Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

Peak wingnut was a lie.

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

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

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

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

People are weird.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

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

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Republicans don’t trust women.

Books are my comfort food!

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

If you’re looking for someone who’s young and athletic, go watch a fucking movie.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thursday Afternoon News Open Thread

Thursday Afternoon News Open Thread

by | 175 Comments

This post is in: ,

A few big pieces of news that I’m aware of.

🌸

🌸

🌸

Any other news this afternoon?

Open tread.

Update: Reminder that today, Dec 7, is the day the Washington Post employees have asked all of us to avoid going to the Washington Post for anything – because the employees are on strike, or are walking out. I am fuzzy on the details, but I”m personally all in favor of honoring their request.

Reader Interactions

175Comments

  1. 1.

    Helmut Monotreme

    Put Octreotide on the top of that list please.  A 28 day injection of any goddamn thing on the planet shouldn’t cost $26,500.

  4. 4.

    Lapassionara

    As I recall, Trump has to ask the district court for a stay, then when (if) it’s denied, he can ask the Appellate Court for a stay. Any thoughts on whether the appellate court would grant a stay? In most cases, the litigants can’t just bounce up to the appellate court to appeal interlocutory orders, but who knows in this case. Maybe some exception I’m not thinking of would apply.

  6. 6.

    skerry

    Re: The Texas abortion case, AG Paxton is threatening hospitals if they comply with the court ruling

    Dec 7 (Reuters) – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday threatened to prosecute any doctors involved in providing an emergency abortion to a woman, hours after she won a court order allowing her to obtain one for medical necessity.
    Paxton said in a letter that the order by District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin did not shield doctors from prosecution under all of Texas’s abortion laws, and that the woman, Kate Cox, had not shown she qualified for the medical exception to the state’s abortion ban.

  7. 7.

    Suzanne

    Kate Cox, the woman in Texas who sued for access to an emergency abortion, has had her requested granted. Thank the FSM.

    If there was any question about the esteem in which the right wing holds women, it should be settled by now. What a horror.

  10. 10.

    Josie

    I know that he has to be given every opportunity to defend himself, just like any other citizen. Lord, however, I am so sick of seeing him throw everything but the kitchen sink at the legal system. I almost wish there could be a moratorium on news of all this until a trial actually takes place.

  13. 13.

    C Stars

    More GOP matricide: woman is carrying nonviable fetus with trisomy 18 that if carried to term will likely cause uterine rupture; judge grants stay so that she can access an abortion; Ken Paxton swoops in and forbids it, threatening the woman, the judge, and the doctors.

    WaPo gift link removed at the request of C Stars because of the Washington Post boycott today.

    ETA: In Texas. Where else?

    ETA 2: I see I’m late to the game.

  14. 14.

    New Deal democrat

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: And in both cases, it’s the judicial equivalent of waving a red flag in front of a bull. In this situation, the respective appeals courts are the bull.

    Courts do not like it when you pre-emptively tell them that their orders are toilet paper.

    ETA: the US Supreme Court has been seeding a path for  RWers for this for years. Now they are seeing the poisonous fruits of the resulting tree, and they are not going to like it.

  16. 16.

    Jeffro

    But…but I thought Mr. Innocent was…innocent?  Shouldn’t he want to be cleared (excuse me I meant to say EXONERATED!!!1!) of all charges as quickly as possible, so that he can get on the campaign trail full-time, and quit wasting his time in court/quit wasting his $$$ on lawyers??

    It’s almost like…like he’s guilty of something, and wants to delay a conviction past the election.

    Why drag it out, Mr. Innocent?

    I’m just sayin’…

  17. 17.

    WaterGirl

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: That poor woman, and all the women in the same positions.  And all the women who want to get pregnant but want to be able to control their own bodies.

    What kind of heartless animal wants a woman to bring to term and give birth to a baby that can’t live and will die an agonizing death.

  19. 19.

    laura

    @C Stars: I’d urge people to hold off on that Wapo link until after the 1 day strike today. It’s still going to be an enraging article, so please don’t cross the virtual picket line.

  20. 20.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @skerry:

    Paxton said in a letter that the order by District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin did not shield doctors from prosecution under all of Texas’s abortion laws, and that the woman, Kate Cox, had not shown she qualified for the medical exception to the state’s abortion ban.

    These are all rhetorical questions, but:

    If it doesn’t apply to her, then who would it apply to?

    What’s the fucking point of making this woman carry a baby to birth that will die in agony shortly afterwards and could make her infertile?

    There’s no reasonable explanation for this and I almost can’t believe Paxton would do this after abortion has proven to be political kryptonite for Republicans

  22. 22.

    Kay

    @skerry:

    This behavior is a disaster for them. They truly don’t understand this issue – this is the exact fear that women have – that these laws will kill them. Its not even really about “abortion” anymore in the narrow sense that the Right sees it – it’s now about whether they will deny women medical care.

    The anwser is yes! Yes, they will!

  23. 23.

    Suzanne

    @skerry: Apparently this was said:

    Johnathan Stone, an attorney with the Texas attorney general’s office whorepresented the state in the hearing, argued that Cox and her husband had not sufficiently demonstrated that they would suffer “immediate and irreparable injury” without an abortion.
    “The only party that’s going to suffer an immediate and irreparable harm” if the judge grants the requested order, he said, “is the state.”

     
    The state will be irreparably harmed?! She’s obligated to risk her health and her life on behalf of the state?!

    Get fucked.

  25. 25.

    smith

    Here’s the one that sent me into a tailspin today: J.D Vance sent letters to Merrick Garland and Anthony Blinken (?) demanding that they investigate and prosecute Robert Kagan for his editorial in the WaPo pointing out that a second TFG presidency would be the end of democracy. Apparently saying this is tantamount to inspiring an insurrection. We are so far gone into bizarroworld I feel like I’m losing my bearings. It’s no longer a debatable idea in the GQP that TFG has replaced the Constitution as the bedrock of our government.

  28. 28.

    Raoul Paste

    I am so furious about this Paxton thing that I can hardly write a coherent sentence.  There’s no reason for this, except to assert power, and demand unnecessary suffering,

  31. 31.

    laura

    @C Stars: hey, no worries and I felt bad stomping on your comment. I’m strident about labor actions and appreciate your understanding😚

  32. 32.

    Kay

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    The exceptions are a lie. No one qualifies for them. Even if they weren’t a lie this moronic statutory scheme that fancy Right wing lawyers have come up wouldn’t work – because they’re not physicians and they are not in a position to make these decisions.

    “health of the mother” is where the anti abortion “movement” runs right into a brick wall. Women are never going to accept that lawmakers and lawyers should be in a position to deny them medical care.

  36. 36.

    Suzanne

    @Kay: As discussed in an earlier thread, the Great Replacement Theory is about race, but really is underscored by misogyny. White men are terrified that white women do not have to have their babies (and that they might choose men of other races to be their sexual partners/parents of their children). Look how far they are willing to go to revert women to broodmares. Paxton and his cohort would willingly kill us all.

  37. 37.

    Dan B

    @C Stars: I wish the husband would get some media consultants to get him on camera, start with Tik Tok, etc.  A simple message like “AG Paxton is threatening my wife’s life and the possibility of our having children in the future.  Any man would defend the life of his wife.”

  38. 38.

    scav

    What proper god-fearing woman would deign to not be thrilled to carry a life-threatening doomed fetus to term!?  Would not squeal and instantly run out to buy “non-viable baby on board” tee-shirts and car signs?  I mean, being so blessed as to carry an instant angel (if she can survive the side effects) — all parents are on their knees daily hoping for such an honor to threaten the lives of their daughters.

  39. 39.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Kay:

    Absolutely and I couldn’t imagine either. I’m so glad Ohio and Virginia made the right choice last month

  40. 40.

    pat

    This ken paxton can’t possibly be that stupid and evil, can he??  (but of course he can)

    I just wish these a-holes could go through a dangerous pregnancy.  Or their wives would go through what must be a horrible situation.

  41. 41.

    Dan B

    @Dan B:  This issue needs to be defined so that men understand that AG Paxton and others are interfering with their right to raise a family and protect their wives and sisters from suffering.  It’s about more than women.  It’s about everyone.

  42. 42.

    pat

    Not only what he is doing now, but how long until Texas has a dearth of OB-GYN doctors.  I wouldn’t blame them for getting out before they have to face a woman and tell her, sorry, it’s not going to live and it could make you sterile but you will have to carry it the full 9 months or we could both be in jail.

    Who thinks this is what jesus wants???///

  43. 43.

    Bill Arnold

    This is all rumor mill material (and Axios), but deliciously horror-movie-scary.
    Behind the Curtain — Exclusive: How Trump would build his loyalty-first Cabinet (Axios, Mike Allen, Jim VandeHei, Dec 7, 2023)

    Notes:
    VP: one of J.D. Vance, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kari Lake, Kristi Noem. (“Vance might prefer to remain in the Senate as ‘Trump’s hammer'”)
    (Note: “Melania Trump is an advocate for picking Tucker Carlson”)

    Attorney General: Stephen Miller
    (Mike Davis for Trump’s interim attorney general)

    Chief of Staff: Steve Bannon

    CIA: Kash Patel

    Purger of the Deep State: Johnny McEntee

    Jeffrey Clark in Justice Department reporting to Stephen Miller

    Treasury: Jamie Dimon (Not clear he’d accept)

    SecDef: Tom Cotton (Lee Zeldin also a possibility)

    SecState: Jared Kushner (maybe :-)

  44. 44.

    cain

    @skerry: So much about GOP screaming about the ACA about govt getting between a patient and their doctor.

    Ken’s sell by date has been way past – I would have thought he would be too busy going after his enemies. But nope.

  47. 47.

    C Stars

    @Dan B: I think it is about women, but I also think it’s about GOP willingness to intrude on every aspect of our lives, regardless of gender, in order to enforce their religious views.

  50. 50.

    cain

    @Suzanne:

    This needs to be turned into an ad and blasted to every TV in Texas. A woman is going to lose her ability to have children and a baby is going to die horribly.

  53. 53.

    Bill Arnold

    @Dan B:

    A simple message like “AG Paxton is threatening my wife’s life and the possibility of our having children in the future. Any man would defend the life of his wife.”

    Pretty much. Ken Paxton just issued a mortal threat to a married woman. Not sure how such threats are treated in Texas.

  54. 54.

    Ruckus

    @Jeffro:

    Quit trying to make any sense whatsoever of whatever tripe comes out of SFB’s deranged mouth.

    And yes I’m trying not to swear as much but am finding that in discussing anything about SFB I am having a very difficult fucking time not swearing……

  55. 55.

    Dangerman

    Impudently says he will act now as if a stay is in effect.

    I think they misspelled impotently.

  58. 58.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    To answer your question of what kind of man, I give you Ken Paxton.

    I believe he’s in the same club that wants SFB for a member. In fact Ken may actually be SFB II. Or SFB 12,400, 072. I’m not sure but he is in the club – ShitForBrains Forever.

  59. 59.

    BlueGuitarist

    @C Stars:

    in order to enforce their religious views.

    That these Chrinos don’t follow the Bible on how to treat the poor, immigrants, or other people in general, makes it unlikely they have sincere religious views .

  60. 60.

    Captain C

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    What’s the fucking point of making this woman carry a baby to birth that will die in agony shortly afterwards and could make her infertile?

    Sadism and complete control of women, which appear to be two of the primary motivating factors of most Republicans these days, along with racism and greed.

  61. 61.

    Subsole

     

     

    @scav: The serious, and I mean deadly serious, answer to your rhetorical questions is that these clowns will next attempt to remove any possibility that the parents will know the kid is nonviable.

    No ultrasounds. No screening. No testing. You’ll just carry it until it dies or you die or both die or neither. That uncertainty keeps the woman subjugated which is what all this garbage is actually about.

  62. 62.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @Kay: THIS!  That is why so many of these fucking laws say life rather than health.  Fuck your fertility, fuck your health, fuck your already born children, fuck your husband, fuck your family, fuck your future is what these laws and their evil upholders are saying.

  64. 64.

    scav

    @Subsole: You forgot prosecuting the women if for any reason whatsoever if the baby spontaneously aborts or if the woman drinks (etc) during pregnancy.

  65. 65.

    Ruckus

    @cain:

    Do not forget that this can easily cause her death as well.

    This is a horrible situation for any woman/couple. The state trying to make it far worse is tantamount to assault with intent to kill.

  66. 66.

    trollhattan

    No-one could have see this coming.

    Genetic testing firm 23andMe appears to be scrambling to cover its bases after it was revealed that a hacker was able to access and leak the DNA data of roughly 6.9 million of its users, a large increase from the 14,000 it reported to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a court filing on Dec. 1. [Simple rounding error, really.]

    23andMe recently sent an email to customers notifying them that the company updated its terms of service on Nov. 30 by revising its “Dispute Resolution and Arbitration” section.

    “Important updates were made to the Dispute Resolution and Arbitration section to include procedures that will encourage a prompt resolution of any disputes and to streamline arbitration proceedings where multiple similar claims are filed,” the email states. “These updates will go into effect for customers 30 days from the date this email is received.”

    An arbitration clause removes the right for a party to sue if a dispute occurs. Instead of appearing before a court, the party that feels like they were wronged would have to go through arbitration, which is a private dispute resolution process. The clause also removes the right for any party to appeal the decision.

    “Dispute Resolution Period must include a conference between you and us to attempt to informally resolve any Dispute in good faith,” reads 23andMe’s terms of service. 23andMe customers have already agreed to private arbitration of disputes in the company’s previous terms of service, and even waived their right to file a class action lawsuit. [Sounds like a tip top operation, run by the best kind of people. The best.]

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article282808188.html#storylink=cpy

  67. 67.

    Kathleen

    @scav: Next thing you know they’ll be arresting mothers who died in child birth and stoning them in public. I am not kidding about this either.

  69. 69.

    Captain C

    @Kathleen: Kind of like when they dug up that dead pope to put him on trial, and had someone “speak for him” (that is, give the answers that his inquisitors wanted).  Except in the modern case, way more messed up.

  71. 71.

    Gvg

    This is the guy who just survived an impeachment trial in Texas for using government money and threatening fellow GOP while having an affair and his wife is in the Texas legislature and stood by him?

    He’s totally out of control. They are going to regret not getting rid of him. I don’t see how this even helps with their base. Sure some are going to approve, but others are going to say this is too far.

  72. 72.

    NotMax

    Nuts, nutsier, nutsiest.

    A former California police chief who called for the execution of Donald Trump’s political enemies, joined the U.S. Capitol attack and then spread conspiracy theories about Jan. 6 was sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison on Thursday.

    Alan Hostetter was found guilty in July on charges of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, entering or remaining on restricted grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon and disorderly or disruptive conduct on restricted grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon. He represented himself during a bench trial before Judge Royce Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee who sentenced Hostetter to 135 months on Thursday.

    Hostetter, who was the chief of the La Habra, California, Police Department in 2010, was arrested in June 2021. Source

  73. 73.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Raoul Paste:

    I’ve said for decades that any state with the power to deny abortions also has the power to force abortions. The Chinese government did it. We’ve always known that this is not acpro-life movement: they care nothing about the actual baby once it’s born (witness inaction on — in fact, downright hostility to — children’s health care, gun control, school meals, etc.) It baffles me that the “small government” types are incapable of seeing that.

    ETA: Maybe not incapable, but wilfully ignorant.

  76. 76.

    Martin

    Ooh. I had long given up on Democrats ever using march-in rights.  That’s a very spicy meatball to throw in the egg salad.

    I don’t expect this would go far, but if Democrats see they can do this without getting punished, it would mean that most drugs would fall under that given that most drugs receive some kind of public funding for their development, and a lot of tech would fall under that as well since almost all university research is publicly funded.

    A nice accessory to this would have been a requirement that all publicly funded research publications be publicly available. That would solve a huge problem in academia right now.

  78. 78.

    Martin

    @SiubhanDuinne: It baffles me that the “small government” types are incapable of seeing that.

    Nobody who proclaims to be small government actually cares about small government.

  79. 79.

    Dan B

    @C Stars: It is definitely foremost about women but I don’t believe there’s much messaging aimed at how it affects their husbands, boyfriends, fathers, etc.  Paxton wants to take agency and happy futures away from women and the men in their lives.  Does her husband have any say in whether or not his wife lives or dies?  Paxton says No!  There are men who would want their wife to try to carry a seriously diseased fetus to term but I believe they are a small minority.

  82. 82.

    Mallard Filmore

    @laura: 

    Somebody ought to feed Ken Paxton into the wood chipper dick first.

    That would be a waste of good tissue. Send Paxton to the organ bank.

  86. 86.

    suzanne

    A reminder that women dying is acceptable (and, the way I am reading it at this point, preferable) to plenty of these men, as long as they get a baby out of it.

  87. 87.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Suzanne:

    The state will be irreparably harmed?! She’s obligated to risk her health and her life on behalf of the state?!

    Get fucked.

    The entire TexASS AG office can fuck themselves – and not gently – with rusty farm implements.

  88. 88.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Josie: I’m all for due process but the degree to which people with the means can delay justice is infuriating, especially when it comes to TIFG. He’s so obviously guilty of everything he’s being charged with. TRY THE CASES and FIND HIM GUILTY and LOCK HIM UP already.

  89. 89.

    Tony Jay

    @smith:

    It’s underpants gnome trolling . Nothing more sophisticated than that.

    Their guy invited an insurrection that Liberals say was a bad thing, right? So just accuse someone on the other side of inciting an insurrection and then call Liberals hypocrites for not demanding their arrest and prosecution…. something undefined happens here…. declare victory!

    Right wingers have totally bought into the ‘we’re just fighting fire with fire, but we’re also the only ones supposed to feel bad for it’ framing that let’s them actually feel good about stuff like this. Yeah, the accusation is nonsense, but if Liberals don’t treat it seriously then it (somehow) proves that the accusations against Trump are nonsense too and that Liberals don’t really think that Jan 6 was an insurrection, they just don’t like real patriots.

    Basically, they’re just wankers.

  90. 90.

    Mallard Filmore

    @BlueGuitarist: 

    That these Chrinos don’t follow the Bible on how to treat the poor, immigrants, or other people in general, makes it unlikely they have sincere religious views .

    If they did follow the Bible, they would demand that the Biblical punishment for adultery be applied to a certain well known adulterer. (it involves stones)

  92. 92.

    Kay

    STOCKHOLM, Dec 7 (Reuters) – Tesla (TSLA.O) lost a chapter in a legal battle with Sweden’s postal service on Thursday as a fight with Nordic trade unions escalates, with a Finnish union joining a port blockade that will prevent the carmaker from importing its vehicles to Sweden.

    A Swedish court ruled PostNord does not for the time being need to deliver licence plates to Tesla that are being blocked by the postal service’s workers, in the latest twist in a fight over collective bargaining agreements.

    Blockade spreading.

  93. 93.

    Jay

    So, news,………….

    The refugees and migrants that ruZZia tried to push across the Finnish border, stopped when the Finns closed all the border crossings, are now facing two choices, join the ruZZian army, or be deported.

    https://www.bbc.com/russian/articles/cy72zdy47qlo?ocid=wsrussian.social.in-app-messaging.telegram..russiantelegram_.edit

    On the bright side, Poland and Ukraine are loading the blockaided trucks onto flatcars and transporting them past the ruZZian quisling’s border blockaide.

  95. 95.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Martin: 

    Nobody who proclaims to be small government actually cares about small government.

    The correct size of the government is one that is big enough to protect ME, but too small to protect YOU.

  97. 97.

    japa21

    In totally different news, at approximately 3:30 P.M. CST. Mrs Japa and I began our 50th year as a married couple.  I guarantee you that I got the better part of that agreement.

  101. 101.

    H-Bob

    “the list of taxpayer-funded drugs that the companies are charging a ridiculous amount for”?  AOT, K.

  104. 104.

    Subsole

    @Bill Arnold:

    I mean this with all due love and respect, my friend:

    If any particle of that shit struck you as “delicious”, you need to go get your taste buds examined by trained medical professionals.

  105. 105.

    WaterGirl

    I saw this and thought, “why is she giving them nearly 2 weeks to respond to this bullshit demand of Trump’s to stay her trial while he appeals?”

    Then I realized that today is 12/7 and 12/10 is Sunday and 12/12 is Tuesday.

    I love it when she makes them work on weekends.

  106. 106.

    Percysowner

     

    I’ve been working to avoid WaPo all day. I did hit one link, realized it was WaPo when it opened up and shut the tab immediately.

  107. 107.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Jay:

    I know the definition. Aren’t the Finns our allies? They’ve joined NATO, haven’t they, and are providing aid to Ukraine?

  112. 112.

    Subsole

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    The small gov types want a government small enough to fit in the palm of their hand, and heavy enough to crush all the earth beneath their whims.

    Because they are assholes, Ms. Subaru. Ass. Holes.

  114. 114.

    Subsole

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Yep.

    These people genuinely believe with all of their soul that life will be too easy for people, if they don’t come along and torment them.

    They’re not sadists, see. They’re just being Jesus’s personal balancer of the cosmic scales. Agents of karma, if you will.

  116. 116.

    Brachiator

    I noted previously a little news nugget that Venezuela recently held a referendum to annex part of neighboring Guyana. I wondered whether this might result in a little regional tension.
    Well… Various news outlets are noting:

    The United States said it will carry out military flights in Guyana on Thursday in a joint operation as the South American country faces soaring tensions with neighboring Venezuela over a contested oil-rich region.

    “In collaboration with the Guyana Defence Force, the U.S. Southern Command will conduct flight operations within Guyana on December 7,” the American embassy in Guyana said in a statement, noting the flights are part of “routine engagement” to enhance a security partnership between the two countries.

    Guyana has discovered lots of oil.
    A short video background piece from TLDR News.

    ETA. The Panama Canal area is suffering a big drought. Bigly big. Not good for the supply chain. Climate change may be a contributing factor. Conservative climate deniers have much to answer for.

  117. 117.

    smith

    IANAL, but maybe someone who is could answer: TFG’most recent snit is to unilaterally declare a stay to his trial, and refuse to participate until the Appeals Court rules on his motion for a stay. Does this mean that the govt can just go forward with preparations for the trial? If there’s not an actual stay in place, what’s stopping them? What if the standoff is still underway when jury selection begins? Can they select a jury if the defense voluntarily refuses to participate? If not, what’s to prevent him doing the same stunt for all his trials, and delay them all indefinitely?​
    ​
    ​

  118. 118.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Jay:

    Thanks for the clarification. I know a liberal coalition government was recently elected there, ousting the so-called Law and Justice Party

  122. 122.

    Ramona

    @WaterGirl: me too! I used to read Calculated Risk and liked it but had stopped reading blogs for a bit and forgotten about Calculated Risk. Has Yves Smith gone over to the dark side?

  123. 123.

    TBone

    @sab: It’s a website that’s about much more than banking and finance, I used to like reading there in the before times, but they’ve gone to the dark side and it is now tankie/vatnik soup from bottom to top.  Yves moved to Thailand but she should have just moved to Moscow.  A while back, Prop Or Not listed Nakedcapitalism as propaganda and Yves lost her shit hahahaha.  If you want to see what bullshit Pooty and the Kremlin are pushing it’s great but you need a very strong strong stomach.

  124. 124.

    Wombat Probability Cloud

    @Jay: Thanks for the news about the flat cars. It’s been a busy day and I’m just not sitting down to catch up. Really glad they did an end run around that BS.

  126. 126.

    Marc

    @Martin:  I don’t expect this would go far, but if Democrats see they can do this without getting punished, it would mean that most drugs would fall under that given that most drugs receive some kind of public funding for their development, and a lot of tech would fall under that as well since almost all university research is publicly funded.

    This would require undoing the Bayh-Dole Act, which just isn’t going to happen. The likes of Stanford, Harvard, MIT, etc., are now sitting on many billions of dollars of endowment as a result of being able to claim 100% ownership of publicly funded research.  Which seems to have driven the cost of higher education in general, as now all colleges find themselves spending large amounts of money to be competitive with the campus amenities that the big research universities can afford.

  127. 127.

    cain

    @SiubhanDuinne: lol – small govt types – white supremacy is a powerful drug. You can bet that they are a bit nervous that non-white men seeming to gaining supremacy – and that means that stuff like guns and what not might be on the chopping block.

  128. 128.

    Brachiator

    @trollhattan:

    23andMe customers have already agreed to private arbitration of disputes in the company’s previous terms of service, and even waived their right to file a class action lawsuit. [Sounds like a tip top operation, run by the best kind of people. The best.]

    Every online database with user personal data or financial data will probably be hacked at some point.

  129. 129.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Martin: Nobody who proclaims to be small government actually cares about small government..

    Close but no cigarillo:

    Whatever arm of the government government can keep the Far Wrong from doing something they want to do should be tiny enough to be drowned in a teardrop.
    Whatever arm of the government can keep others from doing something that the Far Wrong doesn’t want them to do needs to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnimalevolent.​

  130. 130.

    Brachiator

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I’ve said for decades that any state with the power to deny abortions also has the power to force abortions. The Chinese government did it.

    Good point. America and other Western countries have traditionally been pro-big family and pro-fertility and so don’t see how total control over women could be.

  135. 135.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Subsole:

    These people genuinely believe with all of their soul that life will be too easy for people, if they don’t come along and torment them.

    I was on the bus the other day and I overheard a woman talking about how hard it is to be a nurse, and how everyone she knew in the profession was barely scraping by, and… this made her outraged at people who were on food stamps, who were living in luxury for nothing.

    That was her reaction to adversity, not that things needed to be better for nurses, but that things needed to be worse for somebody else. They’ve got us all trained into it.

  137. 137.

    Jay

    @Brachiator:

    Brazil is beefing up it’s military deployments ajacent to the area, as the only viable routes for a Venezuelan invasion is into Brazil, then a hard right turn into Guyana.

    Venezuela has been using this “issue” as a nationalist prop since 1855.

  138. 138.

    Marc

    @Marc: This would require undoing the Bayh-Dole Act, which just isn’t going to happen.

    I meant to mention here that all of these universities have technology licensing offices whose secondary purpose is to prevent the government from exercising the “march-in” rights that are stipulated in the Act.

  139. 139.

    cain

    @Brachiator: The U.S. will certainly be asking for something in return for their help. But probably better than having their land annexed by Venezuela.

  140. 140.

    cain

    @Jay: lol – I don’t think Brazil is going to allow an army on their territory. Venezuela might decide to annex that bit of Brazil as part of their other annexation.

    Venezuela is going to be find some things out.

  142. 142.

    Ramona

    @AWOL: bmaz has not defended Trump. He’s used the right-wing epithet “Trump derangement syndrome” against people he claims are clamoring for a not-by-the-book prosecution of Trump, he’s vehemently against Fani Willis’ case because he mistakenly believes that a county Attorney General should leave election interference cases to DOJ. He forgets Garland was not confirmed until March 2021 and that the harassment of Ruby Freeman and her mother (or is it her daughter) is unequivocally in Willis’ bailiwick. A point he makes which I am willing to put some store by is that Georgia’s RICO statute is ambiguously enough written as to allow prosecutors free rein to bring otherwise unjustified cases against ordinary citizens. He has also asserted from the time DOJ got the Mar a lago search warrant for the classified documents that Garland made a mistake by not choosing DC as the jurisdiction and since then he has reiterated this criticism given the games Judge Aileen Cannon has been playing. Given that he wanted a water tight prosecution of Trump on the retention and mishandling of the country’s documents,  I’d guess he is not pro-Trump. He is however pro Justice O’Connor because he met her outside her house when her son was throwing a party there and she unexpectedly returned home as bmaz was finishing his pee outside and she was oh so gracious when he helped her with her luggage and then asked him for a beer. As though the private behavior of a right-wing bigot towards a White well-off man carries any moral weight, let alone weighed against the blow to Constitutional order that O’Connor was indispensable to in 2000 with Bush vs. Gore!

    And yes, it is cowardly of me to say this here instead of there but I reserve my courage for when it matters.

  143. 143.

    Brachiator

    @Jay:

    Venezuela has been using this “issue” as a nationalist prop since 1855.

    Some of this is noted in the video link I provided.

    The discovery of massive offshore oil has given the dispute new urgency.

  145. 145.

    Brachiator

    @cain:

    The U.S. will certainly be asking for something in return for their help. But probably better than having their land annexed by Venezuela.

    The US and maybe some oil companies.

  146. 146.

    C Stars

    @BlueGuitarist:

    That these Chrinos don’t follow the Bible on how to treat the poor, immigrants, or other people in general, makes it unlikely they have sincere religious views .

    The thesis of this Atlantic article is that what Evangelicals currently think of as their religious views are actually the political views being fed to them by right wing pastors, media, etc.

    But my point is that the idea that life starts at conception or whatever comes from their religion; there are plenty of religions that don’t hold that view. They feel called to foist a certain idea of “Christianity” on the general populace. Abortion bans may be the worst of it, in terms of causing unnecessary suffering, but…maybe not.

    And as to sincerity; that is such a slippery fish. I feel like I never really know whether they are sincere or not. I guess that I assumed the Moms for Liberty were genuinely religiously motivated, but now that it’s been revealed that one of the movement’s important founders actually engaged in lesbian sex, I realize it’s all a power grab. I dunno, maybe some percentage of them really are just dumb-ass evangelicals, and the others play the part to amass more power??

  147. 147.

    Mousebumples

    @Helmut Monotreme: Put Octreotide on the top of that list please. A 28 day injection of any goddamn thing on the planet shouldn’t cost $26,500.

    Late to the thread, however… Believe it or not, octreotide is generic! I can’t speak off-hand on if that’s excessively priced or not, but if you’re not locked into a specific pharmacy, it might be worth calling around…

  148. 148.

    Jay

    @cain:

    @Brachiator:

    Gold and silver has been in the region since the late 1800’s. Oil and natural gas discoveries, (on shore) have been there since the 1960’s. The offshore oil and gas discoveries have been there since the mid 90’s.

    Peak threats were probably back in the late 60’s, when the Venezuelan threats against Independence reached the point that the UK sent a Marine Detachment, several SAS Brigades and some RAF fighter jets.

    Venezuela has not mobilized their military, hasn’t done any overflights, deployed any naval assets.

    If you are a Venezuelan dictator, and you are down in the polls, you yell again about how the area belongs to Venezuela, and it was stolen by Globalists and the New World Order,

    just like in the US you yell about “The Border”,……

  149. 149.

    Jay

    S

    UPenn loses $100m donation after House testimony
    7th December 2023, 03:33 PST

    By Chloe Kim
    BBC News

    President Elizabeth Magill met representatives alongside Harvard President Claudine Gay and Sally Kornbluth of MIT on Tuesday.

    But they caused anger after avoiding questions on how students calling for the genocide of Jews would be punished.

    The donor, Ross Stevens, said he was “appalled” by her stance.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67655910

  151. 151.

    Brachiator

    @Subsole:

    @scav: The serious, and I mean deadly serious, answer to your rhetorical questions is that these clowns will next attempt to remove any possibility that the parents will know the kid is nonviable.

     

    No ultrasounds. No screening. No testing. You’ll just carry it until it dies or you die or both die or neither. That uncertainty keeps the woman subjugated which is what all this garbage is actually about.

    You are absolutely right here. The religious extremists want to call this uncertainty God’s will, and insist that a couple must let God decide the outcome of a dangerous pregnancy.

    But the only way that they can assert this obedience to uncertainty in today’s world is by interfering in medical care and preventing a doctor from providing the best care and advice.

  152. 152.

    JWR

    Breaking, (apparently), from NBC:

    Hunter Biden has been indicted on nine tax-related charges, including three felony counts, according to court documents filed Thursday in a federal court in Los Angeles.

    The 56-page court filing laid out a series of charges, including allegations that the president’s son failed to pay taxes, failed to file, evaded an assessment and filed a fraudulent form. The indictment alleges that “rather than pay his taxes, the Defendant spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle.”

    The charges were brought by special counsel David Weiss and the case was assigned to Judge Mark Scarsi, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump.

    And here were all thinking this crap had already resolved. :/

  153. 153.

    Bill Arnold

    @Brachiator:

    Every online database with user personal data or financial data will probably be hacked at some point.

    Not even necessarily online.
    The Shadow Brokers leaked a large collection of NSA (USA Nationasl Security Agency) hacking tools in 2016 (including zero-days).

    In 2019, David Aitel, a computer scientist formerly employed by the NSA, summarized the situation with: “I don’t know if anybody knows [their identity/motives] other than the Russians. And we don’t even know if it’s the Russians. We don’t know at this point; anything could be true.”

    There are also other releases of private closely held data: e.g. the Panama Papers, Paradise papers, etc.

  155. 155.

    Brachiator

    @Jay:

    I don’t know that we disagree about the situation in Venezuela. Venezuela held a referendum on the annexation of part of Guyana. Neither you nor I know whether that nation will do anything further.

    just like in the US you yell about “The Border”,……

    I don’t yell about the border. I don’t think anyone here yells about the border.

    Did you wake up in a cranky mood today?

  156. 156.

    Brachiator

    @JWR:

    The indictment alleges that “rather than pay his taxes, the Defendant spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle.”

    So, if Hunter Biden was a corporation or a right wing billionaire, the GOP would be defending his right to avoid IRS scrutiny and assert that he had a natural right to avoid paying taxes.

    What a world.

  158. 158.

    Hob

    @smith: ​
     After reading Vance’s idiotic letter, I think it’s safe to say he is not actually trying to get the reporter investigated. He is doing the kind of shit teenage debate team dudes think is cute, where they accuse someone of hypocrisy for not having the same attitude toward two incredibly different things that they’re pretending to think are the same. In this case the oh-so-clever analogy is supposed to be that Trump is being unfairly persecuted for inciting a riot when really all he did was express some opinions, so then if the DOJ doesn’t also persecute a journalist for expressing opinions then they’re revealing themselves as liberally biased poopy-heads.

    Vance could’ve instead written “The Jan. 6 crowd was just doing the same thing all tourists do when they visit the Capitol. So how come you’re not prosecuting EVERY tourist who ever visits the capitol? It’s because they’re Democrats, right? BOOM!” and it would’ve had exactly the same rhetorical value.

  161. 161.

    Hob

    @AWOL: I know who both bmaz and Yves Smith are, and I don’t think very highly of either of them, but I don’t know what they have to do with each other.

  162. 162.

    Brachiator

    @Jay:

    Ummmmmm, the Good Old Pedofiles party is yelling once again about “the Border”,………..

    This is why one should avoid talking about “you in the US” as though you mean the entire country.

  163. 163.

    JaySinWA

    @C Stars:

    The thesis of this Atlantic article is that what Evangelicals currently think of as their religious views are actually the political views being fed to them by right wing pastors, media, etc.

    I read an article a while back by an evangelical preacher who witnessed the changes in his fellow preachers. When questioned, they felt they were losing their flock [payroll] when they spoke against Trump, and they responded by first moderating then reversing their messages. Some observed the growth of congregations of preachers giving full throat-ed support for Trump. The media may have led but many preachers followed the flock [and the money]

  165. 165.

    WaterGirl

    @JaySinWA:

    When questioned, they felt they were losing their flock [payroll] when they spoke against Trump, and they responded by first moderating then reversing their messages. Some observed the growth of congregations of preachers giving full throat-ed support for Trump. The media may have led but many preachers followed the flock [and the money]

    Reading that makes me want to puke..

  166. 166.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @JaySinWA: they felt they were losing their flock [payroll] when they spoke against Trump, and they responded by first moderating then reversing their messages. Some observed the growth of congregations of preachers giving full throat-ed support for Trump. The media may have led but many preachers followed the flock [and the money]

    I’m sure the Bible has nothing to say on integrity, ethics, or raising false gods.

  167. 167.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @JaySinWA:

    many preachers followed the flock

    I’ve told you folks.  This shit is bottom up.  Conservatives go to whoever will tell them what they want to hear, and you can always find someone willing to do that.

  168. 168.

    mrmoshpotato

    @JaySinWA:

    I read an article a while back by an evangelical preacher who witnessed the changes in his fellow preachers. When questioned, they felt they were losing their flock [payroll] when they spoke against Trump, and they responded by first moderating then reversing their messages. 

    Heretical piles of shit.

  169. 169.

    evodevo

    @sab: Yeah…I followed her blog for years during the runup to the Great Recession, but quit when the Obama bashing started in 2009…I don’t know if she lost control of it or whether she actually agreed with all the RoseTweeters and BernieBros who ended up doing a lot of the posting, but either way it turned me off …they are still sending me begging emails for funding, which go straight to spam…

  170. 170.

    Geminid

    Former Rep. Tom Suozzi will be the Democrat running in the February election to fill George Santos’s seat. The selection was made by the Queens County Party Chairman, Rep. Greg Meeks, and the Nassau County party leader, blog favorite Jay Jacobs.

  171. 171.

    Captain C

    @Hob:

    Vance could’ve instead written “The Jan. 6 crowd was just doing the same thing all tourists do when they visit the Capitol.

    Did all the Capitol (or for that matter other) tours Vance ever went on feature vandalism and shit-smearing?

  173. 173.

    Sally

    @Dan B: I Have been so frustrated, saying this for so long. It’s not abortion, it’s not reproductive healthcare, it’s not women’s healthcare, it’s about human rights, freedom and people’s healthcare. A woman’s death is a mother’s death, a sister’s death, a daughter, an employee, a wife, a friend. I have always refused to call it abortion or women’s healthcare when it is about freedom and families. Men need to understand that they could be left without their wife, the mother of their other children, children traumatised by losing their mother at an early age. In conversations about these things, I am quite uncivil.

  174. 174.

    Soprano2

    This has been a shitty day for me, both because of the news and personally. I had to go to a Christmas party by myself because my husband once again realized he no longer has keys to his vehicle on his keychain (he wanted to get a haircut) and got pissy with me about it. He demanded that I give his key back. I had to say no. I wish he realized it’s harder on me than it is on him. I hope he forgets about it again. Thanks for letting me vent.

  175. 175.

    Ramalama

    @Soprano2: Alzheimer’s? Dementia? I’m so sorry if that’s the case. There’s a terrific memory care support group on Facebook. If you’ve got an account there.

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