Everyone is talking about Smirnov when we should be talking about Weiss.

There are other threads that go further back into this mess, but here is something to chew on courtesy of Dr. Wheeler (re: the indictment):

It describes that after Pittsburgh closed their assessment (something Bill Barr has public disputed), the FBI interviewed Smirnov again, and he lied again.

It doesn’t describe that after Smirnov changed his story, and days after (in October 2020) Donald Trump yelled at Bill Barr about Hunter Biden, Richard Donoghue ordered David Weiss to accept a briefing on the FD-1023.

And the timing of the claimed investigation stinks.

It claims that some time in July 2023, the FBI asked David Weiss to help investigate the source that Weiss had been ordered to integrate into his investigation years before.

Now, perhaps it’s a good thing that David Weiss didn’t know he was (at least per Ziegler, who — bizarrely — has more credibility than the people who have a stack of warrants and lots more metadata) falsely claiming that this picture depicted cocaine. Perhaps that means he didn’t breach Hunter’s privileged communications with Ablow and read what the then still-licensed psychiatrist had to say to his client.

But he has just made the competence of his team’s forensic analysis an issue, and done so in a filing in which Derek Hines appears to be claiming they don’t need any expert forensic reports.

The interplay between Special Counsel David Weiss’ prosecutions of Hunter Biden and Alexander Smirnov is going to take a lot of unpacking. Biden’s attorneys began to do some of that in filings yesterday, claiming that it had been Smirnov’s bogus allegations that undid the plea deal Biden had agreed to last summer.

The suggestion from the Biden camp is that Weiss seized on Smirnov’s claims well after the fact and hoped to use them to prosecute Biden, which is why prosecutors suddenly could no longer promise that the plea deal would extinguish all of Biden’s outstanding criminal liabilities.

Eventually Smirnov’s claims proved false, but Biden is still facing criminal charges on both coasts that would have been resolved but for Weiss being initially duped by Smirnov. At least that’s the argument.

Who should take over Twitter when it collapses?

Can the government claim it as a public resource? Maybe a non-profit funded by transparent foundations? Can it somehow be made open source? Maybe make it a cooperatively owned business? A worker owned coop? A worker owned non-profit coop? A Union worker owned non-profit coop?

Just thinking ahead...

Do we really want to control the house by only one seat?

The more i think about it the worse it feels. Several Manchins in the caucus would wreak havoc on any policy agenda. If we don't get things done the backlash in '24 might lose us the Presidency. If Republicans have the one seat advantage and can't get their shit together, or if they try and pass things (involving SS and Medicare) that causes division among their caucus... all to the better outcome for '24. Thoughts here?

Here's Josh at TPM thinking these thoughts too?:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/yes-she-might-still-be-speaker-in-january

"Let me add one sort of odd note here. There’s actually a pretty good argument that it’s in Democrats’ political interests not to get the majority here.

I’ve said repeatedly that the coming debt ceiling fight is the whole thing. It’s everything. It is. But there are also liabilities to holding a narrow majority. When you control everything in Washington or appear to, every problem is on you. Every election at least defaults to a referendum on how you did rather than a choice between two options. As we’ve just seen, it doesn’t always end up that way. But that’s the default. You also build up a certain thermostatic, partisan pressure for a shift in power. If Democrats hold both houses of Congress, you go into 2024 with Republicans shut out of power in Washington for four years. And as we’ve discussed, 2024 is the big deal. That’s when everything will be on the line. Not just the Congress but the White House too."

Seven Rules for Surviving the Media's Election Mania...

My candidate for town clerk won by 1 vote yesterday!

Your vote REALLY MATTERS! Especially in local elections. We had a contested election for town clerk. 3 candidates. The vote count was 98-97-95. A really tight race! My wife and I brought our candidate over the line! Go Democracy!

WaPo opinion article worth a read...

...if you can get past the paywall that is


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/07/goldberg-rogan-ben-and-jerrys-commentators-who-dont-know-what-theyre-talking-about/

My whole kitchen crew is on quarantine...

except me, my supervisor and 1 dishwasher. That's 8 people out, our whole night crew and half our day people. One person tested positive on Tuesday and another on Wednesday. They will all be getting sick hours from the covid relief fund. Here's the kicker though... the reason me, my supervisor and that one dishwasher (from Tibet btw) are still working? We are the only 3 who were vaxxed and boosted (and asymptomatic). I have burned down my sick hours (even some vacation hours) because of lack of daycare or being super cautious about household members having any symptoms. I feel like I'm being punished for being responsible. I have an unvaccinated toddler at home... and speaking of which he is demanding my attention. Not sure where i'm going with this... except that i've been disgruntled about this all day and needed to vent. Also i have a slight tickle in my throat and damned if that isn't slightly worrying.

We need a National Referendum on Abortion.

I'd like to know how much the will of the people will be subverted by this conservative SC! I would think close to 70% of this country favors Abortion rights... maybe more. Other than the vote for President, why don't we ever have referenda? Is there a "state's rights" law against it or something?

Concise psycho social analysis...

poached from a dKos thread:

"Embarrassment, guilt, and shame, assume normal emotional responses and normal moral frameworks.

Trump’s inner circle is a narcissist/sociopath symbiosis: a powerful narcissist (Trump) surrounded by sociopaths (Miller, Manafort, Stone, etc.). They feed off each others pathologies.

McMoscow isn’t a narcissist or sociopath as far as I can observe, he’s just “merely” the pinnacle and paradigm of corruption.

Sociopaths and corrupt actors have this in common:

They have no morals.

The GOP has become the locus and epicenter of moral nihilism in America, and the “normalization” of moral nihilism.

This is actually deeply troubling to a lot of people on the Republican side of the fence, but they “go along to get along,” just as the proverbial “good Germans” did in the early Nazi era, until it was too late to get out.

If we start making serious noise about moral values, we could reach a lot of those voters and further energize a lot of our own voters."

Full thread here:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/5/12/2030181/-Lincoln-Project-Springs-Trap?utm_campaign=trending#comment_80924877


I would argue that we need to "make serious noise" about the current ABROGATION of moral values... or DISDAIN of them even. We've already been making noise about their hypocritical morals.