I’m on hold as I type this.
I’m hearing instrumental music — bad, staticky, extremely monotonous “music” — which I could stand, if I must.
(It’s now been 10 minutes.)
What gets me is the earnest robot message about every 30 seconds explaining “we are currently experiencing extremely high call volumes,” followed by a suggestion that we leave a message on the website. Which of course is the point, to the institution from which I’m seeking information that the website does not provide.
At least I’m not being subjected to the bitterly laughable, “We value your call” shtick. This is more honest, but it requires translation: “We don’t want to pay enough humans to help you in a timely manner, so we’re going to torment you until you go away.”
Oh, this just in…
A different recording kicked in to tell me that it would remain connected with me no longer, and that I must now do what it’s been telling me to do and go to the website and leave a message in a location that sounds like the description of where citizens could find the notice that local government was going to tear down Arthur Dent’s house:
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
In other words, the machine had had it with me and my patience, and wasn’t going to take it anymore. The call ended at the 16-minute point.
But back to my original suggestion, before that last insult: Why can’t these waits at least be quiet and peaceful?
Never mind, I know the answer: The water-torture irritation is key to the institution’s strategy…
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It’s amazing how much better off you do in front of judges if you are Trump supporter. Our “esteemed” legal profession is interesting.
“A January 6 Capitol rioter pardoned by President Donald Trump triggered fresh security fears in Washington D.C. after turning up near the home of Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD).
Taylor Taranto, convicted this year for threatening federal buildings and carrying weapons in former President Barack Obama’s neighborhood and hear his home, resurfaced in the capital despite a court-ordered supervised release. His appearance unnerved authorities who say it mirrors the behavior that led to his arrest two years ago.
Taranto violated his court ordered release. But the Trump appointed judge ignored it.
The Trump appointed judge declined to impose any penalties on Taranto, who is married and from Washington State but has been living in a van in Washington DC live-streaming his various conspiracy theories to his eager Conservative audience.
“The judge told him to drive home for the holidays and stay out of DC. ” Taranto, never one to obey a judge, is free.
https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/judge-weighs-jailing-trump-pardoned-jan-6-rioter-after-security-scare-with-top-dem/
Kash Patel ordered FBI agents to drive his girlfriend’s drunk friend home. The move was considered an unprecedented one for the FBI.
According to a Friday morning report, the FBI director has also extended that courtesy to Wilkins’s friends “on more than one occasion.
Patel insisted they do as Wilkins requested and in one case called the leader of Wilkins’ security detail and yelled at him to do so. Patel, as other reports have suggested, has a history of yelling at FBI agents and supervisors.
News of the effort to deploy agents to provide security for a private citizen has spread through the bureau and beyond, as agents have grown increasingly concerned.
This comes after news last week that Patel regularly uses the FBI’s private jet to fly to Nashville to visit and stay with his girlfriend.
I guess the so called “conservative” view of not living or sleeping with others unless you are married doesn’t apply to these “good christian folks” as some have called Patel. (He’s Hindu).
https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/kash-patel-yelled-at-fbi-agent-to-be-the-designated-driver-for-his-girlfriends-drunk-friend-report/
NOTE: I removed the first two grafs, which were gratuitous and fell within the ad hominem prohibition.
But something else apparently got cut that was relevant to your point: Who is “Wilkins?” The initial reference is missing…
hey punished a devoted teacher & called her a lesbian “witch.” Now she’s having the last laugh.
A San Diego school teacher in a Conservative school district has won a major settlement in a lawsuit that accused her superiors of labeling her a lesbian “witch”.
Rose Tagnesi was head of her school district’s Special Education Department for over a decade when she was suddenly demoted to a class teaching role at the direction of what she described as an anti-LGBTQ+ majority on the school board.
The hostile climate created by an inquiry set the stage for a broader “discriminatory campaign” by the board majority, she alleged in her suit, which included her demotion, LGBTQ+ book bans, and cutting ties with an LGBTQ+ mental health care provider previously contracted by the district.
agnesi alleged that her supervisor advised her to keep a “low profile” about her sexuality, citing hostility among board members for gay people.
Tagnesi accused one board trustee of referring to her and another female staffer as “witches” who were part of an “LGBTQ coven.”
The board member also claimed that the same second female staffer was only hired because Tagnesi thought, “she is hot.”
The Grossmont Union High School District will pay Tagnesi $700,000 over the next 20 years under terms of the settlement, the San Diego Union Tribune reported on Tuesday. They’ll also cover nearly $500,000 in attorneys’ fees as part of the deal.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/they-punished-a-devoted-teacher-called-her-a-lesbian-witch-now-she-s-having-the-last-laugh/ar-AA1RMRJe?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=69334bd566c14480874358a843656f4a&ei=11
This has nothing to do with your story, but your use of “coven” reminded me of something.
We had a priest, a young associate pastor, at our parish when we lived in another state, who was a very nice, jovial fellow of the Friar Tuck variety. He would have been the first to confess that he could have used some more self-discipline. He smoked and drank and ate with little restraint.
He lived in the rectory with our senior pastor. I used to interact with them both a good deal when my wife and I shared a seat on the parish council. Here’s a story he told about himself during an interlude of a meeting — probably with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Once, for several days, the pastors hosted a group of nuns from a nearby city who were in town for a conference or something, probably about something involving a high degree of social consciousness. You know the “radical priest” mentioned in “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard?” These weren’t “Bells of St. Mary’s” nuns. They were more your plainclothes radical nuns. Very, very serious about all the right issues.
Anyway, after a hard day he went into the kitchen of the rectory, opened the fridge and bent down in search of something good. All he found was a solitary, cold, leftover chicken drumstick. He seized it, and groaned at it with obvious disappointment as he straightened up — and found, as he put it, the glaring visage of “one of that coven” strongly condemning him. Her look said to him, “Starving people all over the world would give anything to possess such a feast, you ungrateful hog!”
And he laughed — not at the indignant nun, but at himself and his own undeniable failings.
Anyway, I tend to remember that story whenever anyone says “coven.”…
Excellent article from Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck about Justice Kagan’s dissent in the recent Supreme Court case where the Republican majority let the racial gerrymander Texas Republicans forced through to go into effect.
Vladeck (and really Kagan) point out in great detail how the court violated their own prior precedents and reasoning to ensure Texas Republicans are able to win.
Of course, as Vladeck also points out, the court barely explained themselves- something they rarely do when agreeing with Trump. Their reasoning is often non-existent. The ironic thing is, their public comments from individual Republican Supreme Court justices often criticize other lower courts for not including detailed enough explanations, even when the lower courts write 150+ page opinions explaining their reasoning while the Supreme Court publishes zero pages explaining their reasoning.
“The result in the Texas case likely came as little surprise to almost anyone—and not just because Justice Alito had already granted an “administrative” stay of the lower-court ruling (which, as I suggested at the time, made no sense as anything other than a sign of things to come). But what the majority wrote in justifying the Court’s intervention is striking for at least three reasons, each of which Justice Kagan skewered in an especially biting 17-page dissent.”
“Here’s Justice Kagan (with my emphasis):
Texas is not on “the eve of an election,” as was true in the case the majority cites [RNC v. DNC]. The election there was five days after the injunction. Similarly, the election in Purcell was “just weeks” away. Here, Election Day is eleven months from now. Even the primary election (which Texas could change) is in March. The District Court carefully listed the various “election preparations” underway to switch to the 2025 map. On the other hand, the court noted how the 2021 map—which the injunction reinstated—was, in a real sense, the status quo. Officials, candidates, and voters are all familiar with it from the last two election cycles. Until late last summer, everyone expected that map to govern 2026 too. And indeed, it will be used in a special runoff election in the State’s largest county on January 31, 2026. So, the District Court properly concluded, “[a]n injunction in this case would not cause significant disruption.” Except to the extent all of us live in election season all the time, the 2026 congressional election is not well underway.
The move here, then, is to apply Purcell further in advance of an election than the Supreme Court ever has before………………….”
https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/196-justice-kagans-texas-redistricting