On this day in 1959, the Guggenheim opened.
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 the front page.
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 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.
It is apparently a thing in Further Left circles to compare 10/7 to Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion. I have really no idea why they believe this is a persuasive argument. Even many people who don’t like Israel that much hate Hamas. 10/7 was clearly organized by Hamas. The Further Left basically exists in their own headspace on this issue and refuses to deal with reality.Report
Ta-Nehisi reads the situation as Oppressed vs. Oppressors and it’s probably difficult for him to look at the dynamics as anything other than what he sees them as.
Dude was a moral authority for a lot of people during a troubled time.
And there’s a history of “the left” (however you want to define it) as seeing “The Underdog” as having the moral authority in a conflict.Report
I realize how they read it but for most normie liberals, trying to treat Hamas as anything but a vile organization is dumb even if they don’t like Israel that much. Even on the other blog, many otherwise critical of Israel people were strangely fine with Sinwar departing this mortal coil and one even said they hoped his death hurt a lot. This was not written by somebody that was sympathetic towards Israel. The use of high academic language by Pro-Palestinian Westerners hurts the Palestinian cause more than it helps them.Report
If you don’t make it about “Hamas” but, instead, make it about “The Oppressed Palestinians”, you can reframe it.
The Nat Turner Slave Rebellion is a nice little rhetorical trick to reframe it.
*YES* it was atrocious!
But the *SITUATION* is atrocious!
The status quo is atrocious!
See? It’s no longer about the hippie chicks getting killed at the music festival.
It’s about the depravity of a situation where The Oppressor held a Dance Party on the very border of an Open Air Prison.Report
The Nat Turner rebellion took place over 30 years before the abolition of slavery and slavery was ended in a violent confrontation but a more normal one. Meanwhile, I was today year’s old when I learned about this piece of work:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fergie_Chambers
Somebody on the other blog believes that deep existential boredom drives a lot of this activity. Based on Fergie Chambers, I think there might be something to that.Report
“These people don’t *REALLY* care about ‘justice’! They’re LARPING!” has a long pedigree.
If I had a couple hundred million, I’d work pretty hard on making sure I only had several dozen.Report
For at least some of them, I think they are LARPING is true. Or at least there is a combination of both. Some are there because they truly believe, others for the release of energy, and others for both reasons. I just wish that Jews wouldn’t be the target of this so often.Report
It’s an easy way to dismiss people when they highlight injustices you’d rather not be highlighted.Report
Please understand that I, personally, received multiple emails from Harvard students asking me to redact their names from essays I wrote in the days that followed October 7th.Report
Good to know.Report
Found it.
Seriously, after multiple law firms announced that they wouldn’t bother hiring the students that signed one of the open letters out there, there was a lot of churn.
Some of it even reached me and I had students asking me to take their name out of my essays.
Hey, it’s one thing to join in a recreational protest… but, seriously, you went to Harvard for a reason.Report
I’d swear just a few years ago people on this site were arguing against cancel culture. I didn’t not realize that meant y’all weren’t serious about your beliefs, if you didn’t want to be canceled for them. Good to know; I’ll take you as seriously as that implies.Report
Hey, I *REMOVED* the names of the people who asked me to remove their names, thank you very much.
Remember when the counter-arguments against “cancel culture” included “private companies can do whatever they want”? Well, the private companies that refuse to hire the LARPers who suddenly discover new-and-improved ethics once they enter the job market won’t get any dirt on those particular Harvard kids from *ME*.Report
See, you still call them LARPEers, but the only reason you’ve offered for doing so is that they don’t want to get canceled. We haven’t moved from you thinking not wanting to get canceled means you aren’t serious about your beliefs. If you’re going to continue tell me not to take you seriously, I’ll continue to oblige. I’ll check back in when you’ve given other reasons for thinking they’re not earnest.Report
As one of those concerned about cancel culture I’ll chime in and say I am generally against this. The only way I could be convinced to maybe be ok with it as at least fair, if not ideal, would be if the same standard was applied to all the unhinged things said and signed off on about race and sex from campus activists circa 2020. We know that isn’t going to happen even as corporate America quietly scraps its DEI initiatives. The irony is that what we know as ‘cancel culture’ in a lot of ways started with pro Israeli academics trying to run out people they disagree with.Report
Barri Weiss on line 2. If you count her as an “academic” because he was targeting faculty at her college.Report
Yes, I have heard that and consider it quite damaging to her credibility, given how she positions herself generally on free speech, campus craziness, etc.Report
I will do everything I can to not give her ammunition on the students who asked me to redact their names.Report
I’m mostly focused on the idea that not wanting to have your life and career ruined for your ideas means that you aren’t seriously about them. I’ve known very few people in my life who’ve lived in such a way that they follow through on their beliefs no matter what the consequences. I am quite certain no one here lives like that, and I know Jay doesn’t, and I don’t: I’ve generally been anonymous online, and when I was doxed a few years ago by local conservatives, I got a really good reminder of why anonymity is important for people with my politics.
Interestingly, almost everyone I’ve met who’s lived their life such that they fully accept the consequences of their beliefs are pro-Palestinian academics, like Fink. That’s not an easy life. I don’t fault anyone for not living it, though I greatly respect those who do.Report
“I’d swear just a few years ago people on this site were arguing against cancel culture.”
yeah, and you and the people like you were arguing like all hell for it, and you won, and that’s the game we’re playing now, and it is really not a good look for you to be crying that the other team is scoring points.Report
This was always among the biggest problems with the game. The zeitgeist will inevitably change, and someone else will hold the hammer built under the foolish belief that it would only ever be wielded righteously, and most importantly, against other people.Report
“The Media Shouldn’t Overlook Kamala Harris’ Plagiarism”
https://reason.com/2024/10/17/the-media-shouldnt-overlook-kamala-harris-plagiarism/
I didn’t even know she wrote a book, but I guess a lot of politicians do, so I shouldn’t be surprised.
“This is such a well-worn trope by now the one might have expected mainstream media institutions to take greater pains to avoid it, if only to deprive conservatives of ammunition. And yet The New York Times write-up of the Harris plagiarism accusations is headlined: “Conservative Activist Seizes on Passages From Harris Book.”
The article itself minimizes the extent of Harris’ wrongdoing, and cites a plagiarism expert, Jonathan Bailey, who claims that Rufo was “making a big deal” out of relatively minor transgressions. The Times did not share with him the full list of plagiarized passages in the book, however; on his website, Bailey noted that after reviewing all the allegations, the case is “more serious” than he first thought, although he maintains Harris did not engage in “wholesale fraud.””
I thought that was the best part. The NYT gives a reviewer part of the info, he reaches a conclusion more favorable to the candidate, but later revises it down when he gets the info the paper withheld. Nice work NYT. I wonder if that fact was reported in the paper.Report
My guess is there’s probably a ghost writer somewhere in the mix who is likely the culprit.Report
Yeah, the name is called out in the article:
“Christopher Rufo, who contends that Harris and co-author Joan O’C. Hamilton plagiarized several passages.”
But guess what. You claim authorship, or even co authorship, you own the errors not just the accolades. Nobody with any ounce of awareness / intelligence thinks Harris, or any other notable, really wrote the book themselves. Harris was SF DA at the time. OFC she didn’t have time to write a book.Report
The examples of “plagiarism” are similar to others, where it’s listed as “plagiarism” that the description of a government official used some of the same words as a previously-published description but there was not a footnote credit given to the earlier publication.Report
“but there was not a footnote credit given to the earlier publication.” Yeah, nope, that wasn’t it, but assume I agree. Make the damn cert. It’s not that hard. If you don’t, the accusation is still valid and true. I got no issues holding anyone to this standard.Report
Where people get bad ideas about the economy, a theory in one paragraph.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/684da1fc3502e015f647ac113375d8c3ceb14dd6adced8eb0673d4c236bf69ca.jpgReport
On October 10, 2024, Garland held a press conference and announced that TD Bank had illegally laundered over $670 million of drug money. “By making its services convenient for criminals, TD Bank became one,” Garland declared. According to Garland, TD Bank admitted that “at various times high-level executives, including the person who became the bank’s chief anti-money laundering officer, knew there were serious problems with the bank’s anti-money laundering program,” but “failed to correct them.” TD Bank, Garland said, “chose profits over compliance.”
https://popular.info/p/td-bank-executives-oversee-670-billion
What’s noteworthy is how utterly ordinary this is.
Confirming the assertion that a poor person stealing a bottle of soda is a violation of the social order, while a rich person breaking the law IS the social order.Report
Will President Trump even charge this guy with a crime?Report
What’s noteworthy is how ordinary this is.
Serious question, is anyone here outraged by this, more so than the video of that guy shoplifting at Walgreens?
Rich people breaking the law IS the social order. It’s the “Order” in Law & Order.Report
I am but YMMV.Report
Personally, I’d hope for this guy to be charged with something.
Have you ever wondered why nobody went to jail after the whole Financial Crisis?
Do you wish that President Trump went after the perps?Report
You’re the only one here who is struggling to make this into a partisan affair.Report
I’ll go with you and non-partisanly wonder why stuff like this and the financial crisis doesn’t ever result in jailtime.Report
We should probably ask this every time someone starts gassing on about crime, don’t you think?Report
Only if criminals don’t get prosecuted, no?
Because part of the problem isn’t just that “crime happens”.
It’s the “crime isn’t prosecuted after it happens” problem.
You know? Like those people who complain about shoplifting complained?Report
People routinely tell pollsters that crime is a big issue, and yet when an obvious crime happens and the person walk free, the majority of citizens shrug in indifference.
How can anyone here explain it, other that with my assertion that there exist two systems of justice?Report
I’m not sure that you’re seeing *ANYBODY* shrug in indifference.
The outrage about crime in California, for example, resulted in Chesa being thrown out on his keister. Why? Because he didn’t prosecute anywhere near as much as the people thought he should have and he did a good job of minimizing crimes that he was willing to prosecute.
When it comes to this particular crime… I think that it should be prosecuted. Don’t you?
If it’s not prosecuted, do you think that something should be done to the administration that failed to prosecute the crime?
What should we do when prosecutors fail to prosecute, Chip?
Accuse people who care about crime to be hypocrites?Report
Who, other than the occasional liberal, is outraged by this crime being effectively unprosecuted?
And Chesa proves my point.
His removal had nothing whatsoever to do with white collar crime.
So try again.
How do you explain this outcome, other than the existence of two systems of justice?Report
What are you looking for? Stuff like a bunch of people calling themselves “The Tea Party” or something like that screaming about Wall Street?
A Washington Post article that talks about Republicans and Democrats being upset about the financial crisis?
A 2012 Reddit post from r/neutralpolitics?
An article from Marketplace.org?
An article from Matt Taibbi?
I mean, imagine if you will someone complaining that the administration isn’t charging these crooks.
Is your assumption that they’re criticizing Biden? (Or, in the case of the last crisis, Obama?)
Or that they wish that crooks would be charged with crimes?
Will *YOU* defend Biden’s DOJ not going after this guy?
Or will you just ask why more people aren’t agitating for this crook to go to prison? (Should “more people” include Federal Prosecutors? If not, why not?)Report
I’m just trying to get us all to acknowledge that:
First, there are two sets of justice, one for the rich and one for the rest of us, and second, that currently this doesn’t arouse much outrage among the population.
I don’t think this should be controversial.Report
You’d probably have a stronger point if you, personally, were arguing as someone who had not previously argued for more lenient prosecutors against someone who had not previously argued for more vigorous prosecutors.
But, yes. I agree that people who break the law should be prosecuted.
And people who look at crime and don’t agree that criminals should be prosecuted are being silly.
(Have you seen George Gascón’s numbers recently? Do you think that they’re a Russian op manipulating the polls?)Report
The rich just have more influence. And you don’t necessarily have to be rich to have influence. That can be a factor, and a lot of rich people use it. Cops aren’t rich, but they have influence since they have contacts within the system, have done favors, etc. for more powerful people.Report
The ability to buy influence and escape consequences of lawbreaking is one of the main reasons people strive to acquire wealth.
The double sets of laws we have is widely known, as evidenced by this very subthread.
But getting people to see it as a problem to be fixed rather than a condition to be tolerated is difficult.
Which was my second point, that most people view it with a shrug of indifference, the way people do in Third World countries.
Which leads back to the conclusion that lawbreaking by the poor is a violation of people’s idea of the social order, whereas lawbreaking but the rich IS the social order.Report
“Which leads back to the conclusion that lawbreaking by the poor is a violation of people’s idea of the social order, whereas lawbreaking but the rich IS the social order.”
I disagree. I think the gen pop would like to fix the problem but know that it’s a very big uphill battle. After all, if you want to change the status quo, the status quo is going to fight you. The gen pop CAN effect change on the poor because they have LESS power, and fixing that, while not fixing the whole problem, makes their lives better. Perhaps not as better if the problem with those in power was fixed, but you take what you can get.Report
Ehh, whatchagonnadoo?
That’s the shrug of indifference I was referring to.Report
You mean the one that you’re making? Right now?
Asking ‘where are all the people calling for this to be prosecuted?’ instead of calling for prosecution?
That shrug?
Personally, I think that Biden’s Justice Department should go after this guy with hammer and tongs.
See also: The administration that Harris is part of.
Do you agree that if the administration doesn’t go after this guy, that’s a good reason to pick a different administration entirely?
Or will you, instead, shrug indifferently?Report
You’re trying to argue without having any ammunition.
You tried to change the subject from white collar crime to Chesa Boudin then when that didn’t work you tried to steer it back again to street crime, and when that failed, you want to personalize it and demand why I am not voting for an imaginary candidate.
But the one thing you’ve refused to do, is refute my claims.
Should I copy and paste them again?Report
I’m talking about *CRIME*, Chip! And how there was a *HUGE* movement to *NOT* prosecute it!
I think that crime should be prosecuted, don’t you?
Like, there shouldn’t be a class of criminal that doesn’t get overlooked because it’s too inconvenient to those in power.
This isn’t a difficult position to hold.
Administrations that refuse to prosecute criminals should be replaced.
They replaced Chesa, they’re fixing to replace George… and if Eric has better things to do than charge this guy, shouldn’t you ask *WHY*, at the very least?
Does it bother you that Garland isn’t doing anything? Have you, for a moment, wondered why Garland isn’t going after this guy?Report
Still not seeing any effort to refute my claims.Report
I think he should be prosecuted.
I think that the fact that he isn’t is a bad thing.
Does it bother you that Garland isn’t doing anything? Have you, for a moment, wondered why Garland isn’t going after this guy?
Or would you rather stroke your chin and wonder why more people aren’t calling for the prosecution of obvious criminals?Report
Does any of what you’ve written refute my assertions?Report
Your assertions that nobody cares about White Collar Crime?
Maybe you should read what CJ wrote.
It might make you feel better.Report
How do you explain this outcome, other than the existence of two systems of justice?
The level of complexity and distribution of responsibility makes it very hard to convict individuals (although your link shows that they are charging individuals so there is that).
Importantly we’re not “tolerating” this corporate crime. They did 600m in business (their profit will be a fraction of that) and will pay $3 Billion in fines.
This sort of “failure to do their jobs” is going to happen if we allow the existence of large corporate entities but the benefit we get from that is massive so we punish the corporation as a whole.
We don’t allow this sort of thing at a purely individual level to avoid the rich having a pass. In theory we could fine a shoplifter 1000x the value of what he stole but that instantly takes us to debtors prisons when they can’t pay.Report
Nobody does, or can, prosecute everything all the time, however much that appeals to barstool blowhards. Some things are too big and complicated, and often as a result, get treated with things like fines and plea agreements. Some things are too small to put the scarce resources of a DA’s office into taking them to trial (especially where witnesses don’t want to take the day off from their job at the bodega to testify against someone who faces a misdemeanor rap for stealing something valued in the double digits) and get pleaded out, off of what would have been a short sentence at best. These are cold facts about the world that defy partisan spin and won’t respond to righteous hyperventilating.Report
Some of this is debated in The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives.
Hey. It’s complicated. It’s so very complicated.Report
Indeed it is. But don’t let that stop anyone from ranting.Report
I think that there’s room for a Presidential Candidate to pick up votes based on nothing more than promising to chase criminals down and prosecute them.
Have you seen the recent LA DA numbers?Report
What drives your displeasure with the observation that there are two justice systems and that people are treated accordingly?Report
Because I believe that criminals should be prosecuted, even if they’re white?
What drives your displeasure about it?Report
That rich people can get away with literal murder, while poor people and people of color get literally killed by it when they are demonstrably innocent.Report
Do you wish that rich people would get prosecuted after they committed a crime?Report
yes. We can’t get rid of moral hazard otherwise.Report
Well, you should hope that Eric Garland goes after the guy that Chip points out above.
Personally, *I* hope that Garland goes after him.
Do you?Report
Eric?Report
It’s time for some game theory.Report
They do that all the time, and don’t mean it any more than anyone else does. Not that it would make much difference if they did mean it. Reality has a way of intruding on extravagant promises.Report
Scarce resources is why almost no shoplifters are.prosecuted.
But strangely, very few people seem to accept this.Report
While there is room for creative work targeting organized shoplifting rings, I’m not convinced that there is much of a law enforcement solution to, if you’ll pardon the expression, “retail” misdemeanor shoplifting, annoying as it is. (Kevin Drum has a recent post on the problems with figuring out just what’s going on with shoplifting.) Law enforcement can’t do much to prevent shoplifting because you can’t post cops in or near stores on a regular basis. (When I read more law and economics than I do now, there were suggestions that sporadic and unsustainable flood the zone enforcement efforts might have some modest deterrent effect, but they are, by definition, unsustainable, and the cops temporarily diverted to shoplifting would eventually have to go back to murder, rape, and robbery.)
If you can’t really prevent shoplifting by law enforcement, then what? You can punish shoplifters. But first you have to catch them, and the odds that a cop is close enough to catch the miscreant are slim. Then you have to prosecute them. But in every jurisdiction I know anything about, most shoplifting is petty larceny, a misdemeanor. And petty larceny is a misdemeanor for excellent reasons. (Shops with items that would, if stolen, amount to grand larceny, have far more security in the first instance. Compare a jewelry store with a grocery store. We accept a lot more inconvenience in shopping at Tiffany’s than we would shopping at Safeway.) Is any busy DA’s office going to devote heavy resources to trying misdemeanor petty larceny cases. (Maybe law students could be deputized to do them so they can learn how to stand up on their hind legs, and I’d support that, but that’s more education policy than law enforcement policy.)
Then there’s the problem of witnesses. Maybe a Target or a Wal-Mart would let employees off to testify in a case where somebody stole something valued in the double digits, but can Danny’s bodega really spare its one non-owner employee for that? Then we really have a problem of one law for the rich and one for the poor, just a different variation.
And if we do take people off murder and robbery and rape cases to bring shoplifters to trial, then what? We get a misdemeanor conviction. In what rational prosecutor’s office is that a good use of scarce trial resources? It will, instead, get pleaded out, and the opening offer will have to be less than the modest sentence you’d get after winning a trial. Repeat offenders (repeat convicted offenders) may face more exposure, but, again, petty larceny is a petty crime for a reason, and how tough can the sentences be?
Who would support the taxes necessary to fund any serious program of shoplifter investigation and prosecution? I know who wouldn’t — most of the people screaming about shoplifting.Report
B-but…that video of a guy stuffing crap in his bag made me angry, don’t you understand?
Which is what I’m targeting, the disparity between petty crimes by ordinary people and serious crimes by rich people.
Why did that video go viral. and infuriate so many people, the same people who shrug at more serious crimes?
There just isn’t any way to explain that without arriving at a conclusion of an accepted social order.Report
The “more serious” crime is that of a company not hiring enough compliance officers and needing to pay something like 50x the profit they made by ignoring their legal duties.
That’s not a great example for many reasons.Report
Fine.
Lets make that the general rule, shall we?
Anyone who knowingly provides assistance to a drug dealer or international terrorist is only required to pay a fine, no jail time.
Oh, and they are required to say “Sorry”.
HSBC ‘sorry’ for aiding Mexican drugs lords, rogue states and terrorists
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jul/17/hsbc-executive-resigns-senateReport
We have exactly the same problem here that we do when that University was “enabling” their rapist sports doctor by looking the other way.
The problem is not “one specific person is doing something bad”, it’s more that the institution as a whole is doing something bad because of bad incentives.
One of the implications is if we just blame one person and move on, we’ll have the same problem all over again the moment we move on.
That’s why we should NOT just arrest that doctor and the Mexican branch’s employees. We need to fine the organization enough that senior management understands that they’ve failed. If we don’t, then they’ll throw someone under the bus and repeat the cycle.Report
Which would have a stronger deterrent effect, a large fine or making the CEO and corporate board do hard time?Report
Obviously the answer is to compare them to shoplifters and wonder why more people aren’t calling for their arrests.Report
You have to be able to catch them first. Is there a problem, specifically, with the cops not arresting shoplifters that they do catch?Report
I believe that the problem is not that they’re not arrested, but that they’re not prosecuted.
Remember the old Just 327 suspected crooks made up 30% of NYC’s 22K shoplifting arrests in 2022: NYPD headline?
It ain’t the arresting that is the bottleneck here.Report
As you’ve demonstrated repeatedly, you only have complaints and resentments here, not coherent solutions.
In Jaybird World, what what is the appropriate penalty for petty thievery and is it different than the status quo?
You don’t know, because you haven’t thought this through, Even after years of grievance-mongering you don’t really have anything useful to say about it.Report
Have we pivoted from asking for evidence of the problem to asking for solutions now?
How’s about a Nine-Strikes law? It’s good enough for an inning of baseball.Report
Is this actually your thought-through idea?
Are you prepared to defend it, or is this just drunk-at-end-of-the-bar spitballing, and not something we should take seriously?Report
I honestly think that it would be better than a lifetime of catch and release, yes.
Are you willing to defend the status quo against the idea of a nine-strikes law?Report
So after nine arrests for petty theft, you want to send someone to prison for life?Report
I’d want to have advertised the policy first for a year or so (and have the various DAs and whatnot inform the perps about the policy as well… maybe sign something), I’d be okay with sending someone to prison for life for nine separate petty theft incidents.Report
We tried that in the 80s and 90s. The end result is prisons with a lot elderly inmates whose healthcare expenses threaten to break the budget, and whose needs stretch the capabilities of correctional institutions.
I think it would be better if they were sentenced to clean the toilets every weekend for a year at the store they stole from.Report
Yes, California did try that.
And lo, conservatives claim that shoplifting has only gotten worse.Report
Let’s turn it into a 9-strikes-25-years law, then.
Let Medicaid deal with them after they hit a certain age.
Just sequester them away for the good of the rest of society.Report
Again, the current California three strikes law mandates exactly that.
And yet conservatives claim that shoplifting has only gotten worse.Report
I thought conservatives were claiming that prosecutors weren’t prosecuting.
(What happened to crime qua crime following three-strikes? Did it go down?)Report
You don’t know?
This is why I asked if this was your well thought thru idea, because it seems painfully obvious that you haven’t spent any time at all thinking about this.
Like you’ve been bellyache for years, but only now, just now on October 24, 2024, started to think about this and only then because someone online challenged you.
It’s like Kabuki Grievance Theater where you make ritual complaints as if read off a teleprompter.
You tell us that petty crime is OUTTACONTROL and we need put them in prison after, or, um how about… Nine Strikes!
Then you are told we already do that after three, which obviously news to you.
So then you fall back to claims about them not prosecuting which you also obviously haven’t thought thru or studied because CJ Colluci has already explained that one.
This is why you classify as a reactionary instead of small c conservative because unlike them, you aren’t really looking for ways to solve problems, but just use them as grievance points against some detested outgroup.Report
It costs a lot of money and resources to incarcerate people. And the reality is many, maybe most, will age out of crime. Keeping them incarcerated too long goes well passed the point of diminishing returns. The challenge for society at large is that some number of them will not age out of crime, and will inevitably re-offend.
I’m also pretty skeptical of arguments against basic enforcement of the law, but we still have to navigate the trade offs.Report
What problem are we trying to solve?
If it’s “crime”, locking up criminals will do that.
If it’s “but too many criminals would get locked up!”, well…
There are alternatives to that, I guess.Report
I think it’s better understood as calibration and balancing interests. My guess is that even businesses pissed off about thieves have limits about how much in extra taxes they’d be willing to pay for more cops, more judges, and more prisons.
The ideal is that crime is sufficiently deterred as to be a relatively unusual occurrence, at most a small nuisance, criminals are generally caught and punished, but the spend and allocation of resources is economically justified. How exactly should each of those dials be turned? What is and isn’t within the margin for error? YMMV.Report
Well, I see what happened with Chesa (and what seems to be happening with Gascón) as indicators that too many bad tradeoffs were made and it’s time to make new, different ones.Report
I assume he means nine convictions, not nine arrests. At least I hope so.Report
Sure, nine convictions is fine.
It’s not a strike until the umpire calls it, after all.
(But we’re getting back into issues of prosecution.)Report
Cut-and-paste:
Obviously the answer is to compare them to shoplifters and wonder why more people aren’t calling for their arrests.Report
I suppose that a major difference is that shoplifters are arrested and then not prosecuted and these guys aren’t even arrested.
Hey, do you think that the Biden administration should at least arrest some of these guys, even if they don’t prosecute them?Report
Yes Jay, we think they should be arrested.
No Jay, we don’t believe they will be.
Yes Jay, this is evidence of a two tiered justice system ( with a heavy sprinkling of racism) that won’t be made equitable by arresting or prosecuting more shoplifters.
No Jay, we don’t prosecuting and convicting more shoplifters will actually deter, much less lower, the amount of minor crime in the US.Report
Why do you think that Biden’s DoJ isn’t even arresting these guys?
No Jay, we don’t prosecuting and convicting more shoplifters will actually deter, much less lower, the amount of minor crime in the US.
Well, I admit, part of my nine-strikes law is the whole “you’re out” part. So jailing the shoplifters is an important part of this.
But I’m someone who believes that shoplifting is something that is primarily done by particular individuals rather than some strange thing that just happens randomly.
I mean, how many times have you shoplifted in the last, oh, two months? (And you should include incidents where you deliberately snuck stuff past the self-checkout.)Report
For the same reasons that prior administrations wouldn’t have done it – we have a two tiered system of justice in the US that protects and does not bind the rich and binds but does not protect the poor or most people in between.Report
Man.
If that’s true, it’s enough to vote for a guy that communicates the whole “middle finger” thing to the entire establishment.
If that’s true, of course.Report
We did in 2016. 74 million Americans did in 2020. He’s up for election again right now.
But make no mistake his middle finger is meant to expand the protections for the rich that exist. He’s not the least bit interested in protecting you, and he wants to round me up and send me away.Report
Which would have a stronger deterrent effect, a large fine or making the CEO and corporate board do hard time?
I think “presumption of innocence” would prevent them from doing hard time.
What is going on is 5+ levels of management below them. Drawing a line between “them setting corporate policy X” and “someone in this single local bank in Mexico commits a crime” is going to be hard.
That’s especially true if we give the corporation the right to be silent which we’ll have to in this context. What will happen in practice is they’ll find ways to shield themselves from even knowing about this behavior.
The police equiv would be trying to hold the President of the US legally accountable for the misbehavior of some grunt agent because he’s misusing “drug money can be seizure” laws.
The President knows, or should know, that seizure is misused due to bad incentives. Drawing a line from him to “this specific crime was taken” is going to be a problem.Report
From long ago… The Bell System was broken up in 1984. Some years later USWest, one of the Baby Bells, was found guilty of violating the consent decree multiple times, and paid fines. At the end of the court proceedings after the last of them, the judge told the CEO, “Next time it won’t be a fine, you personally will go to jail.” There were no more violations.
At the time, I was working in an organization that operated in one of the gray areas. Our training changed dramatically. One of the new trainers said specifically, “If the CEO goes to jail because of something you did, rest assured that you too will go to jail.”Report
link?Report
This seems like a really good way to do it.
We should go back to that. Moving away from that was a mistake.Report
Hell’s bells, even the Dems wouldn’t. Preet Bharara, hero of the left, famously left a bunch of bankers uncharged after 2008 saying prosecution would be too hard. Despicable.Report
Like Cocaine Cowboys but without the glitzy night life and flashy clothing.Report
Assuming that Garland is going to make the strongest claims of wrongdoing consistent with the evidence (and reading the first several pages of the complaint to confirm), it’s probably relevant that he’s not saying that they had actual knowledge of money laundering activities, but only that they didn’t invest enough in detecting and preventing it.
As I read it, the government outsourced uncompensated law enforcement to the private sector, and is prosecuting them for not doing a good enough job, while government officials themselves enjoy absolute immunity for failing to do a good enough job at stopping crime. Can you imagine if crime-positive prosecutors got brought up on federal charges for systematically refusing to prosecute certain crimes?
The closest thing poor people have in terms of legal obligations analogous to this are things like replacing burnt-out taillights, and nobody goes to prison for failing to do that, either.
Theft, by contrast, is a deliberate and malicious choice to violate others’ rights for your own benefit. It’s not something that just happens by default when you’re busy working on other things.Report
Trump vows to take America back to 1798.
https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-rally-2669451517/Report
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/opinion/donald-trump-ezra-klein-podcast.html?unlocked_article_code=1.UE4.Vul5.qrxypmVNxcC1&smid=url-share
Ezra Klein has a dreck of an essay which amounts to Trump Faboyism, select quotes with commentary:
“I don’t think Walz has this right. Trump did not freeze up on that stage; I’m not going to accept that. He did not lose where he was in the moment. If anything, he was all too present. But Walz is saying something Democrats really want to hear right now.”
“But Donald Trump, at 78, is nearly as old as Joe Biden. He exhibits his own cognitive irregularities. He rambles, and he lies and makes things up and seems to get strangely lost in these digressions. His speech is associative and circular. It can read like gibberish on the page. And he goes on bizarre riffs, like this one, which is somehow about the dangers of electric boats”
Cognitive irregularities is a hell of a euphemism.
“There is this fury among many Democrats about the pass they feel Trump has been given. And I’ve struggled with this myself. It’s not that Trump’s age is unknown or that in the media it is uncovered. But even when we do write about it, I can tell you, it doesn’t connect in the same way. The media doesn’t actually set the agenda the way people sometimes pretend that it does. The audience knows what it believes. If you are describing something they don’t really feel is true, they read it, and they move on. Or they don’t read it at all. And I don’t think people believe — to be honest, I don’t believe — that the core problem with Trump is his age.
Over four years, we really did watch age change Joe Biden. It made him different than he’d been before. But is that what has happened to Donald Trump? Is he different than he was before?
Because I would say Donald Trump in 2024 is like Donald Trump in 2020 and like Donald Trump in 2016. I don’t think he has so much changed as he is distilled. But this is where the critics are right: We had the language to talk about what was happening to Joe Biden. Age is a delicate topic, but it’s one we know. And so we did talk about it. We spoke about it relentlessly.”
Being a pundit means never having to say you are sorry.
“We’ve never had good language for talking about Donald Trump. We’ve never had good language for talking about the way he thinks and the way in which it is different from how other people think and talk and act. And so we circle it. We imply it. I don’t think this is bias so much as it’s confusion. In order to talk about something, you need the words for it. But for me, something clicked watching him up there, swaying to that music.”
Yes, we have plenty of good language for talking about Donald Trump. The words racist, authoritarian, corrupt, venal, sexist, anti-Semitic, fascist, criminal, degenerate, profoundly stupid, and cognitive decline all come to mind but the media refuses to use them.
“There are vast swaths of political opinion you’re not really supposed to talk about. A lot of people believe that immigrants are bad and dangerous and that we shouldn’t have so many of them in this country. That free trade is ripping this country off and it’s the fault of these corrupt idiots in Washington lining their own pockets. That China isn’t our ally or our partner — it’s our enemy. And that the great threat to America comes from within, that other Americans are disloyal, that they are the enemy and the power of the state should be turned against them.
It’s not that no one else in politics held these views before Donald Trump. But for the most part, it’s not how they spoke about them. That was the failure in the system that Trump exploited: the lie that just because politicians didn’t talk this way, voters didn’t feel this way. One of Trump’s verbal tics is to say, “Many people are saying.” But it’s the opposite. He’s saying what many people want somebody to be saying. He’s saying what people are saying in private but often are not saying in public.”
Ohh look at that outrageous scamp!! How can he say these things? This is like Ganz’s view on how left-wing intellectuals view right-wing intellectuals with a bit of a crush but right-wing intellectuals see the left ones and state “Look at all these Jews.”Report
You know the thing where some people look at Israel/Palestine and sputter and ask “HOW CAN ANYONE TAKE ANY SIDE BUT ISRAEL’S?” and their jaw is on the floor and they can’t imagine how someone might identify with Palestinians?
Or the thing where some people look at Israel/Palestine and sputter and ask “HOW CAN ANYONE TAKE ANY SIDE BUT PALESTINE’S?” and their jaw is on the floor and they can’t imagine how someone might identify with Israel?
And the people who look at Israel/Palestine and see a swamp and see how both sides kinda suck and both sides kinda have a point see the sputterers as missing information?
And the sputterers look at the both-siders and scream “WHY ARE YOU TAKING THE OTHER SIDE?!?”?
This is that.Report
I think a more accurate statement is that liberal intellectuals look at right-wing and left-wing intellectuals with a bit of crush and the rightists and leftists look at the liberal intellectuals and say “fishing Jews.”Report
Yes, we have plenty of good language for talking about Donald Trump. The words racist, authoritarian, corrupt, venal, sexist, anti-Semitic, fascist, criminal, degenerate, profoundly stupid…
And all of these were used against every previous candidate and will be used again against every future one. The problem with dialing it up to 11 every time is you have nowhere further to go when you mean it, because you’d claim that you meant it every time.Report
My political memory goes back to the Nixon years, and this just wasn’t true in any circles any normal person cared about. Except when it was. Some candidates were or are, in fact, corrupt, anti-Semitic, racist, authoritarian, or profoundly stupid, and properly so called. You can make your own list. I doubt it would include, for example, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Robert Dole, Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, and several others. Sure, some on-line bozos referred to “Mittler,” but they never got any traction. It probably carried less weight among voters than his treatment of his dog..Report
Do you remember “Bushitler” or is that one not worth mentioning?
Oh, “this just wasn’t true in any circles any normal person cared about”.
Carry on.Report
Whether you’re talking about Democratic partisans during the Bush years, or Donald Trump during the Trump years, unhinged people have always been willing to compare Republican Presidents to Hitler!Report
Yes. And yes.Report
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/the-democrats-who-cried-wolf/493928/Report
Eight years later, the same magazine published a story where Trump’s former Chief of Staff called Trump a fascist.Report
That article certainly hasn’t aged well. And, after all, the “hyperbole” was, and remains, true. Truth isn’t always symmetrical.Report
The problem isn’t that it’s not true now. The problem is what was said before Trump wasn’t true but now there is nothing worse to say.
After you’ve tried to claim that Romney is so bad Hit.ler comparisons are appropriate (and I found a list of those from Obama’s people), then presumably everyone to his Right is also Hit.ler.
Trump’s Chief of Staff (and various other former Trump staff members) calling him a fascist and unfit for office should be a big deal.
But GOP voters expect Blue to make these claims at about now. It happens every Presidential election. Ergo it won’t get much news time and we shouldn’t expect people to listen.Report
I don’t know whether calling Trump a fascist is going to work as a closing argument for the election, but it looks like GOP Congressional leadership thinks it’ll be effective.
Report
Here is an earlier piece about Fergie Chambers. The TL/DR version is that Fergie Chamber is the heir to Cox Enterprises, decided he was a radical Communist, set up a gym to train “revolutionaries” along with a polyamorous commmune, and later converted to Islam and moved to Tunisia. Fergie Chambers might have set up two young women to do a felony at an American office of Elbit Systems and now abandoned them as they face federal charges. One of them apparently put Yahya Sinwar on her ballot.
I see him as basically embodying all the pathologies of the Further Left in one person. He seems motivated by a source of existential border. What I also don’t understand is how the Further Left has this romance with Islam as a radical and revolutionary religion while they hate every other religion on the planet in general but seem to have a special disdain for Jews and Judaism.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/fergie-chambersReport
Here is the article on Elbit Systems felony:
https://nhjournal.com/fbi-investigating-group-behind-elbit-systems-attack-in-merrimack/
I think the poster on the other blog is right when he said that many of these people are motivated by a deep existential boredom and Hamas along with other Islamist groups excite them. Most of them can’t bring themselves to become ideological islamists, so they turn themselves into Further Left allies.Report
I would love for any of our hard over conservatives – I’m looking at you Koz and Pinky – to explain why you policy preferences mean supporting the party that nominated this guy:
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/21/nx-s1-5134924/trump-election-2024-kamala-harris-elizabeth-cheney-threat-civil-libertiesReport
Yashar Ali reports that Trump will be sitting down on Friday with Joe Rogan.Report
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
That’s guaranteed to loose him a whole bunch of female votes.Report
Weren’t there just reports a few days ago that Harris and/or Walz were also in talks with him about an interview?Report
I think there were, and I am just as disdainful.Report
I’m not sure about how many female Trump voters there are that would be turned off by a Rogan appearance.
I can see a *TON* of chicks saying “THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I WOULD NEVER VOTE FOR HIM AND WHY I THINK SPOTIFY SHOULD HAVE DROPPED HIM DURING COVID!!!!”
I just can’t imagine a mindset that said, last week, “Yeah, I’ll vote for Trump… I guess…” but, this week, say “Rogan? That’s a bridge too far!”
Now, *AFTER* the podcast?
I could see someone saying “I can’t believe that Trump said X, Y, and Z!” and voting Harris (or not voting) after hearing Trump say something particularly crass.
But I could also see someone saying “I can’t believe that Trump said X, Y, and Z!” and then choosing to vote for him and moving from “not voting” based on deciding that they liked him.
I’d have to listen to the podcast to get a better idea of how Trump would potentially move people (and whether there’d be any soundbites worth turning into ads on either side of the aisle).Report
You assume I was referring to female Trump voters.Report
That’s what I do when I read the sentence, and I’m copy/pasting this, “That’s guaranteed to loose him a whole bunch of female votes.”Report
No, maybe he meant it when he wrote “loose“, as in turn loose, and he thinks a Rogan appearance will cause there to be more female voters for Trump.Report
In today’s the “second Trump term won’t be bad, we pinky promise”, Trump says he needs the same type of generals that a certain mid-20th century German dictator had. Also asks how much it costs to bury a Mexican.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-military-generals-hitler/680327/Report
In an attempt to woo voters, Senate candidate Lucas Kunce shot a reporter at a campaign event.
The reporter survived.Report
I followed your link and got to a page where It was explained to me that Senate candidates Lucas Kunce promptly assisted a reporter that was mildly injured at a freak accident with guns during a campaign event.
His presence of mind and his empathy towards the reporter makes me want to vote for Kunce if I could. So, I agree with you. This was a good day in his campaign.
Now, in being fair and balanced, I’m sure you will point out to some other generous act by a Republican candidate. I’m sure there are plenty of those. It can be only Democrats are decent people.
So @jaybird, can you share a couple of links of Republicans candidates being kind to someone in the campaign?Report
To be serious for a moment, they were shooting at steel from about seven yards away. A bullet fragment from one of the less-than-perfect shots ended up harming a reporter.
A bunch of gun nuts on the twitter explained that shooting at steel targets should not be done at a distance fewer than 50 yards and other stuff that gun nuts talk about.
Apparently, the reporter was “lucky”.
I have no examples of Republican candidates being kind to reporters on the campaign trail.Report
I have steel targets on my property; we’ll practice with pistols with special frangible rounds at close range (~10 paces).
We’ll sight in for hunting at 100 yds.
Would be terrified to shoot an AR-15 at less than 100yds at a steel target.
https://sssfonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Steel-Resource-Guide-Ltr.pdfReport
I went to the linked article. Look at the second picture of the guy shooting behind the table. That is NOT safe. There are gun containers, ammo, guns, etc covering the table. At least 1 pistol does not have it’s muzzle pointed down range. The table is loaded with stuff. No wonder someone got injured. These idiots have no concept of muzzle control, or range safety. I don’t care if it’s at a range or some guy’s back yard. I’d have “noped” out if I saw this.Report
I’ve seen someone pointing out that the photos only show a man shouldering a rifle, and it’s possible that the actual shooting took place later with a more proper setup. But even if that’s true the photo is still full of gun-safety violations, rather surprising for a candidate who styles themselves an arms-control expert.Report
From Kunce’s Twitter: “We got to hang out with some union workers while exercising our freedom. Always have your first aid kit handy. Shrapnel can always fly when you hit a target like today, and you’ve got to be ready to go.”
I have played way too much “Helldivers 2” to hear something like that and take it at all seriously.Report
When you can’t run on policy, run on disruption and lies:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2024/elections-doubts-2024-republicans/Report
The crew of the Boys is laying it on thick:
https://x.com/VoughtIntl/status/1848881071016038494?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1848881071016038494%7Ctwgr%5E5eeb99cff21b1d879775143bf04977fd6323f651%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdisqus.com%2Fembed%2Fcomments%2F%3Fbase%3Ddefaultf%3Dlawyersgunsmoneyblog-comt_i%3D14560020https3A2F2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com2F3Fp3D145600t_u%3Dhttps3A2F2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com2F20242F102Fif-adolf-hitler-flew-in-today-theyd-send-a-limousine-anywayt_e%3DIf20Adolf20Hitler20flew20in20today20theyE28099d20send20a20limousine20anywayt_d%3DIf20Adolf20Hitler20flew20in20today20they27d20send20a20limousine20anyway20-20Lawyers2C20Guns202620Moneyt_t%3DIf20Adolf20Hitler20flew20in20today20theyE28099d20send20a20limousine20anyways_o%3Ddescversion%3Db040cc4fb9749f836fa39cae48953897Report
This story doesn’t really increase my opinion about activists and do-gooders. I am a private immigration lawyer and do well my clients. My job is to represent them, not a broader ideological cause.
“Cowan, for her part, dislikes immigration attorneys who, she says, “extort money” from their clients by “selling knowledge” that should be shared.”
https://newrepublic.com/article/186720/immigration-lawyer-helped-many-people?fbclid=IwY2xjawGGh_dleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHRV3_7QepdRhwO0xF5EhMV3-LY5Q5ty7tixTwV-B3F1tGpPWZMNzWlmnbQ_aem_3i1oD-h020fWVgg5Mgm_UAReport
That link’s title “immigration lawyer helped too many people” doesn’t match the body which has her being suspended because of the amazing number of immigrants that she’s hurt.Report
Imagine scare quotes around “helped too many people.”Report
Yeah that’s a click-baity title. “Immigration lawyer *tried to help* too many people” would have been more accurate, but also more dog-bites-man.Report
“Now FRANCE follows Germany and reinstates border controls due to ‘serious threats posed by terrorists and migratory flows’ in latest blow to EU Schengen scheme”
“A French government statement declared the checks were introduced due to ‘serious threats to public policy, public order, and internal security posed by high-level terrorist activities… criminal networks facilitating irregular migration and smuggling, and migration flows that risk infiltration by radicalised individuals’.”Report
Yashar Ali reports that George Gascón has requested resentencing for the Menendez brothers.Report
University of Chicago has a new polling division: GenForward.
Check out their recent poll.
The numbers that I find to be interesting are down on page 10.
Trump vs. Harris has the interesting numbers.
Black males support Trump at 26% to Harris’s 58%.
Black females support Trump at 12% (not surprising) but support for Harris is 63%?
Latinx males support Trump 44% to Harris’s 37%?
White females support Trump more than White males do?
It’s almost enough to say “this is silly!” and toss the whole thing out.
But it’s the University of Chicago.
The weights start on page 25 and the methodology is on page 35.Report
It’s almost like humans are nuanced, complex creatures and polls are just a snapshot of that nuance.Report
Conservatives constantly worry about left wing indoctrination of the youth. However think there is a very plausible future where a lot of cultural trends around identity pushed over the last 10-15 years end up retrospectively sounding like a Nancy Reagan PSA on saying no to drugs.Report
The link doesn’t work but I am highly suspicious of anything that has White Females in the Millennial and Gen Z bracket supporting Trump more than White Males in the same age bracket.Report
Yeah that’s a very what the fishy result.Report
I would believe that Trump gets some uptick among black and Latino men but not the amounts suggested here.
But young (under 40) women are overwhelmingly pro-choice and other data shows a shift to the left largely.
The way this might make sense is if they overwhelmingly interviewed young women at Ole Miss and Bama.Report
Honestly the uptick among black men isn’t that remarkable, even.
Latino men going Trump at a higher rate than white men and no real gender split among whites both seem pretty wild, though.Report
Also, Latino men going 10% for RFK Jr? Nyah.Report
Dang it, try this instead.
Okay, that works. You just have to click on the link.
(And, yes. That’s what *I* said!)Report
I mean FWIW it looks like it boils down to showing no gender split among younger white voters, with both men and women being split evenly. With the sample sizes in question (~300 apiece for white men and women) the difference between 43/43 and 40/44 doesn’t amount to much.
Still pretty cracky, NGL.Report
I know that the geriatric millennials still believe that Obama could have pulled it off if only it weren’t for those wascally wepubwicans, but I’m surprised to see the other numbers for the ones who are still officially young.Report
Tucker Carlson has fantasies of Daddy Trump spanking naughty daughters…out loud and in public. Totally normal.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/24/trump-tucker-carlson-daddy-spanking-georgia-rally/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzI5NzQyNDAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzMxMTI4Mzk5LCJpYXQiOjE3Mjk3NDI0MDAsImp0aSI6IjdjZjE1NzlkLWMxN2EtNGM3NC04NzMzLThjNTdlN2FmOGI1YSIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS9wb2xpdGljcy8yMDI0LzEwLzI0L3RydW1wLXR1Y2tlci1jYXJsc29uLWRhZGR5LXNwYW5raW5nLWdlb3JnaWEtcmFsbHkvIn0.o7GdF4j08UnetI5E9jZXH4Fv9TJcRn3Jga1qmfaByMQReport
George Lakoff is sending emails to everyone he knows with this video and the subject heading, “I told you!”Report
I like that it’s not just a spanking, but a ‘vigorous’ spanking. Now I am never one to kink shame, but the visuals. My goodness.Report
Ugh, thanks for ruining my morning cuppa Lee.Report
Ben Dreyfuss has a suggestion for Harris — might be too late now though.Report
The Washington Post joins the Los Angeles Times in refusing to endorse anybody. Either they want Trump to win but don’t want to cause a revolt in their readership or they are taking Trump’s threats of violence literally and seriously.Report
It’s already on the sidebar, my man.Report
As I wrote over there “Much like the LA Times, the Post is owned by a Tech Bro who isn’t exactly wild about Democrats doing Democratic things – like enforcing anti-trust laws or requiring the paying of taxes. The Editorial Board is smart enough to know that means they can’t endorse because it would kill their subscriber base.”Report
If this election is about vibes, not facts, then this vibe ought to move the masses:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/25/gas-prices-election-harris-trump/Report
Rep. Andy Harris of the Freedom Caucus lightly suggests that North Carolina should just give it’s electoral votes to Trump before counting the popular vote:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fa53ebcec135304db0b95f3d126148a7c0185f7fbc4151416b27d26dd2a2d1b0.pngReport
Here’s a link to the actual Politico story.
No shade against LeeEsq, but given how many screenshots get circulated these days with fake headlines, I think the actual link is always worth including.Report
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/25/us/politics/wisconsin-senate-race-tammy-baldwin-sexuality.html
Republican Senate candidate Eric Hovde will have you know that Tammy Baldwin is a known thespian!!
This is actually probably a good sign for Baldwin because she has been in the Congress since 1999 and as far as I know always openly gay so he is getting desperate.
But it is dark days that this stuff is coming up.Report
Yeah as far as I know she’s always been out. Like — this is not news to anyone, in Wisconsin or in Hovde’s home state of California, either.Report
Welp. Israel is bombing Tehran.
Report
“Nothing Ever Happens” bros stay winning:
Report
There is a lot of Kabuki around this attack.
https://nypost.com/2024/10/21/us-news/pentagon-investigating-whether-leaked-israeli-plans-for-iran-attack-came-from-hack-or-insiders/Report
The Joe Rogan podcast has hit the airwaves:
THREE HOURS??? ON A FRIDAY NIGHT?!?!?
Well, at least we’ll have something to talk about on Monday. Even if it’ll be old news by then.Report
It doesn’t seem to be going well: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a0dcec77b5975b59dc17cd550ce9ec4aa64588c7d846d7b9f919759d93937ac4.jpgReport
Harris had a huge rally in Houston last night. The house was packed to the rafters. Harris said that Beyoncé was going to be there and Harris delivered!
Beyoncé gave a short speech. She did not perform.Report
Okay. Apparently, Harris was booed at her own rally following Beyoncé’s speech.
Report
I have to wonder: Is Harris deliberately throwing this or is she merely dumb?
If this whole thing has nothing to do with any choices made on her part, are her staffers deliberately throwing this or are they merely dumb?Report
I can’t find a valid source on this. I see Trump claims Beyonce was booed and your conspiratorial mind is going at it too much again. A few boos is not a news storyReport
Well, I have no idea what’s going on either, but it must be
good news for John McCainbad news for Kamala Harris!ReportThere’s video, Saul.
I’m not sure that I can provide you a better source than video of the event.Report
Okay, it looks like there were some Trumpian gate crashers, she handled it well, but you fell for right wing coverage, hook line and sinker: https://people.com/kamala-harris-jokes-at-hecklers-at-rally-you-meant-to-go-to-the-smaller-one-8730192Report
Wait wait wait.
You’re telling me that the crowd of tens of thousands of people didn’t, just suddenly, en masse, leap to their feet and decide they hated Kamala Harris?
Inconceivable!Report
Oh, People magazine!
Yeah, I found some articles talking with people who expressed disappointment with there not being a concert but if you dug to find People, I’m sure you already saw them.Report
Okay, there also seemed to be a few pro-Palestinian protestors: https://www.chron.com/politics/article/kamala-harris-rally-protestors-19864301.php
But everywhere that is not a right-wing site is generally stating large crowds and cheers.Report
Please do not assume that when I said that Kamala got booed at her rally, that I meant that every single person at the rally booed Kamala.
Most of the people at the rally did not boo Kamala.Report
They weren’t boo-ing, they were boo-URNS-ing!
(I could totally buy “they were yelling at an asshole whose actions weren’t caught on the camera because it was pointed at Harris”. However, I also recall stories about people at Republican campaign rallies booing a speaker, and replies of “they were booing a heckler” being dismissed as smokescreen lies by evil males who just loved seeing a Librul Ownt.)Report
MY has a bold election prediction. https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/1849794210695663735?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1849794210695663735%7Ctwgr%5E562ad3b76a679381a07277418fed8d59ea645aaf%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdisqus.com%2Fembed%2Fcomments%2F%3Fbase%3Ddefaultf%3Dlawyersgunsmoneyblog-comt_i%3D14565420https3A2F2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com2F3Fp3D145654t_u%3Dhttps3A2F2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com2F20242F102Fny-times-tries-to-sanewash-patrick-soon-shiongs-capitulation-to-trumpt_e%3DNY20Times20tries20to20sanewash20Patrick20Soon-ShiongE28099s20capitulation20to20Trumpt_d%3DNY20Times20tries20to20sanewash20Patrick20Soon-Shiong27s20capitulation20to20Trump20-20Lawyers2C20Guns202620Moneyt_t%3DNY20Times20tries20to20sanewash20Patrick20Soon-ShiongE28099s20capitulation20to20Trumps_o%3Ddescversion%3Db040cc4fb9749f836fa39cae48953897Report
Curious what his source is for that. Whatever it is I hope he is right.Report
I think there is an argument that the polls are over correcting for 2016 and 2020 but undercounting for Dobbs.
Plus the polls now are largely flood the zone from partisan Republicans and it takes two seconds of googling to figure it out. The aggregators claim they can weigh these but I don’t think they are as good as resisting pay-ops as they say they areReport
They were too far for Clinton in 2016 and too far for Biden in 2020 (despite Biden’s big win). Giving Trump two points too many means that they’ve changed their models by at least 5 points in Trump’s direction.
While I am willing to believe that, I’m less willing to believe that they *ALL* did that.Report
Hanania has a pretty good essay explaining the phenomenon of “herding“.
In a nutshell, it’s this: “Even when a presidential race is close, you expect some polls to be outliers.”
Look at 2016 for the best example of there not being anywhere *NEAR* enough outliers.
How many outliers has 2024? From what I can tell from RCP, not enough. And that hints at herding.Report
On October 25, 2012, Romney had nearly a point above Obama in the polls: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/daec10411d55ddebaf50c2003e12b1410c01afad632922ff59d406dbb95710c7.jpgReport
Trump might be having a wee bit of a cash crunch: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/victory-is-nearReport
The Economist (an EU newspaper) and the betting sites are currently predicting a Trump victory, but not by much and not outside the margin of error. A few weeks ago they were predicting Harris.
Ergo this is a very tight race but Trump is gaining ground.Report
Maybe or maybe not. Split Ticket has Harris at 53 percent and I don’t think the aggregators are as good as combating the flood the zone polls as they say they are.
Early voting seems to be going well for Trump in Nevada but well for Harris in PA, MI, and WI. All could still be game for either candidate along with GA, AZ, and NC, or even FL, IA if you want real hopium.Report
Here’s the RCP latest polling.
I believe that at least one news organization has put out its final polls for the season.
We’ll still have a handful of polls, but they’ll be from the diehard folks. Everybody else will be preparing for 2028, the most important election of our lifetimes.Report
Former OT Bouie argues we are looking at the wrong gender gap: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/26/opinion/gender-election-voting-men-women-young.html
“Most of the evidence for this comes from focus groups and polls. In an August Times/Siena poll, for example, men aged 18 to 29 favored Trump by 13 points while women in the same age range favored Kamala Harris by 38 points.
To explain this swing to the right among young men, most observers look to the larger cultural environment. They say that our institutions stress inclusion and women’s empowerment in a way that alienates young men. They say that men feel undervalued and that Democrats don’t respect traditional masculine values. They say that young men are looking for a strong economy that would help them support a family, and that these men believe Trump will make it happen.
I think this narrative is a bit overstated. There’s no doubt that many young men are more supportive of Trump than they are of Harris. But overall, according to the most recent Harvard Youth Poll, young men who “definitely plan to vote” back Harris over Trump — 55 percent to 38 percent. For evidence in favor of the view that young men favor Trump, look no further than a recent survey of young male voters from Blueprint, a Democratic polling firm: Most men ages 18 to 29 rank inflation, jobs and the economy as top issues and trust Trump to handle them over Harris. Still, most of men surveyed by Blueprint have a favorable view of Harris — more favorable, in fact, than that of men ages 30 to 49.
But to my eye, Trump’s inroads — however large or modest they might be — with young men are less striking than Harris’s enormous lead with young women. The gender gap among young voters is as large as it has ever been. According to the Harvard poll, 70 percent of likely voters among young women of color favor Harris, as against 15 percent for Trump. The former president leads among young men across the three most recent Times/Siena polls, but Harris maintains a similar 67-to-28 advantage among young women there as well. You can find similar spreads in every available poll of the national race. Women overwhelming favor Harris, and men largely favor Trump.
The gender gap among young women has not inspired the same level of analysis and deep focus as has the gender gap with young men. Even a close reader of election coverage may forget for a moment that this is the first presidential election since the Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs more than two years ago. If there were ever an election in which to focus on the political behavior of young women, it’s this one.
I don’t make predictions anymore, so I won’t try to make a guess about what these gaps mean for the final outcome. But I will say that if Kamala Harris wins the White House, we may look back and say that we should have focused a little more on the women, young and otherwise, who most likely made the difference.”Report
“I don’t feel valued”, the young man explained, wearing a “F@ck Your Feelings” tee shirt.Report
My take is that sex polarization is downstream of educational polarization. I agree with Chip’s sentiments that a lot of this merits a ‘get over it’ kind of response.
But I also think it’s well passed time to take the thumb off the scale for women in academia and the work force. College campuses are well over half female now and women are very well represented in high prestige fields like law and medicine. Sex is no longer an obstacle to the highest levels of achievement. Which is awesome and should be celebrated. But now it’s time to declare victory and move on.Report
College campuses may be over half female, but you have to look at tenured faculty rates and research lab directorships to see if anything has really moved. The leaky pipeline for female Ph.D.’s in STEM is still very much alive.
https://sciencepolicyreview.org/2023/08/mitspr-191618004014/Report
I’m not convinced by that. My view is that there are certain population level differences between the sexes that may always result in some incongruities in what kinds of education and careers are pursued. The more free and egalitarian societies become the more pronounced the differences seem to be. Which is fine. The point of the liberal project is for people to be free to pursue their goals as they see fit without arbitrary constraints, not to have a spreadsheet showing perfect demographic balance in every aspect of human life. All we can do is open the doors, which we have done, but you can’t force people through them.Report
You don’t know many women in academia do you? I do, and from current PH.D. students, to long serving researchers they all report STILL being told – often quite directly – they need to choose between families and their careers. Sometimes by senior male faculty, sometimes by their contemporaries. You can’t claim you have opened doors and then try to keep people from actively walking through them.Report
Trump’s Nuremberg Rally is going as expected but he might have managed to put Florida in play: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/10/27/us/harris-trump-electionReport
Si, senor, the leopard does in fact want to eat your face too.
Yes, I know you thought you were white, and that is just adorable but, um, no.
Get your a$$ in the cage.Report
https://x.com/MeidasTouch/status/1850335352352870841?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1850335352352870841%7Ctwgr%5E6b28a4b15159252bb85c9cf2e7b697d06859635b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdisqus.com%2Fembed%2Fcomments%2F%3Fbase%3Ddefaultf%3Dlawyersgunsmoneyblog-comt_i%3D14567420https3A2F2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com2F3Fp3D145674t_u%3Dhttps3A2F2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com2F20242F102Fthrowing-out-the-first-racisms-2t_e%3DThrowing20out20the20first20racismst_d%3DThrowing20out20the20first20racisms20-20Lawyers2C20Guns202620Moneyt_t%3DThrowing20out20the20first20racismss_o%3Ddescversion%3Db040cc4fb9749f836fa39cae48953897
Not all rich white guys are afraid of TrumpReport
Keeping it Classy with Elon
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d892123f9f364925000706e6a76cef8a468ff8e740b77f5a17ce00ceeac2a05b.jpgReport
Just sharing a screenshot is pretty disingenuous. In the video, it’s made clear that the “C-word” is communist.
That’s over the top—though Harris’s Senate record was comparable to that of the notoriously extremist Elizabeth Warren—but as much as lefties throw around terms like fascist and [national socialist], they don’t really have much room to object.Report
In today’s not helping things, a person I know from high school who is very anti-Israel posted a picture of a bill board that claims Israel is killing three school buses of children a day. A quick google search reveals that a school bus contains seats for 90 kids. Three of them would be 270 kids. This would be over 100,000 kids killed by Israel according to this ad. That is tens of thousands of more people than even Hamas with their funny way of counting is claiming were killed. The anti-Israel forces seem to be pretty prone to lying outrageously.Report
It’s really (or not really) surprising how many viral political claims can’t stand up to three minutes of scrutiny.
I used to think political disagreements were about values. Later I figured that they were mostly about theory, like what the effects of various policies would be. Social media showed me that most people base their opinions on stupid sh!t that can be debunked with the slightest effort.Report
Illustrative comic.Report
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/harris-regains-slight-lead-nationally-electoral-college-holds/story?id=115083875
About Harris losing minority votes: The shift toward Harris among likely voters relies in part on consolidated support among Democratic base groups, notably Black people and liberals. While Harris has a 70-point advantage among all Black people, that widens to 83 points among Black likely voters, 90-7%. Ninety-six percent of liberal likely voters support Harris, vs. 91% of liberals overall. Additionally, she goes from 53% support among all suburban women to 59% among those likely to vote. Trump, by contrast, doesn’t see significant bumps in support among likely voters.Report
This guy’s experience is mine across all these social media platforms:
“My random Substack is just a never ending back and forth of democrat and republican voters wishcasting some twisted bit of data or another to loudly claim certainty for an election that is a coin flip. The human mind just cannot handle uncertainty it literally breaks it apart. And it’s easy for people to do because no one ever pays any price for being wrong, but when they are right they can crow about it.
“HEADS!”
comes up tails
“HEADS!”
comes up heads
“I TOLD YOU ALL SO!”
Trump has pocket nines and Harris has suited AK. Just gonna have to sweat it out.”Report
Pat Cahalan had a great line a few years back. Play three games of Yahtzee against somebody and you’re ready to play poker against them.
That said, I played AQo against TT in a tournament and caught a Q on the flop, and the guy caught a T on the River.
“Up jumped the devil!”, he yelled.
I won my buy-in back, at least.Report
I don’t play often enough to feel like playing the probabilities will win out in the long run, so I prefer to abstractly calculate them rather than put real money on them.
The funny thing is that most people actually can understand at least the basics of uncertainty and probabilities in poker or sports, but that all goes out the window with election polling.Report
Imagine if you could make it more likely that a K comes on the flop by calling the dealer a racist.Report
Sounds like a fun new game idea. I hear with AI you can go from concept to delivery in a matter of days now.Report