After a series of embarrassing acquittals and charges being dropped over weak cases or mishandled evidence from far-right agitprop outfits, the last of the J20 defendants are having their charges dropped:https://t.co/jsYTXXLwk2
— Dan Trombly (@stcolumbia) July 6, 2018
Update: There were 39, not 38, Inauguration Day cases still pending before today. Reporters asked about this, and the US attorney's office has notified us that it filed papers dismissing the 39th defendant https://t.co/WhP6U2Rxhn
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) July 6, 2018
The Trump Occupation certainly tried to live by that adage during the 2017 inauguration — going for maximum thuggery, combined with an open embrace of oligarchic corruption. But their ambitious attempt to crush public dissent didn’t work nearly as well as they hoped. And now their OPEN FOR BUSINESS, FELLOw GRIFTERS! inaugural parties are giving Mr. Mueller a wealth of useful data against them, per Vox:
What happened at Donald Trump’s inauguration 18 months ago, and why does special counsel Robert Mueller appear to be so interested in it?
Last week, ABC News’s Matthew Mosk and John Santucci reported that several wealthy Russians were “granted unusual access” to Trump inauguration parties back in January 2017 — and that Mueller was seeking to find out why.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of Mueller’s interest in the inauguration. Back in April, CNN reported that the special counsel was investigating “whether wealthy Russians illegally funneled cash donations directly or indirectly into Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and inauguration” — and had even questioned some oligarchs directly.
These reports have broken in the months since former Trump aide Rick Gates agreed to a plea deal with Mueller’s team in exchange for his cooperation. That may not be a coincidence — Gates was heavily involved in planning the inauguration, with a Yahoo News report in 2016 calling him the “shadow chair” of the event.
Yet beyond just Russia, there have long been serious questions about the money behind Trump’s inauguration — and where, exactly, it went. Trump’s inaugural committee raised a truly astonishing $106.7 million, double the previous record set by Barack Obama’s 2009 inaugural. But what they did with it isn’t so clear.
In a report for ProPublica and WNYC by Ilya Marritz earlier this year, the chair of George W. Bush’s second inauguration, Greg Jenkins, said he was baffled. “They had a third of the staff and a quarter of the events and they raise at least twice as much as we did,” he said. “So there’s the obvious question: Where did it go? I don’t know.”
Much like a typical Trump Organization project, then, his inauguration combined eye-popping sums of money and opulence with questions of financial mismanagement, corruption, and shady foreign influence…
Many, many more details at the link — it’s a veritable Who’s Who of right-wing sugar daddies and shady influence groups, both domestic and foreign. “But if there is anyone who might know where much of the money went, it is Rick Gates. And whatever he knows, Robert Mueller now knows too.”
rikyrah
Good Morning,Everyone ???
JPL
@rikyrah: Good morning to you! .
dmsilev
@rikyrah: Good morning to you as well.
(On the East Coast this week, so it isn’t too too early for me)
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
OzarkHillbilly
But her e-mails.
Aleta
I’ve been reading about deep cave diving. And I read the twitter conversation on Musk’s account. Cave diving seems extremely complicated mentally but also needing continued full concentration. So a whole lot of skill at using one’s brain and also requiring a lot of brain energy. Unusual abilities required. At first I was just thinking of caving in physical terms, like how hard it must be to sqeeze through a narrow odd shape without even knowing the space ahead. I was thinking, what kind of drive is that to keep wanting to do again and again. (The drive to climb mts or go into the wilderness I get.) Then I thought of how when we move we’re kind of mapping the lay of the environment into our brain. Especially so in the dark when the visual isn’t the dominant sense. So being under the earth surface, moving from opening to opening, one’s mind would be forming naturally that kind of interior map, from touching the surfaces and adjusting one’s body to the shapes and going into wider caves connected to other caves…It must be amazing to be able to do that that under the surface of the earth. If that’s what it’s like I can see how someone would crave it.
Zinsky
Pure corruption. That’s all the Trump Administration is.
The Thin Black Duke
For all the comic book nerds out there: Steve Ditko died. And another chapter of my childhood fades to black.
OzarkHillbilly
The things I learn:
I have secret Islamist allegiances. So secret I don’t even know of them.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: I’ve been told that email management and adherence to the federal records law is the most important thing in the world and failure to comply is a crime against humanity.
Oh the humanity…
Aleta
@rikyrah: good morning
I hope I can get a little more sleep.
Aleta
@?BillinGlendaleCA: We’ve all learned by now that failure to adhere proves a person is unfit, untrustworthy and in need of years of investigation.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Only when a girl does it.
magurakurin
@Aleta: I came up with a unified theory of adventure sports once. There are four basic types, air, water, earth and fire. Within these four there are pure sports and hybrid or edge sports. Edge meaning that the sport straddles two or more realms. Spelunking is a pure earth sport. Scuba diving is pure water sport. Sky diving and paraponting are pure air sports. Fire sports I decided were thinks like motorsports: motorbike racing, auto racing, jet skis, motocross, and the like. They tend to be hybrids as I really couldn’t think of a pure fire sport. Rock climbing is an edge sport as the climber clings to the edge of the earth and air. Surfing, too is an edge sport riding the edge of water, air and earth. Skiing and rafting are also edge sports. I am an edge sport person. I’ve done lots of rock climbing, mountaineering and skiing in the past and now still surf quite a bit. Pure sports frighten me. Scuba diving and caving just seem terrifying to me. Completely immersed in the pure element is not for me. But, I agree with you, I completely understand why people love it…just not for me.
Elizabelle
Thank you, Pro Publica and Frontline. WaPost:
magurakurin
Here in Western Japan we just went through three days of rainy hell. Unbelievable amounts of rainfall have left floods and landslides across a wide swath of the country. Here in my corner of these islands, Kito Village up in the mountains about 50 kilometers away the recorded 1300mm (51 inches) of rain in the last three days. Here in Tokushima City we had heavy rain, but not nearly that much. Many spots across Japan have broken rainfall records. The rain is mostly finished here now and we might just get some sunshine tomorrow. By Monday it should be completely finished.
OzarkHillbilly
@Aleta: Ellison’s Cave in Georgia is one that I used to visit once a year. At over 12 miles in length and 1063′ deep it is a rather difficult cave to negotiate, complex and very vertical, technical rope work required. We would go in on Saturday morning and cave for 24 hours straight, exiting on Sunday morn. Most cavers go there to do a “door to door” through trip, entering at the Fantastic Pit side (586′ deep) and exiting on the Incredible Pit side (440′ deep). I never did.
I remember one trip where we were traveling along a tall narrow canyon passage. The walls were covered from floor to as high as I could see in darkly colored calcite crystals that sparkled with the touch of my headlamp beam. The passage widened and came to an abrupt end at app 50′ off the floor of a rather large room, at least a couple hundred feet in diameter. The floor of the room was covered in breakdown with shear walls climbing to the ceiling. D, who was leading the trip, pointed to a fair sized opening on the opposite side of the room and said, “See that opening? That’s where we are supposed to be.”
I can’t really explain the feeling that came over me with those words, I can only say it was a very memorable moment, a very special moment, one that is worth living for.
I also had one of the worst trips in my life in that cave, getting stuck at the bottom of Fantastic pit for over 12 hours when the water falls were really pumping and the wind was brutal, Spent them totally soaked and hiding from the wind behind a boulder. Had to come out to “rescue” 2 women who got stuck on rope about 30′ feet up. Also to communicate with my compadres who were still at the top of the pit trying to rig another rope by screaming over the noise of wind and water and echos. Otherwise just trying to survive complete and brutal misery.
HeleninEire
Good morning, morning crew. Finally the “heat wave” (low 80’s) :) has abated here. Hopefully everyone will stop bitching!!
OzarkHillbilly
@magurakurin: I have a niece in Sendai. Any idea how the weather is up there?
WereBear
@The Thin Black Duke: while I understand the sentiment in one way, I completely do not in another. Your childhood happened; it exists long as your memory of it exists. We can mourn the artist yet celebrate their work for quite some time afterwards.
Dorothy A. Winsor
We’re in the new digs in Barrington, IL. Today we tackle as many of the boxes as we can. Although first we have to get the electronics set up. And possibly buy a new recharger for my phone. I think it vanished in a wad of packing paper.
Kristine
@rikyrah: Good morning! ☀️ ☕️
JPL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Congratulations on your new home.
WereBear
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yay for successful move! Great when it’s over.
Just ran across this, I think it’s a must read:
The thing I find so incredibly sad, and angering, about OSC is that he told us, in his fiction, over and over, that he was going to grow up to be a hardened, cruel bigot, and why.
MattF
If we start seeing DROs (Dead Russian Oligarchs) we’ll know that Mueller has hit a sore spot.
Procopius
I know they don’t have to, but haven’t any of the prosecutors at the Justice Department explained why they acted so stupidly? I mean, it was obvious from the first that they were wildly overcharging people who were not guilty of crimes. I don’t remember the time line — was Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III already confirmed as attorney general? Who made the decision to arrest so many people? There must have been a specific officer who gave the order. Has he refused to answer an inquiry? Why did he give such an unprecedented order? There is so much unexplained about this case.
Chyron HR
@Procopius:
“Trump won! That means we get to jail political dissidents! It’s not faaaaaaaaaaair!”
Platonailedit
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m curious as to what you think about the rescue of the soccer team in Thailand. It seems bleak to me, but I have zero understanding of caves. I’m thinking they need to dig a shaft or opening so that the trip out will be much than 6 hours.
debbie
@WereBear:
OSC?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Liz Warren is making a tactical error by defending the now-weaponized-#metoo movement with regard to Trump’s speech. It isn’t seen as a universally positive thing, given the way it has been used.
Reading about Trudeau on left feminist twitter makes me not give a flying fuck about the “victims”, given the way it is being deployed as to interactions between young adults and particularly with regard to the entertainment industry.
From the moment the Jessica Valentine wrote the first word about it, you knew that it would have to be petty, subjective and glib.
Ruckus
@HeleninEire:
Morning! It’s 82 at 5:30am here in in the hippy conclave of Pasadena. Officially it was 116 at work yesterday afternoon.
chris
The heatwave broke yesterday with rain and thunder, this morning it’s bright sun and 59F. Nova Scotians are not made for 90+ days, we melt. I don’t think I’d last long in LA.
Worth a look just for the chemtrail loon who chimes in about four comments down.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Glad to hear that you are settling in?
The Thin Black Duke
@WereBear: Thank you for the kind words and wise advice. It helps.
Josie
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I can so relate to your happiness in being in the new home and to how tired you must be after the move. It’s okay to live with the boxes for a while until you can figure out where to put everything. Keep telling yourself that new adventures keep you young. ; – )
WereBear
@debbie: Orson Scott Card, famous science fiction writer and outspoken Mormon bigot.
magurakurin
@OzarkHillbilly: Up in Sendai there were no problems with this round of nature’s wrath.
debit
@debbie: Orson Scott Card.
Ohio Mom
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Sending you virtual bread, salt and wine for your housewarming.
Waldo
@Procopius:
I think the DOJ wanted everyone to know there was a new sheriff in town. A meaner, dumber one who shoots himself in the foot, as it turns out.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: As I said yesterday, this is one of the most complex rescues I have ever read of. As things progress and I read the latest, my picture of the situation becomes clearer. They have to deal with several issues at the same time. The air situation is the gravest of the moment. The oxygen levels are low and CO2 levels are getting high and that tells me the room the kids are in may or may not be of fair size but even if their are openings to other rooms air is not moving freely thru them because this section of the cave is in all likelihood totally sealed off by water. Bad air can kill just as easily as no air and while rare, it is a hazard all cavers have heard tales of even if they have personally never encountered it..
I have read that the # of rescuers are partly responsible for this situation but I think they have minimal to no effect because the only ones reaching this section of the cave are the divers and they have been bringing oxygen into the kids. Certainly more than they are breathing while there with them. The only way I can think of to deal with the CO2 is to bring in some kind of scrubber, maybe one adapted from a rebreather.
The impending monsoons are another danger but if what I am reading is correct only in that they will be trapped as the cave will be impossible to traverse, even for the SEAL divers for long periods of time. This is assuming the room they are in stays above the high water mark, which because they haven’t gone ahead and done the all but suicidal buddy dive to bring them out means they think they have the time to be careful. What training they are giving them in diving appears to be of the most simplistic type which implies to me that they think their pumping operations will be able to bring the water in the cave down enough that the remaining sumps will be short and the water fairly clear. All of which is wholly dependent on the weather.
The normal procedure in these type of situations is to wait for the water to drop, but the monsoons are only going to bring it up so that is not an ideal option.
They are searching for secondary openings into the cave on the surface but as of yet have had no luck in finding one that connects and is traversable.
The last option of drilling a hole down to them is very difficult as well. I doubt very much that this cave has a full, complete and accurate survey. It is only in the past couple decades that cavers have come to the realization that SE Asia is serious karst with undreamed of potential. There are hundreds of thousands of caves there, some of which have been “tourist” destinations for thousands of years, the vast majority of which have never been mapped. If there is no survey, the chances of drilling thru a kilometer of rock and hitting it are a million to 1. With a good and accurate survey the chances drop to thousands to 1. They could easily miss the passage by 5 feet and never know it. The times I know of where people have been able to successfully drill into a cave miles from it’s entrance the drilling location was spotted with the help of a cave radio, but those were times when the overlaying rock was just a hundred feet or 2, not the thousand plus feet we have here. I do not know how deep a cave radio can penetrate.
The more I learn, the less optimistic I become.
Citizen_X
@Elizabelle: Good. Now to get the Brownshirt thrown out of his grad program. Unless UCLA wants to be known for educating Nazis.
For that matter, martial arts instructors ought to be speaking out against and refusing to train anyone in his group, RAM.
OzarkHillbilly
@magurakurin: Thanx. She was there for the tsunami so now every time I read of anything, and I mean anything at all, I get worried. She’s a long ways away and I have become a nervous Nelly.
Jager
@Platonailedit:
I raced karts and won on regional level when I was a kid. It was $$$ even in the early 60’s. I did a track day a few years ago, when the day was done, the tires on my Z51 Corvette were ready for the recycling bin, they had about 4k on them when I arrived at Willow Springs. The day cost me well over a grand (including new tires) and I wasn’t racing, just fooling around for a couple of hours. BTW, A guy showed up with a transporter with two Ferraris, he had a mechanic along and a driver for the transporter. He arrived with his wife and two kids in a Bentley drop top.1%er in deed.
rikyrah
???
He stopped the cycle. He paid it forward.
https://youtu.be/d9QoK8L1YWo
WereBear
@The Thin Black Duke: :)
O. Felix Culpa
@WereBear: Really good article about OSC. I gave up on him decades ago. Thanks for the link.
debit
@rikyrah: I am ugly crying. Thank you for that.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jager: I used to work with a kid who raced. It was expensive, but not as expensive as the tickets he got and the lawyers he needed to get out of them when couldn’t get his speed fix on a track.
WereBear
@rikyrah: Oh, I cried and cried, it was so heartwarming.
Thank you so much.
magurakurin
@OzarkHillbilly: the past few days troubles are nothing compared to the Tsunami. That was a true nightmare. I was spared all damage from that (well maybe…who knows how much cesium 137 we all ingested) but that affected us all mentally. These rocks are basically the worst place in the world to build a thousands of year old civilization…but here it is.
magurakurin
@OzarkHillbilly: nice round up of the cave situation. I guess all we can do is hope for a lucky break.
Jager
@OzarkHillbilly:
When I was a sophomore in high school, a local beer distributor bought his son a “she’s real fine my 409” Impala SS for high school graduation. 5 tickets and lost his license in a month. He brought the car back to my old man. Dad sold it to a woman phy-ed teacher at my high school. She sold it to a collector for huge money about 10 years ago, it had less than 40,000 miles on it. Car looked brand new.
gene108
@rikyrah:
That is a beautiful story. Thanks for sharing
KSinMA
@rikyrah: Wow! That’s wonderful!
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Wow, thank you so much for all of this information. It sounds like this cave wasn’t on the “tourist destination” list. I also didn’t realize the room was that far below the surface. All in all, it’s one big mess. (As optimistic as I’m capable of being!)
OzarkHillbilly
@magurakurin:
I know, but I have never shaken the feeling I got when I heard on the radio that there had been a tsunami in Sendai. “Did I hear that right? Isn’t that where Beth is?” First thing I did when I got to the job site was call my wife. We were lucky in that it only took my niece about 12 hours to let us know she was OK.
Every time there is a quake or typhoon in Japan the first thing I do is look up the location on google earth. Like I said, a nervous Nelly.
HeleninEire
@Ruckus: Ya. I keep telling everyone here to STFU or I will bring them to NYC in August. And worse? I will bring them into the Times Square subway. At 3pm. THEN they can bitch.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jager: Beautiful car. We have one around here that is still in mint condition. I love seeing it.
magurakurin
@HeleninEire: I’ll see your NYC in August and raise you an Osaka in August…you’ll be begging to be brought back to NYC. Even the Devil avoids Osaka in August…the only place worse is Kyoto…
debbie
@rikyrah:
So fucking beautiful. Sometimes it’s so hard to remember there actually are angels among us.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: I have read that it actually is a “tour cave” in that the entrance series has been modified to make it more friendly for novices to see a few of the underground wonders and guides to take them in. These guys went way beyond the “tour” sections.
On the depth underground, that is what I recall reading in the early stages of the rescue but have not read that recently so was unable to confirm it. It is not that the cave goes that deep but rather that the mountain it is in goes that high. It could have even more rock above it than I remember.
debbie
@HeleninEire:
Nothing tops NYC. I remember a NYC day in August where it got up to 106 degrees, and the city bus I got on had no AC and was one of the ones with sealed windows and it was rush hour. And I was wearing panty hose.
And the subway platforms were a million degrees. And they got even hotter when the trains came in and blew hot air over everyone.
MomSense
Last night I heard an amazing cellist, Narek Hahknazaryan, play Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations. Then he did two encores for us. I found a recording of the first from a different performance. It’s Sollima’s Lamentatio.
If you ever get the chance to see this cellist, go. I was watching him thinking he reminded me of Rostropovich and it turns out he was his mentor. He lives in Moscow part of the year but I won’t hold that against him.
Here’s a bbc recording of Lamentatio. Not the same as sitting a few feet away, but still so good. Worth listening with good speakers.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/tracks/n4nqjc
MomSense
@MomSense:
Wrong link. This link is better because you can hear the whole piece. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bJkIsdDG2Rk
Jager
@OzarkHillbilly:
After watching the old man for years, I knew how to order cars from Chevrolet. My mom wanted a new Impala 4 door, the old man let me order it. Mom got her Impala 4 door with the police suspension, tire options and a 300hp 327. Mom said she thought her new car didn’t ride as “nice” as her last one and she did notice it had a certified speedometer. One of my classmate’s dad had a Chevelle SS with a 327 and 4 speed. Mom’s car was faster on our hand painted 1/4 “strip” out in the country. The old man thought I was an asshole, but he said it with a grin.
Elizabelle
@MomSense: Thank you. Bookmarking that for later. Love the cello.
ETA: Oh. 5.5 minutes. Listening now.
HeleninEire
@debbie: I swear to god I would have taken those panty hose off right there on the bus.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Sounds like the great North Korean negotiations are going the way pretty much everyone not wearing a MAGA hat predicted it would
though I would guess that “regrettable” in terms of NK rhetoric translates as, “let’s try this again in a few weeks”.
zhena gogolia
@HeleninEire:
Panty hose are the worst — except for bras! Why don’t feminists burn bras any more? Those were the good old days.
WereBear
@zhena gogolia: When I look at the layers and constrictions women used to wear routinely, it’s a wonder they didn’t all die in the summer. No wonder they were so prone to fainting.
BC in Illinois
@MomSense:
Yes! He was in St Louis back in April:
He did the Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations, and his Nocturne in D, but he blew everybody away with the Sollima “Lamentatio.” He came out with sounds I never thought you could do with a cello. (Including the portion where the soloist sings along with himself.) As the St Louis Post Dispatch says, “Keep an eye on this one.”
Elizabelle
@WereBear: And no wonder men were describing them as “hormonal.”
Hot summer days. Murder summer. Works its effect on men too.
zhena gogolia
@WereBear:
Someone told me that in the old Carson Pirie Scott department store in Chicago they literally had “fainting couches” around the store for ladies to swoon on. Don’t know if it’s an “urban legend” or not!
BC in Illinois
@BC in Illinois:
In the Hollywood Bowl in 2015, he took the microphone, declared “I am Armenian,” and dedicated the “Lamentatio” to the Armenian victims of genocide.
It has to be heard. It’s indescribable.
germy
@BC in Illinois: I wonder if “The Young Turks” did a story on it. Probably not.
Miss Bianca
@OzarkHillbilly: OH, I haven’t been following this story in detail, and I have to admit I’m one of the types for whom underwater caving would be a torture reserved for me in Hell, so….I am still baffled by something. This sounds, in my admittedly ignorant opinion, like a highly technical dive that some guy brought a bunch of Boy Scouts on. IN short, it sounds dangerous as all get-out to me. What the hell actually happened, and why is it so difficult to get them out?
MomSense
@BC in Illinois:
It was incredible. I was sitting just a few feet away from him and as soon as he started, it was instant tears. The theater was so small you could feel the vibration. It was a performance with a student orchestra so it was also fun to watch the students watch him play.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle:
I have never been very fond of working in the heat, but now that i’m 60 I absolutely hate it.
sdhays
While Jim Jordan denies he heard anything in the locker room while he was a coach, he kept repeating this:
which is odd, because if he didn’t hear anything, then why is this distinction so important to him? Quite the tell…
Elizabelle
@Miss Bianca: I think the coach and scouts got there on foot, and then got flooded in by a rainstorm or two. They had expected to emerge the same day, not a long stay at all, without swimming or diving.
Mike in NC
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Clearly talks with North Korea would have gone much better if Fat Bastard #2 (Pompeo) had delivered a yuuuuge shipment of MAGA hats signed by Fat Bastard #1.
MattF
OT. Politico reports that the OSU wrestling facility where Rep. Jordan worked (and has denied any knowledge of any sexual misbehavior) was a cesspool of deviancy. I think Jordan has a very big problem.
Elizabelle
@MattF: Good. Jim Jordan is an especially nasty and brutish bully, so I hope he goes down hard.
Shame on him and shame on his constituents for voting for him. He may belong in this Republican Congress, but he does not belong in government, anywhere.
MomSense
@BC in Illinois:
He played a second encore for us and now my morning project will be to figure out what it was. His bow was pretty well destroyed by the end of the Lamentatio so he did a piece that was all pizzicato (except he got unbelievable effects).
I love going to Bowdoin International Music Festival performances because these major stars turn into teachers playing for kids who must remind them of their younger selves. They always bring their best but in the most generous possible way.
Miss Bianca
@Elizabelle: Ah, so they walked in, didn’t dive, and got flooded in? Oh, yow. : (
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@sdhays: I was listening to, not watching the Hayes show last night, so I don’t know if it was a montage or a continuous recording, but Jordan said about five times that locker room conversations are different than formal discussions. Then whichever Fox host was tossing him softballs asked, and were there locker room conversations about this? Jordan- No.
It was not persuasive.
He’s clearly one of many enablers here, but he’s the only one in Congress, and the only one who’s a hero to the MAGAts.
sdhays
@MattF: Yeah, his defense is rapidly turning towards “the students didn’t file a notarized report with the magic words so I knew nothing; if something is said in a locker room, it doesn’t count” (now where have we heard that before…). One student actually asked Jordan to come with him to see Strauss when he got injured because he didn’t want to be groped.
OSU has a lot to answer for too.
sdhays
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That clip is there at the link I included. It’s pretty damn pathetic.
debbie
@HeleninEire:
LOL. My focus was on not having to feel anyone’s sticky skin on me in the very crowded bus.
sdhays
@Elizabelle: I hope it also further tarnishes the entire Ohio Russian
RepublicanParty, which is already undergoing a systemic corruption scandal (again) and sinks the whole ticket in November.Jim, Foolish Literalist
sometimes I find my teeth are clenched so hard I’m worried I might do some damage to an already problematic set of originals
the relentless appeals to far-right ethnonationalists are gaffes at worst, there’s certainly no evidence of a patter, and the important thing to remember is we mustn’t play the race card
MomSense
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
OMFG I hate all thes traitorous monsters.
ruemara
@The Thin Black Duke: Super sad. I’m not ready for Chris Claremont to pass.
OzarkHillbilly
@Miss Bianca: The cave was fine when they went in. They went very deep into the cave. They had an unexpected storm (this close to the monsoon season it is probably not unreasonable to question the coach’s judgement). There was a monumental downpour (becoming more frequent with global warming), the cave is a fast recharge cave with likely numerous sinkholes and pit entrances for water to go in, but there is only one way (most likely) for the water to go out. The water backed up, flooding what had been dry/low water stream passages and trapping them in the cave.
This same scenario on a smaller scale played out at Cliff Cave in ’93. CC is in a large sinkhole “plateau” (for lack of better terms). We had a 5 inches of rain in a half hour (where I was, not sure about at CC). A group from St Joseph’s Home for Boys were in the cave at the time. Part of the group had turned back where the cave had gone from walking to crawling, 7 other’s continued. They were in this narrow section when the storm hit and were probably engulfed in water in less than a minute or 2.
6 died, only 1 survived.
A humorous anecdote from what was a very difficult thing for me. I remember the camera crews and being repeatedly filmed looking very “rescue-y” and doing macho looking “rescue-y” things but my ugly mug never made it on TV. The Monday morning after a fellow carpenter walks up to me and says, “I saw your truck on TV!” about a week later a reporter from the Post Dispatch wanted to interview some cavers from the rescue. I tagged along just because I didn’t have anything better to do. I declined to get up in full caving regalia for a picture at the entrance to CC so did not partake in the “photo session”. The reporter was asking various questions, we all answered them as best we could and when she came to the inevitable “How do cavers think?” I pointed to the back of my truck and the bumper sticker that said, “Think Mud” In the article the next day nothing I was never quoted. But the bumper sticker made it into the article.
So then I knew that not only was my truck more photogenic than I, it was more quotable too.
ETA: the article I link to is from the Sat morn after the storm and initial rescue operations. The other dead and lone survivor had yet to be found.
Tenar Arha
@debbie: You have probably already looked him up, but that tumblr post was talking about the author of Ender’s Game.
@WereBear: Did you ever read this article Creating the Innocent Killer? It’s a moral critique of the novel from around 2004, & the article has links that go back even further.
WereBear
@MattF: I grew up in a small town run by the Southern Baptists. So I’m familiar with the outlines of patriarchal oppression.
But the amount of sexual abuse of all ages and sexes which is connected with the unholy alliance between Fundamentalist religion and Right Wing conservatism shocks me to the core. It’s all connected and very deep and it has to be uprooted and the ground sown with salt.
Dev Null
@WereBear:
I read one of his books 20-odd years ago (give or take a few years), and tossed it. Never gone back to read another.
His “science” sux; his characters are cardboard; his plotting is incredible (in the “extremely not credible” sense); and his writing is blah.
Other than that, he is deservedly famous … for his bigotry.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly:
Damn it bevis, edit fail: “nothing I said was ever quoted”!
Dev Null
@MattF: He’s toast. Stick a fork in him.
And good riddance. And don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out, Coach.
Benevolent Overlord Adam speculated last night that Boehner heard rumors, looked into them, and stuck a shiv in Jordan’s back.
I sure hope so.
Karma, beeeyotches …
(Hoping that’s not too politically incorrect.)
WereBear
@Tenar Arha: Your link didn’t resolve, had to use this one:
Creating the Innocent Killer
Elizabelle
@Dev Null: Can you provide the Boehner link? Inquiring minds, and all.
debbie
@sdhays:
Don’t leave out the President and AD. I’d bet they knew something was afoot.
Dev Null
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I have no intuition about this, but at least 3 GOP strategists say Трамп’s sneers at Warren and #MeToo might cost the GOP House seats by driving away yet more suburban women.
The remarks I found most interesting were by Evan Siegfried, quoted at RawStory.
Siegfried quotes some remarkable polling numbers.
Dev Null
@Elizabelle: Sorry, I haven’t seen a link. AFAIK this was purely Adam’s speculation, not based on concrete information.
You might ask Adam.
debbie
@debbie:
Yep. Google tells me Gordon Gee would have been president around that time.
schrodingers_cat
@WereBear: I never understood Orson Scott Card’s popularity. I have read a few books from his Enders series, they were insular, racist and misogynist. So his RL views are totally in keeping with the books, so not surprised to find out that he was a bigot in real life.
schrodingers_cat
@Dev Null: He even get his geography wrong.
Miss Bianca
@OzarkHillbilly: Ah, thank you for the explanation. As I said to Elizabelle, I didn’t realize that they had walked in and were then going to have to dive out or wait till the water ebbs to walk out – I thought they had dived in.
Elizabelle
@Dev Null: Thanks. Will do. Might google search too.
But first: glorious cool weather, so time for a bike ride.
JPL
@Elizabelle: You tease! IOKIYR
It’s just locker room talk.
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat: *got not get.
Mnemosyne
@BC in Illinois:
For folks who don’t know, there is a huge and politically active Armenian-American community in Hollywood and nearby Glendale, which is probably one of the reasons he decided to make the genocide connection there.
That’s one of the reasons why Adam Schiff has pushed House bills to get the US government to recognize the Armenian genocide — that’s who his constituents are.
BC in Illinois
@sdhays:
I can’t find it now, but someone who had a position of responsibility in the military responded to the “locker-room talk” defense by pointing out that, in his day, he followed up on allegations that he heard in the locker room, on the firing range, second-hand, here/there/everywhere . . . up to and including anonymous phone calls.
If there is an allegation of abuse, in an area under your authority, you look into it. Maybe it’s not true, but you look into it. [ When I was in a position of responsibility, back in the last century, I was answerable to a board, which once called a (fairly secret) meeting to let me know some of the accusations they had heard about me. I knew everything they were talking about, and more. And we all knew precisely where the allegations were coming from. So did most the people in the organization/community involved. We figured out how we would handle it together (and how we would communicate with the other people whose names had come into it). The board was relieved that I didn’t blow up in anger. I appreciated the fact that they looked into the things they had heard. ]
If there is an allegation of abuse, in an area under your authority, you look into it.
If there is an allegation of abuse, and you DON’T look into it . . . then why?
BC in Illinois
@Mnemosyne:
Did not know that.
Mnemosyne
@BC in Illinois:
As a group, they can be more than a bit insular, but they are loyal and dedicated Democrats for the most part, and they helped turn that formerly solid red House district blue.
Kay
Kay
One wealthy individual bought a seat on the US Supreme Court. One person.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
And would any of us be surprised if that one person was Vladimir Putin?
Of course, we’ll never know, because the organization who took the money is not required to say who gave it to them. Thanks, Citizens United! ?
schrodingers_cat
There are articles from Jacobin and The Young Turks making rounds that blame the Ds and President Obama for the anti-immigrant policies pursued by the current WH.
ETA: How much money has Putin funneled into the leftier than thou groups too? BS campaign of 2016, for example.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: Chief Justice Roberts needs to be impeached.
The Rs stole the presidency in 1999. Ds were too accommodating then. We got Roberts and Alito. Down went parts of VRA and we got Citizens United.
Rs stole the presidency again in 2016 and we got Gorsuch.
Elizabelle
@Kay: I would guess we are going to learn the identity of the anonymous donor. $28.5 million.
That is corruption.
I think Gorsuch should be unseated (eventually) and Trump denied any further Supreme Court choices (until the Mueller investigation is over and any Supreme Court decisions are made).
Citizens United has got to go. It undermines democracy. As the case was meant to do. Fuckin’ Anthony Kennedy. I hope he and his son go down in a shitstorm too.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: No surprises there. Trump did the same thing.
sdhays
@debbie: Oh, they definitely knew. Apparently, the head coach was begging to have the wrestling team practice and shower at a private gym to get away from all of the faculty and administrators that liked to watch the students shower. What I don’t understand is why he didn’t try to do something about the doctor too.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: On a much larger scale, with more malice.
Dev Null
@Elizabelle:
Please post if you find evidence. Guessing we’re all curious.
Here too! I might go out myself.
Do you ride road bike or MTB?
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
What about GGs latest trip to Moscow.
Ruckus
@HeleninEire:
How many people never realize what it’s like in other parts of the world? More importantly, how many people have no idea that there is another part of the world except the tiny area they are standing on?
Dev Null
@schrodingers_cat:
DIdn’t know that, but it fits.
Thinking about it, the two words that seem to me most characteristic of his writing – of what I’ve read by him, which isn’t much – are “sloppy” and “perfunctory”.
It’s as if he found early on that he could cut corners, yet no one would ever call him on it …
… and that became his modus operandi.
It’s lazy writing, or so it seems to me.
Elizabelle
@ Dev Null:
Finishing my coffee, so googled Boehner + Jim Jordan and — yeah, Adam’s surmise is likely correct. Sounds like Boehner is shivving Jordan again, maybe in plain sight (as in October) to get him out of his seat this summer so the GOP can put up someone else and try to retain it. And settling some personal scores.
October 29, 2017: Politico magazine published what seems to be a rather candid interview with John Boehner.Politico magazine. John Boehner Unchained.
Vanity Fair link, pulling out a lot of quotes. Worth a read, because Boehner is (not a surprise) a rather astute observer, and entertaining.
“IDIOTS,” “ANARCHISTS,” AND “ASSHOLES”: JOHN BOEHNER UNLOADS ON REPUBLICANS IN POST-RETIREMENT INTERVIEW
The former House Speaker spends most of his time on the golf course, but he’s still stewing over the state of the Republican party.
Politico interview got noticed at home. Dayton Daily News. Ex-Speaker John Boehner goes off on Congressman Jim Jordan. The article in full:
Dev Null
@schrodingers_cat: We all commit typos (needless to say). I made the mental correction.
Dev Null
@Mnemosyne: Every $ sacred! Every $ votes!
Elizabelle
@Dev Null: Have a Trek hybrid that rides like a Peterbilt. Virginia Capital Trail is paved and smooth, so it’s the wrong bike for it. Although great for venturing off the trail. (Roads to Westover and Berkeley Plantations are packed dirt with stones and furrows, and I’m not sure a road bike could handle them. Really good exercise.)
Road bike is under repair.
ETA: I think I was roaming around Westover Plantation grounds — they’re beautiful — the first weekend Paul Manafort was in jail. And enjoying the difference in our statuses. I hope Manafort never gets out.
BC in Illinois
@BC in Illinois:
I have found the original comment. @MarkHertling
Dev Null
@schrodingers_cat: Atrios too, who is no “leftier than thou” guy.
Atrios can (and does) speak for himself on his blog; my impression is that he feels that Obama was much too conciliatory towards Republicans.
As for the Young Turks, meh. Not a fan. I know too many Jillies who thought HRC would be worse than Трамп.
Idiots.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: I agree that John Roberts should be impeached.
From his opening statement at his confirmation hearings:
He lied. He has been nothing but political, with maybe a few pleasant exceptions.
If we ever meet him, we need to call him Justice Roger B. Taney. Because he is just as bad. Taney makes everyone’s list of worst USSC justices ever. Roberts is just as damaging.
Dev Null
@sdhays: That’s the detail that cooks Jordan’s goose. The head coach knew, and however inadequately, acted on that knowledge … but Jordan didn’t know?
He’s done.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: that story could be the basis for some good questions during the hearings. I think Dems should use these hearing as a proxy to interrogate trump and GOP corruption as much as possible. Dark money– and call it that, not “campaign finance”, the pardon power, obstruction of justice, at least one question on emoluments, etc
Dev Null
@Elizabelle: Thanks, Elizabelle … good material. Thanks for posting.
I saw the Dayton Times article a while back. No love lost between Boehner and Mr. Terrorist, for sure.
And yeah, it seems plausible that Boehner is behind this… but I sure would love to see a confirmation. I really, srsly, want Jordan to go down hard, and to hear that Boehner engineered Jordan’s demise.
Elizabelle
@Dev Null: I didn’t look for anything recent; those were just the first items that popped up, and I’d forgotten about the Boehner Politico interview. Will read it later this weekend.
What kind of bike do you have? Happy trails.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Dev Null: Atrios too, who is no “leftier than thou” guy.
Haven’t read him in years, but I would say he is. He’s no Cenk Ugyur, but he definitely went emo very early in Obama’s presidency, spurred on I suspect by fusion of the PUMAs and the Naderites in his comment section
a lot of people think that, a handful of regulars and semi-regulars trot it out here at least once a week. I often (edited, not always) ask for specifics: What legislation, whose votes would have been changed if Obama had been louder or angrier? A few years running and I never get a response.
I will grant that Boehner probably saved Obama from himself when he backed out of the “Grand Bargain”, but in terms of actual legislation that allegedly could have been better– health care, the stimulus package, Garland– no one ever has an answer.
FlipYrWhig
@Elizabelle: I am not a bicyclist but I know stretches of those trails from an area where I walk. Hi neighbor!
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Atrios is an Eeyore and generally a tedious douche.
Miss Bianca
OK, Boehner shivving Jordan is a pretty awesomely appropriate ending for that asshole. Almost makes me think well of him (Boehner, I mean). I’ll never forgive him for not giving his caucus the finger while he was still Speaker, and throwing in his lot with the Democrats and Obama, but…then he wouldn’t have been a modern-day Republican, would he? : /
ETA: Damn, why am I suddenly thinking about Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”? Or Maybe “MacBeth” would be more appropriate. Except that none of these clowns have the gravitas to be tragic heroes *or* villains.
stinger
@Dorothy A. Winsor: (((waves))) Enjoy your new home!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Miss Bianca: Boehner to me is the villain in the whole immigration story. He was part of the Chamber of Commerce wing of the party that wanted immigration reform, but he kept the Senate bill off the House floor in ’13 (IIRC) for the same reason Ryan did after him: It would have caused a GOP civil war with the “freedom caucus” types, and maybe cost them the House. I think the issue became that much more toxic as it went unresolved, and was a huge factor in trumpism.
Dev Null
@Elizabelle:
Moi aussi. Haven’t ridden it since I got a road bike. :-)
How Trek managed to make a hybrid so unpleasant to ride … but for all I know they’re all like that, and I’m exposing my ignorance by dissing it. Or perhaps yours has a suspension … I got mine before suspensions were a thing.
Oh, you’re Richmond area. I was thinking DC, silly me.
When I lived in the DC area I mostly rode the W&OD, 4 mile run, and the C&O towpath.
Any riding on the Trek hybrid is de facto good exercise. :-)
My sympathies, but I gather you enjoy the hybrid. Me, I don’t think I’ve ridden my hybrid in 15-odd years.
Something gone badly wrong if he does. Although if that’s what it takes to bring down Трамп …
… hmm …
I’d like to nail a few members of the upper echelon of the GOP as part of the bargain.
MagdaInBlack
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I’m pleased the heat broke for you. It’s a beautiful day in th NW suburbs. ?
Elizabelle
@FlipYrWhig: Hi you. We will have to do a Central VA Juice meetup.
Elizabelle
@Dev Null: The Trek hybrid was superb when I was biking around Lake Accotink and other Fairfax trails (used to be a NoVirginian), very rough and hilly. But it is no fun on a paved surface. Had a Ross Countach (not special 12-speed, but very light and agile) for years on the WOD, Mount Vernon trail (my favorite), and regret donating that one when I moved. It was so light and pretty indestructible.
Dev Null
@Elizabelle: Adding to the previous note: I have a Lemond steel-frame road bike and a no-name aluminum frame road bike I bought while overseas. I ride ’em both. (Well, not at the same time.)
I feel a bit like Lewis Carroll’s White Knight (cf the Tenniel woodcut) when I ride: electronics everywhere. A GPS data logger, a smartphone with triple GPS (US, Russian, and Chinese) reception (didn’t know that until I set it up), seatpost videocam, wired cycle computer, BT speed / cadence sensors, and an HRM.
Each one added individually post-accident to cover the monitoring shortfall thereby exposed. Takes me an hour to get out the door, which sorta defeats the purpose, I s’pose, but if I get hit by a car again, I want my heirs and assigns to know who to go after.
Using the Cyclemeter app as my main monitoring tool.
I am more highly instrumented than most of my cycling buds. :-)
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Party before country, with these assholes. ALL of them.
If I didn’t have the sneaking suspicion, amounting to a gut-certainty, that you can never know for sure which way the sickle’s blade is going to end up turning, I’d find myself echoing our own VDE’s mantra:
Wipe them out. All of them.
Dev Null
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
er…
Bingo!!! ~snark~
And immigration too, I think, although I can’t say I paid nearly as much attention to immigration under Obama as I have under Трамп.
Obama tried hard, really really hard, to find areas of agreement with Republicans. The fact that Republicans were trying to delegitimize Obama is the reason that no one can point to votes / legislation / whatever: there were no agreements to be had. The GOP walked away from advantageous-to-them offers multiple times – in your phrasing, “saved Obama from himself” – because, well, that was their strategy: no agreements with the Kenyan Muslim Marxist colonial usurper.
Did I mention that Obama is black?
You’re welcome to tell me I’m wrong. ~shrugs~
I wasn’t paying that much attention to immigration during Obama’s Admin, but it’s my impression that on immigration Obama was a strict enforcement type; and further my impression that this was part of an attempt to show himself as negotiating in good faith so that he could reach an agreement with Republicans that defused the immigration issue overall. I’d have to look at the stats, but I seem to recall that deportations under Obama were fairly high by historical standards.
I say this in full awareness of Obama’s DACA / Dreamer EOs, btw.
As for Atrios, I have more an impressionistic view of his blog than an analytical view. I’m as comfortable with his postings as I am with the views of most posters here, at LG&M, at WashMo, and elsewhere.
Perhaps that means that I’m not paying enough attention. Dunno … ~shrugs~
Obvious Russian Troll
@OzarkHillbilly: I first grew a beard the Thanksgiving after 9/11. The old white guy who’d been recently hired in upper management seriously asked me if it had anything to do with the Taliban. I was so shocked I couldn’t even give him a smart-ass answer.
Which is just as well; the asshole spent the next year or so on some kind of weird vendetta against the guy who sat next to me. (Who was nearly indispensable but had long hair.)
Dev Null
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: @Miss Bianca: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Not excusing Boehner, but it seems to me that there was no constituency anywhere within the GOP for compromise. In isolation, Boehner might have compromised – IIRC he initially agreed on the Grand Compromise with Obama, but reversed course when his caucus revolted – and as is the case today, the caucus was afraid of the TeaBagger base.
Simplistic, perhaps, but I think it’s a more useful way of looking at things than saying “Oh, Boehner could have acted like a man.”
Yeah, he could have, but I’m pretty sure he’d have been pushed out of the GOP in practical terms.
As in fact happened in 2015 when he took a dive to get legislation funding the government through the House.
Dev Null
@FlipYrWhig:
Well, I guess that settles the issue. ~amused~
Finally, resolution!
Dev Null
@Elizabelle: Missed your chance to pick up another: https://www.ebth.com/items/8460802-vintage-ross-bicycles-countach-road-bicycle
Also, too: the choice of, er, well, never mind:
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/nyregion/15bike.html
Calouste
Regarding the OSU scandal, was Dr. Strauss just the doctor for the wrestling program, or was he also involved in other sports that we have not heard of yet?
Mnemosyne
@Calouste:
Wrestling is getting all of the headlines because of the Jordan connection, but there were complaints by other athletes in other sports. The perv seems to have primarily preyed on young men.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Dev Null:
The deal Obama never made proves that Obama was too quick to make deals? I think the Grand Bargain, as advertised, was a mistake, more for reasons of politics than substance, but…. we don’t know what that substance would have been, what Easter Eggs Obama could have slipped in. It probably wouldn’t have mattered politically, because Bernie Sanders was already calling for someone to call on him to primary Obama, and “slashing Social Security!” and “undoing the New Deal!” — by agreeing to a chained CPI– might have been enough to do it.
Yeah, because for all but about six weeks of his presidency, they effectively controlled Congress. That’s how it works. And that’s what I object to, and the reason this Green Lantern type argument is getting under my skin: I’m starting to hear it again about the USSC. “If Dems don’t figure out a way to stop this nomination…” “Schumer had better do something!” They. Fucking. Can’t. There are no One Weird Tricks that can get around the Constitution. Schumer can’t make Heitkamp and Manchin stand firm if they think, right or wrong, it will help them to vote with trump. Heitkamp and Manchin care about their voters. Under Obama, under trump, there are no easy, emotionally sastifying answers, only the long hard work of elections and legislation, and we need to fight Republicans.
Okay, other than the Grand Bargain (that wasn’t), what were some of the other “multiple times”, in your phrasing, that the GOP saved Obama from himself by walking away?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
SWMBO
@OzarkHillbilly: Is it possible to take in a reinforced hose? One that can hold itself open and have extensions added as it goes further in? That might help the oxygen level.
schrodingers_cat
@Dev Null: To say that the Obama administration and the current one are similar where immigration is concerned has to be the worst both-sides-do-it statement I have come across. No there is no comparison. As an immigrant I can tell you that this administration has been virulently anti-immigrant compared the past administrations of both parties. 100 times worse than Bush or Obama in both rhetoric and actions.
Dev Null
@schrodingers_cat: I never said that.
Not even close.
I don’t mind being dragged through the mud for things I’ve said. I do object to being dragged through the mud for things I haven’t said.
Try again.
Dev Null
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Your argument is tendentious.
Obama and Boehner agreed to a Grand Bargain. The GOP caucus torpedo’d that Grand Bargain, and Boehner walked away.
Sneer all you want. That’s fact.
I think we know what was in the Grand Bargain, but that was, what, 6 years ago? I don’t and won’t remember the details without reviewing.
Perhaps the reason people don’t respond to your questions is that your questions so transparently set the stage for the answer you want. Perhaps people come to the conclusion that you are arguing in bad faith. Perhaps people decide you’re not worth talking to.
I dunno… but that’s my tentative conclusion.
I have activities on my plate for tonight and tomorrow. Those activities are much higher priority than dancing to your music.
I’ll take another look at your comment in a couple of days, and if in a couple of days I feel like engaging, well …
… engaging always involves a cost-benefit calculation.
Right now I’m thinking you’re a waste of time.
FWIW, I voted for Obama over HRC in 2008 and HRC over Sanders in 2016.
Dev Null
@schrodingers_cat: What’s funny (for some definition of funny) is that I agree – literally agree – with everything you’ve said.
What I don’t understand is what I take to be your belief that I said that:
Would you provide a quote that backs up your belief, please?
Or if that’s not your point, perhaps you could explain your point?
schrodingers_cat
@Dev Null: Not you, that’s the comparison the Jacobin writers were making. Sorry, I should have been more clear.
Dev Null
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: WTF?!?
You think this is an argument?
Dev Null
@schrodingers_cat: Oh.
I apologize. I misunderstood.
Yes, I agree (as I said, to what you said): to claim that the Obama Admin and the Trump Admin are similar is the worst kind of both-sides-do-it argument.
You didn’t specify who was making this argument; I assumed you meant that I was.
Assumptions are traps.
My bad.
Citizen Alan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
My recollection is that on ACA, Obama was willing to offer tort reform in exchange for a few GOP votes before the events surrounding Teddy Kennedy ‘s death took matters out of his hands.
Llelldorin
@schrodingers_cat: I think he had the sort of accidental popularity you sometimes get when people assume that you’re doing a wonderful job exploring the nature beliefs that it later turns out you actually hold. I think of _Ender’s_Game_ as being a lot like Adam Baldwin’s performance as Jayne Cobb in Firefly, or most Roman Polanski films showing what real evil is like. You see the work and think “wow, what a great insight into fascism/a genuinely stupid person/real, geniune evil!” Then you learn more about the artist and think “ooooohhhhhhhhhhh… got it.”
Dev Null
@Citizen Alan: I believe that there were several “dangles” during ACA negotiations to bring Senate GOP “moderates” on board, some of which made it into the legislation.
Yeah, like dealing with GOP “moderates” ever worked. Collins and Murakowski got their fingerprints on the legislation, then walked away when the bill was voted on.
I’d have to go back and review to remember the details of the dangles.
That said, I also seem to recall (perhaps incorrectly, feel free to set me right) that Obama kept some distance between himself and the negotiations, leaving it for the Senate committees to haggle over details. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved of course, but I don’t think he played point man.
And at least one famous phone call with Obama and Rahm Emanuel in which Emanuel (IIRC) wanted to abandon the ACA effort. Pelosi (and maybe Reid) persuaded Obama to forge ahead.
That’s my recollection, anyway.
I do not like to put forward “recollections” until I have verified those recollections on teh InterToobz, but I do not have time today. (Just saying that I’m not claiming “truth”, I’m saying “memory is fallible, my memory as much as anyone’s, but this is what I remember.”)
I also remember thinking during one of the debt ceiling manufactured crises that “Obama has ’em by the short hairs now” … then watching with horrified astonishment as Obama made concession after concession to lure the GOP back to sanity.
IIRC the GOP rejected every single concession because they wanted more … always more… In the end, faced with tanking the world economy, the GOP caved and walked away with nothing.
But memory is malleable. (Pretty sure about “Obama has ’em by the short hairs”, though.)
Dev Null
@Llelldorin: Hunh, that’s perceptive … and persuasive …
Dev Null
@Procopius: @Chyron HR: Procopius, I started a response to this yesterday, but haven’t put together a pithy conclusion. (Not one I’m satisfied with, anyway.)
My reaction to an unrelated comment on a previous thread might be relevant to your question.
Also, too: that’s what cops and prosecutors do. And “intimidation”. And stretching the statutes for use in future prosecutions.
Perhaps more serious charges in this situation than you would expect because Black Bloc (or whatever) violence. But stretching the bounds, for sure.
Adam Raymond quotes one of the defendants in his essay at NYMag:
This.
Cops and prosecutors have the power to impose huge costs on the exercise of your First Amendment “rights”. They are for all practical purposes unconstrained by concerns about accountability. In the experience of my relatives and the DC J20 protesters, cops and prosecutors do not hesitate to use that power.
Should you find yourself in a protest that turns violent, you should expect to face criminal charges, even though you were not involved in the violence, even though you were appalled by that violence.
Adam’s summary advice for protest demonstrations (sorry, don’t have the link at hand, but he’s re-posted multiple times) is well worth considering.
Dev Null
@Dev Null: Shorter: Cops use arrests and criminal charges as a tool in their crowd control toolbox, and as a practical matter (whether or not with malice aforethought) for intimidation, e.g. to deter future protests.
Why prosecutors prosecute ludicrous charges rather than dismiss them is beyond me (cue “it would be irresponsible to speculate”), but … more than a few choose to prosecute.
My deranged prepper wingnut DA relative is surprisingly solid / ethical on this point: don’t arrest on trumped up charges; don’t prosecute unless there’s compelling evidence of a crime. It’s about the only point we agree on.