Late Night

Rock on.

Late Night

Rock on.

It's Illegal For Black People To Carry Guns

Reminder: As Gov. of California, Ronald Reagan outlawed *all* public carry of guns (open or concealed) because Black Panthers were doing it.

— Eric Kleefeld (@EricKleefeld) August 13, 2017

I mean, whatever the law says, if asked my advice, I would tell a black person who was going to carry that they were nuts to do so. I got into a little twitter exchange between a local transit authority cop and someone about whether people could carry guns on our local transit authority system (they can, with the proper permits), and the other person said something like "but what if BLM protestors are carrying?" I didn't try to figure out if the person was trolling or not (certainly might have been), but of course the basic point is that white people can carry guns but black people are considered to be threatening if they do so they can be shot on sight.

And while I wouldn't recommend it, the way to get gun law reform in this country would be for a revival of black people getting open carry permits and carrying them while wearing scary uniforms. It would probably get a lot of them killed, but...

Hobbies

I am in no denial about the fact that extreme racism and racists exist in this country. Still, we all have to figure out how to spend our weekends. I really don't mean this in a flippant way, but how does "attend white supremacist march" even rank?

Evening Thread

This song is Good.

Actually, Nazis Are Good

That's where we are.

Afternoon Thread

Seems like naptime (I rarely actually nap) comes earlier and earlier these days #old.

So What's The Answer

I mistakenly blundered into this topic on the twitterz last night and have received about 400,000 replies about it, so I will mistakenly blunder into this topic on this sucky blog too!

To some degree the 2016 election story is if the butterfly had flapped its wings a minute later, Hillary Clinton would be president. It was close enough that trying to divine "WHY SHE LOST" is a bit dumb, if the question is limited to "why Donald Trump, instead of Hillary Clinton, tripped over the finish line first."

But the bigger question is, why was it even close? I mean, it's Donald fucking Trump. People get mad when this question is asked. It's racism! It's misogyny! It's voter suppression! It's stupid Jill Stein Berniebros! I have no real interest in blaming Hillary Clinton or the Clinton campaign, but, you know, we gotta win the next one. People want to say, well, watchagonnado? Voters are horrible and racist and misogynistic and we're just doomed. We'd have won if not for those meddling kids!

There's a kind of "NOTOURFAULT" fatalism which does not bode well for the next election. If there is absolutely nothing "we" could have done differently - and I don't mean a critique of Clinton's ad spending or other campaign minutiae, but Democrats over the previous 8 years - then... pack it in, I guess? It's Trump's America now?

Punching Up Punching Down

The former is always fine, the latter is usually not. Occasionally people are understandably a bit confused. Not everyone realizes that they are "up" enough that they are capable of punching down. You might not be a member of the Yankees, but even just being a Yankees fan means you're probably punching down.

Free Speech Absolutism

I went to a state university. You still had to get permission to do anything (hang banners, have a protest, etc.). I really am curious (I have no idea! Can't find in the reporting!) if any group can march around the UVA campus with torches on a Friday night because FREE SPEECH or if as is always the case free speech asbolutism only applies when the people in charge decide it does.

I'm not debating what the policy should be. I'm asking what it is.

Saturday

Another day, another white supremacist rally.

Late Night

Rock on.

Broadcasts From Bizarro Earth

I heard a bit of a hilarious parody of NPR. The comedian actors were all taking the utterances of "President Trump" very seriously as they presented the news of the day. Quality production.

Happy Hour Thread

Don't worry.

America's Worst Humans

David Brooks.

Not Everything Is Bernie Vs. Hillary

What I have been not so subtly suggesting, is that for whatever reasons the 2016 primary has led many people to take sides in an imagined ongoing battle. Something can be Good or Bad independent of whether BernieBros or ClintonStans (or Bernie or Clinton themselves) are for it or against it. We all choose a team during election and put our jerseys on. I get that. But it's over... Arguments going forward are about THE FUTURE.

We Have A Problem

In the short term, the incompetence of Trump's evil is a blessing, but longer term the incompetence is a problem. All of the extreme versions of what to do about it are, if not wrong, problematic (impeachment, 25th amendment), but the simple solution of Republicans in Congress completely opposing everything he says or does is a non-problematic and appropriate response. Sadly, many of them (not Yertle or most senators but many in the House) are as stupid as he is and have no idea what they're doing.

Actually, Bad Things Are Good

Once upon a time it was pretty uncontroversial around certain fringe parts of the internet to suggest that maybe Debbie Wasserman Schultz was a bad member of Congress, a bad spokesperson for Democrats on the teevee, and a very bad head of the DNC, a job which in some ways is not all that important but also involves controlling hundreds of millions of dollars. Then Bernie supporters (agree with them or not) got mad at her, and suddenly she became Good to some people.

Even if the Bernie supporters were wrong about why she was bad, she was, actually, bad.

Lives

Leaving aside the rather obvious issues, it of course never occurs to Trump that a bunch of people have just had their lives completely disrupted.

Nicholas Burns, the State Department's third-ranking official under Republican President George W. Bush, called Trump's comments "grotesque."

"If he was joking, he should know better," said Burns, now a professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. "If he wasn't, it's unprecedented. A president has never defended the expulsion of our diplomats."

The State Department has "horrified and rattled" by Trump’s remarks, said a veteran U.S. diplomat who has served in Russia, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Yes we already knew that Trump is a sociopathic narcissist and other people don't really exist to him, but...

How I Learned To Stop Worrying

Okay... I didn't.

Late Night

Rock on.

Conspiracies

Adam is right that elites ignore (suppress) the actual important conspiracy theories that drive our public policy (killing people).

This is really the funniest thing I have ever read!

I tried to excerpt a paragraph. I can't. Every word is so titillating! So exciting! Like Neal Pollack mocking Ernest Hemingway mocking Christopher Hitchens mocking Michael Kelly mocking Graham Greene without realizing Graham Greene was mocking all of the other ones (Neal Pollack is in on the joke). Since I do not want to be sued, I will comment on this piece as if this "Jeffrey Goldberg" character is a hilarious parody of "Jeffrey Goldberg" who is a very serious person!

HU-MANS

I am actually better about honest genocidal rhetoric than the dishonest "we must kill them to save them!" rhetoric but nobody who wants war with any country in the world actually gives a shit about the people of those countries. None of those people* cared about the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc...

*Of course some people care, but those who think humanitarian aid starts and ends and "bombing the fuck out of people" don't give a shit...

Norms

I admit that the things that get you fired - or don't get you fired - are a bit weird.

America Is The Greatest Country In The World Because ______

Can you fill in the blank, snark free? I mean, like, what are we doing right that most comparable nations (I don't really know what we call that group anymore. The Group Of NotPoor Nations I guess).

I am not being snarky. I think 30 years ago it would have been easy to fill in that blank. Maybe people would have put slightly wrong things in there (we have FREEDUM AND THEY DON'T or whatever), but they wouldn't have been completely insane. Now?

I cannot tell you what to write, dear commenters, so I cannot stop you from your jokes, but I actually mean this as a serious question.

This Is The Greatest Parody Of The Stupid Freshman Essay Ever

Oh, wait, it's not a parody?

Law professors. That is the biggest scam ever. I don't know how they pulled it off for so long.

I Actually Had Not Read This Before My Cranky Morning Post

But you should.

Skills Gap

I did a lot of temp secretarial work when I was in college. I could type. I could use those newfangled word processor programs. That I was a dude doing these supposedly chick things amused the people who I was sent to work for, but that's not the point of this post.

Some office work is pretty standard. A bit of typing. Answer the phone. Take a message. File something. That kind of thing. Some is not standard, ranging from minor things like "where exactly should the phone messages be placed" to "just how does one get the copying center to send out a 65 page document, bound in this particular fashion, to this specific subset of employees." It was always pretty stunning how much the "bosses" expected me, a temp, to know things like the latter. It's like, hey man, I am not familiar with your internal company practices. They don't teach that on the word processor training software at the temp office. If you ask me to do that I am not going to have any idea how to do it. If you want people to know that stuff you have to hire them and train them.

Good Question

i'm curious. Do people think Trump knows that Mitch McConnell's wife serves in his cabinet?

— Daniel Gross (@grossdm) August 10, 2017

The Primary, Man

For most of my time on the Online Left I thought it was pretty much generally accepted that the Democrats were not quite as Good as they should be, and while pragmatism (gotta get elected, gotta raise money, gotta deal with bad apples in your own party, etc...) was acknowledged - and debated - it wasn't especially controversial to say things like "politicians are influenced by big donors and corporate interests more than they should be" even if what to do about that was not always agreed upon.

Now this is apparently a crazy BernieBro view and pointing out that, say, 5000000 emails in a row from the DCCC informing us that we're all going to die unless I contribute $5 to their latest scam, might not actually be a strategy designed to win elections, is just proof that people are employed by Jill Stein and also, too, Russia.

The powers that be are not all Good. Some are better than others. This didn't use to be controversial. That Trump is Bad does not change this.

Wednesday Night

Tomorrow is...Not Friday!

New Mouse

Thanks to all who commented and wrote with suggestions about how to find one. I did manage to find one on that auction site. Hopefully it lasts another 10 years or whatever.

Making Fun of the Conservative Idiots

I don't do it as much as I used to, and other people always did it better, but Roy is still on the job...

Bad Mitchy

The tweeter is spending his vacation saying nasty things about the Senate Majority Leader. It's funny to watch and I can't think of any actual strategy (I know Trump has no strategy but sometimes his people push him into one) other than "NOT MY FAULT NOT MY FAULT."

The larger question is what happens when more Republicans realize the obvious - that Trump will take all the credit and give them all the blame every time, quite often not even having any idea when something good or bad (from his perspective) has happened. How much shit will they eat?

Pretty sure the answer is: a lot of shit.

Afternoon Thread

enjoy

Reading Is Hard

I don't think Trump is actually illiterate, but for whatever reason (there are some obvious possibilities but above my pay grade to diagnose) he finds it difficult to stay on the page.

Per WH sources: Trump improvised 'fire and fury' -- paper he looked was an opioid fact sheet. Kelly 'surprised' not shocked... more tk

— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) August 9, 2017

Always Read To The End

The first article I read neglected this bit.

The cars themselves are modified Chevrolet Bolt EVs equipped with sensors and self-driving computers and software, and each also has a safety driver in place behind the wheel for testing and as required by law. Still, Cruise says those drivers have had to take over manual control of vehicles engaged in Cruise Anywhere service only on a few occasions, with the vast majority of the driving done autonomously.

The promo video has passengers entering a car that has no driver, and the driver is deliberately obscured in the driving shots. The PR game is strong.

I think this technology is going to be super neato. You also won't be able to get rid of the drivers, and autonomous cabs, the focus of so much attention, seem like the nuttiest application. There are many reasons, but one is...cabs do things like double park (stand) to pickup and drop off passengers.

Well Then

Interesting.

FBI agents raided the Alexandria home of President Trump’s former campaign chairman late last month, using a search warrant to seize documents and other materials, according to people familiar with the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Federal agents appeared at Paul Manafort’s home without advance warning in the predawn hours of July 26, the day after he met voluntarily with the staff for the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Lots Of War But... Not Too Much!

I'd say our commentariat should rethink their approach to basically cheering on belligerence and killing and war and bomb dropping and droning and slaughter right up to a point...and then saying, uh, hey dude, maybe that's a millimeter too far!

But I'm just some stupid blogger. All of our wars are great successes, and have nothing but helped the people we are there to help! Because that's why we're there!!!

Still Alive

Practicing Duck and Cover.

Late Night

Rock on.

Why, Bro?

Why oh why.

Two weeks ago, when I spoke to Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House communications director—the same conversation in which he pilloried several colleagues, threatened to fire his entire staff, and claimed to have called the F.B.I. to investigate the White House chief of staff—he offered some cryptic thoughts about Vice-President Mike Pence. “Why do you think Nick’s there, bro?” Scaramucci asked me, referring to Nick Ayers, Pence’s recently installed chief of staff. “Are you stupid?” He continued, “Why is Nick there? Nick’s there to protect the Vice-President because the Vice-President can’t believe what the fuck is going on.” Given everything else Scaramucci told me that day, I left this exchange out of my original article about the conversation. But, in light of the news this week about Pence’s political machinations, the remarks seem worth revisiting.

Should have been the lede then...

I Feel Fine

Our constitution is not perfect.

Fire and Fury

In light of today's excitement, these are excellent companion pieces.

Twice a day since the beginning of the Trump administration, a special folder is prepared for the president. The first document is prepared around 9:30 AM and the follow-up around 4:30 PM. Former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and former Press Secretary Sean Spicer both wanted the privilege of delivering the 20- to 25-page packet to President Trump personally, White House sources say.

These sensitive papers, described to VICE News by three current and former White House officials, are not top-secret intelligence or updates on legislative initiatives. Instead, the folders are filled with screenshots of positive cable news chyrons (those lower-third headlines and crawls), admiring tweets, transcripts of fawning TV interviews, praise-filled news stories, and sometimes just pictures of Trump on TV looking powerful.

And:

If one dead American service member won him this much praise, just imagine how much they’ll respect him when he kills a couple hundred—or a couple thousand!

Now that Trump has learned that there is a direct relationship between a president’s body count and how “presidential” the mainstream political press considers him to be, the whole world is fucked.

They're All Bad

Talk of "litmus tests" is always stupid. "We" all care about things differently, have different priorities. Pretty sure the "litmus test" of "not voting for a democratic candidate who wants to put Muslims in internment camps" would be seen as a reasonable "litmus test" by most democratic thought leaders. I hope so, anyway. People being pushed as "rising stars" or whatever (likely presidential candidates) are going to have some scrutiny of their records because that's how things work. Double standards people hold due to race or gender are worth investigating, but they don't change the record.

As for the foreclosure crisis, as David says, they're basically all bad. The foreclosure crisis (and its related mortgage fraud) was an economic, legal, and moral injustice, and also political malpractice. "I feel your pain" was not something that any people victimized by it heard from politicians. Sure there were some members of Congress who tried, and really the fault of this is almost entirely on Barack Obama, but basically they were (and still are) almost all bad on this issue. Some of us think it's an important issue! Several million people, at least!

That they're all bad doesn't get anybody off the hook. If you're thinking about running for president, it's fair that people ask you to be better. You're asking to be president! You're claiming you are better. I'll almost certainly pull the 'D' lever when the time comes, but not everybody will. Not everybody votes...have you noticed?

Lunch Thread

enjoy

Free To Be Just Like Me

The freedom rhetoric among conservatives who basically preach conformity has always been amusing. It's also a glibertarian thing. The conservatives can at least try to justify why conformity is conservative, if not about FREEDUM, but coming from glibertarians it's absurd. You know, "I dream of a society where everybody is free to take my precise path in life so they can be as successful as I am in the competitive market economy, as a tenured law professor at a state university."

Oh, Really?

As I keep warning...

We are moving rapidly down the road toward the age of self-driving cars. But as the cars change, the roads will have to change with them, and it will likely mean some adjustments, such as different signage and narrower lanes.

Somehow there's always money in the banana stand if someone else is trying to make a buck.

These things are not going to work, and 'we' are going to spend a lot money trying to make them work.

Late Night

Not enough awareness of obscure local accents in this country.

I Guess Trump Becomes President Again

Because there's nothing like killing people to make him one.

The Pentagon is considering a plan that allows the U.S. military to conduct airstrikes on ISIS in the Philippines, two defense officials told NBC News.

Wolverines!

America's Shit Humans

ICE

Afternoon Thread

Enjoy.

Privatopia

This isn't just funny but it is, also, too, funny.

Tina Lam and Michael Cheng snatched up Presidio Terrace — the block-long, private oval street lined by 35 megamillion-dollar mansions — for $90,000 and change in a city-run auction stemming from an unpaid tax bill. They outlasted several other bidders.

Now they’re looking to cash in — maybe by charging the residents of those mansions to park on their own private street.

Those residents value their privacy — and their exclusivity. Past homeowners have included Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her financier husband, Richard Blum; House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi; and the late Mayor Joseph Alioto. A guard is stationed round the clock at the stone-gate entrance to the street to keep the curious away.

An Amusing Thing

Is talking about how The Kids Today (Except For My Kids) are all garbage people is pretty much a running thread in our great national discourse, but people (not all people) sure do get pissed off if you suggest the olds who presented them with this McDonalds Dystopia might have been a little bit less than perfect.

The Horrible Kids Today

This worship of WWII by people too young to have fought it and who miraculously forgot to sign up when they were of prime fighting age (Kuwait needed some liberating, Joe, where were you) is so bizarre.

Young men in the 1940s liberated Europe from Nazism and the Pacific from the Japanese Empire. Today, too many stay home playing video games. https://t.co/e7FTe0O20P

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) August 7, 2017

I am sure there was wonderful heroism in World War II. Also tens of millions of people died. Let the kids play some fucking video games.

The Conversation

The Center: We are very pragmatic and sensible and know how to win elections.

The Left: You lost them all.

The Center: but Russia. Also, what have you won?

The Left: ...

Take either side, but..

The Irish Border Problem

I have no idea how the Brexiteers solve what is an unsolvable problem.

The Tweetening

I admit I can't deal with it this morning. Too much for first thing on a Monday.

Morning Thread

Every week, Monday comes around again. You can't explain that, my friends.

Dreams Do Come True

I know Felicia a little bit and this is just a cute story.

NEW YORK — Phish announced its 13-show run in New York with a video in January that showed giant doughnuts rolling through the city.

That got Felicia D’Ambrosio’s phone buzzing, with calls from friends hoping that might mean a role for the Phish superfan and co-owner of a Philadelphia doughnut and fried chicken shop that had made doughnuts dedicated to the band in the past.

“Well, no, I don’t want to work on Phish tour,” thought D’Ambrosio, who has been to more than 100 shows.

Then came the request. From the band.

Time to make the doughnuts.

America's Worst Humans

John Kelly

Sunday Evening

Lazy Sunday.

You Could've Stopped Working

I suppose it's true that anyone who wants to be president is a bit insane, but if you're totally lazy, reasonably well off, and would much rather watch TV and occasionally play golf..what the fuck are you thinking?

Sunday, Sunday

The day of rest.