This Axios clickbait claims that contra his nice grandpa image, Biden yells at people a lot. The title of the piece? “Old Yeller.” Seriously, that’s the title.
Behind closed doors, Biden has such a quick-trigger temper that some aides try to avoid meeting alone with him. Some take a colleague, almost as a shield against a solo blast.
The president’s admonitions include: “God dammit, how the f**k don’t you know this?!,” “Don’t f**king bullsh*t me!” and “Get the f**k out of here!” — according to current and former Biden aides who have witnessed and been on the receiving end of such outbursts.
Presidents shouldn’t call employees morons, foment insurrections or hurl ketchup around for staff to clean up. But if someone comes into the Oval Office unprepared to brief the president, “How the fuck don’t you know this?” might actually be a good question. I’m also in favor of exclamations like “don’t fucking bullshit me” and “get the fuck out” — if dispensed in the appropriate contexts.
Honestly, this makes me like Biden more. He can come across as too much of a softy sometimes, so, if true, maybe it’s good that he has an angry, ranty side. Lord knows these times call for it!
Axios further claims that “some Biden aides think the president would be better off occasionally displaying his temper in public as a way to assuage voter concerns that the 80-year-old president is disengaged and too old for the office.” The article doesn’t say how public anger is supposed to mitigate the age issue.
Do they think old people don’t get angry? There are plenty of angry senior citizens — Florida is full of enraged geezers, which partially explains why our governor is a rage-addled jerk who lacks basic table manners. Honest to Christ, the whole thing is so dumb!
Open thread!
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
Doesn’t matter what Biden does. Doesn’t matter what he doesn’t do. They’re going to dump on him either way. Josh Marshall once said something along the lines of that Washington is wired for Republicans. And it is.
cain
It’s not much of an attack given that the previous guy was literally throwing shit at the walls. So I’m not sure what they are trying to say here. I mean, U.S. politics is a high stakes game – with a lot on the line. If you’re working for the white house you need to be well prepped and ready.
There is nothing wrong with having high expectations.
I don’t particularly like shouty people as I know for me I would get pretty anxious.
ETA: #2!!!
Trivia Man
Anyone who isn’t angry isn’t paying attention
-anonymous
pat
Speaking of Biden, I went and read the piece by Dowd, then I went to the Most Liked comments.
Every single one of the first several (the only ones I bothered to read) said basically, It’s a private family matter, why don’t you just mind your own business!” And the number of “likes” was around 3600.
Seems appropriate.
wenchacha
I had a conversation with my 35 yo daughter about the upcoming election. She said, “I’m not a Democrat.” Okay, that’s fine. She isn’t a Republican, either.
She’s in a much different place in her life. She has difficulty affording health care, housing, even as she works very hard to make a living. I can see how she believes that incremental change is not helping her or other peers in similar circumstances.
I told her I wasn’t keen on Biden at the outset, but that I believe he stepped up to the task and has done one helluva job. He knows how government works; he knows the people, he knows what is required.
I have faith that if he dies before a 2nd term is finished, Kamala Harris will also do a good job.
The thing is, some of that is just faith on my part. I don’t know how the future will go. I hope for the best. The alternatives are too bleak to consider.
rikyrah
I don’t know what I love most…
Him stretched out on the counter….. Or Grandma feeding him afterwards🤗🤗🤗
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZT8dPNB2D/
Hidalgo de Arizona
I’ll file this as another entry in the column “Biden knows bullshit when it is presented to him” – which is something that Obama had a real hard time with.
rikyrah
Joe Biden has always been a no BULLSHYT kind of guy. Am I supposed to be mad that he’s A no BULLSHYT President?🤔🤔
Baud
I think the goal is to convince Biden advisors of this strategy, who then convince Biden, who then does it, which then provides a basis for fresh news.
Jackie
OT, but this made me laugh:
David Remnick interviewed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
“Kennedy’s habits of mind are MAGA-adjacent, but his manner differs from that of his Republican doppelgänger. Donald Trump is a bully—rude, swaggering, out to flatten his questioner under an avalanche of lies and volume. Kennedy is not rude. Rather, he is serenely convinced of his virtue and his interlocutor’s pitiful susceptibility to conventional wisdom.”
“The experience of interviewing him and listening to his previous interviews, I found, was like settling in for a long train ride with a seemingly amiable stranger in the next seat. You ask a straightforward question and, an hour later, as you race by Thirtieth Street Station, in Philadelphia, he is still going on about the fraud of COVID vaccines and how he was unfairly ‘deplatformed’ for spouting conspiracy theories.”
“By the time you’ve pulled into Wilmington, he might be talking about how drugs known as poppers helped cause the AIDS epidemic, or how ‘toxic chemicals’ might contribute to ‘sexual dysphoria’ in children. As you head south, he is talking about being ‘censored’ by Instagram, the F.B.I., and the Biden White House. New technologies like 5G towers and digital currencies are totalitarian instruments that could ‘control our behavior.’ Wi-Fi causes ‘leaky brain.’ After a while, you begin to wonder why you bought a ticket. But it’s too late. You’re pinned into the window seat.” 😂
Political Wire
tobie
Thanks for reading this piece, Betty Cracker, so I don’t have to. Politico and it’s spawn Axios have really earned Charlie Pierce’s moniker, Tiger Beat on the Potomac. If anything, it’s an insult to Tiger Beat to be compared to them.
matt
Jim Vanderhei, piece of shit.
Old School
The entire list of examples used in the article:
Baud
@Old School:
Who needs examples when you have a narrative?
Redshift
@rikyrah:
But he’s supposed to call it malarkey! /axioswhine
Leto
We’re in the, “fling a thousand things at the wall, see what sticks” phase of the administration. He’s too old, he’s too senile, he’s too yelly (yellie?), he’s too “insert X”… I know plenty of people who fit this exact mold. Amazing people, the most good nature you’ll find, but if you act the ass they’re quick to put you back in line. Also a well placed cuss word can have good impact, especially coming from people who don’t generally cuss.
Ohio Mom
@pat: When it comes to NYT columnists I have no respect for (Brooks, Douhart, Dowd, etc.) I don’t read the column, instead I will skip right to the most popular comments thread and enjoy the intelligence and righteous anger.
waspuppet
I mean, what are people who make six and seven figures covering national politics supposed to do? Learn about policy and report on how it could, or does, affect people’s lives? Eyeroll SO BORING AND COMPLICATED, and also it could result in good news for Joe Biden, which is strictly prohibited.
Leto
@Old School:
@Baud: Until he recommends shoving a celestial body up my backside to cure a global pandemic, I’ll just go about my regularly scheduled programming.
FastEdD
Many times at work I wished I could tell somebody to get the fuck out, but I couldn’t. If you are President, you can, and that’s fine with me. Besides, they can’t make you eat broccoli if you are President, so there.
JCJ
@Trivia Man:
Anger is a gift
Zach de la Rocha, – Freedom, Rage Against the Machine
Perhaps said by others. That is where I know it.
MattF
One imagines that a professional politician, like, e.g., Biden, sees a lot of bullshit. Staying angry about it is a hard part of the job. In contrast with TFG, who plainly believes that producing bullshit is all of his job. And… yes, it’s tiresome to say so… a White House minion who is complaining to Axios about their boss may not actually be a great source of inside information.
Alison Rose
LOL at websites that still censor curse words. Come on, Axios, what are you, the NYFT?
Baud
This paragraph is weird. I’d imagine it’s rare for any president to have any substantive meeting with only one other person in attendance.
Matt McIrvin
@Jackie: Shit, he’s an HIV/AIDS denialist too? Haven’t heard that one in a while.
pat
@Ohio Mom:
Me too. I read this one because I wanted to know what all the fuss was about, on BJ. Ha.
Baud
Since this is an open thread…
The phenomenonal rapid growth of Threads is pretty revealing in terms of how desperate people have been to find an alternative to Twitter. I haven’t joined, but as I understand it, Threads doesn’t offer anything special yet other than “we’re not Twitter” that could explain its growth.
trollhattan
@Jackie: Jesus.
At this point isn’t he completely interchangeable with Joe Rogan?
Alison Rose
@Baud: Also, JFC, they’re making it sound like he regularly beats the shit out of people.
Honestly, some of them might deserve it.
schrodingers_cat
Has anyone seen the Amazon Prime Comedy special, One in a Billion. I legit loled at some of her bits. She tears both Indian-Americans born here and yoga practioners a new one.
Baud
Also too
Nominated!
Another Scott
Meanwhile, Woke Mind Virus has infected macaques in Puerto Rico. Phys.org:
More at the link. (Unfortunately, the Nature article is behind a paywall.)
Cheers,
Scott.
trollhattan
@Baud: IIUC it has a fatal flaw in requiring a subscription to access posts, a subscription into the Facebook-Insta Big Data Mining world. Would love to be wrong about that because Twitter until last month was viewable to all via a browser. That’s how I accessed it and I’ve since learned I have more than a hundred now-dead bookmarks to Twitter accounts.
Some of those bookmarks are to agencies having valuable information, e.g., CalTrans, NOAA weather, city/county/state emergency services, utilities, etc. They’re going to need a new platform, too.
Baud
@Another Scott:
This gives me an idea for the next team building exercise at my workplace.
SFAW
What’s the problem? People — and not just Omnes — say those things to me all the time.
Anyway
Isn’t “No Malarkey” his middle name?
MattF
@Baud: Not a mystery, IMO. I think Threads is basically a text offshoot of Facebook/Instagram, and the things that make Facebook/Instagram popular make Threads popular too. Just turn it on and the algorithm provides stimulation.
Kay
@Baud:
it really is “more positive” than Twitter which I suppose some people might not like but I’m finding I really like the lack of nastiness and “snark”
Twitter is just SO CLEVER – I just think I’ve had it with that kind of faux sophistication
Im surprised how much better I feel not reading so much negativity :)
maybe this is a trend and people will go back to being halfway fucking decent instead of angry monsters?
Baud
@trollhattan:
Supposedly, they’re going to make it compatible with the Mastodon system at some point. But who knows? They might decide to keep it closed given how well things are going for them.
Baud
@Kay:
I’m the same way. May be one reason why Twitter never took for me.
@MattF:
Do you think they would have gotten the same growth if they had launched in the pre-Musk Twitter era?
Ksmiami
@waspuppet: Rt or covering the dying women and babies as a result of our medieval SC decisions… or how the upper Midwest is going gangbusters.. or global warming being at a tipping point. There’s a lot of real stuff going on, but our for profit news media is a disaster
Kay
I feel like we’re overdo with a positive politics cycle – we’ve been stuck in this negative space since 2016
maybe Threads initiates that – I always think Americans are temperamentally optimistic- the nasty, bitter, resentful Right can’t dominate forever. We’re overdue for “hope and change”, I think
Ksmiami
@Baud: I like it and you have to be a real person not a bot.
Anyway
@Redshift: jinx!
Baud
@Kay:
I feel like the political Internet has been a negative space since 2009. And I think that has, in average, not been to our advantage.
Chris
I mean, I’ve worked for enough good and bad bosses that I absolutely hold it against people when they hurl abuse at their underlings, even when those underlings are indeed fucking up.
Having said that, this very much falls under “what do you want me to do about this?” Assuming that this is indeed true even in its worst form (there seems to be a lot of context missing), am I supposed to start voting Republican or support a primary challenge against Biden because he’s rude to his aides sometimes? This doesn’t even fall in the same galaxy as LBJ pissing on Secret Service agents’ legs or having meetings with people while he’s taking a shit, and that still wouldn’t have been enough to turn me against LBJ. “Biden is imperfect.” Fine. If I’m ever asked to write his autobiography, I’ll put a paragraph about this in there. In the meantime, call me back when he’s decided to invade a foreign country based on cooked intelligence or when he’s decided to overthrow the government rather than concede an election.
Omnes Omnibus
Being unwilling to have one’s time wasted by staff who are not prepared and demanding that briefings be clear and straightforward are not bad qualities in a leader.
Baud
@Ksmiami:
The no bot think is important.
schrodingers_cat
Dark Brandon is real! These Republican flunkies masquerading as MSM journalists just made Biden seem cool.
Kay
@Baud:
I think it’s easy to sneer at earnest but a lot of people are actually earnest and the Threads people are “less political” – more like normies
its interesting to watch the new users try to shape it into something different from Twitter
i find myself pulling for them
Anyway
@trollhattan:
Don’t they all have web-sites with similar information? Change the bookmarks and go directly to the source – won’t that work?
Kay
I get upset when people are late or unprepared and I think I’m a good boss
Dont be late or unprepared – it’s selfish
Baud
@Kay:
I’d have preferred the not-Twitter be a not-Meta shop. But I’ll keep my fingers crossed for the people trying to make the online experience better.
Eolirin
@Baud: It’s also based on having an Instagram login, and I think the number was 83% of Twitter users already have an Instagram. (And I’m pretty sure but I’d need to double check, but I believe Instagram has a substantially larger install base than Twitter)
Very very low barrier to entry. The question won’t be sign ups, it’ll be active monthly users.
Also, in a way, given the Insta install base, one would have expected even larger numbers than this, but there’s a lot of functionality they need to add still. We’ll see where it lands.
Anyway
@matt:
word
MattF
@Baud: I think Twitter was always the smaller, nastier, unprofitable social medium, compared with Facebook. Musk widened the gap between Facebook and Twitter, which, I guess, accelerated the growth of Threads.
Baud
@Eolirin:
I assume people had to affirmatively sign up though. Otherwise, the subscriber growth number makes no sense.
Chris
@Baud:
That’s right when I discovered the liberal blogosphere and started using it in earnest, as it turns out. My Great Recession employment situation and the teabagger insurgency working to wreck any help coming from Washington right when it was most needed gave me both the time and the motivation to do a lot of posting.
And that kind of explains it right there. The political Internet is a release valve to talk about when I’m unhappy and worried about the state of the country. Same with lots of people. If everything’s going well, there’s less motive to do this.
Lyrebird
@rikyrah:
@Leto:
Remember when some press folks were making a big to-do about Biden on the campaign trail telling some heckler type he was full of sht or something like that? And you can see the people around smiling because Joey O’Biden was totally right!
Reporters were all, “SHOCKING! He told a potential voter that! Fainting couch!”
Viewers I know were all, “Hey, this guy is for real!”
Another Scott
@Eolirin: Supposedly Instagram has 2.mumble billion monthly users.
Threads is still tiny compared to that.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@MattF:
I didn’t realize Twitter was nastier than Facebook. I don’t use Facebook either.
sdhays
@Baud: They’re also the only one that has open signups without issues (because it’s all based on Instagram infrastructure). Most competitors are limiting their signups because they are in beta, or have scaling issues (Mastodon) which turn people off (I know Mastodon has supposedly gotten a handled on its scaling, but could it really absorb 100 million new users in a few days without hiccup?).
smith
@Another Scott: Same-sex copulation is actually very widespread among animals — it’s been recorded in about 1500 species. It’s been treated as rare and anomalous largely because of researchers’ homophobic assumptions.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
They’re so desperate, so frantic to try to “both sides” the 2024 race, to try to equalize the glaring differences between Uncle Joe and wannabe-Godfather TFG. It’s so clear and every day more clearer, just what a horrible, evil, criminal and most of all stupid guy TFG is, and it’s really messing with the lazy narrative.
They’re only going to get more ridiculous as 2024 approaches.
Baud
@sdhays:
That makes sense. As mentioned above, it’ll be interesting to see if the sign up numbers reflect active users going forward.
Eolirin
@Baud: Yeah but, and I could be wrong about this, I’m pretty sure Insta is promoting that.
In other words they’re targeting their existing audience. Which is I think like a billion strong.
MattF
@Baud: I have a couple of old friends on Facebook— and sometimes open my feed, just to have a look. And… I can feel myself getting sucked in. It’s what they do, and they’re very good at it.
Baud
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Couldn’t agree more. It is really blatant and ham-fisted too. I wish we would see a backlash to it, but I fear that’s too much to hope for.
smith
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: It’s also a variation on Murc’s Law: Only Democrats are expected to behave themselves.
trollhattan
@Anyway:
Not universally. Something like, say CalTrans District 9 will post breaking news to Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and don’t even have a discrete news feed on their webpage.
https://dot.ca.gov/caltrans-near-me/district-9
https://www.facebook.com/Caltrans9/
https://twitter.com/Caltrans9
Pretty common among agencies, municipalities, etc. Social media platforms “won” over web pages, which are not conducive to frequent updates in real time.
sdhays
@Baud: I won’t touch anything Meta (I do have a Twitter account, but never tweeted – and never will now), but I would expect them to iterate quickly. They have the technical and financial resources to be feature comparable to Twitter very, very rapidly. If features, like the website(!), roll out slowly, they’ll leave themselves open to Bluesky or whoever getting its act together.
I listen to the short daily podcast “Techmeme Ride Home” which tries to do a quick overview of the top stories in “tech”, and the host opined that maybe the future for Meta is actually going back to its roots in social media – take over Twitter’s space since Musk is actively destroying it and maybe even make a play for Reddit since the leadership has decided to treat its users (at least its moderators) with contempt. It’s an interesting (and, frankly, disturbing) possibility.
Ruckus
@wenchacha:
I don’t know how the future will go. I hope for the best.
We all are in this boat. There are people that have been predicting the future for eons, and I’d bet they get it wrong better than 80% of the time, because no one knows how the future goes, other than forward.
President Biden swears? Well damn it so do I and likely most of the rest of all humans. As I understand it, every language has and most humans over ten years old use swear words. We may be more open about it and for whatever asinine reason think it’s at least bad form but if anyone here served in any branch of military service and didn’t hear swear words on an almost continuous basis I’d be amazed. Or in almost any industrial situation. Or…..
Swearing is part of language, communications. Those of us who have spoken in front of audiences likely have learned not to do this openly from the podium, unless it’s appropriate in a particular situation. I know people that I’ve never heard swear but that doesn’t mean they don’t know how. It just means that they likely aren’t pissed off around me.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Get off my lawn! [first with this? What is BJ coming to?]
trollhattan
I thought Reality Winner was a fake name and now let me introduce you to Rambler Gallo.
Baud
@sdhays:
I hear you. Meta already had Facebook, Insta, and WhatsApp. If Threads becomes dominant and Meta buys Reddit, I’m not sure what’s left that’s independent.
sdhays
Wait, aides don’t need The Phantom of the Opera cued up on their phone in order to calm an enraged President?
Biden is so weak and un-Presidential.
Baud
@sdhays:
I thought it was Cats.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I haven’t found Twitter to be all that nasty. OTOH, I have always limited who is in my feed and avoided letting the algorithm choose what I see.
ETA: Okay, Henry VIII and Richard III can be pretty vicious to each other, but since they are both dead it’s no big deal.
sdhays
@Baud: It’s sad. I feel like Meta could be very profitable while being considerably less evil. But the guy who’s first website was about rating the fuckability of his female classmates at Harvard couldn’t possibly build something not evil.
sdhays
@Baud: Maybe it was just Andrew Lloyd Webber in general? Although, being calmed by Cats would be even more *chef’s kiss*.
Eolirin
@Baud: I would hope Meta would be blocked from buying Reddit, especially given our now more acquisition skeptical FTC. But creating a clone to siphon off disaffected Redditors? Wouldn’t be that hard.
I’m not sure they need to bother though. Reddit is kind of small potatoes. Even this Twitter stuff is small potatoes; Meta products have ten times the userbase that Twitter does.
I honestly think Zuck is investing in Threads for the positive PR given the Metaverse failure, and to stick it to Musk.
Cameron
@Baud: You’re not already subscribed to the Gym Jordan Workout Channel?
Ruckus
@JCJ:
Anger IS a gift, when used wisely.
There is a reason it is part of us, it can be used to protect us, to limit when we have to push back physically. And to bring on the adrenaline when all else fails. Like everything else it can be abused, used wrongly/inappropriately.
mrmoshpotato
Dick Kicker? Seriously, kick Axios in the dick – repeatedly.
narya
I set up a FB account a million years ago when one of my nephews was doing a “Flat Stanley” thing for school; that was were the pics went up, IIRC. I’ve kept it, but rarely do anything there–and when I open it, it is FULL of crap, i.e., almost nothing at all from friends, but lots of ads and “stories.” The main reason I keep it, at this point, is that there’s a “buy nothing” group in my neighborhood, and I will eventually have a bunch of stuff to donate. I also have an instagram account, but I bet I haven’t posted more that twice, and I bet I go there fewer than 5 times a year. I’m wondering if I’ve automagically been signed up for a thread thing–I guarantee I won’t use it even if I have. I trust them not at all.
Baud
@Eolirin:
This. Zuck was sort of flailing until Elon gave him this opening.
MattF
@Omnes Omnibus: I’d guess that your feed is mostly people you agree with. Which is a good thing, but those people you disagree with might find the people you follow disagreeable.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
It’s starting from a good starting point. This isn’t some newcomer that has to convince people who have never used it before to try its product. It’s coming from a social media company that already has billions of users and mostly has to convince existing users to try a new product. One thing we don’t know- and you can be damn sure Meta will do its best to hide if its unfavorable- is how many of those new users stick with the platform after the initial hype wave passes.
sdhays
Speaking of dicks, apparently Elon Musk realized that a cage match with Zuckerberg was probably going to end up with him in the hospital, so he decided he’s found a perfect excuse to post a dick pick:
He’s so disgusting.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: LMAO!
Cameron
@mrmoshpotato: Well, if there was an actual race car driver named Dick Trickle……
lowtechcyclist
@MattF:
I personally found Facebook to be the nastier of the two, even though I was on Facebook to converse with friends, and I was on Twitter to follow political discussions.
Facebook worked really hard at trying to get me into arguments with people, and succeeded often enough that I developed a deep antipathy towards it. (It pisses me off even now because I didn’t go there to have arguments.) But it was easy to use Twitter in such a way that I only saw the tweets of a handful of people I wanted to read, along with the stuff they retweeted, so I didn’t have the same problem there.
Eolirin
@Baud: He was only flailing because we can’t have mature businesses that just make money and don’t see constant growth anymore. Meta has some headwinds, privacy changes that are hurting their ability to make ad money, overinvestment and hiring, TikTok etc.
But they’ve hit market saturation and make a lot of money if they staff with the idea that they’re not really going to grow their platforms. They could coast on that for decades without needing to do much of anything, and as long as they pay attention to trends instead of trying to make them, they’re unlikely to be superceded to the point that they’re not still making lots and lots of money.
Chasing growth above everything else is a pathology. And it seems to have infected most of our tech companies.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I like Twitter. Its my window to Indian grass roots politics which is not the Godi* media POV.
(Rhymes with Modi (with a soft d sound) and mean lap or embrace.)
My feed is heavily curated. Musk’s interventions have been a definite downgrade though.
I have blocked Musk’s account and also the word, same for Orange T and the leap year Democrat who likes to wag his finger
I only know about their shenanigans if my mutuals discuss it
As an escape hatch I have a Bluesky account but am not using it much
BTW Indian RW Twitter is a cesspool that makes MAGAs look sane. I never bother to respond to them.
Betty Cracker
@sdhays: Thank dog that contemptible prick Musk was born in another country or Repubs would run him for president every four years and eventually hit the jackpot. The best thing about Trump is he’s a quarter of a century older than Musk.
Omnes Omnibus
@MattF: Everyone’s feed is individual, and if it becomes a sewer it is because they actively or passively chose that result. For me, it hasn’t gotten nastier. It has become emptier as people leave. Interesting voices are disappearing.
Baud
Chris
@Ruckus:
“Anger is just anger. It isn’t good. It isn’t bad. It just is. What you do with it is what matters. It’s just like anything else. You can use it to build or to destroy. You just have to make that choice.”
“Constructive anger?”
“Also known as passion. Passion has overthrown tyrants and freed prisoners and slaves. Passion has brought justice where there was savagery. Passion has created freedom where there was nothing but fear. Passion has helped souls rise from the ashes of their horrible lives and build something better, stronger, more beautiful.”
There are some good nuggets buried in The Dresden Files.
Alison Rose
@sdhays: JFC.
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
This. Especially with POTUS. There are a hundred issues screaming for his attention; don’t waste a second more of his time with your issue than you absolutely have to.
I can’t imagine meeting with even the deputy director of my agency without knowing everything I could possibly know about the matter at hand, and having a well-organized PowerPoint presentation all cued up and ready to go. Let alone the President of the United States.
VOR
A President’s time is a precious resource and anyone wasting it ought to be scolded. I got no issue with that as long as it is professional, not personal.
The MAGAts on Twitter are claiming Biden’s anger is a sign of dementia. OTOH, they would also claim a lack of anger was a sign of dementia. And yet somehow TFG throwing ketchup at the wall and bragging about passing a very basic mental acuity test are signs of his superior temperament.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: My experience is similar to yours for the most part. I miss a lot of people who have left.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I’m curious to see the international response to Musk. I’d imagine most people abroad don’t pay as much attention to his politics, but just want Twitter to work. OTOH, Facebook is huge abroad too, so they might find Threads an easy transition.
Mike in NC
@Cameron: Way back in active duty times, we got a message about some engineering consultant type who was due to visit our ship. The name they gave was ‘Dick Dangle’ and several people chuckled like 14 year old boys. When the guy came aboard he introduced himself as ‘Richard Dangell’, which of course was a great disappointment.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: On Indian Twitter, he had a good reputation because of Tesla and Space X before he bought Twitter.
For the most part people on Twitter just want Twitter to work well and not be subjected to his daily tantrums.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: I am liking Bluesky so far. I’ve found some interesting people there. We will see if it can scale up. Mastodon does nothing for me, and I won’t touch threads as long as it requires me to be subject to its algorithm.
Ruckus
@Chris:
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ve owned 2 businesses. One of which had employees, in an industrial context. I was in the navy. If humans don’t/shouldn’t swear then every damn one of them I dealt with was wrong in their use of language. Some more often than others. I would be absolutely amazed if President Biden DIDN’T swear. I would also be surprised if he swore much if at all in public.
The fact that a vast majority of humans know at least most of the swear words in their language tells me that swearing at the appropriate time is very, very normal human behavior. That and that every language has swear words.
Cameron
@Mike in NC: Hmm. I am reminded of my own illiterate outburst (even in my salad days, I didn’t know anything about IT) when the IT bro at the place I was working told me he was going to ‘hook my port up with a dongle.’
Princess
This sounds like a story fed to Axios by a sad former staffer who was fired for incompetence.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
“I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
Gravenstone
Yeah, feeling as if your valuable time is being wasted by aides who are seemingly not prepared for the task does not strike me as excessive. Of course, I have grown increasingly profane and abrupt with age, so maybe I’m just viewing things through my own lens.
Roger Moore
@Eolirin:
I think Meta has some real problems. There used to be a theory that social media would naturally tend toward monopoly because of network effects. It turns out that doesn’t work in practice, though, because there are also negative network effects. It turns out trend setters deliberately steer clear of the biggest social media networks because they become uncool once everyone is on them. Even worse, it seems as though people want to follow the trend setters onto the new, cooler social media, making it less cool and causing the cycle to repeat.
That means a company like Meta can never rest on its laurels and focus on raking in the cash. They need to be constantly on the lookout for the new trend in social media and either copy it or buy out their competitor. Otherwise, the new competitor might become the place all the cool kids go and eventually lure all their users away.
I think this is ultimately why Meta seems to have become more hostile toward Twitter recently. As long as Twitter was focusing exclusively on their microblogging bread and butter, they weren’t a serious threat to Meta. One of the few halfway decent ideas Musk had, though, was to expand Twitter beyond that to include new services that would make it into a fully-fledged Facebook competitor. That promoted it to a full-fledged threat, and Meta is now trying to move into the microblogging space to crush them before they get a chance to become a real competitor.
Bill Arnold
@Ksmiami:
I have not tried this procedure, but it looks plausible:
How to join Threads without linking your Instagram account? – Don’t want to link your personal Instagram account to Threads? Here’s how you can make an anonymous Threads account. (Utkarsh Joshi, Jul 7, 2023)
This is a plus, IMO. Dissent can be much more risky without the option of anonymity.
catclub
I would say that ‘metaverse failure’ will not really be determined for many more years.
RaflW
To Josh Marshall’s comment years ago (and ref at #1 up top): The press is desperate to talk about anything other than the record-smashing economy & jobs data. They’re apoplectic that we’re not in a recession so they can shove ol’ Joe through the shredder for it.
I’m so fffing pissed about how biased the press is against Dems & the economy. They’re continually surprised by the good news (Rubin/WaPo). Because they want bad news, dammit.
WaterGirl
@Baud: If the President said to me “how the fuck do you not know this?” my takeaway would NOT be to call him cranky and try to stay out of the room alone with him.
Rather, my takeaway would be to make certain that I was never ill-prepared and that he would never again feel the need to say “how the fuck do you not know this?!” to me ever again.
narya
@Chris: My morning running route is such that I can imagine Demonreach juuuust out of view.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
Twitter is unusual in that it allows you to have a straight chronological feed of the accounts you’re following. They make an algorithmically curated feed an option- an option they’ve pushed harder at times- but it’s always been an option. I get the impression Musk would like to make the algorithmic feed mandatory, at which point you lose the control to avoid having it turn into a sewer.
sdhays
@WaterGirl: You’ll never work in Washington with THAT attitude!
//
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I would never say that to you.
WaterGirl
@Kay: I find it funny, and a bit ridiculous, that people who are mad that Twitter now requires a login would flock to Threads – another system owned by another fucking billionaire – and that Threads not only requires a login, but requires that you have an Instagram login in order to get a Threads login.
Ridiculous.
JPL
So Biden got the Amy Klobuchar treatment. About darn time.!
Kent
In my previous job with the government I was not an important person, but I did have occasion to brief important people (Senators, high level executive branch appointees) on subjects that I was expert on, both on paper and orally. Biden is 100% correct in his approach.
First: I forget which ex-president said it, Obama? But there are no easy problems that ever reach the president’s desk. The easy problems all get solved long before they get to that level. So by definition, every decision a president faces tends to be a difficult one.
Second: If you are actually going to make informed decisions, then it is ABSOLUTELY imperative that you are not being “handled” or “led” by those below you who will be tempted to do so by shading the information that they do give you to paint their preferred policy approach in a positive light and diminish other policy proposals that they personally oppose. This is often subconscious. So as a briefer you really have to be very deliberately meticulous about pros and cons so that the decision-maker can make informed decisions and not be blindsided. And that is why multiple people review high-level briefing materials. Pointed and probing questioning is about the only method a decision-maker has to make sure this is happening. By definition they do NOT have the time to do all the research themselves.
A president who does not ask difficult probing questions is not one you want making important decisions because they are nothing more than a figurehead.
WaterGirl
@Baud: One more reason not to go with Threads. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: Zuckerberg currently isn’t offering a choice.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Even if I were completely unprepared? :-)
john b
@WaterGirl:
I don’t think requiring a login is a particularly common complaint about twitter (it only is now because a lot of people have abandoned it since Musk took over)
I think the bigger complaints are about harassment / moderation and the general decline in the quality of the product as they have cut a lot of their staff.
Edit: And interestingly, I’ve seen some debate on Mastodon / Fediverse about the possible onboarding of Threads and how many servers don’t want to incorporate their network into their servers because of the gigantic user base and the possibility / inevitability of bad moderation and the impossibility of admins to handle it on small servers.
Martin
Who’s going to be the first ‘centrist’ publication to put out a Biden ‘cocaine rage’ piece?
Ruckus
@Gravenstone:
I am less profane and abrupt with age, although I’ve been less abrupt than many my entire life. I think we all are slightly different in our living, and a lot of that is how our lives present themselves – our situations. We all have the same emotions but they present themselves differently in each of us. Some are angry all the time, some show so little anger that we think they must be ignorant that things don’t piss them off. And so it goes with all emotions.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
Neither is Mastodon. The only choice is just who you follow in chronological order.
ETA: And people who are used to the algorithmic feed do complain about this! They want to be able to follow more people than they can comfortably read and have the algorithm filter it for them.
john b
And there is value in an algorithm for the user too! It can expand the voices that you hear and suggest accounts you are likely interested in. Of course it can be a spiral to the lowest common denominator (see YT).
geg6
@Leto:
Biden reminds me of my dad that way. My mom was a volatile personality and everyone knew to be careful around her or she’d hit you with a clue-by-four. My dad, OTOH, was a super chill guy. Just always low key and sweet and friendly, just like Uncle Joe Biden. But he could put you right in your place if he felt the need. People who only knew him as that sweet Bob G. were absolutely stunned to be on the receiving end of one of his temper outbursts. He was a truly innovative swear-er. His favorite was goddamsonofabitch. All one word, with emphasis on the last syllable. :-) I miss him.
frosty
@Matt: I think the number of FB posts from my friends is down to 25% of what I see. It’s more and more a waste of time, particularly since a good chunk of my friends seem to have dropped off.
geg6
@Ksmiami:
Do they require an Instagram account? I have no desire for Instagram, but I might be tempted to sign up for Threads, unlike Twitter (which never tempted me). People tell me it’s a nicer atmosphere there than ever was on Twitter. But if I have to have Instagram, I’ll skip Threads, too.
trollhattan
A very positive news piece from far northern California re. freeing the Klamath River.
Elizabelle
@Princess:
And is jonesing for the cocaine s/he cannot get back from the Secret Service.
Biden does not have a reputation as a jerk to work for. Quite the opposite. FWIW, the late Patrick Moynihan had a reputation as a, shall we say, mercurial boss. There were stories!
Betty Cracker
Bad news for DeSantis — Florida Repubs prefer Trump! (Orlando Sentinel)
He can’t blame that yawning gap on name recognition!
Omnes Omnibus
@john b: I use a few big name people as my proxies for that. Their retweets, etc., let see other account, some that I choose to follow. It keeps the algorithm from controlling my feed, but still keeps me viewing new people. Or did, back when Twitter worked. You’ll note that I found it useful and not toxic far longer than most. Even now, I am just finding it less useful.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Unpossible.
Brachiator
They are trying to present Biden as an angry old man. This is bullshit. I don’t know what the context of these supposed outbursts might be. I don’t know the context. I don’t know if actual rage is directed at people.
But to suggest that this is okay if it makes people frightened or uncomfortable is bullshit. Long ago, I had a boss who enjoyed shouting at some of his supervisors and assistants, although he never displayed anger at lower staff. I made it clear through my body language and demeanor that he could not yell at me. He seemed to respect this and we got along well. He was directly in my chain of command.
This shit is never appropriate. I hope these claims about Biden are exaggerated.
This is also bullshit. Maybe somebody means that they want Biden to show more passion. I don’t know. Biden has slowed down a bit, but does not show any signs of diminished capacity. He gets his point across and consistently displays a steady hand and quiet strength. This works for me.
ETA. When I worked in the corporate world, I made it clear that I did not tolerate racist and sexist jokes and could not be bullied. Some managers interpreted this to mean that I was untrustworthy because I would not be a good old boy. This did not bother me at all.
Martin
@WaterGirl: Correct. It’s important to recognize *who* you are saying that to. You don’t say it to general staff. You *do* say it to the Secretary of Transportation if Pete shows up not knowing the details of the railroad union issue.
In large organizations you have people who are your narrow experts that leadership relies on (who are not expected to be experts, but are expected to make and own the decision). I had narrow experts work for me and I myself was a narrow expert. I was the equivalent of a cabinet secretary. I also had general staff, and I *never* yelled at them because they never carry that kind of responsibility. But if the institutional expert on something says something idiotic in their area of expertise in a meeting, I would jump down their goddamn throat in full view of everyone, and I would expect the same in return. You’re 6 rungs up the latter – you don’t get to fuck around up there. That’s what made the early covid shutdown meetings so stressful – it tested everyone in ways none of us were prepared for and a lot of people didn’t fare very well during that test. There was a lot of yelling because we didn’t have two weeks for you to go back to your team and figure out something that your title expected you would know.
A lot of what the White House deals with is time sensitive. if someone rolls in now knowing something they are supposed to know – that costs you time you don’t have. That’s people dying in a pandemic, or Ukrainians dying because they don’t have missiles, or whatever. And the White House doesn’t really have the bandwidth for wasted meetings. If you get together to make a decision and don’t have the information to make it, that was a waste of everyones time.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: You’re quoting an Orlando paper? Isn’t that the territory controlled by MarxistMouse Woke Groomers?
Betty Cracker
The same poll also shows either DeSantis or Trump getting 49% of the vote (Reps, Dems and independent voters were polled). That means Repubs would almost certainly carry the state again unless 100% of independents break for Dems, which ain’t gonna happen. But Meatball can’t be happy about the lack of enthusiasm in his own state. He could be headed for a Rubio 2016-scale humiliation if he hangs in there until Florida votes in the 2024 primary.
Roger Moore
@john b:
The question is what the algorithm is programmed to do. I am deeply suspicious of algorithmic curation because the algorithm writers don’t have my best interests in mind. Their goal is to keep my eyes glued to the screen 24/7, regardless of what this does to my mental health. If I could trust the algorithm to try to present a variety of views and introduce me to interesting new stuff, I might view it less negatively.
M31
@geg6: hahaha my dad too — he used to work with this very volatile Type A personality guy who’d fly off the handle for the smallest of reasons, and when things got bad with clients they’d maneuver my dad in there to be the calming presence
so when my dad did on the rare occasion lose his temper, everyone really knew something was fucked up, lol
catclub
Ignorant son of a spavined camel.
geg6
@lowtechcyclist:
People say this, but how are you getting argumentative people who you don’t want to interact with in your feed on FB? In 2016, I un-friended all Republicans but one (who isn’t MAGA) among my friends. I don’t ever see anything nasty that I don’t want to see or that I don’t seek out. And I get very few ads and just scroll past them. I check my FB feed once a day or so and have been happy with it since my 2016 purge. I don’t trust Zuck at all with my personal info, but I’ve had that account since forever, so I risk it.
I never was interested in Twitter. Too insider-y for me and I hated the format.
There go two miscreants
As someone who drops about a 1000 f-bombs per day*, I am now disappointed!
*I live alone.
Nelle
@Ohio Mom: Yep.
Kathleen
@catclub: My father liked to include “lemur dung” in his expletive string.
JaneE
The older I get the less patient I am. My husband will tell you I never was very patient.
Genuine stupidity I can deal with. It is ignorance and the deliberate stupidity of some that make me angry – make that enrage me – more and more often.
Being an executive was never on my wish list, and I cannot even imagine how Biden copes with it. I plan to borrow “how the fuck do you not know?” for frequent use.
Wanderer
@VOR: I completely agree. Between President Biden and TFIG Trump I see one as Presidential and the other as residential.
M31
@Wanderer: one as presidential and one as pestilential
frosty
@geg6: The only personal info I put on Zuck’s website is my birthday: 1/1/1905.
And all the stuff I post and comment, too. That’s the gold for them right there.
pieceofpeace
@Jackie: Made me laugh, too. And cringe.
Kent
If you have a Facebook account then you already have an Instagram account. It is the same log-in.
eclare
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, I follow maybe a dozen people on Twitter and hardly ever see nasty stuff. But my feed is carefully selected, from what I can tell Threads still uses an algorithm, hell no.
Also, just because comments are there, you don’t have to read them.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
This is dubious. Are they just observing mounting? Are they also observing anything resembling long term pair bonding?
This is nonsense.
What I like is the implication that this behavior was not noticed before because researchers simply were not looking for it and would ignore it if they saw it because they assumed a heterosexual model for animal behavior.
This also reminds me of the observations of same sex mounting in bonobos, especially among females. But most lay discussions omit that bonobo female genitals appear to have evolved to make female to female rubbing easier. So you can see how evolution may have helped facilitate behavior.
Still, it is clear that sexual behavior in other animal species, and in humans, is more varied than the right wing is willing to admit.
Ksmiami
@Baud: content moderation
Shakti
It’s just funny to me they’re going to make Biden’s temper an issue when the entire Republican field* either prides itself on having the emotional regulation of a toddler two minutes from a meltdown, or sucks up to TFG who has…no emotional regulation.
We have a SCOTUS justice who spent his confirmation hearing red faced and tantruming.
More and more I see these “look at his temper” “watch your tone” demands as some kind of deference people expect me to give them and I refuse to do so. Maybe it’s my socioeconomic characteristics, but I am tired.
Ksmiami
@geg6: I just created a dummy account on Instagram. It’s not a big deal
randy khan
@Baud:
I think the concern is that the nice guy persona, which has a lot of equity for him, also tends to make him look less engaged. I wouldn’t mind a couple of flashes of impatience or the equivalent – I think Biden’s “will you shut up, man?” line in the first debate with Trump was a huge winner for him, demonstrating that he would stand up for himself (and by extension, everyone else). It couldn’t hurt to see a bit more of that.
rikyrah
@RaflW:
They have been wishing for a recession going on two years now 😡
Brachiator
@RaflW:
It’s not the press. The economic data suggests that the US and Western Europe may be headed for a recession.
Of course, economists can be wrong, especially when they assume that past economic models strongly predict the future.
But this is not just the press hating on Biden.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: if they keep predicting a recession, they eventually will be correct.
geg6
@Kent:
Hmmm, I’ve never even checked. I’ll never use it, so I guess that’s not a problem. I’ll give Threads time to mature a bit before signing up, if I sign up at all.
Brachiator
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not if the numbers and models change.
Bostondreams
@Another Scott: I mean, isn’t that part of the reason the ancient Greek city-states, especially places like Sparta, encouraged relationships between their soldiers?
geg6
@Brachiator:
I believe that to be true for the UK. And possibly the EU, but not necessarily. But the data the economists I trust use tell them probably not the US unless something unforeseen happens. I am optimistic on this subject.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: Someday there will be another recession. Eventually. Until then, the economy seems to be burbling along quite happily.
Brachiator
@Bostondreams:
Thebes, more than Sparta. At least as a formal military order.
Most honest military history makes note of this. Except in DeSantis land.
Brachiator
@geg6:
From a May Forbes article.
There is wiggle room here, but the media is reporting on available economic indicators.
And you are right that European economists feel that a recession is likely to hit Europe, according to the Financial Times and the Economist.
Gin & Tonic
One for the FAFO file – former commander of the russian Krasnodar submarine, which launched cruise missiles at Ukraine, was out for his morning run, and apparently ran into several bullets, permanently impeding his pace.
Subsole
@Jackie:
He sounds like Alito, actually: an asshole too thoroughly convinced of his own righteousness to realize just how profoundly on the take he is.
Geminid
@Bostondreams: I think you may be thinking of Thebes here.
JML
This is a deeply unserious piece on Biden (big shock coming from the DC political media). Think about it for a second: they’re making a big deal about someone claiming they bring another aide with them because they’re less likely to get yelled at if someone else is in the room. The number of people who get solo time with POTUS is tiny, and the number of people who get to invite someone else along for a meeting with POTUS without prior approval is even less.
I’m trying to decide if this crap writer only had one source, or a source that was having a little fun with him, or both.
Suzanne
@Chris:
100% the right take.
lowtechcyclist
@Brachiator:
Well, God doesn’t lay any commandments on animals, you know. Just on people. So what animals do has no bearing on what people should do, and God’s commandments tell people what they should do, you know. And people mocking God’s commandments will go to H-E-double hockey sticks. And serves them right.
/s
Brachiator
@lowtechcyclist:
Yeah, I heard some idiot babbling something about “God doesn’t make mistakes” with respect to human sexuality. And the biggest objection to evolution for the religious crowd always seems to hang on the idea that humans and apes share a common ancestor.
ETA. The anti evolution crowd always confuse apes and monkeys.
cain
@lowtechcyclist: But it does inform the fact that God is quite ok with homosexuality since she allows others in teh animal kingdom to change their sex.
Michael
So I love this. Being someone that interacts with executives. If I’m the subject matter expert. You damn well better be able to answer their questions. Or Foo you get that. Sheesh be prepared or that’s what you deserve IMO.
lowtechcyclist
@Brachiator:
Well, that’s a problem. The way the economy works has changed a great deal in the past fifty years.
I grew up, as many of you did, in a world where “made in Japan” meant cheap crap, and “made in China” simply didn’t happen; Mao’s China was all but cut off from the world. The vast majority of goods that Americans bought were built here in America. We didn’t have a closed economy, but international trade was much, much smaller then. Now we have a bona fide global economy, and the levers that one country has to affect its own economy don’t have the power they used to.
I’m sure that economists have updated their models, but the problem even there is, well, how many recessions have we had so far since the economy became this global? There’s a pretty small set of examples to test one’s models on.
The other thing is just common sense here. Unemployment is at 3.6%. That’s full employment*, which means that everyone’s got money to spend, even after the Fed has raised interest rates a bunch of times. By that measure, we’re a long way from a recession.
And even that measure is insufficient. Not only is unemployment that low, but there are lots of employers beating the bushes and practically begging for workers. We’re really in some state of hyper-full employment; before we even get back to what 3.6% unemployment normally means, the economy has to get back to a point where there aren’t all these employers desperate for workers. Because as long as you’ve got an economy that could easily absorb a few million more workers just to fill all those unfilled jobs, you’re in a very different place from if that 3.6% unemployment rate reflected more of a balance between available workers and available openings. We’re much further from a recession than 3.6% unemployment would have implied in practically any other time in my life.
*The rule of thumb used to be that 4% unemployment was full employment, because at any given time, a certain number of people would be in between jobs for various reasons.
cain
@Roger Moore: honestly, let’s just create a mastodon server and we can curate the experience for the rest of them. :)
Kay
@WaterGirl:
Twitter is performative in a way that bugs me more as I get older- very CONSCIOUS of their own cleverness
I have changed – I no longer find that amusing or interesting
Threads is “normie Twitter” which it turns out I like ! :)
Odie Hugh Manatee
Our billionaire media has to come up with something to drag the Democrats about every single day. As a person who liberally dispenses f-bombs when appropriate (and occasionally inappropriate), I find the Prez dropping them quite heartwarming and even endearing.
At least he’s not trying to figure out some way to take over our government for himself. That’s a nice change!
Another Scott
@JCJ: @Ruckus: @Chris:
Since nobody has gone there yet, I guess it’s up to me.
P.I.L. – Rise (4:31)
Cheers,
Scott.
RevRick
@Chris: I took a course in Divinity school called “Emotions, Passions, and Feelings.” Since preachers are in the language business, the professor was insistent about being precise in what we mean.
First, he restricted feelings to physical responses: hot, cold, tickle, sneeze, sweet, sour, etc.
Next, came sentiments, which were evanescent psychological responses, the kind of responses to things like Hallmark Card commercials or Marvel Universe movies. They can be intense, but they don’t last.
Next came moods, which might be described as stuck, global sentiments. Usually, they’re triggered by something, but the response takes on a life of its own. Cf. adolescence.
The hallmark of emotions is that they motivate action. The fear of heights, for instance, is not about the extreme discomfort felt when in high places, but how it moves us not to go to high places in the first place. Furthermore, emotions are learned. We may be born with capacities and a basic temperament, but we can learn a whole range of emotions. To call the Grand Tetons sublime is not merely a detached description, but a particular emotional response to the experience. The thing is emotions tend to go deep.
And the deepest emotions are passions. We want lawyers with a passion for justice, teachers with a passion for learning, doctors with a passion for healing. Passionate people have a kind of single-mindedness of purpose, one that sees them through the vicissitudes of life and toil.
That’s why Christians refer to the narrative surrounding Jesus’ death as his Passion: he was so committed to expressing God’s loving justice, and so opposed to all imperialism, that he let the powers that be do their worst, trusting that God would redeem that passion.
Zzyzx
This thread is dead but I think this is a decent breakdown of the twitter alts. Also Twitter quietly removed the login need last week.
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2023/07/10/thoughts-on-social-media-and-me-mid-july-2023/
Threads is hilarious in how bad the feed it gives me is. It’s obviously a write only medium for people.
Kay
@WaterGirl:
I think our ultra clever and sophisticated media people love Twitter too – it helps them sell their crap political books – so that’s another reason I don’t belong there.
Miss Bianca
@Brachiator: 68.2% chance? Seems like an oddly specific number.
Another Scott
@Miss Bianca: It’s actually 67.3054%
:-/
NewYorkFed.org (1 page .pdf)
It’s one measure (the inverted yield curve). It’s not a law of physics.
Why people can’t recognize that a recovery after a global pandemic is different from a recovery after oil goes to $150/bbl or after a housing bubble blows up is kinda amazing.
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
JustRuss
Good lord, Uncle Joe is too angry….and he’s not angry enough!
WaterGirl
@RevRick: That’s the most interesting thing I have read in a long time!
Anyway
@Another Scott:
Love it…
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
I have been saying this for a long time. Some economists have acknowledged this, but most seem to fall back on orthodoxy.
But still, you can’t blame the media for this. The are reporting what Treasury and the Federal Reserve say.
You CAN blame the media when they rely on their favorite pundits and other gurus who are doing political spin pretending to be economics.
VOR
@JustRuss: At least Biden doesn’t have Obama’s curse of not being allowed to display any anger in public without being labeled as an Angry Black Man.
Nancy
@JustRuss: I’m remembering a transcendent John Cole piece from some years back;
Fuckity fuckin fuck fuck fuck and some more fucks. I think he might have been irritated. Joe Biden may have reason to be annoyed. Fuckin fucks get attention, maybe even results.
RevRick
@WaterGirl: I found the course quite compelling. The prof illustrated passion with a personal anecdote. It involved a neighbor woman who was a nurse who’d become close friends with he and his wife. So close she’d often stop by after her shift to soak her feet in a hot foot bath in their living room!
Anyway, one day she stopped by and proceeded to tell them about her day, a horror story of nasty doctors, demanding patients, and death, and how weary she was. After hearing her story, the professor asked, “Do you want to quit.” And her response was, “Oh, God, no! I can’t imagine doing anything else!”
That’s passion.
That anecdote was shared in class almost 50 years ago!