Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Giving up is unforgivable.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Because of Course He Fucking Did

Because of Course He Fucking Did

by | 194 Comments

This post is in: ,

This fucking guy:

Elon Musk spoke directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin before tweeting a proposal to end the war in Ukraine that would have seen territory permanently ceded to Russia, it has been claimed.

In a mailout sent to Eurasia Group subscribers, Ian Bremmer wrote that Tesla CEO Musk told him that Putin was “prepared to negotiate,” but only if Crimea remained Russian, if Ukraine accepted a form of permanent neutrality, and Ukraine recognised Russia’s annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

Hey, Putin’s willing to negotiate “peace” if he gets to keep everything he stole and pays no consequences for his genocide.

Speaking of Quislings:

Former congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard announced on Tuesday that she is leaving the Democratic Party.

For Gabbard, the announcement is the culmination of years in which she has been increasingly at odds with the Democratic Party and its policies.

“I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party. It’s now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoking anti-white racism, who actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution,” Gabbard said in a video posted to social media. The announcement was made on the first episode of her new podcast, “The Tulsi Gabbard Show.”

Good riddance. And man did Harris have this nutter nailed.

Reader Interactions

194Comments

  1. 1.

    dmsilev

    an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoking anti-white racism, who actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution,

    I think I just made Wingnut Bingo. I will have to deduct one style point for failing to use “Democrat Party”.

    Also, just about the only dictator or authoritarianist that Elon Musk hasn’t sucked up to are the Saudis (that I know of anyway). So, he’s consistent anyway.

  5. 5.

    Betty Cracker

    Somehow, I’d forgotten all about Harris stomping on Gabbard during a debate — ha! Well done!

  7. 7.

    Tony Jay

    Isn’t Musky the Mouth-Organ single since his latest waif/wife qualified for her Probably Worth It pay-off?

    Hey, Tulsi, since you’ll apparently do and say anything for The Cause*, how about birthing a House of Musk-Gabbard to really concentrate the solipsism in one pestilential brew?

     

    * The Cause being Tulsi’s long term bank-balance.

  8. 8.

    ColoradoGuy

    A global cabal of billionaires and their eager handmaidens, just like the worst Bond film ever. Time to bring back the FDR/Truman/Eisenhower tax rates.

    (And yes, Musk and Putin are the world’s two richest men, dividing the spoils between them. Not even a Bond film would have a scenario this absurd.)

  10. 10.

    Mowgli

    Hillary also nailed Gabbard on her suspicions of being quite “Russia-curious” (my term for it). Gabbard was such an obvious Manchurian candidate that I’m shocked anyone was duped.

  12. 12.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    I think a lot of us here had Tulsi’s number well before 2020.

    My question is, why would anyone outside of Hawai’i have paid much attention to her well before 2020?

  13. 13.

    sdhays

    What’s the threshold for a CEO to jeopardize his company’s US defense contracts because he’s buddying around with America’s enemies? I don’t give a shit about him running Tesla into the ground – it doesn’t seem to be doing any useful innovation anymore anyway.

    He needs to be forced from SpaceX, though. I wonder how bad it will have to become and if anyone has the power to actually make it happen, other than the US government canceling/not renewing contracts.

  14. 14.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Gabbard can’t leave the DEM party. We left her on the side of a gravel road a long time ago.

  16. 16.

    Roger Moore

    @Mowgli:

    Gabbard was such an obvious Manchurian candidate that I’m shocked anyone was duped.

    I don’t know that anyone was fooled. You could probably use Gabbard’s support in the primaries as a good proxy for the number of tankies in the Democratic party.

  17. 17.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @dmsilev: i might be wrong but I believe I read somewhere legit via Twitter that one of Saudi princes was involved in the Twitter sale. I think its the bin Talal(sorry I can’t keep track of all the Saudi princes) guy who Maria Bartiromo gushes over on Fox business.

  18. 18.

    Anonymous At Work

    I would like to negotiate between Elon Musk and Twitter.  Twitters offers to let Musk out of the deal to buy Twitter at 56.20 a share if Musk agrees to purchase any and all sellers to Twitter stock at 104.20 a share.  Perfectly reasonable position, right?

  19. 19.

    sdhays

    @Mowgli: As I recall, that was why she was picking on Hillary in particular – Hillary had made an oblique reference to, I think, a certain candidate being on Putin’s payroll or something and, what do you know, the shoe fit and Tulsi didn’t like the color!

  22. 22.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @oatler: CNN has probably offer her a gig already. Kyrsten Sinema may be worried that Tulsi makes it there before she does.

  25. 25.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Betty Cracker:

    Paywalled for me (I think I used up all my free Daily Beast articles last week when all those Herschel Walker stories were breaking). Can you or someone kindly summarise what Harris said?

  27. 27.

    Ruviana

    Since Elon wants to be his own version of little rocket man can’t we just fire him into the sun?

  31. 31.

    dr. bloor

    @cmorenc: I wonder if the criteria for a “dispute” might offer Musk some shelter.  Do sanctions count?  Because we’re not at war with Russia.

    As for Gabbard, it would be nice if the DNC decided to implement real criteria for debate participation in ’24, although I’m not holding my breath.

  32. 32.

    StringOnAStick

    @lowtechcyclist: She had a following, probably web based.  I recall a young long haired duuuuuude at the first Denver Women’s March after TFG’s election, proudly carrying his Tulsi for President sign.

  34. 34.

    Betty Cracker

    @sdhays: I’ve been asking myself a similar question about the Murdoch media properties for a long time. How badly does a corporation that is subject to government regulation (and/or a recipient of defense contracts) have to fuck over the host country before it’s reined in? I understand the First Amendment is a high hurdle, as it should be. But apparently our tolerance is limitless, and that could be what ultimately destroys us.

  36. 36.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud: Gotta admit, the identities of DNC vice-chairs are pretty far down in the weeds AFAIAC, especially if there are several of them.  I can’t even tell you who the DNC chair is right now, let alone any of the lesser lights there.

    So needless to say, I probably missed whatever mini-controversies any of them were involved in, and I certainly don’t remember hearing about this one.

  37. 37.

    dmsilev

    Also in “Because of course he fucking did”, How Trump’s legal expenses consumed GOP donor money

    Donald Trump’s political operation has spent more money since he left office on lawyers representing the former president and a pair of nonprofits staffed by former Cabinet members than it has on Republican congressional campaigns, according to a review of financial filings.

    Trump’s leadership PAC, Save America, has blitzed supporters in recent days with fundraising solicitations that focus on next month’s high-stakes contest for control of Congress. “It is IMPERATIVE that we win BIG in November,” blared an email last week.

    The group has contributed about $8.4 million so far directly to Republican campaigns and committees, while devoting $7 million to Trump’s lawyers and another $2 million to the nonprofits, which employ former members of his administration, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Legal fees are expected to climb, Trump advisers say, as he employs a growing retinue of lawyers to fend off federal, state and county-level investigations.
    Available filings, which disclose payments only through the end of August, show Save America sent its single biggest check in the last 20 months not to a Trump-backed candidate or to advertising aimed at swing-state voters. Instead, the $3-million payment went to a Florida law firm representing the former president in the Justice Department’s investigation of his handling of government documents at Mar-a-Lago and its probe of the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, aimed at keeping Trump in power. Trump attorney Christopher Kise demanded the fee up front before he accepted the role.

  38. 38.

    Betty Cracker

    @SiubhanDuinne: Here you go:

    In a withering response to Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s defense of characterizing former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s leadership as the “personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party,” Sen. Kamala Harris ran through a laundry list of Gabbard’s perceived offenses against both party and country, characterizing the Hawaii congresswoman as an opportunist who has cozied up to white nationalists, dictators, and perhaps most damningly, President Donald Trump.

    “I think that it’s unfortunate that we have someone on this stage that is attempting to be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, who during the Obama administration spent four years full time on Fox News criticizing President Obama,” Harris said, prompted to respond to Gabbard’s remarks. If anyone on the stage should be condemned as a poor reflection on the party, Harris continued, it should be Gabbard herself.

    “When Donald Trump was elected—not even sworn in—buddied up to Steve Bannon to get a meeting with Donald Trump in Trump Tower,” Harris said, before referring to Gabbard’s refusal to disavow her 2017 meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

    “What we need on the stage in November is someone who has the ability to win, and by that, we need someone on that stage who has the ability to go toe-to-toe with Donald Trump, and someone who has the ability to rebuild the Obama coalition and bring the party and the nation together.”

  39. 39.

    Baud

    @lowtechcyclist: Same here.  But it was fashionable at the time to promote any voice — especially an “insider” voice — that was critical of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.

  40. 40.

    StringOnAStick

    I saw a tweet last night where Magic Grandpa from VT said D’s need to stop focusing their campaigns on abortion.  He must be afraid it’s a winning issue for us.

  42. 42.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’ve been asking myself a similar question about the Murdoch media properties for a long time. How badly does a corporation that is subject to government regulation (and/or a recipient of defense contracts) have to fuck over the host country before it’s reined in? I understand the First Amendment is a high hurdle, as it should be. But apparently our tolerance is limitless, and that could be what ultimately destroys us.

    Regulation of cable TV is pretty minimal.  Broadcast TV and radio stations had to “serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity” which was justified by their use of public airwaves.  (If any of that meaningfully survived the 1996 Communications Act, I’d be surprised.)  But cable TV doesn’t use the public airwaves, just the cables that the local cable companies put in the ground.  So there’s no similar basis for regulating cable TV channels.

  43. 43.

    MisterDancer

    @cmorenc: I’d first like to see someone with legal experience in this case law, opine on this section’s reading:

    any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States

    I can already see ways to wiggle out because of how open the meaning of those terms could be — unless there are defined more closely elsewhere in the Code, or in legal findings?

  48. 48.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: Gabbard being a vice-chair of the DNC got little attention. Her resignation in 2016 did, because it related to a bigger story, the Sanders/Clinton fight.

  50. 50.

    lowtechcyclist

    @StringOnAStick: Of course, Bernie is right up there with Dennis the Peasant in focusing on class to the exclusion of all else, so issues like abortion and racial discrimination aren’t that important to him.

  53. 53.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @cmorenc: ​What Musk did in speaking directly with Putin likely amounts to a clear violation of the Logan Act 18USC sec 953, which criminalizes negotiation by unauthorized American citizens with foreign governments having a dispute with the United States.

    I think that all depends on the legal definition of negotiation. I can easily see musk claiming he was just shooting the shit with putin about possible solutions to Russia’s little Ukraine problem.

  54. 54.

    Suzanne

    Re: Tulsi Gabbard leaving the Dems.

    I wish I could insert a gif.

    Wait, stop, come back. YAWN.

  56. 56.

    C Stars

    I want Tulsi Gabbard and Krystin (or however the fuck it’s spelled) Sinema to fall in love and get married and have a reality show on Fox, where Trump shows up once an episode and says sexist as shit things and Tulsi and KriStin giggle together and say “Oh YOU” and then then Sinema makes a McDonalds run for dinner.

    It could happen!!!!

  57. 57.

    Dangerman

    @Baud: Having Tulsi’s number reminds me of a classic Groucho Marx routine, i.e.:

    Tulsi: “What kind if a woman do you think I am?”

    Groucho: “Well, that’s been established, now we’re just haggling over the price.”

  58. 58.

    mrmoshpotato

    @dmsilev:

    Dump attorney Christopher Kise demanded the fee up front before he accepted the role. 

    He’s a scumbag who takes on scumbag clients, but smart of him to demand payment up front.

  61. 61.

    dmsilev

    @mrmoshpotato: Anyone who pays even the slightest bit of attention to how TFG has done business for the last several decades should know to demand payment up-front.

  65. 65.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Suzanne: For a couple of years, that was also my work email password. I didn’t choose it, I couldn’t change it, and I couldn’t make the obvious joke because that would expose it. Thankfully we don’t use that IT subcontractor any more.

  66. 66.

    jimmiraybob

    “God-given freedoms…” enshrined in our Constitution

    The authors of the rebellion declaration wrote: “…endowed by their Creator…” which leaves open the question of nature or divine creation (Laws of Nature v. Nature’s God).  Those rascally rascals and all their enlightenment bamboozlement.

    There is no mention of a creator or “God-given freedoms” in the Constitution.  It’s a framework for a liberal and secular government – a break with the established order.

    Natural rights are a foundation for the DOI and the Constitution and any “freedoms” (AKA natural and civil rights) “enshrined” in either document.  (And, as an aside, these are not limited by their enumeration.  That is pretty clearly stated in the 9th Amendment that was authored shortly after the ratification of the Constitution).  Most of the “wokeness” that I see revolves around progressing toward the ideals of equality and equity and expanding coverage of natural and civil rights – how horrible.

    I will end my tirade by reminding Tulsi that chattel slavery was also “enshrined” in the Constitution and defended at the time by slavers as fulfilling God’s Law.  It was 60 or so years of expanding “wokeness” that started us down the road of correcting that abomination.  And we’re still working on it.

    Do you think that it’ll be “Gabbard-Musk 2024” or the other way around.

  67. 67.

    emmyelle

    You know, the whole inform myself about the candidates, register to vote, leave my worm house on a cold day, stand in line, read the damn ballot, color in the bubble with the felt-tip marker thing is just getting so old.

    I think we would all be better off if rich guys and Russian assets would just make all the decisions for us. I’d probably be fine no matter what.

  68. 68.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @StringOnAStick:

    Like lowtechcyclist said, Magic Grandpa’s whole schtick is that everything is class warfare.  He and his followers believe that bigotry is just a tool plutocrats use to fool the rubes into siding with them.  Ergo, Democrats should stop defending minorities and focus solely on economic issues, voters will flock to the message they’ve been waiting to hear, and eating the rich will solve all those bigotry problems in the process.

    He and his fans can get quite cross when minorities (which somehow includes women) don’t sit down, shut up, and let white men fix things.

  70. 70.

    Major Major Major Major

    Color me skeptical on the Musk thing.

  71. 71.

    Suzanne

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: I used to work at a place where all the passwords and logins to the shared resources (like the research library) were some version of that plus the company’s initials. I made the joke a lot. Freaking ridiculous.

  74. 74.

    Gregory

    Former congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard announced on Tuesday that she is leaving the Democratic Party.

    In other words, she’s admitting she will never run for office from Hawaii again. That was the only reason for her to be a Democrat in the first place, and her Fox News gigs are doubtless more lucrative.

  76. 76.

    Geminid

    @schrodingers_cat: Repeating from below, Mangy Jay on Gabbard:

         The real story of Tulsi Gabbard is that there are some self-labeled “leftists” who will elevate anyone they perceive as allies &, instead of updating their opinion after witnessing the person’s bigotry, will shift their worldview to accommodate the bigotry.

  77. 77.

    Anyway

    @lowtechcyclist:

    My question is, why would anyone outside of Hawai’i have paid much attention to her well before 2020?

    She (Tulsi) played the media game well. She’d go on Bill Maher and make provocative statements (oooh, an elected Democrat criticizes the Dems) .

  79. 79.

    oldgold

    Memo To Musk:

    You sell electric cars!

    Toadying up to a failed foreign fossil fuel state and an American political party corruptly wed to the fossil fuel industry is not good business!

  81. 81.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Anyway:

    I see.  I would have missed all that because I never watch TV, and really had never heard of her before 2019 when she decided to be one of the 37 or so declared candidates for the Dem nomination.

  86. 86.

    StringOnAStick

    I’ve written 40 postcards through Postcards to Voters over the last 2 days, and I’ve got another 200 cards coming from an Etsy seller tomorrow.  I like that their focus is getting prior D voters to do so again; I’ve done phone banking and it seems like mostly no one picks up and the few that do are cranky about everything, including getting called too much by campaigns.  I once called a woman whose husband had died 2 days before; she didn’t need me bothering her at such a time.

    Studies show that handwritten cards get looked at and they help drive turnout.  Each card I’ve written makes the ask to go early vote in person, and tells them when early voting starts in their state; that’s a reminder they can look at, set on the table and act on within a few days; a call goes in one ear and out the other, and doesn’t leave a paper reminder in their hands.

    Please, go write postcards instead of sinking into despair!

  88. 88.

    Captain C

    Hey, Putin’s willing to negotiate “peace” if he gets to keep everything he stole and pays no consequences for his genocide.

    Sounds like his protégé/underling TFG.

    Former congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard announced on Tuesday that she is leaving the Democratic Party.

    Good riddance.  Dont let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya on the way out.  Also, she hadn’t (officially) left already?  Is she going to join Yang’s grift or go straight to the MAGAts?

  89. 89.

    piratedan

    I believe that Tulsi has already joined Faux News as a commentator, with her show’s announcement coming roughly 4 hours post her public flounce from the Democratic Party.

    I’m sure that its all coincidental.

  90. 90.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    I think Kay has said she is a regular on Joe Rogan.

    IIRC, he’s another of those guys who bravely challenges the status quo in the same way about a zillion other guys are doing so.

    Since Maher just came up, I actually watched a clip of his show for the first time the other night because he was supposedly being honest about just what traitors the Republicans are becoming.

    And he was just as bad as I’d always heard: while he managed to tell a fair amount of truth about the GQP, he totally bothsidesed it, managing to find a handful of isolated Dem remarks that, with some serious reinterpretation on his part, were supposedly just as bad as the shit the GQP is pushing these days.

  93. 93.

    Ruckus

    @ColoradoGuy:

    How can vlady be one of the world’s richest men, when he only makes $140K/yr? I mean the only way he could be one of the two wealthiest is if he was scamming the entire russian nation. Say it isn’t so, that a absolutely pompous, arrogant asshole would stoop to blackmail, theft, and grift just so he could run/own a country, kill whomever he wants, and be one of the world’s wealthiest men.

  94. 94.

    Immanentize

    It seems Angela Lansbury has died. Presumably murdered in the second 20 minutes of the hour by a cabal of vengeful seniors in her sweet little white picket fence community.

  95. 95.

    Betty Cracker

    @StringOnAStick: I’m doing postcards this year too. It’s much more suitable to my personality than phone banking or canvassing, which I’ve also done while despising every minute of it. So far, I’ve done a stack for Jeff Ettinger in MN and also for Stacey Abrams and Senator Warnock in GA. The latter bunch I did while watching a baseball game that went 15 innings this weekend — postcards are actually a great activity to do in tandem with baseball watching! :-)

  96. 96.

    Baud

    @lowtechcyclist:

    IIRC, he’s another of those guys who bravely challenges the status quo in the same way about a zillion other guys are doing so.

    Yes, I think they define the status quo as “making progress” and then claim they are standing up to The Man by opposing progress.

  98. 98.

    eversor

    @Ruckus:

    Pretty sure his game is shaking down the oligarchs after they loot the wealth.  The thing is when he goes down the process is just going to repeat.

  100. 100.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    @lowtechcyclist: you’re forgetting She was a Syria chemical weapons on civilians apologist.

    Al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11 and must be defeated. Obama won’t bomb them in Syria. Putin did. #neverforget911— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 1, 2015

    She voted for restricting resettlement of Syrian refugees and against condemning the Assad regime for war crimes. She also met with Bashar al-Assad in the name of “truly caring for the Syrian people,” and has raised scepticism that the regime was behind the 2017 Khan Sheikhoun chemical weapons attack. She has supported the Syrian and Russian regimes in their bombing campaigns on multiple occasions and espouses a narrative that paints the entire armed Syrian opposition as al-Qaeda terrorists, erasing the legitimate call from Syrians for a regime change of their own, and defining the narrative as a US-driven regime-change war.

    The first of Gabbard’s failed efforts to end U.S. support for anti-Assad forces came in 2015

    Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) said Friday she was “skeptical” that Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s regime was behind this week’s chemical weapons attack in northern Syria.

    “There are a number of theories that are out there,” Gabbard said during an interview on CNN’s “The Situation” when addressing who was behind the attack.

    Gabbard pointed to false intelligence reports about weapons of mass destruction used to justify the Iraq War under President George W. Bush as an example of how the intelligence assessments can produce inaccurate information.

    “There are a number of ways that you can point the finger,” she said.

    Suggesting it was a false flag operation.

  102. 102.

    StringOnAStick

    @Betty Cracker: I’m writing for Warnock and Abrams right now, between reading on the web and petting cats.

    Too smoky outside today to go mess around in the yard; the 120,000 acre forest fire 15 miles SW of here is in the “smoldering until the snow falls” phase now, and it all depends on the wind direction if you have a crisp fall blue sky or visible, stinky haze.  Today is the latter.  Oh well, write more cards!

  104. 104.

    StringOnAStick

    @eversor: Yes, it will repeat though perhaps with less imperial ambitions and at the end of this war, with a lot less materiel to wage war with.  Putin has to go, period.  The next strongman will loot the other oligarchs too; maybe the oligarchs might consider a slightly different outcome as being in their long term interests.

  105. 105.

    leeleeFL work

    My question from Day 1 has been, what the hell was Daniel Inouye thinking?  Seriously, what a waste of skin!

  107. 107.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    @lowtechcyclist: ​
      The Jackal radar pinged her long time activity as a chemical weapons apologist early:

    She voted for restricting resettlement of Syrian refugees and against condemning the Assad regime for war crimes. She also met with Bashar al-Assad in the name of “truly caring for the Syrian people,” and has raised scepticism that the regime was behind the 2017 Khan Sheikhoun chemical weapons attack. She has supported the Syrian and Russian regimes in their bombing campaigns on multiple occasions and espouses a narrative that paints the entire armed Syrian opposition as al-Qaeda terrorists, erasing the legitimate call from Syrians for a regime change of their own, and defining the narrative as a US-driven regime-change war.

  108. 108.

    UncleEbeneezer

    THE INEVITABLE INDICTMENT OF DONALD TRUMP

    It’s clear to me that Merrick Garland will bring charges against Donald Trump. It’s just a matter of when.

    By Franklin Foer
    As an appellate judge, Merrick Garland was known for constructing narrow decisions that achieved consensus without creating extraneous controversy. As a government attorney, he was known for his zealous adherence to the letter of the law. As a person, he is a smaller-than-life figure, a dry conversationalist, studious listener, something close to the opposite of a raconteur. As a driver, his friends say, he is maddeningly slow and almost comically fastidious.

    And as the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer, he is a hyper-prudential institutionalist who would like nothing more than to restore—quietly and deliberately—the Justice Department’s reputation for probity, process, and apolitical dispassion. Which is why it is so difficult for me to imagine him delighting in the choice he now faces: whether to become the first attorney general in American history to indict a former president.

    But this is what I believe he is preparing himself to do.
    I have been observing Garland closely for months. I’ve talked with his closest friends and most loyal former clerks and deputies. I’ve carefully studied his record. I’ve interviewed Garland himself. And I’ve reached the conclusion that his devotion to procedure, his belief in the rule of law, and in particular his reverence for the duties, responsibilities, and traditions of the U.S. Department of Justice will cause him to make the most monumental decision an attorney general can make.

    …

  110. 110.

    cain

    @Roger Moore:

    This is why she’s going to the Russian side for grift opportunities  – and so many opportunities! She can wear her super duper white uniforms like a real hero.

  112. 112.

    cain

    @Baud:

    Possibly, since liberals have traditionally hated the Logan Act.

    Perhaps it might sound better if it was called the The Wolverine Act?

    ETA – wow – 111! Binary y’all!

  113. 113.

    Geminid

    @zhena gogolia: I liked Lansbury in The Harvey Girls. She led the bad saloon women, and kept trying to trick Judy Garland and the good Harvey Girls.

    At one point Garland went to the saloon to work things out, and Lansbury started a fight. The other Harvey Girls came storming across the street and there was this big, choregraphed brawl.

    The two made up at the end of the movie though. It was kind of touching.

  116. 116.

    Roger Moore

    @lowtechcyclist:

    But cable TV doesn’t use the public airwaves, just the cables that the local cable companies put in the ground. So there’s no similar basis for regulating cable TV channels.

    That isn’t really true.  Most cable TV providers are granted a local monopoly, and local governments have usually been able to get some kind of concessions from them in exchange.  For example, most cable providers are- or at least were- required to include a local public access channel as part of their contract.  The difference is the government with the leverage over cable TV is usually a local one that doesn’t have the same kind of national concerns as the federal government.

  119. 119.

    Brachiator

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    It’s clear to me that Merrick Garland will bring charges against Donald Trump. It’s just a matter of when.

    I will believe it when I see it.

    People keep hoping and predicting, and God knows that Trump belongs in jail, but he keeps evading being held accountable.

  121. 121.

    cain

    @zhena gogolia:

    oh no.. she was such a peach. Really liked her.

    She was lovely in Samson and Delilah. Of course, we all know about her murderous rampage on “Murder She Wrote” – the character never did get caught.

  123. 123.

    The Moar You Know

    He needs to be forced from SpaceX, though. I wonder how bad it will have to become and if anyone has the power to actually make it happen, other than the US government canceling/not renewing contracts.

    @sdhays: the only way to get him out is for the US government to not renew his contracts and force them into bankruptcy.

    Sadly, the US Government is now completely reliant on Space X for launches and will be for a very, very long time to come, so that will not happen.

    (Atlas 5 is being retired, Delta 4 is being retired, the Vulcan is not anywhere near happening and the SLS is never going to make it into orbit)

  124. 124.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Brachiator: DOJ is literally still collecting evidence.  See: investigators questioning Christina Bobb.

    What part of “DOJ doesn’t indict until they complete their investigation which, isn’t complete until all the relevant evidence has been collected/analyzed” is so damn hard for people to understand?  It’s literally in the book of Federal Guidelines that Garland helped edit and follows to a T (according to this article and everyone who knows/worked with him).

  126. 126.

    UncleEbeneezer

    In the Jon Stewart interview with Arkansas AG Leslie Rutledge, she said they had “experts” in their brief that supported their state ban on gender affirming care. The “experts” are not qualified and are ideologically motivated. Let’s take a look at them. A Thread: 

  127. 127.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Miss Bianca: This goes right back to Ralph Nader complaining about “gonadal politics”, and Thomas Frank’s “What’s The Matter With Kansas?”. There’s this anti-Democratic-Party-left idea that there’s an untapped quadrant of culturally-conservative, theoretically economically-left people who we can win by cooling it on rights-and-equality issues and running on socialism for white men.

    They’re right that these people exist. They’re incorrect that Democrats have any control over the salience of cultural issues to them. They care 10000% more about the “white men” part than about anything else, and the Republicans would never let them forget that.

  131. 131.

    Geminid

    @Miss Bianca: Sanders seems bitter. He’s been marginalized, and he knows it.

    He’s always been a little cranky. Someone once said that Sanders loves “the People,” but does not like people that much.

  132. 132.

    hueyplong

    You know you’re in a sub-optimal timeline when you see “pestilential” in print (Tony Jay in #7 above) and think “there’s an underused word.”

  133. 133.

    Burnspbesq

    @cmorenc:

    The Logan Act, which dates to around 1798, is probably unconstitutional, and is certainly susceptible of abuse. Trump threatened to have John Kerry prosecuted because he kept up the dialogue he had with moderates in Iran from his time as SecState.

  134. 134.

    dmsilev

    @cain:

    Of course, we all know about her murderous rampage on “Murder She Wrote” – the character never did get caught.

    It’s worse than that. She gleefully framed so many innocent victims to take the fall for her own crimes.

  138. 138.

    SiubhanDuinne

    So sad that Dame Angela Lansbury has died, age 96. (Same age as the late Queen, interesting.) I didn’t pay much attention to Murder, She Wrote during its run, although I expect I’ve seen all of most episodes in syndication; but The Manchurian Candidate, Gaslight, and beyond anything, her Mrs. Lovett in the original Broadway run of Sweeney Todd. What a marvellous talent, and by all accounts a hella nice person. R.I.P.

  139. 139.

    Geminid

    @geg6: Sanders spent the first phase of his adult life as a Marxist. He had to keep the ideology on the down-low when he was elected to Congress, but he still sees politics through an economic lens.

    A Vermont friend from the old days once explained to a reporter Sanders’ stance on gun control: well, he’s a Trotskyite and Trotsky always said it was a big mistake when the Soviet working class allowed itself to be disarmed.

  142. 142.

    dww44

    @zhena gogolia: ​
      I’ve a friend just a couple of years younger than Lansbury who saw her on Broadway in the original cast of Sweeney Todd. Thought she was spectacular in that. She had incredible range in her movie and Broadway and TV roles, albeit that it seems it was the long running role on “Murder She Wrote” that most folks remember her for.

  146. 146.

    Brachiator

    @StringOnAStick:

    I saw a tweet last night where Magic Grandpa from VT said D’s need to stop focusing their campaigns on abortion.  He must be afraid it’s a winning issue for us.

    I saw a clip of a recent Sanders appearance on the late night Seth Meyers show. Sanders was back to pushing his own agenda instead of that of the Biden administration.

    And again, Sanders keeps harping on his vision of the beleaguered working class, but had nothing to say about women and the attack on reproductive rights.

    But I have noticed this again recently among some progressives in the US and UK. They are singularly focused on “the working class,” and adamantly reject any consideration of race or gender as invalid “identity politics.” Ironically they are just like the worst conservatives on this.

  147. 147.

    Roger Moore

    @Miss Bianca:

    Isn’t abortion an economic issue, and aren’t economic issues the only issues that matter to Sanders?

    Abortion is an economic issue that only affects women.  Racism is an economic issue that affects only people of color.  Bernie isn’t interested in either one, because he isn’t interested in any kind of economic populism that would hurt the status of white men relative to women and people of color. Gee, I wonder why.

  148. 148.

    Geminid

    @geg6: There’s also been a noticeable undercurrent of racial resentment among the Bernie bros, especially since the 2020 South Carolina primary propelled Biden into the lead over their guy.

  149. 149.

    Brachiator

    @dm:

    That may be what the word “cabal” is in there for — because of its derivation from “kabbalah”, it’s now considered dangerously close to a dog-whistle.

    I associated this word with 60s horror movies (a cabal of witches), and also with an odd tidbit of English political history.

    The Cabal ministry or the CABAL refers to a group of high councillors of King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1668 to c. 1674.

    The term Cabal has a double meaning in this context. It refers to the fact that, for perhaps the first time in English history, effective power in a royal council was shared by a group of men, a cabal, rather than dominated by a single “favourite”. The term also serves as the acronym “C-A-B-A-L” for the names of the five Privy Councillors – Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale – who formed the council’s Committee for Foreign Affairs.

    I never knew about the association with kabbalah. Thanks for the helpful background information. I understand how it could be a vile dog whistle.

  150. 150.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Geminid:

    A Vermont friend from the old days once explained to a reporter Sanders’ stance on gun control: well, he’s a Trotskyite and Trotsky always said it was a big mistake when the Soviet working class allowed itself to be disarmed.

    This is a pretty common stance among Internet Marxist tough guys.

  152. 152.

    Tony G

    “an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoking anti-white racism, who actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution,”   Wow.  I’d say that that sounds like an Onion parody, except that The Onion is generally a lot more subtle than that.  There are no limits with these people.

  154. 154.

    Suzanne

    @Roger Moore: Is Bernie Sanders “not interested” in abortion? I mean, I get that the man is old and cranky and set in his ways, but he’s been on the right side of this issue for a long time.

  155. 155.

    StringOnAStick

    @Brachiator: I saw this in a Latter Day Hippie I used to work with, too young to have been alive during the 1960’s but it is a cultural touchstone to them and of course an imaginary vision based on some romantic ideal.  She refused to vote for Hillary until I told her St. B had told his followers to do so; the change in her demeanor from “I won’t vote for HER!” to “oh, he did?” was cult-like.  She eventually fucked off to spend a year in India because she loved the “beautiful chaos there” though I think she had a group of her fellow Boulder travelers living there that were trying to recreate the Summer of Love (and Drugs).  Her group determined if you were acceptable by how much you loved St B; “total Bern-head” was her biggest complement towards her friends.  She’s too much of an airhead to not realize what the feminists of the 1970’s did, that the revolutionistas are a bunch of misogynists and she is a cute lay.

  156. 156.

    Princess

    Pouring one out for the generation whose first encounter with Angela Landsbury was in Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

  157. 157.

    Brachiator

    @zhena gogolia:

    Angela Lansbury, RIP.

    A supremely talented person. She was memorably terrifying in the Manchurian Candidate, which I saw in a film class. I’m sorry that I never saw her on Broadway.

    I also remember a wonderful interview on the public radio program Fresh Air. Great insights on acting. Hopefully this will be repeated this week.

  158. 158.

    Matt McIrvin

    @dm: As a Destiny 2 player I see the name “Cabal” and think of warlike aliens who look like giant turtle men and act like Warhammer guys/Space Romans. And who, lately, seem to have a lot of mutually antagonistic factions.

  161. 161.

    Scout211

    The DOJ told SCOTUS to stay the f*ck out of the Mar-a-Lago documents case.  Or something like that. Link

    CNN — 
    The Justice Department urged the Supreme Court on Tuesday to reject former President Donald Trump’s request that it intervene in the dispute over classified documents seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August.

    Calling the records “extraordinarily sensitive,” the Justice Department said the Supreme Court should let stand a federal appeals court order that blocked the special master’s access over those records while legal challenges play out.

    “As this Court has emphasized, courts should be cautious before ‘insisting upon an examination’ of records whose disclosure would jeopardize national security ‘even by the judge alone, in chambers,’” DOJ wrote, citing a past case.

  162. 162.

    cain

    @dmsilev:

    It’s worse than that. She gleefully framed so many innocent victims to take the fall for her own crimes.

    Not just that, gas lit them so that they admitted it!!

    Yes, I never did see the original (or the updated one) of the Manchurian Candidate – I think in the past 11 years, it just all felt close to home.

  163. 163.

    kalakal

     

     

    @zhena gogolia:

    “Never stray from the path, never eat a windfall apple, and never trust a man whose eyebrows meet on the middle”

    She was great as Little Red Riding Hood’s grandma

  164. 164.

    Roger Moore

    @Matt McIrvin:

    One of the things that has become increasingly obvious is that the social issues are an excuse.  The most obvious of these is gun control, where pro-gun Democrats never get any credit from people who claim to see guns as the critical issue.  I think the same thing is true with abortion and a ton of the other social issues.  People claim to care about the issues, but when forced to choose, they go based on political party rather than the issues they nominally care about.  IMO, this is the main reason anti-choice and pro-gun Democrats are dying breeds.  Being on the wrong side of those issues hurts them with most Democrats but doesn’t help with Republicans.

  165. 165.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @geg6:

    Yes. Utterly chilling.

    Fun fact: IRL she was only three years older than Laurence Harvey, who played her son. Now that takes some acting chops!

  166. 166.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @kalakal: I saw The Company of Wolves in a huge cinema in Leicester Square.  The long video of Bowie’s Blue Jean premiered at the show I went to.  Weird af combo.

  167. 167.

    Captain C

    @Geminid:

    He’s always been a little cranky. Someone once said that Sanders loves “the People,” but does not like people that much.

    BS et al:  “I speak for The People!!!”

    Interlocutor:  “Which people?”

    BS et al:  “ALL the People*!!!”

    Interlocutor:  “Um, do they know this?”

    Probably followed soon thereafter by:

    “I hate all these people!  They’re so stupid!  I can’t wait ’til the Revolution(TM) and I get my own Reeducation Camp to run!  I’ll show them!”

     

    *(for certain variations of “people,” some restrictions may apply)

  168. 168.

    Roger Moore

    @Suzanne:

    Bernie is not interested in abortion in the sense of priorities.  He has the right opinion on abortion, but places such a low priority on it that it would never come up if he were running the show.  That’s OK as long as he stays a back bencher, since he’s going to vote the right way, but it’s a problem if he’s important enough to help set the agenda.

    ETA: This is the basic reason I would never vote for him in the primary. I agree with him on the issues but completely disagree on emphasis.

  170. 170.

    Geminid

    @Roger Moore: Henry Cuellar (TX-28) is perhaps the last of the breed, but he seems to have adjusted some to new conditions. Last I checked the National Right to Life Commitee gave him rating of 7 out of a possible 100, and the Susan B. Anthony List gave him a zero. Cuellar’s former “A” grade from the NRA is now a “C.”

    I think Cook’s Political Report recently shifted the Texas 28th CD from Tossup to Lean D.

  171. 171.

    Anyway

    @Roger Moore:

    One of the things that has become increasingly obvious is that the social issues are an excuse.  The most obvious of these is gun control, where pro-gun Democrats never get any credit from people who claim to see guns as the critical issue.

    Same thing with “balanced budgets” or fiscal conservatism. They only care about it to use it as a cudgel against Ds.  When Rs blow the budget up – it’s a complete non-issue.

  173. 173.

    prostratedragon

    @Geminid: ​ I’d forgot she was in The Harvey Girls until just now when it came up in a ytube search. Unfortunately it sounds like they dubbed her voice with another singer, a thing they just automatically did back then.(*) I’d much rather have heard her distinctive voice.

    (*) Dana Andrews was dubbed in another 40s musical. Thing is, he was a singer with operatic training. They hadn’t asked him.

  174. 174.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Steve in the ATL: Weird 20 minute video.  Mostly Bowie doing costume changes.  Then the last 3-4 minutes were the MTV video.

    Then the main feature which has caused me to associate Volvo 240 series wagons with werewolves.  Then Vampire Weekend connected the sedans with the Cape Cod vampire outbreak.

  175. 175.

    Geminid

    @prostratedragon: That was not one of Lansbury’s better known roles. I just enjoyed that movie and its Southwestern setting. Also, The Harvey Girls was made around the peak of Judy Garland’s career. It’s kind of sad to think of what came not that long after.

  176. 176.

    Tony G

    @Roger Moore: I’m old enough to remember the late sixties/early seventies when “hard hats” (i.e., white men in the building trades were loudly (and sometimes violently) opposed to women and non-whites who didn’t know their place.  Saint Bernie was a young man at that time, and like many old people, he doesn’t seem to realize that the world has changed in the past half-century.

  177. 177.

    prostratedragon

    @UncleEbeneezer: ​ Isn’t there a counterintelligence investigation of which this is a part? If so, could be a while before we see indictments, but the documents matter here might be just a part of that. I think Aldrich Ames was investigated for a couple of years before they sprung, and Robert Hanssen even longer, though for part of the time with him they didn’t know who they were looking at, just evidence that there must be somebody.

  178. 178.

    JohnC

    @cain: The Manchurian Candidate re-make is…unfortunate. The original, however, is essential. You’ve never seen anything like it, I would wager.

  179. 179.

    JohnC

    @Geminid: Well, there was “A Star Is Born”, her greatest performance in one of the greatest films of all time. But yes, that ended up not helping her – robbed of the Best Actress and then downhill – it’s a tragedy.

  180. 180.

    James E Powell

    @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛:

    an elected Democrat criticizes the Dems

    Maher’s kink.

    Hardly belong to Maher.  A Democrat who slams the Democratic Party or a Democratic president is the cocaine of cable show guests.

  184. 184.

    J R in WV

    @lowtechcyclist:

    But cable TV doesn’t use the public airwaves, just the cables that the local cable companies put in the ground. So there’s no similar basis for regulating cable TV channels.

    Let me dispute this though pattern a little bit. Think about the issue of where do the cable companies get their programming to pump on those wire cables?

    They get it from orbiting broadcasting units, through the atmosphere up from up-link sites, and back down to down-link sites, both with big parabolic dishes pointed up into the sky. I guarantee that all those facilities have and use FCC-licensed broadcasting devices sending programming up into orbit, and back down to commercial subscribers. Cable down-link sites.

    Without the regulated sats rebroadcasting those programs down to the cable centers, no cable networks. No cable systems.

    I rest my case. Been a V long time since I worked in TV, and I wasn’t an engineer at all, but I was around it for a couple of years, and picked up more than I left on the ground.

  185. 185.

    Geminid

    @JohnC: That movie had a lot of darkness, and its sad to think about what came after for Garland. The news about Angela Lansbury is sad too.

    But overall, this thread has cheered me up. There hasn’t been a good Bernie-bash here for a long time!

  186. 186.

    Amir Khalid

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I remember Angela Lansbury most fondly as Mrs Potts in Disney’s original, animated Beauty and The Beast. Her version of the title song can still move me to tears.

  187. 187.

    Raoul Paste

    I haven’t read these comments, but I hope someone has referred to Saturday Night Live’s most recent show and a skit called “how much can you stand“. In particular, the part of the skit that involves Elon Musk

  189. 189.

    AWOL

    @Geminid: I’ve little use for Sanders but being anti-gun in Vermont is as suicidal as being anti-Israel in NYC. You might as well not run. Even many a good Democrat in Vermont are avid hunters. It’s an outdoors state.

  190. 190.

    Geminid

    @AWOL: You make a good point. But polling shows that many gun owners now support reasonable regulation of firearms. I have two friends who each own several  firearms, even taught their children gun safety and target shooting. I don’t think either would kick if Virginia were to adopt gun safety laws as stringent as California’s.

    But you are right about Vermont, at least historically. Sanders likely would not have won his first race for Congress without the support of the NRA. He beat a Republican incumbent who had voted for a ban on assault-type weapons.

  191. 191.

    LadySuzy

    @Tony G: She sounds like a republican. “Stoking anti-white racism” is a big tell.

    She’s been a faux democrat from the beginning. Either on the GOP’s payroll or on Putin’s payroll. Or both.

     

    @Tony G:

  192. 192.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    @schrodingers_cat: so glad to hear it

    I figured everything was OK or you wouldn’t be posting quite so soon!

    thanks for the comment about how the right-wing Hindus support Tulsi Gabbard.  It’s to be expected but it’s still evil.

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