The House will not surrender its constitutional responsibility to perform oversight. pic.twitter.com/Btw3ME0tBq
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) February 7, 2019
“We have to do it in a very careful way,” Pelosi says of compelling Trump’s tax returns, acknowledging “impatience” among progressives.
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) February 7, 2019
The Trump/Russia/Cohen/AMI/Broidy/DickPic/Kompromat scandal will be the first completely legit conspiracy that can only be explained with a pin board and yarn.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 8, 2019
Updating the Hoarseman’s indictment odds.
Indictment of a past witness for lying to Congress by:
Fri 2/8 – 4:1
Fri 2/15 – 2.5:1
Fri 2/22 – 3:2
Fri 3/1 – 1:1First indictment:
Junior – 2:1
Erik Prince – 3:1
Carter Page – 5:1
Jared Kushner – 7:1
Hope Hicks – 10:1— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) February 6, 2019
First indictment (cont’d):
Steve Bannon – 15:1
Brad Parscale – 15:1
Corey Lewandowski – 20:1
Jeff Sessions – 50:1
The field (anyone else) – 10:1Hoarseman’s best bet:
– Junior + by 2/15Longshot play:
– Hope Hicks + by 3/1Let’s watch for Friday surprises…
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) February 6, 2019
A 93-year-old WWII vet, rushed to an emergency room recently and informed he had hours to live offered the following before drifting into his terminal unconsciousness: "Shit. I'm not gonna see the Mueller report, am I?" True story.
— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 7, 2019
Trump is pulling down with him the NRA, Roger Stone, the National Prayer Breakfast, Falwell, Hannity, probably Eric Prince, maybe a lot of Republicans, & the National Enquirer. That’s a lot, I know, so maybe I’m being greedy, but could he also take down The Federalist Society?
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) February 8, 2019
OzarkHillbilly
This AM my Freud has been thoroughly Schadened by the complete Krugerization of Pecker’s Dunning.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: While no one is here. . .you are correct there is only one vent on the entire foundation and that is one the side where the rot is. The rot is also directly below a window so I wonder where I should be caulking? Thanks in advance again.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
Betty Cracker
Got walloped by some sort of stomach bug about 36 hours ago. Feeling somewhat better now (my innards are accepting water and dry toast on a trial basis this morning). But waking up to this news makes me wonder if I actually died and woke up in Stupid Hell. Is this real life?
SiubhanDuinne
@Raven:
Not so fast.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: Shh, he’s writing instructions.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Ugh!
Kay
They have to start prosecuting these people. The only reason we know about this is Bezos told us and the only reason HE has any information past the initial blackmail is he (probably) spent or will spend hundreds of thousands or several million on a private investigation. The rest of us can’t spend millions on a private investigation. I’m glad they happened to be stupid and arrogant enough to go after a billionaire but that can’t be a requirement.
Why wasn’t AMI prosecuted for the first round of crimes that were discovered? In the course of that they would turn up the rest of it. The justification for not prosecuting them is they have employees who would be harmed? Every business entity has employees. They all get a pass?
“He’s just rich enough not to be scared” So anyone but the richest are subject to blackmail and harassment by Trump’s criminal thug associates and we just have to suck it up or hire a private police force?
The situation now is wealthy and powerful people get away with criminal behavior and then only OTHER wealthy and powerful can bring them down, using private funds and a private investigation?
What if Bezos hadn’t revealed this? AMI would still be threatening media outlets to kill stories that damage Trump (or reveal their own crimes) and no one in the public would know? We don’t know if it worked. We only know it didn’t work twice.
Prosecute white collar crime. Go to trial. Nothing else will stop them. They’re already arrogant and confident enough that they threatened a billionaire who owns a newspaper and they did it in writing (allegedly) AFTER they made a deal to stop doing it. They’re out of control. They won’t stop until some of them go to prison.
Last week it was considered a conspiracy theory that Trump threatens people with information he has on them. Seems pretty clearly true now! We know they threatened 3 – Morning Joe people, Farrow and Bezos. Are there others?
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: It’s hell being right all the time. Or at least that’s what I tell my wife. ;-)
On caulking around the window: The water is getting behind the siding somewhere, most likely at or near the bottom (if it was at the top you should have window frame rot problems as well). If it’s the old lap siding, then caulk where the siding hits the window trim (be sure to check for rot everywhere first) especially at the sill, both underneath it and the top surface of the sill itself. Also make sure the siding is still properly lapped and there are no cracks in it for water to run in. Any gaps you find should be caulked as well. If you have new vinyl/steel/aluminum siding, caulk where the j-mold meets the window trim. Hopefully they wrapped the trim in coil stock, or maybe even a new window? Make sure the siding goes well into the j-mold like it’s supposed to. I am partial to OSI caulk for these situations. Unlike regular latex, the stuff is forever and can be applied in damn near all weather conditions.
When it comes to the new vent holes, there are a # of ways to approach it but the proper way/s would be situational, and none of them perfect, so I am a little hesitant to recommend one. Let me think on it a little more.
Lapassionara
@Betty Cracker: So sorry!
Good morning, everyone.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks! It’s old wood siding and it was painted about 4 years ago.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: ETA fail. the above was supposed to say “caulk all around the window” but focus on the bottom parts. My editing for clarity sucks.
Kay
I have some concerns about anyone associated with “NY” prosecuting the Trump family or their criminal associates.
I feel I come by this concern honestly, given that there exists a “NY Field office” of the FBI that is some kind of captured Trump outpost and the last NYC prosecutor who stumbled upon a Trump family crime inexplicably dropped it. I have some hope in the state attorney general mostly because it’s an elected position and she’s new.
My position is I’m tough on white collar crime. I don’t know why the state attorney general in Massachusetts has to bring down the Sackler opiate cartel all by herself, given that they were certainly operating across state lines. I would like to know where law enforcement is, and why all of this seems to be falling to STATE government and Jeff Bezos’ private investigator.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: They had no problem shutting down Arthur Anderson after Enron, but I suspect that is because a whole lot of wealthy people lost a bunch of money investing in that Ponzi scheme than it was concern for lowly secretaries and mail room clerks.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
There may have been brief periods in the history of the world when it was otherwise, but hasn’t that more or less always been the natural order of things?
Patricia Kayden
I feel just like that 93 year old vet. I must be alive when Mueller’s report drops and when Trump is taken down and drags the entire GOP down with him. I hate the Orange Bigot occupying the White House on a personal level. His ouster from the White House cannot come quickly enough.
satby
@rikyrah: Sounds like one of the kitty blegs resulted in a new home for one last night, so it is a good morning. Hope some of the feelers on the outdoor kitties work out too.
And a few indictments for perjury would be very nice today.
Kay
Was Enron the last big white collar bust?
Don’t tell me Bernie Madoff. Bernie Madoff was a fucking Ponzi scheme and in the realm of such things he was easy to hammer. That was basically a family crime operation. There were like ten of them.
I could stand it if this were a country that was hugely generous to “blue collar” criminals but we’re not. We have absolutely draconian criminal laws and they are draconian all the way down to shoplifting. We have debtors prisons. The ACLU (a privately funded law firm) shuts them down in one state and they pop up in another. They shut down Ohio’s and then Georgia started imprisoning people for what are called in the trade “jail fees”. We are merciless to ordinary criminals and incredibly generous to wealthy and powerful criminals, to the point where they now feel comfortable threatening a media mogul.
Kamala Harris should run on putting criminals in prison. A national white collar crime crackdown, complete with staffing up investigators and prosecutors. Just the announcement would act as a deterrent.
Immanentize
@Kay:
I’m not sure that office was pro-Trump as much as anti-Hillary. Some of both, perhaps. But I don’t think they are wholly in the bag for Trump now. The problem is that every indictment in this whole mess needs Washington DOJ approval. We won’t know for a decade about that aspect.
Immanentize
@raven: First good laugh of the day. Thank you, sir.
Kay
I hope Bezo’s private investigator figures out what this was about, but of course only in the course of investigating whatever happened to his client. Fingers crossed! Bezos can write a blog post telling us about it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
And an incitement for high dollar contributions to shady PACs and GOP congresscritters. Not sure about trump, they may figure he’s going down no matter what..
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
IIRC, Arthur Anderson’s conviction was actually overturned by the Supreme Court, but it was too late to save the firm.
White collar and corporate crime is hard to prosecute for a variety of reasons, and can result in Congressional Republicans threatening to cut budgets.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
Feel better, BC??
rikyrah
@satby:
Yeah…for the kitty ?bleg…hope that the other one works out too
Baud
So why didn’t you report it when it happened? Isn’t that what reporters do?
Immanentize
@Kay: There is already speculation that Bezos’ emails etc. were hacked by a government actor, namely the House of Saud in retaliation for the WaPo’s Khashoggi reporting…. So freaking complex.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Yep, Bezo’s paid for his own investigation, and you’re right, that can’t be the standard, that the bad guys are punished only when they are dumb enough to fuck with the wrong person.
I couldn’t agree more on the need for a white collar crime crackdown. No better setup for it than this herd of corrupt swine openly dining on the US Treasury.
We also need legislation that ensures tools of corruption like bribery are actually crimes. Former VA Gov. McDonnell skated because it turns out grotesquely inappropriate “gifts,” etc., aren’t actually illegal. That needs to change.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
The major reason being $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$, and it is the father to all the other reasons..
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker:
Although again, it would require a constitutional amendment, an Attorney General directly elected rather than appointed by the President would be one possible structural fix.
ETA. Or you could locate the prosecuting authority in the judiciary like in most Western countries.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I suspect high profile investigative reporters get threats on a not too infrequent basis. Kind of comes with the territory. He obviously (as I read him anyway) didn’t take the threat seriously.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Threats from a national publication? That seems more newsworthy than some crackpot nobody sending an email.
JPL
@Immanentize: I wonder if trump or his immediate family knew. Better call Jared to find out.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Bob Menendez thanks the justices for their ruling.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Agreed. I actually don’t think a lot of thought goes into defining white collar crimes. Congress needs to do a better job of that.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: @Betty Cracker: When I was in HS our neighbor, a life long Republican, was appointed USA for the Eastern District of MO by Nixon. I have specific memory of his saying that his office would bring a new focus on white collar crime. I don’t remember how successful he was at it, but once upon a time GOP and DEM recognized the problem.
We’ve come a long way baby.
Kay
We were right about Kavanaugh overturning Roe and everyone who minimized the threat was wrong.
Make no mistake- they’ll be seating tribunals to determine if medical intervention in miscarriage treatment is justified. Women think this is limited to women seeking abortions, but what part of “life begins at conception” do you not understand?
There’s no wiggle room in that belief. They can intervene between you and your doctor from the moment you get pregnant to the moment you deliver, and they will, because the terms of their belief makes it mandatory for them to do so. At conception.
Immanentize
@JPL: Josh Marshall has twice written that former prosecutors say this might not technically be criminal blackmail. I’ve been scratching my head over that —
Close as I can figure, it is because they did not acquire the blackmail material themselves but we’re just working a story? But certainly if, as Kay suggests, they were in on its illegal collection, oops! Wire crimes, fraud, RICO etc.!
OzarkHillbilly
Guns v grief: inside America’s deadliest cultural chasm
A long read if any one is interested. I’m not up to it this AM, I fear it might be too depressing.
Baud
@Kay:
Fixed
OzarkHillbilly
RIP.
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: I’m not a lawyer, but I do understand the need to give media outlets latitude to protect the press. That said, I don’t understand how AMI’s thuggish threats can possibly be legal, regardless of the source of the material. I didn’t understand how McDonnell’s open corruption (or Menendez’s, for that matter) can be legal either.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Investigating powerful people is bound to result in threats. (they don’t spend a lot of time investigating dumb fuck carpenters who didn’t use the required # of screws per sheet when hanging drywall) The question is, are they credible threats or just bloviating? In the initial stages it can be hard to tell, and if there is no follow up what’s to report? “They said they were gonna get me.”?
Shit, that’s happened to me more times than I can count and I’m just a guy minding his own business.
debbie
OMFG, I just heard this on NPR: “Trump has had a hard-on for Bezos for years.”
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
There’s some tough stuff going around this year. My boss was sick for a week with a stomach bug, and just as she was getting better, her two-year-old came down with it. Hydrate as much as possible!
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: The medical term is “spontaneous abortion”. one could call them “acts of God.”
debbie
@Immanentize:
Excuse me, sir. You mean complexifying.
Baud
@debbie:
That Cokie Roberts is so crazy.
Kay
@Baud:
This is horrible to say about my fellow women, but I think there’s this general feeling that only “bad” women will be impacted by this. It’s like they’re not hearing the words, or looking at the state statutes. At conception. Two week fetus is EXACTLY the same as you and I. They mean that. So take the whole period between conception and birth and apply whatever the new rules on “abortion” are. Take “wanted” out of it. Obviously they don’t care about “wanted” since the basic premise is they force everyone to carry to term. “Wanted” pregnancy is not excepted.
There are tens of thousands of medical interventions in miscarriage every year, because there’s a risk of infection and death if it isn’t perfectly and naturally complete. Medical lit makes no distinction between “wanted” and “unwanted”- people just inserted that as if it matters to these people. We already know it doesn’t matter. That’s the whole point.
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly: Well, Trump, possibly THE most corrupt piece of shit to ever hold public office, ran on “drain the swamp.” Maybe your local GOP guy was a straight shooter, but I’ve seen plenty of Republicans pretend to care about corruption. But I can’t recall a single case where they were actually serious about it rather than using the specter of government corruption to undermine faith in government altogether. And then, once in office, they mainlined public revenue themselves. I’m sure there are exceptions, but that’s definitely a pattern among Republicans.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
Prosecuting blackmail requires the victim to press charges. They tend to be reluctant.
A google search suggests white collar crime, even in the hundreds of millions of dollars, does get prosecute at a fair rate, but is not deemed newsworthy – perhaps because nobody has heard of 99% of these people.
@Baud:
See previous about people not wanting to report blackmail.
debbie
@Baud:
LOL, no, it wasn’t her. I was busy making coffee, but I believe it was Uri Berliner.
NotMax
@Baud
Noticeably odd way of putting it, Mr. F., as it leaves hanging in the open the implication you are not averse to cutting deals, that it’s a matter of timing. Do you cut deals with the subjects after the reporting has ceased? Cut deals ensuring preliminaries to reporting are stillborn?
Betty Cracker
@debbie: Ha, you noticed that too. :)
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker:
Nor can I
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck: Except he just reported it.
@NotMax:
It’s a weird tweet.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker: If the Bezos/AMI story doesn’t make you upchuck again, you’re on your way to healing.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker:
“Drain the Swamp” never ever meant more than getting Democrats out of the federal government. It was our fault for pretending that it meant something about corruption and influence
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: Can you define “fair rate”? Because anecdotally, it sure seems like people walking around with giant flashing WHITE COLLAR CRIMINAL signs on their foreheads operated completely unmolested for decades until they became by-catch in the Mueller investigation. No one ever thought to take a look at Manafort, Gates, Cohen, etc., until their boss was dumb enough to run for president and get elected.
Immanentize
@NotMax:
I think this administration is ruining all our capacity to give people the benefit of the doubt in a 280 character blurb
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: This was back in the early 70s, when it was still ok to be against racism in the GOP (the Southern Strategy had yet to take over), pre Reagan when there was a place for conservatives who actually believed in governance. My point being only that it was a different GOP.
It wasn’t all that long ago when the GOP finally decided they would no longer tolerate people who did not toe the “voter fraud” line.
Like I said, we’ve come a long ways. Or fallen.
NotMax
@Baud
Yup. He’s a weird dude, always been a whiff of a too carefully cultivated persona about him.
Kay
My general Trump blackmail theory was not that he was threatening people with revealing crimes, but that he was threatening them with revealing embarrassing information on them and they were egotistic enough to think that was the end of the world and justification for selling out their fellow citizens. Their “brand” is THAT important.
I think for a blackmailer like Trump this is poor practice, because he would have been assured of their capitulation if he were threatening to reveal crimes. At the end of the day Bezos doesn’t really give a shit if you disapprove of his personal life and he’s right- I don’t know him. I don’t care if he cheats on his wife, just like I don’t care if Mika gets a facelift.
But it is kind of funny that the Trump Team are so completely outside the law that they don’t threaten with revealing crimes- they threaten with bullshit celebrity gossip. What they COUNT on is that the people they threaten are as egotistical and self-centered as they are. Like “their careers” are the most important thing. Bezos says it in the story he wrote. Threatened their livelyhoods. Not their lives.
You can bet on one thing with these people- they will be petty and they will be vain and shallow. There’s no grand beliefs behind any of this. It’s not Iran Contra or Watergate. They don’t believe in anything. It’s petty and shallow and vain people who happened to stumble into an arena and power that make their petty and shallow motivations profound for billions of ordinary people. Other than that it’s just celebrity infighting.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: I always just felt the fandom (for lack of better terms) surrounding him was a wee bit overblown.
rikyrah
@Kay:
You are absolutely on point, Kay.
???
NotMax
@Immanentize
Dunno about that; when it comes to anyone whose position is ostensibly reliant on communicating with accuracy, is it not better justified?
rikyrah
@Kay:
When I read the ruling last night, one of my first thoughts was about little Susie Collins
We really gotta find someone to run against that phony piece of garbage ?
NotMax
Hat trick o’ hits coming up on TCM , beginning in a few minutes: Ninotchka, Tom Jones, The Great Dictator.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
RIP??
OzarkHillbilly
If anyone is in need for some cute silliness to brighten their morn, this should do the trick: Paws for a cause: New York pet fashion show – in pictures .
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
Because the people blackmailing him are suddenly in a lot of trouble.
The FBI web page says 352 so far this year? Even if I misread and that’s the total last year, it’s still far more than you would think watching the news.
The Midnight Lurker
@OzarkHillbilly:
Thanks for the first chuckle of the morning. First commenter too. You rock!
Kirk Spencer
@Kay: As a data point,
ourmy wife’s first pregnancy miscarried at about the second month point but it did not evacuate. She had to get a D&C. And we had to deal with the anti-abortion crowd. “It’s already dead” had zero impact.Immanentize
@NotMax: Well you aren’t saying he’s not accurate — you want him to explain other things to satisfy your curiosity. But those things were not the topic of his sentence. It seems you want something more from his tweet than accuracy — something like complete revelation.
I agree he is an odd bird. Which is probably a good thing in his position. But I don’t think he’s corrupt.
But her emails!!!
@Kay:
If people actually read the roe vs Wade decision, they probably wouldn’t want it overturned either. People seem to think it says abortion is legal. What it actually says is that the government needs to keep its nose out of people’s reproductive choices. Overturning Roe not only protects abortion rights, it conversely protects against the government forcing abortions.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I don’t know- maybe she made the same calculation the rest of them made. She’d drive up turnout on the far Right and hope that works. It works as often as it doesn’t.
The plus side is we no longer have to pretend she makes actual “decisions”.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: Do you know if former Ambassador Susan Rice has said anything more about moving back home to run against Collins? Haven’t seen anything in the news about that since the Kavanaugh hearings — Rice expressed interest then. A Good Susan vs Evil Susan race would be fascinating!
Immanentize
@But her emails!!!: and it was a 7/2 decision. Ah the good old days.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: That was cute! I purchased little Nona a tee shirt that says big sister. The only reason I did is that my son dropped her off and said next time you come home you’ll have a baby brother. Because I’m a good mom, I didn’t say wtf are you talking about. All Nona will understand is there is something crying that requires my masters to ignore me. blech.
NotMax
Not everyone’s cup of beverage of choice – not sure it was mine either but am pleased I watched it yesterday, albeit not in one continuous sitting – Chinese Take-away on Amazon Prime. Argentine film. Spanish with English subtitles and Mandarin with no subtitles (on purpose).
From Roger Ebert’s review:
No link to the trailer as, IMHO, it unnecessarily has spoilers.
The Midnight Lurker
@debbie:
Trump hates anybody who can do the thing he can’t – make lots of money.
Acting AG Whittaker’s testimony on the hill is today. I can’t wait!
JPL
@Betty Cracker: I hope she decides to run.
Betty Cracker
@Kirk Spencer: Sorry for your loss — and that the pain was compounded by having to walk that gauntlet of ghouls.
Gin & Tonic
Dragging butt here, as I got home really, *really* late from a super-exciting Celtics-Lakers game, which was won by LA by one point with zero time on the clock, on a shot by Rajon Rondo, who’d been a Celtic for years but is now a Laker. What I didn’t know last night was that the Celtics and Lakers had met 200 times before, and the record was 100-100. Very exciting game, with the Lakers coming off one of their worst losses in years and the Celtics having won 10 of their last 11 games.
Riding home on the train I got a good chance to get all caught up on the Bezos pecker story, so there’s that.
Chyron HR
@Immanentize:
How the fuck did we do that? Did I miss all the “lovely Trump, wonderful Trump, let’s all vote for Trump so he can end corruption” threads around here?
OzarkHillbilly
@Frankensteinbeck: I am more interested in the sentences handed down than the # of successful prosecutions. If that was a yearly total, that is a ridiculously low #. I have to think it must be so far for this year, but 352 as compared to what? How many prosecutions for non WC crime?
FBI page, so not necessarily successful prosecutions?
Doing a search right now at the BJS and all I have found so far is a couple reports on State and Local White Collar Crime Program: State Regulatory Agency Statutes for Selected Offenses, nothing yet specifically federal.
shrug
OzarkHillbilly
@The Midnight Lurker: I will tell my wife you said that. I suspect even you will hear her derisive snickers.
satby
@Kirk Spencer: sorry you went through that. And the reason “it’s already dead” didn’t matter was because the forced birth crowd believes that women lie to get abortions. McCain doing the finger air quotes around “health of the mother” during a debate was an example. They’re cruel, horrible people.
Kay
@Kirk Spencer:
It happens a lot. They tell you to get checked because there’s always a risk of infection.
The famous case in Ireland was exactly this situation:
Seven days they let her suffer. They killed her, slowly and agonizingly, to “save the baby”. They actually call it “abortion” in the medical lit as to intervention in miscarriage, because the term isn’t freighted with political meaning in that realm. But we’re putting that meaning in. Anti-abortion people won’t. Why would they? The whole premise of the movement is the woman’s motives don’t matter. “Good” reason, “bad” reason, completely irrelevant. At conception.
It’s perfectly reasonable that one of their leading intellectual lights wants to hang women for abortion. To him they murdered someone. Anytime after conception. I’m not clear what they have to say before women believe them.
Baud
You can’t bring an infant to a dangerous work environment. Once Roe is gone, I expect laws prohibiting women who could be pregnant from “hazardous” jobs.
Immanentize
@Chyron HR:
Whoa! Over caffeinated?
The Midnight Lurker
@Kay: You nailed it! Spot on!
There is no political ideology behind Trump’s actions, just cruelty. He lashes out blindly at anyone or anything, real or imaginary, that he perceives to be a ‘threat’. Or in some cases, just because they are weaker than him and an easy target.
Trump is just a bully. And like all bullies, once somebody pokes them in the nose, they immediately go to ‘victim’.
Hell, this is true for almost the entire Republican Party.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: When my ex and I brought our first born home the first thing we did was lay him on the floor so our 110# German Shepard could introduce himself. He sniffed B up and down, circling him repeatedly until finally he flopped down beside B, put his head down, and let out a great big sigh as tho to say, “Shit, I gotta deal with this now too, I guess.”
Immanentize
@Baud:
Can’t be pregnant and drink, either.
Waldo
@Betty Cracker: It’s just a game to most of these crooks. If you look at the risk/reward calculations, you almost can’t blame them. Other “white collar” shit that won’t end until the perps start going to prison:
Big pharma drug pushing.
Voter roll purges.
Whatever the f*ck Devin Nunes thought he was doing to discredit the Mueller investigation.
The Midnight Lurker
And did any of you jackals happen to catch Rep. Ocasio-Cortez-Cortez’s take down of campaign finance laws this week? You should. She pulled down the drapes covering the corruption machine.
And I couldn’t help but notice there wasn’t a lot of ‘You go, girl!’ from the left side of the aisle. Shortly thereafter, everybody’s new hero, Nancy Pelosi dumped on the Green New Deal, referring to it as, “…the Green Dream, or whatever they call it…”
To the Honorable Ms. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-Cortez: You go, girl!
Immanentize
Driving back from the train station, I heard NPR lead with the Bezos story and they added a comment about Ronan Farrow’s claim that AMI tried to blackmail him, too. Now I share NotMax’ and Baud’s concerns. I hope Ronan has receipts.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: I’m not sure Trump can tell the difference between a crime and something that’s just embarrassing. One Trumpian event that I can’t forget happened when Comey briefed Trump about the dossier. Comey wanted him to be aware this embarrassing information was out there. After Comey left, Trump reportedly told someone “that was a shakedown.” Everything is personal to him, outside awareness of the structure of law.
Baud
@The Midnight Lurker: That’s not dumping on it.
rikyrah
Zpac Shakur (@ChristineFox) Tweeted:
Black farmers purchased more than $100k worth of seeds at a farm trade show. The certified seeds had 0% germination ability. (They were promised 100% germination & high yields.) This was a race-based scam & they are now suing the billion dollar company in federal court.
https://t.co/SfuNk96Hi3 https://twitter.com/ChristineFox/status/1093360512518184960?s=17
Immanentize
@Baud:
But people want a fight between AOC and Pelosi! I can hear the lunchroom errupting now!
What Pelosi said yesterday:
Baud
@Immanentize:
What a witch.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: 0% germination rate? Damn, it is hard to make that happen.
Matt McIrvin
@The Midnight Lurker: I saw a lot of people dragging Pelosi on Twitter on that; apparently she’s an evil shitlib again now. Sometimes I think people are just driving themselves insane picking at fly turds.
Immanentize
@Baud: We know what that rhymes with….
Betty Cracker
@The Midnight Lurker: I did see AOC’s campaign finance bit and probably would have posted something about it yesterday if I wasn’t too busy puking. It was really good. I’m reserving judgement on Pelosi’s “Green Dream” shade. Gotta read up on the proposal to determine if it was justified.
The Midnight Lurker
@Baud: Oh, really? Please explain to this stupid old man…
Baud
@The Midnight Lurker:
No.
Joey Maloney
@The Midnight Lurker: Thanks for the reminder about AAG “Big Dick Toilet” Meatball! Cueing up C-SPAN now.
But her emails!!!
@The Midnight Lurker:
I suspect Nancy’s reported disdain for the Green New Deal (if there indeed is any given one should take anything the press says about Pelosi or Cortez with a grain of salt and anything about both with something nanoscale) relates to the fact that it probably won’t pass and even if it does it has the same weight as all the resolutions passed honoring local little league teams. Actual heavy lifting is going to be done in the committees and real progress is going to be in hard fought legislation where Nancy has to do most of the work herding cats, smacking around McConnell and spending time with Trump
OzarkHillbilly
In today’s “Unintended Consequences File”: Heathrow stockpiling rubber gloves from EU for post-Brexit searches
So much winning…
Baud
@But her emails!!!: Exactly.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Do we know where UK gets its toilet paper from?
The Midnight Lurker
@Betty Cracker: Get back to health first.
P.S. – And please, please, please make some more little foil figures. I love those. I have attempted to immolate them, but I have ape-like hands.
Immanentize
@But her emails!!!:
I can’t find the full context of her Dream quote (you know, what was the question, what was her full answer, etc.) But she also could have been talking about the Democratic Presidential candidates, like Harris, who say they are backing something when there is no there there. On one hand, I am suspicious of that — on the other, it is such a huge Overton window, I like it.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly</a<
Not in this case but sooner or late unintended consequences will be the extinction of us all.
/cheerful thought for the day
Immanentize
@The Midnight Lurker:
That seems harsh….
The joys of spell check. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.
NotMax
@The Midnight Lurker
If ever anything cried out for a video…
:)
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker:
I know that you know this, but they say like 80% of “stomach bugs” are actually food poisoning. Some of that can be bad, so stay hydrated, drink vitamin water, get better please.
OzarkHillbilly
@The Midnight Lurker:
A little lighter fluid and a match always worked for me. ;-)
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Heh, one wonders.
Immanentize
@NotMax: On another of your comments. I love Tom Jones. Great movie.
Immanentize
@Baud:
Big Roll production in Ireland
ETA. I meant “Bog Roll Production” but both work. Big Bog Rolls
KSinMA
@The Midnight Lurker: Just watched the campaign finance law video. Well done, AOC!
But her emails!!!
I mean seriously, the press pulls this shit all the time. Earlier it was that Pelosi kept Cortez off the Climate Change subcommittee. That’s in addition to all their crap about Cortez being a ditzy liar all the other Democrats hate. They have an angle they are pushing and are emphasizing anything that fits that narrative. Given other statements Pelosi made, it seems most likely that the Green New deal resolution just isn’t the most important thing on her spinning plates at the moment and she made an offhanded comment that wasn’t actually intended as any sort of dig or suggestion that climate change was unimportant.
The Midnight Lurker
Yeah… I can’t spell. Never learned phonics in school. The grandkids correct me all the time. Very embarrassing. And spel-chek isn’t really a friend.
Back to the narrative thread… Pelosi is heavily invested in the same corrupt political machine that help sweep Trump into power.
You either want to see that machine dismantled… or you don’t.
And speaking of video… Ms. Pelosi’s comments were recorded. You can see and hear them, amazingly.
And who here honestly believes Nancy is not familiar with the Green New Deal, cause I got some Trump properties I like to unload.
Skepticat
@Kay:
Two-week zygote, a tiny clump of cells.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Of course it’s still available but honestly, in real life would be in a quandary as to where to head to buy lighter fluid. Also flints, for that matter.
Baud
@The Midnight Lurker:
If AOC can’t win over Pelosi, then AOC is the failure. Good luck to her.
But her emails!!!
@The Midnight Lurker:
What’s in the Green New deal?
Immanentize
@Baud: @OzarkHillbilly:
Ok, this seems like a problem that is developing….
I love the intertubes
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Wherever you find charcoal…
Immanentize
@The Midnight Lurker:
I’m not seeing proof of this, really. Sounds very all revolution-y and stuff, but I really have no idea what you are actually talking about.
The Midnight Lurker
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/with-the-green-new-deal-democrats-present-a-radical-proposition-for-combatting-climate-change
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/08/us/politics/on-politics-green-new-deal-plan-is-unveiled.html
https://www.axios.com/green-new-deal-house-resolution-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-9bca3bd8-3932-43e8-87c9-caf2011ed533.html
Immanentize
@NotMax: In Boston, any hardware store and many convenience stores in the older neighborhoods. Guys still use their Zippos.
OzarkHillbilly
Today from The transcontinental railroad at 150 – in pictures , **Things I Didn’t Know:
** i know, i know, it’s a daily occurence
NotMax
@immanentize
Seconded and thirded. Ever see the lesser known Joseph Andrews? Peter Firth, Ann-Margret, John Gielgud, Jim Dale, Beryl Reid – and a cult of BDSM nuns. What’s not to like? A real gem from the same director as Jones..
Joey Maloney
@Skepticat: Never mind two weeks; two cells. Mandatory pad/tampon collection can’t be far behind. You may think that sounds absurd but if the last 2 years have taught us anything about this simulation, it’s that the absurdity slider is set all the way up at 11 and locked down.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Trivia: There were four commemorative spikes pounded in that day. Three will be gathered in one place once more for the 150th anniversary commemoration, the fate of the fourth has been lost to the mists of time.
Immanentize
@But her emails!!!:
Unlike many, I actually took the time yesterday to read it. It is, I think, very ambitious and a great debate shaper. Think of it not as legislation to do anything specific, rather as a framework by which future specific legislation might be judged.
Think of it as your company’s 12 year strategic plan. But in this case it would be the country’s strategic plan.
So the over-arching goal is to get to carbon neutral by 2030 which is super ambitious because planes, trucks, cars and cows are huge obstacles. But if the economy was re-booted (and batteries improved) it could be done maybe by 2040 or so? But, no doubt at the cost of huge labor displacements and real economy changes. But doable.
chopper
@Betty Cracker:
man my family got hit with the same thing two weeks back. luckily it got us one at a time.
satby
@The Midnight Lurker:
Uh, nope.
Let me guess, Bernie woulda won?
hueyplong
@NotMax: If the phrase “cult of BDSM nuns” has previously appeared in the morning open thread, I missed it.
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize and other kind commenters: I feel much better today, thanks! I suspect it was a mild case of e coli, probably from a damned salad I ate the day before yesterday. I’ll stick to Slim Jims and Pringles from here on out. :)
Kay
@Baud:
I don’t think people get the scope of this. Take everything that applies to “child” and replace “child” with “child at conception“.
This belief system starts with a definition and that’s the definition of “child”. It’s not like they hide it. “It’s not a choice it’s a child”. They propose state law that says that. They already wrote the code.
chopper
@Immanentize:
yeah you got to literally microwave the fuckers to get it that low.
Kay
Kick that back +/- 9 months and think about what happens when they do.
Joey Maloney
@Kay: Yes. We already have states charging child abuse for drug usage during pregnancy, and murder if an assault on a pregnant woman causes a miscarriage. ISTR at least one ambitious DA tried to charge a woman with murder for self-aborting.
Immanentize
@chopper: Would anyone/company really be so horrible as to irradiate the seeds sold to black farmers?
Let’s ask Bob Marley:
The Midnight Lurker
@satby: Awww… no fair! Low blows.
https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/pacs?cid=N00007360&cycle=CAREER&type=I
And for the record… I worked hard on Hillary’s campaign. But I like some of Bernie’s ideas.
Unfortunately, Bernie has some things to answer for.
Wapiti
@Joey Maloney:
Only for poor women on public assistance.
(At first).
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker:
The breakfast of champions!
Immanentize
@NotMax: I have not seen that movie. But I love the book, and I love Fielding generally. Your description makes it a must-see!
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: My suspicion is they found a warehouse full of 17 yr old seeds and decided it needn’t be a total loss.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Now severely dated joke.
Customer, perusing menu: What’s the “California breakfast?”
Waitress: A glass of fresh orange juice and a cigarette.
Joey Maloney
The hearing with Whitaker has started, and Nadler is going right for the, ahem, nads.
Chris Johnson
@Kay:
Yes. Or at least, that is our hope. Otherwise, not even other billionaires can do that.
Obviously this is not good but this is clearly how it is.
But her emails!!!
@Immanentize:
Thanks for the summary. I haven’t had the chance to read it, but Markey is my junior senator so I have tried to at least get a feel for the basic contents. I agree that it is a fantastic framework, and it’s good to get both the scope of the problem, the magnitude of what is needed to address it and the vision of doing so out their in a piece of legislation. I just think that Pelosi’s comment is being blown out of proportion by the media and a certain contingent of Cortez supporters.
Sab
@Kay: I am so late to this thread that you will never see this, but yeah.
I have two nieces who are otherwise lovely people but they are rabid right-to-lifers. One of them is prone to miscarriages. She has already had two. While she fights for the life of fetuses she hasn’t even thought about the life of the mothers. She has no idea that is her own life that might be at stake.
schrodingers_cat
I@Kay: Looks like you were right on the money about T and blackmail. No we have proof.
The Midnight Lurker
This is awfully long 10 minute break.
They’ll come back just in time to break for lunch.
Kirk Spencer
@Betty Cracker:
@satby:
@Kay:
Posting in an old thread to close the loop. Sorry, folks, I should have added the fact this was almost 30 years ago. Doesn’t change your points (and I do appreciate the sympathy) but it does change the focus a bit.