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You are here: Home / Economics / Grifters Gonna Grift / Insufficiently Socialized Media Open Thread: Breaking…

Insufficiently Socialized Media Open Thread: Breaking…

by Anne Laurie|  December 16, 202210:23 am| 217 Comments

This post is in: Grifters Gonna Grift, Open Threads, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You, Assholes, Schadenfreude

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Apartheid Princeling Bitchboy’s tiny mind:

L pic.twitter.com/b0O0S9Ftqc

— Hemry, Local Bartender (@BartenderHemry) December 16, 2022

AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAAA. pic.twitter.com/OxsR5FBCDO

— What Biden Has Done (post.news/what46hasdone) (@What46HasDone) December 16, 2022

"Too many choices in the poll" meant "I want to suspend them for 7 days."

— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) December 16, 2022

“Sorry. Losing badly even with dishonest framing. Will keep changing it until I win.” https://t.co/J0yi5lWdl0

— David Avallone (@DAvallone) December 16, 2022

Omfg CRY MORE pic.twitter.com/N9CdW8chdc

— Hemry, Local Bartender (@BartenderHemry) December 16, 2022

Technique taken from protests under Communist China: Read the first letter of each line…

Gosh
Really
It
Makes
Elon
Sad
to post his private plane’s public flight plans.

— Josh Rosenau (parity) (@JoshRosenau) December 16, 2022

we might have to rename the streisand effect https://t.co/3C1QQkpzWt

— kilgore trout, death to putiner (@KT_So_It_Goes) December 16, 2022

Honestly I suspect the latter. They’ve gutted moderation around here. Mass reporting people off the platform is trivial at this point.

— Jean-Michel Connard (@torriangray) December 16, 2022


Yeah, I don’t think Musk reads journalists’ feeds either; but he’s always ready to follow where his loyalists lead, and mass-complaints are a known right-wing tactic.

The Fauci Ouchie strikes again pic.twitter.com/54YS6gUjtl

— steven ''italian elon musk'' monacelli (@stevanzetti) December 16, 2022

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Reader Interactions

217Comments

  1. 1.

    hells littlest angel

    December 16, 2022 at 10:27 am

    Even the richest pathetic asshole in the world is still a pathetic asshole.

  2. 2.

    Another Scott

    December 16, 2022 at 10:30 am

    Tesla’s stock is down 3.14% – today – at the moment.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  3. 3.

    Elizabelle

    December 16, 2022 at 10:32 am

    Aaron Rupar is offering a 20% discount to subscribe to his substack, which brings it to $40/annually.  To support an exceptional and conscientious journalist.  I signed up right away, in support of him.

    https://aaronrupar.substack.com

    FWIW, I think getting banned by Elon gives Aaron and others credibility that Access Maggie Haberman and the other media whores cannot buy.

  4. 4.

    BR

    December 16, 2022 at 10:33 am

    Also let’s describe it accurately and ask the media to do so: SpaceX owns the jet in question. To my knowledge, the “private jet” is actually registered to SpaceX (or some holding company of SpaceX).

    It’s a corporate jet.

    While I know this fracas isn’t about that and it’s an excuse he’s using, it’d be good to see reporting describing it accurately:

    https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-spacex-acquire-second-gulfstream-private-jet-faa-records-2020-8?amp

  5. 5.

    Elizabelle

    December 16, 2022 at 10:34 am

    Aaron Rupar’s substack; this looks like a good article.
    Dan Froomkin on the state of political journalism

    “They have not pointed out that the Republican Party has no agenda at this point but to obstruct the government and flood the zone with shit.”

  6. 6.

    kindness

    December 16, 2022 at 10:39 am

    Elon  is being used by the right wing oligarch cabal here in the US.  Does anyone really think all these wing nutz come up with the same complaint at the same time?  Hell no!  More than likely a listserve goes out and is then dutifully attended to by their human-bots.  Elon revels in the adoration and attention but in the end, he’ll be much less rich than he is now, and the oligarch cabal will be in the shadows, laughing and still holding their wealth and power.

  7. 7.

    BR

    December 16, 2022 at 10:39 am

    Also if you’re using mastodon, click the links to news stories you see there. Journalists were central to twitter and they’ll stick with whatever platform they see gets their stories read. (They do quite detailed analysis of what stories are read and what social media platforms are driving traffic. Even the non-vain journalists are obsessed about their click through rates because they have to be.)

  8. 8.

    Kay

    December 16, 2022 at 10:40 am

    @Elizabelle:

    Jim Jordan must be issuing a lot of press releases geared to Ohio because the GOP plans for “investigating”  Hunter Biden and Dr. Fauci (and anyone else deemed an enemy of the far Right) are all over Ohio media.

    Ohio, I am afraid and genuinely sad to say, is probably a lost cause and is now far Right, but I hope they keep this up for a national audience. It tanked in 2022 and they are doubling down.

  9. 9.

    schrodingers_cat

    December 16, 2022 at 10:41 am

    Is this the action of a billionaire with paper thin skin, or conservative weirdos taking advantage of automated reporting systems to mass report an account they don’t like into oblivion? Stay tuned!!

    Actually welcome to  what the rest of the world faces from social media platforms. The accounts that the ruling regime doesn’t like are taken down either by bot farms or the social media company itself. Both FB and Twitter have done this in India. And I am sure other countries where they want to continue doing business and need to be in the good books of the rulers

    This playbook may be new to American Twitter but it is not new in other countries where Twitter and other social media platforms do business.

  10. 10.

    MisterDancer

    December 16, 2022 at 10:43 am

    I’m pondering a post about mapping what Musk is doing to Jim Crow. People keep saying this doesn’t matter, but neither did the creation of the Southern Historical Society — in isolation.

    But yeah, this is not a great sign for larger things. Part of what made Jim Crow so insidious is exactly this kind of slow erosion of not just “norms,” but any measure of stability or economic empowerment. I mean, y’all — wealthy Southerns actually made themselves poorer with Jim Crow, as soon as it was established!

    Why? Because (in part, in my opinion) the emotional power of lording it over all the Black folx and poorer Whites just felt too good. It was worth losing money to show how “powerful” you really were. The Political became explicitly Ideological; the South, Solid.

    (ETA: Yes, I’m eliding over the core Racism at the heart of it. Trying to explain how Racism plays out here and destroys economic self-interest is, yes, key, yet also a bit nuanced, and best saved for my post…)

    Just as Musk is doing, right now, in front of all of us. That’s why we should keep an eye on this, among reasons.

  11. 11.

    Kay

    December 16, 2022 at 10:48 am

    Jut FYI, DeSantis and far Right religious in Florida are putting a total abortion ban in. The “15 week ban” was always kind of bullshit because it had no exceptions but national media don’t care enough to read the new laws regulating pregnancy, so the DeSantis ban was presented as “moderate”.

    Anyway- that’s all moot now. He’ll be putting a total ban in. So much for how the anti-abortion lobby is willing to compromise. They won’t even agree to life saving exceptions for women. They’ll kill some women in pursuit of forcing their religious dogma on us and DeSantis is all for it.

  12. 12.

    MattF

    December 16, 2022 at 10:48 am

    I’ve lost interest in the Musk-o-verse. Meh.

  13. 13.

    Betty Cracker

    December 16, 2022 at 10:54 am

    @MisterDancer: That’s an interesting idea. I’ve been going with the “he’s an idiot” explanation for why Musk is setting fire to mountains of cash, but maybe it’s a conscious investment rather than a consequence of pure stupidity welded to a truly planet-sized ego.

  14. 14.

    Another Scott

    December 16, 2022 at 10:57 am

    @MisterDancer: Please do it and post it here when you are able.

    Smarter people than me have argued that humans really, really care about relative status.  (C.f. Davis X Machina on boxes and sparrows and curtain rods).  Witness the longing by some for the glorious days of feudalism when the lord of the manor ruled over the serfs, even though – objectively, by most measures including life expectancy and age at death – someone currently in the bottom 10% in America is in a much better place than the richest lord was then.

    As Kay’s young relative said (as related downstairs), conservatives are ruiners!!

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  15. 15.

    jeffreyw

    December 16, 2022 at 10:58 am

    i will be at bradlees dept store promoting my new line of mustards for the next 16 hrs and I ask that nobody tries to assassinate me please— wint (@dril) April 21, 2014

  16. 16.

    Betty Cracker

    December 16, 2022 at 10:59 am

    @Kay: I read something yesterday about DeSantis entertaining questions about a “heartbeat bill” (i.e., abortion ban) but not wholly committing to it. If he doesn’t watch out, he’s going to make himself unelectable nationwide before he even gets in the GOP primary.

  17. 17.

    cain

    December 16, 2022 at 11:00 am

    @Elizabelle: That’s just fine with the reporters. They have turned into gossip columnists and of course people eat it up and that helps ad revenue.

    It’s a lot easier to write stuff observing a stream of bullshit and come up with your own bullshit comments and then watch the outrage pour in and then think to yourself how clever you are that you got all tehse people mad at your and boy are your social media read stats awesome!

  18. 18.

    MisterDancer

    December 16, 2022 at 11:06 am

    @Betty Cracker: maybe it’s a conscious investment

    Er. Kind of, maybe?

    To unpack one of my assertions about Jim Crow — it wasn’t deliberate, in the sense that a bunch of Racist White Assholes sat around and came up with a Master Plan. Rather, they had the money and power to just keep trying things, from domestic terrorism to political power and economic coercion, until they got something like the old slavery system in place — Jim Crow, and the (literal!) whitewashing of Secession that the Lost Cause Myth represented to all of America.

    Musk has a long history of acting like one of those people and enabling same, just in modern contexts. There’s a reason Tesla is under multiple sexism/racism lawsuits! I suspect his inclinations in those directions are utterly unexamined by him, an unconscious bias that has an outsized impact on the world given his wealth. I recall he didn’t “really” want to purchase Twitter, and all of this mess is just because of how “duty to stockholders” gets interpreted, in a way.

    Did he want to influence Twitter, though? Yes. But he doesn’t really know how to, except to recite the shibboleths and myths every asshole Conservative says, and to throw Proprietary Corporate data at mythmakers to promulgate the new Lost Cause, if you will.

    That’s…not a plan. But at scale? It’s very effective. and that’s a long way ’round to say that Musk doesn’t likely know what he’s doing, but what he’s doing can lead to Jim Crow-like outcomes, ’cause that kind of how we got it the first time. :(

    (I’m eliding a lot of history, so please, no brickbats, gang?)

  19. 19.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    December 16, 2022 at 11:07 am

    @Betty Cracker: If he doesn’t watch out, he’s going to make himself unelectable nationwide before he even gets in the GOP primary.

    The primary voters of the GOP demand nothing less!

  20. 20.

    dmsilev

    December 16, 2022 at 11:08 am

    @Kay: Going even a step beyond that, the Post had a story earlier this week about how the anti-abortion fanatics now want to prosecute anyone involved with distributing abortion-adjacent medications, even if the people are in states where that is 100% legal.

  21. 21.

    cain

    December 16, 2022 at 11:09 am

    The booted off journalists can be found at mastodon- not sure if Rupar is there – @oneunderscore__ , @micahflee , @donieosullivan

  22. 22.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    December 16, 2022 at 11:12 am

    Lots of chatter on Mastodon about another great migration from the bird site. I didn’t frequent TBS, but I’m enjoying the casual camaraderie on techhub.social. Profile linked to nym!

  23. 23.

    jeffreyw

    December 16, 2022 at 11:18 am

    A tutorial for mastadon:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4l9FjzGywc

  24. 24.

    Lapassionara

    December 16, 2022 at 11:19 am

    @MisterDancer: When I was growing up in Memphis, Jim Crow was still very much “the way things were.” African Americans sat in the back of the bus, etc. It felt very unjust and stupid to me, as a child. I left Memphis for a while to go to graduate school, and when I returned several years later, after African Americans started getting hired in departments stores and the like, I could see the improved economic situation for everyone. The more income people had, the more they spent. Jim Crow really was an “own goal” for white people

    BTW, I think we should retire the word “conservative” when referring to Republicans. There is nothing “conservative” about them and their ideology.

  25. 25.

    Miss Bianca

    December 16, 2022 at 11:21 am

    @Lapassionara: I’m fine with “radical reactionary”, personally.

  26. 26.

    Ken

    December 16, 2022 at 11:23 am

    The AP News article on the German court ruling ends with “Twitter didn’t respond to a request for comment.” I wonder if the writer was tempted to ad “Because they’ve fired everyone on their communications team.”

  27. 27.

    marcopolo

    December 16, 2022 at 11:27 am

    @dmsilev: yes, and there are anti-abortion whackaloons who are talking about doing wastewater sampling to ID where pills are being used so they can…i don’t know exactly, doxx/arrest/stalk users?

    Conservatives complain abortion bans not enforced, want jail time for pill ‘trafficking’ 

    (think this is in MT for those curious)

  28. 28.

    The Moar You Know

    December 16, 2022 at 11:29 am

    BTW, I think we should retire the word “conservative” when referring to Republicans. There is nothing “conservative” about them and their ideology.

    @Lapassionara: I have been espousing this for a long time.  Most “liberals” are in the literal sense conservatives, and most American “conservatives” are closer now to violent anarchists than anything else.

  29. 29.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 16, 2022 at 11:30 am

    @BR: At some point the government is going to get interested in Musk using all these SpaceX assets for non-SpaceX purposes, since so much of their income is about government contracts.

  30. 30.

    Kay

    December 16, 2022 at 11:30 am

    @dmsilev:

    I’m still reading/thinking about that. I’m wondering what the wackjob legal theory is, but, absolutely. They lied about no prosecutions like they lied abut everything else.

    I would have bet my firstborn they’d punish women. I mean, they are ok with KILLING women in a medical emergency in the course of a pregnancy. Of course they’re ok with prison terms for women who violate religious dogma. Once you say “well, she might die but we’re willing to sacrifice her” prison is the less radical of the two. They’re already at “might have to kill her”.

  31. 31.

    WereBear

    December 16, 2022 at 11:32 am

    @MisterDancer: I would read that post! You are exactly right about the insidious nature of destroying norms and standards that protect us.

    What’s nice about “genius” Musk is how he says the quiet parts out loud, much like tRump, but it wakes up the normies like nothing else.

    Like destroying Twitter, which is is obviously set to go the way of Gab… if it’s lucky. Where is he making any money?

    I thought that was the first of their commandments, Ferengi that they are.

  32. 32.

    Another Scott

    December 16, 2022 at 11:33 am

    @Lapassionara: Kinda relatedly, and another example that the past isn’t even past – ProPublica:

    Nobody working to bring a $346 million Microsoft project to rural Virginia expected to find graves in the woods. But in a cluster of yucca plants and cedar that needed to be cleared, surveyors happened upon a cemetery. The largest of the stones bore the name Stephen Moseley, “died December 3, 1930,” in a layer of cracking plaster. Another stone, in near perfect condition and engraved with a branch on the top, belonged to Stephen’s toddler son, Fred, who died in 1906.

    “This is not as bad as it sounds,” an engineering consultant wrote in March 2014 to Microsoft and to an official in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, who was helping clear hurdles for the project — an expansion of a massive data center. “We should be able to relocate these graves.”

    Mecklenburg County, along with Microsoft and a pair of consulting firms, immediately began a campaign to downplay the cemetery’s significance. Their most urgent task was to make sure the cemetery wouldn’t be deemed eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, the federal government’s list of sites worthy of protection. That designation would likely trigger an archaeological investigation overseen by the state and could force the developers to steer clear of the graves. Without such a designation, the graveyard could be moved with relative ease.

    After the discovery of the cemetery, the county and its consultants turned to archaeologists, which federal law required they retain. But that didn’t go as they hoped. In a detailed report, the archaeologists determined that the cemetery “is eligible for inclusion” on the historic registry. The report stressed the cemetery’s significance to African American life and death in Southside Virginia, citing the fact that Stephen Moseley and his relatives were Black. “It is recommended that the area be avoided,” the report said.

    […]

    A good, and infuriating, read.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  33. 33.

    Betty Cracker

    December 16, 2022 at 11:33 am

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I’m hoping DeSantis learned all the wrong lessons from his political success in Florida, and since it feeds his massive ego, I suspect that’s what happened.

    He ran in the 2018 FL GOP primary as a Trumpy shithead, pivoted in the general after he won and ran as what passes for a “moderate Republican” in Normieville, then he pivoted again and became a full-time culture warrior when he sensed a national opportunity.

    From remarks he’s made before and after winning reelection, he seems to believe that Florida was this purple state that he personally transformed into a red state, and he probably believes he could do the same nationally. But that’s not what happened at all. Trump won Florida before anyone had ever heard of DeSantis, and he increased his margin in 2020.

    DeSantis is a reactionary asshole who can win elections in a red state like Florida. It could be that he’s no more electable nationally than, say, JD Vance or Gregg Abbot or any other reactionary assholes who can win elections in red states.

  34. 34.

    Kay

    December 16, 2022 at 11:35 am

    @dmsilev:

    The far Right have not modified a single one of the pregnancy regulations they put in despite the fact that they now KNOW, beyond a doubt, that their laws put womens health and life at risk. They know there will be ten year old girl victims of these laws. They don’t care.  They have not lifted a finger to protect women or girls. They’re okay with us dying in service of their ideological goals. They demand we die so they can claim moral superiority.

  35. 35.

    feebog

    December 16, 2022 at 11:35 am

    Josh Marshall was doing his best to get suspended last night.  Just tearing EM a new one with every tweet.  Have not been over there yet this morning, but it was amusing as hell.

  36. 36.

    Kay

    December 16, 2022 at 11:37 am

    @feebog:

    I finally subscribed to TPM because I like that Marshall pays employees instead of the gross Substack model where one person makes 800k a year and doesn’t pay or employ anyone else.

    Josh Marshall is a decent employer in an era where people are too fucking greedy to even HIRE other people, let alone be a decent employer. That should be rewarded.

  37. 37.

    prostratedragon

    December 16, 2022 at 11:39 am

    Lead hooligan who chased Officer Goodma gets 5 years.

    https://www.rawstory.com/qanon-adherent-who-led-mob-who-cashed-capitol-cop-on-jan-6-given-5-year-prison-sentence/

  38. 38.

    Chief Oshkosh

    December 16, 2022 at 11:39 am

    @Lapassionara:

    BTW, I think we should retire the word “conservative” when referring to Republicans. There is nothing “conservative” about them and their ideology.

    @Miss Bianca:

     
    BTW, I think we should retire the word “conservative” when referring to Republicans. There is nothing “conservative” about them and their ideology.

    Meh. Let’s just skip right to “Assholes.” Saves time; fewer letters.

  39. 39.

    rikyrah

    December 16, 2022 at 11:42 am

    @Kay:

    Anyway- that’s all moot now. He’ll be putting a total ban in. So much for how the anti-abortion lobby is willing to compromise. They won’t even agree to life saving exceptions for women. They’ll kill some women in pursuit of forcing their religious dogma on us and DeSantis is all for it.

     

    OF COURSE, he is. That’s been obvious to anyone who has been watching him.

  40. 40.

    Kay

    December 16, 2022 at 11:42 am

    @dmsilev:

    Ohio has an anti-abortion, far Right supermajority. They have total control and total power. They could protect 10 year old rape victims from their abortion law if they wanted to- they don’t want to. They believe the ten year old rape victim should be punished.

    Ohio could protect pregnant women who have a medical emergency in the course of pregnancy. They could do it in 2 hours with an amendment to the new abortion ban. They don’t because they don’t care if women die- their religious beliefs are more important than women getting proper, modern medical care. They deny us medical care. Denying women emergency medical care is now accepted in the United States. We’re a backward, archaic country now as far as womens rights.

  41. 41.

    rikyrah

    December 16, 2022 at 11:43 am

    @Kay:

    The far Right have not modified a single one of the pregnancy regulations they put in despite the fact that they now KNOW, beyond a doubt, that their laws put womens health and life at risk. They know there will be ten year old girl victims of these laws. They don’t care.  They have not lifted a finger to protect women or girls. They’re okay with us dying in service of their ideological goals. They demand we die so they can claim moral superiority.

     

    Pro-life my azz

  42. 42.

    oatler

    December 16, 2022 at 11:45 am

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:

    TBS used to carry  “Walker Texas Ranger”.

  43. 43.

    Kay

    December 16, 2022 at 11:46 am

    @rikyrah:

    No one will cover it. Womens rights and access to medical care and physical autonomy is not an area of interest for US media.

    They gave the abortion beat to low profile, young and female reporters. They stick it on the back page if they cover it at all. You wonder about women in media- do they not see that their industry has  absolutely no respect for them?

  44. 44.

    MisterDancer

    December 16, 2022 at 11:48 am

    @WereBear: Where is he making any money?

    This is why the goal isn’t to prop up all Capitalism — but to (eventually) crush it underneath Authoritarianism. In Jim Crow Authoritarianism, Capital exists to re-enforce ideology (and doesn’t that sound familiar…).

    It’s why DeSantis went after Disney — a business that resists their ideology must be beaten into compliance. There’s no even-handed regulation, just the legislative and executive version of the hoses and batons used to harm Freedom Riders, in it’s own way (and with full awareness that Disney is NOT INNOCENT).

    Musk doesn’t care about money. He cares about people worshiping him, and money is a tool in our society for making that happen. It’s why he literally bought Founders status at Tesla, and I believe SpaceX, as well — from a financial POV, those were silly vanity “add-ons,” given his financial state at the time. But he needed that validation, craves it, just as Jubal Early and so many others in the Reconstruction-era South craved being validated for succeeding from the Union.

    Jim Crow — or Apartheid, in Musk’s case — regimes are all about raising people like him into importance, and crushing any person or business that doesn’t play into that “game”. And they are addicted to that mode of operation, no matter the loss of funds or “momentary” prestige to get to that goal across the culture.

  45. 45.

    trollhattan

    December 16, 2022 at 11:50 am

    @BR: But, but, his children!

    “Yo, why you flying your kids around in the company jet?”

  46. 46.

    Betty Cracker

    December 16, 2022 at 11:56 am

    @MisterDancer: Agree 100% about DeSantis and Disney. No excuses anymore for people being shocked when “pro-business” Republicans go after corporations for opposing their authoritarian agendas.

  47. 47.

    dmsilev

    December 16, 2022 at 11:59 am

    @Kay: 100% agreed. The anti-abortion groups are 100% lying about their intentions, and from their actions it’s crystal clear that they care more about control and repression than anything else.

    (sorry for delayed reply; was away from computer doing Real Work(tm))

  48. 48.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    December 16, 2022 at 12:03 pm

    @oatler: And now it’s on CW, starring Sam Winchester!

  49. 49.

    Ohio Mom

    December 16, 2022 at 12:04 pm

    @jeffreyw: Oh, I need that!

  50. 50.

    Kay

    December 16, 2022 at 12:06 pm

    @rikyrah:

    When a woman or girls dies as a result of these laws (when, not if) I hope everyone realizes that the anti-abortion “movement” could have modified any of their far Right laws to prevent that result, and CHOSE not to.

    They wrote sloppy, garbage statutes – they do bad work– and now they refuse to revisit any of it, which means women and girls will die as a result of untreated complications in pregnancy. They will be denied modern medical care in the United States in 2022. They were better off in 1952. At least then they could get medical care.

  51. 51.

    WereBear

    December 16, 2022 at 12:07 pm

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I just followed you.

    Come on in, so-inclined Jackals! I’m @WayofCats and Mastodon account linked on my nym. Look around :)

  52. 52.

    Kay

    December 16, 2022 at 12:09 pm

    Before the new pegnancy regulations went into effect, women received modern mdical care for emergency complications in pregnancy. They no longer receive that care in far Right states that are run by religious fantics. They are denied ordinary care.

    Which means that women in the US were actually better off in 1952 than they were in 2022, because in 1952 they couldn’t get a legal abortion but they were permitted medical care in a pregnancy.

    We have LURCHED backward as far as womens rights.

  53. 53.

    Mike in NC

    December 16, 2022 at 12:12 pm

    Got to see images of several of Trump’s absurd $99 digital “baseball cards” last night, each of them more ridiculous than the previous one. Anybody remember Fat Bastard trying to wear a tuxedo when hanging out at dinner with QE2? He looked like the proverbial ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag, yet the card they created appears to feature a man of about 40 with a 33-inch waist. That’s probably exactly the way he sees himself in his imagination.

    No person alive today better personifies the phrase ‘the banality of evil’.

  54. 54.

    J R in WV

    December 16, 2022 at 12:15 pm

    @Lapassionara: ​

    I think we should retire the word “conservative” when referring to Republicans. There is nothing “conservative” about them and their ideology.

    I like the term Christo-Fascist for them, myself. Accurately descriptive, makes it clear they are not really Christian at all.

  55. 55.

    Paul in KY

    December 16, 2022 at 12:16 pm

    @Another Scott: Good points, Scott. You see it with Chimps/Bonobos. Very hierarchical socially. Glad to see we have evolved in the past 6 million years :-)

  56. 56.

    Soprano2

    December 16, 2022 at 12:17 pm

    @Kay: I heard on 1A this morning that somehow Republicans are going to hold China accountable for “unleashing Covid-19 on the world”. There were no details on how they were going to do that, though. The panel likened the investigations they’re proposing to the Benghazi hearings.

  57. 57.

    Paul in KY

    December 16, 2022 at 12:19 pm

    @The Moar You Know: Reactionary and/or despotic are much truer descriptions, IMO.

  58. 58.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    December 16, 2022 at 12:20 pm

    @Another Scott:  Yes, the article is infuriating, but not surprising to me as someone who was born in Virginia.  I’m white, and a family cemetery containing the graves of some of my 18th C ancestors was catalogued, but the owner (not a family member) was allowed to remove all the head stones.  I know of two other family cemeteries from the 19th C which are on private land and probably not too long for this world as the current owners are elderly.  What infuriates me more is that many old cemeteries in Richmond, VA which were for whites became public parks which are maintained by the city.  Black and Jewish cemeteries were not.  It’s only recently that those cemeteries are now functional non-profits with state support and recognition.  At least two of the public park cemeteries are still accepting burials and are now integrated.

  59. 59.

    Paul in KY

    December 16, 2022 at 12:22 pm

    @Betty Cracker: God, do I hope that is true, Betty! He sure is a churlish little craptoid.

  60. 60.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 16, 2022 at 12:23 pm

    @Lapassionara: “Reactionary” is a word I’ve been using a lot. They’re not skeptical of fixing what ain’t broken. They don’t like changes that already happened and they want to take radical steps to reverse them. Sometimes what they want to go back to is a romanticized vision of a world centuries in the past.

  61. 61.

    Paul in KY

    December 16, 2022 at 12:25 pm

    @prostratedragon: That POS is sooooooo lucky that he did not get shot that day. Think the sentence is a bit lenient.

  62. 62.

    Paul in KY

    December 16, 2022 at 12:27 pm

    @Kay: Just think of all the miraculous inventions created by children of 10 year old rape victims. We would be hurting our space-descendants if we allowed an abortion to one of those little tarts. How will warp drives get invented!!!

  63. 63.

    Soprano2

    December 16, 2022 at 12:28 pm

    @Kay: In our state, Kay, they’re making it even worse!

    Doctors who provide abortions needed to save the lives of women in Missouri would be required to certify to the state that there was a “medical emergency,” according to a new rule proposed by the Department of Health and Senior Services.

    …

    However, hospitals and physicians are still struggling with the definition, as the Missouri government has yet to issue any meaningful clarification of the language that carries the full force of the law. Doctors found in violation of RSMo 188.017 could lose their license and be charged with a class B felony.

    So, if the doctor can’t figure out how to satisfy the state that the abortion is necessary to save the life or health of a woman, they risk being charged with a felony. This is after a story ran in our local newspaper about a woman in Joplin who had to go to Illinois to get care for her 18-week miscarriage. They just don’t care about women who have miscarriages, they’re terrified if they make exceptions an “undeserving” woman will get an abortion.

  64. 64.

    Brachiator

    December 16, 2022 at 12:32 pm

    Apartheid Princeling Bitchboy’s tiny mind…

    The only thing sadder than Musk’s erratic demolition of Twitter is watching him flounder as he demolishes Twitter.

    Trump. Kanye. Musk. A pathetic triumvirate.

  65. 65.

    Paul in KY

    December 16, 2022 at 12:32 pm

    @Soprano2: Medical Emergency: Allowing a child to carry to term the fetus of whomever raped her.  There!

  66. 66.

    piratedan

    December 16, 2022 at 12:32 pm

    I am out there as [email protected] for any that choose to add me

  67. 67.

    rikyrah

    December 16, 2022 at 12:32 pm

     

    Ciη✨ (@MissCindyRay) tweeted at 5:19 AM on Thu, Dec 15, 2022:
    My favorite part is Tyler Perry calling out the royal family for being abusers. Cutting them off financially, leaking their location and taking away their security to scare them into coming back. Like an abusive ex trying to manipulate you.
    #HarryandMeghanOnNetflix
    (https://twitter.com/MissCindyRay/status/1603349011632619521?t=ScpaKIRdpci6iiaS_a0bYw&s=03)

  68. 68.

    WereBear

    December 16, 2022 at 12:33 pm

    @MisterDancer: The best book I know on the subject: so explained, and in such depth. Yet immensely readable and only 340 pages if we don’t count the footnotes.

    I didn’t know that, late in the war, a rising Confederate officer — Cleburne — officially proposed to Jefferson Davis himself that:

    If we arm and train [the Negro] and make him fight for the country in her hour of dire distress, every consideration of principle and policy demand [sic] that we should set him and his whole race who side with us free. It is a first principle with mankind that he who offers his life in defense of the State should receive from her in return his freedom and his happiness, and we believe in acknowledgment of this principle. . . . The slaves are dangerous now, but armed, trained and collected in an army they would be a thousand fold more dangerous; therefore when we make soldiers of them we must make free men of them beyond all question, and thus enlist their sympathies also. We can do this more effectually than the North can now do, for we can give the negro not only his own freedom, but that of his wife and child, and can secure it to him in his old home. To do this, we must immediately make his marriage and parental relations sacred in the eyes of the law and forbid their sale.¹⁵⁶
    […]

    Excerpt from: “The Myth of the Lost Cause: Why the South Fought the Civil War and Why the North Won” by Edward H. Bonekemper. Scribd.
    This material may be protected by copyright.

    Read this book on Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/book/380584030

  69. 69.

    mrmoshpotato

    December 16, 2022 at 12:35 pm

    @Soprano2:

    I heard on 1A this morning that somehow Republicans are going to hold China accountable for “unleashing Covid-19 on the world”. There were no details on how they were going to do that, though. The panel likened the investigations they’re proposing to the Benghazi hearings.

    Are the shitheads gonna bring back Trey Gowdy to politely get ripped yet another asshole for being such a shithead?

  70. 70.

    WereBear

    December 16, 2022 at 12:38 pm

    @Betty Cracker: I know there’s a clause in Disney’s contract that says they can build a nuclear reactor if they want to.

    Is DeSatan sure about who owns the state now? Because it ain’t him.

  71. 71.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    December 16, 2022 at 12:39 pm

    @Another Scott: 14% for the week, as of right now, in a sliding market

    That’s what interests me most in all this. If Tesla is, as I understand, the bulk of his fortune, and a publicly traded company, how long can this go on, as Devo asked. SpaceX is not publicly traded, but (according to almost three full minutes of exhaustive google research) Elmo own 48%, the rest is owned by a bunch of VCs and banks and shit. He needs a billion a year to pay the interest on the loans he took out for this vanity tantrum. Is that a partner Goldman Sachs (dramatic squirrel sound here) wants to be in harness with?

  72. 72.

    rikyrah

    December 16, 2022 at 12:41 pm

     

    Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) tweeted at 8:00 AM on Thu, Dec 15, 2022:
    Reps. Schiff, Grijalva, Bowman, and Cherfilus-McCormick have introduced the Student Loan Relief for Medicare and Social Security Recipients Act — legislation to eliminate student loan debt for disabled and elderly individuals.
    (https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1603389425869676544?t=UgaCKmDqRbZfvftzC31a8Q&s=03)

  73. 73.

    grumbles

    December 16, 2022 at 12:41 pm

    Elmo’s decompensation is truly remarkable. But I don’t really care about him.

    I’ve long been curious about the support structures that grow up around the fantastically wealthy. They all get weird to some extent, and end up with buffers from the real world for a variety of reasons from legitimate security concerns to PR to playing to their mental quirks.

    Look at Bob & Becky Mercer. They are at least as deranged and foul as Elmo, but for whatever reason, they stay “respectable” despite their seditious meddling, racist shittiness and general moral rot. Of course they’re not raging narcissists, for one thing. But they clearly also have professional managers around them that blunt, redirect or otherwise handle their masters far, far better than in Elmo’s situation.

    From an outcomes perspective, I do prefer it when they let their freak flag fly – I could watch douchebag reactionaries destroy themselves all day. I just think it is an interesting way to peek in to a tiny corner of the world we don’t get much insight into as well.

  74. 74.

    rikyrah

    December 16, 2022 at 12:43 pm

    The Spry Old Lorax (@SpryOld) tweeted at 2:23 PM on Wed, Dec 14, 2022:
    It should also be pointed out that the inevitable end-game of any populist movement, if they actually get into power, is authoritarianism. Whether from right or left, it ends up with an authoritarian government. Dissent is not allowed. Hierarchy is enforced. It isn’t democracy.
    (https://twitter.com/SpryOld/status/1603123445297922048?t=RABbAIy2Ov_BQpyE8tgHzw&s=03)

  75. 75.

    FelonyGovt

    December 16, 2022 at 12:50 pm

    @MisterDancer: Will be interested to read your post on this. There are many insidious historical parallels happening here, including to the rise of anti-semitism in Europe.

  76. 76.

    artem1s

    December 16, 2022 at 12:52 pm

    @Kay:

    I would have bet my firstborn they’d punish women.

    wait for it. sooner or later they will pass laws that make having an abortion or providing abortion services is an automatic disqualifier for running for office and voting. since there is no statute of limitations on murder, they are likely to make it retroactive. they will create an apartheid state where women have no representation and no legal rights.

  77. 77.

    SFBayAreaGal

    December 16, 2022 at 12:52 pm

    @Another Scott: This makes me furious.

  78. 78.

    rikyrah

    December 16, 2022 at 12:54 pm

     

    Because this voter suppression method is no longer working for them😒😒

    Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) tweeted at 6:00 AM on Thu, Dec 15, 2022:
    Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is calling for the state Legislature to end runoff elections.
    (https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1603359225656135680?t=rhenVHMLBjq5tQ32KLaUkw&s=03)

    ICAM
    The Chronicles of David (@dopper0189) tweeted at 7:01 AM on Thu, Dec 15, 2022:
    Narrator’s voice “now that Democrats have embraced vote by mail and early voting, we no longer have an advantage from a lower profile election a few weeks later”.
    (https://twitter.com/dopper0189/status/1603374712096452609?t=V6k1M6ZcYJvNYD1TVIor-A&s=03)

  79. 79.

    Cmorenc

    December 16, 2022 at 12:55 pm

    Don’t confuse my following comment as any sort of sympathy with “lost cause” mythology – but one day on the way from raleigh to wilmington, i stopped off at the rural site of the battle of Aversboro, ehich in conjunction with nearby Bentonville, were the last big-scale battles of the civil war iin mid-march 1865.   The area where Aversboro took place still appears remarkably the same today as 1865, save for scattered more modern farmhouses and paving of some secondary roads.

    One particular site where a confederate brigade of several hundred men charged across an open farm field 1000 ft in extent to attack union troops positioned in the edge of the woods at the other side of the field was particularly striking – although Lee’s surrender was still 2-3 weeks in the future, it had to be obvious to the out-numbered confederate soldiers that the war was a lost cause in mid-march 1865, and yet they made this near-suicidal charge.   All the fight at aversboro could have possibly accomplished was to delay sherman’s march from wilmington to goldsboro and Raleigh, not stop the overwhelmingly superior union army.

    There is a metaphor in there somewhere to the contemporary RW radicals in the US and the confederate stubbornness in 1865, except it’s more like 1863 when it was still very possible the confederates could have won the war.

     

  80. 80.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    December 16, 2022 at 12:55 pm

    Since we’re on the topic of social media, Gov Abbot has issued an order that TikTok be removed from all state owned devices. U of T Austin says Abbot also plans to issue guidelines on its presence on personally owned devices of state employees and those who do business with the state.

    Is that last thing legal?

  81. 81.

    WereBear

    December 16, 2022 at 12:59 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: It’s disinformation/security reasons. Apparently the Pentagon is leading the way.

  82. 82.

    Layer8Problem

    December 16, 2022 at 1:00 pm

    @grumbles:  The Mercers, foul as they are, not only fancy themselves S-M-R-T they actually have a case.  They respond to blowback by burrowing back into the woodwork and doubling their publicity-avoiding efforts.  I’m sure their scheming continues as well as their high self-regard.

  83. 83.

    Another Scott

    December 16, 2022 at 1:04 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I wonder if the banksters got involved with Muleo’s financing to have a better look at Twitters book to be able to short everything over time.  Melon was too stupid to do due-diligence (since he figured he’d never have to actually buy the thing), but the banksters must have…

    Dunno.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  84. 84.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    December 16, 2022 at 1:05 pm

    @Layer8Problem: yeah, the old man was always, IIRC, media-shy, and I remember reading the family wasn’t thrilled by Becky’s foray into celebrity, with her dear friend Kellyanne and her diamond-studded eyeglasses. I haven’t seen or heard her name in a while. One of her sisters ran an artisanal cookie bakery in I forget which fashionable corner of Manhattan, and wasn’t thrilled by the association with trump.

  85. 85.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    December 16, 2022 at 1:06 pm

    @WereBear: I completely understand state owned devices. I kept my personal business completely off my office computer, especially given that the Iowa legislature could demand to see it at any time.

    But personally owned devices?

  86. 86.

    UncleEbeneezer

    December 16, 2022 at 1:07 pm

    @MisterDancer: I’ve been thinking a lot about the racism in my own (very white) family growing up.  I had a GrandFather who was an open, virulent racist who would start screaming rants about those people and there goes the neighborhood and how much he hated the govt because of all the handouts to lazy people etc. including every awful slur you can imagine.  The rest of my family would be rightfully outraged.  Some would push back, big-time, call him out, and a lot of yelling would ensue, doors would slam (I was only 0-10 years old and the whole thing was really traumatic) and then eventually things would calm down.  But here’s the thing.  The whole damn family shared his Govt-Is-The-Enemy views and they all worshipped at the altar of Ayn Rand.  The only thing they objected to was GF’s racist outbursts not the central, racist worldview that they all shared.  And I never once heard anyone explore the rather obvious connection between Rand’s Objectivism (and Buckley Conservatism, like my Dad loved) and GF’s horrific racism.  Like, isn’t it quite a coincidence that Atlas Shrugged has such strong appeal to open bigots like my GF?  I wonder why that is? /sarcasm

    Anyways, all of which is to say that many (maybe most) people who support various iterations of Systemic Racism (and other Oppressions too) don’t even consciously know they are doing so and I’m guessing the same was the case for Jim Crow.

  87. 87.

    trollhattan

    December 16, 2022 at 1:14 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: The second bit sounds both illegal and completely unenforceable. But Abbott is nothing if not someone whose reach exceeds his grasp. (TBH I find him more evil and conniving than even DeSantis, on account of having a more fertile imagination.)

  88. 88.

    JoyceH

    December 16, 2022 at 1:17 pm

    Off topic open-thready stuff – Wednesday I had an appointment with a retina specialist about the cloudy patch in my vision. Turned out to be a blocked artery in my retina AND he told me to go to the ER for a ‘stroke workup’. So I wound up spending an unplanned day and a half in the hospital. But the good news is – I didn’t have a stroke and they didn’t find any conditions indicating a stroke was impending. Had an enormous amount of tests that all turned out to be good. When they turned me loose yesterday it was after dark. As I drove out the hospital main entrance, I thought for a moment I’d gotten turned around and wasn’t where I thought I was. But that’s because recently Rte 1 in Virginia was renamed, and Jefferson Davis Highway is now Emancipation Highway. So Yay for that, right?

  89. 89.

    gvg

    December 16, 2022 at 1:19 pm

    @rikyrah: Pro rape actually.  Many of them still say things like she wasn’t raped, or she changed her mind afterwards or she was lying even if she is 10 years old. I think it is logical to conclude these men are actually uncaught rapists. Some are just complicit, part of the coverup, but you should check their family history. The ones that say the really clear alarming stuff…..assume the worst. This is how really bad things get covered up.

    And women don’t want to date them? Women don’t want to be alone with them.

  90. 90.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 16, 2022 at 1:19 pm

    @WereBear: I think that’s part of the “Reedy Creek Improvement District” which, under the revenge law the Florida government passed, will dissolve next June (probably at the expense of Florida taxpayers).

    I suspect Disney has calculated that they can probably do just fine without their private pocket government. But the precedent under which it was wrecked is bad.

  91. 91.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    December 16, 2022 at 1:19 pm

    @grumbles: From an outcomes perspective, I do prefer it when they let their freak flag fly – I could watch douchebag reactionaries destroy themselves all day.

    Yes, it’s quite entertaining.  To point, it’s sad the Twitter employees have to go threw this shit, but it sounds like they all knew the Twitter was in trouble before Emmo Musk showed up.

  92. 92.

    JoyceH

    December 16, 2022 at 1:20 pm

    @gvg: ​
     

    Many of them still say things like she wasn’t raped

    If a ten year old is pregnant, she was raped. Case closed.

  93. 93.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    December 16, 2022 at 1:20 pm

    @JoyceH: Glad you’re all right. Did they fix the cloudy spot?

  94. 94.

    JoyceH

    December 16, 2022 at 1:22 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: ​
     

    They say there’s really not anything they can do about it. But I take Plavix and the nurse said that might gradually dissolve the plaque over time, so it might improve somewhat.

  95. 95.

    Kay

    December 16, 2022 at 1:23 pm

    southpaw
    @nycsouthpaw
    ·32m
    A great reporter at Business Insider who published an important investigation of Tesla

    Banned on Twitter. For the crime of performing journalism re: Elon Musk’s defective cars.

    Have assholes posturing about “free speech” and “cancel culture” ever exploded as spectacularly as this? I cannot imagine a bigger, more public failure. This is worse than when they all backed DeSantis after he put the Florida State Speech Codes into effect.

  96. 96.

    gvg

    December 16, 2022 at 1:28 pm

    @Kay: Not reliably. My grandmother’s first conception died in her womb. The doctor did not want to remove it and she was in the hospital going septic as it rotted….until another senior doctor ran into her mother and found out to take over.  Her husbands sister died in childbirth. Family lore was it was the Catholic position that the child was to be saved before the mother which lead to that, do not know the details. At any rate, women’s health care was inconsistent. It always depended on who you were and the views of your doctor which you didn’t always know as well as you thought. Things aren’t good now but don’t get idillic about the past.

  97. 97.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    December 16, 2022 at 1:29 pm

    @Cmorenc:although Lee’s surrender was still 2-3 weeks in the future, it had to be obvious to the out-numbered confederate soldiers that the war was a lost cause in mid-march 1865, and yet they made this near-suicidal charge.

    They may have not necessary been aware of how dire the situation was for the Confederacy. Illiteracy was wide spread in the South and newspapers few.  Most of the major ports in the South had been occupied by the Union navy in 1861, so Union raids into the deep South was regular thing, and Sherman’s March was simply a bigger one.   Typically, the Confederate state militias would harass the raids until the Union raiding force call it day and turned back to the nearest Union occupied port.

    Probably a better comparison is, like those Confederate soldiers, today’s RW is in information bubble and isn’t seeing the big picture.

  98. 98.

    oklahomo

    December 16, 2022 at 1:34 pm

    There was a long technical thread late last night, describing what happens if you use a Visa gift card to buy one of Trump’s NFTs (and if you don’t have a digital wallet, it creates one for you). Apparently there are several thousand versions based on recombining the heads, posture, clothing, background, etc., with number caps on certain combinations to make them more rare. When looking at some of the results I couldn’t help but think thiscatdoesnotexist.com does it better.

  99. 99.

    Geminid

    December 16, 2022 at 1:36 pm

    @WereBear: Pat Cleburne was an Irish immigrant and his proposal was rejected by his native-born counterparts. Cleburne was then killed in General Hood’s disastrous assaults on the U.S. rearguard defending its crossing at the Duck River in Tennessee. Five other Confederate generals and died in the battle; six others were wounded and casualties among enlisted men were similar. Hood basically wrecked his army at this battle (whose name escapes me).

    The idea of arming Black men was anathema to white Southerners. It persisted and may have lay behind the U.S. Army’s reluctance to field Black combat units even during the Second World War. There were a few Black combat units but most served in the Quartermaster Corps. Many drove for the Red Ball Express that trucked supplies from the Normandy beaches and ports to the front line.

    Plenty of Black men fought in the Korean War. I’ve seen anecdotal evidence that these combat veterans played a key role at times in resisting white violence in the South from the mid 1950s on.

  100. 100.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    December 16, 2022 at 1:37 pm

    Oliver Darcy @oliverdarcy

    @DRUDGE lighting up “MANIC MUSK” this morning.

    I forget which outlet published a list of influential media figures last week, and I was surprised that Drudge made it, much less how high he was rated. I keep forgetting he’s out there. He feels like a relic of the Clinton years, though now that I think of it, he was pretty active in the Obama years too. I think…

  101. 101.

    Paul in KY

    December 16, 2022 at 1:39 pm

    @JoyceH: Yay for no stroke & yay for the traitor’s highway being renamed!

  102. 102.

    rikyrah

    December 16, 2022 at 1:41 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Since we’re on the topic of social media, Gov Abbot has issued an order that TikTok be removed from all state owned devices.

     

    At my work, we can’t access any social media platforms on our computers (TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) . Only people allowed access to them is Communications, because they run the accounts for my employer, which is a Government entity.

     

    I’m shocked that anyone would allow them on devices paid for by your employer.

     

    U of T Austin says Abbot also plans to issue guidelines on its presence on personally owned devices of state employees and those who do business with the state.

     

    Now, THIS is some bullshyt. None of their business.

  103. 103.

    WhatsMyNym

    December 16, 2022 at 1:42 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:   It just states ‘guidelines’.  It will depend on what they are and how they are enforced.

  104. 104.

    Paul in KY

    December 16, 2022 at 1:42 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Good points on them maybe having a too-rosy view on their situation. Another thing would be that unless the whole Regiment decided against this futile charge, those that didn’t go along would probably have been summarily executed.

  105. 105.

    Brachiator

    December 16, 2022 at 1:43 pm

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    Anyways, all of which is to say that many (maybe most) people who support various iterations of Systemic Racism (and other Oppressions too) don’t even consciously know they are doing so and I’m guessing the same was the case for Jim Crow.

    I would disagree on this point. The bigots who established the noxious machinery of Jim Crow were studied and deliberate in their feverish determination to oppress black people and other people of color. They were intentionally malicious. But many people who did not regularly live among or interact with black people could accept, even promulgate racism as part of the status quo without having to seriously consider the ramifications of their acceptance of racism.

    And strangely enough, Ayn Rand opposed racism.

    Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men.

    — from The Virtue of Selfishness

    Her acolytes ignore her message here, just as many of them ignore the fact that she was pro-choice.

  106. 106.

    Paul in KY

    December 16, 2022 at 1:44 pm

    @Geminid: That’s reason number 73 for ‘why the fuck would you name a base after that incompetent loser John Bell Hood?!?!?’

    Him on the other side sure helped us out.

  107. 107.

    Geminid

    December 16, 2022 at 1:45 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Drudge came out against Trump in the last couple years of his term.

  108. 108.

    redoubtagain

    December 16, 2022 at 1:46 pm

    @Geminid: ​
      Battle of Franklin.
    During WWII the “Negro” soldier wasn’t supposed to be able to serve in combat conditions, but were to be support troops only. Then came the Battle of the Bulge. Suddenly needed combat troops regardless of color.

  109. 109.

    topclimber

    December 16, 2022 at 1:47 pm

    @MisterDancer: Just seeing your comment now. Remember that Southerners had 200+ years of the Black Code, which cut off almost any avenue for gradual emancipation and/or really free status for emancipated slaves. That was their template for Jim Crow.

    You might want to check out Tom Watson. He was a white populist who actually tried at first to join forces with black voters. But the unrelenting disenfranchisement of blacks made that impossible. Later in his career, he became much more overtly racist, because that was the only way to win.

  110. 110.

    rikyrah

    December 16, 2022 at 1:47 pm

    @Soprano2:

    @Kay: I heard on 1A this morning that somehow Republicans are going to hold China accountable for “unleashing Covid-19 on the world”. There were no details on how they were going to do that, though. The panel likened the investigations they’re proposing to the Benghazi hearings.

     

    Which is why the SENATE needs to continue with the 1/6 hearings. Keep them up, and show the contrast between the insanity.

  111. 111.

    trollhattan

    December 16, 2022 at 1:48 pm

    @rikyrah: My employer has Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages used as public interfaces, so kind of tricky to block access to them on work PCs. I’m certain they’ve considered it.

    I can only access work email on my phone if it’s through a work-installed app, to which hayull no is the only correct answer.

  112. 112.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    December 16, 2022 at 1:50 pm

    @rikyrah: The only case I can think of where you might act differently was if your employer issued you an official phone you were supposed to carry at all times, and you got tired of paying for and carrying a second phone. I think that’s what happened with those two FBI agents Trump keeps calling lovebirds.

  113. 113.

    topclimber

    December 16, 2022 at 1:55 pm

    @Geminid: South Carolina had a token vote on arming free blacks during the Revolutionary War, only because the guy who promoted it (John Laurens) was the son of Henry Laurens, a big shot in the state and a president of the Continental Congress.

    It seems white men willing to fight for Independence were in short supply–partly because they had to keep an eye on slaves who might run away if not constantly guarded.

    Vote went down, big time.

  114. 114.

    Geminid

    December 16, 2022 at 1:56 pm

    @Paul in KY: The Union got a lot of help from generals like Hood and his predecessor, Braxton Bragg. And I always thought that Jefferson Davis’s statues could have been left standing but with a new plaque:

         In memory of Jefferson Davis, who did more to destroy the Confederacy than any man besides Lincoln and Grant.

  115. 115.

    JAFD

    December 16, 2022 at 2:00 pm

    @BR: ​
     As was mentioned on birdsite, if Mr. Musk is spending a lot of time in California for business, but wants to stay legally resident in Texas for tax purposes, he might want to keep the path of his corporate plane sub rosa.

  116. 116.

    Paul in KY

    December 16, 2022 at 2:01 pm

    @Geminid: Could add George Thomas to that plaque!

  117. 117.

    WereBear

    December 16, 2022 at 2:01 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Hacking the data of government employees. But Marco Rubio is sponsoring it. Was I reading stuff that hinted? I think I was. It was vague. Thanks for making me look it up with depth.

  118. 118.

    Betty Cracker

    December 16, 2022 at 2:03 pm

    Okay, this is funny: [NY Post]

    “I can’t do this anymore,” an exasperated-sounding Bannon said Thursday on his show, “The War Room,” when discussing the widely derided collection the 45th president launched the previous day…

    Two fellow Trump White House advisers — Dr. Sebastian Gorka and Steve Cortes — fully agreed, with Bannon noting that “you don’t have three harder cores” of expected support than the three of them.

    Trump’s latest stunt “never should have happened,” said Gorka, who was Trump’s deputy assistant and is now a host for America First.

    “Whoever wrote that pitch should be fired and should never be involved” in any part of Trump’s 2024 campaign, he said. “We don’t have time to waste … the president should not be involved with this.”

    Cortes went further, calling for the “firing of everybody” helping Trump at Mar-a-Lago, not just those involved in the cringe-worthy NFT release.

    Also, according to CoinDesk, the NFTs sold out and are currently trading at more than twice the original price. Maybe Trump understands his marks better than Bannon, Gorka and Cortes do?

  119. 119.

    Cmorenc

    December 16, 2022 at 2:04 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    That is a good perspective on the confederate information bubble during most of the war, but in mid-march 1865 most of even the confederate grunt soldiers in NC (and not just top command) were aware that wilmington (last open confederate seaport) had fallen and that sherman was marching inland to destroy/capture remaining confederate resistance in eastern nc with a much larger army than johnson had

  120. 120.

    Cmorenc

    December 16, 2022 at 2:06 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    That is a good perspective on the confederate information bubble during most of the war, but in mid-march 1865 when battle of aversboro most of the confederate grunt soldiers innc (and not just top command) were aware that wilmington (last open confederate seaport) had fallen and that sherman was marching inland to destroy/capture remaining confederate resistance in eastern nc with a much larger army than general johnson had left

  121. 121.

    Geminid

    December 16, 2022 at 2:07 pm

    @Geminid: Richmond finally took down its last statue of a Confederate general this week. A.P. Hill’s remains were in the base of his statue and distant relatives fought a delaying action in the courts based on technicalities relating to abandoned cemeteries. The battle abruptly ended after their appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court was rejected for lack of jurisdiction. The state Court of Appeals now hears appeals of Circuit Court cases and the Supreme Court only hears appeals from that intermediate one.

    This has been true for several years and I wondered if the Hill family’s attorneys had been living under a rock somewhere.

  122. 122.

    WereBear

    December 16, 2022 at 2:07 pm

     

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Recently read that the slave-owning soldiers had lower rates of AWOL and such. So maybe they were getting down to the true believers even as desertions were mounting in that last year.

  123. 123.

    MattF

    December 16, 2022 at 2:08 pm

    @Betty Cracker: It’s several million bucks in actual money. ‘Nuff said.

  124. 124.

    WereBear

    December 16, 2022 at 2:13 pm

    @Geminid: Everywhere the Union troops went, slaves made a break for it. Some joined the Union army. By that time, there wasn’t any question that they could fight.

    The outraged response of the Confederate government showed the size of the nerve he stepped on. They all knew their slaves made brave soldiers. But pretending it wasn’t so was part of their defense against the incredible cruelty inherent in their society that they caused and perpetuated.

    Somehow, I guess from him not being from there, Cleburne hadn’t put two and two together?

    Though I guess it would have put an end to the war…just not in the way they were thinking.

  125. 125.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    December 16, 2022 at 2:14 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: A lot of people use personal devices for work, because work won’t pay for a phone or a laptop and you still have to stay in touch. They have strict security requirements for those devices (like which virus protection software you are allowed to use IF you are going to connect to work networks, email, etc).

  126. 126.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    December 16, 2022 at 2:19 pm

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Now that you mention it, I did use personal devices for work. Specifically I accessed my work email from my home computer, the way the university’s students all did. I never used the work computer for personal things. But I suppose the same danger of contamination could be present.

    What I worried about was the state legislature. At that time, the Wisconsin state legislature was going after a climate scientist who criticized them. They looked at his office compute (after it was purged of student and personnel information) but found nothing actionable, because he wasn’t an idiot. He did leave U of W soon after for a better job. He was internationally known. He didn’t have to put up with harassment

  127. 127.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    December 16, 2022 at 2:20 pm

    @WereBear: Might be something to that, I got the impression that Lee was amazed he had any soldiers left by spring 1865 because of the food shortages.

    But that’s were the parallel breaks down. As disgusting as the South cause was, those soldiers were willing to endure and risk a lot, were these RW clowns are fat, dumb middle managers who get upset if the waitress doesn’t bring a side of ranch for their meal.

  128. 128.

    Brachiator

    December 16, 2022 at 2:22 pm

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:

    A lot of people use personal devices for work, because work won’t pay for a phone or a laptop and you still have to stay in touch. They have strict security requirements for those devices (like which virus protection software you are allowed to use IF you are going to connect to work networks, email, etc).

    Yeah, this is a thing at many jobs. I have fortunately been able to refuse to use a personal phone that would have company software installed on it.

  129. 129.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    December 16, 2022 at 2:26 pm

    @redoubtagain: Battle of Franklin was probably the real, how in the F did they get these guys to do this, considering the Union defenders were screaming “Murders!” at the Confederate officers, it was that obvious this attack is a very dumb idea.

  130. 130.

    UncleEbeneezer

    December 16, 2022 at 2:26 pm

    @Brachiator: Rand would absolutely be siding with the Hobby Lobby’s of the world and opposing any sort of Govt Assistance and/or meaningful Reparations to Black People if she was alive today.  Did she ever call out Reagan’s racist, welfare queen and T-bone steaks etc., that were obvious extensions of her Makers/Takers concepts deriding the poor?  Did she ever comment on the vast Racial discrepancies in Generational Wealth that resulted from Slavery, Jim Crow, Redlining, Racial Covenants, etc.?

  131. 131.

    M31

    December 16, 2022 at 2:27 pm

    @Betty Cracker:  if the cards are trading at twice the original price, isn’t that $$ that Trump left on the table and doesn’t personally get? Now the profiteers/scalpers are getting the dough HAHAHAHAHA

    Not even an efficient grifter

  132. 132.

    Another Scott

    December 16, 2022 at 2:32 pm

    @Brachiator:

    And strangely enough, Ayn Rand opposed racism.

    My understanding of her “philosophy” is different – I don’t find that strange at all.

    Her big thing was the Dollar (money) was the objective thing. Capitalism, free markets, balance sheets, logic, science, etc. Ignore/wish-away all the rest of the messy stuff about humanity (tribalism, racism, misogyny, support for the less fortunate, charity, etc.) and follow the true “objective” path!!

    Something, something, blind pigs and all that.

    If one remembers that she grew up under Stalin, her fanaticism and hatred of the state collective and making the individual her guiding star makes a lot more sense. Even though it’s still cartoonish and completely unworkable…

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  133. 133.

    James E Powell

    December 16, 2022 at 2:33 pm

    @WereBear:

    Did Jefferson Davis respond? I’m curious to know what his thoughts were on that proposal.

  134. 134.

    Paul in KY

    December 16, 2022 at 2:37 pm

    @Betty Cracker: TFG really seems to understand his marks. I have to give him that.

  135. 135.

    trollhattan

    December 16, 2022 at 2:39 pm

    @Another Scott: ​Valued jackal Subaru Diane knew her as part of the group. Smartly escaped with her wits and soul intact. Greenspan I think never quite recovered.​
    I still don’t get the Beethoven thing.

  136. 136.

    redoubtagain

    December 16, 2022 at 2:42 pm

    @WereBear: ​
      “If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong… The day you make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end of the revolution.” Confederate general Howell Cobb, January 1865

  137. 137.

    trollhattan

    December 16, 2022 at 2:43 pm

    CPUC does a stupid.

    California’s utility regulator voted Thursday to significantly reduce subsidies for rooftop solar installations, sparking outrage among solar industry leaders and marking an end to a years-long battle over the scope of incentives that supported the industry’s growth. The hotly contested rules approved by the Public Utilities Commission will lower compensation home solar owners receive from utilities for their excess energy and encourage the adoption of battery storage.

    The agency cited the need to support grid reliability and avoid burdening lower-income energy customers as reasons for the changes. Known as net energy metering (NEM), the subsidies have been an incentive for homeowners and businesses to install solar panels on their rooftops. Under the program, solar customers are paid for the excess energy they generate and sell back to the grid, which eventually helps offset their initial costs of installing the system.

    “California is poised to unlock the next phase of our ambitious climate change agenda, and this decision is part of that,” said CPUC president Alice Busching Reynolds. “This decision is about encouraging solar and storage but also fundamentally about the right way to charge NEM customers for use of the grid.”

    The discussion comes as California pushes forward with ambitious targets for weaning the state off oil and gas. State air regulators are also set to vote Thursday on a climate roadmap that says California must quadruple its solar and wind power to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045.

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article270021382.html#storylink=cpy

    Soooo, disincentivize home solar as we streak to our goal of a carbon-free future. Got it.

  138. 138.

    mrmoshpotato

    December 16, 2022 at 2:44 pm

    @M31: Sad!

  139. 139.

    Kent

    December 16, 2022 at 2:45 pm

    @rikyrah:

    At my work, we can’t access any social media platforms on our computers (TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) . Only people allowed access to them is Communications, because they run the accounts for my employer, which is a Government entity.

    I think they are talking more about cell phones.  When you get a government-issued cell phone it is normally just a generic cell phone from Verizon or AT&T that is running standard software.   The only thing that makes it a government phone is that it is on a government account.  The government agency IT office has no control over what sites you access using Verizon’s 4G network like they do for their own internal servers that provide internet to computers within a government building.  They probably also don’t have any control over what apps you install or use.  They can tell you not to install or use TikTok but they probably can’t prevent it because they don’t control the Apple operating system and Apple will tell them to pound sand if they try.

  140. 140.

    Another Scott

    December 16, 2022 at 2:46 pm

    @trollhattan: [Google, Google, Google…]  If I ever knew that “objective fact” about Beethoven, I had mercifully forgotten.

    Thanks a lot.

    ;-)

    I do remember Subaru mentioning that.  “Balloon-Juice – is there anything it can’t do??”  (Except find the mustard, but that’s different.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  141. 141.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    December 16, 2022 at 2:47 pm

    @redoubtagain: “If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong… The day you make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end of the revolution.” Confederate general Howell Cobb, January 1865

    Edited for brevity.

  142. 142.

    Brachiator

    December 16, 2022 at 2:48 pm

    @Another Scott:

    Her big thing was the Dollar (money) was the objective thing. Capitalism, free markets, balance sheets, logic, science, etc. Ignore/wish-away all the rest of the messy stuff about humanity (tribalism, racism, misogyny, support for the less fortunate, charity, etc.) and follow the true “objective” path!!

    I don’t think much of Rand’s philosophy, and have had my share of battles with libertarian loons over the years, but I think that Rand had a fetish about freedom and free markets (yeah, it was cartoonish), but did not particularly worship money.

    And she did not simply want to wish away the messy stuff about humanity, but actively opposed tribalism and bigotry. Of course, she often failed to live up to her own supposed standards, because life is more complicated than slogans and philosophy.  Unfortunately, many of her acolytes are emotionally stunted and cannot deal with subtlety or nuance.

  143. 143.

    UncleEbeneezer

    December 16, 2022 at 2:48 pm

    @Another Scott: I have no doubt that Rand believed that the differing economic conditions, wealth etc., between White and Black People was a result of effort/laziness, not purposeful policies to deny Black People the ability to own land, have good jobs and build wealth.  Like my family members who worship her, I’m pretty sure that Rand would never in a million years want to acknowledge Systemic Racism and the role that things like land grants, homeowner loans, the GI bill etc., played in funneling so much $ towards White People and away from Black/Native/Asian-American People etc.

  144. 144.

    scav

    December 16, 2022 at 2:56 pm

    @Paul in KY: Yeah, well, neither of them (TFG & the vaunted conservative base) seem to be interested in long-term planning let alone the overall good of the party of elephants — let alone nation — so maybe the institutional GOP & oligarch enablers better get it in gear to join in the smash and grab of small-donor pockets.  Especially since the small donors in question are not only leaving their doors unlocked but coming outdoors and flinging cash at men in masks.

  145. 145.

    Sister Golden Bear

    December 16, 2022 at 2:59 pm

    Imagine paying $44 billion to be the main character every day.

  146. 146.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    December 16, 2022 at 3:00 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear: My own sense of self grants me that for free every day.

  147. 147.

    Geminid

    December 16, 2022 at 3:04 pm

    @James E Powell: Davis’s government rejected arming Black troops until early 1865, when the Confederacy had all but collapsed. A small number of Black men were then enlisted but they had not yet been added to the Confederate army when Lee had to retreat from Richmond and Petersburg.

  148. 148.

    UncleEbeneezer

    December 16, 2022 at 3:05 pm

    @Brachiator: Again, did she ever acknowledge the role that her philosophy played in Reagan’s racist myths about “welfare queens” and “strapping, young bucks” (buying T-bone steaks with their food stamps?). Both could have come almost verbatim from The Fountainhead/Atlas Shrugged and both were popularized while she was still alive.  I know she didn’t like Reagan for other reasons but did she ever call out his obvious racism?  Here’s her writing on affirmative action:

    “Instead of fighting against racial discrimination, [racial minorities] are demanding that racial discrimination be legalized and enforced. Instead of fighting against racism, they are demanding the establishment of racial quotas. Instead of fighting for “color-blindness” in social and economic issues, they are proclaiming that “color-blindness” is evil and that “color” should be made a primary consideration. Instead of fighting for equal rights, they are demanding special race privileges.”

    Rand believed in the fantasy of a Color-Blind (All Lives Matter) society and had no interest in policies that would actually help level the playing field of racial inequality.  She was racist.  Full stop.

  149. 149.

    Sister Golden Bear

    December 16, 2022 at 3:07 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Not new here. Fascists used Facebook’s “real names” policy against trans people, burlesque performers, Native American activists, and numerous others who didn’t have white bread names. Trans folks have endured mass reporting from TERFS for years, although back when Twitter actually had moderation teams things eventually got straighten out.  Eventually.

  150. 150.

    Brachiator

    December 16, 2022 at 3:08 pm

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    Did she ever call out Reagan’s racist, welfare queen and T-bone steaks etc., that were obvious extensions of her Makers/Takers concepts deriding the poor?  Did she ever comment on the vast Racial discrepancies in Generational Wealth that resulted from Slavery, Jim Crow, Redlining, Racial Covenants, etc.?

    I vaguely recall that Rand gave a 1981 speech in which she totally trashed Reagan. She died in 1982 and so didn’t have a lot to say about his presidency. But apart from that, she as obviously not particularly sophisticated or knowledgeable about racism.  Or about much of anything else, when you get down to it

    I don’t believe that Rand was racist. But I don’t believe that she had anything useful to say about racism in America or anywhere else.

  151. 151.

    skerry

    December 16, 2022 at 3:08 pm

    @M31: Trump gets 10% of any re-sell.

  152. 152.

    Miss Bianca

    December 16, 2022 at 3:11 pm

    @Betty Cracker: OMG, Bannon et al. look at the guy who endorsed Trump steaks and Trump vodka and all kinds and sorts of Trumpery and think that somehow NFTs are *beneath* this guy? THIS guy?

    The fact that the NFTs sold out despite the disapproval of the so-called serious seditionists in the room is weirdly hilarious to me.

    ETA: autocorrect keeps turning “steaks” to “steals”, which is eerily appropriate, considering the subject.

  153. 153.

    ARoomWithAMoose

    December 16, 2022 at 3:11 pm

    @M31: I’m sure TFG got a guaranteed payout at time of announcement from whoever is handling the NFT exchange they listed them on.  As far as the trading value having already gone up, the NFT market has _ALWAYS_ been manipulated by the initial batch sellers/exchanges (mostly using a few shill buyers using money the sellers handed them to boost the perceived notional value of such “art”).

  154. 154.

    UncleEbeneezer

    December 16, 2022 at 3:12 pm

    @Brachiator: Same can definitely be said of her fans.  None of my Randian family members are particularly deep thinkers.

  155. 155.

    Origuy

    December 16, 2022 at 3:15 pm

    @Kent: In order to access my work email, calendar, etc. on my phone I would have to install an app that gave access to corporate IT. They tightened down a lot a few months ago; I was able to do all that with only a little bit of access. Now they have considerably more control and I decided that I would no longer do any work from my personal phone. I don’t face customers, so I don’t qualify for a corporate phone. Fine with me.

  156. 156.

    Sister Golden Bear

    December 16, 2022 at 3:18 pm

    @Kay: I remember when TPM’s employees wanted to unionize, and Marshal not only wrote about how that was a good thing, but worked with them to help make it happen. IIRC, he cited the European model of company/union cooperative relationships for the benefit of everyone.

  157. 157.

    frosty

    December 16, 2022 at 3:22 pm

    @M31: The contract says he gets 10% of the resale. So maybe left money on the table from the first sale; but then, quick sellout and lots of interested buyers for his 10%.

    Seems like a good con to me.

  158. 158.

    Steeplejack

    December 16, 2022 at 3:25 pm

    @bikemilitant: Musk is going through the same boring, predictable spiral that happens when disordered narcissists learn that negative attention feeds them as much as positive attention and validation from terrible people is easier than validation from good ones.

  159. 159.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    December 16, 2022 at 3:26 pm

    @frosty: There are no good cons, there are only beneficiaries and looooozerz.

  160. 160.

    Bill Arnold

    December 16, 2022 at 3:27 pm

    @kindness:

    Hell no! More than likely a listserve goes out and is then dutifully attended to by their human-bots.

    If you can find evidence of this and bring it to Musks attention, it will accelerate his mental collapse bother him a lot.

  161. 161.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    December 16, 2022 at 3:28 pm

    More from TPM: I think this is the kind of thing Garland critics insisted he wasn’t doing because if he were, the targets and their lawyers would be squawking

    Federal prosecutors obtained more than 130,000 email messages in a Jan. 6-related investigation that appears to be focusing on Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), newly released court filings show. In particular, prosecutors were focused on Perry’s communications with three lawyers — two of them officials at the Justice Department — who took part in efforts to try to use DOJ to help reverse the outcome of the 2020 election, according to the filing.

    Prosecutors searched email accounts belonging to Jeffrey Clark, the former assistant attorney general for natural resources who tried and failed to become acting attorney general in the last days of the Trump administration. Also searched were email accounts belonging to Ken Klukowski, a Clark deputy, and John Eastman, the right-wing attorney who helped lead Trump’s legal effort to reverse the 2020 election result.

    filter teams, challenges based on privilege, judicial review. Turns out an investigation like this involves more than righteously crying “Seize them!”

  162. 162.

    Bobby Thomson

    December 16, 2022 at 3:32 pm

    Josh Marshall has a pretty good summary of why the reporters were banned.  He concludes with a sour grapes view of Twitter as an unreliable private actor that reporters never should have relied on, which of course completely ignores its role as an organizing tool and voice of dissidents in even more repressive regimes.

  163. 163.

    Kent

    December 16, 2022 at 3:34 pm

    @Brachiator: Last year my daughter was assigned to read Ayn Rand’s early novel “Anthem” by here MAGA English teacher who was apparently a Rand fanboy.  I read with her and found to be ridiculous and poorly written and over-the-top pedantic.  It is just ridiculously bad.

    I made sure that she included John Rodger’s famous quote comparing Atlas Shrugged and Lord of the Rings as the subtitle to her paper!  Hah.

  164. 164.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    December 16, 2022 at 3:36 pm

    @Kent:

    her MAGA English teacher

    even without getting into Rand, I’m guessing that’s a convention that could be held in a phone booth, if you could find a phone booth nowadays

  165. 165.

    Bobby Thomson

    December 16, 2022 at 3:36 pm

    @M31: there’s always leakage in any money laundering scheme.  What, you thought this was something else?

  166. 166.

    Origuy

    December 16, 2022 at 3:38 pm

    If you are looking for people in a particular academic area on Mastodon, check out https://nathanlesage.github.io/academics-on-mastodon/

    I like archeology, so here is a list for that https://stark1tty.github.io/Mastodon-Archaeology/

  167. 167.

    cain

    December 16, 2022 at 3:38 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I’m hoping DeSantis learned all the wrong lessons from his political success in Florida, and since it feeds his massive ego, I suspect that’s what happened.

    The man requires control of all the apparatus to make his schtick work. It works in Florida because he can dominate the legislature and replace elected officials at will. (which I’m still trying to figure out how he can get away with that)

    That’s not going to fly outside of Florida. He’s not going to be able to adapt, the damn pipsqueak.

  168. 168.

    Josie

    December 16, 2022 at 3:38 pm

    @Betty Cracker: ​
     I think those guys are more interested in the power he would have if he were returned to the presidency, whereas he is more interested in the grift. He can make bank off of this stunt, but it won’t get him any closer to winning the office.

  169. 169.

    Geminid

    December 16, 2022 at 3:38 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

     

    @Paul in KY: George Thomas’s subordinate, John Schofield commanded the U.S. forces at the battle of Franklin, where Confederate General Cleburne was killed. Thomas had left for Nashville to prepare that city’s defenses.

    Thomas was a thorough man and he made sure that Schofield was left with a strong defensive position to cover the rear guard’s river crossing. Soldiers and pioneers constructed a large semi-circle of logs and dirt. “Headlogs” were placed throughout, allowing soldiers to fire through a 3 inch slit with little exposure. The battle was a slaughter.

    Afterwards Schofield brought his force across the Duck River and joined Thomas at Nashville. Hood followed and feebly threatened Thomas’s troops. Once Thomas’s infantry and cavalry were ready he ordered them out against Hood. They swept the Confederates from the field and Hood’s army pretty much disintegrated afterwards.

    The Battle of Franklin took place November 30, 1864 and the Battle of Nashville came about 3 weeks later. John Schofield had a long post war career in the Army and I believe the famous Schofield Barracks on the Hawaiian island of Maui were named after him.

  170. 170.

    Kent

    December 16, 2022 at 3:39 pm

    @Origuy: I work for a school district and they don’t give a shit.  I just added their mail server to my iPhone email app to get work email on my personal phone and I automatically also started getting work calendar entries populating the calendar on my phone too.

    But they have zero interest in tracking what I do on my own phone.  They have enough work just keeping all the student chromebooks repaired and running and the filters running on the student-used servers.   And restricting what apps they can run on their chromebooks as well.

  171. 171.

    Kent

    December 16, 2022 at 3:40 pm

    @Josie:@Betty Cracker: ​
    I think those guys are more interested in the power he would have if he were returned to the presidency, whereas he is more interested in the grift. He can make bank off of this stunt, but it won’t get him any closer to winning the office.

    It isn’t just the grift.  He wants to wield the power of the presidency to punish his enemies as well.

  172. 172.

    mrmoshpotato

    December 16, 2022 at 3:43 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear: And then being remembered as a complete fucking wanker!

  173. 173.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    December 16, 2022 at 3:43 pm

    more on Tesla stock

    Millard Fillmore’s porcelain zither @agraybee 38m
    I don’t think Tesla’s stock price is Enron-level fake but does anyone actually believe this boutique car company is worth more than GM, Ford, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz combined?

    Toyota is the largest car manufacturer in the world and their stock price is still lower than Tesla’s, and Tesla is crashing. I dunno this seems off to me.

    I haven’t checked out those valuations, I wouldn’t know where to start, but if that’s true… holy shit. Look out below.

  174. 174.

    Geminid

    December 16, 2022 at 3:47 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: People often use a stock’s price-to-earnings ratio to assess value. Toyota’s P/E was around 10.5 last time I checked. Tesla’s P/E was around 50.

  175. 175.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    December 16, 2022 at 3:52 pm

    I’m not a Car Guy, much less a Truck Guy, but I’ve been interested in the F-150 Lightning. I’ve seen recently that Ford is increasing production, and the price, so there must be a lot of interest. I am a bit baffled as to why they started with such a big truck, but as Brian Williams never tired of telling people with a factoid he thought spoke volume about humble working-class folk like himself, it is the best-selling vehicle in the country

    motortrend @MotorTrend Dec 14

    The F-150 Lightning is the first electric pickup to appeal directly to existing truck buyers, doing it so well that it’s easily our 2023 Truck of the Year.

  176. 176.

    ian

    December 16, 2022 at 3:54 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Turns out an investigation like this involves more than righteously crying “Seize them!”

    I do hope this moment happens and gets captured on film at some point.  I would pay dearly to watch that.

  177. 177.

    BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️

    December 16, 2022 at 3:56 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Here in ‘Bama, Gov. Meemaw did the same thing.

  178. 178.

    Bill Arnold

    December 16, 2022 at 3:57 pm

    @grumbles:

    Bob & Becky Mercer.

    Bob Mercer had a brilliant career as a computer scientist (e.g. very involved in the first decent speech-to-text systems), before being one of the earlier scientists to be actively recruited to the dark side (the applied-mathematics-heavy parts of fintech; not always dark, e.g. risk analysis is OK). The attitude adjustments necessary to look at oneself in the mirror were probably transformative, though I do not know anything about his affect when he was younger. (Might have met him though; saw a very early speech recognition demo (not real-time: computers were too slow) at an open house at his lab as a kid.)

  179. 179.

    ian

    December 16, 2022 at 3:57 pm

    @BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️: Wyoming as well.

  180. 180.

    Martin

    December 16, 2022 at 3:59 pm

    @M31: Oh, no, that’s not how this works. Trump controls how many cards there are. So if a card is worth $200, and he can make a million of them out of thin air, then he’s got $200M worth of cards.

    This is exploiting a sleight of hand in the economic system for how we measure ‘wealth’ where you take the value of the last traded of a set of items and extrapolate that across the entire set on the assumption there are an infinite number of buyers who will give you currency in exchange for those items. You see the flaws in the system when you extrapolate the value of something beyond the total available currency, etc.

    Crypto (which NFTs are based on) exploits this to the extreme.

    So Trump has $200M worth of trading cards, because he apparated them from the ether. But there aren’t $200M actual earth dollars to give him because even the MAGA base isn’t that stupid. But that’s an asset that a bank will still recognize, and they’ll loan him $200M actual earth dollars against that asset. And to pay off the loan he really only needs to convert a small fraction of those cards into dollars, etc.

    Finance is fucking busted.

  181. 181.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    December 16, 2022 at 3:59 pm

    Politico says the Jan. 6 Committee is preparing to vote on urging the Justice Department to pursue at least three criminal charges against Trump — including insurrection.

  182. 182.

    Kay

    December 16, 2022 at 4:00 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    I remember when TPM’s employees wanted to unionize

    That’s what kills me about the idiot “Leftists” who clambored aboard the Elon Musk anti cancel culture bandwagon. Musk is vehemently anti union and anti worker. It’s pretty fucking clueless for people who insist they are “on the Left” to join his fan club.
    I think people like AOC should buy a union-made automobile. I don’t think everyone should have to buy one, but if you’re going to run around as Professional Friend of the Working Man buy a fucking union made car. It’s not hard or a great sacrifice.

  183. 183.

    RaflW

    December 16, 2022 at 4:03 pm

    I await* Bari Weiss’s genuflecting excuse-making for why banning dozens of journos on the Musty beat is actually pro-freedom.

    *not really

  184. 184.

    geg6

    December 16, 2022 at 4:04 pm

    @Kay: ​
     
    Not to mention that his people actually report the damn news. They leave the commentary to the editor’s blog and the podcast. But the hard news stuff is simply excellent.

    I’ve been a subscriber since way back in the Bush years during the AUSA scandal. I’ve upped my subscription to the TPM AF and I consider it money well spent.

  185. 185.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    December 16, 2022 at 4:06 pm

    @RaflW: they’ve turned on each other.

    but still: Fuck Bari Weiss, too

  186. 186.

    Kay

    December 16, 2022 at 4:07 pm

    @geg6:

    I subscribed at one point because they did such good work on voting rights (which was part of the ASU scandal as you know) but i had let it lapse long enough that I was surprised when I went to re-up and they already had my email.

    Hopefully if Twitter collapses or turns into some Right wing freak show old fashioned “liberal websites” will come back. They were good!

  187. 187.

    Martin

    December 16, 2022 at 4:07 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: So, I think the Tesla stock price is a misread. There’s clearly enormous value in cars. The problem isn’t that Tesla is overvalued, but that when allocating the total market value of automobiles, everyone else looks like shit so Tesla gets the majority of the market value.

    This is where the phrase ‘the market is a weighing machine’ comes in. The value of the auto industry is uncertain given climate change. Do we pivot off of cars and onto other forms of transit, or can we convince the masses to buy EVs? If you believe the latter, then the value of the market doesn’t go down at all, but needs to be reallocated among the EV players. If you don’t have a compelling EV strategy, then you are basically worthless in the long run. If you believe the former (as I do) then really the whole industry is worthless in the long run.

    From the consumer perspective, EVs look like the winner, but that’s mostly because that’s the picture that marketing is painting. To my eye, if you look more critically, it’s not working. Adoption is too slow, too many problems remain for charging networks, costs aren’t coming down as predicted (and we can’t put out $600B in EV subsidies on an ongoing basis), and the emissions benefits of EVs simply aren’t good enough given all the other things they require (paving of roads, parking, etc. which are carbon intensive) Other transit options are actually winning, but they aren’t painting a marketing picture that most people can see yet.

    So I think you get this distorted picture where the investors who side with the latter are betting down the value of the car industry overall, and the investors who side with the former are betting up the value of Tesla as the leader of the EV future they think is coming. In the current moment, Tesla as a leader is looking pretty shaky given how fucked up its CEO increasingly appears to be.

  188. 188.

    Origuy

    December 16, 2022 at 4:09 pm

    @Kent: Understandable for a school district. I work for a big computer company and some of the emails I get could be damaging in the wrong hands.

  189. 189.

    Tom Levenson

    December 16, 2022 at 4:09 pm

    @Geminid: Strangely, I have found cause to mention Hood’s contributions to the Union in the post above this one!

  190. 190.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    December 16, 2022 at 4:11 pm

    I had to double-check the date on this story. This seems…. oddly timed for many reasons

    Elon Musk’s team is seeking new investors for Twitter
    The managing director of Elon Musk’s family office is seeking new equity investors for Twitter as users revolt, advertisers flee, and debt payments loom, according to two people familiar with the fundraising effort.

    Musk’s money manager, Jared Birchall, reached out to potential investors this week, offering shares of Twitter at the same price, $54.20, that Musk paid to take the company private in October, the people said.

    “Over recent weeks we’ve received numerous inbound requests to invest in Twitter,” it read, according to a copy reviewed by Semafor. “Accordingly, we are pleased to announce a follow-on equity offering for common shares at the original price and terms, targeting a year-end close.”

  191. 191.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    December 16, 2022 at 4:13 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    @RaflW: they’ve turned on each other.

    but still: Fuck Bari Weiss, too

    Huh, my link got et.

    Hearing strains of Tom Petty, Breakdown, go ahead….

  192. 192.

    Kay

    December 16, 2022 at 4:16 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    They can keep Bari Weiss, Glenn Greenwald and Mat Taibbi on the Right.

    I don’t want them back. The last thing liberals need are anti union, anti civil rights and anti feminist people.

    Elon should keep his fan club. The Democratic tent isn’t big enough for Republicans.

  193. 193.

    frosty

    December 16, 2022 at 4:17 pm

    @Martin: Good perspective. So Ford, Toyota, etc are the buggy whip mfrs so why invest in a dying industry. EVs are the future and Tesla was there first hence the higher PE.

    Transit, Musk, etc aside.

  194. 194.

    prostratedragon

    December 16, 2022 at 4:24 pm

    @Paul in KY:  True on the leniency. But the prescribed range was only up to 71 months. Prosecution asked 64, defense wanted something under 2 years. Judge told him he was an asshole and gave him 60.

  195. 195.

    Urza

    December 16, 2022 at 4:26 pm

    @Another Scott: No one in my department was aware of this.  Not sure what we can do but we’ll bubble it up to the VPs.  This kind of work is usually subcontracted to a local company.  Microsoft may “own it” but were likely also unaware of it while it was happening
    Generally speaking under Satya as CEO, the company does care about doing the right thing.

  196. 196.

    Geminid

    December 16, 2022 at 4:33 pm

    @Martin: What you describe is true but I believe that some of Tesla’s value is also founded on Elon Musk’s personal prestige.

    I would add that I don’t look at current numbers as indicating that the uptake of electric vehicles is deficient. I don’t think we’ll get a good idea of consumer acceptance until 2024.

    In the meantime, fleet owners like UPS and Amazon will lead the way. Their motivation will be the prospect of more expensive fossil fuels, and lower maintenance costs.

    Funding provided by the Infrastructure bill will accelerate  the conversion of school bus fleets to electric power as well.

  197. 197.

    Martin

    December 16, 2022 at 4:38 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: So there’s this analytical trap that is easy to fall into. Most analysts fall into it at one time or another.

    Usually speaking the ‘sweet spot’ of a market is that point where size of market and value of market are maximized. Markets tend to be one-tailed distributions. There’s a small number of very rich people but a shit-ton of very poor people. The sweet spot of the market tends to be above the mean and well above the median. You’re appealing to an ever-smaller consumer population, but one willing to pay quite a lot. And this is appealing because a lot of your costs are fixed (you can’t build *any* car for $100).

    So when analyzing things in terms of ‘market share’ etc, you still need to be aware of what’s outside the market. It’s very obvious to me that the low end of the automotive market is conceptually lost. Automakers don’t know how to sell cheap EVs to people who live in rentals. They don’t even know what that product would look like. So they are increasingly appealing to homeowners willing to pay $66K for a car (median EV price right now). That’s a big EV market, but a small car market, and an even smaller transportation market.

    The risk comes when enough people get excluded from the market either due to price (they can’t afford an EV) or utility (they can’t charge an EV because they rent and street park) that the infrastructure money stops being spent on cars and instead gets spent on trains, bikes, buses, whatever. At that point the utility value of that $66K EV starts to go down. Cities are overturning parking minimums left and right (the number of parking spaces you need to provide when building a business or housing project), so how useful is that F-150 if there’s no place to park it? Or if you need to pay market rates to park it? Parking in NYC runs about $25 a day if you find a cheap place. You willing to pay $25 a day for the mere pleasure of owning a car? Or if road speeds get reduced for pedestrians making that F-150 a lot slower to get to where you want to go, etc.

    Right now there isn’t a single city in the US that I can find that isn’t making meaningful policy and spending changes away from car infrastructure. And a lot of that shift is because it’s almost universally accepted that cars are the cause of the current housing crisis – at least in foundation. We have more land area allocated for parking lots than for housing. And those are in direct competition because the most desirable places to live are also the most desirable places for people to park. Even if you view the housing issue as more directly related to private equity buying up rental stock, cities releasing commercial/retail parking and up-zoning that land for housing still works as a counter to that trend by taking land that had no direct economic value and converting it to something with tremendous economic value. But that comes exclusively at the expense of cars, because not only are you displacing parking for people who live outside of the immediate area, you also aren’t providing for parking for the new residents. You either need to have density that most day to day activities are walkable, or build transit. Cars are no longer an option.

    I notice the marketing for cars is starting to adopt more overtly right wing tropes. Cars have always been framed around ‘freedom’, etc. but it’s getting more overt. 83% of Americans live in urban areas. If Ford is betting on a smaller, but wealthier customer base, it makes sense that they area also betting on a more rural one and are shifting their marketing to that base. Rural areas aren’t going to see this dynamic, but make sure you aren’t buying into a 10 year investment into a product that will only pay off if you live in the sticks.

    My city is bigger than we tend to think it is, but we tend to view it as purely suburban, despite rapidly approaching being one of the 50 largest cities in the US. The city is trying to navigate this transition from suburban having the trappings of rural to suburban but in actuality being urban. The city has ambitious climate goals given that the state is about to start cranking down HARD on municipalities to address climate change, but they are stymied by the emission due to transportation and they’re afraid of making the shift they know they need to make because it runs counter to how the city residents see the place. How do you tell a city that over-invests in cars (my neighbor used to have a Lambo, there’s a Rolls being street parked around the corner – and this is NOT a wealthy neighborhood in my city) that you are shifting road spending to bike lanes, BRT, etc?

  198. 198.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    December 16, 2022 at 4:40 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ve heard $30 a share is closer to Tesla’s true valuation.

  199. 199.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    December 16, 2022 at 4:40 pm

    Aside: Twitter is not entirely without merit even now. Submitted for your consideration, John Rogers (of Leverage and the Crazification Factor) praising the comic book Atomic Robo (“the greatest alt-history multi-genre wise-cracking action scientist robot comic in existence”, in his own words), the book’s author replying that he’s going to steal that praise for a pull quote, and someone urging Rogers to adapt the comic to TV.

    Reference: https://twitter.com/jonrog1/status/1603845972647297024

  200. 200.

    redoubtagain

    December 16, 2022 at 4:44 pm

    @Geminid: Grant wanted Thomas to attack in a sleet storm and was at a train station in DC, about to go to Nashville and relieve Thomas of command when Thomas finally attacked Hood. Thomas wisely waited until the weather cleared.  Probably the best example of “sun’s out, guns out” ever.

  201. 201.

    Martin

    December 16, 2022 at 4:52 pm

    @Geminid: I don’t think you can divorce Musk’s personal prestige from the acceptance by the market that EVs will save the auto industry. I mean, that viewpoint was Musks pitch from the outset, and one of my bigger criticisms of Biden is that he was personally motivated to buy into that pitch and has done so. We view cars as inevitable, so it’s just a matter of choosing the best form of cars. There isn’t a city in the US or EU that takes that view right now. They are all disinvesting in cars, while the feds are investing. I recognize some of that is unavoidable, but the conversation on transportation is still tipped way to much in favor of ‘how do we save cars’ and not on ‘what’s the best way to help people get around’, of which ‘cars’ will be some component.

  202. 202.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 16, 2022 at 4:53 pm

    @Martin: My city and my metropolitan area are investing in better transit infrastructure, but even though I live in a more urban area than the median American does, I think it’s going to be FAR more than 10 years before it isn’t a profound hassle to live here without a car.

    If I lived in an inner-ring suburb, it would be a different story. In Boston or Cambridge it’s already much better not to have a car, has been for a very long time. But I had to give up on the dream even when we were living in Malden because my employers kept moving to transit-inaccessible places. The transition to remote work for many white-collar people might be the biggest change there, but bosses are trying hard to undo it.

  203. 203.

    The Moar You Know

    December 16, 2022 at 4:53 pm

     They can tell you not to install or use TikTok but they probably can’t prevent it because they don’t control the Apple operating system and Apple will tell them to pound sand if they try.

    @Kent: in a sense we can.  The employer side of that phone is fully sandboxed (it works a bit different for Android but the end result is the same).  I control everything in that space.  They can have TikTok on their phone but it absolutely cannot touch the employer side of the phone.

    The greater risk looks like that if an employee is found to have a personal device used for work that also has TikTok on it, I’ll have to report it and they will likely be fired.

  204. 204.

    UncleEbeneezer

    December 16, 2022 at 4:54 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: When you look at the timeline of what has been happening with DOJ investigations, and remember that Garland wasn’t even confirmed until Spring of 2021, it’s hard to claim that DOJ has been sitting on it’s hands or slow-moving.  A quick search of Marcy Wheeler’s list shows a whole lot of activity in 2021.  Most of the slowest things like the Stolen Documents, John Eastman and Fake Electors investigations are slow because of the need to litigate claims of Executive Privilege and to let NARA try to recover the docs by asking nicely first.  The seizures of Eastman, Perry and Clarks phones didn’t happen until 2022, but investigation and work must have been well under way in 2021 in order to pursue and justify the search warrants.  I don’t think there’s a single thread of crimes that DOJ wasn’t already working on in 2021.

  205. 205.

    The Moar You Know

    December 16, 2022 at 4:57 pm

    He concludes with a sour grapes view of Twitter as an unreliable private actor that reporters never should have relied on

    @Bobby Thomson: he is 100% right on that one, full stop.  Reporters largely don’t report anymore, they just publish other people’s tweets.  An entire generation of journalists is going to have to learn something they’ve never done before:  Journalism.

  206. 206.

    RaflW

    December 16, 2022 at 5:02 pm

    Dow Jones index closed down 0.85, S&P down 1.1%.
    Tesla? Plunged 4.72%!

    Dunno if that can serve as somewhat of a proxy for how much Musty is f**ing up Twitter, but I’d imagine so.

  207. 207.

    WereBear

    December 16, 2022 at 5:05 pm

    @Another Scott: Not only that, the Revolution impoverished her family. And/or she was Jewish.

    Which might surprise some of her fans, I’m sure.

  208. 208.

    RaflW

    December 16, 2022 at 5:06 pm

    @The Moar You Know: The reality is that a) decades ago the RW noise machine figured out that if you fax daily press releases to ‘reporters’ they’ll eat that crap up, and never leave the office. Twitter accelerated the news cycle, but didn’t change the spoon-feeding, really. And b) newspapers 20 years ago could afford many more journalists, editors, etc.

  209. 209.

    WereBear

    December 16, 2022 at 5:06 pm

    @James E Powell: Everyone was furious with Cleburne. It was going to be a short career in any case, but it was a lot of outrage.

  210. 210.

    Betty Cracker

    December 16, 2022 at 5:25 pm

    @RaflW: What, you mean rebranding the vehicles you’re trying to sell to environmentally conscious, affluent liberals as $100K rolling MAGA hats isn’t a genius business move? :-)

  211. 211.

    Miss Bianca

    December 16, 2022 at 5:28 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Man, when I predicted that Tesla was going to go down in flames, I thought I only meant *literally*…

  212. 212.

    Geminid

    December 16, 2022 at 5:31 pm

    @Martin: I can divorce Musk’s personal prestige from more general  attitudes about EV’s. A certain type of investor identifies with him as an Ayn Rand hero. They are finding out that he’s more of an Ayn Rando hero.

    As for EVs, I think their attraction will be conditioned by their more economical life cycle costs, not as a solution to more general environmental problems.

  213. 213.

    Betty Cracker

    December 16, 2022 at 5:45 pm

    @Miss Bianca: LOL! Gotta admit I’m enjoying the spectacle, probably too much. Beluga Boy always seemed like an arrogant dickhead, but now I’m personally angry at him for ruining a platform I valued and enjoyed.

  214. 214.

    NotMax

    December 16, 2022 at 5:54 pm

    @Betty Cracker

    Sic transit gloria Musky.

    //

  215. 215.

    louc

    December 16, 2022 at 6:39 pm

    I hate Ayn Rand, but the ironic thing her modern day fanbois don’t seem to understand: the class of people she loathed more than any other were the rentiers. Who can be more of an exhibit A for rentiers than Donald Trump? Or many other rightwing nutjob billionaires, for that matter.

  216. 216.

    Geminid

    December 16, 2022 at 8:48 pm

    @Martin: Do 83% of Americans really  live in urban areas? It seems like you are lumping suburbs together with cities, and applying the transportation parameters of cities to suburbs where they do not obtain.

  217. 217.

    Geminid

    December 16, 2022 at 9:19 pm

    @Martin:

     

    @Geminid: I guess its possible that 83% of Americans live in Metropolitan statistical areas but those are not urban areas typically but rather urban areas surrounded by suburban areas.

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