By Lambert Strether of
TPP/TTIP/TISA/NAFTA
“[Trump] has many tools to reverse the post World War II consensus on liberalizing U.S. trade without needing congressional approval. For instance, he can withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement, as he has threatened to do, by simply notifying the U.S.’ Nafta partners, Mexico and Canada, and waiting six months. Withdrawing from the World Trade Organization, which sets rules for global trading and enforces tariffs, has a similar provision” [Wall Street Journal, “Donald Trump Will Need to Leverage Size, Power of U.S. Economy to Remake Global Trading System”]. “‘Our major trading partners are far more likely to cooperate with an America resolute about balancing its trade than they are likely to provoke a trade war,’ wrote Trump economic advisers Peter Navarro [here] of the University of California-Irvine and investor Wilbur Ross in September. ‘This is true for one very simple reason: America’s major trading partners are far more dependent on American markets than America is on their markets.'”
TPP: “To take effect, TPP must be ratified by February 2018 by at least six countries that account for 85 percent of the 12 members’ aggregate economic output. This effectively means that the U.S. and Japan, the world’s third-largest economy and the second-largest that is a signatory nation, must both be on board” [DC Velocity].
TPP: “Mr. Trump’s win also seals the fate of President Barack Obama’s 12-nation trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. The president-elect blamed the TPP on special interests who want to “rape” the country” [Wall Street Journal, “Donald Trump Win to Upend Trade Policy”]. “Mr. Obama had hoped to work with Republican lawmakers to pass the TPP during the ‘lame duck’ session of Congress after the election, where they faced an uphill battle even if Tuesday’s vote had favored Hillary Clinton, who previously backed the TPP negotiations. Now Republicans have little incentive to bring the TPP to a vote, since Mr. Trump could easily threaten to unravel the deal when he takes office and block its implementation, as well as punish lawmakers who vote for it.”
TPP: “Donald Trump’s historic victory Tuesday has killed any chance of Congress voting on President Barack Obama’s signature Asia-Pacific trade agreement while raising the odds of a damaging trade confrontation with China — just two ways a Trump presidency could upend the global trading system and usher in a new era of U.S. protectionism, analysts say” [Politico]. “‘This is the end of globalization is we knew it … because what the U.S. is going to do is certainly going to impact other countries’ and their decisions on negotiations,’ Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told Politico. ‘TPP is now in the history dustbin for sure,’ Hufbauer said.”
TPP: “House GOP election outcomes will be key as House Speaker Paul Ryan decides whether to bring the TPP to a vote in the lame-duck session with GOP voters strongly against and the GOP ‘s high-donor base demanding action. With an eye to conservative GOP threats to withhold support for his speakership and a possible 2020 presidential run, Ryan’s decision is complicated. Whether the TPP will get a lame-duck vote is his call. Beyond whether he can muster the votes of representatives who weathered the wrath of trade voters in this cycle and worry about the 2018 primaries lies the longer-term implications of his even trying to do so with the GOP voter base so intensely against the pact” [Lori Wallach, Eyes on Trade].
2016
The Rending of Garments and Gnashing of Teeth
“People’s net worth has been crippled, if you were directly, in a 401K, through a mutual fund, or through a pension, invested in capital markets” [TeacherKen, Daily Kos]. Bathos.
Money
“Allies on the ground complained for weeks that they weren’t getting the resources they needed” [The Hill]. “‘The big question is ‘How much money did you spend? And what’s left in the bank?’ said one Clinton surrogate. ‘Because there were states like Michigan that kept sounding the alarm and no one was taking it seriously until the very end. They never really got everything they wanted.’ … “Russ Feingold sent a flare up and said ‘I need help,’ [Democratic strategist Jim Manley] said, but it went largely ignored.” Huh? Clinton spent the month of August fundraising. The Clinton Victory Fund scam turned the state parties into a money laundries for cash passed through to the Clinton campaign. Clinton raised $154 million in September for her campaign and the party. And people “getting the resources they needed”? Seems odd.
Policy
“Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled the Senate would move swiftly to repeal Obamacare now that the GOP Congress will have a Republican president next year” [Politico].
Polling Debacle
“While the [Trump] campaign had expressed confidence in public, their own data showed only a narrow path to the 270 electorates needed to win the White House” [NBC]. And: “RNC staffers thought Trump would win 240 Electoral College votes, 30 short of the 270 needed to win. They cautioned reporters that these numbers could change. And it was noteworthy that their projections were more optimistic than much of the public polling. But Trump was down 2 points in Florida, down 2 points in Iowa, down 2 points in New Hampshire and down 3 points in Wisconsin. Trump won Florida, won Iowa, won Wisconsin, and as of the publishing of this story was in a tight race for New Hampshire” [Yahoo News]. Which, interestingly, is what I kept saying. When I cut through the triumphalism and looked at the polling, and threw those numbers against the “paths to victory,” it was always (except for one week) a horse race. So I seem to have channeled the Trump team’s thinking on the data. It’s been an interesting year, and I’ll critique my approach tomorrow. An interesting data point: “The best data inside the Trump campaign was just as pessimistic. Even the most optimistic models run by Cambridge Analytica for Trump showed him losing. But as Cambridge’s Matt Oczkowski tweeted late Tuesday, Trump’s support and turnout among rural voters was 10 percentage points higher than they had expected.” Ten points is rather a lot.
“Donald Trump’s win was predicted by Allan Lichtman — the US election expert who has called every result since 1984” [Independent]. “‘[The 13 keys method] is a historically based prediction system. I derived the system by looking at every American presidential election from 1860 to 1980,’ Professor Lichtman has said.” And: “Lichtman believes election analysts err by studying campaign as a series of battlefields — northern versus southern Florida, western versus eastern Pennsylvania, and so on. He prefers likening it to dominoes, toppling one way or the other. He says U.S. campaigns are contests of momentum. In the early 1980s, he and a colleague examined election results dating back to the Civil War and found a pattern. They drew up 13 true-false statements, and if the answer to six or more was ”False,” the incumbent party always lost the White House” [HuffPo]. And: “LICHTMAN: I don’t call [the 13 keys] data-driven. I have no problem with data. My prediction system is based on a huge amount of data, you know. But I do object to poll-and-pundit-driven analysis, which is not meaningful because it’s not based on any kind of systematic assessment of how elections work” [NPR].
“I Answer Your Questions About Predicting President Trump” [Scott Adams Blog]. “Clinton’s team of cognitive scientists and professional persuaders did a terrific job of framing Trump as scary. The illusion will wear off – albeit slowly – as you observe Trump going about the job of President and taking it seriously. You can expect him to adjust his tone and language going forward. You can expect foreign leaders to say they can work with him. You can expect him to focus on unifying an exhausted and nervous country. And you can expect him to succeed in doing so. (He’s persuasive.) Watch as Trump turns to healing. You’re going to be surprised how well he does it. But give it time.” Scott Adams is looking pretty good right now. But is he only as good as his last trade?
“Silver is just guessing. And, in the run-up to this election, he made so many guesses that at least one of them has to be correct” [WaPo].
Downballot
“The 2018 election cycle has started and Republicans find themselves in an interesting place. On the one hand, the tables are turned as they will get to play offense. There are 33 races in 2018 and Democrats will defend 25 of those seats while Republicans will defend just eight of them” [Cook Political Report].
The Voters
Anecdotes but well-chosen: “It was never enough to say that the Trump phenomenon rested only on whites without a college degree. They were part of Trump’s surprise, but not all of it. The real shocks were the fence-sitters, the late-breakers, the Bush-family types, and the suburban women. They would, we were so often told, recoil from Trump. Outside the Silverbrook Elementary School, a polling station in the affluent community of Fairfax Station, I encountered Jaclyn Miller, a genial tax accountant in her mid-thirties. I asked how she voted. She winced and laughed. ‘I voted for Trump, begrudgingly,’ she said” [The New Yorker]. “‘It was the lesser of two evils, in my mind. I’m definitely a fiscal conservative, and the corruption and everything from Hillary, just, I couldn’t do it,’ she said. “She’s not trustworthy.’ The ‘Access Hollywood’ tape did not matter much to her. After all, she said, Bill Clinton was ‘with an intern in the Oval Office.; Of Trump, she added, ‘I’m sure there’s things that I’ve said that I would never want public.’ Miller went on, ‘A couple weeks ago, I had decided, at that moment, that I was going third party. And I really wish that there was a valid third-party option. I think a lot of Americans don’t fall into one category.'” Amen to that last comment.
“The Democratic Party Deserved To Die” [Krystal Ball, HuffPo]. “Well, those jobs are actually gone for good, we knowingly told them. And we offered a fantastical non-solution. We will retrain you for good jobs! Never mind that these ‘good jobs’ didn’t exist in East Kentucky or Cleveland. And as a final insult, we lectured a struggling people watching their kids die of drug overdoses about their white privilege. Can you blame them for calling bullshit? ”
“The ‘Deplorables’ Got the Last Laugh” [David Dayen, The New Republic]. “[T]he lesson for Democrats is ultimately clear enough: You cannot write off half the country, much less spend an election cycle deriding it, and expect success.”
“Despite the unexpected triumph of Donald Trump, Democratic state legislative candidates held their own Tuesday in their efforts to close the gap on Republicans in the nation’s statehouses” [RealClearPolitics]. But: “Overall, after netting more than 800 state legislative seats during the Obama years, Republicans are hugely dominant in the nation’s statehouses, controlling 66 of the nation’s 98 partisan legislative chambers. Democrats control 30. There are two ties, pending the outcome in the New York Senate. (Nebraska has a nominally non-partisan unicameral legislature.) ”
Our Famously Free Press
“But I’ve come to think that the rise of fake news — and of the cheap-to-run, ideologically driven aggregator sites that are only a few steps up from fake — has weaponized those filter bubbles. There were just too many people voting in this election because they were infuriated by made-up things they read online” [Nieman Labs]. Dunno about that (see below). But this rings true: “One thread running through the countless profiles of Trump voters this cycle was the loss of community institutions. The factories shut down; the church pews were emptier than they used to be; the braided fabric of their towns had unraveled. Don’t forget that, particularly in smaller communities, the local newspaper was one of those key institutions — the daily or weekly package of stories that connected you to your neighbors.”
“Facebook’s algorithm and whatever ‘echo chamber’ or ‘filter bubble’ or whatever it may have created did not lead to this result. This was the result of a very large group of people who are quite clearly — and reasonably — pissed off at the status quo…. This was a “throw the bums out” vote, and many of the bums deserved to be thrown out” [Tech Dirt]. “But that’s not Facebook’s fault. And the idea that a better or different algorithm on Facebook would have made the results any different is just as ridiculous as the idea that newspaper endorsements or ‘fact checking’ mattered one bit. People are angry because the system has failed them in many, many ways, and it’s not because they’re idiots who believed all the fake news Facebook pushed on them (even if some of them did believe it). Many people don’t think Trump will be any good, but they voted for him anyway, because the status quo is broken.”
Legitimacy
Trump meets with Obama: “‘We discussed a lot of different situations, some wonderful and some difficulties. I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel,’ Trump said. ‘Mr. President, it was a great honor meeting with you. And I look forward to meeting with you many, many more times in the future'” [Olivier Knox, Yahoo News].
Sanders: “To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him. To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic, and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him” [Variety].
“Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg appeared to be wearing her infamous “dissent jabot” on the bench Wednesday morning. The move is being widely interpreted as a repudiation of Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election a night earlier” [The Hill]. “Ginsburg typically wears the collar when issuing dissenting opinions in the court, as she explained to Yahoo News in 2014. But no opinions were read Wednesday.” This isn’t like Kremlinology. It is Kremlinology.
“The audience for our glib analysis and contempt for much of the electorate, it turned out, was rather limited. This was particularly true when it came to voters, the ones who turned out by the millions to deliver not only a rebuke to the political system but also the people who cover it. Trump knew what he was doing when he invited his crowds to jeer and hiss the reporters covering him. They hate us, and have for some time” [CBS]. “What’s worse, we don’t make much of an effort to really understand, and with too few exceptions, treat the economic grievances of Middle America like they’re some sort of punchline. Sometimes quite literally so, such as when reporters tweet out a photo of racist-looking Trump supporters and jokingly suggest that they must be upset about free trade or low wages.” Yglesias being a prime offender.
“My mom-in-law was watching CBS all night, so that’s what we watched. All the pundits/anchors spoke in the hushed tones of a funeral. For two hours, the only images of campaign workers shown were the sad faces of Clinton supporters; not one image of jubilant Trump supporters was broadcast until Trump gave his acceptance speech” [Of Two Minds]. “When one of the talking heads noted that Hillary never generated the enthusiasm of the Sanders or Trump campaigns, his comment was followed by a stony silence. That he had given voice to a self-evident truth was not welcome.
“The White House on Wednesday refused to rule out the possibility that Obama would pardon Clinton to prevent Trump from prosecuting her when he takes office” [The Hill]. And: “‘There are deep and disturbing issues there,’ [Rudy] Giuliani, a top Donald Trump adviser and former federal prosecutor, said Thursday on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends,’ citing the Clinton Foundation. ‘That’s why I don’t think President Obama should pardon her,’ Giuliani added. ‘I think President Obama should leave it to the system that we all believe in to determine is she innocent or is she guilty?'”
“Within a few weeks of winning the White House, President-elect Donald Trump could face another group of U.S. citizens, a federal jury in California, courtesy of a lawsuit by former students of his now-defunct Trump University who claim they were defrauded by a series of real-estate seminars” [Reuters].
Stats Watch
Jobless Claims, week of November 5, 2016: “Employers are holding tightly onto their employees as jobless claims remain steady at or near record lows” [Econoday]. And: “lower than the consensus forecast” [Calculated Risk]. But: “The trend of the 4 week moving average is continuing to marginally worsened – and catch up to the rolling averages of a year ago – and this trend historically indicates a weakening GDP” [Econintersect].
Employment Situation: “Despite largescale hiring announcements from numerous major retailers, the number of October employment gains in the sector declined 21 percent from a year ago to 154,600. That was the fewest job gains to kick off the holiday hiring season since 2012” [Econintersect].
Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index, week of November 6, 2016: “The consumer comfort index, at 45.1 in the November 6 week, is accelerating” [Econoday]. “Strength in consumer confidence is tied closely to strength in the labor market. ”
Shipping: “[“Smart containers”] can be tracked, managed and monitored remotely using special hardware such as relay antennas which allows the lines to collect, store and analyse data even while the ship is in high seas.. Based on this data, lines can take relevant remedial action where required, especially with regards to reefer cargo” [Shipping & Freight Resource]. “In a lot of the cases digital technology has become a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and shipping lines while competing on price have also started competing on ease of UX (User Experience) and through this have managed to transfer a lot of the work from their desks to the customers desks…. Of course there are humans involved in these processes in the background, but the fact remains that in a lot of the cases you don’t have any visible human interaction as the system takes care of everything.”
Shipping: “Cargo transportation by sea in 2015 saw its slowest rate of growth since 2009 amid the prolonged slowdown in global trade.Figures from the UN Conference on Trade and Development indicated that seaborne shipping had risen 2.1% year on year to exceed 10bn tons” [Lloyd’s List].
The Bezzle: ” Yahoo describes massive data breach, doesn’t explain two-year disclosure gap” [FCPA Blog]. “Yahoo said in a securities filing Wednesday that employees knew in late 2014 a state-sponsored hacker entered its network and stole names, birth dates, and encrypted passwords for more than 500 million accounts… Wednesday’s disclosure didn’t say which employees knew about the attack or who they informed. Yahoo first disclosed the 2014 data breach in September this year. The board is now investigating the attack with the help of forensic experts, Yahoo said Wednesday. The company didn’t say when the board first learned about the attack or which executives, if any, knew about the attack when it happened. Yahoo disclosed the attack in September, two months after entering into an agreement to sell itself to Verizon for $4.8 billion.”
The Bezzle: “̌Republican Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential race puts a new rule on retirement advice in limbo, even after Wall Street’s biggest wealth management firms have spent millions preparing for it, lawyers and analysts said this week. The U.S. Department of Labor fiduciary rule, which is set to start taking effect in April, is meant to promote the best interests of retirement savers by eliminating conflicts of interest for brokers” [Reuters]. “On the campaign trail, Trump has said that ’70 percent of regulations can go,’ and an adviser, Anthony Scaramucci [here], told Reuters the fiduciary rule ‘would likely be stopped.'”
The Bezzle: “We decided to examine the descriptions of [thousands of companies that received venture capital investment since 2010] to get a better look into the ever-changing startup landscape. We used natural language processing to identify trends by looking at which words are more or less common today than at the beginning of the decade” [Priceonomics]. “We found that social media, mobile apps, and email startups are on their way out, while messaging, healthcare, tools, and artificial intelligence are gaining momentum. By and large, startup descriptions are tech-heavy, featuring words like ‘app,’ ‘cloud,’ and ‘network.’ Our data also shows that no word has seen a bigger jump in usage than ‘virtual reality’ and no word a bigger decline than ‘electronics.'”
Political Risk: “‘The rapid rise of political and social populism and accelerating global migration are causes of concern,’ [AG CEO Joe] Kaeser said. [Wall Street Journal, “Siemens Warns of Populist Threat to Business as Profit Jumps”].
Political Risk: “The global shipping industry is bracing for a Donald Trump presidency, fearing the antitrade rhetoric in the campaign could turn into international showdowns that cripple the flow of goods” [Wall Street Journal]. “The betting in Mr. Trump’s camp is that trading partners will believe that access to the U.S. market is too precious to give up without negotiating new deals. Until that happens, however, ocean carriers will have to watch the political winds.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 40 Fear (previous close: 30, Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 18 (Extreme Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Nov 9 at 11:38am. Life goes on.
Gaia
“Sex is far from a perfect way to reproduce. It imposes a huge cost on a species, and that cost is called “males.” If roughly 50 percent of a species is made up of males who are incapable of producing babies, it is at a serious reproductive disadvantage relative to another species made up mostly of females capable of reproducing on their own” [Nautilus]. “Despite its drawbacks, sex does seem to offer a species an incontrovertible advantage. It recombines individuals’ genes so that the species as a whole can maintain the diversity of traits it needs to survive whatever challenges—faster predators, changing climate, giant comet impacts—the future may throw at it…. By this logic, parthenogenesis is an evolutionary cul-de-sac.” But: “Earlier this year, a team from the American Museum of Natural History compared easily measurable traits such as scales along the belly, or pores on the right leg, from seven generations of one line of parthenogenic whiptails with a sexually reproducing species. The parthenogens showed just as much physical variability as sexually reproducing whiptails, even though the parthenogens all had identical DNA.” Hoo boy.
News of the Wired
“A life in ruins” [New Criterion]. “On the architectural vision of John Soane.” Random quote: “Around 1850, Baudelaire was the first to use modernité in the sense of a unique aesthetic sensibility.”
“How Japan Prepares Its Children for Independence” [Savvy Tokyo]. “By five and six, Japanese children often take public transit or walk to school without their parents.”
Readers, feel free to contact me with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, and (c) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. And here’s today’s plant (ChiGal):
ChiGal writes: “[A] hornbeam tree, never seen in the Chi but all over Carrboro, the ‘Paris of the South.’ If croissants were biscuits…”
Readers, Water Cooler is a standalone entity, not supported by the very successful Naked Capitalism fundraiser just past. Now, I understand you may feel tapped out, but when and if you are able, please use the dropdown to choose your contribution, and then click the hat! Your tip will be welcome today, and indeed any day. Water Cooler will not exist without your continued help.
339 comments
Comments are closed.
Apropos of the election, and in light of the importance of helping people to start catching up/on, might I offer up this talk by Blyth, called Global Trumpism (45m + 45m Q&A session which is interesting as well), for your viewing pleasure? Includes a brief lesson on world-economic history since ’45, Keynes & Kalecki, stagflation and the response to it, and more. Quite worthwhile.
I have somewhat reserved opinions about Mr. Blyth, he appears to be more of a third-tier economist, definitely not on the level of a Michael Hudson or Michael Perelman, and he actually believes Krugman understands economics/finance which points towards gullibility — Krugman is usually a complete douchetard in those matters!
Yeah I watched and found it pretty simplistic save for a few interesting points, but would be good to share with “normals”(?) who don’t think about this stuff daily and are confused by what’s happening.
Just wondering, is there anywhere a source of reliable media writers that we can rely on?
A small list to start with:
– Glenn Greenwald
– Naomi Klein
– Thomas Frank
– Chris Hedges
Need a full list of people that we can trust to give us an honest breakdown.
What is the quality of coverage at the Al Jaazera English network and RT? Any alt media sites you guys trust?
This election has a been a serious eye opener. A lot of supposedly left leaning sites proved to be little more than Clinton bots – the Daily Kos being the most visible example but there have been others.
Everybody on your list is usually pretty good, but no one is on all the time. It’s totally possible to be right about a lot things and woefully blind to others. See Matt Taibbi, Christopher Hitchens, etc. It’s always important to not assume someone knows what they’re talking about just because that’s been the case in the past. No matter the source, you always gotta think it through yourself.
That said, this site (obviously) and anything by Bill Black, Michael Hudson, The Real News Network, or Laura Flanders is a good bet for real news. And that’s just for starters….
Chris Arnade, Michael Tracey, Carl Beijer, Stephanie Kelton, Francis McKenna, Adolph Reed, Corey Robin, Jimmy Dore, Benjamin Dixon, Erica Garner, Dan Froomkin.
Ian Welsh and Eric Margolis.
Also Jordan Chariton from TYT Politics, Ian Welsh, Marcy Wheeler, Lee Fang, Kevin Gosztola.
And for now, a hilarious blend of conservative/liberal Sanders types at reddit’s way of the bern.
I might add Adam H. Johnson with the Michael Tracey crowd.
Two twitter feeds… actualflatticus and Nina Illingworth that have been ‘fiery’ about the election.
I would add to the list: Ted Rall, I always enjoy Jeffrey St. Clair,
and BAR’s Glen Ford and Margaret Kimberly
Mmm…. these days it’s a rare type of journalist who won’t fall on earth void of sense, nor drop to earth dead of mind! Agree with those listed by NC commenters but would also include the following below. Why?
None of them (rarely?) prostrate themselves upon the ground………they instead bravely choose to behold the earth in all its’ darkest extremities. For they are a crazy bunch of hellacious mortals piercing our gloom with much added sparkle and stars….
International Business Times – David Sirota and his colleagues
The Young Turks – Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian (a formidable young lady!) et al
The Empire Files with Abby Martin (another formidable young lady!)
Watching the Hawks – Tabetha Wallace (as with Ana and Abby!), Tyrel Ventura etc.
The Intercept – Lee ‘BIG’ Fang, Jeremy Scahill, and the rest of the team
There are also a few typically labeled right-wingers IMHO who are good too, not least because they remain sane and surprisingly impartial for the most part compared to their batty brethren! Otherwise I’d suggest the non-English language media for a decent lay of the USA…
Max Blumenthal
Walker Bragman
Holly Wood
Amy Sterling Casil
Katie Halper
Benjamin Dixon
Emmett Rensin
Rania Khalek
Adam H. Johnson
Zach Carter (most of the time)
Any of the writers for Jacobin.
Freddie deBoer …..
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/10/hillary-clinton-lost-bernie-sanders-could-have-won/
Is Dore still part of the TYT crowd? Because he seriously has a vastly better grasp of things than they do.
True. The Young Shitebags are awful. They make Rush Limbaugh seem erudite.
While Cenk can be hard on the ears when in all caps rants, TYT is really quite informative and entertaining. Dore on a tear complete with parenthetical remarks manages to compress a lot of detail in a short time. He makes comedy central look sick/dead.
I don’t know, just watched a few of their recent videos. Michael Shure is the epitome of the clueless identity politics liberal, sneering about all the ‘people in overalls with pitchforks’ who voted for Trump, and John Iadarola seems convinced the only possible reason non-college educated white men under 45 could have voted for Trump is because they hate women. Pathetic.
Both the WSJ and the National Review appear to thankfully give some out-of-the-box latitude to their teams at times to present some impartial, well-researched and well-written journalism. Don’t read everything in either journal but I haven’t seen any “sneering of people in overalls with pitchforks” from either journal.
Try this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyBMhmK79tg
Glen Ford, Greg Palast, Bev Harris, Arthur Silber
The Davids–Sirota and Dayen
I’d add Prof. Richard Wolff to that list
richard wolff who’s carried by the guardian?? you must be kidding.
I’ll throw in David Dayen.
John Pilger, e.g. http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/04/the-secrets-of-the-us-election-julian-assange-talks-to-john-pilger/
However I would ignore Naomi Klein at this point.
i haven’t been following her lately, but disaster capitalism was great. what has she done that would lead you to ignore her?
Lately, reading Naomi Klein reminds me of reading The Nation. Can’t ge more specific b/c I really do ignore her.
Add Bill Greider to the list (even if he is with The Nation).
Apropos of “other viewpoint” sources:
Many, many times during this election cycle I found myself relying on the Wall Street Journal, one of the few outlets not in the Clinton tank. For reporting mainly, but sometimes commentary: Peggy Noonan was spot on.
As always, critical thinking skills needed. And discussion with others –which is one reason NC is so valuable.
The National Review weren’t supportive of Trump either (plus they disapproved of Trumps’ boorish birther-baloney on Obama) and Noonan was none too impressed by either Trump or Clinton.
David Malone (GolemXIV) He doesn’t post often, but it’s often good.
Is there really an answer to this? I mean, everyone we “ostensibly” seem to trust seems to have a blind spot somewhere.
Glenn Greenwald is great, but has some issues with releasing Snowden documents (which I think Cryptome has discussed), plus there’s always the issue of what angle Pierre Omydar is pushing.
Chris Hedges seems to have a an overly soft heart for religion in general and was overly apologetic in my mind to Islam after 9/11, which I think Sam Harris did a good job of pointing out the flaws in his, not logic, but rather “faith.”
But then Sam Harris has some serious issues with wanting to use nuclear weapons against religious fundamentalists too… (There’s a good podcast interview between Dan Carlin and Sam on you tube where Dan I think exposes some of Sam’s blind spots.)
Chomsky, of course, has the problem of LOTE-ism by telling everyone to hold their noses and vote for Hillary.
I say something along the lines of trust, but verify…or trust no one (at the heart of it all) when it comes to journalistic sources, experts or other thinkers.
I don’t think it could ever be a matter of just following “trusted” sources as you might not always be able to know when they’ve been compromised or change their viewpoints and subtly/slowly alter their reporting to fit their new perspective or paradigm.
Sometimes it’s not even subtle, like when Christopher Hitchens went all in with Shrub on invading Iraq & Middle East adventurism.
It’s mostly about critical thinking skills and putting pieces together using varied sources, even those that might disgust you simply because they force your to look at issues from other perspectives.
Your last paragraph is SPOT ON!
The capacity of masses in developing ‘critical thinking’ and ability to discern fact from fad, I am afraid is limited!
Critical Thinking should be mandatory coursework in High School. The world would be a much better place.
….along with Philosophy classes and Financial Literacy programs
I think most useful would be a particular list of ‘pundits’ who have been shown to be on the take. I don’t mean obvious partisan shills, but those who, but for wikileaks, may have gotten the benefit of a doubt. People whose careers should be over due to revelations, like Thrush, Klein, Yglesias…
I wonder if it isn’t a bit risky to create such lists, though I admit my daily reading implicitly relies on one. Nobody, even well-intentioned, can be guaranteed always reliable, nor is someone who really annoys you sometimes always going to be wrong. Facts matter, with sources if they are not in the category of general knowledge, and clear reasoning, and a willingness to consider other points of view when they are offered with some substantiation–all the sorts of things that characterize our hosts and some of the most knowledgeable and thoughtful commenters here.
When I was in seventh or eighth grade we had “current events” in which you had to bring in a news article from one of the newspapers, present its information, and give your preliminary critique, which opened up discussion from the floor, with questions about whether the article was giving all the information or seemed to give inappropriate weight to one point of view without factual support, etc. Judging by letters in my local paper, I suspect this practice died long ago, as many people don’t understand that opinion and bias on the editorial page are both permissible and to be expected, but yet others fail to see them in articles.
Sometimes for kicks or because of recent developments, I look for news sources in another area or country, for which I have sometimes found this site useful:
World Newspapers Online http://www.actualidad.com
Either use advanced browsing or scroll down to the map and pick your area. You can quickly find out which papers you’re capable of reading and then apply your critical thinking skills to try to assess the target audience, possible backing, bias, etc. It’s an interesting exercise, and sometimes preferable to getting the “expert” opinion of someone in this country who really doesn’t know the subject as well as he claims to.
i miss current events day! globalization is creating information overload. my friends and family members constantly confuse their opinion from fact. they read little and watch MSM less often than they did…what they do lately is twist their personal experiences into facts pertaining to the entire globe. skerrie.
i’m trying to practice listening more…this is not a simple task. controlling my facial expressions is the most difficult. i’ve come to notice that the more i repeat what they say the more they justify or explain…this continues as long as i can stand it but they tend to realize their argument isn’t as sound as they thought. at this point, i use to stick my foot in the open door…but really listening isn’t about ‘enlightenment’ onto their confusions. and anyway, i need a lot of practice at not speaking.
2006 was when i noticed something wasn’t ‘jiving’ in the economic world. way out of my league, i spent a lot of time reading older Bloomberg opinion section with Investopedia always opened in another tab. fortunately i could distinguish opinions from the facts…but as the markets heated up the facts got much harder to decipher. i remember taking a short break from the mayhem and backing into a site called Thinkdotcom…it offered the critical thinking skills exercises you’re mentioning…what a life saver.
skills, considered a no-brainer, are too easy to take for granite…listening comes easy, right? Thanks for the link Katherine…and the reminder: Nobody, even well-intentioned, can be guaranteed always reliable, nor is someone who really annoys you sometimes always going to be wrong. Facts matter, with sources if they are not in the category of general knowledge, and clear reasoning, and a willingness to consider other points of view when they are offered with some substantiation–all the sorts of things that characterize our hosts and some of the most knowledgeable and thoughtful commenters here.
holy cow, i wrote the longest reply i’ve written in years and it went poof!
anywho…Thank You Kathrine for the reminder that skills that seem to come naturally, can always use a bit of dusting off. Thanks for the link, luv aby.
Don’t forget Dean Baker‘s blog Beat the Press for more staight talk on economics.
Forgot Dean Baker.
This is really quite a long list, and that’s a good thing. IMNSHO, there’s also a ton of good writing out there in the blogosphere and academia. The trick is finding it…
I would also add, if nobody did, The American Conservative to the list of publications that are worth reading.
H.A. Goodman
Hamilton Nolan
Matt Taibbi
Shaun King has been so so.
Chris Savage, Ellen Nakashima, Carol Rosenberg, Mark Ames, John Dolan aka Gary Brecher aka The War Nerd, James Risen, Ray MacGovern, Robert Parry, Michael Winship, Bill Moyers, Charles P. Piece.
Robert Parry’s Consortium News is good especially for foreign affairs.
Altandmain,
Various good suggestions have certainly been made by other posters, but I should like to commend the value of visiting other sites where you may encounter views that are not homogeneous with yours. If I may, I would submit that this very narrowness of field of vision was part and parcel of the collapse of the Democrat party’s fortunes; when one lives in an echo chamber, where all that is on offer is confirmation bias, and all other viewpoints are believed to be malicious by design, or beneath contempt because their proponents are idiots, you’re going to fall in a pit sooner or later.
Other sites which I regularly visit, and have for some time, are Sic Semper Tyrannis, and Moon of Alabama. As a citizen of the Republic, I consider it my duty to know something of military affairs, and about the practice and impacts of our military/diplomatic adventurism in the world, and these sites admirably fit the bill.
SST is run by a career military man, Col. (Ret.) Patrick Lang, of wide experience ranging from combat to high echelons of military intelligence, and (roughly) paleo-conservative views, and the posters are of high caliber, too.
Moon of Alabama is run by Bernhard, a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany, also with some military experience in the Bundeswehr back during the Cold War as a tank commander in the Fulda Gap (life expectancy 15 minutes tops in the event of war). He curates an amazing array of links from foreign sources, and comments with insight.
I also have recently been regularly visiting the Unz Review, run by the libertarian/conservative, Ron Unz. He aggregates links not only from the right, but also from the left, economists such as Michael Hudson, and a stable of fairly regular blogs, some from AltRight thinkers. It’s a wild assortment, but then, Mr. Unz really is a believer in free speech and provides a forum for views largely shut out in other fora, yet which bubble beneath the surface of contemporary discourse which contest with BOTH right- and left-acceptable worldviews. A broadening of awareness is on offer, not a cushy ride down Confirmation Bias Boulevard, but you already have my views on that…
Regards,JJ
I’d agree that there are other lesser evil types that have some idea of the extent of the problems, but seem unable to shake the Democrats and neoliberals.
An example might be Noam Chomsky. Michael Moore might be another. Perhaps the most visible Democrat who is an apologist for their party at times is probably Robert Reich.
I desperately think that we need a list of reliable sources though (apart from Yves of course).
I like to include RealClear Politics (links aggregator) in my daily wanderings. It has a distinct right slant (though includes lefties, even NC from time to time). During the election run-up when most everything went full right or full left, Real Clear insured I was able to dig out a little balance in my news that served me well.
To maintain your objectivity, avoid your subjectivity! Every so often one should be willing to explore the entire media spectrum.
Yes on Hedges and Greenwald, Noami Klein is finally beginning to get it, Frank is kind of slow on the pick up — voted for Hillary after writing that book, and really believes they believe in that “meritocracy stuff”!
Definitely: Guns & Butter out of Berkeley and Bonnie Faulkner
http://www.gunsandbutter.org/
Everything Prof. Michael Hudson speaks of — ditto Prof. Michael Perelman
Pam Martens over at http://www.wallstreetonparade.com
Can pick up some interesting info at:
http://www.cryptogon.com
Greenwald absolutely nailed it in his latest.
To paraphrase the scariest part:
We gave the President in his royal person the personal power to assassinate anyone, anywhere, based on secret legal justification that is locked in a safe, supported by secret evidence that is locked in that same safe, with no power of oversight whatsoever. Those of us yelling “this is a really bad idea!” were shouted down because we were told our leaders are benevolent and decent. Then we warned against the day they might not be so benevolent or decent: that day has now arrived.
A nice round up so far. The Archdruid appears to be missing and BAR is the Black Agenda Report. Now that the election is over I expect some writers will gradually regain their senses…
finian cunningham, robert fisk, pepe escobar..
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
al jaazera is good for non-mideast stuff. however, for the middle east look elsewhere as they are biased to the sunni side of the street. rt is good for american news.
for russian news try the somewhat biased: http://thesaker.is/
for in-depth analysis: http://www.tomdispatch.com/
if you want to boil your blood read Dr. Paul Craig Roberts!
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
are we going to be put on a list?
Patrick Cockburn of The Independent for on-the-ground mideast reporting.
indeed. and ol’ seymour hersh still manages to shine light on some of the darkest recesses of humanity’s folly.
i do also enjoy mike whitney at counterpunch for his uncanny ability to express concisely and sardonically current affairs in both finance and geopolitics.
Andrew Cockburn recently wrote a good book too (titled something like Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins, IIRC), and I’ve learned lots from things he’s co-written with his wife, Leslie. Not sure he does much journalism these days, though (and if he does, can’t remember seeing anything recent). I really miss Alexander Cockburn’s work, and would have loved to see his take on the latest election (as well as that of Christopher Hitchens, who– despite that unfortunate neocon swerve he took on foreign policy late in his life, always loathed the Clintons, and I’m sure I would have enjoyed whateverhe would have made of the 2016 election debacle). The Nation ain’t what it used to be when those two were writing regularly, and instead now wallows in the identity politics cesspit (I’m thinking particularly of Katha Politt’s recent paean to HRC).
i tried to go back and reread some of alexander cockburn’s writing at the nation, but alas they now have signup/paywall stuff so all i could get was a list of synopses. for example:
during the junior bush years, the nation had an excellent comment section, similar to what is found here, with 2-300 mostly well thought out comments being the norm. now they get 4.
TheRealNews.com should be on the list.
RT and Al Jazeera can be good counterpoint depending on the part of the world, as others have mentioned. They both have interesting panel discussions and some very good guests, also good documentaries that fill in some of the gaps in US-taught history and world affairs.
Newsbud.com
The Corbett Report
The other night I looked at presstv.ir It was much better than in the past, and its coverage of many things was excellent.
TheRealNews.com has many excellent guests. Their Reality Asserts Itself interview series are especially good.
By looking at a number of things that I know include some element of foreign propaganda it makes it easier for me to recognize our own propaganda.
Andrew Bacevich
Altandmain I highly recommend Pat Lang’s committee of correspondence SicSemperTyrannis blog for geopolitical/foreign/military policy (“The Borg”) analysis. It will change your understanding of the world, it did mine.
My two daily go to websites are NakedCapitalism and Sic Semper Tyrannis (and occasionally Macrobusiness for some Australian analysis). It’s all I need with the broad depth of NC’s daily links. Others I look at occasionally have been mentioned in above comments
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/
If you never read another analysis of the 2016 presidential election circus and how we, incredulously, arrived at a Donald Trump presidency, read this one by Jake Johnson.
“How corporate centrism has failed to defeat even the most incompetent figurehead of the nativist right”
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/11/10/blame-neoliberals-democrats-toxic-ideology-paved-way-trump
Naomi Klein, in most ways, absolutely. But, in her older works, she was real negative against Jeff Sachs. He got lambasted, early in his career, confused with the Chicago U crowd of neo-liberals, who followed Hayak. He’s NOT like them and has been very progressive in The Sustainable Development Solutions Network of the United Nations. A real leader of true-science, climate change education around the world.
IMHO, Jeff Sachs seems to know he really screwed up by falling 100% for neoliberal cant and is trying to repent.
He has. From 2013:
Tell that to the Birds. Both parents feed the young.
Reproduction is NOT birth.
…and there are quite a few species, including birds, where the females deliver the offspring and then leave it to the males to do parental duty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternal_care
I personally relate to the birds that end up raising the cuckoos’ and cowbirds’ chicks, having raised the offspring of two other males (with different degrees of participation from the birth mothers, but with limited rewards in the first instance). Isn’t nature so various and wonderful and new? http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/cuckoos-use-mafia-tactics-and-they-work/
Life isn’t fair. Do what is right anyway.
And of course there’s this line of thought:
The Feminist Dictionary also more or less agrees with the above scientific notions.
“***MALE: … represents a variant of or deviation from the category of female. The first males were mutants… the male sex represents a degeneration and deformity of the female.'” — From: ‘A Feminist Dictionary’, ed. Kramarae and Treichler, Pandora Press, 1985
“***MAN: … an obsolete life form… an ordinary creature who needs to be watched … a contradictory baby-man …” — From: ‘A Feminist Dictionary’, ed. Kramarae and Treichler, Pandora Press, 1985
We become what we hate. Emerson? Echoed by Nietzsche and the Clash in later forms.
Well, I more or less agree with radical feminists on this point. It may be a metaphysical bridge too far for some, but it seems to me that Female is the fundamental principle of the universe, certainly of “life.” While Male is rather a deviation or mutation that is mostly valuable for the novelty it introduces and perhaps the greater orders of complexity it enables–the “evolutionary” (really what is meant here is utilitarian) advantages of males and maleness are limited, local, and not at all necessary from the overall perspective of life.
Hell, even Nietzsche, that renowned sexist, argued the same. “Man is, if I may say so, the sterile animal.” Whatever gives life, produces life, enhances life, and ensures life continues is female and feminine in principle–many ancient societies knew this instinctively. Some indigenous societies still do.
We super-intelligent moderns would do well to develop ways and means of honoring, recognizing, and promoting that which gives life and makes it possible.
Interesting take, Cat’s paw.
Not a topic you like to pussyfoot around on, I presume.
heh, i don’t know. you might want to talk with my wife first before coming to that conclusion. she’s been pretty mad at me for not voting for clinton. but come to think of it, i did vote for stein. so I guess my political commitments are commensurate after all.
–not that it’s doing me any good around the homestead…
Thanks CPaw! Where does this leave gay men? A close gay friend of mine taking care of his 84 year old paralyzed stroke-stricken mother in a hopeless situation (not yet destitute but getting there quickly) where the other hetero female siblings have all but abandoned. The sweetest selfless non-evolutionary act I can think of is taking care of those that are dying. But then again most women assume this role.
Right there where they are.
But I see what you’re saying. I am thinking in principles, archetypes–the mythic I suppose. The referent is less about individuals–male or female–and more about the vast interplay of microscopic and macroscopic natural processes that produce and nurture life. But consider that many of these processes converge, mix, and become a unity that is “gay man.” Despite being male, gay or otherwise, he is still made from the processes, even from the very matter, of what is female. He’s a part of it.
christ, i’m composing sleep-deprived, ambien addled nature philosophy at 3 in the morning on a thread nobody’s reading. i gotta go to bed.
Don’t be so certain. I kicked Ambien to the curb, so I am often reading comments at odd hours.
As to your original point, I agree entirely. I spend most of the time in my small business training a 28 year old lesbian woman to replace me as I slide into my dotage. Even though I still sign the front of the paychecks, all the men in my organization refer to her as “the boss lady”, and realize she needs to be exactly that!
Great point. For the level of incapacity a typical mammalian mother takes on for internal child development, there is a symmetrical male who can expend a complete beings effort defending and sustaining the other.
That sounds like a biologically smart arrangement to me.
Evolution has yet to accomodate Peapod, cellphones and autodial?
Well, it’s a recent event in human evolution where we now have two birdseed winner families.
If asexual reproduction was efficient from the standpoint of evolutionary biology it would be normative for more complex organisms rather than confined to single cell lifeforms, plants, and fungi -and a single species of genetically freakish lizards in the American southwest.
the author mars an otherwise interesting article about a biological anomaly with casual drive by misandry.
The mixing 2 genetic codes allow for greater potential of diversity and faster random genetic mutation/evolutionary improvement of the species than single genetic code reproduction. bi-sexual organisms evolve faster than mono sexual organisms.
Hence the evolutionary creation of the male allows for superior life better adapted for survival.
Or something like that.
So ChiGal, hope your move was smooth and glad to see your out enjoying your new digs…Thanks for sharing them ‘)
If lightning is the anger of the gods, then the gods are concerned mostly about trees.
~Lao Tzu
Man I love me some quotes from aby! :-D
That’s brilliant.
thanks! i liked the fractal echoing of the bracts in the tree by the clouds in that blue blue Carolina sky
“God seems to have been very fond of beetles” – Darwin, I think, paraphrased. There are a godawful lot of beetles, though ants are close competitors.
Humans win on tonnage, though.
‘) …there are so many strange variations of beetles. many make noises i don’t ever want to hear again…some look like prehistoric monster. Darwin was fond of beetles…that’s all there is to it ‘)
It was JBS Haldane, I believe (and that is one interesting man).
shoot, just figured out why my response went into moderation – wrong email entered. it’ll probably show up but just in case:
thanks, what I liked was the fractal echo of the bracts in the tree by the clouds in that blue blue Carolina sky
Speaking of trees…
In the heart of Paul Ryan’s CD I voted in a small town at 9:30 a.m. 1,200 people had already voted. The town’s population is 10,000 and there were several polling places.
Yes, Trump’s people voted, but it’s a mistake to think of them as his people. A clear majority I talked to only liked him for opposing Hillary. Same people rarely had criticism of Bernie.
DNC is suffering from massive credibility gap. I don’t think voters are the problem. The party is the problem.
The Democrats did a fine job of stomping out any enthusiasm by sabotaging Bernie Sanders.
The DNC became a wholly owned subsidiary of Clinton Family Inc. starting in about 2008. Control the rulemakers/money flow, and you can control who the nominee is. At least that is the conventional thinking, and Clinton Inc. is nothing if not conventional.
To buy the DNC, she chose to go to the Wall Street banksters, and others. Essentially an “up front” bribe. No smoking gun needed to be created. They knew what they were paying for, without it being said.
(I’m curious to see how many “donations” the Clinton Foundation receives, now that she’s been pushed out on an ice floe.)
They never anticipated a challenger who didn’t need the DNC, or it’s cash.
They ignored the stats showing how many people wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton under any circumstance. Just call them racist/sexist/dumbazz hicks, and call them “deplorables”. Ask Mitt Romney how that worked out for him.
She lost an election to DONALD TRUMP. Even without the airwaves filled with Republican attack ads. (Lack of RNC enthusiasm for Trump? Or a recognition that Hillary’s negatives couldn’t be covered in a 30 second commercial?).
If it wasn’t for the Clinton’s collective ego, and lust for power/money (after all, we all now that in the current state of affairs, the moneyed class drives policy), we’d all (well, all of us who don’t live in the rarefied air of the 1%ers/Banksters) be celebrating the upcoming inauguration of President Sanders.
I see Kos / Team D doing their best to keep a solid “True Democrat” in charge. Van Jones and Keith Ellison are leading the polls as DNC head.
IIRC it was Haygood who compared the Clintons to the sort of accountant who works late a lot and never takes a vacation.
They do that, of course, because they’re cooking the books and they don’t want anyone else to look at them.
So it will be interesting to see what happens with the Clinton Foundation, and especially what the expectations of the donors will have been.
I’m interested to see how much Hillary is able to charge now for those private speeches to Wall Street.
It will be converted into aprivate hedge fund that the soninkaw will not be running
With that Extraordinary Rendition Program established by the Clintons in 1995, and used by them and Bush to kidnap and transport for torture and death various innocents (such as pro-democracy activists, etc.) to Libya, Egypt, et al. it goes without saying.
Read Jeremy Scahill for precisely just how much Obama expanded and enshrined the pre-crime drone murder program beyond what even Dick Cheney dreamt of. And how Obama expanded secret military ops from 50 countries to 75.
Everything Bush did, Obama rationalized, and consolidated, and normalized. Because Obama is, after all, a liberal.
Thought this one was a pretty good takedown of all the whiny, blame-everybody-else Clinton supporters – I Would Love to Share in Your Incredulity.
And it goes on from there succinctly enumerating all the right wing policies espoused by Obama, Clinton and their ilk that we heard nary a peep about from supposed liberals over the years.
As has been said here many many times, the “liberals” with nothing to offer except identity politics made this bed for themselves and now they get to snuggle up close to The Donald.
Thats a stunning article, very much a must-read.
Wonderfully well done!
Yep excellent, should spread far and wide that one.
Trump calls for ’21st century’ Glass-Steagall banking law [Reuters, Oct. 26]
Financial Services [Trump Transition Site, Nov. 10]
Oddly, no mention of Glass-Steagall, only dismantling Dodd-Frank.
Who could have predicted?
File under Even Victims Can Be Fools.
Not surprised at all. The election is over, the voters are now moot. As Sen. Elizabeth Warren has famously said with respect to cabinet and other political appointments, “Personnel Is Policy.” You can see the outline of the Trump administration’s real policies being shaped before our eyes via his proposed cabinet appointees, covered by Politico and other sites.
Yes and thank goodness we can now all form a proper and decent Loyal Opposition, it’s been a lonely 8 years opposing everything the smooth-talking brother with the D pin on his lapel was doing. Permanent majority for Dems if they can see the bleeding obvious, but more likely they will completely misread and say they just weren’t far enough to the right.
Exactly – as someone said – Trump is the chemo the Democratic party required to get rid of the corrupt cancer within…
Also no mention of NAFTA or renegotiating trade deals in the new transition agenda. Instead there’s just a bunch of vague Chamber of Commercesque language about making America attractive to investors. I think our hopes for a disruptive Trump presidency are quickly being dashed.
Sanders, Warren and others should hold Trump’s feet to the fire on the truly populist things he said and offer to work with him on that stuff. Like preserving Social Security and Medicare and getting out of wars.
As to the last point, appointing Bolton or Corker Secretary of State would be a clear indication he was just talking. A clear violation of campaign promises that would make Obama look like a choirboy. Trump may be W on steroids.
sure he may be almost as bad as clinton on foreign policy. so far he hasn’t been rattling a saber at russia.
Newland also is pernicious, but as with many things Trump, not as gaudy as Bolton.
Hard core far right conservatives believe America “goes not abroad in search of foreign monsters to destroy” and are equally dismissive of “nation-building”, so we shall see. Obama already was Bush on steroids so I believe we will see an improvement in this one area.
Yathink?
https://www.ft.com/content/aed37de0-a767-11e6-8898-79a99e2a4de6
I can’t imagine how he’s neglected to update his transition plan regarding nafta. After all, he’s already been president-elect for, what, 36 hours now? And he only talked about it umpteen times during the campaign. I’m sure he’ll renege.
Hell, it took clinton 8 hours to give her concession speech.
On the bright side, he managed to kill TPP just by getting elected. Was that quick enough for you?
Funny stuff Katniss! Right on the money…I’m so glad the TPP looks dead now – I reckon it will be his biggest legacy, pity it will never be understood or even heard of by the majority of public
GOP Leaders are trying to get in front of Trump and his mob and call it a parade. I think there is a strong tendency to underestimate his character, which is not so much sociopathic as narcissistic. Bernie’s approach of offering cooperation was right on, and I am convinced that Trump would rather be popular on Main St. than Wall St. While we tend to judge him by his class, as if all billionaires are equal, the scorn heaped on him by the establishment will not quickly be forgotten, even as they try to make nice. He doesn’t need to start a foundation or get a place on the board of directors when he leaves office, so what do the oligarchs who spat on him have to offer him now? His ego and wealth, his long memory and vindictiveness, his cleverness, may make him the president most responsive to the desires of the people in ages.
Nice to see some self-awareness in the press. However, Polly Toynbee of the Guardian continues to embarrass herself .
I was talking to my parents (not very well-versed in political theory) about how liberals really have no true convictions other than their fragile faith in the universality of moral values. My friends are literally convulsing from having to resolve the following contradictions in their minds:
a) their hatred and misunderstanding of Trump’s victory,
b) straight up animosity towards anyone perceived to have supported Trump or not supported Hillary (the latter being the same as the former for them), and
c) reiterating their faith in democracy and “respecting” everyone’s right to democratic expression.
As open-minded and tolerant liberals purport to be, they are more moralistic than they realize. They can’t for the life of them understand why enlightened California should not count more than degenerate Texas; their contempt towards the heartland and jokes about withdrawing the franchise from the rednecks is revealing of their vacuous elitism. Their willingness to flee the country and protest now that their chosen political instrument was rejected is a testament to their complete political flaccidity. As much as a broad coalition must be built to push the world to the Left, these people deserved to lose and hurt. The problem is they won’t learn, and the world will be a disaster by the time they are forced to realize their errors.
As a non-American in America, this election has been supremely clarifying to me about the true nature of the educated, enlightened West. But I am also thankful for having come closer to my true convictions mostly because of the coverage and comments at NC. You guys rock!
good gods. Polly has to be the outcome for speed-reading online classes. how long has she been ‘reading’ this site?…all of a few months??
RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.. ~devils dic.
Oh no, this is good:
My current working theory is that there are at least two groups of people that self-identify as liberals, the neo-liberals and the populists. They share some of the same vocabulary but not the same ideas about how things work.
Populism gained strength during the Depression because standing together was necessary for survival. Neo-liberalism seems to have arisen from those that imagine that whatever current success they may be having in life came from their own special skills. They were probably taught about their own special significance long before they went to school.
My grandparents were populists surviving in Montana during the Depression and they were tough as nails. They knew that standing with your neighbors was critical to survival and keeping the country club set in check. Getting too big for your britches was not a complement.
Populism was one of the pillars of the Democratic party until it was replace with triangulation by the husband of the recent loser.
Before the Big Dog passed NAFTA there was Carter, who repealed the laws against usury, as a way to deal with inflation, and Johnson who insisted on waging war without paying for it, causing that inflation, and between them was Nixon, who scrapped the gold standard to continue waging war without paying for it. Give credit where credit is due.
when did carter repeal the laws against usury? i didn’t know presidents could do that.
How do you think it happened?
congress usually passes and repeals laws. sometimes the courts declare a law unconstitutional. so when did carter repeal the laws against usury, and how?
I recall President Carter signed the act into law in 1980, that is, without a veto. Sorry I don’t know what it was called.
Johnson did not cause inflation by waging war without paying for it. (That’s the silly quantity of money nonsense.) Johnson caused inflation by asking our factories to build war materiel faster than our industrial base was then capable of doing it.
It would probably be good if following Lambert we got in the habit of distinguishing between left and liberal – I liked the graphic posted yesterday showing that in contrast to the UK which has a left, right, and center party, here we only have a right and center party.
Pretty broad brush.
The Scott Adams is quite amusing. However he did say several weeks ago that Trump was toast so his predictive powers may be suspect.
He has changed his “prediction” so often and with so many caveats that his only value was in providing a relatively dispassionate view on the elections when everyone else was losing their mind.
Agree, which is not to say I didn’t enjoy reading his articles. Perhaps he was trying to use his knowledge of persuasion to persuade the public into believing that he has more insight than he actually does.
I found this description to be useful, though: “The social bullying coming from Clinton’s supporters guaranteed that lots of Trump supporters were in hiding. That created the potential for a surprise result, so long as the race was close.”
Apparently, the Donald’s victory on Tuesday is ‘on’ white people whether they voted for him or not! In voting for DT, white people did not vote against their interests; rather they voted for the one thing they value above all else – their whiteness. At the Nation:
This Is What White Supremacy Looks Like
Does this mean I would not be a white supremacist if Hillary had won? Seems to me that if we had elected Hillary a whole rainbow coalition of people would have been complicit in bringing to power a white, neo-liberal war hawk who have shortly launched attacks both economic and military both here and abroad.
Naw, “white supremacist” is a thing, an indelible genetic Magic Marker evidenced by having skin tones that are actually cream, tan, peach and an assortment of pastels, shading to gray-green as death approaches or fiery red if overexposed to the cleansing power of natural (or tanning-bed) light, and any such creature who voted Democrat did so purely out of fear of retribution… /s
“This is on all white people—who are complicit even if they didn’t vote for Trump.”
Yes – white people who voted for Hillary are complicit in Trump’s victory.
At least in so far as they didn’t vote for Bernie in the primaries … think this guy is on to something!
Exactly. Except I’d expand that to say the complicity extends far beyond Trump voters, to those whites who voted against Sanders in the primary, and indeed to *everyone* who did. Yes, those black church ladies voting lockstep in the early primaries for the only candidate who could lose to Trump did their part for the white supremacist cause as well, albeit as unwittingly as many of the others.
Thus, the author of that piece, Damon Young, who I’ll assume from reading it was a Clinton supporter, was it turns out equally complicit as well but obviously lacking in sufficient self-awareness to see it.
the article continues:
“Yes, there exists a difference between allies and racial antagonists. They are not the same. But those allies obviously haven’t done enough collectively to repudiate the mindsets existing in their families and among their friends…
“Millions of white voters have shown us that nothing existing on earth or in heaven or hell matters more to them than being white, and whichever privileges—real or fabricated, concrete or spiritual—existing as White in America provides.”
First, such exit polling as I have seen indicates it is not that white people turned out in droves to vote for Trump; it is rather the case that people of color DIDN’T turn out in droves to vote for Clinton. Second. it is rather a tall order for us “allies” to convince other folks’ friends and family of anything – not always but mostly within one’s own circle values are largely shared. Although I certainly have had my share of exchanges affirming the legitimacy of Black Lives Matter with commenters here who would deny it.
But heavens, all the snark on this site about Van Jones yesterday? Folks, this stuff is heartfelt. See Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. The seemingly hysterical outcry of fear above has to be understood within the context of the history of this country. Can anyone seriously doubt that as the demographics change the fight to preserve power/status for those who traditionally held it will intensify? Who gives up power voluntarily?
We are going through a seismic change and it could well get ugly, and those who have been on the receiving end of ugly for generations are terrified, truly terrified. I got quite the dressing down from an African American friend who is furious I didn’t vote for Clinton. I stood my ground, but with compassion. In the end, the browns inevitably will prevail, and let us hope they are kinder to whites than whites have been to them over the centuries.
++ thanks for this
Don’t be hoping that the Brownish-Oliveish-Goldenish-Ochreish humans will be any “kinder” to the Creamish-Tannish-Pinkish humans.
The category is “human,” and I believe I have seen enough and learned enough of “human-ism” to be pretty confident that “we, the human category,” with few exceptions, will happily, persistently, reliably fokk, and fokk over, any other human, given opportunity and a hint of provocation.
The B-O-G-O humans demonstrably are not “kind” to other humans in their own subgroups.
Maybe some scientist will identify what part of the genome or organism is responsible for the predation and violence. My bet is that knowledge will be used to exacerbate, not palliate or remedy, the function…
Many blacks and latinos who didn’t vote or didn’t vote for Clinton are also white supremacists. Don’t let skin color fool you, Hillary cannot fail, she can only be failed. This goes double for the many misogynist women out there who betrayed genital solidarity for mere economic self-interest.
The Donald’s victory is on the Dem estab who rigged the primaries. It’s on the MSM who acted as Hillary’s surrogate and cheerleader and who slandered Sanders’ voters at every opportunity. And they’re STILL slandering Sanders’ voters. More important for the Dem estab to keep control of the party than to win against the GOP. Bernie would’a beat Trump, imo.
would’a had some coat tails for House and Senate too, imo.
But not “respectable” coat tails. Remember, the Democratic Party is the “respectable” left, not those hooligan socialists that want to make bosses and workmen peers (ew).
Ironically, “respectability” is an intrinsically far-right notion in the first place.
Yes, the blame for sanders supporters is rampant. Is Hillary the only one with a mirror in her tower?
from Bernie Sanders fb page today:
“We cannot be a party which cozies up to Wall Street, which raises money from billionaires and then claim to be a party of working families. The simple truth — and Mr. Trump tapped into this — is that millions of American are working longer hours for lower wages, they’re worried to death about the future for their children and they want an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent.
The Democratic Party has got to make it very clear that it is the party of working people in 50 states in this country, not just in New York and California. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“50 states”
Dog whistle!
So, if by some miracle, Trump actually gets some things turned in the right direction, does that mean Whitey gets the credit?
Signed,
Fat, white, hetro, Eisenhower-like conservative male. Everything is my fault.
(It must be, because almost 50% of my paycheck is taken to pay various taxes. I make too much money to be considered poor, but under six-figures, so no loopholes to speak of. I call them “reparations”)
Made me spit my beer!
Paid Minion, I, as one who fits most of the check boxes you do, offer that maybe if you want to preserve anything of value to you and your family, that you figure out how to make common cause with, rather than build more resentment against, people who are “different” but also being fokked over by the very few. It is tough, we want “ours” now and want The Gummint or Somebody (Messrs. Smith, Wesson and Glock?) to “protect” it. Neither G nor SWG are going to do what is needed to keep you and yours safe and at least sheltered and fed. That is going to take something like this, “harambee,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harambee, which parts of the polity there even fought against in various ways.
Harambee is a Kenyan tradition of community self-help events, e.g. fundraising or development activities. Harambee literally means “all pull together” in Swahili, and is also the official motto of Kenya and appears on its coat of arms.
Harambee events may range from informal affairs lasting a few hours, in which invitations are spread by word of mouth, to formal, multi-day events advertised in newspapers. These events have long been important in parts of East Africa, as ways to build and maintain communities.
Following Kenya’s independence in 1963, the first Prime Minister, and later first President of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta adopted “Harambee” as a concept of pulling the country together to build a new nation. He encouraged communities to work together to raise funds for all sorts of local projects, pledging that the government would provide their startup costs. Under this system, wealthy individuals wishing to get into politics could donate large amounts of money to local harambee drives, thereby gaining legitimacy; however, such practices were never institutionalised during Kenyatta’s presidency.
Controversy
Some conservative Christians in Kenya have opposed the use of the word “Harambee,” alleging that it is derived from an expression of praise to a Hindu deity: Ambee Mata (a reincarnation of Durga riding a Tiger). The railway linesmen carrying huge loads of iron rails and sleeper blocks would chant “har, har ambee!” (praise praise to Ambee mother) when working. The first president, Jomo Kenyatta has been said to have witnessed a railway line team as it worked in cohesion and harmony. It represented the metaphor he wanted to reflect: a nation working together and communicating and sharing its load. Others dismiss such objections, arguing that this explanation of the word’s origin, even if true, is irrelevant to its modern usage and meaning.
Someone or something enunciated that Golden Rule thing, about “Treat others as you would like to be treated (leaving out sadists and sadomasochists, of course)” at various points and in various social groupings over many ages. All-too-human motives and motivations have always been at odds, with so many of us re-writing the text to read “Do unto others, then git!” and standing it on its head, “Those with the gold, rules!. Even brownish-ebonyish-golden-ochreish humans have a hard time staying on task and “humane” social meaning, when there’s advantages to be gained and looting to be done…
Reagan quipped that the US Empire could join hands with the Soviet, if only the two Hugenesses had a common enemy. Looks so very clear that all us ordinary people in fact have that common enemy, the Elite who bleed us. One might wish us all luck in coming to some kind of enforceable agreement that all of us will only eat to our decent hunger, and drink to our reasonable thirst, and make the Very Few do the same…
If your taxes were lower, so would be your pay. That is why employers usually try to lower them in general. Your employer pays all of your various taxes including sales tax.
they don’t pay your income tax, and they don’t pay all of the social security tax. i’m not sure where sales tax comes into this.
If your taxes were lowered, you could get to work, eat, and live indoors with less gross income, and that is exactly how much less income you would get.
no, you would have the income you use to pay taxes, such as income taxes. which the employer doesn’t pay.
Been wondering if I should renew the Nation subscription that I allowed to lapse a few years ago.
This makes the decision easy.
Ah, yes, The Nation! I have had a subscription for decades (it was much better in Cockburn’s day) and have long marveled that they raise money by having cruises where wealthy donors can schmooze with columnists or special contributors, and apparently see no conflict between this and their professed political values. (Come cruise the Caribbean and see the dear natives and talk about social justice? Ugh!) They do still sometimes produce good articles, but their lack of connection with the world outside their bubble seems to be growing.
They do still have Greider.
As for the amazingly stupid “whiteness” article (and I did not vote for Trump), Vanden Heuvel should hang her head in shame. Her own husband has styled the neocon (and therefore HIllary) policy toward Russia as something close to lunacy. Which is to say there were plenty of reasons to vote against Hillary other than “whiteness.” In fact a more accurate statement about most white people and race is that they probably don’t think about it much at all. Call this insensitive if you like, but ignoring a problem and contributing to it are not the same things. After all the author of the Nation article clearly hasn’t spent a lot of time thinking about Russia, Syria, Libya, or Hillary’s victims. Nevertheless I’ll refrain from calling him a bigot.
Truth be told, I’ve had trouble all along believing Hillary is indeed a black lady.
and I did not vote for Trump
Nor did I, but given his thesis, that doesn’t matter. I’m still complicit. Another interesting consequence of his thesis is that Hillary Clinton is also complicit. But ‘complicity’ implies agency – one cannot be unconsciously complicit since ‘being complicit’ means ‘knowingly helping helping others to commit a crime or other wrong doing’.
Speaking of extending the sense of a term, the ‘white supremacy’ trope is suffering from overuse. First of all, there really are white supremacists. You can Google it. But like ‘antisemitic’ once it is applied generally as a term of abuse it loses its force – it suffers semantic inflation. Jill Stein’s running mate, Ajamu Baraka suggested in a blog post that Bernie Sanders had a commitment to Eurocentrism and normalized white supremacy. Calling Bernie Sanders a white supremacist is really rendering the term meaningless.
Baraka also blamed the war on Yemen on white supremacism. I’m not convinced white supremacy would recognize much of a difference between Saudis and Yemenis (and after all, some prominent Saudis in fact came from Yemen, including the Bin Laden family and the great singer, Mohammed Abdo).
I could see how white supremacism could lead to a greater willingness to wage war on brown people though.
On the other hand, Obama has extended destructive US policy into the Ukraine, ultimately creating lots of blonde blue-eyed casualties, so perhaps that struck a blow against white supremacism, but surely it wasn’t all his idea.
(Jewish supremacism seems to be more of the driving force in US foreign policy if I may say so without upsetting the sensitive ecology of the NC comments section.)
(Oops. It looks like the singer was born in KSA, but he may have spent some time living in Yemen while he was still young. At any rate, there seems to be a fair amount of traffic between the two countries.)
Sorry RudyM but not too many blond, blue-eyed folks in this part of the world. Slavs tend to have more brown/blackish hair and brown eyes. Only blonds I see (all women) came by their affliction by falling head first into a bottle of peroxide. You must be thinking of our northern neighbors, the Scandanavians.
Yesterday I heard on my car radio a local broadcaster (SF) say that this election was all about hate, racism, and misogyny. He went on to say how could anyone vote against a “supremely qualified candidate like Hillary Clinton is just unthinkable.” Of course, he blames the white Midwesterners and rednecks for giving us Trump. SF is ground zero for identity politics.
I honestly feel there is no hope of Democrats ever understanding what is fundamentally wrong with the party. How anyone could say that Hillary is “supremely qualified” boggles my mind. This is why I come here to feel like I’m with sane, rational people. Thank you NC – and Lambert for all the work you do.
I just wanted to mention the name of Henri Giroux (a Canadian) as someone to read. He has good ideas and analysis (but don’t always agree with him).
I rather liked gwynne dyer but he disappeared and i havent bothered too track him down in years. I do like john Ralston saul. Found a book of gis i havent read “on equilibrium” am enjoying an sane insightful and very gentle and kind intellect.
Speaking of regulation and its opposite, nice capsule from Iglesias yesterday if you missed
i. e. public safety in the narrow sense
The source is Paul Ryan’s—
http://abetterway.speaker.gov/_assets/pdf/ABetterWay-Economy-PolicyPaper.pdf
Distant cousin of the (fantasy of a) presidential line item veto
I’m less worried about whether new regulations can be put place. I’m more worried about what Trump does to enforce the regulations we have or which ones he tries to get rid of. We know that Obama’s enforcement legacy was pretty much toothless. For my money this will be the big tell on what Trump’s true intentions are.
We’ve already gotten the answer — he’s gonna deregulate further.
Trump is a ‘businessman’…he’ll allow little to nothing to get in the way of tha ‘deal’. he will see this as good for the majority…the ‘haters, displaced, rejected feeling, hoping for greener pastures’ voters won’t know what hit them. it’ll be business as usual UNTIL his ‘deals’ meet the pavement where the Feds vs the ‘real’ economy…a war of magnitude unknown to history.
no leader can contend with the Global Economy of Nightmare… awaiting.
but we still have each other…if we can EVER sit down and recognize it~!
A lot rides on his choice for AG.
By public safety don’t they mean national security?
Also, I have been catching up on the political history of modern India, and there are striking parallels between the intentional crystallization by colonial rulers of religious and cultural differences as an instrument of control and the encouragement of identity politics in modern liberal discourse. The linking of access to resources to religious and linguistic identity has been a much bigger factor in aggravating Hindu-Muslim and cultural violence in India than any inherent or primordial differences. This colonial policy has been carried forward without much modification in the modern era. The same dynamic has been playing out in the US (in particular) where groups who may otherwise coexist just fine are played off each other by highlighting intentionally constructed differences in material opportunities.
It pains me when people are looked at as simply “black” or “white” voters, or “male” and “female” voters, because it consolidates a binary that, left to its own devices, would probably not have emerged as such an exclusive category. People then begin to see themselves and each other through such rigid categories, negating whatever is multidimensional and human about them.
Identity politics as colonial policy, with the hinterlands as colonies. Makes a lot of sense.
Fine, be silent and rude. And unsubscribe me, oh enlightened censor.
I suggest you read our Policies rather than attacking writers. Your comment was not censored, it went into moderation. And we commit to reviewing the moderation queue only once a day, although we endeavor to so more often. Even MSM outlets, with resource 100x of ours, rarely liberate moderated comments in less than a few hours.
Well, that makes a lot of sense for a very good reason: racism was essentially created in the British colonies first in the Americas (read: Virginia) in the 17th and 18th centuries. Slavery became synomous with race, i.e., only Africans and their colonial descendants could be legally enslaved. Before, pretty much anyone could be a slave, including the destitute, or religious “others” (Irish, especially), or war captives (Native peoples, Muslims, etc.). In the colonies, this new racialized legal definition of slavery created a very real divide in the lower orders and working classes – specifically, race was a way to divide enslaved people away from indentured servants and landless peasants. (you could say it also created what is now called “white privilege,” putting white people one notch above black slaves, in legal terms). Look into the Virginia slave codes, Bacon’s Rebellion, etc. They literally invented race-thinking to divide the lower classes and protect the colonial social hierarchy and its economy. It’s where “racism” began, arguably.
This was the British empire we’re talking about here. And you mentioned India…under British colonial rule. If interested, the classic text on this is Edward Morgan’s “American Slavery, American Freedom.” It’s a must-read for all Americans and those interested in US/imperial history, or the history of slavery writ large. Must read, as in top ten histories of all time. Not coincidentally, the British became more interested in Asia after their American colonists got all uppity, demanded their political autonomy, and created their own empire in the Americas. British historians of empire call this the empire’s “swing to the east.” This happened in the latter part of the 18th century.
A mere facade or alans snack bar…to the victors go the history books but to the annoying go the used books stores where one might find a different twist to life than the one offered to 500 million viewers per day by the mystery basement editors of nudopedia…
the british invented race based slavery…and the brits only tilted east after the troubles with the colonists across the pond ? The boston tea dumped over was from the east india company which along with the crown, was having difficulties digesting the “$crip” issued in the wrestling match with the french a decade or so earlier…
Perhaps you are confusing the 1784 ppp of india to cover up the cooking of the books by the east india company…in 1770 10 million died due to the wonderful nagadgement skills of the crowns approved corporate slave state…by 1773 the finances were such that exchex had to step in to keep creditors from closing down the most favored nation entity…who then taxed tea in boston…and the rest of the story is available from sneakapedia…
And one of the things that shook malcolm x in his hajj and almost drove him to question his rejection of childhood christianity was the fact slavery was abolished in Saudi arabia in 1963…the year before…
and the treatment of black folk has only changed on paper in saudi arabia…the myth of ummah lives on…
A good model might be Stephen Colbert of the Comedy Central years. His character was colorblind. He just didn’t see race.
Nicely put.
The old divide and conquer. A cynic might suggest this is exactly the strategy of the corporate Dems. Assimilation–what used to be called “the melting pot”–is their enemy.
“People’s net worth has been crippled, if you were directly, in a 401K, through a mutual fund, or through a pension, invested in capital markets” [TeacherKen, Daily Kos]. Bathos.
I quit visiting Daily Kos when the hostility to Sanders supports became insufferable. Since the election I have been popping in there now and then just to relish the suffering of the Hillbots. Does that make me a bad person?
Seems to me, not looking closely because my brain recoils from the ethos that drives it, that Mr. Capital Markets is doing just fine, after a brief swoon, because it is so wonderfully insulated from the Real Economy that mopes like Teacherken have to live in. If one pops in enough, one discovers that the eerstwhile self=proclaimed “reality-based community” has long since floated itself off to LALA Land…
How many of the people that used to make up a good part of the kosians are in any position to be “exposed to risk,” the new argot for what used to be called “investment, by the marketeers? … the new term is of course much more honest…
Don’t they realize though that if we ever went socialist the markets would take a hit? What kind of argument is that against anything?
But who really cares EVEN IF they actually have money to lose? Can’t they even see beyond their own nose? Yes money is plenty useful in the world that is, but who wouldn’t give it all up if we had a chance of changing society enough to sustain a livable planet? (I’m not saying Trump is this of course)
We should have better social security not 401ks anyway. We should fight for a livable planet even if it doesn’t’ help stock prices. Most everyone’s income is mostly from jobs even when they have 401ks. Therefore work, wages and working conditions, not whatever spare change they get from profits or rents is everything to the 99%. We need better working conditions even if it doesn’t help profits any. Hope for the young even if it hurts the older people’s 401ks.
Nope. The racism and misogyny on display in 2007 and 2008 during the Obama Clinton “pie fights” was revolting. I was astonished by how quickly they went to praise Herr Obama and then Frau Clinton when the spat was over, but the Kossacks have been ugly for a long time. It’s best to avoid that place for your mental health alone except to see what Team Blue’s latest excuse is.
“Does that make me a bad person?”
No, Kos made bad choices.
ha ha ha. i left > 6 months ago. They twist themselves into a pretzel to explain why it was: chauvinism, misogyny, Berniebros, Votes for Stein that wrecked it for $hillary. I mean really: She lost MI, WI and PA….. astonishing.
Dkos is mostly dead to me and useless. This place is much better.
Dkos had a chance to get behind a once-in-a-generation agent for progressive change in Bernie — and they blew big time. Not only did they blow it, but they viciously attacked anyone who had the temerity to point out Clinton’s many, many flaws.
It was incomprehensible to me how Dkos turned into the very kind of echo chamber they hated so much during the Bush adminstration.
Now Kos wants to install Bernie as the new DNC head. Sigh.
I think Kos/dKos community is already over Bernie as DNC chair. As I posted in a thread above the poll has Van Jones and Keith Ellison in the lead.
I quit DK years ago… after he booted the Berners they started an exile forum on Reddit and I look at that pretty often. They report that after trashing Bernie for the past 6 months, Kos now wants him to head up the DNC. So Kos seems to be in full retard mode. His little head can’t understand what happened, but Howard Dean ran the DNC after Kerry lost and helped them until Obama switched him out for the current neolib jerks. So all Kos can think of is doing the same thing again, as if he had thought of it himself.
Meanwhile, Sanders himself has called for Keith Ellison to run the DNC. That’s an interesting and maybe inspired choice. I wonder if there’s any chance of it happening.
I hope you are all right about Trump. I’m not feeling it, I caucused for Bernie in Kansas. From where I stand Trump is a pig. I’m blue collar now retired. Worked in aerospace for years crossed a few picket lines ect. Still live in Kansas which is rapidly going down the tubes.
The Future Of American Journalism Under The Trump Administration [WXXI]
Trump needs to learn from Hillary, so they don’t write hit pieces.
The future of journalism lies in its past and present. Don’t change it by filing libel suits, Mr. Trump.
You will never get debate questions in advance if you are not nice to them.
He does have a point here.
US has very loose libel laws. Most Americans would be shocked to find out the liabilities involved in simply writing a criticism of someone in “progressive” parts of Europe. Australia also comes to mind.
welcome to Trump’s America –
Threats, harassment, vandalism at mosques reach record high
Not that it isn’t even truer today, but that is from December 11, 2015.
There are several articles in circulation relating to acts of violence and intimidation that have spiked in the past day.
Yes December 2015–that would be Obama’s America and that of his former Sec State who wasn’t shy about killing Muslims or calling them fanatics when they fought back against Israel. There’s a strange notion that Trump is the source of all anti-Muslim sentiment when Hollywood movies have for decades used Arabs as easily disposable villains whenever “bad guys” are needed. Trump’s unfortunate foray into Muslim bashing only started after the media hysteria over the San Bernardino incident.
Yeah, but this is Trump’s America, and it’s just the beginning:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/10/hate-crime-spike-us-donald-trump-president
Violence against Black Americans by police reaches record high. Welcome to Obama’s America-
hmm, I could be wrong, but I don’t think that’s going to be getting any better …
The sad part part is, you may be right … just more of the same.
Let’s hope it gets better in the Fertile Crescent and then elsewhere as well.
In a way, it’s like a fertilized human egg developing into a fetus repeats our evolutionary past, so too will this new peace, starting from between 2 great rivers.
Trump doesn’t own America. He runs one branch of the federal government as of Jan 20. How about some personal responsibility?
I’m looking forward to Trump leading to the end of our deification of Presidents as some sort of mythological cultural icons and “fathers” of our nations. Give me a break. Celebrity worship culture repackaged.
With a warning that this is more a “taking the progressive temperature” rather than being place for meaningful insights, the latest Polly Toynbee opinion piece is just up at the ever unreliable (of late) Guardian. Readers would be well advised to skip the article itself and head straight for the comments (filter by recommendation).
Polly is getting thoroughly flamed.
Read in context of Yves’ intro and the RNN reportage afterward, a good summation of the dire straits and incoherent spluttering of our so-called leftist mainstream media.
That crashing noise I think I can hear is the sound of rice bowls being broken.
these days the guardian doesn’t allow comments on many of their articles, probably because their readers won’t agree with them.
Hoisted from over there:
And this right here is why neoliberalism = identity politics and why both ought to be crushed ruthlessly.
If she is taken down a peg or two, then something good will have come from Trump’s victory. (It’s a small something but, hey, you take what you get. :-)
Btw, I just can’t bring myself to even look at the Guardian anymore. I dip into Le Monde now and again which is basically the French equivalent but, since my French is very so-so, I don’t have the nuanced ability to read between the lines or time to read comments. I just get the jist of the news and flee.
But yet this commentary is fairly good:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/10/third-party-candidate-gary-johnson-jill-stein-clinton-loss
The headline is “Did third-party candidates Jill Stein and Gary Johnson lose Clinton the election?” and the short answer is no, but Chalabi takes the time to point out the reasoning behind the answer.
Thanks for the link. Don’t get me wrong, there are 1 or 2 writers still worth reading and some articles that actually provide content.
It’s just that, overall, the jist the of paper seems to have established a deliberate policy of contradictory messaging to cloud important issues, or momentarily providing balance to only later use the apparent balance a to push a one-sided agenda.
The Blairite faction’s attack on Corbyn and the guardian’s coverage comes to mind. It was pure hack journalism. The political careerists were so obviously in league with the hack journalist careerists.
Life is just too short.
best
I hear you! You do what you need to do to be sane.
Apart from the Science & Tech stuff I’ve really only been reading the Graun recently (esp since its utterly scandalous treatment of Corbyn (*)) for the Thomas Frank pieces. Is he publishing these anywhere else on-line ?
(*) They’re probably kicking themselves for not labeling them as `deplorables’ & letting the Clinton team get to this phrase first.
i’m looking forward to their climate change articles sans references to how we must vote for clinton.
I’ve been reading the Grauniad, as it used to be affectionately known because of its frequent misprints, for nearly fifty years, and I don’t think I’ve ever found it as unreadable (not to mention smug and self-righteous) as it is today. Its earnest and hectoring tone was always easy to parody (“Guardian Woman” had become a standing joke by the 1980s) but over the last few years of reading it on the internet from abroad I am no longer sure what I actually read and what my subconscious invented in the form of parody (was there really a headline like “Why is the Football Association Failing Transexual Goalkeepers?” or did I just dream it?”) If you want a classic example of a once distinguished publication ruined by identity politics, that would be my nomination. (To be fair, the Independent‘s coverage has been an order of magnitude worse.)
The real French equivalent of the Guardian by the way is Libération which has followed a similar, but even worse trajectory, and specialises these days in front-page vilification of anyone who transgresses correct identity group thinking – most recently the philosopher Michel Onfray who dared to make a few critical remarks about radical islam. Le Monde is a neoliberal and neoconservative rag these days, but less unreadable than Libé.
Oh tempora, oh mores!
I now feel the same about The Economist, I used to read it for education, starting at Uni in 1967. It appears to me now to be a Neo Liberal mouthpiece.
Surprise! Under “new” management.
The Economist Group is owned by the Cadbury, Rothschild, Schroder, Agnelli and other family interests as well as a number of staff and former staff shareholders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economist_Group
I’ll take your word about the French newspapers. I fled from the Lib after about 2 minutes perusal recently – it had been years (many, many) since I read it.
And I just don’t see that much difference between the guardian’s neoliberalism and Le Monde’s but, then again, I only dip into Le Monde about once a week. Science articles are the only thing I read in any depth.
best
“I’m definitely a fiscal conservative.” Why is Republicans-as-budget-hawks the stickiest of lies? Why does this work after so long and so many trillions, whether you believe that deficits matter or not? What is it about this particular untruth that won’t go away?
Fiscal conservativism is the belief in a limited safety net and limited taxes.
Re: Japanese children not being scared witless by a fear cult and tabloid moral stranger danger panic
It is fascinating to compare and contrast the attitude in Japan with, certainly what I observe here in the U.K. You do indeed see 2nd or 3rd grade children riding the fiendishly complex subway, on packed commuter trains and generally making their ways seemingly quite happily throughout situations which would have your typical British parent in a nervous breakdown.
My otherwise very sensible neighbour (who is from Columbia and often tells how children are looked after and looked out for by the wider community in a security environment which you would have thought presented far more dangers than leafy Home Counties Hampshire, England) has nevertheless picked up on the prevailing cultural vibe that encompasses our society and genuinely fears for her two K12 age children when not hurriedly bundled into the back of the Volvo XC90 (any lesser vehicle, I was informed, risking catastrophe for her family on the war zone that is the school run).
You can’t argue with parental protection instinct so I don’t even try. But I am always saddened to see them go off in a morning, determinedly separated from the big, bad, scary wider world.
Japanese may send their children off to school by themselves from age 5-6 but they are notorious for babying them (especially their sons) well into adulthood.
Oh, yes, indeed. It can be borderline (sometimes well over the border and into the next county) unhealthy. Studies I’ve read attribute this to the largely Japan-only phenomena of hikikomori.
Is it because adult children there can’t afford expensive Japanese housing and have to live in their parents’ basements?
Not sure if that’s babying their adult kids. For sure, over here, we don’t call that babying.
We call it a tragedy.
I think it’s largely because when Japanese kids (especially boys) are growing up, their mothers do everything for them because the kids’ job is to study 24/7 to get into the best possible university and, in turn, get hired by the most prestigious company possible. So the kids end up helpless. And then the mothers have trouble cutting the (umbilical) cord once the kids have grown up.
Japanese housing is expensive per unit of floor area (e.g., square meter) but it’s probably more affordable than in a lot of Western countries because dwelling units are so small there (two decades of housing price deflation didn’t hurt either). Also, a lot of employers provide housing (dorms) for young employees (or at least they used to).
It’s similar in China, which is busying exporting that culture (for learning, or more likely, for excelling at entrance exams) to the US.
How will American mothers cope?
Clive,
That’s just what we did in East LA in the 1950s; walked about a mile. And East LA wasn’t Paradise, believe me.
Willing to go out on a speculative limb. Some people want answers like Giuliani, and not because they’re interested, as Holder shrilly claimed, in ‘jail[ing] political opponents.’
Abedin had top secret information on a laptop in her home that she never disclosed to FBI interviwers. She and her husband had money, or a source of income, above & beyond what their salaries would indicate. The latter could be the former.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/01/huma-abedin-hillary-clinton-adviser
If military intelligence folk gave Trump his insider knowledge about Weiner’s laptop, maybe they suspected the source of leaking intelligence. Dig?
Giuliani won’t have to dig anywhere, the existing law of the land will present a field day: obstruction of justice, RICO Act, Espionage Act, money laundering laws, campaign finance laws, tax evasion by the Foundation. He doesn’t need Huma’s laptop.
Today the NYT and other media sources are still showing incomplete electoral vote totals, with three missing states: Michigan (16), Arizona (11) and New Hampshire (4).
According to the NYT,
Hard to believe. Trump is ahead by 84,500 votes in AZ, a lead way too large to be changed by counting a few more votes. In Michigan he’s ahead by 11,800 votes, also unlikely to change with 100% of precincts reporting. Hillary is ahead by 2,500 votes in NH.
These results point to a final total of 306 electoral votes for Trump and 232 for Hillary.
My theory is that AP journos who do the “calling” are observing a day of mourning.
Or they have resigned and moved to Canada.
Hope Arizona buys some appropriate clothing. Things are about to chill.
Haven’t seen them here. Carry on.
Mr. Haygood misunderstands the social economy of Trump. Trump exists to produce social events-outrageous statements! Wacky behavior! Crazy hair! Funny faces! Scandalous past!
This provides a buffet of infotainment portions that can be processed by the media as they so desire. Insert Bill Hicks’ bit on advertising executives here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tvp97SMZc6M
Comedians are happy. Journos are happy. Panem et circenses for all media! Love or hate him, he is providing a wealth of material that no Democrat since Edwards or Sanders could provide and in a far greater breadth. Larry David killed with his Sanders sketches on SNL. I don’t think the right could have pulled off that “Bern” though. Trump is the GOP id and is so media saturated that any political perspective can include him somehow and even with negative coverage build his overall media presence. No bad p.r.
Probably AP, which trends Republican/Right, is just sobering up.
So, is it possible, when the counting is finished Trump’s total popular vote would exceed Clinton’s? (+85,000 is a pretty good start) Or, have those partial counts been figured into the totals?
Sorry, but there ought to be a corollary to the “don’t make sh@t up” rule, i.e., don’t bullsh@t people by misrepresenting the contents of articles you’re linking to. Those figures are from 2015. It wouldn’t even make sense to blame Obama (i.e., the actual President as of that point) for any of these incidents, let alone someone who wasn’t a candidate until mid-year.
Above comment was intended as reply to dcblogger’s entry about anti-mosque violence. Edit function didn’t seem to be working as of 5 minutes ago, not sure whether that is Bush’s or Trump’s fault..
That’s easy, Russian hackers.
Didn’t you get the memo?
blame canada…prepare 4 invasion…
(or was that raz/putin)
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/official-u-s-not-conspiracy-mexico-invade-canada-article-1.1162805
Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average set a new record high of 18,808.
Its biggest percentage gainers were JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Pfizer, reflecting a view that banksters and Big Pharma are better off under Trump than under Clinton.
Dow 20,000 this winter would not be a surprise. Historically, the three months of Nov-Dec-Jan are the most seasonally favorable for stocks, with a positive tilt extending on out to April.
Obama and Hillary have trained the Fed to help the index move ever onward and upward.
Excelsior!
We’ll see how well the stock market does after the Fed starts raising rates. I believe they held off to give Clinton a chance to win but Trump is a bit of a savage and will need some lessons as to who is boss.
“Never mind that these ‘good jobs’ didn’t exist in East Kentucky or Cleveland.”
Progressives (rightfully) defend immigrants and speak to the fact that these people have made a home for themselves and their families and have a community that they don’t deserve to be torn away from, yet the only solution ever offered to someone in Youngtown, OH, was that they need to get out of there and move to the big city to prosper.
On the issue of Facebook bubbles, there was a clear window on Facebook into concerns similar to those who voted for Trump. Who remembers all those complaints about Bernie fans “spamming” their friends? They were told to be quiet!
I watched the election coverage over at R/T. I haven’t watched a lamestream media broadcast of any kind for about 15 years, other than being a captive audience member at the airport, but toward the end of the night I tuned in to MSNBC and CNN. The funereal mood at these two “networks” was pretty over-the-top. The smug look on Rachel Maddow’s face was priceless. I really thought all of the talking heads were going to break out into tears. It was quite a disturbing scene. They all looked like special little snowflakes who had just had something stolen from them. The hubris was unbelievable. The coverage over at R/T was a breath of fresh air, in comparison. The anchors were professional, they understand clearly and with articulation described how and why the election went the way it did. R/T clearly “gets it” and did a bang-up job on election night 2016. Good job,, R/T.
What does “The Rs will repeal ACA” mean specifically?
I assume the following
1 Senate & House Rs will pass repeal of the ACA in Feb 2017, & Pres. Trump will sign it. Effects will occur in Jan 2018
2 ACA Medicaid will be eliminated on Jan 2018, & these citizens on it will lose any coverage.
3 Citizens on ACA Marketplace private insurance will either lose the subsidy/coupon in Jan 2018, or the insurance itself even if they can afford the non-subsidized full price
4 Private insurance refusing to offer insurance to pre-existing conditions will be back
5 Elimination of ACA Individual Mandate
6 Provision of adult children can remain on parents’ insurance through age 26 may be the only ACA attribute that remains
What do you think?
I’m not sure about 4. I think the ban on denial for pre-existing conditions has a 50-50 shot of surviving. Insurance companies may want it gone, but like the adult children provision this has been very popular and has been one of the things listed by some Republicans as something that could have been done without the Rube Goldberg ACA. Could be all talk, but…
The other talk or not question is how much Trump’s statement that repeal would include replacement holds. I’m pretty sure he means that, it is just how much he would rather do something when presented with obstinate Republicans.
They didn’t expect Trump. We are down the rabbit hole. Cutting coverage will have unintended effects, especially since Trump wasn’t elected by a majority. The response will be kinetic. Is Trump going to attack the “deplorables” destined to lose coverage? He’s stronger than the Republicans, but Trump’s fortunes can turn quickly. The GOP is essentially leader less right now. Ryan was a place holder because the three large classes didn’t have a clear leader left after the end of the Gingrich cabal, so they picked a doofus they could dump at any moment.
Trump beat the Clintons and Bushes while garnering less votes than Mittens and went up against the entire media. The Democrats could easily have won.
Then of course, Trump is an often erratic unknown.
Enjoying your analysis. Doofus was the word I was looking for.
Anyhow didn’t McConnell say he would lead the charge on repeal? All Trump has to do is sign.
He needs a majority. If he screws up he could lose the majority in 2018 even with a tough map.
Flake and Heller are both up with growing Hispanic populations.
Shelby, Graham, McCain, Inhofe, Collins, and Hatch belong to the “oh yeah, we occasionally have to govern” caucus.
It’s the same in the House. There isn’t a working majority, and the “constructive” Republicans are so outnumbered by the lunatics the people I listed can’t build coalitions. Most of he Dims who might join them were ousted or embarrassed like Mark Warner with his pathetic 2014 showing.
But why would they actually want to repeal what is, essentially, their own bill? One can see why they might say they want to, but to actually do it seems strange. Seems more likely that they would eliminate all of the portions that got it passed in the first place and retain the subsidies to Insurance companies; saying that is the best they could do in present circumstances lest twenty million people lose their insurance.
R’s have a strange way of redefining terms to suit their own purposes, and the word “repeal” looks ripe for change.
The ACA is primarily a gift to insurance companies and the medical industry, as they wanted more profit than they could get from people whose income was flat or declining. I think Republicans will find a way to keep the gift giving. I’d guess they’ll come up with a voucher scheme — much like the ACA subsidies but without all the convolutions. It will be a test run for the privatization of Medicare.
The parts that mainly benefit the middle class will remain, especially allowing children to stay on the parents’ insurance until age 26 and probably the ban on denying insurance to those with pre-existing conditions.
So it was dirge and mourning at job one today. Although a friend and I had a really interesting discussion about voting against your own interests, where he had to admit I had a point about it isn’t doing that if you vote for the incumbent or their successor when they have done nothing to address your issues. I gave him that sometimes what people believe is a good idea is anything but. But the people we deal with were still depressed to sure the world was ending.
I did enjoy the woman who went on a rant about Trump that included he is going to be impeached in his first year (and that Pence was at least sane). I didn’t feel the need to outline why that was never going to happen unless there was evidence of considerable criminal wrong doing on Trump’s part and probably not even then unless the Democrats could win back the House. I’m not discounting that there is going to be a significant portion of the Republican House who will probably hate him, but have lowered the odds on outright rebellion because Republicans actually fear their base and the base love Trump more than Congress.
But no, no one was blaming the Clintons, their campaign, or the Democrats for this. I do appreciate Atrios for noting that yes, that is who failed because fair or not winning the election was their job and their signed on for it.
i’m glad atrios said that.
Just a guess, but mental-health care spending will be robust in the next 12 months.
Perhaps comrade Haywood can recommend a stock or two.
Corp with prisons and mental care might be the ticket to riches. I’m sure golden sax has it all wrapped up.
they don’t want the yuuugest Christmas tree the world has ever seen? it’s amazing. the tree will be so yuuuuge the women will be amazed. Amazed and delighted by the size of the tree. They’ll love it! Once they stop crying and get a good look at the tree. It’ll be incredible!
Once the wall is built people will love that too. It’s gonna be the best, most amazing wall ever in the history of the world. The Great Wall of China is like single A baseball compared to the major league Wall. It’ll be a World Series Wall.
If you’re a liberal wacko, you’re gonna love the wall once you see the parks and condos and coops and restaurants and bike paths and nature parks. Hundreds of miles of incredible communities, incredible places to eat, drink, play golf, live, shop, get entertained and even go on vacation.
All the people down there now, they can stay there and get to work building the wall and all the attractions. They’ll need people to make the wall, so when they come north by bus and by foot across the desert they’ll get the best construction jobs in the country.
I think they should build the wall. It’ll be uuuge and awesome. Incredible. How could people be against the wall? No way should even a liberal be against the wall. No way. What’s there now? A river and dirt?
This is a transformational destination theme project that can employ tens of thousands of people. I will move there! I’m sick of New Yoarke and all it’s glass buildings and metrosexual nauseating Hillary bots with buttons all over their shirts. Choke me already and make me puke.
What a spectacle. all the liberal wackos moaning and groaning. It’s almost funny but it’s too revolting to be funny.
We don’t need no indoctrination
we don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the newsroom
Screechers get up off your thrones
Hey screechers, get your butts up off your thrones
(That’s not very good, hahaha)
Trump songs! There haven’t been any Trump songs yet but there will be!
I’m kind of glad he won, right now anyway. We’ll see if the feeling lasts. Right now I’m like “I can’t even believe I’m actually glad Trump won the election. But I am. It’s weird actually. I’m thinking to myself, this is incredible.”
hopefully the Christmas tree will be uuuuge. I like going to see all the trees from all the states and seeing the fire burning in the night and smelling the woodsmoke at Christmas down in Dee Cee there in the park in front of the White House and seeing all the trees and smelling the pine smell and the woodsmoke smell and feeling the heat from the fire and looking up at the night sky and thinking “this is it, right now, a place I am and who some of what I am is.” That thing that is, that’s strange that the thing that is is sort of glad Trump won. I would never have thought that could happen.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. : )
I was thinking that between the “deplorables” comment and the big corp networks realizing the ratings they’d get from a 4 year renewal of “The Trump(man) Show,” the outcome of the election could’ve been predicted.
I had a weird flashback to the movie “Network” (with some tweaks). They want Trump to go on tv yell BS some more.
Glad some has the veil lifted.
From the linked article below.
“Donna Brazile, the interim leader of the Democratic National Committee, was giving what one attendee described as “a rip-roaring speech” to about 150 employees, about the need to have hope for wins going forward, when a staffer identified only as Zach stood up with a question.
“Why should we trust you as chair to lead us through this?” he asked, according to two people in the room. “You backed a flawed candidate, and your friend [former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz] plotted through this to support your own gain and yourself.”
Some DNC staffers started to boo and some told him to sit down. Brazile began to answer, but Zach had more to say.
“You are part of the problem,” he continued, blaming Brazile for clearing the path for Trump’s victory by siding with Clinton early on. “You and your friends will die of old age and I’m going to die from climate change. You and your friends let this happen, which is going to cut 40 years off my life expectancy.”
Zach gathered his things and began to walk out. When Brazile called after him, asking where he was going, he told her to go outside and “tell people there” why she should be leading the party.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donna-brazile-democratic-national-committee_us_5824cb95e4b0ddd4fe7954e8
The CBS piece, “Commentary: The unbearable smugness of the press”, is super good. Short, but every paragraph reveals genuine looking in the mirror soul searching. In fact I’m going to throw that into my personal archive (stored for the inevitable day the lights go out on the internet).
Been copying and pasting/taking handwritten notes to the same effect. When the lights go off, pieces like these will be useful in dark times.
Last night I watched the Newshour for the first time in a long time and Judy Woodruff looked decidedly worried and defensive about all the press criticism. Margaret Sullivan and the loathsome Rutenberg were on to discuss. Then Margaret Warner did an international round up and the president of Latvia said he was worried about some of Trump’s statements and would have to consider his position. Tres droll!
bold reality…thank you so much for this! can’t share it fast enough…
There’s a place for opinionated journalism; in fact, it’s vital. But our causal, profession-wide smugness and protestations of superiority are making us unable to do it well.
Our theme now should be humility. We must become more impartial, not less so. We have to abandon our easy culture of tantrums and recrimination. We have to stop writing these know-it-all, 140-character sermons on social media and admit that, as a class, journalists have a shamefully limited understanding of the country we cover.
What’s worse, we don’t make much of an effort to really understand, and with too few exceptions, treat the economic grievances of Middle America like they’re some sort of punchline. Sometimes quite literally so, such as when reporters tweet out a photo of racist-looking Trump supporters and jokingly suggest that they must be upset about free trade or low wages.
We have to fix this, and the broken reasoning behind it. There’s a fleeting fun to gang-ups and groupthink. But it’s not worth what we are losing in the process.
It’s a pity they do not have a comments section for that piece. I would have liked to see their readers replies.
Thank you Lambert for the New Criterion article on Sir John Soane. I was last in that house 15 years ago, and there has been some remodeling since, but I have to say my impression of the place was rather different. Instead of a morbid prison of near-psychosis, I found it full of light, a fascinating confluence of the Georgian and the romantic-to-be-born. The classical organizing principle subsumes the collections and the asymmetry. The building is tall and narrow, to be sure, but I didn’t find it claustrophobic. Maybe living in less than 600 sq ft in NYC for decades gives me a different perspective!
Change.org petition to override electoral college votes
Being shared by a lot of people on my feed. Never fucking learn America.
The savaging of the Rust Belt by NAFTA costs Clinton MI, OH, IN, WI and PA and Haitian refugees cost her FL. How fitting. Karma IS real.
HClinton outspent (campaign + SuperPACs) Trump by 45% ($534M to $367M per the election Wiki page, given preliminary FEC reports currently available) in the election, yet lost. Perhaps the most clear sign as to what a horrible candidate HClinton was, both in policies & campaign tactics.
When was the last Pres election the top fundraiser did NOT win? How many times has this happen, say since the 1980 Reagan election or since the 1948 post-WW2 election? IIRC, Thomas Ferguson with his Investment Theory of Politics shows that in the vast majority (90%+ ?) of US elections (Fed/State/Local), the biggest fundraiser wins.
I don’t think s happened in a presidential election since WWII.
I’d wager the antidote is unfortunately not a hophornbeam, but Koelreuteria paniculata (goldenrain tree), a common ornamental ’round these parts.
it’s a hornbeam, not a hophornbeam, those they have in the Chi
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091007181908AAsOnYy
Not Ostrya virginiana but Carpinus caroliniana
Sorry to be terribly nerdy, but neither of those species produce fruits in large panicles like the photo appears to depict (though admittedly the resolution leaves something to be desired and I’m not 100% certain, if you want a confident ID, feel free to forward a couple photos along to me! I am very familiar with NC’s flora, as it comes with working as a plant ecologist). Glad you’re enjoying the area though, there are many unique plant communities in Durham Co., and especially Granville Co. a bit to the north.
nerdiness always welcome! however those are not fruits, but bracts. i did send Lambert a close-up of them, perhaps he will run it as the plantidote another day.
sure i will gladly forward pics to you – that would be Gary Headlock@November10.com ?
thanks for the tip about Granville Co!
Haha, no gary headlock is a nerdy pseudonym that is a waaaaaay obscure skateboarding lore in-joke, tough to explain! But i can be found at ungberg@gmail.com
American hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana) is native to the Great Lakes region and is hardy to Zone 3, so it is even found in Minnesota. It is a great small tree with fabulous orange-red fall color. It has pretty high wildlife value.
Interesting. I have only seen the hophornbeam (ostrya virginiana) there, both in Chicago parks and further north on the Leelanau Peninsula in Michigan.
I was quite taken with its bracts, each a lovely little Fibonacci work of art!
“Sex is far from a perfect way to reproduce. It imposes a huge cost on a species, and that cost is called “males.” If roughly 50 percent of a species is made up of males who are incapable of producing babies, it is at a serious reproductive disadvantage relative to another species made up mostly of females capable of reproducing on their own” [Nautilus]. “Despite its dra…..
Well, i really hope this was privately funded research.
re: The Polls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Defeats_Truman#/media/File:Deweytruman12.jpg
and
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/chi-chicagodays-deweydefeats-story-story.html
Post Trump, I havent read anything as yet about a new MSM strategy to staunch the potential draining of the traditional political campaign advertising budgets.
Seems like this will be a problem for those media propaganda organs that are reliant on this revenue, no?
Re. “Sex is far from a perfect way to reproduce” — Perhaps it’s simply too soon post-election for me, but that sounds rather as if Nautilus is calling roughly half of not just humankind, but half of all sexually-reproductive-species-kind, “deplorable”, as in “only useful for your genes.” But honey, I do take out the trash and perform basic automotive maintenance…
Yeah, I hear you. I, although female, have never had a child. OTOH, I may be of some use to the species — I know how to make hard cider.
Do you think it is realistic for me to hope that HClinton’s loss, means that the social democratic/Progressive Sanders faction can take the D party over from the failed DLC neoliberal Reagan Jr Clintons/0bama faction?
Similarly, can I hope that the trick of Identity Politics Reagan is dead? Half-Black guy Reagan 0bama fooled voters that he was a Hope & Change Progressive, but White Woman Reagan HClinton could not pull the same trick off. Have USians realized that politicians of any combination of demographic attributes (race/gender/etc) may be corporate sellouts (0bama) or genuine & authentic (Keith Ellison)? If so good riddance to Latino Reagan Julian Castro, Black Reagan/0bama 2.0 Cory Booker, & the rest of the Identity Politics Reagan assembly line!
Bernie is supporting Rep. Keith Ellison to be the next Chair of the DNC. Wonder what the Dems will do.
Sounds like a hefty pre-compromise with the GOP already. Yawn.
Just think! If Howard Dean hadn’t gone completely round the twist for Clinton, he might have been in the running for the DNC. Too bad, because if the Democrat Establishment hadn’t heaved him over the side in 2006, his 50-state strategy would still be in play, and Steve Israel’s vile and corrupt Blue Dogs wouldn’t be holding the party back.
Ellison endorsed Sanders, so that’s a bit of an olive branch (of course, Sanders deserves the whole tree, along with the roots, and not just a branch, but that’s another topic).
Ellison also shone very bright in this clip that Jimmy Dore dug up, when he calls out the danger of a Trump ticket while the George ‘Snufalupagus’ and crew just laughed in his face:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1HguZOOVnk
I had a completely different reading on that. Ellison was blinking, shoulder shrugging, the looks down or sideways, the head bob, the pursed lips came across to me as more of a vague pretense at a bumbling golly gee… I thought he was being sarcastic and that the crew weren’t laughing at him, they were laughing with him.
They have learned nothing. All sorts of trial balloons are in the corporate press. Chuck Todd suggested on MTP that Cory Booker as VP would have won the election for Clinton. A bunch of “Corey Booker is the Democratic future” articles got printed. They are still pretending Democratic turnout didn’t sink, so I’m pretty confident they are also refusing to recognize that a whole lot of black voters have figured out Obama scammed them. I am fairly confident that trick won’t work again, but the insiders will decide that people were just sick of Clintons or just didn’t want a woman.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/11/populists-us
apparently we must have a war on populism.
Booker is such a… such a… such a shill. The stories were probably planted by Booker.
Why Jamie Dimon Is Unlikely to Be Trump’s Treasury Secretary | American Banker: — After a divisive campaign in which Donald Trump fiercely criticized his rival’s ties to Wall Street, the president-elect appears to be considering JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon as Treasury secretary. Trump advisers have mentioned Dimon has a potential candidate for the post, though there are signs that Dimon doesn’t want the job, according to CNBC, citing two people familiar with the matter. Previous reports suggested that Steven Mnuchin, a former Godman Sachs executive, could be tapped to lead Treasury. The banking industry is likely to celebrate if Dimon is selected. “He obviously would be very qualified for that role,” said David Lucking, a partner at Allen & Overy. “Trump certainly has said he wants to surround himself with the best.” But such a nomination is unlikely to happen. For one, confirming Dimon would also be a huge political lift, as Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., would lead a charge against him. Even Dimon recognized in an interview earlier this year that a possible confirmation would be unlikely. “I don’t think I’m suited for it. I don’t think you could have a banker serving in a major role in Washington in the next 10 years,” he told Bloomberg. “I just don’t think it’s going to happen — it’s just not politically feasible — so I don’t spend much time thinking about it. Do I think I could do a good job? Maybe. It’s possible.”………………………a sure pass to JAIL
NBC Poll: Media Approval rating: 19%
AP Poll: Americans with high confidence in the media: 6%
EXCELLENT article on the “unbearable smugness” of the media from a CBS political correspondent/managing director:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/commentary-the-unbearable-smugness-of-the-press-presidential-election-2016/
Oops – just noticed it’s already linked above. So consider this an endorsement. :)
Personally, this tin-foil hatter believes the rating is -19%.
To get that number, one has to rig the poll though (by including people not longer living or not born yet)…e.g. 1,000 people live in this town, and of them, 1,190 disapprove.
great piece, and the comments are scathing. what I don’t get is why they don’t mention that beyond being insular and smug, the journos are also corporate-owned agents of the 1%.
I broke my ban on MSM the night of the election and have been “slipping” a bit. Yesterday I watched Rachel Maddow patronizingly begin a lesson on what things make America America – how we know we’re here and nowhere else in the world. I had to turn it off toot sweet when she with a completely straight face enumerated a “free” press as one of those things.
Not state owned, eh? But you are corporate owned, same difference. Why did MSNBC not report at all on opposition to the TPP – wouldn’t have anything to do with being owned by ComCast now, would it?
Years ago I liked her, now she is the poster child for smug.
I love the ending para from the top comment to that article:
ChiGal, I’m ashamed to say that I liked Maddow too a long time ago.
Comcast coincidently canceled Ed Schultz the only critic of TPP on MSNBC.
what I don’t get is why they don’t mention that beyond being insular and smug, the journos are also corporate-owned agents of the 1%.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Limited_hangout
“. Clinton raised $154 million in September for her campaign and the party. And people “getting the resources they needed”? Seems odd.”
smells like the allegations thrown at the Clinton Foundation—-insiders directing very generous contracts to other insiders. with competence or efficacy secondary.
Nothing to see of course.
How Podesta may have caused Clinton to weaken her position on Wall Street. New Wikileak shows he pushed her to show “love” for Obama rather than criticism of BHO’s handling of reform
So not just by Podesta but victimized by her philandering husband one last time? Awhile back Pat Lang suggested it was really Bill who pushed her into running. The impeach-ee needed his legacy redeemed.
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2016/11/new-wikileaks-email-podesta-may-have-cost-democrats-the-election-with-push-for-obama-legacy/
Regarding this part of the excerpt:
This is a point that has irked me ever since I waded into the Podesta emails — how even the smallest public statement or even just a Tweet required numerous rounds of revisions, feedback, vetting and tweaking from the Clinton insiders.
It seemed that Clinton rarely had a fire in the belly on any particular position. It was whatever her team determined was the most politcally advantageous at the moment.
Maybe this is how most presidential candidates function, but it made me see Clinton as Presidential Robot Version 2016, programmed by her team to simulate the appearance of a person with convictions.
I’m sure she has some real convictions and I’m sure she has done real good in the world. But maybe Assange is right — she has been consumed by power and greed and was seduced by the possibility of more.
The cognitive dissonance oozing out of Clinton and the camp followers became so great for voters that many said “Triangulate This”!
For better or worse, Trump wears his emotions on his sleeve.
No surprise that he connected with voters in a way that was simply beyond the ability of a cool, calculating lawyer who never had the personal touch.
Trump’s emotional intelligence does not necessarily make him a great leader (although one could see him hitting it off with Putin at Camp David). But it did make him the better candidate.
I just happened to see this photo of Hillary, taken today while she was out walking her dog.
‘Heartbroken’ Hillary supporter goes for hike, spots Clinton doing the same thing
I swear to God, if we saw more of this kind of thing during the campaign, she would have won.
she looks relieved
she looks relieved
Hillary or the Dog?
Go to the comments
She looks like a human being I could relate to, as opposed to the Terminator Hillbot that has been stalking the airwaves with terrible fury these last few months.
Sanders refuses to rule out run…. (at 79)
Zaid Jilani
@ZaidJilani
Bernie Sanders today refused to rule out running for president again in four years.
From AP
[Sanders doesn’t rule out 2020 White House run
By KEN THOMAS and LISA LERER
Today
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bernie Sanders is leaving open the possibility of another presidential bid as shell-shocked liberals focus on helping the Democratic Party rebuild after Donald Trump’s victory.
“Four years is a long time from now,” said the 75-year-old Vermont independent, noting that he faces re-election to the Senate in 2018. But he added: “We’ll take one thing at a time, but I’m not ruling out anything.”
Democrats have begun postelection soul searching, with Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., urging the party to embrace a more populist economic message. As some Democrats protested across the country, the party’s liberal wing began jockeying for power, arguing that Clinton’s loss could be attributed to her reluctance to fully focus on economic inequality and tougher Wall Street regulations.]
Here’s more..
[Sanders said that millions of working-class voters’ decision to back Trump was “an embarrassment” to the party and Democrats must take a strong stand against the role of corporate interests in politics. He said the party as a whole was unable to make a strong enough case to struggling workers, particularly in the industrial Midwest, who sided with Trump.
“You cannot be a party which, on one hand, says we’re in favor of working people, we’re in favor of the needs of young people, but we don’t quite have the courage to take on Wall Street and the billionaire class. People do not believe that. You’ve got to decide which side you’re on.”]
woohoo!
Short of a stake driven through their hearts at the crossroads, Bernie’s pre-announcement that he could be back in 2020 is our best protection against the Clintons clambering out their political crypt in a frightening and horrible “Night of the Living Democrats.”
Trump repeatedly mentioned Bernie with respect, as a fellow outsider. It would be great to see the two of them — both with authentic populist instincts — collaborate on some areas of common interest.
I am reminded of the ending of Lion King, where the hyenas see that the bad lion is not as powerful as they thought, and they turn on the bad lion. I do think that we have seen the end of Hillary’s political career.
> Night of the Living Democrats
Ha
Any more “organic” protests tonight?
DOWN WITH KALE!!!
+1
“Earlier this year, a team from the American Museum of Natural History compared easily measurable traits such as scales along the belly, or pores on the right leg, from seven generations of one line of parthenogenic whiptails with a sexually reproducing species. The parthenogens showed just as much physical variability as sexually reproducing whiptails, even though the parthenogens all had identical DNA.”
Gee, in a stable environment, that’s what I’d expect. Evolution tends to show up mostly on the fringe and in evolving environments.
Anyone else see this?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/11/10/liberal-democrats-lash-out-at-dnc-say-overhaul-needed-to-woo-back-working-class-voters/?tid=pm_politics_pop_b
Brazile has only gotten the Ds three paragraphs in the chapter on Grand Electoral Failures. She, by dragging this out and with an assist by HC lobbyist Howard Dean stepping in, hopes to add a fourth paragraph detailing how they lost the 2020 election the day after losing the 2016 election.
I saw that earlier, but I think Dean may have a problem getting the post. Every Sanders supporter remembers his tweeting out that he, as a superdelegate, knows better than anyone what the Party needs.
Turned out he was wrong.
And also, on no evidence at all, that Trump was doing coke. HoHo just really discredited himself, which is too bad.
We won’t have any say in whether or not he gets it. It’s not something us regular schmoes get to vote on. But we will learn a lot about whether the Democratic Party is redeemable.
I wonder whether this is just Dean continuing his aged feud with Bernie, or insiders generally thinking, “Progressives love Howard! He’s an old guy from Vermont! Win/win!” I’m sure they have no idea how angry the Bernie wing of the party is with his behavior this year.
DNC Staffer Screams At Donna Brazile For Helping Elect Donald Trump
““You are part of the problem,” he continued, blaming Brazile for clearing the path for Trump’s victory by siding with Clinton early on. “You and your friends will die of old age and I’m going to die from climate change. You and your friends let this happen, which is going to cut 40 years off my life expectancy.””
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donna-brazile-democratic-national-committee_us_5824cb95e4b0ddd4fe7954e8
beautiful! more of this, please!
+1000
http://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1295949-20161111.htm
BTW, Zac, the staffer is right on climate change. We just picked up some grad students coming back from Russia for a study sponsored by the Chinese U. of Hong Kong, CLP, Civic Exchange etc.. To make an analogy of what the data says in terms you might understand, the Clathrate gun’s trigger has hit the primer in the shell, the bullet is already moving down the barrel, and there is no way to stop it. I thought final impact was going to be in 40-50 years, but I sure it’s going to be much, much faster now.
No one really wants to publish this sort of information in the mass media, it won’t change things and we’ll just get beat up by the powers to be.
Cry Shop,
Could you please elaborate more on this study?
timelines?
Many thanks.
From the same source:
Which reminds me:
So now, when you hear the phrase “Democratic strategist,” you have a song you can sing!
nice.
I am the very model of a president electicus,
I’ve walls to build and hair to erecticus;
I’ll scrap the nafta, shafta and nato octopus.
From manhattan to moscow, i’ll grab the very best of puss
I’m very well prepared, too, for making yuuuge things for us,
With marble, gold and velvet missiles aimed at the isis wuss,
They won’t laugh anew at a U. S. A. that’s great again,
And i’ll lock her up and throw away the keys, amen.
Interesting segment on NPR’s All Things Considered tonight.
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/10/501613521/an-app-saw-trump-winning-swing-states-when-polls-didnt
Developers testing a new election tracking app using a different approach found, when digging deeper into their date, that Dem registered voters who answered their question had decided to not vote for Hillary and to vote for Trump at an astonishingly high percentage.
Does this mean the Dem Party is closer to destruction than the R’s, who, according to the pundits, had been coming apart at the seams?
How to progs and lefties sweep up the useful parts? Will Bernie’s organization help with that?
There’s also some interesting numbers about Millenials: Nevada had about the same percentage for Hillary as for Obama in 2012, but in the toss up states it was from 10–ish to over 20% lower than the Obama winning turnout.
Thanks for that.
Oh no, Leonard Cohen has passed away :(
Democracy
damn. r.i.p. mr. cohen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q
we can all do just a little bit better…
as long as they’re giving nobel prizes to songwriters…
Jonathan Pie does a nice rant. Don’t 100% agree, but the sentiment is righteous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLG9g7BcjKs
This was picked up by one of the commentators over at Sic Semper Tyrannis.
It appears that 2 days after Hillary lost the election (and those sovereign country pay to play donors to the Clinton Foundation lost their go to girl – I’m looking at you Saudi Arabia, Ukraine), the USA has gone from indirectly supporting Al-Nusra in Syria to attacking it. Are they no longer considered ‘moderates’ any more?
Has Obama just worked out which way the wind is blowing and doesn’t want to be remembered as an indirect Al-Qaeda supporter and getting ahead of the curve?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-directs-pentagon-to-target-al-qaeda-affiliate-in-syria-one-of-the-most-formidable-forces-fighting-assad/2016/11/10/cf69839a-a51b-11e6-8042-f4d111c862d1_story.html?
“The move underlines the extent to which Obama has come to prioritize the counterterrorism mission in Syria over efforts to pressure President Bashar al-Assad to step aside, as al-Nusra is among the most effective forces battling the Syrian government. That shift is likely to accelerate once President-elect Donald Trump takes office. ”
It cracks me up how they try to spin this…
obamamometer indeed. they lost their magic “moderate” shield.
Chelsea Clinton being groomed to run for Congress [NY Post]
Just in case we were under any delusion that the Dems got the message.
How many times do we have to tell that family: Just. Go. Away. ?
I can’t wait till Trump has the Clinton’s to the WH. I think Ivanka and Chelsea along with the kiddies frolicking in the garden will make a beautiful photo op. The 1% coming together? Tears and goosebumps I tells ya. Tears AND goosebumps.
Now we need to hear about the Clinton “brand”? Is some other insufferable family always going on about their brand? Starts with a K …
All the more reason for a thorough investigation of the Clinton Foundation. If it turns out as was indicated in the Podesta emails that Chelsea was using Foundation funds for her private expenses, we could kill that zombie idea.
You really think she wouldn’t run from prison?
Not sure where to put this but if this is the wrong place let me know. Probably not reported in Western press … the Russian FSB, successor to the KGB, announced yesterday that several individuals, described as ‘professional spies’, were apprehended on Wednesday in Sevastopol. Employed by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry according to the report. In their possession were commando style weapons and large quantities of military grade explosives. They were supposed to attack basic infrastructure including electrical and water works. This is the second time such operatives have been rounded up this year. Also, in February this year, a group of Ukrainian nationalists blew up the power lines providing nearly all the electricity to Crimea. We were without adequate power for several months until Russia ran new underwater lines across the Azon Straits and added the necessary infrastructure to tap into the existing grid. During the shortage, which fell in the dead of winter, most of Crimea was on rationed power or no heat. Not a wonderful time for us.
Before anyone says anything, I am aware of the propaganda value of this story. I leave it as an exercise for you to explore all the possible twists and turns that lie within the boundaries of this tale. The possibilities are endless. Good hunting.
Carrboro:
FYI, the croissants in Carrboro are THE BEST I’ve had in the U.S.A., no question! NYC, DC, LA, Portland, OR, etc. are no where near as good as those you get every morning at the Weaver Street Market in the heart of Carrboro! I don’t know that todays’ pic from Carrboro and the caption about croissants and biscuits was intentional, but I stand 100% with what I have written here!