How was your week? Mine was ugghhhhh…
But good news on the horizon: I’ve got some lines on a new job, some health stuff seems to be settling down, and it MIGHT get warm here next week.
Whatcha got Deadsplinters?
Supreme Court news:
Leaked abortion draft made us ‘targets of assassination’, Samuel Alito says
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/28/samuel-alito-draft-abortion-ruling-supreme-court-justice
Today in “Nothing Matters”
Jane Roberts, who is married to Chief Justice John Roberts, made $10.3 million in commissions from elite law firms, whistleblower documents show
https://www.businessinsider.com/jane-roberts-chief-justice-wife-10-million-commissions-2023-4
Stonks!
FRB is going down this weekend too, I hear.
Fed says it must strengthen banking rules after SVB’s collapse
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/28/silicon-valley-bank-collapse-investigation/
He’s saying these things like they are bad!
Same little guy, same.
Have a great day!
…not sure what the odds are it all plays the way he wants it to with the choir he’s preaching to…but between the “it was them that leaked it, not us” part
Alito thinks he knows who Dobbs leaker is — and says it’s not a conservative [WaPo]
…& the whole “well, actually it’s not the lives we jeopardized with our partisan hackery that are important – it’s only because what we said was said before we were planning to say the same exact thing anyway that made people threaten us & our lives should be beyond jeopardy” thing
…it sure seems like the world’s smallest violin is going to be working overtime for alito?
…but…how much more “the supreme court is bought & paid for” does there need to be before it tips into “too much” territory…because it’s threatening to be the entire majority that should be getting into a realm of asset forfeiture at this point?
“It was the leak that put us in jeopardy, not the decision itself” is some jacked-up logic coming from someone who is theoretically supposed to be one of the foremost legal minds in the country.
Using medieval precedent was a stroke of total bullshit.
Alito: This made us targets for assassination.
Me: By whom? Please describe the number of pro-abortion assassinations in the last 50 years. I’ll respond by noting the number of doctors and other personnel killed at clinics by anti-abortion fanatics. Then we can compare the size of the two lists. Sound fair?
Alito: I have a pretty good idea but no evidence.
Me: We’re supposed to take the “word” of a clearly partisan asshole? Based on your “gut”? That’s some amazing logic from the top court in the land.
Alito: The leak was used to intimidate the court.
Me: So how did that work out? Did you all change your decisions? Oh, wait, I know the answer.
Alito: Reports about ethics issues are attempts to damage the court.
Me: Pretty sure the ethics issues are what’s damaging the court, not reporting on them. Maybe don’t do your sketchy shit, ’cause you’re clearly nervous that it’s about to go on blast.
I could do this all day. This clown’s an idiot.
…wait
…I don’t live in the sort of enlightened neighborhood where such things are considered legal…but I was a teenager once even if I was never in snoop dog/willie nelson’s league…& I’m pretty sure the statement “just two ounces is equivalent to three joints” is… spectacularly wrong?
…did he mean to say “blunts”?
…because “not blunt enough” is not a thing I imagine myself saying about GOP statements & it’s a bit much this early in the day?
2 ounces is like 10x as much as you are legally allowed to carry over here and well into possession with intent territory
so yeah…spectacularly wrong is right
This reminds me of when Ted Stevens, RIP, the former Republican Senator from Alaska, decided, at the age of 82, to explain to his colleagues what the Internet was. In 2006.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes
Since 2006 was the Golden Age of memery this of course became:
I wanna see the fucking Cheech and Chong joints this guy’s rolling. Did I hear people laughing in the background
Yeah I got no clue now much volume 2 ounces of weed is.
But I know how much 2 ounces of loose leaf tea is, and holy fuck those are some huge joints.
Speaking of Komedy Kavalcades, this is sad news:
https://pagesix.com/2023/04/26/legendary-haunt-the-friars-club-is-up-for-sale-amid-debt-crisis/
If you’ve never seen a Friar’s Club roast, many of them are available on Youtube. One of the best was from 1961, when Lucille Ball was roasted. The host, Milton Berle, cautioned his fellow Friars that since Lucy was a woman, they should use no foul language, and then introduced her as “Lucille Testicle.”
Off Topic. Does anyone have advice or experience on an inexpensive wifi extender for a dead spot in our home? Thank you.
…I’ve helped some folks set up that sort of thing a few times & the TP-link ones have gone well for a few…they have an AC1900 that I think can handle gigabit connections & even mesh network stuff…but depending on what speed your router gets that might be overkill
…full on mesh network solutions seem like the money-no-object solution of choice at this point but the above is “compatible with” rather than “requires” on the mesh thing…if that’s any help?
I’m the last person who should be offering advice like this but can’t you set up your phone to be a Wi-Fi hotspot? I’m pretty sure Better Half has done this and that’s what he calls it but what that is and how it works is completely beyond me.
…unless there’s a trick I don’t know of that lets the phone pass on a wifi connection it’s using but I think hotspots use mobile data…so only good if you have a good deal on that…& probably an ability to charge the firm for it?
I got a three unit TP Link Deco mesh system for just over $100. It seems to work well and the setup was easy, but I’ve gathered it’s hard to predict what they’ll do if it involves something like getting around a corner in a basement.
I have insomnia, as do many of my DeadSplinterite friends. While in bed, I read my Kindle to pass the time. You know, midnight to 3 AM… Anyway, there is a wifi dead spot from my head to my hands. (No jokes, I realize that sentence is a perfect set-up, deadspot in my head, yadda yadda.) If I hold my hand up in the air or extend my arm to the left, perfect reception. I just need a small 3 foot square bump to the wifi; otherwise it works well on the 3 floors of the house, the basement, and outside on the patio. Tech help appreciated!
Oh, you should give me a call around 2 am. Although I’m sure we would just rile each other up in a friendly, we’re-on-the-same-page, kind of way, and you’d never get to sleep. I have the benefit of the freelance life, and am kind of a shut-in, and have learned to drown out Better Half’s interminable speaker-phone client calls, so I can return to my coffin and immobilize myself while the sun is shining.
…in theory the tech underpinning it all says the mesh thing is better but if it’s specifically for that purpose there are units that are more “booster” than the via-the-power-line “extender” things
…so it would pick up the actual wifi & rebroadcast a signal that should remove the deadline rather than pulling an ersatz ethernet signal over the power circuit & acting like a second router?
I have a Deco mesh network and it was pretty inexpensive and works really well.
Tight Lips Tony Alito knows who the rat is…
It’s not the leak you medieval evil shithead. It’s the shitty decision you and your god spewing fucknuts made.
Apparently the logic was assassinating a Justice would intimidate them into changing their decision or change the balance of the court or some shit. As if those things couldn’t happen after the fact.
JANE! They want me to stop the crazy thing!
Everyone of them who took $$$$ for “services” rendered including Justice Ruckus should be impeached.
It’s remarkable how so many elected officials enter a lifetime of “public service” at relatively low wages and manage to accumulate so much wealth. Nurses and social workers don’t seem to be able to pull this off.
Or teachers.
The thing that always strikes me is how little the payoffs are.
$10 million over a number of years for John Roberts is practically nothing. The guy has easily provided $100 billion in services to the GOP and their backers, very possibly ten times as much. Harlan Crow got Clarence Thomas for around a million bucks. Somebody got Kavanaugh by paying off his $200K debt.
A single case before the Supreme Court can easily swing $10 billion, and for industries like the telecoms that can easily be 20x as much.
I’m sure someone like Eric Adams is getting backdoor deals, but I have no doubt it’s pennies compared to the $100 billion annual city budget he oversees.
The money matters, but it’s just one small piece of the hows and whys behind what’s going on.
Gotta keep ’em small to stay below the radar. See, Thomas had the right idea. Let people buy you shit, instead of just handing you money. It’s like the “justices” have never seen crime before.
There’s a fortune to be made legally by switching 100% to the private sector for a reward — Cheney and Rumsfeld went the CEO route and became fabulously rich. Clarence Thomas could have cashed out decades ago to work at a law firm and pulled in way more than what Crow slipped him and Ginni.
But most of these guys spend decades in public service accepting (relatively) nickle and dime stuff.
Money obviously is a part of it — Thomas wouldn’t sit in a rowboat with Harlan Crow in the middle of the Anacostia River eating lukewarm Totino’s Pizza Rolls. But their grift also doesn’t make sense in a pure economic sense that balances what they hand out vs. what they get.
Power. Pubes has been waiting years to be able to push around anyone he wants. That’s why he sexually harassed women (Don’t think Anita Hill was the only one). He gets off on using his position to dominate other people.
That’s pretty much the bottom line for any career Republican politician. They don’t do it to make the world a better place. And most could make more money somewhere else. They’re megalomaniacs looking for ego boosts. Yeah, Democrats too, but not as egregiously as Republicans.
Eric “Swagger” Adams in not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he is famously known for hiring otherwise unemployable relatives, friends, and associates, to six-figure no-show jobs. This is part of the reason why City Hall is understaffed (although the city workforce ballooned greatly under De Blasio, so relative to how it worked under Giuliani and Bloomberg I don’t know.) No one wants to work (notionally) under these clowns.
I would bet he gets something out of those hires too. But what’s interesting to me is that it’s nowhere near the old structured system that existed under Tammany Hall.
Boss Tweed got tripped up because he got sloppy, but Charles Murphy turned patronage into a science, and both guys really raked it in. Adams is a joke. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up getting nailed over a $7300 payoff for a two month permit for a skating rink.
Dipshit falling up?
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/tv/newsmax-is-reportedly-planning-to-offer-tucker-carlson-a-lot-more-than-just-money/ar-AA1auwcL
A Texas Twofer! Mass shooting and killing migrant neighbors!
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2023/04/29/5-people-shot-north-huston-texas/11765852002/
If you can’t beat um, cheat um!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/north-carolina-supreme-court-clears-way-for-partisan-gerrymandering/ar-AA1atS0L
North Carolina is the new Florida. I know a few people who have left New York for the…I think it’s called the Triangle, Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, and they love it. But just like my friends who moved to Florida, they are not that young and they are childless, but they are nominally good liberals. This is why The National Divorce really wouldn’t work. I don’t know why this is, but when you get people together in congested cities they pull together and vote left, but when people spread out to the suburbs they become swing voters, and then the rural areas vote right. It even happens within cities. Staten Island is chock full of unionized public sector workers, often the guy is a cop and the woman is a nurse, another phenomenon I couldn’t really explain, and SI is by far one of the most suburban and most Republican of New York counties, never mind boroughs of New York City.
White rural areas vote right.
When you can find heavily rural areas that aren’t predominantly white, it’s not as straightforward as “rural areas vote right.” The Black Belt region in Alabama is a good example of that, they were a sash of blue in a basically red state in 2020 presidental election (Birmingham being the other blue area in the state).
That’s true, you’re right of course, but I am not familiar with Dixie. Although I will say that Better Half has relatives still in rural North Carolina, where his Dad came from, and they are crazy Trumpists. One of them also tried to cheat BH (and other relatives) out of a small bequest from an aunt and the other relatives and he came close to suing her until she made amends. That family…the fraudulent pursuit of money is the root of all evil. Especially where they’re concerned.
This cousin is not the first one to try to pull a con. His sister is no slouch in this department. This is very TMI but it’s late for this thread and I must vent. Should BH predecease me, which would be highly unlikely I think, I get everything and in his will he put in a very specific codicil saying that Sis (mentioned by every variant of her full names, because she’s been married three times, God-loving churchwoman that she is, and her two ex-husbands are still alive, one is in prison for fraud) is not to receive a nickel.
Still, BH’s estate will be quite substantial, unless we both require extensive uninsured hospital care, and I’m sure she would take a Spirit Airlines flight to New York, what else could she afford, and hire some storefront attorney and try to contest the will. Luckily she’s a decade older than BH so hopefully she will predecease both of us. That’s what BH is hoping for anyway.
I love my siblings very much and I’m always saddened by stories from my friends about how much they hate one or more of theirs. But, I have found, they usually have every right to be angry with them.
Fox News ratings took a hit after the Carlson firing.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2023/04/28/fox-news-ratings-at-8pm-drop-50-after-tucker-carlsons-firing
It will be interesting to see how they react. When Fox News was founded, Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes took the long view, and spent years building their brand. Even when CNN was killing them in the ratings, they didn’t back off the fire and brimstone, and had faith in their strategic plan. It paid off enormously in the long run.
Nowadays they seem awfully jumpy. It’s not clear they even know what strategic planning is, let alone have a plan.
Also in right wing media news, a former VP at Trump’s media company is now in training to be a barista for Starbucks, but to the credit of the reporter, it isn’t portrayed as a humiliation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/29/truth-social-wilkerson-starbucks/
Will Wilkerson was fired by Trump after he became a whistleblower to the feds over some awfully sketchy sounding finances. The value of the company has plunged and it is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.