Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

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

I don’t recall signing up for living in a dystopian sci-fi novel.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

We will not go back.

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

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War for Ukraine Day 561: Musk Is not Just a Useful Idiot & Asset for Putin, He Appears To Have Aided Russia in Committing War Crimes

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This morning CNN reported:

Elon Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet, according to an excerpt adapted from Walter Isaacson’s new biography of the eccentric billionaire titled “Elon Musk.”

As Ukrainian submarine drones strapped with explosives approached the Russian fleet, they “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” Isaacson writes.

Musk’s decision, which left Ukrainian officials begging him to turn the satellites back on, was driven by an acute fear that Russia would respond to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea with nuclear weapons, a fear driven home by Musk’s conversations with senior Russian officials, according to Isaacson, whose new book is set to be released by Simon & Schuster on September 12.

Musk’s concerns over a “mini-Pearl Harbor” as he put it, did not come to pass in Crimea. But the episode reveals the unique position Musk found himself in as the war in Ukraine unfolded. Whether intended or not, he had become a power broker US officials couldn’t ignore.

The new book from Isaacson, the author of acclaimed biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, provides fresh insights into Musk and how his existential dread of sparking a wider war drove him to spurn Ukrainian requests for Starlink systems they could use to attack the Russians.

After Russia disrupted Ukraine’s communications systems just before its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Musk agreed to provide Ukraine with millions of dollars of SpaceX-made Starlink satellite terminals, which became crucial to Ukraine’s military operations. Even as cellular phone and internet networks had been destroyed, the Starlink terminals allowed Ukraine to fight and stay connected.

But once Ukraine began to use Starlink terminals for offensive attacks against Russia, Musk started to second-guess that decision.

“How am I in this war?” Musk asks Isaacson. “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.”

Musk was soon on the phone with President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, the chairman of the joint chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, and the Russian ambassador to the US to address anxieties from Washington, DC, to Moscow, writes Isaacson.

Meanwhile, Mykhailo Fedorov, a deputy prime minister of Ukraine, was pleading with Musk to restore connectivity for the submarine drones by telling Musk about their capabilities in a text message, according to Isaacson. “I just want you—the person who is changing the world through technology—to know this,” Fedorov told Musk.

Musk and SpaceX did not reply to CNN’s requests for comment.

Musk, the CEO of electric carmaker Tesla and private space exploration firm SpaceX, replied that he was impressed with the design of the submarine drones but that he wouldn’t turn satellite coverage back on for Crimea because Ukraine “is now going too far and inviting strategic defeat,” according to Isaacson.

The unchartered territory that Ukrainian and US officials were in – relying on the charity of an unpredictable billionaire for battlefield communications – also led to a standoff over who would pay for the Starlink terminals last fall.

SpaceX had spent tens of millions of its own money sending the satellite equipment to Ukraine, according to Musk. And the company told the Pentagon that they wouldn’t continue to foot the bill for the satellite gear, as CNN first reported last October.

After CNN’s reporting, Musk reversed course, tweeting “the hell with it … we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.”

Gwynne Shotwell, Musk’s president at SpaceX, was livid at Musk’s reversal, according to Isaacson.

“The Pentagon had a $145 million check ready to hand to me, literally,” Isaacson quotes Shotwell as saying. “Then Elon succumbed to the bullshit on Twitter and to the haters at the Pentagon who leaked the story.”

But SpaceX was eventually able to work out a deal with the US and European governments to pay for another 100,000 new satellite dishes to Ukraine at the beginning of 2023, according to Isaacson.

More at the link.

Before I get into the actual rant here, let us once again debunk the Starlink Snowflake’s claims that he donated all the Starlink terminals and service agreements to Ukraine and it cost him tens of millions. IT DID NOT! From CNN on 13 OCT 2022 quoted by me in the 14 OCT 2022 update:

SpaceX’s request that the US military foot the bill has rankled top brass at the Pentagon, with one senior defense official telling CNN that SpaceX has “the gall to look like heroes” while having others pay so much and now presenting them with a bill for tens of millions per month.

According to the SpaceX figures shared with the Pentagon, about 85% of the 20,000 terminals in Ukraine were paid – or partially paid – for by countries like the US and Poland or other entities. Those entities also paid for about 30% of the internet connectivity, which SpaceX says costs $4,500 each month per unit for the most advanced service. (Over the weekend, Musk tweeted there are around 25,000 terminals in Ukraine.)

Now that Musk’s claims to have both donated the terminals and the service to Ukraine have once again been debunked, let’s get to the meat of this. Russia’s Black Sea fleet has been used to bombard Ukrainian civilian targets from off shore. Specifically off shore and out of range of Ukraine’s weapons systems and ordnance. While Ukraine’s development and deployment of their naval drones has reduced this, Musk turning the Ukrainian naval drones off by terminating the Starlink connectivity in and near Crimea meant that the Russian warships they were targeted at survived to fight another day. And as we have been documenting here for 560 days, when Russia attacks Ukraine from stand off distances, including from the Black Sea, it is attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure, which are war crimes and crimes against humanity. Musk’s actions facilitated these attacks. At the very least that makes him morally culpable for the Ukrainians Russia has killed and wounded. He belongs in the Hague standing in the dock with his handler Putin.

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

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Desperately Playing the Old Hits

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Like a fading band that’s been coasting for years on a novelty hit, the Ron DeSantis for President campaign is desperately playing the old track, trying to news-jack the impending release of a new COVID-19 vaccine to stir up anti-vax, anti-mask militants to revive a sputtering candidate. I don’t think that will work, not even in Florida. (Orlando Sentinel)

The event on Thursday…was a return to a familiar message for DeSantis amid his struggling presidential campaign against former President Donald Trump.

DeSantis and (Florida Surgeon General Joseph) Ladapo spent most of the conference doubling down on anti-mask and vaccine rhetoric and railing against the federal government ahead of the new COVID-19 booster shot, which will be available soon, potentially as early as Sept. 13.

The shots, updated to target the XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant, are being produced by Moderna, Pfizer, and relative newcomer Novavax. They use the same mRNA technology that Pfizer’s and Moderna’s shots have always contained.

“They’re rushing these new mnra [sic] vaccines, COVID vaccines. They’re not even doing the trials necessary, and the FDA and CDC, they’ve basically become an arm of Big Pharma,” DeSantis said.

Ladapo incorrectly claimed that the coming booster had “no clinical trial done in human beings showing that it benefits people” and “no clinical trial showing that it is a safe product for people.”

Contrary to Ladapo’s claim, Moderna’s booster has undergone successful human clinical trials.

I almost never see people wearing masks and haven’t for well over a year. Whatever your views on that, the point is, it’s not a thing here anymore. 

DeSantis and the crackpot he imported from California to serve as surgeon general successfully browbeat private businesses, municipalities, public health officials and school districts into stopping all measures to protect people against the coronavirus. So it’s ridiculous to try to revive the issue — they already “won.”

The only reason the “conference” was covered by The Sentinel is because somehow a non-supporter was admitted and made an uncomfortable (for DeSantis) accusation. The man said the governor created the environment that led to the recent racist terrorist attack at a Jax Dollar General:

Gov. Ron DeSantis railed at a Black questioner in Jacksonville on Thursday who suggested his policies bore some blame for the racist shooting there last month that left three Black people dead.

“You have allowed people to hunt people like me,” the man said, leading DeSantis to angrily respond, “I’m not going to let you accuse me of committing criminal activity! I am not going to take that…”

The man said the governor and his policies have “allowed weapons to be put on the street in the hands of immature, hateful people that have caused the deaths of the people that were murdered.”

Well, that man was not wrong. So he was, of course, promptly ejected from the venue.

“You don’t get to come here and blame me for some madman,” DeSantis said as his supporters cheered. “That is not appropriate, and I’m not going to accept it. That is nonsense.”

Keep spluttering angrily, Pudd’n Boots. Better yet, go do it in Iowa.

Open thread.

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Hmm

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Things today that make me go hmm.

I know it’s (fake) Jack Smith, but the federal grand jury in DC is meeting again today.

So my head is titled tilted and I am thinking “hmm”.

Something else that makes me say “hmm” today?

John Eastman has taken the stand in his disbarment hearing.  He is apparently answering most questions – are all these attorneys idiots? – but claimed attorney-client privilege when he was asked about the whole “Grassley will be presiding on Jan 6” issue.  (h/t Josie for the article)

First of all, unless that was part of the nefarious plan, which is quite possible, that seems like a funny hill to take a stand on.

Second, was John Eastman serving as an attorney to Trump?  Did they have a contract?  Did Eastman receive payment for services?  Did Trump slip him a dollar like they did on Perry Mason, to make Trump Eastman’s client?

Count me as a member of Team Nefarious Plan.

Anything else we should be speculating on today?

Open thread.

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Biden’s Belief in a ‘Culture of Democracy’

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I caught part of Nicolle Wallace’s show on MSNBC yesterday, and among others, she talked to Franklin Foer, who has a new book out on the Biden administration called “The Last Politician.” I haven’t read it, but judging from review snippets I saw online, perceptions seem heavily influenced by the reviewer’s priors.

New York Post: Biden comes off as irritable, ‘babied’ elderly man who regularly flip-flops when not bashing Obama, new book reveals

New York Times: In “The Last Politician,” Franklin Foer presents the first half of Biden’s presidency as a series of made-for-television moments meant to inspire doubters and assuage critics.

Blah blah blah. I mean seriously, it’s revealing to look at the curated media hot takes. Like the King James Bible, Foer’s book apparently offers something for everyone looking to reinforce a preexisting bias or advance a preferred narrative, even if selective quote-pickers have diametrically opposed agendas.

But after hearing Foer discuss the book with Wallace, I’m tempted to read it. Forgive the X-Lax embed; I’m unable to find the clip elsewhere, but here’s a portion of that conversation:

Sometimes Dems — inside and outside of the administration — perceive Biden’s emphasis on bipartisanship and collegial treatment of horrific characters like Mitch McConnell as a sign that the president is living in a bygone era and therefore ill-suited to this perilous time.

I’ll cop to having my doubts on this score early in Biden’s term, and though I see it differently now, I don’t think I was unreasonably cynical then. Can a man compromise with an Orc swarm? Can a party win if it scrupulously upholds norms when the opponent ruthlessly flouts them?

But I think what Foer is saying — correctly — is that Biden’s approach is premised on faith in democracy over the long haul rather than naivety about Repubs today. He knows exactly who they are but believes it’s more important to model how things are supposed to work than publicly smack down miscreants.

Reinforcing the culture of democracy is a bet, but Biden hedges it by separating Repubs into two groups — “normal” and “ultra MAGA” — and speaking plainly about the threat the latter pose to democracy. You don’t have to be a cynic to ask if the separation between the two groups has meaning anymore, but I think I understand now why Biden insists on it. He has to believe there’s a way back.

The outcome is still up in the air. Maybe the “Last” in Foer’s title is a warning about what will happen if Biden loses his bet.

Open thread.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: World’s Best Healthcare…

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Despite the potentially aggravating FTFNYTimes-house-style headline, it’s not a bad article. [Unpaywalled gift link]:

… Something strange has been happening in this giant federal program. Instead of growing and growing, as it always had before, spending per Medicare beneficiary has nearly leveled off over more than a decade.

The trend can be a little hard to see because, as baby boomers have aged, the number of people using Medicare has grown. But it has had enormous consequences for federal spending. Budget news often sounds apocalyptic, but the Medicare trend has been unexpectedly good for federal spending, saving taxpayers a huge amount relative to projections…

Some of the reductions are easy to explain. Congress changed Medicare policy. The biggest such shift came with the Affordable Care Act in 2010, which reduced Medicare’s payments to hospitals and to health insurers that offered private Medicare Advantage plans. Congress also cut Medicare payments as part of a budget deal in 2011.

But most of the savings can’t be attributed to any obvious policy shift. In a recent letter to the Senate Budget Committee, economists at the Congressional Budget Office described the huge reductions in its Medicare forecasts between 2010 and 2020. Most of those reductions came from a category the budget office calls “technical adjustments,” which it uses to describe changes to public health and the practice of medicine itself.

Older Americans appear to be having fewer heart attacks and strokes, the likely result of effective cholesterol and blood pressure medicines that became cheap and widely used in recent years, according to research from Professor Cutler and colleagues. And drug makers and surgeons haven’t developed as many new blockbuster treatments recently — there has been no new Prozac or angioplasty to drive up spending. (Medicare is currently barred by statute from covering the new class of expensive anti-obesity drugs.)

Parts of the health system appear to have become more efficient, as medical providers have been more cautious about adopting new therapies without much evidence, and more care has shifted outside hospitals into cheaper settings…


ICYMI — previously the first approval was expected next Tuesday, Sept. 12th:

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Dank Grey Dawn Open Thread: What Happens to the GOP After Trump’s Fall?

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Dank Grey Dawn Open Thread: MAGATs After the Fall

(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)

Apart, of course, from rooting for injuries?

For instance, it’s true both that the GOP as it existed pre-Trump created the conditions for his emerging and being embraced, and also that he’s a sui generis figure in degree if not in kind. 2/10

That is, the GOP was primed for a Trump type racist/populist demagogue, but he carried a ton of advantages individual to him (fame, wealth, media-created persona as successful businessman) that others just don’t have. 3/10

Some random GOP ghoul doesn’t have his pull, nor does Vivek Ramaswamy, nor do his no-account kids. It was the happenstance of the GOP being ready for Trump, Trump existing, and Dems coming off of two terms in the White House that allowed him to win. 4/10

When he dies, it’s exceedingly unlikely that the GOP is just gonna “go back to normal” (whatever that means), because its abnormality is what led it to embrace Trump in the first place. But also, somebody else won’t be able to just slot into Trump’s place. 5/10

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Big Goings On at WVU

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So today was a big day today, as something pretty rare occurred. A university wide faculty assembly was held to discuss a vote of no confidence in Gordon Gee, the President, and to call for the immediate cessation of the “Academic Transformation.” President Gee, to the surprise of many, was in attendance and gave a give minute presentation, and the room was silent as all get out. When he ran out of time he muttered something about free speech and then continued on until various faculty shouted “POINT OF ORDER” and he was gaveled down.

Several faculty spoke, some in direct response to things just stated by Gee. A vote was then held, and the faculty voted 797-100 to signal NO CONFIDENCE in Gee.

The assembly then took up the second resolution to vote to stop the transformation. Provost Maryanne Reed, former professor, former Dean of Journalism, and self-described leaser of the academic transformation initiative, requested to speak for five minutes. This was put to a vote.

Faculty then spent a half hour voting, the vote failed 400 hundred something against and several hundred four, and decided not to listen to her for five minutes. Instead, several faculty used the allotted 90 seconds they were given to say why the resolution should be passed.

Faculty then voted, and the resolution passed 747-79.

To fully appreciate and understand how lopsided these margins are, you need to appreciate how argumentative faculty are- you could put twenty of them in a room for hours to pass a resolution for free ice cream and infinite puppy kisses and not only would they not be able to come up with a conclusion, the resolution wouldn’t be written until someone wrote it themselves and at the next meeting said here I wrote the resolution taking into account everyone’s advice, and it would get unanimously approved because there was something new to argue about this meeting.

Not only that, someone would say something that would be the foundation of a decade long grudge that will at some point over the next 20 years impact a doctoral thesis, and the hatchet would not be buried fully until one faculty member had been dead for ten years and the other a professor emeritus in waning health.

At any rate, immediately after the vote, the Board of Governors released a statement that had been written before the vote even happened expressing full support in President Gee and telling the faculty to go fuck themselves.

Not wanting to be left out, Governor Jim Justice, himself an unwitting display of the health of education in West Virginia, also had what we will charitably call thoughts:

Big Goings On at WVU

Bless his heart.

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