It’s Day 21 of the trial.
We are closing in on the end of Trump’s NY Trial.
This should be interesting. Just closing arguments and jury instructions, and then jury deliberation begins.
Best sources of live blogging that I have found.
Josh Kovensky (TPM) live blogging
Mark Sumner (Daily Kos) live blogging
Tyler McBrien (Lawfare) on twitter
Good morning from Trump’s NY criminal trial where the longest line yet is waiting to hear closing arguments.
It’s DAY number….ok, so I lost count.
Whatever day it is, I’ll be here, live tweeting it all gavel to gavel for @lawfare.
Join me, won’t you? 🧵⚖️ pic.twitter.com/iuabFLYjZI
— Tyler McBrien (@TylerMcBrien) May 28, 2024
Anna Bower (Lawfare) on twitter
Good morning from The Line at the Manhattan criminal courthouse, where closing arguments are set to begin in Donald Trump’s trial on 34 felony counts for falsification of business records.
I’m here alongside @TylerMcBrien @katherinepomps for @lawfare.
Follow along 👇 ⬇️ 👇 pic.twitter.com/NfiCFMvkRA
— Anna Bower (@AnnaBower) May 28, 2024
Adam Klasfeld on twitter
Good morning from New York.
Some 20 prosecution and two defense witnesses later, the evidentiary record of Trump’s historic criminal trial has closed.
Now, closing arguments are ahead.
As always, I’ll cover the proceedings live from the courtroom. 🧵
— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) May 28, 2024
Lisa Rubin on twitter
Still loving this awesome guy who carries this sign.
Open thread.
Update:
Witness testimony refresher from ABC. h/t Jackie or Scout211, I think. It was in a thread yesterday and I have slept since then!
Over the last five weeks, the jury in Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial witnessed a marathon of testimony.
Among the 22 witnesses who took the stand, jurors heard from Trump’s former lawyer, an adult film actress, two of Trump’s executive assistants, a tabloid executive, a top White House aide, and a flurry of custodial witnesses as prosecutors sought to show that Trump falsified business records to hide the reimbursement of a hush money payment his then-attorney Michael Cohen made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to boost Trump’s electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
dmsilev
I posted this at the bottom of the last thread, but I guess it fits better here. From the TPM liveblog, I got a giggle out of this analogy:
You can just imagine the fervent Trump-trial-watchers with their life lists and their elaborate spotting and photography gear and so on.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: That is funny! Rather insightful, so more of a smart, subtle humor. I like it.
Sure Lurkalot
Guess who at the FTFNYT:
Makes me, but obviously not Maggie, wonder about those times gone by when “confirmed criminality” wasn’t equivalent to wearing a tan suit or taking a tumble on a bike ride.
SiubhanDuinne
@dmsilev:
No Melania, not at all surprising. Even less surprising, no Barron.
No Javanka, either of them. Looks like the favourite child and child-in-law have cut all the ties?
Has the Singing RNC Co-chair shown up yet? Or DJTJr’s shrieking meth-addled “fiancée”?
What a bizarre cast of characters this movie has.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
The Night of Long Ties.
//
Redshift
@Sure Lurkalot: Better description: “Trump tries to convince the public being a criminal is cool – is he expecting to be found guilty?”
Jackie
@SiubhanDuinne: I’ve seen a couple of articles hinting that if TIFG wins, the Javanka team is “seriously considering rejoining his administration.” 🤮
SuzieC
I will never get tired of that sign.
WaterGirl
@Sure Lurkalot: Maggie: “ho, hum, isn’t that interesting.”
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne:
I thought someone here on BJ said they had broken up, so maybe she’s back on the market?
Redshift
I’m sure we all know this by now, but it’s normal for closing arguments to be fairly short. An hour for each side wouldn’t be unusual.
sab
@NotMax: Good one.
WaterGirl
@SuzieC: He’s in a new location this time! :-)
Unless someone is just photoshopping new backgrounds on the same phot?
TS
@Redshift:
JOSH KOVENSKY
|
9:33 a.m.
A Long Day Ahead
Blanche says that he expects to speak for two and a half hours.
Steinglass says he expects to go between four and four and a half hours.
CaseyL
Open thread, so I’m re-posting a comment from downstairs regarding my cat, Oscar:
Calling on the BJ Cat-alariat: Cat coughs.
My old cat Oscar has a cough. The vet put him on a course of steroids early this month and the cough went away. He completed the course on May 13. Two days ago the cough came back. Is the problem ongoing inflammation, so we should keep him on steroids? Is there something else going on?
It’s a mild one, and apparently dry. (I say apparently because he also sneezes, and those are snotty.)
He already has an appointment next week to do bloodwork for his thyroid condition (he’s on meds for that), so we’ll probably also talk about the cough then. Unless the vet wants me to run him in sooner – I’ve texted them and am awaiting their response.
Does anyone here know anything about chronic coughing in cats?
Oscar does go outside, still, but mostly onto the porch and deck these days. He’ll go out when it’s raining, too. I keep the sliding glass doors open if the weather is even the slightest bit bearable, so there’s always plenty of fresh air (also, plenty of moist air, this being Seattle). He has, as noted, a thyroid condition that has affected his heart (minimally). His breathing tends to be more rapid and shallow than a younger cat, but SFAICT he’s fully oxygenated.
Any feedback would be appreciated.
LAO
@Redshift: I expect the summations will run longer, especially the prosecution because it’s a paper case.
WaterGirl
I added an update up top. Just an FYI.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jackie:
Your emoji says it all.
SuzieC
Blanche expects to speak for 2 to 2 1/2 hours? How many different ways can he say “Michael Cohen is a big fat liar”?
matt
Does Trump raging like Hitler online worry other folks, or is it just me?
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: I don’t understand that emoji. What does it convey to you?
Sure Lurkalot
@SiubhanDuinne: If my old man was saluting planes in the sky on Memorial Day, slurring words and blanking out, I might seek help for the grandpa of my kiddos.
The whole family is trash.
smith
@matt: What worries me is how few people, especially in the media, seem to be worried about it.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
Oh, I missed that! Didn’t know either of them was on the loose again.
WaterGirl
@matt:
NOT JUST YOU.
People who rage like that are scary.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: I only heard it once, and here, and we know that no one is ever wrong on BJ, so you can take that one to the bank! //
Mike in NC
Feels more like “Trump’s NY Criminal Trial Day 2100”.
...now I try to be amused
@LAO:
I think it was Katie Phang who wrote on Twitter that the prosecution will want to say two things:
The defense did not dispute any of the documentary evidence. Their entire case was attacking witnesses.
The defense made some promises in their opening statement and kept none of them.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jackie: well, why turn down an opportunity to make a whole lot more emoluments and grift money. I don’t know all the ways they benefited last time, but I’m still pissed off about it.
Chief Oshkosh
@smith:
Greg Sargent agrees (as do I).
https://newrepublic.com/article/181973/trump-media-attacks-media-dangerous-turn
dmsilev
@SuzieC:
Let’s brainstorm. There’s the normal narrative approach. Then there’s the modern posting-of-memes. Then the epic poetry recitation, inspired by both Icelandic Eddas and the Homeric tradition. Then the Bollywood dance-off. And so forth.
Scout211
No, Jarvanka have not cut all ties, just public appearances with him and all that criminal trial fuss. They are both working the high roller donor circuit gathering $$$ for his
campaignattorneys fees.Scout211
IANAL, but point to Blanche here because when has Trump ever had “full knowledge” of anything? It’s a bit misleading but still . . .
Geoduck
I’m a little sad that Tiffany is there to grovel for approval. She married a billionaire, didn’t she? It’s not like she needs the money…
rikyrah
@matt:
Not just you.
Scout211
No but Daddy needs her husband’s $$$ and his contacts’ $$$, which is happening now.
BlueGuitarist
@NotMax:
MAGAlomaniacs
Scout211
Biden team shows up:
Leto
@Scout211: personally, I feel the prosecution has shown that he was such a micromanager on every single cent coming in/going out, that that’s not going to fly. On top of the fact that he “wrote” about it in The Shart of the Deal, that a “good boss” knows where every penny is at all times. But who knows.
Leto
@Geoduck: you’re seeing in real time how much it costs to buy daddies love.
cain
@Scout211: I was looking her husband up and all the photos he looks uncomfortable.
Melancholy Jaques
@matt:
I’m with you, but it seems to be one key to his popularity with the political media and with his followers.
Jeffro
@Scout211: oh my! turnabout is fair play eh Donnie? LOL
TS
I don’t remember all that multi tasking – main thing he was doing was taking executive time out to tweet and NOT writing anything down that couldn’t be ripped up.
He has to have been the laziest President of my lifetime. Rarely travelled, rarely worked, all he did was hold rallies and eat junk food.
smith
@TS: Not fair — he did a lot of golfing, too.
wjca
That he falsified busines records isn’t even disputed seriously. I mean, maybe they snuck a devout MAGAt onto the jury who would dispute anything, but otherwise it’s a slam dunk.
The critical question for the jury concerns why he did so. If it was “to protect his family from embarrassment”, then the falsification is a misdemeanor. But if he did it in aid of another crime (whether to cover up breaking campaign finance laws or anything else) as charged, then it’s a felony.
Leto
@TS: he was also ripping paper up and throwing it away. Because staffers then had to take that, and try to tape it all back together because all of that was part of the official Presidential Records Act… which he was ofc violating. That was in addition to him trying to flush paper down the toilet. I mean… we’re not setup to deal with a criminal in the highest office, nor an entire political party who will aid/abet that person. Add it to the list of n+1 amount of shit only Dems can fix.
smith
@wjca: I’m surprised the tax angle wasn’t stressed more by the prosecution. I’m assuming that the hush money payments were listed as business expenses on his tax returns — isn’t that tax fraud? Or did they not dwell on it because they don’t have the returns to show that’s what happened?
gene108
@Scout211:
Trump’s a micromanager when it comes to counting pennies.
He doesn’t believe rules work, because he breaks rules all the time without consequences and thinks everyone’s like him.
The only way Trump can feel like his employees aren’t stealing from his business is by approving every penny spent.
TS
@smith:
Cheated at that as well – such a lousy player, it escaped my memory.
hitchhiker
I see Blanche is calling out the prosecutors for not putting Weisselberg on the stand. If I was on the jury, I’d be wondering why Blanche didn’t.
Yes I know, the state has the burden of proof, but in a documents case where Weisselberg’s handwriting shows the bump up scheme to make Cohen whole after taxes … as a juror I’d think he was essential to the Trump side.
He could say under oath that those numbers mean something else, or that he never ran it by Donald. Case over, boom, done.
rikyrah
When I say good riddance, I mean GOOD RIDDANCE.
David Burbach (also @dburbach Bluesky) (@dburbach) posted at 4:05 PM on Mon, May 27, 2024:
A Romney – Manchin bill would limit federal employees to no more than two days of telework per week and ban all-remote positions almost entirely, extremely limited exceptions.
https://t.co/P3PE7ZNPGH
(https://x.com/dburbach/status/1795199709805453464?t=ERyXe3USrJ-Hv5swlZ4jaQ&s=03)
oldgold
In a trial like this, where the testimony was chopped up and a week has passed since any testimony has been received, the final arguments will be more important that in a run of the mill case. Where, except for the damages to be awarded in civil cases, the final arguments impact is probably less than any other part of the trial.
gene108
@smith:
I don’t think $130k is material, given the Trump Org’s assets and likely revenue stream.
If it’s not considered a valid business expense because of this case, and the IRS raises an issue, the Trump Org will probably need to file an amended return.
It’s a big not* enough issue to sidetrack the rest of the trial for.
*ETA
JMG
@rikyrah: This bill will go nowhere fast, but the idea that US Senators, who work like three days a week for maybe 7-8 months a year, think that other government employees are slackers is hilarious. Neither of these two worthies are running for re-election, because the opposition ads write themselves. “This is Joe Manchin’s yacht. It’s where he lives when he’s ‘working’ in Washington.”
Suzanne
@rikyrah:
Someone should ask them why they don’t want to encourage people to move to America’s rural areas. I think it’s because they hate rural lifestyles.
TS
TPM has crashed for me – anyone else?
Geminid
@Jeffro: I saw that Trump used his Truth Social account to denounce Bob No-Good and reaffirm his support for challenger state Senator John McGuire. I think the primary is 4 weeks from today..
rikyrah
Talking about Reagan…can’t believe they made a phucking movie about him.
Leslie Gray Streeter (@LeslieStreeter) posted at 5:50 AM on Tue, May 28, 2024:
The confirmation of the two Americas we live in was when a white evangelical friend literally screamed at me for telling them all the things this man did to the Black community because the truth didn’t gibe with the myth he’d been taught. “He was a good man!” Yeah nah.
(https://x.com/LeslieStreeter/status/1795407406408806497?t=vkeJQ4wyrRz6nmqqBW_bsA&s=03)
Old School
@TS: TPM gets a 503 error for me, so it isn’t just you.
rikyrah
The Economist (@TheEconomist) posted at 4:53 PM on Mon, May 27, 2024:![]()
OPEC and its allies have introduced cuts to oil quotas in order to keep prices high. The problem is that individual producers have an incentive to cheat, selling above their quotas and free-riding on the efforts of others https://t.co/W8cjumaI6w
(https://x.com/TheEconomist/status/1795211655372046795?t=Z6Kg3O2vZAsuCm1qlPqBPg&s=03)
rikyrah
The Very Calm and Polite Biden Guy (@What46HasDone) posted at 7:58 PM on Mon, May 27, 2024:
You need to lie to yourself about what a second Biden term would be like to justify your support of Trump. Manchin and Sinema are gone next year. A trifecta with 50 Senators codifies Roe. You can either vote for that or against it.
(https://x.com/What46HasDone/status/1795258347811393616?t=GXsh2cEAFF3ti3oBV-yyPw&s=03)
MisterForkbeard
@JMG: As someone who really does think we pivoted too hard towards Remote Work and people should generally work in an office, this is totally ridiculous.
Soprano2
@matt: Oh it worries me a lot. The press doesn’t seem to be that concerned about it, though. I think they’ve got $$$ in their eyes for if he wins. They know they made a lot more money when he was in office than they’re making now, because drama sells; competency doesn’t make them money.
rikyrah
It’s the tax cuts. They’d sell their Mama for them.
Timothy Snyder (@TimothyDSnyder) posted at 0:02 PM on Mon, May 27, 2024: When businessmen supported fascism in the 1920s and 1930s, at least they did not claim to be motivated by concern about rising antisemitism. (https://x.com/TimothyDSnyder/status/1795138513354068043?t=CRmVfzO4_Anr5l0ylTz_NQ&s=03)
rikyrah
lips so pursed.
Ragnarok Lobster![]()
(@eclecticbrotha) posted at 4:35 PM on Mon, May 27, 2024:
“I think (a Donald Trump acquittal) is the worst-case scenario for Democrats,” CNN political correspondent Sara Murray said.
No, Sara. It would be the worst case scenario for American democracy.
(https://x.com/eclecticbrotha/status/1795207166355280282?t=nmIetOjbFjTsC7M_qZwjxg&s=03)
MomSense
@matt:
Narcissistic injury is scary! We are so outside of what is acceptable conduct for a presidential candidate – for anyone really. We seem to be on a collision course with disaster.
rikyrah
Mike Allen (@mikeallen) posted at 2:11 PM on Fri, May 24, 2024:
![]()
![]()
NEW: @blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman tells @Axios tells Axios he’ll support Donald Trump as a “vote for change”
• Will donate to Trump, Senate GOP candidates
![]()
• Rising antisemitism sped his decision
• He earlier wanted a next-gen leader in ’24
Chris D. Jackson (@ChrisDJackson) posted at 6:30 PM on Fri, May 24, 2024:
It’s all bullshit. He doesn’t give a damn about antisemitism because if he did, he wouldn’t support the guy who uses Nazi-like language on the daily.
The guy is worth $39 billion and wants more. Period. Trump has promised significant tax cuts for these people, which is the biggest motivator for them in life. It’s pretty simple.
(https://x.com/ChrisDJackson/status/1794149099366719551?t=gGPwtFWS14kI874_HLnn4Q&s=03)
Baud
@rikyrah:
Next week’s media, after Trump is found guilty.
“I think this guilty verdict actually helps Trump motivate his base.”
Chief Oshkosh
@Leto:
Actually, we are. However, it requires that each federal employee take seriously their oaths. This especially holds true for the supervisors of the employees who are duty bound to report malfeasance.
rikyrah
TELL IT
Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) posted at 10:12 PM on Sat, May 25, 2024:
Antisemitism sped his decision to support a Nazi-loving candidate? What horseshit. This is only about his tax rates. What a despicable human being is Steve Schwarzman.
(https://x.com/NormOrnstein/status/1794567296209572037?t=ZHPUMwVL6gCl_VeoDCQvew&s=03)
Ruckus
@TS:
Rarely travelled, rarely worked, all he did was hold rallies and eat junk food.
One has to work within the strengths one has.
rikyrah
Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) posted at 8:09 AM on Mon, May 27, 2024:
Florida cancels references to climate change, Red states from Iowa to Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Missouri and Louisiana fill their legislature and governorships with climate deniers. Devastation and death ensue, while insurance companies jack up rates beyond the ability of most people to pay, or leave the state. And voters keep voting for those who are devastating them and destroying their lives. Oy.
(https://x.com/NormOrnstein/status/1795079885276283247?t=Wy04nQ-1WsNTJq7b_DOrGw&s=03)
rikyrah
The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) posted at 5:10 PM on Sat, May 25, 2024:
INDIANA: “Private school vouchers hit HALF-BILLION DOLLAR COST… typical student = White family making $100,000… 68% had never attended public school…”
https://t.co/1QpHg1n234
All reasons why @GovBillLee’s voucher scam was rejected. https://t.co/rtIx9JCGEh
(https://x.com/TheTNHoller/status/1794491259924754486?t=7BwOhlmMj3d1TTv-8epihQ&s=03)
Cacti
Whether a conviction, an acquittal, or a hung jury it will be bad news for the Dems. The media has already decided this for us.
My prediction has always been hung jury.
rikyrah
clap clap clap
Andrew Bates (@AndrewJBates46) posted at 10:23 AM on Sat, May 25, 2024:
“The once-in-a-generation inflation shock sparked by the coronavirus pandemic continues to dog much of the world, but not all of it. While Europe continues to struggle, the US—which powered through the worst of the crisis with massive rescue packages—is outperforming its peers.”
LadyGrey![]()
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![]()
(@TWLadyGrey) posted at 10:34 AM on Sat, May 25, 2024:
The entire world got once in a generation inflation.
But only we got the recovery. We’re the only economy that’s thriving.
(https://x.com/TWLadyGrey/status/1794391480284610985?t=0ktaokRxX4LL0X17Sh73hg&s=03)
rikyrah
Jess Piper (@piper4missouri) posted at 8:36 AM on Sat, May 25, 2024:
We really should go back to calling private schools that subsist off of taxpayer vouchers by their historic name: Segregation Academies.
Jasmine Crockett’s Anger Translator (@Needle_of_Arya) posted at 1:48 PM on Sat, May 25, 2024:
Actually, we should. In an age where white Evangelicals openly desire racial segregation in K-12 schools to come back, calling them what they are while they are being re-established & reaffirmed in trifecta/triplex red states is part of the way forward.
(https://x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1794440378830983255?t=cVrIIzlM7yHn7FOEm59Adg&s=03)
gvg
@Geoduck: Foster parent classes emphasized not criticizing bio parents. Research shows people really want to think well of their parents and get defensive when someone else criticizes a parent. They gloss over or find excuses for almost everything, even if the said parent injured them seriously. They can realize things on their own, but often don’t. It may even be easier to overlook the flaws of an absent parent.
Also the few things I read about Tiffany, looking back, I think she mentioned her siblings welcoming her more than her father. I know quite a few adopted out children who sought out their bio parents later and were very disillusioned but many of them find a worthwhile relationship with a sibling instead. So, Tiffany may, I stress may, be doing it for other family, not Trump. She might not want people holding grudges.
Geminid
@rikyrah: That sounds like good news about oil. It seems like OPEC is having a hard time maintaining price levels. One reason is that US production keeps chugging along.
The Oil Price news site has a lot of good reporting on this and more general oil and gas industry stories. They also report some on important clean energy projects and developments.
Oil Price shows three different benchmark oil prices at the top of its page, plus one for natural gas. There’s also a small oval marked “Press here for 150 more prices.”
rikyrah
The old ‘ economic anxiety’ bullshyt.
Kyrsten’s Closet (@KyrstensCloset) posted at 3:36 PM on Sat, May 25, 2024:
The best way to prevent fascism is to create an economy and society that works for all people. The core philosophy of fascism is resentment and anxiety.
If everyone is content with their lives and feels economically stable, there’s no need for them to reach for that scapegoat.
David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) posted at 3:41 PM on Sat, May 25, 2024:
This sort of thinking is the #1 mistake materialist leftists make.
95% of Trump voters would still vote for fascists in a utopian egalitarian society where all needs were met. In fact they would be *angrier*, bc they actively want bad things for and superiority over Others.
(https://x.com/DavidOAtkins/status/1794468952934109228?t=afqF0r_J3KSgbcfLbrMOYw&s=03)
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah:
The invisible hand of the free market, which they profess to love, will slap them upside the head. Insurance company actuaries (I am friends with some) are *completely* emotionless, focusing 100% on the bottom line.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@TS @Old School:
Home page 503, live blog hangs, but Morning Memo responds. They’re probably overloaded.
rikyrah
I wanna have that conversation. Been wanted to have that conversation.
Jasmine Crockett’s Anger Translator (@Needle_of_Arya) posted at 8:32 AM on Sat, May 25, 2024:
no one wants to have that explosive conversation about how white Evangelism has made itself into the enemy of everything good in this country
no one could handle the fallout
(https://x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1794360951669690819?t=WGp7jdilogq9QeSR0Zqhvg&s=03)
Scout211
LOL!
Baud
@Scout211:
So a fight among pro-Trump supporters was broken up by pro-Trump supporters?
Almost Retired
Oh FFS. “Judge” Cannon just denied Smith’s motion for a gag order regarding Trump’s dangerous lies about the FBI’s authorization to assassinate him if necessary. She’s shameless.
rikyrah
Rina Shah (@RinainDC) posted at 5:24 PM on Sat, May 25, 2024:
You know what just happened the week before Memorial Day 2024?
Republican Governor Youngkin repealed a law that allows for kids of 100% disabled military veterans (& those killed in action) to attend Virginia colleges free.
Heartless. Brainless. Shameless.
(https://x.com/RinainDC/status/1794494884348387486?t=FtHkf8GgBFbsh02bSvztbw&s=03)
smith
@Scout211: Seems to be happening a lot these days, though usually at an official GQP meeting. Could it be the Goobers are not one big happy family after all?
Eolirin
@rikyrah: Governors in VA can unilaterally repeal laws?
Baud
@rikyrah:
Hmm. Dems control the legislature now so I’m skeptical without more information.
Baud
@Almost Retired:
Appealable?
japa21
@Almost Retired: That may be a blessing in disguise. Several experts have said that this could be the trigger for Smith to go to the CC and have her removed.
SiubhanDuinne
MSNBC is reporting that Judge Aileen Cannon has denied Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request to impose a gag order on TIFG in the classified documents case.
Not the least bit surprising, but horrifying to see how blatantly she’s leaning her full weight on the scales.
Scout211
Blanche earlier tried to neutralize the word “conspiracy” by stating that all political campaigns are conspiracies to get candidates elected. Clever.
However, prosecution will tear that one to shreds since he left out one little word: criminal conspiracy.
Jeffro
@Geminid: OMG I just saw that!
Which is doubly funny, as Good’s yard signs (seen infrequently around Cville, but they’re there) say
on them!
I mean, the guy is openly flacking for his Orange Idol now, putting him ON TOP of his own yard signs, and trump still shivved him!
Take note, GOP, take note!
smith
@Almost Retired: I thought Smith had teed this up to give himself a reason to appeal and get her recused.
gvg
@MisterForkbeard: Different jobs have different possibilities and needs. An employer who doesn’t want to allow remote work doesn’t have to. This is a really bad idea. Sort of like Communist Russia or China trying to manage the economy, instead of free market. There are all kinds of pro or cons plus the labor market is going to be important. They need to stay out of it.
TBone
@dmsilev: chef’s kiss
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Almost Retired: That may be enough to go to the Fifth Circuit. Fingers crossed.
Scout211
Oh my! I expected her to take her sweet time to make that ruling.
Baud
@gvg:
I think this bill applies only to federal employees.
rikyrah
timpete (@timpete8) posted at 11:21 AM on Sat, May 25, 2024:
Some white people feel their privilege is slipping away and TFG is the one that can restore that, they see America is changing to a more equal and fairer country
Dreday1127 (@AndreBJones2) posted at 11:35 AM on Sat, May 25, 2024:
Now THAT, is the unspoken truth!
When we first heard the campaign slogan in 2016, Make America Great Again – literally EVERY Black person I know, knew exactly what that meant and what it was code for
It’s a longing for the 40s and 50s America to come back when White Men were #1
Mai Leah 🇪🇷 (@TheGardensGuard) posted at 10:16 AM on Sat, May 25, 2024:
Exactly. Because he reminds them of their forefathers sense of unapologetic, and sole ownership of a country they fundamentally know isn’t really theirs.
Bonnie Davis (@vancouverboomer) posted at 3:26 PM on Sat, May 25, 2024:
Equality always feels like oppression to the privileged.
Sadly. It should be empowering and inspiring!!!
bob roll (@dilted) posted at 3:36 AM on Sun, May 26, 2024:
100% . An old trope used by slave holders to get poor whites to fight & die in the Civil War to maintain their slave wealth. Poor whites ALWAYS believe they are one break away from the top. Their whiteness is their shot. The Dems & blacks want to take away their path to the top
(https://x.com/dilted/status/1794648757788938443?t=mtbt3KDV6sb6avDMLen1dw&s=03)
smith
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Wow, I hope not the Fifth Circuit, the worst in the nation. Luckily Cannon is in the Eleventh.
Jeffro
so true
TBone
@Scout211: I saved my issue of AARP magazine with Bobby DeNiro on the cover as a prayer offering. I usually discard those immediately. This issue sits on my coffee table in direct view of the TV.
Baud
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
11th circuit. The 5th circuit would have already ordered the case to be dismissed and Jack Smith arrested.
SuzieC
@Almost Retired: I think that means Jack can now appeal to the 11th Circuit.
Jackie
Per Lisa Ruben:
trollhattan
@SuzieC: Why, the entire film takes less time. Predicted passages:
Jeffro
Or, conversely,
poorwhites want a guarantee that no matter what, they won’t be in the bottom caste.Mai Naem mobile
@dmsilev: sing it along to the Mickey Mouse club song since you can easily plug in Michael Cohen into the M-I-C-K-E-Y so easily.
Baud
@Jeffro: very much this.
Geminid
@Jeffro: Good just has to grin and bear it. He can’t criticize Trump; he’ll have to blame his evil advisors instead:
“If only the Czar knew how the Boyars have misled him.”
Soprano2
@Chief Oshkosh: Thanks, I shared that on FB. Too many people don’t understand how dangerous things like that are. It’s kind of scary.
Soprano2
@Leto: It would be nice if the prosecution used that line from his own book against him, wouldn’t it?
Almost Retired
@Baud: Random cable TV lawyers think it’s appealable, so that’s good enough for me.
laura
@Suzanne: it’s all about the absolute cratering of the commercial real estate market- hating on public sector workers is just a bonus. California’s current state budget deficit is directly tied to the loss of revenue that commercial real estate provides, and local businesses that relied on the foot traffic that workers generated are really suffering.
TBone
@Jackie: 💜💜💜
Soprano2
@rikyrah: Wow, that makes no sense at all because I’m sure for some positions it saves the government a lot of money. I’m not a huge fan of the “everyone can work at home we don’t need offices anymore at all” stuff, but I understand the utility of it for some jobs. Why hamstring the government like that?
Mai Naem mobile
@rikyrah: Rmoney and Manchin probably have some pals in the commercial RE market who are worried about office space vacancy rates going/staying up.
TBone
TO AN IRANIAN OILIGARCH
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/05/trump-just-sold-one-his-jets-republican
WHERE is Barbara Jones?????
Jeffro
@Geminid: it’d be hysterically funny if it wasn’t so incredibly pathetic. Good and all the trumpies like him will literally NEVER stop degrading themselves for the orange cretin.
Oh well, sucks to be them. I’ll just keep rooting for (GOP) injuries here in the 5th..
ETA: just as I suspected, Good has a picture of him and trumpov right there on the homepage of his campaign website. Caption under their pic says:
He can’t even shamelessly promote his previous endorsement without noting that trump kicked him to the curb this time around BUT ol’ Bob still loves him some trump!
There must be a German term for being so pathetic that it’s almost unbearable for normal human beings to watch.
smith
@TBone: The monitor is still overseeing Trump Org business, so this transaction would have been approved by her. She will also know where the $10 mil will be stashed, so it doesn’t seem to be an asset-hiding maneuver. More likely offloading a property that costs him money for insurance, upkeep, etc.
NotMax
@rikyrah
Mario’s two cities barnburner speech continues to resonate.
TBone
@smith: I’d have thought that ALL proceeds from ANY org transactions would go somewhere like an escrow account. I mean, why trust anything he does, especially letting him or any of them make/stash any kind of profit? Maybe that’s what’s going on? I am ever hopeful…
catclub
On the one hand people are dumb, on the other hand they could still see a hung jury as one Trump holdout against a unanimous guilty vote. Which would not really be a great look for Trump.
smith
@TBone: They are allowed to conduct business under the monitor’s watchful eye. If business activity were to cease, the value of the company would plummet, and AG James might not be able to collect.
Sure Lurkalot
@rikyrah: I have posted this before and it’s a time consuming GIF but most people have no idea how much money a billion dollars is. To allow, enable and promote hoarding money is perverse (AND a policy failure).
https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah:
I assume he’s all for it, and that’s why he’s supporting the side with all the Holocaust deniers and the like.
Mai Naem mobile
@matt: it’s not just you. I’m expecting some kind of definitive reichstag fire moment.
schrodingers_cat
I just found out that my mother’s friend who was a physician and an epidemiologist died earlier this May. She had wished me for my birthday in April and I missed the call and then we played phone tag. I had made a note to call her back on her birthday which is in July.
I am saddened and heartbroken. She was the inspiration behind my dream to come to the US.
Captain C
@SiubhanDuinne:
In Ivanka’s cases I suspect part of the reason she’s distanced herself from him is she’s tired of fending off his creepy, gropey ass.
Morfydd
@Jeffro: Fremdschämen is embarrassment on someone else’s behalf.
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
Condolences for your loss. 🙏
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
My condolences.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Soprano2: In the private sector, remote work is ushering in a golden age of outsourcing expensive white collar jobs. That, in my opinion, has national security implications. Critical IT infrastructure for some US companies is now being managed and run overseas. I have some real concerns that China or India’s governments will start threatening to damage US companies if they don’t get political concessions.
Government workers may not like this, but I’d rather be sure they were actually US based. You do have situations now where US citizens are working from other countries because they can. Again, from a national security perspective, this can matter a lot.
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah:
Come sit next to me. I’ll gladly join in, and follow up with chapter and verse on how they’re not just the enemies of everything good in this country, but are also the enemies of their alleged faith.
There are still well-meaning people out there who want to save white evangelicalism from itself. I’ve been saying for years that it’s too late, go out and start something new.
TBone
@smith: I get that. It’s the “now where is that money?” part of the story that was left out of the reporting that I was focused on. Usually the reports remind us that Barbara Jones exists, at the very least. C’est la vie!
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
So sorry for your loss.
Captain C
@Almost Retired: Sure, she can rule quickly on this. Can’t even bother to schedule important hearings, though.
TBone
Maybe this would be helpful against the Evangeluglicans
https://www.salon.com/2024/05/26/cracking-the-christian-nationalist-code-a-glossary-for-the-confused/
The more you know…
frosty
@schrodingers_cat: My condolences. It’s doubly hard because you tried to get in touch and now you never will. I have regrets like this.
Scout211
Lisa Rubin (NBC) There seems to be many holes in Blanche’s arguments.
Old School
@schrodingers_cat: My sympathies.
It’s strange how people we get used to just being there even if we don’t talk to them a lot leave such a gap when they go.
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah:
Youngkin (and GOP generally) to vets: Fuck you for your service.
Jackie
Here’s some inspirational news!
TBone
@TBone: this the local church that my neighbors invited me to attend. If you don’t think we’re in deep shit with Xtian nationalism, I invite you to check this out.
https://www.lewisburgalliance.com/our-beliefs
Pangloss
I think it’s possible, in this even more than ever before partisan election, to “win” the popular vote by 8 million and lose in the electoral college. Totally possible with micro-casting, social media, and closer margins with Blacks, Asians, and Latinos.
TBone
@Jackie: that is awesome. My mood today, however, says that relying on the charitable instincts of billionaires is a shitty way to run a nation.
Ramalama
@schrodingers_cat: Huge shock. So sorry.
catclub
@Scout211: I found something that may be of interest if you want to read the rulings: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67490069/united-states-v-trump/?order_by=desc
lowtechcyclist
@TBone:
It was supposedly imminent when I first heard of it in 1971. Jesus and the Second Coming are like Lucy and the football. Sorry, Rapture believers, but you’re Charlie Brown in this cartoon.
catclub
@smith: She rejected it not on the merits but without prejudice because of ‘insufficient conferral’ with the defense legal team on the motion. Lawyers will know if that is unusual. I have no idea.
stacib
@schrodingers_cat: My aunt used to live on my second floor. She had been sick for a while, nothing debilitating, just general age related stuff. My cousin and I were on the front porch hanging out and saying we should go up to see her, but we decided to do it the next day. My aunt died that evening. I’ll never get over regretting not going up there earlier in the day.
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack:
@Baud:
@rikyrah:
Thanks. She sent me her winter coats and other winter gear in my first semester here . I was woefully underprepared for a New England winter. I have still kept one of the scarves and a sweater that she had crocheted herself. She would call herself my godmother. And that’s what she was. She had practiced medicine in rural India and then England. Instead of redoing her residency here, she went back to school and got a PhD in epidemiology and became an EPA administrator. Her work on asbestos was quite important to many of the asbestos related regulations in place now. And on top of it all she was a great cook!
I will miss her. Oh and she was an active Democrat and would raise funds for them.
schrodingers_cat
@frosty: @stacib: OMG yes. I have similar regrets about my grandfather.
schrodingers_cat
@Old School:
@Ramalama:
Thanks for your condolences.
Baud
@catclub: You often have to ask the other side what their position is. I’m not as familiar with a judge requiring a particular level of sufficiency however.
rikyrah
Absolute nonsense
PatriotTakes![]()
(@patriottakes) posted at 6:49 PM on Mon, May 27, 2024:
On Memorial Day, the family of a January 6th rioter attempted to drive an “Ashli Babbitt Memorial Stone” through Arlington National Cemetery, but were turned away at the entrance. https://t.co/Ssfgk7qOB8
(https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1795241016531796043?t=3KzQ89EJOqd08oB3xz79Fg&s=03)
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@catclub: Listening to this reaction. The defense was offered a chance to confer on Friday and turned it down on the basis of being busy. I’ll listen to the rest on and off to find out whether ultimately there’s good news for Jack Smith in all this, but frankly following the minutiae of Aileen Cannon’s so-far-successful games makes me physically sick to my stomach and I can only take small doses.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
When I retired, we had spent the better part of 10 years remoting various aspects of our employees. We went into hyperdrive the second week of March 2020 because of The Plague.
Admittedly, my DOT mode was bleeding edge in Club Fed when it came to telework.
The last 6 months before I retired, we were transitioning into a hybrid environment which was basically 3 days in, 2 days at home.
One thing we’ve found over the last 5-8 years of this is it’s made hiring somewhat more competitive cuz of many jobs are now full-time remote.
Again, we were bleeding edge. And jobs that require a clearance really can’t be done at home, I know that from recently retired buds from my intel officer days.
Thus, from the perspective of just Club Fed (ignoring the entire commercial real estate aspect of this), the Rmoney/Mansion bill will go nowhere. Like it or not, hybrid is here to stay and the remoting of some employees, again very agency dependent, has turned out pretty well.
rikyrah
CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) posted at 2:53 PM on Sat, May 25, 2024:
Do you instantly lose respect for someone when they say they’re a Trump supporter?
Yes or no.
David Simon (@AoDespair) posted at 1:42 PM on Sun, May 26, 2024:
Yes. And short of a long purgatory of abject public apology and exhaustive self-flagellation, the verdict is just and forever.
(https://x.com/AoDespair/status/1794801186920673577?t=2ByTio2tbbuGNhSGdtecFg&s=03)
Scout211
Blanche essentially asked the jury not to send Trump to prison. I thought that was weird and even more deceptively manipulative than his other arguments that used deception. I guess the prosecution thought so, too.
Nelle
@lowtechcyclist: if you believe the Bible, then it is blasphemy to try to predict the Second Coming or, even more, “help” it along by voting for the orange jerk. No one , but the Father, knows the time, the hour or the day, according to Jesus. Meddling, power hungry, self-righteous folk who just want to give God a nudge or lever. I don’t intend to share food again with my cousins who believe this way. Even to an agnostic (me), the blasphemy is stunning.
rikyrah
truth
Jasmine Crockett’s Anger Translator (@Needle_of_Arya) posted at 9:20 AM on Tue, May 28, 2024:
readers added context
White left-populists demanding to be called “progressive” or “the base” are neither. Black people are the base, which is why Bernie was rightfully denied the nomination twice.
The actual base actually votes; Bernie’s followers constantly threaten not to.
(https://x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1795460019426623725?t=GA6UF9VLFDYadqdQ280GQQ&s=03)
Scout211
@catclub: Thanks. I actually posted a link to that site downstairs when I posted about the defense team’s response to Smith’s gag order request. Of course, I predicted it would take weeks or months for Cannon to rule and it only took hours.
Baud
@Nelle: is it blasphemy in the Trump Bible though?
Soprano2
@rikyrah: I agree, for the most part this isn’t about economics, although they hide their true motivation by telling people it is.
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: that’s merely the tip of the iceberg and sounds sorta benign when taken out of the context of the rest of the text at the church link I posted. Take a moment and start at the beginning of the text at the link. It is not benign. It is malignant.
TBone
@Nelle: 👍❤️
My salute to those motherfuckers
🖕
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
So the antichrist is Gen X. I’m not surprised.
TBone
Today’s Tiedrich is good
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/what-kind-of-kompromat-is-donald
Nelle
@Baud: I’m still startled that he is selling his bible, instead of golden statuettes (golden calf? golden toilet?), so that his acolytes can construct an altar and prostrate themselves before it.
Scout211
@Scout211: Judge’s response: (NBC)
TBone
@Baud: not according to those in the know
https://www.salon.com/2024/05/26/cracking-the-christian-nationalist-code-a-glossary-for-the-confused/
Post millennial is what that actually is…but I’m being too serious I know you were joking!
Soprano2
@laura: When I asked my investment advisor what clouds he saw for the economy he immediately replied “Commercial real estate”. He said they got completely out of banks, insurance companies and REIT (real estate investment trusts) because of it. I remember when REIT’s were a big thing they were all investing in.
TBone
@Scout211: I’m sure the prosecution will tear him a new ass, also too!
Bill Arnold
@matt:
There are many among us who strongly believe that Nazis/Fascists should be treated with whatever level of firmness is sufficient (“necessary” would be optimal) to stop them from seizing power, or failing that, to separate them from power.
Soprano2
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I agree that it’s a good idea to make sure people who work for the U.S. government are secure. I just think it’s a dumb idea to completely outlaw fully remote work, because in some instances it makes sense.
Baud
Baseball followers, Angel Hernandez has retired from baseball.
There are some things that still unify a divided nation.
scav
@TBone: I just assumed that pre-millenial meant divine offer only available the boomers.
RedDirtGirl
@Sure Lurkalot: That’s incredible. Thank you for sharing it.
TBone
@Bill Arnold: I am such a one. No matter what flavor.
🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-sOSr7n_8YU
TBone
@scav: 😆
Baud
@scav:
Boomers pulling up the divine ladders behind them.
Ruviana
@scav: What, no gen-xers?
rikyrah
Qondi (@QondiNtini) posted at 10:34 AM on Tue, May 28, 2024:![]()
https://t.co/D7ROyKQdRq
Biden-Harris Communications Director Michael Tyler calling out the media circus around the Trump trial is MASTERFUL
(https://x.com/QondiNtini/status/1795478861368439122?t=1E6lOG6Jj3Sm7qhVI9ZSuQ&s=03)
scav
@Soprano2: All spies must report to their built headquarters, 5 out of 7! Any and all off-base activities only to be performed on approved weekends, in a company car and with pre-approved vouchers for expenditures, filed in triplicate.
Betty
@Almost Retired: At least she didn’t delay this one.
Bupalos
@Geminid:
Lower prices because producers are producing more isn’t really good news about oil. It’s bad news about oil that might have a temporary silver lining in terms of influencing the election. But we’re still 6 months out so who even knows how to root on that basis. If the price of gas goes down to 3 for 2 months then up to 3.50 for 2 months, that’s probably going to be an overall negative.
In the big picture, mass climate change immigration (which we’re already seeing) is likely to destabilize electoral politics (and disadvantage liberals) beyond the nuttiness we’re seeing now. It’s really hard for me to root for lower oil prices at all. Ever.
TBone
@schrodingers_cat: my hand is extended to you in sympathy as my heart softly breaks again. I was ON MY WAY to visit my beloved Great Aunt and missed her by ten minutes. I howled all the way home for three hours “REALLY GOD? TEN FUCKING MINUTES?”
💔
I actually blocked that recent memory until just now.
Bupalos
@Baud: Well I have to look up who umped the Guards/Rockies yesterday, because it feels like we’ve got a successor here.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Baud: Boomers and Silent Generation are premillenial too. So.. the AntiChrist still could be Trump.
TBone
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: no one here read the Salon
thesaurusglossary?Baud
@Bupalos:
“Always two, there are. No more. No less. A Master and an apprentice.”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
He should have been fired years ago. His total incompetence was matched only by his self-absorbed cluelessness. He sued MLB and the judge’s ruling the first time around used phrases such as “the plaintive’s cherrypicking of data does not hold up to scrutiny…regarding discrimination”. His appeal was tossed out last year so I’m guessing MLB worked with the ump’s union to find a way for him to leave on his own or get fired.
Main thing, his sorrysorrysorry ass is gone.
TBone
@Bupalos: good eye, mi amigo
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@Baud:
Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course
Each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way
TBone
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: I read that in Frankie’s voice
Baud
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I’m not very religious, but I’m pretty sure the antichrist has more dignity than that.
TBone
@Baud: 😆
thanks I really needed that
Leto
@TBone: Dems should have a commercial already on the air asking why Trumpov is funding Iranian terrorists? Why does Trumpov love religious extremists? (No, not those extremists, but the “bad” ones?)
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Baseball hasnt had a good umpire since Enrico Pallazzo retired
Leto
@Sure Lurkalot: I’ve seen this before and it’s obscene/insane/infuriating. And it still doesn’t really get people to grapple with just how ridiculous it is.
rikyrah
Renee (@PettyLupone) posted at 0:51 PM on Tue, May 28, 2024:
Lol! I’m not begging y’all for votes in 2024. Are you crazy?!
There’s a lunatic running for president who wants to deport anyone who ever mocked his spray tan.
I will not coddle willful stupidity at any point this election so you better call Iyanla for a hug. https://t.co/KMlKXkJ5SC
(https://x.com/PettyLupone/status/1795513364090933631?t=_SJzZ8cAYdZUYxYDnn5rSA&s=03)
rikyrah
MSNBC (@MSNBC) posted at 11:14 AM on Tue, May 28, 2024:
WATCH: Robert De Niro speaks to reporters outside of Trump’s criminal hush money trial on behalf of the Biden-Harris campaign. The actor calls Trump a “buffoon,” “clown”, “sinner,” and a “two-bit playboy.” https://t.co/kVma4a4gDG
(https://x.com/MSNBC/status/1795488847771377986?t=zk6Bb2owaCnCsifXoU6Yng&s=03)
rikyrah
Rules for surviving Pride Month![]()
![]()
![]()
I love her on TikTok.
greg the menace (@mistergeezy) posted at 10:59 AM on Tue, May 28, 2024:
starting June 1st https://t.co/XhnTmJFqhK
(https://x.com/mistergeezy/status/1795484989758599284?t=Yd_MTCy2sNnUf2SHItP23g&s=03)
Bupalos
@rikyrah: “the base” isn’t an ethnic group nor an age group. It’s the entire coalition of dem voters that turn out for us reliably. Anyone who’s come out for us straight D the last 10 elections is the base. I know a couple 80+yo and a couple <30yo Bernie supporters that fit that description.
rikyrah
Lakshya Jain (@lxeagle17) posted at 11:57 PM on Mon, May 27, 2024:
Unless you believe that Trump will be better on anything, you will make zero people’s lives better by not voting for Biden.
However, if you think that Biden would be better for any group (women, LGBTQ, immigrants, etc), then you *can* make their lives better by electing him.
(https://x.com/lxeagle17/status/1795318451759984896?t=HZ4aQBWdP9DjX2V00AAKsg&s=03)
Mai Naem mobile
@schrodingers_cat: condolences on the loss of your friend.
TBone
@Leto: I agree except for saying “Iranian.” Funding “terrorists” in general is sufficient IMO.
Soprano2
@Baud: I don’t know about him, but I cheered when Don Denkinger retired and then when he died. They probably won’t tell Cardinal fans where his grave it. I’m not still bitter about 1985, no sirree, I’m not bitter about how he stole the World Series from the best Cardinal team I’ve ever watched. Nope, not bitter…….LOL
TBone
@Bupalos: raises hand
TBone
@rikyrah: 💙💙💙💙💙💙🥰 thank you for sharing that
Citizen Alan
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Eleventh Circuit, Thank God! They’re only mostly Nazis.
Bupalos
@TBone: “I’m not agreeing with the “he will never leave” part. He’ll try to stay past 2028, that’s fairly certain. We’re more incompetent than he is if we let that happen. I don’t believe we’d fail there. I’m not going to accept these “last election in U.S. history” motivational scare jobs. They’re going to do more harm than good.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: It’s still stupid. There is, IMO, no rational reason for requiring people who are perfectly capable of doing their work remotely to come in to the office beyond the desire to make the proles suffer. The wealth of assholes like Romney mean nothing to them unless it comes with the power hurt their lessers.
TBone
@Bupalos: well lookit where the fuck we are right now. Dotard shouldn’t be anywhere but serving time in a federal pen, yet he’s running the goddamn RNC and our House of Representatives!
I’m not gonna quibble – if DeNiro uses a bit of hyperbole to make a point, GOOD ON HIM I say.
Geminid
@Bupalos: I was thinking about this election. Generally speaking, I would like to see oil prices rise 10% a year, year over year. Starting this December.
Leto
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
versus when the contractors company’s IT was so horrid that they just went into their systems and stole everything wholesale (F-22/35/so many other major weapons systems)? Or when the one USAF Staff Sgt had a virus on his home computer, used his CAC card to login to the secure website and the virus swiped his credentials thereby letting the Chinese government just go wholesale in our systems? There’s so many holes in our entire IT infrastructure that it’s require an entire regrouping of how we handle this, that I don’t think it could be done. Mainly because we rely too much on the private sector to do basic, essential services for us. Too many people, including on this blog, want a fucking cheap ass National security apparatus. And this is how you get it. Hire out to the lowest bidder instead of having government employees/agencies do this.
And I apologize if this seems like I’m yelling at you. I’m not. I’m just a tired enlisted guy who keeps seeing the same dumb shit being repeated over and over. Much like when a new commander would come in with the same fail ideas, and we’d have to give it the ole college try of implementing them.
TBone
@Leto: hear, hear!
Obligatory:
Fuck fElon Skum!
JWR
NBC Live blog:
See? Even Trump’s friends know he’s a crook. ;)
Steve in the ATL
@Gin & Tonic:
Normally your posts are credible, but come on—actuaries have friends? Yeah, sure.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@CaseyL: I had never heard of this before, but I saw a post on Instagram last night by a guy whose cat has asthma, which he said presents in cats by coughing. He was giving the cat inhaler treatments 2x a day by holding a cone attached to the inhaler over his face. So you might ask your vet about asthma. FYI.
Scout211
@JWR: Following the live updates, I am impressed with Steinglass’ clear and easy to follow debunking of Blanche’s attempt to confuse the jury with deception and cherry-picking. If I was a juror I would appreciate Steinglass’ clear arguments.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Anyone know why the defense goes first with summations in NYC?
I mean in “Matlock” the prosecution goes first then the defense.
Scout211
LAO
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: The Prosecution goes last because it has the burden of proof.
in the Feds, it goes (1) prosecution (2) defense and (3) government rebuttal summation.
Scout211
WaPo says it’s the NY system rule.
https://www.washingtonpost.com › …
Live updates: In hush money trial closing arguments, Trump defense says he was a victim
ETA: and LAO, who knows these things, got there first.
hueyplong
@Soprano2: We’ll always have Clark-Niedenfuer at Dodger Stadium.
laura
@Soprano2: I seriously doubt that people realize what impact this will have on the overall economy.
Scout211
LOL.
rikyrah
CBPolitics (@ClistonBrown) posted at 9:18 PM on Mon, May 27, 2024:
Arab and Muslim voters are supposedly going to vote for the guy who instituted a Muslim ban.
Supposedly, many Latino voters are going to vote for the guy who demonizes Latinos as criminals.
We KNOW a majority of white women are going to vote for the guy who ended Roe. (1/)
CBPolitics (@ClistonBrown) posted at 9:22 PM on Mon, May 27, 2024:
A significant majority of blue-collar white men are going to vote for the guy who’s going to crush labor.
This all confirms my observation that Black voters are the only group of voters in this country in which 9 out of 10 have sense enough not to piss in their own soup. (2/)
(https://x.com/ClistonBrown/status/1795279358145552655?t=MIuVbpLg1if4oXHdZZQ_eg&s=03)
Old School
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
Well, that’s Georgia.
Maybe the reboot will change the order.
LAO
@Scout211: So far, the witness store line is my favorite.
Also, I always hated when prosecutors referred to my clients as “the defendant” but I find myself ok with it today. 🤷🏻♀️
cain
@rikyrah:
Makes sense – cuz they’ve been the target of everyone above. But some have been seduced but not as a cohort.
I will never understand blue collar people voting for GOP given that they vote for people interested in moving their jobs overseas.
rikyrah
Brandon Bradford (@BrandonLBradfor) posted at 0:51 PM on Tue, May 28, 2024:
“I was told by insiders that they would never hire me because I’m a white male.”
You had insiders, that were in the decision-making process/seat, that knew you well enough to admit to a crime, let you go through an interview, but knew they weren’t going to hire you?!?!?
Okay
…………………………………………
Monjula Ray 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ team 🐻 (@queerBengali) posted at 1:07 PM on Tue, May 28, 2024:
I really think white men are avoiding having hard conversations with their white male friends by conveniently blaming DEI.
A white dude acquaintance of mine was CONVINCED by another white dude he knows at my company that we were on a white dude hiring freeze. …
Monjula Ray 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ team 🐻 (@queerBengali) posted at 1:08 PM on Tue, May 28, 2024:
Like genuinely convinced. He told me, I know you don’t believe if but I’ve been assured by this VP that your company is not hiring white men.
I was like ok, then explain how on my small team we just extended offers to two white dudes this week.
Your friend is lying to you.
Monjula Ray 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ team 🐻 (@queerBengali) posted at 1:10 PM on Tue, May 28, 2024:
Your friend doesn’t want to talk to you about a skills gap or a social skills gap or some other reason, and he knows this one reason feels better to you.
(https://x.com/queerBengali/status/1795517906492756169?t=O_98cnfDFk0rDg2rtVfDoQ&s=03)
Barbara
@Scout211: “We didn’t pick him up at the witness store” is so funny — I bet they have used it before.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: I disagree. I have said for many years that if the Antichrist was real and came to power in my lifetime, he would be a Republican president who was overwhelmingly supported by White Evangelicals. And I think it would be in keeping with God’s sense of dark humor for said Antichrist to be an abject buffoon who couldn’t even hold a Bible correctly and who brazenly acted as if he were the embodiment of sin … and White Evangelicals still embraced him because he promised to hurt the people they hated.
You don’t have to be smart or even cunning to be the Antichrist. You just have to destroy the world in the way the Bible predicted.
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: The “man bites dog” quality of news reporting means that phenomena get special attention BECAUSE they are rare.
Hence the weird focus on Black Trump supporters.
rikyrah
Alon-Lee Green – ألون-لي جرين – אלון-לי גרין![]()
(@AlonLeeGreen) posted at 11:16 AM on Tue, May 28, 2024:
Dear Americans, Nikki Haley visited us today: She went to the West Bank settlements and then went to sign on a bomb “finish them”. Just disgusting. Can you please take her back? We already have one Ben Gvir & we don’t need your filthy death promoting politicians as well. Thanks! https://t.co/8nnLxHzNHl
(https://x.com/AlonLeeGreen/status/1795489251116859630?t=yQpSEQ4JytcFrKU30lXUdQ&s=03)
TBone
@Citizen Alan: you have a good point.
rikyrah
Anthony Coley (@AnthonyColey) posted at 10:05 AM on Tue, May 28, 2024:
The kid gloves are off: The Biden team is taking the fight for our future to the Courthouse steps, appropriately so.
Bold, brilliant move to bring in DeNiro + law enforcement who bravely defended the Capitol – and our democracy – on Jan. 6th.
(https://x.com/AnthonyColey/status/1795471503342944495?t=IvXC_NqAlmNuYrW_rTa0Dg&s=03)
Scout211
UNLAWFUL, UNLAWFUL, UNLAWFUL. Do you think the jury will get it? LOL
stacib
@rikyrah: I used to work with a Latino, gay guy who absolutely adored trump. I just couldn’t figure that one out.
rikyrah
The Associated Press (@AP) posted at 10:43 AM on Mon, May 27, 2024:
BREAKING: Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, a UN report says.
Nicole Minet (@mouvement33) posted at 3:43 AM on Tue, May 28, 2024:
Obama spent years on a deal to prevent Iran from doing this. Trump tore it up and replaced it with…nothing.
(https://x.com/mouvement33/status/1795375277562081632?t=mE2FRtLvrA8BWU3hr43HZg&s=03)
JWR
@Scout211: I could’ve sworn a few weeks ago that I heard a TV news reader refer to David Pecker as Dick Pecker. Who knows what lurks in the feminine mind? ;)
ETA Lightly edited.
Steve in the ATL
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: that’s because of the “Seersucker Rule of Criminal Prosecution”, which, for whatever crazy reason, is not widely followed in NY.
rikyrah
Veronica McDonald![]()
(@Purify_toast17) posted at 10:27 AM on Tue, May 28, 2024:
The only shot Hogan has is to convince Democrats to abandon Alsobrooks and vote for him instead. So there would have to be a significant number of Biden/Hogan voters, which he is counting on.
(https://x.com/Purify_toast17/status/1795477043611595175?t=3DFUF7vRdw42QIBTvScQdg&s=03)
Soprano2
@Leto: In my review this year I told my boss and her boss, who have both been in our department less than two years, that sometimes I feel like I keep seeing the same stuff we tried 20 years ago or 10 years ago suggested again, because people don’t know we already tried that and it didn’t work and they don’t want to listen to the people who have been here and already know it won’t work. LOL
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
I did no such thing. #NotAllBoomers!
Almost Retired
May I have permission to strangle Katy Tur? It can’t be more than a misdemeanor?
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah:
Hey, I know! They could set it up at the intersection down here in Calvert County where Babbitt rammed her car into the car her romantic rival was driving. We miss ya, nutcase! OK, not really.
cain
@rikyrah: Stunning to think that a woman threatening the life of the VP of the U.S. would get any kind of anything at Arlington.
Jackie
Take that, Ohio! Sez the DNC:
Scout211
Sure. But I may offer you a better solution: Stop watching television and cable news live. Going cold turkey will soothe your soul.
Ask your doctor if it’s right for you. 😉
Soprano2
@laura: It’s scary, it could cause big banks to fail. He said that’s why they got completely out of banks in their investments.
JWR
@rikyrah:
Good Lord! Did anyone ever, Ever, EVER think that she wasn’t a “Trump Girl” who would proudly kiss the ring? I sure didn’t.
zhena gogolia
@Almost Retired: Please do!
Ksmiami
@lowtechcyclist: evangelicals can go to hell. Frankly, I’m really wondering why we cowtow to religious people in this country as much as we do.
Ksmiami
@JWR: she’s an evil cu$$ who said Senator Warnock should be deported. Fuck her
Soprano2
@cain: They’ve also forgotten that the first president to promote NAFTA was George HW Bush, a Republican. People don’t remember this, but NAFTA was an attempt to staunch the bleeding, because companies were already moving jobs out of the U.S. in the 1980’s. NAFTA didn’t cause them to do that – I well remember all the factories that closed in the 1980’s because they were moved to Mexico. My mom’s GE motor factory had a “sister factory” in Mexico.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Leto: Oh I agree. What we have currently is a mess. However, the foreign outsourced hires are rarely better, often worse, and uniquely vulnerable to exploitation and political pressure by foreign actors who absolutely don’t align with the best interests of the US or the West more broadly.
cain
@schrodingers_cat: I’m sorry for your loss. Totally understand about the regrets
Jackie
I thought American “temporary build” was higher quality than this? Sigh… it’s as if the gods are against Gaza:
p.a.
I remember my union rep talking abt the company hacks brought in for contract negotiation, something to the effect: we know they’re smarter, better educated, etc, but it’s a different bunch of assholes every time. This is our 3rd, 4th, 5th etc time in the game…
cain
@Scout211: Which side is going to be accused of being antifa???!
Bupalos
@rikyrah: We absolutely do not KNOW that a majority of white women are going to vote for Trump. It will be close and I won’t be surprised if Dobbs brings Biden more white women than Trump. Also white and hispanic aren’t neccessarily exclusive categories in the unreliable exits. I saw at least one analysis that had the apparent 2-4 point slide from 2016 to 2020 in white women’s D vote as actually being a reflection of a deeper hispanic shift.
In general white people have been mostly stable or moving slightly away from Trump, Blacks have been mostly stable with small movements towards him- hopefully we aren’t seeing the beginning of a major slide as a few polls have suggested… and Hispanics are heading to Trump and Republicanism in droves.
Geminid
@Jackie: It doesn’t sound like major damage, so they ought to have the pier back in operation soon
Ed. Check this story again tomorrow.
cain
@rikyrah:
The best part is when the check comes due – they’ll be like “who would have thought this would happen!? It was completely not in our bingo card!”
They will then work on bailing out grocery chains – yet our people will starve.
zhena gogolia
JL Cauvin imagines Trump’s closing statement. Unfortunately, all too plausible.
Manyakitty
@schrodingers_cat: so very sorry to hear this. May her memory be a blessing and an inspiration.
karen marie
@Geoduck: Billionaires never have enough money. Or prestige.
Why do you think Boulos married Tiffany? Access and influence
Even if Trump isn’t elected, his alliance gives him access to GOP insiders, and info as to the griftiest GOP insiders. He can buy or share in the purchase of a senator.
rikyrah
@Bupalos:
White Women voted even more for Trump in 2020.
I never said that White women had to vote like Black women. But, if they had voted like Asian or Latino women, Hillary Clinton would be on her second term.
lowtechcyclist
@Ruviana:
They always get overlooked.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
The great thing about something that doesn’t actually exist, is that one can ascribe any properties one wants to it without being wrong.
karen marie
@Cacti: Oh, boy, we can do it again next year!
rikyrah
Dwann B 🇺🇸 (@dwannb) posted at 3:25 AM on Mon, May 27, 2024:
I love the way black people support Frankie Beverly and Maze. He lost his voice over a decade ago and he still gets love. I think he gets love because he gives love. He never tried to cross over. They know their audience and spent 50 years giving them exactly what they want.
They never won any major awards. Don’t have a bunch of chart topping hits. None of that matters because their music is full of spirit and love. And because of that, they still selling out arenas 30 years since their last album.
https://t.co/8tnPBrG0vW
(https://x.com/dwannb/status/1795008389883568141?t=Yqr_zbnH6_AFMemdc1ih3g&s=03)
Jackie
LOL! Is Hershel Walker Georgia and TIFG’s scorpion?🤭
Ramalama
@rikyrah:
Enjoyed the TikTok, especially:
Nancys are on trend to-day (see: earlier post on naming dogs).
The lady’s nails horrified me, but I am minding my business.
Also: one Pride celebration long ago I saw a girl who I thought I was related to. Impossible, I said to myself. She lives in IOWA/MINNESOTA/WISCONSIN. THIS IS BOSTON. I thought, no. Then yes. Then no. Then finally I went to go to her, but there was a crowd. She was with someone. I didn’t want any fighting, so I struggled for the best way to ask her a legit question without making it seem like I was hitting on her (my mindset at the time). I found her, tapped her on the shoulder, and said, “Excuse me are you my cousin?” Yes, it was my cousin. And she thought she was going to do one round to see if I might possibly still be living in Boston and attending Pride.
My friends who were with me that day, not the ones yelling, “Nancy!” at a dog, to this day will say during a quiet moment, “Are yOu My cOUsin?”
I believe I have told this same story here so kindly forgive a repeat typing performance.
Geminid
@Geminid:
@Jackie: I must take that assessment back. Military Times says the pier will be out of commission for a week. They will tow the pier to the port of Ashdod to make repairs, then bring it back and re-anchor it.
Jackie
@rikyrah:
Seems like something significant happened re the SCOTUS on June 24, 2022, that might have a bearing on how and who White Women will vote for this Nov.
Leto
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: agreed on all fronts with that. Another one? KBR/Haliburton taking all the supply contracts, then subcontracting those out to companies that hire people from super impoverished nations to come cook, clean, do laundry, etc… or to build things for us at deployed locations. I’ll never forget the 19 people who died from electrocution due to having faulty wiring in the shower. Or how when an inspector general found KBR at fault for not fulfilling their contractual duties, KBR pulled their people from DFACs, washing facilities, etc… and the government fired the IG guy. And don’t even get me started on the fucking communications contracts for tactical equipment. Goddamned…
@Soprano2: yes to all of this. We have the same sad saying in the military: stick around long enough, and you’ll see the same sad idea pop back up. The last 6 years of my career, I started to see that. It wouldn’t be so bad if they’d listen to us, try to find different solutions to the problems we encountered, but it was inevitably just a Sisyphus sized boulder rolling down hill in the form of, “that’s an order”, and woe be to the poor E6 who would stand in the way of that saying, “This is insane! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!”
lowtechcyclist
@Leto:
Indeed! There’s a former Booz Allen Hamilton employee, who has since located to Russia, who stole a bunch of classified info belonging to the NSA. Everybody cusses out Snowden. Hardly anyone says jack shit about how both Booz Allen and the NSA made it possible for him to steal what he did, while working for a contractor rather than the NSA itself. But if you ask me, that’s the real problem, and we’re just lucky if there haven’t been a bunch more Snowdens. (And I say ‘if’ because for all we know, Snowden was just the one that became known. “Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?” – Yossarian)
Brachiator
@cain:
Governments can help protect some workers’ rights, but they cannot preserve or save jobs or industries.
TBone
@JWR: just another fascist in a skirt
lowtechcyclist
@Steve in the ATL:
I admit I LOL’d there: for me, actuarial science was one of the paths not taken – and believe me, if you graduate with a math degree from a college in Hartford, Connecticut, they push you hard in that direction. Half a century later, the work still sounds boring as shit to me.
gvg
@Baud: Yes, but it is still thousands of different kinds of jobs.
Jackie
@Geminid: I hope the necessary repairs PLUS anchoring will be stronger and a little less “temporary!”🤞🏻
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
If I had pursued my love of math, I probably would have ended up an actuary. Thank God I didn’t think I was good enough at math to pursue it.
schrodingers_cat
@TBone: Thanks!
gene108
@rikyrah:
The Clinton Administration managed to get a deal to stop North Korea from developing their nuclear weapons program. Bush, Jr. tore it up. Called North Korea part of the Axis of Evil. In 2006, North Korean detonated its first nuclear device.
Republicans need enemies, both foreign and domestic, to win elections. They play on people’s fear of others.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: The poet Wallace Stevens worked in Hartford’s insurance industry, but not as an actuary. He was an executive, which gave him time to write some really weird shit.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Leto: I also remember the phrase “no-bid contract” for those Halliburton contracts. And in a strange coincidence, Halliburton was connected to Dick Cheney who supposedly wasn’t making money from the no-bid contracts.
I worked for the DoD as a civilian employee. I was considered an acquisition employee and had to get certified in federal acquisition regulations. I don’t think I ever saw acquisition play out the way I was trained it was supposed to according to the law. I think the incident that shocked me the most was when word came down in advance of one of the milestone revews on a major aerospace contract, that the general ordered that they would pass. Regardless of whatever deficiencies were found and how serious we tiny cogs in the machine considered them.
I remember sometimes in requirements reviews how I would sometimes step back and be amused at how I was capable of getting emotional about whether Requirement 5.4.12.9.7 was or was not being met. It might seem picky from the outside. But I wrote a lot of those requirements, and they were requirements, they were REQUIRED, for a reason.
Jay
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/28/spying-hacking-intimidation-israel-war-icc-exposed
gvg
@laura: The commercial real estate developers should blame themselves, around here. I have been noticing for around 10 years that the builders were building far too much office and shopping space compared to what we needed (what with online shopping and online services I think) They built fancy new places and wanted lots of money. Also the landlords of the old places raised rents and businesses in them either found cheaper digs or quit business. I didn’t understand why they were doing it if they didn’t have other prospects waiting for space which they clearly didn’t because there was more and more empty space. They kept building! I don’t think it was caused by the pandemic. I suspect that too many developers are too leveraged, or the owner/investors are deluded. They didn’t build enough modest housing but overbuilt commercial and luxury housing. It should have been obvious 15 years or more ago.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
My condolences.
Jeffro
@Jackie: wait…don’t they want Herschel to run again? He’ll need those funds! He’d make such a great senator or governor, is what they said…
…LOLOLOLOL
Geminid
@Jackie: I think this is the first time this pier system has been deployed. There’s a similar one stored in the Pacific that was set up somewher near Australia as part of exercise last year.
This one was stored at Fort Eustis, not far from Norfolk, Virginia. The Army started loading it up in early March. The pier project is controversial, but I like it because the Israelis did not want it but they got it anyway. I think CENTCOM will try to restore the pier as soon as possible.
Barbara
@Jeffro: Maybe he’ll run for political office in Texas. I don’t see him giving that money to anyone else. Even though you can’t just straight up spend it on yourself, I am sure you can spend it on many things — like restaurants and hotels — if it is related to a political purpose.
lowtechcyclist
@Jay:
Well, now we know what the Mossad has been doing all these years instead of quietly taking out Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
Ah good. Been waiting for such a piece.
Here’s the 972mag piece (different language and details):
Surveillance and interference: Israel’s covert war on the ICC exposed – Top Israeli government and security officials have overseen a nine-year surveillance operation targeting the ICC and Palestinian rights groups to try to thwart a war crimes probe, a joint investigation reveals. (Yuval Abraham and Meron Rapoport May 28, 2024)
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@gvg: There are blocks all over Philly being torn down and replaced with both commercial and residential real estate. I’m always wondering if there’s actually a market or it’s some sort of scam.
wjca
May actually be good news. She could have just dragged her feet for months. This way, she’s acted. Which may give Smith cause to get her removed.
EDT japa21 got there already. The price of having meetings all morning….
TBone
We are now having very appropriate Stormy weather here all of a sudden. Crack! Boom! Bang! ⛈️⚡
Soprano2
@rikyrah: It’s married white women who vote more Republican. Single white women vote more Democratic.
gvg
@lowtechcyclist: It was imminent in 1000AD. People left their homes and went roaming off because the world was going to end etc. There have been multiple such lemming moments.
Geminid
@TBone: Im getting a little bit of a squall here. I think a front is working through the middle Atlantic area.
Kay
@lowtechcyclist:
Good interview with the ICC prosecutor: (not the one who was threatened)
Imagine the US outcry if they had dropped huge bombs on Irish neighborhoods.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
Barfing. At something disgusting — in this case, the idea of Javanka being in another TIFF administration.
JPL
@Jeffro: If he runs, I think it is in Texas. He sold his GA house that he slept in a dozen or so times.
Maybe he can use it for one of his many children to run for class president.
Citizen Alan
@rikyrah: Nothing new about this. I was 22 years old when I applied for a university staff job for which I had no qualifications, didn’t get it, and had no less than 5 people reassure me that “they probably had to give it to a black.”
Baud
@Citizen Alan:
And those people would never have been racist if it weren’t for affirmative action. Thomas, J., concurring.
Bill Arnold
@gvg:
Another contributor was the fad for open-plan offices, to pack more employees into the square footage the rent bought.
They were and are plague pits, even disregarding that they were/are toxic hellholes for a large fraction of employees who were asked to attempt to work in them.
Personal offices with doors: OK. Can concentrate. That world is mostly gone.
TBone
I like the cut of Spocko’s jib today
https://digbysblog.net/2024/05/28/celebrate-trumps-guilty-verdict-by-destroying-the-teflon-don-myth-then-keep-fighting/
I used to troll Caption Queef mercilessly, over and over when I was on social media.
Baud
@Bill Arnold:
I need a space to fart freely.
Citizen Alan
@Scout211: Too true. I only know the name Katy Tur from this blog and wouldn’t recognize her if I met her on the street. I have enough anger in my life from learning about the media atrocities second hand from you guys
matt
@rikyrah: These fucking guys. From their pampered perches in the Senate.
matt
@Kay: or if some grassroots group holed up in a fortified apartment in Philadelphia.
Leto
@Kay: there wasn’t a peep said over the Tulsa massacre… wait, wrong people. I mean Israel is a signatory of the 1947 Geneva Contentions which lay out the rules of war. And they’ve essentially taken that document, wiped their asses with it, and nobody is actually gonna stop them. All they’re doing is creating the next multiple generations of terrorists. We can identify that both Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib were huge recruiting posters for terrorists, but we can put 2&2 together on this one. Whatever.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Cisco adopted them years ago. Bemused Senior’s comment: “it’s like working in a bus station.” She quit.
Brachiator
@Geminid:
Studied a fair amount of Stevens. Don’t recall professors describing his poetry as weird shit.
I recognize his talent, but his racism puts me off. Unfortunate. Some of his writing about the role of the imagination in poetry reminds me of Blake.
Stevens once got into a fight with Hemingway. Hemingway kicked his ass.
TBone
@Baud: the old ladies at our municipal voting center had a little 12″x18″ piece of plexiglass, masks over chins, where we had to go indoors to drop off 2020 ballots. Wouldn’t mask up upon request from a safe distance. Lady gabbing on phone said “we have a guard up.” I prayed so hard for a big, silent but deadly but alas…I was outta gas!
lowtechcyclist
@gvg:
Hell, there’ve been dozens of “Rapture is going to happen in 19xx/20xx” predictions just in my lifetime. Admittedly, only a few have been ‘lemming moments’ in the sense of large numbers of people abandoning their livelihoods to await the moment when they would rise to meet Jesus in the air, but you’d still think they’d be more Rapture-skeptical by the third or fourth time that the predicted Rapture didn’t occur after all.
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: if they’re Dotard voters, how skeptical could they be? Not a skeptical particle to be seen, I wager.
Jay
https://nitter.poast.org/Tendar/status/1795471081764995375#m
Melancholy Jaques
@Jackie:
Sure hope so, but as of now, it doesn’t seem to be showing up in the polling. Some white women who identify as pro-choice voted for Trump both times. Enough to change the outcome in 2016.
Leto
@lowtechcyclist:
Nickel Creek – 21st of May [Audio]
The inspiration for the song was a religious cult swore that on the 21st of May they’d all be raptured. They wrote a beautiful song about it.
Geminid
@Bill Arnold: One of my customers had a long career as a corporate consultant, at a fairly high level. He still keeps up and he told me something interesting a couple years ago: that brick-and-mortar corporate offices were on the way out, and one reason was that during the pandemic when most work was done remotely, leaders realized they and their managers had been wasting a lot of time with unnecessary meetings including preparation and follow-up.
Kay
@Leto:
I listened to an interview with a State Department employee who resigned over US policy in Gaza. Arabic languages speaker. Twenty year employee. She said the same thing and also mentioned Abu Ghraib.
It is just really disappointing that the US is blocking any entity who would conduct a real investigation. One really can’t help but reach the conclusion it’s because Palestinian lives are not deemed valuable. We don’t want to know.
scav
@Geminid: Snort! Corporate leaders, always the last to know.
BlueGuitarist
@Geminid:
Wallace Stevens:
“Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar”
Geminid
@Brachiator: Actually, I like Wallace Stevens. But I still say he wrote some wierd shit.
Ed. See comment above.
prostratedragon
Loudermilk seems concerned about something.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@Old School: there’s a Matlock reboot! Great role for Kathy Bates. Hope she breaks a leg.
pat
religious cult swore that on the 21st of May they’d all be raptured.
I was married on the 21st of May (some years ago….). It was nice, but I don’t remember being raptured. ;)
Miki
@Geminid: Near the top of my list of favorite poems is Wallace’s The Idea of Order at Key West
The Emperor of Ice-Cream maybe not so much.
Geminid
@prostratedragon: It sounds to me like Rep. Loudermilk will regret bringing this witness before his subcommittee. The Minority will get their time, and if this session goes like many others this Congress, the Democrats will run rings around the Republicans
Miki
@TBone: November 3, 1977, Travis Air Force base, mustering out of the Army. Then-hubby and I had flown in from The ROK the day before and went to dinner at a decent Mexican restaurant, which always involves beans for me.
I was sitting in the way back for the actual ceremony, and when my name was called it was a long slog up to the officer who was doing the deed. Every second or third step was accompanied by an audible toot, for which I am still wildly unembarrassed and unapologetic.
Melancholy Jaques
@Miki:
I love “The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm.“
Gin & Tonic
@Geminid:
It really depends on the work and the workplace. My daughter, who lives in NYC, has a job that was based at an office in the Flatiron District. When the plague hit and everybody went to work from home, the company decided to close the office permanently (she took home some office decor items and plants and such.) Now she’s either WFH or traveling on assignment. Yet my son, who lives in NYC, got a job during the plague, started WFH, but then they moved operations into an office in the Times Sq area. Subsequently they were bought out by a company you’ve heard of, which has physical offices all over, and now he’s in the office at least 4 days per week, and prefers it that way due to the close collaboration that’s just not replicatable in the WFH environment (he works on a lot of very fast-breaking stuff.)
Gin & Tonic
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
Her own?
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Haha. Nice.
Geminid
@Gin & Tonic: Interesting. I wonder if these companies have adjusted their practices regarding meetings even though they still aggregate their staff in buildings.
Baud
Angel Hernandez funny via reddit.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
That is funny!
Miki
@Melancholy Jaques: Another good one but too intellectual for me, not poetic enough. That’s the problem with Stevens – when he got it right he was damned near perfect. When he gets too stuck in his head his poetry seems clunky. His weird stuff always seems like an overcorrection to me.
Ok – here’s a poetic palette cleanser: James Wright’s A Blessing
zhena gogolia
Heading for a TBogg, I guess.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Manufactured TBogg.
Jay
During Lockdown, a fairly major Tech company here, went WFH, and kept it until recently, the current policy is 2 days a week in a row in the office.
But that wasn’t the “big change”.
The big change was that they eliminated 1/2 their Middle Management because the WFH results was greatly increased productivity everywhere but Middle Management., and that much of Middle Management’s “job/roles” was and had been to make lower staff less productive.
Know a guy there, who’s major complaint was that Department “meetings” went from a half hour every Monday in person, pre-lockdown, to a daily “all hands” one hour Zoom.
TBone
Ken Burns on with Nicole Wallace just now rang my bell 💙
WaterGirl
@Baud: I just poked my head up from work, holy cow, no thread since mine this morning.
I just put up an open thread.
Tony Jay
@Jay:
Meanwhile, also in the FTF Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/28/charity-commission-drops-inquiry-into-campaign-against-antisemitism
It’s like an encapsulation of everything wrong with The Britain Wot Thatcher Birthed and her heirs have fostered. They might as well have just just done a press release saying –
“…in short, the finding of this ‘independent’ Commission is that continuing to press on with this four year investigation would inevitably lead to a finding against the extremist pro-Israeli lobbying group which would, given the political climate and the complicit relationships between said lobbying group and influential representatives of the current and future Governments, lead to entirely valid questions being raised about those relationships and the wider collusion between front-groups for the Israeli Right and British political figures, and furthermore imply to those awful smelly Leftists that they have any hope whatsoever of achieving justice through the system. And we can’t have that!!”
Four years into an ‘investigation’ that could have been wrapped up in ten minutes, the gutless placemen atop the Charity Commission are so terrified of the disapproval of the people they rely on for jobs and future honours that they decide to pretend that the people bringing the complaint ‘lack standing’. After FOUR YEARS!!!
Come faster the tidal-wave, this country is rotten to the core.
Manyakitty
@Citizen Alan: he’s such a fraud that he’s not even a golden calf. Instead, he’s a pyrite pig.
TBone
@Miki: mustered OUT 😆🤣
frosty
@Baud:
Subtle!!
TBone
@Miki: I just saw the mermaid from The Animal Family speaking before they taught her to while reading that…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Animal_Family
Miki
@TBone: I can never not think of The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner when I read Randall Jarrett’s name.
I was slightly familiar with a man who survived that horrible job – Frank M, a polish guy from the West 7th neighborhood in St Paul. I worked with his son. Although he never should have been drafted (sole surviving son, gandy dancer on the railroad, really short and slight), he was the perfect size to fit into that egg so off he went. He came home a bit worse for the wear mentally, but that’s what fishing is for.
cain
Last post?
Gretchen
@schrodingers_cat: I’m sorry for your loss. I’m glad you were inspired to come here.
TBone
@Miki: thank you for sharing again! What a way with words, pure magic.
At a birthday party I gave for my BF at that time, my ex gave my then BF (now another ex) a real WWII flak jacket as a joke gift on his birthday with a post-it note as the bow: “Don’t forget your helmet!” I posted another post-it right before BF arrived “And your chinstrap!” That poor guy got a lot of flak!
Fishing kept me sane for a long time 🤣
Geminid
@TBone:
So when did you stop fishing?
Melancholy Jaques
@Miki:
We have to lobby for a Medium Cool devoted to poets and poetry.
TBone
@Geminid: one day when I had trouble removing a lure. I looked at what I’d done to that beautiful creature and just couldn’t feel any interest in catching any of them anymore. Now I just swim with them in the mountain streams and we’re all happy. The challenge lost all allure. About ten or twelve years ago.
lowtechcyclist
@Leto:
Nice song! I found this Wikipedia piece about the prediction, which explained the 1994 reference in the song. I remember hearing about the 2011 Rapture prediction at the time, and his claim afterward that that had been a ‘spiritual’ judgment, and the world would end in October.
Gloria DryGarden
@Miki: beautiful poem, thank you.