I’ll give you one guess as to the profession of AB Stoddard’s savvy political junkie source:
Nine months ago a savvy political junkie told me Chris Christie would soon announce a presidential campaign, simply because he had to.
by DougJ| 95 Comments
This post is in: Election 2016, Our Awesome Meritocracy, Our Failed Media Experiment, Our Failed Political Establishment
I’ll give you one guess as to the profession of AB Stoddard’s savvy political junkie source:
Nine months ago a savvy political junkie told me Chris Christie would soon announce a presidential campaign, simply because he had to.
by DougJ| 61 Comments
This post is in: Election 2016, Our Awesome Meritocracy, Our Failed Media Experiment, Our Failed Political Establishment
Sometimes I get Bai-curious, because he’s less obnoxious than the other keepers of the flame of conventional wisdom, but I have to wonder now if he’s on the Christie payroll:
BAI: — [H]e’s the best pure retail candidate in the field. And that’s why I think “The Union Leader” endorsement does matter at this point, because I think the establishment does have to congeal somewhere and he’s got a lot of strengths as a candidate.
Bai also believes this was an amazing zinger:
Christie, in NH, with one my favorite lines in a while, on entitlements. "I said to Huckabee, 'Where's the money coming from, dude?'"
— Matt Bai (@mattbai) December 1, 2015
I’m guess Bai thinks it was a great line because Christie said “dude”, which is groovy hepcat slang, and more importantly because it involved cutting entitlements, which may be the Village’s number one fetish. It’s safe to say that the cutting entitlements is not reg’lar Americans number one fetish and that most would not know why this was such a cool thing for Christie to say. Atrios once wrote of the far right:
I’ve written before that I think part of the problem that conservatives/Republicans face is that their mythology has become a bit too complex for mere mortals (people who don’t listen to Limbaugh and read The Corner obsessively) to comprehend. They reference rogues’ gallery of enemies and various “bad things” that most people have never heard of.
Serious centrist pundits now face the same problem: their mythology has become too complex for most voters. That’s one of the many reasons that their opinions matter less and less.
(h/t Josh)
This post is in: Election 2016, JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Assholes, Our Awesome Meritocracy, Schadenfreude
oh man Jeb Bush at this campaign rally
"They used to call me the 'e-governor.'"
[sits backwards on chair and turns his hat around.]
— Molly Redden (@mtredden) November 2, 2015
If he wasn’t still humping Teri Schiavo’s corpse for the Talibangelical votes — among his many other sins — you’d almost have to feel sorry for the guy…
… The candidate who last week described his inability to “fake anger” as a chief weakness spoke on Monday in defense of a focus on policy and in disappointment over the campaign’s ceaseless punditry before letting fly a brazen prediction of his own.
“Let me tell you something,” he said, as exclamation-pointed signs were waved. “When the dust clears, and the delegates are counted, we’re going to win this damn thing.” (His prepared remarks had called for the meeker, “We will win this campaign.”)…
After the address on Monday, Mr. Bush traveled to Orlando and Jacksonville, before a planned swing through South Carolina on Tuesday and a three-day bus tour in New Hampshire, the state with the first primary, and one increasingly crucial to his fortunes…. [T]aking the stage to “Takin’ Care of Business,” he recalled choice anecdotes from his email archives, highlighting his education policies (“we listened and changed the law so Kirsty could get her high school diploma and go on to graduate from college”) and his gift for constituent services (“by noon, that raccoon was out” of the attic of a concerned elderly woman in South Florida)…
There goes the Trash Panda vote…
— Bob Dobolina (@bobdobolina) November 2, 2015
Late Night Open Thread: “Oh, the Bush Dynasty!”Post + Comments (41)
This post is in: Glibertarianism, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Assholes, Clown Shoes, Our Awesome Meritocracy
Rand Paul has finally found someone he wants to go to war with: @BuzzFeedAndrew! https://t.co/P1WWeEpvjU
— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) October 27, 2015
Of course he’s not “important” — at this point Jim Gilmore has a better chance of becoming the Republican nominee than Rand Paul — but it’s always entertaining to watch Libertarians make fools of themselves, and Senator Rand is Prince Regent of the Fools Libertarians. From the Washington Post article:
… “That guy,” Paul said dismissively, referring to Kaczynski. “The only criticisms have come from some guy who’s a partisan. We discount partisans. However, there’s a ridiculous cottage industry out there of people who think they’re smarter than everyone else, and because certain quotes are disputed – well, yeah! If you want to say something’s not a Thomas Jefferson quote, you can get a whole book on whether it’s a quote or not.”
Kacynzski has challenged Paul’s research since 2013, when the senator began raising his profile as a Republican reformer. After the Buzzfeed reporter found language in one of Paul’s books (and several speeches) that mirrored language published by think tanks and Wikipedia, the senator’s staff started including citations in the printed versions of his remarks. That practice ceased after a while; Paul’s irritation did not…
Those who do not remember history are condemned to believe Rand Paul's version.
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) October 27, 2015
But I suppose it’s a slippery slope from checking Founders’ quotes to denying that the Holocaust was caused by gun control
— David Frum (@davidfrum) October 27, 2015
Quick — Rand needs a distraction!
BREAKING: @RandPaul says he will filibuster the new debt ceiling bill: https://t.co/MyzTgMNbEy pic.twitter.com/40ZR2LzSxI
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) October 27, 2015
One note of caution on Rand Paul debt limit filibuster threat: he threatened the same in 2011. https://t.co/h8rpwQW8CO
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) October 27, 2015
Late Night Open Thread: Little Prince Rand Throws A TantrumPost + Comments (150)
This post is in: Election 2016, Religious Nuts, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality, Fucked-up-edness, Our Awesome Meritocracy
Someday there will be an awesome supercut of interviewers trying to act like Ben Carson doesn't scare the hell out of them.
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) October 26, 2015
Back in May, when Dr. Carson announced he was joining the GOP clown parade, I thought he stood the risk of damaging a long, worthwhile career in neurosurgery with a sideline in personal inspiration for an under-thought attempt to… sell more books, or improve his name recognition, or work through the grief of his beloved mother’s declining health. So I figured he’d be mostly ignored, maybe thumped around by some of the more aggressive GOPer candidates as a practice dummy, and eventually disappear into the triva-game mists with Lincoln Chafee and Larry Lessig.
Your regular reminder that the entire Ben Carson phenomenon is bizarre and strange. https://t.co/I3AW7zLrBP
— Jamelle Booo-eeee! (@jbouie) October 23, 2015
… According to the latest poll from Bloomberg Politics and the Des Moines Register, Carson is ahead of the pack with 28 percent of the vote. But more interesting are the facts behind his rise. Iowans aren’t just charmed by his demeanor, his experience, and his inexperience as a politician and policymaker—although that’s definitely true—they also support his most controversial, and entirely ludicrous, ideas…
… The vast majority of Iowa Republicans are still undecided. As the caucus comes closer, their preference might change. And other candidates, like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, are also popular with GOP voters in the state. What it does mean, if anything, is that Carson speaks the language of Iowa Republicans. They like his rhetoric, whether it’s absurd, ignorant, or genuinely offensive…
What I didn’t appreciate was the Chauncey Gardiner effect — the degree to which a soft-spoken, well-intentioned innocent from within a sealed bubble could become a figurehead for some of the worst and most dangerous impulses in modern American politics. Dr. Carson is a devout Seventh Day Adventist, and a gifted surgeon, and his particular gifts and circumstances have apparently protected him from exposure to any information that might conflict with a trophy cupboard of 1950s moral axioms and 1980s neoconservative financial theories.
— All In w/Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) October 24, 2015
As the NYTimes perceives it, “Calm Manner Has Ben Carson Rising in Polls“:
… “That smile and his soft voice makes people very comforted,” said Miriam Greenfield, a farmer in Jewell, Iowa.
In an election season that has confounded party leaders and experts, the rise of Mr. Carson is another unexpected twist. His supporters cite Mr. Carson’s character, not his positions, as the main reason they back him. And they say his low-key approach is precisely what would tame Washington’s bitter partisanship, rather than Mr. Trump’s swagger.
“He is kind when he speaks, and he doesn’t have an agenda to set himself up as wonderful,” said Donna Christiansen, a retiree in Ames.
What is more, Mr. Carson’s provocative comments on topics like Nazism and slavery, which pundits and commentators regularly denounce, seem only to deepen the enthusiasm his evangelical base feels for him. He has connected with Republican women here, who prefer him to Mr. Trump. And he has built momentum far from the political establishment, which was unimpressed with his debate performances and his lack of governing experience. He conducts chats on Facebook and visits medical clinics and churches rather than the usual political stops…
And unlike some other candidates popular with the party’s grass roots, Mr. Carson has built a muscular financial base. His $20.8 million raised over the summer, most in small donations, was more than the total of any other Republican candidate. On Friday, he released his first television ad in the four early nominating states.
I Was Wrong; Ben Carson May Be Genuinely DangerousPost + Comments (172)
This post is in: The War On Women, Women's Rights Are Human Rights, Our Awesome Meritocracy
Stanford University, or your own lyin’ eyes?
Interesting story in yesterday’s Times on a divorce case at Stanford’s business school that cracked open a window on the question of gender discrimination at the school and at the Hoover Institute, the right-wing academic bolus hawked up onto Leland Jr.’s farm.
Much huffing and puffing by Stanford’s administration about how no policies were broken and that there’s nothing really to see here but some unwritten rules that might need to be written down (you think?):
John Etchemendy, Stanford’s provost, would not discuss the claims about the business school and Hoover in detail. He said that Stanford had hired separate outside investigators and that neither had found systemic discrimination. But he acknowledged “weaknesses in management” and said they were being addressed.
That’s very nicely weaseled, if I do say so as a connoisseur of the “oh-sh*t, reporters!” dodge-and-weave. But the true delectable in this mess in response to the reports of the unpleasantness of being female amonst the Hoovers. Here’s the gist of the complaint:
At the Hoover Institution, which has been a haven for former Reagan and Bush administration figures including George P. Shultz and Condoleezza Rice, a departing employee wrote a seven-page letter to Mr. Etchemendy detailing a “dysfunctional” atmosphere of “cronyism” in early 2013. That spurred Stanford to begin an investigation.
Hoover has 181 full-time employees, more than half of them women, but the research and senior fellows are overwhelmingly men. A new director at Hoover started last month.
The investigation faulted Hoover’s leadership for not casting a net wide enough to bring in new faces. One cultural problem, it said, was membership by Hoover’s leaders in the Bohemian Club, an all-male private club in San Francisco that dates to 1872.
Those of you familiar with San Francisco’s secret history — or Armistaud Maupin’s Tales of the City series — may know about the Bohemian Club, by the way. It’s both an intriguing example of the oddities to which the rich and powerful subject themselves and a type specimen of the hidden networks through which the 1% exert power. But that aside, savor this bit of exculpatory reasoning from Stanford’s chief counsel:
Ms. [Debra] Zumwalt cautioned against reading too much into the Hoover report’s conclusions.
Just because the majority of women interviewed felt that it was not always a respectful workplace, she said, “that does not mean that it was not a respectful workplace.”
Oh, counsellor! I know you’ve got a job to do — but is that all you’ve got?! #WeakSauce, I’d say.
Snark over: anyone who labors under the misapprehension that the United States is an equal-opportunity meritocracy isn’t paying attention. But you knew that. Which is reason ∞ why, whatever the failings of the donkey party, there is a difference between a party that explicitly acknowledges that sad fact, and one that denies the plain evidence of their own lyin’ eyes.
Image: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, In the Cafe, 1898.
by Zandar| 97 Comments
This post is in: Free Markets Solve Everything, Open Threads, The War On Women, Ever Get The Feeling You've Been Cheated?, Nobody could have predicted, Our Awesome Meritocracy
So, about that “non-existent” gender pay gap because women refuse to get competitive degrees in high-paying fields…
If only more women had MBAs and had years of relevant work experience rather than getting degrees like MBAs and having years of relevant work experience, I’m sure they would make just as much money as men, right guys?
Open thread.