Sunday, October 31, 2021
Bias
Some within the FBI and Justice Department privately conceded the bureau had failed to grasp the scale of the threat. Officials simply didn’t believe that the kind of people showing up to a Trump rally would break the law, let alone act out violently.fixing...“There was a bias,” said one person familiar with the FBI’s work before and after Jan. 6. “The bias was the belief that middle-aged, largely law-abiding people don’t burn, loot or throw things at police officers. We underestimated the desperation, anger and conspiratorial nature of the crowd.”
Some within the FBI and Justice Department privately conceded the bureau had failed to grasp the scale of the threat. Officials simply didn’t believe that the white people showing up to a Trump rally would break the law, let alone act out violently.They had no real knowledge of their records or, of course, their propensity to do anything. White folks from Ohio diners could never be bad!“There was a bias,” said one person familiar with the FBI’s work before and after Jan. 6. “The bias was the belief that middle-aged, largely white people don’t burn, loot or throw things at police officers. We underestimated the desperation, anger and conspiratorial nature of the crowd.”
The Excluded Perspectives
The most charitable view (but still not an exonerating view) of this emphasis is that the imagined reader of all of these publications is someone who OF COURSE is vaccinated and who OF COURSE wants to vaccinate their kids, so these pieces are "explaining" these weirdos, though not presenting them as weirdos, to that reader.I am begging a newspaper to put some parents who are extremely amped about child vaccines on the cover for once in their gd life pic.twitter.com/n9mwNecMys
— Lydia Kiesling (@lydiakiesling) October 30, 2021
It's the same justification for endless profiles of Trump voters, or endless pieces putting conservative perspectives at the front of center. Puff pieces about anti-abortion activists, neo-nazis, people opposed to the public existence of trans people, basic racists dressed up with the latest intellectual veneer, etc... *Our readers* who share none of these views must *understand* these people.
Of course often missing are the actual perspectives, voiced by, say, trans women, or reproductive rights supporters, people who dislike Nazis, etc. The idea is these perspectives are banal and understood, mainstream, widely shared by readers, and don't need to be restated.
But this isn't true at all. These perspectives are actually rarely communicated, and certainly rarely communicated without a "Both Sides" politics coverage of them, at least in news pieces.
Trolls
This dumb discussion is premised on the notion that liberals need your fucking advice on how to deal with racist people in our lives because we are in a 'bubble' or some shit, as opposed being smacked in the face by racism every day, including from our supposedly liberal media. But it's also dumb because the archetypal "racist uncle" is always portrayed as a kindly, well-meaning person with some out of date views (though he has some good points!), and a bit of tolerance and understanding and a hug will lead to common ground.
Thats not how it works, ever. People who show up to Thanksgiving (or whenever) to do performative racism are trolls, not simple folk of the fields, Ohio Diner Men. They are not "undeducated members of the white working class." They are, like Trump's base, wealthy guys with golf club memberships. They're not just racists, they enjoy being assholes to provoke.
This is not important in and of itself, but it's representative of how politics is treated in The Discourse. Only liberals have agency. It's their job to be nice to the Real Americans, to compromise with "the moderates," to tolerate bad faith actors, to understand racism and never, ever let its targets and victims speak.
Saturday, October 30, 2021
Still The Worst People In The World
Oct 29 (Reuters) - A group of mostly Republican critics of former U.S. President Donald Trump claimed responsibility on Friday for a demonstration in the Virginia governor's campaign that recalled an infamous 2017 rally in the state.The Lincoln Project said it was behind the use of tiki torches outside a Republican candidate's bus that mimicked the rally by white supremacists in Charlottesville. The earlier event turned deadly when a car driven into a crowd by a self-described neo-Nazi killed a counter-protester.
Dumb for Republicans to be outraged by this, but also dumb to show up in Charlottesville as tiki torch re-enactors.
Buffoons
Windowless
Many students will happily sacrifice a lot of personal space for privacy, and the US norm of "shared dorm rooms" is actually quite weird, but having absolutely no external signal for the time of day is a recipe for fucked up sleep patterns and depression.
Probably A Challenge
In an Oval Office meeting last month, President Biden questioned his top aides on whether the world’s top polluters would actually follow through on their commitments to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions.As THE NUMBER TWO CO2 EMITTER, leading by example isn't sufficient but it's certainly necessary. Or threatening to drone countries that break their promises, I guess.
This path leads to "well China isn't doing their part so fuck it."
Friday, October 29, 2021
Friday Evening
I Was With You All Along
The two of them are playing games, and of course some other Democrats are hiding behind them.hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Makes all them impossible than pretends she fought for them. Someone feels the heat https://t.co/dUJ5Y9bmh0
— Jon Walker (@JonWalkerDC) October 29, 2021
Meta
Also the virtual reality is less likely to work as desired than Elon Musk's self-driving cars.
Everybody's Fault But Mine
A Corrupt Country
Talking Points And Human Shields
Thursday, October 28, 2021
Bad Faith Actors
NOOOOOOOOOO
Progressive are emerging from their caucus meeting in the same place they were before: they won’t vote on the BIF until they have explicit sign off from Manchinema
— Marianna Sotomayor (@MariannaReports) October 28, 2021
Rep. Tlaib: “I’m a hell no on BIF”
Rep. Vargas: “If we vote on BIF, we lose the other bill”
Rep. Bush: “I’m a no”
Don't See A Vote Promise
SINEMA weighs in pic.twitter.com/mT3KkxkDUC
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) October 28, 2021
Do Popular Things
It is the vogue thing to blame the least powerful actors in our political system for popular things not happening. I suspect that is not the real reason.
It's A Trap
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
Ah Well
Blame who you want, but months of The Politics Show being dominated by stories about helplessness isn't appealing to normie voters who find it all puzzling and ridiculous (me too, but for different reasons!).
Legend In His Own Mind
Just decades of people blowing smoke up your ass (his, not mine, you people are actually quite cruel).
journalists will never stop telling you about the five grueling jobs they've had, but nick kristof running for governor as an "Oregon farmer" is another level pic.twitter.com/m9w1TeTj41
— Henry Grabar (@henrygrabar) October 27, 2021
Crimes
1/6
Happy to be wrong!
Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Oh, Well, Just The Covid
But when the usual suspects are done shrieking about inflation and the labor disincentive effects of any government support, when they fully win the battle of having the government do nothing, then they'll shrug their shoulders at the carnage and say, "oh, well, just the Covid. Nothing to be done. Also people got the wrong degrees and would rather play video games."
Fall Fundraiser Day 6!
One trouble I have these days is a desire not to contribute to "the freak show." I mean, sure, I could highlight some dumbass thing Boebert said, or whatever, but it makes me feel like I'm part of the problem. On the other hand, I gotta keep feeding this beast all day long, and I can't have super smart things to say constantly. Often, but not constantly!
Anyway, I regularly do think about what I'm doing here and what I'm trying to (if unsuccessfully) accomplish. Often I don't come to any strong conclusions!
At least we have a bit of fun, sometimes, at least. The occasional victory even!
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Why Do You Do That
Stupidity and dishonesty in every profession, but dishonesty is a bit of a problem in a profession which brands itself as engaged in fearless truth telling.
(Of course there is good journalism, but it isn't usually the 'politics beat,' the day to day bullshit beat).
Progress
Immigration arrests in the interior of the United States fell in fiscal 2021 to the lowest level in more than a decade — roughly half the annual totals recorded during the Trump administration, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data obtained by The Washington Post.
Also What Dday Says
For too many years, Congress has tried to resolve longstanding policy issues by erecting complicated systems that an untutored public must navigate. Ordinary people who qualify for benefits — usually because they are in great financial need — are drafted into becoming unpaid bureaucrats, forced to spend time and effort to access what the system owes them. It’s confusing and exasperating, and it has sapped the faith that Americans once had in their government. Simply put, Democrats cannot continue to campaign on solving big problems and then fail to deliver without destroying their political project and alienating voters.
Campaign Left, Rule Center
I don't think this reflects reality at all, at least if we define the center they way DC journalists do, which is of course bonkers. Dems run on things which DC considers to be "lefty" (but which do in fact have broad appeal), and then fail to deliver them. They run from the left then govern from the "center" (pick your preferred villains to explain why, but this is what happens).
Biden won election campaigning on a bunch of stuff that would make Bernie Sanders quite happy, and will fail to deliver many of them, either at all or in a functional way.
In 2022 they will run on them *again.* And then in 2024 they will run on them *again.*
Monday, October 25, 2021
There Will Be No Slave Trading On This Web Site
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Two years ago, Apple threatened to pull Facebook and Instagram from its app store over concerns about the platform being used as a tool to trade and sell maids in the Mideast.
Power
Waiving the paperwork requirement and getting those defaulted borrowers out of debt would represent a rare opportunity to reset the clock for some of the most hopelessly indebted in the United States. It would also improve millions of credit scores and afford people access to other protections in the social safety net that being in default locks them out of. And yet the administration has not yet committed to this move, despite having ample authority to do so.Many thing should be done anyway, but at the very least they should be done as a response to certain members of Congress not giving in other areas.
"Values Voters"
Unlikely other voters, they vote their "values," which were "abortion is bad and gay people are bad."
Values.
Where's Garland
Can't shake the view that Garland was appointed AG so that his character arc would have a pleasing resolution in the West Wing Show, and not because he is the man we need now.People think this is what the Jan 6 committee is for but really this is what the Department of Justice is for. https://t.co/dxRl5kOpMt
— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) October 25, 2021
Fundraising Week Day 5!
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Sounds Bad
SAN FRANCISCO — A powerful storm barreled toward Southern California after flooding highways, toppling trees and causing mud flows in areas burned bare by recent fires across the northern part of the state.Northern California 24-hour precipitation map is...a thing. 9+ inches in places.Drenching showers and strong winds accompanied the weekend's arrival of an atmospheric river — a long and wide plume of moisture pulled in from the Pacific Ocean. The National Weather Service's Sacramento office warned of "potentially historic rain."
MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
There are weird biases in "the liberal media" and interesting "affirmative action" stories, but they aren't how they're generally portrayed!
That she knocks down close to 7 figures with a paid newsletter is, well, another interesting story!
And yet, for all that this country gets right, Australia is a bit like the hottest girl in your freshman class. She looks fantastic in her crop top but suffers from crippling self-doubt.
Sunday, October 24, 2021
TERF Corps
It does not matter that chromosomal and endocrinological differences complicate the binarism of sex and that sex assignment is revisable. The anti-gender advocates claim that “gender ideologists” deny the material differences between men and women, but their materialism quickly devolves into the assertion that the two sexes are timeless “facts”. The anti-gender movement is not a conservative position with a clear set of principles. No, as a fascist trend, it mobilizes a range of rhetorical strategies from across the political spectrum to maximize the fear of infiltration and destruction that comes from a diverse set of economic and social forces. It does not strive for consistency, for its incoherence is part of its power.In his well-known list of the elements of fascism, Umberto Eco writes, “the fascist game can be played in many forms,” for fascism is “a collage … a beehive of contradictions”. Indeed, this perfectly describes anti-gender ideology today. It is a reactionary incitement, an incendiary bundle of contradictory and incoherent claims and accusations. They feast off the very instability they promise to contain, and their own discourse only delivers more chaos. Through a spate of inconsistent and hyperbolic claims, they concoct a world of multiple imminent threats to make the case for authoritarian rule and censorship.
Self Driving Nonsense
I'm not entirely sure why, but the last decade was filled with a weird techno-optimism, combined with a pessimism about the impact. Change is inevitable, but it will probably be bad and there's nothing we can do about it!
Self-driving cars are (almost) here! The robots are going to take all the jobs!
Musk said a car would drive by itself from NYC to LA in 2017. Sure not everybody believed that, but that we'd be here in 2021 without them really working at all was a minority opinion.
Teslas weigh 2 tons give or take, depending on the model, and Musk just sends out software "beta tests" for the robot driver like it's a video game.Seeing some issues with 10.3, so rolling back to 10.2 temporarily.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 24, 2021
Please note, this is to be expected with beta software. It is impossible to test all hardware configs in all conditions with internal QA, hence public beta.
Fall Fundraising Day 4!
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Having To Get The Band Back Together Every 2 Years
Inbetween there's fundraising.
There's no interest in turning campaign and party organizations into actual membership organizations, and to give the members something to do in the inbetween times.
Most people don't really want to do anything, but some do, and many more would appreciate the illusion of doing something a bit more than 'retweet if you think this important.'
One could go a bit further and commit the ultimate sin of having membership organizations that actual benefit the members in some ways, but this is, according to the lanyards, the most corrupt form of politics.
But at least make people feel involved. Cynically, giving those people something to do means they aren't finding their activist outlets elsewhere and coming up with world-destroying slogans like "defund the police." If you want to influence people who aren't on the payroll you'd better spend some time influencing them.
I'll keep saying this, I guess!
Saturday, October 23, 2021
Oh, Elon
Suburban Crime Paranoia
So it came as a surprise to Skip Erickson when the HOA board this spring declared that its neighborhood was now besieged by crime, with “bullets flying,” street racing and burglaries “terrorizing the families.”Just absurd stuff.To address the threat, the board said it wanted to buy one of the country’s hottest new security tools: license plate readers built to scan the tag on every passing vehicle for later inspection by homeowners and police.
Fall Fundraiser Day 3!
And, well, here we still are!
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Rude
A New York jury on Friday convicted Lev Parnas, a former associate of Rudy Giuliani who gained close access to Donald Trump, of making illegal campaign contributions.The verdict was returned in Manhattan federal court, where the Soviet-born Florida businessman was accused of using other people’s money to pose as a powerful political broker and cozy up to Trump and other leading Republicans.
Friday, October 22, 2021
In Defense Of Power
Recently people have stepped up to point out that, AKSHUALLY, LBJ had it easy because he had a YUUUGE Dem majority in the Senate.
And, I dunno man, the legend of LBJ is that he played hardball to get the Civil Rights Act, and was willing to and did take a dump on your kitchen table in front of your wife and kids if that was what it took to get your vote. Not only that, this was HIGH-LARIOUS and why he was such a great man.
Retconning passing the Civil Rights Act as super easy is pretty funny! But really the point is the man played hardball, so the legend goes, Doris Kearns Goodwin loves laughing about it on PBS to this day, and it was how he achieved his goals. Maybe "playing hardball" is a legitimate and productive tactic!
Nobody Cares About The Deficit
- Tax cuts for rich people
- Abusing the poors
Being "responsible" and trying to "pay for it" means you're going to run into the buzz saw of #1 right away!
FALL FUNDRAISING DAY 2
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Good Enough For Alito
That Alito and friends might take it seriously is not a reason to take the argument seriously, it's a reason to draw on clown shoes and put a big red nose on pictures of Alito.
Thursday, October 21, 2021
And Find Out
A man who once described a ballot being cast in his dead wife’s name as “sickening” and was cited by the Nevada Republican Party last November as evidence that massive voter fraud swayed the results of the 2020 presidential election has been charged by prosecutors with voter fraud.According to a lawsuit filed in the Las Vegas Justice Court this month, the man, Donald Kirk Hartle, voted his deceased wife Rosemarie Hartle’s ballot. At a November press conference, Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Consevative Union, named Rosemarie Hartle as one example of the “hundreds of dead people" he said had voted in the election in Clark County. The Nevada Republican Party also cited Hartle’s interview with KLAS Channel 8 in their voter fraud allegations.
8 Can't Wait
Cops lie all the time, journalists dutifully type it up, and no one gets in trouble and few hear the retractions.#BREAKING: Passengers didn't sit around and “callously” record video of a rape aboard a SEPTA train for their own gratification without contacting authorities, Delco DA says, reversing police narrative. https://t.co/rvf8pxC3Gv
— NBC10 Philadelphia (@NBCPhiladelphia) October 21, 2021
Put In The Other Quarterback, Coach
At some level we're all (including you, including me) here to prevent us from yelling at the television and annoying the other people in our households. That's something!
Fall fundraising week! Thanks to all!
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Deals
Joe Manchin was not as successful. "Make bills worse so we can hold hands on the Capitol steps" seems dumb to me, but it's certainly dumb (as we remember from the Obama years) when the hand holding photo never even happens! And, of course, when the bill can't even pass!
(Yes I know this stuff is, in part, to get the shittiest Democrats on board, too, but the bipartisan infrastructure deal was also Biden's thing.)
The Best Of Times
I'm not even getting into whether Gulf War I was "good" or "bad"! It doesn't even matter! It was just light entertainment to these people, a funny story about the general and the party.
Tens of thousands of people were killed! And, ok, everyone needs a bit of downtime, but even if for appearances sake, only, didn't the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have anything better to do two weeks before a war than put on a penguin suit and be a prop at Sally's party? I suppose that was, actually, his job.
FALL FUNDRAISING WEEK
I thought about it, but decided against turning up the racism or pivoting to complaining about be cancelled constantly. That is where all the money is these days! Cosplaying Mickey Kaus is strangely popular, too!
Instead I decided to stick to the normal programming of "ban cars, Republicans suck, and Democrats suck more than they should." Hopefully that's enough!
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Opening Bid $400 GOOGLEPLEXZILLION
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
Sarcastic Mister Know-It-All
Tim Kaine defends Rahm Emanuel during his confirmation hearing re: Laquan McDonald, saying its difficult to be the mayor of an American city without “picking up some scar tissue along the way”
— John Hudson (@John_Hudson) October 20, 2021
Asked and Answered
Better Do A Little Well Than A Great Deal Badly
Point to the one, two, three BIG THINGS you did that people might actually be able to notice without wondering if the IRS is going to claw it back with a nasty, costly letter next year.
Also certainly don't make things nightmarishly worse!
Wow Cool Story
And post columnist Richard Cohen asks Powell if he thinks Richard should go to Kuwait. “Only if you want to come back in a body bag”, Powell replies. Within minutes everyone knew we were going to war. Within hours it was on the news. https://t.co/PBqe7OWDkK
— Sally Quinn (@sallyquinndc) October 20, 2021
Do Members Of Congress Care About Calls To Their Offices Anymore?
Obviously even then most members couldn't be successfully pressured on most issues, no matter how many angry calls, but there was some cultural norm of pretending to listen.
Call Me When It's Done
I'll just add that one thing our DISCOURSE has not sufficiently processed is that last guy had a point: until Covid, THE TRUMP ECONOMY was actually great, and the Covid measures that were put in place (yes, by Democrats, basically, but that's not how most people think) made sure Covid didn't ruin that too much.
(look at me, the optimist, thinking this could still pass with something good intact. haha)
Tuesday, October 19, 2021
Swarming
FBI agents on Tuesday swarmed the home of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska in Washington, D.C., an agency spokesperson confirmed to NBC News.Why do Russians get to be oligarchs but not Americans?
Sometimes The Status Quo Is Better
I find it hard to muster up much energy for Build Back Better right now, though this is likely the low point in the negotiations. Maybe something like a compromise that sets apart tax cuts from spending can be reached, with more money available to execute the remaining programs correctly. But that’s a faint glimmer of hope. The Manchin path is one that Builds Back Worse, on long-standing issues on which we cannot afford to skimp.
He Is Us
A big reason "bipartisanship" in its literal and broader senses is bad, actually, is because when everyone who matters is to blame then no one actually is. Our system and culture pushes everything in that direction, and Mitch McConnell is doing us a favor by doing his part to break that.
Democrats need to take his offer on that one.
Publish Them All On Atrios Dot Blogspot Dot Com
Only thing stopping them is elite lawyer brain, of course, but elite lawyer brain ("It is more important for people to think the judiciary is pure than for it to be pure") runs the country.
Monday, October 18, 2021
Saying Nice Things About The Recently Departed
Backlash
One wonders precisely what "we" would have won with that non-coalition. I guess with the right people in power (them) in a Scoop Jackson administration, a few paternalistic blessings would have been granted, and since that was more than what Republicans would have been offering, no one should have demanded anything more.
Instead they spent decades demanding ever more conservative democratic presidential candidates, while instantly declaring them to be too liberal whether they lost (Dukakis) or won (Carter, Clinton). Fomenting backlash politics at outlets like The (old) New Republic while claiming, often, to merely be giving voice to The Silent Majority that had so enraged them back when they were Tricky Dick's.
"If everyone else would just shut up, the smart boys from Harvard can tell you how to appeal to the people at Ohio diners. Probably with science provided by Mark Penn!"
Good thing it's obvious, now, how ridiculous that all is!
Chuck Toddler
People would say, "who even watches this??? who cares???" 15 years ago, but I don't think that was true. They people who mattered watched them, other journalists watched them, and all that stuff filtered down through all political coverage in various ways.
Now I think that's much less true. The bad news is that people get all their news from Ben Shapiro shares on Facebook.
MOOOOMMM YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DOOOOO
The timeline gets altered because some balding asshole was told to clean up after himself in the office kitchen.
Who Is Empowered
You can imagine how the press would treat, I dunno, Elizabeth Warren, if she showed up a week later and said, "nope, $8 trillion or nothing." You can see how the press treats "the progressives," even now.
Sunday, October 17, 2021
Tick Tock They Won't Stop
A joke, but barely.As with another famous Arizona maverick, everything always seems to be good news for Kyrsten Sinema.
— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) October 17, 2021
by Chris Cillizza
Get The Damn Shot
It's also not surprising that people double down a bit on these things, looking for any bit of information to justify their skepticism. Reports (true or not) about side effects and similar will bolster your very wise decision to hold off.
But we're getting close to a year later... and... get the damn shot. The willful refusers are just doing in-group signaling, like getting their asses branded for fraternity initiation. Except in this case they can, like many of the leading lights of the conservative movement, just do it secretly and not tell the other idiots in their club.
As with many issues, the cause is not helped by news coverage which largely centers the perspective of a minority of nutters, because they're Real Americans.
Saturday, October 16, 2021
Inside Job
(CNN)A US Capitol Police officer was indicted on obstruction charges in connection to the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.Missed that yesterday.According to the indictment, Michael A. Riley told a contact online to remove posts showing the person was in the Capitol building that day.
Where Exactly Is All The Corruption
"Wow how did your net worth go up so much while you were in Congress" is a question more and more people should be asking.
Nobody Could've Predicted
Friday, October 15, 2021
What's It All About Then
And, well, I know mostly these are jabs aiming to show that these people have always been full of shit, but sometimes the people saying them seem to be least slightly genuine, so let me explain.
The FREE SPEECH crowd was only and always about preserving safe spaces for elite racists to do racism and get paid for it.
But What Are "WE" Supposed To DOOOOOOOOO
That leaves writing checks, voting, and at election time volunteering with limited resources as millions go into the pockets of campaign consultants/ad companies.
Thursday, October 14, 2021
But What Can Biden DOOOOOO
Slightly more seriously, if Congress won't do the stuff he requires from them, there's still plenty he can reasonably and legitimately do without them. Maybe they'd make a deal about that.
STRIKE
"To my knowledge, most of us will be allocated to the Milan Parts center. Deere's spent an enormous amount of time, money, & effort trying to get us all trained, but not many of us are really ready for this. We'll be working 12 hour shifts, 6 days/week, with day & night shifts."
— Jonah Furman (@JonahFurman) October 14, 2021
Doubt He'll Show
Former President Donald Trump must sit for a videotaped deposition next week as part of a lawsuit involving his anti-immigrant rhetoric, a judge in the Bronx ordered.
MOVING FORWARD
BREAKING: Chairman @BennieGThompson announces the Select Committee will move forward with proceedings to refer Mr. Bannon for criminal contempt. Read the full statement: https://t.co/NzwmvR09pa
— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) October 14, 2021
Sure, Nick
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Nicholas Kristof is ditching The New York Times after 37 years ahead of an expected run for Oregon governor.He's had as much of a real job as I have, except with more paid assistants. I shouldn't be governor either. Maybe the guy who sits in the corner of the meetings, mostly quietly but occasionally expressing my displeasure. Senior adviser. That kind of thing.
Wokery
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers castigated monetary policy makers in the U.S. and elsewhere for paying too much attention to social issues and not enough to the biggest risk to inflation since the 1970s.The specific issue is that in their target for "full employment" or whatever we're calling it this year, the Fed long separated out black unemployment from white unemployment, targeting a higher level of unemployment for black workers which supposedly reflected "full unemployment" and if you're not a racist monster you can see the problem with that....
Fed policy makers last year adopted a more inclusive approach toward their goal of achieving maximum employment, going well beyond the headline unemployment rate. They have pledged to keep their benchmark interest rate near zero even as inflation surges, committing to ensure greater progress in the job market.
Wednesday, October 13, 2021
WHY WON'T THE REPUBLICANS DO THE RIGHT THING
McConnell's horrible, but "The Democrats are in charge so they are responsible" is actually correct!
Worship Us
Blame Canada
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will lift travel restrictions at the borders with Canada and Mexico starting in November for fully vaccinated travelers, reopening the doors of the United States to tourists and separated family members who have been sealed out of the country during the pandemic.
Tuesday, October 12, 2021
America's Worst Humans
Sometimes The Kids do grow up to do amazing stuff.
I Thought We'd Be Heroes
I suspect they both didn't realize times have changed, a little bit, that Biden isn't Obama (*cough* black), that eventheliberals in the news media are a bit sick of this act.Bernie Sanders continues to call out Manchin and Sinema. "$3.5 trillion is already a major compromise. The time is now long overdue for Sen. Manchin and Sen. Sinema to tell us… where do they want to cut?" Says it is "absolutely incumbent" for them to ‘tell us what they want”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 12, 2021
Cops
Far more law enforcement officers in the U.S. have died from Covid-19 than from any other work-related cause in 2020 and 2021. Even so, police unions are fighting vaccine mandates.The great and glorious Donald Trump blessed us with this wonderful magic!
Independence
Generally the desire to place government organizations out of democratic oversight is bad, and certainly The Fed is the best/worst example of this.
Do The Right Thing
Government without newspapers
Long ago, when he was our new republic’s minister to Paris, Thomas Jefferson wrote home to Edward Carrington, a fellow Virginian, to note, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Monday, October 11, 2021
Nasty Humans
It's weird!
I don't think I'm a particularly nice and generous person, but "just put them ovens" kind of rage is not something I ever feel!
Washington Is Broken
The Kids Today Don't Remember How Bad Things Were
Things get normalized - both ways - very quickly.
Sunday, October 10, 2021
Do The Right Thing
.5*.5*.5= .125
Urban Hellholes
I get the objection to some of the downsides of bad cities, but many of them are nice!
Blogger Ethics Panel
I think Pareene has a specific individual(s) in mind, but it reminds me, as many things do, of the hysteria about bloggers being corrupted by undisclosed riches, something the Senior Fellow of the Raytheon Think Tank On Middle Eastern Threats would talk about with a very straight face to his journalist friends.good morning! political consultants who play at public punditry should disclose their clients
— 'Weird Alex' Pareene (@pareene) October 10, 2021
Practically every "source" in DC is talking their book, but a bunch of internet weirdos mostly doing activism for free made them very very concerned.
Saturday, October 09, 2021
It Was 20 Years Ago Today
Twenty years ago tonight I got a little drunk and started making Get Your War On comics! It was a great experience and I met a lot of amazing people/orgs because of it. I stopped in 2009. FWIW this one always felt like the truest expression of the comic. From 10/9/01: pic.twitter.com/nCsoHEAkdj
— David Rees (@david_rees) October 9, 2021
Friday, October 08, 2021
Ruled By Ghouls
Also, George Bush wasn't the only one with a tendency to throw up Mission Accomplished banners prematurely.
One not great month is just one not great month, and this will probably be better than the Great Recession, in terms of recovery time, but The Great Recession was fucking awful. That is, for some reason, largley unacknowledged, even now.
The Larry Summers gang was pushing the "just turn the economy off and turn it back on again" view, and that too much aid would prevent this from happening because of lazy moochers. When that obviously didn't happen they didn't change their policy prescriptions because they're lying assholes. 500,000 jobs per month would be very good job growth, and it would take 1.5 years of that to get us back to trend.*We are about 8.8 million jobs behind where we would be if the pre-pandemic trend had continued. pic.twitter.com/BeFQahu8Zs
— Aaron Sojourner (@aaronsojourner) October 8, 2021
This is unlikely to happen.
*sorry, this isn't correct, the trend is up! so it would take more months than that.
Pretty Please
Don't Interrupt My Vacation
JERBS
Thursday, October 07, 2021
Late thoughts
"If the package has to be trimmed to accommodate Mancema's deficit concerns, progressives should front load all the benefits to the first four years rather than stretching them out over 10. Make extension of community college child care, family leave, etc. an issue for the 2024 election, and dare GOP to vote to cut those benefits."
Happy Hour
We Burned These Cities
Urban hellholes being places for Those People is part of the worldview, and the general urban revival of the past couple of decades upended that almost as much as the Kenyan Muslim becoming president. That Those People burned down all the cities restores their basic framework.
Ted, Destroyer of Worlds
Then get rid of the filibuster and also pass a "Ted, shut the fuck up" rule.
Wow That's A Big Number
It's easier to see that this is silly, I think, because 15 years ago only weirdo bloggers and maybe occasionally Krgthulu would point out that all this stuff was in fact, incredibly silly, and Deficit Peacocking was just nonsense, but now even some of your favorite centrists - like Joseph Robinette Biden - are acknowledging that it's silly!
Just decades of absolute fraud propped up by objective journalists .
Bully Or Be Bullied
Their role in the power hiearchy is unquestioned, and begging for their better nature to emerge is the only legitimate way of dealing with them. Or not.
Wednesday, October 06, 2021
Or Not
Love the rich white guy confidence. Things will just, you know, work out how they're supposed to (according to me).Which concession, AMONG THE ZERO OFFERED BY REPUBLICANS, should Democratic leaders accept? https://t.co/3TSrRsnbIX
— David Waldman-1, of Yorktown LLC™ (@KagroX) October 6, 2021
You Mean You Can Just Do That
Self-imposted restrictions.
Wow Great Insight
As I read Grisham’s book, I kept thinking that it felt, in some ways, like the story of the Trump presidency was less about one demagogue than it was about the everyday choices of the smaller people working at the levels below policy-making, and how run-of-the-mill self-centeredness and expediency, when practiced by dozens or hundreds of people in an organization, amounts to the system that allows evil. The Trump administration was not possible because of Trump and his brain trust, as it were. It was possible because of the people like Grisham who let them, in minor and individual ways, function.[clearing throat]
AND BECAUSE OF JOURNALISTS LIKE YOU WHO TREATED ALL OF THESE PEOPLE AS TREASURED SOURCES TO BE CODDLED AND PROTECTED AND WHOSE REHABILITATION TOURS YOU ARE AIDING EVEN NOW ENSURING NO ONE WILL FACE ANY CONSEQUENCES EVER
Mint The Coin
That legal clarity is why those fussy arguments against the coin are nonsense. If Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling, in effect it will have said Biden must spend, can't borrow, but can mint the coin. Arguably the coin is not just an option for him, but a necessity — there is no other way to avoid breaking some law.(The other obvious gimmicks involve the Fed saying, as it does occasionally, "we have a button that can make a kajillion dollars when we press it and the legal right to use emergency powers to stop the economy from blowing up, so, lol, whatever it takes.").
The coin discourse is amusing because it highlights a few things: money is fake, many constraints are self-imposed by custom more than law, and pointing these things out makes people really fucking mad.
Doctors
Tuesday, October 05, 2021
Grand Old Police Blotter
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s former top aide, Roy McGrath, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that he misled the Maryland Environmental Service into paying him a six-figure severance and embezzled funds for personal purposes.
Oh, Elon
SAN FRANCISCO — A jury on Monday ordered Tesla to pay nearly $137 million in damages in a case that alleged an employee encountered racist abuse, discrimination and harassment at the company’s plant in Fremont, Calif.Owen Diaz, an elevator operator who worked for the company between June 2015 and May 2016, sued Tesla, alleging a hostile work environment and racial harassment, and said “daily racist epithets” such as the n-word were used in the factory, where his son, Demetric, also worked. The initial suit by Diaz, who is Black, alleged that workers encountered a scene “straight from the Jim Crow era,” where workers were subjected to frequent racist harassment and supervisors took no action.
You Have To Admit You Miss Andrew Cuomo
Rudy 9/11 never should've been turned into a hero. The man was never anything but a villain.
At around 11 a.m. on September 16, 1992, Norm Steisel heard a roar from outside his office in City Hall. Peering out the window, he saw thousands of off-duty police officers filling the narrow park that surrounds the building, a grand neoclassical structure that, all of a sudden, had started to feel like the tightest of traps.But our liberal media is gonna do what it does.Steisel, then first deputy mayor of operations, heard officers chanting, “Dinkins gotta go!” and “The mayor’s on crack.” They carried signs bearing racist cartoon images of Mayor David Dinkins with humongous lips and nose and an Afro, including several calling the city’s first Black mayor a “washroom attendant.”
...
The day of the protest, Rudy Giuliani was also outside the building with a microphone. Giuliani, a former U.S. Attorney and failed mayoral candidate in 1989, declared, “The reason the morale of the police department of the City of New York is so low is one reason and one reason alone: David Dinkins!” The crowd roared.
Some media assigned blame for the riot, the police reaction, the era of bad feelings not just to police but in the weeks after the riot, increasingly, also to Dinkins. By calling out racist behavior, Dinkins was “playing the race card.”A New York Times editorial from late September apportioned some blame for the racial tension to Dinkins, for showing sympathy to Kiko Garcia’s family. In doing so, Dinkins “trampled on the understandable sensitivities of the police — and indeed, he has not yet shown them adequate concern,” the editorial said.
Another Times editorial from the first week of October applauded Dinkins, who’d by then stopped criticizing police for racist language, as polls showed voters blaming both the mayor and Giuliani for playing “the race card.”
“Mayor David Dinkins’s more conciliatory approach to the Police Department is most welcome,” the editorial said. “New York City needs a break from the tensions generated by the bitter police demonstration three weeks ago, and that means lowering the voices on all sides.”
Seems Like A Nice Guy
The feds descended on the Manhattan headquarters of the controversial NYPD sergeants union Tuesday, the Daily News has learned.Twitter thread about sweetie Mullins.While the details of the investigation were not revealed, an FBI spokeswoman confirmed to The News that the agency was “carrying out a law enforcement action in connection with an ongoing investigation” into the Sergeants Benevolent Association.
...
He came under fire in 2020 when he posted the arrest report of de Blasio’s daughter, Chiara de Blasio, on social media following her arrest during George Floyd protests. Mullins was hit with departmental charges for the violation of NYPD rules.
I'll Do Anything To Save The World, But I Won't Do That
I mean, they pulled all sorts of shenanigans to save Jamie Dimon's salary in 2009, I think they can do plainly less controversial things to save the world.
I'm Glad We All Agree Now
In 2003, Joe Lieberman, at the time one of the worst Democratic senators, traveled to Arizona to campaign for his party’s presidential nomination and was regularly greeted by antiwar demonstrators. “He’s a shame to Democrats,” said the organizer of a protest outside a Tucson hotel, a left-wing social worker named Kyrsten Sinema. “I don’t even know why he’s running. He seems to want to get Republicans voting for him — what kind of strategy is that?”
Rules of Activism
The politics (right wingers do whatever) and the target (punching up is bad, for some reason) govern how DC people talk about this stuff.
Monday, October 04, 2021
Happy Hour Thread
Whatsapp being down is a bigger deal.
...Whatsapp is what much of the world uses for texting instead of an SMS-based app. At some point facebook bought it. That obviously didn't work out well!
Facebook Down
It is "amusing" how facebook, in the public consciousness, went from an exciting new tech thing The Kids do to where your racist conspiracy theory older uncle hangs out.
I deleted my account a few years ago, though I just created a new one (friendless) for those moments when the internet sort of requires you to have one.
Shut Down
Former U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, a conservative Missouri Republican whose comment that women’s bodies have a way of avoiding pregnancies in cases of “legitimate rape” sunk his bid for the U.S. Senate and became a cautionary tale for other GOP candidates, died late Sunday. He was 74....
He added: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
The "Liberal" Academy
How Do These Things Keep Happening
(CNN)A swath of the Southern California coast is covered with oil after 3,000 barrels' worth gushed into the Pacific Ocean -- devastating some of the local wildlife, officials said.A pipeline breach occurred about 5 miles off the coast of Huntington Beach, Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley said Sunday.
Surprise
The Biden administration released a rule Thursday that addresses one of the most fought-over provisions of a coming ban on surprise medical bills.The abuses are absurd (the oncologist who is out of network and peeks in your room as you are sleeping and adds $5000) and they should just be criminal fraud, but that the insurance companies are "lol who cares" highlights their role is a sham.The rule details how a new class of medical billing arbiters will decide the fair price for emergency medical care, one of the largest sources of surprise bills. The rule received a positive reaction from consumer advocates and some legislators who drafted the law, but it “disappointed” emergency physicians, who fear it will lead to unreasonably low rates.