Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

T R E 4 5 O N

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

I really should read my own blog.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Infrastructure week. at last.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

This blog will pay for itself.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

People are complicated. Love is not.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Bad Takes

Bad Takes

by | 218 Comments

This post is in: 

This take from last Friday(!) aged like an open pack of thawed squid left in the parking lot of a South Florida bait shop:

MacGregor is an anti-Semite, misogynist, racist and xenophobe, so naturally Trump tried to make him an ambassador and, failing that, appointed him to the West Point board.

Carlson and MacGregor won’t eat a heaping plate of crow now that Ukrainian forces have Russia on the run, but they may be setting up a narrative to deploy if Putin tries to crash the world economy to get out of his current jam. No mystery about who will get the blame.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

218Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    but they may be setting up a narrative to deploy if Putin tries to crash the world economy

    Wouldn’t crashing the economy lower energy prices?

  2. 2.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    From MacGregor’s Wiki:

    After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Macgregor appeared on three Fox News programs to speak in support of Russia’s actions. Russian state television broadcast excerpts of Macgregor’s appearances, which included a characterization of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “puppet,” that Russian forces had been “too gentle” in the early days of the invasion and that Russian president Vladimir Putin was being “demonized” by the United States and NATO. Macgregor said he believed Russia should be allowed to seize whatever parts of Ukraine it wanted. After one of his appearances, Macgregor’s comments were characterized by veteran Fox News Pentagon correspondent Jennifer Griffin as “appeasement” and that he was being an “apologist” for Putin. After Griffin’s remarks, Tucker Carlson — who hosted Macgregor on two successive nights — remarked, “Unlike many of the so-called reporters you see on television, he is not acting secretly as a flack for Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon. No, Doug Macgregor is an honest man.” Trey Gowdy, another Fox News host who interviewed Macgregor, said his viewpoint was “stunning and disappointing.” U.S. representative Liz Cheney said of Macgregor “This is the Putin wing of the GOP.”

    Pure evil is the only way I can describe such a man. And he was an army colonel. Imagine being such a POS that Trey Gowdy thinks you’re awful

  5. 5.

    eversor

    It’s a cultural argument.  The US is woke.  Russia is pro traditional gender roles and pimps Christianity.  Thus Russia must win.  Jesus and gender roles demand it.  The US must also lose, it’s woke.  It’s the same reason they jumped on Orban the moment he said Christianity is the key and most important thing of The West (Christianity is the Jewel of The West) and then brought the hammer down on woke.

    It’s religion, all the way up and down.  Always was.  Always will be.

  10. 10.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: In the short term, it probably would, but it might also destabilize NATO countries and allow Trump or a Trump-like figure to slither back into power in the U.S.

  14. 14.

    WaterGirl

    Why not settle this war, return energy prices to normal…

    Shorter (pick one):  Ukraine doesn’t matter.  The people of Ukraine don’t matter.  Defending your democracy doesn’t matter.

    Fuck these people.

  16. 16.

    stacib

    Wait a minute – did Tucker just admit that Biden had nothing to do with rising energy costs, and that it’s primarily due to the war???

  17. 17.

    West of the Rockies

    @eversor:

    Person, a lot of folks here agree with the general point about religion being frequently harmful to humanity, that it is often used to control and deceive, but you needn’t make that point with every other comment.

  21. 21.

    Old School

    @WaterGirl:

    Ukraine doesn’t matter.  The people of Ukraine don’t matter.

    They do, but when the trade-off is paying $10 more every time you fill up your gas tank….

  24. 24.

    EarthWindFire

    they may be setting up a narrative to deploy if Putin tries to crash the world economy to get out of his current jam. No mystery about who will get the blame.

    May? Please. These people sing look what you made me do more than Taylor Swift.

  25. 25.

    cain

    So, why has the ADL and even more – AIPAC been quiet about the kind of shit that is happening? I mean the right wing is marinating in anti-semite behavior. You would have thought that one word out of those guys and they would cause GOP to STFU. Yet.. crickets. Especially given the fact that Israel’s nuclear shit might be on the line.

  26. 26.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @eversor: It’s religion, all the way up and down.

    You mistake cause for effect. Religion is the definition of a culture’s morality, not the definer of the culture’s morality.

    You talk like you think Patriarch Kirill is some kind of malevolent sky wizard who has the Russian under his spell like Saruman in Lord of the Rings.

  29. 29.

    scav

    If whoeveritis ever had a different point, no-one would recognize him and he’d be bereft of any social interaction.  And many of us would suffer a catastrophic pastry deficit.

  30. 30.

    Cameron

    @cain: USA is about to deep-six the Iran nuclear deal.  Wingnuts are in favor of that.  Sounds like that ‘enemy of my enemy’ thing.  I’m sure once Iran is told to fuck off, Americans can get back to their primitive in-fighting.

  31. 31.

    Steeplejack

    Speaking of bad takes, Maggie Haberman reveals in her book—coming out tomorrow!—that Trump told a bunch of people in late 2020 that he wouldn’t leave the White House.

    Can’t wait until we find out Trump shot someone on 5th Avenue 3 years ago but it was saved for the book.

    — Schooley (@Rschooley) September 12, 2022

  32. 32.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Part of Macgregor’s issues stem from the fact that, despite having been one of the army’s rising star intellectuals in the ‘90s, his career stalled out at Colonel.  And people like McMaster, who got his first fame in the same battle as Macgregor, got stars.  Maybe the promotion boards saw something they didn’t like about Dougie.

  33. 33.

    ian

    @cain: And yet the gas went down and those same Americans are still willing to give up democracy.  Makes you wonder if they were just looking for excuses the whole time.

  34. 34.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Hey, let’s be fair. Chamberlain was wrong for a lot of good and sensible reasons. Tucker’s still doing his William Joyce impression, and is way overdue to be de-platformed (I can only hope in the manner of the de-platforming of Joyce in 1946).

  35. 35.

    RaflW

    Of course now that MMFA has got this trending, if you search twitter, the Maga-bots are all saying “Tramp should appoint MacGregor as Sec. Def if he wins in ’24.”

  37. 37.

    Joe Falco

    @stacib: Even if that is where Tuckjob’s logic is headed, you’ll never get him to admit. Is it any wonder he’s Putin’s favorite American asset commentator?

  38. 38.

    Chris Johnson

    How can anybody not see that it’s not bad takes but literal enemy action? How is it not starkly obvious that the fucker’s literally working for Russia as part of their propaganda wing?

    People are so determined to be like ‘maybe they’re just really really stupid, ha ha look how dumb they looked’ when it’s not about being dumb at all, it’s enemy action. Just fucking own it.

  39. 39.

    MisterForkbeard

    @stacib: No, no. Biden caused the Ukrainian war, don’t you see? By not being strong enough to scare Putin like Trump surely would have, and by also not being weak enough to immediately give Putin what he wants and to let Ukraine be pillaged and raped.

    Definitely all Biden’s fault.

  42. 42.

    MisterForkbeard

    @topclimber: Was going to say, I hadn’t heard that. The last I’d heard is that this nuclear deal is weaker than the last one… which, DUH, no one trusts us to stay in it and we unilaterally blew up the last one, so we don’t get as much.

  43. 43.

    Betty Cracker

    @Steeplejack: Steve Schmidt is a mixed bag, but his take on the Haberman “reveal” was solid:

    Haberman doesn’t report on Trump so much as broker information between the institutions @nyt, Trump, @cnn for her benefit and their self interest, (biz model) not the readers/subscribers elucidation.

    Yep. Maybe Haberman and other Beltway hacks got tired of laundering wingnut trash like “Clinton Cash” and decided to leverage their positions as reporters to accrue information they could use for their own book side hustle.

  45. 45.

    Ruckus

    @West of the Rockies:

    Fucker Carlson is far worse than that!

    He’s the hospital they take you to for emergency surgery and they get the charts mixed up and do 10 hrs of plastic surgery on and make you look like him. And you went in because of appendicitis and they don’t touch your appendix.

    He’s the new car you buy and when you turn the key to drive away in your brand new $45K car it catches on fire and locks the doors.

    OK I’m out.

  46. 46.

    Bill K

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Quit picking on Neville!  But seriously, Chamberlain did a good job with the hand he was dealt.  The French and British had almost no military at that point.  All he could do was bluff and bluster and he still managed to get enough concessions to piss off Hitler.

  47. 47.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: Macgregor was pretty damned good at everything he did.  He was an effective commander and respected leader.  But then when it got to the point where being a political animal comes it, he came to a dead stop.  McMaster had also been passed over for his stars a couple times for being an iconoclast (like Macgregor) but that was it.  They made him wait for his stars.  They just told Macgregor no.

    Flynn was obviously to mask his insanity while in uniform.

  48. 48.

    Roger Moore

    @eversor:

    I think it’s more about the cultural views you outlined than religion per se.  It’s true the right wing churches have adopted those cultural views as their de facto theology, but it was the cultural views that formed their religious views, not the other way around.  That’s why so many other churches vehemently disagree with their cultural views, and why their views on some of those issues, like abortion, have radically changed within my lifetime.

  49. 49.

    Tony G

    Astonishingly, the worst people in the world tend to congregate together and support each other.  The name Douglas MacGregor rang a bell, so I did a quick lookup.  Back on March 31st, about six weeks into Russia’s “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine, MacGregor was a special guest on the radio show of Gary Null — a snake-oil salesman who often speaks highly of Tucker Carlson.  Since February, Null has been mixing his usual anti-vaxx broadcasts with broadcasts supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  He gets at least 5 hours a week on “leftist” NYC radio station WBAI.   I’m old enough to remember when the “counterculture” figures like Gary Null were young.  Many of them (who haven’t died yet) have turned into just awful people.  A generation of swine, as the saying goes.

  52. 52.

    Baud

    @Tony G:

    Astonishingly, the worst people in the world tend to congregate together and support each other.

    It’s not that astonishing.  It’s been a long-term project of the GOP to bring those people together to gain power.

  53. 53.

    Betty Cracker

    @Chris Johnson: The “bad take” comes into play when that moron MacGregor says on Friday “things are going very, very badly” for the Ukrainians and they’re “desperate” and less than 48 hours later, Russians are throwing their rifles down, stealing civilian clothes and fleeing on stolen bicycles ahead of Ukraine’s stunningly successful offensive. There’s nothing mutually exclusive about those two being Putin’s cockholsters and also being catastrophically wrong about what’s happening in Ukraine.

  54. 54.

    Baud

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I’m actually a little sympathetic to people who are unappreciated.  But Benedict Arnold’s excuse was also that he was not appreciated.  There’s only so much that can justify.

  55. 55.

    Cameron

    @topclimber: You mean paranoia isn’t sufficient?  Well, shut my mouth.  (I probably spend far more time than it’s worth at Antiwar.com and responsiblestatecraft.org, but neither of those sites seem to have any confidence in a nuclear deal with Iran.)

  57. 57.

    scav

    @Ruckus: Yes, but I was just easily amused by the parallel “news” “discussions” posted today.  Detect Obvious is my only superpower.

  58. 58.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Ya think?

    Those boards seem like they aren’t paying attention all that much but I think they actually do. And notice when someone is a stone fuck up who thinks their shit doesn’t stink. I saw that in the navy. It can take a while to get noticed in a not all that positive career way but when you get noticed, things seem to not go all that well for a complete fuck up.

  59. 59.

    Ruckus

    @Baud:

    He might have known how and played the game well enough. Or maybe he wasn’t a total fuck up before he hit his peak.

    The military is sometimes funny on who they think can actually do the work, and sometimes it’s based upon just staying out of the limelight, doing well enough to get by. And it isn’t just officers. It works up and down the line. Of course one does have to somewhat stay out of the limelight, pimping one’s own ass usually doesn’t go over all that well.

  60. 60.

    AWOL

    @Tony G: Bernard White—if he hasn’t been arrested—is an anti-Semitic grifter. That station’s been an utter cesspool for twenty years. They work against the Democratic Party 24/7/365, especially Amy Goodman.

    PBS actually gave that ludicrous turd Null a show a few decades back.

    From what I’ve heard, Null considers himself above paying for services done for him by others and had/has a harem of groupies hanging at his UWS grifter’s palace.

  61. 61.

    C Stars

    I’m having a hard time mustering any kind of surprise that Bow Tie Guy had on a racist guest and/or had a horrible take on current events. It’s weird how there’s no consequence for being just flat-out, objectively wrong in the Trump Party (no longer GOP, I think). Or, well, maybe what I mean to say is that it’s not weird.

    Anyway after church yesterday we all sat around writing postcards to potential voters in Georgia. Not officially sponsored or organized by the church, mind you, but there they were on the front lawn: tables, chairs, pens, postcards and stamps, and a carafe of coffee.

  62. 62.

    topclimber

    @Cameron: I haven’t looked at RSC in a while but after a quick review of google news headlines I see the Israelis want a tougher deal, the Germans think the Iranians should take the offer now on the table, and others suggest they will do nothing until seeing how our midterms turn out. Perhaps they don’t want to put their asses out on a limb by signing only to have a GQP Congress kick them again?

  63. 63.

    cain

    @ian:

     

    @cain: And yet the gas went down and those same Americans are still willing to give up democracy. Makes you wonder if they were just looking for excuses the whole time.

    Too many of us darkies walking around all “freedom like” in their neighborhoods.

  64. 64.

    Chris Johnson

    @Tony G: And are they also friends with Jimmy Dore, and Caleb Maupin?

    Sounds like you’re just listing off the unofficial Russia News. How surprising that sources like that would be pushing both antivaxxer stuff and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Next you will tell me they think a civil war is inevitable.

  66. 66.

    Chris Johnson

    @Betty Cracker: See, this is what I’m saying. Not moron. He might know perfectly well how things really are, but he is telling a pack of lies for effect. The idea that he believes any of it is not proven.

  67. 67.

    cain

    BTW y’alls – I was just looking at our fundraising tracker – it’s absolutely stunning that by in large – we not only meet these fundraiser goals, but we beat them by 2x. Just stunning.

  68. 68.

    Cameron

    @topclimber: Not just GOP (cue Bob Menendez!).  As far as I can tell – and I will confess I have a very biased viewpoint – there isn’t going to be an agreement.  There will probably be some sort of military strike that will turn Iran into another North Korea: a country that realizes its only security is in actually having nuclear weapons.  Just one more piece of the planet falling apart…

    ETA: It seems to me that the only diplomacy USA engages in is gunboat diplomacy, whether it’s bullying, threats, proxies, or outright military intervention.  This isn’t Joe Biden, it isn’t Republicans, it’s the way this country conducts itself.  As long as Americans believe the fantasy of the ‘indispensible nation,’ the ‘rules-based order,’ the ‘leader of the free world,’ we are contributing to the death of this planet.

  69. 69.

    eversor

    @Roger Moore:

    Yet their views are backed by their book and their Christ.  And they are the majority.   You’re arguing at this point that the Republican party is great, because Liz Chenny and Adam Kizzinger are the real Republicans, and the rest are all doing it wrong.

    Until people accept that the ideology is wrong and Christianity lead to Conservatism, which lead to Republicand Party, which lead to Trumpism we are all just fucking about.  Nuke the core ideology from orbit.

    Christianity is going to die, that is set in stone.  It’s going to be viewed as some odd sort of mix of Greek mythology with a side of “Genocide, on a worse scale than Hitler” and that’s going to be the end of it.  And I say that as a son of a Holocaust survivor.  It’s followers are going to go down in history as at best good Germans screaming no true Scottsman who collaborated.

  71. 71.

    Jeffro

    “Conservative” (aka extremist, fascist, MAGA) viewpoints only hold up in their own disinformation bubble.  When compared to the slightest bit of reality, they just look childish, selfish, and stupid.

    “The Ukrainians are losing this war.”

    “Climate change isn’t real, and even if it were, it isn’t being accelerated, much less caused, by human beings.”

    “We’re going to cut taxes and raise revenues!”

    And so on, and so forth.  They’re just incredibly dumb and they don’t care to learn anything, either.

  75. 75.

    Wapiti

    @Ruckus: Of course one does have to somewhat stay out of the limelight, pimping one’s own ass usually doesn’t go over all that well.

    I worked for a 2-star who advised me, “If you don’t toot your own horn, someone will just use it for a piss funnel.”

  76. 76.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Finished David Simon’s series We Own this City (Note: link is to a review that has some mild spoilers)      last night and it was really good.  It has much the same feel as The Wire but this time it is a true story about the incredibly corrupt Baltimore Police Dept.  It even has a couple actors from The Wire.  It also features Wunmi Mosaku, who you may remember from Lovecraft Country (and who I may or may not have a total crush on) and she is superb once again.

    Anyways, if you are looking for a good, in depth look at how fucked up US police departments can be, this is a really great watch and only six episodes.

  77. 77.

    Cameron

    @The Moar You Know: Well, we could actually re-sign the agreement that Iran honored (at least as far as the inspectors and our own intelligence services thought) and we didn’t.  We could.  But we won’t.  Gotta show the world that Uncle Sam’s got them super-steel cojones, y’know?

  78. 78.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: My  HMO was at risk for that until this weekend.  Tony Evers got involved and it got resolved.  I am glad for personal reasons;  I don’t cross picket lines but I have a physical coming up later this month.  I need the physical before my doc will renew my blood pressure meds.  Crisis averted though.

  80. 80.

    Betty Cracker

    @Chris Johnson: Again, there’s nothing mutually exclusive about being an autocrat’s shill and beclowning oneself on TV. Baghdad Bob didn’t intend for his presser announcing that the Baathists had driven US forces away from the city to include the sound of gunfire and approaching tanks, but there it was. Yes, it looked stupid. Yes, it was propaganda. Propagandists step on rakes too, and pointing that out doesn’t make their intent any less repulsive or elide the seriousness of the situation, IMO. YMMV.

  82. 82.

    trollhattan

    @Betty Cracker: TBF the Ukrainians have a horrid task ahead doing something with all the captured armor, “To start with, we don’t have nearly enough tank parking spaces and support services are swamped and cannot clean the interiors–do you have any idea how bad Russian tankers smell?” said the Ukrainian general in charge of acquired munitions.

  83. 83.

    MaryLou

    How can a guy who ended his army career at the rank of Colonel be qualified to be on the board of West Point? I know the Air Force Academy is a problematic nest of Dominionists, but have always admired West Point. Are they corrupting that too? How about Annapolis?

    At this point, the Putin apologists need to be called out for what they are: traitors.

  84. 84.

    Ruckus

    @Wapiti:

    There’s tooting your own horn and then there is mounting a fog horn on top of your head.

    I think in the military one has to be aware of advancing requirements to advance but then there is standing there screaming about how great you are, all the while not knowing jack or shit, and continuously stepping on your own dick. They really aren’t the same….

  87. 87.

    Faithful Lurker

    @The Golux: Neither have I but I just pied eversor. I understand his complaint but he whines incessantly. And has he ever lived in a country where there are no Christians and Christianity or Judaism has no roots? It’s an eye opener

    edit: I shouldn’t assume eversor is male. Sorry

  89. 89.

    WaterGirl

    @topclimber:

    Why should he get new material when he gets to be mentioned in something like 25% of subsequent comments every time he spews?

    MOST EXCELLENT POINT!  He wins, we talk about his subject and reward his bigotry every time we respond or refer to him.

  90. 90.

    catclub

    No mystery about who will get the blame.

    I bet you mean ‘who they will try to blame.’ — Biden.

    But in some cases the American people see through those efforts. They blamed GWBush – correctly – for the terrible economy during much of Obamas first term. Biden took a hit when gas prices soared early this year, but I think people know that it is Putins war.

  92. 92.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @MaryLou: Full colonel is nothing to sneeze at.  He also has a PhD in IR from Virginia.  And as I noted above, he was seen as one of the army’s top intellectual.  His resume is pretty damned good.  The problem with him is that he is a pro-Putin, right wing nut.

  93. 93.

    Ruckus

    @The Golux:

    I have two people in the pie display case.

    One you would very easily recognize.

    The other has been in there for a long time and I’ve not seen him in what seems like forever. It is an extremely nice feature.

  95. 95.

    Cameron

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Huh? Joe Biden is very different from Donald Trump.  But American foreign policy is based on militarism – Trump rolled over for Putin because Putin flattered him; same as with Lil’ Rocket Man, so Trump was actually out of step with American foreign policy.  That doesn’t make him some kind of good guy, it’s just further proof that he’s a moron.

  96. 96.

    eversor

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Bill Barr did for the Jesus!  Alito did it for the Jesus.  Trumpers did it for the Jesus.  They all said so!

    Or, are you a fan of good Nazis, Germans, Republicans, Trumpists, and “no such Scottsman” tropes?  Cause I’m guessing you are and you’d sell those you care about out in a nanosecond rather than take offense.  Let me guess, you wake up and think “to my glorious friends across the isle that are trying to kill me”.  It’s cute.

  97. 97.

    trollhattan

    @Omnes Omnibus: ​Similar weirdass combo of circumstances that give us First In Class at West Point Mike Pompeo. If there’s a more worthless pile of flesh I can’t name him, even among strong competition.

  98. 98.

    Subsole

     

     

    @lowtechcyclist: In fairness, he pretty accurately summarized the dynamic.

    I mean, modern conservatism is a giant temper tantrum born of insecurity. Insecurities tied to feelings of deep inadequacy. They are basically having a midlife crisis/breakdown. They hold those feelings of inadequacy at bay behind a massive wall of bravado, bluster, and sneering hypermasculine posturing.

    They are soft, weak little people who torment everyone else to make themselves feel powerful because they know, on some level, they cannot compete in a world lit by the mind.

    So instead they try to drag us back to a world lit only by fire. A world that looks a great deal like Russia, like Hungary, like every atavistic nationalist throwback. They cannot survive in the large, safe tribe that comes with modern liberal democracy. So they reach for the small, sad, speed-bump-that-thinks-it’s-a-mountain tribe of ethnonationalist theocracy.

    They do not want to live in this world. Russia tried to live in the old world, the world lit by fire. And ended up as cordwood.

    Now, I disagree that Christianity is entirely to blame. Partially, that’s because these people would twist ANY religion to excuse themselves. Look at the Hindutva of Modi’s India if you doubt that.

    We can argue about religion, but I think he has a pretty clear grasp on the animating pathologies that bind the Moscow-Limbaugh axis.

  100. 100.

    Subsole

    @Old School: They do, though.

    The Orthodox Church over there functions like old-school, third-branch-of-government-style church. Like, Bad Old Days church.

    Alito’s church.

  101. 101.

    Matt McIrvin

    @catclub: The most transparently awful one was when they tried to blame Obama for gas prices going up relative to how low they were right after the entire global economy crashed.

  102. 102.

    livewyre

    Somebody’s hard at work trying to split off voters. Look at this character and tell me he’s convinced enough of his cause to go lone-wolf and burn some churches himself. Sure knows how to take advantage of a venue, though.

  103. 103.

    Subsole

    @dmsilev: It always come back to that because 90% of these dimbulbs’ conspiracies (indeed, 90% of their thoughts) are just warmed over slop from the early modern/Victorian era Europe.

    And, historically, who do the Euros blame for everything???

  106. 106.

    Subsole

    @cain: I am not Jewish, culturally or genetically.

    But it strikes me that Bibi’s Israel is not Sharon’s.

    It is wise to remember advocacy groups only ever speak for themselves. No matter how much they love (or think they love) a community.

  107. 107.

    delphinium

    @Baud: ​
    Yikes to this part in the article-can’t imagine having to work under conditions like this on a daily basis:

    Striking nurses at some hospitals said their shifts are often short five to 10 nurses, forcing nurses to take on more patients than they can handle.

  110. 110.

    catclub

    @Matt McIrvin: ​
      The crazy thing that I have never understood is how gas prices went sky high in the summer of 2008. It should have been the case that (at least the US) economy was already cratering, which should mean low demand and lower prices. Something something about market manipulation is often shot down.

  113. 113.

    Dan B

    @Gin & Tonic: Wits the fires in the mountains, no rain for months, unhealthy air in the city, and much of the news it was a day for me that needed less screeching about evil Christianity.  😈

    The quiet is soothing.

  114. 114.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Baud: He messed up with the whole “peace in our time” quote. Instant meme that overshadowed reality.

    Instant misquoted meme, you meam, I meam mean. Chamberlain read out the text of an agreement he and Hitler had signed – a fairly innocuous, nay upbeat, declaration – and said, “I believe it is peace for our time.” (You could look it up.)

    And don’t yinz get all anachronistic on me. Very few world opinion-makers had any idea what they were dealing with in Hitler.  Prior to Munich, the Nazis’ only actions of international importance were the remilitarization of the Rhineland the beginning of overt German rearmament – and many outside the Reich didn’t consider these especially unjustified (rectifying “excesses” of the 1919 Versailles peace treaty) or particularly threatening to the international order. Many outside of Central Europe thought the German-speaking residents of the Sudetenland had a case for joining the Reich. Mussolini, head of the only other Fascist regime, came to Munich trying to broker a peace deal; he like Hitler was a Great War combat veteran, and it was presumed no one with that sort of experience would risk a repeat of that carnage.

    Hitler’s first action that specifically threatened the international order was seizure of the rest of Bohemia and Moravia (and setting up an “independent” Slovak state) in March 1939. At that point Chamberlain lost whatever illusions he had left about “doing business with Hitler”, and promoted rearmament and diplomatic resistance, culminating in guarantees to Poland that kicked in with the German invasion the following September. He may have been late to wake up but he was by no means alone.

  115. 115.

    Faithful Lurker

    Why is omnes omnibus pied in my comments? I love omnes and look forward to his/her comments.

  122. 122.

    JPL

    @Omnes Omnibus: So trump met with several people out on his golf course, and I recognized Eric and Nunes.   Several said Hannity and his attorney were among the group.   Anyway, if Hannity was issued a subpoena, would justice frown on his meeting with trump?

    just askin

  124. 124.

    Redshift

    @Gin & Tonic:

    It’s easy enough simply to ignore trolls.

    The entire history of the internet would suggest otherwise. It’s possible to ignore trolls and everyone who quotes them in reply, but it wastes effort and attention, so why do it? The pie filter is a beautiful thing; if you know you’re going to ignore a troll, then why not automate it?

  127. 127.

    coin operated

    @delphinium:

    Striking nurses at some hospitals said their shifts are often short five to 10 nurses, forcing nurses to take on more patients than they can handle.

    There were a few reasons I got out of nursing in the late 90s and this was top o’ the list.  Nursing went to shit about 5 seconds after the birth of the HMO…everything became a number and staffing was the first to take a hit.

  128. 128.

    StringOnAStick

    @Ruckus: My grandfather was a captain in the US Navy. I was trying to get some information out of my dad about an antique from his early service years, and he told me my grandmother had destroyed all of her husband ‘s service records in a rage over his being denied “Admiral track”.  Lately it’s come to mind that it isn’t unreasonable to suspect that part of why that happened was her outrageous drunken behaviour in seriously inappropriate circumstances.  Though the story about making enlisted men drag a drunk and passed out Howard Hughes off their lawn in the middle of a raging party is entertaining.

  129. 129.

    Dan B

    @JPL: Is Garland noticing all the love we’re beaming at Zelensky and trying to keep up?

     

    /s

    Love this news from DOJ!!!

  131. 131.

    Tony G

    @AWOL: Yeah, I still tune in to WBAI from time to time, out of nostalgia of when I used to listen to it in the early seventies when (at least to my teenage brain) it seemed interesting.    There’s occasionally something interesting on it, but most of it has been pretty bad for many decades.

  132. 132.

    Scout211

    Wikipedia tells me its’s Amy Kremer’s group

     

    Amy Kremer (born 1970 or 1971)[1] is an American political activist known for her roles in the Tea Party movement and as a supporter of Donald Trump.

    . . .

    In January 2021, Kremer’s organization Women for America First hosted a Stop the Stealrally in Washington, D.C., that culminated in the U.S. Capitol attack by Trump’s supporters. She and ten others affiliated with the group were subpoenaed by the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack in September 2021.

  137. 137.

    rikyrah

     

    About this live action Little Mermaid

    Disney is a marketing BEAST
    a BEAST
    I tell you.

    They couldn’t get better marketing for this movie than those TikTok’s off those little girls finally seeing themselves represented. When I tell you that I’ve been doing the Ugly Cry looking at these videos.

    https://twitter.com/OldElnora/status/1569415692432048131?s=19

    And, then the longer ‘leak’ of Halle….she KILLS IT

    https://twitter.com/OldElnora/status/1569371203025993729?s=19

  139. 139.

    SiubhanDuinne

    AG Garland’s DOJ hasn’t been lazy:

    Justice Dept. Issues 40 Subpoenas in a Week, Expanding Its Jan. 6 Inquiry

    Over the past week, it also seized the phones of two top Trump advisers, a sign of an escalating investigation two months before the midterm elections.

    This from FTFNYT. Nice to know they’ve been busy. Even during a holiday week. Even during a week with a lot of other breaking news. I’m very reassured by this.

  140. 140.

    J R in WV

    @cain: ​
     

    Some of these americans will be ready to give up on Democracy if gas would go down to $.50 a gallon like the good ol days.

    Why, when I was a boy back in the 1950s and the parents took us all for a driving trip to see all the battlefields across the eastern US, I remember Dad paying $0.19 a gallon for regular gas at a crossroads in NC. He said it was because of a gas war between two stations at the crossroads. Hmmm.

    And just this afternoon I paid $3.79 a gallon for hi-test right here in Good old West Virginia. Sounds like a steal, doesn’t it???//s

    Somebody is stealin’ that’s for sure!

  143. 143.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Redshift: I just saw and played (music with) an old friend who was visiting from Chicago, over Labor Day.  His wife has become embroiled in online fighting, gaslighting and harassment that now has her suffering serious mental health effects (to the point of brief hospitalization).  She’s always been extremely argumentative (I actually had to unfriend her for being a relentless Bernie-Bro girl in 2016) and she may have always had mental health issues, but the online dust-ups definitely played a major role in her recent struggles and has my buddy worried sick.  Trolling shit is no joke.

  144. 144.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Ruckus:

    This describes the stagnant career of my god-bothering, Bible-thumping brother-in-law. He blew up and didn’t make LCDR because he was a moral scold about the behavior of his brother officers while on liberty (as was learned by his sister from naval aviators while she lived at Fallon).

    He was at that dread Tailhook event, and we suspected there was something that related back to that.

  146. 146.

    Elizabelle

    The NY Times story is delicious.

    The department’s actions represent a substantial escalation of a slow-simmer investigation two months before the midterm elections, coinciding with a separate inquiry into Mr. Trump’s hoarding of sensitive documents at his residence in Florida, Mar-a-Lago.

    Two top Trump advisers, Boris Epshteyn and Mike Roman, had their phones seized as evidence, those people said.

    Subpoenas out for Dan Scavino and Bernard Kerick, named in the story.  And a whole lot of other people.  Shall we have a betting pool?  Please, please, please:  Ginni Thomas.  This round is a lot about the false electors scheme.   Also:

    In a new line of inquiry, some of the subpoenas also seek information into the activities of the Save America political action committee, the main political fund-raising conduit for Mr. Trump since he left office.

    … [and] At least some of the new subpoenas also requested all records that the recipient turned over to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, according to a person familiar with the matter.

  147. 147.

    JPL

    @Dan B: I only recognized Nunes and Eric, but I have no idea what his attorney looks like.

    We should know the cover story tonight after Tucker’s and Hannity’s broadcast though.

  148. 148.

    Redshift

    @JPL:

    40 subpoenas issued and 2 cell phones taken from trump associates.

    Well, that would explain all the “Biden’s Gestapo DOJ threatening 40 Trump associates” I saw when I went hunting yesterday for an earlier instance of the Tucker Carlson nonsense in this post. Funny how Fox knew about it before the news was widespread. (And of course their implication was that people were being “rounded up” (i.e. subpoenaed) solely because they were Trump associates, not because they had done anything.

  150. 150.

    StringOnAStick

    @Dan B: Funny, an emergency golf game that required Lord Dampnut to fly in clothes he would have slapped Jr. for; hmm.  Sounds very mob-like.  He does realize that there are outdoor microphones just as effective as the finest interior bugging model, right?

  152. 152.

    Geminid

    @topclimber: This is an important story and worth following, so I took my own advice, looked up the topic, and came up with an article in Al Jazeera dated today with the heading “What are the latest issues stopping an Iran-US nuclear agreement?” (author Mazar Motemedi).

    The Iranians have refused to negotiate directly with the US so the other five JCPOA parties- China, Russia, Germany and France acted as middlemen throughout the talks in Vienna. The talks concluded some weeks ago  but Iran then balked at signing the draft agreement. Then the “E-3” parties, that is Germany, France and the UK, submitted what they described as a “final offer” to Iran. From the Al Jazeera story:

       …things have not moved forward since Iran handed over its latest response to a European proposal two weeks ago, which was poorly received by the Western parties to the accord (link).

    ….there has been no indication that the US will officially respond to Iran’s comments soon, strengthening odds that potential progress in the talks will be postponed until at least after the US midterm elections in November.

    One sticking point seems to be Iran’s insistence that an International Atomic Energy Agency probe into unnaccounted-for traces of nuclear materials at three sites be shut down.

          The E-3- Germany, France and the United Kingdom- issued a joint statement (link) last week that said the Iranian demand that the IAEA probe be halted “raised serious doubts as to Iran’s commitment to a successful outcome on the JCPOA.”

    The article goes on to describe the ramifications of US domestic politics on the process.

    The author also cites two leaked IAEA memos, one of which said that Iran’s unwillingness to cooperate with its probe calls into question the peaceful nature of its nuclear program. Iran has maintained throughout that its program has no military intent, and cites a Fatwah by the late Ayatollah Khomeini that prohibits acquisition of nuclear weapons.

  153. 153.

    Redshift

    @UncleEbeneezer: Yup. And that’s why the pie filter is so brilliant. It lets you protect yourself instead of requiring the site administrators to police everyone. It’s true that alone wouldn’t be enough for bigger social media sites where people can do stuff that harms you out of your sight, but for a discussion forum like this, it does the job better than anything else I’ve seen.

  154. 154.

    Ruckus

    @StringOnAStick:

    Navy my own self.

    Ships captains can change rather often and we got a new one who was rather refreshing. He took all the bullshit that normally goes on as if it was the joke that it is. He was actually a human being, something that not all captains seemingly want/try to be. A few days after he took over I got a call from the ensign who I answered to basically screaming at me to get to the captain’s cabin before I got beheaded. I went to his cabin and knocked on his door, “Come in,” I did and he asked what I was doing there. His tone and newness on board told me that I should play it straight. So I told him that I had been ordered to get my ass up to see him before I got busted. The look on his face said it all so I told him that I’d been told he was pissed because he wanted something and we hadn’t fixed what he wanted, which was his phone moved, if possible. (understand the phone mount is welded to the wall bulkhead – sorry, only been out for 50 yrs) I told him why I was there he stated he’d only just told the XO about 2 minutes ago and said it wasn’t in any way critical. There were only 3 people between the captain and myself and the story went from when someone can to get your fucking ass up the the captain, he’s fucking pissed off at you. I told him what I was told and he just shook his head. Every time I saw him after that he was always “Hey Ruckus, how’s it going?” to the absolute horror to those 3 men, and I always answered “Just fine captan, how’s your day going?” And he always gave me that sideways look that said “how do you think, look who’s following me like little puppies?” We got along great.

  157. 157.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Things seem to be heating up. On a related note, what ever happened to Sarah Kendzior? She seems to really dislike Merrick Garland, accusing of him of being an accomplice to Trump’s corruption. In this recent interview from June:

    Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Sarah Kendzior, author of “Hiding in Plain Sight” and cohost of the Gaslit Nation podcast, who assesses the opening hearings of the House Jan. 6 Committee and the urgency of holding Trump and his co-conspirators accountable.

     

    SARAH KENDZIOR: Basically, I feel like this is too little, too late. These attacks were planned online. The public was broadly aware of them. You know, you could watch them being planned in real time. They were not prevented. They were aired on TV live. They were live-streamed over the Internet. We all witnessed this happen. And one thing that’s interesting to me is that in the immediate aftermath of the attack, the vast majority of Americans condemned it.

    And the vast majority of Americans including Republicans at that time, viewed Biden as the legitimate president and viewed Trump as somebody who should face consequences for these actions. This is not controversial. This is not particularly partisan. And what has happened is that so much time has elapsed from Jan. 6 until now that collective memory of what actually happened that day has been altered.

    And that is just as much the fault of the Democrats and of the Jan. 6 Committee and the DOJ as it is of the right-wing, you know, outlets like Fox News that are constantly rewriting history in real time. Their inaction has allowed that other narrative, that counter-narrative to really take hold. And so, you know, what they’re doing now is basically trying to revive people’s memories, you know, bring them back to that day and be like, “No, you know, there wasn’t voter fraud.”

    They’re still arguing against the claims that Trump made in late 2020, early 2021, instead of laying out the broader conspiracy, which implicates not just Trump, but people like Roger Stone or Michael Flynn or Steve Bannon, who notably are not being mentioned at all.

    SCOTT HARRIS: Hmm. Well, we’ve got more hearings coming up, so we hope there’s a fuller picture that’s painted by this committee. But one thing that alarmed me that I want to get your take on is, I heard many commentators when they were watching Thursday’s opening hearing of the Jan. 6 Committee talk about the most important audience member for that hearing. And they talked about how they hoped Attorney General Merrick Garland was sitting there watching the hearing, taking notes.

    But you would hope that the U.S. Justice Department is currently investigating the attempted coup. They should have all the evidence and more gathered by the Jan. 6 House Committee. It seems impossible to believe that the Justice Department has not already acted to indict those involved as you said, in plain sight organizing this attempted coup. Indictment, sure, but in the view of many people, including myself, there’s plenty of evidence to have already tried and put these folks in prison who attempted to overturn our deeply flawed democracy.

    SARAH KENDZIOR: Yeah, absolutely. Merrick Garland has had no intention from the start of holding any of the criminal elites accountable. He’s only going for, you know, random, ordinary Americans who got heated up by Trump’s rhetoric or by, you know, a QAnon on post and showed up on Jan. 6. They’re not looking at the actual operatives. And that’s because those operatives are people from their circle, whether it’s, you know, Ginni Thomas or Michael Flynn and (Steve) Bannon, who both served in the administration or, you know, and I really should bring this up, it’s a topic no one wants to discuss.

    But the Jan. 6 hearings are being overseen by a woman named Jamie Gorelick you may remember her, (deputy attorney general) from the Clinton administration and from, you know, just a variety of broad corruption scandals over the last 25 years or so. She was Ivanka and Jared’s lawyer. She’s the person who installed Ivanka and Jared in the White House and allowed them to get through, you know, ethics violations that they normally would face.

    She also is a lifelong friend and mentor of Merrick Garland, going all the way back to their Harvard days from when they both were trained by Alan Dershowitz, who, of course, was one of Trump’s lawyers. So you have this giant conflict of interests. You have a, you know, sort of modern Roy Cohn, you know, having great influence behind the scenes over both the DOJ and the Jan. 6 Committee. And what they don’t want to do is indict anybody within that department or connected to it. That’s why we’re seeing reputational rehab through these hearings. They’re seeing people like Bill Barr get touted out as some sort of, you know, moral arbiter, as somebody who was against Trump when he was actually somebody who contributed to the plot and who did nothing in real time to stop it.

    And the same, of course, is true of Ivanka and Jared. So it’s really disturbing. I mean, I think that’s what it boils down to. And the whole, you know, Merrick Garland just sitting there watching TV, getting his information from that that just brought to mind Donald Trump you know, who used to watch Fox News and just parrot their narrative.

    So I felt like it was like almost a little nudge, nudge, wink, wink kind of moment. It was very strange, at the least extremely unprofessional and lazy.

    It seems almost like Kendzior has gone off the deep end here

  160. 160.

    Elizabelle

    @Redshift:   I love the pie filter.

    I also greatly appreciate that some commenters do battle with the trolls, and putting the objections on record.  Omnes, for example, with calling out bigoted remarks.  (Substitute “Jew” or “Muslim” for someone’s screeds, and see if that doesn’t bring back memories.)

    Pushback is important.  Otherwise, the awful comments can be attributed to us, as a blog community as a whole.  And that is not fair.

  163. 163.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @rikyrah: Those links are restricted but I followed one that you posted earlier and watched several vids of kids watching the trailer…the joy was palpable on their faces. Thanks so much!

  164. 164.

    Mike in Pasadena

    @The Moar You Know: Our second Iraq adventure led by “mission accompliished” W Bumblefuck taught would-be autocrats and dictators exactly the wrong lesson, “If you surrender your nukes and other powerful weapons, you are fucked.” For the slow learners, the Republican’s bestie Putin is teaching the same lesson again. Ukraine gave up the nukes on its territory after the USSR collapsed and look what it got them.

  165. 165.

    Roger Moore

    @Uncle Cosmo: ​
     
    My impression is that Chamberlain knew Hitler was up to no good but thought the UK needed more time to rearm if it wanted to be able to win militarily. So he thought he was being smart by buying Hitler off and avoiding an immediate war. He just didn’t grasp that Czechoslovakia had a good, if not huge, military, defensible borders, and a big armaments industry. The time gained was nowhere near as valuable as that material advantage.

  166. 166.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Ah yes, Garland is clearly an accomplice to Trump which is why DOJ is investigating Trump’s: Chief of Staff (Meadows), Asistant (Navarro), Attorneys (Guiliani, Powell, Clark, Eastman), Scott Perry etc. and investigating the false electors scheme and fundraising for 1/6.  In addition to investigating Trump himself for Espionage Act and Obstruction by stealing documents and moving them to MAL.  I mean, isn’t that exactly what an accomplice would do?

  170. 170.

    livewyre

    @Elizabelle: I’ve gone various ways on this over the years, but this is exactly how I see it now – while it hurts us to rise to provocation on its terms, we can’t let it define the discussion or scatter the community either.

    How exactly to do that is something I’m still studying, and this has been a surprisingly instructive example. It appears that the way in which we’re being provoked parallels the broader campaigns to poison and subvert democratic consensus – wedge groups off from each other; divide and conquer.

    Even if it’s not being done by a professional troll farm or out of ideological rancor, the net result is that we are being abused. This behavior is a form of attack on the well-being of others. Its characteristic motivation is as conservative as conservative gets; namely, the conceit of telling others what they are. That’s what gives it away. And it will not stop – not by any amount of ignoring on the part of isolated individuals – until it is put to a stop.

  171. 171.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    Exactly. I checked her Twitter and it doesn’t seem like she’s talked about Garland since earlier this year. I remember in the early Trump years she was quoted here quite a lot and she is a scholar on authoritarian regimes. I think somewhere along the way she either lost or mind and/or became a grifter

  172. 172.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): ​
    There are a number of people who think she went off the deep end a long time ago.

    But she also has rabid adherents. Hell, I got blocked by @Stonekettle a couple of weeks ago for questioning something she said. He accused me of attacking her

  177. 177.

    Lyrebird

    @Citizen Alan:

    the right wing Christianists love them some Orban. And also some Putin.

    True.  You used a more accurate word though, and when we are talking about Ukrainians under fire, it seems especially wrong to be slamming all Christians.  I think Adam linked some kind of source pointing out that at some points the churches in E Ukr were the only orgs getting aid to people there, not Red Cross, etc.

    YMMV.

  178. 178.

    MisterDancer

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Sarah Kendzior got a LOT of good press when Trump was elected, in no small part because she was warning of a number of things we see, today.

    However, she fell (I think) into the same trap people like Nate Silver fell into — their field of study and awareness was, in fact, far more narrow than they were able to understand about themselves. They keep having to pump out opinions and ideas to support their new job as public figures, and sometimes that doesn”t work. Worse: the people telling them, to be blunt, their shit don’t stink way outweighed the people trying to warn them off pushing their opinions past their capability to support them. Having the “Bad Guys” attacking them in waves after waves, esp. given what I’m sure were horrific misogynistic attacks on Ms. Kendzior, I’m sure did not help.

    That leads, in the end, to a hardening of opinions and inability to say “I made a mistake” or “I’m sorry”.

    And specifically — there was, and still is, a lot of belief that the Justice Dept. — be it Muller or Garland — are the stop-gap for Authoritarian. For a host of reasons, I don’t agree; someone earlier today mentioned how minorities/marginalized groups are FAR more cynical about the role of Judges, and Justice, in America, and I think some of this is Kendzior applying that mainstream “but the Justice Dept. must fix Democracy” approach, on top of this weird (to me) belief that said Justice efforts must be open to the public — recall Rep. Adam Schiff’s criticisms of the DoJ’s silence and apparent lack of action.

    At the end, I think she’s disheartened by all the unfair attacks and thus missing real criticisms, and stuck in the belief that only a very public and aggressive attempt at Justice will work. I personally think that’s far more performative than useful, far more about making the public “feel good,”  about retribution — or the appearance, thereof.

    And Justice shouldn’t be about making the masses feel good. That way lies a real and true darkness.

  179. 179.

    MisterDancer

    @Omnes Omnibus: Whew, Stonekettle. That’s someone who’s opinions just…curdled.

    The Trump years made a lot of people popular, and I don’t think they all aged well, sadly.

    (And y’all wonder why I post so rarely, here!)

  183. 183.

    Geminid

    @Uncle Cosmo:

     

    @HumboldtBlue: I think the best book I’ve read on the runup to the Second World War- and one of the best history books I’ve read on any topic- is Anthony Summers and David Fisher’s The Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin and the Nazis-Soviet Pact, 1939-1941 (1988). Summers and Fisher based their book on extensive research they had done for a BBC documentary.

    The book actually starts in 1938 with the Munich Agreement, and traces the intricate process by which Europe’s worst enemies made an alliance that set the stage for the the Second World War. It also describes Chamberlain’s diplomatic efforts during this period, and not to the Prime Minister’s credit. The book follows developments until Russia’s alliance with Germany ended abruptly with Operation Barbarossa.

    A key turning point was an intimate  dinner at a posh Berlin restaurant, in July of 1939. Attending were two German Foreign Ministry officials and two Russians from their Berlin embassy. One of the Russians, a Mr. Astyakov, had a medium nominal rank but was known Stalin’s man at the embassy. Over after dinner brandies the four discussed the two countries’ trade talks and then carefully explored the intentions of their two governments. The senior German official finally asked Astyakov if wider cooperation was possible. Oh yes, replied Astyakov, there is no reason that all issues between us cannot be resolved.

    Five weeks later the German Foreign Minister flew to Moscow and in 30 hours negotiated the infamous Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. At one point Molotov told Ribbentrop he needed to consult a higher authority on an issue. He stepped through an open door to the next room and was back in minutes with an answer. Stalin had been monitoring his Foreign Minister the whole time.

    The treaty was signed, Ribbentrop flew back to Germany and three days later Hitler launched his invasion of Poland.

  185. 185.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @MisterDancer:

    I think that’s a very good point about experts who have a narrow expertise and try extrapolate it to other subjects which doesn’t always work

  186. 186.

    Elizabelle

    Hope this is not a bad take by me, but I don’t think Garland and J6 are going to stop their operations or any subpoenaing to comport with our sacred elections.

    That’s kind of the whole issue of this round.

    Of course, the FTF NY Times (which held story on W’s wiretapping until after an election, long after the voters could weigh in) was bleating about this.  Mildly.  Their blurb:

    It also seized the phones of two top Trump advisers, a sign of an escalating investigation two months before the midterm elections.

  187. 187.

    rikyrah

    For those who couldn’t see previous links, try this one:

    Lai💔 (@normanination4) tweeted at 5:31 PM on Sun, Sep 11, 2022:
    As I stroll on TikTok, I keep seeing parents video their children reacting to The Little Mermaid trailer. So instead of focusing so much on the negative, I thought I’d show a thread of the little black kids who are excited to see their favorite princess look like them.
    (https://twitter.com/normanination4/status/1569091173305974785?s=02)

  188. 188.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Geminid: ​ 

    Thanks a million, that’s much appreciated. I’m currently reading Checkmate in Berlin, which is, oddly, the story of Berlin in the immediate aftermath of the war, written by Charles Milton.

    The Russians behave exactly how you’d expect the Russians to behave.

  190. 190.

    Geminid

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Mr. Stonekettle’s opinions came up here a few months ago after the Utah Democratic Party convention declined to nominate a Senate candidate and endorsed Independent Evan McMullin instead. Stonekettle had said this meant the end of the Democrat party in Utah. I disagreed but other jackals agreed with him, vehemently.

    We had a very fun discussion.

  192. 192.

    Elizabelle

    DOJ OK with Trump-suggested Special Master.  WaPost:

    The Justice Department filed court papers Monday signaling that it would accept a former chief federal judge in New York as a special master charged with reviewing papers seized by the FBI from former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and club.

    U.S. District Court judge Aileen M. Cannon still must approve Raymond J. Dearie’s appointment for the document review — which has stalled the Justice Department’s criminal probe — to go forward.

    Dearie still serves as a judge in Brooklyn federal court, albeit on senior status, which means he can, if he chooses, take a reduced caseload. In the 1980s, Dearie was the U.S Attorney in Brooklyn — a time when the office’s workload was dominated by the pursuit of mobsters, gang leaders, and financial fraudsters. He was nominated to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan and became one of the most highly-regarded jurists in the Eastern District of New York. Dearie has previously served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees sensitive national security cases.

  193. 193.

    Scout211

    DOJ open to one of Trump’s picks for special master.

    ETA:  Elizabelle got their first.  Both posted at 8:06. :)

    CNN)The Justice Department said it is open to a judge appointing one of the candidates that former President Donald Trump’s legal team put forward as a special master to review the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago, according to a court filing Monday evening.

    DOJ said senior Judge Raymond Dearie is acceptable, along with its two previously proposed selections: retired federal judges Barbara Jones and Thomas Griffith.

    “Each have substantial judicial experience, during which they have presided over federal criminal and civil cases, including federal cases involving national security and privilege concerns,” prosecutors wrote.

  194. 194.

    Elizabelle

    I just hope none of them are as gruesome as the Clinton Cash NYC FBI office.  Although, I trust AG Garland, and he and his team likely know them well.

  195. 195.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Hope this is not a bad take by me, but I don’t think Garland and J6 are going to stop their operations or any subpoenaing to comport with our sacred elections.

    I hope not either because truth be told, it’s always election season in America. Some of our problems might be resolved if we had tighter time frames for campaigns and elections. Like the myriads of health care solutions across the globe, we could learn from example.

  199. 199.

    Scout211

    @Elizabelle: Do you think this was meant to push her into a corner? It would really be an obvious political move for her if she ignores Dearie and picks Trump’s other, more political pick.

  202. 202.

    Elizabelle

    @Scout211:   No idea.  But DOJ knows what the documents are at this point, I would suspect, and may have decided that the judges will agree that they should not have been filched by TFG.

    Just get it away from that hack in Florida.  I hope her intervention works out badly for her, in the long run.  Fools rush in …

  204. 204.

    Elizabelle

    More from the WaPost story:

    In a second filing Monday afternoon, Trump’s lawyers said they oppose the Justice Department’s two special master candidates, retired judge Barbara S. Jones, who acted as a special master in an investigation of Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani; and Thomas B. Griffith, a retired appeals judge for the District of Columbia Circuit.

    They did not explain their opposition in detail, only saying that “there are specific reasons” why they do not want those nominees. The lawyers said it would be “more respectful” to explain their objection to these candidates in a different venue, rather than in a public court filing.

    The Justice Department countered that the special master should have federal judicial experience and that Jones, Griffith and Dearie would be acceptable choices. The only person not included on that list was one of Trump’s proposed candidates, Paul Huck Jr., a former deputy attorney general for the state of Florida.”Judge Jones, Griffith and Dearie each have substantial experience, during which they have presided over federal criminal and civil cases, including federal cases involving national security and privilege concerns,” the Justice Department’s filing said. “The government respectfully opposes the appoint of Paul Huck, Jr., who does not appear to have similar experience.”  [WaPost bolding]

  210. 210.

    Ohio Mom

    @rikyrah: That linked worked! Very moving to watch the girls’ faces change from “Okay, watching the Little Mermaid trailer” to “Whoa, do I believe my eyes?” to “YES!!!”

  211. 211.

    Jay

    @Roger Moore:

    While the Czech’s had a ‘great’ armament industry, and a viable military, they did have one problem.

    Strategy and tactics at the time called for a mix of fixed fortifications and mobile groups.

    All of the Czech fortification lines were close to the Border in German Majority areas, of whom, many had been subverted by the Nazi’s. So were their military/industrial areas.

  214. 214.

    Tony G

    @J R in WV: I’m old enough to remember when the nation freaked out after the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo pushed the price of gasoline to the unimaginable level of 50 cents per gallon.  Of course people were paid a lot less in those days.  (And we all wore onions on our belts …)

  217. 217.

    Paul in KY

    @Ruckus: The jump from bird colonel to 1 star is a big one & job performance isn’t the only thing they look at.

    Sure glad the asshat Putin licker didn’t get a star. Hoping Pres. Biden will order Flynn returned to active duty so he can bust him to PFC.

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