It's alright.
Saturday, December 07, 2024
Just Keep Posting Through It
At some points elites shifted from "sometimes the honorable thing to do is to resign as when you are in charge you are ulitmately responsible even if something isn't precisely your fault" to "just keep posting through, no matter what."
Unless their peers or superiors force them to do otherwise, anyway.
(This is partially a response to the Korean president's party blocking impeachment)
Friday, December 06, 2024
The Future Of The Democratic Party
All the people who said this about Eric Adams are very highly paid advanced politics knowers and and the people who said "lol you clowns" are not.
Easiest Marks In The World
The site filled with Nazis and bots love when I praise its owner. This is peak Democracy.
Got His Number
This Fox guy described Lindey Graham more accurately than any journalist or Democrat ever has.
Thursday, December 05, 2024
Every Cop In The Nation
He said it not me.
Adair, Iowa, had a population of 794. So, it seemed suspicious when its three-person police department asked regulators to buy 90 machine guns, including an M134 Gatling-style minigun capable of shooting up to 6,000 rounds of ammunition every minute.
Federal agents later discovered Adair's police chief, Bradley Wendt, was using his position to acquire weapons and sell them for personal profit. A jury convicted Wendt earlier this year of conspiracy to defraud the United States, lying to federal law enforcement and illegal possession of a machine gun. Wendt is unapologetic and has appealed his conviction.
"If I'm guilty of this, every cop in the nation's going to jail," Wendt told CBS News just days before a federal judge sentenced him to a 5-year prison term. Wendt's crimes appear to be part of a nationwide pattern.
Choose your fighters well
There is no good answer to why are they doing this.
The Biden administration has, for the past year, been in the process of extending contracts for private sector immigration jails across the US and exploring options for expanding detention capacity, a Guardian investigation has found.
Calculus
I know certain facts are impolite and I am not justifying the killing but we all know that the victim here has killed many more people than the shooter.
The words "deny," "defend" and "depose" were discovered by detectives on the shell casings found at the scene where Brian Thompson, the CEO of major insurance group UnitedHealthcare, was gunned down, police sources told ABC News late Wednesday evening.
So Quiet
Related to the previous post, it has been extremely odd just how little the pundits want to talk about either of the two big US-involved military actions. Our DC big brains usually love playing fantasy diplomat and general.
Welp
On one hand - of course. This is generally how wars end. On the other, this gets reported as notable because the pretense has largely been that the only acceptable outcome was Putin dead in a bunker.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday stepping up support for Ukraine was essential to put the country in the strongest position for peace talks as he conceded in the clearest terms there could be a negotiated end to the war.
That Ukraine was seen as a noble cause stifled most discussion of just what the hell we expected to happen.
Wednesday, December 04, 2024
Oh No Elmo
I suppose one can be the "Delorean" in a Back to the Future remake.
But news that is subtly worse for Musk's long-term prospects just leaked out of Tesla's Austin factory: Cybertruck production appears to be ramping down. Workers on the vehicle's assembly line have been told that there's no need to report to work for 3 days.
Which I Will Giggle About At My Dubiously Funded NoShow "Think Tank" Job
He will miss it, no doubt.
Asked how Israel's conduct might reflect on his legacy as the top U.S. diplomat, Blinken said his legacy was for people to judge and that he was focusing on getting a ceasefire in his final days in office.
"There will be a time, maybe a lot of time, after the end of this administration for people to judge what we did, whether we did right, whether we did wrong....I don't have time to do that right now," Blinken said.
From W. To Donald
I don't expect Republicans to share my vision of what government should do, but an underappreciated fact about the W. administration was that they had no concept of competence.
I don't think this was a dastardly plan to destroy the government from within. I just think they had no understanding that even evil plans require people who know what they are doing and show up to work.
They were good at manipulating an easily manipulated press. I will give them that.
Sure we know about Brownie and the story of the Heritage flunkies running Iraq was told, but aside from the former these things mostly didn't break through, in part because Republicans are the Daddy Party and Daddy is always competent.
Tuesday, December 03, 2024
STRIKE
Beyond my meager knowledge of Korea, but a big trade union confederation - The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions - has announced a general strike until the president resigns.
Pod Damn America
Good overview from Perry Bacon Jr.
Overall, we have the story of a campaign leadership team that had more than $1 billion and a scandal-plagued, unpopular opponent, lost every swing state and the popular vote (for the first time in 20 years for the Democrats), and then almost entirely absolved itself of any responsibility for the defeat.(bumping since I messed up the time before)
I’m grateful Harris’s staffers did this interview — so everyone can see how badly the Democratic Party needs new political strategists.”
Coup Interrupted
From what I have read, the Korean parliament stormed the barricades of the parliament building, voted to overrule martial law, kicked the military and cops to the curb, and are calling it a coup.
Small Progress
Walker implemented a "no public unions except cop unions" law and it was just struck down.
Global Excitement
Not an expert on all things South Korea, but I know a tiny bit, and the president - who is a real dipshit, like Korean Ron DeSantis - just declared martial law.
SEOUL, Dec 3 (Reuters) - South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law in an unannounced late night address broadcast live on YTN television.The opposition crimes are winning elections and then trying to use their power.
Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure in order to safeguard free and constitutional order, saying opposition parties have taken hostage of the parliamentary process to throw the country into a crisis.
Endowment Seizing
I can get behind this.
Not really, but when (a few, select) universities can already fund their operating budgets in perpetuity from their endowments one does have to ask what they are for, what the institutional interests are.
My concerns are not about the woke mind virus, of course.
My concerns are not about the woke mind virus, of course.
Monday, December 02, 2024
But He Won't
Still kudos to Van Hollen for going where most of his colleagues won't.
Nothing will haunt President Joe Biden’s foreign policy legacy as much as his failed policies in the Middle East. His ineffective approach, coupled with Donald Trump’s election, now sets the stage for an unprecedented deterioration in our efforts to secure a two-state solution and address the root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The president has a chance to correct some of the mistakes he has made both before and during the war in Gaza, but only if he acts quickly and decisively.
Framing it around a concept of a two-state solution which has just provided a way for Dems to pretend and do nothing for decades is silly, but otherwise it's a good piece.
Restated
Biden doesn't have much time left to do some NORM VIOLATIONS for good instead of merely selfish (even if justified) reasons.
Norms
I don't mind that Biden pardoned his son. Without getting deep into it, it was a political prosecution with some inappropriate actions mixed in, even though Hunter obviously did plenty of crimes.
The problem, more broadly, is Biden seeing that his son deserves grace for things he spent his career not granting grace for others. Mr. Empathy is not so empathetic and never was.
Empathy for yourself and yours and is not really empathy.
The problem, more broadly, is Biden seeing that his son deserves grace for things he spent his career not granting grace for others. Mr. Empathy is not so empathetic and never was.
Empathy for yourself and yours and is not really empathy.
Biden has not been generous with the pardon pen.
Maybe another way to put this is: it should be fine that Hunter Biden is pardoned but it is not fine given the other things Biden has done and not done (including repeated denials that this would happen).
And if you're going to violate some NORMS, go wild, man.
And if you're going to violate some NORMS, go wild, man.
Seems Bad
Might even violate some Norms.
A previously undisclosed whistle-blower report on Hegseth’s tenure as the president of Concerned Veterans for America, from 2013 until 2016, describes him as being repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity—to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events. The detailed seven-page report—which was compiled by multiple former C.V.A. employees and sent to the organization’s senior management in February, 2015—states that, at one point, Hegseth had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team. The report also says that Hegseth, who was married at the time, and other members of his management team sexually pursued the organization’s female staffers, whom they divided into two groups—the “party girls” and the “not party girls.” In addition, the report asserts that, under Hegseth’s leadership, the organization became a hostile workplace that ignored serious accusations of impropriety, including an allegation made by a female employee that another employee on Hegseth’s staff had attempted to sexually assault her at the Louisiana strip club. In a separate letter of complaint, which was sent to the organization in late 2015, a different former employee described Hegseth being at a bar in the early-morning hours of May 29, 2015, while on an official tour through Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, drunkenly chanting “Kill All Muslims! Kill All Muslims!”WOKE norms, anyway.
Sunday, December 01, 2024
The Most Ridiculous Timeline
It is horrifying and scary, but we must occasionally pause to appreciate just how ridiculous "The Second Donald Trump Presidency" actually is.
Foreign Policy Guy
I keep coming back to this, but rejection of the idea that "anybody" cared about Gaza, based on polls, led to people willfully ignoring the wider impression that all that war and chaos might have had on people. Explosions and death are pretty big signals that something is amiss.
People read issue polls selectively, and switch between majority and marginal when useful to their stories, but even aside from that, do we think Foreign Policy Guy has had a steady hand on the world? Should the not-very-engaged voter be flipping through the news and think that Biden has things under control? Where is that peace he kept promising? Does he know what the fuck he is doing?
We've had a couple of years of a lot of war on the teevee without an especially convincing sales job. I don't think it's good that The Right is aligning with Putin, but has there been all that much of an argument on other side other than "all right thinking people know Putin is bad"?
And as for Gaza, you don't have to have been paying to much attention to conclude "Biden is a big liar" or "Biden is getting pantsed weekly by this little shit BiBi," neither of which is especially appealing.
There are plenty of things that are not as self-evident as DC big brains think. And there are things which are self-evident to everybody but DC big brains.
We've had a couple of years of a lot of war on the teevee without an especially convincing sales job. I don't think it's good that The Right is aligning with Putin, but has there been all that much of an argument on other side other than "all right thinking people know Putin is bad"?
And as for Gaza, you don't have to have been paying to much attention to conclude "Biden is a big liar" or "Biden is getting pantsed weekly by this little shit BiBi," neither of which is especially appealing.
There are plenty of things that are not as self-evident as DC big brains think. And there are things which are self-evident to everybody but DC big brains.
Saturday, November 30, 2024
Sounds Bad
But much of our politics can be explained by middle-aged men being stuck on MOOOOMMMM YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DOOOO so...
“On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself,” Penelope Hegseth wrote, stating that she still loved him.
She also wrote: “I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”
Friday, November 29, 2024
Dems and Media
Every couple of years, some on the Dem side realize that not investing in various forms of media outlets is causing them some problems. A reason they don't is that even Pod Save America is borderline too spicy for them. Pod Tommy occasionally makes everyone very uncomfortable by bringing up Gaza.
Back in 2008, Yglesias, who was writing for Think Progress, made a post which (lost to the ages - I can't find it) was critical of the organization Third Way. This invited angry phone calls and the obligatory response from... Jennifer Palmieri, last seen trying to claim Woke Staffers ruined their Joe Rogan appearance.
Back in 2008, Yglesias, who was writing for Think Progress, made a post which (lost to the ages - I can't find it) was critical of the organization Third Way. This invited angry phone calls and the obligatory response from... Jennifer Palmieri, last seen trying to claim Woke Staffers ruined their Joe Rogan appearance.
Seems Bad
Send it back to the states, they said, Roe is what prevents us from having civil politics, they said, health exceptions are noble and practical, they said...
Garcia was fifteen weeks into her pregnancy, and, in cases of miscarriage in the second trimester, the safest treatment is a surgical removal or a medical induction of labor. Instead, she was “discharged to home self-care,” as her chart notes. All Garcia could do was wait until she had a natural miscarriage. The thought of it terrified her. What if she hemorrhaged in the middle of the street? Or in the car, picking up her children from school? Her doctor’s only departing instructions were: if you start bleeding or develop a fever, check into the hospital immediately. (The doctor did not respond to requests for comment.)"They" being centrists dipshit pundits.
A mournful silence settled in Garcia’s home. Escareño busied himself, but there were only so many times he could empty the trash or mow the lawn. Garcia spent most of her days lying in bed. In a corner of their bedroom sat purchases she had made for Vanellope: diapers, a snuggly blanket, and now a small urn.
Garcia’s situation was not unique. Across Texas, reports were surfacing of women being sent home to manage miscarriages on their own. In 2021, the state had passed a law known as S.B. 8, banning nearly all abortions after electrical activity is detected in fetal cells, which typically happens around the sixth week of gestation. The law encouraged civilians to sue violators, in exchange for the possibility of a ten-thousand-dollar reward.
The Last Year
Being as generous as I can about the Harris campaign people: the ultimate politician is someone who is extremely good at making people think they agree with them without actually lying. Bill had that. Barack had that. But you can't run that campaign around someone who doesn't have that.
Biden didn't have that and they did not run that campaign in 2020. The question is why, precisely, they jettisoned that campaign approach.
Biden didn't have that and they did not run that campaign in 2020. The question is why, precisely, they jettisoned that campaign approach.
Somehow Our Jedi Mind Tricks Didn’t Work
The stupid fucking voters saw right through our bullshit!
This is what happens when stupid people truly believe everyone else is much more stupid, like a 5-year-old trying to get one over on his parents and throwing a tantrum when they laugh at him.
Actually, I'm wrong. The toddler is throwing a tantrum at his 2-year-old younger sister. These people never punch up.
Thursday, November 28, 2024
The Turkey Discourse
Turkey's fine, it isn't hard to cook well, just rub some salt in it and take it out when it's ready. Nothing fancy required.
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
What Is This Supposed To Achieve
Amazing.
Nov 27 (Reuters) - Ukraine should consider lowering the age of military service for its soldiers to 18 from 25, a senior U.S. administration official said on Wednesday, putting pressure on Kyiv to bolster its fighting forces in the country's war with Russia.
Why Not, Kissinger And Obama Have Them
This is Tommy trying to play on Trump's vanity. Odd he didn't try it with Biden who is just as susceptible.
Holiday Week Blogging Schedule
If senators can go on vacation, then so can I, a bit. Light blogging for the next few days, unless I get angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry, though.
Tariffs
I'm not defending Trump's tariffs - they're dumb - but I think liberals are going too much in on the idea that they will destroy the economy, be instantly unpopular, and tank Trump's approval. There's a lot of econobollocks ALL SENSIBLE PEOPLE KNOW TARIFFS ARE BAD and a lot of ignoring of the Biden administration record's on tariffs. Maybe Joe should've removed some when he had the chance.
There's some revenge fantasy here along the lines of, "you were mad about inflation and now you're going to get inflation," but it isn't going to be that simple or obvious.
More generally, the lessons everyone has "learned" (because it serves their purposes, because they are bad at their jobs and they have boat payments to make) is that there's nothing you can do to convince people who are mad about inflation, so they are hoping Inflation II proves their point.
There's some revenge fantasy here along the lines of, "you were mad about inflation and now you're going to get inflation," but it isn't going to be that simple or obvious.
More generally, the lessons everyone has "learned" (because it serves their purposes, because they are bad at their jobs and they have boat payments to make) is that there's nothing you can do to convince people who are mad about inflation, so they are hoping Inflation II proves their point.
Always trying to refight the last battle to prove themselves fucking right.
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
America's Mayor
Distinguished elder statesman.
An angry Rudy Giuliani lashed out in court Tuesday at the judge presiding over the collection proceeding for the $146 million defamation judgment against him — and complained he's having a hard time making ends meet.
Speaking after U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman said the former personal lawyer to Donald Trump had not been complying with court orders to surrender his assets, Giuliani snapped: “The implications you are making against me are wrong. I have no car, no credit card, no cash, everything I have is tied up. They have put stop orders on my business accounts, and I can’t pay my bills.”
Unsparing Criticism
Says man with big platform dedicated to ruining the lives of trans people.
Fucking babies at that fucking newspaper.
"Transgender activists" 99% of the time are just trans people, who are labeled "activists" simply for existing by that fucking newspaper.
Always Grifting
You gotta respect the hustle. It never occurs to them to stop.
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s legal team found evidence that a top adviser asked for retainer fees from potential appointees in order to promote them for jobs in the new administration, five people briefed on the matter said on Monday.When national tragedy strikes, and everyone (including, often these same people!) is saying things like "we must come together" and "now is not the time for politics," they're busy figuring out how to charge the feds $500 for a bottle of water.
Mr. Trump directed his team to carry out the review of the adviser, Boris Epshteyn, who coordinated the legal defenses in Mr. Trump’s criminal cases and is a powerful figure in the transition. Several people whom Mr. Trump trusts had alerted him that Mr. Epshteyn was seeking money from people looking for appointments, three of the people briefed on the matter said.
Maybe Somebody Else Should Do Something
There was a brief moment when it seemed that the charges in New York might get him, though presumably that's not going to happen either now.
Anyway, the Democrat are unable to learn that politics requires doing politics on an ongoing sustained basis, and not just going to sleep until the day after Labor day before the election and then throwing all the money you raised at your ad buyer's new boats.
And if your leaders are in their 70s, they have additional reasons for pretending not to understand this.
Anyway, the Democrat are unable to learn that politics requires doing politics on an ongoing sustained basis, and not just going to sleep until the day after Labor day before the election and then throwing all the money you raised at your ad buyer's new boats.
And if your leaders are in their 70s, they have additional reasons for pretending not to understand this.
Monday, November 25, 2024
Troll in Chief
Generally, don't believe the bullshit coming from anybody in this administration, and don't let reporters pretend to believe it either.
Marks and Cons
It would be nice if, occasionally, journalists would admit to being played, but more likely they are just happy willing participants. The cons, not the marks.
Of course the journalists themselves won't admit to being PR agents, so it would be nice if more of their colleagues in mainstream publications would notice.
To make these nonstories seem newsier, Fuming/Deeply Concerned Biden reports are often peppered with direct or implicit claims of a just-around-the-corner “break” between Biden and Netanyahu. “Biden moving closer than ever to a breach with Netanyahu,” The Washington Post pronounced in February 2024. “After decades of building a ‘close, personal’ friendship with Benjamin Netanyahu, Joe Biden has had it with the Israeli prime minister,” Politico’s Michael Hirsh told us in March 2024. The New York Times’ Peter Baker informs his readers that Biden “has finally had it with an Israeli leadership that he believes is not listening to him.”Which means they see "you" as the mark.
Alas, no break ever materialized. Baker even indicates that Biden’s new supposedly angry posture was delivering results. “To some degree, the Israelis have responded,” Baker told Times readers on May 11, 2024, “despite more than three months of vowing to invade Rafah, they have yet to actually do so beyond limited strikes.”
Three days after Baker’s report, the IDF entered the center of Rafah, quickly turning the city that once held 275,000 residents “into a ghost town,” as NBC News put it. And, as of August 2024, Data from the Decentralized Damage Mapping Group showed, according to Bellingcat, “that almost 44 percent of all buildings in the Rafah governorate in southern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed.” Even the most pro-Biden analysts agree that Netanayu steamrolled through Biden’s supposed “Rafah red line.”
Of course the journalists themselves won't admit to being PR agents, so it would be nice if more of their colleagues in mainstream publications would notice.
Abortion Is Health Care
Hysterial (pro)abortion extremists warned about this stuff, only to be tut-tutted by dipshit centrists who truly believed "health exceptions" with judicial oversight were workable, even though they weren't even if everyone had the best intentions (which they obviously didn't!).
The 35-year-old’s death was preventable, according to more than a dozen doctors who reviewed a detailed summary of her case for ProPublica. Some said it raises serious questions about how abortion bans are pressuring doctors to diverge from the standard of care and reach for less-effective options that could expose their patients to more risks. Doctors and patients described similar decisions they’ve witnessed across the state.This had nothing to do with "abortion" as our glorious pundits understand it, but is the obvious predictable consequence of prioritizing fetal "life" over the life of the mother.
Hello People Can Hear You
When high profile people with loud microphones say things like, "we need to distance ourselves from trans people," do they know that people can hear them? Trans people can hear them, other marginalized groups can hear how disposable they are, people who like human rights can hear them, and even people who don't like trans people can hear this being asserted as a morally bankrupt political strategy.
What swing and irregular voters love, most of all, are politicians who loudly proudly stand for nothing. Just Carville 101.
It reminds me of all the public handwringing post-2004 about how the Democrats needed to find God, and that the way to do this (aside from turning against abortion, which was the only real policy advice) was to pepper their speeches cynically with Bible allusions. Just learn to speak the language of the God Botherers! Those idiots will respond to these magic words!
Whatever the merits, some advice needs to be said behind closed doors! Your audience isn't the group chat! People can hear you!
What swing and irregular voters love, most of all, are politicians who loudly proudly stand for nothing. Just Carville 101.
It reminds me of all the public handwringing post-2004 about how the Democrats needed to find God, and that the way to do this (aside from turning against abortion, which was the only real policy advice) was to pepper their speeches cynically with Bible allusions. Just learn to speak the language of the God Botherers! Those idiots will respond to these magic words!
Whatever the merits, some advice needs to be said behind closed doors! Your audience isn't the group chat! People can hear you!
Foreign Policy Guy
Now that the election is passed, can we start addressing things on the merits, instead of everyone playing political journalist and only considering things through a made up framework about how it might impact the election?
Don't forget the names of everyone in the Biden administration.
On Friday, Biden spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron to try to solve the problem.The fake spin here is that France has made the Lebanon peace deal more difficult. Ah, yes, peace was at hand until Macron messed it up! At the level of "the Iraq war is more likely because peace protesters have emboldened Saddam."
A U.S. official said Biden told Macron that Netanyahu was right to be angry, and that it was not possible to mediate a deal while also pledging to arrest the head of state of one of the parties.
Macron told Biden he wanted to help but that his Foreign Ministry was only making clear its legal obligations towards the ICC. The French issued second statement to try to tamp down the tensions.
Don't forget the names of everyone in the Biden administration.
Sunday, November 24, 2024
Recess
Just realized things are relatively quiet because our tireless fighters in Congress are home for the holidays.
Saturday, November 23, 2024
Viper Sack
One of the few joys will be knowing that these people have to spend time with each other.
But in Trump’s freewheeling orbit, the incident was soon forgotten as his team has returned to the patterns of his first term in office — with shouting matches, expulsions from meetings and name-calling, all between the public celebrations and rocket-ship photo ops. As during Trump’s first term, competing factions have begun to run roughshod over each other, sometimes kicking up clouds of dust.
Made For TV
It'd be funnier if we didn't learn that Joe Biden spent years doing something and then looking to Morning Joseph for approval on his TV.
Um, Do It?
A broad difference between (most) conservatives and liberals is the former think "fairness" requires that for every one of their guys who gets busted, one of our guys should be busted too. While liberals more tend to think "fairness" means all the rapist pedophiles get busted.
Friday, November 22, 2024
Free Your Mind
I've seen even fairly lefty people "grudgingly" acknowledge that continuing the various Covid-era programs would have been inflationary and therefore politically damaging.
I'm not sure this is obviously true, or at least significantly true, but even if I accepted it, why do we not acknowledge other possibilities?
If aspects of fiscal policy are expansionary (inflationary), we can always offset them with some contractionary bits. Like, you know, raising some taxes!
Or we could've let Powell raise interest rates more!
People will argue that Congress would've never done the first, and that raising rates would've also been unpopular.
As for the latter, this is probably true, though people have strangely been unwilling to acknowledge that raising rates as much as they were raised has been unpopular. Generally we are very selective about when we acknowledge distributional effects of macro policy and when we pretend they don't exist.
As for the former, well, yes, but not everyone is pundit obliged to limit the possible within perceived political constraints. Also, Manchin didn't sabotage things because of inflation, he sabotaged them because poor people were (to him) spending all their free money on drugs.
I'm not sure this is obviously true, or at least significantly true, but even if I accepted it, why do we not acknowledge other possibilities?
If aspects of fiscal policy are expansionary (inflationary), we can always offset them with some contractionary bits. Like, you know, raising some taxes!
Or we could've let Powell raise interest rates more!
People will argue that Congress would've never done the first, and that raising rates would've also been unpopular.
As for the latter, this is probably true, though people have strangely been unwilling to acknowledge that raising rates as much as they were raised has been unpopular. Generally we are very selective about when we acknowledge distributional effects of macro policy and when we pretend they don't exist.
As for the former, well, yes, but not everyone is pundit obliged to limit the possible within perceived political constraints. Also, Manchin didn't sabotage things because of inflation, he sabotaged them because poor people were (to him) spending all their free money on drugs.
That things are politically impossible at the moment does not make them actually impossible. We can make the case instead of internalizing these artificial constraints. Otherwise it seems like we're saying "doing nice things for people causes inflation, which they don't like, so we can't do nice things."
Jurisdiction
Sure it's a genocide, but our focus now is on technicalities that will let the defendants go free.
The White House says it is working with Israel on a response to the ICC arrest warrants for PM Netanyahu and ex-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. A spokesperson added that the US Biden administration disputes the idea that the court has jurisdiction. pic.twitter.com/8l3yg4agiW
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) November 21, 2024
Elder Care
Sometimes I see people express some bewilderment over why so many 80somethings want to keep their jobs in Congress until they die, especially the ones with money (most of them).
Generally I don't understand why people don't retire early if they can afford it, but I get why these people don't.
All the money in the world doesn't buy the kind of elder care, with outsourced HR management, that a bunch of loyal career climbing staffers can provide.
That shouldn't be their jobs, and rules, in theory, prevent them from doing certain kinds of tasks, but you just can't replace that even by writing extremely large checks.
Generally I don't understand why people don't retire early if they can afford it, but I get why these people don't.
All the money in the world doesn't buy the kind of elder care, with outsourced HR management, that a bunch of loyal career climbing staffers can provide.
That shouldn't be their jobs, and rules, in theory, prevent them from doing certain kinds of tasks, but you just can't replace that even by writing extremely large checks.
Imagine what the final couple of years were like for Feinstein and her staffers.
Morning
The Trump II era is going to be hell, but I look forward to never seeing another Biden spokesperson again. Small favors.
Thursday, November 21, 2024
Take Off, You Hoser
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau confirms Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant will be arrested if they step foot in Canada after the ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants. pic.twitter.com/QF1bw0p0EM
— Paris Marx (@parismarx) November 21, 2024
Purification Through The Suffering Of Others
A common worldview - not limited to conservatives, sadly - but this bit is quite amazing:
People are working!
People have to get, as my father would have said, real work, real jobs. People are going to have to get jobs and they're going to be scrambling.I'm so old I remember when economists believed the natural rate of unemployment/NAIRU was 6%. That was stupid, but the actual rate has been below that since June 2021. If you think the issue is that people have dropped out of the labor force, the prime age participation rate is higher than it's been since April, 2001.
People are working!
Sure Why Not
I've seen a lot of "don't worry your silly heads, Putin won't launch a nuke" but not much "and this will achieve...".
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it will give Ukraine antipersonnel mines to help it slow Russia’s battlefield advances, marking the second major shift on U.S. military support for Kyiv in days.
"Pete Hegseth Has Learned His Lesson" - Susan Collins (Probably)
I find it cute that lots of Republicans are telling their gullible client journalists that they have Concerns and then will probably push all these guys through one way or another.
A California woman told police that Trump Cabinet pick Pete Hegseth physically blocked her from leaving a hotel room, took her phone, and then sexually assaulted her even though she “remembered saying ‘no’ a lot,” a police report obtained by CNN shows.
Something
Practical effect likely not much more than being politely asked to leave restaurants, and perhaps the US bombing of Den Haag, but better than not.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyhu, accusing him of crimes against humanity war crimes over the war in GazaHopefully I am being too cynical.
The court has also issued arrest warrants for Israel’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif. Israel said in August it had killed Deif in an air strike in Gaza earlier this year.
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Not So Easy To Find A Governor That Doesn't Suck Shit
Amazing.
Rep. Ritchie Torres on Wednesday refused to rule out mounting a 2026 Democratic primary challenge to Gov. Hochul.
What Are We Doing Here
One doesn't have to fear nuclear retaliation to worry that escalation without clear goals is unlikely to achieve anything other than death and destruction. But, hey, it's Biden.
Also you can fear nuclear retaliation, even though all the serious voices have increasingly started lecturing us not to. Because they have.
Speaking Of
I have a friend (Catalan) who is a big deal in the opera world. Years ago he was flying to Chicago for work-related stuff. He was supposed to attend a show that evening, but was barely going to make it, if at all, given the timing of the flight arrival.
Being in a hurry, after getting off the plane, he and his partner stupidly started running, which especially in the post 9-11 era was a bit of a nono. It was certainly a lot of a nono before clearing immigration/customs.
A security guard quickly stopped them.
Uh, sirs, what the hell do you think you are doing?
My friend [flustered and determined, with far from perfect English]: I am going to see [Spanish accent/pronunciation] Oh-pay-rah!
The security guard sprung into action, quickly escorted them to the front of the line, and rushed them through.
His partner, also Catalan, but much more familiar with the US, had to explain:
He thought you were going to be appearing on Oprah.
Being in a hurry, after getting off the plane, he and his partner stupidly started running, which especially in the post 9-11 era was a bit of a nono. It was certainly a lot of a nono before clearing immigration/customs.
A security guard quickly stopped them.
Uh, sirs, what the hell do you think you are doing?
My friend [flustered and determined, with far from perfect English]: I am going to see [Spanish accent/pronunciation] Oh-pay-rah!
The security guard sprung into action, quickly escorted them to the front of the line, and rushed them through.
His partner, also Catalan, but much more familiar with the US, had to explain:
He thought you were going to be appearing on Oprah.
America's Worst President
Joe Biden.
The effort is serious enough that the White House has launched a pointed pushback. “Disapproving arms purchases for Israel at this moment would …put wind in the sails of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas at the worst possible moment,” the document from the Biden administration reads.Everyone who stuck with this administration until the end should be occasionally politely asked to leave restaurants (the most extreme form of elite accountability there is).
The document additionally appears to endorse continued fighting despite the administration’s public narrative that it is seeking settlements to end the deadly Israeli military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon.
Every Time
After the election, well-meaning people were like "let's heal, and regroup," while the ghouls with the money and the microphones set to work blaming everybody but themselves.
The irony here is that Jentleson is describing a campaign that looks a lot like the one that Harris ran, and lost. As progressives quickly pointed out in response, in 2024 Harris did indeed say no to the kinds of groups he mentioned, leaning on celebrity endorsements and vague pronouncements of “joy.” The special interests that were most influential this cycle weren’t progressives but AIPAC, cryptocurrency PACS, and Uber, whose former chief counsel Tony West (Harris’s brother-in-law) urged the candidate to moderate her message so as to better appeal to corporate interests.
As journalist Dan Denvir wrote before the election, Democrats this cycle fell back on an old playbook of trying to outflank Republicans on immigration. They championed a bill chock-full of the right’s preferred policies, like expanding ICE detention capacity and restricting asylum, then campaigned on the fact that the GOP voted it down when Trump told them to. Having previously called Trump’s border wall a “medieval vanity project,” Harris then pledged to spend hundreds of billions of dollars building it. As Denvir writes, “Given the choice to pander to reactionaries or shore up the party’s left wing, Democrats tend to prioritize the former. The result is a dangerous asymmetric polarization: Republicans radicalize on immigration, while Democratic elites chase after them. The ‘normal’ position on immigration moves ever rightward.”
What precisely might Harris have said to better convince voters that she would be adequately tough on immigration? And if her fatal flaws in Jentleson’s view mostly come down to things she said in the 2020 primary, does that mean that all candidates should ignore the realities of the race that they’re currently in—including in relatively progressive seats—so as to avoid Republican blowback if they run for something else in the future? The trouble with the “moderation” pitch isn’t just that it ignores the reality of the election that just happened. It also leaves Democrats playing catch-up in debates whose terms are perpetually set by Republicans, whatever the real-world consequences. The demand that the party embrace whatever positions happen to be popular at the moment imagines public opinion as exogenous to the work of politics. What precisely is the “moral imperative” to win elections if Democrats are merely choosing the correct position among the options that the right lays out for them?
Vive la Résistance!
Amazing shit in the New York Times.
A central pillar of American democracy is that no man is above the law. But Mr. Trump isn’t an ordinary man.There's no point in arguing with this stuff. Pointing and mocking is all it deserves.
He's A Very Generous Man
I don't see the problem.
The House Ethics Committee obtained records, including a check and records of Venmo payments, that appear to show that then-Rep. Matt Gaetz paid more than $10,000 to two women who were later witnesses in sexual misconduct probes conducted by both the House and the Justice Department, according to documents obtained by ABC News.
The Venmo records show that between July 2017 and late January 2019, Gaetz -- who was first elected in 2016 -- allegedly made 27 Venmo payments totaling $10,224.02 to the two witnesses, who were over the age of 18 at the time.
Wednesday Morning
It's taboo to trash Oprah, but I do not think her net impact on the world has been good.
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
You First
No one's stopping you. Put on a hard hat. Chew some tobacco. Curse a bit more. Whatever you think this is, [checks wikipedia] you Cornell graduate.
I think she's saying Dems need to do some code switching. Or cosplaying.At a post-election DSCC briefing with winning Dem candidates.
— David Weigel (@daveweigel) November 19, 2024
Elissa Slotkin: “I personally think that identity politics needs to go the way of the dodo.” Dems should take language “not from the faculty lounge, but the assembly line.”
The Big Donors
While we are on money, it is important to note that the reason to please "big donors" isn’t simply because you want their money for your campaign. There are a lot of reasons to want to have rich people on your side - some practical, some craven - and their disproportionate influence isn’t simply because they write big checks.
The Big Money
I do wish campaigns would learn that there is some cost to sending out dozens of campaign fundraising emails every day. If you are doing so when you have so much money that you can't spend it fast enough, it is fair to ask just what the fuck you are doing?
Vive la Résistance!
Choose your fighters.
Yesterday, as outraged "Morning Joe" fans registered their objections on social media sites, Scarborough defended his outreach to Trump, telling associates that having face time with a world leader is a no-brainer. Some of his MSNBC colleagues agreed. But there was more to the Mar-a-Lago meeting.
According to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, Scarborough and Brzezinski were credibly concerned that they could face governmental and legal harassment from the incoming Trump administration. Knowing that Trump has threatened retribution against his perceived political opponents, and that Trump has promoted lies about Scarborough and Brzezinski in the past, the MSNBC hosts decided to reach out to the president-elect.
Scandals
It is quite funny remembering all of the reasons people have failed to get/had to drop out from Cabinet nominations due to "scandals" that would be laughable now. Some of them were actually a bit laughable at the time, to be fair.
Florida attorney Joel Leppard said in an interview with The Washington Post that one of his clients witnessed Gaetz having sex with the minor at a drug-fueled party in July 2017 — and that Gaetz was unaware of her age at the time but subsequently was told she was underage. ABC News first reported the news.
This woman and a second woman, also represented by Leppard, testified that they were paid by Gaetz to have sex with him and other individuals who attended these “sex parties.” They were paid through Venmo or other conduits — including the PayPal of Nestor Galban, whom Gaetz has referred to as his “adopted son.”
Monday, November 18, 2024
That Guy
A regular type I've come across in The Discourse is people who spend about 80% chastizing The Left for their hysterical, rude, and inappropriate criticisms of Republicans, and then the other 20% calling conservatives/Republicans the new MegaHitler while, of course, yelling at The Left for failing to realize this!!!
Joe Scarborough, you are no longer welcome in The Resistance.
Joe Scarborough, you are no longer welcome in The Resistance.
Bad Chases Out Good
We’re told that health journalist Ed Yong, whose COVID reporting for The Atlantic won a Pulitzer Prize in 2021, shared posts on his private Instagram stories this week expressing outrage at the move, and what it suggested about the editorial direction of the magazine. Yong described Chait as a “fucking putz,” expressed frustration at The Atlantic’s skeptical coverage of trans issues and employment of the writer Helen Lewis. Yong also expressed disappointment at the publication’s occasional defense of Israel’s war in Gaza, and suggested that his friends should unsubscribe. (Yong left the magazine last summer.)
True of the Atlantic, true of all institutions.
Hangin' With The Hitlers
Things change quickly. That was about 14 months ago. Trump must have pivoted to being "not like Hitler" since then.
Acquiescence
All the self-appointed leaders of the resistance are busy surrendering - they have boat maintenance bills to pay, after all - while blaming trans people for the country's predicament.
Choose your fighters well.
Choose your fighters well.
Vive la Résistance!
Big surprise!
Joe and Mika spent 8 years on the front lines against the war on Trump - perhaps our most heroic resistance fighters - and it's time for a change.
Joe and Mika spent 8 years on the front lines against the war on Trump - perhaps our most heroic resistance fighters - and it's time for a change.
Viper Sack
Not going to get much more than some occasional amusement here.
“And he’s sure taking lots of credit for the president’s victory. Bragging about America PAC and X to anyone who will listen. He’s trying to make President Trump feel indebted to him. And the president is indebted to no one,” they added.
The second person said that Musk had been overstepping his bounds, and that Musk has an “opinion on and about everything.”
“He wants to be seen as having say in everything (even if he doesn’t),” the source told NBC.
Sunday, November 17, 2024
2020
A lot was going on in 2020, and an amazing thing about the Biden campaign (yes, I am praising it!) was that it did not go out there and start screaming about "thugs" and "freaks." To use the shorthand of the times, they pretty much embraced "wokeness" during a period of major social turmoil and then they won.
And then through 2022, the Dems mostly continued with this, and despite numerous pre-writes by pundits and journalists about how being too left wing had caused a red wave, this didn't happen. Dems kept the Senate and almost kept the House. The reason they didn't keep the House was because the incompetent New York Dems went all in on crime.
The centrist dipshit view is, basically, we must purge our coalition of the disgusting freaks.
The left wing view is, basically, if you validate the view of the other party (crime is out of control, immigration is a top priority, trans people are a threat to your children), people will vote for the other party.
They didn't quite do the third one in the parenthetical there, but they stayed entirely silent on the subject.
They ran the Liz Cheney campaign, and except for not demonizing trans people, they did everything the centrist dipshists wanted them to do.
Saturday, November 16, 2024
Don't Talk About The War
Sneering centrist pundits love to point to polls about how most Americans don't care much about Gaza, as a way to suggest that nobody should, that voters who do care have no right to care, that it is somehow selfish to care.
That is not how politics works, as you have to get "stupid" voters to vote for you, and berating them for being Wrong does not help.
But more than that, even if people don't care much about Gaza, have things seemed peaceful lately? Gaza and Ukraine top the news regularly. Has Biden solved this? Do thing seem nice, okay?
Does promising peace in Gaza, as Biden did, for 10 months, and then failing, make him seem competent? Does it reflect well on the rest of this party?
I mean, even if you aren't sporting a Keffiyeh, you might get a sense that these people are incompetent liars? And would you be wrong? No.
Vive la Résistance!
Matt Gaetz shouldn’t be able to resign away an ethics investigation.
— Senate Judiciary Committee (@JudiciaryDems) November 14, 2024
RT if you agree.
No More Freaks
Many Democrats think their problem is that the mere existence of POC and LGBT and other repellent filth have ruined their beloved coalition with Sensible Republicans. When pressed, they'll mumble about "advocacy groups," but you don't control those and you can't tell them to shut the fuck up, either.
Sure "one DNC member from Florida" isn't the party, but this is the Morning Joseph line, the James Carville line. Oh but Atrios, Morning Joseph is a Newt Gingrich Republican! Yes, yes, he is, and he's Joe Biden's favorite TV host.
Or as one DNC member from Florida put it: “I don’t want to be the freak show party, like they have branded us. You know, when you’re a mom with three kids, and you live in middle America and you’re just not really into politics, and you see these ads that scare the bejesus out of you, you’re like, ‘I know Trump’s weird or whatever, but I would rather his weirdness that doesn’t affect my kids.’”
Sure "one DNC member from Florida" isn't the party, but this is the Morning Joseph line, the James Carville line. Oh but Atrios, Morning Joseph is a Newt Gingrich Republican! Yes, yes, he is, and he's Joe Biden's favorite TV host.
"Like they have branded us." Imagine if you actually had to do politics! Unfathomable, I know.
If you don't keep these disgusting freaks in the tent, they're going to be pissing on it from the outside, and you can have the daily Sister Souljah event you all dream about!
Some Funny News
Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the two Georgia poll workers defamed by Rudolph W. Giuliani after the 2020 election, received his watch collection, a ring and his vintage Mercedes-Benz on Friday.
The deliveries, which Mr. Giuliani’s lawyer, Joseph Cammarata, reported to the court on Friday, were a long time coming for the women, who are mother and daughter. It was also a small down payment on what the former New York City mayor owes them.
Friday, November 15, 2024
Ah, Well, Nevertheless
Amazing.
"I defer at this moment to whatever course they decide to take. And I hope they take a course that is bipartisan," Jeffries said today about the Ethics Committee.
Suit Up, Team
It should be comically easy for team D to torch Gaetz, at least reputationally, if not the nomination itself.
Do we think people other than a bunch political junkies know anything about Gaetz at all?
The press isn't going to do your job for you.
Do we think people other than a bunch political junkies know anything about Gaetz at all?
The press isn't going to do your job for you.
A Simple Test For THE RESISTANCE
Can one staffer leak this, or can one member read it on the floor?
Breaking: Mike Johnson says he does not think the House Ethics Committee report into Matt Gaetz should be released.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 15, 2024
Which Horrors Should I Highlight
Freaking out about everything equally doesn't seem to be especially helpful.
The Wall To Keep Us In
If the antivax stuff takes off, goodbye visa wavers and hello having to have proof of vaccinations to travel.
[BRB going to buy stock in a travel medicine company]
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Gathering My Senses
I admit I am a bit lost at the moment. Posting "OMG MATT GAETZ" doesn't seem very helpful.
I Quote Myself
Remember how Time's Up was co-opted by a bunch of rich donors and their social circle who then ran a side for profit business offering consulting on how to protect powerful men from their accusers?Tina Tchen, co-founder of the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, will become executive vice president and chief strategy and impact officer at the Obama Foundation.They keep showing us who they are.Congratulations to @ObamaFoundation & dear friend Tina Tchen on her new role as Chief Strategy & Impact Officer! Tina is such a brilliant lawyer but also so COMMITTED to doing good. This is excellent news. https://t.co/KcLMj47u6q
— Jennifer Palmieri (@jmpalmieri) July 6, 2022
It Was The Wokes Wot Did It
Jen Palmieri - Clintonworld fixture - tried to blame campaign decisions on unnamed YOUNG WOKE STAFFERS, the people who run things every time something goes wrong, was called out by other reporters, and backed down.
It's silly to imagine going on Rogan would've mattered either way, but the point is this was to blame the wokes because that's what gets you on Morning Joseph and keeps the consultant checks coming.
Wednesday, November 13, 2024
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Welp
This is, to be clear, Kooky shit, independent of the moment.
Clinton went on to note the history of the Jewish people and Judaism in what is now the State of Israel, saying that Jews “were there first — before their faith existed,” apparently referring to Islam and the Palestinian people.
He said that Jews had been in the land “in the time of King David, and the southernmost tribes had Judea and Samaria,” referring to the West Bank using the Biblical terminology also in use among Israelis.
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, says he has ordered preparations to annex the occupied West Bank, hoping “2025 will be, with God's help, the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.” pic.twitter.com/qhPFTI8IDt
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) November 11, 2024
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
I don't think you have to be a commie trot to observe that calling it that is stupid.
"The Left" Didn't Give Us Enough Credit
This has been trotted out for years, mostly about Afghanistan, and which "Left" are you talking about? There is no "Left" in the NYT (Bouie but it isn't really his beat), the Washington Post, CNN... MSNBC has Hayes and he did!
If you want credit from this unnamed Left, you'd better empower them. The Chapo guys gave you a lot of credit! Then they criticized you for other things! That's how it works!
If you want credit from this unnamed Left, you'd better empower them. The Chapo guys gave you a lot of credit! Then they criticized you for other things! That's how it works!
We Do This After Every Election (Almost)
1) Are the Democrats too Right or Too Left?
2) The Democrats Have A Media Problem
3) Being a Democrat should be a Membership With Benefits
The first is a debate, the second is inarguable even if the prescriptions differ, the third is something which is also a good idea but no one ever follows through with it.
There actually was a lot of money pumped into a media effort recently, and I don't like to dump on it because I suppose any effort should be encouraged, but that most of you have never heard of it tells the story.
So What Are You Going To Do About It
People regularly bring up the focus group organizers who said that a problem that they face is that participants refuse to believe that Republicans are planning to do the things they are planning to do. Nobody could be that evil! More than that, if they were then surely I would have heard about it before!
There are a lot of reasons Dems have a messaging problem (among other problems) but one is that even calling them "weird" is too spicy for Biden-era consultants. The press won't call them "evil plans" for you.
Monday, November 11, 2024
The Ancient Texts
In 1999, Maureen Dowd devoted her existence to ruining Monica Lewinksy's life. She was 47 then. She had just been dumped by Michael Douglas for Catherine Zeta-Jones. Dowd is 72 now.
Tiny Microphone
I know that we'd all like some come-together-in-unity rhetoric, but on Morning Joseph (Biden's favorite show!) they're reading Maureen Dowd columns about the evil transes and, you know, we're back to the bad days of the early aughts.
The Top Ranks Of The Dem Party Are Filled With Bad People
Also, they're bad at their one job (winning) and they're unwilling to take responsibility. I do agree with them that they should find this anonymous trans woman who runs the DNC and fire her, because she has been doing a bad job, too.
It isn't unreasonable to expect the "good guys" party to be led by people who aren't incompetent moral monsters.
Don't Put Lies In The Newspaper
This was nonsense at the time (2022), but more importantly you can imagine what other nonsense Jeremy Peters - and his editors - believe.
It Was The Woke Wot Did It
Every bad election - and even the pretty good ones - we have to try to remind them that being unwilling to take your own side in an argument is not actually clever politics.
If your genius centrist politics can be derailed by one viral tweet from an enby Portland barista - which is the argument of people like Reines even if they don't put it that way - then it is not actually genius politics.
Sunday, November 10, 2024
I Almost Didn't Vote
I don't think I could have voted for Biden. I held my nose and voted for Harris. I was never going to make a thing of it. I wasn't going suggest anybody shouldn't vote.
The thing is, my vote doesn't matter. I mean, yah, there's that chance the election would have come down to the state of Pennsylvania, and the state of Pennsylvania would come down to one vote - mine! - but while we like to imagine these things, they aren't very likely.
Absent mandatory voting, elections depend on lots of people deciding that it does matter if they vote, even though it really doesn't. Not individually.
Why did I almost not vote? No of course I didn't want the bad orange man to win - and ultimately that's why I voted - but also I've been watching a genocide unfold for past year and I've watched Biden's smirking ghouls at State on that subject and I've watched almost the entire Dem-industrial complex go after the people who opposed that genocide, or at best stay silent.
These people are so rotten and so horrible and many of them would be on trial in a just world. People were put on trial for less. "We" certainly supported putting people on trial for less, instead of opposing it in every way possible. We went to war - supposedly - over less!
So much for the international rules-based order.
I'm an engaged voter. I understand the issues. I understand harm reduction. I understand that the bad orange man is very bad indeed. I have no belief in accelerationism or fantasies about third party presidential runs. I am not a narcissist about this stuff; politics is never going to be centered around my personal desires.
But how dare these fucking people make me vote for this. How dare almost all of them, at best, stay silent. What did they want to be in positions of power for? Vacation homes and new boats?
It is, truly, a problem from hell, Samantha.
Exit Right
I don't agree with everything here, precisely, but it's probably the best expression of the "left critique" you'll see.
My President
Put me down for Team Big Rich Oaf for now.
Gov. JB Pritzker is combing through hundreds of pages of Project 2025, shoring up legal resources and finding ways to further expand reproductive rights and environmental protections — all while he explores his own political future.
Saturday, November 09, 2024
The Fierce Urgency Of Eventually
One personal experience (I can't know if this is universal) with age is that the perception of the passage of time has changed drastically.
In 2004 (when I was 32) the 1996 election (when I was 24) seemed like a million years ago.
2016 does not seem like a million years ago.
I suspect one problem with gerontocracy is older people don't feel the urgency they once did. Eight years isn't very long, is it.
Fish Heads
There is a piece in The Atlantic by Franklin Foer which has someone from Bidenworld arguing Biden would've campaigned as a bigger bastard to trans people, as if that would have been a good thing.
Middle Option
There is some space between "Harris had one obvious quick trick to win" and "there was nothing that could have done it."
And now I am watching the same fucking people who have been running things for decades - members of Clintonworld, Obamaworld, and Bidenworld - desperately cling to their clout, probably from their new boats.
Friday, November 08, 2024
I Didn’t Do It
As I said yesterday or the day before, people with access and microphones are going to do their best to convince friendly journalists that it was everybody else's fault.
Ties Together Some Themes Nicely
Dems can't solve their media problem because they (notalldems) believe if they are associated with someone who doesn't hate trans people and immigrants enough then they will be DOOMED.
One day they will figure out that you can't impose message discipline on the entire set of people who Republicans will tie them to. And Republicans can just make things up and manufacture associations, in part because they have solved their own media problem.
WHO ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, MOTHERFUCKER
THE WOKE LEFT doesn’t even have a newspaper column in a prominent paper. It never appears on your favorite political TV shows. There are no prominent electeds except perhaps the fantasy version of AOC. I assume he doesn't mean the people who just spent a billion bucks or Harris herself.
(See post below for those just coming in)
Thursday, November 07, 2024
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