She will be called icon and trailblazer many times today, and it still won’t be enough. ?? pic.twitter.com/BgJXBt4Ghk
— tré easton (@treeaston) September 29, 2023
There are many tributes, but it will be hard to beat this one. The Washington Post reprints a profile from 1984, about a history most of us never knew — “Dianne Feinstein makes the vice-president shortlist” [Unpaywalled gift link]:
After a while it begins to feel relentless. Here come the national news magazines, and the suburban dailies, and the eastern papers, and Cable News Network and the “CBS Morning News”; here come Brussels and Tokyo television men, wondering if she might spare them a moment or two. Here comes the AM radio man, following her even into a late-night television appearance, asking about it again…
Last Saturday, in a two-hour visit at his home in North Oaks, Minn., Walter Mondale interviewed Dianne Feinstein about her possibilities as Democratic candidate for the vice presidency of the United States. “A symbol of the very best in America,” Mondale said afterward, as the two of them smiled broadly for reporters. It was a laboriously publicized visit, like nearly everything connected with the present fuss over the vice presidency; it has been duly noted that in his first 10 days of interviewing potential running mates, Mondale interviewed and thus publicly flattered Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, a southerner; Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, a black; and Dianne Feinstein, a woman.
A Jewish woman, at that.
A Jewish woman from San Francisco, which in other parts of the country has what advertising people might call an “image problem.”
She knows the odds on this…
A kind of bruised sound is creeping into her voice.
“I mean, after all the b.s. you can take in this job, well, I can hold my head high,” Feinstein says. “And that’s nice, too.”
The mayor of San Francisco is sitting, as she says this, on a bench alongside Stow Lake, which is a small and locally cherished man-made lake in Golden Gate Park. She is wearing a slightly sweaty T-shirt, blue warm-up pants, running shoes and tortoise-shell sunglasses. She is the mayor of an odd, fickle, 700,000-person city, a woman shoved into office by a double murder, elected to a standard term, subjected to an unyieldingly nasty recall campaign, upheld by a vast majority of the voters and ushered nearly without opposition into a second mayoral term….
[Trigger warning: The story of her childhood is almost as harrowing as the story of the Moscone / Milk murders.]
… The whole city was benumbed already by the Jonestown deaths, and when just over a week after Jonestown the news came crashing down from City Hall-that the conservative former supervisor Dan White, ostensibly in a rage over Moscone’s failure to give him back the supervisor’s seat White had quit, climbed through a basement City Hall window and shot to death both Moscone and gay supervisor Harvey Milk — then, for the people who kept gathering in quiet, desperate memorial services, the thing was nearly too much to bear.
And Feinstein kept saying it would end, that it would be over, that the city would go on. The Board of Supervisors made her mayor, and from the moment she had to walk into the City Hall corridor to tell the small assemblage of reporters that Moscone and Milk were dead — the tapes, played again and again in the aftermath, recorded some reporter’s full scream — Feinstein did what she had to do with such grace that even her most ardent political enemies soften still when they remember it. “It is my duty to make this announcement . . .” She stood up straight and sounded steady and yet compassion somehow resonated from her every time she spoke, or moved among a grieving crowd. “As we reconstructed the city after the physical damage done by the earthquake and fire, so too can we rebuild from the spiritual damage . . .”
She had run for mayor twice in her career, and been beaten both times so badly that the severity of the trouncings astonished her. She had convinced herself that she was unelectable, that it was time for her to leave city politics. And now, in a city cracked by death, with a massive anti-discrimination suit facing the police department and a $130 million budget deficit brought on largely by the tax-cutting initiative Proposition 13, Dianne Feinstein was the mayor of San Francisco…
And if you are a woman, you must, of course, yell twice as hard and look twice as mean, until after a while they get used to you, Feinstein says. If you have been mayor for 5½ years by then and if your name is mentioned in the same sentence as “vice president” by people not simply out to flatter, then the pressure to be tough starts at last to ease off.
“I’m finding it less and less now,” she says. “I think I’ve made the point.”
And that was almost forty years ago!
Senator Dianne Feinstein was a pioneering American.
Serving in the Senate together for more than 15 years, I had a front row seat to what Dianne was able to accomplish.
Dianne was tough, sharp, always prepared, and never pulled a punch, but she was also a kind and loyal friend,… pic.twitter.com/I2zQvOkDud
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 29, 2023
War for Ukraine Day 584: Congressman Quigley Votes No!
SiubhanDuinne
That’s a lovely tribute from POTUS. I’m enjoying reading the many articles and eulogies.
Mai Naem mobile
It’s a pity that Diane Feinstein will initially be remembered for the last few months rather than her lifetime of work. I had forgotten she was the one who fought for the CUA torture report. We probably wouldn’t have known about it for decades if at all, if it wasn’t for DiFi. Too many people, especially women, take it for granted that women were always in the halls of power. They’ve completely forgotten the work done by women like DiFi, RBG and Shirley Chisholm to get here.
Cacti
I’ll mostly remember her for her Iraq war profiteering.
Hasta la huego.
tobie
I remember when Feinstein released the report on the CIA’s program of special rendition and the torture of prisoners. That took guts.
geg6
@tobie:
Yes, that was one of her greatest moments in her long (or possibly overlong) career. I still say her greatest was how she reacted to the Moscone and Milk murders. Such grace under what must have been such shock and pressure. I won’t criticize her yet. Plenty of time to discuss her flaws later. I prefer to reflect on her best moments and what she meant for women for now.
Almost Retired
She has much to be proud of, and I think history will judge her well. Yes, her warts are well known, but her accomplishments outweigh them.
My sons (age 30 and 24) constantly complain that a liberal state like California couldn’t have had a much more progressive Senator than Feinstein.
But they forget how relatively conservative California was when she was elected waaaay back in 1992. When I was in my 20’s in the 1980s and early 1990s, California had two consecutive Republican Governors, and hadn’t voted for a Democrat for President since Goldwater. Things started to change – rapidly – around 1992, when DiFi and Boxer were both elected to the Senate and Clinton carried the state. Maybe she shouldn’t have run in 2018, but her primary challenger was the odious Kevin de Leon.
SW
I have recently come to realize how unfair it is to judge a person based on the final few years of their life when their health is declining. Get the shingles vaccination people.
SiubhanDuinne
@SW:
Amen to all of this. It does seem that over the past 15-20 or so years, presumably in the interests of “honesty” and “integrity,” we feel it necessary to lead with the warts when a famous, complex person dies. I wish we wouldn’t knee-jerkedly do this.
CarolPW
@geg6:
I saw her press conference after the murders live, and it was impressive and touching. My ex and I lived in Sacramento then but had spent a lot of time in or near the City, always took the SF Chronicle, and followed the political and cultural activities. Moscone was well-liked, and Harvey Milk was beloved by a significant portion of the population. An idiot angered that Moscone would not give him the city council seat back he quit in a snit make him kill the mayor. Being a religious nut-job led him to kill Milk next, I guess just for shits and grins. The City was so angry it would not have been surprising if people had decided to burn that shit down.
Feinstein was suddenly mayor, and she helped plan and lead the march and vigil that followed, and I’m pretty sure it kept things from blowing up. It got less national press, but I think was the most important thing she did for the city she loved.
Scout211
Speaker Emerita is accompanying Senator Feinstein’s body back home to San Francisco on a plane provided by the president. Those two amazing women have been good friends and their families are close. Link
tobie
@geg6: In the months ahead we will hear more about her last 2 years. I’ve been hesitant to say anything because the questions about her mental competence began as a whisper campaign and then reached a crescendo with claims on the left that Feinstein was no longer in possession of her faculties.
Was she? I don’t know. She was clearly frail and maybe she shouldn’t have run for reelection in 2018 but all that is water under the bridge. Her opponent in 2018 turned out to have a host of his own problems.
Dan B
@CarolPW: Dan White who had been a cop got away with murder by claiming he’d been temporarily insane from eating two twinkies.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
FTR, when TIFGDJT45 dies, I’m perfectly happy to lead with the warts. He is nothing but warts.
Alison Rose
Ah yes, it wouldn’t be the internet if someone didn’t show up to a memoriam post to remind us that the deceased was a horrible monster who shouldn’t be mourned or missed in any way.
I was going to share some other nice remembrances but never fucking mind.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@SiubhanDuinne: Warts on warts on warts
SiubhanDuinne
@Scout211:
That makes me cry, and smile. So perfect.
Miss Bianca
@Mai Naem mobile: I am not so sure that most normies are going to be thinking about her last few years, if my Book of Faces feed is anything to go by. Women and men alike – doesn’t matter, they are praising her for being a groundbreaker, a role model, and an effective administrator and legislator.
Maybe we could stand to do the same.
That was a great WaPo article, I didn’t even remember that she had been considered for VP. But that was my first presidential election, and I wasn’t following politics as closely then.
Almost Retired
@SiubhanDuinne:
There are only warts. And fascism. Also fascism.
SiubhanDuinne
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Like turtles, it’s warts all the way down.
Miss Bianca
@Dan B: Ah, yes, the infamous Twinkie Defense.
CarolPW
@Dan B: I remember vividly.
Trivia Man
@SiubhanDuinne: I agree – starting with a negative is grossly unfair if the overall body of work is praiseworthy. Fine to allude to something – but make the haters wade through all the praise to find the hate nugget they seek.
Mousebumples
We watched The Report on Prime a few years ago. I think it’s a “documentary” but I’m not sure how much is “not sure, probably this” to fill in narrative blanks. (it’s about the CIA torture reporting)
Stars Adam Driver, with Annette Benning as Feinstein.
I respect her for her years as a respected Senator – even if I have qualms about some later year votes and decisions. May her memory be a blessing to those that knew her.
dr. bloor
@Mai Naem mobile: She wont. Everything problematic about her (and her staff) that jumps to mind to us will be historical arcana inside a decade.
Grumpy Old Railroader
As a lifelong California Liberal, I have voted for Feinstein’s opponent in every single primary election yet voted for her in every general election. She was literally my least worst choice in every general election. She wasn’t progressive. She was a conservative Democrat. As SFO Mayor, she blamed “the gays” for all the city’s problems.
But she did a few good things. Assault Weapons ban of 1994 and something something something can’t remember. Not retiring in 2018 was just something else piled on to my “why I don’t like Feinstein” list
Jim, Foolish Literalist
not unlike the right claiming that Biden is both senile and boss of a crime family, and Obama was weak and feckless and masterminding an international plot to socialism something, the anti-Dem left is convinced Feinstein was both a victim of elder abuse by her staff, who propped her up for… reasons, and the sole obstacle to the Green New Deal or I don’t know what else. She had clearly lost a step, maybe a few, but I don’t believe the Senator-Weekend-At-Bernie’s scenario
Here’s Jane Harman and (sigh) Andrea Mitchell talking about the former’s lunch meeting with Feinstein the day before she died.
Barbara
@SW: I gather she had a severe case — but the vaccine is not 100% effective, and probably less so for the oldest and the immuno-compromised. She may very well have been vaccinated.
At some point your time is just up.
Dan B
@Miss Bianca: I believe there were riots the n8ght the verdict came in. And Dan White committed suicide a few years later.
wjca
@Dan B: FYI, White served 5 years of a 7 year sentence. Two years after he was released, he committed suicide. Given the effective lack of a death penalty in California, that was about as good an outcome as we could get.
EDT, your update got in before me.
Another Scott
@SW: @Barbara: feinstein.senate.gov:
That’s all it says – it doesn’t say whether she was vaccinated with Shingrix (recombinant zoster vaccine) or Zostavax (zoster vaccine live).
+1 to Barbara – our bodies are very different when older than when young.
Cheers,
Scott.
tobie
Maybe I’m paranoid but something has always struck me as suspicious about the whisper campaign that started around Feinstein two years ago. It turned out to be an effective line and brogressives ran aggressively with it, likely because Feinstein was perceived as an establishment Dem in a state that could elect a progressive Senator. The rumors became mainstream.
Jane Harmon mentioned on TV yesterday that she’d spoken to Feinstein recently and she was sharp. Barbara Boxer recounted calling her at the urging of other Democrats, and it was clear that Feinstein cottoned on to the reason for her call quickly and politely but firmly refused to participate. That’s not the sign of a confused person.
I hope young people are working their way up the ladder through local and state govt because we will need them in higher office soon and the more experienced they are in legislating, the better for us. Feinstein’s path from a supervisor to a mayor to a Senator is a model to follow
ETA: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Just saw your comment. Thanks to the link for Harmon. Glad to know I’m not alone in my suspicions.
SiubhanDuinne
@Barbara:
That’s just the plain scientific truth.
WaterGirl
@Alison Rose: So you’re gonna let one person with a shitty comment set the tone for the entire thread? Why don’t you help dilute their comment with the good memories you were going to share?
edit: poorly worded. As I re-read that, it sounds critical. It was a suggestion, along the lines of don’t let the assholes win.
scav
Lot of people better hope the crowds witnessing their passing are a bit less self-absorbedly virtuous and broadcasting same on all frequencies. Or not. Just so long as they’re ready for their own snigger chorus as they’re lowered down. Ain’t nothing but us mixed bags here.
geg6
@Dan B:
As he should have long before.
Sorry, not sorry.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: I know someone who got the earlier version of the vaccine. This summer she was going to start the Shingrix version but she put it off for a couple of weeks for some dumb reason (her characterization) and she got shingles.
I don’t know, of course, but I’d be willing to bet that she had the earlier one that wasn’t as effective.
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: I knew about Dianne Feinstein’s service as Ssn Francisco Mayor, but I never paid her much attention until her election to the Senate in 1992. That was called the “Year of the Woman.” Democrats Carol Mosely Braun, Barbara Boxer, Barbara Mikulsi and Patty Murray also won seats that year.
Now Senator Murray is the only one left. She’s still going strong though, and has proven herself a capable and efficient successor to Patrick Leahy as Chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee. Murray is also President Pro Tempore of the Senate.
I learned something about Patty Murray today that I had not known before: when she was in her teens, Murray’s father developed multiple sclerosis and the familiy had to apply for public assistance. He had been manager of a “five and dime” store.
Murray went on to earn a college degree and worked as an educator and citizen lobbyist for environmental and education issues. In 1988, she ran for a state Senate seat and beat the two-term Republican incumbent. It was after this that one of Murray’s Senate colleagues told she would never get much done because she was “just a mom in tennis shoes.”
Senator Murray is 72 years old and lives on Whidby Island.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Like when I talked to the third roofer shortly after I bought my house (inspection sid the roof was fine). I didn’t tell anyone I had already had other people out.
When the third one told me I needed a new roof, I asked why, and told him the inspection had said it was fine.
His reply:
Is that what you’re saying? :-)
WaterGirl
@Geminid: Living well is the best revenge.
horatius
She’s the Senator McCain of Democrats. Never did much from a very liberal seat and held the Democratic party back until her final days. California could have done much much better than this conservative small “d” democrat.
And for those who disagree, here’s the full list.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/09/feinstein-2
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: I just know me and I’ll be tempted to get drawn into spats, which I don’t wanna do. People can have their opinions, I just wish they didn’t seem so eager to piss on someone’s grave who on balance was not a bad person.
WaterGirl
@Alison Rose: If perfection is the requirement, we are all in big trouble!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@horatius: McCain of democrats? What?
she pissed me off with a lot of her pro bush votes ( I can’t believe I’m kinda sorta defending her, in fact) but she wasn’t even in the top ten of conservative senate democrats in 09-10 and her relative conservatism didn’t make a damn bit of difference when Manchin and Sinema were holding the deciding votes
and California voters repeatedly decided not to “do better”
Dan B
@Geminid: I have clients and know a garden writer on Whidbey who probably know Patty.
Geminid
@Alison Rose: In my peculiar Cosmology there is a planet parallel to this one, where Dianne Feistein was a “Bold Progressive” who called Edwin Snowden “a Hero.” Instead of hugging Lindsey Graham after the Kavanaugh hearngs, this Dianne Feinstein kicked Graham in the nuts.
Now, all over that strange planet, wailing leftist men are shearing off their man-buns in grief.
SW
@Barbara: Get the vaccine. I just went through that with my Mom last year. Agonizing and led directly to her death. Of course we all die sometime but how we die matters.
WaterGirl
@SW: We – my sisters and I – feel the same way about my Dad. He got shingles on his face and it was terribly painful, and it seemed like it just did him in.
gwangung
Most likely, because they were a true reflection of her bedrock political philosophy (because, after all, she hired them to do that). A politician is a team, not just the visible leader.
WaterGirl
@gwangung: I’m not sure what you are getting at with this comment.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@WaterGirl: Basically her staff knows her. They know what she wants and can take on the heavy lifting.
gwangung
@WaterGirl: I am being a little obscure; it’s just that the “reasons” hinted at by detractors don’t make any sense. The whole point of staffers is to carry out the policies of the lead politician. They take the lead of their politician’s philosophy and past actions; as such, there is nothing nefarious about these staffers carrying on that philosophy
ETA: I just started teaching a college class. Perhaps being called “Professor” is causing me to become more obscure in my comments, like the regular faculty.
wjca
I take it you are unpersuaded that, as Jim notes below, California voters repeatedly decided that we could not “do better.” You might consider that California is not, in reality, a super liberal state.
Democrats are in control across the board, simply because the California GOP got an early start on the crazy-town train. Now, with top-two primaries, we often have two Democrats on offer for the general election. And, other things being vaguely equal, the more moderate/centerist candidate generally beats out the more liberal/progressive candidate.
There are plenty of other Californians here, who may have a different perspective, of course. But don’t count on it.
Mousebumples
Pharmacist PSA – Agreed.
Vaccines may make you miserable for a day or two with side effects (the 12-24 hours after my covid booster on Wednesday were rough), but better to be miserable for a day or two than for much longer with an illness.
Grumpy Old Railroader
This is the problem in a nutshell. Some would consider this the solution (not me)
wjca
So, you’re saying that you see it as a problem that we get the officials that a majority of the voters here prefer?
Forgive me if I observe that this is precisely the position that the Republican reactionaries take. From the opposite end of the political spectrum, certainly. But the same view that the voters don’t know what’s good for them.
Suzanne
@Mousebumples: I was finally able to get my Covid booster today. Got my flu shot, too. I was planning on not doing them at the same time, but decided I don’t have the luxury of time to space them out.
At the pharmacy, they asked me which am I wanted them in. I said that I wanted them in my left. They said they had to do them in different arms. I was like “THEN WHY DID YOU ASK!?”. LAWL.
MisterForkbeard
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I voted for her in the last round. Her primary opponent skeeved me out (justifiably, apparently) and Feinstein was never as bad.as the left said she was.
But she really shouldn’t have run.
lowtechcyclist
@wjca:
It does seem kinda like letting GOP voters fully participate in the Democratic primary. (Emphasis on ‘like’ here. I know you don’t actually have one.)
Mousebumples
Yeah, i got mine together, too. Also different arms. Not *impossible* (eg if someone has a medical reason to avoid 1 arm – eg cancer or something), but better to separate in case of side effects.
Could barely tell I got my flu shot from his that arm felt, so I’m glad I put that in my usual side sleep arm. The covid arm is still sore a few days later…
I think 4 shots was the max I ever did at 1 time for 1 patient. 😳
Suzanne
@Mousebumples: I took note this time that Covid booster went in the left, because I had a lymph node swell up under my collarbone last time. And I freaked out that I had cancer, until Dr. Google reminded me that it was a side effect.
tam1MI
Not even close to the full list, just a transparent hit piece by a typical misogynistic and possibly Anti-Semitic Cosplay Leftist. It fails to mention, for example, her staunch advocacy of gun control (including authorship of the Federal Assault Weapons ban, which was the law of the land until a president elected in part because Cosplay Leftists couldn’t bring themselves to vote for the guy who said that climate change was the biggest threat to our planet overturned it). It fails to mention her strong support for the ACA, INCLUDING the public option. It fails to mention her votes against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act, her numerous attempts to have the Senate vote to repeal, and her final successful attempt to do so with the Respect for Marriage Act, which required the federal government and state governments to respect marriage equality. It dismisses what Feinstein consistently described as the proudest accomplishment of her career, the CIA Torture Report, by claiming to know the “real reasons” why she did it – an impossibility because ESP doesn’t exist.
Look, I am no big fan of Dianne Feinstein. Her record on many things near and dear to our hearts as Democrats as mixed at best. And she definitely stayed around long past her sell-by date, when her health and faculties were clearly in decline. But she had some real accomplishments on her record, and to ignore them in order to spitefully trash her in death is plainly dishonest.
wjca
For the most part, they end up voting for one of their own RWNJs in the primary. But what it does do is give those who haven’t expressed a party preference a say in who gets to November. Which, since they are upwards of a quarter of the electorate, doesn’t seem unreasonable.
If progressives have a candidate they prefer, they can, and do, get their preference to November, too. I may be doing him an injustice. But what Grumpy seems to be lamenting is the lack of party primaries. Where Democrats might nominate a more liberal candidate. Who would then win, not because the majority of voters agreed, but simply because the Republican candidate was so horrible.
In fact, that’s precisely why we went to top-two primaries: so the majority of the state’s voters, who are not Democrats, could have a say in who would represent them.
Steeplejack
@Mousebumples:
When I got my most recent shots (two), the nurse said it was better to get one in each arm so that if there was a reaction you would know which shot caused it.
wjca
@lowtechcyclist:
Look at it this way.
Scenario 1 (the way we used to do it): Democrats nominate someone who is preferred by say a quarter of the state’s electorate. Republicans nominate someone preferred by maybe 10% of the electorate. And the state’s “independents”, who are a quarter or more of the electorate, get no say in the primaries. Then they get stuck with a choice in November of whoever the parties selected.
Scenario 2 (the way we do it now): Everybody gets a vote in the primary. In November, having narrowed the field to 2, everybody again gets a say.
Rebel’s Dad
@SiubhanDuinne: Hasn’t it always been this way, at least to an extent?
The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interrèd with their bones.
Steeplejack
@tam1MI:
Loomis does, in fact, give Feinstein credit for her support of gun control:
I thought Loomis’s piece is an interesting counterpoint on Feinstein. Not ranty, lots of references. I didn’t follow Feinstein’s career very much but felt like I knew the highlights. There was a lot in his piece that I didn’t know. He is certainly critical, but I didn’t think it was a “transparent hit piece.” It is an interestng addition to all the other stuff that is being published.
karen marie
@Mousebumples: Did you move your arm vigorously for a time after the COVID shot? I was so advised when I got my first COVID vaccine. I don’t know why it would be different than, say, RSV but some just are. I’m trying to remember back to 1970 – there was one vaccine – cholera? yellow fever? – that had a similar effect while the rest were fine.
Gretchen
For the people who say we need to stock our bench, I’m looking at the hearings yesterday. Dems seem to be putting our young reps forward and giving them mentoring to be effective: AOC, Frost, Crockett, Porter – all speaking yesterday and very, very effective.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: The “jungle” primary system now used by California and Washington has created a new dynamic for sure. I think we’ll find out over time how this dynamic works out for those two states. I’ll be watching the upcoming California Senate election for some clues.
One thing I noticed in the last cycle was that only 2 of the 10 Republican House Impeachers won reelection, and they were both from jungle primary states. That would be Dan Newhouse (WA) and David Valadeo (CA). Three others- Rice (SC), Meijer (MI) and Cheney (WY) lost Republican primaries, while one, Jaime Herera Butler, lost a jungle primary in the southwest Washington district won Iin November by Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. The four others retired.
One voting system that intrigues me is the one Alaska used last year for the first time. Candidates first ran in an all-comer jungle primary. Then the top four advanced to a ranked choice runoff in November. I would not be surprised if this system eventually becomes the most common nationwide.
Miss Bianca
@tam1MI: Not just dishonest – “distasteful” or even “disgusting” comes to mind as a descriptor as well.
Rebel’s Dad
I got my flu shot in mid-August. Tomorrow I’m scheduled for the new Covid booster and my shingles shot. I’m only 45, but having obesity means I am technically immunocompromised, so I’m taking advantage of it.
I have three degenerative discs in my back, I don’t need any more pain. Shingles looks and sounds fucking awful.
Citizen Alan
@Dan B: Um, no. He got seven years, served five and killed himself less than 2 years after getting out of prison. The Twinkie Defense was laughed out of court, and anyway, the media misrepresented it completely. The actual Twinkie Defense was not that Twinkies caused him to go crazy, but rather the fact that a guy who’d been something of a health nut was reduced to subsisting on Twinkies and other junk food was supposed to be evidence of his severe depression that was (supposedly) grounds for diminished capacity.
And not that I’m going to bat for Dan White (who was a piece of shit who deserved worse than he got). I just have a pet peeve about people condemning legal arguments because media horseshit graduates to the level of urban myth. (See also Jay Leno and his decades long mockery of Stella Riebeck and the McDonald’s coffee cup case).
karen marie
@Citizen Alan: Thank you.
Jay
@Dan B:
there were protests, lots of protests. The only riot was a Cop Riot.
I was there.
Another Scott
@tam1MI: Thank you.
Cheers,
Scott.
Annie
Anotherlurker
Regarding the Shingles vaccine: get it. No question.
I delt with that horrible disease for a year and a half. It was on my face and i looked like a bad makeup test for a 1950s Sci Fi film.
At first I was afraid I was going to die. Then I was afraid I wasn’t going to die.
Annie
@Geminid:
There is no possible way DiFi would have kicked Lindsey Graham anywhere. Read some of the articles about her early life. She spent her childhood protecting her sisters from an abusive and violent mother and learned from all that to always try to calm things down.
Annie
@Citizen Alan:
Oh this. A thousand times this. Drives me nuts too and makes it a lot harder to explain to non-attorneys how the courts actually work. (I’m a clerk in an appeals court so I spend a lot of time trying to do that.)
bjacques
@Jay: I wasn’t there but I saw the riot photo on the cover of The Dead Kennedys’ first album, “Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables”. Jello Biafra said someone mailed him a burnt police car license plate.
From California’s history as a state, it never struck me as being as liberal as it’s made out to be, so having a relatively conservative Democrat like Feinstein to balance out progressives like Barbara Boxer probably helped ease the state’s transition to the Democratic stronghold it is today.
Geminid
@Annie: I guess I should have said, “In my very peculiar Cosmology….” at #45.
But I am not surprised to hear you say that California likes to elect maderates. I think liberals often assume that a state with a lot of Democrats must have a whole lot of liberal Democrats, and should elect very liberal candidates.
When they don’t, people like Loomis feel cheated somehow, but that’s because they ignore polling where people self-describe by ideology. Or maybe they see the polling, but they feel like the most liberal Democrats are a sort of vanguard that is entitled to lead the rest.
Geminid
Turkiye’s Grand National Assembly began its Fall session today in Ankara. Journalist Ragip Soylu (@ragipsoylu) tweeted some video of President Erdogan walking towards the Assembly building to the sounds of a smartly attired police band.
Ratification of Sweden’s Nato accession will be high on the agenda of the newly elected Assembly. Erdogan has made noises that accession is contingent on approval by the US of the sale of F-16s to Turkiye. Reuters reported a few days ago that Turkish officials assured Senator Ben Cardin, the new Foreign Relations Chairman, that Sweden’s accession will be aporoved. So which will come first: the F-16 Chicken or the accession Egg?
Geminid
Earlier. Soylu posted pictures and video of an attack this morning on a checkpoint outside the Interior ministry in Ankara. Two men drove up in a minivan and when it stopped, a man jumped out of the passenger side and ran towards the checkpoint firing an automatic rifle. The the driver climbed out, grabbed a rocket launcher and fired it. Both attackers were killed, and two policemen were wounded, one seriously.