Recently we were having a family discussion about Chatham Manor in Fredericksburg and its last private owners John and Lilian Pratt. I was most familiar with John Lee Pratt through his philanthropy. Pratt Park, and the former Pratt Clinic were both named after him. His wife collected Fabergé Easter Eggs and upon her death donated her substantial collection to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
John Pratt’s favorite cause was education – everything from individual scholarships to substantial endowments for Virginia universities. He donated an HP 2000 series microcomputer to one of the Fredericksburg area government school systems, with the very wise stipulation that the computer be used for instructional purposes only. I learned to program on the computer donated by Pratt, who was the catalyst for the IT careers of many students who would not have been exposed to computers until college, if at all.
All I knew about Pratt, other than the above, was that he was a retired General Motors Executive. After my discussion about Pratt I learned that he was one of FDR’s Dollar-A-Year Men. The token dollar-salary provided legal grounds for treating these people as employees for purposes of accountability and authority, as opposed to volunteers like the docents one often sees in museums and historic sites.
The Truman Committee had strongly suggested that $1-a-year men were two-bit patriots, protecting their own industries, freezing little business out of defense production.
Time Magazine, feb 9, 1942
Sound familiar? Even back in 1942 when the article quoted above was written, some people were suspicious of people like Pratt. Fast forward to today when Special Government Employee Elon Musk, who is serving without salary, are accused of wanting to steal grandma’s Social Security check. Presidents have always had their “kitchen cabinets” who privately advise the executive, and those people are always accused of being puppetmasters.
History has judged Pratt and the other dollar-a-year men well. Hopefully history will do the same for other similarly-situated contemporary individuals.
I won’t buy that for a dollar.
More seriously, what actual difference from a legal and/or procedural perspective is a $1 employee from a $0 volunteer insofar as the kitchen cabinet goes?
The token dollar-salary provided legal grounds for treating these people as employees for purposes of accountability
Sovereign immunity?
That would be a token pound.
Oooooh, time-share BASIC! The nostalgia almost hurts…
The Truman Committee was itself the DOGE of it’s day, tasked with finding government waste during WWII. They found a lot of it.
The difference here is that nobody currently in government has the will, support, or lack of corruption to do this, so Trump employed an outsider.
The GOP won’t even vote to eliminate the fraud and waste already identified.
My neocon teammate posted an Atlantic article that lamented the fall of the GOP from the “party of ideas” to the rude and crass party.
Yes, the GOP is the party of ideas. Unfortunately that’s all they have: ideas, with no action to back them up.
Reminds me that one of my immigrant friends from Ireland mentioned studying and using at a Carnegie funded library. He grew up in Kilkenny.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Carnegie_libraries_in_Europe
I know nothing about Pratt, but history has also treated FDR well.
Propagandists have treated FDR well. At least some historians and economists recognize what shithead he was. The Depression was FDR.
I’m kind of blown away for what a pass he gets on opening ethnic concentration camps in the US.
Absolutely. Also how long it to the USA to own up to it as well.
OTH, today if you use the wrong pronoun in SF…
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/pronouns-california-supreme-court-20313069.php
White smoke in Rome – a new Pope has been elected. Or Willie Nelson is in the house.
How commie?
https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1920539693214572679
Yes.
On the other hand
As bishop in Chiclayo, a city in northwestern Peru, he opposed a government plan to add teachings on gender in schools. “The promotion of gender ideology is confusing, because it seeks to create genders that don’t exist,” he told local news media.
He might end up as a mixed bag.
Pope Donald!
According to stories, the popes were forced to sit in a room all day discussing this without their phones.
Literally Sartre’s Huis Clos.
*cardinals
Plural? How many Antipopes do we have running around?
“L’enfer, c’est les autres!”
No name yet, but I think I lost out to Pope Jimbo. I think anyone who’s first name is “Pope” has an unfair advantage.
Jimbo was disqualified for bad behavior.
He’s a cardinal from Chicago, the first American pope. Took the name Leo XIV.
American Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost has become the 267th pontiff of the global Catholic Church, taking the name of Pope Leo XIV.
All bad signs.
From Chicago, but just as much Peruvian.
Seems to show how the Vatican views the importance of South America.
If Pope Jimbo had won, would he have changed his name?
He sounds even woker than the last commie pope.
Drake – picking a random Jesuit or a random Augustinian the odds greatly favor the Jesuit as being a communist sympathizer.
No idea about this particular individual, however.
Speaking of Cardinals, this morning I saw one flying out of the tree in front of my house. I guess he missed the conclave.
That was quick.
Yeah seems really quick to me too.
I think it suggests the first vote was pretty lopsided, so it was just a matter of tying up a few loose ends to get to 2/3rds.
I’m kicking myself because I had a chance to smoke up with Willie Nelson and didn’t take it.
White smoke in Rome – a new Pope has been elected.
They had to make it look as if the deal wasn’t already done.
Seen on X:
I hope the new Pope does an AI picture of himself sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.
“The Truman Committee had strongly suggested that $1-a-year men were two-bit patriots…”
Wouldn’t they be eight bit patriots?
Atari patriots!
Inflation is a bitch. $1 only buys two-bit patriots by the 1930s. I’m sure they’re very expensive nowadays.
Lighting the bat signal:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/08/us/faa-equipment-issues-safety-concerns
The FAA has had equipment issues for decades, causing real-world problems. The DOT says it wants to fix it
Air traffic controllers in Philadelphia were guiding planes that were approaching Newark Airport around 1:30 p.m. on April 28 when their radios went silent and screens went black.
The outage was the result of a failure of copper wiring that transmits information from a facility in New York to Newark Approach Control, a source tells CNN.
* * * * *
The FAA said it would add three new, high-bandwidth, telecommunications connections and replace that copper wire with fiberoptic technology to bring data to the controllers. The Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) – the facility involved in the April 28 incident – will also have a temporary backup system deployed. The Philadelphia facility, in part, guides aircraft approaching Newark Airport before it hands off the planes to the airport tower, and guides planes that have just departed the airport.
I have fiber-optic here in the backwaters of Podunkville, beats copper dial up every time.
“But the autopsy report commissioned by the SCDC indicates there were only two gunshot wounds, not three, and that the bullets hit his pancreas, liver and lower lung, and largely missed his heart.”
At 15 feet. Government at its finest. Caveats: Guardian and private autopsy. Both with an agenda.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/08/south-carolina-firing-squad-execution
Dude is dead by gunshot wound. I’d say the execution by firing squad succeeded.
So what if the marksmen were off. They’re not used to aiming for a real person.
*I am being charitable to the shooters. I mean, I have seen people miss a human sized target at 12 feet when it was just a piece of paper. Psychologically, shooting at a person is a bit different.
The whole thing is designed to be as dumb as possible.
“Maybe we should have sighted them in for 15 feet?”
Or just locked them into a vice aimed at the correct spot, so that the trigger-pullers didn’t have to get a sight picture.
At fifteen feet with rifles. What daycare center did they recruit these executioners from?
Also, with a firing squad execution, isn’t the condemned prisoner usually given the coup de grâce with a pistol shot to the head at contact distance, administered by the officer in charge of the detail? I seem to remember this from The Day of the Jackal…
I wager they skipped the headshot for an open casket
I’m not being entirely sarcastic here when I say – taking all of the ceremony out of something as important as a legal execution, and instead trying to make it as emotionally sterile as opening a loaf of bread, is probably responsible for a lot of the botched executions that we’re seeing.
If the convicted is showing any signs of life – yes.
I saw a documentary once, where men in the Gulags would get tattoos of the Stalin, Lenin, and Marx on their chests. If they were going to be executed, they knew firing squad would be botched, so they figured people wouldn’t want to shoot the dear leaders, and they’d get hung instead.
…so instead, they can botch the hanging, and the prisoner can enjoy strangling to death instead of the usual shock and blood loss. Talk about your great choices.
Once you’re in the Gulag there are no good options, only degrees of horrible ones.
What does “largely missed” mean? They just nicked it? Or they hit it but not centrally enough?
And was the aiming point actually placed over the actual heart or was it way over on the left where people put their hands during the pledge of allegiance?
If they hit the pncreas, liver and lower lung, they were low regardless.
Did the bullets remain intact though, or did the shatter on the sternum and go higgledy-piggledy?
A rifle at fifteen feet into the sternum should blow right through. Unless they’re using something tiny.
So, the main piece of equipment I get called into dealing with has taught me that “should” has less relationship to “does ” than I’d been taught to believe.
My suggestion:
Use shotguns for firing squads. Fifteen feet is in the optimal range for a shotgun. At fifteen feet, the spread on a quality load of 00 should be about the size of your palm. The tissue damage will be so massive from even a couple of good hits on the torso that the guest of honor will certainly be dead very, very quickly.
Just waiting for the new Pope to leave the conclave and arrive in his Enclave.
Different winners, different losers- not fair!
Griffin’s frustration with Trump’s policies reflected broader concerns at the conference over how the trade war could derail the U.S. economy. For Wall Street and industry elites at Milken, Trump’s dismantling of global trade is forcing them to adjust — uncomfortably — to policies that they believe will disrupt the flow of capital into U.S. businesses and harm consumers. The lack of buy-in from Wall Street poses a major problem for the president because these are the people he needs to make his agenda work.
As conference-goers poured into the hotel’s Oasis Pavilion to catch an afternoon concert from Nile Rodgers and Chic (of “Le Freak” fame), Griffin explained how his early enthusiasm for the Trump 2.0 agenda faded as the president’s trade policies took hold. The GOP megadonor — who warned last month that Trump’s policies could “tarnish” the dollar’s brand — said the greenback’s recent decline will soon weaken the spending power of American consumers.
“Whether it’s a flat-screen TV or a new laptop, your dollar is just not going to go as far,” he said. “This starts unfolding in the next couple weeks.”
Crony capitalism, where only yesterday it was naufgt but free and fair trade and open honest competition.
derail or collapse the economy = I will no longer have a captured market! panicpanicpanic
The. GE guy, what an idiot. “The market will be flooded with upstarts selling junk!”. As opposed to him capturing the market and flooding it with junk.
“Trump’s dismantling of global trade”
Yes, he’s closing the US ports and blockading ports worldwide.
“But the autopsy report commissioned by the SCDC indicates there were only two gunshot wounds, not three, and that the bullets hit his pancreas, liver and lower lung, and largely missed his heart.”
Next time use a Gatling gun.
“Verminous lying Missouri scum!”
I’ll never let a reference to The Outlaw Josey Wales go uncommented-upon.
Nine pellet 000 buck?
3″..I have some around here.
Take your Tylenol before shooting.
Can they fit nine 000 pellets in a shell? I shoot 8 and 9 pellet 00 shells
If I scroll down just one comment . . . .
RC, don’t forget, Shotguns go up to 1 Guage.
They’re waiting until the sun goes down because the new pope is a vampire.
American Pope, so it is Donald.
I was hoping for Pope Pizzaballa, just because I like the name.
We’ve had multiple Papa Johns.
LOL, same here.
To be fair, ANY pope could be Pope Pizzaballa if they want to be.
Hang on, last minute ballot dump from Fulton and Maricopa counties.
The elected a boomer. When will Gen X get a chance?
The first Gen Z pope’s regnal name will be Popey McPopeface.
Do we know if he’s a Catholic?
I don’t know, but if he mentions Trump in his speech I’m converting to Buddhism.
More importantly is he a Cubs or Sox fan?
Skipping generic protestantism?
Read the Wikipedia. Not a whole lot there, but it seems like he’s really into the religious shit.
Cardinal Robert Prevost, 69, is an American who has spent much of his career as a missionary in Peru, is a relative unknown on the global stage.
Made a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2023, he has given few media interviews and rarely speaks in public.
Originally from Chicago, he has attracted interest from his peers because of his quiet style and support for Francis’ 12-year papacy, especially his commitment to social justice issues.
Prevost served as a bishop in Chiclayo, in northwestern Peru, from 2015 to 2023.
forgot the link
https://www.reuters.com/world/conclave-live-updates-cardinals-meet-elect-successor-pope-francis-2025-05-07/
Yeah I was about to say he looked like a Chicago Commie, so not looking good.
More importantly is he a Cubs or Sox fan?
San Diego Padres?
Does he have ovaries?
About. Fucking. Time.
NPR has a multi-minute piece with a couple of Jesuits and they talked all about politics, the “Church on the world stage” and the threat of right-wing extremism. The word “God” was mentioned zero times, “Jesus” three times.
I had Tagesschau 24 on, and they were going on and on about the role of women in the Church.
He’ll get a daily update of Chicago Jackass where justice is lethal in addition to being social.
Time to buy?
In the quarter, Cleveland-Cliffs reported an adjusted net loss of $0.92, with revenue up 7% year-over-year to $4.63 billion. Analysts polled by Visible Alpha expected a net loss of $0.83 on revenue of $4.62 billion.
Including today’s sharp declines, shares of Cleveland-Cliffs have lost about a quarter of their value this year. In January, CNBC reported that the company was teaming up with rival Nucor (NUE) for a potential bid for U.S. Steel (X), whose $14.1 billion buyout by Nippon Steel was blocked by President Joe Biden.
2
Like a coiled spring.
I have a bunch of it from back when they paid a decent dividend. They haven’t paid a dividend in years, but my DCA is $2.05, so I’m not eager to dump them anytime soon. Although I wish I would have sold off 20% when the were low $30s a couple years ago.
For 10 minutes people who speak Italian are in high demand. All I’m hearing is “Luigi linguini carbonara parmesana”.
You really shouldn’t be in Parma, the Vatican is in Roma.
Where they culturally appropriated tomatoes from the good native people of ‘Merica?
Think big
Do we still need the states?
For the moment, yes. The daily parade of horrors flowing from the White House makes states a vital part of the resistance. Over time, however, the states will not save us from runaway authoritarian presidents. To the contrary, the states help elect them. Local governments would be a superior substitute.
It is time to start thinking about radical surgery: the abolition of state government.
——-
Most importantly, the states got us into this mess. Their astonishingly broad—and disproportionately distributed—constitutional powers over both state and national elections, combined with the many ways in which state legislatures have abused those powers, are incompatible with any credible definition of democracy. The resulting electoral distortions dramatically increase the chances of an authoritarian party pulling off a national trifecta—control of the White House and both houses of Congress.
On five occasions already, the state-centered Electoral College has installed presidents whom the voters had rejected nationwide. There have also been many near misses, making it a statistical certainty that the Electoral College will award the presidency to many future losers of the national popular vote. True, 2024 was not a direct example, as Donald Trump finally won the popular vote, albeit narrowly. Even so, as his party’s nominee he had lost the popular vote in 2016 and again in 2020. Without states, and therefore without the Electoral College, he would have entered 2024 having lost two consecutive presidential elections. His chances of winning a third consecutive Republican Party nomination would surely have taken a huge hit.
It’s not just the presidency. The Constitution gives every state two U.S. senators, regardless of population size. If you live in Wyoming, you get approximately 69 times as much say in the U.S. Senate as your fellow citizen who lives in California. Today, a majority of the U.S. population is represented by only 18 percent of the Senate.
Democracy will bring us the iron fisted omnipotent central government this nation needs.
Yes, centralized power is the answer!
Do people not learn about separation of power and checks and balances any more? But I guess I’m the fascist.
All that jazz was fine while the left got what they want, now it’s in the way.
Checks and balances are supposed to keep Republicans under control. They were never meant to constrain Democracy.
We should shrink the power of the executive. Not like that. I mean just the president. The bureaucracy should expand.
Just Republican Presidents.
There should be a switch. State governments are abolished. However, if, after each presidential election, a board consisting of representatives from NPR, Planned Parenthood, GLAAD, Moms Demand Action, and other important bodies determines that the newly elected president is sufficiently Nazi-ish, statehood is reestablished to act as a hedge against the oncoming federal authoritarian apocalypse.
Trump announces a trade deal with the UK
Hours later . . .
https://simpleflying.com/uk-airline-set-to-order-10-billion-of-boeing-aircraft-today/
UK Airline Set To Order $10 Billion Of Boeing Aircraft Today
A UK airline will reportedly announce an order for $10 billion worth of Boeing aircraft later today. The announcement was made as part of a new trade deal revealed by President Donald Trump & Sir Kier Starmer.
Why would they be suicidal? I wouldn’t trust a Boeing.
Given the current trajectory of the British government mass casualties of their citizenry would suit them just fine.
Without state government, E pluribus unum would take on a different meaning. No longer a union of states, this country would become, simply and more meaningfully, a union of its people. And a far more democratic union at that.
The cities will enslave the countryside, as is right and proper.
fuck democracy
we need protection anywhere we can get it
This guy gets it.
I saw a quote somewhere but it has been so long I only have a vague memory. It was one of the great ghouls of the modern era…Hitler, Stalin, maybe Mao? I cant remember.
“I love democracy” – History’s greatest monster
Do people not learn about separation of power and checks and balances any more? But I guess I’m the fascist.
Stephen Legomsky is the John S. Lehmann university professor emeritus at the Washington University School of Law. He is the author of Reimagining the American Union: The Case for Abolishing State Government (Cambridge University Press, 2025). Professor Legomsky served in the Obama administration as chief counsel of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and later as senior counselor to Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson.
For certain values of “learn” maybe.
He learns like Obama studied the Constitution.
How to find workarounds that sound plausible to the corporate media.
These people make no secret of their burning desire to consolidate total power. Washington University School of What?
Abolishing state government, eh? I for one think a federal leviathan that rules over a nation of 360 million people would be awesome and by awesome I mean a complete disaster.Where the hell do they grow these people?
*sigh*
Firing squad – make sure the guns are sighted. blindfold target, use rail guns. 2 to the heart, one to the brain.
This isn’t rocket science FFS. Use an adequate loading, standard 308 soft point. The only way you could screw that up is on purpose.
I think the botched executions we are seeing so many of are botched on purpose, or half so anyway.
Exactly. It’s designed as dumb as possible.
I dont have to make my case for getting rid of the death penalty. They do it for me. It isn’t just the execution itself they screw up, it is every step on the way to it as well.
You know, if a guy wanted a blueprint for open honest to god civil war, I don’t know what he could do that would be more effective than pushing to abolish the states.
Warmer weather is bringing out solicitors. I need to install remote controlled sprinklers that cover the walkway.
Just shoot them. Seems to be the trend I’ve been reading about anytime somebody unwanted comes to the door.
*Polishes the double barrel*
https://youtu.be/ooPzr1vzmGY
There should be a switch. State governments are abolished. However, if, after each presidential election, a board consisting of representatives from NPR, Planned Parenthood, GLAAD, Moms Demand Action, and other important bodies determines that the newly elected president is sufficiently Nazi-ish, statehood is reestablished to act as a hedge against the oncoming federal authoritarian apocalypse.
In a properly constituted democracy, those groups would be empowered to certify candidates’ legitimacy, thereby eliminating the risk of dissident philosophies of government ever again getting near the levers of power.
Anyone here from Jefferson County?
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_County
Virginia doesn’t have a Jefferson County but it does have a Washington County.
How about a Luther Jefferson County?
We have a Jefferson Parish, but county….no.
https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2025/05/08/former-lakers-star-coach-byron-scott-accused-sexually-assaulting-minor-1987/
1987.
GTFO.
Seriously. Statute of limitations used to exist for a reason. There is no way a shred of evidence can still exist.
Birth Certificate?
Most states, our does, make an exception for murder and child molestation with regards to statutes of limitation. I suspect that if this shit doesnt come to an end that exception will be removed.
I am waiting for an accusation that took place before the alleged victim was born.
“But I have been reincarnated!”
“When? Where? How? Witnesses? Details? I dont know I just know he did it!” – Christine Blaise Ford
Video? Nope. Audio? Nope? Any kind of concrete evidence? Nope.
Hopefully he won’t get an unsympathetic jury, sleazy to have a sexual encounter with an 18 yo whose highschool you’re visiting but come on.
And he admitted to the encounter although he thought her to be of age. Jeez, if she was under the legal he’s screwed or he would be if she wasn’t demanding only $25K or did they leave off a couple of zeros?