congratulations on the new cats to everyone who brought a stray cat inside "just for this cold snap"
— ?? stick ?? (@briggityboppity) December 28, 2022
I found this thing in a bush when it was potato sized 5 years ago pic.twitter.com/wZjYPw04kt
— ?? stick ?? (@briggityboppity) December 29, 2022
(For once, it’s worth reading the replies!)
Under @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris’s leadership, the U.S. economy has added over 738,000 manufacturing jobs since taking office. Made in America isn’t just a slogan under this administration, it’s a reality. ????
— Doug Emhoff (@DouglasEmhoff) December 28, 2022
This time of year, so many are struggling in silence. I sat down with Kier Gaines, a licensed therapist and father, to talk about how to ask for help and support one another going into the new year. pic.twitter.com/1wyFWjGhyJ
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) December 28, 2022
It's been a big year in the US Capitol riot prosecutions
At beginning of 2022: Approx. 160 defendants had pleaded guilty
At end of 2022: Approx 470 have pleaded guilty
Hundreds more cases to come… pic.twitter.com/yvhnyBN203
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) December 28, 2022
BREAKING: Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) announces cancer diagnosis. @wusa9 pic.twitter.com/nOSNJDOALZ
— Adam Longo (@adamlongoTV) December 28, 2022
(3) Just in the past 2 years, Congressman Raskin has:
– lost his son to suicide
– his daughter & son in law were trapped in Capitol on Jan 6
– been impeachment manager
– sat on Jan 6 committee
– elected ‘Ranking Member’ of the House Oversight Committee for the upcoming Congress— Adam Longo (@adamlongoTV) December 28, 2022
Per the Washington Post:
… “My love and solidarity go out to other families managing cancer or any other health condition in this holiday season,” he said, “ — and all the doctors, nurses and medical personnel who provide us comfort and hope.”
This is not Raskin’s first battle with cancer. In 2010, he underwent radiation and chemotherapy as he fought Stage 3 colon cancer.
In 2021, he underwent an MRI exam to identify a growth on his stomach that turned out to be a benign cyst, he told The Washington Post for a profile a year ago.
Raskin, who won reelection last month with more than 80 percent of the vote, this month was elected ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. He was thrust into the national spotlight last year after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tapped him to lead the Trump impeachment trial…
gene108
VP Harris and Kier Gaines is a good video.
It’s hard to ask for help, because it’s hard to know if someone can help or what help they can provide.
Not everyone is capable of handling someone going into some mental health issue. Even if a person is close, the person may not be able to disengage from their current concerns and listen, let alone assist, someone having issues.
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
mrmoshpotato
Bring ’em on!
Low Key Swagger
(Doing this before Baud sucks up the $ and campaign staff) I’ve decided that now is the time, for me, as a Ukrainian born Buddhist monk, former astronaut, Heisman trophy winning 6’7″ Mexican war hero who invented cat memes, to run for Congress. Can I count on your support?
Put up the blue thermometer!
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
rikyrah
🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾 for the Congressman.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
🤗🤗🤗🤗
OzarkHillbilly
Capitalism rides to the rescue:
So do the lawyers:
For some reason or other, “Buyer beware.” comes to mind
Baud
@Low Key Swagger: The blue antidote to Santos!
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Robin Goodfellow
@Low Key Swagger: Considering my Congressman is George Santos, you might actually have a shot. Do you play Pickleball?
Mimi haha
Who knew the bottom would fall out of the market of things that don’t exist?
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: Can’t help but cheer at that smarmy dipshit Fallon getting sued.
Soprano2
I don’t know about anyone else, but here we’re having “weather whiplash”. We had a low temp of 8° on Tuesday; today, it’s 60° at 7 a.m. I went from wearing my long, heavy down coat to wearing a light sweater in two days! I’m glad it’s warmer, but it’s hard on the system when it changes so fast.
OzarkHillbilly
Hippocratic oath my ass:
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: I don’t think vaping should be allowed in hospitals, but I don’t know why the staff couldn’t handle that without calling the cops.
WereBear
@Mimi haha: when your mind is full of misconception, one must be extra careful of what we wish for
Geo Wilcox
@Soprano2: Same here, it also plays havoc with the critters. I am guessing there is going to be a bug population explosion too early for the season. Weather like this happens in spring not the beginning of winter.
Also floods, when the snow melts slowly the water systems can handle it but when you get a huge snow storm followed by rapid snow melt it spells big trouble for the folks down stream.
The Thin Black Duke
@Baud: Addicts must be punished, that’s why.
Anyway
@Gin & Toni
Channel-surfing the other day (have last two weeks of the year off) and came upon chef Jose Andres. It was the Rachael Ray show — she was very vocal about support for UA and ended with -Slava Ukraini-. I was happy to not detect any both-siderism BS.
Josie
@Low Key Swagger:
You sound nice.
Low Key Swagger
@Robin Goodfellow: National Champion, 2019
oldster
May the powers that be protect Jamie Raskin. He represents the best of America.
WV Blondie
I read a lot of the comments on the WaPo article about Jamie Raskin – every single one expressed gratitude for what he’s accomplished and solicitude for his recovery. I’m pleased by that – not a troll in sight.
RL
Oh man, not Alton Brown. I seriously did notsee that one coming. Ugh.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: 60 degrees is t-shirt weather for me.
Anyway
@Low Key Swagger:
Do you take Bitcoin?
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: No vaping wouldn’t be allowed in a hospital. Edibles anyone? But what does one expect from Kansas.
eta
Low Key Swagger
@oldster: Agreed. That family has been though too much. As someone who has endured cancer treatment, I know he’s in for a rough ride but I’m seeing way more success stories in this area than ever before. Here’s hoping.
Starfish
@Low Key Swagger: Clearly you need to be in that thread where the billionaires were throwing around hundreds of millions or billions.
WereBear
@The Thin Black Duke: It really is a search for people to be punished as though that wards off their own.
So… medieval. Really.
It’s entirely possible people were “grown up” enough back then, when life was literally simpler, but not now. And maybe we have a whole bunch who simply cannot…
When I put the people who never made it out of junior high in terms of maturity, yet went on to pretend to be a grownup doing grownup things, the cruelty comes into perspective.
Someone bright should study that.
Low Key Swagger
@Anyway: Helped invent it. Gee this is easy and fun!
OzarkHillbilly
@The Thin Black Duke: I guess terminal cancer isn’t punishment enough.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: Who would have thought that paying millions of dollars for something that isn’t actually valuable would turn out poorly? The whole NFT/crypto stuff is nothing but a scam.
WereBear
@Soprano2: Because these are people who think everything is a scam. Art? Music? Creativity?
Just another word to fascinate the rubes.
Ken
@Low Key Swagger: You had me until the cat memes.
Ken
@OzarkHillbilly: And someone at the IRS calls someone at the SEC and says, “Now they want to treat them as investment assets with tax consequences.”
Nicole
Here’s wishing Jamie Raskin a long, long remission after treatment; he’s been through so much.
Back in NYC after a week at my stepmom’s- it was a good holiday; maybe the first one since my dad died in 2016 that I didn’t feel grief hanging quite so heavily over us (though I had a rough first day, missing the family who are gone). I think my stepmom was doing better because her chronic pain was doing better- she’s Cambodian, and so gravitates towards a lot of of traditional medicines and teas (though she takes her prescribed medications faithfully). She was recently given a tea from Thailand by a friend, Tapee Tea, that she swears has done wonders, and I have to admit, her hands were a lot less swollen than they’ve been recently. So my statistician-works-in-medical-research brother and generally-inclined-to-be-skeptical me spent time researching this thing. The main ingredient, cats whiskers (Java tea), shows some anti-inflammatory properties, so that may be it. Even if it’s just placebo effect, it’s a really good placebo in her case, so we (my stepmom and us kids) agreed she should keep drinking it, but TELL HER DOCTOR in case any of her “real” medications should be adjusted (I’m thinking the diuretic). But it was really, really nice to have her up and puttering around and criticizing how we were cooking things again; I’ve missed that. :)
Soprano2
@WereBear: That, and they are desperately looking for anything to reduce their taxable income, so they’re vulnerable to scams. My husband owned a print shop in the 1970’s; he said anytime he sees stuff printed with gold ink it raises red flags, because all the con artists he did jobs for used it. They said it made people think they were successful and had money. He asked one of them, who specialized in separating doctors from their money, why people who were so smart were so stupid about investing their money. The guy told him that these people wanted to find ways to not pay taxes; they would rather lose money than pay income taxes. It’s so, so stupid…..
Geminid
@Robin Goodfellow: My condolences on your incredible Congressman. I saw that The Atlantic has an article by former 3rd CD represntative Steve Israel about the Santos mess. Israel quoted Santos’s Democratic opponent as saying that when he pressed journalists to cover Santos’s bogus biography their response was:
Baud
@Geminid: It’s how they treated Trump in 2016 too.
Soprano2
@Geminid: I really think the criticism of the Democrat in this race, and Democrats in this district, are misplaced. This stuff was covered by the local newspaper, and the Democrat running for the office talked about it. You cannot force people to talk about things unless they want to. It was like the sloppy coverage of TFG in 2016 – most of the press thought he wasn’t going to win anyway, so to them it wasn’t important to really dig in on him (with a few notable exceptions, of course).
SFAW
@Soprano2:
I’m pretty good at doing both — what do I win?
NeenerNeener
@RL: What about him? I don’t see any death notices or stupid things he said on Twitter if I google his name.
RL
@RL: My bad, just saw this is two years old. Didn’t see it at the time. Still, ugh.
Nicole
@Robin Goodfellow:
@Geminid:
The Daily Beast has a piece up that a chunk of Santos’ funding may have connections to… well, three guesses as to which country:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/republican-george-devolder-santos-got-cash-from-andrew-intrater-cousin-of-russian-oligarch-viktor-vekselberg
Ken
Since esteemed front-pager Anne Laurie said it was worth reading the replies, I did, and the first few are not too ghastly. But the additional tweets had a truly brilliant idea that I hope sweeps the world:
“The Spanish town of Villar de Corneja celebrates the new year at noon instead of midnight, because many of the residents are elderly and want to go to bed early.”
RL
@NeenerNeener: Apologies, pre-coffee. Two year old story.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2020/11/11/alton-brown-food-network-apologizes-holocaust-tweet/6250757002/
Geminid
@Soprano2: Democrats being Democrats, there has been a lot of blaming of party intitutions over Santos’s win. Some of this criticism is in furtherence of longstanding intra-party gripes and feuds.
But I think that at least publically, Democrats should assert unequivocally that Santos is the Republicans’ responsibility. Santos ran on their ballot line, and they chose him and supported him to the end even though they knew about his bogus biography.
Paul in KY
@Baud: He wouldn’t share any of it with them.
Paul in KY
@Low Key Swagger: So, you don’t take it then….
Paul in KY
@Soprano2: At least with beanie babies, you got a little plush toy…
Geminid
@Nicole: My hope is that some of Mr. Intrater’s money went to other Republican candidates and their aligned political action commitees. Representative Stephanik seems like one likely recipient.
rikyrah
Secretary Xavier Becerra (@SecBecerra) tweeted at 8:35 AM on Mon, Dec 19, 2022:
In just 13 days: People with Medicare Part D drug coverage will be able to get the shingles vaccine, and more recommended adult vaccines, at no cost.
This is – you guessed it – thanks to @POTUS’ Inflation Reduction Act.
(https://twitter.com/SecBecerra/status/1604847774301917184?t=2ifwNSXtUGLyCl5FjYAW2w&s=03)
NeenerNeener
@RL: Thanks for the explanation. Interesting that I didn’t find that when I googled him, and I went waaaay down the results page. So, flushed down the ol’ memory hole already.
Anyway
@Baud:
It’s not. They didn’t ignore Trump — they hyped him. Covered his speeches live, repeated his tweets, had him on for fawning interviews .. in this case it looks like Santos was ignored for the most part.
rikyrah
James E. Clyburn (@WhipClyburn) tweeted at 1:58 PM on Wed, Dec 28, 2022:
The 117th Congress was the most productive since President Johnson’s Great Society accomplishments two generations ago.
That’s what happens when we put #PeopleOverPolitics.
(https://twitter.com/WhipClyburn/status/1608190736503128066?t=6ClxEHqRzfCORkr0SVjXnA&s=03)
rikyrah
UH HUH
UH HUH
Paul Waldman (@paulwaldman1) tweeted at 10:10 PM on Wed, Dec 28, 2022:
It’s so weird that people who don’t like Pete Buttigieg have suddenly decided that secretary of transportation is a position with limitless power, such that even the president’s authority pales in comparison. I mean…really? Quick, name three prior secretaries of transportation.
(https://twitter.com/paulwaldman1/status/1608314402809466880?t=WsmrRu2VD5Nrz_n7zfYSDA&s=03)
rikyrah
Victor Shi (@Victorshi2020) tweeted at 10:22 PM on Wed, Dec 28, 2022:
NEW: George Santos is now facing investigations on both the federal and state levels over his fabrication of his finances and career, according to the New York Times. Good — I hope they hold him accountable very quickly because it’s clear that Republicans will not.
(https://twitter.com/Victorshi2020/status/1608317575280328705?t=-ZrLOmj9qapKQRmQ4G9KUg&s=03)
rikyrah
chris evans (@notcapnamerica) tweeted at 4:44 PM on Wed, Dec 28, 2022:![]()
When my grandmother would have me go shopping with her she would get on my damn nerves making me stick exactly to the sales in the weekly store ad. Now as an adult I’m studying that thing like the SATs. If it ain’t on sale I ain’t buying it, Publix.
(https://twitter.com/notcapnamerica/status/1608232523997364225?t=RBDhN2UTriNYSl_rJJYvLQ&s=03)
rikyrah
Florida Chris (@chrislongview) tweeted at 5:44 AM on Thu, Dec 29, 2022:
so he lied about being Jewish, Black, & gay; his mom dying on 9/11; Pulse & the Holocaust; there are arrest warrants for him in Brazil; he spent tons of time in russia; no one knows where his money came from; & republicans welcome him with open arms?
do I have all that correct?
(https://twitter.com/chrislongview/status/1608428794255114241?t=lHP7am3ZKiCW8OKHzR1GMg&s=03)
rikyrah
Rugged Amethyst #TexasBorn #CaliBred (@groove_sdc) tweeted at 6:09 AM on Thu, Dec 29, 2022:
Supreme Court Shadow Docket Is Showing — Once Again — Its Contempt For Consistency When It Stands In The Way Of Their Political Goals https://t.co/zy9qWDhcgM
(https://twitter.com/groove_sdc/status/1608435130674348033?t=CBeNW2GQ8wgLHBrBkfmUlw&s=03)
Baud
@rikyrah: He’s not gay? I haven’t heard about that lie.
Geminid
@rikyrah: I also hope that Santos is held accountable, but I won’t mind if he “twists slowly in the wind” for a while so as to further discredit his caucus.
rikyrah
Kenny BooYah!
(@KwikWarren) tweeted at 7:16 AM on Thu, Dec 29, 2022:![]()
If you’re going2fake it, fake it all the got damn way…like George Santos. MF faked being Jewish,gay,losing mom in 9-11&having lost relatives in Holocaust. Might as well fake being descendant of ppl held in Japanese internment camps,ppl relocated in Trail of Tears&black slaves.
(https://twitter.com/KwikWarren/status/1608451795570892802?t=ctZtcTB-ChCZQVaKfzlfHg&s=03)
rikyrah
Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote) tweeted at 7:35 PM on Wed, Dec 28, 2022:
BREAKING: George Santos is now under FEDERAL criminal investigation by prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York for his finances. @CNN reporting. We know from earlier reporting he funded his campaign with $700K from his own corporation – which is illegal.
(https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1608275461217603584?s=02)
rikyrah
ALWAYS follow the $$$$
David Corn (@DavidCornDC) tweeted at 9:38 AM on Tue, Dec 27, 2022:
This is the question. @Santos4Congress went from earning $55K in 2020 working at a conference-hosting firm to earning millions in 2021 via a mystery firm that existed for less than a year. Where did the $ come from? @nlanard & I investigate this riddle:
https://t.co/4PCmP8hfVH
(https://twitter.com/DavidCornDC/status/1607762955117936642?t=8XOoF9sdIfsdxTXOUCJTVA&s=03)
sab
@rikyrah: If you can’t name 3 sec of transportation then you really aren’t a political nurd. Elaine Chao, Ray LaHood , Andrew Card.
rikyrah
This is so wrong, it’s right![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
Gary Delaney is on tour now (@GaryDelaney) tweeted at 6:19 AM on Wed, Dec 28, 2022:
I bought a Russian advent calendar. Every time you open a window an oligarch falls out.
(https://twitter.com/GaryDelaney/status/1608075070106214400?t=J1BG4_AsbCHYeseHlbDbdg&s=03)
Nicole
@Geminid: I speculate on how many of the particularly stupid newer GOP members of Congress in the past 10-20 years got there on the backs of rubles.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Campaign finance is the only way we ever get these crooks. It’s why conservatives have been energetically gutting campaign finance regulation and tranparency for 30 years.
If they’re serious about Trump they’ll investigate his campaign finance machinations. I would bet my house he’s broken those laws.
rikyrah
BR (@MLKMXObama) tweeted at 9:03 AM on Wed, Dec 28, 2022:
It’s not a *politician* it’s a *Republican* politician. The media will watch Republicans literally commit treason and will still not sound the alarm on the state of the Party and on democracy itself.
Yet they endlessly browbeat Democrats for the most mundane issues.
(https://twitter.com/MLKMXObama/status/1608116324504322051?t=8XTUaQN5Mj_sVuAlxoy8GA&s=03)
sab
@rikyrah: Shingles vaccine for free? Wish I had waited because that thing was pricey. $ 200 a pop and two pops were required.
rikyrah
Santiago Mayer (@santiagomayer_) tweeted at 3:43 PM on Tue, Dec 27, 2022:
So the Supreme Court is not letting Biden (the chief executive) end Title 42 (a program begun through executive action) by using executive action.
Just kneecapping the Presidency and hoping we won’t notice.
(https://twitter.com/santiagomayer_/status/1607854833431617537?t=5FIiRPwQsmngXSMGn5exyw&s=03)
Steve in the ATL
Speaking of pets, can anyone recommend a breeder for Bernese mountain dogs?
rikyrah
UH HUH
UH HUH
Colin Jones (@colinjones) tweeted at 1:35 PM on Tue, Dec 27, 2022:
NEW: @BySteveReilly has found that a network of political nonprofits connected to Leonard Leo has funneled at least $31M in campaign funds into at least 42 races for seats on state Supreme Courts or other high-level state judgeships in 15 states since 2010
Colin Jones (@colinjones) tweeted at 1:38 PM on Tue, Dec 27, 2022:
Leo’s influence has come in large part through a political spending entity called the Republican State Leadership Committee Judicial Fairness Initiative (JFI). https://t.co/N8cvmlqoc6
(https://twitter.com/colinjones/status/1607823293855285248?t=-lj8z1ioZOQS7djiTnwMLQ&s=03)
Paul in KY
@rikyrah: Probably more like 3 generations ago. The years they move on…
Great accomplishments by Res. Biden and Democratic Congress!!!
rikyrah
This breaks my heart.
KING 5 News (@KING5Seattle) tweeted at 11:45 PM on Tue, Dec 27, 2022:
In Buffalo, the dead were found in cars, homes and snowbanks. Some died while shoveling snow, others when emergency crews could not respond in time after 911 calls. https://t.co/1Zh5VogKzq
(https://twitter.com/KING5Seattle/status/1607975894299058177?t=ZswDbTUakayG-xIxiN-Cgg&s=03)
Paul in KY
@Baud: You sorta assume it’s a lie…
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: I laughed out loud.
sab
@Ken: I am game for that, but noon on Dec 31 or Jan 1? I will admit I have been asleep by midnight every New Years for at least the last 15 years.
rikyrah
TRUTH
Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) tweeted at 1:31 PM on Tue, Dec 27, 2022:
Even if the Democrats had exposed Santos and tried to make it important, the media would have bashed the Democrats for harping on “Santos’ minor embellishments” and then given his scandal no airtime. Nothing the Democrats could have done would have produced a different outcome.
(https://twitter.com/PalmerReport/status/1607821509854384130?t=S0CKkyJc4mvXhcZ-QCZIjQ&s=03)
sab
@WaterGirl: Me too.
Anyway
@Soprano2:
Geez, I’m so out of sync with the BJ hivemind on this. The reason the Dem candidate had to bring this up is bcos he wanted to win the race, beat Santos, and you do that by pointing out that he’s a phony. Yes, it didn’t get traction with the media but I would like some evidence that he “repeatedly put it out” there — like an email/text blast to his fundraising list? That’s one thing candidates are good at – soliciting funds – did he let them in on Santos’ lies? Every candidate has a website– was this highlighted on the site? I mean, this is his Rethug opponent caught in tons of lies – that’s central to his campaign. That guy is a liar, you can’t believe anything he says.
I don’t get people on BJ saying it wasn’t the Dems responsibility to do it.
Plus “they put it out there” seems like so much hand-waving without much evidence. There are many avenues to put your message out – can’t rely only on the media. They have communication professionals on campaign staff, right?
Paul in KY
@sab: Thou art nerdier than I. I had Chao & missed a bunch of ours!
Low Key Swagger
Fun word: Snollygoster. “a shrewd, unprincipled person, especially a politician“
rikyrah
Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) tweeted at 2:04 PM on Tue, Dec 27, 2022:
Now Elon has tanked Tesla stock to just above $100 and alienated much of his core Twitter user base, it’s clear that the emperor has no clothes. How could this happen? Billionaire meritocracy is a lie, tied to what I call the Myth of the “Secret Genius.” https://t.co/tTQseh6hte
(https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1607829854740942848?t=_6Nkq0RogG8Uz6xn4k4idA&s=03)
sab
@Steve in the ATL: Georgia is too hot for them. They were bred to live in the snowy Swiss Alps.
Paul in KY
@sab: If you’re a vet and go to a veteran’s hospital, it is either free or very cheap. Glad all can now get it free. You do not want shingles. My mom had it & it was hell on her for about 3 months.
sab
@Paul in KY: I cheated. I had to look up the third. And I was shocked that I had forgotten Mineta and Pena.
ETA I remembered Andy Card with Bush but had completely forgotten he was Sec of Transportation. I thought he was Chief of Staff.
Baud
@Anyway: I’m not sure how anyone could get the evidence you seek. I also don’t support the idea of blindly accusing Dems of things in the hopes of forcing them to respond to accusations.
Paul in KY
@Anyway: Going door to door with flyers saying ‘This guy’s a complete phoney!!’ or something like that.
Edit: Maybe he did all that…
Low Key Swagger
@Anyway: Opportunities were likely missed. That said, I expect that he already had the lefty votes, and maybe in going after the undecided his campaign elected to limit the personal attacks? I’m curious what his opponent had for a war chest.
sab
My stepdaughter was allowed into her house last night. She had the kids go sleep with their grown sister. Surprise surprise the ruins of the house next door burst into flame again at 6 am.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@sab: Good lord
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: My stepaughter often comments that she doesn’t want to hear about low probabilities (“come on, that isn’t likely to happen”) because she has been hit by more long tail events than anyone I have ever met.
rikyrah
@sab:
damn
Suzanne
@sab: Christ almighty. Do they have somewhere else they can go to get some sleep?! What a terrible ordeal.
Frankensteinbeck
@Low Key Swagger:
I would, but from your campaign commercials I learned that you’re a self-made billionaire who started out as a coal miner, and you’re funding your own campaign.
Jay
@Baud: while there is no record of Santo’s “claimed” marriage to his “husband”, there is record that from 2012 to 2019, he was married to a Brazilian woman.
Baud
@Jay: Thanks.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I would like to see links to the posts you made in real time highlighting this campaign. I am so fucking tired of this Murc’s Law Mondy-morning quarterbacking.
Do you read every email from every campaign? You can tell people everything you want to tell them, you can’t make them care. Case in point: The Access Hollywood tape. Everybody fucking knew.
Here is the op-ed from a right-leaning local paper that Zimmerman used as a campaign mailer. Again: Do you read mass-mailings (sometimes called “junk mail”) from political campaigns?
Amir Khalid
@rikyrah:
As it is, Democrats have already been bashed for dropping the ball on Santos. They didn’t; it was the Republicans who didn’t stop him from running, and it was the media who decided his lies were a non-story.
sab
@Suzanne: Big problem is that she works from home for her job, and her home isn’t a reliable worksite now.
Baud
Wiki reveals that Santos ran and lost that district in 2020 to the Dem incumbent, who didn’t seek reelection, 56-43. So Santos is not a newbie player in that district. It may have influenced how the campaign was run. (And totally blows a hole in the NY media’s decision not to cover the race).
SFAW
@Baud: Santos allegedly was married to a woman until 2019, when they divorced. Yes, I realize being married to a woman doesn’t automatically mean the man is straight; just letting you know whence that “lie” claim came.
ETA: And I see Jay beat me to it.
Betty Cracker
@RL: What happened with Alton Brown?
Suzanne
@sab: That’s terrible. I’m sorry. I hope she can find somewhere safe to relocate, even if just temporarily.
Geminid
@Low Key Swagger: Santos and his Democratic opponent’s war chests were similar in size.
I read an interesting report that I have not yet seen confirmed: that when Republicans realized that some of New York’s blue Congressional districts were within reach, there was a flood of late money to some of their candidates but very little went to Santos. If true this would indicate that Republicans knew that Santos was toxic.
This was at a time when Republicans were confident they would win a substantial majority in the midterms and that they would be better off without Santos. In the event though, Republicans ended up with the worst of both worlds: a slender 4-seat majority that includes the scandalous Santos.
Suzanne
Neighbors who endanger their property are really difficult to deal with. We’re no closer to resolution with the family who owns the house two doors over, and the house is still burned out, boarded up, and the garage structure could go at any moment. The storm we just had, and others, rip pieces of flashing and roof shingles off, and they’re not caring for the yard. And I’m sympathetic, to a point.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jay: TBH, that is pretty meaningless as to whether Santos is gay or not. Lots of gay men and lesbian women have been married to persons of the opposite sex, just because of family and societal pressures. It’s fairly traumatic for all involved when they finally come out after 10 or 20 years, especially if children are part of that equation.
It’s still better, more healthy for all than living a lie.
Soprano2
@rikyrah: This is the dumbest thing. Biden is the first president in decades who cannot make executive branch policy, but instead is being forced by the courts to continue the policies of the previous president. The most ridiculous thing is that according to R’s Covid is completely over everywhere except at our southern border, where it’s such an emergency that the rule keeping people out because of it should stay in force forever! Dumb, dumb, dumb…..
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This is Scott DesJarlais, pro-life family values Republican from Tennessee.
all of this has been public since at least 2013. He has been re-elected five times since then.
You can tell people all you want. You can’t make them care.
Frankensteinbeck
@OzarkHillbilly:
And you know, bisexuals exist and are not rare.
Soprano2
@Anyway: I’m relying on TPM reporting for information on this. According to them, the candidate talked about these lies numerous times in speeches, and the local papers reported on them and even endorsed the Democrat because of them! You cannot force information into the heads of voters – all you can do it talk about it as much as is prudent and hope it penetrates. If their investigations had found that no one ever even mentioned it, and no one looked into it, then I would be critical. Look at the coverage of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016 as an example – how many times did she give a speech or put out information about her proposed policies, and it was never even mentioned by the press in favor of yet one more story about e-mail servers? There’s only so much a candidate and the party can do. You saw the quote above from a member of the press that sums it up in a nutshell – they thought the guy was going to lose, so many of them didn’t see coverage of all his lies as important. How does the Democrat overcome that? At least those members of the local press have egg all over their faces now.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: Was just reading a piece in The Atlantic by Charlie Warzel on Musk — “Elon Musk’s Text Messages Explain Everything.” Warzel is correct; they do.
The texts in question were made public in a Delaware court when Musk tried to squirm out of the Twitter deal, and good lord, the implications go far beyond Musk’s companies. An excerpt from Warzel’s piece:
The self-congratulatory, dick-swinging culture in which Musk and the rest of the tech edgelords operate is nauseating in every respect. It’s the opposite of meritocracy. No wonder they hew toward the libertarian line.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Chris Hayes had Mark Chiusano, a reporter from Newsday, which I’m guessing reaches more swing voters in NY-3 than the NYT, and mentioned in passing that he had done a lot of stories about Santos before the election, but they didn’t go into detail and Newsday has a paywall that I’m not going to pay for.
The story I’m looking for is reporters asking the Biden-Santos voters why they jumped, though I’m guessing there were a lot more Biden-stay home voters. Also, for people as old as me, this is Pete King’s old district, and however much it’s changed, a lot of those voters are probably still in the district.
Soprano2
@rikyrah: That was a good article. For some reason people think if someone has money they must be smart.
oatler
Report: More Outrageous Santos Lies!
Huffpost , gleaming the scoop.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I believe a lot of Dems stayed at home throughout NY state.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, ask my friend whose hubby decided to come out as transgender after they’d been married over 30 years what she would prefer. It’s better if people can live as who they truly are, rather than feeling they have to live a lie to make others happy.
WaterGirl
@sab: If you had waited, you might have gotten Shingles, and not getting shingles wold surely be worth $400.
sab
@WaterGirl: I agree completely.
H.E.Wolf
@Paul in KY: “Glad all can now get it free. You do not want shingles.”
Secretary Becerra specified that the shingles vaccine will be free to Medicare Part D recipients. Everybody else, please take Paul in KY’s advice and get the (pricey) vaccine. It is well worth it.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
Some say the marriage to the Brazilian woman was a sham to get citizenship for her.
Baud
@Baud: I looked it up, and turnout in NY 3 looks to be on par with 2018.
Betty Cracker
I don’t know if the Dem who lost to Santos and the supporting local/state party infrastructure bear any part of the blame for the loss, but I don’t think it’s beyond the pale to raise questions. Republican voters suck, gerrymandering sucks, the media sucks, etc., but this isn’t new information. Dems have to find a way to win despite these obstacles, and that includes analyzing what went wrong and taking lessons from it.
H.E.Wolf
@Steeplejack: ”Some say the marriage to the Brazilian woman was a sham to get citizenship for her.”
Which, surprise! is a federal crime (felony offense).
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Asking questions ≠ Making accusations.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Did NY turnout suck in 2018, or was it good?
Omnes Omnibus
@Ken: That’s where they lost me as well.
Geminid
@Baud: The poor showing by Democrats and strong turnout by Republicans in New York this year reminds me of Virginia’s 2021 election. Republicans were hungry, in a way Democrats were not.
Baud
@WaterGirl: Far worse than in presidential years, but much higher than the previous 2014 midterms. I don’t know what the population shifts have been in that district.
New York’s 3rd congressional district – Wikipedia
frosty
@sab: Elizabeth Dole. Is Sec of Trans reserved for Senate spouses?
Omnes Omnibus
@Anyway: Putting it all on the Democrat running against Santos is more of the only Democrats have agency bullshit that we are see way too much of. The GOP put him out there. The media obviously didn’t care. But the person who is getting blamed is the person who did, in fact, point out that the guy was sketchy AF? Go ahead and miss me with that one.
WereBear
@Steve in the ATL: I would start with breed rescue: they know all the bad breeders, and the breed itself.
They can steer you to an ethical one, or find a wonderful pup of any age. You must already know the size!
Always, #TipTheShelter
WaterGirl
@Baud: Any Democrat who stayed home in Virginia in 2021 or 2022 is an idiot.
Same for any Democrat who stayed who in NY in 2022. Or stayed home anywhere!
Fucking idiots. Short-sighted, lazy, idiots!
Jay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Santo’s has claimed that he has always been out, proud and supporting LGTBQ rights, except for that time recently where he congratulated Florida on their “Don’t Say Gay” law’s passage.
A tale of the personal struggles to “come out”, would probably have resonated better with the media and public, just not the Log Cabin crowd, who are running away as fast ad they can from him,……….now.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl:
All true, but we still need them. The Johnny Come Latelys, the What’s In It For Mes, the Don’t Blackmail Me With The Supreme Courts, and all the rest. Dog help us.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: Democratic turnout was terrible in Florida in November. I read somewhere Republican turnout was in the 60s and Dems in the 40s.
Jay
@Steeplejack:
Early speculation was that his marriage to a woman was his path to citizenship, after all, there is a felony warrant still out on him in Brazil, when he was Brazilian.
Kay
@Anyway:
I think there would bve less traveling down the well-worn “blame the Democrats, then media and then ultimately blame voters” rut we’re in if the issues were phrased less as “blaming’ and more as a description of a problem- it’s not Democrats fault political media sucks and it looks like NY voters fell completely for the crime/CRT/whatever- other- bullshit they were selling panic but it is Democrats problem.
It wasn’t Hillary Clintons fault that she was female in a sexist country like the US or that an influential NYC media giant like the NYTimes corp has an insane hatred of her, but it absolutely was her problem because she wanted to be President and those unfair but real things stood in the way.
Work the problem. NY has a problem. What is it, what is possible and doable to fix it.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Now you are blaming voters!
Actually, I think you are correct. I have seen the proposition that “blaming voters” is a copout that obscures the responsibility of candidates and the party apparatus to deliver victories in winnable races, and this is relatively true. But voters have agency too.
Virginia’s dropoff in Democratic turnout is interesting because it showed that the “trump effect” worked both ways. Trump was a powerful motivator for Democrats and it could be Biden’s 10 point* win in Virginia overstated Democrats’ inherent strength there. And there seem to have been some Republican voters who came out for Youngkin that stayed home when Trump was on the ballot.
Republicans were highly motivated. They’d been trounced in state races for most of the previous decade and they finally had an attractive candidate with a chance to win. They were hungry.
And, besides the relative difference in base motivation, there were Biden-to-Youngkin voters last year just like there were Biden-to-Santos voters this year. These voters were by and large Independents.
I know that Independents are much disparaged here, and even dismissed as a factor in elections. You can say what you want about Independent voters though, but you cannot say they do not vote.
*This was the best performance by a Democratic presidential candidate in Virginia since “F” LBJ in 1964.
satby
@Steve in the ATL: no.
Rescue people hate breeders. We get all their dumped dogs they couldn’t sell.
Bunter
@Steve in the ATL:
I’d suggest going to the Bernese Mountain Dog Club of America website, and/or seeing if the AKC is holding a Meet the Breeds near where you are and/or if there’s a dog show in the area where you can see and talk to breeders.
Geminid
@Kay: This sounds like raw, naked pragmatism!
karen marie
@OzarkHillbilly: Thing that pisses me off is the fuckwits who bought these NFTs can write off the loss on their taxes.
Kay
@Geminid:
Pennsylvania voters who were in a NY media market were more focused on the crime panic than Pennsylvania voters who were not exposed to the NY media market.
So what Democrats now know is that even blue state voters can be persuaded on Right wing tropes if the coverage is skewed enough. Because it isn’t “Right wing outlets”, right? It’s “centrist” outlets like the NY times pushing Right wing narratives. They launder it thru centrism.
Baud
@karen marie: I believe they can only write off the loss against a capital gain. Assuming they actually did lose money on NFTs, it’s really not any different than any other type of capital loss. The IRS doesn’t distinguish between smart bad investments and stupid bad investments.
Barbara
@Suzanne: My mother’s next door neighbors got divorced and both moved elsewhere and basically started using their house as a storage facility, including for their dilapidated vehicles. It looked awful, although it wasn’t structurally unsound. There may be a general “nuisance” prohibition that could be used if the property creates a safety issue for others living nearby, but most municipalities don’t have the tools to deal with property that doesn’t violate a specific code section or is just ugly.
The other thing is, if they are pursuing an insurance settlement they might prejudice the outcome if they start making changes before the insurance company finalizes an offer. I know that happened after a house fire in my neighborhood. It took nearly two years before they were able to start rebuilding, which seems unconscionable.
Barbara
@karen marie: Well, strictly speaking, you can only write off losses attributable to these sorts of assets if they were held as an investment. I looked it up this morning after reading a news item on the creation of “Unsellable” as a site for trying to find buyers. Most wealthy people probably know this and make sure that their documents are in order in that regard. It does rankle that taxpayers would be required to, in effect, subsidize their losses, though.
Geminid
@Kay: And the Times only “exposed” Santos’s bogus biography after they had finished doing the Republicans’ dirty work for them in the general election. That rag’s allegiences are obvious.
piratedan
@Kay: it’s a very effective strategy….
the right knows that they’ve been on the “wrong side” of almost every major issue since the 60’s since then we’ve seen…
The Reagan elimination of the fairness doctrine in broadcast media, so now they can put their collective thumbs on the scales
followed by Fox entering the media market
followed by the takeover of AM Radio by Conservatives
the downfall of local media publications
more spawned RW cable broadcasts and conservative Christians getting their own networks (multiple)
and now the takeover of social media platforms by Conservatives
when they can’t control the narrative, they screw with the framing and they never take responsibility for what they do as evidenced by the “only Dems have agency” trope that is peddled.
This may not be coordinated and is the result of select rich people doing what they can to ensure their vision and comfort are not trifled with, but its not doing the remainder of us any favors.
Baud
@Kay:
The other problem is that we liberals tend to get upset when Dems try to assuage voters who are manipulated by these tropes, because we feel that we should identify and fight the tropes directly.
I wish I had a good suggestion for how to deal with the whole situation, but I don’t.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: ugh. that’s not helpful. (I was referring to voter turnout in FL, in case that wasn’t obvious.)
Kay
@Geminid:
Right. Unlike the AP in the Marcy Kaptur race- the AP reported the GOP candidate’s lies during the election and she was then able to use that in every interview and even in her radio spots “the Associated Press uncovered…”
The NYTimes, once again, put their huge thumb on the scale. Voters should be furious at them. They were not given the info in a timely manner which is now a real pattern and practice at the NYTimes- news is delayed. Timing is essential for value in media. It has to be timely or it’s worth a lot less.
Baud
@Kay:
It’ll be in the book, Kay.
Matt McIrvin
Fair warning: the shingles vaccine will probably knock you on your ass.
But shingles is SO MUCH WORSE.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid: not for nothing, but The New York Post also exists. It has the fourth largest circulation/distribution in the country, and while I’m not an expert in NYS/C politics, I’m guessing it carries a lot of weight in eastern edges of Queens and the suburbs of NY-03, along with Newsday, as I mentioned above.
A couple other interesting
statisticsfactoids about that district from WikiThat last bit surprised me. I would’ve bet SP Maloney’s district was more likely. And I’m guessing those Queens neighborhoods have a lot of cops and firefighters?
It was Peter King’s district until 2013, which isn’t ancient history (for the unfamiliar, think lunkhead ethnic Irish loud-mouth at the end of the bar), Steve Israel was a prominent moderate as I recall, and Tom Suozzi was a member of the bloody Problem Solvers. This ain’t an indigo district.
69.5% White
14.6% Asian
10.6% Hispanic
3.1% Black
1.5% Two or more races
0.7% other
sab
@frosty: That suggests how quietly important that position is, since they of all people know which jobs matter,
Sister Golden Bear
@rikyrah: Thing is, the Dem candidate did call out some* of Santos’ lies, the local newspaper did report on them, and did cite them in its editorial endorsement for the Dem candidate. But none of that gained any traction until FTFNYT deemed to cover something in their own backyard.
*At that point no one knew just how deep the rabbit hole went.
Anotherlurker
@Matt McIrvin: Very true! Shingles is the sickest I have ever been. For me, it was a 1.5 year cycle of pain and misery. I truly thought that I was going to die.
Anotherlurker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Correction: Peter King’s CD was changed from NY 3 to NY 2, in 2012. Complicated redistricting maps.
Frank Wilhoit
@The Thin Black Duke:
It is worse than that. All American criminal justice is pour encourager les autres. That is why police and prosecutors see no downside to arresting, prosecuting, convicting, and punishing innocent people. And that in turn is why they, and the political system, have to be so invested in preserving their mystique of infallibility.
Kay
@Baud:
My personal theory is there is a kind of lingering covid nuttiness that is still infecting politics. I think it makes people vulnerable to panics and conspiracy theories. They overthought covid.
Early on in covid I decided to just follow the most mainstream health advice and that turns out to have been a lot less stressful, plus I didn’t have to do all that “research” so could do other, more pleasant things with my free time :)
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Also, Virginia’s elections for governor happen in odd-numbered off-years, which are historically the best thing for discouraging turnout in marginally attached voters. They’re almost like special elections. Democrats seem to have had more trouble with this than Republicans for a long time.
Steeplejack
@Jay:
There’s no evidence that Santos was “Brazilian.” The Daily Mail says: “Santos was born in the Jackson Heights section of Queens to Fatima Devolder and Gercino Santos, Brazilian immigrants.” He apparently did live in Brazil for a while as a teenager and got involved in the check-theft thing.
Everything I’ve read indicates that the green-card marriage—if it’s real and that’s what it was—was to benefit his wife, Uadla Vieira. She is reportedly a native of Brazil, so it’s hard to see how she could offer him a green-card marriage.
From TPM (might be paywalled):
Kay
@Baud:
The great irony of covid is people who just took normal advice ended up a lot less obsessed with covid than the amatuer detectives who were “investigating” the lab leak theory, or whatever.
The way not to let covid take over your life was to just follow basic directions.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: I have wondered if part of it might be direct physical brain damage from covid making people disinhibited. (As if we’re going through a very subtle version of a zombie apocalypse.)
(But it’s probably the memetic virus doing the most damage, not the RNA one.)
Paul in KY
@OzarkHillbilly: I thought my explanation of: If he said it, it’s probably a lie, was more spot-on.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anotherlurker: ah, that explains the short tenure Wiki gave Israel– he was the MoC for that area when it was the second. I thought he’d been around a lot longer
Another Scott
@Steve in the ATL: We had a mutt, Sophie, who was part BMD. Such a wonderful disposition, and giant feet.
Maybe start here – https://cvbmdc.org/rescue ?
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
Scout211
White House lawyers tell Jim Jordan and James Comer they must resubmit their oversight requests when then next congress convenes. I think the White House will be ready for the next congress.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
My son and daughter in law are here visiting from Denmark and they noticed people are offering political opinions more than they used to. They took their 18 month old to the McDonalds play place and the wingnut employee went into this whole speil about how the play place had been closed for covid, outrage, blah blah. My son said “this is not the midwestern culture I am familiar with” :)
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: …You do see people on social media arguing (with some justification) that the mainstream health advice did not go nearly far enough, and that most of us should basically still be in lockdown most of the time, or at least masking 100% in public and entirely avoiding things like public eating and drinking, even in places where the CDC says it’s fine.
Some of them seem to be extremely fearful. On the other hand, sometimes that’s justified–they have health issues that make COVID infection unusually dangerous to them, or they live with someone who does. And they argue that mainstream attitudes to this, even coming from public health authorities, are essentially ableist and have turned a minority into prisoners in their homes.
But these voices get far less mainstream amplification than people pushing conspiracy theories and minimizing COVID vs. the damage done by COVID mitigation measures.
Geminid
@Sister Golden Bear: I expect this will prove to be a very deep rabbit hole. There may be financial crimes that will make questions about Santos’s family history, sexual identity even campaign finance violations pale in comparison.
Federal agents already searched Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg’s Long Island home in September and carried away multiple boxes of evidence. Vekselberg’s cousin and money manager (or “bag man”) Andrew Intrater was Santos’s biggest campaign donor.
It’s possible that the Vekselberg investigation will prove to have nothing to do with the Santos affair. I have a hunch though that Santos is already caught in the Vekselberg net and that the FBI already knows facts about Santos’s unexplained wealth that reporters are trying to ferret out.
The optimist in me hopes that other Republicans are in the Vekselberg/Intrater net as well. But no matter how this plays out, it’s an inauspicious start for the first Republican House majority this decade, and it ups the odds that this will be their last.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Patience, jackals (I say to you all but also to myself). TFG is in big trouble from a lot of directions so there’s plenty of short-term Schadenfreude coming to bathe in, but some of it is going to take a while.
IAN even close to AL so this is based on the legal commentary I’ve been listening to obsessively from MSNBC, CNN and Meidas Touch on YouTube (especially the latter). The general consensus I’ve heard is that Fani Willis in GA has the most mature case (that’s my word not theirs; I mean closest to trial) and also Preet Bharara predicted indictments on federal charges in January. (I think from the Mar-A-Lago documents case?) Also the rape case is pressing ahead.
I heard one legal commentator say that he’d never seen the New York courts move so fast on a civil lawsuit when they announced a trial date of October 2023 for [I think the Letitia James fraud lawsuit?]. Also the T*** Organization had that guilty verdict and that’s already bearing fruit.
And there’s lots of informed speculation that Mark Meadows has flipped on the Capo Di Capos, because he has so much provable dirt on him that he’s facing 10-20 years of prison. Much of it from Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony.
So stay schadenfreud-isch my brethren. It may be years if ever before the Orange Guy gets a matchiing jumpsuit, but he’s going to be dying the death of a thousand paper cuts from all the more immediate trials and rulings, and that process has already started.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Arguing about policy is different than arguing about science.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
People are really shocked that mistakes were made in this giant, nearly unprecedented calamity?
That just seems ridiculously unrealistic to me, to the point of childishness. OF COURSE there were fuckups. They don’t need fucking zebras. The horses were bad enough. It this real, devilish problem. OF COURSE it wasn’t solved perfectly right out of the gate.
Paul in KY
@H.E.Wolf: Sorry I missed the fine print. It is cheap for vets at VA hospitals, though.
As you said, get it anyway. Shingles would have made a great medieval torture.
Anyway
@Kay:
Exactly – you have to win elections with the mass-media we have not the mass-media we’d like. And this does not mean “only Ds have agency” – but they have some
PS – before my motives are quesitoned or second-guessed, I just want Rethugs to lose, lose, lose and Ds to win. Not interested in the intra-party wars.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Your theory sounds plausible to me. DeSantis is trying to recapture the magic by investigating “criminal or wrongful activity in Florida” involving the “development, promotion and distribution” of coronavirus vaccines. I think it’s a misstep — the covid-related political nuttiness is more diffuse now. He’s an opportunist but perhaps an overly literal one…
trollhattan
@OzarkHillbilly: False memory or did Biden not say his admin is considering moving The Mary Jane off Schedule 1?
Anyway
@Soprano2:
And the FTFNYT. They got (more) egg on their pages…
trollhattan
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Good summary.
Achilles had that heel and the gods kept darting his dartproof ass until they hit it. Trump has one, keep shooting darts.
Brachiator
@OzarkHillbilly:
I had only half-followed this story before. The hospital staff seemed to have instigated unnecessary problems.
The Guardian story claims that a doctor told the patient that he could do whatever he wanted, since there was no medical care that could treat his condition. He apparently was vaping and putting a THC paste on toast.
Some hospital staffer called the police because they supposedly saw the vaping device as a fire hazard and because the guy was using cannabis.
Why couldn’t they have just asked him not to vape?
And weird that the guy could not use cannabis, but might have been able to get morphine if he was in pain.
And part of the issue may be that you can’t use your own drugs when you are in the hospital.
The police appear to have been respectful. It appears that some hospital staff did not want this guy to be vaping.
Apart from issues of cannabis legalization, it is dumb that the hospital could not have handled this issue better.
Miss Bianca
@H.E.Wolf: However, as the Public Health personnel said to me yesterday, watch for what happens with private insurance – when Medicare/Medicaid decide to pay for something, very often the private insurers will follow suit later. I hope so – some of us literally can’t afford to spend $400 on a vaccination, so have to wing it and hope we don’t get shingles.
Mike in NC
Tomorrow will be “We finally get to see Fat Bastard’s tax returns day”.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: I know someone whose doctor suggested that she go to the Public Health Service, where it cost only $21 per shot.
Maybe try that?
jonas
@Kay:
Well, the whole Stormy Daniels imbroglio was technically a campaign finance violation, and Michael Cohen did time for trying to cover it up. Trump didn’t face any consequences. I don’t know what’s become of the investigation into his inauguration slushfund, if that’s still ongoing or what. There were also the almost daily violations of the Hatch Act by members of his staff and cabinet, and the massive pay-to-play operation being run out of the Old Post Office building, AKA the Trump DC hotel. It’s almost too much to keep up with, which may have been the point. If you’re so corrupt that the media doesn’t even know where to begin, they eventually give up.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Republicans historically* have done better in Virginia’s state elections than Democrats, relative to presdential year turnout. This has changed some recently and Democrats were approaching turnout parity until we backslid last year.
Next year both General Assembly houses are up for election, and this will be a good test of the direction the two parties are going. The elections will be contested on fairly neutral maps, unlike in the years since 2011 when Republicans last drew them.
* Back in the old days it was a conservative Democratic economic elite that benefitted from this setup. Since the party realignment of the 1970s it’s been the Republican party that has had the advantage.
I think the single-term limit for governors also protected conservative elites. If by some mishap an economic populist won election as governor, he could not build power over two terms. Powerful General Assembly leaders could always hold him in check during his single term.
rikyrah
@Matt McIrvin:
Which, is itself, a form of Voter Suppression.
Robin Goodfellow
@Soprano2: Regarding the Santos mess and how the Democrats dropped the ball, there are a lot of moving parts and it’s hard to pin the blame on any particular thing.
For one thing because of redistricting litigation the primary got pushed back to August, this greatly compressed the time for the Democrats. Santos didn’t have that problem.
Long Island has always been a rock ribbed Republican stronghold the patronage system is firmly entrenched here, everyone knows someone who works for the County or one of the towns.
It’s hard for a Democrat to win here, the last guy who won had a political base, he was a local mayor as well as the County Executive. He tried running for governor but lost the primary.
It’s tough to win here especially when you’re running against a pathological liar.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: Let me get done with flu shot (still woozy from that one yesterday), then COVID booster next week, before I consider setting myself on fire with the Shingles shots.
I hadn’t heard that it was cheaper through public health. I’d have to check with our local office.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Mike in NC: There’s so much to get infuriated about. One of the things is just how clumsy and obvious so much of his fraud is. The NFT thing apparently has all the earmarks of a money-laundering scheme to people who prosecute such things, including the fact that all the NFTs immediately sold out in $9900 transactions, just under the $10000 reporting limit.
On his taxes, the tax reporting I’ve shown is that all his sources of income magically show exactly that amount of expenses. Melon earned $38492 (not the actual number) from modeling? Also incurred $38492 in expenses, so no net income. (shrug emoji).
He’s been doing this clumsy obvious fraud for decades and NOBODY CALLED HIM ON IT! And most likely there are a bunch of other similar frauds in the 1%-ers tax returns and NOBODY IS CALLING THEM ON IT.
Here’s another new-old fury. As a Federal employee I was absolutely scrupulous about avoiding even the tiniest Hatch Act violations, as was everybody I knew or worked for. I recently heard an old quote some Trumpian employee, maybe the press secretary, when asked about repeated, blatant, enormous Hatch Act violations: “Ha ha, let me know when somebody goes to jail for that.”
I can’t even begin to describe the incandescent rage about the documents stuff, having worked with sensitive documents and in SCIFs. Also that Senate Republican pizza party with cameras and tweets in the SCIF.
Yeah, I need to conserve my fury.
Poe Larity
Look what the haters of the First Ammendment have done:
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Kay:
That seems to be a general ignorance about science. We’re not doing a good job of science education in this country. People want certainty and capital-T Truth, they don’t like statements like “this prediction agrees with the data we have so far but may change due to future data”
I remember a manager (an engineer) who was always complaining about “weasel words” when I wrote things like that in reports. And he should have known better.
Central Planning
@sab: My best New Year’s Eve occurred when my wife and I fell asleep on the couch at like 9pm, woke up just before midnight, watched the ball drop, and went to bed.
Couldn’t ask for anything better than that.
Ruckus
@Mimi haha:
I’d say me and possibly at least a few others.
I’d believe a few million at least. Most of whom don’t actually have a few million sitting around making us antsy to spend it on crap that actually has zero value. Sure there are always some with the spare change to waste on (more) worthless crap than the worthless crap they’ve already purchased.
Steeplejack
@Poe Larity:
Source?
MomSense
Speaking of rescue kitties, my son adopted a shelter cat shortly before Christmas. He has settled in so well and finally won over roommate’s boss cat. On Tuesday night into Wednesday my son had to vacate his apartment because of a CO2 issue. Fire department on the scene – the works. Trouble was a champ even comforting boss cat as they waited in a cold car for the fire department to clear them to return. I’ve gone over to play with the kitty a few times since he was adopted and I’m completely smitten with that kitten!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Good news:
bluefoot
@rikyrah: I have family there in some of the hardest hit areas of Buffalo. It’s so tragic. The storm came on really fast and even the forecast the afternoon prior said it wouldn’t be more than a foot. My BIL said Friday morning it went from normal snowfall to whiteout in literal minutes – he was two blocks from home (driving back from the store) and almost didn’t make it. Cleanup is taking far longer than usual, no one really knows why. But I expect there will be more dead found.
JaySinWA
@Geminid: I didn’t see Stephanik, but Lee Zeldin is on the list: https://www.thedailybeast.com/george-santos-massive-campaign-loans-may-not-be-legal
James E Powell
@sab:
Elizabeth Dole is the only one I remember.
The name Andrew Card is familiar, but not what his position was.
Sister Golden Bear
@Brachiator: Cannabis use by cancer patients usually isn’t for pain relief, but instead to help with side-effects from cancer treatments, e.g. nausea, as well as to help regain appetite. It’s unclear whether he was officially on palliative care vs. hospice care — which is a big difference — on the former they limit pain meds, where on the latter they don’t.
Given the guy was terminal, he might have also been using it to curb anxiety and depression.
Ruckus
@Geminid:
I’d bet the majority of his caucus is not going to say one damn word.
I mean, admit they got taken by him?
Come on they are far shallower than that.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@James E Powell: Tom Vilsack of Iowa, which made some sense
Geminid
@Ruckus: Yes, there will be a lot of “No comments” coming out of that bunch. They will much rather discuss other things. But starting the new Congress with Santos in their caucus will be like a bunch of pirates taking their new pirate ship on its shakedown cruise with a dead albatross nailed to the mast.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: I think it’s more that they believe the CDC has been unduly influenced by commercial elites who want to get us back in the workplace and minimize hits to the economy at any cost.
So they do things like downplaying the still-extremely-alarming COVID transmission metrics in favor of a somewhat bullshit “community level” that minimizes harm, arguing “well, we have vaccines and Paxlovid now” as justification. These aren’t like the early mistakes made in 2020–it’s behavior that got worse over time.
I do think the alarmists criticizing the CDC have a point. But I also am not on 2020 lockdown any more, by any means–I find that my personal behavior wrt COVID is this inconsistent hodgepodge, in part because I don’t want to play tyrannical COVID cop over my family. But I’m a bit ashamed of it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Poppy’s SoT ( I had to look that up) and Dubya’s first CoS– that I remembered. He famously compared to campaign to go to war in Iraq with “marketing a new product”. He had a talent for those sort of Kinsleyan gaffes, as I recall.
Baud
rikyrah
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
CLAP CLAP CLAP
Ruckus
@Geminid:
I’m not sure they are smart enough to know how to nail anything, anywhere. They seem to just walk around in a daze, repeating phrases they heard someone else say, who had heard someone else say… It’s a semi secret club of people with zero concepts about anything and a faint memory about something, something, racism is good because then there are scraps for us. The concept of actually trying to be better, or anything new actually never occurs to them.
James E Powell
@Amir Khalid:
My favorite part is that, in all the reporting on Santos, voters seemed to have played no role whatsoever.
rikyrah
@bluefoot:
The stories terrify me.
Reading them, it’s like my family’s recounting of the storm of 1967. Came out of nowhere.
As I’ve gotten older, I just don’t have any ‘heartiness’ in trying to be out in the snow. When I hear about the possibility of a real storm, I’m inside.
The scariest thing for me is the losing of power. THAT terrifies me.
When people who have gone through STORMS are telling you that this one was different, I believe them.
James E Powell
@Soprano2:
He won’t be the last. This will continue for every Democratic president unless & until enough of the current court die & are replaced by Democrats.
JaySinWA
@JaySinWA: Santos’ campaign treasurer may be getting special attention. She has also been campaign treasurer for Zeldin.
https://twitter.com/mrspanstreppon/status/1608098729076359172
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: What I want to know from those people is what they did before Covid appeared. The flu is probably just as dangerous to them, or even a common cold, so how did they go out in public before Covid? I hate to tell them this, but most people aren’t going to stop going out in public, stop going to bars and restaurants pretty much completely, and wear face masks 100% of the time FOREVER, because that is what they are asking everyone to do. I actually saw one post on Twitter over a year ago, an activist who said they hoped that Covid made mask wearing in public normal from here on out, because that would be better for people who are immunocompromised. That’s just never going to happen.
CaseyL
@Nicole: The way I see it: All of them.
Whether via Russia money laundered through the NRA (which was a firehose of $$$), or through the Ted Devine-Paul-Manafort axis, or even through one of the many dark money outlets that have opened up since Citizens United, my working assumption for the last 6 years is that any and all GOPers are funded by Russia.
Willingly. I mean, they know where the money is coming from, and they’re perfectly happy with that.
James E Powell
@H.E.Wolf:
I got a shingles vaccine – two shots a few months apart – at no cost. Did I get the wrong one?
James E Powell
@Geminid:
Aren’t they always?
It is a persistent problem for our team and no one seems to know the solution.
Geminid
@Ruckus: I am not so concerned about Republicans’ state of mind, self-awareness, moral status, etc. They exist in a larger social framework that tends to either enable their actions or frustrate them. They are going to take a beating over Santos until they can somehow separate from him, and this affair will be an unwelcome diversion at the least, and possibly a scandal that brings down more of their politicians. This is a very bad way for their House caucus to start a new Congress with a slender majority that is already fractured and acrimonious.
JoyceH
@Soprano2:
I don’t think people are going to always wear masks in public forever, but I sure would like to see it more normalized, like it is in Asian countries. It seems like every year there’s the latest version of ‘that thing that’s going around’, and everybody gets it, because nobody masks and go into crowded public places unprotected and That Thing spreads and spreads. If we’d just mask up in crowds during those periods, That Thing (whichever it is for that year) would take a much lower toll. While we’re at it, let’s normalize staying home when you’re sick and DE-normalize coming to work sick, which has often been considered admirable and a devotion to the work.
Soprano2
@rikyrah: It’s like our ice storm of January 2007. I still get a chill when I think about it. We’ve had lots of ice storms here in my 61 years, but nothing compares to that one. We live in town, and we were out of power for 12 or 13 days! I was taking showers and getting ready for work at work, because we have showers here and we had power after a couple of days (that storm is why all city buildings here now have big-ass built-in generators). My neighborhood looked like a bomb had gone off over it, because I live in an older part of town with a lot of large trees. Almost the whole city was without power, but strangely enough the streets were never slick, so everyone was out driving around looking at things. It was like the apocalypse, kind of. Convenience stores with signs that said “No gas, cash only”. Couldn’t buy gas because the pumps run on electricity! I hope to NEVER experience anything like that ever again.
Brachiator
@Sister Golden Bear:
But part of the problem appears to be that he was using his own devices and drugs, rather than those approved by the hospital.
Are there different rules about this depending on whether it is hospice vs hospital? Why couldn’t the hospital provide equivalent medication for the person’s anxiety, if that was the issue?
Scout211
@James E Powell: What insurance do you have? Many insurance plans do cover Shingrex shots with no co-pay but most Medicare Part D plans did not until this change.
James E Powell
@Baud:
One thing that is repeated in cycle after cycle is that Democrats do not adopt a coherent narrative & pound it for the six months leading up to the election.
Too often, the Democrats’ campaigns consist of responses to Republican rage provokers that are weak or useless. Very rarely do the Ds take after the Rs with aggressive attacks.
I also think it’s a mistake that Ds do not attack the political media constantly. They have been our enemies for thirty years or more. No reason to be nice. Rs aren’t and it doesn’t hurt them at all.
Soprano2
This I totally agree with. I had a co-worker once who told me she would come to work even if she was throwing up! (that’s my bright line for staying home). She would work, go into the bathroom and throw up, and then go back to her desk. She said no one could do her job, and she had to be there. I said there isn’t any job you can’t be away from for a day or two, that’s miserable and unrealistic for the employer to expect.
James E Powell
@Scout211:
Shingrex is what I got. Is that what I shoulda got?
Scout211
@James E Powell: yes.
Geminid
@James E Powell: These things ebb and flow. Virginia Democrats were hungry in 2018 when they flipped 3 House seats. Republicans were relatively demoralized, with a lot of internal feuding between their radical and traditional wings.
That changed in 2021. If someone had told me going into that year that a Republican would be elected governor I would have disbelieved them because the party was so divided. Youngkin figuratively papered over the cracks with hundred dollar bills and that is one reason he could pull off that win.
Next year’s General Assembly elections will be a good test of political trends in my state in that both parties should be motivated and mobilized.
And hopefully you will see Democrats in the California 41st CD better motivated in 2024 than they were last month, and they will be the hungrier of the two parties’ adherents. This Republican House caucus may be dysfunctional enough to demoralize Ken Calvert’s voters, and its radicalism could prove a real threat to purple district Republicans nationwide.
WaterGirl
test
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Because many of the current medications that do similar things are not actually as effective doing what the person needs. And while I’m sure there are people for whom pot does not give the same reactions as most get, I’d bet most of the medications have a higher rejection rate. My docs, over the last ten yrs, have tried me on many medications and my rejection rate is about 90%. Sure I’m the odd ball in this process, I rate badly and always have on the medicine usability/rejection scale. But I’m not the only one out there, just a smallish minority. I’ve had cancer and been treated but if the treatment had made me nauseous or worse, I’d have wanted something to calm that because a medicine that makes your life worse is a hard pill to take, and I know because I’ve had the experience. In cancer treatment some of the meds are very harsh and difficult to experience. It can be rather difficult to take something which so negatively affects you, with only hope, not knowledge, that it makes you better. And actually a lot of meds are like that for some people, not just cancer treatment. I know, I’m one of them.
tam1MI
Exactly. If this had been a lone thing that happened in New York state, it wouldn’t have been too huge of a problem (except of course for the FTFNYT), but this is just the tip of the iceberg of the many f*** ups that occurred in New York this election cycle. There needs to be a top to bottom autopsy done on this election, and a thorough house cleaning of the New York Democratic apparatus. That they performed so poorly in a year when Democrats almost everywhere else outperformed expectations is just not acceptable. Heads need to roll.
Matt McIrvin
@James E Powell: Yes, that’s the current best shingles vaccine. There was an earlier one that was replaced by Shingrix and not nearly as effective.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m going on a fancy vacation to Arizona in February and I feel good about spending money there. I have not been in 30 years- not because of their politics but just because we didn’t go.
Tazj
@bluefoot: It’s so true that it came on so fast. The weather forecasts said that it would change quickly and the local weather people said to get everything you needed to get done before Friday. However, if I remember correctly, the change to snow and blizzard like conditions was forecast to happen late Friday afternoon and the forecast shifted to midday Friday maybe Thursday night.
I believe it was raining Friday morning and people were tempted to go out one last time for things. I know I was for a short time. The fact that the travel ban didn’t start until 9am-something I think the authorities regret now, didn’t help either.
Barbara had commented yesterday that she thinks people in Buffalo think like others do in places that get hurricanes and shrug their shoulders when bad weather is forecast. I think that’s true, they’ve gotten through it before and they’ll do it again and it won’t be that bad.The daughters of a woman who died said their mother walked everywhere and must have gone out for something for Christmas. She made it a few feet from her door. She probably went out in storms many times before.
Of course the poor, elderly and disabled suffer the most. It’s really difficult for them to prepare ahead of time because they don’t have the means to do so.
Paul in KY
@Kay: Hope you get to Tucson. Really enjoyed my trip there. Best wishes wherever you go!
catclub
@rikyrah:
Casey Jones, The Wizard of Oz, Wrong-way Corrigan, Dale Earnhardt. Thats four.
sab
@Soprano2: That is also extremely bad management practice. There need to be multiple people capable of doing every job (what if she got hit by a bus?) and someone else needs to do her job occassionally to double check what she is up to.
sab
@Soprano2: I also think schools should stop giving perfect attendance awards. There is no child who doesn’t get sick occassionally.
Anyway
@Kay:
How was the visit with Danish grandbaby? Did you spoil her rotten?
Ksmiami
@James E Powell: he needs to ignore this court. Mute it. Make the fuckers irrelevant. Sorry, this is a war.
sab
Update on stepdaughter’s neighbor’s house:p blowing up:
Nobody knows anything, but ATF ( alchhol, tobacco, firearms) federal agency is crawling all over the place. I assume this is usual. Anyone know anything about what is usual?
StringOnAStick
@Brachiator: Another reason why hospital staff busted that terminal cancer patient and called the cops is many to at least half of hospital staff are pretty right wing/religious/judgmental based on the semester I was working/training in one (I quit, it wasn’t for me). I was shocked at how many were loud mouth FOX nuts.
Another Scott
@sab:
Made me look… Interfire.org:
(Emphasis added.)
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
pieceofpeace
@Steve in the ATL: Try ruth reynolds, bernese mountain dog.
I haven’t read this over, but if she’s not still breeding them, perhaps the trail will lead somewhere of value. We bought ours in the 1990s, he died when 12, but was like a perfect dog, including no shedding for that lovely fur.
She breeded and trained them, then they went to their new homes. She was rigid about the standards for the breed. When looking for one, we found her to be open, honest, extremely informative and wanted to know a good deal about us and our home.
At that time she lived in the panhandle of Florida. I can’t say enough about Marley, our BMD. I can’t think of any time he was any ‘problem’ for us, and if you want more information, contact me. I’m not sure you should use our name (she might insist), as she wanted us to train him for showing, but we chose not to do that (after saying we would). He was too sweet, smart, good-natured and resisted the 1-time session with a trained show-dog human: taking a stance, he looked at him and wagged his tail at each command, then didn’t move. It wasn’t meant to be. And that was my stance.