Yes, I know that this is snark, but I guarantee you that someone will pitch something like this to the French as a 21^st century update for Notre Dame de Paris:

Restoration of Notre Dame should be mindful of its past while revealing its unique potential as an urban mixed-use development. Here at Pick Rogarth + Baumsnatch, we believe… pic.twitter.com/7XkTyPppo7

— C:temp (@BryceElder) April 16, 2019

I know, it’s a joke, but that the joker is going to hell for this, because this is WAY too close to reality.

As I noted earlier, my Mother-in-Law is in hospital for infections, so instead of flying down to Memphis to spend Passover with my Sister-in-Laws family, we had our Seder in her hospital room.

It was cramped, and odd.

I’m sure that there other people have had odder Seders, but these 2, Friday and Saturday, were odd, with Marilyn in her hospital bed, and the rest of us around a card table.

Cramped, but we made it work.

Much to his chagrin, she has enthusiastically accepted, and now Representative Barr is desperately trying to find a way to revoke his invitation:

Last month, a clip of New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went predictably viral after she forcefully responded to one of her colleagues on the House Financial Services Committee when he called climate change an “elitist” concern. “Wanting clean air and water is not elitist,” she said.

In response, Kentucky Republican congressman Andy Barr invited Ocasio-Cortez to come meet coal miners in his state “who will tell you what the Green New Deal would mean for their families, their paychecks.” His concern, he said, is that the Green New Deal would phase out U.S. reliance on coal and fossil fuel, which would wreak havoc on the lives of people who work in those industries. Ocasio-Cortez accepted, saying she’d be “happy” to go, adding that the Green New Deal was written to fund coal-miner pensions. “We want a just transition to make sure we are investing in jobs across those swaths of the country,” she said.

All in all, it seemed like an uncharacteristically cordial exchange for two members of Congress. And not even a month later, that cordiality is out the window: Barr attached a rather inhospitable and obnoxious demand to his invitation, writing in a letter posted to Twitter that she should “apologize to [Texas representative Dan Crenshaw] prior to coming to visit Kentucky,” for a completely unrelated event before meeting with miners. The public scolding over purported incivility, along with the random call for an apology to a colleague from a completely different state, leaves the impression that the Barr might not want her to come to Kentucky after all.

Crenshaw was one of the first and most vociferous critics to pile on to Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar for out-of-context comments about 9/11. Strangely enough, Barr didn’t seem to think that Crenshaw directing an Islamaphobic attack towards Omar, culminating in an increase in death threats, demonstrated “a lack of civility.” When Crenshaw shared a tweet that falsely claimed Omar said the 9/11 attacks weren’t terrorism, Ocasio-Cortez pointed out: “You refuse to co-sponsor the 9/11 Victim’s Compensation Fund, yet have the audacity to drum resentment towards Ilhan w/completely out-of-context quotes. In 2018, right-wing extremists were behind almost ALL US domestic terrorist killings. Why don’t you go do something about that?”

………

Uninviting Ocasio-Cortez is probably a smart move on Barr’s part in the long run. For one thing, there aren’t any active coal mines in Barr’s district. And James Comer, another Republican representative from Kentucky, told local news that he didn’t “see any upside” to having her come to Kentucky. “I think a lot of Republicans are making a mistake picking on her. I think we need to be very prepared when we debate her on issues that we’re having a hard time with.”

(emphasis mine)

So, once Barr realized that:

• Ocasio-Cortez was eager to talk to coal miners and
• She’d probably have him for lunch.

He decided to require that she apologize for calling out another Republican who was actively trying to encourage some random nut job to ASSASSINATE one of her colleagues.

Really classy.

Here is another one: anytime Facebook claims that it violated user privacy unintentionally:

Facebook harvested the email contacts of 1.5 million users without their knowledge or consent when they opened their accounts.

Since May 2016, the social-networking company has collected the contact lists of 1.5 million users new to the social network, Business Insider can reveal. The Silicon Valley company said the contact data was “unintentionally uploaded to Facebook,” and it is now deleting them.

The revelation comes after pseudononymous security researcher e-sushi noticed that Facebook was asking some users to enter their email passwords when they signed up for new accounts to verify their identities, a move widely condemned by security experts. Business Insider then discovered that if you entered your email password, a message popped up saying it was “importing” your contacts without asking for permission first.

At the time, it wasn’t clear what was happening — but on Wednesday, Facebook disclosed to Business Insider that 1.5 million people’s contacts were collected this way and fed into Facebook’s systems, where they were used to improve Facebook’s ad targeting, build Facebook’s web of social connections, and recommend friends to add.

Yeah, “Unintentionally,” right.

Every time such an error is revealed, and it seems to be about every 6 months, it always is something that makes Facebook more money.

To quote Richard Dreyfuss, “This was no boating accident.”

Maybe Rich Liberals Don’t Hate Sanders Because They Fear He Can’t Win, But Because They’re Rich

—Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

Takes on the assumption that the New York Times makes in their article, you know, the, “From canapé-filled fund-raisers on the coasts,” one, that rich donors are acting for the good of the party, as opposed to their own personal interests:

Why does the New York Times take rich liberals at their word that their concern with Bernie Sanders is that he would lose to Trump, rather than the obvious, glaring fact that his election would run counter to their interests?

………

That a network of multi-millionaire and billionaire donors would dislike a candidate who not only rejects their funding, but is actively trying to tax them at rates not seen since 1960, would surely be enough reason to explain why these wealthy elites would want to “stop” his nomination. But not to the credulous New York Times, which takes at face value rich donors’ claim to oppose Sanders because they believe he simply can’t defeat Trump:

………

Because it would be unseemly to suggest a group of super-rich hedge fund managers, Hollywood producers and CEOs would dislike a candidate who has made a career out of promising to expropriate the bulk of their wealth, we get a faux pragmatism argument. But polls show Sanders defeating Trump with numbers comparable to any other declared candidate—a fact the New York Times never bothers to mention, letting the idea go unchallenged that “socialist” (!!) Sanders is an electoral liability. The simpler, less altruistic motive is simply never entertained.

It’s a variation on the Inexplicable Republican Best Friend trope FAIR previously documented (2/26/19): Instead of assuming that lifelong conservatives may just prefer more conservative politicians, progressive-bashing GOP pundits are propped up as neutral observers simply looking out for the Democratic Party. Just the same, super-wealthy Democratic donors can’t oppose Sanders because they simply prefer more centrist, pro-Wall Street candidates; they must have a sincere, pragmatic concern he would lose the general election.

They are voting with their bloated wallets.