Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

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

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

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

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

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

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

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

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

In after Baud. Damn.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Yes!

Yes!

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This post is in: 

Yes!

This is what we need:

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced articles of impeachment against the conservative US supreme court justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito on Wednesday over the justices’ “pattern of refusal to recuse from consequential matters before the court”. […]

Reporting by the news outlet ProPublica revealed that Thomas failed to disclose several luxury vacation trips that were paid for by Harlan Crow, a conservative megadonor. Thomas has also been pressed to recuse himself from cases involving the January 6 US Capitol attack and Donald Trump because his wife, Ginni, is involved with groups that were connected to the insurrection.

The resolution filed against Thomas contains three articles of impeachment. The first focuses on his failure to disclose gifts from Crow. The second two involve his refusal to recuse himself from cases connected to his wife.

Alito also took a vacation with and flew on a private jet chartered by Peter Singer, a Republican billionaire. Additionally, Alito refused to recuse himself from cases involving the attack on the US Capitol after it was reported that his wife, Martha-Ann, flew an upside-down American flag associated with the insurrection at their Virginia home. Further, the Alitos flew a flag associated with Christian nationalism at a beach home in New Jersey.

Ocasio-Cortez filed two articles of impeachment against Alito. One focuses on his failure to disclose luxury travel and the other on his refusal to recuse himself from January 6 cases.

Yeah, they won’t go anywhere this term, but it’s a great campaign issue, and it throws down a marker if we win the House. People understand that luxury trips are corruption:  it’s a good, simple talking point.

 

Reader Interactions

206Comments

  2. 2.

    New Deal democrat

    FWIW, it’s not just a good campaign tactic. It also happens to be true. By any reasonable standard, Thomas has violated the Constitution’s “good behavior” standard for tenure in the judiciary.

  5. 5.

    gratuitous

    Great. Just great, AOC. Now you’re going to make Sam Alito all upset and misty. Is that what you wanted? Well, that’s what you’ve done, Missy. Maybe you should just sit there and think about that.

    Because I’d like to see you do it again.

  6. 6.

    Steve in the ATL

    @moonbat:
     

    Trumps appointees are corrupt. Trump is a pedophile rapist. Trump wants a nationwide abortion ban. Trump is a convicted felon. I could go on and on and on.

    Please proceed, moonbat!

  7. 7.

    Chris

    Good.  This is the kind of offensive we need to be on.  And it’s every bit as important as taking the offensive against Trump.

    AOC knows what she’s about.

  8. 8.

    New Deal democrat

    I also think it’s important to add this: the right undertook a sustained and coordinated attack on Roe v. Wade for 50 years before it was overturned.

    There is majority support for reversing some of the more egregious rulings by the current Court. A sustained and coordinated attack on this extremist Supreme Court will bear fruit much sooner. For example, in the last week I have read *three* separate opinion pieces by conservative lawyers aghast at the Trump v. US decision.

    Unlike some of the geriatrics in power in DC, we need to be resolute in pressing forward on judicial reform.

  12. 12.

    mali muso

    Love to see it!  Let’s get on offense.  We have the advantage of being right and having a slate full of great targets.

  14. 14.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @rikyrah: She is stepping up when needed.  AOC and Jasmine Crockett should just tag team the media for the rest of the month.

  15. 15.

    WaterGirl

    This was in the same post.  It’s a hat trick – Democratic action re: the corrupt court on 3 different fronts.

  16. 16.

    rikyrah

    @moonbat:

     

    Trump’s appointees are corrupt. Trump is a pedophile rapist. Trump wants a nationwide abortion ban. Trump is a convicted felon.

     

    CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP

  18. 18.

    piratedan

    @Omnes Omnibus: agreed, those two generate the attention from the media (helps that they are both stunning, can speak to basics or be as erudite as needed) and there’s a lot of fuckery afoot.  I REALLY want the DOJ to start naming the “unnamed” unindicted co-conspirators in the J6 indictment with the reasoning that since THAT trial is held up, lets proceed with these other crimes committed by those who do NOT have “presidential immunity”.

  19. 19.

    RaflW

    I hope we can really focus on the luxury private jets, very expensive vacation destinations and so on.

    In 2008, when he went on a private fishing expedition to Alaska, Alito was making $208,000 per year, plus very nice benefits. That same year, per BLS data, the average dentist made $154,000. (I picked that because dentists are IMO known to have free cash to easily afford cessna trips to close in Canada for, shall we say, upper middle class fishing guide trips).

    The point being, Alito could easily afford to pay his own way for an equivalent experience that isn’t fucking bribery or at least gross influence peddling. Roast him.

    Thomas’s abuses are so flagrant it hardly needs noting.

  21. 21.

    RaflW

    I don’t have big bucks, but are there independent expenditure groups that might be more likely to go after Thomas and Alito on corruption charges? I’m ready right now to have these two gone after, hammer and tongs.

    AOC has provided the news hook, but this stuff needs coordinated (in the broad sense of that word, not ‘coordinated’ in campaign finance terms) support and pushing.

  26. 26.

    Mousebumples

    Thank you for sharing this!

    I don’t think Thomas or Alito will retire with a Dem President in the White House, but I’ll keep 🤞 for karmic justice.

  27. 27.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Suzanne: I assume that everyone in eastern Pennsylvania reads the New Yorker, so you must have seen the article in the May 6 issue about converting office buildings into residential housing.  I expect that what makes economic sense in Manhattan may not in less expensive areas, but a fascinating article, especially in light of all the insight you have provided on this very subject.

  30. 30.

    Steve in the ATL

    @RaflW:
     

    focus on the luxury private jets, very expensive vacation destinations and so on

    Another thread about Omnes? Ugh.

  31. 31.

    Trollhattan

    Who’s Ginny going to be drunk-dialing now, I wonder? What flag is Lady Alito flying today?

  34. 34.

    Another Scott

    @New Deal democrat:

    APNews.com has Biden’s July 8 letter to House Democrats:

    We are protecting the freedoms of Americans. Trump and the MAGA Republicans are taking them away. They have already for the first time in history taken away a fundamental freedom from the American people by overturning Roe v. Wade. They have decided politicians should make the most personal of decisions that should be made by women and their doctors and those closest to them. They have already said they won’t stop there — and are going after everything from contraception to IVF to the right to marry who you love. And they have made it clear they will ban abortion nationwide. We will let none of that happen. I have made it clear that if Kamala and I are reelected, and the nation elects a Democratic House and Senate, we will make Roe v. Wade the law of the land again. We are the ones who will bring real Supreme Court reform; Donald Trump and his majority want more of the same from the Court, and the chance to add to the right-wing majority they built by subverting the norms and principles of the nomination and confirmation process.

    (Emphasis added.)

    I see what he did there.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  35. 35.

    moonbat

    This should be interesting.

    Hacker group SiegedSec, reportedly launched an anti-Project 2025 cyberattack that secured 200GB worth of data

    “Project 2025 threatens the rights of abortion healthcare and LGBTQ+ communities in particular. So of course, we won’t stand for that!” wrote SiegedSec. The post also contains a zip file containing the pertinent stolen data.

    ‘The Project 2025 dossier, in which Roberts denounces “the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology,” proposes rescinding protections against sex discrimination, barring transgender people from the military and reversing what its authors call a focus on “‘LGBTQ+ equity,’ subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage, replacing such policies with those encouraging marriage, work, motherhood, fatherhood, and nuclear families.”

    You can almost visualize them giving the Illinois Nazi salute after writing that.

  36. 36.

    NotMax

    Behavior of a spouse is not an impeachable offense.

    However offensive such behavior may be.

  37. 37.

    Juju

    @Mousebumples: Just some speculation here, it could perhaps cause a serious health issue for one or both of the justices.  I’m not saying it will, or it should, but that it could.

  44. 44.

    Old School

    @NotMax:

    Behavior of a spouse is not an impeachable offense.

    Haven’t we determined that “an impeachable offense” is whatever charge the House can get a majority?

  45. 45.

    New Deal democrat

    @NotMax: If you fail to recuse yourself from cases involving your spouse’s odious behavior, that is not “good behavior” and is impeachable.

  48. 48.

    RaflW

    @NotMax: I firmly believe as a matter of politics at least, since that’s at heart what an impeachment effort is nowdays (maybe ever was), Thomas failing to recuse in light of Gini Thomas’s documented ties to people organizing the J6 insurrection rise to high misdemeanors at least.

    The Alito flag shit is trashy, unbecoming and inappropriate. But that case being thin is why I say we need to nail Sam for his private jetting habits.

  49. 49.

    Nora

    Good for AOC. A lot of people are really angry about the Supreme Court, even without knowing just HOW the court has screwed us all in the last week of its term. Give them something to root for, something to write their congresscritters about, and let’s give this some legs.

  54. 54.

    Juju

    @Layer8Problem:  I never took a Latin class in my life, and honestly, it never occurred to me to look up that name choice.  I just did and I see what you mean.

  62. 62.

    Layer8Problem

    @Leto:  Pants and belt and suspenders, in these uncertain times.  Ok, maybe the English kind of suspenders; I’ve never met Baud.

    ETA:  Drat, you were talking about Omnes.  Carry on then.

  63. 63.

    Martin

    Democrats really gotta learn how to play the game by the rules as established, not as they wish they were.

    The Supreme Court thinks the immunity decision is perfectly reasonable because they know damn well that Biden won’t Seal Team 6 them. The correct political move here would be for Biden to instruct the DOJ to arrest and detain Thomas over federal bribery violations and use the magic words ‘official act’.

  64. 64.

    Gwangung

    Go. On. Offense.

     

    this and Dobbs are where we have real wind at our backs and it’ll give Dems a shot in the arm morale wise.

  66. 66.

    Scout211

    Don’t listen to me, but maybe listen to an expert? Link

    President Joe Biden’s performance during the first presidential debate has been widely panned, with critics and even those within his own party calling for him to step aside. But the question remained: Would Biden’s shaky performance against former President Donald Trump result in a noticeable dip in the polls for the president?

    According to a new report from the Northeastern University-led data project CHIP50, the answer is no.

    Led by David Lazer, university distinguished professor of political science and computer science at Northeastern, the report indicates that the debate had little if any impact on people’s voting preference. Lazer hopes the report helps illustrate the dangers of making a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to the media interpreting data.

    “Even the New York Times, which is usually better about this, talked about a very tiny shift that was totally insignificant statistically like it was evidence that it was a shift toward Trump after the debate,” Lazer says. “My hope is that reporters look at this and say, ‘Maybe we need to be careful in overinterpreting noise as actual signal.’”

    Seeing the dominant narrative coming out of the debate, Lazer and the team at CHIP50 decided to test the hypothesis that Biden had lost ground in public opinion after the debate. Notably, Lazer says, they didn’t survey two different cross-sectional groups of people before and after the debate like most polls. Instead, the team was able to survey the same group of respondents from a survey conducted before the debate.

    Lazer says using the same group of people helps make the results more precise, which is important in polling that inherently has a margin of error.

    What the report finds is that Biden held on to 94% of the people who said they would support him before the debate. For Trump, 86% of people who said they would support him before the debate said they would do so after the debate.

    . . .

    Lazer says “the overconfidence we have in seemingly precise statistics” isn’t anything new during an election cycle, but he cautions that the 2024 election is different.

    “In this case it’s actually materially affecting decision-making,” Lazer says. “If you make the narrative that things are cratering for Biden, it may affect whether Biden stays in the race. I don’t know if he should stay in the race or not, but decisions should be made on accurate information.”

  70. 70.

    Geoduck

    @moonbat: I know media attacks need to be kept simple, but It would be more accurate to say the Shaitgibbon’s handlers want a nationwide abortion ban. He personally probably doesn’t give the slightest squat one way or the other.

  72. 72.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    It’s a hat trick – Democratic action re: the corrupt court on 3 different fronts.

    Let’s make sure these corrupt fucks can’t find one minute of rest and relaxation, not a single good night’s sleep, during their summer vacations. Yes, and their horrible wives, too.

  73. 73.

    Steve in the ATL

    @suzanne: d’oh!  meant to type “western”–I know where you live!  Which I mean a totally non-creepy and non-threatening way.  At least as far as you know….

  82. 82.

    moonbat

    Make them own this every, single day — because they do! And people REALLY don’t like it!

    Trump Tries, Fails to Distance Himself From Project 2025

    It tickles me no end that these racist a**holes couldn’t wait to unveil their seKKKret plans until after the election just so they could issue veiled threats to liberals. Maybe all those James Bond villains who tell the hero exactly how to thwart their diamond powered space lasers aren’t so far-fetched after all. 🤔

  85. 85.

    Old School

    @Scout211:

    But the question remained: Would Biden’s shaky performance against former President Donald Trump result in a noticeable dip in the polls for the president?

    According to a new report from the Northeastern University-led data project CHIP50, the answer is no.

    What if Democratic supporters, pundits, etc. kept calling for weeks for Biden to drop out?  Would that cause a dip?

  87. 87.

    Leto

    @Raven: ok, rewound to the goal and aftermath: Donovan said you never open your legs like that, and that’s bullshit. You’re semi-predicting that they’ll strike the ball, and where they will strike the ball, so you’re trying to place your foot in the path of that strike. DeVries could have just as easily kept his legs more closed and the ball could’ve whipped in front of him, and still in. He also had momentum working against him, carrying him forward. He couldn’t play him harder as he was in the box, but it is what it is.

  88. 88.

    Dan B

    @Steve in the ATL: Seattle is heading towards converting office space to housing.  Why not provide rent subsidies to cultural organizations to locate in empty offices downtown?  This would improve the desirability of downtown.  Why move downtown unless there are attractions?

  89. 89.

    gratuitous

    I seem to recall not so very long ago that Hunter Biden’s application to buy a gun was a Very Serious Matter, because lying on a federal form is a crime, a felony offense. At least, it is for a private citizen. If you’re a Supreme Court Justice, though, no biggie.

  90. 90.

    Leto

    @Raven: it was the defender DeVries, went through his legs. It passed the keeper down low, to his right. I mean, shit happens, and at the worst possible time. We know that. Here for the Dutch it was in the 90th min, with no time left. See them in 2 years here in the US for the World Cup.

  91. 91.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Leto:

     

    never open your legs like that … whipped … he was in the box

    Are we seriously not doing phrasing anymore?! We are entering the danger zone.

  92. 92.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Will this result in any sort of hearings in the House?  I assume we don’t have enough votes.  Glad they are doing this, either way.

  93. 93.

    The Thin Black Duke

    Is it me, or has the Republican candidate for POTUS engaged a cloaking device? Where is Trump? A narcissist avoiding the spotlight?Is the puppet deteriorating faster than what the Puppet Masters expected?

  95. 95.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Dan B: per the New Yorker article, you need a critical mass of residents to attract restaurants and stores and such to make residential living feasible.  So keeping businesses there would hurt that.  But you make a good point–and that would attract a better and more desirable class (read: non-MAGA) of people.

  96. 96.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Leto: ​
     I re-watched that very episode last night! I knew that the jackalteriat would not let me down on the pop culture reference front.

  97. 97.

    rikyrah

    Val Whiting

    @iamcoachval

    Angel Reese gets a lot of racially motivated hate. I believe she gets this more than any player in the league. Here is a one screenshot that her mother shared with me from a guy named William Martina. He actually used his real name and email address and contacted the Angel Reese Foundation to be mean and racist. I also attached a text message from an unknown person that said vile things as well. Both of these people showed that they are fans of Caitlin Clark. William Martina is the president of a company yet he is took time to racially bully and harass a young black woman. Angel’s mom said that they get these type of emails and text messages every week.

    https://x.com/iamcoachval/status/1810878636846878921

  100. 100.

    WaterGirl

    @Martin:

    The correct political move here would be for Biden to instruct the DOJ to arrest and detain Thomas over federal bribery violations and use the magic words ‘official act’.

    YES!!!

  104. 104.

    Geminid

    @Dan B: Richmond, Virginia has come a long way in that respect. Twenty years ago its downtown area was deserted after working hours, but now it is coming to life. Same with Norfolk.

  105. 105.

    suzanne

    @Steve in the ATL: The irony is that the second-tallest office building in PGH, BNY Mellon Tower, is all over local news because its anchor tenant’s lease is up in 2028 and they are not expected to renew, due to the reduced demand for office square footage. And it was built in the 80s and is not a good candidate for conversion.

    The ratio of inside-to-outside is much higher in modern office towers, and residential needs it to be lower. So lots of buildings are not great candidates for conversions. The conversion would be too expensive relative to the return. Manhattan is one of the few places it makes sense, in Pittsburgh it does not. Demolition/replacement of the BNY Mellon Tower is already being mentioned in the media.

  107. 107.

    frog

    @Martin:

     

    The correct political move here would be for Biden to instruct the DOJ to arrest and detain Thomas over federal bribery violations and use the magic words ‘official act’.

    This action will be appealed up to the SC, and will be declared unconstitutional.

  108. 108.

    Dan B

    @Geoduck: The RNC 2024 platform calls for Fetal Personhood making abortion a Capital Offense.  Birth control would be under a similar ban, I assume.

  109. 109.

    Eyeroller

    @moonbat: ​There has to be something going on other than “the debate.” Someone who said she’d worked in politics for 30 years said “I have never seen a political party do to their nominee, their incumbent president, what the democrats are doing to President Biden. It is simply unprecedented.”

    And FWIW the polls have stopped moving against Biden. This freakout and media assault (which would not have been nearly as effective without so many feckless Dems) did a lot more damage than “the debate,” needless to say. If we can stop the circular firing squad we can easily get back on track to win.

  110. 110.

    Chris Johnson

    @rikyrah: Faith is EARNED.

    I was always an AOC fan (obviously), but I’ll tell you one thing: I’m appalled at the shenanigans the NYT and its ilk have got up to, but the way Joe Biden has courageously handled all this has impressed me SO much. It would’ve been so easy to let this warfare against us, shake his resolve. He’s an honorable guy, but the thing is he is not a FOOL and that’s incredibly valuable right now.

    I’m becoming a raving Biden stan. What a goddamed legacy this man is forging. History will report what all this shit REALLY was and it will report how he was unswayed, undaunted. I love it, and I love how AOC and everyone are rising to the occasion.

    Because we must! This is our time.

  112. 112.

    Josie

    “I have never seen a political party do to their nominee, their incumbent president, what the democrats are doing to President Biden. It is simply unprecedented.”

    Gosh, I can’t imagine what the difference could be. Couldn’t have to do with the VP candidate, could it? Nah….

  113. 113.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Old School: That’s my complaint. People like Bennet are out there making huge amounts of noise, and then pointing to the noise they’ve made as proof.

    Ugh.

  114. 114.

    moonbat

    @Geoduck: Fetal personhood is being written into the GOP’s 2024 platform. If he’s their candidate, that’s his position. He is their standard bearer.

    It’s about time to make his malignant narcissism work against him. If he is the be all and end all of today’s Republican Party then he owns everything.

  117. 117.

    NotMax

    @Leto

    Still maintain the character design for Cyril Figgis was based on Keith Olbermann.

    Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
    ;)

  118. 118.

    Steve in the ATL

    @MisterForkbeard: and he’s a total backbencher.  THIS is when he decides to speak up?  Do better, Colorado! [while ignoring the many political atrocities coming out of my state]

  124. 124.

    moonbat

    @Eyeroller: Agreed. All my social media accounts are officially in attack mode from here until Nov. 5.

    Biden/Harris is our ticket. Now it’s time to make them defend theirs.

  125. 125.

    Eunicecycle

    @The Thin Black Duke: I think he had a rally yesterday at his own golf course in Florida, for which he was 60 minutes late. He proceeded to ramble as usual. He talked about Hannibal Lector again. My husband said he talks about him so much, maybe he’s going to name him his VP!

  129. 129.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    Convicted sex offender and multiple felon Donald Trump has been incoherent at his hate rallies. He frequently starts a sentence on one subject and ends it on an unrelated subject. There is no structure or storytelling in his diatribes, he just verbally wanders all over the place like a doddering old man. His trick to not sounding like he has lost his train of thought is to just keep saying shit until he reaches the ‘end’ of his sentence. If the presstitutes took five seconds to read his shit they would have a huge story to report.

    That they don’t tells you that they aren’t interested in digging up dirt on him.

  130. 130.

    Eyeroller

    @Josie: I think that’s part of it but not the main part. The “Biden is too old” “Biden is senile” narratives have been around since the 2020 primaries. The media was more than primed to jump on the first “evidence” for those narratives and it has turned into a self-sustaining conflagration. The problem is the mostly-white, mostly-male Democrats (electeds as well as “consultants” and “pundits”) who have crumbled so quickly. Thus proving that a lot of stereotypes are true. (“Won’t take their own side in a fight.”)

    But it’s true that a lot of the Fantasy Politics Ticket players want to skip over Harris as well.

  131. 131.

    ArchTeryx

    Messaging bills like this are absolutely necessary. How many times did the Republican house send ACA repeal bills to die in the Senate? Then the moment they got the chance to actually do it, they had a bill teed up and ready to go immediately. It almost worked, too.

  133. 133.

    BellyCat

    @BR: The best defense is a good offense.

    Prezactly… Good on AOC! I’d love to see Joe get his Irish up as often as possible for the next four months! It is time to fight lies, deception, and fascism with FIRE.

  136. 136.

    Dan B

    @moonbat: Abortion is murder is on the continuum that the man’s seed is being destroyed by the sinful woman.  After all women are just the oven.

  137. 137.

    SoupCatcher

    @Steve in the ATL: San Jose State University is looking to convert a high rise downtown hotel into student housing, which looks to be a much easier lift than converting office space into housing.

  139. 139.

    Scout211

    Seth Abramson on his substack Proof

    Read the whole thing.  It’s a long version of the past two weeks, step by step and the medias lies, distortions and failure to report the facts.  Facts that they already knew, but wrote their reports as if they didn’t

    Media lied to voters about the cause of President Biden’s subpar debate performance. The lie—described here in full—is unforgivable, and was intended to chill discussion of Trump’s cognitive decline.

    Major media was not aware of any event having befallen President Biden that would explain him being in a different cognitive state as June 2024 began than he was in when he got his full cognitive work-up on February 28 or delivered his commanding State of the Union address a week later. Indeed, within a matter of hours after the Atlanta debate it knew, from dozens of sources with knowledge of President Biden’s work inside the White House, that nothing had changed in March, April, or May—Biden was sharp and focused in those months just as he had been at the State of the Union.

    Major media knew that, beginning in June, the president had undertaken a schedule during a long trip to Europe that his staffers strongly advised against because it would have led to gross exhaustion—major media has explicitly confirmed—in a man half his age. Major media knew that Joe Biden’s lapses in Europe began as a result of this pre-forecast gross exhaustion, which had been brought on by a president overruling his staff to work harder for America than it would be wise for any president to be working.

    Major media knew that, upon return from Europe, President Biden was suffering from exhaustion, a jet lag that wouldn’t go away, and—not surprisingly, soon thereafter—a cold that was so bad it was believed he might have COVID-19. Nevertheless, because President Biden is stubborn and a lifelong “happy warrior,” he insisted on debating Trump just as he’d insisted on keeping a self-avowedly unhealthy schedule in Europe that deprived him of sleep and even intermittent rest.

    Major media knew that, ten minutes or so into the Atlanta debate, President Biden realized how poorly things were going and how ill his health was and pushed himself to improve in the final 80 minutes of the debate—which he did, albeit only marginally. Major media ignored this gradual improvement despite knowing most of its viewers were unaware of it, having turned off their televisions in disgust (at both candidates) only a matter of minutes into the Atlanta event.

    Major media knew that, within days of the debate, dozens of sources had come out of the woodwork to tell it that the president was now doing fine and was as sharp as ever—information major media had already had confirmed to it simply by watching Biden rallies in North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, as well as interviews a now-rested Biden had conducted with both ABC News and MSNBC.

    Major media knew, therefore, that there was no story here except a series of bad calls by a sitting President of the United States who was overworking himself for America.

    So what did media do, faced with a ho-hum reality but a potential barnstorming lie?

    ETA: They lied.

  141. 141.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Steve in the ATL: When I saw your quote I quickly misread it and thought it was from Daylight Bombings, by one of my favorite HC punk bands, The Bled.

    Their lyric (at the chorus) is “When does the seizure end?  When does the cyanide kick in?” which I always thought was the coolest lyric.

    Warning: They are quite a bit heavier than what you posted but if you like heavy shit, their first two albums are absolute 🔥🔥🔥 and some of the best metal/HC punk from the early 2000’s.  First album is more scream-vocals whereas the second he actually sings more.

  142. 142.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Bupalos: ​
     I would pick not doing the stupid, unnecessary, and counterproductive mission, but I should know better than to respond to bad faith questions.

  154. 154.

    moonbat

    FYI Rolling Stone has an interview up with KHive members and Chris Evans (not the actor!) about how strong the Democratic Party base is for Biden/Harris. Kamala’s ‘KHive’ Superfans Want Biden to Stay in the Race

    Fun quote: “The actual KHive, contrary to assumptions, hasn’t shown much interest in bumping Harris into the top spot, and many of its prominent voices have continued to forcefully support Biden.”

  155. 155.

    Steve in the ATL

    @O. Felix Culpa: fun fact: the original band name was “Chunk” until they, like almost every band in the US, received a letter from a lawyer stating that the name was already taken by another band.  So they added “Super” and became Southeastern college radio legends.

    Bonus fun fact: the original name Chunk came from a phone book typo of original drummer Chuck Garrison’s name.​

    But you would know all of this if you weren’t a slack motherfucker!

  156. 156.

    tobie

    @rikyrah: No doubt, you saw this post from Abrams too.

    Stacey Abrams

    @staceyabrams

    It’s time to stop the Joe Biden doom loop. President
    @JoeBiden
    has the integrity, moral character and record needed to beat Donald Trump in November.

    I cannot love this woman enough.

  157. 157.

    tobie

    @Scout211: Oops…I posted my last comment without hat-tipping you. Thank you for the long excerpt from Stacey Abrams’ editorial in the AJC.

  162. 162.

    BellyCat

    @Steve in the ATL:  I believe Suzanne is in Pittsburgh, even though her employer has an office in Philly? To your point, converting downtown office space in high rises to housing is a large topic of discussion in Pittsburgh, whether it makes sense or not. The reality in Pittsburgh, post COVID, is that there is far less demand/use of downtown high rises and the place is a bit of a ghost town.

    As an architect as well, this issue is intriguing. IIRC, Suzanne was pretty negative on the idea given floor plate sizes, etc. I’m slightly more optimistic given that total occupancy loads for Residential use (200 gross square feet/person) are less than Office use (150 gross square feet/person).

    The biggest problem, to me, is that few high rises have operable windows and virtually none have outdoor space on every floor. Both are deal-breakers for me, but I know a few people who live in Gateway Towers in downtown Pittsburgh who accept these constraints currently, even with the sidewalks being rolled up after 5 pm.

  165. 165.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Scout211:

    Thank you for that. So polling of the same people afterward the debate showed a 6 % drop in support for Biden and a 14% drop for the felonious rapist. The felonious rapist lost more than twice the support than Biden and the Tonya Harding Democrats are losing their minds.

    More like they never were using them in the first place. Thanks for that, Scout!

  166. 166.

    Martin

    @frog: And? Short of impeachment, there’s no consequence for Biden and the DOJ to tell them to go fuck themselves. And I would keep reminding them of that, with just Thomas as the example.

    Next term starts in October. Re-arrest Thomas the morning of every hearing. Let him appeal. He’s never there for arguments. Official act.

  167. 167.

    MomSense

    @moonbat:

    There has been a lot of infighting in KHive since it started.  Some controversial things happened and several prominent members left (some have returned).  I’m not going to say more because one of the biggest controversies involved allegations of a sensitive nature and I don’t want to repeat them because I honestly don’t know what to believe.

  168. 168.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Martin:

    The correct political and legal and ethical move here would be for Biden to instruct the DOJ to arrest and detain Thomas over federal bribery violations and use the magic words ‘official act’.

    FTFY and totally agreed otherwise.

  169. 169.

    MomSense

    @NotMax:

    I wish we could spend a week getting mean with each other about the Chunky candy bar.  I’m a firm no fucking way because raisins!  I have eaten them from time to time in desperate situations and always hated myself after.

  170. 170.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Steve in the ATL: Thanks! This has been quite the musical education. Time for me to go get dinner started. Ciao for now.

    And whatever you do, don’t mention the ________!

  171. 171.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @frog:

    This action will be appealed up to the SC, and will be declared unconstitutional.

    Maybe. But in the meantime, Uncle Clarence will be sitting in the county jail because…wait for it…he’s a flight risk!

    ETA: But I see what you did there.

  172. 172.

    M31

    here’s an interesting poll of likely black voters in swing states:

    https://blackpac.com/poll/

    seems that those who actually watched the debate came out 70% more likely to support Biden, vs. 42% for those who didn’t watch the debate

    so the media blitz totally worked, good job MSM, no thumbs on the scale here

    — my summary is that all anyone heard afterwards was that Biden did poorly, with not one word about how Trump was an unhinged lunatic who never said one true thing

  178. 178.

    Suzanne

    @BellyCat:

    As an architect as well, this issue is intriguing. IIRC, Suzanne was pretty negative on the idea given floor plate sizes, etc. I’m slightly more optimistic given that total occupancy loads for Residential use (200 gross square feet/person) are less than Office use (150 gross square feet/person).

    The biggest problem, to me, is that few high rises have operable windows and virtually none have outdoor space on every floor. Both are deal-breakers for me, but I know a few people who live in Gateway Towers in downtown Pittsburgh who accept these constraints currently, even with the sidewalks being rolled up after 5 pm.

    So NYC is interesting in this regard….. the operable-window thing isn’t a requirement everywhere. Lots of municipalities allow residential high-rises to not have operable windows. But the window is still required for health, circadian cycles, etc.

    I want to be clear on my feelings about office-to-residential conversions….. it’s not that they will never happen, they’re just going to be relatively rare because of all the factors we know about. And they’re not going to be “affordable” housing, they’re gonna be market-rate housing. It’s just not a financially viable proposition most of the time. Even in NYC, in that article, the developer is quoted as saying that if they convert 20% of the unused office space in Manhattan to residential, that would be optimistic. And Manhattan is one of the places where it is probably the most likely to pencil out.

    But but but! I keep pointing this out…. Much more of America’s office space is not in dense downtowns, it’s in low-rise office parks and the like! The land can be redeveloped! My last project involved a redevelopment of a dead shopping mall into a huge mixed-use site. Scraping-and-starting over is often far more feasible.

  181. 181.

    BellyCat

    @Suzanne: Agreed that “affordable housing” seems unlikely, unless underwritten SIGNIFICANTLY by a city. Also agreed that Manhattan is the strongest economic argument for success.

    All that said, for less dense cities, what do they do with these office skyscrapers? The masses are NEVER coming back to work in these in prior numbers (largely due to traffic congestion and commute times which are eliminated by WFH (Work From Home) possibilities). Meanwhile, the pressure is on for both revenue and vitality for many downtowns to replace the tumbleweeds. T’is a puzzlah…

  183. 183.

    Suzanne

    @BellyCat: The office properties that are modern and amenitized and well-kept will stay occupied (more tenants but smaller leaseholds). The properties that suck will languish until it becomes viable to demolish and rebuild purpose-built residential.

    Architecture is in an interesting place as an industry. In the last fifteen years, due to technology getting better, it’s increasingly possible to have project teams working remote….. and the profession doesn’t pay enough to support architects living in some of the cities where firms want to have offices (because there ar high-profile opportunities there). My former firm was really struggling with this. Remote work has unlocked a partial solution, which is that we fly in when needed and use TEAMS the rest of the time.

    Its funny….. I changed jobs, working for one of the BIG BIG firms now, and there are 20 people in my office, but only a couple of my colleagues are on my project team. And so….. people don’t use the office so much.

  184. 184.

    Suzanne

    @Jay: Yeah, that article notes that Calgary has an incentive program “unique to North America” that made those conversions financially feasible. The vast majority of U.S. cities will not do any such thing.

  186. 186.

    BellyCat

    @Suzanne: Agreed. Architecture is not the only industry to experience this phenomenon, but the “cost of living” issue that you raise makes it far more attractive for employees to WFH if they live in economically affordable places.

    Working for a BIG BIG firm starting with a G? You still in Pgh?

  187. 187.

    PersistentIllusion

    @Steve in the ATL: ​
      Steve, I’m a constituent and I sent an email to his local office, tearing him a new one. He used to work for Steve Anshutz, a libertarian asshole who owns most of Colorado at this point. A DINO if there ever was one.

  189. 189.

    Suzanne

    @BellyCat: Weirdly, we just moved to a bigger office in the Strip District, but most of the workstations are for hoteling. Commuting just doesn’t make a lot of sense if you’re not going to be with your project team anyway!

  190. 190.

    BellyCat

    @Suzanne: The properties that suck will languish until it becomes viable to demolish and rebuild purpose-built residential.

    Maybe.

    First, I’m skeptical that a developer will conclude that tearing down a skyscraper and rebuilding a speculative residential skyscraper will be their first move. These cheap bastards will likely be more interested in converting a bank of floors to residential to see if there is a market for residential.

    Second, there are some skyscrapers that are more symbolic to a city (such as the US Steel Building in Pgh…errr,  UPMC?) that would give a city the vapors to tear down and replace.

    Tearing down a shopping mall to replace it is trivial. Tearing down a skyscraper to replace it? Not so much.

    Guessing we’ll have to wait and see ‘cause ain’t no way downtown business occupancy will be what it once was in the near (or far) future.

  191. 191.

    Soprano2

    @suzanne: My investment guy said commercial real estate is the one cloud on the good economy because of things like this. He said they got all their investments out of banks (because of loans) and REIT’s because of it.

  192. 192.

    artem1s

    @moonbat: ​ 

    they fear that their guy might not make it to the convention.

    finally! of course this is a huge problem for the GOP. they have NO VP. imagine the Speaker vote chaos x1,000 and that might come close to the dumpster fire that will occur if the GOP has to start answering questions about replacing the convicted felon on their ticket. the back stabbing will be epic. it will be a blood bath.

  193. 193.

    bbleh

    @Geoduck: true, and illustrative of a VERY IMPORTANT, but alas also ENTIRELY NEGLECTED point, ie that we are voting not just for A Guy but for an ADMINISTRATION.  And as we have seen over the past 4 years, the Biden administration is about as competent and well-oiled a machine as can possibly exist within the US Executive, while by contrast the former Felon administration was a cesspool of backstabbing, corruption and incompetence, and a future one (thank you Heritage Foundation blueprint) would be a Nazi nightmare.

  194. 194.

    BellyCat

    @Suzanne: I don’t see your new firm advertising GLAMOROUS PITTSBURGH among its many offices. LOL

    Hilarious that Pittsburgh has become the U.S. equivalent of India for outsourcing architectural talent.

  196. 196.

    bbleh

    @Chris Johnson: +10!  Biden has been around a long time, and … omg he’s good at politics!  And one aspect of that is knowing what is important and what is superficial noise.

    He’s got sand.  And this ain’t done and dusted yet.  But agree with everything you say.

  197. 197.

    Suzanne

    @BellyCat: The Pittsburgh office is on the website! The office listing is alphabetical!

    ETA: When I worked in Phoenix, I did a lot of work in California. It was cheaper to hire people there and fly in. Lots of firms play that game.

  199. 199.

    BellyCat

    @Suzanne: Google has not caught up with your new office, apparently!

    If you’ve ever been to Eleven (in The Strip), eons ago my firm designed the prior restaurant that converted this warehouse space to a restaurant. (Big Burrito upgraded the finishes (considerably) but largely kept it the same. And the food is significantly better now!)

  201. 201.

    wjca

    @The Thin Black Duke: Where is Trump? A narcissist avoiding the spotlight?Is the puppet deteriorating faster than what the Puppet Masters expected?

    So, let’s have some fun.  If Trump is gone (dead, comatose, whatever), who does the Republican Convention nominate instead?  Lacking guidance from their Dear Leader, who do they turn to?

  202. 202.

    terraformer

    then, they’ll take the impeachment all the way to…and it will be overturned and you know who will be ruling – on themselves

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