Saturday, July 31, 2021

Saturday Night

Rock on.
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Happy Hour Thread

Get happy.
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Sounds Bad

Winning the pandemic.
Saturday, the state of Florida reported more new COVID-19 cases to the Centers for Disease Control than any previous day in the coronavirus pandemic, 21,683.
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Making Sure There's No Such Thing As Society

Speaking in very general terms, "we do these things because we're all in this together" is not a message that has been communicated well or heard. Instead we got, "if you get the vaccine, your reward is you get to take off your mask, but it's the honor system, so you can take it off anyway." Transactional gibberish untethered from reality.
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Legitimate Power

A "weird" thing is that lobbyists and rich donors are understood to have a perpetual seat at the table. This is just the state of nature, unchangeable, and there's no point in interrogating its validity. Activists and people with very fine blogs and assholes getting mad on twitter are not "real life" and are not "representative" and should be ignored.
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Saturday Lunch

Chuck Schumer had better finish the work of the Senate because I have a vacation planned.
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Lock'em Up

The Washington Post has a long spread about the glorious moments of the Trump administration. The things he got right.

Gotta admit his early innovations in locking members of the press in cages had some merit.

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Saturday Morning

The week has ended.
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Friday, July 30, 2021

Friday Night

Rock on.
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Happy Hour Thread

Get happy.
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But Mah Pillow

Guy's been propping up Fox primetime singlehandedly.
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But Do They Want To See Them

We'll see!
The income tax returns of former President Donald Trump can be released by the IRS to Congress, the Department of Justice said Friday.

The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel said that Congress had made a request with a legitimate legislative purpose to see Trump’s tax returns.

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I Say This At Parties Regularly

But this is the important bit. Lock them all up!
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The Good News

UK (delta infested before the US) covid cases are falling and at least stabilizing, and while hospitalization numbers did unsurprisingly climb, they didn't climb very much relative to the number of caeses Vaccines seem to be effective enough against severe illness, and for whatever reason delta seems to be fizzling out.
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All Our Dreams Torn Asunder

Happy to be wrong, but even I felt a jolt of optimism when the administration hit the ground running and they were telling everyone they'd learned from Obummer's mistakes. In that giddy moment I would have called you a pessimist for suggesting we would be here at the beginning of August.
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Lazy

Some of them are.
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Morning Thread

Gotta get down on Friday.
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Thursday, July 29, 2021

Thursday Night

Rock on.
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Your Moment of Zen

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Thursday Happy Hour

Thirsty Thursday.
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All According To Plan

Nothing I type on this very fine blog will make a difference, but I was assured that the two-track DEAL and reconciliation would go through and, well, I don't feel so assured! I really don't like being proved fucking right most of the time.
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BILLIONAIRES IN SPAAAAAACE

One reason to do what they did is because they wanted to do it, another reason (as is obvious by the associated orchestrated publicity) is to impress the hell out of people. I suppose I'm not the target audience, and some people are really impressed, but it seems like old-dude-with-a-lambo territory. Really cool, old man.

Better ways to impress, I think, if you have that much cash...

(yes I know this is about now old news)

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Scuttling The Good Stuff

The Rs defied my expectations and pushed forward with the BIPARTISAN bill, but quite obviously they decided this was their best way to try to scuttle the good (reconciliation) stuff. They might have some help!
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Infrastructure Summer

Busy with life hassles, so outsourcing to dday.
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Thursday is New Jobless Day

400K new lucky duckies. Still high!
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Thursday Morning

Seems like every week has 2 of these now.
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Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Wednesday Night

Rock on.
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Happy Hour Thread

Get happy.
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Time Tax

My one big idea for a longer piece or book would have been something along these lines, about how contemporary life is filled with hassles that even the not quite rich enough or prety damn rich crowds can't pay their way out of easily. Unavoidable even for those with some money, and crushing for those without.
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Lunch Thread

Eat.
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Palin Trajectory

For somewhat similar reasons, Palin also never managed to be the kingmake her media cheerleaders kept trying to make her into.
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Actually, Dr. Frankenstein Was The Monster

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Wednesday Morning

Busy today. Blog might be less fine than usual!
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Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Late Night

Rock on.
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Your Moment of Zen

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Happy Hour Thread

Get happy.
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America's Worst Humans

Julie Kelly.
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That Is The Point Of All This

Or should be, at least.
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Well It's Groundhog Day... Again

Chuck Toddler 3 years ago.
Fox News adopted a similar strategy, rarely showcasing its own reporting or journalism. There are some great journalists at Fox, including Chris Wallace, Bret Baier, and Shep Smith, but it’s not an organization that emphasizes journalism. Instead, Ailes created an organization that focuses on attacking the “liberal media” whose “liberal bias” was ruining America. Almost any big story that was potentially devastating to a conservative was “balanced” with some form of whataboutism. The Ailes construction has been so effective that these days, I often get mail from viewers who say: Now that you’ve focused on all of President Trump’s misdeeds, you are biased if you don’t dedicate the same amount of time to Hillary Clinton’s misdeeds. It seems completely lost on this segment of the population that one person is the leader of the free world, and the other is a retiree living in the suburbs of New York City. Because journalists report on new and controversial ideas all the time, it’s not uncommon for us to be accused of championing an idea—think of same-sex marriage—that some members of our audience find objectionable. Letting folks know that a movement is afoot, and documenting its successes and failures, is our job. But Ailes exploited the public’s lack of knowledge of journalistic conventions, portraying reports about social change as advocacy for such change. He played up cultural fears, creating the mythology of a biased press.
Chuck Toddler today.
But now the Republicans have subsumed all of this and it’s turned into this. We should have fought back better in the mainstream media. We shouldn’t [have] accepted the premise that there was liberal bias. We should have defended. I hear the attacks on fact checkers where they “fact-check Republicans six times more than they fact-check Democrats.” Yeah. Perhaps the Republicans are being factually incorrect more often than the Democrats.

We ended up in this both-sides trope. We bought into the idea that, oh my God, we’re perceived as having a liberal bias. And I think for particularly the first decade of the century, I’d say mainstream media overcorrected. And we bought into the Fox motto of “balance.” And it’s like, Jesus, there’s no balance, they need the truth. There’s fairness, that’s different than balance. And so in that sense, this is why we’re in this defensive posture today.

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Just Laughing At This Point

They can't possibly fall for this again, hahahahaha....
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Keep It Simple

There are issues with how stores/etc. are empowered to enforce any rules they might choose to have, but the individual guidance always should have been "Hey, yah, if you're vaccinated you are probably ok, but why not keep masking up when you can!"
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The Art of the Deal

When different parties control different bits of government, our system does require "compromise" and "working together" and "some people not being total assholes." But there is no need for a deal for its own sake. Certainly 10 Republicans have no interest in doing it, even if maybe 3 would. Also, as the wise man said, "fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.”
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Morning Thread

Tuesday again.
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Monday, July 26, 2021

Monday Night

Rock on. I saw Mick once in a hotel bar. True story.
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Monday Evening

Tuesday soon!
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Delta Fade

The good news is cases in the UK are falling for no obvious reason. At least in a highly vaccinated population, delta might fade fairly quickly.

Or not! Who knows? Exciting!!!

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America's Worst Humans

Chris Nocco.
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Fox Redemption Arc

Recently Hannity suggested vaccines were good and every journalist in DC rushed to tweet out this exciting development as they always do when there is 5 seconds of sanity on that network and well...
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Lunch Thread

Get lunchin'
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China, You Say?

Truly unique in the world.
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Bipartisanship

If Republicans had a committee and the sole "democrat" was Connecticut for Lieberman senator Joe Lieberman, media members would give the savvy choice rapturous applause.
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GRIDLOCK

"Why can't politicians put aside their differences and get things done?" is something people say to NPR reporters.

Reporters hear, "Why can't they put aside their differences?" Voters are really asking, "Why can't they get things done?"

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Sunday, July 25, 2021

Late Night

Rock on.
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Happy Hour Thread

It's like Sunday brunch, but later.
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Summer Fundraiser Day Final

It's been an exciting week as always! Thanks to all!

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I know in some ways I have the easiest job in the world, but in others it is a bit of an inescapable long hard slog. I've managed to get better at finding ways to do things here that leave me more pscyhologically intact, but the inability to tune out ever (not unique to this, I know!) does weigh on me sometimes.

Easiest job in the world for a day, not so bad for a few weeks, but, well, been doing it for awhile now!

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Smashing My Dick With A Hammer To Own The Libs

"Owning the libs" as the animating purpose for most conservatives isn't a new thing that started with Trump. Though it is definitely something thing that Very Serious Commenters who want to believe it's all about Principled Support For Small Government or some such bullshit have ignored for years, and only dumb bloggers and a few of the more disreputable media members ever commented on.

Catching A Deadly Virus to Own The Libs does have a few more of them noticing, I think, if only because the virus affects them, also, too.

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Sunday, Sunday

Doing weekend stuff.
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Sunday Morning

For Jeebus.
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Saturday, July 24, 2021

Saturday Night

Rock on.
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Saturday Happy Hour

Saturday Caturday.
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Skipping The Jab To Own The LIbs

That is... not a reason that makes any sense.
Speaking to the Guardian, Fiscus admitted the conservative backlash against the vaccine was something she had not expected. “I think I really underestimated the political divide,” she said, noting that like many states Tennessee’s initial vaccine outreach had been focused on Black and minority communities with historic distrust of medical systems.

“We were all really surprised that [conservative rural white men] ended up being our most vaccine-hesitant population, and it’s not necessarily because of mistrust of government, it’s because of an ideology – that if I get this vaccine I am somehow placating the left wing of the political spectrum,” she said.

“To see people sacrificing their own health and wellbeing and that of their families and community to spite this perceived political benefit to the left is just really dumbfounding.”

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Hesitation

Their beliefs are incorrect, but it does follow that people who think the vaccines are dangerous or implanting you with a tracking chip, or whatever, choose not to get vaccinated.

I'm more puzzled by the people who, after everything, are more just thinking, "eh, can't be bothered."

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Lunch Thread

Some people are just assholes.
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Summer Fundraiser Day 6

Almost done!

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Why Not Both?

The NYT loves to publish the worst people in the world.
It isn't that I am demanding mask mandates everywhere, but this absurd representation of masking - even voluntary - as some sort of extreme encroachment on freedum has been a problem all along.

Reader, her friends were not vaccinated. They should have been of course, but the consistent thing is fuck everyone but me and mine.
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Morning Thread

Damn blogger CMS.
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Friday, July 23, 2021

Late Night

 Rock on.



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Happy Hour Thread

 Friday again.

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How Ron DeSantis Won The Pandemic

That was the actual title of a Politico piece. Not sure what is more ridiculous: The usual insistence on finding a heroic Republican who was owning the libs by doing it his way. Declaring his policies a great success despite the outcomes being average. Or holy fuck did you just say he won the pandemic? Or as always... premature.
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Brigaded By The Vile Trolls Again

Part of The Discourse is an endless cycle of reporters showing their asses on Twitter, left-leaning critics pointing out that their asses are out, and the entire profession rallying behind their bare-assed colleagues, insisting that no ass can be seen. The problem, you see, is our critics and readers are idiots who are not Advanced Politics Knowers Like Me, a person who understands how The Truth can only be reached if Jim Jordan is on this committee, a conclusion I have reached after watching his behavior over the past couple of years. A source familiar with Jim Jordan's thinking agrees with this.
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Summer Fundraiser Day #5

Not many days left, don't miss out on all the fun!

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Bart

"Everybody" (including Republicans, including the supposedly good Republicans) knows there's a bunch of nasty corrupt shit about Kavanaugh that they buried. Burying it is also, too, an act of corruption.

I'm sure these investigations and impeachment will start promptly.

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Morning

Like sands through the hourglass...
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Thursday, July 22, 2021

Late Night

Rock on.
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Thursday Evening

Don't give me that do goody good bullshit!

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Broken Brains

I've seen enough significant events to know that there's no hope that our elite political journalists (#notalljournalists) will change their behavior when confronted by some serious shit going down. It's been an eventful 20 years or so! And, well, same nonsense.

Oldheads might remember there was a bit of public self-reflection after 9/11, coming as it did at the end of THE SUMMER OF THE SHARK. Time to take things seriously!!! And, well, you know how that all turned out.

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The Woke Forces Are Winning

Can't even do some racism and misogyny anymore.
In a sweeping shake-up, CBS has ousted two senior managers responsible for its television stations in Los Angeles and Chicago.

The move extends a dramatic management makeover within the network’s stations group in the wake of a Los Angeles Times investigation, which uncovered alleged misconduct, racism and misogyny within the division. In April, CBS tossed out the head of its flagship New York station, Peter Dunn, who also was a hands-on manager of the group of 28 CBS-owned television stations since 2009.

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Afternoon Thread

Busy with stuff that makes me busy.
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Independence Day

There was no one quick trick to stopping the Delta spread, but obeying the smartest boys on the interent and telling every vaccinated person to go ahead and rip their mask off was not smart!
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention struck a new tone of urgency on Thursday about the coronavirus pandemic, warning that the United States is “not out of the woods yet” and is once again at a “another pivotal point in this pandemic” as the highly infectious Delta variant rips through communities with low rates of vaccination.

The warning from the director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, during a briefing by members of the White House Covid-19 response team, was a marked shift from just weeks ago, when President Biden threw a big Fourth of July party on the South Lawn of the White House to declare independence from the virus.

I just don't get that after living with it for all this time, supposedly smart people don't get the basics:

* Wearing a mask is not a big fucking deal

* Every little bit helps

* Vaccinated people can still get infected, especially with the Delta variant, and can spread it even if they're relatively asymptomatic

* Once you tell vaccinated people to take their masks off, there go the masks

* Did I say every little bit helps?

There was at least a month warning from the UK experience which should have been heeded.

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Elite Political Journalism

What can you even say about paragraphs like this.
The inability of the House to move forward with a bipartisan committee marks the latest failure in repeated attempts by members of Congress to investigate the first storming of the Capitol in more than 200 years. Both parties have attacked the other as insincere and uninterested in conducting a fair-minded examination of the attack by Trump supporters seeking to overturn the 2020 election.
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America's Worst Humans

Chris Cillizza
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Summer Fundraiser Day #4

Tell me to quit this blog whenever grumpy old racist man syndrome sets in and I start ranting about how we'd have the progressive paradise by now if women and minorities would just shut the hell up.

This happened to a bunch of 60s "liberals" but I didn't expect it to happen to "my" generation. Ah well.

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It's Always Good News For Republicans

We joke about this, but whenever there is any sort of confrontation between Republicans and Democrats, the beltway CW is the Republicans will win the day/week/month/eternity. Along with that is the notion that the Republicans are always being benevolent and holding back, because they can always pull out whatever the "today" version of Democrats are terrorist lovers is (it's all just versions of Demorats are a-word-I-will-not-use-lovers). It's only because of the restraint and high class manners of Republicans that Democrats ever win anywhere except a few urban hellholes populated by those people.

The audience for this stuff ain't the people at the Ohio diners, it's people who work for Politico, Punchbowl, and Axios.

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Thursday Is New Jobless Day

419K new lucky duckies. Still high!
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Morning Thread

enjoy
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Wednesday, July 21, 2021

Wednesday Night

Rock on.
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Wednesday Evening

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. Paypal:


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Happy Hour Thread

Midweek madness.
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This Is Excellent News For John McCain

It always is.
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But Get Vaccinated

Because you have a much greater chance of dying unless you do.
Dr. Brytney Cobia said Monday that all but one of her COVID patients in Alabama did not receive the vaccine. The vaccinated patient, she said, just needed a little oxygen and is expected to fully recover. Some of the others are dying.

“I’m admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID infections,” wrote Cobia, a hospitalist at Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham, in an emotional Facebook post Sunday. “One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”

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Brain Genius Stuff

Our betters are frequently dumbasses.
“When you get up there, and you see it, you see how tiny it is and how fragile it is,” Bezos continued. “We need to take all heavy industry, all polluting industry and move it into space.”
McArglebargle always has perfect timing.
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Summer Fundraiser Day #3

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The Real Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan Was Just The Friends We Made Along The Way

Over the years we've witnessed numerous bipartisan "gangs" and every single time the Republicans steal the lunch money from the Democrats. Sometimes this is probably just a show, the Dems involved are happy to give the Republicans what they want. But quite often I think these are seemingly lonely (mostly) guys who relish the opportunity to have a few extra lunches and meetings with their pals and an opportunity to feel special for a few weeks.

You don't have to be a bit nuts to be a House or Senate member (you do have to be nuts to want to be president), but the jobs do attract some nutters. A certain kind of social weirdo who crave a bizarre kind of attention. Think Lindsey Graham. Not saying the Dems I am thinking of are like him in all ways, but in some.

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In Our Base Killing Our Own Dudes

I want to push back on the idea that a next covid wave is unvaccinated Trumpkins only. It isn't. HOWEVER, as has been the case all along, and even moreso now, targeting your own voters/audiences/financial supporters is an interesting plan!
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Morning Thread

Wed
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Tuesday, July 20, 2021

Tuesday Night

Rock on.
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Evening Thread

More worthy causes than me, but not more awesome ones!

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Grand Old Police Blotter

All the best people.
(CNN)Tom Barrack, a former adviser to former President Donald Trump, was charged Tuesday with illegal foreign lobbying on behalf of the United Arab Emirates for what federal prosecutors in Brooklyn described as an effort to influence the foreign policy positions of both the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and the subsequent incoming administration.
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Afternoon Thread

One afternoon every day!
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Great Men

The way elite law groupies suck up to the people at the top, treating them as indispensable Great Men is absurd. I know it's part of maintaining the priesthood, but the idea that any Dem-appointed Supreme Court justice can't easily (very easily) replace Breyer is ridiculous.

Generally it's time to tear down the wizard's curtain of elite law. Just a ludicrous creation, and too much a part of the Dem party's ruling class.

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Just One More Week

And then some random twitter user will do a bad tweet and Fox will decide the person represents All Democrats and Susan Collins will, more in sorrow than in anger, pull her support and... I get (still stupid, but) thinking they could get 3 senators on board, but 10? lol.
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How Else Was It Going To Go

Maybe the bipartisan show is necessary for Manchin and Sinema. I don't know. But there should be some price for the Republicans jerking them around. Have some self respect.
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Summer Fundraiser Day 2

As always, this is your fun money not your "need to eat" money. Give it to me instead of Starbucks Guy. Paypal:


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Nobody Could Have Predicted

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Morning Thread

Get your morning on.
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Monday, July 19, 2021

Monday Night

Rock on.
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Evening Thread

Don't forget, it's pledge drive season! My local NPR CEO makes about 800 grand annually, and I do not! Paypal:


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Happy Hour Thread

Get happy.
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The Libs Were Mean

It's the go to excuse for any conservative bad behavior, the one used by the few mainstream conservatives trying to hold onto some respectability while not angering their fans. "No this isn't good, but it's all because Joe Biden (or whoever) said mean things."

They're using it now for why their people aren't getting vaccinated. Sure it's mean Joe Biden, and not Tucker Carlson and every Thought Leader in the conservative movement. 

The libs made us do it. They'll use this when they start herding us into camps, too, more in sorrow than in anger.

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We Will Never Forget Dawn Foster

My blog, you can indulge me a bit about my friend.

Clearly, that couldn’t be allowed to happen. In mid-2019, I noticed that she hadn’t been in the paper for a while and assumed she was ill, so I texted her to see how she was. “Sacked,” she replied, typically to the point. It emerged that she had written a piece, about Labour’s then-deputy leader Tom Watson, that had so upset the paper’s gatekeepers that they decided she couldn’t be kept on. All she’d done was to point out that his boss had come within inches of winning the previous election with the kind of democratic socialist policies that people rightfully associate with, and expect from, a democratic socialist party. Wouldn’t it be better if the deputy leader of that party worked to ensure victory next time, rather than creating the conditions for its catastrophic loss?

The Guardian’s discomfort with Dawn’s perspective — a paper to which I’ve contributed, as a freelance writer, for fifteen years — revealed its institutional classism. Its editors’ failure to recognize the significance of including that perspective, and to do whatever it took to support her, to maintain lines of communication, and simply to accept the existence of blunt, angry people with extremely good reason to be blunt and angry, is proof of that. It’s also bad business: not everyone is a liberal, not everyone who reads the Guardian is well-off, and there is a large constituency of young, well-informed readers who — how to put this? — could do without being told that Jess Phillips speaks for them.

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How Are Their Takes Getting Worse

I've lost a bit of the fighting spirit and have less interest in fighting with people on the internet, but "grumpy old man syndrome" manifesting itself among aughts bloggers all turning into Mickey Kaus has been... interesting.

John Cole got better at least! Age is not destiny! Keep away from the goats.

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Nobody Listens To Atrios

Still enraged by the CDC giving into the Trumpkins and the smartest boys on the internet (fishhook theory explains too much). Ah, well, nevertheless.
Similarly dismayed is Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. Last summer, he watched cases in the United States spike, particularly in the Sun Belt, after what he felt was a premature end to spring restrictions. This summer, he is not surprised by the rise in infections across a country where many people haven’t gotten their shots and have returned to pre-pandemic behavior.

“It’s like we’ve been to this movie several times in the last year and a half, and it doesn’t end well. Somehow, we’re running the tape again. It’s all predictable,” Collins said.

As I keep saying, I'm not advocating to keep everybody locked down, just that we shouldn't have encouraged people to return to coughing into each other's mouths as a greeting. You can have normal life and take minor easy precauations, like masks in stores.

Every little bit helps even if these things are inconsistent! Maybe "wearing masks in supermarkets but not restaurants" doesn't make much sense, but again, every little bit helps! It can be the difference between an exploding case load and a shrinking one!

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The Greatest TImes Of Their Lives

OJ. Clinton impeachment. Bush v. Gore. 9/11. The runup to/early Iraq war. Trump.

There were moments when a set of journalists were at the absolute center of the universe. They were living history, they were history. It was exciting. They were important. It was happening and they were at the center of it and it was about THEM.

We're all human and we all have things go to our heads and drive us a bit crazy sometimes. Especially if you're relatively young and suddenly thrust into it. I actually get that part.

What I don't get is the complete lack of reflections after the fact. After the high has passed.

Or the jaded senior editors who are supposed to curtail these impulses who don't.

Oh shit we done fucked up. Ah, well, another million dead. Bygones.

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Summer Fundraiser Day 1!

It's that time again. Think my takes lately have been pretty good. Much better than takes you read elsewhere! Definitely much better takes than you get from the smartest boys on the internet, anyway.

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Morning Thread

The day of Mon.
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Sunday, July 18, 2021

Sunday Night

Rock on.
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You Know Trump Was Bad, Right

Aside from what might come out if ever anybody is put under a subpoena with the threat of prison time, the only interesting (to me) book about the Trump era would focus on just how, for example, 70% of the coverage was driven by Ivanka, Sarah Sanders, and Hope Hicks (anonymously, of course) and whether anyone involved ever thinks that maybe they got suckered once or twice and failed to communicate relevant, timely, and accurate information.
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Lunch Thread

Eat something.
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I Have Been Trying To Tell You

I am not actually an "extreme lockdown" person. After the vaccines were widely available, mostly returning to full normal life was inevitable. But opening the pool and demanding everyone jump naked into it are different things. We can all enjoy a relatively uncrowded pool, in appropriate swimwear, sometimes. The UK data has been right there and everone ignored it. Much like the US, the UK was hardly a model for handling covid, but they had vaccines early and a good vaccination program. And yet..
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Sunday Morning

Should be some sun. Right there in the name.
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Saturday, July 17, 2021

Saturday Night

Rock on.
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Saturday Evening

enjoy
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Anti-Vaxxers and Trump

One can't spin out a simple alternate timeline in which Trump had legitimately won the election, but I am curious about the anti-vax culture if covid had happened in year 3 and the vaccine appeared in late that year/early year 4. General covid denial to own the libs of course existed before Biden and one can see conservative anti-vax culture existing even in that fantasy year 4.
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Weekend

Doing weekend stuff.
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Monday Morning

An exciting new week!
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Morning Thread

Saturday. The day of sitting.
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Friday, July 16, 2021

Friday Night

Rock on.
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Happy Hour Thread

FRIDAY!!!
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Afternoon Thread

An epic Dawn Foster moment.
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A Source Familiar With Ivanka's Thoughts And Actions

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No Single Extreme Weather Event Can Be Solely Attributed to Climate Change

We all know that, yet feel the need to put it as a disclaimer every time we point out that, yes, the climate is changing.
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The Vaccines Just Work

Our Glorious Discourse is filled with people who are very convinced not just of their own superior intelligence (most of us are, of course), but also of access to a Vulcan-like command of SCIENCE and LOGIC that separates them from mere mortals who believe all kinds of silly things (all of us believe all kinds of silly things that don't exactly rest on the most solid of factual foundations).

I watched "everyone" basically ignore the rising cases in the UK, yelling that people who did things like still wear masks were just being silly and ANTI-SCIENCE, as the Delta variant triumps over the vaccines. Yes it's spreading especially among the more unvaccinated younger people, but not just. The UK is one of the most vaccinated places in the world.

And, well, it's coming home. IT'S JUST SCIENCE people will be blaming unvaccinated Trumpkins, and, sure, they aren't helping, but they aren't the only vulnerable people.

And no my point isn't that we should have LOCKDOWN FOREVER, just that we've had 3 months of a lot of chastizing of people for continuing to take mild harmless precautions, precautions everyone should have been taking when feasible.

The vaccines might provide "acceptable" population wide protection against hospitalization and death, but there will still be more hospitalization, more death, and more long Covid.

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Morning Thread

Another Friday.
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Thursday, July 15, 2021

Late Night

Rock on.
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RIP Dawn Foster

Bit distressed because my friend Dawn Foster passed away. She was a journalist/columnist/writer in various venues, including for awhile in The Guardian, before she was purged along with most of their lefties (They purged them generally, but purged her specifically for angering the wrong people with this column).

I met her in London about 10 years ago, and we kept in touch regularly since, mostly her explaining the dumb stuff of UK politics to me and me the same for US politics for her. Great, smart, funny person.

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Afternoon Thread

Overrule this!
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Armchair Revolutionaries

Obviously the specific charge of "democrats stealing elections" is absurd, but aside from that, hey, Cynthia Garrett, you first. "Other people should do something, preferably with violence and guns, but not me" is so cowardly and gross. Also potentially with very bad consequences she won't feel any responsibility for!
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The World's Greatest Deliberative Body

I don't think most people understand that Congress can't (won't) pass any legislation except for things which fit into a parliamentarian's interpretation of some rule put in decades ago which only allows for certain types of budgetary measures.

This... isn't how things are supposed to work!

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Thursday Is New Jobless Day

360K new lucky duckies. Still high!
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Morning Thread

Thor's day.
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Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Wednesday Evening

Again
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The Most Powerful Man In America

Just a reminder that the Senate parliamentarian can be overruled and/or fired, and this is traditionally such an important story that the New York times puts it on A20 when it happens. Elected Dems don't have to submit to arbitrary decisions by random employees.
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Trump's One Good Legacy

Powell.
Stocks opened modestly higher Wednesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, in testimony prepared for delivery to a congressional panel, said the central bank still expects inflation pressures to be transitory and signaled the central bank wasn't in a rush to begin reining in its stimulus efforts.
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Scaring People

Very scary that the "economy" as we typically measure it and write up in headlines did remarkably well over Covid.

4 decades of "what if we give Bill Gates more money, that will work, right?" should be replaced with, "ah, yes, just make sure the bottom 40% of the income distribution is kept afloat (mostly) and magic happens."

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Lunch Thread

Busy with stuff.
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All According to Plan

This is basically what Biden wants so we'll see if it happens!
Senate Democrats on Tuesday reached an early agreement to pursue a sweeping $3.5 trillion reconciliation package that would expand Medicare benefits, boost federal safety net programs and combat climate change, aiming to sidestep Republican opposition and deliver on President Biden’s top economic priorities.
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No They Don't

Lacking shame is a point of pride in wingnuttia.
In an impassioned speech in Philadelphia, Mr. Biden tried to reinvigorate the stalled Democratic effort to pass federal voting rights legislation and called on Republicans “in Congress and states and cities and counties to stand up, for God’s sake.”

“Help prevent this concerted effort to undermine our election and the sacred right to vote,” the president said in remarks at the National Constitution Center. “Have you no shame?”

I don't know what Biden thinks, but decades of Republicans claiming to be, and the press regularly describing them as, "the party of values," and their voters as "values voters" (this is OBJECTIVE JOURNALISM), obscured the very obvious point that as a movement, their morality is "might makes right" and "fuck you, I've got mine, or if I don't, it is because the Democrats gave it to an undeserving."

There is no sense of shame.

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Wednesday Morning

Get your morning on.
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Tuesday, July 13, 2021

Tuesday Evening

enjoy
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Sure Why Not

Just go nuts.
The Tennessee Department of Health will halt all adolescent vaccine outreach – not just for coronavirus, but all diseases – amid pressure from Republican state lawmakers, according to an internal report and agency emails obtained by the Tennessean. If the health department must issue any information about vaccines, staff are instructed to strip the agency logo off the documents.
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Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah

Every moment talking about why Dems can't do something is a moment not spent talking about what they did or what they are doing. The bullshit DC reality show is not very entertaining for most people, even if it's how cable news gets its highest ratings from the weirdos who like that stuff!

It's very trendy to blame powerless activists for bad messaging - can't blame the people in power for anything! - but the Manchin-and-Sinema show steps on any possible good messaging!

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Afternoon Thread

Enjoy.
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Drought

Above my pay grade, mostly, but we do keep flirting with these severe drought situations. And, basically, they're such that the water keeps flowing until it doesn't. And when it doesn't...

Nothing is certain and predictions about the future are hard, and, again, above my pay grade, but "major US city with crippling drought" seems like a pretty likely event sometime in the near to medium future!

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Long Covid

I have no deep insights or knowledge, but it is the thing "we've" all been pretending doesn't exist, to some extent, particularly in kids and teens, who we've largely been pretending covid doesn't exist for at all. It's obviously real and, as with most such long term conditions, will likely never be taken very seriously by doctors or haha your insurance company.
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But I Thought The Robots Were Already Here

I see we're back in the early "robots are neato" phase of the robots/AI hype cycle.

They are neato! But we had years of the "supermarket checkout self-scanners and Elon Musk's bullshit promises mean that there won't even be shitty Amazon warehouse jobs soon!" discourse. The end of jobs!

And, uh, no.

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Morning Thread

Tuesday again.
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Monday, July 12, 2021

Monday Night

Rock on.
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Sanctions

After the election, many lawyers On Twitter reacted in horror at the idea that lawyers could possibly face consequences for their nonsense (#notallawyers).
WASHINGTON, July 12 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Monday appeared likely to reprimand Sidney Powell, a former campaign lawyer for Donald Trump, and other attorneys over a lawsuit they filed in Michigan seeking to overturn Democratic President Joe Biden's election victory.
Not as if she'll get the death penalty.
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Happy Hour Thread

Fix my air conditioner, air conditioner man (today's nuisance).
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Afternoon Thread

enjoy
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Party Like It's 2003

Bringing back the hits!
With Republican-backed voting bills moving rapidly through a special session of the state Legislature, Texas Democrats are planning to make a break for it — again.

At least 58 Democratic members of the state House of Representatives are expected to bolt from Austin on Monday in an effort to block the measures from advancing, a source familiar with the plans told NBC News. The unusual move, akin to what Democrats did in 2003, would paralyze the chamber, stopping business until the lawmakers return to town or the session ends.

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Herd Culling

I don't really understand this impulse, but it is surprisingly widespread and has been in evidence since Covid started. Some people really think it's precisely what the human race needs, and certainly don't imagine they wouldn't survive it.
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Delta

Still puzzled that the self-styled data nerds couldn't look at the DATA from the UK and see what the delta variant could do even in a very vaccinated country.

Maybe hospitalization/death rates among vaccinated populations will remain low enough that there is no need to panic, but nothing wrong with a bit of extra mask wearing.

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Marked

Some things depress me a bit too much so I'm scared to speak them into existence, but Trumpworld trying to put a target on whichever officer shot Ashli Babbitt is a bit frightening.

The ultimate cancel culture, amirite? AMIRITE??? Ah, well, welcome to Meet the Press, insurrectionists! Glad to have you back. Ho ho ho you didn't really mean it when you said I was the enemy of the people, did you?

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Monday Morning

Monday again.
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Sunday, July 11, 2021

Sunday Night

Rock on.
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Unreality

Often I see the latest bit of nonsense from the Trumpkins and just think, "Akshually, everybody in and around the Bush administration was that nuts, too, it's just that 95% people in the media thought it was their critics who were nuts."

The Bush administration really was as ridiculous, but nobody who mattered noticed at the time.

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Afternoon Thread

So many afternoons.
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Working Class

For a long time class in the US mostly, if not entirely, meant wealth/income. Sure there were some old money blue bloods running around, but not *a lot* of them. I've noticed that a more UK-ish concept of class creeping in, which is something like "unless your grandfather was a titled large landowner, you get to claim to be 'working class.'" Everybody but the multigenerational superrich are just humble folk.

Practically every UK politician (Labour, anyway) claims to have "working class roots" which generally means their grandfather owned a factory and was not the 7th Earl of whereever.

I think the US equivalent, in Congress anyway, is being the heir to the family car dealership empire and claiming your summer job "sweeping up" means you have deep hard work experience.

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*OUR* History

There's no point in highlighting the supposed hypocrisy of screeching about cancel culture and erasing history on one hand, and legislation around the country banning teaching about racism on the other (though the centrist dipshits who elevated this stuff deserve all of our scorn, as always). What they mean by "our" history is *their* history, or their story, anyway, which is the story of white supremacy, but good, actually.
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LIght Entertainment

The problem is not that Maureen Dowd sees politics as a little TV show there to entertain her, something on the channel between the Kardashians and Sex and the City Reruns. The problem is a whole generation of political journalists saw it the same way. I remember when "A new Maureen Dowd just dropped" was a big exciting event!
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Morning Thread

Day of rest.
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Saturday, July 10, 2021

Saturday Night

Rock on.
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MoDo discovers Bernie

He can keep his eyes on the prize.
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Afternoon Thread

Keep threading
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Pick One

The Great and Glorious Donald Trump provided us with this wondeeful vaccine we refuse to take.
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Saturday, Saturday

Doing weekend stuff.
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Friday, July 09, 2021

Friday Night

Rock on.
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Happy Hour Thread

Friday!!!
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The Good Stuff

Go go go.
It calls on the Department of Transportation to create rules requiring airlines to refund fees when baggage is lost or delayed, or when services like in-flight Wi-Fi aren’t provided. It directs the Department of Health and Human Services to propose rules within 120 days allowing hearing aids to be sold over the counter. And it encourages the Federal Trade Commission to curb the power of farm equipment manufacturers who often block farmers from repairing their own appliances.

It directs the Federal Communications Commission to bar internet companies from charging consumers termination fees when they switch providers. And it asks the Agriculture Department to prevent meatpacking companies from underpaying chicken farmers.

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Afternoon Thread

Enjoy.
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HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE

 Sure why not.

The Boring Company would offer rides in Teslas to hundreds of people a day for $5-8 per person, the city's leaders have said before. A similar ride in an Uber would cost about $10 per trip at current prices, according to Uber's ride price estimator.

"This could be a truly innovative way to reduce traffic congestion," Mayor Dean Trantalis said Tuesday night, announcing the plan, though the costs to the city were initially undisclosed. He said other firms will have 45 days to submit competing proposals.

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Centrist Dipshits

 I used to think we talked about whatever conservatives wanted to talk about on any given day.  This is true, but in the post-Trump era in which their messaging apparatus is a bit messed up,  I realize how much this is true only because centrist dipshits want to talk about the same things.

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Delta

I was very angry at the smartest boys on the internet, the self-styled data nerds, studiously ignoring the data from the UK clearly showing the delta variant spreading through both vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. And well...

Yes the vaccines work. But not perfectly.  People continuing to take polite precautions are the good ones.  They are not LIBERAL WOKESCOLDS WHO HATE LIFE.

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Friday Morning

Get your morning on.
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Thursday, July 08, 2021

Thursday Night

Rock on.
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Thursday Evening

It does not seem that bad things happen to bad people nearly often enough.
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Avenatti

Certain bits of the online politics zeitgest I never quite understood during the Trump years. One was people, including the Vox Bros, seriously pushing the idea of an Avenatti presidential candidacy.
(CNN)A federal judge on Thursday sentenced celebrity lawyer turned criminal defendant Michael Avenatti to 30 months in prison for attempting to extort millions of dollars from Nike.
A Trump-like figure...but from The Left!!! Was one of those bizarre things people talked about.
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Freedom's Untidy

One of Rumsfeld's quotes to justify the mess they made and oversaw, the kind of thing which should have given anyone who was enthusiastic about our new imperial adventures at least a little cause for concern.

How else was any of it going to end?
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Lunch Thread

busy with stuff
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Once It Starts Going Up

A lot of countries realizing the UK is their future now.
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Thursday Is New Jobless Day

373K new lucky duckies
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Thursday Morning

Exciting!!!
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Wednesday, July 07, 2021

Wednesday Night

Rock on.
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Happy Hour Thread

No competing.
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The Good Stuff

The president sure has lots of authority!
This week, the White House is planning to release an executive order focused on competition policy. People familiar with the order say one section has several provisions aimed at increasing competition in the labor market.

The order will encourage the Federal Trade Commission to ban or limit noncompete agreements, which employers have increasingly used in recent years to try to hamper workers’ ability to quit for a better job.

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Progress

When I was a kid (and as with lots of dumb things you think as a kid, it stayed with me even if I intellectually got over it), I tended to think things improved with iteration. As in, if a a group released an album, the next album would be better, the one after that would be better still. Like Beverly Hills Cop? Beverly Hills Cop II must be an improvement! Lethal Weapon 4 Times As Good As The First! You get the idea.

Always a step forward.

Certainly reality did not always conform to this expectation! What the fuck was Temple of Doom?

Broader lesson here, I guess.

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The Freak Show

I guess of all people, I should have known that a political press corps addicted to freak show politics would never, ever be able to resist the shenanigans of that guy.
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Lunch Thread

Get lunchin'
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"Everybody"

"Everybody" means the people our media platform to scaremonger about such things whenever Democrats in charge.
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Sure Why Not

Ft. Lauderdale is gonna get Musk'd
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The City of Fort Lauderdale has formally accepted a proposal from Elon Musk’s Boring Company to build an underground transit system.

Mayor Dean Trantalis broke the news Tuesday on Twitter, saying the tunnels would run between downtown and the beach.

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What Is Politics For

I do think we've had decades (maybe forever, I wasn't there) of convincing people that politics is about something different than what it actually is about. Liberals and conservatives have perhaps taken somewhat different lessons from that, but there is a commonality of seeing politics as The Politics Show, to some degree, rather than more appropriately as a way in which government policy is set. It's the legislating and the implementation, damnit, not the speechifying. It isn't about who "looks presidential" or who does better at "owning the libs."

The Libs love it when Psaki owns reporters and the cons, too.

Trumpish bellicosity is more dangerous, but I find warm fuzzies about Grandpa Biden eating ice cream, or whatever, to be pretty cringeworthy, too. Enjoy what you enjoy, but putting on The President Show should be about 15% of the job, and not the 85% of it which I think is too commonly understood. A lot of reasons for that, but the obvious one is people's experience of it is largely from TV in events with TV reporters who also see themselves as part of a show.

Can't deny that this is the reality, that many people just react to charisma and vague senses of "who they trust" (or which guy seems to hate all the right people), but elite political commentators spend most of their time reinforcing this, rather than saying, "hey, uh, this actually shouldn't matter as much as it does." It's their show, too, what else do they have to offer?

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Morning Thread

Wednesday again.
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Tuesday, July 06, 2021

Tuesday Night

Rock on.
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Happy Hour

Go forth and be happy.
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BILLIONAIRES IN SPAAAAAAACE

I actually find it kind of sad that these old rich guys are basically still pursuing a kind of child's dream, one which adulthood should have tempered a bit because, well, actually, it won't be all that much fun. Various extreme activities here on Earth (or underwater) have a lot more bang for the effort (and money, of course, but that isn't an issue for them), if that's your thing. Call me, MacKenzie, I am a very deserving charitable endeavor.
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Slow Week

Summer doldrums. I got nothin'.
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Lunch Thread

Get lunchin'.
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Should We Sell

Maybe everything is fine, but the problem is once there's broader concern, selling isn't is easy (or lucrative) as it was a month earlier.
But after seeing another high rise similar to her own collapse nearly two weeks ago in the nearby city of Surfside, suddenly her Florida escape turned into a source of anxiety. She became concerned about the structural integrity of her building, which is about 30 years old. She also worried about the financial return on her investment; her family had recently been contemplating putting the condo on the market and buying a townhouse.

“Should we sell it?” said Ms. Mason, a project manager who lives in Northern Virginia and travels to South Florida several times a year. “Should we not sell it? What should we do? We’re kind of just holding on tight and waiting to see.”

Not mocking anyone's potential bad fortune, but "I want to sell" presumes somebody wants to buy.

"You think the people aren't just going to sell their homes and move?" - Cool Kid's Philosopher, Ben Shapiro, on climate change and coastal properties.

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Musk'd

The way Tesla sets things up is: tell everyone the car drives itself, tell drivers they're ultimately responsible, disengage the automation an instant before anything happens to say the driver was actually in control.

Benjamin Maldonado and his teenage son were driving back from a soccer tournament on a California freeway in August 2019 when a truck in front of them slowed. Mr. Maldonado flicked his turn signal and moved right. Within seconds, his Ford Explorer pickup was hit by a Tesla Model 3 that was traveling about 60 miles per hour on Autopilot.

A six-second video captured by the Tesla and data it recorded show that neither Autopilot — Tesla’s much-vaunted system that can steer, brake and accelerate a car on its own — nor the driver slowed the vehicle until a fraction of a second before the crash. Fifteen-year-old Jovani, who had been in the front passenger seat and not wearing his seatbelt, was thrown from the Ford and died, according to a police report.

The AV promoter line was always, "sure there will be some accidents but human drivers have accidents too so these are safer!!!" but haha no they are not safer than human drivers.
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Morning Thread

July 6 already. Time is weird.
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Monday, July 05, 2021

Happy Hour Thread

What this blog does best is spread happiness.  
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Robotaxis

Lazy holiday so I get to laugh at some of my favorites. People really believed Elon Musk was under 18 months away (when he promised it) from having automated vehicles that were good enough to operate as robotaxis that individual Tesla owners could rent out simply pushing an "available" button.

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Lunch Thread

Leftover grilled stuff.
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Oh No They're Bringing Out The Big Guns

Every time there's a big right wing freak out about something, the initial assumption by many is that they're on to something, they've got us now, it's time to run, for the defensive crouch, for the apologies, for the repudiation of allies.

Related to this, it's because the centrist dipshits generally agree with the freakout, even if they don't admit it, and write endless "maybe they have a point, must listen to their concerns" pieces. Oh no the libs have gone too far now with their [checks notes] concerns about racism and acknowledgment of the fact that slavery once existed in this great country (this is not CRT, but this is what the freakout is about)!

Most of the time, it's actually the wingnuts who are being obviously absurd.

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Related

Had only received one vaccine dose, but...
BRUSSELS (AP) — Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel remained hospitalized and under observation for a second day Monday because he has been unable to shake a bout of COVID-19 that developed over a week ago.
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I Am So Tired Of Arguing With You People

Not that I really think this blog has The Power To Change The Discourse most of the time, but I suppose if not, then why bother. Still there are moments when there are a billion boulders of stupid rolling at me from all sides and it seems like shooting a few spitballs at them is pointless.

Even supposedly sensible people decided at some point, "We're vaccinated, LET'S GOOOOOOO!", and while I am not advocating strong legally mandated restrictions, the Sensible Opinion seems to currently range from, "TAKE YOUR MASK OFF YOU LIBERAL WOKESCOLD," to "welp, nothing we can do anymore, why bother." 

That it's only about the unvaccinated, and those are all (supposedly) just Trumpkins so fuck'em, is part of this, of course.

"Listen to the science!!!" say people who don't.

Vaccinated people still get covid and can still spread it. Younger adults and teens certainly get it, and many of them are still not fully vaccinated+2 weeks even if they want to be. The Delta variant is very contagious. Long covid is real and teens get it too.

Anyway, just how do you think this is happening?

Live your life, but wear masks indoors (I don't mean your homes, of course). It's not hard.
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Monday Morning

Get your morning on.
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Sunday, July 04, 2021

Sunday Night

Rock on.
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I Did Not See Them

Nazis come to town.
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Afternoon Thread

Grill something.
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Grand Unified Theory Of The "Culture War"

I've never quite figured out why some issues get labeled "culture war" issues, and some do not. It's an epithet to suggest they are distractions from what is actually important, when a lot of those issues are very important and very central to our politics! Sure some ways those issues (and *all* issues) enter The Discourse are ridiculous, but the issues themselves are usually quite important!

My new theory is it's "issues which dipshit centrists basically agree with right wingers about, but don't want to admit it."

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Sure I Did It

But what you don't understand is I can (for the moment) pay many many lawyers!
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Sunday Morning

When in the course and all that.
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Saturday, July 03, 2021

Saturday Night

Rock on.
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Happy Hour Thread

Get happy.
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Sucking

For god knows what reason I was thinking about Tommy Friedman's Suck On This reason for the Iraq war. Due to supposedly have done journalism in 1978, or whenever, Tom Friedman was supposed to be a very knowledgable guy about The Middle East. Roll the tape:
We needed to go over there, basically, um, and um, uh, take out a very big stick right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble, and there was only one way to do it.

...

That Charlie was what this war was about. We could've hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. We coulda hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could. That's the real truth.

Due to some guys in "that world" doing something, we had to take out our big, um, stick, right, stick, and smash the fuck out of something somewhere anywhere in this world.

Sure it's incredibly racist! And immoral! And unlikely to achieve anything good for so many obvious reasons! One is "that world" is REALLY REALLY BIG! As Air Miles knows because he's flown over it 734 times.

This map is on the internet so it must be true.

The bottom one is Saudi Arabia. The one above that is the one that got to suck on it. To the right Iran. And THEN you get to Pakistan (and Afghanistan), off the edge.

The point I'm trying to make is it's like saying, well, some assholes in Denver did something, so maybe we'll bomb Mexico, or Montreal! Whatevs! That'll show them!

It's a big world.

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Sounds Bad

Ban shitcoins.
A sprawling ransomware attack that hit hours before the beginning of the July Fourth holiday weekend has already affected hundreds of business and is likely to hit many more, researchers said.

On Saturday morning, information technology company Kaseya confirmed it had been hit by a “sophisticated cyberattack” on its VSA software — a set of tools used by IT departments to manage and monitor computers remotely. The company said only around 40 customers had been hit.

Took awhile to find the "killer app" - the useful use - for cryptocurrencies. (The article doesn't specify, but I assume so).
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Saturday Morning

The day before the fourth. ...oopsie, time scheduling problem.
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Obvious In Retrospect

FSD 9 is supposed to be Tesla's "THIS TIME WE MEAN IT THE CARS DRIVE THEMSELVES" and apparently it's hard. Realize he's been promising this is coming any day for years (and charging people for it).

But forget the con man, remember all the marks who bought it in the press and everywhere.

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So Many Lawyers

If I were in my 70s and had enough money to throw at lawyers for years, I'd certainly be gambling on, one way or another, running out the clock on the legal effort against me.
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Friday, July 02, 2021

Friday Night

Rock on.
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Afternoon Thread

Some Friday news coming? Maybe Rudy news???
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Condo Hell

Above my pay grade a bit, but it always seemed to me that the institutional/financial organization of condos was not conducive to maintaining them long term.
If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard more about how those problems play out in deteriorating condo projects, it’s because there weren’t many … until now. The law that established the condominium as a concept in American law turns 60 this year. Champlain Towers South turned 40 this year. An entire generation of buildings is moving from middle age to old age, a time in life that requires complex and expensive decisions for condominiums just as it does for humans. And those decisions will be left up to people like you or me.

“Essentially what we’ve done is take some very sophisticated infrastructure and handed it off to laypeople, most of whom have no experience with maintaining it or determining the condition of it,” said Tyler Berding, a California lawyer whose firm works with hundreds of homeowners associations. The condo board is charged both with committing to repair work and raising the money to pay for it, often against the wishes of skeptical, penny-pinching neighbors.

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But, Your Honor, My Clients Are Very Very Rich

That's the defense, baby!
Lawyers and representatives for the Trump Organization dismissed the criminal charges against the company as prosecutorial overreach Thursday, but legal experts contacted by NBC News said the company and its chief financial officer are in serious legal jeopardy.

"Obviously, prosecutors have to prove everything they say, but some of the things in the indictment — there's just no legal defense for it," said Daniel Shaviro, a professor of taxation at NYU Law.

Maybe that's presented as, "an 'i' wasn't dotted correctly on page 7 of the subpoena thus MAH RIGHTS HAVE BEEN VIOLATED" but....
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America's Worst Humans

Jesse Watters.
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Free Elder Care

Clyburn (and many of his peers) doesn't need a nursing home, but who would give up a free staff who take care of most of your needs for a barely-show job? But more importantly, one House seat usually doesn't matter much, and Clyburn's is safe in any case. NOT THE SAME.

The absurdity of these people looking at what happened with RBG and being like, hey, cool, let's roll the dice again.

World won't burn until after they're dead, and plenty of time for 36 holes per day before that.

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