By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Patient readers, I have a couple of posts to finish, one on National Cat Day, and so today is an open thread (with a Plantidote and the latest polling, of course). –lambert
Politics
“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51
“They had one weapon left and both knew it: treachery.” –Frank Herbert, Dune
2020
Alert reader dk (not to be confused with DK) is in the process of developing the following interactive chart. Here is (are) the latest Dem Primary Polling as of 10/30/2019, 1:00 PM EDT:
I went to the daily instead of a 7-day average (for now) to see what was happening with Biden. He’s back up, at least according to Morning Consult. And here are the poll results, as of 10/29/2019, 12:00 PM EDT.
The state polling is still miserably inadequate, but there’s a recent poll in New Hampshire:
Note the leader. The top two are within the margin of error, but that is not the usual focus; the leader is. And here is the latest result:
I think dk has started a really neat project, and in the near future we’ll seek your feedback (within reason) for the tool “live.”
* * * And just to get some conversation, if you’ve been wondering how Mr. Hope and Change is doing, here he is:
Fmr. President Barack Obama: "This idea of purity and you're never compromised and you're politically woke, and all that stuff — you should get over that quickly. The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws." pic.twitter.com/6ISzic13yK
— The Hill (@thehill) October 30, 2019
Also, for California readers, here is the wildfire map from the Los Angeles Times, said to be updated more rapidly than the State site.
* * * Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, (c) how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal, and (d) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. Today’s plant (Jen):
Jen writes: “I took this photo at Sculptured Rocks Natural Area in New Hampshire a few years ago.”
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Will there be an incumbent backlash? People in California are coming to realize that the streets of S.F. and L.A. were not campgrounds and open sewers when California had Republican governors
State senator Bill Dodd, D, authored SB 901 back in April, 2018 that passes PG&E fire liability on to customers and authorizes PG&E to use a type of state-authorized bond to pay off the more than 200 lawsuits filed against the company over the fires and hundreds of deaths. However, no reverse condemnation of PG&E for damages is possible. Signed into law Sept 21, 2018 by Governor Jerry Brown.
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2018/09/24/brown-wildfire-protection-bill-passes-costs.html
Gov. Brown gratefully appointed Dodd’s 29 year old daughter-in-law to the California Workers’ Comp board with a salary of $150k. Zero previous experience.
Willie Brown, no relation, when speaker of the state assembly, similarly appointed his mistress, Kamala Harris, to the California Medical Assistance Commission. $70,000 a year and later the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, $97,000 year. She had zero experience in either field. Maybe Dodd’s daughter can run for president some day?
After Michael Peevy, PG&E’s profiteering puppet on The Public Utilities commission left in disgrace, but without indictment, Governor Newsom appointed new all important over experience identity-politic controllable hacks to it; a gay, a lesbian, a transgender and two Hispanics. Zero utility experience. His mission, keep PG&E’s stock protected while he now pretends to be outraged and courts Warren Buffett to buy it, pretty please?
p.s. Just got a robo-call from PG&E “apologizing for any inconvenience.”
Yes, Give Us Reagan! Or Schwarzenegger! Causation and correlation problems here.
Some of this (not all of this) is still the fallout of Prop 13. CA was not always deep blue, so long after the politics have changed, the laws the Republicans cursed us with remain!
But yes much of it is causation and correlation, is the U.S. other than CA the same as it was 20 years ago or have things continued to deteriorate elsewhere too? See I kind of think it’s the latter …
There’s corruption, but the Republican party as the solution to anything at all is laughable. Pressure from the left as a solution, yea maybe. People are trying!
Prop 13 passed 41 years ago. That’s a long causal effect. What about all the intervening variables between then and now?
Some problems, such as homelessness, have grown massively worse in the past few years. How much can be attributed to corrupt one party rule? Raising wages is crucial, along with implementing rent control and providing affordable housing.
“Twelve percent of the U.S. population lives in California, but it’s home to nearly a quarter of the nation’s homeless. In the spring, the results of a federal survey found rates of homelessness had increased by double digits across the state this year. In Los Angeles County, the rate went up 12 percent — 6,198 more people on the streets — and that was among the lowest percentage increases. Orange County saw a spike of 42 percent. In Alameda County, home to Oakland, homelessness was up 43 percent this year, and in the Central Valley’s Kern County, it was up 50 percent.
California has been experiencing a “housing crisis” since at least the 1970s, but the situation has rapidly deteriorated in just the past few years. According to research by the San Jose Mercury News, in 2012, a family with an income of $100,000 could afford the median rent in 72 percent of Bay Area neighborhoods; as of 2018, the same family could afford the median rent in just 28 percent of those neighborhoods. Worse, there was not a single enclave in the Bay Area last year where a family with two parents working full-time making $15 an hour could afford the median rent.”
“Twelve percent of the U.S. population lives in California, but it’s home to nearly a quarter of the nation’s homeless.”
Also six percent of California’s population are illegal aliens. Some, especially in sanctuary magnets for them, like San Francisco, are also “homeless”.
No mention of that in the state housing crisis?
One of the strangest political combinations in recent memory, and the ultimate nightmare for the local and state Democratic Machine:
Ellen Lee Zhou, A Chinese immigrant, union shop steward for city workers, NRA member, Republican, law and order candidate for mayor who wants to defund the over 900 non-profits in the city feasting off the needs of the Homeless Industrial Poverty Complex and to reverse the slide into the sewer that she blames squarely on Democrats.
https://www.ellenformayor2019.com/
You think the 2016 fraud against Bernie was bad in California?
Zhou,an official candidate for mayor, was threatened with arrest if she entered an official debate site.
See her video on Youtube:
“San Francisco is worse than a third world county”
> Prop 13 passed 41 years ago. That’s a long causal effect
The US Constitution was passed 2019 – 1788 = 231 years ago. That’s a long causal effect.
C’mon, man.
Spot-on regarding Newsom. IMO much of the public anger at PG&E is misplaced – it should be directed at the decades of abject failure by the state of california to effectively regulate its IOUs. In any case, in 2019 there are myriad ways to eliminate the need for an energy utility of PG&E’s scope, and they almost certainly would cost ratepayers less while improving service. Shameful that Newsom even mentions PG&E continuing as a privately owned entity.
> Shameful that Newsom even mentions PG&E continuing as a privately owned entity.
Yep. The Chileans, at least according to the Twitter, set the = private utility monopoly’s multi-story tower in Downtown Santiago on fire. I imagine that focused some minds.
If the citizens of CA don’t bring this up and harass the guv’nor nothing will comes of it. The citizens of this country think that going to the polls every 2, 4 or 6 years makes for a democracy. Sorry folks! You have to work at it everyday and keep these politicians accountable.
People in other countries take to the streets for much less than cutting their power for days multiple times, and their towns burning down and fouling the air with toxic particles for hundreds of miles.
Freedom-loving Americans – not so much. They just take it.
Weird.
PS. On governor Newsom – about 1 year ago he proudly introduced a bill to allow for savings accounts for minors to save for college. Instead of doing something about the rampant abuse of colleges’ pricing and other powers, he wants to empower little Dolores and little Johnny with learning to be better savers, as early as he can get them, so they can hand it all over later to their alma mater administrators. Great governor that governor Newsom, he really cares.
RT had a segment on “watching the hawks” today about NYC and DeBlasio paying the poor to leave the city and move elsewhere on the city’s dime with a years rent to boot! Only problem, most were housed in squalid situations and in less than a year many of those are back on street.
Apparently Newsom did it first many years ago in S.F. according to T. Wallace.
To be fair NYC also spends more on homelessness than I suspect any other city in America (yes much more than L.A. etc.) and shelters many. So to an extent they have done more than their part, even though it sucks they are shipping homeless they can’t deal with elsewhere and no other cities really want them either of course.
Perhaps we really have a NATIONAL problem with homelessness, that cities are increasingly being blamed for, even though not all of the homeless originate there, with some cities like NYC adopting bugger thy neighbor policies, and other cities just having a huge homeless problem.
And there’s a whole armada of Greyhound busloads of homeless veterans. Who also, many of them, are too damaged to work on pulling themselves up by their bootstraps (especially where one or both legs, other appendages and eyes are missing.) Not sure if the numbers cited by posters include veterans (which for Jeebus’ sake, speaking of root causes, can us mopes get the Empire to stop making any more of them – excuse me, us). Here’s a summary article: http://nchv.org/index.php/news/media/background_and_statistics
Focus, people! Piss-poor wages, labor arbitrage, costs of “health care” and necessities, up against the “Oooh, look at how much my house is worth TODAY!” Realtor ™ assisted price zooms powered by greed and Moving-to-another-job necessity, rents racked up to intolerable heights, so yes, you get a bus load of people “sleeping rough” as the Brits say.
Build a political economy where the working class is paid a true living wage, and rents are controlled and all the “development” explosion is excised from the process. Stop cheering information on “housing starts” and “resale values” that go up double digit percentages every year. ANd (not likely in our selfish and puritanical culture) take care of those who really cannot take care of themselves. If they can live at home with family or groups, fund that, and maybe build institutions stripped of profit incentives and staffed by all the actually really caring people Out among us who would love decent jobs doing what they are called to do.
There are homeless people everywhere in the country. A very few by choice, a whole lot more having been driven out of housing by looting PE creeps, grasping landlords, short-sighted local and state government functionaries who just love property tax increases brought about by greedflation and the 6 percent or so transaction levy imposed by those “Realtors” ™ like the ones who pester me with robocalls and SMS messages multiple times a day, telling me how they are Really Excited about the Numbers they emailed to me showing how I can Make A Killing letting them sell my modest house out from under me, dumping me into a “Market” where an equivalent replacement home for what I now have (and hope to die out of) is over 4 times what I paid for mine, with a mortgage that on my fixed income I could never meet. And rents for an equivalent 2 BR 1 BA are over four times my current mortgage.
We got people right close to where I live who work at Walmart and live in their cars or in tents in the few spots that still provide some cover, have not been stripped of vegetation and turned into Crapville condos or stick-built apartment tenement or some pig’s “estate” or another strip mall.
Living wage, rent control, policies to halt “investor” inflation of housing prices, public housing, care at home for those who want and need it with decent and kind institutions for those who don’t have that option, simple recognition that the policies and greeds that make up the current system will make ever more desperate homeless people who can never “get a leg up” because they have no fixed address, no place to keep decent clothes, to bathe, to (big item for the EEEWWWW snotty-ass urban privileged prigs) defecate and urinate “like ordinary folks” (albeit into that vast wasteland that uses potable water to flush the crap to billion-dollar industrial treatment plants).
How about a national commitment to those ideas and probably a few more that aren;t occurring to me right now?
Yeah, just saying it makes it obvious that it is blessed unlikely to happen, in the land of I Got Mine… More likely continue pounding the lower mopes into the dirt, forcing them to accept a bus ticket to “somewhere else,” turning the blind eye to needful fellow humans. Hey, it’s what we mostly do.
Not just accountable, but feeling miserable!!
https://www.company-histories.com/PG-E-Corporation-Company-History.html
“The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the state body that regulates PG&E, traditionally had been one of the toughest in the United States. From 1966 to 1974, however, when Ronald Reagan was governor of California, the CPUC became more sympathetic to utilities. One decision by the Reagan-appointed commission allowed utilities to increase rates without public hearings as the price of oil increased. By early 1974, with the price of oil soaring, rate increases were enacted almost monthly.”
https://abc7news.com/society/a-look-back-at-pg-es-history-of-blackouts/5606454/
“SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — PG&E has had its share of massive blackouts since the state deregulated utilities in 1996 [Republican Governor Pete Wilson]. Some have been planned, others have not.
“In June, 2000, PG&E experienced rolling blackouts caused by deregulation of the energy industry. It left 97,000 customers without power in the Bay Area.
“In Jan. 2001, then Gov. Gray Davis declared a state of emergency when blackouts caused by the energy crisis [Caused by ENRON, run by Dubya’s BFF] left several hundred thousand customers without power.
“In March 2001, another blackout turned out the lights on 1.5 million customers. Two months later, in May, another 167,000 had the lights go out.
But sure — let’s bring back those magically great Republicans, it’s sure to cure California’s ills.
BTW, not saying the Democreeps running the show now aren’t corrupt as hell, just pointing out that California’s historical issues are bipartisan.
You must be kidding to imply that California’s Republican Governors have no fault in this epic disaster of a State.
Fact is, all of the California Governors have veered highly conservative, classist, racist, misogynist, and ageist (ageist except for themselves and their ilk) underneath the sheets, which is exactly why there are so many homeless, and so much inequality in the state of California at this point in time.
All multiple termed Republicans: Regan; Deukmejian; Wilson; Schwarzenegger; didn’t contribute to this current horror story? Really? They are all major contributors to the misery in this state (thousands and thousands of homeless do not appear all at once), right along with Multiple termed Democrats: Davis, the Browns; and now horrid Newsom.
California has always been ultimately conservative, subsidized by the DOD/Pentagon, ‘Ancient’ California Moneyed Families, Wall Street, and Foreign, Global Elite, all about the money. That’s why so many are suffering here.
And the last Republican governor was?
Right, Republicans are partially to blame, but the veneer of stability still existed under Republicans. i.e. no pools of steaming human feces in the cities best shopping areas.
The Lanterman–Petris–Short Act (Cal. Welf & Inst. Code, sec. 5000 et seq.regulates involuntary civil commitment to a mental health institution in the state of California. The bipartisan bill was co-authored by California State Assemblyman Frank D. Lanterman (R) and California State Senators Nicholas C. Petris (D) and Alan Short (D), and signed into law in 1967 by Governor Ronald Reagan[1].
The mentally ill were to be “returned to their communities.” Most headed to the most tolerant place they heard about, San Francisco, that plus the Haight Ashbury’s magnetization of the drifters and wayward youth of America, began the slide into the cesspool the city has become. Half a century of tolerance–how’s that working out for ‘ya?
I will be glad to further debate this with anyone who has lived here all this time.
Two times in three comments about immigrants you talk about poop.
Why are you so obsessed with poop?
Because the City has a growing amount of human fecal matter here, there, and everywhere. If the increasing numbers of the homelessness have no access to public facilities, then they will do what they have to do.
Also, does anyone still believe that it is the “illegals,” the “crazies,” and the addicts who are all the homeless? (Rolls eyes).
Yes, I think that we do have too many people here illegally, and yes we a problem with the mentally ill living on the streets, what with the joke of a healthcare system, and too many of people who do drugs.
However, most homeless are Americans and native to where they live. Many have jobs. The problem is the lack of ***affordable*** housing.
Your well reasoned and articulated argument might benefit from these-
Episode 85: Incitement Against the Homeless (Part I) – The Infestation Rhetoric of Local News
https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-85-incitement-against-the-homeless-part-i-the-infestation-rhetoric-of-local-news
Episode 86: Incitement Against the Homeless (Part II) – The Exterminationist Rhetoric of Fox News
https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-86-incitement-against-the-homeless-part-ii-the-exterminationist-rhetoric-of-fox-news
It’s likely mostly not the illegals who are the homeless themselves, they often come here because they have connections that may get them housing even if overcrowded, connections for jobs etc., it’s a more comunitarian world. American society is way more individualistic than that though, so lots of white Americans, black Americans etc. don’t have anyone to help them. Since we seem to have a raw shortage of housing period though illegal immigration (mostly not happening much these days but has in the past) probably hasn’t helped.
The mental illness overlap with homelessness is a dicey one, because judging from the amount of crazies about actually acting out and out crazy, it almost seems like we have a mental illness epidemic ALONG WITH a homelessness epidemic. But that doesn’t mean all the homeless are mentally ill. They aren’t. Costs of living *especially* housing are crushing people, people who aren’t drug addicts or mentally ill.
“does anyone still believe that it is the “illegals,” the “crazies,” and the addicts who are all the homeless?”
4.4 Million syringes handed out by the city of San Francisco last year might indicate that there’s a bit of drug use?
Drug use? Oh, yeah. It is the claim by some that homelessness is primarily due to drug use and/or mental illness that I am disagreeing with. The days of skid row drunks or the man thinking he’s from Mars are the primary reasons for and inhabitants of the streets ended in the 80s.
The last Republicn Governor was Schwarzengroper, nazi admirer, who rode the traumatizing [Father] Homeland ™ Wave to office in the 2003 recall, and termed out in 2011, not really that long ago at all. Just for one political maneuver, he let Enron totally off the hook. An odious human being.
I’ve lived here for decades and witnessed all those above named Bipartisan, Pay to Play Aholes as Governor except Regan (thank God).
Goodnight.
Don’t forget the “Water interests” in that list. https://www.mintpressnews.com/nestle-continues-stealing-worlds-water-during-drought/203544/, just one part of the looter bunch.
No way Bill Dodd ever did anything but submit that bill for behind the scenes authors. He was a County Supervisor who only rose due to term limits of others. I’ve seen him work many a wine country event with a lack of sincerity you only show when others are pulling your strings. Part of the cost of gaining a foothold in CA politics is sleeping with someone. Patronage follows…
Update on Epstein;
Epstein’s death likely not suicide. At least per the independent pathologist brought in by the family.
update on the update. From the article;
He[The pathologist] also said that, during his 50 years of examining bodies, he had never seen the fractured bones seen in Epstein’s thyroid from other hanging deaths.
“Hanging does not cause these broken bones and homicide does. A huge amount of pressure was applied,” he said.
Thyroid?! Maybe hyoid.
none:
No, I believe that what the doctor means is that death by hanging doesn’t usually cause broken bones to penetrate the thyroid gland in the neck but that violence will do so.
NYC shipping homeless to other cities or states is nothing new.
For instance. Salt Lake City was caught doing the same thing over a decade ago.
Name a city or town.
In WA State, homeless or indigent people from Spojane, for instance, were being housed in rural areas like Steven’s County and other counties through a business that also owned the apartment complex used to house them.
Phoenix, Dallas, Philly… they all do it to one degree or another. Homeless people are most likely vastly under counted by such a large margin that it has become a game of hot potato.
And Sheriffs still run homeless people out of counties.
Haha, as we said! The early reports said Epstein had broken “bones” in his neck and then went on about the hyoid, a really itty bitty bone. If you look at any anatomical guide of the neck, the hyoid is a teeny thin bones. The other bones are the cervical spine. You don’t break your neck easily.
note WHO this pathologist is and his connections…
Why does NYT want this issue to stay alive?
https://twitter.com/_whitneywebb/status/1189559146384908289?s=19
Cuibono: Sorry, I have read Whitney Webb, and this is too much of a double-axel in her usual clear thinking.
If it is a murder case, then you have to find perpetrators. Now who might they be? The case has some urgency.
If it is a suicide, the case becomes a legal dead end. You blame the various guards.
all meant to deflect attention to the fact that KNOWN co-conspirators are free and uncharged
I don’t think that this report deflects attention from that at all. In fact I think it draws people’s attention back to the overall issue of a horrendous crime that no one was prosecuted for. It reminds me of the Catholic Church. just my two cents
You could be right. I just dont see the NYT playing that role here.
Giving the hits to the Miami Herald, “Jeffrey Epstein’s injuries look more like murder than suicide, noted pathologist says:
Move along, people, move along. There’s no story here.
Epstein’s “suicide” is a message to anyone (left or right) who may be a threat to the Neo-Narrative-That-Be. “Do not mess with the story-board, or else!”
Meanwhile….House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., revealed that she frequently prays for President Donald Trump…..”It’s really sad. We have to be very prayerful. I pray for the president all the time,” Pelosi said Friday morning in an exclusive interview with “Morning Joe.” “I pray for the safety of his family….”
https://www.salon.com/2019/09/27/speaker-of-the-house-nancy-pelosi-i-pray-for-the-president-all-the-time/
Are you trying to say something, Mrs. Chief of the Intelligence Committee?
Pelosi worries the plan B snipers might accidentally take out Trump’s children instead of their intended target?
I think she needs to have a visit from the secret service, I’ve heard they don’t take kindly to these things…
That consideration did not dissuade the government sniper at Ruby Ridge.
Read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge
There has to be far more for cover-up than two sleeping guards and a non-working camera. Whoever offed Epstein had to pass from the point of entry with associated cameras and searches through multiple inner corridors with security gates, cameras, and guards into the cell block with security gates, cameras, and guards (and other inmates?). And then, after reports of a screaming Epstein, they had to escape without being detected… Not likely. It is as hard to sneak into a prison undetected as it is to sneak out of a prison undetected. And this perp did both? Nope.
This is a massive cover-up or it’s not a cover-up.
And Who is Michael Baden? Just can’t make this stuff up. Better than Bill Barr’s father perhaps.
https://kennedysandking.com/images/pdf/cranor-baden.pdf
After Epstein’s demise someone on Twitter said *we are all conspiracy theorists now.*
Maybe the sleeping guards weren’t sleeping.
Drugged?
Is Obama defending Bill Gates or Larry Summers?
He is defending is own failure and compromises. The word casuistry came to mind:
From Wiki:
[Casuistry] is a process of reasoning that seeks to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending theoretical rules from a particular case, and reapplying those rules to new instances.[1] This method occurs in applied ethics and jurisprudence. The term is also commonly used as a pejorative to criticize the use of clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to moral questions (as in sophistry).[2] The word casuistry derives from the Latin noun casus (“case” or “occurrence”).
Ooooh nice word! #TIL
IMO he’s defending a few things:
1. He’s the defending what I call the “compromise as capitulation” paradigm of the status quo. That’s the incrementalist, sound-finance approach that provides cover to the “adults in the room” like himself and the other Dem kleptocrats as they give concessions to the feral GOP and the donor class, while kneecapping any progressive agenda as too extreme or too costly (how are we gonna pay for that?!).
2. He is providing a little bit of cover for his boy Biden – LOL. To wit:
” … listen we all have flaws! Whomst amongst us hasn’t during the course of a lifetime of service embellished a story rife with racist undertones about confronting a black pool gangster named Corn-pop? Or perhaps held a position against integration? Or even occasionally supported legislation to impoverish those with student debt? See? We all have flaws!!! But that shouldn’t prevent you from supporting us!”
Obama will go down as one of the greatest political frauds of all time, and I hope I live long enough to read that in a textbook.
I think he’s defending himself.
Does Obama possess this kind of self reflection or acknowledge failures or even missteps?
That grifter has no conscience. He’s shamelessly cashing in on his favors to the big boys.
Are you saying the ex-President should have to choose? ;)
I thought he was stumping for Biden?
Seen on Twitter:
“The world is messy, that’s why I executed US citizens without due cause on my own initiative by flying death robots,” says former president in defense of not being woke.
>People who do really good stuff have flaws
Dude, I’m not worried about the people who “do really good stuff”. It’s the guys that don’t (please consult a mirror) that bother me.
PS: I always appreciate the pictures but never bother to comment. Jen’s today is beautiful, as are all of them (even, maybe especially the fungus of I think last week).
1. People who do really good stuff have flaws.
2. Obama has flaws.
3. Therefore, Obama did really good stuff.
QED
People who do really good stuff go on to make $100M peddling books and speeches. We should all be so good.
But people who Joe Biden thinks are articulate and clean can do really bad stuff. Imagine that.
Paul Street on who controls the narrative. Fun Read.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/30/money-talks-bullshit-walks-on-cable-news/
Nap time for me.
Compromise is perfectly fine if you actually make an effort to start from a position of trying to get all of what you are after, and then negotiating to get at least some of what you want in return for concessions from the other side.
The problem with “compromise” Obama style is that he usually conceded everything without getting anything in return and considered it a political victory. Compromise does not work if the people you are bargaining with are not acting in good faith and you are not making any sort of effort to negotiate for your own stated goals.
I do wonder how Obama will react in the unlikely event of a Sanders presidency.
Compromise is (or at least should be) a means. To Obama it’s an end in itself.
Since partisan means “a strong supporter of a party, cause, or person” then post-partisan means NOT “a strong supporter of a party, cause, or person”.
But Obama was not really post-partisan. He was a partisan of financial criminals, war criminals, the security state & secrecy, and profiteers generally. And he’s being well paid for his partisan efforts.
This was definitely the most heinous aspect of Obama’s presidency (well, if you don’t count the wars, flying killer robots, kidnapping, torture, gulags, and so on). He seemed to think that being nice and pre-compromising his proposals would prompt a similar friendly and cooperative response from his opponents. Maybe this is how it was back in the faculty club or something.
In the real world, opponents read this as weakness and just stonewall and/or press for more concessions.
I think Bernie has a much more realistic take on how to get what you want in the Washington environment. Fight on a large number of fronts with maximalist policies that are broadly supported by the public, then fight a spirited rear-guard action as needed, publicly shaming opponents for their retrograde positions.
Looking forward to it!
Obama’s statement taken in isolation is an obvious truth, and “purity” in the political realm is an impossibility. However, to be an effective leader of change, you need to have some sort of internal guiding principles or moral compass, even if your means to a desired end may have to get “messy”. Can anyone say exactly what Obama’s guiding principles are? If you don’t really have any, you will either end up being a monster, or a weakling who is easily rolled over.
The last president who was able to accomplish any significant progressive change was probably LBJ, and he had his obvious flaws, so that point is well taken. He was a master of the power game though, which Obama was decidedly not.
However, it’s apparent that progressives and Democrats (I know, not the same thing), can be their own worst enemy, when they focus on ideological purity and identity politics, to the detriment of getting anything done.
True. But that’s a feature, not a bug.
The problem with Obama is that he is an obsessive appeaser. He thought if he gives everything away before the deal has even begun, then, Republicans will like him, pat him on the head and tell him what an impressive young man he is. If he throws immigrants under the bus and makes himself the Deporter in Chief, Mitch McConnell will like him, which satisfies his golden retriever-like need for approval from the powerful. If he throws whistle-blowers under the bus, then Republicans will like him. If he throws Yemen under the bus, the Saudis will approve him. If he throws Venezuela under the bus, Republicans will like him, etc., ad nauseam.
The Pod Save America guys tout these same positions and tactics without embarrassment, irony, or self-awareness. It’s another flavor of “Democrats always cave,” or “Democrats always betray.” This is why Trump is president. “Democrats always blow it.”
Gabbard weighs in on this interview.:
“In a nutshell, Obama is saying we all need to have a little more aloha spirit — being respectful and caring towards one another. That means not being so quick to judge, and not seeing everything as black or white. I hope you will join me is bringing the spirit of aloha to the White House.”
Ugh.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that the BLM movement will be happy to forgive the crushing of their movement in the spirit of aloha. As will, I am absolutely certain, Occupy Wall Street, the Water Protectors, anti-war, single payer and environmental activists./s
One wonders how she thought she got on that stage.
I love Gabbard, but am getting sick of the Aloha-ha-ha crap.
There are quite a few things where there is no “compromise.” Like health care, or nuclear war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EqrldNEEVw
Apparently, there’s support for a Federal Job Guarantee.
The right wing noise machine has yet to turn its gunz on this idea, though. It’ll be predictably attacked as make-work junk, wasteful spending, and sucking resources away from the private sector.
I think it makes sense that people instinctively like the idea. It would be very comforting knowing there would always be an option available ensure you don’t go broke.
Also, there are literally millions of things that need to be done in the US that the private sector is never going to do because it is too busy gambling and looting. Cleanups, rebuilding and refurbishing, instructing, helping, servicing, feeding, building, everyone in the country could make a huge list.
Imagine what the typical mayor could do with an ongoing paid federal workforce, one that actually got bigger during economic downturns. Imagine how people will feel seeing their towns getting better instead of worse, and how people will feel doing productive work for decent pay and benefits.
Hard to overstate.
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EqrldNEEVw
Apparently, there’s support for a Federal Job Guarantee.
The right wing noise machine has yet to turn its gunz on this idea, though. It’ll be predictably attacked as make-work junk, wasteful spending, and sucking resources away from the private sector.”
Don’t they already have a Federal job guarantee called “The Military”? I’ve never heard a right-winger question their budget.
Behold, David Stockman, Reagan’s budget director holding forth against Fox Business neocons! Not to be casuist and all, as the exception does prove the rule, but wow, maybe there are a few lolbertarians who can be rehabilitated, and not in the Idiocracy sense. Maria Bartiromo, on the other hand, talks like a manure saleswoman with a mouthful of samples, aptly enough.
Thank you so much for a beautiful photo from New Hampshire that captured the colors and sense of the end of the season. Different perspective.
Congratulations to the photographer!
So we have Sanders at the top in NH and NV. If Bernie somehow catches on and looks to be a real threat, we will presumably begin to see “dirt” deployed that has been held in reserve.
Two questions:
1. Any ideas what they will throw at him? Some stories from the last campaign tried to make him look “icky” from his hippie days. There is also the stuff about Jane Sanders’ financial dealings, and of course the weird “rape essay”.
2. Will any of it matter? The usual sort of dirt doesn’t hurt Trump because it doesn’t undermine what he representes to his base – that he’s an outsider with his middle finger extended at Washington. The same sort of thing may go for Bernie. The power of his campaign is the unique combination of his FDR/working class message and his authenticity. People believe Sanders like they believe no other candidate. To get him, his opponents need to undermine that authenticity. I’m beginning to think they won’t be able to.
It will be interesting to see what they try.
When they went after Trump, he won because his responses made great TV, making money for his accusers while boosting him with the extended middle finger audience, in a sort of symbiosis of scum (symbiosis of Trump and the Corporate Media, not the middle finger audience with whom I have more sympathy).
The new, relaxed Bernie may make good TV too, but I try not to get my hopes up: the class risk of elevating Sanders via good TV may violate the acceptable risk to reward profile of our oligarchs who will reign in there corporate voices.
I think it will be on foreign policy.
It is going to be hard for him to get us out of neoconservative wars when he is spending his time pushing resolutions against Russian interference with our elections and foreign policy objectives. They are going to have him on tape saying all of the things that our intelligence services most want to become conventional wisdom when he decides that he has to cooperate with the Russians, or anyone who could be construed as their allies, for just about anything. He is putting the anti-war community in the very same trap that Trump presently finds himself in.
Is it a coincidence that there is a resolution about the Armenian Genocide (1914-1923) NOW, a hundred years later, that it is politically expedient to discredit Turkey for using our very own jihadists to attack the Kurds and that it is the Russians who are throwing them out of Syria?
I can hear Hillary Clinton cackling all the way to the bank that she told us all he was a Russian asset, but we just wouldn’t listen…….It will be Russians, Russians all the way down.
You’ll hear Hillay cackling and flying high on her broomstick all evening and into the night tomorrow.
I believe if things look to be moving seriously in Bernie’s favor and the slings start to fly, that he might surprise and start flinging back. I’m not sure he is buried so deeply in the russiagate narrative that he won’t find a way out. In this, his political finale, perhaps he’ll decide to go the full measure of his political vision and call them liars.
Trump did just that with absolutely no political vision and won by tapping into the great dissatisfaction.
I think there are plenty of people just waiting for someone on the left to do the same.
And, miracles of miracles, should Sanders actually win the big enchilada, he will not be seeking compromise with republicans but I think he’d use the ill gotten power which the presidency has acquired through the decades in an attempt to correct the bi-partisan neo-liberal/neo-con tragedy infecting our deadly polity.
“I think there are plenty of people just waiting for someone on the left to do the same.”
i think and hope the same.
if trump catching the car taught us anything, it’s that there is a lot of unrest and dissatisfaction out there, under the surface.
…at least that’s what i find when i wipe away the propaganda goo.
give me FDR 2.0 with updated views on race and gender, breathing fire and welcoming the hatred of the economic royalists
PUT. IT. IN. MY. VEINS.
+1
Why does everyone believe Russia is as pure as their driven snow?
They don’t. What they are saying is that both (all) sides are hypocrites, writ large. Why do the Democrats act like they’re so pure?
Re: “Why does everyone believe Russia is as pure as the driven snow?” Not pure as new snow, but….there was more than one occasion during the Cold War in the 50s that Soviets made overtures about ending the arms race–always rebuffed by SoS Dulles and others. Given their experience in WW2, they were far more realistic about the consequences of a WW3 than our hawks. Krushchev famously said the living would envy the dead after a nuclear exchange. As I understand it, in Ukraine, Russia only “invaded” after their naval base in Crimea and ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine were threatened. Recall the Clinton/Nuland coup that we encouraged/fomented, with assistance of far-right neo-Nazi thugs, likely knowing Russia would enter to protect its vital interests there. US actions entirely cynical and self-serving; under Clinton we began to expand NATO to the east, after telling Gorbachev we would never do that. Right. Why do so many USians think we are “pure as the driven snow”?
why does anyone believe anything an American politician or press outlet says about Russia after what we did to them from 1917-1921 and in the 1990s?
We don’t. We believe (read: know) that Russia has legitimate concerns and sensible foreign policy goals, and that it isn’t a wannabe Empire ruled by a Bond villain and eager to conquer Europe.
In regards to Syria, it’s their Southern Front. They’re sick and tired of the US destroying the Middle East, and they’ve put their foot down that it ends with Syria.
Why does it matter to you? There’s an entire network on tv dedicated to anti-russian sentiment. They’re keeping an eye on the rooski’s for you. You can let the few people here get off without a loyalty oath. This time.
I rang Rachel Maddow and she assured me that the Rooskies were pure evil and that they stole the 2016 elections from Hillary.
Is not the Ghoolag now pure evil .. ?
…. as of it weren’t apparent, from its Clearly lntended Assimilation of para$itic intent ….
If its a toss-up between modern-day Russia ..and say, Google …with the attachment of it’s blobbly klingons, then which would you choose as the lesser of two Be-eviles ??
Why do you make straw man arguments?
The real problem is its clearly an excuse for betting on Hillary, a notably weak candidate. For example, this was the lowest minority turnout in a Presidential election since 1996. Now who was on the ballot in 1996? That would be “new left” third way democrat Bill Clintion with his appeals to “surburban soccer moms” who they later reclassified as “moderate republicans.” He eked out a win over a corpse, and his stewardship ended 50 years of Democratic control of Congress.
Nope, it wasn’t the Clintons. It was the Russians and the KGB. By relying on the KGB as an excuse, the “OMG Russia” crowd doesn’t have to produce evidence because its a secret. Then of course, there is the usual Republicans clod that Republicans vote for despite Democratic efforts to run the dimmest bulbs they can find to win those votes.
What is more likely? A person who significantly underperformed Gore (not exactly a charismatic) in 2000, blew one Presidential election, and had little in the way of accomplishment losing to a Republican, or a shadowy plot to use facebook ads run after the election to influence low turnouts in areas the Clinton campaign to bother organize.
You should look up Occam’s Razor.
Accepting the, ahem, interagency consensus (as borgist Vindman so helpfully termed it) framing — is a doomed strategy for an effective change agent. Big mistake for Bernie, in my estimation. Wish he hadn’t. But he’s done so several times.
Weak on foreign policy, as I have said so many times. He’s still the best we’ve got.
If it looks as if Bernie Sanders can win the nomination, or if he does win, it will be Russiagate all over again. That’s why some thought Sanders should have denounced the psy ops early on instead of going along with it.
Getting The Squad’s endorsement will help him with the nomination but will it help in the general? AOC is in favor of open borders. It’s not clear how that will play out, or how it reconciles with Medicare For All.
Very much agree that the Democrats – Bernie included, so far – are making themselves extremely vulnerable with their (at least implied) open borders messages. It’s a huge worry for the general election.
Given his clear position on cutting off the flow of corporate money into the DNC and Washington, I’ve concluded there is really no chance that Sanders can win the nomination. He represents an existential threat to the DNC and DC trough feeders. The party threw him under the bus and cynically manipulated his supporters before, and they’ll certainly do it again.
It’s probably a done deal, but it makes sense that they string the voters along, just like in 2016, banking on the fact that many of Sanders’ supporters will vote for Warren (or whomever gets chosen in the smoky back room) as “the closest option”.
They might further expand on the dig that the New York Times tried to do a few months ago in portraying the Sander’s campaign team as being rife with misogynists.
Actually, the establishment media might try “MeTooing” Bernie Sanders. Imagine if they paid a bunch of women to pose as people around Sanders or his associates and falsely report numerous incidents of sexual assault or inappropriate sexual conduct and try and have it erupt into a Twitter storm and media circus. This way they could get even more mileage out of the “Bernie bro” smear and portray Sanders as being a dirty old pervert.
It would be highly dishonest, but the damage could be catastrophic.
Not much dirt out there to throw at Bernie so what are they going to do? That’s what worries me.
They’ll come up with complete nonsense, like the anti-Semite smears against Corbyn. Whatever it is, they’ll flog it 24/7. It will never end. Never. It will just get more and more outrageous and unsupported by evidence they’ll shout it louder and louder and most people you meet will buy into it unquestioningly. The smears will never stop. Until he’s gone.
RRR is the most popular smear here, so that’s probably the avalanche they’ll bury Bernie with. He visited the Soviet Union, you know.
And Trump will help them.
They’ve already been doing that for years. Two of the most prominent are that he’s a rich hypocrite who owns three houses, and the other is that he wrote an essay in support of rape. Nothing they use has stuck.
Who has the power to rescind broadcast licenses ?? .. because clearly, with the Major Knews! Corpse spewing soo much lying crap, both in print and over the ether .. if now is not the time to bring the M$M to heel, then when ? Then there are the Big IT Giants !, who ALSO need to be curbed ..
They are, to a one, in my estimation, implicit in any actions developing ..that could ignite a civil war.
Alas the smears will be multiple, none alone fatal, but the right will do their best to make the cumulative effect sufficient to hurt him with those on the fence. For starters: his Soviet honeymoon, the fact he’s recently become a millionaire from his best selling books, and now owns 3 homes, one in DC and two in Vt., his wife’s management of a local college that went belly-up. Doubtless more they’ll dig up.
They will attack Jane for the Burlington College land deal; not everybody in Vermont loves the Sanders (thought it’s nothing like the people in that Arkansas bait shop that hated Clinton). There’s probably plenty else to dig up about a college administrator.
And the question is whether that sort of thing will matter. I don’t know that story well – does it damage Sanders’ authenticity? Why would a spouse who made questionable decisions cause a voter who wants M4A (and a shift to worker-friendly government) not to vote for Bernie?
I will read up on that issue now.
> does it damage Sanders’ authenticity?
That is the key point.
Listening to Kyle Kulinski on Joe Rogan, and out of nowhere they brought up Saudi Arabia’s Anti-WitchCraft Unit:
This will be Trump’s defense next week…
I can see the attack ‘articles’ now: “Evil Mastermind Behind Putin’s Satanic Puppet Masters Exposed! Baba Yaga Directorate Unveiled!” Or: “Nancy Reagan Kept America Safe From Russian Sorcerers! American Astrologers Protect Nation!” Etc.
>has a unit to combat sorcery
Man why can’t I land a gig like that? Screw this real work s(family blog)t.
So are we talking about CSI: Riyadh here? Or would that be AWU: Riyadh as in Anti-Witchcraft Unit: Riyadh. It would be a cross between a Crime Scene Investigation and X-Files. It would be a racy TV series in Saudi Arabia where you might get to glimpse the heroine’s wrist.
Sorcery is serious there. Get accused and lose your head.
https://www.cnn.com/2011/12/13/world/meast/saudi-arabia-beheading/index.html
Leave it to the sauds to take the fun out of that too.
On the Twitter, I keep getting ads to visit Saudi Arabia as a tourist.
“Come for the whippings, stay for the beheadings….”
‘Hope you enjoyed your holiday of detachment … and don’t forget to come back again …
Just don’t let things go to your head next life.’
Holy mackerel, Andy!
This is fake news! A library that has no books can’t possibly burn.
Sorry, this link didn’t work, but the showed a picture of this big building on a hilltop almost surrounded by smoke and flames. They claimed that it was a library…a Reagan library in California. How could a guy who never picked up a book in his life have a library? It defies logic. Well, with any luck they mislabeled it. We can only hope that it is the Getty Museum.
Reagan was a working actor all his life. That could be a “Film Library.”
Miles of shelves with old Readers Digests on them, maybe? https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/5516
That’s where Ronny got all his stale jokes from.
A full-size mock-up of the Borax wagon with its “20 mule team”. And GE commercials on an endless loop.
That’s because one only needs to choose a disc from the era, time, or place that they wish to escape to.
Ask The “Librarian” for proper assistance, whether by push, or by shove .. just try to avoid any ice-age planet named ‘Hillary’ ..
The Librarian might say, “Ook”.
If only this edifice were another “Unseen” erection.
Although I would not be surprised to find the finished project has a ‘Hidden Basement’ where Eldritch Tomes were secreted. (Maybe the thrice dreaded Epstein Tapes?)
It does too have books, some not even colored in yet.
Q: How many copies of the neoliberal instruction manual The Road to Serfdom can you fit into a building that size?
A: All of them.
Re: Sculptured Rocks Natural Area
Was that due to work by the stream, or part of another event? There are areas that look like that, along the Ottawa River or the Petewawa River, that were due to the rapid draining of massive lakes toward the Atlantic as the glaciers receded from the Canadian Shield.
The sides are the key. These look to have nearly vertical sides, indicating rapid erosion. Slow erosion water channels usually have sloping sides.
Right now, there is an unanswered question as to how many cosmic impactors to the ice shield there were at the beginning and end of the Younger Dryas period. One site is the newly discovered crater under the Greenland ice sheet, another is Lake Nipigon in Ontario Province. The latter also has vertical walled canyons emanating from it. The Slate Islands in Lake superior are another.
Read: https://astrobob.areavoices.com/2009/03/09/meet-lake-superiors-meteor-crater/
More evidence of an Ontario impact on the ice is in the form of a large number of oval craters in the Southeast US. They’re quite shallow and there’s no evidence of meteorites in the bottom. The axes, collectively, point to an area in Canada. Theory: large impact on the ice sent chunks of ice all the way to Alabama. Would have been a terrifying bombardment.
Not sure where I saw this – probably Discover, a couple years ago, so no link.
The Carolina Bays I believe. One of the original signs that the ‘official’ narrative was not sacrosanct.
The Younger Dryas theorized impacts were at probably 12,800 YBP +/-.
Also, there is the Burckle Crater at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Roughly dated to around 3000 BC, it would have created gigantic tsunamis. That one needs more investigation. I’m all for looking into a suggested catastrophe site, even if it disproves the Catastrophist Hypothesis. Oddly enough, few “reputable” scientists want to find out either way.
Sometimes I think that Sloth should be declared the Patron Sin of Credentialed Academics.
Back to the ’60s.
Antônio Carlos Jobim – Wave
https://youtu.be/eqs_vgwVavI?list=PL4NXUZspQ7BwfbRnW6Y4lNJxq0AwJBb9B
Andrés Segovia – Guitar Concerto N°1, Op.99 – Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
https://youtu.be/n8k75qtEbw8
Dr John – Jump Sturdy
https://youtu.be/Tjlyjn1X6GE?list=PLD8F09E69CC645A15
Tom Lehrer – National Brotherhood Week
https://youtu.be/CgASBVMyVFI?list=RDCgASBVMyVFI
Inside the Making of Dr. Strangelove
https://youtu.be/iJ6BiRtGTAk
The Mamas and The Papas – Creeque Ally
https://youtu.be/-L4ZeL81v8c
“…It’s fun to eulogize
the people you despise
as long as you don’t let ’em in your schools!”
There are three ex-NSA employees I respect enough to not spit on. Edward Snowden , William Binney, and Tom Lehrer.
I’m taking a grim pleasure that the Easy Fire is approaching the Reagan National Library, because you don’t generally get to see karma operate in near-real time.
That said, my post for National Cat Day is up.
Talking voices on one of the local NPR affiliates (KCRW) were concerned about the fire burning over sainted Ronnie’s grave. Seems right and natural to me.
Someone has to ‘Deep Fake’ flames coming up out of that Unhallowed Spot. Especially on All Hallow’s Eve.
I hope that Nancy’s ‘Court Astrologers’ are still on the job to protect the Nation against the Forces and Powers of Darkness that will issue forth from Anti-Saint Ronald’s Grave for that justly feared night.
ironic twist.. that the deserved scorn for Reagan provokes schadenfreude for his grave being burned, the event would also symbolize the current destruction of the one good thing he accomplished: nuclear detente with Russia
> the current destruction of the one good thing he accomplished: nuclear detente with Russia
Very good point.
My worry is not for the Library .. but for that wax replica of the smartest one in the entire bunch ! – ‘Bonso’
“… “Y’all were running from us, and you’re still running,” she said…..“As we moved in, white folks moved out, because they were afraid of what our families represented,” she said….”
Trump tweeted: “Was this message brought to us live from Martha’s Vinyard? I hear it’s lovely there.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/10/30/michelle-obama-white-flight-chicago-yall-were-running-us/
“… For those wondering why so few national media outlets are covering this mass shooting with wall-to-wall coverage (all in a bid to convince white gun-owners to give up their firearms and abandon their 2nd Amendment rights), the initial shooting at the “Twerk or Tweet” Halloween party and subsequent retaliatory shooting at the vigil didn’t involve any white people.
You can go back to watching your regularly scheduled program of Bob and Abishola on CBS now.”
http://www.unz.com/sbpdl/how-can-we-blame-this-on-the-nra-whites-mass-shooting-at-black-twerk-or-tweet-halloween-party-on-campus-of-texas-am-commerce-followed-by-retaliatory-gun-attack-at-vigil/
“… for some inexplicable reason, in Q3 the American consumer was scrambling to buy… recreational vehicles.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/second-consecutive-quarter-what-americans-spent-most-money.
“… “We’re talking about the bag tax, a progressive tax, a rain tax, a mileage tax, a TV tax, a beer and tobacco tax, a farm tax, a parking tax, a car trade-in tax…”….”
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/leaving-illinois-does-anybody-care-about-people-us
> Trump tweeted: “Was this message brought to us live from Martha’s Vinyard [sic]? I hear it’s lovely there.”
That’s Don Junior, but it’s still a sick burn, all the sicker because Oak Bluffs is the historically black part of Martha’s Vineyard, although not where the Obama’s chose to locate. The people and the noise, ya know….
Juan Brown on the Senate / Boeing 737 MAX hearings:
https://hooktube.com/watch?v=QZO7sIbWrX8
So, after 3 days sans power/internet here in my lovely corner of Marin county — I’m actually near downtown Novato, near sea level, only a few low hillsides around, per the PG&E website early Saturday afternoon not supposed to be preemptively ‘outed’, — busy catching up on normal life activities, including lots of NC material. So indulge me as I take the especially snark-worthy headlines from the past 3 days as they come:
o Pelosi, Schumer call for briefing on death of ISIS leader al-Baghdadi The Hill — I thought y’all were too busy doing impeachment puppet theater. Anyhow, couldn’t one of your pet secret Intel-Complex spook-warrior-hero-whistleblowers brief you on what really happened?
o President Donald Trump greeted with boos at Game 5 of World Series, fans chant ‘lock him up’ USA Today — Well, this *is* a bunch of folks whose patriotism involves cheering for a Canadian team called “The Nationals”, after all.
o Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan — About which The Rev Kev wrote, “Bezos idolizes the captain of the starship USS Enterprise-D, Jean-Luc Picard? I’m not sure why. When you look at the character of Jeff Bezos and that of Jean-Luc Picard, I cannot see the similarity.” — Rev, I think it’s an “aspirational handsome visionary bald man” thing going on here.
o Democratic Rep. Katie Hill to resign amid allegations of improper relationship with staffer — Would a “rising polls” quip here be considered outré?
o California’s Governor Wants Berkshire to Bid for Bankrupt PG&E | Bloomberg — Right … because selling PG&E to another bunch of profit-seeking greedheads is the answer. Gavin Newsom, neoliberal twit extraordinaire. Hey, Gav, put down that preening mirror for a sec and let me run this crazy idea by you: How about the state of CA use whatever legal leverage it can muster and use that rainy day fund and bond issuance capability to buy out PG&E in bankruptcy court? I’m sure a case could be made that CA has a compelling interest compared to the usual hierarchy of creditors. (Perhaps one of NC’s legal experts could comment on this.) Then run it as an actual, you know, *public* utility, not-for-profit, and use the many $billions/year currently going to lavish executive compensatio and shareholder dividends to instead begin the necessary and long-criminally-neglected overhaul of PG&E’s statewide infrastructure. Jeebus frickin’ Christ, “Berkshire should own it”, together with PIMPCO and notorious vulture Paul Singer’s griftCorp, Elliott Management.
o Increasingly popular single-use bans pose hurdle for plastics industry | Waste Dive — Where did I put my nanoscale violin? I can never find it when I need it to play a weepy molecular-scale dirge for poor victims of repressive government policies, in this case the woe-is-us plastics industry.
o Better batteries are fueling a surge of electric scooters in India and China | The Conversation — Ginormous sidewalk-collisions, toxic-materials-disposal and battery-fires crises to follow hard upon. The price of progress!
o Best Lines in Fiction — my tiny contribution is this Bertie Wooster confession in Very Good, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehous: “How it happened, I couldn’t tell you to this day, but I once got engaged to [Sir Roderick Glossop’s] daughter, Honoria, a ghastly dynamic exhibit who read Nietzsche and had a laugh like waves breaking on a stern and rock-bound coast.”
o S&P Corelogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index, August 2019: “Home prices failed to improve in August, showing disappointing results” | Econoday — Equating less affordable housing with “improvement” and more affordable housing as a “disappointing result” is rather revelaing of Econoday’s priors, wouldn’t you say?
o California shows the difficulties of hardening the nation to climate change | Editorial Board, WaPo — One of said difficulties apparently being the sheer impossibility of operating public utilities like, you know, public utilities, rather than letting a bunch of Wall-Street-inspired greedheads skim off the revenues and run.
I’m glad you are ok. Any reports from the fire zone?
Here is latest from the Mercury news website – on the main page it was well below multiple articles about the Warriors’ Steph Curry breaking his hand. Main article is about the SoCal fires, but links below and in sidebar have news about e.g. the Kincade fire near Santa Rosa. My housemates’ parents live in the Santa Rosa area, currently staying with friends, hoping to go home today:
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/10/31/fire-map-perimeters-and-evacuations-for-easy-getty-3-other-southern-california-fires/
Here for your enjoyment on open thread night is Murga, the comedic and political operatic musical art form of Uruguay. It’s a great video and it talks a little bit about the politics Circa 2015.
https://youtu.be/DBN1x8OWRYA
In good news, there is not much chance of a major military strike by the US in the Middle east anytime soon. The reason is that every US carrier on the east coast is in the shop for repairs at the moment and won’t be out for months at least-
https://sputniknews.com/military/201910291077176171-every-single-us-east-coast-aircraft-carrier-is-docked-for-repairs/
No wonder the US Navy is looking to “borrow” the British carriers for their squadrons to use.
“Please wait to attack us until we can defend ourselves.” Not that I buy into that…
https://www.ccacoalition.org/en/news/how-uruguay-can-have-environmental-sustainability-%E2%80%93-and-eat-its-beef-too
I don’t know, some of this sounds too good to be true. I’d be interested to hear what others think.
Markopolos Report on GE is gone. Did he sell his good name to the highest bidder?
https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/10/30/1572466417000/Missing–the-GE-short-report/
His report was totally off base. Lots of people who are not at all in bed with Corporate America, like insurance expert John Hempton and short seller David Einhorn, said the report had quite a few fundamental misreadings.
Just saw an ad for the upcoming (December-release) Clint Eastwood film about security guard Richard Jewell, who was falsely accused of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Park bombing. Yah, those hero-warriors of truth, justice and democracy at the FBI and in the Big Media covered themselves in glory in that incident, as well … we really should let them, the CIA and the MSM chnage the head of state, should they deem the elected one not to their liking.
It’s Karinewsy Night, so, I’ll throw this in.
Yuri Gregarin was not the first Russian in space. That honour should go to a famous Russian test pilot named Vladimir Ilyushin. He circled the Earth several times, and landed, alive, but his mission went somewhat wrong and was covered up by Moscow for reasons of national pride and propaganda.
If you have the time, almost an hour. From 2003: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKYfEjg0liU
A cautionary tale about the reliability of “Official News” sources and the biases of elites.
Looks like there’s a pretty interesting election in a few days in Virginia. I’m really surprised this hasn’t been covered here. I guess it’s just an example of what normally would be news getting buried by all the crazy stuff.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/blue-summer-red-fall-virginia-republicans-change-colors-with-the-season-stepping-up-attacks-on-democrats/2019/10/30/0115f352-fb26-11e9-8190-6be4deb56e01_story.html
From the article:
Why early voting is so, so stupid.
I don’t see pensions mentioned too often on NC. The rollout of government-mandated auto-enrollment into pension funds is a thing in the UK, and now in Ireland – I have big objections to this, because I view it as a forced subsidization of the finance industry thrust onto the public, and I do not believe it is easy (maybe not even possible at all) to properly identify pension funds that are ethical to invest in.
So in short, I view it as government-forced investment from the entire working population, into unethical financial investments, subsidizing the finance industry as a whole, as well as exploitative/unethical businesses outside of finance, too.
I can’t get my head around all of the concerns regarding pensions, about ethics, the potential to be defrauded by funds being pilfered/mismanaged, the need to prepare financially for retirement, information asymmetry and the lack of transparency with funds and their management, and just my general cynical mistrust of the finance industry – including other general ethical concerns about ‘money making money’, which pensions are a form of (sort of, despite investment/risk).
It leaves me a bit unsure of how to view all of that, and what to do with money I’d want to build up for retirement, when I have that spare.
I know about the need to advocate for proper political solutions – that economically, governments are completely capable of providing 100% of a persons basic retirement funding – and that this presently isn’t politically palatable, and needs to become so. I can’t depend on that happening though, so it leaves me a bit lost with trying to figure things out, with the way things presently are.