Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

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

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Giving up is unforgivable.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

The words do not have to be perfect.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

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

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Peak wingnut was a lie.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

T R E 4 5 O N

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

You are here: Home / Archives for Open Threads

Sunday Morning Open Thread: Objects in Media May Be Smaller Than They Appear

by | 137 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

Sunday Morning Open Thread: Objects Media May Be Smaller Than They Appear

(Clay Bennett via GoComics.com)

This suggestion by Mark Cuban caught my eye; might work, certainly worth floating, but I think insufficiently cynical. Opposition to phasing out coal isn't about jobs; it isn't even, mostly, about profits. It's a front in the culture war. 1/

[image or embed]

— Paul Krugman (@pkrugman.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 7:47 AM

Coal mining stopped being a major way of life a long time ago — not because of eco-freaks, but because strip mining and mountaintop removal made most workers unnecessary 2/

[image or embed]

— Paul Krugman (@pkrugman.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 7:51 AM

Coal output didn't begin falling until around 2010, mainly because of fracking and to some extent renewables. But by then there were already very few miners (the personal training industry employs about 20X as many people as coal) 3/

[image or embed]

— Paul Krugman (@pkrugman.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 7:54 AM

But coal as an idea — big, tough men (approaching Trump with tears in their eyes) has outlasted coal as a reality. West Virginia thinks it's a coal state, when in reality it's mostly a health care state (supported by Medicare and Medicaid, which the people it votes for want to cut) 4/

[image or embed]

— Paul Krugman (@pkrugman.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 7:59 AM

show full post on front page

Sunday Morning Open Thread: Objects in Media May Be Smaller Than They AppearPost + Comments (137)

Late Night Schadenfreude Open Thread: They Did Nazi That Coming

by | 84 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Per the Columbus Dispatch, “Body cam footage: Neo-Nazis who marched in Short North claimed to be victims of violence”:

A group of neo-Nazis who marched through the Short North this month were not arrested because police determined they were not the aggressors in a fight that broke out, according to documents and video footage.

In body camera footage Columbus police released Monday, the neo-Nazis told police they had never experienced a response like the one they received in Columbus. They said people pulled guns on them and threw cans and vegetables as they marched, waved flags and yelled racial slurs. One of the officers noted the men were “covered in” pepper spray.

The Nov. 16 march drew stern condemnation from city hall to the White House, but no arrests were made. A group of Black men organized a counter-march the next day, following the same route in the Short North with a message of peace. In a statement, Columbus police previously said they could not find sufficient probable cause to file any charges against the neo-Nazis.

Police initially made contact with the neo-Nazis in a chaotic scene on a sidewalk near Goodale Park at about 1:15 p.m., according to a radio log printout from Columbus police. There the neo-Nazis, wearing black and red clothing and carrying black flags with red swastikas, told police they were leaving because they were under attack. In the background, bystanders shouted at them to take off their masks.

They told police they were marching because “our country is being invaded and white people are being ostracized.” While they refused to tell police where they lived, they referenced past marches in other cities.

Police said they’d received a report that they were spraying people with pepper spray and hair spray. The neo-Nazis said they were pepper sprayed first, and hadn’t instigated any violence. Footage previously obtained by the Dispatch showed one of the neo-Nazis spraying something in a person’s face, and 911 callers said the neo-Nazis had pepper sprayed people.

Several officers, including multiple Black officers, were present at the scene on the sidewalk. One Black officer tried to reason with the marchers, pointing out that they were bound to see confrontation from people for shouting hateful things.

“I definitely feel your First Amendment rights to say whatever nonsense this is, but c’mon, man,” the officer said. “The Buckeyes are playing. Man, come on.”…

A police report identified the group as “Hate Club 1844.” The driver is the only neo-Nazi named in the report. The others are identified only as about 10-11 unknown white men.

“We do this all over the U.S., and we’ve never been attacked like this, man,” the driver told police from his seat in the U-Haul.

Late Night Schadenfreude Open Thread: They Did Nazi That ComingPost + Comments (84)

War for Ukraine Day 1,011: “The Russians Are Very, Very Busy in Ukraine… Thank God for the Ukrainians.”

by | 24 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , ,

Two quick housekeeping notes. First, Rosie is doing great. We did an additional 1/1oth mile during today’s walk and she did great. We’ll hold that for the week then add another 1/1oth. She’s also jumped up onto the bed again. Thank you all for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations to help with her chemo.

Second, I said I’d only cover what is going on in Syria if it started becoming related to what is going on in Ukraine. I was thinking along the lines of actual evidence or confirmation that MG Budanov’s merry band of mirth makers were working with the rebel forces or taking advantage of the rebel advances to further degrade Russian capabilities. None of that has happened. The Russians are complaining on Telegram that both of those are happening. There’s no actual confirmation or evidence from legit sources that it is. Rather, the simple reality of Ukraine’s stout hearted defense against Putin’s genocidal re-invasion has changed the dynamics in a battle space almost 3,000 km/1,800 miles away.

“The Russians are very, very busy in Ukraine, and that’s a big part of it,” said Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a group that advocates for democracy in Syria. “Thank God for the Ukrainians.” www.wsj.com/world/middle…

[image or embed]

— Shashank Joshi (@shashj.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 3:39 PM

So, now Russia can’t handle the Aleppo offensive because its air power is tied up in Ukraine? Is this what they call a second front?

[image or embed]

— Maria Avdeeva (@mariainkharkiv.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 8:43 AM

There are a lot of things going into the rebel assault over the past several days. For instance, the anti-Assad forces spent month’s planning and shaping the battlespace.

I just want people to know that my friends in Idlib literally told me this offensive was going to happen, it was telegraphed weeks if not months ahead of time.

The Regime lines still collapsed the moment they came into contact with the offensive.

[image or embed]

— Oz Katerji (@ozkaterji.bsky.social) November 29, 2024 at 9:51 AM

Israel’s degradation and reduction of Hezbullah is also a huge contributing factor.

However, the ripple effects of Putin’s genocidal re-invasion are continuing to be felt. For instance, the loss of Prigozhin and a significant amount of the top layer of Wagner is now being felt in Syria. And that is all the result of events that began with the genocidal re-invasion of Ukraine and events in Ukraine.

And we have a correction regarding President Zelenskyy’s NATO accession remarks:

Ukraine corrected Sky News interview translation. To secure a peace deal, he said a NATO invitation should extend to all recognized territory of Ukraine, but NATO protection only territory under Kyiv’s control. He’d then work diplomatically to regain territory held by Russia bbc.com/russian/live…

[image or embed]

— Glasnost Gone (@glasnostgone.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 3:10 AM

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

show full post on front page

War for Ukraine Day 1,011: “The Russians Are Very, Very Busy in Ukraine… Thank God for the Ukrainians.”Post + Comments (24)

Saturday Evening Open Thread: Prince Jared Gets His Due Tribute

by | 37 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Trump just named Jared's father, Charles Kushner — who he pardoned in 2020 — to be Ambassador to France.

Kushner hatched a scheme involving a prostitute to entrap his brother-in-law and eventually pleaded guilty to tax evasion and making illegal campaign donations.

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 1:31 PM

The Charles Kushner appointment to be ambassador to France is a Trump trifecta: nepotism, criminality, and incompetence. Profoundly offensive and a setback for US standing in the world.

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 3:13 PM

Of course Trump has a strong bias in favor of fellow real-estate-magnate criminals… and Jared is dumb enough to have been publicly outraged at the very idea that tax evasion, bribery, and extortion, when committed by the Right people, might even qualify as “crimes”. But I personally suspect there’s at least a few overburdened minions in the Trump cartel who aren’t unhappy that the whole disgusting tragic saga will now be relitigated in the Very Serious Media.

Per the Washington Post, “Charles Kushner, pardoned in 2020, to be nominated ambassador to France” [gift link]:

President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday he would nominate Charles Kushner, the New Jersey real estate developer and his son-in-law’s father whom he pardoned in 2020, to be the ambassador to France.

Kushner pleaded guilty in 2004 to making false statements to the Federal Election Commission, and he subsequently pleaded guilty to witness tampering and tax evasion stemming from $6 million in political contributions and gifts mischaracterized as business expenses. The ambassador post requires Senate confirmation, but senators usually defer to presidents on such nominees…

For years, the two families built sprawling real estate empires on either side of the Hudson River: the Kushners mainly in New Jersey, and the Trumps famously in New York.

While Trump ran toward headlines, Kushner, by comparison, avoided them, until 2004. That year he pleaded guilty to federal charges including 16 counts of “assisting in the filing of false tax returns, one count of retaliating against a cooperating witness and one count of making false statements to the Federal Election Commission,” a federal prosecutor in New Jersey announced.

The details of the case were eye-popping, even for a state known for political scandals…

Before Kushner was sentenced in 2005, the prosecutor in the case told the court: “What is truly extraordinary is that Charles Kushner has failed to accept full responsibility for his outrageous criminal conduct,” the New York Times reported. The defense memo sharply disagreed and described “grief, regret, loss, devastating heartbreak” and the “acceptance of full responsibility for his crimes.” In March 2005, Kushner was sentenced to two years in prison.

About a year later, Kushner’s son, Jared, purchased the New York Observer, a small Manhattan-based newspaper with a penchant for covering politics, culture, real estate and the salacious misdeeds of those in power. In 2009, Jared married Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, uniting two rich and powerful families. That same year, the prosecutor who pursued the case against Charles Kushner, Chris Christie, was elected governor of New Jersey…

The younger Kushner went on to take an expansive portfolio in his father-in-law’s administration, and the older Kushner reportedly told one close family friend that he hoped to receive a presidential pardon, the Times reported.

In December 2020, as one of Trump’s last acts in office, that pardon was granted…

show full post on front page

Saturday Evening Open Thread: Prince Jared Gets His Due TributePost + Comments (37)

The Art of Losing Isn’t Hard to Master

by | 69 Comments

This post is in: 

Former Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan giving some great advice on the TeeVee:

[…]What does it mean to be a Democrat? People want to trust us. They don’t want to go to Donald Trump. I’m telling you, the middle-of-the-road people, they’re holding their nose to vote for him but we did not give them enough, like, we are reindustrializing, we are talking about American competitiveness. We are moderate on things like natural gas in western PA which ended up being a big issue which we can’t be for natural gas replacing coal. We are in a big fight with the crypto industry. What are we doing? Why are we in a fight with crypto right now? We’ve got to get back to the bread and butter policies.”

I don’t know about you, but when I think of issues that middle-of-the-road Maws and Paws talk about around the dinner table, crypto is number one.  “Dangit, Paw, if only Bitcoin would clear $100K, then maybe we could afford new tires for the pickup and braces for little Timmy.  But those durn Democrats want to slap regulations on it, so I guess we just have to ride around on bald tires and Timmy’s gonna have buck teeth!  Dang them to heck!”

Anyway, back in the real world where centrists aren’t cloaking their desire to get their paws on some sweet crypto cash with nonsense, this is happening:

Robert Almonte, a former U.S. Marshal and deputy chief with the El Paso Police Department, told NewsNation that cartels have taken advantage of modern technology, including cryptocurrency, to enhance their criminal endeavors.

As appears to be the case with Tether, cartel members often hire professional cryptocurrency money launderers to move the money and then pay them a commission based on the total amount of cash they launder, Almonte said.

Once the money from the drug proceeds is moved around, it eventually ends up back in cartel hands to further finance their global operations, he added.

“It’s difficult to track the cryptocurrency and the exchange of the cryptocurrency,” Almonte said. “In many cases, these money launderers are moving it around several times before it reaches its final destination. So that’s one of the main reasons they are using cryptocurrency because it is so hard to detect.”

If any issue was more full of the intent to lose than crypto, I don’t know what it is.  It is fake money dreamt up to let people do illegal shit without being traced.  The exchanges are more often than not scammy — if FTX taught us nothing else, it should have at least taught us that.  I mean, shit, Trump has his own crypto, which should tell you everything you need to know right there.  Yet there are Democrats who want to lead us into disaster by getting in bed with the grifters who inhabit the crypto world.  These Dems should be ignored, if not shunned.

The Art of Losing Isn’t Hard to MasterPost + Comments (69)

Meanwhile, in Ireland Open Thread

by | 32 Comments

This post is in: ,

The Year of Elections continues. Ireland’s general parliamentary election was yesterday. Polls closed at 10 p.m. local time and counting has been happening all day.

As is the case everywhere in democracies these days, Ireland has a crop of blood-gargling reactionary right-wingers running for office. These parties have deeply ironic names like “Liberty Republic” and “Irish Freedom Party”, and basically they want all the immigrants out.

I thought you would all like to know that the count so far suggests that these parties are dying on their asses when it comes to winning parliamentary seats. Ireland has a form of ranked-choice voting, specifically “proportional representation with a single transferable vote,” or PR-STV. There was a worry that some of these right-wing candidates would get in as second choices in a runoff situation, but Irish journalist Stephen McDermott has been reporting on Bluesky that many of them are being eliminated on the first ballot. So that’s nice.

Aside from the fact that it’s reassuring to know the far right isn’t ascendant everywhere, it’s entertaining to ponder how things could be different with ranked-choice voting. We might have coalitions running Congress. (Though this can be tricky—Sinn Féin, the left-wing party, will take [edit: looked like it was going to take] most of the seats but possibly not a total majority; the center-right Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael parties had been pretty clear they had no intention of forming a coalition led by Sinn Féin. Immediately after I published the first draft of this, however, I saw a projection which suggests Fianna Fáil will take most of the seats and go into coalition with Fine Gael.)

We might also be treated to some truly psychedelic infographics. Behold:

I do enjoy how the Irish defy stereotypes by producing the most insane election graphics known to man

[image or embed]

— Chris Terry-Enescu (@cjterry.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 11:42 AM

Our common American data-fondling Nates could never begin to comprehend such majesty. Open thread.

Meanwhile, in Ireland Open ThreadPost + Comments (32)

ABC – Always Be Campaigning – My Experience

by | 113 Comments

This post is in: 

In yesterday’s post about the Democrats’ messaging situation, my number one observation is that Democrats don’t like to campaign all the time.   Some commenters had reasons to explain that, and some of them may be valid, but let me offer an experience-based counterpoint.

I started blogging around 2006 when Eric Massa ran for the then NY-29 congressional seat.  This was my district at the time, and my blog was focused solely on NY-29 politics.  It was mainly in the Southern Tier of New York, but a bit of it was gerrymandered north to the Rochester suburbs.  The district went for Bush by 10-11 points in  2000 and 2004, and it went for McCain by 3 points in 2008.  As a basically R+6 or tougher district, it was essentially conceded by the Democratic Party.  The district had been represented by Amo Houghton, an old-school New York Republican, which is to say someone who was fairly liberal on social programs.  After Houghton retired, Republican Randy Kuhl took his place.

Massa, who turned out to be a nutcase, a closet case and a sex pest, was a gifted and determined politician.  He was a retired navy officer who had done some business consulting.  He traveled the district, meeting with party committees and the few Democratic elected officials, to set the groundwork for his 2006 campaign.  He got nothing from the DCCC or really from any of the party — this was the foundation of my view that the “50 state strategy” was all talk and no action. But he persevered.  He hired a talented media person and the goal of Massa and his tiny staff was to get stories in every local paper every day.  Each morning, like clockwork, a press release landed in my inbox from the campaign.  It picked on something Kuhl had done, or imagined a different world with a Democrat in charge, or talked about a visit to a town festival or civic club (like the Lions or Rotary).

The first key point is that Massa didn’t really spend any ad money, by standards of a Congressional campaign.  Almost all of his media was “earned media” — stories in the paper.  With small town papers drying up, this strategy wouldn’t work today, but the takeaway isn’t the details of the technique, it’s the persistence and desire to spread the Democratic message every day.

A second key point about Massa is that he wasn’t a splitter or a mealy mouthed centrist.  He was fully for single-payer health insurance.  He was against the Iraq war.  He picked issues that addressed the pain felt in the district.  A lot of kids went to war from the 29th, and some of them were maimed or died in a war that by 2006 seemed like a waste.  And, the district was older, so paying for healthcare was a huge issue.

Massa lost the 2006 election to Kuhl by 3 points, or 6,000 votes, which was a squeaker by standard of a district where the last two races were won by Republicans with solid margins.  Immediately after that loss, he started campaigning again.  This time, he got a wee bit of support from the party, but he still mostly raised funds on his own and continued his tradition of issuing press releases and traveling all around the district.  In 2008, he won by 5,000 votes.  Then, he self-destructed, but that’s a story for another time.  In the brief period that he represented the district, he did have a lot of town halls and also kept sending out press releases.

I realize this experience is almost 20 years old now, but it left me (and DougJ, who also followed that race closely) with the view that Democrats are losing seats because they don’t campaign long enough or hard enough.  I believe then, and I believe now, that paid media is of far lesser quality than earned media.  In today’s highly fractured media environment, earned media is probably mostly social media, and that’s a challenge.  But even in 2006/2008, it was clear that repeated, dark, negative TV spots were a money sink of questionable return.   Massa had hardly any ads in 2006 and almost won.  Kuhl had a ton of ads on 2008, compared to Massa’s meager ad budget, and Kuhl lost.  Another take-home is that someone who climbs the party ladder like Kuhl is a far weaker candidate that an outsider like Massa.  Kuhl was often left flat-footed by Massa’s attacks, because he had been a state legislator for umpteen years and then moved up in the hierarchy when Amo Houghton retired.  That is not a recipe for an aggressive, fast-on-his-feet candidate.  But, the Democratic party establishment (DCCC) is far more comfortable with someone who’s ascended in the ranks because the DCCC is risk averse.  Finally, the lesson of a little money early being far more effective than a lot of money late is borne out by my experience in the 29th.  Another $100K in May 2006 could have made the difference for Massa.  Late money sent to campaigns mostly goes to more TV, because whatever organization and staffing the campaign has by, say, October, is what they’re going to end the campaign with.  Money given at that point doesn’t go to laying the groundwork for organizing and GOTV that I still believe can make the margin of victory.

This is why I will continue to criticize elected Democrats for failing to run 24/7/365 campaigns — because I’ve seen it work and win in an “unwinnable” district.

ABC – Always Be Campaigning – My ExperiencePost + Comments (113)