Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Let there be snark.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Everybody saw this coming.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

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

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

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

You are here: Home / Open Threads / FAFO: Stevie Two Shirts Edition

FAFO: Stevie Two Shirts Edition

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This just dropped:

CNN — 

A federal judge on Thursday ordered Steve Bannon to report to prison by July 1, giving the former Donald Trump adviser a short window to get a higher court’s intervention.

FAFO: Stevie Two Shirts Edition FAFO: Stevie Two Shirts Edition 1

Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress in 2022 … The federal judge presiding over the case, Carl Nichols, had initially paused the sentence while Bannon appealed the conviction.

Last month, however, a DC Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously rejected several challenges Bannon made to the case, and prosecutors immediately asked Nichols to send Bannon to prison to begin serving his sentence…

The judge, who was appointed by Trump, said that he concluded that he had the authority to lift the hold on Bannon’s sentence, even as an appeal of conviction will continue.

Bannon, predictably, confirming his status as “an idiot, full of sound and fury,” is publicly unbowed:

“There’s nothing that can shut me up and nothing that will shut me up. There’s not a prison built or a jail built that will ever shut me up,” he told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Washington.

We shall see, unkempt Stevie. We shall see.

The thread is open. Let your schadenfreude freak flags fly.

Image: Alessandro Magnano, Interrogations in Jail, between ~1710 and ~1720

Reader Interactions

122Comments

  3. 3.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Off topic, but I have to pass this on:

    Ron Filipkowski
    @RonFilipkowski
    Definitely not a Post fan. But I will concede they write the best headlines.

    Catholic priest claims Jesus died with an erection,
    Gets a rise out of congregation

  5. 5.

    trollhattan

    Guessing a Supermax would silence the Bannon, but sadly those are reserved for clients of a…different status.

  7. 7.

    UncleEbeneezer

    I cannot tell you how absolutely stupid you sound when threatening to vote for a 3rd party for “justice” when we have ample evidence from multiple years that voting for a 3rd party does nothing for “justice” at best & impedes “justice” at worst.

    I worked for Ralph Nader, you nitwits. You sound exactly as I did at your age, except you haven’t updated any priors despite multiple changes in both the Republican & Demcratic parties. Stop being stupid. How is that for “convincing?”

    Did voting for Ralph Nader produce any positive change? No.
    Did voting for Jill Stein produce any positive change? No.

    Please do not sanctimoniously lecture me on how to convince people to make their brains more malleable to facts.

    There is no real difference between anything I said in 2000 & what my more Youthful Betters are saying now. The real difference is that, by 2004, I had accepted I was wrong. That the battles we were waging were different than I had believed.

  10. 10.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    Is this related to the Totebagger Radio piece my wife relayed to me this morning where they, along with Ipsus, put together a focus group of nitwits who won’t vote for either Biden or Hair Furor?

    Whenever I hear one of those clowns blather on about such a vote, the first thing I always want to ask is their voting history.  The good stenographers at Totebagger Radio either didn’t do that or didn’t report on it.

    Inevitably when you peel away a layer of that onion, you find either Embarrassed Republicans or more evidence of the Horseshoe Theory of Politics at work.

  11. 11.

    billtheXVIII

    This is not a short window to obtain higher court intervention.  A short window to appeal is “remanded pending sentencing.”  Even when these guys get special treatment they whine it isn’t special enough.

  14. 14.

    CaseyL

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    The debacles that have come after a bunch of young “lefties” sat out Presidential elections (1980, 2000, 2016) has made me look at 1968 much differently than once upon a time.  I don’t know if that was the first ratfucked election, but it certainly provided a template for all successive ratfuck elections.

    The same rhetoric.

    The same wilful ignorance of how the US government works.

    And the same bottomless ignorance of human history, even recent history.

  17. 17.

    Old School

    “There’s nothing that can shut me up and nothing that will shut me up.”

    There is one thing that can shut him up – a subpoena from Congress.  Then he doesn’t want to say a word.

  18. 18.

    Tony Jay

    Reportedly inmates at half a dozen high-security super prisons across the southwestern US have come together to petition the Governors of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona for pre-emptive clemency, claiming that the very thought of Bannon being sent to any of their gaols would violate their Constitution rights by constituting cruel and unusual punishment.

    Legal scholars and men’s hygiene influencers from the Interwebs all agree they have a very strong case.

  20. 20.

    pieceofpeace

    With regard to the picture.

    Brutal-looking place, lots of chains and gear for unsavory practices.  I wonder what the Grand Poobah (with the wizard look,  and I favor wizards) sitting down is doing with the long baton? – looking for life?  Is the guy(do we know?) being cooked??

    Is this still practiced torture-skills?  just asking….

  23. 23.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: It’s about the Sunrise Movement who wrote a letter praising Biden for his action on Global Warming like a month ago but now is making a big spectacle of not endorsing and bashing him.  Doesn’t surprise me as they, much like DSA, have always been more interested in getting attention from Dem-bashing, than anything else.

  24. 24.

    karen marie

    “There’s nothing that can shut me up and nothing that will shut me up. There’s not a prison built or a jail built that will ever shut me up,” he told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Washington.

    Except a subpoena to speak under oath.

  28. 28.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Let your schadenfreude freak flags fly.

    What does it mean if your schadenfreude freak flag flies upside-down? Asking for Martha-Ann Alito.

  31. 31.

    Baud

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    Oh interesting. There are certain issues where you have to vote blue to have credibility with me, and the environment is one of them.

    Not that anyone cares what I think of them.

  32. 32.

    MisterForkbeard

    Congress wasn’t trying to shut him up. They literally told him to come in and talk to them, and he refused.

    As always, Steve Bannon can go screw himself. What a pack of self-righteous grifting assholes.

  35. 35.

    rikyrah

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    We are not begging them. We know what happens. We got 4 years of Trump.

    We have those right-wing lifetime judges, and I don’t mean the 3 on the Supreme Court.

    The evidence of your foolishness is obvious everyday.

    They are clowns who should be ignored.

  37. 37.

    RaflW

    OT, but I’m spitting nails angry.

    NPR’s David Folkenflick just dropped a massive allegation of attempted story-killing by the new WaPo publisher/CEO. It’s stunningly outrageous. He went to a competing news org’s reporter and more than once offered an ‘exclusive’ interview about his new job in exchange for killing quality reporting on a budding scandal involving Lewis.

    If he stays at WaPo, the paper is ethically ruined. I know it’s already heading for the gutter with three Murdochian men in charge. But this is epically bad.

    I just wrote to the paper. FWIW.
    Here’s what I said, since they get a ton of letters and prolly don’t wanna publish mine.

    David Folkenflick today broke incredible news, if one believes in newspaper ethics, standards, and journalistic integrity. Here’s the quote:

    “In December, I wrote the first comprehensive piece based on new documents cited in a London courtroom alleging that Lewis had helped cover up a scandal involving widespread criminal practices …
    At that time, Lewis had just been named publisher and CEO by Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, but had not yet started. In several conversations, Lewis repeatedly — and heatedly —offered to give me an exclusive interview about the Post’s future, as long as I dropped the story about the allegations.”

    If what Folkenflick says is true, this is a blatant quid pro quo offer to kill a legitimate and important news story at a competing news site. And what follow is that the Post now has a leader with severely tainted ethics. The paper is now bereft of moral leadership, and this crisis cannot stand.

    The only acceptable option to preserve the integrity of the Washington Post is Lewis’s resignation or firing.

  38. 38.

    laura

    While his whole, entire sentence is 4 short months, I take some measure of comfort knowing he’ll be enjoying a restricted liberty without whatever it is that he does a lot of. He’ll probably be forced to get a haircut and shower but he’ll probably have the pruno recipe tattooed on his arm in advance. And he’s got another criminal trial on deck this fall. That filthy dude can shit in his hand and clap.

  41. 41.

    lowtechcyclist

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    It’s about the Sunrise Movement who wrote a letter praising Biden for his action on Global Warming like a month ago but now is making a big spectacle of not endorsing and bashing him. Doesn’t surprise me as they, much like DSA, have always been more interested in getting attention from Dem-bashing, than anything else.

    This thread is the first I’ve heard of the Sunrise Movement.

  42. 42.

    laura

    @rikyrah: It’s the “We build the wall” fraud trial, previously scheduled for this May, but moved to a fall date by Judge…..Juan Marchan. You’ll be surprised to hear that it involves fraud.

  44. 44.

    delphinium

    Interestingly enough, that painting was briefly featured in a TV episode that I recently watched.

    And yeah, hope Bannon is soon behind bars.

  46. 46.

    hueyplong

    @matt: Candace Owens’ 15 minutes came and went at a time a few years back that pretty much no one will ever bother to pinpoint.  Kind of like a small bloom on a weed pulled long ago.

    We now invoke efgoldman.

  50. 50.

    hueyplong

    @laura: That trial will be another time when we snicker about his threat never to shut up.  Being under oath shuts up Republicans like nothing else.

  51. 51.

    RaflW

    @rikyrah: Of course Lewis is a sleazeball. But this is probably the only chance to get him tf outta the newsroom before he really wrecks the place.

    He’s showed his ass, and I think we of balloon juice should take this moment of public failure to get after him.

  52. 52.

    Ishiyama

    I, personally, have grokked every election since 1960, but my views on what affected the outcomes cannot be universally accepted, so I will keep them to myself.

  54. 54.

    lowtechcyclist

    @CaseyL:

    The debacles that have come after a bunch of young “lefties” sat out Presidential elections (1980, 2000, 2016) has made me look at 1968 much differently than once upon a time. I don’t know if that was the first ratfucked election, but it certainly provided a template for all successive ratfuck elections.

    1968: Mayor Daley

    1980: Ted Kennedy

    Can’t forget those ratfuckers.

    ETA: Also can’t recall any evidence to include 1980 in the set of elections that ‘young lefties’ sat out.  Anderson is generally acknowledged to have pulled at least as many votes from Reagan as from Carter.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    @lowtechcyclist:

    I haven’t heard them mentioned in a while. They were kind of big a few years ago. I think one of AOC’s staffers was involved with them.

  56. 56.

    rikyrah

    Snakey (@SnakeyJakey91) posted at 9:09 PM on Wed, Jun 05, 2024:
    He never had the left. The Democrats don’t need the left as they are a very small minority in America who often grossly overestimate their influence on politics. The Dem base is moderate to right leaning. I wish this wasn’t the case but it’s the truth.

    Democrat, Environmentalist, & the establishment (@BlueSteelDC) posted at 6:06 AM on Thu, Jun 06, 2024:
    True-

    The Left thinks threatening not to vote is a strategy.

    No

    It makes you a non customer in a customer relationship, especially how often the left does it.

    So the reliable VOTER is the one who decides policy and is in the center
    (https://x.com/BlueSteelDC/status/1798672801857212799?t=cdtjGRI09WziVU_3MifMig&s=03)

  57. 57.

    Geminid

    July 1st isn’t soon enough. That skeazy skank is coming to Central Virginia tomorrow to rally with Bob No-Good. Former 7th CD Rep. Dave Brat will crawl out from under a rock somewhere and make the scene at Powhatan also.

    The Good/McGuire primary race has brought a literal parade of horribles to the 5th District. Marjorie Greene campaigned with McGuire yesterday, and last month Matt Gaetz, Chip Roy and Mark Meadows rallied with Good. Tomorrow Bannon and Brat will stink up Powhatan County.

    McGuire has a chance because Trump has endorsed him. Good made the mistake of endorsing Ron DeSantis last year, so Trump says he’s a TRAITOR TO THE MAGA CAUSE!!! This fight is unlikely to help the Democrat in an R+9 district, but it’s still nice to watch.

  58. 58.

    rikyrah

    David Darmofal (@david_darmofal) posted at 7:20 AM on Thu, Jun 06, 2024:
    People with dementia cannot read and deliver a speech like President Biden did. Instead, you see them struggling at reading, like Trump does. Please, elite media: educate yourselves on dementia. You look like fools. And you’re insulting everyone who’s dealt with this disease.
    (https://x.com/david_darmofal/status/1798691434348118231?s=03)

  60. 60.

    Melancholy Jaques

    Maybe I am missing something, but it sure seems like the political media gave that “Trump refers to one of his show’s contestants with the N word” story about 36 hours before they let it die. By Monday, it will be like this conviction never happened.

    I’m not being a doomsayer, just noting that the political media continues to promote and protect Trump while running repeated Biden is old stories. We really have our work cut out for us.

  61. 61.

    Brachiator

    “There’s nothing that can shut me up and nothing that will shut me up. There’s not a prison built or a jail built that will ever shut me up,” he told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Washington.

    As long as he goes to jail, this is acceptable.

  62. 62.

    sab

    @Geminid: Yikes. Your language is usually so measured and thoughtful.

    I feel for you. My fellow Ohioans chose JD Vance in a reasonably fair and open election.

  65. 65.

    Suzanne

    I just had the most frustrating email exchange. I asked a mechanical engineer for the approximate size of a duct thickness. I provided him the floor-to-floor height, and the depth of the structure. He then responded by telling me that e didn’t know the duct size yet, but that the structural thickness was [exactly what I said in my previous email].

    Fuck, I’m tired.

  67. 67.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @pieceofpeace: Magnano was the go to artist in 18th C Venice for horror.  His most famous painting is aptly titled “The Witches’ Sabbath.”  After all, 18thC Europe gave us the first Gothic horror novels and the Marquis de Sade.

  68. 68.

    trollhattan

    @matt:

    Hmm, big brain then.

    Somebody should offer her an all-expenses vacay on a Tropical Pacific island, then drop her off on Komodo.

    It’s like flat-earthers. I’m all, “Did you use your car’s GPS to get here?”

  71. 71.

    Geminid

    @Baud: The Sunrise Movement was spun off of Justice Democrats, the group that was instrumental in electing Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and the other 3 “Squad” members in 2018.

    Sunrise Movement made a name by occupying Nancy Pelosi’s office when Congress met after the 2018 midterms. They also staged a sit-in at Dianne Feinstein’s office, and the exchange between the Senator and them prompted an Adam Silverman post titled, “Walid Shahid is a Lying Shitbird” (Shahid took over Justice Democrats when their leader became Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff).

    That’s how I found Balloon Juice. I used to be really concerned about Justice Democrats and their allies, but not so much now. The turning point for me- and maybe for the Party- was in August of 2021, when Shontelle Brown beat Nina Turner in the special election to replace Msrcia Fudge

  72. 72.

    Baud

    @Geminid:

    Thanks for clarifying.

    ETA: Most environmental groups will be team players.  The risk here is that some fraction of low information voters gets manipulated into voting against their environmental interests.

  74. 74.

    rikyrah

    UH HUH

    UH HUH

     

    Jasmine Crockett’s Anger Translator (@Needle_of_Arya) posted at 4:02 AM on Thu, Jun 06, 2024:
    When Republican Larry Hogan was governor, he never missed an opportunity to maintain his political career and burnish his reputation among the state’s conservatives by “running against Baltimore,” and opposing its further economic integration into the state of Maryland.
    (https://x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1798641603831374293?t=MKo_FmMQZ1wXcXd8Y3BCcg&s=03)

  75. 75.

    RandomMonster

    @OzarkHillbilly: There’s actually art history scholarship around the depiction of Christ’s junk, or ostentatio genitalium, whether or not he’s shown as sporting wood. (Would that be true wood of the cross?)

  76. 76.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Crabb pointed to the failed effort by Peter Navarro, another ex-Trump adviser prosecuted for refusing to comply with a House January 6 committee subpoena, to pause his sentenced — an effort that was rebuffed by the DC Circuit and the Supreme Court.

    the supremes don’t care about the literal unwashed, they only care about the ruling class who can steer them luxury recreational vehicles

  77. 77.

    Geminid

    @sab: I was being measured and thoughtful! These are just awful peoples, especially Bob Good. That guy makes my skin crawl.

    Fortunately, redistricting moved me 5 miles north of the 5th CD. I’ll be voting in the 7th CD primary on June 18, choosing a candidate to succeed Abigail Spanberger. Former colonel Eugene Vindman has been a fundraising juggernaut, and I think he’ll win that one.

  79. 79.

    Brachiator

    @HumboldtBlue:

    The Washington Post is about to embrace the darkness. SFGATE columnist Drew Magary on a major shakeup at the Washington Post

    I posted up a few tidbits about this new regime in recent threads. I agree that these newsroom changes don’t look good at all.

    I also agree with Drew’s assessment of the current WaPo.

    Personally speaking, I rely on the Post’s front section every day for my world news, because it tends to avoid the grotesque squishiness of the New York Times, and because it usually seems to like the journalists in its employ rather than hold them in outright disdain. I don’t always like the Washington Post, but it’s the joint I distrust the least.

    Overall I think this is terrible for American journalism. 

  80. 80.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @rikyrah:

    When Republican Larry Hogan was governor, he never missed an opportunity to maintain his political career and burnish his reputation among the state’s conservatives by “running against Baltimore,” and opposing its further economic integration into the state of Maryland.

    I remain confident of a second Biden/Harris term but if that clown becomes the next Senator from MD…

  81. 81.

    Steve in the ATL

    @UncleEbeneezer: on a related note, I was on Marta leaving the airport (yes, I took public transportation to lessen my carbon footprint, judgmental ecowarrior poster from last night) and encountered two guys trying to get signatures on a petition to get a “progressive” third party candidate onto the ballot in Georgia.  Their encounter with me did not go well for them.

    Perhaps they did not want a detailed explanation of why what they are doing is wrong, stupid, and counterproductive to their stated goals, but they surely got one.  Lots of points about how to actually effect change in a non-parliamentary system, none of which they were doing, and why their actions were hurting progress toward the progressiveness they claimed to desire.

    They complained that Biden hasn’t granted asylum, hasn’t stopped the wars, and hasn’t done anything for labor.  It had a very “Nach Hitler kommen Wir” vibe, though these guys were probably too young to be Ernst Thälmann.

    Wait a minute–go back for a second.  Did you really just say Biden has done nothing for labor?  ARE YOU TRYING TO PROGRESSIVEBROSPLAIN TO *ME* ABOUT LABOR?  SOMETHING I HAVE BEEN DOING FOR 30 YEARS?  AND AM AT THIS MOMENT ON MY WAY HOME FROM DOING EXACTLY THAT?  Oh, you done fucked up now, boys.

    Needless to say, they got an even bigger earful from me at this point.  And-shockingly–they quickly exited the train at the next stop.

    Thanks to all the jackals here whose knowledgeable and intelligent discussions of these issues helped me lecture these clowns with in depth and coherent explanations (obviously this does not apply to Omnes).  One can only hope that they spent today rethinking their strategy, in between bong hits.

  86. 86.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Bannon begins trial in September for his “build the wall” grift in Manhattan court. Alvin Bragg is prosecuting and Judge Merchan will preside over the trial.

    One of Bannon’s conspirators, who refused to cooperate and refused to take a plea bargain, received a 1.8 million dollar fine and a 5 year prison sentence.

    When the prosecution has a mountain of text messages showing you up to your eye balls in fraud and you refuse to take a bargain, you really have shit for brains.

  87. 87.

    sab

    @Omnes Omnibus: Seriously? That was even possible? Do  we even play cricket

    My neighbors up the street care about cricket a lot. We thought they were Indian. Tiurns out they are Gunayayan. Immigrant Indians committed to new country until they had to move yet again. They hope this country is the keeper.

  90. 90.

    Geminid

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: This Senate election will be close, I think. Angela Alsobrooks, the Democratic candidate, is not nearly so well known as Larry Hogan, but she seems to have the elements of a strong candidate. The debates will be worth watching.

    TV and radio stations are certain to be winners, because spending for this contest will blow through previous records for Maryland, and probably by Labor Day. Democrats will try to turn Hogan’s 65% approval rating into a smoldering crater.

  92. 92.

    hueyplong

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: I can imagine being very happy if Bannon were to end up with a $1.8M fine and 5 years in prison, with sentencing taking place during the period between a Biden reelection and his second inauguration.  Might even partake of one of those nasty Normandy cocktails described in an earlier thread today.

  95. 95.

    sab

    @sab: I am such a nitwit can’t even spell the countries. Ethnic Indians moved to South America. Guyana. Then they came to America.

    Othef immigrants aren’t different. These guys look American. Speak English well but with an accent. Obsessed with cars. Lovely people except their car loving kids drive like maniacs.

    We  love them here (except for the teen drivers.) This is what vibrant neighborhoods look like.

    Other than their bad driving they are everything we want in our neighborhood.

  96. 96.

    Tony Jay

    @Melancholy Jaques:

    Someone with time and talent and the attention to detail of an actual rocket scientist should do one of those comparative timelines of Stench doing or saying something absolutely disqualifying set against the News Media’s chosen headline of ‘Biden OLD!!!’.

    Then every time the wankers try to bury a Stench Slip-Up, unhappy readers can in turn bury their complaints desks in examples of how shit they are, exactly how they are shit, and on how many occasions so far they have chosen to provide their customers with shit instead of actual truth.

  97. 97.

    hueyplong

    I am encouraged when FoxNews/NYPost team up for a BidenIsOld launch, because it almost certainly means that Trump loudly shit himself in a non-private setting and/or devolved into an incoherent droolfest within the previous 36 hours.  There is the fun of imagining their panic as they hard sell the distraction and wonder if there will come a point before November when the game is played out.

    Mainstream recyclings are less fun.  They generally follow after the FoxNews/NYPost ones, so it’s tougher to time stamp the alarming Trump event, and they’re just depressing because those outlets are not obligated to support Trump’s campaign but, instead, are doing it voluntarily.

  99. 99.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    the Sunrise Movement

    I knew members of the local chapter up close and personal. Some were high school students, who meant well, but their older leadership were untrustworthy allies at best. Wouldn’t want to share a foxhole with them.

  100. 100.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    @Steve in the ATL: What have the Romans ever done for us?

     
    The aqueduct?

    REG: What?

    XERXES: The aqueduct.

    REG: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that’s true. Yeah.

    COMMANDO #3: And the sanitation.

    LORETTA: Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like?

    REG: Yeah. All right. I’ll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done.

    MATTHIAS: And the roads.

    REG: Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don’t they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads–

    COMMANDO: Irrigation.

    XERXES: Medicine.

    COMMANDO #2: Education

    REG: Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.

    COMMANDO #1: And the wine.

    COMMANDO: Public baths.

    LORETTA: And it’s safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.

    FRANCIS: Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let’s face it. They’re the only ones who could in a place like this.

    COMMANDOS: Hehh, heh. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.

    REG: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

    XERXES: Brought peace.

    REG: Oh. Peace.

    Shut up!

  101. 101.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @rikyrah:

    It was important for Speaker Mike Johnson to choose wisely when filling two open seats on the House Intelligence Committee. He instead tapped Scott Perry and Ronny Jackson.

    It’s worth appreciating just how ridiculous this is.

    I like Steve Benen, but I wish our pundits had a better command of language. Johnson’s appointments are fucking dangerous and subversive. Ridiculous is too weak a word.

  102. 102.

    Captain C

    @Quiltingfool: Also, possibly, that guy from Jersey who’s doing 10-12 for ‘creative’ and ‘out of the box’ business practices, collection policies, and customer acquisition methods and doesn’t like smelly blowhards, even if they hate the right people.

  103. 103.

    Another Scott

    @Steve in the ATL: !!!

    That’s a great story.  You left out the part where the train erupted in applause!!

    There’s a story about some normal guy, maybe an expert physicist or something, who trusts newspaper and TV reporting until he sees a story on his own field that is totally wrong.  And a lightbulb went off…

    Maybe these guys had a lightbulb go off [being confronted by an actual expert rather than just the slanted memes they learned].

    One can hope!

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  107. 107.

    hitchhiker

    @karen marie:

    That was my thought exactly. Isn’t his issue that he refused to respond to a subpoena?

    Also, I think he’s going on trial again soon for scamming veterans out of their money. He obviously thinks that “political prisoner” is going to be a great new revenue source. At 70, though, his days of ratfucking us are almost over.

  109. 109.

    Dan B

    @sab: We live in a very diverse neighborhood, Beacon Hill, the hilltop is the hood, that turned a an open reservoir (city water source) into a park on top of the lidded reservoir.  There’s just turf on the lid with a concrete rectangle in the middle.  Apparently in the public hearings and neighborhood input there were many requests for a Cricket Pitch.  There’s a big Pacific Islander festival for the all city final tournament.  Who knew?

  110. 110.

    Subsole

    @CaseyL:

    It’s bitterly amusing that the people lecturing us on the evils of the capitalist soul have such a mercenary, transactional view of civic obligation.

    They treat their vote as a commodity, a purchasing power, rather than a civic due.

    Very strange.

  112. 112.

    Burnspbesq

    India is OD’ing on schadenfreude tonight, thanks to the USA’s shock win over Pakistan.

    Glad I was at the game. If I hadn’t seen it. I wouldn’t have believed it.

  113. 113.

    Subsole

    @rikyrah: da fuq?

    It’s Cali. You want Republicans, move to the Central Valley.

    Idaho???

    I mean, shit. Move to Texas if you want the joys of Republican psychopathy. You even get some Liberal areas to level it out a bit.

    But fucking Idaho???

  115. 115.

    Burnspbesq

    @Tom Levenson:

    we didn’t have to qualify, because USA is co-hosting with the West Indies. But we’ve won our first two matches, against Canada and Pakistan. We’re likely going to get crushed by India in our next match, but a win against Ireland in our final group-stage match will likely send us through to the next round.

    i’ve been to all three matches in Grand Prairie, and it’s been great fun.

  116. 116.

    Anyway

    @Burnspbesq: [cricket]

    i’ve been to all three matches in Grand Prairie, and it’s been great fun.

    How long were the games? Could you follow the rules?

    Speaking of cricket Phillies are playing the Mets this weekend in London. England. Across the pond. Why?

  117. 117.

    Burnspbesq

    @Anyway:

    T20 matches typically last 3-½ to four hours. I’ve been following the game for about 30 years, so for a native-born American I probably have a better than average understanding.

    There are enough Americans in Greater London that there is an audience for a couple of MLB games a year. I might have thought about going, except (1) the Mets suck and (2) the London Stadium (built for the 2012 Olympics and now the home of West Ham United) is a shit venue ina shit location.

  118. 118.

    PaulB

    @Subsole:  I dread the answer, but… Where, pray, does she think the bones came from, then?

    It’s not clear from her tweet whether she is skeptical about dinosaurs or skeptical that they were wiped out by a meteor. What she wrote is:

    The older I get the more absurd the concept of ‘dinosaurs roamed the earth until a great big meteor hit’ becomes to me.

  119. 119.

    wjca

    @Subsole: It’s Cali. You want Republicans, move to the Central Valley.

    Idaho???

    For one thing, a Hispanic family will be no novelty at all in the Central Valley.

    They might discover they have other issues with the reality of red-state-type living.  But racism for being Hispanic unlikely to be one of them there.

  121. 121.

    Misterpuff

    @Geminid: Maryland (where I was a resident for 12 years) loves them some R governors (or at least shuttling back and forth between Rs and Ds) but haven’t had a Republican senator since 1987. Unless the Dem candidate is a terrible candidate (and maybe not even then) Maryland will stay Blue. MD Senators tend to retire from office because if they do the job MD keeps putting them back in.

    But we can’t know the future, so you Marylanders get out and vote Blue.

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