Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Everybody saw this coming.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

So many bastards, so little time.

Books are my comfort food!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / What A Fucking Corrupt Sleaze-bag DeSantis Is (Open Thread)

What A Fucking Corrupt Sleaze-bag DeSantis Is (Open Thread)

by | 284 Comments

This post is in: 

I have nothing to add to this, just rage at the endless corruption going on in plain sight.

Gift link to the Washington Post if you want to read more about it.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

284Comments

  1. 1.

    WaterGirl

    I haven’t had internet for the better part of the past 2 days, but I do have it at the moment if I stand in the right place on the porch and I turn around 3 times while holding my mouth just right.  That’s because my neighbors were kind enough to share their password with me!  But it only works if I stand at the end of the porch and hold my laptop over my head.

    Still, way better than nothing!  At least we get another thread – looks like we could use one.  This is a post I put together days ago that never made it up.  Better late than never!

  2. 2.

    trollhattan

    Gotta say I love the concept of a sport simulator for a hobby masquerading as a sport.

    DeSantis imagines himself a sophisticated player and is such a bog-standard crooked businessman. He might as well be managing a storage unit facility near the interstate.

  5. 5.

    suzanne

    @trollhattan:

    He might as well be managing a storage unit facility near the interstate. 

    I would like to see him locked in a storage unit facility near the interstate. We’d all be safer.

  6. 6.

    RaflW

    DeSantis also signed a bill to allow low level radioactive mine waste as roadway aggregate. What a swell guy, so eager to “protect children” (from non-existent trans threats) but let ’em breathe nuclear highway dust? Sure, why not.

  8. 8.

    mrmoshpotato

    @RaflW:

    DeSantis also signed a bill to allow low level radioactive mine waste as roadway aggregate. 

    Oh goody!  Now Florida’s roadways will be toxic too!

  10. 10.

    dmsilev

    @RaflW: Look, using glow-in-the-dark roadway material is just good sense. Think of all the money saved on lighting.

  11. 11.

    Scout211

    Sorry about your internet WaterGirl. We had days without internet during our January weather from hell here in NorCal. I know what that feels like. I can use my iPhone as a hotspot on my cell plan so that came in handy for me during that time.

    More stuff about DeSantis:

    He signed that alimony reform bill that was discussed in the comments a few days ago

    The measure (SB 1416) includes doing away with what is known as permanent alimony. DeSantis’ approval came a year after he nixed a similar bill that sought to eliminate permanent alimony and set up a formula for alimony amounts based on the length of the marriage.

    The approval drew an outcry from members of the “First Wives Advocacy Group,” a coalition of mostly older women who receive permanent alimony and who assert that their lives will be upended without the payments.

     

    And this is a two-fer of disgusting GOP candidates:

    Trump and DeSantis court Moms for Liberty in a sign of the group’s rising influence over the GOP

    PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The two leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination courted conservative women at the Moms for Liberty conference in Philadelphia on Friday, elevating a group that has gained substantial influence within the GOP with its fierce opposition to instruction related to race and gender identity in the nation’s classrooms.

    And one more.  Attacking each other.

    Ron DeSantis Attacks Trump for Promising to Protect LGBTQ+ People from Terrorists

    A new ad released by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign celebrates the anger of LGBTQ+ Americans at his homophobic and transphobic policies. Perhaps more disturbing, it also attacks former President Donald Trump for promising to protect LGBTQ+ people from hate crimes and terror attacks.

  13. 13.

    Cameron

    There’s something terribly wrong when I feel that Ronald Puddinghands’ corruption is the most human thing about him.

  14. 14.

    MisterForkbeard

    @mrmoshpotato: My understanding is that this is sorta okay? As in, it’s something used in Europe, though the States don’t allow it.

    So like… probably not great and not an immediate threat, but just one more thing to add to list of health threats in Florida.

  15. 15.

    Scout211

    In other sleaze-bag news, Proud Boys members ordered to pay over $1 million in ‘hateful and overtly racist’ church destruction civil suit
     — 

    Members of the right-wing extremist group, the Proud Boys, have been ordered to pay more than a million dollars as part of a civil suit judgment involving the destruction of property in December 2020 at the predominantly Black campus of the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, DC.

    DC Superior Court Judge Neal E. Kravitz approved Friday’s default judgment against Proud Boys members Joseph R. Biggs, Enrique Tarrio, Jeremy Bertino and John Turano, as well as the group’s limited liability corporation.

    In a blistering order, Kravitz described the “highly orchestrated” and “hateful and overtly racist conduct” from members of the Proud Boys during the “attack” on the Metropolitan AME church, in which a Black Lives Matter sign owned by the church was allegedly destroyed.

  16. 16.

    Cameron

    @Gin & Tonic: I  know what you mean.  Weren’t even any towers when I was a kid – we had to carry our own internet all the way up the hill and back down again.  Youngs just don’t appreciate how good they have it.

  17. 17.

    trollhattan

    @RaflW: Does Florida have uranium mines? I’m confused at his end game.

    Fun fact: the coal industry “sells” waste in the form of ash and coal tar to the concrete and asphalt industries. This results in heavy metals in concrete and dioxins et al in asphalt, which erode, run off in rain, and concentrate in ditches, drain systems and the like. It’s rather regional, so a blessing to states relying on coal-fired generation.

  19. 19.

    trnc

    I would be happy to donate a prison simulator for Desantis to use, minus the simulation.

  20. 20.

    HumboldtBlue

    Well, Twitter is just about dead, Musk is now limiting how many posts one can read a day. So, other than this juke joint, where else on the tubes are we gonna meet?

  24. 24.

    Ken

    @WaterGirl: Ah, fond memories of attaching the tinfoil and bent wire coathangers to the TV antenna, and twisting them just so in order to bring in the PBS and UHF stations.

  26. 26.

    p.a.

    @Cameron:I  know what you mean.  Weren’t even any towers when I was a kid – we had to carry our own internet all the way up the hill and back down again.  Youngs just don’t appreciate how good they have it.

     

     

    You had a downhill?

  28. 28.

    Scout211

    @HumboldtBlue: Musk is now limiting how many posts one can read a day

     

    Wow. Another “temporary” measure. Yeah, sure, Elon.

    Link.
    Elon Musk is limiting the daily number of tweets users can read, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO announced Saturday as thousands of users reported problems attempting to access the social media site.

    In a tweet Saturday afternoon, Musk said that verified accounts are limited to reading 6,000 posts a day. For unverified accounts, the number drops drastically to 600 posts a day. New unverified users can only access 300 posts a day.
     

    Musk said the new change is temporary and was put in place to “address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation.” It’s the latest widespread outage since he acquired the social media site late last year.

  31. 31.

    HinTN

    @mrmoshpotato: They were doing that with sidewalks in Denver over 50 years ago. (Does that mean it’ll take Florida 50 years to get to where Denver/Colorado is politically today?)

  33. 33.

    Scout211

    @Haroldo: Do you know what that number of posts?

    See the link posted at #28:

    verified accounts are limited to reading 6,000 posts a day. For unverified accounts, the number drops drastically to 600 posts a day. New unverified users can only access 300 posts a day.

  35. 35.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Scout211: I suppose it would be uncharitable to assume that, as this is Day 1 of Q3, they don’t have the cash flow to pay their cloud provider(s) and are rate-limiting as a last resort.

  42. 42.

    Jinchi

    Of course it doesn’t just involve a simple quid pro quo. There’s also a bonus assault on the environment.

    Hosseini plans to develop the land — which includes a sensitive watershed once targeted for conservation by the state​

  43. 43.

    trollhattan

    The Twitter annoyance is now news: NPR covered it during top-of-the-hour news break.

    We know Elfin loves attention, question is whether that’s attention of any kind.

  44. 44.

    AWJ

    @HumboldtBlue: ​
      The fact that all these service outages and “emergency measures” are happening at the end of a month is making some people speculate that some critical service provider that Musk has been stiffing has finally pulled the plug on their deadbeat customer.

  47. 47.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Scout211:

    Can’t wait until they start sending out Twitter CDs to load on desktops attached to landlines.

    Next iteration after that, Twitter will operate as a UNIX based BBS for a truly unique experience.

    He’s killing it on purpose for reasons only he and his paymasters know. That kitchen sink was clearly a metaphor for what he’ll be “throwing it out with”.

  48. 48.

    piratedan

    @HumboldtBlue: certain folks have moved on to new places like Post, Spoutable and Mastodon.  BlueSky is close to being launched.

     

    with the exception of BlueSky, which is the property of the guy who sold Twitter, none of the new places are easy replacements for what Twitter brought to the table, but then again, getting Twitter to the place where the trolls were controllable and your feed was filled with people that you trusted, with nimble tools took time.

    None of these new places have established themselves as a de facto replacement, although I use mastodon myself (piratedan7), it takes time to cultivate your feed and the tools are still a work in progress.  Plus you have the issue that some of the people that made twitter what it is still have not moved off of the platform.  Reasons range from “who wants to start over when everyone could find me here?” to “how does this new thing work?”  I think there’s a natural reluctance to give up a platform where you’ve developed so much street cred that you simply move on, but relating that to the dumpster fire twitter is currently and its inherent support of Musk by doing so is also something that is confusing.

    I would say, give them all a look, knowing that they are works in progress and cultivate your own feeds, look for people who’ve grown to trust or simply read what you have time to read and make choices from there…. sometimes elevating new voices can be a good thing in and of itself.

    Naturally, your mileage may vary….

  50. 50.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Wasn’t one of DeSantis’ saving graces that he was good on the environment? I guess that can be kissed goodbye

  51. 51.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    Now that I think about it, maybe it’s like the destruction of Tumblr by eliminating all sexual content. Nothing has really taken its place since.

  53. 53.

    Jinchi

    @Scout211: It’d be hilarious if DeSantis lost “Moms for Liberty” to Trump after basically handing control of the public schools over to them.

  54. 54.

    Betty Cracker

    @Scout211: Jesus Christ, I thought that ad was a parody, but it looks like it’s from the campaign outfit Pushaw runs. The best reply was, “Is he running for president of Iran?”

  55. 55.

    Bill Arnold

    If there is no formal agreement signed in blood (DNA for the win) and notarized, or similarly strong evidence, the SCOTUS has decreed that there is no corruption.

  56. 56.

    Jinchi

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’d never heard that DeSantis was good on the environment.

    All I’ve heard about is climate denial, radioactive roads, bulldozing the wetlands and giving the green light for fertilizers to contaminate the water supply.

  57. 57.

    trollhattan

    @Jinchi: Yeah, almost literally. Twitter Platinum–all the Tweets with none of the riffraff.

    But, how many Tweets actually? It’s going to collapse in a heap if he continues reducing accessibility.

  59. 59.

    Baud

    @Ken:

    I definitely was worried about it, and still am. Maybe I underestimate Musk’s incompetence, however.

  62. 62.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Problem is that Tumblr had been invaluable for sex workers in terms of self-protection, connection, organization and working to overcome the dumbest aspects of SESTA. That has not come back.

  63. 63.

    Ken

    @Baud: Incompetence for the win!  Also, as a number of people have pointed out, his successful businesses are the ones that get large government subsidies and contracts. Their actual products run over pedestrians and catch fire.

  64. 64.

    Jinchi

    @Scout211: How does twitter count the number of posts read?  If you click on a tweet, it’s always followed by a string of replies, then unrelated or boosted posts and paid content.

    Do all of those count against the total or just the ones you click on?

  65. 65.

    Ken

    @dmsilev: Maybe WaterGirl could tweak the comment interface so that it brings up a popup warning “Your message will cost the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars to send everywhere,” strictly for nostalgia.

  67. 67.

    dmsilev

    @Ken:

    “UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED, ESPECIALLY to COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARDS.”

    (if we’re going old school, we need to bring back the classics)

  68. 68.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jinchi: DeSantis funded Everglades restoration and provided support for expanding the Florida wildlife corridor. But he ignores climate change, which is already hitting the state hard, and basically sucks on the environment like all Repubs do. He’s just better than Rick Scott, which is a low bar.

  69. 69.

    dmsilev

    @Betty Cracker: I would have thought that Rick Scott would at least have been good at combating invasive pythons in the Everglades, just to cut down his competitors for prey animals.

  73. 73.

    cain

    @piratedan: ​
     

    Have you looked at the new Android mastodon client ‘trunks’ pretty rad. Still some ux issues but promising especially with being able to quote toot.

  75. 75.

    Another Scott

    Acyn says he saw elsewhere that unverified (no $8/mo blue badges) people can only view/read 600 tweets a day.

    Melon must be sweating making his next $300M+ interest payment at the end of July / early August…

    [eta:] Whoops, slow again.  See #71 above.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  77. 77.

    Jeffro

    Should we all hold a bake sale and use the proceeds to buy whatever’s left of Twitter once Musk is done with it?  That’d be kind of cool.

  78. 78.

    dmsilev

    @trollhattan: So, Musk forced his vastly overworked HardCore engineers to roll out a major new feature without really testing it, it hilariously broke pretty much the entire site, and Musk is now claiming that he meant to do that and it’s all the fault of nefarious data-scrapers.

    Is that about the gist of things?

  80. 80.

    Jinchi

    I find it extremely unlikely that WaterGirl’s woes occurred at the exact same time as the latest Twitter malfunction.

    I think it’s pretty clear Elon has been pirating off her internet connection.

  81. 81.

    trollhattan

    @dmsilev: Self-DDOS was not on my bingo card but yes, think that’s the gist of it.

    “More eyes=more income” seems to be a furrin’ concept there now. I await the Tesla Model I–the first invisible EV.

  85. 85.

    Jinchi

    @trollhattan: ​
     Our buddy Cheryl has front-paged the Twitter mess at LGM

    So Elon managed to pull off a DDOS attack on himself!

    That is hilarious.

  86. 86.

    Geminid

    @trollhattan: Duke Power used to give away truckloads of coal ash that was then used as construction fill all over the area around Lake Norman, which is about 30 miles north of Charlotte. One middle school’s soccer field was built on hundreds of cubic yards of coal ash.

    Then a mother whose own kid had been operated on for thyroid cancer discovered that there were other kids in the area walking around with scars on their necks. So in 2019 she blew the whistle on what became known as the Iredell County cancer cluster. Then she moved her family to Florida.

  93. 93.

    Mobile

    To me, the most egregious law signed by Desantis provides legal protection to medical personnel who refuse to provide medical care to LGBT+ folk for reasons of conscience or religious belief. (SB1580)

  95. 95.

    Geminid

    @RaflW: The gravel in roads around Virginia generally is a blue-grey color, but up until 20 years ago the road gravel in a few counties around Culpeper was a maroon color. The asphalt also had a maroon tinge.

    Then people realized that the gravel’s radioactivity was above normal. I’m not certain it exceeded standards, but the quarry was shut down and now the roads are made with blue-gray gravel.

  97. 97.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @dmsilev:

    Is that about the gist of things?

    Consider the possibility that the update that caused this is also a bug he’s making excuses about.  He only announced it after it happened and there was an uproar.

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:

    He’s killing it on purpose for reasons only he and his paymasters know.

    Musk is losing incredible amounts of money in this.  Insane amounts.  He’s got no paymasters.  Some other skeezy folks are also losing a lot of money, but they’re not saving Musk from a walloping.  This is just the incompetence of an asshole narcissist.

  99. 99.

    Scout211

    @Jackie: Click on the link to the article. Here.

    In the Advocate article, there is a Twitter embed video that is viewable. That’s how I was able to view it. (Scroll down the article). The video is in a tweet from “DeSantis war room.”

  100. 100.

    trollhattan

    @Frankensteinbeck: Wish there were a way to remove him from the car and rocket companies. They have value beyond whatever Twitter is/was, and it’s clear he’s fixated on the joint and not in a good way.

  103. 103.

    Betty Cracker

    @Frankensteinbeck: Bingo on both points. I was worried that Musk would leverage Twitter’s centrality with journalists and officials to rat-shag democracy to death, and that can’t be ruled out. But his astoundingly inept management is making that less likely by the day. Sometimes you get lucky and the supervillain is as dumb as a rock.

  107. 107.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @trollhattan: Rumor is, the worker bees at Tesla are ecstatic that Elmo has gone Full Frontal Captain Ahab about Twitter. They’re aware that they only have a temporary window before the other major auto companies step up their EV game and turn Teslas into Edsels, so it’s better for them that their idiot boss is having a tantrum somewhere else.

  110. 110.

    dmsilev

    @The Thin Black Duke: I believe it. Tesla desperately needs a not-Musk to run it. The problem is that the board of directors there is stacked with his cronies, so firing him as CEO would be pretty difficult.  The other problem is that defenestrating Musk would tank Tesla’s stock price; it’s hugely overinflated largely because he is indisputably good at hyping vaporware, and if that goes away, the bubble deflates.

  112. 112.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Frankensteinbeck: yeah he’s just a fucking moron. There is no paymaster here. He made the mistake, so popular on the right, of thinking twitter was indispensable, and that buying it and twisting it to his purposes would let him win the culture war; and that no matter how much he fucked up, people would be forced to stick around.

    Meanwhile Bluesky is buckling under the strain today, but I can hardly blame them. Hopefully it opens up soon!

  116. 116.

    HumboldtBlue

    @trollhattan: ​ 

    I read an article earlier this week forecasting hell weather for youse in the Sacramento area. Stay cool, it’s 62 here on the coast.

  117. 117.

    Tony G

    @dmsilev: The fact that Musk has legions of fan-boys in this country is yet another indication of the stupidity of our culture.

  118. 118.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Just when you think DeSantis can’t get more vile…

    Viciously Anti-LGBTQ DeSantis Ad Ridicules Trump’s Pulse Massacre Speech, Shows Images Of Serial Killers

    Ron DeSantis’ Republican presidential campaign posted a deranged ad on Friday that attacked former President Donald Trump and Pride Month using clips from American Psycho and The Wolf of Wall Street. “To wrap up ‘Pride Month,’ let’s hear from the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate it…” tweeted the DeSantis War Room, attached to a bizarre and unhinged compilation showing Trump’s ties to the LGBT community.

    The video opened with a 2016 clip of Trump telling the RNC, “I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens,” as a rainbow pride flag was edited over the top. The video went on to show clips of necrophiliac-serial killer-rapist Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, and gangster Tommy Shelby from Peaky Blinders. Finally, at the end of the video, a drawing of DeSantis as an alligator with reptile eyes and spiky teeth could be seen.

    The clip from Trump’s speech was one Trump gave after the Pulse Massacre, and ad includes a brag that someone said his policies “literally threaten trans existence.

    It would have been less offensive if he had a 4 Chan Nazi create it. And of course the homo-quislings are meeping about how he wasn’t supposed to eat their faces.

  119. 119.

    trollhattan

    @HumboldtBlue: ​Thanks, 62 sounds…nice.

    We had Best Spring Ever so I’m dialing back my heat-bitching for now. Am now acquainting myself with the AC side of our new heat pump system. It can heat the house, but how’s that other function?

  120. 120.

    piratedan

    @cain: I have seen that there are a few more tools than there used to be.  One of the best ones is that after you start building a list of follows, you can then cross reference whomever you follow with who they are following too…. helps you flesh out your feed.

    The biggest lament I hear over and over again is that the people they want to follow haven’t migrated from Twitter yet.

    When you consider how people have built their reputations via Twitter, I can understand their reluctance to move, but with each new “improvement” that Mr. Musk rolls out, it becomes less viable a place to spend time.

  124. 124.

    Major Major Major Major

    @piratedan:

    with the exception of BlueSky, which is the property of the guy who sold Twitter

    Not true, he’s one of three board members and a relatively minor shareholder (exact % unknown). Twitter seed funded them years ago and that’s it.

  127. 127.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Sister Golden Bear: Don’t be surprised if someone gets fired and DeSantis says he had nothing to do with that atrocity. Then again, it only needed to be seen once.

  130. 130.

    Scout211

    @Sister Golden Bear: Betty Cracker upthread said it was made by Christina Pushaw’s group.

    Here is info about DeSantis War Room.

    TALLAHASSEE (FLV) – The DeSantis campaign launched the “DeSantis War Room” Twitter account to fight off attacks on Gov. Ron DeSantis as he runs for re-election.

     

    “Follow us for rapid response to attacks on @RonDeSantisFL from legacy media and left-wing extremists (yes, that’s redundant),” the account’s Twitter bio said.

    . . .
    DeSantis’ former press secretary, Christina Pushaw, is now the Rapid Response Director for the governor’s campaign team.

  131. 131.

    Jackie

    @Cameron: Gee, who does that remind us of?🤔

    Does Pudd’n Boots really think he’s gonna be living in the WH – thus protected by Executive Power?😂

  133. 133.

    Jeffro

    @Cameron: wait…he doesn’t want to ride to a landslide victory in November 2024, fresh from CRUSHING THE MOUSE???!?

    lol

    I’m going to go find a site where I can place a couple bucks on Disney…I can do that, right?

  135. 135.

    laura

    @The Thin Black Duke: that was a lovely bit on an otherwise mournful day. Spouse and I just took Chet for the last ride. He was the best bad dog who got me through the hardest days of my life.

  136. 136.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Cameron:

    Hmmm. Sounds like Governor Sassy Boots is less than 100% confident that he’s going to take down Big Mouse. 

    WEAK. SAD. POOP. (h/t Wonkette)

    “Let’s be honest.  Those boots wore him.” -Bowen Yang as Jafar

  140. 140.

    Jackie

    Meanwhile, the RNC has a problem…

    ”Politico: “Meeting the Republican National Committee’s polling requirements … might be a lot harder than it looked at first blush.”

    “That’s because the RNC’s criteria exclude virtually all of the public surveys conducted these days, meaning there may not be many opportunities for the lower-polling candidates to even hit that 1 percent. According to the RNC’s guidelines, in order to count for debate qualifying, polls have to survey at least 800 ‘likely’ primary voters or caucus-goers. [Those] criteria aren’t just strict — they’re unrealistic.”

    What if the GQP candidates revolt and refuse en masse to participate in these debates until the ridiculous rule of signing an un democratic oath to possibly support an indicted/found guilty of espionage candidate be removed from the rules?

  142. 142.

    Cameron

    @Jackie: I don’t understand why this would be a problem for any of them.  They’ve made their careers by undermining democratic structures; this should be a piece of cake.

  143. 143.

    Jay

    @laura:

    so sorry, for your loss, no dogs are bad. They aren’t all good boys,……. some are girls, even if they get into trouble from time to time.

  145. 145.

    FelonyGovt

    @Sister Golden Bear: I can’t believe this is going to “work” as a campaign stance. It’s going to offend way more people than impress them. Except maybe in Florida.

  146. 146.

    pat

    That video of deSatan is horrifying.  It’s like he is demonstrating that he will be evil and cruel ON PURPOSE ALL THE TIME, rather than occasionally like TFG.

  150. 150.

    pat

    @laura: ​
     
    So sorry.
    The last ride…. Might be looking at that for Pablo soon, if he doesn’t start eating more. So far the latest treatment seems to be starting to get him interested in food again.

  154. 154.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    I just sent the White House a message because the VA website will not work on my Apple computer. I called the VA to find out the problem and was told that I needed to purchase a Microsoft based product because Apple computers were crap. So now I am just a bit pissed off that I can no longer access the VA website so that I can reorder a prescription or contact my doctor over the VA website. Especially pissed off because while I’ve purchased a lot of computers in the last 45 yrs (yes I said 45 yrs, first computer was an Apple II, purchased in 1978) I’ve owned DEC computers, several Microsoft based computers, and a few Apple computers. The Apple have always worked better for me, and I highly recommend them. I’ve sold 2 iMac computers that both still work fine for their second owners.

    Just wanted everyone to know, Ruckus is pissed off today.

  156. 156.

    Scout211

    @Ruckus: Do you have an iPad?  I have been using my iPad to access the site for Mr. Scout.

    Added: but that was a few months ago. Most of the time we call on the phone for services.

  157. 157.

    Tony G

    @Frankensteinbeck: I guess so!  But, as someone who is not in the cult of Musk, it looks to me like he’s incompetent as a technician and manager.  The “AI” in his cars kill people.  His rockets blow up.  Hi “Boring Company” builds unworkable “transportation” projects.  And he’s destroyed Twitter.   He’s a make-believe “technical genius” in the same way that Trump is a make-believe “brilliant businessman”.  I guess there’s a lot of overlap between the fans of both cult leaders.

  158. 158.

    karen marie

    @HumboldtBlue:   Well, Musk says he’s  limiting the number of tweets one can read but the reality is the site is now crashing so frequently – in whole and in part — that you’re “lucky” if you can read more than 100 tweets.

    His next step will be to disallow posting of tweets, like front-pagers do here, or – even more likely – he’ll allow it but it’s going to cost you.

    I don’t understand people trying to make Bluesky happen.  Jack fucked everyone up once.  Why give him an opportunity to do it again?

  159. 159.

    Ruckus

    @MisterForkbeard:

    Would of course depend on the radioactivity of the material being used and how much of it is mixed in. Although it might be not quite as reasonable to lay on the road pavement.

  160. 160.

    Ken

    @piratedan: When you consider how people have built their reputations via Twitter, I can understand their reluctance to move,

    Eventually they’ll notice what hanging out at the Nazi bar is doing to their reputations.

  161. 161.

    Tony G

    @Ruckus: That’s sheer incompetence on the part of the VA.  They had a responsibility to test their website will all “widely used” computers.  It’s not like Apple is some obscure company.  Back in the day (i.e., about 50 years ago) my parents would call the office of their Congressional representative when there was nonsense like this with a government agency — and sometimes that would help.  I wonder whether that still works.

  162. 162.

    Ruckus

    @eclare:

    I’m with Verizon but on the west coast and had no problems with internet or the phone. However, all phone and internet feed around here is fiber optic cable so that may explain a lot. Or not.

  163. 163.

    Ken

    @karen marie: Remember that you can use downdetector to report problems. Just go to that link and click the “I have a problem with Twitter” button, then in the popup choose the specific issue.

    Curiously the popup doesn’t list “Owned by an incompetent fascist with advanced Dunning-Kruger syndrome”, though that’s certainly where a root cause analysis of any of the listed problems would end up.

    (“First time I ever saw a technical team’s ‘Five Whys‘ analysis where the answer to every iteration was ‘Goddam Elon Musk’.”)

  164. 164.

    Major Major Major Major

    @karen marie:

    I don’t understand people trying to make Bluesky happen. Jack fucked everyone up once. Why give him an opportunity to do it again?

    Then have I got good news about who owns and runs the place!

    I really need to do a post about bsky to clear some things up…

  165. 165.

    Tony G

    @Frankensteinbeck: My son has what I think is a good analysis of the super-rich like Musk: He has such an insane amount of money that he could lose 90% of it and still be ridiculously wealthy.  Therefore he treats his money like Monopoly money.

  167. 167.

    Ruckus

    @Tony G:

    That phone call was worse than sheer incompetence. That, if one doesn’t mind hearing this, PISSED ME OFF.

  170. 170.

    twbrandt

    @Ruckus: I’m a software developer who works on web applications. Someone is feeding you a load of bullshit. Macs are my primary development machine, as they are for many, if not most, web software developers. The site my shop works on works equally well on windows, macs, and tablets of any kind, as long as they are running a relatively recent version of Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge.

  171. 171.

    Ruckus

    @Scout211:

    Not an  iPad, I have a Mac Studio. Very fast, very good. The problem of course is not the computer or the software on my end, it is the VA website. Hell that message I sent to the White House was on the WH  website on the computer that won’t access the VA. And the VA knows it’s a problem because the operator that I talked to was at the VA support number. She’s one of OUR employees.

  172. 172.

    laura

    Thank you all for your kind words- I’m using them to fill in the weinie dog shaped hole in my heart. Chet insisted that it was always Right Now and Us and damn, was I lucky to have had him. I’m cutting a check to the Front Street Shelter in his remembrance while Spouse seeks distraction in the Giants game.

  174. 174.

    Dan B

    @Geminid:  I believe that coal ash is radioactive.  Or at least it contains radioactive elements.  Hence moar cancer!

  176. 176.

    piratedan

    @Major Major Major Major: then please do so…

    BlueSky will be dogged by me (and others) until there’s more transparency about who is in charge….

    afaik there are two truths… one Jack sold off Twitter and was responsible for their sketchy behavior regarding trolls and hate speech

    two, he’s involved with BlueSky as they are using his original setup for driving traffic and tools, no idea on if those people that worked on their API’s will be included or just it will end up being in the end.

    I fervently hope it WILL be all that and a bag of doughnuts.  Yet, Dorsey has already shown us who he is, I have no idea if those partnered with him will be cut from the same cloth.

    As of yet, it’s not open to the public, its invite only as I understand it, which is just as transparent as hell innit?

  178. 178.

    MomSense

    @laura:

    Oh, Laura I’m so sorry.  My old lab was like that for me.  The routine of his morning and evening meals and walks and the patient way he knew when to come over and put his head next to me for pets. He pulled me through.  I won’t sugarcoat it.  You never quite get over it and even now thinking of him can make me cry.  But in time you realize what a gift it is and those memories will sustain you.

    Big hugs.

  181. 181.

    Geminid

    @Dan B: Virginia rate payers will pay several billions of dollars over the next few years for safer storage of Dominion Energy’s coal ash. In the past the plants would turn the ash into a slurry and pipe it downhill to a lagoon along a river. Now they have to seal the storage areas better, maybe even move the ash uphill.

    I’m not sure if Dominion still operates coal plants, but if they do they’ll probably close them by the end of the decade if not sooner.

    The Iredell County cancer cluster is an alarming story. It did not make national news much, but state and local media have covered it. When I last looked, the presence of the cluster was confirmed, but authorities had not established a causal link between the cancers and the coal ash. Intuitively, the connection seems obvious.

  187. 187.

    Major Major Major Major

    @piratedan:

    BlueSky will be dogged by me (and others) until there’s more transparency about who is in charge….

    The CEO is in charge, Jack has written about this in several places. He barely even uses the app.

    he’s involved with BlueSky as they are using his original setup for driving traffic and tools, no idea on if those people that worked on their API’s will be included or just it will end up being in the end.

    I don’t know what this means. What original setup? What people? What APIs? Bluesky was created in 2019 as an independent team within Twitter that spun itself off into a PBLLC. I’m not aware of any team members who worked at twitter proper, and even if they did, so what? One engineer of thousands.

  190. 190.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @laura:

    Sorry about your beloved pupper, Chet

    It’s a gut punch when you lose a pet, they’re like family

  193. 193.

    Subsole

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Little Green Footballs is nice.

    The host, much like our own blog father, started off conservative and chose sanity.

    Good mix of topics and people. Plus some amazing guitar players.

    Lawyers Guns and Money can be a useful source for analysis, but dear God when those folks get on a doomer jag, I gotta cut out. So dark they start pissing licorice, sometimes.

  194. 194.

    raven

    Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) took the stage Saturday at a Donald Trump rally in his home state of South Carolina to massive boos from the crowd.

    Graham attempted to begin talking over the jeers, which partially drowned out his remarks in support of the former president’s bid for a second term.

  202. 202.

    Subsole

    @Scout211:

    There it is. Silicon valley douchebro/Republican business strategy in pure, refined form.

    Take a product that works fine.

    Make it absolute garbage.

    Charge everyone for the privilege of not using your shitty product.

    Cry about uppity bla Wokeism.

  203. 203.

    Timill

    @Tony G: Also, they’re isolated in a bubble of the seriously rich – their security teams aren’t going to let them nip down the street to the local McDonald’s or Waffle House. So they only associate with people who have similar security. And so, they get the no-tax views reinforced…

  208. 208.

    Subsole

    @Mobile:

    People whose conscience prevents the rendering of aid need to get the fuck out of the profession.

    I will, God and registry scores permitting, be entering the medical field in a couple months. The idea of turning away a patient makes me furious. Especially over shit that is none of your business.

  209. 209.

    Ruckus

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    One often becomes an incompetent asshole narcissist when the billions of dollars one has exceeds 3 times their IQ. Elon is there. And has been for some time. BTW that gives him an IQ around 75.

  214. 214.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @laura: Aw, Chet was there for you as you were for him. Condolences to you and your spouse on this hardest of days.

  216. 216.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Subsole:

    People whose conscience prevents the rendering of aid need to get the fuck out of the profession.

    Exactly. Doctors swear an oath to do no harm. Medical professionals are supposed to help people, ALL people

  222. 222.

    Subsole

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I really like the grave visits. And sometimes the analysis can be good. Loomis is a sharp guy. But good lord, yes. The doomerism.

     

    Also, threaded comments. Not. Even. Once.

  225. 225.

    Dan B

    @Subsole:  Yes, Log Cabin Republicans.

    Now closer to being in the rail cars with the rest of us. Finally they get what we’ve been shouting.

  228. 228.

    rikyrah

     

    Uppity Faerie Gothmother of Metal and #TeamOrca (@FountainPenDiva) tweeted at 0:26 PM on Sat, Jul 01, 2023:
    When I think about this tumultuous week with SCOTUS, my rage doesn’t just fall upon the 53% of ww, or those who voted 3rd party, but the chaos agents with Black faces in our midst like Ice Cube, Killer Mike, Lenard McKelvey (CtG), Luther Campbell, the F*A and A*OS fools – who
    (https://twitter.com/FountainPenDiva/status/1675194117893275648?s=02)

  230. 230.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think people got a little too freaked out about it, but the protests did work in that the rate limits were way increased from the initial proposal, expected to affect like 80 bots sitewide. As for the CEO? He sounds like a piece of shit. But I wouldnt stop using Reddit just this yet.

  231. 231.

    Gin & Tonic

    I’ll stipulate that Charles Barkley is an asshole (h/t raven) but after the SCOTUS affirmative action ruling, he’s changing the terms of his bequest to Auburn, to try to help maintain diversity. Story here.

  234. 234.

    Ruckus

    @pat:

    That will win him votes from some rethuglican voters. The reality is that they want to win and win big and the only way they can is to get rid of a lot of us.

  236. 236.

    piratedan

    @Major Major Major Major: I’ll just agree to disagree… I hope that BlueSky ends up being the new best social media platform as you hope.  If you have more to share, I’m sure that lots of us would be interested in knowing more, if for no other reason than the impact that Twitter had in disseminating breaking news, specific news, and allowing those with like interests to find each other and communicate, having a tool that helps to make that happen is welcome.

  237. 237.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Subsole: Think of broken creatures like Clarence Thomas or Stephen Miller. Judas Goats leading their tribe to the slaughter.

  239. 239.

    Ruckus

    @twbrandt:

    I messaged the White House on their website about it, we’ll see if there is any response. Well what do you know, I already got a response. Standard boiler plate response but it was just acknowledging the message and that someone would be looking into my complaint, so it wasn’t just an automated response, someone had to have read it.

    Oh I fully understand that this is bullshit. But they have been having issues with the VA website so I imagine they have been getting a few complaints. Quite a few.

  240. 240.

    Dan B

    @Subsole:  I’ve encountered a few of these well off, white, cynical gays.  They worship those of high status.  I worked for a lot of very wealthy people.  Most of them were nice and not impressed with their status.

  241. 241.

    Major Major Major Major

    @piratedan: agree to disagree about what though? I still don’t understand what point you’re hoping to make.

    At any rate—the Bluesky app is proof of concept for an open-source federated protocol, so when they open that up (it’s in open sandbox testing right now, going well), the people running bsky.social itself will not matter so much.

  242. 242.

    Dan B

    @rikyrah:  Horrible.  Mississippi has enough problems and Jim Crow doesn’t help.  What business would locate there if their employees could be abused.

  246. 246.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Baud: no, it’s something new. Pretty clever tech spec though some important parts are still conceptual. Maybe this weekend really is the right time to write it up! Cheryl has been writing some pretty weird stuff about it at LGM so wouldn’t hurt to toss a couple more accurate cents out there.

  248. 248.

    Princess

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Eww. I got polled by Rasmussen once years ago. I lied and told them I was a Republican. I STILL get messages from GOP candidates they sold my name to. No bueno for a polling company to do that. Nate must be trying to get a new job on the dark side.

  249. 249.

    JaySinWA

    @Ruckus: “go buy a computer from some company other than Apple” sounds like the “reboot your computer and call back later” ploy [to get you off the phone so their call time stats are better] on steroids. Helpless help desk taken to the extreme.

    OTOH when people ask me for help with their Apple computers I often flail and plead ignorance, because I have virtually no experience with Apple stuff. But I am not paid to do that stuff either. I presume they have some Apple specific help scripts to work from somewhere in the VA house besides the “get a machine I know something about” one.

  250. 250.

    Joseph Patrick Lurker

    “What A Fucking Corrupt Sleaze-bag DeSantis Is”

    By the time the Republican primary campaign wraps up and Trump secures the nomination, DeSantis will be completely humiliated and his reputation will be in tatters. He’ll never again be considered a serious presidential contender.

  251. 251.

    Ruckus

    @Subsole:

    I signed on and think the concept is ok but there’s really very little to get my attention. I’m not sure how to describe it but every time I go on I last a few minutes at most and I’m done. And I get long emails about how it’s improving and Check It Out. I do and then really nothing. Maybe not enough folks using it, maybe not enough something, something, whatever. Maybe it’s just too nice, too 4th grade teacher like, maybe it just doesn’t add up.

  253. 253.

    Another Scott

    @Ruckus: It looks like similar things have been going on for a while.

    I don’t know if this is related to the Mac/VA issue, but, unfortunately, different software companies have different ideas about security and what they will and will not permit to interact with their site. We’ve got some ancient Java forms code at work that was broken by an Oracle Java update (and it’s almost impossible to install older versions any more). Expired or inappropriately signed security certificates are a continual bane of trying to do things on the web (Safari won’t let you get around them).

    The MyHealthEVet FAQ doesn’t give one a lot of confidence that they’re keeping their software up-to-date in talking about Internet Explorer and the AOL Browser… :-/

    They do say, though, that the site has been tested and works with Safari (but the VA is huge and who knows whether that claim applies to everything).

    If you can’t get Safari to do what you need to do, try Chrome and Edge. If it still doesn’t work, you can try installing Winders in a virtual machine (VirtualBox, etc.) and that should work.

    (I’m 99% sure you know all of this, but I’m throwing it out there for conversation.)

    Good luck!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  254. 254.

    NotMax

    Just for the giggles, ran Ron DeSantis through an anagram generator. A few cherce samples:

    andirons set
    anoints reds
    a snide snort
    ass end intro
    ass indentor
    darn nosiest
    nadirs onset
    no Streisand
    not sardines
    rad tensions
    sandier snot
    sinners toad
    snide nostra
    :)

  256. 256.

    JaySinWA

    @Princess: I didn’t finish the article Nate wrote, but I didn’t see him primping for Rasmussen, just criticizing the way the new guy was stating the problem and the idea that they would go back and threatening to remove Rasmussen from the previous data. Looking at who Rasmussen works with specifically and not applying the same scrutiny to other pollsters would be bad if that’s what they are doing.

    OTOH Nate is kind of an ass, and tends to make unsubstantiated claims in factual matters, so I don’t take his word on it.

  257. 257.

    satby

    @laura: Aw laura, condolences.Hardest of all the things we do for them, but to free them from suffering is our last gift of love. Hugs.

  258. 258.

    Subsole

     

     

    @Ruckus: I see.

    I really am not worried about the entertainment side of it. Probably be good for me if I spent a lot less time on social.

    I mainly want us to have a viable communication, information, and organizing tool for Team Blue. Because the networks damn sure ain’t that

    And I frankly don’t trust the TechBros anymore.

  262. 262.

    Ruckus

    @JaySinWA:

    Read twbrandt at comment 170.

    I have heard of a lot of issues with the VA site so I imagine that others are having issues besides me and the call volume is likely rather high and possibly not all that friendly. A lot of vets use VA healthcare, I’ve found it to be rather reasonable and have seen some amazing work with wounded and disabled vets. My issue with this is that as twbrandt states, the website issues and the answer I got is bullshit. Pure, unadulterated bullshit.

  263. 263.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:

    Thanks!

    I did all that other than the virtual machine possibility. Which is why I called. And actually the site has sometimes in the past been a bit wonky but it’s never been near this level. My computer tells me it cannot find the site, that it does not exist. Which seems strange as I have been going there at least semi regularly for over 10 yrs and was on it last week.

  265. 265.

    Another Scott

    @Ruckus: That sounds very strange.  Are you sure you’re using the right web address?

    If that’s right, are you having DNS issues?

    Have you tried changing your DNS settings from whatever your ISP’s default is to:

    8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (Google’s public DNS servers)

    for testing?

    You could also try a “traceroute” to see where the packets are getting lost.

    How to run TraceRoute on a Mac.

    HTH a little.

    Good luck!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  266. 266.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:

    Also, your link is sort of blaming Safari as being unreliable and this is the only site I have any issue with. One site. It is of course one site I actually need. Other than that Mac and Safari have been stellar for me. I’m an Apple fanboy simply because as someone whose had, as I said above, computers since 1978 I have always had a better experience from Apple over Microsoft. And yes I still own a small laptop type computer that uses Microsoft for it’s operating system. Haven’t used it in over 11 yrs but it still boots up. Can’t be upgraded and is old enough that it’s rather useless but still, it turns on.

  267. 267.

    Another Scott

    @Ruckus: My J has been using Apple stuff since the Apple II days, and I help her out with her various machines.  I appreciate that they’re good machines and generally work well.  They’re a zillion times better than PCs at network printing, for example (30+ years and Microsoft still hasn’t figured out how to make network printing painless – grrr…).

    But when things don’t work on Macs, it can be very hard to figure out the reason why because Apple hides stuff away from mere mortals.  So, people blame the Mac or Safari or whatever, when they really just want the thing to work.  So, I get the frustration on the Apple forums…

    Good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  268. 268.

    mrmoshpotato

    Fuck you apartheid shitstain!  I can’t check for updates on the rain delay.

    Oh, and how he’s fucked actual news updates from every news organization in the world.

    POS!

  271. 271.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:

    Ran it 3 times. It gets to a server and then just keeps looking for another server or the actual site and giving no actual answer other than 3 asterisks per line as it keeps searching. It’s either the last server is down or the site is down and it can’t connect or find anything.

  272. 272.

    prostratedragon

    “it’s like this place but without any of the things I actually like”
    If it wasn’t too referential to another site, this would make a great rotating tag.

  273. 273.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:

    Gee, Apple is trying to make things a bit less capable of being hacked, who coulda known.

    I’ll just call the VA hospital or actually now take the train over there (it just got a hell of a lot easier 2 weeks ago with the LA Metro train system opening 3 new underground stations and thereby connecting the 2 main rail transit lines so that I can get to and from the VA hospital 20-30 minutes faster)

  274. 274.

    Another Scott

    @Ruckus: Progress then!

    It sounds like something’s broken on their end.  Maybe they’ll get it working Monday, but being the day before a holiday you might be stuck until Wednesday.

    If you get to talk to a human again, sending them the traceroute output might help them figure out what is wrong.

    (Government enterprise networking is really complicated – agencies often have their connections provided by yet another part of the government so they don’t have direct control over them, and getting all the packets where they need to go is a challenge – especially when things are being upgraded / changed.  Protecting access to private health information introduces yet more layers of complexity.)

    Good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  279. 279.

    Ruckus

    @Timill:

    va.gov

    I did the tracing that Scott said to try and it came back rapidly with 4 routings and then it just kept coming back with the 3 asterisks which means it’s done but not at the given address. I let it go about 2 minutes. Now it could have been the last router that couldn’t find the address or the address is borked or the router is but the fact is it didn’t find jack or his cousin shit.

  280. 280.

    Ruckus

    @Ruckus:

    I tried tracing again and it came back no such address. I attempted to go on line with the address I had been trying and getting no where but then tried again to open the site and low and behold it worked. And then crashed and lost my message to my doctor.

  281. 281.

    Timill

    @Ruckus: I got similar:

    Tracing route to va.gov [152.133.106.221]
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    11 31 ms 30 ms 34 ms be-2411-pe11.56marietta.ga.ibone.comcast.net [96.110.32.34]
    12 30 ms 30 ms 34 ms 66.208.233.102
    13 * * * Request timed out.

    18 * * * Request timed out.
    19 57 ms 53 ms 43 ms 12.86.154.70
    20 49 ms 44 ms 40 ms 152.133.240.66
    21 46 ms 46 ms 42 ms 152.133.240.8
    22 * * * Request timed out.

    30 * * * Request timed out.

    Trace complete.

    So: overall no connection, but routers 20 & 21 were in 152.133.*.* which should be close to va.gov at 152.133.106.221

    Interesting…

    Then again, just accessing va.gov in Chrome did get me a signin page…

  282. 282.

    DMcK

    @schrodingers_cat: ​
      That Speedball set is a great place to start! You may also want to consider a Japanese nib called “G-Pen” made by a few companies (Zebra and Deleter come to mind, but I think there are others) which is very popular with cartoonists & mangaka. I’ve used it and it’s great! Very versatile with just the right amount of spring. Ironically I mainly use fountain pens these days, though.

  283. 283.

    Ruckus

    @Timill:

    I tried Chrome and it gave me the same results. Maybe I’ll go to the Apple store and see if it works there…. I’m not holding my breath.

    But as I stated above it did go to the site a few minutes ago using Safari, the site worked normally until I hit send on the message to my doc. Who the hell knows whats wrong, but I’d bet actual money that it is on the VA end, as the site has acted like it was built by an elementary school class, on the day that every kid with an IQ higher than 65 stayed home.

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