Monday’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. Bill says:
  2. OzarkHillbilly says:

    Trump boasts about getting ‘Bay of Pigs Award’ – which doesn’t exist

    Only trump would lie/brag about receiving an award which if it did exist, would be a constant reminder incompetent loser swine.

    8
  3. CSK says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    How cute.
    If an endorsement is an award, then he can also brag about having received the highly coveted Daily Stormer award from Stormfront.com and the equally prized The Crusader award from the Ku Klux Klan in 2016.

    They both gave him their seal of approval.

    9
  4. sam says:

    How to Play Mozilla Firefox’s Hidden Unicorn Pong Game

    There’s also a hidden dinosaur game in Chrome. Easier to get to than the Firefox game.

    2
  5. Teve says:

    Ronna McDaniel
    @GOPChairwoman

    Joe Biden can’t run from his disastrous record responding to the coronavirus.

    The truth hurts, Joe!

    4
  6. Moosebreath says:

    Jon Chait has an excellent article on prosecuting Trump after he leaves office. An excerpt:

    “Upholding the rule of law is going to lead straight to the kind of grisly spectacle Americans associate with banana republics: the former president leaving office and going on trial.

    “Usually, these kleptocracies are the ones that hang on to power most bitterly,” says Daniel Ziblatt, a professor of government at Harvard and the co-author of How Democracies Die. Trump is particularly dependent on his incumbency. His various legal appeals to keep his financial information from prosecutors have relied on his status as president, and he has used campaign funds to finance his legal defenses. Most important, he has bluntly wielded his power either to pardon his allies or to get the Justice Department to withdraw its charges as a signal of the benefit of remaining loyal.”

    5
  7. CSK says:
  8. Kylopod says:

    @Moosebreath:

    Upholding the rule of law is going to lead straight to the kind of grisly spectacle Americans associate with banana republics: the former president leaving office and going on trial.

    That’s one of the reasons I’m doubtful it will happen, however deserved. Biden is running on a return to old-fashioned dignity and respectability to the point of naivete. People have reassured me it’s good politics. I’m not convinced of that, but I’ll let it pass for the moment. In any case, I think that if he wins he’s most likely to do one of those “Our long national nightmare is over.” That’s pretty much what Obama did in 2009, and Biden is even more of an institutionalist. He also will have a lot on his plate.

    My hope is that he does it in an underhanded, low-profile manner, and one possibility is declining to have the federal government pursue it, but with the full knowledge it will be taken up by New York state.

    5
  9. Joe says:

    @Moosebreath:
    It occurred to me lately: won’t it be interesting when the Biden administration (God willing) shows up in January and finds absolutely no documents in the White House and all the servers wiped clean.

    4
  10. CSK says:

    @Teve:
    This makes no sense whatsoever. What, exactly, is Biden supposed to have done in response to the coronavirus? He’s neither a government nor a public health official.

    8
  11. Teve says:

    @CSK: everyone who supports Trump winds up humiliated in the end.

    3
  12. Moosebreath says:

    @Joe:

    “It occurred to me lately: won’t it be interesting when the Biden administration (God willing) shows up in January and finds absolutely no documents in the White House and all the servers wiped clean.”

    Which would itself be illegal, but when you are up to the number of illegal acts Trump has committed, what’s one more?

    @Kylopod:

    “That’s one of the reasons I’m doubtful it will happen, however deserved. Biden is running on a return to old-fashioned dignity and respectability to the point of naivete. People have reassured me it’s good politics. I’m not convinced of that, but I’ll let it pass for the moment. In any case, I think that if he wins he’s most likely to do one of those “Our long national nightmare is over.” That’s pretty much what Obama did in 2009, and Biden is even more of an institutionalist. He also will have a lot on his plate.”

    I suspect Chait thinks similarly, and is trying to tell Biden’s inner circle why that would be a bad idea.

    “My hope is that he does it in an underhanded, low-profile manner, and one possibility is declining to have the federal government pursue it, but with the full knowledge it will be taken up by New York state.”

    Definitely a possibility.

    2
  13. Bill says:

    @Joe:

    It occurred to me lately: won’t it be interesting when the Biden administration (God willing) shows up in January and finds absolutely no documents in the White House and all the servers wiped clean.

    If I recall correctly, the outgoing George W Bush administration was accused of doing funny things to WH computers but turned out to be untrue.

    3
  14. Moosebreath says:

    Sunday night, the surviving members of the original cast of The Princess Bride had a dramatic reading of the script to support the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Highlights and clips are here.

    “Patton Oswalt hosted a question and answer session after the reading was over too soon.

    Oswalt (to Crystal): “How did Miracle Max get fired from the castle by Humperdinck?”
    Crystal: “He wrote a book…he told about how Humperdinck lied about the plague””

    5
  15. Kathy says:

    @Joe:

    If Biden wins, he won’t be as lax as the Trump team was in managing the transition. So what happens when his transition officials show up to various government agencies expecting to be briefed on what they do and what projects are underway, and they are not given any information or shown anything at all?

    1
  16. Bill says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Trump boasts about getting ‘Bay of Pigs Award’ – which doesn’t exist

    Only trump would lie/brag about receiving an award which if it did exist, would be a constant reminder incompetent loser swine.

    The Guardian headline or the one about Bloomberg is probably today’s headline of the day. Other than those the best candidate is probably this.

    As for Trump, he did get the endorsement of the Bay of Pigs Veterans in 2016. I think Trump is confusing that with an award. Trump has undoubtedly gotten at least hundreds of endorsements. I wouldn’t make too much of this.

    1
  17. Joe says:

    Which would itself be illegal, but when you are up to the number of illegal acts Trump has committed, what’s one more?

    Exactly my point, Moosebreath. There is a presidential records act and I expect it to be trammeled like every other statute “that no one outside of the Beltway cares about.” I recall that the readout from the Ukraine call ended up on some walled-off server. What else is there today and how do we keep it from disappearing when the administration changes?

    5
  18. CSK says:

    Rick Wilson refers to Kayleigh McEnany as Kayleigh Mendacity. Perfect.

    3
  19. Kathy says:

    Interesting, but long, article about much of what’s been done wrong in america’s response to the Trump pandemic (no paywall for COVID-19 content).

    The gist is that people keep looking for the one, true solution, discarding amelioration methods because they don’t eliminate the contagion risk by 100%

    The piece doesn’t say, but we see this in reporting and comments about other countries. For example, reports about new Zealand speak mostly of the lockdown. This is true, but incomplete. There was also extensive testing and effective contact tracing, for example.

    As to amelioration methods, I want to go deeper into taking temperature readings. This is much maligned as “hygiene theater,” insofar as a person with a fever has already been spreading SARS-CoV-2 before developing a high temperature, and that a fever may be due to other causes.

    This si true, and irrelevant. While presymptomatic spread is the worst problem with COVID-19 contagion, the spread is much worse once symptoms show up. So it’s worth keeping people out who are showing one symptom, especially in closed spaces like stores.

    Also, if the fever is due to something else, say a bacterial infection, this is also something that could be transmitted and, in any case, this person should be home or getting medical treatment, not shopping or working.

    5
  20. gVOR08 says:

    @Joe:

    What else is there today and how do we keep it from disappearing when the administration changes?

    It will go wherever the stuff in the safes in Cheney’s office went.

    My hope, more hope than expectation, is that Biden will remain above the fray but let it be known prosecutors will get gold stars for any Trump related convictions.

    3
  21. Bill says:

    @CSK:

    They both gave their seal of approval.

    We’re not talking about this seal then are we?

    2
  22. CSK says:

    Well, here’s a headline suggestion, from The Daily Beast:
    “Man Known as BabyQ Is in Trouble for Using Synthetic Penis.”

    3
  23. MarkedMan says:

    @gVOR08: There is a big difference in charges that could be brought against Bush/Cheney did and what we will inevitably be unearthed on Trumpers. With Bush’s crew it was “Did they go to far in protecting America, and cause more harm than good?” With the Trump crew there will be thousands of people implicated in theft and corruption.

    2
  24. dmichael says:

    @Joe: I am repeating a comment I made some months ago: Biden needs to have teams prepared to enter the White House immediately after inauguration including a computer forensics team to document what has been deleted, when and by whom. Then subpoena the custodians of those records as part of a broad investigation of violation of federal laws governing records.

    5
  25. Teve says:

    Everybody on liberal Twitter is aghast at this Economist story where they went to a construction site in Ohio and found the dumbest motherfuckers on the planet.

    Choice bit:

    “He’s done a great job, he’s got everyone back to work. I’m pretty much 100% for him,” said Kyle, a 30-year-old electrician. “He shoots his mouth off but at least that shows he’s honest,” said Jason, a pipe-fitter, who said he especially liked Mr Trump’s commitment to reducing the national debt. “He’s done more for our country than the past ten presidents put together,” said an older builder, Jeff, skimming wet concrete on a new road. “He’s made—who is it, China or Japan?—pay our farmers billions of dollars. He got health care done, which the Democrats could never do. He built the wall.”

    I’m honestly surprised these guys aren’t wearing velcro shoes 😀 😀 😀

    8
  26. Kathy says:

    @Teve:

    Remind them to vote next November 4th.

    4
  27. Joe says:

    @CSK:

    Kayleigh Mendacity

    My preferred pronunciation is Kayleigh McaNinny.

    2
  28. Northerner says:

    @Moosebreath:

    According to people like Chomsky, every American president since WW2 has been a war criminal (pretty easy to believe actually). And no doubt most have to break various other laws (including domestic) in the process of governing a world power. That means if the Democratic Party prosecutes Trump, then the next Republican President will prosecute Biden. Which will lead to further retaliation and so on.

    I suspect that is why Obama didn’t prosecute Bush, and why Biden won’t prosecute Trump. Its a chain that would be very hard to break once started.

    5
  29. Mr. Prosser says:

    @Kylopod: I agree Biden will rely on returning to dignity, institutional respect and reconciliation but I hope he doesn’t carry it so far as to appoint “moderate” Republicans to positions in his administration.

  30. MarkedMan says:

    @Northerner: Again, I think prosecuting a President for governance is indeed problematic. Trump and his cronies, on the other hand, are stealing money. A very, very different proposition.

    4
  31. Sleeping Dog says:

    Choosing to prosecute Trump or not prosecute him aren’t the only avenues for a post-trump world. Congress could appoint a truth and reconciliation committee to investigate the trump years. Biden makes available all information known to the permanent government, the committee has subpoena power and testimony is under oath. Let the ugly facts see the light of day.

    8
  32. Kathy says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    I don’t disagree, but I wonder if it would have the desired effect given America’s moralistic, punitive streak.

    2
  33. gVOR08 says:

    @Northerner:

    That means if the Democratic Party prosecutes Trump, then the next Republican President will prosecute Biden. Which will lead to further retaliation and so on.

    Benghazi, emails, Fast and Furious, Durham. The only thing preventing them from prosecuting Democrats now is lack of a credible charge. Your tit for tat argument is invalid. They’re already doing tat.

    9
  34. CSK says:

    @Teve:
    To paraphrase from Blazing Saddles:
    “These are people of the land. The common clay of the new midwest. You know…morons.”

    @Joe:
    Excellent.

    3
  35. inhumans99 says:

    @Bill:

    And even if this happens I am not being cute when I say that I do not think the Trump admin understands how to truly wipe a hard drive. There are a lot of Trump admin folks who probably think deleting an email in their in-box (and even in the Trash Can folder) is enough. To truly delete they will need to utilize certain programs designed to overwrite data on a HD multiple times or outright destroy the drives (I assume both actions would be illegal for a Trump admin employee to undertake, but it would be number 152,000 on the list of illegal acts committed by the Trump admin).

    Assuming the Trump admin folks do neither of the above actions all Biden would have to do is get a half-way competent forensic tech to gather up the drives and recover data and there you go….lots of data that can be conveniently leaked to the press whenever it becomes necessary for Biden to change the news cycle by throwing out something to the press that has them going squirrel and running after the latest shiny object.

    2
  36. @gVOR08:

    Benghazi, emails, Fast and Furious, Durham.

    None of those were prosecutions. It is a rather important distinction.

    That fact doesn’t speak to what ought to happen next, but it is just incorrect to compare that list to actual prosecutions.

    4
  37. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Kathy:

    You can’t always get what you want.

    The benefit of a a commission would be that vast majority of the evidence/testimony would be public, with fringe amounts withheld for security concerns. With a prosecution and trial, only the evidence presented in court is guaranteed to become public. Also there are many trump enablers who reputations would be sullied as the fact spilled out. In a criminal proceeding those folks maybe interviewed or appear before a grand jury, but the extent of their malfeasance would go unreported.
    Hopefully this would have a salutary effect on future enablers who may realize that their own reputations are at risk.

    3
  38. dazedandconfused says:

    “Q” may have been IDed.

    https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/nation/2020/09/11/qanon-website-shuts-down-after-nj-man-identified-operator/3472475001/

    A popular website for posts about the conspiracy group QAnon abruptly shut down after a fact-checking group identified the developer as a New Jersey man.

    Qmap.pub is among the largest websites promoting the QAnon conspiracy, with over 10 million visitors in July, according to web analytics firm SimilarWeb Ltd., and served as the primary archive of QAnon’s posts. The website aggregates posts by Q, the anonymous figure behind the QAnon theory, and the creator of the Qmap.pub website is known online only as “QAppAnon.”

    The fact-checking site Logically.ai identified Jason Gelinas of New Jersey on Sept. 10 as the “developer and mouthpiece” for the site. New Jersey state records connect QAppAnon to Gelinas’s home address, Bloomberg found.

    Logically further IDs Gelinas as working at Citibank. An awkward Monday at the office for him, I reckon.

    5
  39. Teve says:

    @dazedandconfused: why would you think that person is Q?

  40. inhumans99 says:

    @dazedandconfused:

    Even if it is to gore the other sides ox I am not a fan of doxing, which is basically what happened to this guy. We should not encourage this behavior regardless of the alleged wrongdoings of the person being doxed. Michelle Malkin has done this and the beast (was going to use another word but decided to be polite) deserves to spend some extra years rotting in hell for doxing folks which is just nasty behavior.

    This is not like that guy caught on camera at the Charlottesville rally who lost his job (and even then I feel bad for the guy)…he straight up should have been aware he might make it on camera and acted appropriately.

    This alleged guy who is Q may not be the guy/gal at all and it is a bit rough to peg him as the head of the group propagating conspiracy theories. It would be nice if more evidence was provided before we turned his life into a living hell.

    3
  41. Bill says:

    @inhumans99:

    And even if this happens I am not being cute when I say that I do not think the Trump admin understands how to truly wipe a hard drive.

    I don’t know how to wipe a hard drive. So it is time for a Dr. McCoy moment.

    “I’m a writer of LGBT science fiction, not a Computer Engineer.”

    3
  42. Neil Hudelson says:

    Conspiracy theorist and Jacob Wohl associate Jack Burkman’s house was raided by the FBI this morning. 20-30 agents, who took out boxes of computers and documents.

    You hate to see it.

    https://twitter.com/BevDonahue/status/1305525705518845952?s=19

  43. gVOR08 says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: They didn’t become prosecutions only because they never found a prosecutable offense. They woulda if they coulda. And they did prosecute the poor schmuck who altered the email in the Carter Page FISA warrant. I think my point stands. Any restraint on the GOPs part is due to lack of evidence, not fear of reprisal.

    6
  44. Kathy says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    You can’t always get what you want.

    I’m aware. After all, eating cheesecake doesn’t make me lose weight 😉

    But for this kind of commission to work, you need the perpetrators to provide testimony and admission, even if not remorse. In this case, you’d sooner pass a blue whale through the eye of a needle than get Trump to admit to even a minor error, much less extensive malfeasance.

    2
  45. Kathy says:

    @Bill:

    You didn’t say “Damn it, Jim” first.

    Go back and do it over.

    6
  46. @gVOR08: Things like the Fast and Furious and Benghazi hearings are not the kinds of things that lead to prosecutions–the Congress can’t bring prosecutions.

    For the most part “her emails!” was a media story. Although the FBI investigation could have led to prosecution.

    The guy who altered the FISA warrant should have been prosecuted.

    My point is that throwing all of these things into the same pile is sloppy because they aren’t the same kinds of things. Beyond that, most of them took place during the administration in question, not after the fact. That matters for context as well.

    And it isn’t like the Democrats are exercising massive forbearance; they did impeach him, after all.

    I agree that the administration should be held accountable, but we really don’t have a good mechanism for what most people seem to think they want.

    And to pick on an item in your list again: the Benghazi hearings were toothless theater of purely partisan motivation. How is that a good model?

    4
  47. Jen says:

    Holy cr@p. The South Dakota AG reported hitting a deer on Saturday night, but it turns out it he hit and killed a PERSON.

    2
  48. dazedandconfused says:

    @Teve:

    I think he may be Q. You can follow Logically’s research trail here:

    https://www.logically.ai/articles/qanon-key-figure-man-from-new-jersey

    What interested me enough to post it was both Gelina’s non-denial denial and the timing of the shut-down of the site, which was shut down right after this became public.

    3
  49. Kylopod says:

    @dazedandconfused: If Q is ever ID’d as having been some prankster, it will be interesting to see how the theory lives on, but I have no doubt it will–just as people continued believing the Blair Witch cast who were giving all those interviews weren’t the real ones that got lost, just actors posing as them.

    5
  50. Gustopher says:

    @dazedandconfused:

    Logically.ai further IDs Gelinas as working at Citibank. An awkward Monday at the office for him, I reckon.

    Having worked on Wall Street, I can only assume that he would be getting high fives all around. QAnon is the most epic troll ever.

    Even if it is to gore the other sides ox I am not a fan of doxing, which is basically what happened to this guy. We should not encourage this behavior regardless of the alleged wrongdoings of the person being doxed.

    As with everything else in life, there’s a sliding scale. The impact of QAnon is so high, and so dangerous that it really is in the public interest to know who is promoting this bullshit at the highest levels.

    Would it be ok to release the donor list to Stormfront? Maybe not, as your racist uncle has basically no impact with his $20 donation. But if someone is responsible for 20% of the Stormfront budget? Sure.

    And, if you’re making a distinction between being on the street where there are cameras, and being online where there aren’t… I hate to break it to you, but you’re under way more surveillance online than off. If you have an expectation of privacy, your expectations are very off. (Not saying that it should be that way, but it is)

    6
  51. Mister Bluster says:

    Q may well be the elderly fellow who just tottered past my table on his way out of the Sleepytown Panera gripping his walker. I’ve seen him in here before. He sits by himself and spends an hour or so looking at his cell phone like a lot of customers here.
    He rides an electric tricycle around town with his walker strapped to a basket in the back and what has to be an eight foot tall pole with a large red warning flag attached.
    Today as he ambled his way out he stopped by my table and mumbled something through his mask.
    something, something, down something
    I looked up and realized he was talking to me. I was listening to NPR on my laptop so I had to remove my ear buds. “I can’t hear you, what?”
    (I can’t hear alot even when there are no physical barriers like masks and earbuds.)
    something parking lot is down today”
    “what is down? the internet?”
    Since I was seated and not required to have a mask on I tried for a quizzical look.
    This must have worked as he spoke a little louder and more carefully “the market is down today”.
    “Oh. Well I don’t have any investments.”
    Then he shuffeled out the door.
    I watched as he pedaled his tricycle a few times and off he went. I don’t know how those things work. Maybe that’s how you get them started.
    I immediately checked the IBD site. Nasdaq up…Dow up…S+P up.
    Yeah. This guy must be Q. Spreading false rumors and panic among investors. Wants everyone to sell. Probably has APPL shorted.

    1
  52. Bill says:

    @Jen:

    Holy cr@p. The South Dakota AG reported hitting a deer on Saturday night, but it turns out it he hit and killed a PERSON.

    A spokesman has to come out and say the AG is only a light drinker. 10 to 1 odds in favor he was drunk. He was coming home from a GOP party after all.

    And for those of you with short South Dakota politics memory, remember Bill Janklow.

    2
  53. Bill says:

    @Kathy:

    You didn’t say “Damn it, Jim” first.

    Go back and do it over.

    We’ll do it again.
    @inhumans99:

    And even if this happens I am not being cute when I say that I do not think the Trump admin understands how to truly wipe a hard drive.

    I don’t know how to wipe a hard drive. So it is time for a Dr. McCoy moment.

    “Damn it, Jim. I’m a writer of LGBT science fiction, not a Computer Engineer.”

    6
  54. Gustopher says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    None of those were prosecutions. It is a rather important distinction.

    Running a campaign on “Lock Her Up!” was far closer to a prosecution than BENGHAZI!!!!! hearings.

    I don’t quite agree with @gVOR08 that the only thing stopping them was the lack of a credible charge — I think if Bill Barr was AG from day one, there would have been charges anyway. Sessions may have been a Racist Keebler Elf, but he also was less invested in the Unitary Executive theory, and more of an institutionalist.

    Perhaps I am mistaken, and it was just heated rhetoric, but when someone who has no sense of humor, and no respect for norms and traditions makes threats, I don’t think they’re joking.

    11
  55. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Kathy:

    “…cheesecake…” sad but true.

    I’m less interested in Trump than preventing another admin to do something similar in the future. If trump refuses to testify fine, I don’t care, but dozens of his lackeys testifying under oath about what they did to enable him will lay the truth out about the administration and leave those lackeys’ careers in tatters. There are not enough wingnut welfare jobs to keep them employed and it is doubtful anyway that many of the foundations and congressional staff jobs would be open to them. It would be nice to see Stephen Miller wearing an orange apron and working at home depot because no one else would hire him.

    10 years from now, some staffer is pressured to do something morally or legally repugnant, his/her response might not be to do it, knowing that their reputation is at stake.

    I suspect most of us here believe the trump admin and trump should be prosecuted, but know that isn’t going to happen, so the question is then what?

    4
  56. Mikey says:

    @Bill: 10 to 1 odds he knew he didn’t hit a deer.

    When one lives in a place where hitting a deer is not an infrequent thing, one does not simply keep driving, one gets out and checks the damage, because hitting a deer can really mess your car up.

    He knew he hit a person.

    16
  57. Teve says:

    @Bill: The department of defense standards says that you write over all address locations with zeros, then write over them with ones, then with a random bit pattern. You can download utility programs which will do this as many times as you want.

    Alternately, and what I would do if I had a hard drive proving that I murdered somebody, is an angle grinder 😀

    3
  58. Bill says:

    @Mikey:

    When one lives in a place where hitting a deer is not an infrequent thing, one does not simply keep driving, one gets out and checks the damage, because hitting a deer can really mess your car up.

    He knew he hit a person.

    In 1974, my father bought a Mercedes Benz. Not too long afterwards, he hit a German Shephard dog on Nicholls Road not too far from our home. The MB was considerably damaged. Parts had to be brought in from Germany and I think Dad was without the MB for at least 4 weeks.

  59. Jen says:

    @Mikey: Exactly.

    Or, as a number of people on Twitter have pointed out, if you don’t know the difference between hitting a deer and hitting a human, you shouldn’t be driving (or be an AG).

    3
  60. Kathy says:

    @Bill:

    Well, that’s showing me.

  61. CSK says:

    @Jen:
    The victim’s name was Joe Boever; he was 56. He had rolled his pick-up truck into a ditch after hitting a bale of hay, called a friend who fetched him, then, for unknown reasons, went back to the trick that night. Ravnsborg, the A.G., hit him. The body wasn’t found till Sunday morning.

    There are many unanswered questions so far. Friends say Ravnsborg didn’t drink at the dinner from which he was returning; he does, however, have a history of speeding. Whether Boever was impaired I don’t know. If he was walking on a dark rural road and not visible, then it could be a tragic accident.

    6
  62. Teve says:

    @Kylopod:

    If Q is ever ID’d as having been some prankster, it will be interesting to see how the theory lives on, but I have no doubt it will–just as people continued believing the Blair Witch cast who were giving all those interviews weren’t the real ones that got lost, just actors posing as them.

    The sine qua non of the QAnon conspiracy is that Donald Trump is secretly prosecuting a war against Democrats and celebrities who are in a satanic child abuse ring. They keep waiting for “The Storm”, when countless arrests occur and thousands of these pedophile cannibals are swept to justice. If Trump is defeated and leaves office on January 20 without any of the arrests being made, you’d expect the conspiracy to collapse. But I just know it won’t.

    My hometown was home to Meade Ministries, a.k.a. the End Timers, and their leader Charles Meade was supposed to lead them to heaven after Armageddon. He died, the cult barely missed a beat. A few years later though, it came out that there was some serious child molesting going on, and the whole thing imploded.

    1
  63. Jen says:

    @CSK: Sad, and awful. Thanks for the additional info, the Yahoo piece was very sparse on details.

    1
  64. Joe says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:
    In my FB feed from the most Trumpist of my “friends” was an entirely unironic poster of the following meme:
    Benghazi, The Other 9/11 – Never forget!

    1
  65. Bill says:

    @Teve:

    The department of defense standards says that you write over all address locations with zeros, then write over them with ones, then with a random bit pattern. You can download utility programs which will do this as many times as you want.

    In 2010, laptop of mine fell to the floor. The hard drive was damaged. I threw out the unit eventually but kept the HD in hope I may recover the data on it. The only data I was interested in- Partially written stories of mine and the records of my computer chess games.

    In 2015, I sought out a local computer recovery outfit. They couldn’t fix the HD but did point me to a company in California. It cost me* nearly a grand, but they were able to recover some of my data.

    One of which is a story that will probably be the next ebook for me to complete. A human female trapped on a planet due to a curse and her attempts to get back to Earth. A complication- There’s a female alien from a third planet around who wants to ‘mate’ with the main character.

    The story was half written when the hard drive crashed. I’m re-writing partially in addition to completing it.

    *- The cost was actually paid by my S Corp publishing company. Not till I began making good money selling my books was I able to afford the repair.

    1
  66. Mister Bluster says:
  67. Teve says:

    @Bill: I, no kidding, read a book years ago about a guy who started either that company or a similar company, who wound up killing his wife. I wish I could remember the book.

  68. Teve says:

    @Bill: A long time ago I owned a German sports car, and I will never make that mistake again. Holy moly. It ate my bank account for breakfast.

  69. Teve says:
  70. CSK says:

    @Mister Bluster:
    So…the point of this asinine stunt was to publicize Wohl’s and Burkman’s efforts to dig up dirt on…Jim Mattis. Do I have that right?

    Are these two clowns retarded?

    7
  71. Teve says:

    @Joe:

    Benghazi, The Other 9/11 – Never forget!

    The number of people who died in Benghazi is approximately the number of people who will die today in America of Covid-19 in five minutes.

    NoHo Hank voice: Your friend sounds really stupid!

    3
  72. CSK says:

    Move over, QAnon; there’s another crazed conspiracy theorist in the house:
    Michael Caputo, Trump’s asst. secy of public affairs, says that a renegade cabal of government scientists from the CDC meets in coffee shops to plot the downfall of Donald Trump.

    He also believes these seditious rogues are plotting to kill him.

    Oh, and we should all buy ammo, “Because it’s gonna be hard to get.”

    6
  73. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Teve:

    When they are expensive to buy, they’re expensive to fix. It’s best to lease them and return it before the warranty runs out.

    1
  74. dazedandconfused says:

    @Kylopod:

    If Q is ever ID’d as having been some prankster, it will be interesting to see how the theory lives on, but I have no doubt it will–just as people continued believing the Blair Witch cast who were giving all those interviews weren’t the real ones that got lost, just actors posing as them.

    I expect the faithful to step up…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcwDC7Mf-BQ&list=PL5mWiZs5eB0D8aK1lBEqnaDIPOH8cLvSU&index=29

  75. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Bill: What’s the charge, riding in a car while black without a rider’s license? WTFF?

    1
  76. MarkedMan says:

    @Teve: Hmm. A government employee’s personal hard drive is not the only place email, documents, etc, resides. That’s true for pretty much every employee…

  77. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Teve:

    I’m honestly surprised these guys aren’t wearing velcro shoes

    And you can prove that????

  78. MarkedMan says:

    @Teve: There is an entire world-wide religion (Seventh Day Adventists) that is doing just fine a century after their founder predicted the end of the world three times. Many followers sold off or gave away their belongings. Think about it – THE FOUNDER!

    The idea that you can convince a true believer with more evidence is ludicrous. Hence, there is no point in arguing with a Trumper.

    4
  79. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Jen: As horrible as it is, the story seems to indicate that he came forward and has cooperated with the investigation as much as he can. That’s the best we can expect.

    @Jen: I see your point more clearly. Thanks to you and all the others who expanded on the situation.

    1
  80. Northerner says:

    @gVOR08:

    There are a few international groups who want Obama prosecuted as a war criminal for bombing weddings. If they were on the hunt for prosecuting him that’d be an obvious place to start (even though they’re probably doing the same now).

    My cynical view is that its impossible to run a major world power without committing what would be called crimes if any smaller country did it. If you want to get into a cycle of going after retired presidents I doubt it’d be hard for whoever is in power to go after their predecessor.

    Again, its your country not mine, so that’s just an outsider’s view. I’d say Obama is the best president you’ve had in a long time, but he still did things that would be considered criminal if the Canadian Prime Minister had done them. If you get into a serious tit for tat then all of that becomes grist for the mill, and every retired president is going to be a target. That’s how third world countries operate.

    It makes more sense to go after someone while they’re in power (impeaching him for instance was a good thing) because leaders don’t have to be paranoid about how they’ll be treated once out of office — ie if they retire they’ll be safe, and that’s ultimately what you want, the ability to remove sitting idiots like Trump without them thinking that they’re doomed if they give up power.

    Of course, I’m just speaking as someone who really doesn’t want someone like Trump (or Nixon back in the day ) to set of nuclear weapons while still in power to avoid being prosecuted afterwards.

    3
  81. Kylopod says:

    @Bill: In Baltimore a lot of people I know have crashed into deer, including my sister-in-law. I’ve had a few close calls myself. Once when I was in New Hampshire with a friend we encountered a moose on the road, but fortunately we weren’t driving very fast.

  82. Jen says:

    @Kylopod: Yikes. Hitting a moose can be fatal for both the moose and the driver. They’re so tall that the vehicle hits their legs and their body mass comes through the windshield. Not sure if that’s quite as true with SUVs and trucks, but as a Honda driver, I’ve worried about encountering a moose on the road as long as I’ve lived in NH.

  83. Gustopher says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    The benefit of a a commission would be that vast majority of the evidence/testimony would be public, with fringe amounts withheld for security concerns. With a prosecution and trial, only the evidence presented in court is guaranteed to become public. Also there are many trump enablers who reputations would be sullied as the fact spilled out.

    Several assumptions you are making:
    – people would come to the commission without the pressure of prosecution
    – people care about their reputations
    – people will not be rewarded for their crimes in pursuit of Republican goals

    I don’t know about the second two, although Oliver North* suggests the third is a real danger, but I am positive about that first one.

    The only way a truth commission will work is if people go there, under penalty of perjury, to avoid the prosecutors. And it we have the evidence to prosecute someone who doesn’t appear, we would have to do it.

    —-
    *: Although, eventually North shifted from saying that he lied to Congress out of patriotism, to denying he lied to congress. He was running for office and found that bragging about perjury polled poorly.

    4
  84. Mikey says:

    @MarkedMan:

    A government employee’s personal hard drive is not the only place email, documents, etc, resides.

    Not sure what each individual agency does, but I know at least one where none of that resides on the local computer. The employees’ documents, Outlook .pst files, etc. are all “in the cloud.”

    And there are probably others where the entire user experience is just screen updates to a “thin” client machine and all the actual computing takes place elsewhere.

    1
  85. Mikey says:

    @MarkedMan:

    There is an entire world-wide religion (Seventh Day Adventists) that is doing just fine a century after their founder predicted the end of the world three times.

    I grew up in that cult…er, denomination. Ask me anything!

    Or don’t, I left SDA so long ago I don’t remember much. Just a lot of not being allowed to do a lot of things the non-SDA kids were, and not eating bacon until I was 18. And I’m a shit dancer, because SDAs aren’t allowed to do that either.

    3
  86. Kathy says:

    @Northerner:

    “No one can reign innocently.”. Louis Antoine de Saint-Just

    4
  87. Bill says:

    @Kathy:

    “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”- Abraham Lincoln

    6
  88. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Gustopher:

    If the commission has subpoena power, which I suggested, they would risk prosecution if they failed to appear and 5th amendment rights wouldn’t be an issue, since they were not at risk of prosecution, except for perjury.

    What it comes down to is that if a majority of the public wants some reckoning of the trump years, a truth and reconciliation commission maybe as good as it gets, flawed though the concept is.

    Again, it is fair to say that most of us would like some type of prosecution (and some may occur for specific crimes), but we recognize that if prosecution will be limited and won’t deal with the damage trump has done. If there is another alternative to prosecution, doing nothing or a commission, I’d like to hear it.

    1
  89. JohnSF says:

    There have recently been a lot of references by British politicians to the merits of Australia’s trade relationship with the EU as a model for the UK, and a bit of boob bait for the Brexity in appointing a former Australian PM of dubious repute as an advisor.

    So, it’s interesting that in it’s response to Johnson’s threats, it looks like the EU is channeling Crocodile Dundee.

    This is a knife”

    Reuters Exclusive: EU to delay euro clearing decision on Brexit divorce threat.

    2
  90. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Northerner:

    Again, its your country not mine, so that’s just an outsider’s view.

    Agree, without qualifications. (And I was born here and it’s still not my country.)

    1
  91. MarkedMan says:

    @Mikey: I’ve never had this opportunity so apologies if it’s offensive, but did the subject of the church’s origins and the failed predictions ever come up? If so, how was it dealt with?

  92. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @MarkedMan: Can’t speak for SDAs, but in other fundy communities, the practice is to deny that the statements represent “prophecies” and to ascribe human frailty/fallibility to the speaker. Either that or complete denial by saying the reader/hearer “misunderstood” what was declared. (But I suspect that SDAs do something similar.)

    2
  93. Kathy says:

    I had a very hard time watching NFL games yesterday.

    It was very much business as usual, except for the lack of people in the stands, but all I could see was people unprotected against contagion, no distancing in the sidelines, and who wasn’t wearing a mask.

    I think I’ll skip this season. I mean, I wouldn’t want to be cheering a team, then find out who on that team got COVID-19.

    1
  94. MarkedMan says:

    There are certain kinda geeky things that appeal to me and I can’t really explain why. The excellent website and podcast “Futility Closet” hits this button multiple times a week. For example, this post from today:

    An unpaired word has a prefix or suffix that suggests that an antonym exists when in fact it doesn’t: disheveled is a word, but sheveled isn’t. In many cases the seeming antonym is a real word that’s fallen out of popular usage: corrigible, domitable, effable, feckful, gainly, nocuous, scathed, stinting, trepid, and wieldy are words; they’re just not used as often as their opposites.

    Somewhat similarly, a plurale tantum is a noun that appears only its plural form: We speak of scissors and trousers, but not normally of “a scissor” or “a trouser.” A singulare tantum is a noun that’s used only in the singular, such as information, dust, or wealth.

    If this is your thing I highly recommend both the website and the podcast (but don’t start at the beginning! They were definitely amateurs in the beginning and my family would tell me to turn them right off if I tried to play it in the car!), and if you become a regular listener I also encourage you to become a patron on Patreon.

    I also encourage all regular readers and posters to this site to click on the “Become a Patron” link at the top of this page and help defray James’ costs. I think of my monthly few dollars as acting in lieu of buying him a beer.

    3
  95. Gustopher says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    If there is another alternative to prosecution, doing nothing or a commission, I’d like to hear it.

    Those three options have it pretty covered.

    Vigilante Justice? Sovereign Citizen Arrest? Military Coup? Embracing the corruption and exalting the corrupt for being corrupt?

    Waiting for a meteor to hit is just doing nothing… so that’s out.

  96. Kathy says:

    @MarkedMan:

    You might also like Lexicon Valley with John McWhorter. I listened to it before my Scribd days, before my audio book queue grew to Brobdingnagian proportions.

    Anyway, it is common to refer to one leg in one’s trousers as a “trouser leg,” as in “I ripped a trouser leg climbing over barbed wire.”

    Other common plurals only are data (datum), confetti (confetto), and graffiti (graffito).

    2
  97. Kathy says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    Part of the purpose of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, was to grant amnesty to perpetrators of human rights abuses.

    It’s worth noting the structure of the commission and its legal foundations. In brief, this is something that has to be set up by both parties, not just the Democrats. and it has to have the stick of prosecution if the carrot of amnesty is to bring out testimony.

    Without the participation of both parties, it still looks like political payback. Without the threat of prosecution, there’s no upside for testimony. I don’t know what the situation was in South Africa in the 90s, but I’d venture to guess that the officials form the apartheid era accepted it for reasons of self-preservation; I’m willing to concede some were remorseful of past actions.

    I see precious few remorseful Republicans, and they face no threats to their well-being.

    2
  98. flat earth luddite says:

    @Teve:
    Could have been worse. British? Italian? At least the Germans will ship you parts, and the body/frame don’t rust out in the first 18 months. And don’t get me started on Lucas electrics!

  99. flat earth luddite says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:
    No, actually, the charge is the arrest warrant they didn’t know was outstanding until AFTER they subdued him and took him into custody. The resisting charge comes from his staggering when they let him up off the ground after whooping his a**. Shoulda just stayed down like a good -notgonnasayit.

    2
  100. Kathy says:

    @flat earth luddite:

    As I recall, the DOS method for erasing a hard drive is something like this:

    1) type DELETE C:/*.*
    2) type FORMAT C:
    3) remove hard drive from PC
    4) disassemble hard drive
    5) shred hard drive in a wood-chipper
    5) place hard drive remnants in a rocket and launch it into the Sun
    6) push the Sun into a black hole

    Nothing to it.

    But, of course, this method assumes black holes do not preserve information.

    2
  101. MarkedMan says:

    @flat earth luddite:

    And don’t get me started on Lucas electrics!

    Arrgh! You are giving me flashbacks to the first car I ever bought – a used Fiat 131 Mirafiori. A car mechanic, after fixing yet another electrical problem, asked me to stop bringing it to him, as something built that poorly was just taking time away from his other customers. Thinks about that! A foreign car mechanic in the early 1980’s getting frustrated with a the unreliability of a car…

    1
  102. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @Joe:

    Not much. In the wake of Armstrong I & II, along with CREW v. Trump, there isn’t much ground to stand on. PRA is a toothless and vague statute to begin with, so the legitimate best that you could have hoped for would be mandamus. Post CREW, even that really isn’t an option.

  103. Mikey says:

    @MarkedMan: @Just nutha ignint cracker: In the aftermath of the “Great Disappointment” of 1844, he original Adventists (Millerites, actually) basically said, “well we got the math wrong and anyway we were exhibiting far too much hubris in believing we could calculate a date to begin with.” Subsequently they came to believe they had actually gotten the math right, but that the calculations didn’t pinpoint the Second Coming, but rather…argh, I can’t recall exactly, something about Christ going into the heavenly sanctuary and perusing some books or something.

    As far as prophecy goes, there’s Ellen G. White, who had visions and whatnot. Interestingly, as a child she had been hit in the head with a sizable rock, which caused her to lose consciousness on and off for weeks. It’s speculated her “visions” were actually seizures caused by a brain injury, but the Adventists won’t hear a word of that, of course.

  104. Bill says:

    @Kathy:

    As I recall, the DOS method for erasing a hard drive is something like this:

    1) type DELETE C:/*.*
    2) type FORMAT C:
    3) remove hard drive from PC
    4) disassemble hard drive
    5) shred hard drive in a wood-chipper
    5) place hard drive remnants in a rocket and launch it into the Sun
    6) push the Sun into a black hole

    Nothing to it.

    But, of course, this method assumes black holes do not preserve information.

    While my computer tech ability isn’t even mediocre, I know it will more than deletes to wipe out data on hard drive.

    Here’s a question- Will a Microwave, Toaster Oven, or Garbage Disposal work? Inquiring minds want to know.

    1
  105. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @flat earth luddite: Don’t forget the nightmare that your Renault R-12 was, or my ex-wife’s Peugeot. Or Citroens (no matter how cute that one from the 50s on Midsomer Murders looked.)

    1
  106. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Kathy: I don’t follow the NFL and only watch games to the extent that I remember that they are playing on CBS (the only network that I can stream–thank you, All Access), so I lack your sensitivity to the consequences of my actions. Their circus, their clown car, their car crash if it happens.

    What I was curious about was whether the audio crew was adding crowd noise like Vince does for WWE in the “Thunderdome.” My guess was yes, but I’m not sure as there seemed to be a fair number of people in the arena at Charlotte.

  107. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Bill: I don’t think so except for the garbage disposal. The microwave will short out. The toaster might work, but NCIS has had techs recover data from burned computers–if it happens on teevee, it has to be true, right? The garbage disposal will work for the same reasons that a really good shredder will, but has the same jamming potential.+

    1
  108. Kathy says:

    @Bill:
    @Just nutha ignint cracker:

    Don’t forget these days much of your data gets backed up in the Apple,Microsoft, and Google clouds.

    Good luck pushing that into a black hole.

    2
  109. Bill says:

    @Kathy:

    Don’t forget these days much of your data gets backed up in the Apple,Microsoft, and Google clouds.

    Good luck pushing that into a black hole.

    Maybe the Borg can assimilate it.

    Seriously, I have all my ebooks, finished or unfinished, backed up to Microsoft One drive. I also have my strat-o-matic baseball playing stats backed up there along with personal and S corp business stuff*. When in the process of writing a new ebook, I backup daily to One Drive.

    *- I also have some of these things in a safety deposit box.

  110. Jax says:

    I went to Wal-Mart for the first time since….maybe Christmas? It was surreal. I will definitely do pickup next time, that looked super easy! Every other business except the farm/ranch supply store had people in front requiring masks. I was relieved by that, at least some stores are taking it seriously!

    Saw a Trump 2020 pop-up shop. It had a line, no masks or social distancing.

  111. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Kathy: My surfing? Yeah. My data? Meh, not so much. Don’t use cloud storage. At all. 8 thumb drives? Yeah, got that. Drop box, One Drive, Google Docs? No thanks. Pass. (Luddite only thinks he’s a Luddite. 😉 )

    1
  112. DrDaveT says:

    @Mikey:

    And I’m a shit dancer, because SDAs aren’t allowed to do that either.

    Obligatory Southern Baptist joke:

    Q: Why don’t Baptists make love standing up?
    A: It looks too much like dancing.

    2
  113. DrDaveT says:

    @MarkedMan:

    If this is your thing I highly recommend both the website and the podcast

    If that is your thing, then I also definitely recommend the short Michigan Public Radio podcast “That’s What They Say“, with Prof. Anne Curzan on language stuff.

    1
  114. PJ says:

    Trump ad asks people to support the troops. But it uses a picture of Russian jets.:

    A digital ad released by a fundraising arm of the Trump campaign on Sept. 11 calling on people to “support our troops” uses a stock photo of Russian-made fighter jets and weapons.

    The ad, which was made by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, features silhouettes of three soldiers walking as a fighter jet flies over them. The ad first appeared on Sept. 8 and ran until Sept. 12.

    “That’s definitely a MiG-29,” said Pierre Sprey, who helped design both the F-16 and A-10 planes for the U.S. Air Force. “I’m glad to see it’s supporting our troops.”

    He noted the angle of the aircraft’s tail, the way the tail is swept far back, and the spacing of the engines, along with the tunnel between them.

    Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow, confirmed that the planes are Russian MiG-29s, and also said the soldier on the far right in the ad carries an AK-74 assault rifle.

    Putin 2024!

    4
  115. Kylopod says:

    @DrDaveT: That reminds me of the Archie Bunker line: “You see what mixed marriages lead to? Mixed dancing.”