Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

How stupid are these people?

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

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

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

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

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

The lights are all blinking red.

That meeting sounds like a shotgun wedding between a shitshow and a clusterfuck.

The revolution will be supervised.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Monday Morning Open Thread: Everything Is Political

Monday Morning Open Thread: Everything Is Political

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break thru the glass ceiling cornered

(Mike Baldwin via GoComics.com)
.

Because “The history of the world, my sweet… is who gets eaten and who gets to eat”.

Does it still matter that the inventor of Bitcoin may have been discovered?

What else is on the agenda as we start another week?

Reader Interactions

170Comments

  2. 2.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @AL in OP:

    Does it still matter that the inventor of Bitcoin may have been discovered?

    NO.

  3. 3.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    So this weekend was Pascha (Orthodox Easter). I’m pretty much over Jesus as a whole but still culturally Eastern Christian, so I went to the hellish long midnight liturgy. It is pretty as services go, very peaceful, and the priest is a great guy, and a bunch of my cousins attend there.

    My mom and dad are never on time, so we wind up seated separately as the sanctuary is dark and silent on arrival. Sometime about midnight, a single candle is lit and presented by the priest, which then becomes the communal source for fire for all the candles in the room (very beautiful). Imagine my dismay when I see my dad in a clip on bow tie (he sees me in bow ties from time to time), and realize the really high likelihood that I’ll be presented with a clip on at some point as a gift, because I’m a bow tie purist and only wear the ones I tie myself.

  4. 4.

    Kropadope

    In exit polls, low education levels are a much stronger predictor of Trump support than low incomes. GOP primary voters are pretty well-off.

    Man; where the low-education, high-income jobs be at?

  7. 7.

    Kropadope

    @BillinGlendaleCA: I’m pretty sure those TV pundits are largely educated and otherwise well-credentialed. Being consistently wrong and having one’s head inserted deep into one’s own posterior does not equate to low-education.

  10. 10.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Oh no- it’ll be a clip, so undoing it and retying won’t be an option. The clip on bow tie is uniquely bad – there’s a machine tied area with a too tightly tied knot with fabric impossibly narrow in the middle. A bow tie wearer can spot one in a second.

    I am getting one at some point from them – I know it in my bones. I avoided complimenting him on it in the off chance that maybe, just maybe they’ll not do it.

  12. 12.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    And Joe of the Morning is going on, on why Hillary hasn’t been indicted yes; CLICK!

  17. 17.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    @bemused:

    Yes, they have an elephant-like recollection on things. “Do you still have”, “have you put out (displayed)” or “have you worn” are phrases I hear not infrequently, and I hate lying to them.

  18. 18.

    Kropadope

    @Baud: You think a little thing like term limits will stop the Republicans from trying to imprison her? Hah!

  21. 21.

    satby

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: then you just put it on when you’re going to have dinner at their house, and take it off again as soon as you leave. I’m sure they wouldn’t expect you to wear it every time they see you.
    But don’t obsess over what you can’t control, you can’t control what they give you so think about how to handle that IF it shows up. They won’t be with you forever, and some day the WTF gifts will be a humorous memory.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    @Kropadope: By then, my hope is that they’ve moved on to the next morally offensive, America-destroying Democratic nominee (i.e., Baud! 2024!).

  24. 24.

    OzarkHillbilly

    SSDD: Legal bills mount as Ferguson stands by ‘failure-to-comply’ cases

    At a trial Wednesday in St. Louis County Circuit Court, Associate Circuit Judge Joseph S. Dueker questioned the merits of one Ferguson failure-to-comply case.

    J. Patrick Chassaing — one of four Ferguson prosecutors — could not produce an officer who had arrested the defendant, nor a witness who saw the defendant disregard an officer’s order, nor a witness who could testify that the defendant heard a police order to disperse. “There’s no testimony regarding this defendant at all, not that she was even there,” Dueker said.
    ……
    Chassaing acknowledged the cases were circumstantial, but said the judge should convict the defendants. The judge, he said, could infer that because officers took the defendants into custody, they had been among 11 protesters disregarding police orders to stay out of the street.

    Of the 38 Ferguson municipal cases pending in St. Louis County Circuit Court, 18 involve a failure-to-comply charge, including the case of Mentzel, the property manager stopped for the taillight who was ordered to provide his license on July 14, 2014, a month before the protests.

    Mentzel’s statement about the officer needing probable cause referred to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that a demand for identification violates the Fourth Amendment unless a law enforcement officer has reasonable suspicion that the person has committed a crime.

    “In America, you don’t have to show your papers,” said Javad Khazaeli, who represents Mentzel, along with ArchCity. “This is essentially him saying, ‘Show me your papers.’”

    In a police report, Officer Eddie Boyd III argued that when Mentzel invoked his constitutional rights Boyd had reasonable suspicion that Mentzel was a fugitive; and because he was told more than once to produce his ID, he had disobeyed the order. But Mentzel said he reached for his wallet to produce his license while questioning Boyd’s right to see it.

    Mentzel’s account of the arrest appears in the Justice Department report. So did other incidents involving Boyd, a former St. Louis city and St. Ann officer facing two lawsuits in federal court over failure-to-comply arrests in Ferguson.

    The day Mentzel was jailed, the city also cited him for high weeds at a house on South Harvey Avenue. When Boyd pulled over the pickup, it was on South Harvey. Inside the trailer with a broken taillight was a lawnmower. At the time, Mentzel was on his way to cut the grass, he said.

    Why oh why oh why?

    All told, the prosecutions have cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars. Convictions in those cases may yield a fine of $150 — the hourly fee for Ferguson prosecutors.

    From 2014 to 2015, the amount prosecutors billed Ferguson rose from $30,260 to $61,705. For work during the first three months of 2016, prosecutors’ charged Ferguson just over $30,000. If that pace continues, prosecutors could cost the city more than $120,000 this year.

    Duh.

  28. 28.

    bemused

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:

    What would happen if you simply said you have different tastes than they do which is hardly surprising when people are decades apart in age and culture? Do they feel insulted?

    I believe it was you who posted pics of the bedroom in your parents’ home you slept in when visiting them. The decor gave a very vivid impression of your mom’s taste.

  32. 32.

    Cermet

    Where are the low IQ but good paying jobs? Easy! Go back 50 years and there were plenty of them … otherwise, your are “FOOL” (Fucking Out Of Luck.) Yes, minimum wage back then was well over $15/hr in today’s dollars and the rest of the world was still playing catch up so those asswipes today still think they are special and deserving of their dumb luck – (hence Ray-gun was elected to undo all that Unions achieved with the very blessings of those dumb fucks who most benefited either directly or indirectly.)

  34. 34.

    debbie

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:

    My 16-year-old nephew refuses to wear anything other than a bow tie (not clip-on). I made him swear that he wouldn’t grow up to be George Will. For a few years, he would be the only bow tie in group pictures; now, there are a few others following his lead. He recently broke his hand sliding into second base, but he refuses his mother’s help in getting the tie just right.

  35. 35.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    @satby:

    *sigh*

    I know. I’ve been on a largely failed crusade to rid myself of a lot of those WTF items, but the missus won’t let me. As she puts it, mom actually looks to see some of those seasonal decorations and random bits when she comes here.

    @Aimai:

    No self respecting cat would wear it.

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I think you’re right – I hadn’t hit that possibility, but they’re too symmetrical, the knot so tiny and perfect. As another bow tie wearer in the office told me:

    “Always tie a slightly sloppy bow. On those rare occasions when you’ve done it perfectly, adjust it to make it a little bit ‘off’. That way, everybody knows you did it yourself, and it isn’t a clip-on.

    And toward the end of the day, undo it and let it hang, because an untied bow tie looks badass when you pop into a bar.”

  36. 36.

    hellslittlestangel

    I believe that should be:

    The median Trump voter claims to have a household income of about $75K.

    It’s an exit poll, for fuck’s sake, not a sociological study.

    ETA: Who could assume people who are voting for DONALD TRUMP aren’t lying about how much money they make?

  37. 37.

    Kropadope

    @debbie:

    My 16-year-old nephew refuses to wear anything other than a bow tie (not clip-on).

    At what age does that become public indecency? I would have thought much younger.

  41. 41.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    @Kropadope:

    I go both ways on ties. When I’m feeling whimsical, a bow tie helps demonstrate it.

  44. 44.

    evodevo

    @bemused: Yes. He looks like the type. Pudgy, red-faced, type A. Cardio-pulmonary problems waiting to happen.

  48. 48.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I gotta say that yeah – it looks good even if you’re not part of the rat pack.

  49. 49.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    @Amir Khalid:

    I’ve heard it described that a necktie are the same basic knot, just with a different orientation. I don’t see it even though I do both kinds of ties.

    For my neckties, I go with half or full Windsor. The basic knot is just too narrow, in my opinion.

  50. 50.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: LOL! Best response to that question EVER.

    @Amir Khalid: Huh. Seems like a regular necktie would have too much cloth to credibly pretend to be a bow tie.

  53. 53.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @efgoldman: Bangalore! Those assclowns may have passed enough courses to graduate from Whatever U but it’s a near lock they never learned a fucking thing about reality. I used to refer to them as “overeducated imbeciles” but now I replace the first word with “overcredentialed”.

  55. 55.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Heh, just had to pass this along:

    There is one thing that is absolutely certain about throwing a dead cat on the dining room table – and I don’t mean that people will be outraged, alarmed, disgusted. That is true, but irrelevant. The key point, says my Australian friend, is that everyone will shout, ‘Jeez, mate, there’s a dead cat on the table!’ In other words, they will be talking about the dead cat – the thing you want them to talk about – and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much grief.

    …..

    Rumours persist that both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are earlier prototypes of the ‘self-throwing dead cat’, deployed by the Republican establishment in the USA, which got disastrously out of control.

  56. 56.

    Amir Khalid

    @Matt McIrvin:
    This. Indeed, Bernie needs superdelegates more than Hillary does, because it’s he who is way behind in pledged delegates and the popular vote

  57. 57.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin: Obama needed the superdelegates too. Or would have if Clinton hadn’t dropped out in June.

    My biggest concern for the convention at this point is that a *small* fraction of Bernie delegates will be former Paulites who will seek to disrupt the convention. The news, of course, will be over them 24/7.

  58. 58.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Matt McIrvin: I’m starting to ‘Feel the Bern’, kinda like my hemmorhoids feel the morning after a hot and spicy ‘Enchiladas Night’.

  60. 60.

    MattF

    Yeah, it was amateur nite in Foggy Bottom. When your job is collecting and interpreting events of the day, and you really don’t want people to discover your actual level of incompetence and arrogance– then resentments become a big deal.

  61. 61.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: It’s always possible that Sanders himself may go off the rails and encourage them. This is starting to feel like more than just ordinary primary-season business. Candidates don’t normally insist on a “contested convention” in this situation.

    A couple of months ago we were salivating about the possibility of chaos in Cleveland; we may end up with an orderly Trump coronation followed by chaos in Philadelphia, not because the nomination is actually uncertain, but because the Sanders people have become convinced they were somehow robbed and come ready to fuck shit up.

  62. 62.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    J reads a reddit Bernie forum. Apparently there’s a lot of talk there about some sort of Corrupton™ that resulted in Bernie being cheated. I hope those people find a way to talk themselves down… :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  64. 64.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    It’s always possible that Sanders himself may go off the rails and encourage them.

    It’s possible, but I still think that’s unlikely. I also expect most of his delegates to be just fine. But it would only take a handful of delegates to cause problems. The issue will be, in my mind, how that handful will be dealt with by the party and whether the rest of us will back the party in its response.

  65. 65.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @efgoldman: Yup. I expect that once it’s clear that they’ve lost, they’ll wander away from forums like that for a while. With luck, we’ll get them and their enthusiasm back after the convention. But there will be some who will be dead-enders. :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  66. 66.

    Germy

    in the 19th century Ambrose Bierce wrote a fable about a political convention:

    The Citizen and the Snakes

    A PUBLIC-SPIRITED Citizen who had failed miserably in trying to
    secure a National political convention for his city suffered
    acutely from dejection. While in that frame of mind he leaned
    thoughtlessly against a druggist’s show-window, wherein were one
    hundred and fifty kinds of assorted snakes. The glass breaking,
    the reptiles all escaped into the street.

    “When you can’t do what you wish,” said the Public-spirited
    Citizen, “it is worth while to do what you can.”

  68. 68.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: When you believe your candidate is obviously better than the rival, it’s hard to believe your candidate has lost, so people start to look for cheating. I want Sanders to be better than this, but I understand why it happens. So like you, I hope they talk themselves down. Maybe it’s just stages of grief.

  69. 69.

    Randy P

    @efgoldman: I finally got around to watching “Cloud Atlas” a couple months ago. There’s a scene there where Tom Hanks is an author at an elegant rooftop cocktail party with his most hated and obnoxious critic.

    He ends up throwing the critic off the roof.

    I’m not a violent person and the scene is shocking as it’s meant to be. But oddly satisfying too. You kind of want to cheer for Hanks as he orders his post-murder cocktail at the bar.

    I guess what I’m saying is I would probably have a lot of fun watching pundits throw punches or some facsimile thereof at each other.

  70. 70.

    Betty Cracker

    @Iowa Old Lady: The campaign is already starting to talk folks down, if my inbox is any indication. The latest messages are all about phone-banking to amass a delegate total that will ensure Bernie’s agenda is properly reflected in the Democratic Party platform rather than winning the nomination. I guess it’s the “bargaining” stage.

  71. 71.

    JMG

    After California, the deceleration of Sanders mania will begin. I believe that as the only one of his Senate colleagues to endorse him, Merkley will be the one assigned to talk Bernie down.
    Nothing will reconcile the leftier-than-thou folks to the loss. They are taking out on Hillary their hurt and anger that Obama didn’t usher in the revolution in 2009. However, they are a negligible segment of the electorate.

  72. 72.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    When you believe your candidate is obviously better than the rival, it’s hard to believe your candidate has lost, so people start to look for cheating.

    I think it was Al Giordano who was saying that the story about corruption makes it easy, all too easy, to believe that since the game was rigged from the start there was no way you ever could have won — which means that the outcome wasn’t your fault and there’s nothing you need to change, because if the system were fair everything you did would have worked out great. It’s simultaneously a complaint and an excuse.

  73. 73.

    p.a.

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    And Joe of the Morning is going on, on why Hillary hasn’t been indicted yet

    Setting up the narrative for the legislative/investigative sabotage of her admin. #RNCdemocracysapping

  75. 75.

    MattF

    @Betty Cracker: And ‘contested’ has a range of meanings. It could mean as little as ‘not unanimous’. I think the horse-race crowd is trying to egg Sanders (and his most devoted followers) on– “Hey, let’s you and him fight!”

  76. 76.

    Yellowdog

    @Matt McIrvin: I am quite sure that your Philadelphia scenario is exactly what Sanders is aiming for. He lost and now he just wants to f#ck shot up. I have come to hate him and,even more, Jane with a white hot passion. His egotism could lose us the election because the media narrative will be that the party is disarray and that Clinton is so weak she can’t even defeat a shouty alter kocker.

  77. 77.

    yellowdog

    @Betty Cracker: Then why is he pushing this contested convention idiocy? It is bad optics and hurts the party. They are still in denial.

  78. 78.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @FlipYrWhig:

    which means that the outcome wasn’t your fault and there’s nothing you need to change,

    Thereby ensuring one will never win because one can’t even be troubled to change the system that cheated you. So much easier to be a victim.

  79. 79.

    cleek

    they’re trying to blackmail the Democratic Party while complaining about corruption.

    irony is the enemy of the people’s revolution.

  81. 81.

    Linnaeus

    @Yellowdog:

    His egotism could lose us the election because the media narrative will be that the party is disarray and that Clinton is so weak she can’t even defeat a shouty alter kocker.

    I wouldn’t worry too much about this – Clinton doesn’t seem to be, either. She’s already running as if she’s in the general election, which she will be.

  82. 82.

    C. Isaac

    Submitted for your approval:

    Humpty Trumpty sat on his wall.
    Humpty Trumpty’s approval had a great fall.
    All the Rightwing’s Pundits and all the Rightwing’s Men
    Couldn’t get Humpty Trumpty elected, now or then.

  83. 83.

    Just One More Canuck

    @Matt McIrvin: If you allocate all of the pledged delegates on a strictly proportional basis, Clinton would have a slightly bigger lead than she does now

  85. 85.

    MattF

    @C. Isaac: In fact, many RW pundits are having a sad. Jen Rubin (no linkee) just offered Ted Cruz the profound-and-probably-correct advice that he needs to stop being Ted Cruz.

  86. 86.

    PurpleGirl

    Botsplainer: OT: Have you heard a news story about an historic Serbian Cathedral being burned in a fire yesterday in NYC. St. Savas — a landmarked church on Manhattan’s west side — essentially burned down. The roof and the interior are destroyed. While not a current observer of any denomination. I feel sorry for people who lose their holy places. The Fire Department seems to feel that the fire was set and they are investigating.

  87. 87.

    rikyrah

    Running out of options, Ted Cruz moves the goalposts
    05/02/16 08:40 AM
    By Steve Benen
    About a month ago, shortly before the Wisconsin primary that he would soon after win, Ted Cruz made a very specific case: if a Republican presidential candidate can’t win the party’s nomination before the convention, dropping out is the obvious thing to do.

    During an interview with WTMJ in Milwaukee, Cruz said of John Kasich, “I think any candidate that doesn’t have a path to winning, that’s the time you should suspend your campaign. Kasich has been mathematically eliminated. He needs more than 100% of the remaining delegates…. Kasich is a good an honorable man, but he doesn’t have a path to win.”

    At the time, that might have seemed like a reasonable position, since Cruz believed there was still a chance he’d catch up to Trump and possibly even reach the 1,237-delegate threshold by June. But in the six primaries since Wisconsin, the Texas senator has earned a whopping two pledged delegates. A month after dismissing Kasich as a candidate who should obviously quit because he’s been “mathematically eliminated,” needing “more than 100% of the remaining delegates,” Cruz awkwardly finds himself facing identical circumstances.

  88. 88.

    Kropadope

    @satby: While I’m not sure what Bernie’s doing that constitutes “blackmail,” if cleek describes what (s)he means, that sounds like something people could have an honest disagreement and debate about. You aren’t meanies until you distort, ignore, or dismiss good faith argumentation or start aggressively posting unverifiable and likely false things meant to either antagonize people or contribute to an obscene public circle jerk.

    Hope that helps you understand the difference. Tata, off to last day of class.

  89. 89.

    MomSense

    @Kropadope:

    Well Sanders said yesterday that Clinton will not have enough pledged delegates by June 4th and will therefore need superdelegates. Then he said something like ‘in other words, it will be a contested convention’. This is a really stupid thing to do especially when we have an actual fascist who incites violence on the other side.

  90. 90.

    rikyrah

    Water is wet news.

    ……………………………….

    Money, Race and Success: How Your School District Compares
    By MOTOKO RICH, AMANDA COX and MATTHEW BLOCH
    APRIL 29, 2016

    Sixth graders in the richest school districts are four grade levels ahead of children in the poorest districts.

    We’ve long known of the persistent and troublesome academic gap between white students and their black and Hispanic peers in public schools.

    We’ve long understood the primary reason, too: A higher proportion of black and Hispanic children come from poor families. A new analysis of reading and math test score data from across the country confirms just how much socioeconomic conditions matter.

    Children in the school districts with the highest concentrations of poverty score an average of more than four grade levels below children in the richest districts.

    Even more sobering, the analysis shows that the largest gaps between white children and their minority classmates emerge in some of the wealthiest communities, such as Berkeley, Calif.; Chapel Hill, N.C.; and Evanston, Ill. (Reliable estimates were not available for Asian-Americans.)

    The study, by Sean F. Reardon, Demetra Kalogrides and Kenneth Shores of Stanford, also reveals large academic gaps in places like Atlanta and Menlo Park, Calif., which have high levels of segregation in the public schools.

    Why racial achievement gaps were so pronounced in affluent school districts is a puzzling question raised by the data. Part of the answer might be that in such communities, students and parents from wealthier families are constantly competing for ever more academic success. As parents hire tutors, enroll their children in robotics classes and push them to solve obscure math theorems, those children keep pulling away from those who can’t afford the enrichment.

    “Our high-end students who are coming in are scoring off the charts,” said Jeff Nash, executive director of community relations for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools.

    The school system is near the flagship campus of the University of North Carolina, and 30 percent of students in the schools qualify for free and reduced-price lunch, below the national average.

    The wealthier students tend to come from families where, “let’s face it, both the parents are Ph.D.s, and that kid, no matter what happens in the school, is pressured from kindergarten to succeed,” Mr. Nash said. “So even though our minority students are outscoring minority students in other districts near us, there is still a bigger gap here because of that.”

    By contrast, the communities with narrow achievement gaps tend to be those in which there are very few black or Hispanic children, or places like Detroit or Buffalo, where all students are so poor that minorities and whites perform equally badly on standardized tests.

  91. 91.

    cleek

    Sanders said:

    “If I win a state with 70 percent of the votes you know what, I think I’m entitled to those super delegates. I think that the super delegates should reflect what the people in the state want,”

    inventing new rules on the fly – it’s the Sanders way.

    and they talk about Clinton being lawless.

  92. 92.

    Amir Khalid

    @Kropadope:
    Bernie is demanding, as the price of support from his base (or at least of their phone numbers), that Hillary modify her agenda — the one that has won more voters,more pledged delegates, and more superdelegates — to look more like his agenda. I agree, “blackmail” is a strong word for what seems like normal political horsetrading, and I myself wouldn’t call it that.

    But Bernie doesn’t seem to have much to trade with. He has said their support for her is not his to command — i.e., that he doesn’t have the political coin to buy what his revolution needs from Hillary. You have to wonder, if for all his years of Congressional experience, Bernie still doesn’t understand some fundamentals about plitics.

  93. 93.

    rikyrah

    Feds subpoena Detroit for blight removal records
    Joe Guillen, Detroit Free Press 10:49 p.m. EDT May 1, 2016

    Federal investigators have subpoenaed Detroit’s Auditor General’s office requesting records related to the use of federal funds in the city’s massive demolition program, the Free Press has learned.

    Detroit auditor general Mark Lockridge, whose office has been investigating Mayor Mike Duggan’s demolition program since October, said the subpoena delivered to his office on Thursday is from the investigative division of the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or SIGTARP.

    “They’re not just doing an audit of course,” Lockridge said today. “Some type of investigation.”

    Detroit’s blight demolition program under Duggan largely has been paid for with federal dollars from the Hardest Hit Fund, a TARP program. Detroit so far has been allocated $172 million from the federal Hardest Hit Fund and has torn down more than 8,000 blighted homes since 2014.

    Duggan’s blight elimination program has been under fire for rising demolition costs since last fall. The average cost to tear down a blighted home went from $8,500 to $10,000 under former Mayor Dave Bing to an average at one point of $16,400 under Duggan.

  94. 94.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Amir Khalid: In his career as a legislator, Bernie understands what to do when someone needs his support. I think that’s the frame he’s trying to apply to the primary race. Bernie doesn’t have a great track record of knowing what to do when he needs someone else’s support. I don’t think he’s adept at, or comfortable, acknowledging that he might lose or could be wrong.

  95. 95.

    rikyrah

    I think this museum is going to be amazing. I can’t wait to go to Washington and visit it.

    ………………………………………

    African American museum visits American heartland to unearth story of free black farmers in the early 19th century
    By Peggy McGlone
    April 29

    The heartland is coming to Washington, and with it a forgotten chapter of American history.

    Officials from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture will be in Lyles Station, Indiana tomorrow for a ceremonial digging of the soil of Greer Farm, where African Americans have worked the land for generations. Together with residents of the community, museum officials will retrieve some of the dirt to put on display in the museum when it opens Sept. 24.

    The event honors the historically African American community on Indiana’s southwestern border and its residents’ courage and heritage, according to museum curator Paul Gardullo, one of those from D.C. who will participate in the morning ceremony. Stanley Madison, president of the Lyles Station Historical Corp., said residents are proud to have their story included in the long-awaited museum.

    “No one’s ever talked about it, (and) the reason is the stories that were written down were the ones people wanted to hear,” Madison said. “We’re excited about this opportunity … so people can learn about the African American farmer.”

    Charles Greer was one of the first free blacks to settle in the area and begin farming years before the Civil War, Madison said. The Greer farm grew to 250 acres, Madison said; Joshua Lyles owned 1,040 acres, he added.

    “Our ancestors came here with their axes and big cross cut saws and cut down the trees, turned the soil, planted the seeds,” said Madison, whose family arrived in 1878.

    Farmers grew wheat and soybeans and raised cattle, and they built a self-contained town, with their own school and shops. “They didn’t have to rely on anyone from the outside,” he said. “These people realized the only way they were going to survive was they had to be united together.”

  96. 96.

    satby

    @Amir Khalid: well put. I think the “blackmail” is referencing the implied threat of a contested, contentious Democratic party convention, and I think it’s an apt description. The stakes are high, the media tends to be biased against Dems in general and Clinton in particular, and an ugly floor fight would best be avoided. Implying you’ll start one feels like blackmail to me; and as you pointed out Bernie basically lost.

  99. 99.

    Chris

    Does it still matter that the inventor of Bitcoin may have been discovered?

    Did it ever?

  100. 100.

    oldgold

    BS reminds me of guys I have known, who repeatedly decline to be on the party planning committee for social events, then arrive at every event and piss and moan about the food selections and band. A-holes.

    BS needs to read the “Little Red Hen.”

  101. 101.

    cleek

    he (the loser) wants her (the winner) to change her platform in order to appease the people he’s going to continue to rile up for three more months and whom says he can’t deliver anyway.

    the guy’s a narcissistic asshole.

  102. 102.

    Betty Cracker

    @Tractarian: Ha — perfect title! I read part of it; I admit I skipped large chunks because it seemed as if all the words Sullivan was longing to say in his months of silence came out in this torrent of an article, and I wasn’t equal to the task of reading the entire thing — socks to sort, dryer lint to be cleaned, etc.

    But if I have the gist right, basically, he’s saying the same thing George Will did over the weekend: Trump is the devil, and Repubs must unite with Dems to defeat him in a crushing, final manner. Which ain’t gonna happen. That either would suggest it demonstrates that neither Will nor Sullivan understands his own party.

  103. 103.

    FlipYrWhig

    @oldgold: Ha! I’ve said before that he reminds me of senior colleagues at work who complain that some longstanding policy is lousy and should be changed, but then don’t come to the next meeting or join the committee where we discuss potential changes, and then sneer and pout at the resulting plan for a new policy with a complaint that it’s happening too fast and without consulting the right people. This has happened to me many, many, many times.

  105. 105.

    Amir Khalid

    @satby:
    I think you are right that the Bernie campaign is implying a threat to an orderly Democratic convention, by refusing to accept that the race is over when it’s over. But it seems a feeble threat: be the Democratic party’s rules, Hillary will have convincingly won the delegate count. He will not have made the case for her superdelegates to flip to him. I expect he’ll get the courtesy of a hearing as fas as agenda items are concerned, but no more.

  106. 106.

    FlipYrWhig

    @chopper: Well of course, because he totally would have won if not for the conspiracy of Democrats voting for the Democrat and people who’ve worked with and been helped by Hillary Clinton supporting Hillary Clinton.

  108. 108.

    rikyrah

    Luvvie’s post on the NerdProm.

    15 Best Jokes From President Obama at His Final Nerd Prom

    Awesomely Luvvie — May 1, 2016 7 19

    The 2016 White House Correspondent Dinner (aka Nerd Prom) was bittersweet because it was President Barack Obama’s final one. It’s definitely one event to look forward to every year because he lets loose and roasts the hell outta Washington DC’s finest: the media, Congress, and himself.

  109. 109.

    gogol's wife

    @rikyrah:

    She’s got my number (although I disagree about “Mom Suit”):

    “I AM MISSING HIM ALREADY. Seriously. When is the next time our president will be this cool? When will we have this swagnificence in our highest office next? Right now, we got Mom Suit, Crazy Hair, Squirrelwig McRacistpants and HesJustINSANE as our choices. I am not enthused.

    Ugh. I am gonna be hitting gigantic *wall slides* when it’s time for him to leave. Like, take to my bed for a week and mourn what we had, type of sadness. I don’t want him to goooo.”

  110. 110.

    NR

    @cleek: Oh, are we not done circlejerking about how horrible Bernie Sanders is? How fun!

    Meanwhile, Hillary is within the margin of error against Trump in Ohio according to PPP, but you know, nothing to see here.

  115. 115.

    Cat48

    Well, Obama & Hillary could not negotiate the convention details & you know what happened–Senator Feinstein called them to her home. She mediated everything between the two of them. If not her, maybe Kerry will?

    Dems need to act like adults at the convention to flip the Senate & get the Supreme Court Justices!

  116. 116.

    Matt McIrvin

    @gogol’s wife: I liked the characterization of Hillary Clinton’s outfits as Star Trek uniforms. I can’t un-see it now. She’s going for Next Generation-era Starfleet admiral. It’s got some gravitas.

  117. 117.

    NR

    @MattF: Polls can change, and they already are. Hillary only +3 in Ohio as of today.

    But I’m sure that’s Bernie’s fault.

  118. 118.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NR:

    Meanwhile, Hillary is within the margin of error against Trump in Ohio according to PPP, but you know, nothing to see here.

    You know, if we just did away with all those messy primaries and elections we could just choose our Presidents and Reps by who is polling well today. Updated daily. But we don’t.

  119. 119.

    Cacti

    @chopper:

    and if Clinton wins a state, those super delegates should go to … sanders, cause reasons.

    Bernie believes the super delegate system that his campaign manager helped create is wrong and undemocratic.

    And also the super delegates should vote for him.

    Revolution!

  120. 120.

    satby

    @NR: How about this: we won’t have anything to say when Bernie quits pissing inside the tent that HE invited himself into? Fair?

  121. 121.

    MattF

    @NR: So, obviously, you don’t need to read or learn about statistical analysis– the spark of truth that comes from sticking your fingers into electrical outlets answers all questions. Fine.

  123. 123.

    NR

    @MattF: Your own link said that if the polls change, the analysis will change.

    Well guess what? The polls are changing.

  124. 124.

    chopper

    @Kropadope:

    he’s asking for all the supers to go on his side, saying he’s the ‘stronger’ candidate. he’s just offering up one set of reasons for the states he’s won and another set of reasons for the rest.

  125. 125.

    rikyrah

    Because, this is who they are.

    Breaking News Feed
    ‏@pzf
    BREAKING: Virginia republicans to sue governor over executive order granting 200,000 felons ability to vote. (AP)

  126. 126.

    Matt McIrvin

    @NR: And the most recent poll in Florida, the knife-edge state in 2012, has her leading Trump 49-36. And in Pennsylvania it’s 54-39, and in Virginia it’s 44-35, and there’s one in Georgia showing her beating him 50-37.

    Polls have a lot of random noise and systematic error in them, and to see the whole state of the race you have to aggregate a lot of them together. Some of those results are probably way too optimistic. Some of them aren’t.

    But the more polls there are, the better a picture of the race you will get by looking at them en masse, and the worse a picture of the race you will get by going looking for the rosiest or doomiest ones you can find. The error in the former case will go as the inverse square root of N, in the latter case as the square root of N. One strategy gets you Sam Wang and the other gets you SHOCK POLL! SHOCK POLL! UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH!

  129. 129.

    Emma

    “If I win a state with 70 percent of the vote, you know what? I think I am entitled to those superdelegates,” Sanders said yesterday. “I think the superdelegates should reflect what the people of the state want, and that’s true for Hillary Clinton as well.”

    That’s hardly an outrageous argument. Under the rules, superdelegates are allowed – and by some measures, encouraged – to exercise their own judgment, but Sanders’ point seems reasonable enough. Perhaps there should be some correlation between the judgment of a state’s voters and the attitudes of the state’s superdelegates?

    But Sanders’ supporters should be cautious about embracing this line too enthusiastically: if every superdelegate voted in line with their state’s primary or caucus, Clinton would still enjoy a comfortable lead. Indeed, as the New York Times’ Nate Cohn noted, under the standards Sanders presented yesterday, Clinton would have locked up a majority of all available pledged delegates last week.

    In other words, Sanders yesterday endorsed a dynamic that wouldn’t actually improve his odds of success.

    From Steve Benen.

  130. 130.

    Kropadope

    @chopper: He’s asking the supers to support the winner of the state they represent or represented. By my accounting, that still means a Hillary win. He’s not trying to steal the nomination, he’s angling for influence on the party platform and maybe administration positions for some of his better surrogates (i.e. not Devine and Weaver). He’s been consistent on this for months and this paranoid idea that he’s trying steal the nom or to throw the election to the Republicans exists at the intersection of uninformed hatred and sore winnership.

  131. 131.

    Cacti

    @Emma:

    In other words, Sanders yesterday endorsed a dynamic that wouldn’t actually improve his odds of success.

    But did he multiply it by how much birds like Bernie?

    #BernieMath

  133. 133.

    ? Martin

    Reading Levinson at the Atlantic.

    Astronomers Have Found Planets in the Habitable Zone of a Nearby Star
    The newly discovered worlds are now the most promising targets in the search for life among the stars—and the race to take a closer look at them has begun.

  134. 134.

    Amir Khalid

    @rikyrah:
    They would never sue if the Governor had restored the convicted felons’ gun rights, would they?

    (The term “convicted felon” does make me feel uneasy, like there’s never ever any chance to live down having been convicted.)

  135. 135.

    rikyrah

    Op-Ed Why has there been an exodus of black residents from West Coast liberal hubs?

    The Black Lives Matter movement has brought the challenges facing black America to the fore, and introduced racially conscious quality-of-life questions into the national debate. How are black residents in America’s cities faring? And how are those cities doing in meeting the aspirations of their black residents, judged especially by the ultimate barometer: whether blacks choose to move to these cities, or stay in them?

    Though results vary to some extent, the broad trend is clear: West Coast progressive enclaves are either seeing an exodus of blacks or are failing to attract them. Midwestern and Northeastern urban areas are attracting blacks to the extent that they are affordable or providing middle class economic opportunities. And Southern cities are now experiencing the most significant gains.

    Portland is part of the fifth-whitest major metropolitan area in America. Almost 75% of the region is white, and it has the third-lowest percentage of blacks, at only 3.1%. (America as a whole is 13.2% black.) Portland proper is often portrayed as a boomtown, but the city’s shrinking black population doesn’t seem to think so. The city has lost more than 11.5% of its black residents in just four years. It’s similar to Seattle, where the central city’s black population has fallen as the overall region’s has grown.

    Lower down the coast, the San Francisco Bay area has lost black residents since 2000, though recent estimates suggest that it may have halted the exodus since 2010. San Francisco proper is only 5.4% black, and the rate is falling. The Los Angeles metro area, too, has fewer black residents today than in 2000.

    If these figures merely reflected black consumer choice, they wouldn’t necessarily matter; but the evidence suggests that specific public policies in these cities are to blame. Primary among them are restrictive planning regulations, common along the West Coast, that make it hard to expand the supply of housing. In a market with rising demand and static supply, prices go up.

    As a rule, a household should spend no more than three times its annual income on a home. But in West Coast markets, housing-price levels far exceed that benchmark — a hardship that more severely affects blacks than whites because blacks start from further behind economically. Black median household income is only $35,481 a year, compared with $57,355 for whites. The wealth gap is even wider, with median black household wealth at only $7,133, compared with $111,146 for whites.

  136. 136.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Does Bernie! really think President HRC is going to veto all the super progressive legislation he’s going to get to her desk after Mitch McConnell looks out his window? We’ll see

  137. 137.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Emma: I like how Sanders wants to make it seem like he’s habitually winning with “70% of the vote.”

  138. 138.

    chopper

    @Kropadope:

    he’s also asking for all the super delegates to get on his side because he’s the ‘stronger’ candidate.

    arguing that you should get the SDs from the states you’ve won implies the other guy should get them from their winning states. turning around and also asking for ALL of them shows he’s just talking out of both sides of his mouth.

  139. 139.

    cleek

    @Kropadope:

    he’s angling for influence on the party platform

    by promising to continue shitting all over the party and Clinton for the next three months.

    the guy’s possibly the worst politician ever.

  140. 140.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @FlipYrWhig: iirc his support in the WA caucus, which is what I think he’s referring to, worked out to be about 80,000 people, less than 10% of the number of voters Obama got there in 2012

  142. 142.

    rikyrah

    @Amir Khalid:

    The term “convicted felon” does make me feel uneasy, like there’s never ever any chance to live down having been convicted.)

    They served their time. Period. Paid their debt to society.

  143. 143.

    BR

    Here’s the part of the Bernie delegate discussion that baffles me. Why doesn’t someone just say: ok, superdelegates are undemocratic, right? Let’s agree on that. So let’s just ignore them. Take all the pledged delegates, that’s X. Whoever gets X/2 pledged delegates wins. Simple enough, right?

  144. 144.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @rikyrah: To me, unless a crime had to do with voting or maybe public corruption, I don’t see why it should result in the loss of voting rights. I don’t see the connection.

  145. 145.

    Mike J

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: At the LD caucus, they read a letter from Representative (and thus super-delegate) Adam Smith of the 8th saying that while he personally endorsed Clinton, he would vote for whoever got the most delegates. Berners went wild. We corporate $hills just snickered to ourselves.

  146. 146.

    Mike J

    @BR: That is actually how the DNC asked the media to report delegate counts, and how many, like 538’s targets page, do it. 2026 is the magic number with no supers. It’s 1648 to 1349 with 1016 left. Tomorrow they’ll go 41-42 or 42-41 and there will be 83 fewer left to split.

  147. 147.

    Cacti

    It’s deeply ironic that for all of the Bernfeeler sneering about Clinton’s “coronation”, that’s exactly what their cult guru is asking for now.

  148. 148.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Are we back to Bernie Bashing? Oh, good. Because every day on my internet feed it’s at least one friggin’ post about how Clinton is only winning because she’s cheating. It’s driving me up the wall. They’ve come up with a way of convincing themselves he actually won Chicago by 19%, but the Democratic Party changed the vote count. And they think the Republican voter suppression in Maricopa County means he should have won Arizona, because ‘minorities and college students’ are Sanders’ base. And… every freaking day it’s some new conspiracy theory victimization. And yes, I lay it on Sanders’ doorstep. He doesn’t have to say it specifically. He stokes their paranoia constantly with talk about rigged systems and corruption, and his top campaign people’s explanations for why he should have won races. I’m getting this from normally sane people, and it’s like watching a relative go RWNJ. It’s all I can do not to write sarcastic posts back, which wouldn’t help. My patience is on the edge.

  149. 149.

    rikyrah

    Adam Jentleson ‎@AJentleson
    Grassley’s IA image is crumbling: his net favorability plunged TWENTY-NINE points, from +41 (60/19) to +12 (42/30).

  150. 150.

    cleek

    @BR:
    that doesn’t help because then Sanders would probably have to admit it’s over before the convention. and then he couldn’t continue to make himself the center of attention until the last second.

  151. 151.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    @Matt McIrvin:

    As a fan of TNG, I gotta say that the uniforms were pretty decent – crisp, clean lines, all future-y and functional in a military sense.

    Then there was the flowy stuff that Marina Sirtis wore. Had I been Barclay, I wouldn’t have left the holodeck either.

  152. 152.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    @Emma:

    In other words, Sanders yesterday endorsed a dynamic that wouldn’t actually improve his odds of success.

    Nobody ever said he was very smart.

  153. 153.

    Brachiator

    @Emma: I am not quite seeing that Bernie should get all the super delegates from states that had caucuses, but I guess they could come up with rules to deal with this.

  154. 154.

    Peale

    @Cacti: The “coronation” meme that just won’t die. She apparently is actually CAMPAIGNING for the office and doing things that candidates do to win office. Yet, she apparently is still seeking a coronation. Won’t matter how many primaries she contests, or votes that she gets, she just wants it handed to her and apparently appealing to voters and raising money are all now part of the coronation process.

  157. 157.

    Elie

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    At our County Convention (Democratic) in WA State the Bernie supporters were loud and angry and were stoked by their state lead. It was pretty troubling cause during the speech, they did not speak of party inclusiveness around all of us, but that “you people” had better come over to “our” side. Its getting a little bit cultish rather than just people who support a candidate…

  159. 159.

    eclare

    @Mike J: Ah! I’m not an idiot, I know I’m in TN 9th, but I kept thinking, the only state that starts with L is LA!

    ETA: Thanks!

  160. 160.

    Mike J

    @eclare: Aren’t you in Memphis? If so, you’re in Congressional district 9 with Steve Cohen as your rep to the US congress. The state house district will have a number in the 80s or 90s. I used to live in the 90th.

  161. 161.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @? Martin: It seems worth noting that nowhere in that story is it said just how far that “ultracool dwarf” is from the Sun. (I presume this will be in the journal article.)

  163. 163.

    eclare

    @Mike J: You’re right, I’m just totally clueless about caucuses. Can’t remember who my state rep and sen are, but I do vote for the D every two years….I’m not a “just the prez” voter.

    ETA: and very pleased with Cohen, he once called me back personally to discuss something.

  164. 164.

    Applejinx

    @Emma: Yeah, but Bernie didn’t get into the race to win it. He got in to change the conversation.

    Now he’s got a vast quantity of people on his hands swearing to basically elect Trump if he’s not given the nomination, and railing against the superdelegates. Bernie is on record as not wanting to elect Trump (or any Republican).

    You’re saying he’s pushing for proportional representation of superdelegates, which sounds more egalitarian, because he doesn’t understand that this will give Hillary an inarguable win as the nominee.

    Bernie’s a big boy. He’s been in politics, in Washington, for many years, and knows how this stuff works.

    What if he’s pushing for a strictly proportional representation, which sounds more egalitarian and removes some of the wildest berniebro charges of rigged systems, WHILE knowing full well this will still deliver a Clinton victory? He even explicitly says, “and that’s true for Hillary Clinton as well”.

    If some of you wacky people stopped being mirror-image Berniebros and got a little more calculating you’d see that this seemingly ‘stupid and self-destructive’ call is actually a clever strategem to AID the party against Trump… by deftly removing one of the primary methods the dead-ender Berniebros are using to call the primary invalid. If you award proportionally as Bernie demands you do… and he STILL loses, but got the votes counted effectively without use of superdelegates… and then he can tell his people ‘there you are, I got rid of the superdelegates for you, now will you respond to a call for unity?’…

    Or I guess you could continue to believe Bernie Sanders is a big dumb dumb poopy head who can’t politics. Not like he’s ever been in politics before.

    I think I’ve identified what he’s up to, and he knows damn well what would happen if he gets proportional representation of superdelegates. Expect him to continue to want that, even after the math of it PROVES he can’t win using it. (maybe some plainitive calls for all the superdelegates to join him, but I don’t believe that’s as serious: it’ll never happen)

  167. 167.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @rikyrah: God I hope he does stupid, public stuff about the SC nomination, and also maybe has a couple of clear senior moments (he’s 82). I want him gone and Patty Judge in his place. I want the Senate in Democratic hands. I want to make up to the country for Joni Ernst.

  168. 168.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @eclare: IMHO, watching other states fumble their caucuses makes me think they’re clueless too. I’d be happy to see Iowa with a primary instead, but I’ve never seen lines and chaos like what I see in other states at the IA caucus.

  169. 169.

    eclare

    @Iowa Old Lady: Plus we have approx. two weeks of early voting in TN, where you can vote at any county location (about 15, maybe) rather than your specific precinct. Hours are 10-7 during the week, and I think 10-4 on Sat. Makes it very easy, no lines. I always early vote for every election. Caucuses sound brutal, have huge respect for anyone who sticks it out.

  170. 170.

    Bess

    @rikyrah:

    San Francisco and Portland –

    If these figures merely reflected black consumer choice, they wouldn’t necessarily matter; but the evidence suggests that specific public policies in these cities are to blame.

    San Francisco is currently turning into a Silicon Valley bedroom community.

    Portland is currently where mobile young liberals are congregating.

    Blacks are likely underrepresented in these two groups. That’s more the issue, IMHO.

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