TSN Open Mic for the week of 3/6/2023
There’s a phenomenon where someone writes an essay about this or that but someone else wants to discuss something that has not yet made it to Ten Second News.
This is unfair to everybody involved. It’s unfair to the guy who wrote the original essay because, presumably, he wants to talk about his original essay. It’s unfair to the guy who wants to talk about his link because it looks like he’s trying to change the subject. It’s unfair to the people who go to the comments to read up on the thoughts of the commentariat for the original essay and now we’re talking about some other guy’s links.
So!
The intention is to have a new one of these on the Sidebar every week. If you want to talk about a link, post it here! Or, heck, use it as an open thread.
And, if it rolls off, we’ll make a new one. With a preamble just like this one.
With this weekends address to CPAC by Michael Knowles, and Donald Trump, the race to push the boundaries of what defines conservatism accelerated.
Knowles’ call for transgenderism to be eradicated, and Trumps promise that they will never go back to the party of Bush, and that he is their retribution for grievances, establishes that conservatism cannot peacefully coexist the the rest of America.
CPAC in this sense serves as a sort of Cooper Union inflection point, where the terms of conflict are established and a statement of “Rule or Ruin”.Report
U.S. Prepares New Rules on Investment in China
Biden administration expected to seek money in its budget next week to set up program regulating investment abroad
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-prepares-new-rules-on-investment-in-technology-abroad-a451e035
Specifically targeting China….Report
NYC Mayor Adams, NYPD Call on New Yorkers to Ditch Masks When Entering Stores
https://news.yahoo.com/nyc-mayor-adams-nypd-call-183538204.htmlReport
Gotta say, I’m not a big fan of so-called “gun control” but I can put myself in the mindset of someone who is and I can grasp many of the arguments, even if I don’t share the premises.
It’s much more difficult to wrap my head around this sort of thing.
Report
You’re having trouble with throwing the book at straw purchasers? Those kinds of guns are often used while committing crimes. It’s a huge problem here in Chicago.Report
I can certainly understand wanting to throw the book at straw purchasers.
I mean, we’re talking about people who are buying guns for others who, presumably, cannot pass the mandatory background check.
Not to make any sweeping generalizations, but I imagine that the people who cannot pass a mandatory background check aren’t able to do so for a reason and some of the reasons may include fear of recidivism.
Is the fear of recidivism overblown? I mean, if you’ve paid your debt to society, you should be able to rejoin it, right?Report
As both gun owner and criminal justice reform sympathizer I see no problem with this. There’s no way to unwittingly be party to a straw sale. It certainly makes a lot more sense than pleaing down people caught with illegal firearms at open air drug markets one day for racial equity while making the case to punish law abiding gun owners with bans and arbitrarily hoops the next.Report
Absolutely. Losing rights is just a continuation of the sentence.Report
So straw purchasers are just helping people who shouldn’t need to be helped in the first place.Report
I guess that is the logical end of my statement. Constitutional carry, and all that.Report
Well, we should probably call for this DOJ official who wants straw purchasers punished even harder to be removed from his position.
Maybe moved into one where he’ll throw fewer people in prison for stuff that they should be allowed to do.Report
Additional good news for fans of constitutional carry:
Visa, Mastercard Pause Work on Code Aimed at Tracking Gun PurchasesReport
Anytime I see a disproportional impact argument, I reject it. But I’m interested in who the people are who are ultimately getting the guns. If they’re otherwise law abiding people who need them for protection, this indicates a different problem.Report
At least with respect to Chicago I believe the problem has been traced to a handful of FFLs in Indiana violating or at least being incredibly stupid with their licenses.
Generally though the people who are making straw purchases are lying on the form 4473 which itself is a felony. There’s no defense for it and no justifiable reason to dodge the process.Report
Interesting lawsuit in Texas, brought by some very sympathetic plaintiffs.
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/07/1161486096/abortion-texas-lawsuit-women-sue-dobbsReport
Ron DeSantis and the attempt to destroy the First Amendment: https://www.vox.com/politics/23622299/ron-desantis-first-amendment-press-new-york-times-v-sullivanReport
McMegan wrote about this just this very morning!
Report
The Musa thread is really good. So is the one he embeds on public schools as public service, not a vehicle for the self-actualization projects for the people who work there.Report
In so very many cases, the question of the form “what is the point of education?” or “what is the point of policing?” or “what is the point of water treatment?”, the answer is something like “to provide jobs with a good middle class wage”.Report
I think that’s right, and while in some ways understandable, this sort of confusion of first order and second order is exactly why we can never have nice things.Report
It *is* a good thread. It’s also a cherry picker’s dream.Report
Yea, that’s twitter for you.Report
Yeah, that’ll resonate far and wide.
People are making fun of the ‘sign’ on Desantis’ podium… but if you get past the Local Politics Cringe factor, it basically plays. It isn’t however, a great showcase of his Presidential potential.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/03/08/desantis_exposing_the_book_ban_hoax_i_think_most_parents_would_say_absolutely_not.html
1. Addresses the silliness of the ‘bloggers must register’ nonsense.
2. Made people look at the actual content that was being removed, not banned.
3. Addressed the Media claim that To Kill a Mockingbird was banned in such a way that it set-up what most of us have come to learn as a standard tactic that:
4. Duval County was posing with nonsense requirements that weren’t requirements as performative and willful misrepresentation.
Echoes of McAuliffe/Youngkin again.
I haven’t followed or seen much of RDS, so as a first impression? Underwhelmed. From a Presidential point of view. He screams middle-management to me. Not inspiring leadership.
Maybe he can be Marianne Williamson’s VP? [call-out to JB]Report
He would make a *GREAT* VP.Report
Heh, well, not sure about that either… other than the fact that licherally anyone can be a great VP as long as the President doesn’t die.Report
The more I watch RDS the more it becomes apparent that Republicans still don’t actually understand what they’ve identified or the potential it has. DeSantis himself is already wandering off in exactly the wrong kinds of pathetically illiberal directions, playing into the hands of his opponents, and generally underwhelming.
And yet if those shots from ‘Gender Queer’ are accurate I’m comfortable saying that should never be in any public school. Pornography is to some degree in the eyes of the beholder but it’s clearly very adult and there’s nothing anti-gay about removing it as totally inappropriate.Report
Yeah, The Republican Party (TM) is a trainwreck and lacks any sort of coherent idea of what good governance would look like… which is why when I watch people like RDS it doesn’t give me confidence that he knows where he’s going; he’s just harvesting windfall apples. At some point there aren’t any apples to pick up. Worse, the orchards need real healing and you’ve still no idea what that means.Report
They.
DO.
NOT.
Care.
About anything then obtaining and keeping power. Period. They do not care about good governance, and the only good economic policy they want is that which grants them untold fortune on the backs of every one else. They will happily destroy our multi-cultural, liberal democracy in the service of power. Because
They.
DO.
NOT.
Care.Report
Pretty much.
Like I said below, they know all their bullsh!t is bullsh!t, so it’s not worth our time to play along.Report
I
Don’t
Care
if
they
Care
or
Don’t
Care
That’s a weird thing to care about.Report
I think that’s just about how you feel about your opponents.
There’s also a Haidt element to it, where if you can’t understand your opponents, you tell yourself it’s because they’re completely wrong and contradictory and don’t care.Report
Me? I don’t see Team Red as opponents; if anything I understand them and their failings from the inside.
My critiques of Team Red pre-date GWB. They foreshadow Trump. I get Trump; I won’t claim to have predicted Trump (I didn’t), but I’m not surprised by Trump. Trump is political malpractice by Team Red itself. And my hunch is that RDS is/was on team malpractice and finds himself where he is not by design, but by political accident – which he’s smart enough to capitalize on, but I wonder whether he’s got the goods to lead it anywhere productive.Report
OK, I made two comments here. One was to point out why Philip pushed the “they just don’t care” line. I think it alleviates the requirement to listen to, understand, and respond to one’s opponents. As for the other thing, thanks for responding, and I’ll look over your comments about the GOP and bad governance.Report
Fair enough, thought maybe it was that thread.
I mean my pragmatic ‘we live in a society’ position is that Solidarity (broadly speaking) would beat both teams… it’s just a matter of who gets there first.Report
Trump is political malpractice by Team Red itself.
Yeah. The amount of failures to require him to get where he got are legion. The fact that he still is a threat (or a “threat”) indicates more failures.
I don’t know what has to fail for this whole situation to be taken more seriously…
Ah, well. It was a good run.Report
The problem with failure mode is that you’d think we could see the path it would take; but it won’t take that path.Report
Trump is not in any way a failure for ordinary Red Americans. He’s not even a failure for Republican politicians. He is the next iteration in the 50 year march to consolidate power. He’s the mouthpiece for white grievance. And he motivated a lot of voters that no other candidate could have motivated.
He is what Republicans wanted. He’s what they designed the party to produce. and because he still benefits them with huge primary voter turnouts they are willing to continue to tolerate his outbursts.Report
Shrug. Failure stalks Team Blue. It won’t take the path you think it will.Report
The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.Report
Republicans do not care about good governance. Just look at their voting record the last 5 or 6 years. Look at their rhetoric – which is no less important. That has nothing to do with understanding or not understanding.Report
I’m not sure why you see it that way. Republicans don’t always agree on everything, and states have greater freedom so one would expect to see greater variation. Governance as style, or as principles? I’m just not sure what you’re going for.Report
Sorry, I’m not sure what you’re asking?
I don’t think the Republican Party has reckoned with the (failed) partial realignment with an agenda that could be positively positioned.
Almost all of the glue holding it together at the moment is negative partisanship.
When I point out the ‘good’ things RDS is doing, it’s mostly common sense reaction to the excesses of Team Blue. That plays, and could possibly play into an election victory here, there, and maybe nationally.
But, what you do when you win an election based on negative partisanship? That’s where I’m honestly not sure if RDS has a plan, a team, or a set of ideas that are right for the moment.
I’ve consistently told my Trump voter friends (before, during, after) that you can’t be president on Grievance Style – you have to build a movement that includes a broad coalition of people who will staff and manage the direction you’d like to take Govt. should you win on Style points.
The Party isn’t doing this effectively. And, as I’ve written here – even as I’m ‘defending’ common sense policies of RDS – I’m not sure he knows what to do beyond common sense fixing of Team Blue over-reach.
Like, his reform of FL New College seems unsophisticated, which gives me concern that he’s not really a leader, but a middle-manager. Which is fine to be as FL Governor. Might be his Peter Principle. President is a different project.
I’m watching, sure… but you ask why I see it that way – that’s what I see. Show me more either by RDS demonstrating a bigger vision than he has shown or the Party itself coming up with principles of governance that aren’t a flavor of grievance studies or rehashed libertarianism – or some mashup of both.Report
Somewhere, a RDS aid is whispering ‘and next, tell them you’ll cut taxes…we’ll save the sunset provisions on entitlements for your second term.’Report
Saved only by the aids whispering in Dem ears: let’s tax savings — we’ll target ‘the rich’ because in America that means everyone except me, and save the detailed phase ins until after the next election.Report
Do you believe that Elon Mush and Warren Buffet pay their fair share of taxes for the benefits they receive from the nation?Report
I’ve written extensively before that I think Labor should be compensated with productivity gains proportionally as a much better response to tax and re-distribute.
So, I’d say simply, y’all are fighting the wrong fight.Report
From the Left we’d love to see such a thing. Really. But I lost all expectation of that in the second Reagan term.Report
God put GHWB in the Presidency for one reason only… to oversee the fall of the USSR. Which he did masterfully… if only he’d won a second term for that sole reason.
I give credit to the New Democrats (and their avatar, Clinton) for building a proper coalition and team (they learned from Reagan) that snootched the election in 1992.
But the New Dems and Reaganauts are the authors of the realignment we’re seeing now. What’s weird is that neither team has effectively re-adjusted… they just think that their coalition is sound and has no where else to go.Report
So far they’ve been right, at least on the ‘nowhere else to go’ part, or at least right enough to avoid total electoral wipeout. The damage it’s doing at the expense of the country on the other hand…Report
Good point… its RCV or whoever pivots first.Report
I’m not a DeSantis guy; I’m a conservative-who-wins guy. I’m for anyone who opposes the left’s social agenda, governs more or less responsibly, and has a working brain and moral code. Maybe I’m aiming too low, but we’ve had worse (for 14 years running). Would a more positive domestic/fiscal agenda be more marketable? Probably, but I don’t see that happening in the next two years.
And it’s not like the social agenda that can be most succinctly described as “anti-left” is grievance-based or defensive. It’s healthy communities and equal opportunity.Report
Well then you need to start voting for Democrats – as nothing coming out of state or federal GOP legislators in any way leads to healthy communities and equal opportunity.Report
Yeah. Maybe we can have a Baltimore or a San Francisco everywhere.Report
Online commenter:”Republicans aren’t grievance based!”
Donald Trump, likely Republican standard bearer: “I will be your retribution!”Report
Ah yes, McArdle finds a way to blame the libs for DeSantis and you agree with it. This is about as surprising as days that end in y.Report
Look what you made us do.Report
I really don’t want to have the federal government seize Fox News and shut it down and throw all the hosts in Gitmo.
I really dont!
But what can I do? They are forcing me to embrace a tit for tat prisoners dilemma iterated game.
Conservatives should really do some soul searching and ask themselves what they can do to avoid further antagonizing centrists like me before we start talking about mandatory abortions and forced Sharia Law Burka drag shows.Report
If you consider that an optimal play, be sure to call for it and do your best to follow through.
The last thing in the world you want is to be playing by Marques of Queensbury rules.Report
PLAY?
You need to read her article.
This isn’t a “play”. It isn’t a choice or decision people make.
For example, when a college deplatforms a conservative speaker, or students force them to take down a statue;
There are no choices or decisions being made. These are the natural and inevitable reaction to conservative provocations.
You should talk to your conservative friends and tell them to move to the center and compromise.Report
Oh, if choices aren’t involved, no problem.Report
Eh, this is just me seeing things through the lens of game theory again.
Seriously: Tit for Tat is considered an optimal play in an iterated game. It’s got a Wikipedia Page and everything.
You really need to stop pretending that this is the first time you’ve heard of this way at looking at the world.Report
“We had to embrace fascism because we were made to agree with people’s genders” is sure an argument. I’m sure a lot of certain voters at a certain time in a certain country had argument about degeneracy too.Report
Hey, if your moral authority is legible, you’ve got smooth sailing ahead.Report
Which country? You’re going to leave us hanging there? You’re being too subtle. You’ll win this argument if you just compare your opponents to Nazis a little harder.Report
Dude, we’re the same dozen or so people having arguments fo the past few years here. Nobody is winning over anybody.Report
Not if you’re afraid to call someone a Nazi, you won’t.Report
There isn’t really any evidence to support the “iterated game” theory of American politics.
That’s the core of my joke above. The only escalation and defection is coming from one side only.Report
There isn’t really any evidence to support the “iterated game” theory of American politics.
I see.
The only escalation and defection is coming from one side only.
I see.Report
Ron DeSantis argument to the Republican base is that he should be the nominee rather than Trump because he is the disciplined, intelligent fascist that can get things done. But Trump going full fascist in 2020 did not work to win him even an electoral college victory. I’m not sure what DeSantis’ strategy to win a general election would be but hope that the press does what it usually does in these instances and not tell the truth.Report
It’s not just that you’re using words outside their proper meaning, it’s that that misuse is driving you into positions that don’t make sense. The tipoff is that you admit you can’t understand the actions of the parties involved. This is the difference between being an ideologue and a blind ideologue.Report
While Ron DeSantis uses the power of the state to silence critics, Gavin Newsom is trying to prevent women from suffering fates like this:
The women found themselves furtively crossing state borders to seek medical treatment outside Texas, worried that family and neighbors might report them to state authorities. In some cases, the women became so ill that they were hospitalized. One plaintiff, Amanda Zurawski, was told she was not yet sick enough to receive an abortion, then twice became septic, and was left with so much scar tissue that one of her fallopian tubes is permanently closed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/06/us/texas-abortion-ban-suit.html?partner=slack&smid=sl-shareReport
But Newsom went to a restaurant once, Chip! So, ya’ know, the fascists have some points!Report
Can OT bring back Comment of the Day just for this?Report
Newsom is a Democratic politician that is giving the Republicans a taste of their own medicine. I like it. Very much “the buck stops here” and “give ’em hell Harry Truman” vibes.Report
I don’t know if you were in CA when he first shot to prominence, but back in 2004, when Karl Rove was famously making same sex marriage a hot button wedge issue, and most Dems were running for cover, Gavin Newsom as SF City mayor, ordered the clerk to start producing same sex marriage licenses, as a direct Eff YOO to the conservatives.Report
I was in law school in New York at the time. I moved to the West Coast in 2018.Report
“Newsom is a Democratic politician that is giving the Republicans a taste of their own medicine.”
Wipe your chin, sir. The drool is showing.Report
That’s great, Chip, keep on waving the bloody shirt.Report
As opposed to the bloody coat hanger?Report
This solves a problem.
That makes me think that it’ll be reversed in due order.
Report
Ha. After all the denunciations of virtual learning in this very web site for its educational inadequacy never mind its technological inequity you think this solves a problem?
Wow.Report
The problem being solved doesn’t involve making sure that the educational potential of the troublemakers is fulfilled.Report
Well duh. because they have bene branded “troublemakers” so there’s no need to see to their educational potential, now is there.Report
Of course there is. That’s why they’re being given virtual learning.Report
I was being sarcastic man.Report
Then I will go back to note that the problem being solved is not the problem of the child being given the opportunity to explore virtual learning.
Even back in the paleolithic era when I went to school, we had in-school suspension. This seems like a step up from that.Report
removing disruptive behavior form the school class room without addressing the root causes of the behavior is not doing anyone any favors, including those staying behind. And while in school suspension could have a whiff of educational opportunity waved in its general direction, sending kids home to “learn” in environments with unequal internet access and perhaps unequal laptop access isn’t doing that work.
What is does is reinforce the notion that some people are disposable due to their choices, even if they really could act any other way for one reason or another.Report
removing disruptive behavior form the school class room without addressing the root causes of the behavior is not doing anyone any favors, including those staying behind.
I disagree. It is very much doing those staying behind a favor.
sending kids home to “learn” in environments with unequal internet access and perhaps unequal laptop access isn’t doing that work.
I’ve got good news! They’re virtual students *ON SITE*.
Seriously, the article got into this.
They’re creating *OPPORTUNITY ROOMS*. The students will be virtual students in these opportunity rooms and that directly addresses your criticisms of unequal internet/laptop access!Report
A bit of good news:
A GOP war on ‘woke’? Most Americans view the term as a positive, USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds
By 56%-39%, Americans say ‘woke’ means being aware of social injustice, not being overly politically correct.
I think part of the problem is what we’ve discussed here, where the term “woke” has been used so promiscuously by Republicans that most people see it as meaning “anything black or LGBTQ”.Report
If you want to read the poll for yourself, you can do so here.Report
Rather like “socialism.”Report
Nice to see that at least when their professional standing is on the line, Trump’s attorneys tell the truth:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/09/politics/jenna-ellis-former-trump-attorney/index.htmlReport
Which demonstrates a point, in light of the revelations from the Dominion lawsuit.
Namely, that none of the revelations that Fox and the Republican leadership are habitual liars, has made any impact on the party base.
Ordinarily, when it is revealed that the leaders have been lying, the base would be expected to react with shock and outrage. But, none of that has happened.
The Republican base knows they are being lied to. They know that the election wasn’t stolen, they know that gay teachers aren’t grooming children for sex, they know that adolescents aren’t being pressured to transition they know that students are not being indoctrinated to hate America or their white skin.
They know that all these things are baldfaced lies, but not only accept them, but demand them and become furious when corrected.
This is why Carlson and the Fox anchors are so terrified of the base.Report
I like her. She’s an occasional guest on a show I listen to, and I thought she did a good job defending Trump without claiming the election was stolen. I guess she crossed the line elsewhere.Report
In the Colorado Bar Association proceedings, she admitted to 10 specific misrepresentations. Some of the quotes from cable news shows were “The election was stolen and Trump won by a landslide”, and “…we know that the election was stolen from President Trump and we can prove it”, and “We have over 500,000 votes (in Arizona) that were cast illegally.”
Those short direct statements — as opposed to weasel-wording it — will get you every time.Report
Biden gears up for a political fight with the House by proposing a budget with increased social spending and increased taxes on corporations, the extremely wealthy, etc: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/03/09/us/biden-budget-tax-news
I like it. Go bold or go home.Report
Finally. A democrat takes a gun to a gunfight.Report
Time to make bets? There will be no joint budget resolution, the shutdown will last three weeks, and then Congress will pass a continuing resolution.Report
I can kick that can… forty-nine weeks down the road!Report
SO I’m going to beat my usual dead horse here – the budget resolutions don’t fund government. They simply tell us what a house of Congress might want to think about being adjacent to passing.
Appropriations bills fund government. There used to be 11 of them – they even have their own committees on both side of Capitol Hill. The committee staff will have their answers to the President’s Budget Request (which started being released this week) by the end of the month. Then members will sit on it, dither, make bloviated statements and rush to pass continuing resolutions because actual appropriating means putting down markers on what you as a member think is important. Markers that can be used against you in your next campaign.
Neither Appropriations nor Budget resolutions by themselves raise the debt limit – which is only about paying obligations incurred in prior appropriations. That requires additional language in a bill somewhere.
Having lived through both prior partial shutdowns (because certain agencies keep right on working), I don’t want to do it again. Either fund us or not.
But lets keep the lanes straight shall we?Report
It’s one thing to cause mayhem for Mexico. It’s quite another to cause mayhem for *TOURISTS* in Mexico.
Report
Five people delivered and blamed by a cartel – practically the same thing as if there’d never been a crime.Report
Some guy helpfully translated the bottom of the letter:
Report
If you were hoping for an article from CNN that said something to the effect of “Investigators believe the letter to be authentic”, here you go.Report
Not an indicator yet… but it might be an indicator of an indicator to come.
Report
I’d be curious what the time frame they’re looking at is. During the Great Recession a lot of people opted for more school who might not normally have, along with the extra debt. If this is just regression to the mean with the strong labor market then it’s nothing to worry about. It might even be a good thing, particularly if it results in cuts to administrative bloat and downward pressure on tuition.Report
They’re not talking about grads not going to get their Masters’, they’re talking about high school grads not going to go get their Bachelors’ (or their “some college”s).Report
I picked up on that from the guy in the interview. Based on what he’s doing instead (working at a theater program) I don’t see it as a bad thing. I mean, if that’s what he wants to pursue right now I think it’s fair to ask whether hypothetically spending a bunch of time and money or going into debt for a bachelor’s in theater instead would really be a worthwhile investment. If I were his dad I’d say almost certainly not. So let him make his run, and maybe theater works out, and if it doesn’t he goes back as a non-traditional student for something more practical. Better than getting a useless degree you can’t trade in based on adolescent passion.Report
If I were doing everything after high school over, I would be tempted to hit the right CC to go into precision machining. Then keep up to date on the new tech, since I could handle the math and software. Peak annual income wouldn’t be as high, but I could have gone to pretty much any metro area and gotten a good job quickly. From what I can tell, still could.
Anecdata… Shortly after I went to work at Bell Labs I broke one of the nose pieces on my wire rim glasses. I was moaning about the cost of getting a new pair when someone told me to take everything down to the machine shop and see what they said. The (to me then) old guy looked at it and said, “Piece of cake.” I got to watch under 50x magnification while he used a five- or six-armed jig to align the break perfectly, then used a torch that was too small to see clearly with the naked eye to silver solder the break. Even then I was tempted to ask, “Where do I go to apprentice for that kind of work?”Report
If I could do it again so that I were graduating in 1991, I’d probably try to avoid philosophy (probably fail, but I’d try) and go into programming. C started in 1972, C++ in ’85… if I could have gotten a degree in C++, I could have gotten hired by MCI in the mid-90’s and ridden that wave straight to the top.
If I were graduating in 2023, I have no freakin’ idea. I’d probably think about the old community college for two years before I figured out where my head was.Report
Man, Pikes Peak has gone nuts too, though. More than $250/credit hour and that’s with the College Opportunity Fund baked in. If you want to get your bachelor’s in Nursing or Paramedic or Emergency Service administration, prepare to pay more than $350/credit hour.
I paid less than $100 an hour at UCCS. (And $88 dollars in 1995 translates to $172.75 in today’s dollars.)
This is madness.Report
Browns walk-on quarterback. 1985, 1995, 2025, it doesn’t matter. Top three on the field is doable.Report
It’s not a trend until we get a third story:
Report
https://www.rawstory.com/watch-lauren-boebert-wants-comprehensive-ed-banned-from-public-schools/
Teenage mom Lauren Bobert whose 17 year old son just got his 15 year old girlfriend pregnant wants to ban comprehensive sex ed from schools.Report
Her son probably learned what he needed to learn to get the job done on his own – like most of us.Report
Comprehensive sex ed gives young women the tools to say no and to keep from suffering “consequences” for moral misdeeds, while also forcing boys to reckon with their actual responsibilities in a sexual relationship. You can’t build a white male conservative patriarchy under this conditions.Report
This comment is so hilarious because it illustrates exactly why we can’t have it. Not only do we have the religious nuts opposing it on (insane) principle but the people pushing hardest are now the ones who would include critical facts like that consent isn’t possible for women unless both parties walk around the toad stool 3 times chanting ‘affirmatively yes!’ (and even then..) or that unlike all other primates human sex is on a spectrum.Report
I have no idea what you are babbling about.Report
A commentator calls out a racist narrative on ESPN:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bBmJ4scYXIReport
Good news! House votes to declassify info about origins of COVID-19.
Report
That may be the first time that Congress has directed the White House to declassify things in near real time. Watching this play out will be . . . fascinating.Report
I am interested in whether it gets vetoed. (Which makes me wonder what that 419 turns into afterwards.)
There’s also the whole thing about whether we can trust these agencies (“Why would the Department of Energy have an opinion on this?” “China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that the wet market theory is the accurate one!”) is currently in superposition until Biden signs the bill.
Maybe it’d be better if he didn’t?Report
It depends on what the actual resolution says. If its just a broad declassification directive then the agencies still have to go through their normal legal actions if Biden signs it. If it has more specific direction . . . ultimately they have to comply.Report
Fine, I’ll look it up. Here.
Report
So it’s ALL about Wuhan then. Noted.
It won’t bring us closer to any real understanding of the origin, it won’t prevent another one, and its looking for a lot of data that’s already publicly available from NIH.
Lovely playacting at governance.
Don’t expect much.Report
How can you rule out this increasing our understanding of the origin and improving our ability to prevent the next one?Report
The US Intel community will have little to no visibility on hospitalizations by the staff at Wuhan, much less whether they were covid positive. They won’t have much if anything on the funding to Wuhan by the Chinese Army – much like the Chinese would have little to no data about what the DoD funds in that at NIH or any other US facility. And there’s no direction to release or declassify any other information relating to any other source of outbreak or about work by Wuhan.
This is about scoring political points regarding China. it’s not about better understanding or preventing.Report
You’re probably right about Section 3 (1)(C). And 3 (1)(A) and 3 (1)(B) aren’t as specific. But it looks to me like they do call for the release of, as you said, “any other information relating to any other source of outbreak or about work by Wuhan”.Report
I kinda thought superposition would last longer than *THAT*.
But maybe that’s good news! Biden can sign the bill into law, the stuff can become declassified, and we can say “See? No new information. Therefore you don’t know how it started. Therefore the wet markets.”Report
I could see Biden resisting on National Security / Executive Powers grounds. Especially since it’s declassifying Intelligence findings (vs. Dept. of Ag minutes or something similar). Will be interesting to see what the administration says.Report
Oh, and we had a bank failure earlier today.
Report
Which sort of proves that preserving moral hazard in banking should still be a thing.Report
I just checked to see if there were any commercials for SVB.
I figured that we probably wouldn’t luck out and and find some “WE’RE DOING EVERYTHING THAT THE GUYS IN SUITS SAY WE SHOULDN’T!” like WaMu had but thought maybe I’d find something that said something like “we’re changing the way that banking is done”.
I only found Jim Cramer singing their praises.
Wait, they were behind Zelle?
Got one:
Report
This one wasn’t bankers blowing themselves up because of interesting products.
This was a good old fashion bank run. They were handed a lot of cash, they invested it in gov bonds, interest rates have gone up so the value of the bonds has gone down… but that doesn’t matter if they’d been allowed to hold them until they mature.
Then Crypto platforms had runs on them, which meant (as their banker) Silicon Valley had to sell those bonds at a loss right now.
So the core problem was the normal mismatch between long term investments and short term cash needs. No bank is solvent if all of their customers ask for their money back at the same time.Report
Smart Finance guy skilled at normal speak reviewing SVB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdfYnqyu7v8&list=TLPQMTMwMzIwMjOyufMGkpQpOw&index=2
Basically Silicone did lots of extremely foolish things, including not having a risk manager.Report
As far as I can tell, the bank run began on Wednesday with rumors that the bank was over extended and the California state government and FDIC moved in quickly. There is no evidence that crypto was involved but higher interest rates have been making it harder for start-ups to generate oodles of investment money like before.Report
Larry Summers is calling for a 100% bailout.
Apparently 93% of the deposits were over the FDIC $250,000 limit.
I got worried so I asked Maribou if our bank account was under the FDIC’s limit and she told me that it is.Report
Larry Summers can pound sand. Had he overseen the unwinding of the lax regulations that got us into the last near banking system collapse I might be more inclined to listen to him. But he didn’t.Report
If you are referring to Afghanistan and Iraq I have quite the extensive record of opposing those wars. If you are trolling for Ukraine – sorry, but I stand with Ukraine.Report
Because keeping them out of schools and out of teaching curricula will definitely prepare students to grapple with them elsewhere . . . . Never mind that one (small) group of parents has decided their morality is the community’s morality and they get to restrict the freedom and liberty of others because of that.
https://www.wptv.com/news/education/dozens-of-books-removed-from-martin-county-schoolsReport
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/10/ron-desantis-book-bans-martin-county-jodi-picoult/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F395a222%2F640b76ecd8b4d1607549abc1%2F59738e7cade4e21a848fe4b9%2F17%2F72%2F640b76ecd8b4d1607549abc1&wp_cu=5471d46db8b7f35fdd491ffd33791772%7C2AE372BEC443EE5DE050007F01004171Report
The DeSantis book burning continues apace:
Greg Sargent, writing in WaPo:
Ron DeSantis’s book ban mania targets Jodi Picoult — and she hits back
Numerous titles by well-known authors such as Jodi Picoult, Toni Morrison and James Patterson have been pulled from library shelves. The removal list includes Picoult’s novel “The Storyteller” about the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor who meets an elderly former SS officer. It contains some violent scenes told in flashbacks from World War II and an assisted suicide.
…
In the case of “The Storyteller” and virtually all the other books by Picoult and others that are getting removed, the county’s removal directive cites guidance from Florida’s Department of Education. It directs educators to “err on the side of caution,” urging them to nix material that they wouldn’t be “comfortable reading aloud.”
B-but we were told this was merely to rein in bad DEI, pornography, and CRT!
But of course, we were told this by liars.Report
Report
If you’re confused by this, as I am, you may find that this thread helps (as I did).
The main reason seems to be something like this:
In a world where interest rates are hovering around zero, ~1.6% is pretty good.
We no longer live in that world.
And so the bank experienced a run.
And here we are.Report
If I wanted to make a case against a bailout, it would feature stuff like this prominently:
Report
Here you go: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-financial-accounting-instantview/instant-view-u-s-eases-mark-to-market-accounting-idUSTRE5314PX20090402
SVB’s treasury bong assets are not strictly toxic, but the yields are laughably low in today’s bond world, so they might as well be considered as such.Report
I’m not a banker or any other type of financial expert, but even I know that banking is inherently risky because banks borrow short and lend long. I also know that historically-low interest rates don’t last forever. If you invest most of your deposits in long-term, low-interest assets, even if perfectly sound, you have to hedge against interest rate hikes and put some of the deposits into higher-yielding assets.
How come they couldn’t figure this out?Report
That’s a can of worms. It’s effectively asking “What in the heck was their risk manager doing?”
And then you look at the risk manager and what the risk manager was doing.
And you don’t want to do that.Report
“higher-yielding assets” in the context that they were working in was “long term bonds”, as opposed to “short term bonds”.
Because of Covid, interest rates were effectively zero and there weren’t many investments worth chasing.
We’ve had a breath-takingly large increate in interest rates in the last year. Not only large absolutely but absurdly large relatively.
That means the reduction to their bond value has been extremely large… which doesn’t matter as long as they don’t need to cash them in right now (i.e. sell them). Without a run on the bank, they can just sit on the bonds and cash them in at maturity.Report
My point in posting the Forbes article in the comment wasn’t to point out the pros and cons of anyone’s risk management strategy. It was to highlight how banks like this got the Feds to ease mark to market accounting rules. If strict mark to market rules had been in place, everyone would have known the true value of the bonds SVB was holding vs. their depositor liability.Report
Whew! It’s a good thing Biden’s in charge. Trump might not have bailed out SVB!
Report
The FDIC knows what it’s doing and the assets, if not worth what they once were, are sound, so SVB is likely only illiquid, not insolvent. It seemed likely to me that all the guaranteed depositors would get their money and that everyone else would get most of theirs after a brief pause. If nobody has to take a haircut and short-term cash needs (like payroll) can be met in the interim, that’s good news.Report
Pure speculation but I think it probably means they believe they have a buyer lined up. That’s the only way I can square the message of all deposits available but no tax payer bailout.Report
The claim is no tax payer funds will be used.Report
It’s also not a bailout. It’s a “Bank Term Funding Program”.Report
FED can put a gun to a bank’s head and tell them to buy this distressed bank.Report
Regulators close crypto-focused Signature Bank, citing systemic risk:
Report