I hope you all had a great weekend. Mine was super productive. Did the last trip to Costco til 2023 and am all stocked up for the Holidays. Sunday evening was spent at a neighbor’s birthday party which was also a good time!
NC county announces curfew as nearly 40,000 customers remain without power after 2 substations damaged by gunfire
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/04/us/power-outage-moore-county-criminal-investigation/index.html
Having a normal one.
Biden rebukes Trump for saying constitution should be ‘terminated’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/04/biden-trump-us-constitution-terminated-election-fraud
Stonks!
Celsius clients with collateral stuck on failed crypto platform turn to bankruptcy process for relief
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/03/celsius-users-with-crypto-collateral-stuck-turn-to-bankruptcy-process.html
Sprots!
South Korea’s Cho Gue-sung becomes breakout World Cup heartthrob
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/04/cho-gue-sung-world-cup-south-korea/
Seems legit.
Christian Nationalist Leader Claims He Forgot He Ran Mega-Racist Twitter Account
https://www.thedailybeast.com/christian-nationalist-leader-thomas-achord-claims-he-forgot-he-ran-mega-racist-twitter-account?source=twitter&via=desktop
This is sweet.
What happened when a 94-year-old former flight attendant saw a photo of herself at the airport
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/gwendolyn-bruhn-hawaiian-airlines-flight-attendant-1940s/index.html
Today’s turtle content!
Have a great day!
Donald Trump does realize that thanks to the very first amendment (The First Amendment, literally) to the Constitution he is free to rant and rave and that’s what has made America such a free marketplace of ideas/bubbling cauldron of semi-libel since the turn-of-the-19th-century Adams/Jefferson feud, yes? No, of course not.
Speaking of freedom of expression, I was briefly hospitalized over the weekend and I’m writing a very longform rant/comic piece about my latest experience with The World’s Greatest Health Care System for my friends and family. I have no social media presence or blog or substack, so this is what I do. There’s no FYCE today so I can share it here after Coffee Break, noon or later, if there’s any interest. It’s very long. I don’t know how to write in any vernacular except longform, but if you want to hear about it I’m more than willing to share. There’s a moral to the story, or at least a useful lesson to those who might get entrapped in the maw of the medical-industrial complex.
Please share.
You asked for it. I’ll schedule it for 1 PM I think. It’s really long. Then again I’m the person who thinks Infinite Jest is just about the right length for a novel and Dickens wrote short stories.
You write ’em, I’ll read ’em.
Dickens serialized, you could too. We could look forward to a six month long series of cliffhangers and mistaken identities. Find an illustrator like Cruikshank or Cattermole too!
At least you and Jake have something in common.
And proudly so! Context is everything. That means background, LOTS of background, personal opinion, asides, references to other writers/themes, & etc. As Wordsworth wrote, in a very different context,
…I vote yes, please – hit us up with your hospital farce any time that suits…& also hope you’re feeling recovered & have any & all relevant restoratives to hand at this point
…as for hair furore & his latest tantrum…I know a lot of the coverage has leant into the “he wants to do away with the constitution entirely” angle…but from the semi-edited bit of word salad that went up on truth social I was all WTF about yesterday I thought he had a much narrower focus?
…aside from the 1st amendment protecting his right to flood the zone with bullshit…he’s not about to do away with the 2nd or his mob will desert him in the same droves that couldn’t crowd his podium on jan 6th because of the metal detectors on the way inside the cordon…the 3rd, ironically, a lot of people sleep on in terms of its importance because it hasn’t come up but has some parallels with eminent domain/search&seizure stuff…which is what some of his fondest imaginings about what his pet judge could weave to protect his ass from potential espionage act violations grace of the 4th pretended to be based in/on…his entire legal strategy is firmly rooted in ubiquitous resort to the 5th…along with consistent attempts to abuse broad interpretations of the 6th to game out what the prosecution has against him…wants to go way beyond the 7th to make the jury his segment of the population in the court of public opinion where he can get away with self-contradictory bullshit like this…desperately wishes for a version of the 8th on enough steroids to render all fines levied against him as “excessive”…constantly lays claim to non-existent rights &/or privileges not accorded to a private citizen that, if they had any foundation rather than lacking one entirely, would probably be looking to the 9th for it…ditto the 10th for limiting the powers of the federal government to impose consequences on him for his actions…& the 11th for his whole law-unto-himself routine – which has to be the biggest overlap he actually has with the libertarians & their sovereign citizen schtick
…#13th-16th I think he’d rather re-configure than do away with entirely if only to protect the fruits of the considerable laboring done by the likes of the federalist society to make the prison industry so very profitable & lop-sided of outcome
…he’d probably not mind the 17th going the way of the 18th if the GOP could get that much closer to skipping from elected to designated senators
…scrapping the 19th to undo universal suffrage would dovetail neatly enough with unpicking roe v wade/obergefell/&c & generally screw over the fairer sex…e jean carroll alone probably has that on his revenge bucket list, I suppose
…maybe that & the ones in the 20s he wouldn’t mind seeing the back of in terms of bathwater he’d be throwing out with the constitutional baby
…but it’s laughably inconsistent even by his standards to suggest he actually wants to ditch the whole kit & caboodle…as with everything else he only wants any & all bits that can be brought to bear in order to enforce consequences on him for doing shit he expects to be able to get away with to be understood not to apply to him or stand in the way of him getting to have his way
…in a funny sort of a way it seems a lot like the way the term brexit has been subject to endlessly-multiplied, frequently-redefined & often mutually-exclusive “definitions” without ever really getting to the point of clarifying what’s actually at stake?
Do tell, please, @matthewcrawley, and I hope that you are now well?
It’s really long and I’m just now finishing up. Now I have to add a coda because I spiraled into Terry Gilliam’s Brazil via a couple of phone calls. This will enter the history books as the longest contribution ever submitted to DS by far and will make a Sunday DOT look and read like a kindergartner’s “See Sally and Bobby” intro to literacy “book.”
…from “only when I laugh” to “brazil” in a single post…color me intrigued…& trying not to come off as impatient
A libertarian/fool and his crypto/money are soon parted.
Funny you should mention that.
Elon Musk’s year of losing
Quotes:
Elon Musk’s year-end balance sheet for 2022 is full of red ink.
Why it matters: The world’s richest man has been an icon of technological success, but his moves this year — led by his purchase of Twitter — have slashed his financial bottom line and tarnished his personal capital.
Driving the news: Much of Elon Musk’s wealth is tied up in Tesla stock, which is down roughly 50% from the start of the year.
Thanks for the healthy dose of Schadenfreude! 😈
Watch Musk follow the PR playbook. He’ll find reporters to look everywhere for a glass half full angle. Pull more stunts to distract from bad news. Issue limited hangouts in the Nixon style, where someone leaks something trivial but bad sounding to make it seem like he has drama anywhere but the real deal. Announce a big New Plan For The Turnaround and get reporters to treat it worthy of a serious debate even when it doesn’t have a hope of fixing the fundamentals.
Rinse, wash and repeat.
You mean like the Twitter Files? Much ado about absolutely nothing?
Yes, Elmo is desperate to distract everyone from his utter incompetence. Releasing a flood of Nazis onto Twitter is a pathetic attempt to gin up controversy and get fools to attack one another, so he can crow about engagement. In the meantime, his businesses are tanking across the board.
Sad thing is, the press is gonna fall for it. And they’ll lead the Elmo fanboys in a worshipful chorus extolling his wonders. Normally, bankruptcy would be a strike against a “businessman,” but Trump has completely upended that with the mouthbreathing set. Now it’s a badge of honor for MAGAs.
There’s one born every minute.
Fuck the police!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/internal-investigation-into-omaha-police-officer-results-in-resignation/ar-AA146rvM
and fuck this guy too!
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/12/05/groups-warn-pelosi-schumer-against-allowing-manchin-dirty-deal-pentagon-spending
and while we are at it…
https://www.propublica.org/article/washington-special-education-schools-funding-abuse?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature
This is why they complain about illegal voting, it does occur! This guy knows…
https://www.rawstory.com/brian-k-pritchard/