The FBI didn’t bother to interview Hegseth’s accuser.
The FBI’s probe into defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth did not include an interview with a woman who accused the former Fox News anchor of sexual assault in 2017, sources familiar with the situation told ABC News.
The top senators on the Armed Services Committee were briefed on the FBI’s background investigation last week but sources said investigators did not speak to the accuser.
A police report previously obtained by ABC News, stated that a woman — who is identified only as Jane Doe — told investigators in October 2017 that she had encountered Hegseth at an event afterparty at a California hotel where both had been drinking and claimed that he sexually assaulted her.
As usual the FBI is a political organization with a keen perception of which side their bread is buttered. See, also, Kavanaugh. Jane Mayer did a better job than they did, uncovering things like Hegseth downing three G&Ts starting at 10 AM as recently as 2023. It doesn’t matter much since most of the Democrats won’t see the report anyway.
Shaheen and Gillibrand are hitting him hard on his attitude towards women in today’s confirmation hearing. Here’s the AP live feed. Besides being an (alleged) rapist and alcoholic, he’s also grossly unqualified, lacking anything like the experience needed to run an organization the size of the DoD.
Trumpistas are pouring a ton of money into this fight, and Trump is making it a loyalty test. So we’ll see if the norms of the cooling saucer of democracy will allow Hegseth’s nomination to be filibustered. I don’t know the answer to that, but I’m skeptical.
Professor Bigfoot
Look, a fundamental part of setting up an authoritarian regime is to gain unquestioned control of the “security apparatus.”
That would be the people with the guns– DoD, DoJ, and the loyalties of the cops and the “constitutional sheriffs.”
That’s why they’ll approve of whoever.
This is how they’ll actually kill this experiment in self-government.
sab
Well, if he gets in it will blow up shortly. Some drunks manage to cope and others just get drunker. He sounds like the latter type, and all knives at the FBI will be sharpening to take him down. There are a lot of serious professionals working there, unlike Faux News National.
Steve LaBonne
@sab: That would be the FBI that even before Trump is actually in office, couldn’t be bothered to interview the sexual assault victim? I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Kay
TikTok is right now full of D senators going after Hegseth content. So of course we banned it. A visual medium with tons of Democratic creators. That had to be stopped, obviously.
Old Man Shadow
“Look, we read his bio on the Fox News website. What more do you liberals want?”
TBone
They just got out in front his Nazi tattoos, whitewashed the shit out of those.
I know a fucking Nazi when I see one, and I see a big white NAZI right now.
Steve LaBonne
@Professor Bigfoot: Be fair, when that experiment started to threaten white Christian male supremacy, it clearly had gone too far. It was necessary to terminate the experiment before even more damage was done.
Betty Cracker
Repurposing a just-trashed post into a comment since it also touches on Mayer’s most recent article on Hegseth. A quote from Mayer’s piece:
Wiles is widely credited with keeping Trump’s campaign disciplined enough to win even though the candidate himself was and is a decompensating collection of untreated personality disorders.
Jesus, imagine what will happen if she takes a few days off in her next job! I predict she won’t last long.
Gaetz imploded because he’s so loathed by his own party’s lawmakers that Trump couldn’t strongarm all of them into supporting his pick. Hegseth is just as awful, but he’s less personally toxic on the Hill, so he’ll probably squeak through. That’s my guess, anyway.
Anyhoo, since I’ve already made two predictions that are worth exactly what you paid for them, here’s another: The Trump nominees with the greatest chance of going down in flames are Gabbard and RFK the Lesser. Not because they’re pinwheel-eyed lunatics who pose an extreme danger to national security and public health, though that’s certainly the case.
No, what makes them vulnerable is that they used to be associated with the Democratic Party. Maybe that will be enough to sink them.
Professor Bigfoot
@TBone: They’re busily making it dangerous not to be a Nazi.
Spanky
Yeah, as far as the security apparatus in this country goes, the FBI is going to be one of the most loyal to Trump, probably just a wee bit less so than half of the Secret Service. At least the SS has a cadre loyal to former Dem Presidents. I’m not seeing that from the FBI.
The rest of the Deep State are going to do their own thing, and if Trump tries to disrupt/dismantle a couple of 3-letter agencies things might get interesting.
TBone
@Professor Bigfoot: 🎯
I feel dangerous. Like Bette Davis dangerous.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangerous_(1935_film)
Professor Bigfoot
@Steve LaBonne: No one who witnessed the reaction to the Obama Presidency could fail to see this; absent a desperate desire NOT to see it.
“It is difficult to get a man to see something his privileges depend on him not seeing.” – With apologies, of course, to Upton Sinclair
Steve LaBonne
@Professor Bigfoot: There is a famous and chilling book, William Sheridan Allen’s The Nazi Seizure of Power, that documents on almost a day by day basis how the process of making it dangerous not to be a Nazi worked in one German town.
tobie
@Professor Bigfoot: Yup, Cramer said the radicals are those denying Christians the right to have a big Nazi cross tattooed on their chest.
ETA: More accurate to say: for Cramer, every member of the military must have the right to serve with Nazi tattoos. Being a Nazi evidently doesn’t contradict the oath to defend the constitution.
Kay
Shaheen doing well too. Democrats are doing great in this hearing. Now if they can just get it in front of their base.
Chris Johnson
There’s a guy on YouTube jumping up and down about how Hegseth’s total unqualifiedness isn’t the point, the point is that he wants to bomb American towns.
I see his point. This is a guy who wants to declare war on other Americans and have us invading ourselves. I see why the Putin wing likes him so much, but talk about a shortcut to total fucking collapse. They’d HAVE to immediately axe democracy, or the midterms would be fucking hilarious. Oopsy, we forgot to promise that we wouldn’t bomb American cities and send in North Korean troops, our bad…
Professor Bigfoot
@tobie: Well, being a felon doesn’t contradict the Constitution over who can be President, so…
Kay
Such a smug, insufferable douchebag. The Men Of The Right are going to love him. He smirks every time a woman asks him a question. Definitely a role model for the Joe Rogan Republicans.
Belafon
@Chris Johnson: If you told your Republican neighbor who doesn’t pay much attention to politics otherwise that Hegseth is willing to using the military against Americans, they would tell you you’re overreacting and that it won’t happen. You’re not going to get people to go against him for that.
jimmiraybob
Hegseth: The Geneva Convention is the law of the land.
Me: So was Roe.
sab
@Kay: Lots of Democrats voted for that ban. It was very bipartisan.
Democrats love to shoot themselves in the foot to prove their patriotism.
TBone
@Chris Johnson: Mazie Hirono tore him a new ass about following illegal orders. He said out loud:
“Whatever the President wants.”
Protesters will be shot, cities burned…
laura
Soon to be great again America could not give shit one about sexual assault or anything else related to women’s lives, so why would anyone expect the FBI to waste time interviewing the skirts?
If the thirsty sex pest is to fail in his job interview, it’s going to be due to something that offends the sensibilities of Republican Members of the Committee and the Senate as a whole.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
While I’ll join Steve in not expecting any help from the FBI, I think that there are still enough conservatives who believe in a strong U.S. military that if it’s clear Hegseth is making a mess of it, he won’t stay long.
Assuming he gets confirmed, of course, and he’s about as qualified to run DoD as I am. Hell, he shouldn’t be put in charge of a small state’s National Guard.
Citizen Alan
@Spanky: After four more years of Shitgibbon controlling the executive branch, our nominee in 2028 will have to have private security because the Secret Service won’t be trustworthy to protect them.
tobie
@Professor Bigfoot: Painfully true. I’m going to need to find a way to control my outrage or the next four years will destroy my physical health. (They may do that anyway.) Hang in there and watch out for yourself.
Kay
The one I’ve seen who genuinely got under his skin was Tim Kaine. I think the numerous charges that he abuses women are his weak point. He sputters and twitches when that’s raised, which is interesting.
Loving torturing people is a point of pride on the Right, so he blows that off like nothing.
Kelly
I think the Border Patrol is the Trumpy-est and their span of enforcement (100 miles from the border) is massive.
Kay
@laura:
I would usually agree – Americans don’t care about what happens to women – but Hegseth is genuinely squirming with the abuse allegations. He himself sees that as a problem for his career. His eyes start darting around, he licks his lips – he sweats those questions.
Fox must really be a sewer, btw. All these gross abusive men come out of Fox. Yuck. What a shitty job. No wonder Right wing women are so nasty.
Gin & Tonic
Getting pretty judgmental here, aren’t we?
scav
@Kay: Interesting distinction, but not exactly indicating that he sees women as human: he just knows that, like kicking puppies, abusing women is a bad visual. It’s more like we’re confronted with a selection of paint chips, ranging from inky to charcoal, with tar for the accent.
Jeffro
@Kay: I haven’t been watching, but that sounds like quite a switch for Kaine (whom I like, but he’s soooo milquetoast)
I wonder if on some level Hegseth knows that abusing women is horrendous and unmanly, or if he’s just worried about his 3rd wife and mom hearing about it, and seeing the revulsion in their eyes? To your point, Kay, he can’t just brag or bluster through it – he can only bold-faced lie about/deny it.
Ben Cisco
@Professor Bigfoot: Again, dead on.
Why is it so hard for people to – wait, you covered that…
Professor Bigfoot
@Kelly: Considering every airport in the country is “on the border,” yeah.
TBone
@Gin & Tonic: I haven’t craved a daydrink like this in aeons…the next four years gonna be tough! I hope Hegseth craves it more than I do, every fucking day and night for the 24/7 job he’s getting.
matt
I guess his being a weird Nazi is considered OK because it’s what people voted for…
cain
@lowtechcyclist:
He’s going to make a mess of it, and if there is an attack on American soil and that response is botched. (and he won’t be around because he’ll be drunk somewhere and passed out)
I’m not sure how the DoD folks are going to feel but they’ll probably stonewall him. He’s not going to know shit and he’s going to be pretty helpless.
Ben Cisco
@tobie: I’m so old I can remember when they kicked people out of the services for being Nazis, white supremacists, and other assorted assholes…
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: should be required reading.
archive.org/details/naziseizureofpow0000alle_m2p7
Eolirin
@Spanky: ICE and Border Patrol will be far more loyal than the FBI.
RaflW
Gillian Branstetter at ACLU says GOP Senators Susan Collins and Joni Ernst won’t meet with the accuser privately.
Susan Collins rode high on decades of pro-choice political donations, and now that she’s firmly the unbudgeable incumbent, she’ll stab women (and the nation) in the back by pulling this shit.
Old School
TBone
Maybe one small asteroid…just one tiny…
bsky.app/profile/davidingram.bsky.social/post/3lfprspqwys26
Favorite reply:
Like the Titan Submersible implosion.
Jackie
Just heard MAGA Johnson will defy President Biden and order the US flag be raised full staff at the Capitol for FFOTUS’s inauguration.
TBone
@Old School: I see that we are in good company!
Tim C.
@Belafon: And then when he does it, those same neighbors will accept the lies about why and how it was done.
Belafon
@Jackie: So you heard Johnson won’t be following the law.
TBone
@Jackie: check out the link at #43
Anastasio Beaverhausen
Just Google Sen. John Tower and his nomination to be Secretary of Defense, and see what used to be the norms and expectations of a nominee re: boozing and whoring. He went down in flames and he, at least, was otherwise administratively qualified.
tobie
@Ben Cisco: Yeah, I’m so old I remember when Nixon’s crimes were a bridge too far for Republicans. Now ‘owning the libs’ is the only thing that matters to the GOP.
scav
Into the maelstrom, I will at least throw in a recognition for Tony Slattery; a funny man. RIP.
tobie
From emptywheel, good to see this:
Professor Bigfoot
@Ben Cisco: I hear– no actual data, not so much as anecdata– but I hear that while the military is integrated, the majority of the “combat arms” troops are white, while the “support” troops often aren’t.
I would expect, (assuming that anecdote has any basis in reality) there’d be plenty of troopers with those kinds of tattoos, now.
Eolirin
Hegseth surviving the nomination process is a signal that Trump will get everything he wants from the Senate. There are enough Republicans who are in support of the military functioning that are capable of understanding what a disaster he’d be on purely functional terms that he shouldn’t be able to get to 50.
If he does it’s a sign that those Republicans view bucking Trump as a bigger threat to themselves than they care about the US military being competently administered. If that’s the case it’ll apply in almost every other situation just as much. There’s not that much else that they’d be as willing to go to bat for in the first place.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I was looking forward to Smith’s report, but I’m left with not a lot to talk about. It seems to contain information we already had.
raven
Tammy Duckworth tore him a new asshole which ain’t easy since he’s all asshole.
TBone
@Eolirin: well said.
RaflW
@Steve LaBonne: I watched Number 24 on Nextflix the other night. The reminder that quite a few Norwegians were all too willing to join the Nazis in remaking Norway into a cesspit of control, domination and war crimes.
Including the reminder of Quisling, which I tend to think of as “simp and enabler” but had not really grasped how badly he sold out his fellow Norwegians. Just a racist freak and piece of shit.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@RaflW:
Good ole Suzie Furrowbrows. Won’t meet with him privately, will vote for him publically. Ernst doesn’t even pretend being your bog-standard right wing loon.
I wonder how Murkowski will vote? If her vote isn’t need to get him in, she might be able to get away with a protest vote for the voters back in AK.
Regarding willing Norwegians during WWII, same can be said of Ukrainians. Any reader of Holocaust material, particularly material regarding German advances in 41 and 42 and the subsequent behind-the-lines follow up by the Einsatzgruppen show a population with a lot of Nazi sympathizers more than willing to contribute to the extermination of their Jewish neighbors.
A good article on the “Holocaust By Bullets”:
nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/ukraine-holocaust
I’ve read two books, combo of memoirs and documentation of two families from your typical, rural Ukrainian village who made it clear that if it weren’t for the *one* other family in the village willing to hide them, they fully expected their neighbors to turn them over.
Everybody should also watch “Shoah” to get an idea of how still-living Poles in the late 70s/early 80s, who had been alive during the German occupation, weren’t losing any sleep over what happened in their midst.
scav
@raven: There are unfortunately those who will see that at polishing exactly the characteristic they most admire and desire in a man.
Jeffro
@tobie: Duckworth would be a capable SecDef (or VP)
Professor Bigfoot
@Eolirin: The first two departments any autocrat HAS to get absolute control of and loyalty from are DoD and DoJ.
Once they have control of those departments, they can do any damn thing they want.
They and they alone will determine what is “law” in the “rule of law.” See also the current SCOTUS
JML
unfortunately, the military is fairly good at covering for senior officials/officers who have drinking problems. I still have some hope that the bloated Pentagon bureaucracy and the military’s ability to dazzle with pageantry and BS might keep a clown like this buried, but he’s still a horrific choice for SecDef.
Tower got a bit of the Gaetz treatment: he was disliked by his former colleagues, so when the opportunity came to paint him as a drunk and a womanizer to send his ass packing, they went for it. With Drunky Pete sitting on FauxNews being a dick to everyone rather than in the Senate, it’s less personal. he’s an embarrassing pick, but the Senate GOP are utter cowards, so…
tobie
@Jeffro: Absolutely.
Old School
@scav:
That’s too bad. I quite enjoyed him on Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Professor Bigfoot
@Professor Bigfoot: If only competence mattered to the American* electorate.
Alas… no.
Ben Cisco
@tobie: My mom made me watch the Watergate hearings as a kid.
They’ve fallen a LOT since then.
tobie
@Ben Cisco: Your mother’s decision was wise!
The hearings were in the summer and we were all home from school. It was the talk at the dinner table at night. The 1970s are such an underrated decade.
Eolirin
@Professor Bigfoot: It doesn’t help you to do that if the person you’re putting in charge is completely out of their depth and can’t run the department.
You need a loyalist who knows how to use the organization. This doesn’t even make sense on that basis.
It does make sense as a dominance play directed at the Senate Republicans. But that’s about it.
Geminid
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I wonder how much Murkowski’s vote will matter to Alaskan voters in 2028, even if it’s the 51st vote against Hedgeseth.
Murkowski may not run again anyway but if she does, she’ll be able to tout all the “pork” she’s brought home and her other votes defending Alaska’s particular interests. Alaska is small in population and exceptionally affected by the federal government that controls much of its lands and activities on them.
This vote might not be that significant compared to those factors, and Hedgseth’s flaws are very apparent and it won’t be hard to justify. So I don’t think Murkowski has much to lose here, especially if Alaska retains its jungle primary, Ranked-choice runoff system.
cmorenc
@Professor Bigfoot: As consequentially unsuited as Hegseth is at DOD, the far more dangerously consequential nomination is Patel at FBI. Patel represents everything on steroids that everyone on both sides of the aisle had (until now) agreed was wrong with J Edgar Hoover and should never happen again. Patel will be like head of totalitarian state police. If I had to pick the nomination Ds should go “all-in” to stop, it would be patel.
Aussie Sheila
This clown’s problem, in fact all the appointees problem is that while the demented criminal that appointed them is immune from anything he does in his official capacity as President, they aren’t. Once he’s finished he’ll skip away.
He won’t bother pardoning any of them, because by then his need for them is over. I hope they ponder that.
WaterGirl
Clearly nothing has changed since the FBI really didn’t follow up on the rape Christine Blasey Ford when they were “investigating” the charges against the Rapey I Like Beer Supreme Court Justice.
We all know how that turned out.
The current head of the FBI is a worthless piece of shit, if you are looking for an actual law enforcement group rather than what they really are.
Hildebrand
@Ben Cisco: Must have been something in the water, because my mom was adamant that we watch the hearings. Which I did, though I was a bit young to absorb it all.
My mom, a profoundly patient, thoughtful, and well-read person, carefully answered all of my questions and corrected any important bits she thought I hadn’t explicated correctly.
JoyceH
Trump made Hegseth the hill to die on for the Senate GOP because if they get away with refusing to confirm him, there are at least half a dozen nominees equally unqualified.
narya
@Professor Bigfoot: @Eolirin: That’s kind of what I’m thinking. Okay, they make him SecDef (WHICH THEY SHOULD NOT DO), but he doesn’t know shit. Doesn’t know where the buttons or levers are, maybe even gets conflicting answers when he asks for something. Yes, he could do a lot of damage, but someone that incompetent might be easier to undermine, too. Or that’s what I”m telling myself.
catclub
But he is the senator from Virginia. There are a LOT of DOD jobs there.
JoyceH
@Hildebrand: Us college-age kids watched the hearings and found them very exciting. My Mom was a Republican in those days and just didn’t want to think about it. I was thinking just the other day that in retrospect Nixon probably regretted being reelected because his second term was a nightmare for him. Let’s hope history rhymes this time.
Betty
My niece’s daughter had her induction into the Army delayed while they reviewed her tattoo, three small dots on the back of her neck representing the three children in her family. So, the Army has recently taken a stand against accepting extremists with questionable tattoos. It’s the height of irony then that their top leader would be sporting Nazi tattoos.
catclub
I can imagine Senate Republicans of this stripe thinking that if hegseth crashes and burns, they will get more power over the DOD.
Geminid
My guess is that Hedseth’s Republican Senate critics will coordinate and vote either for or against as a 4-6 Senator bloc.
If they vote against, they can probably count on Hedgseth proving them right by the time they face a primary. That guy’s a fuck-up to begin with, and losing this opportunity will likely make him act out even worse.
Ben Cisco
@Professor Bigfoot: Cannot speak directly to it as I was Air Force and our combat arms types were in the air rather than on the ground, but even among the support troops it was a problem in the 80s. I was personally involved in making sure a couple of them in particular that didn’t want to take orders from a black NCO got their wish, just not in the way they intended.
Cannot even imagine what it’s like now, and I’ve been out longer than I was in.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geminid:
I remember looking into this a couple of day after the election. Results weren’t in then but they are now:
Alaskans voted to retain it by a 664-vote margin.
Those 664 votes would probably allow Murkowski to “vote her conscious” (wtf that actually means) and buck the (R) line. I’m not convinced that if hers was the deciding vote that she’d have the political courage to vote him down tho.
Chris
The FBI is the government agency that essentially put Trump in office in the first place. Not much to hope for from them.
JoyceH
In humorous news, the Trump Org is trying to get the Old Post Office (former Trump International in DC) back from Waldorf-Astoria. They sure miss that conveniently located bribe receptacle, don’t they? If it’s making money, I can’t imagine W-A letting it go.
Ben Cisco
@raven: SNORT! Good one!
gene108
@sab:
I think most members of Congress have a very limited understanding of how technology works and don’t realize there’s nothing stopping Facebook or Amazon from selling user information to the Chinese or Chinese firms buying that information.
Chris
@Spanky:
I wouldn’t expect much from the IC.
The plain fact is, most of the security state’s power comes explicitly from their alliance with the right wing, whose politicians largely let them do anything they want except in those rare cases where that clashes with right-wing goals. When those right-wing politicians become the problem, there’s very little the IC can meaningfully do. They can leak politically damaging stuff, but since right-wing voters don’t care and the media provides minimal coverage of right-wing scandals, that’s not going to amount to much. Since these agencies are crammed to the gills with Republican partisans anyway, anything else they might do will almost likely be blown before it begins anyway.
Ben Cisco
@tobie: @Hildebrand: Mom was an educator, and she didn’t stop when she left school. Said we needed to know how the real world worked. How government was SUPPOSED to work.
Those two things have rarely been the same thing.
Geminid
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I think if Murkowki has three partners she’ll vote against. I realize that’s crediting a widely despised Republican with political courage but that’s how I analyse the matter. This may be a contrarian view here but it’s one I take.
Ed. Also, I don’t think this confirmation vote will matter to the general electorate 2028 as much as it does to people here. It may not even matter as much right now.
I’ll be interested to see how Alaska’s voting system fares. The guy who sponsored the ballot initiative to change the law says he’ll put it up again. I think voters will deliver a definitive verdict the second time.
One thing the new system might have going for it is that Alaska’s electorate has a very large component of Unaffiliated, or Independent voters, or so I’ve read.
TBone
@RaflW: that word Quisling is extremely important, primarily in its historical connotation, but in all meanings really, to understand what’s going on right now. Thanks for using it. And linking to why!
Soprano2
OT – what I found out from my 1 1/2 hrs on the phone with AT&T is that if a website (they wouldn’t tell me what it was) keeps requesting your phone number (even though you have been paying your bill) and you don’t call AT&T every time you get an e-mail about it even though they’ve already told you twice that it’s cancelled and was a mistake, they will disconnect your phone and give your phone number to someone else. They’ll tell you that they can’t fix it because they’ve already given your phone number to another carrier (and it’s already hooked up at some business, because I called it). So you lost the phone number you’ve had since 1979 because some web site (again, you can’t know what it was) requested your number and since you didn’t call after every e-mail they assumed it was OK with you even though you’d already called twice and told them no, you didn’t want your phone disconnected. All of this when you’d been paying the bill regularly. What a fucking stupid way to do business. They gave me a new phone # and said once it starts working (because evidently there’s also an issue on our line) I can call and request that they port my old number back to me. OF course, if the current holder of the number says no, I can’t have it. I yelled at the guy “Why not, I said no and you gave my number away and disconnected me anyway!!!” FUCKERS!!! I swear I yelled at him most of the time, I put it on speaker phone but still I was enraged at what I was hearing. When I called after my phone was disconnected I was assured I could get the old number back. It was still disconnected at that time! This is just totally insane.
scav
@Soprano2: Ah, that masculine corporate energy that’s supposedly so lacking! No doesn’t mean no, especially when repeated ad nauseam.
TBone
We were at the summer camp for wealthy boys where my grandparents tutored each summer when Nixon resigned. Mom (a teacher too) also taught us everything she could age regardless. The entire population of that summer camp, everyone, was rounded up to watch the one TV in camp in the main lodge when Nixon resigned. My cousin was born during…very memorable day at Camp Susquehannock.
Ben Cisco
@Geminid:
Susie of the Furrowed Brow has about as much courage as I have gold-pressed latinum in my cargo hold. That is to say NONE.
gene108
@tobie:
Republicans want one party rule in the U.S. If libs get made, it’s a bonus.
Professor Bigfoot
@Eolirin: Point taken… but I suspect Hegseth, for example, was chosen almost entirely for his loyalty, which means he pretty much HAS to be incompetent.
He is exactly the kind of hire that Ijeoma Oluo was talking about.
Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America
Professor Bigfoot
@cmorenc: Controlling the security services. ALWAYS a despot’s play.
TBone
@Soprano2: they are among the worst offenders
theverge.com/2023/11/20/23969928/the-us-government-is-working-with-at-t-to-run-a-nationwide-phone-su…
Professor Bigfoot
@narya: I hope we ain’t all just whistling past the graveyard.
TBone
@Betty: indeed.
TBone
@Professor Bigfoot: we both know that we are.
Geminid
@Ben Cisco: I agree, but I wasn’t talking about Susan Collins.
TBone
@TBone: Ride the Lightning
senseient.com/ride-the-lightning/how-law-enforcement-gets-data-from-att-t-mobile-and-verizon/
narya
@Professor Bigfoot: Yeah . . . like many others, I’m just trying to maintain sanity as much as possible. At least one of these terrible people will get through–RFK? Hegseth? Gabbard? Patel?–and the real question is how much they’ll be able to fuck things up.
karen gail
Just when you think Tuberville can’t be any more stupid he out does himself; he is going on media claiming that no federal money should go to California because they voted for the Democrat for governor and it is all the fault of Democrats that LA area is going up in flames. Since he spouting off unchecked no one has bothered to ask him if drought and Santa Ana winds have anything to do with the fire hurricanes that destroying nearly everything in path.
That is matched by the outrage coming from people who believe that Hegseth shouldn’t be asked if he would be okay with Trump ordering invasions to take over Greenland and Panama.
sab
@gene108: So true.
Chris
@Ben Cisco:
I was never in the military, so the closest I’ve come to seeing these folks operating in their chosen work environment was three semesters of me trying out ROTC. One with the Army at Georgetown, two with the Air Force at Howard.
The Air Force/Howard cadets were mostly extremely bright, competent, and professional people. The Army/Georgetown cadets were mostly dumber than fucking rocks, with all the aggressive meathead mentality you could ever stereotype. This was mid 2000s.
Can’t say how much of the cultural gap was Army/Air Force, how much of it was Georgetown/Howard, and how much of it was white/black, but it was noticeable as hell. It’s like I was seeing the military at its best and worst. The Air Force cadets made me feel like I was in a Tom Clancy novel. The Army cadets made me feel like I was in a post-Vietnam anti-war movie.
TBone
@Chris: the Air Force has white supremacist notoriety.
Ben Cisco
@Geminid: mea culpa
Soprano2
@scav: I really think I would have gotten an e-mail every week and had to call them every week in order to keep them from disconnecting us and giving our phone # to someone else.
Chris
@TBone:
The Colorado Springs proximity meant they had specifically evangelical notoriety especially. Can’t say how much it translates to the entire service branch, but Academy graduates are going to punch above their weight class almost by definition, so there’s that.
Of course, from what I was seeing already in his first term, Trump has done weird things to the partisan makeup of various service branches.
TBone
Just a taste of what’s coming.
bbc.com/news/articles/c9w5jyd9nnwo
Geminid
@Ben Cisco: No problem. But since you’re here, what do you think about Alabama’s new Democratic Representative? He seems like a capable politician, but I don’t know very much ablut him. I’m already a fan of Rep. Terry Sewell.
TBone
@Chris: N.A.R. is written all over all of this shit…
New Apostolic Reformation.
sab
@Soprano2:Perhaps you can tell us the phone number so that we can harrass the new business until it decides it wants a different number.
ETA Was rhis your home or your pub
ETA Don’t tell us online. But many jackals have live e-mails listed with the blog.
Baud
@sab:
Human DoS!
TBone
@TBone: the happy ending:
Ben Cisco
@karen gail: My idiot Senator has no bottom. He is possessed of INFINITE stupidity,
Ben Cisco
@Chris: @TBone: It was a problem even in my time; it has gotten worse since.
Ksmiami
@karen gail: as I said, blue states need to break away. Let Jesusland kill itself off with polio and stupidity
TBone
@TBone:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Apostolic_Reformation
JoyceH
I’m seeing the news talkers opine that Hegseth will be confirmed. I’m concerned that voting for the comically unqualified is becoming a habit.
Soprano2
@sab: It was our home number. I don’t think it’s the fault of the business who has the number now; I think they’re innocent. It’s totally AT&T’s fault.
sab
We kept AT&T briefly after Katrina.We are in Ohio but BIL in Baton Rouge said it was a godsend to him then.
But our later experience was that every time it even rained our landline went out. So we cancelled AT&T. Took us months to get them to accept that we were gone. Nonpayment didn’t even turn them off. AI run amok.
Ben Cisco
@Geminid: Shomari Figures is going to be someone to be reckoned with. Former Garland aide, U of A Law grad, worked in the Obama administration, and both his parents served as state senators. He was born for this.
sab
@Soprano2: Well, they still need to give up that number.
Shalimar
@karen gail: At this point I’m worried about Hegseth carrying out a Trump order to invade Los Angeles.
Old School
@Soprano2: That’s frustrating. Does your number spell out a word that the business would want? Or why would they request your number?
Jeffro
“Senator Tuberville, does this mean by way of comparison that a state with a Republican governor that is hit with tornadoes or a hurricane should receive no federal aid?”
#SameStandards
Geminid
@Ben Cisco: Thanks. I always want to know our new Representatives better. They tend to be underestimated as a class, I think
Motivated Seller
I’m so old that I remember Sen Elizabeth Warren saying that there needs to be blood and teeth left on the floor when dealing with people like that.
TBone
@Shalimar: he said out loud, in response to a direct question about following illegal orders to deploy against U.S. citizens, and I quote
Old School
@Jeffro: Of course not, hurricanes are natural. It’s California’s fault for not raking the forests or accepting Trump’s offer of water.
TBone
@Motivated Seller: amen!
Jeffro
@karen gail: I have to say, too, that I am getting to the point where it would be fine with me if the productive blue states seceded from the union, and left the moocher red states to their own devices. I doubt it will happen, and yes I know there are plenty of Democrats in red states, but enough is enough.
It is a Constitution, not a suicide pact, and there is no reason why this country should continue be ruled by a) large areas of empty land and b) the retrograde views of the extreme minority.
ETA: or what Ksmiami said at 121. Enough.
TBone
@Jeffro: I will welcome my Canadian overlords.
You had me at “not a suicide pact”
Shalimar
@Ben Cisco: I don’t know Shomari. He was a kid when I was involved in Alabama politics. But I knew his dad pretty well. Michael was the most naturally gifted politician in the state, would have been the first black Alabama governor if he hadn’t died too young from an aneurysm.
scav
@Jeffro: Clearly, any state that bans the term climate change from official documents must not be suffering from it so everything is just weather as usual. Nothing to help here, bootstraps pre-installed.
Jeffro
@Old School: I know that’ll be his response, but what he’s describing are (fantasy) (or stupid) (or wasteful) preventative actions to head off or mitigate natural weather occurrences (and the related ill effects)…
…so unless those red-state governors do something to magically disrupt tornadoes or disperse hurricanes (and all their rain/floodwaters), they’d still be guilty of the same “failure”.
sab
@Soprano2: I am stunned by your problem. I really thought paid for phone numbers were sacrosanct.
That takes away the last justification for keeping a landline.
Baud
Via reddit
scav
@sab: Just wait’ll Microsoft copywrites Bob again.
sab
@TBone: Nothing is illegal if you are president.
Jeffro
@TBone: right? I’m perfectly willing to learn to speak Canadian. ;)
They want to ‘rule or ruin’ so badly, well, let’s let them. They just don’t get to rule me or my kids or their kids, or my state, or other states with some common sense…the ones that actually live in the 21st century.
Enough is enough. Eventually Wyoming will have 3 people left in it; 2 of them will be the state’s US senators and the other will be its Representative. Is THAT fair, or sensible in any way? If you ask a MAGAt, he’ll tell you “of course – it’s in the Constitution”. Well, then I think we both agree where the root of the problem lies…
sab
@Baud: He did that on TikTok, so that problem is soon to be solved.
Soprano2
@Old School: I have no idea. I don’t know if it was the business who requested it, or some web site, they wouldn’t tell me.
Professor Bigfoot
Well, since I have family– a LOT of family, since most of America’s Black folks are in or from the South– in “Jesusland,” let me say to those of you advocating secession: fuck you and your white privilege.
Ksmiami
@Professor Bigfoot: oh I want to pay for anyone who wants to move… but literally threatening the largest tax paying state in the most dire moments is going to break the country no matter what I say….
scav
@Ksmiami: Yeah, California, that privileged and pure land of unfettered white power. No diversity allowed there.
sab
@Professor Bigfoot: Agreed. I had a White great great great uncle who died at Manassas defending the Union. Grandfather’s uncle. Pennsylvanian.
Belafon
@Jeffro: Ask him what conditions Biden should have placed on aid to Texas for their fire last year.
Anyway
@sab:
tam1MI
BECAUSE THE ASSHOLES IN THE LEGACY MEDIA KEEP SANEWASHING AND NORMALIZING THEM!!!
The legacy media can’t die fast enough for me.
Anyway
My favorite RWNJ stopped by and shared (gloated) that he has tix to Monday’s Day of Mourning. He’s taking the day off to attend — we’re weird in that we don’t have MLK Day off. I’m glad I have to work and can ignore the proceedings.
sigh – as the day draws near my sorrow grows deeper and I just cannot even …
sab
@Anyway: Since SupremeCourt threw out stare decisis you have that right. Every case is a new adventure in finding out what the law is this month.
Matt McIrvin
@Professor Bigfoot: This is why I don’t fuck around with secession talk. At least, it’d take a lot (say, the US Government mounting full-scale military attacks on us anyway, which is not a possibility I exclude by any means, Hegseth might try it).
Matt McIrvin
@Ksmiami:
In practice it’s gonna be “let the white people there kill the Black and Native people, let the rich people there kill the poor people.” Disasters are not just even if they’re self-inflicted.
NotMax
@sab
Cafeteria Constitutionalism.
//
WaterGirl
Not one Democrat in the Senate should vote for him. Does Schumer not have any control over Democratic senators?
scav
And, no matter how unlikely the events are likely to be, sovereignty is going to make things really complicated, because Native Americans have a sort of sovereignty that might prove better respected outside of the oncoming Republican hegemony. Other minorities will be complicated too, but probably without such stark consequnces.
TBone
@sab: you are so right, I forgot that he meant to say “king.”
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
Secession is kind of a moot point. If team blue had a sense of identity or a willingness to be combative anywhere near as strong or as widespread as would be required to have a chance of successfully seceding, right now we’d have DC statehood and a Voting Rights Act restored by an expanded Supreme Court.
It’s kind of like reparations in that way: if the support to make it happen existed, it wouldn’t be needed in the first place.
sab
@NotMax: 👍<3
Professor Bigfoot
@Ksmiami: Nonsense.
Y’all will move out of neighborhood if too many of us move in.
There’s no fucking way white people in non-Jesusland will give a good goddamn about the Black (and brown and LGBTQIA) folks in the Confederacy any more than you did in 1877 when Grant was trying like hell to fight the Klan. Pfui.
Professor Bigfoot
@Matt McIrvin: That’s behind all this “liberal” secession talk.
“There is no horseshoe. There is only white people who are at best uncomfortable with any power being held in Black hands. Those white people are at all points of the ‘left-right’ spectrum.”
cain
@tam1MI:
The legacy media needs liberals to be outraged by centering MAGA. The MAGA needs liberals to do their little skits and plays. Everyone needs our eyeballs.
Captain C
@Old School:
by Maureen Dowd
Princess
@Professor Bigfoot: This Canadian agrees with you. Why does Canada want a bunch of “Blue” states full of MAGAts and guns, not one of which has been able to develop universal healthcare? What’s in it for us? They’ll outnumber us and start throwing their weight around. “Welcome our new Canadian overlords.” Bullsh*t. Stay where you are and fix your own country.
TBone
@Princess: it’s a joke that was proposed by your own Elizabeth May, lighten up Francis!
independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/social-media-fans-hail-green-party-leader-who-invi…
Ksmiami
@Professor Bigfoot: not me. But whatever this arrangement is in the USA it will fall with the onslaught of the Christianist racist shit heels in charge. We all deserve better than oligarchy and fascism.
Professor Bigfoot
@Ksmiami: Yeah, yeah, sure. Whatever.
Forgive me if I take your protestations of innocence with a 16 ton block of salt.
brantl
@Aussie Sheila: Whatever gave you the impression that ANY of them are that smart?
brantl
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Well, certainly if she was conscious, that would be great.