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You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Egging Them On

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Egging Them On

by | 195 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

As was quote in an earlier thread, No one died, and a good time was had by some.

(Which I still think should be a rotating tag!)

Elsewhere…
Because Planetes was a cartoon, and we don’t need more space junk:

A former federal public defender in Maryland has joined the U.S. Department of Justice as its first permanent pardon attorney since 2016, taking charge of a key office that is responsible for vetting federal clemency applications.

Elizabeth “Liz” Oyer, who left the partnership at law firm Mayer Brown a decade ago to represent indigent defendants in the federal public defender’s office in Maryland, was appointed to her new position last week by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

She inherits a backlog of 18,295 pending clemency cases at a time when criminal justice reform advocates are urging President Joe Biden to use his vast power to grant pardons and commutations to reduce criminal penalties they see as unfair…

In an op-ed published shortly before Biden took office in January 2021, Oyer called on his administration to appoint former public defenders to the Justice Department.

“Fresh perspectives are essential,” she wrote. “We cannot prosecute our way out of the crisis of mass incarceration.”

Biden has nominated a record number of former public defenders to the federal judiciary, including Ketanji Brown Jackson, who the Senate confirmed earlier this month to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Let’s hope this is a good Spring omen, because we could really use one…

Readership capture:

Reader Interactions

195Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Biden has nominated a record number of former public defenders to the federal judiciary, including Ketanji Brown Jackson, who the Senate confirmed earlier this month to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

    ?

  3. 3.

    Anyway

    OT – should we be worried about the Nevada Sen seat? That would be catastrophic.

    ETA I know the meaning of Prediction/Prediction with MOE/polling uncertainty so the usual suspects can spare me the lecture.

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    The Ever Forward was refloated with the help of a high spring tide by two barges and five tugboats.

    “Tide comes in, tide goes out. No one can explain it.”

    //

  5. 5.

    narya

    Raskin’s ferocity . . . I watched the MSNBC documentary/interview on him, and what stuck was him saying that, on the day of the capitol attack, he felt many emotions, but not fear. He said, I’ve just buried my son, what could happen to me that’s worse than that? (My father said exactly the same thing when my sister died.) And I think he has carried that clear-eyed determination with him this long path, and I thank him for taking that agony and turning it toward the light and the good.

  6. 6.

    Ken

    ‘This was a coup organized by the president against the vice president and against the Congress in order to overturn the 2020 presidential election,’ said Rep. Jamie Raskin

    Waiting for the 6-3 opinion in Trump v. Congress in which Justice Thomas holds that these statements show bias, and Rep. Raskin must recuse himself from all votes related to the investigation due to this conflict of interest.

  8. 8.

    Geminid

    That sure was a soggy day for the easter egg roll. We needed the rain though.

    There will be sunny skies in Portsmouth, New Hampshire this afternoon. President Biden will be up there touring the New Hampshire Port Authority. At 2:45pm he will make remarks on our infrastructure investments. I expect that Senator Maggie Hassan will be there. Her chances of reelection are looking good since Governor Sununu the Younger declined to run against her and left the task to more mediocre hopefuls.

  9. 9.

    Betty Cracker

    An appliance / alarm system that belongs to a neighbor down the road started beeping before dawn and stopped a short while ago. It didn’t sound as frantic as a theft or fire alarm system: there were four somewhat sedate beeps, a pause, then four more, times infinity.

    At first, I thought it was my dishwasher, which also beeps annoyingly at the end of its cycle, but only briefly before shutting off automatically. I got up to investigate. (The mister was already at work.) It wasn’t the dishwasher, but from the sound coming through the open kitchen window, I figured maybe the air conditioning unit downstairs (off since the weather is unseasonably cool) was beeping for some reason.

    I went downstairs to investigate and discovered the noise was coming from a neighboring property that can’t really be seen from our lot. The houses here in the swamp aren’t close together, so the beeping at the source must have been really loud. It went on for a couple of hours and change, then just stopped. I feel I am owed an explanation!

  13. 13.

    Elizabelle

    FTF NY Times editor Dean Baquet is finally retiring.  In June. To be succeeded by someone named Joseph Kahn.  57 year old white guy who looks like Brent Scowcroft (remember him)?

    Who, if following the example of the Washington Post, might be even worse.  (Bezos replaced the excellent Marty Baron with Clickbait Sally Buzbee, who is a disaster, IMHO. A career at the Associated Press is not the gold standard it once might have been.)

    I truly think the problem at the FTF NY Times is the publishers.

  14. 14.

    Betty Cracker

    New York Times announced a successor to Baquet:

    Joseph F. Kahn, a Pulitzer Prize-winning China correspondent who rose to lead the international desk of The New York Times, and then as managing editor helped steer the newspaper into the digital era, has been selected to be The Times’s next executive editor, the top newsroom job.

    Mr. Kahn, 57, currently the No. 2-ranking editor at The Times, will take on one of the most powerful positions in American media and the global news business. He is to succeed Dean Baquet, whose eight-year tenure is expected to conclude in June.

    I don’t know anything about Kahn, but his background as a foreign correspondent makes me cautiously hopeful. I’ve always thought it would be a good idea to swap out reporters who cover foreign capitals with Beltway journalists every now and then to dent the “access” model and refocus reporting on facts and their implications for the governed. Maybe that’s naive. But it’s hard to imagine someone bungling the job as badly as Baquet did.

  15. 15.

    WaterGirl

    @Anne Laurie, up top:

    No one died, and a good time was had by some.

    (Which I still think should be a rotating tag!)

    And so it was done.

  17. 17.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Jaime Raskin is another member of the talented Democratic House Class of 2018. A few, like Xochitl Torres-Small (NM), Kendra Horn (OK), and Joe Cunninham (SC), were knocked out of the red districts they won in 2018. Deb Haaland is now Secretary of the Interior. The rest are making real contributions and I think we’ll see a lot of them in the coming years.

  20. 20.

    different-church-lady

    June. That’s enough time to bury stories about Trump family criminal acts on page A15 at least another 40 times.

  22. 22.

    sdhays

    @Betty Cracker: If he’s been #2 and is getting promoted, it’s probably safe to say that he hasn’t done or said anything to rock the boat.

    That could change once he gets the big chair, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. The person promoting him is the same person who has been pleased with Baquet’s performance.

  23. 23.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker:

    [Kahn’s] background as a foreign correspondent makes me cautiously hopeful. I’ve always thought it would be a good idea to swap out reporters who cover foreign capitals with Beltway journalists every now and then to dent the “access” model

    Oh I hope so, BC.  That’s a good way to look at it.

    @Baud:   Yes!  Please, please.  We need some stable and ethical institutions.

  25. 25.

    Geminid

    @Baud: New Mexico Democrats made Torres-Small’s southern New Mexico seat bluer through their new redistricting map. It will be up to another Democrat to knock out Yvette Harrel. Xochitl Torres-Small is now in the Biden administration, serving as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Rural Development.

  26. 26.

    OzarkHillbilly

    My truck is on it’s way to Quality Transmission in STL. Thank dawg for AAA, the tow is free, unlike the transmission: $3850 + tax.

    At least I’ll never have to worry about it again. I’ve been using QT for decades and never had a complaint. Nobody I know has either.

  27. 27.

    mrmoshpotato

    @NotMax:

    Tide comes in, BillO sexually harasses it, tide goes out, BillO sexually harasses it,. Everyone No one can explain it because O’Reilly’s a pig. 

    Fixed.

  29. 29.

    mrmoshpotato

    @NotMax:

    Can’t be alone if after seeing this the first thing that pops into the head is billionaire bumper cars. 

    Thirty-foot seas come to mind.

  30. 30.

    NotMax

    @OzarkHillbilly

    Off. That’s a chunk’a change. I’d end up on the store brand peanut butter diet for months.

    Hoping supply chain constraints so far as getting the parts in aren’t too impactful. Still wince remembering the four months plus wait for the mechanic to get in a replacement clutch in the before times.

  31. 31.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Betty Cracker:

    An appliance / alarm system that belongs to a neighbor down the road started beeping before dawn and stopped a short while ago….

    I feel I am owed an explanation!

    The refrigerator was trying to run – away.  (Not sorry.)

  32. 32.

    Betty Cracker

    @sdhays: Definitely not holding my breath on an improvement at the NYT. Baquet is pathologically allergic to introspection, but that seems to be an institutional trait. There’s no improvement until that changes, and no incentive to improve at the moment anyway. I hope Kahn is different, but if so, it will be a pleasant surprise.

  35. 35.

    Betty Cracker

    According to a report in The Hill, Biden told Obama he’s running again in 2024:

    President Biden has told former President Obama that he is planning to run for reelection in 2024, two sources tell The Hill.

    The admission to Obama is the latest indication that Biden is likely to run for a second term, something the president has spoken about publicly.

    No surprise there, but this sounds vaguely hinky to me:

    “I believe he thinks he’s the only one who can beat Trump. I don’t think he thinks there’s anyone in the Democratic party who can beat Trump and that’s the biggest factor,” the source familiar with the Obama-Biden talks said.

    That doesn’t really sound like something Biden would say, but who knows. I do think Biden would win a rematch with Trump, but I think other Dems could too.

  36. 36.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: It’s a 2005, a real beater w/238,000 miles on it. When the tranny went I looked at craigslist to see what’s available at a price I can afford (about 2x what I’m spending on the tranny alone). I found a few, but when I got to thinking about it none of them were much newer than my current one. Add to that the fact that after this, the only thing left to replace is the engine and it was a no brainer to stick with what I know rather than buy into somebody else’s problems.

    Besides, when the engine goes, I can do that myself.

  38. 38.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker:

    That doesn’t really sound like something Biden would say, but who knows.

    I can imagine it. It takes a healthy ego to run for president at all, and I can see where the 2020 cycle would confirm him in that opinion. No obvious alternative jumps out at me, but in the fall of 2019, I didn’t think Biden would pull it out, so what do I know

    ETA: Then again:

    “I believe he thinks he’s the only one who can beat Trump. I don’t think he thinks there’s anyone in the Democratic party who can beat Trump and that’s the biggest factor,”

    “I believe he thinks”, and “I think he thinks” are pretty tenuous, and this is someone anonymously claiming that Obama told them what Biden said, and then again again…. The Hill.

  39. 39.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax: I hear ya. When my wife’s tranny went out this past winter, I think it took 3 months to get her car back (she had to take it to a different shop in Rolla). Me? QT has a rebuild in stock and I should get my truck back by the end of this week.

    @WaterGirl: 238,000

  40. 40.

    James E Powell

    @Baud:

    We need him to be on The Shows more often. Not sure how to make that happen. He’s one of our best explainers.

  41. 41.

    germy

    Kimberly Guilfoyle spent nearly 9.5 hours yesterday meeting with the Jan. 6 Committee.

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 19, 2022

    I have never felt so badly for the Jan 6 Committee

    — Drain The Trumps ?? (@DrainTheTrumps) April 19, 2022

  42. 42.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Then again, again, again…

    “I’m a great respecter of fate,” Biden said during an interview with ABC’s David Muir in December. “Fate has intervened in my life many, many times. If I’m in the health I am in now, if I’m in good health, then in fact I would run again.”

    Asked if he would do so even if it meant a rematch with Trump, Biden smiled: “You’re trying to tempt me now.”

    “Sure. Why would I not run against Donald Trump if he were the nominee?” he answered. “That would increase the prospect of running.”

    I missed this in real time

  47. 47.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: I can imagine that conversation, what makes me doubt that specific story is that the very careful Obama would talk about it to somebody who would talk to The Hill, unless for some reason Obama wanted the story public, which reason I can’t imagine.

  48. 48.

    no comment

    We got a little snow last night, and our power went out around 3am. We have a backup generator which is noisy & outside the bedroom window. I apparently slept through most of the generator noise. I woke up at some point after 6am and didn’t recognize the sound. I wondered briefly what construction was occurring in our neighborhood & why was it happening so early, before going back to sleep.

    Power came back on at some point this morning.

  50. 50.

    Alison Rose ???

    A friend who lives near DC said they didn’t get to roll any eggs because the lines were too long, plus it was super cold, but they did get to meet Tammy Duckworth, and I told her that alone would make the trip totally worth it.

  53. 53.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I do think Biden would beat Trump again. Because I am a neurotic person who lives in a quasi-authoritarian state, I worry more about someone like DeSantis, who could play up the age angle and the “let’s try something new” proposition that Americans are susceptible to, often (but not always) to our detriment.

  58. 58.

    Patricia Kayden

    Like Malcolm Nance.

    How the Hell is Kyle Rittenhouse not in Ukraine yet protecting those businesses from looters.— ????????? (@benigma2017) April 19, 2022

  61. 61.

    dmsilev

    @WaterGirl: No. 22nd Amendment is pretty clear:

    No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

    Also, and this has been pointed out many times before, Trump has a choice. Either he can acknowledge that he wasn’t reelected, or he is ineligible to run in 2024 since it just says “elected” and nothing about being totally frauded out of the office that he totally legitimately won in a landslide. I predict that this question will never actually be put to Trump.

  62. 62.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker: I’ve said before I think Georgia will be the test about how willing trump will be to hurt Republicans out of spite– I think he’s started to drop hints that he’s willing to under-bus Perdue like he did Mo Brooks. OTOH, if he gets rolling and a resentment bat in his belfry gets particularly active during a live chat with Hannity, I could imagine him doing real damage to Kemp on impulse.

    But if someone like De Santis actually tries to take the nomination from him, I think all bets are off. His rage would be Wellesian. OTthirdHand, actuarial tables and a  bloodstream that’s at least 40% McDonalds could intervene in our politics at any moment

  63. 63.

    Old School

    @WaterGirl:

    Can Obama run for a third term, since it’s not consecutive?

    I suppose he can run, but the 22nd amendment prevents him from being elected.

  65. 65.

    Jerzy Russian

    @OzarkHillbilly:

     

    238,000

    That is almost the (mean) distance the Moon, which is 238,900 miles. It is a bummer the transmission went out when you are *this* close to making it there.

  67. 67.

    catclub

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: ​
     

    OTthirdHand, actuarial tables and a bloodstream that’s at least 40% McDonalds could intervene in our politics at any moment

    I have no faith (or hope, or charity) in that. genetics of parents say he lives along time. Not necessarily without dementia

  68. 68.

    Matt McIrvin

    @dmsilev: In Trump’s mind he was already eligible to be elected more than twice, on the basis of some cockamamie idea that the Obama administration did some cheating thing in 2016 that entitled him to a third term as compensation. He used to say it at rallies.

  70. 70.

    Geminid

    @Matt McIrvin: Speaking of rallies, the orange churl will disgrace Ohio with his presence this Saturday. The rally will be staged at the Delaware County Fairgrounds, 30 miles noth of Columbus. His last few rallies have gotten little attention, but this one will be different, I think.

  71. 71.

    zhena gogolia

    OMG, debbie posted this earlier, but Colbert is brilliant on the Tucker thing. I didn’t have the heart to watch his video, so I thought that pic of the guy with the light on his balls was a meme intended to mock Tucker. I didn’t realize IT’S IN THE ACTUAL VIDEO
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXxAentzl7k

  73. 73.

    Miss Bianca

    @OzarkHillbilly: Sounds like the process I went through when the engine on my ’96 Honda Passport gave up the ghost. After researching all the options out there (used car prices are *insane*), I came to the same conclusion you did: Actually cheaper to replace the engine and clutch and come up with an essentially newer car, plus it being the Devil I Know, etc).

    Pal D found me a ’98 Isuzu Trooper engine, and he and my genius mechanic neighbor spent many, many hours – while I was out of town on a trip back east last fall – dropping it into my car, which now runs like a bat out of hell compared to its previous performance.

  74. 74.

    Peale

    @dmsilev: My guess is that if he is reelected, he’ll also run in 2028, saying that the Democrat obstruction during term 1 meant that it doesn’t count.

  75. 75.

    VeniceRiley

    *headdeskxinfinity shakes fist: Snoopy style
    FU Putin!

    “You will be aware that the Home Office is currently responding to the humanitarian crisis arising from the invasion of the Ukraine. Unfortunately, this has meant we have had to refocus our resources away from business as usual activity, which has created some delays in processing applications.

    We will therefore be unable to decide your application within our published customer service targets, I am sorry for any delay and inconvenience this is causing. Please be assured that we are doing all we can to make a decision on your application as quickly as possible.”

  76. 76.

    Alison Rose ???

    @Matt McIrvin: Me at 8 years old explaining why I should get two popsicles because my brother ate the last cherry one which is my favorite so I had to have either grape or orange which are my second and third favorites so to compensate I should get both to equal a first favorite.

    (True story.)

  77. 77.

    Patricia Kayden

    If you want to know the true nature of a person, ask them to tolerate a minor inconvenience to protect the life of a stranger.— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) April 19, 2022

  79. 79.

    Kay

    This is a good solid article on some of the practical effects for women as a result of the abortion bans:

    Medication can be an effective tool for people trying to evade abortion restrictions, and it’s much safer than other illegal abortion methods. But as abortion access is further restricted, increased reliance on pills could also make more people struggle through an intensely painful — even traumatic — experience, with little access to medical support, lots of stigma and more legal risk than ever before.

    Thankfully not about Right wing legal theory, by elite Right wing lawyers, or Right wing judges.
    Instead it’s from the perspective of people who have used pills for abortion – reality, not theory.

    There’s so little coverage of the abortion bans and almost no coverage of the practical, real world effects of the abortion bans that I really have to search to find any at all.

  81. 81.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Spouse and I have talked for years about leaving. It makes me feel bad now seeing Ukrainians fighting and dying for the country they love. The big difference is here the enemy is within.

  82. 82.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    One more lofty theological or elite legal defense of abortion bans and I am going to scream.

    It’s happened now. Real. It’s no longer a theory. Go find some women and ask them.

    I think they’re waiting for the Right wing SCOTUS to give them permission to acknowledge reality. In this imaginary world abortion isn’t banned until Justice Barrett finally gets around to holding a hearing and issuing an opinion. A legalistic fiction which of course benefits the Right wing politically.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    Washington Post TikTok Guy ?
    @davejorgenson
    ·2h
    “Libs of TikTok has become an agenda-setter in right-wing online discourse, and the content it surfaces shows a direct correlation with the recent push in legislation and rhetoric directly targeting the LGBTQ+ community.”

    Joe Rogan and Glenn Greenwald are big promoters.
    The funniest part is how the supposed “contrarians” like Rogan and Greenwald offer EXACTLY the same content as Fox News. It’s always in tandem. I thought their big value add was that they were brave outsiders sticking it to the woke mob? They’re rehashing Fox content. Get yourself a cable connection, watch Fox, and you can cancel your Rogan and Greenwald accounts. It’s all the same shit.

  84. 84.

    Another Scott

    @NotMax: Yup.

    I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that that great big (nearly) full moon was tugging on it, also too.

    (groucho-roll-eyes.gif)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  86. 86.

    laura

    @Kay: Start asking around- who’s going to be the Becky Bell in your family? Seriously, there’s going to be so so many Becky Bells in our present future.

  87. 87.

    Kay

    You can pay for Rogan and Greenwald and listen to Tulsie Gabbard and Libs of Tik Tok, or you could just use your existing cable tv subscription and see the same shit on Fox, except less annoying on Fox, because no one is pretending to be “a contrarian” or “original”

    You know how there’s “green washing” on environmental issues? This is “contrarian washing” of standard Right wing tv content. They run the same Fox shit thru the Rogan or Greenwald outlet and declare it “new!” and “edgy!”

  88. 88.

    Betty

    @Betty Cracker: Dan Froomkin found an old quote from Kahn that sounded less than promising about the need to protect the paper’s  business interests. Not what I wanted to hear.

  90. 90.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: I think I first heard of it less than 24 hours ago, maybe 36. Now it’s everywhere in the tubes, along with someone named Taylor Lorenz which is a name I see on the political internets a lot without every being entirely sure who they are, but it’s not one of the singing or acting Taylors, I gather. Glenn Greenwald is involved somehow, and Christina Pushaw, who (again, as far as I understand) was some kind of internet troll who got hired as an official rep for Ron DeSantis.

  91. 91.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    It’s a single Right wing crank. Theyr’e all outraged that a reporter they personally dislike did some reporting and found out who she is. They’re all for bold n brave journalism until it’s one of theirs.

  92. 92.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Kay: It truly is a puke funnel. If I watch a Fox segment and then talked with my brother, he’d be spouting the same points like the fucking parrot he now is. I’d blame Rush, Fox, etc., but he chooses what he reads and listens to.

  95. 95.

    Kay

    @laura:

    I just love the elaborate journalistic deference to that Court. The Court wants us to pretend abortion is still legal so despite the fact that it is not, all major media have gone along with adopting the legal fiction that most benefits the far Right.

    When Justice Barrett tells them they may report on reality they will do so, and not before.

  96. 96.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: Eh?  I thought he said a year or more ago that of course he was running for re-election (assuming he is healthy).

    This sounds like the usual let’s-make-some-news-with-some-old-news-on-a-slow-political-news-day story to me.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  97. 97.

    Eljai

    I’m on a flight getting ready to leave KC to Chicago and it is largely mask free, save for me and maybe 2 other people. I don’t care, I’m wearing a mask on public transportation for the rest of my life regardless.

  98. 98.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    The Rogan audience doesn’t know they’re paying for recycled Fox content, because they’d never watch Fox. Much too hip for that. I had this discussion with my 19 year old. He says “Rogan had Bernie Sanders on!” I said “so did Fox”.

    Covid deniers, ant-vaxxers, selectively outraged truck drivers, a token liberal or two (always the same ones) – it’s all repackaged Fox content. My husband watches sports so we’re forced to pay for cable and Fox. I told my son- “just sit down and watch 4 hours of Fox. It’s identical”.

  101. 101.

    Old Man Shadow

    Screaming internally today.

    Satanic panic 2.0 continues in earnest. More innocent people being vilified, targeted, and persecuted by the fundamentalists. The fundamentalists are going to hurt people, hurt and possibly destroy America, and lead others into bloody witch hunts.

    The courts are ready to let them force our children in public schools to worship fundamentalist Jesus. And every civil (human) rights advancement in the last 200 years seems to be hanging on by the smallest of threads.

  104. 104.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Miss Bianca: In 1992 the timing belt snapped on  my 1985 Toyota Corolla 1987 Chevy Nova at 67K miles, utterly borking the engine. GM noted I was 7K miles out of warranty & told me to go fuck myself. When I told Dad I was just going to buy a new car, he – who was carless at the time** – said, “I’d like to buy the Nova from you and have a new engine put in.” Take it for free, I said.*** His mechanic friend installed a replacement engine for $1000, and he drove that beast all over the area till his final illness 6 years later. Worked out well!

    ** My brother had persuaded him to dump his old Chevelle in favor of a much nicer ’85 Cutlass he was letting go. While Dad was in the MD MVA getting the title transferred, some wiring on the vehicle caught fire and it burned up in the parking lot. He was heartsick. We told him it was only money, and noted how lucky it was that the fire hadn’t started with him & Mom on the expressway heading down to see the grandkids – but it still took him a couple of years to get over it.

    *** This time without pyrotechnics.

  107. 107.

    gene108

    After four years of TFG, who has no ability to find joy in anything, it is soooooo refreshing to see the video of President Biden smiling, laughing, and cheering the children on their Easter egg rolls.

    He’s happy to see the kids enjoying themselves.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    mark
    @kept_simple
    ·32m
    it’s getting to the point that you can’t even incite a pogrom against queer teachers without someone revealing the name that appears in public documents related to the licensing of your personal brand

    Guffaw.

  111. 111.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Interesting report on Wispy Jared and The Butcher of Riyadh from Josh Marshall (anonymous sourcing, and I wish knew when “recent” was, but Marshall trusts his source)

    Princelings and War Crimes
    One of these high flyers I spoke to described a recent visit to Saudi Arabia which brought together power players from around the world — but particularly from the investment world — for a series of dinners, confabs and meetings. My interlocutor was one of the attendees. Each evening featured a different big dinner, with different luminaries in attendance. Some gatherings were large, some smaller, some very small, including the Crown Prince and just a handful of others. As it was described to me, at each of these events, or just about every one, there was Jared Kushner, seated right next to MBS.

  112. 112.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I don’t think he does anymore. He has a full course load, money that depends on him keeping a good GPA which he’s riding REALLY close as is our custom in the family, and a new girlfriend. He doesn’t have the time he had in high school. He just defends it on general contrarian grounds.

  114. 114.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: I just love the elaborate journalistic deference to that Court. The Court wants us to pretend abortion is still legal so despite the fact that it is not, all major media have gone along with adopting the legal fiction that most benefits the far Right.

    Truth.

    It’s how the Rs are avoiding catching any flak for it.  “What ban?  The Supreme Court didn’t overturn Roe.”

  115. 115.

    laura

    @Kay: SB8 ended Roe and the Barrett Court will get around to issuing some bullshit some sunny summer day. In the meantime, Becky Bells will have died for their sins. No men will be inconvenienced as a result.

  117. 117.

    PJ

    @Baud: More like contrarianism is the lazy faker of critical thinking skills.  It gives the appearance of applying skepticism and rigor to accepted notions without doing any of the work, and has the added benefit of making one appear “savvy” and “mavericky” in the eyes of other lazy thinkers.

  118. 118.

    gene108

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    OTthirdHand, actuarial tables and a bloodstream that’s at least 40% McDonalds could intervene in our politics at any moment

    A normal human being, with Trump’s exercise and diet regimen, would have a whole mess of health problems in their mid-70’s.

    The fact Trump does not seems to me that he won’t all of a sudden get a whole mess of health problems now.

  121. 121.

    cain

    @Elizabelle: FTF NY Times editor Dean Baquet is finally retiring. In June. To be succeeded by someone named Joseph Kahn. 57 year old white guy who looks like Brent Scowcroft (remember him)?

    I look forward to screaming “kaaaaaahhn” sometime in the future.

    ETA whaat? Someone had to say it. It’s a sacrifice – and also because I got #121.

  124. 124.

    HRA

    There have been many times when someone says public defender here and I want to just tell them about Joe Biden having been Public Defender in his first job out of law school, Have a good day everyone!

  127. 127.

    Spanky

    Since this is an OT, albeit and olde one …

    This popped up on my FB page:

    Well well well! First images of the damaged Moskva.
    What we knew before:
    1. It is really difficult to sink a 12,000 tonne cruiser with 2x150kg warheads. A well trained crew could easily save the ship.
    2. Russians are not necessarily well trained
    3. Moskva wasn’t upgraded like Marshal Ustinov and is a 1980s relic with minor upgrades to her propulsion.

    What the image adds to our know how:
    1. She was hit amidships, fore of her stacks and abeam her stack, right at her engine room 1.
    2. Scorch marks from port side holes show the fire spread aft, upto the heli hangar.
    3. She has a severe list to port because of hull breaches.
    4. The hull has buckled just fore of the heli hangar, might be a known weak point in the hull.
    5. Their Top Dome FCS is stowed, it used for the S300 so they clearly didn’t know what hit ’em. If you see an inbound missile, you are using your best systems to target it.

  129. 129.

    smedley the uncertain

    @Steeplejack: Thanks.  I tend to drive my vehicles ’till they turn up their wheels.  I always looking for automotive ER sources.

  130. 130.

    Kay

    Emri Moore
    @emrimooretv
    · Apr 13
    BREAKING: Crowd chants “GROOMING IS WRONG” as the protests outside of Disney continues. #Disney

    Completely normal political party. Are these activists on Fox yet? Closely followed by appearing on Glenn Greenwald and Joe Rogan?

  131. 131.

    JoyceH

    Here’s an OT question. I just had my pest control service out for their routine treatment. I met the guy at the door wearing a mask, and he asked if I wanted him to put on a mask – I said I’d prefer it and he went back to the truck and got his mask. Thing is, I keep hearing stories about people out in public wearing masks getting grief from non-mask wearers, or from people who are asked to mask in a space, and I’ve never experienced that. When I wear a mask in a store, nobody says anything or even looks at me weird, and when I ask people to wear a mask in my house, they politely comply. So I’m wondering about your experiences. How common is it for mask wearers to get hassled?

  132. 132.

    Old Man Shadow

    @Kay: Funny how they weren’t chanting that when Disney was turning a 10 year-old Pocahontas into a hot woman or making movies about 16 year-old girls running away from their dads to try and marry a complete stranger and grown man.

    It’s only when Disney tries to stand up for LGBTQ people that conservatives slander them.

  133. 133.

    lowtechcyclist

    @JoyceH:  It’s happened to me exactly zero times.  And I wear my mask anytime I’m in an indoor public location, like a store or the post office.

  135. 135.

    Spanky

    And in other toxic dudebro news …

    Top news

    • Analysis-Musk’s tweets fuel mining industry’s hopes of a buyout by Tesla
      Reuters – 1:35 PM ET 4/19/2022
    • Elon Musk to invest up to $15 billion of his own money to buy Twitter -NYPost
      Reuters – 1:27 PM ET 4/19/2022
  136. 136.

    lowtechcyclist

    @JoyceH: No, you gotta understand the rules! They’re fair game for cis men presenting as men, but not for cis men dressed up as women.  Which is what they regard trans women as.

  137. 137.

    ian

    @JoyceH:

    How common is it for mask wearers to get hassled?

    I’m guessing depends on where you live.  In my experience-in the urban area nearby with a college in it, almost never.  In blood red hunting and fishing lodge 60 miles west- almost every time.

  138. 138.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    “Putin’s warning shot in the form of nuclear attacks on Lviv, Wrocław, Stuttgart and Leeds, which I do not support, sends a clear message to Western neoliberals to stay away from Russia’s legitimate areas of concern.  Western governments shouldn’t take any military advantage or comfort that the attempted targeting of Lyon, Aberdeen, Almaty, Berkeley and Chicago was unsuccessful, and should instead view it as an indicator of Putin’s steely, muscular resolve.”

    – by Glenn Greenwald probably, in May

  139. 139.

    Citizen Alan

    @zhena gogolia: Same here. I saw all those blatantly homoerotic pics that I thought were meant to troll Fucker and they were all straight out of the video!  Well, for some definitions of straight, I suppose.

  144. 144.

    Starfish

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Taylor Lorenz is a writer who grew up here in Colorado. She writes on internet culture stuff. This gets her targeted by the same type of people who experienced no consequences for Gamer Gate.

    During Gamer Gate swarming incels (involuntary celibates) said they were concerned about”ethics in gamer journalism,” but in reality it was because some girl cheated on some dude, and a bunch of young men decided to target the girl and any women who were involved in journalism involving video games.

    A lot of things go back to GamerGate nonsense.

  145. 145.

    JoyceH

    @ian:

    I’m guessing depends on where you live. In my experience-in the urban area nearby with a college in it, almost never. In blood red hunting and fishing lodge 60 miles west- almost every time.

    Thing is, I live in a very red part of Virginia. But when masks were required in the stores, people wore masks in the stores, and I didn’t hear of any confrontations. (A lot of griping online in the local groups, but no in-person confrontations.) As soon as the mask requirements were lifted, I think most people removed their masks. But the people still wearing masks seem to be left alone. At least that’s my experience and from what I’ve heard locally.

  146. 146.

    Kay

    @Old Man Shadow:

    Conservatives are literally screaming about something every single day.

    You wonder when the country just gets tired of it. I can’t even keep up. There wasn’t even a week between screaming about vaccines and masks and screaming about how everyone is a pedophile. It’s one big ball of rage.

    And what about that- “pedophile”?  Since the Right nows screeches 24/7 that everyone is a pedophile will real pedophiles go undetected? Boy who cried wolf?

  147. 147.

    Kay

    @Old Man Shadow:

    It didn’t even stop during Trump. They had their God-King in charge and STILL they were screaming at people. You can give them the Right wing authoritarian state they all yearn for and they’ll still be lousy with grievance, because someone somewhere said or did something they don’t approve of.

  148. 148.

    Tarragon

    @JoyceH: when I ask people to wear a mask in my house, they politely comply

    Lucky, I just had a company in to quote an appliance repair.  Asked tech doing diagnostic to wear a mask.   He complied but reluctantly.

    He diagnoses problem and quotes a repair, and I accept. He says the part needs to be ordered.

    A week later I call to get an estimate on timing and the receptionist tells us, “Oh, I understood you declined service.”  I tell her I want it fixed so she says she’ll check on what happened and get back with a time estimate.

    Two days later I haven’t heard so I call them she tells me that the tech refuses to do the work if he’s required to wear a mask.  No comment on the declined thing but I assume the tech simply lied and said I declined.

    Needless to say I’m never using them again and making sure people know not to use them.  They’ve done work for me before and probably would have again if they weren’t drinks about it, so they lost this business and future business.

  149. 149.

    Kay

    This is just weird. They’re now afraid to report the news? A Senator was actively working to overturn an election, they have texts to prove it and they’re all planning on pretending it didn’t happen?

    Media Matters
    @mmfa
    · 37m
    NEW: Broadcast networks’ flagship news programs have yet to report on text messages between Mark Meadows and lawmakers Mike Lee (R-UT) and Chip Roy (R-TX), in which they strategized ways to overturn the results of the 2020 election in favor of Trump

  151. 151.

    Kay

    @lowtechcyclist:

    They’ve gotten so much worse. They are running a national political campaign that rests on calling everyone who is not on the far Right a pedophile. They launched this on television, during a SCOTUS confirmation hearing.

    It’s normalized now. You can’t dial it past “they’re all pedophiles”. It’s the worst thing to be.

    I don’t know where they go from here but it ain’t gonna be good. We’re genuinely close to the “rounding up my political enemies” stage.

  153. 153.

    germy

    Looks like the NYT is going to be in good hands! Someone went and read the journalism Kahn was doing while at Harvard:

    Kahn’s focus on school governance did not preclude him from wading into other topics — like federal deficit spending (bad), or pay equity (questionable at best), or America’s culpability in Middle Eastern conflicts (not “in any way” responsible). In a 1984 piece called “Incomparable Waste,” for example, Kahn opined on the increasingly loud calls for “comparable worth,” or what some might call “equal pay for equal work.” Kahn’s take on the matter — which largely concerns the onerous burden it would impose on business — can be summed up by this line: “The concept sounds good, but then so did Communism.”

    Possibly his views have evolved since then. But if he’d evolved too much, he wouldn’t have been chosen to replace Baquet.

  154. 154.

    Kay

    @lowtechcyclist:

    There’s a far Right House candidate who is seeking to beat far Right Madison Cawthorne. She is asking Democrats to vote for her in a GOP primary so she can beat Madison Cawthorne. I went to her Facebook page. She’s planning on impeaching Joe Biden if she wins. Just the level of entitlement in that- her “ask” is that Democrats help her win her political race so she can impeach the Democratic President. There’s no benefit to Democrats at all from electing her, but she’s walking around thinking she’s entitled to their help.

    She gets everything she wants, you get nothing. This is the mindset. We’re here to serve them.

  155. 155.

    Brachiator

    @Tarragon:

    Two days later I haven’t heard so I call them she tells me that the tech refuses to do the work if he’s required to wear a mask.  No comment on the declined thing but I assume the tech simply lied and said I declined.

    Wow. I would make sure that the company knew that their techs were killing the ccompany’s business. I would make sure that they knew that this dishonesty on the part of the tech damaged the company’s reputation.

    Sadly, I think there will be more of this kind of thing.

  158. 158.

    ian

    @Kay:

    You can’t dial it past “they’re all pedophiles”. It’s the worst thing to be.

    Just wait till we get to next week.

  159. 159.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Leto: only surprises me as I’ve thought of Gorsuch as more a politician than Kavanaugh or Coney-Barrett, who I think of as closer to the ideologues Thomas and Alito

  160. 160.

    Kay

    Ronald Brownstein
    @RonBrownstein
    In ntl
    @cnn
    poll, 47% R women & 43% men oppose ending #Roe. In U-T/
    @TexasTribune
    40% GOP women oppose state’s #abortion “trigger” ban & 1/3 GOP oppose “vigilante lawsuit” bill. Only ~1/2 GOP voters back FL 15 week ban w/no rape-incest exception. Yet Rs confident they won’t bolt

    I’m glad they’re polling on it. At least people will find out about it. I’m sure they have to describe the laws in the question since for some reason there’s a news blackout on the new, radical laws banning abortion.

  162. 162.

    Brachiator

    @Kay:

    And what about that- “pedophile”?  Since the Right nows screeches 24/7 that everyone is a pedophile…

    The proper response is, I can’t be a pedophile. I’m not a Catholic priest, a scoutmaster, an Olympic coach or a Republican congressman.

  164. 164.

    Kay

    @JoyceH:

    I ask people if they want me to wear a mask in my office because I want them do business with me and it’s not actually about me but is instead about them, but apparently conservatives don’t have concerns like that and don’t need any other clients outside the rabid GOP base.

    I can’t imagine objecting to it when someone sought out my services and is paying me. What is wrong with these people? Who raised them? Wolves?

    They already can’t attend public schools without being disruptive. Now they can’t have customer service jobs either?

  165. 165.

    Geminid

    @JoyceH: I live in red Greene County, adjacent to purple Albemarle and blue Charlottesville. When I shop in Stanardsville I am in the substantial minority wearing a mask. The grocery store staff is half masked. Nobody seems to mind what other people do. I haven’t heard a discouraging word.

  166. 166.

    Brachiator

     

    Recently I listened to some talk radio hosts discussing this tidbit about Biden’s judicial nominees.

    When factoring in the new slate, 72 percent of Biden’s picks for judges will be women, 30 percent will be Black, 21 percent will be Hispanic and 19 percent will be Asian American, the White House official said. In terms of personal background, 27 percent will be public defenders and 22 percent will be civil rights lawyers.

    Ironically, it was the conservative female host who had the most problem with the high number of women nominees. “Maybe I am from the 1950s, but I wonder if Republican women will object to this. Biden should select the most qualified candidate.”

    Interesting false assumption that male nominees are presumably qualified, while women candidates must prove that they are qualified.

  167. 167.

    Ruckus ??

    @Kay:

    The entire group of political mouth breathers on the right side of the aisle – the influencers, work at keeping the right side voters on the boil so that they don’t have a moment to ever find out how full of shit they are. They also do this so that they don’t have to come up with any actual, realistic reasons for the same people to vote for anyone else. Pissed off people will vote for whomever they think will protect them the best, and it’s all reactionary, emotional, no thought allowed or ever encouraged. It’s the only way they get people to vote consistently against themselves, never let them see anything but rage. Armies in the past have used this concept successfully in warfare.

  168. 168.

    Kay

    This is brave:

    Mallory McMorrow
    @MalloryMcMorrow
    Senator Lana Theis accused me by name of grooming and sexualizing children in an attempt to marginalize me for standing up against her marginalizing the LGBTQ community…in a fundraising email, for herself.
    Hate wins when people like me stand by and let it happen. I won’t.

    I so, so hope it backfires on them because they are all in. They can’t go back now.

  169. 169.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Kay:

    To be clear: Greenwald & co. want a world where there is a social penalty for being trans but not for being transphobic. That’s not the current world. So they want a special carve-out of anonymity for trans-shaming in order to create a semblance of that world.

  170. 170.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @JoyceH: Yesterday, I had a customer who said he couldn’t hear me due to my wearing a mask.  I raised my voice and repeated what I said.

    ETA: This is a guy who thought he could haul 20′ 1/2″ rebar in a sedan.

  171. 171.

    Leto

    @Kay: idk, it’s another tactic that the right is all too happy to copy from their Russian betters, and there’s no downside to it. It’s Lyndon Johnson pig fucker politics. And their cult base is more than happy to go along.

  172. 172.

    Bupalos

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Ick. Fate? Seriously?

    Obviously it’s way too soon, but I have a very hard time seeing how this works out. I’m rooting hard for him to figure out that 82 is simply its own health situation.

  173. 173.

    Bupalos

    @Kay: That was powerful. If its ever going to “backfire” on them it will because people like us are led by people like this and MAKE it backfire.

  177. 177.

    Jeffro

    @Kay:

    @Bupalos:

    I saw her speech come through my Twitter feed and was blown away.  Just straight-up went. right. at. these creeps.  Love it.  Moar plz Dems.

  181. 181.

    Kay

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    Greenwald is Fox News for the 40 to 65 year old bracket. Bitter, middle aged former “radicals” who want to control and manage the culture so it’s identical to when they came up.

  182. 182.

    Kropacetic

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Yesterday, I had a customer who said he couldn’t hear me due to my wearing a mask.

    I get that a lot at work too. Never on phone calls, though, even if the mask slips into my mouth. Funny, that.

  188. 188.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Kropacetic: Basically, we were telling the guy to go to the entrance by the Pro Desk instead of the Service Desk where he had parked, since moving 20′ rebar though a crowded store is somewhat impractical.  He was being a dick

    ETA: If one of the managers saw me moving 20′ rebar though the store, they’d tell me to take it to the Pro Desk.

  192. 192.

    germy

    @Steeplejack:

    Hilarious.  As soon as I clicked post comment I said to myself “someone’s going to reply with ‘leave him alone, he was just a kid!'”

  193. 193.

    catclub

    @Brachiator: ​
     

    but I wonder if Republican women will object to this. Biden should select the most qualified candidate.”

    Interesting that all of the most qualified candidates were members of theFederalist society when Trump was prez.

  194. 194.

    catclub

    @germy: ​
     Henry Hyde, at maybe 70, tried to claim the adulterous affair he had was a youthful indiscretion, at 43.

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