President-elect Joe Biden has met with leaders of some of the nation’s top civil rights organizations and vowed that his administration will prioritize racial justice and assemble a diverse Cabinet that can tackle pressing equity issues. https://t.co/nwTRL7nN6q
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 9, 2020
… Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond, who will join the Biden administration as a senior adviser, also participated in the nearly two-hour virtual meeting with seven civil rights leaders. The talk touched on how racial justice will be a common thread as the Biden administration works to address policing and criminal justice reform, COVID-19, the nation’s racial wealth gap, voting rights and more.
The meeting, which was closed to the news media, follows increasing pressure Biden has received to ensure that his Cabinet is diverse and representative of the nation. Black voters were a driving national force pushing the former vice president to victory over President Donald Trump. Other voters of color have also been credited with helping secure Biden’s win in battleground states like Arizona and Nevada.
“You cannot move the needle when it comes to racial justice in this country unless you have people at the table at the highest levels who have had lived experiences … and there are Black people qualified for every single position in the government,” National Urban League CEO Marc Morial told reporters after the meeting. ”We saw today a passionate Joe Biden and a passionate Kamala Harris. We will judge this administration by the actions it takes and by its results.”
The civil rights leaders said they made clear that Biden’s supporters expect him to deliver on his promises. They said Biden agreed to meet with them regularly to discuss progress on key issues…
White podcasters *very* outraged by this hurtful exclusion!!!
How long before you guys just straight up remake the Jesse Helms “hands” ad. https://t.co/JNi50ApPkK
— Tentin Quarantino (@agraybee) December 8, 2020
These are the dudes who were — in some cases, still are — calling Biden a rapist with dementia who would be worse than Trump. Hard to see why the incoming Biden administration should pay them any attention, if you want my opinion.
Speaking of self-absorbed white men who need to just go away already, what news of #MoscowMitch?
Interesting: "Reopen the majority of schools in first 100 days if Congress acts." Sounds like a way to tell Mitch McConnell that he'll be to blame if we can't reopen schools. https://t.co/eXk0blvolu
— Candice Aiston ???????? (@CandiceAiston) December 8, 2020
Meanwhile, even apart from desperately needed pandemic relief, there’s the fate of the NDAA…
The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly backed a $740 billion defense policy bill that President Trump has pledged to veto, heading toward a confrontation just weeks before he is to leave office https://t.co/1OYCt1U9ad pic.twitter.com/356MjqOMxT
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 9, 2020
Interesting Times: the never-ending series…
On The Road – ?BillinGlendaleCA – Sunset at Del Cerro Park
Baud
I know why Biden had to say “Congress,” but I’m seeing more of a push online to blame both sides for the impasse.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone???
debbie
It seems to me Biden’s appointments have been plenty diverse. Are people bitching just to bitch? ??♀️
Baud
Is David Dayen a lefty Bro? I read that tweet and thought he was a righty.
debbie
Boy, what a parting gift this would be: Override Trump’s veto of NDAA. Make it so!
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
debbie
@Baud:
David Dayen
@ddayen
Follow
Executive editor
@theprospect
. Author, Monopolized, Chain of Title. Unsanitized newsletter only at http://prospect.org. #D1A Tips: ddayen-at-prospect-dot-org
Baud
@debbie:
That doesn’t help me.
NotMax
The sheer unadulterated two-faced gall of it.
debbie
@Baud:
Looking at prospect.org, it seems rightish, but there’s no “About” page which makes me suspicious.
ETA: Or many rose-ish.
Steeplejack (phone)
@rikyrah, @Baud:
Good morning! ?
debbie
@NotMax:
Uh oh, you didn’t hear me just now yelling at the radio, did you? One lousy week.
RandomMonster
Seems like Trump vetoing the defense bill would be shooting himself in the nuts. Am I missing something?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Need the media to get away from talking heads and to start bringing on the victims talking about their wrecked lives – the deaths, bereaved family members, the jobless, those who lost homes and businesses.
Here’s what I’m hearing and seeing – younger lawyers quitting law, lawyers losing their homes, lawyers in depressed states. Restauranteurs shutting established businesses. Retailers and landlords losing the value of their investments.
Even now, some ghouls are eagerly awaiting their pounce. Your credit bureaus ready to fuck people over and drive up costs. Employers from newly merged entities taking advantage of the job environment to cram new confidentiality and noncompetition agreements onto commissioned salespeople that will enable them to throttle any potential job moves and commission rates in the future (wife is facing THAT meeting today, which has elevated my BP already – the merged entity is going to own her entire skill set for eternity via coercion while she’s earning 15-20% of what she earned each year for the last 5 years).
NotMax
On the less teeth-gritting side of things –
Think stringing lights on your tree is a chore? 147 Year Old Banyan Tree in Lahaina is Lit for the Holidays.
And speaking of lights,
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Looks to be leftier than thou by the front page of the American Prospect.
ETA FROM the TPS for All story:
This story is part of the Prospect’s series on how the next president can make progress without new legislation. Read all of our Day One Agenda articles here.
lowtechcyclist
David Dayen said this? Receipts, please.
Haven’t read what he’s got to say about the latest Cabinet pick rumors, but the criticism from similar lefty types that I’ve heard of Biden’s rumored picks for Agriculture and HUD – Vilsack and Fudge, respectively – center around Fudge’s expertise in agriculture-related issues but apparently being slated for HUD because cities are black so the HUD chief should be too, while farmers get a white guy.
That may or may not be a valid criticism, but it’s got nothing to do with a caricature that white male liberals are upset about diversity in Biden’s cabinet. Hell, Fudge herself made the same point recently.
Chyron HR
@debbie:
“Identity politics bad, white people good.” – Bernie Sanders (paraphrased)
debbie
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
It’s like it’s the 1980s all over again. I know how that sucks.
Chyron HR
@lowtechcyclist:
How dare people call the alleged “left” out on the fact that they openly bet on Trump and lost??
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax: Well y’know, it was really more important to get all those young, unqualified right-wingers into Federal judgeships than to fund the Federal government or pass any Covid relief.
OzarkHillbilly
@RandomMonster: He has no nuts to shoot himself in. That and the fact that he doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Not thrilled about Vilsack. Don’t know enough about Fudge, but I don’t condone the assumption that pushing for diversity automatically reduces quality.
lowtechcyclist
@Chyron HR: Did Dayen bet on Trump? I missed that. Did Rep. Fudge bet on Trump? I missed that too.
TS (the original)
@RandomMonster:
He lost the election – could not care less now. Nothing like hitting on as many people as possible on the way out the door
Edit: or what @OzarkHillbilly: said.
Baud
@RandomMonster:
He’s defending Confederate Generals. That’s what his base will care about.
Punchy
Can someone essplain this safe harbor shit? Specifically, does it end all election lawsuits finally?
NotMax
@lowtechcyclist
i gave up on Vilsack when during his short-lived run for the presidency in ’08 he repeatedly uttered noises favoring slashing Social Security.
satby
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Not being snarky when I suggest you write the op-ed and submit it to whoever you can get to publish it locally in Louisville or nationally. You’re correct, they need to start paying attention and publishing news about the slow rolling economic catastrophe that the Republicans have timed to tsunami Biden’s first days in office, and as an attorney, I bet you can write a compelling editorial.
lowtechcyclist
Apparently there’s no Federal funding yet for the logistics of getting the Covid vaccine into the hands of your local health departments. Seems like the defense spending bill would have been a great place to tuck it into.
I know I sound like a broken record here, but Mitch McConnell actually wants DoD to be funded. When Mitch wants something, that’s when the House Dems have leverage. The rest of the time, they don’t.
satby
Is it bad of me that right now I DGAF who’s appointed to what in the new Biden administration, I just want them to take charge before too many more Americans die? And before I get sick myself? That’s my priority right now, living long enough to receive the new vaccine.
Bet lots of people think the same.
John S.
@Punchy: Basically, Congress cannot overturn the certified electoral college results.
Or more metaphorically, a safe harbor for President-elect Biden while Hurricane Trump rages on.
NotMax
@Punchy
This may help in unraveling the tangled skein.
Betty Cracker
One of the Beltway gossip rags says Biden might send Pete Buttigieg to China as the U.S. ambassador. I wonder what Chasten thinks of that? :)
oatler.
https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/judge-brutally-tears-apart-failed-election-lawsuit-of-sheriff-who-recently-defended-accused-plotter-of-gov-whitmer-kidnapping/
debbie
@satby:
Seconded.
RandomMonster
@OzarkHillbilly:
@Baud:
Not asking about his motives. I’m asking whether it can only hurt him more than help him.
satby
@Betty Cracker: Chasten would go with. The dogs can stay with Pete’s mom.
OzarkHillbilly
How can anything he does hurt or help him? Does he give a rat’s ass about any “legacy”? Remember when he said he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th avenue and his cult would still love him? Well by the time he leaves the WH he will have shot 1/2 a million Americans in the middle of 5th avenues all across this country and his cult will still be sending him millions of dollars to help him fix the election.
Punchy
@NotMax: so they can still file lawsuits without penalty? Grrrrrr….
NotMax
None of them really in the lofty A-1 category, however still goodies, upcoming on TCM. All times Eastern.
Because there are so many fans of him here, nearly mandatory to point out The Case of the Curious Bride, Saturday 6:30 a.m. An earlier, earthier Perry Mason.
Thursday at 10 p.m. brings Larceny, Inc. Edward G. Robinson lampoons the heck out of his own gangster character legacy and Broderick Crawford gets an opportunity to show the skeptical that yes, he can handle comedy. Even tangentially counts as a Xmas movie.
Sunday at 10 p.m. is Make Way for Tomorrow, which ought to be in the dictionary under “bittersweet.” A surprising for the time unHollywoodish, non-rose-colored tale revolving around a Depression era senior citizen couple. Not generally designated a classic yet once seen, never forgotten.
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax: I’d forgotten about that. The Dems seem to have gotten over that, but I can still get really pissed at all the ‘moderate’ Dems who were OK with cutting Social Security.
Looks like another radical lefty who probably bet on Trump, a guy in Congress named Clyburn, isn’t keen on Vilsack either:
I’m pretty sure that Clyburn’s referring to Vilsack’s tenure as Secretary of Agriculture under Obama.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Sounds like a lovely film. And what a cast!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Way_for_Tomorrow
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: The horseshoe ? is real.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@satby:
You’re right – I’ve been trying to implore individual journos – the ones who already have platforms and connections – to do this, but haven’t gotten any traction. Maybe I can write something that will gain some velocity.
germy
NotMax
@Punchy
It’s become a cottage industry. Expect suits to continue being filed (and thrown out) until January 20th — of 2025.
//
Betty Cracker
@satby: My assumption was that Chasten and the dogs would go with him, but I wonder if Chasten would like to go there. :)
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Good to give him foreign policy cred, but I’d hate to lose his voice domestically.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: From the wiki page for Make Way for Tomorrow:
Sounds familiar, don’t it?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@germy:
I’m with Tlaib on this. Those “tough choices” that we always hear about with regard to safety net programs? Time to tell the well-off that some of the hoarded numbers are going to come off of some digital ledgers, which may affect their ability to direct resources at political causes.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Roger Ebert agreed (contains spoilers).
Baud
@germy:
I wish she had named Republicans specifically.
Chyron HR
@lowtechcyclist:
I don’t know, did they spend the entire election literally taking anti-Biden memes from 4chan and propagating them under the guise of being “progressive”? Because that is, again, LITERALLY what you psychotic shitheads did. I hope that clears up the difference for you, because I’m sure you were being completely sincere when you asked.
Baud
@RandomMonster:
I don’t see how it hurts him, especially if Congress overrides.
Baud
Posting is slow. Cache seems borked.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Dayen is a lefty, but he’s not alt-left. The point he’s trying to make isn’t unreasonable in context, IMO, though that tweet sounds terrible on a standalone basis (as it’s meant to).
Dorothy A. Winsor
I know nut-picking is easy, but sometimes it’s good to laugh.
germy
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I saw the same theory put forward here last night. I don’t remember which commenter.
rikyrah
@satby:
I feel you.
I feel you.
rikyrah
Thread
satby
@Betty Cracker: Chasten apparently likes almost everything. He’s always smiling. But that would be a tremendous opportunity for them both I would think.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
It’s an ugly tweet from a lefty. “Monomaniacal focus on diversity” are words that belong in the right wing bubble.
Also too “check a box.”
satby
@Baud: It first struck me as an odd choice since it’s a language Pete doesn’t speak ?, but a policy wonk who can understand trade issues, civil rights, and nuance might just be the thing.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Accord in the TMP So apparently Trump entire argument to over turn the election is; in PA in the 1994 the Democrats rigged an election for State Senator, therefor ALL Democratic election victories in PA are invalid for ever and ever.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/how-a-lawyer-for-eastern-european-oligarchs-fueled-the-fever-dream-of-an-election-reversal
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Performance Art Progressives exist to attack Ds from the left. They never attack their allies, the Republicans.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@satby: Is Chasten still teaching? He might not want to quit.
rikyrah
satby
@Baud: Proving once again Hoffer’s theory, later expanded on as the horseshoe theory, that the far left and the far right reside right next to each other.
Leto
@germy: The Moar You Know posited it several times.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: @rikyrah:
I have not and do not *foresee* me complaining about any of Biden’s choices for cabinet posts. At the same time I do not blame those who are pushing for their preferred candidates to fill the spots they care most about. It’s all part of the normal push/pull of setting up any new admin, just a little more out in the open now.
** however, all bets are off if Joe nominates Tom Cotton or Josh Hawley for AG.
satby
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I don’t know. I don’t know them personally, I have casual friends in common and used to see them around the market in the before days. But most teaching here is virtual right now, so it wouldn’t matter.
Zzyzx
As a math person, I’m still so offended at the whole “one in a quadrillion” argument that made it into the Texas lawsuit. I’m actually one willing to listen to people I disagree with – I first discovered Balloon Juice in an attempt to get a sane conservative voice in my life – so I was open to the chance that maybe there would actually be evidence that there was fraud.
But when they come up with an “expert” that doesn’t understand the difference between a random sampling and counting different strongholds first [1], and this is their killer lawsuit, it’s obvious that they have nothing, but between the people who don’t want to understand, those who are too mathematically illiterate to get it, and those who just assume that their side knows what it’s talking about, there’s a real chance that we’re going to see policy change or even a vague attempt at a civil war based on people who are impressed at seeing a large number out of context.
[1] Basically their argument is the equivalent of looking at baseball box scores, counting all of the runs scored in the top half of each inning, saying that that is a huge lead for the visiting team, and acting like it’s a mathematical impossibility that somehow the home team did better every single time when we started counting their runs. It’s pure stupidity.
Soprano2
@NotMax: Of course we saw that banyan tree when we were in Maui a year ago (can’t believe it’s already been that long!). It would be something else to see it all lit up like that.
Matt McIrvin
@satby: The weird thing is that I see far-lefties insist constantly that liberals always support fascists in preference to allying with them.
Baud
@satby:
Vilsack is the most disappointing choice to me so far. Some people have sincere and legitimate concerns about waiving the 7 year rule for any general. But none of it is a huge deal to me. It’s more important that people be held accountable if they don’t perform well in their roles, but I’m not going into this thinking Biden or his cabinet have anything to prove to me.
Gin & Tonic
@satby: Ambassadors who are not career FSO’s are often unable to speak the host country’s language. Even career FSO’s who go through language training before posting are not fluent.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Far-lefties see “liberals” as to their right on policy and therefore closer to Republicans. I see far-lefties as closer to the right in their culture and morals. The latter is more fundamental to me. YMMV.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh, I’m fine with the worrywarts (unless they get obsessive or argue in bad faith). I just myself, right now, worry a bit more about making it past 1/20/21 in one piece than whether Biden is selecting my personal dream team cabinet. The joint is on fire, I don’t care who’s holding the hose right now.
germy
So humans aren’t the only ones who get fiction mixed up with fact:
debbie
@rikyrah:
Truth.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: If trump vetoes the NDAA, both Democratic and Republican leadership have the votes to override his veto. They seem determined to do that. It’s not like the Republicans will have finally discovered their spines; a vote to pass a defense bill over trump’s veto won’t be effectively used against them in some future primary. But trump has made his bluff, and now the Freedom Caucus and Senators like Josh Hawley and Rand Paul are egging him on. I suspect he’ll want to show how tough he is by backing up his big talk with a veto. That and the override vote will soon be eclipsed by other news. While defense spending is an important issue for some people, especially those who want to cut the defense budget, I don’t think most people care much about the NDAA. Even if they should.
satby
@Gin & Tonic: Thanks, of course I should have thought of that. If the rumor’s true, should we start a pool on how long it takes Pete to learn Mandarin?
only partly kidding…
debbie
@satby:
Confirmed by reading the headlines on their front page.
Baud
@debbie: Whose front page?
Ken
@satby: I think of it as the projective plane, where two lines that (in Euclidean geometry) have no points in common, instead do have a single point of intersection really, really far out there.
Immanentize
As much as I can recall —
David Dayen was a hootie hoo over at Kos in the early days. He wrote under the name D-Day and was one of the better “front pagers” which then included Armando (anger management issues) and Sirota (overuse of personal pronouns.) Dayen moved to Hullabaloo (Digby’s Blog) and mostly wrote on economic and labor issues. But he was spreading his wings into more “anti-neo-liberalusm” squirrel chasing. When he left there, I only saw him pop up occasionally — some links to thoughtful econ analysis, some to over the top frustrated wahhhh!
The above quote is something that only a fucking privileged white shithead motherfucker could ever write and is a very racist thing to write indeed. I don’t give a shit about his motives or inner purposes. That statement right there is the heart of white male privilege — that hiring a diverse team is evidence of reduced quality. That is (among) the most pernicious of white lies.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Thanks. I never worry about spoilers (although I know most people do). And Ebert is always great.
This, from your link, struck me:
One of those staggeringly simple-yet-profound truths that almost everybody knows but very few can articulate.
Chyron HR
@Baud:
Yes, but some Black people are also criticizing Biden’s cabinet picks (for reasons completely unrelated to “Too many ni**ers”) so maybe YOU’RE the racist one, hmmmmm?
Soprano2
I’m not that happy about Vilsack. The thing I remember the most about his tenure was the abrupt firing of Shirley Sherrod for the “crime” of getting wingnuts all excited, without even waiting to hear her side of the story. Plus, why does Ag always have to kowtow to the Midwest – there are farms literally everywhere in the U.S.!
Gin & Tonic
@satby: I know you’re a big fan of his. I’m not (so much) and while I believe he has several languages, I am always skeptical when someone asserts that so-and-so “speaks” a half-dozen unrelated languages. “Speaking” – in the sense of carrying on a meaningful conversation with a native – is hard. You may be able to read a language and have basic comprehension, and perhaps find a toilet or order a coffee, but that isn’t “speaking” it.
germy
Yes, that’s pretty much their logic. And I see it in political discussions as well as discussions about Hollywood casting choices.
I like reading about Superman and Batman comics and movie adaptations. The blog comments have more than a few “Why did they pick a Black guy to play Commissioner Gordon? They’re just trying to fill a quota,” etc
So no matter how progressive Dayen thinks he is, his core beliefs are no different than any random Trump voter who possesses enough typing skills to post racist comments online.
lowtechcyclist
@Chyron HR: You mean like Dayen’s “Day One Agenda” for what Biden should do when inaugurated? Yeah, that sounds like a bet on Trump to me.
And regarding your accusations directed at me specifically, you might best go somewhere like parler where lies are accepted as truth, you’ll fit right in.
Immanentize
@Zzyzx: It’s funny about that ratio — in the early days of forensic DNA matching, experts would give a ratio like “the odd of there being another person with this DNA is 132,670,000,000 to One. Obviously way more than the combined population of earth forever. It was impressive! But then the huge flaws in their methodologies would be pointed out and I do believe that they no longer spout odds like Spock.
SiubhanDuinne
@satby:
Given his linguistic gifts, he can probably pick up at least basic vocabulary in a couple of months.
Geminid
@Zzyzx: One of the guys using bullshit data analysis to “prove” election fraud is charging $40,000 per court appearance as an expert witness. There is method in his madness.
Immanentize
@Baud: I completely agree with you, Satby, and Ozark on this point. Haven’t we seen the face of horrors that inspire honest outrage? I’d rather not have Vilsack, but his past at that agency might be best suited for the cleaning out/cleaning up stage of Biden’s Presidency.
I have outrage fatigue and none of these choices come close to what issues for which I now save my outrage.
Bigotry is still on the list.
Baud
@Chyron HR:
Only when it comes to the human race.
debbie
@Baud:
Sorry, from Dayan’s tweet up top: prospect.org
germy
@Geminid:
Melissa Carone was on Inside Edition last night. I believe she thinks she’s on her way to fortune and fame.
One of the guys who testified with Rudy; he made sure to tell everyone how to find his podcast.
The dude in Texas knows he’s written gibberish. He also knows Trump doesn’t have the attention span to read it, but will give him a pardon for his efforts.
MomSense
@satby:
Same. It also seems to me that Biden is choosing people who have experience and institutional knowledge.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
“Applesauce.” ??
danielx
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Insane theories presented as fact, much like the Laffer Curve. Never ceases to amaze.
Now if they would only decide gravity is just a theory, like they think Covid-1 is a hoax…..
Zzyzx
@Geminid: I believe that but if you venture into the fire swamps, you’ll see that that has consequences. “Well the ballot box is irreparably destroyed, so time to start shouting people!”
And while many of them are trolls, that’s how the Christchurch shooting happened. It’s depressing.
In good news, redstate now has a “no martial law” comments policy. In bad news, I know that because it’s constantly getting invoked.
O. Felix Culpa
@satby: Basic Mandarin is easy: no verb declensions, no tenses. As long as you can hear and replicate the tones, it’s pretty straightforward.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne:
Applesauce saw “real” bugs… and pounced.
Republicans saw “successful” businessman Trump… and voted.
(I still think Applesauce is smarter than Trump voters, though. She was just playing. But Republicans are true believers.)
satby
@Gin & Tonic: He can verifiably speak conversational Maltese (from his father), Spanish, Arabic, and Italian. He frequently used Spanish for his constituents here, and there’s a well known story of him acting as an Arabic interpreter for a family in the local hospital during an emergency that lasted several hours. He learned Norwegian to read an author he liked so he probably doesn’t converse in it, and in Dari Persian I have no idea his level of ability.
But I agree with you that fluency is more than a smattering of words and phrases. I can greet, be polite, ask for food and the bathroom in six languages but I’m nowhere near fluent in any. Occasionally including my mother tongue. Ha @O Felix Culpa, one of which is /was Mandarin… very fast fading.
NotMax
@danielx
“We implore You Honor to look again at the video submitted. The chicken entrails clearly show – and prove – the full scope of our case.”
//
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Mmmm. I love the smell of analogy in the morning.
Immanentize
And for your Wednesday moment of
ZenWATF?:Hoodie
@Baud: My sense of the appointments is that Biden is being pretty strategic. He’s picking his fights and doesn’t want to pick fights over Ag and Defense. Vilsack will keep Ag interests happy and Austin is a nod to Clymer that makes up for not putting Fudge at Ag. He’ll also be hard for GOPers to complain about. I get the objections about civilian/military separation, but Austin technically is a civilian and four years out from his last command, so that’s not that much of a stretch. Biden’s picks on health and economics have been great, and they’re arguably more important right now.
jonas
Right. If Biden really cared, he’d hire white people, who, as we all know, are automatically qualified for anything.
Immanentize
@NotMax: I wanted to try that in a case in which I represented a Santeria-observant drug dealer in Miami; but the necessary witness chickened out.
germy
I expect one Nontroversy per day for the next four-eight years. The Nontroversies will end once a Republican president is sworn in.
Baud
@jonas:
Did Biden pick Interior?
Gin & Tonic
@O. Felix Culpa: It’s weird, because the consensus is that spoken Mandarin is among the easiest of languages for a non-native, whereas the written form is among the most difficult.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne:
I deserve a sinecure on the NYTimes opinion page.
germy
Joe Falco
@NotMax:
Makes me think that Jill Stein could have tried to wring some more money out of desperate and/or gullible D voters with extended fundraising for filing frivolous lawsuits over the 2016 count. I’m not sure how long the grift could last on our side though.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize:From the NBC article:
Immanentize
@Hoodie: I actually believe all this agita about Austin is in large part just a set up for future non-stop scrutiny and criticism of the first Black Secretary of Defense. Undoubtedly some hold this idea honestly. However, others just wanted their guy to get the job.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Well put and I agree.
Immanentize
@Baud: Is “interior” the new dinner party correct term for “nose” or “seat?”
Famous Uncle questions —
Digging for gold? (Picking your nose)
Going to the movies? (Picking your seat)
Jeffro
@Dorothy A. Winsor: their ‘conspiracy boards’ are going to collapse from the sheer weight of the yarn strings being added daily (hourly?)
Geminid
@Zzyzx: Yes, lies like those told by these bogus statistical experts are a consequential part of the wider attack on the integrity of this election. I was just speaking to this person’s motivation to make up lies. And he is only one of many grifting off this destructive campaign.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: It worked. Marketing is a damn odd endeavor. Thanks for that back story.
OzarkHillbilly
I just got kicked of by 522 error.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize:
Undoubtedly.
Zzyzx
Meanwhile, the Republicans’ star Wisconsin not at all drunk witness gave an interview to sarahpalin.com where she explained that it was Obama who created Coronavirus.
https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/1336505202367746049?s=21
Jeffro
Wow.
I’m in the wrong line of work! Even as a ‘discount expert witness’ on a variety of subjects, just $4k/day would be easy money.
“Your honor, I’d like to call Mr. Jeffro to the stand. He is sort of an expert on a topic somewhat closely related to the one in this case…”
(me: cha-CHING!)
O. Felix Culpa
@Gin & Tonic: The written form is difficult, but fun to learn. We studied the traditional characters. They use simplified characters in the PRC, which I imagine are…simpler…to learn. They’re not as aesthetically pleasing though.
Jeffro
@Immanentize: I’m dyin’ here… =)
One of the comments:
At the Reddddddddd HOW-se!
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: I love their obsession. I still remember the late night Slyman Brothers ads that ran on 60s/70s/80s STL TV. Campy as all fuck.
(almost hit post when it occurred to me they might be on youtube. VOILA! They are!)
Omnes Omnibus
@Zzyzx: Don’t blame her on Wisconsin..
different-church-lady
@satby: be happy — turning democratic cabinet picks into internecine blood sport = getting back to normal.
Jeffro
@germy: it would be smart for the Biden/Harris team to respond to each (daily?) nontroversy by noting what was going on in the trumpov maladministration at the same point in time.
Ex: On Day 10 of the Biden Administration, it is noted that Biden’s jacket has a slight stain on the lapel.
Media: WHUT??!!!1!
Biden team response: “Ahem…on Day 10 of the trumpov maladministration, then Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke redecorated his office at a cost of $10M taxpayer dollars, the president* went on his sixth day of taxpayer-funded golf at his own resort, and Steve Bannon – get this! – Steve Bannon was on the NSC. Steve Bannon!
NEXT!!!”
You get the idea.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: I agree that you are one of them, and another irascible grump from the Ocean State is another. Must be something in ‘gansett beer.
danielx
@Zzyzx:
Of course it was.
The only thing that surprises me about that particular – what, idea? theory? neuron collision? – is that it took this long for somebody to come up with it.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: OK, mom, take it away!
lowtechcyclist
@germy:
Well excuse the fuck out of me, but taking a Black Congressperson whose area of expertise is agriculture, and instead putting her in HUD which has historically been where Presidents have put a Black person just to have one as window dressing in their Cabinet, does kinda smell of quotas and checking boxes.
You do diversity right by putting women and minorities in high-level positions in areas that they’re knowledgeable and experienced in. You do diversity wrong by just putting them somewhere or another so they can be part of the group photo.
If you can’t tell the difference between making that point, and saying what the superhero movie commenters are saying, then I can’t help you.
danielx
@OzarkHillbilly:
Used to be a local purveyor of firearms named Don Davis, whose business was amazingly enough called Don’s Guns. He used to run late night TV ads featuring him playing guitar in a band which invariably ended with the punch line “I don’t want to make any money, I just love to sell guns…heh heh heh…”. And yes, he looked just as smarmy as you would expect.
A friend from the east coast saw one while visiting and was appalled to find it wasn’t a comedy sketch, but a real commercial.
Hoodie
@Immanentize: I also think it’s just the reflexive indiscipline of Democrats leaking out after being so constrained and unified during the campaign. Hopefully, it will pass but FFS give Joe at least a few months to fuck this up on his own.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: I don’t consider Senator Jack Reed to be irascible or grumpy, but YMMV.
Hoodie
@lowtechcyclist: You seem to be overlooking that she’s agreed to take the job.
sab
@NotMax: Cloudy in Ohio, so no go here. Sigh. Northern lights is on my bucket list.
lowtechcyclist
@Jeffro: They’d never do that in a million years, but it would be pretty damn cool if they did!
Jeffro
File under “even stopped clocks are right twice a day” (or, “even Gary Abernathy is somewhat right, once in a blue moon”): I defended trumpov, but now it’s time for him to go.
Good luck with getting through to the orange moron, Gary, but we appreciate the effort! (Well, except for your first two bullshit paragraphs about the Russia investigation being a fraud, and the 2020 election fraud accusations being worthy of looking into…and most of the other ones). But it was worthwhile just to see this:
It’s not hard to see a Hawley or a Haley turning that last sentence into basically their entire 2024 campaign
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
Me too. I took a screen grab and sent it to WG. A few minutes later, and all was serene.
lowtechcyclist
@Hoodie: No I’m not. She likely realizes that’s the best opportunity she’s going to get. But she’s already on record as to what she thinks about the idea.
Hoodie
@Jeffro: I come not to praise Caesar . . .
PsiFighter37
@lowtechcyclist: From what I recall, Obama had a white guy (Shaun Donavan) run HUD for most of his administration, then it was Julian Castro. Andrew Cuomo ran the department under Clinton. This whole idea of HUD being a place where token blacks go stems almost solely from Ben Carson getting the job despite being wholly unqualified for it.
I do agree that Fudge not getting Ag – and worse, retreading Vilsack – stinks. It’s not the end of the world, but I have no idea why Biden would pick him again unless he really feels that he just needs someone in the seat who can go from Day One, and someone who ran the department already for 8 years is best for that. Personally, though, I would have liked to see Heitkamp get the role instead.
sab
@Baud: Fudge was mayor of Warrensville Heights (largish suburb east of Cleveland) and chief of staff to Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones before she ran for Tubbs’ seat.
ETA: suburban, exurban, rural seat. She’ll be good at HUD.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I agree, the message has to be more targeted, maybe after the Georgia runoff.
mali muso
@O. Felix Culpa: Having studied both Japanese and Mandarin, I found Mandarin much easier in terms of the grammar and once you get the hang of the tones, not all that hard to grasp basic conversational skills. Japanese has so many rules about honorifics and knowing the unspoken hierarchy of how you relate to the other person as to be pretty tricky for a non-native to “get” accurately. The written form of both definitely takes some work, although once you start to recognize the basic building blocks of the characters, you can make educated guesses as to the possible meaning.
The more languages you learn, the easier it is to add a new one (again in my own experience) as you have linguistic and grammatical categories to slot the new language rules into. Mayor Pete could probably get up to speed pretty quickly if he put in the work. :)
germy
@lowtechcyclist:
You really took my comment personally!
I wasn’t even aware of your comment, I was talking about David Dayum or whatever his name is.
zhena gogolia
So funny. DJT auditioning to be host of Jeopardy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oY2Zw85kPc
dww44
@NotMax: Exactly. I don’t know whose visage on my teevee makes me more angry…. his or Trump’s. Either way, I am so angry by the continuing attack on our small d democracy and the GOP’s enabling of same that I could spit nails.
The only good thing this morning was a phone call with a long time friend, who was taking up for Trump at the start of the pandemic…..”I think he really cares”….. she said at the time. Said friend is mostly not political but clearly is in the Trump voter demographic.
While conversing about little kittens she has rescued and needs homes for, somehow she mentioned the disrespect and sheer awfulness of the current occupant in refusing to concede. Made a comparison to what if Hillary had behaved this way 4 years ago? Did my heart good to finally interact with someone who is willing to speak out against the sheer disrespect (as she described it) of Trump’s post election behavior.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
HUD will be a much higher profile and more important cabinet position for the Biden administration than Ag, as the article you linked to makes clear. I suspect that’s why she accepted the position, even if it was not her first choice.
Baud
@sab: She seems to have won over her colleagues with her work. They have been pushing her pretty hard.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: DDay is a lefty bro, I remember him from the GOS.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
Dayum. I’m a professional statistician. How the hell do I get in on this racket?
The answer is, I don’t. If I had the stomach for grift, I’d have been fleecing evangelicals for years. Why couldn’t the Lord have given me a more larcenous heart? ;-)
schrodingers_cat
Languages are easy to pick up when you are younger. 3 that I can converse fluently in, I didn’t even try to learn, they were just around me.
The order of difficulty of accessing a language:
Understand
Read
Converse
Write
Also knowing the script the language is written in is just the first step in being able to read a specific language. I am well versed in the Devnagari script in which Hindi, Marathi and Sanskrit are written, but I cannot read more than a few lines written in Sanskrit because the diction and the grammar is different.
Emma from FL
@lowtechcyclist: And maybe you should assume that during the vetting process a lot of this stuff got ironed out. Instead you assume that Biden and Harris start from “where do we put a black person anywhere doing anything just so we can please black people who in any case are too ignorant to understand the difference between competence and patronage. “
Leto
@lowtechcyclist: the best job she has is the one she currently holds: helping the constituency that directly elected her to help them. She can be “on the record” all she wants as to what she thinks is in her best interest but honestly that doesn’t mean shit. Hopefully she’s further past “this is the best opportunity I’m going to get” and more inline with “this is the best way I can serve the American public”. There have been other figures under consideration who refused the initial job they offered, only to lose out on having any position at all. Patience is a virtue, etc etc etc
Geminid
@Jeffro: Well, Matt Brainard, the “expert” in yesterday’s Washington Post article, does own a Virginia based Voting Integrity Project. He says he raised more than $670,000 last month to support his efforts, through crowdfunding. The Post also reported that a government information security officer had taken “vacation time” to work on Brainard’s team. I hope there will be follow-up on that part of the story.
sab
@Betty Cracker: He seems adventurous. I bet he would go happily.
OzarkHillbilly
Doesn’t mean somebody can’t do it for them.
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
I’m glad you’re here, I’m glad you provide links to J L Cauvin, and I’m glad you know how to spell STRZOK and BENNET. Yours is a funny and valued voice.
OzarkHillbilly
Where is that Dick Mayhew guy this morn?
dww44
@NotMax: posted this in a thread last evening but what I most remember Vilsack for in 2009 was his hanging Shirley Sherrod out to dry because of a Breitbart misrepresentation of a speech she gave before she was in the Obama administration.. Fired her or asked for her resignation and when he backtracked, she didn’t bite. No real progressive bona fides IMO. And a coward to boot.
Leto
@OzarkHillbilly: Ref’ing a high school soccer match. Make up game.
L85NJGT
Joe’s Gallup approval is 55/41.
All true leftists say they want artisanal charcuterie, but it seems like most don’t like watching the sausage getting made. Even if it results in a far superior product. They prefer supermarket links full of corn syrup and sawdust.
Can’t someone get the politics out of politics??!!
sab
@Gin & Tonic: His languages are mostly related. French, Italian, Spanish. Maltese, Arabic, Dari.
zhena gogolia
@SiubhanDuinne:
Thank you! The same to you!
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: And immersion in the culture is very different from schoolroom experience in terms of what it gets you. I spent years and years studying French and I’m still far from conversationally fluent, because it was all school, and I’ve spent comparatively little time just surviving in a French-speaking area (it doesn’t help that the French-speaking area I can get to with a day’s drive speaks a radically different dialect from the one I was taught).
OzarkHillbilly
@Leto: Thanx, I was a little worried because he is as regular as clockwork.
debbie
I don’t know who this bitch WaPo reporter Annie Linsky is on my local NPR call-in show, but she should not be bad-mouthing Biden like she is about his lousy record of accessibility with the press.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
For me, it’s read, write, understand, converse. But that’s based on book/app learning, not being in the culture.
Baud
@debbie: AL has talked about her. She was hired at WaPo to complain about Biden (previously Warren).
Immanentize
@lowtechcyclist: You don’t understand Rep. Fudge’s district or past. You are essentializing her as some country rural black lady. These positions require management skills and she has them. HUD deals with rural poor as well as urban poor. Section 8 was designed for suburbs and ex-urban areas. HUD is also at the forefront of attacking discrimination in housing. Fudge seems well suited to direct their mission. To think HUD is an urban program for tenement yards is simply not the case.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Immanentize:
It’s as memorable as the Law Hawk, and that says something.
O. Felix Culpa
@mali muso: I did both Mandarin and Cantonese (the latter much harder in terms of tonal structure), but never got to Japanese, other than the basic “good morning” and “thank you” phrases. I enjoyed learning the characters and yes, understanding the building blocks helped. Classical Chinese totally flummoxed me though. You could know the meaning of each individual character and still have no idea what the hell the author was saying. I agree that having studied foreign languages makes it easier to learn additional languages. Easier, but not necessarily easy. :)
germy
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: It has worked the same way for me.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic:
who?
mali muso
@Matt McIrvin: True story. I studied French in high school and had a basic grasp of the verbs and sentence structure, but it was living in West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer where I learned to speak it fluently. Of course, the side effect of that experience is being a shiny white woman who speaks French with an accent that sounds distinctly “black”.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Enjoy memorable commercials? Here’s the Texas Law Hawk.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HL3MxAH-kDI
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodingers_cat: @Baud:
My multilingual wife reports that writing is far more difficult than reading. She grew up speaking her native Catalan and as such is fluent, but it was forbidden to teach it and she left Spain soon after Franco stepped down. She can work it out when reading it but writing anything more than the simplest of sentences is all but impossible.
Uncle Cosmo
Concur. In conversations about places I’ve visited across the Pwnd I tend to toss foreign words into the mix** & then get asked how many languages I “speak.” I reply that it depends on what they mean by “speaking:”
Beyond that – Many pre-Internet years ago, one of my very irregular tasks for various employers was to be brought technical papers in foreign languages & – not translate them, merely identify what language they were written in so they could track down someone who could. It rarely took me more than half a minute – it’s curious how many tongues one can distinguish purely by diacritical marks & letter combinations. And that’s even true for the various flavors of Cyrillic.
**And yeah, it’s kinda obnoxious, but I’ll take that hit in exchange for the opportunity to recall and use what I learned – it’s so easy to lose any facility in a foreign tongue without practice, which is hard to come by here (Spanish in significantly Hispanic areas the major exception).
*** E.g., Hello/good day etc.; please; thank you; pleased to meet you; do you speak/understand English; goodbye. You could probably add a couple dozen more candidates.
sab
@Baud: I forgot she also has urban in her district. 10 houses in my Akron neighborhood are in her district. Won’t mean anything to you, but will to debbie: I think Emilia Sykes lives in her district. Maybe she’ll run since she is about to be term limited out of the Ohio Statehouse.
Ruckus
@RandomMonster:
When has he ever missed an opportunity to take that shot?
He’s not a well human, but then he never has been. It’s just worse now.
Barbara
@dww44: I am certain that Vilsack is being called up again because the sheer catastrophe of Trump’s ag policy requires someone who knows the agency well enough to reconstitute it quickly (remember all those mandatory moves to Kansas as an excuse to fire a bunch of people?) as well as reanimate trade relations with China and other nations. Vilsack doesn’t need to be schooled in how it used to work. It’s not ideal, not by a longshot, but consider it another casualty of what happened in 2016.
It’s going to be a long time if ever that Democrats get the clean policy slate that we have all been craving for a long time.
raven
@schrodingers_cat: Here is Steven Krashen’s theory of fossilization and language acquisition.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly:
A state we all strive to obtain.
Hoodie
@OzarkHillbilly: My son would agree. He’s spent considerable time in France in his high school and college years and his friends there says his spoken French is pretty solid. However, his writing skills are really rudimentary.
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Just a weeeeee bit over the top. Too funny.
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: My sister, age 70, is fluent in Mandarin since she has been learning it since age 18. She says spoken mandarin is really easy. No conjugations, no declensions (she doesn’t even know what declension is.) The writing is really difficult. But that is why ambassadors have staff.
mrmoshpotato
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
These dudes really know how to cause chaos from beyond the grave. What fuckery is Chavez up to today?
Are Fidel and Hugo in cahoots with each other?
Hehe, cahoots.
debbie
@Baud:
Now there’s an A.P. reporter (Jennifer something) talking in a much kinder way about Obama’s abominable accessibility problems.
Elizabelle
@debbie: Annie Linskey is a shrew. I wish the WaPost would can her. She is poison. She was apparently hired to be poison.
Jeffro
@Hoodie: yup
between the criminal charges and obvious dementia, it should be fairly easy for a pol with any skills whatsoever to “thank president* trumpov for his leadership and fighting spirit, and we now gladly take up his cause as our cause”, yada yada yada
O. Felix Culpa
@Barbara:
That was my assumption too. I’m not thrilled with the choice of Vilsack either, but I understand the rationale for getting someone with deep experience in that role. Biden will have to do triage throughout the entire government. We’re in a crisis and there’s no time for a learning curve. We can get more forward-thinking people in cabinet positions in 2022, after the departments have been rebuilt.
Hoodie
@Barbara: Yeah, that’s an agency that really just needs to return to pre-Trump status quo. It’s not worth the controversy of introducing something new with everything else that is going on, Biden has enough fires to put out. As much as picks like Vilsack and Austin might ruffle some feathers, they’re far better than picking Republican daddies. Vilsack is a loyal Dem and Austin has close ties to Biden.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: I haven’t been regular in at least a decade. :-(
debbie
@sab:
I’m all for Sykes! I love the way she stands up to the Ohio GOP — better than David Pepper by far.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Dude has a giant string of over-the-top, abrasive commercials. From what I understand from a tort lawyer here with somewhat less abrasive as material, the in your face stuff works to increase engagement more than you’d think.
Immanentize
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Just so others get the reference to the Law Hawk:
Brian Wilson, Texas Law Hawk
Ad includes very cute puppy.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: I agree with your timeline of language acquisition.
Weirdly, for small children (lucky them), it’s understand and converse.
Ken
I think you’re over-qualified.
raven
@Elizabelle: The aren’t bound by rules.
OzarkHillbilly
Aren’t you the optimistic one this morning.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
I know I’ll regret this, but I just posted this on the program’s FB page:
Ruckus
@satby:
I don’t think most of us voted for Joe only because he’s a democrat. He actually has history, he’s actually a good guy and he’s on the rather liberal side of where our government is now. I think a lot of people thought he’d be good because of his history and who he is and I’m going to trust him rather than question ever damn decision he has to make as if it’s the end of the world. I think he will be a good boss for the people he hires and will and is creating a concept of actual governance rather than an entire village worth of knob polishers, which is what we have now.
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: It’s very reminiscent of the “Better call Saul” commercials, but those were art imitating life.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I can understand several Indian languages from the Indo-European language group but cannot read them because they have different scripts.
I can read Gujarati to some extent because the script is close to Devnagari.
Elizabelle
@debbie: I am glad you did.
I would take it one step further and send an email to Martin Baron, the WaPost editor.
I called Linskey a “shrew” upthread, and somewhat regret that as it’s a misogynistic word. Could not think of a better one-word and non-gendered descriptor, though.
The WaPost has no trouble finding excellent reporters. It is terrible to have the awful Linskey taking a better reporter’s job. Get her canned. Unfair is unfair.
mali muso
@O. Felix Culpa: I’m curious as to how mutually ineligible Mandarin and Cantonese are. Can speakers of one follow the basic gist of a conversation in the other? Are the written forms the same?
You’re right that “easier” doesn’t mean “easy”. Learning a new language is a humbling experience, no matter what. You go from being a competent adult to stumbling around like a toddler (verbally) and have to be willing to laugh at yourself. :)
Elizabelle
@raven: Yes. And not self-conscious. They just want, and need, the attention and to be heard. It’s a gift.
Immanentize
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
True story from my past -+ the Judge who swore me in to the Florida Bar in Miami who I truly liked, Alfonso Seppe, ended up getting pinched in a bribery for pleas scandal. One of the main attorneys that was feeding in money was a law partner of a friend of mine who had recently left the PD’s office (who was clean as a whistle).
I saw my friend in Monday calendar call a week after the shit hit the Herald front page on a Sunday. His partner’s name and face was all over the print and TV news. I was worried for him — asked if he was doing OK. Was he coming back to the PD office? He laughed and said business was booming, the phone was ringing off the hook with new clients. Offered me a job with the firm if I wanted it.
I didn’t.
Barbara
@debbie: Linskey is just awful. I won’t read anything she writes.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: Yes you are right converse should be before read. I can converse in Gujarati ( not about complex topics but enough for casual conversation) but would have a hard time reading it. I can understand and speak some Bengali too but cannot read it at all.
raven
@Elizabelle:
The Acquisition-Learning hypothesis
According to Krashen, there are two ways of developing language ability. Acquisition involves the subconscious acceptance of knowledge where information is stored in the brain through the use of communication; this is the process used for developing native languages. Learning, on the other hand, is the conscious acceptance of knowledge ‘about’ a language (i.e. the grammar or form). Krashen states that this is often the product of formal language instruction.
According to this theory, the optimal way a language is learned is through natural communication. As a second language teacher, the ideal is to create a situation wherein language is used in order to fulfill authentic purposes. This is turn, will help students to ‘acquire’ the language instead of just ‘learning’ it.
Miss Bianca
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Do it.
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: Yep writing is difficult. I can read and understand and to some extent carry out complex conversations in Hindi but my writing is at about middle school level.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: “You don’t want a criminal lawyer, you want a criminal lawyer.”
-Jesse Pinkman
Barbara
@lowtechcyclist: I am of two minds about this. I do think that the tendency to see HUD’s constituency as “urban” and therefore ideal for an African American administrator is a real trope, but it is a trope that is usually borne out by Republicans, who use it as a reward for one of their few high profile African American supporters, however unqualified they are to serve in the position — see, e.g., Ben Carson. On the other hand, Dems have not consistently viewed it this way. HUD is where Andrew Cuomo served, for instance. In addition, I would note that public housing has long had issues with discriminatory and poor treatment that has been aimed at minority communities and that putting place someone who has awareness and knowledge of that history is beneficial.
Jager
@danielx: I was in Indy for a business conference and saw the ads for Don’s Guns. A guy at the conference said, he went in there once and heard the guy behind the counter selling a shotgun by pitching the customer with this gem, “We call this our duck gun because if somebody comes into rob you and they see this they yell “DUCK!”
schrodingers_cat
@raven: It can also be a combination of the two. Growing up in Mumbai I heard many languages around me and formally studied some of them in school. English (since kindergarten), Marathi (grade 2) and Hindi (grade 5).
Miss Bianca
@satby:
My bet is on “he’s already studying”, so…
ETA: That being said, Mandarin is a *daunting* study (I knew several Chinese Studies majors back in the day, including a steady bf), so…odds on his being able to conduct trade discussions by the time he gets there? Hmmm…
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: Totally agree. I took one semester of German in college and I totally sucked at it.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: For any criminal, that seems like the reasonable play.
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
He just posted a new thread.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: I am looking forward to my DIL’s immigration situation getting resolved, so she and my son can get on with producing some tri-lingual grandchildren for me.
germy
Elizabelle
@Gin & Tonic: May everyone be blessed by that happening way sooner than later.
You can spoil them in three languages.
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly: The triumph of hope over experience. :)
Ken
@mali muso: Language Log has a lot of posts on the differences between Mandarin and Cantonese, for example https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=42260 . According to them, they are different languages with a different writing system; but the PRC government disagrees, and demands everyone uses Mandarin writing even where it is not suitable for the local language.
O. Felix Culpa
@mali muso: Written forms are the same. Having a single written language is what helped unify China over the eons. I can’t say for sure, but my guess is that Cantonese speakers would find it easier to understand Mandarin than the other way around.
patroclus
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m sorry, but Ebert is/was not always great. Have you ever read his original review of Blade Runner???!!! He utterly panned it and, as it gradually grew into a cult classic and virtually everyone admitted that it was/is one of the greatest and most innovative science fiction classics ever, he only slowly came around and admitted it into his canon of great films. And there’s even a site that lists all of Roger’s original terrible reviews; which, before he died, Ebert read and admitted that, yeah, he had been wrong on occasion. And, forever after, he listed Blade Runner as proof of his general “worthlessness.”
Miss Bianca
@mali muso: I seem to recall that the written characters for Mandarin and Cantonese are very similar, but pronunciation completely different.
ETA: And others who have actually studied Mandarin are correct, the spoken form isn’t that difficult if you can master the tonal inflections…my friends in school were deep into the weeds of either Chinese Communist policy or classical Chinese studies, so their experiences were not typical!
O. Felix Culpa
@Ken: Hmm, I agree with them that Cantonese and Mandarin are two different languages with some cognates, but disagree about the written form. Chinese script is Chinese script – unless you’re talking simplified characters (PRC) versus traditional characters (Taiwan and at least formerly, Hong Kong). The difference I suppose you might see between written Mandarin and Cantonese (in my decidedly unscholarly view) would be the difference between formal and colloquial writing. Formal writing would be the same.
Barbara
@O. Felix Culpa: That was the assessment of my long ago BF who spoke Mandarin. He told me that he found it difficult to follow Cantonese conversations, because they use a wider range of tones (I think it was 8 versus 4). Being a native speaker of Chinese (and probably Vietnamese) makes you so aware of tonal differences that you are more likely to have perfect musical pitch.
mali muso
@Ken: @O. Felix Culpa:
Interesting…thanks!
O. Felix Culpa
@Miss Bianca: Written characters are exactly the same and yes, the pronunciation is different.
germy
patroclus
@Barbara: Well, when I lived in Hong Kong, it was more like Mandarin had 4 tones and Cantonese had around 20 (or more). Mandarin is relatively easy; Cantonese takes a lifetime of practice. (Of course, if you just put a gutteral “ahhhhh” after everything you say in Cantonese, they will usually “understand” you and laugh…)
O. Felix Culpa
@patroclus: Landsmann! When were you in Hong Kong? I lived there for ten years over two periods. First time lived in Tsimshatsui, second time near Admiralty.
ETA: Aiiyaah always came in handy.
trollhattan
@germy:
Here’s hoping she sells tens of copies.
There are only two paths: objectively saying what really happened in the WH from the perspective of somebody with extensive, meaningful presence or spending 250 pages cuddling Trump’s shriveled balls because she wants to stay on the gravy train and perhaps really believes he’s a swell guy. [Niki Haley took Path 2.]
She has no chance rehabilitating herself to me, so either/or Kellyanne.
montanareddog
@O. Felix Culpa:
I always understood that Cantonese and Mandarin speakers could communicate with each other in writing but could not converse.
And the reverse is true for Hindi and Urdu speakers as they are very closely related linguistically but Hindi uses a Sanskrit-based script, and Urdu’s is Arabic-based
patroclus
@O. Felix Culpa: In the 80’s and early 90’s. I usually stayed in the flats of various other ex-pats (while they were on home leave or otherwise away), so I lived on the Peak, at mid-levels (near the LRC), over in Happy Valley, in Tsimshatsui, on Lantau at Disco Bay, in numerous hotels (the Pen is the best) and other places.
O. Felix Culpa
@patroclus: Hah! We probably overlapped. I was there through most of the 80’s and the early to mid 90’s. Left just before the handover, although not by choice. I loved living there and would have gladly stayed.
ETA: High tea at the Pen was one of my favorite indulgences. We were put up at the Prince Hotel when we first moved to HK and were looking for a place to live. It was fancy, but not cozy.
schrodingers_cat
@montanareddog: The division between Hindi and Urdu is artificial and exaggerated. They are pretty much the same language Hindustani. It has to do with politics of the subcontinent.
Hindi is Hindustani without the supposed “polluting” Muslim influences
Urdu has little to with Arabic, it has Farsi influences. Persian was the court language of the Delhi Sultanate, Mughals and other Muslim rulers of India.
David Anderson
@OzarkHillbilly: Begging for money and explaining long division
patroclus
@O. Felix Culpa: I’m pretty sure I saw you at Rick’s that one time and, of course, on the Star Ferry. And if you ever saw American football replays at the American Club, that was because of a little scam a friend of mine ran that I advised against (legally).
evodevo
@Gin & Tonic: Yeah, that’s me…I can parse a menu and read road signs and figure out directions to the hotel in 4 languages, but that ain’t bein’ “fluent” lol
O. Felix Culpa
@patroclus: LOL. Surely on the Star Ferry. Many times.
I only occasionally went to the American Club, as someone’s guest. We were not of the milieu to become members. I did organize breakfast Super Bowl parties for my friends, though. That was great fun. I’m sorry I missed the football scam. :)
laura
@OzarkHillbilly: speaking only for myself- the King of late night coked out of his mind sessy time commercials is Tom Labrie Waterbed salesman and host of night comfort theatre. Take it away Tom: https://youtu.be/0JTnP5dwfS0
Dorothy A. Winsor
@germy: I wonder who the publisher is. That Daily Beast article doesn’t say.
J R in WV
@Zzyzx:
Well — that explains everything, then. I never knew President Obama was an expert geneticist and virologist, as well as a Constitutional Law expert. What a renaissance man he is!!!
According to the drunkest witness, anyhow. So strange. She must have serious mental issues that render her unable to think rationally. Scary how many people like that are out there…
cain
The racist and ghoulish Portland Police was over in N. Portland trying to forcibly remove a BIPoC family from their home in a middle of a pandemic. Protestors showed up and drove the cops away. This neighborhood is fighting back – and I’m here for that.
It annoys me to no end that Ted was re-elected.. there is already a recall campaign going.
But we definitely need to start getting Congress to start getting debt relief and various others. I don’t know why the press is not bringing in the victims of COVID, the victims of economy … instead we get interviews with Trump supporters and talking heads.
germy
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I don’t know who the publisher is. I’m certain her book will be “self-serving and full of glaring omissions” (as Lisa Simpson once described Krusty the Clown’s memoirs)
SiubhanDuinne
@patroclus:
I didn’t say he was always right, or that I always agreed with him. But I found him a good writer and I always thoroughly enjoyed reading him.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
I’ll be adding that to the “Do Not Read” list.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic: The tonal nature of Mandarin can be a bit hard to get right, the writing involves a great deal of memorization. I took a year of Chinese in grad school.
patroclus
@O. Felix Culpa: Well, I was never permanently stationed there, but over a period of 15-20 years, I was in and out usually 2-3 times per year for 7 weeks this time, 9 weeks that time, 3 weeks the other, so I was there so often that I considered it as having lived there. All of my friends/colleagues were of that “milieu” so they just got me temporary “memberships” everywhere, so I was effectively a member (at the AC; the LRC and other exclusive places) even though not actually so. Most everyone liked having me there because I play tennis and was always up for a game, or a beach outing to the New Territories or a hike on one of the far out islands or a night out on the town. Not to mention all the legal advice and close and daily access to the powers-that-be at headquarters in the States.
Yarrow
@SiubhanDuinne: Who would even want to read it outside of Beltway hacks? Who’s the market for that crap? She’s got nothing interesting to say that she shouldn’t already have said for the good of the country. If she’s saved the “good stuff” for her book then she’s not a patriotic American.
Fuck her and her husband. I’ll leave their daughter out of it because she’s not yet an adult, but honestly I’d be surprised if they’re not angling for a family reality show.
cain
@Soprano2:
Martin had the right of it – if you’re looking at AG, California has way more diversity in terms of agriculture – while Iowa only has 3 crops they care about – one of which corn is not even used for food but for methanol.
chopper
@Gin & Tonic:
there are videos of him being interviewed in other languages and doing a good job. i’d consider that an example of ‘speaking’ the language.
Gravenstone
@cain: Ethanol…
Yarrow
@Barbara:
This is my take as well. I think things are such a mess that Biden needs people who know how things are supposed to run and can hit the ground running. I also agree with whoever upthread said Biden is picking his fights. Ag may not be one of the areas he wants to fight.
Cameron
How strange. I was a sneering purist lefty who only voted for Biden because he wasn’t Trump. And I’m starting to really like him.
WaterGirl
@satby: I was going to say something similar.
If the rumors are true…
Raise your hand if you think that Pete, who clearly values communication and excels at it, and who knows all those languages, would be comfortable having to rely on a translator.
Bueller? Bueller?
Matt McIrvin
@Uncle Cosmo: At one of my previous jobs, I was presented with a tablet device that had gotten switched to Russian and was able to suss out enough that I could identify a few menu items and, I think, switch it out of Russian mode.
And my coworkers were impressed and asked me where I learned Russian. I don’t speak word one of Russian. But my wife speaks Russian to some extent and I’ve managed to pick up, like, three-quarters of the Cyrillic alphabet well enough to sound out some stuff phonetically. But that was enough to accomplish a few things.
At another job, I did a lot of work with font rendering on smartphone devices and managed to learn to read five words in Chinese: “small”, “medium”, “large” and “English language”.
Sallycat
As a lurker, I know I am a stranger (or strange) to you. But I would like to help you with your letter, if only to proof read. I am a retired attorney with a lifetime of writing behind me. Anyway, if you can use any help, I am willing.
zhena gogolia
@Cameron:
Good for you!
AWOL
@Sallycat: “proofread”
Sallycat
I @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I lurk for a reason. I thought your name would appear because I clicked on reply to your post. But my previous post is directed to @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes.
Sallycat
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: My comment was in response to your earlier one re writing a letter.
Bobby Thomson
@Baud: DDay is a Berniebro who lost his mind during the Obama presidency.
Steve in the ATL
@trollhattan:
OMG GIVE ME A PIE FILTER STAT!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Bobby Thomson: I’ve lost the ability to keep track of who’s who. Is Dayen the guy who used to make the Washington Monthly blog un-readable on weekends?
Matt
Keep punching left, kids. It’ll make for some hilarious stories when we’re all in GOP reeducation camps in 2026.
Bobby Thomson
@danielx: you left out his finger guns at the end
Bobby Thomson
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: that was Jeff Jarvis
geg6
@patroclus:
I still think it’s a shitty movie.
If fall asleep in the middle of it in the theater, it’s a shitty movie.
Frank McCormick
@Baud:
I’m not able today to wade through all 200+ comments (I’ve got cookies to decorate!), so forgive me if this has been addressed more than once.
David Dayen is most definitely a leftie. He used to be a frequent poster at Digby’s Hullabaloo and I found his posts to be both informed and informative.
It looks like he is not a Biden fan and is very afraid that he will be too conciliatory to those who claim to be centrists from either political party.
Moi, I prefer to “wait and see”.
KSinMA
@Immanentize: Marvelous!
WaterGirl
@Steve in the ATL: That phrase should be illegal. A new law should be passed – the word cuddling is not allowed to be used with those other words. shudder.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: It’s true. I couldn’t look away.
Ruckus
@Immanentize:
That’s D-Day?
I was only casually around KOS but he seemed like a normal human. Not an alt-left guy. Must have been the air…..
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
People do exist who are articulate with several languages, they are seemingly rare, but they do.