79 thoughts on “Picture This”

  4. for those who want more, here’s his monologue wherein

    Bill recaps the top stories of the week, including America’s semi-peaceful transition of power, President Biden’s first days in office and QAnon confusion.

  5. for schadenfreude crowd, by George, a lengthy oped in wapo and here’s a lengthy excerpt:

    And then, as the clock wound down on his time in office, he committed the ultimate impeachable offense for a president: fomenting a violent attempted putsch at the Capitol to stop Congress from confirming President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory. Prosecutors and jurors may have to decide whether it’s also a crime.
    Private citizen Trump stands stripped of the legal and practical protections against prosecution that he enjoyed during his tenure: constitutional immunity; a protective attorney general; a special counsel operating under self-imposed and external constraints; and the ability to invoke the presidency in litigation, even meritless litigation, to delay state prosecutors’ investigations. No longer will he be able to claim interference with his public duties, or to remove those who might allow damaging investigations to proceed.
    But Trump’s problem is ours as well: How the Biden administration addresses these issues will have long-lasting implications for the rule of law in America — along with potentially enormous political consequences.
    President Biden himself should stay out of it, and rightly seems intent on doing so. His Justice Department, however, can’t and shouldn’t. Previous presidents and previous prosecutors gave former presidents a break for their misdeeds: President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard M. Nixon; independent counsel Robert W. Ray (Kenneth W. Starr’s successor) reached a plea deal with President Bill Clinton on Clinton’s last day in office.
    Trump deserves no such grace. His wrongs are far too many to ignore. His demonstrated contempt for the constitutional and legal order is simply too great. That was clear enough before Trump’s repellent and possibly criminal efforts to overturn the election results, for which he was duly impeached. Now, an effort to hold Trump to account in the criminal justice system is essential and unavoidable.
    To deal with Trump, and to do so fairly, Attorney General-designate Merrick Garland, once confirmed, will need to use the mechanism of a special counsel. Indeed, given the astonishing breadth of Trump’s wrongdoing, Garland may need to appoint more than one to get the job done swiftly and thoroughly. What follows is a guide to how and why the case or cases, United States v. Donald John Trump, must be pursued.
    [continues here with what george’s list from russia to fraud with love and concludes with]
    But here’s the rub: With Trump, there’s so much to investigate criminally that one special counsel can’t do it all. Could you imagine one prosecutor in charge of addressing Trump’s finances and taxes, his hush-money payments, obstruction of the Mueller investigation, the Ukraine scandal, and post-election misconduct, for starters? It would be an impossible task for one team. One special counsel’s office couldn’t do it all, not in any reasonable amount of time, and it’s important for prosecutors to finish their work as quickly as possible. Three or four special counsels are needed. Under the regulations, each would be accountable to the attorney general.
    If that feels like overkill, hark back to the reason it’s required. The laundry list of potential crimes is the product of the brazenness of Trump’s behavior over decades. Trump’s modus operandi has been to do whatever he considers necessary in the moment and thinks he can get away with. It worked for far too long. Trump has managed to avoid serious legal repercussions — not just during his four years as president, but throughout his life.
    Trump’s presidency has ended. So, too, must his ability to dodge the consequences.

  7. Those who actively sought to overturn the election, and thereby overthrow the government of the people, and, some who are still acting with an air of sedition, those are the the ones who are screaming about unity.    

    There is no unity with traitors.  There is no unity with fascists.  There is no unity with members of Congress who are now trying to bring their guns into the Capitol to intimidate (or who knows what) other elected officials.

    Unity means that the seditionists either turn over a new, democratic leaf or be removed.

    Stop playing victim, you Republican traitors.

    The people are united with Biden and with what everything good this country stands for. You can be part of this or go to mother Russia, you traitors.

    You will NOT use unity to divide us.
    We will use unity to subtract you if you try to divide us.

  11. Patd

    Looking at that possible impeachment count, it could well be time for the Filibuster Rule to go or at least be heavily modified.

     

  16. I can understand keeping it for judges as those are lifetime appointments, but having it for legislation is ridiculous.

     

  17. Sadly, Larry King had to resort to Rushun TV.   He was a really good interviewer because let folks talk.   Covid is a rough way to go. RIP

  18. From what i heard, the supermajority required to convict is out of the Senators present for the vote, not out of 100, so that tally may be deceptive if some R’s decline to participate.
     
    Chill, BiD- we’re not the opposition, anymore

  19. Larry used to keep me company late at night while I was on the road and he was on late night radio long before he was on television……he always had great stories and great people calling in.   See ya ’round, Larry. Good company’s hard to find.

  22. i think Biden is set up to have the most successful Presidency of my lifetime.  I was anxious for four years- less so, now; just gotta keep my family and myself COVID-free for a few more months and i’ll be golden, knock on wood

  23. I will not “chill.”   You wake up.  
    Any critter dragging their heels or employing the filibuster will be seem as un-American and beholden to racists. 

  25. gonna give yourself a heart-attack, suit yourself🤷‍♂️

    i’ll bet doughnuts to dollars the Freedom Caucus ain’t reading trailmix so who the hell you yelling at?

  26. Stations come to mind……50,000 watt stations……..WSM KOA WLS WCKY WOWO WBAP WLAC

    Seems like there was a big one in Wheeling W Va but i cant remember the letters.

  29. …barely kept our republic, barely took the Senate, lost seats in the house, and you people want purges.  Good use of political capital?  Probably not.
     
    The Congresspeople that had their lives threatened have the impetus to pursue potential charges, the new Justice Department will conduct its investigations, and i’ll be content to have faith in those institutions for like a week, at least?  Hopefully longer, right?

  30. An objectively successful first 100 days of the Biden Admin. will do way more damage to the GOP than 100 days of attempted retribution 

  31. The common ground IS humanity. Once we learn the irrefutable worth of compassion… we may not have reached millennium, but we have traveled a sizable distance toward some kind of perfection that has not been our lot since the beginning of time.

    –Rod Serling

  32. Have to agree with the first 100 days point as well……..think I’ll chop some damn wood and then crack a beer.

  33. i see Biden won the popular vote, but not around here!  i gotta coexist with these rank-and-file Republican loons- and they all have private arsenals and giant trucks, for no good reason.
     
    They commute in giant trucks!  Those fucking abominations get like 11 mpg

    They were all so sad, last Wednesday, it almost precipitated white conservative tears, and there was nary a cloud in the sky- was a pretty nice day🙂

    They were all walking around like this:

  34. Sturg…  that’s the problem with doing work for someone else.  I no longer do “custom” work.  Here’s my stuff…  if you want one, good… if you don’t… someone else will want it.  But I will admit that what you do probably pays the bills better than the way I work.
     
    Did someone say bobcats…   a once elusive animal is now prevalent around here.  Same with Eastern coyotes.  That’s why the 2 kittens I got from a friend a year and a half ago are indoor cats only.

  35. I always thought when Dems last won the “trifecta” with Obama they were too accommodating to GOP, didnt get enough done for the people to keep Congress in the midterm. Hope they’ve learned their lesson, end filibuster so they don’t have to dilute their agenda. 

  36. BiD, potus joe has not come out against the filibuster. in fact according to realclearpolitics:

    White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki confirmed to RealClearPolitics during a Friday press briefing that the new president remains opposed to abolishing the parliamentary procedure that requires the Senate to meet a 60-vote threshold on most legislation.
    “The president’s position hasn’t changed,” Psaki told RCP after dodging the same question on Thursday and as Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell remain stalled in negotiations over how best to share power in a chamber split 50-50.
    The president has weighed in personally on those negotiations, she added, saying that “in conversations with both now-Leader Schumer and Senator McConnell that they need to have their conversations, of course, but he is eager to move his [COVID] rescue plan forward.” What Psaki didn’t say: Whether Biden would urge Democrats to take abolishing the filibuster off the table. They have balked at that request from McConnell so far, showing little interest in giving in to his demands as they take the reins of power.

    so do you think prez joe is unamerican?

  37. 2 years ago john oliver addressed the value of the filibuster

    John Oliver explains why filibusters exist, why they shouldn’t, and why it’s stupid to drink coffee like a cat.

  38. be sure to catch john oliver’s point starting at 12:26 and the reason mitch in his own words likes the filibuster at 13:11

  43. the grio:

    TIME marks start of Biden’s presidency with cover of Oval Office trashed by Trump

    This week, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris made history, and now TIME Magazine has released their commemorative cover celebrating the first day of the administration, which also sends a clear message about the proverbial mess left behind by former President Donald Trump.

    Both Biden and Harris were named TIME’s Person of the Year after receiving a record-breaking 81 million votes.

  44. think this might end up being quoted during the senate trial?

    the hill:

    The attorney for Anthony Chansley, the so-called QAnon Shaman who made rounds on social media for his outlandish outfit during the Capitol riot, is blaming former President Trump for his client’s involvement. 

    “He regrets very, very much having not just been duped by the president but by being in a position where he allowed that duping to put him in a position to make decisions he should not have made,” Al Watkins, a lawyer for Chansley, told Missouri’s NBC-affiliated television station KSDK.

    […]

    “Let’s roll the tape. Let’s roll the months of lies and misrepresentations and horrific innuendo and hyperbolic speech by our president designed to inflame, enrage, motivate,” Watkins told KSDK. “What’s really curious is the reality that our president, as a matter of public record, invited these individuals, as president, to walk down to the Capitol with him.”

  45. Sturgeone

    On the West Coast it was XTRA on either side of the border.  They just pronounced the call letters.  To this day I still say (phoneticallly) Ekas Te Erra Ah.  One thing I loved in American Graffiti was hearing Wolfman Jack again.  That film is still fun for me as it is set in Modesto just up the road from my mom’s family in Fresno.  “Where were you in ’62?” always rings a bell.  That would have been my graduation year if I hadn’t started school early so ended up graduating in ’61.

  46. This latest reveal about Trump unsuccessfully trying to subvert DOJ again gives me thanks to them and the courts, and state elections officials for saving us from this madman.

  47. What a delightful day it has been.  No drama, no questions regarding what the executive branch is doing.  Only enjoying Bernie memes, cats for caturday, and what my crazy Finn cousins are doing in the dark.

  48. Just had an angry email from a relative in California about Biden undoing all of the things tRUMPsky did.   She was miserable during the inauguration and hopes “Demos” wake up.   
    Rather than respond with a non-response about something else as I usually do to keep the peace, I unloaded on her.
    She’s a holier-than-thou Christian, and, her dad fought the Nazis.  I reminded her of his service and told her how happy I was on Wednesday and that if she wanted to look at a man walking a Christian life, to look at Biden. 

    That will be the last time I hear from her.  Probably won’t hear from her brothers, either.    That leaves another half-dozen in California I haven’t pissed off yet, and, a brother in KC I won’t talk politics with because I just don’t know and am afraid to find out.   

    It might just be me and my 80-year old dad who liked what we saw on Wednesday.

  49. Ruth Buzzi used to make the bestest “Caturday” tweets.    Reminds me that I haven’t seen her in quite a while.    

  50. That was a funny thing……the iconic things which I never experienced first hand……Wolfman Jack I never heard actually on the radio.  He didnt reach SC.  There were lots of others for one reason or another, usually because their network…..Beanie and Cecil…..Soupy Sayles, Uncle Miltie, Sid Caesar, Bonanza…..We didnt get those guys.  We DID get Jackie Gleason, Ed Sullivan, Mousketeers, Crusader Rabbit, Topper, Friday Night Fights, and of course Lucy. We only had one channel on the Tee-Vee……
    A weird admixture.

  51. Wolfman Jack claimed national noterietay in the film, “American Graffiti.” 

    After that, he had a hit song of his own.

  52. You’re awfully judgmental for someone who made it their mission to help torpedo HRC’s campaign by parroting Russo-Republican disinformation, BiD
     
    Living in perpetual anger seems like a lousy way to spend one’s time on this earth

  53. lol
    “Fade Out!”
    When we found ourselves stuck playing the end of some song or another not knowing how to get out of it and it threatened to go on forever of its own accord, sooner or later someone would yell “FADE OUT!”  and everyone would try to decrease the volume at more or less the same rate……got to be one of the greatest of cliche jokes……

  54. Sturgeone

    California got all of those.  I remember the original Beany and Cecil when they were puppets not cartoons.  The Wolfman was very big pretty much as shown in Graffiti along with cruising and the drive ins.

    Of course CA only had about 16 million people then.  The destruction of paradise is another reason for my hatred of way too many human beings on the planet. 

     

  55. As I was often reminded four years ago, I live in a red state, my vote doesn’t count in presidential elections, and, I have no political power.  
    In fact, although I voted for Biden, I still live in a red state which gave him zero EC votes, so what I did really didn’t matter this time, either.  
    I will be as happy or pissed off as I choose to be.  ~Thank you~ for trying to MANage me. 

  58. It’d be like something from a movie……dead of night 2, 3, 4 in the morning, 80 mph, the miles just melting away and still a long way to go.   Getting away from a town with the radio trying to fade out and crackle you twist the knob and the dial goes down or up thru the squealing and the static, and then if you were real lucky thru the mist would come Larry King.  From Brooklyn. He would always let you know that he was from Brooklyn.

  60. i was trying to listen to AM the other day and couldn’t get a single clear signal- maybe because the air was so cold and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky🤷‍♂️

  61. It was Larry’s job to keep you awake as you tooled cross-country in the wee hours.   And, of course you had no idea what he looked like.    

  63. …actually heard some amazingly ethereal indo-asian music but it was overlapped with some focus on the family type crap, what a buzzkill😭

  64. Radio itself is totally weird now, anyway.   It’s there, it’s still generating revenue, but it plays mostly a bunch of strange stuff.   NPR is the best of the lot and they got their times where the going gets a bit thick, then all the country stations, and the “classic” rock   (definitely not “classic”) the flood of ADVERTISING……..I keep hearing The Bee Gees…….”STAYIN’ A-LIVE!  STAYIN’ A-LIVE!”  Ah-ha-ha-ha Stayin’ a-LIIIIIIIIIVE……. even though that’s one which you ain’t about to hear anywhere on today’s radio.     They’re hangin’ in, more power to ’em.

  65. Maybe…….if some radio station took a notion……and just started replaying old tapes recorded in the fifties.  Now THAT and you might be on to something………you know, they could still break in and tell ya if there was a wreck out on the 4-lane or something.

  67. I have CD’s, downloads in MP3, Sirius and the occasional oldies station along the way.  There are still a few oldies stations which are not part of the national corporate play the same thing group.

  68. The best station here, aside from NPR, is a teaching station; Mesquite school radio. They play 70s-90s music and have a professional DJ on the weekend.  For my afternoon drive, however, it’s the kids giving weather and traffic.  You can hear them get better as the weeks on the air go by.  It’s nice.  
    I did one radio show in high school during halftime.  Getting in and out of the press box was a comical nightmare.  Once was enough. 

  69. There was always something special about hearing a favorite song on the weekly countdown.  It was different than playing it for myself, because I knew other folks were enjoying it, too.   Spent many a Sunday in my grandpa’s car with a transistor radio, trying to get a radio station to come in and listen in privacy (that’s why I sat in the car).

  70. just finished the new yorker story “among the insurrectionists” by mogelson.  wow. scaaarrry.

    he not only wrote about being among them during the capitol invasion but also the million mega march. am surprised he’s alive to tell about it.  those folks are batshitcrazy. 

  71. BB – Do you have the same songs in multiple formats?  I do.  Here Queen, just take more of my money, again and again.   The only thing that didn’t last were the cassette tapes.  What a crappy medium.  

  74. I have some, I consider the MP3’s to be temporary as the drives are overwritten occasionally.  Many of the MP3’s are created from the vinyl or CD’s.  I also download from Amazon Prime Music and create MP3’s from those.  Now that I have a quiet vehicle I need to make CD’s which are better quality.  In the diesel pickup much of the sound quality is missed.

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