Friday’s Forum

FILED UNDER: Open Forum
Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. Just nutha says:

    I’m number one? Wow! And this late, too. Everyone sleeping in?

    2
  2. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Just nutha: I had a mostly sleepless night with just enough short periods of sleep to give me the false hope that I might get a longer one. I also have to go to physical therapy in 20 minutes, so it’s been a bit of a busy morning for me.

    Still, I have this tidbit to throw into the fray: Secret Service watchdog suppressed memo on January 6 texts erasure

    Top career officials at the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) office of the inspector general (OIG) tried to alert Congress in April that Secret Service texts from the time of the January 6 Capitol attack had been erased, but their efforts were nixed by its leadership, documents show.

    The officials inside the inspector general’s office – the chief watchdog for the Secret Service – prepared a memo that detailed how the Secret Service was resisting the oversight body’s review into January 6, and delayed informing it about the lost texts.

    But after the memo was emailed to the DHS inspector general Joseph Cuffari’s chief of staff, its contents were never seen again, and the disclosure about the erased text messages was never included in Cuffari’s semi-annual report to Congress about oversight work.

    The revelation shows that the Secret Service only admitted texts from January 6 were lost months after they were requested by the inspector general’s office, and that Cuffari might have violated federal law in not reporting the matter in the report to Congress.

    It just keeps getting worse.

    5
  3. OzarkHillbilly says:

    Republicans vote against insulin bill as price soars, dismaying diabetics

    During the Covid-19 pandemic, Erin Connelly had to ration insulin while transitioning to a different health insurance plan. When Connelly heard the Biden administration was planning to cap the price of the life-saving drug, she was delighted. She was soon to be disappointed.

    The prices of insulin has soared in the US in recent decades and is more than eight times higher in the US than in 32 comparable, high-income nations, according to a Rand Corporation study.

    With an average list price of $98.70 per unit in the US, compared with $7.52 in the UK, US insulin sales account for nearly half the pharmaceutical industry’s insulin revenue, though the US makes up only about 15% of the global market.

    Many diabetics require several vials of insulin a month, in addition to the costs of medical supplies and monitoring equipment. A 2022 study by CharityRx found 79% of Americans with diabetes or who care for someone with diabetes reported taking on credit card debt to pay for insulin, with an average debt of $9,000. One in four Americans have reported rationing insulin due to the high costs, which can be fatal.
    …………………….
    But even a cap on private insurance co-pays wouldn’t have affected the real price of insulin in the US. The proposal would merely have limited the co-pay for the price of insulin to $35 for those with private insurance, with insurance expected to cover the difference. It would also probably have resulted in increases for insurance premiums. Those without insurance would still have been expected to pay exorbitant prices for insulin.

    “The co-pay caps aren’t price caps. All they effectively do is if you have insurance or Medicare, the $35 is your maximum co-pay,” said Laura Marston, co-founder of the advocacy group the Insulin Initiative and a type one diabetic. “That doesn’t change the underlying price of what someone without insurance pays for insulin, which in and of itself is concerning and scary from a patient’s point of view because I know first-hand how hard it can be as a type 1 diabetic in this country to get and keep health insurance.”

    I’m prepping the tar and feathers for some Pharma CEOs.

    4
  4. CSK says:
  5. Scott says:

    False allegations of voter fraud in 2020 led to increased threats against Texas election workers

    A rise in election-related misinformation has led to increased threats and intimidation of election workers in Texas and other states, according to a report released Thursday by a U.S. House committee.

    A Texas elections administrator from Tarrant County told the committee there was a social media call to “hang him when convicted for fraud and let his lifeless body hang in public until maggots drip out of his mouth.” The official’s home address was leaked and he received messages threatening his children, including one that said “I think we should end your bloodline.”

    “To this day, not a single person or entity has been held accountable for the impact this whole situation had on my family and myself,” Garcia wrote in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year.

    2
  6. Scott says:

    THE DISTORTED GOSPEL OF THE CHARLOTTESVILLE RALLY KEEPS SPREADING

    Five years later, I am still haunted by the unforgettable footage of marchers in Charlottesville, Va., at the Unite the Right rally in August 2017.

    I had been in my new position leading BJC (Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty) for just eight months. In that short time, we had already seen so many concerning events, such as the targeting of religious minorities with then-President Donald Trump’s Muslim travel ban, a misguided effort to demolish protections against partisan politicking for houses of worship, and the shooting of a member of Congress at a baseball practice. Then came Unite the Right.

    I experienced a full range of emotions that weekend: shock, disgust, grief, disorientation, despair, and resolve, to name a few. I wrote about what I saw happening, but at the time I didn’t have the clarity to squarely label the ideology underpinning the rally. Five years later, I do: It’s called white Christian nationalism.

    The tiki-torch-wielding marchers who shouted, “Jews will not replace us!” were an extreme manifestation of white Christian nationalism, a political ideology that implies one must be a Christian to be a “true” American and that the growing presences of non-whites and non-Christians are a threat to “traditional” values. People who espouse this ideology believe “real” Americans are Christians who have a specific policy perspective; they feel the need to “take back” their country from those who they believe threaten it.

    Christian nationalism often overlaps with and provides cover for white supremacy and racial subjugation. This racism is painfully obvious when a shooter targets non-white worshippers and openly espouses hate rhetoric, but what about when the myth is repeated that America was founded as a so-called “Christian nation”? That false statement implies that the founders wanted the government to advance Christianity, especially in a way that limits the rights of others. The idea of a “Christian nation” also suggests that this country is supposed to be a “promised land” for Christians, a myth that downplays the contributions of non-Christians, as well as Native Americans and Black Americans, to our country’s success.

    2
  7. Scott says:
  8. Jim Brown 32 says:

    Merrick Garland yesterday:

    “You Gawd Damn Right I Ordered the Code Red…” (JB32 Translation)

    6
  9. Flat Earth Luddite says:

    Friday Photo? Eagerly awaiting something positive and good this a.m.

    @Just nutha:
    Guess it was your turn for firsties, Cracker.

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Sorry to hear that it was a rough one for you, Ozark. Wish I was surprised that the fix was in at the SS.

    1
  10. CSK says:

    Ricky Shiffer, the guy who attacked the Cincinnati FBI office with a nail gun, had a TruthSocial.com account. It was removed Thursday night.

    2
  11. gVOR08 says:

    @Scott: I wish WAPO had kept it’s mouth shut. Now everyone expects not just sufficient cause but some big blockbuster in the warrant. And anything less will allow Trump to claim the “raid” was a witch-hunt.

    6
  12. MarkedMan says:

    Yesterday we were having a discussion about the Mar a Lago search, and I expressed an opinion based on my belief that drilling Trump’s safe would have been expressly laid out in the warrant. JohnSF (I think) pointed out that doing what they needed to do to search the place, including breaking into things, is a standard part of a warrant. That makes sense, but I’m just wondering if any of our legal or legal adjacent commenters from this side of the pond can confirm that? (No offense John, but British law can be different. I mean, grey long haired wigs in court? And you have that mandatory silly walk thing too…)

    1
  13. Matt Bernius says:

    @gVOR08:
    Agreed. That’s why I chose not to highlight the story in a post update (or new post). On Twitter, frequent OTB Commenter, Nuclear Expert, and creator of the great https://nucleardiner.wordpress.com/, Cheryl Rofer has a great primer on how wide an array of documents this could be referring to:
    https://twitter.com/CherylRofer/status/1557884465116053504?s=20&t=w1YIAVjqCXmdz4dyvbi_fA

    2
  14. MarkedMan says:

    @gVOR08: To be honest, I’m half expecting that Trump’s lawyers will say, “No release” and Trump will keep on publicly berating the DOJ to release them.

    2
  15. Matt Bernius says:

    @MarkedMan:
    That is not outside the realm of possibility (and we have seen them run similar plays in the past).

    It’s important to note that this public statement means nothing from a legal point of view. The next step will be to see what, if anything, the Trump legal team does. I suspect they will simply not file a response and let the timeline run out.

    Also, the safe question is above my paygrade–though I suspect that it is somehow legally covered within the warrant.

  16. Joe says:

    @CSK: I think the shortcoming of the argument that Team Trump has jumped the gun on the O.J. defense here is that Team Trump has seen the inventory of what was taken. They can assert that, having read that list, they know that A, B and C were never at MAL.

  17. CSK says:

    @Joe:
    And then the FBI comes back and says, “If Trump didn’t have them, why did our agents find them in his bedroom closet?”

    I understand that the MAGAs will respond that all these documents were planted by the bureau.

  18. Scott says:

    @Matt Bernius: @gVOR08: It has been a while since I worked with high level classified but, in my opinion, far too much information is over classified. Documents can be classified simply due to containing a single piece of classified like a technical specification. And this information is designated by a Security Classification Guide which are written very conservatively and attempt to cover every possibility. So while the headlines can be sensational, the reality will likely be a great let down to the public.

    OTOH, all that doesn’t excuse casual and sloppy handling processes.

    1
  19. Jen says:

    @Scott: I agree that there is cause to remain cautious/circumspect, but many nuclear materials would by necessity receive the highest classification. We don’t have any idea what the materials are, and if WaPo is correct and it is nuclear-related, if those documents dealt with US inventory or that of other countries.

    It’s highly speculative and what is most frustrating to me is that there doesn’t even need to be any “activity” (e.g., showing it around, or selling it, or just bragging that it’s there, or keeping it for future memoirs–whatever) dealing with it. If it is/was even there, THAT’S THE PROBLEM.

    But people won’t focus on that. They’ll write it off as “well, he had authority to read it then, what’s the issue?”

    1
  20. JohnSF says:

    @MarkedMan:
    Yep; as I said in the post: IANAL and still more IANAAFL = “I Am Not An American Federal Lawyer”.
    May all depend on how the warrant was worded.
    Which we should know soon enough.

    Also: we are tending to assume that the document(s) that spooked the feds are the ones that Trump was most interested in. Not necessarily.
    Could be just part of a whole crazed pack-rat grab bag.

    It doesn’t rule out wrongdoing, but for a whole bunch of reasons, document recovery might just be as far as DoJ will take it.

    And one particular reason for recovering ultra sensitive documents: how many members of staff at Mar-a-Lago (or guests or members for that matter) have resumes including “Graduated with dishonours, Yuri Andropov Red Banner Institute, Chelebityevo” 🙂

    2
  21. CSK says:
  22. CSK says:

    Deleted.

  23. Matt Bernius says:

    @MarkedMan:

    Yesterday we were having a discussion about the Mar a Lago search, and I expressed an opinion based on my belief that drilling Trump’s safe would have been expressly laid out in the warrant. JohnSF (I think) pointed out that doing what they needed to do to search the place, including breaking into things, is a standard part of a warrant. That makes sense, but I’m just wondering if any of our legal or legal adjacent commenters from this side of the pond can confirm that?

    I asked on twitter and here was the answer from Lawyer Greg Doucette:

    It gets spelled out in the warrant, though there may be some implied wiggle room depending on how the warrant is worded

    Example: warrant authorizing a search of a residence to seize a shotgun would give implied authority to search containers large enough to hold a shotgun.

    But would not extend to opening a locked mini-safe that a shotgun could never fit into

    When searching for documents – which can be stuffed all sorts of places – the wording is almost always broad enough to search any container in the target premises

    (In practice, you see this very often with warrants to search/arrest people, with cops then illegally opening every box they find along the way rummaging for contraband. If the box can’t fit a human, a warrant for “find this human” doesn’t give that authority)

    3
  24. Jen says:

    Dang. Republicans going full-throttle with their defense of Trump/tearing down the FBI and other law enforcement. It’s astonishing. Absolutely jaw-dropping.

    They don’t care. No matter what Trump might have done, they’ve decided it’s all a-okay. They aren’t even waiting for the dust to settle.

    4
  25. Kylopod says:

    @Jen:

    No matter what Trump might have done, they’ve decided it’s all a-okay.

    Not necessarily. If they found a clip of him dressed in drag reading a story to schoolchildren…

    2
  26. CSK says:

    @Jen:
    That’s because all the documents taken from Mar-a-Lago were manufactured and planted by the FBI, you know. Silly Jen!

    1
  27. Kathy says:

    @Kylopod:

    That’s asking for the impossible.

    Can you imagine Benito reading?

    1
  28. Scott says:

    @Jen: And we should not lose cognizance of the fact that no Government documents should’ve been there and that the moment they were unpacked should’ve been immediately packed up and shipped back.

    Which also leaves these questions:

    Who did the packing? Assumption is that the person packing had clearance to handle the documents.
    Who at WH directed what to pack up? Assume Trump really wasn’t directing traffic.
    Once at MAL, who unpacked and handled the material and were they cleared also?
    Who else had access these last 18 months to the material?

    Point is that there was a lot of handling of classified material and I doubt there was any chain of custody going on and all by mostly uncleared and unauthorized people.

    3
  29. Jen says:

    Salman Rushdie was attacked today in western NY. AP’s reporting via Twitter.

    Yikes.

    1
  30. CSK says:

    @Jen:
    The Daily Beast is reporting that Rushdie was stabbed.

  31. MarkedMan says:

    @Jen: In 1988 Rushdie had a short story in Harper’s Magazine, “The Untime of the Imam”. It was a thinly disguised and very unflattering portrait of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s time in exile in London. I remember when I read it thinking, “Man, he better never return to Iran.” A year later the fatwah was issued, nominally over the blasphemy in “The Satanic Verses”, but I’ve always been convinced it was for the personal insult in the earlier piece.

    4
  32. Jay L Gischer says:

    Here’s a story I just made up in my head. It is a complete fabrication, I have no evidence for it.

    I’m guessing that there is material that is something like photos of Trump standing next to armed nukes. Or orders signed by him authorizing a drill or exercise, perhaps with China in mind.

    He loves to look at these, and more of a problem, loves to show them to “special guests”. He’s not selling anything, he’s bragging. But that would make it really, really easy for spies to get access.

    That’s the story I have made up in my head.

    In any case, it’s not his stuff, and that makes him a thief.

  33. OzarkHillbilly says:

    Author Salman Rushdie attacked at New York event

    Hello Guardian readers, there’s breaking news regarding the renowned novelist Salman Rushdie and we are going to bring you developments and reaction as it happens, so please join us and we’ll keep you up to date, live.

    Rushdie has been attacked onstage at an event in upstate New York, according to the Associated Press who had a reporter at the event.

    Onlookers said he was stabbed as he was about to give a speech in Chautaqua, which is about seven hours’ drive from New York City, near the southern shore of Lake Erie.

    Rushdie, the author whose writing led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was attacked on Friday morning as he was preparing to give a lecture.

    An Associated Press reporter witnessed a man storm the stage at the Chautauqua Institution and begin punching or stabbing Rushdie as he was being introduced.

    The author ended up on the floor and could be seen with a first responder crouching over him and organizers rushing to help.

    A man was apprehended, according to the news agency.

  34. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Joe: Yeah. That’s an available dodge, which is why somebody will need to keep hammering on the fact that FG was permitted to have ZERO boxes of documents, ZERO envelops of them, ZERO folders, ZERO packets, and so on.

    Do I think that other Presidents (over 200 or so years and 46 Presidencies) have taken documents (possibly sometimes without authorization)? Yeah, they probably have. This second issue is why FG will likely not be modeling an orange jumpsuit anytime soon no matter what the felony he signed into law says. No one not named cracker or Luddite is going to sail that strait, and you really don’t want anybody to, either. You’ll have to trust me on this, but I know what a bad idea it would be to elect cracker or Luddite and people like them to office–but particularly cracker. He’s been confirmed by military personnel he met in Korea to be “a crazy m***f*ker.”

    2
  35. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Scott: Linky no worky

  36. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @CSK: Yeah, the Russians are running a better social program campaign than the Democrats, but it will be ignored by Americans who will say “that can’t possibly be true.”

    Protecting FG from assassination by sending him to Russia for protection is an idea that I can get behind, though. (I’m assuming that’s how the offer works. My skimming of the article may have missed the details a little.)

    1
  37. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @gVOR08: He was always going to claim the raid was a witchhunt and will continue to do so no matter what info comes out.

    @MarkedMan: They tear the hell out of a regular persons house or apt and I’ve seen the contents of regular folk’s cars piled on the shoulders of roads more than a few times.

    eta: which is not to say it’s strictly legal, just not uncommon practice

  38. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Kylopod: …they’d say it was a deep fake, going into great detail about how they’ve done the same thing and who they did it to. 🙁

  39. gVOR08 says:

    @Kylopod:

    Not necessarily. If they found a clip of him dressed in drag reading a story to schoolchildren…

    It’d take no more than a week before they’d always loved Eastasian drag queens.

    6
  40. Michael Cain says:

    @MarkedMan:

    To be honest, I’m half expecting that Trump’s lawyers will say, “No release” and Trump will keep on publicly berating the DOJ to release them.

    If you were Trump’s lawyers, wouldn’t you be afraid that not too far down the road Trump will claim, “I don’t pack boxes or go through packed boxes. I have people who do that. Those people!” while pointing at the lawyers.

    1
  41. Scott says:
  42. Kylopod says:

    @Kathy:

    That’s asking for the impossible.

    Can you imagine Benito reading?

    Of course I could.

    The book would be “The Adventures of Yo-Semite Sam.”

    1
  43. gVOR08 says:

    Interesting piece at VOX on Wyoming politics. The state’s deep, deep red, except for Jackson Hole and the University. But apparently the split between the “establishment” GOPs and the “Tea Party” GOPs is getting vicious. Claims it’s not a Trump thing as they’re all rabid Trumpistas.

    This raises two questions. First, the author doesn’t allude to it, but you have to wonder if Cheney didn’t expect to lose her primary to a righty challenger anyway, so might as well go down in a Viking Funeral that would get her national attention. Second, is this a bellweather? If so, are the establishment GOPs going to go under quietly or maybe split off into a third party?

    1
  44. Beth says:

    https://apple.news/AqK25F6fxQcKvgHupaJUNLw

    Hope that link works.

    Anyway, first a joke:

    Why would anyone think that a nail gun was going to be the “magic bullet” that turned bullet-proof glass into sugar glass? I mean, I had a Harbor Freight nail gun that weighed roughly 100 pounds, kicked like a howitzer and almost randomly exploded every time I used it. I stopped using it after it started shooting me. A couple of times. As crazy as that thing was it wasn’t going to get me into an FBI office.

    Now seriously: why do people hate Trans people so much? Hate us enough to half ass attack an FBI office with a nail gun and an AR-15.

    2
  45. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Scott: Thanx!

  46. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Beth: In my experience, people hate what they fear, and they fear what they don’t understand.

    3
  47. MarkedMan says:

    @Beth: Wait. What’s this about the nail gun shooting through bulletproof glass? Is that a thing?

    1
  48. OzarkHillbilly says:

    “We want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and prayers for Anne’s recovery and thank the dedicated staff and wonderful nurses that cared for Anne at the Grossman Burn Center at West Hills hospital,” the statement read.

    “Unfortunately, due to her accident, Anne Heche suffered a severe anoxic brain injury and remains in a coma, in critical condition. She is not expected to survive.”

    “Anne had a huge heart and touched everyone she met with her generous spirit,” the statement added. “More than her extraordinary talent, she saw spreading kindness and joy as her life’s work — especially moving the needle for acceptance of who you love. She will be remembered for her courageous honesty and dearly missed for her light.”

    I’m glad she was in a coma and spared the suffering I know would have otherwise been hers.

    1
  49. Mikey says:

    Apparently a lot of users on “Truth (sic) Social” are saying the attempted attack on the Cincinnati FBI field office was a “false flag.”

    How must Ricky Shiffer feel, if there’s an afterlife? He literally gave his life for their stupid cause and they won’t even acknowledge him now.

    It’s a sick cult.

    1
  50. Beth says:

    @MarkedMan:

    Yeah, he apparently went on Twitter or some other social media site and was like “I thought I figured out how to get in”. The was was apparently his nail gun. I once ricocheted a nail into a window with the Harbor Freight Death Machine and it didn’t even chip the glass. I have no idea how this guy thought a nail gun would get him in.

  51. gVOR08 says:

    @MarkedMan: No one said the assailant was the sharpest nail in the gun.

    3
  52. CSK says:

    @Beth:
    Was this an anti-trans attack by Shiffer? I thought he was enraged by the FBI searching Mar-a-Lago.

  53. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @MarkedMan: The idiot thought it was.

  54. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @gVOR08: I’ll bet he was really hammered when he did it.

  55. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Beth:

    Now seriously: why do people hate Trans people so much? Hate us enough to half ass attack an FBI office with a nail gun and an AR-15.

    1) Target of opportunity. They need someone to attack in order to feel important. Jews, Blacks, Gays and now Trans people.
    2) Trans people scare weak men, specifically men whose identity is all about their fragile masculinity.
    3) They see Trans people as feminine and therefore weak. Weak men attack weak victims.
    4) Crazy gonna crazy.

    5
  56. CSK says:

    When–or if–the warrant is made public this afternoon, will it encourage more Ricky Shiffers in their violent lunacy?

  57. inhumans99 says:

    @gVOR08:

    And I will be the contrarian here, this statement by Trump and his supporters (including many sitting members of Congress) has been used so often it is like they are the boy crying wolf whenever they say so and so action against Trump is a witch-hunt. I really do not think that declaring something is a witch hunt now has the same impact as it once did.

    It would also not bother me if when the warrant is released the Trump and supporters and Fox news types say see you silly liberals, there is nothing earth-shattering in the warrant, ha ha, Trump will still be your next Pres and suck it up cupcake. No, really, it will not bother me because I expect them say that just like I expect water to be wet when I take a shower later this evening.

    What does bother me is what I would hope some folks would point out after the warrant is released and see it is a pretty boilerplate warrant just dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s to make sure the raid on Trump’s home was properly carried out, that these same folks might pause and say to themselves, we whipped people up into a frenzy over this warrant, why, and caused at least one person to try and attack an FBI office and lose his life, my gosh, this warrant was not worth all the drama we spun up about it, and certainly not worth anyone’s lose of life.

    If the folks who let Trump play them like a fiddle (and it still amazes me to this day that they let Trump do this to them) had any sense of shame they would be abjectly embarrassed at how they reacted to the news of the FBI raid on Trump’s home.

    4
  58. CSK says:

    @Michael Reynolds:
    I’m not disputing any of that–it’s true–but I haven’t seen any suggestion that Ricky Shiffer was motivated by anti-trans sentiments to shoot up the FBI office.

    1
  59. inhumans99 says:

    @inhumans99:

    Oops, I tried to get the Edit button to show up, the paragraph where it starts with What does bother me, only “does” was supposed to be bolded, not the rest of my post. Sorry about that.

    ETA: Ha, the joke is on me the Edit button showed up so I fixed my post.

  60. OzarkHillbilly says:
  61. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Kylopod:

    “The Adventures of Yo-Semite Sam.”

    Thanks! We all need to be able to laugh more.

    1
  62. Beth says:

    @CSK:

    I have a friend who goes digging though the social media of a lot of these right wing lunatics. The common thread in all of them is how much they hate Jews, Black People and Trans People. The transphobia seems to be the final step before they go nuts and start shooting.

  63. Mu Yixiao says:

    @Beth:

    I have no idea how this guy thought a nail gun would get him in.

    Two lines of thought:

    1) He thought it would work like those little hammers for breaking the glass in your car door to get out if you end up under water.

    2) A lot of “bullet proof glass” is actually plastic (usually Lexan). It’s “soft” and designed to deform and take all the energy out of the bullet. A powerful nail gun, firing a sharp nail could possibly pierce the plastic if applied directly. Do that enough times in the same area, and you create a weak spot. I mean… I’ve used nail guns that go into concrete, so going into Lexan isn’t beyond the realm of possibility.

    1
  64. CSK says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Oh, God. My apologies to all.

    What a prince of a human being Shiffer was.

  65. Stormy Dragon says:

    @Beth:

    Why would anyone think that a nail gun was going to be the “magic bullet” that turned bullet-proof glass into sugar glass?

    The same reason a lot of bullet proof vests aren’t knife proof: things designed to resist massive forces for very brief periods of time are often not resistant to much lower forces applied over a longer period of time.

  66. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @gVOR08: “are the establishment GOPs going to go under quietly or maybe split off into a third party?”

    I would guess “A.” There probably aren’t enough establishment GOP to splinter off into a third party. It’s the danger of designing a political party to capitalize on the worst instincts of the people you’re courting.

  67. CSK says:

    @Beth:
    Your friend is braver than I am. I can only stand to look at Lucianne.com. That’s quite bad enough.

  68. JohnSF says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    If it wasn’t so sad, it could almost be funny.

    In reality, Communists in government were notoriously puritanical and intolerant.
    “Decadent bourgeois deviation from the sound morality of the proletariat” was the line IIRC.

    And even funnier: the “proletariat” in Britain is notoriously uninterested in religion, and generally “meh” about sexuality.
    So you used to have earnest middle-class (in Brit terms) CPB activists trying to lecture working-class union members on the excellence of Soviet morality, and getting eyerolled into oblivion.
    And don’t get me started on f*kkin’ Maoists.

    2
  69. Stormy Dragon says:

    @Beth:

    The transphobia seems to be the final step before they go nuts and start shooting.

    Just like a suspiciously large number of the most virulent homophobes turn out to be self-hating LGB people lashing out at others to avoid having to deal with their own orientation issues, I find myself wondering how many transphobes really just need to get into therapy to deal with gender identity issues of their own.

    Most cis people have absolutely no desire to be a different gender and thus have no fear of being “convinced” to want to be otherwise. The constant theme of people being “transitioned against their will” sure sounds like it a fear that would primarily plague in-denial transgender people.

    (Again by analogy, straight people have no desire for opposite sex contact and thus no fear of being “turned” gay. While straight people may hate LGB people for other reasons, the fear of being “turned” specifically is something the really only applies to LGB people who are only pretending to be straight)

    2
  70. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @CSK: As long as they’re all as incompetent at Ricky*, I’m not sure that I care. Even your lawn needs to be thatched occasionally. Thinning herds/crops is good overall.

    *[sigh…] Yeah, I get that it’s unlikely that they will ALL be as bad at insurrection as Ricky. Still, I’m only a cracker; we gotta hope sometimes, too.

    1
  71. Beth says:

    @Mu Yixiao:
    @Stormy Dragon:

    These are all true, and the little hammer thing is the closest my brain can get to this crazy before it recoils in horror. That being said, I imagine the “bullet proof” glass at Federal buildings has two jobs 1. Stop any actual bullets for long enough for the cops to get their guns out, and 2. After deforming from being shot, hold up long enough to keep someone from coming through the broken glass. You want time for reinforcements and for others to flee. I bet this stuff isn’t like the bullet resistant glass in cars where weight is an issue.

    @CSK:

    We all got to do whatever we can to stop these loons.

  72. JohnSF says:

    @Stormy Dragon:
    I was thinking that: a captive bolt device can crack toughened glass.
    How much tougher “bullet proof” is, no idea.
    You’d need something to brace it in place, but if so it might just work.

    Personally I’d default to using sharks with frickin’ laser beams. 🙂

    1
  73. wr says:

    @Beth: “I have no idea how this guy thought a nail gun would get him in.”

    Easy answer: He is (was) really stupid.

    2
  74. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @inhumans99: “these same folks might pause and say to themselves, we whipped people up into a frenzy over this warrant, why, and caused at least one person to try and attack an FBI office and lose his life, my gosh, this warrant was not worth all the drama we spun up about it, and certainly not worth anyone’s lose of life.”

    Sorry. “These same folk” are usually also in the “sucks to be you; that’s so sad, too bad I can’t do anything to help” camp.

    2
  75. Jay L Gischer says:

    Not to say anybody else is wrong, per se, but I have a different take on Ricky Shiffer. He is afraid that *he* or a child he knows, might have been transitioned against his will, based on the wild stories that others are making up.

    If you think about it, he fears being put in the position every trans person finds them in, and transitions to get relief from. Which kind of makes sense.

    For the record, I’m against non-consensual transition. Completely against it. To me, the reaction of those of us who are cis-gendered kind of validates the phenomenon of trans people. I think about transitioning and think “Uh, no thanks!”, really more of a “Do Not Want”. And yet, trans people often do the equivalent of crawling over broken glass to live in harmony with their internal sense of gender. How can there not be something very significant and deep there?

    Folks like Ricky Shiffer have been fed so many lies about hormone blockers and what they do, and who’s doing them, and why. Frankly, it’s the people, people like Greg Abbot, who have every reason to know better, but spread these lies and this anxiety, that bear a fair amount of responsibility for Ricky Shiffer’s death. He’s just kind of an ordinary Joe who trusted the wrong people.

    1
  76. Neil Hudelson says:

    From @jaimiedupree

    I checked the Twitter accounts of all GOP lawmakers from Ohio in Congress, as well as the Governor, Lt. Gov., and state Attorney General.

    No comments at all about the Cincinnati incident. No thank you notes for law enforcement.

    It was like nothing happened. /fin

    It should be noted that even if their frenzy over the FBI raid was justification for ignoring the particular attack on the FBI office, multiple Ohio state troopers engaged a shooter, and took fire from said shooter.

    2
  77. Neil Hudelson says:

    @Beth:

    I had the same thought last night, and googled “Nail Gun Bullet Proof Glass Movie Scene” expecting for the shooter to have seen it in some cheesy 80s action movie. No, it seems he made up this scheme. Perhaps youtube? Well, there were a handful of videos on YouTube of people using nail guns against bullet proof glass.

    All of them showed how, even if the nail went through, the glass remains intact.

    I’m starting to think he was just a big ol’ dumb-dumb.

    2
  78. JohnSF says:

    @Neil Hudelson:
    You might just be onto something with that theory…

  79. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Stormy Dragon: Some evangelical cohorts lean heavily on homosexuality, et al. being “learned traits.” (I know this from experience, I grew up in such a cohort.) Such cohorts will also adopt “turned gay” ideology. It’s also where “turning someone straight” comes from. Even so, you can still ascribe the beliefs of such as myself to “self-hatred” if you wish to.

  80. Michael Cain says:

    @MarkedMan:

    Wait. What’s this about the nail gun shooting through bulletproof glass? Is that a thing?

    You can find videos online of powder-propelled nail guns driving a nail into laminated bulletproof glass. The nail stops with the head in a dent on the side where the gun was fired, and the pointy part of the nail sticking well out of the other side. The glass doesn’t shatter. You have to hold the end of the gun firmly up against the glass. From any distance, I would expect the nail to tumble and do no more than ding up the front surface.

    I suspect the perp expected the glass to shatter the way a side window in a car does when you hit it with an emergency hammer. That glass is designed to shatter that way. Bulletproof glass, not so much.

  81. Gustopher says:

    @Jay L Gischer: Is there any evidence that this crazy man was acting on his hatred of trans folks and the (sigh) communists that are making kids trans?

    The article that @Beth links to doesn’t make that claim, it just (irresponsibly) keeps putting one of the attacker’s older off-brand tweets next to the actions to create the impression of a link. It’s fear mongering for clicks. (There are already enough reasons to be afraid without making up shit)

    The guy was motivated by the raid on Trump, based on his last off-brand tweets.

    He also happened to believe that communists were turning kids trans, because this is literally what the mainstream Republicans are saying*, and that’s amazingly dangerous, but this wasn’t the next shoe dropping in that chain. That next shoe could drop at any moment, but that’s not what happened here.

    ——
    *: The “socialists” and “groomers” is very clear, and very evil, and it will get people killed.

    4
  82. CSK says:

    @Michael Cain:
    Shiffer apparently thought that the nails would penetrate bullet-proof glass, or so he posted on TruthSocial.

  83. Gustopher says:

    @Neil Hudelson: I am a little disappointed that Garland didn’t use part of his announcement yesterday to explicitly and strongly tie the rhetoric of specific mainstream Republicans to the attack on the FBI field office. The phrase “blood on your hands” should have been used.

    I like Beto O’Rourke’s recent tendency to just drop f-bombs.

    4
  84. Jay L Gischer says:

    @Gustopher:

    Is there any evidence that this crazy man was acting on his hatred of trans folks and the (sigh) communists that are making kids trans?

    Well, he said so on social media. I see, you think that was cherry picked and juxtaposed. That’s possible.

    I’m not sure it matters much, though. He said that. He believed that. If we are discussing “why do they hate trans people so much?” I stand by what I said. He’s been fed a pack of lies. And they found fertile ground in him. Maybe that isn’t why he attacked the FBI, maybe it is. Can anyone say for sure?

    I mean, if you like, we can reassign Greg Abbot’s role to Donald Trump, in describing the wrong person that he trusted.

  85. Beth says:

    @Stormy Dragon:

    I highly doubt there are that many self hating Trans people that hide behind bigotry. The more general tendency is to simply avoid at all costs. Being confronted with it in anyway tends to being a visceral flee reaction.

    I also, personally, heavily discount the “loud homo/transphobe” theory. I mean, I guess it happens, I just don’t think it happens very much.

    @Gustopher:

    From my perspective, there’s nothing irresponsible about this. It’s clear and obvious that the warrant was the final motivation for him to get off his butt and attack. That being said, anti-communist (which I’m guessing is code for Jew), the homo/transphobia, anti-black racism, anti-immigrant nonsense that mainstream Republicans have been mainlining into their constituents for years is relevant. This is how they lay the ground work for this stuff.

    If you just start out screaming it’s time for war, you’re gonna get ignored as a kook. But if you start by saying that the Trans are going to castrate and rape your kids and let that marinate for a bit, when you shout it’s time for war, you’re gonna have a much more receptive argument.

    @Jay L Gischer:

    As an aside, and somewhat joking, the only people I’ve seen that were interested in “non-consensual” transition were Trans women going [robot voice] “oh. no. Don’t (please do it)”. Which I guess gets us to Stormy’s point, but from a slightly different direction.

    1
  86. jon says:

    WSJ has the warrant and list of docs taken: archived version to bypass paywall.

    2
  87. Jen says:

    @jon: Trump apparently provided both the warrant and the receipt list to Breitbart. This is significant because the copies he provided to Breitbart do not have the agents’ names redacted as was requested by the DOJ in its motion to unseal.

    3
  88. Scott says:

    If I were a President of Trumpian dickishness, I would test the tradition that Senators and Representatives have access to classified information even though they don’t, per se, have security clearances. I would deny them access until they go through full training on the handling of classified material. Maybe I would exempt the “Gang of Eight”. Except Kevin McCarthy, of course. I would enjoy the squealing.

  89. Jon says:

    @Jen: Well I mean, assholes are gonna asshole and all that.

    And according to Marcy Wheeler the warrant shows he’s under investigation for violating the Espionage Act. 18 USC 793.

    1
  90. JohnSF says:

    Meanwhile in the UK:
    Official state of drought declared.
    Fears of crop failures to add to all the other economic woes piling up.

    Heat wave continues: temperatures peaking at 36 (97F) expected here tomorrow and Sunday.
    Current temperature in my living room: 29.5 (85 F)
    Fortunately the drought means that humidity is down. 🙁

    And the Conservative party leadership campaign rolls on.
    Liz Truss currently accusing civil service of being “woke” anti-semites.
    Oh, sweet Manjusri, make it stop.

    Time for a nice cold beer.

    1
  91. CSK says:

    Christina Bobb, Trump’s lawyer, says that Trump and his family watched the whole Mar-a-Lago search on CCTV.

    2
  92. Jay L Gischer says:

    From Marcy Wheeler’s post:

    DOJ went to Trump’s residence in June and told him this information could harm the US. Then they wrote him a letter, saying that it could harm the US and could he please put a padlock on the basement room that had, up until that point, been accessible to all the suspected foreign assets who’ve paid the price of admission to Mar-a-Lago.

    This smells to me like the DOJ set a trap for Trump. This meeting established two things: Trump knew that he had documents that were a problem. He didn’t meet, but attorneys do, and an innocent sounding question “You represent Donald J. Trump in this matter?” (and “You will inform Trump of this proceeding?” ) is enough to establish knowledge.

    And if someone actually put a padlock on the basement room, that establishes that Trump understood that the documents were dangerous – establishing “willfulness”.

    I mean, wow, Trump is very squirmy, and knows hundreds of ways to squirm out of things, but this one’s gonna be hard.

    4
  93. CSK says:

    @Jay L Gischer:
    How does he square the fact that his own lawyer said he watched the whole search on CCTV with any claim of planted documents?

    2
  94. Jon says:

    @CSK:

    How does he square the fact that his own lawyer said he watched the whole search on CCTV with any claim of planted documents?

    History being any judge, loudly and incoherently.

    2
  95. Jay L Gischer says:

    @CSK: Trump engages in information warfare. The simple description of what he’s doing (pardon my language) is “fill the zone with shit”.

    Just throw a lot of stuff out there with emotional content. It doesn’t matter if its confusing, that’s probably a benefit, since something will give followers enough to maintain faith.

    This doesn’t work in courts, but you stall them. And stall them. And stall them.

    And for what its worth, if you’re Alex Jones, you say inflammatory things about the judge on your show, during the trial, because you hope to make her angry and give you opportunity to appeal for a mistrial.

  96. CSK says:

    @Jay L Gischer:
    Oh, sure, the old Steve Bannon trick: flood the zone with shit. But this is Trump’s own lawyer contradicting him.

  97. BugManDan says:

    @jon: NPR has it no archive needed.

    2
  98. BugManDan says:
  99. Mister Bluster says:

    @BugManDan:..NPR has it no archive needed.

    Thank you for the NPR link. I am always wary of paywall bypass links.

  100. Jen says:

    Trump is having a BAD week:

    Judge Denies Trump Executive’s Request to Dismiss Manhattan Tax Case
    A Manhattan state court judge on Friday declined to throw out the criminal case against Donald J. Trump’s family business and its longtime chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, clearing the way for a trial in the case scheduled for the fall.

    Mr. Weisselberg and the business, the Trump Organization, were charged last year by the Manhattan district attorney’s office with having engaged in a 15-year scheme in which executives were compensated with hidden benefits so that they could evade taxes. The charges stemmed from the office’s long-running investigation into the company’s business practices.

    In February, Mr. Weisselberg and the company filed motions to dismiss the charges, arguing that the case was politically motivated and that the defendants were charged only because of their link with former president Donald J. Trump.

    The decision marked the latest legal blow to Mr. Trump in a week full of them.

    Trial scheduled for late October.

  101. Jay L Gischer says:

    @CSK: Bannon did not invent it. He didn’t even invent the phrase, which I heard earlier, in all places, in EVE Online. The notion was to pollute a communication channel with garbage so that the enemy couldn’t use it. The more distracting it was, the better, so of course there was porn.

    1
  102. CSK says:

    @Jay L Gischer:
    Thanks. I had not heard it prior to Bannon saying it.

    @Jen:
    Well, that’s heartening.

    1
  103. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Mu Yixiao: I’ve used nail guns that go into concrete,

    The only ones that would go into concrete (and iron/steel) that I ever used were powder actuated. (we always yelled out, “FIRE IN THE HOLE!” before we fired them) This is not to say that someone hasn’t developed an airgun that can do it in the past 5 years or so, but I kinda doubt it.

  104. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @CSK: No apologies necessary, we all miss something from time to time.

    1
  105. JohnSF says:

    A reminder that today is the 102nd anniversary of the crucial battle in a war everyone tends to forget about:
    The Battle of Warsaw (aka The Miracle of the Vistula) in the Polish-Soviet War of 1918-1921.
    The Poles (supported by French artillery, another forgotten bit of history) broke the Red Army offensive.

    Always a good day to tease your local Tankie 😉

    3
  106. Mu Yixiao says:

    On a lighter note:

    Tomorrow is my hometown’s annual festival (which celebrates the fact that we have a creek running through town… and a duck).

    I’ll sharing a booth with a “wine bar friend” and selling chipotle caramels and a range of hand-crafted wood working made from reclaimed wood (most of which is over 100 years old). I’m marketing to the rich FIBs, and the rich Madisonians. I’ve even got an extra gimmick.

    So…

    Pro: I might make a lot of money tomorrow, and get orders for custom-made stuff.

    Con: I have to sit outside all day and pretend to be friendly.

    1
  107. Mu Yixiao says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The only ones that would go into concrete (and iron/steel) that I ever used were powder actuated. (we always yelled out, “FIRE IN THE HOLE!” before we fired them) This is not to say that someone hasn’t developed an airgun that can do it in the past 5 years or so, but I kinda doubt it.

    I didn’t say that they “sunk fully and securely” into concrete. I said they “went into” concrete.

  108. JohnSF says:

    @Mu Yixiao:
    Chipotle caramels?
    So combining chilli peppers with confectionary?
    What strange depravity is this that you advocate, sir?

    OTOH wine bar sounds excellent.

    What’s the weather forecast?

  109. Jen says:

    @JohnSF: Spicy + sweet is amazing. AMAZING. Chili and chocolate is actually a common combo in Central and South America (where both chilies and chocolate originated). MMM.

    2
  110. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Mu Yixiao: What can I say, I had to remove nails from the front end of innumerable air guns (including battery/gas actuated) after they got jammed up inside the gun because either they hit an unknown piece of steel buried in the wood (usually deflected to the side in case of steel but still jamming the gun) or concrete because I forgot and didn’t grab a stick of shorter nails and hit the concrete (which on rare occasions the nail actually embedded a 1/4″ or so before becoming pretzeled up inside of the gun which would invariably take 2 or 3 minutes and a pair of dykes to extract it from the gun. Most times the concrete just spalled but every now and again one actually had to yank on the gun a time or 2 before the concrete let go.

    FTR, I never tried to shoot nails into bullet proof glass and can’t imagine why anyone would, but my only point was that with my 25 to 30 years of experience* with nail guns, it would never occur to me that it might possibly work.

    *my first 5-10 year in the biz was sans nail guns. I remember the first time I shot one, just not when that was.

  111. MarkedMan says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:

    Some evangelical cohorts lean heavily on homosexuality, et al. being “learned traits.

    Let’s say they are right, just for the sake of argument. Why on earth is the fact that someone learned to like something a justification for outlawing it? Makes no sense.

    2
  112. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @MarkedMan: Well, I wouldn’t say that it is, of course. However, many groups of people throughout history have held that “unnatural acts” are and should be illegal, so it’s possible for evangelicals to wish to hold with historic precedent–and not inconsistent with conservative outlook in general. (See “originalism.”)

    1
  113. Jay L Gischer says:

    @JohnSF: It is curious indeed that you are unaware of this, since the first I experienced the miracle of dark chocolate with a bit of chili pepper in it was when a friend brought some back from London. I seem to recall you having some association with that city? Or do I mistake myself?

  114. JohnSF says:

    @Jen:
    Well, yes, I suppose.
    When I do a chilli, I often drop a small chunk of 90% choc (and a good squeeze of lime) in just before serving, and it works a treat.
    And some variations of curries use a bit of sugar to balance things out.

    But, still, chilli caramel?
    OTOH, might be interesting with the right wine to combine.
    Port, Maury, Aussie liqueur muscat, madeira, maybe one of your US blockbuster Zinfandels…
    Or perhaps a Spanish XO brandy?
    Hmm.
    This calls for experimentation, Dr Frankenstein…

    1
  115. JohnSF says:

    @Jay L Gischer:
    Lived in London for about five years.
    Liked the museums and the parks and the wine bars and…
    But still just a bit too packed for me.

    I’m a Midlander by origin (specifically, a Coventrian)
    Who grew up in the countryside outside Coventry, near Kenilworth.
    (And also in the suburbs of Liverpool, for a bit)

    I’m a Shire Hobbit at heart, I guess. 🙂

    Actually, thinking about it, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen chilli flavoured choc on sale at my local supermarket.
    Now I’m going to have to try it!

    1
  116. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Jay L Gischer: I agree about his motives not mattering much. He’s dead now, and we can move on to doing what we can to make sure that the next sacrifice on the altar of Eris meets his or her destiny without killing others in the process.

    1
  117. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @CSK: Okay. Now what? Is she going to use the tapes (I assume there are tapes, he’s paranoid after all) to establish that the FBI overstepped the limits of the warrant or is she just going for MAGAt sympathy?

  118. JohnSF says:

    @MarkedMan:

    “Why on earth is the fact that someone learned to like something a justification for outlawing it?”

    Because it’s against the Will of the LAWD, ye sinner!

    (As revealed to pastor Bob “Sideshow” Barker of the Third Baptist Gathered Reformed Brethren; interpretations of the Prophets only fifty dollars, with healing thrown in if you take out a subscription. Sign up now to beat the Rapture!)

  119. CSK says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:
    I have no idea. As far as I know, she made this comment in the wake of all the speculation about the FBI planting documents.

    She also said that the security cameras were turned off “only a very short time.”

  120. JohnSF says:

    @CSK:

    Trump and his family watched the whole Mar-a-Lago search on CCTV

    Yes, but they thought they were watching a crossover episode of Take the Money and Run and Hunted 🙂

    1
  121. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @CSK: And for the record:

    Christina Bobb is an American television personality, journalist, newscaster, attorney, and former Executive Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). https://biographyhost.com/p/christina-bobb.html

    Her Biography Host phot0 is a head shot of her wearing what looks to be a prom dress. Beyond those details, Yahoo news provides that

    She was the senior legal representative for Trump during the raid at Mar-a-Lago, which is closed for the summer, but was ordered to stay near her car while agents swept through the house, she told OAN on Wednesday. […] And
    Her spotlight in the media comes just months after she joined Trump’s legal team. Prior to that, Bobb had worked at OAN since June 2020. She covered the White House and eventually became a news anchor for the “Weekly Briefing” show.

    While working for OAN, Bobb began volunteering to help Trump’s legal team and assisted with the effort to overturn certification of the 2020 election in battleground states, The Washington Post reported.

    Bobb, a passionate supporter of Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 election was stolen, also vigorously supported the 2021 Arizona election audit in Maricopa County, even raising money…
    And finally

    In March, Bobb quit her job at OAN to work for Trump’s political organization Save America.

    Bobb said in an interview on the podcast show “Coffee and a Mike” that she decided to leave OAN to “make a bigger difference” doing legal work on “some of the efforts that need to be undertaken with everything happening in the country.”

    The former president had also asked her to take the job.

    FG seems to have poisoned the well enough so that he’s reduced to being represented by someone who isn’t even, as Luddite would say, a baby lawyer, but rather a television presenter–as they say where John SF lives.

  122. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    Source for the Yahoo News section (note that FG is covered in Yahoo Entertainment): https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/trump-attorney-christina-bobb-met-205249231.html

  123. CSK says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker: @Just nutha ignint cracker:
    I know. He’s really been reduced to scraping the bottom of the legal representation barrel, hasn’t he?

  124. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @JohnSF: Listen to Jen; she knows what she’s talking about. I’ve also had chipotle caramels and they’re almost as good as tomato and garlic donuts* (which Dunkin Donuts in Korea sells when garlic and tomatoes are in season (but not all year round, although they could). Trust us. It sounds weird, but each is really tasty and interesting.

    *and scallion donuts for that matter

    1
  125. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @JohnSF: I’d be more likely to have chipotle caramels with a Jaeger shot or a Jaegerbomb (even better, maybe), but my taste in liquor has always been a little unique-ish.

  126. JohnSF says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:
    I have bad (albeit vague) memories of Jaegerbombs and a weekend in Brighton. 🙁
    OTHO, parts of that evening were fun!
    I think.

  127. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @CSK: And she may well be what you get once the barrel has been thoroughly scraped–along with a few splinters and some sawdust-like stuff.

  128. CSK says:
  129. JohnSF says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:

    …a television presenter…

    A teevee celebridee! For charidee! (Niche joke 🙂 )

  130. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @JohnSF: Jaegerbombs are very popular in Korea. The only cocktail-type drink that’s more popular is Soju depth charges. (Which in Korea are served in water glasses rather than beer mugs/steins. My Italian grandfather and grandmother used to drink wine from water glasses, too.)

    ETA: And you usually pour them at the table. Sometimes from pitchers but mostly from one-liter bottles.

    Also, my Jaegerbomb evenings were always great. Sometimes I was even close enough to walk home, but not often, so I’d share a taxi with someone.

  131. CSK says:

    Marjorie Taylor Greene has filed articles of impeachment against Merrick Garland for aiding in the “persecution” of Donald Tfrump.

    1
  132. JohnSF says:

    @CSK:

    Marjorie Taylor Greene has filed articles of impeachment against Merrick Garland…

    ROFLMFAO.
    Testimony of witnesses called by the defence could be fun.
    *snort*

    Marjorie Taylor Greene: A cunning agent of the Bilderberg Deep State Woke Illuminati?
    Or just denser than your average lump of basalt?
    You ask, we answer…

    2
  133. Gustopher says:

    @CSK:

    How does he square the fact that his own lawyer said he watched the whole search on CCTV with any claim of planted documents?

    Just because you see some documents being put into boxes doesn’t mean the feds aren’t adding more documents to the box later.

    But there’s also the recent history with the voter-fraud video evidence, where a random video is presented as being evidence, despite nothing happening in the video that was evidence of anything.

    3
  134. Jen says:
  135. Jax says:

    @Jen: I was gonna post this for Ozark the other day, but then I got distracted!

    What a great story!

    1
  136. Gustopher says:

    @MarkedMan:

    Why on earth is the fact that someone learned to like something a justification for outlawing it? Makes no sense.

    It means that God didn’t create no perverts.

    It means that conversion therapy to turn the queers into straights is acceptable.

    And, it means if someone wants to chop off their weenie, there is something wrong with them (other than the presence of the unwanted weenie, unwanted hormones, etc). And you absolutely shouldn’t let a kid do anything like that — and anyone who does is a hideous child abuser.

    Seriously, imagine a scenario where someone does genital reassignment surgery to a kid that isn’t trans — horrifying. And if no one is really trans, then it’s always horrifying.

    ——

    Obviously pray away the trans doesn’t work, and unlike pray away the gay, it doesn’t even rhyme. And therapy doesn’t do any better.

    But, logically, if you can convince yourself that trans is a learned attribute, the rest falls into place.

    (As it is, I find the whole surgical transition makes me squeamish … but it’s very clear that it lets people live much better lives. Maybe in a few decades we will have a pill that eliminates gender dysphoria, but with where we are on antidepressants I wouldn’t count on it, plus people need help now.)

  137. Jax says:

    So my Dad called me this afternoon from town, his phone was all staticky so I could barely hear what he’s saying. This is what I originally heard.

    Him: So I was looking on the Flatbook this morning, (he calls the iPad he snoops on Mom’s Facebook account with the Flatbook) and I see they’re having a shark tank demonstration at the Pinedale airport tomorrow, but you need a chicken to get in!

    Me: ???? You need a chicken to get in?

    Him: Yeah, you gotta have a chicken! You can get it online! (Keep in mind the phone call is still VERY staticky)

    Me: So if I donate the rooster, does he get fed to the sharks?

    Him: “Whaaaat?!”

    At this point I’m running through every possible event I’ve seen posted for Pinedale airport this weekend (none of which involved a shark tank or chicken sacrifices for admission to the show) and I realized there’s an STOL event. Planes. Short takeoff and Landing. At the Airport! He needs a ticket, not a chicken!

    Me: Ohhhhh, you need a TICKET!!! A ticket to the plane show in Pinedale tomorrow! And you can only buy them online! Got it! Yes, I will get you a ticket!

    My kids and I have been laughing all evening over this. Hope it made you laugh, too!

    3
  138. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Jax: If I don’t have my hearing aid in, every conversation that I have–phone or live–has that potential mixup. (And I’ve moved into the “closed shell” variety hearing loss, though my hearing aid tip is still flexible and doesn’t have the “finger in my ear” effect that my first device had.) Thanks for the laugh and have a nice weekend away.

    1
  139. Jax says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker: Thanks, you too! I’m still laughing. Alllllll of the different scenarios that were running thru my head when he said shark tank and a chicken for admission….. 😛 😛

    1
  140. Barry says:

    @Michael Cain: “If you were Trump’s lawyers, wouldn’t you be afraid that not too far down the road Trump will claim, “I don’t pack boxes or go through packed boxes. I have people who do that. Those people!” while pointing at the lawyers.”

    Those people who *are* Trump’s lawyers know that they are working for the client from h*ll.