Tuesday, November 30, 2021
Freak Show
Welcome to Congress pic.twitter.com/UvZDUjd53s
— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) November 30, 2021
Fish Hook
Some people love covid, love not seeing anyone, love being isolated, want everyone else to suffer in that glorious fashion, and that's why we published dozens of articles about this based on the fact that some people were spotted wearing masks outside last July.
That was the party line from a certain clique of centrists, before they moved onto to "akshually, black people are the real racists."
Priorities Change
That doesn't mean people inevitably oppose these things as they age, just that they will fall down the list at least a little bit.
I'm less likely than I once was to get excited about new infrastructure projects (SUPERTRAINS!!!) than I was a few years ago, in part because, well, by the time they come online I'm going to be not quite as young as I used to be.
Small shifts in priorities as the population ages (and the median age of members of Congress) can easily lead to big shifts in actual policy outcomes.
Technocracy
Even the best most expert staffed agency filled with nothing but benevolent public-minded civil servants are only on one piece of the puzzle at a time, and sometimes an agenda needs to be comprehensive.
Of course there's no reason to assume such expertise and benevolence, and in fact maintaining a sense of independence moves corruption into the hands of much less accountable individuals.
Some happy balance exists, but I'm pretty sure that for a lot of things we're waaay off balance all in one direction.
Nothing guarantees the people running these shops are smartest than the average blogger.
You're Making Us Look Bad, Chris
I'm regularly struck by who supposedly serious journalists include "in the club." It can be a big club, but some members degrade brand journalism quite a bit, to put it mildly.
In any case, if Chris Cuomo gets to remain in the club, then, well...
The Election is Over, Campaign Season Begins
Monday, November 29, 2021
Oh Dear Time For Another Blogger Ethics Panel
CNN host Chris Cuomo used his sources in the media world to seek information on women who accused his brother Andrew Cuomo, then the governor of New York, of sexual harassment, according to documents released Monday by the New York Attorney General’s Office.
Gotta Play The Game Well
Still it is the game, and you gotta suit up even for a rigged game.
I have various theories (there isn't one reason) about why they continue to be bad at it, but ultimately Dems can't expect the news outlets to do their job for them, and they can't expect a duck to be a swan.
No point in yelling "unfair" after the final buzzer, either. Too late then!
Salty
Imagine that you are a politician, someone who made the effort to put yourself in a position of power, and you think in the Year of Our Gritty 2021, what you were put in office to do was protect pharmaceutical profits and devote your time and energy to making sure rich people in New Jersey got their big tax break returned to them.
That your response when the lobbyists come knocking isn't just, "Fuck you, assholes! Turn on the news!"
Novelization
The Noble Humanitarian Mission In Libya
In the past six years, the European Union, weary of the financial and political costs of receiving migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, has created a shadow immigration system that stops them before they reach Europe. It has equipped and trained the Libyan Coast Guard, a quasi-military organization linked to militias in the country, to patrol the Mediterranean, sabotaging humanitarian rescue operations and capturing migrants. The migrants are then detained indefinitely in a network of profit-making prisons run by the militias. In September of this year, around six thousand migrants were being held, many of them in Al Mabani. International aid agencies have documented an array of abuses: detainees tortured with electric shocks, children raped by guards, families extorted for ransom, men and women sold into forced labor. “The E.U. did something they carefully considered and planned for many years,” Salah Marghani, Libya’s Minister of Justice from 2012 to 2014, told me. “Create a hellhole in Libya, with the idea of deterring people from heading to Europe.”
I Guess Regulated Taxi Fares Were Good, Akshually
Sunday, November 28, 2021
What's A Good Outcome
What does 'good' mean? Who is it 'good' for? Why?
Obvious questions and not difficult to answer if anyone cares to.
Copaganda
The made up stats don't pass a simple "does that sound like bullshit" test. Reporters can't be that dumb. Or can they?
Saturday, November 27, 2021
What The People Want
Otherwise they have other things to worry about.
I'm not one who imagines an era of Good Republicans, but perhaps there was an era when if Republicans behaved just a little bit, and kept some of their Limbaughs in line (which they did sometimes), such bigoted rage could be sidelined for a bit. But that era is not now...
Sondheim
Sondheim's deserving of all the praise he will get from people better able to give it than me. I like musicals, but it is the case that not many of them actually get close to living up to the promise of what they could be, and many of those are by Sondheim. Not enough composers (the ones that get produced and therefore I know about) aspire to do what Sondheim aspired to do.
More an Assassins and Sweeney Todd fan than Company, though that's more about me not the relative quality.
Also mostly don't find his music that enjoyable as standalones, the songs are part of a bigger whole. Never really have an answer to, "What are you favorite Sondheim songs?" They're telling stories, not tunes to be belted out. Other people differ on this, of course.
Slightly strange being old enough to be just aware of a time when he hadn't quite achieved icon status, and he had his share of not very successful shows. Age is funny.
Friday, November 26, 2021
Speaking Of Meritocracy And The Related Marketplace Of Ideas
The actual peer review process for publication isn't necessarily so rigorous, of course, but it is, at least, a process, while working papers can be "posted to my website" or "issued in prestigious working paper series, which also don't have any peer review even though it sounds fancy."
Some of these papers get picked up by journalists and touted in our major newspapers, transmuting some bullshit sketchy results into popular wisdom.
The smartest boys on the internet and everyone who brands themselves "data guys" love this stuff, because by citing them they think it makes them smart, but really it just shows they have no idea how the research process works.
The studies that get picked up and broadcast widely tend to be like everything else, elite status quo supporting results branded as contrarianism. You know, racism is justified, American prisons are good, actually, more money just makes poor people miserable, rich people just have bigger brain pans, etc.
Whatever the internal problems of economics as a field, the public face of it is much worse than the reality, but only economists can fix this.
Meritocracy
Like there is some sort of "columnist test" which objectively ranks the columnist skills, and in the field of Column Writing the best people get the jobs. Can't replace a SCORE 97 columnist with SCORE 94 columnist just because the latter is black.
This is not how anything works, except maybe "how many boxes can you pack and ship in an hour," or, "how many radish plants can you harvest," and certainly not the hiring process for columnists for prestige publications, but people really think it is, somehow. The people who who have those jobs.
BLACK FRIDAY
Ah, Well, Nevertheless
Scientists have detected a new Covid-19 variant called B.1.1.529 and are working to understand its potential implications. About 100 confirmed cases have been identified in South Africa, Hong Kong, Israel and Botswana.Hope the pharma execs have enjoyed their new boats.B.1.1.529 has a very unusual constellation of mutations, which are worrying because they could help it evade the body’s immune response and make it more transmissible, scientists have said. Any new variant that is able to evade vaccines or spread faster than the now-dominant Delta variant may pose a significant threat as the world emerges from the pandemic.
Thursday, November 25, 2021
Smoke It
Wednesday, November 24, 2021
Brain Poisoning
People with "fuck you money" can do what they want, but I don't think all of these people have it!
Who Is The Good Guy With A Gun
Get Elon To Fix It
Thanksgiving travelers are tying up traffic, with cars backed up on the 10 Fwy interchange to the 405 Fwy on Tuesday night https://t.co/fDQgYGrtzB pic.twitter.com/xaRxiNnTnt
— KTLA (@KTLA) November 24, 2021
Ahmaud Arbery Murder Verdicts
Keep it Coming
The Democratic-led House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has issued a new round of subpoenas to far right extremist groups, including the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.
Doctors
Seven From Anti-Vax Doctors’ COVID Conference Fall Sick Within Days(I am not picking on doctors specifically, just making the point that hyper-educated and hyper-credentialed people are not necessarily what people expect)
Take All Their Money
Charlottesville, Virginia (CNN)A jury has awarded more than $26 million in damages after finding the White nationalists who organized and participated in a violent 2017 rally here liable on a state conspiracy claim and other claims.
Tuesday, November 23, 2021
Defund The Sheriffs
Despite mounting concerns about discriminatory policing, the Trump administration aggressively recruited local law enforcement partners and courted sheriffs who championed similar views on immigration policy, according to dozens of internal ICE emails obtained by The Post.
Oh, Elon
I suppose I've become a bit bored of Elon. He gets repetitive, as do my responses to him, but I hope the very smart readers of this very fine blog have some idea why even a zillion car tunnels don't help the traffic problem, and there are some excluded options here.It’s either traffic forever or tunnels. Try our first operational tunnel in Vegas at the convention center! The city just approved a full tunnel network, connecting major hotels, convention center & airport.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 22, 2021
Yes if you strung some vehicles together, maybe even joined up in one continuous body, and put them in a tunnel... Hold on, gonna go patent that. Gonna call it The Hoagieway.
Good Guys With Guns
Piles
Washington (CNN)Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Republican congressman who downplayed the January 6 Capitol Hill insurrection, announced Monday that he's running for Texas attorney general, the state's top law enforcement official....
Gohmert's entrance into the race means Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who has held the position since 2015 and is running for reelection, will face another high-profile challenge from a member of his party. Already, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush and former state Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman have announced bids in the race.
Spreaders
Coronavirus cases in children in the United States have risen by 32 percent from about two weeks ago, a spike that comes as the country rushes to inoculate children ahead of the winter holiday season, pediatricians said.Schools being plague zones and then the kids going back and spreading it to adults is really what has been driving the latest round in many places.More than 140,000 children tested positive for the coronavirus between Nov. 11 and Nov. 18, up from 107,000 in the week ending Nov. 4, according to a statement on Monday from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.
I don't have strong beliefs about what policies/mandates should be, but my basic view is "every little bit helps," and while allowing life to get back to normal might be fine, shaming people who didn't rip off their masks and cough in each other's mouths probably wasn't the best idea.
Unpossible
A federal judge has ordered two Colorado lawyers who filed a lawsuit late last year challenging the 2020 election results to pay nearly $187,000 to defray the legal fees of groups they sued, arguing that the hefty penalty was proper to deter others from using frivolous suits to undermine the democratic system.I just laugh because sometimes lawyers talk about "the threat of disbarment" or whatever and like, sure, my guy, when does that happen absent behavior which isn't just "unethical" by the supposed standards of the profession but illegal, like just stealing money from clients.
Monday, November 22, 2021
But He Seemed Like A Complete Asshole
Senate candidate Sean Parnell suspended his campaign Monday, hours after a judge ruled against him in a custody battle that included allegations he had physically and verbally abused his wife and children....
The ruling Monday came after emotional testimony earlier this month that for the first time publicly aired his wife’s allegations of abuse and uncontrolled anger that led to the couple’s breakup. Judge James Arner said he concluded Parnell’s wife, Laurie Snell, was “the more credible witness” of the two and that Parnell had committed “some acts of abuse in the past.”
If I Did That
Among the other properties under scrutiny: former president Donald Trump’s California golf club, for which he valued the same parcel of land at $900,000 and $25 million depending on the intended audience, and an estate in suburban New York, for which Trump’s valuations ranged from $56 million up to $291 million. The valuations were all given in the five years before Trump won the presidency.
Your Liberal Media
Low unemployment is bad now. Update your belief system.Just how right wing are the economic policy views of @playbookdc? They literally think low unemployment is "alarming" -- and no, I am not taking that phrasing out of context. https://t.co/sxtRpROz89 pic.twitter.com/11b5gLFRol
— Jeff Hauser (@jeffhauser) November 22, 2021
The Annual Anti-Turkee Discourse
"It isn't worth all the work of throwing it in a bag of salt water for a day" (or similar) is funny coming from people who will boast about their 36 hour lamb shoulder braise, or whatever. (I too prefer a long lamb shoulder braise, I also would not want to cook it or eat it every week).
There are plenty of things I eat irregularly which I enjoy but also wouldn't want to have every day. Some things are like that. Grouse is tasty, once or twice per year.
Also, don't like it, don't eat it!
Deadly Weapons
I used to think about this largely in the context of, "what good is all this terrorism security theater when a couple of hijacked freight trucks and city buses can do more damage than just about anything else we can reasonably worry about?" That vehicles aren't a weapon of choice by just about anybody willing to do such things always puzzled me.
It's an additional concern as "the right to run over people blocking traffic" is increasingly enshrined in culture and law.
Sunday, November 21, 2021
Mysteries
How do we communicate the simple truth to our viewers, as I just did in my role as 'book promoter,' while also performing the elaborate rituals of Political Journalism which prevent us from doing so? Don't think it can be done.so what's the challenge. just say that, you idiots https://t.co/AD3Px0ijCF
— Elon Green (@elongreen) November 21, 2021
This guy Trump, he cracked our code, and we are powerless.
Power
It's the bosses, stupid.
52 Senators And 250 House Members
I'd like someone to explain just what a bunch more mostly moderate House members, and Senators Cunningham and Gideon, would have helped to achieve.
What great prize has been lost?
The people most making this argument are, I think, in general, the least disturbed by whatever damage Manchinema have done to BBB.
Defund The Police
Of course, the argument then will be that "we could've prevented this if people had never said 'defund the police'."
Saturday, November 20, 2021
Vote Harder
And I really just have no idea who this message is directed to, except when it's just bit of election day rah rah (which is fine, go team!). It's almost certain that the people who pay attention to such things are the people who are most likely to go vote. There might be audiences who should hear that, but they aren't "people who follow politics enough to follow these people on twitter."
Go register people to vote! That's slightly more helpful. I mean, anything, though, is slighty more helpful.
The real point is to deflect from failures of leadership, the failures of the "good guys" who didn't do enough when they had the power to do so.
Shame you failed to vote hard enough.
I assume most of the people who read this very fine blog are going to go vote, so I don't really see the point in trying to persuade you.
Ah Well
Hot Takery
Sometimes I got nothin'.
Friday, November 19, 2021
And On And On
Aged well.
Cases are soaring in much of Europe again. Austria is implementing another lockdown. Cases in the US are trending back up again.
I don't have particularly strong opinions on what type of mask mandates and similar should be in place. I do think such things are debatable! With the vaccine, boosters, and better treatments, "something shitty we have to live with and best just to go on as normal" isn't a crazy view. But people choosing to be a bit-more-careful-than-asshole-pundits-think-they-should was a freebie, slightly helpful behavior without the force of law, and I still haven't seen the apologies from those assholes.
I guess they've all moved on to "black people are the real racists" or "inflation is killing us all" or something.
Keep Telling Yourselves That
“There’s not a person in the Republican caucus who doesn’t know that this is wrong, but there’s only two of them that are willing to say it out loud and that speaks volumes,” Maloney said, referring to Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), both of whom voted to censure Gosar."The party is filled with psychotic racists who hate America and they need to be crushed" is both true and the right message.
Access Journalism
For some reason political journalists don't realize that if there is one politician-specific skill, it's "telling whoever is in front of you what they want to hear," and they are not the savvy people who are immune to this, but for successful politicians, the biggest marks.
Chris Christie's ridiculous all channel book tour (14% approval! Lower than syphilis!) . The kid glove treatment of Kevin McCarthy. Lindsey Graham. We could just go down the list.
Objectivity!
Vigilante America
Just a license to murder black people, who do not themselves have a legitimate (let alone ridiculously broad) right to "self defense."
Thursday, November 18, 2021
Right to Repair
"Street Animals"
Elder Care
Grassley, of course, is running for re-election. Thanks to whoever signed me up for the TEAM GRASSLEY emails.
Broken Brains
Survival probably requires some propensity for violence, but some people have the "liking violence" dial turned up too far. Of course many of those same people have the "cower in fear to protect yourself" dial about where it should be, which makes them love the idea of other people being involved in violence. What else are most of our various wars about, with all the chickenhawks who love them?
Lots of violence loving cowards, getting off on other people doing it.
Rep. Gosar told the House today that he doesn’t ever espouse violence and it wasn’t his purpose to make anyone upset by retweeting an anime video of him killing Rep. Cortez.
— Kevin Fox is hopeful 🦊💉🩹 ❤️ (@kfury) November 18, 2021
Hours later, after being censured, he retweeted the video again. pic.twitter.com/x2Qa5JmaPL
Thursday Is New Jobless Day
It's maddening that everyone is shrieking about inflation, because people are goldfish and forget just how horrible the Great Recession was and a bit of temporary inflation is a small price to pay for the fact that recovering from Covid has been, due to a much better policy response, much better.
And short term price level bumps aren't "inflation," really, as inflation is a sustained increase in the price level, not some bumps over a period of months.
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
All Locked Up
FLASH: Judge sentences Q-Anon Shaman to 41 months prison in US Capitol breach case. Jacob Chansley of Arizona was among the highest-profile defendants
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) November 17, 2021
Sentence is 10 months shorter than prosecutors sought, but inside federal sentencing guidelines https://t.co/oAyrpplyQN
Meanwhile On Normal Island
It’s hard not to pity Ghislaine MaxwellWe met briefly at Oxford
...
As a fresher I wandered into Balliol JCR one day in search of its subsidised breakfast granola-and-Nescafé offering and found a shiny glamazon with naughty eyes holding court astride a table, a high-heeled boot resting on my brother Boris’s thigh.
Ban Cars
Slightly more seriously (but I'm pretty serious!), ban parking requirements. It is illegal to actually build urban spaces that people find aesthetically appealing, at density levels which make for nice neighborhoods in most of the country, even in those existing neighborhoods!
New development of any scale almost always has parking requirements which were not in place when those neighborhoods were initially built. For some reason people don't seem to notice that cars take up a lot of space! The space required for a parking spot is basically that of a small bedroom!
SAN DIEGO — San Diego took the bold and controversial step Tuesday of wiping out parking requirements for businesses in many neighborhoods to accelerate efforts to make the city less car-reliant and more climate-friendly.It is funny what gets labeled "controversial" in top paragraphs, and what doesn't. I'm sure it is controversial, but almost every change is!
Monopsony in Motion
Really simple things that shouldn't be heresy. Stuff that isn't even complicated, stuff you can and even do teach in Econ 101! Like, "if searching for and transitioning to a new job is costly, then employers have monopsony power and minimum wage increases are likely to increase, not decrease, employment."
When one criticizes economics along these lines, academic economists will point to all the research about these subjects. But in The Discourse and in policy advice, very little of this stuff ever makes it in. It isn't even that deviations from Econ 101 are treated as unmentionable, it's that deviations from the first 3 weeks of it are.
The inherent monopsony of labor markets is just one example. Generally what are all these Ph.Ds for if, in practice, the entire world is explained by a supply and demand graph you throw up on the screen on first day of freshman econ?
Tuesday, November 16, 2021
GrOPey
John Bizon, a Republican state senator of Michigan and a doctor, has been charged with misdemeanor assault after allegedly grabbing a nurse practitioner and squeezing her waist inappropriately, according to MLive.com....
The police report says a second health-care worker accused Bizon of grabbing her left arm and telling her his “blood pressure is up because she was in the room” when she tried to take his vitals.
The Infrastructure Bill Is Good Now
A portion of the Vine Street Expressway could be capped, and Philadelphia’s Chinatown reconnected, thanks to President Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill.
Anti-Vaxxers
Can understand parents wanting to to have an explanation, and that provided a reasonable sounding possibility. RFK Jr. was pushing that early on, before The Science said "nah." Somehow that morphed into a general anti-vax movement.
Sometimes people find a thing and can't let go.
What The People Want
Chris Christie was on ABC yesterday. He was on CNN and MSNBC tonight. The New York Times just did a big interview with him. And why? https://t.co/pqJUUkKAAf
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 16, 2021
Meta
We invented the bus several times! (This was just Uber... but slightly different).
Lots of things were labeled "tech" just because they had some Silicon Valley VC money behind them, and many things were like "a juicer...with an app!"
Largely silly and hardly world-changing, but the optimism was at least somewhat refreshing. Even iPhone "rumors" were things like, "the next phone will read your mind!" instead of, "oh, hey, a better camera." A better camera is great! But the sense that there's something world-changing just around the corner is missing.
Yes there's Facebook's virtual reality world, but that's techno-dystopianism from 1993.
What Do They Think Universities Are For
Classroom discussion has its place, but it's really something of pedagogical value to a subset of students in some subjects. People learn in different ways, and for some people talking through something is a critical part of that. Some students really are quite happy to sit in the back and say nothing (and probably to tune out Bari), as they learn better from the lectures or reading.
This vision of university classrooms as just dorm room bullshit sessions is a hilariously narcissistic one.
Probably some of these idiots starting their university (this is the joke version) have never gotten over their fellow students rolling their eyes at them in class, because they would not shut the fuck up.The essence of THE ENLIGHTENMENT is an unwavering commitment to inquiry, always asking questions, rejecting claims of authority and subjecting all knowledge to scrutiny. This I believe. Also I won't be answering any questions about the fake-ass university I tried to start. pic.twitter.com/cOYHdiYTrF
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) November 16, 2021
Monday, November 15, 2021
Also Related
Or, I dunno, maybe The Left is to blame.
Faith
WASHINGTON — A coalition of religious groups is waging an intensive lobbying effort to remove a nondiscrimination provision from President Biden’s ambitious prekindergarten and child care plans, fearing it would disqualify their programs from receiving a huge new infusion of federal money.Or you could just not discriminate? Or just not take the federal money? Secular organizations can't say, "we're not going to hire any of these Jeebus freaks."...
Some of the faith groups are pressing lawmakers to scrap or modify the nondiscrimination language, asserting that it would essentially shut them out of the new federal program unless they made major changes to the way they operate. For instance, it could bar federal funds from going to programs that refused to hire a gay employee, gave preference to applicants of their faith or failed to renovate their facilities to accommodate disabled students.
Some Jolly News
Infowars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was found liable Monday for damages in lawsuits brought by parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting over Jones’ claims that the massacre was a hoax.Connecticut Judge Barbara Bellis took the rare step of defaulting Jones in the defamation lawsuits for his and his companies’ “failure to produce critical material information that the plaintiffs needed to prove their claims.” The default means the judge found in favor of the parents and will hold a hearing on how much damages he should pay.
Musk'd
His antics are hopefully turning the latter group slowly against him.
Aside from a lot of other things, one of his shitposter nickames is "subsidy truffle pig," as one of his core abilities his hunting out and obtaining every government subsidy that is out there, often bordering (said for legal reasons) on fraud to do so.I keep forgetting that you’re still alive
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 14, 2021
The CBS Phrenology Hour
Still mad at all the people who should have known better who supported his blog over the years.
Unrepentant racists don't deserve your support even when they're claiming Obama as their new black friend!
Racism isn't a uniquely American thing, not even close, but there is something about the particular way in which African-Americans are perceived not merely as lesser humans, but actually as subhuman, of a different species entirely. This view is regularly implicitly endorsed by supposedly respectable people with wave after wave of slightly new "respectable" ways to communicate it. You don't have to wear the hood to have the views of a Klansman, and dressing it up in fake science or a fancy vocabulary doesn't change that.
Lock Him Up
Bannon arrives to turn himself in for arraignment. A protester appears to have a “coup plotter” sign behind him. pic.twitter.com/VbDnbPPwOW
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 15, 2021
Tell Me Another
Similarly, you can't expect people to take the crimes of your predecessor and his people seriously, or think you do, unless there are prosecutions.
Sunday, November 14, 2021
Your Mission, If You Choose To Accept it
Young Guns
Sometimes you just gotta let go, and do so when the next in line is under 70.
The Politics Show
A not important but annoying to me legacy of the Trump era is how the politics skits in SNL have been integrated into news, treated as being newsworthy themselves. Wow they mocked Ted Cruz! There is a new actor playing Biden!
Especially as it's mostly mild mockery devoid of any perspective. The Both Sides of political comedy.
Saturday, November 13, 2021
Too Cynical
We will see what happens next but I admit I thought they would let congressional subpoenas be reduced to "pretty please."
Friday, November 12, 2021
Totally Normal Practice
Why Would He
Along with some other things, it's hard to see that "voting harder will make good things happen" when team D can't even look out for itself, whether that's Congressional power or "doing something about the organizers of the angry mob that tried to kill them."Mark Meadows did not appear today before the January 6 Select Committee either in person or virtually, @NBCNews has learned.
— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotnbc) November 12, 2021
W @LACaldwellDC
I WILL NEVER STOP FIGHTING FOR YOUUUUUUU is a bit hollow when they don't even fight for themselves.
Bannon in jail yet?
Vote Harder
Saving The Planet
Thursday, November 11, 2021
INFLATION
This doesn't even hold up to Econ 101 level scrutiny, but hey, sure. In any case if spending more money on, say, child care, is inflationary, you can offset that easily by raising taxes. Things like, say, child care, are actually likely to easy pressures in the economy by increasing labor force participation in precisely the sectors that are experiencing a squeeze. Just examples, but the point is they've switched to INFLATION because deficit hysteria had run its course and they can always get corrupt journalists to run these "price of milk/price of gas" stories to make people believe it's a problem.
Economists don't like to talk about it, but everything has distributional issues. Most of them just hate the tools that might hurt rich people.
Like many things, this serves the purpose of adding to the very long list of "corrupt dishonest assholes."
Millions on that list, though, so its utility it limited.
Shut Up, Atrios
EVs Will Not Save The World
Subsidize not owning a car.
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
Byebye
A Donald Trump supporter from New Jersey who attacked law enforcement during the attack on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced to 41 months in prison on Wednesday, the stiffest sentence handed down so far in connection with the Jan. 6 attack.
Boy That Sure Is A Tough One
Infrastructure Week
A built environment that requires the majority of people to make essentially all trips by car is absurd. It is also absurd that even in cities in the US where this is not true - much of NYC, San Francisco, Philadelphia, parts of many other cities - so much priority is given to cars, particularly for suburbanites to drive in/drive out.
You don't need "Manhattan" or even "South Philadelphia" to have a walkable environment, where many, if not all, of life's regular daily activities can be walked to, and many more facilitated by decent bus service. Versions of suburbs everywhere in Europe, for example, but few places that are incompatible with walking and public transit. People still own cars, of course, but not necessarily one per driving age household member, and they don't need them for every single trip they take.
I prefer fairly large dense cities, but none of this even incompatible with smallish areas that are largely detached single family homes, just with somewhat different land use patterns.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Bible College For Libertarians
Gotta Get More Racist
Only chance we have to win in 2024 is to run Donald Trump... as a Democrat!
Tuesday, November 09, 2021
RIP Max Cleland
So Much For The Tolerant Left
Dennis Prager: "During the AIDS crisis, can you imagine if gay men and intravenous drug users...had they been pariahs the way the non-vaccinated are? But it would've been inconceivable" pic.twitter.com/GQsOq4X63u
— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) November 8, 2021
Election Season Starts Soon
Always happy to be wrong, but "put a bunch of losers in jail for 60 days and do nothing else except maybe issue a report" seems to be the 1/6 plan!
Promises Made
"Which campaign promises do the press focus on, and which do they ignore or even disparage" is a good way to judge the priorities of our elite political press.
Some lies are good, some broken promises are good. Others are bad! It's weird.
Related: is the "nation divided" when something polls 50-50 or when it polls 70-30? You see both!
Lowering Medicare prescription drug prices:
— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) November 8, 2021
Support 88%
Oppose 12%
.
Medicare coverage for dental, eye and hearing:
Support 84%
Oppose 16%
.
Paid family and medical leave:
Support 73%
Oppose 27%
.
Universal pre-K for children:
Support 67%
Oppose 33%
Monday, November 08, 2021
Florence To Bologna
Looking on a map, Florence and Bologna don't appear to be that far apart. 50 miles "crow flies" distance. But there's thick range of mountains in between. Driving time is 2+ hours and conceptually/historically/politically, the two cities were always just in different worlds. 2 hours is a long way in Europe, and of course pre-car/pre-modern road it was a LOOOOOOONG WAAAAAY. Italy's a moden fiction, really.
But then high speed line begins service. Suddenly Bologna is a 38 minute not very expensive ride, almost entirely through a tunnel. The "funny story" is her talking with a local about various airport travel strategies, and she mentioned that sometimes she goes to the Bologna airport for more convenient/cheap flights, depending on the destination. The local started laughing and said, "My whole life, Bologna was so far away, that just never occurred to me, but of course."
Bologna: home of Mortadella.
Bringing The Hard 'R'
"Wokers" is a thing everyone will pretend not to know the obvious meaning of.Boy, Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy sure savors the way saying "wokers" lets him go from a velar plosive to a real hard R
— Tom Scocca (@tomscocca) November 8, 2021
I mean, the point of all this was obvious enough, but he's just going to punch all the giggling journliasts in the face with it.
There was a term in usage in my home state, Alabama, before my time — a term for people seen as too concerned with the rights of people on society’s margins.
— Greg Greene (@ggreeneva) November 7, 2021
That term was “n––er lover,” if you wonder.
Anyhow: that’s what comes to mind when I hear “are Democrats too woke?” https://t.co/AIMbV6n5df
Controversies
But get enough crazy white people screaming about something, and it takes center stage.
"Normal Democrat"
Not sure how you win a Dem primary, or the general election, without good Philly turnout, but sure, man, run with this. Can go hang with Harold Ford when it's done. *Goes great, actually, she has a highly paid gig going on teevee telling Democrats how to win.If you want a Senator who runs as a Socialist, feeds the GOP attack ads, & didn't help with infrastructure, I'M NOT YOUR GUY.
— Conor Lamb (@ConorLambPA) November 8, 2021
That's not how you beat Republicans. I know because I've actually done it & will again.
I'm a normal Democrat who supports jobs & wins elections. #PASen
Why Can't They Just Put Aside Their Differences And Get Things Done
Of course the real point it is "getting things done," not "putting aside their differences," that matters. Sure people don't like the sound of politicians bickering, but that's mostly because it's fucking boring and evidence that things are not actually getting done.
The problem with the passage of ACA was precisely this. It was a year long process that was just excruciating, and of course it gave time for the "shotgun shit against the wall until something sticks" conservative momvement to find reasons to criticize it. But, seriously, if you'd ask any people mad about Obamacare in 2010 what they were mad about, you would rarely get a coherent answer (the mandate was the only thing, Thanks Obama and all the Smartest Boys On The Internet, that was fucking stupid).
Arguably even "getting things done" doesn't matter much from an electoral perspective. Maybe elections are 50% vibes and 50% the price of gas the month before the election. Possibly true! But the "vibes" of the last several months were fucking horrible! It wasn't partisan, precisely, just Democrats bickering!
Sunday, November 07, 2021
The CNN to Fox Pipeline
More than a year after Fox News fired him over complaints about “willful sexual misconduct in the workplace,” Ed Henry has quietly returned to right-wing media, landing at a fringe outlet with ties to Steve Bannon.How is political coverage the way it is? Mystery.Real America’s Voice is a fledgling internet and satellite TV network starring mostly obscure MAGA hangers-on, with the exception of former Donald Trump confidants like Steve Bannon, whose daily War Room podcast airs on the channel, and the ex-president’s Ukraine conspiracy architect John Solomon, who partnered with RAV to produce “news” content for the network.
You Know They Can Hear You
Is James Carville helping?
So You Defend The Democrats and Yet You Criticize Them? Interesting
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Saturday, November 06, 2021
Evening Savings Time
The Narrative
Not all that long ago it was understood that the infrastructure bill was just a little treat to throw to Republicans to get them on board with a bipartisan plan, and the Biden agenda was the other bill, then over several months suddenly the other bill was unreasonable demands by THE COMMUNISTS ON THE SQUAD who were OBSTRUCTING and the moderates were the Very Serious People.remembering 2009-2010 Congress-blogging and maybe I'm wrong but it seems like one big difference is the centrists aren't really bothering to make policy arguments and are just texting their friends in the press and no one is even pretending there will be a Next Thing
— 'Weird Alex' Pareene (@pareene) November 6, 2021
As Alex says, they don't even have to try anymore. What's going on is the kind of corruption we don't talk about in the US, assuming it away. It isn't "campaign contributions" which is an innocent seeming sort of bribery, but post-Congress jobs for members of Congress, their families, their staffs, and their wider influence circles.
And our corrupt political press, who just run with whatever nonsense their favorite sources text them.
Probably some Pulitzers there! Lots of good journalists, but the elite (most highly paid, most visible) political press are bad!
Friday, November 05, 2021
Harm Reduction
Several voters cited a radio advertisement that had been playing on local stations saying Black voters should not back Mr. McAuliffe because Democrats cared about Black communities only during election season. They rejected the ad’s plea to stay home but said the general theme resonated, and they urged Democrats in Congress to pass bold legislation on President Biden’s core campaign promises, including climate change, police reform and economic investments in Black communities.(Credit where credit is due to that fucking newspaper)
More On Jerbs
Quick takeaway: Man did the Obama people fuck up, and some of those Obama people (cough Jason Furman cough) are doing their best to get Biden to fuck this one up too.
Trump bucks and Biden bucks worked their magic, and "showering people with money" should be understood as the obvious and easy fix to any severe economic downturn but we just got lucky this time. The Furmans will be quicker on the draw next time to kill anything good.
What's Going On Here
The family has 9 children and claim to purchase 12 gallons of milk weekly. The milk price inflation claimed wasn't anywhere near correct. Even *if completely true,* (48 gallons*.80)= 39 bucks. A lot of money? Well, not nothing, but..."A gallon of milk was $1.99. Now it's $2.79. When you buy 12 gallons a week times four weeks, that's a lot of money."@EvanMcS goes grocery shopping with the Stotlers and shows us how badly inflation is hitting the middle class. pic.twitter.com/39hPPRHLja
— Brianna Keilar (@brikeilarcnn) November 4, 2021
Left out was that in Biden's dystopia, 9 children gets you a shitload of money in the form of the child tax credit. A lot of fucking money. Pretty sure it dwarfs the increase in grocery prices.
After getting a lot of criticism, our man Evan claimed the critics were making fun of the family instead of him, and called everybody assholes.
Just another example of, "we talk about whatever Republicans talk about that day, and don't even bother to see if any of it makes any sense."
"Large family blessed by Benevolent Biden Bucks from the CTC" is certainly a more relevant story than "family destroyed by made up milk price increases."
Oh My
The Justice Department searched two locations associated with the conservative group Project Veritas as part of an investigation into how a diary stolen from President Biden’s daughter, Ashley, came to be publicly disclosed a week and a half before the 2020 presidential election, according to people briefed on the matter.
Federal agents in New York conducted the court-ordered searches on Thursday — one in New York City and one in suburban Westchester County — at places linked to people who had worked with the group and its leader, James O’Keefe, according to two of the people briefed on the events. The investigation is being handled by F.B.I. agents and federal prosecutors in Manhattan who work on public corruption matters, the people said.
Palpable Relief
I can see you doing it, guys!I don't know what is gonna happen in VA tonight but there is a palpable excitement among certain ostensibly neutral reporters and analysts whenever some white identity politics shiny object seems to be effective politically.
— Adam Serwer 🍝 (@AdamSerwer) November 2, 2021
Gotta Get More Racist
The meta* discussion right now is, actually, how the Democrats can get more racist, and as always these discussions reflect the racism of the person arguing it which they project onto Real Americans. "Biden has to prove he's not woke by making sure my white child gets into Stuyvesant High. Cleetus demands it!"dems are gonna look themselves in the mirror, take a deep breath and tell themselves 'we gotta get more racist'
— raandy (@randygdub) November 9, 2016
Terry McAuliffe would've won if black people would just stop publicly existing!
Racist "liberals" are the fucking worst. What annoys me the most is they think people can't see what they're doing. Graduates of top schools really think everyone is dumber than they are, that they can pull toddler-level deception and expect people to fall for it.
*meta because some people dance around it obscurely, while some are dumb enough to say what they mean
Morning Thread
*Wealthy suburbanites.
Thursday, November 04, 2021
Hurr Durr
(Getting rid of Sweeney is good, and the Dems still run the place)APNEWSALERT: TRENTON, N.J. (@AP) — Top NJ lawmaker Steve Sweeney defeated by GOP newcomer Edward Durr, who spent just $153 on his campaign.
— Christina Paciolla (@cpaciolla) November 4, 2021
Everybody's Fault But Mine
The one thing we can't do is examine what the candidate with his $40+ million budget did right or wrong, instead we should blame other people whose primary job isn't, actually, electing Terry McAuliffe.KAINE tells reporters: “Democrats in Congress hurt Terry McAuliffe.” Calls out “purist” demands on BBB.
— bryan metzger (@metzgov) November 3, 2021
I asked him to what extent he faults McAuliffe:
“You know, there's a million reasons behind any victory or loss, but that's not productive right now.”
I imagine most of us have had some people in our lives who never take responsibility for anything. They aren't good people.
Thursday Is New Jobless Day
In fairly "normal" territory, so by that measure, things are good!
It's Always December 22, 1984
I get that Sam Alito doesn't spend a lot of time riding the NYC subway, but I imagine that like many of a similar cohort and socioeconomic status, it would never occur to him to, say, ride the Paris Metro or London Tube, either. And if you travel to such places and you don't ever get around that way, which also means you don't really get around by walking much, you haven't actually experienced life in those places.
Maybe it's a bit hard to explain, but exaggerating a bit, if you only ever traveled from helipad to helipad, you wouldn't really experience places either.
Not everyone has the time and money to travel, of course, but some do!
And as for the New York City subway, pre-pandemic, there were more daily rides in the subway than the population of every city in the USA other than NYC. It isn't just for the unfortunate and the mole people.
("rides" is not the same as individual riders, still it's a lot of people!)
Wednesday, November 03, 2021
Green Shoots
In ways, of course, things are better than 2010, but the pandemic has had a lot of weird impacts that aren't neatly captured in the data in a way that is consistent with the past. There are some sociopaths in and around the Biden administration, along with some good people, and this makes total sense to them. Plus they hate doing anything to help people.You might think we are making this up. Sadly no:
— The Debt Collective (@StrikeDebt) November 3, 2021
"But other advisers worry that continuing an emergency pandemic relief program into 2022 could undercut the administration’s messaging about the strength of the economic recovery." https://t.co/J0adQNN2gg
Hurr Durr
Looks like he's going to win. Spent under $200. DC campaign consultants are going to be super worried!NJ state senate president gonna lose to some rando who ran no campaign. He has no website, this is from Facebook. pic.twitter.com/Oq4yVlzZcq
— BrianElections (@BrianElections) November 3, 2021
(This is actually good for lefties, as Sweeney is an asshole)
Do Clap Popular Clap Things Clap
I'm not actually on any super insider email lists anymore as I unsubscribed from them all several years ago, but one can easily see when the talking points go out and are echoed in various places. I am not faulting the practice, but honestly most of the time it seems to be a way to signal you're a team player more than being designed to actually convince anyone.
Given huge loss of white women, maybe - just spitballing here - Dems should rethink dropping paid medical and family leave out of #BuildBackBetter https://t.co/r0ScapOhrN
— Tom Perriello (@tomperriello) November 3, 2021
We Got This
Fuck Rahm
“Black Lives Matter. Here in the halls of Congress, it is important that we not just speak and believe these words, but put them into action in the decisions we make. I have carefully considered Mayor Emanuel’s record—and the input of civil rights leaders, criminal justice experts, and local elected officials who have reached out to the Senate to weigh in—and I have reached the decision that I cannot support his nomination to serve as a U.S. Ambassador. While I respect Mayor Emanuel’s many years of service, and the points of view of my colleagues who have come to a different conclusion, I will be voting ‘no’ when his nomination comes before the committee.”Nicer than it should be, but Merkley's a nice guy.
Markey a no, too.
The Media Isn't Going To Do Your Job For You
None More Centrist
This is blame game stuff and Blake's the kind of reporter conservative Democrats would run to, but taking it seriously, what could it possibly mean that Biden is "too far to the left?"Some in Biden-land are already asking themselves if the president has allowed himself to be tugged too far to the left while in office, and those voices are likely to get louder now.
— Blake Hounshell (@blakehounshell) November 3, 2021
In general if you ask how much more "centrist" could the party be, the answer is "none more centrist." How much more "centrist" in governance could national politics be? None. It's why the centrist policy agenda is empty, except for things that are so corrupt they can't be disguised and things which are clearly unpopular.
Republicans found ways to run against Obamacare, though even then I think a year of the Dems looking like idiots trying to pass it was really the issue. Most people didn't want to hear about BENDING THE COST CURVE.
They found no ways to run against the Biden FAR LEFT agenda because the FAR LEFT parts of it are the most popular things. They just haven't done it at all.
Manchin has done their work of running against it, but he's just been gumming up the works and making the Dems look incompetent for months.
Give them their centrist president (Biden)*, their centrist candidate (McAuliffe), and they still can't fail, they can only be failed.
The "center right" won for decades. They basically have nothing left to offer. "Elect us and nothing will change, except we'll probably keep doing corrupt stuff" is all they have. As I've said, the story of every Dem election win is they promise lefty stuff, fail to deliver, then they lose subsequent elections and then tell themselves that doing all the lefty stuff they didn't do was the cause. They lose power, eventually go back to running on lefty stuff, win, and then again fail to deliver.
No I don't think all "lefty" stuff is popular. But some is! This is not the story that is told in the Morning Joseph Reality Zone, where Dems are never conservative enough, but it's what happens.
*I think dictator Biden (whatever the problems of actual president Biden in implementing the agenda) would be better than I thought! But he was the safe centrist guy.It was not Pramila Jayapal who held a petulant press conference yesterday threatening to tank the entire agenda after weeks of sitting back and being given 90% of the changes she wants in the bill. It was Joe Manchin who did that.
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) November 3, 2021