Well. That was....something.

I need a breakie now...a little breakie for me.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

It's GO TIME! The hearing to end all hearings (hopefully!) will begin at 10:00 a.m. CENTRAL TIME on Friday June 14th.

Call-in info: Dial 832-917-1510, enter conference room 590153, THEN MUTE YOURSELF USING YOUR PHONE'S MUTE FUNCTION! There are going to be a TON of people logging into this. There are a ton of people just representing the various parties, plus the media, PLUS the wonks. The system theoretically mutes people as they join, but the first thing you do after entering the meeting code should be to press the mute button on your own device, just in case.

We'll live chat here. How about we try to start a main comment for every major-ish topic in the hearing, after breaks, etc., and then keep as many sub-comments as possible under that main comment, to keep it navigable for everyone? A lot of us will be chatting in real time to the best of our ability, but those who aren't able to would probably appreciate it being a bit more organized than it sometimes is.

I know one person complained about random up-votes, but I personally use them as a way to tell at a glance which comments I've read and which I haven't, so if others are the same way, the voting might get wonky. Sort comments by either Old or New to keep them in some semblance of order, but yeah. It's gonna be messy.

It would probably also make sense to have a separate post/thread to debrief after, more of a coherent summary and after-the-fact discussion once it's over, rather than the in-the-moment chat that happens during.

How's that sound? I was gonna say "if the mods agree" a couple times in there, but as of a few minutes ago, I AM a mod, so hopefully the OTHER mods agree. :-)