Elizabeth Warren on The View expertly pitches her wealth tax and explains how she'll pay for universal childcare, $800B into public education, etc. without increasing middle-class taxes. The cherry on top is Liz not even acknowledging Meghan McCain's rude interruption attempts. pic.twitter.com/HKs0HXY7qL
— Adam Best (@adamcbest) January 7, 2020
NEW: Warren & her allies—long resistant to discussing process, polls, etc.—are making a surprising closing pitch abt electability: that she’s the best candidate to unite the warring Bernie/Biden factions, making explicit what’s long been the quiet strategyhttps://t.co/KAzlzOBcRQ
— Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) January 10, 2020
… It’s the first time Warren’s orbit has made the electability pitch so overtly. But the campaign has been quietly implementing that strategy since 2018, when Warren raised or donated $11 million to Democratic candidates and began drawing subtle distinctions with Sanders (She described herself as a “capitalist to my bones,” in contrast to Sanders preference for democratic socialism). Warren has also mostly abstained from attacking other Democrats in an attempt not to alienate supporters of other candidates. Her campaign staff reflects the approach, with a mix of officials from Sanders, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s past campaigns.
“She has gone above and beyond to convince establishment types that she is a team player and a Democrat,” said Ian Sams, former national press secretary for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. “I don’t think they see her as a left-wing extremist, and they respect her seriousness and policy chops.”…
Julián Castro sounded like a pundit on Tuesday night when he took the stage in Brooklyn to formally endorse Warren at their first rally together.
“The polling says, well, perhaps that a lot of older voters, go one way, right? And younger voters go another way,” Castro said in implicit references to Biden and Sanders. “You have a preponderance of younger voters that support Elizabeth and older voters that also support Elizabeth. … Elizabeth Warren is the candidate who can unite the entire Democratic Party.” Highlighting that message, the Warren campaign posted that section of Castro’s remarks on social media.
“She’s winning the policy primary, but now she needs to transfer that energy to try to win the electability primary,” said Jared Leopold, a Democratic consultant who worked on Gov. Jay Inslee’s presidential campaign. “Cable news has warped voters’ brains and turned everyone into mini-pundits. That means candidates need to win not just on policy but on process.”…
… [A] poll from The Economist and YouGov this month still showed the potential of Warren’s strategy. Asked whether there are any candidates they would be disappointed to see as the nominee, only 11 percent of voters said they’d be disappointed by Warren, the lowest of any candidate. By contrast, 21 percent said they’d be disappointed by Biden and 16 percent by Sanders. Other polls in recent months have reflected a similar sentiment about Warren.
“When we get into the phase here where it will be about closing the deal with voters and caucusgoers, starting from the largest set of consideration is a good place to be,” said Warren’s chief strategist Joe Rospars in a podcast interview last fall with Democratic strategist David Plouffe. Rospars was referring to the notion of being a candidate whom Democrats were open to voting for, even if they were seriously considering supporting another candidate.
“Elizabeth Warren is at the top of people’s consideration set,” Rospars said, “and the person that the fewest number of people would be disappointed if she’s the nominee.”
This. It's incredible to watch sexist tropes flow around whatever obstacles they encounter and re-form. Warren is so likeable, over 100K people have waited hours in line to take a selfie with her. So now that has to be reshaped into some other bad thing. Undaunted, she persists. https://t.co/DzBZI3up4r
— Adam Jentleson ?????? (@AJentleson) January 9, 2020
“Wall Street can't stand Elizabeth Warren but most of America can't stand Wall Street. So … maybe she's right.” ??? @morningmoneyben pic.twitter.com/awELuNm5D0
— Murshed Zaheed ? (@murshedz) January 10, 2020
.@AJentleson, close w/ Warren’s team, articulated the unity pitch.
“Biden won’t be able to get Bernie voters given his position on M4A and coziness with banks/credit cards. Bernie will have a hard time getting Biden voters because he’s made 0 effort to repair the rifts of 2016”— Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) January 10, 2020
JPL
If bernie bros think that trump is better than Biden, then they might as well stay home. f..kem
Baud
Here’s the clip of Rachel skewering the NYT on their coverage of emails. Go to the 5:00 mark if you don’t want to see the whole clip.
Baud
Good news and bad news on latest Iowa poll. Bad news is that Bernie is in first place with 20%. Better news is that Warren is at 17% and Buttigieg and Biden around 15%.
15% is the cutoff for delegates, so there will be a lot of caucusers moving to other candidates. At this point I feel like the race is now Bernie vs. a slew of Dems.
Credit where it’s due. Bernie said a long time ago that this was his strategy to win in a divides field. I hope it ultimately fails, but it was a solid strategy.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Bestest news is that Baud! 2020! is in firstest place in our hearts.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
If only they let hearts vote!
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: If they let bones vote, you’d get 206 votes from every jackal.
eclare
Reading WaPo article about how even though Iraq wants US troops to leave, we will stay. How is that legal? Still under that damn AUMF? But if the country wants us to leave, do we go to war again to stay?
Baud
@eclare:
Last I heard, the vote for us to leave was non-binding. They haven’t officially asked us to leave as a legal matter.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato: The whole thing is rigged, man.
The Dangerman
@Baud:
Perhaps someone can explain to Iowans the foolishness of nominating a near Octogenarian with heart problems. Maybe smelling all that pig shit makes one high? Who knew?
OzarkHillbilly
@eclare: @Baud: Also only half of the Iraqi Parliament voted, the assumption being the other half want the US to stay but knew that voting against the resolution would have painted themselves as not willing to defend Iraqi sovereignty. So they abstained by not showing up. It was a show of internal Iraqi politics, not unlike the recent House war powers resolution act. It passed easily on DEM votes, but now it goes to the Senate where it will fall into the black hole of Mitch McConnell’s desk
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s a little bit more than a show. It gives be Iraqi government a little bit of extra leverage in dealing with the administration regarding the terms of our continued presence.
Betty Cracker
Still trying to parse the clusterfuck around the “draft” letter that was delivered to the Iraqi PM last week, which indicated troop withdrawal. Our government lies to us all the time and is headed by an erratic fool and his cabal of bumbling toadies, so it’s hard to tell what’s really happening. But that letter makes me think there’s more going on here than Iraqi political posturing.
TS (the original)
@Baud: Thanks – worth watching it all – except the rant from Mike Flynn
RandomMonster
@Betty Cracker: Russia would like us to leave.
JPL
OT Have we heard from Skepticat recently about the conditions on Grand Abaco. I think that was his nym.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@The Dangerman:
That would be a stupid, lazy, narcissistic old with ideas that are as stupid and even more poorly thought through as Warren’s wealth tax.
Baud
@TS (the original):
Hate trumps love.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: What it does is show exactly how divided, and fragile, the Iraqi govt is. I doubt it gives them any leverage over the US at all, any more than the House vote restrains trump.
I see it as a warning to us that the whole damned thing could come apart and fall off the wall. Do we really want to put Humpty Dumpty back together again? Will it even be possible? We’ve spent 2 trillion there already. Does anyone think US voters, both left and right, want to spend another trillion?
Iran, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia…. and Russia behind the scenes, they each want something different out of this, what will that even look like?
I’m just spitballing here, not making any predictions but I feel like we are standing at a precipice in the dark. We can’t stand here forever and we can’t go backwards. We can go left, right, or forward but staying is not an option. It might be 7 inches to the left, a foot straight ahead, a 400′ chasm to the right. Or maybe a different order.
And donald trump is flipping coins.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ? ??
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker:
If it makes you feel any better the erratic fool and his cabal of bumbling toadies, can’t tell what’s really happening either. Wait a minute, that’s really not a very comforting thought, is it?
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Steeplejack (phone)
@rikyrah:
Good morning. ?
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I guess we’re gonna find out this election cycle.
Hildebrand
@The Dangerman: This is what I simply do not get – how can anyone support Bernie when it’s obvious he has no business running.
On top of that, just because the Democrats are polite enough not to make an issue of his significant health concerns, doesn’t mean the Republicans, and therefore the media, won’t mention his heart attack with every waking breath. They won’t have to screech ‘socialist’ 24/7, just ‘wonder’ about his health.
If the Bernie-bros want a progressive who happens not to be in creaky health, they have one. I just don’t understand the cult.
Quinerly
@rikyrah: Good morning! Wicked storms here last night. I really want to hibernate today. Too much to do, though.
MomSense
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I’m preparing myself for disaster. It’s like being in a slooooow motion car accident and you are sort of suspended in the horror of the approaching impact.
Quinerly
@JPL: I have missed his nym and wondered also. Seems several regular commenter have dropped out. Any SteveinAtl or Corner Stone sightings? Helen who came back from Ireland sightings? ?
Betty Cracker
@Hildebrand: A man that age who’s had a heart attack has a 1 in 5 chance of having another. It’s flat-out irresponsible for Sanders to stay in the race, if the goal is to eject Trump and advance progressive values. It’s an ego thing.
Baud
@Quinerly:
Steve has been missing for about a month. CS hasn’t been around for a long while now.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: It seems to me that Steve does this from time to time when the demands of his job require it.
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: I just read somewhere that only about a third of voters in the early primary states have made up their minds. Too soon to panic!
debbie
@Baud:
That is good. It is a shame what they’ve become, and they have much to account for
I don’t know if our “side” has good hackers, but I’d like them to hack into the RNC and show clips of Hillary’s Stern interview. The ensuing heart attacks would be very rewarding.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
Didn’t Adam imply as much?
Baud
@Hildebrand:
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I should be so responsible. No telling what I could accomplish.
Quinerly
@Baud: I think CS’s departure was very abrupt. I guess it’s normal to wonder if something happened to him. I think it’s been close to a year.
Baud
@Quinerly:
Possible. I haven’t implemented any kind of BJ alert if something happens to me.
Gin & Tonic
@mrmoshpotato: I wonder if mine count for more, what with all the extra hardware.
Hildebrand
@Baud: ‘He’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!’
Of course, who wants a messiah in creaky health? If this person is supposed to lead us out of the wilderness, I’d like to think that they wouldn’t drop dead from the simple business of walking.
hueyplong
It seems likely the party will nominate whichever candidate emerges as the alternative to Bernie. All that Iowa poll tells me is that we’re still figuring out who that alternative is. Whenever one candidate starts to emerge, the ratfucking starts against her/him, the most obvious examples being Biden (Trump’s wannabe mobster nonsense in Ukraine) and Warren (Wall Street types beshitting themselves).
OzarkHillbilly
@Hildebrand: Well, you know the one to lead us out of the wilderness is required to never reach the promised land.
Immanentize
what will happen if Warren ‘wins’ in Iowa?
The latest poll is just one poll and really doesn’t fit a Bernie surge trend, so it is just stating what has been true for a few months, B, B, B and Warren are all top Iowa candidates. Biden has not really had a solid grip on the State like he has nationally. Who is on top? Warren? Buttigieg? Bernie? Biden? That’s been changing around in the polls. It’s a pretty close four way in a caucus State. If Bernie supporters don’t reach 15% in someone’s living room, will they opt out? Or go to Biden? Or Warren? Or split up? Who the fuck knows. Not me!
polyorchnid octopunch
@Hildebrand: Fundamentally it’s about people who wish to defer thinking to others.
Immanentize
@Quinerly: I remember someone or other saying they were in contact with CS and he is OK. This is back when I was pressing the hypothesis that “Plato nailed it” was just a CS sick puppet. I was told he wasn’t by ????? who was still in touch with CS
germy
The smirk on Meghan’s face when she can’t dominate the conversation with Warren. Meghan even turns and looks out at the audience, as if to say “She won’t let me get a word in, amirite???”
Immanentize
@Immanentize: From the reporting on the Iowa poll that worries Baud:
JPL
@Quinerly: I thought that CS made his/her intention to leave clear. I do hope that skepticat was able to rebuild although I read that many residents are dependent on international help.
btw pretty big gust of wind here. It lifted a closed umbrella out of the stand. It’s been in the stand for a few years so maybe loosened overtime.
germy
Re: The cast of the The View
Interesting that the conservative viewpoint is carried by two trustfund babies. While the liberal (such as it is) side is carried by Joy Behar, who worked her ass off to get where she is. As did Whoopi (who struggled to make ends meet early in her career). Sunny Hostin made the effort to get her JD from Notre Dame Law School.
And yet the most talkative, combative and opinionated one is the beer heiress.
JPL
@Immanentize: The next debate should help the rest make up their mind.
burnspbesq
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
If the only assets in the world were publicly traded securities, Warren’s wealth tax would work beautifully.
Alas …
JPL
@germy: Apparently beer heiress didn’t show up Thursday after a negative article came out.
OzarkHillbilly
Over the years, I’ve had a hand in discovering I don’t know how many previously unknown caves and new passages in known caves. My name is on more than a hundred cave maps and there are dozens of others where my nom de plume appears (long story, don’t ask) I know people whose names are on a thousand or more cave maps. We’re all pretty proud of our accomplishments, however great or humble they may be.
This kid discovered a whole new world at the age of 17.
Shit.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
I’m seeing a lot of group think and hypotheses about the electorate and politics that make no sense to me and I don’t see us headed in a good direction. I went from calling Iowa to calling in Maine on the Senate race and it has really soured me on people.
Then there are the sweet college kids who have been working during their winter break scanning old files for destruction. They lurve their Bernie and they are super sweet and well meaning, but they are so low info it’s infuriating. I just smile at them because I can’t start every conversation by adjusting the onion on my belt before I explain what actually happened on every single issue. I do want to find out if there is some sort of Bernie equivalent to the Twilight Bark because they all know instantly when he is up or down a percentage in any random poll.
germy
@JPL: She takes lots of time off.
Conservatives aren’t big on paid family leave, but that doesn’t apply to her. She took a few months off after her father died. The rest of us are expected to be back at work within a few days after a family tragedy.
Immanentize
@JPL: I think that’s possible. I hope it’s a good debate in that the moderators ask good questions of the six and then let them answer.
Betty Cracker
Deleted because fucking code.
MomSense
@burnspbesq:
The Uber wealthy are probably laughing their asses off that we think they are actually scared of Warren.
burnspbesq
@Hildebrand:
It’s all about Warren’s lack of a Y chromosome. Nothing more.
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: Weird how they simultaneously sprang into action when she briefly took the lead, though. Seriously, virtually every multimillionaire celebrity pundit launched a fresh set of anti-Warren talking points, the print media people who savaged Clinton rolled out new narratives, Bloomberg jumped into the race, Patrick launched a preposterous doomed bid from Massachusetts, etc. You’d think they’d just snicker behind their beringed hands if Warren posed no threat.
burnspbesq
@Betty Cracker:
With real interest rates hovering right around zero, this is one tool available to the Fed that’s known to work.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2020/01/04/the-new-tools-of-monetary-policy/
germy
Betty Cracker
[Retrying with code…]
Here’s Warren talking about a bombshell revelation that was buried in a WSJ article yesterday:
Such a revelation would be screaming front-page headlines if any other president started a deadly conflict to save his own hide. Ditto the billions of dollars in quantitative easing pumped into the economy to inflate the stock market, the refusal to come clean with taxpayers about how much money Trump is squandering at self-branded resorts, the Ukraine shakedown, etc. The primary driver of U.S. domestic and foreign policy is Donald Trump’s personal and/or political benefit.
OzarkHillbilly
Water is wet, the sun is hot, and black is black.
Spanky
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s pretty cool! But the main thing I take away from that article is the shitty state of science journalism displayed. “NASA” is an acronym, Grauniad! And you don’t “peer through” TESS. If anything, teasing that discovery out of the data is more impressive than finding something by “peering through” an instrument.
I could go on, but I have some clouds I have to go yell at.
Chris Johnson
@burnspbesq: What people don’t get is that a stupidly tiny wealth tax would help.
I’ve run some computer models which establish that with just a few initial conditions (like, if you don’t have a dollar you can’t spend a dollar) an exponential wealth distribution turns up WITHOUT merit. The thing is you can’t tell which entity is going to be the top banana as they are all equal, just exchanging money randomly, and it won’t stay with any given one forever. But, you still get the same ‘1%er’ distribution, without merit or anything other than randomness.
Which kinda figures.
But if you put in an absurdly tiny wealth (not income, wealth) tax, things turn from the exponential curve to just a random distribution and the bottom (the losers at any given moment) join the rest of the distribution rather than being a ‘tail’ of absolute charity cases to accompany the ‘point’ of that one entity that has twice or ten times what literally everybody else has. You don’t need ‘equality’, not even close. You need to break that quirk of value-exchange, to get it so it’s not by default an exponential distribution.
Of course when we add merit and greed we get the current state, where single individual people have wealth greater than half the citizenry PUT TOGETHER. That’s when you add merit to the already unreasonable mechanics of the situation. That’s what people defend. (when they are monsters, and also quite insane.)
Cure’s the same, just more effective and even less likely for the single winner to practically notice. If you go from 40 billion as a private individual, to 39.9 billion as a private individual, you absolutely do not get harmed in your status. You notice, because you’re the kind of monster that would lose your damn mind over such a thing, but it literally doesn’t hurt you, especially when your neighbor with 4 billion also gets whacked to 3.99 billion.
Wealth tax is absolutely the correct thing. Wealth tax used to build infrastructure and to hire government workers for building things like solar, to fix roads and bridges, etc… Anyone who thinks work is over just because capital makes more money playing tricks with investments, or because computers exist, is a fool. Climate change means we are all going to be bailing, hardcore, and there will be enormous labor to be done.
If nothing else, disaster relief for places that are not just doing disaster capitalism and using the carnage as a way to seize real estate that belongs to unwanted poors.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: trump is their OJ.
Eric U.
if either Biden or Bernie were going to win, there wouldn’t be much of a contest right now. I’m a little surprised that Biden isn’t getting more negative press from a horse race perspective. By now, he should have proven to himself that he’s no stand in for Obama
OzarkHillbilly
@Spanky:
Yep, they even state as much in the article, but it’s shorthand, saves ink and bytes.
Cukier has much to be proud of, hell I’m proud of him. I hope he goes far.
ETA: and how boring it is to go thru all that data, my eyes glaze over just thinking about it, but he spotted it and recognized the anomaly for what it was. Damn.
Betty Cracker
@burnspbesq: I’m no economist, but people who are note that tools like QE make sense in a weak economy but create a sugar high when the economy is strong and reduce options available if it takes a turn for the worse. Do you disagree?
Quinerly
@JPL: missed CS’s leaving. He holds a fond place in my heart. When I made one of my very first comments, he accused me of being a troll. A toast to Corner Stone!
Quinerly
@Immanentize: I missed all of that.
chopper
@Betty Cracker:
if QE is the only real tool the fed has with any reasonable effectiveness available to deal with a downturn, god help us.
OzarkHillbilly
I used the phrase “black is black” up above and it tripped my whistle so I had to look up the song. Oh my gawd, this video. ROTFLMAO.
MagdaInBlack
@MomSense:
Funny you should mention smiling to youself at low information.
I am nowhere near as knowledgeable as most folks here, Im mostly here to learn. BUT in my work environment, I am you. I have to take a breath and remind myself I have neither the time nor energy to give the history lesson it would take for you to understand whats really going on.
Its really breathtaking and a wee bit frightening, the lack of background knowledge behind the beliefs I hear.
Quinerly
@Baud: you need to get right on that.
Quinerly
Two US service members killed in Afghanistan. MSNBC reporting.
Betty Cracker
@chopper: As we know, Trump bullies the Fed about rate cuts all the time. Like I said, I’m no economist, but his motives seem pretty clear to me.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
There are other, IMO, more plausible explanations.
Feds have been pumping a ton of money into the market which is a really bad sign. Some of the changes made to Dodd Frank will mean a wider crash if the markets do tank. The polling in states like Virginia showing Bernie, Buttigieg and Warren losing to Trump are concerning. Warren’s principled decision on fundraising is really bad news for down ticket races. I can’t stand Bloomberg, but he is at least competent and has to be thinking Dems have lost their fucking minds.
Betty Cracker
@Quinerly: Fuck. Our nephew is there with the Army, so we hold our breath every time one of those reports comes out. Seems like a lot more of them lately.
Chris Johnson
@burnspbesq: Also, it seems to me common knowledge that global financial assets have exploded in an unprecedented way, to where they dwarf everything else. It’s very hard to even find information on this as it is the fundamental fantasy in the house of cards that is our economic system: we’re basically hostages to the bankers and the 0.001%.
For all practical purposes, the only assets in the world ARE financial assets. The ‘leverage’ of it is extremely exaggerated and to call attention to that risks blowing it all up, but that’s also why wealth tax would work beautifully. You are truly not taking into account just how rich the rich are, and the forms of their wealth. The whole point (as with the economic crisis Obama weathered) is that things have never been so wildly out of balance: out of balance in the exact way you refer to, that would make Warren’s plan ‘work beautifully’. You said it, I didn’t :)
sab
@Quinerly: It is the rare commenter here who hasn’t been accused of being a troll. It’s part of the unofficial initiation from lurking to commenting.
Omnes Omnibus
@OzarkHillbilly: I’ll see that and raise you the Johnny Hallyday version.
germy
@sab: I was called a “concern troll” once for expressing mild concern about something.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
I am so depressed. I really don’t think I can vote for him. It’s going to be really thinking about an exit strategy from this stupid country.
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: Hmmmm…. Does being called an asshole count?
zhena gogolia
@hueyplong:
Why doesn’t the ratfucking ever go against Bernie? Have you asked yourself that question?
MagdaInBlack
@OzarkHillbilly:
i love those old videos ? youve sucked me in to youtube with my coffee.
Eta: It’s snowing in Chicagoland ?
VOR
Yes, but with Trump none of this is news. Of course he acts like this, it’s Trump. Everyone in the media knows it and so his base will never hear about it because Fox won’t cover it.
Another example is his claim at his rally the other day that he should have won the Nobel Peace Prize because he saved Ethiopia. Or Eritrea, he wasn’t clear which country he saved with his mighty deal-making. The BBC covered this claim in a standalone article. CNN buried it with other fact checking from the rally, probably because their editors shrugged and figured it was just more Trump word vomit and non-serious.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Jesus, you go away for a couple of weeks, and every thread is full of people wailing “Where is Baud? Woe is me!” I think you got yourself covered. The rest of us could be dead in our homes being eaten by cats,* and few would notice.
*I do not have any cats.
OzarkHillbilly
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh. My. Fucking. Gawd. I’m having flashbacks. No wonder we turned to drugs.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
lol
sab
@Betty Cracker: Nurse’s aide has son-in-law there.Scary.
I still remember the national press during the early part of the Iraq War talking about nobody much knows anyone on the miliary. WTF?
I live in a small housing development, about 450 houses. I remember walking my dog through it right after the Iraq War started.We had 52 blue star banners in windows. And 10 families on my little one block street had cousins or nephews deployed. Both of my stepsons’ best friends went. Our local TV news anchor was National Guard who got deployed. Our neighbor at the top of the street was National Guard who got deployed, leaving his wife behind with two pre-schoolers and a newborn. She had a redwhitebluestriped magnet on her car shaped like a heart torn in half: “half my heart is in Iraq”
germy
@Omnes Omnibus:
If I dropped dead and my cat took over my commenting duties nobody here would notice the difference. Maybe less typos.
Omnes Omnibus
@OzarkHillbilly: When you mention the that song and a video, that is where my mind went immediately. I was surprised when I clicked on yours.
Spanky
@OzarkHillbilly: Forget it, OH. They’re French.
rikyrah
@Baud:
Bernie is losing to Steyer in South Carolina.
He is basically nowhere with Black voters.
the number of states in 2020 with caucuses, which Bernie won big in 2016, is halved. They have turned into primaries.
Spanky
@germy: My cats would troll this place so bad it would put the Rooskies to shame.
Omnes Omnibus
Fewer. Damn it, fewer.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
You don’t even have to die. If you pass out they sometimes think you have died and they start with the eyes! A friend of mine did a surprising number of reconstructions for people who had their eye eaten by a beloved cat or dog.
OzarkHillbilly
@MagdaInBlack: I’m sorry. It really is hilarious to be looking back at those times with these 2020 eyes. I’m like, “Was I really that much of a dork?” No, I was worse.
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: We’ll have to agree to disagree there. I don’t find it remotely plausible that celebrity TV pundits and major daily political teams who spent all of 2016 huffing Donald Trump’s farts and distributing Bannon-funded smears on Hillary Clinton are now seriously concerned about policy. As for Bloomberg, I think he hates Trump and wants to protect his piles of cash. More power to him on the former, but the latter explains why he was a Republican until they went completely off the rails.
satby
@Omnes Omnibus: true, but Baud has Baudies like Bernie has bros.
Hmm, maybe that’s not quite what I mean.
@Immanentize: I miss CS. I wish he still popped in occasionally. I wonder how he and his son are doing, he’s a devoted dad (like you).
sab
@Baud: We did vociferously notice when you were gone. So you do need to get a notification plan in place.
Spanky
@rikyrah: Good news for zhena gogolia8. Bernie ain’t gonna be the nominee.
(* As well as the rest of us, but that’s in response to her lament at #85.)
Spanky
@MomSense: Wait, what?
mad citizen
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh my gosh, this is awesome. A comment says they were a Spanish band with a German singer singing in English (obviously). This is begging for a Jimmy Fallon/Paul Rudd remake, like their Styx “Too Much Time on My Hands” re-do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFP3uD_gXsQ
The Fallon/Jack Black re-do is also hilarious (I never knew the original, “More Than Words”): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ISYT6EeUM0
I appreciate the economics talk, I spent years in grad school on this, but don’t follow much now. QE sounds like a laxative for the economy. On a wealth tax, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. All policy is kind of messy.
Quinerly
@sab: I know. He was pretty rough on me. It was a few days into my early retirement. I had decided to spend more time with Balloon Juice. ?I was watching the Comey presser just before the election. Horrified. Made a comment like, “my God, he’s going to indict her.” I was just reaching out. Watching it alone. CS jumped me in a heartbeat. As we all know sometimes stuff doesn’t translate well if you don’t know the person, can’t see the look on her face. Up until then, I had been chasing Ozark around on dead threads for a year or 2 trying to catch him because of a late night music post of his from years ago. The music post was a YouTube with 2 musician friends of mine. I knew Ozark and I at some points in our lives had traveled in the same circles. Finally confirmed it. ? Actually, I think we connected on that Comey thread or someone told me I could catch him at 4:30AM. I guess some could say Ozark changed my sleeping habits. But I digress…. (yes, I’m joking.)
OzarkHillbilly
Our, well in this case the Brits, police.
Oh well, I feel better now. If only US police can do the same for Black Lives Matter.
Quinerly
@Betty Cracker: and for the most part, it’s not even news.
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus:
@OzarkHillbilly:
Hey now! I’m a big Johnny Hallyday fan! Check out his version of Hey Joe or Knock on Wood
MagdaInBlack
@OzarkHillbilly:
LOL…..its ok, I was an Osmonds fan…….
But, the Soul Train and American Bandstand are my fave and its just fun to laugh at our younger selves ?
OzarkHillbilly
@Quinerly:
If you hate it, I apologize. If you love it, I apologize to everyone else here. ;-) (just joking, it’s nice having you around)
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
“Raise” is doing a lot of work there.
Omnes Omnibus
@Immanentize: Whatever. It does not change the fact that the one particular video exists and has been seen by human eyes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: I should have gone with “Oh yeah? Well, take this, you bastard!” instead?
OzarkHillbilly
@MagdaInBlack: Soul Train and American Bandstand were great. I can’t say I watched them all because I had a mother who thought I shouldn’t waste my life in front of a TV, but if she wasn’t home…
zhena gogolia
The back button still doesn’t work.
chopper
@germy:
you mean “fewer”. your cat would have gotten that right.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Now you done it. I found Tom Jones doing “Ghost riders in the Sky“. I hope your heart and lungs are up to it.
ETA: it’s even better than I thought, a weapon of mass destruction!
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: JRinWV called me a troll a few years back. It really hurt my feelings because I had been commenting for at least a decade by then. I would have much preferred to be called an asshole, because I utterly deserved that, but “troll” implies newly commenting Russian bot not a real person.
But since I was being an asshole I got over it. I don’t know that the innocent real person commenter I insulted got over it. I feel bad about that but can’t really fix it except by trying to do better going forward.
MagdaInBlack
@OzarkHillbilly:
I only got to watch them at friends homes. Also Midnight Special with Wolfman Jack ?.
That was a special treat only for sleepovers.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
I never imagined we would come to a place where the Iranian Ayatollah has proven he has more integrity than either the President of the United States or whatever Putin’s fucking title is.
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly: In all honesty, I have followed BJ since Cole’s conversion. Never bothered to sign up, didn’t follow comments that much. And of course, I’m repeating myself. . Probably wouldn’t have bothered signing up but for that dead music post with your YouTube of Charlie P and Mike P. It was days old but I stumbled on it and kept going back to it trying to summon you.?. I was such a novice about the actual comments I didn’t even understand that once a thread was dead it was dead. That thread probably has me tagging you 10 times over a few days. I was on a mission and I adore “small world stuff” plus it was during a period in my life I saw Charlie P once a week. The rest is history. Related, I miss those music threads. Were they Fri or Sat nights? Seems like I remember raven posting lots of good stuff and another guy posting great YouTubes. Particularly remember “raven” because I have a “thang” for ravens. It’s only gotten worse since my NM treks.
OzarkHillbilly
@MagdaInBlack: Wolfman Jack…. Those were the days.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Touché.
Sloane Ranger
Just watched an episode of Perry Mason and Perry’s on a plane when a guy’s gun falls out of his briefcase at Perry’s feet. Perry just picks it up and hands it back with some wisecrack.
My jaw hit the floor with a loud bang. Surely it’s never been legal to carry a gun on a plane, even in America in the early 60’s?
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: I try not to take anything said on the internet personal. Sometimes I fail.
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly: I still remember seeing David Bowie on Soul Train. Just looked up his performance and I always thought he was the first white guy on the show. He was the second. Elton John was the first. Learned something this AM. ?
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: That Tom Jones “Ghost Riders” is interesing. I don’t know that I have ever seen it covered with such enthusisam.
sab
@Sloane Ranger: America early sixties guns weren’t common, but nobody searched you getting on a plane, so it kind of makes sense to me.
Quinerly
@Sloane Ranger: I need to evolve to Perry Mason. I have been stuck in late night Dark Shadows on Prime. I started it in NC to get my mind off of problems. Have continued since I got back to St. Louis. Rather ridiculous. There’s over a 1000 of them, 20 mins a pop. I’m on episode 142. Barnabas doesn’t even show up until 211. This is a commitment. I struggle with being committed. ?
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly: ?
Omnes Omnibus
@Sloane Ranger: In a Alistair MacLean novel from the ’60s, “Puppet on a Chain,” the protagonist talks about choose not to wear his pistol in a shoulder holster on a plane from London to Amsterdam because it might bother the other passengers. From the casual way it was mentioned, I got the impression that it would have been perfectly legal.*
*All caveats about making legal judgments based on ’60s spy novels apply.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: my God! That is so wonderfully awful. And to think — the Tom Jones show probably had as much money to spend on production as any other show at the time. Vrrrooom!
But I kinda like the Black is Black video, because I like French singers and their viddys. Here is Serge Gainsbourgh ? with his original 60’s viddy for Couleur Cafe
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
Seconded.
Barbara
@JPL: Where was the article?
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly: I think I remember it originally. As a child I religiously watched Tom Jones. I remember when Janis was on his show. Actually, that was quite good. Somewhat related, reading a biography of Leonard Cohen. Just hit the Janis parts. “I remember you well at the Chelsea Hotel…..” ❤️
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@MomSense: To the extent that the wealth tax leads to the liquidation of stocks, the thing is legit stupid and has a negative economic effect. I like transaction taxes; they address the issue of skimmers who simply rake off the system and manipulate prices without actually contributing to structural value increases.
Denali
My friend’s niece’s husband just returned from a posting in Afghanistan. Thank goodness.
@Sloane Ranger, TV shows do not equal reality. In other news, do you think Meghan’s flight will bring down the monarchy?
Tenar Arha
@germy: I have a terrible tendency to hate watch clips of The View, & the ones that get passed around always include McCain. She’s what gets them the viral hits ABC clearly thinks they need.
But the thing is, she shouldn’t (for her own sake) have been on the airwaves especially in the year after her father died. Based on my own experience it didn’t help her grieving process. She’s always publicly leaned on her father’s reputation to support her commentary, but it truly became a pathetic you-must-respect-my-opinions-table-banging after he died. “I’m John McCain’s daughter!”
ETA grammar
Nicole
@Betty Cracker:
He became a Republican purely so he could run for mayor of NYC. He was a lifelong Democrat before that, but knew there was no way, even with all his $$$$ he’d make it through the Democratic primary. Winning the GOP nomination was a breeze, and then his $$$ (and Mark Greene running a godawful campaign) got him Hizzoner’s seat. He lasted 6 years as a Republican, before going independent halfway through his 2nd term, although he was on the GOP line anyway for his (ARRGHHHGGGGHHGHGHGoddamnitCityCouncilwhatwereyouthinking) third run as mayor.
Mind you, this is not defending him. This is to make clear what a craven opportunist he is and how he has no real principles when it comes to jumping to the front of the line. Though I am glad he’s going to keep pouring $$$ into whoever gets the Democratic nod, I agree with those who feel it’s about beating Trump more than any concern for what’s good for the nation.
Omnes Omnibus
@Immanentize: If we go with the French singers from the ’60s, I admit having more fondness for Sylvie Vartan and Francoise Hardy.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Quinerly: Someone (not CS) came after me once, but luckily I’d been around BJ long enough to know that kind of thing happened. I ignored it, but I was really touched when other posters spoke up for me.
sab
@Nicole: Everything I know about Bloomberg I learned from reading Steve Gilliard.
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: @Immanentize: It’s so bad I had to bookmark it. Love doesn’t begin to cover the range of emotions I had watching it.
@Quinerly: Ahhh Janis…. God damn. I feel the loss even more now.
Nicole
@Tenar Arha: Yeah… there’s a danger in lionizing deceased parents. I have a friend who does that with her mother, and as I recall her mother having been AWFUL to her (I’ve known this friend since we were teenagers and spent a lot of time at her house), it’s very hard for me to bite my tongue sometimes. And she, years later, is absolutely still wallowing in grief over her mother’s death and just not moving forward (her widowed father, in the meantime, has a lovely new girlfriend and has moved south and is living his best life).
In Ms. McCain’s case, every time she does the “John McCain was my father!” bit I can’t help but think, “The John McCain who called your mother a c*nt in front of a group of reporters? That John McCain?”
Nicole
@sab: I…don’t know who Steve Gilliard is. What does he say about him?
(I did not vote for Bloomie any of the times he ran. First time I wasn’t voting for a GOPer… 2nd time I started to waver, and then he pulled for that stupid West Side Stadium and I said nope and 3rd time OH MY GOD HELL NO YOU EFFING CHEATER. I don’t believe in term limits, but I REALLY don’t believe in politicians bending the rules to get around inconveniences to what they personally want. But, as usual, it was the woman, Christine Quinn, who ended up paying a price for it, not the guy, who is now running for President).
germy
@chopper: But my typos are countless.
Dog Mom
I am late to the game today, but wanted to first thank some folks for condolences given on other posts this week for my sweet Dottie, who passed last Saturday. I appreciated them though I couldn’t respond to all.
Next, both beagles, Dottie and Lulu would have been 13 today. In their memory, (and also my late Weimaraner, Skye) I want to spread some awareness of their diseases – Addison’s and Cushing’s – I hope that you never need this knowledge! Both chronic endocrine disorders are incurable, but treatable in both humans and canines.
I have had exceptional veterinarians going through this journey, and am grateful for them. However some vets have limited experience, especially with Addison’s, and are not always up to date with newer treatment protocols, life expectancy and cost. There are great support groups on social media. Simplified descriptions below.
First, Addison’s – Somewhat rare – President Kennedy had Addison’s. The adrenal glands fail to produce one or both necessary hormones – cortisol (the stress hormone) and aldosterone. Sometimes symptoms wax and wane over time, and sometimes a ‘crisis’ comes with no warning. The disease is known as ‘the great pretender’ due to the vague symptoms. It can be fatal. If your dog collapses or becomes lethargic, ask for electrolytes (sodium and potassium) and cortisol to be tested and iv fluids to be given – it may save your pup.
Please take a minute to read:
https://canineaddisons.org/about-addisons/
Cushing’s is the ‘opposite’ disease, where the body no longer properly regulates the cortisol production (and sometimes other hormones). Cortisol, similar to the steroid prednisone, is the ‘stress hormone’ – essential to some function, but has negative, ‘corrosive’ impact on the body. Cushing’s is more common, a slower impact, but treatment while sometimes challenging can alleviate many symptoms. Dottie’s sister, my Lulu had the Atypical version, but passed at 12.5 years due to a brain cancer. Skye, my Weimaraner, had an amazing 16 years and 8 month, dx’ed for 5 years with regular Cushing’s.
For more info on Cushing’s: https://www.k9cushings.com
Again, I hope that your pups never suffer and wish they could all live on and on. . .
OzarkHillbilly
@Nicole:
I may be simple minded but to me those 2 appear to be in complete agreement.
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly: It actually may have been discussed here (or on my FB page, or both) Check out the Janis videos when she was on Dick Cavett. They are great. YouTube. One just a few weeks before her death. Cavett just adored her. You can tell he is just captivated.
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus: Both great! I hadn’t seen that Hardy viddy before. Nice.
OzarkHillbilly
@Nicole:
Stockholm Syndrome or some variant. It has been shown that abused children tend to gravitate towards the abuser in an attempt to earn their love.
Sloane Ranger
@Denali: No way. It will be a week long wonder and then there will be a deal. HM has already instructed everyone involved to work something out.
I understand that there have been indications that Canadians would be OK with Harry’s appointment as Governor General there so that is one option.
sab
@Nicole: He was a very good amateur historian who posted a lot during the early part of the Iraq War. He was a really good thoughtful writer.
He was also black and a native New Yorker. He died really young of heart problems that may or may not have been exacerbated by poor medical insurance.
He hated Bloomberg with a passion.
I also had a college classmate I hugely respected who went to work for Bloomberg, thrived for decades until Bloomberg threw him under a bus. But I don’t know that classmate is angry. Bloomberg treated him well for years, and they did pretty good journalism for years except for China
You should google Gilliard. I think his friends have kept his webstuff online.He is worth reading.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Yippee yi yo… Really
laura
@Quinerly: When we were wee Dark Shadows was what we rushed home from school for. A soap opera for kids. Our Gramma Mary watched it with us and she promised us that she was going to marry Barnabas Collins and we’d all be millionaires and that’s how I’d finally get a pony. Never got that pony – but have grown out of that bitter resentment and disappointment.
I love Perry Mason.
How are you getting on in a still, silent house with a Poco-shaped heart hole? Thinking about you and your boon companion – and the dark and stormy you weathered last night without him by your side. ?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Nicole:
I remind myself that people react to grief in different ways but Meghan McCain seems to cling to hers as a badge of honor. She made herself into the chief mourner at his funeral as opposed to his wife.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m obsessed with the longboard dancing in Paris, especially when they go with French singers and rappers.
Amir Khalid
@Immanentize:
You’re presumably talking about This is Tom Jones, the variety show he hosted in the 1960s — a memorable part of my childhood TV watching.Tom had a habit of wiping sweat from his face with underwear — or maybe it was just handkerchiefs — thrown to him by women in his studio audience. Thinking back on that, it seemed risqué for the times, and I wonder how TV Malaysia’s equivalent of a standards and practices approved it.
By the way, TV Malaysia (as it was then) always bought foreign shows after they had aired on TV Singapore. Singaporean broadcasts don’t reach all of Malaysia; but there is no way to keep Malaysian transmissions out of Singapore’s entire airspace, and buying them first would have meant paying for the broadcast rights in both countries instead of just one. It pissed us off north of the Causeway because Singapore got all the current shows first.
Immanentize
@MomSense: Do you longboard dance? Hidden talents abound here at BJ
laura
@sab: http://www.groupnewsblog.net/2007/12/writings-of-steve-gilliard-101.html?m=1
Steve Gilliard was an intellectual giant who died way too soon. Just an incredible mind and skilled writer. I hope that someday an award for blogging will be created in his honor. A recipient of Steve Gilliard Prize for excellence in citizen journalism (a Gilly) would be a writer of the caliber of Driftglass. Hell, Driftglass led me to Steve Gilliard and sadly, only in his last year. He’d be all over the events of the day had he lived.
Nicole
@sab: I will totally check Gilliard’s stuff out; thank you so much for the suggestion!
Another Scott
@Dog Mom: I’m very sorry about your Dottie. It’s always painful when they leave us, and it’s always too soon. Here’s hoping your post helps others out there.
Best wishes,
Scott.
M31
@debbie: Putin’s title is President of the Unites States, as well
Nicole
@OzarkHillbilly:
Definitely, although while her mom was alive she would complain about and criticize her, but when she died, a switch flipped and now her mom is an angelic figure who did no wrong (instead of the woman who constantly humiliated her about her weight). My friend has various mental disorders, and I know she sees things in black and white (and sometimes switches from one to the other), so to some extent she can’t help it (unlike, I suspect, Megan McCain), but it is hard to see her unable to move past this loss.
sab
@Nicole: One of the many things I love about you is that when you don’t know you say so. So other people who assumed you and other readers know stuff find out you don’t. We can inform you of what we know or think we know, and others can also.
Nicole
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yeah, I do think McCain may be using his death to further her own career. Which seems consistent with her character.
MomSense
@Immanentize:
I wish! I used to dance professionally, but now mostly in my living room.
Nicole
@sab: I figure if I’m unwilling to admit what I don’t know, I will miss out on lots of chances to learn cool new things.
(And thank you, that made my morning. :) )
Quinerly
@laura: thanks for all your kind word. Two nights of storms here. Rather glad Poco didn’t experience them. He was terrified of thunder. Unsettled during rain. Knew at least 45 minutes out when a storm was coming. Actually doing pretty well. Readjusted my New Mexico departure date so heading out 1/19. Somewhat packed. Need to clean the house. Instead I’m hibernating on the 3rd floor reading “Mysteries and Miracles of New Mexico” and listening to Dylan. Thanks for asking. Poco was a strong presence here. I’m an odd duck as most have figured out… I truly think it felt like he was still hanging around in some little energy form until Thurs. Perhaps the storms drove him away and he is at peace. Sounds crazy but I had been with him almost 24/7 since 12/24. Late yesterday was the first time that seemed “normal” in awhile. I smiled, instead of cried.
Quinerly
@MomSense: some say I dance like Elaine. ?
Amir Khalid
@Quinerly:
Um, did I miss the report that Poco had passed away? Sorry.
Omnes Omnibus
@MomSense: Professionally? What kind of dance? Ballet, ballroom, burlesque?
Immanentize
@MomSense: model, dancer, mother, world Traveller, server of Presidents ?. I guess there really wasn’t much time in there to add longboard dancing….
Immanentize
@Quinerly: ?
OzarkHillbilly
@Nicole: My sons had an abusive relationship with their mother. It was hard helping them deal with it, work thru it, keep their heads on straight. At times they seemed to comprehend fully just exactly who and what she is, and yet…
Hope springs eternal. It’s normal enough, I keep my mouth shut, no good would come of reminding them. They love her and that’s all that really matters.
Quinerly
@Amir Khalid: Monday. I did a little tribute to him yesterday on AM thread. Thanks. Don’t want to hijack another thread, though….
Unless we want to discuss my dancing….
And my white GO GO boots when I was 4.? My mother also dressed me in fringe……
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
It might be worse than that.
You are correct they don’t know what to do but they do have ideas, shitty ideas, none of which are worth the breath it takes to deliver them. And worth even less than the brain cells which will die hearing them. Dollars to donuts they want to escalate because it’s war and they think wars are only won by brut force and killing every thing within a 200 mile radius of your camp, because they are not the same religion, color or speak the same language as they do. IOW anyone different than them deserves to die. Unless of course you pay them money. They can be bought. And cheap.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Nicole:
Does she have any other qualification for the job she holds?
OzarkHillbilly
@Ruckus: Agreed.
By the way I have flipped the phrase “dollars to donuts” to “donuts to dollars”. I haven’t been able to eat a donut in decades (wacky blood sugar) but I suspect a donut now costs more than a dollar. Am I right?
Ruckus
@Hildebrand:
I just don’t understand the cult.
That is the reason it’s not understandable, it is a cult. There is no explanation for a cult, it’s people following blindly. Think Jonestown.
There’s a menu, but no chef, no kitchen, no ingredients.
zhena gogolia
@Sloane Ranger:
It’s in the film The High and the Mighty too. It must have been legal.
By chance we’re reading The Case of the Restless Redhead, and Perry just calmly inspects a handgun in the middle of a crowded restaurant.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ballet and I studied some other things like Spanish and Flamenco, Luigi Jazz, and Graham.
@Immanentize: Lived a double life. Small town with my dad, NYC with my mom. The late 70s and early 80s in New York were so interesting. It’s like Epcot Center now.
germy
zhena gogolia
Since we’re reminiscing about being flamed by other commenters, my first rude encounter was with Matoko Chan, remember that one? cudlips? I was shattered until I realized who I was dealing with.
CS and I got along all right, I think. I do miss him.
burnspbesq
@Chris Johnson:
what I am taking into account, which you perhaps aren’t taking sufficiently seriously, is the enormous dead-weight loss associated with valuation disputes. I’ve been there and done that, litigating estate tax cases in the U.S. Tax Court.
There’s a reason why so many countries that once had wealth taxes abandoned them.
I’d much rather see a VAT, even though it’s regressive. You can do other things to retain the progressivity of the tax system as a whole. My Baltimore Catechism doesn’t say anything about it being a sin to do away with favorable treatment of capital gains and qualified dividends.
Nicole
I do! I do! Yeah, there have been and will be again, commenters that one just has to breathe and say, “It’s not me, it’s them.”
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: I am not sure that being flamed by m_c counts. I think not being flamed by her would be the mark of Cain (no offense meant to BJ commenter cain).
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
I have no idea. When I was a kid in socal we had the Helms Bakery truck come around, Chevy panel trucks with these long custom wooden drawers in the back, the driver would pull them open and you’d get hit with the amazing smell of all the baked goods one should never eat. Plus the best breads ever. All fresh baked and loaded before sunrise. Fav was glazed.
The last donut I ate was a fellow employee at the pro sport headquarters I worked at wanted me to try Krispy Cream, almost 20 yrs ago. A major disappointment, not worthy of the term donut.
And now I have the same issues with any food like donuts, same as you.
Nicole
@OzarkHillbilly: You’re right, and I keep my mouth shut with my friend, too. No good will come of saying anything.
Ella in New Mexico
@Betty Cracker:
THIS. Also, Bernie jumping to 20% in Whitey White Iowa is no surprise to me. The entire state is so frigging homogenous, that it makes their two parties the most extreme in the nation, in my opinion. Same for NH.
Next time around we need to scream to the rooftops of the DNC that we don’t put Iowa and New Hampshire at the front of the primary pack anymore because they don’t represent the diversity of our party or our nation and don’t deserve “Kingmaker” status anymore.
Sturgeonmouth
@Chris Johnson: You drew me out of lurkerdom. I’ve long thought about “normalizing” income (or wealth). The idea is to force a normal bell curve distribution on income (or wealth) through taxation. The starting points would be how low should -3 Sigma be, and how many orders of magnitude should exist between -3 Sigma and +3 Sigma. Liberals and money hoarders would still argue about those points, but as a concept, it would be hard to argue against normalizing income. I’d love to play around with a model, but I’m too lazy to create it. Maybe you’re not!? Or, more likely, it probably exists, but I’ve never seen it.
Nicole
@Quinerly: I’m so sorry about Poco. How lucky he was to have you as his person.
Quinerly
@Nicole: thank you. ????❤️
Ruckus
@germy:
She made her money the old fashioned way, inherited it. Don’tcha know that makes her smarter than everyone else, she figured out who to have as parents before she was born. Gotta respect someone who can pull that off…….
Also, she inherited money, and probably ego, not necessarily actual intelligence.
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
Magellan, Columbus or Cukier?
New worlds among the old or entire new planet? Hmmmm. I’m going with 17 yr old. Although the other two did have a bit more danger in finding their new worlds.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Just because you don’t have cats, doesn’t mean that cats won’t eat you.
The Lodger
@JPL: I think Skepticat was on ruemara’s kitty thread last night. Apparently a LOT of cats survived the hurricane and Skep is trying to feed all of them.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ruckus: Back in the 80s I lived across the street from World’s Fair Donuts. They had the best glazed donuts in the world, literally melt in your mouth good. Walking out of my apt and smelling that every morning (except Monday, another reason to hate Mondays), damn.
Agree whole heartedly on the Krispy Kremes, just horrible.
Amir Khalid
English Premier League: Leaders Liverpool can extend their lead if they win today at Tottenham Hotspur. Second-placed Leicester City lost 1-2 to Southampton, who avenged the 0-9 thrashing in the reverse fixture.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Oh, I know that. It’s convincing the cat people here that their cat will eat them at the drop of a hat that is the difficulty.
Ruckus
@sab:
Six employees where I work, one of them replaced a fella who was in the NG and he was activated and sent to the ME. He’s back but expects to be sent back again. We’ve been doing this long enough now that people can have gone 4 or 5 tours and retire with 20 yrs and in not too long people who joined after the entire mess started do the same and have their 20 in. We are now in our 17th year of the same war. And as far from getting out as the day we started.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
The cats normally wait till you smell like fish before they start to eat. That takes about 7-10 days. Ask me how I know……
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus: I know for a fact that Bianca loves me too much to ever consider eating me.
Omnes Omnibus
I think not.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: Ha!
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I wonder if we should give Bloom credit for not actually waiting after they left the rails and till the flames were hot enough to melt steel, like so many others, Rick Wilson for example. Someone who actually switched rather than someone who just doesn’t want to sign his name to the list of supporters of this particular train wreck.
Not a fan of his but he is putting his money to at least better use and showing that not all money is tainted the same red hue.
OzarkHillbilly
@Amir Khalid: Think about how much more she’d love you with a little salt and pepper.
James E Powell
@OzarkHillbilly:
Loved that song when I was a kid. Los Bravos was an unusual group for the 60s. Spanish group with a German singer. And if you loved that video, you have to see this one. Have to.
eddie blake
@sab: may he R.I.P. goddamn, gilliard’s blog was good.
The Lodger
@Sloane Ranger: I’d prefer that the Canadians kept the astronaut as Governor General. Best wishes to Harry but surely he can do something else in his career.
Amir Khalid
Spurs 0-1 Liverpool. Bobby Firmino nets after Mo Salah and Captain Henderson get the ball in Spurs’ penalty area, and Mo gets it to Bobby.
Ruckus
@mad citizen:
On a wealth tax, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. All policy is kind of messy.
Aw, perfection. The much desired goal, that can never be reached in any endeavor. I can work to extremely small tolerances, but there is a reason that we have tolerances in the first place, perfection is impossible. Close is available, absolute perfection is not. In all things human, metal, laws……
James E Powell
@Ella in New Mexico:
Iowa is very tough to predict with polls because it’s caucuses and it’s more about organization than preferences. Pollsters have a hard time figuring who is going to show up and there is great volatility because the people themselves have such varying degrees of commitment.
trollhattan
@Omnes Omnibus:
What in the name of all that is holy, was that?!? “Bring me Hallyday, three dancers and a checkerboard room! I have an idea.”
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
“I’m really, really, really concerned any tax on billionaires will catch me in its net. It’s too darn risky.”
Ruckus
@zhena gogolia:
You have to hit the back button twice, twice.
I think the new software sends things out in smaller segments, so that the wait time is less overall. The first back only takes you so far, the second one goes the rest of the way. Most of the time. On rare occasions I have to go back 3 steps.
Citizen Alan
@Nicole: A lot of it probably isn’t topical, as he’s been deceased for 13 years, but he was still a great blogger. And for what it’s worth, I still use his mac & cheese recipe every holiday.
Ruckus
@Sloane Ranger:
We’ve been living in security theater for so long now that we’ve lost sight of the time frame of it all, and the politics surrounding it.
Mnemosyne
@OzarkHillbilly:
FWIW, I think most astronomers would say that new discoveries are often based on luck and timing — something shifts around to make something else visible, and you just happen to be there at the right time on the right night to see it. ?♀️
OzarkHillbilly
@James E Powell: Holy cow….
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’ve seen the same in some kids whose parents who were indifferent to them as well, always looking for something that didn’t exist. Is it a backhanded complement, or is it self incriminating that they are over reacting to their perceived lack of something in themselves, that they must be responsible for their parents behavior?
jeffreyw
@James E Powell: Now we know where Sean Spicer got his inspiration for DWTS.
Ruckus
@Nicole:
I figure if I’m unwilling to admit what I don’t know, I will miss out on lots of chances to learn cool new things.
The mark of a smart person, one who knows they don’t know everything, recognizes what they don’t know and at least attempts to add to what they do.
Nicole
@Citizen Alan: I just looked up the articles that still had live links, and the one about the TWU strike was GREAT. I remember that- we had to walk/jog/rollerblade 3 miles to work while it was going on in cold weather (my husband remembers one of the days it was through the snow), and we didn’t resent a single moment of it. It was also nice to be reminded of what a total d*ck Bloomberg was during it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mnemosyne: No, it’s not luck at all and I doubt very much any astronomer would ever think it is. It’s diligence. It’s hours and hours spent 14000 ft or more calibrating a telescope at sub zero temps for a single night’s observation after months and months of preparation not to mention applying and reapplying and reapplying for time on an instrument and the years of studying data looking for anomalies to tell you where to point the telescope… There is a hell of a lot of work that goes into being in the right place at the right time.
That Cokier found it on his 3rd day of staring at computer readouts? Yes, more than a little good fortune fell his way, but they don’t hand out NASA internships to 17 year olds walking in off the street. I don’t know what it takes but I am certain that this kid earned the opportunity.
Amir Khalid
Liverpool inch ever closer to the three points. Still Spurs 0-1 Liverpool.
Ruckus
@Sturgeonmouth:
Yes a problem would be the range. But the way the wealth was made is not insignificant. And the way it’s hoarded is an issue. And nothing is cut and dried and has an easy answer. There will always be people with more and people with little to nothing. People starting out and people retiring. There will never be a balance but there should be something closer than a few who have so much more than those who have nothing. Healthcare and a secure retirement would go a long way to fixing a part of the mess, but that leaves all the rest of life that follows the money rather than the people. And how do you get things back on a more even keel? Do you attack the problem from only one direction or multiple? Do you fix the overall problem and hope that in 20 yrs it gets better or do you fix the current issue and it happens all over again?
trollhattan
@OzarkHillbilly:
He was interviewed on NPR this morning and handled himself like an adult, or at least a vastly more advanced critter than those my kid’s age trooping through our house these days. (Who, to their credit, are almost all straight-A students.) He’ll go far.
I suspect the Scarsdale schools are pretty good.
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
My friend told me that they were best right out of the kitchen and that Krispy puts a sign “Fresh Donuts” in the window when they come out. We went. If that’s the best they can do……..sort of tasted like I suspect sugar covered cardboard would taste – not good. Maybe if you were the kind of person that actually liked Twinkies…..
WhatsMyNym
@OzarkHillbilly: Some times it’s just a fresh set of eyes, but you have to know what you’re looking at.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not at the drop of a hat, only when you achieve the scent of dead fish…… They will be on you like stink on…..
OzarkHillbilly
@Ruckus:
Raises hand…
My older brother was the one my father put all his energies into. He was for the most part indifferent to me, and when he wasn’t he was usually yelling at me for one thing or another. It wasn’t all bad but I think that had a lot to do with why I acted out so much. (I was hell on wheels)
I think the first time I knew he was happy to see me I was 24 or 25 yrs old. They were supposed to meet us high in the mountains 2 days backpacking from the nearest road. When they were running late, my buddy and I went looking for them. Found them way off the trail (they had lost it crossing a snow field) and a good 500 ft below the elevation they should have been at. The only reason we found them was because their beagle was barking. When we finally broke thru to them in a tangle of willows he was beaming from ear to ear and embraced me as tho I had saved his life.
It felt good, like I had been waiting for it my whole life.
Things got better as I got older and… he changed after my oldest sister died. He almost died. He had a very difficult relationship with her as well. A lot of guilt after her passing. Pop and I still had a very complicated relationship. Me, always trying to be myself in a way that would please him and him always trying to…
I don’t know, but I could tell he was trying.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
I see the “We only have 621 billionaires in this country. What about the people with half or three quarters of a billion? They aren’t exactly poor now are they?
Mr. Mack
I actually had a few things to say today…and dammit if Ozark Hillbilly and a couple other jackals sent me on a Youtube binge. Been surfin it for hours already. Kinda fun actually.
OzarkHillbilly
@WhatsMyNym: Yes indeed.
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
Good one. Guess if somebody tries it out on me, the response will be “Don’t worry, if billionaires are hurting they’ll be happy to extend the pain to hundred-millionaires. Misery loves company.”
ETA We need to make Russfest a reality. [“Silicon Valley” reference]
Mnemosyne
@OzarkHillbilly:
I don’t think we disagree, because luck favors the prepared. The commentary from the scientists seemed to indicate that the stars and planets in question had shifted, which gave that little opening to see something new. But the ability to see something new ALSO depended on good data from both before and after the point when the shift happened so they could verify that they were actually seeing something new.
The “luck” was that the shift happened at the right time on the right night when the telescope was pointed in the right place, not all of the months of preparation and careful calculation surrounding it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mr. Mack: Nyah nyah nah nyah nah
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
Family dynamics can be hard on kids. We don’t know yet that our parents are just human beings, with all the foibles – or worse – that humans can have.
Amir Khalid
Liverpool’s 0-1 win at Spurs takes them 16 points clear of second-placed Leicester City, with a game in hand. But third-placed Manchester City beat 17th-placed Aston Villa tomorrow, Man City will be in second place and 14 points behind Liverpool. Still, The Best Football Team In The World have increased the gap between them and the rest of the Premier League. YNWA!
OzarkHillbilly
@Mnemosyne: Fortune favors the prepared mind.
WaterGirl
@Quinerly: @Baud: I wrote to Steve in the ATL a few days ago. No response so far.
Fair Economist
@Chris Johnson:
That sounds really cool. Is the sim published or otherwise publicly available?
WaterGirl
@Immanentize:
If you don’t make the 15%, where do your peeps go? I want to know that for all the top candidates.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ruckus: Yep, My mother always said Pop grew up in the old world, not America (he was born In Joliet IL, 1923 but his parents came over in 1900 and 1904). He was very stoic, showing affection was a big time “no-no”. I think I was 10 years old when I forgot myself and went to give him a good night kiss on the cheek.
“Men don’t do that!” I went to bed mortified.
A couple years later I was at a friend’s house. His father was from Columbia and his mother from France. We were leaving and they kissed goodbye. I thought, “When I have sons that’s the way we’re going to be.” And we are.
We take the best from our parents and try to build on that. Unfortunately we also pass on some of the not so nice things about ourselves.
trollhattan
@OzarkHillbilly:
The clearest diversion from my parents was the easiest to commit to and follow–no corporal punishment of any kind, ever. I don’t personally know any parents who do this and am astonished, appalled and angry when I hear of it.
I hope we’ve never withheld affection from our girl; I’m not a demonstrative person but when you open your heart to the little critter it becomes easy. But I’ll never be Italian, Mexican or Persian either. Their ease around their children always has me thinking of my German roots.
OzarkHillbilly
@trollhattan:
Same here, tho it took my 2 yr old eldest to teach me that lesson once and for all (long story) As is, my youngest was never spanked, swatted, flicked, what ever. I have told them both that fact. I want them to know I recognized I was not perfect, but I was able to change, at least when I saw it.
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
Fella I had working for me had that with his 2 boys. I think my dad hugged me once. He was still a good dad. Overall my parents were OK. I’ve seen better and I’ve seen worse. Also seen better kids – and worse. Have a friend who lived up the street, never met a dad, not sure if divorce or what but the kids are OK, still somewhat in touch with my classmate, he’s a retired lawyer. Takes all kinds of people to make up the human race, from the lowest to the trumps, a huge jump to the normal struggles, then to the good and the great. I know a woman still in prison since early 70s for murder. Went to church and school with her. Would never have suspected then. trump rates above her, only because I don’t think he’s murdered anyone, wait a minute, Ok up until this year….. Otherwise she’d be a better human.
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan: It was French.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: @germy: I was going to make a crack about the cat possibly using better grammar, but I didn’t really mean it and didn’t want to risk offending germs with a joke.
That’s my long way of saying thank you for doing it for me.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I did not need to know that. Ever. This might be one of those things that are impossible to un-know, once you have heard it. :: shiver ::
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: I am waiting on Father Time to confirm that we have the 502/524/query error fixed before I go back to the developers on any other existing site issues.
WaterGirl
@Quinerly: I lived the 24/7 thing with my beloved Quiver in his last 40 days. None of that sounds crazy to me.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus:
That’s a hard pass.
@Omnes Omnibus:
Most definitely not! And I’m bailing on this thread if anyone asks him.
tybee
@Ruckus: OK, i’ll, ah, bite. how do you know?
janesays
@Baud: Actually, the poll is:
Sanders 20%, Warren 17%, Buttigieg 16%, Biden 15%
But… the MoE is 3.7%, which means that Sanders and Warren are effectively tied, and it’s pretty close to a 4 way race.
Sanders 20 Warren 17 doesn’t overly concern me, just as Warren 20 Sanders 17 wouldn’t make me believe Warren has it in the bag. When you start to see 5 point leads, then you can get really excited (or start getting really worried). It’s very much a dead heat and nearly impossible to tell at this point who will emerge on top
Now watch Amy Klobuchar pull the dark horse shocker victory.
WaterGirl
@tybee: Bad tybee. :-)
trollhattan
@Omnes Omnibus:
Merde, ya think? :-p
Chris Johnson
@Fair Economist: Yeah, it’s this one: http://www.decisionsciencenews.com/2017/06/19/counterintuitive-problem-everyone-room-keeps-giving-dollars-random-others-youll-never-guess-happens-next/
You have to be able to code to tweak the thing, and I’m having trouble finding the code version (online) that had this in tweakable form, but this is the one. I ran across the hackable version on HackerNews.
Chris Johnson
@burnspbesq:
Well, that’s a mercy, anyway. I would say that advocating for regressive forms of taxation under the current situation is a FUCK NO. I hope that whatever does end up happening has some saving graces for you, Baltimore Catechism or no (I’ve never heard of this, will have to look it up)