"Our former president WANTS to wear the orange jumpsuit. He's just taunting them now, asking for it. Can this be seen as anything but contemptuous behavior?"

Writes mezzrow in the comments to the first post of the day, which is about Trump's saying things like "This is a disgrace to our Legal System/Judge Merchan should be immediately sanctioned and recused."

Trump wants a prison sentence? I don't believe that. I think he's fighting hard, in his own stubbornly perverse, insubordinate, rebellious way.

But if he gets what mezzrow thinks he wants, and if he's also elected President, how would that work? I recommend house arrest in the White House.

You may not remember, but back in 2009, I recommended that the President of the United States stay in the White House and not travel: "Let the President stay in the White House — or, at most, retreat to Camp David." I was thinking of the expense and carbon footprint of Presidential travel and all of the security needs and risk as well as the world's extreme dependence on the U.S. President to be constantly on the job to deal with emergencies. 

So it would set a good example for President Trump to serve his term under house arrest. And let the rest of the U.S. Presidents voluntarily confine themselves to the White House. If any personal appearances are truly needed, they can be virtual....

"We’re an employer too, the state of Michigan is... I know if that [vaccine] mandate happens, we’re going to lose state employees."

"That’s why I haven’t proposed a mandate at the state level. Some states have. We have not, we’re waiting to see what happens in court." 

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said on Monday, quoted in "Dems begin souring on vaccine mandates" (Politico). 

As for Biden, unnamed Democrats have "concerns... that they’re ending up with the worst of all worlds: a blunt policy that won’t go into effect but that will saddle them politically." As one "strategist" put it: "it’s just another thing added to the pile of shit that he’s already been dealing with." We're told: "Aides are convinced that the mandates are necessary to finally tamp down the pandemic, which they believe is Biden’s political end-all, be-all." 

Supposedly, Biden "wanted to steer clear of the politicization that has hampered much of the Covid-19 response, viewing mandates as a concept that could easily spark blowback." He's the President. Why didn't he get what he wanted? Others prevailed, somehow, and he's stuck with the political problem. 

"A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds that 55% of Republicans falsely believe Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election was the result of illegal voting or rigging."

"Additionally, 60% of Republicans incorrectly agree that the election was stolen from Republican Donald Trump." 

CNN reports, aggressively inserting the view that the people who were polled are wrong. I believe that's a very unusual way to report an opinion poll, with insistence that the opinion is wrong and apart from any factual reporting that makes it perfectly obvious that the opinion is mistaken. 

This displays a desperate fear of the opinion, and I don't think it does much good. The urge to stamp the opinion out will tend to make those who hold it grip more tightly: What are they afraid of? Are they trying to get me to move on, telling me there's nothing to see here?

CNN continues:

What is perfectly clear, however, is that Republicans' lack of faith in our current election infrastructure is a direct result of Trump's historic efforts to undermine the legitimacy of the 2020 results.

It's "perfectly clear" why people have this opinion? This is a news article, reporting a poll, and it's making an absolute assertion about why human beings believe what they do. That doesn't inspire confidence. It makes people suspicious, perhaps paranoid. 

FROM THE EMAIL: Cheryl writes: 

“Election infrastructure...” 

Seems like that word is being softened up to mean anything they want it to mean. Wonder why. 

Good catch. I'll boldface the word in the quoted text above. Cheryl's right. There's been a lot of talk lately from Democrats around the word "infrastructure." I was just saying: "It's a propaganda word to the core."

AND: Temujin emails:

"There may be a new genre: liberals expressing 'buyers remorse' over the culture they have created."

"Here's a talk between Bill Kristol and James Carville on the 2020 election and what came after. You'd think the two would be ecstatic, exultant. Trump is gone. The Dems are spraying money on citizens like cheap perfume on a whore. White men make up 14% of the class at the many Ivy League colleges. Good times. But these two are somber.. Bill Kristol keeps begging Carville to tell him where the Democrats are going and Carville seems to think the Democrats have a flimsy, rickety coalition that will fall apart if the Dems keep saying 'people of color' and 'Latinix' and keep canceling people of whom the Amherst College English department disapproves. Carville seems to regard Biden as the man standing between the Dems and the deluge. Perhaps 'buyers remorse' isn't quite the term I'm looking for - maybe 'Belshazzar's Feast.'"

Writes Wild Swan in the email. I tried watching the video.... 

 

... but the video and audio on Carville's side is horrible. Unwatchable. Is he filming from a laptop on his lap? What a ridiculous place for a laptop! I don't know why the audio is also herky-jerky, and bad audio with his idiosyncratic manner of speaking is unintelligible. And that's quite aside from whether he's making good points (and good sense).

But — lo and behold — there's a transcript! I can skim, and I can cut and paste:

"I get your point, but fresh and Joe Biden are two things that just don't go together."

Says mezzrow, reacting to my reaction to Blogger telling us about its new interface and saying it has "a fresh feel."

I'd said: "Rereading this I paused to visualize 'a fresh feel.' Somehow Joe Biden was in the picture." I was picturing his various old-mannish gropings of women and girls. (This one is fake.)

Mezzrow continued: "Does anyone use 'fresh' as a synonym of 'boorish and handsy' any more? I understood immediately, but then Althouse and I are in the same age cohort."

That makes me old enough to remember 1985, and this is as fresh as ever:



Wikipedia: "The song introduced a new meaning to the word 'fresh,' meaning 'good.'"

The top definition for "fresh" at Urban Dictionary is "This word originated during the 80's hip hop era in New York hip hop culture. It was used to describe something new or nice." So Kool & the Gang's usage is also historical.

But Urban Dictionary does treat "get fresh" like part of the living language: "The act of a guy or girl, (commonly used when describing a guy) making (or attempting to make) covert advances towards the object of their affection, typically to illicit sex later on, or 'test the waters' for further advances, typically physcial [sic] in nature." ADDED: I think they meant "typically to elicit sex," but you might elicit illicit sex.