Sunday’s Forum

FILED UNDER: Open Forum
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. OzarkHillbilly says:

    I’s so proud, we made the banner page at the Guardian: ‘This whole thing has become politicized’: inside Missouri’s Covid culture wars

    The boarded-up storefront of Rae’s Cafe in Blue Springs, Missouri, does not look much like a Covid-19 battleground – but it has become a cause célèbre of the anti-masking movement since owner Amanda Wohletz began a campaign in July to defy local Jackson county mask mandates imposed after Delta variant infections surged.

    Despite warnings, citations, the revocation of a food permit and a county health department’s order to close her doors, Wohletz persisted, claiming in court that the mandate ordering everyone five and up is required to wear a face covering when visiting indoor public spaces was “unconstitutionally created” and efforts to enforce it were “unlawful, nonsensical”.

    Now the restaurant is shuttered. In a 23 September ruling, a county judge rejected Wohletz’s argument of medical exemptions and that the restaurant could skirt the mandate by operating as a private club. The judge also ordered Rae’s to cease operations until it obtained a valid food permit.

    Welcome to Missouri’s Covid culture wars.

    She certainly showed this Libtard.

    9
  2. JohnMcC says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: Is that County Judge elected to the office? You see where I’d be going with that, of course…

  3. Mike says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: she sure showed us. Can’t boss her around. Merica. And a week later “ what do you mean I don’t qualify for unemployment bc I deliberately…”

    3
  4. CSK says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    I believe that’s known as “owning the libtards.”

  5. OzarkHillbilly says:

    Doctors in Lithuania find kilo of nails and screws in man’s stomach

    Doctors in Lithuania have removed more than a kilogram of nails and screws from the stomach of a man who started swallowing metallic objects after quitting alcohol.
    ………………
    The hospital provided local media with a photograph of a surgical tray heaped with nails and screws. “We’ve never seen anything like it,” Algirdas Slepavicius, head surgeon at Klaipeda Hospital told local media.

  6. Sleeping Dog says:

    And in other episode of there is a cost to exercising your freedumb.

    Louisiana Hospital Chain Hikes Insurance Premiums For Employees With Unvaccinated Spouses

    Up to $200 a month. In other news, saw that over half of the ~600 United Airlines employees who faced termination because of Vax refusal, decided that the job was more important than the principle and got the jab.

    3
  7. CSK says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    I’ve heard of recovering alcoholics substituting sweets for booze, but…nails? Screws?

  8. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @JohnMcC: From the 13th Judicial Circuit of Missouri
    General Info – Overview of the Court System

    Judicial Selection Process

    Circuit and associate circuit judges are either elected in the circuit or county in which they are to serve or they are selected through Missouri’s nonpartisan selection plan. Municipal judges are elected or appointed according to the manner prescribed by municipal ordinance or charter.

    In 40 of Missouri’s 45 judicial circuits, the circuit and associate circuit judges are elected on a partisan ticket. Five circuits have adopted the nonpartisan selection plan.

    Under the nonpartisan method, circuit and associate circuit judges are appointed by the governor from a list of three names submitted by the appropriate Circuit Judicial Commission. Each five-member commission includes the chief judge of the appellate district, two lawyers from that circuit and two citizens from the judicial circuit, not members of the Bar, who are selected by the governor. If a judge is retained in office by the voters in the first general election after his or her first 12 months in office, the judge serves a full six-year (circuit judge) or four-year (associate circuit judge) term.

    According to her bio page, Judge Phillips was appointed in 2015. Pretty safe to say she has run for retention at least once and was returned to the bench.

    Jackson County is Kansas City and parts SW of it, mostly suburbs of KC. While KC is dominated by DEMs, I don’t know it’s suburbs well enough to say what their partisan bent is.

  9. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @CSK: OCD takes some weird turns.

  10. OzarkHillbilly says:

    More details here: Judge orders Rae’s Cafe in Blue Springs closed

    Blue Springs is in the more rural western reaches of Jackson Co, to nobody’s surprise.

  11. CSK says:

    Corey Lewandowski told Trashelle (pause to snicker at the name) Odom that when he was 10 years old, he stabbed a man to death. Then, when he was older, he stabbed another man in the back of the head, also killing him.

    Since he told this to Odom after having molested her, was it a threat? Or was it a pick-up line?

    Whatever it was, this guy is truly one sick fuck.

    6
  12. CSK says:

    @CSK:
    Oh, and Corey also bragged about “being able to last eight hours in bed” because he runs 400 miles a week.

    2
  13. Jon says:

    @CSK: Christ, I can’t even *sleep* eight hours in bed.

    4
  14. CSK says:

    @Jon:
    Nor I.

    Corey also told Odom that he was from “a bad part of Boston.” Actually, he was born and raised in Lowell, Mass., right near the New Hampshire border.

    I would suggest that the Lowell Police Dept. and the Massachusetts State Police look into any unsolved homicides that date from 1983 to a few years thereafter.

    3
  15. JohnMcC says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: Thanks!

  16. CSK says:

    You can read Odom’s full statement here:

    http://www.mediaite.com/weird/trump-donor-told-police-corey-lewandowski-claimed-to-have-stabbed-two-men-to-death/

    Oh, and he gets his sex from women other than his wife and his dick is 4 inches longer than normal men’s.

    Only the best people.

    1
  17. Sleeping. Dog says:

    @CSK:

    Of course Lowell in the 70’s and 80’s qualified as tough. Not Lawrence or Lynn, but tough.

  18. Sleeping Dog says:

    Mods, please release me. I didn’t do anything naughty

  19. senyordave says:

    @CSK: The Odoms strongly support a man who has been credibly accused by 26 women of sexual misconduct, including a rape accusation. Apparently, it doesn’t bother Trashelle Odom when it happens to other women. In this case I’ll go with old proverb, reap what you sow.

    3
  20. wr says:

    @CSK: “Oh, and Corey also bragged about “being able to last eight hours in bed” because he runs 400 miles a week.”

    Even if he averages six minute miles, that means he spends 40 hours running every week.

    Let me just say I’m more inclined to believe him on the subject of his penis size…

    1
  21. CSK says:

    @senyordave:
    The Odoms are probably still telling themselves that the accusations against Trump are just a left-wing smear.

    @wr:
    What about his claim to have murdered two people?

    2
  22. Gustopher says:

    @CSK: I cannot get over the name Trashelle.

    I had to use the Google to discover what a person named Trashelle Odom looks like and I was disappointed that she looked kind of normal — I was expecting a Kyrsten Sinema style, where you’re not quite sure if she’s been thrifting, dumpster diving, or paid a lot of money for those clothes and is going to wear all her new clothes together at once.

    Also, her maiden name is Power, and she presumably went through childhood hearing “Trash Power!”

    2
  23. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @wr: I was too lazy to do the math on the running. I just left it as “that doesn’t seem likely” and moved on. Thanks for confirming my guess though.

  24. EddieInCA says:

    @wr: @Just nutha ignint cracker:

    I’ve run nine marathons, and more 1/2 marathons than I can remember, with a best of 3:03:30 at the 1993 Los Angeles Marathon. That was about a 7:00 pace. I missed qualifying for Boston by 3 minutes 31 seconds, and I had a 4 minute bathroom break at mile 14. So…

    My longest training week EVER was 92 miles. Most elite marathoners run no more than 80-90 miles per week, and I was NEVER an elite marathon runner. The idea that someone would, or could run 400 miles per week once, much less consistently, is absurd. You would never recover, and you’d be suffering from a myriad of hip, ankle, knee, and foot problems within two weeks of such a schedule.

    It’s just another BS lie.

    4
  25. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Gustopher: What was more interesting to me was that the article about the incident showed her with her husband at an event with FG doing his “I eat kittens for breakfast” smile (I don’t know why but that smile creeps me out [shudder]). I’m sure that it was just that her husband was overwhelmed at being in the presence of such greatness, but he looked like he could be cast as Lenny in Of Mice and Men. I’m not sure his elevator gets out of the subbasement let alone all the way to the top floor.

    1
  26. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @EddieInCA: Having had asthma all my life, I’ve no experience to speak of at running at all, let alone competitive running. (Albuterol helped some when it came out, but by that time, I was in my 3os and working on my feet for 8-12 hours a day, so running wasn’t much of a priority anymore.) Still, thanks again for reconfirming my guess. Good to know that I’m not completely senile yet.

  27. CSK says:

    @Gustopher:
    If she has a nickname, I hope it’s something like “Shelley,” but I still wonder how in hell any parents could inflict a name like “Trashelle” on a helpless infant. Maybe she has a sister named “Crapola.”

    As far as I can tell from Google, Trashelle Power Odom is the world’s only Trashelle.

    3
  28. JohnSF says:

    @CSK:
    Oh? Really? Surprising, that. 🙂

    1
  29. CSK says:

    @JohnSF:
    Somehow I don’t think there will be a sudden proliferation of female children being named “Trashelle.” At least I devoutly hope not.

    I do want to know if and when les gendarmes will query Lewandowski about those two murders he admitted.

  30. JohnSF says:

    @CSK:
    Mirandisation occurs.
    Interview begins.
    Transcript follows.
    C. Lewandowski:
    “Well, of course I didn’t physically murder them.
    I them slew with my psychic superpowers.
    By the way, have you ever seen a really huge penis?”

  31. CSK says:

    @JohnSF:
    Oh, yeah; the invitation to view his male member ought to go over great with the the Lowell, Ma. and state cops.

    1
  32. JohnSF says:

    @CSK:
    Investigating officer replies:
    “Looking at one right now, bud.”

    2
  33. JohnSF says:

    I wonder though, is there some sort of offense that can by worked up for claiming to be a guilty of a felony even if one is, in fact not guilty?
    Or, alternatively, if a Massachusetts policeman could simply punch his obnoxious face and tell him to take his chances with a jury?

    1
  34. CSK says:

    @JohnSF:
    There’s such a thing as filing a false report to the police, but people voluntarily confess to crimes they haven’t commit all the time, and nothing ever comes of it as far as I know. Still, I wish this disgusting little toad would get in real trouble.

    The thing is that, just like Steve Bannon, he’ll be back in Trump’s circle unofficially sooner or later.

  35. Gustopher says:

    @CSK:

    Trashelle Power Odom

    “Power Odom” sounds like “Power Bottom”

  36. Gustopher says:

    @CSK: Iknow we aren’t supposed to blame the victim, but she was sitting next to Corey Lewandowski. Paid money to do so too.

    It’s not like he isn’t a known quantity, or that when donating money for a fundraiser she couldn’t say “can I sit away from the known abuser?”

    It’s like going into the lion cage. What did you think was going to happen?

    “I didn’t think they would sexually assault me,” sobs woman who attended fundraiser for the Sexually Assaulting Women Party.

    1
  37. CSK says:

    @Gustopher:
    Well, Lamar Odom was a power forward, so there’s that.

    @Gustopher:
    Well, it’s possible that initially she was so frozen by shock that she couldn’t move. And…most women, even today, are trained or at least expected not to make a fuss, particularly in a social circumstance.

    4
  38. wr says:

    @EddieInCA: “I’ve run nine marathons, and more 1/2 marathons than I can remember, with a best of 3:03:30 at the 1993 Los Angeles Marathon. That was about a 7:00 pace. I missed qualifying for Boston by 3 minutes 31 seconds, and I had a 4 minute bathroom break at mile 14. So…”

    Seven with a best of 3:23 and change. Although I did run the last six miles of a trail marathon outside Reno with a cracked rib after I tripped over a tree root, so that was something.

  39. wr says:

    @CSK: “Somehow I don’t think there will be a sudden proliferation of female children being named “Trashelle.” At least I devoutly hope not.”

    Hey, all those girls whose parents named Khalisi have to change it to something after the way she ended up…

  40. MarkedMan says:

    Not really concerning US politics directly, but the WaPo just dropped a bombshell.

  41. EddieInCA says:

    @wr:

    3:23 is a great marathon time. My 3:03 was an outlier. My other best times were 3:24 in Los Angeles in 1990, 3:31 in Paris, 1994, 3:27 in Las Vegas in 1996, and the rest were over four hours. My worst was Honolulu in 2007, when I was running it with my girlfriend at the time. 5:14, but what a glorious run. I wanted to to London but could never get in via the lottery, and NYC Marathon is still a dream. I’ve recently started running again and am up to 22 miles per week. It’s a lot harder post sixty than it was pre-40’s.