Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

“Squeaker” McCarthy

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Schadenfreude Open Thread

Late Night Schadenfreude Open Thread

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One the one hand, unless somebody has really been holding out on us, none of us will ever be in a position to set $44 billion dollars on fire just for the lulz. On the other, we’ll never have an estimated billion or so people watching as we fetch’n’step for an online entity that calls themselves Catturd…

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72Comments

  3. 3.

    mapaghimagsik

    Meanwhile, on Mastodon, we watch Twitter burn like another sunset..

    Its kinda fun watching the dudebro’s dudebro self-immolate

  4. 4.

    Anoniminous

    It’s always been questionable if Twitter was a viable business. Since Elon grabbed control there’s no question:

    It Isn’t.

  5. 5.

    HumboldtBlue

    being on Twitter right now is like playing the violin on the titanic except we are also making fun of the iceberg and the iceberg is getting genuinely mad

    That is such a funny line, makes me chuckle every time.

    One thing about Balloon-Juice, it’s consistent, it’s been here 20+ years with an extraordinary influx and out flux of people who have left indelible marks on the non-existent hide of cyberspace and intertoobz.

    Twitter will either succeed — whatever form that manifests — or be replaced, because smart people wanting to interact with other smart people is a desire that just doesn’t die, it will soon end up in some form of “WE NEED A BLOGGERS ETHICS PANEL!!!!”

    Youse still ain’t come up with that fucking panel. Slackers.

  6. 6.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Supposed Musk is in legal trouble over his snap layoff at Twitter last Friday and has to recall a notable group of them that turned out to essential staff.   How the fuck does someone who’s been in business in Cal for two decades not know the labor laws?  The state an’t exactly shy about it.

  7. 7.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @HumboldtBlue: Yes, this, websites come and go. The only thing that special about Twitter is it makes a serious effort to break the users out of the self imposed bubbles.

  8. 8.

    NotMax

    @HumboldtBlue

    Calls to mind one of the very, very few and far between redeeming lines of dialogue from an otherwise rightfully forgettable movie.

    “What has ethics got to do with diplomacy?”
    – John Goldfarb, Please Come Home
    .

  9. 9.

    Ruckus

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    He doesn’t care about the laws. He can used to be able to afford the lawyers to resolve the clusterfucks he gets himself into, after all he’s the richest man in the world. Oh wait…..

    This is the only funny side of the Forbes 400 list. Those of us who live in the real world have a bank account where we store our money at 1/4 to 1/2% interest, a job or retirement income, or if you don’t trust banks, a zip lock bag 1/4 full of greenbacks, while those on the Forbes list have most of their billions tied up in investments, the stock market, 60 acre/20 bedroom homes, accountants/lawyers on retainer and suck ups to make them feel important, and a lot of their cash is tied up with people trying to get assholes elected that will make sure that they pay a smaller percentage in taxes than people that work for a living, so they can finally feel like they are worth something. Even though they are just pure shit.

  10. 10.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    How the fuck does someone who’s been in business in Cal for two decades not know the labor laws?

    To give a slightly shorter answer than @Ruckus: gave: “He’s always had “people” he pays to take care of that, so he never actually had to know anything about it.”  Or as I once observed about corporate counsel at my gynormous employer: “they have two jobs: to say yes to anything from the C-suite, generating howsoever ridiculous a justification as needed, and to say no to anything from anybody else, along with a short “fuck you that’s why””.

  11. 11.

    Martin

    Musk+Twitter is the living embodiment of ‘every billionaire is a policy failure’. Buddy just smoked the equivalent of the GDP of Estonia in a week, all because he doesn’t know how to shut the fuck up.

  12. 12.

    HumboldtBlue

    @NotMax:

    “What has ethics got to do with diplomacy?”

    Kissinger and Bismark are making out furiously in the back of the theater at that comment.

  13. 13.

    opiejeanne

    @Martin: What gets me is people saying that he had no choice not to buy Twitter, but he did: there was a $1 billion escape clause in his purchase contract. He could have just paid that and walked away, but he chose not to.

  14. 14.

    Chetan Murthy

    @opiejeanne: I wondered the same thing.  I’ve read speculation that he was on the hook for some sort of securities law violation that was looking to land him in prison, and that’s why he bought — b/c it made that go away.  But y’know, maybe he’s just that dumb.  I know, I know, I know: his recent behaviour gives the lie to that.  /s

  15. 15.

    opiejeanne

    @Chetan Murthy: Ha! I think it’s an ego problem.

    I’m not leaving Twitter just yet.  Most of the people I follow are still there, and we all have front row seats to watch this train wreck.

  16. 16.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    One thing that keeps getting missed in the discussions about what Twitter’s future holds: what happens the next time Twitter suffers a major outage?

    That’s one of the more likely ways Twitter dies, I suspect: not due to a mass exodus, but the platform goes down and doesn’t come back up, because the people who’d be tasked with restoring it have been let go or quit in disgust and they’ve got no incentive to go back and fix things.

  17. 17.

    sanjeevs

    @opiejeanne: When Musk made the offer for Twitter he waived his right to due diligence.

    The $1 billion break fee was only if he was unable to raise finance which he could and did.

    If this had gone to trial he almost certainly would have lost and been forced to pay the full fee.

    LVMH tried to get out of buying Tiffany when the pandemic struck and eventually managed to negotiate a whopping 3% discount.

  19. 19.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus:

    He doesn’t care about the laws. He can used to be able to afford the lawyers to resolve the clusterfucks he gets himself into, after all he’s the richest man in the world. Oh wait…..

    Musk never learns. He’s been smacked down by the SEC before, and has had to back down from losing positions because he refuses to understand that there are laws and regulations that even constrain self proclaimed masters of the universe.

  20. 20.

    bjacques

    Sticking around Twitter for now, with a ringside seat to chaos is as beautiful as a chance encounter between a conscript and a cigarette atop a Russian ammo dump, every day and twice on Sundays.

  21. 21.

    gene108

    @Anoniminous:

    It’s always been questionable if Twitter was a viable business.

    Twitter had found itself a useful niche in the social media landscape. Maybe not the most profitable niche imaginable, but that showed it can make a bit of profit to keep the lights on.

    Musk’s really not doing anything different than what other investors engaging in a hostile takeover have done over the decades. He’s just doing it faster and far more publicly.

  22. 22.

    Aussie Sheila

    OT, bit didn’t get a chance earlier.

    The very best to all for tomorrow. I know whatever happens people have worked their butts off and done their best.

    Fingers and toes crossed. I’ll know late tomorrow morning (our time )whether my earlier prediction was true. But in any event I know that the struggle against stupidity is never over and that US Dems are both resourceful and tough.

    ✌️💙

  24. 24.

    Nicole

    That Titanic quote has me laughing at a quarter to five in the morning, which is just the oomph I needed to get me out to try to see the eclipse.  Thank you!

  26. 26.

    Other MJS

    Lunar eclipse totality in about 5 minutes. Gonna step outside for a bit and go back to bed.

  27. 27.

    thruppence

    @Other MJS: Set my alarm, got bundled up, went outside and the clouds are obscuring the moon around here. Oh well. I hope that is my biggest disappointment today.

  29. 29.

    Matt McIrvin

    Honestly, Tony Stark is a self- destructive dick and this is the kind of mess he might get into, probably while drunk.

  30. 30.

    Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Except that Tony Stark really was a technological genius.

    Musk was just born rich and he could spot trends in certain markets.

    Though both men are relentless self-promoters.

  31. 31.

    Geminid

    A Tale of Two Twities.

    “Do Something Democrat” Will Stancil:

        hope Tuesday turns out well but either way, pathetic loser party tbh

    *****

    “Oh well, since there’s nothing we.should have done we should just do the same”- democratic party motto

    @Will Stancil November 5

    Doing Something Democrat Rachel Bitecofer:

       Gotta tell you, I’ve NEVER seen the Left’s coalition, from Yellow Dogs to progressives, rowing in one direction and it gives me so much hope for 2024.

    @RachelBitecofer November 6

  34. 34.

    Matt McIrvin

    I woke up, unwisely poked at my phone and realized the wifi Internet was down (and I needed it for an early morning work thing), was debating internally whether to get up and fix it immediately when I switched over to cellular and saw people talking about the eclipse, so I caught it just as the moon was setting before I went down to fix the network.

  37. 37.

    satby

    @opiejeanne: Not quite, the escape clause was limited, the conditions weren’t met, and the board of Twitter was going to sue him to complete the sale and they would have won. And then he might have paid additional penalties and costs.

  41. 41.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Stancil might straighten himself out some day. He’s in a rut now. I’ve told him he might learn something if he followed Rachel Bitecofer and other better grounded Democrats. But Stancil talks likes he knows it all, and doesn’t think he needs to learn anything new.

    Stancil says something good every now and then. When he does it’s usually something I’ve seen Bitecofer say for a couple of years. But Stancil thinks he just invented the wheel. Poor guy needs to get out more.

  44. 44.

    Baud

    @Geminid:

    I’m not on Twitter, so I often can’t tell if someone just said something stupid or if a particular tweet is representative of their world view.

  46. 46.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Spent the weekend in Cedar Key with friends, and we were having dinner and drinks in a bar/grill with tons of TVs tuned to various sportsball games. My back was to a large screen, and at one point, the crowd erupted in cheers, and I figured one of the Florida teams had scored.

    A friend who was facing the TV looked disgusted, so I turned around and looked at the screen. The patrons were cheering because Trump had appeared on the TV — coverage of one of his hate rallies, I guess.

    I’ve been asking myself lately if Florida is basically a more populous and diverse Mississippi with a longer coastline. The answer is yes. Yes, it is.

  50. 50.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I like to think that at least the stupid Musk deal for twitter took some money from his pocket and spread it around to other people. But given how rich people money works, that’s probably not true

  51. 51.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    I like him- I think he’s smart and intuitive and passionate. I don’t agree with some of what he says but it’s not malicious or self-serving. He loves Democrats – they should bring him in. Hire him for “back of the house” – actual working on campaigns, not punditry.

  54. 54.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Stancil has been consistent with his “Dems are doing it wrong” analysis. He’ll assert different reasons as to why and how. Some are contradictory, but he’s on a rage roll and engages in no self reflection as far as I can tell.

    I believe Stancil when he says he is a Democrat and sincerely wants us to do well. But he implies that Democrats do not deserve to do well, and some of his followers agree.

  56. 56.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    I liked when they made fun of how he looks- his picture on Twitter in the nerdy sweater and glasses – and he didn’t change the photo.

  62. 62.

    SFAW

    @Brachiator:

    because he refuses to understand that there are laws and regulations that even constrain self proclaimed masters of the universe.

    Which is probably the main/real reason for his idiotic “support Party of Fascists because split government” Truth Tweet yesterday. He thinks a Rethug Congress will rewrite those laws to exempt him.

  63. 63.

    Geminid

    @Kay: Stancil would benefit from working on a campaign, especially one in a purple district. As it is, I’m not sure he follows actual campaigns. A lot of his arguments seem to be in an abstract, generalized bubble, and are sterile exercises. He’d learn something if he carefully followed purple district campaigns by Democrats like Sharice Davids and Marcy Kaptur.

  64. 64.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    Oh sure he does. He was definitely following GA and PA when I left Twitter. He works in LOCAL policy in Minneapolis too. There’s nothing more real than that.

    I think he would be a good counter-balance re: the poll-driven (and poll obsessed pundits). He’s the human element. I also think he’s made a bit of an impact- I think some Democrats recognize reaching people is more than asking them policy questions, compiling answers, and making a chart or a line graph. My daughter, who is both a smart and practical person, didn’t react to Dobbs with a blip on a graph in August- she’s sputtering MAD. She’s furious.

  65. 65.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    It’s amusing to me that generation X pundits and poll people are more conservative than Joe Biden.

    Democrats are going to replace all the aging generations (Boomers, whatever Biden is) and end up with a more stodgy and rigidly traditional approach to campaigns and marketing. Poll driven campaigns are a bore. They’re deadening. There’s no passion in them.

    They can have both. They can hire poll driven people and also thematic, creative people. They can loosen their grip a little and give people a little leash to try new things. It’s not all about control.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    I laughed out loud when he wrote “the unbroken theme since 2016 is this- the alarmists were right”

    It’s true. It wasn’t always true! The alarmists weren’t always right so comparing them to 2002 alarmists won’t work as analysis, but facts changed, so they’ve been right since 2016. This is the kind of flexibility and openness the D party needs, IMO. And they can have it. They can have traditionalists and alarmists, on the same team.  The team will be BETTER.

  67. 67.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Geminid: I think a lot of pundits and pollsters would benefit from working on the ground in local campaigns where they had to sit back and let someone local show them how it is done.   The U.S. is a huge country and suburban Connecticut and it’s population is way different from rural/exurban Kansas which is different from Eastern Washington state, or the Austin suburbs.  Even parts of some supposedly very blue states are much redder than most people understand.

  68. 68.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: My question is, can he recall them, force them to come back since apparently, they were sent /emailed letters that say they are in a not coming in to work status but their last day working for the company is 2 February….  Blunt letter announcing layoffs at Twitter.

    “Today is your last working day at the company, however, you will remain employed by Twitter and will receive compensation and benefits through your separation date of February 2, 2023.

    During this time, you will be on a Non-Working Notice period and your access to Twitter systems will be deactivated. While you are not expected to work during the Non-Working Notice period, you are still required to comply with all company policies, including the Employee Playbook and Code of Conduct.”

    The letters probably  were tailored to each regions labor laws, NY for instance requires 90 days notice of mass layoffs.  Which keepin those employees on the books for that time apparently(?) covers…

    Why he would want to call back a bunch of people who now have good reason to hate the company is a different question (come back and teach your replacement, who will be getting a third of your pay….ummmm No)

  69. 69.

    Geminid

    I have not really examined who actually is in the consultant class. I see a lot of arguments about them but its usually between pundits, including some who’ve left the trade.

    I happened to follow Rachel Bitecofer’s progress from political scientist and pundit to practitioner. Arizonans and others may have seen campaign advertising she’s had a part in. She may end up providing the new approachyou want and that Stancil argues is not present today.

    I’ll follow Bitecofer’s Twitter feed tonight. Bitecofer knows that morale is key to motivation which is key to turnout, so she’s been accentuating the positive in her statements on Twitter and TV. I think that tonight she’ll put her green eyeshades on and deliver some good, objective election analysis.

    I’ll also check in on Mr. Stancil a time or two. I won’t trash him here more, though. He gets picked on plenty in the Twitterverse.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    I think he zeroes in on a real weakness with the “data people” which is that actual election behavior doesn’t track with their theory.

    There’s no RATIONAL reason people in NYC should be more scared of crime than people in red state cities, but they are. So the real question is whether D politicians should campaign on what people are afraid of, FEELINGS, not whether D politicians should campaign on “data” or “facts” or “policy”. Democrats did not, in fact, defund the police. Yet people have been persuaded by media and GOP political campaigns that they did. If “polling on issues” was actually an airtight predictor of voter’s behavior the GOP would never win another election. It’s not. Obviously.

    The “data and polling” people end up where the “feelings” people are anyway. His is the BETTER argument but as I said there don’t need to be winners and losers of this- Democrats can hire BOTH. They just need to let go a little. Hire people who love the work enough to do it free (like him) and let them run with it.

  72. 72.

    terry chay

    @opiejeanne: no. Since he had the funds he couldn’t use the clause. He could have negotiated (guess) $10bln to walk away. He didn’t want to because the trial would restart and discovery was destroying him. He paid $44 Bln one day before the deadline in order to quash that.

    Take a look at the market cap of Tesla (down to half from its peak last year) and see that it is more than 2x that of Toyota (the largest car company in the world). Most of Musk’s wealth is tied in perception which he was told would evaporate if he proceeded with the trial.

    Now he is destroying that perception anyway AND is saddled with a $44bln turd that will go the way of Tumblr (bought by Yahoo for $1.2bln, sold to WordPress for $8mln) if something isn’t done. TBH, I’m not sure anything can be done (c.f. “Trust thermocline”) and even if it can be, Musk won’t take it.

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