"What Do You Want Me To Say About Slavery?": US Politics, January 2024

Let the 11-month descent into hell commence.

This ad isn't up on YouTube yet, which is why I'm posting a link to Twitter. Katrina Christiansen is a Democrat running for Senate in North Dakota.

Just a few years ago, North Dakota had a Democrat representing our state in the U.S. Senate.

They said it couldn't be done before. Well, I'm about to do it again.

The Senate majority is up for grabs in 2024. Join me. Together, we will win this race. Watch my launch video now! pic.twitter.com/HrZvh7RYOD

— Katrina Christiansen (@KatrinaforND) December 5, 2023

Wow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ge5BoOOhCo

Underrated Morrissey song titles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEyy0Czis3c

Huh

I was thrown violently off balance when the jaunty score kicked kn

Don't know which of many possible threads to put it on, but Claudine Gay resigning is Some Bullshit.

Elise Stefanik needs to go play in traffic.

And Christopher Rufo, people need to learn how to stand up against that guy.

Don't know which of many possible threads to put it on, but Claudine Gay resigning is Some Bullshit.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, January 2, 2024

Elise Stefanik needs to go play in traffic.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, January 2, 2024

And Christopher Rufo, people need to learn how to stand up against that guy.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, January 2, 2024

the last three posts are very otm

i mentioned it in the israel/palestine affects on other countries thread which admittedly it's barely connected to

I'm still waiting for the rest of this Title VI investigation into antisemitism AND ISLAMAPHOBIA to happen. Because we obv got the antisemitism part. They seem to have pivoted to investigating the very important issue of plagiarism?

They're investigating the important issue of HOW DID A BLACK WOMAN GET TO BE PRESIDENT OF HARVARD WHO LET THIS HAPPEN?

Like, Oh, sure, he went to Harvard.

I love how Epstein List mainstay and famous sexist bigot Larry Summers appears in the NYT reaction story, nodding sagely that Gay is doing the right thing by resigning. For the institution, you see. The NYT notes Summers also "resigned under pressure," as if the situations are in any fucking way comparable.

As always, he admits what he's up to, which is why it's so infuriating that people keep taking the bait.

ANNOUNCEMENT: I am contributing an initial $10,000 to a "plagiarism hunting" fund. We will expose the rot in the Ivy League and restore truth, rather than racialist ideology, as the highest principle in academic life.

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) January 3, 2024

racialist

This thread on the Gay situation gets a lot of the dynamics right imo.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1742266230050869269.html

he starts to lose me quickly with the implication that any 'antisemitism task force' is illegitimate.

Fair point, and I also think he somewhat underestimates the degree to which Gay's options at every point were constricted. But I think he's right about the conflicted position of so many liberal institutions (including the NYT) and the ways it makes them easy targets and/or complicit in their own betrayals.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/01/rufos-collaborators

Rufo has competition, granted, but he's one of the three or four most malevolent forces in American political life whom most Americans don't know.

He's like a cartoon evil genius.

something about the way he just says his evil plans out loud screams supervillain

Serious White Men all tut-tutting loudly about how unfortunate but important it is to OFF WITH HER HEAD

https://x.com/NateSilver538/status/1742425422196056443?s=20

Oops, wrong link type. Well, the post is Nate fuckin Silver saying, "Abstracting from the current controversy a bit, but 'the identity of the messenger is more important than the message' is a thru-line though a lot of very bad ideas."

once again, the "liberal media" just reports whatever the right wants them to

articles about Claudine Gay and her various "scandals" were top 5 featured stories on the New York Times homepage Dec 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 22, 25 and her firing is the now their top story. There is simply no way this is proportionate, sober or reasonable coverage

— Adam Johnson (@adamjohnsonCHI) January 3, 2024

The Stanford controversy last year? It got no almost-daily NYT coverage.

To return to what tipsy said last night: Rufo isn't a genius by any stretch. He's honest about his intentions and skilled at applying pressure points to classic lib weaknesses.

elite media obsessed with their elite alma mater

Yeah I didn't mean Rufo is actually a genius. "Supervillain" is better. But he's very good at pushing buttons — and narrating it as he does it!

Like Charlie Kirk, he has figured out the grift.

I'm not sure Rufo is in any way "leading" these things, he strikes me as a grifty self-promoter. The real people behind all this idiocy are the billionaires who fund people like Rufo.

worth noting maybe that the Stanford story was broken by a student reporter who also happens to be the son of a NYT reporter (Peter Baker). don't know if that had any bearing on their decision whether or not to cover it, though as Moynihan (I think) pointed out, it's not something that would ordinarily have been treated as national news until there was an outcome (the resignation). whereas the Harvard story is treated as news bc Rufo and his ilk are talking about it, and the NYT has decided that right-wing grievances are worth taking seriously.

Rick Perlstein has a new piece in the American Prospect. It's good.

According to polls (which, yes, have their uses, in moderation), something around half of likely voters would like to see as our next president a man who thinks of the law as an extension of his superior will, who talks about race like a Nazi, wants to put journalistic organizations whose coverage he doesn’t like in the dock for “treason,” and who promises that anyone violating standards of good order as he defines them—shoplifters, for instance—will be summarily shot dead by officers of the state who serve only at his pleasure. A fascist, in other words. We find ourselves on the brink of an astonishing watershed, in this 2024 presidential year: a live possibility that government of the people, by the people, and for the people could conceivably perish from these United States, and ordinary people—you, me—may have to make the kind of moral choices about resistance that mid-20th-century existentialist philosophers once wrote about. That’s the case if Trump wins. But it’s just as likely, or even more likely, if he loses, then claims he wins. That’s one prediction I feel comfortable with.

Journalistically, this crisis could not strike more deeply. The tools we have for making sense of how politicians seek to accumulate power focus on the whys and wherefores of attracting votes. But the Republican Party and its associated institutions of movement conservatism, at least since George and Jeb Bush stole the 2000 election in Florida, has been ratcheting remorselessly toward an understanding of the accumulation of political power, to which they believe themselves ineluctably entitled as the only truly legitimate Americans, as a question of will—up to and including the projection of will by the force of arms.

Ain’t no poll predicting who soccer moms will vote for in November that can make much headway in understanding that.

...

A political journalism adequate to this moment must throw so many of our received notions about how politics works into question. For one thing, it has to treat the dissemination of conventional but structurally distorting journalistic narratives as a crucial part of the story of how we got to this point.

For instance, the way mainstream American political journalism has built in a structural bias toward Republicans. If one side in a two-sided fight is perfectly willing to lie, cheat, steal, and intimidate without remorse in order to win, and journalists, as a matter of genre convention, must “balance” the ledger between “both sides,” in the interest of “fairness,” that is systematically unfair to the side less willing to lie, cheat, steal, and intimidate. Journalism that feels compelled to adjudge both “sides” as equally vicious, when they are anything but, works like one of those booster seats you give a toddler in a restaurant so that they can sit eye to eye with the grown-ups. It is a systematic distortion of reality built into mainstream political journalism’s very operating system.

For instance, the way mainstream American political journalism has built in a structural bias toward Republicans. If one side in a two-sided fight is perfectly willing to lie, cheat, steal, and intimidate without remorse in order to win, and journalists, as a matter of genre convention, must “balance” the ledger between “both sides,” in the interest of “fairness,” that is systematically unfair to the side less willing to lie, cheat, steal, and intimidate.

I mean yeah, this is the whole game for the GOP, they say it out loud too, what is amazing is how willing the media is to fall for this

tbf I don't remember any "Democracy Dies in Darkness" stuff from the press when Obama or Biden won.

Yeah but the fascism stuff is such as small part of Trump's routine, maybe 10%. The vast majority of his material is about celebrities and hot guys who hug him.

It may be 10% of his routine but it's 98% of his appeal. (margin of error 2%)

still winds me up when right-wing media types get called genius manipulators for passing a compliant media the exact sort of slop they love. like getting called a genius for getting a dog to chase a stick

— Shaun (shaunvids on bsky) (@shaun_vids) January 3, 2024

10% nazi is a lot

As a working journalist I agree with Perlstein and other such critiques but I also think people tend to exaggerate the importance of the MSM — at least, people who mostly pay attention to the MSM, which is who all of these critiques come from. A third of the country or more get their "news" almost entirely from right-wing media, and talking about what the NYT does or doesn't do has pretty much zero bearing on those people. Not that we shouldn't talk about the NYT or MSM, we should, but it is not "the media" as many people experience it.

I mean even if you don't watch CNN or subscribe to the NYT right-wing discourse is still all over social media, hell I found out about the Harvard president resigning because it was listed as 'breaking news' on a new browser tab

the issue seems to be there's just so much out there fighting for people's attention, we can only focus on so many things at once, and the right does a pretty good job ensuring it's shit like Bud Light and Target instead of say the fact that the clear Republican frontrunner is knowingly or unknowingly quoting Mein Kampf

As a working journalist I agree with Perlstein and other such critiques but I also think people tend to exaggerate the importance of the MSM — at least, people who mostly pay attention to the MSM, which is who all of these critiques come from. A third of the country or more get their "news" almost entirely from right-wing media, and talking about what the NYT does or doesn't do has pretty much zero bearing on those people. Not that we shouldn't talk about the NYT or MSM, we should, but it is not "the media" as many people experience it.

I agree. The complaints about "the media" mostly come from people who still regard Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd as important voices. In terms of actual real-world impact, much more attention should be paid to what's being broadcast on Fox, Sinclair, and OAN. But if we accept that the MSM is a sealed bubble mostly talking to itself, criticism from within is welcome.

I was referring to, ahem, another thread.

The college president who had an Only Fans with his wife should get more press

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/what-to-know-about-joe-gow-fired-uw-la-crosse-chancellor-involved-in-porn-industry/ar-AA1m7OqY

That guy kinda cracks me up. Doesn’t seem like he was even really hiding it.

no they are very publicly proud of it. absolute stupidity, who even cares, let him fuck his wife on the internet and teach

Let him teach! But he shouldn’t be surprised at losing the chancellor role. Bit much for the folks in La Crosse.

What about Country stars? Isn’t Jason Aldean a right winger?

I love that picture of Zachary Taylor so much. Dude was president!

i've always thought he was the greatest president

He opposed the Compromise of 1850! Who knows.

In that photo Taylor looks maybe how Asshole would look if he hadn't mired himself in bronzer and trans fats for five decades, and had possibly done activities in the real world.

hopefully they enjoyed their moment in the light

I mean one of them walked towards it so

Who remembers Trump’s touching eulogy at her funeral when he said he didn’t know who they were

He knew the dead one

TS is Jewish, which is something I only learned two days ago

https://medium.com/@resnikoff/nobody-talks-about-the-fact-that-taylor-swift-is-jewish-heres-why-it-matters-64aececd20b

I was today years old...

I've got a blank space, Bagel, and I'll schmear your name

lol what

That is even worse than the average Borowitz Report.

lol pretty dumb

But I do love the idea of even a rumor of her Jewishness (there is none) making her haters even madder.

Anyway, I heard she was digging tunnels under that Brooklyn Chabad house, but mostly to tone up her arms for the tour.

Nonsense. Taylor is Amish.

Taylor Swift is smoking big doinks in Amish.

The Neverending Rumspringa

I heard that Taylor's last name is really Zook. Which is Pennsylvania Dutch for "fast," so she just goes by "swift."

Say you'll remember me/ Standing in a plain dress/ Weaving up a basket

https://i.imgur.com/SzvE09t.png

(i understand gdp is very flawed as a way to measure how changes in a macroeconomy are experienced by people who aren't wealthy)

Don't worry, Trump will have those figures sinking in no time

I don't care about Zuckerberg's feelings, but these lame show trials where legislators get to ask the 'tough questions' about social media.. ugh so hypocritical. They'll immediately go and crow on those same platforms about how they're 'protecting the children'

Amazing, how relevant this thread title was down to the last day of the month

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-profound-influence-of-christian-extremists-on-mike-johnson

he claimed that his elevation to House Speaker was an act of God, who had told him personally to prepare for a “Red Sea moment.”

Moses with a lapel pin and horn rimmed glasses

TS is Jewish

Nonsense. Taylor is Amish.

She transcends such meager categories. She is a Disney Princess®.

these lame show trials where legislators get to ask the 'tough questions'

Grandstanding is an ancient tradition in Congress.

It's a weird thing, because do I think that kids shouldn't be allowed to use social media? Sort of, it's really truly bad for mental and emotional well-being!

Do I think that this is tied to fascist-fuelled "panic" about expanding notions of gender and sexuality, and trying to police children who don't conform to cis heteronormativity? Abso-fucking-lutely.

There is a non-negligible amount of “you are doing the right thing for the wrong reasons” in practically every outcome of right-wing thought that I end up agreeing with. (Note I said “outcome” because pretty much every time they end up on a action that seems reasonable, the logic taken to get there is the stuff of nightmares and makes me second-guess why I am agreeing with them)

Totally.

Both red and blue states in that lawsuit against Meta for harming children. It's mostly a stunt, but social media companies aren't politically popular with much of anyone.

damn

Oh my god? (Via ⁦@playbookdc⁩) pic.twitter.com/3RLmv6Qip1

— DJ Judd (@DJJudd) February 1, 2024

I don't know who this guy is, but his argument that Biden should run on a message of optimism and abundance has some logic behind it.

Biden has given us cheaper energy and struck a blow against climate change in the process

Most leftist climate activists, including the Sunrise Movement, Extinction Rebellion, Greta Thunberg, and so on, are still very much mentally stuck in the world of 2010 or earlier. In this worldview, only immediate and punishing reductions in consumption by the people of the rich world can avert catastrophic global disaster. That might have been true a long time ago, but today it’s pure fantasy. First of all, the developed world is shrinking rapidly as a source of global carbon emissions relative to China and the rest of Asia (and no, it’s not because of outsourcing).

But more importantly, big changes in technology mean that the world no longer faces a choice between maintaining modern standards of living and saving the climate from disaster. Cheap solar and batteries — which are still getting cheaper every year — have utterly changed the equation. We no longer face a choice between abundance and climate stability — thanks to cheap green energy, those goals are now one and the same.

Climate wonks and energy wonks are aware of this fact. Businesses are too; this is why Texas, a deep red state, has now surpassed California in solar power.

Texas is also powering ahead with battery storage.

That simply would not be happening if solar were an economically inefficient, expensive form of energy. There is no way that Texans would be building solar at a massive clip if doing so represented an economic sacrifice or a diminution of their standard of living. Ergo, it follows that solar power is not something that makes us poorer. Solar and batteries mean energy abundance — they mean Americans get to consume more, not less. They get cheap electricity for their homes, they get cheap water from solar-powered desalination, and so on.

This is the climate message I think Biden needs. His signature climate policy was called the “Inflation Reduction Act” for a reason. The idea was that cheaper electricity from solar and wind power would push down costs for companies, and thus reduce inflation. The IRA probably hasn’t done anything to lower inflation yet, but the fact that they gave it that name shows that Democrats explicitly conceived of it as an energy abundance policy. So a good message is that we’re generating cheaper, more plentiful electricity for Americans, while also fighting climate change in the process.

Long, but worth reading.

Despite Amy's comb notoriety, I kinda figured Tina was secretly the merciless one

xp I know who he is. he's yglesias's large adult son.

I thought Biden did a good job of that in 2020 - he didn't really address Trump directly much, instead just treated him like the clown he is. worked a lot better than Hillary's "DANGEROUS DONALD thinks we should cozy up to DICTATORS" stuff. but yeah I think Biden has a lot of accomplishments he can tout and I hope that's the direction the campaign takes, because once you punt all the culture war and reality TV shit, what it comes down to is this - Democrats actually get stuff done. They pass laws, they do the research, they make the tough decisions. Republicans do nothing. Even when Trump had control of everything he got very little done. The GOP House hasn't passed anything. They actively torpedo bills that align with their policy goals just to avoid giving Democrats a "win". They fight against Biden's agenda tooth and nail and then try to take credit for it when it passes. I think that's the message most likely to win in 2024.

expanded child tax credit passing?
Last night, the US House passed a nearly $79bn tax package that would expand the child tax credit for millions of lower-income families and revive a trio of tax breaks for businesses. Yes, that House – the Republican-controlled one that booted its Speaker and has repeatedly brought the US government to the brink of a shutdown while failing to do much legislating of consequence – that passed the tax bill on a vote of 357-70.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/biden-urges-congress-to-pass-ukraine-aid-day-after-rare-bipartisan-passage-of-bill-including-child-tax-credits-and-tax-breaks-us-politics-live/ar-BB1hBXwO

The IRA probably hasn’t done anything to lower inflation yet, but the fact that they gave it that name shows that Democrats explicitly conceived of it as an energy abundance policy.

lol iirc they gave it that name explicitly to be generically *misleading*, to make it palatable/give cover to Republicans.

Greta Thunberg, and so on, are still very much mentally stuck in the world of 2010 or earlier

lol Thunberg was 7 years old in 2010

love hearing old men accusing kids of being out of touch

you know those posters from the great leap forward showing happy peasants surrounded by abundance?

pro-biden discourse is coming off a bit like that right now (without the heady sense of exuberance - even the optimism is so wilfully circumscribed that it's the opposite of inspiring)

Competence isn't inspiring.

On the bright side, there are signs Sinema isn't even trying to get enough signatures to get on the ballot.

I think she realized pretty early on she didn't actually like the job

She also seems to be laundering donor money at a furious pace. $100K a month on personal security she pays to Tulsi Gabbard's sister. Private plane travel billed to campaign. A Leadership PAC that spent 1.7 million on stuff like hotels and wineries and only donated 25K to other candidates.

It's like someone found a way to publicly finance living their best life.

but wearing their worst shoes

ha

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Supreme Court said Thursday that 10 Republican state senators who staged a record-long walkout last year to stall bills on abortion, transgender health care and gun rights cannot run for reelection.

The decision upholds the secretary of state’s decision to disqualify the senators from the ballot under a voter-approved measure aimed at stopping such boycotts. Measure 113, passed by voters in 2022, amended the state constitution to bar lawmakers from reelection if they have more than 10 unexcused absences.

Last year’s boycott lasted six weeks — the longest in state history — and paralyzed the legislative session, stalling hundreds of bills.

Five lawmakers sued over the secretary of state’s decision — Sens. Tim Knopp, Daniel Bonham, Suzanne Weber, Dennis Linthicum and Lynn Findley. They were among the 10 GOP senators who racked up more than 10 absences.

Just goes to show, from the top down, if you really don't want people doing their job governing, then maybe you shouldn't be in government.

Hey there, fellow sufferers! This is February. We need a new US Politics thread. I'd do it, but I don't have a snappy thread title in mind.

Just ctrl + F proposals. Anyway:

“I can hear those champagne bottle corks popping in Moscow — like it’s Christmas every fucking day": US Politics, February 2024