bars and restaurants really struggled during covid, one way to help them out would be to indict donald trump on a friday
— world famous art thief (@CalmSporting) March 23, 2023
President Joe Biden denounced 'hateful laws' targeting transgender people across the US and called on the Congress to pass the Equality Act pic.twitter.com/iLOmRD0ilc
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 23, 2023
The view when you’re short and the @vp starts speaking in a room of women activists.
Grateful for her leadership in making sure that the world understands that every issue is a “women’s issue.” pic.twitter.com/WWFv7v7Lnv
— Christina Reynolds (@creynoldsnc) March 22, 2023
Every person in our nation should be able to access and afford the health care they need to thrive—not as a privilege, but as a right.
That is why we will continue to use every tool at our disposal to strengthen the Affordable Care Act. pic.twitter.com/DUVbR31ras
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) March 23, 2023
As Republicans engage in convoluted contortions in an attempt to blame @POTUS and Dems for bank collapses, let’s be clear: poor risk management by bank execs and deregulation under the last Administration are at fault.
I applaud @POTUS’ quick actions to stabilize our economy.
— James E. Clyburn (@RepJamesClyburn) March 22, 2023
“In truth, you can judge the greatness of a country by the well-being of its people”
On the 13th Anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, @SenBooker lays out why the landmark healthcare law is so important: pic.twitter.com/XkO6PYYypo
— Senate Democrats (@SenateDems) March 22, 2023
.@POTUS’ @POTUS’
Inflation Bipartisan
Reduction. Infrastructure
Act Law:
??
?? Reducing emissions
?? Lowering utility costs
?? Putting money back in pockets with tax creditshttps://t.co/SEz13Jqi1Y— Secretary Jennifer Granholm (@SecGranholm) March 19, 2023
Republicans and Republicans alone have had the duty and obligation to put Donald J Trump to bed for a decade and instead they can't quit him and its -Democrats- fault.
— Lord Businessman (@BusinessmanLego) March 19, 2023
On The Road – BigJimSlade – Hiking in the Alps, Chamonix and Grindelwald 2022, Odds & Sods
Matt McIrvin
If they believe their front-runner’s lead is a Democratic plot…
[let_them_fight.gif]
Baud
RevRick
Isn’t it Murc’s Law that only Democrats have agency?
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
NotMax
Somewhere, Leona Helmsley is binging on popcorn while ROFL.
//
.
If you haven’t yet seen it, top off that mug of java and check out the opening segment of yesterday’s O’Donnell show.
Baud
I’ve never seen anyone blaming Dems for Donald Trump actually say that they were going to everything they could to prevent Trump from winning.
Butch
One of the tabs over at Wonkette is a piece at Salon speculating that the grand jury hearing was delayed on Thursday because Bragg is getting “the jitters” over the indictment. I won’t be surprised at all if nothing happens.
Jeffro
You know they’re going to blame President Biden for the champagne shortages post-Indictment Day too, right?
Geminid
There is a story put up today by Politico Magazine about Chris Rufo and Ron DeSantis titled, “The Culture War Bromance of Ron DeSantis and Chris Rufo” It’s by Michael Kruse and datelined, Sarasota. Being a Magazine article, it’s long.
Also, Politico Playbook tells me that Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will hold his weekly news conference at 11 am today. These are usually pretty good, with Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar often speaking as well.
EarthWindFire
The party of personal responsibility.
Baud
@Jeffro:
Haha. Yes they will.
Matt McIrvin
Fuck, Donald Trump managed to get us all fighting each other on our own side just by lying that he was about to be arrested, didn’t he? Half of the left is just whining about Merrick Garland and the fecklessness of Democrats now. The guy has still got the troll instinct.
Jeffro
Remember, it was Dems’ fault that trumpov won in 2016; after all, we nominated Hillary Clinton as our candidate, leaving Republicans NO CHOICE but to put party over country and vote for the insane orange clown.
What were they supposed to do, go with the experienced and stable choice??
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m not sure I’d call those people “on our side.”
Baud
@Butch:
Always good to know what Putin is up to.
Geminid
@Butch: The Salon Magazine article could be accurate. But my experience is that there are some real shit-stirrers at that media outlet, and they know they have a receptive audience.
Jeffro
For what it’s worth, this morning trumpov is predicting ‘catastrophic’ ‘death and destruction’ if he is indicted.
D.A.s and other investigators: it’s ok to jump the line and just haul his flabby ass in for threatening harm, making threats of death or bodily injury, or whatever the appropriate charge would be here.
Baud
@Geminid:
Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.
NotMax
@Jeffro
“What I typed was ‘sunshine and lollipops.’ Damn that autocorrect.”
//
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Haha, I knew someone would come up with the perfect reply.
Mai Naem mobile
I haven’t heard anything on the Fox Dominion case this week. It seems like there was juicy stuff released every Tuesday. I have to wonder if FOX is going to go ahead and settle with Dominion and Smartmatic while everybody is distracted by all the TFG stuff.
Low Key Swagger
Any Chicago based Jackals around? My daughter got a nice offer from Loyola (law) and I’m wondering about the neighborhoods surrounding the campus? Is it considered an “high cost of living” area? Her award covers quite a bit of tuition costs, but three years cost of living is a factor in her choice.
Spanky
@Mai Naem mobile: Dominion has them by the balls. Settling at this point is not in their interest.
Baud
@Spanky:
Everyone has a price.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
So I’d mentioned a traumatic trip to see to some legal affairs and to put some pressure on my aged father-in-law the past couple of days.
My arrival in Hilton Hell Wednesday was nearly contemporaneous with a call from the oncologist (finally) to have an an appointment yesterday morning for the Big Reveal, so I got to be the guy who packed up two invalid elders, walkers and wheelchairs for a meal of shit sandwich – and when it arrived, it came fully dressed with all the trimmings. Metastatic melanoma in the liver was a definite from those slides, and probably a separate lung cancer. More likely than not, the melanoma accounts for the bone and pancreas spots. They can try Keytruda infusions to arrest the melanoma, as well as radiation on the lower spine to alleviate the 7cm tumor that’s impinging on the sciatic nerve bundle. I don’t think the oncologist referenced any growth less than 4 cm. The doc wasn’t real happy with the state of care and diagnostics for about the last 3 months – he sent us for an immediate brain MRI.
Prognosis without treatment or with failed Keytruda, no more than 6 months, likely “a lot less”. That did set the stage for a truly realistic version of The Talk about their ability to continue to live independently-I was able to tell them that they aren’t safe, that a fall will definitely put him in the ground. He’s 100% on board, she’s at over 95%. Talked to him and bluntly said that this isn’t estate planning, but end stage planning instead – we’re nibbling at the edges on easing administration, but not making any big changes.
It sucked, but at least the news was so dire that I didn’t get much delusional pushback.
Message in all of this? Wear your sunscreen, get rid of skin growths early, follow up on quarterly checks if you’ve ever had a melanoma removed, and don’t ignore signs.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
Only by some definition of ‘the left’ that excludes >90% of Democrats.
Yes, there are people who are loud on Twitter. Doesn’t mean they represent millions.
JMG
So in 12 days we are scheduled to travel to France to see our daughter. This morning I awake to the news that King Charles (I will never get used to that monicker) has postponed his visit there due to the protests over Macron’s pension law. I then got the further news that protesters where Hope lives, staid ultra-bourgeois Bordeaux, set the city hall on fire last night (just the front door, really, hit by a Molotov cocktail, probably). Sounds like huge fun! As red-blooded Americans, we are going anyway, unless they shut Air France down.
Baud
@Low Key Swagger:
Congrats to Miss Swagger!
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I honestly think part of the problem with Garland is he represents a loss to a Democrats- the loss of a Supreme Court seat when it was stolen, made worse by the fact that Republicans jammed through Coney Barrett. They (correctly) feel ripped off by that and he’s a constant reminder of it.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: You did good, and now it’s done
Soprano2
@Butch: Or an alternative explanation is that TFG was lying and Bragg isn’t ready yet.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JMG: I love the French. Consider it part of the experience
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: Yep, in spite of the fact that we know TFG lies all the time about everything! It seems that it’s not just the press who can’t learn a lesson from the past 8 years, is it?
Baud
@Soprano2:
That doesn’t put the blame on a Democrat though.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Butch: Bragg has other cases that could be taking precedence. I followed NotMax’s link the Lawrence O’Donnell show and he said that on Tuesday, for instance, Bragg’s court sentenced the guy who’d been recruiting for ISIS.
Baud
@Kay:
A lot of our problems are the result of Dems misdirecting their frustrations. IMHO.
oldgold
Do you think the Republicans that want to reduce Social Security benefits are paying attention to the political unrest in France?
Soprano2
@Geminid: Amanda Marcotte, who I love for other reasons (she’s from Texas and really has the right’s number, for one), is one of those “why won’t Garland do anything” people. She’s already decided that Bragg has gotten cold feet and won’t do anything.
Mai Naem mobile
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: i see why you were elected by your wife to take care of this. Hope everything goes as well as can be expected. Your f-i-l’s partner probably just needs a little time to process everything.
Baud
@oldgold:
No.
Kay
@Baud:
That’s more than a “frustration” though. That series of events will have profound repercussions for decades. It was a huge loss. I don’t know Baud- there’s a lot of smart lawyers. Biden couldn’t pick one who doesn’t represent- embody- a huge loss to the base?
Soprano2
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Oh man, I’m so sorry you’re having to go through that.
SFAW
@Baud:
If you wore pants once in awhile, that would be less likely to happen. Just sayin’
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Also, many of them saw Obama’s SCOTUS appointment of Garland as a preemptive compromise in the first place, that the guy was too moderate, and then the Republicans blocked him anyway. So it feeds into all their stories about Obama being a pathetic squish.
Baud
@Kay:
Sorry, Kay, I have no sympathy for that as a consideration in Biden’s hiring decision.
Layer8Problem
@oldgold: ‘course not, they’re paying attention to the editorial board of the Washington Post, who can’t understand why people aren’t taking this seriously and making the tough choices and the painful cuts that we’ll all thank them for later.
Soprano2
@Kay: I think it wouldn’t matter that much who was in the office to the small subset of Democrats who think they should have arrested TFG on January 7th, 2021, and who think somehow they could build a case against him in a matter of weeks. These are people who have no idea how cases like this work, and don’t care.
Mai Naem mobile
@Soprano2: i saw Frank Fegluzzi on MSNBC the other day and his take was TFG lied and he’s trying to set up his battlefield to see who’s with him in the GOP and who he can rile up with his supporters. Ofcourse since its TFG there’ll be some kind of grift and the media will make sure to be there at Waco. I really wish the non FOX/Newsmax media would collectively decide not to cover his Waco rally.
SFAW
Has TFG been indicted yet?
How about now?
How about now?
How about now?
How about now?
I can’t decide if it amuses me or annoys me that so much time is being spent on this “TODAY may be the day!” stuff. But that’s just me, and I’m an asshole.
Baud
@SFAW: Maybe while people are waiting for the indictments, they can spend some time reading about all the kick ass things Dems are doing in blue states.
Ken
I’ve never been convinced that “agency” is the right word. Republicans definitely act and exert power; indeed half their schtick is “you can’t restrict me”. What’s always missing is taking responsibility.
But maybe that’s also part of the definition of “agency”, it wouldn’t be the first time my understanding of a word was a little off.
satby
@Baud: yeah, it totally makes sense to blame the victim of Republicans’ bad faith actions around the Supreme Court nominations, instead of blaming the person most responsible. Who I hope is sitting in soggy Depends in his nursing home recovering poorly from the stroke they won’t admit he had.
SFAW
@Baud:
Bingo.
Betty
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: You were the right person to handle this. Good to hear that there is acceptance with those most concerned. No one wants to be in this situation, but it is easier to face it and deal with it.
satby
@SFAW: come sit by me.
Kathleen
@Butch: Well Wonkette and Salon always seem to be eager to promote the “Spineless Dem” meme.
Mai Naem mobile
@oldgold: no, dontcha know that’s old Europe? The GOP knows that even if they pass any decreases to social security benefits they can blame it on the Democrats. Hell, they’ll blame the cuts on FDR and Chuck Todd won’t push back on the claim.
satby
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: That had to be a tough conversation on top of a very tough day. Sorry your family is facing all that.
SFAW
@Ken:
I believe Murc’s point was that, as far as the MSM and pundits are concerned, all the shitty things done by Rethugs are because the Demon-craps mumble something something mumble. In other words, instead of screaming that the Rethugs are trying to destroy America, the MSM/pundits complain that the Dems didn’t do more to … I don’t know … stop them, maybe? [Especially when the Dems are out of power in any particular area.]
Matt McIrvin
@Ken: I think “agency” here is sort of a moral/ethical concept, that an agent is someone you can hold responsible for their actions, as opposed to some kind of wild beast, machine or toddler. The Republicans have power to do all sorts of things, but the people who always find a way to blame Democrats are on some level thinking of the Republicans’ actions as some kind of autonomic response. They just can’t help it, whereas Democrats are someone you can reason with so they shoulder all the blame and responsibility for somehow herding these people.
JMG
I will only repeat what my wife’s best friend, the maid of honor at our long-ago wedding, who was a career Justice Dept. lawyer until retirement, said about Garland. 1. He was the best legal mind she encountered while working there. 2. He was the straightest of arrows, did not give a damn about the political implications of anything he did, and concerned himself only with the law. Isn’t quality number two kind of what we want in an Attorney General?
Ken
They don’t pay attention to what their own U.S. constituents want, why would they care about the opinions of the French?
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Exactly.
Kay
@Soprano2:
Your extended timeline doesn’t have any more validity to me than the shorter timeline of the anti Garland folks. I don’t think either goup knows whether Trump will ever be indicted.
And this would be completely fair to say about them were it now a “matter of weeks” past Jaunuary of 2021 but since it’s not I think it’s an unfair exaggeration of their position, like the people who still insist they want “Garland to drag him off in handcufs” with no process. It’s not 2021. It’s 2023 and they never demanded an arrest/conviction with no process. That’s always been a bad faith exaggeration of their position.
Low Key Swagger
@Baud: Thank you. She got a full ride from the New England School of Law (Sandra Day O’Connor Scholarship) but it is ranked like 147 out of 150 ranked schools and Boston is a VERY high dollar area and would require large loans. Still deciding.
Kathleen
@Matt McIrvin: The Whiny Left doesn’t need Trump to trash Democrats. It’s their business model.
Gin & Tonic
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: End-stage liver cancer is no fun.
Chief Oshkosh
@Matt McIrvin:
There are two kinds of people: those who divide the world in half and those who don’t. ;)
Who is this “half” that you are telling me about? I’m sure there’s somebody somewhere going on about this, but I haven’t seen it. I sure haven’t seen Democrats tearing each other apart over anything Trump did last week. Maybe I need a reading list.
Kathleen
@zhena gogolia: Baud nailed it!
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
@lowtechcyclist: It also includes most of the commenters at our evil sister site LGM — regularly whipped up by Law Professor Paul Campos, who’s never worked a day in a federal prosecutor’s office. These days you can place bets on exactly when in a given thread the Garland-bashing will start.
Kay
@satby:
They don’t want a victim to be the prosecutor. Maybe that’s unfair in the grand scheme of al things “fair” but if they see him as a victim it just makes it worse. Prosecutors go forth. They BRING. They are the people who move the case. They can’t be victims.
satby
@JMG: He was the straightest of arrows, did not give a damn about the political implications of anything he did, and concerned himself only with the law. Isn’t quality number two kind of what we want in an Attorney General?
Unfortunately, what the complainers want is an authoritarian like Moscow Mitch, but on our team. Someone who can bend the rules into a pretzel shape while avenging the lawlessness on the other side.
Baud
@Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride:
Balloon Juice with a goatee.
Ken
No. It doesn’t even fit the job responsibilities. The Attorney General’ is the President’s personal attorney and consigliere, responsible for providing legal cover for all presidential actions and bringing down the full force of the DOJ on his political opponents.
Mai Naem mobile
So i saw this on my feed https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-65061116
I had no idea who the Mintz group is but the head of their Beijing office(who’s based in Singapore not China) was in some high level capacity in the CIA before his current job. I am figuring its probably some tit for tat stuff for the TikTok hearings.
Layer8Problem
@Baud:
Good god, when you squint you can see it!
Baud
@Kay:
It’s unfortunate that they see Garland as a victim rather than cheering on that he is leading the most important criminal investigating in U.S. history after being screwed by the Republicans. But I’ve long ago stopped believing that some Dems can be talked out of their feelings.
Gin & Tonic
@Ken: So Bobby Kennedy, then?
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Party time! Excellent!
satby
@Kay: I doubt Garland (or Biden) considers himself a victim. And I think a crow pie will eventually be served to the detractors when all is said and done.
prostratedragon
Low Key [email protected]: It’s in the Water Tower district, in fact the school itself is right on the WT square, so I’d say it’s high rent. However, once she gets a bit oriented she might try one of the neighborhoods a little farther north or west for something more budget friendly. Also, there is a lot of new apartment construction around Chicago Ave., Oak St., and the like, so rental prices might be falling a bit, I haven’t looked lately. Public transportation is decent for commuting in from offcampus.
Kathleen
@Baud: I see it as “The Left” has learned from Bernie that there’s gold to be mined in the Political Pundit Dem Trashing Podcast Complex. Maximum profits for minimum effort. High ROI.
eclare
@satby: QFT.
Kay
@JMG:
Lawyers, IMO, have an unfortunate tendency to exxaggerate the importance of individuals in the profession. There are a lot of super smart and ethical lawyers. No one, and I mean no one, in that profession is irreplaceable. John Roberts was the smartest lawyer ever in the history of the world, until Alito, who was even more brilliant. Christ almighty the way law professors, including “liberal” law professors, talked about Scalia’s brilliance – embarassing. They all need to take it down a notch, especially now that we have a large group of far Right judges who believe they are royalty. Take them ALL down a notch, to reality.
Matt McIrvin
@Chief Oshkosh: Lawyers, Guns and Money.
Baud
@Kay:
No one is saying that it had to be Garland. But I don’t believe that Garland’s failed Supreme Court nomination is relevant to the decision.
satby
@prostratedragon: @Low Key Swagger: My late sister’s sons both have apartments in the Logan Square area, on the north side and very well served by public transit. So that’s probably affordable with a roomate, which they both have.
Matt McIrvin
@satby: The usual formulation is that we are “at war”, and the Democrats don’t realize we are at war.
Kathleen
@Kay: The fact that Biden picked a lawyer with successful track record in prosecuting white terrorists tells me he truly grasps the danger white terrorists pose, which was one of the criteria I used to evaluate Presidential candidates.
There is a cohort that prefers officials who cater to their need for emotive performance over the reality of concrete accomplishments.
Kay
@satby:
Right but Democrats talking about the most powerful people in government as “victims” who Democrats are “blaming” is not going to inspire confidence. Really the last thing you want to hear is your lawyer is a “victim” of the opposition.
I agree Garland is a grown up wildly powerful federal prosecutor. They have enormous power – I know because I’ve seen them use it against ordinary defendants. They’re definitely not victims.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: That is the usual formulation. Usually made by people who want to shoot our generals.
Baud
People thought in 2016 that they could oppose that woman without opposing all women. They were wrong.
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
@Kay: Do you ever read Teri Kanefield? She’s one of the most experienced legal commentators around, and she’s definitely in the anti-anti-Garland camp, based on exhaustively detailed analysis of what’s going on as she sees it.
By the way, since people here regularly share their personal (and sometimes irrational) motivations for positions they take, here’s mine for being annoyed at the Garland-bashers. I’m a soft-spoken 70-something retired Jewish lawyer who grey up in Evanston, Illinois. Merrick Garland is a soft-spoken 60-something Jewish lawyer who grew up next door in Skokie, where I also had relatives. In other words, he’s practically my kid brother, and I take it badly when people come after my family. :)
Soprano2
Here’s a gift link to an interesting article about trans people in the WaPo. https://wapo.st/3LO3SCX They did a survey of trans people, so it’s trans people in their own words. Definitely better than the NY Times constantly “just asking questions”.
Kathleen
@satby: i love you Satby. That is all.
Kay
@Kathleen:
I don’t really know if federal prosectors are doing a “good job” or not. They choose the cases they bring so really they can make their own win/loss record by only bringing slam dunks. It’s why it’s silly when they’re elected and they run on a “99% conviction rate” or some such. If you only bring cases you are sure to win you too can have a 99% win record.
I don’t think there’s a real measure for them, like there is for the defense. They BRING. They control. The defense has to accept what they bring, and win that.
I don’t know whether Donald Trump will be charged and I certainly don’t know whether he will be convicted. I don’t know that in the short time frame Garland detractors wanted (although “short” is no longer as much as issue as it gets longer) or the long time rame his defenders insist is happening.
mrmoshpotato
@Mai Naem mobile:
Hahaha, so true!
Kathleen
satby
@Kay: Again, I think it’s become fairly obvious that I, and others, don’t give a rats ass what Garland detractors think about his handling of the hundreds of prosecutions relating to tfg and his many crimes. So far the DOJ has done very well methodically convicting the J6 defendants and moving up the chain. They’ve done very well against tfg’s idiot lawyer army. Garland is doing just fine.
Low Key Swagger
@prostratedragon: @Satby Thank you both. She’s flying there Sunday to spend a few days looking around. I’ll let her know!
Kay
@Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride:
I don’t have any objection to Garland. I have no idea what he’s doing. I don’t think anyone does other than those directly involved. I said he represents a loss of the Supreme Court – a weakness- to some Democrats because I think that’s true. They were primed to see him as weak because that whole shitshow with the SCOTUS was a real low point for the Democratic Party. People felt helpless- they knew it would be really bad with a far Right majority and it has been bad- it’s been worse than I thought.
Delk
@Low Key Swagger: it is a pricey neighborhood but as others have said the public transportation is good. Loyola owns a lot of property in the area so there are a lot of students taking public transportation.
JMG
@Kay: I think there’s a lot in your theory. It explains why there was a good deal of online Democratic criticism of Garland even just when Biden appointed him.
RandomMonster
My hope is that it isn’t Bragg getting “the jitters”, but that they’re delaying to let a bigger indictment (Mar-a-Lago documents, Georgia election obstruction) set the stage.
snoey
@Kay: Non lawyer and complete outsider here.
I once got Federal jury duty on a felon in possession of firearms case. We were told that we would get evidence that the defendant had discharged a gun in the streets of Boston. Did he hit anyone? Were they shooting back? What’s this case about about anyway? No we don’t get that info and I’m off the jury for wanting to know before deciding.
While we wait for the big cases why not some charges for perjured financial disclosures, theft of gifts to the government, etc. under similar rules.
Soprano2
@Kay: But they still say these things. The woman who’s on “The New Abnormal” podcast is like that, as was Molly Jong-Fast before her. They say it a lot, they can’t understand why TFG isn’t already in convicted of a crime and in prison! I see articles in my local paper about how a murder case still hasn’t been tried after seven years and think to myself “No wonder TFG hasn’t been arrested yet, it takes time to build these cases”. If/when they come at him, they’ll only get one shot, and they can’t miss.
satby
@Kay: I don’t think there’s a real measure for them, like there is for the defense.
Some number cruncher somewhere assuredly runs statistics on arrests vs. prosecutions vs. convictions in different juristictions, so that would be a measure. Several interesting measures, since cops just arrest people and leave it to the prosecutors to determine if laws were actually broken. We should sic Kevin Drum on the question.
Sanjeevs
I guess Adam Schiff is a leftist grifter too
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3914237-schiff-criticizes-lagging-justice-probe-of-trump
Kay
@JMG:
Exactly. It’s like an open wound. It’s reopened again and again too with every far Right decision overturning decades of precedent. I read they’re going after Gideon, the right to counsel for indigent defendants. Good Lord.
prostratedragon
[email protected]: Logan Square’s a bit farther out than I was thinking — maybe 30 minutes counting the walk — but it’s a nice area with lots of amenities and, as you say, public transit is accessible there.
frosty
@Mai Naem mobile: Wow! My brother used to work for Mintz. They’re what the article says: a firm that does investigations like background checks.
James Mintz spun his business off from one of the big ones. Kroll Associates, I think.
Hard to imagine that kind of business doing work in an authoritarian place like China.
Geminid
@RandomMonster: Bragg does not strike me as a jittery person. The delay- if there has been a delay- is likely for other reasons. One might be completing testimony on criminal matters concerning Trump that are unrelated to the hush money payments. There has been intense focus on the payments, but the indictments could cover other crimes as well.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I think you should wonder why a murder case hasn’t been tried after seven years. I think seven years is long enough to bring charges if they’re bringing them. We (locally) give about one year grace for covid in longer cases- covid really did delay a lot – but most of that has moved thru by now.
mrmoshpotato
@Low Key Swagger: Loyola’s main campus is up in the Rogers Park neighborhood (about a 7 mile trip on the red line CTA train, or route 147 CTA bus down to the law school).
I’d suggest she even consider that far north since rents are pretty reasonable. And there are tons of apartment buildings. (And even off-campus student housing.)
Also, Domu is great for scoping out apartments.
Baud
@Sanjeevs: Anyone can have an opinion, especially someone running to be California’s senator. Wake me up when he attacks Garland on a personal level, and repeatedly makes it a topic of conversation
ETA: For those who didn’t click the link, Schiff thinks the documents case is moving fine, but he thinks the J6 case has been too slow.
OzarkHillbilly
@RandomMonster: I read somewhere that a witness wanted to come in for additional testimony. I took it as a sign that somebody got the jitters about how they shaded the truth and had decided it was in their best interests to “clarify”, but that is the rawest speculation. Could be something quite innocent.
If my memory is correct that is probably what the delay is about.
Geminid
@Sanjeevs: Adam Schiff is not a shameless grifter, but he is a politician who is running hard for a Senate seat. I tend to view his comments in that light.
Delk
@mrmoshpotato: and Loyola operates a shuttle bus between the two campuses.
Sanjeevs
@Geminid: He’s repeatedly made these comments in the past
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/24/politics/january-6-doj-investigation-adam-schiff/index.html
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/doj-investigate-trump-crimes-election-plot-rep-schiff/story?id=85329710
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/06/schiff-justice-department-trump-election-00014445
I trust Schiff.
mrmoshpotato
@Delk: Oh yeah. Forgot about the Loyola shuttle. Screw you, CTA!
prostratedragon
Aha. That does bring Rogers Park/far North side very much in play.
matt
So it’s a Friday and Nazis are saying the shadowy, manipulative Democrats are forcing the Republicans to become Nazis.
RandomMonster
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s a good theory.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
It might be for security reasons, which does not mean “jitters” but to minimize the time window between indictment and surrender and reduce the opportunities for stirring up trouble.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
Lady Justice has lots of lower-hanging fish to punch in their fascist faces.
mrmoshpotato
@matt: LMAO! That’s so stupid that I don’t want it explained.
trnc
Well played, sir.
trnc
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
Sorry you and they are going through all that, and thanks for the reminders.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I think part of what’s going on here is that the retreat into cynicism and apocalyptic fantasies in fact gives a person cover to not do anything in particular. Unless it’s stockpiling weapons and ammo like a doomsday prepper.
I will freely confess that I’m a shitty activist, but I am suspicious of the inner troll that tells me that nothing matters anyway short of the Revolution.
PST
@satby: @Low Key Swagger: I agree with the others who have noted that Loyola Law is highly convenient to public transportation. It’s right on a subway stop, on a line that intersects with all kinds of other routes. The immediate neighborhood is not only expensive, it’s not a fun place for the young (in my 69-year-old opinion). Chicago has lots of great neighborhoods for the young and not rich, including Logan Square. Law school life is such a different experience from undergraduate life that living off campus is no sacrifice. Not that there is really a campus, just university buildings among the office, retail, and residential buildings. Loyola was always a big commuter school, and it makes perfect sense to treat as such even if you come to Chicago to attend. School can be treated like any other job in the vicinity of the Loop, and there will even be students who commute from the suburbs. The library is nice — I used it years ago while researching a book — and these days no law student has to burn the midnight oil there since everything is on line.
Omnes Omnibus
@Butch:
I was at the gym last night and one of the TVs was set to Fox. That is one of the things they were saying on Hannity’s show. It is great* to see that that opinion is getting play elsewhere.
*For some value of great.
AM in NC
@JMG: My family of 4 is going to Paris a week from today. Should be an eye-opening experience for the teenagers, assuming airports are open and we can get there!
We are planning on walking pretty much everywhere once we get there, so transport around the city hopefully won’t be an issue. But not getting to take them to Versailles would be a bummer.
Hope things are calm(er) for your visit, and that you have a fantastic trip!
AxelFoley
@Kathleen:
Baud always nails it.
*that’s what she said
Omnes Omnibus
Yeah, that reminds me, has anyone seen A Ghost to Most recently?
Matt McIrvin
@Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride: The point Kanefield made that I thought was most interesting is that whenever people make the jibes about a coup in some other country being smacked down and prosecuted faster than we can do it, they’re usually talking about a place with a more authoritarian justice system in general (which is scary to contemplate, given how things are in the US) and far fewer rights of the accused. That’s not necessarily what we want.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: The critics do have a point in that there’s a potential deadline with Trump that doesn’t exist with these other cases: he could become President again and just scuttle everything. You usually don’t have to worry about the possibility that the suspect will be elected President.
Low Key Swagger
Apparently tagging multiple people is my personal Peter Principle…but thanks to all that chimed in. She has to make deposits soon so she’s scrambling!
Kay
Matthew Yglesias was one of the promoters of the woke panic, signed the big pompous “letter” denouncing the “illiberal Left” and pretends every dumb elite dustup at Stanford Law or Yale Law is an existential threat to free speech YET now faced with an actual state government (Florida) that is banning speech all the anti woke ninnies can muster is “both sides!”
Chickenshit ninnies, all of them. The fact is the all agree with DeSantis’ War on Woke but they’re too cowardly to admit it.
Betty Cracker
@Sanjeevs: I am reliably informed there are lots of podcasters who know more about this than Schiff, a former US attorney who has probably seen tons of classified evidence in the J6 case. Kidding, sort of. But seriously, who the fuck knows? This is one of those issues where I try to stay in the “expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed” camp.
Betty Cracker
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Holy shit, that’s a lot. I’m sorry your family is dealing with such an awful situation, but way to be there for your wife.
Ken
And the Nazis think the influx of Republicans is giving them a bad name?
Soprano2
@Kay: I did, evidently there has been back and forth about whether or not the defendant is mentally competent to stand trial. I know that’s an extreme example, my only point was that even if we don’t like it sometimes these things take a long time.
Geminid
@Sanjeevs: I’ve noticed that, and generally, I trust Schiff too. But Schiff has had good reason to believe that seat would come open, and he had his eye on it long before he jumped in the race a few weeks ago.
But if Schiff is doing some brand building, I would not grudge him that. I’d vote for him if I were a Californian. I think he’d make a good Senator
I used to get wrapped up in these issues, but nowadays I’m not that interested in the Garland criticism and counter-criticism.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: This is true for sure.
Mai Naem mobile
@frosty: your brother’s got to have some stories. They have this smart little tool on their website following corruption internationally.
http://fcpamap.com/
They also have a free kleptocrat game you can download which sounds intriguing(because you know one will dow nload a free game from a company website involved in security.)
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Yglesias used to let professional racist Steve Sailer hold court in his blog comments, and somehow steer every comment thread toward Sailer’s intense hatred of Black people and how liberals were denying the facts about Black IQ and crime or whatever. I used to think Yglesias wasn’t paying attention, but apparently occasionally he’d cite Sailer as a guy who it was helpful to keep around for his out-of-the-box perspectives.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Right, but it’s bad faith to insist that every person who wants to see progress on a prosecution is somehow demanding people be dragged off in leg irons without process, which is always how it’s portrayed- “Garland didn’t round them up and put them into camps on January 7th so you’re MAD?!” – that sort of thing. That’s a bullshit response. People don’t really have to say “with sufficient evidence and due process for the accused”. That’s assumed.
Also- we’re well past some demand for super speedy process here, so that accusation, that they have wildly unrealistic expectations, should go by the wayside too. Why not just say you don’t know if he’ll be prosecuted? No one knows.
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
@Omnes Omnibus: He showed up in the last thread for lurkers to offer his usual sneers at the quality of the commentariat here, as unsupported as his comments usually are.
Mai Naem mobile
@Spanky: so what does FOX? Go to trial and hope for the best? Keep on appealing, assuming they lose, and then settle?
Betty Cracker
@Kay: There was a high-profile case in the Tampa Bay area last year involving a retired TPD captain who shot and killed an unarmed man in a movie theater after an argument over texting escalated into thrown popcorn. It took eight years for the case to go to trial, which was ridiculous, IMO.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: As far as I’m concerned, Donald Trump simplified politics, and I’m not going to be patient with people who want to continue to treat politics as complicated.
@Kay: Classic whataboutism.
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin:
Talleyrand supposed once gave his coach driver this instruction: Drive carefully, I am in a hurry.
tobie
My only real disappointment with the dO SOmeThing, Garland, Lock him up already chorus in the media is Nicole Wallace. I expected better of her but since May 2021 she’s been complaining that the AG hasn’t indicted already. She’s as trustworthy on the subject as Cheri Jacobus or Elie Mystal.
I don’t know what it takes to mount a case, but the work must be huge and in this instance there’s no room for error.
Jack Smith’s pace is impressive, as is his winning streak on procedural challenges. That’s all I can say from the outside.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I think the promoters of the woke panic should have to respond to why they don’t care about real state supression of speech. There’s a lot of fancy signers of that big, pompous “letter”. Let’s hear from them on Mr. DeSantis. We can have a debate! They love those.
I think they got pissed because some of them got caught out by me too and some of them got caught out by BLM and they believe they are entitled to slots as public intellectuals so they are enforcing the status quo which keeps them on top, regardless of merit. That’s what I think. I think we need a more competitive meritocracy. There shouldn’t be this much sludge at the top rungs. It should be easier for scrappy newcomers to knock the legacy admits down a peg or two. They’re clogging up my meritocracy.
teakay
@JMG: We spent our first 24 hrs. literally locked into our Paris apartment building in Place Vendome in Dec. 2018 due to the Yellow Jacket protests.We never felt endangered and honestly, it was a little exciting. But the windows of the luxury stores surrounding us were boarded up with huge sheets of plywood as were bank windows, ATMs, etc. The total shutdown lasted really only about 24 hours with many markets and restaurants opening up that night or the next morn. Of greater concern to us as tourists was the longer closure of museums and the metro. Of course, we were not the target of the protester’s ire. Similarly, I don’t think you’d experience any ill will. The greater concern is museum closure, etc. Not surprisingly, the coverage on CNN etc. consisted of camera placed in the middle of a knot of angry protesters, police in riot gear and tear gas. It made for dramatic tv coverage, and concerned calls from family members but wasn’t our experience. I too have a travel concern: We made plans to go to Turkey (Istanbul,Izmir, Cappadocia) in mid May. Now wondering if that’s a great idea because of the scheduled elections.
Baud
@tobie: For a long time, people didn’t know what was happening at DOJ because everything secret. But the fact that we see the same complaints even though we are now getting information as a result of court filings about things happening at a high level tells me that people care about their memes rather than the facts on the ground.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Some of that is judges who are poor managers. They have to move the cases. Lawyers, left to their own devices, will fucking kick it down the road forever which for the defense you can’t blame them because it’s an advantage. Some courts run really well and others don’t and it’s the judges.
Chief Oshkosh
@Matt McIrvin: Thanks.
That’s one…
Chief Oshkosh
@satby:
We’ll see if Adam Schiff eats it.
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
@Kay: That’s a fair point, but I think it’s still appropriate to talk about bad faith on the other side when they continue to pretend that nothing DOJ is doing now matters or requires them to adjust their preconceptions. I still remember that when Garland appointed a special counsel, Law Professor Campos at LGM called it “kicking the can down the road,” without mentioning either the conflict of interest problem that necessitated the appointment or Jack Smith’s impressive track record as a prosecutor of international big shots.
rikyrah
UH HUH
Terry Lee 王瑞民![]()
![]()
(@TerryWatkinsJr1) tweeted at 3:17 AM on Fri, Mar 24, 2023:
Speaking of Democratic contributions to the Black Community, since the ACA passing the gap between Black and White uninsured began to close and many Black American families are insured today that would otherwise not be. https://t.co/puSKITyUcZ
(https://twitter.com/TerryWatkinsJr1/status/1639179684398366723?t=8QbUfTlh7vfS6tdMFCLe8g&s=03)
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Good to know. At the time, I wondered if the delay was on purpose since the defendant was nearly 80 years old when the case finally went to trial — like they figured actuarial arbitrage might prevent an ex-cop from doing time if he was convicted, but ultimately he wasn’t. I think the serially confrontational, trigger-happy ex-cop got away with murder, but he did spend eight years supposedly on house arrest.
rikyrah
Rugged Amethyst #TexasBorn #CaliBred (@groove_sdc) tweeted at 6:56 AM on Fri, Mar 24, 2023:
For the following decades because of the CRT sham that most conservatives and Republicans are either involved in or fallen for we’re going to have to deal with another generation of miseducated kids
They would much rather lie all day than deal with one truth about their history
(https://twitter.com/groove_sdc/status/1639234777436811264?t=K-aH33ENsgpsKUv9t9v4BQ&s=03)
rikyrah
UH HUH
UH HUH
Susan Bordson (@susanbordson) tweeted at 11:01 AM on Thu, Mar 23, 2023:
Professional women, especially, have finely tuned radar to recognize when the expectations, standards, and metrics for grading performance in a particular office or role are not applied equally.
*Suddenly*, the standards for the office & role of the Vice President have changed
(https://twitter.com/susanbordson/status/1638934081172848645?t=V7ge9laqRLUEloJn_N3Wug&s=03)
Kay
@Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride:
I don’t read LGM not because it’s not good – I don’t know if it is or not- but because it’s too cluttered and busy for me to bother with.
Princess
@Low Key Swagger: The area around Loyola is nice and she should be able to find something affordable. Even more do if she’s willing to have a housemate.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
‘Pathetic squish’ is taking it a bit too far, but his habit of ‘negotiating with himself’ (i.e. his starting position would be one aimed at meeting the Republicans halfway, and then they’d negotiate him down from there) started with the stimulus negotiations at the beginning of 2009, and kept going from there.
And yeah, Garland was put out there as a ‘how can you not approve this guy, you’ve already confirmed him before’ pick. Who were the people on our side who wanted him badly enough to be pissed off when Mitch buried his nomination, rather than just shrugging in disappointment? The absence of such people was noted at the time, and the stalled nomination all but disappeared as an issue.
Biden has clearly learned from this, thank goodness.
narya
@Low Key Swagger: which campus? If it’s downtown, on Pearson, she does NOT want to live in that neighborhood–it’s stupid expensive.
But public transportation is excellent, and I’ve lived in multiple neighborhoods, so I can provide some info.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I feel like they “won”, the promoters of the woke panic, in that they regained their dominant perches at the NYTimes and the Atlantic and elite colleges- which is all they cared about anyway.
Now that they’re all safe as houses and no upstarts will dare “cancel” them in the forums and places they care about, I feel like they could be generous and admit the panic they helped stoke did a lot of collateral damage to ordinary people: K-12 teachers and students.
But I understand why they want to “move on”. The whole thing is kind of embarrassing for them. They had a fucking nervous breakdown over 15 dumb “incidents” at elite colleges and talked about nothing else for 6 years. I’d want to bury that too.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
You blame Obama. I blame the quality of our (marginal) voters. I know that politicians can never blame voters, but we liberals remark on the low quality of the MAGA base, and I think it’s fair game to be introspective about the quality of our voters as well.
I say this believing our quality has improved tremendously since 2016.
RobertB
@Baud: Dominion might be looking for payback at this point. They’re dead already. No Republican that wants to keep his job is ever going to talk to a Dominion sales rep, regardless of the lawsuit’s outcome.
narya
@Low Key Swagger: I recommend (the People’s Republic of) Rogers Park as well, or Edgewater/Uptown. Quick public transit to the Pearson campus, especially from RP, but also to other neighborhoods where fun stuff is happening.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
I think it’s more the adage that I can only control what I do, not what other people do. And in politics, that turns into ‘our side can only control what our side does, not what the other side does.’ So in debates among people in the left half of the political spectrum, sure, the Rethugs are evil, and there’s no changing them, so why waste time talking about that? All we can do is figure out what our side can do to change things for the better without their help. If they happen to be helpful every once in a while, then great. But it’s not something we can incorporate in our plans.
As an individual Democrat, what agency I personally have is going towards urging what I’d consider to be the best approaches on our side.
When our politicians and other public figures on our side are talking to voters in general, it’s important to talk about the Republicans and how they’re using their agency. That’s a story that needs to be told, so that marginal and low-info voters know just how bad the Rethugs are, and how the Rethugs are fucking up the lives of those voters. Like if Manchinema come up in the conversation, saying they’d have zero power if 49 Senate Rethugs weren’t unanimously against doing anything good.
But in a conversation at a place like this, where we’re all on the same side, we already know all that. Republicans are evil, that’s not going to change, the only thing we can do is get our side to play things as best it can. So that’s where the debate is.
RobertB
@lowtechcyclist: The 2016 election was taking all the air out of the room at that point, and my guess is that the Obama administration figured they could hold off until Clinton was elected. NFW was that orange idiot going to win. Ah, oops.
UncleEbeneezer
Garland = Dem Party = Obama
The same people who spent eight years bending over backwards to find ways to criticize Obama from the left, and even defended the patently ridiculous idea that we should “Primary Obama” in 2012, are now doing the same thing with Garland. Their whole identity is built on being the brave truth teller who is so Progressive that they will criticize Dems for not doing X better, unlike the rest of us Sheeple. They are a significant chunk of the active and very online portion of our coalition, so they are especially common here and on Twitter etc. We even had a running joke here of “How has Obama failed you today?” They were already complaining about Garland as being some sort of sell-out back when he was waiting for a vote for a Supreme Court seat. They decided he was bad before he even got confirmed as AG, and they have done nothing but double-down on that and have done nothing but hand-wave away all the great things he’s done that we know about to judge him based on idle speculation of things we don’t/can’t know about. It doesn’t matter how many times former DOJ lawyers write lengthy explainers on why it would have been extremely unlikely or even impossible for Trump to have been indicted by no on Federal charges due to complicated investigatory and legal challenges, privilege issues etc. They assume that it must’ve been possible and use it as proof that they were right all along about Garland. It’s not a wild coincidence that these people constantly criticized Obama, immediately criticized Garland as a SCOTUS nominee, endlessly criticized Hillary’s campaign, constantly criticized Pelosi’s House, constantly criticize Schumer as Senate minority/majority leader, jumped right on board the anti-Buttigieg bandwagon recently and even defend the “concerns” about VP Harris. This is what they do. It’s what they ALWAYS do. It’s their political identity. Garland is an extension of (the Center of) the Dem Party so OF COURSE he must be failing us. None of these people will admit they were wrong if/when DOJ indicts Trump on Federal charges, they will just move immediately to “yeah but it should’ve happened sooner/better” even before we have all the info to even assess that. It’s Monday Morning Quarterbacking of the Dem Party and DOJ, all the way down and it always will be. Even the ones who argue in good faith, reflexively defense the arguments of those who don’t. Once you recognize what they’re doing, the best thing you can do is ignore them.
Elizabelle
@UncleEbeneezer: Would you like to edit that and put in some paragraphs? It is a solid wall of text.
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
@Kay: Teri Kanefield has nothing to do with LGM. She also has an easy to read site and writes with exceptional clarity.
NotMax
narya
Lots of vacancies in the Trump building, or so I’ve heard.
//
AxelFoley
@UncleEbeneezer:
This. All this.
Ken
@Elizabelle: Begratefultherearespaces.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Blaming the people for not being enlightened enough…dammit, I heard enough of that crap back in the late 1960s to last me a lifetime.
Seriously, if you’re blaming the electorate, what are you going to do, get a new electorate from somewhere?? You go into an election with the electorate you’ve got.
I don’t believe the quality of our voters is any different from 2016, other than some of them having fucked around in 2016, and all of us having found out. That’s all.
narya
@NotMax: PTUI!
Another Scott
@snoey: I was on a jury for a civil case involving the death of a motorist in an accident caused by a speeding delivery truck.
Was there any police report or citation from the police? Was there any other evidence that the police collected that we could see?
No idea. It wasn’t evidence in the civil case. We had to decide based on what was presented.
It was kinda frustrating, my engineer brain wants to see all the evidence, but I think we did a good job with the task we were given (we found the truck driver at fault).
But it was eye-opening in a way, too. The various legal systems have their own ways of doing things, and objective truth and comprehensive evidence are not a big component of them. And that’s why, as Popehat says, one should never, ever talk to the police.
Also too, a colleague was on a federal grand jury that considered some infamous local case. He said the reporting on it was all wrong. You can’t trust the press to get things correct about the legal system, either.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@RobertB:
And I’m 99.99% sure they were wrong even if she’d won. Mitch had already told us that he was going to keep blocking nominations as long as he controlled the Senate. We’d have had a 4-4 SCOTUS until RBG died.
lowtechcyclist
@Elizabelle: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.
NotMax
@Ken
Heh. Have been operating without a functional space bar for over a month because (1) it’s crapped out occasionally (read: rarely) in the past but came back and (2) too lazy so far to root around and dig out the still in the box identical model replacement.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
I disagree. I think a lot of people have learned some hard lessons. I don’t think we’re the same at all as we were in 2016. You and I might be because we’re base Democrats, but many of the voters we need are not.
And the reason to blame the voters is so voters can improve. People aren’t static. They learn and get better. But the only way they do that is if they face honest criticism. Voters used to be too racist to elect a black president. They got better. So too here. We liberals do this with respect to the rest of society. But for some reason, people insist on maintaining this blind spot.
Elizabelle
@Ken: Yeah.
It was just too hard to read, and I was interested in what he had to say. Oh well.
Omnes Omnibus
@lowtechcyclist:
Aside from that, Mrs, Lincoln, how was the play?
lowtechcyclist
@UncleEbeneezer:
I think that’s bullshit. Not gonna beat my head against your wall of text.
Suzanne
Long MAGA is proving to be more widespread than I thought.
I have always known that Republicans are mean, but I also mostly used to think that they were cunning and strategic. I don’t know if I think that anymore.
Josie
@UncleEbeneezer:
Exactly!
trnc
@Kay: Emptywheel will only refer to Yglesias as “Matty dick pics,” which I am all to happy to help make a thing.
zhena gogolia
@AxelFoley: Yeah.
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus: Your point?
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle: I don’t get this. It was one paragraph. I had no problem reading it.
Geminid
@trnc: Nah, that’s Matt Taibbi she’s talking about. Wheeler is too busy right now to flame Yglesias
I suspect Yglesias’s time will come though.
Tony Jay
Today in the UK
Unelected errand-boy for the super-rich and miniature Pinocchio-themed figurine Rishi ‘No, seriously, I’m the Prime Minister’ Sunak welcomes blood-drenched justice dodger and all-round shit-souled bastard Benjamin Netanyahu to Downing Street where they will have a nice old chat about how important democracy and the rule of law is to them and then, after laughing so hard they piss down each other’s legs, they’ll do the real work of talking about mutually profitable arms-deals, sharing covert intelligence to be used against their respective political opponents and generally how to dismantle a democracy to ensure the Right People retain power through terror and propaganda.
To say that this has not gone over well would be a remarkably mild understatement, kind of on the same level as saying that footage of Ted Cruz being seven-holed on the steps of Congress by a pack of engorged bonobos while trying to give a speech on The Woke Agenda would be ‘quite amusing’ and television to set your watch to. There’s a huge protest taking place outside Downing St right now with more Israeli flags than banners, and the heads of Oxfam and Amnesty have come out guns blazing against giving Netanyahu time of day while he shits all over Israel’s threadbare democracy. They’re even using the long-banned ‘A’ word in the pages of the FTFGuardian, which is absolutely fucking hilarious to see after the long period 2015-20 when any and all discussion of or reporting on matters pertaining to Israel were effectively banned so that all available journalistic resources could be deployed towards redefining antisemitism as “whatever Likud and its allies of convenience need it to be today, updated daily”.
It’s clearly painful for that rag’s editors and moderators to re-adjust to a world where The Red Hitler is no longer Feind Nummer Eins, and they’re all over the show now that normal coverage of Israeli politics is supposed to be resuming. Some of their moderators are still banning comments referencing the FTFGuardian’s own reporting, but the usual suspects on their comment site are noticeable by their absence, presumably waiting at their desks for Nu-Lab Central Comms to decide on a unified line to take that threads the needle between recognising that Netanyahu is a toxic sack of authoritarian slime that most non-insane people (including Israelis) despise, and placating the extremist nutjobs and Likudnik lobby-groups that Nu-Lab sold custody of their Party’s balls to in order to oust the previous leadership. That thread doesn’t exist, so I expect nothing more than an echoing silence to emanate from Sir Cowardly Custard and his Shadow-cabinet of backstabbing careerists.
Also, too, there are suggestions and rumours swirling around Twitter (apparently, I’m not on it) that the real reason the ‘Partygate’ investigation into Flobalob Johnson’s Covid-era rule-breaking (boozy parties and orgies in the garden while the rest of the country couldn’t even visit their dying family members) didn’t spend much if any time at the most egregious example of rule-breaking was because the Party in question, an ABBA themed piss-up in the Prime Ministerial quarters hosted by Flobby’s latest babymomma Carrie Symonds-Johnson for Flobby’s own birthday, had a ‘special guest’ in attendance whose very presence rendered any possibility of a genuine investigation impossible and a cover-up absolutely vital.
Possibly relevant to this storyline is the fact that the Tory Party Chair (and Russian money middleman) at the time was a Ben Elliot, whose Auntie just so happens to be the current Queen-Consort and close personal friend of Low-Class Carrie. Couldn’t possibly have anyone taking about that, not in the good old Mother of Democracy, just imagine how rowdy the hoi-polloi might become if it were revealed that the King’s former mistress and current wife was at the heart of a Russian-cash for influence network and was partying with Flobby when the rest of the country was in Lockdown. I shudder at the very thought.
But still, people are saying…
zhena gogolia
@lowtechcyclist: Too bad, it’s well worth reading this ONE PARAGRAPH.
NotMax
@Suzanne
Baldrick was more cunning, with or without turnips.
;)
trnc
A story had just come out that the feds were negotiating with the SS on how to arrest him without hurting his feelings (well, OK, my interpretation), so I figured there was some chance that it was imminent, but I also figured he was lying about knowing the exact date.
Elizabelle
@Baud: I agree. I think a lot of our voters don’t pay enough attention, and don’t vote in the local and state elections, and that is their role, as citizens. But also think that is changing as the toxicity of the GOP and the dreadful Dobbs decision are becoming more evident.
Our voters are woke! And they are waking up, too.
Another Scott
@Geminid: IIRC, Schiff said here (on the Zoom thing that we did on his book) that he thought the DoJ was moving too slowly on the January 6 stuff. I think he really believes it, and it has nothing to do with him running for Senate.
I wish things were moving faster in the public view, the way that I wish I could lose 20 pounds, but I think Garland and his peeps are moving as fast as they can – consistent with building the case needed for conviction.
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: How nice for you. I could not get my eyes to track along the text. Might just be tired, but still.
lowtechcyclist
Actually, I take that back to some extent. The electorate has changed since 2016 in one respect: young people are much more liberal than old people right now, and we’ve had 7 years’ worth of young people aging into the electorate, and 7 years’ worth of old people aging into coffins.
But that’s a slow process, so you’re still stuck with this year’s electorate in this year’s elections.
We still have an electorate, for instance, that’s far from being mobilized on climate change. And while the legislation passed last year was a good start, we still need to do a lot more. Unless you figure out how to change the electorate we’ve got in that respect, we’re stuck with them as they are. We have to figure out how to reach them, and that’s the job of leadership. Each of us can’t reach but so many people.
lowtechcyclist
@zhena gogolia:
This was one paragraph. I had no problem reading it.
The Moar You Know
@oldgold: only to congratulate themselves on how stupid the Americans who repeatedly elect them to office are.
Bush II got his balls chopped off in 2005 for suggesting that privatizing social security was a good idea. No Republican today has to worry about that happening to them. The base is locked in: they will vote GOP even if the party votes to have anyone over sixty gassed for being a burden on the state.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle: I had no problem reading it. It’s in plain English. Seriously, speaking as one who initially passed it for the same reason, I read what others said about it and took the time to read it and was rewarded for doing so.
PS, I can see that you should stay away from Ulysses. I have and never was I sorry for it. :-)
Omnes Omnibus
@lowtechcyclist: 2016 was a watershed year. It changed a lot of things and a lot of people.
NotMax
@trnc
If it’s the NYC case you’re talking about, feds have no role.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: I mean, seriously.
Shortly thereafter appeared a post by Tony J, with plenty of paragraph breaks. I thought: well that looks easy to read.
LOL. (@ Tony J: am kidding. But serious, too.)
Kay
@Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride:
I don’t think I’m representative of most Americans, as I believe we have had an unequal justice system for a very long time so I had zero expectations as far as Trump. It’s in no way Garland’s fault, other than he’s part of the system and I’m to the point where I think people who are part of the system have to stop worrying so much about propping it up and worry more about making it ACTUALLY credible, thru actions. We just don’t prosecute powerful people, which, combined with our practice of absolutely hammering people who are not powerful, creates a credibility problem. To me.
I could live with it if we were just sort of general scofflaws, but we’re not. We’re HUGELY punitive. Except for some.
Dangerman
Another day without cake? I don’t think I can take it. It took a damn long time to bake it. And I lost the fucking recipe. It’s raining in the park and I want Summer.
Hrumph (sp?).
Baud
@The Moar You Know:
I remember that TNG episode.
snoey
@Another Scott: I had vacation starting the next day so I was looking for a way out – understand why it’s done that way.
My main point is that it really grinds the gears of a lot of people who take security clearances and such seriously to see violations seemingly ignored.
Kathleen
@AxelFoley: Yes. He. Does. If I weren’t lazy and a proficient craft person I would have embroidered Baudisms hanging on the walls.
Betty Cracker
@Tony Jay:
Good God, man! 😂
Kathleen
@Kay: Truth.
West of the Rockies
Patrick Ruffini, Republican pollster and liar… but I repeat myself.
Another Scott
@Tony Jay:
You mean, just like over here with TFG, all roads lead to VVP over there, also too?? I’m shocked, shocked.
Thanks for the update!
Cheers,
Scott.
Tony Jay
@Elizabelle:
Why would anyone want to break a beautiful, elegant paragraph? You monster!!
That’s what run-on sentences of indeterminate length with a great deal of unnecessary, but deeply pleasurable to play wrap-around with, examples of verbal padding and overly-garrulous shit-chatting are sometime, but not always, and definitely not currently, for, or so I have been told. 8-)
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
@Another Scott: If you had to decide liability but didn’t get to see the police report, my guess is that something in there would have been extremely prejudicial to the driver (i.e., inflaming your emotions against him without regard to the facts of the case) and it was excluded for that reason. But evidentiary rulings are often baffling, and sometimes even wrong.
Shalimar
@Omnes Omnibus: A Ghost to Most still comments on Rawstory articles
Tony Jay
@Betty Cracker:
You’d watch, and not even through parted fingers.
It’d be educational.
Kathleen
@Geminid: I agree with you totally. I respect Schiff. I just don’t agree with his position on this. INAL obviously and I have no control over Justice Dept or Garland. But I trust Biden’s judgment about Garland and I’d rather put my energy towards supporting Democrats who appoint/ confirm department heads of agencies or courts. I have control over who I vote for or donate to.
Tony Jay
@Another Scott:
I know! The sad thing is, I’m not shocked. It’s who and what they are.
Salty Sam
I am sending you a private message through WaterGirl, re: a pending opportunity in the area you mentioned.
Gravenstone
If quality two were still valid, then we wouldn’t be hearing all these stories about DoJ delaying investigation into 1/6 because of Garland being concerned over the obvious political repercussions. Perhaps the stories are bullshit and it’s just the absolute complexity of the investigation that has protracted the timelines. But the fact remains that things there seem be running behind the other investigations.
Baud
@Kathleen:
Sounds like a medical condition.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
I take exception to the inference of bonobos having such low standards.
;)
Citizen Alan
@Ken: There is also the fact that between 2009 and 2016,,every right wing moron in the country was convinced that Obama had raised their taxes, because they were all too fucking ignorant to read their own tax. Returns and understand them.
Kathleen
@Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride: I love her. Also Heather Cox Richardson. They both provide insightful, fact based observations unlike 99% of what I see online or network/cable TV.
Scout211
Apologies if this has already been posted, but good news out of Kentucky. Governor Beshear has vetoed the Republican anti-trans law.
Jinchi
I don’t know what the takeaway from Nate’s poll would be, even if it were done by legitimate polling standards.
Are we supposed to prefer the guy who passed a Muslim ban his first month in office or the guy who’s trying to ban the very idea of black people from the public square? These are both awful people with an agenda of graft cruelty and hatred. I’ll take a pass on being asked to pick my poison.
Baud
@Scout211:
Excellent.
jonas
@Scout211: Can the lege still override the veto? That’s happened in several other states, like Utah and Arkansas.
cain
@Baud:
Just think, Baud. In the near future, we can now highlight this text and right click and pull up a stable diffusion AI and get a visual! Isn’t future great???!
Kathleen
@Baud: Ha! Sounds like something Rethuglicans want us to die from!
Baud
@cain:
Beats sitting for the portrait.
cain
@Low Key Swagger: Is that around Devon St – on the north side of Chicago? It’s where all the Indians are. I’ve never heard anything bad, but I’m not a resident of Chicago – but visited that area often.
JaySinWA
So shouldn’t we have some 6th amendment advocacy?
6th Amendment
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Scout211
Yes, sadly. They have a veto-proof majority. They will consider doing that next week. Sigh.
Kathleen
@Scout211: Beshear is a treasure. I watched his press conferences when Kentucky had tornadoes and floods last year and his genuine love for Kentucky and its citizens was palpable.
Baud
@Scout211:
That sucks. But good on Beshear for not just going along.
NotMax
@Baud
Just think of the pay per view revenue, though.
Kelly
In my Oregon news Portland trans pioneer and all around local icon Darcelle xv has passed away at the ripe old age of 92. Her Darcelle XV Showplace has been an Old Town Portland institution for over 50 years. She’s in the Guinness book as the oldest performing drag queen.
Matt McIrvin
@Jinchi: The prevailing theory had been that DeSantis will be harder to beat than Trump in a general election, but I don’t know if that’s even true. The polling of either of them against Biden has been gradually converging.
Geminid
@Kathleen: Kentucky’s citizens also seem to like Andy Beshear. Politico ran an article on him last week. The gist of it was that Kentucky Republicans concede they have an uphill battle to defeat him this year, even though Trump carried the state by 20 points
Beshear is 45 years old. The 2028 Senate race is a long way off, but I’m hoping he can take Rand Paul’s seat that year. His second term as Governor would end in January, 2028.
Citizen Alan
@Sanjeevs: I like adam shiff a lot, but right now his desire to be a senator from california drives a lot of his decisions regarding public statements. So I see him as running to the left of Joe Biden where trump is concerned.
cain
@RobertB: Destroying Fox News though will endear them to every non-Republican. Worth going for the balls and crushing them.
trnc
@NotMax: Yes, thanks.
JML
@lowtechcyclist: Not a great plan to depend on aging out the nasty old retrograde republicans and racists, even though I hear it often enough from people who should know better. 1) people are living longer than ever, even the evil ones, and 2) it will melt your brain how many people will drift into republicanism as they get older. (it’s kinda gross how many (white) people have kids and suddenly start identifying with the people who want things to “go back the way they used to be”)
Geminid
@Citizen Alan: You probably heard this already, but the 11am CBS radio news had a story warning about some very severe weather predicted for Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi, today and tonight.
kalakal
@Kay:
Oh he’s even more mendacious than that. DeSantis is trying to stifle far more than classroom books yet he pretends it’s just both sides squabbling over minor details of the school curricula
Not a fucking peep about “Don’t say Gay” or this monstrosity
to stifle journalism or his attempts to close down Sunshine Laws or…or.
Mr Valiant for Truth Yglesias can go fuck himself with a rusty garden implement
trnc
@Betty Cracker: @Tony Jay:
Right? I think a collection of any 50 posts by both of you and a few others here would be an instant best seller on Amazon.
Citizen Alan
@lowtechcyclist: I can forgive the electorate for 2016 because we decisively won the popular vote and we lost very narrowly in the electoral college through a highly targeted propaganda exercise unprecedented in US history.
I cannot forgive the republican voters of twenty twenty because after four years of Fat Bastard in the White House,. I consider anyone who voted for him again to be irredeemably evil.
Citizen Alan
@lowtechcyclist: Even that would have been preferable to what we got. But I really do think that if Hillary had one,. The republicans would have blinked and rushed Merrick Garland through rather than risk something happening over the next four years to allow her to put a young liberal on the court.
Kathleen
@Geminid: That would be so great!
Citizen Alan
@trnc: I hate to say it, but in this case that is an actual consideration. There are a lot of ways that physically arresting Donald Trump could go pear shaped,. But perhaps the worst case scenario is that he kills himself while the feds are knocking at the door in a way where suicide cannot be definitively proven. Every maga freak in the country would be convinced that biden had just assassinated trump.
Citizen Alan
@Geminid: Thanks for that. It looks like it won’t hit my neck of the woods until tonight.
kalakal
Back in dear old Blighty a Tory crowd gives their verdict on Boris “You can trust me, my wives couldn’t, but you can” Johnson’s performance on Tuesday
The people vote
kalakal
If I were one of TFGs lawyers I’d be praying they arrest him today. The thought of the very stable genius going on stage in Waco and braying all for 2 hours would be giving me conniptions. By half time he’ll probably have incriminated himself at leat 50 times.
Sucks to be them
Baud
Via Reddit, blue state.
Geminid
@kalakal: I’m calling it the Waco Whine Festival
A Business Insider story said that none of Texas’s Congressional Republicans will attend this rally.
Baud
@Geminid:
Wow. How nuts do you have to be to be too nuts for Texas Republicans.
scav
@Baud: Oh no! Not the wrong kind of states rights! oh dear dear dear dear dear. I’m sure there’s a Utah politician somewhere who has a very very sorrowful face over this.
Geminid
@Baud: Trump’s a loose cannon. Republican electeds are hoping third rate Third Mate DeSantis can throw a loop over Trump. Then they’ll all help heave him overboard.
Matt McIrvin
@JML: The electorate is getting less white, and that explains a large part of the Democratic lean of younger generations. So some of this depends on Republicans co-opting non-white people and/or expanding the definition of “whiteness” to pull more of them in. Those are both things that happen to some degree. But I do think they are a bigger lift than just people getting more conservative with age. There are lots of minority voters who are already pretty conservative, but vote Democratic because the Republicans are so racist.
Low Key Swagger
@Salty Sam: Thank you!
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker: I’m expecting nothing and I’m still quite disappointed.
rikyrah
@Low Key Swagger:
Congratulations to her. The neighborhoods around Loyola are very nice.
surfk9
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Just lost my Father-in-Law to melanoma in January. He had been falling but refusing to get care. He fell on January 2 and MIL called 911 and got him admitted. Scans showed he had melanoma throughout his body. He was dead by Jan 17. We arranged for hospice which was great and he had enough time to visit with kids and grandkids.
Don’t fuck around with melanoma!
BarcaChicago
@Low Key Swagger: I live in Chicago and attended Loyola for some of my undergrad and for my Masters in Social Work. There are two campuses: one is Water Tower (in the middle of downtown so not an affordable area) but the main campus is in Rogers Park – the Northern area of the city. It’s along the lakeshore and has affordable housing (also beach after beach and park all along the lakeshore). I love the neighborhood, and it’s close to both Evanston and Andersonville, Lincoln Square which are both great little centers of restaurants/bars/great local stores/etc. Chicago remains more affordable than most American cities, although not unaffected by the general rent increases over the last couple of years. Great theater, music, architecture, the beautiful lakeshore, loads of parks…. Yeah, I’m a big fan of Chicago :-)
rikyrah
@Kay:
because they are evil, rotten people.
rikyrah
@prostratedragon:
I don’t know where you live, but, a 30 minute commute, from my POV, as a lifelong Chicago resident, is pretty short.
I can’t say anything about neighborhoods up North, because I’m a lifelong Southsider, but, the thought that a 30 minute commute is too much..well….
You DO KNOW how big Chicago is, don’t you?
I can go 30 minutes, and still be deeply trenched on the South Side.
I live Southwest, and to get to my job, by car, in the morning, with no traffic, is 45 minutes.
From one place in Chicago to just downtown.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I can’t stand him. Never could.
Kirk Spencer
I truly wish this Chicago side-talk had happened about 30 days ago, when I could have shared it with my spawn. Not the college part as she’s past that, but place to live? As it is I’ll be up there next weekend helping her move into the place she found near Humboldt park.
StringOnAStick
@Tony Jay: Hmmm, I just read Spare thanks to our book club demanding it, and liked it a lot more than I expected to. I also ended up not liking Camilla much, and I think Harry went super easy on her. Given that the king seems a bit out of touch and odd, it makes sense that the consort might be the brains in the pair, and possibly just a bit more than that.
The main thing I liked about the book is how thoroughly it trashed Murdock media. You do not want to know how often I had to explain to other book club members that British libel laws are incredibly weak compared to ours, yet people kept falling back on “why don’t they push back on the press printing lies?” I have paid zero attention to the monarchy, and the book did make me angry that what little I did know about the various members of that particular lucky sperm club had already been filtered through Rupert’s colon before I saw any of it.
The true entertainment of the evening was watching the one libertoonian, who refused to read the book because he “hates Megan Markel” not twig to the fact that his entire set of opinions are from Uncle Rupert, with a side order of his personal racism issues. After he got too mouthy and people pointed out that this was BOOK CLUB and he DIDN’T READ THE BOOK, he realized that someone needed to gather the dishes and start the general cleanup. The conversation got much better once he left it.
mrmoshpotato
@narya:
Hahaha! Never heard it called that before.
Ruckus
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
Message in all of this? Wear your sunscreen, get rid of skin growths early, follow up on quarterly checks if you’ve ever had a melanoma removed, and don’t ignore signs.
Sorry about all the not pleasant goings on.
But I will give a big second to your last paragraph above. I’ve had so many things removed and I used sunscreen. But I worked for 11 yrs in professional sports, had to wear a uniform with short sleeves and outdoors and I used sunscreen, a lot of it and very good brands. But the sun goes round and round and while we sleep, it truly never does. It works it’s magic on you even after you can’t see it.
IOW, I very, very highly second your last paragraph.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
TFG – SFB is lying? Aghast I am, that such an upstanding asswipe as he would lie! Has he ever done this before? What is this world coming to?
Paul in KY
@Low Key Swagger: I really like Chicago (the places I go to, anyway). Plus, only go in Spring or Summer or Fall. So take this endorsement with a grain of salt :-)
Princess
@Kirk Spencer: My kid lived in that area recently . It’s great! Good choice.
satby
@rikyrah: right? and that’s just within the city, my jobs tended to alternate downtown, then ‘burbs (ick!), then downtown again. Loved the downtown ones, because the Rock was two blocks from my old house. Virtually all my neighbors took the train in.
rikyrah
@Kirk Spencer:
Humboldt Park is being gentrified😒🙄