Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

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

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

An almost top 10,000 blog!

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

People are weird.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

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

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

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

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: More Disappointments for the Extremely GOP

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: More Disappointments for the Extremely GOP

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It’s been alleged that James Comer got his start in politics with some pretty serious tech tampering, and apparently it convinced him that was a winning strategy:

The FBI and Justice Department under then-Attorney General William P. Barr reviewed allegations from a confidential informant about Joe Biden and his family, and they determined there were no grounds for further investigative steps, according to Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and other people familiar with the investigation.

Raskin revealed the information about the investigation after he and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) on Monday reviewed a document containing details of the allegation. That document has been at the center of a weeks-long back and forth between the FBI and Comer, who last month sought to force the agency to produce the document via a subpoena.

After the two lawmakers reviewed the document in a secure area on Capitol Hill on Monday, Comer announced that House Republicans would still pursue holding FBI Director Christopher A. Wray in contempt of Congress…

According to people familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail sensitive information, the allegation in the document came to the FBI through the Pittsburgh field office, where Barr had created a channel for allegations involving Ukraine. That included materials Rudy Giuliani — who was then President Donald Trump’s personal attorney — had gathered from Ukrainian sources claiming to have damaging information about Biden and his family.

The allegation contained in the document was reviewed by the FBI at the time and was found to not be supported by facts, and the investigation was subsequently dropped with the Trump Justice Department’s sign-off, according to the people familiar with the investigation…

Comer and Raskin offered disparate accounts of their meeting with the FBI. Comer in a written statement said FBI officials told the lawmakers “that the unclassified, FBI-generated record has not been disproven.” Raskin said in a statement that DOJ officials signed off on closing the assessment of the information, “having found no evidence” to corroborate the allegations.

The FBI did not confirm Comer’s account of the meeting, but called his pursuit of a contempt vote “unwarranted.”…

If life-time professional GOP fixer Bill ‘Ever Lower’ Barr couldn’t see a way to use this information to hurt Joe Biden, I’m pretty sure it can’t be done. But Comer doesn’t care — he just wants to gin up the far-right mouthbreathers by talking about ‘the taint’.

… Now seems like a good time to point out that the information in these documents amounts to just accusations. Comer knows this because, as Dunham explained in another letter to him sent Tuesday, the FBI provided a deputy assistant director of its Directorate of Intelligence to brief the Oversight Committee’s staff last month on what FD-1023s contain and why they can’t be disseminated. Moreover, Dunham pointed out that recording information from a source “does not validate the information, establish its credibility, or weigh it against other information known or developed by the FBI.”

That’s important when you consider the provenance of the information that Comer is after. Giuliani threw a series of unverified claims at the DOJ in February 2020, after his fruitless hunt for dirt on Biden in Ukraine had snowballed into his client, former President Donald Trump, being impeached. When confirming that the department had accepted information from Giuliani’s sleuthing, then-Attorney General William Barr said, “We can’t take anything we received from Ukraine at face value.”

The material in question was dubious enough that Barr “directed that they be reviewed by a U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh, in part because Barr was concerned that Giuliani’s document tranche could taint the ongoing Hunter Biden investigation overseen by the Delaware U.S. attorney,” CNN reported on Wednesday. “Former Pittsburgh U.S. Attorney Scott Brady oversaw the FBI investigation of the Giuliani claims. The 1023 document being demanded by Comer is among the products of that investigation,” CNN reported…

A few important things to note from this. It is increasingly clear that Comer is knowingly making something out of nothing for the headlines it generates. The FBI has been more than patient in explaining why the documents that he’s after can’t be handed over — but it’s far more sensational to imply that the FBI is hiding something to protect Biden. And there’s little to be gained from the document itself, other than information that Giuliani could provide to Comer himself, if it doesn’t contain proof that the claims are true.

But whether the claims are accurate doesn’t matter to the GOP in this case. That’s not me putting words in their mouths. Comer admitted that the House investigations into Biden are justified by the president’s poll numbers, a Kinsley gaffe that he has scrambled to clean up.…

What’s really incredible, though, is that Republicans remain so addicted to Giuliani’s torrent of misinformation, wild speculation and credulous laundering of unverified information provided by shady characters with their own agendas. Trump’s first impeachment shone a glaring spotlight on the speciousness of the claims Giuliani was gathering about supposed misdeeds by the Bidens in Ukraine. And yet, the GOP is still doing exactly what Trump tried to blackmail Ukraine into doing: running investigations that are solely about hurting Biden politically, based on information gathered by a man who has at this point repeatedly proven himself to be a terrible judge of what counts as credible evidence.

Reader Interactions

170Comments

  3. 3.

    RepubAnon

    Wow, Republicans weaponizing government to attack their political opponents by making unsubstantiated claims!  How – ordinary.

  4. 4.

    Suzanne

    I am back home after a few days with the fam in Arkansas for my FIL’s funeral. Spent much of the last days doing household tasks for my MIL, and catching up with the BILs and Spawn the Elder. Many inappropriate memes were shared.

    I came across this hilarious and great piece on Jordan Peterson, “The Intellectual We Deserve”. It absolutely nails everything about him that is maddening. Enjoy.

    I don’t know, Dad, but I think I have discovered something that no one else has any idea about, and I’m not sure I can do it justice. Its scope is so broad that I can see only parts of it clearly at one time, and it is exceedingly difficult to set down comprehensibly in writing…. Anyways, I’m glad you and Mom are doing well. Thank you for doing my income tax returns.

  6. 6.

    satby

    As much as I enjoy trashing the GQP, and I will; I have to go OT for a minute. Yesterday I took latest rescue street cat Duke to the vet and was hit with the gobsmacking news that his fever was 105.2° and they weren’t sure what the source of his infection might be, but to protect the other rescue cats they needed to run some expensive tests to r/o anything contagious. He’d only gotten sick over the weekend, but I had isolated him immediately. So now he’s hospitalized, it’s looking only 50/50 at this point but he’s still fighting, and I had to put up a gofundme because the bill has blown the foster care budget: https://gofund.me/65d7c1bf

    I /we appreciate any help anyone gives. Poor Duke was so happy to be in a home and safe he was a snuggly droolbug when he got skritches. Edit: and this one is killing me 😿

  7. 7.

    MazeDancer

    Pet rescuer extraordinaire Satby needs our help.

    Her little rescue group has run out of money. And sweet panther kitty, Duke, is fighting for his life in the hospital.

    The bill is already $1100, and climbing, so please consider contributing to the GoFundMe. 

    And ignore modest $1200 goal. Will be more than that to save Duke. And such a valiant rescue group should not have the cupboards left bare.

    ETA: It seems Satby and I were writing at the same time. No, we did not coordinate.

  11. 11.

    satby

    @Steeplejack: Thanks Steep.

    And now back to the topic that I didn’t want to derail. I’ll thank everyone else privately, but know how deeply grateful we are.

    Edit: and Maze surprised me! She saw it on Twitter.

  16. 16.

    OzarkHillbilly

    And yet, the GOP is still doing exactly what Trump tried to blackmail Ukraine into doing: running investigations that are solely about hurting Biden politically,

    Same as it ever was.

  17. 17.

    Tony Jay

    @Baud:

    And they won’t be, not until the goat in question signs* an affidavit withdrawing the claims due to their negative-truthiness**.

    *Signed with an authentic pre-Revolutionary quill, of course. For the pen, considering itself mightier than the sword, is therefore Woke, and cannot be considered a trustworthy means of information transfer.

    **With said negative-truthiness being independently confirmed by an unbiased, non-partisan panel*** of judges meeting in secret at a super-secret location****.

    ***Selected from a list of names to be submitted by the House Oversight Chair and not to be reviewed by any other authority.

    ****Four Seasons Total Landscaping Motel & Hot-Tub Centre.

  18. 18.

    MazeDancer

    On the not derail tip, as we can support pet rescues and trash GOP at same time, so crazy that Comer is using the “facts don’t matter” assault while Jamie Raskin is right there to set him straight.

    Haven’t watched CNN in years because they feature so many GOP, but Chris Licht wanting to use haters to promote his network deserves every hit he gets. Why not promote the truth, Chris?

  22. 22.

    Kay

    Dan Nguyen
    @dancow
    Bari Weiss got a half-million dollar donation from Harlan Crow to help create an “anti-woke” nonprofit — the “Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism”
    But FAIR was completely hobbled by infighting from members and donors who wanted to focus on fighting the transgenders

    I think as we learn more and more about the anti woke ninnies the whole panic will get funnier and funnier. But we shouldn’t forget that this wasn’t just the Right- the NYTimes and The Atlantic completely bought into this bullshit, along with some very prominent centrists and Leftists.

    Our public intellectuals are low quality. I personally think there’s not enough real competition in the ranks- nepotism, legacy admits, etc. Some of these people never should have risen so high.

  23. 23.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Bari Weiss got a half-million dollar donation from Harlan Crow

     

    SHES A FAMILY FRIEND!

    I hope she was a good daughter and took care of her mom like Thomas did.

  25. 25.

    Ken

    I was today years old when I learned the word “Emerita”.

    Also that ML Baseball’s publicity team knows the correct use of “Emerita”.

  26. 26.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    But FAIR was completely hobbled by infighting from members and donors who wanted to focus on fighting the transgenders

     
    My understanding is that that is not an acceptable label for trans people.

  27. 27.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I think it’s hysterical, and perfect, that Harlan Crow funds all of them.

    All of these extremely fancy people have spent the last 6 years sitting around tables worrying about the Oberlin student council and whether Yale law students are deferential enough to federal judges. So much other stuff happened in the last 6 years! They missed all of it.

  29. 29.

    Ken

    @Suzanne: Its scope is so broad that I can see only parts of it clearly at one time, and it is exceedingly difficult to set down comprehensibly in writing….

    Sounds more like old H.P. Lovecraft.

    Actually both that, and other parts of the essay (“Construct elaborate theories with many parts. Draw diagrams.”) also sound like the movie tropes used to show someone on the edge of a psychotic break.

  30. 30.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Last night when I couldn’t sleep I put Alien in the DVD player. About halfway thru I suddenly realized the the crew of Nostromo is WOKE! Each and everyone of them are wearing Rainbow Patches on their right shoulders! Ripley and Lambert have the patches on BOTH SHOULDERS! I’m not sure WHAT that means, but I’m sure it’s dirty!

    THE WOKE HAVE POLLUTED THE FUTURE!!!! BOYCOTT THE WEYLAND-YUTANI CORPORATION!!!

  32. 32.

    Kyle Rayner

    @Baud: Yeah, I think it’s being used here ironically to poke fun at people who use incorrect language, but I suspect all that really does is muddy the waters for people trying to learn what is and isn’t appropriate language. (Though I myself am guilty of saying “the gays” ironically. Sigh. Maybe need to re-evaluate that.)

  33. 33.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Harlan Crow is himself a nepotism hire:

    Harlan Rogers Crow is an American real estate developer. Born in Dallas, Texas, he is the chairman of Crow Holdings, which was founded by his father, Trammell Crow. His father was described as the “largest landlord in the United States” by Forbes magazine. Harlan Crow is the cofounder of Club For Growth.

    Club for Growth is about merit, bootstrapping and competition, because of course it is.

    This is the worst part of income inequality and the gutting of the lower middle class- there weren’t any scrappy strivers coming up to push these low quality elites out of the running. That’s why they suck- they’re burrowed in up top.

  34. 34.

    Baud

    @Kyle Rayner:

    I don’t know the background of the tweeter, but the ironic use doesn’t work with the rest of the content of the tweet.

    It’s tough to get the balance right on things like this.

  36. 36.

    Kay

    Hundreds of Indiana doctors are coming to the defense of Caitlin Bernard, the obstetrician/gynecologist who was recently punished by a state licensing board for talking publicly about providing an abortion for a 10-year-old rape victim.
    Dr. Caitlin Bernard (center left) sits next to her attorneys during a May 25 hearing before the Indiana Medical Licensing Board in downtown Indianapolis.
    Mykal McEldowney/The Indianapolis Star via AP
    In public statements, doctors across a range of specialties are speaking out against the board’s decision, and warning that it could have dangerous implications for public health.
    “I hate to say, I think this is completely political,” says Ram Yeleti, a cardiologist in Indianapolis. “I think the medical board could have decided not to take this case.”

    NPR’s coverage of womens autonomy and agency has been really good- much better than the national for profit newspapers. I don’t even listen to the NPR radio program and I started donating to my local station, just because they take this issue seriously and have put some resources behind it.

    Good job.

  37. 37.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I don’t think so. Weiss’ fake university is in one of his properties and I would bet she’s not paying rent.

  42. 42.

    OverTwistWillie

    If picking a political war with the FBI over some garbage bin agitprop appears ill timed and self defeating… There is a small man at a large table who has gone full on Downfall and is rapidly disassembling. He is now pushing “his” assets to irrational and self-harming acts.

  44. 44.

    satby

    ok, temp derail redux: update from the hospital Duke is holding his own, ate a small bit last night (I had been force feeding him); so that’s good. His fever is climbing again, so not good, but the antibiotics should kick in soon. More thanks!!

    back to the regularly scheduled thread: @Baud: Transgender should be used as an adjective, not as a noun. Do not say, “Tony is a transgender,” or “The parade included many transgenders.” Do not write “transwoman” or “transman.” Do not capitalize transgender, unless it begins a sentence or is part of a name (e.g., National Center for Transgender Equality).

  45. 45.

    SFAW

    @Baud: ​
     

    No one slows down to watch a smoothly flowing highway.

    You must not drive in MA or CT much, if at all.

  46. 46.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I think it’s yet another case of projection; they know all of their think tanks and other organizations are funded by a few billionaires, so they think Soros funds everything liberals do.

  47. 47.

    Baud

    @satby:

    Do not write “transwoman” or “transman.”

     
    Great. Now I’ll have to completely redo my superhero comic.

  48. 48.

    SFAW

    @Baud: ​
     

    How many right wing billionaires does it take to act as a counterweight to Soros?

    Apparently all of ’em, Baudie.

  49. 49.

    James E Powell

    I done some ridiculous & pointless things in my life, but none of them were as ridiculous & pointless as Mike Pence running for president.

    Is there any take on this other than that he is just as stupid as we think he is?

  50. 50.

    Betty

    @Kay: What is a bit surprising is how influential Crowe has been for some time, but he is only now getting serious publicity. He was letting the Kochs get all the “credit” for trying to destroy democracy.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    I wish we had as many billionaires as they do. I wish. Although, I think one can make an argument that the huge piles of billionaire cash sloshing around the Right side have contributed to the low quality – their quality problem. You don’t have to do anything to get paid except churn out far Right junk. They’re paying everyone. And anyone. They pay people like Rudy Giuliani and Kyle Rittenhouse and Bari Weiss. They have enough to pay Ginni Thomas half a million dollars a year just to stay off the telephone and internet when she’s in the middle of a manic cycle. Drowning in cash.

  56. 56.

    narya

    The Pod Save America guys were talking about how, basically, Biden won the debt ceiling thing, and it’s something we all know: the Rs aren’t interested in actually governing, they don’t know how things work, and they don’t have the foggiest notion how to actually implement any policy or legislation. The Ds, on the other hand, are a bunch of policy wonks who actually want to make things work. So, in a trade where the Rs want Flashy Talking Points, it’s easy to structure the deal in a way that they get their talking points, but the actual policy may be more helpful to making government work for the people. All of which bears on the current thread, IMHO: all of this performative committee-ing, no actual work. Sound and fury, signifying idiocy.

  57. 57.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Kay: Our public intellectuals are low quality.

    The institutions that designate our public intellectuals are low quality, more concerned with the attention of the public than intellectualism.

  58. 58.

    Shalimar

    So basically the allegation that Comer wants newspapers to print is libelous.

  59. 59.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    The affluent donors (mommies and daddies) pay everybody whether they work or not. They just put the entire GOP “family” on the payroll. It’s like “affluenza”, but not in a family- in a political party.

    I actually saw this happen on “our side” in 2004 in Ohio. Soros was backing voting rights groups that were just garbage – it was a bunch of people getting paid to do nothing and it was chaos- they didn’t coordinate with any of the other groups- the Kerry campaign, labor, etc. Too much money can be a bad thing in terms of degrading quality.

    Obama kind of cleared out the grifters- housecleaning. Necessary. I think some of the institutional Democratic griping about Obama was because he did that. They all wanted to stay on a campaign payroll.

  61. 61.

    Quinerly

    @narya:

    Lawrence O’Donnell”s show last night was fantastic. He basically did the full hour with Biden’s negotiating team. Lots of inside baseball stuff…plus, lots of personal stuff re interactions with Biden and how much hands on he was. It really is must see TV, imo. I listened to it on Tune App while in the yard. Stayed up late to watch the repeat on MSNBC.

  63. 63.

    Jeffro

    @Ken: Don’t feel bad, I only learned it a week ago!

    Worse yet – I think I told BJ this story already – was me very publicly mispronouncing “emeritus” some years ago, at work!  “em-er-EYE-tus”. hoo boy!  And I work in education, too    0_0

  64. 64.

    SFAW

    @Quinerly: ​
     

    interactions with Biden and how much hands on he was.

    Unpossible. Between his dementia and physical infirmity, he can’t even … aah, fuck it, I can’t even “do” RWMF this AM.

    It would be nice if the FTFTFNYT and similar would note Biden’s intimate involvement in the process, as an attempt to counterbalance all the RWMF “he’s senile” bullshit. It would also be nice if I won PowerBall. Not sure which has better odds.

  66. 66.

    Ken

    @Kay: I wish we had as many billionaires as they do.

    This is the point in the horror movie where the evil genie smirks and snaps its fingers.

  67. 67.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Agree that NPR’s reproductive healthcare coverage has been surprisingly good — so much so that I looked up their executive team a while back to see if it had anything approaching gender parity, and yep, it does. Representation matters!

  69. 69.

    SFAW

    @Jeffro: ​

    “em-er-EYE-tis”

    Actually, pronounced your way, it’s an inflammation of the little-understood part of the body known as the “Potrzebie gland.”

    ETA: Somewhere, NotMax shakes his head in disgust.

  70. 70.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Kay: That they recycled “political correctness” as something new is just so lame it’s almost sad.

    Let’s just call it 90s nostalgia.

    Anytime they denigrate political correctness or wokeness we should repeat back what they said, replacing the offending word with respect, making it clear what truly offends the GOOPers.

  72. 72.

    Jeffro

    @Baud: (channeling my inner Jon Lovitz as ‘Tommy Flanagan’ here): Yeah…that’s the ticket!

     

    (Appreciate the help though, Baud!)

  74. 74.

    OzarkHillbilly

    We have only just met – I have barely sat down – when Ivor Perl confesses a profound doubt. “How much has it helped in the 80 years, us talking?”

    By “us”, he means fellow survivors of the Holocaust who have testified to the horrors they witnessed. He wants to know if all the talks at schools, all the media interviews, have achieved anything. “Can you tell me?”

    I ask him to answer his own question.

    “I think: nothing.” He urges me to “look around the world” – at Ukraine, at Sudan, at China’s treatment of the Uyghur Muslims. “So I would like to know, is there anything the world has learned from us?”
    …………………………
    Perl’s number was 112021, but it is not tattooed on his arm. When the day came to brand the digits on his skin, there was a long queue and no time to get everyone done. The next day, the tattooists ran out of ink. A week later, he was lining up when an air-raid siren sounded and the prisoners were ordered back to barracks. The moment had passed.

    He then tells me something remarkable. About a decade after his arrival in England, in the 1950s, he seriously considered getting the tattoo done himself. “Many, many times. I’m ashamed of myself. I was going to put my number on there. Because I felt I hadn’t paid the price.” Without a tattoo, he felt as if he wasn’t “a fully fledged survivor”.

    Well worth the read.

  75. 75.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: “This American Life” did a pretty good show about women who found out they needed abortions in red states where it was banned or restricted right after the Dobbs decision. One got her abortion, and one didn’t. It was an interesting show.

  76. 76.

    Jeffro

    @SFAW: it’s now a running joke both at work and at home

    Feeling achy in the morning?  A little sore after a big hike?  Why, that’s just your em-er-EYE-tis acting up!  =)

  77. 77.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I wish we had more money on our side, but I’m not sure having billionaires who were insisting on attention to their pet issues or projects would be a good thing. I take your point about too much money causing problems – everyone gets on the gravy train and quits doing the actual work.

  79. 79.

    smith

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: It seems to me the public “intellectuals” only became inflamed by wokeness/political correctness when it became clear that it meant it was no longer acceptable for them to hit on their graduate students. That was a perk of the job!

  81. 81.

    BC in Illinois

    @Kay:

    Harlan Rogers Crow is an American real estate developer. Born in Dallas, Texas, he is the chairman of Crow Holdings, which was founded by his father, Trammell Crow.

    Ahhh! So the “Club for Growth” is the “Club for Growing Up With an Incredible Amount of Inherited Wealth.”

    Just as the “Americans for Prosperity” are the “Americans for the Prosperity of Charles and David Koch.”

  83. 83.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    How many right wing billionaires does it take to act as a counterweight to Soros?

    Forty-two?

    Sounds about right.

  84. 84.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: I am seeing BJP handles (and their supporters) Soros bashing. Even the external affairs minister was at it recently.

    I think inviting Modi when its barely a year to the general elections in India to a state dinner sends the wrong signal. This is first major Biden admin decision that I have an issue with.

  85. 85.

    Tony Jay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Perl’s story is well worth reading, unfortunately it’s under the by line of the odious Jonathan Freedland, the Guardian hack whose entire shtick can be summed up as “Before anyone is allowed to judge anything Israel does, we have to eradicate the National SOCIALIST (wink wink) threat here, and anyone who disagrees with me is an antisemite.”

    There’s just no limit to the distance or degree to which that disingenuous fascist enabler and the rag for which he writes can go and fuck themselves.

    Ahhhh. That’s better out than in.

  86. 86.

    Robin Goodfellow

    @Kyle Rayner: Baud is using People First language to describe people with a condition which sets them apart from the general population.

    This is like referring to Someone with autism as a person with autism, rather than “He’s autistic” he is a person not a condition.

    This is what People First language is all about.

    Being gay is perfectly normal and is not a condition, so I don’t think you have anything to worry about.

    There is nothing abnormal about trans people, only their being deprived of urgently needed medical care is what makes their plight a condition.

  87. 87.

    lowtechcyclist

    @satby:

    Do not write “transwoman” or “transman.”

    So write ‘transgender woman’ or ‘transgender man’ instead?

    Or are ‘trans woman’ and ‘trans man,’ with the space in there, okay?

  88. 88.

    Kay

    @BC in Illinois:

    Americans for Prosperity have kind of a slick you tube ad. It’s this very diverse group of young people knocking doors and vague language like “everyone can succeed” – no mention of the no taxes, no regulation anti worker agenda at all.

    It could be an Obama ’08 ad, except the CEO has a cameo at the end.

  90. 90.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    I’ve been watching the Duggar doc (“Smiling, Happy People”) in a blind fury, and am reminded again the toxic effect of Gothard’s cult (and the money behind it) across the culture and across our polity.

    As a normie, I never did understand the draw of the Duggars – I dislike most reality TV and am notoriously disdainful and distrustful of religious fundamentalism of all stripes.

    That all said, the extent to which this got pushed on the public, twisted, massaged and normalized was nothing short of shocking.

    I got curious as to who the TLC showrunners on the Duggars were, who at TLC/Discovery greenlit the project, and why the thing kept getting pushed so hard. Somebody had an agenda. Duke grad Bill Hayes (Mt Airy NC) and his Thunder Mountain company produced, but the rot goes a lot deeper at the network itself. There were alarm bells everywhere, constantly deactivated.

  91. 91.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Stonekettle@Stonekettle
    This whole “the pool boy accidentally flooded the server room” has a real Emergency Room “was cleaning mopping the house naked and accidentally fell into the vacuum cleaner into the tub and broke my shoulder” vibe.

    I fixed that for him.

  92. 92.

    narya

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I could not bear to watch the show; I’ll see if I can access/stand to watch the documentary. I don’t care how much they polish those turds, all of these systems are premised on the subjugation of women, but that gets swept under the rug all the time. Similarly, I keep hearing (mostly from men) that Dobbs rage is “over,” and . . . dude, you’re not actually listening to women.

  93. 93.

    jonas

    @Suzanne: Petersen fancies himself some kind of Nietzschean Übermensch, out to cut through the twaddle of modern liberalism with the deft rapier of his intellect and aphoristic writing.  All he’s doing is dressing up John Gray in some slightly more sophisticated-sounding language, but it still comes down to finding a different way to tell women to shut up and make us a sandwich. Because psychoarchetypes or something.

  94. 94.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @narya: ​  On the Dobbs front, I remember hearing guys in the run up to the 2022 election saying that they thought Dobbs would not be a big factor and that things like inflation would be the primary driver of votes. It seemed to me that they weren’t talking to very many women.​

  98. 98.

    narya

    @Omnes Omnibus: I also think that there are a LOT of women who just don’t talk about it (as MeToo made clear about assault). There are a lot of women who’ve had an abortion and it may be that no one else in their family knows about it. We Olds remember that, back in the day, you couldn’t even find out whether you were pregnant right away–those instant tests didn’t exist. And then there are the women who’ve had a miscarriage and who know that if they needed help because it was incomplete, they’d be in trouble. My general opinion is that, if you think you don’t know anyone who’s had an abortion, it just means that no one in your life is comfortable letting you know that they had one.

  99. 99.

    jonas

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:That all said, the extent to which this got pushed on the public, twisted, massaged and normalized was nothing short of shocking.

    I think initially the appeal *was* the freakishness aspect: “Hey check out these weird fundamentalists and their 20 kids or whatever.” But I agree that the effect over the show’s run was to normalize the very disturbing fundamentalist ideology the Duggars followed — it’s some seriously messed up shit that can’t lead *anywhere* but to abuse and dysfunction. And of course, Bill Gothard himself was booted from his own organization after a group of women came forward with a long litany of sexual harassment and assault allegations. Because how else was it going to end?

  100. 100.

    Suzanne

    @jonas: Oh, I am onto Peterson’s schtick. Big time.

    This sums it up:

    Why is Jordan Peterson’s combination of drivel and cliché attracting millions of followers? Some of it is probably because alt-right guys like that he gives a seemingly scientific justification for their dislike of “social justice warriors.” Some of it is just that self-help always sells. Another part of it, though, is that academics have been cloistered and unhelpful, and the left has failed to offer people a coherent political alternative. Jordan Peterson is right that people are adrift and in need of meaning. Many of them lap up his lectures because he offers something resembling insight, and promises the secrets to a good life. It’s not actually insight, of course; it’s stuff everybody already knows, dressed up in gobbledegook. But it feels like something. Tabatha Southey was cruel to call Jordan Peterson “the stupid man’s smart person.” He is the desperate man’s smart person, he feeds on angst and confusion. Who else has a serious alternative? Where are the other professors with accessible and compelling YouTube channels, with books of helpful advice and long Q&A sessions with the public? No wonder Peterson is so popular: he comes along and offers rules and guidance in a world of, well, chaos. Just leave it to Dad, everything will be alright.

    This is a fruitless path, though. That’s not just because Peterson is a charlatan. If he was just offering up his brand of “hearty intellectual stew,” as the Chronicle of Higher Education called it, going around “sprinkling in ideas from philosophy, fiction, religion, neuroscience, and a disturbing dream his 5-year-old nephew had one time,” we could just laugh at him. But the Peterson way is not just futile because it’s pointless, it’s futile because ultimately, you can’t escape politics. Our lives are conditioned by economic and political systems, like it or not, and by telling lost people to abandon projects for social change, one permanently guarantees they will be the helpless victims of forces beyond their control or understanding. The genuinely “heroic” path in life is to band with others to pursue the social good, to find meaning in the collective human striving to better our condition. No, not by abandoning the idea of the “individual” and seeing the world purely in terms of group identity. But by pooling our individual talents and efforts to produce a better, fairer, and more beautiful world.

  101. 101.

    Jeffro

    Interesting thread here about how far-right conspiracies about voter fraud, voter registration, etc are actually denying states an effective tool to fight voter fraud.

    (apologies if this topic has already been covered in another thread)

    Original NPR article here:

    During the Q&A portion of the event, people asked about how to stop dead people from voting “to support the Democrats” and voiced a number of other popular election conspiracy theories.

    “I think one of the reasons we had so much distrust from this past election was because all of a sudden either over the course of the night, or in the wee hours of the morning, votes were discovered,” said one man, repeating a common false claim about how votes were tallied in 2020.

    But Ardoin wasn’t just dropping by to talk about electronic voting machines or mail ballot fraud.

    He was making an announcement: Louisiana would become the first state ever to pull out of an obscure bipartisan voting partnership known as the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC.

    ERIC is currently the only system that can catch if someone votes in more than one state, which is illegal. And election officials widely agree it helps to identify dead people on voting lists.

    But Louisiana was done with it.

    And a deeper look at the red-state exodus that followed — eight states and counting have now pulled out of ERIC — shows a policy blueprint for an election denial movement, spearheaded by a key Trump ally, eager to change virtually every aspect of how Americans vote.

    My own Governor, Smilin’ Glenn Youngkin, has pulled VA out of ERIC as well.  >(

  102. 102.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @narya:

    It’s a tough watch, but illuminating as to the manipulation, conditioning and overall corruption within TLC, the Gothard organization, the Duggar acquaintances and the Duggar family.

  103. 103.

    trollhattan

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: ​I entered the fray expecting to simply mock and get mad at the parents and predatory son, then the world they live in unfold and it became orders of magnitude more appalling, including and especially their media enablers, who polished the family turd to blinding levels.

    And that incestuous boy was headed for congress. Guess we shouldn’t rule that out, yet. “When you’re a star….”

  105. 105.

    sab

    @Jeffro: Ohio has also pulled out of ERIC. My guess is they were catching too many Republican snowbirds voting in two states.

  106. 106.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Jeffro:

    Votes are valid when cast, and it takes time to count. The really disturbing thing I’m seeing from wingers is this notion that once the clock hits midnight, the counting should stop.

  107. 107.

    Betty Cracker

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I haven’t watched it either but feel like I should to get more insight into the motivations of the turd polishers. Is there any GOP politician who hasn’t taken a selfie with the now-jailed predatory creep son? I’ve seen a million of ’em on Twitter! Someone should make a database of those pics to tweet at Repubs every time they open their gobs about “groomers.”

  108. 108.

    vbreakwater

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:

    ‘I got curious as to who the TLC showrunners on the Duggars were, who at TLC/Discovery greenlit the project, and why the thing kept getting pushed so hard.’

    It was greenlit because TLC and Discovery have a very cynical approach to their product. They figured out how to guarantee a certain amount of viewers by creating this type of reality genre and thus attract advertisers. Simple as that,  no hidden agenda.

    How do I know? I’ve been a non-fiction/documentary show runner for a while and have had direct interactions with them. A old joke is that TLC, which originally was an acronym for ‘The Learning Channel’ is now ‘The Leering Channel.’

    I was hired by them to produce a more Netflix style doc series on adoption because for a brief moment they wanted to emerge from the muck. Then they changed their minds and went back to what they know best with shows like ‘Dr. Pimple Popper.’

  109. 109.

    Jeffro

    Also good reading: Jennifer Rubin lists 6 tough topics the snooze media MUST ask GOP candidates for president in 2024

    (some of which are fairly frequent points raised here on BJ! =)

    1. No acceptance – even if it means cutting off interviews, ending town halls, whatever – of “The Big Lie”.
    2. Pressure trumpov’s opponents to explain their differences with him (which we talk about here all the time!)

    If candidates won’t admit real disagreements with Trump, there’s no cogent argument for why Republicans should pick someone else. It’s up to reporters to help voters decide if Trump’s opponents are alternatives or simply Trump imitators.  Such an effort is not “taking sides” against Trump. Rather, it concerns getting his opponents to explain why they are running and what they truly stand for. Moreover, it’s entirely appropriate to ask them why they are so afraid of confronting Trump and his policy failures. (These would include letting the debt skyrocket, allowing hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths from covid-19 and failing to produce an infrastructure bill or build the wall on the southern border.) Challenging their assertion that they agree with him on policy forces them to answer hard questions about flawed policies and unpopular positions they share with Trump.

    3. Challenge candidates on their nonsensical “woke” attacks (paying Kay to the white courtesy phone, please!)

    4. Push candidates to justify their positions (like cutting the IRS, which actually increases the deficit)

    5. Press candidates on abortion (ie, don’t let them get away with BS like Tapper did with Haley)

    6. Challenge candidates on voter suppression.  HELL YEAH!

     

    Good stuff!  Thanks Ms. Rubin!

  110. 110.

    RaflW

    Time for someone to come forward and accuse Comer of, perhaps, an intoxicated ass-grab. And when he denies it, just say repeatedly “well, the allegation has not been disproven!”

    IOW, this sham is falling apart and he just can’t stop himself from being a fool.

  112. 112.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @trollhattan:

    It was unsurprising to me that the whole effort started and then ramped up in response to school desegregation efforts (in tandem with redneck “Christian Academies”).

  113. 113.

    trollhattan

    @OzarkHillbilly: ​I think my kid’s cohort, she’s now in college, are the last who have had Holocaust survivors speak in person at their school. This gives her generation–three or more removed from WWII–a tangible connection no other will have, going forward.
    It can lend context to the actions of, say, Burma, China, Turkey and yes, Russia today, that merely reading history and current news cannot.​

  114. 114.

    sdhays

    @narya: Not just that they’re not listening, they fundamentally don’t understand what happened and is happening. A fundamental right that millions of women rely on was ripped away, so now women are dying because of it.

    It’s not the same as your dumb team losing the fucking Super Bowl.

  115. 115.

    Steeplejack

    @Quinerly:

    That was a good show last night. At first I thought, “Oh, no, Lawrence got a ‘scoop’ and he’s going to ride it into the ground,” but it turned out to be very interesting.

  116. 116.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @vbreakwater:

    In defense of Dr Pimplepopper (I confess, when I had cable, I watched it for the gross factor) it’s harmless, save for the extent to which people begin believing that they can do it outside of a clean environment with ordinary household items and no numbing agents….

  118. 118.

    Anyway

    @Jeffro:

    Interesting thread here about how far-right conspiracies about voter fraud, voter registration, etc are actually denying states an effective tool to fight voter fraud.

    RW and red states were never interested in fighting voter fraud – they use the pretext of voter fraud to deprive D constutuencies – students, city dwellers, POC of their right to vote. This also has the effect of scaring off some people from voting – another plus for them.

  119. 119.

    trollhattan

    @OzarkHillbilly: Classic. “Play dead” or “turn into rubber” would also work.

    Loved when he’d have sheep turned loose in the theater then border collies would organize them out of the auditorium, into the elevator, out of the building and into a cab. Commitment to the bit!

  120. 120.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: FWIW our side isn’t immune to this.  Every year there are people who talk about how Waukesha County in WI will “find” enough votes for the GOP to win.  This is based on a supreme court election where a reporting snafu led to a belief that the liberal justice had won and then had victory snatched away by cheating in Waukesha County.  This was debunked by two separate investigations, but the belief still persists.

  121. 121.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @trollhattan: ​ My parents had neighbors who were Holocaust survivors. I never asked and they never volunteered but I remember the tattoo.

  122. 122.

    cain

    @Kay: Trammell Crow is one smart dude – would know when a company like Intel would think about a new plant and then purchase all the land around it and build apartments.

    The apartments were fairly decent, but not super great. He owns most of the apartments here in Hillsboro and Beaverton. I am angry that I’ve somehow funded club for growth through his son.

  123. 123.

    narya

    @sdhays: Exactly. And it infuriates me all the more–basically, I’ve come to disregard the opinion (on ANY subject) of a pundit who claims Dobbs is “over.” If that’s what you think, then you ARE NOT LISTENING. As you note, this isn’t about a horse race, this is life and death for many women, and, for many more, it is about their right to bodily autonomy and self-determination.

  128. 128.

    japa21

    @Omnes Omnibus: ​
      To be honest, I fell for that when it first happened. I think it is that the GOP talks so much about Dems cheating we kind of assume it is their normal projection because they also cheat. Of course, our evidence of their cheating is only marginally better than their evidence. If at all.

  129. 129.

    MomSense

    The GOP are wasting all of our time and energy.  They have no policies to address any of the challenges of a modern society.  They are stuck in resentments, culture wars, and trying to restore their status based on their white Christian identity.  To do this they are embracing fascism, racism, misogyny, guns, and legislating on those fucked up values.  There is no way forward with Republicans.  Their party cannot be saved.  They need to be defeated and humiliated.

  130. 130.

    RSA

    @Robin Goodfellow:

    This is like referring to Someone with autism as a person with autism, rather than “He’s autistic” he is a person not a condition.

    This is what People First language is all about.

    Preferences differ between communities and individuals, I’ve recently discovered.  I was talking with a friend recently and used the term “person with autism,” by analogy to a phrase I was more familiar with, “person with vision impairment.” She told me that in her experience that’s not the most commonly accepted phrase.  I found this discussion online:

    During last Wednesday’s meeting, one subcommittee member, who I believe is the parent of an Autistic child, and an Autistic self-advocate expressed disagreement over the terms. Feedback from one of our members suggested changing “ASD individual” in our report to “individual with ASD.” The Autistic self-advocate sitting beside me, who also has an Autistic brother, voiced her objection to use of the term. “I disagree,” she said as the suggestion was read aloud. “I’m not a person with autism; I am Autistic.”

    It’s tricky, even for people who want to be respectful.

  131. 131.

    narya

    @Miss Bianca: Okay, I’m gonna defend this one slightly, in that the doc is really helping people get rid of massive, disfiguring growths. It is absolutely NOT to my viewing taste, but it feels less prurient than nearly all of the rest of their shows.

  134. 134.

    kalakal

    @Suzanne:

    Thank you, that is hilarious. I have never understood the appeal of Peterson and his trite observations.

    That article ( with a little editing) gives a nice definition

    Meaning Peterson’s propositions emerges from the interplay between the possibilities of the world drivel and the value structure operating within that world” 

    “No shit, Sherlock”

  135. 135.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @japa21: ​
      It was plausible, but, once debunked, our side should have dropped it. That’s why, for years, when people brought it up here is would post links to the two investigations. Focusing on imaginary problems like that caused people not to focus on what the WI Dems actually needed to do. Like hiring Ben Wikler and listening to him.

  139. 139.

    Jeffro

    @MomSense: all of this is true.

    They aren’t even bothering to get out there and say some words about “market-based this” and “market-based that” anymore.

  140. 140.

    Kyle Rayner

    @Robin Goodfellow: I feel I should inform you that some or many trans people would bristle at being trans being defined as primarily a medical condition or being defined by access to medical gender-affirming care. That veers close to something referred to as “transmedicalism” – the idea that the only “true” transgender people worthy of respect and recognition are those who actively seek medical intervention. Many trans people are happy just being genderqueer on their own terms without any medical intervention. Interestingly, TERFs seem to have less problem with transmedicalism and even encourage it – presumably because exploiting this divide allows them to fracture activism. Currently, trans and transgender are umbrella terms for a variety of lived experiences.

    Baud was pointing out not using adjectives as nouns. “The gays, the transgenders, the blacks” vs “Gay people, transgender people, black people.” It can be funny for a gay person to use “the gays” in a reclaimed manner, but it’s not exactly polite language, and it’s inappropriate from most everyone else.

  142. 142.

    Soprano2

    @narya: My sister had an abortion; I didn’t know about it until after her death. My mom found a bunch of books with her writings in them; they weren’t really diaries, they were mostly her trying to figure out why she was attracted to and then repelled by the same kind of man over and over. In between that there was other stuff, and one thing was about the abortion she went to Illinois to have. I wish she had told me; I found myself wondering if she told anyone, and if someone went with her to support her. I would have done that if she had told me!!!!!!!!!! I was kind of mad that she didn’t. It does explain the strangely random comment she made to me once about how she was shocked that hospitals didn’t do abortions. I found the paperwork for it among my mother’s effects after she died. Mom and I never talked about it, but I’m sure my mother was devastated when she found out because the pregnancy was with the man who she wished my sister had married. She thought of him as her son, and loved him more than my husband.

  143. 143.

    MazeDancer

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Very generous. But do not stretch yourself too thin.

    Meanwhile, Satby sent an update that bill increased. But despite fundraising, vet won’t release kitty unless bill paid in full. So they hold kitty hostage while funds being transferred. So bill increases.

    Obviously, new vet required.

  147. 147.

    narya

    @Soprano2: I’m sorry you had to find out after her death! Even if she had other support at the time, it would have been good if she’d shared that with you at some point, too, just so you could reassure her of your support.

  148. 148.

    tam1MI

    @MazeDancer: Haven’t watched CNN in years because they feature so many GOP, but Chris Licht wanting to use haters to promote his network deserves every hit he gets. Why not promote the truth, Chris?

    Because, as anyone who read the article about him in the Atlantic knows, Chris Licht is a delusional asshole who has failed upward his entire life.

  150. 150.

    vbreakwater

    @Miss Bianca:

    Here’s how shows get ‘greenlit’ in the reality space. Each month the networks put out mandates for their programming needs.

    For buyers like TLC, the mandate is always the same. ‘We are looking for loud, in your face characters who create water cooler moments.’

    So producers and production companies seek out candidates from random news items and youtube, create ‘sizzle reels’ which highlight their attention getting attributes and submit them to the buyers who then sit around and watch them, take a vote and decide which one’s to commission a show around.

    There is never any mandate for creating anything of substance (except for streamers like Netflix). That is not their objective. So don’t go looking for any hidden meaning lurking beneath what you watch as a guilty pleasure ;)

  154. 154.

    Soprano2

    @Jeffro: Missouri pulled out too. To me it shows that they actually don’t care about voter fraud, or preventing dead people from voting. I think this conspiracy theory was invented to get states to pull out of ERIC so that they could continue to say “there’s no way to tell if dead people voted” and “there’s no way to tell if people voted in more than one state”. They were in danger of losing these talking points, because something like ERIC would show definitively that it’s mostly not an issue.

  156. 156.

    Citizen Alan

    @Soprano2: No, they understand completely.  The goal is to privilege the votes of rural americans over those of urban americans. The fact that more people live in the cities and thus it takes longer to count the votes there is presented as a reason for disenfranchising city dwellers.

  157. 157.

    Miss Bianca

    @MomSense:

    The GOP are wasting all of our time and energy.  They have no policies to address any of the challenges of a modern society.  They are stuck in resentments, culture wars, and trying to restore their status based on their white Christian identity.  To do this they are embracing fascism, racism, misogyny, guns, and legislating on those fucked up values.  There is no way forward with Republicans.  Their party cannot be saved.  They need to be defeated and humiliated.

    I just had to see that again. Please and thank you. “What oft was thought/but ne’er so well expressed,” etc etc

  158. 158.

    Miss Bianca

    @narya: OK, that’s legit, but really…unless I am a budding plastic surgeon, why would I be interested in watching that? Sounds like it’s definitely *not* for the squeamish, which I am.

  159. 159.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2: I followed the Turkish elections, and was impressed by their system. They had ~190,000 clear plastic ballot boxes in ~55,000 locations. When polls closed, a committee for each box, of 2 election officials and 5 representives from the top parties in the previous election count the paper ballots, and the results are posted before the ballots are forwarded in sealed bags to the districts and ultimately to the election committee in Ankara. Not tamper-proof, but very tamper-resistant.

    Turkish people take elections seriously. The turnout in the last election was especially high at 86.9% of registered voters. Turnout is typically 80% or better. That is without absentee or early voting, with about 50 million voters in a country of ~85 million people.

  161. 161.

    satby

    I have many personal thank-yous to send, but until I can here’s the latest update: Everyone’s generosity has made sure Duke’s bill can be covered so that I can get him today (a friend is writing a check for the amount tonight and when the funds transfer from gofundme we’ll pay her back). Duke is still running a temp but the doctor’s last message said it was trending down, he’s eaten a bit on his own, and he’s showing some slight improvement. So no longer a potential hostage situation, and I have asked that copies of his records and prescriptions be ready for me to take when I pick him up. Any leftover funds after fees and his final bills will be used for follow up care and to replenish our ‘foster pets medical needs’ account, which is separate from our grant funded accounts for spay/neuter.

    You all have always helped our little group in times of crisis and you can’t even imagine the relief we all are feeling right now, because that was a catastrophic bill for us. THANK YOU ALL! 💖💗💖

  163. 163.

    rikyrah

    @Jeffro:

    I will be honest. Those states were using ERIC to purge thousands of voters.

     

    Other jurisdictions,like mine, use ERIC to guide us and put into the process of cancelling voters…..years down the road.

  164. 164.

    narya

    @rikyrah: I missed it, BUT I found it as a podcast! Guess I have to take a walk this afternoon so I can listen to it . . . even though I ran this morning.

  165. 165.

    satby

    @rikyrah: The most common voter fraud is Republican snowbirds voting in both their winter and summer homes. So ERIC was useful for identifying that. We don’t get one vote per house.

  167. 167.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Miss Bianca: Just FTR the slash should be deleted, since it’s a single line of poetry in the original:

    True wit is nature to advantage dressed;

    What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed.

    From “An Essay on Criticism” (Alexander Pope)

    /prosodic pedant

  168. 168.

    mrmoshpotato

    A top Walmart executive said the retailer remains committed to its Pride Month offerings, even after competitor Target became embroiled in a controversy over similar products

    Oh GO FUCK YOURSELVES BLOOMBERG!

    It was not “embroiled in a controversy.”  Go embroil your asses!

  169. 169.

    mrmoshpotato

    – @Walmart sticks with Pride Month merchandise despite heavy backlash at Target…

    It was bigoted bullshit at Target.  Use accurate words.

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