Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

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

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

He really is that stupid.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

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

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

The words do not have to be perfect.

Giving up is unforgivable.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Friday Afternoon, Dare I Tempt Fate by Calling It a Slow News Day?

Friday Afternoon, Dare I Tempt Fate by Calling It a Slow News Day?

by | 158 Comments

This post is in: 

Okay, company here and gone, I was finally able to pick up some glasses today – two whole days without being able to read much is not ideal.  Especially on your birthday when people are texting birthday wishes.  I had a lot to catch up on this morning!

About to cruise my favorite peeps on twitter to see what I’ve missed.

I had a nice time with family and had a nice birthday.  Got some amazing strawberries at the farmer’s market, and made some killer shortbread for my strawberry shortcake last night.  And real whipped cream, although the judges do allow the whipped cream in a can.  Cool whip (shudder) is not allowed at my house.  If that makes me a snob, so be it.

Totally open thread.

Reader Interactions

158Comments

  2. 2.

    Chief Oshkosh

    Slow news day? Injustice Thomas just qualified for diamond miles status on Crow Airways!

  4. 4.

    VFX Lurker

    Hope you had a great birthday!

    I posted this yesterday: my husband’s green card renewal happened in a record 12 days (yay!)

    SideFX posted an eight-minute “sneak peak” video showing the latest and greatest features in their Houdini software. It will make certain tasks like feathers and snow simulations easier for artists.

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    Did Trump really say Milwaukee is a horrible city?  Do we think he knows that Milwaukee is in Wisconsin, which is a swing state?

  8. 8.

    Tony Jay

    @WaterGirl:

    No, no, no. According to various GOP sources and spokecreeps he said something was horrible, but only in one of half a dozen different and contradictory contexts that in no way detract from the fact that it’s all a Democrat lie anyway.

    IOW – Yes, he did, and MAGOP message discipline is pissy-poor.

  9. 9.

    Bill Arnold

    Long and detailed piece about a DOD propaganda operation. (Note: as reported, it ended spring 2021, around when Sinovac vaccine doses were becoming widely available.)
    IMO, which is harsh, this was an act of war and a war crime against the targeted friendly countries, and General Jonathan Braga, who killed thousands of civilians, maybe 10s or 100s of thousands, should be tried and severely punished for it. Along with the full chain of command. (Yes, I mean “full chain”.)
    Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic – The U.S. military launched a clandestine program amid the COVID crisis to discredit China’s Sinovac inoculation – payback for Beijing’s efforts to blame Washington for the pandemic. One target: the Filipino public. Health experts say the gambit was indefensible and put innocent lives at risk. (CHRIS BING and JOEL SCHECTMAN, June 14, 2024)

    In uncovering the secret U.S. military operation, Reuters interviewed more than two dozen current and former U.S officials, military contractors, social media analysts and academic researchers. Reporters also reviewed Facebook, X and Instagram posts, technical data and documents about a set of fake social media accounts used by the U.S. military. Some were active for more than five years.
    …
    Military trumped diplomats
    U.S. military leaders feared that China’s COVID diplomacy and propaganda could draw other Southeast Asian countries, such as Cambodia and Malaysia, closer to Beijing, furthering its regional ambitions.
    A senior U.S. military commander responsible for Southeast Asia, Special Operations Command Pacific General Jonathan Braga, pressed his bosses in Washington to fight back in the so-called information space, according to three former Pentagon officials.
    …
    U.S. propaganda machine
    In spring 2020, special-ops commander Braga turned to a cadre of psychological-warfare soldiers and contractors in Tampa to counter Beijing’s COVID efforts. Colleagues say Braga was a longtime advocate of increasing the use of propaganda operations in global competition. In trailers and squat buildings at a facility on Tampa’s MacDill Air Force Base, U.S. military personnel and contractors would use anonymous accounts on X, Facebook and other social media to spread what became an anti-vax message. The facility remains the Pentagon’s clandestine propaganda factory.

    Also, this, bold mine:

    The senior Defense Department official said that those complaints led to an internal review in late 2021, which uncovered the anti-vaccine operation. The probe also turned up other social and political messaging that was “many, many leagues away” from any acceptable military objective. The official would not elaborate.

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    BREAKING: In a 6-3 ruling, Supreme Court rules gun ‘bump stocks’ ban is unlawful. 

    I did not know the founding fathers had written anything about bump stocks in the constitution.  They really were ahead of their time!

    I guess I need to go check on which 6 voted for that.  hahahahahaha!

  11. 11.

    citizen dave

    @raven: Thanks for posting this!  I identify with Michael’s hairstyle personally, but none of these four look like they have been regular customers of barbers throughout their lives.  Great no bullshit attitude towards music.

    Bill Berry a particularly interesting case, dropping out of the band like he did.  Would have been fun if he had formed a band with other dropouts, like the Queen bassist.

  12. 12.

    Tony Jay

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Kraut goal zwei was pretty nice. The Sock Jocks need to change their narrow formation because the Germans are ripping them apart… and it’s a penalty for the hosts.

    Reviewed and changed to a free kick on the edge of the box.

  13. 13.

    geg6

    Totally with you on the Cool Whip ban.  Disgusting stuff.  Redi-Whip or your favorite canned whipped cream is acceptable at my house.

    Am getting ready to go to a meeting about my retirement party at work.  I am not a cake and speeches person, so I wasn’t going to have anything but my co-workers have other ideas and insist on something.  I jokingly suggested we all take a day and go to a local amusement park, Kennywood, which I absolutely love.  To my surprise my supervisor, his supervisor and all my co-workers thought it was a great idea and they are billing it as a “retreat” so everyone can get paid for it.

  14. 14.

    smith

    Good grief. Does it get more Ugly American than this?

    Under Trump, a Pentagon campaign spread anti-vaccine misinformation

    The secret campaign, which had not been previously reported, aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and life-saving aid supplied by China, according to Reuters.

    …As part of its campaign to sow doubt about public health measures, the Trump-era Pentagon created phony internet accounts wherein Defense Department staff impersonated Filipinos and created social media posts that questioned the utility of face masks, test kits and vaccines. The campaign also specifically singled out China’s Sinovac vaccine, Reuters reported.

    …The campaign went on to expand across Central Asia and the Middle East, where propaganda was tailored to turn Muslims against China’s vaccines by insinuating that the vaccines sometimes contain pork gelatin, which would be forbidden under Islamic law.

  15. 15.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl: 2015

    Donald Trump on Thursday retweeted an insult to Iowa voters, just hours after a poll showed him behind retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson in the state.
    ”’@mygreenhippo #BenCarson is now leading in the #polls in #Iowa. Too much #Monsanto in the #corn creates issues in the brain? #Trump #GOP,’” Trump’s retweet states.

    Top Republicans and Republican operatives in the state on Friday disparaged Trump’s comments from his Thursday evening rally at Iowa Central Community College in which he questioned the intelligence of voters who believe rival Ben Carson’s claims of a violent past and subsequent redemption. “How stupid are the people of Iowa? How stupid are the people of the country to believe this crap?” Trump yelled.

     

    Iowa went strongly for Trump. He think Wisconsin also lacks self-respect.

  17. 17.

    wjca

    @WaterGirl: Did Trump really say Milwaukee is a horrible city?

    Did he?  Yeah.  Half different, mutually contradictory, spins out of the GOP.  None convincing.  He said it.

    As for the impact, he probably figures nobody in the city would vote for him anyway.  And that Wisconsinites outside Milwaukee wouldn’t mind; more likely, would agree with him.

    It’s obvious that his campaign staff dearly wish they could lock him in solitary somewhere until after the election.  He really is well down the road to being his own worst enemy.

  18. 18.

    Rusty

    The Supreme Court preserved our right to be slaughtered by AR-15s modified to fire as fast as a machine gun!  Even worse, as was pointed out at the oral arguments, the decision opens the door for other ways to make guns fire faster.  The reactionary 6 are truly the most horrible of people.

  19. 19.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl: You don’t have to look up the 6, but this wasn’t a Second Amendment case, so the lying about founding fathers was unnecessary.

  20. 20.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Slow news day? why Pope Francis made the first papal visit to a G-7 summit

    Two old catholics cutting it up (photo)

  23. 23.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Bill Arnold: Incredible. There ought to be a full accounting on this. Was Braga following orders from the CiC, or was he cowboying it? Or both? What horrible wretches.

  24. 24.

    WaterGirl

    @geg6: That is beyond awesome about going to the amusement park for your retirement party.  When is your last day?  I presume the “party” will be before your last day, yes?

  25. 25.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

     BORGO EGNAZIA, Italy, June 13 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed a 10-year bilateral security agreement on Thursday aimed at bolstering Ukraine’s defense against Russian invaders and getting Ukraine closer to NATO membership

  27. 27.

    geg6

    @WaterGirl:

    My last day will be 9/30, so yes, the party will be before my actual date.  I am absolutely touched and thrilled that they are doing this for me.  Usually retirement things around here are so boring and stodgy.  This will be just pure fun!

  29. 29.

    Anyway

    @geg6:

    a local amusement park, Kennywood,

    I love Kenywood! Do they still have the wooden rollercoasters – JackRabbit is the one I remember.

    That’s a fun retirement party!

  30. 30.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Tony Jay:

    When Scotland’s offense consists of hoofing it up field to the really small guy being marked by the really tall, strong defender, you know it’s gonna be a long day.

  31. 31.

    rikyrah

    BWA HA HA AH HA HA HA AHA

     

    3-2-1 before the MSM starts clutching the pearls about ‘ incivility’

     

    Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) posted at 9:31 AM on Fri, Jun 14, 2024:
    MSNBC: The Biden campaign has wished Donald Trump a happy 78th birthday. The email statement included 78 things Trump did this year, including a bunch of felony convictions. It concludes with ‘happy birthday Donald! You’re a crook, a failure, a fraud, and a threat to our democracy, economy, rights and future’ t.co/oDR2ck7XqI
    (x.com/BidenHQ/status/1801623570964959442?t=vj2h_6kX3teYuAxXbSX5Zg&s=03)

  32. 32.

    WaterGirl

    @geg6: It’s a testament to how much they appreciate you and how much you will be missed.  Guessing that might be enough to make you cry.  (If you are a cry-er like me.)

  35. 35.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud: I don’t think that that is the dynamic. This is just classic GOP bullshit of pitting god-fearin’ kuntry folk against them bad, bad people in the city. There’s not a single peckerwood from Monroe in the south all the way up to Hayward in the north that isn’t on board with shitting all over Milwaukee, where all “those” people live.

    And it works!

  36. 36.

    sab

    @Bill Arnold: Yikes! Here in USA I was under the impression that Sinovac was a very good vaccine although not as amazingly good as Moderna’s and Pfizers’.

  37. 37.

    TBone

    @smith: Stanford’s Internet Observatory shut down this week?!!

    Stanford disputed the organization was shutting down, telling Platformer the “important work of SIO continues under new leadership, including its critical work on child safety and other online harms, its publication of the Journal of Online Trust and Safety, the Trust and Safety Research Conference, and the Trust and Safety Teaching Consortium.”

    Communications professor Jeff Hancock will incorporate the ongoing work into his Stanford Social Media Lab, according to Platformer.

    The university decried “lawsuits and congressional investigations” that it said were chilling free inquiry and undermining academic research “both at Stanford and across academia.”

  39. 39.

    Ken

    @Tony Jay: @wjca: Yeah, the six or so contradictory GQP responses were a giveaway. If he’d not said it, they would have agreed on that; if he’d said “the crime rate in Milwaukee is horrible”, they would have agreed on that; and so on.

    It reminds me of an old joke. A bunch of students miss an exam, and give the professor the excuse that they had a flat tire. The professor agrees to let them make up the exam, and a few minutes later gives them each a sheet of paper with one question: “Which tire?”

  41. 41.

    Ken

    @rikyrah: The email statement included 78 things Trump did this year, including a bunch of felony convictions.

    His average is now above 0.5 felonies per year he’s been alive. I’m sure there’s plenty of room for growth.

  42. 42.

    Dangerman

    @raven: I’d settle for Cool Whip for the rest of my life for one more REM show. Isn’t Cool Whip a floor wax, too?

    /snl

    ETA: Seeing Brit Floyd soon. Eva Avila is amazing on the Great Gig and I’d propose marriage if she hadn’t already married the guitarist. Dammit.

  43. 43.

    rikyrah

    @geg6:

    I jokingly suggested we all take a day and go to a local amusement park, Kennywood, which I absolutely love.  To my surprise my supervisor, his supervisor and all my co-workers thought it was a great idea and they are billing it as a “retreat” so everyone can get paid for it.

     

    That does sound like fun.

    Happy retirement :)

  44. 44.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @WaterGirl: Potential Trump voters in WI hate Milwaukee.  Love the Bucks, Brewers, and Harleys (probably in reverse order), but hate the city.  Oh yeah, they like Miller Lite.

  46. 46.

    trollhattan

    @WaterGirl: I have read that a bump stock can turn a shot-every-couple-minutes musket into a rapid-fire shot-every-minute-or-so man-shredding machine. In conclusion: Freedom!

  47. 47.

    Tony Jay

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:

    I’m fortunate in that, despite the recent boundary changes, I’ve still got a decent Labour MP to vote for rather than one of the Starmerpartei’s candidate-shaped inflatables.

    I certainly wouldn’t chastise anyone who found it hard to vote for the Light Blue Meanies, though. newnewlabourinc have been very clear they’d much rather have the 2019 Tory electorate than those smelly oiks who voted for British History’s Greatest Monster.

    ETA – Though if I had Count Binface in my constituency… difficult choice.

  48. 48.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @WaterGirl: FWIW, it was a statutory rather than Constitutional decision.  Congress can change the law if we elect Democrats in November.

  49. 49.

    Bill Arnold

    @Ken:

    His average is now above 0.5 felonies per year he’s been alive. I’m sure there’s plenty of room for growth.

    54 more felony counts.
    Plus whatever comes from the various fraudulent electors cases in other states.

  51. 51.

    rikyrah

    Jasmine Crockett’s Anger Translator (@Needle_of_Arya) posted at 10:11 AM on Fri, Jun 14, 2024:
    every June, we get more shitty decisions from these 6 shitty Supreme Court Justices, and the American far left is of no help in helping us replace any of these fuckers

    In the face of this month they’re still out here talking about 3rd-party voting

    seriously, fuck these folks
    (x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1801633558844334309?s=03)

  54. 54.

    Tony Jay

    @Ken:

    1) I LOLd

    2) The MAGOP approved answer being ‘the one Hunter Biden took foreign bribes to sabotage’.

  55. 55.

    laura

    @geg6: Best Retirement Party Evah! Enjoy the party, the retirement (tho I hear your new boss is tough as nails), and setting a wonderful trend for future retirement shindigs.

  57. 57.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    Had a Cybertruck sighting on an interstate in Montgomery County, MD.  Fugly!

  59. 59.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    @Tony Jay: Yes.  As a Brit you can’t possibly vote for Elmo who would be an obvious American puppet.  He’d work with the Yanks hand-in-glove.

  60. 60.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @WaterGirl: The GOP here runs against Madison and Milwaukee every election.  Black and brown people.  Liberals and eggheads.  Gays and all sorts of other alphabet soup.  Bankers and lawyers.  Government officials.

  63. 63.

    Old School

    HOUSTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday ordered the liquidation of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones ′ personal assets but was still deciding on his company’s separate bankruptcy case, leaving the future of his Infowars media platform uncertain as he owes $1.5 billion for his false claims that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax.

    Judge Christopher Lopez approved converting Jones’ proposed personal bankruptcy reorganization to a liquidation. He was hearing testimony Friday afternoon on whether Infowars’ parent company, Texas-based Free Speech Systems, also should be liquidated.

    Many of Jones’ personal assets will be sold off, but his primary home in the Austin area and some other belongings are exempt from bankruptcy liquidation. He already has moved to sell his Texas ranch worth about $2.8 million, a gun collection and other assets to pay debts.

  65. 65.

    CaseyL

    @rikyrah:

    I’ve been referring to them as “BJG’s flying monkeys” – quite accurately, I think, since I saw an article in which Briahanna Joy Gray claimed credit for the ongoing infestation of her former BernieBro saboteurs all over social media.

    I console myself with the fact that social media is not real life.

  66. 66.

    rikyrah

    They are talking about the White House Press Corps:

    Kriss (@KMC4wauk) posted at 6:15 AM on Fri, Jun 14, 2024:
    DC reporters are their own breed. They want to be the star of the show. Their egos far surpass the job. We ask for relevant news. We need relevant news. But they’d rather pick apart every statement somehow elevating their opinion over facts. Once they start pontificating,I’m out
    (x.com/KMC4wauk/status/1801574222067613837?t=Rh3-j1QxEzJoakuVvQU2Tg&s=03)

    Kriss (@KMC4wauk) posted at 6:36 AM on Fri, Jun 14, 2024:
    They need reality checks. Either remember the basics of good journalism or continue to whine about hurt feelings. POTUS should turn it back at them. Serious question. *What about my previous answer, did you not understand.*

    Barbara (@realcavewoman) posted at 6:21 AM on Fri, Jun 14, 2024:
    Seems like they’ve lost their sense of purpose. These silly wagon circlings are a symptom of that, imho.

    They don’t circle the wagons the same way over anything Trump has ever said. It’s objectively bizarre

  67. 67.

    hells littlest angel

    It’s not a slow news day if you’ve got a hankering to become America’s Next Mass Murderer.

  69. 69.

    scav

    Still, pride goeth before getting over one’s skis.  Milwaukee, sure, that’s indistinguishable from Hon Chi Minh City — a foreign place full of crimeing — but insulting Monsanto?!

  70. 70.

    cain

    @Old School: I hope he ends up being a scavenger. But likely not. The pain and harm he’s caused those parents and propagating conspiracy theories that likely led to the death of thousands by COVID – he can go fuck himself.

  74. 74.

    Old School

    @rikyrah:

    I still don’t get why the RNC is in Milwaukee.

    Presumably because Wisconsin is one of the states they need to flip back red if they want to win.

  75. 75.

    WaterGirl

    @Cheryl from Maryland: We saw a Cybertruck in the wild yesterday, too!  It was every bit as ugly in person as it is in the photos.

    BIL wondered whether it was electric or hybrid.  I guessed fully electric.  Just ugly as sin.  It looked ridiculous on the road with, you know, actual cars.

  76. 76.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus:

     Black and brown people.  Liberals and eggheads.  Gays and all sorts of other alphabet soup.  Bankers and lawyers.  Government officials.

    Huh. That all sounds pretty good to me.

    So it wasn’t a stupid thing after all, if Trump was speaking to his people. But let’s hope it inspires our side to come out in droves in November.

  78. 78.

    Tony Jay

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    It’s going to be a crazy election. The utter implosion of the Tories + the splitting of the Right vote with Reform + newnewlabourinc’s strategy of ‘we only want Tory votes’ = great chance for the Greens to pick up a few seats this election, yes, but potentially opens a route for them to become a much larger party if they enter a Red/Green alliance with Labour voters turned off by the Starmerpartei’s status-quo/Murdoch friendly policies.

    A lot could change in the next five years.

  84. 84.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @WaterGirl:

    So it wasn’t a stupid thing after all, if Trump was speaking to his people.

    It was example eleventy billionth that Trump and his base are the same resentful asshole bigots.  At least four fifths of the time, all he has to do to pander to his base is open his mouth and say what he thinks.  ‘Any major city that has a lot of black people is a burned out war zone of gang violence’ is one of their bedrock beliefs.  Lord knows I heard it often enough growing up in the South.

  85. 85.

    jimmiraybob

    @Dangerman: “Isn’t Cool Whip a floor wax, too?”

    Just in case it is and one day you need to strip the floors.

    I once bought a bottle of Dave’s Gourmet Instant Insanity hot sauce in New Orleans.  It listed many uses on the back label including, “strips waxed floors and removes driveway grease stains.”

    It was insanely hot.  My college roommates stole the bottle and, as far as I know, buried it.  Lordy, I hope it never leaks or there’s going to be one midwestern college town in deep do doo.

     

  86. 86.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @WaterGirl: Who else would he be speaking to about one of the most Democratic cities in the country?  The most GOP friendly ward in Milwaukee is about 55-45 Democratic.*. The suburbs are, of course, another thing.

    *As of the last time I looked at ward maps.

  87. 87.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Old School: Don’t some of the smaller cities have conference hotels? They could have had it in a red area, but they never do. They go someplace that has all the amenities and go-go boys they could possibly want. Then they whine about being in licentious blue America.

  88. 88.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @jimmiraybob: I bought my dad a set of those (they get worse or better) for Fathers Day a few years ago.  I expect to inherit 95% of it down the road.  This is despite the fact that my dad puts a drop of some of them in sauces every once in a while.

  89. 89.

    karen marie

    @WaterGirl:  I saw a Tesla for the first time recently.  I was surprised by how cheap it looked.  The logo on the front of the hood looked like a peel-off sticker.  The design is completely forgettable.  If they were going for generic “car,” they nailed it.

  90. 90.

    Ken

    @Old School: Presumably because Wisconsin is one of the states they need to flip back red if they want to win.

    Yeah, but as we just saw, that would be why they should keep Trump far away from it.

  91. 91.

    M31

    Can someone put up a billboard with the average number of felonies committed by a Milwaukeean and compare it average number of felonies committed by Donald Trump?

    my guess is that Donny wins bigly

  92. 92.

    Bill Arnold

    @WaterGirl:

    I guess I need to go check on which 6 voted for that. hahahahahaha!

    The argument that the majority put forth top quality peasant-witch-hunter logic (paraphrased by someone for compactness, full text here):

    If she is made of wood, she is a witch. Because wood floats, we can tell whether something is made of wood by determining whether or not it floats. Ducks also float in water, so if the woman weighs the same as a duck, she must be made of wood and is, therefore, a witch.

    I was immediately forced to imagine an trigger-finger exoskeleton that could help said finger pull a trigger 20 times per second, along with a stock-holding-arm exoskeleton for making each shot a head shot for extra fast killing of human beings. By my reading of the reasoning presented by the SCROTUS-SIX, this would be legal.
    (search the text for the word function)

  94. 94.

    louc

    @Old School:

     

    Many of Jones’ personal assets will be sold off, but his primary home in the Austin area and some other belongings are exempt from bankruptcy liquidation. He already has moved to sell his Texas ranch worth about $2.8 million, a gun collection and other assets to pay debts.

    Dang, I hoped he was going to end up homeless under an Austin interstate underpass by the end.

  97. 97.

    rikyrah

    Jasmine Crockett’s Anger Translator (@Needle_of_Arya) posted at 11:15 PM on Thu, Jun 13, 2024:
    I hope that all the folks who kept asking Democrats to “codify Roe” were paying attention to the failed Senate vote to codify the right to IVF, which failed 48-47 (Collins & Murkowski voted ‘yes’)

    some laws need 60 Senate votes, and Berners never fucking understand this
    (https://x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1801468391057662382?t=l54y3Ku7omkutT3g3v2PHw&s=03)

  98. 98.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @rikyrah: A bunch of middle school kids running the school paper could do a better job of journalism than the big babies of the White House Press Corpse.

  104. 104.

    Old School

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:

    Don’t some of the smaller cities have conference hotels? They could have had it in a red area, but they never do.

    Red areas have conference hotels, but not with enough hotel rooms to handle something the size of the RNC.

    It would have to be dramatically scaled back to have outside of a larger city.

  106. 106.

    WaterGirl

    @Bill Arnold: They really should just own it:  “Because we said so” instead of making up bullshit that doesn’t have anything to do with the rule of law.

    Start with the outcome and work backwards.

  107. 107.

    smith

    @louc: Dang, I hoped he was going to end up homeless under an Austin interstate underpass by the end.

    There was never any chance of that. I’ve always assumed that he dragged his heels on complying with the judgment for so long so he could tuck most of his assets away in a cozy little Cayman Islands account.

  109. 109.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Old School: Green Bay is the only place outside of Madison/Milwaukee that would have a chance of doing it, but sincerely doubt it.

  110. 110.

    Starfish

    @Bill Arnold: The defense department needs to get its mess together and stop making it harder to inoculate people and eradicate diseases. This pisses me off so much.

    Polio was nearly eradicated when they used medical appointments to hunt down bin Laden.

  112. 112.

    cmorenc

    @Chief Oshkosh: So why didn’t the GOP schedule their 24 convention in Rhinelander instead of Mileaukee, since Milwaukee is overrun with horrible blue cooties but Rhinelander is the home of red-loving muricans?

  114. 114.

    gene108

    @Old School:

    Indianapolis or maybe even Kansas City, MO are in red states and could manage the RNC hosting as well as Milwaukee.

    I can’t think of other Republican states that could manage it off hand.

  115. 115.

    smith

    @gene108: I’m guessing the point was to have it in a swing state, and there are plenty of big enough cities in those. Problem is, ANY city is a hotbed of sinfulness, crime, and corruption to the Goobers, so wherever they go they’ll have to just endure the evils of urban life.

  116. 116.

    scav

    @rikyrah: I’d also assume that back rooms are smokey and there are other deals being worked behind scenes between hotel (etc) lobbyists, chamber of commerce types, representatives trading whatever party-based equivalent there is for pork, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. . .

  117. 117.

    cmorenc

    @karen marie: Also, Tesla sort of cribbed their ‘T’ symbol from the far more elegant version the Telluride ski resort has used and promoted for many years before Musk started Tesla.  What probably saved Tesla from what would otherwise be a blatant trademark infringement is that Telluride is not in anything remotely like the car business, and Tesla is not in anything like the ski business.

    However, Musk and a couple of rich partners just bought the Powder Mountain resort in Utah – but it seems to be a rich-boy playtoy for Musk, not something he plans to tie to Tesla.

  118. 118.

    Tony Jay

    @rikyrah:

    Given the available options ‘positive’ includes everything from “eruption of hitherto unknown supervolcano beneath Grantham” to “water voles complete their reconnaissance mission and rise up to enslave human population of Britain”.

    Luckily I have my bolt-hole* picked out so me and mine will survive the onrushing cataclysm – probably.

    * Hiding in the back pocket of Cole’s multi-hued statement bib & brace outfit. He’ll never even know we’re there!

  120. 120.

    Jay

    @louc:

    @smith:

    Both Texass and Floriduh have “Homestead” laws that protect the home/ranch as an asset for the homeowner, immune from many different takings, such as bankruptcy.

    That is why so many sketchy scams, con jobs are run out of those two States.

  121. 121.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @cmorenc: Jesus, no!  My family’s cabin is between Tomahawk and Rhinelander.*  0/10.  Do not want.

    *I’ll be there tomorrow to paint the fucking trim.

  123. 123.

    Old School

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Green Bay is the only place outside of Madison/Milwaukee that would have a chance of doing it, but sincerely doubt it.

    As I’m sure you know, Green Bay is hosting the NFL draft next year.  I was amused that the NFL held an official “hand-off” of the draft from Detroit to Green Bay in … Milwaukee.

  125. 125.

    Rachel Bakes

    Happy Belated Birthday, watergirl. And a whipped cream snob is the best kind to be!

  128. 128.

    SomeRandomGuy

    You would dis the Cool Whip?

    Hm. Can’t say as I blame you.

    I will note only that I’ve seen interesting effects from *frozen* Cool Whip – not room temperature. Since the cake in question was chocolate cake, with mint ice cream, the entire thing covered in Cool Whip and frozen, I refuse to taint my childhood memories by wondering WTF would have happened if it had been whipped cream.

    Want to argue whether bubble gum with pop rocks is wrong and horrible, instead?

  130. 130.

    HumboldtBlue

    @cmorenc: ​ 

    Musk started Tesla

    Musk didn’t found Tesla, Martin Eberhard and Mark Tarpenning did so. Musk was an early investor, kicking in some $30 million or some such, and was made chairman a few years later or something like that. But he’s not responsible for the company or the car designs.

  133. 133.

    karen marie

    @Jay:   Lots of places have “homestead” laws.  Massachusetts is one.  They’re not just for scumbags.

  137. 137.

    Anoniminous

    I don’t know why they don’t have it in Las Vegas. Plenty of hotel rooms, plenty of convention space, miles and miles of piles of sex workers of many styles, when they are done pissing on the country they could piss their money away in the casinos.

    Perfect

  138. 138.

    Ken

    @HumboldtBlue: But he’s not responsible for the company or the car designs.

    The truck designs, on the other hand….

    (rimshot)

    I follow e. w. niedermeyer on Bluesky for quality Musk snark. Today he linked to Gizmodo’s report on yesterday’s Tesla shareholder meeting, where Musk was talking about his plans for… robots, not cars. As many have noted, he tends to go off on these wild tangents about futuristic projects when he’s got no good news to report — and why not, it always works, or at least distracts the press.)

  140. 140.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    @WaterGirl: ​
     Gore Vidal used to love to tell this joke:

    “Prepare yourself for some bad news: Ronald Reagan’s
    library just burned down. Both books were destroyed.
    But the real horror: He hadn’t finished coloring either
    one of them.”

  143. 143.

    Gvg

    @Jay: As a native Floridian, I don’t think so. All the highest scam origination states are warm weather places that deliberately advertise a pleasant or even glamorous lifestyle. Con people often put more work into their scams than it would be to just get a job, but they WANT to steal from people. They want the easy life and they like being full of themselves for conning the victims. Naturally they want to live somewhere “nice” with no snow shoveling. They commit their crimes everywhere but they live in the fancy places. Not even regular Florida but the glamorous Palm Beach or Boca Raton, and in California or Texas it’s also their “name” places. Easy street.

    Our state attorney always has a bunch of cases to bring to Justice prosecuting fraud. Always.

  145. 145.

    Eyeroller

    @HumboldtBlue: ​It’s really irritating that so many people think that Musk is the “visionary” who created Tesla, when he was just the money guy they brought in who then forced out the actual founders.

  146. 146.

    TBone

    Former head of NSA (appointed by Dotard) to sit on board of OpenAI, committee of safety and security.  I feel safer already!

    Nakasone and the NSA recently defended the practice of buying data of questionable provenance to feed its surveillance networks, arguing that there was no law against it. OpenAI, for its part, has simply taken, rather than buying, large swathes of data from the internet, arguing when it is caught that there is no law against it. They seem to be of one mind when it comes to asking forgiveness rather than permission, if indeed they ask either.

    techcrunch.com/2024/06/13/former-nsa-head-joins-openai-board-and-safety-committee/

    Coupled with the news about the military Covid disinformation campaign under Dotard’s command, I have questions.

  147. 147.

    Ramona

    Watching the excellent Marcy Wheeler orally lay out all the lawless actions by Weiss, Wise, Hines, Giuliani, Barr, Trump, Smirnov and others that went into Hunter Biden being prosecuted and convicted for something people are rarely prosecuted for youtube.com/live/h71mEhkhEYs?si=VMWzYK16G0UbOvOx

    The mainstream press is memory holing the ongoing shenanigans which started in 2019 in the shoddy way they are covering the trial. I’ve been following Dr Wheeler’s careful dissection of this matter and others for years now on emptywheel.net. Try to look past some of her typos as she is piecing together intricate connections by reading the public docket of these legal cases.

  148. 148.

    Jackie

    Anyone besides me hoping that the unSupremes didn’t drop their decision on Immunity today, because it’s BAD NEWS for TCFG and they didn’t want to spoil his BD?

    That’s my rose colored glasses hope.🤞🏻

  149. 149.

    smith

    @Jackie: I’ve also been thinking that if it were good news for the Felon we would have seen it months ago. Hoping the delay is because that’s all they can do to help him.

  151. 151.

    scav

    @HumboldtBlue: Well, I’m beginning to suspect that Tesla, irregardless of the Musky pong it’s acquired, has become the perfect exemplar of a late, if not post-late capitalist enterprise.  It’s evolved beyond providing any actual good or service ever (barely maintaining even the pretense of vaporware), but devotes itself exclusively to effectively force-feeding income and bonuses to selected upper management.  All the board insist on doing so as they’re attached to similar teats with similarly comprised boards.

  154. 154.

    WaterGirl

    @like a metaphor: Thank you!

    @Jackie, I really did dodge a bullet.  My older sister (5 years older) was born on June 14, just 5 years ahead of me on June 13.  It appears that we were both “anniversary” babies.  My other sister was a new years baby.  Or, as we used to say, my parents apparently had sex twice a year, whether they needed to or not.

  157. 157.

    RaflW

    I don’t really understand why, decades into the manufacture of various simulated foods, that cool whip tastes as weird as it does. I can only assume that some people like the taste. Huh. (I mean, can’t they get something closer to vanilla and cream taste than that … whatever it is flavor?)

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