Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Giving up is unforgivable.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

T R E 4 5 O N

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Let there be snark.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Ritual — Sacred, Profane, & Otherwise

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Ritual — Sacred, Profane, & Otherwise

by | 290 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

Best wishes to those who celebrate!


 


 
Y’know, I’m beginning to suspect Joe is enjoying giving the NYTimes the… snub:

Reader Interactions

290Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Re-upping from below

    Heh, the Morning Joe folks are debating whether the NYT is garbage.

  4. 4.

    Patricia Kayden

    I’m looking forward to the NYT writing this headline after Biden wins reelection:

    ”The multiple reasons why winning again is bad for President Biden”

    And it will be an above the fold, multipart series written by David Brooks.

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Today in healthcare news:

    Proteins in the blood could warn people of cancer more than seven years before it is diagnosed, according to research.

    Scientists at the University of Oxford studied blood samples from more than 44,000 people in the UK Biobank, including over 4,900 people who subsequently had a cancer diagnosis.

    They compared the proteins of people who did and did not go on to be diagnosed with cancer and identified 618 proteins linked to 19 types of cancer, including colon, lung, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and liver.

    The study, funded by Cancer Research UK and published in Nature Communications, also found 107 proteins associated with cancers diagnosed more than seven years after the patient’s blood sample was collected and 182 proteins that were strongly associated with a cancer diagnosis within three years.

    ​The authors concluded that some of these proteins could be used to detect cancer much earlier and potentially provide new treatment options, though further research was needed.​

    Also:

    Hospital surgical teams that include more female doctors improve patient outcomes, lower the risk of serious complications and could in turn reduce healthcare costs, according to the world’s largest study of its kind.
    Studies show diversity is important in business, finance, tech, education and the law not only for equity but for output. However, evidence supporting the value of sex diversity in healthcare teams has been limited.

    Now researchers who examined more than 700,000 operations spanning a decade report that hospitals with more women in their surgical teams provide better outcomes for patients. The findings were published in the British Journal of Surgery.

    “Care in hospitals with greater anaesthesia-surgery team sex diversity was associated with better postoperative outcomes,” the researchers concluded. “The main takeaway for clinical practice and health policy is that increasing operating room teams’ sex diversity is not a question of representation or social justice, but an important part of optimising performance.

    “Healthcare institutions should intentionally foster sex diversity in operating room teams to potentially reduce major morbidity, which, in turn, can enhance patient satisfaction and reduce costs.”
    ………………..
    Hospitals with teams comprising more than 35% female surgeons and anaesthesiologists had better postoperative outcomes, the study found. Operations in such hospitals were associated with a 3% reduction in the odds of 90-day postoperative major morbidity in patients.

    The researchers noted that the 35% threshold they observed echoed findings from research in other industries in various countries, including the US, Italy, Australia and Japan, that also showed better outcomes once teams had 35% female members.
    ………………….
    Hallet said her research team wanted to challenge “the binary discourse of comparing female and male clinicians” and instead “highlight the importance of diversity as a team asset or bonus in enhancing quality care”.

    Cue up the caterwauling of fragile white men in 3… 2… 1….

  6. 6.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Cue up the caterwauling of fragile white men in 3… 2… 1….

    You rang? (Reposted from last night)

    Chiefs’ Harrison Butker Criticized for Graduation Speech Attacking Working Women While Quoting Taylor Swift
    Butker encouraged male graduates to “be unapologetic in your masculinity,” and to “fight against the cultural emasculation of men,” during his controversial speech

  7. 7.

    E.

    @OzarkHillbilly: I had a health problem about 20 years ago that sent me to many specialists. By the time it was over I had a rule: only women doctors. I haven’t had a male physician since.

  12. 12.

    sdhays

    @Evap: It’s a show on YouTube where the interviewer and the interviewee both eat chicken wings with increasingly hot sauces. I haven’t see many episodes, but Conan O’Brien did the season finale a few weeks ago and if you’ve ever liked Conan before, it’s absolute bonkers.

  13. 13.

    Jertian

    If Biden does Hot Ones, can he get a Secret Service agent to throw themselves on the wing covered in Da Bomb?

  15. 15.

    satby

    @Baud: I thought his analysis was spot on in how they weighted the data, in a way that explained the cross tab info well for a person like me ( who despises spreadsheets). Applicable to any poll in how to analyze the data. But, I AM a geek.

  16. 16.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @E.: ​Out here, doctors can be hard to come by. My primary carer has been a NP for over 20 years now. Only once, briefly, was it a man. Robin, who took care of me for 15 years or so, had an out of the blue stroke that she could not recover from about 5 years ago. Since then it’s been a revolving door of NPs. Hard to find someone who wants to staff a small town clinic.

    I keep hoping they can find someone who will last. IMHO, NPs* are far better at listening than Docs are.

    *male or female

    All of my surgeries were performed by men, tho my anesthesiologists have been women on several occasions

  17. 17.

    Trivia Man

    @Evap: There is a series of videos where a celebrity is allowed to push their current project after every sample they eat. Starts at hot and goes up to #10 that is outrageously hot. Look for “conan hot wings” to see a recent example that is very entertaining.

    dude is a good interviewer, too. And matches every guest 1:1 on the wings.

  19. 19.

    NotMax

    Media note.

    Reminder that Archer is available again on Netflix. This time, 13 seasons showing up.

  20. 20.

    mrmoshpotato

    Y’know, I’m beginning to suspect Joe is enjoying giving the NYTimes the… snub:

    🤣🥳 Y’know, fuck the fucking New York Times! 😁

  22. 22.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud: Heh, the Morning Joe folks are debating whether the NYT is garbage.

    Interesting.  I’m not debating whether Joey Joe Joe Scarborough is a slapdick.

  26. 26.

    hueyplong

    FTFNYT effectively begged Biden to take this course of action, though all the while assuming that he couldn’t, that no Democrat could.  Welcome to the altered landscape, MFs.  Kudos to the Biden team for recognizing that FTFNYT would knife him regardless of how much he tried to placate them and that open warfare with FTFNYT fares better in a cost-benefit analysis than kow-towing to them.

    He learned the lesson bitterly hammered home by Hillary’s experience, while NYT arrogantly assumed they would face no revision of attitudes or actions as a result of their perfidy.

    Every one of these lessons applies with equal force to Bibi, who should be given pause by the example playing out in front of him.

    FTFNYT and “Jump You Fuckers.”

  27. 27.

    TBone

    Profane ritual you say?

    The documentary shows how Christian Nationalist leaders have spread disinformation and successfully turned culture wars into a “battle between good and evil.” In the 2024 election, Christian Nationalists now rule the Republican Party and are powerfully organized under the Project 2025 plan. “Bad Faith” pulls back the curtain on the financing behind this scary movement. Secretive organizations like the Council for National Policy and other extremist groups finance the Republican Party’s move to Christian Nationalism, and there is a serious threat to our democracy.

    crooksandliars.com/2024/05/bad-faith-documentary-christian

  30. 30.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Jertian:

    If Biden does Hot Ones, can he get a Secret Service agent to throw themselves on the wing covered in Da Bomb? 

    LOL!  Everyone hates Da Bomb sauce!

    Thank you to John Mulaney for finally describing its taste!

  31. 31.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Their framing choices really are weird. I read the whole poll. The choice to use the top line number for registered voters (where Trump is ahead) instead of likely voters (where Biden is ahead) is spin. It’s not truthful or trustworthy.

    Gaza is not the top issue for young voters and so that translates into Biden losing only a fraction – the bigger drop-off (and they say this is 10 paragraphs down) is moderate and Right leaning voters (on the economy and immigration). But they led with “Biden losing young voters on Gaza!”. because the entire newspaper is inciting a moral panic on young people.

    What I did was look back and compare to June 2020, out of curiosity. I couldn’t find May. They had Biden winning MI by ten and WI by 8. That just wasn’t predictive at all to what actually happened. It means they could be off BY TEN. Useless. You may as well throw a dart at a board.

  33. 33.

    Jeffro

    @OzarkHillbilly: LOL

    my otherwise completely male chauvinist (is that even a term anymore?) dad swears by female financial advisors

    “they’re less likely to take stupid risks with your money”

    Master of the Obvious, but hey.

  35. 35.

    narya

    @satby: Trumpeting registered rather than likely voters is bad enough, but not mentioning that they oversampled Rs . . . SMDH.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I’m thankful for Gaza because, if we lose, it’s much less embarrassing to say we lost because of Gaza than that we lost because we let ourselves be gaslit about the economy.  I don’t want to be in a party full of natural serfs.

    ETA: Or bigots, which is the real reason people are so easily gaslit.

  38. 38.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    Probate and elder law are being taken over by women. I personally think it’s the “wrap around” approach we tend to use, where we consider the whole family instead of just the person sitting in front of us. Lawyers who are men have sometimes dismissed this approach to me – to my face-  as “social work” but real human beings like it a lot :)

    It’s nice because those are fairly lucrative areas of law and so often “womens work” is the less well compensated part of any profession – women in family practice, men in surgery, or example. Once women break into a profession they have one more hurdle – they have to break into the lucrative areas of the profession.

  40. 40.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I think they would SAY that they use “registered” 5 months out and they will switch to likely in August (what they often do) – what that means to us is Biden will appear to be “closing the gap” on Trump and actually nothing will have happened. They’ll just be framing it differently.

    I sort of like nerdy Nate Cohn- their polls person. He should quit and go work for a reputable outlet. He’s just buried in the NYTimes overwritten garbage. The supposed “value add” – their shitty opinions.

  41. 41.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Evap:

    What are Hot Ones?

    I didn’t know either, so I looked it up. Apparently it’s an interview show with chicken wings. I imagine Spicy Brandon would love the opportunity.

  42. 42.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    If Biden is leading with likely voters, I’m curious as to who is considered likely nowadays.  I wonder if they’ve accounted for how Trump affects turnout on both sides.

    Not that curious actually. I don’t care about polls that much.

  44. 44.

    Geminid

    @hueyplong: The Israeli Prime Minister notoriously gives no interviews to Israeli publications. So opponents like Noga Tarnopolsky jeered last week, when in the midst of Israel’s biggest crisis since 1967, Netanyahu submitted to an hour of softball questions from none other than Middle East expert Dr. Phil.

  45. 45.

    Kay

    So we found out in court yesterday that Maggie Haberman is, in fact, a Trump hack? You could knock me over with a feather.

  47. 47.

    Raven

    @E.: For a few years my GP was a former Marine infantry officer who treated me like a boot. I finally switched to a female doc and never looked back!

  48. 48.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Sort of related: Ever heard of “Fisk,” an Australian sitcom about a woman who takes a probate law job? It’s streaming on Netflix — hilarious! The title character, Fisk, is hired because she’s a woman (and daughter of a retired justice), and her male boss is marketing the firm as empathetic and family oriented. But she’s totally lacking in those qualities. It’s pretty funny. ;-)

  49. 49.

    Brachiator

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Now researchers who examined more than 700,000 operations spanning a decade report that hospitals with more women in their surgical teams provide better outcomes for patients. The findings were published in the British Journal of Surgery.

    When I was a kid, my mother chose a lady pediatrician to be my regular doctor, even though a friend of the family was a well respected male doctor. I think my mother was just quietly feminist. And even though TV doctors were typically male, for a long time I believed that most doctors in the real world were women.

    My current family practice doctor is a woman.

  52. 52.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Texts from Michael Cohen to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman show how former President Trump’s ex-fixer worked to protect Trump from scrutiny over the hush money payment central to his ongoing criminal trial.

    “Please start writing and I will call you soon,” Cohen wrote Haberman on Feb. 6, 2018, texts entered as evidence in Trump’s criminal case show.

    Cohen subsequently texted Haberman a statement claiming he had used his own personal funds to make the hush payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who planned to come forward with allegations of a past affair with Trump just weeks before the 2016 presidential election.
    Tuesday was not the first time the texts between Cohen and Haberman were made public. The messages were also shown to the jury considering the case on May 2.

    All the NYTimes reporters defensively tell us their work is complex and no one can understand it but it turns out it’s pretty simple – Trump people text them self serving, lying bullshit and they immediately use their privileged perches to shout it from the rooftops. A to B. 

  55. 55.

    hueyplong

    @Geminid: I was way too vague.  I wasn’t referencing Bibi vis a vis his own media, I was thinking about how Biden needs to view Bibi through the same lens as the NYT, as an entity that takes advantage of him and gives nothing in return

    And how Bibi needs to draw conclusions from the fact that Biden has now given him an example (NYT) of not taking that kind of shit anymore.

  56. 56.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Gotcha.  I can understand reporters asking people for a reaction quote about a topic in this matter, but this seems to be looking for a quote about the key question in the story.

  57. 57.

    TBone

    My former female physician was a nightmare.  Aptly named Ayn.  Not all female doctors are on the up and up.  She once tried to do a “surprise!” OB/GYN exam.  I told her to fuck off with that, there’s NO WAY you’re doing that without advance notice!

  59. 59.

    Ken

    @Kay: “Oooo, I’ve been sent incredibly important information about criminal activity by one of the two major-party presidential candidates. As a reporter, what should I do? I know, I’ll keep it secret and use it in my next book.”

  60. 60.

    TBone

    I am curious by nature and can’t help wondering who will and how will someone outdo him or herself in a spectacle of sniveling fealty to compete in the flaming clown show for Orange Turd today.  Yesterday’s matching outfits were a gas! 😆

  61. 61.

    Kay

    @Ken:

    Right? Expect a deluge of offended, self righteous defenses from the entire team at the NYTimes. They are so bad at accepting criticism.

    The political books are a disaster for the public. They’ve distorted all the reporting.

    One thing I think is comforting about this trial is we all say “nothing matters” with Trump, like he’s teflon. Well, Trump thinks this shit matters – it’s why he and his team lie constantly to cover things up. If his criminality actually didn’t matter he wouldn’t bother.

  62. 62.

    Kay

    @Ken:

    When Trump first became the nominee in 2016 I thought “well, he’s a crook and the NYTimes is in his backyard – a hometown boy, they’ve known him for 50 years – we’ll get really good coverage”

    I wrote that in comments here. God, was I naive. What it means is that they are in the tank for him.

  63. 63.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I think everyone was relatively naive before November 2016.

    ETA: about different things.  I’m proud to admit that I had the NYT’s number throughout that election season.

  65. 65.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: Ugh, so much of that is not even true. Of course it’s easy for his wife to be a homemaker, they don’t need her income! What a tool…..

  68. 68.

    Soprano2

    @E.: I’ve found throughout my career that committees and groups composed of people who all have the same education and background make worse decisions than groups of people with diverse education and backgrounds. Everyone has blind spots that others can see. The challenge is getting people to recognize that others who are different and have different experiences from them have valuable insights to share. I go back to the case study I did in college, where a group of Southwestern Bell marketers actually thought it was a good idea to represent the continent of Africa with a gorilla when all other continents were represented by people! (True story that really happened.) You can imagine the fallout from that bad decision, probably made by a bunch of white, male college graduates.

  70. 70.

    Ken

    @Kay: And with George Santos, the NYT kept up their reputation for investigative reporting of New York politicians.

  71. 71.

    TBone

    I’m so old I remember when the fast food burger people had to pull the 1/3 pound burger off the market for poor sales because people didn’t know it was bigger than a quarter pounder.

    These people are the cult.

  73. 73.

    Soprano2

    @Jeffro: You mean like selling off all the energy stocks right after Russia invaded Ukraine, thus costing me a pretty penny in taxes? Yeah, I have a meeting with that guy today. He stopped in person meetings after Covid, this is the first time I’ve seen him since February 2020. He was pooh-poohing that Covid would be a big deal at that meeting, while I was telling him to get ready for something bad. Gee, who was right about that? LOL

  74. 74.

    Geminid

    @hueyplong: Yes, I wasn’t exactly addressing your point, just bringing up another of the darkly humorous events of this disastrous war.

  75. 75.

    Soprano2

    I think the NY Times has guaranteed that Biden will never give them an interview because of their public whining about it.

  76. 76.

    Tony Jay

    Biden should have his Press people (not the Press Secretary, one of the interns) invite the FTFNYT over ‘for a chat’ at least once a month, but each time bump them off the schedule in favour of a more serious publication, starting with Aardvark Owners Monthly and working through the alphabet until they get the message.

    They proved they love dominance games. So, dominate the hell out of them.

  77. 77.

    Baud

    @Jeffro:

    they’re less likely to take stupid risks with your money”

    Master of the Obvious, but hey

     

    Don’t right wingers consider tax dollars their money? Maybe there’s a lesson there somewhere about who they should vote for.

  80. 80.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: NPR seems to be starting back on their daily story about how bad inflation is. I’ve been noticing it the past couple of weeks. I swear, they’re trying to tank Biden.

  82. 82.

    Another Scott

    @Kay:

    One thing I think is comforting about this trial is we all say “nothing matters” with Trump, like he’s teflon. Well, Trump thinks this shit matters – it’s why he and his team lie constantly to cover things up. If his criminality actually didn’t matter he wouldn’t bother.

    I think it’s more than that. It’s his mantra, “you hit me, I’ll hit you 10x harder.” What’s happening is a piece of his whole history – You want me to take a test? Ha, I’ll show you, I’ll have a ringer take the test. You want me to pay taxes? Ha, I’ll show you, I’ll demand refunds. You want me to treat women and girls as human beings worthy of respect? Ha, I’ll show you.  I’ll use them however I want and laugh at them and you. You want me to obey federal law and an oath? Ha, I’ll show you, I’ll break the law and the system in the open and dare you to do anything about it.

    It’s not that he’s afraid of accountability or that he thinks these trials matter. He’s continuing to demand that they don’t matter at all. That he’s special.

    He wants impunity, and if he doesn’t get it he’ll try to break anything and everything for daring to stand in his way.

    He demands to be outside the lines and above the rules. The rest of us have to stand up to him.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  83. 83.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Raven: I’m curious…if something hurt, say your knee, did he prescribe you rub Kiwi boot polish on it? Athlete’s foot? Wash with saddle soap and follow with Sno-Seal?

  84. 84.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: It’s also a growing part of the law, because the population is aging. The firm I spoke to seemed to have mostly female attorneys. You have to have tact and people skills to be successful in talking to people about this, because there are so many “touchy” issues when you talk about people getting older. I can see why women are attracted to it, while men aren’t. Men tend to discount feelings more often than women do, but when you’re talking about aging and end of life that’s a mistake. I heard an interview with a woman who wrote a book about the issues of aging where she expressed dismay that so many people are more concerned about incontinence than anything else when talking about end of life; I thought she was clueless and has been around the healthcare field too long. Of course people are super worried about that – it’s humiliating to realize that you can’t control your bodily functions anymore, and that fact can limit your life a lot. I was surprised at how dismissive she sounded, as if it’s an easy issue to address.

  85. 85.

    Kay

    I don’t think Gaza will turn the election – most people don’t care which is consistent with all our foreign policy failures and most people dislike protestors, which is consistent with all US protests of any kind over the last 100 years.

    But we’re sending a billion more in bombs to Israel. We’re going to essentially wipe out the Palestinian population between the massive bombing of residential areas, the famine because Israel won’t led aid in, and the crisis in medical care.

    There will be a reckoning on this and the United States will absolutely be complict in war crimes. We probably won’t be prosecuted for it – we’re huge and powerful and we’ll just bully the prosecutors, but we should be. These are crimes. It’s criminal behavior. It isn’t going to just go away.

  90. 90.

    Mousebumples

    @Kay: But we’re sending a billion more in bombs to Israel. We’re going to essentially wipe out the Palestinian population between the massive bombing of residential areas, the famine because Israel won’t led aid in, and the crisis in medical care.

    I read something yesterday that indicated it’s a review period for $1B more. Which could be used as leverage (may be hopium to say that, granted) and they’re not being shipped imminently.

    I’ll see if I can track that down. However, I had similar concerns when I read the first headline. But framing from the political press is terrible!

  91. 91.

    Mousebumples

    @Baud: hah, fair enough. I’ve seen some clips on YouTube but not enough of them to say I watch it regularly.

  93. 93.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Kay: Wouldn’t you think the editors would go apoplectic on her and fire her on the spot for holding back a scoop like that for a book? The only reason she was getting that info was because she’s a reporter for the NYT, yet somehow she’s still working for them despite saving all the juiciest info she got for her book rather than publishing it in the NYT.

  94. 94.

    dmsilev

    Biden proposes June and September faceoffs with Trump, ditching debate commission

    The Biden proposal, outlined in a video message and letter to the commission, called for direct negotiations between the Trump and Biden campaigns over the rules, moderators and network hosts for the one-on-one meetings. He proposed a separate vice-presidential debate in July, after the Republican nominating convention and before the Democratic nominating convention.

    “Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, and since then he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he is acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice,” Biden said in the video released Wednesday that referenced the weekly break in Trump’s New York criminal trial. “So let’s pick the dates, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays.”

    Could also have suggested the date that Barron Trump graduates, since TFG is undoubtedly looking for an excuse to blow that off.

  95. 95.

    p.a.

    Has he done a Nickelodeon interview yet?  tRump won’t talk to them; I remember they asked actual questions back in the day.  Or was that Seventeen?  Is Nickelodeon still a thing?

  96. 96.

    Brachiator

    @Kay:

    All the NYTimes reporters defensively tell us their work is complex and no one can understand it but it turns out it’s pretty simple – Trump people text them self serving, lying bullshit and they immediately use their privileged perches to shout it from the rooftops.

    The NY Times is obsessed with being recognized as the official paper of record for the United States. Problem is, they confuse this with doing good journalism. And their response to Biden’s refusal to give them an interview underscores that their opposition to Biden is more about petty spite than ideology.

    Curiously, the NYT editors and publisher are very much like Trump in this respect, sullen, resentful children who demand to be loved and deferred to.

    It is also telling that Trump loves to talk about how much he distrusts the Times, but is eager to have Haberman and other Times reporters embedded in his campaign. And the Times happily complies. Together they become a parasitic mutual bullshit society.

  97. 97.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: Did you hear about the aid convoy that was attacked by Israelis yesterday? They destroyed the food and set the trucks on fire. If Israel won’t protect the convoys, I’m not sure what can be done about this. One big problem is, I think the majority of the Israeli population supports stuff like this! They don’t care if the Palestinians die from bombs or hunger, because they think they’re all Hamas terrorists or potential Hamas terrorists, even the children. In their eyes, Bibi is doing the right thing about Gaza.

  98. 98.

    Mousebumples

    @Mousebumples: visible to logged in bsky users only, but here’s what I saw last night, from WSJ reporting…

    bsky.app/profile/ajaxsinger.bsky.social/post/3ksiaisuqze2n

    I’m holding onto hope the article is based on the triggering of a review process that’s essentially necessary for a 90-day decision window and not a decision itself. If it’s that, then it’s decent leverage I guess, but still a really bad thing. If it’s a decision to move ahead, Biden’s on crack.

    Later, after someone provided the text/screenshots of more than the headline…

    bsky.app/profile/ajaxsinger.bsky.social/post/3ksibhlx7rr27

    Okay y’all, Biden didn’t authorize a new $1B in arms for Israel, he opened a review period for it. This also sucks but isn’t the same thing.

    The generous read is that it’s a leverage move for further negotiations. The cynical read is the arms deal is a foregone conclusion. I’m in camp leverage.

     

    bsky.app/profile/ajaxsinger.bsky.social/post/3ksijdvn5um2n

    The review process, even if it isn’t halted, goes until late August and then there’s another process, so… Yeah.

     

    bsky.app/profile/docbenway.bsky.social/post/3ksibnaia2g2r

    I’m hoping so. The article talks about how this could be seen in Israel as a ratification of Bibi’s plans for Rafah but this move doesn’t do anything definitive and the deliveries wouldn’t get to Israel any time soon even if they are approved.

    Not an expert on arms deals or government processes, so that’s about all I’ve got. Your mileage may vary.

  99. 99.

    RevRick

    @TBone: Perhaps a better heading for this post would have been “Truth-seeking — Sacred and Profane”

    The question is often posed that “If all religions are about the truth, how can there be a gazillion of them, all with different explanations?”  The assumption is that all religions are aiming to explain a core “truth”, and therefore they cannot all be true, because they disagree on how to get there.
    That, of course, ignores the huge overlap between various religions, such as the fact that they all have various contemplative practices. But what really matters for all religions is not that they are trying to explain some core “truth”. It’s that they all recognize a core reality of human existence and try to offer some means of dealing with it.

    Throughout the Bible, for example, both Hebrew and Christian portions, you will find exhortations like “don’t be afraid,” and “don’t be anxious,” along with the promise that one day God will wipe away every tear. And what that means is that the core truth of human existence is that we will have every reason to fear, be anxious, or shed tears of grief. It’s the claim, both stated and implied, that there is a fundamental brokenness to our world, that is both within us and surrounds us, that we cannot get around. And all religions offer some way of understanding and coping with this reality. But even more, they promise that despite this hard reality (primarily that we die), there’s a deeper inherent goodness we can tap into.
    For us, there’s a political question attached to this, and that is “How do we deal with people, whose response to this reality of brokenness and death is to try to create a world where they are always on top, always get priority, and will use violence to achieve this end?”

  100. 100.

    Geminid

    @dmsilev: That debate challenge is the top story on the 9am CBS radio news. The report has a clip of Biden saying, “…well make my day, pal.”

  101. 101.

    p.a.

    @Soprano2: NPR seems to be starting back on their daily story about how bad inflation is. I’ve been noticing it the past couple of weeks. I swear, they’re trying to tank Biden.

     

     

    Yep.  No breathless stories about how cheap eggs are currently, are there?

  102. 102.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Soprano2:

    Totebagger Radio can’t help itself. Their economics coverage is always some combo of the Chicago economics school of austerity and various aspects of Reaganomics.  As such, all “reporting” is done in order to support that although they’d never actually label what they do as anything other than “balanced”.

    Reason 1,235 to a) never give them money, and 2) never listen to them in the first place.

  104. 104.

    Mousebumples

    @dmsilev: that’s Friday of this week, I think. And I think Trump already has dinner plans in Minnesota that night from what I’ve read.

  106. 106.

    Kay

    @Mousebumples:

    The review period is mandated by statute due to the size of the aid. To me it looks like boilerplate that will be routinely reviewed.

    I feel a kind of panic watching this. There are only 2 million people in Gaza. It’s a small area. Conservative estimates are we’ve already helped kill 50,000.  If this continues we will have wiped out most of them by August. This will actually happen – it’s no longer conjecture or hyperbole.

  107. 107.

    E.

    @Soprano2: I listen to NPR about once a year. Every time it pisses me off enough to renew my boycott within just a few minutes. A few weeks ago I turned it on and heard an interview with a truck driver complaining about how much better the economy was under Trump. This was the sum total of their evidence. Testimony from a random truck driver. I could hardly believe it.

  109. 109.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2: This is National Security Minister Ben-Gvir’s work. He let the vandals know about the shipments, then kept the police away.

    British Foreign Minister David Cameron is calling for arrests, but that is unlikely. One possibile outcome, though: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen may pull the trigger and put Ben-Gvir into the sanctions regime announced February 1. The UK adopted the sanctions program shortly after the Biden administration announced it, so they can beat Yellen to the punch if they want to.

  110. 110.

    Mousebumples

    @Kay: fair enough. And I agree with feeling helpless about this all… But I’m not sure Bibi can be argued with any more than Putin can. Withholding weapons used for genocide seems reasonable.

    Thanks for keeping our attention on this topic.

  111. 111.

    Soprano2

    @p.a.: Nope, nothing about how the baby formula crisis is over, either, but a lot of hand wringing about credit card debt being high and prices still not going down. People seem to believe that if inflation goes down, prices will go down too, and the press certainly doesn’t do much to disabuse them of that idea.

  112. 112.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: That’s even worse, that it was directed by part of the government! I think this is one factor that most people here don’t understand, how much of the Israeli public is on board with what’s happening in Gaza. It complicates the efforts to stop it.

    I just listened to a “This American Life” episode where they did periodic phone calls with a man in Rafah named Yousef. He got all his family there to keep them safe – 60 people, all moved in a couple of months. Then Israel started saying now Rafah isn’t safe, you’re going to have to move again, and he’s throwing up his hands saying what are we going to do now. His sister almost died giving birth because the medical care is so poor there. It was truly appalling to hear what they’re going through, and this was in March.

  113. 113.

    TBone

    @RevRick: all I can say today is:  same way I deal with ALL bullies.  They are only frightened cowards beneath their bluster.  Make ’em spit their Chiclets and they turn tail and cower every time.  Just stand up to ’em and watch ’em crumble on those feet of clay.

  114. 114.

    sab

    @Baud: Andrew Weissman of all people admitted that he was naive when Trump was elected and many people said Trump was a mob guy. He said “Oh come on. He’s horrible but he’s not a mobster.”

    Then years later the entire Republican leadership of Congress turns up in identical outfits at his trial, just like mobster bros.

  115. 115.

    Another Scott

    Fritschner’s roundup of yesterday’s Maryland election results:

    Aaron Fritschner
    @Fritschner
    1h

    Maryland primary numbers:

    – 20% of Republicans voted against Trump
    – Nearly 40% of Republicans voted against Hogan
    – At least 25% of Trump voters voted against Hogan (likely a lot more than that)
    – Alsobrooks’ party support in Senate primary just a few % below Hogan’s

    [ images ]

    May 15, 2024 · 11:47 AM UTC

    Comments point out that Alsobrooks got many, many more (roughly 100,000 more at one point, dunno about the final tally) votes than Hogan.

    Good, good.

    Forward!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  116. 116.

    Baud

    @dmsilev:

    I hear you’re free on Wednesdays

     

    Oh snap.

    Biden’s going to lose. No way American voters will put up with confident and sassy Democrats.

  119. 119.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Kay:

    They react very differently when the criticism is from right-wingers

    ETA – The FTFNYT’s hatred of Hillary Clinton overrode all other considerations in coverage in 2016. The popped champagne corks when she lost.

  121. 121.

    sab

    @Soprano2: There is no such thing as “NPR” from an editorial standpoint. Every show is different. So if you say NPR says….whatever, I immediately discount what you say. Morning Edition and All Things Considered suck. The other shows not so much.

  123. 123.

    Citizen Dave

    @sdhays: I’ve seen many episodes, very fun show.  The Gordan Ramsey ep is a classic also, he starts swearing profusely

    Biden and Harris should do it together.  Obama did Between Two Ferns.

  125. 125.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2: When Israelis protest the government in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Ben-Gvir has water cannons and mounted police to disperse them. The cops beat on protesters, even relatives of hostages. So the lack of law enforcement when hooligans vandalized the aid trucks was all the more scandalous.

    Ben-Gvir is himself a hooligan, in no way fit for any public office. Netanyahu invited him into this rotten government because he was willing to help the PM fix his long-running prosecution for corruption

    Ed. Ben-Gvir and his ally Bezalel Smotrich knew they had “Bibi” over a barrel, so they extracted key ministries from him..

  126. 126.

    Bostondreams

    @Soprano2:

    Considering the massive protests against the Israeli government that seem to happen every week, I’m not sure that’s true. The polling, for what its worth, suggests it isn’t. It’s the ultra right and ultra religious settler types…

  127. 127.

    p.a.

    One article, can’t remember where, was “Biden Admin Plans Another $1B Weapons Shipment to Israel”, or some such.

    paragraph 13: “Republican House leaders working on bill to force Biden Admin. to send extra $1B in weapons to Israel.  Uncertain future in Senate.”

    And so it goes.

  128. 128.

    Another Scott

    @sab: +1

    And even if one accepts that NPR news has lots of problems, public radio is much, much more than NPR news.  And there are many other public radio networks that put out good shows.  One can be a strong supporter of public radio while demanding that NPR news does better.

    [ insert rants about Alyssa Chang, and the horrible biased people on BBC News here ]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  129. 129.

    sab

    @Kay: Please keep saying this. I know you sound like a stuck record in the comments but please keep saying this. There will be a reckoning someday and you will have been a lone voice out there.

  130. 130.

    Kay

    @Melancholy Jaques:

    Amy Chozick covered Hillary for the Times and Chozick was busy writing a book about a plucky reporter covering a losing candidate at the same time. HBO was supposedly picking up Chozick’s junk for a series but it doesn’t seem to have happened. Good.

    That company is ridiculous. It’s people selling their own books with some news reporting thrown in.

  132. 132.

    Brachiator

    @Soprano2:

    @Baud: NPR seems to be starting back on their daily story about how bad inflation is. I’ve been noticing it the past couple of weeks. I swear, they’re trying to tank Biden.

    Some of this is based on the periodic survey of consumer expectation, which comes from the New York Federal Reserve Bank. NPR is not making this up, and the reporting on this on public radio programs like Marketplace is pretty balanced and tries to put it into perspective.

  133. 133.

    Soprano2

    @sab: Yeah, I guess I should be more clear – it’s mostly Morning Edition and All Things Considered. I use NPR as shorthand when I shouldn’t.

  134. 134.

    Sandia Blanca

    @Betty Cracker: Echoing others above: “Fisk” is hilarious! Each character is quirky in a different way. And Fisk does grow into her new role as a client-facing attorney. Fun fact: Kitty Flanagan, who stars as Helen Tudor-Fisk, also co-created, wrote, and directed the series.

  136. 136.

    Kay

    @sab:

    It sometimes feels like we (the US) are waiting until this population is eradicated before we stop the blank check we’ve given Israel- that’s what the protestors think – that this is all bullshit and the US is just stalling until the genocide is complete. I’m not that cynical. Yet.

  137. 137.

    sab

    @RevRick: God recognizes different cultures. I firmly believe that my dogs have a God that they believe in and who guides them and (surprise!) is the same God as we believe in. Only we don’t know that, nor do they.

  138. 138.

    Soprano2

    @Bostondreams: Maybe they’ve changed over time, but I know I’ve heard stories about this. Too many Israelis see all Palestinians as Hamas terrorists, and it’s not just settlers.

  139. 139.

    Soprano2

    @Brachiator: Marketplace may be balanced, but all I seem to hear on Morning Edition is “Inflation is up, prices are up, credit card debt is high, rent is high, food is high, freak out!”. This is abbreviated, of course, but it’s what my ear hears.

  140. 140.

    sab

    @Kay: Everyone who says the Palestinian Americans are over reacting are discounting the half century when we said if you just calm down and behave we will someday help you. Well that was obvious BS. We are looking at unlabeled genocide and that is supposed to be okay.

  143. 143.

    Baud

    @Soprano2:

    I’ll note that when I lurked at LGM, a common viewpoint expressed was that the Fed was hurting working people by keeping inflation too low.  I believe 4% was considered the ideal target rather than the Fed’s target of 2%.

  144. 144.

    Citizen Dave

    Let’s combine two ideas: Biden and TFG’s debate should be on Hot Ones.

     

    Adding another recommendation for Fisk.  Hilarious show and great peek into Australian culture.

  149. 149.

    sab

    @Kay: Probate gets a bad name. My parents did everything to avoid probate. My dad died a month ago. His bank has been really helpful with his actual probate subject accounts.  Vanguard with his IRA and Huntington Bank trust department have been less helpful. The transfer to heirs has been difficult. Six weeks later I am still jumping through hoops and going to meetings.

    I will do everything possible to spare my stepkids this nonsense

    ETA My brain is foggier than it used to be. So I watch Soprano2 a lot and ponder what to to do planning for the future.

  150. 150.

    Soprano2

    @satby: Thanks for that, it was helpful. I think it’s more that the reporting on polling is garbage because so many of the reporters don’t know how to get into the polls like this man does. I think the oversampling of R’s is key to why this poll looks the way it does.

  151. 151.

    Soprano2

    @sab: My mother had a trust and had everything set up to pass on relatively painlessly, and it still took me three years to wrap up her estate. I’m hopeful it will all be done by the end of this year. These things aren’t that easy even when you do everything you can to make it so.

    I know a man who thought he was the best businessman ever; he died in a motorcycle vs. car accident when he was 67. He owned a business and yet didn’t even have a will. For awhile the probate court was literally telling the business manager how to run the business. I think this is something you want to avoid at all costs.

  152. 152.

    TBone

    @OzarkHillbilly: and vice versa 😉 I once walked up to a guy pretty high up in the motorcycle gang hierarchy who had a bad case of sunburn.  He was holding court in front of some “lesser” friends of mine. I walked over, slapped him on his back, and said something really cocky.  He turned an even deeper red.  He so badly wanted to hit me!  That’s back when my dad was still a cop and I could get away with shit like that.  These days, hubby is my protector and he does not give a fuck who you are.

  154. 154.

    p.a.

    @sab: I don’t know how much my reich-wing relatives spent on lawyers to avoid probate and the death tax, they weren’t talking costs, were cagey about who they saw and what they did; trust funds I assume.

    They were nowhere nohow in any danger of having to pay an estate tax.😂😂😂😂

  155. 155.

    Barbara

    @sab: It took me more than two years to settle my mother’s very simple estate.  I am surprised that Vanguard doesn’t have an IRA process similar to the institution my mother used.  It should be fairly straightforward.

  158. 158.

    Gin & Tonic

    Pro-russian PM of Slovakia, Robert Fico, shot and wounded.

    ETA: Gavrilo Princip is still dead.

  159. 159.

    grubert

    Could just be that people who can handle diversity at work are more competent in general.

  161. 161.

    sab

    @Barbara: It hasn’t been because 35 years ago when I worked for a big six or eight accounting firm they set me up with a 401k account that they never contributed to because I left when I thought they were a criminal enterprise.

    So Vanguard has two names under one social security number. Because meanwhile I got married. And they have no extremely difficult way to deal with this very normal situation.

  167. 167.

    hueyplong

    @Gin & Tonic: If the headline said “Pro-Russian American politician shot and wounded,” we’d have no idea which of many Republicans had been hit.

  169. 169.

    Soprano2

    @UncleEbeneezer: I am especially impatient with the whining about how they’re feminizing the culture, which usually means people don’t like it when you’re an asshole. These people seem to think being masculine = being a jerk or asshole.

  173. 173.

    PAM Dirac

    @Another Scott:

    Fritschner’s roundup of yesterday’s Maryland election results:

    It is true that Hogan could only get a little over 60% of the R vote, but what isn’t said is that it was against an extremely weak field. Robin Ficker!, for god’s sake, got a little over 30%. He has been a joke candidate for decades. I have joked that he has put up more roadside signs than votes he has gotten. Ficker even won a few red counties. The other thing to note is that these R voters are very unlikely to turn to Hogan in the general. Why should they? In the ’22 governor’s race when the MAGAs defeated Hogan’s preferred candidate Hogan refused to support the R nominee. On the other hand, Trone has already gotten behind Alsobrooks:

    “I need all of you to come together to support the Democratic Party so we can hold the Senate,” Trone said to the crowd, adding later, “Let’s get behind our nominee.”

    I’ve seen Trone be a good soldier in his House career and I’m quite sure he will be a good soldier in the general. And on top of all that Hogan is going to be hammered on his support/don’t support abortion dance. The Ds still have to work hard (turnout seemed really low), but I don’t see any reason for pessimism.

  174. 174.

    frosty

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Yep. Women have to be twice as good to get half the credit. My GP has been a woman for at least the last 20 years. We have a male/female team managing our money but other than regular meetings, the woman is my contact.

    Both health and money seem to be doing well!

  175. 175.

    sab

    @Soprano2: So true. When my husband was courting me (I did not want to marry again)  the deciding factor was how kind he was to his kids and his ex.

    ETA 25 years later we are still happily married

    ETA And I love his kids as much as if they were mine.

  176. 176.

    Baud

    @PAM Dirac:

    Trone is fine, even if he’s not the BJ ideal.  Sounds like his concession speech was more gracious than Katie Porter’s.

  177. 177.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @TBone: When I was in HS I knew a kid who went to a fair w/ 2 billy clubs up his sleeves just so he could hurt somebody. Badly.

    The penultimate example: Ken McElroy. His reign/rain of terror lasted decades. The “Events prior to his killing” paragraphs don’t even begin to cover everything he did.

    I’m reading In Broad Daylight and I find myself thinking time and again, “I’d have shot* that son of a bitch.” which is in fact what they finally did.

    *no matter how unlikely that is or isn’t.

  179. 179.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @PAM Dirac: Robin Ficker!, for god’s sake, got a little over 30%. He has been a joke candidate for decades.

    We moved away from DC/MD in 2001, but I think I know that name. Is he the lawyer (and probably resident of Potomac. Kavanaugh country for those not familiar with the area) who was perpetually fighting to eliminate property taxes?

    Google: Yep, that’s the guy. Still riding that hobby horse.

  181. 181.

    PAM Dirac

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Is he the lawyer (and probably resident of Potomac.

    Well he’s been disbarred and he is probably mainly known for getting season tickets behind the visiting teams’s bench for then Bullets/now Wizards games and being an obnoxious heckler, but that’s him. I don’t think he has any real issues, he just wants to be as big an asshole as he can to as many people as he can.

  184. 184.

    cain

    @Geminid: At this point, he’s more interested in the American audience than the Israeli ones. The Israeli journalists would probably hammer his ass into tinfoil.

  186. 186.

    Jackie

    @Kristine: Highlights for Children. Biden would get better and more relevant questions from kids than TFNYT. And have a blast!

  188. 188.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Baud: I spent last week in Maryland, and got kinda saturated by Trone ads, the gist of which were basically “nothing against Alsobrooks, but the Democrats need to hold the Senate to protect against the Trumpists, and Trone is the best option for that”: basically that the critical question wasn’t who’d be the best Senator, but the best candidate.

    Good for Trone for stepping up to support Alsobrooks.

  190. 190.

    eponymous

    @Soprano2:

     

    When I  hear those bozos talk about “don’t be afraid to be masculine”, I hear “don’t be afraid to slap the bitch around some when she gets mouthy”

  192. 192.

    3Sice

    In 2022 Democrats did not want to believe their internal polling, preferring the garbage polls being pushed into the media.

    This cost races.

    The standard GOP modis operandi is flooding the media zone with shit polls, and sending their candidate (or running-mate) off to Hawaii, or Minnesota, or where ever, insisting it is in play.

    Fuck this noise.

  194. 194.

    Soprano2

    @eponymous: That’s what I hear too, basically “It’s OK to be a jerk”. It’s one of the things they love about TFG, that he’s not afraid to be a raging asshole.

  195. 195.

    hueyplong

    @rikyrah: One spin on that is that FTFNYT begged a Phillips to challenge Biden and then, when he did and it failed, pretended that it never happened.

    Really struggling to articulate just how happy I am that the Biden camp has eschewed appeasement and has chosen outright war with FTFNYT.

    The timing of its poll, trashing Biden after relatively good Biden polls while Trump is on criminal trial; i.e., when Trump desperately needed it, sure does encourage us to be skeptical of the concept of coincidence.

  197. 197.

    PAM Dirac

    @Baud:

    That sounds like an ideal Republican candidate.

    You would think. He might have had a chance if the ’22 R primary voters all came out. I get the feeling that the MAGAs have given up in MD. Dan Cox, the ’22 R governor candidate, lost badly to Neil Parrot in the R primary for the 6th Congressional District, the district that includes all of western MD. Parrott has been the nominee for the last 2 elections and been beaten rather comfortably by Trone each time. You would think Cox would be a good candidate to channel the Hogan hate into, but Parrott beat Cox even in the Trumpiest Garrett County. I would never have predicted that and I’m not quite sure what it means.

  198. 198.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Geminid: ​
    Politico Europe says he’s in “life-threatening condition” and was helicoptered to a hospital. Multiple shots, including reportedly in the head.

  199. 199.

    Quiltingfool

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The penultimate example: Ken McElroy. His reign/rain of terror lasted decades. The “Events prior to his killing” paragraphs don’t even begin to cover everything he did.

    I was thinking about that case the other day!  I read that book, and I couldn’t fathom how McElroy lasted as long as he did.  Here in Redneckland (Lake of the Ozarks) someone would have burned him out (yes, this has happened around here in the past).

    In the book I read, there was an anecdote about a local preacher who had been threatened by McElroy.  Preacherman told McElroy to come on by his house, he’d be waiting on the porch (with gun in hand) for him.  McElroy didn’t show, no surprise.  Classic bully.

    AFAIK, they’ve never found out who killed the guy.  I figure that people either knew who did it and pretended they didn’t or the person who did it never talked to anyone about the plan and just did it.  I go with the not sharing the plan theory.  Someone always talks.

  200. 200.

    lowtechcyclist

    @satby:

    Popping in to drop this great Jay Kuo analysis of that NYT poll showing the felon leading Biden in battle ground states. And why the NYT is garbage.

    He’s got the basic idea right, but ‘overweighted’? Huh??

    To sum up, the Times overweighted Republicans, conservatives and English-speaking Latino households in its sample. It then used weights to try and normalize the results

    Sheesh. They oversampled Republicans, etc., and then used weights (presumably by giving larger weights to the voters from groups they undersampled) to try to normalize the results.

    Now the net result may have been that Republicans, etc. were still overweighted relative to their share of the population, but having brought up the issue of weighting, Kuo just kinda leaves it there without going into it.

    Truth is, your samples are rarely going to be a perfect reflection of the general population.  Statisticians have a thing called the “design effect” that measures how far the sample is from being a perfect miniature copy of the population being sampled.  Weighting (one hopes) rebalances the sample, but having to do it means your standard deviation and your margin of error need to be bigger. The design effect tells you how much bigger.

    So having made a big deal about certain groups being overrepresented in the sample, and having mentioned that the weighting was supposed to correct for that, Kuo doesn’t attempt to say whether the weighting corrected adequately, or even whether the results he’s showing are pre- or post-weighting, or whether they’re using appropriately embiggened margins of error.

  201. 201.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: One can argue in good faith that 2%, 3%, or 4% is the magic number.

    What infuriates me about the Fed is they seem to treat 2% as the upper bound rather than some sensible average.  Decades of actual data shows that the Fed has little control over inflation via interest rates these days (otherwise, the inflation rate wouldn’t have been below 2%, and objectively too low, for so long).  Too-low inflation gives the MotUs no incentive to spend their hoarded cash, and makes them fine with accepting 0.5% or even negative interest on their CDs.  It’s a failure, not a success, when inflation is too low.

    I’ve got some beefs with Powell, but he’s (and Yellen before him) are/were walking the walk about maximizing employment and finding ways to help people at the bottom with the tools they have available.  And 7% mortgages really aren’t that out of the ordinary (as painful as they are for people who thought that 3% mortgages were going to continue forever and ever amen).  Transitions are difficult.

    If I were Benevolent Despot, the Fed target average would be 3% over a 6 year cycle, 30 year mortgage rates would be 6%, federal and state taxes would be much more progessive (with more rate bands especially above $500k/yr) and there would be enough new housing to stop the insane increases in rent and single-family homes.

    But I’m not.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  203. 203.

    cmorenc

    @E.: @OzarkHillbilly:

    @OzarkHillbilly: I had a health problem about 20 years ago that sent me to many specialists. By the time it was over I had a rule: only women doctors. I haven’t had a male physician since.

    I had a female PA do my last general physical – when it came time for the manual prostate exam, she asked whether I’d prefer she bring in a male for that part – I said nope, I am fine with you doing it.

    This had previously been an awkwardly uncomfortable, borderline outright painful procedure (always previously done by a male MD or PA), but she was so skillfully gentle there was no discomfort at all, and so soothingly professional there was no awkwardness to her being female.

  205. 205.

    Another Scott

    @Soprano2: Another thing worth avoiding is having heirs fight over the spoils.  My step-mom had a line in her will saying that if anyone tried to fight the way she listed things would be divided, then they would get nothing.  Sensible.

    (A good friend was the executor of his parents (small) estate, and there were continuing battles among his sisters over who wanted what piece of jewelry and all the rest because his parents left it to him to decide.  He hated it, and it caused lots of additional hard feelings in the family.  And probably contributed to him not having a decent will when he died early of leukemia.  :-< )

    Best of luck, sab, and everyone.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  206. 206.

    marklar

    @Another Scott: ‘

    “If I were Benevolent Despot, …But I’m not.”

    Are you a despot who isn’t benevolent, or are you benevolent, yet not a despot?  ;)

  207. 207.

    lowtechcyclist

    @narya:

    Trumpeting registered rather than likely voters is bad enough, but not mentioning that they oversampled Rs . . . SMDH.

    The thing is, you can rectify that in the weighting (albeit at a cost to the effective sample size), and Kuo says they did something there, but then doesn’t say anything more about it.  So maybe that was adjusted for in an appropriate manner, or maybe it wasn’t, but Kuo is only telling us there was such an adjustment, and then leaves it at that.

  208. 208.

    Quiltingfool

    Back to the McElroy case.  His vigilante murder is what happens when a community loses faith in the justice system.  McElroy had been charged numerous times for crimes he committed, but the guy had enough money to hire a good lawyer who was excellent at getting cases before the court to last for years, so no justice happened.

    People got tired of seeing McElroy skate, and guess what happened.

    Sound like anybody we know?

  212. 212.

    sab

    @sab: They (Vanguard) call it a dual synchronicity account. Isn’t that precious. Makes it seem exotic, instead of the very normal situation where your single female employee gets married and takes a married name.

  215. 215.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @PAM Dirac:  I know many people who didn’t vote in the Maryland D primary as they felt okay with either Alsobrooks or Trone.  Alsobrooks carried the four most important areas of MD – PG County, Montgomery County, Baltimore and Baltimore County.  Get good numbers on those and one wins the state.  Damn, I thought Robin Ficker had died.  I remember his no hope campaigns in the 1990s.  He drew big numbers for him.

  216. 216.

    Villago Delenda Est

    A.G. “Microwinch” Sulzberger is throwing conniptions ala TIFG/PAB right now, and I’m laughing my ass off.

  217. 217.

    Baud

    Via Reddit

    One of the wealthiest members of Congress spent over $60 million just to lose Maryland’s messy Democratic Senate primary

    I highlight this just because of the offensive headline. What was messy about it? It was a primary. Only one Dem can win. I don’t even think it was particularly nasty, from what I’ve seen.
    Media sucks.

  218. 218.

    TBone

    @frosty: 😆 if your dad’s a cop it is a different story!  Sometimes, that was protective, sometimes it made me a target.  I was once kidnapped by taser and had to take a ride up the turnpike so cops wouldn’t pull the car over.  Once I was in a car that was pulled over, and the driver (carrying, unbeknownst to me) stuffed 1/4 lb. of weed into my jacket.  Sure enough, the cop who had us pulled over was suddenly called away to a more pressing emergency.

    It’s no coincidence that Dad dropped me off at a law office one day and said “get a job.”

  219. 219.

    Jackie

    This would be SWEET!

    Appearances at Donald Trump hush money trial by North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Florida Rep. Cory Mills could lead to the GOP lawmakers being hauled into court by Judge Juan Merchan.

    That also includes Sens. Tim Scott (R-SC), Tommy Tubervillle (R-AL) and J.D. Vance (R-OH) who made cameo appearances along with speeches on Monday.

    On Tuesday, the Republican cheering section which attended the trial as a show of solidarity with the embattled president accused of paying off an adult film star to keep her mouth shut before the 2016 presidential election, later made statements that could be construed as being violations of Trump’s gag order.

    Several off them attacked witness Michael Cohen and the daughter of the judge. Both are off bounds for Trump, and the order also prohibits people commenting on his behalf.

    Reacting to news that New York Magazine’s Andrew Rice spotted Donald Trump editing remarks for at least one lawmaker attacking the court proceedings before the press, former federal prosecutor Eric Lisann claimed prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office have every right to subpoena the Republicans.

    On X, he wrote, “Trump not denying that he is directing others to speak in ways that are violations of the gag order – which is a violation of the gag order. The judge, Justice Merchan, can order Trump to show cause why he should not be held in contempt. The DA can request that also. Subpoenas could go out to Scott, Vance, and Tuberville. But they think it would be a distracting circus and it could well be. That doesn’t mean though it is less problematic than doing nothing.”

    rawstory.com/trump-gag-order-2668267113/

    Much more at the link 😁

  221. 221.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @E.:

    Exactly.  Saying that one can be a public radio supporter while demanding that they improve their political coverage are ignoring 25 years of NPR having shitty political reporting while having listeners demand they get better.

    They haven’t.  Thus, many of us have spoken with our wallets (closing them) and ears (not tuning in).

    To paraphrase a phrase used in here: Fuck NPR.

  225. 225.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @rikyrah:

    Maggie Haberman received a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the Trump administration.

    When Jim Fucking Vandehei got on the Pulitzer board, that’s all I needed to know about how meaningful Pulitzers were in certain areas like political reporting.

    The fact that Maga Habs got one simply reinforces that perception.

    Now, their book awards are almost always great.

  231. 231.

    rikyrah

    Symone D. Sanders Townsend (@SymoneDSanders) posted at 7:18 PM on Tue, May 14, 2024:
    Unpopular opinion (maybe) but if I’m the Dems, I’m coordinating folks to be at the trial & then walk over to the cameras outside and drag Trump, the Republicans with him and then talk about what President Biden and VP Harris have been up to while Trump is in court. <<- So either way, Joe Biden’s efforts are covered.

    When they go low, you have to go toe to toe.

     

     

    Symone D. Sanders Townsend (@SymoneDSanders) posted at 7:40 PM on Tue, May 14, 2024:
    By Dems I don’t mean POTUS, VP or the cabinet. The party apparatus has to get crafty. The stakes are too high.

    also the stakes are too high for the media apparatus to pretend we don’t have a role. Not covering POTUS’s remarks on air is a choice. We (collectively) just have to own that.
    (x.com/SymoneDSanders/status/1790542718789181884?t=pYHJhBNZF03HmGc8wDShaA&s=03)

  232. 232.

    lowtechcyclist

    @sab:

    There is no such thing as “NPR” from an editorial standpoint. Every show is different. So if you say NPR says….whatever, I immediately discount what you say. Morning Edition and All Things Considered suck. The other shows not so much.

    Well, those are the ‘drive time’ shows, right?  Those are the time slots that get listened to.

    Back when I listened to NPR, I had no idea what they aired in between my morning and evening commutes, but because they sucked in those time slots, I stopped listening to them.

  235. 235.

    arrieve

    @RevRick:

    It’s the claim, both stated and implied, that there is a fundamental brokenness to our world, that is both within us and surrounds us, that we cannot get around. And all religions offer some way of understanding and coping with this reality. But even more, they promise that despite this hard reality (primarily that we die), there’s a deeper inherent goodness we can tap into.

    I always love the wisdom of your comments, but I needed to say that I particularly loved this.

  240. 240.

    Soprano2

    @Another Scott: My father died without a will. He had me, who was in college at the age of 21, my sister who was a minor child of 16, his new wife of less than 2 years, and my mother who he divorced after 22 years to marry said new wife. He was buying 40 acres of the farm my parents owned from my mother as part of the divorce settlement. As you can well imagine, this situation was a clusterfuck. It took me a long time to forgive my mother for hiring a lawyer literally the day my father died (not even an estate lawyer, he was a criminal lawyer who one of her friends knew) because that seemed to insensitive to me, but I can understand now why she felt she had to do it. (She still could have waited 3 days until we buried him for God’s sake, guess I’m still frosty about it.) My stepmother had to call the county sheriff on my mother, who climbed over the fence to count the cows because she was mad that stepmother was selling cows for income to survive, because stepmother was a secretary in an insurance agent’s office and didn’t make enough to live without my dad’s income. It made my senior year of college a lot more stressful than it would have otherwise been. I’ve never understood why he didn’t at least have a will, because he knew he was in poor health. Wills and trusts are acts of love for the people you leave behind, because it won’t affect you in the least.

  241. 241.

    cain

    @Bostondreams:

    I could easily see civil war happening between the settler types and the other population. There is only so much before that hate starts spilling over to other people.

  243. 243.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Back when I listened to NPR, I had no idea what they aired in between my morning and evening commutes, but because they sucked in those time slots, I stopped listening to them.

    Exactly.

    On many of the other talk/news shows that popped up over the years, I started to see the same editorial drift of the drive time shows creep into them.  Same guests with the same viewpoints spouting the same talking points.  Not always but if you compared it to the late 80s, pre-Clinton 90s, you’d note the difference.

    This was a piece written 19 years ago and is interesting in terms of “what to do to make a difference”…didn’t:

    dailykos.com/stories/2005/3/14/99295/-

    Alas, I did everything in that piece and it resulted in nothing.

  244. 244.

    Central Planning

    @lowtechcyclist: We should just say they de-skewed the poll and hope everyone remembers the last time republicans did that (I hope that wasn’t 2016) they were wildly incorrect.

  245. 245.

    Jackie

    @TBone: It’ll be telling how seriously TIFG’s sycophants take this: will another group make an appearance tomorrow? Or will he be all by himself 🎶, again?

  246. 246.

    lowtechcyclist

    @RevRick:

    For us, there’s a political question attached to this, and that is “How do we deal with people, whose response to this reality of brokenness and death is to try to create a world where they are always on top, always get priority, and will use violence to achieve this end?”

    Non serviam.  We won’t serve you, and we will stand against you when we can.

  251. 251.

    sab

    @lowtechcyclist: I listen to NPR all day, except during drive time when I listen to classical radio. Everyone is different, and NPR is on the air a lot more than the four or six hours of drivetime. I agree its drivetime shows really suck.

  252. 252.

    rikyrah

    Lindy Li (@lindyli) posted at 11:01 PM on Tue, May 14, 2024:
    Maggie Haberman sat on damning Trump intel for yrs to sell her book

    Bolton withheld evidence for Trump’s impeachment to sell his book

    Barr withheld J6 evidence to sell his book

    Meadows withheld his testimony to sell his book

    ALL are traitors who chose book sales over country
    (x.com/lindyli/status/1790593275000140238?s=02)

  254. 254.

    rikyrah

    Chris D. Jackson (@ChrisDJackson) posted at 9:05 PM on Tue, May 14, 2024:

    Need more evidence to doubt the reliability of polling? Take a glance at the Democratic Senate primary in Maryland tonight.

    Trone was leading in 99% of pre-election polls and maintained a 2-point advantage in the overall average before today.

    Yet, in actual election results tonight, Alsobrooks leads by a significant 10 points! Yes, ten!

    Moral of the story? Polling is broken and hard work and the quality of a candidate still matters!
    … t.co/Q6tmb1Fnh9
    (x.com/ChrisDJackson/status/1790564049429672253?s=02)

  255. 255.

    TBone

    @Jackie: oh, I have no doubt that they’ll double down on that strategery. Ever more blatant and bold in killing off what little respect their people retain for the Rule of Law.  They’re doing backflips off the high wire to curry Orange Turd’s favor and I don’t think tomorrow will be an exception.  In fact, I predict even more hilarity, if anything.

  259. 259.

    rusty

    @Soprano2: My father in law, a lawyer, didn’t finally make a will until he was almost 90.  He would have waited longer but was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and was finally convinced to get things down on paper.  With him it was a control issue, he liked having everyone dancing on the end of the leash he held, worried about what would happen.  He would periodically state he had consulted an actuarial table and had X more years to live so he would wait.  It was a fun game for him.  The end result is going to be a lot of bitterness.   Wife number 3 will effectively end up with everything, she carefully kept his daughters away from the process.  What distribution that will happen will end up treating his daughters, from his first marriage, the same as wife #3’s daughters from her first marriage.  Same for the grandkids.  (Just to be clear, they married when all the various daughters from both sides were already in their 30’s).  It was all so easily avoided, but then he wouldn’t have been able to play his games.  I watched any number of people play games with their estates that result in permanently damaging relationships of the surviving families. 

  263. 263.

    sab

    @Soprano2: So much this. Wills are for the survivors not for the dead guy.

    So I am going to substantially revamp my estate planning.

  264. 264.

    Jackie

    @TBone: I’m rather surprised MTG hasn’t made an appearance. She must really be in TIFG’s doghouse over her embarrassingly humiliating antics trying to oust Johnson. 😁

  265. 265.

    rikyrah

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:

    @Kay: Wouldn’t you think the editors would go apoplectic on her and fire her on the spot for holding back a scoop like that for a book?

     

    Then they’d have to fire their entire political beat team.

    ALL of those muthaphuckas held back stuff – IN REAL TIME – that the public had the right to know….

     

    FOR THEIR PHUCKING BOOKS.

  267. 267.

    rikyrah

    @Baud:

    I think everyone was relatively naive before November 2016

     

    The thing I admit to being naive about was the DEPTH of the misogyny towards Hillary.

    I underestimated it.

    Especially, in the MSM. It was revealed post-election, just how deep the misogyny went.

  271. 271.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @sab:

    Blame Charles Dickens in Bleak House. His description of the Chancery Court and the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce is legendary.

    This is the Court of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round of every man’s acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give, who does not often give, the warning, “Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!”

  273. 273.

    TBone

    @Jackie: did you see her with her big sign waving to crowds of real men wear diapers? The Von Shitzinpants display didn’t go over bigly with the criminal defendant, methinks 😆 but she’ll find a way to get back in his good graces again I’m sure.

  274. 274.

    Soprano2

    @rusty: Yes, this can be a problem, but most of the time it’s even worse if there is no will or trust directions. Then it’s truly a free-for-all. My stepmother’s attorney tried to make it sound like my father didn’t have any children who were his dependents so she should get everything even though my sister was a minor at the time and he was helping me with college expenses! If not for the life insurance policy he had for the two of us I don’t know how I would have paid for my last year of college. You can only imagine how my mother handled this, since she hated my stepmother with a white hot hatred – for some reason she blamed her for my dad cheating, rather than blaming my dad for his actions.

  275. 275.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: Wow, that might put a temporary halt to the daily Morning Edition stories about inflation, because they don’t want to do stories about it slowing down or stopping, only about it going up.

  276. 276.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @rikyrah:

    Her loudest defenders are out there and they are defending her loudly. You see, we ordinary people just don’t understand the complexities of Great Journalism. So we’re supposed to shut up or something.

  278. 278.

    lowtechcyclist

    @sab:

    I listen to NPR all day, except during drive time

    Good for you, but most people are working in between drive times.

  279. 279.

    lowtechcyclist

    @rikyrah:

    Then they’d have to fire their entire political beat team.

    That would be a big opportunity for improvement!

  281. 281.

    Barbara

    @Baud: Katie Porter’s speech was not a good omen for her future prospects.  I guess I have never been her biggest fan, but I was still surprised at her anger.

  283. 283.

    Geminid

    @Barbara: What struck me was that Porter could see the election result coming. She had polled well out of second place for weeks. Porter could have put together a less bitter concession speech and saved the rancor for a later interview.

    Porter did it backwards though; she pissed off other Democrats on election night, and then tried to make amends a few days later when it was too late

    Ed. The reaction to Porter’s remarks on election night were forseeable. I suspect her staff let her down here, and might even have egged her on instead of counseling a less confrontational approach. But if they did, that must be debited to Porter because she hired them.

  284. 284.

    H-Bob

    @Patricia Kayden:

    ”The multiple reasons why winning again is bad for President Biden”;

    don’t forget: “Biden wins re-election despite being incredibly old”

  287. 287.

    Barbara

    @Geminid: Just, generally, I hate this sort of ticket splitting, which hurts even more in the California jungle primary environment.

  288. 288.

    Geminid

    @Barbara: I’m just glad it’s Schiff and the Republican who advanced to the general election. A Schiff-Porter runoff would have sucked up a lot of money and been very divisive to boot

    Ed. Did you see that retiring Rep. Jennifer Wexton endorsed state Senator Suhas Subramanyam in the 10th CD primary? From what I see, Subramanyam is a very capable politician.

  289. 289.

    artem1s

    @Kay: ​ 

    But they led with “Biden losing young voters on Gaza!”. because the entire newspaper is inciting a moral panic on young people.

    The MSM will try to frame Gaza and anything that happens from now to November as Biden’s ‘Katrina’. They’ve been doing it since 2021. They believe they get to decide the issue that will define his first term – all for the clicks and glory of being able to boast that they took down a president.

Comments are closed.