Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

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

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Open Thread: I {Heart} My Senior Senator

Open Thread: I {Heart} My Senior Senator

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Not seeing much else about this event, but I’m probably looking in the wrong places:

… This coming Monday (March 28), Sen. Warren, funk and soul legend Chaka Khan, and gospel great Yolanda Adams will converge in Washington, D.C. for the “Have Her Back” tribute in honor of Judge Jackson’s path to the nomination and her time as a public defender prior to her current role on the bench of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Sen. Warren will also shine a light on the role that public defenders play in the legal system, pointing to law professionals who represent individuals that otherwise cannot afford to secure representation. Along with performances from Khan and Adams, guests will also hear from National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) President & CEO April Frazier Camara and National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) Executive Director Lisa Monet Wayne.

The ”Have Her Back” tribute was produced by Demand Justice, NLADA, and NACDL, along with event partners Black Lives Matter, MoveOn, and United State of Women.

Meanwhile, Jerry Brito, “Executive director of @coincenter, the DC-based crypto think tank”, with more of a comment than a question…

Nuh-uh, she’s just *jealous*, cuz we’re so *awesome*!

Reader Interactions

61Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    when crypto is associated with their outgroup (i.e. right-wing free-market libertarian ideology).

    That’s all I need to hate crypto.

  4. 4.

    Ken

    with more of a comment than a question

    I’m having terrible flashbacks to one or two public planning meetings….

  5. 5.

    Ken

    @Baud: The horrible environmental impact, complete lack of any societal value, and inherent pyramid-scam nature of the bubble are just icing on the cake?

  6. 6.

    Steeplejack

    I love that Jerry Brito is the executive director of a “D.C.-based crypto think tank.” So much to unpack.

  8. 8.

    Another Scott

    Re: the crypto tweets –

    ? If it weren’t for bad takes, I’d have no takes at all

    Woooah! ?

    Another example:

    Checking on bold, independent journalism live from Poland or Brussels (or wherever he is). So edgy. pic.twitter.com/Sz9IH8dio4

    — Centrism Fan Acct ? (@Wilson__Valdez) March 26, 2022

    Tracey is a pox. Twitter is a pox. It’s the Gong Show of communication. It’s all about the clicks and the Engagement, not about actual quality or improving understanding.

    (via EclecticBrotha)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  10. 10.

    Ken

    @Steeplejack: That title often means “In charge of bribing lobbying Congress”. It’s probably a harder job when you’re trying to give them a thumb drive with a crypto token instead of suitcases full of cash.

  12. 12.

    laura

    @Another Scott: Why oh why must we keep hearing about Micahel Tracey without the caveat that he’s already dead having been murdered at the hands of Maxine Waters? Crypto- computer generated beanie babies. No non-FDIC banking for this gal.

  14. 14.

    Calouste

    @Baud: I’ve come to realize over my life that ideology means that first you have the solutions, and then you start looking for problems to apply them to.

  15. 15.

    Another Scott

    Relatedly, … GovExec:

    The IRS’ Privatized Debt Collection Program Is Bringing In Less Revenue Than Expected and Underreporting Costs

    The IRS’ own employees funded through the program have accounted for half of the initiative’s net revenue.

    […]

    A program Congress authorized in 2015 for the Internal Revenue Service to outsource the collection of some outstanding tax debt has brought in only about half as much money as projected, according to a new audit, while racking up costs the agency has not properly reported.

    The private debt collection program has brought in a total of nearly $970 million through fiscal 2020, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found in a new report, leading to net revenue for the government of $679 million after the companies take their 25% cut. That is far below the Congressional Budget Office’s projection that the program would have earned $1.9 billion by that time. IRS has assigned the companies 3.4 million cases valued at $32 billion in tax debt.

    IRS has also underreported costs of the program by $7 million, the IG said, by failing to track the full price of background checks, printing, postage, counsel and cyber security. Those issues are ongoing, the auditors added. IRS officials disputed the accusation, saying the underreporting was far less and it was largely following its statutory obligations. The IG countered the agency was failing to give lawmakers and other stakeholders a full accounting of what it has taken to operate the program.

    […]

    More at the link.

    You mean privatizing essential government functions doesn’t work well??! This is my shocked, shocked face.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  16. 16.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    That’s all I need to hate crypto.

    I keep confusing crypto with Krypto, Superman’s dog.

    Both can take away all your savings faster than a speeding bullet.

  20. 20.

    mrmoshpotato

    the DC-based crypto think tank

    What?  Do they brainstorm more stupid names for fake currency?

    Oogaboogabelugacoin!

  25. 25.

    James E Powell

    @laura:

    Thanks. I usually forget it was Tracey. That anyone pays any attention to him is evidence of how bad our political discourse is.

  28. 28.

    different-church-lady

    A whole lot of crypto-utopians are willfully blind to the idea that crypto is a scam. Even if they don’t want it to be a scam, they refuse to see how it’s used as a scam, because it ruins their fantasy.

  29. 29.

    different-church-lady

    @Another Scott: Careful here, Scott. Today you’re gonna have to defend your opinions on Twitter, but three years from now you’re going to have to choose between endless “I was rights” or just smug silence while everyone else wails about how it’s ruined everything.

  32. 32.

    Roger Moore

    @different-church-lady:

    A whole lot of crypto-utopians are willfully blind to the idea that crypto is a scam.

    For every crypto-utopian, there are a bunch of scammers. And for every scammer there are a bunch of dupes, many of whom think they’re smart enough to be the scammers themselves.

  34. 34.

    Kay

    An executive at American Franchise Capital, which owns 67 Taco Bell and 50 Applebee’s restaurants, said in a leaked email that rising gas prices would mean more applicants — and the opportunity to offer them lower wages.

    Multiple employees at an Applebee’s in Lawrence, Kansas, quit over the email, and the location was closed briefly Tuesday amid a walkout, according to the Lawrence Journal-World. Jake Holcomb, one of the managers who quit, saw the email on Monday, distributed copies to employees, and posted it online, according to the paper.

    Jake Holcomb is my hero.

  35. 35.

    Brachiator

    @different-church-lady:

    A whole lot of crypto-utopians are willfully blind to the idea that crypto is a scam. Even if they don’t want it to be a scam, they refuse to see how it’s used as a scam, because it ruins their fantasy.

    I don’t know that crypto is totally a scam. From what I hear from tax preparers, a lot of people think that it is magical money, and not reportable on tax returns.

    They are shocked to find that some basic rules apply.

  36. 36.

    different-church-lady

    @Brachiator:

    I don’t know that crypto is totally a scam.

    It’s not. It’s only about 93% scam. But with a little more work the gap can be closed.

  39. 39.

    Brachiator

    An executive at American Franchise Capital, which owns 67 Taco Bell and 50 Applebee’s restaurants, said in a leaked email that rising gas prices would mean more applicants — and the opportunity to offer them lower wages.

    This is insane, and the notion that wages are bad influences too much economic thinking  and reporting.

    We have seen a lot of positive reports about jobs. But one thing that the pandemic highlighted was that there is a large class of workers who have jobs that don’t pay enough. It’s dumb that economic reporting would talk about a booming economy based on job reports if people cannot afford to pay for food and housing.

    It was also good to see that even though the official minimum wage has not been uniformly increased, it was still the case that some employers were paying premiums to keep and hire workers.

    I don’t see any business reporters suggesting that CEOs should take a cut in pay or that profits should be reduced.

  40. 40.

    Brachiator

    @different-church-lady:

    RE: I don’t know that crypto is totally a scam.

    It’s not. It’s only about 93% scam. But with a little more work the gap can be closed.

    The fun thing is though even when it is a total scam, a person still might have to show taxable income.

    That is a scam and a burn.

  43. 43.

    StringOnAStick

    For all of you wondering at why we are where we are, Heather Cox Richardson gets to the meat of it here:

    So how do today’s Republicans square overturning these established rights with the fact that we live in a democracy, in which the majority should rule, so long as it does not crush a minority?

    A 2019 speech by then–attorney general William Barr at the University of Notre Dame offers an explanation.

    In that speech, Barr presented a profound rewriting of the meaning of American democracy. He argued that by “self-government,” the Framers did not mean the ability of people to vote for representatives of their choice. Rather, he said, they meant individual morality: the ability to govern oneself. And, since people are inherently wicked, that self-government requires the authority of a religion: Christianity.

  45. 45.

    Brachiator

    @StringOnAStick:

    In that speech, Barr presented a profound rewriting of the meaning of American democracy. He argued that by “self-government,” the Framers did not mean the ability of people to vote for representatives of their choice. Rather, he said, they meant individual morality: the ability to govern oneself. And, since people are inherently wicked, that self-government requires the authority of a religion: Christianity.

    That’s a hell of a confusing right turn.

    So the Constitution and the government is inherently defective because it is secular. And because human beings are flawed, religious authority must rule.

    And who decides who holds the whip?

  46. 46.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Brachiator:  the notion that wages are bad influences too much economic thinking  and reporting.

    Indeed! I know IANA economist, but the logic seems pretty straightforward: if people in the lower income levels have more money, they’ll spend it, because at any given time they’ve got things they need to buy that they can’t afford to.  And that spending will directly boost the economy.

    Meanwhile if Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos has more money, it’ll mostly just accumulate, because anyone with tens or hundreds of billions of dollars can’t possibly spend more than a fraction of it, and even finding ways to invest it that produces more goods and services is a challenge.  And when they do spend or invest it, it could be anywhere in the world; it’s no more likely to happen here in the U.S. than anywhere else.  So their having more money really doesn’t do much for anyone but them.

    @StringOnAStick:

    For all of you wondering at why we are where we are, Heather Cox Richardson gets to the meat of it here:

    So in addition to all the other ways that Barr has demonstrated that he is a vile person, he’s also a theocrat. Swell.

  47. 47.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    I think my own attitudes on cryptocurrency were solidified by: 1) the standard bearer, Bitcoin, being deflationary by design; 2) the attitudes of crypto evangelists, including their insistence that everyone should establish mechanisms for using Bitcoin for purchases and sales; 3) the Ponzi-like investment pattern that the evangelists were pushing. The environmental issues were just the last nail in the coffin for me.

  49. 49.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Another Scott: Twitter is a pox. It’s the Gong Show of communication. It’s all about the clicks and the Engagement, not about actual quality or improving understanding.

    I’ve said this before, but it really is in the way that you use it.

    Are there idiots like Tracey on Twitter? Sure! There are idiots like Tracey in the U.S. Congress, sad to say.

    But there are also a lot of bright, knowledgeable people on Twitter.  One way you can see this is that every morning, Anne Laurie brings us a thread that keeps us up to date on the state of the pandemic, and that thread is mostly a collection of tweets.

    I follow a handful of people – less than a dozen – who are knowledgeable in areas that interest me, and have better things to do, themselves, than to get into Twitter fights.  And I basically never look at my own timeline; I’ve bookmarked their timelines, and I read what they have to say.  I’ve learned a lot this way.

    And Twitter fights? Nobody’s making you get into Twitter fights, and nobody’s making you stay in one either.  And if a combative soul like me can largely stay out of them, most people can if they want to.

  50. 50.

    Brachiator

    @lowtechcyclist: 

    Indeed! I know IANA economist, but the logic seems pretty straightforward: if people in the lower income levels have more money, they’ll spend it, because at any given time they’ve got things they need to buy that they can’t afford to. And that spending will directly boost the economy.

    Yep. But it’s crazy that business reporters talk about the US economy being consumer driven, but then quote economists who claim that people having wages is inflationary. I guess if I were an economist I would not see the contradiction.

    And the hot desire to cut wages reminds me of another piece of nonsense. During the pandemic right wingers would constantly complain about people receiving the extra unemployment supplement. They would accuse people of lazily staying home. But the extra benefits meant that a lot of people didn’t have to take the first job that came along.

    Conservatives deeply hated this. They want people to work, but they want to control wages and opportunity.

    This is crap. I like that Biden talks about fighting for higher wages. But I also think it an absolute good that the 2021 tax credits are putting more people into the pockets of lower and middle income families.

    Anyway, that’s my little soap box on this issue.

    Meanwhile if Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos has more money, it’ll mostly just accumulate, because anyone with tens or hundreds of billions of dollars can’t possibly spend more than a fraction of it, and even finding ways to invest it that produces more goods and services is a challenge.

    I think that both these people are re-investing in their businesses and starting new ones. This is an economic good.

    And throwing away money on super yachts.

    But I think I also have read that some of these people take out very low interest loans against their wealth, and use this for spending without having to reduce their assets.

  52. 52.

    LivinginExile

    @lowtechcyclist: That’s exactly how I use twitter. A good source for  information if you follow the right people, and I don’t even see any of the ignorant shit.

  54. 54.

    StringOnAStick

    @Brachiator:

    Isn’t this their favorite way to avoid paying taxes?

    But I think I also have read that some of these people take out very low interest loans against their wealth, and use this for spending without having to reduce their assets.

  55. 55.

    Brachiator

    @StringOnAStick:

     

    RE: But I think I also have read that some of these people take out very low interest loans against their wealth, and use this for spending without having to reduce their assets.

    Isn’t this their favorite way to avoid paying taxes?

    Yep. There is a good CNBC story on tax avoidance strategies here.

  56. 56.

    VOR

    @Another Scott: Not a historian and it has been awhile since I read about it, but I seem to recall France tried outsourcing government revenue collection prior to the French Revolution. And it worked badly.

  58. 58.

    MisterDancer

    @Another Scott: Twitter is a pox. It’s the Gong Show of communication. It’s all about the clicks and the Engagement, not about actual quality or improving understanding.

    This is so bizarre a take I hardly know where to being.

    Here — you know where I picked up tons of my historical awareness? From reading Academicians on Twitter.

    You know where I get a pulse of my fellow Black community’s opinions and concerns? From Twitter. This post would have been a major haul w/o people on Twitter pointing me to sourcing.

    So, too, on Trans issues; I couldn’t have made this post without the help of a lot of Trans activists I follow on Twitter. And that’s with me having multiple Trans friends.

    All those, and many more, have led to not only a flood of books I’m struggling to get time to read, but a ton of lived experiences I would never have known of, otherwise.

    Twitter is a tool. Yes, it’s dodgy and weird and it’s support is sub-par, but there is also so much good, so much Truth, to be found there. There’s a reason so many posts here include Twitter embeds, and it’s not just out of laziness.

    I don’t love it. But I sure as heck respect it — far moreso, the work millions put into making it worth my while to read.

  59. 59.

    different-church-lady

    @lowtechcyclist:

    But there are also a lot of bright, knowledgeable people on Twitter.

    For now.

    Nobody’s making you get into Twitter fights, and nobody’s making you stay in one either.

    One of the fundamental differences between Facebook and Twitter is that Twitter is not relentless about driving you towards conflict in the name of “engagement”. It’s pretty clear to me that Zuckerberg secretly relishes the culture wars, because he knows it’s one of the ways to make his platform addictive. I dunno if Twitter is run by sociopaths the same way Facebook is, but if it is, they’re a lot less overt about it.

  60. 60.

    Another Scott

    @MisterDancer:

    This is so bizarre a take I hardly know where to being.

    I guess my job here is done, then. ;-)

    Twitter is intentionally limited in the number of characters that can be used in a message (with exceptions for URLs and some other things). It rewards speed. It, like FB, rewards things that are “popular” and “edgy” and “exciting”. It’s horrible for clearly imparting ideas – especially ideas that require nuance.

    Yes, it is a tool.

    Yes, it can be used for good (e.g. CherylRofer does a good job with it). I don’t have a Twitter account, but I check lots of accounts daily – Popehat, DPRK_news, LOLGOP, dsquareddigest, CherylRofer, CT_Bergstrom, ssurovell, IamHappyToast, and more. But most of the people who use it well don’t do the things that get millions of followers and retweets. They use it to poke fun, or to point to thoughtful, longer pieces that explain all the nuance that Twitter intentionally elides. They make it work in spite of the reward system on the platform, not because of it.

    Yes, it’s intentional. Look at the way Jack treated TFG.

    My $0.02. :-) Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  61. 61.

    Another Scott

    @Another Scott:  To continue beating a dead thread… :-)

    THREAD: The problem with @Twitter and its indiscriminate @verified system, which allows disinformation agents not just to exploit the platform, but to actually thrive on it. This operator linked to the Iranian and Russian propaganda machinery got nearly 40K retweets for this. pic.twitter.com/Iybkb9pCel

    — Idrees Ahmad (@im_PULSE) March 26, 2022

    (via EclecticBrotha)

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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