Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Come on, man.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Consistently wrong since 2002

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Infrastructure week. at last.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.

You are here: Home / Popular Culture / KULCHA! / Friday Morning Open Thread: Happy News

Friday Morning Open Thread: Happy News

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Speaking of film-makers, let’s have a round of applause for our own Tom Levenson, Guggenheim Fellow:

Tom Levenson writes and makes documentary films about science, its history, and the interplay between scientific inquiry and the broader culture and society in which the work takes place. This extremely gratefully received Guggenheim Fellowship will support work on a new book that uses the history of the South Sea Bubble – a watershed event in early-modern capitalism – to explore the connection between the scientific revolution and the emergence of new ideas about money and exchange. A revisionist history, this project aims at both new insights into the scientific revolution as lived, and in the evolution of finance over the last three centuries, with all the wealth and woe thus produced. ..

He began work as a documentarian in 1987, and he has since produced, directed, written, and or executive-produced more than a dozen films on science, mostly for the NOVA series on PBS, among them the Origins mini-series and the two-hour biography Einstein Revealed, both for the NOVA series on PBS. He won the National Academies Science Communication Award, shared a George Foster Peabody Award, and won the AAAS science communication prize, among other honors. His short-form writing has appeared in a wide range of newspapers, magazines and digital publications, and he is currently an Ideas columnist for The Boston Globe…

Congratulations, Tom!

Apart from that, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up another long week?

Reader Interactions

209Comments

  3. 3.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    No mention of his work on this esteemed blog?

    His short-form writing has appeared in a wide range of newspapers, magazines and digital publications

    I guess digital publications would include us.

  4. 4.

    BGinCHI

    Question for everyone.

    Is the Illinois budget crisis getting any press where you live? I’m curious whether this is national news at all.

    If you don’t know about it, IL has had no state budget for 10 months and things are terrible. Layoffs, furloughs, services cancelled for needy people in all kinds of social services, including health- and mental care.

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Levenson earned his BA in East Asian Studies from Harvard University, and now lives in the Boston area with his wife, son and semi-feral cat.

    Well that explains why he’s here. Congrats Tom,

  13. 13.

    Wormtown

    @BGinCHI: oh…I have seen a commercial a couple times in the past few days from some pac. It is about debt issue in Puerto Rico; and then says if congress agrees to bail them out, it will set up a precedent and then it mentions a state, I think IL (next place we would have to bail out)..

  14. 14.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Bernie Sanders ✔ ‎@BernieSanders

    As president, I would formally apologize for our country’s deplorable practice of slavery.

    3:24 PM – 7 Apr 2016

    1. Why does he treat Blacks like children thinking he can win their votes with a gesture?

    Blacks are worried about being murdered by the police and racist whites, about voter suppression, about seeing hard won gains taken away.

    What gesture will he offer women and Latinos for their votes?

    Perhaps if elected he will formally apologize for Adam Sandler’s career.

    2. He will only apologize if he wins. If he loses then he won’t regret slavery. Priceless.

    This is why he’s losing by 2,500,000 votes.

  15. 15.

    PurpleGirl

    Congratulations Tom. You’re a very accomplished guy. (Now we just need someone to nominate you for a MacArthur Prize — you can’t apply for those, one must be nominated for it. I don’t know who does the nominating, however.)

  17. 17.

    henqiguai

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch(#14):

    2. He will only apologize if he wins. If he loses then he won’t regret slavery. Priceless.

    Too late. I believe that’s already been more or less tendered. Try harder, Mr. All-Your-Problems-Will-Be-Solved-When-We-Get-You-People-A-Raise.

    Oh yeah, forgot — Tom Levenson; I’m snarking in the presence of greatness! Damned impressive credentials, and I don’t do ‘impressed’ very often.

  19. 19.

    NotMax

    Submitted for your persual.

    …few American names have cropped up in the “Panama Papers,” a trove of 11.5 million confidential records detailing such accounts. That’s because the Panama-based Mossack Fonseca law firm at the centre of the scandal doesn’t like taking on American clients, one of its founders says. Source

  21. 21.

    PsiFighter37

    At the airport and seeing Ted Cruz continuing to make an ass of himself. How does he expect to wing NY votes by saying’everyone knows exactly what I meant by NY values’ and then claiming their voters are similar to Wisconsin?

    Of course, Dana Bash being the worthless hack she is, didn’t follow up.

  22. 22.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    I wonder if my application was lost in the mail?

    Seriously, congratulations Tom, enjoy the recognition.

  23. 23.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: I think Bernie’s going to be having a few bad weeks. Mika, on Morning Joe, was musing about how easy the press has been towards Bernie and the panel(Donnie, Willie, and Eugene) agreed. It seems that after the Daily News interview, the media smell blood in the water.

  24. 24.

    bystander

    Congratulations, Tom.

    @BGinCHI:

    Vying with Puerto Rico to be our new Greece and the harbinger of the coming collapse of the United States. Thank FSM we only will have to hear three dumb repubs instead of the full roster of idiocy.

  26. 26.

    bystander

    @Baud: No, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t make a documentary about your admin, linking it to headhunter cultures in the Malay Peninsula.

  27. 27.

    HeartlandLiberal

    Tom will probably all so make reference to one of my favorite economic bubbles, the Tulip Mania from 1637. From WikiPedia:

    Tulip mania or tulipomania (Dutch names include: tulpenmanie, tulpomanie, tulpenwoede, tulpengekte and bollengekte) was a period in the Dutch Golden Age during which contract prices for bulbs of the recently introduced tulip reached extraordinarily high levels and then suddenly collapsed.[2]

    At the peak of tulip mania, in March 1637, some single tulip bulbs sold for more than 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. It is generally considered the first recorded speculative bubble (or economic bubble),[3] although some researchers have noted that the Kipper- und Wipperzeit episode in 1619–22, a Europe-wide chain of debasement of the metal content of coins to fund warfare, featured mania-like similarities to a bubble.[4] The term “tulip mania” is now often used metaphorically to refer to any large economic bubble when asset prices deviate from intrinsic values.[5]

  29. 29.

    Immanentize

    Congratulations Tom!
    If you are reading this — Have you read Neil Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle (I’m pretty sure you must have given your many interests but maybe not given how busy you are). It hits on some of the same themes as your new book. I really am looking forward to reading about the intersections of trade, money, and the scientific method.
    Woot!

  30. 30.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    @NotMax:
    Huskys are working dogs and in their case that is not just an AKC designation they NEED to work. If they are not kept busy and active they will loose their pent up energy on whatever is around. I don’t think apartment dwellers should own one but their owners need to invest serious time in maintaining one. (a beautify dog )

    Being 1/4 Swed my experience is they have a delightfully odd sense of humor, it might be fun to call that number.

  42. 42.

    Baud

    @gogol’s wife:

    Heh. I just had a visual of inspectors from the Guggenheim Fellow program storming into Tom’s office to take all his work away because they found out he is a front pager on this blog.

    How could you, Tom? We trusted you!

  43. 43.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Holy shit – KThug goes New-Clear

    From the beginning, many and probably most liberal policy wonks were skeptical about Bernie Sanders. On many major issues — including the signature issues of his campaign, especially financial reform — he seemed to go for easy slogans over hard thinking. And his political theory of change, his waving away of limits, seemed utterly unrealistic.

    ***

    The easy slogan here is “Break up the big banks.” It’s obvious why this slogan is appealing from a political point of view: Wall Street supplies an excellent cast of villains. But were big banks really at the heart of the financial crisis, and would breaking them up protect us from future crises?

    Many analysts concluded years ago that the answers to both questions were no. Predatory lending was largely carried out by smaller, non-Wall Street institutions like Countrywide Financial; the crisis itself was centered not on big banks but on “shadow banks” like Lehman Brothers that weren’t necessarily that big. And the financial reform that President Obama signed in 2010 made a real effort to address these problems. It could and should be made stronger, but pounding the table about big banks misses the point.

    Yet going on about big banks is pretty much all Mr. Sanders has done. On the rare occasions on which he was asked for more detail, he didn’t seem to have anything more to offer. And this absence of substance beyond the slogans seems to be true of his positions across the board.

    You could argue that policy details are unimportant as long as a politician has the right values and character. As it happens, I don’t agree. For one thing, a politician’s policy specifics are often a very important clue to his or her true character — I warned about George W. Bush’s mendacity back when most journalists were still portraying him as a bluff, honest fellow, because I actually looked at his tax proposals. For another, I consider a commitment to facing hard choices as opposed to taking the easy way out an important value in itself.

    But in any case, the way Mr. Sanders is now campaigning raises serious character and values issues.

    ***

    What probably set that off was a recent interview of Mr. Sanders by The Daily News, in which he repeatedly seemed unable to respond when pressed to go beyond his usual slogans. Mrs. Clinton, asked about that interview, was careful in her choice of words, suggesting that “he hadn’t done his homework.”

  50. 50.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @BGinCHI:

    Interesting you would ask that question now — Morning Edition on NPR is broadcasting from Illinois today (Peoria, I think) to talk to a bunch of representative people (a mayor, an academic, a small business owner, someone who lost her job at Caterpillar, etc.). Of course it’s all in the context of the election, but they’re going into some depth on economic dysfunction and gridlock in the state, such as a prison that was built at great expense but then no money was available to operate it so there it sits, empty.

    You’re in Norway, right? — but can probably find podcasts or transcripts of the different broadcast segments.

  53. 53.

    debbie

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    Predatory lending was largely carried out by smaller, non-Wall Street institutions like Countrywide Financial; the crisis itself was centered not on big banks but on “shadow banks” like Lehman Brothers that weren’t necessarily that big.

    Bullshit. First, Countrywide was not small; it paid its CEO a quarter billion dollars for about 8 months’ work. Second, every-sized bank was in on it. And they still are.

    ***

    PS. Congratulations, Tom, NOVA is one of the best things that’s happened to television.

  54. 54.

    dr. bloor

    @Baud: Eh, you know how it goes, though. Haliburton guy gets pissed off over the first quarter yield, makes a call to DC, and then you’ve got Marines charging up the beach at Hotel Panama during cocktail hour. Not worth the headache.

  56. 56.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    On the other hand, maybe we should watch our backs around Amir.

    I’m still pre-caffeinated, and have bleary morning eye. Those two factors probably explain why I initially read that as “maybe we should wash our backs around Amir.”

  58. 58.

    John S.

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    I’ve worked with people for years who are like Sanders – they are singularly focused on one big idea, and while they lack details, they are a driving force behind accomplishing their goal.

    I have also worked with people who are like Clinton – they have quite a few initiatives, and are very detailed in the necessary tactics to achieve those, and make incremental progress.

    I have seen both types succeed, and I have seen both types fail. But either is more enjoyable to work with than the megalomaniacal jerks who have no real strategy, and lurch from one brain fart to another based on the latest fire drill. So basically the current GOP.

  60. 60.

    debbie

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I’m not so many years behind you, and I am hating how I’ve started misreading words. I guess the ability to recognize words by their shapes fades away.

  61. 61.

    WereBear

    @SiubhanDuinne: I know someone who took their state retirement from Illinois a couple of years ago; they would have made more if they had stayed in, but with all the budget crises, they worried they would get less if they didn’t go when they did.

    Ironically, when I left corporate in the mid-80’s, I had bits of regret over passing up what seemed like great bennies and some kind of retirement. But I’ve heard too many horror stories about people who invested decades, and wound up with nothing.

    So, who knows!

  62. 62.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @BGinCHI: Let me guess. The state elected Republicans who cut taxes and are surprised they now have no money. Being serious people, they are now sadly saying the moral thing to do is screw the poor.

    @BillinGlendaleCA: That is such a good answer to BG’s unhappy state.

  63. 63.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Big congratulations, Tom! The new book project sounds fascinating. I hope you’ll periodically share some of your research tidbits with us.

    Speaking of fascinating, do you suppose you and your dad are the first father-son (or, broadly, parent-child) duo to win the Guggenheim? (For those who may not know, Tom’s father, Joseph R. Levenson, was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1962.) If yours isn’t a unique pairing, it must surely be very rare.

  69. 69.

    TS

    Many congratulations Tom. Interesting reading how many Guggenheim Fellows have become Nobel Prize winners. Illustrious company.

  70. 70.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Iowa Old Lady: IL has a GOP gov and a Dem legislature. While their budget difficulties go back many years, the current standoff is over how much the working poor need to get screwed.

  72. 72.

    Baud

    @John S.:

    But either is more enjoyable to work with than the megalomaniacal jerks who have no real strategy, and lurch from one brain fart to another based on the latest fire drill. So basically the current GOP.

    Whew. For a sec, I thought you were talking about me.

  74. 74.

    BGinCHI

    Thanks to all who responded!

    Just want to get a sense of whether these very serious, very acute state ills are making any national news.

    The most under-reported political story this past 6 or 8 months (if not longer) has been, in my opinion, the drastic measures at the state level while all the MSM does is cover the Prez election, etc.

    There is WAY more harm being done to the citizens of IL right now than will ever be done by terrorists.

  75. 75.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    the current standoff is over how much the working poor need to get screwed.

    Since both parties are the same, shouldn’t they be able to resolve this easily?

  76. 76.

    Poopyman

    @BGinCHI: If you were Dick Durbin and had said that on the Senate floor, the Republicans would have made you apologize in tears.

  78. 78.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): ya know I saw a documentary this winter on women hockey players in minnesota (it was one of the sports channels). They followed them from primary school to middle school to high school to college. They were really cool.

    eta:: Still – they’re not as ice cool as this cat (video)

  79. 79.

    John D.

    @debbie: You do realize those are Paul Krugman’s words, not David’s, right? And given that he is an expert in the field of economics, why should I believe your bald assertion, sans any data, over his, in matters relating to economics?

  81. 81.

    debbie

    @John D.:

    Yes, I know who said it, and if you’re disputing what I’ve said about the current situation, I work in the industry so I can in fact say what I said.

  82. 82.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: @BGinCHI: @Iowa Old Lady:

    I over simplified above. A lot of it has to do with state employees unfunded pension liabilities, so of course they are in for a royal screwing too. And just because somebody is retired does not make them immune to the coming rogering.

    As to your question Baud, Apparently there are a few minor differences to the 2 parties. It is easy to miss them if one is not familiar with the nuts and bolts of the 2.

  83. 83.

    gene108

    @BGinCHI:

    If you don’t know about it, IL has had no state budget for 10 months and things are terrible. Layoffs, furloughs, services cancelled for needy people in all kinds of social services, including health- and mental care.

    Join the club. PA has had a budget impass between the Democratic governor and Republican legislature.

    Probably other states as well are in a similar mess.

  84. 84.

    debbie

    @Patricia Kayden:

    This reminds me of that study group back in 2012 who wanted all Republican candidates to sign onto their proclamation that African Americans had it better under slavery than under Obama because slave owners cared more about families. Not even rabid RWNJs like Santorum would sign it.

  89. 89.

    BGinCHI

    @gene108: PA has a budget as of a week or two ago.

    IL is the only state left without one. It’s seriously grim.

    But yeah, KY and other states with right wing, MBA or vulture capitalist-style governors are really getting hammered with cuts and reductions and, in IL’s case, near shutdown.

    I’d like to think this is the last gasp of GOP non-governance, but states are full of stupid voters.

    I’m ready for cities to cede from states, so that we can get on with becoming like Italy was: city states and rural backwardness.

  90. 90.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    It took a while to find a link on Google because there’s so much nuttiness about Michele, but I misremembered a few things. It was in 2011 and Santorum in fact signed on to it.

    I love this quote from Rachel Maddow:

    “If you took a cracked pot and you cracked that cracked pot, you’d be approaching the level of cracked pottery we are talking about here,”

  92. 92.

    BGinCHI

    @OzarkHillbilly: It’s still more complicated than that, but it’s too long a story.

    The pension mess was created by the state gov’t, of both parties (esp. Blago, convict #348579). It was used as a slush fund and now it’s not slushy enough to pay the people who paid into it. The IL supreme court has ruled that it’s a contract, and the state can’t reduce benefits.

    So now we wait for a much-needed state income tax increase, one that will hopefully be progressive.

  94. 94.

    HRA

    Congratulations Tom!

    I have not seen anything about the IL problem.

    Bill Clinton screwed up with BLM. This is the second or third time he has done something not surprisingly stupid out in the public this round. More than sad and weak is the use of this moment of honoring a great poster here to start a vile attack against Bernie Sanders.

  95. 95.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie: In Krugman’s defense, he did say most of the shady loans were originated by smaller banks. You are correct that they all got in on the scam thru the derivatives market and made bucoo bucks doing so. It is a weakness in Krugman’s piece that he ignores that fact.*** i suspect he will get more than a little pushback on that oversight and he might well address it on his blog.

    *** before anybody starts seeing anything sinister in that omission, it is more than likely he left it out because a column has a word limit and to fully explain the role larger banks played would require something much larger

  96. 96.

    Baud

    @BGinCHI:

    The IL supreme court has ruled that it’s a contract, and the state can’t reduce benefits.

    Good. It’s shocking how labor contracts are treated, especially by people who value contract rights uber alles.

  102. 102.

    sherparick

    @OzarkHillbilly: Because they would cut their own noses off if it hurts “Those People” more. Also, they really think the Ayn Rand and God want the Koch brothers to have all the money.

  103. 103.

    sherparick

    By the way, Congratulations Professor Levenson. Look forward to watching more of your documentaries in years to come.

  104. 104.

    debbie

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    i wasn’t disputing Krugman’s words; I was disputing the poster’s intended purpose to dismiss Sanders’ assertion that it was the big banks who were responsible for the crisis.

  105. 105.

    WereBear

    @BGinCHI: There is WAY more harm being done to the citizens of IL right now than will ever be done by terrorists.

    I know! And yet people just tend to accept it numbly. It makes so sense at all.

  106. 106.

    gene108

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Tell me again why MO Republicans want to copy the Brownback plan?

    Cutting taxes always stimulates growth. Slashing government services always releases the power of the “free market”.

    These are Natural Laws, like Newton’s Laws of Motion.

    Or so it is believed by Republicans.

  107. 107.

    Tom Levenson

    Dear all and esp. Anne Laurie,

    Many thanks — so many! — for all the kind thoughts here. I’ll have a little note up in a bit, once the morning madness fades, but I couldn’t wait to bow to all here.

    Yes, this is a lovely thing professionally; yes, I do mention to folks that I blog, and yeah, I keep waking up wondering if it were all some ghastly mistake that the Guggenheim folks won’t leap to correct…but it appears they mean it, so huzzah!

    And thanks again, everyone,

  108. 108.

    BGinCHI

    @WereBear: It’s affecting the poorest, and that means the other 60% or so can get along.

    But I do think this is raising a lot of consciousness in the state about issues of governance, priorities, and so many of the services (including education and healthcare) that people take for granted.

    I hope this gets resolved soon and that the knock-on effect is that IL voters never trust a GOP politician to run the state again in my lifetime. The state Dem party also needs a lot of work, but at least it’s not killing people directly.

  109. 109.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @BGinCHI:

    It’s still more complicated than that, but it’s too long a story.

    Yeah, I know. I just wanted to highlight how the pension difficulties (which were a bipartisan scam) played into it. I had not heard about that ruling and find it hard to believe. I had thought it was a well established legal principal that contracts between workers and corp/govt were binding on the workers but not binding on the corp/govt. Hmph… Who’da thunk it?

    I’m sure Rauner will try to find a Brownsbackian (re kansas v kansas state constitution) way around that ruling.

  111. 111.

    Patricia Kayden

    @debbie: Republican politicians won’t sign any such pledge but they probably believe it wholeheartedly. They probably also believe that poor children were better off when there were no laws protecting them from hard and dangerous labor.

  112. 112.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Tom Levenson: CLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAP, CLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAP…

    (written while standing)

  114. 114.

    EZSmirkzz

    Deep thought: Just think, you don’t even have to be in New York to make it in New York.

    Is this a great country or what?.

  115. 115.

    Patricia Kayden

    @HRA: Isn’t it true that many Black leaders supported the tough crime laws passed during the Clinton administration? I would argue that the context in which those tough laws were passed gives a bigger picture as to why many people (including Black people) felt the need for them. I didn’t come to the U.S. until 1995, but I remember hearing horror stories of drug gangs, high murder rates and crime waves in inner city communities. To argue that Clinton passed such laws to intentionally hurt Black people or because he was racist is nonsense, in my opinion.

    BLM protesters have the right to point out the harm these laws did to the Black community but what exactly do they want President Clinton to do now? All he can do is advocate for the easing of those laws which he appears to have done.

  117. 117.

    Baud

    This is cool for Bernie.

    Sen. Bernie Sanders has accepted an invitation to speak at Vatican City for a conference on social justice next week. The April 15th event, which will be hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, is scheduled to cover a number of the Democratic presidential hopeful’s signature campaign issues, including income inequality and the environment.

  118. 118.

    Mandarama

    What a wonderful recognition and opportunity, Prof. Levenson. Many congratulations!

    (And I swayer(TM) I am not just sucking up because my 14-yr-old math geek dreams of MIT and I’ll need advice in a few years. Signed, literature professor whose knowledge of elite tech schools is limited to multiple viewings of Real Genius.)

  119. 119.

    geg6

    Congratulations Tom! Such great news for BJ over the last couple of days. And belated congrats to TTP on his writing prize. Warm fuzzies all around.

  120. 120.

    Chris

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    At this point, I basically see Sanders as the Huey Long or W. J. Bryan of our time. Yes, someone like him is valuable to have on the left edge of the political spectrum. And no, that does not mean I want him in the White House.

  121. 121.

    geg6

    @BGinCHI:

    Not here in PA, but then we are just finally seeing our own budget go into place. Just in time for the new one to be due in a few months. This is where the real fight against the GOP has to be waged (not that the presidency, Senate and House aren’t super important!), at the state level. This is where it all happens. They must start to pay a price. There was a recent bill proposed here in PA to create an independent redistricting commission. It seems to have some bipartisan support. But I have no idea if it’s gaining any traction. Until we can get some sort of sanity in how districts are created, this will continue.

  122. 122.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    Congratulations Tom! I hope Tikka is appropriately appreciative of the mention.

    Thank you AL for putting this at the front page.

  123. 123.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Baud: Is the environment one of Bernie Sanders’s signature campaign issues? More importantly, expect a battle between Bernie and the Pope over which is the proper possessor of infallibility.

  125. 125.

    BGinCHI

    @geg6: Agreed, totally.

    I do think it’s waking people up at the state level. The money in politics is having a counter-intuitive effect in the sense that it’s a hammer hitting a lot of small, personal nails, and that means that, to mix metaphors, it’s waking up a lot of sleeping dogs.

    We are so complacent in many states about the role of government and about the work done by state workers, and agencies and so on.

    Some people need a wake-up call.

  127. 127.

    Punchy

    Holy crap, Le Pope just figgy’d this out:

    On Friday, he (Pope Frank) said the rigorous response proposed by the conservatives was inconsistent with Jesus’ message of mercy.

    Boy, that could be applied to almost every position on the GOP platform.

  128. 128.

    rikyrah

    Wisconsin’s voter-ID scheme comes into sharper focus
    04/07/16 04:00 PM—UPDATED 04/07/16 04:02 PM
    By Steve Benen

    Rep. Glenn Grothman (R), a far-right freshman from Wisconsin, generated national headlines this week when he admitted on television what many have long assumed. Looking ahead to this year’s presidential election, the Republican congressman expressed confidence about the GOP doing well in the Badger State, thanks in part to one specific policy.

    “[N]ow we have photo ID,” Grothman said, “and I think photo ID is going to make a little bit of a difference.”

    At least in public, Republicans are supposed to say voter-ID schemes have nothing to do with rigging elections by suppressing voting rights, though some on the right occasionally slip and accidentally tell the truth, as Grothman helped prove.

    Now, another shoe has fallen. A former Republican staffer in the Wisconsin legislature wrote a Facebook message this week, confirming that he saw GOP state lawmakers who, while considering voter-ID measures, “were giddy about the ramifications and literally singled out the prospects of suppressing minority and college voters.”

    The staffer talked to MSNBC’s Zack Roth today about the Republicans’ disenfranchisement campaign in Wisconsin.

    Todd Allbaugh, who served as chief of staff to a Republican state senator, said in an interview Wednesday that at a closed-door caucus meeting in 2011, GOP lawmakers openly discussed how the ID bill would hit minorities and students hardest.

    “One of the senators said, ‘We need to think about the ramifications here, what this means, particularly in Milwaukee and college campuses across the state, what that could mean for us,’” said Allbaugh. “What I’m interested in here is winning, and we need to use the opportunity, because if Democrats had the power to do it to us, they’d do it,” another senator said, according to Allbaugh.

  131. 131.

    Betty Cracker

    Congrats, Tom!

    I think this is the first time in my entire life that I’ll write the following three words without irony: We’re not worthy!

  135. 135.

    Bostondreams

    Grats, Tom! And oh man, psyched as all get out for Rogue One. That trailer was great; not a lightsaber in sight.

  136. 136.

    japa21

    As has been pointed out, IL has a GOP governor and a supposedly veto proof (by one vote) Dem majority in the legislature,. The Dems passed a budget, Rauner vetoed it and one Dem member did not vote to override. If I remember correctly, that Dem lost in the recent primary.

    Rauner has basically insisted on two things before he will sign a budget. The first is term limits, one of the most anti-democracy ideas out there. The second is to basically disallow collective bargaining by public employees. It is obvious he means to go after all unions.

    He is called the pro-business, anti-union governor. Almost as if to be one you have to be the other. Personally, I believe strong unions make for solid business.

    And yes, all the victims so far have been the poor, the mentally ill and the elderly.

    Also, I think the Illinois constitution does not allow for a progressive income tax. There was an advisory referendum in the 2014 election in which the voters of Illinois overwhelmingly supported a progressive tax, but I believe it would require an amendment to the constitution.

  139. 139.

    Gin & Tonic

    I know pretty little about the IL budget problems, but the crises all over the country in state and municipal pensions are truly massive and really a case where “both sides do it” is not off base. Giving wage increases as part of a collective bargaining process involves current dollars, which lawmakers everywhere, on both sides of the aisle, are loath to expend. Sweetening pensions involves future dollars, which are somebody else’s problem. A lot of those are coming home to roost currently. The liabilities involved boggle the mind.

  140. 140.

    japa21

    @japa21: This is the part of the Illinois Constitution I was referring to:

    SECTION 3. LIMITATIONS ON INCOME TAXATION
    (a) A tax on or measured by income shall be at a
    non-graduated rate. At any one time there may be no more than
    one such tax imposed by the State for State purposes on
    individuals and one such tax so imposed on corporations. In
    any such tax imposed upon corporations the rate shall not
    exceed the rate imposed on individuals by more than a ratio
    of 8 to 5.

  142. 142.

    rikyrah

    @japa21:

    As has been pointed out, IL has a GOP governor and a supposedly veto proof (by one vote) Dem majority in the legislature,. The Dems passed a budget, Rauner vetoed it and one Dem member did not vote to override. If I remember correctly, that Dem lost in the recent primary.

    Yes, he did. And, I had no problems with how they ran the campaign to defeat him.

  143. 143.

    Elizabelle

    Love starting TGIF with some good news about a Juicer, in this case Tom L.

    Not surprising, somehow, but very well deserved. Well done!

  144. 144.

    Capri

    @BGinCHI:
    Yes, I hear about the Illinois budget crisis all the time. I work in Indiana, and whenever anybody complains about a problem, the standard response is: “At least we’re not in Illinois.”

  145. 145.

    hedgehog the occasional commenter

    Congrats, Tom!
    Today’s plan is a 1/2 day at The Firm, followed by Rockies opening day! I tells ya, this is Our Year! (wry grin). A traditional lunch of hot dog and beer will be consumed.

  146. 146.

    rikyrah

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I know pretty little about the IL budget problems, but the crises all over the country in state and municipal pensions are truly massive and really a case where “both sides do it” is not off base. Giving wage increases as part of a collective bargaining process involves current dollars, which lawmakers everywhere, on both sides of the aisle, are loath to expend. Sweetening pensions involves future dollars, which are somebody else’s problem. A lot of those are coming home to roost currently. The liabilities involved boggle the mind.

    They passed a rotten plan to try and deal with it, and it was deemed Unconstitutional by the Illinois Supreme Court.

  147. 147.

    rikyrah

    @japa21:

    The first is term limits, one of the most anti-democracy ideas out there. The second is to basically disallow collective bargaining by public employees. It is obvious he means to go after all unions.

    I will point out that he didn’t run on EITHER, but folks from our side told people that’s what he intended to do. We were told that we were being ‘ paranoid’. That you can’t brush all Republicans with the same stroke.

    He tried to get a referendum on the state ballot about the term limits, and what he wanted, the way it was written, term limits were the least of it. If it had passed, it would have shifted power from the urban areas to the rural ones.

    Michael Madigan – a supreme ass in his own right- the Speaker of the Illinois House – got that referendum thrown off the ballot.

    It does not warm my heart that the only thing standing between us and Rauner is Madigan. I’d rather trust a snake charmer…but, you have to deal with the reality given. Madigan has held strong so far.

  149. 149.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    Also, congratulations to TTP on the exciting (well deserved) win Becoming Phoebe.

  151. 151.

    ruemara

    Great to finally learn what the big Tom Levenson news was from a few days ago! Very auspicious and now that I more fully know your body of work, what the heck are you doing here?

    Today is the last day to finish moving myself half out the apartment. I don’t know how it’s going to go. Running out now to grab breakfast, more boxes because books and rent a hand truck, in that order.

    Notes: reading Grunewald on the bank thing put a lot of kabosh on the “big banks are the problem” view of the crash. I have no idea why people want a simple villain to answer complex issues but if you want to solve the real problem, you just have to get over that urge.
    Claiming Sanders does something good for left causes, which I’ve accepted uncritically all this time, made me want to check. That man is fantastic to learn from. But I think I’ll only claim that activists who’ve put their life’s effort are fantastic for left causes. They meet the bar for being praised that way.

  152. 152.

    japa21

    @rikyrah: I think he occasionally mentioned term limits in his campaign, but definitely not a major factor. The other was never mentioned. To Rauner’s credit, he did run a smart campaign. Spoke in broad strikes and avoided any policy details. And he was running against Quinn who just from the optics viewpoint was the polar opposite of Rauner and who many people tied to the financial situation in Illinois.

    The Dem candidate for the state Senate in our district, who I did not vote for in the primary, is also running on term limits. And she is making it a central part of her campaign. Hopefully, she won’t turn into a turncoat.

    A lot of Koch money will be poured into Illinois to reduce the Dems hold on the legislature. Hopefully, it won’t work.

    Agree with you on Madigan. Hard to believe Lisa is his stepdaughter. She I would love to see as governor.

  155. 155.

    Matt McIrvin

    @ruemara: I think a lot of the resentment just came from the point that Jon Stewart phrased as “where’s our bailout?” TARP bailed out these big banks who, whether or not they were the problem, certainly weren’t part of the solution, while all these small borrowers who were suddenly underwater or defaulting on their mortgages got bupkis. And bailing them out probably would have been a terrific economic stimulus, too.

  156. 156.

    rikyrah

    So, Bill Clinton wants to defend the Crime Bill?

    Uh huh

    …………

    A twitter response.

    T. Greg Doucette ‎@greg_doucette
    Just saw Bill Clinton’s comments about his crime bill. I wish he’d spend some time with my clients so he can see how thoroughly wrong he is.

    T. Greg Doucette ‎@greg_doucette
    That legislation may very well have helped punish murderers too, but it’s absolutely devastated many for non-violent minor offenses

    T. Greg Doucette ‎@greg_doucette
    It created so many new crimes that more plea bargaining became a necessity just to manage the caseload

    T. Greg Doucette ‎@greg_doucette
    It eliminated education for inmates, so folks who went in had less chance to become productive members of society when they got out

    T. Greg Doucette ‎@greg_doucette
    And he deliberately exploited race to get it passed, relying on this notion of “superpredators” that weren’t even an actual thing

    T. Greg Doucette ‎@greg_doucette
    It remains one of the darkest blots on his presidency, and for him to keep defending it is just… wow

    T. Greg Doucette ‎@greg_doucette
    Like say “hey I thought it was a good idea at the time, but I was wrong. Let’s fix it.” Or something.

    T. Greg Doucette ‎@greg_doucette
    But don’t pretend like it’s a good thing when the end result of your handiwork is visible every day a defense attorney goes to court

    T. Greg Doucette ‎@greg_doucette
    When the end result of your handiwork is visible every day a kid ends up a federal felon bc he needs drug treatment but we prosecute instead

    T. Greg Doucette ‎@greg_doucette
    When the end result of your handiwork is visible every day people don’t trust police b/c you created incentives that corrupt law enforcement

    T. Greg Doucette ‎@greg_doucette
    I’m done. Bill Clinton beclowned himself today and he can go kick rocks. Carry on.

  157. 157.

    WaterGirl

    @BGinCHI: I’m in Illinois and I have no idea whether this is national news. I hope all the people who said “we need a change, he can’t be worse than what we’ve got now” are enjoying the results of the reign of Governor Scorched Earth.

    If only this were a national story, perhaps we wouldn’t duplicate this on the national level where people are thinking the same thing about Donald Trump. “Our current system is broken, so how could it be worse?” Well, take a look at IL if you want just a tiny idea of how it could possibly be worse.

  158. 158.

    WaterGirl

    Tom, before complaining about our evil governor, I should have first posted my heartfelt congratulations on your Guggenheim Fellowship!

  159. 159.

    Miss Bianca

    Congratulations, Tom!!

    And may I just add that your taste in graphics to illustrate your posts is always exquisite.

  163. 163.

    henqiguai

    @Patricia Kayden(#115):

    Isn’t it true that many Black leaders supported the tough crime laws passed during the Clinton administration? I would argue that the context in which those tough laws were passed gives a bigger picture as to why many people (including Black people) felt the need for them.

    Yes, that’s been pointed out before. But history, and context, are for the lesser folk. Why would those protesters bother to go back to check the rationale, and supporters including Black community leaders, before attacking? You want rational behavior??? Silly boy girl!

  164. 164.

    japa21

    @Steeplejack: Thank you. That is fantastic news. Sometimes I feel very humbled by the greatness displayed by both commenters and posters.

    And because I forgot earlier, congrats Tom (and TTP)

  165. 165.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: That’s why I left the University of Illinois when I did. I thought they would have a harder time screwing the people who were already retired than the people who had not yet retired.

    It was a huge relief when the courts came down on the side of “contract”, which it surely is. But I have seen so many corporate pensions where the folks just got completely screwed – sorry, that pension we promised you? well, we’re not paying, and the government that is supposed to protect you says it’s okay. I don’t even know how people can deal with it when it happens to them.

  168. 168.

    Brachiator

    Let me add my “Congratulations Tom!” to the heap of praise piling up here.

    Great morning. Good news about Tom and a Star Wars trailer….

  170. 170.

    japa21

    @WaterGirl: What gets me is that many of those talking about how we have to avoid paying the pensions would scream bloody murder if their pensions were cut off or if a company promised a new CEO a golden parachute even if they got fired for bad performance and then reneged on it.

  173. 173.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: Madigan certainly has his issues, but the fact that he’s there is about the only reason I am able to sleep at night. If we think the state is screwed now, we would be totally and completely fucked without Madigan.

  174. 174.

    gwangung

    @henqiguai: On the other hand, being over-policed and killed on only a hint of suspicion is not a bed of roses either.

    And people are being killed right now in the present, and it’s probably not a good use of energy to defend the solution of the 90s that’s killing people in the 10s.

  175. 175.

    rikyrah

    Obama’s Greatest Triumph
    He is six months away from destroying both the Republican Party and Reagan’s legacy.

    Columnist Dan Henninger on how President Obama destroyed Ronald Reagan’s conservative legacy.
    March 30, 2016 7:16 p.m. ET

    Barack Obama will retire a happy man. He is now close to destroying his political enemies—the Republican Party, the American conservative movement and the public-policy legacy of Ronald Reagan.

    Today, the last men standing amidst the debris of the Republican presidential competition are Donald Trump, a political independent who is using the Republican Party like an Uber car; Ted Cruz, who used the Republican Party as a footstool; and John Kasich, a remnant of the Reagan revolution, who is being told by Republicans to quit.

    History may quibble, but this death-spiral began with Barack Obama’s health-care summit at Blair House on Feb. 25, 2010. For a day, Republicans gave detailed policy critiques of the proposed Affordable Care Act. When it was over, the Democrats, including Mr. Obama, said they had heard nothing new.

    That meeting was the last good-faith event in the Obama presidency. Barack Obama killed politics in Washington that day because he had no use for it, and has said so many times. The Democrats survived the Obama desert by going to ground. But frustrated Republicans outside Congress eventually started tearing each other apart.

  176. 176.

    rikyrah

    Obama pursued transformation as Republicans chose self-destruction
    By Fareed Zakaria April 7 at 8:10 PM

    In an interview during the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama said that Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of the United States in a way that Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton did not. Clearly, Obama aspired to be a transformational president, like Reagan. At this point, it’s fair to say that he has succeeded. Look at what’s happened during his tenure to the country, his party and, most tellingly, his opposition.

    The first line in Obama’s biography will have to do with who he is, the first African American president. But what he has done is also significant. In the wake of the financial collapse in 2008, Obama worked with the outgoing George W. Bush administration, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and members of both parties in Congress to respond forcefully on all fronts — fiscal, monetary, regulatory. The result is that the United States came out of the Great Recession in better shape than any other major economy.

    Obama’s signal accomplishment is health care, where he was able to enact a law that has resulted in 90 percent of Americans having health insurance. Although the law has its problems, it achieves a goal first articulated by Theodore Roosevelt 100 years ago.

    Then, there is the transformation of U.S. energy policy. The administration has made investments and given incentives to place the United States at the forefront of the emerging energy revolution. Just one example: Over Obama’s terms , solar costs have plummeted by 70 percent and solar generation is up 3,000 percent.

    Finally, Obama has pursued a new foreign policy, informed by the lessons of the past two decades, that limits U.S. involvement in establishing political order in the Middle East, focusing instead on counterterrorism. This has freed the administration to pursue new approaches with countries such as Iran and Cuba and to direct attention and resources to the Asia-Pacific region, which in just a few years will be home to four of the world’s five largest economies.

    Just as Reagan solidified the ideological position of the Republican Party — around free markets, free trade, an expansive foreign policy and an optimistic outlook — Obama has helped push the Democratic Party to be more willing to use government to achieve public purposes. And his party has responded.

    In that 2008 campaign interview, Obama pointed out that Reagan had not changed the country single-handedly; he took advantage of a shift in the national mood. The same could be said about the United States today. Years of stagnant wages, rising inequality and the financial crisis have created a new political atmosphere, one that Obama has helped shape.

    The biggest impact of his presidency, however, can be seen in his opposition, the Republican Party, which is in the midst of an ideological breakdown. Surveying this scene, conservative columnist Daniel Henninger writes in the Wall Street Journal that Obama “is now close to destroying his political enemies — the Republican Party, the American conservative movement, and the public-policy legacy of Ronald Reagan.” Obama’s success in this regard, if it can be called that, is a passive one. He has let his opponents self-destruct and never overplayed his hand.

  177. 177.

    rikyrah

    @WaterGirl:

    I’m in Illinois and I have no idea whether this is national news. I hope all the people who said “we need a change, he can’t be worse than what we’ve got now” are enjoying the results of the reign of Governor Scorched Earth.

    Yep.
    Yep.
    I want an apology from all those that said that nonsense.

  178. 178.

    The Lodger

    Late to the game, but adding my congratulations to Tom and TTP. Also to JSF and eemom on their engagement. Did I miss anyone?

  179. 179.

    rikyrah

    Inside America’s Auschwitz
    A new museum offers a rebuke — and an antidote — to our sanitized history of slavery
    By Jared Keller
    smithsonian.com
    April 4, 2016

    At t first glance, the “Wall of Honor” at Louisiana’s Whitney Plantation slavery museum — a series of granite stones engraved with the names of hundreds of slaves who lived, worked and died there — evokes any number of Holocaust memorials. But as the future mayor of New Orleans noted at the museum’s 2008 opening, this site is different; this is America’s Auschwitz.

    The former indigo, sugar and cotton operation, which finally opened to the public after years of careful restoration in December 2014 as the country’s first slave museum, is a modern avatar of injustice. Nestled off the historic River Road that runs alongside the slow, lazy crook of the Mississippi, the estate was built in the late 1700s by entrepreneur Jean Jacques Haydel upon land purchased by his German-immigrant father, Ambroise. It was the younger Haydel who expanded the estate and established the plantation as a key player in Louisiana’s sugar trade, transitioning the main crop away from the less-profitable indigo markets. A couple of years after the Civil War, a Northerner by the name of Bradish Johnson bought the property and named it after his grandson Harry Whitney.

    The restored property, a mix of original structures and replicas, includes an overseer’s home, replica slave cabins — scenes from Django Unchained were filmed right next door — and a blacksmith’s shop, among other buildings. Even when nearly deserted, it feels like the place could spring to life at any moment as the slaves return from the adjacent sugar cane fields. The 15-year restoration effort was backed by John Cummings, the local lawyer and real estate mogul who purchased the land from a petrochemical company and invested $8 million of his own money into restoring the property and developing the museum — reportedly out of his own sense of white guilt over the horrors of slavery, according to the Times. “When you leave here,” he told the New Orleans Advocate, “you’re not going to be the same person who came in.”

  180. 180.

    japa21

    @rikyrah: Rauner won’t be able to get his agenda through, even with the new legislature because the Dems will still control. The question is if they will maintain their current level of dominance. If they can reach an assured veto-proof majority, then they can pretty much disregard Rauner.

    Right now Rauner is working hard to blame everything on the Dems, but I am not sure it is working. Every Dem candidate should run on the platform of “A vote for my opponent is a vote for Rauner” Although his approval ratings aren’t abysmal like some GOP governors, they still aren’t all that good. The question will be how much impact Koch money will have.

    I haven’t been the kind to contribute much to lower level races, but this year will be different.

  181. 181.

    rikyrah

    @japa21:

    What gets me is that many of those talking about how we have to avoid paying the pensions would scream bloody murder if their pensions were cut off or if a company promised a new CEO a golden parachute even if they got fired for bad performance and then reneged on it.

    Any other time, they talk about responsibility and contracts.

    But, the only contracts that don’t seem to many anything are those of public employees.

    People need to understand- those employees pay their portion to the pensions EVERY TWO WEEKS. They’ve fulfilled their obligation for their pension.

  182. 182.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    Rauner has basically insisted on two things before he will sign a budget. The first is term limits, one of the most anti-democracy ideas out there. The second is to basically disallow collective bargaining by public employees. It is obvious he means to go after all unions.

    @japa21: Illinois voters. My poor brother lives there. He’s a teacher, him and his wife both. Looks like they’re fucked and will be eating catfood in their old age. Don’t get it. Rauner said he was going to destroy the state’s public sector. Schools, health care, environment, pensions, all of it. Repeatedly. Illinois voters put him in the governor’s chair anyway and apparently thought he’d never actually do it. He’s doing it.

    Does nobody even listen to what people say when they’re running for office anymore, save for the presidency? Sure seems that way.

  184. 184.

    Mnemosyne

    @rikyrah:

    That sounds fascinating but emotionally difficult, like a visit to the Museum of Tolerance (a terrific Holocaust museum here in LA that, as the name implies, has an expanded mission to tackle all kinds of prejudice and bigotry, not just the Holocaust).

  186. 186.

    The Other Chuck

    Update on getting EBBJ working with the new theme in firefox:

    Good news is, EBBJ is obsolete anyway and unnecessary, at least for now. Bad news is, I haven’t a clue how to fix it if I do want to do anything with it later. It looks like just the mere presence of EBBJ breaks the edit link in Firefox, whether I have it actually do anything or not. It’s either removing the onclick handler somehow, or screwing it up … somehow.

    I can do some more investigation into this, but I strongly suspect it’s Greasemonkey itself that is broken — it’s hard to conclude the problem is on my end or even FYWP’s when even an empty userscript breaks things. So anyway, workaround for firefox users now and for the forseeable future is disable EBBJ.

  187. 187.

    rikyrah

    @japa21:

    Rauner won’t be able to get his agenda through, even with the new legislature because the Dems will still control. The question is if they will maintain their current level of dominance. If they can reach an assured veto-proof majority, then they can pretty much disregard Rauner.

    well, you know that they put a lot of money into the race against Madigan, and the Ken Duncan thing was a test. Madigan dispatched Duncan poste haste, so that was a warning to other Dems – cross me at your own peril.

    I felt not one phucking ounce of sympathy for Duncan. I can remember reading the Tribune last November and the headline was that day – Dems will override Rauner’s Veto, and I was like ‘ good, this budget nonsense will be over.’ Next day, it was ‘ Rauner sustains veto’ and I was like WHAT.DA.PHUQ?

    When I found out that it was Duncan, I was like, ‘ oh no. You’ve GOT TO GO.’

    I didn’t care what Madigan did at that point – Duncan had to be made an example of so that the rest of those clowns would stay in line.

    Lisa Madigan needs to put her big girl panties on and take one for the team and run for Governor.

  188. 188.

    rikyrah

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    Don’t get it. Rauner said he was going to destroy the state’s public sector. Schools, health care, environment, pensions, all of it. Repeatedly.

    Actually, the above poster is correct. Rauner ran on generalities and dogwhistles.

    And, we all know dogwhistles are for plausible deniability.

    Those listening knew which way was up, but like I said before – we were poo-pooed.

    Who I have nothing but contempt for are those two piece and a biscuit Preacher Muthaphuckas that shilled for Rauner. Can’t find them nowhere to comment on how Rauner’s policies are affecting THEIR MEMBERSHIP.

    But, Quinn was such a bad guy, right?

    Whatever.

  190. 190.

    Elizabelle

    @rikyrah:

    Who I have nothing but contempt for are those two piece and a biscuit Preacher Muthaphuckas that shilled for Rauner. Can’t find them nowhere to comment on how Rauner’s policies are affecting THEIR MEMBERSHIP.

    That sounds like a great topic for an alt-weekly to cover. Let us know if any ever do.

    Fascinating. And my condolences.

  191. 191.

    henqiguai

    @gwangung(#174):

    And people are being killed right now in the present, and it’s probably not a good use of energy to defend the solution of the 90s that’s killing people in the 10s.

    True, but castigating someone today for actions taken back then, when everyone agreed, at the time, that was the best thing to do seems a tad disingenuous. So, poor use of energy and a squandered opportunity seems to be what occurred.

  192. 192.

    Mike J

    @henqiguai: It DOES seem odd to attack somebody for what they did in the 90s and then say they shouldn’t waste energy defending it.

  194. 194.

    tastytone

    @rikyrah:

    Madigan dispatched Duncan poste haste

    Hell, OBAMA popped his head-in for Stratton because of it. I was elated. She destroyed Dunkin.

  195. 195.

    dww44

    @rikyrah: In your opinion, why is it a mess?

    My congratulations to Tom. I’ve long enjoyed his posts here and never realized, though I should have, what an accomplished and talented individual he is!

  196. 196.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @debbie:

    Bullshit. First, Countrywide was not small; it paid its CEO a quarter billion dollars for about 8 months’ work. Second, every-sized bank was in on it. And they still are.

    This is disingenuous, because it relies upon a slippery definition of “big.” Yes, Countrywide was a large company in general, but that’s not what was meant. Krugman’s point was that Countrywide didn’t meet the definition of “too big to fail,” and it didn’t. I don’t know of any threshold for a working definition of that term that Countrywide would have met, and that’s evidence that targeting your regulation specifically on too big to fail wouldn’t have done anything to prevent the financial crisis. It’s a case of the slogan being simple, powerful, and wrong.

    Hell, the biggest piece of evidence that Countrywide wasn’t too big to fail is that it, uhm, failed.

  199. 199.

    Linnaeus

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    Does nobody even listen to what people say when they’re running for office anymore, save for the presidency? Sure seems that way.

    I’m sure there were a fair number of Illinois voters who did listen to Rauner and wanted him to do what he’s doing.

    As for the other Rauner voters, I’m guessing they figured that they’d be spared any harm because, you know, it’s only those people over there who are the problem.

  201. 201.

    gwangung

    @henqiguai: What I’m getting is the people are riled up about the defense of the 1990s without qualifications and without acknowledgement that they are still killing too many people.

  202. 202.

    Linnaeus

    @rikyrah:

    those two piece and a biscuit Preacher Muthaphuckas

    Not to make light of your point, but this gave me a chuckle.

  203. 203.

    debbie

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:

    As I said,

    every-sized bank was in on it

    Plenty of banks did not fail; that does not make them model corporate citizens. Neither does it mean they’ve changed their ways.

  204. 204.

    henqiguai

    @gwangung(#201):

    What I’m getting is the people are riled up about the defense of the 1990s without qualifications and without acknowledgement that they are still killing too many people.

    I only heard a quick snippet of anger and tuned out. I generally don’t do futile anger and outrage; if an issue has me to that point I make a calculation –> (1) I’m gonna take action, get engaged and involved somehow (was actually why I became a local GOTV activitist for Elizabeth Warren) or (2) analyze my reactions for clarity and move on (impotent outrage is impotent; and unnecessarily and pointlessly raises the blood pressure); that was why I walked away from a nascent Black Power movement in Pittsburgh college scene back in the late ’69/’70, all talk and bluster.

  205. 205.

    tastytone

    @Linnaeus:

    it’s only those people over there who are the problem

    Specifically, us spendy/gangbanger/mobsters in Chicago. Having grown up downstate, I can vouch: between the blue of St. Clair Co. and Chicago, Illinois has a lot of red/leaning red. Still, I was baffled that Rauner pulled it off (even taking into account Quinn’s squabbles w/unions).

  206. 206.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @debbie:

    Plenty of banks did not fail; that does not make them model corporate citizens. Neither does it mean they’ve changed their ways.

    That’s true, but also completely irrelevant to the point your were critiquing.

  207. 207.

    Linnaeus

    @tastytone:

    Yep. That’s true in a lot of states – the urban/rural divide is pretty stark. I’ve seen it in all three states I’ve lived in so far.

  208. 208.

    rikyrah

    @dww44:

    In your opinion, why is it a mess?

    They really got too cute by half. We should be paying more in State Income Tax. We should make sure we fund our obligations for workers that, as I said before, have given their money every other week to the pension fund. The state needs to fulfill their financial obligations.

  209. 209.

    Tehanu

    Tom, I love your posts here and yet had no idea of your other accomplishments. Congratulations!

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