LET’S ROCK!!!
Sloopy is sloopin, so Spud is standing in for morning links. I hope I’m doing this right.
It’s mind boggling what the temperature is throughout the world. I think this guy knows what’s what.
If we can get through all the rancor and rhetoric, good things can happen.
I mean after all, we’re the same species. We should be able to come together.
It may require some to put their faith in a higher power.
But maybe then, justice can begin.
I am so tired of this shit.
Why the fuck is there a run on water filters?
People building their own stillsuits to go into the dust bowl of virus that is the outside world.
People are finding out how little their local tap water tastes like their brand of bottled’s source municipal tap water
Which sort? The plumbed-in sort, the pitcher sort or the camping sort?
The pitcher sort. They are going out of stock at $15 – 20 each.
People normally drinking the filtered water at work?
Maybe. That could also explain shortages at the supermarket. Although I still think some of it is panic buying.
I bought one before the last hurricane in case the water supply was interrupted. I’m not sure why people think their might be a shortage of water. Even if we have massive unemployment, maintaining the water supply should be a fairly high priority.
Also, if there is no water supply, there is no water to filter.
I guarantee you that some people think they could use those pitchers to filter the bacteria out of stream water.
That would not surprise me.
That reminds me. I need to get LifeStraw bottles for our 72-hour kits.
I had bought N-95 masks for DIY projects and put them in our 72-hour kits, 1 mask per day per person, so I had 12. I did that because I figured no matter what happened, there would be lots of dust involved.
Those were a lot cheaper than LifeStraws, so I never got any.
Word.
Open up. It was a colossal mistake. Limit the damages. We already don’t have festivals.
I want to see Fauci and all the medical bureaucrats in a dunk tank.
In the stocks, being pelted with rotten produce.
Fuck that! Drunk tank. A concrete room wherein everything flows to the drain. Stainless steel tap and toilet. No blankeys, no beds.
Careful, those places are a death trap. Too easy to get suicided even with all the precautions they don’t take.
Morning Spud,
Ya done good on the music, I don’t care what anyone else says
That isn’t what you told me in private Fourscore
Shhhh, Not so loud
We should be able to come together.
/Suppresses sudden urge to have a Coca-Cola with breakfast.
SingsYodels at Shpip.No Me First? In these arduous times, I think we can all come together as one and listen to cover bands.
I’m past the put up or shut up phase on this spy scandal. It’ll shock me if anything ever comes of it.
^^This. I expect a lot of talk and expressions of outrage from the Repubs, with no real consequences coming down on any of the major players.
It’s long been rumored that the reason that Nixon never made a fuss about JFK’s well known election issues in 1960 was because his own malfeasance in other states would have been discovered.
I think that’s probably the reason nobody wants to make a fuss here.
I have this fantasy that there’s a secret society who have pledged their lives to protect the Republic. Soon they will spring into action, pulling all the levers available to them to enact justice. Then I pull myself out of the haze and weep silently.
You mean like the Culper Ring?
More like a cock ring.
Like, in a “Kublai Khan” type of way?
/Coleridge
Not being intentionally dense, but what exactly is illegal about : Top Obama administration officials purportedly requested to “unmask” the identity of former national security adviser Michael Flynn during the presidential transition period,?
Is the assertion that they would leak it if given the chance?
If I understand correctly, you’re only supposed to make an unmasking request if you have a legitimate need to know in your official capacity. At the very least, that many requests by that many people in that short (and specific) time frame sure looks fishy.
“Legitimate need” and as Tonio says below “part of a larger initiative”. No way you’d nail swamp creatures on stuff like that even if it’s obvious to the peons like us. The whole thing will blow over unless some documented straight up, stand alone evidence appears. I’d lock them all up, but I’m just say’in.
I’m 100% certain it will blow over because it’s such an enormous scandal it would rock the foundations of the country if they actually started prosecuting people. It’s the epitome of too big to fail. Does anyone actually think they’re going to lock up King Zero, Herself, half the Dem House Caucus, a slew of former top Intelligence professionals and a bunch of FISA judges?
They tried to overthrow the government; that would usually lead to either Civil War or mass executions of the perpetrators. The fact that is hasn’t means no one, including the GOP, wants to rock the boat because the implications are too enormous.
“I’m 100% certain it will blow over because it’s such an enormous scandal it would rock the foundations of the country if they actually started prosecuting people.”
My take is that if they don’t people are no longer going to take the legal system seriously. Yes, the government will use force to do it’s thing, but I suspect many people, myself included, when confronted with that system, will decide the thing isn’t just unfair, but that real action on my own part will have to be taken to punish the system. You can take that last comment as you may. And I doubt I am alone in feeling that way.
I have already lived in some banana republics in my youth, and have no desire to be in the banana republic team blue’s weaponized government bureaucracy has become, again.Fuck the whole thing.
Not sure if the unmasking per se is illegal, but if that was done as part of a larger initiative to do illegal things then it becomes a conspiracy. The absolute best outcome would be charges of treason and conspiracy to commit treason, which is still a capital offense I believe.
Even though nobody will probably swing for this, the possibility of execution or a life sentence will hopefully cause people to spill the beans.
Not trying to be hyperbolic here: but this is pretty much the definition of an attempted bloodless coup. King Zero, Hillary and their minions used the state surveillance apparatus to spy, not just on political opponents, but on the incoming winners of a fair election in order to try and sabotage them. Further, the justification for that surveillance (the Steele dossier) was an outright fabrication paid for by the losing political campaign. They then used thuggish tactics and “process crimes” to lock up political enemies with the intention of either pressuring Trump to resign or to manufacture enough public outrage that impeachment and removal would occur. They forgot Trump isn’t a typical spineless GOP cuck, so he wouldn’t resign, but they got impeachment.
It’s terrifying and IMO the biggest scandal in the history of the nation.
I agree. Let’s hope we have proof a prosecutor, judge and jury will all accept.
^^^
I don’t care if Obama or his cronies get jail time(his * in the history book and fall from grace will be enough), I care about the Deep State getting checked. Letting any sitting Prez do this shit should have not been allowed.
THIS THIS THIS
We now know why they are so desperate. They all had their hands in the spying cookie jar.
I was amazed by the list of people who asked for Flynn’s identity AFTER THE POLITICAL TRANSITION BEGAN. Why does the Deputy Secretary of Energy need to unmask an American talking to the Russian ambassador? Every political appointee chump in the administration was on there. That means it was coordinated and came from the top down.
It is extremely irregular to unmask *any* US citizen; judges will typically only allow it under very specific circumstances (eg: imminent terrorist attack). 4A (ostensibly) protects US citizens in cases like this and judges are very reluctant to grant FISA requests for unmasking in all but the most extreme cases. Unmasking a political opponent during a campaign? Absolutely insane Banana Republic stuff. And don’t forget: Flynn was one of about 200 Trump associates unmasked.
I’d heard that unmasking requests are commonplace. Honestly, just trying to figure out if Obamagate is a “top men will fall” or “top men should fall”. Seems to be the latter right now.
Also it seems like a lot of people think “unmasking” means leaking or letting everyone see the un-redacted document, unless I’m wrong it just allows individuals to see certain redacted names/info on a case by case basis.
Exactly my point: they could explain in weasel lawyer tongue why it was “legitimate” to ask for the info. Proving the intent why the requested it is a tough bar to clear. I pretty sure I know they did it, but I’m not on the jury or a prosecutor.
Actually I’m surprised that the Vice President and the FBI head would receive redacted intelligence reports in the first place. Maybe they have to send these out to so many people that catering the redactions to each recipient is more of a pain than just redacting for the lowest level reader and processing all the unmasking requests.
The only valid reasons to ask for an unmasking are as part of a counter-intelligence or counter-terrorism operation.
Ostensibly, you could see the the following people asking for it, the Director of the FBI, the Director if the CIA, or the Director of National Intelligence. Even then, it’s a 4th Amendment issue.
Nobody else has any reason to ask except for other purposes.
“Actually I’m surprised that the Vice President and the FBI head would receive redacted intelligence reports in the first place. ”
The reason they are obfuscated/masked is because the surveillance is of foreigners, and all citizens are supposed to be masked.
Thanks Leon, I actually just heard that from a CNN guy so It now makes more sense.
NP. That’s my understanding at least. It’s interesting though because Flynn was under investigation at the time (i think, we’ll need to get a timeline compiled), so i imagine they could have gotten the info directly as part of some law enforcement warrant.
They are masked, but that is exactly how the intel agencies get around the requirement in the first place. Tap Boris in Russia just so you get to listen to Flynn in DC. It’s fucking gross. Ooops, we accidentally heard Flynn! Then you leak it all over DC.
Even Yates, who apparently wasn’t in on the scheme, was freaking out about how much Obama knew of the Flynn conversations and the very shady discussions they had on January 5th before Trump inauguration.
She and Comey butted heads over Flynn’s FBI “interview” as a flagrant violation of the DOJ’s purview. Only when Comey got fired, Yates got let go for other reasons, and Mueller’s team got put in charge did the DOJ go full court press on Flynn.
These people are all compulsive liars. Getting them to fall into perjury traps should be both easy and cosmically justicey.
They’ve already got Brennan and Clapper perjuring themselves in congressional testimony, nobody cares.
See my response above. This goes beyond scandal into treason; which is precisely why no one will fall. No one wants to open that Pandora’s Box.
And that’s how a country abandons the rule of law and accepts authoritarianism.
I’ve no idea as to illegality of the actual act, but I could see someone building a case for sedition, based on the motivation to undermine a duly elected administration.
Because orangeman bad.
This was a massive coordinated political spying operation using the NSA, something that Nixon could only have dreamed of.
This is the political corruption scandal of the century, at least until whatever Flynn knows gets told after his gag order is lifted.
That’s what I’m waiting for: Flynn to talk. As of now it’s shady AF, but they’re gonna need a lot more to take anybody of consequence down.
Thanks, Debbie Downer!
“But maybe then, justice can begin.”
Has MSNBC/CNN said anything, or are they just ignoring it?
Also, nice links, Ted.
My links are *always* nice!
My cheap Walmart (redundant) watch died, battery, I’m sure. I thought it came with a life time warranty and now I’m in a quandary. Buy a new watch, new battery? Or take it as an omen and wait?
Then I think, what would UCS do? I’ll go for a battery, easyist, fastest, cheapest. If that doesn’t work,call in my markers…
Unless you love and adore that watch, just get a new watch. Unfortunately, I love and adore my watch, but I hate throwing things out, so when the battery dies, I pay to have it replaced.
You wear a like, clock on your arm? Why can’t you just pull out your cell phone and like look at it if you, like, have to know what time it is?
/Every GenZ evar
No. The sneering remark is that “It’s jewelry” by the kid sporting a nose-ring and ear-gauges. The only times that I wear my Seiko are for dress-up affairs or golf. Sure Kid, you are technically right but strategically wrong.
In the burnt out ruins of the post Moo Goo Flu economy, having a watch to trade for rat meat might be a good investment.
Lifetime warranty probably doesn’t include battery.
That, or the Wal-Mart hit team will be over to make sure the “lifetime” part ends…
Now I’m picturing an army of Wal-Mart greeters cresting the hill…
At least it ain’t Costco….
He’d don his watch-making gloves. He’s a goer!
I would probably just stop wearing it and not giving a shit about time but that’s just me. ?
Replacing batteries is pretty easy as long as you have a couple of tiny screwdrivers. Buy a new battery and change it out. I have a Casio dive watch that is currently on its 4th battery.
Not always. I have a watch wrench. I couldn’t open a watch, so I took it to a jewelers. They couldn’t open it either, so they had to send it out to someone who has one of those machines that looks like drill press.
Not on all watches. I thought I’d do that but the watch was particularly hard to open (did that), but impossible to close. I had to take it to a jeweler and even he had problems using his vise.
Thanks for the sound advice. I’m gonna do all of the above, should solve the problem.
I am totally dependent on my watch. I eat at regulated times, Mrs Fourscore knows that I’ll be back at noon and 6 PM. She’ll have the food prepared, sometimes picnic style but I’m not complaining.
Today looks like a change in spring weather, for the better. Planting time for the cool weather plants.
Battery, in a watch?
Pish tosh. Real watches have, like gears and shit.
Mine self winds but if I don’t masturbate at least a dozen times a day it loses a minute.
So far, you’re an hour ahead?
He switches hands when we need to go back an hour in the fall.
They do make battery-powered mechanical watches. I bet all your nurses have those for pulse-taking since they are cheap, durable and accurate. No digital watches allowed for that.
I’ve never been a watch person but for some reason have started thinking about a “nice” fully analog watch. Not Rolex nice, but not Amazon Fashion.
I have an upscale self winder that I got as a gift from the Mrs 40 years ago but it hardly gets worn. Looks nice though. Like Festus’s, mine is years behind on the date.
There’s a bunch out there. I wear a Christopher Ward nearly every day – good movements, and they have some that are fairly reasonable.
https://www.christopherward.com/watches/dress/c3-grand-tourer-range
My son and best friend both have Wards.
I’m a big Orient fan. The Triton is probably my favorite – reasonably inexpensive, bombproof, and looks good with a little wear.
Seiko checks a lot of boxes. I bought one of the new Seiko5 for a sibling as a graduation gift recently.
Though there are literally hundreds of watchmakers now with their own “brand”. Which can be fun since they tend to make limited runs so there’s some degree of exclusivity without having to drop $10k.
My cheap Timex keeps on ticking. I think I’ve gotten about 4 batteries and three wrist bands onto it over the years.
To be fair, I’ve owned other $20 watches before and they’ve never lasted this long. This one is like the John Wayne of watches, it keeps going no matter what.
Listening to that first link got me to thinking: with all the sappy, sentimental crap that he’s pumped out over the decades, why was Burt Bacharach spared the sort of derision that Barry Manilow received his entire career?
Because no one remembers he exists?
A variety of other people performed his work. He was never front and center.
This, song-writer with Hal David.
IN FACT, Karen Carpenter did his stuff and turned it into solid gold because, well, Karen Carpenter is just that magic. There never was nor ever will be a finer voice on the face of the planet.
There. I said it. Karen Carpenter is a goddess.
I agree. I would put in a good word for Minnie Ripperton, but her life was cut short before she could really crank out some work.
Strangely, I dialed up Karen last night, sent a song or two to my kiddos. You are right, Mojo.
She was looking bad towards the end, apparently Richard also had some of his own problems.
I think the beginning verses to Superstar is some of the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard.
And as much as I hate to say it Barbara Streisand “Evergreen” is high on that list too.
My first concert was Iron Maiden. Go figure.
Meh. Not thicc enough.
*immediately goes to hell*
In middle school I was a choir boy. Our choir teacher was a little 5′ package of dynamo. Anyways, she loved Barry Manilow and we had to sing all of his songs.
LOL – my wife loves Rush, Led Zeppelin, and…Barry Manilow.
Back in the summer of 1980 or 1981 I worked the summer at an outdoor live music theater. Barry Manilow was scheduled for 2 or 3 nights in a row. They were sellouts and there were a number of women who attended every night.
I used “Copacabana” as a plotline in a book. I always loved that song.
I love you Mojo but Oh Dear Lord… Barry Manilow is Satan’s spawn. Are you a (((secret))) 85 year-old one of (((them)))?
No. I just have shitty taste. I like what I like and I’m beyond caring what other people think. For instance, I like Evanescence.
Also, I like most songs that tell a story and “Copacabana” is VIVID.
I… I can see that.
For some reason I read “Chupacabra” and then my brain started singing, “the Chupa…Chu-u-pacabra, that is one weird palabra.”
I blame all the cryptozoology here.
And now that’s earwormed for me. LOL
My work here is done.
Her name was Lola, she was a good goat
With yellow horns up in the air and her coat so downy fair
She would wander from her pen
And one night she went too far
Almost hit by a speeding car
Up the hill and toward the wood, she grazed and grazed some more
She was young and she had some fodder
Who could ask for more?
But the Chupa (chu) Chupacabra (Chupacabra)
The cruelest suck south of the border (here)
But the Chupa (chu) Chupacabra
Goat blood and cruelty were always the fashion
But the Chupa, pounced from above!
LOL
You win the internet!
Indeed.
I like CNN’s retelling better: Gunfire Erupted in a Nightclub Last Night!
Evanescence has a great voice. Barry does too, my dad used to listen to him so while not a big fan I admit he’s a good singer.
May I be so bold as to present one of my favorite songs that tell a story – The Road Goes On Forever by Robert Earl Keen.
Is this another one of those places where we spill the beans on things we are ashamed to tell other people?
I, too, like Evanescence. My Immortal is the bomb.
One of my stories (the one you have?) contains a re-telling of Billy Joel’s “Big Shot.”
Bacharach’s songs explode the expectations of what a popular song is supposed to be. Advanced harmonies and chord changes with unexpected turnarounds and modulations, unusual changing time signatures and rhythmic twists, often in uneven numbers of bars. But he makes it all sound so natural you can’t get it out of your head or stop whistling it. Maddeningly complex, sometimes deceptively simple, these are more than just great pop songs: these are deep explorations of the materials of music and should be studied and treasured with as much care and diligence we accord any great works of art. – John Zorn
I’m not a serious musician, but I’ve got the ear an ear that allows me to keep up with 90% of what passes for music in our lifetimes: still, Bacharach drives me crazy. Most of the time I can pick up a guitar and chord along with anything and probably add a bass line or walk out bits of the melody with my pinkie in seconds; there are only so many structures, circle of fifths, whatever you want to call what I do. Six bars into This Guy’s in Love I’m guessing, I’m suddenly not playing along anymore and just: what is that F**king chord!?! And I’ll finally find it up the neck after two stanzas have passed . . . only to get turned around and lost in the bridge.
Say what you will about the geniuses that are trotted out these days, but I never got lost in the dust behind Prince, McCartney, Bowie, or Joel.
I’m taking that as a compliment to Bacharach.
See my Karen Carpenter comment above.
Revisiting the music thread above:
Last night, to put myself to sleep, I was listening to “best of” lists of music from the late 60s and 70s. Now, this was music that was made between before I was born to about age 5.
I knew almost every one of them and I couldn’t believe they had been made before my conscious time. Very classic, sophisticated, and timeless. The hard rock is still being played and I’d have been hard-pressed not to peg them as their actual release date. Now, many of them are one-hit wonders, but they’re still played. So far as I can remember, only a few of them have covers that I identify first.
I didn’t know how far the Jackson 5 pre-dated me (that is to say, when I was a toddler and my parents didn’t play that stuff). The Carpenters, Neil Diamond, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder,
A few of them were to movies (“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head”) of the time, which were also sophisticated, classic, and timeless.
(And as to the sappy mentioned above, I noticed nobody mentioned Bread or Air Supply.)
And all this was brought on by whoever (I suspect Ted’S) linked the Turtles’s “Happy Together”.
Everyone covers Burt.
How the hell did you get a pic of me going for the gravy?
“Jubilant drinkers flock to Wisconsin bars just hours after state’s Supreme Court struck down Democratic governor’s pandemic lockdown order in first ruling of its kind
ubilant barflies have flocked to Wisconsin’s taverns within hours of a shock state Supreme Court decision striking down Governor Tony Evers’ coronavirus stay-at-home order.
The 4-3 ruling on Wednesday, the first of its kind in the nation, found that Evers’ administration overstepped its authority when it extended the mandate for another month without consulting legislators.
Bars, supper clubs and restaurants across Wisconsin were allowed to open their doors immediately – though some county governments moved quickly to impose their own lockdown rules in place of the governor’s decree.
In many parts of the state, however, overjoyed residents flocked to their favorite haunts after two months of home-bound isolation.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8317653/Wisconsin-Supreme-Court-strikes-Democratic-governors-pandemic-lockdown-order.html
Good. Now, lets do the other 49.
I mentioned on the dead thread about seeing youngsters out playing baseball in the last link. My cow-worker was aghast. The Karens are coming from inside the house!
“cow-worker” That’s funny.
It is a replacement for theoffensively gender assuming “milk maid”
If the Gov. doesn’t have the authority to issue lockdown orders, how do subsidiary county and city officials?
^This.
The decision states that the Governor does, but his appointed cabinet officials do not.
FYTW?
But yeah, I’d be ignoring that shit. Attempt enforcement at your own peril.
It was not the governor’s order that was struck down, it was some authoritarian department head who ordered everything closed, without the authority to do so.
Brigs a tear to my eye. Maybe I should move back to my home state. Minnesota is a hellhole. (Yes that is hyperbolic…) I still think SD is high in the list though.
One of the cops who cowered outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 while people were getting shot inside will get his job back with 16 months of back pay, because of course he will. https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/crime/fl-ne-canned-parkland-cop-to-get-job-back-20200514-rjzg33nu3bbflezpgxglgvei7i-story.html#nt=oft-Double%20Chain~Flex%20Feature~homepage-top-heads~home-heads-2~~1~yes-art~curated~curatedpage
How the fuck do they justify this shit?
FYTW
FYTW
Forget it, Count, it’s Broward.
His rights were violated by asking him to do the job he was paid 6 figures to do.
Heavy use of the passive voice. Mistakes were made. Deaths were unavoided. Sadness was felt; lessons were learned.
I bet he’s real popular down at the station.
Fuck.
I was really hoping he’d killed himself out of shame…
That takes some stones.
He’s liable to end up getting popped on the street.
Unmasked? So they leaked the name of someone who they found out was talking to Russians via the NSA? Yeah, that’s not going anywhere. Washington is a sieve. Unless unmasked means something different than that.
Unmasked has a new definition. It’s cops beating on those who do not comply.
Seems to me the “unmasking” part is being overplayed. The, “unmasking” as in someone gets a redacted document and asks to see whats under some black stripe and the NSA determines whether they have the clearance and need, appears pretty common. Now if the NSA unmasked stuff for people they shouldn’t have or that once unmasked people abused their new found knowledge that should be the focus. Biden, Comey, et al just asking to see who ‘person 1’ was on an intelligence report that they had every authorization to have is a big yawner, unless I’m missing something.
That’s a stretch, even for you my on-line friend. You know what they were up to and you’re just playing up your schtick. Don’t play dumb because we know you’re smart.
We do?
We Zoom Chat. He’s actually quite disarmingly pleasant and really funny.
What we think should be done because we’ve connected easily connectable dots is different than how DC works. You’d have to prove a giant conspiracy based on evidence that doesn’t link directly to illegal behavior. I don’t see it happening. It’d be nice, though.
^^^
To Festus for bein’ real.
What you are missing is the Fourth Amendment.
Sure, they had authorization. You said “clearance and need”, and one of these things is missing. The whole thing is in the same category as a cop using his confidential records access to look up his ex-wife’s boyfriend in order to go harass him.
That’s why I mentioned NSA unmasking stuff they shouldn’t, and I’ve yet to see that take in the main stream conservative media. It’s all OMG Biden and others asked to have a name unmasked, which seems like SOP and by itself no big deal. I apparently am as stupid as I look because I need someone to connect the dots between this and the smoking gun people seem to think it is.
“which seems like SOP and by itself no big deal”
I don’t have first-hand knowledge, but from my understaffing is not, or is not supposed to be SOP, because of the 4th amendment. I think a big part of the scandal is the amount of requests and the people who were authorized to make them.
Hype the timelime shows that oftentimes the info from the unmasking was immediately leaked to the WaPo and one particular dc operative there.
Leaking classified material is a felony.
We are so jaded we don’t think anything will happen but I think Barr might feel differently.
Yeah, I was mistaken on exactly what unmasking is. In my defense most of the headlines are either flat out wrong or partisan outrage/denial spin so it took awhile for me to parse it, and a lot of folks here jumped about four squares* and I hadn’t caught up yet.
*not a criticism just an explanation
we still love you hype. we need someone to stand athwart the glib train and yell “STOP!!”
I got a new hat just for you Hyperbole for drunkin chat
Above songs? Meh. More like this – https://youtu.be/cTBx-hHf4BE
If we can get through all the rancor and rhetoric, good things can happen.
Where’s the fun in that?
Cornholio, I would like to subscribe to your newsletter!
::clicks link, sees album cover::
Oh, please don’t let it be him singing, let it be Dionne singing, just don’t let it be HIM singing!
::clicks Play::
GAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!
yep
Songwriters who should not record their own material:
1. Burt Bacharach
2. Leonard Cohen
3. Neil Young
…
Brian Wilson
Of course no one else should record his material either so maybe he doesn’t count.
^^^This.
“Hallelujah” is awful.
If I recall correctly, at some point even Cohen himself said of the umpty-bazillion covers, “Enough already!”
Shit, I’d have that reaction if I ever found fanfic of my stuff (which is why I don’t go looking).
I can’t imagine how irritating that would be.
[cackles evilly and rubs palms together]
His version is the only tolerable version. GT is wrong on #2.
*narrows gaze*
I was a huge Neil fan but his politics and attitude turned me off. Leo Kottke should not sing.
Yeah, Leo should stick to his git-tar pickin’.
Theeeey saaaiiid that Looouuiiiissse was not half baaaaadddd…..
Bob Dylan
To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Dylan sing. I’ve heard him groan, gurgle, croak, and gasp but none of that could be called singing.
You might not like his voice, but he almost never misses the note. Seriously.
4. Bruce Springsteen
Loathe him. Bellower.
1 is true enough. Wrong on 2 and 3.
Phil Spector
It’s mind boggling what the temperature is throughout the world.
E’rebody got that Kovid Fever.
They check my temperature everyday before work. I’m consistently 97.0. I might be a vampire…maybe a zombie.
I run a degree and a bit Celcius over every day. I’d be fucked. Hummingbird. Explains the waistline.
I figured the temp guns they are using were pretty much the same as the infrared I use to see what temp my skillet is. Pointed it at my forehead and got the reading. 89. I must be dead.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-8318819/Rihanna-jokes-lost-new-album-fans-demand-know-longer-wait.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-8318179/Ariana-Grande-reveals-doesnt-feel-comfortable-releasing-new-album-quarantine.html
Assholes.
They make $ from concerts and “appearances”. We’re all in this together!
“Ariana Grande has been on a creative high in recent years”
I guess you could call it “creative.”
“FBI officers seized a cellphone belonging to Senator Richard Burr on Wednesday night as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into controversial stock trades he made at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
Sen. Burr, of North Carolina, surrendered his phone to federal agents after they served a search warrant at his home in Washington, an anonymous law enforcement source told the LA Times.
Burr, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the health committee, sold a large percentage of his stock portfolio in February shortly before the market slumped and just after he began receiving daily briefings on the coronavirus.
The obtaining of the warrant marks a significant escalation into the Justice Department’s probe into whether the Republican violated a law that prevents members of Congress from trading on insider information gained from their official line of work.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8317965/FBI-serves-search-warrant-Sen-Richard-Burr-insider-trading-probe.html
Surprising.
Make a few trades he’s allowed to do? Unless I’m missing something, seems like a big nothing-burger.
Insider trading is illegal for members of Congress (it has been since about 2013). It’s just that they generally don’t have disclosure requirements, so they don’t get caught unless they’re complete dumbasses about it, like Burr was.
Not at all surprising. Note that a couple of Democrats were also implicated, by they haven’t been served warrants. This looks like an FBI attempt to try to neuter some of the Senators who might be looking into the intelligence agency malfeasance.
So they’re all a little dirty-faced? Color me angel.
Burr? That fuckstick has played the establishment Republican role well.
thicc?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-8318623/Demi-Rose-showcases-phenomenal-abs-eye-popping-cleavage.html
She has great tits, I’ll give her that.
She’s a pretty girl but it’s a shame about that ass.
Her surgeon made some spectacular tiddies, but the gallon buckets of silicon in the bue-tox are fucking clown shoes.
Hey, gang. Thanks to Spud for picking up the pieces. Banjos’s dad was killed in a car crash yesterday after apparently suffering a heart attack while on the highway. Please have her and her family in your thoughts and prayers. It’s a devastating blow. He was a good man. The world is less today than it was.
Sorry to hear that man.
Ugh. Sorry to hear that.
Oh, so sorry, Sloop! Please give her lots of hugs from us.
That’s terrible. My condolences to you all.
Sorry 🙁
Prayers sent.
Oh sloopy! Banjos, I am so, so sorry.
Jesus, that’s rough. Give Banjo all my love during this terrible time.
Thoughts and prayers, sorry to hear about that.
Yikes. Sorry buddy.
I’m very sorry to hear that. Give her our condolences.
Damn. That’s rough. I’m so sorry.
sorry. my condolences.
Sorry Banjos and Sloopy 🙁
Very sorry for her, and your, loss. Condolences.
So sorry, Condolences.
Oh my God, that’s horrible, so sorry to hear that.
What everyone else has already said X 2, Sloop and Banjos. Kids need a grandpa, too.
my condolences.
Im
That is horrible news. Deepest condolences to Banjos and her family.
I’m so sorry for all of you.
Holy shit! Condolences to the family.
Sorry 🙁
So sorry. My Father went out the same way recently. You are good people and deserve better then what the Universe just side-armed you. You are in my thoughts, always.
Others have and will continue to say it better — but condolences to you and your family. You two are often a bright spot in the morning and I’m sure he was part of that.
I feel sorry for you both. What a shock. You are in my prayers from tonight.
Oh that’s terrible. I am the praying type so prayers are on the way.
My condolences. I wish the best for you and yours.
That’s awful. I’m so sorry to hear that.
I am very sorry to hear that. My condolences.
Prayers to your family.
Uffda. So sorry to hear about your family’s loss.
Oh Lord. Sorry. My condolences.
Sorry.
You’re all in my thoughts.
I’m sorry. We’ll pray for y’all.
Oh man, that sucks. Condolences to all of you.
Oh wow. Condolences to Banjos and the family.
Aw man. Very sorry to hear that.
I’m so sorry to hear this! 🙁
My condolences as well!
Shit, I’m so sorry Sloopy and Banjos. Condolences.
Prayers for Banjo and you and family.
Holy smokes. No bueno. Sorry.
Damn, that is terrible. I’m sorry. Condolences to both of you and your families.
Awful. My condolences.
Wow. That supremely sucks.
Probably too soon to blame this on the ‘rona.
My condolences, sloopy and banjos. I hope you and the family are hanging in there.
Very sorry to hear the news. I just spent a 4 day weekend with Pater Dean, and was blessed to be able to do so. The day will come, and it will be a hard day, indeed. I hope it gives some small comfort that her virtual gang of misfits and misanthropes is thinking of her.
Sorry to hear this. Condolences.
My condolences.
My condolences.
Condolences to the families
Not much to say other than condolences. It’s always harder when it’s sudden. Just know you have stand up people on this board who are there for as well as those in your real life.
Crap. Condolences to Banjos and your family.
Condolences to your entire family.
Oh geez I am so sorry to hear this. My condolences to both of you, just terrible news.
Good lord… My condolences.
So sorry for Banjos – and your family’s – loss, sloop.
Jeez… Condolences to Banjos and to you all.
my deepest sympathies
My most heartfelt condolences.
We should be able to come together.
Tangentially related
Doesn’t a tangent by definition move apart?
Case fatality rate by age group (KY data), confirmed deaths in age group / confirmed cases in age group. IFR (infected fatality rate) is lower, obviously, although hard to get much lower than 0% for the young ones.
0-9 0.0%
10-19 0.0%
20-29 0.0%
30-39 0.2%
40-49 0.5%
50-59 2.3%
60-69 6.6%
70-79 13.7%
80+ 28.8%
This is example A in why schools should have never been closed. Issue teachers masks and gloves and continue on.
so the kids can infect grandma?
Don’t let the kids near grandma. As should be obvious from the chart, not letting the virus near old people is kind of important. Like don’t require senior homes to accept covid positive patients.
Grammas in the nursing home where she is safe!
Wait…. Maybe she’d be better off at home.
That’s pretty similar to Florida. And 42% of the deaths in FL are in long term care homes.
In my area of SW Florida (Charlotte, Lee, Collier counties) the under-65 population is right at a million, and we have a total of 8 deaths in that age group.
I got sucked into a conversation about the plague, last night. The guy was throwing numbers around “proving” how South Dakota is far, far worse than Montana because they didn’t do cower at home rules. I, being me, said, “I have not studied the numbers in detail because meaningful numbers are impossible to find.” Without context, it’s not productive.
And- don’t talk to me about “cases” if you’re going to include people who are not sick.
They say that about Sweden and Norway.
It was never about a race to see who saves more lives.
It’s about managing the virus.
And in the long run, Sweden will win the race.
It may require some to put their faith in a higher power.
.30-06?
With a 3 X 9 scope…
Also- has anyone seen anything about environmental conditions in meatpacking, other than people jammed together, which might create a favorable environment for the virus to grow/multiply?
meat?
If I had to take a guess, I’d also say that large amounts of biological material floating around that could harbor the virus as well.
I haven’t seen anything, but the air is cooler, and the humidity is higher. If I had to guess, I would say because it varies more in temperature from place to place inside the building, so there might be more sneezing.
I think the cold temperature. Outdoor desert workers are probably pretty safe.
I find it interesting that in NYC there was a large enough outbreak amongst Hasidic Jews that even the MSM noticed, yet nobody seems to bring up the fact that the USDA hires Hasidic Jews to be inspectors at slaughterhouses/packing plants.
Didn’t they all go to that doctor who was handing out cloroquine and z-paks, and few ended up in the hospital?
No, my Chabad coworker is a bit messed up about Covid because he personally knows something like 20 people who have died from it. That community got hit hard.
I think there’s probably also some conditions at home that contributed. Mostly illegals/Latinxes living in crowded conditions, with who knows what sanitation.
Police visit violent criminals’ homes to persuade them not to reoffend
A senior officer has said offenders are being given a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to take a different path during lockdown.
https://news.sky.com/story/police-visit-violent-criminals-homes-to-persuade-them-not-to-reoffend-11987663
“An’ if you don’t reconsider….we shall come by and politely ask again!”
Slate Headline: The South’s Restaurant Reopening Is Going About As Well As You’d Expect
At this point, a number of states have begun lifting stay-at-home orders and allowing nonessential businesses to reopen, with the hope that they can start thawing their economies even if the coronavirus hasn’t been fully contained.
But the defrosting process seems to be going slowly—at least if you judge by the number of people brave enough to eat out. At restaurants that use OpenTable’s booking software, the number of diners in every state where the company tracks data was still down by 82 percent or more through Sunday, compared with a year before. That includes early reopeners like Georgia (down 92 percent), Utah (down 91 percent), Nebraska (down 90 percent), South Carolina (down 89 percent), Tennessee (down 87 percent), Texas (down 83 percent), and Oklahoma (down 82 percent).
So, not going well for the restaurants…, but still an L for lockdown supporters.
Patios opening up here tomorrow, with sit down opening up next Thursday. There’s been mixed stories about who’s opening, who’s staying closed, when people are planning on opening back up, and permanent closures announced.
I’m excited to go to SC next week, eat a restaurant, get a haircut if we can get into a barbershop, and generally be a free man for a couple of days.
Barbers should be reserved for residents only. I need one badly.
I have a tight window before returning to the People’s Gulag of NJ.
Gotta show ID.
“This doesn’t look like you…”
“BECAUSE OF THE HAIR DAMMIT!!!”
Relatively free…its not exactly Somalia here.
I would absolutely book reservations at my favorite restaurants tomorrow if they were open. Unless they do that stupid isolation thing with putting plastic between the tables or bullshit like that.
“The South”
Nebraska??!!
Ha, good catch. I did say it was Slate.
I would also posit that using OpenTable booking is a flawed metric for how much people are eating out for two reasons:
1) The higher-end restaurants that disproportionately use OpenTable haven’t re-opened yet, since they will only lose money if operating at 25% capacity, and
2) Related – that people who are venturing to go out to eat right now are utilizing small, local and family-owned restaurants, who may not be OpenTable clients.
In other words, if I’m taking the family out for ribs and a pitcher at Fat Stan’s BBQ, I’m not making reservations on OpenTable, but if I want that nice celebration dinner at Chez Marmoset, I’m not using OpenTable either, since Chez Marmoset won’t re-open until they can turn a profit.
How many people use it at all in the first place? I’ve never even heard of OpenTable and we eat out a fair bit.
It’s fairly popular. I’ve been using it for the last seven years at least. Probably it’s more popular in some areas (on the coasts?) than in others.
I’ve used it 2 or 3 times. Standard web interface for making a reservation is better than trying to find out what the place’s phone number is, calling a distracted hostess and hoping that she hears my reservation correctly over the bustle in the background.
Makes sense. People need to find their groove.
I’d go in a jiffy.
Thot Thursday sez why have just one?
http://archive.li/WtI61
why have just one?
Exactly.
PA’s Health Department Secretary pulled his mother out of a nursing home before forcing the homes to accept Covid patients – where the virus spread like wildfire and killed residents. But more importantly – Don’t misgender
himher.Somebody posted that yesterday. It looks like the mother actually asked to be taken out but that could just be a cover story. Who knows really?
Unless the legislatures have somehow passed some kind of immunity laws, I’m betting that the class-action lawsuits from families of nursing home victims will be the biggest in history. Between NY, NJ, and PA – way over 10k people died in those homes as a direct result of the states’ incompetence.
Gauleiter Wolf signed a bill into law granting civil immunity to health care providers.
The order grants civil immunity to individual licensed, certified and registered health care workers acting in “good faith” across all types of state-defined health care facilities — among others, hospitals, ambulatory centers, psychiatric hospitals, cancer centers, drug and alcohol treatment programs and rehabilitation hospitals.
It extends the protection to workers at nursing homes, assisted living facilities and community-based testing sites.
The immunity does not apply to “acts or omissions that constitute a crime, gross negligence, or fraud, malice, or other willful misconduct.”
Prediction: The response to lawsuits will be, “We were just good nursing homes obeying the law”, and the lawsuit will be tossed.
The immunity does not apply to “acts or omissions that constitute a crime, gross negligence, or fraud, malice, or other willful misconduct.”
So its virtually meaningless. And it won’t survive a due process challenge, anyway.
They won’t sue the nursing homes – they didn’t have a choice – they’ll sue the states.
The state has sovereign immunity. And yes, they will sue the nursing homes, hospitals, everybody they can.
I was talking to one of our defense lawyers, who had talked to one of the biggest personal injury lawyers in San Francisco. The PI lawyer told him that the plaintiff’s bar already has their commercials soliciting COVID lawsuits in the can, and is just waiting for the right moment to start running them. He was quite chipper about the outlook for extracting nuisance settlements.
I’m not sure – I’ll ask the lawyers in a live thread.
Needz moar models
Researchers are beginning to test homeless individuals in the United States for the virus that causes COVID-19 — and are discovering that the situation is out of control: tests are rare and outbreaks are spreading below the radar.
The lack of testing and assistance for people living in group settings — such as those in homeless shelters, nursing homes and prisons — threatens their lives as well as the nation’s ability to curb COVID-19 because these communities can rapidly become the epicentres of new outbreaks that will spread, say researchers. Scientists are now scrambling to collect data and model the transmission of coronavirus under different group-living situations in hopes of guiding strategies to curb outbreaks.
Evidence-based solutions might protect not only the roughly 1.4 million people who use a homeless shelter or transitional housing in the United States each year — a growing population as unemployment soars and prisons release people to ease crowding — but also other people who don’t have the luxury of separating themselves from others. “What we’re seeing in this first wave in the US is that the largest clusters are in populations where people don’t have a lot of agency,” says Gina Neff, a sociologist at the University of Oxford, UK. “These populations will become the sources of new outbreaks, even when we feel like we kind of have it under control.”
Current testing policies are missing a significant amount of infections in at-risk groups. In one recent study, researchers found that only one individual out of 147 who tested positive in a homeless shelter in Boston, Massachusetts, would have met the official criterion for testing — a fever.
Hell, maybe the homeless lifestyle toughens you up. We should be grinding those homeless people up to make a vaccine.
moar models
Yeah it’s kindof a sausage fest in here. Oh, you meant – never mind.
Homeless lifestyles may be improving
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/05/13/proposal-would-create-tent-cities-homeless-veterans-va-parking-lots.html?ESRC=eb_200514.nl
This is one of the things that I have asked the panickers since the beginning. If CV was really, super totes deadly, why aren’t there piles of bodies in SF and other cities with big homeless populations?
Living rough like that has to make you pretty vulnerable to any infectious disease. Instead all the dead people have nice beds in long term care facilities.
Sorry, Banjos.
List of officials who sought to ‘unmask’ Flynn released: Biden, Comey, Obama chief of staff among them
Just a silly Fox Farce obsession with the deep state. – CNN
Incidentally, I saw a clip yesterday where Fredo Cuomo said something retarded. “In it for the collective”? “Rand Paul does not just represent Kentucky*”? Fuck. Off.
*”He is a fUcking senator from Kentucky! He literally represents KY and only KY** in the federal senate!”, I yelled at the screen.
**Ostensibly, of course.
Chris Cuomo, the guy who broke quarantine while having a known and active case of the cough? People are still listening to him on this issue?
Self-identifying neoliberals, how do you define neoliberalism?
https://twitter.com/ne0liberal/status/1260677007043690501
From the replies
Neoliberalism = free markets (golden eggs) + social insurance (missing markets) + cash welfare (vertical equity)
weird definition
“Missing markets means some markets fail due to externalities, coordination problems, transaction costs, etc. Need gov’t intervention to fix.” – I don’t get what makes people think the government can fix such issues…
“Take health insurance. Due to widely understood reasons related to asymmetric information and risk pooling, most individual health insurance plans unravel. In that case, gov’t is most efficient actor to pool risk universally” – claim without much evidence. Also does not address in any way the externalities and moral hazard of compulsory risk pooling.
So Sweden then although I don’t think they know what free markets really means.
“Due to widely understood reasons related to asymmetric information and risk pooling, most individual health insurance plans unravel”
They broke the insurance market, on purpose, and then blame the insurance market for not functioning.
That’s how fascism works: government gets to pick the winners and losers and never has to take the blame for horrible government policies totalitarian systems impose in the name of social justice.
There’s asymmetric information in the vast majority of transactions. That’s, ya know, a major part of the reason that people need auto mechanics, plumbers, electricians, etc. Because they know the things that you don’t know. That doesn’t mean that a market can’t function in these areas.
Meanwhile this happened:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/republican-mike-garcia-wins-california-house-special-election-25th-district/
I guess they didn’t find enough ballots hidden under whores’ mattresses.
That seat has been held by a Jackass since 1998.
Related, LOL:
Still think they are saving their pallets of spare ballots in reserve for November.
My money is on it still be held by a jackass. But that is true for most of the 435 seats, so an easy default assumption.
Why did they hold the election? Won’t they have to do it again in November?
That seat has been held by a Jackass since 1998.
Not quite. A republican hasn’t flipped a seat in CA since 1998. That district was red until Katie Hill, and well, we saw how that worked out.
Yep.
That seat was Republican from ’93 until 2019.
Yeah. And IIRC ballot harvesting seemed to work pretty well in her favor. I wonder how long till GOP starts playing the game too and then we just end up with a new “this is ok” status quo.
As Robc points out, jackass is a default position.
And they won in Wisconsin I believe?
which is more interesting IMO. California isn’t going to become Red all the sudden.
No, it won’t. However, it would be interesting if the GOP in California goes from mostly dead to partially alive and claws back a few of the seats they’ve lost in recent elections.
The shenanigans in the 2018 election in California may have cost the Repubs the House, and set off the 18 month impeaechment/coup nightmare. Every seat matters, especially when the alternative to a limp-dick Repub is a frothing-at-the-mouth Dem.
Meanwhile this happened:
The other day, I was reading some thing about how we (“WE”!) are going to have to get used to not knowing the results of any election for weeks, after we go to all mail in balloting. But those elections will be more fair and just!
Do I think a treasure trove of “newly discovered” ballots is on the horizon? I wouldn’t bet against it.
Eventually it will swing a national election in a big way and people will start shooting.
People should have starting shooting long past. I doubt this will create any rebellion, the majority of the country has been too thoroughly neutered.
N.J. to reopen nonessential stores for curbside pickup
So you can’t shop in person, but if Mom and Pop can set themselves up with an Amazon like website, you can just go pick up the stuff – instead of just ordering from Amazon.
Murphy really is spectacular in his stupidity and arrogance.
California did the same.
These people can’t possibly be this retarded.
Like I mean, it’s very disturbing to be this stupid and have power.
“In addition, New Jersey’s government is missing massive amounts of tax revenue, and Murphy has warned the state faces a “fiscal disaster” within weeks that could lead to historic public-worker layoffs if the federal government doesn’t approve more direct financial aid.”
Or. Orrrrrr, I’m just throwing around ideas here, you can OPEN THE FUCK UP, stop pretending you’re saving granny, and limit the damage dumbfuck politicians and medical bureaucrats caused.
I can’t believe the message isn’t: Look. The virus is out there. Curbside or not it’s going to spread. Take your hit and move the fuck on already. You can’t manage or limit it anymore. All theatres come to an end and this act is OVER.
Sweden is right. WE WERE WRONG.
He gives the update every day.
Part 1 he swings his giant authoritarian boner around telling everybody that’s he’s the supreme ruler and they better do as he says or else.
Part 2 he admits that the state is dead broke and headed towards bankruptcy, then begs for federal money to “avert” the disaster that he’s causing.
“could lead to historic public-worker layoffs if the federal government doesn’t approve more direct financial aid.”
Public workers not wanting to be laid off just want to kill Grandma. And I’m not just talking about the cops.
Not exactly swinging my vote to a federal bailout, there, bucko.
Go on…
Not disagreeing with you in the overall sense, but there can be ways this works.
In the relatively small town where my wife lives, the local pharmacy is open but not allowing anyone in the store. They have a table 6 feet inside the front door. Most people are picking up prescriptions. But I stopped by yesterday to buy some OTC stuff. I’ve been here often enough that I know what they carry. They grabbed it for me and took my cash at the table. I’ve seen a couple of other stores on main street doing the same thing.
Like I said, your overall point is valid, but there can be exceptions.
I’ve seen it in pharmacies and paint stores. But that’s not how I’ll be shopping for clothes or shoes for instance. And if I was redecorating instead of touching up and re-staining the deck, I’d never choose colors on the computer screen.
One thing guys, about unmasking. Not saying it’s right, but…
1. There are about 10,000 unmasking requests a year.
2. You don’t know who’s being unmasked until afterwards (hence the term “unmasking”).
This is one of those things where we don’t give a shit until it happens to someone important (hey, I didn’t know what it was until now either). And then we get outraged about it happening to that one particular person, and ignore everything else. Kind of like with FISA abuses.
In theory you don’t know who’s being unmasked until it’s done but judging by the sheer number of unmasking requests per Flynn it’s almost certain someone was feeding White House officials information as to what line of what conversation should be requested. Maybe this high profile case will result in a curbing of the practice although I wouldn’t bet on it.
That would be a smoking gun, I assume. They find proof that someone like Susan Rice know that Flynn was the masked man and so she requests the unmasking. That way you could possibly find the leaker and have motive properly established.
Yeah, it sounds terribly ripe for parellel construction. You (the Deep State) violate the 4th Amendment because you always do, surveilling somebody who’s a political target, and when you find something you want to use/spread, then you tell somebody else to come up with an unmasking request so that it carries a cover of legitimacy.
My question is who is doing them? FBI guys? They Probably have a plausible reason. Joe from Treasury? GFY. And for that matter all the ambassadors.
But I think that this may be overplayed, and ignore that it is pretty clear that the Obama administration set up Flynn in order to hinder the Trump Admin. That was evident with it without the unmasking info released yesterday.
My wife was reading about the EMT shot in the wrong house no knock raid and was shocked to learn about the practice. I told her about 20,000 of those happen per year.
How common are no-knock raids by cops in plain clothes? That struck me as very strange.
If you were looking to make “no-knock” an even worse practice (from a practical sense, constitutionally it should not even be allowed) this is it.
It could be as long as “four or five years” before #COVID19 is under control and the pandemic could “potentially get worse”, according to the World Health Organization’s chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan.
https://twitter.com/newscientist/status/1260868048262750208
If this is anywhere close to true just get rid of quarantine now because it saint gonna hold for 5 fucking years.
We can trust the WHO because they have been so good on the pandemic so far.
Honestly I don’t see a vaccine coming soon given that as far as I no vaccine for a pulmonary coronavirus was made successfully until now. Maybe it was never researched that much, but I am skeptical.
It was never researched, because the other coronaviruses we know of have either been about on par with the common cold or fizzled out (like SARS/MERS)
At best the seasonal flu vaccine is about 50% effective, and usually much less. Since the Chinese flu seems to be about as bad as a bad flu season, we should get the fuck over it and get on ith our lives and admit the panic and lockdowns were a big mistake.
So we can finally move on with our normal lives when Trump gets out of office.
Heading to Ohio tonight for some medical stuff. How much is it still locked down? Will I be able to do anything while there?
you should be able to go to a grocery store.
Retail is reopening, but with some restrictions – employees in masks, limiting numbers of customers, etc. I believe restaurants are reopening Friday with outdoor seating. Salons (and presumably barbers?) likewise.
Shopping is available, restaurants are take-out only, gyms are closed. Patios are supposed to open tomorrow, but it’s looking like a mixed bag (up here in CLE) as to who’s opening, who isn’t going to bother, and who’s waiting until later to open. Most of the news is the downtown restaurants aren’t even opening up for patio/takeout since there’s no events pulling people into the city. Breweries are allowed to deliver beer, and if you do take out, you can get 2 pre-mixed cocktails per meal ordered.
He was trying to find out if there were any hookers walking the streets, but in a classy way. And then you people inundate him with worthless crap like restaurants and shit.
Finally someone who understands.
Well, “massage businesses” open tomorrow, too.
Back to doing rubs & tugs for the entrepreneurs in that business…
Dude, it is Ohio. Our hookers are pretty much limited to junkie streetwalkers.
“I rarely watch any cable news but whenever I do, absolutely baffled how anyone thinks CNN is qualitatively different than Fox News”
https://twitter.com/ENBrown/status/1260894235722735618
Reason (and their writers) have actually been pretty decent over the last couple of months (though I don’t follow some of their writers, like Robby, who might cause me to change my mind on that).
To be sure aside, Robby isn’t that bad.
Robby is actually one of the best they have at the moment. Now, that could easily say more about the decline of Reason than it does about Robby, but still.
Binion might be worse than Dalmia though.
I thought the same thing of her articles back when I used to read them.
Fox is way better than CNN. It’s not even comparable actually.
Conflating the two on the hard news side especially is pretty off base. Fox is undeniably partisan but they don’t generally just make shit up.
They are considerably better at separating the news from the opinions. Something that reputable papers used to do.
Yep. There’s probably not much difference when comparing the pundit shows, but Fox is much better at straight news reporting.
I don’t know what part you put Lou Dobbs under but he’s fucking awful.
I don’t know what it is, but I hate that guy.
As much as I don’t care for Hannity, he’s been completely vindicated by all of the revelations of the last three days.
Meanwhile, CBS, ABC, NBC, et al are very studiously ignoring the major developments in the Flynn case and Grenell’s document release. That’s a major tell.
For some reason I can watch Tucker, but can’t stand Hannity’s rantings.
100% agree. Even if he was right he’s too far right for me. *throws football at camera
Same here. Hannity strikes me as a dim bulb who is only good for parroting the RNC party line. A useful idiot, if you will.
ENB seems to be baffled quite often.
Dumb as a rock, barely sentient.
She covers the porn beat.
“Every time I see stuff like this warrantless data collection happening in the US, or increasingly oppressive social media censorship and opinion-shaping algorithms, it’s like…could you just copy the mask thing instead of the unaccountable surveillance state shit from us??”
https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/1260876477601468419
You can’t leave off the boilerplate:
Researchers working to dampen the toll of COVID-19 in other crowded spaces, such as nursing homes and meat-packing plants, worry that policymakers aren’t concerned enough about outbreaks among marginalized populations. Kushel says, “As scientists, it’s our role to raise up these issues and help the public understand how viruses do discriminate since we live in an inequitable world.”
Really? I thought your role as a scientist was to collect data and formulate and test hypotheses based on objective criteria.
“Just Because You Test Positive for Antibodies Doesn’t Mean You Have Them
In a population whose infection rate is 5 percent, a test that is 90 percent accurate could deliver a false positive nearly 70 percent of the time.
The confidence that we should have in antibody tests depends on a key factor that is often ignored: the base rate of the coronavirus. The base rate is the actual amount of infection in a known population. In the United States, that appears to be between 5 percent and 15 percent.
This simple fact is essential to understanding the accuracy of an antibody test. Yet overlooking this fact is also one of the most common decision-making errors made, so much so that it has its own name: the base rate fallacy.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/opinion/antibody-test-accuracy.html
“WE NEED MOAR QUESTIONABLE TESTING!!!”
/NYT
The fun in testing isn’t so much in seeing the results as it is in forcing the rubes to COMPLY with mandatory testing schemes.
Some friends of ours, a couple, recently had antibody tests (the husband works for a healthcare company and was able to arrange for them). The wife came back positive for the antibodies and as of a couple days ago, the husband hadn’t received results yet. They believe they had the virus back in Feb when they both came down with some symptoms (nothing serious enough to see a Dr). They were living in Florida in Feb and have moved back to Ohio about a month ago.
I love the fact they are just now questioning the results of a testing system that was *check notes just put in place and created months ago, Wait till they find out the false positives/negatives on over the counter pregnancy tests.
We will continue testing until we get a result we can spin into panic.
Politicians are the very essence of “nonessential”.
^^^THIS^^^
But they will tell you that the rest of us all are expendable when it comes to saving the politician’s hides.
One of the things that has become apparent is that the GOP left Nunez et al out in the cold.
Every GOP congresscritter that was in those closed door meetings knew exactly what was going on and how blatantly Brennan, Clapper, Comey, etc… were all lying in the media. With the exception of Gowdy, Gaetz, and Nunez, they’ve largely been silent and too chickenshit to take on the media and Schiff.
I mean, do you really think that the Intelligence Community (the most Orwellian name in government) isn’t gonna have leverage on every single member of Congress that oversees them?
Plus Republicans are rule followers. It’s the reason we can’t vote our way out of this. Because Good Republican Rule Followers start with a baseline of “Enforce every single progressive law and policy that has been instituted over the last century, and then try to hold what remains.” It’s like if MacArthur’s strategy in Korea was to hold the Pusan Perimeter until the Commies got bored and went home.
Nunes was basically called a hack clown by everyone all the time everyday for three years. Makes sense that he was the one closest to the truth.
I may have found my favorite partnership for delivery during the lockdown. A local brewery partnered up with a local hero to delivery beer, and he’ll use his ballpark voice to let you know that there’s beer here.
“How Germany Is A COVID Failure
The incredibly low bar for white people
Germany has more COVID-19 deaths than Iran but is still held up as an example of great coronavirus management. It’s really not. It’s just structural racism. The western world desperately needs a great white hope, and Germany is it.
Germany has over 150,000 confirmed cases and over 5,500 deaths. Vietnam — a country with a similar population, far less wealth, and a land border with China — has 268 cases and 0 deaths. Not a few deaths, ZERO. That’s what success in fighting coronavirus looks like, and it’s not Germany. Vietnam, however, is not white people, therefore they don’t count. Did you know Angel Merkel was a scientist?
If you read the western press, truly successful countries like Vietnam, South Korea, and Taiwan are only held up as oriental curiosities, never as just human nations that could be learned from. They might as well be on Mars.
Instead, we get coverage of how well Angela Merkel speaks, all while studiously ignoring the horrific death toll in her country. Iran was covered as if it was completely falling apart, and yet the death toll there is almost exactly the same. What gives?
The western world still cannot understand that it has collapsed. Not in part, not just Trump, the whole rotten edifice has fallen down. Instead, they just grade themselves on a whites-only curve. Italy, France, and the UK have completely failed and America is telling people to drink bleach, so Germany is head of the class…
Let me be clear. Stop citing Germany as a success story. Germany is a failure. Drop the hubris, the structural racism, and learn something from the rest of the world. It might just save your life.”
https://medium.com/@indica/germany-is-a-coronavirus-failure-7e2a58f5b4fe
Do you know who else thought Germany was a failure?
How are we assuming that Vietnam’s offiical numbers are any more accurate than China’s?
Vietnam is the only country reporting zero. Weird that the outlier is considered as anything other than an out-and-out liar.
Yet is was a port-call in Vietnam that infected the Sailors on the Roosevelt.
Yeah, we all believe the Iranian numbers.
Ummm…Scott Sumner has been pimping Taiwan for months. Maybe we read a different “western press”? I don’t read news sites, I read econ sites.
Do you know who else thought Germany was a great white hope?
My level of confidence in Iran’s numbers is somewhere between China’s and North Korea’s.
I believe that North Korea has no detected fatalities caused by the virus – they all get shot first.
People this stupid should be limited to picking fruit or sorting crayons.
They already sort the crayons, and eat them afterwards.
They already sort the crayons
Yeah, but, by height and # of chars in the color name.
Here’s another report on Vietnam. I have no way of knowing if their numbers are accurate, but they did act pretty quickly. Being an authoritarian state, they shut down air travel, introduced mandatory testing and quarantine (“Vietnam has isolated all people even suspected of being infected. Tens of thousands of people have been placed into quarantine.”). They’re opening back up now so it will be interesting to see what happens.
The other possible factor here is urban/rural. I wonder if the focus has been on the cities (the article seems to suggest that). It’s possible there are more infections in the rural areas, especially closer to the Chinese border.
Asked my friend this tonight:
Which is (or has the potential) to cause the most harm to the US:
The war on poverty
The war on drugs
The war on terror
The war on Covid
Not as clear cut if you think about it.
Poverty, covid, terror, drugs.
Did I get it right?
Nope. Answer is: No, you don’t have any friends.
I’d say drugs, covid, poverty, terror. Drugs created the search and seizure, walking probable cause detectors (drug dogs), quite a bit of financial laws, etc.
COVID, easily. They’re simultaneously banning commerce while they print money, and have set a precedent that unelected bureaucrats are de facto dictators whenever some new strain of virus pops up. None of the other ones have the potential to actually destroy the country. We might be looking at 20% unemployment, plus a return of a nasty inflation, plus Dr. Whatever in the fall deciding the new flu strain is Just Like Covid 19 and everyone has to lock down until Senile Joe ascends the Iron Throne to rubber stamp whatever Clapper, Brennan, and whatever monster they make Attorney General has decided needs to be done to Punish the Deplorables.
It’s tough measuring loss of life (war on terror led to many dead), loss of time (prison for drugs or covid house arrest), lose of productivity (war on poverty sapping incentive to work) and putting them up against each other. War on Covid is worse in terms of scale of civil liberties violations and certainly could be economically the worst of all four.
Covid is going to cause millions of people to starve to death and all kinds of second order deaths that are incalculable. Compared to the others which boil down to essentially local new stories of fuckups in scale.
That Adam Smith line, “There’s a great deal of ruin in a nation,” springs to mind… but ruination can be soaked up over time, ideally decades, whereas we’re catching all the ruin in a swift series of gut punches.
I think poverty is worse, because a small percent reduction of growth over a long, long time is worse than a hopefully short term depression.
Yes, and the cultural impact, especially in black communities, has created some pernicious knock-on effects.
Covid is possibly the singlehandely dumbest bit of public policy to ever be implemented in the history of the world.
*looks in mirror* Nope, still not a racist.
“You know what, Whoopi, we all know now that he’s a racist. He’s a disgusting racist,” Behar said. “We knew it when he attacked Mexicans. We knew it when he defended Charlottesville people. And we know it when he goes after China and he goes after a Chinese-American girl. He is a racist. He throws red meat to his base on a regular basis, and anybody who still supports this guy needs to look in the mirror and ask themselves if they are racist also. That’s all I have to say about him. I’ve had enough of him.”
Still clinging bitterly to this demonstrably false narrative… And the one about the mexicans when he was referring to the violent gang ms-13…and the thing about the Chinese reporter which is also a totally false characterization…I am starting to think these people are mendacious hacks. But to be fair, in Behar’s case it could just be low IQ.
Don’t the good people of charlottesville deserve to be defended? / overly glib
Charlottesville is loaded to the gills with commies, so, no.
I mean China handled all of this above board and by the book so any criticism of them is obviously racism. The China shills are getting old.
When a word is stretched, warped, and mishandled enough, it loses all meaning. Call me a racist for disagreeing with the leftist narrative – I’ll laugh. It means nothing from them.
Good morning, Spud.
I’m enjoying a rainy morning with black as sin coffee. It’s perfect.
Black souled and bitter? Like I like my women, huh?
Blacker. ?
SUCCESS!
More than 2.98 million Americans filed for unemployment last week, the Labor Department reported on Thursday, as the shutdowns caused by the coronavirus outbreak continued to deepen the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression.
The new report, which covers the week ending May 9, pushes the two-month total of losses since states adopted strict stay-at-home measures to more than 36 million. All of the jobs created during the past decade have been wiped out; unemployment at this scale hasn’t been recorded since the Great Depression.
Although the number is still grim — it’s the eighth straight week that layoffs were counted in the millions — it’s the lowest amount of jobless claims since the week ended March 15. Last week’s count was revised up by 7,000 to 3.176 million.
The four-week moving average was 19.8 million, up 2.7 million from the previous week.
Continuing claims, which tracks the number of out-of-work Americans receiving jobless benefits, rose by 456,000 to 22.83 million, indicating that a broad swath of unemployed workers are still not being brought back to work.
The number comes on the heels of the April jobs report, which revealed that in the span of one month, more than 20 million people found themselves out of work, pushing the unemployment rate to 14.7 percent — the highest since record-keeping began in 1948.
The splinter was removed. Unfortunately, the patient died on the operating table.
That happens when you remove the splinter by severing the ephemeral artery.
They say a dog is only three missed meals from going feral… I wonder how long it takes before the unemployed find work as militants.
…and people from becoming revolutionaries…
Germany has over 150,000 confirmed cases and over 5,500 deaths. Vietnam — a country with a similar population, far less wealth, and a land border with China — has 268 cases and 0 deaths. Not a few deaths, ZERO. That’s what success in fighting coronavirus looks like, and it’s not Germany. Vietnam, however, is not white people, therefore they don’t count.
I’m convinced.
Taking commie nations ludicrous statistics at face value, a tradition nearly a century old.
I’m just gonna say, taking any third world nations stats without asking how much they are looking at this is silly. It’s the “You can’t see me cause i can’t see you” version of covid testing.
Cuba has the highest literacy rate in the world, just ask the Castros.
Add to that the fact that teaching a native Spanish speaker to read is a trivial task. It takes a couple weeks at the most. The language is spoken exactly as it is written.
It only sounds impressive to “educated” English speaking monolinguists who don’t know the difference.
Wouldn’t a hard part of learning to read though be the understanding of the symbols, what sounds they mean and how to then put them together. I get that english can be harder to learn from a standpoint of someone who already understands language and reading, but when you don’t know how to read any language, i think it will still be fairly difficult.
Because Vietnam has the capacity to test at the same rate as Germany…
I remember reading a while ago the vitnamese govenrment hacked some chinese government entity and found out early about the contagion. Not sure if true
Also, I’ve seen bunches of articles on South Korea’s (mentioned in that article) approach. “If I ignore all inconvenient media mentions, I can crank out 2,000 words on the West’s racism. And I’m on a tight deadline from my editor to call something racist!”
It’s official now, the Fed is pushing on a string.
Their action to start buying ETFs of corporate bond is an admission of as much. The Fed is putting money out to the banks, but the banks won’t lend it because companies are at risk of going insolvent.
We’re past liquidity being an issue and cash flow problems, no amount of lending is going to solve the airlines’ problems or the restaurants’ problems because they don’t have any customers.
Why do you want people to die
It’s quite scary what’s happening.
We’re past liquidity being an issue and cash flow problems, no amount of lending is going to solve the airlines’ problems or the restaurants’ problems because they don’t have any customers.
Which is why we have to give every American 2 (or 5, or 50) thousand dollars per month for an indeterminate period of time.
Release the helicopters!
https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Burlington-School-District-takes-a-look-at-probable-deficit-570461621.html
“Men were more artistically productive in societies where there was a scarcity of women.”
https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1260474388874485760
Well duh….
Across all majors, students of Theater and of Women’s Studies/Gender Studies were the queerest, while Finance was the straightest discipline.
https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1260775007199940611
Our best. Our brightest.
The chairman of the US Federal Reserve warned Wednesday that the economic shock from the coronavirus is “without modern precedent” and “significantly worse” than any recession since World War II.
Investors didn’t like what they heard. The Dow shed more than 2% after the warning from the central banker, and the S&P 500 closed down 1.75%
Powell said while economic forecasts are uncertain even in the best times, the speed of the recovery depends on a series of essentially unanswerable questions: How quickly can the coronavirus be brought under control? Will new testing, treatments and vaccines be effective? When will consumer confidence return?
“There is a sense, growing sense I think, that the recovery may come more slowly than we would like,” the central banker said during a virtual event at the Peterson Institute of International Economics.
“I’m beginning to think this might become a stumbling block, at some point.”
It’s retards, all the way down.
Would it be possible for him to sugar coat this news? That would make it easier to accept.
That is the sugar coated version of the future
It shows the utter incompetence of Fauci and the rest of the “public health” gang that they weren’t factoring in the known adverse public health effects of (1) delays in treatment caused by banning scheduled surgeries and otherwise fanning the flames of panic so that treatment has been delayed across the board and (2) a deep recession.
We’ll see how bad the recession is, but I am pretty confident that, on net, our public health “experts” have cost more lives, possibly many more lives, than they saved.
I mostly agree with you RC, but there’s one thing that’s been floating around in the back of my mind about your #1 – hospitals are pretty dangerous places, and I’ve wondered whether avoiding a lot of the elective surgeries and even well-meant treatments hasn’t saved more lives on net than it’s cost.
Basically, if you’re sick or decrepit, you might actually do better to stay that way at home instead of getting treated for it and getting an infection or complication. I know this is kinda your whole world, so you get the net impact better than me, but that’s been my “hmmm….” thing on stopping the electives.
Don’t confuse “elective” with “unnecessary”.
I have a vested interest, etc. so, grain of salt, but the majority of elective/scheduled surgeries are done on patients who aren’t “decrepit” (one outlier would be the cath lab putting in pacemakers and the like – a fair number of those are on very old people). The term “elective” is unfortunate; it sounds too much like “optional”, when all it really means is “scheduled” (as opposed to emergency).
The rate of actual hospital-acquired infections is actually very low – I’d have to look it up for our facility, but we do in excess of 20,000 surgeries a year, I believe, and the hospital acquired infections on those patients are in the low dozens.
Fauci, Redfield, etc. are just knee-jerk central planners. They don’t realize how much of their actual credibility they flush when they get off on their positions of authority.
I read a book of Feynman speeches last year. In one he remembered when he was in his 20’s and there was a conference with physicists from all over the globe. He started asking Neils Bohr all kinds of questions – during a break one of his colleagues told him “You can’t question Neils Bohr like that!” Feynman’s answer was (paraphrasing) “Why not? I’m not asking him questions of character, I have scientific curiosity about what he said.” At a dinner later that evening Bohr came up to Feynman and thanked him for the questions he hadn’t thought of and got back to him weeks later after doing some additional research.
*spits out coffee*
Michael Flynn’s sentencing judge Wednesday asked a former federal judge to explore whether Trump’s former national security adviser should face a contempt hearing for perjury after he pleaded guilty to a crime for which he now claims to be innocent.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan also asked retired New York federal Judge John Gleeson to make a nonbinding recommendation whether to order Flynn, who pleaded guilty to a crime and now claims innocence, to explain why he should not be found in criminal contempt for lying under oath in his guilty plea.
Sullivan’s request to Gleeson comes one day after Sullivan had put on hold the Justice Department’s bid to drop charges against Flynn, saying he expects independent groups and legal experts to argue against the move.
“The Court exercises its inherent authority to appoint The Honorable John Gleeson (Ret.) as amicus curiae to present arguments in opposition to the government’s Motion to Dismiss,” Sullivan wrote in a two-page order.
Agree to a plea deal and still get fucked. This judge should be impeached and disbarred.
Either Sullivan is functionally retarded or somebody is pressuring him behind the scenes. I can’t come up with any other explanations.
It’s definitely one of those.
He’s putting his entire career and reputation at risk by pulling this stunt, because that’s what this is, a stunt which is going to get slapped down hard.
If Biden wins in 6 months, he’s a contender for the Supreme Court.
Why not both?
The desperation from team blue weaponized bureaucracy to make sure Flynn is kept unable to talk or act is front & center here. The goal here is to run out the clock for now hoping they can steal the November election and shut everything down. If Flynn is no longer able to be kept quiet, what he will be able to disclose will destroy this cabal’s ability to keep operating.
I think they’ll still have the ability to keep operating, since I doubt there will be any consequences. But I think that an early and damning exposure of this will remove the cover that the RINOs were looking for.
In other words, if nothing really got out in public, the RINOs can do their thing and back a Donk. If it got too open and hot shortly before the election, the RINOs can act all embarrassed by how “impolitic” Trump is, and still back the Donk, without having to explain why they’re OK with all this stuff.
By laying out the case piecemeal over time, part of what they’re doing may be polluting all the “moderate” Donks that the RINOs were hoping for.
Believe me, I’d love to see the right thing happen to the perps. I just don’t think it will.
So you are telling me team red is OK with the fact team blue has now made it clear they will NEVER allow a team red candidate to actually win another election, and when that somehow happens, that candidate will be taken down and prevented from actually doing the job? Cause I suspect the team red people, even if it is for pure self serving need, wouldn’t take this reality and just live with it.
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
Well, some of the true believers on team red will object, sure. But most of them want to be the loyal opposition (insert standard cocktail party meme here) and have the national media say nice things about them. In their local situations, they get re-elected for saying (but never actually doing) things in opposition to the Donks. So they need to be in that opponent/underdog position. “Politics is local”.
Idk, controlled opposition. The illusion of choice. Somebody posted that all of DC is interconnected by marriage/family ties, etc. if your buddy ask you to play the bad guy that always loses in exchange for power/money, who is going to say no?
If Biden were to be elected in November, there will be, or should be, immediate calls for impeachment. Hopefully on the flimsiest of charges. These are the new rules.
Does it have to be either/or? I’m going with both.
The Court exercises its inherent authority to appoint The Honorable John Gleeson (Ret.) as amicus curiae to present arguments in opposition to the government’s Motion to Dismiss,
Once again, Can a lawyer fill in on how common this is? Or rather, how accepted it is (something could be uncommon, but still acceptable, impeachment for example)? this and the 9th is the first time i’ve heard of judges requesting Amicus Curiae to argue for a position because they felt the one side was being deficient. I know Amicus Curaie are common, but only for them to be submitted, not solicited.
IANA trial lawyer, but I thought this type of thing was usually for when a third party whose interests are at stake can’t be represented in the court. Things like representing the kid’s interests during a particularly complex custody dispute.
Almost completely unheard of for a trial court. And also unnecessary, since the judge can always hold him in criminal contempt on his own motion (which is what he asked the amicus to brief). I honestly have no idea what game he is playing here. This would be yet another example of convicting somebody for a process crime when there is no underlying crime, which I think shouldn’t ever happen. Remember, this isn’t “we couldn’t convict because the process crime obstructed our investigation to the point where we couldn’t prove it”. This is the prosecutor saying there was never an underlying crime.
One question: if a judge sentences somebody for criminal contempt, does the government have to imprison him? Is it a requirement to do so, or an authorization to do so?
If Flynn is actually convicted of anything, I think Trump has to pardon him. Either way, I hope he re-appoints him to his original position, but probably should hold off until after the election.
If Sullivan convicts him of criminal contempt, I hope that the Republicans in the Senate bring him up for impeachment and removal. It will fail, but putting him on the stand under oath and grilling him would be worth it. Ted cruz is an excellent cross-examiner and a former federal prosecutor, and would be my choice.
There is no legal provision for Amicus briefs in trial proceedings in criminal law – only the prosecutors and defense are to be heard from. Asking for and appointing someone to do an Amicus filing in a criminal case is extra-legal bullshit that should result in the judge being removed.
Unheard of. If I were his defense attorney, I would be going apeshit. There’s probably a mandamus motion/writ being drafted now by Flynn’s lawyers for the DC Cir Court.
The other part of this that is absurd is that by Sullivan’s logic no plea can ever be overturned. The minute someone says, “hey, my plea was coerced,” Sullivan is suggesting that now we prosecute the guy who had his plea coerced – and completely ignore the actions of the prosecutors. It’s banana republic shit and not a good luck for him. Ask yourself this uncomfortable question, imagine if Flynn were a black guy and this were an overzealous drug prosecution. Does Sullivan solicit an amicus brief to see if he can get some other judge to opine on why he shouldn’t go after the poor guy who was railroaded in that hypothetical??
I think I said before, I’ve had two cases before Sullivan and he was a really smart, even-handed guy, but Trump has broken a lot of people’s brains. I’ve known and done cases with Mark Zaid, too (Ciaramella’s lawyer) – in front of Sullivan, in fact, now that I think about it. Trump appears to have broken Mark’s brain, too. It’s a shame, but my Facebook feed is also filled with same – folks I know who have simply lost their fucking minds and ability to reason in the face of their emotional reaction to ongoing events. And yes, I really do blame the stereopticon of constant Media attacks, leaks, lies, demonization of innocent people, fear-mongering, etc. People are too tuned in to a particular narrative and the Media – including social media – just turns confirmation bias up to 37.
Not a good look for him
“Sullivan is suggesting that now we prosecute the guy who had his plea coerced – and completely ignore the actions of the prosecutors. It’s banana republic shit”
Absolutely! My first thought was Iran.
“Ask yourself this uncomfortable question, imagine if Flynn were a black guy and this were an overzealous drug prosecution.”
Repeating myself, this is Obama – the same guy who made it a crusade to get homicide interviews videotaped in Illinois as a point of law because of so many coerced confessions/pleas. The cumstain is now flushing the one thing that was his shining career achievement.
I found this last week.
Of you want to watch a man with almost no idea how to build a land cruiser try to build a land cruiser, this is great.
https://youtu.be/VfcqnxBGdDY
It’s up in the 40th or so episode now. I’m not even halfway through.
Other update. Ladydoom is off the meds. No real change. There’s an upcoming scan again for fluid. I really hope this isn’t a quarterly drain. She’s ok now, and the fingertips have full feeling again!
Good news! Hope she continues to improve (it does sound better than it was).
https://6abc.com/health/droplets-can-last-in-air-for-more-than-8-minutes-study/6181740/
Are ya scared yet?
Are ya scared yet?
That this nonsense is being exploited by authoritarians for the sake of power/control? Yes.
OFFS
These droplets, are they helium?
below a certain size, particles don’t just drop out of the air.
Michael Flynn’s sentencing judge Wednesday asked a former federal judge to explore whether Trump’s former national security adviser should face a contempt hearing for perjury after he pleaded guilty to a crime for which he now claims to be innocent.
Fucking plea bargains- how do they work?
Your mistake here is to think this judge cares about the application of the law and is not actually acting in desperation on behalf of a criminal cabal to do whatever it takes to keep the genie in the bottle. Once Flynn is no longer gagged by this banana republicesque miscarriage of justice, the damage he will do to the myths about the most ethical/scandal free administration, black Jesus, and the deep state will kill 50 years of careful maneuvering to weaponize the bureaucracy in favor of team blue oligarchs. People forget he was part of the insider cabal and knows where the bodies are buried, called that cabal out on its criminality and abuses, which is why Obama hated him so and we have this banana republicesque attempt to fuck Flynn over.
I just don’t see it. Not that you’re not right about the politics behind Sullivan’s bizzaro-world prosecution, but, like the Tara Reade situation, Flynn’s credibility will be dismissed for having pled guilty. That’s all it will take, a paper-thin excuse with which to hang him. We’re well past the point of compelling evidence or a solid narrative shifting public opinion on matters. He’ll just be steamrolled, as will anyone standing up for him.
Oh please. Everybody knows how plea bargaining works – most people who aren’t playing stupid realize the guy was legally harassed for three years all in an effort to bankrupt him to force the plea.
most people who aren’t playing stupid
But most people are. Look at the flagrant, undeniable hypocrisy toward Reade, even in the face of having persecuted men for much less than what Biden’s accused of doing. Men who are seemingly much more circumspect (or at least, have much less material evidence of their creepiness) than Biden. The movement was a political frame-up from the start, everyone knows that, but nobody on the left can acknowledge that fact. So they play stupid. They act like they can’t see what’s immediately obvious to everyone. That’s our political culture now, being incredibly, selectively stupid about obvious truths. And it’s not just the hack vanguards that are doing this while “normal Americans” roll their eyes and vote pragmatically. The vanguards make palatable the excuses that voters will use to vote how they would have voted anyway.
“But most people are. Look at the flagrant, undeniable hypocrisy toward Reade, even in the face of having persecuted men for much less than what Biden’s accused of doing. ”
The fact that they will pretend that the criminal behavior was not that doesn’t mean they don’t know it was. See the beauty of this stuff is that sooner than later they will be forced to eat the shit they took. Like in the case of Tara Reade. We got months of #MeToo stupidity because they desperately wanted to block orange man’s pick, but as soon as one of their own got pegged, they admitted that they had a double standard, because him they would give a pass. The damage that sort of revelation does is worth it. I can’t wait for them to try and call out a team red judge for overstepping the law and people throwing this shit in their face.
The true believers will fake ignorance, but the non-committed will see team blue for what it is.
I just don’t see it.
Me neither. Even if Trump reappoints him, I don’t think it will roll back the weaponized Deep State all that much. That would take mass firings, which in turn would require Congress to amend the Civil Service Act. And that ain’t happening.
Love the picture! “Open Borders Libertarian” finally caught Charles Koch dumpster diving for food, now that Koch has lost billions due to the Trump depression.
Either Sullivan is functionally retarded or somebody is pressuring him behind the scenes. I can’t come up with any other explanations.
Is he a member of he “Obama Alumni Association”?
Kayleigh McEnany Fact Checks Elizabeth Warren’s Bogus Wuhan Coronavirus Numbers
For some reason I had not seen Trump’s new press-sec. Would.
Trump has an eye for talent.
She is also savage the way she slaps down reporters trying “gotcha” questions.
She’s a vicious little counterpuncher, too, who has the ability to convey her contempt for the press with a smile.
I like her, so far.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/13/obamagate-was-worst-crime-ever-committed-here-is-what-it-was
Oh well in that case
Hahaha. See she made fun of the claim that Obama commited crimes and that this was a scandal. No one can make fun of something serious, so clearly this isn’t that bad.
We’re at danger of becoming a completely lawless nation.
Well, we have a judge appointing his own personal prosecutor now in order to get the outcome he desires for a case, so…..
Anarchy is “bad” but enacting a billion laws produces the same result (at a higher cost).
Snark is only fun if it is reflective of reality. This person is a mendacious hack.
more eloquent put on what i was trying to get at.
Don’t beat yourself up
Man, that’s third-tier-Midwestern-state-college-school-paper-quality writing. You’d think WaPo would at least demand well-written propaganda.
So…it must be Hahvuhd-school-paper-quality writing.
hahahahahahahahah….a sterling exemplar of the superiority of that Ivy education.
Reminds me of Harvard graduate Thomas Sowell’s line: The road to Hell is paved with Ivy League degrees.
I think it is proof of what Harvard actually produces, rather than what they are presumed to produce.
My sister is a faculty PhD at Harvard Med. (Not a physician.) Basically one level up from “peon”. She administers a continuing education program.
Anyway, her favorite line is from a critical employee review from her boss/dean:” We don’t expect A-grade work here.”
That dean was weeks later embroiled in scandal of incompetence at the local VA hospital. In typical Harvard fashion, rather than simply fire the guy and, they did two things: 1) they just added that program to another dean’s org chart, thereby inserting yet another level of management, and 2) started a competing continuing education program with essentially the same curriculum with a completely different name under yet another dean to hide the fact that it was the same thing. Mind you, these programs are all funded from federal grants, so they’re basically double-dipping to save face (and waste money) because God forbid they actually directly address a problem.
Thank GOD Harvard doesn’t actually have their own hospital.
What has become apparent with the release of the unmasking requests is that the entire administrative bureaucracy was compromised. That’s why everyone in the Deep State and their brother was fighting so hard to keep this from being revealed. There’s a lot of livelihoods, careers, and even prison time at stake here.
Obama was successful in bringing Chicago to DC.
Go ahead and mock the content of the story, but leave the reporter alone! She’s a real dish….
pic?
It’s a pun – look at her name
I cant I don’t click washingtonpost links because they give a paywall page
Aha….her name is Alexandra Petri
Operation That’s Old News is now in full effect.
Remote-controlled nanobot helps inseminate an egg
https://twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/1260727755852795904
Coronavirus: Man starts ‘tactical beer response unit’ for lockdown. People love him
“Amazing beer, quick delivery, love it. Not all heroes wear capes, but this guy should,” one satisfied customer says.
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-missing-a-pint-at-your-local-during-lockdown-help-is-at-hand-11988098
It’s like an ice cream truck for beer drinkers. I wonder if he plays a certain tune while driving through the neighborhood?
fight for your right to party? this would be a good covid song in general
Facebook will save you from yourself
About 90 percent of the hate speech Facebook removed in the last quarter was detected automatically before being reviewed by someone, the company said. In 2018, that figure stood at about 24 percent, company CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a call with media, “and up from roughly zero percent the year before that.” All told, the company deleted about 9.6 million incidents of hate speech in the first quarter, as compared to about 5.7 million in the previous report period, and removed about 4.7 million posts from or related to hate groups specifically.
Facebook, like every other platform out there right now, is also grappling with COVID-19 misinformation, which proliferates quickly when you have more than 2.6 billion users. In April, Facebook’s fact-checkers “put about 50 million labels on pieces of content related to COVID-19 based on 7,500 articles,” Zuckerberg said. Apparently, those labels work; about 95 percent of the time, viewers do not click through to content that has been warned to be false.
We only serve one flavor of
koolaidbleach, in this establishment.They consider anything that contradicts the official narrative to be “misinformation”, actual facts be damned.
This is pretty jaw-dropping. Clement Attlee’s Labour government advertised jobs within the Ministry of Labour in 1946. Advert went out. “No Jews required”.
https://twitter.com/EquusontheBuses/status/1260608434833063937
Fine fine we’ll taker the Jews but no Irish!
How can an historian of propaganda be surprised about this?
I didn’t realize he had any integrity to attack.
Some of Mr. Trump’s advisers believe that there isn’t a downside in attacking Mr. Obama, who is vastly more popular than Mr. Biden. They argue that Mr. Trump challenged Mr. Obama’s record throughout the 2016 campaign, and they take Mr. Trump’s victory as affirmation of his approach.
But the president is now attacking Mr. Obama’s integrity, not just his policies, a move that makes some of Mr. Trump’s advisers anxious. In a survey of voters in 17 battleground states commissioned by the Republican National Committee in March, Mr. Obama was deeply popular, especially compared with current elected officials. Sixty percent of respondents said they viewed Mr. Obama favorably, compared with 36 percent who said they saw him negatively, according to a person briefed on the data.
Anyone still in the tank for Obama is a bigger mouth-breather than the lowest Trump supporter.
What could possibly go wrong?
With nearly 4 million borrowers in forbearance on their mortgage, we still don’t have a complete picture of what happens when forbearance periods end. Borrowers got some clarity on the situation last month, when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said that borrowers are not required to repay all their missed payments at once.
And as it turns out, borrowers in forbearance may not have to repay their missed payments at all until the end of their loan thanks to a new repayment option from the GSEs.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced Wednesday that they are rolling out a new payment deferral option for borrowers in forbearance.
Under the new program, borrowers who took forbearance due to a coronavirus-related issue will not have to repay their missed payments until the borrower sells their house, refinances their current mortgage, or their mortgage matures.
According to the GSEs and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the deferral option is available to borrowers in forbearance who regain the ability to pay their mortgage on time. Under the program, the borrower simply starts making their mortgage payments again when they’re able and any missed payments are deferred to the end of their loan.
——-
“This will help borrowers keep their mortgage payment current following their hardship when other options—such as reinstatement, or a repayment plan—are not viable,” Freddie Mac said.
If a borrower chooses this new option, the principal, interest and any other expenses advanced by the mortgage servicer are deferred into a non-interest-bearing forborne balance that will become due at the end the loan.
According to Freddie Mac, the maturity date, remaining term, interest rate and payment schedule of the borrower’s mortgage remains the same as it was before.
Freddie Mac also said that utilizing the payment deferral option does not prevent a homeowner from “ultimately being eligible for a Freddie Mac modification if payment relief is needed in the future.”
Piece of cake. It’s not like there’s anybody on the other side of that transaction.
The Fed will buy all the CDOs. No biggie.
Looks like, yet again, I’m a sucker for making my payments on time every month
The silver lining in inflation means you’ll be able to pay off your mortgage more quickly. If you paid your mortgage off, you’re a chump…again.
Exactly why I’m refinancing and pulling out money right now. It’s never going to be this cheap again.
The Grenell release should be front and center news.
Sites that have no mention of it and maybe only a negative opinion piece on Barr vs Sullivan.
CNN, MSNBC, ABC, WaPo, NY Times
CBS has it down-page, half buried
la la la I can’t hear you, I can’t see you la la la
[everyone who refuses to accept that the Glorious Obama wasn’t]
Catherine Herridge (CBS) ‘broke’ the story.
I found a TV station live streaming the Lansing, MI protest.
It’s still early, but it looks small. It’s also raining. I noticed a few MSP officers.
And it died…
Quality links Spud, like what you did there.
Burt Bacharach Is a musical genius, although he is not a very good singer (I believe I have even heard him admit such).
And Hyperbole made the most ridiculous comment above (which is an undertaking indeed). Brian Wilson is also most certainly a musical genius.
You don’t recall? Oh, well that makes it ok then.
“New Day” host John Berman asked Clapper why he made three specific requests to unmask the name of an individual on December 2, December 28 and January 7.
Clapper said he does not remember why he made those three specific requests, nor does he remember what prompted the request that was made on his behalf.
“No, I don’t,” Clapper told Berman. “I don’t recall what prompted a request that was made on my behalf for unmasking. I don’t remember the specifics or what it was in the second report that was suggestive enough that I was concerned and felt that I should know who was actually involved.”
He added of his concerns with Flynn, “There was general concern about the number of engagements with Russians that we were seeing happening. We may not necessarily have known what the content of these engagements were, but there were numerous engagements by representatives of the Trump camp with Russians. So, that was of … general concern anyway. So that, I think, is what attracted the attention of me and other then-serving national security officials.”
Then perhaps Mr. Clapper you could explain why the log of unmasking was to be held classified until 2045? What particular serious harm to national security would result from exposure without redaction prior to that date?
Essentially.
I think the most plausible change that could happen because of this is an even greater restriction of the “Lame Duck” period between election to swearing in.
He’s fucked either way he answers. If he doesn’t remember because it wasn’t a big deal, that’s in contravention of the way unmasking is supposed to be handled. If he remembers why, he has to justify it by spewing more lies.
It however speaks to a bigger point. If all the evidence you have is “Hey You unmasked this guy” then the GOP has nothing but political fodder. There is no evidence of a crime there without him admitting to not having a good reason. Saying “I don’t remember” seems to be a particularly good defense for establishment cretins.
Everything rests on Durham now.
As he starts putting lower level cronies thru the meat grinder, some of them are going to turn state’s evidence. There’s so many targets from that unmasking list, that somebody is going to squeal.
Well Biden can plausibly say “I don’t remember”
there were numerous engagements by representatives of the Trump camp with Russians.
My God, the incoming administration was talking with people we have top-level diplomatic engagements and issues with! Clearly a national security concern.
If he doesn’t recall his need to know, then there is no evidence that he had any need to know. I don’t see how this helps justify the unmaskings. The burden of proof should be on the person doing the unmasking, to show it was justified, not on those challenging it.
How is it that unmasking requests don’t require a written statement of need to know?
Tissue paper excuse-making, that’s all it is. Just enough to lampshade the issue to avoid having to engage with any real critiques.
Exactly
Now do the ambassador to the UN, the Deputy Undersecretary of the Treasury and the ambassador to Italy. I really want to hear their justifications. Power has specifically denied making unmasking requests in the past to reporters. This should be entertaining.
So what does the WI supreme court decision mean for then? Will other states look to it and say…huh….maybe there has been an overreach?
I think it is proof of what Harvard actually produces, rather than what they are presumed to produce.
If the Harvard Business Review had not already been skinsuited, they could use their own institution as a case study in brand destruction.
Will other states look to it and say…huh….maybe there has been an overreach?
You slay me.
Clapper said he does not remember why he made those three specific requests, nor does he remember what prompted the request that was made on his behalf.
“When you have destroyed as many lives and reputations as I have, it’s hard to keep them all straight.”
Speaking of “elective” surgeries: I have a friend who desperately needs serious shoulder repairs. She’s SOL for the foreseeable future.
Public health experts, indeed.
What’s her insurance? If she has coverage (Medicare or a good private plan) in a state that has opened elective surgeries, she should travel and get it done. I can recommend *coff* an excellent joint repair/replacement program in sunny Tucson which is open for business.
Will they replace my hip with a dog toy?
What’s her insurance? If she has coverage (Medicare or a good private plan) in a state that has opened elective surgeries, she should travel and get it done. I can recommend *coff* an excellent joint repair/replacement program in sunny Tucson which is open for business.
No idea. She has been looking at either Seattle or San Fran (based on Dr’s suggestion, I assume). Neither of which is going to be open for business any time soon, I suspect.
What about the Oklahoma Surgery Center? No insurance accepted, of course.
No reason she should limit herself to states that are still locked down. Arizona is open for business. Her doc needs to got off xer ass and make some calls and a referral.