Best description I have heard yet to describe the craziness of weaponizing government by creating a committee to investigate the weaponizing of government. Just perfect!
It’s Like Al Capone Investigating Eliot Ness
That’s how upside down and backwards things have gotten. I heard that phrase on an episode for the Talking Feds podcast, but I can’t attribute it to a particular person or a particular episode because I fell asleep while listening to the podcast and I have no idea what episode it was or who was speaking when I woke up.
I learned some other stuff, as well. I knew the Rs weren’t going to use the Ethics committee to do anything about actual ethics issues, like walking ethics violation George Santos, but I did not know that they are actually not even going to have an ethics committee. Well, that’s not exactly true, if I heard correctly, they won’t get rid of the committee but there won’t be any members on it. WTF? If anyone knows more about the details of that, please share the scoop in the comments.
Hypothetical question: If we had a post dedicated to all the horrible things that R members of congress want to use their power to say or do, and if each thing got its own comment, and no other comments were allowed, would we reach a TBogg unit? I think the answer yes, absolutely, easily!
Bonus tweet that made me laugh. It’s hard to beat funny and true.
Marjorie Taylor Greene looks like someone you record on your iPhone while she yells at a service worker. https://t.co/YVFKLGkx8Y
— Emily A. ☮️ (@emzorbit) February 8, 2023
The mating call of the furries. #SOTU #sotu2023 pic.twitter.com/MV0o7dUndj
— Lizz "Insufferable Wench" Winstead (@lizzwinstead) February 8, 2023
Posted without comment.
I wonder which staffer had to pick this dress up from Sinema’s dry cleaner. https://t.co/pm5cQ6efWW
— Emily A. ☮️ (@emzorbit) February 8, 2023
I try to never post more than 3 tweets in a post, but I couldn’t help myself after I saw this one.
My buddy @moodyfoodiedude found Kyrsten Sinema’s inspiration for her outfit pic.twitter.com/x5elC01y2H
— Wu-Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) February 8, 2023
Open thread.
Elizabelle
No interest in talking about Republicans. Gonna stick with the glow from President Joe doing so well with his SOTU.
Having seen it, that dress does not even fit Sinema. It is unflattering. Is that what you’re going for with “look at me, me, me?”
[She’s stuffed into it like a sausage casing, the darts suggest nipples; tailoring is awful. Makes you think “at least her hair looks OK.”]
rikyrah
Lying like a muthaphucka. Senator Voldemort from Florida put out an entire plan to cut both of them. They said that they going to hold the debt ceiling hostage over them.
Lying
Azz
Muthaphucka ![]()
Lis Power (@LisPower1) tweeted at 10:09 PM on Tue, Feb 07, 2023:
ABC’s Jonathan Karl said Biden’s comment about some Republicans wanting to cut Social Security was “over the top” because “there’s nobody seriously talking about sunsetting Social Security in the Republican Party”
Karl is just flat out wrong https://t.co/DHNlZVujuN
(https://twitter.com/LisPower1/status/1623172230950658048?t=Y-QKg7BOx36TpiLhxlpTZg&s=03)
Amir Khalid
What is Kyrsten Sinema looking so unhappy about?
Math Guy
@Amir Khalid: Having to sit with the Democrats.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
bringing this up from below since it seems On Topic
Republicans focusing on inflation like a laser beam. The prop blow-up Post headline is a nice throwback to the 90s
The FoxNews chyron says something like “Hunter Biden Laptop Censorship Scandal”. I don’t have much faith in the average American voter, but I just can’t imagine this is going anywhere. It’s like a dead language interpreted through a broken Rosetta Stone.
There are a couple of clips on the internet of Jamie Raskin Raskining, and it’s kind of interesting but it’s all so inside-baseball I can’t imagine anything will gain any traction. We’ll see.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Amir Khalid: She looked at her phone and saw everybody making fun of her dress.
@rikyrah: back when the world, Gen-X and I were all younger, CNN tried to do a hip political chat show anchored by Jake Tapper on a set that IIRC vaguely recalled the set of Friends. Karl was the house libertarian. He came up through the conservative media farm team in college and his early career.
WaterGirl
@Amir Khalid: The only time I saw her clap was during the comments on Roe and abortion. Maybe the camera landed on her clapping another time, but I sure didn’t see it.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That could be it! They did say she was looking at her phone during the speech.
narya
@Elizabelle: And that’s a terrible color for her. Bright yellow is a fun color, but it really does not complement a lot of white-people skin tones.
Chris Johnson
Long time furry here. We repudiate her. And the other dude. Not ours.
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
That was her serious face for LGBTQ rights.
WaterGirl
I’m thinking that every time someone touts this ridiculous committee, I will reply with the “that’s like Al Capone investigating Elliot Ness – and we’re supposed to take that seriously?”
WaterGirl
@Chris Johnson: Can you remind me what a furry is?
Answered, thank you. No more answers necessary. :-)
SFAW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The Benghaziiiiii!!!!!!!!!! hearings were doomed from the start, too — but only if one was sincerely interested in finding out if anything problematic happened.
But the REAL purpose was to drive Hillary’s approval numbers into negative territory, and in that regard, they succeeded beyond the Rethugs wildest hopes.
One hopes they are unsuccessful this time, vis-a-vis hurting President Biden. But, to paraphrase Mencken (or whomever): no one ever went broke underestimating how fucking stupid some voters are.
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: Sinema clapped for Biden’s words about creating safety for trans kids. I think that moment is the one pictured.
I don’t hate the dress. The sleeves look annoying to wear, but I generally like that shade of gold.
Suzanne
@WaterGirl:
Google it. On private browsing. On your personal device.
WaterGirl
@narya: I can remember be in my late 20s and trying on a dress at the store and realizing it was the most flattering thing I had ever put on.
Then I glanced up at my face and it looked so washed out with the color of the dress. I was so sad, but of course I couldn’t buy it!
That said, it’s the form of the dress that’s just as bad as the color.
jeffreyw
p.a.
It’s like driftglass said years ago à la StarTrek TNG; the ‘thuglican information universe is a sphere 900 meters in diameter. Self contained, nothing gets in. As Lee Atwater pointed out, the inside info gets so esoteric, to those on the outside the info coming out sounds like gibberish.
Sadly the MSM has for decades supported the fallacy to the general public that it isn’t gibberish.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: Yeah, no. That’s why I asked. There are some things I won’t google.
edit: surely there’s a g-rated explanation that someone could type in a sentence that would give me a clue? If they were inclined to indulge my ignorance.
Suzanne
Honestly, the wardrobe item that offended me more is that jacket with the giant houndstooth pattern. Good God.
Alison Rose
@rikyrah: Nice of him to admit on TV that no one should take anything Republicans say or do seriously.
Of course, that doesn’t make him any less wrong. Even the ones in the party who don’t talk openly about wanting to destroy Medicare and Social Security probably still have wet dreams about doing so.
SFAW
You libtards are whining about the mission of This Very Important Subcommittee, but you may not know that Squeaker McQarthy has also put Matt Gaetz (R-Pedo) on the subcommittee, instantly giving it gravitas.
Tdjr
I know this is completely OT, but my 15 yo puppy was diagnosed with vestibular disease yesterday. I read about it on the tubes, but I was wondering if anyone has any experience with it? Will he make a recovery?
Alison Rose
@Amir Khalid: Not being the one at the podium.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: Oh my gosh, you don’t think those giant WINGS are the stupidest thing you have ever seen on a dress that wasn’t at the academy awards?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I was just thinking about Joni Ernst’s We’ll have to go behind closed doors and have serious talks about these programs (as I remember it). The audio is bad, and the audio/video on all of these tends to be a bit shaky, because they know not to say it when they know they’re being recorded.
Also, as I recall, that barely came up in the Ernst/Greenfield contest.
UncleEbeneezer
Speaking of investigations, AG nails it:
“Somewhere along the way, someone convinced a good amount of people that the biggest investigation in American history should take fewer than two years, so now when indictments happen, they won’t be happy about it. I wonder who convinced them of that? 1/
Most experts have been saying since the beginning it would be around spring of 2023. Yet people are still mad. Fani Willis hasn’t indicted. Nor has ANY state prosecutor for that matter, yet everyone’s focus is on one man. One agency. Why is that? Who want us to hate the DoJ? 2/
Is there anyone you can think of with the means and motive to make us hate our top cop and dismantle our institutions? Is there any reason you can think of that anyone would want us to NOT defend our institutions? Anyone you know that would love for us to just HATE Garland? 3/…”
This is what I have always maintained. The expectation that prosecutions of Trump, Congresspeople, 1/6 Planners etc. in just two years has always been unrealistic. Many, many former US Attorneys, DA’s, FBI, Appellate Lawyers, etc., told us that from the very beginning.
The unrelenting expressions of skepticism, worry, criticism and downright bashing of DOJ/Garland has always served one person’s obvious interests: Donald Trump (and Putin and the GOP too). People who do this are undermining trust/faith in one of our most important institutions and effectively doing Trump’s bidding for him. Like Hillary’s Emails, every little bit adds to the pile-on and exacerbates the problem. Yelling that Garland/DOJ are feckless/scared/corrupt is just the flip-side of the same shit Trump has been screaming since the moment he left office.
Alison Rose
@narya: I was gonna say, it’s a rare white lady who can pull off that shade of yellow. The Queen could do it (she looked good in literally every color), and maybe some toddler girls, but other than that…
Suzanne
Important objectification comment: I have not seen The Untouchables in many years, and I do not remember Kevin Costner as Elliot Ness looking so fucken hot.
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: Just think about people dressing as animals and doing the last thing you want to think about people dressed as animals doing.
narya
@WaterGirl: That’s like me with very white tops of ANY kind. I used to be a redhead, and I have the skin tone that goes with it; if I wear white I look like death eating soda crackers. I can get away with beige, especially if I add a scarf, but white, absolutely not. Needless to say, my wedding dress (yes, I was married for about 15 minutes) was turquoise.
WaterGirl
@SFAW: That makes perfect sense when you realize that committee is filled with the top congresspeople who are being investigated for crimes, including those related to the overthrow of our government.
Dangerman
I don’t get the attention to Sinema’s dress; the Chick went Chiquita Banana to get attention and she got it. She’d douse herself in lighter fluid and flick that Bic to get attention except for the 3rd Degree burns.
Ignore her.
WaterGirl
@Tdjr: I do not know anything about that, but I’m so sorry about the news. Did the vet give you a clue as to the relative seriousness?
My vet had a phrase that I found useful in calibrating the seriousness of something. “She’s not at the end of the road, but she’s on the road.”
They are all pups forever in our minds, aren’t they.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: Me, neither. It was on the first page of images for him that came up on my search, and I took one look and thought “yep, this is the one!”
schrodingers_cat
That dress looks like a frilled lizard and Big Bird had a baby.
@Elizabelle: Some good news for the Ds
Democrats win control of the Pennsylvania state House for the first time in 12 years following victories in 3 special elections. This victory will likely thwart Pennsylvania’s GOP-led state Senate from further restricting access to abortion and voting.
WaterGirl
@Alison Rose: Oh, thank you. Nicely done!
Anonymous At Work
Ethics Committee: What the rules package was trying to do (don’t know what ultimately passed, plus/minus the backroom bargains) was set new term limits for members (still 4 R, 4 D) to kick between 4 and 6 members off, plus give the new members a three month window to hire new staffers that would be committee staffers (and thus go through federal workforce vetting) or not hire any new staffers at all. So, basically, no time to hire staffers and remove anyone who knew anything about how to proceed. No investigations for lack of staff and knowledge, but without just “shutting down” investigations entirely.
Alison Rose
@Suzanne: It’s that vest, I’m telling you. Almost any man who wears a three-piece suit looks hot to death.
brendancalling
@Amir Khalid: She always looks that way. In this case, she’s grumpy because the tailor forget to put the stripes on her Bumblebee Man outfit.
Spirula
@Elizabelle: The BeeGirl of Blind Melon fame thought the dress was extremely tacky.
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
Sparing your fee-fees: “An enthusiast for animal characters with human characteristics, in particular a person who dresses up in costume as such a character or uses one as an avatar online.”
Ken
@WaterGirl: Some people like to dress in animal costumes and interact with other people dressed similarly.
The range of “interact” includes, well, all human interactions.
Captain C
@WaterGirl:
Sinema: “Oh, good, everyone’s talking about ME!“
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SFAW: Kevin McCarthy told us as much. We all know that. Does your Normie acquaintance? I doubt it.
Hillary Clinton was the object of a thirty-year, not always coordinated campaign of derision and suspicion from the right, the center and the left. The Benghazi stuff never stuck to Obama, but between the (quickly disproven) stand-down order story and the emails, it gave a lot of people a reason to justify the negative feelings they had about HRC, ranging from mild distrust to obsessive hatred.
I just don’t see this taking hold in the same way. Everybody (who cares) knows about Hunter, a lot of us have a family member who went through addiction, even if it wasn’t as sensational as the HB case. To people who aren’t already around the bend, Joe Biden’s simple, understated “I love my son” resonates. That’s my guess, anyway.
WaterGirl
@narya: I think this dress was the most lovely shade of brown. I am pretty sure that I don’t own a single thing in that color.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Agree. Hillary is sui generis.
WaterGirl
@narya: Turquoise! Excellent color.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Well said!
Dangerman
On the flip side, now I don’t have to wonder what it would look like if Big Bird walked the runway as a Victoria’s Secret Angel.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Go PA!
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: Eh. I — in general — want to see more experimentation and expression in fashion. I personally like my clothes pretty boring and functional and minimalist, but I think most of the rules of propriety are kind of bullshit. Especially for women. I did mock her fuzzy vest thing that she wore a few weeks ago because it looked like my kid’s Shaun the Sheep Halloween costume. The dress isn’t well-tailored and that detracts from it.
I am more visually offended by the shit that Casey DeSantis wears, or Republican church ladies. I generally don’t much care for patterns and spangly shit.
I will note that half of the men in Congress look terrible almost daily (unkempt and disheveled, ugly clothes, poor grooming) and we never shit on them. I get that we hate Sinema for valid reasons, and I do acknowledge that she dresses to stand out. But eh. I work in a creative field and there are some people who are “characters” and it doesn’t feel unfamiliar to me.
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat: Thanks for the reminder. Last night I decided I would do a post on that today, and it apparently fell out of my ears while I slept.
PAM Dirac
@Tdjr: We had a dog that was diagnosed with what the vet called “old dog vestibular syndrome”. He got up in the middle of the night and couldn’t walk straight. He wasn’t much better by morning and we though he was having a stroke. Tried to go outside and ended up falling into the bushes. The vet was sure that it wasn’t a stroke and said it should clear up in a few days. He was given some anti-anxiety meds and we had to help him get around for a few days, he would want to go straight, but actually go off at a 45 degree angle. He recovered pretty much completely. I think he was 13 and he lived til 18 without any real problems. Had a few minor relapses where he would walk crooked, but nothing close to the first bout.
narya
@WaterGirl: It was wonderful. A friend’s mother made it for me; it was slubbed silk, and it had green/blue undertones–sort of peacock blue/green. I still have it, though I’m not sure I can fit into it; I also wore it a year later at my parents’ 50th anniversary party. Redheads usually can’t wear red (clashes w/ the hair, IMHO), but we can wear the hell out of turquoise.
schrodingers_cat
@Alison Rose: It is the rolled up sleeve offering a glimpse of the forearm and the wrist that’s so hot. YMMV of course.
Tdjr
@WaterGirl: The vet seemed to prepare me for a few weeks of the stumbling around. The poor dog is nearly blind and I’m just wondering if I’m being selfish. But he’s started eating boiled chicken so that’s good. I guess I’ll just take it one day at a time. Thanks.
Suzanne
@Alison Rose: The hat is also extremely hot.
American men do not wear enough hats for my liking. I am a big hat fan. I see plenty of caps, but very few nice hats. It’s a bummer.
tobie
@UncleEbeneezer: a partial list–Elie Mystal, Joy Ann Reid, Cheri Jacobus, Andrew Weissman (who should know better), Neil Katyal (who should also know better), regrettably Harry Litman on occasion, Glenn never-miss-an-opportunity-to-self-promote Kirschner, the execrable Elie Honig.
See a pattern. The price you have to pay to get on TV is to bash Garland and the DoJ.
Tdjr
@PAM Dirac: Oh thank you! I’m hopeful that he’ll be OK soon, but it is painful to watch. 😢
narya
On a more dire note, rikyrah’s comment from the last thread about Jackson Mississippi is insane. WTAF.
eddie blake
@narya: too funny. my mom’s a ginger. i’m so pale i’m translucent; a phlebotomist’s dream. you can see my vascular system from orbit.
nominated for rotating tag?
PAM Dirac
@Tdjr: Yes with our dog it was 3-4 days where he needed some help to get around and probably needed the anti-anxiety meds. Then is was another week to 10 days where he was OK, but a bit wobbly and after that he was pretty much normal.
Scout211
I stayed offline last night due to having to eat birthday cake. Yeah, I forced it down. LOL. Another year. Wow.
While enjoying my morning coffee this morning, I read through everyone’s comments from last night while you were all watching the speech in real time. Thank you all for your great comments and insights. This is a full service blog. Well, minus that little obsession with Botox. 😉
Baud
@Scout211:
Happy birthday!
Scout211
@Baud: Thanks!
narya
@eddie blake: I do freckle–it’s basically a collective action problem, in that I’d have a tan if the freckles could join together–but these days I slather on so much sunscreen that even that is lessened.
PAM Dirac
@Tdjr: Yeah you get so scared and the poor puppy is freaking out. Then it settles in and gets a bit sadly comical. Watching them trying to find a place to poop while listing to one side. He would be out in the yard for a while and then my wife and I would come out to the porch and call him and he would be happy to see us and run to what he thought was toward us but actually go off at a 45 degree angle. As I said, he lived for another 5 years and it was never a real problem again.
Spanky
As you might expect, Glenn Kessler (ptooi!) fact-checks the SOTU in today’s post. No, no link since I have no intention of wasting anyone’s time on that mealy horseshit he puts out.
prostratedragon
@Suzanne: You’re now about as old as he was then?
WaterGirl
@Anonymous At Work: Thank you for that!
Betty Cracker
@UncleEbeneezer: IMO, totalizing statements like that lead to obviously absurd conclusions (e.g., Adam Schiff: handmaiden of Trump, Putin and the GOP) and suggest that certain public servants and agencies should be above criticism. If someone says something unfair about Garland or whomever, I think it’s better to address the substance of the criticism.
The Moar You Know
@Tdjr: most recover within a few weeks. The biggest issue here is of course that the dog is 15. The warranty ran out a long time ago. Cherish every day.
Geminid
So I looked up the Oversight Committee’s Democratic membership. There are 21. Jaime Raskin (MD-8) is the Ranking Member.
The rest, in order of seniority I think, are: Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC); Steven Lynch (MA-8); Gerald Connolly VA-11); Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL); Rho Khanna (CA); Kweisi Mfume (MD); Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14); Katie Porter (CA-45); Cori Bush (MO-01); Shontel Brown (OH); Jimmy Gomez (CA-34); Robert Garcia (CA-34).
Garcia may be in his 1st term, and the last 7 are: Maxwell Frost (FL-10); Becca Balint (VT); Summer Lee (PA-10); Greg Casar (TX-35); Jasmine Crockett (TX-30); Dan Goldman (NY-9); and Jared Moskowitz (FL-23).
Soprano2
Sinema’s dress wouldn’t be bad if it didn’t have those God-awful sleeves!
sab
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@tobie: I’ve been a fan of Nicolle Wallace because of her pure hatred of trump and the loose irreverence she brings to discussions with (mostly) good guests, but she has a serious case of Garland Derangement Syndrome. Littman and even Weissman have started t push back on her bedrock belief that prosecuting trump is a slam-dunk easy case, because it should be.
I heard Elie Honig on a podcast I almost skipped because from what I’ve heard he has GDS. I was actually heartened when he started talking about the GA case, pointing out things I always think, an indictment is not an end, but the beginning of a long process, we haven’t seen a defense case, juries are unpredictable. He also said, which I hadn’t heard, that Doug Jones said that any good defense lawyer can shred the case against trump based on The Phone Call. Then he started fulminating against Garland, how he should have brought a seditious conspiracy charge a year ago. IANAL, but it seems to me that given mens rea and intent and all that other stuff I hear about on TeeVee, that’s the most difficult case to prove.
Roger Moore
@p.a.:
I don’t think that was Atwater’s point. He was talking about dog whistling, where Republicans could talk about stuff that was comprehensible to everyone but had an extra layer of meaning to the bigots they were playing to. That was the natural consequence of the media infrastructure at the time Atwater was working. There were a relative handful of big media outlets, and they were all relatively mainstream.
That started to change with the advent of AM talk radio, and it really took off with Fox. Now there’s a whole parallel conservative media infrastructure that’s largely separated from the MSM to the point the language has completely diverged. Instead of Republicans saying stuff that made sense to everyone but carried an extra layer of meaning to the initiated, they’re talking about stuff the rest of us have no idea about.
rikyrah
Daniel Dale (@ddale8) tweeted at 9:49 PM on Tue, Feb 07, 2023:
Here is what Sen. Rick Scott’s “Rescue America” plan says about sunsetting “all” federal legislation every five years. Here’s what Mitch McConnell said in rejecting the proposal – that it would sunset Medicare and Social Security, which is what Biden said tonight. https://t.co/ggHZE2WQXi
(https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1623167108287803394?s=02)
sab
@Alison Rose: Garish color plus too tight.
UncleEbeneezer
@tobie: Littman, Weissman, and Honig are sometimes reasonable. Depends on the venue, the day and the interview. They even sometimes pushback on the haters. Mystal has made Garland-bashing his entire brand identity.
Alison Rose
@schrodingers_cat: YES. Rolling up dress shirt sleeves is one of the sluttiest things a man can do. Like I’m about 90% gay, but a dude does that and it’s like, hello doctor.
Alison Rose
@Suzanne: We need to go back to the era in which men wore hats all the time. Women too, honestly. All genders! All the hats!
Alison Rose
@Scout211: Happy hatching day! 🐣
Tdjr
@The Moar You Know: Completely true.
Baud
@eddie blake:
It’s different, but I’ll second it.
sdhays
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think the whole thing with Hunter Biden is the Republicans can say the word “Biden” along with sinister-sounding stuff without being directly slapped down by the President and his allies.
It’s all about creating a background noise of “Biden bad” for the less engaged. Just like “emails” for Hillary.
M31
hahahah that’s how my partner says I got her :-)
eddie blake
@Baud: lolol. i meant narya’s line about death and crackers.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Can’t stand Greene. Not a fan of Sinema, and I think she gets a lot of attention because she goes out of her way to get attention. However, it does bug me that women more than men keep getting bashed in the media. MTG isn’t the only one heckling Biden, but she is the only one getting called out and bashed for it. The GOP men are just as culpable. Each and every one of these clowns needs to be dragged for it, not just the women or Santos (the compulsive liar gay man).
Alison Rose
Hey, folks, don’t worry about 2024. Ross Douthat says “I can see the path to Biden’s re-election” so we’re all good.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Roger Moore:
Like ‘naked mopping’ or ‘fancy lettuce’ or ‘ketchup splattered walls’?
narya
@eddie blake: Hah! I stole THAT from my 10th grade English teacher!
Soprano2
@narya: I’m pale and medium blonde, and I cannot wear yellow at all. Every now and then I try it on, then rip it off my body as fast as humanly possible.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@sdhays: sure, I just don’t think the ground for that is as fertile as it was for HRC, outside of people who are already, literally or metaphorically, flying giant Let’s Go Brandon flags from the beds of their coal-rolling pick-ups. Even people who will tell a pollster they disapprove or wonder if he’s too old don’t have the same cultural resentments about Biden they had about Hillary Clinton, who became a target for everything the right hated about 60s and 70s and everything the left hated about (Democrats in) the 80s and 90s (and aughts)
zhena gogolia
@Suzanne: Time to watch it again.
The Lodger
Pointing MTG looks like the woman in the meme got tired of lecturing the white cat and is now wearing it instead.
WaterGirl
@PAM Dirac:
I know a dog that had what you are describing, and it lasted a short period of time, can’t recall whether it was 5 days or two weeks, and then she was fine.
cc: @Tdjr:
Betty Cracker
Speaking of hot dudes, Ukraine’s President Zelensky is in the UK and met the PM, the King and will address parliament later. I also read somewhere that he will visit Ukrainian troops who are learning how to operate British tanks.
UncleEbeneezer
@Betty Cracker: It’s entirely possible for Schiff and other well-meaning Dems to get sucked into disinformation campaigns, just as many Dems did with Hillary’s Emails. That’s exactly how it works and the whole point. Putin/Trump/trolls weaponize people’s already-existing, good intentions to get them to spread messaging that serves their (Putin/Trump/GOP’s) interests. And to suck everyone into debating the minutia for noble reasons. Just like debating Hillary’s record on the Crime Bill with Social Justice people and groups, was a totally valid thing to do in 2016. I did it. Lots of people with good intentions did it. Then we found out that it was also a clever ploy that Putin used to divide Dems and help Trump. No one is too smart, too pure etc., to get sucked in by PSYOP/disinfo campaigns. None of us. And different people can take the bait for different reasons. Everyone believing what they are doing is harmless or even helping. That’s why they work!! And we’ve seen concrete examples of it in action, within recent memory.
There’s a good American Psyop podcast bonus episode where Dr. Steve Hassan, and expert on cults/disinformation explains it very well.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodingers_cat:
Perfect! LOL!!
NotMax
@Jim, Foolish Literalist
The new management at CNN is dead set on having a regularly scheduled nightly two hour comedy program. No joke.
“What a world, what a world.”
– Wicked Witch of the West
.
UncleEbeneezer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Agreed. What Hillary faced is something truly unique, that nobody, not even Obama, had to overcome.
Redshift
@Chris Johnson:
I hear ya. I’ve given up on trying to convince people not to derisively refer to insurrectionists and militia types as larpers or cosplayers. Both of those groups know what they’re doing isn’t real; if the wingnuts knew that, they would be less dangerous.
WaterGirl
@Alison Rose: I used to love it when Obama would get on stage and start rolling up his sleeves.
Baud
@NotMax:
That will be dreadful.
WaterGirl
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: When one of the male senators comes in with GIANT WINGS attached to his suit jacket, I will most certainly be mocking him!
NotMax
@Suzanne
The Untouchables? Elliott Ness? Do not remember Robert Stack baring his arms at any time.
;)
Barney
Sinema told a staffer to find her a canary yellow dress, and they decided she needed the one with wings.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Your comment referencing the King made me cry. I know the Queen died, but whenever I picture the UK or royalty, she is who I picture, so somewhere in my head she is apparently still there.
So while I’ve never paid attention to the royal crap, I do have a fondness for the Queen, Meghan and Harry.
I was very surprised to suddenly have tears streaming down my face!
Ken
The Capone analogy for the Republicans is apt in one way, he was a criminal.
Oh, and died a syphilitic imbecile.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Biden had Bono.
Sinema had Bonomo.
;)
Redshift
@Suzanne:
How is it that I, a straight male, remembered that and you didn’t? Hmm…
schrodingers_cat
More demo of a slight glimpse of a wrist being hawt!
(You have to wait till the end but the young Mithun Chakravarti is hot)
Gulzar wrote this melody playing off of an old Persian poem by Amir Khusro
Baud
@Redshift:
Maybe it’s time for you to be honest with yourself…
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
That’s why the Victorians banned exposed ankles back in the day.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
There’s nothing here, but the sad thing is that the media keep reporting on it just because the Republicans keep talking about it.
SFAW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And yet, Hillary was the Gallup “Most Admired Woman” from 2002 to 2017. However, her “favorability rating” — for whatever THAT is worth — dropped about 15 to 17 points from 2010 to 2015. They weren’t trying to get her arrested, they were just trying to sink her approval/favorability rating. They succeeded.
Biden’s advantages are he’s already President, and he’s a man. But I’m guessing 2024 will be yet-another tight race, and given the general cluelessness of the electorate, I am not as confident as you.
Matt McIrvin
@SFAW: I recall she was “most admired woman” in a very split field–it wasn’t close to a majority.
leeleeFL
@Suzanne: Oh, Darling! When that movie came out, my ex was furious with my response to Kevin Costner and Sean Connery in that film! His ridiculous behavior about it pretty much put us on the slippery slope to splitsville! I still use “What are you prepared to do?” in my best Scottish accent for the ultimate negotiating parry!
Baud
@Brachiator:
I guess I wouldn’t call Fox “the media” on something like this.
Redshift
@Betty Cracker:
I absolutely do not think all criticism of Garland is unfair. Preet Bharara (who you may have noticed I’m a big fan of) both thinks that Garland made a serious mistake by not interviewing the higher-ups in the conspiracy when their memories were fresh, and that well-done federal investigations go a long time without any public information, and that doesn’t mean there’s nothing happening.
At the same time, the nonstop drumbeat of “TFG should obviously be in jail, Garland sold us out!” does have more than a whiff of the kind of disinformation campaign we’ve seen before. People are frustrated, and giving them a target is easy. Teri Kanefeld argues that in the effort to undermine democracy, the wingnuts aren’t enough, they need enough of us to become cynical enough about the system that the idea of a strongman who will just go ahead and lock up the bad people becomes appealing.
I agree it’s bad to take it too far in either direction, but trying to address individual arguments, some of which are in bad faith even if the people who’ve adopted them aren’t, isn’t necessarily the best or only way to push back.
Alison Rose
@Betty Cracker: With the King!
WaterGirl
@SFAW: I see to recall that Hillary was really high on most admired when she wasn’t a candidate.
I took that to mean they liked her in the other roles, but did not want to see her as president.
lowtechcyclist
@Alison Rose:
Nuts to that! I’ve never worn a hat in my life, and I’m not starting now. I’d either have to mash my curly hair into a misshapen mass, or the damn thing would fall off every time I moved.
Caps turn my hair into a misshapen mass (even more so than a hat would), so the only time I wear any sort of cap is when I have to be outside when it’s desperately cold out.
MisterDancer
Agreed. I had to just stop reading “fashion reviews” like what Tom & Lorenzo do, because it’s supposed to be both “funny” and insightful about Fashion, and it’s rarely either from my POV. They aren’t the only one, and far from the originator, just an well-known example.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Very good news.
Baud
Despite everything, Hillary remains a team player.
M31
@Alison Rose:
lol imagining the dialogue between them
Charles: “How did you get your job?”
Zelenskii: “I got famous for playing the piano with my penis, how about you?”
Charles: “My mom died”
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
On her phone.
Getting instructions.
Betty Cracker
@UncleEbeneezer: Also works nicely to shut down any criticism, valid or otherwise. Just saying
@Redshift: Good point — no one is obligated to respectfully engage bad-faith arguments.
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
Now you’ve got their commercial jingle from the 1960s going through my head. “You spell it B-O, N-O, M-O, Bonomo, oh, oh, oh, Bonomo Turkish taffy.”
The shit that kicks around the attics of our brains.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
“In olden days a glimpse of stocking…”
Yeah, that’s a better earworm than the other one.
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: She’s talked about that dissonance. I can’t recall exactly but she basically said, people love her when she’s not running for anything, but as soon as she is, then they hate her again. Then once she’s not, they love her again. (Obviously there are people who hate her all the time, but you know.)
frosty
@Alison Rose: Costner’s vest and not the fedora?
@Suzanne: Confirmed!
Suzanne
@Alison Rose: Agreed. Sam Smith, who is not someone I found attractive previously, looked hot as hell the other night in their red cape and devil-horn-top-hat. They have become a far more interesting artist and dresser!
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
Two points:
frosty
@Alison Rose: That must be why I got hit on at work every summer*. As soon as I was in the office I rolled up the sleeves. Saved money on short-sleeve shirts, which are an abomination.
* as if
Paul in KY
@Elizabelle: It looks like something a servant would wear in Hunger Games Capital City.
Alison Rose
@frosty: you total ho
Roger Moore
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Not exactly. We understand those are insider things, and we don’t expect people from outside out little almost-top-10,000 blog to understand them. The Republicans have gotten so used to their sealed media ecosystem they don’t realize people from outside it don’t comprehend the references.
Sister Golden Bear
@Amir Khalid: Not being the center of attention.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Touché.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: She was wronged.
lowtechcyclist
@Redshift:
Hard not to be cynical when the big shots keep on not getting their due. Iran-Contra, Fitzmas, Mueller Time, the ‘masters of the universe’ who brought down our economy in 2008 (never figured out why they didn’t at least go to prison over robosigning), but Obama’s “look forward, not back” wasn’t a great signal from the get-go.
Equal justice under the law has always been more of an aspiration than a reality, but there’ve been too many instances where if it was going to even be honored in the breach, well, here was the breach, and the system failed – in some cases, just plain gave up.
So of course people are cynical.
I’m not dumping on Garland, I’m being patient and trying to realize it takes time to do this right. But it ain’t easy.
Oh, and why just Garland? Because (a) a lot of these presumed crimes are Federal crimes, and (b) DOJ has resources that I would assume go well beyond what, say, Fulton County has. Speaking just for myself, it’s hard for me to believe that some state or county prosecutor is going to come through and nail TFG’s ass if the Feds can’t. The focus on DOJ is reasonable.
It’s going to take quite a change to do that. After all, we’ve had seven years of watching their side salivate over the opportunity to do just that, and we know they wouldn’t hesitate to use that power indiscriminately once they had it.
If either side has such a strongman, it’ll be their side, and we all know that.
I would like to see laws that aren’t quite so tilted towards those with resources: it always seems to be next to impossible to prove intent against them, but people who thought the state was telling them they could register and vote find themselves handcuffed at their homes and dragged off to jail.
Speaking of which, that latter was the work of aspiring strongman DeSantis, and again, that’s why we know how that sort of thing would work out.
frosty
@Alison Rose: Thanks to my dermatologist, I’m there – some kind of hat every time I go outside. Actually, it started when I started losing my hair in my 20s. A sunburned scalp is no fun.
Conner Hats has lots of UPF50 hats. Certified by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency. Good enough for me!
Betty Cracker
Zelensky already addressed the House of Commons. Here’s a YouTube link to the speech.
Paul in KY
@WaterGirl: People who like dressing up in animal costumes and having sex while in those costumes.
Suzanne
@Redshift: Probably because I saw The Untouchables for the first time when I was seven and he seemed hopelessly old?
Roger Moore
@frosty:
Seconded. This is why I wear a hat outside almost any time the sun is shining. It helps that a broad brimmed hat will also protect my face from sunburn. I’m partial to Tilly (made with Canadian persnicketyness!) myself.
Sister Golden Bear
@narya:
I once was in Dublin and thought the tour guide was a Goth — then I realized that her skin was naturally that white, no make-up required.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@WaterGirl:
It could happen!
Sister Golden Bear
@The Lodger: MTG is wearing the fur from all the dogs George Santos said he saved.
GrannyMC
@Amir Khalid:
MTG getting more camera time.
Jay C
About the best thing I can say about Sen. Sinema’s dress is that it isn’t green – like Ivanka Trump’s (which it looks like a knockoff of): the one Ivanka wore on a visit to (?) Peru, that made her look like she was being eaten by a carnivorous plant….
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Alison Rose
And looking grim ’cause they’ve been sitting
Choosing a hat
Does anyone still wear a hat?
I’ll drink to that
JoyceH
@lowtechcyclist:
Funny, because I’ve started yearning for a sun hat. Something with a rim all the way around, but not like those broad-brimmed ladies hats. I’m thinking more like those hats that men wear when they go fishing. Would probably look dreadful on me, but maybe a quirky Seasoned Traveler vibe? Weird yen for February, but we’re planning trips.
Suzanne
@Roger Moore:
Half of those dudes in Congress look like they have never been introduced to this concept called “moisturizer”, don’t know how to iron or purchase clothes that fit, shirts look terrible with their ties, etc etc etc. It’s a goddamn parade of fail.
Sister Golden Bear
@Jay C: And green dresses are functionally equivalent to green screens — much to the delight of Photoshoppers everywhere.
Paul in KY
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: But they are not wearing a dogskin while doing it.
NotMax
@Jay C
The plant died.
//
NotMax
@Suzanne
D.C. has long been called (paraphrasing) Hollywood for non-beautiful people.
NotMax
@Paul in KY
Just shout “Mush!” and the jacket will yank its wearer from the room.
//
Leslie
Pedantry alert:
Eliot Ness, with one L (yes, really an l, but then it looks like a capital i).
/pedantry
Costner was definitely hot in that film.
Paul in KY
@Sister Golden Bear: Jack White used to be like that. I saw him at a couple fests and thought he was the palest dude I’d ever seen. He had dark brown hair too, which accentuated it. He had to wear sunscreen at night.
kindness
I’ve kicked myself enough for donating to Sinema in ’18. So I donated to Ruben. I know he’ll be a better Democrat.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Alison Rose: Hah! My wife is a normie and neither of us can keep track of which pundit is considered idiotic for which reasons.
But a few weeks ago I described to her a particularly idiotic op-ed I’d seen in the NYTimes and she immediately responded “Is that Ross Douthat?”
Qrop Non Sequitur
@GrannyMC: Kyrsten Sinema is living proof that Marvel is going too far with its multiverse. Sinema is obviously an incarnation of Mojo, an extradimensional being who gains power from viewership and adulation.
Paul in KY
@NotMax: Hah!
WaterGirl
@Baud: I just added Just finish the job as a rotating tag.
I hope Biden uses that as the catch-phrase going forward. It’s a good one. Sometimes they are super lame, but not this time.
FelonyGovt
@Suzanne: Important objectification response: Kevin Costner in his younger days was INCREDIBLY hot. As in No Way Out…
Immanentize
Re: Attorney General Garland. Please, I beg you, read this thread:
Complex drug/money laundering cases take Five plus years. Even “simple” murder cases usually don’t go to trial for over two years after the crime (they do plea quicker). Death penalty cases take even longer.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I thought Joe Biden said “Let’s finish the job.”
WaterGirl
@Leslie: Dammit! I even googled when I created the post because I wasn’t sure if there were two Ts or not. And I still got it wrong. Sad.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Geminid: I like the sound of “let’s finish the job.”
I worry, though. In truth, the job is never finished and you know how eager some are to be disappointed.
Mai Naem mobile
Too many comments about Krysten Sinema here including from myself. I am trying to remember not to give her the attention she wants .
Also, I know we aren’t supposed to make comments about appearances and botox but Squeaker looked pretty botoxed to me.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: Yes, and that’s actually what I typed out when I created the rotating tag.
I apparently left it out in my comment above.
Suzanne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
It must have been all the Catholic self-loathing. I swear to God, if that dude could wash his genitals using salad tongs, he would.
VOR
@Suzanne: Sinema’s dress served it’s purpose – it could be easily seen in a crowd. There was a shot of the audience from the podium and that yellow/gold dress stood out from all the more formal dress.
Alison Rose
@Sister Golden Bear: That’s me. Back in my goth years, I always felt a wee bit smug about having that naturally-occurring “lived my whole life underground” pallor that others had to use cosmetics to achieve.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@VOR: I’d have to honestly say that if I were in Congress, I’d want to be dressing on my own terms as well.
Granted, it would be for myself and not with the explicit goal of standing out.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Just checking. “Let’s” is definitely better, describes a common purpose.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
probably, they also face a lot of obstacles that the GDS people never acknowledge. The saga of Scott Perry’s phone is instructive. The phone was seized in August. I think it was in late December the judge– Beryl Howell, IIRC, who has not been insurrectionist friendly– approved the materials the DOJ could see according to whatever third party reviewed them. Perry appealed, was joined in the appeal by a House committee that voted unanimously to support his appeal, including Hakeem Jeffries and (I think) Peter Aguilar. The appeals court will begin hearing arguments on Feb 28. People who know say this is a formality and the DoJ will win the appeal, but experts also thought Aileen Cannon would never appoint a special master, and who knows how long it will take them to issue that ruling. So there’s at least six months just to see the evidence against one ‘alleged’ high-ranking conspirator, and his evidence is a stepping stone to Mark Meadows, who will also throw up every appeal and obstacle possible. And that’s just one example of why it’s taken two years and counting.
The place for quick rough justice was impeachment. Mitch McConnell understood within two months of Jan 6 it was politically safe for him to whip against conviction. Thirteen acquitting Senators won reelection, most of them pretty easily, and three more were replaced by nuttier candidates
ETA: Is there an IANAL tag I should be using? //
Shana
@Suzanne: Don’t know about your monitor but on mine that’s neon yellow not gold.
And Elizabelle is right, it’s too tight on her. She has a nice shape but it makes her look pudgy because it’s too tight.
Sister Golden Bear
In today’s ethnic LGB, and especially T, cleansing news:
Positive news:
A reminder:
Admiral Rachel Levine, MD, Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, breaks down the impact of LGBTQ+ people facing physical and mental health disparities (YouTube)
Ksmiami
@Suzanne: my problem w Sinema is she puts more work into dressing for attention than to the business of serving her constituents and the country… so criticize away
Sister Golden Bear
@Qrop Non Sequitur: Or Mojo Jojo from the Power Puff Girls.
Alison Rose
@Sister Golden Bear: Ah, yes. Orange County may have gone blue the last couple of presidential elections, but apparently HB is still gonna Orange County it up when they can!
geg6
@Alison Rose:
This could only be said by someone who has no idea how awful it is to be forced to wear a hat when one looks ridiculous in them.
I have a small head and face. There hasn’t been a hat made yet that looks good on me and I would never, ever, ever, ever wear one.
Sister Golden Bear
@Alison Rose: Back in the glorious days of a misspent youth Huntington Beach punks had a nasty rep — if someone was stage diving, they’d move out of the way just to watch the diver splat on the concrete. I suspect some of them are on the city council now.
Redshift
@Suzanne: LOL
geg6
@narya:
I wear bright yellows a lot and I’m a white woman. I think it looks good on me. I wear bright oranges a lot for the same reason.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Sister Golden Bear: OMG I haven’t thought about Powerpuff Girls in like 20 years.
I loved the affect Mojo Jojo had to his speech.
2 out of 3 match with Sinema, ain’t bad.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@geg6: I can’t wear brimmed caps of any sort. They look ridiculous on me. Stretched to the max typically on the loosest setting.
Lately, however, I’ve fallen in love with (not sure their official name) knitted wool hats.
Suzanne
@Ksmiami: I have many problems with Sinema. I just enjoy the imagecraft of fashion, and I don’t have a problem with people pushing the boundaries of tradition and propriety. (In fact, please do more.) That doesn’t mean that I won’t criticize specific looks if I think they’re ugly, but being showy or attention-grabby isn’t objectionable to me by itself.
The PRETTY PRETTY PRINCESS look is the one I really hate.
Shana
@Soprano2: I’m a brunette (or used to be, now I’m mostly grey) and fairly pale and can’t wear most yellows. Or oranges. Or lime green. I tend to stick with neutrals, black and blues.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Shana: I can’t wear red beyond some accents. It’s my favorite color, but too much and I just start to look an unflattering shade of pink in my face.
Tony Jay
@Suzanne:
Swoons with jealousy. I will simply have to steal that and keep it around the house so I can look at it and smile.
Alison Rose
@geg6: Good lordy. I also look terrible in hats! I was simply musing about the days when most men wore suits with hats to work and the fact that many of them looked nice in them, and many still would. My comment was not meant to state that every single human on Earth looks 1000% dashing and amazing in hats.
If there were gold medals given out for taking things too literally, this place would look like Trump’s bathroom.
Alison Rose
@Sister Golden Bear: That’s just terrible pit decorum.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Alison Rose: did you click the link?
Tony Jay
@Qrop Non Sequitur:
And yet Qevin is the invertebrate. Maybe Sinemeeeeeee just has a better exoskeleton.
Alison Rose
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Huh?
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Alison Rose:
Number 158 above, I thought it might have slipped by
frosty
@Alison Rose: I’m pissed. My two favorite places I lived when I was bouncing all over SoCal* were Huntington Beach and Upland. Why did they both have to go Full Wingnut???
* except the Valley!
lowtechcyclist
@kindness:
Fixed.
Alison Rose
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Oh, you confused me because that was a few comments up the chain. I did. Patti is an icon. Not sure though what it has to do with my last comment?
Anoniminous
@Suzanne:
RE: Men wearing hats
I wear hats when I know I’m not going to take it off or I’m going to a place with a hat/coat check. Otherwise they are a royal pain because there isn’t a place to put that doesn’t risk them getting food or drink stained or sat on.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Alison Rose: well, hats. I’m doing this on my phone, it’s a lot of work to get the formatting right. I just hope you enjoyed it.
geg6
@Alison Rose:
I honestly am not fond of men in suits (or hats). Too formal and stuffy for me.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Tony Jay: Of course, why else should she ingratiate herself so deeply with big pharma?
prostratedragon
@JoyceH:
You might like one of the Tilly hats someone above mentioned. There are many variations. I wear those during white shoe season, and Elosegui berets (boinas) the rest of the time.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@geg6: Suits are the uniform of the man. Neckties are the leash and collar.
Chief Oshkosh
@rikyrah: Jonathan Karl was literally schooled as a rightwing shill. You could look it up!
ABC News is like the NYTimes – they’re rightwing dressed, shabbily, as center sheep.
piratedan
I adore hats, but….
catclub
@Immanentize:
So was the OJ simpson murder simple?
I see that as less than 6 months.
A better measure should be from the crime to indictment.
Sister Golden Bear
@Suzanne: Men With Hats!
@Alison Rose: There’s a reason the Huntington Beach punks were nicknamed Punkathalus Neanderthalus. (With apologies to actual Neanderthals.)
lowtechcyclist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
But wouldn’t a county or state attorney face similar obstacles, with fewer resources to deal with them?
I’m not asking why the Feds are taking so long, I’m saying why I think it’s fair that the focus should be largely on them, with way less attention given to Fulton County or NY state.
prostratedragon
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Heh, something had provoked her to the forewarned-is-forearmed strategy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
LOL. That happened to me a couple months back and it was a gusty day so it blew out of my grasp two or three times… I was sure there was a candid camera and a fishing line involved somehow.
Alison Rose
@frosty: I’ll try not to take this personally. *stares in Bay Area*
eddie blake
@UncleEbeneezer: yup. totally. clinton didn’t HAVE a record on the crime bill… she didn’t vote on it, she wasn’t in government in at the time, but we all got wrapped up over “super predators” and managed to forget that commie doc brown voted for it.
somehow that never came up.
my guess is that they’ve been trying to keep the lid on some absurdly cosmic crime shit is gonna come out with jared, jr and JFKFC and they’re trying to muddy the waters with some serious bothsiderism to diminish the unique horror that is the towering corruption tang the conqueror marinates in.
Alison Rose
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Oh, LOL, okay. I thought you were like, trying to tell me something. Sorry, I’m tired.
Paul in KY
@Qrop Non Sequitur: I’m working from home now. I may just wear sweatpants the rest of my life.
Tony Jay
@Immanentize:
Over here we’ve got Manchester City, a sportswashing franchise operating very successfully in the interests of the Abu Dhabi sovereign investment fund since 2008, facing over 100 charges of systematically violating financial fair play rules by the English Premier League.
It’s basically an open and shut case. They’re guilty as sin, everyone knows it, but I don’t expect any final judgement to limp its way out of a courtroom for about 10 years.
City’s owners will throw as much money as it takes at the very best lawyers. They’ll delay, counter-sue, appeal and generally gum up the workings of justice in every way they can for as long as they can, and all the while they’ll be working behind the scenes to bribe and blackmail and smear anyone and everyone involved in the case.
They’ve wriggled out of similar charges before, so the authorities accusing them know that they have to dot every I and cross every T to ensure that they nail them to the floor and give them no grounds for having the charges dismissed. They won’t get another chance, and if they fail that’s it for the last vestiges of restraint and rules in Football.
Shorter – it doesn’t matter how guilty you are; if you have the money and if the consequences of a guilty verdict will dramatically impact the affairs of very rich and important people, it’s in the interests of everyone involved (for wildly varying reasons) to ensure that the wheels of justice work very slowly indeed.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Alison Rose: no problem
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Sure. Fani Willis had to go to court several times to get Lindsey Graham and IIRC Rudi G and others to testify to the grand jury. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons why, with different laws, different cases, different jurisdictions, it’s been two years! and we still don’t have an indictment, but people don’t seem to be Green Lanterning all over her.
I mentioned above that Doug Jones– one of the alternative AG candidates the Green Lanternists are sure would’ve had The Beast in a cage by now– has warned that the GA case is not the slam dunk a lot of people want it to be. And I forget who it was that cautioned, wrt a jury, this may be Fulton County, but it’s still Georgia. And trump only needs one out of twelve to say their doubt is reasonable.
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: Have heard the lead attorney for MC makes as much as Mr. Haaland. Probably more vital to their success right now than Mr. Haaland, who’s finding out that the EPL is a bit harder, once everyone has had 5 months to scheme on you.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Paul in KY: Sweatpants are so comfy. I gave up on them for decades in favor of jeans until some new friends reintroduced me. These days I’m in them most of my off hours.
I wear scrubs for work. I could actually dress up but I’m waiting to stack up a little money.
One thing on the list, a recent depiction of the Riddler in the Batman Telltale games made me fall in love with the hooded blazer.
Tony Jay
@Qrop Non Sequitur:
You’re making a fine case, Councillor, but I’d be looking over my shoulder if I were you, especially if these are the same Big Pharma tentacles that grew Mitch McConnell in a vat at Moreau Labs.
Dangerous people. And I use ‘people’ entirely wrongly.
Suzanne
@piratedan:
1. There are hats with chin straps.
2. Sunburned head/face is far more ridiculous.
Leslie
@Soprano2: A friend of mine who was an autumn — dark russet-red hair, green eyes — had a gorgeous coat that was mustard yellow. Looked great on her. A group of us were talking about which colors we could wear one day, and I tried on her coat to demonstrate its unsuitability for me. There were immediate cries of anguish, and I took it back off as quickly as possible before people had to be hospitalized with blood gushing from their eyes.
Qrop Non Sequitur
I’m not worried. You don’t replace a cog for some minor squeaking as long as it’s doing its job.
Gravenstone
I’d rather not know about that fetish.
Tony Jay
@Paul in KY:
The legal eagles Al Mansour and co have on retainer must feel like the pen pushers over at Umbrella or the Special Case Unit at Wolfram & Hart. They have to do terrible things, but it’s just SO MUCH MONEY.
And as for Haaland, the boy is a footballing Viking. Probably the best natural goalscoring machine of his generation, but he’s basically playing as the Plus 1 alongside ten tiki-taki midfielders who only pass to him in the six yard box. That’s not too hard to defend against once the initial blind terror has passed.
lowtechcyclist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well of course not.
“Both the Feds and the Fulton County prosecutor are taking a shitload of time because of all the legal obstacles that can be thrown in their respective ways” continues to not be a rebuttal of my argument that the focus should be largely on the Feds. It’s a rebuttal to the argument that it’s unreasonable that they haven’t indicted yet, but I haven’t made that argument, and am not about to.
Hell, I’d never heard the name “Fani Willis” before this year began, and I don’t think I’m some weird exception here. It’s hard to have any sort of opinion about someone you’ve never heard of, so I personally am unsurprised that she hasn’t been Green Lanterned. This does seem to fall into the whataboutism bucket.
NotMax
@Suzanne
Maybe he could snag a second-hand falafel from Bill O’Reilly.
//
Tony Jay
@Qrop Non Sequitur:
Understood. Just don’t stumble on anything too crunchy, and if you do, for the love of God don’t examine the residue. They’ll know.
Suzanne
@NotMax: Very little has ever made me laugh harder in my life than the mental picture I have of Bill O’Reilly attempting to talk dirty about falafels. I’m talking tears-running-down-my-face laughter. LORD.
Qrop Non Sequitur
Full awful
prostratedragon
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:Hope this cues to hats on a windy day. (12:55 in) From The Age of Innocence
Geminid
@Tony Jay: I wonder if this Haaland fellow has a nickname. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s father was of Swedish descent. So naturally, his fellow Marine Corps officers called him “Dutch” Haaland
brantl
@Amir Khalid: That dress. Kyrsten Sinema is the best self-parody I have ever seen. The only problem with it is there is no time where the parody stops, so that the parody time has some zest, some contrast.
frosty
@Alison Rose:
Nothing personal intended – I can’t figure out how any of what I wrote involved any Bay Area though. Enlighten or ignore, whichever you prefer.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@brantl: If you’re looking for zest, run Sinema’s dress over a grater. It will produce a nice lemony topping for ice cream or other desserts.
catclub
This sounds like something the League (a club of billionaire owners) is dealing with. not breaking any laws of England. Going to court to sue over what is essentially a private contract. Tell me how I am wrong.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@prostratedragon: I’ve been thinking of that shot ever since the first reference to how men used to wear hats in public. I think Roger Ebert focused on that in one of his reviews or discussions of AofI
Suzanne
In other right-wing totally-not-closeted-or-projecting-NO-WAY-you-sick-bastard news…..Rod Dreher of course commented on Sam Smith and Kim Petras for being “Satanic”…. and then posted the whole video of the Grammys performance on his blog.
They can’t decide if they’re triggered or turned on or both and it makes them crazy and they’re all just predictable and tiresome and unfun.
Manyakitty
@Betty Cracker: Totally. Zelensky has approximately every hot dude characteristic and then some. Hubba.
brantl
She’s got Big Bird’s hips, doesn’t she?
Qrop Non Sequitur
That’s too bad. I often find things I generally find triggering or toxic can be safely explored with consenting intimate partners.
This allows me to engage in the more alluring aspect of the toxic behavior without anyone coming to harm. It’s generally very cathartic.
brantl
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I don’t think any Democrats, at least, are dragging Santos for being gay.
UncleEbeneezer
@eddie blake: I think criticizing Hillary’s support over the Crime Bill (in 2016) was fair. And she apologized for it, said that we now know, in hindsight, that parts of it were a mistake that she wouldn’t do again (other parts like the Assault Weapons Ban, the Violence Against Women Act and provisions protecting the identity of people visiting abortion clinics were definitely NOT mistakes…it was a complicated bill). But Russia/Putin set up phony Black Twitter accounts to keep the controversy going and hopefully depress Dem turnout. It worked. I know a Black activist who ended up voting for Stein. People like Elon James White (former front-pager here and host of TWiB) bought into it. Twitter thread master, Michael Harriott bought into it. I engaged in some of these heated debates. I have no doubt that we were all acting in good faith, but that still doesn’t mean we also didn’t unknowingly help spread Russian disinfo. Since then, I’ve always tried to be much more careful about which debates I jump into, always asking the question of: could my jumping in end up helping Trump/GOP/Russia? and trying my best to avoid that result. It’s a hard challenge with no easy answers. That’s why these campaigns are effective. We end up having to go against our instincts in many cases. Fortunately a lot of people wised up after 2016 and I saw a bunch of people I know personally who bashed Hillary endlessly in 2016, resist the urge to repeat that practice in 2020/22. But many are now doing the same shit with constant Garland/DOJ bashing. The dopamine hit and virtual high-fives are just too good to resist.
jeffreyw
Saw someone reference this upthreaad.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@catclub:
Umm, how else do you enforce a contract?
[thinking about it… let’s just stick with the court]
Manyakitty
@Immanentize: and you know any of these particular high profile cases need to be a step above perfect. They need to survive all the appeals, etc.
JaySinWA
@NotMax: I thought the title was going to be “no joke” until I followed the link. (They didn’t list a title, so I guess it is still a possibility. CNN slides farther down the slippery slope of no-news.
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw: Can you explain the top 2? I clearly didn’t see the films.
Roger Moore
@UncleEbeneezer:
This is an important thing to remember about well-crafted disinformation: it’s targeted, not random. I don’t know how much of this was a result of research and how much was trying a bunch of stuff to see what worked, but once they identified a weakness they hammered on it.
WereBear
@Alison Rose: But only if the suit coat is open.
Charming person running around in a vest has that… feeling of possibility.
jeffreyw
@WaterGirl:
Me neither, but they’ve been a staple of memes for quite a while. Meta-memes!
brantl
@Suzanne: I swear to God, if that dude could wash his genitals using salad tongs, he would. THAT should be a rotating tag line!
PJ
@Suzanne: Douthat is a convert, and seems notably full of himself. Self-loathing only comes naturally to those born into Catholicism (in particular, the Irish variety.) Perhaps, with the salad tongs, you are thinking of self-mortification?
jeffreyw
Here’s one for Ozark.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@jeffreyw: I now get why people sometimes wish for a “like” button. 😀
Tony Jay
@catclub:
Because that’s what courts are for.
UncleEbeneezer
@Roger Moore: Steve Hassan (the cult/disinfo expert I mentioned above) noted that the first thing you have to understand is that we all can fall into it. It doesn’t mean you are weak or dumb or whatever. And yes, it targets groups of people who are likely to take the bait for all kinds of legitimate reasons. Our sincerity/virtue doesn’t make us immune. In fact, sometimes those are precisely the buttons it seeks to push.
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
I think his nickname is “You up there!”
Seriously. He gives you a very clear image of what Dark Age Europeans saw coming off the longboat carrying twin battle axes and thus why much fertiliser for the fields was produced.
prostratedragon
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Gorgeous shot, one of many in that movie.
brantl
@catclub: Actually, yes it was. It was ruined by bad police procedure.
JaySinWA
Duplicate deleted
misterpuff
@schrodingers_cat: DoesPA have a veto proof Senate?
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: The woman is from the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Some scene where they’re all screaming at each other, which was probably 90% of every episode. The cat is just some funny photo someone posted on Tumblr or something years ago. And then some genius put them side by side and gave us one of the best memes.
Kristine
@Shana:
Probably a dead subthread at this point, but as soon as I saw it, I thought “Bridesmaid dress.” The bad bridesmaid dress from every romcom featuring a wedding.
misterpuff
@Ken: And evryone of the GOPer MAGAts can be put away for tax fraud.
Why do you think they fear the IRS Tax Police (Gaspacho)!
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Alison Rose: !! I just glanced, and thought both pix on the left were MTG.
Steve in the ATL
@Tony Jay: “The Last Kingdom” was awesome! No offense to your Angle ancestors.
Steve in the ATL
@brantl: and a grossly incompetent trial judge
Geminid
@Tony Jay: Have you read Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Chronicles? He talks a lot about that.
It sounds like the Thames was a good invasion route. At least, the hero Uthor is sometimes hacking Vikings with his long sword and running them back down the Thames on behalf of the ungrateful Christians.
NotMax
@Steve in the ATL
Excepting the Republican ones — the Right Angles.
;)
WereBear
@Roger Moore: My Tilley hat has mellowed to a honey shade and needs another waterproofing :)
Roger Moore
@UncleEbeneezer:
Another important point is that there’s real danger to doing the easy things to avoid disinformation. It will be tempting, for instance, to try to make yourself impervious to criticism of your own side by cheering regardless of what you might hear, sealing yourself off from unapproved sources of information, and the like. Those things only work, though, if your whole group maintains the barrier. The moment someone lets their guard down and lets the disinformation through, it can run wild because everyone thinks they’re safe. The only real solution is to accept criticism, both from within and without.
Jackie
We speculated correctly. MTG’s Chinese balloon:
“Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wore an ostentatious wool coat with a massive fur trim to the State of the Union address on Tuesday evening.
According to her office, it was an effort to draw attention to a Chinese spy balloon that flew over the continental United States last week.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-coat-alpaca-wool-state-union-chinese-balloon-2023-2?op=1
JCJ
@WaterGirl: In December we stayed at a hotel by OHare in Rosemont before a flight to Bangkok. We arrived at about 1:30 am and saw a lot of people out walking. We have stayed there before and thought it peculiar that there were so many people out in the cold at that time. Then we saw that nearly everyone had a tail. At the convention center the sign was advertising Midwest FurFest. When we got to our hotel there were a couple of furries hanging out in the lobby. Apparently events were scheduled until 2:30 am. You could probably check the website for FurFest safely and maybe make plans for the 2023 event!
Qrop Non Sequitur
There’s always the power of primary sources.
I recently had a discussion with a Foxbot of my acquaintance how primary sources can help you evaluate the truth of claims.
His response “what is your primary source?” Realizing he didn’t know what the hell I was talking about, I carefully explained the idea of what a primary source is…to the same response.
Some of these folk need a processor upgrade.
WaterGirl
@JCJ: I think I’m busy! :-)
jeffreyw
@Alison Rose: Thank you! BJ is a full service blog.
rikyrah
@Sister Golden Bear:
Of that entire bad list, I believe Virginia is going to turn out ok, because of the Virginia Senate still being in Democratic hands.
Princess
@Jackie: Like the balloon, MTG is full of hot air.
rikyrah
@Sister Golden Bear:
Absolutely hideous. Just hideous.
THIS is the true tell. Absolute and utter evil.
Never were.
Steve in the ATL
@Kristine:
You must be new here. No thread is dead until J R in WV posts on it the next day!
UncleEbeneezer
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: Thanks! Cool!
Qrop Non Sequitur
So teenagers aren’t mature enough to hear about or be taught respect for gay people, but they’re old enough to gut 10 cows per minute. Got it.
trollhattan
This fuckin’ guy. “Really, there’s nothing we could do. You can’t predict something like this. That earthquake tax? I spent it all on actual earthquakes.”
He and Orban: two peas in a rotten pod.
trollhattan
@Jackie: I am wearing bespoke hemp denim jeans today in order to draw the attention of Penelope Cruz.
Roger Moore
@brantl:
LAPD was deeply corrupt*. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Rampart scandal broke not long after the OJ trial. The jury may have been wrong to believe OJ was framed, but given that LAPD was busy framing plenty of black and brown people around that time, it wasn’t crazy for them to believe it.
*They’re still pretty bad, though not as bad as they were in 1994.
NotMax
@trollhattan
As they say in old military movies, “Smoke ’em if you got ’em.”
:)
patrick II
Mitt Romney exhausted after scolding all 535 liars in Congress
zhena gogolia
@Alison Rose: AAAAHHHH! Oh, no!
Baud
@Jackie:
She’s lucky no one tried to shoot her down.
different-church-lady
Sinema’s got that sexy-schoolteacher-(if-your-school-teacher-was-insane) look.
different-church-lady
@Jackie:
Because…. the spy balloon had fur trim?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Well, there’s an undeniable purple monkey dishwasher logic to it.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@different-church-lady: Maybe it only got fuzzy pictures.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
It’s cold at that altitude.
Tony Jay
@Steve in the ATL:
None taken. All my ancestors were Picts or Gaels. It’s why I’m pale-blue most of the time.
@Geminid:
I haven’t, though I devoured his Sharpe books.
I was just discussing the problem with Vikings with my boy earlier this evening (he’s doing the topic at school). The only way to actually defeat a culture of (increasingly) heavily armed raiders with incredible naval mobility and a tradition of being absolutely merciless to the weak was to wait until they became so flushed with confidence that came inland in numbers to conquer your kingdom and crush them in one swell foop, but that tactic has obvious risks, the biggest of which is that they kick shit out of you.
Which is why buying them off with land became the solution of choice.
zhena gogolia
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Me too, the first time I looked.
zhena gogolia
@Jackie: Wha? What relationship does fur have to a balloon?
Barbara
@trollhattan: I read that Turkey did adopt stronger new building codes, but evidently enforcement is still an issue because lots of newer structures collapsed as well as older ones that you might have expected would fail. In places where buildings are not able to withstand earthquakes, the main thing that predicts the extent of loss of life is what time of day the quake occurs, and in this case, the timing could not have been worse.
Barbara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Because the balloon was white and she thought her outfit made her look like a white balloon?
different-church-lady
@Barbara: She did kinda look like a white baboon.
Oh, wait… ba-lloon.
Suzanne
@Barbara:
Even newer structures will fail in a big quake (this one was pretty big) and if they are impacted by other buildings as they fall, also.
CaseyL
@Barbara:
Well, she certainly looked like a white buffoon, so…near’ems.
JoyceH
@Jackie:
Uh. So their story is that she was deliberately costumed as a balloon?! Well, she missed the mark – I’ve seen so many references to Cruella De Vil.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@JoyceH: I won’t be bothered to look up the picture, but Sinema wore the Cruella look better at Davos.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Mathew Dowd on MSNBC just now called Marge the Tanya Harding of Insurrectionists
Geminid
@different-church-lady: I thought Greene looked looked like some wierd Yeti lady. An exceptionally Abominable Snow Woman.
Barbara
@Suzanne: Yes, it will probably be hard to attribute the failure of any specific building to code violations. I understand that the quake was also relatively shallow, which made it worse, not to mention there were actually two quakes of similar strength.
Qrop Non Sequitur
Deplorable even.
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: Good analysis on Haaland!
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: The squeaker said she was not allowed to bring her big white balloon into the chamber for the State of the Union, so apparently her big white coat was to REMIND US of the big white balloon.
Instead, she reminded us of Cruella Deville.
Sister Golden Bear
@Barbara: Turkey apparently now has the same earthquake building standards as California — don’t know how recent that was put into effect. But Turkey also has a history of corruption where crooked builders take short cuts, most notably inadequately strong concrete, and paying building inspectors to look the other way. It was a major factor in the mass destruction/causalities in the Ankara quake a number of years ago
And to echo what Suzanne said, a large enough quake still wins. Also worth remembering that CA’s quake regulations are aimed at saving lives, rather than property. I.e. much like auto safety regulations, they’re aimed at preventing immediate collapses and otherwise giving occupants time to escape, rather than ensuring the building remains fully intact.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: They may have framed a guilty guy.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: or a drunk ass polar bear
Suzanne
@Sister Golden Bear:
I just want to be clear…..because normies often talk about “the code” like it is one thing….there are still different design requirements for different types of structures (a single-family house is not designed to the same engineering requirements as a stadium or an 50-story office tower, for example), and there are still different Seismic Importance Factors on facilities (a hospital and a nuclear power plant have to survive completely intact, a parking canopy or a 7-11 do not). The seismic requirements are also different depending on where you build, i.e. close or far to fault lines and other zones of seismic activity.
Suzanne
@Sister Golden Bear: The dense old cities in that part of the world are brutal in this regard. I can’t think of many buildings that could maintain structure if they took even a moderate impact from another. And the ground shifts from the impact of every collapse, which fucks up foundations. So the problem is exponential.
Barbara
@Suzanne: Some of the most controversial standards require retrofitting. I remember visiting SF and seeing building fund appeals for some historic sites.
prostratedragon
@trollhattan:
Oh for heaven’s sake! On Aug 17, 1999 there was one that killed 17,000. So many occur that wikipedia has a separate article on “Earthquakes in Turkey.” Do better with your lies, Erdogan.
Horatius
@Tony Jay:
There’s Kevin Debruyne in the midfield feeding the beast. It’s a little more than Viking Haaland and the then tiki taka dwarfs.
Ruckus
OK, twitter is officially completely fucked beyond repair.
I just tried to make a comment, my third one of the day and it says that I have made my daily limit of comments. Elon has managed to make twitter completely fucking useless. And in a rather short time. He has zero idea of what, well anything whatsoever, is acceptable. I hope that everything he has his shitty paws on fails so spectacularly that the only person in the world that doesn’t know what kind of POS he is, is him, and that his misunderstanding of his value as a human comes back and bites him on the ass.
Suzanne
@Barbara: Yeah, for sure. Building codes typically do not apply to existing structures once they are adopted, but there are some ways that private citizens and building owners and cities/states/counties get buildings upgraded.
ADA upgrades, fire sprinklers, radio “repeaters”….all of which are hot topics. Changes are really expensive.
different-church-lady
@Ruckus: This is just Twitter’s way of telling you Twitter sucks.
UncleEbeneezer
@lowtechcyclist: The Feds have way more resources. But also way more crimes. To use the Femi Willis example, she only needs to investigate, litigate, charge, a tiny sliver of 1/6 activity. DOJ has to do that for pretty much all of them. The whole, overarching conspiracy including the 900+ lower level participants that had to be pressured/flipped just to get the evidence to work their way up to the bigger fish. Most legal experts I listen to have always predicted State charges would happen before Federal ones, at least for the higher up criminals and that we wouldn’t see either until 2023.
Steve in the ATL
Has anyone been to Turkey recently? There are a few buildings I might trust in the newer, richer parts of Istanbul or Ankara, but not 99% of what’s in the whole country. And of course Erdogan makes everything worse.
Jackie
@Baud: I’m sure it was tempting for many on both sides!
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I have been through a rather large earthquake here in CA, 6.7 The Northridge. Now that is a hell of a lot less of an earthquake than 7.8 for sure and there was still quite a bit of damage and we were just a very few miles from the epicenter. My buddy and his wife lost their house, my business was damaged pretty good, people died within sight of my house. And damage caused by the earthquake having happened can continue for some time after the quake.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
I already knew that….. and didn’t need to be reassured that it is true.
Jackie
@zhena gogolia: See Baud’s comment @ 307😂🥶
Uncle Cosmo
I.e., the middle of a frigid winter night. The great majority of earthquake deaths are caused by falling – either the victim (or the floor the victim is on) falls from a fatal height, or something sufficiently heavy falls onto the victim from a height sufficient to kill. Most of the rest owe to fires started when gas lines or containers of flammable liquids rupture. Best way to survive is to get as far away as possible from anything that might collapse beneath you, collapse on top of you, or burst into flame. Which is tough to do when you’re shaken out of a sound sleep without light and need to collect shoes and coat before you make your way to safety.
J R in WV
@lowtechcyclist:
Me too. We have a close connection to AZ, have spent more time there than any other western state, built a winter camp there, so wanted to help elect a liberal Senator — HAHAhaha!!
Fooled me
didn’t she.
Shoulda asked Suzanne first I guess, but who knew how she would evolve, really… or devolve, more accurately. And what an Alice in the dump costume last night.
J R in WV
@Leslie:
This is hilarious… thanks so much. I wore jeans to work — the org’s dress code forbade blue jeans, but you can get denim jeans in any number of other colors. To avoid neckties, the agency as a fund raiser sold polo shirts with various logos related to the whole agency, to individual offices in the agency, etc.
When meeting with legislators, I wore slacks and a necktie, but that was pretty rare. I could count that on one hand I think. Retired in 2008, so a long time ago — who can remember now where they were on November 14th, 2008? (an arbitrary date not related to anything real…)
J R in WV
@Steve in the ATL:
Is it tomorrow yet? Seriously, I get to great thread material when I get there.
Unlike some sites, it takes a LONG time for a BJ thread to be shut down for new comments. And I like to be able to pretend that I’m part of a society, a social group. Balloon Juice is my source for social interaction ever since the Covid plague came to us.
It helps my mental health a whole lot. Even you, a corporate labor lawyer… and mostly good guy.
Steve in the ATL
@J R in WV: “mostly”? Not even my mother is that nice to me. Going to update my Linked In page now….
Soprano2
@catclub: And how did that turn out?
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Sister Golden Bear: only catching up with the news now (was under deadline today) but thank you for this post.