Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

People are weird.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

I’m just a talker, trying to find a channel!

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

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

Democrats have delivered the Square Deal, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and now… the Big Joe Biden Deal.

Please don’t feed the bears.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

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

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

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

Democrats are back in array!

So many bastards, so little time.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Saturday Morning Open Thread: The Campaign Busy Season Starts Early

Saturday Morning Open Thread: The Campaign Busy Season Starts Early

by | 208 Comments

This post is in: , , ,



VP Harris’ Planned Parenthood clinic visit deserves its own post, but here’s a teaser:

Elsewhere…

“I belong to no organized political party; I am a Democrat.”

Reader Interactions

208Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    I’m not familiar with any Democrat calling Biden a socialist.  Maybe a handful of Mark Penn centrists do, but certainly not a lot.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    @Baud:

    In fairness, most of the leftists that continue to say both sides are the same probably aren’t Dems either.

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Seriously??? What is Mike Pence thinking?????

    Well Kristi, I know this is a novel idea for you but he is thinking*. You should try it sometime.

    * as a front row witness and enabler to trump, he’s already got plenty for which to ask god’s forgiveness, no need to add insult to injury.

  6. 6.

    coozledad

    McRoberts’ verdict yesterday seems to have been anticipated by the troll farms. A lot of the horseshoe left were out repeating Republican talking points and pushing the “Genocide Joe” and “He’s abandoned Israel” narrative simultaneously. When you call them out, they resort to awkward Simpson’s references (I think this is the new tell for Russian origins.) They also work in pairs, if not swarms, the same way they would if they were confronted in a stand-up fight.

  7. 7.

    mrmoshpotato

    @coozledad:

    McRoberts’ verdict yesterday seems to have been anticipated by the troll farms. A lot of the horseshoe left were out repeating Republican talking points and pushing the “Genocide Joe” and “He’s abandoned Israel” narrative simultaneously. When you call them out, they resort to awkward Simpson’s references
     

    Huh?

  12. 12.

    Matt McIrvin

    The student loan story really brings home the messaging problem to me. Online I hear people complaining about how Biden didn’t do enough to forgive student loans. In real life I hear people incensed that Biden did too much to forgive student loans.

  13. 13.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Got up at 3 AM to pack the car for our annual sojourn to NOLA. I had lots to do if we were gonna leave by 5 and of course we didn’t get into the car w/ the dogs ready to go until 5:30.

    Aaaaaaaaaaaaa nnnnnnnnnn dddddddddd…

    Dead battery.

    Somebody just shoot me, please, I beg you…

    Expecting AAA any moment now.

  14. 14.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The real life folks are more reality based.

    Also just goes to show that some online folks demand altruism of others, but can’t practice it themselves.

  15. 15.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: Well, except for their insistence that if “the government just got out of it” the free market would make everything great and education would be cheap.

  20. 20.

    coozledad

    @lowtechcyclist: MacAfee is the new Roberts as far as I’m concerned. A soft quisling.

    I got into it with a couple of them out on Joemygod, and they were trying to quote American TV, missing the idiom entirely.

  24. 24.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    Yeah, the whole thing makes no sense to me, even if he meant McAfee.

    ETA: OK, he meant McAfee. Still seems to have been posted from an alternate universe.

  26. 26.

    Matt McIrvin

    The business about Fani Willis is a real Rorschach test: I’ve seen this framed as everything in the spectrum from “Trump wins” to “Trump loses.” It got Paul Campos into his doom loop.

  28. 28.

    coozledad

    The troll farms are a little slow in turning the ship. They had to mix their vitriol for Fani Willis and black women in general with last week’s Gaza talking points.

  32. 32.

    Matt McIrvin

    The more I follow the legal news the more I think I’m with Teri Kanefield: expecting some legal thing to save us from a political problem is folly, because that’s not what the legal system is for, and it just drives people to “Fitzmas”/”Mueller Time” fiascos: we wait for some suddenly famous prosecutor to ride in on a white horse and then get frustrated that the bad guys have the protections afforded to the accused and can game them. Yes, the system has huge inequities in it and people accused of shoplifting don’t have access to expensive lawyers or the degree of caution seen in prosecuting former Presidents. But the solution isn’t to wish for a kangaroo court.

    You have to make your case separate from what’s happening in a courtroom instead of expecting that some spectacular verdict will save you. Even if you got the verdict you wanted, it might not move the needle. We intentionally don’t even disqualify convicts in the criminal justice system from holding office, because if we did this would be politically abused all the time. It’s bad enough that most states take away people’s right to vote.

  33. 33.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Baud:

    West of the Rockies, on this blog 10 days ago:

    “No one is perfect. Most of us are generally somewhere between pretty good and adequate, with stretches of excellence and grace, and spells of should-have-done-better and kind of crummy.”

  34. 34.

    Betty

    Kellyanne is personally offended that Kamala Harris went to an abortion clinic. She is the Republicans’ adviser on dealing with the issue of abortion. She is still looking for a winning position. Sorry, Kellyanne, there isn’t one.

  35. 35.

    TBone

    I saw a meme on xitter this morning of Pence’s desk pen holder.  It’s a clay bust of Rump with pens and pencils stuck in its back. Shivved, if you will.

  36. 36.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Betty:

    Kellyanne is personally offended that Kamala Harris went to an abortion clinic.

    Good, I hope she gets offended some more.

  43. 43.

    Geminid

    @Baud: I don’t know. Gaza is pretty much a constant presence on many social media sites now. It’s unrelated to the Fulton County trial, so people might be talking about the news of the day and the constant news also. Maybe this will be explained.

    I did not see anything about a McRoberts when I checked Gaza newslast night. Some good reports: 80,000 Muslims prayed st Al-aqsa Mosque yesterday without major problems. This was the first Friday of Ramadan, so that’s a good start at least.

    Also, World Central Kitchen unloaded 200 tons of food from its first shipment from Cypress. Jose Andrès says a second one is on the way from along with a crane to help unload. They’re working with a small rock jetty which will have to suffice until the US’s floating pier arrives. That was loaded up and shipped out from Ft. Eustice, Virginia a week ago.

    This operation is in the north where 400,000 Gazans are starving. According to  Andrès, WCK already has 60 kitchens going in the Rafah area where where there are over a million refugees, and are setting up one more a day.

    The Cyprus-to-Gaza operation is being coordinated by WCK, the UAE and the IDF. The IDF sent a team to Abu Dhabi last week for planning, and later an Emirati team came to Tel Aviv for follow-up.

  45. 45.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    You have to make your case separate from what’s happening in a courtroom instead of expecting that some spectacular verdict will save you

    I think that’s a strawman to protect the legal system. No one is saying we don’t have to make our case politically – people are simply asking for a functioning justice system that holds powerful people to account when they break the law. We should have that. In fact, we’re guaranteed it. It’s our right.

    Lowering their expectations to “it doesn’t function at all but it doesn’t matter” certainly protects the status quo but it isn’t an approach that improves anything or produces quality.
    The legal system can stand the criticism. It’s pretty powerful. If it folds like a lawn chair with public criticism on how powerful people blatantly game it then it wasn’t worth much anyway.

  46. 46.

    TBone

    @Kay: you said it, my anger and frustration perfectly encapsulated. I’m still trying to keep my rose colored glasses on, but have to wipe off spittle now and again from yelling invectives.  Kemp’s new Order giving ability to remove prosecutors in the name of “oversight” is the coup de grace.

  47. 47.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Matt McIrvin:

    You have to make your case separate from what’s happening in a courtroom…

    Which is what Democrats did in 2020 and won an election with both the EC and the popular vote. The loser immediately denied the election outcome and committed crimes to further an insurrection. And committed other crimes. So yes, this very much IS a justice system (courtroom) problem and should never have become a political problem AGAIN.

    It is a political problem NOW because the justice system failed. Regardless of how rich or connected you are, 2 years and change is a long time for the investigation and prosecution of some of these indictments. To be clear, I’m not saying here that any of the actors failed and I’m not saying that the prosecution should cut corners. I’m saying that the design of the justice system is a failure.

    Just one example: There is no way that a judge appointed by the defendant, and especially one whose ongoing and future career is clearly still associated with the defendant, should be allowed to preside. Period. A priori, how can that be justified?

  48. 48.

    Matt McIrvin

    @zhena gogolia: Thanks.

    All that said, I do think the trouble Trump has already gotten into actually helps us in a different way: Trump is obviously broke at this point and is in the process of converting the RNC into a mechanism for paying his enormous legal bills. The traditional huge financial advantage that Republican candidates have is not there. But this doesn’t guarantee us wins, we still have to make the case.

  49. 49.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I mean, are there a group of people who said “we don’t even have to campaign with this Trump lawbreaking! Just throw him in jail- done! ”

    He invented those people and then told them they’re wrong. Okey doke. Correction noted.

    I wish these justice system defenders would protect what the institution is supposed to stand for with the same zeal with which they protect powerful people within the institutions.

  50. 50.

    Kay

    @TBone:

    I wasn’t relying on it at all! I know better. I’m a politics gal. But people should rely on it to hold criminals accountable! That’s what it’s there for!  They’re permitted to expect the fucking thing to function in some fashion.

    The rush to excuse and protect this system is the absolute worst trait of lawyers. They’re enablers. Or, a meaner word, ass kissers. It’s like they think they will be punished if they criticize a judge or a ruling.

  51. 51.

    TBone

    @Kay: exactly.  Weissman yesterday stated that Fani should recuse while Clarence Thomas continues to sleep with an insurrectionist and adjudicate.

  52. 52.

    Sanjeevs

    @Matt McIrvin: Democracy can’t work when a party is free to collude with foreign powers, to threaten violence to its opponents etc.

    Judges threatened, jurors having to be given anonymity etc

    Law and order has broken down when this happens.

  54. 54.

    Tony Jay

    If I were an amoral billionaire always looking for the next trick to keep my taxes as close to zero as possible and my cred on the Oligarch circuit at Max +1, I’d absolutely definately have at ton of faux leftist chaos monkeys out there doing the divide and conquer thing. It’s not like there’s any lack of material for them to work with, and it has the added benefit of rubbing shit all over the genuine arguments between Left and Centre.

    I mean, why wouldn’t you do something that works and costs you pennies in the pound? Isn’t that that the Oligarchs are all about?

  55. 55.

    Kay

    @TBone:

    He probably thinks he’s “saving” the case so he’s anxious and immediately ready to fold. Besides the judge said she was “bad” so she should be punished. They’re all ass kissers.

    Willis isn’t listening to him about how to prosecute her case. Don’t worry about it. But don’t think it’s going to win the election either – it isn’t. As you knew :)

  56. 56.

    Geminid

    @TBone: Georgia’s new law setting up disciplinary panels* for prosecutors was actually passed a year ago, but last November Georgia’s Supreme Court overruled a part of it. So the legislature amended it and passed it again.

    * There is a five-member investigative panel that evaluates complaints and develops evidence on the ones they take seriously. Then a 3-member panel hears the case and decides on sanctions.

    ED. Kemp picked one member of each panel. I think legislative leaders picked the rest. A friend knows Kemp’s choice for the investigative panel: a recently judge with 25 years experience who “has seen it all,” in my friend’s words.

  59. 59.

    Kay

    @TBone:

    The Georgia case actually might move the political needle a tad in that state because I bet black women have noticed how Willis has been treated. It wasn’t a conflict, yet the judge imposed the same remedy he would have had it been a conflict. That entire hearing was a waste of time. A political show. He could have just said “my gut says this is an appearance of impropriety and there’s a rule on that, so withdraw” and been done with it.

  60. 60.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @TBone: Weissman has been critical of Willis since the beginning of the case.  From the start, he has given me the impression of a snotty restaurant critic in his analysis of her and the case.

  64. 64.

    schrodingers_cat

    Is anyone here paying attention to the Electoral Bond scandal in India? Its like the Teapot Dome on steroids. So much for being BJP being non-corrupt. I am sure its upper caste voting cohort will come up with some lame excuse.

  65. 65.

    oldgold

    Biden has had a good couple of weeks in terms of raw politics. Embracing the age issue with humor has, so far, been tactically sound.

    Harris has also had a good couple of weeks. I think she was helped by our moronic Speaker  at the State of the Union. She very much looked like the adult. Then, her continued bold support of women’s reproductive rights has served her well.  If her political upswing continues, it will assist in muting, to some degree, Biden’s age issue.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    ASHLAND, Ohio — GOP Senate candidate Bernie Moreno is dismissing a damaging last-minute report about him that punctuated an increasingly nasty primary, as former President Donald Trump heads to the state to join his final campaign swing.
    After a pre-planned meet-and-greet event here, Moreno said an Associated Press story — which linked his email to a 2008 account “looking for young guys to have fun” made on Adult Friend Finder, a website typically used to arrange sexual encounters — amounted to “salacious lies that are intended to be a last-minute smear campaign.”

    This is big news in Ohio. I was rooting for Moreno as the weakest candidate in the field so it isn’t “good” for Democrats but it’s good in the sense that it’s going to be a huge fight in the GOP base :)

    The context is that Moreno was very gay civil rights friendly prior to jumping into politics and then turned into a nutty anti gay, anti trans person so of course given the track record on people who do that Democrats assume the allegations are true.

  68. 68.

    frosty

    @OzarkHillbilly: Similar thing happened to us many years ago. Kids up, dressed, everyone packed, minivan loaded, and … wouldn’t start. Battery and the usual problems all OK. So ….

    We had three cars at the time, we offloaded everything into the other two, got ready to go and I tried the minivan one last time. It started! Don’t turn it off! Repack! And off we went.

    We took it to the dealer when we got back and after a week they said they couldn’t find anything wrong. I told them it was junk unless they could fix it, just have their guys on break sit in it and turn it on and off until it didn’t start.

    Three weeks later they told us it was a loose connection on a circuit board and it was fixed.

    I hope AAA has gotten you started by now (an hour after your comment) and you’re on the way to NOLA.

  69. 69.

    BellyCat

    @Baud: Amazed it took so long for the fixed rate realtor scheme to be recognized for what it was — market fixing that works against consumer interests and free market rules. Bravo!

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @oldgold:

    I think so too. I wish his poll numbers would start to go up -what I’m counting on. I don’t like the consistency of his low numbers. I still think he has room to grow with the D base and they’ll mostly come home.

  71. 71.

    TBone

    News on Kemp’s Order regarding prosecutorial oversight.  I don’t know as much about it as was pointed out to me here today, other than “this looks bad.”

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/state/2024/03/13/kemp-signs-bill-giving-greater-power-to-new-prosecutor-oversight-panel/72961650007/

    Democrats say the bill targets Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is investigating election interference allegedly perpetrated by former President Donald Trump and his allies.

    I’m not listening to the odor of mendacity coming from Rethugs on this.

  72. 72.

    Barbara

    @BretH: Not linking to Parker. She’s the columnist most likely to pick up her ideas from the Washington chatterati dinner parties that she attends.

  73. 73.

    frosty

    @BretH: That was the stupidest op-ed I’ve read in awhile. Sure, drop your VP eight months before the election. What could go wrong? Maybe she and her fellow pundits needed some new red meat to chew.

    It’s so sad that BC’s imaginary conversation wasn’t real. Every single front-pager here deserves the kind of reach that these over-credentialed and overpaid idiots have.

  74. 74.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @schrodingers_cat: Former fed prosecutor who is now a talking head.  And the reason a lot of people care what he and other analysts say is because most people have understandably avoided becoming lawyers (and even fewer are litigators) so they look to people who are as interpreters of what is going on in the legal system.  Of course, one of the problems with that is that some of the interpreters are bad at their jobs either on purpose or because they have an agenda.

  77. 77.

    Danielx

    Not the way I would have chosen to start Saturday: forty minutes is a long goddamn time in an MRI machine.

  78. 78.

    RaflW

    OT. But holy shit (NYT):

    When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a champion of liberal causes whose advocacy of women’s rights catapulted her to pop culture fame, helped establish a leadership award in 2019, she said she intended to celebrate “women who exemplify human qualities of empathy and humility.”

    But this year, four of the recipients are men, including Elon Musk, the tech entrepreneur who frequently lobs tirades at perceived critics; Rupert Murdoch, the business magnate whose empire gave rise to conservative media; and Michael Milken, the face of corporate greed in the 1980s who served nearly two years in prison. It has prompted family members and close colleagues of Justice Ginsburg to demand that her name be removed from the honor, commonly called the R.B.G. Award.

    In a statement, her daughter, Jane C. Ginsburg, a law professor at Columbia University, said the choice of winners this year was “an affront to the memory of our mother.”

    I have no idea what just happened at the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation, where the awards are based, but who the f*ck needs to celebrate Musk for ‘leadership’ when he’s a god-dammed white supremacist. And Milken? For balance they’re also awarding Martha Stewart (though her stock scam was infinitesimal compared to his malfeasance).

    I agree with BRG’s family: strip the name from this award. This year’s slate includes deep insults to her name

    eta (WaPo) “Trevor Morrison, a former dean of New York University School of Law, wrote to foundation chair Julie Opperman on Thursday that he found it ‘deeply worrisome” that the award would go to people who he said “exhibit none of the values that animated the Justice’s career, and none of the things that she herself emphasized when celebrating the inauguration of the RBG Award.’”

  80. 80.

    SW

    WaPo ran an editorial begging Kamala Harris to resign.  “For the good of the country”  Once again they are saying the quiet part out loud.  Joe Biden’s age isn’t an issue.  His successor is.  A black woman President?  Out of the question!

  81. 81.

    Barbara

    @schrodingers_cat: ​Agreed that it doesn’t explain everything but it’s useful for understanding broad trends and where your efforts are more likely to yield results. I say this as someone who has felt out of step with my own generational cohort since the night Reagan became president.

  82. 82.

    TBone

    @Omnes Omnibus: I spent some time cussing Nicole Wallace yesterday because of her “pre-defeated” bullshit on the legal fronts.  That’s the agenda, apparently.

  85. 85.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The more I follow the legal news the more I think I’m with Teri Kanefield: expecting some legal thing to save us from a political problem is folly, because that’s not what the legal system is for

    Yeah, but we DID, dammit! We won the election in 2020, and the political system ratified that result even after the insurrection.

    THE LEGAL SYSTEM SHOULD HAVE DAMN WELL TAKEN IT FROM THERE. The political system did its job, but it’s the legal system’s job to charge, try, and lock up criminals before they can continue their crime sprees.  IT HAS FAILED.

    So yeah, now it’s back in the political system’s lap, and there’s nothing for it but for us to save the country from the criminals yet again.

    How many doors will you have to open,
    Desperately hoping each one’s the last?
    How many more will you close behind you,
    Bitter and blind to the shadows you cast?
    -Dan Fogelberg

    Will Congress still be populated with 1/6/21 insurrectionists in 2028? Sure, each house of Congress gets to be the judge of the qualifications of its members, but without a helping hand from the legal system, we’d be opening the doors to that power being used arbitrarily if we used it to evict insurrectionists from Congress absent a criminal trial.

    The political system still needs the legal system to do its part. It can’t do it all by itself.  We’re going to lose an election sometime.  (And due to our screwy political system, it could be this year despite our best efforts, and despite our winning a majority of the votes.) Unless the legal system does its job, we’ll have to win every damn election forever just to preserve a democratic system.​

  86. 86.

    JML

    @RaflW: it’s really pretty strange, because the Opperman family have been Democrats forever, with Vance being one of the biggest supporters of the DFL in MN for decades. something weird is going on there. (and I hope it doesn’t mean that Vance has taking a hard-right turn either).

  87. 87.

    narya

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m a bit torn sometimes: I find his podcast and a lot of his commentary to be useful to understanding what’s going on, even when I don’t agree with his conclusions.

  89. 89.

    frosty

    @rikyrah: Same here. We tack on at least an hour to get around the DC Beltway.

    While sitting at a dead stop a couple of years ago I looked over at a car to my side. The bumper sticker read “Welcome to Northern Virginia. Expect delays.”

  90. 90.

    evodevo

    @OzarkHillbilly: Just be glad you discovered it before you left, not at your first stop down the road, in the middle of nowhere (How do I know this? Don’t ask!)

  98. 98.

    frosty

    @lowtechcyclist:  There’s one more step where the political solution failed. IIRC after the second impeachment McConnell said that the Senate wouldn’t convict because this was a legal problem and the law would take care of it.

    No, you ass, impeachment and conviction is a political solution to a political problem and you decided to prioritize your miserable party over your country. And here we are.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    @Danielx:

    My sympathies. I’m a little claustrophobic so 40 minutes in there sounds like an eternity to me. Mine had music pumped in and they told me it would be about 20 minutes so I was counting songs – 2 or 3 minutes each – which helped.

  101. 101.

    RaflW

    @Baud: When I moved to MN, the usual and customary commission was 7 freaking percent. I was aghast, but as a buyer it was out of my control (though of course it impacted purchase prices at least a bit, since sellers presumably care about the net).

    By the time I sold that house, in the great recession, I had a 5% listing contract, as my neighborhood had a young hungry guy (who was IMO a good realtor) willing to list for 2.5%.

    I’m not sure how this whole settlement will shake out, it appears to have a lot of components, including changing the MLS that sites like Zillow use, but it has seemed as house prices soared that the work brokers/realtors did wasn’t justifying $20K commissions (on each side!).

  104. 104.

    Kay

    Women on social media are taking Tom Nichols to task for his (patronizing, scolding) comments on VP Harris.

    It’s a lot of fun to read. He’s insufferable. I get that he’s a temporary ally and I’ll take him but it’s a real burden, I tell you :)

  107. 107.

    RaflW

    @JML: I’m just sputtering, because Musk, Murdoch and Milken are such assholes. Just some of the most unpleasant people imaginable. Musk has turned Xitter into a fetid KKK stew.

  109. 109.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @schrodingers_cat: I like Kanefield’s work. I’ll also note that, unlike lots of TV talking heads, she is a criminal defense attorney.  She isn’t talking about what she would “do” if she were in the prosecutor’s shoes.  Instead, she, like any defense attorney, works on having a clear-eyed view of what the prosecution is doing.

  111. 111.

    TBone

    @RaflW: I recently went through trying to look at a home, but the realtor was such an asshole I just cancelled.  Disclosure: I used to have a Real Estate Salesperson license.  Worked full time at a commercial R.E. broker office as an assistant while attending night school to obtain license.  When it came time to sell, the other top people on the sales team said I was too valuable in the office and should not be placed out in the field.  I quit shortly thereafter.

  115. 115.

    TS

    @Betty:

    Kellyanne is personally offended that Kamala Harris went to an abortion clinic.

    Politicians visit hospitals all the time. It is good the VP treats a hospital specialising in woman’s services no differently to any other. Abortion should be seen as a medical procedure available to women who need same – 100% nothing else.

  117. 117.

    JML

    @RaflW: it’s really bizarre, but crazy things like this can happen to family foundations where someone in the next generation goes sideways and the rest of the family (if there is any) isn’t paying attention. It’s also why family foundations need to either have very strong guardrails in their succession plans or a design to wind things down after the founders have passed on, otherwise you can have them twisted beyond recognition.

  118. 118.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Barbara:

    Not linking to Parker. She’s the columnist most likely to pick up her ideas from the Washington chatterati dinner parties that she attends.

    It’s been 15 years since I had a dead-trees WaPo subscription, and haven’t had much inclination to read their op-eds since. But even back then, I thought she was one of their worst columnists.

  119. 119.

    Kay

    Hertz Global Holdings Inc. is replacing its chief executive officer in the wake of a disastrous bet on electric vehicles that the company began unwinding in recent months.
    Stephen Scherr, who ran Hertz for just over two years after three decades at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., has decided to step down, the rental-car company said late Friday in a statement. It’s replacing him with Gil West, the former chief operating officer of General Motors Co.’s Cruise robotaxi unit. West also will join the board of directors on April 1, according to the statement, which confirmed an earlier Bloomberg report.

    The “disastrous bet on EVs” was actually a bet on Teslas. Musk slashed prices to keep his stock price up and Hertz had purchased 100,000 which Hertz then desperately tried to sell, just making the situation worse.

  122. 122.

    MomSense

    @rikyrah:

    It hasn’t escaped my notice that ever since he published his book American Psychosis about the decades of Republican ignorance and assholery he has barely been invited to MSNBC where he used to be a daily contributor on multiple shows.  Half the talking heads on MSNBC are former GOP or never trumpers who like to pretend the Republican party took a wrong turn in 2015.  It is maddening.

  124. 124.

    Kay

    Media and Repubicans want Democrats to go back to apologizing for supporting womens agency and privacy in health care, hence promoting Kelly Anne Conway’s “outrage” about Harris going to a health clinic.

    But media and Republicans were wrong about abortion – most Americans support it. It was media and Republicans who were too far Right and out of step, not Democrats.

    I feel like they’ve figured out how to use Harris in the campaign in a role she’s suited for, hence the new push to demonize her by media and Republicans. It really does mean we’re winning with her :)

  125. 125.

    rikyrah

    @SW:

    WaPo ran an editorial begging Kamala Harris to resign.  “For the good of the country”  Once again they are saying the quiet part out loud.  Joe Biden’s age isn’t an issue.  His successor is.  A black woman President?  Out of the question!

     

    UH HUH

    UH HUH

    We see those muthaphuckas

  127. 127.

    rikyrah

    @Betty:

    Kellyanne is personally offended that Kamala Harris went to an abortion clinic. She is the Republicans’ adviser on dealing with the issue of abortion. She is still looking for a winning position. Sorry, Kellyanne, there isn’t one.

     

    And, it wasn’t an ABORTION CLINIC. It was a clinic, where they happen to perform abortions…as part of the variety of services that they offer.

    The VP was very sure to mention all of those other services.

  128. 128.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Kay: Hertz can go fuck itself anyway. I rented an eNIRO from them a couple of weeks ago as they had a special running on them. That aspect of it was fine. However, every other part of the interaction was a study in end-times capitalism. Reps flat-out lying about insurance “requirements,” lying about recharge costs, and completely lacking any support knowledge about charging, etc.

    Plus, their app utterly sucks and cost me the bonus miles I should’ve gotten with Delta.

    I cannot say enough bad (but true!) things about my recent, and last, experience with Hertz.

  129. 129.

    Tom Levenson

    @BretH: Read that.

    OMG. I don’t think I’ve read such a perfect example of genteel racism in a month of Sundays.

  130. 130.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Media and Repubicans want Democrats to go back to apologizing for supporting womens agency and privacy in health care, hence promoting Kelly Anne Conway’s “outrage” about Harris going to a health clinic.

    Thank you for calling it a health clinic. Abortion was but ONE of the services that the clinic offers, and the VP was very clear about pointing out all the other services that people received there.

     

     

     

    But media and Republicans were wrong about abortion – most Americans support it. It was media and Republicans who were too far Right and out of step, not Democrats.

    They are still trying to BOTH SIDES Dobbs. Actually, they can’t BOTH SIDES IT, so, as you have pointed out, they just completely ignore it, until it comes up in another election, slaps them in the face. They cold call report it, and then the next day, pretend that the election never happened.
    When I tell you that they were desperate for Governor Sweater Vest of Virginia to come out on top in those past elections, so that they finally could have their ‘ BOTH SIDES’ position…they were so sad when it didn’t happen.

     

    I feel like they’ve figured out how to use Harris in the campaign in a role she’s suited for, hence the new push to demonize her by media and Republicans. It really does mean we’re winning with her :)

     

    Play on her strengths. And, she has been out front on these issues, even when she was a Senator. She KNOWS these issues – COLD. And, the people for whom these issues are important – well….they are base Democratic voters, and the voters that they need to attract for 2024. What she says…the policy positions that she discusses…nobody on the right discusses them in a way that wouldn’t churn your stomach…and, not many other Woman Democrats talk about it as passionately as the VP..only other person I can think of is Congresswoman Underwood…another Black woman.

  131. 131.

    Another Scott

    That Noah tweet – “… this is kinda brave?”

    No, it’s cynical after-the-fact attention seeking. There’s nothing “brave” about it.

    TIFG has the delegates to be the GQP nominee. He’s going to be the nominee.

    Pence could have said this when it might have mattered – before TIFG had enough delegates. He could have endorsed Haley very early on. He could have done something that might have mattered, something that might have actually made a difference.

    Now, after it doesn’t matter, he’s saying that he’s too pure to endorse TIFG.

    Someone should ask him if he’s going to vote for Biden, and work to get others to vote for Biden, instead…

    [ groucho-roll-eyes.gif ]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  135. 135.

    Suzanne

    Gooooooood mornin’, y’all!

    Today has already brought fantastic weather (mostly sunny but some clouds, crisp enough to wear a hoodie but not cold) and a nice walk with the puppy. Going to go to yoga class (hot/power), then Costco, and then make pasta salad later. Those things are all Peak Suzanne.

  136. 136.

    Kay

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    Why they would hire someone with experience at Goldman Sachs is beyond me. It seems like all complaints about car rental are complaints about customer service – as you say, lying is a big issue – why not hire someone with experience in great customer service?

  137. 137.

    Soprano2

    I had the front brakes on my 2019 Hyundai Sonata fixed on Thursday. The mechanic said the rotors were warped but the pads were 80% still good, so he only replaced the rotors. He said there were no signs that the calipers got stuck and overheated them, either.  It’s strange, because my car supposedly got a full brake job last June, but that was at the shop that lied about my truck passing inspection so who knows what they actually did. As far as the oil burning problem, he told me there’s no fix for it, that it’s known that these cars burn oil, and that I should trade it in sooner rather than later for another car. My other option is to deliberately burn up the engine, because if I do that then Hyundai will put a new one in it, but that it would probably take 3-4 months for them to get it done. Just what I need now, to have to buy a new vehicle, but I think that’s my best course of action.  What a PITA…

  138. 138.

    TBone

    Oops. @chiefoshkosh #128

    Kinda like my recent real estate experience.  Nope. Exactly like that.

  140. 140.

    rikyrah

    clap clap clap

     

    Rob Freund (@RobertFreundLaw) posted at 6:30 PM on Fri, Mar 15, 2024:
    If you “buy” a digital movie on Amazon, but Amazon removes the movie from its library when Amazon’s license expires, did you really buy it?

    Amazon faces a false advertising class action about this issue, and today, it lost its motion to dismiss the case. https://t.co/EmIfIM7ucJ
    (https://x.com/RobertFreundLaw/status/1768781763638444120?t=E2Xrek_bHS92ZRFKvN3_Qg&s=03)

  141. 141.

    rikyrah

    Then how is anything going to get done, if you won’t meet with the people actually interested in doing something?

     

    Sam Stein (@samstein) posted at 9:17 AM on Thu, Mar 14, 2024:
    Illinois leaders in the Palestinian communities angry over how President Joe Biden has handled the Middle East war have turned down a request by the White House to meet in Chicago today

    https://t.co/PesSLeDgFZ

    via @ShiaKapos
    (https://x.com/samstein/status/1768280292513513699?t=xneShAiSPQpXwlXrBfQ7MQ&s=03)

  143. 143.

    mrmoshpotato

    @rikyrah:

    Joe Biden a socialist?

    Get the ENTIRE PHUCK OUTTA HERE!

    WHO is starting with that bullshyt?

    Horses’ asses are starting with that.

  144. 144.

    Soprano2

    @rikyrah: To me this is performative outrage rather that real outrage, because when given the chance to be heard they turn it down. I call them the “say ceasefire 100 times a day” people because they care more about what Biden says than what he does.

  145. 145.

    mrmoshpotato

    @TBone:

    a revolving door that always opens to a field of rakes to step on. 

    And dead, rotting, horses’ asses to suck.

  146. 146.

    John S.

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    Welcome to late stage capitalism where the free market has given you nothing but shitty options.

    I rented with Avis for years while traveling for work (because my employer had a very good deal with them). They were often terrible.

    I’ve had some halfway decent experiences with Sixt in recent years, but their coverage in the US is still a bit spotty.

  147. 147.

    Another Scott

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    Just one example: There is no way that a judge appointed by the defendant, and especially one whose ongoing and future career is clearly still associated with the defendant, should be allowed to preside. Period. A priori, how can that be justified?

    A counterpoint is the Hatch Act and similar things that say that federal employees cannot be rewarded or punished for their (real or imagined) political views. That’s a good, and important. norm. TIFG’s monsters wanted (and still want) to strip out civil service protections like that (see Schedule F) to make tens of thousands political appointees that can be fired at will.

    Someone, somewhere, said a while ago that things are actually moving expeditiously in the various cases. We all want things to move faster. We all wanted the Enron monsters to go to jail quicker and Ken Lay to rot in prison, not to drag things out so that his conviction was vacated because he died before sentencing.

    It’s much, much more important to get this right than to have TIFG in the slammer before November 5 (or before early voting starts).

    Hang in there.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  148. 148.

    rikyrah

    I have to admit that I was just ho-humming this

    …but now, it seems to have taken a turn towards the sinister.  I mean, there’s nobody in media where Kate could do a two minute ‘ check in’ interview?

    Just show that she’s alive. Proof of life, please.

     

     

    maddie, hot dog enthusiast (@damnitmadeline) posted at 1:36 PM on Fri, Mar 15, 2024:
    I feel like two of the three most high profile royal wives of our lifetimes were pretty openly like “hey marrying into this family is absolutely the most terrifying and fucked up and mental illness inducing thing I could ever imagine” and now the third one is literally missing
    (https://x.com/damnitmadeline/status/1768707860182040741?t=ryBTGhb0mS6iB_BSNZO8Kw&s=03)

    positivity moon (@arrtnem) posted at 3:07 AM on Sat, Mar 16, 2024:
    The most chilling part for me is the ‘missing’ wife. It hints at two possibilities: either the system finally broke someone entirely, or she found a way to escape, even if it means disappearing.  Both versions of that story are tragic, and uncomfortably believable!!

  149. 149.

    catclub

    @NotMax: Noticed Pence limited it to the squishy “not endorsing” rather than taking the full step to “not endorsing and not voting for.”

    Nonetheless, I give him credit for NOT endorsing. AND he was Trump’s backer for the rightwing christian evangelicals.  So if he causes trump to lose a bit of their support — GREAT!

  152. 152.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @Baud: That’s a Big Biden Deal!

    This marks the biggest change to the housing market in a century, said Norm Miller, professor emeritus of real estate at the University of San Diego.
    “I’ve been waiting 50 years for this,” Miller said.

    Housing affordability is one of the big challenges for Americans today. Glad to see home builder stocks going up in response to this settlement. That means more housing stock, which will increase overall affordability even more!

  153. 153.

    rikyrah

    So, the background.

    Yesterday, a Black engineer with locs posted his official staff picture from NASA.

    Other Black staff at NASA started posting their official staff pictures from NASA.

    This is a reply from a parent of a young Black boy who wants to be an astronaut and has locs.

    Representation matters.

     

    Boy Mom (@BWyele__) posted at 5:17 PM on Fri, Mar 15, 2024:
    I love when my son can see representation of him!! He dressed up as Victor Glover for his black history program, BUT THIS????? He can literally see himself https://t.co/JGlObGAQ2s
    (https://x.com/BWyele__/status/1768763549784940857?t=9wOWkoa0Vo8dGY4YxV9m3g&s=03)

     

    and, the engineer replied!

    Tyrone (@tyisicecold06) posted at 8:25 PM on Fri, Mar 15, 2024:
    I need to FaceTime your son!! This is so amazing!! I love this!!
    (https://x.com/tyisicecold06/status/1768810816134943023?t=wzvc6rCKeqUjunIOjoSn2w&s=03)

  154. 154.

    Kay

    @catclub:

    Political media will love it and it’s a wholly negative cycle for Trump. So good job, Pence. I don’t care what he really thinks.

  155. 155.

    Percysowner

     

    @lowtechcyclist:

     Sadly, Parker is not the worst of the bunch. Good old Marc Theissen was crying about how he really, really wants to vote for Trump but Trump keeps making that HARD. I just saw the headline, so don’t know what Theissen has been bothered by, although since it seems to be recent actions I’m guessing trying to destroy democracy didn’t make the list. (No link, if you want to give the guy a click you need to find it yourself) I do know that he considers Biden to be the WORST PRESIDENT EVER, so…

  156. 156.

    Another Scott

    @schrodingers_cat: I’ve seen and heard (on the BBC and elsewhere) stories about it.

    E.g. Reuters (from yesterday).

    NEW DELHI, March 15 (Reuters) – Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday a political funding mechanism scrapped by the Supreme Court as “unconstitutional” was an improvement on the past but a more transparent system should be put in place.

    Her comments came a day after the Election Commission made public names of companies and individuals who had donated billions of rupees to political parties under the system that had kept their identities secret.

    Sitharaman rejected criticism that the system, introduced by her government in 2017, had led to graft, patronage of businesses and crony capitalism across political parties, but said lessons had to be learnt.

    The Electoral Bonds system was challenged by opposition lawmakers and a civil society group on the grounds that it hindered the public’s right to know who had given money to which political party.

    The Supreme Court banned the bonds last month.

    […]

    Maybe posting a link and a synopsis will get more conversation about it going here?

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  157. 157.

    Barry

    @Matt McIrvin: ​

     

    “The more I follow the legal news the more I think I’m with Teri Kanefield: expecting some legal thing to save us from a political problem is folly, because that’s not what the legal system is for, and it just drives people to “Fitzmas”/”Mueller Time” fiascos: we wait for some suddenly famous prosecutor to ride in on a white horse and then get frustrated that the bad guys have the protections afforded to the accused and can game them. Yes, the system has huge inequities in it and people accused of shoplifting don’t have access to expensive lawyers or the degree of caution seen in prosecuting former Presidents. But the solution isn’t to wish for a kangaroo court.”

    It’s not that; Trump has committed enough crimes to send him to prison, and quickly. Its that the criminal justice system’s corruption has proven to be far, far above what even cynical people have thought.

    It’s frankly supporting the coup (same for some small fry who are ‘bound but not protected’). This was supposedly major threat to the system, which has proven to desire this, to treat it as support of the system.

  160. 160.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @rikyrah: ​
      That whole thing just completely messes with my mind. Who the fuck get that wound up about a kid’s hairstyle? Leave him the fuck alone and let him study.

  161. 161.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Another Scott:

    A counterpoint is the Hatch Act and similar things that say that federal employees cannot be rewarded or punished for their (real or imagined) political views.

    I don’t see how that’s pertinent to whether judges should not be appointed to cases in which the defendant appointed them to their position. If the justice system was designed to prevent that from happening, it would not be punitive. It simply would be the law that supercedes whatever agreement or policy was set in place by (at best) well-meaning people in the distant past.

  162. 162.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Omnes Omnibus: She’s also the only one breaking the fourth wall by pointing out how so much of the tv legal punditry is designed to manufacture outrage.  They do this to rile people up and convince everyone to be cynical, defeatist and embrace conspiracy-theories.  And people always take the bait.  So I love people like Kanefield, Barb McQuade, Joyce White Vance and Andrew McCabe who always take a deep breath and say “hold on a second” before reaching conclusions about what any legal news means.  They were also realistic about the fact that there was always a good chance that trials of a former President for such a complicated case as the attempted Insurrection would not be completed before the 2024 Election.  That was always a bit of a stretch and not a good way to assess whether or not our system is working properly.

  163. 163.

    Glidwrith

    @lowtechcyclist: “Lock up the criminals before they can continue their crime spree.”

    And that is the crux of the problem: SFB and company were not locked up and continue committing crimes which are meant to break the system that would see justice served.

  164. 164.

    Barry

    @Chief Oshkosh: “Regardless of how rich or connected you are, 2 years and change is a long time for the investigation and prosecution of some of these indictments.”

    Imagine if Black Lives Matter protester has stormed Congress, to overturn an election.  How long would it have taken for the leadership to be in prison.

  165. 165.

    Another Scott

    @RaflW: Someone may have already mentioned this:  Supposedly the liberal husband founded the award.  He died recently.  The wife, a rabid Qanon person, took over.

    Seems to fit the observations.

    Yet another example that it’s the people in positions of authority that ultimately matter (not the norms or the rules or whatever).

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  166. 166.

    Barry

    @Matt McIrvin: “All that said, I do think the trouble Trump has already gotten into actually helps us in a different way: Trump is obviously broke at this point and is in the process of converting the RNC into a mechanism for paying his enormous legal bills. The traditional huge financial advantage that Republican candidates have is not there. But this doesn’t guarantee us wins, we still have to make the case.”

     

    And a Russian-connected company immediately pumped ~$100 million when needed.  I worry that vast wealth is there and putting its elephant foot on the scales.

  168. 168.

    Tony Jay

    @rikyrah:

      WaPo ran an editorial begging Kamala Harris to resign.  “For the good of the country”

    It’s not because she’s black. That would be racist. And it’s not because she’s a woman. That would be misogynistic. And it’s not even because she’s a black Woman. That would be both racist and misogynistic.

    No, it’s because she’s unrepentantly black and a woman, which makes it impossible for traditional, heartland Americans to feel comfortable with her being only a heartbeat from the Presidency, which in turn makes it impossible for Congresspeople representing those traditional, heartland Americans to work with her.

    So really, it’s all about comity and the smooth functioning of government.

    Can I haz WAPO sinecure now?

    Just show that she’s alive. Proof of life, please.

    it just takes mortals a while to recover from birthing a spawn of the Older Gods. Once she’s regrown the ribs and the sympathetic scales have turned back into skin, she’ll be back on the Royal Parade opening gymkhanas and asking strangers “What do you do?” 200 times a day while her husband is in the Rolls getting pegged by a pair of strapping Guardsmen.

  169. 169.

    RaflW

    @Another Scott: Ugh, that makes some sense. The 990 I found shows that the foundation only has two directors, so it could easily be steered by a shift like that.

    I saw that Mo Rocca was on the 2023 award committee that selected Barbara Streisand (12 members in all). I am having a hard time imagining that he was still on for this selection round?

  171. 171.

    Kay

    I commented a couple of months ago about how we hired a young lawyer and he comes from a working class background and was dressing inappropriately – it’s quite informal here (rural) and he wasn’t even up to that level. It’s not just the wrong clothes it’s that his clothes don’t fit. Anyway, it’s too personal a thing for me to handle talking to him about – I don’t delve into anything personal without a lot of permission from people, so I asked a lawyer I know who is a good dresser and a genuinely nice guy if he would talk to new lawyer because new lawyer is going to be good at this – he just needs help on this one sort of thorny (because it’s a class issue) thing. I found out (much later) he didn’t just talk to him but took him out to buy a suit and dress shirts and ties and shoes. They spent a whole day together. Just such a kind thing to do.

  172. 172.

    Bill Arnold

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Who encashed the bonds they purchased will only be known once the missing Unique Identification Numbers for electoral bonds – that link the buyer to the receiver – are revealed by the Election Commission of India.

    It’s a Mystery!

  173. 173.

    Soprano2

    @Omnes Omnibus: I feel the same way. Why do people even care about this? If the kid is coming to school and doing fine what do they care about what his hair looks like?

  174. 174.

    hueyplong

    @Barry: “Imagine if Black Lives Matter protester has stormed Congress, to overturn an election.  How long would it have taken for the leadership to be in prison.”

    Pretty sure none of them, if on the scene, would have gone to prison.  They’d have been killed.

    One solitary J6er was killed in the entire mess, and they’ve worked to make a martyr of her.

  176. 176.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @lowtechcyclist: Agree completely.  I get that all of these incessant, endless delays were built into the system to allegedly protect the innocent from being railroaded. There should be SOME delay mechanisms. However, even the founders thought for there to be justice, we needed reasonably speedy trials. We need reasonable limits on number of appeals. We need reasonable limits on procedural delay for both civil and criminal courts. The system we have now is failing the innocent and the guilty.

  177. 177.

    Another Scott

    @Chief Oshkosh: Judges should be assigned cases randomly and not based on who appointed them.  If one is worried that they cannot do their job impartially, then they shouldn’t have been appointed.

    Yeah, I know that monsters get appointed.

    But the principle stands.  People have to have some confidence that the courts eventually will get it right.  Even if it’s slow, even if hacks try to slant the proceedings.

    YMMV.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  181. 181.

    Kay

    @TBone:

    I asked someone from out of county so they won’t run into each other constantly and young will have to be “there’s the guy who taught me how to dress again -awkward!” :)

    Plus he’s older and we have a real changing of the guard here – everyone older is retiring- so that’s good.

    They’re desperate for young lawyers in rural areas. Established people had some very good years the last ten or so and there’s an exodus. They can retire so they are retiring.

  182. 182.

    Bill Arnold

    @Barry:

    And a Russian-connected company immediately pumped ~$100 million when needed.

    They did indignantly declare that it was fully collateralized, but didn’t say that Trump’s assets were involved.

  183. 183.

    Miss Bianca

    @rikyrah: Wow, so cool.

    I like Underwood. I like how she just puts her head down and gets things done.

    My rep Brittany Pettersen is like that, too. Part of why I like *her* so much. Also, too, she’s no Lauren Boebert, who was my *last* representative.

    The difference is so striking that even Republicans in my county are noticing.

  185. 185.

    TBone

    @Kay: that gives us hope.  My former home turf, DelCo (County seat, home of lawyers) went blue after solid red for longer than century.

  186. 186.

    RaflW

    @TBone: Unfortunately, there are a lot of problematic people in the real estate biz. My BF had an absolute horror story with a listing (short version, the agent forced BF to buy him out of the listing. Sh*thead was doing crap to market the place, but refused to relinquish the listing until the end of the contract unless paid a grand. Total dick move – and we went to church with that guy! Needless to say, that guy never got another shot at the three combined transactions we’ve done in the Mpls market since. And zero referrals, lol.)

    I’ve also had great agents, esp on the buyer’s agency side. But some of it is luck.

  187. 187.

    Miss Bianca

    @Tony Jay: You know what’s weird about the whole “Where is Kate nee Middleton” thing is that I still don’t have any idea what the hell it’s all about or why, exactly, I’m supposed to care. I mean, I did finally break down and read an article about it – timeline included and everything! – and it *still* didn’t manage to convey to me what the big effing deal was.

    Your explanation is the only one that actually makes sense!//

  188. 188.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @MomSense:

    Half the talking heads on MSNBC are former GOP or never trumpers who like to pretend the Republican party took a wrong turn in 2015.  It is maddening.

    They’re not pretending, they’re complicit in creating the dumpster fire, fanning its flames and will go right back to being the nihilists they are if ever the MAGA idiocy subsides.

    And when these asshats aren’t front and center on our librul teevee channel, we get fed Katy Tur and Andrea Mitchell.

  190. 190.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    Regardless of how rich or connected you are, 2 years and change is a long time for the investigation and prosecution of some of these indictments.

    I think this is incredibly naive.

    Jan 6 Federal Case: Everything related to prosecuting high-level crimes on 1/6 (not just people who stormed the Capitol) couldn’t happen until:

    1.) courts and everything else could get past the Covid overload/backlog,

    2.) numerous Executive/Congressional privilege issues could be litigated (this could take a year, all on its’ own)

    3.) digital devices could be seized and data legally extracted (another process that takes over a year, all by itself),

    4.) the January 6th Committee report could be completed and reviewed (this wasn’t done until late 2022 and even caused a several months delay of the Proud Boys trial).

    5.) Ruling on Obstruction (can people not not physically present on 1/6 be charged under statute?)- Went through regular and appellate courts and is only just now going to Supreme Court.  This is the basis for most of the charges against Trump and it is an important ruling needed for the sake of all of the 1/6 cases. It’s unlikely, imo, that SCOTUS was ever going to allow Trump to be tried on Obstruction before it could have the final say on this matter.

    Mar-A-Lago Documents:

    This is a CIPA case which adds 5 extra layers of tedious, pre-trial motions/decisions just to get evidence in.  Even without Trump’s refusing to cooperate with investigators, refusing them access to the documents etc., and even without Cannon’s obvious attempts to delay, I’m not sure two years is a normal timeline for most cases involving classified documents.  Especially when, again, there are matters of Executive Privilege that would need to be litigated prior to trial.

    Fulton County RICO:

    RICO cases can take years to build!  For the most pertinent example, Fani Willis’ Georgia RICO charges against rapper Young Thug are for crimes that began in 2013.  He was not arrested until 2022.  The trial is still going on.  That’s NINE YEARS from crimes to trial.  Two years would be unusually fast.

  192. 192.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    It probably helps that elder Millennials are apparently the least cynical Americans in 3 generations. We can pass that on.

    I feel seen.

  194. 194.

    Kay

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    It’s 2 years. He was arrested in ’22 and then two years later he was convicted. We don’t count from the time the crime was committed. I don’t expect a prosecutor to convict prior to charges. That doesnt make any sense.

    Young Thug is an argument for speedy trials, not slow ones.

  196. 196.

    Kay

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    Atlanta school teachers cheating trial, ridiculous as it was, was GA RICO. They were indicted in 2012 and 2013, trial began in 2014, 8 months long, convicted in 2015. 35 indicted, some took pleas, 12 defendants at trial.

  198. 198.

    Tony Jay

    @Miss Bianca:

    I also have no clue why it’s supposed to be a matter of interest to anyone, other than the fact that the British Royal Family signed a post-Diana contract with the owners of Global Media to be 24/7 exemplars of Painfully British Celebrity, and as when a Kardashian breaks a nail or a K-Popstrel breaks a hymen, THIS… IS… NEWS!!! for the media demographic who have chosen to invest in their niche activities.

    And, of course, because people in the Media know the truth behind the Windsor Blood-Pact is so indescribably horrible that souls would melt like candlewax should it be told, so this feast of breathless anticipathos is what the masses get force-fed instead.

  199. 199.

    Kay

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    Here’s how I think about Fani Willis. Prosecutors win/loss record is bullshit and meaningless because they bring the case, so just don’t bring cases unless it’s 100% therefore get an A+++.

    But Willis brings complicated RICO cases in a reasonably timely manner and she wins them. They’re not slam dunks. It isn’t intuitive for a jury to “get” this attenuated chain of events she has to explain. The defense has a real shot at beating her – but they don’t beat her.

  200. 200.

    Miss Bianca

    @Tony Jay:

    “anticipathos” joins “anticipointment” (h/t Lord Paul McCartney) in my pantheon of “favorite neologisms.”

  201. 201.

    SW

    Just saying, the Hatch Act doesn’t have a damn thing to do with which cases are assigned to a particular judge it just prevents them from engaging in political activity and protects their jobs if they follow the rule.  The case is not the job. The job is a seat on the bench.

  202. 202.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Omnes Omnibus: as long as he secures it back for chemistry lab, he’s fine with me. Chemistry lab dress code is goggles on, hair away from flame sources, long pants in cotton or wool, preferably wearing a lab coat, and no open toed shoes.

  203. 203.

    Ruckus

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    I wonder how often a judge appointed by the president has had to sit in trial for the same person? Because most of our presidents seemed to keep themselves out of prison. Except for that one who shits everywhere, all the time. Let’s see doesn’t he go by ShitForBrains?

  204. 204.

    Ruckus

    @Danielx:

    Maybe it is today, it wasn’t always.

    And it depends on what they are looking for.

    (I am a very seasoned MRI occupant)

  205. 205.

    WaterGirl

    @Kay: Nice to hear the followup for the story.  That was a super nice thing to do.  Smart for you to have asked the other lawyer to talk with him.

Comments are closed.