Wednesday, May 31, 2023
Don't See How Donnie Two Scoops Wriggles Out Of This One
We'll see!
Federal prosecutors have obtained an audio recording of a summer 2021 meeting in which former President Donald Trump acknowledges he held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran, multiple sources told CNN, undercutting his argument that he declassified everything.
The recording indicates Trump understood he retained classified material after leaving the White House, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation. On the recording, Trump’s comments suggest he would like to share the information but he’s aware of limitations on his ability post-presidency to declassify records, two of the sources said.
Sam Alito's World
We only hear about a tiny fraction of these horror stories.
The Tennessee woman would end up needing a lifesaving emergency hysterectomy, ending her opportunity to give birth to more children, after she says she was denied medically necessary abortion care at a hospital in her home state for life-threatening complications earlier in her pregnancy.
Homeowners Insurance
This is good.
And sure, you don’t have to be great at math to see that an annual insurance bill that compounds at something like 50% a year is, in short order, going to make it economically stupid/ impossible to keep living in your hurricane/ fire-prone home. But banks won’t write mortgages on uninsurable property. This sure is a pickle! What to do? The states themselves, desperate to look like they are solving the problem, have their own (expensive) insurance, which they sell to homeowners who can’t get anything better. But these state insurance firms are, if we’re being honest, a comforting fiction. State governments do not possess enough money to make homeowners whole in the event of a really bad disaster, like a major hurricane plowing through South Florida. Just as a point of perspective, last September Hurricane Ian—which could have been worse!—caused $100 billion in total losses, $60 billion of which was insured. One hundred billion dollars is equal to the total budget of the State of Florida. Unless you think Ron DeSantis is going to be holding some very creative yard sales after the next hurricane, it is clear that the system is marching further towards absurdity with every passing year, as private insurers decide the risk is just not worth it.The cool kid's philosopher had the answer: people can just sell their homes and move.
Journamalism
Just pondering how Elizabeth Holmes had a massive PR push in a last attempt to postpone or stay out of prison, and how much that made clear how "PR" is just getting "objective" journalists to launder your client's marketing campaign.
Not really making a point about Holmes here, but it just highlights another way in which journalism is rigged to tell the story of rich people, by rich people, even as editors are currently whining about how The Wokes in the newsroom are telling them they should interview a black person occasionally inbetween all those Ohio diner visits.
Not really making a point about Holmes here, but it just highlights another way in which journalism is rigged to tell the story of rich people, by rich people, even as editors are currently whining about how The Wokes in the newsroom are telling them they should interview a black person occasionally inbetween all those Ohio diner visits.
Hype Machine
Quite impressed the SV guys are going with, "AI will change the world and be worth trillions, also it might destroy the world, also you must give us more money and protect us from competition so we can make sure it doesn't destroy the world."
It's just a fancy chatbot. We're no closer to "AI" than we were 20 years ago.
(I am sure someone will disagree with that, but really we're not)
It's just a fancy chatbot. We're no closer to "AI" than we were 20 years ago.
(I am sure someone will disagree with that, but really we're not)
The Sensibles
Regularly there are issues that the sensible centrist commentariat decides they are Serious about and anyone to the left is childish, ridiculous, and, especially, hurting their own cause. I don't think The Left or any of its meager institutions are perfect, of course, but The Sensibles are always claiming that there are compromises to be had that no one has actually put on the table, and that magically align with just what The Sensibles want.
Somehow it's always The Left - the most powerless political group unless you define power as "ability to annoy me on twitter" - who fail to embrace these compromises and not, you know, The Chamber of Commerce.
Basically it's always like the mythical "abortion compromise" that only exists in their heads. If only those PRO-ABORTION EXTREMISTS had been willing to compromise (party with whom they are supposed to compromise unspecified) then abortion would still be legal. That kind of thing.
This Dave Roberts thread is about energy transmission, with the basic punchline:
Not understanding - or pretending not to understand - who actually has power is one of their issues.
Somehow it's always The Left - the most powerless political group unless you define power as "ability to annoy me on twitter" - who fail to embrace these compromises and not, you know, The Chamber of Commerce.
Basically it's always like the mythical "abortion compromise" that only exists in their heads. If only those PRO-ABORTION EXTREMISTS had been willing to compromise (party with whom they are supposed to compromise unspecified) then abortion would still be legal. That kind of thing.
This Dave Roberts thread is about energy transmission, with the basic punchline:
Details matter, and the "compromise" only exists in the heads of the people who are used to getting everything they want. When they don't, they imagine that it's the meddling kids who are to blame instead of THE FUCKING FOSSIL FUEL LOBBY.Turns out, if you lie down with a bunch of people who want more fossil fuels & less clean energy, you wake up with ... more fossil fuels & less clean energy. But at least you got a few sweet, sweet months of lecturing activists about not being Serious.
— David Roberts (@drvolts) May 29, 2023
Not understanding - or pretending not to understand - who actually has power is one of their issues.
Tuesday, May 30, 2023
Occasionally Throw One Into The Volcano To Appease The Gods
So rare for "white collar" criminals to actually go to prison.
BRYAN, Texas (AP) — Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes is in custody at the Texas prison where she will spend the next 11 years serving her sentence for overseeing an infamous blood-testing hoax, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Quite The Day For The Guardian Media Group
Gotta get more bigoted!
In mid-April, a group of senior writers and editors at The Guardian met as part of the company’s ‘Diversity and Inclusion Week’ to discuss pushing gender-critical narratives ‘fearlessly,’ with the paper’s anti-trans slant clearly not enough for them.
The Chris Christie Decade
I see the column from Michelle Cottle was just the initial push for their old favorite GOP Daddy, Chris Christie. Maggie's going all in.
"We love GOP politicians who yell at people, so virile and manly" seems to be the common theme of their political crushes. Michelle Cottle said as much.
Bullies yelling at each other! Now this is the politics we crave! Everything else is BOORRRRIIIING.
"We love GOP politicians who yell at people, so virile and manly" seems to be the common theme of their political crushes. Michelle Cottle said as much.
Getting a NYT columnist to promote you just before a NYT journalist goes big with your SUPER PAC and likely presidential campaign, that's just smart politicking, baby.
The Worst News Media On The Planet
That fucking newspaper has been doing good reporting on the UK media, which contrary to the views of many Americans who imagine it's all like BBC World Service, is, genuinely, the worst in the world.
Spiked because they're all jolly chums, basically.
Inside The Financial Times newsroom this winter, one of its star investigative reporters, Madison Marriage, had a potentially explosive scoop involving another newspaper.Cohen's about as left wing as peak "Chris Hitchens screaming about Clinton, Islamofascism, and the Iraq war" which is to say not at all, but he was coded as such. You'll struggle to find anything left wing in anything he has ever written. This is a good example from the era.
A prominent left-wing columnist, Nick Cohen, had resigned from Guardian News & Media, and Ms. Marriage had evidence that his departure followed years of unwanted sexual advances and groping of female journalists.
Spiked because they're all jolly chums, basically.
But her investigation on Mr. Cohen, which she hoped would begin a broader look at sexual misconduct in the British news media, was never published. The Financial Times’ editor, Roula Khalaf, killed it, according to interviews with a dozen Financial Times journalists.It was the Russians and transgenders wot did it!
...
The British news media is smaller and cozier than its American counterpart, with journalists often coming from the same elite schools. Stringent libel laws present another hurdle. And in a traditional newsroom culture of drinking and gender imbalances, many stories of misconduct go untold, or face a fight.
In a phone interview, Mr. Cohen said he did not have the “faintest idea” about Ms. Siegle’s accusation and questioned why she had waited so long to report it. He said the conversation with the copy editor was “joking” among friends. He blamed their accusations on a campaign by his critics, including advocates for Russia and for transgender rights.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)