Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

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

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

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

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

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

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

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

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

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

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Be Careful What You Wish For

Be Careful What You Wish For

by | 97 Comments

This post is in: 

DC Indictment News

Here’s a nice Jack Smith filing summary – from MuellerSheWrote, on her website.  (Are websites making a comeback because twitter sucks?  Is that what will eventually replace twitter?)

… Jack Smith’s filing comes in two parts. The motion is his narrative explanation for why the evidence and acts are not immune (as outlined in my previous post about what to expect in the immunity brief.) The appendix is all the transcripts, grand jury testimony, and evidence.

So here’s what Jack Smith wants:

REDACTED:

  1. In the motion, he wants witness names redacted except the obvious ones the public knows about, like Mike Pence for example.
  2. In the motion, he wants the footnotes that identify the sources of the information redacted.
  3. In the appendix, he wants grand jury testimony, materials obtained through sealed search warrants, transcripts and reports of witness interviews, and materials obtained from other governmental entities redacted.

PUBLIC:

  1. In the motion, he wants summaries and quotes of information from the grand jury testimony, materials obtained through sealed search warrants, transcripts and reports of witness interviews, and materials obtained from other governmental entities MADE PUBLIC.
  2. In the appendix, he wants already-public evidence like Trump’s tweets made public except when they mention potential witnesses.

The best part is that a year ago, while litigating the protective order over discovery, Jack Smith wanted to seal everything, and Trump argued against that. Judge Chutkan ruled in Trump’s favor back then, and now the tables have turned. Trump wants it all under seal, while Jack Smith is just following the Judge’s orders.

Be careful what you wish for!!

That’s pretty much what I was expecting, EXCEPT the summaries and quotes from sensitive materials – I did not see that coming. And THAT is where we could get new information we haven’t seen before.

That looks pretty smart to me.  Attorney’s, what say you?  (And everyone else, of course!)

Speaking of be careful what you wish for, I had added key words to my favorite Jack Smith image that makes it easy to find in the WordPress Media Library.  Unfortunately, Cole’s “butt crack” bread loaf also contains one of these key words.  Since I get to see it every time I use the Jack Smith image, I wanted to share the joy with all of you.

And Done

Open thread!

Update:  I just got this news via Josh Marshall’s Backchannel email.

Trump Camp Says State Menstrual Surveillance Programs are A-OK

Alrighty, then, we are double-officially breed brood mares.  Awesome.

Update at 7:15 pm

Reader Interactions

97Comments

  3. 3.

    Dangerman

    TCFG and Butt Crack Loaf in the same post. Coincidence?

    ETA: Not the I’m calling TCFG a POS. Hold it. Maybe I am. I’m so confused.

  5. 5.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @twbrandt:

    Given how many people on this site think he’s hot, I’m pretty sure their going to take your phasing, then cross out the ‘not’ and the ‘with’.

  9. 9.

    cmorenc

    How much impact any material released will have on the public is more dependent than we would wish on the extent the media picks it up and how they present it.  The vast majority of the public will not take time to dive into the prime source, but rather what summary (and spin thereon) gets passed through to them.  In particular, how can the FTNYT fuck with it?  How can CNN fit into their main horse-race framing? How can Fox present it Bill-Barr fashion as completely upside-down from its actual contents?

  15. 15.

    hrprogressive

    Unless or until the Fascist SCOTUS is neutered by a liberal expansion or something similar, I have zero faith in CFDT ever seeing Justice.

    I know, he’s had some convictions, and some of us thought he’d never even get any of those.

    But after that bullshit Immunity ruling, all bets are off until someone changes them / makes them irrelevant.

  16. 16.

    WaterGirl

    I got the new Covid booster this afternoon, and I was surprised to see that they now ask if you have had a booster in the past 2 months.  And they no longer ask if you have had Covid in the past x period of time.

    I am one of the “lucky” people who gets what they call Covid arm, where the site doesn’t just get a little red, but where the size of the red area is bigger than my hand, and gets very hard and an ugly shade of red.  And it itches like crazy!  Today I am setting a person record for how soon the itching has started, so I think this time it might be even more special than usual.

  18. 18.

    sdhays

    As I understand it Senator Shit-Muppet (the running mate, if that’s not clear enough) said that Trump has been “clear” that he wouldn’t get involved in state regulations. Which is, indeed his official position, last time I checked. But the Donvict himself didn’t say that today, and I wonder if he’ll make a statement denying it at some point.

    He would be lying, of course.

  22. 22.

    Chet Murthy

    The TCFG camp guy who said that about states doing any menstrual surveillance they want is ….. (wait for it) JASON MILLER!  The  Rapist.  Also the guy who put ground up abortifacient into a smoothie he made for A. J. Delgado (the strange he was schtupping while they both worked on the TCFG campaign).

    What a guy!  What a guy!

  24. 24.

    lowtechcyclist

    Opening Balloon Juice after a nap and seeing everyone’s favorite Jack Smith pic at the top of the page first thing, made me shiver with antici…

    .

    .

    .

    .

    .

    .

    .

    .

    .

    .

    …pation.

    (At the prospect of news, not lust, since I don’t swing that way. But I can understand why those that do are attracted to him.)​

  25. 25.

    Scout211

    Dan Froomkin at Press watch has a good commentary, as usual.

    What if the media has the election all wrong?

     

    Here’s a question for you: What if the dynamics of the 2024 presidential election have dramatically shifted — and the national media has been too busy doing stenography to notice?

    What if Kamala Harris — after a spectacular entry into the race, a stunningly unified convention, and a devastating debate  — is basically running away with it, leaving Trump in the dust, while the national media — still mortified by its failure in 2016 to see the extent of Trump’s support — stubbornly sticks to the safer narrative that it’s a horserace going down to the wire?

    But wait, the polls aren’t showing Harris way ahead, you say. At most, they’re showing her with a narrow lead.

    Well, polls are garbage these days. And the pollsters, whose arbitrary weightings make a mockery of science, travel in packs. They, more than anyone, are terrified of underestimating Trump support again. So maybe this time they’re overestimating it? (Which they sure did in 2022.)

    . . .

    Harris has effectively undermined the image of Trump as some sort of inevitable strongman, and instead has cast him as a failed rich-kid with no plan beyond turning Americans against each other.

    Trump is left mostly with his base, which by most calculations is not nearly a majority of the voters.

    Trump’s only other ace in the hole is the national media, which sanewashes his and JD Vance’s diatribes, normalizes his extremist platform, buries concerns about his diminished mental capacity, dings Harris at seemingly every opportunity, covers up the Biden/Harris administration’s extraordinary economic record – and benefits financially from high readership as long as it seems like a close race.

    Maybe — just maybe — historian Heather Cox Richardson is correct when she writes in her newsletter that “We appear to be in a moment when the reality-based community is challenging the ability of the MAGA Republicans to create their own reality.”

    More at the link.

  26. 26.

    narya

    @WaterGirl: I got that arm reaction after the very first shot–but not until almost a week later!

    Meanwhile, I roasted the Brussels sprouts, broccoli, sweet potatoes, and butternut squash (some cubed, some to be puree), and made a cake. I cut up the last of the tart cherries and cooked them down awhile, then dumped them and some pecans into a basic vanilla cake (which is now pink), and I made a chocolate fudge frosting for a topping. I frost pieces individually rather than the whole cake, so it’s a safe dessert for folks who hate frosting. I also caramelized some onions, made some farro, cooked some mushrooms in butter and wine, decanted a good bottle of wine, and thawed out the beef steaks (Denver steaks, I think the cut is?), so dinner will take 15 minutes to pull together.

  27. 27.

    dmsilev

    @WaterGirl: Interesting. I also got my booster yesterday and the only thing they asked me was “did you have any serious reactions to previous COVID shots?”. I said “no, just a sore shoulder and some fatigue” and that was enough. I had a (thankfully fairly mild) case of COVID about ten weeks ago, and they didn’t ask about that. Granted, this was at my regular medical center so maybe they pulled that from my file.

    A day later and my shoulder still aches, which I don’t remember from previous rounds. Usually the pain was gone by about hour 12 or so. No fatigue this time though.

  29. 29.

    WaterGirl

    Can anyone remember the name of the BJ artist who makes amazing art from pieces of cloth, and they get displayed at a library?

    edit: With one of the designs was maybe Winnie the Pooh?

  30. 30.

    Rich2506

    As far as individual websites replacing Xitter, I go through what it has in terms of nuclear weapons for Divest Philly. When Xitter became more difficult to link to, I had to add an extra step of finding the original website for everything I wanted to post. Sometimes it helps, as when I need to do a bit more reading in order to make an intelligent comment. Can’t post a lot of stuff that I would have posted under the previous owners.

  31. 31.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @hrprogressive: SCOTUS sent the Jan 6 case back to Chutkan to figure out what acts are official and which ones are not.  They could have very easily declared all acts covered by immunity but did not.  This suggests that they believe there are (at least in theory), unofficial acts which would be subject to prosecution.  The fact that they had the power and opportunity to completely let Trump off the hook, but chose not to, gives me hope.

  33. 33.

    bbleh

    Alrighty, then, we are double-officially brood mares.

    No no no, this is just part of what the Leader will do to protect you, and also to protect the Sanctity of Life.  It’s all for your own good, you see, and that of your potential perhaps someday Unborn Child.  And We need those babies, you know!  He has said so Himself!

    Also FYI, to further protect you and your potential perhaps someday Unborn Child, we’ll be relieving you of a lot of that awful stress you’ve been put under ever since those silly laws were passed, like the ones allowing women to have bank accounts or sign papers or otherwise transact business without the permission of their husband or father or other male relative.  Those just made for a lot of confusion, don’t you think?  Of course they did.  Now just you don’t worry about it, and everything will be taken care of.

  34. 34.

    bbleh

    @Baud: ya think?  Listen to just a minute or two of his press conference, or his most recent rallies.  He’s not that far from an unmedicated schizophrenic babbling on a street corner.

  35. 35.

    WaterGirl

    @Scout211: So many sentences I want to marry in that article.

    What if the dynamics of the 2024 presidential election have dramatically shifted — and the national media has been too busy doing stenography to notice?

    Well, polls are garbage these days.

    And the pollsters, whose arbitrary weightings make a mockery of science, travel in packs.

  37. 37.

    Jay

    Reminder to check your Voter Registration status as deadlines are approaching and voter purges are rolling.

  38. 38.

    Gloria DryGarden

    Menstrual surveillance

    shocked beyond words, horrifying, and so much deeper than 1984, and animal farm that we read in hs. Rage and outrage off the charts. Stunned, like being bludgeoned with a bat. Multiple face palms.

    how about the gender switch experiment, to see if it seems ok? Let’s surveille men’s actual fucks. Their dna contributions. Every fuck, every condom worn, not worn, or broken. Would the guys be willing to be equal participants in this surveillance? Why not overtly oppress everyone, instead of just women?

    wtaf!

    How does that guy CFDT even conceive of such a thing? I don’t want to imagine his concept of a plan for this. It’s not ok

  39. 39.

    Ken

    @sdhays: He would be lying, of course.

    Indeed, Trump has the unique ability to say something one day, say the exact opposite the next day, and be lying both times.

  40. 40.

    WaterGirl

    @dmsilev: I usually start to feel like crap 10-12 hours in.  I usually go at 9 or 10 in the morning, but this time 3pm was their earliest appointment.

    So I’m hoping maybe the worst of it could be while I’m sleeping.  A girl can dream, anyway.

  45. 45.

    Scout211

    @Jay: Wow! He doesn’t even hear what he is saying.  He may not even know what he’s saying   And that young person behind him doesn’t even flinch.

    So which news service will sanewash that crazy statement first?

  48. 48.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Jay: isn’t that fancy? A miracle! Giving birth at 9 months!

    one needs a thesaurus to concoct a long enough,  intricate enough string of synonyms for “creep”, in order to express sufficient contempt and outrage.
    Like swear words 16-492, only fancier.

  51. 51.

    Ken

    Three somewhat rulings came down today.

    In the case where RFK Jr. is trying to remove his name from the Wisconsin ballot, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied Kennedy’s request, so his name will remain on the ballot.

    In the case where where RFK Jr. is trying to restore his name to the New York ballot, SCOTUS denied Kennedy’s request, so his name will remain off the ballot.

    In the case where RFK Jr. is trying to remove his name from the Michigan ballot, the Sixth Circuit denied Kennedy’s request, so his name will remain on the ballot.

    Cheryl Rofer’s summary: “Good that the courts are knocking down this ratf*cking”

  52. 52.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @martha: I’ve got my “Crazy Bear Lady” t-shirt ready for next weekend. Still deciding if I’ll go to Memorial Stadium for the game—I live in the darkest depths of Mordor next to ‘Furd, so I don’t have any Cal fan friends to go with.

  53. 53.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Jay: And keep checking periodically. I check ours at least once a week.

    I’ll also add that the site iwillvote.com will let you check your registration status no matter where you live. They’ll link to the appropriate website in your state.

  54. 54.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Scout211: ​
     

    So which news service will sanewash that crazy statement first?

    All of them, Katie.

    They’ll all just let it pass right by without recognizing its existence in any way. There’s no first or last for that, just simultaneity.

  55. 55.

    Ken

    @Scout211: And that young person behind him doesn’t even flinch.

    I expect they were thinking about something — anything — else and not paying any attention to the flow of words.

  57. 57.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Piety, keep me strong: see, there ya go. Like that. I’m sure we could go wild with intrusive suggestions.

    in my own private period tracking, I did keep note of events involving potential dna exchange. But that was for my own awareness and monthly vigilance, always waiting to be sure I hadn’t gotten pregnant, sometimes quite fearful. But that was our personal business.

  60. 60.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Jay:

    Reminder to check your Voter Registration status as deadlines are approaching and voter purges are rolling.

    I got my ballot in the mail yesterday, so apparently I haven’t been purged.

  62. 62.

    Ohio Mom

    @WaterGirl: Please takes photo of your arm and when it is convenient, share that photo with your primary care physician. What you are describing does not sound normal and I don’t want you to go into shock the next time you get a booster.

  63. 63.

    JaySinWA

    Is there a Venn diagram showing the overlap of keywords for images of Jack Smith and John’s butt crack bread?

  64. 64.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Chet Murthy: just so.

    and then, I wonder if he considers the possible conception those young ladies may experience?
    is he one of those abortion-is fine – for my- women- just -not-for -anyone -else kind of anti choicers? Ooh I get so mad.

  65. 65.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Jay: Right now in a number of states, the laws allow a baby to be born from his or her mother’s womb in the ninth month. it is wrong, it has to change.

    The sad part is that I know Trump means something different and what he actually means is likewise insanely stupid.

  66. 66.

    H.E.Wolf

     Trump Camp Says State Menstrual Surveillance Programs are A-OK[WaterGirl:]Alrighty, then, we are double-officially brood mares. Awesome.

    If I recall correctly, in the novel The Handmaid’s Tale, women who were no longer fertile were assigned by the government to clean up toxic waste sites.

    That seems to fit real well with the mindset of the Project 2025 crowd.

    ETA: Yes, we are going to vote them the eff into oblivion.

  68. 68.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Dan B: he needs to go first in the trials, in case the combination of electrical sensors, and moisture creates a shock. As a leader, you know..

  69. 69.

    Mousebumples

    @Ohio Mom: Unfortunately, that’s isn’t of the ordinary for some people. Back in my retail pharmacy days, I’d suggest either taking pictures (to make sure it’s getting better over time) or drawing on your skin with a marker, so you can more easily see if the swelling is growing or improving.

    Shingrix was notorious for that 6+ years ago when I worked at Walgreens. Covid shots weren’t available then, but I’ve heard of similar reactions. Benadryl (diphenhydramine) might help. I’ve heard of people pretreating with antihistamines, but I haven’t tried that myself.

  70. 70.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Piety, keep me strong:

    And for men: How many times have you ejaculated since your last confession?

    I mean, every sperm is sacred, and if a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate. And we can’t have that now, can we? Gotta put men into chastity cages unless it’s for official procreation purposes. With state-controlled locks.

  73. 73.

    wjca

    @Piety, keep me strong: And for men: How many times have you ejaculated since your last confession?

    Gonna need a biochip to track that.  Fortunately, it can be inserted with your next (mandatory even, or perhaps especially, for anti-vaxxers) vaccination.

  74. 74.

    WaterGirl

    @Ohio Mom: I checked into the before I got my 2nd shot in 2021 ? when the first vaccines cam out , and by then the “covid arm” was a known thing and they weren’t worried about it.

    But I appreciate you looking out for me!

    I do have a photo from the first Covid shot.

  75. 75.

    wjca

    @JaySinWA: Is there a Venn diagram showing the overlap of keywords for images of Jack Smith and John’s butt crack bread?

    For that matter, have the two ever been seen in the same place at the same time? I didn’t think so.

    It would be irresponsible not to speculate….

  78. 78.

    WaterGirl

    It’s possible Chutkan will release the redacted filing – without its exhibits — soon after Oct. 1 (Tuesday). She set Trump’s deadline to raise objections for noon that day, which is unusual timing if she’s planning to just wait until after Oct. 10 to release the filing/exhibits.

    — Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 27, 2024

  80. 80.

    TBone

    @WaterGirl: Rep. Jamie Raskin today on MSNBC with Nicole:  “It’s like the saying ‘if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.’  Well, if you want to election, don’t do insurrection!”

    (In reference to the whining “you got your peanut butter on my chocolate” election “interference” grievance fest.)

  82. 82.

    TBone

    @WaterGirl: I remember what she said in the beginning about moving faster when he gets extra frivolous.

    Plus, she needs to get ahead of his deterioration – quick!

  83. 83.

    Another Scott

    @Jay: I ass-u-me TCFFG was telling his “post-birth” abortion story again and left out a few words.

    Doesn’t make it any better, of course…

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  84. 84.

    LifeInTheBonusRound

    @Rich2506: The benefit of Xitter to most of us was the aggregation of lots of former bloggers. The benefit of Xitter to those bloggers has increasingly been reach and monetization on that platform. But former bloggers aren’t reinstituting their formerly free websites, they’re building out on Substack. Each “blogger” on Substack requires monetization from each reader. Were I to subscribe to all the “bloggers” on Substack whose opinions I would like to read it would cost me more of my fixed income than, well, my fixed income! For many of us, this is not a sustainable model.

  88. 88.

    Rich2506

    To: LifeInTheBonusRound, Yeah, I’d love to subscribe to substack! I don’t for the same reason you cite. Same for Puck. Of course, I wouldn’t pay a nickel to read the NY Times, too much “BothSides” and overlooking of important stories.

  90. 90.

    Jacel

    @H.E.Wolf: You speak as if Project 2025 would give any thought to cleaning up toxic waste sites at all. There’s no need to tidy up anything, because The Rapture.

  91. 91.

    jackmac

    @Scout211: My 25-year-old daughter asked me about polls today and I told her they were basically bullshit — at best educated guesses and pollsters were carefully covering their respective asses. There’s no workable model to reach a representative sample anymore, especially with people like her who have mobile phones and ignore calls from numbers they don’t know.

  94. 94.

    VOR

    @Ken: Indeed, Trump has the unique ability to say something one day, say the exact opposite the next day, and be lying both times.

    Yes. Trump is not a liar, he is a purveyor of bullshit. The liar knows the truth but chooses to conceal it. The bullshitter doesn’t know or care about the truth. Instead, they say whatever they think will be persuasive to that audience at that time. Tomorrow they will say something different. Trump doesn’t care about consistency because he knows Fox won’t call him on it so his base won’t see the contradiction. If another news source points it out, he’ll just claim it was fake news.

  95. 95.

    Ramalama

    @WaterGirl: I don’t get how people got herded into substack from their own websites. You’re putting your own work on a website owned by someone else. I am thankful that Balloon Juice hasn’t gone the way of the newsletter, though I don’t know how you and Cole make money from this site.

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