The weirdest obsession by conservatives (except the ones like the assholes at the Atlantic who are funded by the Kochs - it's not weird because everybody's gotta eat!) - is the tyranny of college students. Sometimes 19-year-olds are dumb (often they are not!) but even when they are they almost never have any power and protesting the use of campus resources for bigots and war criminals is at worst rude and reflects no real threat to any recognizable concept of "free specch" nor even hints that said students tend in that direction.
It's a useful "idiot" tell, as in, if this is your interest, you are an idiot. Or paid, of course.
Tuesday, June 04, 2019
Catching the Car
You can find the pictures yourself, but is there a more miserable man than Trump in the UK? He likely thought nothing would make him feel better than having the Queen of England give him a big welcome, but of course it makes him miserable. These things are for show, and Trump doesn't know how to dress himself (why does nobody dress him? I'd be paying someone to dress me!) or behave and the whole thing is mostly just for pictures so of course it isn't "fun" in any meaningful way and wouldn't be for anyone, really. He thought it would be the ultimate moment of being at the center of attention, but like everybody else - even the queen - he's just a bit character in a theater production. That's just how these things work and how can you be so stupid as to not know that.
Monday, June 03, 2019
Look Like You're Doing Something
But don't actually do anything.
One might argue, in response, that a sensible executive branch would understand that lowering drug prices would be politically advantageous. And this insight, in turn, might lead some hypothetical Republican secretary of Health and Human Services to vigorously negotiate the prices of considerably more than the 25 drugs mandated by law. Alas, we must again remind any readers given to policy transports driven by logic and sound political calculation that the current, non-hypothetical HHS secretary is a former pharmaceutical industry executive. We must also gingerly remind said readers that all available evidence from the last 40 or so years of hard-right governance in Washington shows that Republicans will always place industry profits above their constituents’ needs. In short, the Republicans who currently have power in the White House and the U.S. Senate have not actually done any of the obvious things they could do to reduce drug prices, and can reliably be expected to stay the course, as they like to say.
Yet the Democratic speaker of the House is blithely proceeding as though none of these obvious and crushing truths have any purchase in the debate over health care policy. The Pelosi proposal doesn’t even seem to have any safeguards in place to prevent HHS from “negotiating” pharma-friendly high prices (which, again, is easy to imagine any Republican administration, and especially this Republican administration, doing). And in the event of a stalemate over prices, the negotiations only get sent to OMB (which has no experience regulating markets of any kind) if the pharma company in question and government regulators can’t come to an accord over a modified price. The government is thus free to continue doing nothing in the far more likely scenario of both parties showing that they can agree on an exorbitant one.
Foxy
Back in the Bush years, when Fox was ascendant, it was not entirely obvious how bad it was to many. It wasn't because it's actually much worse now, it's that it was barely different than what was on its sister networks, MSNBC and CNN. Post-9/11 they all fell all over themselves to make the steely-eyed rocket man our own God King, Our Protector, The One Who Kept Us Safe. Practically every morning Bush would give the same dumb speech at some "factory" or similar, with a ridiculous number of flags in the background. They'd all dutifully cover it, and only occasionally take a break from the adulation to sneer at some mild disagreement from a Democrat who just Did Not Get That Everything Had Changed.
And even in the Obama years, when its ridiculousness became increasingly apparent, it was possible to see it as at least being in opposition to the guy in charge, Obama, which whatever its faults at least had a punching up aspect to it.
Now it's 100% clear that it isn't just conservative, or Republican supporting, but an entirely manufactured alternative universe that rage junkie seniors spend their days hooked on, impervious to any outside information. Also there are a lot of them and they vote and despite what you hear tend to hate their kids and grandkids.
And even in the Obama years, when its ridiculousness became increasingly apparent, it was possible to see it as at least being in opposition to the guy in charge, Obama, which whatever its faults at least had a punching up aspect to it.
Now it's 100% clear that it isn't just conservative, or Republican supporting, but an entirely manufactured alternative universe that rage junkie seniors spend their days hooked on, impervious to any outside information. Also there are a lot of them and they vote and despite what you hear tend to hate their kids and grandkids.
Nothing Really Matters, Anyone Can See
I used to not quite understand why the ranks of punditry and political journalism are populated largely by people who seem to not care at all about policy at all. I don't mean simply that the constraints of political journalism specifically supposedly require an objectivity (which only applies selectively but that's another issue) about such things, but that they honestly don't really give a shit. It matters more that dead John McCain might be sad than that we are torturing toddlers.
Of course this doesn't apply to all journalists. Some are doing that noble investigative reporting about politics which they all supposedly, but mostly don't, aspire to. The court intrigue journalists and the politics as theater criticism journalists and Chris Cillizza and oh God Chris Cillizza-wannabes.
But of course they just want to be on TMZ-for-politics. If you grow up thinking "I want to be a political journalist!" your model isn't "All The President's Men" or whatever, it's CNN gabfests. That could be me!
Of course this doesn't apply to all journalists. Some are doing that noble investigative reporting about politics which they all supposedly, but mostly don't, aspire to. The court intrigue journalists and the politics as theater criticism journalists and Chris Cillizza and oh God Chris Cillizza-wannabes.
But of course they just want to be on TMZ-for-politics. If you grow up thinking "I want to be a political journalist!" your model isn't "All The President's Men" or whatever, it's CNN gabfests. That could be me!
America's Worst Editorial Page Editor
Fred Hiatt Has apparently been very sad that I have been ignoring him lately. We knew he was into crimes, so we can't impeach him for crimes.
"We knew he would grab'em by the pussy when we voted for him, so the multiple on camera rapes are just not grounds for impeachment" - Fred Hiatt, basically.
I think we’ve been proved right. But that is precisely the point: We thought his unfitness was evident before he was elected, and Americans chose him anyway. (No, he didn’t win the popular vote. But he won.) He is endangering the future of the planet — but we knew he was a climate denier. He ripped children from their parents at the border — but his racism and anti-immigrant animus, like his contempt for the Constitution, were no secrets.
To impeach him now for what the electorate welcomed or was willing to overlook isn’t the democratic response. The right response is to defeat him in 2020.
"We knew he would grab'em by the pussy when we voted for him, so the multiple on camera rapes are just not grounds for impeachment" - Fred Hiatt, basically.
Vanity in the UK
I'm not sure how Trump can go there given that it's all one big Muslim no go zone these days.
Why is he going there? Weird.
Why is he going there? Weird.
Sunday, June 02, 2019
The Confidence Of A Successful Mediocre White Man
It is refreshingly honest to admit you're a dumbass sometimes, but not that much of a dumbass.
Better Things To Do
Most cities can't manage to put in a dozen miles of bike lanes. I'd hope they wouldn't be bothering worrying about the unicorn invasion that might happen in a few decades.
Ban cars. There's your answer.
Only a tiny fraction of survey respondents said that their town had a “clear plan” for autonomous vehicles, and just 36 percent of the largest cities have general plans that mention AVs. Even fewer, 24 percent, have issued separate strategies for maximizing the possible safety and congestion-easing benefits of self-driving cars.
Ban cars. There's your answer.
Cloudy John
Not going to rehash his whole history, but John Solomon was a Very Respected Journalist at Very Respectable News Outlets (Washington Post, AP) for years. He was, at those outlets, transparently a right wing hack at best and more accurately a conduit for whatever right wing horseshit someone would hand him. Of course during his tenure there were numerous criticisms of him written by his colleagues. Haha, I kid, only stupid bloggers and similar ever said a word.
Like most professions, journalism is not good about policing its own. Unlike many professions, journalists often pretend they are. Something about truthtelling blahblahblah.
Like most professions, journalism is not good about policing its own. Unlike many professions, journalists often pretend they are. Something about truthtelling blahblahblah.
Saturday, June 01, 2019
Yes We Do Have Some Trails In this Dumb City
Even nice ones, though they're a bit of a bus ride for me to get to.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)