Tuesday Night

Rock on.

But How Will We Pay For It

"The American people should hear this: 300 million dollars a day for two decades," President Biden says. "What have we lost as a consequence, in terms of opportunities? I refuse to continue a war that was no longer in the service of the vital national interests of our people." pic.twitter.com/dVGzobzAz7

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 31, 2021

That question never gets asked in this context, for some reason.

About 3 Weeks From A Bunch Of Stories About Scary Terrorist Evacuees

The Right (Tucker circle) will lead this, and the rest of the media will follow. The "womenofAfghanistan" focus is a way of separating the Good Afghans from The Bad (all men are probably terrorists) and of course a lot of the Bad Ones will have arrived.

Same reporters will switch from the weepy howcouldBidendothis stories to zomgtheyareallsuicidebombers stories.

Afternoon Thread

Dealing with silly life hassles.

Vultures

Getting into everything.

Lunch Thread

Enjoy.

They're Doing That All By Themselves

While I imagine due to geography in some US locations it's been harder than others to get a shot, for several months most people have been able to walk into a random pharmacy and get a shot. Their choice.

Thoughts And Prayers

Of course all criminal defendants deserve adequate defense.

(CNN)A prominent lawyer has not been appearing at recent court hearings on behalf of some of his nearly 20 US Capitol riot clients after reportedly becoming ill with Covid-19, the Department of Justice said in court filings in multiple cases on Monday.

BUT....

pic.twitter.com/yM8Szm7PKJ

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) August 31, 2021

Credit Where Credit Is Due

I'm very a much a "you really don't ever have to hand it to them" guy, but with some quibbles I'll hand it to Ross Douthat for once.

Our botched withdrawal is the punctuation mark on a general catastrophe, a failure so broad that it should demand purges in the Pentagon, the shamed retirement of innumerable hawkish talking heads, the razing of various NGOs and international-studies programs and the dissolution of countless consultancies and military contractors.

Tuesday Morning

So many Tuesdays.

Monday Night

Rock on.

We Won Or We Think We Did

Good for Biden.

NEW: The last C-17 departed from Afghanistan at 3:29pm Kabul time and the last one has just cleared Afghan airspace, per the Pentagon. Gen. McKenzie: This "signifies the end of the military component" of the mission in Afghanistan.

— Vivian Salama (@vmsalama) August 30, 2021

Though I Missed Something

One lesson I didn't quite learn from the Clinton impeachment saga was how our ruling elite felt neccessary to position themselves as our moral superiors. David Brooks (1999 version) with a boot on our face forever.

I knew there were a bunch of Republican hypocrites, of course, but I more thought that was just cynical bullshit. But, no, a lot of them actually believe it. A lot of them were enraged by Clinton's poll numbers for precisely that reason. The people are immoral!

Not a new thing, of course, elites imagining themselves to be superior in every way. Slip seamlessly from that to "we must bomb the shit out of brown people for feminism, and you're a big racist if you suggest it's wrong, and immoral if you hate Droney."

Sounds Bad

Hospitalizations hit 100,000 in United States for first time since January https://t.co/a2jbXoi88u

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 26, 2021

For comparison, the UK, which has high vaccination rates and basically no covid restrictions left, has had a high case level, comparable to the US (I'd guess the UK has a lot more testing so the US is actually worse, but that's another issue), but around 1/3 of the population-adjusted hospitalizations. Big obvious difference is in the UK the not-completely vaccinated population is mostly <30 as vaccine eligibility priority was mostly by age and without a lot of anti-vaxxers.

Lunch Thread

Avocado toast time.

They'll Be Dead, Champ

I don't know what motivates everybody, but I suspect, "how will the HISTORY BOOKS remember them" does not rate particularly high for most people. I do not think the imagined potential judgment of history provides an especially strong incentive for elected officials and similar to not engage in bad deeds.

What's Politics

I do think a problem we have now is that more and more people who would've spent their lives blissfully unaware of the day to day bullshit of politics - The Politics Show - have it "forced" on them.

It's the curse of being very online. Once upon a time being very online was niche behavior, but now everybody is. Only weirdos knew the type of stuff we talked about on this very fine blog 15 years ago, only weirdos watched cable news, and now everybody has those narratives forced on them because they get it through facebook, or twitter, or their push notifications. Even without watching cable news, we're all sort of watching cable news.

For Democrats it's MSNBC/CNN type stuff, and for Republicans it's the alternative universe of Fox/internet media. I'm not saying being a well-informed citizen should only be for the few, I'm saying that most of this bullshit makes you less informed, not more, about things that matter.

Very sophisticated news consumers, like the readers of this very fine blog, can put it in its propert context, but for people less attuned to the broader conext, the bullshit is reality.

Well This Ends Badly

Weeks of incredibly one-sided press, hyperfocused on one single issue, shows that the media, as a collective, is capable of taking sides and focusing on one issue and elevating it above all other concerns.

They usually choose the wrong side, however, when "elite" opinion is at odds with popular opinion, when they're trying beat us over the head with something.

Not that popular opinion is always correct of course, but nor is the collective brain trust of the Morning Joseph Green Room and the Politico/Axios/Punchbowl defense contractor lobbyist offices newsrooms.

My first lesson in this was Clinton impeachment and everything that led up to it. Poll after poll after poll after poll with Clinton's popularity just soaring through it all and this viewpoint was not reflected anywhere whatsoever in the nonstop coverage from every media outlet. 

Morning Thread

I thought today was Labor Day. Time is a flat circle.

Sunday Night

Rock on.