Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
A song to drive out the earworm from Zandar’s post downstairs (don’t know if it was intentional or not, but enough with the cats and cradles already!).
God, that’s a bad video. Good song, though. Takes me back. Way, way back.
What are y’all up to tonight? I’m resting up for the annual drunken cookie baking marathon, which takes place tomorrow. I’m reading “The Bone Clocks,” which is pretty interesting so far, but I’m still on the fence about it.
Geraldo Rivera is only the latest pundit to let us know that 400 plus years of socioeconomic disaster for black America could be fixed if we just figured out the problem.
That problem of course being black America.
Geraldo’s comments were made during an appearance on “Fox and Friends” in which he addressed what he believed is the real problem plaguing black communities.
And in the end it’s paternalistic scolding, because it always ends up getting around to some “common wisdom” that black fathers are pretty much the worst things in all Creation.
Rivera criticized those who focused on police violence and challenged them to avoid the “low-hanging fruit” and instead focus on the harder problems to solve.
“We’re the victims. Yet again, we’re the victims. Let’s fix this problem,” Rivera said. “But what about the much more difficult problem of ‘We’re The Problem.'”
“We’re the problem when it comes to the dysfunction,” Rivera continued. “We’re the problem when it comes to fathers not being responsible for their children. … That’s the t-shirt he should wear. That’s fine, “I can’t breathe” this week. Next week, if you’re gonna be a billboard, a walking billboard, next week “Be a better father to your son.”
I’m sure Eric Garner’s son and grandson would like to hear more about this theory.
There’s so much wrong with this I can barely keep from punching the keyboard. What about the fathers of the white people who go around shooting up schools like Sandy Hook or other public places like that theater in Aurora? What about Tim McVeigh’s dad, or Eric Robert Rudolph’s father? Nobody said “You know, white guys need to be better fathers. Just look at that Tim McVeigh blowing up that federal building, where the hell was his dad?”
Nobody said that. But the problem with police murdering black men (and black women) is us? It’s because our fathers aren’t good enough to make us bulletproof? I’m sure if Eric Garner had pulled his pants up or gone around in his spare time preaching about the evils of that damned hippity-hop music the cops wouldn’t have choked him to death, right?
“We’re the problem” definitely would have solved centuries of slavery and Jim Crow and redlining neighborhoods and lynch mobs and and alleviated any need for a civil rights movement, I’m sure. Look, it’s one thing to say “You have to take personal responsibility for your own actions like all people have to do” and entirely another to say “cops would shoot you less if you weren’t culturally inferior little beasties who are a blight on society.”
Hell the fact we survived this long despite all this bullshit kind of proves we must have done something right, ya know?
In today’s America, even driving can be unpredictable and dangerous when you’re African American. And black people are stopped twice as often by police as whites. That’s why Oregon lawyer Marianne Hyland created the “Driving While Black” app:
“Black people talk about the phenomenon of driving while black and our yearning for resources to help navigate those encounters with the police so that they stay safe,” she said. … The app will include a contact function, so drivers can alert people when they’re pulled over; it will have a record function, to record the stop; a complaint function that includes a commendation to give police feedback; and a function to help parents educate their kids. In today’s racial environment, police say they welcome anything that helps.
Because in a time when police can go free even when they’re filmed committing wrongdoing, it’s important to document everything.
Team Blackness discussed the FDA’s recommendation to not let gay men give blood, the CIA torture report, and updates on Elon’s dealings with his absentee father.
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Driving While Black? There’s An App For That.Post + Comments (18)
Guess who helped President Obama whip the shitty budget bill through the House? JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon:
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon made calls to lawmakers on Thursday urging them to support the “cromnibus” spending bill, House Financial Services Committee ranking member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) told reporters.
Dimon’s involvement came amidst progressives enraged that the House “cromnibus” included a provision that they said would weaken Wall Street regulations.
“I think we got hurt when Jamie Dimon and the president started to whip,” Waters told reporters after the vote. “That’s when I think we lost some votes.”
[snip]Waters and progressives opposed the budget due to changes to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Law that were supported by Dimon and other big banks.
“What does it say? It just seems very odd,” Waters said. “It is just very strange that the two of them would be working for the support of this bill.”
When asked if she thought that Obama had sold out to Wall Street, Waters replied: “That’s not for me to determine. I know that the president was whipping. I know that Jamie Dimon was whipping and calling directly into members’ offices. And that’s odd. That’s an odd combination.”
For fuck’s sake. This is the kind of bullshit that could convince impressionable young voters that there’s no point in casting a ballot, even if you and I know better.
Can someone please explain why supporting this crappy bill was good for Democrats? A reason besides the threat of an even shittier bill squeezing between the cheeks of a Republican controlled Congress in 2015? That’s some weak-ass sauce.
White Millennials are pretty much done with Obama according to Gallup. His approval rating is as bad now among them as it is among older white Americans.
Rest of America seems pretty damn happy with the guy, majority approval across the board among all age groups.
Also, Americans see things getting better financially and have for some time now.
A majority of Americans say their standing of living is getting better and that’s been true since 2012. I find it weird that President Obama is having such a hard time among one particular group of people considering.
Oh wait.
Now, naturally the right is saying this proves all opposition to Obama is about Obama’s policies because obviously they hurt Millennials so that’s why there was a drop. That’s only feasible if you take into account only white Millennial voters and ignore literally everyone else in America, where among white voters Obama has been unpopular since 2009 and popular among non-white voters for the same period.
It just indicates a reversion to mean, in more than one sense.
Dani Rodrick in 2007 had a fascinating post on the different groups of economists when looking at policy problems. He divided them into two basic mindsets:
You can tell what kind of an economist someone is by the nature of the response s/he offers when confronted with a policy issue. The gut instinct of the members of the first group is to apply a simple supply-demand framework to the question at hand. … No matter how technical, complex, and full of surprises these economists’ own research might be, their take on the issues of the day are driven by a straightforward, almost knee-jerk logic….
the second group are inclined to see all kinds of complications, which make the textbook answers inappropriate. In their world, the economy is full of market imperfections ….
Policy making has the same type of division. There are those who advocate for the most efficient and effective policies as first best solutions, and there are those who acknowledge the possibility of first best solutions but are also aware of other strong constraints so sub-optimal improvements to policy can be implemented. Finally there is a school of policy making which can only be described as WTF avant garde experimentalism.
Risk corridors in PPACA are a good example of these three schools of thought. The point of risk corridors to is to minimize the cost to an insurer of it getting stuck with an especially sick pool of people it has to cover.
First, second and WTF policy making stylesPost + Comments (11)
Hello kiddies…
It has been a while. I have no real explanation. Let’s put it down to ennui (a rationalisation laden with enough cheese-eating surrender-monkey bullshit that we can just pass on and get on with the motley).
When I last spoke to you, we had a Democrat-controlled Senate, we weren’t at war with anyone, the economy was on its way up, and the newspapers hadn’t carried reports of the murder and/or torture of black or brown people by white authority figures for at least a week.
So that’s all gone to shit, and I suspect I’ve built up enough anger to be entertaining again.
What’s your excuse?
Actually, fuck that. I don’t give a shit, because you lot have apparently managed to entirely fuck up the country in my absence.
Fuck you all, you namby-pamby lefty fuckers.
From the depths I return, clutching my love for you all to my breast …Post + Comments (49)