David Byrne & St. Vincent - I Should Watch TV
Saturday, March 04, 2017
How and How Long?
As I've said, I don't have any strong opinion about how Trump will leave office early, I just think there are so many possible paths that even if all of them are individually low probability, together they beat the probability that he stays in office for 4 years. Throwing it out there. How long does he last, and how does he leave office?
The Iraq War Was Bad
Lots of other stuff, too, but I spent quite a few years of my life doing what I thought I could (not saying I actually did anything to improve the situation) to end that stupid fucking war and get Bushies as far away from power as possible.
I even like his damn paintings, but not on board with the whole "lovable Bush" redemption tour. Crawl back in your hole. It's going to take a lot more than mugging for the camera with Ellen and contrast with his likely successor to "Worst. President. Ever." to wash out those spots.
I even like his damn paintings, but not on board with the whole "lovable Bush" redemption tour. Crawl back in your hole. It's going to take a lot more than mugging for the camera with Ellen and contrast with his likely successor to "Worst. President. Ever." to wash out those spots.
Other
What does make (some) Americans so insanely xenophobic? I mean, it's one thing if your community really is being "taken over" by people from somewhere else (not that it would justify violence or anything close to it of course), but just being driven mad by the presence of someone who looks (to you) like a furriner?
Afternoon Thread
Aside from the occasional dramatic moment scripted for a fawning profile (you know, something like, "Bush, angered by 9/11, slammed his fist down on the table and barked, "get those bastards!!!"), I don't remember the regular reports of the president's "mood" we get these days. Mostly it's "Mr. Pissypants was extra pissy today" but still.
How
I think back on my earlier self and realize that younger me was less aware of the big picture swirling around me then than older me is now. I'm sure older me will look back on current me and think much the same, though I'll probably not quite get why onions on the belt are no longer the fashion.
Still I'm sure that if I somehow found myself being president - past, present, or future me - I'd have a vague sense that this was an important job and that I'd better not fuck it up too badly. Probably the presidency isn't quite as important as we think it is. Leaders of other countries aren't quite as hermetically sealed off from the world is ours is. Perhaps the special importance and power of the American presidency is not quite as special and not quite as important as we think. Sure there are those nukes, but other countries have them, too. But it is important, and I'd realize that whatever resentments were swirling around my little noggin, the world didn't need to hear too much about my spats with random people or my big sads about how I didn't feel loved enough because the adoring crowds weren't large enough.
We're probably all monstrous messes on the inside, but we develop a bit of a filter to limit how much others see that. How is it possible to be a 70-year-old man - and perhaps the smartest of all men! - and not get that maybe now is not the time to get into a twitter tiff with Kindergarten Cop.
Still I'm sure that if I somehow found myself being president - past, present, or future me - I'd have a vague sense that this was an important job and that I'd better not fuck it up too badly. Probably the presidency isn't quite as important as we think it is. Leaders of other countries aren't quite as hermetically sealed off from the world is ours is. Perhaps the special importance and power of the American presidency is not quite as special and not quite as important as we think. Sure there are those nukes, but other countries have them, too. But it is important, and I'd realize that whatever resentments were swirling around my little noggin, the world didn't need to hear too much about my spats with random people or my big sads about how I didn't feel loved enough because the adoring crowds weren't large enough.
We're probably all monstrous messes on the inside, but we develop a bit of a filter to limit how much others see that. How is it possible to be a 70-year-old man - and perhaps the smartest of all men! - and not get that maybe now is not the time to get into a twitter tiff with Kindergarten Cop.
You're Most Powerful Man In The Known Universe
Sorry for the Trump tweets. I try to resist but jesus fucking christ someone get him some ketamine.
Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't voluntarily leaving the Apprentice, he was fired by his bad (pathetic) ratings, not by me. Sad end to great show
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
Anyone Know What He's On About
Sometimes it's all too much to wake up to.
...can't stop won't stop
I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
...can't stop won't stop
How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
Friday, March 03, 2017
Cranetown
No idea, but I assume these things are leased?
Either way, even doing nothing costs a lot of money on projects like this.
Take a tour around the American Dream Meadowlands site, and the first thing you notice is the absence of hard hats - meaning, construction workers.
But in chatting with a half-dozen elected officials this week, I noticed another theme: nearly all of them mentioned those half-dozen or so forlorn-looking giant cranes at the project site.
Either way, even doing nothing costs a lot of money on projects like this.
Shit Is Fucked Up And Bullshit
Imagine spending every day being frightened that your parents or the co-parent of your children are going to be deported from the life they've had for decades.
There are holes in the immigration system that are easy to fall through. You'd think that marrying a noncitizen would give you some rights as an American citizen, to residency for that person. But it isn't that simple. Spouses being dragged from each other, parents from children, children from parents. Even if there's a way through the immigration system, in theory, it's complicated, costly, and time consuming. The fees alone are high, and good luck doing it without an attorney. In case you haven't noticed, a lot of people don't have any fucking money.
There are holes in the immigration system that are easy to fall through. You'd think that marrying a noncitizen would give you some rights as an American citizen, to residency for that person. But it isn't that simple. Spouses being dragged from each other, parents from children, children from parents. Even if there's a way through the immigration system, in theory, it's complicated, costly, and time consuming. The fees alone are high, and good luck doing it without an attorney. In case you haven't noticed, a lot of people don't have any fucking money.
Jose Escobar lost his legal status in a paperwork gaffe more than a decade ago when he was still a teen in Houston.
That slip-up, the fault of his mother who thought her child would be automatically included in her own renewal application, has trailed him ever since. Thursday it led to his surprise deportation to El Salvador, a country he hasn't seen in 16 years.
The government's decision to remove the 31-year-old father, who has no criminal record and is married to an American citizen, is the latest indication that President Donald Trump's administration plans to deport practically any immigrant here illegally, even some like Escobar who were temporarily protected, who happens to fall into its cross hairs.
Hope I Die Before I Get Old
Too late, I guess, but I do feel that creeping tendency to tell the kids to get off my lawn, and see it a lot in some of my peers.
Still Dreaming
Been starved of news lately!!!
(tl;dr nothing's happening nobody knows nothing)
Could've asked me years ago... My genius is so unrecognized and uncompensated.
(tl;dr nothing's happening nobody knows nothing)
Richard Codey, the Democratic senator from Essex County, was governor in 2005 when heavy construction began on Meadowlands Xanadu, the predecessor project of American Dream Meadowlands.
“I’d like to see it open, given that building would help the construction workers,” Codey said. “But malls are closing all over, not opening. I used to think [Triple Five] was smart, but now I don’t know that.”
Could've asked me years ago... My genius is so unrecognized and uncompensated.
Thursday, March 02, 2017
Fuck SXSW
Telling international artists that they will report them for deportation if they dare to play any outside shows.
Especially now (though before, also, too), getting noticed by the immigration authorities is likely to prevent you from ever returning to the US, a rather important market for the livelihoods of some of these people.
So, everyone together, fuck SXSW and boycott them.
Especially now (though before, also, too), getting noticed by the immigration authorities is likely to prevent you from ever returning to the US, a rather important market for the livelihoods of some of these people.
So, everyone together, fuck SXSW and boycott them.
The Bears Are Coming
I get a bit of the school security hysteria given that school shootings are a thing in our armed and polite society, but I find a lot of the "fear of unknown people in a school" is just the general American weird fear of public spaces. If someone with a gun wants to kill a lot of people fairly randomly, they're going to, because guns let you do that, but otherwise public spaces are pretty safe because they're, you know, public, and filled with lots of people. "Strange danger" actually on school grounds is a pretty ridiculous thing to worry about, generally.
Jim Crow Forever
Jeff Sessions is a horrible racist. It's too much for a blog post to get into the distinction Southern vs. Northern (and the rest of the country) racism - they both exist, they're both horrible, they both involve the power of the state - except to say that while there's no point in holding the racism olympics to determine a winner, Southern institutionalized state enforced racism and its political culture are deeply rooted in a tradition of celebrating the enslavement of African-Americans. The ahistorical myths and moral degeneracy required to think the slavery was (or is) somehow OK suggests a deep level of inhumanity which is hard to even comprehend.
That Jeff Sessions was too racist to be a judge in the 80s (actual bipartisan vote!) but not too racist to be Attorney General in this decade tells us that anti-anti-racism backlash has been powerful. And "the media" isn't all powerful, but decisions big and small are made every day which collectively determine what is or isn't a "scandal." Jeff Sessions, the person, is a walking scandal, a demented disgusting pile of garbage regularly mislabeled a "human" in news stories.
That Jeff Sessions was too racist to be a judge in the 80s (actual bipartisan vote!) but not too racist to be Attorney General in this decade tells us that anti-anti-racism backlash has been powerful. And "the media" isn't all powerful, but decisions big and small are made every day which collectively determine what is or isn't a "scandal." Jeff Sessions, the person, is a walking scandal, a demented disgusting pile of garbage regularly mislabeled a "human" in news stories.
Scandal Management
Pretty sure the Attorney General can successfully tell everybody to fuck off if he isn't bound by any concept of norms or decency.
Wednesday, March 01, 2017
At Least There Probably Weren't Any Democrats There
So many assholes.
An Iowa lawmaker who is pushing a controversial bill that caps the number of Democrats that state universities can hire as professors claimed on a government web site that he got a "business degree" from the "Forbco Management school."
But State Sen. Mark Chelgren's alleged alma mater is actually a company that operated a Sizzler steak house franchise in southern California and he doesn't have a "degree," Ed Failor, a spokesman for the Iowa State Republicans, told NBC News.
"This was a management course he took when he worked for Sizzler, kind of like Hamburger University at McDonald's," Failor said. "He got a certificate."
They Know Even Less Than What They Say
Trump just lies.
I'm not really interested in metaphysical discussions about the nature of Trump's falsehood perpetuations. He's obviously someone who doesn't really care if he knows whether things that comes out of his mouth are true or not. Besides, we all lie a bit in various ways so those whole pretense that LYING is some sort of horrific crime is silly, and since it's elevated to such a high level of crime people are loathe to make the accusation. The real crime is believing or passing on those lies when your job (supposedly) is to communicate truth to your viewers/readers.
Trump lies. His administration lies. All politicians and all people do, to some extent (fine #notallpoliticians and #notallpeople). The journalist's job isn't to condemn them for that, it's to not aid the con by helping to mislead their audiences.
I'm not really interested in metaphysical discussions about the nature of Trump's falsehood perpetuations. He's obviously someone who doesn't really care if he knows whether things that comes out of his mouth are true or not. Besides, we all lie a bit in various ways so those whole pretense that LYING is some sort of horrific crime is silly, and since it's elevated to such a high level of crime people are loathe to make the accusation. The real crime is believing or passing on those lies when your job (supposedly) is to communicate truth to your viewers/readers.
Trump lies. His administration lies. All politicians and all people do, to some extent (fine #notallpoliticians and #notallpeople). The journalist's job isn't to condemn them for that, it's to not aid the con by helping to mislead their audiences.
And Who Are They Again?
Don't we at least need a cool name for whoever the hell it is we're supporting this week?
Yah, I know, The Moderates. That'll be the name of my DC-based wedding band/superhero pundit squad.
#BREAKING Russian jets accidentally bombed US-backed forces in Syria: US general
— AFP news agency (@AFP) March 1, 2017
Yah, I know, The Moderates. That'll be the name of my DC-based wedding band/superhero pundit squad.
The Bubble
The real "DC bubble" is a press corps completely immune (or think they are) from any consequences of actual government policy. The people who follow politics 24 hours per day aren't really any different than the undecided voters Chris Hayes once investigated. Neither understands how actual policies - and, at times, rhetoric - impact actual people, whether it's the immigrants cleaning their toilets and driving their cabs or the opioid addicts in exurban and rural Pennsylvania. It isn't the presidency, it's the President Show.
"...where they will not be judged by the color of their skin..."
It's every white person's favorite MLK quote, because it actually lets them justify their racism. They aren't judging people by the color of their skin, you see, they just know that blah people have shit character.
Chris Cillizza is V. UPSET that Democrats didn't love Trump's great speech. I'm very upset that he announced a plan for a government office of demonizing immigrants. We all have priorities.
Chris Cillizza is V. UPSET that Democrats didn't love Trump's great speech. I'm very upset that he announced a plan for a government office of demonizing immigrants. We all have priorities.
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
The Shite of the Union
I know it's my job to watch these things, but I think I will be outsourcing that to you, my volunteer laborer commenters.
Great Moments In Wingnuttery
If you believe fully-taxpayer funded feminist study degrees are a higher priority than a fully-funded military you might be...a progressive
— Amanda Carpenter (@amandacarpenter) February 28, 2017
The internet tells me she got a BA in Communications Studies from a state university.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
The Endless Cynicism Awaits
I alternate between despair and optimism when I see some of The Kids Today having faith in our great Democratic party and its great politicians. Hopefully I'm just an old bitter cynic!
Those Bedfellow Aren't Just Strange
Back in the glorious Iraq war days, Little Tommy Friedman would blather on and on about how he didn't support *this* war, but he supported Tom Friedman's war, which was some other war in Iraq fought for some other reason by some other people in some other way over on Earth-2 somewhere, but that therefore he also supported *this* war because it was the Iraq war which he supported. It's like his support for any bill or treaty with "free trade" in it. He might object to the details in theory, but in practice he still supports it because it says "free trade" and like "war in Iraq" that's just a thing he supports because he does.
The charter school/school choice "movement" has been a bit like that. Take a germ of an idea which might sound good to some liberals (and might even be a good idea!) - allow some additional flexibility in large urban school districts, given parents some options about where to send their kids, perhaps to specialty schools. Then add in for profit schooling, public money spent on religious schools, union busting (a feature for many self-styled liberals, too, I know), forced closure of so-called "underperforming" neighborhood schools under a formula which ensures they'll all eventually be closed and their replacement with for-profit charters, financial devastation of the public schools which are left behind due in part to favorable funding formulas for the charters, inevitable corruption scandals of the for-profit schools, etc. Of course all of this is happening in "urban schools" where "those kids" can be the guinea pigs in a grand experiment because affluent white suburban people will flip their shit when it's their turn. Hey, it's still "school choice" much as it is "free trade" or "war in Iraq," but it long ago ceased to be anything that a liberal (or any decent person) should support. Still they soldier on.
Eventheliberals mostly aren't too outspoken about this stuff anymore, preferring to just go silent on the subject, but a lot of them still support, if more quietly, the "school choice" movement because if it is called "school choice" it's gotta be good, amiright?
The charter school/school choice "movement" has been a bit like that. Take a germ of an idea which might sound good to some liberals (and might even be a good idea!) - allow some additional flexibility in large urban school districts, given parents some options about where to send their kids, perhaps to specialty schools. Then add in for profit schooling, public money spent on religious schools, union busting (a feature for many self-styled liberals, too, I know), forced closure of so-called "underperforming" neighborhood schools under a formula which ensures they'll all eventually be closed and their replacement with for-profit charters, financial devastation of the public schools which are left behind due in part to favorable funding formulas for the charters, inevitable corruption scandals of the for-profit schools, etc. Of course all of this is happening in "urban schools" where "those kids" can be the guinea pigs in a grand experiment because affluent white suburban people will flip their shit when it's their turn. Hey, it's still "school choice" much as it is "free trade" or "war in Iraq," but it long ago ceased to be anything that a liberal (or any decent person) should support. Still they soldier on.
Eventheliberals mostly aren't too outspoken about this stuff anymore, preferring to just go silent on the subject, but a lot of them still support, if more quietly, the "school choice" movement because if it is called "school choice" it's gotta be good, amiright?
ACTUALLY, Segregation Was Just What Black People Wanted
That's part of what DeVos's gibberish is expressing. HBCUs gave black people a choice! (the only choice, but factschmacts) and they CHOSE to segregate themselves and this was wonderful!
Increased segregation is part of the goal of the school choice movement, because exclusionary zoning designed to maintain racial segregation has proven to be an imperfect tool for achieving it, especially in larger districts, as occasionally overachieving uppity black people manage to buy into their white utopias and rub their dirty elbows with their darling ivory spawn, and sometimes poor white people get left behind with the black poors.
It is an egalitarian vision, really. Rich AND poor white people should both be allowed the benefits of segregation. It's what black people want, too, after all!
Increased segregation is part of the goal of the school choice movement, because exclusionary zoning designed to maintain racial segregation has proven to be an imperfect tool for achieving it, especially in larger districts, as occasionally overachieving uppity black people manage to buy into their white utopias and rub their dirty elbows with their darling ivory spawn, and sometimes poor white people get left behind with the black poors.
It is an egalitarian vision, really. Rich AND poor white people should both be allowed the benefits of segregation. It's what black people want, too, after all!
Pioneers
I guess we're now learning that "school choice" advocates just want everybody to be as fucking stupid as they are.
From now on I will be starting from that fact.
A key priority for this administration is to help develop opportunities for communities that are often the most underserved. Rather than focus solely on funding, we must be willing to make the tangible, structural reforms that will allow students to reach their full potential.
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have done this since their founding. They started from the fact that there were too many students in America who did not have equal access to education. They saw that the system wasn’t working, that there was an absence of opportunity, so they took it upon themselves to provide the solution.
HBCUs are real pioneers when it comes to school choice. They are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality. Their success has shown that more options help students flourish.
From now on I will be starting from that fact.
Monday, February 27, 2017
Of Course Safety Is An Issue Until They Work
And they don't work.
The rest of the article is about how Uber kept lying to San Francisco. But, hey, lets throw lots of free public infrastructure at them because FUTURE.
Why did Uber launch the self-driving in pilot in San Francisco if it knew it was in violation of the law? A likely scenario was that Uber didn’t want to disclose its disengagement rate — the number of times the vehicle forced the human driver to take control because it couldn’t safely navigate the conditions on the road — or any accidents to the DMV, and by extension the public. The company referred questions about the emails to comments made by Levandowski in a call with reporters last December.
The rest of the article is about how Uber kept lying to San Francisco. But, hey, lets throw lots of free public infrastructure at them because FUTURE.
That Did Not Occur To Me - And Therefore Anyone - Before
Trump is the extreme version of this.
But we all do it a bit sometimes in less extreme versions. Sometimes that person you're arguing with is an idiot, but sometimes they're actually someone who has thought through a particular issue quite a bit and disagrees with you because of that. In other words, sometimes we're wrong. Except me! I'm always right. It comes with the pundit license.
"We have come up with a solution that's really, really I think very good," Trump said at a meeting of the nation's governors at the White House.
"Now, I have to tell you, it's an unbelievably complex subject," he added. "Nobody knew health care could be so complicated."
But we all do it a bit sometimes in less extreme versions. Sometimes that person you're arguing with is an idiot, but sometimes they're actually someone who has thought through a particular issue quite a bit and disagrees with you because of that. In other words, sometimes we're wrong. Except me! I'm always right. It comes with the pundit license.
What's It All About Then?
If you had a few hundred billion to spend on federal programs, what would you spend it on? I don't need ironclad accounting, just a roughly appropriate scale of spending (you know, don't say you'd spent the first $5 on free college for all).
I know we all mostly agree on the relatively costless nonevil stuff, but how would you spend the big bucks? Prioritize!
I know we all mostly agree on the relatively costless nonevil stuff, but how would you spend the big bucks? Prioritize!
Immigrants I Like And Those Other People
It's a little bit like abortion in that there's no non-horrific way (except in immigration's case maybe convictions of serious crimes, and even that can be pretty horrific to be honest) to have the government decide which are naughty and which are nice.
There's no way to write a "people like Carlos because I like him" clause into the law. There just isn't. Decide it's ok to aggressively transport longtime residents away, and you're going to be rounding up a lot of people who are "that nice immigrant I know" to somebody.
WEST FRANKFORT, Ill. — Ask residents of this coal-mining crossroads about President Trump’s decision to crack down on undocumented immigrants and most offer no protest. Mr. Trump, who easily won this mostly white southern Illinois county, is doing what he promised, they say. As Terry Chambers, a barber on Main Street, put it, the president simply wants “to get rid of the bad eggs.”
But then they took Carlos.
...
“I think people need to do things the right way, follow the rules and obey the laws, and I firmly believe in that,” said Lori Barron, the owner of Lori’s Hair A’Fairs, a beauty salon. “But in the case of Carlos, I think he may have done more for the people here than this place has ever given him. I think it’s absolutely terrible that he could be taken away.”
There's no way to write a "people like Carlos because I like him" clause into the law. There just isn't. Decide it's ok to aggressively transport longtime residents away, and you're going to be rounding up a lot of people who are "that nice immigrant I know" to somebody.
Trump's America
This kind of thing could be motivated by genuine anti-semitism, or simply vandalism aimed at an "acceptable" target, but either way...
When Silver, 50, of Cherry Hill, N.J., heard about the vandalism at the Jewish cemetery that occurred overnight Saturday, she rushed to her loved ones' graves.
What she saw when she arrived was worse than she imagined — tombstone after tombstone, story after story, was toppled to the ground — including those belonging to her mother and great-grandmother.
Sunday, February 26, 2017
Sunday Evening
Not sure if I've seen any Oscar movies this year. That isn't a boast.
...ok I saw Fences on stage, but not the movie.
...ok I saw Fences on stage, but not the movie.
Spice Spice Baby
SPICEY is getting FEISTY.
Last week, after Spicer became aware that information had leaked out of a planning meeting with about a dozen of his communications staffers, he reconvened the group in his office to express his frustration over the number of private conversations and meetings that were showing up in unflattering news stories, according to sources in the room.
Upon entering Spicer’s second floor office, staffers were told to dump their phones on a table for a “phone check," to prove they had nothing to hide.
We Won!!!!
Ok winning is less important than the turnout.
Guess all the Delaware Berniebros decided to vote.
In the most expensive special election in Delaware history ― a contest to decide which party controls the state Senate ― Democrat Stephanie Hansen was on track to annihilate her Republican rival on the back of extraordinary turnout.
The last time her opponent, John Marino, ran in this district, in 2014, he lost by just 2 points. Hansen’s 58-42 percent victory over Marino on Saturday ensured that Democrats will maintain control of the state Senate. It also notched a big Donald Trump-era win for a new generation of Democratic activists shocked into action by the November election.
Guess all the Delaware Berniebros decided to vote.
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