Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Not all heroes wear capes.

The revolution will be supervised.

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

After roe, women are no longer free.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

This blog will pay for itself.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

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

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

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

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

The willow is too close to the house.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

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

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: Hope for the SAD

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Another reason to look forward to the solstice!

Why it matters: The eight-chapter report is the culmination of a year and a half of work by the panel, including hundreds of depositions and hundreds of thousands of documents and other material evidence.

– It is expected to hone in on former President Trump’s alleged role in the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including his sprawling effort to overturn the 2020 election.

What they’re saying: Thompson said in a brief gaggle with reporters at the Capitol that the release of the report will be accompanied by a “formal presentation.”

– “There will be some form of public presentation, we haven’t decided exactly what that will be,” he said.

– The panel could also vote on making criminal referrals to the Department of Justice the same day, Thompson added.

What we’re watching: While much of the committees findings may be left on the cutting room floor, Thompson confirmed that they will make public whatever doesn’t make it into the report.

– “We’ll provide a method for the public to have access to it,” Thompson said.

– Asked about House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) demand for the committee to preserve its findings – a signal of a GOP probe to come – Thompson said, “He’s the public. If he wants access to it, all he has to do is go online and he’ll have it.”


Still far from perfect, but IMO the more motivated citizens we can add, the better:

… The 14-year high in naturalizations comes a year after President Biden directed federal agencies to promote naturalizations by eliminating bureaucratic barriers in the citizenship process, speeding up case adjudications and developing a government-wide strategy to encourage eligible immigrants to become citizens.

Citing that directive, USCIS scrapped a Trump administration revision to the naturalization civics questions that critics said made it harder for immigrants to pass the test, which is a requirement for most citizenship applicants. The agency also expanded remote video interviews for naturalization cases.

In an interview with CBS News, USCIS Director Ur Jaddou said the agency has launched public awareness and information campaigns to make the naturalization process more accessible, and streamlined citizenship cases for U.S. service members. In March 2021, USCIS held the first remote video military naturalization ceremony.

“It is good for the nation for people to fully become part of this nation, join it in the fullest way that they can,” Jaddou said this week. “That has been a priority since the beginning of this administration and we’re going to continue the focus on ensuring that people who wish to become Americans, can be.”…

In its fiscal year 2022 progress report, USCIS noted it processed a record high 275,111 employment-based green cards alongside the State Department, which reviews overseas visa requests. It also implemented a rule to provide relief to immigrants affected by the work permit delays by extending the period of automatic work authorization extensions for those applying for a renewal…

And finally: Lest we forget…

Reader Interactions

203Comments

  3. 3.

    JPL

    This week I’m the lucky grandma who is taking care of Eli who is sixteen months old and 27 pounds.  I need to mention that I don’t remember all the aches and pains taking care of my own.   Oh yeah that was forty plus years ago and our body ages.  Oh, he gave his cold.   Good times!

    I’ve been trying to check in to see how John is doing.   It’s going to take a while before the pain is gone.   I feel so sorry for him and all those that loved Tammy.

  4. 4.

    JPL

    The weather here is dreadful.   I was hoping for outside play time, but Saturday is our best bet.

    blech is right.

  5. 5.

    lowtechcyclist

    Jeez, I’d forgotten just how hideous that decor was. A real “Christmas in Mordor” look to it.

  9. 9.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A federal grand jury has indicted Florida state representative Joe Harding, the Republican lawmaker who authored the “don’t say gay” bill, for Covid business relief fraud and money laundering, the justice department announced on Wednesday.

    Between December 2020 and March 2021, Harding, 35, committed wire fraud when he took part in a “scheme to defraud” the Small Business Administration and obtained Covid-related relief funds for small businesses under false pretenses, according to a federal indictment.
    …………………….
    Harding, who was released on bond after a preliminary hearing on Tuesday, told Politico in a statement that he “fully repaid the loan and cooperated with investigators as requested”. If convicted, Harding faces up to 20 years in federal prison for wire fraud, 10 years for money laundering, and five years for making false statements.

    As somebody pointed out recently in another matter*, “If you rob a bank but later return all the money, you still robbed a bank.”

    *I forget the particulars but I believe it was in reference to trump

  11. 11.

    Anyway

    Blech indeed. Soggy couple of days here as well.

    Pet peeve -it’s not “hone in on”; you home in on something/someone…

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Last year, Joe Biden and Congress’s Democratic leaders agreed to allow even the poorest American parents to receive a tax credit of a few thousand dollars a year. What followed was a dramatic fall in the child poverty rate, which dropped by nearly half to its lowest level ever, according to the Census Bureau.

    Just months after it was enacted, the expanded child tax credit expired amid the objections of Republicans and an influential Democratic senator. By the start of this year, millions of American children had slipped back into poverty.

    “Once January 2022 hit and the monthly deposit did not hit families’ bank accounts, we saw an immediate sort of reversal, and there were 3.7 million more children in poverty in January 2022 compared to December 2021,” said Megan A Curran, director of policy at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University. “And so that’s a huge flip of what the circumstances were for kids.”

    With only weeks remaining until they lose control of the House of Representatives to a new Republican majority, Democrats are in last-minute flurry of bill-passing, and a group of lawmakers believe they have found the leverage they need to restore the child tax credit.

    The Democratic senators and representatives are proposing something of a trade: their votes to extend corporate tax breaks enacted by Donald Trump and the Republicans, but only if the expanded child tax credit is restored.

    Sausage making at it’s finest.

  13. 13.

    Narya

    Next Thursday is my last day of work (I was offered “voluntary” separation as part of cutting 10-15% of employees) and next Friday I pay off the mortgage. Woo!!

  14. 14.

    Narya

    Next Thursday is my last day of work (I was offered “voluntary” separation as part of cutting 10-15% of employees) and next Friday I pay off the mortgage. Woo!!

    ETA: with severance!

  17. 17.

    NotMax

    Heads up for any who subscribe to Sling. In the Sneak Peek section (which often has surprises) there are currently a handful of programs from the Carnegie Hall channel included at no additional charge. One of these is a mid-1980s full production from Munich of Die Fledermaus, an opera I’m a sucker for and usually make a point of experiencing every year in late December. Incapable of not clicking on it and watching it all the way through upon discovery.

    Had never seen this particular broadcast before. Not as slickly assembled nor as broadly comedic as a Munich production shown on PBS several years previous (YouTube link to that one) which I still retain on videotape and consider a touchstone against which to rate others. Same baritone lead in both (Eberhard Wächter) but in the latter one it’s unavoidably evident from close-ups that he’d become physically long in the tooth for the part. Granted he was no spring chicken in the earlier one, having by then already passed age 50, but what a difference a half decade makes. If you do have Sling and decide to give the later one a whirl while it’s on Sneak Peek status, keep an eye out for the transition from the reception hall to the dining hall of the Orlofsky manse. Breathtaking stagecraft, worth the extended applause the audience gives it.

  19. 19.

    Ohio Mom

    @JPL:Check out yesterday’s open thread with the photo of Steve. In the comments, Cole assured all of us he’s taking good care of himself. You’ll still be sorry for his loss but you be reassured that he is managing as well as anyone could.

  20. 20.

    Soprano2

    It’s rainy here too, but we need it. Hubby is still sick. I told him that if he’s not much better when I come home from work we’re going to urgent care. He’s resistant to going to the doctor. I think he doesn’t realize an illness when you’re 50 is different than an illness at 75. 🤨🤨

  23. 23.

    Layer8Problem

    Up at five, probably would have gone back to sleep but dropped my cell phone on the floor while finding out that it was five and woke my partner.  We gave up on going back to sleep about a half-hour ago.  Now watching a full moon descending into pinkish clouds on the horizon as the sun rises.

  24. 24.

    ryk

    @Narya: A few years prior to retirement, the wife and I paid off the house and all our other bills. Now, a few years into retirement, the wife decided to buy a new car, only to discover we no longer have a credit rating. I’ve been furious about this for a week.

  27. 27.

    trnc

    Does anyone else here post at sites that use Disqus? If so, do you know if there’s a way to fix comments so they all show up? If I get 2 replies to a comment, go through the Disqus notification page and click “View in discussion,” I can only see the one reply so I have to do that for each reply.

    Fortunately, most people ignore my comments, so it’s not too onerous. :-D

  28. 28.

    Kay

    @Jackie:

    They have bigger problems in GA than Herschel Walker though. Ossoff beat Perdue and Warnock beat Loeffler. Their “mainstream” candidates are also low quality.

  29. 29.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @trnc: At LGM, I click on any story and scroll to the bottom, just before the comments. My name shows up there with a little circle next to it. If there are replies for me on any thread, there are numbers in the circle. I click on the circle and see the replies

  30. 30.

    Nelle

    @OzarkHillbilly: OT.  Yesterday I was in a huge hospital, medical complex and apparently came in at the wrong point and had a labyrinth to thread.  A construction guy got on the elevator.  Said he was a carpenter, working on a project there.  Union? I asked.  Of course.  We chatted about unions and my dad and that sweet, young guy walked me through two towers, levels that didn’t connect so some upping and downing and made sure this silver haired woman got where she needed to go.  Plus gave me excellent instructions for my return to my car.  Felt a bit of a cared-for glow.

  31. 31.

    MagdaInBlack

    @ryk: I ran into that nonsense myself. “We need to see that you are responsible with credit.”  Because paying off a house and a car apparently isn’t responsible. I despise credit rating agencies, or whatever they are called. Such bs.

  32. 32.

    trnc

    @Jackie: ​
     

    It is notable that Trump-backed candidates all came up short in fund-raising.

    LOL. Liz doesn’t get it, or she’s pretending not to. DT doesn’t care what the candidates get from his fundraising. As long as he can skim, he’ll do whatever fundraising he wants.

  33. 33.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Twitter is under investigation by city officials in San Francisco following a complaint that the company allegedly converted rooms in its headquarters to sleeping quarters, an inquiry that has drawn scorn from Elon Musk.

    As of Monday, the office has “modest bedrooms featuring unmade mattresses, drab curtains and giant conference-room telepresence monitors” with four to eight beds a floor, employees told Forbes. The changes appear to be part of Musk’s plan for “hardcore Twitter” in which he’s demanded workers dedicate “long hours at high intensity” after he fired nearly half the company’s workforce.

    But the San Francisco Chronicle reported the company has not applied for any permits to use portions of the building for residential purposes.

    The San Francisco department of building inspection confirmed to several media outlets that it is investigating the matter after receiving a complaint and that it plans to inspect the company’s headquarters.
    …………………………..
    Musk was critical of the investigation. “So city of SF attacks companies providing beds for tired employees instead of making sure kids are safe from fentanyl. Where are your priorities @LondonBreed!?” he said on Twitter with a link to an article detailing an account from a father who says his baby overdosed on fentanyl after being exposed to the drug at a city playground. No city or police officials have confirmed whether or not the child’s emergency was the result of fentanyl exposure.

    I guess Must thinks the proper use of building inspectors is patrolling playgrounds for threats and not telling him he has to follow the laws like he was just another peon.

  34. 34.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Nelle: Are you sure he was a union carpenter? Sounds like an imposter to me. ;-) Most of the guys I worked with were nice folks, I’m happy he could take the time to deliver you to the proper location and leave you with a nice impression.

  36. 36.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    He’s ginning up fake outrage so he can move Twitter out of San Francisco and into some wingnut-run state and/or city. Texas or Florida.

    He’s all far Right politics now. Maybe it’s better. It’s probably safer for the public if he moves out of making cars (and medical devices! God Lord) and moves into the full time far Right socia media influencer role.

  38. 38.

    Geminid

    @trnc: I did notice a disparity in fundraising this cycle between Democratic and Republican candidates, and it seemed to exist whether or not the Republican was endorsed by Trump.

    Third party PACSs often made up much of the difference. The disparity was still significant, I thought because 1) actual campaigns buy advertising at lower cost than PACs, and 2) I think this shows a hollowing out of the Republican middle class and upper middle class donor base that reflects a broader loss of confidence in the party’s candidates.

  39. 39.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The performing Right wingers like Musk do around work is so childish. He wants everyone to know he can keep his employees in the office overnight. When he fired half the employees for the thought crime of being “woke” all his gross male online fans were strutting around boasting about a “work ethic” and being “hardcore”. They all imagine themselves as incredibly productive and hard working. They’re the sort of people who say they work “60 hours a week” and it’s either a lie or 20 of the hours are them taking care of personal business at work.

  43. 43.

    Ohio Mom

    @Jackie: That editorial is a weird mix of typical Fox propaganda (“China virus” for one example) and cold-hearted realism, that Trump energizes voters to choose Democrats and has turned off the GOP’s big donors, that he is doing real harm to the Republican brand.

    Feels funny to agree with anything from Fox. Of course, they think it’s terrible, I think, keep dragging them down. Might be the only good to come out of Trump.

    Long after I am gone, high school history classes will be teaching that the Trump years show that our system of government works, that it is self-correcting, aren’t we a grand nation state with an amazing Constitution? I’ll be glad to miss hearing that reductive nonsense.

  45. 45.

    BlueGuitarist

    Special election January 10 for Virginia state senate seat crucial for abortion rights:

    Pro-choice Virginia Beach City Council member Aaron Rouse – former Virginia Tech and NFL (GB Packers) safety – is running for the seat vacated by the Republican who narrowly defeated the excellent Elaine Luria for US House.

    Explainer from Blue Virginia: https://bluevirginia.us/2022/12/why-the-virginia-sd7-special-election-on-january-10-2023-matters-a-lot-and-why-democrats-really-need-to-win-it

    Explainer from David Nir at DailyKos: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/7/2140204/-Want-to-keep-on-winning-We-have-the-chance-for-a-huge-flip-in-Virginia-next-month (with fundraiser split between Rouse and DK)

    On the calendar: Wisconsin Supreme Court election April 4, 2003

  47. 47.

    LiminalOwl

    @OzarkHillbilly: Thank you—I saw the headline but hadn’t yet clicked through.
    Minor point (with respect to the particular article)—According to an article I read very recently, expert opinion is that the “exposure to fentanyl” stories are almost all bunk. You cannot be seriously (or maybe at all?) harmed by skin contact with fentanyl, unless it enters through an open wound.  Ingestion into digestive system and/or bloodstream is required.  A baby injured by fentanyl is a baby that someone gave fentanyl to, or that was crawling around unsupervised in a place where drugs were out in the open. (Tabling, for now, the likelihood that Musk was simply telling a made-up story to distract.)

  52. 52.

    Geminid

    @BlueGuitarist: I hope Virginia Beach Democrats can add another brick to Senate leader Louse Lucas’s Brick Wall.

    And I’m hoping that Elaine Luria runs again in 2024 and makes Representative Kiggans a one-termer.

  53. 53.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: “If you rob a bank but later return all the money, you still robbed a bank.”

    Couldn’t have been about Trump, he would start with “I didn’t rob the bank”, then move to “I took the money but it was mine”. Returning it would never be on the table.

  54. 54.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: Yep, I was thinking exactly that long before he took over twitter. Texas is right up his alley.

    @Kay: It’s all bullshit. People need down time to perform at their best. What musk is doing is cutting off his nose to spite his face.

  56. 56.

    Jeffro

    More of this, please.  The GOP and its voters need some serious shaming after the disgusting people they supported this past election.

    (I know we always say they won’t care, they can’t be shamed…but I think they do.  They feel it, anyways, even if they won’t admit it.  And I want them to feel it deeply)

    After Herschel Walker had already been accused of procuring multiple abortions for girlfriends, and after news reports revealed he had not one but three secret children, and after his most visible son, a conservative TikTok star, publicly said his father had “threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from [his] violence” — after he had done all that, it came time, on Tuesday, for Georgia voters to decide whether they wanted to elect him as a senator.

    At which point NPR ran a headline that read, “Evangelical voters grapple with Herschel Walker’s controversial image.”

    It raises the question: If Herschel Walker’s controversies made them “grapple” then what, exactly, would send them sprinting in the other direction? The man’s opponent was an actual, literal pastor — and still the evangelical Christians didn’t know which one to vote for?

    and this:

     

    The campaign was what happens when a party decides that “winning is a virtue,” as right-wing commentator Dana Loesch once said when explaining her support for Walker — that it is, in fact, the only virtue worth pursuing, at the expense of integrity, consistency, truthfulness. Herschel Walker’s campaign was as though a diabolical political scientist boiled down the essence of a typical Trump candidate to its essential goop, leaving behind the distilled dregs of a political philosophy that mostly centers on spouting off nonsense about pronouns and wokeness

  57. 57.

    Ken

    @Nelle: walked me through two towers, levels that didn’t connect so some upping and downing

    Most hospitals seem to have the floor plan of the Winchester Mystery House, and for much the same reason — they never stop building.  (Something to do with the tax laws for non-profits, I’ve heard.)

  58. 58.

    Geminid

    @OzarkHillbilly: If and when Musk packs Twitter headquarters off to Texas, I expect to hear all sorts of crybaby crap about San Francisco’s Woke politics and Texas’s love of Liberty. Musk will never mention the fact that Texas has a gazilion acres of flat, buildable and affordable land. That is the biggest reason tech companies relocate to that state.

  61. 61.

    stacib

    Britney Griner has been released.  Although I’m happy for her family, I sure wish the U.S. could have gotten Paul Whelan, too.

  62. 62.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    And as you know they LOVE owning the libs, so he’d leave SF just for that alone.

    Another reactionary Right wing billionaire who owns a media company and screeches about the liberal media silencing conservatives. Nothing new or original about any of it.

    You get such a sense of how much they resent that people who worked for Twitter were well-compensated- they were gleeful when half of them got fired. It’s all resentment and bitterness – Elon’s fans are pissed they’re not paid that much.

  63. 63.

    Gin & Tonic

    Word is that Britney (sp?) Griner has been swapped for Viktor Bout. I’m happy for her and her family, but this is a bad trade. Bout is a genuinely bad person, Griner was just foolish.

  64. 64.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @LiminalOwl: The fentanyl shit is just more RW fear mongering. There may be a kernel of truth at the center of it, but if so the kernel is vanishingly small.

  65. 65.

    Anyway

    @Narya:

    Congratulations! Excellent way to end the year / begin a new one.

    Rumblings of layoffs at work so I’m on edge though I know that doesn’t help anything …

  66. 66.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ken: I think it was in reference to the classified documents. trump was insisting he had returned everything the DoJ had requested and then some, but I might be conflating 2 or more stories of trump’s ongoing crime spree.

  69. 69.

    zhena gogolia

    Brittney Griner, the American basketball star imprisoned in Russia, was released in exchange for a Russian arms dealer, U.S. officials said.

  70. 70.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Jeffro:

    The campaign was what happens when a party decides that “winning is a virtue,” as right-wing commentator Dana Loesch once said when explaining her support for Walker — that it is, in fact, the only virtue worth pursuing, at the expense of integrity, consistency, truthfulness.

    That is the totality of their ethos and the only shame they are capable of feeling is for the sin of losing.

    Also for getting caught criming.

  72. 72.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: The fascinating thing about the contact-fentanyl idea is that police have gotten themselves so worked up over it that they keep collapsing from panic attacks while handling fentanyl, and it gets reported as contact overdose.

  79. 79.

    prostratedragon

    @Gin & Tonic:  He certainly is, but 12 years is a long time; unlikely he can just pick up near where he left off. Meanwhile, good to have a probably much wiser Ms. Griner back home.

  89. 89.

    Soprano2

    Hehehe, the “most liked” comment on the Griner story on the WaPo web site is “We should have just traded Trump back”.

  93. 93.

    dr. bloor

    @Soprano2: Perhaps.  Let’s see how many arms dealers the US is willing to part with when a no-name citizen gets 9 years after doing something as galactically stupid as Griner did.

  95. 95.

    zhena gogolia

    I just started watching Harry and Meghan while doing P/T. Don’t know what I think of it, but lots of pretty scenery.

  99. 99.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Kay:

    He’s ginning up fake outrage so he can move Twitter out of San Francisco and into some wingnut-run state and/or city. Texas or Florida.

    That’s gonna be entertaining FAFO territory.  If he thinks he’s lost a lot of employees already, wait until he moves the HQ, especially now that he’s insisting that people actually work at HQ.

  100. 100.

    Soprano2

    @dr. bloor: I hate to tell you this, but if Bout doesn’t sell weapons, someone else will. So Griner is supposed to be in a Russian prison for 9 years because she forgot she had some cartridges in her bag? There aren’t many pure, innocent people in prison to exchange, I’m not sure what you expect to happen.

  102. 102.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @dr. bloor: And in White America, white athletes get away with being idiots all the damned time. I’m not going to sacrifice Griner on the altar of public opinion because she was foolish. Griner doesn’t deserve the death penalty, and if she stayed imprisoned in Russian, Griner would have been murdered. As I said, I’m fine with it.

  105. 105.

    Ken

    Lately when I feed SAD, I check the crypto news, and there’s always some schadenfreude to cheer me up. For example, the bankruptcy of FTX has broken a bunch of NFTs — those tulip bulbs digital certificates that say people own a JPG image. Or rather, the certificates are still fine, the images just can’t be accessed any more.

    It makes you question whether there is any real value in NFTs, but then, any description of how they supposedly work raises the same question.

  106. 106.

    Cameron

    @dr. bloor: I thought she had a prescription for the drugs she was carrying. The case sounded pretty political to me, but I didn’t follow it very much.

  107. 107.

    MomSense

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Which was worse, Christmas in Mordor or the trees that looked like extras in an episode of The Handmaid’s Tale?

    While we are on the subject of aesthetic atrocities, will we ever get our beautiful Rose Garden restored?

  108. 108.

    Gin & Tonic

    @The Thin Black Duke: Reasonable people can disagree. I think releasing a russian arms dealer at a time when russia is scouring the world for weapons systems to kill innocent Ukrainians is a bad thing.

  109. 109.

    prostratedragon

    @zhena gogolia:
    Good point. And Bout isn’t very effective just sitting there being evil. He has to use processes that have either seized up or evolved along without him, and do it in a position where maybe he’s a bit visible. One doesn’t like to see him out on principle, but it might not be a disaster.

  111. 111.

    Soprano2

    @dr. bloor: It’s not that it “doesn’t make a difference”, it’s that you seem to think if he’s in prison no one will be selling any illegal weapons to anyone. So in order for the U.S. to stay pure, Griner is supposed to stay in a Russian prison for 9 years because of some empty vape cartridges in her luggage.

  112. 112.

    MomSense

    @Narya:

    That’s awesome!  The paying off the mortgage bit not the double post.  Hope this next chapter is a happy one for you!

  113. 113.

    Kay

    @lowtechcyclist:

    There are always “employees” to be had, the issue is employee quality. Tesla runs a parts line outside Toledo that is all temps – the whole rest of the auto industry moved away from temporary staffing because it causes quality problems. Musk doesn’t care about quality.

    I just thought it was gross that his fans were cheering Twitter employees losing their jobs. Nasty, resentful people.

  116. 116.

    dr. bloor

    @Soprano2:

    It’s not that it “doesn’t make a difference”, it’s that you seem to think if he’s in prison no one will be selling any illegal weapons to anyone. So in order for the U.S. to stay pure, Griner is supposed to stay in a Russian prison for 9 years because of some vape cartridges in her luggage.

    Please point to where I said or even intimated that I thought this.

  118. 118.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Gin & Tonic: And I disagree to disagree. If it was a Blonde Olympian Barbie that was imprisoned instead of Griner, this country would probably be teetering on the edge of Dr. Strangelove scenarios right now. As I said earlier, the longer Griner stayed in jail, the more likely she would have died, either from “suicide” or stabbed by another prisoner. More to the point, there’s no shortage of sociopaths in Russia eager to kill Ukrainians, sad to say. Bout wouldn’t be the last government-sanctioned terrorist to get away with murder either.

  119. 119.

    Percysowner

    @lowtechcyclist: Also, any female employees (there may be a few) or employees with wives will have to take into account the Texas abortion laws. LGBTQ employees will have many reasons to nope out as well.

  120. 120.

    dr. bloor

    @prostratedragon:

    Good point. And Bout isn’t very effective just sitting there being evil. He has to use processes that have either seized up or evolved along without him, and do it in a position where maybe he’s a bit visible. One doesn’t like to see him out on principle, but it might not be a disaster.

    LOL.  He’s going to be on Putin’s payroll by the end of the week.

  122. 122.

    jonas

    @Ken:Most hospitals seem to have the floor plan of the Winchester Mystery House, and for much the same reason — they never stop building.

    Same thing with airports, it seems. I don’t think I’ve ever been in one — in the US at least — that isn’t undergoing some kind of renovation or expansion. I guess it’s kind of like painting the Golden Gate bridge. Once they’ve reached one end after so many years, it’s already time to go back and start over on the other side.

  123. 123.

    Kay

    @lowtechcyclist:

    It won’t matter that much in terms of harm to people if Twitter quality goes down though.

    BP has an oil refinery in Toledo. I represent quite a few people who work there. Traditionally, the refinery would shut down once a year in the summer for repairs/safety. The various trades they bring in to  work there would get lots of overtime during shut down, because BP wants the refinery back up as fast as possible. This past year they shut out the trade unions who do the shut down repairs and brought temp crews in from Texas.

    This happened in September:

    OREGON, Ohio (WTVG) – The BP Husky Toledo Refinery has been shut down after two people lost their lives in a fire at the facility Tuesday. Representatives of BP confirmed that two people were killed after sustaining injuries in the fire. According to The Blade, the two who were killed were brothers Ben and Max Morrissey. These Morrisseys were members of the United Steelworkers District One Local 346, according to the Union.

    Another BP facility in Indiana, same thing. Same result- an electrical fire. They had “employees”. They just didn’t have good, experienced employees.

  124. 124.

    stacib

    @dr. bloor: I’m totally with you.  Reports say that Griner was repeatedly warned to NOT go to Russia, and she chose money over those warnings.  I’m glad she’s been released considering the “charges”, but she brought this on herself.

  125. 125.

    Soprano2

    @dr. bloor:  Well then what do you think? That Griner should stay in prison? That we should never make deals except with innocent people? I’m glad she’s out of prison – I think she was targeted because she’s black and gay and Putin wanted to embarrass the U.S. When you say that the people who are killed with weapons Bout sold won’t be thanking anyone, to me that seems to imply that you believe that if he were still in prison those weapons wouldn’t be sold at all.

  127. 127.

    prostratedragon

    @dr. bloor: ​ Doing what that wasn’t already happening? Who is going to move over to let him back in after 12 years? Putin paying him is not going to do the magic. It’s a calculated risk letting him go, but with some value for US.

  130. 130.

    trnc

    @lowtechcyclist: ​
     

    If he thinks he’s lost a lot of employees already, wait until he moves the HQ, especially now that he’s insisting that people actually work at HQ.

    He’d drop the on-site requirement and maybe hire some new right wing coders who might even work for less if they think they’re part of the big mission to turn twitter into a bigger Gab. The question is how many of them would be hacks, and will the skilled coders be able to save twitter from Elon?

  131. 131.

    Kay

    I think it’s hysterical that Fox has KellyAnne Conway on to talk about Republican election losses and NOT ONE PERSON says to her “these are your candidates who lost and your MAGA movement that is such a loser”

    They can’t even stand up to the low quality Trump HIRES let alone Trump himself.

  132. 132.

    Marmot

    @Kay: I’m missing something—the Morrisseys were union. Aren’t you saying it’s the temps causing safety problems? (Which seems pretty damn likely.)

  133. 133.

    dr. bloor

    @prostratedragon: Wait, you imagine there’s some sort of roster limit on the number of state-sponsored terrorists Putin will put into play?  He might not be able to jump right back to aiding Africans in annihilating each other–that was his wheelhouse–but there’s always someplace to sell weapons and make bank for Vlad.

    I have to say, the “it’s just one arms dealer” positions are rather surprising.  I guess Griner is the “tragedy” and the thousands of non-basketball playing dead are “statistics.”

  134. 134.

    Ken

    @Soprano2:  I think they already have employees all over the world

    Had. Most of the Asia-Pacific and all of the Africa teams were let go.

    So were the European teams, but the EU has these things called “employment laws”, under which the owner of a company is not a god-king. So many of the EU employees have stayed on until the proper procedures are followed, and some have filed lawsuits for the pay they’re owed.

  135. 135.

    jonas

    @The Thin Black Duke:  Call me wrong, but I’m fine with it.

    C’mon. She was railroaded. No Russian citizen would have received anything close to the sentence she got. A more reasonable penalty would have been a fine and a ban on playing Russian ball anymore, or something. But 10 years in the Gulag at hard labor? That’s insane and the Russians know it

    ETA: well, derp. Just now saw the headline that Griner’s been released. So the Russian’s little hostage-taking gambit worked. *Golf claps* No US athlete will ever set foot on Russian soil again, so there’s that. Hope they’re proud of themselves.

  136. 136.

    narya

    Thank you all for your good wishes! I commented . . . and then went off on my morning 2-hour walk. I’m REALLY glad I got the offer; many other folks are gutted, of course, and the gaping holes these departures will leave will be a real challenge; I’m so glad to be going. It does deprive me of the opportunity to quit on April Fool’s Day, but I will happily accept that “deprivation.” And, yes, having no mortgage will be lovely.

  137. 137.

    WaterGirl

    I imagine this was something like a Sophie’s choice for Biden.  He tried to negotiate for two, but that didn’t fly.  Imagine having to make the choice when you know others are being left behind in terrible situations.

    All you can do is make the best choice you can.

  139. 139.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: Penny wise and pound foolish. There were several millwrights in my local. They made good bank when they were working because it was usually 7/12s, but they earned every penny.

  140. 140.

    JMG

    Does anyone here really think the illicit arms business halted for as long as five hours when Bout was first arrested, let alone while he was in prison? Whatever role he played was filled immediately by some other slimeball or slimeballs. He’ll find it most difficult to resume his former trade in any capacity.

  144. 144.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ken: ​So many of the EU employees have stayed on until the proper procedures are followed, and some have filed lawsuits for the pay they’re owed.

    Say WHAT??? Who do these people think they are, that they might have actual rights?

    s//

  148. 148.

    Soprano2

    @WaterGirl: I agree. You know that all the right wingers are already howling with outrage that the black lesbian basketball player was released but the heroic Marine wasn’t.  It’ll be cited as another piece of “proof” of how “woke” Democrats are, and to “prove” that Democrats don’t care about members of the military at all. And no, I didn’t even check any Web sites or Twitter, I just have no doubt that’s how they’re spinning it.

  149. 149.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @JMG: ​
      He has been out of the game for over ten years. My guess is that the vast majority of his contacts and sources are working with other people now. A washed-up armed dealer to save the life of an American citizen? The US government has to at least seriously consider such a trade. OTOH, I wouldn’t send any cultural or sporting groups to Russia any time in the near future.

  152. 152.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    One of many reasons we finally left.  It’s sunny here in Denver, like it almost always is.  Winters are are wonderful.  Back in Misery…

  155. 155.

    M31

    @Omnes Omnibus: and wasn’t his game selling old Soviet surplus arms all around the world?  Russia isn’t selling those any more, they’re using them in Ukraine, the fuckers

  156. 156.

    Suzanne

    @Ken:

    Most hospitals seem to have the floor plan of the Winchester Mystery House, and for much the same reason — they never stop building.  (Something to do with the tax laws for non-profits, I’ve heard.) 

    It’s not that nefarious. Hospitals never stop building because healthcare changes a lot, communities grow and need more beds, and it’s usually easier to expand than to renovate.

  159. 159.

    Scout211

    NBC has a statement from Whelan’s brother. Link

    “That early warning meant that our family has been able to mentally prepare for what is now a public disappointment for us. And a catastrophe for Paul,” David Whelan said. “I do not know if he is aware yet, although he will surely learn from Russian media.”

    David Whelan said gaining the release of Griner was the “right decision” rather than “waiting for one that wasn’t going to happen.”

    “It is so important to me that it is clear that we do not begrudge Ms. Griner her freedom,” he said. “As I have often remarked, Brittney’s and Paul’s cases were never really intertwined. It has always been a strong possibility that one might be freed without the other.”

  160. 160.

    opiejeanne

    @prostratedragon: There’s an old carol that does come to mind: “In The Bleak Midwinter”, at least the first verse:

    n the bleak midwinterFrosty wind made moanEarth stood hard as ironWater like a stoneSnow had fallenSnow on snow on snowIn the bleak midwinterLong, long ago

     

    I actually like that song.

  162. 162.

    Suzanne

    @jonas:

    Same thing with airports, it seems. I don’t think I’ve ever been in one — in the US at least — that isn’t undergoing some kind of renovation or expansion. I guess it’s kind of like painting the Golden Gate bridge. Once they’ve reached one end after so many years, it’s already time to go back and start over on the other side. 

    Airports grow and change for a few different reasons than hospitals. Airports often need to increase quantity and quality of retail space (the modern airport is a mall where you can also incidentally grab a flight), the increased space for security and customs needed post-9/11 has been gigantic (the public-facing portion of this is just a fraction), planes are getting bigger, it is difficult to increase the baggage handling capacity at existing terminals, etc.

    I have spent all of my working life in healthcare architecture, with a brief detour in aviation. Both markets deal with big, gnarly, complicated buildings. Each market is under different pressures. And if you remember that the building is a money-making instrument, everything starts to make more sense.

  163. 163.

    sab

    @dr. bloor: Whelan’s family says Biden’s family made the right choice.

    ETA Bout is horrible but he was retired. He probably won’t have more victims.

  166. 166.

    Geminid

     

     

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yes, Texas’s regulatory regime is certainly more business friendly than California’s. Still, tech companies have thrived in the Silicon Valley for decades. The problem is that they’ve thrived so much they filled that place up, and while California is a very big state it is a mountainous one. That makes buildable land, both commercial and residential, scarce and expensive.

    .Most of Texas is flat as a pancake. And it also has a decent state system of higher education that can help supply tech companies with skilled workers. Caifornia does as well or better in this area and that is a big reason why Twitter and companies like it started and prospered there.

    That is a factor Musk might mention when this hypothetical move takes place. But he may be too caught up in culture war narratives to even notice. And if he does praise Texas’s higher eduation system, he will never, ever thank California for its contributions to his company.

    On a different subject, I learned a fun Missouri fact yesterday in the Washington Post. A book reviewer of a collection of Dick Gregory’s letters, edited by his late son, talked about Gregory’s childhood and early adult years in his hometown of St. Louis. I had not known Dick Gregory was from there.

  168. 168.

    jonas

    @Scout211: I’m glad to see this. I also think Biden and Griner’s wife went out of their way at the press conference this morning to underscore that Griner’s release does not mean they’ve forgotten about Whelan. It was apparently the Russians who made it clear they weren’t going to make a deal for Whelan and it was either Bout in exchange for Griner or no-one.

  169. 169.

    Soprano2

    @Suzanne: We got to get a glimpse of the underneath of an airport when my CAmp ambassador class did our rotation at the Airport. The guy giving us the tour said that airports like Heathrow and O’Hare have miles and miles and miles of nothing but baggage stuff underneath them. After seeing that I think it’s a miracle that most bags make it onto the right plane.

  171. 171.

    Miss Bianca

    @Suzanne: so men are sulking and refuse to be productive because they have to share the social status pie? I am shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you!

  172. 172.

    jonas

    @Geminid: I’m having a tough time seeing how the U of T system stays at the top of its game given Texas’s horrible abortion laws now. The elite academics contending for jobs at places like U of T Austin usually have options and why would they (esp women) pick Texas if, say, U of Chicago or Stanford were also dangling offers in front of them?

  174. 174.

    opiejeanne

    @Geminid: As an aside about the scarcity of buildable land, Silicon Valley used to be full of orchards. I think the last big cherry orchard went away about 20 years ago.

  175. 175.

    Jackie

    @WaterGirl: According to Andrea Mitchell:

    “The big problem with Whelan, Mitchell said, is the specific nature of the espionage charges Russia convicted him on, which are much more serious than Griner’s charges for drug use.

    “The Russians were demanding that a Russian spy be turned over in addition to Viktor Bout, the notorious arms dealer, and the U.S. position is they don’t have any Russian spies in captivity to turn over,” said Mitchell. “Initially, as you may recall, the Russians were demanding that a man, a spy in German captivity — assassin, actually — had to be turned over, and U.S. said, we can’t ask the Germans to turn someone over. So they said they had nothing to offer and the Russians were demanding that if Whelan was going to get out, they had to get someone labeled a spy. And Whelan is not a spy according to him, his family, and the U.S. government.”

    More at the link.

    https://www.rawstory.com/paul-whelan/

    @Soprano2:

  176. 176.

    Kay

    @Marmot:

    The Morriseys would have been regular employees, not the shutdown safety/repair crew. People who work there told me BP used a contract, non union crew from Texas instead of local skilled trades to do safety/repair. The shutdown crew is huge- they bring in like 300-400 people and they just swarm all over the refinery for a month doing repairs and safety checks then they crank it back up and run it for another year.

  177. 177.

    Subsole

    @Kay:

    Long hours like that are the sign of horrible management. Either they need to hire more people, or there’s a scheduling issue.

    Put it this way:

    Working trauma in the ER is pretty hardcore. They would not dream of making you sleep in the office. You hit end of shift, you give your report and then hand off to the next crew and that’s it. You are done. Period. They actually penalize you if you try to work too many hours consecutively.

    Because – and this is what folks like Mush, (who are using ‘work’ as a signifier of their ever-imperiled sense of virility rather than a concrete task to be done) never understand – tired, overworked employees make stupid mistakes. Like, people ask how surgical implements get left in a patient, or someone x-rays the wrong arm? That’s how.

    It’s funny. I never would have suspected this guy was such absolute dogshit at managing if he hadn’t decided to stand up and impress us all.

  178. 178.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @LiminalOwl: I had the same thought. all these “skin exposure to fentanyl”  panic stories get my bullshit meter pinging.  Fentanyl has been used in hospitals for quite some time, and I have never heard of this, “don’t let it touch your skin, don’t touch anything it could have touched”  thing until recently.  And the panic stories seem to be self-perpetuating

    Fentanyl panic stories have real world consequences

  180. 180.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2: I’ve carried illegal drugs plenty, and in far less cautious ways than Ms. Griner did. Only my dumb luck saved me from criminal charges.

    So I’m not going to judge Griner’s mistake harshly. She misjudged the changed political environment. Griner had entered Russia several times before when she was welcomed under the auspices of the billionaire team owner that hired her professional services. I expect she had passed customs before with a discrete amount of cannabis oil with no problem. This time was different; the protection of her sponsor had evaporated and she was now a target.

    Anyway, I bet that search was a setup. The Russians used the special dog that barks when signaled by its handler, not when it smells drugs. Back in the kennel, the real drug sniffing dogs probably rolled their eyes when their colleague bragged about his big bust.

  181. 181.

    Kay

    @Subsole:

    Long hours like that are the sign of horrible management. Either they need to hire more people, or there’s a scheduling issue.

    I agree. It’s silly and performative management too because it simply isn’t true that people can produce good work when they’re working 18 hours a day 7 days. It will be
    garbage and have to be redone.
    Musk’s bro fans like the manliness of Elon barking out “you’re fired!” just like Trump fans did when Trump had his dumb reality show. Musk’s fans YEARN to be in a position to fire people, but none of them are.
    All these ridiculous scammers do this, btw, the “I work so hard I sleep in the office” bullshit. Elizabeth Holmes did it, the FTX scammer did it, they all do it. The FTX scammer set up this whole theater scene where he was supposedly asleep in his workplace when investor video calls would start. They would see him curled up, “sleeping”. He would pretend to “wake up” and join the call- guffaw- and his dumb investors fell for it.
    It’s a performance.

  184. 184.

    jonas

    @Suzanne: Thanks for your insights on airport building. Yeah, thinking about architecture in terms of maximizing profit per square foot makes a lot of sense. Why someone does any serious clothes/accessory shopping at an airport, particularly with all the short layovers these days, is another question, but anyway…

    The labor participation article is really interesting, but affirms something I think a lot of us have known for a while: it’s not “social status” per se that’s the issue, but income inequality. The vast majority of jobs now available to workers without a college degree (or other specialized training in some trade) are basically in retail or hospitality paying minimum wage that no-one can survive on. Men (and women) generally want to do something that they can be proud of and that allows them to care for a family, enjoy life, etc. On one level, I guess you can say that such attitudes are crudely patriarchal, but it’s also just Marxism 101. Work has to be meaningful to be fulfilling and shitty wage labor doesn’t fit the bill. The only work really available to non-college degreed workers these days that pays really well are skilled trades (esp. in a union), construction, electrical, etc., that often require, if not a 2-year degree, then some amount of post-high school technical training, an apprenticeship, etc. and not everyone is inclined to do that (and most high schools do a really shitty job of motivating non-college-bound students). It used to be those guys could go down and still get a decent job running a basic stamping station at the local tool and die plant, but those were off-shored or automated long ago, or upgraded to run on high-tech milling and cutting machinery that requires more expertise.

    So yeah, no surprise that we have a generation of bored, unmotivated (and poorly-educated) young men raised on video games who don’t want to wait tables or wash cars for $10/hr. But that’s unregulated capitalism’s fault, not “wokeness” or whatever people are reading into this report.

  185. 185.

    Kay

    @Subsole:

     (who are using ‘work’ as a signifier of their ever-imperiled sense of virility rather than a concrete task to be done)

    Exactly. We have lawyers among the group I encounter regularly here who hide the fact that they go on vacation. You’ll call their office and be told they’re “in court” or “in a meeting”. It makes me laugh because it so indicates a lack of confidence and real confusion about the reality of work and performative “I am a hard worker!” strutting and boasting. What do they think will happen if I “find out” they take a vacation? I will somehow take advantage of this information?

  186. 186.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @ryk: A few years prior to retirement, the wife and I paid off the house and all our other bills. Now, a few years into retirement, the wife decided to buy a new car, only to discover we no longer have a credit rating. I’ve been furious about this for a week.​

    That happened to me when I first applied to my bank for a credit card back in 1978. When it came back DENIED I called them up from somewhere in High Dudgeon[1] and they said it was because I didn’t have a credit rating.

    Me: You mean you’re denying me a credit card because I’m too responsible to go into debt??
    Them: Um…Look, why don’t you just buy something on credit and pay it off immediately? Then there won’t be a problem.
    Me: Look, why don’t you pull up my savings account balance[2] and then explain to me why I shouldn’t take every penny to a bank that’ll issue me a credit card, mkay?
    Them: Um, jeez…How about if we issue you a starter card with a $500 limit? I’m sure we’ll be happy to increase that in a couple of weeks –
    Me: Just send it.

    And of course they did, and they did.[3]

    [1] The brilliant Roger Zelazny actually used this for a place name in his SF novel Jack of Shadows. IIRC there are East and West Poles as well. I think Roger must’ve had a lot of fun with this. (I met him a couple of times when he was still living in Baltimore – helluva nice guy in addition to being a brilliant author. Too soon gone, RIP. :^( )

    [2] Dad opened the account as a trust fund the day I was born. I had inherited his terminally-frugal DNA and it had accumulated a fair piece of change in the interim.

    [3] Dad, child-of-the-Depression, paid cash for everything. I lobbied him for years to get a credit card – “Use the bank’s money and pay it off every month, ferdogsake!” – to no avail. He went into debt just once after my birth – to buy our house – and paid off the mortgage the minute he could. Just didn’t trust banks ever since he lost his teenage savings in one in 1932…​

  188. 188.

    Suzanne

    @jonas:

    Yeah, thinking about architecture in terms of maximizing profit per square foot makes a lot of sense. Why someone does any serious clothes/accessory shopping at an airport, particularly with all the short layovers these days, is another question, but anyway… 

    Because they’re bored. I know that’s a shitty answer, but it’s true. And it’s also even more about the restaurants and bars. Each airport authority/municipality who is the landlord of the airport wants you to get there early, have a drink, a meal, shop…..for hours before your flight. That’s as significant a revenue stream as probably a small airline renting the gates.

    And I really cannot underscore how much the various systems in buildings — things you know like HVAC, electrical, wireless, but also things you might not think of, like pneumatic tubes, baggage handling, sophisticated medical imaging and radiation, etc. — are pretty difficult to put into older buildings or to expand in an old building. You reach a limit of feasibility pretty quickly. And for facilities like airports and hospitals, which can’t close for years to be replaced, it is usually much easier to build a new building once your project is over a certain scale. And then usually the old one gets torn down and then another building is built on that footprint.

  191. 191.

    Soprano2

    @jonas: I’ve got a bartender who probably makes upward of $70,000/yr. He’s really good at what he does, all the customers love him. So there are other ways to make good money; not all jobs in the hospitality industry pay like shit.

  192. 192.

    lowtechcyclist

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    That is the totality of their ethos and the only shame they are capable of feeling is for the sin of losing.

    Nah, the essential core of their ethos is sticking it to everyone they’re pissed off at.

    The winning is important because it greatly increases their power to do that.

  196. 196.

    WaterGirl

    @Jackie: The article I read said this:

    But the official said Russia has treated Whelan differently because he is an accused spy, and that the Kremlin gave the White House the choice of either Griner or Whelan — or none.

    They were not asking for more for Whelan.  At least not according to the article.  So some of the reporting must be more accurate than the other, but there’s no way to tell what is correct.

  197. 197.

    Soprano2

    @Suzanne: I didn’t understand why our city decided to build a new airport in 2012 rather than expand the existing one until I toured the new airport. Retrofitting the old airport for the new technology needed now would have been harder and maybe even more expensive than building new. Now they lease the old building to a few companies including Expedia, which has a large call center there. Plus, the new airport is modern and clean, it’s a positive gateway to the city; the old one was from the 1950’s, so you can imagine what that was like.

  199. 199.

    WaterGirl

    @Soprano2: Thank you!

    But how do these men just “walk away from the work force”????

    Surely they are not independently wealthy.  So how do they pay their bills if they are not in the workforce?

  201. 201.

    Soprano2

    @WaterGirl: I don’t know; it’s a question the articles never answer. Maybe they turn to illegal ways to make money. Perhaps the next time someone starts whining about how “no one wants to work” I’ll bring up the article I read in well-known liberal magazine Fortune about how white non-college educated men really don’t want to work because they’re leaving the workforce in large numbers. That might shut that idiotic shit right down.

  203. 203.

    Suzanne

    @Soprano2: Retrofitting the old airport for the new technology needed now would have been harder and maybe even more expensive than building new.

     
    Yep. Almost always. It seems wasteful, but retrofitting is HARD. And expensive. And the end product is usually not as good.

    In hospitals, we often have problems with floor-to-floor heights. In older hospital buildings, it’s common to have only 12’ between floors. And with all of the needs of modern healthcare (imaging, air changes, IT), we literally cannot fit everything in. So floor-to-floor heights in modern surgical areas are usually 16’ and 14′ in patient areas. There is no way to correct this once it’s built, BTW.

    Also, as all the armchair warriors keep saying that we need to improve ventilation in buildings to be ready for the next pandemic…..keep in mind that that will be impossible in many existing buildings due to floor-to-floor heights only accommodating a defined amount of air circulation. The reality is that it will be impossible in many existing buildings.

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