Look at the physique of our formerly little Pete! He’s a bruiser!
He’s eight months old now and slightly taller than Badger but significantly broader across the chest and with stouter limbs. I guess that’s his Frenchy side coming through. We’ll probably have to watch his weight when he’s older.
Open thread!
COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Thursday / Friday, June 16-17
Baud
So big.
I feel old now.
O. Felix Culpa
He definitely has the Frenchie chest and bat ears. His head is smaller and legs longer than a Frenchie’s though; must be the Boston Terrier side. And yes, Frenchies tend towards the…portly. In a dignified way, of course.
NotMax
And now for something completely different.
:·)
Fraud Guy
Pretty buff, but doesn’t match the brawn of a Pekingnese.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone
rikyrah
Awe Pete
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
WereBear
What a cute big boy! Poor Baxter.
raven
I think Tasha is a Boston but it doesn’t really matter because this is hilarious!
Betty Cracker
@raven: Hahaha! Those ears coming up behind the flower pot!
Steeplejack
He’s a right mixer! [Hard Day’s Night voice]
Betty
What a handsome lad. Is he being nice to Badger these days?
NotMax
He’d fit right in at this here digital clambake. Except for that being expired thing.
Soprano2
This is an interesting view of the Jan. 6th hearings from TPM:
I’m not sure I agree with all of this. But TPM Reader JB captures an important part of what’s happening in these hearings.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
Good morning!
Betty Cracker
Because of his comparative stockiness, Pete isn’t as good a jumper as the more svelte and athletic Badger, so Badger still has one place he can go to escape puppy harassment: the bar stools at the counter.
@Betty: They mostly get along, but Badger doesn’t want to play all the time, and Pete does.
kalakal
One of those things that look utterly weird. Filming a helicopter when the camera perfectly syncs with the rotor blades
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/vdreyo/my_camera_perfectly_synchronized_with_this/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x
Baud
@Soprano2:
I think he took the rhetoric too far here.
SFAW
@NotMax:
Info that you might find interesting (or not):
Was in GN earlier this week. The block of buildings that housed the Playhouse movie theater was partially/completely demolished; I assume it’s for the construction of some new abomination. The Squire — or at least, its marquee and the art gallery it houses — is still there.
NeenerNeener
Hard to believe that’s the little butterball that shocked Badger by running into the room a few months back. They grow up so fast.
NotMax
‘@Betty Cracker
“Set ’em up again, barkeep. Kibble. Straight.”
Elizabelle
Pete is such a darling. Too big to be messed with by an owl at this point.
@rikyrah: Good morning. How is your sister?
Elizabelle
@Soprano2:
I don’t agree with this part at all. Show trial? Excuse me? Not concerned with the truth?
Bannon etc. didn’t show because their lying asses would have to be under oath.
And the hearings are utterly improved by not having the poo-flinging circus clowns howling. More of that, please.
Danielx
Yes, it is possible to get Covid after vaccination and two boosters, and yes it sucks.
Frank Wilhoit
@Baud: Fight fire with fire and all that, but that is not even the primary reason to turn up the heat. The primary reason is to make them lose their nerve sooner. They always lose their nerve, but often so late that it makes little difference. We can make them lose their nerve right out of the box in most cases, and that is what we need to do. And, since performance, is the only thing they understand, then performance is how we need to do it.
OzarkHillbilly
I give you, the great defender of free speech, the Muskmouse!
SpaceX employees fired after writing letter criticizing Elon Musk
Yes, because Musk is so easily made to feel “uncomfortable, intimidated, bullied, and angry” by anyone who does not fall to their knees and kiss the ground he walks on every time he meanders by.
It’s that last bit that got them fired. I mean, if the richest man in the world can’t engage in unacceptable behavior without repercussions, what’s the point?
Steeplejack
@kalakal:
Trippy. I saw a video a few weeks ago where the same thing happened with a bird’s wings flapping.
kalakal
This makes my day, one of my favourite watering holes back in the UK has now been made developer proof
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/jun/15/18th-century-leeds-pub-upgraded-to-grade-ii-listed-status?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
dww44
@Elizabelle: Strongly agree ,with the added advantage of telling the story of January 6 with the voices and faces of those in the room, as it were.
narya
TIL that one traditionally makes ricotta cheese from whey, NOT from milk. I attempted making mozzarella last year–it was successful, but I ended up with SO much whey. I used the whey in baking, but it still felt like a lot of it to manage. I’m excited to try this, though–make the mozzarella, then immediately use the whey to make ricotta. (A coworker gave me rennet & citric acid; as she shuttled through pandemic hobbies, she’d offload extra stuff from the previous hobby, and I was the beneficiary of the cheesemaking supplies. Blessed are the cheesemakers . . . )
NotMax
‘@SFAW
Plans have been afoot for a while to transform the main drag adjoining the LIRR station into buildings with shops at street level and low-rise apartments above. Now if only someone would have the gumption to open up a bakery again.
Last time was there (2019) at least one-third of the storefronts were empty. Can’t imagine things didn’t spiral further downward once COVID arrived. Last supermarket in commercial district in town also closed up shop since then. And it’s not exactly a ZIP code known for being low on the socio-economic ladder.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
Agreed. And it’s not a “show trial” or any other kind of trial. He’s using unhelpful rightwing rhetoric. The earlier points he makes are interesting, though.
ETA: And I see Elizabelle was ahead of me at #23. You go, girl! :)
Steeplejack
@Baud:
Yeah, that was a bit over the top.
To me, this hearing is more like a “real” hearing than those in recent history. People are asking questions, marshaling facts and organizing information. When did they adopt the wretched format where every committee member gets five minutes to blow complete bullshit that they can pipe to their crazed base later?
Soprano2
@Baud: Oh, I think he’s wrong about what the key value is here. I think the key value is to use video, e-mails and other written evidence and testimony to tell a coherent story about what happened before and on January 6th, so that people who aren’t like us can understand what happened. I wouldn’t call it a “show trial” because it’s not a trial at all. I want Democrats to keep repeating, over and over, that Republicans had a chance for a “bi-partisan panel” to look into this, but they rejected it because they didn’t want any kind of investigation at all! It’s actually a constructive hearing because half the members of the committee aren’t turning it into a circus.
I heard a story on NPR this morning where they interviewed people about whether they were watching or listening to the hearings, and what they were getting from them. Only one person, a woman, said she wasn’t paying any attention at all. Of course she brought up the price of gas as being more important, and then said she didn’t understand why they were wasting their time because it happened 2 years ago, why does anyone still care. I wish the interviewer had been able to ask her if she also thought the 9-11 hearings weren’t worth having, because they happened 2 years after the event! I mean what an idiotic thing to say…..
OzarkHillbilly
@narya: Well obviously, you are speaking of the whole dairy industry.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I think it’s hysterical that after all the hype of this guy his Twitter posts are “red wave coming!” and “I’m supporting Ron DeSantis!”
What a bore he is.
Karen S.
My dear old dad is probably one of the last people on his street to subscribe to a daily newspaper. He subscribes to three—the two Chicago dailies and the Daily Herald, a paper that covers Chicago’s northwest suburbs. When I was visiting Dad the other day, I learned from the Herald that there are 8 or 9 GOPers vying for the GOP nomination to run against Tammy Duckworth in November. I skimmed the candidates’ answers to the paper’s questionnaire about their positions on various issues. One of the questions asked if they believed that Pres. Biden is the president. Each answer was some variation of “The 2020 election was totally unfair!” or “There is evidence in Georgia and Arizona that there was shenanigans!” It’s strange that these people seem to live in a distorted parallel universe. Fortunately, it’s hard to unseat an incumbent so Duckworth should be fine.
O. Felix Culpa
@narya:
I’d be interested to hear how that works out. I worked for a time at a goat dairy, milking the goats and making cheese, and we fed the extra whey to the chickens.
OzarkHillbilly
She’s not alone, neither am I. The only thing I would get out of these hearings is higher blood pressure and I really don’t need that just now.
lowtechcyclist
@Elizabelle:
Best of all, the Rethugs did that to themselves, by refusing to agree to any any of the more inclusive options the Dems proposed.
Soprano2
@Steeplejack: I don’t know, I suppose it was to be “fair”. I like the way this committee is doing it, having one member ask all the questions at each hearing (and having counsel ask some questions) rather than each member taking turns. That gives it more gravitas, because it doesn’t seem like every member is grandstanding to get 30 seconds on CNN. So many Congressional hearings have the feeling of people trying to get famous on TV rather than actually trying to gather information.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I can’t vote for Dems any harder without breaking the machine.
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly: I think Kay nailed it earlier in a discussion about elite media Substackers who are obsessed with reversing changing social mores that don’t center themselves. The same mindset applies to tech douche-bros like Musk and many others (see the crypto workplace turmoil) who complain about free speech when criticized by people with less power while gravitating toward fascists who are actually suppressing it via government.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: I would not call it a “show trial.” That would mean they all got shot in the back of the neck at the end of the proceedings.
Percysowner
After 55 hours I finally have power back! Columbus had a huge outage that mostly got resolved yesterday afternoon, except my street. The power company thought we were on, but no! We are on a funny little separate grid that they didn’t get fixed until 11:00 last night. Fortunately I had a couple of places I could camp out, so it wasn’t too awful most of the time. Now all I have to do is let the AC to cool the house down from a balmy 81 degrees and throw away most the stuff in my fridge.
My poor cat will be so happy when I’m back, because I couldn’t take him with me, so I just kept running back to feed him and give him water.
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly:
I find the hearings curiously refreshing. They’re calm, measured, and fact-based. They’re building a compelling narrative using almost entirely the words of highly placed Republican officials and apparatchiks. No histrionics at all.
The videos of the violence and His Orange FAILED Highness are definitely unpleasant and could lead to blood pressure spikes.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: I don’t know, it’s pretty satisfying to hear all these Republicans talking about TFG losing, and how crazy he and all the people around him were. I think another value of this hearing is to show that not all Republicans are TFG fans, and that they knew at the time that this scheme was wrong.
zhena gogolia
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s a mistake. They are deeply therapeutic.
NotMax
‘@Baud
The disembodied spirit of Hugo Chavez will repair it.
//
Kay
@Elizabelle:
I think the’ve done a great job but this last one I think they spent too much time on outlining and then taking apart the Right wing theory that the VP can overturn an election. It’s a ridiculous theory, none of them believed it and spending so much time on it makes it more important than it is, or was.
It was a pretext for overturning an election and remaining in power. If they hadn’t have used that they would have some used some other elaborate lie. I get that Right wing lawyers who are employed by Mike Pence have to produce memos knocking this theory down, but the rest of us shouldn’t be forced to listen to tendentious, quasi legal analysis that they all knew was bullshit.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: I once asked a white guy who was complaining about how “they have to give all the jobs to black people and women now” how it felt to have to stand in line rather than always being at the front of the line. He looked at me and walked off, but didn’t answer the question. These people think they have earned the right to always be at the center of everything, to be the people who set the rules of how things are supposed to be. They’re losing that power, and they’re furious about it!
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
Disagree. We were not the audience for that hearing, and it was necessary to hit that bit of disinformation hard.
Baud
NotMax
‘@Kay
Can’t properly affix a coffin lid with a single nail.
Repetition of fact may even break though to at least a portion of those deluded by repetition of lies.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Okay, hold on a minute . . .
danielx
If TFG is demanding equal time, hearings are definitely having an impact.
I’m sure network CEOs are going to fall over themselves in their hurry to assuage his wounded fee-fees.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Do you think there’s an upside to dragging his carcass across the pond to house and prosecute at great expense to the U.S. taxpayer? I’m open to arguments that it is, but I’m not convinced it’s worth the trouble.
Geminid
@Baud: The CBS radio news reported that the U.S. offered a set of assurances to the U.K. in the event extradion was made. One was that Assange serve out any prison term in Australia.
Kay
@O. Felix Culpa:
I was really annoyed by Pence’s lawyer. I don’t think he added anything. It’s his job to accept any crackpot Right wing theory and do any “legal analysis” he’s ordered to do but I really don’t want to listen to it.
Luttig can provide essentially the same testimony without the fawning and the excuse-making of the Pence employee.
Elizabelle
@Kay: I thought it was a compelling hearing. Even the “Saint Pence” crap, and his bible thumping legal/admin staff. When did the word “Babylon” last appear in a Congressional hearing?
And will have to read Judge Luttig’s remarks; it was remarkable that he made himself available, in person, because — as he reminded at the end — they will try this again in 2024.
This one was more geared to the truly devoted, but it sliced and diced John Eastman quite nicely. And I guess he and Giuliani are the entry points for going at Trump?
Immanentize
@zhena gogolia: Hete is my favorite show trial on film:
Soprano2
We had to take our dog Nitro to the emergency vet last night. He had the weirdest cut on his belly – it looked almost like a surgical cut, and it was on the bottom of his belly. The ER vet couldn’t understand how he got it, either – she took a pic and sent it to our regular vet. I’m going to be interested in what our regular vet thinks about it. As far as we know he’s never had surgery, but OTOH we only got him 3 years ago and he’s around 16, so he could have had surgery and we wouldn’t know about it. He also didn’t seem to be bothered by it at all – he didn’t try to lick it or paw at it, and didn’t seem to be in pain from it.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
As a Pence guy, of course he was smarmy and annoying. He also provided compelling testimony. His smarm is the charm for the evangelical audience out there, and don’t think some of them weren’t watching. Neither you nor I were the target audience for yesterday’s hearing and our feelings about the witnesses don’t matter. ;)
Elizabelle
@Geminid: Assange serving any sentence in Australia sounds fine by me.
He’s been in sanctuary and then UK jail for so long that the world has turned for him, too. Don’t think Assange seems so brave and truth-telling now.
Reminds me that Cambridge Analytica still has not faced investigation, or justice, either. What’s going on with that? These bad actors do not just disappear. You have to take them out.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
So I was short of CLEs this year, and had to get a bunch in a big way – so I’m at the KBA convention in Owensboro, a small city in Western Kentucky.
To show what we face nationwide, I’ll relate a discussion I was in. Me and some brand new patent lawyer were talking to a Thomson Reuters marketing rep – generic lawyer stuff. Unbidden, a personal injury lawyer from the hinterlands (late thirties, pasty, puffy and stupidly wearing a suit) started whining about Fortune 500 companies putting up pride imagery and positive pride statements, about how that alienated people who don’t believe in that and was “bad marketing”. My response was along the lines of “the vast majority of their revenue is generated by the far larger groups of people who live in urban spaces where this sort of thing is popular. They’re not worried about Cletus in his rural manufactured home, and gain far more with the imagery.”
He didn’t like that, and stomped off.
They’re so used to only speaking to each other that they can’t envision a larger world.
Ken
@Baud: Now they just have to find a country that will take him.
“But he’s committed all these crimes!”
“Yes, but we’d have to have Julian Assange in our country for the duration of the trial.”
“Good point….”
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Why wouldn’t prosecuting people who break the law have an upside?
Soprano2
@Kay: I disagree, I think they had to spend a lot of time knocking it down because too many people have come to believe it’s legitimate. You have to repeat things a lot to get them to break through to people’s brains.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
There was no ambiguity in what was supposed to happen, no “legal analysis” required, which is what Luttig said. They created ambiguity. I don’t have to entertain their crackpot theories- Mike Pence’s legal advisors do because they are employed by Mike Pence but I don’t.
Baud
@Geminid:
Once a penal colony, always a penal colony.
Soprano2
That describes a lot of people where I live, too. They can’t stand the idea that other places are different from here. Everywhere in the world is supposed to be “comfortable” for them, at least in their opinion. How dare any place be different!
Immanentize
@Kay: But Pence’s lawyer was there. Right there. And although I don’t believe these folks are the sanctimonious priests they portray, even that was a nice double edged sword. Made me dislike the whole crew more, made some people nod when he referred to Daniel.
By the way, why are these creeps such lazy bible people? Daniel in the Lion’s Den? Really? OMG! Its like they just listened to popular music — in this case The Band — for all their relevant stirring biblical references. Phonies with a capital PHONE.
The real value of this hearing is that all the witnesses are Republicans. Whether good Rs or bad. It is not a show trial — feels more like a mafia trial in which most of the witnesses are Mafia members — including accountants and low lovely soldiers.
O. Felix Culpa
@Elizabelle:
Here’s a link to Luttig’s prepared statement. Powerful stuff. Given his labored delivery–which was fine in my view, but many even on this here top 10k blog had a hard time with it–I can see why the committee did not have him read it.
The tocsin warning Luttig delivered at the end of the hearing, about the “clear and present danger” of the Trumpists’ continuing plans to overthrow democracy was compelling and invaluable.
Baud
@Immanentize:
If you want someone who has read and knows the Bible, find an atheist.
kalakal
@Immanentize:
“People with ropes around their necks don’t always hang.” …
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Soprano2:
Thank you for writing the companion piece to the one I dropped below.
Baud
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
There’s a lot of that going around.
Immanentize
@Baud: That might be true. But some Catholics who cut ties with the church are none too shabby in that department as well.
It would be smart for the wingers to start banning the Bible, because reading it leads to all sorts of … Thoughts.
Elizabelle
@O. Felix Culpa: Thank you! Yeah, I was a person who was put off by the exceedingly slow delivery, but recognized it might be aphasia.
Although, even if not, props to him for being there and being so forthright.
This hearing did not have as many soundbites or easy takeaways (“The big lie was the the big rip-off, $250 million …”) but it’s another brick in the foundation.
Chairman Thompson mentioned a tip line as he closed, and Jamie Raskin (?) and others make it sound like witnesses are coming out of the walls. So who knows what is going on behind the scenes. The J6 may be having a bigger impact than many expected.
narya
@OzarkHillbilly: I knew someone would come up with the next line; it IS a full-service blog, after all.
@O. Felix Culpa: Absolutely. The thought of ending up with fresh mozzarella AND fresh ricotta, for the (high) price of a gallon of non-homogenized milk from a local farmer makes me happy. And any remaining whey will end up in bread or something. Truly, the main thing holding me back from making more mozzarella was all of the whey I had to find a way to use. (I’m constitutionally incapable of just dumping it. But then, I get spent grain from my home brewer friend, so . . .)
Kay
@Soprano2:
The people invading the capitol were not relying on a legal theory – they were not there because of ambiguity in the electoral count act. Luttig rejects this as any kind of good faith legal analysis, and I do too.
Immanentize
@kalakal: Truer words never spoken.
Soprano2
Yep, not a liberal in sight. Makes it a lot harder to say they’re all just liberals who are out to get TFG.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: I feel like that’s a dig at The Band, and I’m not sure why.
debbie
@Steeplejack:
To me, the impeachment trials were more like presentations than anything else.
japa21
@Kay:
Slightly disagree. Most people have not heard this theory before and it is obvious that the authoritarian party is thinking of using it again in the future. It’s important people recognize it when they try it again.
debbie
@Kay:
What a bore they all are. The hollow men.
narya
@Soprano2: I agree. And my normie friend and I listened to Day 2 on Monday on our way back from camping–and yesterday he watched by himself. The challenge is that the Iran-Contra hearings disgusted him; all of that obvious criminality, and no consequences. I’ve been providing Context Context History Context, and arguing that it’s still worth doing these hearings. He does keep saying “I’m glad I’m old; they’re destroying my country.”
Ken
@Soprano2: Though I’m sure every person who makes that claim would turn on a dime if VP Harris tried to use it in January 2025. Maybe that would be a valuable lesson, assuming the Democrat is elected. Harris could announce:
“As has been known since four days after the election, the Democratic candidate does have a majority of the electoral votes and has won the election. However I am setting aside the votes from Texas, Alabama, and both Dakotas just because as Vice President I can. This gives the Democratic candidate an even larger majority.”
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
Actually not true, as borne out by the clips of rioters saying “Pence could have overturned the election/electoral votes and didn’t, the traitor!” That absurd legal theory took root in the RW political ecosphere and people tried to kill Mike Pence because of it.
Soprano2
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: You’re welcome. I think it’s valuable for liberals who live in TFG-loving areas to provide this kind of information. I think it’s hard for people who live in mostly liberal areas to understand just how much all these people love TFG.
Some outfit called Liberty Alliance listed the public school in my city as one of the top 12 most “woke” places in Missouri, based on a training course for teachers that was written about in 2021. In conservatives’ minds, having a diversity training for teachers makes this a “woke” school district! This is an area that voted over 60% for TFG, where all the elected officials are Republicans and only two of the state reps are Democrats, and they think it’s “woke”. *rolleyes
Immanentize
@Elizabelle: forget the tip line. The critical thing Rep. Thompson said at the end was the invitation to those still sitting on the fence to contact the committee. That was super critical and well timed. Translation — “You didn’t believe us before when we said we know everything, that all the pieces are before us. But now you know you have every reason to believe that we have the goods on you. Did you like how we slipped in the fact that Eastman asked for a pardon? Well we have the complete list and you might want to come talk to us about that — and other things (etc.)”
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Soprano2:
I mean, the smug certitude on this clown’s face, where all of American society needs to defer to the most common view of the most parochial, least worldly holler-dwellers is Holy Writ.
NotMax
‘@Kay
That it was crackpot is unassailable but beside the point when it comes to assigning motive. It percolated up to become the crux (if not the holy writ) of the last act of the push to seize power, aided and abetted by the likes of Hawley and Gosar. And the whole sorry lot of them came perilously closer to pulling it off than not.
debbie
@O. Felix Culpa:
Especially since they’re planning to use it again in 2024.
Elizabelle
@Danielx:
Wishing you a speedy return to health. Keep us posted. Good you are boosted.
Elizabelle
@Immanentize: Yes indeed.
Soprano2
@Kay: Yes, but unfortunately too many of them have seized on it after the fact as being something that’s real, when it’s not. Sadly the committee has to spend time knocking that idea down so hard that it can’t get up again.
MisterDancer
Also on TPM, this is interesting, given how many people want Garland’s head, right now: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/doj-fight-with-jan-6-committee-bursts-into-the-open
It appears the DoJ, n a court filing, is saying that the Jan. 6th Committee isn’t providing information the DoJ needs for current court cases around the Insurrection. Which is different than how a lot of the chatter has seen the situation.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize:
Good point. Between Raskin’s comments and Thompson’s closing…invitation…the remaining rats should be squirming in their ships, to mix my metaphors. :)
debbie
@Immanentize:
They never got beyond reading the Golden Book Picture Bible. //
Kay
@NotMax:
IMO, we spend way too much time in this country “analyzing” the ravings of Right wing nut lawyers and the smarmy, careerist “respectable” Right wing lawyers who give the nuts cover.
Geminid
@Baud: I think that the information on the DNC that Assange put out was received from Russian intelligence, and I see his actions as part of the larger Russian effort to interfere in the 2016 election. So I have no problem with him being tried even if it’s on charges not directly related to the election.
I have a lot of animus towards Assange because I think he helped elect Trump. He had a personal hostilty towards Hillary Clinton, and he took it out on our country. So I’m eager to see him tried. I have no problem with Assange (If convicted) serving out a sentence in Australia if that is the deal.
O. Felix Culpa
@debbie:
Ms. O grew up in the fundamentalist world. They memorize a lot of bible verses (sword drills, anyone?), but what they learn is selective and the interpretation even more so.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: not at all! I was just thinking of Daniel and the Sacred Harp and how he got lost in sin. Also, King Harvest is one of my top 10 all time fave songs. Republicans could learn a lot from the Grange movement.
Karen S.
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
Friend of mine who’s a 60ish white guy has said for years that he’s ended up in conversations with white bigoted guys who assume he’s like them. He’s delighted to let them know he’s not like them once they start in on their bigoted nonsense.
kalakal
Like several posters I find these hearings both therapeutic* and satisfying. It’s the remorseless piling up of the evidence, the building up of a structure implicating TFG & his acolytes, the use of Repubs own words and testimonies to demolish the lies and evasions. This isn’t Dems declaiming how criminal and dangerous Jan 6 was, while true that would be easily dismissed, it’s the MAGA rats doing it. I was impressed from the very beginning how they went full blooded straight at TFG, no wasting time on the foot soldiers and middle rankers. And no euphemisms, straight out the declaration that this was an attempt to overthrow the US government. I found Luttig yesterday utterly compelling, espescially his stark warning for the future. This wasn’t news to us Jackels but it is to a lot of people
*the insurrection video was not therapeutic, that was horrific
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
Once again, there’s a direct line between the ravings of these rightwing lawyers and the attempted murder of Mike Pence.
That’s important evidence in my world.
NotMax
‘@Kay
Even an outhouse cannot be dismantled and its component parts consigned to the junk heap without wielding tools.
Immanentize
@debbie: i still love Golden Books — but not the Bible ones. Mr. Dog (the dog who belonged to himself) by Helen Wise Brown might still be my favorite.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize:
Perhaps you mean Margaret Wise Brown? Who was one of the best children’s book authors ever.
kalakal
@Karen S.: I have had conversations with white guys who will suddenly get on to the evils of immigrants.
When I point out I’m an immigrant* it tends to stop them in their tracks. I’ve even had the “Oh we don’t mean you…”
I suspect that my skin tone is fish belly may have something to do with it
* Strictly speaking I’m not an immigrant, I’m a permanent resident
Danielx
@Kay:
cough****Jonathan Turley****cough
Soprano2
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I go back to my mother telling me several years ago that she didn’t care that there were gay people, she just wished they’d go back in the closet so she didn’t have to see them! She hated seeing gay people on TV and in public, being out and proud of being gay. She wanted them to have to hide and be ashamed, because that’s how it was when she was younger and that’s what she was comfortable with. The whole world was supposed to conform with what she was comfortable with. That’s how conservatives think in general in my experience
ETA – I’m listening to the first part of the hearing, and I can see why Luttig’s presentation drove people crazy. Sounds like either overcoming a stutter, aphasia or having had a stroke to me. It’s rare that people talk like that all the time.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Karen S.:
They always think that if you look like them, you think like them.
Kay
@Danielx:
Luttig said it. He said they “got wrapped around the axle” entertaining, analyzing, spending weeks on, this crackpot theory. I don’t want to be dragged into being wrapped around the axle with them. It’s a Right wing lawyer problem- they have to pander to their bosses because they have their eye on their next job on the Right- I don’t.
NotMax
‘@Kay
I’ll put it another way as well.
Figuratively pulling back the curtains on the wizards and exposing them for what they are and what and who they represent is a good thing. Discrediting the rhetoric a step toward discrediting the men (or women) and thence discrediting the movement they represent or espouse.
JPL
@Percysowner: Once I lost power for three plus days because of storms in the area. It was in October though so not terrible. The other day I lost power for a hour and it was awful.
Poor kitty.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: That would outweigh the hassle, I mean. It’s not like every crime that could be prosecuted is. Just wondering if this one is worth it.
Miss Bianca
Ohhhh, PEEEEETE!!
That is all. Thank you.
Scout211
I didn’t remember that Eastman was such an awful person until his current involvement in the insurrection planning made him a public figure. From The Advocate:
JPL
@Danielx: It’s surprising that people are still willing to pay Turley for his analysis. He’s not even a good at spreading fake legal advice.
Miss Bianca
@OzarkHillbilly: Y’know, I keep hearing this “Musk is the richest man in the world” stuff, and I keep wondering, what the hell happened to Jeff Bezos? How many billions is Musk actually sitting on, compared to him?
SFAW
@NotMax:
You mean South Middle Neck? Or stuff closer to the station? Because (I think) that’s been a format that’s been around that area since we were kids.
But, yeah, lots of storefronts empty. At least Leonard’s is still in business. And plenty of people still double-park on Middle Neck Road.
Scout211
Betty C: can you rescue me from moderation?
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
What hassle? It’s taken a long time to get to this point because of Assange’s actions, but the trial itself should be straightforward.
Kay
@MisterDancer:
The select committee has a tiny investigative staff and nothing NEAR the resources of the DOJ. Why on earth is the DOJ relying on the select committee investigation? What if there had been no select committee? The mighty DOJ with their multi billion dollar annual budget then couldn’t prosecute the Proud Boys for seditious conspiracy?
SFAW
@Immanentize:
You think it was easy for Tuco to do all that? He could have taken the easy way out, like his brother, Brother Ramirez, but he chose the harder path.
But I’m sure he regretted not being around for his mother.
JPL
Didn’t Eastman say he didn’t talk about matters before the court?
What does this mean (link)
Ken
@O. Felix Culpa: The fascinating thing about the Prisoner’s Dilemma is that, although both players are better off when both choose the “cooperate” strategy, a game theory analysis says that each individually is better off if they choose “betray”.
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle: Taglines (some paraphrased as I don’t have time to look up exact quotations):
Clear and present danger
The P Word
rubber-room stuff
orderly transition
Get yourself a great f-in criminal lawyer
Fifth . . . Fifth . . . Fifth
Baud
@JPL:
As long as they didn’t exchange pleasantries on a tarmac, it’s all good.
lowtechcyclist
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
It’s so weird, the way it’s been possible to sell them on the idea of ‘woke’ corporations. The #1 thing they’re ‘woke’ to is their bottom line. They’re doing all that Pride stuff out of some combination of selling more of their product and hiring and retaining good workers. If they thought it was a drag on sales – and no big corporation rolls out a marketing campaign without testing its appeal to a fare-thee-well – they wouldn’t be doing it.
Kay
@JPL:
John Eastman, highly respected Right wing lawyer – “OMG!”
Clown.
narya
@Kay: I believe the issue is whether any of the testimony the J6 committee received rebuts or otherwise damages evidence that DOJ intends to use in prosecution of insurrectionists.
Ken
@Kay: Possibly the DOJ’s interest is in charges arising from combining the two sources? For example if the testimony to the committee and the testimony to DOJ agents disagree, that would be the basis for a charge of perjury and/or lying to federal authorities.
Geminid
@Baud: If Assange had gone back to Sweden and faced the sexual assault charges the two women brought against him, he’d have done easy time in a Swedish prison and been out years ago. Sweden might not have extradicted him
Baud
@JPL:
Who is “her group”?
Baud
@Geminid:
He chose poorly.
Kay
@Ken:
The DOJ can get anything they want out of this committee. They have the power to do that. I guess I don’t understand why conducting a public spat with the committee is a good use of their time.
Betty Cracker
@Scout211: I’m not seeing a pending comment.
@Baud: Seems like a high-profile espionage and press freedom trial would be a hassle in that it would create global controversy and consume scads of federal resources, but maybe that’s incorrect.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: Is Eastman the one we’re supposed to treat gently because he has a PhD?
(Not that there’s anything wrong with that!)
Scout211
@Betty Cracker:
It popped up at #121, finally. Maybe someone else rescued it? Thanks.
JPL
@Baud: Next we’ll discover it’s the spouses of the Barrett, Kavanaugh, Alito and Gorsuch
Nothing would surprise me.
lowtechcyclist
@Immanentize:
There’s a reason why the Roman Catholic Church was perfectly happy to keep their services in Latin for so long.
The Moar You Know
@Betty Cracker:
It’s like when HR finds out you punch a co-worker. It’s their favorite kind of termination because everything is automatic. You’re not staying. Fired, paycheck, escorted out, personal crap sent home, done. Same with a nation that has the ability to catch someone who spied on them. Arrest (including the time-honored tradition of being kidnapped and hauled with a hood over your head to a waiting plane), trial (show or otherwise), guilty verdict, imprisonment or execution. Maybe spy swap if you’re worth anything. Nobody will swap for Assange. He’s proven to be an unreliable actor for anyone he’s working for.
I’d agree it doesn’t make any cost/benefit sense, but that’s not why you do it, you do it just to make the point.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
You could make the same argument about the coup plotters (and some do.) The charges against Assange are pretty serious, no?
Baud
@The Moar You Know:
So you wouldn’t fire the worker?
mrmoshpotato
@Karen S.:
Eight or nine idiots wasting time and burning money.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Members of the committee (Raskin among others) have taken a few public shots at the DOJ. Could be bureaucratic pushback.
Baud
Usually, we lament when our justice system doesn’t prosecute privileged white collar criminals and focuses on low level minority drug offenders.
Kay
I posted this excellent Propublica story about how an AA educator was targeted by Right wing political operatives in Georgia.
But there’s a postscript to this story. The same Right wing groups who savaged and smeared the AA educator backed school board candidates in May of this year and these were the results:
These people lose a lot of school board elections. They’re a loud enough minority to chase an AA educator out of the district but they don’t have the numbers to even win low turnout school board elections, even with backing from national Right wing groups.
Christopher Rufo gets glowing profiles in the NYTimes but he loses a lot of local elections.
JPL
@mrmoshpotato: They’re correct about voting in GA, since several people voted twice because Donald told them they could. Supposedly there were a few thousand questionable votes, but most were resolved. When people came forward and admitted to voting twice because they thought they could, the story went away.
evodevo
@Soprano2: A fresh cut? Or an old one? any dog of ours always had wire cuts from all the field fence around here; doesn’t have to be barbed wire, either. Most of the time they got them trying to squeeze through a hole in someone’s fence. the cuts will be on the top of the head, the back, or the belly when they do this stuff…
HeleninEire
Hi Ya’ Pete!!!
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I’d rather see the feds focus on the rampant white collar political and financial corruption than Assange, if I could only pick one of those things. I’m not excusing what Assange did — he can rot in hell for all I care. But it seems like he’s been thoroughly squashed by his own actions and would never voluntarily set foot in this country again, so the latter seems like more of an ongoing threat than that deranged garden gnome.
O. Felix Culpa
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Eastman wasn’t treated gently by the Jan. 6 committee or the Republican witnesses. Who’s suggesting he should be?
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Reasonable people can have different views about individual prosecutions. I just see no reason Assange shouldn’t be tried, especially after Chelsea Manning and Reality Winner were convicted and served their time.
mrmoshpotato
The wrastling (yes) will be epic.
evodevo
@debbie: Yes….this. They cherry-pick endlessly to bolster whatever version of dogma their little sectarian minds have clamped onto…if you want to turn someone atheist, make them read the bible cover to cover…
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was wondering if it might be that dynamic.
Immanentize
@SFAW: Tuco’s brother was a Republican.
Did you see the Bishop of Worcester (DUI) has declared the only tuition-free Jesuit school in the area (poor and BIPOC kids) no longer “Catholic” because the flew a BLM flag and a Pride Flag? No Catholic rites can take place on the school grounds anymore.
citizen dave
@Soprano2: One time our cat was bleeding from her abdomen, and I eventually figured out it was due to a nail head sticking out at the bottom of the basement stairs (trim on the side) that she had run across, etc. Glad everything is OK with Nitro.
Ken
@lowtechcyclist: Just last year the Pope issued a statement limiting the use of the Latin mass, because many Catholics are still mad about Vatican II’s requirement to use the vernacular. And it’s been sixty years since Vatican II.
Geminid
@Baud: I don’t know that much about Assange’s personality, but but it seems like he has plenty of narcissism and misogyny in his make up, and that may have led him to his current predicament.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agree. I just think it’s unwise for the DOJ to engage in it, given the difference in size and power between the select committee and the DOJ.
Baud
@evodevo:
“It’s so …. liberal.”
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: Yes Yes. That woman. But what really is on a name?
Ok, not a Golden Book, but the trippiest MARGARET Wise Brown book ever is Little Fur Family. Check it out (the Little Fur son actually finds a more little fur creature. What?)
Soprano2
@kalakal: They say “immigrant” when they mean “scary black and brown people”. All the euphemisms they are allowed to use hurt the discussion, because it allows them to deny what they are clearly saying. Like the idea that “people voting in cities” are fraudulent clearly means “black people voting is fraudulent”, but of course reporters don’t say that’s what it means.
Soprano2
@JPL: Try going without power for 12 days in the middle of January where it’s cold. Not any better.
Immanentize
@Kay: I am not sure that the Committee (legislative branch) is willing to yet be the errand urchin of the DOJ (executive branch). What I hear them saying when they say “we haven’t decided yet on a referral” is, when we finish we can give you all. Until then, things are going pretty good with our narrative and we don’t yet want to risk the biscuit.
Baud
@Soprano2:
Also, when they say “Democrat.”
James E Powell
@O. Felix Culpa:
Just read Judge Luttig’s statement. Thank you for the link.
I’d like to think that everyone in the press/media would read it, but I have my doubts. It’s more than one page & there are no pictures.
One of the hoped-for results of these hearings would be to get the press/media to stop treating the Big Lie, the coup attempt, and the ensuing voter suppression efforts as a normalized, legitimate political dispute.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: This is a version of a defense we used to call, “I did it and I am really sorry.” Part of the defense is to convince the jury you have suffered enough already. But for this to work with a jury, the defendant must be contrite.
If the test of a good prosecution is whether someone has already suffered enough, people who have been jailed pre-trial, had their homes and property foreclosed upon, had their family threatened with indictments, their kids put into foster care — well, we would never try those people.
Mel
Pete is a handsome boy! I love his expression – so serious!
Soprano2
@evodevo: It was a fresh cut; it wasn’t there on Wednesday, then suddenly was there on Thursday. We have a fenced yard and live in the city. We’re both scratching our heads over how he could have gotten cut on the bottom of his belly like that.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize:
Little Fur Family is our absolute favorite! I often give it as a baby gift. Lots of people know her Good Night Moon, but not as many do Little Fur Family, which is at least as endearing.
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: Fair enough. FTR, I didn’t mean to suggest that Assange has “suffered enough” — I hope he gets an irradicable case of the crabs. My point was in his current sorry state, he’s less of an ongoing menace than he once was and is therefore lower on my priority list of villains who should be prosecuted.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
His current sorry state is the result of his evasion of justice. If he’s set free without a trial, I don’t know that he wouldn’t go back to being a threat.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: So many villains, so few prosecutions.
I so completely agree.
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: Good night Moon is a sap story compared to Little Fur Family. Grumpy Granddad, and the ending:
Sleep, sleep, my little fur child …
This is a song.
How odd that book is. But I think it suits a child’s mind, rather than an adult’s. The Immp got that one a lot as a child.
MisterForkbeard
@Soprano2: The “show trial” thing bothers me immensely. It’s not.
I really hate that framing and it’s vastly inappropriate to use it. The rest of it, I sort of agree with – except that it’s absolutely ‘fair’. Republicans had multiple opportunities to run this equally with Dems and they didn’t take it. And it is about getting at the truth, which is why it’s not just Democrats talking – this is the Administration’s own employees.
You know, I think the only thing I agree with is that it demonstrates some kind of Democratic power.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize:
My boys loved it too. I think they found it comforting.
Margaret Wise Brown was like Mr. Rogers, in that they both seemed singularly attuned to a child’s mind and emotions. She died far too young.
Matt McIrvin
The thing about a court performing a criminal trial is that it’s under a mandate to favor a presumption of innocence. That’s not necessarily the best way to get at the truth–it’s intentionally biased in one direction because the possible consequence of unjust punishment is so terrible. But this is not a criminal trial.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
The RWNJs are good at rule-by-mob even when they aren’t in the majority.
She’d been the Supervisor of Social Studies here in Calvert County. I hope we were able to hire her back in some appropriate capacity.
CaseyL
Both the DoJ and the J6 Committee are doing important work; but they’re pursuing two different goals and strategies.
DoJ is going for a deterrent effect: prosecuting the ground troops, as it were, to make cosplaying insurrection less attractive going forward. They are also targeting the dead-serious insurrectionist/traitors, like Proud Boys and OathKeepers, to not only deter but to destroy the networks altogether. DoJ is going from the ground up.
The J6 Committee is going from the top down. They are targeting actual people in power, people in government offices, who were fomenting insurrection from the inside. The Committee needs to name names, put the proof out for the public to see, alert the citizenry to the ongoing menace and (hopefully) prevent future attempts. They’re using the traitors’ own words and images against them.
These are both important paths. But they will conflict.
I do happen to agree that the current danger is too acute for the DoJ’s laborious process to be useful for heading off another attempt. The DoJ is carefully picking apart the conspiracy, building ironclad cases against individuals. Which is necessary!
But what is also necessary is to get things done quickly, because the midterms are almost here and the GOP is poised to continue (not start: continue) wrecking the democratic process NOW.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: And yet not a one of them had the balls to try and stop it.
@zhena gogolia: For you maybe, not for me.
OzarkHillbilly
@narya: I live to serve. (bowing most humbly)
SFAW
@Immanentize:
I’m not Catholic — well, technically, I might be, since my Mom was a (lapsed) Catholic — but my understanding was that the Jesuits were the more intellectually/theologically advanced subset of Catholics. Of course, my understanding may be completely fucking worng. But if I’m right about that, one wonders why the Bishop of Wormtown would see fit to open his bigoted piehole/blowhole.