#guy choate

[getoutofthisplace]

Dear Gus & Magnus,

For the second year in a row we've gotten a summer membership to the Leawood Pool. Mom and Gus have gotten the most use out of the membership, but the whole fam got into the action today. It's a good vibe and a lot of our favorite family friends also have memberships. Tonight we ran into Will and Lu, which was nice.

Dad.

Little Rock, Arkansas. 6.18.2025 - 6.47pm.

[piixelsims]

- 5k sim dump -

heyyyyyyyyyy! THANK YOU for 5k followers on instagram! to celebrate i'm bringing you a sim dump! thank you everyone for all your support and love! <3 love you guys!!

- if you want to check out my instagram you can do that here

- if you wanna check out my youtube channel, you can find it here

Anywayyy, you can find these sims HERE

- sims in left to right order -

Vanessa Houston / Lorena Choate

Naomi Norris / Bianca Alston

- they have their everyday outfits done.

- all i ask is that you don’t reupload and claim as your own! okay? ty <3

- i don’t own any of this custom content and i wanna thank all the cc creators for making these amazing pieces!

[strryhaze]

agreed but what gets me about this picture is that people always pull this out and say it’s jfk with lem billings but who’s gonna tell them that’s literally Not lem billings and just some random choate friend. like it’s literally just some Guy.

[melancholicstation]

JFK JR. ARRANGED MARRIAGE TROPE HEADCANONS.

tags: @obsessedwithjohnjr @candyneckl6ce @rocker-chick-7@ultr4v1ol3nt@violetharmonsfavgf@strip-weather-forecast@darcyspirits@fortheloveofjos@h-l-v-kennedy-blog@h-l-vlovesvintage@bluelancergirl@snowsgames@salvatoresablondie@dulcegal@kennedyism@bloxholden35@kimcrystal123@absurdlyvintage @jackiesgirl @chemicalw0rld@remotewatch@starsprangledgirl@strryhaze @beloved-angel

you're most probably some heiress of a discrete yet hallowed american fashion house who knew the kennedy's through familial connections

i singularly picture the brand label 'carven' (only because I've seen their latest collection at a mall and fell unendingly in love with a chemise) but act accordingly to your own whims and/or imagination

perhaps your father went to choate during the same schooling period as jack did, or maybe your mother hit it off with jacqueline during her college years at vassar bonding over a shared adoration of all things equestrian

and that's pretty much how all the plotting would start between your parents and his parents

at first it would be on a strictly parasitic basic, mutually-beneficial to the nth degree serving both you and john handsomely.

for him it helped lessen the media constant critique and unbridled fury at his unending streak as a 'bachelor of new york high society'

in short it pleased both his family who upheld image at the cost of wellbeing or truth, and the public at large.

for you it aided in quietly the pleas of your parents to get married or settle down in some retrospect.

they were being ridiculous and unabashedly old-fashioned, i mean you were twenty-six not dead!

you two begin going out on dates, to ease the media publications into the idea of the two of you as to not absolutely blindside them with news of engagement that had already been secretly planned before you two were even spotted in public together for the first time.

for a while it was entirely transactional, quite literally as the only time you two would interact is to be seen on the way to a nouveau-riche member's only bar in which the drinks are egregiously named but they seem to redeem themselves with complimentary beluga caviar

but you'd be surprised how much a person, or more so how John could endear himself to you in the such brief moments you two were in each other's company

despite this it wasn't all smooth sailings for the both of you, i would expect many insecure lashings-out from you and john wondering if because of the origins of your guys' relationship if the two of you were doomed from the start

but because john's a lover man (derogatorily) he's always the one to apologise first

after all you were raised in the classic old money norms, meaning you weren't ever taught how to correctly sincerely apologise for anything in your whole life ever.

you two are pretty nonchalant went it comes to wedding planning, but both sets of parents had been running around like mad men in preparation ever since a save-the-date had been sent out to the who's who of american society

for the wedding atmosphere think: sea inspired delicacies for the reception sustenance such as this or this, d. porthault for the place settings in this specific pattern and for the wedding registry, vows written on old paper and tied with ribbon, a boutique hotel for the honeymoon night far away from the prying eyes of the in laws, beer on tap served in this gag-gift set of beer mugs you'd received during your first year spending the holiday festivities with the kennedy family

how i (doesn't mean you have to. like at all) picture the wedding dress (now you may see this dress as ugly, to that i say it is an old-money heiress. show me an old-money heiress with subtle taste and i'll show you someone who's lying!)

reception would be somewhere nautical maybe on a dock perhaps.

perhaps the venue in which jack antonoff and margaret qualley got married as it was so darling in the pictures released.

okay. goodbye, that's all my thoughts for now. love you 🍛

[cogitoergofun]

Cameras in the common areas of Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center were supposed to make the troubled southern Illinois facility safer for the approximately 200 people with developmental disabilities who live there.

But in mid-February, a camera caught a mental health technician grabbing a patient by the shirt, throwing him to the floor and punching him in the stomach, according to court records.

Although the worker has since been indicted, for 11 days following the incident, the employee continued to work on the same unit without consequence or restriction until an anonymous letter prompted an investigator to go looking for the video. During that time, no one at the facility, including witnesses to the event, reported the abuse, according to public records.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration announced in March the plan to install cameras in the wake of an ongoing news investigation by Capitol News Illinois and ProPublica that unearthed a culture of cruelty, abuse, neglect and cover-ups at Choate. The administration also announced it would move 123 individuals from the facility. So far, 34 Choate residents have moved, mostly to other state-operated developmental centers.

The cameras were supposed to deter employees from mistreating patients or to quickly dispel false allegations of abuse by keeping a record of interactions. But a little-discussed provision, intended to protect workers’ rights and patients’ privacy, almost kept the incident from coming to light: The video can only be reviewed if there is an allegation of abuse or neglect.

The anonymous letter that sparked the investigation accused mental health technician John Curtis “Curt” Spaulding of attacking a patient on Feb. 12. The allegation led investigators to access video from that day to determine if the accusation was valid. Records show that it took until Feb. 23 for Choate security to review the video.

Within hours of that review, Spaulding submitted his resignation. Another employee, Shushya Salley, was placed on paid administrative leave after the video emerged. Though her involvement isn’t clear, the form referring the case to the state police, from the Illinois Department of Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General, noted that there were witnesses. If Salley witnessed the abuse, she was required to report it within four hours. She did not respond to requests for comment.

During a phone interview on Thursday, Spaulding denied abusing any patients. He said he resigned because he was tired of the poor working conditions and difficult schedules at Choate.

The OIG, which is charged with looking into allegations of abuse and neglect, investigated Spaulding five times in the past three years, records show. None of the prior allegations were substantiated.

“I was better to those guys than 90% of the people who work there,” Spaulding told a reporter. “But I was never one to let them walk all over me.”

Spaulding, who has worked at Choate since 2015, said he believed that policy revisions have kept patients who have had emotional outbursts from facing any consequences, and that in turn has led to the facility “going to shit.”

Tyler Tripp, the state’s attorney in Union County, where Choate is located, did not respond to questions about the incident, though Illinois State Police records indicate the agency presented the case to him in March. A grand jury indicted Spaulding on Thursday on a felony charge of aggravated battery and a charge of misdemeanor battery.

Spaulding has not appeared to enter a plea. He is scheduled to appear in court on July 1.

Of the more than 20 employees identified as being charged with felonies on suspicion of abusing patients at Choate or covering it up during the news organizations’ ongoing investigations, only two were convicted of a felony. One of those defendants was later allowed to withdraw his plea and plead down to a misdemeanor. Not one employee, even those who caused serious injuries, has received prison time for abusing a patient.

[bobcross1010]

GUYS CLOCKWORK CHOAT 3 IS DONE

[wanderingmind867]

My US Voting Record:

I made this with the help of wikipedia, google and posts like voting guides which I found online.

Note: I would have been a Monarchist during the Revolutionary War, but I'd probably still vote if living in America (No matter how displeased the revolution made me, I'd probably still always be willing to vote). But to show my dissatisfaction, every vote until 1824 is a protest vote:

1788: Nobody (I refuse to vote for George Washington). Maybe a write in protest vote for King George III?

1792: Nobody (I refuse to vote for George Washington). Maybe a write in protest vote for King George III?

1796: Maybe a write in protest vote for King George III?

1800: Maybe a write in protest vote for King George III?

1804: Maybe a write in protest vote for King George III?

1808: Maybe a write in protest vote for King George III?

1812: Protest Vote for King George III (I can't vote for anyone after the War of 1812 got started)

1816: Protest Vote for King George III (again, I don't know if I'd be able to forgive anyone after the War of 1812)

1820: Protest Vote for King George IV (I can't support Monroe after he helped fight 1812 against Canada and the British).

1824: Henry Clay/Nathan Sanford

1824 Contingent: John Quincy Adams

1828: John Quincy Adams/Richard Rush

1832: Henry Clay/John Sergeant

1836: Daniel Webster/Francis Granger or William Henry Harrison/Francis Granger

1840: William Henry Harrison/John Tyler

1844: Henry Clay/Theodore Frelinghuysen

1848: Martin Van Buren/Charles F. Adams

1852: John P. Hale/George W. Julian

1856: John C. Frémont/William L. Dayton

1860: Abraham Lincoln/Hannibal Hamlin

1864: Abraham Lincoln/Andrew Johnson

1868: Ulysses S. Grant/Schuyler Colfax

1872: Horace Greeley/Benjamin Gratz Brown

1876: Samuel Tilden/Thomas A. Hendricks

1880: James A. Garfield/Chester A. Arthur

1884: Grover Cleveland/Thomas A. Hendricks

1888: Benjamin Harrison/Levi P. Morton

1892: James B. Weaver/James G. Field

1896: William Jennings Bryan/Thomas E. Watson

1900: William Jennings Bryan/Adlai Stevenson I

1904: Eugene V. Debs/Benjamin Hanford

1908: William Jennings Bryan/John Kern

1912: Eugene V. Debs/Emil Seidel

1916: Allan L. Benson/George R. Kirkpatrick

1920: Eugene V. Debs/Seymour Stedman

1924: Robert M. LaFollette/Burton K. Wheeler

1928: Al Smith/Joseph T. Robinson (although Herbert Hoover and Charles Curtis aren't bad either. I might've been a prohibitionist then, considering I hate the taste of alcohol. But Smith opposed lynching. So he gets my vote).

1932: Norman Thomas/James H. Maurer

1936: Norman Thomas/George A. Nelson

1940: Norman Thomas/Maynard Krueger

1944: Norman Thomas/Darlington Hoopes

1948: Henry A. Wallace/Glen H. Taylor

1952: Adlai Stevenson II/John Sparkman

1956: Adlai Stevenson II/Estes Kefauver

1960: Richard Nixon/Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (Solely because I hate JFK)

1964: Lyndon B. Johnson/Hubert Humphrey

1968: Hubert Humphrey/Edmund Muskie

1972: George McGovern/Sargent Shriver (although I still really like Thomas Eagleton as VP)

1976: Gerald Ford/Bob Dole

1980: Jimmy Carter/Walter Mondale

1984: Walter Mondale/Geraldine Ferraro

1988: Willa Kenoyer/Ron Ehrenreich (I hear Michael Dukakis went to high school with the guy who founded the Judge Rotenberg Centre, which is a terrible place. So I can't vote for Dukakis. Can't take a chance on him with that history).

1992: Ross Perot/James Stockdale

1996: Ross Perot/Pat Choate

2000: Ralph Nader/Winona Laduke

2004: Ralph Nader/Peter Camejo

2008: Ralph Nader/Matt Gonzalez

2012: Barack Obama/Joe Biden (Beginning in 2012, I'd probably start voting for Democrats more often because I felt I had no choice. But I'm still a bit unhappy with them. Haven't been since 1988 or 1992).

2016: Gloria La Riva/Eugene Puryear

2020: Joe Biden/Kamala Harris (My heart says Howie Hawkins/Angela Walker, however).

[gchoate17]

My New Year’s resolution for 2020 was to document – in writing – one whole day per month. I had no idea at the time what 2020 would become, but now that we do know, my journal serves as a kind of pandemic progress report for my own life. The entry for April 2020 documents the fourth anniversary of my marriage to Liz as well as the first stages of the coronavirus. Staying home still seemed like a novelty to me – unexpected days of homegrown adventure with our toddler, and every night felt like date night. Those first few weeks were beautiful. I’m glad I wrote about that day because it was a good one and I don’t ever want to forget it. And I’m honored that Mud Season Review published the journal entry in its latest issue.

[thezngshow]

After Sarah’s wedding, the family had a late-night rendezvous at the church to make sure the sanctuary would be set for Sunday morning…

“Zig, help us get this double-sided tape off the carpet.”

“Y’all want me to preach for y’all?”

Beebe, Arkansas. 5.20.2017.

[getoutofthisplace]

Dear Gus & Magnus,

A few weeks ago Gus's teacher reached out to say that he wasn't behaving like himself lately. He wasn't getting in trouble, but he was doing the opposite of what was being asked of him. More than one of his teachers noticed the change.

When Mom told me, I felt a weight slam against my chest -- not because I was disappointed in him, but because I was disappointed in myself. In my parenting behavior. I suddenly remembered all the times in the past few months he had asked for my attention and I told him I couldn't give it to him in that moment. I've been so stressed at work that I've been coming home short-tempered and annoyed by the smallest things. I've been so angry and Gus has taken the brunt of it. He didn't deserve that. That's not the dad I ever thought I would be.

Mom and I talked and agreed we should each make a point to spend one-on-one time with each of you at least once a month so that we're giving you the attention you need from us, and so that we get to enjoy each of you for who you are in this moment. We're both so proud of you both.

I asked Gus what he would want to do if we could do anything, just the two of us. He said he wanted to go camping and fishing. He had such a good time fishing at Mount Eagle over Spring Break. So I found a place in the middle of nowhere with a small fishing pond and places to hike. We borrowed some fishing gear from Dr. Strong -- I haven't been fishing in 30ish years -- and hit the road after Gus's 11.30am soccer game. We stopped at the Walmart in Morrilton and he picked out cheeseburgers, Ruffles (plain, ugh), Fruit Roll-Ups, Reese's filled pretzel bites, and bacon & eggs for breakfast.

The only electronic in our shed/cabin was a radio, which was a foreign concept to Gus. He had a hard time understanding that the music coming from the speakers wasn't from my phone via Bluetooth. We also had no cell service, which was nice. We played catch, checkers, read books, threw a few rocks into the pond, took a walk through the woods, and I answered all of his questions about the "Heaven or Hell?" decor plastered throughout the cabin. We both thoroughly enjoyed the time. Fishing in the morning.

Dad.

Witts Springs, Arkansas. 4.26.2025 - 6.46pm.

[hypotheticalpeople]

guy who would sell all of his earthly belongings for a single helping of oatst choat

[dreamofstarlight]

Idk how people can say Jackie was the one with social standing and “breeding” and jfk wasn’t.

Like yes her grandfather was a wealthy Wall Street guy but his grandfather was mayor of Boston and other grandfather was also involved with Boston politics. Jackie went to Farmington and Vassar but jfk went to Choate and Harvard. Also they were both Catholics.

I guess people mean bc her mother married into Newport society aka the Auchinloss family that raised their social standing but like at the same time, reading books about society families at the time and Kennedy books, many society families did socialize with the Kennedy’s. For example the Cushing Sisters would hang out with them at their palm beach home in the 30s, a member of the Cabot family said there was no rivalry and that the families were actually pretty close, a whole lot of waspy girls from prominent families dated Joe and Jack. So it’s not like they were not involved with society bc they very much were.

Also by the time they were married, Kathleen was already a Marchioness (even if she had passed away) and married into England’s top noble family. And no Auchinloss or Waspy family was topping that 🤷‍♀️ considering all that “old money” American families did is copy the British aristocracy. If Jackie or Lee married a British nobleman, their mother would’ve been more of a snob than she was irl.

Both of them were from incredibly wealthy and successful families in New England/New York and hung around in very similar circles. Once the Kennedys gained enough social standing and wealth and societal capital the WASPs ran to them because many of them realized how powerful the family was going to be. I mean that was Joe Sr's whole goal. Jackie had a lot of social standing and popularity even before her mom married into the Auchincloss family, the Bouviers were a very impactful family as well. I really don't understand how people can say one had more than the other like they were both from rich families and connections to politics, business, titled people...

[chiseler]

All the World’s a Stage

In 1988, a socio-linguist at the university of Pennsylvania posted a note on the departmental bulletin board announcing she had moved her late husband’s personal library into an unused office. Anyone who wanted any of the books should feel free to take them. Her husband had been the chair of Penn’s sociology department. They’d married in 1981, and he died the following year at age sixty. Normally you’d expect the books and papers to be donated to some library to assist future researchers, but she’d recently remarried, so I guess she either wanted to get rid of any reminders of her previous husband, or simply needed the space.

At the time my then-wife was a grad student in Penn’s linguistics department, and told me about the announcement when she got home that afternoon.

Well, had this professor’s dead husband been any plain, boring old sociologist, I wouldn’t have thought much about it, but given her dead husband was Erving Goffman, I immediately began gathering all the boxes and bags I could find. That night around ten, when she was certain the department would be pretty empty, my then-wife and I snuck back to Penn under cover of darkness and I absconded with Erving Goffman’s personal library. Didn’t even look at titles—just grabbed up armloads of books and tossed them into boxes to carry away.

As I began sorting through them in the following days, I of course discovered the expected sociology, anthropology and psychology textbooks, anthologies and journals, as well as first editions of all of Goffman’s own books, each featuring his identifying signature (in pencil) in the upper right hand corner of the title page. But those didn’t make up the bulk of my haul.

There were Catholic marriage manuals from the Fifties, dozens of volumes (both academic and popular) about sexual deviance, a whole bunch of books about juvenile delinquency with titles like Wayward Youth and The Violent Gang, several issues of Corrections (a quarterly journal aimed at prison wardens), a lot of original crime pulps from the Forties and Fifties, avant-garde literary novels, a medical book about skin diseases, some books about religious cults (particularly Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple), a first edition of Michael Lesy’s Wisconsin Death Trip, and So many other unexpected gems. It was, as I’d hoped, an oddball collection that offered a bit of insight into Goffman’s work and thinking.

Erving Goffman was born in Alberta, Canada in 1922. After entering college as a chemistry major, he eventually got his BA in sociology in 1948, and began his graduate studies at The university of Chicago.

In 1952 he married Angelica Choate, a woman with a history of mental illness, and they had a son. The following year he received his PHD from Chicago. His thesis concerned public interactions and rituals among the residents of one of the Shetland Islands off the coast of Scotland. Afterward, he took a job with the National Institute for Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. His first book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, which evolved out of his thesis, came out in 1956, and his second, Asylums, which resulted from his work at N.I,M.H., was released five years later. In 1958 he took a teaching position at UC-Berkeley, and was soon promoted to full professor. His wife committed suicide in 1964, and in 1968 he joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania as the chair of the sociology department, a post he would hold until his death in 1982.

Citing intellectual influences from anthropology and psychology as well as sociology, Goffman was nevertheless a maverick. Instead of controlled clinical studies and statistical analysis, Goffman based his work on careful close observation of real human interactions in public places,. Instead of focusing on the behaviors of large, faceless groups like sports fans, student movements or factory workers, he concentrated on the tiny details of face-to-face encounters, the gestures, language and behavior of individuals interacting with one another or within a larger institutional framework. Instead of citing previous academic papers to support his claims, he’d more often use quotes from literary sources, letters, or interviews. He created a body of work around those banal, microcosmic day-two-day experiences which had been all but ignored by sociologists up to that point. After his death he was considered one of the most important and influential sociologists of the twentieth century.

Without getting into all the complexities and interpretations of Goffman’s various theories (despite his radical subjective approach, he was still an academic after all), let me lay out simpleminded thumbnails of the two core ideas at the heart of his work.

Taking a cue from both Freud and Shakespeare, he employed theatrical terminology to argue that whenever we step out into public, we are all essentially actors on a stage. We wear masks, we take on certain behaviors and attitudes that differ wildly from the characters we are when we’re at home. All our actions in public, he claimed, are social performances designed (we hope) to present a certain image of ourselves to the world at large. The idea of course has been around in literature for centuries, but Goffman was the first to seriously apply it in broad strokes to sociology.

His other, and related, fundamental idea was termed frame analysis, the idea being that we perceive each social encounter—running into that creepy guy on the train again, say, or arguing with the checkout clerk at the supermarket about the quality of their potatoes—as something isolated and contained, a picture within a frame, or a movie still.

He used those two models to study day-to-day life in mental institutions and prisons, note the emergence of Texas businessmen adopting white cowboy hats as a standard part of their attire, analyze workplace interactions and the complicated rituals we go through when we run into someone we sort-of know on the sidewalk.

I first read Goffman in college when his 1964 book, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, was used in a postmodern political science course I was taking. In the slim volume, Goffman studied the conflicts and prejudices ex-cons, mental patients, cripples, the deformed and other social outcasts encountered when they stepped out into public, as well as the assorted codes and tricks they used to pass for normal. When passing was possible, anyway. At the time I was smitten with the book and these tales of outsiders, being a deliberately constructed outsider myself (though as a nihilistic cigar-smoking petty criminal punk rock kid, I had no interest in passing for normal). I was also struck to read a serious sociological study that cited Nathaniel West’s Miss Lonelyhearts—my favorite novel at the time—as supporting evidence.

Thirty-five years later, and after having read all of Goffman’s other major works, I returned to Stigma again, but with a different perspective. Although my youthful Romantic notions about social outcasts still lingered, by that time I’d become a bona-fide and inescapable social outcast myself, tapping around New York with a red and white cane.

Goffman spent a good deal of the book focused on the daily issues faced by the blind, but in 1985 those weren’t the outsiders who interested me. Now that I was one of them myself, I must say I was amazed and impressed by the accuracy of Goffman’s observations. He pointed out any number of things that have always been ignored by others who’ve written about the blind. Like those others, he notes that Normals, accepting the myth that our other senses become heightened after the loss of our sight, believe us to have superpowers of some kind. (For the record, I never dissuade people of this silly notion.) But Goffman took it one step further, noting that to Normals, a blindo accomplishing something, well, normal—like lighting a cigarette—is taken to be some kind of superhuman achievement, and evidence of powers they can barely begin to fathom.

(Ironically, he writes in Asylums that the process of socializing mental patients is a matter of turning them into dull, unobtrusive and nearly invisible individuals. Those are good citizens.)

Elsewhere in Stigma Goffman also points out—and you cannot believe how commonplace this is—that Normals, believing us to have some deep insights into life and the world, feel compelled, uninvited and without warning, to stop the blind on the street or at the supermarket to share with them their darkest secrets, medical concerns and personal problems as if we’d known them all our lives. He also observed the tendency for Normals to treat us not only like we’re blind, but deaf and lame as well, yelling in our ears and insisting on helping us out of chairs.

Ah, but one thing he brought up, which I’ve never seen anyone else mention before, is the fate awaiting those blindos (or cripples of any kind) who actually accomplish something like writing a book. It doesn’t matter if the book had absolutely nothing to do with being a cripple. I’ve published eleven books to date, and only two of them even mention blindness. It doesn’t matter. If a cripple makes something of him or herself, that cripple then becomes a lifelong representative of that entire class of stigmatized individuals, at least in mainstream eyes. From that point onward he or she will always be not only “that Blind Writer” or “that Legless Architect,” but a spokesperson on any issues pertaining to their particular disability. I was published long before I developed that creepy blind stare, but if I approach a mainstream publication nowadays, the only things they’ll let me write about are cripple issues. Every now and again if I need the check, I’ll, yes, put on the mask and play the role. But I’m bored to death with cripple issues, which is why whenever possible I neglect to mention to would-be editors that I’m blind. And I guess that only supports Goffman’s overall thesis, right?

Well, anyway, a series of four floods in my last apartment completely wiped out my prized Goffman library (as well as my prized novelization collection), so in retrospect I guess that professor at Penn probably would have been better off donating them to the special collections department of some library.

by Jim Knipfel

[bountyofbeads]

Mueller Rejects Trump’s ‘Witch Hunt’ Label and Warns of Russian Meddling

https://nyti.ms/2YiERaF

"There is one incontrovertible truth about the Mueller Report. It establishes, together with the FBI and CIA investigations, that your President was elected, in part, by Russia. That, together with the fact that three million more Americans preferred his opponent, will forever taint this President. His legitimacy is, and should always be, a massive question mark."

JOHN DAVID JAMES, CANADA 🍁

"Has anyone reported on why Senator MCConnell refuses to allow any legislation that would safeguard the 2020 election to even come up for a vote?" JOANNA SMITH, SANTA FE, NM

"Robert Mueller is an old-style, patrician Republican who devoted much of his life to serving the interests of the United States. People such as him have been driven out of today's Republican Party. But what he did was impart damaging information about this President and his actions. There was obstruction and there was no exoneration. Perhaps more significant, he elicited responses from Republican Members of Congress that highlighted how the Republican Party has devolved into a Trump Cult that cares little about truth, integrity or foreign attacks on our Democracy." PAT CHOATE, TUSCON AZ

"Mueller did not say Russia would attack our election again, he said they were attacking us "as we speak." Meanwhile, Democrats have already passed the Election Security Act and have sent it to the Senate, which would help states defend their election systems from attack and require a paper ballot back-up. But McConnell refuses take it up in the Senate. The outcome of the 2020 election hinges on battleground states like Michigan, Ohio and Florida, which Russia targeted last time (with help from the Trump campaign). It appears that McConnell does not care to prevent Russian hacking in these states, perhaps because he knows they will help Trump win." SHERRY, WASHINGTON

"My takeaway from today’s hearings is that impeachment can wait. Trump is not going to be convicted by the Senate. Democrats should focus on defeating him at the ballot box. Mueller and everyone else in this country knows that the Russians will be back to to help Trump win again. That is why Mitch McConnell, the traitor of the Senate, one of many Republicans who put party over patriotism, is refusing to allow a bipartisan bill to shore up and protect our election machinery. No paper trails will tell us if the count in closely contested states or any other state is accurate. Should the results be close , particularly if the Democrat loses, who but Republicans will believe it. Democrats should start demanding this bill be passed. Mitch has gotten away with enough obstruction. Put the pressure on him every day. That includes during his month vacation in August." MARY BETH, MA

"Several GOP panelists derided the Mueller investigation as prolonged and costly. Cost of Mueller investigation? ... through seizures of ill-begotten assets (eg Manafort forfeitures), it has more than paid for itself! Contrast the GOP Benghazi investigation on Clinton that went on for 4 years! ... with no indictments and no counts ... none (and no asset seizures)! Mueller’s investigation wasn't even 2 years, and already with 37 indictments and 199 counts and several in trump’s inner circle charged and in prison with more imminent." JOHN TOWNSEND, MEXICO

"In much the same way Trump demeaned, denigrated a former First Lady and Secretary of State; today the Republican Party did the same to another public servant. No 74 year old, War Veteran, public servant deserved to be spoken to the way Mueller was by the Republicans who questioned him. But then again, we saw with McCain how much this administration respects veterans. Never wandering far from the low moral bar their POTUS has set, Republicans today once more demonstrated how much they respect what were once established values."

DENISE, NM

"Today, it was reiterated that the sitting US President, Donald Trump, is guilty of the "high crimes and misdemeanors" of colluding with the Russians to attain the US Presidency in 2016, and of committing and continuing to commit the obstruction of justice in covering up his collusion. What we also learned today is that the rump GOP that remains, after all this Trump carnage, of what used to be the proud party of Lincoln, is willing to lie, to shill and to defend this narcissistic Russian owned clown to their bitter end. Sad. Humiliating. Depressing." JOE MIKSIS, SAN FRANCISCO

"That Special Counsel Robert Mueller III made a very grave statement about Russian tampering in the 2016 election for President and Vice President of the United States should be a very loud, resounding alarm to every citizen of this country demanding the assurance from every Board of Election in each state that their vote casting system is tamper-proof. And if there is not a very vocal public outcry to demand free and safe elections in this country, we are sunk as a democracy. There is no democracy of one person - one (tamper-proof) vote in the United States if we have Russian or any other outside interference. And yes, I continue to believe Donald Trump's tax returns will see a direct link between Russian interference - in many forms - vote tampering, money schemes, loans, and potentially blackmail that will bring this house of cards down. I think Trump knows this and continues his daily and relentless twittering directed toward whomever is disturbing his house of cards at the moment . All of his twittering behavior is simply to distract from the truth - which will be found in his taxes. And finally, Special Counsel Mueller, in his 11 minute televised address two weeks ago stated:, "if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so." Another shocking statement that should be sounding very loud alarms. That statement is yet another reason to issue court orders to subpoena Trump’s taxes." KKM, NYC

"Some of the media coverage of Mueller’s testimony today bothers me as a person who appreciates the American Constitution. The idea that the testimony was ineffective is ludicrous. The house majority did an excellent job of refuting Trump’s claim that there was “no collusion”. They also did an excellent job of meticulously outlining the actions that constituted that collusion. When Republican representatives pushed Mueller on making a political statement with his report, he pushed back vehemently. The American people who watched this testimony now have the truth as opposed to the spin that came from the White House. Hopefully citizens who love this country will uphold our democracy in the next election and today’s testimony gives us all some truths to take to the ballot box as we make our individual decisions." RMWARD, CONNECTICUT

"This is the best account I've read about what I witnessed on the live stream today. The one thing that no news articles have mentioned — I am not seeing hard core critique of the questions that were asked and statements made. The Republicans have so intimidated news media by attacking everything as "partisan" and "political" that the media posit a false equivalency between what one party does versus another, so as to refer to the parties equally. Thus there is not one word spoken about the odiously misleading and false statements and questions by the Republicans, oftentimes loaded with conspiracy theories. It is a disgrace that legislators feed these accusations to the public, and the press says nothing. Nunes telling Mueller to his face that the investigation was a hoax??? These guys are out front with Trump feeding delusions to the public. Many media are making the big news that Mueller seemed indecisive or shaky in his answers, all the while this public disgrace of Republican accusations that are completely disconnected from reality parades before the cameras and goes unmentioned — or else portrayed as equal to the serious and studential questions and comments of the Democrats. There are dangers headed towards U.S. democracy like a freight train. Please do more to wake everyone up to the dangers of claims that flagrantly violate known facts."

ANNE SHERROD

"The fact is, there is no law to say you can't indict a sitting president, neither is there anything in the constitution to that effect. It is simply a DOJ opinion that has been passed down over the years. It is not a high bar to expect that your president has not committed a crime. The simple answer: render the president accountable to criminal justice just as every American is."

YesIKnowTheMuffinMan, NEW HOPE PA

"If Russia can do it to Clinton, China will do it to Trump (and I expect they will). The GOP are unbelievably naive. China is much more experienced and skilled."

CHARACTER COUNTS, USA

"Putin is grinning ear to ear." CINDY, SAN DIEGO CA

"The best we can do is gather a great Democratic Party strategy, pick a candidate that can stand up to trump and beat him solidly in the 2020 election. Muellers report should provide plenty of reasons why trump and his cronies must go. The Democratic Party must insure that the Russians or any foreign country does not hack our election again." DR B, BERKLEY, CA

"Most questions were long winded, hard to follow and self served, aimed to impress the electorate base and embarrass Mueller. Republicans in particular excelled in irrelevancy, ranging form brash accusations to white noise generators. To his credit, Mueller chose not to play along and stayed within the scope of even the least cohesive question. Posterity will remember, hopefully, Mueller for his uncompromising and professional stance, focus on the job and carelessness for his public image. Picture him side by side with the president, and try to take in the difference." MIROCAL, SEATTLE WA

"They’re doing it as we sit here,” Facebook knows more about you than your parents. And they package that knowledge as a target for the highest bidder. As a Target. You and I are Targets. Cambridge Analytica leveraged those Targets to help Trump win. The Russian Government leveraged those Targets to help Trump win. Dear regulators, as a part of the Facebook settlement, how about banning Targeted political ads? Sure, the Supreme Court has ruled, in Burson v Freeman, that blackout periods for political ads are unconstitutional. But, it says nothing about Targeted ads. When I'm shown an ad for or against a candidate, I want to see what everybody else sees. I want to see everybody's response to that ad. Is it fake? Is it fair? One of the worse policies for political speech was the removal of the fairness doctrine -- where broadcasters were required to give free time to opposing views. Well, at the very least, it should be a requirement that ads for public office are truly public. Not some kind of guided missive keyed to my private data. Regulators, are you listening?"

IKO, HERE

"I believed Mueller. I wouldn't believe Trump if my life depended on it. Indeed, I would depend on this fact: Trump will always lie. He THINKS his lies are a "force of nature." I suppose we will found out just how strong they are. Because they are now exposed. Anyone who believes them now has no more excuses. Whoever believes Trump belongs to Trump. They are bought and paid for." PAUL GLASSON, GA

"I am frankly beyond being disgusted with these shameful Republican congresspeople. While they may believe the best defense is a good offense, and are aggressively trying to steamroll and invalidate a legitimate investigative process, I am not buying what they are selling. No amount of money or power could make me behave in such a despicable fashion, and the fact that they seem to be immune from self loathing for their behavior indicates what type of people they are to their cores. They dishonor this country."

GMR, ATLANTA

Mueller Rejects Trump’s ‘Witch Hunt’ Label and Warns of Russian Meddling

By Mark Mazzetti | Published July 24, 2019 | New York Times | Posted July 24, 2019 |

WASHINGTON — Robert S. Mueller III on Wednesday publicly rejected President Trump’s criticism that the special counsel’s investigation was a “witch hunt” and defended his conclusions about the sweeping Russian interference campaign in 2016, warning that Moscow will again try to sabotage American democracy.

The partisan war over his inquiry reached a heated climax during hours of long-awaited testimony by Mr. Mueller before two congressional committees. Lawmakers hunted for viral sound bites and tried to score political points, but Mr. Mueller refused to engage on those fronts, returning over and over in sometimes halting delivery to his damning and voluminous report.

Mr. Mueller remained a spectral presence in Washington over the past two years as the president and his allies subjected the special counsel and his team of lawyers to withering attacks. Speaking in detail for the first time about his conclusions produced occasionally dramatic moments where he ventured beyond his report to offer insights about Mr. Trump’s behavior.

When asked whether Mr. Trump “wasn’t always being truthful” in his written answers to the special counsel’s questions, Mr. Mueller responded, “I would say generally.” He called Mr. Trump’s praise of WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign “problematic” and said it “gave a boost to what is and should be illegal activity.” He said that he and his team chose not to subpoena Mr. Trump out of concern that a battle over a presidential interview might needlessly prolong the investigation.

Democratic lawmakers had hoped that Mr. Mueller’s nationally televised testimony would provide a dramatic culmination to a yearslong saga: the special counsel translating the dense jargon of his report into a bleak portrait of the Russian interference operation and the president’s behavior since winning the election. The testimony would, in their minds, make the report both more authoritative and more vivid for Americans who had skipped reading it.

Some television pundits built up the drama by comparing Mr. Mueller’s appearance to some of the most galvanizing moments of the Watergate era.

For the most part, Mr. Mueller did not play along. He gave clipped answers to lengthy questions, and forced lawmakers to give their own dramatic readings of parts of his report rather than reciting the conclusions himself. He sometimes gave a forceful defense of his investigation and his team in the face of the Republican fusillade, but his answers were at times faltering. Throughout, he was careful to avoid straying from his report’s conclusions.

Mr. Trump has spent months characterizing the special counsel’s report as a “total exoneration,” though Mr. Mueller was careful on Wednesday to state that he and his team had drawn no such conclusion. The special counsel’s 448-page report, released in April, laid bare that Mr. Trump was elected with the help of a foreign power, and on Wednesday, Mr. Mueller was most impassioned when describing the contours of the Russian interference playbook.

“They’re doing it as we sit here,” he said of Russia’s tampering in American elections.

Looming over the hearing was the question of whether Mr. Mueller’s testimony might shift the ground in Congress and propel more lawmakers to push for Mr. Trump’s impeachment. Only one new call emerged for impeachment hearings by late afternoon Wednesday, from Representative Lori Trahan, Democrat of Massachusetts, and lawmakers will soon depart Washington for a summer recess. It was too soon to say whether the spectacle would change Americans’ opinions about Mr. Mueller and his work that have only hardened over time, and whether Democrats would return to their districts and encounter more vigorous calls for Mr. Trump’s removal.

The questioning on Wednesday reflected a bitter philosophical divide, both on the committees and in the country as a whole: whether it was Mr. Trump, or those investigating him, who committed crimes. Throughout the day, the Democrats hit the high points from Mr. Mueller’s report: the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, the efforts by Mr. Trump to fire Mr. Mueller, the discussions between Michael T. Flynn and a Russian ambassador about Obama-era sanctions, the strategy by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to sow chaos before the election.

The Mueller report cataloged numerous meetings between Mr. Trump’s advisers and Russians seeking to influence the campaign and the presidential transition team — encounters set up in pursuit of business deals, policy initiatives and political dirt about Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump’s 2016 Democratic opponent.

Mr. Mueller concluded that there was “insufficient evidence” to determine that the president or his aides had engaged in a criminal conspiracy with the Russians, even though the Trump campaign welcomed the Kremlin sabotage effort and “expected it would benefit electorally” from the hackings and leaks of Democratic emails.

On Wednesday, Mr. Mueller was asked about the Trump Tower meeting, WikiLeaks and the decision by Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, to share campaign information with a Russian oligarch, and whether these episodes were a new normal for political campaigns.

“I hope this is not the new normal,” Mr. Mueller said, “but I fear it is.”

Republicans tried to flip the lens, peppering Mr. Mueller with questions about what they have long argued, with little evidence: that the F.B.I. opened a politically motivated investigation in 2016 with the aim of preventing Mr. Trump from becoming president. They focused on the research firm that commissioned the dossier by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer. They focused on Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese academic identified by the special counsel as linked to Russian intelligence, and advanced unsubstantiated claims that Mr. Mifsud was actually under the sway of Western spy services.

Mr. Mueller mostly deflected those questions, saying the origins of the F.B.I. investigation predated his time as special counsel and was outside his purview.

Mr. Mueller was a reluctant witness and had tried to avoid the spectacle of a congressional hearing. In a brief public statement in May, he urged the public — and, by extension, members of Congress — to read his report, which he said “speaks for itself.” “The report is my testimony,” he said.

House Democrats were unmoved and chose to take the aggressive step of compelling Mr. Mueller’s testimony under subpoena.

[gchoate17]

This was a fun interview.

[crowdsing83]

U.S. women’s hockey’s Hilary Knight, ex-Hanover resident and Olympian, now not able to retire

She turned into once the youngest, however at age 32, Hilary Knight, a veteran of three Olympic teams, is now the oldest participant on the U.S. girls’s ice hockey country wide crew roster. nevertheless, Knight, who grew up in California, went to Choate Rosemary corridor in Wallingford, Conn., and lived for a few years in Hanover, isn't precisely thinking when it comes to her last Olympic games or retiring or anything like that simply yet. “Who knows?” Knight pointed out. “I don’t be aware of. We’ll see. We bought to that world stage (in 2018). successful the remaining Olympics became surprising, wonderful. You type of feed off that, and you need to go do it once again.” The U.S. women gained the Olympic gold medal in 2018 in South Korea, beating their archrivals, the Canadians, 3-2, in a shootout after completing 2nd to Canada in 2014 and 2010. They performed Canada on Monday at the XL middle in Hartford as part of the “My Why” Tour, as a pre-Olympic buildup, dropping 3-2. The 2022 video games will take place Feb. four-20 in Beijing. crew u . s . a . lost to Canada on Friday nighttime in the first video game of the tour in Allentown, Pa., three-1. This summer season, Knight grew to be the leader in career dreams on the women’s world championships when she scored her forty fifth intention, in opposition t Russia. The U.S. misplaced to Canada, three-2, in extra time in the last. Knight is simply happy to be lower back together with the country wide team after the pandemic shut down the game for a while. She turned into also sidelined 10 weeks within the wintry weather after foot surgical procedure. and she or he’s happy to be returned in Connecticut, where she has fond recollections of Choate, from which she graduated in 2007. “I have to supply that experience so tons credit for who i am as a person, for making ready me to prevail,” she referred to. She additionally played for the Polar Bears, an elite ladies hockey team in Connecticut. Knight went on to play on the school of Wisconsin, where she helped the Badgers go to the Frozen 4 4 times and win two NCAA titles. In 2010, she took a year off from faculty to play in the Olympics, and at age 20, she was the youngest member of the U.S. team. In 2018, the americans at last were capable of dangle off the Canadians on the biggest stage and win their first gold medal given that the U.S. won the inaugural Olympic women’s ice hockey competition in 1998, “When Maddie (Rooney) stopped the puck that became inching its method closer to the purpose line on that last shootout effort become when it sunk in that we had been going to win,” Knight stated. “nevertheless it wasn’t unless we type of received again (to the U.S.) that it become like, ‘Oh. We received.’ We forget — we’re over there, it become just us. Our households get to come back over, so there’s a bit bit bigger circle, but then there’s an even bigger circle of everybody who comes up to you if you’re doing random issues for your life, and that they’re like, ‘I stayed up till 2 a.m., 3 a.m., observing you guys. Wow, that became rather a victory.’ “That changed into definitely cool. You know it’s so lots greater than you.” Knight changed into in Canada in March 2020, so she packed up and moved to her home in Idaho earlier than the border closed as a result of the pandemic. She constructed a fitness center in her storage so she changed into in a position to keep up her practicing, however she didn’t skate until the conclusion of July. “the style I checked out it turned into much less tread on the tires,” she talked about. “It’s easy to sit there and go, ‘Oh man, I’m in my major. …’ I get to play longer now. That’s how I checked out it. “i used to be traveling each 2½ weeks earlier than that. i used to be like, ‘this is in fact nice, to reside domestic.’ My canines get unhappy after I depart.” It has been a little extra problematic to build chemistry on this crew because of the boundaries at the beginning positioned on the gamers due to COVID-19. “It’s challenging to duplicate the chemistry you enhance just doing issues collectively,” she spoke of. “you may go to follow, put your masks on and essentially leave the rink. then you definately’d see everyone on Zoom. It’s now not the same. I believe our community did a great job, all things considered, making an attempt to dwell connected.” Monday’s online game became just one other stepping stone toward Beijing. “It items an amazing chance to learn how to difficulty-clear up on the fly,” Knight talked about. “It gives us sort of a measuring stick, the place we are and the place we are looking to go. It’s stunning to get the aggressive juices flowing towards a person who’s akin to us.” 먹튀검증