Saturday Night

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Saturday Happy Hour

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I Wouldn't

In abortion ban states, medical professionals face the constant potential for criminal liability for doing basic OBGYN health care and there's no way Dr. Atrios would work under those circumstances.

Sure Why Not

As long as reporters call it a robotaxi.

Could Tesla Run A ‘Robotaxi’ With Human Operators Inside?

FAFO

Oh no!

Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes made the order after the site's billionaire owner Elon Musk failed to name a legal representative in Brazil.

The judge and Musk have been feuding in public for months after X did not comply with legal orders to block certain accounts accused of spreading fake news and hate.

As I understand it, the issue is more that Musk packed up all offices in Brazil and now refuses to have any appointed representative in the country at all.  As in, no one to issue those orders to! 

...this seems to be a better report.

X, formerly Twitter, has been banned in Brazil after failing to meet a deadline set by a Supreme Court judge to name a new legal representative in the country.

Morning

Slacker Saturday.

Friday Night

Rock on.

Happy Hour

Friday edition.

It's Important For Harris To Answer Important Policy Questions

The only straight policy question from Bash is about Israel and it mischaracterized voter sentiment (a majority wants arms shipments stopped, not just weirdo lefties) and moved off the topic as quickly as possible.  There are a bunch of questions on flipflopping and a couple trying to get an apology for this absolutely horrible economy.  The immigration one is basically "why did you let the Republicans stop you also FLIPFLOP."

The questions (edited down to their quote their essence)

If you are elected, what would you do on day one in the White House?

I wonder what you say to voters who do want to go back when it comes to the economy specifically because their groceries were less expensive, housing was more affordable when Donald Trump was president.

So you have been vice president for three and a half years. The steps that you’re talking about now, why haven’t you done them already?

So you maintain Bidenomics is a success.

Do you still want to ban fracking?

So it changed in — in that campaign?

What made you change that position at the time?

And was there some policy or scientific data that you saw that you said, “Oh, okay. I get it now”?

Why did the Biden-Harris administration wait three and a half years to implement sweeping asylum restrictions?

So you would — so you would push that legislation again? I just want to ask ab—

You raised your hand when asked whether or not the border should be decriminalized. Do you still believe that?

Generally speaking, how should voters look at some of the changes that you’ve made — that you explained some of here — in your policy? Is it because you have more experience now and you’ve learned more about the information? Is it because you’re running for president in a Democratic primary? And should they feel comfortable and confident that what you’re saying now is gonna be your policy moving forward?

Will you appoint a Republican to your Cabinet?

I want to ask you about is what he [Trump] said last month. He suggested that you happened to turn Black recently for political purposes, questioning a core part of your identity.

For example, would you withhold some US weapons shipments to Israel? That’s what a lot of people on the progressive left want you to do.

You insisted that President Biden is extraordinarily strong. Given where we are now, do you have any regrets about what you told the American people?

And did he offer to endorse you right away or did you ask for it?

And what about the endorsement? Did you ask for it?

I just have to ask you both about two standout moments, aside of course from the addresses that you both gave, but standout moments that were perhaps unexpected during the convention. 

Tim Russert would be proud! (derogatory) 

 

Affordable Housing Policies

That fucking newspaper still has the ability to surprise (from The Morning newsletter).

Japanese-American internment was an agricultural land reform policy.

Lunch

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Industrial Meat Product

Sounds bad.

In July, federal inspectors found what looked to be mold and mildew around the hand washing sinks for the workers tasked with meats that are supposed to be ready to eat.

Mold was also found building up outside of steel vats used by the plant, previous records show, as well as in holding coolers between the site's smokehouses.

"A black mold like substance was seen throughout the room at the wall/concrete junction. As well as some caulking around brick/metal," they wrote in January, saying some spots were "as large as a quarter."

Other locations were found to have a number of issues with leaking or pooling water, including a puddle found to have "a green algal growth" inside and condensation that was found to be "dripping over product being held."

Prominent Republicans Are All Horrible Freaks, HOWEVER...

Ah, well, I thought we were moving away from this... Someone let the consultants back in the room.

Yes I understand this is messaging, but it steps on the message!

Haven't You Done Enough

We all are supposed to love Oprah, but really she has spent her career promoting some of the absolute worst people imaginable.

Oprah Winfrey is taking a deep dive into AI with a new hourlong special AI and the Future of Us, set to air Thursday, September 12 at 8 p.m. on ABC and streaming next day on Hulu.

The special “provides a serious, entertaining and meaningful base for every viewer to understand AI, and empowers everyone to be a part of one of the most important global conversations of the 21st century,” according to the official logline.

The special will include interviews with Open AI CEO Sam Altman, Microsoft co-founder and chair of the Gates Foundation Bill Gates, YouTube creator and technologist Marques Brownlee, Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, co-founders of Center for Humane Technology, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson.

I think Robinson is the designated "critic" but none of these people are there to point out that it's all bullshit.

Morning

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Thursday Night

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Happy Hour

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More Troubling News For The Harris Campaign

I'm a bit busy with something so I don't have time to follow all of the ins and outs of this DEVELOPING story...

The US Army issued a stark rebuke of former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign over the incident on Monday at Arlington National Cemetery, saying in a statement on Thursday that participants in the ceremony “were made aware of federal laws” regarding political activity at the cemetery, and “abruptly pushed aside” an employee of the cemetery.

“Participants in the August 26th ceremony and the subsequent Section 60 visit were made aware of federal laws, Army regulations and DoD policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds. An ANC employee who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside,” the Army spokesperson said in the statement on Thursday. Section 60 is an area in the cemetery largely reserved for the graves of those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Crypto

You can never quite tell if someone is on the take, or if it's just that the other guys in the group chat who are on the take, but nobody is "pro crypto," even in this Yglesian mealy-mouthed way, without a corrupt motive.

Reverting to the "Popularism!" ways by trying to claim it's good politics. Amazing shit and you can tell even he doesn't believe it.

Lunch

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Meanwhile In The UK

This Labour crew will make *me* miss the Tories.

5 days apart.

OH NO A NORMS VIOLATION

Whether it's Kamala Harris being a woman running for president, or Donald Trump promoting sexist and sexual jokes about her, both sides are violating longstanding political norms.

Why Did "Everybody" Hate Harris

Through the long "push Biden out" period, I kept telling friends (and posting here, at times) that the missing issue in the coverage was that all the Very Serious People - the press, the Professional Democrats, I guess what you could think of as the Democratic-Industrial Complex Blob - couldn't stand Harris. They would ask why, and I would say honestly that I had no idea.
 
An obvious answer is basic misogyny, and of course that played a role, but I have never had a more fleshed out answer. There have long been various whisper campaigns that surfaced momentarily in the press about her intelligence, about her skills as a boss, about how she'd largely been sidelined as VP, etc.

Again the whisper campaigns themselves are standard manifestations of misogyny, but that doesn't fully explain the impulse behind them.

My interest mostly isn't in evaluating any specific criticism of Harris, it's in trying to figure out why the group chat wisdom among this set of people was that Harris shouldn't be Biden's successor (and this was true before the push for him to resign).

My basic guess is/was that either Harris truly had horrendous unfixable flaws as a person/candidate/boss/leader (I doubt this, at least relative to her peer group), or that it was a basic rival clan issue: too many people who think they do/should run things don't feel particularly close to her center of power, and if it isn't about them, then it's bad.

There isn't a lot of that now.  Career concerns demand it!

Morning

Already Thursday.

Wednesday Night

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Happy Hour

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The First Question

Only our fearless political press could think that the priority one question for an interview with a presidential candidate is to ask why she wasn't doing some other interview.

Human centipede group chat.

Contrarianism

This isn't in response to anything specific, but every now and then I come across an old piece supporting the war in Iraq and I am reminded at how much all those fart-huffers were convinced not just that their cause was just, but that they were somehow incredibly bold and brave, standing against the tide, as they were supporting the stated position of the American government and the editorial line of practically every publication in the country. They had to reach deep to find hippies to argue against - Michael Moore! Some professor somewhere! Janeane Garofalo! Atrios! - because so few were being platformed.

Almost all "contrarianism" is like that, nobly and courageously supporting the status quo and existing power, while presenting yourself as bravely swimming upstream.

They Don't Want To Be Better

Will Bunch:

And she’s getting away with it. Mainstream journalists can carp and whine about this all they want, but when less than a third of Americans trust the mass media, few folks are listening to them. What’s been really striking this year is that while traditionally deep distrust of the mainstream press has long been the province of right-wing Republicans, now it’s liberals who once cheered for the media to do better who seem to be giving up on them.

There is plenty of good journalism even in some of those fucking outlets I hate, but politics journalism is bad, the political journalists are bad, and, much more than in the past, all news is subsumed under political coverage, with the politics journalists getting free license to run wild over every topic with "news analysis." That's just like, uh, your opinion, man.

I saw a social media exchange recently which clarified this pretty well. Ryan Mac, a good New York Times reporter who is coming out with a book (with Kate Conger) about Musk/Twitter, was on the receiving end of criticism about New York Times coverage of Musk. Mac got tetchy, which I understand, because his coverage is good, but it gets buried under coverage like this from America's Worst Political Reporter, Jeremy Peters:

I suspect Peters didn't actually talk to anyone who knows anything - like Mac! - but just vibed his way through it because he knows everything.

Mac's problem should be with Peters and his editors for tarnishing the brand, not random complainers on social media, but I get that he can't actually say that.  

The Finest People

What the fuck is wrong with them?

Two members of Donald Trump’s campaign staff had a verbal and physical altercation Monday with an official at Arlington National Cemetery where the former president participated in a wreath laying ceremony, NPR has learned.

A source with knowledge of the incident said the cemetery official tried to prevent Trump staffers from filming and photographing in a section where recent U.S. casualties are buried. The source said Arlington officials had made clear that only cemetery staff members are authorized to take photographs or film in the area, known as Section 60.

Amazing stuff:

In a statement to NPR, Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign's spokesman, strongly rejected the notion of a physical altercation, adding: "We are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made.

"The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump's team during a very solemn ceremony," Cheung said in the statement.

Lunch

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Catholic Converts

I guess JD missed the whole "Catholic school teacher" (not all) thing.

Unearthed audio: JD Vance says teachers who do not have biological children “disorient and really disturb” him: “She should have some of her own [children]” pic.twitter.com/Rqx2PLfjT5

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 27, 2024

Dispatch From The DNC

Asawin Suebsaeng:

Much of what I witnessed and heard about during my time in Chicago reinforced my preexisting beliefs that far too many so-called elite members of my profession — national political media scribes who fancy themselves as speaking truth to power, but more often just speak words to financially destructive Google algorithms — are mollycoddled hogs who are doing everything they can to fail to meet the enormity of this moment.

There was the bristling “traditional” media resentment towards the access and treatment the Democratic organizers and the Harris campaign afforded to social media influencers. There were times I thought I had been teleported back to 2010, when we as an industry were debating how to treat bloggers. The presence of an army of influencers or online personas made perfect sense in that the stated priority was “media access,” and influencers are objectively part of the media — not to mention that many of these social media stars have significantly larger audiences than dozens of egghead reporters combined. Though many of these influencers do not maintain the august fact-finding standards of publications that helped justify the Iraq War, they should individually qualify for media credentials.

I've been to a couple of these things I'll just add a few related observations:

• The reason 8 million reporters go is because "anyone who is anyone" goes. This is not a good reason.
• Most of the reporters don't do any reporting that they couldn't do from watching TV.
• The above is certainly true of (most of) the reporters whose names you know.
• It is the "big party" but of course it's a horrible party because the logistics are a nightmare and nobody gets to any partying until after midnight.
• Getting mad about "influencers"/bloggers is still hilarious.  They mostly aren't claiming to be "journalists" so why do you pretend they are and then get mad about it.  I would suggest that there are other people who have "access" to politicians who might be newsworthy!

Lock Him Up!

It's probably all futile given Calvinball Justice but it's all we have.

Prosecutors filed a superseding indictment in the federal criminal case against Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, after the Supreme Court granted the former president substantial immunity, according to a new court filing.

Court papers say the superseding indictment was presented to a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in the case. The papers say the new indictment "reflects the Government's efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court's holdings and remand instructions."

Morning

 What's the story?

Tuesday Night

Rock on.

What Are We Here For

I'm not loving everything about this moment, but Democrats beginning to describe Republicans - and more importantly themselves - as they actually are is a positive development.

A quiet revolution has been unfolding in how Democrats campaign, and it helps explain why being a Democrat has suddenly felt so joyous these past five weeks—and maybe why the Harris-Walz ticket is pulling ahead of the opposition.

Democrats are suddenly allowed to say what they mean.

We'll see if it continues!

Did He Forget

Flashback

Does anything Biden has done make any sense at all if he believed this?

Lunch

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America's Finest News Source

Good piece on the new Onion.

When you think about The Onion comes from a place of empathy, it is tempting to pigeonhole that. It’s just some woke bullshit, right? I mean, Elon Musk likes to do that, and it seems like you’re being pushed into a political part of the culture war, even if that’s not the intent. Is that something that you’re just okay with? Is that something you want to fight against?

BC: I mean, I’m sure The Onion in the climate in 2003 would’ve been viewed as woke bullshit for being against the Iraq War, right? There’s no question about that. And that, to me, is some of the defining headlines of their time. Ten years ago, before “woke bullshit” was a sentence, “There’s no way to prevent this, says only nation where this regularly happens” is probably our most iconic headline of all time. That would’ve been viewed as woke bullshit by them, too.

The poison that is being pushed out by Elon Musk is his fault, and that’s his thing that he has to live with, but that’s just not going to last. Being upset and impotent with rage and all that shit, that is a temporary feature of a failing political movement, and we’re an institution. We don’t give a shit about the whims of crazy people.

Somebody Wake Merrick

Sounds bad!

One of those residents was Lidia Martinez, an 87-year-old retired educator in San Antonio. She said she heard a knock on her door right before 6 a.m. on Tuesday. She thought that maybe a neighbor needed milk and eggs, she said, and she fastened her sleeping gown and opened the door.

Nine officers, seven of them men, some with guns in their holsters, then pushed open the door and marched past a living room wall decorated with crucifixes, she said.

“I got scared,” she recalled in an interview on Sunday, speaking in both English and Spanish. “They told me, ‘We have a warrant to search your house.’ I said, ‘Why?’ I felt harassed.”

Ms. Martinez said that the officers told her they came because she had filled out a report saying that older residents were not getting mail ballots. “Yes, I did,” she told them. For 35 years, Ms. Martinez has been a member of LULAC, the civil rights group, helping Latino residents stay engaged in politics. Much of her work has included instructing older residents and veterans on how to fill out voter registration cards.

Gotta Have Faith

It usually isn't stated this clearly, but a strong cultural pressure within the economics profession (broadly defined) is that you don't acknowledge that the hippies might have a point because then they might take over the zoo.

Guys we can’t even *talk* about price gouging because, per The Economist, the mere suggestion that some firms exploited the pandemic by raising prices in excess of any cost increase “erodes the faith in open markets that makes America prosperous” and I’m not making this stuff up. pic.twitter.com/lPnlM5LUUh

— Hal Singer (@HalSinger) August 26, 2024

If we acknowledge one intervention is good, they might get some ideas about some other ones...

Morning

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Monday Night

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Happy Hour

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Extend And Pretend

 David Ignatius today:

Ignatius 5 days ago:

Ignatius July 10:

Daffy

 I am begging America's Worst Columnist to take anything seriously, anything at all, other than herself.

Money Well Spent

So much money spent on Spicy Clippy.

In the last fiscal year, Microsoft’s capex (capital expenditure) was $55.7 billion, up 75% year-over-year, with more than one third ($19 billion) spent in the quarter ending June 30 2024. This is reportedly split 50-50 between infrastructure and tech, which suggests an aggressive data center build-out, with Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood saying that Microsoft “expect[s] capital expenditures to increase on a sequential basis” given cloud and “AI demand” that, as I’ve just said, isn’t really there.

Worse still, Hood added — and I quote Microsoft’s earnings call — that AI-related spend represented “nearly all of our total capital expenditures,” with “roughly half” for infrastructure needs that will “support monetization over the next 15 years and beyond.”

Could they ask Spicy Clippy how to make Windows remember my printer?

Lunch

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Brave Sir Donald

Not that I matter, but I actually feel guilty contributing to any "Will he or won't he" discourse which puts all the attention on him because of stupid shit as usual.

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign is casting fresh doubt on whether a September 10 debate will take place on ABC amid a dispute over the rules, a source familiar with the matter tells CNN.

Notable When Mainstream Outlets Run This

What's happening isn't unknown, but there's an immense amount of pretending not to notice/actually not caring.

Salem said much of prisoners’ time in detention was spent in their underwear, but before each interrogation session, soldiers would order him to strip naked.

“They would bring the metal detector and run it all over our bodies, then they would hover it over private parts and hit me there,” he said. As he crouched in pain, naked, with five or six soldiers looking, he said he felt the troops violate him from behind.

“With the pain, I would lean forward. Then suddenly, they would push it (a baton) into my butt,” he said. “Inside.”

Greatest Health Care System In The World

Good piece from NPR explaining why nobody can find an "in-network" therapist.

One would think that if you pay for coverage for a service that they make sure doesn't really exist that should be prosecutable fraud but I'm just a city blogger.

Morning

Go

Sunday Night

Rock on.

Sunday Evening

Monday's coming.

BiBi Is The Worst Person In The World Whose Only Concern Is Saving Himself, HOWEVER

Anyone ever going to realize they made a few mistakes along the way?

Judging by the endless deployment of euphemisms I don't think it's likely.

Oh well. We'll know better next time.

The Meeting Of The Brain Worms

Those two do have a lot in common.

In The Hands Of America's Greatest Companies

I suspect the stranded astronauts story would be getting a lot more coverage if the people at NASA had more confidence in the outcome.

A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule will bring home two NASA astronauts who have remained on board the International Space Station for about 80 days because of issues plaguing the Boeing Starliner spacecraft — marking a stunning turn of events for the beleaguered aerospace giant.

The news comes after the space agency held a formal review on Saturday to determine whether it would deem Boeing’s Starliner vehicle safe enough to return home with its crew — or if SpaceX’s workhorse Crew Dragon spacecraft would have to step in to save the day.

The Starliner vehicle, which carried astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the space station in early June, suffered setbacks with helium leaks and thrusters that abruptly stopped working on the initial leg of its first crewed test flight. Engineers spent weeks attempting to better understand the issues, and Boeing said as recently as August 2 that its “confidence remains high” that the spacecraft would be able to return Williams and Wilmore to Earth.

What I mean is this would be a great, inspirational, on-the-edge-of-your-seats story and it seems like they'd prefer nobody knows about it.

Morning

Sunday funday.

Saturday Night

Rock on.

Happy Hour

 Saturday edition.

Speaking of RFK Jr

My takeaway is that people in journalism know lots of things they choose to share, or often not share, without all that much justification either way.

RFK JR

I've been laughing about his candidacy from the beginning, especially the assumption implicit in much of the early coverage that so many Democrats would hear the Kennedy name and be unable to help themselves.  

The last Kennedy who ran for a major office couldn't even win a primary in Massachusetts!  

Ratings Loser

For those of us who still get some pleasure from Trump's misery, losing the ratings war is as bad as losing the election, for him.

Viewership of the four-day festivities in Chicago drew an average of 21.8 million viewers, according to Nielsen data, eclipsing the audience of the Republican National Convention by nearly 15 percent.

On the final evening this week, Harris’ acceptance address was watched by 28.9 million viewers, narrowly outdrawing former President Donald Trump’s speech in Milwaukee, which drew 28.4 million viewers across 15 television networks. Trump’s more than 90-minute address, the longest convention acceptance speech in recent history, came just days after the assassination attempt on his life.

(this is ridiculous, of course) 

Hamas Refuses A Ceasefire Deal

We are on about month 8 of Biden's people pretending reality isn't what it is.

Months of feverish negotiations, in different cities and at multiple levels, have gotten Israel and Hamas closer to striking a ceasefire deal. But even if an agreement is reached – still far from certain – it could end up lasting only weeks before it collapses and the war in Gaza resumes.

"I am ready to do a partial deal, it is no secret, that will bring back some of the people,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israel’s Channel 14 in late June. “But we are committed to continue the war after the pause in order to achieve the goal of destroying Hamas. I will not give up on this.”

 There’s no indication that Israel’s position has changed and the fact this stance doesn’t violate the agreement being discussed represents a breakthrough for Israel in the negotiations. It essentially allows Israel – and Hamas – to abandon discussions after the six-week first phase and resume the war.

Biden:

Biden, responding to questions on a ceasefire deal, said: "Israel says they can work it out, they're prepared. But I was told Hamas is now backing off."

The kind of factchecking Glenn Kessler isn't interested in! There is a certain kind of bipartisan DC bullshit that no one is ever interested in questioning.

Morning

again

Friday Night

Rock on.

Happy Hour

Get happy

Open That Box

As I understand it (if I remembering correctly), due to some extradition issues, the campaign finance side of the SBF prosecution went away. I do hope they're back (for the broader FTX cinematic universe, if not for Sam).

Federal investigators have recently begun looking more deeply into the campaign finance world around Mr. Bankman-Fried, said two people briefed on the situation, who were surprised because they considered the matter closed after Mr. Bankman-Fried’s conviction.

Several months ago, prosecutors in Puerto Rico also began interviewing and soliciting information about an FTX dark-money organization on the island, one of the people said, over a year after initial inquiries had been made.

Get Them

Good stuff.

The Justice Department on Friday filed an antitrust lawsuit against RealPage, a property management software provider, alleging it enabled a collusion among landlords to inflate rents for millions of Americans.

The complaint claims that the Richardson, Texas-based company and its competitors engaged in a price-fixing scheme by sharing nonpublic, sensitive information, which RealPage's algorithmic pricing software used to generate pricing recommendations. The company replaced competition with rent coordination to the detriment of renters across the U.S., according to the suit, monopolizing the market through its revenue management software which was used by landlords to determine rent costs.

Lunch

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Everybody's A DEI Hire

This kind of thing should be a lesson in the basic fact that there's no way to placate the right on racism or anything tangential to it. Only white conservatives are valid!

I Dunno, Josh, What Do We Think About This

 

Okay Then

Morning

Get it started.

Thursday Late Night

Rock on.

Convention 3

Next one's in four years!

Convention 2

Keep conventioning

Convention One

Are we going to go low or high tonight?

Happy Hour

Get happy.

What Could Go Wrong?

It's your fault for getting killed by a car if you weren't wearin your sensor, citizen.

Government officials and tech leaders don’t just want to put V2X in cars and charging stations. They envision wireless sensors on bicycles and buses, swaths of interstate highways, intersections in urban areas, and even on pedestrians' smartphones. Someday, V2X systems may even be able to seize control of an autonomous vehicle and prevent it from veering off the road, although that aspect is still being developed.

“That’s the future we’re looking toward where all the users of the system could broadcast it,” Bhatt said. “Rather than relying on drivers, who have shown themselves to be distracted or drugged, we're going to rely on the technology to broadcast the presence of the vulnerable users. It’s not just on drivers who are being distracted in the environment.”

Maybe they can work on a car bluetooth system that stays connected, instead.

History's Greatest Monsters

I suppose one could put together a "fun" course trying to explain the post-9/11 period to the kids, including the Dixie Chicks moment.

The Chicks will perform the National Anthem on Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention, multiple sources told CNN.

I'm sure most people who "remember" it have no idea that this is what set it off:

Just so you know, we're on the good side with y'all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.

In 20 years we can have fun imagining a course trying to explain the current period to the kids.

Lunch

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Reason Will Not Reach A Solution

Blob whisperer David Ignatius likely portrays what the people who matter believe is happening with Israel. I'll just throw it up there for your consideration.

How Much Anti-Semitism Can You Squeeze In One Tweet

 

To be fair to our Donald, he isn't the only one who has been conflating Jews and Israel recently.

In The Room Where It Happens

One of my recent pet peeves is savvy, sensible people getting annoyed at "activists" who are always pushing for unreasonable things like less state sponsored murder or refundable child tax credits or whatever. Activists are people who have to scream to get the occasional seat at the table, and their primary mode of getting attention is, basically, screaming (not actually but you know what I mean).

On the other side are people who are always in the room, pushing pushing pushing all the time.

This is popularism. 

Morning

Hopefully a more normal blogging schedule can resume today.

Convention 3

 Nearing the end.

Convention 2

 MORE MORE MORE

Convention I

 It begins again

Travel Day

Off the grid for a bit so it will be a bad blogging day!

Morning

Go

Late Night

Rock on.

Convention III

Even more.

Convention II

The conventioning continues.

Convention I

Happy Hour

Get happy.

Afternoon

I got nothin'

Does The Washington Post Have The Google

Amazing stuff from Fact Chuck Kessler

“She [Kamala Harris] won’t be sending love letters to dictators.”

—Former secretary of state and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton

There is no evidence that Trump sent such letters. Clinton is making a bit of a leap to suggest that Trump has written “love letters” to dictators.

Clinton appears to be referring to a 2018 comment from Trump about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un: “We fell in love, okay? No, really, he wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters. We fell in love.”

That’s certainly an unusual statement, but he’s referring to letters written by Kim. We do not know what Trump wrote to Kim — or other dictators, for that matter.

Former national security adviser John Bolton, in his tell-all memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” described one of Kim’s letters as “pure puffery, written probably by some clerk in North Korea’s agitprop bureau, but Trump loved it.” After another such letter, Trump even mused that he wanted to invite Kim to the White House — what Bolton called a “potential disaster of enormous magnitude.”

But we do know, though I suppose it is TRUE that Trump did not, as far as we know, declare his love precisely. For example:

On Jan. 18, 2019, after a ranking North Korean envoy visited Washington to discuss the upcoming second summit in Hanoi, Trump wrote a brief note to Kim: “A great meeting and message. I will see you soon.” Incredibly, Trump closes with “Your friend.” Trump’s next note, on Feb. 19, just days before the Hanoi meeting, is even less formal or serious. Written entirely by hand, it says, “I look forward to seeing you next week. It will be great. Best wishes.”

Kessler: WE DO NOT HAVE EVIDENCE OF A LETTER FROM TRUMP IN WHICH HE WRITES "I LOVE YOU" 87000 PINOCCHIOS  

Maybe read your own newspaper, Kessler.

And of course words are allowed to have some metaphorical meaning - love letters do not have to be actual letters - and Trump has expressed "love" for Kim many times.

One of the worst developments of "fact check journalism" was the war on metaphor, demanding hyperliteral adherence to arbitrary dictionary definitions.  Trump's repeated praise of Kim for years qualifies as "love letters."

If Trump hadn't spent years boasting about this stuff in those terms then I wouldn't approve of criticizing what could be reasonably seen as diplomatic exchanges with a difficult person, but he did! Constantly!

Lunch

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Team D

I think it's ok for Democrats to go against the party line on things. "I think the president is wrong on this" - whatever it is - is perfectly fine. Obviously I might disagree with them on the specifics, but I don't think there's any value in extreme public party unity, in part because it just means all the battles happen out of sight when the lobbyists are in the room.

But for years Democrats running for Congress did things like not even put their party identification on their websites, or would lose elections (then go on to be cable news's How To Win Elections pundit) doing things like this:

The men then turn to McCaskill, with one conceding, “I don’t always agree with Claire McCaskill.”

“But she works hard, fighting against those tariffs, doing all those town halls,” the man adds. “Claire’s not afraid to stand up against her own party.”

“Yep,” the second man chimes in, “and Claire’s not one of those crazy Democrats. She works right in the middle and finds compromise.”

The ad appears designed to win over skeptical Trump voters, whose support McCaskill will need to best Hawley. But the phrase “crazy Democrats” could alienate some voters in McCaskill’s own party at a moment when she is counting on their enthusiasm.

This was especially problematic in a state like Missouri - in the Ferguson era - where everyone knows "crazy Democrats" are THOSE PEOPLE and, you know, those people are your voters. They could have been, anyway. Let's not go back to that.

Even Baby Bird Barak

So much bullshit.

State of play: Hamas rejected the latest U.S. proposal on Sunday, blaming Netanyahu's hard lines.

• That was after the White House claimed significant progress was made during talks in Doha last week, and U.S. officials said President Biden wanted a deal by the end of the week.
• Blinken said during a visit to Israel on Monday that Netanyahu had accepted the U.S. proposal and it was now incumbent on Hamas to follow suit.
• That statement baffled some Israeli officials who told Axios that Netanyahu's hard lines are actually making a deal much harder to reach.

As for the "ceasfire deal" words mean nothing. 

Zoom in: More specifically, Hamas objects to the fact that the proposal doesn't include a permanent ceasefire or comprehensive Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

• It would also not allow the free movement of civilians from southern Gaza to the north because it endorses Netanyahu's demand for control of the "Netzarim Corridor."
• The proposal would also give Israel control of the Rafah Crossing and the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border, as Netanyahu has demanded, per the Hamas statement.

• Hamas said Netanyahu also reversed previous concessions and set new conditions in the prisoner exchange process.
• "All this prevents the completion of the exchange deal," Hamas said.

The Card Says "Moops"

Vital for Democracy.

He said he will accept the results if he wins, you liars, you fools.

Morning

Go go go

Late Night

Rock on.

Convention Thead III

Rounding home.

Convention Thread II

Enjoy

Convention Thread

The internet tells me "primetime" begins at 6pm so I'll post a few of these every night.

Happy Hour

Getting happy!

The Stone Zone

An important thing to remember about Roger Stone is that the DC press treated him as a hilarious gadfly - and useful dirt source - for decades.

Convention Week!

I know the Republicans had a convention, but it seems to have vanished from the time stream entirely?

Finger On The Pulse

Like most of you, I am getting approximately one day older every day. I would like to think I will have some wisdom to impart for a few more years, but I also recognize that it isn't 2004 or 2014 anymore and times do change. 

I'm sure Garin is a very smart guy and all that, but also he's 71. The era of winning elections by assembling a bipartisan commission to choose who to do a Sister Souljah to are over.

The Clinton and Biden campaigns slowed/reversed the turnover of Professional Democrats.  Everyone's time passes.

Lunch

eat

Our Dumb Century

The Onion is under new seemingly good management, and they've put Our Dumb Century online.

RIP Phil Donahue

Perhaps hard to explain his place in culture to The Kids, but we can remember that a single guy against the Iraq war was too much for MSNBC to handle back in the day. 

Last Opportunity

Netanyahu will scuttle it and Blinken will blame Hamas and then we know what happens.

The push to finalize a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza has reached a “decisive moment,” the United States’ top diplomat said Monday after he met with Israel’s president on his latest trip to the region.

This is “probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a news conference alongside Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

“It is time for everyone to get to yes, and to not look for any excuses to say no,” Blinken said. “It is time for it to get done. It’s also time to make sure that no one takes any steps that could derail this process.”

In the interest of keeping the peace and my sanity I limit what I post about this subject, but the dishonesty coming from Biden's people has made me miss the forthrightness of the Bush adminsitration.

Morning

Back with the Monday bullshit.

Sunday Night

Rock on

I Don't Understand What's Happening

Babe wake up, MAGA is carrying around JD Vance jizz cups. pic.twitter.com/e7lmfJA2EI

— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) August 18, 2024

Yoink

Does he get to keep his speaking spot, and say what he wants?

[Chicago Mayor Brandon] Johnson’s position on the conflict also goes well beyond that of freshly minted Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who has shown sympathy for Palestinian suffering but has also expressed “unwavering” commitment to Israel and its security. “What’s happening right now is not only egregious, it is genocidal,” Johnson, by contrast, says in our interview. “We have to acknowledge and name it for what it is and have the moral courage to exercise our authority.”

Have You Considered Complimenting Your Opponent

Promising.

Three weeks into her presidential run was the first time the Biden campaign’s pollsters — now hers — held a deep-dive call with Kamala Harris’ inner circle to discuss what she’s been saying on the stump.

Over the line came a lot of praise, but also some suggested tweaks. First, said veteran Democratic numbers man Geoff Garin, summarizing their analysis, stop saying, “We’re not going back.” It wasn’t focused enough on the future, he argued. Second, lay off all the “weird” talk — too negative.

Harris’ advisers listened. They considered the arguments. They decided to stick with what the crowds were chanting in the arenas.

I don't know Garin had actual poll numbers, but the reliance on polls and focus groups in which participants say things like "I want candidates to be nice" and "I think bipartisanship and compromise are good" and "I hate negativity" - because of course they say those things - has not been helpful!
 
Also there is value in just letting the candidate be the candidate. It is hard to have a personality if you have a mental map of all the minefields you're supposed to avoid.

Get A Load Of This Guy

It is amusing that after years of seeming to not quite know how to deal with Trump, the Harris campaign has settled on "showing clips of him, perhaps with a snarky comment."

Trump melts down over Kamala Harris being on the cover of TIME Magazine: “I’m much better looking than her. I’m a better looking person” pic.twitter.com/2gGJQ3D5EH

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 17, 2024

Unless you were a cable news junkie and watched him live regularly, you really had no idea what he was like.

Morning

Sunday funday.

Saturday Night

Rock on.

Afternoon

Once again

Sounds bad

From the Hamas-run Haaretz

"The guys, the company commander, the officers, everyone. You know, there was a female officer who gave us a briefing on the day we arrived. She said, 'It will be hard for you. You'll want to pity them, but it's forbidden. Remember that they aren't people. From your point of view, they are not human beings. The best thing is to remember who they are and what they did in October.'

Real Men Go To Tehran

And the US?

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz raised eyebrows on Friday when he said Israel would expect international partners such as the United Kingdom and France to join Israel in responding to a potential strike from Iran, “not only in defense, but also in attacking significant targets in Iran.”

It isn't polite to say when a Democrat is in charge, but "eradicating the Palestinians and having an all out war with Iran" has been the dream of much of the Foreign Policy Establishment for decades. We get to call them psychos when Republicans are in charge, but to a great degree they are the same set of psychos, sometimes switching desks or office buildings when a new administration arrives, sometimes not.

Morning

Slacker Saturday

Friday Night

Rock on.

Happy Hour

Get happy.

Do You Love Hamas AND Iran???

The next stage...

Sounds Like A Job For Merrick Garland

Maybe give him a nudge.

Mr. Raffensperger fears that the lawsuit could be a harbinger of a new kind of harassment: wealthy activists burying election officials in costly litigation as a form of coercion.

...

“I have incurred over $500,000 in legal fees to fight these frivolous claims,” Mr. Raffensperger said in a statement. “Not every election official is going to be able to withstand that type of pressure,” he said. “This should send alarms to every election official across the country.”

Well

All a bit above my pay grade, but...

The Nord Stream gas pipeline was blown up by a small Ukrainian sabotage team in an operation that was initially approved by Volodymyr Zelenskiy and then called off, but which went ahead anyway, according to claims in a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Lunch

eat

Your Liberal Media (true for a moment!)

I was struck by what greeted me on CNN's page, for a moment earning its reputation as the liberal news network.\

Was It Because They Are Too Woke

Starting to suspect that the "campus free speech crisis" was not entirely on the level!!!

Hundreds of New College of Florida library books, including many on LGBTQ+ topics and religious studies, are headed to a landfill.

We Didn't Do It

One frustrating thing about coverage of the Trump Cinematic Universe is that these people have established records of lying for several years yet many journalists (not Chris) pretend they are not aware of this with each new pronouncement.

Morning

Start

Thursday Night

Rock on.

Happy Hour

get happy

It's Anti-Italian Discrimination

 

JD Vance in 2021, while discussing earlier waves of immigration to the US:

"You had this massive wave of Italian, Irish and German immigration and that had its problems, its consequences. You had higher crime rates, you had these ethnic enclaves, you had inter-ethnic conflict in… pic.twitter.com/SQNPwaPBLx

— Jacqueline Sweet (@JSweetLI) August 15, 2024

Normal Things

Q: What do you say to suburban women who are worried about abortion rights?

Vance: I don’t buy that, I think suburban women care about normal things pic.twitter.com/AFp1mdr50x

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 14, 2024

The "funny" thing about this is that the one unifying force of the conservative movement is an obsession with banning abortion. An entire movement obsessed with abnormal things.

Not Bad