I Bet Don Jr. Is Having A Good Weekend

Hilarious.

Still, Trump has confided to friends and advisers that he is worried the Mueller probe could destroy the lives of what he calls “innocent and decent people” — namely Trump Jr., who is under scrutiny by Mueller for his role organizing a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. As one adviser described the president’s thinking, he does not believe his son purposefully broke the law, but is fearful nonetheless that Trump Jr. inadvertently may have wandered into legal jeopardy.

hahahahahahaha

How's About

a little happy. Not much, but a little.

Afternoon Thread

I Don't Even

White supremacists are afraid of the city for reasons you understand, but I do not think this is a courtesy metro extends to every group.

#BREAKING: ATU Local 689 sources say KKK-affiliated hate group to be provided with 3 private Metro rail cars and police escort on day of 'Unite the Right Rally' in D.C. https://t.co/Yg6lPlKfBC pic.twitter.com/bzzBiGm6jT

— ABC 7 News - WJLA (@ABC7News) August 3, 2018

Morning Thread

Against Gentrification

Heroes.

In America’s less affluent neighborhoods, low-income minorities are often left to grapple with the gentrification juggernaut all on their own. But these marginalized people will be happy to know they have an ally in Ryan and Caitlin Hubbard and their son, Corey—a white, upper-middle-class family that is helping to fight the good fight by refusing to live anywhere that isn’t already 100 percent white.

6 Minutes

Because we see it happen differently on teevee and in the movies, I suspect most don't know that killing someone by asphyxiation with a chokehold takes *a long time.* 5 minutes or more of *continuous air obstruction.* It's hard to do. You really can't do it by accident.

A video recording of the arrest, obtained by The Advocate, shows officers growing frustrated with Frank, 44, after he refuses to step down from a tractor near a Walmart store along La. 1. A use-of-force expert who reviewed the 10-minute recording at the newspaper's request says the law officers escalated the exchange by placing Frank in a choke hold and attempting to yank him off the tractor.

And you, Mr. Stinson, are a shit person and I wish nothing but happy encounters for you with the police in your future.

Philip Stinson, an associate professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University, disagreed that the officers were to blame for escalating the conflict. Officers are entitled to use as much force as necessary while making an arrest, Stinson said.

“When a police officer says that they have a warrant for you, you need to get off the tractor and come with us, that’s not negotiable. You can’t negotiate that, even if it turns out there wasn’t a warrant or it was an invalid warrant,” Stinson said.

Friday Crass Commercialism

Got a bit behind on reading. Summer! But I read a good book.

The Supremos

If Kavanaugh is confirmed the Supreme Court will basically rule "Democrat laws are unconstitutional" until the balance goes back.

Shhh...Don't Tell Donald

CNN reporter:

Kristin Davis, the woman famously known as the "Manhattan Madam," met with special counsel Robert Mueller's team for a voluntary interview on Wednesday, according to four sources familiar with the situation.

— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) August 3, 2018

Kill Bars

Tall vehicles generally are deadly for pedestrians and smaller cars, but the addition of kill (bull) bars also reduces safety for the occupants of the vehicles. But they look cool, brah.

I know I live in an urban hellhole, but I live in a very residential neighborhood. Most streets around me are not thoroughfares. I actually think drivers are generally pretty decent, even if it's cool for people like me to complain about them. But it doesn't take that many bad ones to cause problems. The other day some guy started honking and was about an inch away from road rage because my friend was...crossing in a crosswalk, something she started to do before he even reached the stop sign.

Pedestrians are aliens some places, but in the city... unless you get chauffeured door to door literally everywhere, eventually you're a pedestrian. That people fail to realize this always puzzles me.

Remote Driving

Why public money?

Because self-driving cars are far from ready to handle all road situations, remote-driving is the not-so-secret secret of the autonomous vehicle industry. “The practical reality is you cannot deploy these vehicles without the human in the loop right now,” says Elliot Katz, a co-founder of Phantom Auto. In fact, the California DMV’s new rules for testing driverless cars without backup drivers behind the wheel demands that companies have remote operators. (Only two companies have applied for such a permit.) So some companies, like Phantom, choose to connect their remote operators with vehicles via cellular networks, allowing them to operate cars in trouble through desk-mounted steering wheels.

But in order to get that extra layer of safety, companies need to know that an area’s cellular services are robust. (The self-driving car equivalent of dropping a phone call can have fatal consequences.) So for $100,000 in public funds from the city of Sacramento, Phantom has committed to creating a live map of the city’s cellular networks, which it will eventually use to teleoperate self-driving cars. The company will also participate in two demo days, opportunities for the public to ride in driverless vehicles along two specifically mapped routes, which will be held sometime this year.

Why not? So much public money is going to be spent on this shit and hyperloop.

Dear Jeebus Give Me The Confidence And The Checkbook Of A Rich Person

I haven't spent a lot of time around rich people. Of course all such things are relative. Who is rich? People who are richer than me, obviously! Let's say people with household incomes heading towards 7 figures at least and the usual family wealth that tends to go along with that.

But I have, just a little bit. And I also read the various news reports containing quotes from wealthy prolific Democratic donors with their View On Politics.

Rich people are dumb. I mean, not dumber than me, necessarily, but they have no special knowledge or opinions about politics. I'd probably last 5 minutes in a Hamptons fundraiser for [insert Democratic candidate here] because the Hot Takes would melt my brain. They have dumb opinions like I have dumb opinions and you have dumb opinions and we all have dumb opinions.

They also have dumb opinions about what's important, which match up pretty well to the things that are important to them. This doesn't make them bad people. If I had kids I'd worry about public schools more. If I was 65+ I'd worry about Medicare more. It's normal. We are all capable of caring about these things in the abstract, but it's easier to do if they affect us immediately and directly. Priorities adjust, at least.

They also set the agenda.

Seven Virgins And A Mule

It's just professional wrestling for most of them.

Wow, behold the savvy!https://t.co/iRbmcIq4Hy pic.twitter.com/S4eP1JIcD2

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) August 3, 2018

Thursday Evening

Already? That means tomorrow is...

America's Worst Humans

Lisa Blatt.

Afternoon Thread

Rock on.

Enter the Stone Zone

Such fun.

A former aide to longtime President Trump confidant Roger Stone must testify before the special counsel’s grand jury, a federal judge in Washington ruled Thursday.

The judge rejected a challenge from Andrew Miller, a former assistant to Stone, who tried to block subpoenas from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III in his ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

People Are So Dumb

Nobody (except specialists) who writes about transit has ever even taken a bus.

Currently, even during non-rush hour, it can take 26 minutes by car to drive eight miles from downtown San Jose to Apple's new spaceship campus in Cupertino. It can be double that, or one full hour, to go that same distance by bus.

How do you get across Silicon Valley faster and smarter?

The answer could be a hyperloop - a vehicle powered by electric propulsion inside a low-pressure tube at speeds up to 670 miles an hour - about as fast as a commercial jetliner. The potential benefit came up at Cupertino's city council meeting.

Forget everything else about this "idea." Consider accelerating to 670 mph (or anything close) and then braking back to zero over 10 miles.

Anyway, as I said, hyperloop now means anything in one of Elon's fantasy tunnels. They aren't going to go that fast. They also won't be able to carry enough people (or cars on a sled or whatever).

Morning Thread

I Guess Mueller Read This Morning's Tweets

No obstruction! You're the obstruction!

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office wants to ask President Donald Trump about obstruction of justice, sources close to the White House tell ABC News. According to sources, the president learned within the last day that the special counsel will limit the scope of questioning and would like to ask questions both orally and written for the President to respond to.

(actually this inspired the tweets, of course)

People Are So Stupid

At this point "hyperloop" seems to be anything that travels in one of the tunnels that Elon hasn't built yet, not just the 700MPH vacuum tube bullet, but this is so dumb.

Elected Cupertino officials have been quietly meeting with hyperloop companies they say might be a better transportation solution than a business tax.

I can't read the article but the point is to get Apple to contract with "hyperloop" to build something from San Jose to the Apple Suburban Office Park of 60s Futurist Dreams, which is about 10 miles. Whatever "hyperloop" is, it's very low capacity. You don't need something to go very fast to go 10 miles. 75MPH in its own "lane" (tunnels, separated, elevated, whatever) is fast enough! You need to be able to put a few hundred on each trip. Elon's "I can build smaller tunnels...for cheaper" just means he can build... a lower capacity system. Add to that all the dumb stuff about driving your car onto a sled or whatever. It's low capacity.

Give Me All Your Money

And to think of the all the guilt and shame I feel when I ask you to chip in a bit, NPR style, to keep this pop stand running. So many grifts.

But “victory” isn’t the word most Valley Park residents would use to describe the results of Kobach’s work. With his help, the town of 7,000 passed an ordinance in 2006 that punished employers for hiring illegal immigrants and landlords for renting to them. But after two years of litigation and nearly $300,000 in expenses, the ordinance was largely gutted. Now, it is illegal only to “knowingly” hire illegal immigrants there — something that was already illegal under federal law. The town’s attorney can’t recall a single case brought under the ordinance.

“Ambulance chasing” is how Grant Young, a former mayor of Valley Park, describes Kobach’s role. Young characterized Kobach’s attitude as, “Let’s find a town that’s got some issues or pretends to have some issues, let’s drum up an immigration problem and maybe I can advance my political position, my political thinking and maybe make some money at the same time.”

Convince towns to pass unenforceable laws, and then get them to pay you to unsuccessfully defend them in court! What a grift!

Why Does My Neighborhood Restaurant Keep Failing?

There are certain parts of relatively central Philadelphia that have problems keeping adequate local establishments in business. Not huge parts, but little sections here and there. And the reason is very simple - these places don't have much foot traffic. There are "destination" retail corridors where visitors flock to, and there are destination establishments (that super well-reviewed restaurant) that also attract people from an extended area, but in the more residential neighborhoods - even fairly centrally located ones - local businesses depend largely on locals and local foot traffic. The only way to increase support for local retail is to reduce resistance to putting in some multifamily buildings (apartments/condos) here and there to increase the local population. Your local restaurant depends on it.

If I Did It

I still think that what keeps Trump up late at night isn't concern about going to the pokey - and not just because "I'm president, fuck you" - it's personal embarrassment that he's been living off laundered money and credit most of life. Rich guy ain't actually rich (or wasn't).

That isn't to say he doesn't deserve to go to the pokey, I just doubt it even factors into his little walnut brain.

The One That Brung Ya

When the Trump era is over, all the NeverTrumpers are going to expect their seats at the table, as they led the resistance.

Morning Thread

Our good friends at First Draft are having their annual fund raiser. They are trying to raise $1650.00 and are half way there. Surely we can help put them over.

Tuesday Evening

Enjoy.

Sure I'll Just Keep Going To The Gym Every Day

I'll pretend I work for you, you pretend I work for you, everybody's happy.

White House chief of staff John Kelly has agreed to remain in his post through the 2020 presidential election, according to a White House official, quelling rumors of an imminent departure due to tensions with President Trump.

Afternoon Thread

enjoy

Convoy

People - including me! - think that self-driving trucks of some sort are a more likely medium term successful application of self-driving technology than robotaxis. To me it's because you can set up fixed routes and do it from transhipment point to transhipment point with appropriate infrastructure installed somewhere out in the empty big middle.

But this ignores a couple of real if solvable issues. One is that people have been overlooking the fact that these robots just don't see very well very far ahead of them and have a hard time distinguishing moving from stationary objects at high speed. The second is, well, trucks weigh 35 tons and are traveling at very high speed and...

SAN FRANCISCO — What a long, strange trip it's been for Uber's self-driving truck division.

The ride-hailing company announced Monday that it was, for now, parking its effort to develop commercially viable self-driving trucks in order to focus on bringing autonomous cars to its service.

Somebody Is Wrong In The New Yorker

The crack research team at Eschaton World Industries gives this one eleventy Pinocchios.

Trump, as he often does, claimed that he invented the phrase “fake news.” (Indeed, he has said elsewhere that “fake news” is “one of the greatest of all terms I’ve come up with.”) In fact, “fake news” first entered the language in the late nineteenth century; it came to the fore most recently as a way of describing fabricated stories, not a few of them engineered for profit in Russia and other foreign countries. Trump adopted the phrase for his own purposes during the 2016 campaign and has deployed it as a weapon in his broader attempt to delegitimize the news outlets—the Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and many more—that he views as political adversaries, and to create a kind of parallel universe of “alternative facts” and realities.

Trump didn't start using "fake news" until 2017. It wasn't part of the campaign.

Morning Thread

If my theory is right, Tuesday is the new news dump day, something should be dumped, any minute now.

Monday Evening

enjoy

Remoaners

The politics and discourse around Brexit currently are very similar to those in the US surrounding the Iraq war. Suggestions that anti-Brexit Remainers are actually treasonous, and that the blame for a failed Brexit (not failure to happen, just that the consequences are bad) will land on the shoulders of those Remoaners for failing to clap loudly enough, based on the Tinker Bell theory of reality, are standard. Interesting times!

It Doesn't Make Any Sense That You'd Have to Spend $32 Trillion Instead of $34 Trillion Just To Save $2 Trillion

Ah the people who run our business press.

You need to spend $32 trillion to save $2 trillion doesn't sound like a selling point to me, but what do I know. https://t.co/lmwlniHksl

— Steve Goldstein (@MKTWgoldstein) July 30, 2018

Oh Noes

I love it how people in the UK pretend the EU cares. They just don't.

UK negotiators have told their counterparts in Brussels that about 7,000 European-based investment funds that rely on British clients for their cash and profits will be hit by regulators unless the EU changes its position on the City of London after Brexit.

Of course they care a little bit, but the EU is big and the UK is small, relatively. The UK has more to lose. On everything.

Informing Viewers

There's no way that even the best host of a TV news show can keep up with a guest who is willing to lie without reservations. At most you can clean up after the fact, something they don't do enough of. But what they can do is stop inviting these people on. "You lie to our viewers, you don't get to come back."

As with Kellyanne Conway, I don't think you can justify — on informing-the-public grounds — repeat invitations for Giuliani to do his thing. Because his "method" is confuse anyone listening, including himself. These interviews must have a different logic. pic.twitter.com/fePcvrXf3f

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) July 30, 2018

and a pony.

Too Obvious To Say

I am fascinated that Rudy goes on TV all the time basically admitting that Trump is guilty (of something). The sane response is just something like "Mueller can investigate as much as he wants but he won't find anything." And "Michael Cohen has no information that will put my client in jeopardy so this entire conversation is a waste of time." Instead it's all about how Cohen betrayed the mob boss and trying to undercut Mueller's credibility.

Morning Thread

Interesting article up over at the Halifax Examiner. Two guys run a tech scam that defrauds $86 million from investors. Company implodes in 2001. They aren't sentenced until 2018, and they can still appeal the sentences so there's a chance any real punishment is still years away. They were smart not to be born brown and arrested with a marijuana cigarette.

How Knowledge House Execs Played Halifax's Mucky Mucks

Logistics

Probably not that many people really see the system from above. That is, we are all little cogs in the great machine, only vaguely aware of the other bits that are necessary to make things work. But one purpose of a professional civil service is that they do have some people that understand these things. Or that should be the purpose. You can't just suddenly start ordering massive amounts of food from somewhere else. It just doesn't work.

Raab’s solution is just to find other countries to make up the shortfall. “The idea that we only get food imports into this country from one continent is not appropriate,” he said. But if that means , he is deluding himself.

Last week the Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London released a briefing paper written by, among others, Professor Tim Lang, looking at British food security post-Brexit. It pointed out that the US is currently only the tenth largest exporter of food to Britain. “For the US to replace the combined food imports from the other nine of the top 10,” the report said, “would require a vast food flotilla and logistics operation exceeding that of the 1940-45 Atlantic convoys.”

I have no clue, either, but it's easy to see how a few disruptions here and there could be catastrophic.

Sunday Afternoon

Oh dear. We're nearing...

"He also often tells the truth"

The president reached out to our publisher to talk. The president’s aides requested it to be off the record, which our publisher abided. The president broke his own agreement this morning. So here’s what happened, according to A.G. Sulzberger: https://t.co/wAglYTG9Zo

— Katie Rogers (@katierogers) July 29, 2018

The Ministry of Food

This won't be a temporary emergency situation.

Ministers have drawn up plans to send in the army to deliver food, medicines and fuel in the event of shortages if Britain crashes out of the EU without a deal.

Blueprints for the armed forces to assist the civilian authorities, usually used only in civil emergencies, have been dusted down as part of the “no deal” planning.

Helicopters and army trucks would be used to ferry supplies to vulnerable people outside the southeast who were struggling to obtain the medicines they needed.

It isn't like a bad weather event or something. It will be... forever.

They stopped using the phrase, but it was definitely the case that for a nontrivial amount of the population, what they heard when they heard "no deal is better than a bad deal" is that if they can't get a good Brexit deal, then the status quo would continue. Either we make things better or they stay the same.

No deal is... not that.

I've Never Even Met That John Barron Guy - He Doesn't Exist!

Healthy.

Had a very good and interesting meeting at the White House with A.G. Sulzberger, Publisher of the New York Times. Spent much time talking about the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, “Enemy of the People.” Sad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2018

Overnight