Tuesday, May 31, 2022
They Lied About Everything
An employee at Robb Elementary School had propped open a door to carry food from a car to the classroom last Tuesday, but closed it shut after realizing that a gunman was loose and heading toward the school, her San Antonio lawyer said.
how many kids did they shoot?The Uvalde Police Department and the Uvalde ISD police force are no longer cooperating with the @TxDPS investigation into the massacre at Robb Elementary and the state’s review of police response, multiple law enforcement sources told @ABC
— Aaron Katersky (@AaronKatersky) May 31, 2022
w/ @JoshMargolin
Don't Worry, Durham Still Has Plenty Of People Left To Investigate
Of Course They Knew
Video obtained by ABC News, taken outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, as last week's massacre was unfolding inside, appears to capture a 911 dispatcher alerting officers on scene that they were receiving calls from children who were alive inside the classroom that the gunman had entered -- as law enforcement continued to wait nearly an hour and a half to enter the room."Oh we didn't go in because we assumed they were all dead" was the kind of dumb lie that could only come from people used to telling dumb lies without ever being challenged.
And They Are Still At It
Heller does not totally disable government from passing laws that seek to prevent the kind of atrocities we saw in Uvalde, Texas. And we believe that politicians on both sides of the aisle have (intentionally or not) misconstrued Heller. Some progressives, for example, have blamed the Second Amendment, Heller or the Supreme Court for atrocities like Uvalde. And some conservatives have justified contested policy positions merely by pointing to Heller, as if the opinion resolved the issues.This is from two former clerks, one Scalia, one Stevens. Whatever Heller was at that moment, and maybe (maybe) whatever Scalia meant it to be, it did the opposite of what legal Bigbrains promised at the time, what these two are arguing now.Neither is fair. Rather, we think it’s clear that every member of the court on which we clerked joined an opinion — either majority or dissent — that agreed that the Constitution leaves elected officials an array of policy options when it comes to gun regulation.
I don't think fear of the court should stop them from trying to act (on this or anything else), but people who should know better - certainly now! - have this weird idea that these big cases settle things for all eternity. Probably understandable for clerks in the center of it at the time. Their big moment in history.
But it doesn't work like that. It has never worked like that. It certainly doesn't work like that with the current lunatics on the Court.
Don't See How Donnie Two Scoops Wriggles Out Of This One
The Justice Department keeps ramping up its case against former President Donald Trump. Peter Navarro, who was one of Trump’s advisers after his 2020 election loss, revealed Monday that he’d been subpoenaed to testify in the grand jury investigation into the lead-up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
What Happened To All The Telephone Operators
A lot of this was inspired by the repeated promises that self-driving cars were almost here. And, well, we see how that worked out. "If robot brains could drive, they could do just about anything," the reasoning went! True, actually, but the bizarre focus on "robotaxis" as the best profitable application of our new sentient overlords should have clued people into the fact that such robot brains were not about to arrive.
Don't think uber's problem was ever "the drivers cost too much," though labor costs are what managers obsess about because it is what they think they can control.
AI has been almost here every few years for decades and I have some bad news about that.
Telling people that "truck driver" would soon not be a career probably has not helped our current inflation predicament!
THE ROBOTS ARE COMING explanation is back now, because they will soon need another explanation for the mass unemployment they are trying to cause. Demand the Fed raise rates, see unemployment, blame nonexistent robots.
For a brief period it looked Powell would buck my prediction that The Fed will never allow people to get another raise again. Not clear yet, but that prediction is looking better again, sadly.
Failure Points
Putting cops in schools, militarizing police departments, giving them all fancy equipment and guns and riot gear, and... what if they don't use those things for what they are intended for?
Police department leaders need to tell their officers today what is expected of them and to understand that Americans demand it.(though I'm not sure there's a good purpose for many of those things, anyway).
There's a bit of a problem in a world where every politician has decided that it is Woke Nonsense to demand any accountability from police whatsoever. There's been a nonstop copaganda backlash in our elite publications from our glorious centrists and journalists, which has been ratcheting up more and more. Racist cop union written attacks on any DA who actually suggests cops should do their fucking jobs as advertised, instead of just harassing and slaughtering black people. Mainstream journalists just running with right wing attacks on low crime liberal cities and ignoring even their neighboring city high crime ones with their right wing DAs.
Yes, Annie Lowrey, this is on you, too. Hope The Atlantic pays well. Not that you need it.
After everything that's happened in the past few years, they all *know* the bullshit they are peddling, and they do it anyway. How does everybody keep getting worse?
Monday, May 30, 2022
Is It Any Wonder The Monkey's Confused
Don't expect voters to come to conclusions all by themselves. It does happen sometimes, and it is notable when it does, but it isn't the norm.
Rich People DUI
And Who Shot Them
In addition to those who died, 17 people were also injured in the shooting, Gov. Greg Abbott said in a press conference Wednesday.In movies/tv, getting shot either kills you or they pull out the bullets and you're fine, unless you get shot in the head or spine. In real life, getting shot fucks you up in many ways. (link fixed)
Heller
My guys, do you ever stop talking yourself into compromises the other side isn't offering? Do you ever understand the nature of the battle, or the players, or their motives?
I suspect I bought this at some point, back when I trusted smart "liberal" lawyers more.
Sunday, May 29, 2022
Happy "Suck On This" Day
I think it [the invasion of Iraq] was unquestionably worth doing, Charlie.
...
We needed to go over there, basically, um, and um, uh, take out a very big stick right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble, and there was only one way to do it.
...
What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, um and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand?"
You don't think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we're just gonna let it grow?
Well Suck. On. This.
Okay.
That Charlie was what this war was about. We could've hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. We coulda hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could. That's the real truth.
The News, Translated
To rephrase: a number of cities have concluded that the only way to make sure cops don't murder civilians during minor traffic stops is to...not do minor traffic stops at all.
— Tọ́pẹ́ (@graceishuman) May 29, 2022
But sure reform https://t.co/Pj66OVRUqM
Best Practices
The Justice Department will conduct a review of the police response to the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, at the request of the city's mayor, Don McLaughlin."The goal of the review is to provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and responses that day, and to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events," DOJ spokesman Anthony Coley announced in a statement on Sunday.
How It Started/How It's Going
Going:New York Times is gonna go anti-trans next
— Atrios (@Atrios) March 19, 2022
Another day, more lazy anti trans hand waving by the New York Times. Which trans rights activists did the reporter talk to? Did he actually talk to any? Which gay rights group? We’ll never know, because he substitutes his sneering judgement for fair reporting. pic.twitter.com/B9JsiKpb0X
— Ari Drennen (@AriDrennen) May 29, 2022
Saturday, May 28, 2022
Objectitudinal
hopefully this settles the industry debate about whether reporters are being “activists and not journalists” by pointing out that coverage is often too deferential to police and that the media’s role should be to provide rigorous, skeptical interrogation of police claims
— Wesley (@WesleyLowery) May 27, 2022
Don't See How Donnie Two Scoops Wriggles Out Of This One
(CNN)Federal investigators have interviewed Republicans in Georgia about interactions with people in former President Donald Trump's orbit and his 2020 reelection campaign, as the Justice Department's sprawling criminal probe into efforts to put forth alternate slates of electors to displace Joe Biden electors expands to multiple states.
We're Nothing, And Nothing Will Help Us
Polls
And how supposedly neutral journalists torture polls to fit their narrative is the easiest way to know which team they're playing for. I don't mean bias or preconceptions, I mean literal team playing.
my brother in christ your data shows that more than half of americans want MANDATORY BUYBACKS https://t.co/FM6f8xteOf
— Rusty Foster (@fka_tabs) May 27, 2022
Friday, May 27, 2022
Accomplices
When specially equipped federal immigration agents arrived at the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday, the local police at the scene would not allow them to go after the gunman who had opened fire on students inside the school, according to two officials briefed on the situation.
The Chickenshit Club
"Contradicting Earlier Reports"
How Many Lies
Cops don't just lie, they're *lazy liars*, because unlike politicians, "no one" ever bothers to check or pretend to give a shit when the facts contradict their stories.
Not that politicians or their flaks are always treated with appropriate skepticism, either, but there's at least a chance!
If they want to keep changing the details we can let them and focus on what clearly happened: the shooter killed a bunch of kids, the cops did nothing to stop him for at least 45 minutes, and instead spent the time violently harassing the desperate parents and concocting their hilarious cover story.
Thursday, May 26, 2022
How About Another Story
Don't See How Donnie Two Scoops Wriggles Out Of This One
NEW YORK (AP) — Court rules former President Donald Trump must answer questions under oath in New York state’s civil investigation.
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) May 26, 2022
Defund The Centrist Pundits
The centrist political class has had, now, years to come up with something, and another "holy shit what the fuck" event by the cops was of course inevitable.
Yelling at activists for not considering themselves to be unpaid spokespeople for the Democratic party was never a very wise plan, especially as it comes from the most repugnant, offensive, highly paid, and offputting people in The Discourse. Take your own advice and please just shut the fuck up.
The Really Thin Blue Line
The initial story was that he was decked out like some sort of Super Robocop wearing Mithral Mail or some shit, and 3 cops threw everything they had at him but he got into the school anyway.
Now we find out that there wasn't any "body armor," the 3 cops didn't do shit except say, "pretty please, don't go in," they called their dozen or so buddies to come, who proceed to do absolutely nothing except prevent parents from doing anything (tasers included).
They left the shooter in a classroom so a couple of them could run into to rescue their own kids, and then ran out. They didn't do anything else until the Border Patrol, who they called, showed up, though I have no fucking idea what the BP has to do with this. The cops even got another kid killed because they ran in and said, we're cops who needs help!, and some kid shouted and the shooter shot him.
This might be even more horrifying than it sounds at first.
I don't expect Paul Blart to be a hero, but we've spent immense amount of money paying cops to harass minority kids in schools and rape teenage girls, and otherwise do nothing because they're bored out of their minds, and this is the result.Spoiler: that parent’s daughter died in the attack while he was begging cops to save the kids.
— Andy Specht (@AndySpecht) May 26, 2022
My God.
Probably be a White House ceremony honoring their heroism by the end of the week.
Criticizing these heroes will be the new "defund the police," damn [checks notes] grieving parents ruining things for Pelosi in the fall!
Watch this cop literally push a parent, prevent them from saving their kids, while they cower outside afraid. What a fucking joke. This city spends 40% of their municipal budget for this inaction. https://t.co/glscpGTmO3
— kelsey mckinney (@mckinneykelsey) May 26, 2022
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Sounds Bad
Shortly after hundreds of rioters at the Capitol started chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” on Jan. 6, 2021, the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, left the dining room off the Oval Office, walked into his own office and told colleagues that President Donald J. Trump was complaining that the vice president was being whisked to safety.Mr. Meadows, according to an account provided to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, then told the colleagues that Mr. Trump had said something to the effect of, maybe Mr. Pence should be hung.
Defund The Police
The San Francisco Police Department refused to participate in an operation to arrest a man who ran a global fencing ring out of a Quickly Boba Tea Cafe earlier this month, according to District Attorney Chesa Boudin.Nonstop series of articles by journalists who keep pretending not to know what's going on, because they know what is expected of them.
People who pretend not to know things are just liars.
Trumpkin Redemption Arc
I honesty can't remember the degree of optimism or pessimism I felt on Jan.7 about whether This Time Would Be Different when it came to integrating these monsters back into high society.
Pessimism was the correct call, of course.Looks Like We'll Have The Wanker Cuellar To Kick Around A Bit Longer
Close.
One thing for the leadership to not oppose the guy (I expect this, get it), quite another for them to go all out to campaign for him, which is not something that happens for everybody! And quite another to do so without... any demands for discipline from the leadership that supposedly prides itself on that!
Judge people by their actions.
What Are You Going To Do About It
Anyway, 19 little kids are dead, and I don’t expect anything meaningful will be done to prevent the next 19 little kids from getting killed. I know most of the complex logistical, legal, cultural, and political reasons why our system is incapable of preventing this. I leave those explanations to other authors. I ask instead what anyone with power in this country—a group that has intentionally excluded young people from its ranks—plans to do about those reasons. And I invite the reader to think about the implications of the fact that those people with power cannot answer my question with anything remotely credible. What are you going to do about the fact that we all know you can’t do anything?"Try to get 10 Republicans to support us" is not an answer.
There is a ratchet problem in that the best possible outcome of our system (best, most optimistic, not going to happen), is that under Democratic control no actual liberal legislation gets passed except occasional sweeteners in the budget, and under Republican control, centrist Democrats join with Republicans to make their legislation slightly less horrible.
This isn't an argument that it doesn't matter who wins. Even a a cautious, inept, fearful and lazy Dem executive is better and geriatric Dem control of Congress is better than the existing alternative. If harm reduction is the best we can do, that is still something.
But I'm an old Advanced Politics Knower and while you can yell at "The Kids" all you want, "what you going to do about it?" needs to be a question you can answer, and if you can't, don't be surprised when people conclude what you are telling them to conclude.
Cops Lie
Tuesday, May 24, 2022
What's It All About Then
In The Discourse, these are the moderates, the good guys, and The Left are the wreckers.No Labels got what it wanted: Slowing down BBB and killing it. The Unbreakable Nine got... well, in Vela's case, a LOT more money.
— David Weigel (@daveweigel) May 24, 2022
The Wanker Cuellar
Rummaging through my archives I was reminded that he endorsed George W. Bush in 2000.
Useful Signal
Getting enraged by other people wearing masks for covid - not mandates, not suggestions, not preachy people telling you to wear one, but just wearing them - provided a good signal of which people in The Discourse were fundamentally conservative.
A lot of people in The Discourse. Just piece after piece lecturing people to rip off their masks. About 3 covid waves ago.
I am not claiming all lefties are pure manifestations of judgment free "live and let live." But if you regularly get obsessed about people engaging in harmless personal activities that don't impact you or anybody else at all...
Rolling Coal
They've always tried to fancy it up by wheeling people like Buckley out to fake being smart, but "owning the libs" and "absolute deep disgust at the existence of other people who are in any way different" have been the prime motivators of conservatism and glibertarianism. Owning the libs by spewing toxic fumes out every time a Prius drives by was a pretty good manifestation of this.
It's like people who get enraged by vegetarians simply for existing, when they are making absolutely no demands of anyone else either to match them or cater to their needs.
More extreme and more obvious manifestation of this is the basic revulsion of white American conservatives at minorities, but really it's absolutely everything.
Internet glibertarians were a big thing in the early aughts and I quickly came to understand that their FREEDOM, even the bits that didn't mean "freedom to contract oneself into slavery" or "freedom from statutory rape laws," just meant "FREE TO BE JUST LIKE ME." No celebration of the possibilities of freedom, just a narcissistic tribute to MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
Even the existence electric trucks is an assault on my freedom to not live in a world with electric trucks. Suck it, woke trucks.
Monday, May 23, 2022
Your Moment Of Zen
Mayor Eric Adams, speaking to the family of the man who was killed on the subway this weekend: "It is my responsibility to keep New Yorkers safe. My heart goes out to that family. I'm sorry they lost their loved one... I thank god I'm the mayor right now."
— Emma G. Fitzsimmons (@emmagf) May 23, 2022
"The Big Lie"
More importantly that, while there are certainly people who believe the lie, I don't think most of them care if it is true or not. The lie is just another "owning the libs by lying" thing, not an effort to deceive. Lying as an assertion of power.
But Hunter's Laptop
Yes I know that this is being reported as news in a major newspaper (that fucking newspaper, in fact). Lots of things are! And then no one on CNN talks about them the next day, and that newspaper's own political reporters have it erased from their memories.It doesn't just raise questions, it provides answers. But those answers are inconvenient for a foreign policy establishment that is rife with this sort of profiteering and corruption, so we'll just keep pretending to ask questions. https://t.co/FoSAnWU6qN
— Matt Duss (@mattduss) May 23, 2022
Some things become scandals, some just get reported and disappear.
Musky
This isn't an "I told you so post," more just a bit of relief, as being the lonely voice screaming in the wilderness can be a bit crazy-making sometimes. Only fools and Frenchmen think Musk is anything less than a real life Tony Stark.
That supposedly intelligent people get taken in so easily by various techno-utopian promises, no matter how absurd they are, is a bit of a problem. That widespread belief in those promises provides cover for obvious malfeasance and corruption is another!
Tesla's stock price runs on hype. Always tempted to short it, but as the man said, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
Being skeptical about self-driving cars generally, and Musk specifically, inspired the kind of condescending contempt I haven't experienced since doubting the sincerity of Colin Powell!
I'm a big boy on the internet and I mostly found it funny, but as I said it can be a bit crazy-making sometimes. How's your self-driving car, Kevin?
"Shock Waves"
How Did They Find A Worse One
Not going to link it, you can find it if you want, but so much of the "cancel culure/me too backlash" stuff is just written by people who have no understanding of, "if the boss tells you to do (or not to do) something, and you don't (or do), you can be fired," which is basically the Frank Langella "fired by Netflix" situation. Of course the column, as these columns always do, elides the known facts of the story.
Give how awful her columns are, it makes sense that she has no understanding of this! I'd take these people more seriously if once, just once, they covered what they considered to be an "unjust firing" of someone who wasn't a fairly famous person that they identified with.
Sunday, May 22, 2022
Oh, Elon
WATCH: Ediel Ruiz and his partner were visiting family in California City on Saturday when his Tesla caught fire. Ruiz says the fire started directly under his four-month-old’s car seat. No one was in the car, he says.
— Savannah Welch (@svnnh_wlch) May 19, 2022
Full story tonight at 10/11 on @bakersfieldnow pic.twitter.com/SEgMSf5Qb6
Name The Problem
7 times this year, Topher has done a similar tweet aimed at "Congress." This is the first one aimed at "Republicans."Republican opposition to COVID funding will force unacceptable tradeoffs. And we're facing the unthinkable: not enough vaccines. https://t.co/oilFgSNXkR
— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro46) May 22, 2022
Worker Bees
Not a lack of attention to the fact that our political leadership is not exactly young, but I'm actually as concerned about the fact that 35 is the new 25, 45 is the new 35, etc. Like I remember when Tim Ryan was a young whippersnapper in the House, and, well, somehow he still is! (not quite, but..).
But more than electeds, the people doing the hard work in the White House. Some people work 14 hour days, some don't, and, ...
In general people shouldn't work those 14 hour days, but in general lots of places don't function very well without those people.
Saturday, May 21, 2022
Can't Believe Those Awful Republicans Voted Against This
As An Expert In Australian Politics Since This Morning
More seriously, glad the anti-trans stuff didn't work.
There’s going to be lots of blowback on Scott Morrison for stoking anti-Trans culture wars. It’s contributed to lost seats, in addition to the more toxicity facing trans people. https://t.co/jeQFG0EPwz
— Matthew McGregor (@mcgregormt) May 21, 2022
Illegitimate
It's never been controversial - though of course controversy over the specifics - that there's some jousting between congress and the executive over powers. Absolute judicial supremacy - a dictatorship by the least accountable elements of our government - was not something that was a consensus belief!
Never Tweet
Friday, May 20, 2022
Oh, Elon
Up to that point I had been skeptical that any startup automaker could succeed. That view wasn't about Tesla, it was about the car biz. But what I found at Harris Ranch was shocking, a cockroach, and I decided to follow a life-changing instinct: THERE IS NEVER JUST ONE COCKROACH.
— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) May 20, 2022
Rich Guy Opinions
Musk has long been a stupid shit poster, but I think people assumed he was performing for his dumb fans. No, he's just dumb. Really dumb.
Lock Her Up
Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pressed Arizona lawmakers after the 2020 election to set aside Joe Biden’s popular-vote victory and choose “a clean slate of Electors,” according to emails obtained by The Washington Post.
Sounds Bad
Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s top election official, faced an onslaught of threats after the 2020 presidential election for refusing to overturn results that showed Joe Biden had won the state. In those hectic weeks, she says she also received an especially disturbing piece of information: President Donald Trump suggested in a White House meeting that she should be arrested for treason and executed.Most of us can't do much more than "vote harder," and are quite often chastized by those in power when we try. People choose to be our fighters, voluntarily. Those people have actual power.
How Dare You Accuse Me Of Being Human
It isn't even about corruption, just, like, of course you gotta do what the boss wants. Of course you make some choices that aren't perfectly pure. Of course you choose this topic instead of that topic, of course you want to be successful and that perceived path to success impacts what you do. Of course you know some topics/results are more likely to be published in top journals.
I was actually more thinking of people in journalism (broadly defined), but economists are a good example, also, too.
ElonGate
Of course Elon will likely still wriggle out of this one!
Thursday, May 19, 2022
No
Not even going to read the article - maybe it's good! - but we swing back and forth between "ONE GUY IN ONE PLACE WON A LOCAL/STATE ELECTION HE IS THE FUTURE" and "What works in New York is different than what works in Ohio, stupid lefties" and, you know, neither is precisely true.
Afternoon Thread
Priorities. Priorities.
Seems Bad
Good job all you liberal lawyers who, in various ways, bolstered the Federalist Society all these years. Honorable debate partners, lovely well-catered events, excellent speaking fees.
The Other Similarity
Worst Person Dot Gif
It's a faux pas to harsh everybody's Just War Buzz, but pretty much daily I have a reaction to coverage of Russian actions and atrocities which is basically, "yes, remember when we did that."
Though most people don't.
By The Power Of Grayskull
I'll applaud this, and also put it out there as a reminder that The President Of The United Fucking States has a lot of perfectly legal and supposedly (I say supposedly because I understand you never know what Alito might do!) uncontroversial powers to just do stuff and they should consider that option more frequently.
WASHINGTON — President Biden took urgent action on Wednesday to address the nationwide baby formula shortage, invoking the Defense Production Act to increase production and creating “Operation Fly Formula” to deploy Defense Department planes and speed formula shipments into the United States from overseas.We can have some discussions about the appropriate role of the federal government, but "making sure babies get fed if the free market fairies have failed" seems to be a reasonable expectation
That's Right
Time we all said it.Former President George W. Bush: “The decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean of Ukraine.” pic.twitter.com/UMwNMwMnmX
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 19, 2022
But during his 10-minute speech, Bush also made a verbal faux pas while referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Bush noted has brutally stifled popular dissent and had political opponents imprisoned.Yes, we did that.“The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq,” Bush said, before wincing and correcting himself. “I mean, of Ukraine.”
The comment left the audience in an awkward silence. Then, Bush shrugged and said under his breath: “Iraq, too.”Iraq, also, too, indeed.
Wednesday, May 18, 2022
Car Brain
Whoever made this electric car ad has never lived in a city pic.twitter.com/rQrybRyRZp
— Brennan Moore (@zamiang) May 18, 2022
The Plot Against America
What It All Means
If there's a story here it's the amount of money thrown at lefty challengers, which is a story whoever won any particular race. Maybe that the money didn't always work is a story! Maybe not!
Deaths
Certainly criminalizing abortion (medical professionals and patients) unambiguously criminalizes miscarriages which, of course, criminalizes pregnancy!
I was astounded by how often patients were turned away from emergency rooms and their doctor’s offices in the middle of their miscarriages. No wonder Alabama has the third-highest maternal mortality rate in the nation, I initially thought. People are denied urgent medical attention outright, which left me wondering at first if health care providers were simply negligent and not keeping up with their medical education. Or was this lack of care a reflection of discrimination? Eventually, I landed on discrimination as the cause.Women will die (even more), regularly, and not just from "back alley abortions" but because doctors and hospitals will refuse to treat them, appropriately or at all. Thanks to all the "centrists" who have argued for years that there's some golden compromise (unspecified, never thought through, because these people are dumb people who think they are the smartest people in the country) just there for the taking if not for 'radical feminists' who control the Democratic party, or whatever.But I was wrong. The reality is much worse. Instead, these medical professionals seem to know what they are supposed to do, but choose not to.
And In PA
I think electability arguments are always dumb and the people who make them support the same type of candidates who regularly get squashed, but Fetterman really is the type of candidate who can get the weirdo occasional and "swing" voters. Not, as the 7 figure consultants claim, the CopTroopCIA candidates. The CopTroopCIA candidates do fund their yachts, of course.
Almost all the old schools powers that be (pols and institutions) endorsed Lamb and Fetterman won every county.
Shapiro (the Dem candidate for governor) had better know what he is doing! I don't mean this is true of him (I don't know), but sometimes it seems that candidates don't quite understand the responsibility they have to win. It ain't just about them. Important race!
Nuked From Orbit
Tuesday, May 17, 2022
Demolish It
The pandemic hit less than a year after Apple celebrated the opening of its new, $5 billion headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., a splashy circular building that resembles a spaceship. It has largely sat unused for the past two years.
Paul Ryan Cares Deeply About Solving Poverty
Reminded of it as some Republicans, realizing that unless the Democrats are incompetent [narrator: ...], the end of Roe is going to be a problem, are coming out claiming that they're going to become Compassionate Conservatives again and Help Mothers. Somehow.
Maybe they'll let you know next week. Maybe Rick Scott will have a plan!
Our great political journalists and pundits will pretend to believe it, as they always do, even when there is nothing there, not even a magic asterisk.
Always Been a Bullshitter
A con man clown with just enough of substance (Tesla did produce cars that were popular enough, SpaceX rockets do seem to manage to launch) to let him bullshit through to the next month.
Oh, Elon
Musk negotiated the Twitter deal over the weekend of April 23 and April 24 without carrying out any due diligence, the proxy statement shows.
No smart talking law guy but my understanding is I AM WAIVING ANY DUE DILIGENCE was spelled out. Musk tweeted on Tuesday that Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal has refused to show proof for his company's estimate and that the deal cannot move forward until he does. Twitter's proxy statement shows that in the run-up to the deal Musk made no effort to get information about the issue."Mr. Musk did not ask to enter into a confidentiality agreement or seek from Twitter any non-public info regarding Twitter," Twitter said in its proxy statement.
A Life Unlived
The two wealthiest men who have ever lived are shit-posting on Twitter and complaining about money.
— LB 🇺🇦🌻 (@LincolnsBible) May 17, 2022
Whatever lives inside these hollow men is diseased.
Musk'd
It was hilariously sad when all the pundits got excited about Musk starting the process of merging his consciousness and bank accounts with twitter. I was reminded again that when people write authoritatively and incorrectly about something you know about (so it's obvious), consider how often they do the same about things you don't know about (so it's less obvious).
He's been on a multi-day rampage of violating his agreements with Twitter and committing clear SEC violations. But, YOLO, I said.
Monday, May 16, 2022
It's 2022
Democrat guests are key to the business model, they're the pitch to advertisers.
Oh, but Atrios, how else will Democrats reach the people least likely to vote for them? I dunno, Alan, but suspect it isn't helping much!
Nothing We Can Do
And, no, it's not always about politics or getting credit or whether you get blamed (or not) for things undeservedly. If the Excecutive has any purpose at the moment, it's mobililzing the resources and power of the state to feed babies.* Or similar.
*I have not followed this particular issue closely and claim no insight, other than, "however this happened, maybe somebody sould do something, and that somebody is us" is the right response from the people in charge. And when the guy in charge of making things happen instead spends his time texting his favorite journalists about how there's nothing to be done, find the guy who has a different attitude.
Life under communism is as bad as they said!
Reasonable Moderate Republicans
Notably, The New York Times, just this past March, didn’t even mention the Facebook ads or Stefanik’s promotion of white supremacist ideology in a piece that focused on Stefanik’s complete embrace of Trumpism. The article, headlined, “Elise Stefanik, Reinvented in Trump’s Image, Embodies a Changed G.O.P.,” did a fair job of showing the radical turn by Stefanik, who was once considered a moderate, and underscored her ambitions as she stabbed Liz Cheney in the back, moving into Cheney’s leadership post as Cheney was ostracized for standing against Trump.But the story failed to report on Stefanik’s promotion of White replacement theory (and it doesn’t appear that the Times reported on Stefanik’s Facebook ads last September when they began running either). In fact, the Times piece, by Annie Karni, appeared to try to distinguish Stefanik from others who promote extremist ideas in the party (bold added for emphasis):
And as her party veers toward extremism, Ms. Stefanik refused to condemn the Republicans who speak most loudly to the fringe. Asked about Ms. Greene, who recently spoke at a white nationalist event, and Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, who has called President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine a “thug,” she said the two were merely reflecting the views of the voters in their districts.
YOLO
I don't think "it was ever so." It was ever so more than it should have been, but it is getting worse! These guys don't even sweat a bit occasionally anymore.
They used to take securities fraud a bit seriously, if only because screwing (other) rich people was a no-no, but now the mega-rich screwing the merely rich seems to be fine!
Sunday, May 15, 2022
New Euphemism Just Dropped
Buffalo joins Charleston, Pittsburgh, El Paso in ethnic mass attacks
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) May 15, 2022
A white 18-year-old wearing body armor and carrying an assault rifle opened fire at a supermarket in an African American neighborhood. Ten were killed.https://t.co/5m5J6vhG23
NBC News/Sections/Meet the Press pic.twitter.com/h95p94xQBY
If you do a google search for “ethnic mass attacks” you won’t find a single use of it before NBC made it up today in order to obscure what’s going on.
— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) May 15, 2022
Atrios: WRONG!
Some truth to that, still, but I more see it as, basically, right wing bigotry is good and any bigotry that can be pinned on The Left is bad.
Sort of like how people who are actual Nazis love to accuse liberals of being Nazis. National SOCIALISM checkmate, libs! It makes sense if you get that while left wing Nazis are bad, right wing Nazis are good!
Bad News Keeps Coming
Just found out a good college friend died. RIP Stanley J. Rath. You were the best of our ridiculous motley crew.
Stop Legitimizing The Racist Fascist Propaganda Outlet
Saturday, May 14, 2022
Are Leading Democrats All Pedos? Views Differ
This is the #3 person in the House Republican leadership. pic.twitter.com/PrdgfpQ7i6
— Eric Kleefeld (@EricKleefeld) May 13, 2022
Friday, May 13, 2022
Catching The Car
The best news is that behind their puffed chests and the blasé confidence (which they brandish all the time, in every circumstance) Republicans really do seem to get that the end of Roe will leave them badly, badly exposed.A good time to go on offense, and not, as tends to be the case, sit there hope they find the rakes to keep stepping on all by themselves.You can see it everywhere. At the level of highest generality, you see it in the fact that Republicans are plainly not basking in the glow of a hard-fought victory. They began first with a somewhat comically desperate effort to get reporters to stop asking about the Alito opinion and focus instead on the outrageousness of the leak itself, which for a few days at least they pretended to pin on some anonymous liberal. (cf, “You need, it seems to me—excuse the lecture—to concentrate on what the news is today. Not the leaked draft, but the fact that the draft was leaked," Mitch McConnell scolded reporters last week.)
HYPOCRISY IS PART OF THEIR CHARM
But Why?
Mr. Fetterman has made his lack of endorsements into a kind of badge of honor: He has long disdained glad-handing other elected officials and is an unpopular figure even in the statehouse, where he officially presides over the State Senate.He's unpopular in the statehouse because it's run by Republicans, aside from his presiding role!
Slurp Juice
Respect is something you have to keep earning (I'll leave aside the degree to which they ever deserved it).Truly an honor to introduce and welcome former President @BillClinton and former Prime Minister Tony Blair to @CryptoBahamas to cap off an incredible Day 3. pic.twitter.com/3aYMpQtYOr
— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) April 28, 2022
Neither needs the money. They can just say 'no.'
Uber, But For Ride Hailing
Hong Kong (CNN Business)SoftBank's mega tech funds lost more than $27 billion in the last fiscal year, by far their worst performance on record.It is just astounding that people looked at the taxi industry and thought, YESSS, THAT'S HOW I WILL MAKE TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS....
SoftBank's portfolio companies include South Korean e-commerce firm Coupang (CPNG) and Southeast Asian ride-hailing startup Grab (GRAB), which both went public in record-breaking offerings on Wall Street last year.
...
But perhaps one of the Japanese company's most high-profile disappointments lies with Didi (DIDI).
...
The Chinese ride-hailing giant went public in New York last summer to significant fanfare, but was swept up just days later into China's historic regulatory crackdown. Its troubles escalated last December, when the company was forced to begin the process of delisting in the United States.
Can't lose money on every ride forever, even if you make it up on volume, and people just aren't willing to pay twenty bucks to go a mile.
Not How Anything Works, Guys
How are they unaware that they are in a game of Calvinball. The point of this is not to immunize yourselves from Congressional harassment for two years. Do your fucking jobs. "Ah, well, nevertheless," he said, as Attorney General Mastriano hauled them off in handcuffs.Everyone is focused on whether the Jan. 6 committee will enforce the subpoenas in court if Republicans refuse to comply. That’s not the point. As one source told me yesterday: “It’s almost like a self-enforcing subpoena.”
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) May 12, 2022
Thursday, May 12, 2022
ShitCoin Nation
With shit wages and benefits, the good times only come with asset bubbles.
Should Homosexuals Be Put In Camps To Protect The Children? Views Differ
I don't understand the logic of telling your staff to stay quiet while their rights are being taken away. https://t.co/3e7XwY2Pv8
— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) May 11, 2022
Committee To Save The Shitcoins
Shitcoins
Oh no my apes, they only had one slurp juice each.
Wednesday, May 11, 2022
What's It All About Then
Views Differ
Saint McCain
The senior strategist for Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign said on Sunday night that he had lied to discredit a New York Times article that reported on Mr. McCain’s close relationship with a female lobbyist, a claim that the candidate and the campaign attacked at considerable length at the time.Of course there was good journalism about McCain, but as I always say, there's the news and there's the talking about the news, and it's often quite amazing how stories by actual journalists land in the New York Times and then are promptly ignored by the rest of the press corps.
Putting it another way, every journalist knew the story was true and that McCain and his people were lying, yet did not update their tales of the Last Honest Man In Washington.
Price To Be Paid
Of those rulings, the Obamacare one ruffled the most feathers because Roberts reportedly reversed his position days before the decision was announced, ultimately voting to find the law constitutional.I think we all become conditioned to "normal behavior" based on what we see around us, in our work and personal lives, fairly quickly. I think it is important to remember that people in politics, generally and broadly, behave as if they spent their entire lives in a giant sack of vipers and this is all "normal" to them.“There is a price to be paid for what he did. Everybody remembers it,” said an attorney close to several conservative justices, who was granted anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the court’s arguments.
Sometimes people in DC will write a puff piece on the wonderful culture of political DC, or a tribute to a recently deceased colleague, and when they marvel at a level of niceness or generosity which is, to them, above and beyond, I always think, "um, that's just how fairly normal people behave? Not even particularly nice ones?"
Killing women to own the libs Chief Justice Roberts.
At Least He Wasn't Protesting Outside Of Someone's Home
Attorney John Eastman urged Republican legislators in Pennsylvania to retabulate the state’s popular vote — and throw out tens of thousands of absentee ballots — in order to show Donald Trump with a lead, according to newly unearthed emails sent in December 2020, as Trump pressured GOP lawmakers to subvert his defeat.Nowhere in the constitution does it say you can't simply retabulate the vote! Checkmate, libs.
Dunno how things survive if people just do this stuff and continue to not be in handcuffs.
Tuesday, May 10, 2022
The Balloons, We Pop Them
It is important to react.
Sam Alito Body Count
But interpretation of the laws is still causing challenges to care. At least several OB-GYNs in the Austin area received a letter from a pharmacy in late 2021 saying it would no longer fill the drug methotrexate in the case of ectopic pregnancy, citing the recent Texas laws, said Dr. Charlie Brown, an Austin-based obstetrician-gynecologist who provided a copy to KHN. Methotrexate also is listed in the Texas law passed last year.Ectopic pregnancy develops in an estimated 2% of reported pregnancies. Methotrexate or surgery are the only two options listed in the medical guidelines to prevent the fallopian tubes from rupturing and causing dangerous bleeding.
"Ectopic pregnancies can kill people," said Brown, a district chair for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, representing Texas.
Winning Issue
No more code. More like this:
The end of Roe will immiserate or directly harm millions of women. To watch gop leaders who pushed for decades for this concoct fake fantasies of protester violence to justify their cruelty and simultaneously make republican politicians out to be the victims is sickening.
— Bill Pascrell, Jr. 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@BillPascrell) May 10, 2022
That's Actually Big News
Maybe a reporter should ask about that.
Oh, Elon
The National Transportation Safety Board is looking at Wednesday's crash of a Tesla into the Greater Columbus Convention Center that caused damages estimated at as much as $350,000.The NHTSA previously investigted claims and said it was driver error, but I don't trust the NHTSA for Tesla-related issues. Especially Trump era NHTSA....
Jules told police he was driving on Ohio Route 315 when he "lost control of his brakes and was unable to stop," according to the police report. He exited Route 315 at the Neil Avenue exit, which leads directly onto Vine Street toward a T-intersection and traffic light at North High Street — with the convention center directly in its path.
(ht reader AA)
Always The Fault Of The Left
They're out there making clear that they aren't stopping at 15 weeks or 3 months, and they're coming for IUDs and birth control too.
wHy wOn't tHe DemOcRaTs ComPromise?
Monday, May 09, 2022
We Don't Get To Choose Our Fighters
Like every imagine "compromise" with the forced birth lobby, this deal is not on the table anyway.
What If We Decouple The Bills
NEW: President Biden has asked congressional leadership to decouple a Ukraine aid package from COVID relief money in an attempt to pass the aid for Ukraine without having to deal with thorny partisan opposition to the COVID relief funds, a Congressional source tells NBC News.
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) May 9, 2022
Happy Hour Thread
Optics
I get that "supporting incumbents" is part of the whole deal, but there's a difference between supporting in the sense of failing to oppose and supporting in the sense of actively supporting. Cuellar has received active support for years and years.
My Trans Friends In Canada
"I receive tons and tons of DMs from actual trans women thanking me for saying the trans women and their allies are putting the lovely ladies in danger, the DMs just go to another school" pic.twitter.com/GJgUf4q3ri
— Sooz Kempner (@SoozUK) May 9, 2022
A Nation Divided
CBS News poll:
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 9, 2022
Roe v Wade: The Supreme Court should...
Keep as is 64%
Overturn it 36%
IS THAT A GOOD TACTIC?!?!!?!?
And, I dunno man, how's the tactic of relying on majorities in Congress and the power of the presidency going?
I dunno what works, but what the highly paid professionals and Advanced Politics Knowers are doing isn't working.
Also, very quickly they transfer the importance of the issue to "activists" as if the issue isn't supposed to be important to them, also, too. ARE ACTIVISTS HURTING THEIR CAUSE? I dunno, is Nancy Pelosi hurting hers?
Of course what they want to communicate is that "Pelosi" (or whoever) was going to take care of it, until those meddling activists ruined everything.
Don't fall for that bullshit.
And right on cue.
Channel, don't chastise..@POTUS strongly believes in the Constitutional right to protest. But that should never include violence, threats, or vandalism. Judges perform an incredibly important function in our society, and they must be able to do their jobs without concern for their personal safety.
— Jen Psaki (@PressSec) May 9, 2022
Elite Impunity
Obama AG Eric Holder tells me that while he initially thought indicting former President Trump would be too divisive, he now thinks there is evidence enough that he should be held “accountable” for his role in January 6th pic.twitter.com/65vyMnnWyN
— Margaret Brennan (@margbrennan) May 8, 2022