"To me, 'he looks homeless' is loaded with classism. But it's true that Bernie looks like he doesn't care—and that's what makes his outfits great."

"The irony is that the more you chase this quality, the more affected you can look. And certainly, not everyone who 'doesn't care' looks great (Fetterman comes to mind). This is why style writers are so obsessed with this quality. To me, if you constantly chase the idea of middle class respectability, you can end up looking a bit stiff an uninspired. But if you open your mind to wider expressions of style, you'll not only enjoy what you see around you, but you'll be more stylish as a result."

Writes Derek Guy, at X, after writing this Politico article — "Congress Is Falling Apart /But These 5 Guys Look Good Doing It" — which caused Meghan McCain's husband (Ben Domenech) to say that he once saw Bernie Sanders and mistook him for a homeless man.

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok: "Tell me about the idea, expressed by fashion writers, that looking like you don't care how you look is actually a great look to pursue."

"Obviously, the FDRLST employees are not literally being sent back to the salt mine. Idioms have, however, hidden meanings."

"In viewing the totality of the circumstances surrounding the tweet, this tweet had no other purpose except to threaten the FDRLST employees with unspecified reprisal, as the underlying meaning of ‘salt mine’ so signifies."

Wrote Judge Kenneth Chu, quoted in "The Federalist Publisher’s Tweet Was Illegal: Labor Board Judge" (Bloomberg Law), about a tweet by FDRLST Media chief Ben Domenech. It's considered a minor violation and the remedy is only that the company must give the employees notice of the violation and tell them they have the right to unionize.

Interestingly, Domenech doesn't have to delete the tweet. Here it is:

FYI @fdrlst first one of you tries to unionize I swear I'll send you back to the salt mine

— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) June 7, 2019

I don't know how old Chu is or how old the workers at The Federalist are, but Domenech is 38, which is 3 decades younger than I am, but I want to tell you about the idiom "back to the salt mine," as I understand it, which has to do how it was used in the mid-20th century, when it was common. I don't think it's common today. Domenech sounds like a much older person and he's using what I see as a cornball locution. It's completely out of touch to threaten workers like that. I'm not quarreling with the judge's rejection of the argument that it's just a joke.

Anyway, "back to the salt mine" — at least in the old days — used to be something people said when they were going to work. It didn't mean they had a bad or onerous job or that they hated their job. It was a lighthearted hyperbole — a way to say "I'm going to work." It often meant that the job was easy. It's a type of corny exaggeration that men years ago would say with a smile — like calling your wife "the old ball and chain."

I have no idea if Domenech had the right colloquial feeling for the old expression. He wrote "send you back to back to the salt mine." Seems like he's mixing the expression up with something else. And it was a dumb thing to say. Don't scare employees about their right to unionize!

Finally some attention to my suggestion that Mitt Romney is the man to fix Obamacare.

I said it back in October.

Picked up today by Ben Domenech and Hot Air.