Brooks has been my congressman since 2011. Before that he was in the state house and before that he spent 1 term as DA. He may have also been on the county commission briefly. He is and always has been a nut. He rode the Tea Party to Congress and I’m sure he was planning to ride Trump’s local popularity to the Senate. As I recall, he did not endorse Trump in 2016 but couldn’t suck up enough in 2020. Interesting that he felt the need to say the 2020 election is over. I wonder if he was trying to look like a reasonable Republican to cut into Katie Britt’s support. As I understand she is Richard Shelby’s chosen successor and for some time has appeared to hold the “not crazy” position in the GOP primary field.

  99. 99.

    Elizabelle

    Rest in power to Madeleine Albright. I wish that she had lived long enough to see Putin defenestrated,  or whatever is going to happen to him, and Trump on a series of perp walks.  Indictment after indictment. But when that does happen, I hope that somewhere Secretary Albright knows it.

    I only have a tiny dachshund pen with me, but I think we should all be wearing pins in her honor for the coming month.  Baud, Bill, Ruckus, Germy.  Wear those pins.

  100. 100.

    Geminid

    @fancycwabs: Only 10 Republican Representatives voted to impeach. Tom Rice of South Carolina was the only Impeacher from the South. There were two from Michigan, one each from New York, Ohio, Illinois, Wyoming, Washington, Oregon and California. Katko (NY), Gonzales (OH) and Kinzinger (IL) are retiring.

  101. 101.

    geg6

    @Baud:

    Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—

    You have bolded the wrong part, IMHO.  I have put what I think is operative here in italics.  Tell me how 1/6 wasn’t such an event with such groups.

    Of course, IANAL, so I could be totally off base.

  103. 103.

    Baud

    @geg6: Jan. 6 definitely was sedition, but force and violence was present there.  If, by contrast, the Proud Boys had sought to overturn the election by filing a frivolous lawsuit or driving their trucks around the Beltway, you wouldn’t have the force or violence element.

  106. 106.

    geg6

    @Baud:

    You are assuming force is the same as violence.  I disagree and am pretty sure the law does, too.  But again, IANAL.

  107. 107.

    Baud

    @geg6: 

    I don’t think it’s the same. But I don’t think “force” covers every hair brained attempt to overturn the election, like yahoos who decertify the election. There’s no force involved in things that amount to performance art.

  108. 108.

    Betty Cracker

    This person is correct.

  110. 110.

    Jeffro

    I’m just glad to see them fighting and ratting each other out (Brooks/trumpov), fleeing (Manafort), and calling out each other’s “jackassery” (Sasse).  Long may it continue.

    OT but I’m wondering exactly how the Unholy Three (Cruz, Hawley, and Cotton) plan to differentiate themselves or ‘find their lane’ for 2024.  Right now it looks like all they got is trying to be THE BIGGEST DOUCHES in the ‘insurrection-loving white supremacist douchebag’ lane.

  111. 111.

    burnspbesq

    @Betty Cracker:

    By all means, let’s haul this specimen before the select committee to  testify that Trump personally asked him, a member of the US House, to illegally overturn the election. It’s win-win: if Brooks backtracks, he looks like even more of a lying fool. If he tells the truth, he implicates Trump in a crime.

    If he is properly advised by competent counsel, he’ll take the fifth, because he would be identifying himself as a member of a conspiracy.

  114. 114.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: For sure, but if Thomas kicks the bucket soon, I hope and trust the White House is ready to tell Republicans who hypocritically insist on waiting until after the election to go straight to hell. I think Judge Michelle Childs of SC was on the shortlist and probably extensively vetted already for the Breyer retirement vacancy. Lindsey Graham said he’d vote for Childs, so I hope they name her the next damn day.

  118. 118.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Republican Impeacher Tom Rice’s SC-7 district runs from Myrtle Beach inland to Florence, site of Trump’s most recent rally. At the rally, Trump bitterly denounced Rice while talking up challenger state legislator Russell Fry, who was in attendance. A Myrtle Beach newspaper describes the primary contest as a choice between “a nerd and a flamethrower.”

  119. 119.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Quick glance through twitter and it looks like the Rs are being even more obnoxious to KBJ than they were yesterday. Did they not get enough praise from Cucker last night? Or was it so sweet that they’re doubling down in hopes of more

    RacistAFBabiesHat @Popehat 2h

    It’s almost as if Jackson, as a district court judge, has experience dealing with irritating, performatively rude, mediocre white guys.

  120. 120.

    burnspbesq

    @Baud:

    I think this is harder to read as applying to advocacy that doesn’t involve force or violence.

    “Hang Mike Pence.” And they built a scaffold for precisely that purpose.

  121. 121.

    Betty Cracker

    Okay, now I’m starting to think maybe the rumors about Thomas being on death’s doorstep are true. This tweet is from the unhinged kook who is Ron DeSantis’s press secretary. Thomas regularly communicates with DeSantis. Hmmm!

    Open Thread: Oh, No, Mo

  123. 123.

    Jeffro

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think someone must have told them that after Day 1 they were low on good, red-meat soundbites for Fox/the base/same thing.

    I cannot imagine being one of these soulless creatures, purposefully flinging complete crap at an accomplished judge like this, regardless of the perceived ‘payoff’ in Fox exposure or votes of any kind down the road.

  124. 124.

    catclub

    @Jeffro: , fleeing (Manafort)

     

    I sensed that not as fleeing but as going to where the money is in sanctions breaking for the oligarchs. grifting!

  125. 125.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @germy: Can we please drop the “credibly accused” verbiage in favor of “accused by a person generally believed to be credible”? It makes a fuckton of difference.

  126. 126.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Betty Cracker: Nominating TWO black women would be an awesome “fuck you”. “You have a problem with this? O really? What’s the problem? SCOTUS was awesomely representative before?”

  127. 127.

    Jeffro

    @delk: she donated almost $6M to our local Habitat, which is building a huge affordable housing project here in central VA.  My heroine!

  129. 129.

    catclub

    @Betty Cracker: ​
     

    to think maybe the rumors about Thomas being on death’s doorstep are true.

    How about all the indictments for Fitzmas? The great pumpkin will deliver them any day now.

  130. 130.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Betty Cracker:

    That would be awesome, if Biden could nominate not just the first but the first two African American women to the highest court in the land! Especially if one of them would replace the Man from Pinpoint.

  131. 131.

    Martin

    Since we have an open thread, I want to expand upon a conversation we had the other day regarding cars and bikes, climate change, and to fill in some things about how analysts think about problems.

    There’s a concept called ‘Jevon’s paradox’. Jevon was a 19th century economist who challenged the idea that coal use would remain static and get cheaper as productivity of extraction increased. He argued that as coal got cheaper due to increased productivity that new uses for coal would be found, negating the reduction in cost to extract and keeping prices flat. And this is exactly what happened. And we see it *everywhere*. In transportation it’s called ‘induced demand’.

    There’s another observation in transportation called Marchetti’s Constant, which is that people will spend approximately one hour each day (half hour each way) for commuting. And you see this in cool places. You can see it in courting in the 18th century, how far a man would go to find a mate – about an hour by horseback, or an hour by foot. Women in villages farther than that were out of reach. Today, it means that if you make someones commute shorter than that, they’ll see that as a liberation to move to a nicer house further away or take a better job further away, and restore that hour commute (induced demand). And if it’s longer than that, it’s a travesty and our politicians must ‘do something’. So Marchetti’s constant sets a bound on Jevon’s Paradox for transportation.

    One of the most recent illustrations of Jevon’s paradox is fuel efficiency standards. One the last 20 years we’ve improved fuel efficiency standards considerably. Passenger cars from 30 to almost 45 MPG, trucks from 20 to 30MPG. How much fuel have we saved?

    None. Everyone sold their hatchbacks and bought trucks because the fuel standards let them either rationalize doing so, or their price ceiling for fuel could simply be transferred to the truck. It’s as if we did nothing. In fact, it’s worse, because now you have all of these heavy vehicles around doing massively more damage to roads that they need to be repaired and resurfaced more often, which produces a lot more emissions.

    And we’re seeing in again with EVs. F-150s were 3800-5000 lbs in the late 90s/early aughts, they’re now 4200-5600 lbs, and the F-150 lightning (EV) is 6200 lbs. The Hummer is back as an EV. 9100 lbs.

    See, once you go to EV, you can use as much power as you want. It’s cheap! So rather than keep the savings that you get from electric motive power over gas, you just waste enough electricity so that you’re using just as much as you were before. No progress gets made, because your low efficiency gasoline is replaced with higher efficiency natural gas (but more of it due to the increased mass) and more emissions from asphalt and concrete laying because a 9100 lb Hummer does 33 *TIMES* more damage to the road than a 3800 lb F-150 from 1998. No, I didn’t miss a decimal place. Road wear is proportional to the 4th power of the weight per axle. Double the weight, do 16 times the damage.

    There are a few ways out of this trap. One is for people to think about the real goal and keep the savings as savings. But this is a big voluntary effort. But the state can put incentives around it. Paris lowered the speed limit to 25km/h (about 18 MPH). Mass transit suddenly got incredibly fast, and riding a bike is no slower than driving a car. In The Netherlands, the most direct routes are given to bikes and pedestrians and cars are forced to take more roundabout routes. if you want to get there quickly, you bike. If you want to get there with a sheet of plywood, you drive the long way. Cars aren’t allowed to have the same benefits as mass transit or biking for most use cases. Its only when cars are doing the thing they are best suited for does it make sense to use one.

    The other way is to decouple the energy market, as CA has done for electricity. CAs power market is unlike any other one in the US. That’s because profits are not a function of increased consumption, as it is in every other market. Because CA regulatory bodies control prices, the policy here is that for every two dollars worth of electricity that consumers save, the utility can raise rates to recover one of those dollars. Utilities can still increase profits by increasing consumption, but they have to pay for increased generation in the process. But if you can just as easily increase profits through conservation, then you don’t have to pay for increased generation. In fact, you can turn off your most expensive generation. Its market where the less the consumer buys, the more money the utility makes. The consumer saves money, the utility makes money, the needs of the state continue to be met, and the emissions go down. It’s a way of breaking Jevon’s paradox because there isn’t an immediate rush to find a use for the savings. Instead, uses for savings are judged in a much more balanced way. The utilities are using the extra profits to build renewables, because that will have a compounding effect to the decoupling, but consumers aren’t suddenly wasting electricity, because our incentives are to do the opposite.

    This is why I say that EVs won’t solve the climate problem. Because we’re just going to take the savings and re-waste them by driving more, buying bigger cars, and so on. And that’s what autonomy really promises. We need to think of transportation in different terms, more like what they do for rockets. If you take your 4200 lb F-150 to drive yourself to get coffee, the job you are doing is getting you coffee. Let’s assume you and the coffee weigh 200 lbs. You are moving 4400 lbs of vehicle to perform 200 lbs of work. That’s a 4.5% payload efficiency. That’s roughly what we get from rockets to put things in orbit – those things we think of as being notoriously inefficient. But if I ride my bike to get coffee, I’m taking my 50lb bike to perform 200lbs of work. That’s an 80% payload efficiency. That’s pretty reasonable.

    See, the problem is that all of the advances we’ve made to improve transportation have been reinvested in making transportation less and less efficient by having people carry more and more unnecessary steel with them for everything they do (and more steel requires more batteries, which requires more steel, etc.). And of course you need all that steel because everyone else is carrying all that steel, so we’ve recreated the US/USSR mutually assured destruction scenario for the act of getting coffee. We know how this ends. It’s not a new theory. They understood it in the 19th century.

    So if the goal is climate change, then we are failing miserably, because we’re getting nowhere in transportation. We’re going to burn through many trillions of dollars replacing our cars with even less efficient cars (taken as a whole) and wasting all of the gains made, because we’ve convinced the public that lifestyle is an immutable thing. We cannot replace our car culture with a different one. That is unacceptable. This is only going to get solved when it’s no longer a choice, when people die, when towns burn down, cities get flooded, unless people volunteer to change. You have to volunteer to install solar, not wait until the government makes it mandatory or compelling. You have to volunteer to change your transportation habits. Because California has been proving for 40 years how to do this, and not one other state and not one part of the federal government has taken the lesson.

    And it’s not doom and gloom. It’s math. It’s just fucking math.

  134. 134.

    Betty Cracker

    @catclub: Make like a Russian warship and GFY. I didn’t say he was going to kick the bucket for sure. I’m speculating in comments on a fucking blog.

  135. 135.

    Martin

    Everybody, let’s not nudge toward Cole’s quite reasonable ‘call for murder’ ban rule by wishing for Thomas’s death. I’ll also point out, we don’t want Thomas to die right now. You don’t want *anything* to happen to the court until Jackson is confirmed. I will personally go and give Thomas CPR for the next week to keep him alive if necessary.

  141. 141.

    Martin

    I’ll add, if Biden does get another nomination, let’s hope there’s a qualified transgender indigenous muslim or atheist woman out there he can nominate. I have a few boxes I would like to see checked. I do know a transgender muslim woman who is a lawyer, but not ready for USSC yet.

  142. 142.

    Miki

    @prostratedragon: I was hospitalized for 4 days for  diverticulitis and a possible abscess on  IV antibiotics (with nothing, absolutely nothing, by mouth, not even ice chips). I wasn’t especially ill, but hospitalization plus IV antibiotics is standard treatment for possible abscesses. I was released as soon as blood work came back clean, which took 4 days for me.

  144. 144.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @TaMara:  How do you get the point of being in your seat before they figure out your passport is invalid? Isn’t there a check-in process? And a process where you submit your passport number before even getting to the airport?

  145. 145.

    Baud

    @Martin: I think it’s time for a virtual justice.  Also has the added political benefit of avoiding a nasty 2024 primary fight. Just sayin’.

  147. 147.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker:

    @ChristinaPushaw· 2h
    Pray for Clarence Thomas!

    I’m an atheist so I don’t know where my prayers go, or what good they do, but I’ve got my fingers crossed….

  149. 149.

    Scout211

    This may have already been posted by someone, but there is some good news out there in reproductive health.  McKenzie Scott donated a $275 million to Planned Parenthood.

     

    Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated $275 million to women’s healthcare provider Planned Parenthood, the largest gift from a single donor in the organization’s more than 100-year history, Planned Parenthood said on Wednesday.
    The donation, which is part of Scott’s pledge to give away the majority of her wealth, was made to Planned Parenthood’s national office and 21 regional affiliates.

    Scott, who is now married to Dan Jewett, a Seattle science teacher, received a 4 percent stake in Amazon.com Inc as part of her divorce from Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos.

  151. 151.

    J R in WV

    @Baud:

    TFG, SFB, can retain the title [ of President ] for as long as he wants… but nothing can force me to use it!

  152. 152.

    Calouste

    @Martin: There’s a fairly straightforward solution that has been implemented in some countries, and that is tax vehicles by weight. One way or another with electric vehicles we need to move away from taxing gas to pay for roads anyway, and as you say, heavier vehicles do a lot more damage to roads, so it makes sense to tax them more heavily.

  153. 153.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: If you have a “RealID” driver’s license you get through TSA. If you’re not checking a bag, you don’t have an encounter with anyone until you get to the gate. At that point you show a boarding pass and maybe a passport, but at that point they’re boarding the plane and won’t look at it in detail. Once they know who’s checked in, presumably the manifest goes electronically to CPB, at which point somebody says “hold on” and picks up the phone.

  155. 155.

    debbie

    TFG refuses to endorse (or stop bad-mouthing) Matt Dolan, the lone moderate in the race for Rob Portman’s seat, because as a partial owner of the Cleveland baseball team, he holds Dolan responsible for the name change to Guardians. I’m beginning to think TFG will un-endorse himself right off the political stage.

  156. 156.

    Geminid

    The Texas Tribune reported on Speaker Pelosi’s news conference in Austin today. She was making an appearance with Congressman Lloyd Doggett to commemorate the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act.

    A reporter asked Pelosi if she still supports Texas 28th District Representative Henry Cuellar in light of the FBI’s search of his Laredo home and office in January. She replied that she did, but it wasn’t the most ringing of endorsements:

        ” I support my members. I support them left to right. That’s what I do.”

    Cisneros is facing Jessica Cisneros, his 2020 challenger, in a runoff May 24. He recently announced that he would reject contributions from Koch Industries PAC because the company still does business with Russia (Cisneros receives the most money of any Democrat from the PAC).  Cisneros pointed out in a tweet that he’s already cashed the other checks.

    Meanwhile, the 28 year old Cisneros has been slammed with a Daily Mail story about an affair she had with a high school teacher when she was 18. It’s a hit piece, complete with text messages between the two and allegations that she broke up the man’s marriage. The Daily Mail’s story is vile even for them but it may do damage. Cuellar is said to have sent a Texas reporter a link to it soon after it was published.

    The Texas Tribune report said that Republicans are hopeful of capping their recent gains in South Texas by flipping the 28th. Cassie Garcia and Sandra Whitten, who faced Cuellar in 2020, are competing in the May 24 Republican primary.

  159. 159.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Martin: I would be happy to see him retire to an idyllic beachfront property and enjoy years of sipping Mai-Tais.

  161. 161.

    Old School

    @Scout211: MacKenzie Scott donated $436 million to Habitat to Humanity earlier this week.

    Those numbers are staggering and she still has more money than anyone needs.

  163. 163.

    Tony Jay

    @scav:

    Yeah, I read that this morning. Being the Guardian, of course, anyone attempting to raise the topic of maybe, possibly, applying this kind of basic journalism to the role played by Britain’s version of AIPAC over the last few years gets socked with the censor’s banhammer faster than you can say ‘You Comment Is In Moderation’.

    The Guardian was all in on the Anti-Semitism Scam, riding that train like a mob of drunken football hooligans on their way to an away game rumble. They simply can’t afford to allow any of the obvious questions to be asked or they’ll have to admit how badly their misinformation poisoned the nation’s politics.

    And that won’t get them subscriptions, will it?

  164. 164.

    Geminid

    @scav: Like it’s Mideast neighbors including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Egypt, Israel is trying to stay at least nominally neutral. The populations of these countries seem to be solidly on Ukraines side, but the governments, for different reasons, are trying not to alienate Russia.

  165. 165.

    Old School

    @debbie: Don’t know, but he’s free to match or beat her.

    MacKenzie Scott has donated $3,863,125,000 to 465 non-profits since last June.

    She still has an estimated net worth of $55 billion.

  168. 168.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: That is a gross hit piece, and fuck Cuellar for distributing it to the TX media. If I were a voter in that district, I’d be more troubled by the FBI raiding Cuellar’s house in a corruption investigation a few months ago than something Cisneros did as an 18 year old while being exploited by a grown-ass teacher.

  169. 169.

    Steeplejack

    Six weeks ago, in early February, SCOTUS stayed a ruling ordering Alabama to redraw its congressional map because it was too close to the election.

    Now, in late March, it’s ordering Wisconsin to redraw its legislative maps.
    https://t.co/pCwGbugAt0

    — David Nir (@DavidNir) March 23, 2022

  171. 171.

    trollhattan

    @Scout211:

    Read elsewhere she just gave close to half a billion to Habitat for Humanity. She’s something else.

    And for something completely different, of course he did.

    March 23, 2022 at 5:22 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard

    North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R), who frequently rails against abortion rights, paid for a woman to have an abortion after impregnating her in 1989, Axios reports.

    Abortions for me, but not for thee.

  173. 173.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: Cuellar was dumb to do it. The story was going to be circulated in the district anyway. I would not vote against Cisneros because of it, but it may be a factor in 28th District Democrats’ appraisal of her electability.

    In 2020, Cuellar beat Cisneros by about 52-48%. This time she came in two points behind. There was a third candidate in the primary so Cuellar did not break 50% and avoid a runoff. My cynical side wonders if someone in the Cuellar camp encouraged the third candidate, Tannya Rodrigues, to run as a “progressive” and take votes from Cisneros.

  174. 174.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: As far I know, it’s standard procedure to check your passport info at the ticket counter (whether in person or at automated kiosk). I found out the hard way when I accidentally entered my name in the wrong order when ordering the ticket. Lufthansa was able to fix it for their tickets on the flights out, but I had a nasty (and very expensive) surprise when I switched to a United code-share flight in Frankfurt on way home.

    But it’s also standard procedure for the police to detain people at the airport after they’ve cleared security, since it ensures that the detainee isn’t armed. So I assume he was flagged at the ticket counter, but allowed to proceed onward for that reason. (Also avoids the airline staff having to get involved.)

    Why they apparently waited until he was on the place? Not sure. Although I suspect it may have been precisely for the extra publicity that it would generate.

  179. 179.

    Xentik

    @Betty Cracker:

    Assuming he starts pining for the fjords before Breyer’s retirement kicks in, is there any reason we can’t just seat her in Thomas’s seat immediately and then start looking for a new replacement for Breyer (Whom Biden promised would be a black woman, of course)?

  180. 180.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @scav: I read that article. It seems that the US citizens of AIPAC are stating publicly that they are loyal solely to Israel. I thought that they go into hissy fits when anyone even hints at compromise due to their dual loyalties. Sounds like they are renouncing their US citizenship. Fine by me. Box ’em up and send them to Tel Aviv, postage due.

  181. 181.

    Argiope

    @JPL: Me too!  I’m crying and I’m only listening, not even watching. What a truly beautiful moment.  Booker just speaks right from the gut and the heart and he’s so damn smart.  Love him.

  186. 186.

    Calouste

    @Sister Golden Bear: Could be that the police was just slow, or that Manafort showed up late at the airport and hoped that the police wouldn’t have time to catch him before take off. If you fly business or first class you can get from the curb to your seat on the plane pretty fast.

  188. 188.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Cory Booker just did an impassioned 20-minute monologue that you have to watch. His joy and emotion and gratitude are overwhelming. You absolutely owe it to yourself to watch, every word. He is an extraordinary orator. And he just seems like a wonderful, decent person. I wish I knew him in real life.

  189. 189.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Xentik: I think the only seat that really works like that is the Chief’s. A vacant seat is a vacant seat.

    I wonder if Sri Srinivasan is reviewing his CV and his old law school papers…

  190. 190.

    Steeplejack

    Interesting proposal. ?

    I think SCOTUS nominees should have to have at least a decade of twitter shitposting for people to decide if they are really qualified.

    “Judge Jackson, what did you mean when you said Josh Hawley can gargle your balls? You are aware that you do not have balls, correct?”

    — jackassletters.com (@jackassletters) March 22, 2022

  193. 193.

    J R in WV

    Tornado watch here.

    Also brought Wife home this afternoon!!

    Thanks to all for the well wishes and good thoughts,  they helped so much.

  195. 195.

    Patricia Kayden

    Traitor Josh Hawley belongs in prison. Patriot Ketanji Brown Jackson belongs on the Supreme Court.— Jason Overstreet (@JasonOverstreet) March 23, 2022

  197. 197.

    Geminid

    @Chief Oshkosh: They did not say they were loyal solely to Israel. AIPAC said that a politician’s support for Israel, not his or her positions on other matters, was it’s sole criteria for supporting politicians. There’s a difference.

    Personally, I don’t think much of AIPAC, partly because in ways it has undermined support for Israel. But they are a single issue PAC, and I don’t judge them differently in this case than I do NARAL, the League of Conservation Voters, or Everytown USA.

  199. 199.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @Gin & Tonic: My experience is that the airline scrutinizes your passport before they issue a boarding pass. They don’t want to have you get a free ride home if the destination country turns you away. But when a rescinded passport would be noticed/detected is a question I have no idea about.

  200. 200.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    a lot of rumors, and a lot of news sources I at least am not familiar with (though I think Julia Ioffe has vouched for Meduza?), so this has big Big If True energy, but I’m seeing it spread on twitter

    Kevin Rothrock @KevinRothrock 11h

    Good catch here by journalist Dmitry Treshchanin: Russia’s defense minister, Sergey Shoigu, hasn’t been seen in public for 11 days. (The head of the National Guard, a real nutter named Viktor Zolotov, also seems to be curiously missing.)

  201. 201.

    Anyway

    @Geminid:

    The last few (5-15) years  Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, Israel have been frenemies with the US (especially Democratic administrations). The Arab spring and the specter of democracy/Muslim Brotherhood-gaining-power really spooked them.

    Add to that Obama’s overtures to Iran which totally po’d KSA and Israel.

    Balancing KSA is a great idea.

  203. 203.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    I’ve been watching it at https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/

    Once the current break is over and they start up again, I’ll check the counter and see where you should cue it up to watch Booker’s entire presentation. I’m looking forward to watching the whole thing again. It was that good.

  204. 204.

    CaseyL

    @J R in WV:  Your wife coming home is wonderful news!  And it looks like the universe is pleased as well, having arranged a nice little tornado action for her to watch from the safety of inside the house.

  207. 207.

    trnc

    @burnspbesq:

    By all means, let’s haul this specimen before the select committee to  testify that Trump personally asked him, a member of the US House, to illegally overturn the election. It’s win-win: if Brooks backtracks, he looks like even more of a lying fool. If he tells the truth, he implicates Trump in a crime.

    If he is properly advised by competent counsel, he’ll take the fifth, because he would be identifying himself as a member of a conspiracy.

    He’s claiming that he advised against it, so his value as a witness would be for what DT asked him to do and what other plans DT had. Mo wouldn’t be in any danger of incriminating himself unless he’s lying about advising against it.

  208. 208.

    Geminid

    @Chief Oshkosh: If Israel’s present government is so bad, why is it that the country’s relations with neighbors Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, and Dubai are the best in more than decade? They are also getting along better with EU countries, their biggest trading partners.

    I understand people’s hostilty towards Israel on account of it’s treatment of Palestinian people. But other governments, at least, including some Arab governments, do not share it. And the leader of Ra’am, the first Arab party ever in an Israeli government, says he believes the current government could last the three years before the next election must be held.

  216. 216.

    Geminid

    @Anyway: The heads of the UAE, Israel, and Egypt had a summit meeting Monday at Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt. A principal topic of discussion was the impending revival of the JCPOA. Not how to stop it but how to deal with it.

    It has been years since Egypt hosted an Israeli Prime Minister. Earlier this month Israeli President Herzog visited Turkey, whose relations with Israel had been frozen for more than a decade. Turkish President Erdogan hailed the visit as “a new beginning” in relations between the two countries.

  218. 218.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    I don’t know if Bennett will be much better. I fear Israel will agree to aid Ukraine only if the nuclear deal is permanently shelved.

  219. 219.

    Anyway

    @Geminid:

    I just wish recent Israeli govts weren’t so hostile to US Dem admins. Friendly relations with their neighbors is commendable (except for KSA)

  222. 222.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Netanyahu managed to piss a lot of people off- his country’s neighbors, his former political colleagues, Democrats in this country just to name some. He pissed people in Israel’s security establishment off when he helped talk Trump into walking away from the JCPOA, and some retired security chiefs were vocal about it.

    The 61 Knesset member coalition government that came in last June spans eight parties whose leaders had only their animosity towards Netanyahu in common. No one trusted Netanyahu, and some of the ones closest to Netanyahu ideologically hated his guts.

    When Netanyahu failed to form a government last year and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid was given the “mandate” to try forming a majority, few thought he had a chance. He pulled it off by bringing six other parties together and then enticing the seventh by offering Bennett the first rotation as Prime Minister.

    Even then, many Israelis thought there was less than a 50-50 chance Lapid’s coalition would last this long. Ironically, it’s biggest threat now is Netanyahu being convicted in one of the three criminal cases against him. With Netanyahu out of politics, some of the former “Likudniks” in the current government might defect and precipitate a new election..

  223. 223.

    Ruckus

    @Baud:

    god doesn’t want them either. If they are alive they are generally considered to be responsible for their actions. Once dead that responsibility is unavailable – it’s god’s problem.

  224. 224.

    Skepticat

    @Baud: One can only assume that there a certain people God is procrastinating from dealing with.

    Good point, though If god’s in her heaven, I doubt most of these people would be her concern.

  225. 225.

    Geminid

    @Anyway: This one isn’t hostile to the Biden administration. Bennett may gripe about a new JCPOA but Israel knows they have to deal with it. And their generals will be relieved. They have enough on their hands already without having to go to war with Iran over that country’s nuclear program.

    There was so much happening at last month’s Munich Security Conference that Vice President Harris’ meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz attracted little notice. It was one of those short, set-piece encounters in a nice room with two chairs in front of the two nations’ flags. Gantz didn’t whine about a new JCPOA, just emphasized that any new agreement must be rigorously enforced.

    Harris’ and Hantz’s greeting was telling: big smiles and a four-handed grasping of each others forearms to demonstrate their governments’ and nations’ close friendship.

  227. 227.

    prostratedragon

    @Miki:  Five days for a DVT-related infection, followed by a few more days oral after hospital release.

  228. 228.

    Dopey-o

    @Martin: I’ll also point out, we don’t want Thomas to die right now. You don’t want *anything* to happen to the court until Jackson is confirmed. I will personally go and give Thomas CPR for the next week to keep him alive if necessary.

    I was just talking with a sculptor friend who is now declining all commissions, because he’s become aware of the dwindling calendar. Feels he owes the rest of his time to his wife.

    I don’t want Justice Thomas to die, I want him to focus on spending as much time with his lovely wife, and writing his spit-flecked memoir.

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