Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
We’re almost halfway through January, and we have yet to have a sustained cold here. It’s been down to 20 a couple times, but that is it. This is not good, for a number of reasons. On a personal level, I need the seasons or I am off kilter (more so than usual). But more importantly, we need sustained cold to kill off a lot of bugs, to help plants and trees continue their normal cycle, to kill off weak wildlife, etc.
It’s a problem.
BREAKING: House approves war powers resolution to restrict Trump on Iran https://t.co/s09Xj37hte
— Grace Segers (@Grace_Segers) January 9, 2020
“Only 15 of the 97 senators attending were able to ask questions before it ended abruptly.” https://t.co/2Rn4Dy8z2N
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) January 9, 2020
The GOP prefers to be kept in the dark, and fed copious doses of BS. Call them the Mushroom Caucus!
I left literal parts of my body in Iraq, where I was fighting terrorists.
Donald Trump spent months attacking an ACTUAL Gold Star Family.@RepDougCollins should be ashamed of himself for perpetuating this offensive lie. https://t.co/cboW42lPSu
— Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) January 9, 2020
Poor Ukraine. So far from God, so close to Putin (and Putin’s puppets)…
NEW: “We have intelligence from multiple sources including our allies and our own intelligence. The evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface to air missile. This may well have been unintentional”
—Canadian PM Trudeau in press conference just now— Robbie Gramer (@RobbieGramer) January 9, 2020
American officials say intelligence community has a “high level of confidence” that an Iranian missile accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane over Tehran this week. @antontroian @Nataliekitro https://t.co/6d9pMuAmD8
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) January 9, 2020
I’m sure that will be of great comfort to the families of the victims. https://t.co/EeYbg5tscm
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) January 9, 2020
When people warn of the risks of escalation, civilians being killed in accidents are part of that risk. Period. It is *explicitly* included in national security risk analysis.
??This type of nonsense represents such a lazy, dishonest, and fundamentally cowardly position. pic.twitter.com/UDUbRhY0Vg
— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) January 9, 2020
Wag the Dog Open Thread: First, Do No (More) Harm…Post + Comments (131)
Three flaming leftie, know-nothing, numbers-‘n’-stuff libtards are out with a new examination of the impact of Trump’s tariffs.
This paper, by Mary Amity of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Columbia’s David E. Weinstein, and Stephen J. Redding of Princeton (AKA America’s northernmost southern school) concludes that once again, Donald Trump and his merry band of Republican scorched-earth economic terrorists have shat the bed:
Trade theory suggests that tariff s levied by a large country, such as the U.S., should cause foreign firms to lower prices. However, until the 2018 trade war, economists have not had the opportunity to study tari ffs on large economies in recent history due to the reluctance of governments in these economies to apply substantial tari ffs…The recent U.S. application of substantial tari ffs on imports from major trading partners provides a natural experiment for understanding these eff ects. Quite surprisingly, we have found that in most sectors, these U.S. tariff s have been completely passed on to U.S. firms and consumers.
As in: Trump’s trade war is a tax on American workers and consumers.
There is an oddity the authors note:
The data show that U.S. tariff s have caused foreign exporters of steel to substantially lower their prices into the U.S. market. Thus, foreign countries are bearing close to half the cost of the steel tari ffs. Since China is only the tenth largest steel supplier to the U.S. market, these costs have largely been borne by regions like the EU, South Korea and Japan.2 This is likely good news for U.S. firms that demand steel, but bad news for workers hoping that steel tariffs will bring back jobs. Indeed, the fact that foreign steel producers have lowered their prices in response to U.S. tari ffs may help explain why U.S. steel production only rose by 2 percent per year between the third quarter of 2017 and the third quarter of 2019 despite 25 percent steel tari ffs.
So: we’re still paying half the cost of steel tariffs; workers are getting bupkis, and surely our heartland Real American™ Trump voters have discovered the eternal truth that Everything/one Trump Touches Dies.*
Trump has succeeded in his highest aim: his own taxes have been cut and he’s been able to grift on a grand scale. Those who hired it done have got theirs too, on their 1099s and in the judges that only the rubes think are there simply to enforce Christo-sharia law on the rest of us, but are really in place to ensure that big business never loses another court case, and labor never wins one.
And we pay more for the privilege.
On that happy note…this thread is open!
*Narrator: They won’t. (Edit prompted by Redfish’s spot-on comment.)
Image: Roland Vivian Pitchforth, Snack time in a factory, 1941
This is a thing of beauty.
I went ALLL the way off on #WokeAF Daily yesterday about the #IvotedforHillaryClinton. Listen and Subscribe: https://t.co/C3Nnzc6JcD pic.twitter.com/IkE5mmE9Zo
— Danielle Moodie (@DeeTwoCents) January 9, 2020
Open thread
New York Assemblyman Brian Kolb, no need for you to tell you which party, had his day in court for a DUI today. The guy’s a prince among men:
Court documents allege that Kolb consumed four or five cocktails at a restaurant in Pittsford, about 15 miles away. He also allegedly told a tow-truck driver that his wife was to blame when his state-owned vehicle was found in a ditch near his home.
The driver told deputies that Kolb told him “My wife was driving!” and then said, “you know how women drive.”
The driver also told deputies he did not see anyone else near the vehicle.
On Thursday. Kolb told reporters that his words about his wife driving were simply him “trying to make light” of a bad situation, and was taken out of context in news articles.
“I was kidding around and they took it seriously. I would never blame my wife. That was a joke,” Kolb said.
“I love my wife and would never throw her under the bus,” he said
The guy called a tow truck for a car stuck basically on his driveway. If he had gone inside and slept it off, there would have been no charges filed. Instead, he calls a tow truck, I don’t think he impressed the driver, the driver called the cops, and now, here we are. He’s resigned as Minority Leader [edit: he’s keeping his seat, though]. Open thread.
Five years ago yesterday, we brought Samwise home. He was five months old exactly, at least according to his papers. He was however not small, a problem that has only gotten worse. I joke, of course, but I’m often amazed by just how long the little guy is.
Here are some before-and-after pictures.
Five years ago we brought home this not-so-little dorkmonster.
1/8/2015 <——> 2020 pic.twitter.com/Bp3g0xTz1F
— Tynan! (@TynanPants) January 9, 2020
He’s adapted well to life in the big city, though I do wish he had a little more room. At any rate, happy Gotcha Day, Samwise!
Let this be a respite thread for all your non-political needs.
Afternoon Respite Thread: Happy Gotcha Day, Samwise!Post + Comments (56)
Here are a couple of examples of the daily shit that these women go through, even from their racist colleagues. At least in the House, the gloves are off and nobody pretends that there’s some kind of “comity”.
On a somewhat related topic: the only media feed that I have that I don’t manage myself is my Google phone’s news feed. This feed is Google’s take on what I’m interested in, based on search history, reading history, etc. Google, like all of the other algorithms, is easily fooled by carefully calibrated mostly nonsense. For example, I’m constantly getting negative posts about AOC and Ilhan Omar sourced from “news” or “opinion” sites that I’ve never heard of. (“The Hollywood Conservative” was one of them – at least they’re correct in the use of the definite article.) The posts are carefully calibrated to be a spin on facts. Nobody posts that Omar is from Mars, for example — instead it’s a negative take base on another thinly sourced news article, based on another thinly sourced article. And there’s no cursing and no other markers that makes Google think that it’s “fake news” by their milquetoast definition. So, Google figures it’s legit, and pushes it out to me, since I read about AOC and Omar, among others.
I do hate Facebook, but even if Facebook were suddenly shut down, and could no longer do things like pay for puff pieces in Teen Vogue, we’d still have the same problem. I’ll never see a Balloon-Juice or LGM post in my feed, but I’ll see hundreds of anti-squad posts, because these Republicans (or bots or whatever they are) can play Google’s stupid game.