99 thoughts on “Open Mic for the week of 4/29/2024”

  1. Linda Mamoun reports “There was a protestor in the liberated zone at @UCLA with a potentially fatal banana allergy. Counterprotestors invaded the encampment and saw all the no bananas warnings. The next day they came back waving bananas like settlers waving machine guns & smeared bananas everywhere.”

    She doesn’t have video evidence of the counterprotestors smearing bananas, sadly. Just video evidence of them waving bananas around like settlers waving machine guns. Also: eating them.

    Which reminds me of the “no bananas under socialism” conversation that happened a few months back. Malcom Harris tweeted out that it doesn’t make any other-than-capitalist sense to create a world-spanning daily banana infrastructure for people in Columbus, Ohio. That turned into an argument over whether he was crazy and then *THAT* got hijacked by one of the people arguing on Harris’s side that she wasn’t an ascetic who thinks that pleasure makes you a bad person and that’s why she opposed bananas in Columbus. She pointed out that she likes to have fun. Cocaine, for example.

    And *THAT* turned into a discussion about the ethical supply chain problems that cocaine is rumored to have and everything went even crazier from there.

    Anyway, that’s what I thought of when I saw the counterprotestor brandishing a banana like a settler brandishing a machine gun. “Under socialism, she’d have to brandish something else”, I thought.Report

    1. Liberated zone? Are Pro-Palestinian protestors capable of not being complete putzes? Like the Palestinians themselves, they just can’t really understand why people disagree with them or believe that Jews have a right to self-determination and national liberation. Instead they engage in these overly dramatic fantasies and demand nothing more or less than complete surrender and that all their goals are achieved. It never occurs to them to negotiate or bend or crack or yield on even them ost minor symbolic issue but just to raise their fist in bloody thirsty defiance forever and demand everything in exchange or nothing. When people explain in great and patient detail to the Palestinian or their activist supporters why they disagree with them, they just look on in a state of blank incomprehension. Meanwhile, the Palestinians or their supporters can go on in long length and epic detail on why Jewish self-determination and national liberation are evil while never understanding why Jews don’t want to be second class citizens of a Muslim polity.Report

    4. You can laugh at the banana allergy thing, but a) counter-protestors were specifically told not to bring bananas, so b) they did, in an obvious attempt to endanger’s someone life is…telling.

      It is important? Not really? Is it a little silly? Sure.

      Does it speak to how the counter-protestors behave? Yeah, it does. Granted, the other instances of violence towards the protestors sorta speaks for themselves.

      A reminder that the Columbia crackdown happened because a _counter-protestor_ shouted ‘Kill the Jews’ at the pro-Palestine protest, and the university decided that this meant the _protest_ was unsafe and decide to make a statement about antisemitism and implying it was coming from the protest. (I remind people, pretending like the media bothered to inform anyone of this.)

      Or this: https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/counter-protesters-attack-ucla-pro-palestinian-camp/ar-AA1nZue1

      We’ve had actual repeated violence and threats at these protests, and it’s almost entirely _against the protestors_.Report

      1. I’m not sure that anyone’s life was threatened by the counter-protestor eating a banana.

        If I had to venture a guess, I’d say that no one’s life was threatened by the banana incident.

        It was pretty insensitive, though. I will give you that.Report

      2. “the Columbia crackdown happened because a _counter-protestor_ shouted ‘Kill the Jews’ at the pro-Palestine protest, and the university decided that this meant the _protest_ was unsafe…”

        A counter-protestor in Charlottesville ran a bunch of people over with a car and killed one, so maybe the university has a point.Report

  2. What do you do if you are faced with a popular program that has opened up internet to rural, military and elderly voters via a small government subsidy? Kill it apparently:

    The ACP has quickly gained adoption since Congress created the program in the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. It is overwhelmingly popular with both political parties, surveys show.

    Military families account for almost half of the ACP’s subscriber base, according to the White House and an outside survey backed by Comcast.

    More than a quarter of ACP users live in rural areas, the Comcast-backed survey said, with roughly 4 in 10 enrolled households located in the southern United States alone. As many as 65% of respondents said they feared losing their job without the ACP; 3 out of 4 said they worry about losing online health care services, and more than 80% said they believe their kids would fall behind in school.

    https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/29/tech/broadband-affordability-acp-rural-older-americans/index.htmlReport

          1. They do a remarkably thorough of reporting on a host of issues – you just happen to disagree with the underlying policies of that reporting so you dismiss a lot of their stories.

            That aside – that $30 a month makes a world of difference for a great many people. Its a government program that is working as intended and that is positively impacting a number of communities across the US. And it’s going to die so Biden doesn’t get a win. Never mind the loss it hands folks who need this funding.Report

  3. A Columbia facilities worker claims to have been held hostage by protestors when they occupied Hamilton Hall at Columbia last night.

    But the story is only being covered by Fox. And, besides, he’s free now, isn’t he? I don’t know what he’s complaining about. If it even happened, of course.

    And pictures show that he’s getting violent with the protestors! Is he even here legally?Report

    1. “When COVID hit we saw this spike, so from 2020 to 2022 it was bad but….”

      This is false. Homicide didn’t spike when COVID hit. It spiked at the beginning of the BLM insurrection.

      Fear, grievance, and resentment are the tools of those who want to strip people of liberty.

      This is true, which is why they’re used extensively by both parties. Democrats are particularly fond of stoking class and racial resentment.Report

        1. I still stand by that assertion. I also stand by the assertion that IF Democrats are going to save Republicans from themselves, Democrats need to get something major for it. They got Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan aid. Not a bargain I would have made, but it means at least they are playing the game, no matter how I feel about it.Report

              1. I want to leap on the opportunity to agree with Philip. With our Kevin the former Speaker never offered a policy deal to the Dems when his Speakership was imperilled and had a long history of double crossing them and speaking out both sides of his mouth.

                Johnson may be more conservative than McCarthy was but he scheduled some hard votes and made some tough deals. Rewarding him with the limited support necessary to survive a run at his Speakership is an entirely different bird than doing the same with McCarthy.

                This was well played by the Dems and it’s the right choice.Report

              2. Also didn’t require concessions on immigration that the GOP and/or Johnson could have gotten 1-2 months ago. Not that I personally was against all of those concessions from a pure policy perspective, but it’s a pretty good win with only 6 months until the election.Report

              3. Seriously, I also wasn’t adamantly against the border concessions personally but watching the GOP tank that bill then lose all those concessions and end up passing aid without them was jaw dropping. Like that Simpsons scene where Bob steps on a series of rakes for ten minutes.Report

  7. NYPD union sues Adams administration over new ‘zero tolerance’ policy on steroid use among cops

    New York City’s largest cop union is suing Police Commissioner Edward Caban and Mayor Adams for implementing a new “zero tolerance” policy on NYPD officers using steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs, the Daily News has learned.

    In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court on Friday, lawyers for the Police Benevolent Association alleged the previously undisclosed policy flies in the face of a legal agreement the union entered into with the city in 2011.

    The 2011 contract prohibited officers from ingesting or possessing any anabolic steroid or other forms of human growth hormones without a medical prescription. However, the old standard didn’t require officers to run any such prescription by their NYPD district surgeon before starting to use it.

    The problem, of course, is that this choice was made unilaterally rather than through the union’s bargaining process.Report

      1. Eh, I keep hearing this.

        It keeps not happening.’

        Remember the news article about the legislation to make the time change finally be ending and you asking me if that was enough?

        And then it didn’t go through, did it?

        But let him run on it. Like, not have the news talk about it. Have him talk about it.

        Maybe the press secretary. Depending on the phrasing she uses.Report

        1. You don’t get here:

          The Drug Enforcement Administration is expected to approve an opinion by the Department of Health and Human Services that marijuana should be reclassified from the most strict Schedule I to the less stringent Schedule III, marking the first time that the U.S. government would acknowledge its potential medical benefits and begin studying them in earnest.

          Attorney General Merrick Garland will submit the rescheduling proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget as early as Tuesday afternoon, a source familiar with the timeline told NBC News.

          The Justice Department “continues to work on this rule,” a Biden administration official said. “We have no further comment at this time.”

          Unless the WH has already bought off on it. That’s just how the federal interagency works. So the recommendation is definitely coming. Then there will be statutorily mandated notice and public comment – where you Jaybird will be able to submit written comments to the DEA on this. I suspect you will need to shorten your novella however. There are usually word limits.Report

              1. “Yay! Now it’s schedule III!”
                “Yes. That means that all of the dispensaries need to close.”
                “Wait. What?”
                “Yes. Schedule III substances can only be distributed by a pharmacist.”
                “AND SCHEDULE I SUBSTANCES CAN BE DISTRIBUTED BY AMATEURS?!?”
                “Always have been.”Report

              2. I understand the cynicism but I think we should all learn to to take the wins as they come. The war on weed didn’t start overnight and it takes time to de-escalate. The change in the last 5 or 10 years has been quite significant, to say nothing of the difference from when I was in high school and we had regular random sweeps by police with drug dogs.Report

              3. I am still in the land of “it hasn’t happened yet, maybe we shouldn’t spike the football” cynicism.

                I look forward to moving to “but we didn’t solve the worst of the old problems and now we have new ones too!” cynicism.Report

              4. I hear you. Nevertheless we already live in a world where when my kids one day hear the story of a little adventure I had back when I was younger it will sound as quaint as getting caught gin in hand at a speakeasy would to us.

                ‘You mean they used to arrest people just for having the stuff they sell in that funny store with all the weird lights at the shopping center?’

                So I applaud lowering the schedule, and I’ll applaud again the day it falls off altogether.Report

              5. Very likely what’ll happen is we’ll see about two weeks of happy articles about how you’ll be able to buy small-batch independently-grown grass in a gas station, and then people will learn that with official approval comes official supervision and the only entity with the knowledge and experience needed to comply with FDA regulations for selling intoxicant agricultural products to the public is RJ Reynolds.Report

              7. I will say that if it gets descheduled by November, I’ll vote Biden instead of 3rd Party.

                But if it gets descheduled and immediately gets more difficult to purchase, that will be really, really funny.Report

              10. More likely the author was under an enormous deadline and had little time for fact checking on what is under each schedule assuming the overworked editors would do it as well.

                I still maintain the state level franchises have nothing to worry about.Report

              11. Well, for what it’s worth, it’s true that they’re moving it to the part of the schedule that hosts Tylenol.

                It’s just Tylenol 3.

                I understand that you can get it over-the-counter in Canada.Report

              14. That would be inconsistent with what has so far been a retreat by the federal government. It’s legal on a recreational basis in half the country now, with no real federal law enforcement or administrative action to rein it in. What we have left at the national level is more like post mortem muscle reflexes.Report

        2. Read the story. Saw this:

          Attorney General Merrick Garland will submit the rescheduling proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget as early as Tuesday afternoon, a source familiar with the timeline told NBC News.

          Looking forward to Tuesday afternoon!Report

  9. Having had the opportunity to televise the revolution, we have decided that it is in the revolution’s best interest that the revolution not be televised.

    Report

      2. The protestors seem legitimately shocked that their actions have consequences. Just like how Palestinian leadership is shocked that when they keep making maximum demands despite losing every battle and not making any counter-proposals, the world doesn’t come and take all the Jews away.Report

              1. There are only very limited circumstances under which police can enter private property without permission of the owner or a warrant.

                I don’t know much about the requirements for getting a warrant, but I assume that it’s hard to get one when the victim of the crime you’re investigating is the owner of the property and doesn’t want to let you in. If they were investigating a murder or burglary of a dorm or something, the police could probably get a warrant.Report

    2. Not mine but I really wish it was:

      ” The Revolution will be televised. It will also be catered—with a variety of frozen yogurt toppings.”Report

    5. Your meal plan is for the cafeteria. It does not deliver. You’re free to leave to go to the cafeteria and use your meal plan to get food. You will not be allowed back in this building.Report

      1. But people have died of starvation in the past. It was one of the main drivers of the many deaths in Ukraine under Stalin in what anti-Russians call the Holodomor and what anti-Turks call the Armenian Genocide.Report

    6. Greg Lukianoff commented on this video:

      “People have been laughing about this, but do they realize how often student building takeovers have literally been catered? It had become fairly common place over the past several years.“Report

      2. Like, the reason they did this takeover is that in the past (and, honestly, “the past” in this case is “literally ten days ago”) there were serving university professors taking part in the protest, and the administration was all but issuing press releases cheering them on…Report

        1. I think kids these days are always to some degree going to be kids these days.

          The more important criticism is of adults these days. Specifically adults these days with administrative and teaching roles in ivies and SLACs. Their failures are the root cause.Report

        2. Exactly – everything was fun and games when the protests were purely symbolic because everybody on campus already agreed (or otherwise had long ago learned to keep their mouths shut). But oops, who could’ve predicted that that might not always be the case going forward.Report

      3. As an oldster who lived the tail end of the campus unrest in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I look forward to the current students’ grandparents getting on TV to say “Back in the day we had no catering and to keep warm we had to burn down the ROTC building.”Report

      1. Cops can’t go on campus unless they’re invited by the administration.

        We won’t come unless you invite us and say in writing you understand we’re going to bust heads.Report

  12. Proving once again that the GOP is happy to oppose restrictions only on some rights, the Texas and Kansas AGs are suing the Biden Administration for trying to close the gun show loophole:

    Paxton and Kobach want to block a new rule that will require all gun sellers to be federally licensed and conduct federal background checks on purchasers, including weapons sold at gun shows or in private transactions. The U.S. Department of Justice announced last month that this change applies to all firearm sellers — not just gun store owners.

    Mauricio Garcia, the Allen gunman, reportedly purchased most of the guns he used to kill his victims legally through private sales that didn’t require a background check. Under the new rule – which was not in force at the time he made the purchases — he would have had to have undergone a background check.

    Mind you, the GOP is quite happy to impose significant and unnecessary restrictions on voting rights and a Woman’s right to control her own body.

    https://www.keranews.org/news/2024-05-01/texas-attorney-general-ken-paxton-seeks-to-block-gun-show-loophole-closure-days-before-allen-mass-shooting-anniversaryReport

      2. I dunno. I’m probably as much of a firearm enthusiast as anyone on OT and I’ve never understood the defense of the private sale thing. People with felonies or who have been institutionalized shouldn’t be able to get a gun from anyone.Report

          1. I don’t see why that would be the case. You’d just have to do transfers through an FFL. I’ve done many of these and there’s always a small fee but I have never felt infringed upon by some dude calling NICS and giving me a number for the state check.Report

          2. Does the current FFL system require a gun registry? No? How is this any different?

            And frankly – there was a gun registry in the US early on after this was ratified. It was set up to keep tabs on the Royalists with muskets because of a belief they would rebel. It didn’t result in mass arrests or infringement of newly described rights – which makes me wonder why you think closing the gun show loophole would.Report

            1. I am not in favor of a registry regardless.

              However I also don’t see any legitimate reason to have exceptions on background checks. Maybe there was a time where that could be allowed in certain circumstances but not anymore.Report

  13. Hillel educational director and his co-chair at NE quits the school’s anti-Semitism committee because they weren’t acting in good faith. Even before the Israel-Hamas War, Jews have pointed out that the the Intersectional Left is really bad at dealing with anti-Semitism and doesn’t get it in the same way they get other hatreds. This observation has only grown more prominent after the Israel-Hamas War. An Israeli commentator, and somebody who is very critical of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, points out that a lot of the current rhetoric sounds like wanting to do a CTRL+Z on Israel and Jews just can’t ignore it and let it be.

    https://twitter.com/GSDeutch/status/1785773312087396831?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1785773312087396831%7Ctwgr%5Ecac696669e02248655301f0fd50c41b46cbe8c21%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdisqus.com%2Fembed%2Fcomments%2F%3Fbase%3Ddefaultf%3Dlawyersgunsmoneyblog-comt_i%3D14123620https3A2F2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com2F3Fp3D141236t_u%3Dhttps3A2F2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com2F20242F052Fcontagiont_e%3DContagiont_d%3DContagion20-20Lawyers2C20Guns202620Moneyt_t%3DContagions_o%3Ddescversion%3D006bbc905574fc5153c7814eb2dc65a8Report

  14. YouTuber Phil Edwards had a very interesting video on what really happened when Mr. Rodgers testified at the Senate. It turns out that the “mean” Senator he confronted was really a big Liberal Democratic supporter of PBS named John Pastore who adopted the hostile stance to make Mr. Rodgers look really good. It was a dance rather than a conflict:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODlErshr_Ic&t=894sReport

  17. Republicans in Texas: “We refuse to comply with Title IX!! We defy the corrupt and unjust authority of the government!”

    Also Republicans in Texas: “How dare Austin refuse to respect mah authoriteh!”Report

  19. This was a *VERY* interesting speech. Now, where I’m coming from is somewhere around “I don’t agree with the whole antizionism project (but I see where they’re coming from)”. Like, in the whole “Israel vs. Palestine” thing, I am pro-Israel but I don’t see the pro-Palestine folks (or most of them, anyway) having *WRONG* values. They’re mostly putting emphasis on different ones.

    So I watched this clip:

    And the first thing I thought of? Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals:

    That’s the way Christianity was destroyed as dogma by its own morality; that’s the way Christendom as morality must now also be destroyed. We stand on the threshold of this event. After Christian truthfulness has come to a series of conclusions, it will draw its strongest conclusion, its conclusion against itself.

    But the guy couldn’t see where others were coming from.

    “We instilled so much morality in these children! Why are they turning against us?”

    The fact that it seems it never even occurred to him to ask “maybe we’re the problem?” is weird. Like, I’m not saying that he should have agreed with them!

    But he hasn’t even wrestled with the question.

    And that’s going to destroy his corner of what he loves so much. It’s going to cause it to crumble to the ground.Report

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