Conservative pundits defending Harlan Crow and Clarence Thomas, bruised and bloodied, crawling on hands and knees, gasping: “but…Soros…”
Meanwhile, Ginni is cracking the bubbly and making her own party. Loathsome as she is, she's right -- let the motherfuckers eat cake, flaunt it baby. This time next year Clarence Thomas will still be on SCOTUS, and everyone who is paying attention knows it.
LOL. Although counterpoint, I've eaten some of the best meals I've ever had at Dominican hole-in-the-wall restaurants in the Bronx. Maybe the wise Latina is onto something.
Apr 20, 2023·edited Apr 20, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso
The defense of Harlan Crow, as far as I can tell, is that he's not an actual Nazi, he just likes to collect Nazi stuff. Oh, well then, let him buy as many Supreme Court justices as he wants.
The most absurd thing about Crow’s defenders is how they initially tried to say “look, he’s a student of political history, he’s got an area of his garden devoted to despotic world leaders.” So everyone went, “Oh, OK. So that’s where he keeps the Hitler and Nazi stuff, out there in the garden with Idi Amin and Pol Pot, right?” And the only thing his defenders could come back with was “Ah, not exactly…well, no.”
That's funny, I consider myself to be something of a student of political history, I use these things called "books" which are cheaper than statues and take up less space. Does a book about Hitler (yep, I've got a few) carry the same meaning as a statue of Hitler? Hmmm....
With his money he could buy and reassemble a certain Milanese Fina station associated with Mussolini. (Or maybe he did, and it's in crates in a warehouse a la Charles Foster Kane's Xanadu.)
I think as long as you don't have Adolf's actual daubs and linen with swastikas on them on display in a special grotto in your basement, you're probably in the clear.
"Despotic world leaders? Like Mobutu Sese Seko? Jorge Rafael Videla? José Napoleón Duarte? Augusto Pinochet? Suharto? Charles Taylor? Francisco Franco? Syngman Rhee? Mohammad Reza Pahlavi? Samuel Doe? Boy, that must be a crowded garden."
Well, jeez, that's why they're not in Sugar Nazi's garden; someone might ask uncomfortable questions about them. I suppose once we've gone full-fash they'll be acceptable, like Indonesia celebrates its anti-"communist" murderers now that nobody's around to object.
Heh. You think Ginni is in a good mood now, just wait until tomorrow when the Supreme Inquisition upholds the mifepristone ban. She’s gonna party like it’s 199. Which is more or less where we’re going.
Gonna be a squeaker. Affirming the Texas decision will -- rightly!! -- piss off Big Pharma, maybe even the medical establishment. Might be a bridge too far. Or maybe, sure, there's five justices for whom it's fine.
At least five. Justice Balls & Strikes would prefer to go a bit slower but would end up in the same place eventually. He’ll be grumpy but will come around. As for big pharma, that’s imho why it got delayed to Friday. Wait until the markets close so the goppers have the weekend to hit the teevee and opinion pages to explain how this decision is limited to one drug because abortion, won’t be a precedent, nothing has changed, blah, blah, blah. We’ve seen this movie before and the ending hasn’t changed yet. Hopefully I’m completely off base here like I usually am, but I’ve got a real sinking feeling about this one.
Agree with you, just have a few quibbles. I think a Friday night announcement is more to get into the dead zone of weekend news. Like you, I think allowing the ban is a little likelier than not. But just a little. Abortion and weakening the administrative state versus capitalists.
Not in this case. Bolstering blocking access to abortion and shrinking the administrative state is incompatible with not forcing a huge loss for Big Pharma. So versus in this case.
Since they revealed themselves to be lawless, the SCOTUS conservatives' decisions are mainly of interest as indicators of how quickly or slowly their donors think it prudent to remove our rights.
I'm racking my brains trying to remember if any FDA approved medical drug has ever been declared illegal. Withdrawn, recalled, taken off market, yes, but not illegal that I can recall.
Pissing off Big Pharma is like DeSantis deciding to arm wrestle Disney: if the Supremes go down that road, the move to pack the Court will suddenly have all the money Biden needs to get four more years plus both houses. If Roberts can’t convince a couple of Justices to back off the medical meddling, he might as well resign and hand the keys to Sonya.
Right-wing doctors have standing to sue because someone might get sick and that would require them to do their highly-paid jobs. The manufacturer of the drug, I learned today, is suing, and they obviously have standing because the decision affects their business. Lessee, now, we got right-wing docs, we got pharma, who's left out of this picture?
"She’s gonna party like it’s 199. Which is more or less where we’re going."
Abortifacients were well-known throughout the ancient world (including Western Europe), easily available, commonly used, & herb-based so often quite safe.
There was a good article in the Guardian yesterday about how Manual Vacuum Aspiration is a simple procedure that any doctor could do in their office, but somehow the medical establishment decided abortion was a special procedure that needed to be done by specialists in a special place easily targeted by religious extremists. Not saying this is an answer where abortion has been made illegal, but it made me wonder why so many doctors decided this was something they didn't need to be trained in.
Also, in Bangladesh, where abortion is illegal, it's called "menstrual regulation."
"A woman simply comes in and explains she has missed her period. She doesn’t take a pregnancy test before the procedure, and nobody asks her to. As long as she sees the clinician before 12 weeks, they will 'restore her period' for her."
I was trained and the Guardian article refers only to the earliest abortions, which aren’t always evident to the patient. ObGyns have always tried to keep us other docs out of the lady parts. Many do abortions as part of their morning surgeries, it’s not just those specializing in out patient abortions. Or did before Donna.
I'm so old that I remember when Thomas was nominated, there was of course references to his wife regarding whom it was reported that she was a right wing political operator (and that they were members of a politics-oriented church). I therefore wondered whether Ginny's business and connections and stuff didn't help Clarence get the nomination in addition to, of course, being Danforth's protege and, of course, whatcha call the color of skin. (Very cynical nomination by GHW Bush and of course the Dems responded weakly.)
George Bush the Elder gets way too little opprobrium for his actions, simply because he was polite and genteel (leaving the actual dirty work to others, of course).
Absolutely. When people still, to this day, argue that the supremes couldn’t possibly rule a certain way because it violates the legal or constitutional principle that blah blah blah, I want to yell, “Haven’t you watched them play Calvinball with the law since Bush v Gore?” The law really is a religion for some legal scholars, who scour the holy texts and debate What Number Was James Madison Thinking Of? To face facts would be to admit that their legal gods are dead.
And not just the Supremacist Court, our whole legal system has been revealed as something of a joke (for those who didn't already see that.) With enough money, you can buy lawyers who are willing to argue absolutely anything*, and a judge who feels obligated to take their sophistry as good-faith arguments. Meanwhile, prosecutors melt at the sight of the well-attorneyed-up rich, and go looking for some poor folks they can muscle into a plea agreement instead.
*Now I'm wondering, does the medical profession work the same way? Come up with enough money and you can find a doc who will do absolutely anything?
As Woodie Guthrie said, "Some men rob you with a six gun, some with a fountain pen" and that's the precise division between the criminal and civil court systems. Rich people always have the option to do their robbin' with the pen, when they're caught (which they're mostly not) the worst they can expect is to pay 5% of their ill-gotten gains in fines, while they're stretching the court case out, year after year, they're free to go about their business. NOBODY ever goes to jail.
Don't know how Roy managed to get inside Ginni's head, but I would bet serious folding money that this little scene is precisely what she thinks. Drunk or sober.
Ginny can do her best Marie Antoinette, but she's never going to beat Kevin McCarthy making a speech about how we need to cut food stamps - on Wall Street. I know "optics" is an overused word in politics today, but Kevin couldn't have done better if he'd grown a mustache, waxed it and then twirled the ends while evicting a widow from her tenement.
I think I sent that delightful line into the re-stack ether somewhere, but gotta put it here too because damn.
For all you non-locals this is close to home, in a snootiest-of-the-snooty Georgetown whitier-than-thou sort of way. The folks there even brag about how the ancestors treated the people they owned better than some other folks did.
This just in from Jacobin, re: the courtroom travails of Schmucker Carlson-land:
"Thanks to an arcane line in the tax code, Fox can deduct that settlement payment from its income taxes, according to a company spokesperson and tax experts consulted by the Lever. That’s because federal law allows taxpayers to write off many legal costs, providing that they are “ordinary and necessary” business expenses. The IRS has repeatedly affirmed that for major corporations, paying out settlements is just part of the cost of doing business."
So, bottom line: you, me and the magats down the block gotta pay more in taxes to make up for FoxSnooze shortin' the IRS.
I'd like to hear it from the horse and not just horsing around. Maybe we can get Hannity or even Trump to start saying this stuff openly and slaves to authority and corruption nodding along.
I work with such people. Some believe in corruption and hierarchy, with some above the law. Others have elaborate rationalization schemes to explain why God chooses some to have power.
In both cases, common sense goes out the window. The emperor may be naked but they never saw a finer outfit.
Holy shit. You’ve disclosed the conservative spell to keep the media at bay:
[GINNI raises her hands – grandly:]
Invisible force field! You have no power here.
Says a lot that it took ProPublica to break this story. Doesn't Washington D.C. have a daily paper?
"Doesn't Washington D.C. have a daily paper?"
I think it's generally in the nature of a house organ, as befits a company town.
Something like an underactive parotid gland.
Oof, but fair.
Two! The Potomac Daily Shopper or the Foggy Bottom Picayune.
You forgot the really real and actual Washington Times.
And the Washington Examiner!
Conservative pundits defending Harlan Crow and Clarence Thomas, bruised and bloodied, crawling on hands and knees, gasping: “but…Soros…”
Meanwhile, Ginni is cracking the bubbly and making her own party. Loathsome as she is, she's right -- let the motherfuckers eat cake, flaunt it baby. This time next year Clarence Thomas will still be on SCOTUS, and everyone who is paying attention knows it.
"We just have better catering"
Roy needs to keep that on file.
LOL. Although counterpoint, I've eaten some of the best meals I've ever had at Dominican hole-in-the-wall restaurants in the Bronx. Maybe the wise Latina is onto something.
Yes, I think Ginni is wrong about that, and clearly she's never had a good pernil.
OK, but this too:
"You’d forget all about the Hitler napkins, I’m telling you."
Obligatory 2 marks.
Pernil In Peril
(I have actually had this but didn't know what it was called. . .)
The defense of Harlan Crow, as far as I can tell, is that he's not an actual Nazi, he just likes to collect Nazi stuff. Oh, well then, let him buy as many Supreme Court justices as he wants.
The most absurd thing about Crow’s defenders is how they initially tried to say “look, he’s a student of political history, he’s got an area of his garden devoted to despotic world leaders.” So everyone went, “Oh, OK. So that’s where he keeps the Hitler and Nazi stuff, out there in the garden with Idi Amin and Pol Pot, right?” And the only thing his defenders could come back with was “Ah, not exactly…well, no.”
That's funny, I consider myself to be something of a student of political history, I use these things called "books" which are cheaper than statues and take up less space. Does a book about Hitler (yep, I've got a few) carry the same meaning as a statue of Hitler? Hmmm....
Sorry, apologizing in advance for failing to respect Harlan's diverse learning style.
It’s impossible to learn history without admiring memorabilia from history’s greatest monsters. That’s basic pedagogy.
With his money he could buy and reassemble a certain Milanese Fina station associated with Mussolini. (Or maybe he did, and it's in crates in a warehouse a la Charles Foster Kane's Xanadu.)
Ah, those books'll haunt you...Germany [Was Gonna Try] It Again but they decided Ah, fuck it – our American pals got it covered.
Which reichsnumber are we up to now? 5th?, 6th?
I think as long as you don't have Adolf's actual daubs and linen with swastikas on them on display in a special grotto in your basement, you're probably in the clear.
I probably should mention that all my favorite books about Hitler end the same way, with him on the floor of a bunker in a pool of his own blood.
You apparently have not seen the movie Look Who's Back.
Highly recommended, slightly perverse.
Best kind of Nazi.
Shh, don't give the ending away!
"Despotic world leaders? Like Mobutu Sese Seko? Jorge Rafael Videla? José Napoleón Duarte? Augusto Pinochet? Suharto? Charles Taylor? Francisco Franco? Syngman Rhee? Mohammad Reza Pahlavi? Samuel Doe? Boy, that must be a crowded garden."
Big, too. Takes an annual prescribed burn to clear it.
I wonder if there would be room for all those furriners in this? We did make them, after all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Garden_of_American_Heroes
Yoicks...
Well, jeez, that's why they're not in Sugar Nazi's garden; someone might ask uncomfortable questions about them. I suppose once we've gone full-fash they'll be acceptable, like Indonesia celebrates its anti-"communist" murderers now that nobody's around to object.
Man, everybody leaves out Salazar. Franco they get but not Salazar
Only needs 5.
Heh. You think Ginni is in a good mood now, just wait until tomorrow when the Supreme Inquisition upholds the mifepristone ban. She’s gonna party like it’s 199. Which is more or less where we’re going.
Gonna be a squeaker. Affirming the Texas decision will -- rightly!! -- piss off Big Pharma, maybe even the medical establishment. Might be a bridge too far. Or maybe, sure, there's five justices for whom it's fine.
At least five. Justice Balls & Strikes would prefer to go a bit slower but would end up in the same place eventually. He’ll be grumpy but will come around. As for big pharma, that’s imho why it got delayed to Friday. Wait until the markets close so the goppers have the weekend to hit the teevee and opinion pages to explain how this decision is limited to one drug because abortion, won’t be a precedent, nothing has changed, blah, blah, blah. We’ve seen this movie before and the ending hasn’t changed yet. Hopefully I’m completely off base here like I usually am, but I’ve got a real sinking feeling about this one.
Seems like the drunk rapist might be a key vote. Yep, hangin' all my hopes on drunk rapist.
They may call you a dreamer, but you're not the only one who can't get a visa.
Agree with you, just have a few quibbles. I think a Friday night announcement is more to get into the dead zone of weekend news. Like you, I think allowing the ban is a little likelier than not. But just a little. Abortion and weakening the administrative state versus capitalists.
Replace 'versus' with 'for' and you're gettin' closer.
Not in this case. Bolstering blocking access to abortion and shrinking the administrative state is incompatible with not forcing a huge loss for Big Pharma. So versus in this case.
I get where yer comin' from but it's counter to their bigger-game plan, so more likely a 'yeah, whatever – just shut down FDA like we agreed'.
Since they revealed themselves to be lawless, the SCOTUS conservatives' decisions are mainly of interest as indicators of how quickly or slowly their donors think it prudent to remove our rights.
Eh. I think it’s more they act as a starting gun.
Yeah, those blankety blanks...!
Justice Balls & Strikes has not yet heard the rule about the pitch clock, apparently...He’ll be grumpy but will come around.
As for being off base – jeez, those things are huge now! How can you possibly continue to be so far off?!
AI-Driven Robot Judges
YER [virtually] OUT!
I'm racking my brains trying to remember if any FDA approved medical drug has ever been declared illegal. Withdrawn, recalled, taken off market, yes, but not illegal that I can recall.
Pissing off Big Pharma is like DeSantis deciding to arm wrestle Disney: if the Supremes go down that road, the move to pack the Court will suddenly have all the money Biden needs to get four more years plus both houses. If Roberts can’t convince a couple of Justices to back off the medical meddling, he might as well resign and hand the keys to Sonya.
Pissing off Big Pharma would make 2024 more interesting and make up for the Ronnie/Donnie debate not happening.
And I thing Brother Clarence is far likelier to be appointed CJ than Sotomayor.
Pissing off Big Pharma and getting Wall Street nervous about the debt ceiling all in one week? Should be interesting —
Right-wing doctors have standing to sue because someone might get sick and that would require them to do their highly-paid jobs. The manufacturer of the drug, I learned today, is suing, and they obviously have standing because the decision affects their business. Lessee, now, we got right-wing docs, we got pharma, who's left out of this picture?
Actuarials?
"She’s gonna party like it’s 199. Which is more or less where we’re going."
Abortifacients were well-known throughout the ancient world (including Western Europe), easily available, commonly used, & herb-based so often quite safe.
There was a good article in the Guardian yesterday about how Manual Vacuum Aspiration is a simple procedure that any doctor could do in their office, but somehow the medical establishment decided abortion was a special procedure that needed to be done by specialists in a special place easily targeted by religious extremists. Not saying this is an answer where abortion has been made illegal, but it made me wonder why so many doctors decided this was something they didn't need to be trained in.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/18/abortion-reproductive-rights-manual-uterine-aspiration
Also, in Bangladesh, where abortion is illegal, it's called "menstrual regulation."
"A woman simply comes in and explains she has missed her period. She doesn’t take a pregnancy test before the procedure, and nobody asks her to. As long as she sees the clinician before 12 weeks, they will 'restore her period' for her."
Period, hell!
EXCLAMATION POINT!!
Feminists used to talk about this sort of thing a lot, before RvW happened. Might need to bring it back.
Hell, Madam Restell used to advertise menstrual restoration in 19th c. NY newspapers and all the best ladies went to her —
I was trained and the Guardian article refers only to the earliest abortions, which aren’t always evident to the patient. ObGyns have always tried to keep us other docs out of the lady parts. Many do abortions as part of their morning surgeries, it’s not just those specializing in out patient abortions. Or did before Donna.
Raw beets? (It is apparently an Indiana thing – some a them old wives was pretty sharp...)
If it's an Indiana thing, then Mother Pence must know about it.
Someone say Ginny? I gift you:
https://whowhatwhy.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/image1-39.jpg
I'm so old that I remember when Thomas was nominated, there was of course references to his wife regarding whom it was reported that she was a right wing political operator (and that they were members of a politics-oriented church). I therefore wondered whether Ginny's business and connections and stuff didn't help Clarence get the nomination in addition to, of course, being Danforth's protege and, of course, whatcha call the color of skin. (Very cynical nomination by GHW Bush and of course the Dems responded weakly.)
George Bush the Elder gets way too little opprobrium for his actions, simply because he was polite and genteel (leaving the actual dirty work to others, of course).
Truer words…
I think he doesn’t get all due and deserved opprobrium for a couple of reasons:
By the late 80s, the mainstream media were all in supporting the GOP as much as possible;
He was a one term POTUS between two media magnets;
He didn’t do anything egregious enough by establishment standards.
unless you were a lip reader...
"By the late 80s, the mainstream media were all in supporting the GOP as much as possible;"
Especially this. They had been Reaganized, and therefore dependent on glitz and glamour versus reporting.
Maybe more like with Trump: Reagan and Slick Willy attracted an audience in a way GWB (puke on the Japanese emperor’s lap) Bush did not.
The decline of mainstream political journalism had already begun before Poppy’s presidency.
Wait 'til her husband holds their marriage illegal.
"Everybody's but ours"
Til Darth do us part.
Absolutely. When people still, to this day, argue that the supremes couldn’t possibly rule a certain way because it violates the legal or constitutional principle that blah blah blah, I want to yell, “Haven’t you watched them play Calvinball with the law since Bush v Gore?” The law really is a religion for some legal scholars, who scour the holy texts and debate What Number Was James Madison Thinking Of? To face facts would be to admit that their legal gods are dead.
And not just the Supremacist Court, our whole legal system has been revealed as something of a joke (for those who didn't already see that.) With enough money, you can buy lawyers who are willing to argue absolutely anything*, and a judge who feels obligated to take their sophistry as good-faith arguments. Meanwhile, prosecutors melt at the sight of the well-attorneyed-up rich, and go looking for some poor folks they can muscle into a plea agreement instead.
*Now I'm wondering, does the medical profession work the same way? Come up with enough money and you can find a doc who will do absolutely anything?
*cough*MichaelJackson*cough*
Also: DrNickRiviera.dot.gif
As Woodie Guthrie said, "Some men rob you with a six gun, some with a fountain pen" and that's the precise division between the criminal and civil court systems. Rich people always have the option to do their robbin' with the pen, when they're caught (which they're mostly not) the worst they can expect is to pay 5% of their ill-gotten gains in fines, while they're stretching the court case out, year after year, they're free to go about their business. NOBODY ever goes to jail.
He's been getting marriage counseling from David Brooks.
Don't we have a proliferation of conservative marriages that have collapsed recently, or it it my imagination?
No, I don't think your imagination has collapsed, per se...
Don't know how Roy managed to get inside Ginni's head, but I would bet serious folding money that this little scene is precisely what she thinks. Drunk or sober.
The inside of her head must be like a Hieronymus Bosch painting and 1970s swingers party. With Nazis.
Um, ew?
You do *not* want to see what that bird-demon and Leni Riefenstahl are up to in the lava-lamp hot tub!
🤮
'lava-lamp hot tub' is too much even for a band name...but I'll take it.
100% accurate. Possibly after you've dropped some very sketchy acid.
When did you start writing documentaries?
Bravo, you've conjured the dark goddess of the right in all her ghastly, appalling anti-splendor. Now I gotta barf.
A true story!
“…my li’l Sally Hemings”. o_O
I worked in Charlottesville for a decade. There’s people there gonna get mighty shirty in a hurry if they read that
"Shirty" is such a great word, I checked and it's a British usage, an American might say "Keep yer shirt on."
And don't you just love that Hairless brought up shirty? Well, I do, at least...
You’re talking about a guy who references the hair-care section at Target as the “Stuff for People With Hair Aisle”
We, who scrub our noggins with bar soap, salute you!
Fuck shampoo bottles!
Ginny can do her best Marie Antoinette, but she's never going to beat Kevin McCarthy making a speech about how we need to cut food stamps - on Wall Street. I know "optics" is an overused word in politics today, but Kevin couldn't have done better if he'd grown a mustache, waxed it and then twirled the ends while evicting a widow from her tenement.
Too low-profile for Snidely. Needs Little Nell and some rope and a nice long stretch of twisted, toxic-substance-enspilled railroad tracks...
"Like Dum-barton Oaks."
I think I sent that delightful line into the re-stack ether somewhere, but gotta put it here too because damn.
For all you non-locals this is close to home, in a snootiest-of-the-snooty Georgetown whitier-than-thou sort of way. The folks there even brag about how the ancestors treated the people they owned better than some other folks did.
This just in from Jacobin, re: the courtroom travails of Schmucker Carlson-land:
"Thanks to an arcane line in the tax code, Fox can deduct that settlement payment from its income taxes, according to a company spokesperson and tax experts consulted by the Lever. That’s because federal law allows taxpayers to write off many legal costs, providing that they are “ordinary and necessary” business expenses. The IRS has repeatedly affirmed that for major corporations, paying out settlements is just part of the cost of doing business."
So, bottom line: you, me and the magats down the block gotta pay more in taxes to make up for FoxSnooze shortin' the IRS.
I'd like to hear it from the horse and not just horsing around. Maybe we can get Hannity or even Trump to start saying this stuff openly and slaves to authority and corruption nodding along.
I work with such people. Some believe in corruption and hierarchy, with some above the law. Others have elaborate rationalization schemes to explain why God chooses some to have power.
In both cases, common sense goes out the window. The emperor may be naked but they never saw a finer outfit.
Just wait for some Democrat to be accused of exactly the same thing, and they'll instantly rediscover the principle that No Man Is Above The Law.
They're trying this bullshit on a couple of grand her husband made. Pathetic. https://dailycaller.com/2023/04/20/double-standard-ketanji-brown-jackson-financial-disclosure-supreme-court-clarence-thomas-ethics/