Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Tuesday Night

Rock on.
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But How Will We Pay For It

That question never gets asked in this context, for some reason.
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About 3 Weeks From A Bunch Of Stories About Scary Terrorist Evacuees

The Right (Tucker circle) will lead this, and the rest of the media will follow. The "womenofAfghanistan" focus is a way of separating the Good Afghans from The Bad (all men are probably terrorists) and of course a lot of the Bad Ones will have arrived.

Same reporters will switch from the weepy howcouldBidendothis stories to zomgtheyareallsuicidebombers stories.

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Afternoon Thread

Dealing with silly life hassles.
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Vultures

Getting into everything.
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Lunch Thread

Enjoy.
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They're Doing That All By Themselves

While I imagine due to geography in some US locations it's been harder than others to get a shot, for several months most people have been able to walk into a random pharmacy and get a shot. Their choice.
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Thoughts And Prayers

Of course all criminal defendants deserve adequate defense.
(CNN)A prominent lawyer has not been appearing at recent court hearings on behalf of some of his nearly 20 US Capitol riot clients after reportedly becoming ill with Covid-19, the Department of Justice said in court filings in multiple cases on Monday.
BUT....
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Credit Where Credit Is Due

I'm very a much a "you really don't ever have to hand it to them" guy, but with some quibbles I'll hand it to Ross Douthat for once.
Our botched withdrawal is the punctuation mark on a general catastrophe, a failure so broad that it should demand purges in the Pentagon, the shamed retirement of innumerable hawkish talking heads, the razing of various NGOs and international-studies programs and the dissolution of countless consultancies and military contractors.
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Tuesday Morning

So many Tuesdays.
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Monday, August 30, 2021

Monday Night

Rock on.
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We Won Or We Think We Did

Good for Biden.
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Though I Missed Something

One lesson I didn't quite learn from the Clinton impeachment saga was how our ruling elite felt neccessary to position themselves as our moral superiors. David Brooks (1999 version) with a boot on our face forever.

I knew there were a bunch of Republican hypocrites, of course, but I more thought that was just cynical bullshit. But, no, a lot of them actually believe it. A lot of them were enraged by Clinton's poll numbers for precisely that reason. The people are immoral!

Not a new thing, of course, elites imagining themselves to be superior in every way. Slip seamlessly from that to "we must bomb the shit out of brown people for feminism, and you're a big racist if you suggest it's wrong, and immoral if you hate Droney."

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Sounds Bad

For comparison, the UK, which has high vaccination rates and basically no covid restrictions left, has had a high case level, comparable to the US (I'd guess the UK has a lot more testing so the US is actually worse, but that's another issue), but around 1/3 of the population-adjusted hospitalizations. Big obvious difference is in the UK the not-completely vaccinated population is mostly <30 as vaccine eligibility priority was mostly by age and without a lot of anti-vaxxers.
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Lunch Thread

Avocado toast time.
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They'll Be Dead, Champ

I don't know what motivates everybody, but I suspect, "how will the HISTORY BOOKS remember them" does not rate particularly high for most people. I do not think the imagined potential judgment of history provides an especially strong incentive for elected officials and similar to not engage in bad deeds.
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What's Politics

I do think a problem we have now is that more and more people who would've spent their lives blissfully unaware of the day to day bullshit of politics - The Politics Show - have it "forced" on them.

It's the curse of being very online. Once upon a time being very online was niche behavior, but now everybody is. Only weirdos knew the type of stuff we talked about on this very fine blog 15 years ago, only weirdos watched cable news, and now everybody has those narratives forced on them because they get it through facebook, or twitter, or their push notifications. Even without watching cable news, we're all sort of watching cable news.

For Democrats it's MSNBC/CNN type stuff, and for Republicans it's the alternative universe of Fox/internet media. I'm not saying being a well-informed citizen should only be for the few, I'm saying that most of this bullshit makes you less informed, not more, about things that matter.

Very sophisticated news consumers, like the readers of this very fine blog, can put it in its propert context, but for people less attuned to the broader conext, the bullshit is reality.

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Well This Ends Badly

Weeks of incredibly one-sided press, hyperfocused on one single issue, shows that the media, as a collective, is capable of taking sides and focusing on one issue and elevating it above all other concerns.

They usually choose the wrong side, however, when "elite" opinion is at odds with popular opinion, when they're trying beat us over the head with something.

Not that popular opinion is always correct of course, but nor is the collective brain trust of the Morning Joseph Green Room and the Politico/Axios/Punchbowl defense contractor lobbyist offices newsrooms.

My first lesson in this was Clinton impeachment and everything that led up to it. Poll after poll after poll after poll with Clinton's popularity just soaring through it all and this viewpoint was not reflected anywhere whatsoever in the nonstop coverage from every media outlet. 

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Morning Thread

I thought today was Labor Day. Time is a flat circle.
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Sunday, August 29, 2021

Sunday Night

Rock on.
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Sunday Evening

Holiday Monday tomorrow,
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Oh, Elon

The trick is, you call it "autopilot" but you tell drivers they have to pay full attention or it's their fault.
The driver of a 2019 Tesla Model 3 told officers she was using Autopilot, Tesla’s advanced driver assistance system, when she collided with a police car and a Mercedes SUV Saturday morning around 5 a.m. ET in Orlando, Florida.
Autopilot can never fail, it can only be failed.
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Sunday Lunch

Or brunch. Your choice!
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The Rabid Lambs of the Internet

Blogs didn't save the world, and nor will twitter, but both in their own way exposed some insular people not used to criticism, or only used to one type of criticism, to the reality that a bunch of people think they're evil shitheads.

Cable news is going to do its thing, but "um, maybe war is bad?" actually gets more of a hearing than it did 20 years ago, as does "you're all a bunch of psychopathic warmongering fucks."

Not enough to keep that fucking paper from publishing pieces like, "Ron Desantis tried his best and it is totes not his fault that his plan to cull the herd had predictable results" and "It is objective science that the best option was to stay in Afghanistan forever, according to me, a reporter who has no opinions, and an unlabeled Raytheon board member." Enough to embarass them sometimes.

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Sunday Morning

Here comes the sun.
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Saturday, August 28, 2021

Saturday Night

Rock on. Rock on.
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Sounds Bad

People who take extra precautions deserve praise, not being yelled at.
A CDC-funded simulation projects that without masking or testing, up to 75 percent of children under 12 could be infected within three months.
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Afternoon Thread

Doing some weekending before summer (observed) is over.
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Sure Why Not

Perfect time for a hurricane. Just keep throwing shit at us, Invisible Sky God.
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Objective Journalism Breaking Out All Over

And in a "what does it mean for the horse race" piece. All the worst journalism in one place.
(CNN)The GOP is divided over how hard -- and how quickly -- to go after President Joe Biden in the wake of Thursday's deadly attack on US troops at the Kabul airport.

While a growing chorus of rank-and-file Republicans have called for Biden's resignation or impeachment over the administration's disastrous exit from Afghanistan, key leaders and others in the party have struck a more measured tone for the moment.

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Saturday Morning

Summer (observed) is ending.
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Friday, August 27, 2021

Friday Night

Rock on.
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Friday Evening

I got nothin'
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Afternoon Thread

20 more years!!!
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Acceptable Bigotry

I never got too into the "SHOULD SOMEONE APPEAR ON JOE ROGAN" debate discourse, but I will say that some kinds of extreme bigtory are more acceptable than others, and people make that clear when they make such choices.
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What This Guy Said

Pretty smart.
I certainly don't think Trump does anything for the right reasons and imagine anything he accidentally does right will turn to shit, but the "oh no we can't possibly leave any of our sweet wars behind" reaction says a lot about everyone it is coming from. The "foreign policy community" has had 16 years to come up with some vaguely plausible story about what the fuck we're doing in Afghanistan (and almost 14 for Iraq) and they haven't even bothered to try because no one even asks them to anymore.

I used to joke about Iraq that we will stay there until we kill the last person who wants us to leave, then we'll leave. Joke was on me. We'll never leave! Why? The only reason I'm left with at this point is because those mortgages in NoVa aren't going to pay themselves.

Oh that was me, 2.5 years ago.
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Dewormers

I don't expect anybody to have sympathy for anti-vaxxers generally (and I don't, though I do differentiate somewhat between the Own The Libs types and the genuinely conned), but I do sympathize with the general impulse to seek out alternative treatments. Our medical system is imperfect and expensive, people often don't find help for chronic conditions, and it is easy for common pathologies to be exploited.
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Pizzo

This is how the mafia operates.
Tchen also co-founded with Kaplan a private consulting company, HABIT Advisors, which focused on advising companies about how to handle sexual harassment. The website for that firm was taken offline in recent weeks.
Hire HABIT Advisors (run by me) to tell you how to deal with nasty organizations like Time's Up (also run by me).
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Morning Thread

Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Thursday, August 26, 2021

Thursday Night

Rock on.
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Time's Up

Important issues get taken over by the in crowd, and they look out for each other.
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Happy Hour Thread

Thirsty Thursday.
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Mask'd

There is reasonable debate about the nature and extent of mask mandates (how to enforce/who enforces is part of this), but the general freakout even non-mandated masking has caused among conservatives and The Smartest Boys On The Internet has been bizarre.

Sure having to wear them for extended periods while exerting yourself in the heat, for example, is actually an imposition. But slipping one on to go into the store? Just seeing somebody else wear one when you don't even have to?

I would also like life to go back to "normal" but that mask wearing has been held up to be some sort of indignity devised by Hitler has been bizarre.

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But I Thought It Was Unconstitutional To Criticize Lawyers

Many many lawyers were out there getting very very mad that people were trying to put social pressure on lawyers involved with the (post-)election stuff when they were the Yale grads at the most respectable Republican law firms (club members, the lads). Then they got a bit quiet and I realized it's constitutional to criticize lawyers as long as they aren't part of the club. As it is in everything.
A federal judge in Michigan has ordered that Sidney Powell, L. Lin Wood and seven other attorneys who filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election be disciplined, calling the suit “a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.”
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Everybody Gets Rich

One of many consequences of 9/11 was that for years questioning any of our military adventures, both the premise and execution, was something only crazy treasonous conspiracy theorists did.

This was very, very, very good for the many fine mansion and boat owners in Northern Virginia. All the money, and little risk of anyone who mattered suggesting anything improper about it.

Those who claim (mostly liars, but some not) to be deeply concerned with the people of Afghanistan should've spent a bit more time worried about such things, instead of punching hippies.

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Wings

Who else is there? The unwillingness to describe the GOP as is instead of pretending there are GOOD REPUBLICANS that will save us (then often elevating people like Trump's BFFs Chris Christie and Lindsey Graham as those people) is why we're here! Partly.

I'm sure he means, like, Cheney and Kinzinger, but that's not really a 'wing.'

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Morning Thread

Wake up
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Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Wednesday Night

Rock on.
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WAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR

They love it so.
It is also a task that the media has felt no obligation to undertake. Mainstream coverage of Kabul’s fall and its aftermath has been anything but circumspect. Attempts to weigh the benefits of America’s withdrawal (e.g., the humanitarian gains inherent to the cessation of 20 years of civil war) against its costs have been rare; attempts to judge Biden’s execution of that withdrawal against rigorous counterfactuals have been rarer still. Instead, ostensibly neutral correspondents and anchors have (1) openly editorialized against the White House’s policy; (2) assigned Biden near-total responsibility for the final collapse of the proto-failed state his predecessors had established; and then (3) reported on the potential political costs of Biden’s actions, as though they were not actively imposing those costs through their own speculations about just “how politically damaging” the president’s failures of “competence” and “empathy” would prove to be.
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Afternoon Thread

Afternoonin'
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Push Polled

They tried as hard as they could to get the "right" answer, and still couldn't!

Would you support withdrawing the troops from Afghanistan if it meant your dick would fall off? 45% yes/40% don't know.

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Know The Players, Know The Game

Dday with the explanainer on INFRASTRUCTURESTRAVAGANZA.
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Congressman, Sirrah, Have You No Shame???

Appealing to the better natures of people who do not have them is not valuable, nor is appealing to them in hopes that their voters, who also don't have them, care.

Best to point out that the Republican party is just a bonfire of stupid evil, which it is. I know "we're" so used to it that it's just the natural order of things, but that kind of contempt is how the Republicans treat Democrats and everyone just pretends not to notice.

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Legal Shitlibs

One reason we are where we are is that Legal Liberals decided to treat the Federalist Society as a group of honest sparring partners with whom we respectfully disagree instead of a bunch of corrupt fascists. And Ian is much more "partisan" than most of his equivalents.

You do not, ever, have to hand it to them.

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Objective Reporting Breaking Out All Over

If only Afghanistan was as awesome as World War II, when [checks wikipedia] 400K US troops died, many tens of millions in Europe died, but it had a lovely ending and made us all feel good.
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Morning Thread

Get your morning on.
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Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Tuesday Night

Rock on.
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Your Moment of Zen

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Happy Hour Thread

The happiest of hours.
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America's Worst Democrats

Josh Gottheimer

His/their schtick is not popular.

A good window into all of this is provided by Rep. Susan Wild. She is one of the Democratic “frontliners” and faces a tough reelection campaign in her district outside Philadelphia.

In an interview, Wild was blunt about the folly of the conservative Democrats, who are led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey. Wild said their strategy has become “stupid" and that it’s “time to fold.”

This is revealing in a larger way, because Wild once agreed with the thinking of the conservative Democrats. They want an immediate stand-alone vote on the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed the Senate. They hope to present this as a big win right now, without it getting entangled with the politics of the larger $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.

I bet this gang of wankers is confused, as this type of behavior usually leads to them being portrayed as The Only Responsible Democrats In Washington (Or Anywhere), portrayed as heroes. The True Sons and Daughters Of Joseph Lieberman. Not going as it's supposed to.

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Lunch Thread

Get your lunch on.
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The Start Of An Ever Closer Union

Terf Island rediscovers the joys of uniform standards accepted by a broad geographic area.
Business leaders had said that forcing them to meet new UK rules, which will at first duplicate EU product standards, would come with significant cost at a delicate moment for the economy.

CE markings are required for a wide range of consumer products, from laptops to table lamps and hairdryers.

Ministers argue the UKCA mark will allow the UK to control its goods regulations while maintaining high safety standards. However, many businesses say the changes will force them to fill in reams of additional paperwork or make changes to their production lines, as manufacturers selling goods in both the EU and the UK will be forced to follow two regimes.

We can have our own standards! that no one else will accept.

Obviously the goal was to not actually maintain the same high stafety standards, becasuse Regulation Is Bad, but when the consequence is France won't let you sell your shit...

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Diner Safaris

Perhaps the most frustrating things about all the reporter diner safaris during the Trump years is that clearly the reporters weren't actually interesting in presenting an accurate picture of Trump voters. Most of it was just Salena Zitoish reporting, presenting a fantasy version of The Trump Real Americans with some vox pop quotes to support whatever narrative the reporter wanted to tell.

Very few political reporters actually listen to what "the people" have to say, and come at these type of things with a pre-scripted narrative they slot some quotes into. Don't know why their publications bother with the travel budgets.

The other frustrating thing is, of course, that they spent four years focusing on the support for an unpopular president, instead of his critics and victims.

Dave's joking and Marin County isn't really representative of Biden' s support, but if they ever do start the Biden "Diner Safaris," they will focus on wealthy white people in fancy places because, well, that's The Narrative.

(Dave actually does actually talk to voters and listen to them).

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What's It All About Then

Back during the peak years of our Glorious Post-9/11 Imperial Adventures, pundits wrote many more columns excoriating the "naysayers" who would point out what was going wrong than they did ever expressing concern about the progress.

Clap Louder! The only thing stopping glorious democratic utopias from emerging are the Negative Nancies with their treasonous blogs! Stop being a downer! The schools! The painted schools!

Obviously what it was all about was a willingness to sacrifice entire populations in part to score political points and Own The Left, back before we called it Owning The Left. I mean, we could see you all doing it, publicly, in the pages of our finest periodicals and on premier Sunday television public affairs shows. We could see that none of you cared one bit the people in Afghanistan and Iraq or anywhere else.

After 2 decades of studiously ignoring the reality of what "we" created and presided over in Afghanistan, failing to ever bother to even mention the ongoing carnage and immense corruption, don't expect me to believe any of you give a shit now.

There are people who care, of course, but they aren't the Blob Guys In Suits from the Raytheon Sponsored Think Tank on the Boeing Sponsored Premier Public Affairs Television Program. Or their numerous journalist friends.

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Tuesday Morning

Doomsday Tuesday.
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Monday, August 23, 2021

Monday Night

Rock on.
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In Our Own Base Killing Our Own D00dz

It is a weird strategy!
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Oh, Rudy

Rudy news!!!!
NEW YORK, Aug 23 (Reuters) - A former associate of Rudolph Giuliani is expected to plead guilty in a U.S. campaign finance case, potentially increasing legal pressure on the onetime lawyer for former U.S. President Donald Trump.

A "change of plea" hearing for Igor Fruman, which normally signals a forthcoming guilty plea, is scheduled for Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, court records on Monday showed.

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Happy Hour Thread

Time to reinvade Applebees.
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America's Dumbest Pundit

Yascha Mounk.
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Bye Cuomo

I suppose not quite yet officially (midnight), but he did give his byebye speech. Figured there was a 20% chance he'd change his mind and barricade himself in the mansion.
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Only Biden Can End The War

I suppose there are a few different takeaways from this fact, but if the recent events of Afghanistan had been instigated and managed by President Bernie Sanders, there would be a big move by House Dems (how many? I dont know) to draw up articles of impeachment and the members involved would be the new Cable News Heroes.
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Sure Guys

Hate to break it to them, but we're the only ones who waste enough money to be able to do this stuff.
Britain’s defense secretary, Ben Wallace, and some British generals had been vocal in their criticism of the American policy, dating back to Mr. Trump’s outreach to the Taliban and his initial announcement of an American withdrawal in February 2020.

Mr. Wallace has said Britain sounded out other NATO members about the possibility of organizing a stabilization force in Afghanistan after the United States left. That idea went nowhere, and even if it had, security experts said a NATO force without American participation would never have been sufficient to hold off the Taliban insurgency, given the massive air power required.

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Objective Reporting Breaking Out All Over

Imagine an "objective" (working for an outlet that claims to embrace that paradigm) reporter doing this about almost any other issue (deficits are bad, and we need to listen to the concerns of racists excepted). Imagine a POC reporter doing this about almost any other issue. This isn't even opinion, it's advocacy. A DEFINITE NO NO (supposedly).
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A Little Reminder For The Kids Today

Useful for The Kids Today (you know, anyone under 37 or so) to get a reminder of the batshit insanity of our political press when it comes to MOOOOOOOOOOAR WAAAAARRRR.

Everyone pretending to be an expert, reporters just echoing their favorite blob sources, the wails of WE MUST DO SOMETHING where something means "bomb the shit out of people and occupy a country forever" because no other something counts, the privileging of the most destructive warmongers and the exclusion of any other voices, etc... etc...

Post-9/11 was 5+ years of this, on steroids and LSD.

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Monday Morning

And it all starts up again.
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Sunday, August 22, 2021

Sunday Night

Rock on.
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Sunday Evening

Apparently tomorrow is something called Munn Day.
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He'll Never Do That Again

Trump has a few dumb ideas he's wedded to, but he always just repeated the applause lines and abandoned the ones the audience didn't like.
Former President Donald Trump was booed at a rally on Saturday in Alabama after telling supporters they should get vaccinated.

"And you know what? I believe totally in your freedoms. I do. You've got to do what you have to do," Trump said. "But, I recommend: take the vaccines. I did it. It's good. Take the vaccines."

Some boos rang out from the rally crowd, who were largely maskless.

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Sunday Afternoon

Weekending.
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Conservative Radio Hosts

Covid does seem engineered to take them out.
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Sunday Morning

 Ra ra ra.

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Saturday, August 21, 2021

Saturday Night

Rock on.
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Saturday Evening

 Doing weekend stuff.

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Nothing More Awesome Than War

How are things the way they are, we wonder.
As Judd Legum writes at Popular Information, big outlets have almost exclusively turned to critics of the Afghanistan withdrawal in their coverage, and in virtually every case people who supported the invasion and occupation. A public relations specialist told Popular Information that TV bookers were straight-up refusing to have anyone on who supports the decision to withdraw. Indeed, as Eric Alterman writes at The American Prospect, many people now being given a platform to hector Biden about his supposed failures were not only directly involved in the catastrophically bungled occupation but were revealed in The Washington Post's "Afghanistan Papers" to have blatantly lied to the public about how well it was going. The Post itself is not innocent either — a recent David Ignatius op-ed compared Biden's team ending a war to the infamous Vietnam-era "best and the brightest" who started one.
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Ivermectin

Don't have much patience with the anti-vaxx crowd myself, but choosing to treat yourself and your family with a horse dewormer probably has a bit more to do with people not wanting to ruin themselves financially by walking in the door of our very fine medical institutions.
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Straight Outta 2001

When reporters talked like warbloggers. Back to that again. hE's tAlKiNg tO oUr EnEMIes
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Saturday Morning

Which side is Rambo on?
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Friday, August 20, 2021

Friday Night

Rock on.
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Happy Hour Thread

Get happy.
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Mysteries

How was Biden supposed to keep the "good guys" in Afghanistan running things, and evacuate them all pre-emptively?
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GhostEzra

Found the bad man.
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Asymmetries

The Right gets a deferential hearing on every issue, no matter how out of touch it is (anti-vax, for example). Not just deferential, but coverage which implies it is the majority view, that Democrats should be on the defensive and conciliatory.

The Left can't even get that treatment when its views are, actually, the clear majority view (Forever war in Afghanistan is bad).

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I'm Kilroy

Elon claims he's building robot buddies. AFs. The prototype will be out in 2022 (lol) but until then, we have this (any time the shit is about to hit the fan for some reason, or Elon's out of money, he makes up some bullshit for the gullible press and his fans)
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Seems Bad

Still winning the pandemic.
The pandemic has reached another crisis stage. The number of new infections in Florida continues its record-breaking spike, with an average last week of more than 21,600 per day, the third consecutive weekly record. Deaths also spiked recently, and Florida had 15,441 COVID-19 patients in the hospital Friday, the highest level of hospitalizations since the start of the pandemic.
High hospitalizations are there because a significant number of not-young people are unvaccinated.

Young people can get sick, too, of course, just less likely to be severe.

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How To Talk To Your Anti-Vax MAGA Relatives

Joke, but the people who love to dish out this advice clearly have never actually tried to seriously engage someone who has mainlined a bunch of racist and other conspiracy theories. With apologies to Tom Friedman, I had a cab driver the other day who started spouting some absolutely insane stuff to me and really there's no way to have a conversation with someone that requires you saying, "Actually, everything you just said is factually false. Just because you saw it on Youtube doesn't make it true." Nodding and smiling with the people have to engage with, whether cab drivers (temporarily) or family members (with you for life, somewhat), is the best you can do.
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Friday Morning

Friday again.
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Thursday, August 19, 2021

Thursday Night

Rock on.
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Happy Hour Thread

Thirsty Thorsday.
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He Ain't Perfect, But Certainly An Improvement

Obvious truths are sacrilegious to our insane DC insiders.



STEPHANOPOULOS: Beyond Americans, what do we owe the Afghans who are left behind, particularly Afghan women who are facing the prospect of subjugation again?

BIDEN: As many as we can get out, we should. For example, I had a meeting today for a couple hours in the Situation Room just below here. There are Afghan women outside the gate. I told 'em, "Get 'em on the planes. Get them out. Get them out. Get their families out if you can."

But here's the deal, George. The idea that we're able to deal with the rights of women around the world by military force is not rational. Not rational. Look what's happened to the Uighurs in western China. Look what's happening in other parts of the world.

Look what's happenin' in, you know, in-- in the Congo. I mean, there are a lotta places where women are being subjugated. The way to deal with that is not with a military invasion. The way to deal with that is putting economic, diplomatic, and national pre-- international pressure on them to change their behavior.

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Afternoon Thread

Get your afternoon on.
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And They Arrived At That Conclusion All By Themselves

It's always interesting when the public is strongly in one camp on an issue (over 60%) which is completely at odds with the dominant views of the press coverage, especially at a very loud one-sided moment such as this.
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Fucking Hell

Fucking Florida Man.
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Lying Ghouls

A feature of the war on terra 20 years ago, which we're reliving at this moment, was the worst people in the world claiming the mantle of morality. These are people who would kill their mothers for a $20 bill pretending to care deeply about the womenandchildren of Afghanistan, and who in 5 minutes will be arguing we just need to drop nukes on the country.

Afghanistan was a nuisance that got in the way of their true exciting plan, Iraq, and until about 12 days ago almost none of these people could even name the (ex-)president of Afghanistan. And while I don't like the rhetoric about the people of Afghanistan being "unwilling to fight," or whatever, that the guy fled the country with $200 million bucks in his socks at the first opportunity does say quite a bit about what "we" had built there. Expecting people to get killed for corrupt leaders like that is more than a little ridiculous. Yes there are broader implications. 

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You Had One Job

Of course the buck ultimately stops with the presidents - all four of them - but the utter failure from our star political journalists to internalize the fact that the military and The Blob spent 20 years lighting money on fire (giving it to connected contractors) and achieving absolutely nothing demonstrates that if they aren't just pentagon/blob spokespeople they might as well be.
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Thursday Is New Jobless Day

348,000. Still high! (300,000 ish or less is more "normal").
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Morning Thread

Thank you, Thor, for this day.
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Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Wednesday Night (Maybe)

Rock on.
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Happy Hour

Get happy.
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Pillow Man

Nothing surprises anymore.
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America's Worst Humans

John McCain's daughter's husband, Box Turtle Ben.
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Lunch Thread

Get lunchin'
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Wanker Caucus

If we take the shenanigans of the "moderates" at face value - that they are worried about their own re-election campaigns, that it is important for them to oppose the Full Communism of Tsar Biden in order to get re-elected - then they are incredibly incompetent.

Even if the Biden agenda is genuinely unpopular with their voters (doubtful but ok), spending months talking about the Failed Biden Presidency is going to be much more damaging to them.

"I"m a Democrat who hates Democrats" has long been an electoral strategy for some, and while you can point to a couple who manage to make it work, I do not think the electoral outcomes of the past 20 years show that it is a particularly winning one. Sink or swim together, mostly.

And it's one thing to set yourself apart from Those Other Democrats when they're out of power, but "we run the government and we are fucking awful, vote to re-elect me!" is pretty stupid.

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Bad People

I don't really know what to say about the Texas governor - tripled vaxxed, daily tests, elite access treatment - that isn't obvious. I suppose I'll focus on the press, as I do, which fails to inform people that many of the people in the upper reaches of power in this country are absolutely psychopaths, hate you, and are lying to you constantly about everything.

Watch out DeSantis, Abbott is winning the pandemic now!

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Sources

A maddening thing about US journalism is that the most elite journalists - prestige, salaries, air time - are the ones who do little more than repeat what powerful, often very corrupt, people tell them, while the ones who do the actual work of trying to tell you things that powerful people (or at least the dominant powerful people) don't want you to know are sidelined and their stories ignored.

Journalists who cared about the people of Afghanistan would've been highlighting the "lighting money on fire" corruption and ineptitude of the past 20 years, not parroting the bullshit of their elite military and blob sources.

Access journalists quite obviously hate the other ones, as they just ignore what they do, and at times actively undermine it. They make their sources and reporting look bad, after all.
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Morning Thread

Apparently yesterday was Tuesday. Or so they want you to believe.
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Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Wednesday Night

Rock on.
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Wednesday Evening

Busy with stuff. What'd I miss?
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Let Them All In

A simple measure of how much people actually give a shit about the people (or WOMEN AND GIRLS) of Afghanistan is how open they are to taking refugees. The US is a big country and we could take a few million easy and it would barely be noticed most places. That would be a big program requiring resources and organization, but Joe MAGA wouldn't be too likely to bump into one of these furriners.

I'm not a particularly generous person. I'm not offering to house anybody. But if they buy up all the other houses on my block and fill them up with people from Afghanistan, that's fine with me.

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Lunch Thread

We tortured some folks because we love just a little bit too much.
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Sounds Bad

All above my pay grade, but "we" semi-regularly have near-water shortages that don't ever quite happen, but any one of them would be absolutely catastrophic if they do. The water flows until it doesn't. 
BOULDER, Colo. — Low water in the Colorado River’s largest reservoir triggered the first-ever federal declaration of a shortage on Monday, a bleak marker of the effects of climate change in the drought-stricken American West and the imperiled future of a critical water source for 40 million people in seven states.
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What A Long Strange Trip It's Been

As many have observed, being pro-war is considered to be Objective Journalism. What "war" means alternates between "exterminate the brutes" and "save the women and children" depending on the day, or even the hour, giving critics perpetual whiplash as they cycle through being labelled as soft-headed America-haters who want to surrender to Them, and racist misogynists who think other people don't deserve freedom.

At least the Vietnam generation had the excuse that some hippie stole their girlfriend. I don't know what excuse the Morning Josephs of our discourse have.

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We Didn't Think It Would Happen So Fast

Joe the Biden:
The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated.
The obvious point being they knew it would happen, they just figured there'd be some shooting after they pulled out, not a 'peaceful' handover while they were still doing it.

This makes the military and the blob and all the war loving journalists look extra silly, but better to hand over power like they did than have a brief bloody civil war then hand it over, which seems to have been "the plan."

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Tuesday Morning

Nobody could have predicted.
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Monday, August 16, 2021

Monday Night

Rock on.
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Happy Hour Thread

For realsies this time.
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Biden Time

Hopefully we get "asshole Biden."
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Thoughts And Prayers

Also that two boats and a helicopter joke, "God: I sent you public health advice and a vaccine, what else do you want from me?"
Most days during the coronavirus pandemic, Cardinal Raymond L. Burke could be found strolling down the streets of Rome maskless and carrying rosary beads. The 73-year-old conservative cardinal was an early critic of social distancing and, later, an unabashed skeptic of the vaccine.

On Tuesday, Burke announced he had tested positive for the coronavirus. Now, the cardinal is in a hospital bed in his native Wisconsin, breathing with the help of a ventilator.

“Doctors are encouraged by his progress,” Burke’s press team tweeted Saturday night. "[His Eminence] faithfully prayed the Rosary for those suffering from the virus. … Let us now pray the Rosary for him.”

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Oh, Elon

Basically, the "self-driving" Teslas don't see stopped vehicles in front of them when they're traveling at 60MPH, so they hit ambulances and cop cars at accident sites. That kind of thing.
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Lunch Thread

Get happy lunch
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Pretend To Love Them Over There

The unwillingness of the two major Afghanistan war participants - UK and US - to take in refugees, and the unwillingness especially of the right wing which for years pushed these conflicts the most, undermines any claims of humanitarian motives.

The general anti-immigrant sentiment of our objective press (constant freaking out about THE BORDER) makes their expressed concerns transparently absurd, as well, as you can't feed xenophobia selectively without predictable consequences. There are always individuals with such motives, of course, but they're mostly marks.

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Many Reporters Will Still Pretend To Believe Their Outrage

Even though it contradicts 5 minutes ago, and is incoherent even without that.

Of course 20 years of "peeance and freeance" was incoherent from day 1, so...

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Was That The Plan

The best you can say about TWENTY DAMN YEARS IN AFGHANISTAN is that the military succeeded very well in achieving their goal of making Afghanistan dependent on their presence, and running to journalists every time that presence was threatened by politicians.

For some reason, WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN DOING, THEN is not the next question out of his mouth.

I don't know why, precisely, "the military" was so desperate to stay in Afghanistan, but I suspect the answer to that is not so good!

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Morning Thread

Mondays.
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Sunday, August 15, 2021

Sunday Night

Rock on.
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Perspectives

Our elite press treat excursions outside of Midtown as journeys into darkest Peru, so I expect they don't always have a very good handle on the rest of the world.

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Thoughts and Prayers

Nothing else to offer.
WASHINGTON, N.C. (WNCT) — NC Rep. Keith Kidwell, who serves District 79 and Beaufort County, announced on Friday that he is in the hospital after his wife was diagnosed with COVID-19. It has since been learned both have been diagnosed with the coronavirus.

...

Kidwell has been vocal about not wearing a mask. He is the chief sponsor of House Bill 572, which would not allow Gov. Roy Cooper to issue an executive order to require vaccination. The bill passed the NC House in May but has not moved further in the NC Senate.

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The Moderate Rebels

Just amazing how dumb our discourse has been for the past 20 years. Fortunately no major consequences of that!
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Pockets

A deep "glancing at graphs and maps" data dive, comparing the US and the UK experience with delta, shows that the US problem is the geographic variation in vaccination rates. After a good initial start, vaccinations slowed down a lot in the US, but the overall rate is still pretty good! It would probably be "good enough" if the vaccine take up had been evenly distributed across locations, instead of with the massive pockets of resistance and refusal.
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Objective Reporting Breaking Out All Over

New York Times edition. It wasn't Barbara Lee who put her faith in The Generals and the military contractors and the Saudi-funded think tank ghouls despite some very good reporting in some of our premier newspaper outlets.
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Sunday Morning

Can't believe you guys lost Afghanistan.
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Saturday, August 14, 2021

Saturday Night

Rock on.
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Saturday Happy Hour

I got nothin'
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Afternoon Thread

What a grand 20 years it has been.
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Only Some White People

Not all of them, Tucker.
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Pretending to Care About Women In Afghanistan

Flip through your dials and watch an endless parade of gross old white men who work for the Saudi Arabian Sponsored Foundation For Peeance And Freeance And Feminism Think Tank being really mad at hippies for not caring about women.

(After Kashoggi's brutal murder there was a general pause in that funding stream, but I suspect it's back)

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Saturday Morning

The week has ended.
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Friday, August 13, 2021

Friday Night

Rock on.
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Happy Hour Thread

Today would be a good day to arrest Rudy.
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America's Most Corrupt Senator

Rand Paul.
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It Was A Tie

Just tell your friends and family in the National Security Establishment that it was a tie, and that's ok.
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So What Did You Do Wrong

You'd think the obvious question re: Afghanistan was, "how did you guys fuck this up for TWENTY YEARS?" and not, "how are the hippies are to blame for all of this?" but, well...
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Obedient Dogs

Not explicit in the clip, but all conservative discussion of poverty reflects certain wrong assumptions about the racial composition of the poors in the US.
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Lunch Thread

nom nom nom
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8 Can't Wait

Just need a bit more training.
Despite specific and clear knowledge, Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams and other top department leaders failed for years to investigate a controversial challenge coin circulating among the ranks that celebrated officers shooting a protester in the groin with a pepper ball, according to an outside investigation obtained by ABC15.

The investigation was completed by Ballard Spahr, a law firm hired to look into the matter after an ABC15 report exposed the coin’s existence and its ties to hate speech. The law firm also was hired to probe Phoenix’s role in charging protesters as a criminal street gang.

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The Lives Of Foreigners

After 20 years of the war on terror, my firm belief is that absolutely no one connected to the Foreign Policy Establishment cares even a little bit for the lives of people in other countries, and the louder they talk about it the more bullshit it is.

The cost of any "humanitarian intervention" that doesn't involve invasion and occupation is basically couch quarters. If your concern was helping people you would be advocating for literally anything else.

"We" aren't even interested in doing humanitarian interventions in Mississippi or Los Angeles. Tom Friedman is dumb and says horrifying things, but the basic "fuck it, nothing we can do" view was correct 11 year ago!

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Chasing EVs

I'm skeptical about both the speed of adoption and the potential for reducing emissions.

Not everyone wants to live in MANHATTAN, but plenty of evidence people do want to live in neighborhoods where every single trip doesn't require the use of an automobile. Infill and minor land use policy changes can costlessly increase that.

Maybe I'm wrong, so, then, why not both dot gif?

Every time a giant park-n-ride lot is built next to a light rail station, a polar bear dies.

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Morning Thread

Friday!!!
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Thursday, August 12, 2021

Thursday Night

Rock on.
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Grand Old Police Blotter

All the best people.
Anton Lazzaro, a young Republican strategist and former congressional campaign manager in Minnesota, was arrested on underage sex trafficking charges Thursday morning, according to federal law enforcement.
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Happy Hour Thread

Thirsty Thursday.
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Only 468K To Go

Too busy for a DEEP DIVE into the latest census report (a lot going on there), so I'll keep to the local: Philadelphia population hit a peak of 2.07 million in 1950, declining to 1.52 million in 2000. It inched up barely the next decade, and has now EXPLODED to 1.6 million.

Notable if only because I'd say the general belief for decades, which drove both state and city policy, was that managed decline of the residential population was inevitable and irreversible. Will the last one out turn off the lights!

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PizzaGaetz

This subplot got a bit lost.
As the federal investigation into Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz continues into the summer, sources tell ABC News that Gaetz's one-time wingman has been steadily providing information and handing over potential evidence that could implicate the Florida congressman and others in the sprawling probe.

Former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg, as part of his ongoing cooperation with prosecutors, has provided investigators with years of Venmo and Cash App transactions and thousands of photos and videos, as well as access to personal social media accounts, sources said.

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Better Thread Than Dead

Still busy with stuff. Maybe blogging will improve today at some point!
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Poor Little Rich Boy

Don't know about Tucker, but I think most members of the not quite rich enough crowd actually believe this.
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Thursday is New Jobless Day

375K new lucky duckies. Still high!
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Morning Thread

Bit busy this morning.
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Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Wednesday Night

Rock on.
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Sounds Bad

Would've been a good impeachment witness. Ah, well, nevertheless.
Byung J. Pak, a former U.S. attorney in Atlanta, told congressional investigators on Wednesday that his abrupt resignation in January had been prompted by Justice Department officials’ warning that President Donald J. Trump intended to fire him for refusing to say that widespread voter fraud had been found in Georgia, according to a person familiar with his testimony.
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Happy Hour Thread

Midweek madness
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Transit Projects Imagined By People Who Don't Use Mass Transit (And Still Won't)

Perhaps not of all that much interest to non-New Yorkers or non-transit nerds, but this is a very very stupid project and hopefully it is killed dead.
Gov. Cuomo’s resignation led to an outcry among Port Authority staffers who want the agency’s top officials to halt his controversial proposal to build an AirTrain to LaGuardia Airport.

”For too long, Gov. Cuomo and his staff have repeatedly pushed the agency to make non-transparent, politically motivated decisions, including decisions that squander the trust and money of our bondholders, customers, and the general public,” said a letter sent to Port Authority executive director Rick Cotton on Tuesday by dozens of staffers.

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Free To Be Just Like Me

Random thoughts good enough for a blog post here. Something I noticed early in the glibertarian-heavy blogosphere of old was that the self-identified libertarians were all strong conformists. Maybe conforming, but boldly wearing a leather jacket, or some other harmless fake rebellious affectation.

Though it seems to be a broader thing, beyond the extreme glibertarians. A big convergence of preaching the joys of INDIVIDUALISM and embracing a ridiculous faux-meritocratic model of society. Free to what you want to be, but you'd better be just like me, otherwise failure and misery are on you, loser! Choose correctly, or else!

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Lunch Thread

Watermelon Wednesday.
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Every Little Bit Helps

I know I'm repeating myself, as I regularly do, but simply *not discouraging* people from wearing masks was the easiest thing in the world and for some reason that was too hard.

Normal person: yes, I'm vaccinated, but my kids aren't and I keep wearing masks in shops, in part to model behavior for my children, and sometimes I leave them on outside because pulling it on and off, for myself and my kids, is more trouble than it's worth and oh WE HAVE BEEN DOING THIS FOR A YEAR AND I DON'T THINK I NEED TO EXPLAIN THIS OBVIOUS SIMPLE FUCKING THING

Snotty media elites desperate to bring balance back by blaming the libs and the Smartest Boys On The Internet: wow, these people just hate fucking life, want to wear masks and live in a lockdown of their own creation forever, I hate them. They're fucking crazy and want us all to be miserable and THEY HATE SCIENCE I DO NOTHING WITHOUT SCIENCE I AM SCIENCE

Biden CDC: take off your masks if you are vaccinated, please keep them on if you haven't been, I see no problems with these instructions.

Me: uh, guys, have you seen the Delta cases in the UK?

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Stop Doing This

"Sex scandals" are things "we" barely find scandalous anymore, involving consenting adults but violating social norms (affairs, that kind of thing). Really not at all what Cuomo resigned for.
(from the WaPo)
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Thoughts and Prayers

Another Florida conservative radio host just died, also, too.
Right-wing radio host Marc Bernier, who has spoken out at length against the coronavirus vaccine, has been hospitalized with COVID-19.
At least he (apparently) was honest about it, unlike Tucker and the rest of vaccinated anti-vaxxers.
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Morning Thread

Get your morning on.
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Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Tuesday Night

Rock on.
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Happy Hour Thread

The bar for resigning in disgrace should be lower than it has been in recent years.
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Cuomo Was Bad

Too much for the margins of this blog post, but aside from what justifiably brought him down, Cuomo was really bad! Completely corrupt! Not just too-conservative-for-my-tastes, but actively arranged to keep Democrats out of power in the legislature!
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Still Winning The Pandemic

Running up the score, anyway!
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Bill Hemmer Had A Prominent Role On CNN For 10 Years

For some reason I'm the only one who notes the CNN-to-Fox pipeline.
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Hey They Voted For The Thing (Not That It Matters)

69-30 in the Senate for Infrastructure I. ...and Cuomo is resigning.
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Winning The Pandemic

DeSantis got an immense amount of good press for doing what he's doing, and he's going to keep doing it. Politicians, like everybody, respond to incentives, and if the more people you kill, the more gushing profiles you get, you're going to keep killing people. This is normally how the "war" discourse works, as there's nothing the press loves more than bombing the shit out of foreigners, but apparently killing your own d00dz to own the libs works just as well with the Politico-Axios-Punchbowl crowd.
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Long Covid

Teens in the US can be vaccinated, but when we had "peak media shaming of people still wearing masks," they hadn't even been approved yet (almost), and would be several more weeks before even the most diligent people could possibly be fully vaccinated.

Lots of people with an altered life.

An elite media just filled with smug sociopaths.

(again, for the back, whether or not there's much direct benefit of vaccinated people wearing masks, removing any cultural pressure to wear them, in fact exerting the opposite, had easily predictable consequences)

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tHeSe dEciSiOnS cAn't Be PoLitical

When deciding to, say, prosecute people named Rudy (or not), the decision to prosecute is generally the non-politically tainted one. Only elites get that kind of consideration!

Your "political opponents" should indeed be prosecuted if they were doing crimes, and only the next administration is likely to do that.

If Hillary Clinton was doing crimes, they should've locked her up!

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Morning Thread

On Tuesdays the magic happens.
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Monday, August 09, 2021

Monday Night

Rock on.
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Time's Up

(link)
No insight into this organization, but very generally there is sad tendency for organizations and the people who run them to become just one with the existing power structure.

Even ones that start out being scrappy and independent get absorbed by the Borg.

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Do Stuff

I don't really care if 0 Republicans vote for the BIPARTISAN BILL. That'll just be funny. I was promised the two track plan would lead to a smallish infrastructure bill and a larger do nice things bill. If those manage to pass, then Joe the Biden: 1, My Cynicism:0.

Sure they won't be perfect or enough. Much to do! But that will be something.

We'll see!

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Nudge

Dumb people who like to think they're smart because they read a nonfiction business-themed bestseller from the airport book stand once per year, oh and Obama's guy Cass Sunstein, were very enamored of this idea (also the Tories in the UK). As far as I can tell, it's a very original and deep insight that you can sometimes get people to do what you want them to do without forcing them to, especially if those people are middle class and white and don't tell me what to do, mom!

Uber, but for management, or something.

So, maybe in language those people can understand: it's fine to remove masks mandates, but why the insistence on nudging (hah, there I said it!) people to rip theirs off even if they wanted to wear them?

The smart play was to remove the mandates, to the extent that they existed, but used your special Sunstein Superpowers to NUDGE people to wear them anyway.

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Lunch Thread

so many options.
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Sounds Bad

Where are we in the "no need to do anything about this/too late to do anything about this" discourse cycle?
Human activity is changing the Earth’s climate in ways “unprecedented” in thousands or hundreds of thousands of years, with some of the changes now inevitable and “irreversible”, climate scientists have warned.

Within the next two decades, temperatures are likely to rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, breaching the ambition of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, and bringing widespread devastation and extreme weather.

The other entitled fantasy that is bonkers is the Elysium fantasy. The billionaires can probably enjoy their dictatorship, but I'm not sure about a civilization ending catastrophe. I suppose with a bit of very smart planning they can survive for awhile, but it won't be all that much fun, will it?
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Probably Has A CNN Show Lined Up

Maybe even with Chris Cuomo!

Horrible people just fail upwards.

The top aide to New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo resigned on Sunday night after the release last week of a searing report by the state attorney general’s office that detailed her role in an effort to discredit a former aide who accused Cuomo of harassment.
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I'll Be At The Adult Table, Right?

Lots of talk about white guy confidence and entitlement these days, but the amazing thing, to me, is the kind of entitlement that leads people to believe that when they throw out democracy and institute their preferred theocratic fascist dictatorship (Rod Dreher's vision, which he will admit, Ross Douthat's, which he won't), that the illiberal forces they've unleashed won't quickly bayonet them in the gut.

A reasonable thing for the billionaires to believe. Not their lickspittles who will have to keep pleasing their fickle insane masters.

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Sunday, August 08, 2021

Sunday Night

Rock on.
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What Won't They Do To Own The Libs

The joke version of "owning the libs" is that usually conservatives have no idea what pisses us off, so we're usually just laughing at their antics.

However, occasionally they do hit on something...

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A Pandemic of the Unvaccinated

True enough, I guess.
BATON ROUGE, La. — More than 3,000 Louisiana children tested positive for the coronavirus in just a few days' time.
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Have You Tried Reducing Turnover

It's the liberal fantasy a bit - pay your workers more AND profit more - but I don't think it's just fantasy in many cases. I am no expert on the insides of corporate culture, having been largely outside of it, but I did do some time in fastish food jobs when young, and I learned that in corporate chain/franchise models, the managers/owners basically can control only one thing: labor costs. Everything else is determined from above (products, marketing, supplies). Your job is essentially to minimize labor costs as there's nothing else you can do.

I can't speak to the details of all chains, of course, but what I did witness was tremendous pressure on managers to do just that, because what else were they for? Or, at least, what else did they do that could be measured and that they could judged by?

Labor costs are wages/etc., not the extra unclocked time the manager puts in for hiring. My manager at one establishment I worked for basically worked 16 hour days so she could have one fewer person on staff so the spreadsheet looked better. That's how you got promoted up to corporate.

Aside from constant costs of dealing with turnover, the customer service quality of course plunges, but that isn't as easily measured.

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It Can Happen Here

For years all the savvy journalists understood that conservatives sent one set of messages to the marks, but this was just "politics" and for some reason could be ignored in favor of dreaming of Good Republicans like... um.. Chris Christie, #1 TRUMP SUPERFAN, or somebody else like that.

Generally presenting the story of DC as reporters would like it to be, instead of as it is... has not been good!

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Morning Thread

Gotta be sun on Sunday.
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Saturday, August 07, 2021

Saturday Night

Rock on.
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Saturday Happy Hour

Senatorial ennui.
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Existential Crisis

What is the point of it all.
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Lunch Thread

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Might Say Some Mean Things About Tom Friedman's Pals

Probably people he's praised numerous times in his columns!
Nearly 1,800 Americans directly affected by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are opposing President Joe Biden’s participation in any memorial events this year unless he upholds his pledge to declassify U.S. government evidence that they believe may show a link between Saudi Arabian leaders and the attacks.
Or not. Release the docs!
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Weekend Reading

Pareene's in the funny pages.
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Saturday Morning

Writers seem to have put aside the Rudy character.
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Friday, August 06, 2021

Friday Night

Rock on.
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Happy Hour Thread

Friday again.
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Gold Star From The Hall Monitor

There are no rewards in Heaven or on Earth for this stuff.
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Coddled Snowflakes

Perhaps there was before my awareness, but I don't remember much resistance to the idea that shaming drunk drivers was an out of bounds or ineffective method of getting people to stop doing it.

Don't get the idea that we can't hurt the fee fees of people who refuse to get vaccinated.

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They're All Bad

Back during the Obummer administration I'd sometimes get a bit of communication from Inside The House. Nothing super secret or important, just the unfiltered stuff that you'd hear in various forms elsewhere.

I forget when exactly this was - probably during the debt ceiling nonsense - but the communication was something along the lines of, "sure, the Tea Party are nuts but we're pretty sure House Leadership [Boehner, Cantor, Kevin McCarthy] don't want to blow up the world, so this will be fine."

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Jerbs

Doing a lot better (so far) than the 2007 employment recession. Throwing a lot of money at people who wouldn't otherwise have it helps a lot, it seems!

No worries, though, big chances to screw it up in the coming months!

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Pandemic Of The Unvaccinated

If your point in saying this is that if you get vaccinated you probably won't go to the hospital or die, you are correct, but it conveys a broader sense that this is now mostly about personal consequences for bad decisions, and no that is not the case. Some people can't get vaccinated, and some people are going to have a hard time getting needed medical care (for covid or otherwise) in places with high case numbers.
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- In a sign that the delta variant is affecting more children on a daily basis, an 11-month-old girl from the Houston area had to be airlifted to Temple because no pediatric hospitals in Houston would accept her as a transfer patient.

"She needed to be intubated immediately because she was having seizures," said Patricia Darnauer, the administrator for LBJ Hospital. "We looked at all five major pediatric hospital groups and none [had beds] available."

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It Takes A Village

I'm not quite sure why the enablers often bother me more than the central abuser (probably for some bad reasons, I worry), but for whatever reason they do.
The report laid bare how Mr. Cuomo had come to rely on a small band of advisers — not just his closest government aides, but also a handful of outside loyalists, even consulting leaders of groups dedicated to supporting gay rights and victims of sexual harassment. Many of those allies helped fine-tune his public response to the allegations and, in the most troubling instance, helped to spearhead a campaign to stymie them.

Mr. Cuomo sought counsel from former administration officials like Alphonso David, now the president of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest L.G.B.T.Q. political lobbying organization in the country; Tina Tchen, who heads Time’s Up, a group that supports victims of sexual harassment; Roberta A. Kaplan, who runs its Legal Defense Fund; and the governor’s brother, Chris Cuomo.

Especially, of course, people supposedly acting on behalf of other interests.
“Ms. Kaplan read the letter to the head of the advocacy group Times Up [sic], and both of them allegedly suggested that, without the statements about Ms. Boylan’s interactions with male colleagues, the letter was fine,” according to page 109 of the report. “Ms. DeRosa reported back to the Governor that Ms. Kaplan and the head of Times Up thought the letter was okay with some changes, as did [Cuomo ally Steven] Cohen, but everyone else thought it was a bad idea.”
...
Though she appears to portray herself as a champion of women, writing in a recent tweet that “Haven’t you heard? Women aren’t allowed to be mad or fight — being tough and direct makes you a ‘bitch,’ ” the report portrays DeRosa as helping to cultivate a “toxic” workplace for young female staffers. ... The report states that Cuomo himself dubbed DeRosa and other members of his inner circle “mean girls.”
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Jobs Day

Whatever the numbers they will be proof that unemlpoyment benefits are bad and inflation will kill us all.

+943K 5.4% unemlpoyment (never post on a phone)

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Morning Thread

Video was there when I posted it. Why have you forsaken me, Aimee Mann and James Urbaniak?
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Thursday, August 05, 2021

Thursday Night

Rock on.
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The People Who Matter

Some people get to scream on twitter or on their very fine blogs, and some people can and do just pick up the phone.
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Happy Hour Thread

Get happy.
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Don't Make Me Like You, Pete

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How Are The Divorce Negotiations Going, Bill

Not well, apparently.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has admitted he made "a huge mistake" in spending time with sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr Gates told CNN he had "several dinners" about a philanthropy project that did not emerge, and should not have given him "credibility".

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The Fever Will Break

They came in telling us they weren't gonna fall for Obummer's dumb fantasies.
The true nature of this diagnosis, and its pitfalls, are now evident. At its core, the idea was that once Donald Trump — who ferociously stoked cultural conflict around covid at every opportunity — faded away and his grip on GOP voters weakened, consensus could emerge around the idea of working together toward the common good of defeating covid.

But Trump has not faded away. Worse, some Republicans have themselves escalated the Trumpist project of fomenting relentless conflict around covid. Hopefully they'll learn - again! - but tick tick tick time runs out.

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Speaking of Takes

While I'm picking on the Smartest Boys On The Internet, their belief (it's a regular thing they say, like people telling my parents to bring toilet paper to Europe in the late 70s) that inexpensive mass consumer item functional clothes dryers do not exist in Europe is truly weird. For various reasons (space, tastes, habits, nice sunny weather for your clothes line in some countries), not everybody has them, but you can get a tumble condensing dryer for a couple hundred bucks anywhere. Work as well as any venting dryer, just gotta empty the tray every few times.
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Take Brain

Opinions are like assholes, but also assholes tend to express lots of opinions, and often like 15-year-olds (when it's sorta cute), they think that every stray thought that passes through their brain is a unique, original thought that they came up with before anybody else in all of human existence. Yes, Nate, nobody had thought about this before you had an epiphany on the can.
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Morning Thread

In case I did not make it clear, I call on Andrew Cuomo to resign.
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Wednesday, August 04, 2021

Wednesday Night

Rock on.
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Happy Hour Thread

Get happy.
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America's Worst Democrats

Andrew Cuomo.
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Leroy

The treatment of Newt Gingrich by mainstream reporters over the years is a pretty good example of how no Republican will ever not receive the Distinguised Elder Statesman treatment. They all know how horrible he is, and have from the beginning. It isn't a secret, and it's a very long rap sheet!

How the treated him as Speaker is one thing, but more than that it's been 20 years since he's held elected office, and, well...

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