Tuesday, January 14, 2025
The Fantasy Democratic Party
I wish these guys were real, but sadly they only exist in the heads of the New York Times Editorial Board.
The lesson for Democrats is there's no point in "moving to the right" as they'll never get any "credit" for it anyway. Even from the New York Times!
But in recent elections Democrats increasingly cast themselves as full-throated defenders of immigrants, regardless of legal status, while Republicans increasingly portrayed even legal immigration as a negative force in American life.Once you get past the 'clowns to the left, jokers to the right' framing, the piece is clearly way to the left of where the Democrats currently are, but self-identifying centrists can never acknowledge such things.
The lesson for Democrats is there's no point in "moving to the right" as they'll never get any "credit" for it anyway. Even from the New York Times!
Heroes And Villains
The story narrators get to choose, and by Chozick's somewhat unintentional admission, do we think they have good judgment about this?
I was admittedly swept up in Liz as an authentic and sympathetic person. She’s gentle and charismatic, in a quiet way. My editor laughed at me when I shared these impressions, telling me (and I quote), “Amy Chozick, you got rolled!” I vigorously disagreed! You don’t know her like I do! But then, something very strange happened. I worked my way through a list of Ms. Holmes’s friends, family and longtime supporters, whom she and Mr. Evans suggested I speak to. One of these friends said Ms. Holmes had genuine intentions at Theranos and didn’t deserve a lengthy prison sentence. Then, this person requested anonymity to caution me not to believe everything Ms. Holmes says.This warning stuck with me, and it got at something that had been gnawing on me since I first met Ms. Holmes. How do you have an honest conversation with a person whose fraud trial has played out so publicly? I tried to ask Ms. Holmes this directly. How do I believe you when you’ve been convicted of (basically) lying? But how could I ask someone who was nursing her 11-day-old baby on a white sofa two feet away if she was actually conning me?
There's no way I - a seasoned political reporter, completely entranced by Rudy Giuliani and Andrew Cuomo - could be conned!
The Politics Show
Chozick was one of the star political reporters for years. You can see her view of politics and political coverage: it is a grand epic requiring politicians well-suited to be cast in the role of hero, where performance is everything.
Rudy being filmed walking the streets on 9/11, or Cuomo being on cable news confidently saying things, represents both the apogee and the limit of politics. That is what politics is for. There is little need to ask why Rudy was on the streets instead of in his command center, or what Cuomo was doing when he wasn't performing. Only dorks would care about that stuff.
Most importantly, in The Politics Show, it is the stars of that show who are the protagonists, not the voters. We exist merely to watch, the politicians to perform, and the press to craft the narrative around that. What they actually do, what their policies do, is irrelevant.
I actually think political coverage is less like this now (it has other flaws), but it was journalism from 2000 to 2016
Monday, January 13, 2025
Mister We Could Use A Man Like Andrew Cuomo Again
...
People keep saying the scenes out of Los Angeles look like something from a movie. Except they don’t, not really. Movies need a protagonist. Every on-screen apocalypse has a leader. So where is ours?
...
I would love a deus ex machina to change this story line or for the real-estate developer and would-be mayor Rick Caruso to divert the dancing fountain at his mall, the Grove. For now, I’d settle for some reassurance that there is a plan. That it’s going to be horrific, but that we will get through this. Los Angeles will endure and rebuild. Together. For someone to, you know, lead.
...
I can’t keep up with Rudy Giuliani’s criminal indictments, but after Sept. 11, America’s mayor stood at ground zero and assured a broken city that the terrorist attacks would only make us stronger. Will someone — anyone? — stand in the detritus of the Pacific Palisades or Pasadena and say the same about Los Angeles?
...
In those dark early Covid months, Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York didn’t deliver niceties. (I’m not sure he’d know how.) But his daily briefings became essential.
Who is this person in the Times pining away for Rudy and Andrew? Who wants someone to go on teevee and pretend to do stuff, even if that stuff is catastrophic? Who just wants the tragedy to be a fun little story on TV, like her other fun stories on TV, like The Politics Show?
Hahaha. Nice try, New York Times.
Chozick began writing about Clinton in 2007, while working for The Wall Street Journal.[4] In 2008, she was a member of the traveling press of both Clinton and Barack Obama.[3] That year, Chozick wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal questioning whether Obama was too thin to be elected president, given the average weight of Americans; commentator Timothy Noah wrote that this was a racist dog-whistle that invited white people to focus on his appearance and consequently "dwell on…his dark skin."[5]
After writing for the Journal for eight years, she joined the Times in 2011 to write about corporate media.[6] In 2013, she was promoted to the Times' political team, with a focus on Hillary Clinton and the Clinton family.[7] In 2016, she said that as a result of her reporting on Clinton, specifically on her clinching the Democratic nomination for president in June of that year, that she had received death threats from supporters of Clinton's rival in this campaign, Bernie Sanders.[8]
She is the author of Chasing Hillary, a memoir about covering Clinton. With Julie Plec, Chozick adapted the book as a television series called The Girls on the Bus.[9]
In 2023, Chozick wrote a story extolling the putative transformation of Elizabeth Holmes, who was convicted for fraud in her role with Theranos, into a harmless suburban housewife. The piece was accompanied by glamorous photos of Holmes, including holding her two babies with a backdrop of the Pacific Ocean. Some media criticized Chozick for whitewashing a white collar criminal,[10][11] but others said the profile succeeded in capturing Holmes in the act of fooling the journalist assigned to profile her.[12]
Another Victory
As with the previous post, this is the kind of victory which you shouldn't have to applaud, but for now some sense prevailed in North Carolina where Republicans have been trying to enshrine the "Democrats aren't allowed to win" theory of Democracy.
...adding, the other case about the Supreme Court justice specifically is not over.
...adding, the other case about the Supreme Court justice specifically is not over.
Release It
I suppose that's something.
Judge Aileen Cannon said on Monday that she would not block the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s report on his investigation into Donald Trump and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
However, Cannon has scheduled a court hearing later this week regarding the part of Smith’s report dealing with the classified documents probe.
Ongoing Tragedy
I don't have any deep thoughts, but there's something hard to process about the fact that the fires in Los Angeles are still happening and aren't likely stop soon.
Is That Good
Though, really, even at the peak of the clickbait era, it was very wrong to assume that media outlets were solely or even primarily motivated by clicks or money generally.
Over the last four years, web traffic has cratered. According to internal data shared with Semafor in recent weeks, the Post’s daily traffic last year reached a nadir of just a quarter of what it was at its peak in January 2021. That month, the Post had around 22.5 million daily active users. But by the middle of 2024, its daily users hovered around 2.5-3 million daily users.Especially true with billionaire owners.
Suckers
Remember when Amazon had its "competition" for their new headquarters, every medium->large city in the country (including Philadelphia) spent 6 months devoting itself entirely to "completing the application" and then the winners were New York (never built) and suburban DC (where Bezos lives).
Everybody else just did free work for Amazon, ignoring other issues.
The City of Philadelphia and its transit agency were completely wrapped up in providing its basketball team a bargaining chip for two years, distracting them from other priorities.
I was against the Center City arena because it was clear to me, from the various submitted plans, that they didn't have any idea what they were doing, that they weren't even bothering to try to figure out the logistical issues.
I thought this was because they were dumbasses. I was wrong! It was because they really weren't trying too hard because they never expected to build it!
Everybody else just did free work for Amazon, ignoring other issues.
The City of Philadelphia and its transit agency were completely wrapped up in providing its basketball team a bargaining chip for two years, distracting them from other priorities.
I was against the Center City arena because it was clear to me, from the various submitted plans, that they didn't have any idea what they were doing, that they weren't even bothering to try to figure out the logistical issues.
I thought this was because they were dumbasses. I was wrong! It was because they really weren't trying too hard because they never expected to build it!
It was obvious they didn't even try to figure out the transit logistics in a serious way. The local transit authority did try to make this point, but almost no one who runs city government ever uses the local transit authority, so they have no idea and they were not going to listen.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
LOL
After tying up the political system for 2 years and getting approval, the Sixers said "uhh, never mind."
The 76ers are going to stay in South Philly after all, according to multiple City Council members.I'm only surprised they backed out before they knocked down a few blocks and fucked up the train system.
The team has struck a deal with Comcast Spectacor to remain in the South Philadelphia sports stadium district, after more than two years of heated debate over a potential new arena on East Market Street.
Housekeeping
I pulled the rss feed from Twitter both because Twitter is what it is and because they've limited the ability to do that. There's the basic RSS feed as well as one on Bluesky if you are interested!
Priorities
People are arguing over whether or not the LAFD had an annual budget cut to benefit the police, and while specifics matter when making accusations, no one can deny the general trend of prioritizing cop budgets over everything else over the past couple of decades.
Big municipality cops realized the less they do, the more money people will give them. Hell of an incentive structure!
Again, the point is not that $50 million one way or another in a particular annual budget would have made a huge difference, it's that politicians have been spending tax money on tanks to run over homeless people instead of anything which might possibly be useful. The politics show "demanded" it, but everyone forgot about the side gig of governing.
Popularism!
Big municipality cops realized the less they do, the more money people will give them. Hell of an incentive structure!
Again, the point is not that $50 million one way or another in a particular annual budget would have made a huge difference, it's that politicians have been spending tax money on tanks to run over homeless people instead of anything which might possibly be useful. The politics show "demanded" it, but everyone forgot about the side gig of governing.
Popularism!
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