How… [DOT 19/10/22]

19/10/22 MegMegMcGee 19

…is it only Wednesday? Longest week ever or what? It’s starting to get chilly here in the DMV.

[Also, pardon my tardiness as well, I definitely fell asleep on my laptop!]

If you aren’t behind a paywall, WAPO did an amazing job on this one:

RETIRED U.S. GENERALS, ADMIRALS TAKE TOP JOBS WITH SAUDI CROWN PRINCE
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/veterans-us-foreign-jobs-saudi-arabia/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f002

#FloridaMen
‘Where’s the beef?’: special master says Trump’s Mar-a-Lago records claims lack substance
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/18/trump-mar-a-lago-documents-seized-fbi

Five takeaways from the Florida Senate debate
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/18/politics/rubio-demings-fla-senate-debate-takeaways/index.html

Stonks!

Mississippi River water woes, retail overstock trailers: Latest supply chain stresses for economy
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/17/low-mississippi-retail-overstock-trailers-latest-supply-chain-stress.html

Sprots!

Colts’ Jim Irsay says there’s ‘merit to remove’ Washington owner Dan Snyder
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/oct/18/jim-irsay-remove-dan-snyder-washington-owner

Today in wholesomeness:

Have a great day!

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19 Comments

  1. Well. Things are getting off to a slow start. Apparently Netflix is streaming “American Horror Story: New York City” starting today. I would confirm this but Better Half seems to have changed his Netflix password. Again. He does this not for security reasons or to piss me off but rather out of impatience: if he mistypes it a couple of times he just makes up a new one. Basically he changes his password every time he logs on.

    Anyway, Patti Lupone is in this one in a fairly big role and I hope she gets no less than 3 (three) big musical numbers. How could either she or Ryan Murphy resist? I’m still reeling from Jessica Lange’s “Name Game” performance, one of the finest bits of musical theater ever broadcast.

  3. John Durham’s leftover prosecution from Bill Barr’s days has finally met its last defeat:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/18/us/politics/igor-danchenko-russia-acquittal-trump.html

    In order to muddy the waters on Trump-Russia ties, Barr exposed a confidential source on Russia, then Durham prosecuted him with a joke of a case, joining his previous loss in another fishing expedition.

    Durham will still file a report, which will probably be filled with a mix of fables and tall tales thinly anchored by misrepresentations.

    Note: Charlie Savage is one of the few DC-based reporters for the Times who cares at all about serious reporting. And as a result he’s one of the few who can actually write coherently.

    • I know most right-wing types live in an a completely impenetrable echo chamber that eschews logic and sense, but it’s really kind of amazing that anyone takes Durham seriously. His legal arguments make Rudy Giuliani look like a thoughtful scholar of the law. But unfortunately, his word is good as gold for a lot of people and no matter that he’s lost at every single checkpoint, this version of the story is already true for millions of people and will never be shaken.

      • It’s true that the fantasy that Mueller was a hoax is locked in for a bunch of right wingers. What’s kind of curious to me is that the Durham mess was not going to make them any more convinced. Barr could have had the same effect by just hiring a hack to write up a report.

        But by turning this into a criminal investigation, he was substantially increasing the odds he would lose in court and weaken the argument he was trying to make in the mainstream press.

        The manufactured scandal of Clinton’s email was kept alive without a serious criminal probe — it was done with leaks and innuendos. I’m not sure why they broke from that gameplan here. The best explanation is trying to drive up the legal costs of some people as a warning to others, but even then I think this was a pretty inefficient means to that end.

        • I think they’re high on their own supply. Once upon a time, I do think people in the GOP were perfectly aware that there was the truth and then what was given to the rubes on Fox News; now I am not sure that line exists and that everyone is sure that whatever they’ve been told is real and the rest of the world is lying. (Also, a) there’s always a chance they get a friendly Cannon-esque judge who does their work for them and b) ultimate, does it matter what the truth is to them? I doubt it. Anything that doesn’t go their way is a lie or conspiracy anyway.)

  4. The Democrats have been terrible at messaging this election, making it only about abortion.  The older generation won’t vote based on that one issue but you tell them the GOP’s real plan?  The media won’t mention it either?

    https://crooksandliars.com/2022/10/msm-ignores-gop-social-security-and

    The Rethugs are masters of generating fear in elections without giving a single policy that will help solve anything.  We need to figure this shit out quickly!

    https://hartmannreport.com/p/democrats-must-use-this-ancient-deep

  6. And of course the GOP kooks are spoiling to help Russia and hose Ukraine.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/18/house-republicans-ukraine-mccarthy/

    The NY Times, of course, blandly suggests it’s fine, and Republicans in line for committee chairs will stay the course.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/18/us/politics/mccarthy-ukraine-republicans.html

    The stupid naive brains of The Times political set are on full display, of course — nothing stops the radicals from replacing anyone in the GOP who doesn’t toe the line. It’s what they’ve done over and over to committee chairs, and why it doesn’t occur to The Times that this will happen is the same reason The Times continues to this day parroting GOP propaganda that they are secretly sensible about abortion, gay rights, deficits, and countless other issues. They’re lazy and complicit.

    • Speaking of the Times, as we so often do, I should drag out my tattered paperback copy of The Best and the Brightest.

      I read a review of “Year One: A Political Odyssey,” a supposed fly-on-the-wall documentary about the first year of the Biden Administration. Well, parts of it anyway: the response to COVID-19 and foreign policy. Sadly, much as the filmmaker John Maggio and the reporter/narrator David Sanger, he of the Times, thought they were going in to chronicle a heroic and historic rejuvenation of the Republic what they found was…something else.

      Whatever, we all lived through that first year. I was interested to learn that Timesman Sanger’s grandfather was the cofounder of WQXR FM, the radio station of…The New York Times! Tony Blinken (he’s our Secretary of State, for those who need a refresher) is candid and confesses they had no idea that Afghanistan would fall about 45 minutes after the planes started leaving Kabul airport. Perhaps Blinken felt particularly comfortable confiding in Sanger because, after all, they went to college together. Can you guess the college? Two syllables, starts with H, ends in d, seven letters. Would you like to solve the puzzle? There’s an Amana Radarange in it for you if you can.

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