If It's Sunday...

Meet the Press is the worst.

Also Bad

Maybe you're not the type of rich and/or powerful person who engages in underage sex trafficking, but just the type of rich and/or powerful person who thinks people engaged in such activities are not to be shunned.

What is wrong with people?

Rich Men Behaving Criminally

There are things "everybody" "knows" which is not quite the same thing as saying they actually know things, but if you are a billionaire with a plane nicknamed the Lolita Express and you hobnob with lots of other powerful people, they all "know" even if they don't know and they hobnob anyway. Hobnob being the best case scenario. Also maybe don't hobnob with the guy who is known for barging into the changing room of the Miss Teen USA pageant. You never know what could happen if he isn't socially shunned!

One would think the sex trafficking of minors would be a line for some, but, well...

Morning, Morning

This Is Our Emergency

When there are babies in cages, going to complain to Maureen Dowd is not the best look.

Self-Impeaching

Some brine, vinegar, a bit of dill.

Sunday, Sunday

I am going to prove my LACK OF PARTISANSHIP by declaring that any powerful people, EVEN DEMOCRATS, who were involved with raping minors in a sex trafficking ring should be locked up.

Sunday Morning Thread

I'm sure the rich guys trafficking underage girls don't think of themselves as such. Traffickers are icky gang members or Mafia types. They are not successful businessmen. In their minds, there is a difference. Hey, the dick wants what the dick wants.

Rich Guy Pedophile Ring

Welcome development but I suspect we'll never really know...

Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for allegedly sex trafficking dozens of minors in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005, and will appear in court in New York on Monday, according to three law enforcement sources. The arrest, by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force, comes about 12 years after the 66-year-old financier essentially got a slap on the wrist for allegedly molesting dozens of underage girls in Florida.

Afternoon Thread

Lovely Jacksonville weather we're having.

Status Quo

We can argue about what a majority of voters in enough of the right states want to hear, but reasonably sure "more of the same" as of 2016 was rejected, if only barely.

And no I'm not saying that's all Clinton ran on, but when the party in power gets chucked out...

Buffoons

It isn't that I think that there was some Republican party golden age pre-Newt. Policy aside, the Reagan administration was a corrupt shit show (and people actually did get convicted! almost seems quaint now) and before that some guy named Nixon. But Newt was a buffoon. A completely ridiculous human being who was treated like some elder statesman political messiah the instant he took control of the House in 1995. Trump before Trump, though with a history PhD* that impressed our easily impressed press. His successor was Denny Hastert. Denny Hastert was Speaker until after the 2006 elections! You might remember what happened to him after that. The Bush administration was filled with absolute clowns including, of course, Bush. The press treated them all as sages, too, but they were all ridiculous. How could The Teens, or any normal people not infected by DC brain virus, not think they were absurd? And not just "all old people are absurd" as The Teens can see things, but these particular people? The Teens like some old people!



*wikipedia tells me the title of his Phd was "Belgian Education Policy in the Congo 1945–1960." Oh boy.

Morning Thread

Me Too, Really

At least from Newt onwards.

For the newcomers, this is completely foreign. To them, Republicans shouldn’t be feared, they should be beaten. Ocasio-Cortez told me that she treats Republicans like buffoons because that’s how they’ve behaved for as long as she can remember. “Even before I was of voting age, I saw Republicans accuse the Obamas of doing a ‘terrorist fist bump,’ so they’ve been clowns since I was a teen,” she said.

You shouldn't have to be as young as she is to see this.

Ancient History

Not the first time I've put this up, but I remember it now and then.


<50% in... 1995.

Activate The Omega 13

Biden says he might nominate Merrick Garland to SCOTUS again.https://t.co/qxlojrRvjt

So while Republicans nominate young conservatives to shift the court's balance for decades to come, he might respond by nominating a 66-year-old moderate.

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) July 5, 2019

Friday Crass Commercialism

Just because you all need to backup your stuff more, and 2TB for 60 bucks is really cheap!



Also these drives are tiny now.

Hacks

We're all hacks to some degree. Some of this is both a bit unconscious and justified. We're more favorably inclined to politicians we like and the party we like and more likely to trust that even when they're doing something wrong that ultimately they have some grand plan to do the right thing. Obama did a lot of bad and dumb stuff, some of which was supposedly to "win over" the evil lunatics known as The Republican Party, and while none of that ever actually worked out I get that people trusted that he had A Plan (if only we deport a few more people we'll get that comprehensive immigration bill...).

And then there are the real hacks. The paid spinners. Probably cable news should not rely on these people so much, but they've got a job to do and they do it.

But hackery in the age of Trump is off the charts, even by people who aren't (at least directly) paid to be hacks. If Trump put his gold toilet out on the White House lawn and went out there naked to do his business every day at noon, they'd praise the new aura of nobility* he had brought to the office. It's quite nuts.

*Historically this is something actual nobles would probably do, as they often weren't exactly drawn from the finest gene pool, but this would not be what they meant.

The War On Public Higher Education

Higher education, generally, of course, but public is the low hanging fruit.

I claim no knowledge of Alaska, but in general a state which provides no real opportunities for its young people to stay except in the declining resource extraction industry is probably not doing itself any favors.

But Trump Was Always Like This

Many people say Trump has not changed, that he was like this all of his life, and that the brain worms don't exist. 1990s Trump was a dumbass lying blowhard just like the current one, but he wouldn't have talked about George Washington and the airports.

Morning Thread

Yup, the first thing General Washington did in his offensive was secure the airports. Just common sense!

America Is Truly Great

Roy:

This is a reminder that we are all very lucky to live in the real America, where not only can we make fun of buffoons like Stephens, but also buffoons like Stephens are allowed to make ever-greater fools of themselves for our entertainment.