Saturday, February 29, 2020
Talkin' About My Generation
It's been almost 18 19 years since 9/11, almost 40 years since Reagan was elected, almost 48 years since Nixon beat McGovern, and almost 75 years since the end of WWII (meaning the youngest surviving veteran of that war is around 91 years old).
Our Medical System
If this virus doesn't fizzle out - or when the next one comes along - we will very quickly hear stories of people being semi-coerced into staying in hospitals simply for isolation. Stays they will be expected to, but can't, pay for. And when those stories come out...
No epidemic plan that doesn't deal with this reality is a plan at all.
No epidemic plan that doesn't deal with this reality is a plan at all.
Friday, February 28, 2020
Hack Season
I never take myself out of this stuff. We are all part of the mess. But it is tiresome watching people make arguments for/against candidates that they wouldn't make if their candidate preferences were different. I'm not saying they - we - are necessarily full of shit, except for the people getting paid whose job it is to be full of shit, just that it's human nature to pick a team and root for it and against the others.
How To Keep That Gong Alive
Trump has a rather special personality, of course, but once upon a time there was some sense that people who presided over total disasters would resign (perhaps to resurface later) for symbolism even if it wasn't really their fault. That faded long before Trump, and the aftermath of the financial crisis cemented it. That any of the people (government, bankers) felt comfortable not just keeping their jobs but being public figures more generally subsequently...
Wow The Chinese Government Sounds Bad
The Chinese government silenced whistle-blowers, withheld information and played down the threat of the new coronavirus. Now the ruling Communist Party is trying to rehabilitate its image by rebranding itself as the leader in the fight against the virus. https://t.co/yfiLxW18bM
— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 28, 2020
Can You Provide A Means of Payment
A country where they ask you for a credit card as they're considering wheeling you in for heart surgery from the emergency room is not one that can handle any kind of epidemic.
All props to individuals and institutions who make it work better than this, but as a system... It just can't be done, my friends.
I have no idea if this will be a real epidemic or if it'll just fizzle out soon, but if it fizzles the lessons we will learn are... precisely zero. DC brains just can't even handle what needs to be done, which is not a sliding income-based scale of vaccine affordability, with tax advantaged vaccine savings accounts and vaccine empowerment zones for urban areas.
If there is an epidemic and any sort of vaccine available, even an imperfect one, you have to get it to 300 million people. Now. You set up vaccine administration stations everywhere. Schools, malls, offices, everywhere. I don't know you have strictly have to make it compulsory - probably, though that might be more trouble - but you go door to door with it.
This is a massive problem which would require the entire weight of the state, not some argument about WHETHER FREE VACCINES ARE SOCIAMALISM. It isn't like "oh, well, give up your iphone to get your vaccine, peasant." It's "save civilization."
And the people who run the country - and not just the Trumpkins - have no idea.
Humanity died because DC Wonks spent 6 months coming up with a Rube Goldberg machine to make sure the sons of billionaires had to pay for their vaccines. NO FREE COLLEGE OR VACCINES FOR BILLIONAIRES.
All props to individuals and institutions who make it work better than this, but as a system... It just can't be done, my friends.
I have no idea if this will be a real epidemic or if it'll just fizzle out soon, but if it fizzles the lessons we will learn are... precisely zero. DC brains just can't even handle what needs to be done, which is not a sliding income-based scale of vaccine affordability, with tax advantaged vaccine savings accounts and vaccine empowerment zones for urban areas.
If there is an epidemic and any sort of vaccine available, even an imperfect one, you have to get it to 300 million people. Now. You set up vaccine administration stations everywhere. Schools, malls, offices, everywhere. I don't know you have strictly have to make it compulsory - probably, though that might be more trouble - but you go door to door with it.
This is a massive problem which would require the entire weight of the state, not some argument about WHETHER FREE VACCINES ARE SOCIAMALISM. It isn't like "oh, well, give up your iphone to get your vaccine, peasant." It's "save civilization."
And the people who run the country - and not just the Trumpkins - have no idea.
Details: Pelosi and Schumer said in their joint statement that additional funding Congress grants to the Trump administration to combat the coronavirus must include the following provisions:People got no money. What the fuck is affordable? I suppose an 18 page form on a broken website should answer the question, as long as you filed your taxes in a timely fashion!
The president cannot transfer these new funds to anything other than the coronavirus and fighting infectious diseases;
Vaccines are affordable and available to all that need it
Humanity died because DC Wonks spent 6 months coming up with a Rube Goldberg machine to make sure the sons of billionaires had to pay for their vaccines. NO FREE COLLEGE OR VACCINES FOR BILLIONAIRES.
Thursday, February 27, 2020
True
And mother is getting sick of him moping around the house.
The decision to put Mr. Pence in charge was made on Wednesday after the president told some people that the vice president didn’t “have anything else to do,” according to people familiar with the president’s comments.
Keep Talking
The White House press pool is being called for an unscheduled event in the West Wing, per @JenniferJJacobs. Looks like Trump wants to talk after markets got hammered again today.
— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) February 27, 2020
THE DOW IS PLOTTING AGAINST ME
We Can't Do It, My Friends
Trump will make it worse, of course, but despite whatever heroic measures individuals and institutions make, there is no way our system can handle an epidemic. It just can't.
Lunch Thread
I have many hopes for whichever Democrat beats Trump, but one is certainly not putting GOP Daddies into all the Daddy jobs - Defense, FBI, etc. - which is something Democrats love to do because it always works out so well.
All Dozen Of Them
The most over-represented people in our discourse are the "NeverTrumpers." Most of them aren't even by any measure "moderate Republicans," unless you think of Bloody Bill Kristol as one. They're very right wing conservatives who just want Trump to tweet less and bomb more. "NeverTrump" as a brand should require a bit more of a commitment than "oh boy siree I really don't like this Trump guy much" and not "unless the Democrats vote for Biden Bloomberg John Kasich I regret that Trump is, once again, all their fault." But that was, of course, their inevitable path that dumb hippie bloggers like me told you would be the case years ago.
Nevertheless...
Nevertheless...
My Friends In Bethesda All Agree
There are a lot of reasons for this, but whatever weird fantasies the Tom Friedman-types have about Michael Bloomberg being the savior of the Democratic party, or some Unity Ticket of Amy Klobuchar and Zombie John McCain, or whatever, come in part from the fact that too many people in politics truly believe the Morning Joseph green room has most of the electoral votes. It's one thing to believe it should, but they truly forget that it doesn't.
No Worries
Mike Pence is going to pray the virus away.
I'd feel slightly better if I believed any of these assholes actually prayed.
I'd feel slightly better if I believed any of these assholes actually prayed.
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Culling The Herd
Obviously they're sociopaths but also dumb ones.
Here's the clip of Azar not assuring Rep. Schakowsky a covid-19 vaccine will be affordable to all. pic.twitter.com/Z8aNd4wLWj
— Michael McAuliff (@mmcauliff) February 26, 2020
They Died On Teevee
One consequence of a world run largely by PR spinners, to which we've added a president who can't really see existence outside the little tv box, is a weird belief that you can hide all reality from people. To be fair, the Right has had great success with this. See, for example, bullying all news outlets not to show THE BAD NEWS IN IRAQ but SHOW ALL THE SCHOOL PAINTINGS INSTEAD. WHAT ABOUT ALL THE SCHOOLS WE PAINTED!!!!
But it's a bit harder to hide dead people at home and its consequences. If the coronavirus ends up being a major thing, it's going to be a major thing whether or not CNN acknowledges it.
But it's a bit harder to hide dead people at home and its consequences. If the coronavirus ends up being a major thing, it's going to be a major thing whether or not CNN acknowledges it.
Here's The Thing, Rush
Modern medical treatments for lung cancer are just lies, and in fact will kill you faster so the state can get at your estate that much more quickly. The real way to cure lung cancer is to guzzle bleach. Like you, I am a medical professional and know these things.
Bring In The Boss
We all do love the boss. Please bring that person, the boss, in.
Bloomberg campaign is hawking these.
Bloomberg campaign is hawking these.
Incivilitude
This blog (meaning me) used to be a lot more uncivil. I didn't just mellow and get nice with old age or sell out to the man (the man won't offer!). Incivility, the online equivalent of screaming, was the only way to hope to be heard at a time when, for example, we were about to go kill a million people and the only guy on TV who thought that was a bad idea got fired. Gotta scream when you aren't handed a microphone. I "scream" a bit less now that, for whatever the media's current flaws, there are actually more people to the left of Evan Bayh on the television and in the funny papers. "Trump is bad" is not framed as a hugely controversial borderline treasonous opinion in a way that "George Bush is bad" actually was. The Kids Today won't remember everyone (politicians, media figures) leaping to salute (literally or metaphorically) MY PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH every chance they got.
And Then Everyone Got Rich
Lots of money sloshes around even during a badly handled crisis. The question is just who pays, who gets, and who benefits.
The Betsy DeVos chain of hospitals just appeared out of nowhere!
The Betsy DeVos chain of hospitals just appeared out of nowhere!
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Seeing Red
Roy speak, you listen.
I remember this and I also remember that in some circles (like Mad magazine!) red-baiting was an object of ridicule. I didn’t know then that it had been an object of ridicule for years before that, going back to the beatniks, The Manchurian Candidate, and Joseph Welch. But as I grew older it became more obvious that red-baiting was some bullshit, and anyone who pulled it was probably trying to get away with something. In fact culture reflected that: Red-baiters were figures of fun, obviously flim-flam men, the Tartuffes of democracy.And sign up for his newsletter. If you only sign up for one newsletter (like me) let it be that one.
When the Soviet Union actually collapsed, and with it any chance of a Dictatorship of the Proletariat in our lifetimes, I figured that nonsense was over for good. People only called you a commie-pinko as a joke, like calling you an Albigensian.
But here we are in 2020, and last week Michael Bloomberg literally called Bernie Sanders a communist in a Democratic debate, and today we have people practically drawing a Stalin mustache and red star on Sanders because he noticed that Cuban kids don’t get rickets anymore and can read.
Nothing To Do
I'm not one to panic over things like coronavirus. I'm not saying there's no reason to panic, just that my inclination is to not. And I'm not panicking now. There's a lot of perfectly justified criticism of what is coming out of the Trump administration about it - these are not very bright and competent people - along with a general "oh shit Trump's in charge." But what if he wasn't? What if it was like year 6 of a fantasy Obama administration. Not precisely my fantasy Obama, but the fantasy of a competent, technocratic leader who would have a handle on this stuff (that I think Obama was...not that is a different conversation). Let's give our RPG Obama Dem majorities in Congress, too. So, to the extent that our federal government can respond, within the boundaries of a somewhat better reality, it can.
I don't know how you make our health care system work unless you start calling up for profit hospital CEOs and saying, "we own your hospital now." I don't know how you mobilize the necessary resources for the public good unless you overturn 40 years of dogma. I don't know how you begin to have a for profit medical system, as we have constructed it, serve the public need. Half of Missouri could be dead and they'd be debating President Obama's ATTEMPTED SOCIALIST TAKEOVER OF THE MEDICAL SYSTEM on Hardball, and the Supreme Court would rule it unconstitutional, 5-4, with RBG casting vote 5 against.
Not sure what happens if half of NoVa is dead, but...
I don't know how you make our health care system work unless you start calling up for profit hospital CEOs and saying, "we own your hospital now." I don't know how you mobilize the necessary resources for the public good unless you overturn 40 years of dogma. I don't know how you begin to have a for profit medical system, as we have constructed it, serve the public need. Half of Missouri could be dead and they'd be debating President Obama's ATTEMPTED SOCIALIST TAKEOVER OF THE MEDICAL SYSTEM on Hardball, and the Supreme Court would rule it unconstitutional, 5-4, with RBG casting vote 5 against.
Not sure what happens if half of NoVa is dead, but...
Because America
If a pandemic hits, instead of actually trying to provide health care for people we'll pay Erik Prince to "house" the ill for like $10000 per day per fast dying resident.
I Don't Think We Have A Plan For that
If we do get hit by a genuine pandemic, lol our health care system. People with insurance spending 3 hours on hold trying to get pre-approval for a blood test. People without it or with not good insurance....
After returning to Miami last month from a work trip in China, Osmel Martinez Azcue found himself in a frightening position: he was developing flu-like symptoms, just as coronavirus was ravaging the country he had visited.
Under normal circumstances, Azcue said he would have gone to CVS for over-the-counter medicine and fought the flu on his own, but this time was different. As health officials stressed preparedness and vigilance for the respiratory illness, Azcue felt it was his responsibility to his family and his community to get tested for novel coronavirus, known as COVID-19.
...
But two weeks later, Azcue got unwelcome news in the form of a notice from his insurance company about a claim for $3,270.
Monday, February 24, 2020
But What About My Part In The Story
It's depressing realizing that so much opposition to an actual change of personnel in DC (it happened bigly with Clinton in '93, can explain elite opposition to people like Howard Dean, and happened to a lesser extent but still did with Obama) isn't even about people seeing their great future income streams dry up, because they probably won't. It's just about a minor reshuffling of the pecking order of the permanent floating class of DC.
Few elite pundits spend 4 seconds thinking about policy, except against some 20 year old mental model of what Reagan Democrats want. But some candidates for president threaten the most important thing, their own importance.
Few elite pundits spend 4 seconds thinking about policy, except against some 20 year old mental model of what Reagan Democrats want. But some candidates for president threaten the most important thing, their own importance.
Everybody I Talk To. You Know, Everybody Who Matters
Pretty much every person I cover and talk to and email and text with day to day think it’s impossible Bernie can win. Maybe they are just massively wrong. I honestly don’t know.
— Ben White (@morningmoneyben) February 23, 2020
I don't want to debate Bernie's "electability" which people can have differing opinions about, but when all the Serious Politics Knowers you chat with day to day who inform you on everything in politics, and who you presumably think of as spanning the relevant ideological spectrum, have a unanimous belief on this issue which is completely at odds with polling, maybe you aren't getting the full perspective on all the non-Bernie issues, too.
Maybe the bubble is YOU!
Bye Harvey
One of our faves.
A jury convicted Mr. Weinstein of felony sex crime and rape, but acquitted him of the most serious charges against him, predatory sexual assault.
My Foreign Policy Vision
In any civil-warish situation, there are likely to be Bad People On Both Sides and perhaps, most of the time, we should just stay the hell out of it, especially as any noninsane person looking at our record of foreign interventions at all levels (from exploding cigars to dropping bombs) would conclude that our record of achieving our stated or even nonstated goals, unless those goals are some version of What's Good For Milo Minderbinder (but even then), has been catastrophic for everyone involved.
We did pretty good post-WWII Europe. For a bit.
We did pretty good post-WWII Europe. For a bit.
Everybody Gets Sick
I try to keep my bad thoughts to a minimum, but very few people are rich enough be immune from enjoying the glorious realities of our health care system. You don't just need to have "good insurance." You need to have the extra super secret insurance that most of the 1% don't even have. Basically, you need to be super super rich.
Thinking it's all gonna be good for you, personally, is one of those follies of youth things which extends right up until the point where you or yours actually has to deal with it. Then we're all communists now.
Thinking it's all gonna be good for you, personally, is one of those follies of youth things which extends right up until the point where you or yours actually has to deal with it. Then we're all communists now.
Sunday, February 23, 2020
Politics As Fandom
I don't like to be negative about this kind of enthusiasm, especially to the extent that it motivates people to do productive things, but politics fandom, like all fandom, tends to be exclusionary and offputting to those outside of the club...
Our Dumb Discourse
Cable news is basically going to be "Democrats who hate Bernie" and "Republicans who claim they hate Trump but hate Bernie more."
Even if you aren't a big Bernie fan you can maybe see that's a... problem.
Even if you aren't a big Bernie fan you can maybe see that's a... problem.
Saturday, February 22, 2020
The Most Popular Man In America
A couple of years ago if you'd ask some highly paid political consultants to describe the "ideal" Dem candidate in the abstract, it would basically be the precise opposite of Michael Bloomberg in every particular. This does not mean this advice would have been correct, but that's what they would have said. Then he starts throwing half a billion bucks (and counting!) around and he's OUR ONLY CHANCE TO BEAT TRUMP.
Favorability- All Voters
Sanders 46%
Trump 43%
Biden 40%
Buttigieg 37%
Warren 35%
Bloomberg 35%
Klobuchar 32%
Steyer 22%
Friday, February 21, 2020
You Might Say He's A Dreamer
1/2 .@johnlegend, it's not about "loving" your health insurance, it's about the anxiety of being forced to switch from something that works for your family to something unknown. Imagine proposing eliminating 401(k)s to allow for a new, expanded social security plan. https://t.co/UyjTYlaXaM
— John Delaney (@JohnDelaney) February 21, 2020
My Tweets And Blogs Did This!!!
Maybe Liz Warren helped too.
The billionaire’s net favorability fell 20 points, suffering the most attrition among moderates.VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO!!!! Everybody screamed 5 seconds after Bloomberg spent 400 million bucks. Why were we even having that conversation? HERE IS A GOLD PLATED SHIT SANDWICH SWEAR YOUR LOYALTY TO IT BEFORE THERE IS ANY REASON TO.
House Democrats, You're Our Only Hope
Maybe you can't come at the King, but you can come at everyone he's ever shared a room with.
Stephen Miller Is A Serial Killer
We know that many refugees aren't just, like, making it up, but do in fact go back and are subsequently murdered. It isn't merely racism. He gets off on death.
As the meeting ended, Miller held up his hand to make a final comment. “I didn’t mean to come across as harsh,” he said. His voice dropped. “It’s just that this is all I care about. I don’t have a family. I don’t have anything else. This is my life.”Our sweet boy is 34 and just got married. I'll refrain from posting my expectations of the likely outcome of that union.
Crime Spree
Lucky for Trump that the House of Representatives is under quarantine for the coronavirus, otherwise they'd be conducting some Serious Oversight right about now.
WASHINGTON — Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President Trump re-elected, five people familiar with the matter said, a disclosure to Congress that angered Mr. Trump, who complained that Democrats would use it against him.
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Fear
I think efforts to make platforms like facebook moderate content to "our" liking are inevitably doomed for a variety of reasons, but they have always had a very hands on approach to such things and they should at least live up to whatever rules they claim to have established.
In a world of perfect neutrality, which Facebook espouses as its goal, the political tilt of the pages shouldn’t have mattered. But in a videoconference between Facebook’s Washington office and its Silicon Valley headquarters in December 2016, the company’s most senior Republican, Joel Kaplan, voiced concerns that would become familiar to those within the company.
“We can’t remove all of it because it will disproportionately affect conservatives,” said Kaplan, a former George W. Bush White House official and now the head of Facebook’s Washington office, according to people familiar with the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect professional relationships.
Afternoon Thread
Remember that moment when some Serious Politics Knowers thought there was a good chance Avenatti would be the nominee?
They probably didn't believe it but the "Trump, but a Democrat" filled the need for BOTH SIDES!!!!
They probably didn't believe it but the "Trump, but a Democrat" filled the need for BOTH SIDES!!!!
Trumptowns
Since he saw it on Fox, it'll probably happen.
One of those "where do you even begin" things, but it probably costs less to provide humane housing options for homeless people than it would to incarcerate them in inhumane conditions, especially once the grifters all get their cut. When I say "probably costs less" I of course mean that they could put them all up in luxury hotels and still save money, because that's how things work.
One of those "where do you even begin" things, but it probably costs less to provide humane housing options for homeless people than it would to incarcerate them in inhumane conditions, especially once the grifters all get their cut. When I say "probably costs less" I of course mean that they could put them all up in luxury hotels and still save money, because that's how things work.
There Is A Natural Order To Things
It isn't something I understand, but there are people who have an intuitive sense of hierarchies and it's why "people being mean to Mike Bloomberg on twitter" is something which offends their sensibilities, in the same way that "students protesting a famous speaker coming to campus" upsets their sensibilities.
It isn't just that the rabble are wrong, it's that they don't know their place. Bloomberg's the rich old white guy, and respect must be paid.
Curious if the "Liz Warren is MEEEEAN" takes gel quickly or not. Same thing.
You better be good for goodness sake...
It isn't just that the rabble are wrong, it's that they don't know their place. Bloomberg's the rich old white guy, and respect must be paid.
Curious if the "Liz Warren is MEEEEAN" takes gel quickly or not. Same thing.
This is not just a question of Mike Bloomberg’s character—it’s a question about electability. We’re not going to beat Donald Trump with a man who silences women with who knows how many nondisclosure agreements. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/ozPFghxU8s
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 20, 2020
You better be good for goodness sake...
America's Worst Democratic Presidential Candidates
Michael Bloomberg.
He appeared very much like what he in fact is — a very rich man who is likely facing bitter, unfiltered criticism to his face for the first time in years.
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Mister We Could Use A Man Like Michael Bloomberg Again
Checking it twice...
A Bloomberg campaign non-disclosure agreement obtained by The Nation contains language that could prevent staffers from reporting workplace abuse.
The NDA totals 9 pages and forbids employees from discussing “any and all non-public information” and “activities” by the campaign.
And while it’s understandable that a campaign would want to keep things like internal polling under wraps, transparency advocates say that the NDA is overly broad to the point of preventing sexual harassment, as well as other forms of workplace abuse like racial discrimination, from being reported.
Real Men Cut Social Security
The Catfood Commission (aka Simpson Bowles aka Poop Dogg and The Enema Man) issued its report in 2010. The "Grand Bargain" collapsed in 2011. Obama was still at it...
The low point between the two men was a 2013 meeting with other Democratic senators. Obama had just put a chained Consumer Price Index in his budget, a proposal that would cut Social Security benefits by tying them to the rate of inflation. Many Senate Democrats were angry about it. But when they arrived for the meeting, it was Sanders who bubbled up, ripping into Obama for giving in to Republicans and not understanding the impact of the cuts.Not cutting Social Security is a fucking revolution.
“I don’t need a lecture,” Obama told him, according to several senators who attended the meeting.
Sanders proceeded to give him one anyway. A number of the senators there were struck by what they told me seemed like a lack of respect.
“Obama fairly forcefully pushed back and said, ‘That’s just not right—that’s not a vision that’s enactable or possible,’” one senator in the room recalled, asking for anonymity to discuss the private meeting. “‘You’re acting like I’m the enemy.’ Obama was trying to say, ‘I hear you that you want this revolution, but explain to me, how’s this going to happen? Look at the current makeup of the Senate and the House. How am I supposed to lead?’” Obama said, in this senator’s memory. The conversation quickly got testy. “It seemed the match of someone who prided himself on his cool intellect and removed analysis versus someone who was convinced with absolute ferocity with the rightness of his world view and is not given to accepting anything from those who don’t agree with it.”
Comrade Bloomberg
According to the online journal of news for people who thought Politico was too good (Axios), Bloomberg's people are telling all the NotBernies to drop out because otherwise Bernie will win.
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice...
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice...
Fox and Friends Runs The Government
This isn't a secret, but it doesn't stop too many New York Times articles about Trump's decision-making process when everybody know the answer is "LOL Steve Doocy told him to do it."
Simple Stories
I really don't understand why, if the Dems were going to go for impeachment, that "The Trump crime family stealing all of your tax money" wasn't on the list, at least also, too.
No nothing was ever going to make the Senate convict, but "putting money into his own pocket" is an easy thing to explain.
Oh well, it's a shame the House has had to go into coronavirus quarrantine for the next 9 months.
No nothing was ever going to make the Senate convict, but "putting money into his own pocket" is an easy thing to explain.
Oh well, it's a shame the House has had to go into coronavirus quarrantine for the next 9 months.
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Barack Obama Won Indiana
Regular readers of this dumb blog know I'm not the biggest fan of how he governed, but they figured out how to get people to the polls to vote for him against America's Greatest Human, John McCain. I don't think yelling "VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO" was an important part of this strategy, though admittedly times were different then.
Shovel Ready Projects
I tried to tell them.
More than 211 gallons of sewage has spilled into the waterways and streets of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, killing fish, seeping into houses and prompting the city's mayor to plead for state and federal assistance.Time is up in much of the country for these systems and they have not been suitably maintained anywhere, basically.
The problems began in December, when aging sewer pipes in the beachside city broke six times, releasing 126.9 million gallons of toxic sewage — one of South Florida's biggest spills ever, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. The waste poured into streets in three neighborhoods of the popular tourist destination, plus the Tarpon River and Himmarshee Canal, the paper reported.
Bloomin'
Post-2016 there has been a big shift in certain segments of Official Democrats (a vaguely defined bunch, but still a bunch). We went from "better things would be nice, but hard to get support for!" to "better things would be nice, but we just can't get it through the Senate" to "lol, better things aren't possible, we are just here to foam the runway to misery and death." Bloomberg is basically "Actually, you were right about us all along. Suckers!"
But even more than that, he's proving that "sure, you proved that small money can power elections, but that's NO FUN AT ALL because the people who give that money are gross and expect nice things from us."
But even more than that, he's proving that "sure, you proved that small money can power elections, but that's NO FUN AT ALL because the people who give that money are gross and expect nice things from us."
But even if one accepts that those arguments might be plausible (they aren’t even slam dunks), they do not render an outcome in which Bloomberg’s billions hijack the Democratic nomination acceptable.It was very depressing to realize that the money in elections isn't just about the money needed to win elections It's a mutual benefit society. It's a club people - givers and receivers - pay dues into in their own way. $27 ain't the entry fee!
The blithe tossing aside of this new grass-roots model of fundraising — simply by virtue of the fact that a single plutocrat, whatever his own considerable accomplishments, came along who can personally outspend millions of politically motivated Americans — is itself an arguably unacceptable price to pay.
If Trump Wins In November, We'll Know Who To Blame
The Left.
No matter who the nominee is and what happens between now and then, I can write the scripts.
No matter who the nominee is and what happens between now and then, I can write the scripts.
Monday, February 17, 2020
The Next One Just Won't Have As Obvious A Written Record
It's what they all think, basically.
Boris Johnson’s controversial new adviser, Andrew Sabisky, has resigned after the prime minister was accused of condoning his writings on eugenics and race that suggested black people are on average less intelligent than white people.
Sabisky said he was stepping down as a “contractor” to No 10 after a backlash within the Conservative party and across the political spectrum on Monday.
They're Bad People, Brent
But fortunately revealing themselves in a "haha no takebacksies" way.
But in the few months since Bloomberg announced, we have all gotten hard lessons in the power of money and advertising, the lack of principle within the professional political class, and the way in which the Trump ascendancy has broken the brains of so many Americans. There’s now a path for a general election campaign between dueling plutocrats, which would make a mockery of our politics and obliterate the Democratic Party as a tribune of the people.We're finding out who's naughty or nice...
And I’m going to say something controversial. There has been plenty of conjecture over whether a Trump-like figure could take over the Democratic Party. And I would say with Bloomberg that we’re about to find out. The cries of “Bloomberg is not Trump!” will rain down on me now, and, of course, he’s not. But there are a disturbing number of similarities. We have a figure without connections or the same value system as the party he seeks to represent, with racial and sexist skeletons in his closet, and a penchant for subverting democracy and showing contempt toward the rule of law. Democrats who are acting as pundits and thinking that Bloomberg offers the most certain close to the Trump era are playing with a stick of dynamite.
What Could Go Wrong
In general we have a growing problem of necessary technology being too complicated - and too fast changing - for elderly people to keep up. Good luck trying to explain two factor authorization to them! Or any subtle change to their tablet interface when Apple (or whoever) decides to shove that menu item somewhere.
So, no, you can't throw a bunch of tablets at seniors and say "just deal" and expect it to work.
So, no, you can't throw a bunch of tablets at seniors and say "just deal" and expect it to work.
Eugenics Is Good Now
I don't want to overly downplay a real issue, but "Labour is filled with anti-Semites" has been a dominant UK narrative for years now even though anyone who cares about even being a little bit honest knows that whatever real problems exist on The Left and in institutional Labour, it's hilariously trivial compared to a political moment that has at its core racism, with a prime minister with a rather long record of being, well, REALLY FUCKING RACIST.
And now.
Jeremy Corbyn is the real racist, though.
And now.
Mr Sabiksy has also come under fire for previously stating that much of the ‘hue and cry’ against female genital mutilation ‘looks more like a moral panic’. He also suggested that giving children mental performance-enhancing drugs, which pose a serious risk to life, is probably worth ‘a dead kid once a year’. The Cambridge graduate also advocates for eugenics, which aims to improve the genetic quality of the population by excluding certain groups judged to be ‘inferior’.
Jeremy Corbyn is the real racist, though.
The Andrew Sabisky row just got a whole lot worse. PM’s deputy official spox won’t say if Boris Johnson agrees with eugenics or whether black people less intelligent than white people. Only that “his views are well documented” - and won’t comment on the controversial appointment
— Rowena Mason (@rowenamason) February 17, 2020
The Problem With Democrats Is They're Out Of Touch With The Heartland
Also, Bloomberg is the most electable man in America.
Everybody is so corrupt.
Bloomberg on why farmers can’t work in information technology
— Pete (@PeterMentes) February 15, 2020
MB: “I can teach anyone how to be a farmer 1 dig a hole 2 put a seed in 3 put dirt on top 4 add water 5 up comes the corn”
The skill 4information technology is completely different you need more grey matter#farmers pic.twitter.com/HM13tA6goz
Everybody is so corrupt.
Sunday, February 16, 2020
Sunday Afternoon
Democratic candidates for president, RANKED
Bernie Sanders
Michael Bloomberg
Joe Biden
Elizabeth Warren
Tom Steyer
Amy Klobuchar
Tulsi Gabbard
Pete Buttigieg
(by age)
Bernie Sanders
Michael Bloomberg
Joe Biden
Elizabeth Warren
Tom Steyer
Amy Klobuchar
Tulsi Gabbard
Pete Buttigieg
(by age)
One Big Grift
One problem is that it's Trump so LOL NOTHING MATTERS, but another issue is that due to the support of elites and our chattering classes generally, education grifts have become as acceptable as $50 billion planes that don't fly.
This is gibberish, but it's what the "learn to code" crowd believes.
When USA TODAY started investigating Reagan last month, myriad issues appeared.
Links on the college’s website to register for classes led to 404 error pages. No students or graduates could be found on LinkedIn or Facebook.
The college’s only appearance on Twitter: Two people posted a picture of Ghanaian politician receiving an honorary degree from the college. The official had been accused of having a fake doctoral degree by an electoral commission in Ghana, although he denied it.
The faculty were also difficult to locate. USA TODAY contacted several people with the same names and education credentials as those listed as faculty on the university’s website. Four of them taught at different universities and said they had never worked at Reagan. Many listed were entirely absent from the internet, lacking personal websites and LinkedIn profiles — common features for academics.
This is gibberish, but it's what the "learn to code" crowd believes.
The education secretary wants to cut back the rules governing accreditation. Fewer regulations could allow colleges to implement new training programs swiftly to fill holes in the workforce, she says — an approach cheered by for-profit colleges like the ones accredited by ACICS.
One Quick Trick To Beating Trump
If "beating Trump" is the only thing that matters and liberals truly believe (wrongly!) the only way to beat this pretty unpopular (not SUPER unpopular, but never popular) guy is to nominate a billionaire then we're pretty doomed.
Too many liberals think they're both very unpopular and that the only reason they lost to Trump is because he's uniquely popular. It's weird.
Too many liberals think they're both very unpopular and that the only reason they lost to Trump is because he's uniquely popular. It's weird.
Saturday, February 15, 2020
Viva La Resistance
Everybody needs a 3rd boat.
That chilling effect was apparent in 2015 to researchers at the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy group, when they turned in a report on anti-Muslim bias in the United States. Their draft included a chapter of more than 4,000 words about New York City police surveillance of Muslim communities; Mr. Bloomberg was mentioned by name eight times in the chapter, which was reviewed by The Times.
Yasmine Taeb, an author of the report, said in an interview that the authors had been instructed to make drastic revisions or remove the chapter, and opted to do the latter rather than “whitewash the N.Y.P.D.’s wrongdoings.” She said she found it “disconcerting” to be asked to remove the chapter “because of how it was going to be perceived by Mayor Bloomberg.”
He's Better Than Trump!@!!@&^*$^#
Honestly I'm pretty sure a random person plucked from Mar-A-Lago would be better than Trump. Trump is quite possibly America's worst human whose only saving graces as president is that he's incompetent and has the attention span of look squirrel.
There's a Dem primary with a bunch of Democrats. Some decent ones dropped out in part because they were not allowed to be in the debates at various stages. Some aren't my faves, but really aside from Mayor Pete I'm okay with them.
Then along comes the billionaire just showering money on everyone and tweeting mean things at Trump, which is the best way to capture the hearts of The Resistance, apparently.
Suddenly lots of people are talking about how Bloomberg is great and also we have to nominate him because he's the BEST CHANCE TO DEFEAT Trump which might be true if the way to win elections was to tweet good. I suspect this might be true by 2024, but is still not yet true.
Bloomberg is bad for lots of reasons, and one of them is PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE SO WILLING TO EMBRACE A BILLIONAIRE WHO IS BUYING (not just ads, but people) THE ELECTION WITH HIS ABSURD FORTUNE. I mean, ok, sure, if it's BLOOMBERG OR TRUMP I'll choose Bloomberg, but why are people establishing this as the choice? It's absurd. The only person who can beat an asshole (fake, I know) billionaire is another asshole billionaire? Broken brains everywhere.
There's a Dem primary with a bunch of Democrats. Some decent ones dropped out in part because they were not allowed to be in the debates at various stages. Some aren't my faves, but really aside from Mayor Pete I'm okay with them.
Then along comes the billionaire just showering money on everyone and tweeting mean things at Trump, which is the best way to capture the hearts of The Resistance, apparently.
Suddenly lots of people are talking about how Bloomberg is great and also we have to nominate him because he's the BEST CHANCE TO DEFEAT Trump which might be true if the way to win elections was to tweet good. I suspect this might be true by 2024, but is still not yet true.
Bloomberg is bad for lots of reasons, and one of them is PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE SO WILLING TO EMBRACE A BILLIONAIRE WHO IS BUYING (not just ads, but people) THE ELECTION WITH HIS ABSURD FORTUNE. I mean, ok, sure, if it's BLOOMBERG OR TRUMP I'll choose Bloomberg, but why are people establishing this as the choice? It's absurd. The only person who can beat an asshole (fake, I know) billionaire is another asshole billionaire? Broken brains everywhere.
Delete your account. https://t.co/Oa92sncRQY
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 9, 2016
Friday, February 14, 2020
Donald Trump Is The Manliest Of Men
It certainly isn't the case that Republicans are like that (except possibly the rich part), but even the biggest goobers in their party tend to be portrayed like that because that's what the script is and people internalize this stuff.
Dwayne Johnson For President
What if a Democrat was more like a Republican? seems to infect things regularly. Some people, of course, just want that, but some are just self-hating Democrats who think if only someone rich enough, manly enough, military servicey enough, etc...
But I Need That 3rd Boat
Bloomberg is doing a valuable service in allowing me to stop pretending to have any respect for people I have long suspected deserve no respect.
Bloomberg’s sexism, like that of fellow New York City billionaire Donald Trump, has been prolific and well-documented, but for some reason, the stories about him don’t seem to have taken hold. He is still being embraced by the Democratic establishment as a viable option for its presidential nominee. He surged to third place in several 2020 polls this week; the Democratic National Committee changed its rules to allow him to participate in the next primary debate; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said his presence in the primary is a “positive one.”OK it's not that valuable a service, I admit, but silver linings I guess.
Thursday, February 13, 2020
Our Brand Is Incompetence
Heckuva job.
WASHINGTON — While the Democratic National Committee over the past 10 days has tried to distance itself from the troubled app that threw the results of the Iowa caucuses into disarray, a copy of the contract and internal correspondence provided to Yahoo News demonstrates that national party officials had extensive oversight over the development of the technology.
Our Bastard
One of my Great Insights in life has been that too many people who you would like to thing would know better are quite happy putting a bastard in charge as long as he's "our bastard." The thing is, even if that was defensible it never works out that way. Bastards are not "our" bastards, they're just bastards. Bloomberg is an asshole and a Bloomberg candidacy would reduce liberals to arguing that he isn't gross like Trump.
Donald Drumpf
I do think there's value in humor and winning the metaphorical bar fight, but OOH SNAP BLOOMBERG TOTALLY PWNED THE DONALD is not gonna get this done.
Well, well, well. That will leave a mark. “Behind your back they laugh at you”.... https://t.co/jPQXDaqGF3
— Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) February 13, 2020
Billionaire Truffle Pigs
Everyone who supports Bloomberg explicitly or subtly is showing the ass they tried to hide for years.
Our Brand Is Incompetence
I don't know the players, but the point I keep trying to make is that there's a big problem with a system that involves putting people who have no experience actually running things in charge of running things. And no I'm not saying "run the government like you would run a business" because the people who say that kind of thing are either themselves or talking about celebrity CEO-types who haven't run things in 40 years - not really - if they ever did. By "running things" I mean having tasks to complete and making sure they get completed. Not doing CNBC hits and figuring out how to scam people into investing in your internet connected juicer. The business world, at least the part we hear about on teevee, lacks people who are capable of running things, also, too.
We all got in the habit of making "managerial training" type things a punchline, but being a good manager is actually difficult and the elite path through life doesn't actually provide much training for it.
We all got in the habit of making "managerial training" type things a punchline, but being a good manager is actually difficult and the elite path through life doesn't actually provide much training for it.
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
Afternoon Thread
When I am your president, the self-driving cars will drive themselves! And that's no malarkey, folks.
Who's Next
Go House members go. I think you have a majority?
Congress must act immediately to rein in our lawless Attorney General. Barr should resign or face impeachment. And Congress should use spending power to defund the AG’s authority to interfere with anything that affects Trump, his friends, or his elections.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 12, 2020
Real Genius
Actually funny.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup plainly suspected that DoorDash wielded the arbitration agreements signed by its workers as weapons to discourage the workers from filing claims.
His suspicions were aroused when the company, facing thousands of arbitration claims, refused to pay its share of the filing fees. That prompted the arbitration agency, the American Arbitration Assn., to cancel all the arbitration cases.
For decades, Alsup observed in a blistering order issued Monday, employers have forced arbitration clauses upon their workers. “DoorDash, faced with having to actually honor its side of the bargain, now blanches at the cost,” he wrote.
Instead, Doordash is trying to force the workers to sue it in court, a much more costly and burdensome process. “Irony upon irony,” Alsup wrote, in ordering the arbitrations to proceed. “This hypocrisy will not be blessed, at least by this order.”
And Then Disappears
I've likened it to the guys from Def Leppard advising kids of today how to have number one hits in America. These people aren't exactly idiots but they are hugely deluded about their own popularity and understanding.
— Dan Davies (@dsquareddigest) February 12, 2020
The joke is that everyone is fighting the last war, but this is especially true when you won the last one. Or maybe 3 wars ago. You are a brilliant general, even if you haven't commanded any troops lately or done much else other than show up on cable news on a regular basis and collect rents from various projects you have lent your name to.
When a new administration gets into power - Clinton 1993, Obama 2009 - they bring a lot of younger people in with them because everyone who does the work in DC is 23. But those people age, and a new party gets in power, and there are no opportunities for a new generation of young people, until some of them help to win a war (campaign). Until then, we have Def Leppard, or maybe the Dave Matthews Band, telling us how everything works.
Times change and everyone loses the plot. Politicians themselves are old generally, of course, but the people involved in their campaigns and then running the show aren't. Not necessarily, anyway. Some names never seem to disappear...
What It All Means
The problem, you see, is the voters.
Mayo Pete getting any votes? Klobuchar over Warren?
What to do about Democrats...
Mayo Pete getting any votes? Klobuchar over Warren?
What to do about Democrats...
If All You Have Is A Hammer
The impeachment process against Bill Barr should have started yesterday.
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Yang Out, Bennet Out
And if you add up all the votes for people other than Bernie, he comes in last place. Or something.
...Steyer out....or not out...
...Steyer out....or not out...
Can't Wait
This is going to be hilarious.
Here are some things we know — and don’t know — about the people mover, occasionally referred to as the “Las Vegas Loop.”■ The vehicles using the tunnels will be self-driving ones made from Tesla chassis. The largest vehicle will hold 16 passengers. What we don’t know is how many vehicles will be a part of the system and their capacity.■ The system will have stops at the two endpoints and an underground station near where the North and Central halls converge. But how will passengers queue to get on board? No details of the loading process have been provided as yet.■ LVCVA President and CEO Steve Hill has said that, during extremely busy times, several vehicles may be loaded simultaneously and platooned through the tunnel, almost like an unconnected subway train. How will that be managed? How closely behind the lead vehicle will others be, and how fast will the vehicles go?
LEAVE THE POOR BILLIONAIRES ALOOOOOOOOOONE
It's telling who instinctively leaps to their defense and who does not.
This is a dangerously disturbing world view. Dangerous for me, my two sons and millions more just like us. Most troubling is that this sounds like a philosophy, not a singular policy.
— Andrew Gillum (@AndrewGillum) February 11, 2020
We need more than an apology. We need answers... pic.twitter.com/CPo8g1h9Eb
Haven't We Been Here Before
It's a bit of a problem when the 'young pups' of elite Democratic politics, basically the young people of the Obama class, are now...12-13 years older than they were then. Not that they are so old, but that they are still, relatively speaking, young, in this context, and there has not been an opening for their replacement young cohort.
I have a point here, somewhere, but having a hard time expressing it. Maybe tomorrow!
I have a point here, somewhere, but having a hard time expressing it. Maybe tomorrow!
Our Brand Is Competence
As I said, I think randomness in a primary dwarfs most other things, or at least knowable things, but some people got paid money to package frontrunner Uncle Joe and... welp...
Journalists Against Journalism
I join @CristinaAlesci of CNN in condemning @BenjaminPDixon for releasing accurate, important information about an extremely powerful person running for President of the United States pic.twitter.com/5vwzyhigMQ
— Jon Schwarz (@schwarz) February 11, 2020
journalist: here's a tape of bloomberg being racist
— Bernie won Iowa (@Mobute) February 11, 2020
cnn anchor: this is sick. why did you bring this? this is a newsroom, what the fuck is wrong with you
Do Something
At some point, the idea that government should do something for "people," broadly defined, was characterized as being borderline, if not actual, corruption, while funneling taxpayer money to rich people and corporations on the off chance they'd create JAYYYYUUUUUBS or some shit became the Very Serious Role Of Government. Just make life easier, instead of harder. That isn't, actually, hard. The rube goldberg mechanisms in place for anything which comes close to helping people are hard, except for the crazy people who love the idea of choosing their health plan online annually during some narrow time window from a confusing nonfunctioning web site.
Retreating behind the claim that "oh wow no one in charge actually has any power" should be rendered impossible by recent events. But, hey, gotta restore those norms!
Retreating behind the claim that "oh wow no one in charge actually has any power" should be rendered impossible by recent events. But, hey, gotta restore those norms!
The next Democratic president must be poised to seize any opportunity. They should be ready to exercise every last scrap of authority to improve the lives of the American people instead of fussing about propriety and appearances, or pretending the world's most powerful office is hemmed in on every side.If I were planning to run as a Republican against a Democratic incumbent in 2024 I'd already be rehearsing my "do nothing president" scripts. Sure some of that will be because of obstruction, but a good bet, depending on who that Dem incumbent will be, is that they won't come close to using the power they have. Prove me wrong!
I'm A Bernie Bro Now
Definitely gonna win with this.
Brian Kilmeade on Bernie Sanders: "His slogan is 'Stay home, get high, I'll pay off your loan.' That's a pretty catch slogan. I mean, that's pretty good. Marijuana." pic.twitter.com/3a1Mx4zZKm
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) February 11, 2020
Big Day
Got my I Heart New Hampshire t-shirt on and am cooking a feast of traditional New Hampshire food.
Monday, February 10, 2020
Let Me Explain What Is Happening
My expert take is that with this many people in the campaign, including the Mule Bloomberg, poll movement is largely, but not entirely, random, and no one knows anything!
I am a failed pundit.
I am a failed pundit.
"Than 'We' Think"
The Rosetta Stone for the New York Times involves understanding just who they imagine the "we" is.
We're looking for a NYT correspondent to explain the suburbs, those politically important areas that are far more complex than we think. https://t.co/X0cl5lRkmB
— Marc Lacey (@marclacey) February 10, 2020
Our Brand Is Competence
Technocratic competence. Put the Lanyards in charge of our brilliant Rube Goldberg wonky plan and everything will work out great. Then the website doesn't work and they broke the Iowa caucus. Apparently too many of the Lanyards are failsons and failcousins, and apparently a humanities degree from a school near Boston isn't actually the same as a STEM degree (I think humanities degrees even from schools near Boston are great, I'm not just not sure why all the people telling people to get STEM degrees have them).
Technological grifters and their enablers and marks. Uber, but for voting!
the Iowa caucus absolutely should be done away with but it's going to take more than a conversation and at any rate the Iowa Democrats have a pretty solid claim that the Acronym wing of the party deserves abolition first https://t.co/gQYkkheh74
— Jason Linkins (@dceiver) February 10, 2020
Technological grifters and their enablers and marks. Uber, but for voting!
Manager
It's also a grim illustration of what fundraising culture is doing to basic competence within the Democratic Party. Running the DNC and a state party are huge jobs. But the people who take them don't know how to do anything other than raise money, cash paychecks and go on TV.
— Zach Carter (@zachdcarter) February 10, 2020
The media figurehead and fundraiser in chief should be able to hire competent people to delegate the other important work to. That this is not how things work...
Bong
I haven't seen all of his movies, but most, and they're worth seeing. Interesting at worst. I guess I've seen Barking Dogs Never Bite, The Host, Mother, Snowpiercer, Okja (netflix) , and Parasite.
Sunday, February 09, 2020
You Deserve Better and Once I Was It
Okay then.
NEW: Joe Biden calls a New Hampshire voter a "lying dog-faced pony soldier" pic.twitter.com/AbAYLDjUie
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) February 9, 2020
TECHNOLOGY
Just to state what should be obvious: tech solutions are often trying to solve nonexistent problems in a much more expensive way which is more likely to fail catastrophically with no means of recovery.
Saturday, February 08, 2020
Dance, Monkey, Dance
It's a bit hard to explain and it's Saturday so I'm not even going to try to hard, but once upon a time running for president as a Democrat involved doing this elaborate dance through a rhetorical minefield, carefully avoiding subjects or commitments, speaking phrases of pre-approved bullshit that the talking heads had agreed were acceptable. Walk outside the lines a bit and YEAARGH BOOM.
That's the game Mayo Pete is playing, and I think it's a game we have, somewhat, moved past.
That's the game Mayo Pete is playing, and I think it's a game we have, somewhat, moved past.
Debate
I honestly did forget about that. My life is confusing and complicated these days!
It's Saturday, Saturday.
It's Saturday, Saturday.
Friday, February 07, 2020
But The Point Is... It Is Nefarious
I'm not against playing dirty, but you can't play dirty and then say Actually, Both Sides Do It So We're Clean, Also, Too.
“The fact that we are getting framed as nefarious for doing what the right has been doing is bullshit,” said Acronym CEO Tara McGowan.Also if you're going to play dirty be minimally competent at it. Jeebus.
Trapezoid
I do love some West Wing gibberish.
#CNNTownHall pic.twitter.com/lt4yVD7Krz
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) February 7, 2020
What's It All About Then
Dday:
Too much is explained by the fact that too many people need a third boat.
Obama couldn’t handle it. He pressured Perez, who was musing about running for governor in Maryland, into the race, and bore down on the establishment to break with the Ellison unity shtick and accept his preferred candidate. This eventually succeeded, with the help of a party coup in Puerto Rico that delivered Perez all of that delegation’s votes.At the time all the Serious Politics Knowers were like "oh, well, Perez and Ellison are exactly the same so the Bernie Bros are totally stupid for bothering with this unimportant thing which no one should care about oh why is this the one thing Obama himself is getting involved in hahaha SQUIRREL."
Obama, now a movie studio boss and occasional public speaker, had no personal reason to force Perez on the party. The most logical reading of his rationale would be that he did it for the blob, the network of consultants, strategists, pollsters, lobbyists, policy mandarins, and media figures for whom politics is their business. They didn’t want the spigot to close on the hundreds of millions of dollars that flow through campaigns, and they needed to eliminate the threat of a gatekeeper like Ellison, who might have different ideas. So Perez was installed.
Too much is explained by the fact that too many people need a third boat.
Don't Put Me In Charge Of Anything
I'm well aware of my limitations. Perhaps there isn't much value being the guy who sits in the corner at meetings and occasionally pipes up "that's really bad idea," but that's my value and I don't think being good at that means I should get to run everything.
Running things is hard, for but most things "mostly done" or "good enough" is, well, good enough. Not so for commercial jet liners or (with less tragic consequences, probably) one time voting systems for the Iowa caucus. You have to be good at your job and also recognize that importance of what you are doing.
All this "oh no ACRONYM had nothing to do with Shadow which we launched I mean invested in I mean heard about oh no that person in the next desk doesn't work for Shadow hahaaha how did that our address get on that form" shows a group of people more concerned with ass covering than getting things done.
You done fucked up. Resign from this career and move on.
Running things is hard, for but most things "mostly done" or "good enough" is, well, good enough. Not so for commercial jet liners or (with less tragic consequences, probably) one time voting systems for the Iowa caucus. You have to be good at your job and also recognize that importance of what you are doing.
All this "oh no ACRONYM had nothing to do with Shadow which we launched I mean invested in I mean heard about oh no that person in the next desk doesn't work for Shadow hahaaha how did that our address get on that form" shows a group of people more concerned with ass covering than getting things done.
You done fucked up. Resign from this career and move on.
Thursday, February 06, 2020
Grifters Gonna Grift
Depressing.
Reading those stories now brought me to a depressing realization: The people who said they were going to beat Donald Trump in 2020 by emulating his supposedly highly sophisticated digital targeting operation have instead emulated Trump by turning their campaigns into a lucrative grift for a small group of well connected party insiders. And, because this is the Democrats we are talking about, they did so by burning enormous sums of money that could have done untold good, politically and strategically, had they been used for just about anything else.
...
So where is that money going, exactly? Acronym’s principal is a political operative named Tara McGowan, who had worked for Priorities USA, the main super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. She is also the owner (and apparently the sole employee) of Lockwood Strategies, a for-profit “digital consulting” company that, as it happens, received $1 million from Acronym in the fall of 2018. In other words, almost immediately after she failed to win the most important election she had ever worked on, McGowan managed to convince some of the wealthiest liberals in the country to shower her with money to produce ineffective trash. This is called “disruption,” and it now powers the American economy.
One Job
Our political system, in so many ways, is excellent at spreading blame around so widely that nobody is ever to blame.
Did Somebody Call The Manager
Always super helpful when the bad manager barges in 4 days too late and starts barking random orders at people.
Fix this shit! Right now!!!
Enough is enough. In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.
— Tom Perez (@TomPerez) February 6, 2020
Fix this shit! Right now!!!
The Magic Lamp
I've been watching well-connected people grift on politics/technology since I've been in this. Not that they are all grifters, of course, but it's pretty easy to throw up a powerpoint and spout some magic buzzwords to old rich people who will, if you come recommended by the right people, give you a bunch of money. Promising you had the special sauce was pretty easy, especially back before everybody had phones in their pockets and it was all so darn mysterious.
I AM SPENDING $75 MILLION TO DEFEAT TRUMP!!!! I AM A HUMANITARIAN!!!!
Lol.
Be well connected, sucker rich people into giving you money for your "nonprofit," pay your for profit company for the work.
Never tweet, and certainly never tweet as if you think everybody reading your tweets is an idiot.
Every grifter in DC is so mad at her now. Killing the golden goose! Well, probably not, but maybe!
Lol
Lol
Lol
Fucking grifters
Her nonprofit does run digital ads, but used her for-profit consulting firm Lockwood to place those ads, taking a chunk off the top https://t.co/7SfdHHxzwg
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) February 6, 2020
Be well connected, sucker rich people into giving you money for your "nonprofit," pay your for profit company for the work.
Never tweet, and certainly never tweet as if you think everybody reading your tweets is an idiot.
Every grifter in DC is so mad at her now. Killing the golden goose! Well, probably not, but maybe!
Lol
One top Democratic operative noted that ACRONYM had publicly reported that they were going to launch $1 million of impeachment-related ads. But as of January 29, Advertising Analytics had shown them spending just $186,000, with their affiliate PACronym having spent $38,000."The lurkers support me."
Last, I want to thank the hundreds of people that have reached out to me + the team over the past 48 hours to tell us they believe in us & to keep fighting. It’s going to take all of us doing everything we can to win this election + we’re not going anywhere ✊🏼🇺🇸☄️
— Tara McGowan (@taraemcg) February 6, 2020
Lol
McGowan sought to distance herself from Shadow's IowaReporterApp on Monday night, characterizing the app developer as an “independent” company. In a separate statement, an ACRONYM spokesman said the nonprofit organization is an investor in several companies, including Shadow, but was “eagerly awaiting more information from the Iowa Democratic Party with respect to what happened.”Lol
But business and tax records show ACRONYM and Shadow are registered at the same Washington, D.C., street address, which belongs to a WeWork co-working location. Shadow CEO Gerard Niemira previously served as the chief operating officer and chief technology officer at ACRONYM, according to an online resume.
So far, Facebook ad disclosures show the group has spent about $700,000 on ads. ACRONYM leaders said in November that they had raised about 40 percent of the $75 million they hoped for. But by the end of 2019, it had raised only about one-tenth of that, according to a disclosure filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission. A separate tax-exempt wing of the group won't have to disclose how much money it has raised to the IRS until next year.
Lol
“The app was sound and good,” Niemira said. “All the data that was produced by calculations performed by the app was correct. It did the job it was supposed to do, which is help precinct chairs in the field do the math correctly. The problem was caused by a bug in the code that transmits results data into the state party’s data warehouse.” That transmission bug, he said, “had catastrophic impact.”It was a very good app. The calculator function worked!
Fucking grifters
Morning Thread
Don't Just Get Mad. Get to Work.
Good info and links on what we can all do to turn this shitshow around.
Good info and links on what we can all do to turn this shitshow around.
Wednesday, February 05, 2020
Mittens Is A Communist Now
He's a weirdo and despite winning the nomination in 2012 he was never exactly a Republican's Republican, but now he'll be an unperson in the Party. Don't really see that he has any good play here. Even the Never Trumpers will be lukewarm, most likely. Maybe Jen Rubin will get her crush back. But no one's gonna sit with him at the lunch table anymore.
And while it's all mostly theater of little importance at this point, it does prevent them from babbling about how the FOUNDERS DEMANDED IMPEACHMENT BE BACKED BY EQUAL NUMBERS OF REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS OR IT IS TREASON or whatever crap they have been making up recently.
And while it's all mostly theater of little importance at this point, it does prevent them from babbling about how the FOUNDERS DEMANDED IMPEACHMENT BE BACKED BY EQUAL NUMBERS OF REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS OR IT IS TREASON or whatever crap they have been making up recently.
How Did We Get Here
Remember that time Rush Limabugh called a Georgetown student a slut? Yeah, that guy was just festooned with a medal of freedom by the nation’s chief anti-bullying advocate. https://t.co/A37C4dRPD7
— Maureen Dowd (@maureendowd) February 5, 2020
To the DeLorean, Doc Brown!
That piece was written after Limbaugh called Chelsea Clinton the White House dog on his teevee show. Not mentioned in that piece? That Limbaugh called Chelsea Clinton (age 12) the White House dog on his teevee show. But sure 20 years later MoDo got mad at him.
The NYT never stops promoting these horrible people.
Grifters Everywhere
A bunch of well connected Dem operatives fucked up the Iowa caucus and everyone involved is pretending they had nothing to do with it and none of them will suffer any professional consequences.
Nice work.
Nice work.
SOTU
I mostly forgot about it. What'd I miss? ANIMAL HUMAN HYBRIDS??? MARS, BITCHES???
Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos.
Bush SOTU,2006
Tuesday, February 04, 2020
The Bullshit Economy
Indeed.
The Iowa disaster is a sign that our economic structures are breaking down, that private enterprise has become a shell game, where who you know matters more than what you can do. The bullshit economy has bled over into politics, with the perfect president but also the perfect amount of grifting and consultant corruption and unbridled tech optimism. This has long been part of politics—anything with that much money sloshing around will invite a little corruption—but the combination of political grift, the ardor for public-private partnerships, and the triumph of ambition over talent has created a fetid stew.
Self-Dealing
The interesting question which might now be asked and hopefully ruin some careers - but probably not! - is just how do companies like Shadow appear overnight and get lots of business from the party organizations and candidates?
Mar-a-Lago isn't the only place where grifters roam.
Mar-a-Lago isn't the only place where grifters roam.
Didn't Go As Scripted
Supposedly some results (most? almost all? half?) will be released by 5pm. Okay.
Somebody call a manager.
Somebody call a manager.
Manager
There are certain fields, and politics is one, in which people to often get put into leadership/management positions despite not being any good at actually managing. That is, leadership positions which require them to be more than just a figurehead or media presence, or at least hire the right people to take care of that part of the job. That you might be good at something, and are in some sense "important," doesn't mean you have the skills or inclination to actually run things and make them work.
And you usually can't fire those people, either.
And you usually can't fire those people, either.
Guess That Leaves Him Out
The dream of "literacy tests" from our great conservative racists persists.
This Is Just What Putin Wants
I know I have internet brain, but this common response to mild criticism of MY CANDIDATE (but not yours who is a despicable sack of shit for whom death cannot come quickly enough) is tiresome.
They Named It "Shadow" Because "The Company" Was Too Obvious To The Writers
If the powers that be don't want the rabble coming up with crazy conspiracy theories maybe they should stop giving them so much reason. And a long series of conspiracies that are quietly admitted to 30 years later.
Congratulations to Mayo Pete on his victory. He told me he won!
Congratulations to Mayo Pete on his victory. He told me he won!
Monday, February 03, 2020
Bored Now
I'm not near a teevee at the moment so I don't know if this applies now, but I find it endlessly "fascinating" that for every election, the news nets spend months covering nothing else and then about 2 hour before the polls close they're suddenly ready to call the thing and move on. Like the pregame show is the fascinating thing but who the hell wants to watch the Superbowl?
Suburban Brain
It is weird.
Rapaille, a French emigree, believed the SUV appealed—at the time to mostly upper-middle class suburbanites—to a fundamental subconscious animalistic state, our “reptilian desire for survival,” as relayed by Bradsher. (“We don’t believe what people say,” the website for Rapaille’s consulting firm declares. Instead, they use “a unique blend of biology, cultural anthropology and psychology to discover the hidden cultural forces that pre-organize the way people behave towards a product, service or concept”). Americans were afraid, Rapaille found through his exhaustive market research, and they were mostly afraid of crime even though crime was actually falling and at near-record lows. As Bradsher wrote, “People buy SUVs, he tells auto executives, because they are trying to look as menacing as possible to allay their fears of crime and other violence.” They, quite literally, bought SUVs to run over “gang members” with, Rapaille found.
What Does It Matter If I Change The World At All
We know everybody who wants to be president has to be crazy, but honestly I can't imagine why Joe Biden wants to be president. There's a motivation there I do not understand.
Maybe those nice Midwestern folks were just jokin'
I have arrived at my candidate choice through the combination of Vulcan logic and a deep knowledge of the issues, while you are driven by pure emotion combined with a deep failure to comprehend the current political system.
Primary season is the silly season.
Primary season is the silly season.
As An Advanced Politics Knower
I think Biden and Mayo Pete are bad in a "please don't vote for them" sense. There are other candidates I don't love but I suspect people who vote for them aren't doing so because they are dumbasses, mostly, they are doing so because they have different priorities than I do and different (of course wrong because I am always right, but not necessarily wrong, because actually I am not always right) beliefs about unknowable things. "Who is more electable" or "how, exactly, will they govern," or "can they actually accomplish anything as president, more than the other person" or "will they appoint Rahm Emanuel Chief of Staff and send Timothy Geithner to Treasury?" are all basically unknowable things which people can have smart opinions about but they are just opinions.
And also people often have really dumb opinions about such things, and I don't mean "opinions I disagree with."
And also people often have really dumb opinions about such things, and I don't mean "opinions I disagree with."
Sunday, February 02, 2020
Concussion Game
This is the league where the players get paid and not the one where they don't, so that's something.
Go team!
Go team!
Lies and the Lying Liars
We're all liars, a bit. We can have the dorm room debate over whether it's our basic desire to be good that keeps us from going Full Trump all the time, or just the fear of the consequences, but I'll submit it's a bit of both.
Senators who have been in office for decades, surrounded by a staff of lickspittles and a mostly obsequious press that can't figure out whether to hand out medals when someone asks as Hard Kweschin or drum them out of the profession for being rude, do lack a bit of an external check on their behavior that most of the rest of us have.
Senators who have been in office for decades, surrounded by a staff of lickspittles and a mostly obsequious press that can't figure out whether to hand out medals when someone asks as Hard Kweschin or drum them out of the profession for being rude, do lack a bit of an external check on their behavior that most of the rest of us have.
Not A Lone Kook
That he said it out loud means it's a totally normal thing to say in private in his circles. He doesn't even get that anyone might disagree!
We are fortunate that most armchair warriors are just that. All talk and la-z-butt in the la-z-boy. But not all...
We are fortunate that most armchair warriors are just that. All talk and la-z-butt in the la-z-boy. But not all...
You Had One Job
I don't care about this stuff but this is funny.
The Des Moines Register, CNN and Selzer & Co. have made the decision to not release the final installment of the CNN/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll as planned this evening.Mayo Pete complained.
Nothing is more important to the Register and its polling partners than the integrity of the Iowa Poll. Today, a respondent raised an issue with the way the survey was administered, which could have compromised the results of the poll. It appears a candidate’s name was omitted in at least one interview in which the respondent was asked to name their preferred candidate.
While this appears to be isolated to one surveyor, we cannot confirm that with certainty. Therefore, the partners made the difficult decision to not to move forward with releasing the Iowa Poll.
Saturday, February 01, 2020
Shutup, Mayo Pete
He's absurd and Lis is even more absurd.
More @Lis_Smith: "There are a few people in politics that are pretty dangerous to compare yourself to. Barack Obama's one of them..but I don't think it's wrong to say that Pete brings...that ineffable It thing that Obama had."
— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) February 1, 2020
Evolution
The American people won't support that.
We can't get the votes in Congress for that.
Actually, we think that is bad.
We can't get the votes in Congress for that.
Actually, we think that is bad.
Punch Up Punch Up Punch Punch Punch Down
I know it isn't always 100% clear. Power is a funny sometimes undefinable thing. But the difference is usually mostly clear.
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