• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

This chaos was totally avoidable.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Mobile Menu

  • Seattle Meet-up Post
  • 2025 Activism
  • Targeted Political Fundraising
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / So Step Away With Your Fist Fight Ways

So Step Away With Your Fist Fight Ways

by John Cole|  August 9, 201712:32 pm| 279 Comments

This post is in: Dolt 45, Free Markets Solve Everything, Fuck The Middle-Class, Fuck The Poor, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You, Democratic Stupidity, Manic Progressive

FacebookTweetEmail

This ain’t back in the day:

Many Americans can’t remember anything other than an economy with skyrocketing inequality, in which living standards for most Americans are stagnating and the rich are pulling away. It feels inevitable.

But it’s not.

A well-known team of inequality researchers — Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman — has been getting some attention recently for a chart it produced. It shows the change in income between 1980 and 2014 for every point on the distribution, and it neatly summarizes the recent soaring of inequality.

It’s been 40 years since the right wing long game to destroy the middle class and the poor began, and they are winning. Unprecedented propaganda efforts have coal miners slapping “Friends of Coal” bumper stickers on their cars, broken workers are chanting “right to work” as they struggle to crush the unions that would and once did protect them, and the courts have been stocked with corporate friendly judges. In my state, literally. There are things we can do about it (if we band together and chip away at the GOP stranglehold in Washington):

The problem is that wealth and capital income are not distributed evenly. In 2014, the average wealth of the bottom half was $349. For the top one percent, it was over $16 million.

Rich people in our society don’t just have high capital income levels. They also have high capital income shares. That is, a large portion of the income collected at the top of our society comes from capital rather than from labor. In 2014, just 5.1 percent of the bottom half’s income came from capital. For the top one percent, around 58.9 percent of income came from capital.

It is worth emphasizing just how much income at the top of society comes from passive ownership of investments rather than from working. The top 0.01 percent of individuals in society have an average income of $28 million. Three-fourths of that income, or $21 million, came from capital in 2014.

If we want to get serious about creating a fair and egalitarian society, we must confront capital directly. Wage levels are important. Benefit levels are important. But getting those things right will not be enough so long as nearly one-third of the national income flows out passively to a handful of people at the top of society.

Current liberal efforts to tackle wealth inequality are woefully inadequate. Policies aimed at building the assets of low-income families, the typical approach to this issue, rarely succeed on their own terms and, even if they did succeed, would only be an insignificant drop in the bucket. For wealth and capital income to become more fairly distributed throughout society, the ownership of existing assets must be reordered towards that end.

But, as we know, the perfect was the enemy of the good in the last election, and we have this:

Different policies could produce a different outcome. My list would start with a tax code that does less to favor the affluent, a better-functioning education system, more bargaining power for workers and less tolerance for corporate consolidation.

Remarkably, President Trump and the Republican leaders in Congress are trying to go in the other direction. They spent months trying to take away health insurance from millions of middle-class and poor families. Their initial tax-reform plans would reduce taxes for the rich much more than for everyone else. And they want to cut spending on schools, even though education is the single best way to improve middle-class living standards over the long term.

Most Americans would look at these charts and conclude that inequality is out of control. The president, on the other hand, seems to think that inequality isn’t big enough.

I don’t know what it is going to take to unite “the left”- whatever that means anymore. Hell, I don’t even know what to call myself anymore because I support single payer, higher tax rates, higher capital gains, decriminalization, demilitarization, reinstatement of the draft, am pro-choice, etc., ad nauseum, but because I voted for Hillary I’m apparently a neoliberal. At any rate, I thought the election of Trump would unify “the left,” but it has apparently made us more fractious than ever. But we need to get our shit together, because things done changed.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Vacation open thread
Next Post: Darling Nicky »

Reader Interactions

279Comments

  1. 1.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    August 9, 2017 at 12:37 pm

    Don’t mistake Our Progressive Betters with “the left”. They’re all embodiment of the Horseshoe Theory of Politics making them effectively wingnuts…just a peculiar flavor of wingnuts.

    Nothing, repeat nothing, will ever bring Our Progressive Betters into “the left’s” fold. Their sole purpose in life is to do whatever is best, electorally, for the GOP.

    Just like we write off the Crazification Factor folks on the right, Our Progressive Bettors should have been written off oh, I dunno, in late 2000.

  2. 2.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    August 9, 2017 at 12:37 pm

    White males are busy burning it all down because they refuse to not be centered by both parties for one fucking second.

  3. 3.

    Mike J

    August 9, 2017 at 12:40 pm

    I’ve always said it’s silly to have “income tax” on labor and “capital gains tax” on investment. Let’s have one progressive tax system, with the same rates we had under Reagan.

    If you have lower tax rates on one thing and higher tax rates on another, you are telling people that the thing with the higher rate is being discouraged. We don’t want people to smoke, we raise taxes on cigarettes. We don’t want people to work, we charge more in tax on labor than we do on investment.

  4. 4.

    SenyorDave

    August 9, 2017 at 12:43 pm

    The 1% are getting what they paid for.

  5. 5.

    rikyrah

    August 9, 2017 at 12:43 pm

    Remarkably, President Trump and the Republican leaders in Congress are trying to go in the other direction. They spent months trying to take away health insurance from millions of middle-class and poor families. Their initial tax-reform plans would reduce taxes for the rich much more than for everyone else. And they want to cut spending on schools, even though education is the single best way to improve middle-class living standards over the long term.

    Never ever forget that Trumpcare was NEVER about healthcare.

    It was a TAX CUT BILL masquerading as a healthcare bill.

    Period.
    That was THE POINT of it, and why they are so desperate to pass it.

  6. 6.

    Yarrow

    August 9, 2017 at 12:45 pm

    @SenyorDave:

    The 1% are getting what they paid for.

    And still they’re not satisfied.

  7. 7.

    NR

    August 9, 2017 at 12:45 pm

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    Their sole purpose in life is to do whatever is best, electorally, for the GOP.

    No, actually, that’s the Democratic establishment. They’re the ones who lost 1,000 legislative seats nationwide to the Republicans over the last eight years, not “the left.”

  8. 8.

    Hunter Gathers

    August 9, 2017 at 12:50 pm

    Sure, we could actually do something about all of this, but my sister’s husband’s cousin’s former roommate saw black people at Wal-Mart last week buying steak with an EBT card.

  9. 9.

    SatanicPanic

    August 9, 2017 at 12:50 pm

    The left is small and not that influential. They like to imagine they threw the last election, but I suspect it was more a case of people being bored with the way things were going. Don’t listen to nerds like NR.

  10. 10.

    ? Martin

    August 9, 2017 at 12:51 pm

    @Mike J: Well, you’re also telling people that work is a sin because you tax it higher. As someone who makes most of their money off of cap gains, it’s really scandalous how this works. There’s literally nothing I could do in my job to get my income to scale as rapidly as my investment income has done so – and a lot of that has to do with the law of accelerating returns working on my investments in a way that it can’t on my income. My income is weighed back due to a progressive tax rate, so it can’t accelerate very easily, however my cap gains is a fixed rate and it’s constantly expanding.

    20 years ago I earned almost nothing off of my investments ($5K at the time). 10 years ago they evened out – my 40 hr/wk job was half my income. Last Tuesday I earned more from my investments in one day than I’ll make all year at work – and its taxed at a lower rate – that’s certainly not every day, but just the fact that it can happen now and then is unsettling. Anyone who can’t get ahead starting from a modest investment portfolio in this environment is doing it wrong. Anyone who started out with a million dollars from dad would have to be a fucking idiot to not be making money hand over fist from that.

    And how well does the system work – $14T are being held in negative yield bonds. $14T that could be doing work – building infrastructure, educating doctors, etc. are sitting in accounts that by design lose money, just so that they can be protected from rapid downturns in the market. It’s equivalent to stashing all of your money under your mattress knowing that a mouse is occasionally eating some of it, rather than invest it in starting a business or some such. This system of taxation wastes so much money from society it’s just astonishing.

  11. 11.

    SFAW

    August 9, 2017 at 12:52 pm

    @NR:

    Спасибо, товарищ.

    Ваша работа здесь выполнена

  12. 12.

    Mike E

    August 9, 2017 at 12:53 pm

    @NR: Ковфэфе

  13. 13.

    SFAW

    August 9, 2017 at 12:54 pm

    @Mike E:

    @NR: Ковфэфе

    Damn! Wish I’d thought of that one.

  14. 14.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 9, 2017 at 12:55 pm

    @rikyrah:
    I disagree. I think butchering Medicaid and lowering taxes were equally important. To Ryan, killing Medicaid was probably more important. Yes, they’re greedy plutocrats, but they’re also sadistic assholes. It doesn’t have to make sense to us. It does to them.

  15. 15.

    smintheus

    August 9, 2017 at 12:55 pm

    The GIF that the NYT piece has at that link, of the change in income growth between 1980 and 2014, is an amazingly strong visual.

  16. 16.

    Citizen Alan

    August 9, 2017 at 12:56 pm

    @NR:

    Aaaand it’s time to see how the pie filter works on my phone.

  17. 17.

    SenyorDave

    August 9, 2017 at 12:57 pm

    @? Martin: But it does accomplish one thing that is positive in the minds of much of the right: the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer (certainly relative to the rich, and lately in absolute terms). I will never understand why people like the Koch brothers (about $80 billion), Sheldon Adelson ($35 billion) and other RWer’s aren’t satisfied with making themselves richer, but actually seem to get off on making the rest of the people poorer. Either they see it as a zero sum game or they are just miserable SOB’s (I vote for the latter).

  18. 18.

    rikyrah

    August 9, 2017 at 12:57 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I disagree. I think butchering Medicaid and lowering taxes were equally important. To Ryan, killing Medicaid was probably more important. Yes, they’re greedy plutocrats, but they’re also sadistic assholes.

    No lie told.

  19. 19.

    catclub

    August 9, 2017 at 12:58 pm

    My list would start with a tax code that does less to favor the affluent, a better-functioning education system, more bargaining power for workers and less tolerance for corporate consolidation.

    Remarkably, President Trump and the Republican leaders in Congress are trying to go in the other direction.

    Misspelled ‘Unsurprisingly’

  20. 20.

    jl

    August 9, 2017 at 1:04 pm

    Thanks for posting this graph. I found through Krugman’s twitter yesterday.

    If you look at how the graph evolves over time there seem to be two breakpoints. The first was the rapid rise of income growth in the upper 5 and 1 percents in the early 1980’s (rapid, for then, not for what happened later). The lower half of the curve lagged but did not take an absolute hit. So, mid-80s was when the Reagan revolution kicked in, and might explain how Reagan’s reputation escaped relative unscathed despite the complete failure of his supply side revolution: the policies helped the high income earners, but did not crash the lower end of the income distribution. However, it did start a gradual downward movement of the distribution.

    The second is around 2003-4, when Dub’s tax cut’s kicked in. That is when the lower third of the distribution crashed downward. The second (and also completely failed) attempt at supply side hit the lower third of the very hard. There is a huge jump in the distribution at that point. Seems like he Dub tax policies, plus very poor macroeconomic management after the 2001 recession, and then the sub-optimal management after the Great Recession produced the miserable chart you see for 2014.

    Something about the Dub economic policies was really toxic to the lower end of the distribution. I’m going to look for some analysis of how Obama administration decisions to keep or discard different parts of the Dub tax program did little to help the lower end of the distribution. But probably not just taxes, interaction of long standing and bipartisan Clinton/Dub high dollar policy and the two recession, and resulting catastrophic and very sudden loss of manufacturing jobs from 1999 through late 200a probably played a big role too.

  21. 21.

    ruemara

    August 9, 2017 at 1:04 pm

    @SatanicPanic: The margins HRC won by were exceeded by the margins of those voting 3rd party in key states. This isn’t NPR. This is just facts.

  22. 22.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    August 9, 2017 at 1:05 pm

    @? Martin:

    If it was up to me, the thing that got positive tax treatment would be dividends. There’d be a graduated transaction tax (punitive in the first year after acquisition). C Suite pay and perks over 50 times to pay of the lowest paid full time worker would be declared a dividend and assessed as ordinary income to the shareholders, even tax deferred retirement funds.

    Activities related to mergers and acquisitions would not be deductible.

  23. 23.

    catclub

    August 9, 2017 at 1:05 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Never ever forget that Trumpcare was NEVER about healthcare.

    It was a TAX CUT BILL masquerading as a healthcare bill.

    The medicaid cuts in the ACA repeal bills were what would enable a giant tax cut for the rich. That was why they wanted to do that first.

  24. 24.

    NR

    August 9, 2017 at 1:05 pm

    @SFAW: Oh look, it’s the “anyone who doesn’t think the Democratic establishment is doing a bang-up job is a Russian” meme. How original.

  25. 25.

    Belafon

    August 9, 2017 at 1:06 pm

    Considering the special elections Democrats are winning, and the others we are coming close in that we wouldn’t have thought possible a year ago, I don’t think Democrats are having trouble uniting. I think it’s the non-Democrats that are in one of two camps – either Green party purity types, or Young Turk pro-Trump types – that are making more noise than they actually have influence over, that just seem like the party is divided.

  26. 26.

    Citizen Alan

    August 9, 2017 at 1:07 pm

    @ruemara:

    Do you mean “lost by?” Otherwise, i don’t understand your comment.

  27. 27.

    jl

    August 9, 2017 at 1:07 pm

    @SenyorDave: Scrooge McDuck economics. Ginormous vaults full of cash. Dive into it, roll in it, see how much you can skim off to buy rich person’s BS toys without noticing any difference. That’s progress and prosperity! (snark alert, if needed by anyone).

  28. 28.

    AMinNC

    August 9, 2017 at 1:08 pm

    Jane Mayer’s “Dark Money” should be required reading for everyone who can vote. It is amazing how successful a handful of ultra-rich (mostly inherited) ultra-right sociopaths have been at infiltrating all of our major institutions and moving the economic policy needle so far to the right. How much is fucking enough for these people?

  29. 29.

    rikyrah

    August 9, 2017 at 1:08 pm

    The Mystery Of Nicole Mincey
    By JOSH MARSHALL
    Published AUGUST 7, 2017 12:59 PM

    We’re working on more reporting on this as we speak. But I wanted to introduce the topic here in the Editors’ Blog to get us started. You may have heard of this, probably not. Over the weekend, President Trump RT’d a shout-out of praise from a woman on Twitter named Nicole Mincey.

    Around the same time, I noticed that Mincey’s tweets had been showing up high in Trump’s twitter threads. And as I mentioned in this tweet from Saturday evening, while I wasn’t sure whatever details there were about her, the accounts had all the tell-tale signs of a grift, most notably because of the stylized personal presentation and the focus on a Trump store where this woman – probably better to call her a “persona” – sold all manner of low-tier Trump shirts, hats, hoodies, etc.

    ……………………………………..

    What’s more, seemingly all the pictures of Mincey were stock model photos from around the web.

    I was looking at all this stuff late Saturday evening. It was quite the rabbit hole as you can see. But what got me more interested is that the elaborateness of the Mincey ‘legend’ seemed much more detailed than would be necessary to make a quick buck off hats and t-shirts. One thread in “Nicole’s” twitter account was about a new organization she was forming for other pro-Trump black conservatives like her – ‘Young Black Republicans’ or YBR. She had a large number of other bot accounts which were her notional friends, which mainly seemed to exist to retweet her posts. But among these were some with vlog type videos of young African-American men talking up the YBR group. Notionally, these were followers of hers also planning to join YBR and looking for support for the group.

    AI is pretty advanced. But it can’t do that. Someone got these men to make these videos. As I said, it all seemed like a very elaborate operation just for a merch store.

  30. 30.

    catclub

    August 9, 2017 at 1:08 pm

    @jl:

    The second is around 2003-4

    But you have to remember that each year label covers its previous 34 years. 2014 means average annual income change over 1980-2014
    1980 means average annual income change 1946-1980

  31. 31.

    Chyron HR

    August 9, 2017 at 1:10 pm

    @NR:

    You forgot: “Bernie’s not a racist, he’s a race realist!”

  32. 32.

    catclub

    August 9, 2017 at 1:11 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I think butchering Medicaid and lowering taxes were equally important.

    Butchering medicaid was done in order to have more money to spend on tax cuts for the rich in the planned ‘tax reform’ bill.

    scare quotes indeed.

  33. 33.

    jl

    August 9, 2017 at 1:13 pm

    @catclub: Maybe I am missing something but I don’t see how that changes anything. If you see a huge breakpoint in a running average, there has to be a huge breakpoint in the new annual data entering the average. The distribution was very flat from 1946 through mid-1960s, so removing those points from the running average over time doesn’t affect it much.

  34. 34.

    Jack the Second

    August 9, 2017 at 1:14 pm

    @NR: Don’t worry, most of us just think you’re an idiot & jagoff. Maybe a misogynist.

  35. 35.

    aimai

    August 9, 2017 at 1:14 pm

    @NR: IF the voters are there, the seats don’t get lost. No one is responsible for the movement of seats into republican hands but republican voter suppression and republican voters. If democratic voters want any policies–left, right, or center–they need to get out and vote for them.

  36. 36.

    NR

    August 9, 2017 at 1:15 pm

    @Chyron HR: I have no idea what you’re talking about.

  37. 37.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 1:15 pm

    @NR:
    Oh look it’s the person who always comes here with the same tired bullshit points that aren’t constructive at all. Oh and also never puts their money where their mouth is in terms of actually winning elections. When’s the last time you guys really won anything? The 10th of never?

  38. 38.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 1:16 pm

    At some point if this keeps up, “Eat the Rich” is going to stop being a metaphor.

  39. 39.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 9, 2017 at 1:17 pm

    @catclub:
    Ryan has wanted to cut Medicaid his whole life, and not been shy about it. They could have found the money elsewhere. They WANT to kill people. They think it’s the right thing to do. They want it in varying amounts, and some have bowed to political pressure.

  40. 40.

    NR

    August 9, 2017 at 1:17 pm

    @aimai: If the Democratic party leadership would offer policies people wanted, people would get out and vote for them.

    We’ve seen that warmed-over Republican policies from the 1980s and the 1990s won’t get votes. Maybe it’s time to try something else?

  41. 41.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 1:18 pm

    Hey you guys stop hectoring NR! NR is gonna get their dad to fight all of our dads into a bloody pulp!

  42. 42.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 1:19 pm

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne:

    Have you ever read The Mismeasure of Woman by Carol Tavris? She tells a brief story of a scientific conference she went to where someone presented a paper about menstruation, and a male scientist complained because men weren’t even discussed. In a presentation about menstruation.

    I swear, sometimes I think would go join a women’s collective if I weren’t already happily married to living proof that not all white guys are idiots.

  43. 43.

    Jeffro

    August 9, 2017 at 1:20 pm

    @smintheus: it is really good.

    Here’s an equally good presentation – maybe better, even: Wealth Inequality in America.

    What’s that Chris Rock quote again? “If working people knew what the rich get away with in this country, it would burn to the ground.” Something like that?

  44. 44.

    agorabum

    August 9, 2017 at 1:20 pm

    @NR: The call was for the left to unite and always vote for the most plausible option they have in every election. In 2016, that was obviously Hillary.

    Your response has been to…attack Democrats. Rather unhelpful. But if you can make the argument that it’s actually good to be a useful idiot, by all means, make it.

  45. 45.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 1:21 pm

    @NR:

    They’re the ones who lost 1,000 legislative seats nationwide to the Republicans over the last eight years, not “the left.”

    Ah, here’s NR back again to tell us all that Citizens United and Shelby County were completely inconsequential and SuperPACs are no big deal.

  46. 46.

    germy

    August 9, 2017 at 1:21 pm

    Krishanti Vignarajah, a onetime policy director for former first lady Michelle Obama, announced Wednesday that she plans to enter the race for Maryland governor, becoming the first woman to join the crowded field for the 2018 Democratic nomination.

  47. 47.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 1:21 pm

    @NR:
    Translation: “If only the evil corporatist Democrat party would let ME run everything we’d be in liberal nirvana in no time! I don’t want to put in the work of getting involved in something bigger than myself, thereby earning the right to lead; I should get it all by virtue of me being More Progressive than Thou!

  48. 48.

    Betty Cracker

    August 9, 2017 at 1:22 pm

    I don’t know if “the left” is really all that fractured or not. You’d sure think so from social media, but I’m not sure how reflective that is of reality. In the meantime, all we can do is find good candidates and organize.

  49. 49.

    SenyorDave

    August 9, 2017 at 1:22 pm

    @Mnemosyne: She tells a brief story of a scientific conference she went to where someone presented a paper about menstruation, and a male scientist complained because men weren’t even discussed. In a presentation about menstruation.

    In his defense, maybe he was referring to this guy:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k2FkUF41AA

  50. 50.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    August 9, 2017 at 1:23 pm

    @ruemara: True, but that’s assuming everyone who voted third-party on MI, WI & PA would’ve voted for Clinton/wouldn’t have otherwise stayed home. IIRC in PA and WI the third-party vote barely exceeded Trump’s victory margin with voter suppression doing much of the heavy lifting in the latter case – assuming ~50% as the ceiling for those who’d have otherwise went Dem, then the greens are most responsible for flipping Michigan (Trumps margin there being ~20-25% the number of third-party voters).

  51. 51.

    Jeffro

    August 9, 2017 at 1:23 pm

    @AMinNC:

    Jane Mayer’s “Dark Money” should be required reading for everyone who can vote. It is amazing how successful a handful of ultra-rich (mostly inherited) ultra-right sociopaths have been at infiltrating all of our major institutions and moving the economic policy needle so far to the right. How much is fucking enough for these people?

    You’re absolutely right: it is eye-opening, depressing, enraging, energizing, and more, all at once. That and David Brock’s The Republican Noise Machine are pretty essential reading for any American adult, and I recommend them all the time to folks.

  52. 52.

    Boussinesque

    August 9, 2017 at 1:23 pm

    @TenguPhule: I didn’t used to subscribe to that level of anti-rich sentiment, but the past 17 years have seen me move into that camp. As long as we’re valuing capital over labor, we have a future in store that’s owned by the 0.0001% where the rest of us get to pay for the privilege of being allowed to breathe their air and live on property they own. Where I get stuck at is how we get out of this bind–with people like the Mercers and the Kochs and the various Putin-orbit oligarchs holding the rights to so much of the world’s wealth, how do we devalue, divest, and otherwise claw back those resources to a place where we can use them for the good of society, rather than the plutocrats?

  53. 53.

    SFAW

    August 9, 2017 at 1:23 pm

    @NR:

    Oh look, it’s the “anyone who doesn’t think the Democratic establishment is doing a bang-up job is a Russian” meme. How original.

    Oh, look, it’s the “fuck the Dem establishment it’s all their fault I hates them forever preciousss” meme. How droll.

    No, asshole, you’ve pretty much proved, over countless months and topics, that it you’re not actually a Native Russian, you’re doing your best to get Vladi Vladimirovich to offer you citizenship. He does that for all his little helpmates. Let’s hope he doesn’t also offer you a dacha in Sibirsk.

  54. 54.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 1:24 pm

    @NR:

    If the Democratic party leadership would offer policies people wanted, people would get out and vote for them.

    Cites facts clearly not in evidence when it comes to Republicans, white male “independents” and white women “highschool harridans”.

  55. 55.

    Jeffro

    August 9, 2017 at 1:24 pm

    @Jeffro: my bad, the CR quote is:

    If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets.

    Same difference ;)

  56. 56.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 9, 2017 at 1:25 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Now, now. NR are is a just a good Kim Davis/Zell Miller Democrat who wants us to learn how to talk to regular Americans in places like Kentucky, Arkansas and Mississippi.

  57. 57.

    SFAW

    August 9, 2017 at 1:26 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    I don’t know if “the left” is really all that fractured or not. You’d sure think so from social media, but I’m not sure how reflective that is of reality. In the meantime, all we can do is find good candidates and organize.

    Interesting segment on “On Point” today. The topic was Russian social-media bots, and how they operate. One of their goals is to sow/encourage schisms/chaos.

    Not that Native Russian knows anything about that, of course.

  58. 58.

    Jeffro

    August 9, 2017 at 1:26 pm

    PS right on cue, the National Enquirer has a “sick sex scandal” story up about…yup…Paul Manafort

    Distraction? What distraction?

  59. 59.

    Boussinesque

    August 9, 2017 at 1:26 pm

    @Jeffro: I love that video–stumbled across it (might have even been linked by someone here at BJ) a couple years ago, but had lost my bookmark and forgotten about it in the switch to a new laptop.

  60. 60.

    BC in Illinois

    August 9, 2017 at 1:26 pm

    Ah, yes. 1980.
    When Reagan sold much of America on the true fact that we had made it so hard on the rich that no one wanted to carry the burden of being rich anymore and that we had made it so soft on the poor that everyone wanted the benefits of being poor. He then set about the thankless task of protecting the defenseless rich from the callous and merciless poor.

  61. 61.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 1:26 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    Idiots like NR will never realize how important it is to work with imperfect allies until their about to be thrown from a C-130 5000 ft above the Gulf of Mexico without a parachute. People like NR will be the death of us all.

  62. 62.

    germy

    August 9, 2017 at 1:26 pm

    “If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets,” Chris Rock said in a recent interview with New York magazine.

    The multi-millionaire comedian pointed out that poor people would be particularly shocked if they knew all the perks rich people get for being rich.

    “If the average person could see the Virgin Airlines first-class lounge, they’d go, ‘What? What? This is food, and it’s free, and they… what? Massage? Are you kidding me?’” he said.

    If you have never flown Virgin Airlines first class (or first class at all, for that matter), these lounges of which Rock speaks are where “Upper Class passengers” can kick back with some “amazing food, fantastic facilities and a chilled out atmosphere,” according to the Virgin website. At London Heathrow Airport, the Virgin lounge has a spa and showers.

    Virgin Atlantic didn’t respond to The Huffington Post’s requests for comment.

  63. 63.

    jl

    August 9, 2017 at 1:27 pm

    @Betty Cracker: I would hope that people on center-left through the modern true-blue purity-pony progressives, would look to the conservative through reactionary side of the political spectrum to see what strident and pointless internecine warfare produces: nothing but stalemate and failure. What is happening over on the other side is good for the country right now, since their ideas range from not being ideas at all to dishonest cons and the very bad.

    Next time the lefty side takes over, I hope we learn from their failure at getting anything done.

  64. 64.

    trollhattan

    August 9, 2017 at 1:27 pm

    @NR:

    I have no idea

    Hey, progress!

  65. 65.

    SatanicPanic

    August 9, 2017 at 1:27 pm

    @Betty Cracker: There’s the usual suspects being stupid, but seriously, if this is the response people like NR (or more famous versions like Lee Fang) get online, imagine how annoying they must be IRL. I can’t imagine they persuade that many people.

  66. 66.

    different-church-lady

    August 9, 2017 at 1:28 pm

    @NR:

    If the Democratic party leadership would offer policies people wanted, people would get out and vote for them.

    You know, like Trump voters did with Trump.

  67. 67.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 1:28 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    I don’t know if “the left” is really all that fractured or not.

    Its not. Its just by nature really disorganized because by design it incorporates a lot of differing views under one extremely big tent. And we have yet to discover the benefit of putting aside our differences long enough to destroy our enemies before returning to the traditional battle over policy and goals.

  68. 68.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 1:28 pm

    @AMinNC:
    @Jeffro:

    But don’t you guys get it? Democrats could easily overcome propaganda, voter suppression, and meddling by billionaires if they just tried harder offered better policies! It’s so simple!

  69. 69.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 1:31 pm

    @SatanicPanic:
    What’s annoying about NR is their whining. And they always come back with the same points. Never in a constructive manner and always accusatory. No real practical solutions. I’m convinced NR is a troll, professional or not, I’m not certain.

  70. 70.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 1:31 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):

    then the greens are most responsible for flipping Michigan (Trumps margin there being ~20-25% the number of third-party voters)

    I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Sanders won Michigan. I would be very curious to see what kind of targeted ads were running there to convince people to vote for Stein.

  71. 71.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    August 9, 2017 at 1:31 pm

    @jl: I still hold that if we cede the labels “left,” “progressive,” etc. to the [BONERS] Brigade, then they have already won.

  72. 72.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 1:31 pm

    @Boussinesque:

    Where I get stuck at is how we get out of this bind–with people like the Mercers and the Kochs and the various Putin-orbit oligarchs holding the rights to so much of the world’s wealth, how do we devalue, divest, and otherwise claw back those resources to a place where we can use them for the good of society, rather than the plutocrats?

    There’s the hard way and the easy way.

    The hard way is to hold those fuckers accountable to the laws of the land. And have actual laws of the land that level the playing field.

  73. 73.

    Brachiator

    August 9, 2017 at 1:31 pm

    Great and thought provoking post.

    Different policies could produce a different outcome. My list would start with a tax code that does less to favor the affluent, a better-functioning education system, more bargaining power for workers and less tolerance for corporate consolidation.

    Focusing too much on tax policy is like the tail wagging the dog.

    Ya gotta have jobs. And not just make-work temporary “infrastructure” jobs. And here Democrats are weak because they don’t really have any ideas here. To be fair, neither do Republicans, but they can fake it better.

  74. 74.

    mai naem mobile

    August 9, 2017 at 1:32 pm

    A finacial transaction tax would help. This includes investment real estate . Also, good/free publoc transportation and,maybe, credits for companies for on the job training. I have friends who have applied for jobs that they would be capable of with a little training but the company want somebody completely trained and ready to go day 1.

  75. 75.

    SFAW

    August 9, 2017 at 1:33 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    if they just tried harder

    Shouldn’t that be “clapped louder”? Because I know that worked with Tinker Bell.

  76. 76.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 9, 2017 at 1:34 pm

    @Mnemosyne:
    Yes. Better policies like increasing taxes on the rich, aiming trade at opening markets for American goods, increasing the minimum wage, regulating all industries to decrease worker abuses, regulating the shit out of the out-of-control banking industry, especially the shadow banking industry, raising the minimum wage, universal healthcare, regulating abuses in the pharmaceutical industry, removing wage gaps. expanding the social safety net to stuff like free day care… oh wait, that was all Hillary’s plank. But apparently nothing there to attract working class voters.

    EDIT – Oh, and investments in everything, particularly creating new jobs and services in rural areas economically left behind.

  77. 77.

    catclub

    August 9, 2017 at 1:34 pm

    @jl:

    Maybe I am missing something but I don’t see how that changes anything.

    Now that I think about it, I more than agree. The fact that there is a big change in the 34 year average when one new year is added, means that year was huge.

  78. 78.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 9, 2017 at 1:34 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I’m convinced NR is a troll, professional or not, I’m not certain.

    Professional trolls, I think, do the thing where they post the occasionally non-trolly comment for cover– like Amaranthine RBG. NR is pure emo-prog poo-flinger

  79. 79.

    Jeffro

    August 9, 2017 at 1:34 pm

    @Boussinesque: It’s so simple, that a) even my kids get it and b) even my RWNJ dad and brother muttermumblemutter but can’t say anything in rebuttal after watching it. They know it’s ridiculous how things have diverged in the past 37 years. DNC would do well to pay to air it widely and ‘prep the battlefield’ from here to eternity…

  80. 80.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 1:34 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:

    People like NR will be the death of us all.

    Take comfort from the fact that we’ll eat the NRs of the world first in our post-war wasteland.

  81. 81.

    catclub

    August 9, 2017 at 1:36 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Better policies like increasing taxes on the rich,

    It really is sad that we cannot at least say “Somebody who makes $1M a year should be taxed more than someone who makes $250k/yr”
    AND “someone who makes $20M/yr should be taxed more than someone who makes $1m/yr.”

  82. 82.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 9, 2017 at 1:36 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    No, NR maintains a roughly 10% ration where it shows up to say some liberal stuff to establish its cred before returning to do nothing but complain about Democrats to derail threads.

  83. 83.

    germy

    August 9, 2017 at 1:37 pm

    @mai naem mobile:

    I have friends who have applied for jobs that they would be capable of with a little training but the company want somebody completely trained and ready to go day 1.

    Our Job Creators have gotten lazy over the past 40 years.

  84. 84.

    SFAW

    August 9, 2017 at 1:38 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Focusing too much on tax policy is like the tail wagging the dog.

    Maybe. But tax policy has often been used to encourage/discourage various activities (e.g., home ownership). No reason it can’t be used for something other than “let’s give ALL the money to the top 0.0001 percent.”

  85. 85.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 1:38 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Ya gotta have jobs. And not just make-work temporary “infrastructure” jobs. And here Democrats are weak because they don’t really have any ideas here. To be fair, neither do Republicans, but they can fake it better.

    Can’t turn back progress. Robots and other machines in the long term are simply cheaper and more efficient when it comes to the hard and heavy lifting.

    So there are solutions, but nobody wants to hear about them because they aren’t going to be pretty or result in lots of high paying jobs for everyone who wants one. Instead, its going to be more “basic living stipends” at best.

  86. 86.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 9, 2017 at 1:38 pm

    @catclub:
    We can, and have. And then 60 million people, the vast majority white, say that if the n- lovers want that taxes on the rich to be higher, they’ll do their best to make taxes on the rich lower.

  87. 87.

    germy

    August 9, 2017 at 1:39 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: This isn’t about NR, but my favorite are commenters who show up posing as Democrats, but then slip after a few comments and say stuff like “The problem with YOUR party is…”

  88. 88.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 1:39 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:
    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I’ve seen NR comment something innocent every once in a while and gets almost no response.

  89. 89.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 1:40 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    But apparently nothing there to attract working class voters.

    See, she said all of that stuff that sounded good, but NR knows that she didn’t really, truly mean it deep in her heart, so therefore she didn’t say it at all.

    That’s what’s driving me most nuts about the Broflakes. They refuse to take “yes” for an answer unless a straight white man is the one saying it.

  90. 90.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 9, 2017 at 1:40 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
    It’s never discussion-generating content.

  91. 91.

    Boussinesque

    August 9, 2017 at 1:41 pm

    @mai naem mobile: that’s been the problem I’ve been running into in my job search–I’ve only (relatively) recently left academia, and I have a single year of consulting as my only job outside of TA/RA back at university. With almost all of the jobs I’ve gotten to final-round consideration with, I wind up being told that they’ve decided to go with someone with more “X experience”, where X can be anything from “customer-facing” to “leadership” to “::name of some random analysis suite that I could totally learn quickly given my background with MATLAB and R::”. Other times I see the same job reposted continually for months after getting turned down for “not enough experience”. The whole “we can’t find good people!” whine annoys me to no end, because if these companies were willing to do a little training rather than demanding perfectly-shaped cogs to fit into their machines immediately, they’d have plenty of candidates.

  92. 92.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 1:41 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    Instead, its going to be more “basic living stipends” at best.

    IMO, that’s not even that bad. Such basic income would allow many people to do with their lives whatever they please. Become an artist!

  93. 93.

    NR

    August 9, 2017 at 1:42 pm

    @agorabum: And I’m saying that “shut up and vote for us” is a poor method for winning elections. But if you want to keep banging away at that particular drum, be my guest.

  94. 94.

    Sab

    August 9, 2017 at 1:42 pm

    This is what we voted for.

    I recently worked in tax prep for a longtime tax accountant. His brother’s wife suddenly got cardiomypathy from an infection gone wrong. They were health-insured through her employer, which they no longer have because she is too sick to be employed.

    They were so surprised to learn that when her social security disability comes through it will be two years before the medicare kicks in. This has been the rule for their whole adult lives, and her brother in law is in a specialty where he knew that, but the whole gang of them was so blinded by their right wing ideology that they will blame this all on God’s will, not their fucked up ideology and bad government rules.

  95. 95.

    different-church-lady

    August 9, 2017 at 1:42 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:

    I’ve seen NR comment something innocent every once in a while and gets almost no response.

    Well, there you have it.

  96. 96.

    No Drought No More

    August 9, 2017 at 1:43 pm

    “because I voted for Hillary I’m apparently a neoliberal”.

    Cole. Amigo. You are the last person I’d expect to give a flying fuck about what other people (i.e., absolute strangers) call you, much less think about you. I’ve been an American all my life, too, and most everyone from high school on has wrongly considered me a flaming mindless left winger, when I’m no such thing and never have been. But’s it’s always been OK, because I knew it didn’t matter. They’ve simply misconstrued my contempt for war lovers and greed heads as blanket denunciation of the country I love. It began during the years of war in Vietnam, and again as the great 2003 plot to war continues to unfold. My political enemies have long been the same the breed of cat, only their names change.

    In the immortal, last words of Captain LaStrange: “Fuck ’em all”.

  97. 97.

    Jeffro

    August 9, 2017 at 1:44 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    But don’t you guys get it? Democrats could easily overcome propaganda, voter suppression, and meddling by billionaires if they just tried harder offered better policies! It’s so simple!

    LOL. Yes, you’re right, we have work to do on them thar policies…;)

    Seriously though: unlimited dark money donations by the rich and voter suppression measures by rich folks’ lackeys in Congress and state governments…those ARE the battlefields right there. So much so that those fights ought to BE our most important policy issues.

  98. 98.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 9, 2017 at 1:44 pm

    @catclub: @Frankensteinbeck: It really is sad that we cannot at least say “Somebody who makes $1M a year should be taxed more than someone who makes $250k/yr”
    -We can, and have.

    Yup. In 2011. They were calling it the Millionaire’s Tax, which I thought was a mistake because so many people, especially white guys, think they’re richer than they are, or will be very soon. pretty sure they brought it up again during Obama’s second term. The doughty Heartlanders of Arkansas, Iowa and West Virginia did not rise up in support.

  99. 99.

    Sab

    August 9, 2017 at 1:44 pm

    @NR: How is life under that bridge?

    I know I shouldn’t feed the troll, but he seems so hungry.

  100. 100.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 1:45 pm

    @mai naem mobile:

    A finacial transaction tax would help. This includes investment real estate.

    Carbon tax! Land value tax!!

    A land/location value tax (LVT), also called a site valuation tax, split rate tax, or site-value rating, is an ad valorem levy on the unimproved value of land. Unlike property taxes, it disregards the value of buildings, personal property and other improvements to real estate.[1] Land value taxes are generally favored by economists as (unlike other taxes) it does not cause economic inefficiency, and it tends to reduce inequality.[2]

    Land value tax has been referred to as “the perfect tax” and the economic efficiency of a land value tax has been known since the eighteenth century.[1][3][4] Many economists since Adam Smith and David Ricardo have advocated this tax, but it is most famously associated with Henry George, who argued for its virtues, and that because the supply of land is fixed and its location value is created by communities and public works, the economic rent of land is the most logical source of public revenue.

  101. 101.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 9, 2017 at 1:45 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    They refuse to take “yes” for an answer unless a straight white man is the one saying it.

    That is clearly a big part of it, from how they particularly focus on black/female Democrats to hate, and view identity politics as a distraction. I think there’s another half where they’re actually looking for class war. If you do not hate the evil rich, and express your policies accordingly, your policies must be illegitimate or a lie.

  102. 102.

    SatanicPanic

    August 9, 2017 at 1:45 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: They get that King Goat guy over at LGM too. I don’t know why people bother arguing anymore.

  103. 103.

    NR

    August 9, 2017 at 1:46 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Considering I voted for Obama in 2012 and Hillary in 2016, both of whom I considered to be imperfect allies but better than the alternatives, I’d say you’re wrong here.

  104. 104.

    Mike in NC

    August 9, 2017 at 1:46 pm

    Hey, I’m willing to kick in a couple of bucks to buy a Trump bobblehead for NR to stroke. Any other takers?

  105. 105.

    SFAW

    August 9, 2017 at 1:47 pm

    @NR:

    And I’m saying that “shut up and vote for us” is a poor method for winning elections.

    Which would be true if that’s what had happened. Unfortunately for you, bot-boy, it wasn’t. Except in the chunk of memory your programmers might call your “head.”

    Time for your handler to tweak your programming.

  106. 106.

    Betty Cracker

    August 9, 2017 at 1:48 pm

    To elaborate on my comment at #48, I’ve definitely seen a Sanders vs. Clinton supporter divide IRL, including in my local party organization. I just haven’t seen any evidence that it will depress turnout or drive folks to vote third party. Of course, I’m mostly talking about meeting-attending Democrats, so that sample may be as skewed as the rabid packs on social media.

  107. 107.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 1:49 pm

    @NR: New browser, who dis?

  108. 108.

    Brachiator

    August 9, 2017 at 1:49 pm

    @ Martin:

    As someone who makes most of their money off of cap gains, it’s really scandalous how this works.

    People just don’t get it. And Democrats have a hard time explaining this because, math.

    A favorite teaching example.
    Couple A is a husband and spouse with 2 teenage kids. Their income from wages is $100,000. Their federal income tax is $9,753

    Couple B is a husband and spouse with 2 teenage kids. Their income from dividends is $100,000. Their federal income tax is zero, nada, zip.

    That’s the magic of capital gains under the current law.

  109. 109.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 1:51 pm

    @Betty Cracker: I know a few Bernie or Busters, but otherwise even the most hardcore haters I know voted for Hillary, albeit while holding their nose.

  110. 110.

    jl

    August 9, 2017 at 1:52 pm

    @Brachiator:

    ‘ And not just make-work temporary “infrastructure” jobs. ‘

    Not sure why you are pissing on that concept. That is area where both Dub and Obama macroeconomic management after the two most recent recessions were historically, and for post-WWIi history, unprecedentedly poor. Krugman twitter had a graph the other day that shows the results

    Deconstructing America: public construction as % of GDP
    https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/894963280262963200

  111. 111.

    NR

    August 9, 2017 at 1:52 pm

    @different-church-lady: This is actually a good point you raise. Trump got votes in the Rust Belt because he spoke to the concerns of voters there. He promised to bring the jobs back and rebuild their dying communities. Now obviously he was selling a line of bullshit and never intended to do those things (or had any clue HOW to do them), but he spoke to what they were concerned about.

    Trump is now losing support as more and more people wake up to the fact that he can’t or won’t keep his promises, which gives us an opportunity. Let’s not squander it.

  112. 112.

    NR

    August 9, 2017 at 1:53 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Poor establishment Democrats just can’t catch a break, through absolutely no fault of their own.

  113. 113.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 9, 2017 at 1:54 pm

    at Eschaton back in the day, there was a leftier-than-thou type who followed the herd into Obama-is-worse-than-Bush territory, who would be driven into a frothing rage every time someone mentioned getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction for second homes because the only way she could afford the cabin she and her husband planned to retire to was by deducting the mortgage interest.

  114. 114.

    efgoldman

    August 9, 2017 at 1:55 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Democrats could easily overcome propaganda, voter suppression, and meddling by billionaires

    Sure. All we have to do is bait the RWNJs into pursuing something outrageous that everyone hates, like prop 187 in California or ACA repeal.

  115. 115.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    August 9, 2017 at 1:56 pm

    @SatanicPanic: Actually, universally negative wankery/transparent bad faith was NMAC/StillWithHer/Kwotwf’s deal – King Goat is mostly useful (or at least non-risible), but almost invariably proved a thread-hijacking crackpot where the OP dealt with Clinton or appealing to Trumpies.

    On a related note, I’m a fan of its switch to Disqus and wish that the pie filter here functioned like Disqus’ “block user” button.

  116. 116.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 9, 2017 at 1:58 pm

    @NR:

    He promised to bring the jobs back and rebuild their dying communities.

    So did Hillary. She talked about it a great deal. But she also talked about helping women and minorities, and Trump talked about hurting women and minorities, and the white working class found one of those approaches much more appealing than the other.

  117. 117.

    trollhattan

    August 9, 2017 at 1:58 pm

    When is somebody going to punch this douche through the neck?

    James O’Keefe, the notorious right-wing sting artist, may have just gotten busted conducting another failed operation.

    The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer reports that the League of Conservation Voters has filed a complaint against a group of individuals that it believes “could be associated with” O’Keefe right now, and who at least have documented past ties to him.

    The complaint, which was filed with the California Department of Justice last week, alleges that several individuals conducted a carefully orchestrated operation to infiltrate the League of Conservation Voters in an apparent attempt to dig up damaging information on the environmental advocacy organization.

    “LCV’s letter describes an elaborate, six-month-long scheme,” Mayer reports. “It alleges that the three operatives created false personas — backed up with fake Facebook, LinkedIn, and e-mail accounts — under which they met with ‘dozens’ of the group’s staffers, board members, and donors, and gained access to ‘confidential’ information. According to the letter, ‘at least two’ of the individuals… have reportedly worked with O’Keefe in the past.”

    The LCV started to suspect the longtime O’Keefe associates were scamming the organization last month, and it began discovering that the social media pages they offered to bolster their credentials were only created recently — and they had several “friends” from Southeast Asia, which likely indicated they used bot factories to artificially inflate their friend counts.

  118. 118.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 1:59 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Was it goblue72?

  119. 119.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 2:00 pm

    Anyway, I found out about something really cool:The Memory of Mankind Project.

    https://www.memory-of-mankind.com

    http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161018-the-worlds-knowledge-is-being-buried-in-a-salt-mine

    The stories and details they contain have stood the test of time, surviving through the millennia to be unearthed and deciphered by modern historians. But there are fears that future archaeologists may not benefit from the same sort of immutable record when they come to search for evidence of our own civilisation. We live in a digital world where information is stored as lists of tiny electronic ones and zeros that can be edited or even wiped clean by a few accidental strokes on a keyboard. “Unfortunately we live in an age that will leave hardly any written traces,” explained Martin Kunze.

    Kunze’s solution is the Memory of Mankind project, a collaboration between academics, universities, newspapers and libraries to create a modern version of those first ancient Sumerian tablets discovered in the desert. Their plan is to gather together the accumulated knowledge of our time and store it underground in the caverns carved out in one of the oldest salt mines in the world, in the mountains of Austria’s picturesque Salzkammergut. “The main point of what we are doing is to store information in a way that it is readable in the future. It is a backup of our knowledge, our history and our stories,” says Kunze.

    The Memory of Mankind team hopes to create an indelible record of our way of life by imprinting official documents, details about our culture, scientific papers, biographies, popular novels, news stories and even images onto square ceramic plates measuring eight inches (20cm) across.
    This hinges on a special process that Kunze describes as “ceramic microfilm”, which he says is the most durable data storage system in the world. The flat ceramic plates are covered with a dark coating and a high energy laser is then used to write into them.

    Each of these tablets can hold up to five million characters – about the same as a four-hundred-page book. They are acid- and alkali-resistant and can withstand temperatures of 1300C. A second type of tablet can carry colour pictures and diagrams along with 50,000 characters before being sealed with a transparent glaze.

    The plates are then stacked inside ceramic boxes and tucked into the dark caverns of a salt mine in Hallstatt, Austria. As a resting place for what could be described as the ultimate time capsule, it is impressive. In the right light the walls still glisten with the remnants of salt, which extracts moisture and desiccates the air.

    The salt itself has a Plasticine-like property that helps to seal fractures and cracks, keeping the tomb watertight. Buried beneath millions of tonnes of rock, the records will be able to survive for millennia and perhaps even entire ice ages, Kunze believes.

    In some distant future after our own civilisation has vanished, they could prove invaluable to any who find them. They could help resurrect forgotten knowledge for cultures less advanced than our own, or provide a wealth of historical information for more advanced civilisations to ensure our own achievements, and our mistakes, can be learned from.

    I contributed for free a college writing essay on ethics with a “foreword” addressing future readers. It’s really cool.

  120. 120.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 2:00 pm

    @trollhattan:

    When is somebody going to punch this douche through the neck?

    I thought violent rhetoric was upsetting to the readers? //

  121. 121.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 9, 2017 at 2:01 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: well, Hillary didn’t promise to get tough on those Black Lives Matter terrorists, and promise that people would be able to say Merry Christmas again, and tell them global warming is a hoax because liberals want to take their F250s away because elitism.
    That’s the heartland program NR is holding out for. Cause he has principles

  122. 122.

    NR

    August 9, 2017 at 2:01 pm

    @Mnemosyne: The president of Our Revolution is a black woman, but keep trying with your bullshit accusations of racism and sexism. Anything to distract from your massive record of electoral failure, right?

  123. 123.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 2:02 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    One of the smartest things Republicans did was convince people that all politicians are alike and voting doesn’t matter, because that means that Republicans win either way.

    That’s what the 20+ year jihad against the Clintons was all about — convincing stupid people like NR that there’s no difference between Republican policies and Democratic policies. And the dude is still here spouting his disproven bullshit even after what we all just saw in November.

  124. 124.

    SatanicPanic

    August 9, 2017 at 2:02 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): That’s fair, KG does occasionally say things that are reasonable when the subject doesn’t include Clinton (or he can’t shoehorn her into it somehow). And yeah, I prefer Disqus. It’s so much easier to know when someone responded to your comment.

  125. 125.

    germy

    August 9, 2017 at 2:02 pm

    The search warrant was wide-ranging and FBI agents working with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III departed the home with various records. Jason Maloni, a spokesman for Manafort, confirmed that agents executed a warrant at one of the political consultant’s homes and that Manafort cooperated with the search.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fbi-conducted-predawn-raid-of-former-trump-campaign-chairman-manaforts-home/2017/08/09/5879fa9c-7c45-11e7-9d08-b79f191668ed_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_manafort-1010am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.13441450cd87

  126. 126.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 2:03 pm

    @NR:

    I am going to be the most delicious pie filling you’ve ever seen.

    Human resources. For a given measure of human.

  127. 127.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 2:03 pm

    @NR:

    Her boss is Bernie Sanders, a straight white dude.

  128. 128.

    Brachiator

    August 9, 2017 at 2:04 pm

    @TenguPhule: RE: Ya gotta have jobs. And not just make-work temporary “infrastructure” jobs. And here Democrats are weak because they don’t really have any ideas here. To be fair, neither do Republicans, but they can fake it better.

    Can’t turn back progress. Robots and other machines in the long term are simply cheaper and more efficient when it comes to the hard and heavy lifting.

    So there are solutions, but nobody wants to hear about them because they aren’t going to be pretty or result in lots of high paying jobs for everyone who wants one. Instead, its going to be more “basic living stipends” at best.

    Good point. Statistics about GDP may become misleading, possibly irrelevant, if the largest amount of GDP growth comes from increasingly mechanized operations.

    However, I don’t know that the answer comes from any group of progressive politicians saying “We don’t know nothing about jobs or the economy, so how about we just tax rich people and redistribute their money. We don’t even know how they got it in the first place. But what they hey, let’s spread it around.”

  129. 129.

    NR

    August 9, 2017 at 2:06 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: Hillary never visited Wisconsin. She didn’t visit Michigan until the final days of the campaign. There were reasons people didn’t buy what she was saying. I’m not saying they were good reasons, but they were there.

  130. 130.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 2:07 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I remember reading an article about a similar storage medium that ended with the author noting drily that “[medium’s manufacturer] did not respond when asked if the devices needed to read these plates would be available in 10,000 years.”

    Cool stuff, though. I didn’t get to study long-term archiving as much as I would have liked in grad school, but one must focus, now mustn’t one?

  131. 131.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 9, 2017 at 2:08 pm

    @NR: Did Russ Feingold visit Wisconsin? Was he offering warmed-over Republican policies from the 90s? You fucking moron.

  132. 132.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 2:08 pm

    @germy:

    Manafort cooperated with the search

    I’m pretty sure that refusing to cooperate when the FBI shows up with a warrant is grounds for arrest, and possibly prosecution.

  133. 133.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 2:08 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:

    IMO, that’s not even that bad. Such basic income would allow many people to do with their lives whatever they please. Become an artist!

    The legislative poo-flinging to get even that much done is going to make the ACA debate look like the resolution to go to war after Pearl Harbor.

  134. 134.

    ruemara

    August 9, 2017 at 2:08 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): If they were voting Stein because they didn’t want Clinton, then they were ignoring the call to put aside their bullshit preferences and vote for the most progressive candidate that could win. If they voted Stein because otherwise they would’ve sat things out, see above. I keep saying that it was not about feelings and it was the bullshit that your vote was both a sign of your purity and a brand loyalty and people keep coming back but there’s no proof they would’ve voted for Clinton. That’s not the issue. The issue is that on the left, when they are asked to actually vote for the most realistic person when it counts, they fuck us over.

    @NR: FYI, FUCK NINA TURNER. She’s your damned Pokemon you toss out, but she’s a name that has ZERO respect in the goddamned base you fuckers need to win over for your grifting ass “revolution” to even have a shot. You pissed us off, so you’re gonna keep losing. Fuck her, fuck Our Revolution and double fuck you.

  135. 135.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    August 9, 2017 at 2:09 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I’d heard of a Japanese program similar to that, where the info was encoded onto something like a quartz flash drive – the memory was something like a quadrillion GB (sorry that I can’t get the specifics).

    I would also think that archiving all human information in an indestructible, forever-retrievable mediu would be what any real-life Faustus would be doing after his deal with Mephistopheles…if he was anything like Goethe’s Faust, and not a FUCKING IDIOT like Marlowe’s Faustus.

  136. 136.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 2:10 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    It sounds like that process would only require a magnifying glass. Assuming I’m understanding the explanation correctly, of course.

  137. 137.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 2:11 pm

    @Brachiator:

    “We don’t know nothing about jobs or the economy, so how about we just tax rich people and redistribute their money. We don’t even know how they got it in the first place. But what they hey, let’s spread it around.”

    Actually that worked for quite a long time.

    Republicans simply convinced the rubes that “they” were actually the rich or soon to be rich.

  138. 138.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 2:11 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):

    quartz flash drive

    That’s a terrible long-term archival medium.

    I would also think that archiving all human information in an indestructible, forever-retrievable mediu would be what any real-life Faustus would be doing after his deal with Mephistopheles…if he was anything like Goethe’s Faust, and not a FUCKING IDIOT like Marlowe’s Faustus.

    Fuck Marlowe.

    Anybody played Horizon Zero Dawn? Fuck Ted Faro, too.

    @Mnemosyne: A tablet holding five million characters would take more than a magnifying glass to read.

  139. 139.

    different-church-lady

    August 9, 2017 at 2:11 pm

    @NR: Absolutely correct! Offering rubes a better set of lies is the future of Liberalism!

  140. 140.

    NR

    August 9, 2017 at 2:13 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Bernie Sanders isn’t her boss. She answers to the board, of which Bernie Sanders is not even a member.

    The board, by the way, is quite diverse, as you can see here.

    But that fact doesn’t fit your narrative, so I’m sure you’ll ignore it.

  141. 141.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 2:14 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    IIRC, Feingold lost by a larger margin than Hillary did.

  142. 142.

    NR

    August 9, 2017 at 2:15 pm

    @different-church-lady: No, I’m saying we step in with good, effective policies, and follow through on them. Big, sweeping changes, not little crumbs that won’t upset the status quo.

  143. 143.

    different-church-lady

    August 9, 2017 at 2:15 pm

    @NR:

    …but he spoke to what they were concerned about.

    You have to remember that these are voters who are more concerned with which bathroom a person of ambiguous gender uses than their own economic well being.

    I know you will simply never accept it, but it wasn’t a fuckin’ empty promise of jobs that got their asses in the voting booths.

  144. 144.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 2:15 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I remember reading an article about a similar storage medium that ended with the author noting drily that “[medium’s manufacturer] did not respond when asked if the devices needed to read these plates would be available in 10,000 years.”

    That wouldn’t be a problem with this project, from the Atlantic:

    Kunze plans to distribute ceramic tokens around the world to everyone who either funds, contributes to, or advises on the project. Every 50 years, starting in 2070, he says, holders will meet to keep the memory of the capsule alive and to discuss if it needs to be reopened. The location of the mine will be carved onto each token, and it will require geological knowledge similar to our own to find it, especially as land shifts with time. This would be a safeguard against unwanted discoveries if for some unpredicted reason—nuclear war, say—human civilization disappears or regresses to the Stone Age.

    Any discoverer’s civilization would need to have scientific and technological understanding at least as far as ours to even find the location. If they can find it, they must certainly have microscopes. I can’t remember if it was on the MOM website or in an article I read, but I think it would require 10X magnification to read the text.

  145. 145.

    different-church-lady

    August 9, 2017 at 2:16 pm

    @NR:

    No, I’m saying we step in with good, effective policies, and follow through on them.

    VOTERS: Oh. Very nice. [Votes for Trump 2020]

  146. 146.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 2:16 pm

    @NR:

    Bernie Sanders isn’t her boss. She answers to the board, of which Bernie Sanders is not even a member.

    So, just to be clear, you are claiming that Our Revolution does not use and invoke Bernie Sanders as its figurehead and does not refer to his campaign or stances in any way? They are completely independent of him and never refer to him?

    Our Revolution would not exist if they didn’t have straight white dude Bernie Sanders as their figurehead. That’s what makes them safe for Broflakes like yourself — you know that the straight white dude will keep that “diverse” board in line.

  147. 147.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 2:17 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:

    Any discoverer’s civilization would need to have scientific and technological understanding at least as far as ours to even find the location.

    Conversely, if things really do go into the crapper, they may be never found because we won’t ever be able to return to that level of civilization.

  148. 148.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    August 9, 2017 at 2:18 pm

    @SatanicPanic: And on a comment system without threading like this one, such a blocking system would make offenders much easier to ignore.
    @ruemara: Of course.

  149. 149.

    SFAW

    August 9, 2017 at 2:19 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Did Russ Feingold visit Wisconsin? Was he offering warmed-over Republican policies from the 90s? You fucking moron.

    That point has been made to Native Russian more than a couple of times. “He” seems to be able to pretend, frequently, that it wasn’t written.

    Or perhaps Feingold is just a neoliberal mole, pretending to support liberal policies.

  150. 150.

    schrodingers_cat

    August 9, 2017 at 2:19 pm

    @Brachiator: There is nothing special about manufacturing jobs, if retail jobs came with the same benefits then they would be just as good. Rs have been winning since their attacks on organized labor started succeeding. Labor has little voice in the economy compared to capital and that is a problem.

  151. 151.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 2:19 pm

    @different-church-lady:

    I know you will simply never accept it, but it wasn’t a fuckin’ empty promise of jobs that got their asses in the voting booths.

    Also, this. Trump promised them a return to social superiority, and that’s what they voted for.

  152. 152.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 2:19 pm

    @NR:

    I’m saying we step in with good, effective policies, and follow through on them. Big, sweeping changes, not little crumbs that won’t upset the status quo.

    Democrats: Good Effective Policies!

    Republicans in Congress: Hahaha Fuck you!

    Republicans on Supreme Court: Hahaha Fuck you!

    Republican Governors: Hahaha Fuck you!

    Republican State Legislators: Hahaha Fuck you!

    Its almost as if NR wasn’t around from 2008-2016.

  153. 153.

    Roger Moore

    August 9, 2017 at 2:20 pm

    @jl:

    Something about the Dub economic policies was really toxic to the lower end of the distribution.

    I think the first place to look is in manufacturing jobs. The W administration sticks out like a sore thumb, and a reason people coined the term “jobless recovery” to describe the W economy. From the time we started tracking manufacturing employment to 2000, every recession had a sharp drop in manufacturing jobs followed by a rebound during the recovery. The rebound was slower during the Clinton era than it had been previously, but it still happened.

    The opposite happened during the W administration. We lost manufacturing jobs during the recession early in his first term, but there was no recovery afterward. Instead, we kept losing manufacturing jobs about as fast during the first two years of the recovery as we had during the recession proper, and the best we managed after that was to stop the bleeding. At the beginning of the first W recession in March of 2001, we had about 16.9 million manufacturing jobs. At the end of the official recession in November 2001, it was 15.8 million. In November 2003, it was down to 14.3 million. On the eve of the Great Recession in November 2007, it was 13.7 million. You can’t lose 3.2 million working and middle class jobs like that without a drastic effect on the overall economy.

  154. 154.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 2:20 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: @TenguPhule: Or they’re just salt miners.

    I also absolutely recoil at the notion that we need it to be hard to find as a “safeguard against unwanted discoveries if for some unpredicted reason—nuclear war, say—human civilization disappears or regresses to the Stone Age.”

  155. 155.

    efgoldman

    August 9, 2017 at 2:20 pm

    @NR:

    Trump got votes in the Rust Belt because he spoke to the concerns of voters there.

    In other words, Dems need better lies and liars.

  156. 156.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 9, 2017 at 2:20 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Nina Turner, Jim Hightower, Shailene Woodley and Bernie’s chief of staff. Bless their hearts, but if we want people in western Wisconsin and northern Michigan to vote for the tax increases and massive disruption of single payer, they’re gonna have to persuade Roseann DeMoro to come in from the cold.

  157. 157.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 2:21 pm

    @ruemara:

    Co-signed. All of it. ?

  158. 158.

    different-church-lady

    August 9, 2017 at 2:21 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    Democrats: Good Effective Policies!

    Republicans in Congress: Hahaha Fuck you!

    Republicans on Supreme Court: Hahaha Fuck you!

    Republican Governors: Hahaha Fuck you!

    Republican State Legislators: Hahaha Fuck you!

    Rust belt voters: Hahaha Fuck you!

  159. 159.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 2:22 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    There is nothing special about manufacturing jobs, if retail jobs came with the same benefits then they would be just as good.

    There are different skill sets involved and different benefits used to attract said skills.

    Not to be crude, but this is a “if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle”,

  160. 160.

    SFAW

    August 9, 2017 at 2:24 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    There is nothing special about manufacturing jobs, if retail jobs came with the same benefits then they would be just as good.

    Except they don’t, and they likely won’t.

    In addition, the “multiplier” effect (i.e., how many additional/secondary jobs come about because of the “primary” job) for manufacturing jobs used to be something like four-plus additional jobs for one manufacturing job. Retail (and services in general) were nowhere near that level.

    That was 30 years ago, more or less. I have no idea whether things have changed since then, nor how much, if they have.

    ETA: And the conventional wisdom has been, and likely will continue to be, that there are three primary ways to create wealth (for the populace): agriculture, mining, and manufacturing. In other words, producing something.

  161. 161.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 2:24 pm

    @jl:

    Scrolling back to agree with this. I think people vastly underestimate how much infrastructure work needs to be done in this country, and how many resources would need to be dedicated to maintaining it even after it’s all updated.

    Los Angeles is having trouble with our water mains because most of them are over 100 years old. Fixing that alone is estimated to take 30 years. That’s a whole lot of workers earning money for most of their working lives just on the replacement part of the job.

  162. 162.

    Elmo

    August 9, 2017 at 2:25 pm

    @Mike E: Is that a transliteration of “Covfefe?”

  163. 163.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 2:25 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    Not to be crude, but this is a “if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle”,

    Probably not for the reason you think you’re getting at–if retail jobs were mostly held by men and manufacturing jobs were mostly held by women, which one do you think would have high pay and good benefits and be held in esteem?

  164. 164.

    Boussinesque

    August 9, 2017 at 2:25 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: I loved Horizon Zero Dawn so much I got the platinum trophy, which I basically never bother with. Eagerly awaiting the Frozen Wastes DLC coming in November.

  165. 165.

    NR

    August 9, 2017 at 2:26 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    You said Bernie Sanders was her boss. Now you’re saying he’s a figurehead. So, are you now admitting that he isn’t Nina Turner’s boss?

    Also too, me, in comment 140:

    The board, by the way, is quite diverse, as you cansee here.

    But that fact doesn’t fit your narrative, so I’m sure you’ll ignore it.

    Oh look, I was right.

  166. 166.

    Dev Null

    August 9, 2017 at 2:26 pm

    Plenty of empirical evidence that the two big drivers of Trump’s win were “ethnonationalism” and Comey’s October Surprise.

    e.g.:

    A sense of victimhood among whites was ascendant even before Trump’s candidacy. As sociologist Arlie Hochschild documented in her extensive conversations with rural whites in Louisiana, there was a pervasive sense that the beneficiaries of affirmative action, immigrants and refugees were “stealing their place in line,” cutting ahead “at the expense of white men and their wives.” In Hochschild’s phrase, these people felt like “strangers in their own land.”

    from here:

    Resentful white people…

    And W.J. Cash documented nearly 80 years ago in Mind of the South the use of racism by the planter class to secure their economic position (needless to say, to the detriment of both poor whites and blacks.)

  167. 167.

    different-church-lady

    August 9, 2017 at 2:26 pm

    @TenguPhule: Bingo. Aptitude is chronically ignored whenever people discuss economies. It’s one of the most maddening things about people who idolize globalism: yeah, I suppose turning all our workers in to high-skills jobs thru education would work, as long as we simply ship all the people without the aptitude for that overseas to where the the manufacturing jobs are now partitioned.

    Monocultures are a bad idea in the enviornment, and they don’t work in the economy.

  168. 168.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    August 9, 2017 at 2:27 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Read Marlowe’s in 11th-grade and Goethe’s Faust: Part I in 12th.

    What makes Faustus even worse is that after he meets the Seven Deadly Sins, he agrees to a clause that, if I read it correctly, means he only gets to run around with Mephisto on earth for a week. Perhaps the only saving grace of his version is that it might be a comedy masquerading as a half-assed morality play.

  169. 169.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 2:27 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    if retail jobs were mostly held by men and manufacturing jobs were mostly held by women, which one do you think would have high pay and good benefits and be held in esteem?

    The manufacturers, because that society would be women-dominated.

  170. 170.

    SFAW

    August 9, 2017 at 2:27 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    “if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle”,

    But would she/he be allowed to serve in the Armed Forces?

  171. 171.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 2:28 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Within this century, the salt mine’s entrance will naturally seal itself.

    And I think the reasoning for why the mine should be hard to find is if an immature civilization were to somehow find the tablets, they would use them as frisbrees or something and potentially destroy them.

  172. 172.

    germy

    August 9, 2017 at 2:30 pm

    The People's Convergence ConferenceSept 8-10Join Speaker@CornelWest 4 #PeoplesTownHall&Morehttps://t.co/kytw3pY5uo#Convergence2017 pic.twitter.com/g4MiLXwgHy— Draft Bernie ? (@DraftBernie) August 2, 2017

  173. 173.

    Brachiator

    August 9, 2017 at 2:30 pm

    @jl: RE: ‘ And not just make-work temporary “infrastructure” jobs. ‘

    Not sure why you are pissing on that concept.

    In part because politicians are suggesting this not to help jumpstart the economy, but as a substitute for other economic activity. And with increases in mechanization and technology, fewer people are needed for infrastructure jobs than in decades past. Also (and this was also a problem with federal projects during the Depression and the FDR years) infrastructure jobs tend to leave women out in the unemployment cold.

  174. 174.

    SFAW

    August 9, 2017 at 2:30 pm

    @Elmo:

    Is that a transliteration of “Covfefe?”

    Da.

  175. 175.

    Another Scott

    August 9, 2017 at 2:32 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Ya gotta have jobs. And not just make-work temporary “infrastructure” jobs. And here Democrats are weak because they don’t really have any ideas here.

    Disagree.

    ASCE says there’s a $4.59T infrastructure backlog that needs to be addressed by 2025 to bring things up to “good”. Those aren’t temporary, make-work jobs.

    There are lots of other jobs that need to be done, but federal, state and local governments have been strangled. Just in the last week or so I posted about a couple of GovExec stories on the SSA. 2 years to get a disability filing approved. 25%+ of the government employees there being eligible for immediate retirement (and Donnie’s people wanting to push them out). School districts with 40+ students per classroom.

    We all also have stories we could tell about going shopping at some national chain store and being unable to find anyone who works there for help. Overworked residents, nurses, and physician assistants making mistakes from lack of sleep and overwork. Huge waiting lists for decent daycare. Etc., etc.

    Yes, jobs need to be a huge part of the picture. But Democrats have a good idea where those jobs are needed.

    The issue, as always, is fighting the toxic memes that prevent anything good being done.

    “The problems with America aren’t the result of the poor and middle-class having too much money,” is the way I like to think of it. If Democrats can keep things like that in their head, and talk with ordinary voters about it, then we might be able to more quickly turn the tide…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  176. 176.

    germy

    August 9, 2017 at 2:33 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m pretty sure that refusing to cooperate when the FBI shows up with a warrant is grounds for arrest, and possibly prosecution.

    What if they raided the wrong home! He apparently owns several homes. Maybe his documents were in his other house.

    I say, raid all his residences.

  177. 177.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 2:34 pm

    @different-church-lady:

    Monocultures are a bad idea in the enviornment, and they don’t work in the economy.

    In theory it works because each region specializes in one or two things better then everyone else so they wind up with almost all of that share of the pie. So in a perfect system, maximum efficiency is reached by having everyone specialize and simply distribute the products of production as needed.

    Where the theory all falls apart is when real life gets involved. The most efficient systems are also the ones most vulnerable to shocks, disruptions and Murphy’s Law. You have to have some generalized capacity to buffer against the risks of losing access to other parts of the specialized chain.

    But our overlords are MBAs and therefore theory overrules common sense.

  178. 178.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 2:34 pm

    @NR:

    You said Bernie Sanders was her boss. Now you’re saying he’s a figurehead. So, are you now admitting that he isn’t Nina Turner’s boss?

    No, I’m pointing out that if Bernie Sanders demanded tomorrow that Our Revolution disband, they would do so without a whimper, because the “board” and their “independence” is just for show. They exist to prop up the straight white guy as a figurehead for their “Revolution” because they know that Broflakes like yourself would never accept a Black woman as their leader.

  179. 179.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 2:34 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:

    And I think the reasoning for why the mine should be hard to find is if an immature civilization were to somehow find the tablets, they would use them as frisbrees or something and potentially destroy them.

    But they aren’t trying to prevent them from being found by pre-literate people who like to chew on rocks, they’re trying to prevent them from being found by people who haven’t invented modern geology. It’s gross.

    @Boussinesque: OMG fuck Ted Faro!

  180. 180.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 2:36 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
    Never heard of that. I know of projects like the Rosetta Stone and the HD-Rosetta. And the experimental “Superman memory crystal” which has a capacity of 360 terabytes and an estimated lifetime of more than 13 billion years.

  181. 181.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 2:36 pm

    @germy:

    I say, raid all his residences.

    Raid, Pillage, then Burn.

  182. 182.

    schrodingers_cat

    August 9, 2017 at 2:37 pm

    @TenguPhule: @SFAW: My point was a bit different if retail labor was unionized they would get better benefits than they do now.

    I will give another example, unionized grad students had far better health care benefits than the adjunct faculty and post docs at one University I attended, doing very similar work. If anything the adjuncts and post docs had more education than the grad students.

  183. 183.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 2:37 pm

    @Brachiator:

    FWIW, straight up discrimination on the basis of sex and race was practiced during the New Deal. The lion’s share of the benefits was deliberately directed to white men, with women and minorities getting what was left over.

  184. 184.

    J R in WV

    August 9, 2017 at 2:37 pm

    @NR:

    I love pie too, but my real favorite is peach kitchen, made with dead ripe fresh picked peaches!

  185. 185.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 2:37 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Also (and this was also a problem with federal projects during the Depression and the FDR years) infrastructure jobs tend to leave women out in the unemployment cold.

    Not so much now that technology has reduced the need for manual muscle power.

  186. 186.

    germy

    August 9, 2017 at 2:38 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I also absolutely recoil at the notion that we need it to be hard to find as a “safeguard against unwanted discoveries if for some unpredicted reason—nuclear war, say—human civilization disappears or regresses to the Stone Age.”

    I can imagine some futuristic Ken Hamm destroying the archive because “it contradicts the Bible” or a futuristic ISIS destroying it because it contradicts their faith.

  187. 187.

    germy

    August 9, 2017 at 2:38 pm

    @TenguPhule: No salt?

    Need salt.

  188. 188.

    Brachiator

    August 9, 2017 at 2:39 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    There is nothing special about manufacturing jobs, if retail jobs came with the same benefits then they would be just as good. Rs have been winning since their attacks on organized labor started succeeding. Labor has little voice in the economy compared to capital and that is a problem.

    I agree with you that there is nothing inherently special about manufacturing jobs. And the Republican promise to magically restore the manufacturing segment is a big lie.

    But retail jobs have been disappearing at an amazing rate. Manufacturing jobs have already disappeared.

    Labor has little voice in the economy because labor is reactive. They don’t create jobs or industries (even though the contribution of labor is obviously essential).

  189. 189.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 2:39 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    they’re trying to prevent them from being found by people who haven’t invented modern geology. It’s gross.

    But would people who haven’t invented modern geology be able to even read the tablets in the first place? Would they have simple microscopes yet?

    And don’t make me feel bad for contributing ?

  190. 190.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 2:41 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    My point was a bit different if retail labor was unionized they would get better benefits than they do now.

    I’m sorry, but your wording choice was unclear. And even then, unionized retail isn’t a silver bullet. There are hard limitations to what retail workers can ask or expect simply because the labor pool for retail is much bigger then for more specialized industries. And they are also under threat from improvements to technology. Machines can and will do what they do.

  191. 191.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 2:41 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: In archival science it’s generally conceded that, for apocalyptic-level archives, human readability trumps even longevity; a well-insulated library that can last five thousand years is better than an encoded crystal that can last 13 billion.

    Archivists actually like books for these sorts of projects. They’re cheap, and plentiful. In digital preservation, a popular method is called LOCKSS, or Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe. This is derived from the fact that far-flung distribution is probably going to be a more robust preservation solution than fancy-pants ceramic microfilm in a salt mine.

    ETA: @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:

    would people who haven’t invented modern geology be able to even read the tablets in the first place? Would they have simple microscopes yet?

    I see you’ve stumbled on a big fucking problem with this archival solution. Maybe they should include a large-print edition that says how to make a microscope.

  192. 192.

    schrodingers_cat

    August 9, 2017 at 2:42 pm

    @Brachiator: BTW I did see some of the videos and articles on BBC about independence and the partition that you told me about the other day. Thanks.

  193. 193.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    August 9, 2017 at 2:43 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I think the “Superman memory crystal” was what I read about, and I got the capacity wrong.

  194. 194.

    schrodingers_cat

    August 9, 2017 at 2:43 pm

    @TenguPhule: I agree there is no silver bullet but labor needs a seat at the table, unionization is one way to achieve it. This is true not just for retail.

  195. 195.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 2:44 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    In digital preservation, a popular method is called LOCKSS, or Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe.

    So the pron will live forever.

  196. 196.

    catclub

    August 9, 2017 at 2:46 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Their income from dividends is $100,000. Their federal income tax is zero, nada, zip.

    That’s the magic of capital gains under the current law.

    Dividends are NOT capital gains. That is the magic of various dividend exclusions that treat dividends extra nice.

  197. 197.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 2:47 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    Machines can and will do what they do.

    A machine can tell me if the jacket I’m trying on fits or if I need a different size?

    A machine can run to the back and see if the item that’s supposed to be on their shelf is back there?

    A machine can tell me if the two colors I’m holding can go together?

    A machine can do a cooking demonstration using the pan I have my eye on?

    A machine can do alterations on the dress I need for a wedding that’s in three days?

    I realize that guys don’t like shopping, but you’re vastly underestimating what retail employees actually do. It’s more than just keeping the shelves stocked.

  198. 198.

    schrodingers_cat

    August 9, 2017 at 2:47 pm

    @Brachiator: This was not always the case, I read somewhere that more than 25% of the workforce was unionized before the Reagan era and now the % is 10. In many EU countries, labor union representatives are also a part of the board of directors. That’s not the case here but Dems could talk about it and make it a part of their platform. It could become an issue like higher minimum wage has.

    ETA: The trend lines above corroborate my hypothesis, that decline of organized labor has resulted in poor outcomes for the labor force in general.

  199. 199.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 2:49 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Maybe they should include a large-print edition that says how to make a microscope.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. But the point remains: it’s unlikely a civilization not advanced enough to be able to make a microscope would be able to even find the mine using the tokens in the first place. It shouldn’t be too easy to find or else you’ll get tomb raiders in Egypt stealing and destroying the tablets.

  200. 200.

    schrodingers_cat

    August 9, 2017 at 2:51 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Yep, especially in slightly nicer stores like Ann Taylor or Talbots or the like, retail associates can take one look at you and tell your size and what will look good on you. They can be a great help when you are shopping.

  201. 201.

    Brachiator

    August 9, 2017 at 2:53 pm

    @TenguPhule: RE:
    Also (and this was also a problem with federal projects during the Depression and the FDR years) infrastructure jobs tend to leave women out in the unemployment cold.

    Not so much now that technology has reduced the need for manual muscle power.

    Technology has reduced the need for humans, period. I recently watched some retail stores being built in a small commercial space. You had pre-fabricated walls, some machines to move stuff around and lift things, and a very small, exclusively male crew. They were done pretty quickly, and the painting crew was also small, and exclusively male. Maybe something needs to be done to try to increase the number of women working in construction. But I think that these jobs will still skew male.

    Also, right now I can’t find the best recent story I saw about the impact of automation on the construction industry, but here are a few tidbits from another story:

    In 2015, a 57-story building was built in just 19 days in China using automated technology….

    According to a 2016 report by The World Economic Forum, nearly 500,000 jobs will be compromised in the construction industry alone by 2020.

    The job displacement caused by the automation of processes and the advancements in artificial intelligence will leave these workers neutralized, with no sector prepared enough to absorb them all.

    This is just the direct impact. Associated sectors like the transportation industry would also undergo a similar upheaval as the race for driverless cars continues by tech giants such as Uber and Google.

    The optimistic thinking is that automation will free up humans for new and different jobs, just as 19th century industrialization led to an economic and job boom. But in the short term, infrastructure spending may be less of a spur to economic development than the past, because fewer and fewer people are needed to do the work.

  202. 202.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 2:53 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Dude, we had Western tomb raiders in Egypt stealing and breaking shit long after we had geology and microscopes.

    Keeping basic information from people (I assume this isn’t stuff like how to build a nuclear bomb, more the complete works of Shakespeare) because you want them to be ‘sophisticated’ or ‘civilized’ enough to handle it is not just impossible, it’s immoral.

    If you are worried that the archive will succumb to barbarian raiders or, you know, early 20th-century British assholes (cf. Egypt again), make three archives.

    I’m starting to think they haven’t consulted a single librarian on this project.

  203. 203.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 2:53 pm

    @TenguPhule:
    That is a potential problem. I suppose a non-human intelligence could find it.

  204. 204.

    satby

    August 9, 2017 at 2:54 pm

    @TenguPhule: History, WTF is that? Oddly enough, I had this exchange with two Broflakes of my acquaintance today ( names deleted to protect the obtuse, everyone here knows my real name anyway):
    [ Bro 1] The Dems have to start embracing universal health care, and $15 minimum wage now not 7 years from now. The votes are there. I am a big Sanders supporter, but will never not vote for a Dem because they are not liberal enough. But Dem voters should understand who they are voting for when they vote for established Dems. The corporate donors.

    Sharon A Barrett Dems already support those. It’s so fucking tedious when Sanders supporters say otherwise.
    [Bro2] Sharon,
    Its hard to say dems support those policy positions when Pelosi has come out and verbatim said she doesn’t support single payer as a campaign issue and then tried to push it off as a state issue. I don’t hate Pelosi or anything, but its disingenuous to say that the dems support $15/h and single payer.

    Edit with quote from NYT article:

    “At a briefing with reporters last month, the House minority leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, replied with a flat “no” when asked if Democrats should make single-payer a central theme in 2018. She said state-level action was more appropriate, though she said she supported the idea in concept.”

    Sharon A Barrett So supporting the idea in concept isn’t supporting it. Ok. Her job is to work on what can be passed, her political calculations are that incremental fare better. There is a building consensus around healthcare, but there would be immediate pushback against Single payer just like against the ACA. There’s been pushback against a $15 minimum wage, though incremental improvements have successfully been enacted. As these succeses demonstrate that the dire predictions of doom won’t happen, they can be expanded on. In the meantime, people’s lives are improved, not wasted waiting watching the inevitable fight in Congress and the lies spread about the horrible effects these would cause. We could have had a better healthcare system in 1993, but it was torched by the GOP and the medical industry. Those powers are still in play, Trump is the result. You have to play the hand you’re dealt, not the hand you wish you had. .See More
    Clinton health care plan of 1993 – Wikipedia
    The Clinton health care plan, was a 1993 healthcare reform package proposed by the administration of President Bill Clinton and closely associated with the chair of the task force devising the plan, First Lady of the United States Hillary Clinton.
    EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

    Sharon A Barrett And what was St Bernard doing? ” In August 1994, near the end of the Clinton administration’s fight for a health care overhaul, Sanders joined a group of liberal Democrats — four others in the House and six in the Senate — in opposing a Senate compromise bill backed by President Clinton that was expected to extend health coverage to 95 percent of Americans.” 95% wasn’t pure enough, he was pushing for single payer. So instead of 95% of people covered, we spent the next 23 years with the same crap we had and 44 million uninsured people, of which I was often one. I have a very long memory about that bullshit artist.

    Sharon A Barrett And last fun fact, you know who else was a sponsor of a competing bill for universal health care in 1993? Nancy Pelosi, who learned from history and helped Obama successfully pass the ACA. But “she’s not a supporter”. She didn’t support getting insurance to 27 million more Americans, and she didn’t successfully hold her caucus together as a block to oppose repeal of ACA. I must have hallucinated that.

  205. 205.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 2:55 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I agree there is no silver bullet but labor needs a seat at the table, unionization is one way to achieve it. This is true not just for retail.

    Pretty much all labor is under threat right now from modernization. Technology marches on and we need to be able to avoid being stepped on when it comes full circle.

    Getting people to realize that before violence and rioting start is going to be the tricky part. (And I am being optimistic in that Trump doesn’t manage to send us back to the Stone Age first)

  206. 206.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 2:56 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:

    I suppose a non-human intelligence could find it.

    Unless we have a recognizable language rosetta stone with them, even that might be a futile hope.

  207. 207.

    NR

    August 9, 2017 at 2:57 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    No, I’m pointing out that if Bernie Sanders demanded tomorrow that Our Revolution disband, they would do so without a whimper, because the “board” and their “independence” is just for show. They exist to prop up the straight white guy as a figurehead for their “Revolution”

    What an incredibly fucked-up and offensive thing to say.

    Let’s take just one example: Deborah Parker, vice-chair of the board. Here’s her bio. She has a long record of working on behalf of women and indigenous peoples.

    Serving as a legislative policy analyst in the Office of Governmental Affairs for the Tulalip Tribes from 2005–2012, Deborah engaged in the legislative process on behalf of the Tulalip Tribes by providing quality analysis of issues most pertinent to the exercise of sovereignty and tribal governance, with particular emphasis in the areas of education, finance, taxation, and healthcare. Before joining legislative affairs, Deborah developed two unique outreach and education programs for the Tulalip Tribes. Young Mothers was a culturally relevant program for teen mothers, and the Tribal Tobacco Program sought to inspire responsible tobacco use among tribal members

    …

    As a passionate advocate for improved education for tribal members, and a belief in the inherent right of all Native Americans to expect and receive a quality education, one that is free from racial or cultural bias, Deborah is focused on educational reform which includes developing curriculum that is a true reflection of an indigenous ethics and knowledge system.

    There’s much more at the link. The argument that someone like Deborah Parker would agree to serve as window dressing for a white man is incredibly offensive. It’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever seen you say, and with you, that’s saying a LOT.

    You should be ashamed of yourself.

  208. 208.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 2:57 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I’m starting to think they haven’t consulted a single librarian on this project.

    The lack of planning for supernatural entities should have made that obvious.

  209. 209.

    rollSound

    August 9, 2017 at 2:58 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    If we do come up with great policies, this is what will happen:

    Democrats: Good Effective Policies!

    Republicans: Yes, Good Effective Policies, but only for straight/white/male people!

  210. 210.

    Brachiator

    August 9, 2017 at 2:58 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    A machine can tell me if the jacket I’m trying on fits or if I need a different size?

    A machine can run to the back and see if the item that’s supposed to be on their shelf is back there?

    A machine can tell me if the two colors I’m holding can go together?

    Amazon has some technology mojo that does all these things. And a new pilot service that lets you buy clothes and return the items you don’t want at little or no charge.

  211. 211.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 2:59 pm

    @TenguPhule:
    They do plan on having “pictograms” included in the mine, I think. With matching words. Don’t quote me, I’m working off my memory.

  212. 212.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 3:01 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:
    You’re starting to make for feel bad for contributing to this…

  213. 213.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 3:02 pm

    @TenguPhule: They better also be including things like pictograms for translation’s sake, you can’t expect any one language to last that long.

    ETA: I see they are.

  214. 214.

    schrodingers_cat

    August 9, 2017 at 3:03 pm

    @Brachiator: You can’t feel the fabric, or know how it will fit based on an app. Getting several versions of something and then returning it is a huge hassle.

    ETA: No app can replace a knowledgeable salesperson. This discussion gives me an insight into why we are turning into the United States of Frumpistan.

    ETA2: I just finished my work with a Summer Upward Bound Program, some students actually wore socks with slippers for their final presentations.

  215. 215.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 3:04 pm

    @satby:

    Ugh. I’m so pissed at the Broflakes who’ve decided that increasing the minimum wage from $7.25/hour to a mere $12/hour is so awful that it’s worth not increasing the minimum wage at all and keeping it at $7.25/hour.

    I’m sure all of the people currently getting $7.25/hour would prefer no increase at all rather than getting the paltry extra $190/week in their paychecks that a mere $12/hour minimum would give them.

  216. 216.

    jl

    August 9, 2017 at 3:04 pm

    @Roger Moore: There are time series of manufacturing employment back to early 1970s, and you can splice together proxies back to 1946, and what has happened since late 1990s is unprecedented. Only thing bigger was demobilization from WWII, but amazingly the two are comparable. I think you are correct that Dub’s disastrous macroeconomic management after what was historically a very mild recession played a big role. And also an important interaction with the height of the high dollar policy.

    I don’t think anything much is going to happen to help with a recovery. I calculated that Trump would have to do four of his famous great job deals a day, every day, for his whole term to meet his campaign promises. But his attention seems to have wandered. And they would have to be deals that were as good as he claimed, not bogus nonsense like the bogus car and air conditioning plant deals.And the real US exchange rate for manufactured good continues to climb through first 6 months of Trump admin.

  217. 217.

    J R in WV

    August 9, 2017 at 3:06 pm

    @J R in WV:

    Peach Kuchen… FUQ autocorrect that won’t Quit!

  218. 218.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    August 9, 2017 at 3:06 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    Raid, Pillage, then Burn.

    And get the order right next time!

  219. 219.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 3:06 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Ha, no! Frankly, anybody who’s serious about this stuff should be working on it, even if the implementation is (and only IMHO) flawed.

    Lots of copies keeps stuff safe, after all :)

  220. 220.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 3:08 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Amazon has some technology mojo that does all these things.

    Er, no. It doesn’t. Taking a photo of myself wearing the jacket that just arrived in the mail and sending it to a ‘bot to see if I need to put it back in the mail to return it is not the same as turning around in the store and saying to the associate, “Does this fit me okay?”

    I do think this is (primarily) a gender difference, or at least a difference between people who like to shop and people who hate it. I buy a lot of clothes online, but if I need something specific, or something that’s going to match an item I already have, I have to go to a brick-and-mortar store and have another pair of human eyes look at it.

  221. 221.

    schrodingers_cat

    August 9, 2017 at 3:10 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I agree. Sizing can be so erratic from outfit to outfit even with the same brand. Its also curves vs. st lines if you know what I mean.

  222. 222.

    different-church-lady

    August 9, 2017 at 3:11 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Some human beings will never be happy until all other human beings are unnecessary.

  223. 223.

    satby

    August 9, 2017 at 3:11 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I know, right? And 95% of the population having health care coverage without exclusion for pre-existing conditions in 1994 or 5 instead of waiting an extra 23 years? And the deaths we could have avoided (approx 45,000 per year dying without coverage, so 1,035,000 deaths due to that delay).
    This gamesmanship over purity costs lives.

  224. 224.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 3:12 pm

    @Mnemosyne: @Mnemosyne: A machine that keeps the shelves stocked and checks you out would eliminate the majority of retail positions, though. I think that’s what people mean, they’re not talking about salesfolks.

  225. 225.

    schrodingers_cat

    August 9, 2017 at 3:14 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Self checkout is much more of a hassle even at the grocery checkout, why would I want that for my retail experience. I would not shop at a clothing retailer that only used self checkout.

  226. 226.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 3:15 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    IIRC, it’s only in the last 20-30 years that women stopped routinely having off-the-rack clothes altered to fit them. That’s a big contributor to the United States of Frumpistan.

    (… says the person who wears jeans and t-shirts almost every day, but I never claimed to be a fashion plate. ?)

  227. 227.

    different-church-lady

    August 9, 2017 at 3:16 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Come sit here next to me.

  228. 228.

    different-church-lady

    August 9, 2017 at 3:17 pm

    “For a small price, I can install this little blue button to get you down!”

  229. 229.

    Brachiator

    August 9, 2017 at 3:18 pm

    @catclub: RE: Their income from dividends is $100,000. Their federal income tax is zero, nada, zip. That’s the magic of capital gains under the current law.

    Dividends are NOT capital gains. That is the magic of various dividend exclusions that treat dividends extra nice.

    My example used qualified dividends, which are treated exactly like capital gains. But the example works the same with capital gains from a sale of stock or a similar transaction. See Form 1099-DIV, box 1b.

  230. 230.

    divF

    August 9, 2017 at 3:19 pm

    @NR: And you get a pie!

  231. 231.

    Marguerite Hill

    August 9, 2017 at 3:20 pm

    @NR: Your UNORIGINAL contempt is overt and laughable. The graph shows clearly how GOP tax cuts have created greedy money-grubbing monsters like the Kochs, Adelson, the Mercers, the Waltons. The GOP has made it their raison d’etre to demonize the impoverished, impoverish the middle class, and empower & enrich the wealthy.

    Even if I were willing to concede, which I’m not, that perhaps a few Democrats may have gone along to get along, but I dare you to name one single Democrat in Congress TODAY who has the same motives and maneuvers as any one Republican.

    When you use the words “establishment Democrat” are you using them as a slur?
    A pejorative? Can you by any elasticized stretch of the imagination be referring to John Conyers, Patrick Leahy, Ed Markey, or Maxine Waters? Compare them to Mitch McConnell, Jim Sensenbrenner, Dana Rohrabacher, John McCain. Yes both groups are part of the political establishment. But which group has undermined economic equality? Economic upward mobility? Access to economic resources and increased economic solvency? By the way, I think we all see the idiocy of placing a political novice at the helm of our political establishment.

    Your use of establishment alludes to the terms corporatist neoliberal, a person supposedly who rubber stamps a centrist policy and sabotages progressive policies. How little do you know. It really shows that you merely want to weaken, divide, and diminish the Democratic Party. I’m not having it. I’m Reclaiming My Time.

  232. 232.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 3:20 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Well, robot checkout is a different technology than self-checkout, but probably won’t come for a while. I don’t imagine either of them would come to lower-throughput places like retail any time soon.

  233. 233.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 3:21 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I don’t want to get Martin started on his favorite topic, but the Apple Store manages to have both self-checkout AND a large sales staff to help customers.

    They tried to reduce their on-floor staff at one point, but customers got so livid that they fired the guy whose big brainstorm it was to reduce the number of on-floor salespeople and then re-staffed to their former levels.

    Also, self-checkout sucks. They’re actually removing self-checkout stands at our local grocery stores because they were more trouble than they were worth. The Pavilions (fancy Safeway) has replaced them with double-stacked express lane checkouts similar to the ones I’ve seen at Whole Foods.

  234. 234.

    satby

    August 9, 2017 at 3:21 pm

    @different-church-lady: I don’t enable the elimination of human positions by using self checkouts in stores. I’m paying a markup to shop there, they can damn well pay somebody to ring up my purchase and bag it. I don’t work for them for free.

  235. 235.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 3:21 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Alright then. Maybe I’ll add some more to it. I’ve been interested somewhat in archiving and saving things. I’ve made several time capsules because of it.

  236. 236.

    different-church-lady

    August 9, 2017 at 3:23 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    They tried to reduce their on-floor staff at one point, but customers got so livid that they fired the guy whose big brainstorm it was to reduce the number of on-floor salespeople and then re-staffed to their former levels.

    Having someone to talk with who knows the product inside and out is THE reason to go into an Apple Store instead of just ordering from the couch.

  237. 237.

    schrodingers_cat

    August 9, 2017 at 3:24 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Over here I am one of the better dressed people, whenever I go to India, especially in the summer, I am a frump queen. I just don’t have too many “nice” summer clothes. I had nothing to wear when I was invited to CCI, I ended up wearing my travel pants because all I had was cotton sundresses and shorts and Ts.

    ETA: Especially in Mumbai right before the monsoon its so humid that during my last trip my hair was perpetually frizzy and it was 100 degrees. I just didn’t want to take too much effort.

  238. 238.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 3:26 pm

    @satby:

    The few times I’ve used self-checkout, I somehow managed to lock it up to the point that the checker assigned to that area had to come over and unlock the machine with his/her override code. Sometimes more than once. If I was with G and he wanted to use it, I had to stand a little bit away because I swear the machine knew I was nearby and would lock up on him just on principle.

    I think the demise of self-checkout here in CA was when the legislature passed a law saying you couldn’t buy alcohol at the self-checkout because underage kids were illegally buying booze that way. Once that happened, it was the beginning of the end for self-checkout.

  239. 239.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 3:26 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I am a librarian BTW (so says my MS at any rate), if you’d like to chat about stuff there’s a contact form if you follow my nym.

    @Mnemosyne: I haven’t been to an Apple Store in a while but they’ve always just had the salesperson ring me up on a handheld.

  240. 240.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 3:29 pm

    @different-church-lady:

    I like to think that G helped contribute to the end of that policy by the (polite but very angry) nastygram he sent them after he was kept waiting for 90 minutes to pick up a phone he’d preordered.

    The head of retail got fired about six months after that. ?

  241. 241.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 3:32 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    You can ring yourself up on your iPhone now. I think they have some kind of RFID tag that shows you’ve already paid for the item in your hand.

    Obviously, this only works for stuff that’s out on the shelves and not hardware that’s kept in the back.

  242. 242.

    Brachiator

    August 9, 2017 at 3:32 pm

    @Mnemosyne: RE: Amazon has some technology mojo that does all these things.

    >Er, no. It doesn’t. Taking a photo of myself wearing the jacket that just arrived in the mail and sending it to a ‘bot to see if I need to put it back in the mail to return it is not the same as turning around in the store and saying to the associate, “Does this fit me okay?”

    I do think this is (primarily) a gender difference, or at least a difference between people who like to shop and people who hate it.<Hmmm. The quote buttons disappeared.

    Amazon's tool is crap now, but it is only going to get better. Amazon also owns the shoe seller Zappos, which is doing well. Specialty retail may hang on, but department stores are dying, taking malls with them, and endangering the smaller specialty retailers.

    I don't mind shopping, but I buy more and more from Amazon and other online retailers. I used to order stuff from Sears online, and the brands I selected always were the right size (established by visits to the physical store). What made me buy more was a reaction to a horrible work schedule, which made it tiresome to have to do physical shopping, and fast, fast, cheap delivery of the brands I wanted.

  243. 243.

    glory b

    August 9, 2017 at 3:35 pm

    @Mnemosyne: She also said in an interview that she (Nina Turner) is not interested in “Our Revolution” unifying with Demicrats, so why does the organization exist and what is their purpose?

  244. 244.

    schrodingers_cat

    August 9, 2017 at 3:39 pm

    Where is hovercraft? I haven’t seen her in a while.

  245. 245.

    Boussinesque

    August 9, 2017 at 3:43 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    OMG fuck Ted Faro!

    Seriously. I actually cried going through the story cutscenes at Gaia Prime.

  246. 246.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 3:44 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Perhaps I will sometime

  247. 247.

    The Lodger

    August 9, 2017 at 3:44 pm

    @different-church-lady: I tend to comment late to these threads, and therefore I pass up a lot of enjoyable opportunities to chime in. If Nyet Rooski isn’t getting a high enough ratio of positive/negative reinforcement, that’s kind of a shame, but why should I have to tell him, “Thanks for not sounding like a troll this time. Here’s your cookie.”

  248. 248.

    schrodingers_cat

    August 9, 2017 at 3:48 pm

    @Mnemosyne: In the Puritan Commonwealth many of our grocery stores have no booze.

  249. 249.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 3:51 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Don’t get me started again on retail consolidation and how it’s basically destroyed retail clothing. If the only place I can buy clothes in-person is Macy’s and I don’t like anything they carry at Macy’s, then I have to buy online. That’s not because buying online is inherently better, but because retail stores have fucked up their primary mission of customer service.

  250. 250.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 3:53 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I hear of these odd states that don’t sell retail booze, but I’ve never lived in one. All four states that I’ve lived in for any length of time (CA, WI, IL, and AZ) all sold liquor at the grocery store.

  251. 251.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 3:56 pm

    @Boussinesque: It’s a good game, people should play it!

    @Mnemosyne: Colorado has some weird halfway setup. For a long time it was illegal to sell food and liquor in the same place. Then people kept trying to change that, but the liquor stores got pissed off, so now I think it’s beer and wine and food can coexist.

  252. 252.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 3:56 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    A machine can tell me if the jacket I’m trying on fits or if I need a different size?

    A machine can run to the back and see if the item that’s supposed to be on their shelf is back there?

    A machine can tell me if the two colors I’m holding can go together?

    A machine can do a cooking demonstration using the pan I have my eye on?

    A machine can do alterations on the dress I need for a wedding that’s in three days?

    I realize that guys don’t like shopping, but you’re vastly underestimating what retail employees actually do. It’s more than just keeping the shelves stocked.

    Technology marches on. Everything except the color coordination is achievable by robots now. Just not cost efficient enough yet. And Japan is working on the colors issue. So yes, another 50-100 years at the current rate of robotic progress and they will be doing exactly that.

  253. 253.

    Another Scott

    August 9, 2017 at 3:58 pm

    @Brachiator: TANSTAAFL:

    [ Proposed 220 story building, 6 below ground, to be “built” in 90 days ]

    Broad Sustainable Building had intended to build a 666-metre (2,185 ft) skyscraper, but the local government wanted the world’s tallest building, hence the current plans.[10][15] The company has constructed 20 buildings in China using the same method and has several franchise partners globally. It has a planned helipad at a height of 739.8 m (2,427 ft) above ground.[16]

    As of May 2016, plans for the building’s construction are stalled, and the foundations for the planned building are being used as a fish farm.[17]

    On June 8, 2016 it was reported by the People’s Daily that the project had been dropped due to protests over environmental damage to the Daze Lake wetland. The People’s Daily said, “Central China’s Hunan province finally announced a halt on its ambitious plan to build the world’s tallest tower within one part of its rare wetland area. The Daze Lake wetland is the location where the world’s next tallest tower was originally scheduled to be built. This wetland is now listed as one of the 20 waters to be permanently protected and will follow non-construction zone policies.

    […]

    The project is planned to consume 270,000 tons of steel. For its assembly factory, sustainable building technology and independent research and development will be required. The main advantages of the building will be its earthquake resistance, energy saving, cleanliness, durability, and materials, which consist of recycled building materials, non-aldehyde / non-lead / non-asbestos building materials, etc. The technology at the core of the whole steel structure is modular construction. The building would have 6 inches (15 cm) of insulated walls and quadruple glazing, contributing greatly to energy efficiency.[23] The building will be designed to resist earthquakes of up to 9.0 on the Richter magnitude scale.[24]

    [ that last number sounds like nonsense to me ]

    Although structural details are not available, outside architects have expressed doubts that a modular design would have the stiffness on lower floors to withstand the wind loads imposed by such a height, without unacceptable amounts of sway,[25] or that the building could be built without high-strength concrete, whose curing time would preclude such a rapid construction rate.[25] Most of the construction and production of materials will take place on site so as to benefit the local economy of Changsha.[26]

    Etc.

    Disney was building modular hotels in 1970 – it didn’t end the need for people to do construction.

    tl;dr – Don’t believe the hype.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  254. 254.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 3:58 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    That’s not the case here but Dems could talk about it and make it a part of their platform. It could become an issue like higher minimum wage has.

    Republicans have successfully demonized unions in the USA under the “I got mine, so fuck the rest of you” strategy that appealed to the lowest common denominator of human greed.

  255. 255.

    schrodingers_cat

    August 9, 2017 at 3:59 pm

    @Mnemosyne: NY grocery stores too, would sell beer but not wine or hard liquor. Also strict hours enforced on Sunday, no booze before church, I guess!

  256. 256.

    Boussinesque

    August 9, 2017 at 4:03 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Absolutely agree. Usually, when I recommend games to people, I tailor my suggestions based on what genres/styles of games I know them to like, etc.
    HZD is the first game that I’ve been like “I would recommend this game to everyone, always, because it’s just that good.” Between the storytelling/worldbuilding, the varied gameplay, and the difficulty options, it feels like it’s something everyone (or at least, anyone who plays video games) can enjoy.

    ETA: Sylens’ voice actor being one of my favorite characters in The Wire just made it even better.

  257. 257.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 4:06 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    So yes, another 50-100 years at the current rate of robotic progress and they will be doing exactly that.

    So we continue to drastically underpay current retail workers because they’re going to be replaced by robots in 50 or 100 years anyway?

  258. 258.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 4:08 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    No app can replace a knowledgeable salesperson.

    But a robot at the store with the appropriate sensors and programming can. Its just not affordable yet.

  259. 259.

    Mnemosyne

    August 9, 2017 at 4:11 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    There used to be some weird rule in CA that stores couldn’t sell alcohol between midnight and 6 am, so I would sometimes make a late-night trip to CVS or the grocery store and the booze would be fenced off.

    Oh, and if you live in one of the states where you can get wine delivered to you (like for a wine club), take a look at the stickers on the package. The ones on the boxes my boss gets says they are not permitted to deliver the box to someone who is visibly drunk. Because … people order alcohol at a winery’s website and stay drunk until it arrives a week later? ?

  260. 260.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 4:13 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I don’t imagine either of them would come to lower-throughput places like retail any time soon.

    Possibly within our lifetimes (for some of us). Japan is already starting out with preliminary experimental models. Once volume production is achieved on tried and tested versions, costs will go down and shit will get very real for a lot of people.

  261. 261.

    Betsy

    August 9, 2017 at 4:16 pm

    @SenyorDave: What DO the Koch brothers really want?
    http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/06/charles-david-koch-want

  262. 262.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 4:17 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    So we continue to drastically underpay current retail workers because they’re going to be replaced by robots in 50 or 100 years anyway?

    No, just realize that the threat is on the horizon and the laws and attitudes have yet to catch up to it. Their position is going to get weaker, not stronger in regards to bargaining in the long run.

  263. 263.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 4:18 pm

    @Betsy:

    What DO the Koch brothers really want?

    Judging from their behavior, to become really tough long pork products.

  264. 264.

    different-church-lady

    August 9, 2017 at 4:18 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    So we continue to drastically underpay current retail workers because they’re going to be replaced by robots in 50 or 100 years anyway?

    No, we continue to drastically underpay current retail workers because their employers can get away with it.

  265. 265.

    TenguPhule

    August 9, 2017 at 4:19 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Because … people order alcohol at a winery’s website and stay drunk until it arrives a week later?

    College. Nuff Said.

  266. 266.

    different-church-lady

    August 9, 2017 at 4:21 pm

    @The Lodger: Maybe you misunderstood my petard: the trollish comments come out because the substantive comments don’t get the desired attention.

  267. 267.

    Jeffro

    August 9, 2017 at 4:23 pm

    @Betsy: Article has yet another recommendation for Jane Mayer’s “Dark Money” (as well it should).

    The writer almost hits it on the head: insatiable greed breeds even more insatiable greed. The Kochs are simply looking for the limits of what they can do, and haven’t found it yet.

  268. 268.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 9, 2017 at 4:25 pm

    @TenguPhule: Some of our lifetimes extend far beyond “any time soon,” especially as far as technology goes.

    @Boussinesque:

    Sylens’ voice actor being one of my favorite characters in The Wire just made it even better.

    To me he’ll always be Broyles from Fringe (which seemed appropriate here).

  269. 269.

    sherparick

    August 9, 2017 at 4:28 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Just most of us (white guys that is) are idiots. Whiny, feel sorry for ourselves, privileged idiots. At least that is the evidence given that around 65% of white males voted for Trump. I guess the good news that one out three white dudes at least try to control their asshole tendencies. I speak as one who knows, being an old, boomer, white dude.

  270. 270.

    George Spiggott

    August 9, 2017 at 4:34 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    A machine can tell me if the jacket I’m trying on fits or if I need a different size?

    “Ok Ok, we’ll take it in!”

  271. 271.

    Miss Bianca

    August 9, 2017 at 6:08 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    That’s what’s driving me most nuts about the Broflakes. They refuse to take “yes” for an answer unless a straight white man is the one saying it.

    Late to the thread, but QFT.

  272. 272.

    NR

    August 9, 2017 at 7:09 pm

    @Miss Bianca: Except it’s not true.

  273. 273.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 7:29 pm

    @NR:
    It actually is, N(R).

  274. 274.

    NR

    August 9, 2017 at 7:38 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: No, it’s actually not. I already pointed out how diverse the leadership of Our Revolution is. Sorry if the facts don’t fit your narrative, but that’s how it is.

  275. 275.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 9, 2017 at 8:59 pm

    @NR:

    The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the pie soul, is “What does a pie want?”

  276. 276.

    satby

    August 9, 2017 at 9:53 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: but at least NR can talk intelligently about one subject.

  277. 277.

    NR

    August 9, 2017 at 10:03 pm

    @satby: Even if it were only one, that would make it one more than many of the commenters here.

  278. 278.

    Ruckus

    August 9, 2017 at 10:44 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
    For a number of us that would be a pretty neat trick, We are old, our dads stopped getting older a while back.

  279. 279.

    No One You Know

    August 10, 2017 at 2:12 am

    @satby: Pie?

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

On The Road - PaulB - Olympic Peninsula: Salt Creek Recreation Area & Kalaloch Beach
Image by PaulB (5/10/25)

Recent Comments

  • bbleh on Political Wins Open Thread (May 15, 2025 @ 12:42pm)
  • Gin & Tonic on Political Wins Open Thread (May 15, 2025 @ 12:41pm)
  • The Audacity of Krope on Squishable Morning Thread (May 15, 2025 @ 12:40pm)
  • YY_Sima Qian on Squishable Morning Thread (May 15, 2025 @ 12:40pm)
  • Manyakitty on Squishable Morning Thread (May 15, 2025 @ 12:37pm)

PA Supreme Court At Risk

Donate

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
War in Ukraine
Donate to Razom for Ukraine

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Meetups

Upcoming Ohio Meetup May 17
5/11 Post about the May 17 Ohio Meetup

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Hands Off! – Denver, San Diego & Austin

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

PA Supreme Court At Risk

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!