Monday Night

Tomorrow is...

Afternoon Thread

enjoy

Dignitude

Probably my "favorite" Trump tweet.

.@ariannahuff is unattractive both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man- he made a good decision.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 28, 2012

From Bean To Cup

The EU would be nuts to trust the UK after the Windrush scandal and they are not stupid.

Senior figures from the European Parliament marked Sajid Javid’s first day by sending him a joint letter laying out their concerns – and warning that the Windrush scandal must not be repeated for European nationals caught up in Brexit.

The letter comes a day after Mr Javid’s predecessor Amber Rudd resigned in the furore over deportation targets that followed the Windrush scandal, which was branded “deeply worrying” in the EU capital.

America's Worst Humans

Chris Cillizza.

Snowflakes

The Michelle Wolf "controversy" is notable because journalists pre-emptively staged the hissy fit that the Right was planning to throw but could not figure out how to do it.

I still have no idea what they are mad about. I mean I know what they are mad about but I don't know what they are claiming to be mad about. Something something eye shadow.

Bye

The people who resign in disgrace are not always the ones who should be resigning, but this is a little tradition which, however flawed, seems to be eroding which just means that no one ever resigns in disgrace or even admits there is a disgrace. So, something, at least.

Amber Rudd has dramatically resigned as home secretary, after repeatedly struggling to account for her role in the unjust treatment of Windrush generation migrants.

And I Would Make A Lot Of Friends

Apparently tomorrow is... Monday?

Punch Up Punch Up Punch Punch Down

Just punch down. It's a simple rule.

Get Your War On

We all lived through that hell decade of the aughts. We weirdly managed to have some fun! When the history of this era is written, it probably will not include the most important artistic contributions of that time, because that's the way the world works.

David Rees captured that moment - in the moment - in a way that nobody else did.

While we are on rerun Sunday, take a quick look.



I don't know everything about David - we almost met a couple of times - but I remember him fundraising and donating to landmine removal in Afghanistan. There is an obvious point about where the money is.

Some Days I Go Out Without Pants

I have a lot of real life stuff going on at the moment, and while this blog always sucks, it's probably going to suck a bit more for a bit. Bear with me!

Lazy Sunday

Have a rerun.

Lunch Thread

Rock on.

Anyone Can See

It's ancient history and too much to describe in a small blog post, but the overwhelming ethos of the political press in the 90s and pre-9/11 aughts was that NOTHING FUCKING MATTERED. It was all just a show, and journalists were all extras jostling for a speaking role. That the same people were tasked with suddenly understanding that oh crap maybe things do matter helped usher in the subsequent hell decade, but at least, for a moment, they realized that maybe politics had consequences.

I Am So Not Funny

I am so not funny that I remember that funny joke I told 10 years ago. We all get a good one off occasionally.

Everything was bad after 9/11 but maybe the only good consequence (even if they fucked it up entirely) was that for a brief moment the political press suddenly realized... things matter.

Vulgarities

The annual press dinners with a comedian are always a useful lesson about what really upsets our access journalists.

Morning Thread

I Can't Even Make A Collie Stay

Life is weird.

Saturday Evening

I think tomorrow is... I have no idea.

Happy Hour?

Here ya go! Hic.

I Was Wrong

I used to believe that we needed our own lunatics to balance their lunatics. I was wrong.

InCels

As for Groundhog Day... you can't fake being better, but you can work on being better.

Controversial Opinions

There are two movies which were better than they should have been, but yet... could still be remade better!


Galaxy Quest.

Groundhog Day.

It Should Be Free

And everyone should take it. It's a great way to see the Statue of Liberty for free!

But also the reasons that it is free are bad.

Which Airline Should I Avoid This Week

Joke because they are all bad so we have to boycott the one with the outrage of the week, and most of us don't even have that luxury because you can't get there from here otherwise.

Great Britain's Worst Humans

Amber Rudd.

Morning Thread

Footnotes

I have not heard much about Sarah Palin recently. I'm glad of that. I wish I hadn't heard much from the journalists who promoted her as the next big dictator. We all gotta eat. Weird they eat so well.

The Price Of The Big Bucks

One thing I thought was the case, back in my naive days, was that the people in charge resigned when their charges fucked up. Your responsibility, the buck stops here, whatever. Just what are you being paid for? In part, insurance against your resignation when inevitably something which isn't entirely your fault goes haywire.

I was such a silly boy.

Be The Change You Want To Be

It's a tiny thing and I don't want anyone to pat me on the back for this, but I've made a conscious point to, on balance, pick women or people of color (or both - crazy!) as authors for the next books I read. Not always, of course. Don't worry, white dudes, we will still have plenty of your books with us. I am not a voracious novel reader, but I read a bit, and while I'm not one to deny that The Classics have their merits, most us don't read only those. Some things I read these days I think are Very Good Literature and some things are Fun Crap, and that's the way things are with most fiction we consume and making a slight effort to read things by women and people of color means that, at the very least (though not just), the Fun Crap might tell me stories about things I am not entirely familiar with.

Friday Evening

When your much needed and deserved nap is ruined by waking up to the startling wrong idea that it 5:30 AM, not 5:30 PM.

Bye Pat (PA-07)

Watch them go.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan resigned from Congress Friday, leaving months after it was revealed that he had secretly used taxpayer funds to settle a sexual harassment accusation.

He'd already announced that he wasn't going to run again.

The Silencing Of Conservatives By The Liberal Media

When will it end???

Developing: "Mass firings" at @RedState today. It's about money and politics. Source says "they fired everybody who was insufficiently supportive of Trump." https://t.co/h1aBVTlFHI

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) April 27, 2018

A Neverending Series of Self-Owns

It's petty and trivial, but we need a bit of fun with our pointless hobbies, and we must remember that being obsessive politics and news junkies is a mostly pointless hobby. One does not actually need to follow the latest bullshit from the latest pundit to be a well-informed citizen to know who to vote for. Actually most of us should spend 10% of the time we spend on the stupid shit we follow and use it to learn about local politicians whose names we learn 15 minutes before we head to the voting booth.

Still it is our hobby, and we have to find the fun of it. The one fun we do have is observing how stupid most conservatives are. They live to Own The Libs, and in fact "whatever owns the libs" drives most their policy preferences (of the rabble, not elites), but most of the time when they're OWNING US we're just laughing at them.

The racism and homophobia and misogyny does piss us off. You got us there, cons. Congrats.

Gotta Get Down On

Normal blogging to resume for a few days at least.

You Know Who

Is awake and tweeting. Maybe he'll do another call in interview this morning. Something to look forward to.

Late Night

Another busy day for me.

Thursday Evening

enjoy

Maybe This Sucky Blog Has Been Good For Something After All

This is incredible. https://t.co/O0oEisXEeJ pic.twitter.com/ro04fnHdcR

— Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) April 26, 2018

Yes I know it's mostly been a certain president

Incoming

Apparently there's a Cosby verdict (so not another hung jury). Exciting!!!

..guilty on all 3 counts.

Not Too Late

For a lunch thread.

The Rot At The Top

I'm pretty squeaky clean I think (I don't mean I'm a perfect human being, but there aren't any bodies buried on the roof deck), but if a president called me up to appoint me to a position which would entail massive scrutiny I would politely run away screaming. I'm about as much of a public figure as I can stand, and even if there's nothing more than a few suspect Twinkie wrappers in my trash, I still don't want people going through my trash.

Anyway, as Ryan said in the link below, elites just don't seem to think they can fall very far, no matter what they do. I think Harvey Weinstein will remain dead, but it is almost inevitable that some of other recently disgraced will have successful comebacks, and certainly true that many more of them are trying to.

Bye Doctor Ronny

I guess the mystery is why he didn't get out while the going was still good.

WASHINGTON — The White House withdrew the nomination of Dr. Ronny L. Jackson, the White House physician, to lead the Veterans Affairs Department on Thursday after lawmakers went public with a torrent of accusations leveled against him by nearly two dozen current and former colleagues from the White House medical staff.

....Cooper:

What this tends to demonstrate is that the incredible corruption of the Trump administration — acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Mick Mulvaney recently basically admitted to taking quid pro quo bribes while he was in Congress — is a window into a much larger galaxy of corruption and malfeasance at the top of the American elite. Most people in Jackson's position simply are not used to being subject to accountability of any kind. Even President Obama, whose vetting process was infamously extensive and slow, apparently tolerated astounding misbehavior from his own dang doctor.

If people in the running to work for Trump had a lick of sense, they would surely see the risk here, and pick this time for a long vacation, early retirement, or to start that carpentry business they've always wanted. Even if your own history is in order, it's a near certainty that Trump will flip out and fire you after a few months anyway.

Morning Thread

Late Night

Various things interfering to make my blogs much less mighty these days.

Afternoon Thread

er...evening

WeWhat

I never paid much attention to it but I never quite got the WeWork business model.

WeWork began business by leasing office space and renting desks to New York’s creative set, with unusual work perks such as microbrews on tap and a “community manager” who programs events such as book clubs and Ping-Pong tournaments. It now has 234 locations across 22 countries, company documents show, with a portfolio of short-term co-working spaces, mainly leased from landlords on long-term rental agreements.

Lease flexibility, a major perk for potential WeWork tenants, also poses one of the company’s biggest risks. The company is subject to "mismatched terms" when it takes 10- or 20-year office leases from landlords and then offers companies month-to-month rental options, according to Fitch.

Now I think I get it - attract a bunch of money by marketing itself to investors as a some sort of new economy thing (hip millennial working spaces with Ping-Pong and beer!!!), and use that money to go long on a massive portfolio of commercial real estate leases. Then hope for the best!

Could work. Will work for some people, as is always the case when money is sloshing around.

I Do!

When one of my dear readers gives me the gift of a modest flat in London, not too far out from the center, I will move there.


The right wing fantasy of London and Sweden (and Paris and wherever they decide to talk about next week) as being horror zones because a bunch of brown people live there is bigoted and also...false. It could be bigoted and true if people were as bigoted as Tucker Carlson, but it isn't. The problem with London is that too many people want to live there. Which is why one of you needs to buy me a flat.

They Lie About Everything

Mnuchin is rich. Really really rich! Also, he does not care about the things you yokels care about because he lives in the greatest only city in the world!

“People in Kentucky took this stuff very seriously. Being a New Yorker, I don’t have any interest in watching the eclipse,” Mnuchin said according to the Washington Post.

As a New Yorker, he took it so seriously he had a military jet take him there.

Which One Is That Again

I keep confusing all of the details of the various killing sprees. You know, "was that the waffle house guy or was that the...".

Late Thread

Happy Hour Thread

get happy

Give The Dems Reliable Veto-Proof Majorities And

I know this is my regular cranky complaint and I certainly never mean it in a "both parties are the same" sense. Also, too, it's not going to happen this election cycle. But what would happen in 2019 if it did happen? What would have happened if President Obama had been effectively a benevolent dictator, with a compliant Congress rubber stamping everything he sent them?

I occasionally pay attention to politics and I literally have no idea.

I don't know what the aspirational Dem agenda is. I don't even know what the reasonable - Dems could win House and have slim Senate majority - compromise agenda is.

I suspect some commonsense solutions and bipartisan cooperation.

America's Worst Humans

Kevin Williamson.

And all this science he don't understand

I am genuinely curious how the little BBs floating around his walnut brain conspired to give him what appears to be genuine affection for Rocket Man.

BREAKING: Trump says North Korea wants meeting ‘as soon as possible,’ praises Kim Jong Un as ‘very open’ and ‘very honorable’

— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) April 24, 2018

A Meeting Of The Big Banks

For some reason, in 2018, our customers still can't quite figure out why transferring money electronically is not only not instantaneous, but can take some ambiguous amount of time for reasons only known to us. They are resorting to using "apps" on their "phones" to bypass the excellent services that we provide for them at low low prices with our always trustworthy brands.

How about we...innovate in this space? We will calls it Zelle. The kids will love that! Zelle.

People Who Disagree With Me Are All Naive Ridiculous Children

Sometimes it's even true! But my new commitment is to adopt this rhetorical tactic which is always used against people who suggest "maybe we can have nice things" or "war is bad, mmmkay?"

Fuck Greyhound

There was some ambiguity about whether Greyhound did or did not have a choice in the matter given that our "border" goes all the way to Missouri, but apparently not.

Border Patrol officers routinely board buses without a warrant, without specific people they’re targeting, up to 100 miles from the border — and ask passengers for their papers. Greyhound, the nation’s largest intercity bus line, lets the Border Patrol do it and doesn’t plan to stop.

Greyhound officials say they’re just complying with the law. But 10 ACLU state affiliates argue Greyhound has the right — and the responsibility to its passengers — to demand a warrant for Border Patrol officers to board its buses.

And, yes, I do take Greyhound sometimes. Not anymore.

You don't have to give a crap about immigrants and racism (I do!) to not want your bus boarded by a bunch of thugs demanding your papers, especially in a country where most people don't have, or certainly don't carry, any papers.

Only The Best People For This Administration

The very, very best. Bigly.

What's It All About Then

Oh.

Just In: 2 sources confirm to @nancycordes and @edokeefe Sen Vet Affairs Comm is reviewing allegations against Ronny Jackson which include a hostile work environment, excessive drinking on the job and improperly dispensing meds.

— Steve Dorsey (@steve_dorsey) April 24, 2018

Did He Contribute Money to a Democrat Once?

I have no idea what possible allegations Republicans could be concerned about at this point.

Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee are raising concerns about allegations involving Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the department of Veterans Affairs and are reviewing them to determine if they are substantial enough to upend his nomination.

Committee members have been told about allegations related to improper conduct in various stages of his career, two sources said.

Monday Evening

Tomorrow is...

The Lifestyles Of The Megarich

I've always been confused by the "I'm rich, so I have a big mansion" norm. Obviously if you're megarich you can have a big mansion and a cardboard box, too, if you're so inclined. Maybe the big mansion is just for the TV cameras and you spend most of your time in your beloved cardboard box.

But assuming the big mansion is basically "home," what do you use all of this space for? Again, I get that the money is so inconsequential to Jeff Bezos that he can have 50 of these things, but, you know, size isn't everything, and maybe a Porsche, or even just a Lexus, is a bit more enjoyable than a semi?

Unless you regularly have *large numbers of other people staying with you* (which I also don't get - buy the hotel across the street to put your pals up), what do you do with 25 bathrooms?

Overseen by the Barnes Vanze architecture firm, the reno project covers 191 doors (many either custom mahogany or bronze), 25 bathrooms, 11 bedrooms, five living rooms/lounges, five staircases, three kitchens, two libraries/studies, two workout rooms, two elevators—and a huge ballroom. Read on for the highlights.

The article suggests they really do plan on having the DC center of socializing. If true, I supposed it makes some sense. Maybe? I still don't get it.

Deep Thought

When people argue that both sides are wrong, aren't they just saying there's a third side that they agree with?

Mind. blown.

Democrats In Red Places

One thing I think people are regularly confused about is just what kind of opposition such politicians face. There's a tendency to say (by reporters, bad consultants, pundits, etc.) that such Democrats have to be more "moderate" to win. Ok, that might be true for some issues, but it often isn't true about a lot of them.


Roughly speaking, "moderate" Dems aren't supposed to vote for "free ponies for all" because swing voters they face hate free ponies for all. But people actually like free ponies for all! Of course they do! Free ponies!

What really happens is that the Chamber of Commerce basically says, "if you vote for free ponies for all, we will spend a lot of money telling voters that you love Muslims and have 'San Francisco values' (whatever that means)." So those politicians vote down the Free Ponies bill, and sage pundits observe that, well, of course they did, because voters in West Virginia hate free ponies and much prefer tax cuts for rich people. After all, West Virginia is a red state!

The Big Money often wins on the issues by threatening (implicitly at least) to go against politicians for entirely unrelated issues. Failure to support free ponies is giving into blackmail, basically.

They Could Win By Winning

The perpetual fantasy is that some inexpensive neato technology comes along and solves the supposed "last mile problem" (which I am sick of hearing about, because it takes 20 minutes to walk a damn mile and the last mile problem is more of a last 5 miles problem usually so...). Even with this, nobody ever does the damn math. You know, conservatively, 100 people spill out of a philly commuter rail train at a moderately busy station during the afternoon rush hour. So you want 50 of them to hop in self-driving cars. The fantasy is these can be shared rides, but the logistics of that are not promising in this situation. And that fleet of cars needs to be back in half an hour for the next train. Multiply that by tens of train stations. And, well, this is a rush hour thing, mostly, so that fleet is going to sit idle or need something else to do (peak period use is always a problem no matter what transit mode we're talking about, but you can't just wish it away). It needs to be cheap and fast and convenient enough that people who likely already own cars because they live in a place where they need them, decide they'd rather do this than just drive the damn "last mile" in the morning and evening and pay the 2 bucks to park there all day.

It'll be neato, but not neat enough. And it won't be cheap.

Here’s another idea for Waymo, Uber, Cruise, and everyone else working on computer driving: Start a shuttle service for people in suburban towns, taking them home from the local train station. It’s an easy to way to solve the last mile issue, especially for people who don’t have cars—and will make the people in neighboring towns eager to have the tech, too.

The group of "people who live in the suburbs but don't own cars and yet can afford an extra taxi ride home every day" is...not very large.

Good Morning

Hopeful

I keep reading this and I do not understand it (WaPo).

Sunday Evening

I guess tomorrow is... Monday.

Can't Trust

The "Windrush scandal" - important in itself of course - also demonstrates that the Tories can't be trusted by the EU at a time when securing the rights of current EU residents of the UK (and, people in the UK seem to forget, the rights of UK residents in the EU) is an important matter in the Brexit negotiations.

A Complete Witch Hunt!

My critics are fools.

Poor Mittens

I admit I can barely remember...how did he win the 2012 primary?

West Valley, Utah (CNN)Mitt Romney did not win the Utah Republican Party's nomination on Saturday, meaning he must compete in a June primary election as he seeks to replace retiring US Sen. Orrin Hatch.

...

On the second round of voting, Utah state representative Mike Kennedy emerged in the lead with 50.88%. Romney came in a close second with 49.12%.

Saturday Night Blues Thread

Saturday Afternoon

Get your afternoon on.

You Can't Handle The Truth

Conservatives are so weird.

Silencing

Is this the future that liberals really want? One in which people paid a lot of money to express their opinions can have those opinions criticized even by people who are not paid a lot of money to do so? That's unAmerican.

If I Did It

Every day Trump basically tweets something like, "They don't have the proof, yet!" and has no idea how guilty that makes him seem even though I don't know precisely what he's guilty of.

BothSides

Gotta hear them.

Students in the class were supposed to complete an assignment on the "positive aspects" and "negative aspects" of the life of slaves, giving a "balanced view." Manu said his teacher told them to draw on information from their textbook and "stuff that we could think of the top off our head."

Morning Thread

Gonna be a gorgeous day here in DE.

Friday Evening

Rock on.

America's Worst Periodicals

Harper's.

These People

May is a xenophobic racist with Little England fantasies but hopefully shame will cause her to do the right thing.

The prime minister said she had given Caribbean leaders an “absolute commitment” at a meeting earlier this week that “the UK will do whatever it takes including, where appropriate, payment of compensation, to resolve the anxieties and problems that some of the Windrush generation have suffered”.

She added: “These people are British. They are part of us; they helped to build Britain and we are all the stronger for their contributions.”

Tapes

One of the great mysteries of Clintonland is they both surrounded themselves with people who are truly horrible at their jobs.

Perhaps no one could have gotten good coverage for Clinton given the weird psychosis she inspires in the political press, but also Reines is uniquely bad at that job. He's a horrible and incompetent person!

What'd I Miss

Was on an anthropological expedition to the suburbs.

Lunch Thread

Busy with stuff.

It's Real

BREAKING: Comey memo: Trump said Vladimir Putin told him, 'We have some of the most beautiful hookers in the world'

— The Associated Press (@AP) April 20, 2018

Overnight Sheets

Enjoy

Happy Hour Thread

It's, what, 1993?

Thanks, Obama

The cult has found a new gimp to lock up in the basement.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — New austerity measures are coming for Puerto Rico as a federal control board overseeing the U.S. territory’s finances meets Thursday to approve several fiscal plans that will serve as the island’s economic blueprint for the next five years.

Nobody wants to hear it, but Obama was bad. Of course he was better than [generic 21st century Republican] - and in some ways he was even better than that - but that's a pretty low bar, my dear readers. Democratic voters should expect better. If Dems want to get elected, they need to demand better from their leaders.

America's Worst Humans

Ezra Klein.

I actually really like Ezra, but stop fucking up, Bro.

Young Pups

One thing about being Very Online is that you make lots of friends and then forget that they age with you. I am so much older now, and so are all of you!

History's Greatest Monster

I enjoy the Netflix show Grace and Frankie. It isn't the best show ever made, but it has its moments. I'm glad Lily and Jane have work. Still it's funny how there's a TV show starring JANE FONDA and this hasn't inspired a peep from the usual suspects.

The kids won't understand - either the Vietnam or Iraq issues - but there was a moment when "Hanoi Jane" was resurrected. Jane Fonda - Academy Award winning actress and exercise video entrepreneur - was weirdly briefly turned once again into America's number one enemy. I went to a leftyish conference once where she was a speaker - and was on my flight home! - and even the lefties there were uncomfortable because she had been briefly resurrected as a lefty boogeyman.

I don't even remember if Fonda even said a thing about the Iraq war. But Hanoi Jane was resurrected to keep those Quaker protesters in line.

The anti-war people are *always* more right than wrong. Stupid anti-war lefties sometimes do and say stupid things, but those stupid things usually don't include "let's kill a million people and whoopsie bygones."

Covers

Nobody likes my taste in music which is fine (well, at least a few other people buy tickets to the shows I go to). I tend to like music more than songs, which is a too simple distinction. But I still like songs! And the measure of a good song is whether it can be covered by others. The original might be the best, but the song is the song.

What If There Were 10 Orrin Hatches On The Senate Floor?

Time for a revolution.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, the father of six, grandfather of 14 and great-grandfather of 23, said he had "no problem" with such a rules change. "But what if there are 10 babies on the floor of the Senate?" he asked.

The world's greatest deliberative body does not actually ever deliberate. Someone should tell them.

Morning Thread

I Think, Both

Life is weird.

America's Worst Humans

Andrew Cuomo.

The Important Things

There's a restaurant/bar owner I know a bit (we chat when I see him, I don't mean we're bffs). For awhile he expressed some concerns about neighborhood parking. Then he surveyed his customers and found out that fewer than 20% drove. Not nothing, but not the biggest concern.

Urban corridors can't possibly have enough parking to support local businesses. If people aren't coming by foot/transit, you're out of luck. That doesn't mean 0 parking is the answer, it just means that catering to your driving customers can't be the priority. Increasing foot traffic appeal should be.

This should be obvious, but store owners tend to drive and customers who can't find parking tend to complain.

Safeway Man

Probably Richard Cohen's finest.

“Liberal” Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen spoke for many of his colleagues when he defended Bush’s fatal blow against the Iran-Contra investigation. Cohen especially liked Bush’s pardon of former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who had been indicted for obstruction of justice but was popular around Washington.

In a Dec. 30, 1992, column, Cohen said his view was colored by how impressed he was when he would see Weinberger in the Georgetown Safeway store, pushing his own shopping cart.

“Based on my Safeway encounters, I came to think of Weinberger as a basic sort of guy, candid and no nonsense – which is the way much of official Washington saw him,” Cohen wrote. “Cap, my Safeway buddy, walks, and that’s all right with me.”

Hagiography

Poppy and W. are horrible people and their adminstrations and legacies were horrible. The people they surrounded themselves with were horrible even if Poppy could fake New England gentility. Barbara Bush never held elected office and I don't care if people say nice things about her upon her death, though I don't think they're obligated to.

Still... even evil lefties are unlikely to top this.

Trump political consigliere Roger Stone unloaded on Barbara Bush in an Instagram post on Tuesday evening just hours after her death. There, Stone wrote that the former first lady was a “nasty drunk” and posted a quote from him suggesting that if you lit her body on fire it would “burn for three days.”

“Barbara Bush was a nasty drunk. When it came to drinking she made Betty Ford look like Carrie Nation #blottoBabs,” said Stone. “Barbara Bush drank so much booze, if they cremated her … her body would burn for three days.”

Freedom

In European countries, you can get usually from any point to any point* on public transportation. This might not be simple or even cheap and certainly not necessarily fast, but it isn't an insane thing to do, either.


*there are exceptions, but to a surprising degree this is true. That rural bus might run once per day, but it does.

Old Man Cats, Old Man Blog

My cats are basically the same age as this sucky blog.

Huckster

No Bob Loblaw so I have no idea about the legal issues, but at least conceptually this has been such a fraud.

October, 2016:

As of last week, all new Teslas include the hardware required for the cars to drive autonomously. That ability is likely years away, but the company wants its current cars to be able to drive themselves when the software is ready in 5-10 years. The company is even including the hardware in all the cars free of charge — though if you want to actually use it, it’ll cost you a good chunk of change: $8,000 if you pay for it up front, rising to as much as $10,000 if you decide to unlock it later.

The new “Enhanced Autopilot” — basically more advanced version of the current Autopilot system (well, it will be eventually, once Tesla finishes testing it) — is a $5,000 option on the Model X and the Model S at purchase, rising to $6,000 if you enable it after delivery. Tesla says it will be able to match the car’s speed to traffic conditions, automatically change lanes without driver input, drive from one freeway to another, and even exit the freeway when your destination is near.

Then there’s “Full Self-Driving Capability,” which will cost $3,000 at delivery or $4,000 later. It requires Enhanced Autopilot and will, according to Tesla, eventually allow the car to drive itself in all conditions. The car will be able to drive itself to your destination, wherever it is, determining the optimal route and handling everything from stop signs and traffic lights to roundabouts and streets without lane markings. Then it’ll be able to drop you off at your destination and go find a parking spot.

January, 2017:

It's only a matter of time until Teslas become fully autonomous—three to six months, according to CEO Elon Musk.

That's the timeline that Musk gave on Twitter when asked, "At what point will 'Full Self-Driving Capability' features noticeably depart from 'Enhanced Autopilot' features?"

October, 2017:

There are more than 90,000 vehicles on the road worldwide that feature Autopilot 2.0. According to data uncovered by Electrek via an anonymous source, some 77 percent of owners bought the Enhanced Autopilot package, while around 40 percent opted for the Fully Self-Driving Capability.

Yesterday:

None of these "full self-driving" capabilities are available yet. "Self-Driving functionality is dependent upon extensive software validation and regulatory approval, which may vary widely by jurisdiction," the page says. "It is not possible to know exactly when each element of the functionality described above will be available, as this is highly dependent on local regulatory approval."
But the big reason full self-driving isn't available yet has nothing to do with "regulatory approval." The problem is that Tesla hasn't created the technology yet. Indeed, the company could be years away from completing work on it, and some experts doubt it will ever be possible to achieve full self-driving capabilities with the hardware installed on today's Tesla vehicles.

Shiny Toys

At least a monorail could be moderately useful, but sadly it's usually even stupider Shiny New Transportation technologies that get the attention of people in government.

Hopefully, At Least, The System Is Improving

The UK has been deporting black people who have lived there for their whole lives for lolz for awhile and it seems there is finally a backlash which might fix things. Might.

What is meant to happen is that British citizens do not find themselves in a Kafkaesque nightmare of trying to prove that they’re British citizens, on pain of being deported to countries they have not lived in for 50 years, if ever, simply because we have a Prime Minister who is ostensibly incapable of comprehending that immigrants are actually real people. What is meant to happen is that the government doesn’t maliciously ruin lives, just because half a decade ago its ministers were shitting themselves about UKIP. What is meant to happen is that you don’t fuck things up on this horrendous fucking scale in the first place.

Theresa May is bad.

Rocket Man

Though the truth is, maybe only Trump can go to North Korea. Way above my pay grade and I don't claim otherwise, but the delicate dance of our diplomacy and "foreign policy" is rooted in a lot of historical stupidity. We don't talk to certain bad leaders because they're a certain kind of bad, and we talk to other bad leaders because reasons. Good dictators, bad dictators. We tend to like the right wing ones and the ones that let our multinationals (oxymoronic, but..) operate with impunity.

Trump not understanding what the Very Serious People tell him could actually be good! Of course he could blow up the world, too. Exciting!!!

Who Sets The Bar And How Do We Define A Lift

Just Maggie being Maggie.

Was a terrific @washingtonpost scoop - and the bar has been set so low publicly on what Trump can achieve w NoKo, if there is movement, Trump will get a lift publicly. https://t.co/i56Gzj7Y5y

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) April 18, 2018

Some Random Night

I have no idea what day it is.

Free is Good

I'm always on the lookout for good arts/music deals. I'm not trying to avoid paying to support such things, but can spread my support around a bit if they all come at a bit of a discount.

The "new to me" thing here in the urban hellhole, for you Philly people, is, actually, free. We have this little music school which weirdly doesn't get as much press as its competitors in New York and Boston but nonetheless seems to be the place to go if you happen to be a young prodigy (sadly, my Chopsticks audition didn't go so well). And the students give lots of free concerts. Lots of them. From November-May, mostly. But lots of them! And these kids are as good or better as anyone you'll pay money to see. But, a bit like the NCAA, we exploit them.

Curtis student performances are free. There are lots of them. They are good.

America's Worst Humans

Richard Cohen.

Go Long

I don't think it's especially important whether a giant corporation is doing the right thing "for the right reasons" because a giant corporation isn't a person and one can't really impute motives to it. Maybe it says something about the CEO, but really who cares? It's good if the desire to have good corporate PR aligns with doing the right thing not because that means the corporation is good, but because it means that they perceive that doing the right thing is popular. At the very least, making a big show means that.

Starbucks said on Tuesday it would close more than 8,000 of its stores in the United States on May 29 to conduct racial-bias training for nearly 175,000 employees.

I have no desire to defend Starbucks and do not care. I just mean that when a big racism happens it's good if they act like they think it's important.

Oh Dear

I'm not sure if the reason the Washington Post keeps letting Richard Cohen write columns is because somebody there loves him or because somebody there hates him, but his latest (find it yourself) is reason to remember why he was 8th runner up for WANKER OF THE DECADE.

Most relevant for the latest column.

Read the whole thing. It's really a reminder of how horrible people are about this stuff.

There Must Be Higher Love

I haven't read the book, of course, but synthesizing various reviews and excerpts, Comey's basic point seems to be: Everything I did, I did it for the reputation and purity of essence of the FBI, because it is extraordinarily important to pursue partisan ends in the name of nonpartisanship to the maintain the dignitude the most important institution in the history of the universe, or civilization will fall apart.

Or something.

He is... bad and stupid and the kind of guy who gets high on his own farts.

Lunch Thread

enjoy

I Am Shocked To Find That Fox News Has No Ethics

I do think the attitude of the "respectable" press corps changed about half way through the Obama administration, but for a long time they resisted crazy hippie criticisms of Fox as just being PARTISAN so, you know, BOTH SIDES and (self-flagellation) Fox has a point about just how LIBERAL we are.

My only theory about this over the years that gave some credit to these defenses was that none of these people ever watched Fox. Some of them worked with actual Fox reporters covering the White House, etc., and they seemed like reasonably "normal" reporters (and in some cases were), so they thought Fox was just that plus prime time opinionating, and also, too, so is MSNBC, so BOTH SIDES.

People had strong opinions about something they knew nothing about and ignored experts who did. Funny how common that is.

...related:

Going to find out what kind of org Fox is today. No serious news org would allow someone this conflicted to cover this story https://t.co/8KX1JLlzpx

— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) April 17, 2018

Fox will do nothing about Hannity and Todd will continue to treat them as a "serious new org" because those are the rules.

Morning Thread

The Best People

Grifters top to bottom.

A broadband advisor selected by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to run a federal advisory committee was arrested last week on claims she tricked investors into pouring money into a multi-million dollar investment fraud scheme, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The advisor, Elizabeth Pierce, is the former chief executive of Quintillion, an Alaska-based fiber optic cable provider operating out of Anchorage. In her capacity as CEO, Pierce allegeledy raised more than $250 million from two New York-based investment companies using forged contracts with other companies guaranteeing hundreds of millions of dollars in future revenue. Pierce resigned from Quintillion in August of last year, and she stepped down from her role in Pai’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) the following month.

Monday Night's Alright

Hopefully by middayish tomorrow your regularly scheduled sucky blogging can resume...

The Movie Needs More Cowbell

Unable to keep up at the moment, so all I have managed to figure out today is that this movie just became even more ridiculous.

More Thread

Sean Hannity is actually the CEO of Eschaton World Industries.

Lunch Thread

Still busy with stuff.

Interesting Point, Kellyanne

Tell us more.

President Donald Trump's senior counselor, Kellyanne Conway, slammed former FBI Director James Comey, suggesting an announcement he made about Hillary Clinton's emails during the 2016 election may have been a deciding factor.

"This guy swung an election," Conway told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on "Good Morning America" today. “He thought the wrong person would win.”

The PR Tour

I a bit too distracted to have any intelligent comment at the moment, but I suppose this is the right direction at least.

“The circumstances surrounding the incident and the outcome in our store on Thursday were reprehensible. They were wrong,” Johnson said. “For that, I personally apologize to the two gentlemen that visited out store.”

Johnson said some regions of the coffee chain have slightly different guidelines for how they handle certain situations. In reviewing this case, Johnson said the guidelines employees at the Philadelphia Starbucks had outlines a certain set of scenarios where calling the police would be appropriate, such as threats and disturbances in the store.

“In this case, none of that occurred. It was completely inappropriate to engage the police,” Johnson said, adding that there will be more training in the future for store managers around “unconscious bias.”

Overnight

Life intervenes sometimes.

Sunday, Sunday

Busy with stuff.

Afternoon Thread

Sunday Morning Thread

Saturday Evening

SmIle.

Ancient History, Gramps

I spent years rolling my eyes at older people linking every goddamn thing back to Vietnam, and every presidential election as an echo of the 1972 election. The Iraq war started 15 years ago. That was a long time ago. And yet...

Our Foreign Policy Is Run By A Serial Killer Cult

Whenever the missiles are about to start flying, everybody suddenly cares deeply for the people we are about to bomb, and it is, in fact, callous to NOT want to bomb them, and then a few days later, if the missiles stop flying, everyone stops caring again. It's almost as if... call me crazy... the entire point is just to kill people.

And, yes, we've been killing people nonstop in that general vicinity for years, but actually going to war against a state ratchets things up a bit.

Trump Is A Madman Who Must Be Kept From Power

Also he's a good preznit when he kills people.

Here’s another thing you should understand about these guys: The only thing the elite Washington press corps likes more than a bipartisan commission on debt reduction is a stack of flag-draped coffins.

Shit Is Fucked Up And Bullshit

Not sure I've ever been to this Starbucks, but I walk by it all the time.

Video shows multiple officers arresting two men inside the Starbucks. Police have not said why they were arrested.

According to DePino, “they were waiting for a friend to show up, who did as they were taken out in handcuffs for doing nothing.”

A Zen Koan For Our Times

I believe that the US, UK, & France did the right thing by striking Syria over chemical weapons. It will not stop the war nor save the Syrian people from many other horrors. It is illegal under international law. But it at least draws a line somewhere & says enough.

— Anne-Marie Slaughter (@SlaughterAM) April 14, 2018

Late Night

Rock on.

Monkey's Paw

The true shadow government will get the (even more) stacked up corpses it loves so much.

Friday Evening

I am not picky about my superhero nerd movies. I don't care too much if they reinvent Superman's origin or decide that Captain America is actually a fish or whatever. I can tell the difference between a good movie and a bad movie, but I'm willing to be entertained by people in tights flying and punching bad guys even if it's bad. We all have our genre weaknesses.

But Justice League. That was... so... damn... boring.

You have Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Batfleck, Aquaman, and, well, ok, nobody cares much about Cyborg, but Cyborg too!

And it was like watching paint dry. I switched over half way through to watch a CW superhero nerd TV show because it was more entertaining.

I did eventually finish it. It got worse.

America's Worst Humans

The NeverTrumpers.

Lanes

I'm no Bob Loblaw, but I guess Cohen's problems won't end if Mueller disappears.

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's personal attorney, is "under criminal investigation," the Justice Department said Friday.

In response to Cohen's motion to restrain the evidence collected in Monday's raids of his home and office, the US attorney in New York asserted the raids were authorized by a federal judge to seek evidence of conduct "for which Cohen is under criminal investigation."

If Math Isn't Your Strong Suit, Try The Google

As Thread Theorist suggested in the comments, 30 million people visiting the American Dream would be spectacular especially given that Disneyland gets... 18 million people.

We Were The Only Ones Who Knew

The pardon of Scooter Libby is a reminder of the horrors of the Bush administration, and how most people just didn't know and certainly don't remember just how horrible it was. There are a lot of reasons for this, including general post-9/11 benefit of the doubt and a pundit/media environment that tended to downplay every transgression. Obviously journalists were doing the work to uncover that stuff, but the weight of opinionating and NPRing and CableNewsing and the framing by political, as opposed to investigative or war, reporters made a whole bunch of stuff that was not, actually, normal, appear to be normal.

The Bush administration was awful. Try not to forget.

The Answer is Obviously War

And surely Donald Trump and Theresa May have nothing but the best interests of the Syrian people at heart. The moderate rebels, at least!

What happened next? Iraq was reduced to a killing field: hundreds of thousands died; millions injured, traumatised or displaced; a sectarian conflagration ensued; the rise of Islamic state and other extremists. Libya, too, reduced to bloody chaos, a petri dish for murderous jihadis. And yet the politicians who orchestrated war, and their accomplices in the commentariat who helped build the case, are still treated as the statesmen and women of moderation; hard-nosed realists, the sensible inhabitants of “the real world”. In a just world, they would be disgraced, driven from public life, pariahs, every single one of them. Instead, they are paraded on television and given prestigious columns to incite yet further military interventions in the Middle East, without shame, without their bloody record being interrogated.

Probably Won't Ring The Bell, Assholes

Strangers ring my bell regularly. Quite often even black strangers! I almost never bother to look out the door peephole to see who it might be, and I live in an urban hellhole! I'm not sure why think violent criminal masterminds are going to ring the bell politely before doing whatever dastardly deeds they imagine are going to befall them.

ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. (WJBK) - A 14-year-old missed his bus and it nearly cost him his life.

Things took a dangerous turn when Brennan Walker went looking for help at a Rochester Hills home Thursday morning and was confronted by a man with a gun.

...

"I got to the house, and I knocked on the lady's door. Then she started yelling at me and she was like, 'Why are you trying to break into my house?' I was trying to explain to her that I was trying to get directions to Rochester High. And she kept yelling at me. Then the guy came downstairs, and he grabbed the gun, I saw it and started to run. And that's when I heard the gunshot," he says.

I don't remember people in the suburbs living in fear like this when I grew up. I don't think we generally locked our door. Maybe we started to overnight at some point but it was probably neglected most of the time.

At least law enforcement is taking it seriously for now.

"It is just absurd that this happened," says Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard. "I feel terrible for the young man; I feel terrible for the mom and the anxiety that they had to go through. We are going to ask for every charge permissible for this guy, who stepped up and fired a shotgun because someone knocked on his door."

Right now that man is being held at the Oakland County Jail. He's expected to be arraigned sometime on Friday.

Sources tell FOX 2's Randy Wimbley the 53-year-old Rochester Hills man is a retired Detroit firefighter.

That's A Lot Of People!

Let me pull out my napkin to do some math.

BERGEN COUNTY, NJ — Thirty million people, conservatively, could visit the American Dream Meadowlands in its first year of opening, a leading local business advocate says.

The potential effect those 30 million people could have on the North Jersey economy could be in the billions of dollars.

divide 365 into 3000, 8 times 365, subtract off...


So that's 81,000 per day on average! Let's say that's about 50,000 cars. Roughly 2 full highway lanes at optimal capacity running 12 hour per day!

Good luck with that.

Creative

I have one radical creative idea they could try.

A Worker Shortage Is Forcing Restaurants to Get Creative

I give the article credit for this line:

The demand for highly skilled help is especially acute in Washington, where a boom in restaurants run by creative chefs is outstripping the region’s labor force.

These people have skills? Unpossible!

Pay people more, give them opportunities for career (and further wage) growth, make their shifts predictable. Really no creativity required.

Comey Ain't Right

Just something to keep in mind.

If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?

The United States Constitution isn’t a book, so I would pick “The Road to Character,” by David Brooks.

Morning Thread

In a million years I never thought I would be talking about Scooter Libby in 2018. But, it makes sense in order to set up  pardons for the current crew of criminals. Can't get much more transparent than this.

Late Night

Why are all you pervert libs obsessed with pee?

Transactional

Movie's getting better.

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump's personal attorney often recorded telephone conversations both before and during the 2016 presidential campaign that likely have been scooped up in the FBI raid on attorney Michael Cohen's apartment, office and hotel room, according to sources familiar with the matter.

These recorded conversations, according to one source, were even played back at times to candidate Trump and associates, the source said. Among the recordings were discussions about the campaign and interactions with the media, the source said.

In some sense this isn't the most important bit...yet, in a way maybe it is!

One source said Cohen played to Trump and some associates conversations that he had with political and media figures during the exploratory part of the campaign.
The source said they were generally conversations about whether the news organizations were going to be fair to candidate Trump. Trump viewed the media relationships as transactional, the source said.

The Pee Tape Is Real

Or something very similar, anyway. Trump is the most transparent dotard on the planet. If he couldn't stop talking about it with Comey, it's real.

More than that, it's pretty clear that whatever Trump is criminally guilty of, what he's actually worried about is the more personal stuff. He probably just sees the rest as "business" but he's frightened the world might see his naked body in all of its glory, metaphorically at least.

Comey Mania

I get a bit annoyed by the apparent fandom because people seem to forget that if there is one single person not named Robby Mook you can clearly blame Clinton's loss on, it's Comey. But, hey, if you're going to buy the book then I can get a few quarters from it.

Obstruction

Back in the 90s (ancient history, blahblah), if anyone went on cable news to defend Clinton everyone would start screaming OBSTRUCTION.

Three sources familiar with the investigation said the findings Mueller has collected on Trump’s attempts to obstruct justice include: His intent to fire former FBI Director James Comey; his role in the crafting of a misleading public statement on the nature of a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his son and Russians; Trump’s dangling of pardons before grand jury witnesses who might testify against him; and pressuring Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

Pennsylvania's Worst Humans

Elizabeth Beckley.

Traffic cops were not the only locals willing to give ICE an assist. Early last year, a magisterial district judge in Camp Hill preempted the wedding of a Tajik couple by calling ICE on the groom and his best man, who were led away in handcuffs.

The judge, Elizabeth Beckley, also called ICE after Alexander Curtis Parker and Krisha Amber Schmick showed up at her courthouse last May.

Sweethearts since high school, they had always dreamed of a glamorous wedding venue, but, impatient to tie the knot, they settled on District Court 09-1-02, a squat, uninspired structure with mirrored windows, sandwiched between a car wash and a paint store.

When the constable announced he would be detaining Parker for ICE, the couple was stunned. Though born in Guatemala, Parker, 21, had been adopted by American parents when he was 8 months old. At that moment, he was technically undocumented, with his green-card renewal being processed. But he does not speak Spanish or consider himself an immigrant, much less a deportable one.

Afternoon Thread

Feels like Spring is just around the corner.

Be Courageous, Congressman

I hate the whole rhetoric around powerful people having the "courage" to "do the right thing" or whatever. Bravery and courage really doesn't come into it for any of these people. Almost all of them (some exceptions!) are quite wealthy, if not super-rich, and if it takes courage for them to rise to the minimal level of human decency then I think we need a new definition of "courage."

I mean, what kind of courage does it take to "say a mean thing about Trump in public" or "not vote to put poor people in the wood chipper." These people are doing what they want to do.

Can't Make An Omelette Without Busting A Few Skulls

I find "they'll be safer one day" to be, well, a bit optimistic or at least a bit simplistic, but in any case "gotta let our drunk 13-year-old practice doing doughnuts at 65 miles per hour on the highways so that he'll be a good driver one day" is not really the best way to sell these things.

Uber Technologies Inc. Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said the ride-hailing firm is “absolutely committed” to its self-driving-car program after one of its autonomous vehicles struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona last month, but said the technology needs to be refined.

“Ultimately, self-driving cars will be safer than humans,” Mr. Khosrowshahi said on NBC’s “Today” show Thursday. “But right now self-driving cars are learning. They’re student drivers.”

We Can See You

A reasonable test of motives is whether the people who are advocating that we bomb the shit out of people for humanitarian reasons ever advocate that we do anything else whatsoever for humanitarian reasons. In our elite discourse, the answer is usually no.

Our country increasingly refuses to take in refugees and we can't even mount a humanitarian relief mission to Puerto Rico (Nobody knows in America...). Obviously Trump is more callous about such matters (as Trump is more callous about all matters), but we weren't exactly bombing the world with food and hospitals before Trump.

tl;dr: Most of our elites love war. I am not sure why. But any excuse will do.

Morning Thread

Late Night

Rock on.

The Thread of Happy Hour

Like sands through the hourglass...

Loyalty

In fictional romanticized representations* of hierarchical crime organizations (you know, the mafia), loyalty goes up but not entirely. It's your neck before the boss's, but there's still some sense that it is family. Take care of the boss and you will be taken care of or, if you can sadly no longer be around, your family will be. Loyalty is rewarded, at least, and not simply with a monthly retainer.

Trump is a man who clearly prizes loyalty, but has no respect for his lickspittles and no sense of obligation towards them. And, other than the paycheck, they doubtfully feel any towards him. Clean, cold, cost/benefit analysis. What else would businessman Trump endorse?

"I am unhappy to have my personal residence and office raided. But I will tell you that members of the FBI that conducted the search and seizure were all extremely professional, courteous and respectful. And I thanked them at the conclusion," Cohen said in a phone conversation on Tuesday with CNN.
Asked if he was worried, Cohen said; "I would be lying to you if I told that I am not. Do I need this in my life? No. Do I want to be involved in this? No."

...

He said that he is very loyal to Trump but after what happened on Monday, he'd rethink how he handled the payments to Daniels because of the impact on his family.

"Very." "Loyal."


*I'm not saying this is anything works in reality, but such fictions have had a great influence on our culture.

Gestapo

Back in the aughts, if you made any hint that something in America (other than hippies) was somehow like Nazis you would be drummed out of the universe of "acceptable discourse" forever on the dual charges of hating America and antisemitism. Everything's Nazism now! Except, weirdly, Nazis. What a time to be alive!

You Should've Stopped At "Never"

All products get updated. Self-driving cars will constantly be updated because they will never quite work. I think this is sinking in.

Either way, people want to know when autonomous vehicles will get here, when they will be ready. Here’s the unsatisfying but correct answer: never. “The technology is constantly being updated,” says Nidhi Kalra, a roboticist who co-directs the Rand Corporation’s Center for Decision Making Under Uncertainty. “Sometimes we will talk about it as if, ‘We have this self-driving car, we have this product.’ But with software updates, there’s a new vehicle every week.”

Operating systems tend to operate constantly these days, but we've had the "iPhone" for many years now. No one says we'll never have an iPhone because it keeps getting updated.

Yes, yes, some niche activities. Corporate campus shuttles. Fixed and semi-fixed route buses. Segments of long haul trucking. These will work (though perhaps not as well the boosters think). The self-driving "taxi" will not work in a useful way any time in my lifetime. They will "work" in a "wow that's neat!" way. They already do! But not in a useful way.

Paul Ryan To Retire To Spend More Time With His Future Paychecks

I saw one reporter on the twitter box say something, like "it'll be interesting to see what Ryan does now that he's a FREE MAN" and the context was Trump oversight. Um, uh, how can you cover politics and not know how this works? This is his final audition. This is his last hazing ritual. His chance to enter the 37th Order of Rich Parasites, Koch Lodge. He's going to deliver all he can with as much enthusiasm he can in order to get the legalized bribery that awaits him on the other side.

I suppose, like Evan Bayh, he could retire and become a teacher in his home state. Hahahahahaha.

Morning Thread

Tim Bousquet didn't get called to jury duty, but went to court anyway. His live blogging of a murder trial with a real Law & Order
moment of changed testimony is fascinating. More importantly, he provides insight into how and why we need more reporters doing this kind of work. Go read.

Your Moment Of Zen

Just Fan Service Now

What's it all about then.

The British offices of the Murdoch entertainment empire 21st Century Fox have been raided by investigators from the European Commission, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

It is understood that competition watchdogs gained access to the company’s offices in Hammersmith, west London, early today to seize documents and computer records.

The Hardest Worker

Trump canceled a trip to South America. I've still never figured out what he - or anyone else - thinks the purpose of his meeting with "Rocket Man" is but this blog is more likely to win the Nobel Peace Prize in Blogging than that happening.

Bad Tweets

This was a bad tweet.



Tweet better, people.

Civic Duty

I always think I'd like to serve on a jury, but, you know, it's never quite at the right moment. And legitimately the process makes planning difficult. You show up, you don't know if you'll get called to a panel, you don't know if you'll picked, you don't know what kind of trial it will be, you don't know whether it's a quickie or you've just signed up for the OJ case, etc. So not being chosen is a relief.

But wow picking a jury is boring and I am impressed with the people (judges included) who have to go through that monotonous process over and over and yet still manage to be serious and thorough about it.

Freedom

Deal made. No jury for me.

Waiting Is The Hardest Part

At least we can use our telecommunications devices.

The Pee Tape

Jokes aside, whatever Trump *should* be scared of, I think he's been much more scared of the tawdry details of his life spilling out in public than he has been about criminal prosecution. I don't know how much it's about his personal life, about financial improprieties, the fact that this billionaire is basically broke, ...

I don't mean there's nothing else there. I just think that's what keeps his walnut brain agitated.

What's The Buzz

Took the bus to do my civic duty, so who knows how long I will be busy. Talk to each other.

Morning Thread

I had a wonderful night's sleep. I can think of a couple of people who did not.

And I Have Jury Duty Tomorrow

What will I miss?

This makes the second Manafort associate known to have aided the government in the sprawling investigation into foreign influence in U.S. politics. Rick Gates, Manafort’s long-time right hand, began cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office in February.

Your Moment of Zen

But All The Bankers Got Away With Bank Fraud

Yes, Michael, but you are not a banker.

Trump attorney Cohen is being investigated for possible bank fraud, campaign finance violations, according to a person familiar with the case

Happy Hour

Obligatory "good thing it's Friday" joke.

Bigly

Fun stuff.

The F.B.I. on Monday raided the office of President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, seizing records related to several topics including payments to a pornographic-film actress.

It Was All A Dream

It wasn't just that Republicans pretended to care about the deficit, or that reporters pretended to believe them when they pretended to care about the deficit, it's that so often politics/policy was covered as if "deficit=bad" was some sort of objective truth.

WASHINGTON — The federal government’s annual budget deficit is set to widen significantly in the next few years, topping $1 trillion in 2020 despite healthy economic growth, according to new projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

For some reason, only the Democrats didn't understand it was all a con. I hope they resist seeing this as their "opportunity" to run as the "responsible party." Eat your vegetables, voters!

America's Worst Humans

Conor Friedersdorf.

The Smartest Boys In The Room

Too much of the conversation about Obamacare gets stuck in the great battle of '09, the public option vs. the not public option. For a variety of reasons the public option could've and likely would've solved many of the problems with Obamacare (mostly meaning the exchanges, all the regulatory stuff about insurance generally was mostly good), but the problems of Obamacare weren't simply "private insurance and our health care system generally sucks." Obamacare was badly designed in a lot of other ways, some of which probably could have been fixed without pissing off Joe Lieberman, and some of which were a demonstration that the smart guys who designed the thing weren't nearly as smart as they thought they were. They fucked up.

When ObamaCare was being designed and negotiated, many liberals confidently predicted it would make large changes to the basic structure of the American insurance system. Everywhere would have a robust private insurance marketplace that would provide insurance that was just about as good as anything else you could get. That accomplished, perhaps even employers might start pushing their employees onto the exchanges, and we could finally start demolishing the incredibly dumb and inefficient employer-provided insurance system. Though there are some requirements for larger employers to provide insurance in the law, the Congressional Budget Office still predicted a moderate decline in the fraction of Americans getting coverage through their employer.

That hasn't happened at all. The employer market has declined slightly, but only following the pre-ObamaCare trend. Meanwhile, the exchanges have mostly settled down into a weird, funhouse-mirror simulation of Medicaid disguised as a private market — useful almost entirely for lower-income people who are eligible for subsidies. As Vanderbilt health policy professor John Graves told Vox's Dylan Scott, "the marketplaces are really functioning more broadly in their role as an extension of the public safety net than in their role as a competitive market."

It wasn't simply an ideological debate or even a debate over what could get Joe Lieberman's votes. It was also a debate between technocrats, but the ones on the inside declared (as always happens) that they were the Very Serious People, the wise wonks with a monopoly on mad technocratic skillz, and that their critics were just unrealistic children looking for unicorns.

As with many things, admitting fault isn't just about self-flagellation, it's necessary for moving forward. Obamacare "fixes" - if ever they are possible to pass - will likely compound the problems unless the architects acknowledge its flaws or they are replaced.

The Narrative

Baquet talks about political journalism like we joke about it.

STELTER: Is it surprising to you that the turmoil hasn't -- that we haven't seen more of a calming influence in the White House? It's been more than a year and the president is still promoting conspiracy theories about voter fraud, for example.

BAQUET: Yes.

STELTER: I think the conventional wisdom might have been, oh, well, things will go a little calmer after a year.

BAQUET: I think we -- we sometimes the collective press made the mistake -- I mean, when Kelly was appointed, I -- all of us made a mistake of saying, here's a guy who's going to calm things down. I think that's because we have a sort of narrative that White Houses go like that.

Chapter 1: Turmoil in new administration.

Chapter 2: Wise old man of Washington enters, creates order and calm.

Type, print, see you for drinks.

Sunday Night

I see we're all going to pretend to care about Syria for a few days again.

Afternoon Thread

A lovely winter day outside.

Totally OWNED

While pissing matches between members of the commentariat provide us with some entertainment - and that's not nothing! - they don't always feel especially useful in bringing about the goal of full communism (this is as much self-criticism as anything).

We Can't Even Put Together A Recovery Plan For Puerto Rico

Lots of stuff going on here, but after the last 16+ years...who thinks we're even capable of this?

According to the Associated Press, Mattis argued “that an immediate withdrawal” from Syria “could be catastrophic and was logistically impossible to pull off in any responsible way,” and offered a one-year timeline as an alternative—to which Trump responded that five or six months ought to do the trick, and “indicated that he did not want to hear in October that the military had been unable to fully defeat the Islamic State and had to remain in Syria for longer.” A person familiar with the meeting told CNN that attendees left Tuesday’s meeting “beside themselves,” arguing that Trump’s lack of desire to put together any sort of recovery plan for Syria—restoring basic needs such as water, power, and roads—would most certainly tip the country back into ISIS’s hands. “It is a huge gamble that ISIS is not going to come back and that we are going to rely on others to stabilize Syria,” an official said.

Morning Thread

Have some Hot Stuff.

Trump Tower Is On Fire

This author is ridiculous. No one would believe this shit.

Good Shade

Must be nice blundering through life with negative self-awareness.

A Che shirt on a college campus might not stick out for most people, but for Willis, 36, it touched a nerve. It was just the latest confirmation of his worry that more young people today are embracing socialism, even Marxism, instead of American capitalism. “Some of these kids have no real desire to build something on their own,” says Willis, who works for a firm founded by his father. “As long as these kids get something for free and they get taken care of, they’re happy. What they don’t know is that the world that works that way—the socialist world—leads to extreme poverty and eventually death.”

Not Many People Know This But

It is one of Trump's funnier tells ("I just found out about this commonly known thing 30 seconds ago") especially as it's usually harmless, aside from the scary fact that the president is a fucking dumdum, but it is actually hard to not sound a lot like that sometimes. Sometimes it's useful to restate obvious things and it doesn't mean I think you, dear readers, are unaware of them.

BURNNNNNN

One of the most annoying conversations on the internet goes something like this:

Me: This is bad.
Internet people: And this surprises you??????



I didn't say it surprised me. I said it's bad. I'm not exactly a sunny soul. Bad stuff usually doesn't surprise me. More than that, I'm usually not an idiot, and some bad things are completely predictable. They're still bad! It's worth pointing that out!

A related thing is people who always say things like, "Trump told us who he was on the campaign." Some people say that as a kind of sage, "all of this was foretold to those who cared to listen." And some use it as a weird justification, as if saying it on the campaign makes it ok. "This is what we voted for, now we just must accept it."

Neither is true, of course. Trump said a billion things on the campaign, often contradicting each other. That doesn't mean a reasonable person shouldn't have concluded that Trump Is Bad, but there is no straight line from campaign promise to action. His campaign promises were gibberish because the man's brain is gibberish and because he's a liar and because the press rarely tried to actually divine what President Trump might be like because they didn't think he would win and didn't care.

And this isn't how politics works. Well, he campaigned on this, so you have to shut up for 4 years and not criticize as he implements his agenda. '

Which brings us to the self-appointed Trump Whisperer, Maggie. She tweeted this last night.

He is doing many of the things he said he would during the campaign. People who thought it was an act simply to get elected were mistaken. https://t.co/2WBvDvrcJ6

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) April 7, 2018

I'm not sure who really thought it was an act, but "he is doing many of the things." Oh, is he now. Many of them!!! Sage and wise, Maggie. Perhaps you could've told people which things he meant and which things he didn't because it sounds like you knew that. Oh did you just mean he said a bunch of shit and some of it wasn't lies or gibberish? Well thanks for that observation, smart person.

Again...I am not surprised! Trump also said Mexico would pay for the wall, we'd have a great health plan minutes after he entered office, that he'd never cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, etc. I am not surprised this stuff is bullshit! But you can't point to Trump's campaign rhetoric and say, "well, this is what he told us he would do." Because at some point he probably told us he'd build an elevator to Jupiter. The man is addled and a liar. He says everything!

Late night

Survived the suburbs yet again.

More Thread

Some family related program activities. On your own!

Afternoon Thread

enjoy

Overreacharound

From NeverTrumpers another Hot Take is that it's actually the fault of LIBERALS that we have Trump. It's just a backlash to LIBERALISM GONE MAD. This would be a fair point if, say, it was a backlash to something Obama did. I mean, the D takeover of California was reasonably seen, in part, as a reaction to overreach by Pete Wilson. But that isn't precisely the NEVERTRUMPER argument. It's more like, "some guy on the internet was mean to conservatives and THAT'S WHY WE HAVE TRUMP." Or in some mostly made up story, college students were insufficiently deferential to Charles Murray and THAT'S WE HAVE TRUMP. Or, if they're a bit more honest, you liberals keep saying racism is bad and SHOVING HOMOSEXUALITY DOWN OUR THROATS (always down their throats) and THAT'S WHY WE HAVE TRUMP.

OK broadly speaking the election of Trump can be seen in part as a cultural backlash by the same angry white people who have been angry since before I was born. But you can't really blame "some guy on the internet" or "random college academics" or "whatever caricature of liberals Bill O'Reilly talks about every night" as agents in a political movement. True or false, good or bad, these are just people being people. They don't actually run the democratic party. Obama didn't put a bunch of gay hippies and Black Panthers in charge of everything. Most of America doesn't care about the Oberlin Student Council nearly as much as our elite pundits do.

What Democrats did do (both The Party and its people) was elect a black guy president and then nominate a woman to be his successor. To the extent that Dems are "at fault" that's it. Fine. Say it. That's the conservative anger Trump exploited. The election was close blahblahblah, and if the result had been flipped we wouldn't being having this conversation, but the dice roll went the wrong way and here we are.

So Many Hot Takes

Conservatives seem to really believe that conservative writers have a 1st amendment right to not be criticized and to not have their lucrative sinecures threatened by anything. Or, at least, that to have opinions about what a magazine that aims for "respectability," which roughly means lands in the Overton Zone somewhere between The Old New Republic and...ooh God, I admit that in the age of Trump it's hard to know where the right flank is, should publish threatens the majesty of our noble discourse or some shit. How dare you not hire/fire a man who called for the execution of a quarter of US women and then (apparently) was less than forthcoming about it to the guy who hired him?

More what's going on is that in the age of Trump there's a hiring spree for conservatives, but weirdly conservatives who claim not to like Trump. Publications *have to* (?) hire conservatives, but the respectable ones can't hire Trump loving conservatives because they're just corrupt racist hacks without exception, so the Never Trumpers want to get on this gravy train while they can. Once they "get respectable" those News Hour gigs and Aspen Ideas Festival invites can't be far behind.

As for the "Never Trumpers" - their dislike is 60% because he's vulgar, 35% because he doesn't say he likes war enough (though don't worry there is still plenty of war!), and 5% because his trade stuff is dumb. The racism and all the rest don't really bother them! The neocons and the paleocons and the socialcons and the crunchycons and the reformacons and all the, well, cons, are still bad!

Conservatives actually have a right to be mad at publications who claim (none of them have to) to publish a diversity of opinions. Basically none of them publish people who admit to liking Trump, or who openly represent the 35% or so who are Trump's "base."

And What Are You Going To Do About It

I bet they'll tell the soybean producers that they're going to FIIIGHT FOOR YOOOOOOOOU and do nothing.

Senators from major soybean-producing states in the Midwest, including Republicans, are steaming over China’s threat to impose tariffs on U.S. soy exports, blaming President Donald Trump's aggressive actions against China for the trade retaliation that could hit farmers and ranchers particularly hard.

Late Night

enjoy

Important People

I don't expect these people to be... well... good people... but I am I am kinda surprised that none of them seem to have any idea that they actually have important jobs that they should at least pretend to take seriously occasionally.

“Porter did not respond to requests for comment but two sources say he leaked information about Pruitt after Samantha Dravis, his former girlfriend who resigned last week as head of EPA’s policy office, leaked information about his assaults on his two former wives to White House Counsel Don McGahn.”

“Press reports have indicated that Dravis leaked the information to the White House counsel’s office after finding out that Porter had been having an affair with now-departed White House Communications Director Hope Hicks.”

The Greatest Threat To Freedom

Is the liberal censorship of Cannibal Witch.

Journamalism

Afflict the powerless, comfort the powerful.

The resulting three-year battle to achieve any kind of justice can now be told. And according to dozens of pages of documents, emails, a police report, and interviews with multiple people directly involved in the scandal, the story of Ashok Pai and James Levine is an extraordinary tale of abuse of power, position and stolen innocence.

It also raises serious questions about how two of the country’s most revered journalistic institutions, The New Yorker and The New York Times — presently and rightfully being lauded for their roles in sparking the national discussion about gender and power — closed ranks to protect one of the city’s most powerful men.

Oh We'll Run A Bus

Apparently it's American Dream day!

Jeff Tittel, the chapter's executive director, said that in order for the mall to work, 100,000 vehicles a day must visit it and 150,000 on a Saturday.

...

Mass transit options are being implemented and explored. A commuter shuttle will run between NJ Transit's Meadowlands station and the Secaucus train station. NJ Transit will operate a direct bus line from the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City to American Dream.

Nobody tell them trains currently only run during football games or other large events and there's no way they're going to run regular to service for commuters who work irregular (often nonpeak) service worker hours. Sure, we'll run a bus from the train! That won't run! Genius.

Phase 1

Ah...the "we will open on time" just meant... "something will be open."

EAST RUTHERFORD — After being under construction for nearly ten years, the American Dream will open as scheduled in March 2019, according to developer Triple Five.

Cool! Except...

The first attractions to open will be the Nickelodeon Universe theme park, a DreamWorks Waterpark, and a 16-story Big Snow America Indoor Ski Hill. The $3 million first phase symbolizes why the complex isn't a mall, according to Debbie Patire, Triple Five’s senior vice president of marketing.

Oh.

Bad Traffic Everywhere

To the extent that there's a "Waze" backlash as more and more residential neighborhoods try to restrict through traffic, traffic's going to increasingly be a nightmare everywhere. One bad "innovation" was the single access road residential neighborhood which shunted all traffic onto major stroads, removing any "back road shortcut" possibilities. With a few connections, there would be alternatives.

Sure people don't want through traffic, in part because everyone else thinks driving 45 MPH minimum is a right granted by God and written into the constitution, but when every neighborhood does it, those stroads are inevitably going to be parking lots at rush hour or when there's an accident.