Open Mic for the week of 3/3/2025
On this day in 1873, Congress passed The Comstock Law.
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.
Politico had a funny report yesterday:
Here, you can check out the tweet yourself.
It is a wall of text and it’s easy to imagine a bunch of folks saying some variant of “I ain’t reading all that” or merely posting a “leftist memes” post that mocks the whole “wall of text” thing.
But I can totally understand taking Musk’s “name five things you did last week” email and turning it into an opportunity to brag. Five things? HERE’S FIVE SQUARED!!!!
I found the various quotes to be interesting. A couple of people suggested not making a wall but making it more visually pleasing. I laughed at the Dr. Bronner’s joke.
The juicy part of the Politico article isn’t the response to the tweet from the Democrats (which, seriously, I see what they were going for) but this part here:
The Playbook. You know the thing where sometimes political parties have an autopsy and say “what should we do different next time?” after they lose a pretty disappointing election? Well, this was that and this was that from the moderate wing.
The article mentions five pretty interesting bullet points:
See? The moderate wing. I’m sure that the green wing would have had bullet points that talk about the need to embrace degrowth and the abortion wing would have had bullet points that talk about the right of women to control their own sexual destinies, the moderates talk about stuff like “maybe we shouldn’t have the nutty lefties ask candidates to say stuff on camera that will show up in Republican ads?” and, of course, push back against far-left staffers. As if we can get the squishy moderates to show up at 6 in the morning on a Tuesday to work for snacks.
All that to say: The dems are trying to figure stuff out for the next election. Which is good.
Of course, maybe it’s all wasted effort when you acknowledge how they’re going up against the Republicans who are, by all accounts, imploding.Report
As usual they have learned all the ring lessons. And they are hell bent on learning those lessons no matter what the cost.Report
I’d love to see the right lessons.Report
After every election loss, for as long as I can remember, the moderate Democratic strategy has been “Become Republican Lite,” and then people start saying, “There’s no real distinction between the two parties,” and moderate Democrats get very upset.
I realize, of course, that the non-Republicans here are overwhelmingly within the moderate wing of the Democratic electorate, and spend pretty much all of their reading time reading others who are at least as far right as they are, but the most popular Democrat in the country remains the party’s most visible left liberal, and his ideas remain incredibly popular not only among the Democratic Party base.
It makes perfect sense to talk to people where they are (the moderate Dems’ gun shows and tailgate parties), and to talk to them about what is happening in their lives, but it’s so weird to me that so many Democrats, and so many people here, feel like the job of a political party is to do what the electorate wants (which, at least last year, was vote for Republicans), instead of to convince voters that their ideas are better on the issues that voters care about. Why even have two parties? We can just fight out all of these disagreements in Republican primaries.Report
I think that’s a bit of a misread about Bernie. Bernie is popular because he exudes ‘take me as I am’ authenticity. People love that, and it also happens to be the area where mainstream Democrats are at their weakest.
On the specific issues I think Tony Blair explains it well below. The fact that a lot of Bernie’s ideas are popular in a vacuum should not be misinterpreted as broad appetite for the combination of European income tax rates plus VAT that would be required to fund many of them.
https://youtu.be/FPqc9xEqRTY?si=l4TwTJI5-eL3krA8Report
I think people would be fine with the tax required to, say, give us a truly universal healthcare system, because for most of us at least, it would cost us less, because so much of our compensation is in the form of health insurance, because our health insurance costs on top of that are so high, and/or because even with health insurance, we still have to pay out the ass for healthcare and medicine. I also think the American people are smart enough to understand that. I think the center right (the wing of the Democratic Party Tony Blair feels most sympathetic to) have a vested interest in making sure they never do understand that.Report
Raising a tax to fund universal healthcare is always going to be a tough lift in this country. Those against the tax can immediately cry out, “Socialism!”, and trot out some poor Canadian who had to wait 3 years to get a knee replacement. Plus, the majority of Americans get health insurance through their employer and I believe are more or less happy with it. Lastly, consider who’s going to benefit the most from universal healthcare. Not exactly the most popular people with the party in power right now.
Meanwhile, those on the other side have to come up with a complicated explanation of how you’re saving money even though your paycheck is smaller.
I’m all in favor of it, but I don’t think it’s going to happen in my lifetime.Report
If your paycheck is smaller after getting rid of your employer-provided coverage, it’s probably because your employer pocketed the savings.Report
That might be the case, but the anti forces still get to paint it as a tax increase, ignoring the attendant lowering of insurance premiums. And that’s all people will hear.Report
Oh for sure. I think someone like Bernie could win this debate in the eyes of voters, given the proper forum (and I think he generally succeeds when he has the forum). I don’t know that anyone else with national visibility in the Democratic Party could.
Unrelated, but an interesting thing in considering the centrist perspective is that Bernie himself is not only not particularly aligned with the “woke” wing of the Democratic Party, but in ’16 at least, was pretty actively opposed by that wing. So while I get the centrist argument that “wokeness” is harmful, it really feels like they, or at least some of them, wield it as a general attack on the party’s left wing even where it doesn’t apply.Report
I think the possibility of system level savings accruing to the checking accounts of individual tax payers is at best very much TBD. I know it doesn’t really play out that way in European systems I’m familiar with. Whether the average voter is sophisticated enough to understand that, I have no idea.
Big picture though the generosity of other governments is funded in significant part via not just higher income taxes but also VAT. The Democrats just lost the last election in large part due to inflation and cost if living issues. As I have seen you (rightly!) note, the Democrats plea of ‘if only people understood how good the economy is’ didn’t work. I could take or leave Blair on any number of issues but I think his point about larger credibility of message is important. That in mind, the last place I’d want to go right now is a conversation about whether households will pay more, even if some of them also end up getting more in the net.Report
I think universal healthcare, once real proposals were before the American people, is something people would have to be convinced on, especially the middle class, who likely are pretty happy with their insurance, barring major illness. Unfortunately, I think the U.S. has had precisely two politicians who have been good at convincing people of things in the last 16 years, both of whom Democratic Party insiders hate (Trump and Bernie). To me, this says something both about our political system generally and about the Democratic Party in particular.Report
It would be much easier to get and pay for Universal HC if HC were much cheaper.Report
I honestly don’t think people would accept a ‘tax’ in exchange for Universal Healthcare as a policy position.
Not because we don’t tax labor already for a mostly universal system, but because we’d have to unwind the wild distortions to wages that the hidden tax imposes.
First step would (of necessity) be to return the wages to workers — which would have very very strange effects — as in this: imagine two working partners: 1 of them has the health insurance, the other does not. The person with the health insurance gets a $20k raise (assume a family), the other partner doesn’t. But, what’s *weird* is the other partner’s co-worker *does* get a $20k raise, so they are doing the same labor for different pay. And so on and so on.
That’s the problem with getting to universal healthcare… in order to ‘tax’ it into existence, you have to raise all the wages first. Else, it’s a massive windfall for business… and a huge hit to take-home pay.
But, that’s the rub, with the massive and *hidden* distortions to labor costs we have a sort of gordian knot.
So, one way or another, *first* you have to return the taxes back to workers in some sort of way that doesn’t crater your labor markets… and *then* you can re-collect those wages in a broad tax on labor (like FICA).
People would trade employee health insurance for a guaranty of a lifetime of health insurance — but not for a govt. run system of health — based on a broad tax on Labor. Then you just have to solve for incentives to drop out of the labor force if health insurance is guaranteed. We hate to admit it, but the absurd cost of health insurance is absolutely a motivator to seek employment.
Which is all to say, there’s a path to a better insurance program… but it isn’t a straight path, and it won’t reduce costs, and it will probably involve tiers and trade-offs… but there’s a path, just not one that isn’t painful.Report
This is in part of why my probably unpopular opinion is that the ACA is underrated as a first step. The next steps probably involve starting to tame the big payers into something closer to public utilities. The last step is the hardest of all where you deal with moving people off employer plans entirely.Report
Yeah, if you squint you could see an ACA with better Tech as a sort of intermediate step for ending the employer tax incentives for health care.
And ultimately we’ll have to buy-out the insurance companies… so, yeah, they could become regional processors like utilities.
But still have to deal with the pay distortions (which already exist, but you don’t realize you’re being paid less than the guy with the family plan) and how that unravels.
…and don’t make the original ACA mistake of selling it as a welfare program for the uninsured.Report
I agree it would be a mess for the labor market, but that’s largely a problem for capital to sort out, not labor, and I believe people would be able to recognize, fairly quickly, the benefits to labor on top of the raise in pay (even if it’s ultimately mostly taxed away), one of which you mention: the ability to leave your job, rather to drop out of the workforce (say, to become a stay at home parent, a full time caregiver for an adult relative, or because of your own health/mental health issues), or to find another job, is severely limited by having your healthcare tied to your employer. A universal healthcare system that is not tied to employment would result in one of the biggest increases in labor power in a century, and if I were a politician selling something like Medicare for All, I’d be saying this a hundred times per day.Report
(By the way, sorry to turn this into a discussion about the healthcare system. I meant only to use it as an example of an actual idea someone who at least caucuses with the Dems has, and has campaigned on, to show that it is at least possible for someone to the left of Mitt Romney to have ideas and campaign on them.)Report
I agree that the ‘Vision’ is sellable… people don’t like the way health insurance works right now.
Except; we also know that the only thing they like less is change to the system they don’t like.
It show’s up a ‘liking’ the system in a perverse way.
Path dependency gets in the way of the ‘vision’ so have to slowly alter the paths.Report
I think you’re right and I also think this is where the discussion of cost becomes the wrong path politically. If it wins out it’ll be more of a quality of life thing. Instead of being jerked around with administration and your employer, never knowing what the hell the fees are for or what’s covered or isn’t, you’ll pick the plan that’s right for your family, what it does and doesn’t include will be clear, and you’ll be able to use it at your favorite provider franchise between the fast food joints and big box stores on the main drag.
That’s the unsexy but palatable vision, or at least I would think it is.Report
Agreed. *If* there are cost savings, they will be incidental, down the road, and completely unobservable at the individual level. MattY will do a blog post in 15 yrs about the now barely perceptible ‘curve-bend’ that the new system is introducing.
My biggest concerns would be:
1. Tiers… I think it inevitable that Catastrophic would be primary selection… and that richer folks would pay extra for more. (fine in theory, but if positioned as a public utility/good, it would be unworkable in practice)
2. Non-contributors… which covers lots of things, disabled, stay at home parent, children, elderly, temp unemployed, perennially under-employed, etc. etc.
#2 is one of those things that, if working properly, it’s all absorbed… even a % of defectors; just need to make sure % of defectors is not incentivized to grow… might require 2 prongs, Tax plus VAT.
Plus a thousand other things…Report
Yea my assumption would be there’s an auto-enroll at the ‘basic’ option and some (again, greatly tamed) version of a ‘private’ excess insurance market pays to advertise on the government exchanges website with which they are of course accredited and fully integrated.
But it’s hairy and falls way, way short of the egalitarian principles at least partially in play. There won’t be any hiding it. Maybe at the end of the day no one cares because the only people on basic are mostly healthy under 30s subsidizing the ‘basic’ portion of the coverage for the over 65s, but then maybe not and it becomes its own kind of simmering grievance.Report
I think this comment proves my point about the messaging work necessary for those on the side of publicly funded health insurance.Report
Sure, free tip #1: don’t call it publicly funded health insurance.
Call it Universal Basic Insurance that you pay into via work. You own it, you paid for it, and to InMD’s point above, it’s quite possible you picked it.
It only becomes ‘publicly funded’ for those periods when you can’t work… and even then, don’t say that… say your tax also has a ‘gap allowance’ baked into it to cover those times.Report
Heh. Marchmaine: closet Democrat.Report
So far to the right, I’m on the left.Report
I knew it! You can take the man out of the Chicago Machine, but you can’t take the Chicago Machine out of the man.Report
Yes, well. not being “Republican Lite” hasn’t seemed to be working for anybody, has it?Report
No national Demi rat has come close to NOT being Republican Lite.Report
I do think “maybe we shouldn’t make Republican ads for them? At least on 80-20 issues?” isn’t a *BAD* play.Report
I prefer a party with principles than one whose entire political philosophy is avoiding making the other party’s ads for them. I suspect the electorate would too, if they ever got to see one.Report
Some argue that Trump is this.Report
I should have been clearer: I actually think Trump is this. I mean if they’d ever seen one among the Democrats (actually they have, Bernie, and they like him).
Let me just add: I’m not even a Bernie supporter, though it may seem like that here. I just would prefer that the opposition party model themselves after a popular politician with ideas than, well, whatever they’ve been doing.
Hell, if we can go back to a very different Democrat who did this, it worked pretty well for Obama. His ideas were more centered around vibes than Bernie’s, but at least they were ideas, and he was very good at selling people on them.Report
I agree with you wholeheartedly on this point. Wherever they go on policy at some point you have to pick your strong issues/positions and take some stands. You can’t be everything to everyone of course, but if I were in the room with the decision makers I’d still be advocating careful discretion as to where those stands are.Report
convince voters that their ideas are better on the issues that voters care about
Thinking about this.
Part of the problem is that “convince” isn’t really in the toolkit anymore. “Hey, I have some arguments for you and some counter-counter-arguments for the most common counter-arguments” is a really sweet attitude to have!
I agree that it’s a better play than “no one could possibly disagree with me in good faith” which, for some reason, gained ascendancy among the faithful. “I’m not going to do your research for you.” It’s like acknowledging that there are reasonable questions is acknowledging that there are reasonable other positions and once you do that you’ve already lost.
And that’s fine as a seasoning among the people who show up all the time. But as the main part of the meal? It’s a recipe for just waiting for the other guy to screw up and show up to win the election in the vacuum created.Report
I think it’s possible to convince people without presenting them with graphs and syllogisms. Trump is living proof of that. I watch on Facebook as people are regularly convinced by him and his minions (and whatever Musk is) that what he’s doing is good for the country. The Democrats would have to have ideas in order to want to convince people of them.Report
Agree completely.Report
Considering that the further left candidates keep losing primaries, I don’t see why the further left believes it is a way forward. Americans have voted to go further right. Trump has gotten millions of people who hate politics but have very right leaning sympathies out voting. The further left has maintained that there are tens of millions of dark socialists out there and basically 2024 disproved that thesis by a long shot. The further left is confusing internet popularity and district popularity with universal popularity despite all evidence to the contrary.Report
36 million people didn’t vote this time around. It is hubris to believe they are all to the right in any way shape or form.Report
I didn’t say all of them were but I think the evidence definitely shows that most non-voters lean way too the right rather than the left politically but either find politics distasteful or did not have a Republican willing to be as obviously far to the right as Trump. The evidence that a further left ticket could win in the United States is basically non-existent.Report
I have shamelessly joined the pile-ons of both The Democrats and the Third Way Dems:
https://x.com/MixingChris/status/1895850328098271336?t=ryugv2tu5jc3uGVNrrgwEw&s=19
https://x.com/MixingChris/status/1896578900681224356?t=YO_fZYJwSBNd7t2nM2EiLA&s=19
I’m not gonna vote for them anyway, but I’d at least like to see the opposition party act as a competent opposition.Report
Tracing Woodgrains had a barn burner criticizing the playbook:
Report
“But, as one example, health care reform – done right – is genuinely unifying. If you can combine reformist fervor with technocratic competence and deliver a health plan that works, people will want at least that part of what you’re selling.”
The problem here is, what’s “health care”, what’s “reform”, and what’s “done right”?
Or, rather, the problem is “when you’ve decided on the definitions of ‘health care’ and ‘reform’ and ‘done right’, what do you tell the people who think that you haven’t gone far enough in their preferred direction”? If there’s someone who will die without Treatment X and your reform plan won’t pay for Treatment X, how do you handle that?
And, it’s a problem that Democrats don’t seem to have any interest in solving in general. Their answer to “how do you deal with that” is similar to their answer to “how do you handle right-wing criticism”, which is to scoff derisively at the notion that anyone might not think your idea is the best one.Report
The Wall Street Journal recently ran a story about a report from Moody’s Analytics claiming that the top 10% of households by income now account for 50% of consumer spending. This immediately jumped out to me as incompatible with everything we know about the level of economic inequality in the US. I wasn’t able to find the actual report, and they didn’t respond to my questions, so I don’t know exactly where they went wrong, but I wrote up an explanation of why this is almost certainly not true.
In a separate post, I addressed the argument that capitalism is unsustainable because it requires infinite growth, and infinite growth is impossible with finite resources.Report
That’s a good post, the degrowth wing of environmentalism is just the worst. Not only are they actively attempting to sabotage human progress, but their argument is the one least likely to convince the general population to take the environment seriously. If I were conspiratorially-minded (which to be clear, I am not), I might believe that degrowth was invented by oil companies.Report
Scientists: “why would dolphins do this?”
Literally Any Guy: “I know exactly why dolphins would do this.”
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/dolphin-aerial-urine-behaviorReport
Zeynep Tufekci reports:
I just want to point out that if the virus came from the wet market, we don’t have any evidence that this institute has had any leaks in the past.Report
Center left and center right parties are collapsing globally and while there are country specific causes, I think there are three universal elements that ultimately come from the Internet and social media.
1. Center left and center right politicians perceive themselves as serious and electoral campaigning in the age of memes and social media is fundamentally unserious and involves a lot of mocking and trolling. Politicians who see themselves as serious do not know how to campaign under these circumstances.
2. Politics always involved politicians saying one thing to one audience and another thing to another audience. This is a lot harder to do in the age of social media and the Internet. Besides the fact that it is easier to track down the different message, it is also easier to call out politicians for inconsistent messaging.
3. Big tent parties have always been easier to fracture than small tent parties but they are especially easy to fracture now because each faction in the big tent party is more aware of what is being said behind their backs by their alleged allies in the big tent. There is no more plausible deniability.
The Far Right is surging globally because there basically political style has always been based on outrageous ridiculousness, they have no issues being dishonest, and they don’t have to worry about fragmenting the big tent. They don’t have to massage and message different audiences who want to hear different things like center left and center right politicians. The Further Left can theoretically do well under Internet electoral campaign conditions but are hobbled by the fact that they are much less organized than the further right and also that their message isn’t popular with enough people or that many of them are content of being the tribunes of oppressed minorities against hoards of normies rather than leaders of a majority.Report
All true statements best I can tell.Report
This is from late February 2025 but the favorability of the Democratic Party is low among the general electorate. The problem is the polling doesn’t tell us why and several things could be true and not provide a clear way out.
1. Republicans hate the Democratic Party because they are Republican.
2. Normie non-Republicans, some Democratic and some not, hate the Democratic Party because they see it as too beholden to progressive activists and taking on unpopular policies because of that.
3. Progressive activists, some Democratic and some not, see the Democratic Party as not left enough and appeasing the normies way too much.
https://gazette.com/news/wex/democratic-party-favorability-hits-record-low-while-trump-soars-through-first-month/article_faabfc88-24ee-51a0-8691-5127a9920dbd.htmlReport
Part of it, I think, is that Pure Blue City Governance is…
Well, let’s pretend I wrote a paragraph here talking about how Trump is Hitler and, not only that, worse than Hitler. The American People? Worse than the 1930s Germans. All of them. Even the ones who oppose Trump are complicit. That’s how bad Trump is.
Okay, with that out of the way, part of it, I think, is that Pure Blue City Governance is not great, Bob.
You don’t have to be a Republican to be upset with London Breed, Karen Bass, or Gavin Newsom. California has problems that you absolutely positively cannot blame on Republicans.
You don’t have to be a Republican to think that Brandon Johnson sucks. Chicago has problems that you absolutely positively cannot blame on Republicans.
NYC? How many NYC problems are due to Republicans? Eric Adams has problems that might result in Hochul tossing him on his keister but they ain’t Republican problems and replacing him with a pure Blue mayor ain’t gonna fix NYC’s problems either.
If Blue Governance was a model of perfection that could allow its enthusiasts to cackle at how envied Blue State residents are, that’d be one thing. But it ain’t.Report
Blue City governance isn’t exactly a disaster that Republicans paint it to be but it leaves a lot to be desired. Keep in mind that most of the booming cities in Republican states are Democratically run.Report
My examples were all Blue cities in Blue states. The LA fires were bad enough that Karen Bass is doing an investigation trying to find who let her go to Ghana. Sheng Thao was recalled. So was London Breed. Gavin Himself was on the short list for 2028.
I don’t know if he’ll be on it again in 2026 but he sure as hell ain’t on it now.Report
A look at Leopards for Monday:
Trump is announcing export tariffs for farmer’s.
Are the Leopards on Ozempic yet?
https://www.audacy.com/wccoradio/news/local/president-trump-says-hell-put-tariffs-farmers-exportsReport
Export tariffs? That’s insane. That’ll get reversed within moments. There isn’t a single constituent for that. Not one.Report
I will believe it when I see it.Report
Who’s gonna convince him to reverse it? Trump is either a lame duck president or he won’t need to be reelected to remain president, and doesn’t seem to really care about the impact of what he’s doing on voters. Is Congress going to tell him to reverse it? Musk? Someone else he actually listens to?
I assume at some point, Republicans in Congress, and maybe even at the state level, start sweating about reelection if Trump keeps breaking things, but to date, they’ve shown absolutely no interest in challenging Trump on anything, so a lot of damage can be done before that happens.Report
This is the fallacy – that some day the GOP – which is walking across the door step of permanent minority party rule for which they have a 60 year investment – is going to at some point turn away from the instrument of that success.Report
I think there “logic” is this:
1. If I oppose Trump/Musk, I get primaried, likely lose my primary, and also kicked out of sinecure jobs as a pariah;
2. If I remain in Trump/Musk’s good graces but lose the general, I may get a lucrative sinecure job;
It is the politics of courtReport
Polls, polls, polls. Here’s 538 and here’s RCP.Report
Tariffs on Canada and Mexico tomorrow. This promises to suck.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/03/03/trump-tariffs-canada-mexico/Report
My portfolio is not happy about this. Question is whether it’s temporary and a buying opportunity…Report
Presumably Trump will try and shake out some “concessions” just like last time or else we’re going to see a market cratering like we’ve probably never seen before and he’ll end up backtracking and claiming he never did it.Report
Maybe. At some point I have to think other countries say f- it, if you’re going to do it then do it.Report
Perhaps they will- their own electorates will likely become increasingly unfriendly to the kowtowing that Trump will demand and prevented recessions and waves of unemployment are mostly invisible and thus provide limited upside with voters. At which point we find out if Trump will actually hold firm to this idiocy in the face of a massive market bloodbath or if he’ll try and scramble for the exits.Report
Ever the optimist I see. This isn’t Trump’s first term. He is determined to be a dictator and serious about everything he says. Not taking him literally will be stupid.Report
To be clear his threatening tariffs, getting a market sag then claiming victory over “concessions” that he obtained from his targets that ended up being meaningless happened this term not during his previous one.Report
I have a much more pessimistic take on this than you do. Trump said there would be a pause to March. It’s March and now the tariffs begin. He also announced an external tariff on farmers. He is intent on dictatorship.Report
No doubt Trump has let the tariffs be imposed so we’re definitely forging into uncharted territory even vis a vis his previous stunts.Report
We started being in uncharted territory even before he was sworn in again. I know that every fiber in your body but everything that is happening in the world shows that we are in for some real big serious trouble that will cause billions of people immense suffering world wide.Report
I don’t think I quite can make out what you’re saying but, yes, I agree that plenty of damage seems to be leaking through the hoped for impasse between malice and incompetence that is Trump.Report
The silver lining may be that it’s hard for me to imagine a recipe more likely to implode a presidency than ‘make food and energy more expensive’ and ’cause recession.’ Sometime later this month we will probably get ‘kick people off health insurance’ thrown into the bowl for good measure.
But man is it going to hurt.Report
The pain is going to come. The only question is whether it will impede or aid Trump’s authoritarian project.Report
I agree, I hope the Dems are laying groundwork to field a candidate in every congressional district in the country and every swing states state legislative districts too.Report
That’s funny. They don’t even field candidate of aldermen down here. But you do you.Report
Perhaps you should run, though I’d presume you’d run as a DSA candidate?Report
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/business/economy/trump-tariffs-china-mexico-canada.html
While there are just over 3 hours left on the West Coast and a bit more time left in Alaska and Hawaii, but it doesn’t look like things are going to be smooth this time.
Also we are way past the time of Trump 2.0 operating like Trump 1.0. Thinking like this is psychological succor but not reflective of reality. It is the cult of savvy that thinks showing alarm or heightened emotion or distress at anytime is oh so uncool.Report
Err sure Saul, my original point was, merely, that the example I gave was Trump “2.0” not Trump “1.0”.Report
Maybe on this one but Trump and Co are still basically dismantling the Federal Government in ways which could take decades to unwind, if it could be unwound at all.
I agree with Bouie’s take that Trump wants revenge against the entire American population for rejecting him. He is going to destroy our standing, our reputation, and our national parks, one of our great collective treasures. I am not in a mood to be blase about anything he does.
And Jaybird, your panda bear contrarian can’t give a straight yes or no answer on whether I have to deal with a Leo Frank denier or other anti-Semites in good faith or if I can just dismiss them.
I am not sure why I should be required to find this kind of willful contrarianism cute, endearing, or acceptable.
Wishy-washy defenses of anti-Semites have the same issue as ironic goat fornication.
Oppositional Defiance Disorder is not a carte blanche excuse against human dignity or decency.
I’m sorry but this is not the time for indulgence in such anticsReport
You don’t have to engage with Jay at all Saul, no one is making you do so- least of all me! I also certainly don’t require you find him cute or abhorrent or itchy- you do you. As for my own tone and mood I’d describe it as more grimly resigned than blase.Report
your panda bear contrarian can’t give a straight yes or no answer on whether I have to deal with a Leo Frank denier or other anti-Semites in good faith or if I can just dismiss them.
My argument is that you can do whatever you want and you don’t have to do anything.
However, there are tradeoffs and if you don’t like the tradeoff, *THAT IS NOT MY FAULT*.
And cornering me to say “oh, there aren’t tradeoffs!” WILL NOT MAKE THE TRADEOFFS DISAPPEAR.
You don’t seem to understand that the people who believe that Leo Frank was innocent are the people who are the Leo Frank Truthers and until you hammer that down flat you’re not going to understand why you’re the one who has to lift the burden.
It sucks.Report
Let the market sag today. Then buy stocks tomorrow.
Sooner or later (with concessions, “concessions”, or nothing as the cause) the tariffs will go away and the market will bounce.Report
And the boys called me optimistic!Report
Why not? President Trump said he was going to do this. Promises kept (even if I am not a fan of this one).
If he continues with those promises, these tariffs are not meant for the long term (though I would bet on the China ones lasting long).
Once concessions, “concessions”, or nothing are worked enough. They will go away and markets will be happy.
We saw the bounce on Trump’s delay last month, and something similar will happen when these tariffs are removed.Report
We’ll see. One of those promises you’re waving at was that he’d fund government on tariffs instead of on income taxes. So if your claim is he’s going to keep his promises* then by your own reasoning the tariffs should be expected to stay.
*And boy that’d be a gullible thing to assume vis a vis Trump.Report
Suggesting tariffs could replace income taxes is not the same as promising he would.
Trump has always been about making the deal and I fully expect that here.
Also, I fully expect some promises of his will not be kept. That is why I like to point out ones that HAS kept. Even when I do not like them.Report
Heck, I get it, kept promises are very rare in Trump land so it makes sense pointing them out.Report
Chuckle, nice dig.
Well, it happened yesterday. My company is moving 90% of its production out of Mexico to a low-tariffed county.
I guess they took to month pause to put in place the move.Report
The editorial board is still going HAM on Trump. I’m still not sure whether this is in keeping with the new opinions policy, or a last hurrah:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/03/04/trump-tariffs-mexico-canada-address/
Report
it would fit with the stated mew direction – opposing tarrifs is a free-market position.Report
From my State Senator: “Trump — our modern day Neville Chamberlain — surrendered to Putin on Friday, but California has not & will not.
Today, California Senators met with the Ukrainian Consul General & honored him on the Senate floor.
California stands with Ukraine & democracy. California stands against Putin & fascism.”
https://bsky.app/profile/scottwiener.bsky.social/post/3ljizxok3ks2a
I don’t think I have ever seen anything like this beforeReport
If we could repeal the Hatch Act, the states would have a *LOT* more elbow room.Report
The Hatch Act only applies at the federal level. It bars precisely nothing at the state level – though many similar laws exist in states for similar reasons. It also doesn’t apply to elected officials.Report
I wish people would stop comparing Trump to Chamberlain.
Chamberlain was too soft on Hitler, but that’s because he was worried that another Great War would destroy the British Empire (which is fair, since it did).
The 1930s English politician that you want to compare Trump to is Oswald Mosley.Report
Mosley? I don’t know who that is. It’s Hitler or nobody.Report
All aid to Ukraine has been “paused”Report
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-orders-permanent-govt-shutdown-no-really
It hasn’t gotten a lot of attention but Donald Trump’s February 11th “workforce optimization” executive order provides a very clear framework for the end stage goal of all the cutting. After a bunch of specific imperatives listed under Section 3-C of that executive order, it includes the following language: government department and agencies must plan to cut “all components and employees performing functions not mandated by statute or other law who are not typically designated as essential during a lapse in appropriations as provided in the Agency Contingency Plans on the Office of Management and Budget website….
This gives both a clear view of what the plan is and a map to let everyone know about it. What will it be like after they’re done? It will be like a permanent shutdown. That’s not hyperbole or a metaphor. It’s literally what they say in the executive order. I would think Democrats should be familiarizing themselves with all the particulars of the OMB “essential” plan and basically be campaigning on it. I mean, people will probably get a live subject run through on March 14th. But it’s still important to have that map. Those cuts are beyond draconian. And there’s no uncertainty. It’s spelled out exactly what is included.Report
For us that means the weather service, satellites, our officer corps and some fisheries enforcement. And that’s it.Report
Trump’s Federal DOJ is looking into a state court conviction despite federalism and all that:
https://bsky.app/profile/ronfilipkowski.bsky.social/post/3ljjhqtrw5s24Report
Trump’s revenge tour continues by crippling California water districts
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/trump-administration-dramatically-cuts-staff-20200668.phpReport
The very idiotic tariff wars have begunReport
“Downside: Current events, future implications, an immense amount of avoidable human suffering
Upside: I was very right, and people who dismissed my warnings as outlandish, hysterical, and biased (or whatever) were badly wrong, in ways they won’t acknowledge nor learn from
I don’t like this trade”
https://bsky.app/profile/nicholasgrossman.bsky.social/post/3ljjcwnx45s2iReport
See? Bluesky! Nary a cultist to be seen.Report
I wonder when people started referring to hyper-partisans or staunch supporters of particular candidates as cultists. I don’t remember it being a thing under Bush or Obama, though it’s possible I missed it, or just forgot about it because it wasn’t a super common thing. But at least since Trump’s first term, I’ve heard people on both sides refer to people on the other as cultists. I get the idea of Trump as a Cult of Personality, but where does the rest of the cult talk come from?Report
The Economist had this back in 2009…
I know that the photographers *LOVED* giving Obama a halo in shots…Report
Interesting. Sadly I can’t read it without a subscription. Whatever the articles says, the idea of Obama fans as “cultists” doesn’t seem to have taken generally, though I admit I was not hanging around a lot of right wing circles back then, so maybe it took there.
I also found this from 2005, though it seems to be using cult to refer to a specific shadowy group, not all Dubya supporters.Report
If you dipped you toes into the online right at all during BHO’s tenure, there was plenty of cult talk.Report
Ha… was just responding that I wasn’t spending time in right wing world back then, so I may have just missed it. This might be the origin of it in the broader discourse, then. I remember liberals referring to MAGA as a cult during Trump’s first term (maybe even the ’16 campaign, I can’t remember), and was thinking maybe that’s where it started.
And I’m not gonna lie, I remember going to an Evangelical church in 2017, where Trump was much discussed in extremely religious terms, and thinking this was disturbingly cult-like behavior.Report
In today’s I can’t see what can possi-bly go wrong, DOGE is trying to close a federal office that directly manages a nuclear waste sight.
https://www.notus.org/health-science/doge-field-office-lease-termination-nuclear-waste-siteReport
They also want to close the office in Norman Oklahoma that develops, tests and installs new rather radar and the office in Asheville North Carolina that house our weather climate and ocean data archives.Report
Trump calls Justin Trudeau, the Governor of Canada:Report
I would have gone for “Maharaja”.Report
That is good heeling.Report
I forgot the evidence:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a2417027b32fd5fefeefa2e44c3abd38b4ddc7dae46341c19e4f72b3c307fc06.pngReport
Florida’s Attorney General, James Uthmeier, has opened a criminal investigation into the recently returned Tate brothers.Report
Speaking of polls, the WSJ reports that ABC is shutting down 538.
Report
https://www.kpbs.org/news/border-immigration/2025/02/28/german-tourist-held-indefinitely-in-san-diego-area-immigrant-detention-facility
ICE detains German citizen with valid visa for no other reason than performative cruelty and a power flexReport
“…online sleuths tracked Brösche to the Otay Mesa Detention Center, which is a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility run by the private contractor Core Civic.”
“Based on that average, a month of detention costs taxpayers $4,900.”
Mystery solved.Report
If DJT wants people to believe that Russia, Russia, Russia is truly a hoax, he’s making that really hard to do.
https://www.ft.com/content/c58fccea-00c4-4fad-bc0a-0185b7415579Report
I’ve never been convinced he’s bought and paid for, but he is amoral, selfish, and incurious, which in turn allows him to be used by more sophisticated actors than himself.
Long term I think we’re about to get a big lesson on just how much global stability rested on a certain unity of mind of the US federal government. I’ve always been more dove-ish, and that unity of mind led us to some idiotic places and destruction of our own credibility, from Mogadishu to Kabul. Yet at a certain point the ability and willingness of the United States to go to bat, confront, and even be a little reckless with other major powers has upside to it, even if hard to measure. This sort of ramshackle, chaotic abandonment of that is going to go poorly.Report
That’s probably true. All of the online advice (take that for what it’s worth) to Zelensky has been along the lines of “Just pretend to suck up to him, flatter him, and generally pretend to like him and you have him in the palm of your hand.” Unfortunately, Zelensky, pissed off after a 3 year invasion and stalemate, only saw the knife Trump wanted to stick in his back and lashed out.
Greater minds than I could see Russia’s military capability being ground down in Ukraine, just as it was in Afghanistan, and we were hastening the process for a relatively small sum. Honestly, if the United States wanted Ukraine to win, we would have let them use the arms we gave them for offensive purposes from the get go.Report
Yea to me the big miscalculation was indecisiveness from the Biden admin. If you’re worried about escalation you start pushing towards a settlement in 2022 when Ukraine had a bit of an upper hand and was taking back territory. If you want to see if Ukraine can win you’re way more aggressive with aid, let them take the gloves off, and push the Europeans to also share more advanced weaponry.
Instead we tried to walk a middle ground, let Ukraine lose all momentum, and now Trump is back in charge operating with malice towards Zelenskyy and myopia about the larger strategic situation.Report
We have a lot of people thinking that Russia was a reasonable actor with nukes and the Ukraine was a tiny country who would be crushed easily. Some of that is decades of Russian propaganda. Some is wishful thinking so we-the-West don’t need to cut social programs and rearm.
In reality Russia is not a reasonable actor, they don’t have nukes, and everything they’ve said is a lie.Report
I think the worry was that Ukraine (and other smaller former Soviet republics) would not protect their nukes as well. Perhaps to a lesser extent, there was a worry they’d sell them, but just thinking back to the post-Cold War discourse around the nukes in the former Soviet Union, it was security that was the big issue. I remember talk of these nukes basically being out in the open for anyone to take.
Whether this was realistic or not, I don’t know. I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to the politics of Ukraine in the early-to-mid 90s.Report
Yea the concern was security and maintenance. I don’t believe operational control of the weapons stationed in Ukraine was ever anywhere other than Moscow. Kiev never had the capability of using them.
I believe what Dark is implying here is that modern day Russia’s nuclear weapons don’t actually work. I’ve seen some speculation to that effect, especially in light of how badly maintained and hollowed out it’s conventional forces have turned out to be. It’s also the last hypothesis anyone should want to test. We mighti learn that it’s the one weapon system they’ve stayed on top of.Report
Yeah, my suspicion is that Russia’s nukes are useless. I’m 92% sure of that.
That 8%? That’s a pretty big 8%.
You know the odds for Russian Roulette? This is about 50% worse/better (depending on your POV) than those odds.
Especially if it’ll manifest something like “out of the 200 nukes they launched, good news! Only 16 worked!”Report
Yes, there’s also nukes and nukes. It’s possible the big strategic nuclear weapon systems are in disrepair. However I doubt every single one their tactical weapons that can be launched from planes or submarines is a dud. No idea if they can still reliably hit the US eastern seaboard with the push of a button but it would surprise me if things were so bad they couldn’t do damage the likes of which the world has never seen to Europe, including US installations there. There’s also the fact that Putin has at least potentially been put on notice based on initial performance in Ukraine and there has been some correction.Report
Yeah, for me at least, the worry isn’t that Russia would launch its nukes at us. It’s that if things got to the point that Russia was pressing the button, they wouldn’t be the only one, and I’d bet most of China’s increasingly modernized nukes work.Report
InMD: modern day Russia’s nuclear weapons don’t actually work.
Yes. Nukes require extremely expensive maintenance and go bad over a few years because of half life.
The corruption in Russia is so bad they can’t have military tires.
Russia pulled out of the Test Ban treaty and they’ve made a large number of nuclear threats. They have no reason to avoid testing a nuke and every reason to show they still have them.
They don’t even need to announce a test before hand. They could try to set off a hundred nukes one at a time until it works and then claim they only tested that one.
A nuclear test would be a massive step towards winning the war politically. If they still had them they’d showcase it.Report
Another win for President Trump.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/blackrocks-panama-canal-deal-is-latest-win-for-chief-larry-finks-strong-start-to-trump-era-090003262.htmlReport
Well it’s a win for billionaires. But if Trump think black rock buying the ports – which still requires Panama giving the ok – means he can tell them to do things he’s not paying attention.Report
So, being concerned that the Chinese had too much control over the Canal and then a US firm is set to take control of these ports to reduce Chinese influence is not a win? Got it.Report
The Chinese don’t control the canal. Don’t now. Hint king firms controlled the adjacent ports. But they don’t make transit decisions or set and receive fees
For that transit. Panama as a sovereign nation did and still does that.
So no, not a win. A smokescreen to make another billionaire even richer IF the sale gets approved.Report
Let me get this straight, the ports where ships that cannot go through the Panama Canal get their shipments unloaded and loaded back on ships that can go through the canal has no control over what goes through. You sure about that?Report
What does the word ‘control’ mean to you?
The Panama Canal is operated, entirely, by the nation of Panama. This operation of the canal, as far as we can tell, has been done in a completely neutral manner, with absolutely no bias or political influence at all.
Is everyone on the right very very drunk?
The Panamanian ports are Panama’s business, and have _nothing_ to do with operating the canal. They are merely located near the ends of it, but that has essentially nothing to do with the canal, which is generally moving traffic that is not going to either port.Report
Several years ago, I was representing some people in the maritime industry when a controversy bubbled up about some foreign company bidding to run some facilities in the port of Los Angeles, so I asked them about it. People in the shipping business don’t get their panties in a twist about things like that, and many foreign companies, including Chinese companies, run U.S. terminals. (Singapore is particularly well-regarded in that respect, and based on what I saw about Singapore companies on another case, I’m not surprised.) Business is business.
There was never any reason to worry about the Hong Kong company running Panama Canal facilities. If an American-based company is now about to take over, it must have been in the works long before Trump decided to make hay about it. But we all know about the rooster who thinks his crowing makes the sun rise each morning.Report
Good point.
I guess the question is did the pressure speed this up any of help overcome resistance.
I could not find anything talking about it.Report
Would you agree that there are different types of control?
Physical, emotional, economic, etc.
China is more of an economic control version. The amount of import/export that China controls, banking, and infrastructure in Panama increases the economic control they have on Panama.
Leveling that out so one country does not control a large chunk of the purse strings to Panama is good and a win for Trump.Report
We are not talking about hypothetical economic control of ‘Panama’. We are talking about the control of the Panama Canal.
Also, the word you are talking about is ‘influence’, not ‘control’. Economic influence over Panama.
Threatening to attack and seize part of a country so that China has less economic influence over them is not, in fact, a win. It is actually a loss, because it means they are less likely to consider us friendly and more likely to distance themselves from us, and thus give China more economic influence. When people threaten you because you’re hanging out with people they don’t like, you usually don’t let the people making the threats into your life more.
This sale also doesn’t have anything to do with Trump’s threat. CK Hutchison are selling all 43 of their non-Chinese ports to Blackrock. This deal not only has obviously been well in the works for months, but also has absolutely nothing to do with Panama specifically.
In fact, it’s sorta incredibly stupid to think that a multinational company would care that the US was threatening Panama cause they were running something. They have a contract, if Panama broke it, they’d massively sue.
So basically the threat was for basically nothing, all it did was harm the Panama people and government’s opinion of the US. Well, not for nothing, it got dumbasses talking about how it was a Trump victory, and all it did was harm American on the global stage, so, hey, exactly what Trump wanted.Report
The Deputy Press Secretary for the Department of Defense is a Leo Frank truther:
https://bsky.app/profile/tristanl.ee/post/3ljlvcefqw223Report
She also appears to be an anti-trans activist: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/03/the-department-of-defense-deputy-press-secretary-is-a-leo-frank-trooferReport
Doesn’t like women bearing their breasts in public either.Report
We are now the baddies: “UPDATE: The US has stopped sharing “all” intelligence with Ukraine, a Ukrainian source has said.
Previously the source, with knowledge of the situation, said the halt in the follow of intelligence had been “selective”, only affecting information that could be used for attacks inside Russia.
“A few hours ago, the exchange of all information was stopped,” the source said.”Report
We are getting a lot of Trump trolls hereReport
Saul, Manicheanism is a heresy.Report
If I’m not mistaken, Saul isn’t a Christian, so what some Christians think about Mancheanism is as relevant as who were the rightly-guided Caliphs — a big issue to Muslims, but irrelevant to anyone else.Report
Despite how cool it would be if Christianity were the only religion with heresies, sadly, many religions have them.
Hell, there are even atheists who argue for the existence of heresies within atheism (though if you wanted to talk about post-protestantism, I’d probably concede the point even as the atheists refuse it).
But Mani took and twisted Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and probably some other stuff. Er, not “twisted”. “Made his own”. “Forged a new path”.
In any case… Heresy ain’t limited to Jesus Enthusiasts.Report
With whom, exactly, are you arguing? I explicitly pointed out a hotly-disputed issue, indeed, in some folks’ view, a heresy, in Islam. Is there some reason Saul, or any non-Christian, should care about whether Manicheanism is a “heresy”? A non-Christian might find it interesting that some Christians so regard it and why they do, but whether the club rules of someone else’s club are “correct” is meaningless to non-members.Report
whether the club rules of someone else’s club are “correct” is meaningless to non-members.
I disagree.
I find heresies *EXCEPTIONALLY* meaningful, even for religions for which I am not a member.
You can learn much from heresies. (That’s part of what makes them so virulent.)Report
If by “meaningful,” you mean something like interesting or instructive, sure. Just like Aeschylus or Shakespeare. Though nobody burns you at the stake for being wrong about them.Report
Please cite to where in Jewish texts it says that Manicheanism is heresy. Are you saying I should be totes okay with the fact that the Trump admin is hiring anti-Semites who believe in blood libel for public facing rolls?
Anyway, the trolls comment was deleted so, clearly he or she passed a line.Report
Manicheanism dates to the 3rd Century A.D. so we’re well past the books of Moses there.
Would it be enough to discuss Manichean beliefs regarding the resurrection of the dead?
Mani’s emphasis on oral tradition versus Jewish emphasis on it?
What are you looking for? I can give you a somewhat scholarly answer depending on which part of Talmud we’re going to be pointing at.Report
Okay. I don’t care if Manicheanism is a heresy or not. Yes, there should be difficult conversations on contentious issues but there are limits and things must be conducted in good-faith.
I see very little reason to see that things conversations can happen with Trump supporters or Musk supporters. As pointed out above, the Deputy Press Secretary for the Department of Defense is a Leo Frank truther. This is rank blood libel and anti-Semitic conspiracy. I’m not morally required to state confronting this as evil is a heresy and I am not required to debate Leo Frank truthism endlessly.
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
― Jean-Paul SartreReport
So would you say that the time for argument is past?Report
Would you say you are pathologically incapable of a non-contrarian response?Report
Against Manicheans, it just sort of bubbles up sometimes.Report
The zeal of the convert. The bishop of Hippo had the same unfortunate tendency.Report
Pelagianism is a heresy too.Report
So? What makes something a “heresy” rather than just an idea is a structure that claims the authority to define what is true and punish those who believe otherwise. Unless that structure manages to co-opt the government into doing its dirty work, “heresy,” however interesting to outsiders, is a matter of internal club rules and has no purchase on non- members.
If you can find a manichean or a pelagian out there and you want to argue that their ideas are even sillier than your preferred orthodoxy, have at it. I’ll supply the popcorn. But unless you have some enforcement powers we don’t know about, leave the “heresy” charges to the club members.Report
You keep making assertions about non-members that aren’t true.
Could you rephrase your statements to be about you instead of about the group at large? Maybe that would help.Report
Pinky gave up the hall monitor gig a while ago. I wasn’t aware of any popular demand that someone else take it up.Report
Eh, I’d say that “the statements you’re making are false” isn’t hall monitoring.
But, hey. Opinions are like house pets. Everybody has one.
“Not everybody has a house pet.”
“Oh, hall monitoring me are you?”Report
No, that statement isn’t. I take it, then, that we agree on the rest?Report
Well, the part where you say ““heresy,” however interesting to outsiders, is a matter of internal club rules and has no purchase on non- members” seems to be true for you personally but it doesn’t seem to be true for others.
Which is how we got here in the first place.Report
Leaving aside that that is entirely unresponsive, suppose you tell me what would happen if the Pope or the Grand Mufti declared you a heretic? Do you think they even think they could?Report
When I was a kid, the tragedy of schism meant that baptized protestants couldn’t partake of the Eucharist. I understand that the Catholic church has lightened up on that in the last decade or so.
In any case, if memory serves, there was an amount of resentment on the part of protestants in general that they couldn’t partake of the Eucharist.
Lemme tell ya, anybody who showed up in the Babtist church could take a pinch of bread and a shot of grape juice even if they were Methodists.
So, at the very least, there were hard feelings on the part of those told that they were Heretics living in apostasy. This usually resulted in hammering on several of the (now moot) 95 theses.
As for the Grand Mufti declaring people heretics, the most recent example I can think of is Rushdie.
Is it okay to use him as an example?Report
Rushdie said he couldn’t be a heretic because he wasn’t a Muslim. I’ll take him at his word.
I don’t remember Protestants trying to take communion in Catholic churches, or thinking there was anything odd about it. Maybe the Catholic church has lightened up on that — I haven’t been paying attention — but they’re entitled to change their club rules.Report
Oh, was that the question you asked?Report
Why should I answer my question when you don’t?Report
Point of Order:
“I understand that the Catholic church has lightened up on that in the last decade or so.”
It hasn’t. The German proposal in 2018 was rejected by Pope Francis. Like, rejected rejected.
1. Catholics under the usual conditions
2. Orthodox properly disposed
3. In Extremis, other Christians
ContinueReport
OH! I stand corrected. (I thought that there was a thing that baptized Protestants in good standing who believed in the Presence could do it.)Report
Nope; well, not licitly anyway…
Every once in a while we ask random communion seekers how they interpret Articles 25 & 28 of the 39 promulgated under Elizabeth I. And, as soon as they start to make their case for the real presence, we escort them out. To the coffee/donut space in the basement. For penance.Report
How many Anglicans actually know the distinctive teachings of their sect well enough to answer such a question? If my experience with other sects is any guide, not many.Report
Well sure… but the starting point is that someone who has at least interrogated themselves as to whether they believe in the Real Presence at all…
As for the 39 Articles, I’m certain they are ‘taught’ in the same way that Americans know we have ‘A Constitution’.
But mostly it should be clear that there’s absolutely no liturgical gate to receiving communion other than the honor system.Report
If someone is advocating blood libel against Jews and/or is a Leo Frank Truther, am I supposed to treat their argument with good faith? Yes or no answer only please.Report
I’m pretty sure that since Leo Frank’s conviction has not been overturned (even after the Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal), the Truthers are the ones who say that there was a conspiracy to declare him guilty. You should use a different word.
You should not treat blood libel against anybody with good faith.Report
Yes or no, Jaybird? One word answers only.Report
Yes or no, Jaybird?Report
No, you should not treat blood libel against *ANYBODY* in good faith.
And, again, if we’re thinking that there was a conspiracy against Leo Frank to convict him despite his innocence and multiple appeals that goes all the way to the Supreme Court, that makes *US* the “Truthers” and you should have a *LOT* more sympathy for people who believe in conspiracies against innocent people than you do.Report
https://www.mediamatters.org/manosphere/youtube-andrew-tate-claims-america-doesnt-have-free-speech-because-you-cant-speak-out
Andrew Tate claims the United States doesn’t have free speech because you can’t speak out against Jews.
Am I supposed to argue with him
in good faith, Jaybird?
Yes or no?Report
I’d suggest that you’d better speak out against him and shoot his arguments down one by one by one and, if you can, make his arguments look stupid and silly.
I mean… look at the trendlines and look at what’s likely to be true next year, in five years, and in ten years.
I *SERIOUSLY* think that growing flabby in your ability to argue against people with bad arguments is *NOT* in your best interests.Report
Saul: Am I supposed to argue with [Tate]
in good faith
I wouldn’t. Tate does/says controversial things for the point of attracting attention.
Having said that, normally I assume good faith as a matter of policy.Report
Does this look like a guy who’s mind is open to change? Why even bother?
Edited to add: I’m referring to Tate.Report
You’re *NOT* going to change Tate’s mind.
However: The goal isn’t changing Tate. It’s making Tate irrelevant.
“I shouldn’t have to make Tate irrelevant! He should already be irrelevant!” may be a true statement but the fact that Tate is not irrelevant is a problem that won’t be addressed by pointing out that he shouldn’t be relevant and you shouldn’t even have to explain why.Report
OK, let’s come at it this way: is my trying to make Tate irrelevant worth the opportunity cost. Anyone that thinks that idiot is worth a 2nd thought is going to take a lot of convincing.Report
Nobody is obliged to assist Debate Me, Bro whackjobs looking for exposure.Report
I don’t think I know anybody who is a Tateista. Like, not even on Twitter have I encountered someone who says “you gotta see this” for any reason but to (rhetorically) ask “why in the hell is this guy considered charismatic?”
Even Joe Rogan, to whom I do not subscribe, gets boosted inside of my circles to get a “you gotta watch this clip!” from time to time.
I have never seen a complimentary clip of Tate.
So maybe no problem, right? Nobody I know even listens to him.
Right?Report
Oh, I’m sure he has his fans. I also, despite the volume of my comments here, have a job. Something’s gotta give.Report
AP apparently has an internal memo re cutting 80K jobs from the Department of Veterans Affairs
DOI requires authorization for all purchases above 1 dollar from Parks Service employeesReport
Every federal department had its purchase cards and travel cards set to that limit.Report
The articles I read implied that the Parks Service could charge things from $2 to $10,000 without sending it to a regional office for approval and this is the changeReport
Like every other credit card there were limits. How high the limit was translated into how much training and documentation the card holder had to have annually. Much of that purchase card structure replaced old fashioned purchase orders.
And it make sense a park might need this kind of limits to deal with stuff on the ground. Chainsaws and lumber and road gravel aren’t cheap.Report
dealt withReport
Thank you!!Report
For those of you who were saying “I’m not going to Steak and Shake until they quote Nietzsche!”, you can get in the car.Report
Holy crap, they’ve brought back beef tallow fries.
I may have to get in the car…Report
Closest one is in Denver.
Dang it.Report
Bouie argues that Trump’s second term is an act of revenge against the American People for rejecting him in 2020: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/05/opinion/trump-revenge-american-people.htmlReport
You think?Report
Macron warns Europe that the United States might not be on their side if there is war with Russia: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/05/macron-will-make-televised-address-to-ease-french-voters-concerns-about-trumpReport
It looks like Macron might be auditioning for the role of Leader of the Free World. Now the position’s vacant, I don’t think there are many other contenders. Maybe Merz, depending on how the coalition negotiations go, and whether Germany wants to buck up its ideas.Report
Macron has too many of his own problems and France is too small and limited in its ability to project power.
Unfortunately as was proven with Merkel last go ’round it’s the US or no one.Report
For now. I just heard a report on NPR that EU countries are going to have to rearm (duh). It’s kind of hard to believe DJT and his advisors can’t see that a vassal Europe is much more preferable.Report
Europe needs to re-arm no matter the terms they are on with us. However I think they are only likely to do it in a coherent way that is helpful to US interests with our leadership and support, namely the things Trump is intent on wiping his a*s with.Report
Even though I see a multi-polar world as inevitable, I think that Trump is blundering by forcing a complete ‘rearmament’ of Europe.
The US’s goals oughtn’t be a completely re-armed Europe, but a Europe that is armed and in alignment with US materiel and plans to counter various scenarios.
Obviously equivocating a bit on the term ‘re-arm’ but where Trump was correct about the EU’s deficiencies in their end of the defense bargain… we don’t want to re-write the defense bargain from a US first perspective.Report
I fall into maybe a middle ground. I’m pretty cynical about Europe’s ability to ever act as a coherent bloc without a somewhat firm hand from the US. I also think it’s useful to have Europe as a friend, military ally, and partner in commerce.
What they do need is a conventional military deterrent capable of self defense with only token US contributions. We had two friendly Democratic administrations fail to make that case (to say nothing of Europeans, maybe cynically, failing to hear it) and now round two of MAGA that sort of understands the broader contours of the problem but is incapable of approaching it in a remotely constructive way.Report
Sure, but I think that’s sort of the inevitable outcome of just calling for re-arming Europe… we’ve got a pretty good idea that (eventually) there’s a decent likelihood that absent a unifying force, that they start to re-arm in competition against each other.
Brussels is not going to hold that thing together.
The US keeping the primary military capacity was acting as the (Empire)/Unifying Force… the allies still need to pull their weight (they weren’t – look at 1989 tank battalions for just an idea); but we don’t want France and Germany (and Poland) vying for the mantle of Strategic Security Dominance. That way madness lies.Report
People thrive on certainty, which the current administration is not providing to our ostensible allies. If Europe doesn’t see the U.S. as a bulwark against Russia, I have to believe they’ll make the coherent choice to become their own bloc, acting in their own interest.Report
I think Poland would do that and already kind of does, within its means, maybe same with the Scandinavians, but Germany is probably the most politically myopic place on Earth, France is too much of a mess internally, and no other countries on the continent have the economy or the clout. They could if they had a unity of vision but I don’t and doubt they will develop it no matter what happens.Report
France actually does send tropes to different conflicts around the world.Report
Eh, as much as it pains my anglophile self to admit it, France is a big enough player to be “Leader of the Free World (In Europe)” if they wanted the job. France has the institutional and military know how to do it to but I don’t know that they have the economy. Germany has the economy but I don’t know that they have the institutional or military know how. In theory they could work together on it along with the rest of Europe. Awfully lousy that the US will be outside looking in on that, no way that’s not gonna bite us in the future (/sarc).Report
You guys are drunk on Macron. He’s a spent force. France’s house is not in order.
Doesn’t mean they won’t grab at brass rings; but I’d not pin any hopes on ‘France is the new defender of the Liberal Order’Report
I have little opinion on Macron beyond that he’s better than Le Penn. He’s also mostly alone in France now and certainly is a lame duck.
I’d certainly never pin any hopes on France, agnostic God(ess) forfend, being the leader of the free world (in Europe)! The factual truth, though, is that if Germany footed the bill France could plausibly lead a remilitarization of Europe. They have the know-how and institutions to do it, but not the money.Report
A long time ago I read a novel, which title I can’t recall, where through some plausible circumstance Germany seizes U.S. military installations, including the nukes stored there. Probably not something we want to see happen in real life.Report
Heheh so unrealistic! The Germans could probably just buy a nukes stationed in Germany from the current guy for a few million euros invested in $Trump. On top of that Trumps so inept the Germans could probably walk out with the whole arsenal under their coat when they went to collect the one.Report
I have spent enough time in Germany to know that even if it was in their interest to do something like that they never would.Report
I’ve watched some “British boy in Germany” videos on youtube so I suspect you’re right.Report
You say that like there’s an abundance of people to put our hopes in. I’d rather have a United States that hadn’t lost its fucking mind in charge, but apparently I don’t get to have nice things any more.Report
Yeah, we could have nominated and elected Harris.
If only sane people had been in charge!Report
This, but unironically.
I think Harris would have been a fairly mediocre choice for President, but she wouldn’t be throwing the entire global order into chaos out of a combination of stupidity and malice.
it’s not enough for you to destroy yourselves, you have to try and take the rest of us with you.Report
You know what’s even worse than Democracy?
*LOCAL* Democracy.Report
And I have now reached the point where I have no idea what you’re talking about.Report
Stuff that happens in different time zones.Report
I get it… but there’s a fine line between a shared world order without an Empire, and free riding your way into the need for imperial fees.
Not that I think Trump isn’t bungling his way deeper into a Thucydides trap… but a reset on the costs of the empire we liked to pretend didn’t exist was inevitable.Report
I appreciate that, Europe has been taking advantage of the US for a long time now (not just the military, but paying for drug research as well). And if this whole thing wakes up European leaders from their decades-long stupor then something positive will have come from it.
If Trump was merely pushing Europe to step up more on defense spending, and get serious about cutting back on fossil fuels to starve Russia of funds, than I’d be applauding. But it is clear to me that Europe’s complacency is just a justification. Trump is even stopping support to Ukraine that is essentially free, like intelligence sharing. Trump is cutting Ukraine loose because he wants Putin to win. And that mean the coalition of free nations needs new leadership. I’m not sure Macron’s ready, but I don’t think we have a lot of alternatives.Report
Douthat’s middle way:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/08/opinion/america-conservatives-france-europe.htmlReport
It’s an interesting thought and if there’s an actual partner for it in Paris one would have to be foolish not to take them up on it.
The reason it won’t happen is that Douthat is fundamentally right about European populism, absent some pivoting along the lines of what seems to have happened in Italy. The most ironic thing I’d say about today’s right wing populism here and there, and very much including MAGA, is that it accepts far too many of the premises of what would otherwise be viewed as progressive victim-ology. It just has a different narrative about who the victims are.
For the West to maintain hegemony or just parity of strength you need a political leadership ready to make a positive case for what we are and what our civilizational goals should be. As best as I can tell you don’t see much of that on either side of the Atlantic.Report
Douthat’s reference to Catholicism being a unifying factor is a little bizarre given the fact that hardly anyone goes to Mass anymore in France.
His handwaving away the Holocaust in his phrase “crippling sense of historical guilt that still pervades Germany” is a little befuddling. There are still people alive who went through it. We’re currently seeing in America what happens when self-reflection becomes taboo. The American right’s embrace of AfD is more than a little concerning.
The strategy of trying to bolster our European allies into becoming true allies instead of vassals is a good one, but doing so by pushing them out of the nest immediately after hatching is a method doomed to failure.Report
There’s still a cultural Catholicism to France that I think is helpful in certain ways. It isn’t a mystery why all of the post modern thought that’s made American academia and progressivism stupider is a lot less popular in France despite much of it originating there. Catholicism has strong anti-bodies for that kind of stuff. But I agree that any resurgence is unlikely to be specifically Catholic in the way he suggests.
Germany I read a bit more cynically. Obviously ‘Never Again’ should be part of their national character but there are very real ways in which it’s used as a convenient excuse to shirk responsibility and maturing into a constructive world power. The only structural force for actual revanchism is the mainstream parties who have insisted that the only way a normal person with conservative views on immigration can voice those preferences is to consort with the tiny faction that also believes the Third Reich is due for re-appraisal.Report
It seems to me that “certain ways” is doing a lot of work there. I was surprised that Douthat brought up the Notre Dame repairs. As I recall, all of the cathedrals in France are owned by the government, maintained by the government, the Notre Dame repairs were paid for by the government (although contributions were accepted). The Church is allowed to lease space for services.Report
Heh I mean this respectfully but I’d say the phrase ‘doing a lot of work there’ is itself doing a lot of work in your reply. So much I’m not really sure what you’re getting at. The fact that the government owns most of the cathedrals (and I believe most of the churches) in France suggests significant influence on the culture, not the opposite.
Which isn’t to say I see any reason to believe growing secularism is in any danger of being reversed in France. I don’t. I don’t think it’s going anywhere in America either. However I’m pretty sure you’d strongly disagree with me if I said the historical domination of Protestantism in the US didn’t leave any important cultural legacies, including many that remain with us today.Report
For those without a subscription to the failing New York Times.
https://archive.is/mCumBReport
Then, psychologically, France lacks the crippling sense of historical guilt that still pervades Germany
There’s much in that piece that gives away the game, but this one might be the largest, given France’s near complete lack of reckoning with its own fascist and brutal colonial history, its collaboration with the Nazis, and its complicity in the Holocaust.
To write that sentence in a piece calling for increased European nationalism comes very close to saying the quiet part loud, as the kids say.Report
By the way, if you want to understand why French politics are less infused with what American conservatives call “postmodernism” (if I used enough scare quotes to convey my contempt for the conservative use of that term, this comment would be entirely quotation marks), it’s not because of their Catholicism, which is at best vestigial at this point, but because, in addition to having a very different Enlightenment tradition and a very different intellectual, cultural and political impact of that tradition, they have also dealt, or rather not dealt, with their history of racial and colonial oppression very differently than we have. Theirs is pushed into the banlieues, of Paris and of their minds, while ours pervades our society, culture, and politics in ways that can’t be merely swept aside.
There are a lot of reasons for this, but a big part of it is, I think, that the French have a very good idea of what it means to be French, while in this country, we’re still litigating what it means to be American, which produces a discourse that interacts with America’s extreme (relative to most of the developed world) religiosity, its history of slavery and colonialism, and its own Enlightenment ideals, to produce a pretty unique political discourse, including what conservatives decry as “postmodernism.”Report
If we could figure out a way for Europe to unite and create something like a common Union of some sort, maybe they could pave the way and provide an example for the rest of the world.
“This is what The Future looks like!”, they could demonstrate.Report
The AfD is too on the march in Germany for Merz to take the role. France is basically the only country that has the requirements to be the leader of the Free world. That is a liberal society and government, a wealthy developed economy, a well educated citizenry, and an armed forces with nukes.Report
https://rollcall.com/2025/03/05/supreme-court-orders-clarity-on-order-unfreezing-usaid-funds/
So, we have a bunch of Supreme Court justices showing their true colors there.
For those who do not remember what happened, a lawsuit was filed about USAID about the failure to pay debts that were already incurred and mandated by law, and Judge Amir Ali of the U.S. District Court issued an order saying ‘No, you have to keep paying those for now, the law provides a way to claw back fraudulent purchases and it gives absolutely no ability to do what you are doing’.
They were given a deadline of fifteen days. Fifteen days passed.
The judge issued _another_ order, saying ‘I am not kidding, do this in the next two days, or I will start throwing lawyers in jail for content’.
The government, having failed to follow the first court order, then panicked and tried to get the Supreme Court to step in. (Like, we’re already at a bad place here. You can’t fail to follow court orders for two weeks and then, at the deadline, run somewhere else.)
The Supremes did, pausing that order for a week, until they ruled. Well, that just happened, they said ‘Of course you have to follow that, it’s a judge, you’re in a lawsuit, you have to do what he says.’. …or at least, the people on the court who believe in some sort of rule of law did.
From others, you get this nonsense:
Hey, Alito, pssst: What compels the US government to release the funds is the _law_. Both appropriations and, perhaps more relevantly, normal contract law. They did the work, the government has to pay them. Which a judge just ruled on.
And they _did_ appeal it. To literally the Supreme Court. Were you not paying attention?
And how does a District of Columbia district court judge not have jurisdiction over ‘Someone suing the Federal government for not getting paid, which was apparently done by decisions at the White House’? What are you talking about? Who has jurisdiction instead?!
Also, aren’t you the same people who have no problem with a single Texas judge issuing restraining orders outlawing medications across the entire US?
—
Anyway, we have two fun questions here:
Will the US government decide to comply with this?
Who knows.
The second question is funnier: Can the US government comply with this, or is it so dysfunctional that it cannot put this stuff together in time?
They are already a week past the second deadline, which itself was a few days after the actual original deadline. The Supreme Court just said the judge should ‘clarify what obligations the Government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order, with due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines.’, but honestly, as the Government has made absolutely no effort at any point to actually met any deadline, I suspect we’re going to get Judge Amir Ali saying ‘The first order of business today is where I make up a list of people who go to jail tomorrow if it is not done by then.’
The really really funny thing is if the US government cannot actually manage to do it in that timeframe, because the power to do it is in the hands of some 25-year-old techbro who does not actually understand the magnitude of what is going on, and possibly cannot be located in the timeframe because he’s ran off to fire all gay people at the NSA or whatever.
Which sounds unfair, but I remind everyone the government had two weeks to do this, in which they did nothing, then had another week do to this, and if they again did nothing, and are not ready to actually do this, they deserve to be pretty strongly sanctioned by the court.Report
Having sacked everyone at USAID who could probably do this, I Susie T contempt citations will have to be issued.Report
You touch on it, but I would like to highlight it.
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, the district judge does lack the jurisdiction. Then who does have the jurisdiction? I would hope the United State’s Supreme Court does, and if it does, Alito’s opposition is a copout. The case is in front of you, rule on the legality of whether the Trump administration can withhold funds on work already done or legally contracted to be done.
Yeesh, statements like that are too much like a Politian speaking and not a Supreme Court justice.Report
As I said in the comment rescue about that, as the jurisdiction cannot possibly be anywhere _except_ DC over ‘a bunch of decisions made in DC about paying organizations which are mostly overseas’, his comment about jurisdiction can really only be understood as ‘Do we, the courts, have jurisdiction over this at all?’, which is exceptionally absurd considering he just dismantled Chevron.
Things Alito thinks the courts have jurisdiction over: When the Legislative tells the Executive that they want X done, so the Legislature order the Executive to build an entire regulatory process to decide how to do X with public comment processes and all sorts of procedure. This, the Court should feel free to leap in decide what the Legislative Really Meant, instead of, uh, doing the thing the actual Legislative said to do to figure that out, which is the regulatory process.
Things Alito thinks the courts do not have jurisdiction over: The Executive blatantly and obviously ignoring actual laws passed by the Legislature directly requiring the Executive to do things like ‘We order you to directly gives this much money to this specific organization’. Some things that even appear to be literally unconstitutional under the ‘debts authorized by law must not be questioned’ clause. That sort of thing, the court cannot weigh in on.Report
Syrian activist yells at UN that “Israel is not the problem” to bunch of stunned diplomats as she calls out different nations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exm7JVhI1MkReport
Yemeni activist also lambasts UN:
https://unwatch.org/yemeni-activist-asks-un-why-is-it-when-arabs-kill-millions-of-arabs-no-one-bats-an-eye/Report
French Senator boldly states that Washington as become Nero’s court:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/58cdf848cbf6bfe430df3e30f5e2e4286f6d29fe85ff64cb095bcd8eed92cd5b.pngReport
These posts should be shut off, because they’re just doomscrolling at this point.Report
They’re a sink.
People work hard writing an essay on the importance of a fuzz pedal for electric guitars and WHAMMO there’s a link to how an Italian senator who was famous for, ahem, adult movies in the early 70s has offered Saddam Hussein sexual favors in exchange for peace.
And now the comments to this essay about the fuzz pedal has a subsection devoted to whether it’s culturally insensitive to offer meaningless sex to Muslims with a subsubsection devoted to whether this has ever worked arguing against people who make jokes like “when has this ever *NOT* worked?” and the person who wrote the original essay about the fuzz pedal just wanted to talk about music, man.Report
Or you could just ban people.Report
It’s important to have a place where we can talk about Italian senators offering sex to Saddam.
It’s an important topic!
It just shouldn’t be in the comments to the music post.Report
The user community should still use discretion to promote interesting and/or novel topics.
Now, I’m not sure Italian Senators bartering sex is all that novel, but…Report
I agree… DavidTC’s comment just a few short comments above is probably the ideal kind of comment we’d want.
But we also need a place for the stuff that isn’t worth comment rescue to go.
Hrm. I’ll do a comment rescue.Report
Trump revokes legal status for 240K Ukrainians because he is a cruel and malignant king: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-plans-revoke-legal-status-ukrainians-who-fled-us-sources-say-2025-03-06/Report
I generally think Newsom is a good governor and gets way more heat than he deserves but his new podcast and comments on transathletes are perplexing and boneheadedReport
He’s running for President. He suspects that you can’t be on the 20 side of a national 80-20 issue as Harris just amply demonstrated.Report
Literally all points of that are gibberish.
Harris, for one, wasn’t on the 20 side, and also that polling is utter nonsense.Report
The Sacramento Bee has an opinion piece that I’m sure you’ll enjoy: California needs Newsom to be a leader, not another mediocre white man with a podcast
The people are speaking. Is Newsom listening?Report
The Sacramento Bee is satire.Report
LOL, might want to do a bit more QA before you hit “Post Comment”.Report
Man, wouldn’t *THAT* be nice? I think you’re thinking of The Babylon Bee which is, indeed, satire.
The Sacramento Bee is a newspaper that has Pulitzers and everything. While you may read the above and think “Jeez Louise, that’s gotta be freakin’ satire” (AND I SYMPATHIZE WITH THAT KNEE JERK RESPONSE!!!), sadly, it appears to be entirely in earnest.Report
Hilariously enough I actually thought the Sacramento Bee quote was satire and that you had made a typo. Like that can’t possibly be real. Right? Right…?
I increasingly feel like we’re in a simulation programmed by Trey Parker and Matt Stone.Report
I immediately panicked when I read Phil’s accusation. “Did I miss that this was satire? Am I so poisoned that I read that and thought it was real?”
I am not too proud to say that I felt relief after I spent a few moments googling and confirming that, yes, it’s real.
But I had to double and triple check first because, you know… you read that and you realize that it could very well be actively making fun of how people used to talk in 2017.Report
Or, Harris is mulling running for CA governor and he needs some daylight.Report
Since you’re basically the Jim Cramer of political prognostication, if Newsom lost you then that’s probably a good sign for his national prospects.Report
You have one Third Reicher on your show and you have a Third Reich show.Report
Premise 1: You have one Third Reicher on your show and you have a Third Reich show.
Premise 2: Gavin Newsom had a Third Reicher on his show.
Conclusion: Gavin Newsom has a Third Reich show.
Now, if the conclusion is obviously false, we have a problem with one of the premises.
If the conclusion is true, we have to explore whether having a Third Reich show is enough to make the host of a Third Reich show a Nazi himself.
If it does… then the governor of California is a Nazi.
That hasn’t happened since 1975.Report
Wait, the podcast he went on was Charlie Kirk’s!!!
Newsom is reaching out!!!
Holy cow, he’s someone who would have gone on Joe Rogan.Report
I wonder if he saw the results of the way-too-early 2028 Dem Primary poll and decided he needed to outflank Harris fast.. encourage her to just aim for CA gov.
Anyway hard not to see this serving as a green light for others to start edging away from the left flank.Report
(Non) election interference.
https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-allies-secret-talks-volodymyr-zelenskyy-opposition-ukraine-elections-yulia-tymoshenko-petro-poroshenko/Report
https://www.sfgate.com/national-parks/article/national-park-record-visitor-numbers-downplayed-20206558.php
National Parks staff told to downplay record number of visitors in 2024. They want to destroy our greatest treasuresReport
Authoritarianism continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/us/politics/trump-perkins-coie.html
With the order, Perkins Coie becomes the second such firm to be targeted by the president. Late last month, he signed a similar memorandum attacking Covington & Burling, which has done pro bono legal work for Jack Smith, who as special counsel pursued two separate indictments of Mr. Trump.
While the Covington memorandum sought to strip clearances and contracts from that firm, the Perkins Coie order goes much further, seeking to also limit its lawyers’ access to federal buildings, officials and jobs in a way that could cast a chilling effect over the entire legal profession.
The president’s animosity toward Perkins Coie dates back eight years, to when two lawyers at the firm, Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann, played roles in what eventually became an F.B.I. investigation to determine if anyone on the 2016 Trump presidential campaign conspired with Russian agents to influence the outcome of that election. Both lawyers left that firm years ago.Report
In case anyone is wondering what eliminating DEI actually means, it means searching through your files and finding ones that have the word gay in the name.
https://www.oregonlive.com/nation/2025/03/photo-of-enola-gay-aircraft-among-26000-images-flagged-for-removal-in-pentagons-dei-purge.html
And yes, this is stupid, but I want to take a step back and let’s pretend that they’re correctly eliminating photos that refer to someone being gay. This does appear to have just been a preliminary search, presumably they would be smart enough to ignore things that were not actual references…to….homosexuality. huh.
Wait. This removal doesn’t seem to be eliminating any sort of bias in employment or giving preferential rights to certain people over other people which is, I am told, the thing we’re trying to get rid of. It doesn’t seem to be about any indoctrination or thought policing, these are just pictures. An extremely wide search of all pictures, including ones that are just historic pictures.
The military used to bar gay people from joining it, and then it stopped doing that. And if some member of the military talks about the fact he was only able to join after that ban went away, or how he was in the closet until it did, and that ended up on a military website in some speech he gives for a medal that he got, is that DEI? Is a picture of him with his husband DEI or not.
That is not a rhetorical question, I want someone to legitimately answer whether such a quote and photo of someone should be removed from the military’s website because it is DEI, yes or no.
If your answer is no, then you have to admit what is going on is not merely the removal of ‘DEI’, it is just bigotry.
If your answer is yes, if the mere mention of the existence of gay people is what you have been wanting removed, well… I don’t even think I need to say anything there.
Hey, I wonder if people here are also going to call this one malicious compliance. I wonder if at any point this stops being malicious compliance and just _is_ the system that has been set up.Report
You should have stayed at home yesterday
Ah-ha, words can’t describe
The feeling and the way you lied
These games you play
They’re gonna end in more than tears some day
Ah-ha, Enola Gay
It shouldn’t ever have to end this wayReport
And here comes the CDC planning a study on the link between vaccines and autism again. Bye bye childhood vaccine schedule: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-cdc-plans-study-into-vaccines-autism-sources-say-2025-03-07/Report
Pretty disgraceful in light of the recent measles outbreaks. But not sure what else to expect. It’s an administration of conspiracy theorist bufoons.Report
I finally realized what this whole sordid affair was reminding me of. Way back when I was in high school, there was a tennis instruction show on PBS with Vic Braden, and in one episode he was talking about what to do if your opponent frequently foot-faults but won’t agree to take the fault. His suggestion was along the lines of, when it’s your serve next game, you should go right up to the net and serve from there, and tell them that if they can cross the line with no penalty then so can you.
It feels like the Democrats committed a lot of foot-faults over the last few years, in terms of doing dumb or heavy-handed or undemocratic stuff — a toe over the line here, a whole step past the line there; and in punishment, the Trump administration is now walking 30 feet into the court for his serve. We would all be better off if the Dems could’ve just stopped foot-faulting.Report
Sure, we would absolutely be better off. But as big of a critic as I am of various cultural silliness in the broader left and lack of establishment accountability which at times fairly but often enough also unfairly gets laid on the Democrats I still see no excuse for this. We’re going to learn the hard way that the solution for various problems with the public health authorities is not to put people into healing crystals and essential oils in charge of them. This stuff isn’t a joke and change can always be for the worse.Report
What foot-faults have the Democrats committed over the years? What political universe are you writing from?Report
I don’t think it’s left v. right. It might be easier if it were.
It’s elite vs. non-elite and the elite got very good at explaining that “no, this isn’t a foot fault, if you’d read the rules of the game from 1927, you’d see that “the line” refers to the part of the line closest to the net and not anything having to do with paint in general, I can’t believe you’re using the ruleset from 1948 or, sigh, 1977. What game did you even think we were playing?”
And some of the folks responded by reading a copy of the 1927 rules *VERY* closely and others just started trying to figure out why the refs cared when they started ignoring the back of the line but not when the opponent did.
We haven’t had a stupid party for a long time. The elite still thinks it’s a left/right thing.Report
Yes, not left-right but still Dem-Rep. At least at a high level, the Democratic brand is now basically associated with the elites and the republican brand is very much associated with the rabble along with a few distasteful billionaires.Report
Nothing authoritarian about this at all.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-administration-cancels-400-million-grants-columbia-university-rcna195373?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAAwXB2w6CIAAA0L%2FprXQ1nbW5ZoqZ3R2V88UBQjINEF1SD31759TDoPqVZQlMBB37GVJq1nLRWFF4hgVLPJPhNcOk5ZW%2FG4u8tvHzVBcPOzxCEASZjc8tkIZVdsez%2Becgp4pEKfiKYtgm8MJ5eVwGyHXTrq7mhlzz%2Bw4609SAEtFXuXkvbkB3TgyWTMZevIcqNePkpymjWnPxLLGWY0%2B1HyNCsZTNH5Qzto6wAAAA&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0bOlEoxfd0qiR2yLo-pcDJEznZtGHTPii_M9Aa66Jqhd2xcQXVIT5-JxE_aem_Bv3UErq5FE9foF8FKTpJxw&_branch_match_id=1281224086309622960Report
Engage in illegal discrimination, lose your Federal funding? Gasp! This is just like Hitler!Report
What are some examples of this discrimination?Report
Are you asking for the “For Real According To A Definition That You, Personally, Use” definition or the legal one that they’re going to be using as justification?Report
I think if the legal one includes “protesting a genocide” and “supporting Palestinians” and, in fact, basically just being a Palestinian, then, gasp! It ain’t the students/faculty/school doing the discrimination.Report
“The students took over the quad and closed it down to anybody who wasn’t willing to denounce Israel.”
“They’re supporting Palestine.”Report
Seems like it to me. Generally when you have a protest like that, you don’t let counterprotesters in. Since most supporters of Israel are not Jewish, it’s quite a stretch to call this discrimination against anything but counterprotesters.
That said, if we’re going with that, what about universities canceling speakers who support Palestine? Ban Palestinian flags from events (but not other flags)? Ban pro-Palestinian protests specifically? Deny tenure to faculty who support Palestine? Are these forms of discrimination, because if so, man, we have a whole lot of universities that should lose funding.Report
Generally when you have a protest like that, you don’t let counterprotesters in.
From what I understand, the protest wasn’t a four hour thing where they had one guy give a forty minute speech to introduce a guy who gives a thirty minute speech to introduce a guy who gives a twenty minute speech to introduce a guy who comes out and speaks for ten minutes with a whole bunch of songs praising peace and justice sprinkled among the speeches but was, instead, an encampment.
If they had a four hour thing and said “no Israelites except for Black Israelites”, I’m pretty sure that everybody would have rolled their eyes and gone around the long way.
Such is the nature of four hour protests.
But an encampment? Why, I’d hate to have to argue that point in front of a judge.Report
I’d love to see some video or accounts that confirm your understanding.Report
Is the AP sufficient? CNN?
There was a case with UCLA where they checked for stuff like Jewish jewelry and asked people who were unwilling to denounce Israel to take the long way around but I’m sure we’re in agreement that that is particularly egregious.Report
Ah, I didn’t know UCLA was a Columbia campus.Report
So the AP is not sufficient? CNN?Report
Firstly, not letting people through unless they denounced Israel is _not_ discrimination against any sort of protected class.
And this is one of the ‘Did _you_ read the thing you linked?’ questions:
Hey, um, who do you think was _calling_ that middle example a ‘token Jew’? You think it was the people _in the protest with them_? You think that’s how how it works? Or, is to much more likely she was being called that by other people who do not like the protest?
It sure is weird how all these examples of actual horrific antisemitic and violent behavior directed at Jewish people coincidentally are only directed at _Jewish people supporting the protestors_. It’s almost as if a fairly notable amount of the open antisemitism happening on that campus are anti-Palestinian people _screaming hatred at Jewish pro-Palestinian protestors_, and yet somehow it is the pro-Palestinian protestors at fault.
another said there was a feeling of having to ‘constantly qualify who we are’ in order to participate in organizations.”
That sounds like microaggressions to me, aka, completely fake and we don’t need to worry about them, I have been assured.
“The painful and distressing incidents of antisemitism recounted in this report are completely unacceptable. They are antithetical to our values and go against the principles of open inquiry, tolerance, and inclusivity that define us.”
That sounds like DEI to me. In fact, almost everything the administration says about antisemitism sounds like DEI to me, it’s very startling to find certain people defending this.
And before anyone accuses me of the same hypocrisy in reverse: I actually do think the campus should be a safe environment for everyone, and the way to make it is so is to _do what the protestors ask_ and for Columbia to stop investing those protestor’s tuition in market positions that support Israel and thus support what it is doing, which is, after all, the premise of this entire thing.
I don’t think private universities should make investments that support ethnic cleansing, and I think people at those universities, who are giving them that money, have a right to protest that. Because that makes _them_ feel unsafe.
Once that has been stopped, the protests stop. Once the protests stop, we can worry about individual behaviors, of which there have been bad actors on both sides who need to be reprimanded and possibly even punished harshly.
But right now, we are only talking about pro-Palestinian side (Or even talking about anti-Palestinian side while pretending it’s the pro-Palestinian side!) and somehow making that be about the _protests_, which, I remind people, has Jewish students in it.Report
Man, it really sucks that this precedent has been set, then.
I mean, I’d have to argue for saying that it’s okay to do this stuff in front of a group of folks who are in charge of disbursing Federal Funds.
And, lemme tell ya, after the last decade or so, I’m not sure that the people who would be put in charge of arguing that this stuff should obviously be okay have the rhetorical chops to pull it off.
But I’d love to see them try and see what policies they institute after testifying that they may find such speech distasteful but college is supposed to be a hotbed of free speech activity where students will quite regularly experience speech that some might say is unpleasant.Report
DavidTC: Firstly, not letting people through unless they denounced Israel is _not_ discrimination against any sort of protected class.
This is like saying obstructing traffic isn’t discrimination of a protected class.
DavidTC: I don’t think private universities should make investments that support ethnic cleansing,
What we had going on was a war. Normally the line we draw with “investments” is “legal” vs “illegal”.
DavidTC: I think people at those universities, who are giving them that money, have a right to protest that. Because that makes _them_ feel unsafe.
Legal fiscal investments in Jewish companies makes people “feel unsafe”?
How does that work?Report
Chris: What are some examples of this discrimination?
Criticism increased when a January 2024 recording of one organizer, Khymani James, saying “Zionists don’t deserve to live” was released
…Another protester was recorded holding a sign reading “Al-Qassam’s next targets” in front of student counter-protesters holding Israeli flags.
…protesters both on and off campus were recorded targeting Jewish students with antisemitic vitriol…
…protesters at the encampment were filmed chanting “Zionists not allowed here”, while another protester called for “10,000 October 7ths”. One Jewish student reported protesters saying “kill all the Jews” and “we want one Arab state”,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Columbia_University_pro-Palestinian_campus_occupations#Allegations_of_antisemitismReport
To answer Chris’ question, the University is under pressure from the student activists to treat that sort of thing and the shutting down of various educational buildings as a normal student protest and largely does.
Various other groups (including Trump) see it as deeply antisemitic and/or criminal and think the University should be using criminal charges and the law to deal with it.Report
That’s a sentence, not discrimination, and was said months before the protests even started. When it came to light, he was forced out by other protest groups.
And that’s kind of important, not just in this specific example, but as a pretty good representation of how this protests _actually_ were: When one guy who had helped organize the thing was revealed to have said, in an Instagram months earlier, that sentence, he was removed.
So it’s extremely clear this _wasn’t_ the sort of of rhetoric that was normally happening or even allowed at the protests, and in fact was considered wildly out of bounds.
Dark, this is the exactly the sort of lie that the media is good at feeding people. That guy was not on the pro-Palestinian side. He was doing the thing that the anti-Palestinians counter-protestors seemed to love to do, which is create exaggerations of what they think the other side thinks. Which then get repeated as things actually being said by that side. (You can call this a false flag, but I question how purposeful it is.)
You can actually read that sentence and figure it out yourself. The pro-Palestinian protestors were not ‘in front’ of the counter-protestors. They had their own little encampment.
And people wonder why they were so incredibly careful as to who got allowed into the encampment. It’s literally this.Report
The lines I normally draw are…
1) Can an otherwise uninvolved student still function?
If the protesters are shutting down the U then they’re preventing other people from getting educations.
That very much would include setting up lines and insisting that anyone attempting to cross them “denounce Israel”. Whether that’s a protected class or not is irrelevant.
2) Violence and the threat of violence.
The normally illegal things are still illegal. That would include calling for genocide… which I would think includes calls to destroy Israel.Report
As a Jewish person, I think this is extremely bone-headed and more likely to increase anti-Semitism than anything else.Report
Disney has cancelled its London premiere of Snow White.Report
Look, I think there’s some wiggle room in anti-wokism that makes it difficult to call everyone who’s anti-woke racist/misogynistic/anti-LGBT, but the only reason for being upset about this casting decision is racism.Report
That’s one heck of a framing, anyway. Were you around for the whole “artisans” thing?Report
I don’t think so? When was it?
I was here when a certain former front-pager argued that casting a black actor as Indiana Jones would be bad because if he’d been a kid and Indiana Jones had been black he wouldn’t have gone into archaeology. That was also inarguably racist.
What other reasons, that exclude any reference to her race, ethnicity, or skin tone, might there be for opposing her casting on grounds that it is “woke.”Report
This is from back in 2023. (Jump down to where it says “sabotage” if you want to get straight to the thread.)
Here’s one of the points I made in the middle of the thread:
And this is from back August of last year where we discussed, among other things, Zeigler posting about Palestine (you may recall that Gal Gadot did her stint in the Israeli army). I recapped the drama for Kazzy here.
I do hope that Kazzy comes back and gives a comment about how much (or whether is an option, I guess) his kiddos liked the movie.
As for my take on Ziegler, I’ll take the liberty of quoting myself:
Report
Aha, so people have been saying since 2023 that they don’t like a movie that has yet to be released in 2025. Definitely not racist.Report
Don’t forget the people who are refusing to see it because Gal Gadot is in it! Anti-semitism has an impact too!
“It cheapens the accusation of anti-semitism to conflate it with not wanting to see a movie because someone who supports genocide against indigenous people is in it.”
“Too late. Anti-semitism. Now you have to take the charge seriously.”Report
I think the main reason not to see it is the last really good movie they made was probably Coco. All the live action ones have sucked.Report
I saw that “Whistle While You Work”, a cheery song where Snow White cleans up the house while the guys are at work turned into a cheery song where she teaches the guys how to do their own housecleaning.
“SOMEONE STOLE OUR DISHES!”
“They ain’t stole, they’re hid in the cupboard.”
That’s an *AWESOME* exchange.
And now it’s gone. Like tears in the rain.Report
Refusing to see it because Gal Gadot is in it is also bad.
See, that’s remarkably easy! I didn’t have to beat around the bush, or defend racists. I can just say: Yeah, those people are bad.
I realize that the world is a complicated place, full of gray areas, but when people are upset about a movie because of someone’s acting in it’s, ethnicity, religion, or nationality, I think things are pretty black and white. That you feel the need to defend it for tribal reasons puts you in a tribe defined explicitly by its racism, and man, that’s just not where I’d want to be.Report
So are you going to see it?Report
I have a 5 year old, so yes, of course I’m going to see it, as I have the, er, pleasure of getting to see every new Disney movie.Report
I would *LOVE* a review!
I’ve reached the point where I see maybe one movie a year in the theater and I can already tell that it ain’t gonna be that one.Report
In 2024, I saw 4 movies in the theater:
The Taste of Things: Really enjoyed it, but it also made me very hungry.
Sleeping Beauty: I have seen this so many times at this point that even the wonderful animation has ceased to impress me, but we did see it in a theater I love (The Paramount on Congress Ave, for folks who know Austin), so there’s that.
Paddington 2: Also saw it at the Paramount (they do a summer classic film series, with kids movie matinees on the weekends). Good movie, and my partner’s first time seeing it, so she cried a lot, as did the then 4 year-old.
Moana 2: I damn near fell asleep, but the then 4yo loves all things Moana, she has a Moana outfit, she frequently wears Moana’s necklace, and as a result, she loved the movie, and keeps asking me when we can watch it on Disney Plus.
I didn’t see it in theaters, unfortunately, but if you haven’t seen Flow, it’s a (sort of) kids movie I recommend for adults. I enjoyed watching it with the 5yo, but I do warn parents of kids that young: she cried so hard, and for so long (basically from about 5 minutes in until the end) that she looked like she had the beginnings of two black eyes.Report
Heimdahl was white, Goddamit!Report
The up-to-the-minute debate is over whether or not Snape was.Report
I’m old school. not up to the minute.Report
Welp, here are the deets:
The question is whether people who refuse to watch the new one are racist.
I mean… are you going to watch it?Report
Let’s just go with a bunch of adults being upset over the casting in a kids movie reveals a lot about the complainer.Report
Sure. We can immediately talk about how the fans of the franchise are bad people.
I mean, they’re fans of something created by JK Rowling so that goes without saying but now we can *REALLY* lean into how they shouldn’t care about this silly thing.
“Why do you care? This is stupid and what you like is stupid. Why do you care?”
Maybe we can get the people actually creating the show to ask that.Report
If they’re refusing to watch it because a black actor was cast, then yeah, they’re racist, by definition. I still fail to see why this is even a question, or why you’re so determined to defend them.Report
They’re busy screaming about how it should have been Adam Driver. “ADAM DRIVER WAS RIGHT THERE!”
Seriously, he was trending for two days on Twitter.
I, personally, am curious as to how they’re going to handle James bullying Snape in high school or exploring how Lily didn’t want to date Snape.
To be honest, I’m less expecting “I REFUSE TO WATCH THIS BECAUSE A BLACK ACTOR WAS CAST!” and more expecting a “Meh. Not for me…” response.
At which point the studios will pull a good, old-fashioned “YOU ONLY THINK IT WASN’T FOR YOU BECAUSE WE CAST A BLACK GUY!” and we can have an argument over the dark and unsettling reasons that other people aren’t consuming a show that we ourselves also aren’t consuming.Report
Let me be clear: if a black actor is cast, and because that actor is black, a person is upset, or refuses to see the movie, then yes, absolutely, that person is a racist. If they don’t want to see the movie for other reasons, and don’t care about the race of the actor cast for a given part, then no, they’re not racist, or at least we can’t tell whether they are from their willingness to see the movie.
If you want to beat around that bush, feel free, but that’s the only bush I’m talking about.Report
If someone says “Man, I wish they got Adam Driver… now I’m not interested in the show…”, can we accuse them of being secretly racist?
Oooh! If they claim that Rowling is transphobic, can I accuse them of rainbow-washing their racism?
“If you want to beat around that bush, feel free, but that’s the only bush I’m talking about.”
It’s an entertainment product in a marketplace that is oversaturated with entertainment products.
Feeling even the slightest of “ick”s is sufficient reason to watch Y instead of X for any Y and any X.
And accusing people of an “ism” or a “phobia” for chosing something, anything!, else in an oversaturated marketplace is a transparent attempt to inject a moral objection to a matter of taste and, get this, it trivializes the moral objection in the same way that calling wolf does.
Oh, you wanted Adam Driver to play Snape? That’s racist.Report
I think I’ve already answered all of these questions with my comments, but I’ll say it one last time, and let you go on beating around the bush as much as you like after that: if they are upset, or won’t see it, because an actor cast in the movie is black, then they’re racist, by definition. If they don’t want to see it for some other reason, it’s not relevant to what I’m saying, no matter how much you try to muddy the water by bringing it up.Report
If they don’t want to see it for some other reason, it’s not relevant to what I’m saying, no matter how much you try to muddy the water by bringing it up.
Do you think that automatically categorizing people who are expressing disappointment that it’s not Adam Driver are harboring some secret racism?
Because that’s how some folks are spinning it, you see.
Hell, some folks are spinning not wanting to see the show at all as being racist against the casting of Snape.
And, get this, this isn’t the first time this particular game has been played. Ghostbusters 2016, the remake of Charlie’s Angels… there’s a *LOT* of people who argued that people who didn’t want to see their slop were, in fact, sexist or racist or whathaveyou.
And now we’ve got a brand new controversy due to the casting of Snape.
“if they are upset, or won’t see it, because an actor cast in the movie is black, then they’re racist, by definition”
As if that’s the first time we’ve seen this game played instead of the umpteenth this decade.Report
Some are, some aren’t, depending on why they “refuse” to watch it. (“Refuse” is an interesting word choice, suggesting some reason other than mere lack of interest. And what might that be?) I’m not going to see it — not refuse, just not going to see it — simply because I have no interest in the entire Harry Potter story.
Is this really hard to understand?Report
As is so often the case, I am reminded of Vonnegut:
“As for literary criticism in general: I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or a play or a poem is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or a banana split.”
Quickly! Suit up! You’ve got to defend that hot fudge sundae against the women attacking it!Report
And I am reminded as is so often the case, of Robert Burns.Report
I think it’s reasonable to state that Gal Gadot is objectively more attractive that Rachel. I’m sure a poll would confirm it-and that’s just the their physical appearance. This from a guy who has a “thing” for shorter, dark haired women.
I’ve seen interactions of both to press and others, and frankly, Gal wins here too. So, there you go.Report
Chris: …the only reason for being upset about this casting decision is racism.
Most remakes of popular movies don’t have their lead actress give interviews on how bad the original was. That’s just unprofessional. I think the same interview also had her talk about how they’ve redone the plot so it’s now about girl power and how Snow doesn’t really need Charming.Report
Personally I think we’d all be a lot better off if we collectively decided to lower the importance of this issue to our larger worldview. Or at minimum approach it with an appreciation for the fact that companies producing movies for audiences that don’t actually exist is by definition a self correcting problem.Report
What fun is that?Report
I’m sure that’s why the anti-woke folks are upset that she’s starring in it: they just want to defend the quality of the original as cinema.Report
It’s a lot easier to claim racism than try to defend what’s happened on that movie.
Zegler’s behavior was seriously unprofessional. Her job is to generate good PR for the project, not be “a waking PR disaster for Disney”. Describing Prince Charming as “a guy who literally stalks [Snow White]”, going on to deem the story “weird”.
I hope all of this drama has been mishandled marketing and they end with a product my daughter and I would enjoy seeing. However Disney cancelling the premiere suggests they know they have a turkey on their hands on top of what Zegler has done to advertise it.Report
I mean, she’s right, the movie is dated. There aren’t many movies made in the 1930s that aren’t.
To me, her comments sound like an artist pointing out the reasons why a modern retelling of the story is justified, which would I would consider good PR. But that’s probably because I don’t have 1930s views on gender, so I’m not offended when someone points out that they weren’t great.
I admit I’m not much of a fan of the original, though I have seen it too many times thanks to my two children, and I assume most of the audience for the new movie will be children who also won’t care that she’s criticized aspects of the almost 90-year old version. I’m not really sure what to make of adults who do think criticizing the original is out of bounds for someone making a new version of it, though. I definitely don’t think it speaks well of them.Report
Is “being stupid” out of bounds?
Of course not.
Is “losing money” out of bounds?
Of course not. Wait, management is disagreeing…Report
Chris: I mean, she’s right, the movie is dated.
Very true. That’s a professional challenge for her to overcome. She failed.
If she had nothing positive to say about the original then she should have said nothing about it and focused on how she “enjoyed” working on the update and hopes everyone will enjoy it. Alternatively she could have called it “time tested” or something else vague.
Her job is to reach out to the fans of original and try to convince them to see the movie. Describing the previous male lead as a “stalker” seems unlikely to do that.
Questions about whether or not she was up to the part could have been trivially fixed by releasing a clip of her singing one of the songs or just a picture of her in costume (btw she looks and sounds great).
The fans of Vampire Lestat thought Tom Cruise was a terrible choice up until the studio released a clip of him in character. Try picturing what the fans would have thought about Tom describing Lestat as a gay serial killer.Report
Eh, I see it differently: I see it as a reason for remaking it, not a challenge to overcome. Otherwise, why on earth remake it? I know Hollywood remakes things because it’s easy money, not for artistic reasons, but if I were an artist, making a more modern version of a 90-year old movie would be a pretty good reason for doing it, if it tells a story that can still resonate.Report
Today’s euphemism for recession/depression is “economic detox” https://thehill.com/homenews/5182666-us-economy-government-spending-detox/Report
https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/investigation-advances-into-gene-hackman-s-20207912.php
“Actor Gene Hackman died of heart disease a full week after his wife died from hantavirus in their New Mexico hillside home, and he may not have been aware she was dead because he showed severe signs of Alzheimer’s disease, authorities revealed Friday.”Report
Bipedal humanoid robots are being allowed to run in a half marathon in Bejing.
The Rules:
Rules for humanoids running the Beijing Half-Marathon are announced:
⦿ Only bipedal robots (no wheels) – remote-controlled or autonomous
⦿ Height: 1.6 ft to 6.5 ft
⦿ Time limit: 3 hours and 30 minutes
⦿ 10-minute penalty for each battery swapReport