TGIF! [DOT 26/5/23]

26/5/23 MegMegMcGee 51

The long weekend is sooo close!

Eighteen years, wow

Oath Keepers leader Rhodes sentenced to 18 years for Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/05/25/oath-keepers-sentencing-seditious-conspiracy-jan6/

Lulz

I can’t imagine if they were my parents

Lauren Boebert’s son called 911 in tears to report his father was ‘throwing’ him around the house. Then she took the phone.
https://www.businessinsider.com/lauren-boebert-son-called-911-report-abuse-husband-jayson-2023-5

Stonks!

Debt ceiling talks are ‘closer,’ but still haven’t reached a deal
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/25/debt-ceiling-no-deal/

Sprots!

Have a super long weekend!

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51 Comments

  1. In what will no doubt be another ratings bonanza for CNN (I’m being sarcastic) Dana Bash will be hosting a Town Hall with Mike Pence! Chris Licht is playing some 4th-dimensional chess here, because no one who would vote for Mike Pence would watch CNN, and no CNN viewer would vote for Mike Pence. But maybe this pivot to the center will pay off and Chris Licht will make loyal viewers out of the Mike Pence voters. All 300 of them.

    When there was the Trump Town Hall backlash Chris Licht had a hilarious quote that went something like, “When the tough questions need to be asked CNN damned well better be the one asking them!” The Edward R. Murrow of our age.

    • Right, the reason Pence has 300 fans is that he never says anything worth noticing. There is no news in a Mike Pence interview.

      When Trump started out, he could hold an audience of curious non-fans for a while, although that’s obviously fallen apart. Pence never had it.

      So why not come up with another format to find news in Pence if he won’t deliver? Because Licht is bad at his job. CNN doesn’t have a balance problem, CNN’s problem is they are locked into the worst forms of TV News – endless shouting panels, interviews with nonresponsive pols, and standups in front of government buildings repeating PR from unnamed sources. Licht has no good programming ideas.

      • I will never forget the first time I accidentally stumbled across a televised Trump rally (probably on CNN.) There was the Donald, with a live audience of thousands, and he looked left, right, and center, and said, “That Hillary, she’s as crooked as they come.” And the crowd went nuts. And I thought, well, yes, probably, but in a legal-loopholes way, I mean she and Bill both went to Yale Law. And then two or three days later I happened to catch some kind of “intimate conversation with Hillary Clinton” televised event. Her audience was two or three dozen middle-aged and above white ladies in a high school gym or something and she droned on and on in that slippery Chicago -> Ozarks and back again voice about very Third Way-ish policies about means-tested targeted “investments” in…

        When I woke up the day after the election I think I was one of the few people I know who thought, “Of course he won.” The only surprise for me was she won more of the popular vote. I voted for her, and I imagine everyone else I know here in New York did too, but New York and California only have so many electoral votes, so when you win NY and CA overwhelmingly but lose Michigan and Ohio and Wisconsin by 2 or 3 percent it adds up. I think this is how Biden won.

          • Well, when the Chair of the DNC in 2016 coincidentally happens to be the co-Chair of your failed 2008 Democratic primary campaign…And then when that Chair has to kind of fall on her sword and an interim Chair is installed, who led the failed Michael Dukakis Presidential campaign in 1988, and, upon hearing that there will be a Democratic debate in Flint, Michigan, feeds you inside info that the drinking water situation in Flint, Michigan, will come up and word gets out about that…Honestly, I’m trying to think of a satirist who could do that whole campaign justice. Juvenal, maybe.

             

        • The best way to think of Trump is in terms of The Apprentice. When it launched, regular people tuned in for the weird novelty. But ratings quickly tanked, going from #7 to #51 in two years.

          What kept Trump on the air was Jeff Zucker was hellbent on his strategy to replace regular programming with reality schlock, even as he destroyed NBC’s ratings in the process.

          We’re seeing the same thing now at CNN with Chris Licht trying to keep these doofuses going, and the fact is that as long as guys like Licht control the airwaves, more time for Trump and Pence means better options don’t get the airtime they need to succeed and deserve.

          One interesting thing is Fox has said they won’t do what CNN did — they are only going to prerecord Trump interviews and show what they care about. Licht can’t even run a right wing network.

          • I remember when Zucker destroyed NBC.  He was a cheap bastard who didn’t want to keep paying for all of those really good (and very expensive) scripted shows.  So, we trashed everything to make way for really bad (and very cheap) reality shows–and two fucking hours of Jay Leno in prime time.  WTF.

          • …the apprentice never appealed to me any more than big brother…or dragons den…which it’s more like, I guess?

            …but the whole “you’re fired” thing wasn’t even his signature move…he cribbed it from alan sugar who’d done the UK version for a few years before they took the format stateside

            …dare say none of his audience would much care about his lack of originality…but I never got why anyone would compete to work for either any more than let the “dragons” into their business…sure, these people have made a bunch of money & all…but that’s what they’re about…making themselves money…not you…so it seems likely you get the shitty end of any deal they’re willing to do & there’d have to be more in it for them than you

            …pretty sure one of the bigger successes off the back of it was a dude who made “reggae reggae sauce” who didn’t take them up on giving them equity but was likeable enough people bought the stuff & it started showing up in supermarkets…so…I guess there might be an argument for going on that show at least

            …but…competing to get a chance to work for a man I’d struggle not to punch after an hour’s exposure just seems entirely insane to me?

            • Yes, Lord Sugar, who has one of the best British titles. It is a toss-up though between him and Baron Adonis, the Rt. Hon Lord Adonis.

              We so desperately need noble titles in this country. We probably don’t need a House of Lords, but at this point really neither does Britain. It’s been so emasculated and is now just a dumping ground for major party donors and hacks who come and go during various governments. The New Labour/Blairite abolition of the majority of the hereditary peers in favor of hundreds of life peers was a huge mistake. Back in 1953 Queen Elizabeth was quite right to invite all of them to her coronation, as was tradition. In 2023 King Charles was quite right to invite practically none of them. Katy Perry, Ant and Dec, they got invites. I would have done the same. I’d much rather have a possible chat with one of them than the person who was briefly the Transport Minister in Gordon Brown’s brief government or whoever now sits in the House Of Lords.

              • …there’s still something to be said for the house of lords…it isn’t perfect or anything & shifting from hereditary peers to politically-affiliated appointments is some frying pan to fire kind of progress

                …but compared to the commons the chances someone in the lords actually has some relevant knowledge & experience in regards to what they’re debating is considerably better…& there’s still a “cross bench” contingent…which I’ve always sort of had the feeling is something that might improve “the other place”?

    • I feel like I have to direct this comment to a Brit, and aren’t you Anglo-Dutch, like Shell?

      We gave the dog a bath this morning. He doesn’t like them but he tolerates them. He very nimbly hopped out of the tub when we were done and for some reason the UK national anthem popped into my head. I have absolutely no idea why, and I’m not really sure why I know all the words, so while I was toweling him off, I sang:

      Send him victorious,
      Happy and glorious,
      Long to reign over us,
      God save our Hound!

      I should send a note to Chuck and Cammie and tell them this. Chuck would probably not be amused but I bet Cammie would get a good laugh out of it.

      • lol nice

        i am indeed anglo dutch just like shell…i just migrated in the other direction..opting to stay in the netherlands…where as shell fucked off to the uk once it started to look like we might tax their shareholders over here..which is why they are no longer royal dutch shell

    • Given the other sentences handed down, I am pretty amazed that this guy did get 18 years. They must have had some pretty damning evidence that he was going to go to extreme lengths. I know he won’t end up serving all 18 months, but given his, uh, proclivity for self-destruction, it seems likely that he will die in prison.

    • I probably shouldn’t say this because it illustrates my own shallow and superficial nature, but why are MAGAs so homely? I swear, their personal appearance is directly correlated to how awful a human being they are.

  5. Border Collies, the brainiacs of dog world. Super smart.

    The Doxies I knew wouldn’t have done that. Only possible way they’d go that fast is if the treats were laced with meth.

  6. So, right wing SCOTUS took another huge hunk out of the EPA yesterday, as I knew they would.  However, the thing that’s starting to confuse me about these assholes is that a number of these cases where they just push their right wing bullshit above facts, reality, precedent and the Constitution don’t always land 6-3.  On several of them, different right wingers land on the side of reality, such as this EPA case where Brett sided with the ones with brains in their heads.  There doesn’t seem to be a real consensus among them (except for abortion) about which bullshit they all want to shove down our throats.

  7. Things seem a little slow here today and why not, it’s the beginning of a three-day weekend here in the States and a four-day bank holiday in Britain, for those lucky enough to be able to observe them. Not work-from-home jack-of-all-trades me, who labors in his underground lair at all hours but hours mostly of his own choosing.

    The reason why we gave Faithful Hound a bath this morning is that our cleaning lady is coming in today. We only have her in maybe once a month, because grime is not our problem, it is clutter. This entails doing a pre-clean, so among other things we cleaned out the tub when we were done but we trust her to find something we missed.

    While going through the clutter I discovered two bills that Better Half had cleverly hidden under a mountain of junk mail. I also discovered my latest edition of my college alumni magazine, but since they stopped publishing alumni-supplied personal updates and death notices it’s hardly worth reading. Yes, how nice, an article about undergraduate X, class of ’25, who had the wherewithal to spend the month-long Christmas break traveling to Mauritius with her family (Dad’s an alumnus) and seeing first-hand the effects of climate change. John Kerry should hire her.

    Anyway, one bill was for bloodwork done by QuestDiagnostics, the McDonald’s of blood testing companies, and not far off from Theranos, apparently. The second one was for the same thing, but it was very panicky and alerted me that this was the SECOND NOTICE and I should make arrangements right away. It was the usual. They billed some thing like $500, my insurance company said they’d give them less than $200, and my responsibility was precisely $9.08.

    What’s even more farcical about this is there is a medical-industrial complex cycle. I go to the Poverty Health Clinic, which is a “not-for-profit” chain, and they always want bloodwork. Off my blood goes to QuestDiagnostics. Then there’s a follow-up visit. At the poverty health clinic there are no doctors, just bright, chipper residents from the “not-for-profit” hospital system doing their rotations. Sometimes they say, “I want you to see a specialist at [the related not-for-profit] hospital system”, and they set up the appointment. Sometimes they say, “I want you to go to the emergency room because…” and I say, not on your life. And I personally determine which specialist might be able to deal with this and make an appointment.

    So I make these appointments and they always want me to come in the day before for bloodwork, or sometimes an hour or two early, because they have their own labs. And I say, “I just had bloodwork done and I can read you the results or…” And they glide right over this. “So if you could be here by 8:30, we can…” So apparently in their minds results of blood tests done by QuestDiagnostics are about as reliable as George Santos’s resume.

    This is not the strangest thing about the American health care system. No, the strangest thing is my definitely for-profit insurance company pays for all of this. Bloodwork, and then a couple of weeks later bloodwork done again for the same reason but at a different place. If I were donating this blood I’d probably be on the NY chapter of the American Red Cross’s Top 100 Heroes list.

    Anyway, I see now it’s 9:20 so it’s time to await the arrival of Florida (a “Maude” reference) and move Faithful Hound’s living room accoutrements into the office with us.

    • So much of repeat testing is driven by the degree to which insurance companies have programmed medicine. If the requirement says a blood test for X is needed to justify an exam and you already had a blood test for X and Y, a lot of doctors will order the test for just X to avoid the fight over a slightly noncompliant billing code.

       

      • There must be a psychological term for this, maybe in German, with the stem word “Scham” (shame.) We don’t do that much actual cleaning, we do more like purging. It’s a useful exercise for us and it helps her because she doesn’t charge by the hour, but by the job, and if she had her way she’d spend more hours reorganizing our clutter into a system that she would recognize. As it is when she gets to my bedside table she organizes the half-dozen books I have going at any one time from largest to smallest, whereas I have them from “going to throw this one away/going to donate this one/going to move this one into the office/going to finish this one at some point.”

      • …years back when I was only recently out of uni I shared a place with three other people & when we moved in two advocated for getting a cleaner…the other two of us said we’d rather not shell out & figured it wasn’t that hard to pick up after ourselves

        …lasted a couple of months before caving based on the state the two wanting the cleaner left the place in…I think having to re-moisten the newspaper all over the bathroom to get it to peel off was the last straw for me…either way we did the pre-clean routine to begin with because we didn’t want her thinking our standards were that low…but after a while less & less…then the other two got her to start doing laundry & ironing for them, too…& one time when I was home while she was there I made a passing remark that I was always a little mystified how my room (which I generally thought I kept pretty clean & tidy) was always noticeably cleaner after she’d been but could never quite figure out what was different…& got quite an enlightening response

        …basically she said that there’s only so much you can do in the alloted time so if she had to sort/wash/dry/iron laundry because those two couldn’t seem to follow simple instructions on how to make that more efficient then she barely had time left over to run a vacuum around their rooms…whereas in the tidy bits of the place she has time to do things I never thought of…like taking books off shelves to dust them & their contents before putting them back

        …so…it is kind of ridiculous…& funny…but…also not as daft as it sounds?

    • The pessimistic paranoid part of me is worried about Russia or its allies hacking the app. If I were the deputy prime minister, I would not have bragged about it to the global media.

  9. I can’t figure out if my neighbor is just friendly and excited to hang out with someone close to their own age (much of my street is either 15-30 years older than us or in the halcyon days of their late 20s) or if the  neighbor is interested in me. I’m too ace to pick up on flirting most of the time, so could go either way. I’ll update if I learn more!

    • …generally hew to the side of “that’s none of my damn business” so this feels weird to say…but…if you’re looking for second opinions as to which side of the line that falls on…I might need more information?

      • I don’t typically get texts from friends saying things like “I hope you’re having a good week, anything fun happening?” But also my  friends and I are sarcastic and silly so our messages are more like “can you believe this motherfucker???” and a screenshot from Facebook or wherever. Or memes.

        • …hmm…I can see how that’s unhelpfully falling between two stools…I mean…seems pretty clear they’re looking for an excuse to hang out…more or less any excuse, even

          …so…if they’re a neighbor & would presumably have as much chance as you of knowing if “anything fun” was happening in the vicinity (like a food market or live music or something) that part I’d assume means “do you have anything fun planned?”

          …if you do have plans & tell them what they are & they seem to be angling for an invite…probably interested but maybe just bored & not up on what’s good in the ‘hood

          …if you don’t & you say so & they suggest hanging out if you’re free…probably interested but possibly starved for company

          …at least that would be my guess based on that sample…which could be off-base…but…in either case if you enjoy their company spending time with them might let you find out discretely if they just haven’t got any traction with a social life since moving to the area…& if they seem to have a social life already my bet would be they’re at least somewhat interested?

          …very much a guess on my part…but I guess in your shoes I’d maybe try to decide whether I’d be interested in return or if a bit of letting-down-gently might be in order before they built their hopes up enough to take it badly?

      • …the image wouldn’t display for me for some reason but after futzing about until I knew what it was…I feel like spock would be asking expecting it to be some kind of creature with a distinctive odour

        “I am aware of a variety of musk’s but I have never encountered one of these elon’s you speak of – to what system are they native?”

    • …given how many pigs they went through beyond the range which might seem reasonable…I wouldn’t be in any hurry to sign up for a human trial of their tech?

      …the bunch that got that paralyzed guy to walk again…or several other human/machine interface types…sure…& the potential is kind of amazing

      …but neuralink?

      …that’s gonna be a nope

      …it feels like any benefit to people with restricted ability to use technology is at best a side-effect for elon…he just wants to be able to tweet hands-free like it’s his superpower is how he comes off when he talks about it?

      • that would be pretty much my thinking too…yup

        i do not doubt the tech has great potential…when serious sciency types work it out

        musk and neuralink seem like the shortest route to finding out what can go wrong tho….

         

    • The one thing that dolt’s Neuralink immediately reminds me of, is this clip….

      Basically, between the way he screws up companies, and always seems to believe that the tech he’s running is *better* than anything *ever* done before, in the WHOLE wide world?…

      (Flaming Teslas, Exploding Rockets, Falling-apart Twitter…)

      Until ‘Ol Noel himself installs it in his head, and *doesn’t* turn into a semi-sentient puddle of goo…. wait, he already *seems* to be one of those…

      Until it leaves him in the *same* state of existence that he currently lives in, for 30-or-so years?

      I won’t trust that he won’t end up like the “pig-thing”😉

  11. Also completely tracks that Boebert would not care if her husband was beating up the sons. A lot of people normalize child abuse because they’ve always seen kids get slapped around or they themselves were abused and “they turned out fine.” Also you know, she doesn’t want the bad press.

    Her husband is lucky. She could have just decided to shoot him to death and become even more popular with the republican gun cult by claiming she needed to in self-defense.

  12. Nothing says “traditional family values” like forcing your son to call 911 back to say he wasn’t being physically abused by his father (which he “does this to me all the time”) in order to save your own ass from public skepticism of your claims of having said “traditional family values”.

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