We stand for the right of a woman to make decisions about her own body. pic.twitter.com/aWo1HT8dzT
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) May 2, 2023
This was a story in the Washington Post‘s early-morning Daily 202, on Monday: “GOP focuses on Harris and suggests Biden won’t live to 2028”…
President Biden’s formal announcement that he seeks reelection has led to a boom in pieces on what role Vice President Harris will play, and an explosion of conservative commentary that 2024 is just as much a referendum on her as it is about the candidate at the top of the ticket.
Harris appears prominently and frequently in the president’s official launch video — not just at Biden’s side, but on her own. There’s nothing especially surprising there. She’s the sitting vice president and his running mate. It would have been weird if she had been absent.
In some ways, what’s going on over in the GOP is more interesting, even if the political payoffs are pretty obvious.
– First and foremost, the tactic reminds voters that Biden, at 80, is the oldest president ever and would be 86 when he finishes a hypothetical second term. (Former president Donald Trump, who currently leads the Republican pack, is 76.)
– It puts the spotlight on a vice president whom GOP base voters dislike even more than they dislike Biden. (Her overall job approval isn’t that much worse than his, though neither possesses enviable numbers.)
Two caveats: The GOP has attacked Harris since she was picked, and the argument didn’t work in 2020 or 2022.…
Have you noticed that this Harris person is… excessively melanined? And also lacks the essential Y chromosome? Voters who pay attention to those dog whistles weren’t voting for a Democrat in the first place, and the people who will aren’t going to be persuaded.
Let's get it done. pic.twitter.com/2n0rocsjPK
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) May 4, 2023
In a fiery speech at Howard University last night,@VP Kamala Harris made clear abortion with be at the forefront of Biden's 2024 re-election agenda—as Republicans struggle to find their messaging footing on the issue: https://t.co/OjBj3aGORt
— Abigail Tracy (@abigailtracy) April 26, 2023
Thank you to each and every small business owner in our nation for all that you do to support and strengthen our communities. pic.twitter.com/LcSy1Xi8sS
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) May 3, 2023
We’re making it easier to start and grow a small business.
Thanks to President Biden’s leadership, the last two years were the greatest years for new small business applications on record. pic.twitter.com/8vt7oWgyNA
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) May 1, 2023
Elsewhere…
Just when I thought I couldn't love Dark Brandon any more than I already did. pic.twitter.com/nxd1dGzEJM
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) May 4, 2023
Dorothy A. Winsor
Re the tweet from Abigail Tracy, if the Rs continue to think of abortion as a question of “messaging,” they are going to lose.
bbleh
Of course, the more subtle and devious strategy of the Republicans is to make sure that younger voters — especially younger women — return to historically low levels of voting, and to discourage women of color from continuing their recent strong role as organizers. It’s really very clever.
bookworm1398
The problem with making abortion the top campaign issue is people will expect Biden to do something about it if he wins. But there isn’t really anything he can do.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: They can’t imagine they are on the wrong side of any issue. They are doing God’s work after all. If only people would just listen to them, they would know how right the GOP is.
Butch
@Dorothy A. Winsor: You beat me to it. Of course, a good part of our failed Beltway media completely buys into the idea that it’s just a problem of messaging, and not policy.
OzarkHillbilly
Serbia is following in the US’s footsteps: Serbia: man arrested after eight die in second mass shooting in days
It’s a pretty good start but only time will tell if they have what it takes to keep it up for the long haul.
OzarkHillbilly
California town mourns beloved ‘Compassion Guy’ killed in stabbing
Just sad.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
Geminid
Governor Youngkin and Virginia House of Delegates Republicans committed to passing a 15 week abortion ban in this year’s legislative session. They decided that the best messaging was no messaging, and never brought the measure to a floor vote
Ed. They used the excuse that the Democratic Senste majority would stop the measure. That consideration did not stop them from passing all kinds of other stupid laws that the Srnate knocked out. They know their position on abortion is a real loser electorally, and as it is they have an uphill battle in this fall’s elections.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I just saw a headline about lawmakers engaged in “the blame game” over the debt ceiling. In my fantasy life, reporters cannot use any phrase that’s appeared in print or on air more than ten times in the last two weeks. If they do, they automatically get a shock from the almighty. That would force them to at least try to think about what they’re talking about
Dagaetch
Apparently Florida has legalized kidnapping: https://newrepublic.com/post/172444/florida-passes-bill-allowing-trans-kids-taken-families
Soprano2
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yeah, I think it’s both sad and hilarious that R’s and the press think their problem is “messaging”, rather than passing laws that create situations where women are told to go to their car in the parking lot until they’re near death in order to get care for a miscarriage or non-viable pregnancy. Their problem isn’t that they’re forcing women to give birth to a baby with no kidneys, but “messaging”. I can’t roll my eyes hard enough.
On another note, the R’s in the MO government finally got Kim Gardner to resign (she’s the black prosecutor in St. Louis who they were trying to unseat). Her resignation takes effect on June 1st, evidently because the deal she made was she would resign if the state legislature drops both their attempt to form a board to take over the St. Louis police and a law that would allow the governor to appoint a “special prosecutor” to prosecute crimes in St. Louis. I’m sure she doesn’t trust them to do it if she resigns effective today. That didn’t keep our AG from complaining about it publicly anyway. I’m sure the governor will appoint a white Republican to “keep St. Louis in line”.
bbleh
@bookworm1398: There sorta is. First, he can use all the levers of the Executive to make the burdens imposed by red states less burdensome and to assist blue states in doing so. Second, he can use the bully pulpit to keep pressure on wavering legislators at both the state and federal levels. And third, if worse comes to worst, he can veto any attempts to impose burdens at the federal level. (I don’t think this alone would motivate him to advocate for an expanded Supreme Court, but in combination with enough other issues, mmmmaybe.)
He can’t bring back Roe. But it’s not nothing.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Messaging?
They want to take away body autonomy from half the country and think that it’s a MESSAGING ISSUE?😡😡
rikyrah
@Geminid:
They don’t have the courage of their convictions. Let them win in these elections and see how fast the bill comes up 😡
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
There is no Both Sides.
One side wants to preserve the full faith and credit of the United States.
The other side wants to crash the US Economy.
Mousebumples
Good morning!
The Wisconsin AG was arguing the 1849 state abortion ban in Court yesterday, I think. If that case ends up before the State Supreme Court, it should be after Judge Protasiewicz is seated in August.
I don’t like living in a state where I have fewer rights than I was born with. Here’s hoping the WisDems efforts are effective at turning that around.
rikyrah
@Dagaetch:
This is enraging,😡😡😡
Soprano2
@bookworm1398: Part of the problem is that if the R’s win back united control of the federal government, they’ll make it a priority to pass a nationwide abortion ban, but it’s hard for most “normies” to understand about something that won’t happen if Biden is re-elected. It’s like all these young people I hear complaining about Biden’s environmental record because he hasn’t done everything they want in 2 years. I want to shake them and ask “What do you think would be happening right now if TFG had gotten elected to a 2nd term? Do you think it would be better or worse than what Biden has done?” Gggrrrrrrrr………
rikyrah
@Soprano2:
Phucking ridiculous 😡
Frankensteinbeck
@rikyrah:
They’re not going to change their goals. They’re assholes whose core belief is their privilege to hurt others. What else can they focus on but messaging?
Soprano2
We had a cat who liked to sleep wrapped around our heads in the winter. She had thyroid problems in her old age, so she became a small cat. I think the heat from our heads helped her stay warm. I kind of liked it, waking up with a cat wrapped around the top of my head. It kept me warm, too!
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: I don’t know all the issues but according to my son she had lost nearly all support in STL. Her days were numbered. And yes, of course Parson will appoint a Big Daddy Republican lawyer to head up the DA’s office, but any campaign he might mount is DOA, and I’m pretty sure they will know it. Hence it will be someone who wants to have a governor’s chit in their back pocket for future refund.
Geminid
@rikyrah: Democrats will still center abortion rights as a key issue this fall, along with gun safety and public education.
I’m not sure what issues Republicans will center. Standing up to the Chinese Communist Party won’t cut any ice with suburban voters.
Soprano2
@rikyrah: They’ve been gunning for her for over a year now. I don’t have any opinion on how she was doing her job, because I think that’s for the people of St. Louis to decide, not me or the state legislature or the governor or the attorney general. Their latest allegation was that she was going to school to become a nurse and not doing her job. I don’t know if that’s true or not, because Republicans lie all the time these days.
hells littlest angel
Like Biden, Harris is a decent human being. Republicans just don’t get the appeal.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: That may well be, but IMHO that’s for the people of St. Louis to fix, not the governor or the AG or the state legislature. ETA – Parson will probably appoint a white man from one of the wealthy parts of town, to “restore law and order”. I just hate the idea that they can get rid of someone who was elected by the people. It’s a bad precedent.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: I had a roommate with a Siamese who liked to do the same with me. When she moved in I had a minor eye itching allergy to cat dander. That cat cured me of it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: Oh I agree, but sometimes one needs to cut one’s losses. On the bright side, STL voters will have their say, and whoever moves in will be gone like yesterday’s farts.
TS
It seems 100 % impossible for the media to report good news without attempting to say but .. but .. but ..
So lots of new jobs – but an economy in turmoil.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/05/april-jobs-report-unemployment/
Only with a republican president is lower unemployment a great result
prostratedragon
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I fully support this effort.
Baud
Why don’t we just make our case and let the normies decide if it’s good enough for them?
Baud
@TS:
Agreed. It’s essentially propaganda.
PAM Dirac
@Frankensteinbeck:
Right. Their message is loud, clear, consistent: Know your place and we get to tell you what your place is. If you don’t stay in your place, we will hurt you.
mrmoshpotato
I’m pretty sure their messaging since at least ’73 has been WE HATE WOMEN’S LIB!
zhena gogolia
@TS: Yesterday the front page of the NYT was all about how businesses have jumped to implement climate-change measures because of Biden’s legislation, but “it’s costing taxpayers more than expected.”
Well, those taxpayers will be happier just letting the world burn, I guess.
Scout211
@OzarkHillbilly: They have the suspect in custody.
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: And I bet they didn’t discuss the cost of not doing these things.
James E Powell
@Baud:
It’s worth a try. The case has to be made aggressively and consistently. Normies need a lot of repetition and they never really get the connection between their votes and the resulting policies. That’s what makes them normies.
Matt McIrvin
It’s interesting–the centrist big-media take on Harris is that she’s this absent nonentity (an image that is just a combination of the nature of the VP’s job and their own neglect), but the right has always been terrified of her and sees her as Biden’s evil puppetmaster.
jonas
By “messaging” of course, Republicans mean “how can we keep the electorate from knowing how radical we really are.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Scout211: Yeah, I know. I just felt his story was particularly sad, a life dedicated to compassion cut short by someone who had none. There hasn’t yet been much said about the other 2, hopefully the woman he stabbed thru the tent recovers.
kalakal
Happy news from another continent!
The results from yesterday’s local elections are coming in and the Tories are getting stuffed. Even better they were starting from an historic low as the results of the the last local elections were terrible for them. Hopefully, for them, the only way is down.
UK local elections
Baud
@kalakal:
👍
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid:
I think they’re banking on a recession, in which case they can pivot to that. Barring that they’re probably just going to keep banging culture-war hate drums and claiming everyone is a pedophile.
OzarkHillbilly
@kalakal: Tony Jay in 3… 2… 1…
mrmoshpotato
@kalakal: Have BoJo and Nigel Farage been thrown into the Sun yet as part of Charles’ coronation?
OzarkHillbilly
These abortion clinics no longer provide abortions – but are still hanging on
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Which makes the debt default stupid on their part, because it’s an easy message for us on why we are in a recession, if we are.
(I understand that half of our side thinks the GOP automatically wins any message war.)
Matt McIrvin
@bookworm1398: It’s not just about the President. State governments can do a lot about abortion rights. Emphasizing that drives turnout that will also help the top of the ticket. But the Democrats have had a great need for a long time to encourage their voters to vote for all the offices, and this is a perfect opportunity to do that.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Seconded.
Betty Cracker
@Dagaetch: DeSantis hasn’t signed it into law yet, but he will. He’s already laid the groundwork for authoritarian enforcement of that and other laws by making an example of prosecutors who aren’t on board with his extremist agenda in hopes of cowing into silence those who haven’t yet been targeted.
I have no idea how this will fly with the public in Florida. Voters reelected DeSantis knowing he was an extremist. But will people be fine with it when the state takes trans kids away from their parents? Will they be okay with the total ban on abortion recently signed into law — and even more stories about women bleeding out in hospital parking lots due to miscarriage? Will they approve of an increase in gun violence due to looser restrictions recently signed into law?
I have no idea. I’m hoping for a backlash, but it would also piss me off because it’s too goddamned late. What DeSantis would do in a second term wasn’t a fucking mystery last November, and yet too many people didn’t think it was important enough to show up to vote. It’s infuriating.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Agree. Honestly, I often have this same problem with apathetic or “both sides” liberals, who you would think should know better.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
That’s great. It’s hard for low income young women to access health care – they’re young and healthy so they often don’t have a prior relationship with a provider. Health care in the US can be great as to quality, but it’s like a series of locked doors and you need a provider to unlock them.
I think it’s why our maternal death rate is so high – the period measured is not just pregnancy, it’s the year post birth. They don’t get any follow up care. They’re just sort of pushed back into the “no routine and ordinary care for poor people” category after the baby is born.
Another Scott
@kalakal: Good good.
Understanding the big difference between local and Parliament, does this help quicken end the Reign of Error with the Tories in Parliament? Or is it mostly completely unrelated and will the good people in the UK just have to tough it out until the Tories decide to have an election at the last possible moment under the existing law?
E.g. Would a thrashing like this force the Tories to have some internal revolt against their oligarchs to change direction in the Parliamentary party so that they don’t get crushed in the (eventual) national election? (I assume not, but politicians value being re-elected above all, so…)
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
jonas
As I’ve written here before, I simply don’t fathom this (now mainstream) narrative that Harris is wildly incompetent and Dems will spend a generation in the political wilderness if she ever sits in the Oval Office. But when they actually have to give an argument, it seems to boil down to:
I think what they really don’t like is that she has spent a lot of her time in office doing outreach to groups that the DC press corpse (to say nothing of the GOP) don’t think matter: Black women, indigenous communities, young voters, etc. Why isn’t she over in Korea glowering at the DMZ or something to show how tough she is? Or speaking to a conference of white businessmen? You know, important stuff. Instead, we see her glad-handing a bunch of POC volunteers at an inner-city women’s shelter. What’s up with that?
I think come election day, we’ll see what’s up with that. Harris is very popular among the Democrats’ most important base voters and Harris has done yeoman’s work making sure they’re fired up and ready to put more Dems in office around the country.
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m particularly proud of our work in NM. We managed get an old law banning abortion repealed, the year before Dobbs. We saw the SC ruling coming and worked hard to ensure women still had full access to their healthcare. Took several election cycles to gain the necessary legislative majority, but got it done.
Some localities in RW areas are trying to pass their very own personal abortion bans, but Gov. Lujan Grisham (D, of course) signed a law overriding these efforts.
Y’all know this, but state and local elections matter.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
👍
O. Felix Culpa
@jonas:
I offer one word: misogynoir.
Kay
@O. Felix Culpa:
New Mexico has been great.
Ken
@mrmoshpotato: Britain’s space program isn’t quite up to that (no one’s is), and tradition is important, so they will use beheading and quartering.
Baud
@jonas:
“What part of prized cattle is insulting?”
Baud
@Ken:
Sometimes the old ways are the best.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: That’s certainly the Republican hope for next year’s national election. This year’s Virginia elections won’t be fought on national economic issues unless the debt ceiling battle disrupts the economy. That would be a big issue, but one that works against Republicans, I think.
Jeffro
Their idea of “messaging” = “lie more, and louder, about the Democrats’ position on abortion”. Full stop.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: It did seem like the public were losing sight of cause and effect during the Great Recession: Republicans and centrists successfully pushed this nonsense idea that recessions happened because of excess government spending, which was backwards, so they could cut spending and blame the resulting misery on Obama. It didn’t take down Obama but Democratic power was seriously eroded at the state and local level.
But I think part of that was because Democrats had already embraced austerity ideas to too great a degree–Obama did, but it wasn’t just Obama. It came out of the whole 1990s-era slide of Democrats toward “small-government” and deficit-hawk rhetoric. Paul Krugman was making the classic Keynesian argument for countercyclic spending, but Democratic politicians were too hesitant to do that.
And I think the political climate has changed there since the 2000s. Though the return of inflation after the COVID-era disruptions and relief spending might make it harder to make the argument.
Jeffro
At a guess?
I know Youngkin’s approval rating is above water; the VA state GOP is as crazy as ever and fortunately isn’t afraid to show it.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Austerity came into fashion because the Dems first attempt at stimulus wasn’t rewarded in the electuon. I get all the arguments that it was too small and didn’t work fast enough, but the fact is, has the voters blamed the GOP, we never would have gone down the austerity path.
Same thing happened with the Clinton tax hikes in his first term. I believe, relative to the economy, those were the largest tax hikes since well before Reagan. But the election was a wave for Republicans.
If Dems have to deliver instant utopia to justify their existence, then we’ll never escape the cycle.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: We know it will kill you, but if we don’t call it “poison”, it’s all good!
sdhays
@zhena gogolia: If taxpayers don’t like the cost now, they’re really not going to like the cost of kicking the can another 20 years.
Just think how much cheaper dealing with all of this would have been if Al Gore had been able to start tackling this 20 years ago.
Kay
@jonas:
Political media doesn’t know that much about Democratic voters. They mostly focus on GOP voters. They’re wrong a lot about what our voters want- 2022 is the most recent example. They had no earthly idea how fired up Dem voters were- none.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@OzarkHillbilly: @Soprano2: Under her leadership, nearly all the DAs quit and cases were not getting prosecuted or followed up on. The GOP will never waste a crisis and will absolutely make hay over someone whose mismanagement of the office lead to criminals either going free or repeatedly violating the terms of their bail with no consequences. She was a gift to them. I am so glad she FINALLY resigned. It was WAY overdue. Gardner was a crusader. While she had some good points and good intentions, people who prize ideology over effectiveness and basic managerial competence fail regardless of what that ideology is.
jonas
I dunno. It seems like the kind of people who vote for De Santis are also the same kind who 1. figure if worse comes to worst, they’ll just jet on up to NY or something for abortion care and 2. don’t give a shit if poorer women don’t have that option and die in a parking lot.
I recently read Dwayne Wade and Gabrielle Union have announced they’re leaving FL because they have a trans child and don’t feel safe there any longer. I wonder if we’ll start seeing more stories like this, or of whole businesses relocating because they can’t recruit the talent they want to a state run like some kind of tin-pot dictatorship.
Jeffro
@TS: This is about to drive me right off a cliff
It’s unreal.
ALL of the crap is coming from the Rs and their allies…ALL of the solutions and effort are coming from the Ds.
Baud
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Seconded.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
Thanks. A lot of the credit goes not only to the state and county Democratic Parties, but also to Emerge–which trains Democratic women to run for office–and to a local organization called “Retake Our Democracy.” This was started by Sanders supporters who were disaffected by the 2016 elections. While I vehemently disagree with them on Bernie vs. Hillary, they have done yeoman’s work organizing for more progressive state legislators to be elected and more progressive legislation to be passed, to great effect.
ETA: One of the many things I like about “Retake” is that they are a learning organization. They examine what did and didn’t work after each legislative cycle and try to figure out how to do better, i.e., be more effective. They also do a great job communicating to and educating citizen activists. While I don’t always agree with them, I admire greatly the work that they do.
Baud
WHO do they think they are? Anne Laurie?
Ken
@jonas: I’m half-expecting at least one tourist family will have their trans child seized, or perhaps some arrests for cross-dressing during spring break parties. Either would do wonders for Florida’s tourist industry.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
That’s good to hear. I thought you were having trouble with some Bernie Bros on NM.
Ken
@Baud: Ironically*, for the first time since the pandemic began, I tested positive for COVID this week. I’m still feeling flu-like symptoms, but nothing worse.
* I find it ironic; others might not.
jonas
@Kay: I think that’s right. Cletus Safari through Ohio? Oh, they’re all over that. A conversation with some women in a local hair salon in Philly over why they want better public schools and more job opportunities? Might as well ask them to report from the surface of Mars.
Brachiator
@Soprano2:
Sadly, this has been a notable issue in various states in 2023.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Yes, Virginia is a bit unusual in that their big state elections are odd-year and do not coincide with national elections. That probably has some vote-suppressing effect when it comes to the state election; on the other hand I guess it might keep people from getting overwhelmed with choices.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: Yes, we were and to some extent, still are. This is a different set of Bernistas, who are actually invested in good results for the people, not just in tearing the Democratic Party down. I have great respect for the “Retake” founders; the other group, none at all.
Baud
@Ken:
I feel an Alanis Morissette song coming.
I hope it’s mild and quick.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
👍
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ken: I sympathize. We both had it for the first time last month. Luckily, it was mild.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
The attacks on Harris are basically targeted to the Republican leaners in the suburbs who don’t like Trump, and were OK with a nice white grandpa like Biden. They are trying to either bring them into Trumpworld or at least discourage them from voting for Biden.
Kay
@O. Felix Culpa:
Thanks. I’l look up “Retake”. Sounds interesting. I think New Mexico, Michigan and Minnesota are the real stand out D states right now.
Minnesota too is quietly putting thru a very progressive agenda. We lived in Minneapolis the first couple of years my husband and I were married and I liked it a lot. Maybe I should have stayed. I thought property was expensive which put me off a bit. Hah! I had no idea how expensive property would get.
Baud
@Kay:
The bane of blue states. Everyone wants to live there.
OzarkHillbilly
@O. Felix Culpa: Missouri is miserable.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Russia’s Wagner boss threatens Bakhmut pullout in Ukraine
The article goes on to note that Prigozhin has had a 10-year spat with the Ministry of Defense and Ukrainian officials are skeptical of Prigozhin’s claims, instead speculating he’s trying to save face for the failure to take Bakhmut
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: I find Michigan and Minnesota interesting because after 2016, I thought we might be losing the whole Great Lakes region, that maybe the future was going to be Ds giving up the northern Midwest and looking to expand in the South and keep pushing in the West. But the Democrats really seem to have bounced back in parts of the region. Iowa and Ohio are still gone deep red but Michigan is blue growth territory.
jonas
Golly, according to the NYT, both sides are to blame. Funny that.
I’ve also never seen — outside some specialized econ blogs and papers — any discussion of the degree to which Trump and McConnell’s 2017 millionaire’s sweetheart tax cut during a period of near-full employment and economic growth (thanks, Obama!) is what really triggered the inflationary trend that just accelerated with the supply chain disruptions during the pandemic. Repealing that tax cut (or more) would have 1. cut the deficit dramatically and 2. probably reduced inflation by a similar amount as the Fed’s rate cuts.
rikyrah
@Soprano2:
THIS!
If the people elected her, then they can un-elect her.
Kathleen
@jonas: I agree. She is also engaging a new generation of Black leadership in the Democratic Party. She’ s a Ninja. Out in the real world forging alliances and engagement. Media won’t know how to explain why Dems won when they yammer about election results. They are too lazy and racist to know enough to credit her. The only time Black voters interest them is when they can point to a poll that claims Dems are losing support of Black voters.
rikyrah
@TS:
lips so pursed.
they want to scream RECESSION SO BAD.
I’m serious. They have been wanting to scream if for at least a year.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Well over a year.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: It’s a weird situation in Florida that seems to be anomalous. The topline in 2022 is that only half of registered Dems showed up and two-thirds of Repubs did. But from what I’ve read, turnout decreased significantly compared to 2018 for younger voters and POC, which I don’t think matches up with data in other states last year.
Crist was definitely a flawed candidate, but I thought he ran as good a race as he personally could. I think his angle was to replicate Biden’s 2020 win, i.e., be a reassuring, known quantity vs. a kooky extremist. Didn’t work here, obviously, but it wasn’t a crazy strategy. Money was a huge issue too; Dems had a tiny fraction of what Repubs had across the board, plus there are voter suppression issues that hurt us.
I’m not sure what the answer is, but I hope FL Dems can figure it out next year when Rick Scott is up. He’s on the record for wanting to sunset SocSec, etc., plus the abortion ban should continue to be a huge issue. Gotta keep trying!
geg6
@Kay:
Exactly. They have no real interest in Dem voters and what they think because they have their good GOPer friends who can explain it all to them.
cain
Christ – these people. I think on twitter the conservatives were calling this out as bullshit that in Florida if you had the note from two doctors you can have an abortion that CNN was lying. I’m pretty sure that both of those doctors did not want to risk their license by signing off on an abortion. Also didn’t DeSantis do some late night passing of a new abortion law? These idiots were screeching like a biking gang rode through their parade.
As for the St. Louis stuff – that’s some disgusting shit. Authoritarians all of them.
jonas
@Ken: As in most situations, I assume that these laws will only be enforced against people who are vulnerable and can’t fight back. Some rich frat boy from Dartmouth wearing a wig at a club during spring break? Yeah, cops aren’t going to bother with that.
Miss Bianca
@Kay:
What’s Colorado, then? Chopped liver?
The Thin Black Duke
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Fear of a Black Female President.
Matt McIrvin
@jonas: A lot of the media talk is meta-talk: they speak of media attitudes toward Harris as if they were inherent qualities of Harris, so what it comes down to is “Harris is a liability because if she comes anywhere near the Presidency, we will shiv her.” That’s not an analysis, that’s a threat.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Marcy Kaptur (US House, Toledo) used to talk about this. She’d say Ohio has a choice- it can join the upper midwest states – IL, WI, MI and MN or it can join the Appalachian states. She’s NW Ohio so on the Great Lakes so thinks they should go upper midwest.
But Ohians chose Appalachia and I didn’t sign on to live in Appalachia. I like the upper midwest. I don’t want to live in Kentucky. So I’m going north.
cain
@rikyrah: They are laying off in high tech – but not in other sectors. The high tech people are just laying off because because everyone else. But also they are all retooling for AI. It’s going to be AI AI AI AI (or is that Marsha Marsha Marsha Marsha)
if you got accounts in dropox, google drive, apple – etc all of them are going to use your content to train AI and make money doing it. Stackoverflow said they were going to charge AI companies to use their content – the content that you and I created not them. I dont’ think we are going to get a cut.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I think the money differential is under appreciated.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I wish I could say we were strong enough to stand up to the media, and I used to believe we were, but now I believe we’re not there yet.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Brachiator: I voted for her and regret it. The next election to oust her wasn’t happening fast enough. I’m glad she finally resigned. It is OK to get rid of officials who are failing at their job. Thankfully, she resigned in a way that will stop the GOP from nullifying city elections over that role. The longer she stayed in office, the greater the risk that would become a permanent appointed position, rather than one the voters have a say on. People who are bad their jobs should lose support. If we defend them regardless, we are almost as bad as the GOP. This circus was hurting people who couldn’t move on with their lives because either they were accused of a crime or were the victims of one.
Matt McIrvin
@cain: Or so they think. I don’t think people know exactly what this technology is good for yet–we’re in the Wild West period where a lot of things get investor attention that will fail.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@cain: They are also laying off people in the media because advertising revenues are falling. The news business is in the midst of an economic downturn, so they are focused on it.
Baud
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
That’s why they want Trump back.
kalakal
@Another Scott:
A bit of both, it’s not directly related as in it doesn’t change parliament at all. The MPs of a week ago are the same as the MPS today and it doesn’t bring an election one day closer
OTOH it gives a very clear view of where the parties stand vis-a-vis the public. And for the Tories it is one step beyond the edge of the abyss – they’re in Wile E Coyote mode.
It will be seen as a judgement on Sunak, and turn up the heat on their internal feuding.. The main effect will be to panic them, there’s a lot of MPs seeing their prospects turn to toast this morning and they’re going to want somebody to blame. Expect lot’s of heat but no light.
In theory Sunak could call an election anytime but turkeys don’t vote for Christmas
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh, I know. One of my dearest friends lives in Joplin. I don’t know how you guys manage in such a freakazoid political environment. My sympathies.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Feels to me like Iowa chose to go like Western Nebraska, where my dad grew up–hardcore rural agrarian conservatism. Iowa used to not have that reputation.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Why are advertising revenues falling?
ETA: people reading/watching less news from media outlets?
jonas
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Adam will certainly have something to say about this in his post this evening, but my impression is that the last thing the Russian military wanted was for Prigozhin to successfully seize Bakhmut and take all the credit and come out as the premier military leader in Russia. I can only assume Putin gave orders to have him taken down a notch. Prighozin forgot rule nr. 1 of being one of the tsar’s favored boyars: never make the tsar look bad.
cain
I think what is infuriating is that nobody holds GOP accountable to the level that they do Democrats. Our public has been trained to accept tax cuts – but the tax cuts were never for the public. They’d of course hide it with temporary tax cuts to the middle class that expired but not for the billionaires.
Still don’t know what the value prop is to giving billionaires more money. None of these people have actually explained that with evidence that it works. Like the sky father – it’s all faith based.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well, they can get actual help, instead of those fraudulent
“Pregnancy Crisis Centers”
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
Taking children away from their parents. The rage I feel just reading this.
O. Felix Culpa
@Miss Bianca: Mmm, paté. :)
Balconesfault
@bookworm1398: he can be there to appoint Justices who will vacate Dobbs if any of the current GOP Justices keep over … he can continue to allow the military hospitals to service women … he can be there to block anti-abortion legislation that a GOP House or Senate might pass.
I think at this point people realize it WILL get worse if Republicans take the White House
Baud
@rikyrah:
It’s the GOP way. Migrants, parents of trans kids. There will be more groups added eventually.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
Mostly unrelated, but still indicative of a growing disenchantment with the Tories.
Sunak has broadly hinted that he will call for a general election in autumn of 2024.
Strangely, conservative MPs who want Sunak to move more to the hard right are getting a lot of media attention. Tories don’t want to risk another change in prime minister and approve of Sunak’s efforts to stabilize the government, but worry about his poor political leadership skills.
The Liberal Democrats and Green Party did well in the Council elections. Some of this is a reflection of deep unhappiness with Starmer from hard core progressives.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@rikyrah: Yeah, I don’t think you guys understand the scale of the problem. I’m pretty sure we started out with over a hundred prosecutors to handle the hundreds of criminal cases in the city. Under her leadership, we were down to a handful. A murder trial was declared a mistrial because no one from her office was available to show up. A cheerleader lost her legs because a crook who repeatedly violated bail with no consequences drove recklessly causing that accident. People who had waited years for a trial date had justice postponed pretty much indefinitely. On and on. I am a St. Louis voter. She needed to go. She was a disaster. That was NOT what we elected her to do.
kalakal
@mrmoshpotato: Have you no respect for tradition Sir!
They will be daubed in woad and sacrificed on the altar at Stonehenge after a long ceremony of gross humiliation
Miss Bianca
@O. Felix Culpa: Dat’s the way I see it! :)
Citizen Alan
@Baud:
Mainly we think that because the US media across nearly every platform is 99% in the tank for for fascist white supremacy. Aside from rachel maddow and pro publica, every reporter in the country is going to loudly say that A recession, even if caused by the debt ceiling, it’s all joe biden’s fault.
Baud
@Citizen Alan:
The media sucks, but we still have managed to hold our own, at least nationally.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Businesses are pulling back on ad spending. Same thing is happening for temp jobs and consultant companies. Companies are cutting temp workers and putting other projects on hold.
Baud
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
That really sucks. It’s hard enough overcoming Republican propaganda even when we don’t throw them a bone like this.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Citizen Alan:
To be fair, it didn’t seem work with inflation, thanks to Dobbs. That’s not likely going away anytime soon
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah: Exactly, doing god’s work by helping living breathing human beings.
Betty Cracker
@jonas: The FL dailies frequently have stories about LGBTQ people leaving the state since its leadership is actively hostile toward them and teachers fleeing for the same reason. I’ve also seen stories about parents who might have sent a kid to college here rethinking that because of the right-wing takeover of universities AND the abortion ban. Regular people, not celebrities.
But the population is still growing, so it doesn’t make a dent in public consciousness, at least not that I’ve seen. My sense is a lot of the damage being done is cumulative, and the negative effects will take a while to sink in. By the time it does, if it ever does, the damage will be hard to reverse.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m listening to yesterday’s Pod Save America. The O-bros just said that as faith in institutions (the media, political parties) fades, it will be up to the voters to save democracy. I find that a little scary.
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: I thought Western Democrats did especially well last year. Except maybe in California, where they left a few House seats on the table. We’ll see how California Republicans Calvert, Valedeo and Duarte do in 2024 with a Presidential year electorate. I think their association with Kraven McCarthy radical caucus will hurt them.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: Please send any/all FL teachers to VA, we’ll gladly take them!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
What might cause these businesses to be doing those things, then? Interest rate hikes?
Jeffro
Jamelle Bouie has a nice piece up titled Political Stagnation Is Not Our Only Option
It makes a good case that America has been politically ‘stuck’ for quite some time now, and that the forces pushing for big, revolutionary change are actually the Rs.
We Ds ought to be making the case that adding states, expanding the House, expanding SCOTUS, and amending the Constitution in a number of ways are essential if we want to defeat the anti-democratic forces and get the country ‘un-stuck’. No more “oh we don’t have the votes” – of course we don’t, and won’t, until we make the argument and get to work.
lowtechcyclist
@jonas:
This.
Delk
@Betty Cracker:
Australia says take that hate to Florida
Eunicecycle
@rikyrah: most places have trouble getting foster parents. Where will these children go?
jonas
It will be interesting to see the impact Dobbs will have on higher ed in states that have effectively banned abortion and make no bones about coming after Plan B and birth control as well. Higher ed is facing a secular enrollment decline anyway as each cohort of college-age students is smaller than the one that preceded it. Schools have to get really creative to snag an ever-shrinking share of the college applicant pool. Admissions officers at colleges in red states have to be really, really nervous these days.
Joey Maloney
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Wall Street’s insistence that an ever-increasing proportion of profits flows upwards to stockholders and away from the people who are actually creating value. IOW greed.
Frankensteinbeck
@cain:
Well, they’re starting to realize Metaverse and blockchain were dead ends. They need a new buzzword that lets them pat themselves on the back for being gods who will change the world with technology. The ability of the tech sector to not understand their own product boggles the mind.
The Moar You Know
@Betty Cracker: I think that will be okay with a bare majority of voters. Even in my blue part of blue California, the majority sentiment seems to be if your kid is questioning their gender, you have fucked up as a parent.
Short step from that to hauling the kids off.
NotMax
@Jeffro
Building an addition is a poor solution when a house is in disrepair.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I assume it is interest hikes that are causing the pull back.
Sure Lurkalot
@Kay: Colorado’s Governor Jared Polis signed 4 new gun control measures into law last week. Unfortunately, a ban on semiautomatics failed to pass, a couple of Dem legislators decrying “taking away guns from law abiding citizens.” How I hate that bogus rationale.
O. Felix Culpa
@lowtechcyclist:
We (both personally and organizationally) need to work on messaging to normies. My niece, who is of child-bearing age, lives with her boyfriend in Austin, TX. I was telling her liberal but normie mom the stories about women in red states like Texas being left to bleed out in hospital parking lots, and she was surprised! She supports abortion rights, votes reliably Dem, and is reasonably well-informed, but she hadn’t heard about these real-life consequences of the Dobbs ruling.
This data point of one suggests to me that normies still haven’t grasped the full consequences of Dobbs. When they learn about it, they’re horrified. We need to make sure they know. I think that will translate into even greater motivation to vote the RW bastards out.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
It has always been up to the voters. I am excited that that’s finally being recognized.
The Moar You Know
@Geminid: All three of those districts – ESPECIALLY Calvert’s – should have been D districts. The CA Dem party once again is counting on demographics to do the work while sitting on their collective asses and doing nothing.
Dorothy A. Winsor
We were talking about Allred vs Cruz yesterday. This is today via Kyle Griffin on twitter:
jonas
@Frankensteinbeck: Start registering domain names and fictitious businesses with the term “AI” in the name and just wait for the sweet VC cash to start pouring in!
Kay
@Sure Lurkalot:
Oh, good. Gun regulation advocates use states that have regulated guns as good examples and researchers need good regulation states to compare to bad regulation states.
The despairing cry that “nothing happened” after Sandy Hook is sort of bullshit. Connecticut changed state gun laws, and it worked.
Matt McIrvin
@The Moar You Know: I don’t think so. Attitudes are changing FAST about this, and while there’s often apathy about it happening to non-white families where the parents have been deemed “unfit”, the moment government child-snatching starts threatening white people, they get worried.
Baud
@Kay:
Agreed. As I grow older, I’m becoming increasingly radicalized against negativity that ignores what blue states are doing.
rikyrah
@kalakal:
clap clap clap
lowtechcyclist
@Ken:
But in what order? As we combinatorists are fond of saying, order matters. :-D
The Moar You Know
@Delk: Good lord. Aussies are nowhere near what I’d have ever termed “tolerant”. To hear this:
“This Americanisation of our politics has no place here. My message to those people is, very clearly: if you want to behave like the worst elements of the Floridian Republican Party, get to Florida.”
Well, I’m just surprised. From an Aussie premier. Not know for their open-mindedness towards non-whites or homosexuality.
jonas
Exactly. Name one recent mass shooting, especially one carried out with the infamous AR-15 or similar assault rifle — where the gun wasn’t legally purchased, or the shooter was some felon on the lam or something who had stolen the gun.
It’s the legal availability of the fucking guns, people.
O. Felix Culpa
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Wow. That’s quite a haul in short order. As we know, more money ≠ more votes, but it sure helps. Especially early money.
It also tickles my spite glands to see Cruz surpassed. I hope it gives him heartburn–assuming he has a heart.
Kay
Elon Musk’s community notes on Twitter is now 100% Right wing bullshit.
Every single pundit and reporter who proclaimed that this gross Right wing authoritarian was some champion of free speech should be embarrassed.
They need to stop their kneejerk worship of rich people.
Luckily for all of us Musk is such a shitty manager Twitter probably won’t turn into Fox News but that is absolutely what Musk would turn it into, if he could competently manage a lemonaide stand, which he can’t. We were looking at another fucking Rupert Murdoch, but (thankfully) dumber.
Baud
@jonas:
AL > AI
Soprano2
@Baud: I think part of the problem is that too often the “normie” press adopts Republican framing of issues like the debt ceiling (“both sides have a point”, crap like that), and it’s hard to fight against the perception that “they all caused it”.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: It’s been a gun-fondler talking point since forever that most crimes happen in cities and most cities have stricter gun regulations than rural areas, therefore gun laws do nothing or actually encourage crime.
Of course the bullshit here is transparent–even setting aside the obstacles to locally strict regulation in a country with broad freedom of travel, cities have many more people and the numbers only look bad if you purposefully fail to acknowledge that. So it’s nice to see people actually making controlled comparisons.
cain
@jonas: This year though college enrollment is through the roof – my son is on the wait list for two different state colleges and one out of state colleges. They are seeing an extra 60k in enrollment numbers in universities like UWash in Seattle.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
It didn’t help that the people who pushed Howard Dean out as DNC chair also pushed his 50-state strategy out the door as well. Under Dean, we had big gains at the state level as well as nationally in 2006 and 2008. The national Democratic party has only just started realizing the importance of state and local elections – certainly nobody can miss it now. But they ignored that for too long.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Many factors, when it comes to ads., beyond interest rate hikes
Inarguable that advertising’s impact has diminished. When it comes to TV/video, advertiser budgets stretch only so far as more and more streaming platforms jump on the ad-supported train, so the impression of cutting back when the ads don’t appear every new place possible is also something to be considered.
And I shouldn’t be the least surprised if companies found that eschewing advertising on Twitter has resulted in a negligible negative affect, if any, on their sales and upon that realization are trimming their buys across the digital board.
Soprano2
@Kay: In MO they are actually debating a bill that would extend Medicaid care for pregnant women for a year after they give birth. It’s hard to believe Republicans are considering this; I think some of them are embarrassed by all the publicity around what their abortion bans have done, so this is a way for them to say “See, we really do care about pregnant women”. That’s the only explanation I can come up with, because normally they HATE Medicaid.
Baud
@Soprano2: It’s actually quite easy to fight the perception: “It’s the Republicans fault because they refused to pass a clean debt limit increase.”
What liberals are afraid of is not that the message is hard to fight, it’s that it doesn’t produce the instantaneous reaction they want to see. We absolutely suck when it comes to dealing with complex and time-consuming messaging dynamics.
cain
@Betty Cracker: yes it will be hard to reverse – but the find out stage will be hard on the entire political apparatus especially Republicans. Democrats apparently do not have great mojo there right now – but when climate change starts coming in – the GOP will not have any ideas other than of course to blame Dems which will be hard to do when they are not in power.
Baud
@Soprano2: I think your take on what the Republicans are thinking is absolutely right.
Kay
@cain:
I think this current group is big – my youngest is one of them- but then it falls off a cliff.
jonas
So did New York, in particular banning gun magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. The guy who carried out the massacre at the supermarket in Buffalo last year had a legally-purchased AR-15, but had obtained the large ammo clip illegally.
Soprano2
@O. Felix Culpa: As we see with what happened in WI, it’s important to repeal old laws, and not assume they’ll never come back. See how R’s are trying to weaponize the Comstock Laws from the 1800’s!
Eolirin
@NotMax: Covid actually started the reevaluation of ad value I think. Some large companies cut their ad budgets dramatically during covid and found it didn’t impact their sales at all.
The ad market has always been driven by FOMO more than sense. Sudden shocks make it clearer just how much money is getting wasted by larger companies.
Ksmiami
@Matt McIrvin: Biden is going to use the 14th Amendment. We will avoid default and aside from getting Powell to stuff it, the economy will be humming.
Sure Lurkalot
@The Moar You Know: The Aussie MP tweeted:
No lie there.
Baud
@Ksmiami: I don’t know what Biden will do, but I support his decision 100%. I am weary about all the talk about how Biden will save us from the GOP, because that will simply misdirect the anger.
Kay
@Soprano2:
It would make a huge difference. It shows how little we think of women that we are only willing to give them access to medical care for the 9 months of pregnancy. Really nice message we send them, huh? “You’re only valuable as an incubator”.
Of course they need follow up care. Pregnancy is a huge burden on their bodies and the first year of caring for an infant is absolutely exhausting especially because we have little or no paid leave. That’s why they’re dying.
jonas
@Soprano2: I guess that’s better than, what, the 6 weeks that are covered now? It’s well known that children don’t require health care after their first year, anyway.
Kay
@jonas:
That’s great. We should do more promotion of the state law wins. It must be very disheartening to advocates to hear people on their side say “nothing” has gotten done.
Geminid
@The Moar You Know: I thought Will Rollins made a strong effort against Calvert. I hope he goes for a rematch.
And whoever ran against Duarte barely lost. That and Boebert’s race in the Colorado 3rd were the last elections called.
NotMax
@Baud
Would “The Republican plan is to behead the State of Liberty” be too blunt?
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
And my WAG is that we’d be doing pretty well in Wisconsin too, if it weren’t gerrymandered within an inch of its life.
SFAW
@Baud:
TL;DR?
Ksmiami
@Frankensteinbeck: um the godfather of ai and neural networks is pretty fearful about what AI will do. From military to election interference and deep fakes. The sci fi nightmare is coming fast. So not a buzzword.
The Moar You Know
@lowtechcyclist: I am still angry as fuck over this and its been many years. This was an unconscionable decision by Obama and his people, it hurt us badly and will be hurting us badly for years to come. THE FIFTY STATE STRATEGY WAS WORKING.
Baud
@SFAW: Not quite. I think simple messaging is better. But even simple messaging takes a long time to effect cultural change. And, unfortunately, even liberals who aren’t Bernie Bros are addicted to the concept of revolutionary change, and are quick to declare failure when a message doesn’t immediately resonate with normies.
sdhays
@Frankensteinbeck: Did anyone other than Zuckerberg really think the Metaverse was actually going to be a thing? He thinks he’s the next Steve Jobs visionary when he’s…not.
mrmoshpotato
@Ken: I (and I imagine all Remainers) can settle for that.
SFAW
@NotMax:
No, it hasn’t.
I’m sorry, is this the five-minute argument, or the half-hour?
jonas
While I certainly think Obama was a great president, the takeover of the DNC and other recruitment and fundraising operations by his DC-based consultants and campaign people has not aged well. It was a lost decade on the state and local levels beginning in 2010.
SFAW
@Baud:
Yes, I know. I was just attempting a joke re: your comment, not the underlying concept.
Eolirin
@Kay: Black women were dying at three and a half times the rate of white women in 2019, and had 5 times the mortality rate for certain types of complications.
I very much doubt those numbers have improved post covid. It’s not just the effects of poverty, limiting access to care, and access to paid leave. We have wildly unequal quality of care on the basis of race as well.
The dynamics around poverty and race can’t be fully separated in this country. More Medicaid access is great, necessary even, but it won’t solve things by itself. We need better standards and more accountability in medical services.
NotMax
@sdhays
Jobs was savvy enough to recognize when something wasn’t going to fly (or needed to go back to the drawing board). Remember Lisa? The Newton? NeXT?
Madeleine
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Ohhhhhhhh. That’s a great idea!
Frankensteinbeck
@Ksmiami:
The godfathers of blockchain and self-driving cars thought they were changing the world. You see it a lot in medicine, too. Creators consistently overestimate, often wildly overestimate, the potential of their creation. If someone is trying to sell you in what a product can’t do yet but will do in the future, 99% of the time it’s bullshit.
Meanwhile, people see X do something they didn’t think could be done, and leap to believing it can do the specific thing they want.
Without a breakthrough, without new systems rather than refinement, AI will give us some useful tools in some sectors, but not replace much.
rikyrah
@Ken:
Get better
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: 🎶 It’s like not knowing the meaning of a word, on your wedding day 🎶
Frankensteinbeck
@sdhays:
Yes. Executives leaped on it like a gold rush. They thought Zuckerberg was a genius. Non-Meta companies spent many, many billions of dollars that were flushed down the toilet and produced nothing. It says something about just what leeches big companies are that they can get away with that.
NotMax
@Frankensteinbeck
Don’t we now have to pay royalties to Musk every time we use X?
//
Scout211
Trump’s deposition was part of E. Jean Carroll’s case presented by her attorney. Some of his deposition is being released in the news.
The grab ‘em by the p*ssy tape:
The claim the E. Jean Carroll “swooned”:
And more will be coming out today. What a pig! But he’s the Republican’s pig.
Matt McIrvin
@Frankensteinbeck: And that they don’t talk to any of the people who would actually be trying to use it. Anyone with a knowledge of games or of the history of virtual spaces would look at Metaverse and say “this is Second Life from 20 years ago only it looks worse.”
Sure Lurkalot
@The Moar You Know:
I agree. And on a different topic, I will add Arne Duncan, who either wittingly or unwittingly, gave ammunition to the Republicans in their war on public schools, once the pride of the USA. According to Gallup, satisfaction in public schools is underwater 42 to 55 percent. A good, well-funded public school system is an absolute necessity for a vibrant democracy (IMHO).
Obama was a fine president in many metrics but sometimes his choice of advisors was perplexing to me.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
You’ll like this.
“million years” 😂
zhena gogolia
@zhena gogolia:
Sorry, Scout 211, I forgot that I found this out from you :)
Matt McIrvin
@NotMax: NeXT was an interesting case–they actually had a pretty good niche carved out in the little research-workstation market, but when Apple bought NeXT to bring Steve Jobs back, the Unix-based OS was the crown jewel and became the basis for the next major version of Mac OS and for iOS. Every iPhone out there is a software descendant of the NeXT Cube.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: He’s going to piss off the evangelicals by suggesting the Earth is more than 6000 years old.
The Moar You Know
@Sure Lurkalot: I am the proud spouse of a public school teacher. You do not mention Obama or Duncan in our house unless you want to “find out”.
I think he was a very decent man who did a very poor job of being president.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: inorite?
Frankensteinbeck
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, even for boondoggles of tech executives huffing their own farts, Metaverse is a spectacular display of being out of touch. It really drives home just how little they understand what they’re doing. I really think Zuckerberg’s engineers were just shrugging, taking his money, and giving him the most half-assed garbage they could type out because they were giving a baby a pacifier.
Matt McIrvin
@zhena gogolia: “Locker room talk” seems to be a universal excuse and neutralizer for ANY statement whatsoever in any context.
Kay
@Sure Lurkalot:
Duncan backed Vallas in the Chicago mayoral election. It’s the 2nd time his home city has told him to go pound sand.
Arne Duncan is innumerate. He doesn’t understand grade school math – percentages and ratios. How he got this far is bewildering to me. He’s just not that bright.
mrmoshpotato
@Delk: “Stop acting like a Florida Republican, you slapdick!”
rikyrah
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Did she fire them or mass resignation?
OverTwistWillie
@Frankensteinbeck:
Anyone with half a clue realized they were morphing into a hosting enterprise. They slapped a VR helmet on the boss to manage around him.
Omnes Omnibus
I have long agreed that he was not particularly good on public education, but that statement is absurd.
Soprano2
@rikyrah: I agree, they’re doing everything they can think of to try to drive the economy into a recession just in time for next year’s election. They’re bored with the recovery.
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
Prezacktly.
Rejiggering the hardware to play to the the strengths of the software was among his fortes.
Scout211
True, but does Trump even go into locker rooms and talk with people there? Well, other than the one for the Miss Teen USA pageant.
The Thin Black Duke
“I think he was a decent man who did a very poor job of being president.”
Obamacare was an accident, I guess.
The Thin Black Duke
@Omnes Omnibus: The black guy was just around for the ride, Omnes.
Soprano2
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I agree that people who are bad at their job should lose that job, I just hate that it was R’s in the state government who forced her out rather than the people who she is really answerable to, the voters in St. Louis. Makes me wonder how she got elected in the first place. Some people can say all the right things to get the job but then don’t have the first idea of how to actually do what they said they want to do. Sounds like she was a good bullshitter.
Kay
@The Moar You Know:
I remember Duncan was so unpopular with public school teachers (he trashed them constantly and they resented it) that they tried this “discussion” format where they invited in award winning teachers to talk with him and put it on the website. They were at a circular table and it was just so tense it made my head hurt. They weren’t even going to pretend they had any respect for him.
I take part in a lot of mediations and I knew this was going nowhere.
The Thin Black Duke
@Soprano2: Too many voters on our side get taken in by performative bullshit, unfortunately. Being able to deliver good soundbites on The Young Turks doesn’t mean squat once you’re expected to follow through on all those promises you made.
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus: I wonder why that is. He was so good in other areas. Maybe going to private schools much of his life–with resulting limited exposure to public schools–affected his thinking?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@rikyrah: She fired some. Over time, though, the resignations went from being a trickle to a flood. I will add she did not take responsibility for any of it, consistently blaming everyone else (including subordinates) for her failures.
Omnes Omnibus
@O. Felix Culpa: That’s exactly what I think.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Soprano2: She is an outspoken progressive who went into office promising that St. Louisians would finally have equal justice under the law. That message appealed to a lot of people in the city. Unfortunately, her very public failures will make the likelihood of equal justice here LESS likely now.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: The irony in that statement is that we could have had revolutionary change,. But the people who are screaming the loudest for revolutionary change blew it at crunch time. If hillary had become president and appointed scalia’s replacement, partisan gerrymandering would have been struck down as unconstitutional nationwide. I truly believe that if every state were required to have fair, non partusan redistricting, the democrats would gain an insurmountable control of the house and the republicans would become incapable of affecting their agenda either legislatively or judicially.
lowtechcyclist
@Jeffro:
Damned straight!
And maybe some legislation defining what “good Behavior” means for Article III Justices and judges.
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus: Another case for diversity in origins and training. Good public education can be really good and is essential to our democracy. I wish Obama had been stronger in that area. Not going to diss the man or his presidency though. I’m proud to have been able to vote for him twice–and not in the same election, even though I lived in Chicago at the time. ;-)
rikyrah
@Eolirin:
This isn’t JUST an economic issue.
A Black upper-class woman is STILL more likely to die in childbirth than a White woman in poverty.
Jeffro
This is an interesting take, I guess, since the piece is about how to fix our collective house? But whatevs
Yutsano
@kalakal: Late to the thread but wow both Labour and the Lib Dems kicked Tory ass. I like that the Greens did finally get one as well.
lowtechcyclist
@Citizen Alan:
And if Hillary had become President and given me a pet unicorn…
Mitch was quite upfront that Hillary wasn’t going to put anyone on the Supreme Court.
Soprano2
@jonas: But the children still have Medicaid; it’s the mother who they are going to extend care to, because right now she’s cut off almost as soon as she has the baby.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist: She would have gotten them on. She has ways
ETA: There is no moral offramp for people who didn’t vote for Hillary.
Soprano2
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Yeah, the backlash against her may be pretty fierce, depending on who Parson appoints to the job and what he does (pretty sure it will be a white male person).
Soprano2
@Citizen Alan: Unfortunately, too many of them couldn’t see beyond her giving speeches to Goldman Sachs, and evidently thought TFG couldn’t do too much damage. I will never forgive the Bernie supporters at the 2016 convention who screamed over people giving speeches and acted poorly in other ways. They couldn’t believe their guy lost and decided to try to shiv the person who won, in that they aren’t much better than TFG’s supporters.
Kay
@O. Felix Culpa:
Obama had a point. Public schools had not served black children very well and Democrats and liberals had not really addressed that fact in any urgent way. I just think Obama got sold a bunch of free markety Ted Talk bullshit as a solution by Bill Gates and others.
The worse thing about Duncan is he’s gimmicky. He loves quick fixes and “miracle” charters and dumb measurement metrics. He’s not smart enough to be discerning. Easy to bamboozle.
An example: Duncan used to promote certain charter schools as having “100%’ graduation rates. I suppose the owner operators of the schools told him this. But he never looked at cohort. He didn’t know that the charter had started with 100 9th graders, lost 75 to attrition and graduated 25. That’s 25%, not 100%. Public schools can’t do that. They have to report real numbers and they “backfill” – they take students all the time – charters don’t have to.
He was corrected on this like 50 times and he kept doing it. He’s innumerate. He gets numbers wrong.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
Good points about the failure to serve black kids well and the ongoing need to address that.
While Duncan may very well be innumerate, your first sentence suggests that his problem lies elsewhere. A vested interest in his priors, perhaps.
Matt McIrvin
@Scout211: The true locker room is in your heart!
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly:
She had to go.
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly:
She had to go.
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: perfectly said. Plus, instead of doing her job, she was enrolled in nursing school.
Ksmiami
@Frankensteinbeck: I’ve actually been doing a lot of research on this. It’s not sentient AI etc that’s going to be a problem but more what bad actors can do with this powerful technology tool.
Bill Arnold
@Frankensteinbeck:
Around 2010 I made a bet with a friend, 25 cents plus bragging rights, that an AI system would achieve human level performance on the Graduate Record Examination or an equivalent, by 2023.
GPT4, according to their very long debut paper, achieved that milestone and similar results on other tests, in 2023. (There are always questions, about training/test set splits in particular, but it is impressive.) A F-in large language model, that predicts text in context of previous text. (I need to contact him; he’s working at Google ATM and took the only (paper) copy of the bet with him when he quit to go to Google.)
This is the only long range (10+year) tech forecast I’ve ever made. It was a pantser intuitive log-linear projection, IIRC. Such forecasts are regularly accurate 5 years into the future and beyond, though 13 years is exceptional.
Anyway, point is, at the time it was considered ridiculous. Now, it is considered not AI, by the self-proclaimed wise.