I don’t give a shit about what they say he’s still a fucking crook and guilty.
Back to the reason for this post- last night I woke up twice from a dream that had me so angry it… well, woke me up. I was having an argument with random people that yes, there was a song that had the lyrics “It’s not in the way you look or the things that you say that you’ll do” and yes it was a big hit when I was a kid. I remember being forced to sing it to prove there was such a song. I had to sing it for multiple people and they all just argued with me.
Then I woke up. I eventually went back to sleep, and then I proceeded to argue with people that no, god damnit, Hold the Line was not sung by Foreigner, it was Toto. Yes, the same god damned Toto that sang Rosanna. It pissed me off so much I woke up again.
At any rate, here is the god damned song:
EVERYTHING IS FINE IN MY HEAD THERE ARE NO PROBLEMS OR PSYCHOSIS. This always happens when I eat too many jalapenos.
Frankensteinbeck
At the moment all we know about the Mueller report is a description by a pathological liar. A vague description, no less.
Humdog
In my dream my dear departed Boxer dog Lexi rose as a zombie and was trying to kill me by chasing me into traffic. I couldn’t hurt her, so I had to get hit by a truck. Woke up before impact and decided no more sleep for me! No song fights tho.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Frankensteinbeck: And speaking about what he just said
My thoughts on the Barr letter
Sounds like Barr just railroaded his wise and sage opinion threw to save the country from truther angst, didn’t bother to read the Mueller report. So a repeat of Comey.
I think a lot of the people here have the established narrative wrong; everyone right and left thinks Trump’s guilty, it’s the PWon the Libertards conservatives who think that’s great. Trump needed that report to say “This what the collusion was, who did it, and, oddly, turns out Trump wasn’t actively involved”, not “no collusion, shut up, that’s why”. If anything that letter just reinforces the narrative that Trump is guilty as all hell.
I predict Trump will fire Barr this summer because the fix will not work.
Alien Radio
Shouldn’t this also be tagged “old man yells at clouds”?
Timurid
Barr’s letter makes me think that he’s confident that the full report will stay hidden indefinitely…
Frankensteinbeck
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I have never heard of any group who step on their dicks more often and enthusiastically than the Trump administration. The administration also leaks like a sieve. This is only getting started.
JPL
On an earlier post I was optimistic about today being a good day, well fuck that. Today sucks! I just read the news about Jeremy Richman, the father of one the little girls killed at Sandy Hook committed suicide. Oh I’m so sad and angry at the same time about our gun laws. .
Gravenstone
@Humdog: She was just trying to make you zombie too, so you could join her in the afterlife.
/always look on the bright side of life…
JCJ
Last night I woke up from dream regarding one of our cats. I dreamt he got sucked into a narrow tube. I went in to try to help him but started to have a panic attack from claustrophobia. (Yes, I have had a panic attack from claustrophobia before). Fortunately I was able to confirm the well-being of both kitties and go back to sleep.
Nicole
Listen, no judgment. The better half and I had a disagreement last night about which REM album “Man on the Moon” was on and we were both wide awake. And had guests over at the time.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
I just came here to post that — and his suicide is on the heels of two Parkland survivors taking their own lives in just the last few days. This all compounds the heartbreak to a nearly unmanageable degree.
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: Three more deaths in a week because of school violence. It’s horrifying.
SenyorDave
Am I the only one who really liked the song “Hold the Line”? I was shocked to find that it was a 70’s song, I was sure it was early 80’s.
The Dangerman
You’re in the South now, right? Don’t go for the Cajun food or you’ll roux the day.
Death Panel Truck
That song came out when I was a sophomore in high school. I hated it then, and I hate it now. I couldn’t stand any of that slick, soulless, lifeless corporate rock.
SenyorDave
@JPL: Three more deaths in a week because of school violence. It’s horrifying.
And Dana Loesch, who must have been sent here by Satan, is slamming Parkland survivors. To cal her a ghoul truly is an insult to ghouls.
DonnaK
Nothing makes my day more than a vintage foul-mouthed, dyspeptic Cole post. Thank you!
ruemara
I don’t really dream. I haven’t in a long time. I tend to have nightmares (duh) or dream stories if I do dream. I’ve had two dreams I wish I could have again: flying on my eagles through floating lands & meeting this person who I immediately connected with in a deep way at a house near the ocean. One time I did dream an argument with my housemate before he was my housemate and I called him up after I woke up and told him to mind his business and not argue with me in my dreams.
Rommie
“I don’t give a shit about what they say she’s still a fucking crook and guilty.”
de utrimque verba
22 months of the head troll trolling about pwning liberals – UGH. I feel like we’re all in an ipecac drinking contest.
pat
How much money would I have to send b-j for them to get rid of the annoying obnoxious self-playing videos that I have to hit pause on every time I come here.
Serious, how much??
Patrick Thompson
I bless the rains down in Africa.
ShadeTail
Random Toto trivia:
Wheezer recently did a cover of Africa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4c7EE8_IX0
Toto thought it was pretty awesome and returned the favor with a cover of Hash Pipe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N9OM1nxdYc
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: A description by a pathological liar who is such a great pal of Mueller’s that the latter attended the former’s children’s weddings. Look, I get the reluctance to let go of the hope that the Mueller report will at least damage Trump politically. Truly, I do. But if there’s one clear takeaway from this shit-show, it’s that there are no patriotic Republicans associated with this investigation. Period.
That includes Rosenstein, and that includes Mueller who is, after all, a retired public servant again as of last Friday. If he objected to his very good friend’s characterization of his report and the congealing media narrative that it completely exonerates Trump, he’s free to say so as a private citizen.
That he’s not saying so tells me that either he and Rosenstein willingly played “heels” to Trump’s “face” for the last couple of years while compiling a report for show, or they decided at some point along the way that they would ultimately punt instead of upholding the rule of law, thus throwing in their lot with President Crazypants to protect their party and the status quo. Either of those courses of action are deeply in character for people affiliated with that party.
WaterGirl
@pat: It’s not just once in each thread, either. Every single time you comment, the page refreshes and you have to hit fucking pause again. It’s making me crazy, too. I wrote to Cole about it weeks ago and I never got a reply. Adam said over the weekend that he understood that was going to be taken care of, but it’s still here. For me, there are two autoplay video ads. And one of them even jumps around when I try to hit pause.
It’s hard to have this constant annoyance here on BJ when everything else is so hard. It won’t be forever though – this sort of issue will not happen after the site rebuild. Thank god (or dog) for that.
Roger Moore
@Timurid:
I’m not convinced. He may hope that it will stay hidden, but consider his options. If he turns over the complete report, he loses any hope of controlling the narrative and whatever damaging information is in the report will come out. If he gives just his summary, that summary dominates the media narrative until either the furor dies down or the real report comes out.
If he manages to keep the report from getting out- as improbable as that seems- he wins. If he manages to delay the report coming out for long enough, he can hope that the narrative from his summary will take hold and at least confuse people when contradictory information from the full report is available. The only way this really fails for him is if the full report leaks quickly, so people are comparing his version and the real version at about the same time. Even then, it’s mostly Trump who is hurt, not Barr himself.
swiftfox
You missed “skyrockets in flight” by 6 years. Shouldn’t say anything, they’re local heroes in these parts.
pat
@WaterGirl:
It’s not just that they come up every single time, it is that they are SO STUPID. I would never watch that dreck.
PLEASE, just get rid of them!!
Fair Economist
Barr’s summary is factual nonsense even from what we already know. Trump’s campaign manager met secretly with Russian spies to exchange info about the campaign. That’s collusion, full stop.
dlw32
I had a dream about the Maroon 5 song, “Moves like Jagger” once. I was making a music video (I’m old I remember those) but our version was “Moves like Shatner” and was sung by the Great Shat himself. The video had Shatner and the gopher from Caddyshack doing the “fists-in-tight, wiggle a little” dance the gopher did in the movie…
Terrifying…
Juju
It might be a good thing to cut back on the jalapeños.
Juju
Also, thanks so much for the ear worm.
VOR
@Fair Economist: I suspect Barr is relying on the fact that the oligarch Manafort was working for was not technically an official of the Russian government. And the people who met with Trump jr. were also not technically current government officials. It is a fig leaf, everyone knows it is, but I bet there is a hyper-fine parsing of things being done by Barr.
Wayne Marks
@Death Panel Truck: With you on that. Just the mention starts constantly running it through my head.
ruemara
@VOR: His lawyer buddy is there to provide all the mental wrangling required to pretend that something is ok.
NotoriousJRT
@JPL:
Yes. This news is devastating.
WhatsMyNym
@pat: What ads?? I use NoScript.
Just get one of the recommended ad blockers that are easy to use (NoScript requires some learning).
Then make donations.
NotoriousJRT
@SenyorDave:
I guess Dana Loesch sent herself here, then?
cynthia ackerman
@Juju:
See, this is why I hid his mustard.
LongHairedWeirdo
I do understand the need to be factually correct about music and how annoying it can be. I spent years searching for a particular song by Wuf Ticket, Ya Mama – do you have *ANY* idea how it is to search for a song called “ya mama” when
1) you grew up in Philly, so it must be *YO* mama, and
2) you don’t know the artist (“Wuf Ticket. Yeah, that was my *next* guess.”)
I’ve had other quests. I remembered this song that was out in the early 70s that had this wonderful string of nonsense to it. Since most songs were stupid about (ugh!) girls and other stupid stuff (why not more like “What’s New Pussycat?” Because pre-schoolers don’t drive radio ad revenue? Okay, that actually *does* make sense).
Then Kid Rock *really* screwed me up by recording a song that’s obviously based on his own memories of that song. It was the Doo Wop version of Blue Moon, and starts with something akin to “bawbedebawba_dangadangdang_adingadongdingBlue moon” (Kid Rock’s song is titled Bawitdaba – and I’ve heard some controversy over whether it was original or not. I don’t know, I don’t care, he just annoyed the blazes out of me when I was searching.)
Nevertheless: the real reason for the comment was how wonderfully the first and last lines of the post came together – how one could pretend that the first line was revealing knowledge we all knew, and the last was *denying* knowledge we all had. Honestly, it’s no pretense – jalapeno induced psychosis *IS* a thing. Well, it is now. Well… okay, yes, I’m just trying to make you feel better, but the real point is, psychosis by way of excessive jalapenos is a temporary condition, and Trump will be a lying, thieving, grifting threat to national security long after antacid (and possibly, a numbing suppository – young folks, laugh if you want, just remember, when it happens to you, how cruelly you laughed, okay?) have provided a cure.
sukabi
@Timurid: only if there was only one copy and Barr burned it upon receiving.
But we know that’s not likely true. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if there are several copies of Mueller’s report stashed for safe keeping, with at least one of those copies readied to leak if need be.
As for Barr, his family seems to have benefitted from his confirmation as AG…
What conflict? Barr’s son in law is now a legal advisor to president.
Brachiator
I think I’ve made the same mistake a few times.
Also, I had a little trouble sleeping last night, even though I avoided all the news about Mueller, etc.
raven
@Nicole: Automatic for the People is the “slogan” for Weaver D’s Soul Food in Athens. I saw weaver in Aldi just the other day.
Gravenstone
@The Dangerman: Are you auditioning for the NotMax role?
WaterGirl
@pat: Cole has more than a lot going on, and I’m just not sure how to get his attention at this point. Once Cole gets back and his parents are settled in back home and his world quits blowing up, I’m confident that things will settle down and he will focus on the blog again.
Until then, maybe this is where we are.
low-tech cyclist
I never got “Hold the line, love isn’t always on time.”
Doesn’t that mean love is sometimes too late? So what are you holding the line for?
ETA: “Rosanna” always makes me think of the SNL character Roseanne Roseannadanna.
And can anyone tell the difference between Toto’s “Africa” and Weezer’s cover of “Africa”?
Alien Radio
@VOR:
I think it’s a combination of that, and hoping to wind up distant enough from it that he can claim that he parsed the report to placate the president, and prevent him doing something stupid/allow the slow gears to grind on, knowing the whole thing would come out anyway in drips and dribbles. It’s BS of course but all he needs is distance, and hey it might work (it won’t work).
WaterGirl
@WhatsMyNym: The autoplay ads are showing up IN SPITE OF having an adblocker installed — an ad blocker that used to block the fucking autoplay video ads. It’s like encryption and security — you’re protected for awhile until the hackers catch up with the new technology, and then you’re good again for awhile when the next round of protection works for awhile.
BellyCat
@pat: not just irritating, they are consuming mega amounts of data on my phone plan if I’m not hooked up to Wi-Fi.
Grumpy Old Railroader
Jalapenos?
Are you sure you did not ingest some mushrooms?
Doug R
I generally don’t have many dreams these days because one or other of my cats will either scratch at the door or jump on the bed and/or me and do the full weight kneed and meow to be fed.
Leto
@pat: I finally had to install an ad blocker on my iPhone. It just got to be too much. I understand why we have to have ads but man have they become more obnoxious and battery sucking.
cmorenc
@john cole:
At least you weren’t naked and wearing pants made of pudding while arguing with people in your dream.
Mike in NC
Having worked off and on in DC for 20 years, I can state that the FBI and CIA and related organizations are overwhelmingly dominated by conservative white males. Always have been and probably always will be. Don’t for a minute believe the nonsense you see on TV and in the movies about them being a big tent with plenty of diversity.
sukabi
@low-tech cyclist: could be that way back in the olden days, when telephones were all wired up, when a call came in and the person wasn’t right there you’d say “Hold the line” while the call recipient was called to the phone.
“Hold the line” was a common way of saying “hang on, I’ll get him”
Gin & Tonic
@pat: All of it.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker:
Did Mueller retire last Friday? I missed that.
His office still has active prosecutions (like Stone and his aide)
Wapiti
@Fair Economist: But see, the Russian spies weren’t carrying Russian Government Agent IDs at the meeting. So checkmate, libtard.
Kay
Guffaw. Best analysis so far.
sukabi
@Grumpy Old Railroader: jalapenos roasted with cannabis oil.
rikyrah
If this is the worst your dreams get Cole….you are lucky.
Mandalay
@pat: @WaterGirl:
You can configure most browsers to prevent autoplay. Just do an internet search for “disable autoplay” plus the name of your browser for instructions.
Here are some fairly recent instructions for Chrome and Firefox.
James E Powell
Rosanna is legendary for the drum part. Porcaro, RIP, was special.
MomSense
@dlw32:
That song, besides being bad and an ear worm, always makes me laugh because of how Jagger moves. Many years ago there was a skit on Whose Line where they had a list of ways that the actors had to do the skit. Colin Mockrey was playing some part when they called out chicken so he started moving like a chicken, then they called out velociraptor and it was very similar, and then they called out Jagger and it was exactly the same movement. When he realized he was about to move the same way he made a sort of aah ha face and the audience just burst out laughing – as did I at home. Now all I can picture is Mick as a rooster / raptor even when I hear that song.
Ohio Mom
Eh, I have vivid and awful dreams all time time, just about every night. If I dwell on them as I wake up, I remember them, so I try not to think of them and then they disappear by the time I am standing up.
I am convinced this is a side effect of my RA medicine — this side effect is listed on the internet and I did not consistently dream like this before I started taking the stuff.
Salty Sam
@Juju:
My wife sent me this one, it became an instant earworm for me- and a good one. Been humming it for two days now.
“I’ve No More Fucks To Give”
https://youtu.be/Vqbk9cDX0l0
Bonus! It fits with all recent Trump/Russia/Atty Gen. news!
Mandalay
How the mighty have fallen!…
Michael Avenatti charged with trying to extort more than $20 million from Nike
raven
Paul Butterfield – In My Own Dream
Jamie
@Fair Economist: Yeah, this is what gets me. I understand that Barr’s summary is using very specific definitions of “collusion,” but even so, how do you have the candidate’s campaign manager deliver 75 pages of internal campaign polling data to a Russian oligarch on the one hand and “nope, no collusion here!” on the other?
raven
Dreams, Allmans
Just one more mornin’
I had to wake up with the blues
rikyrah
UH HUH
Where are the ‘Kamala is a cop’ crowd?
joel hanes
@pat:
get rid of the annoying obnoxious self-playing videos
Use firefox.
Then enter about:config in the address bar
Enter autoplay in the search bar
Double-click the values of these two configuration constants to change the values :
change
media.autoplay.default to 1 to disable video autoplay for all sites
media.autoplay.allow-muted to false to disable video autoplay even for muted videos
Restart firefox to make them effective.
https://major.io/2018/12/18/disable-autoplay-for-videos-in-firefox-65/
Then don’t forget to hit the paypal button to donate so that Cole can continue to blogfather.
Steeplejack
@Rommie:
Here you go.
WaterGirl
@Mandalay: Hallelujiah! It worked.
In Safari 12.x: Preferences -> Websites -> Auto-Play
I changed the default for everything to “Never AutoPlay”, and it automatically changed it even for all the existing websites in the list. Yippee!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
Ocotillo
When Barr was nominated and it came out that he had written the memo about Obstruction and the Mueller investigation I knew the jig was up. Then I remembered he was the fixer for Iran Contra. Then I realized I didn’t even half to think about those things, it’s really as simple as, if Trump appointed him, he’s a crook.
pat
@WhatsMyNym:
I’m using adblocker plus. Thanks for the info, I must try that.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: White folks can be cops. It’s in the rulebook.
joel hanes
@raven:
Now that’s some superior earworm.
Sincere thanks.
Should follow with “Born In Chicago”
Maybe “Drunk Again” as a chaser.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah:
I have lost track. Is “Kamala is a cop” considered a good thing for Kamala or a bad thing? Are you suggesting that there is one set of rules for Kamala and another set for everyone else, or that she is held to account differently?
raven
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band – Last hope’s gone. with Elvin Bishop and David Sanborn
WhatsMyNym
@joel hanes: I don’t even get those ads on Firefox with NoScript turned off, just static ads.
sukabi
@Mandalay: desperation dumbassery. If Nike is involved in a college athletic scandal, which wouldn’t surprise me at all, a Michael Cohen style shakedown against a multi-billion dollar company ain’t gonna work.
raven
@joel hanes: I’ve tired to quit but it ain’t no use. . . .Bruce!
raven
Or, for you optimists
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band – Everything Going To Be Alright
BruceFromOhio
Sounds like a comment thread on Balloon Juice.
WaterGirl
Imagine how we would be banging our collective heads against the wall if we hadn’t won the House? There would be literally almost nothing we could do about this abhorrent situation with Barr and the Mueller report.
Now, at least we have oversight. We must not lose sight of that as we either band together in support of all the real Democratic candidates for President, and for the other offices, as well, or we fracture into camps. The thought of losing the House in 2020 terrifies me. Hell, the thought of not getting all 3 branches in 2020 is terrifying, but not having even the House is the most hellish of all possibilities.
The Pod Save America website — the Obama bros — already has a Unify or Die fund where you can donate to a fund that goes to whichever Democrat gets the nomination. I think they are smart to start sounding the alarm now.
WhatsMyNym
@WhatsMyNym:
Correction: showing up now. They’re from “ora dot tv” and “connatix dot com” ,
Leto
@low-tech cyclist:
Yes, immediately. Rivers Cuomo’s voice is distinctive, which sets it apart, and the cover has more of a Weezer sound to it. I like most of that albums covers but I still prefer the originals more. Especially A-Ha’s “Take on Me”.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I never remember my dreams. I do wake up with solutions for writing problems I’ve been wrestling with, but I have no memory of how they got there.
If you’re looking for distracting reading, I blogged about tricky grammar issues: dangling modifiers, lie/lay, and I/me in compound constructions.
Immanentize
meanwhile, in the world of continuing justice:
Adam L Silverman
@Jamie: From what has been leaking, it appears that conspiracy and coordination was defined so narrowly that it excluded everything we’ve seen documentation of in open source reporting. What this means is that since they didn’t find paperwork delineating an agreement or they didn’t have SIGINT intercepts of phone calls or emails or texts stating that if Russia does X, then a potential Trump administration will do Y, there was neither conspiracy nor coordination.
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
That of course is as you noted that they step on their dicks constantly. What you failed to say was that they step on said dicks with their golf shoes/spikes on. They might just be masochistic because they seem to enjoy it. Why else would they do this constantly?
jc
Not a big Toto fan … I’ve heard “Hold the Line” a million times on the radio, but now, 30? years later, I didn’t know the song’s title and never knew before today that they were singing “hold the line” whoa whoa whoa. I thought it was something like, “on a line” or “oh the lie” … just figured it was one of those songs that you were supposed to give some slack to the meaning.
Gravenstone
@Ocotillo:
Trump wouldn’t have known William Barr from Adam. So who in Trump’s orbit floated Barr’s name to replace Sessions, and why? Well, they why is likely that 1) they expected Barr to act just as he did for HW Bush and ease the path to covering shit up and 2) whoever the source of Barr’s name was, they’re likely inextricably involved in the whole Russia business and are looking out for their own asses first and foremost. Trump is just a convenient co-beneficiary. That should narrow things a bit.
debit
@WaterGirl: At work I have a minimal setup, Ad Block Plus and Ghostery. Between the two of them I don’t see anything.
Aleta
@ShadeTail: Thanks for showing me that. Weezer does such fine things with it.
Adam L Silverman
@Gravenstone: I’ve never met the President.
BruceFromOhio
@raven: excellent road tune.
WaterGirl
@WhatsMyNym: Yep, those are the ones. I put the Safari instructions in this thread and Mandalay included a link to Chrome and Firefox instructions. I am so thrilled to have them gone; they were driving me mad.
Aleta
@Aleta: * Wheezer
Bard the Grim
@Mandalay: OMG, Thank you!!
Gravenstone
@jc:
40 years later.
Feel old yet?
WaterGirl
@debit: I, too, have Ad Block Plus and Ghostery, and that combo always worked before.
Maybe it was my move to High Sierra (mac) or possibly a later version of Safari that came along with that, or possibly a more recent version of AdBlock Plus that left that function to Safari in a more recent version — that made the f-ing ads start to show up.
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman: And there’s the reason I almost appended “(biblical version)” in my original post…
Aleta
@raven: sigh
tobie
@Gravenstone: My hunch is that Barr’s name was suggested by any one of the Federalist Society types from Rod Rosenstein to Don McGahn that have picked every judicial nominee. Who knows? Maybe Emmett Flood put his name forward. Maybe he was warmly recommended by Mueller. The fact that Barr’s and Mueller’s wives attend the same Bible Study Group in DC has always bugged me. It says everything about the cultural milieu and social circle in which these establishment Republican figures circulate.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
there are no patriotic Republicans
I think you could have stopped here. Really, if one supports current day republicans, a simple concept is that they really aren’t patriotic. They are fucking selfish beyond everything else. For that is the current day republican party. And that isn’t patriotic for what I was taught this country stands for. Which is some great idealism, that I’m thinking was never really true in the minds of a lot of the founders.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: I’m willing to give Justin Amash the benefit of the doubt, but that’s about it.
sukabi
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I blame mine on that bitch gravity.
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: Is the special counsel’s office, which Mueller came out of retirement to lead, still handling cases adjacent to the Trump-Russia investigation? If so, I apologize for the error. But I stand by my point — if Mueller’s pal Barr is misleading Americans about Mueller’s completed report in an attempt to cover up the facts, Mueller could object to that by publicly resigning if he hasn’t in fact returned to private life or going on TV to say his report is being mischaracterized by the AG. Republicans in Nixon’s era had the balls to publicly stop an attempted cover up, and Watergate was child’s play compared to this shit-show.
dww44
@Immanentize: Yes, how will those pending prosecutions/trials be handled going forward? Will they be deep-sixed by the AG?. If so, that will be incontrovertible proof that this is all a white-wash, pun intended.
rikyrah
@WaterGirl:
Bad thing, according to the woke crowd.
mrmoshpotato
@cmorenc: Were the pudding pants made of concrete custard? How did they stay on?
Ruckus
@pat:
Ad Blocker is your friend.
Now on a phone for example it isn’t as good and slows down things almost as bad as the ads – almost, nothing else is that bad. (Android phone with Opera mini browser, and Ad Block, which now shows google ads, which it didn’t a week ago and which I can deleate) But I see no ads on my desktop, Apple with Safari.
And if you are so inclined after the no ads works, chip in a few bucks every so often to JC for the cost of operation, including the rewrite.
Mnemosyne
I ended up watching a movie I avoided in the theaters and it turned out to be pretty funny: “Blockers,” with Leslie Mann, John Cena, and Ike Barinholtz. It’s dumb, obscene, and frequently gross (lots of barfing, plus a “butt-chugging” scene), but it turns out to be surprisingly sweet at the end and does make it clear that the kids are all right and the parents are overreacting.
Also, Gary Cole is full frontal naked. ? He still looks pretty good for his age, from all angles.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Seriously? You actually believe this? If so, I want some of whatever you’re smoking, cuz that’s some grade-A reality-bending shit right there, and I could use the vacation.
No matter what the details of Mueller’s report actually show, the narrative has already been set by Trump’s handpicked partisan hack Barr. The NY Times front page headline reads “Mueller Finds No Trump-Russia Conspiracy”, and the rest of the mainstream media is gleefully following suit. Even though Mueller specifically stated that, “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him” that is precisely how it is being framed — he is exonerated. That’s the story, and they’re going to stick to it.
Only the large-ish minority of left/liberal people in this country (and not even all those) will believe the actual truth about this monstrously sleazy and criminal bastard; the equally large-ish minority of fascists believe he is God’s chosen instrument, and will use the “Exonerated/Vindicated” story being loudly promulgated as further proof of that. The mushy-middle (maybe 10-15% of the electorate) who almost-brainlessly swing back and forth on politics (seriously, pick a fucking side!) will go where the mainstream media directs. And so, the sonofabitch (and most of his sonofabitch hangers-on) will skate.
I have to say that this is worse than no Special Counsel investigation/report at all, and is in fact a giant fucking setback in opposing the evil motherfucker and all his evil works. We can look for silver linings or a pony buried somewhere in this pile of shit, but that won’t avail at all. Wishing dearly for it to be otherwise doesn’t change a fucking thing.
Mandalay
@sukabi:
Avenatti is still promising to deliver on that…
It doesn’t seem at all improbable that both Nike and Avenatti are guilty of sleazy (and maybe criminal) conduct.
But nobody could have predicted that Stormy Daniels, the publicity-shy recluse, wants to kick Avenatti when he’s down:
But wait! There’s more!…
Mnemosyne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I had a scary dream the other night that I should abandon my current WIP and write the sequel instead.
The scary part was that the sequel would make no sense without this current book. I think it’s just that my brain is tired of my dithering and I need to just get on with the edits I’m avoiding.
Jamie
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah. That’s vexing. While I understand the need for a narrow legal definition, the fact that the media is now carpet bombing us with MUELLER SAYS NO COLLUSION as laid out under that narrow legal definition is, at best, going to further confuse an already complex issue. Not good.
Shana
@Nicole: Who won the argument?
John, your dream reminded me of the trailer I’ve been seeing for “Yesterday”, a movie coming out this summer I believe, about a guy who wakes up from an accident to find he’s in an alternate reality where the Beatles didn’t exist, but he knew their songs and becomes a phenomenon. Looks like a lot of fun.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
I had no idea who that was and after looking him up, stop pulling my leg, that hurts.
The lead in his website’s description.
“Justin Amash is the leading advocate for government restraint in the United States House of Representatives.”
Such a nice way of saying no government, it just holds back everything we stand for.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Betty Cracker:
My take is this the FBI version of the High Brodism the press does. Both sides are fault, not matter what. They are obsessed with protecting the image of the FBI as impartial neutral defenders of The Law(tm) and being idiots by not understanding there are no neutrals in a civil war.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
These people should go back to sleep.
Ruckus
@sukabi:
Now if there was ever a use for the word phrasing……
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: Yes, they are still handling cases. Most notably the Stone and his galaxy cases an d some of the secret pay-off cases. The one the Supreme Court just denied (suspected to be a Qatar quid pro quo case) is still being handled by the Mueller team.
That doesn’t mean Mueller has to stay on, though. That’s what I was asking — whether you saw something about his retiring (again)
Adam L Silverman
@Jamie: The issues here are what they always were: that what Mueller was charged with investigating are primarily counterintelligence matters preceding from an unconventional act of war against the US. These are not things that can be resolved in a court of law, which is why you’ve seen almost all the cases brought being brought on issues that can be resolved in a court of law like money laundering, tax fraud, other financial crimes, and lying under oath.
Moreover, there has now been some leaking and it appears that Mueller understood his assignment to gather all the evidence, weigh it, delineate it, and report all of it to Congress for them to act. Sadly, this was what Independent Counsel’s did under statute, not what Special Counsel’s do under the Special Counsel regulations.
sherparick
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: A couple things about AG Barr. First, 27 years ago, AG Barr was AG Barr for President George H. W. Bush. when on 24 December 1992, Bush pardoned the following individuals either convicted or charged as the result of the Iran-Contra affair: Caspar W. Weinberger (1988 Several counts of perjury, See Iran-Contra Affair)
Elliott Abrams (1988 Two counts of unlawfully withholding information. See Iran-Contra Affair)
Duane R. Clarridge (1991 Seven counts of perjury and false statements, See Iran-Contra Affair)
Alan D. Fiers (1991 Two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from the Congress, See Iran-Contra Affair)
Clair George
(1991 Ten counts of perjury, false statements and obstruction)
(1992 two felony charges of false statements and perjury before Congress — see Iran-Contra Affair)
Robert C. McFarlane (1988 See Iran-Contra Affair) See also https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/29/reviews/13406.html
2. In June 2018 Barr wrote an 18 page memorandum denouncing the predicates for Mueller Investigation and arguing that it was not possible for President Trump to “obstruct justice” as President by firing Comey and interfering with the investigation.
3. So the fixed was in because it is always “IOKIYAR.” Meanwhile, the Republicans and NYT can go after the real criminals HIllary and her emails.
Immanentize
@WaterGirl: @rikyrah:
“Kamala was a cop” noise was first issued by the so-called “progressives” (white Bernie bros, mostly it seemed) to smear her as insufficiently groovy the moment she entered the race. Like we don’t need good prosecutors in the country. It was a facile and, I will add, racist piece of crap from the git-go. That’s why I said about Klobuchar that white folks get to be “cops” but POC do not.
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: Nope — I was under the impression his office was shutting down and handing off cases like Stone’s that (supposedly) have no bearing on the now completed Trump-Russia report to other authorities. I did not read anything specifically about Mueller’s retirement; that was my assumption.
david
“I don’t give a shit about what they say he’s still a fucking crook and guilty.”
You forgot to hashtag it… #Basta.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: The only reason I said I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt is he’s consistent. He’s very clear about his ideological position and he doesn’t swing in the winds of politics like Rand Paul or Mike Lee who claim to have the same ideological position on the Senate side. I don’t agree with him, but I can respect his consistency. Despite being part of the House Republican caucus, he’s actually in his own one person caucus.
Brachiator
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot:
People are simple, and sometimes life is simple as well.
If Mueller was not recommending further indictments or prosecutions, that is the end of the hunt for most people. It ain’t pretty, but that’s the way it is.
For now, at least.
Jamie
@Adam L Silverman: Oof. That Independent Counsel/Special Counsel thing is a gut punch.
What you say makes total sense: most of the problem here falls outside the legal domain and has only political remedies.
Immanentize
@sherparick:
Let us not forget CIA Chief William Casey
I swear to Dog I always thought he faked his own death to avoid the Bush I Iran-Contra fall-out and like a good spymaster, moved to an island near Figi.
Betty Cracker
@Adam L Silverman: Wait, what? Does that mean Mueller misunderstood his own mandate?
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
If this is true and Mueller is actually the person that people have been saying he is then he can speak out and say so himself after he retires and all of Barr’s and Trump’s bullshit as repeated by the press can be shown to be just that, bullshit. And this is what I’m hoping will happen at the least, because this is what needs to happen. We need to know, congress needs to know, hell Nancy P may already know and is part of the reason in her stance on impeachment. And really, while Trump should be impeached and thrown out of office, that really isn’t enough. He and his political supporters should be shown for the thieves, assclowns and traitors they are.
Immanentize
@Adam L Silverman: @Jamie:
To add —
Special counsel, within the DOJ and the DOJ itself are the source of the “Can’t Indict a President” trope.
Independent Counsel (esp. Ken Starr) always believed and wrote that indicting a sitting President was just fine and dandy. Hmmm. Who’s your Daddy?
Bard the Grim
Any chance there will be a return to the regularly scheduled Friday afternoon leaks/news, to try to fight back against the reinvigorated “no collusion” narrative? Someone, please give me hope. Dogdamn, I thought my hopes for The Report were already pretty muted, but this….
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot:
Spinoza, anger and fear is an addictive drug, the MSM whole business model is based on it.
Seriously, guy, it’s been two years of “Trump the crook” you seriously think one letter is going to change anyone’s opinion?
Immanentize
@Ruckus: Former employees of the DOJ generally need approval of the DOJ to say things regarding what they did in their official capacity. Not surprising.
Nicole
@Shana: I won the argument. For all that the spouse has seen REM live and I have not (he saw the Monster tour, Radiohead was the opener), I listened to “Automatic For the People” (on cassette!) A LOT when it came out. A lot a lot.
I listened to it so much that when I bought all of the songs that were used in Captain Marvel, I did not include “Man On the Moon” because I don’t really ever need to hear it again.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
I had a rescue dog who would always try to bite you if you did something he didn’t like. That was consistent. It wasn’t good.
Holding an odious point of view consistently does not make one a good person, only consistent. And that covers a lot of republican politicians. Sure, not the ones you mention, who shift like weather vanes in a strong gust, but the reality is what I’m interested in, not the consistence.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: This is my read on that —
When the DOJ says that you cannot indict a sitting President, then investigative discovery of crimes while in office (or while trying to get into office) must be shared with Congress. In many ways that is the quid pro quo of the no-indictment concept. The DOJ will not indict a sitting president because the only constitutional method of removal is political (impeachment or 25th amendment processes). The quo for that quid is that information suggesting the President should be impeached must necessarily be turned over to Congress for them to make the political calculation with the fullest information available.
That is the basis upon which Mueller was most likely proceeding. Barr seems to not now believe in that premise, completely in conflict with his Senate confirmation testimony.
Adam L Silverman
@Jamie: It has military remedies too. We were unwilling to use them during the Bush 43 and Obama administrations. The current president is never going to even consider them. All of this will make things significantly more difficult for the next president. And it increases the likelihood that this will move out of the cyber and information domains and into the land, sea, and air domains of war. If I was a national security advisor to a Democratic candidate, one of the things I would be telling them is that they will have to be prepared, if elected president in 2020, to take kinetic action across all domains – cyber, information, land, sea, and air – against Russia as soon as they enter office. And the planning for this must be compartmented from anyone/everyone in the current administration, so there cannot be any consultation during the transition. Until Putin gets nocked on his ass and gets his nose badly bloodied, he’s going to keep going. And the same thing goes for Bibi, for Muhammad bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, for Muhammad bin Zayed in the Emirates, for Xi in China, and for Kim in the DPRK.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: From the reporting in the Daily Beast based on the information they were given, that is what it appears to me. But like everything else, we won’t know until we see Mueller’s actual report.
CliosFanBoy
Toto was pretty good, an underrated band of the era. No great music, but lots of good tunes that were fun.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: I fully expect that he’ll be called to testify before both the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees.
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: Good God!
@Adam L Silverman: FFS!
tobie
@Immanentize: Thanks for that very clear explanation of the trade-off for the non-indictment policy. I’ll use that line when discussing with both-siderists relatives.
Adam L Silverman
@Immanentize: Yep. This is why every time I’ve explained what Mueller was doing, I’ve emphasized the counterintelligence function as much, if not more, than the criminal and tried to explain that any criminal charges would look like organized and/or white collar criminal charges because Mueller wasn’t going to burn sources and methods.
Apparently this makes me a bad person.
Adam L Silverman
@Bard the Grim: Soft leaks, like the one I referenced above to The Daily Beast in comment 125 have already begun.
Sloegin
Hot take: ‘Childs Anthem’ from Toto’s debut album is their best song. (And yes, this was back in the days on an 8-track player cranked up way too loud).
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: I understand your analogy.
Jamie
@Adam L Silverman:
Ho-leee shit. Military remedies was a possibility I hadn’t even considered.
Immanentize
@Adam L Silverman: Not in my book. Enhances credibility!
J R in WV
@pat:
Download uBlock Origin, for free and tell it to block ora.com specifically and ads in general. Done. Free. At least for Firefox browser, which is also free.
sukabi
@Mandalay: the Adventures of The President The Porn Star and The Pirate
Downfall — Two Men’s Search for Ass and Cash
different-church-lady
Like there’s a practical difference?
Ruckus
@Immanentize:
All true. They should and that should be normal.
This isn’t a normal situation. It is in many ways as dire as Pearl Harbor was and maybe worse, this is an insider job. At least an insider in that the perp has a level of access that almost no one else does. And he keeps screaming “No Collusion” like that’s even a crime. It’s massive mis-direction at best.
Most of us are worried that our government will cease to exist. Or at least cease to exist in any meaningful form, that the conservatives will get everything they’ve ever wished for, have been working for since at leas the start of the 19th century. They believe that government is the entire problem and that getting rid of it, “drowning it in a bathtub,” will cure all their supposed ills. Trump is their best shot at this, primarily because he’s so fucking incompetent and so are all his friends. People may not know who he’s been all his life, they know what he wants and what he’s capable of, only destruction and theft.
WaterGirl
@J R in WV: I don’t think we should have to use a special browser in order to be functional – the would piss me off at any other website.
But the simple fix talked about on this thread takes care of the problem, at least on a computer. I will have to see if there is a similar setting for the phone.
Mandalay
@Immanentize:
Exactly right. Harris has acknowledged past mistakes as a prosecutor and AG, and is calling reform:
Meanwhile Klobuchar is keeping her right wing trap shut on her past record, and the media mostly leave her alone. But there is hope:
Adam L Silverman
@Jamie: I thought not kinetically pushing back on Putin for scarfing up Crimea and rolling into the Donbass in 2014 was the right thing to do at the time. That neither was worth risking an escalation to a nuclear exchange, which is part of Russian doctrine – the use of tactical nukes within a specific theater of operations. As if that usage could be limited and wouldn’t open the floodgates. I now think that I was wrong in 2014. That we should have selectively prosecuted specific Russian targets kinetically. Regardless, it doesn’t really matter because we didn’t do it then, we’re not doing it now, which means the next president not named Trump is going to have this mess to deal with. And it’ll be a lot harder to deal with then because we chose not to deal with it when it was easier to do so. This is, however, pretty much the US’s standard operating procedure for any and every problem.
Adam L Silverman
@Immanentize: I appreciate that.
CliosFanBoy
sometimes I think that’s true for US as well. Unless it turns into a Dolchstoßlegende, which I fear the repubs would quickly do.
Immanentize
@Ruckus: Republicans/Conservatives do not want to drown government in a bathtub at all. They want a huge, invasive government that is involved in the most intimate choices of the people. That bathtub crap was about government helping folks.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@Jamie:
Because holding out hope for Mueller was just as much a fool’s game as Fitzmas? Because the fix was in, and the fascists are continuing to gaslight the shit out of everything they do and getting away with it since the mainstream media desperately wants and needs to keep the Republican Party’s behavior (not just Trump’s) normalized?
Our institutions are failing us, and — as with global climate change — I believe we are already past the tipping point. Doesn’t mean we don’t keep fighting — just the opposite, we have to fight even harder — but learning to adapt and survive this new, and worse, normal is the real work of the future.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
I don’t see it that way at all.
I think people are scared that our system is completely broken and in dire straits. They are willing to accept that we need to proceed on all fronts to save it. Even ones that will hurt us badly in the long run. I think that they see that calling for proper restraint, getting back on an even keel correctly may not work and we need to charge ahead and do everything. And that may be right, but it is a complicated issue and it should be at least considered what happens if we go all in, and that fails, against what happens if we go in as logically as possible and succeed.
BTW I’m with you, go in as logically as possible because that’s the correct way. If we go all in and don’t succeed it will be just as horrible but we will also have a further disaster on our hands of what to do then and what we end up with probably won’t be positive in the least. Logically is our best choice.
dww4
@Adam L Silverman: So, we’re hoist with our own petard, once again? That is, our Congress, both Dems and Reps, decided to let the Independent counsel law lapse and we end up with a poor substitute that doesn’t properly function when the subject is the President and his administration? Too much opportunity and ability to game the system, as we have unfortunately just witnessed.
tobie
@Mandalay: I’ve unfortunately used up my monthly NYT quota for free articles. Could you quote the passage in the article where she does this:
Thanks.
CliosFanBoy
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot: reminds me of The October Surprise. I liked Lee Hamilton, but his report saying that the reagan campaign did not conspire with the Iranians in 1980 was pure whitewash.
CliosFanBoy
@tobie: clear out the NYT’s cookies from your cache and start fresh.
Jay Essel
@jc:
The only way I knew “Africa” was different was that I finally understood the line “Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus” when I always heard it as “rises like a leopress.” Like a girl lion. Otherwise I was confused as to how a 30-year-old song was getting airplay on the ‘alternative’ station.
Adam L Silverman
@CliosFanBoy: Unfortunately. However, we’ve gotten badly beaten now in Vietnam, in Iraq, and in Afghanistan. Especially at the national and theater strategic levels despite the significant tactical and operational successes in all three wars. The current fight against ISIS has been much more strategically effective, though I expect we’ll take our eyes off the prize now that the physical caliphate is reduced and mistakenly declare victory over ISIS prematurely. Especially as ISIS is even more dangerous without territory than it was when it had territory.
There are some Vietnam vets, especially among Special Forces, that argue a variant of the Dolchstoßlegende – that their by, with, and through unconventional warfare strategy and operations were just beginning to bear fruit when the politicians and the leadership of the conventional forces gave in to public opinion and pulled the plug on the conflict. I expect we’ll eventually see equivalents for Iraq and Afghanistan.
Leto
@Adam L Silverman: Nadler has already said his committee will do that. It’ll probably be a closed session.
@Adam L Silverman:
I can’t wait to meet my fellow vets at the VA /s ?
Adam L Silverman
@dww4: Our system was 1) never set up to deal with these issues outside of the normal checks and balances and 2) the founders and framers didn’t expect the basic structure of our government to become set in stone, with the Constitution also made into an idol to be worshipped, in the form they set it up. If you could go back in time and explain to Madison and Jefferson and Hamilton and Jay and Franklin and Adams and even the hardcore anti-Federalists like Mason that we’ve almost done nothing to adjust how the government is structured more than 200 years later, they’d be shocked. And, I expect, confused as to why we weren’t smart enough to change things to reflect changes over time.
Ruckus
@Immanentize:
While I think that is true about republicans wanting specific government intervention, say against anything that restricts them from taking and keeping all the money, and having a very strong military to enforce that throughout the world for them alone, I believe they have come to the conclusion that the world has grown up with the notion that wealth makes right and has become their playground so they don’t actually need a strong government to do that for them, they can do it better. That then comes down to what else does a government do and none of that do they see as necessary or proper. So they do still want to drown what they can’t control with their personal checkbooks. Which is almost all government as we know it. Because most of us see that what the ultra wealthy want is to be even/ever wealthier, no matter who that hurts. And who it hurts is everyone else. Where we differ is in how to do that and how inclusive we define everyone. Very little inclusion or all inclusive. The berniebros are very little inclusion, liberal dems are very inclusive.
burnspbesq
@Immanentize:
Misogynistic, too. The trifecta.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
Like restricting the house to a size that doesn’t reflect upon the massive differences in states populations and how it allows many house members to have outsized political influence? IOW it created better representation for land than population?
burnspbesq
@Immanentize:
Shocking, innit?
Adam L Silverman
@Leto: It is an unfortunate reality.
opiejeanne
I dreamt I was running for president but was able to walk around town without anyone recognizing me. When I was on stage everyone knew me, but otherwise I was anonymous. And the whole time I was staying in a hotel room that had furniture and a door, but no walls, in the lobby next to the front desk, and with my cat. People kept opening the door and letting the cat into the lobby and I kept rescuing her before she exited to the street.
When I came back to the hotel after an event someone asked me if I’d driven past the courthouse, and what I’d seen. I told them there was a massive crowd of people all wearing the red t-shirts that were part of my campaign. In the dream I estimated there were 100,000 people so I was probably going to win the presidency, but I was only mildly excited.
Then the cat woke me up.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: Correct. So in this case a change was actually made, but to lock in a dynamic that could not be electorally sustained going forward.
J R in WV
@Brachiator:
Me too, I bet it was 3 am before I fell asleep, after several stabs at it. I did sleep til about 10, so not horrible, but still… bad.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
BTW I do agree with you.
If they wanted/expected nothing to ever change they wouldn’t have put in amendments and a way to change/add/remove amendments. There wouldn’t have included a way to remove the president other than by election, and remember they didn’t restrict the length of the president’s term. They couldn’t envision the weapons of the future or the future itself, say the automobile, or the airplane. And without restrictions of those we’d be killing ourselves at a much higher rate than we do. Also the basic premise of the entire revolution was that royalty didn’t reflect the reality of day to day living, and the inequality of royalty itself.
I don’t get conservatives at all. I look around and see a far different world than it was when I was a child. Is it worse? In some ways, yes, in most ways not at all. Is it better? In many ways yes, in some ways not at all. Conservatives seem to have that backwards. So I ask everyone here, is life today better or worse for mankind than it was 50, 100, 200 yrs ago? And why.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
My “rant” was a response to your stated opinion that “If anything that letter just reinforces the narrative that Trump is guilty as all hell”, and I’m sorry, but what Barr’s summary letter of Mueller’s report actually does is create a new narrative that an exhaustive 2-year investigation “proves” that Trump was right all along about “No Collusion!” with Russia. It isn’t just “one letter”, as if it’s somehow of little consequence. It’s what the mainstream media is going full-press on. Sure, you, me, just about everyone around here, and almost all the millions around the country at least nominally on our side know the sonofabitch is guilty as hell, and Barr’s summary of course isn’t going to change our understanding of that.
But the mushy-middle — the low information/low engagement fools who make up around 10-15% of the electorate? They mostly move in whatever direction the mainstream media wind blows, and in this very significant case it’s hurricane-force in the “Trump Vindicated” direction. Wherever most of these people were before on the “Trump probably conspired with Russia/well no, maybe he didn’t” spectrum, you bet your sweet ass their opinion is being hard-yanked into “No Collusion!” territory.
Ruckus
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot:
I’m not sure that’s true. It’s for sure what’s being attempted, on that there is on question. I’m just not sure that many people believe Trump is the second coming, as his rabid supporters seem to. And I’m not sure that many of them are willing to just go along. We are seeing strong support in much of the country for getting rid of republicans in office. Not as much as I’d like but then I’m actually for progress so I don’t consider any republican/conservative as a legitimate political representative.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@Ruckus: You may be right — maybe the mushy-middle folks won’t necessarily buy into the “Trump/Russia — No Collusion, Mueller Proves” narrative that is currently front and center. But I say that buy-in (however tepid; they’re the mushy-middle for a reason) is the safe bet, unfortunately. And Enhanced’s original take that I responded to — “that (Barr’s) letter just reinforces the narrative that Trump is guilty as hell” only works for those of us who already believe that in our bones, and any reinforcement is wholly unnecessary. It doesn’t do anything of the kind for the majority of the electorate (the 40+% fascist, plus that mushy-middle cohort), and that’s what I’ve been trying to push back on. There is no fucking silver lining here.
opiejeanne
@Ruckus: Yes, it’s mostly better now. Vaccines for things like polio and chickenpox and measles and mumps. Smallpox is extinct in the wild. Cancer is no longer an automatic death sentence, nor is HIV/AIDS.
We had a party line when we finally got a phone in 1955, the year I started kindergarten. Now we walk around with a tiny computer in our pockets that takes great pictures, and you can use it as a phone if you want, but most of my friends and family prefer that I text them instead.
Information on almost everything ever written, invented, or built is available at our fingertips.
That’s just for starters.
But her emails!!!
@Adam L Silverman:
They shouldn’t be shocked. They larded up the Constitution with things specifically designed to maintain the status quo and enshrine the rule of the elite.
ola azul
@Adam L Silverman:
(Adam, apart from the introductory question for clarification, thought I should preface this by saying I took your comment mostly as an opp to relieve some bile; I ain’t tryn’ta instruct you on anything (as if), and you may even disagree with some or alluvit, which is fine.)
———————-
Do you give credence to this line of reasoning? (Am reading you as tho you do not and are sardonically putting this fabulist rationale into the “wouldn’t-it-be-pretty -to-think-so!” box of clap-louder happy-horseshit, but thought I should ask explicitly.)
fwiw, I do not buy it, at all, and I say that ignorant of what tactical and/or strategic objective the special forces were tasked with achieving in Vietnam, but knowing this much: when 58K+ American troops and 3million+ combined troops and civilians (north and south combined) have died, it’s reasonable if not imperative to reexamine the brutal McNamarian logic of what yer doing and why you think you can still bend the curve. Ain’t no unshitting that bed, seems like.
My experience with this sorta thinking is largely limited to folks who listen to ass-boil Limbaugh, who allus (loudly) maintained that if we were to only “stay the course” and (surprise!) ratchet up the intensity and ferocity of our attack, surely we’da “won” in Vietnam — and therefore, ceding the field was a “stab-in-the-back” betrayal of the troops. I.e. Rather than honestly evaluate the entire (i.e. faulty) rationale for the war itself, create an excuse to justify it. Will say: I have genuine sympathy for the soldiers’ point of view who entertain this notion (not that I agree with it), cuz expect it’s purty goddam hard to acknowledge that your political leaders sent you overseas with little to no thought of cavalierly employing you as a patriotic pawn in their experiment in ideological realpolitick, so: rather than feel used, nuture a righteous sense of betrayal.
What never seems to occur to the Limbaugh-listening ditto-heads who want more ferocious attacks in stupid wars is them attacks do not occur inna vacuum. Other players on the world stage have a say, and one of the dangers of playing it fast and loose in your pet ideological proxy wars (and, say, “going nuclear”, which I’ve heard propenents of this thinking advocate) is, apart from the mind-boggling inhumanity of such thinking, you risk escalation with bigger (nuclear) foes. The kick-their-ass, take-their-gas, sea-of-glass ghouls think ‘Murica can just drop a nuke on some “shithole-country” and the world is just gonna observe our big swinging d1ck and quietly acquiesce in future. It’sa childish-as-fuck reactionary simpleton’s way a looking at the world, and it’d be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous and prevalent.
(Viz. Trump’s infamous nuclear query: We have them, why not use them?)