Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

This blog goes to 11…

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

We can agree to disagree, but i’m right.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Everybody saw this coming.

Not all heroes wear capes.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Good luck with your asparagus.

This is all too absurd to be reality, right?

Shock troops for the Unitarian Jihad.

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

Screw the Judean People’s Front. Splitters.

What fresh hell is this?

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Where tasty lettuce and good mustard aren’t elitist.

Wetsuit optional.

Shelter in place is one thing. Shelter in pants is quite another.

Dinky Hocker shoots smack!

I’m going back to the respite thread.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

You are here: Home / Archives for Absent Friends / RIP

RIP

RIP Ginny Cole, the Goodest Girl

by | 132 Comments

This post is in: ,

RIP Ginny Cole, the Goodest Girl

My parents had to put down Ginny this morning, who died of a particularly aggressive cancer of the blood. I had not mentioned this to you all because there was so much else bad going on in the world, but over the past few months she had developed bleeding tumors all over her body, and twice had to have surgery to remove them. This is a particularly nasty cancer that does not respond to chemo or radiation, and Ginny quite never got over the second surgery, and even as she was recovering more tumors were appearing.

Harry, our family vet, came over and helped ease Ginny out of her pain this morning, and suffice it to say mom and dad are devastated, so keep them in your thoughts. It’s hard to imagine life without Ginny- she was just such a big presence crammed into a tiny little body, with dozens of personality quirks that made her an absolute delight to know.

She will be very, very missed.

RIP Ginny Cole, the Goodest GirlPost + Comments (132)

Notorious RBG Honored at the Supreme Court

by | 123 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Justice Ginsburg arrived at the U.S. Supreme Court for the last time a little while ago.

On Friday, RBG will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol, the first female government official ever so honored.

Open thread.

ETA: Do any of the blog’s battalions of attorneys have an opinion on this proposal published in Slate? It’s not easy to sum up, but the author, Christopher Jon Sprigman, argues that Congress should use its Article III powers to limit courts’ jurisdiction, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

Notorious RBG Honored at the Supreme CourtPost + Comments (123)

Senator McConnell Moves To Contact: The President’s Nominee “Will Receive a Vote On the Floor of the Senate”

by | 217 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Senator McConnell has placed his marker on the table.

Image

ABC news is reporting that the President will announce his nominee shortly.

I expect that the President will announce his nominee no later than Wednesday and that Senator McConnell will have that nominee up for a vote before the full Senate no later than the Wednesday after that so that the new justice can be seated before the Supreme Court starts its new term in October. And to try to do sort of a judicial nomination shock and awe campaign by moving so quickly that no one can respond to what McConnell is doing.

I’ve seen Senator Murkowski’s statement, and it was nice to read, but the simple reality is that for Senators Collins, McSally, Gardner, Tillis, and Graham it is ride or die. They cannot let go of the tiger that is the President and his base at this point because it will not get them the Democratic votes to either save them in the case of Collins, McSally, and Gardner, nor to open up their reelection campaigns from the statistical ties that Tillis and Graham are in. Abandoning the President and his base of supporters on this will cost them more support and votes, then trying to look like they’re standing on principle.

The question is not what can be done to stop it, though I definitely believe as much hell as possible should be raised over what Senator McConnell is going to do. The question is what you are willing to do after Senator McConnell does what he is going to do to install a sixth conservative associate justice on the Supreme Court.

I expect there will be violence over this. Violence between senators. Violence directed at senators. And violence between Americans. I’m not calling for it, but as a nat-sec professional who works on low intensity warfare, this is what I expect.

Updated at 10:30 PM EDT

I just want to clarify and elaborate a bit on what I think is likely to happen. I expect that the violence directed at senators will come from the hard core and extreme right. It will be directed at the Republican senators who are being reported as potentially not supporting the President and Senator McConnell on confirming a new justice before the election and the inauguration; Gardner, McSally, Collins, Murkowski, Romney, Graham, Grassley, and Alexander. It will start with threatening emails, voicemails, and direct messages. And it may escalate to actual attempts at physical intimidation to send a message: get or stay in line or else… Similarly, I expect that violence between Americans will originate from the same direction. Some MAGA asshole will decide to gun his car through a vigil being held in memory of RBG or a demonstration and rally to demonstrate to Senator McConnell and his GOP majority that they have to abide by the rules McConnell established in 2016. Or that, as we’ve seen with the MAGA truck/vehicle rallies in Portland, that those supporting the President will show up and pepper spray and paintball those standing vigil for RBG or rallying to pressure McConnell and his GOP majority to not be hypocrites. This violence will be stochastic terrorism, but if it happens, I expect it will originate on the hard core and extreme right.

Open thread.

Senator McConnell Moves To Contact: The President’s Nominee “Will Receive a Vote On the Floor of the Senate”Post + Comments (217)

Breaking News: Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Has Died at Age 87

by | 181 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , , ,

Breaking News: Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Has Died at Age 87

From NPR:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the demure firebrand who in her 80s became a legal, cultural, and feminist icon has died. The Supreme Court announced her death, saying the cause was complications from cancer.

Architect of the legal fight for women’s rights in the 1970s, Ginsburg subsequently served 27 years on the nation’s highest court, becoming its most prominent member. Her death will inevitably set in motion what promises to be a nasty and tumultuous political battle over who will succeed her, and it thrusts the Supreme Court vacancy into the spotlight of the presidential campaign.

Just days before her death, as her strength waned, Ginsburg dictated this statement to her granddaughter Clara Spera: “My most fervent wish is that i I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”

She knew what was to come. Ginsburg’s death will have profound consequences for the court and the country. Inside the court, not only is the leader of the liberal wing gone, but with the Court about to open a new term, Chief Justice John Roberts no longer holds the controlling vote in closely contested cases.

Though he has a consistently conservative record in most cases, he has split from fellow conservatives in a few important ones, this year casting his vote with liberals, for instance, to at least temporarily protect the so-called Dreamers from deportation by the Trump administration, to uphold a major abortion precedent, and to uphold bans on large church gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic. But with Ginsburg gone, there is no clear court majority for those outcomes.

Senator McConnell will now get his career long wish: to establish a permanent conservative majority on the Supreme Court. In January 2019, I wrote this as part of a post about Senator McConnell:

And he telegraphed during the hearings for Brett Kavanaugh that he’s gearing up to leverage another potential Supreme Court vacancy* in 2019 or 2020 as a political weapon in the 2020 presidential and senatorial elections.

* I’m expecting, provided Justice Ginsburg completes her recovery as expected and remains healthy, that the administration in conjunction with Leonard Leo from The Federalist Society and Senator McConnell will try to replicate with Justice Thomas what they did in the summer of 2018 with Justice Kennedy. Specifically, they’ll create a retirement and subsequent Supreme Court vacancy during the late summer to early fall of 2020 that the President and Republican senators can campaign for reelection on. Thereby replicating the dynamic that Senator McConnell created and the President leveraged in his campaign that it was necessary to elect him, in this case reelect him, and to reelect the GOP majority in the Senate to ensure that the Democrats don’t appoint the next Supreme Court justice, change the balance of the Supreme Court, and destroy the Constitution and thereby the United States.

The above analysis was based on an assessment I did for someone as the Kavanaugh hearings was coming to an end. That assessment is attached here:

McConnell_Rule_Pattern_Analysis

Now we wait to see what Senator McConnell decides to do, as well as the effects of RBG’s passing on the 2020 elections.

May her memory be for a blessing.

Open thread!

 

Breaking News: Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Has Died at Age 87Post + Comments (181)

RIP Huck, the GOODEST DOG, 2005-2020

by | 85 Comments

This post is in: ,

My sister had to help her beloved dog Huck today end his misery, and he has moved on to join Irie, Russell, Tunch and a host of other very fine animals, and he will be missed very much. Huck was Devon’s best friend, a mere puppy when Irie left us, and has been a VERY good dog since he was a very adorable puppy.

RIP Huck, the GOODEST DOG, 2005-2020 2

Huck had a wide variety of interests. He liked to boat:

RIP Huck, the GOODEST DOG, 2005-2020 1

He liked to go for car rides:

RIP Huck, the GOODEST DOG, 2005-2020 3

He liked dropping the dope beats with his friends (this always looks like an album cover):

RIP Huck, the GOODEST DOG, 2005-2020 4

He like to roll in goose shit:

RIP Huck, the GOODEST DOG, 2005-2020 5

He loved to run the trails with Devon:

RIP Huck, the GOODEST DOG, 2005-2020 6

He was such a good boy, with such an even temperament, and one of the things he loved the most was teaching other dogs how to be a good dog. Huck may be gone, but he lives on in the honest to goodness hundred other dogs he helped Devon train and foster:

RIP Huck, the GOODEST DOG, 2005-2020 7

RIP Huck, the GOODEST DOG, 2005-2020 8

This picture of Huck with young Ginny is too much:

RIP Huck, the GOODEST DOG, 2005-2020 9

Every animal that my sister fostered became a better animal because of Huck. Devon taught them how to be loved, Huck taught them how to be a dog.

But out of all of these things Huck liked to do, the number one thing he loved to do the most was to be with Devon, and she loved it just as much.

RIP, Huck. You were the man. I’m crying.

RIP Huck, the GOODEST DOG, 2005-2020 10

RIP Huck, the GOODEST DOG, 2005-2020Post + Comments (85)

RIP, Cindy Hoffman

by | 69 Comments

This post is in: 

Cindy Hoffman died last night. My father heard and called me at 8 am to tell me.

Who is Cindy Hoffman? Well, absolutely none of you should know her, so this obit is for me and for me alone. Cindy Hoffman was a local woman who had three sons, one of whom was a year older than me, one a year younger, and another several years younger. Her husband is Jack, who is one of my fraternity brothers, although obviously decades older than me. My parents have known them for 52 years.

Cindy Hoffman was also the kind of lady EVERY single town in America runs on. She was the first to volunteer for ANYTHING. She was the town recorder for decades. I don’t recall EVER having voted since 1988 without Mrs. Hoffman running the polling station. If the town was forming a committee to get something done, she was either on it or running it. Any time any one needed help, Mrs. Hoffman was the first to volunteer her time.

She was also ornery and cantankerous, opinionated, had a good sense of humor, was sarcastic and occasionally profane, and liked to chat. Whenever I needed to know the scuttlebutt, I’d call her up or flag her down if I saw her driving around town. She was fun to be around, didn’t pretend to be something she wasn’t, and didn’t judge. She’d just roll her eyes and say “I don’t know what people are thinking” and then get back to work doing what she thought was right. I really became quite fond of her the last ten or so years I moved back here, and I will miss her.

She had a heart attack and a couple bypasses about two months back, and was in recovery for quite some time. I called her a few times as she was not allowed visitors because of the virus, and kept pestering her to let me cook for Jack and her kids. She was released two weeks ago and finally relented, and I made a massive lasagna dinner for her family so she wouldn’t have to. She called several times to thank me and she didn’t need to call once, but that’s just who she was. I had thought everything was going well with her recovery, but apparently she died last night at home before the ambulance could arrive.

And please don’t fill the comments with stuff like “sorry for your loss.” She’d hate that as much as I do, even though every time someone like Mrs. Hoffman dies, we all are gonna experience a vacuum and a loss. I’ll miss her. She was a lot of fun. America needs more Mrs. Hoffmans, not fewer.

RIP, Cindy HoffmanPost + Comments (69)