…sure…the legal profession is hard on mothers
…& politicans are fond of grandstanding…that’s arguably par for that course, even
…but what I can’t figure is how we’re still stuck referring to the current proceedings regarding the latest piss-poor pick for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court as “hearings”
…I mean, I guess it’s accurate in the sense that all these people seem to want to be heard
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/10/13/court-packing-state-supreme
…but that’s about it?
…they all want to state all kinds of stuff
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/amy-coney-barrett-s-supreme-court-hearing-formality-democrats-have-one-last-card
…but nobody seems keen on the whole ask-questions-expect-answers thing
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/amy-coney-barrett-trump-recusal/2020/10/12/story.html
…which is weird to me because somewhere along the way I was given to understand that as a general rule lawyers prefer to ask questions to which they know the answers while the purpose of any kind of interview is to examine answers in order to make a determination
if you’ve made the determination but avoid the questions – let alone the answers – then…& forgive me if this is somehow a dumb way to look at the thing…would that not seem to strongly imply that you (like those lawyers I mentioned) know the answers & are aware that they would make the determination you’re attached to seem kind of fucked up?
…not that those are the only conspicuously unanswered questions going around at the moment…there’s the ones about the hopefully-soon-to-be-ex-president’s health
…medical…financial…moral…apparently you pays your money & you takes your pick
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/secret-service-spending-trump-kids/2020/10/12/story.html
…oh, yeah…& while we’re at it
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/melania-trump-covid-tapes/2020/10/13/story.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/who-says-herd-immunity-strategy-simply-unethical
…but to get back to those questions…there’s the ones about how very-not-okay-or-even-legal it might be to fuck with the vote republican-style
Brace yourself while I paint a picture of a nightmarish future. It’s one in which every American gets to vote without impediment or inconvenience. Where the presidential candidate who gets the most votes actually moves into the Oval Office. Where bills in Congress are debated and then voted on, the side with more votes prevails, then those laws take effect and the public can judge the results.
This is the terrifying political hellscape the Republican Party is determined to prevent. For a party with a dwindling base and a broadly unpopular agenda, there is no more profound threat than democracy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/13/republicans-have-seen-enemy-democracy
The first is the overall accuracy of a hurried count, buffeted by the coronavirus on the one hand and partisan interventions by the White House on the other. The second is whether the use of that count will result in figures for congressional reapportionment shaped by political considerations instead of an objective count of all the nation’s residents as the Constitution requires.
“Trump has made a bid of focusing on social issues and personal security and this idea that antifa will organize Democratic mobs through your neighborhood and raze them to the ground,” said Jillson, referring to the “anti-fascist” demonstrators. “But the people are saying ‘I don’t like the instability. I don’t like when demonstrations turn violent. But I am looking up and down my street, and I don’t see antifa.’ ”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-a-state-known-for-law-and-order-texas-republicans-struggle-to-make-the-message-stick/2020/10/12/story.html
Government officials say the receptacles are illegal and could lead to voter fraud, but the party says it will continue the practice.
…I mean…I’m not a lawyer (or any kind of an expert on ballot boxes, really) but there’s a reason we don’t just throw the things in a bucket & call it a good job
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/13/us/politics/when-votes-counted.html
…in fact I’m given to understand we’re generally pretty strict about the receptacles we deem acceptable for your actual vote-as-in-thing-that-determines-an-election (well, at least in theory) & if you’re collecting them to submit on behalf of others there are even some rules about that which suggest that you need to be a person (presumably known to the voter) who has been designated as the proxy by which it shall be delivered to a suitable ballot box…so how the hell these things aren’t just places to have pro-trump voters throw theirs away on account of voluntarily invalidating the things is a fucking mystery to me…but hey, they care about judges mainly because they don’t like the laws so I guess they’re kinda-sorta being consistent?
McConnell said the Senate would on Monday vote on a “targeted” relief package for Americans, including new funding for small businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program. The measure is unlikely to advance in the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has insisted on comprehensive legislation to respond to the coronavirus.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/10/13/senate-stimulus-trump
…& while we’re on the subject of people with outsized influence & a solid track record of shitty behavior that demonstrates a profound lack of respect for the rest of us
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-bans-holocaust-denial-reversing-previous-stance
Three years ago, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg stridently defended the rights of Holocaust deniers to publish their thoughts on the social media giant’s platform, saying it wasn’t in the business of removing content just because it was factually wrong.
The comment, a year after the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, was considered one of Zuckerberg’s boldest stances affirming his permissive views on free speech — a watershed moment that preceded his controversial announcement, a year later, that the company would not fact-check statements from politicians. It drew a huge backlash from Jewish groups and from Holocaust survivors.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/12/zuckerberg-holocaust-denial-facebook
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-says-will-ban-anti-vaccination-ads
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/oct/13/facebook-vaccine-ads-ban
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/zuckerberg-chan-elections-facebook/2020/10/12/story.html
…I mean…that’s cute & all…but for some reason the term “windowdressing” springs to mind…I’m sure that’s just me…but then again
Facebook employees collected evidence showing the company is giving right-wing pages preferential treatment when it comes to misinformation. And they’re worried about how the company will handle the president’s falsehoods in an election year.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/facebook-zuckerberg-what-if-trump-disputes-election-results
In total, Facebook likes, comments and shares of articles from news outlets that regularly publish falsehoods and misleading content roughly tripled from the third quarter of 2016 to the third quarter of 2020, the group found.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2020/10/13/trump-biden-facebook-ads-swing-states
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/13/black-fake-twitter-accounts-for-trump
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/09/14/qanon-families-support-group
…I guess we’re all searching for answers
…but even that isn’t exactly straightforward in the era of big data
Google’s dominance in search has drawn more regulatory scrutiny and criticism from rivals and lawmakers in recent months, something that is expected to culminate in the Department of Justice filing an antitrust suit against the company in the coming weeks. Lawmakers are also preparing new legislation to rein in tech’s power, following the publication last week of a congressional investigation that found Google engaged in anticompetitive tactics.
The case by the Justice Department would be its biggest swing yet to rein in the power of tech giants in decades, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. But some who warned the government a decade ago say it may be too late.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/12/google-antitrust-ita-merger
…it’s a lot…& that’s surely an understatement…I mean this sort of thing used to be enough to make a splash in the news cycle
…or this
…or this
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/13/ghislaine-maxwell-lawyers-jeffrey-epstein-court
…now it seems like an afterthought…which is kind of obscene when you think of how little these people seemed to think of the women they serially mistreated…or…to pick another example in which mistreatment played a principal role…then & now
Well now, this is spot-on: “there’s a reason we don’t just throw the things in a bucket & call it a good job.” Also, nice art shout-out for the Handsome Boys.
The response to the Denver shooting is interesting. The GOP called Kyle Rittenhouse a hero for shooting a Black man that threw an empty plastic bag at him. Why aren’t they defending Matthew Dolloff for the shooting death of a Patriot Muster attendee that slapped and sprayed him with a mace like substance? They aren’t condemning the shooter either because he’s a white Pinkerton agent. What a conundrum for the Law and Order Party!
It’s only laws they support and order for them.
Kind of like the news that among the anti-virals Trump used were made with fetal genetic material (pre 1973) but roundly ignored by assholes who pushed a ban against any sort of scientific research using fetal genetic material.
Or using technology based on science they don’t agree with.
or it’s okay for us to pack the courts but not you. We can commit voter fraud all we like but you better not try to legally vote. I could go on for hours but I’m only on my first cup of coffee. The fucking hypocrite party needs to go!
Every time I hear “herd immunity” I think of the novel, World War Z, by Max Brooks, about a worldwide zombie apocalypse. One of the concepts in it is the Redeker Plan, which is devised by a fictional strategist in South Africa. Basically, the plan was for all of the “important” and “necessary” people to establish a fortified safe zone. Other zones of survivors were left untouched to serve as bait for the zombie hordes, distracting them from the safe zone. It’s based on utilitarianism, and essentially assumes that some people are less fit to survive than others. It’s also morally repugnant, and Redeker himself suffers a mental breakdown.
The current Republican Party would absolutely adopt the Redeker Plan. In fact, they already have, except the fortified safe zone is pricey health care that the majority of Americans can’t afford.
They did but the real life version was the Kushner Plan as he decided in his lack of wisdom that Blue States had a lot of black and brown folks dying from CoVID who don’t vote for the GOPers so let them die. Ooops.
As another fictional scientist once said: “Nature finds a way.”
So now it’s the Red States dying in droves.
My wife had a conference call yesterday with our local health district about how the vaccines might be rolled out. It appears that each of the contenders has to be stored with much different temperatures and rules that will most likely keep our small clinic from getting any. She was pissed and yelled about how her patients will be addressed. She pointed out that the big clinic groups will just take care of their established patients & they seemed to acknowledge as much, even pointing out they didn’t want to have to chart on non-established patients! I’m proud she is a loud voice and may have influenced how this gets rolled out. I’m telling her to push for doing it like they do for our testing, run by the district, drive up at the stadium or other large easy places.
The press is really, really not understanding what the right wing takeover of the courts means to them.
The Gawker blueprint is going to be used over and over, and the Supreme Court will give it a blessing. We will see endless rolls of the dice by right wingers looking for the right podunk judge and jury who will hand down a billion or ten billion dollar settlement against NBC or CNN or the NY Times.
Next, the judge will refuse to stay the ruling pending appeal, and state courts will either uphold the ruling or decline to intervene. Likewise for friendly GOP federal judges, who will see no constitutional issues with extreme judgments for frivilous defamation lawsuits.
At which point we will see the right wing Supreme Court justices greenlighting the penalties and bankrupting media outlets. The press will think they can protect themselves by sinking even further into bothsidesing and soft selling what the Right does, but going Fox-lite won’t be enough. They still don’t know what they are dealing with.
Vladimir Putin Has a Vaccine, and He’s
RushingRussian to Share ItSorry. Had to.
…glad you did…needed that grin
I’m relieved that you are glad, because I often hesitate to post something that light (stupid) in a post with a fair amount of gravity. Humor (or attempted humor) is just how I cope.
Excellent post, as always.
…thanks & all…but if in doubt I say go with the funny
…in a choice between crying & laughing I know which way I’d rather my day pan out?
I don’t feel so damn lazy on my week off.
Winter tires, done.
Weathstripping replaced on the door, done.
1st Basement bedroom 1/2 cleaned up, 1/2 done.
1 out of 3 windows have new blinds, 1/3 done (using hand tools are killing my forearms.)
AC shut down/covered, done.
Flu Vaccination… nope. No more till 2 weeks from now. Nada.
I don’t loathe myself for being a lazy shit today.
Now that I’ve finished doing all the scraping, Mrs. Butcher is painting the deck. Also, doing a bunch of end-of-season garden cleanup, and getting the winter tires changed over. Trust me, I take my days off all the way.
Oh man, that has to feel good, getting all that done. Nice job, @manchucandidate. Doing my best to winterize here, as well, although I’m going to wait on the snow tires until early November. Hummingbird feeders coming down and getting cleaned, trees and bushes getting pruned back a little, gutters cleaned, etc.
I locked my office keys IN my office, so that’s how my day is going.
…argh…that sounds like it sucks
…hope you get back in there without having to take a fire axe to the door or anything
😖
That’s the perfect excuse to work from home forever.
The fire axe sounds damn therapeutic. Just make sure you say “Here’s Johnny!”
All work and no play makes Meg a dull girl.
All work and no play makes Meg a dull girl.
All work and no play makes Meg a dull girl.
All work and no play makes Meg a dull girl.
All work and no play makes Meg a dull girl.
All work and no play makes Meg a dull girl.
All work and no play makes Meg a dull girl.
All work and no play makes Meg a dull girl.
All work and no play makes Meg a dull girl.
All work and no play makes Meg a dull girl.
[jacknicolson crazy eyes.gif]
I have to get a locksmith out tomorrow because our building management does not have a master key for our offices, apparently. RIP suggested sending someone through the ceiling Die Hard style, but that seems like a lot of work and we don’t have any interns currently.
I think, instead of Die Hard style, you should send someone through the ceiling Breakfast Club style.
FYI the building maintenance dudes legit MacGyver’d their way into my office. They took the ceiling tiles out outside, and inside, and looped a belt around the handle to open it up!
Big L! Nice one RIP. I love Big L!