— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2020
Wednesday, October 14, 2020
Going For The Villages Vote
To my favorite people in the world, the seniors.
Morning Thread
It's just accepted now that the most elite judges in the land are supposed to lie to Congress and get away with it.
Rules are for other people.Asked by Kamala Harris if she were aware — before she got the nomination — of Trump’s vows to choose a Supreme Court nominee who would strike down the ACA, Amy Coney Barrett said: “I don’t recall seeing or hearing those statements.”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 13, 2020
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
There Are Two Types Of People In America
The rules for membership eligibility in the platinum club aren't quite as clear as they are in some other countries, which is a good thing as I expect those who imagine that they are will be busy fighting each other to the death to keep their membership status. But some are quite sure they belong, quite sure you don't, and want to make sure that is always very clear.
What is the point of membership if it doesn't have its privileges? And what are privileges, but things denied to you?
The Best President America Will Ever Have
Was a bit iffy for awhile, but Joe Biden's got my vote now.
"He literally wants to take your cars away" the president says of Joe Biden.
— Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) October 11, 2020
Poll Pron
National Poll:
— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) October 13, 2020
Biden 57% (+17)
Trump 40%
Opinium
(LV, 10/8-10/12)
Court Reform
Our system is dumb for a lot of reasons, but maintaining the status quo does require judges who at least make the effort to pretend that their Judicial PHILOSOPHY is not, essentially, "Democrat laws are unconstitutional." There are other issues, too, but if they can't even be bothered with that one...
FUNDRAISING NOTSOFUNSTRAVAGANZA DAY 3
The imagined golden age of anything was filled with some not very golden things, but the golden age of the internet was "the open internet" and it is closing. A problem with everything retreating behind paywalls is, well, the walls, not the idea that people/companies should be paid.
The "walled garden" days of the pre-internet, of AOL and similar, is returning. Google is a bit more subtle about it, but increasingly their "internet search engine" is structured so that you never leave google.
A difficulty with blogging, a format which was always conversational, these days is there just isn't much to link to anymore. I don't like embedding tweets, but I do it more and more because that's where the linkable conversation exists now, along with breaking news or free-to-link news at all.
Internet advertising was never everyone's favorite thing, but to some degree the open internet did float on top of it, and they fade together.
Yay to everyone who manages to find subscription models that work - email newsletters are the latest - but everything that is effectively unlinkable moves us a bit further away from that open internet.
Only tangentially related to fundraising for this site, but it's stuff I think about when I do.
Thanks to all!What Went Wrong
Correct me, please, but I have yet to see anyone explain why fixing the economy after the financial crisis was difficult, other than the fact that they fucked it up (deliberately, even).
And so I think that if we’re able to get the public health under control that normality will return more quickly than it does after financial crises or normal recessions, but I’m not sure of that.
That's Summers in the Vanity Fair interview where he gives the "Cape Code in winter" quote. The financial crisis was the easiest damn thing in the world to fix. The people responsible for fixing it instead gave us the Great Recession and then spent years telling each other what geniuses they were.
Cape Cod In Winter
It isn't really exaggeration to say that every major decision fucking up the economy for the past 25 years can be traced back to Larry Summers. And yet he keeps on going.
thank you. @LHSummers! happy to see you to back off your ‘Cape Cod in the winter’ take ... too bad it’s months after CARES Act https://t.co/FqdTniW4cp
— Claudia Sahm GET MORE MONEY OUT (@Claudia_Sahm) October 13, 2020
On this particular issue - how to rescue the economy from a recession - the costs of doing way too much are trivial compared to the costs of doing not enough, and yet that is where they go every time. Summers wasn't against doing something, but the immediate happy talk after doing it helped to dampen enthusiasm for CARES or anything similar. And here we are.I have the optimistic guess-but it’s only an optimistic guess-that the recovery can be faster than many expect b it has the character of the recovery from the depression that hits a Cape Cod economy every winter or recovery in American GDP that takes place every Monday morning.
— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) April 3, 2020
Tuesday Morning
Quite regularly I see tweets or comments like, "What happened to the NOBLE REPUBLICAN PARTY OF OLD?"
Maybe they'll do the right thing today!
Monday, October 12, 2020
The Winter Of Our Discontent
The phrase popped into my head as I was pondering the upcoming winter with Covid. Weather isn't the same everywhere in the country, but the season will shrink the opportunities for outside activities, which largely means all recreational out of home activities.
And then I started thinking about the Steinbeck novel, from which I stole quotes for the post titles today. I haven't read it in..let's say 25 years... but I guess it stuck in my brain the way some books do. Various themes, but one is coping with living in a world where you gotta be a scammer to get ahead, or even just to tread water, despite what you were taught, and realizing the next generation learned that lesson early.
The Only Punishment Is For Failure
People like to imagine there's a 27 dimension chess game going on, but too often I see a team that hasn't bothered to game out checkers.
The death of Ginsburg was not an especially unlikely event.
If You Want To Keep A Friend, Never Test Him
Stupid or evil, the eternal question.
Sen. Booker: presumably any Senator that wants to get tested, can. I did last week. Go for it.
— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) October 12, 2020
Grab Anything That Goes By. It May Not Come Around Again.
With hindsight, "we'll rule forever now so it's ok if we wait for permission from the noble opposition," was perhaps not an especially cunning plan.
That Only Leaves Them Three Per Cent For The Future.
There are issues other than concerns about declining abilities with our octogenarian rulers. I don't think my political concerns have radically changed over the past 20 years, but the priorities do swap around a bit. The things I care enough to bother with on a sustained basis change. Some of that change happens because my time horizon shrinks a bit every year. I'm not that old yet, but planting the seeds for things that only bear fruit in 20 years doesn't interest me quite as much as it might have just a few years ago.
There are moments when the people who have ruled us for a very long time have responsibilities. And, welp...
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