Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Come on, man.

Bark louder, little dog.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

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

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2018 / Local Races 2018 and earlier / Monday Morning Open Thread: Old Notes, New Jokes

Monday Morning Open Thread: Old Notes, New Jokes

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This post is in: , , ,

Concerning the late-night Oscars fiasco…

Apart from Mardi Gras preparations, what’s on the agenda as we start the week?

Celebrate our victories, and educate the underinformed…

(Oh, sure, if all you’re interested in is winning elections… )

Reader Interactions

148Comments

  5. 5.

    p.a.

    iMac died last night: boots, but clicking results in bouncing ball icon. Nothing opens. Sometimes it gets to the spinning beach ball, but that’s it. I have a friend who knows macs, he’ll get a call.

  7. 7.

    Central Planning

    Anyone else get the push poll from the whitehouse? Here’s the link

    I didn’t select anything for questions 1 and 2, and for making America great again, I put down Remove Trump from the Whitehouse, Resist Republicans everywhere, and Get more Democrats elected. And finally under additional comments: Nice push poll.

    ETA – check your spam folder, that’s where mine was. Ha!

  8. 8.

    Ramalama

    Hey all, the Guardian has an incredible write-up on some of the Climate-Change-is-a-Hoax scientists.

    For some reason, just the names of these 300 stalwarts are difficult to find, and even more weird, searching such places as Google Scholar has proven fruitless. Where’s the beef?

    Anyone who knows anything about science, and I’m just an innocent bystander, knows the publish or perish rule. Got no peer-reviewed articles? Got no business being a scientist. With 97% of scientists purported to agree that man-made climate change is real, that leaves 3%. But given how the Guardian has located only 300 scientists out of all scientists in the world, can we say that the other 2% were absent that day, leaving really 1%. Like the Bush doctrine. What a stain.

  9. 9.

    Ramalama

    @p.a.: Can you insert a Mac OS install disk, restart your iMac, while holding down the C key before it chimes? You might have to reinstall the operating system. Depending on what version you’re running. Have you made any backups on your computer?

  11. 11.

    Pogonip

    Re Oscar night: Amazon is selling an annotated script of The Godfather for $2.99. It was very interesting, lots of trivia. I’d like to see similar editions of other classic movies.

  12. 12.

    Central Planning

    @Baud: True, but we can’t say they lied if we don’t have opposing views in there. I wonder if I can file a FOIA request to get the responses.

  14. 14.

    Craig McMahon

    Hi, all. Former NH organizer checking in–I’ve gone back to lurking since the election (at least, after I recovered from my post-election news moratorium).

    Final results for my territory? Clinton held on to Obama’s 2012 vote percentage…of about 38%. NH was considerably closer overall, so I think I did ok. I have to admit I have no idea what was going through some of my fellow Granite Staters’ heads when they voted– Clinton and Hassan ended up with very narrow wins, but the latest hatchling from the Sununu clan won the governor’s race pretty handily.

    Obviously governors are important regardless of the state, but in NH it’s particularly key. Our state house has 400 reps who are paid $100/yr. Consequently, it’s mostly the wealthy and the comfortably retired who run for the seats (with a few notable saintly exceptions). Consequently, it can be an insane body. A lot of “listen, my kids are all grown up, so how come I STILL have to pay taxes to fund schools?” types. Consequently, a Democratic governor is a pretty important check on the worst of their excesses. We’ve had a nice run of Dem governors since before I could even vote, with notable exception in super rich business Repub Craig Benson, better known as the man who took Kelly Ayotte from a law firm in Nashua and appointed her NH AG, which was her launching point to the Senate.

    Fortunately, NH governors are elected on a 2-yr cycle, so we’ll get another bite at the apple soon. Our candidate from the fall, Colin Van Ostern, is a fantastic guy- young, impressive, has both political and business experience, etc, but had very little name recognition going into the race. I hope he keeps his profile up and runs again.

    I’ll be off to law school in the fall, which means I need to find gainful employment for ~six months.. So far I’ve had a few bites from temp agencies, but no firm offers. Have another interview this morning in Boston–if something doesn’t pan out soon, I’ll expand the search to dishwashing/bus boy type jobs. However, since everyone knows garbage collecting is the choice of Centrist Neoliberal Shills working through college everywhere, per Chairman Perez, I’d surely rather starve than do that *rolls eyes*

  15. 15.

    Pogonip

    @Ramalama: If a scientist’s findings are reproducible but go against the herd–say it’s 1840 and you’re trying to publish your findings that phrenology doesn’t work–can you get it published? And if you do will you ever get any more grant money?

  16. 16.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Heh:

    White House press secretary Sean Spicer cracked down on leaks from his own office by telling staffers to hand over their phones for a “phone check” during a meeting which itself was then leaked to the media, according to a Sunday report by Politico.

    Spicer met last week with communications staffers to express his frustration over ongoing leaks, Politico reported, citing unnamed sources in the room. He told staffers to place their phones on a table for a “phone check” of whatever devices staffers were carrying at the time, including both government-issued and personal phones, according to the report. Politico reported, citing multiple sources, that White House lawyers were also present for the meeting. Spicer told staffers that the use of messaging apps which are encrypted or delete messages after they are sent would violate the Federal Records Act, according to multiple unnamed sources in the room cited in the report.

    According to Politico, Spicer warned those present that there would be “more problems” if news of the meeting and “phone check” was leaked to the press.

    Well, he asked for it.

  20. 20.

    Lounger

    Jim Henley (@UOJim) last night:

    Trayvon Martin was murdered five years ago today. His murderer walks free. His murderer’s fan club runs the country.

  24. 24.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Central Planning: Who is putting it out? The RNC? Than no. Trump’s campaign? Than no. Some Koch brother’s funded group? Than no. FOIA only works for govt records. The records for this are in alll likelihood going straight down a rat hole.

  27. 27.

    Immanentize

    @Pogonip: Yes and Yes. Science is generally about results, not orthodoxy. In fact, there is a very robust scientific publication and research world that just reproduces (or tries to) other people’s studies.

    Fun fact on phrenology — a phrenologist expert testified in the Garfield assasin’s trial to explain his mental illness.

  28. 28.

    Pogonip

    @Pogonip: This question isn’t about global warming per se, just something I’ve always wondered about. I’m so old I remember the (in)famous Time magazine article, “Men and Women Are Different” (you don’t say! Stop the presses!) and in the spate of follow-up publications there were scientists saying their work into differences between human sexes had been suppressed since acknowledging, much less investigating, such differences was unfashionable in the late ’70’s. The one that stuck in my mind was Dominican syndrome, where an apparently female child would be revealed to be a boy at puberty. That stuck in my mind because it sounded difficult to get used to!

  30. 30.

    p.a.

    @Ramalama: No backups but not a huge issue except for the OS itself; any data photos docs etc are on thumbdrives, iPad, etc. as well as the desktop.

  31. 31.

    Central Planning

    @OzarkHillbilly: The survey is actually on whitehouse.gov which makes me think it’s FOIA-able. I would not be surprised by any attempts to foil my request though.

  34. 34.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize:

    Double-Pork Carnitas Short sweet and simple, my favorite kind of recipe, and not spicy which makes my wife happy. The double pork comes from 3 lbs pork shoulder and 1# pork belly.

    ETA I stewed the pork for 4 hrs on low in the crockpot, threw a bay leaf in just because.

  38. 38.

    JPL

    Let’s remember that district 6 is split 60/40. It’s not impossible to flip it, but it will be difficult. I think that Ossoff has a better chance, if Handel is the repub nominee though.

  41. 41.

    Craig McMahon

    @Immanentize: Thanks! (and also thanks to @Baud). I’m either off to UNH-Law or Suffolk. Waiting on financial aid from UNH before I decide.

    Also, a fun NH gerrymandering facts: the state senate (a more sensibly-sized body of 24) was severely gerrymandered after the 2010 elections. If the voters this fall had voted exactly the same as they did, but the districts were pre-2010 lines, the Democrats would have a majority in the state sen now, instead of being in the minority, 14 seats to 10.

  44. 44.

    Lapassionara

    @OzarkHillbilly: this is like the end of the movie, “The Conversation,” when the Gene Hackman character is tearing up his apartment, trying to find the listening device. Oh, the irony!

    And good morning

  46. 46.

    Immanentize

    @Craig McMahon: I teach at the latter. In fact if you do head to Beantown for school you will have a 50% chance of having me first semester for criminal law. Don’t worry, I’m fun in class!

  48. 48.

    clay

    @p.a.: My first thought is that your CPU might be overheating. If you feel comfotable doing it, try taking off the chassis and see if the fan is clogged up.

  51. 51.

    Taylor

    @Baud:

    Someone should inform Spicer that nowadays people can hide listening devices up their asses.

    Time to watch Papillon again.

  53. 53.

    bystander

    @Craig McMahon: Good luck. Try the temp agencies. The legal job market has changed so much the past decades, they may not exist anymore. But paralegal temp jobs kept me afloat for several months.

    I am so happy Moonlight won. I only dislike LaLa more in hindsight.

  58. 58.

    Pogonip

    I looked it up–Dominican syndrome is now called what the people in the affected town called it, “guevedoces.”

  61. 61.

    efgoldman

    @Immanentize:

    I teach at the latter.

    Ah, the rotating presidents school. Maybe I should apply. I’ve never been an academic, but I’m perfectly capable of pissing everybody off and getting fired.

  62. 62.

    Craig McMahon

    Thanks, everyone!

    @Immanentize – great, so if I go to Suffolk, I’ll have to start posting under a nym when I complain about you?

    Kidding aside, the dilemma on where to go isn’t just financial (although, since I want to work in public interest. keeping debt to a minimum is obviously a concern). In NH, working for the government is pretty harshly sneered at, and despite the recent relative success of getting Democrats elected (since 2006, we went 11 for 13 in statewide races) the state culture is very conservative. Even Democrats often have to pay lip service to the idea that govt is terrible, but since it’s slightly better than anarchy, we might as well, yknow, make sure that it kinda sorta works. Most of my family is from just north of Boston, and I admit it’s tempting to relocate permanently, fight the good fight in MA, and make the occasional trip back to NH for GOTV operations.

    It’s not to say that UNH closes the door to MA, or that Suffolk closes the door to NH, but it looks like most graduates of each school tend to stay in the area. I have good friends who have graduated from either schools and speak highly of them.

  63. 63.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Baud:

    2006
    In 2006, Price drew one primary challenger, John Konop, whom he easily defeated 82%–18%.[15] In November, he won re-election to a second term with 72% of the vote.[16]

    2008–2014
    Price won re-election in 2008 (68%),[17] 2010 (99.9%),[18] and 2012 (65%).[19]

    2016
    Price won the election in 2016 against Rodney Stooksbury (Democratic). Price received 61.6% of the votes.

  64. 64.

    Immanentize

    @efgoldman: I was Vice Provost during the years of three Presidents and three Provosts. The stories I could tell. Sheesh. But right now we are getting it together. I have recommended that our new motto be: “Poised to be normal.”

  65. 65.

    efgoldman

    @Immanentize:

    But right now we are getting it together.

    I wondered for years why they didn’t sell the unbelievably valuable real estate and move out of town, as Emerson was going to do but didn’t.

  68. 68.

    efgoldman

    @Baud:

    At least it’s heading in the right direction

    Two party primaries, winners face off, or one big “nonpartisan” scramble, runoff if nobody gets 50%+?

  69. 69.

    satby

    @rikyrah: Good morning!
    I drove a surprise round trip to Cincinnati last night after work, my son came up for the weekend to bring me back my car and bring his truck back after fixing the fuel filter, but the transmission on the truck went out just outside of Batesville, IN. So he got a tow and on the way sold his truck to the junkers for the price of the tow plus a few hundred more and I drove down to pick him up. We drove on the the Cincy airport so I could pick up a rental car and I drove back home. Got in at 2:30, but it was after 3 before the critters were out, fed, and settled. Luckily, I don’t work until 2pm.

  73. 73.

    Immanentize

    @Craig McMahon: they both are fine schools with different strengths. I have friends at both. If you want to discuss your options, send me an email — jsjude at Comcast dot net.

  74. 74.

    jonas

    @Ramalama: Deniers will also bend the definition of “scientist” to ridiculous extremes. If they even have credentials at all, they’re not in the field of atmospheric science or climatology, but something like chemical engineering.

  75. 75.

    Immanentize

    @efgoldman: one thing I have learned is that Boards do not think about big picture issues. And they are loath to consider game changing options. We should be in an era of unprecedented consolidations and mergers in higher ed. But we are not because of Boards and identity pride. I could write s book about this topic.

  76. 76.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: @Baud: on the plus side, my Hyundai Accent hatchback fit everything that was in that truck in, and now I get to enjoy driving a Kia Soul for a couple of days. And I don’t mind driving, but that last hour was tough.

  77. 77.

    Lurking Canadian

    @Pogonip: The answers are “you should be able to” in both cases. Science is a human enterprise. Peer review is the best tool we’ve come up with, but reviewers make mistakes, have biases, nurture feuds, etc. “Professor Smith showed this to be false twenty years ago!” is usually enough to sink a publication, if Professor Smith is famous enough.

  79. 79.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @jonas: Whaddya mean, bend the definition. If I’m a fry cook in the commissary at NASA, I work at NASA. It’s perfectly truthful to say “Ceci n’est pas mon nym of NASA” right?

  80. 80.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Dear gods, there is some completely butthurt woman on NPR whacking Tom Perez as “DWS with an XY chromosome” and saying that Ellison being named his deputy merely means that Ellison is going to fetch Perez’ coffee.

  82. 82.

    MattF

    Just to note, btw, for all you NYT-haters, regular columnist Charles Blow has developed into a give-no-quarter Trump adversary:

    Trump is a cancer on this country and resistance is the remedy. The Trump phenomenon is devoid of compassion, and we must be closed to compromise.

    No one need try to convince me otherwise. The effort is futile; my conviction is absolute. This is a culture war in which truth is the weapon, righteousness the flag and passion the fuel.

  83. 83.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: You keep polishing that turd, it’s still gonna stink. ;-) I’ve been in your son’s shoes too many times over the years. Just starting a new job, limited funds, and now he needs reliable transportation too. Wonder what usurious rates he’s gonna have to pay on that loan.

  84. 84.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Ramalama: The Creationists pulled the very same thing in ’00s with a list of “biologists” who denied evolution. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is the very same names.

  85. 85.

    Calming Influence

    @OzarkHillbilly: “threw in a bay leaf just because.”

    Well, there’s an enormous.”tell”. Outwardly making double pork carnitas, but inwardly fantasizing about making a double lgbtq quiche.

    I’ll bet Spicey Spice has all his staff frisked for bay leaves.

  87. 87.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, he was pretty downhearted. But, as I pointed out to him, between the two of us we had the funds to get him back to the extended stay and me rent a car, I had the time and energy to get to him and back home, and now he has reliable transportation for the rest of the week. He gets paid weekly, so his financial situation should improve, and he needs to rebuild his credit so he’s going to get a lousy rate anyway. He tends to get bummed about these setbacks, but I keep telling him as long as no one gets a serious health issue we can work everything else out.

  88. 88.

    Jack the Second

    @Pogonip: So in general when there was an amazing study published 20, 30, 40 years ago, and then you’re like “I wonder why no one is researching this today?”, the answer is frequently “the decline effect”.

    So there are a lot of reasons you might get a positive result out of an early study. You might have a small sample size, which make it easier to get an anomalous result. You might not have designed the experiment well (fun fact: it is surprisingly difficult to blindfold people properly). You might have not blinded the study properly, and let your own biases creep into subjective measurements. You might have confounding factors you didn’t realize. You might just get really (un)lucky.

    So anyway, you do your first study, you get wildly positive and exciting results. You publish.

    You get more funding, or someone else comes along with it, and refine your methods, get a larger pool of test subjects, and re-run the experiment. You get bupkis, because you had a larger sample size, you had better methods that didn’t let people peek through that cheap blindfold, you got (un)lucky. Or maybe you get something, but the effect size is only half what it was before.

    Someone else replicates, with better methods, and gets a positive effect, but it’s only a quarter of the original effect. And as researches continue to refine the experimental procedure, the effect diminishes to nothing. Research peters out in the field because there’s nothing there to study. You might get a couple of review papers summarizing the nothing or a talk at a conference of recommendations on designing future, similar experiments to avoid the spurious initial results.

    But you never get the media attention after the initial research, because it’s less interesting to most people.

    And that’s how you get all of these exciting studies from 30 years ago that just disappeared with no followup, from the public perspective.

  93. 93.

    Baud

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Ellison is going to fetch Perez’ coffee.

    These racists leftists are proving to be more morally bankrupt that the Wall Street bankers and corporate CEOs they purport to oppose. What an insult to Ellison.

  96. 96.

    Jack the Second

    @satby: The decline effect is basically the story of “what happened to paranormal/’psi’ research”, but it also happens in every other science. It’s just when you’re researching sociology or physics or medicinal drugs or psychology you also sometimes find real new things in addition to sometimes thinking you found a new thing but then not, while all the ESP studies were just nothing but the decline effect, over and over and over.

  98. 98.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: When you’re young, everything feels like the end of the world. By 35-40 you’ve been thru enough to know that most everything is survivable. It’s not, “Don’t worry, be happy.” but you know you can deal with it. It sucks learning it tho.

  102. 102.

    Immanentize

    @SiubhanDuinne: Tom Perez is far to the left of anyone who has ever before held that position. Including St. Dean. Also too, he is a really competent manager of large organizations. But what the DNC needs is what exactly? I think Ellison is fine, but he would be a spokesperson, not a leader manager. Therefore, Vice Chair is perfect. And I suspect that means he will keep his day job.

  104. 104.

    Calming Influence

    @OzarkHillbilly: Heh indeedy. The DP carnitas are now on the menu at the Influence household, by the way, but I’ll have to drive in to Seattle for the bay leaf.

  108. 108.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: yep. Still trying to teach them that by example as well as conversations. But some stuff you just have to go through to learn. It doesn’t help that the girlfriend who’s dream they relocated from California for isn’t speaking to him at all, even to arrange him getting the rest of his stuff back. I think she’s a nut, so I’m not too unhappy about them breaking up, but it’s a hard thing to give up a life you generally enjoyed for a theoretical better that blows up less than 3 months later.

  110. 110.

    rikyrah

    The GOP’s Radical Assault on Regulations Has Already Begun
    Three bills awaiting Senate approval would go a long way to achieving Steve Bannon’s dream of the “deconstruction of the administrative state.”

    by Peter Shane
    February 27, 2017

    Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration appear to share a straightforward philosophy on regulatory reform: “regulation bad, deregulation good.” Presidential adviser Steve Bannon, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference this week, said one of the administration’s three top priorities is the “deconstruction of the administrative state.”

    Three radical bills already passed by the House of Representatives, and awaiting approval by the Senate, show how Bannon could get his wish. It is harder to put a human face on this agenda than on the Trump travel ban, but it is just as perverse. Many decades of executive-legislative collaboration have resulted in thousands of regulations that help to safeguard the environment, manage the economy, protect students, workers, and consumers against discrimination, and much more. No doubt some regulations can be usefully updated or even repealed, but modern life is unimaginable without the protections of government regulation.

    To perceive the radicalism of the new statutes, keep in mind that most federal regulations already run a demanding gauntlet of scrutiny. First, an agency can make a binding rule only if Congress has passed a statute directing or permitting it to do so. (For example, air-pollution regulations are authorized by the Clean Air Act.) When an agency wants to issue a new regulation, it must gather facts, consult with potentially affected parties, give the public an opportunity for input, assess costs and benefits (which are often reviewed in the Office of Management and Budget), and craft both a final rule and an explanatory statement—sometimes book-length—that accounts for all that went before. A year’s passage between initial proposal and final rule is not unusual and even fairly efficient. If a regulation is challenged in court, the process will stretch on much longer.

  112. 112.

    rikyrah

    The Future of Obamacare May Depend on a Georgia Special Election
    by David Atkins
    February 27, 2017 8:00 AM

    It’s safe to say that Republicans are already very worried about the Affordable Care Act.

    The leaked Republican replacement plan was met with withering criticism, while Republican governors are recoiling at the real and political damage it might do to them and their states. Reports abound about GOP legislators getting cold feet on the issue. The biggest psychological damage, however, is coming from packed constituent town halls where ACA recipients are asking hard, angry questions about what will happen to their health insurance when Obamacare is dismantled. The town halls are so unnerving Republican legislators that many are coming up with lame excuses for why they refuse to meet their constituents.

    But for a politician there is no fear like that of electoral accountability. The first taste of a voter backlash against the party of Trump came in Delaware, where a usually tight state senate district went resoundingly for the Democrat by 18 points and featured remarkably high voter turnout.

    But Delaware was small potatoes compared to the test coming up in Georgia’s 6th congressional district. On April 18th, Georgians in the north Atlanta suburbs will be holding a special election to replace Tom Price, who was appointed as Secretary of Health and Human Services. The district has traditionally been safely Republican, but it wasn’t so comfortable with Donald Trump–it only voting for Trump over Clinton by a single percentage point

  113. 113.

    rikyrah

    @amk:

    Yemen raid cost taxpayers $100,000,000+ incl $75M for destroyed Osprey–not a peep out of Republicans…@RachelMann123 @jasoninthehouse pic.twitter.com/v2J6BWXkcJ— Adam Khan (@Khanoisseur) February 25, 2017

    not.one.phucking.peep.

  114. 114.

    sheila in nc

    @Pogonip:
    Read Middlesex
    From Wikipedia:
    Middlesex is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jeffrey Eugenides published in 2002. The book is a bestseller, with more than three million copies sold by May 2011. Its characters and events are loosely based on aspects of Eugenides’ life and observations of his Greek heritage. It is not an autobiography; unlike the protagonist, Eugenides is not intersex. The author decided to write Middlesex after he read the 1980 memoir Herculine Barbin and was dissatisfied with its discussion of intersex anatomy and emotions.

  116. 116.

    rikyrah

    Uh huh
    Uh huh

    Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media
    With links to Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and Nigel Farage, the rightwing US computer scientist is at the heart of a multimillion-dollar propaganda network

    Just over a week ago, Donald Trump gathered members of the world’s press before him and told them they were liars. “The press, honestly, is out of control,” he said. “The public doesn’t believe you any more.” CNN was described as “very fake news… story after story is bad”. The BBC was “another beauty”.

    That night I did two things. First, I typed “Trump” in the search box of Twitter. My feed was reporting that he was crazy, a lunatic, a raving madman. But that wasn’t how it was playing out elsewhere. The results produced a stream of “Go Donald!!!!”, and “You show ’em!!!” There were star-spangled banner emojis and thumbs-up emojis and clips of Trump laying into the “FAKE news MSM liars!”

    Trump had spoken, and his audience had heard him. Then I did what I’ve been doing for two and a half months now. I Googled “mainstream media is…” And there it was. Google’s autocomplete suggestions: “mainstream media is… dead, dying, fake news, fake, finished”. Is it dead, I wonder? Has FAKE news won? Are we now the FAKE news? Is the mainstream media – we, us, I – dying?

    I click Google’s first suggested link. It leads to a website called CNSnews.com and an article: “The Mainstream media are dead.” They’re dead, I learn, because they – we, I – “cannot be trusted”. How had it, an obscure site I’d never heard of, dominated Google’s search algorithm on the topic? In the “About us” tab, I learn CNSnews is owned by the Media Research Center, which a click later I learn is “America’s media watchdog”, an organisation that claims an “unwavering commitment to neutralising leftwing bias in the news, media and popular culture”.

    Another couple of clicks and I discover that it receives a large bulk of its funding – more than $10m in the past decade – from a single source, the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer. If you follow US politics you may recognise the name. Robert Mercer is the money behind Donald Trump. But then, I will come to learn, Robert Mercer is the money behind an awful lot of things. He was Trump’s single biggest donor. Mercer started backing Ted Cruz, but when he fell out of the presidential race he threw his money – $13.5m of it – behind the Trump campaign.

  117. 117.

    1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)

    @Immanentize: Not only is it a good potential division of labor, the Democrats in Minnesota are spared the expense of a special election campaign. I realize that’s a distressingly mundane reaction to the DNC results, but the cost of campaigning is not a reality anyone can ignore.

  118. 118.

    liberal

    @rikyrah:

    The first taste of a voter backlash against the party of Trump came in Delaware, where a usually tight state senate district went resoundingly for the Democrat by 18 points and featured remarkably high voter turnout.

    I never visit DKos much, but they did send a fundraising notice for that one, and I chipped in. Good to win some, even if they’re not the biggest potatoes.

  119. 119.

    JPL

    @Baud: I’ve been on a street corner waving signs for a local election, so was unable to respond. If the election was held today, Jon Ossoff would win, because so many republicans are running The runoff election is June 20th, and that is the when the repubs will come together. The odds are likely, that the current president will do something outrageous, to suppress the republican vote, though. At least that is what I’m hoping.

    wishful thinking

  120. 120.

    rikyrah

    Nothing in Moderation: Anti-Trump Backlash Will Shrink the GOP
    by D.R. Tucker
    February 27, 2017 7:00 AM

    It’s hard to understand the thought process of Republicans, running in parts of the country that are not reliably red, who think they can put just enough distance between themselves and Donald Trump and still hope to survive. Granted, it’s hard to understand the thought process of Republicans generally, but the idea of presenting oneself to the public as a “non-Trump” Republican grows more curious with every passing day under this administration, something that GOPers such as Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, who attended last night’s White House Governor’s Ball, have yet to realize:

    Republican governors in Democratic-leaning states are especially vulnerable if policies put forward by Trump and the GOP Congress are disruptive in the states.

    Baker, a moderate with high approval ratings in a state politically dominated by Democrats, has distanced himself from Trump since early in the presidential campaign. He said he left his presidential ballot blank.

    After the election, the Massachusetts governor promised to forge constructive ties between the state and the new administration. But he has not hesitated to criticize White House policies, including the travel ban aimed at seven majority-Muslim nations that sowed confusion in the U.S. and abroad. He publicly backed the state’s attorney general, a Democrat, when her office filed a lawsuit to block Trump’s action.

    During the women’s march after the presidential inauguration, Baker was just blocks away as protesters flooded Boston Common. Defending his absence, he said he was working on time-sensitive matters and said it was not an intentional snub.

  121. 121.

    Baud

    @JPL:

    I’ve been on a street corner waving signs for a local election, so was unable to respond.

    That’s great. Good for you. It would be quite an upset if Ossoff was elected. I think it would wake a lot of people up.

  122. 122.

    rikyrah

    The Trump White House Tears Itself Apart Over Internal Leaks
    by David Atkins
    February 26, 2017 8:37 PM

    This is hilarious: Sean Spicer’s attempt to target his own staff over leaks to the press has itself been, well, leaked to the press..

    The Trump White House has been persistently attacking press leaks since well before the inauguration. And it’s true: the leaks have been pouring out fast and furious. Trump has gone to war with the FBI itself on Twitter, as the Administration blames various parts of the deep state for embarrassing him publicly, especially over matters relating to Russia. At CPAC Trump took issue with the very idea of anonymous sources, even as the the Trump White House itself insisted on going on background to the press that very morning.

    But what many reporters have been at pains to note is that while some leaks are coming from civil servants with no particular political loyalty to Trump, many of the leaks are coming from within the White House itself by staffers who have axes to grind against intramural rivals.

    Predictably, Team Trump has been trying to smoke out the leakers. Which is fine under normal circumstances when most people are on the same page but there are one or two holes that need plugging.

  123. 123.

    rikyrah

    The Trump Administration Still Has No Idea What It’s Doing
    by David Atkins
    February 26, 2017 8:00 AM

    We are now over a month into Trump Administration–over 1/3 of the way into the first 100 days honeymoon that new presidents usually receive. And the Trump team still has no idea what it is doing.

    At CPAC Trump made many pronouncements about the things he was going to do: passing tax reform, repealing Obamacare, building the wall (“ahead of schedule” as he put it) and much more besides. But despite years of obstruction against the Obama Administration with promises enact tax reform and repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act if only Republicans were put in charge, it’s not clear Republicans have any concrete plans for how to achieve these things.

    Consider tax reform. Republicans still can’t even decide on how to enact the simplest of tax cuts, mostly because voters are paying close attention to whether the tax cuts will actually help the middle class or just the rich. The bloom is off of the trickle-down rose, but Republicans have no actual intention of making the tax code more progressive even with simple middle-class cuts. They want to satisfy their wealthy donor base, but they’re gun-shy about making it too obvious. And that’s just the tax cuts. Tax reform itself is a much heavier lift, and there’s still no sign that the Republican caucus is coming to a consensus about the details of that reform, nor does it seem likely that policies will be emanating from the White House. The entire project is in limbo.

  124. 124.

    liberal

    @Baud: Isn’t it kind of like a jungle primary, though? I thought they have to have a second election if no one gets > 50%.

    ETA Typed too soon; linked comment says that there’s a runoff.

    Too bad the Dems didn’t narrow it down to one candidate before the election.

  125. 125.

    rikyrah

    White House makes matters worse by trying to suppress Russia scandal
    02/27/17 08:00 AM
    By Steve Benen

    Top White House officials have been so alarmed by the Russia scandal that they reached out to the FBI – during the FBI’s ongoing investigation – to encourage federal law enforcement to quietly tell the media to ignore the controversy. The outreach is itself problematic – the phrase, “obstruction of justice” keeps coming to mind – but FBI officials ignored the West Wing’s pleas.

    As it turns out, however, the FBI wasn’t the office the White House contacted. As Rachel noted on Friday’s show, the Washington Post published an important scoop: after the FBI said it wouldn’t talk to the media on the White House’s behalf, Donald Trump’s team found others who were more amenable.

    The Trump administration has enlisted senior members of the intelligence community and Congress in efforts to counter news stories about Trump associates’ ties to Russia, a politically charged issue that has been under investigation by the FBI as well as lawmakers now defending the White House.

    Acting at the behest of the White House, the officials made calls to news organizations last week in attempts to challenge stories about alleged contacts between members of President Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives, U.S. officials said.

    Of particular interest, the White House’s public-relations campaign included Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), both of whom confirmed that they spoke to journalists about the Russia scandal at the White House’s request.

  126. 126.

    rikyrah

    White House seeks intelligence that tells Trump what he wants to hear
    02/27/17 08:30 AM—UPDATED 02/27/17 08:37 AM
    By Steve Benen

    Donald Trump hasn’t given up on his Muslim ban, but after failing in the courts, the president realizes his proposal needs some work. Hoping to craft a policy that can pass legal muster, the White House has moved forward in recent weeks with a plan that involves defending the legality of the administration’s policy by pointing to security risks that, in Trump’s mind, makes his proposal necessary.

    With that in mind, a senior White House official told CNN late last week that intelligence officials at the Department of Homeland Security “are working on an intelligence report that will demonstrate that the security threat for these seven countries is substantial and that these seven countries have all been exporters of terrorism into the United States.”

    As Rachel noted on Friday’s show, the key phrase in the quote is “will demonstrate.” The White House hadn’t seen the incomplete intelligence reports, but Team Trump was nevertheless comfortable describing the findings and boasting about how they would support the president’s preconceived conclusions. As the Bush/Cheney administration’s handling of pre-invasion Iraq intelligence helped prove, this is exactly the opposite of how the process is supposed to work.

    But a funny thing happened to derail Team Trump’s plan: intelligence professionals decided to tell the White House the truth, instead of what the president wanted to hear.

    Analysts at the Homeland Security Department’s intelligence arm found insufficient evidence that citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries included in President Donald Trump’s travel ban pose a terror threat to the United States.

    A draft document obtained by The Associated Press concludes that citizenship is an “unlikely indicator” of terrorism threats to the United States and that few people from the countries Trump listed in his travel ban have carried out attacks or been involved in terrorism-related activities in the U.S. since Syria’s civil war started in 2011.

  130. 130.

    D58826

    So Das Fuhrer is upset that the US doesn’t ‘win’ wars any more. Ignoring what ‘win’
    measns in the 21st century lets go back to the war that just about everyone agrees we WON -WWII. After we WON that war we took the lead in developing a post-war military/economic/political strategy that has kept the peace in Europe, seen a major decline in war in most of the rest of the world and has ushered in a period of economic growth that has raised billions out of abject poverty.

    Now obviously we did not do everything perfectly and we have made our fair share of mistakes since 1945 but the world is a better place than it was going into WWII.

    And what does Trump/Bannon want to do – deconstruct the entire American lead/built structure. NATO/EU/global trade deals, all of it gone.

    It is simply getting so depressing that it is painful to watch

  131. 131.

    cosima

    @OzarkHillbilly: Spark People has a really simple recipe that is broth + cumin + salt + orange juice + garlic, throw it all in the slow cooker, and you’re good to go. I make it often, it’s definitely a favourite around here (and with company). Add black beans, home-made salsa, yum. There is zero chance of getting good Mexican food here, so it’s all down to what I can put together myself. Spark People actually has some really good recipes — there’s one for ‘granny’s enchilada sauce’ that is my go-to enchilada sauce. Not only can I not eat out for Mexican here, it’s also close to impossible to find proper ingredients. I’ve got all of the ingredients in the refrigerator for chili lime chicken *except* cilantro (coriander here) — there was none at the shop, going to try again tonight, different shop.

  132. 132.

    Aleta

    @D58826: So painful. For him winning is a sport where the other side by definition loses. But his sides aren’t poverty vs wealth or sickness vs health, he makes the sides be people within the US. Republicans must win by making Obama’s achievements lose. Whites must win by making POC lose. The police must win by making AAs lose, the white South must recover by the same. Around the world we must win by making our allies lose more in the relationship.

  135. 135.

    Stan

    @Pogonip:

    If a scientist’s findings are reproducible but go against the herd–say it’s 1840 and you’re trying to publish your findings that phrenology doesn’t work–can you get it published? And if you do will you ever get any more grant money?

    Yes.

  136. 136.

    Stan

    @rikyrah:

    Yemen raid cost taxpayers $100,000,000

    Putting aside the V22 ($75M) you are claiming that that one operation cost $25M? Do you think that is remotely credible? Because it’s not.

  138. 138.

    J R in WV

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The survey page is whitehouse.gov, sounds pretty governmental to me… Odd, isn’t it? Should be FOIA-able, later on. I was tempted to provide my honest answers, then decided I didn’t want to give Trump a leg up in identifying me as an individual enemy.

    Nothing on the list of “achievements” was actually an achievement, they were all just issues intended to make Trump look as if he had accomplished something. Nothing on the list of what is most important to work on was anything worth spending a wooden nickel on, or more than a moment’s thought.

    SAD!

  139. 139.

    J R in WV

    @p.a.: Silly person, those are what you back up, and how you back things like that up is to put them on other devices. So you are backed up pretty well!!

    That’s worth an A, and not using the “cloud” gets you an A+ !!

  140. 140.

    J R in WV

    @Craig McMahon:

    “….I’ll have to start posting under a nym when I complain…. ”

    OMG, man, Craig McMahon isn’t a ‘nym??

    Your life may be ruined already, and you haven’t even got a good start!!! Speaking for the jackals, here.

  141. 141.

    J R in WV

    @Stan:

    Stan, can I call you Stan, man, even though that isn’t you real name? You seem to imagine rickyrah just made that number up. She didn’t. You obviously just jumped on an opportunity to be a dumbass in public rather than clicking through, The number, yes, $25,000,000 plus a $75,000,000 aircraft, was from a well known and admired source.

    Adam Kahn.

    So fuck you so very much. I don’t recall what the Seal Team 6 mission that nailed bin Ladin cost, they did destroy a special forces helicopter, so that wasn’t cheap.

    Were you ever in the military? $25 million for a mission like that would include building a replica camp to rehearse the raid over and over, for one small example. Military missions cost a ton, and this one cost a senior operator his life.

    I have seen reports that it costs one million dollars a year to support a single SEAL team member. Their night vision goggles cost ~$70,000 each.

  142. 142.

    J R in WV

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Here ya go:

    GREENE: But not everyone in the Democratic Party is firmly behind Perez. With me now is Leslie Wimes. She is head of the Democratic African-American Women Caucus in the state of Florida. Thanks for coming back on our program. We appreciate it.

    LESLIE WIMES: Thanks for having me, David.

    GREENE: So is Perez the right leader to – to unite the party, as he says?

    WIMES: Oh, absolutely not. Absolutely not.

    GREENE: OK.

    WIMES: Perez is just Debbie Wasserman Schultz with XY chromosomes.

    So, Florida Woman Strikes !!!

    What a way to unite the Democrats across the nation. Take a big ole dump on a newly elected party leader in national media!! Thanks so much to the Democratic African-American Women Caucus in Florida~!!!

    Jeez….

  143. 143.

    J R in WV

    @cosima:

    Hey, Consima,

    Cilantro/coriander is really easy to grow, even just in a pot in a sunny place [ah, and there’s the problem, nearest sunny place is in southern France!] by your walk. Or in a window. Like basil, it’s nearly a weed.

  144. 144.

    J R in WV

    @liberal:

    Yes, a crime committed by Tricky Dick Nixon and Henry Kissinger (a European) against the better judgment of the majority of the nation.

  145. 145.

    cosima

    @J R in WV: I’ve definitely got a black thumb. I’ve tried cilantro/coriander in many states, and here in Scotland, and can’t manage it. I’ve even killed my MINT. Did not know that was possible! My rosemary is still going, though, but it is possibly the saddest rosemary in history.

  146. 146.

    Ramalama

    @Pogonip: Late to the game in responding. If you ever see this:

    If a scientist’s findings are reproducible but go against the herd–say it’s 1840 and you’re trying to publish your findings that phrenology doesn’t work–can you get it published? And if you do will you ever get any more grant money?

    Again, bystander here. I worked at MIT but not as a scientist. I know that data can beat out arguments, as long as the scientist in question is ready and able to argue that the data shows what the data shows. I know scientists argue all the bloody time. They experience on an almost daily basis people telling them that they’re wrong for X reasons. They’re likely telling people on an almost daily basis that others are wrong. And then? It’s their job to explain why they aren’t wrong. That’s what happens at a thesis defense. That’s what happens in the lab. That’s what happens on Friday mornings at lab meetings. At seminars with other scientists from around the world. That’s also what might happen upon publication.

    There was a story floating around our lab – actually, it was pinned to the bulletin board in the kitchen – of how one promising grad student – maybe 2 years in and making the grade, doing the work – gave up on science and opted into law school instead. Why? She or He was tired of always being told s/he was wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Not a good fit for their personality. Whereas law? Still a fight. But one s/he felt could be won more frequently.

    That clip stayed up and yellowed for YEARS, I think because every single researcher, from new grad student to emeritus rock-star discoverer felt that way. But they could handle it.

    As for grants? That’s subjective somewhat. What’s the hot new thing? That’s more directed by policy – politics?

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