I’ve been listening to libertarians and right wing folks talking for decades – literally, for decades – about how they’re gonna rise up against government overreach and abuse of power.
When it actually arrives, nothing. Silence. Or open acquiescence.
This. Shame on them.
Have they forgotten what happens when fascists rule? How can anti-fascists be the people they fear?
IIRC correctly, Obama made an attack point of HRC's insurance 'mandate', during the primaries. Then, when he actually came to try to pass the ACA, the wonks explained to him that it was necessary, so he adopted it after all. I was a supporter of Obama, but I was deeply unimpressed.
In the end, the Rs torpedoed the 'mandate' as part of their performance theatre of opposing ACA while not being willing to take the electoral consequences of abolishing it. But they protected the insurance companies with restrictive enrolment periods instead, which turns out to be an inferior but workable solution.
(I think it wise to review how things have worked out after the row has died down. One might sometimes learn something.)
Re. the Blitzer scenario: I've just remember Obama's attacks on Hillary Clinton over her well-thought-out position on mandatory healthcare insurance. That's the sort of realpolitik Klein approves of.
If you do think strictly voluntary healthcare insurance is a good idea, which of course I don't, then you have to make healthcare meaningfully worse for anyone uninsured who could afford to be insured, otherwise why would anyone go to the expense. So chapeau to Blitzer's audience for intellectual consistency, if not for compassion.
My son asked me at the weekend what this "Birthright Citizenship" case is about.
It's been my parenting practice to answer controversial questions as neutrally as possible. But the facts in this case are not neutral. And he's a grown-up now.
"Well," I explained, "the text of the 14th amendment says, with no ambiguity whatever, that anyone born in the US while not enjoying diplomatic protection becomes a citizen. Trump doesn't like that, because sometimes foreigners have children. The Supreme Court gets to rule on what the Constitution means. In this case the meaning is clear, but on the other hand the far right on the Court. which is two-thirds of them, likes to give Trump whatever he wants, so who knows what they'll do."
"That's ridiculous," said he.
"Alas," said I, "being ridiculous doesn't stop it happening. In the last week or so, and off the top of my head, Trump has done the following:
- used regulatory powers to bully a major television network into suspending a comedian indefinitely, because he made fun of Trump's obsession with building a White House ballroom.
- claimed $15bn in damages from the New York Times because they published a true account of Trump's bawdy birthday wishes to Epstein written twenty something years ago. But the 85-page lawsuit was mostly Trump boasting about how great he thinks he is, and contained no clear account of damage suffered, so the judge rejected it.
- made an incoherent speech to the UN complaining that its escalator didn't work properly, denying global warming, and saying that he could run every other country better than its current government. The assembled ambassadors seemed not to agree.
- held a press conference to proclaim an utterly absurd theory that acetaminophen, which he can't pronounce, causes autism, throwing in further nonsense about the purported importance of giving infants more vaccine injections rather than fewer.
- had James Comey, formerly director of the FBI, indicted for perjury. The case is so weak that he couldn't find anyone in the DoJ willing to bring the charges, and had to appoint a lawyer with no experience as a prosecutor to do it.
- announced on social media that he's sending troops into Portland, Oregon, which he described as "war-ravaged". The city itself, which filmed reports show as boringly peaceful, doesn't want them.
- fired, or attempted to fire, Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board, in defiance of the letter and spirit of the Federal Reserve Act, which says he can't do it (this one is going to the Supreme Court also, so again who knows what will happen).
- boasted that he's brought about peace between 'Aberbaijan' and Albania, and also between Armenia and Cambodia.
I thought it worth listing these things (there may be others just as bad I left out) because we're becoming numb to the extent of Trump's abuse of power, and the stupidity and ignorance he brings to it. It's incomprehensible to the rest of the world that the Republican Party is content to go along with it.
Dubya's regime was malign and incompetent; Bolton was especially malign. But fighting fascism is the priority now.
Thanks to bobbyp for his link on this.
Other countries, including the UK, have their own sets of often overlapping problems.
Undeniably. But we don't have a fascist executive.
Non-political officials are not fired for telling the truth.
Thankfully, making the USA into a functioning democracy is not my problem.
The rest of the world is looking for ways to work round the descent of the US into fascism. I hope we'll manage.
If any readers here need some help when you emigrate to England, let me know.
I don't understand why one wouldn't be helpful to anyone one works with, or anyone at all. Just, why not?
Early in my banking career I was in a position where I had a fair understanding of a new convertible bond system being rolled out, and of convertible bonds themselves (it doesn't matter it you don't know what they are). A colleague in the USA (I was in London) was responsible for getting things set up in the new system: I helped her a lot. Later it transpired that her husband became a megabucks trader. I got skiing holidays in Aspen as a result.
But if I hadn't, I would still have wanted to be helpful.
It's pretty bad. Trump has gone from "stop fighting or else" to "carry on, we'll have some peace talks".
Letting Trump conduct international negotiations is like letting a toddler conduct brain surgery. But with many more lives at stake.
The distinction between "smart" and "clever" noted by US commentators doesn't, so far as I'm aware, exist in British English.
I think "smart" here refers to intelligence, unless the context makes it obvious that it refers to dress.
GftNC's suggestion that "smart" can mean "posh" is not part of my idiolect. Bryan Ferry, for example, has always seemed to me to be smartly dressed, but never posh.
Speaking of Trump: I was sitting in the Sheldonian Theatre on Saturday, for my daughter's graduation. The Vice-Chancellor favoured us with a shortish speech about the university's values, referencing the ceiling painting Triumph of Truth and Learning over Envy, Rapine, and Ignorance. In amongst the complex emotions I was feeling - joy for my daughter, grief for her mother who wasn't there, faint religious hope that perhaps she was watching from on high, and concern for my elderly father alongside me - I reflected that Trump is firmly aligned on the side of Envy, Rapine, and Ignorance, and is, for the moment at least, triumphing over Truth and Learning.
Talk of neck and shoulder pain gets my attention.
I've had neck pain and associated nerve symptoms in my hands and feet since October. In April I had decompressive surgery on my neck for degenerative cervical myelopathy. Since then I've been had shoulder pain to go with it, which gets severe with prolonged mild exertion - cooking dinner, for example.
The surgeon is hopeful that some of these symptoms will moderate with time.
It is, as Russell says, an eye-opener. I realise that people live with much worse than this from a much younger age. It's an extraordinary and underappreciated achievement for them to keep going in those circumstances.
I was taught using the School Mathematics Project, which seemed OK to me. But I may not be one of the "normal people".
I suggest that being able to divide accurately with pen and paper is now almost useless, whereas being able to divide approximately in one's head is useful for avoiding fat-finger errors. That is, the underpinnings have turned out to be more important than the algorithms.
...the alphabet contributes somewhat to that difficulty...
I'm puzzled by this. I'm not good at languages, relative to my other skills, but switching alphabets - Cyrillic, Greek, Georgian... is trivial.
(I struggle with Hebrew, where some of the letters are just too alike.)
India, with its huge population, already uses it because its people speak 5 mutually unintelligible native languages
Off the top of my head, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu. There are many others.
At a guess, there are a fair few powerful men who enjoyed what Epstein had to offer, from both parties. Trump is one of them.
It didn't occur to him before that a real investigation would be bad for him, because he's stupid and entitled.
He's now saying that any "credible" information should be released. "Credible" here means "not implicating Trump".
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Where are the 5 words?”
I’ve been listening to libertarians and right wing folks talking for decades – literally, for decades – about how they’re gonna rise up against government overreach and abuse of power.
When it actually arrives, nothing. Silence. Or open acquiescence.
This. Shame on them.
Have they forgotten what happens when fascists rule? How can anti-fascists be the people they fear?
I am anti-fascist.
"
"War-ravaged"
On “Ezra Coates DESTROYS Ta-Nehisi Klein!!!”
IIRC correctly, Obama made an attack point of HRC's insurance 'mandate', during the primaries. Then, when he actually came to try to pass the ACA, the wonks explained to him that it was necessary, so he adopted it after all. I was a supporter of Obama, but I was deeply unimpressed.
In the end, the Rs torpedoed the 'mandate' as part of their performance theatre of opposing ACA while not being willing to take the electoral consequences of abolishing it. But they protected the insurance companies with restrictive enrolment periods instead, which turns out to be an inferior but workable solution.
(I think it wise to review how things have worked out after the row has died down. One might sometimes learn something.)
"
Re. the Blitzer scenario: I've just remember Obama's attacks on Hillary Clinton over her well-thought-out position on mandatory healthcare insurance. That's the sort of realpolitik Klein approves of.
If you do think strictly voluntary healthcare insurance is a good idea, which of course I don't, then you have to make healthcare meaningfully worse for anyone uninsured who could afford to be insured, otherwise why would anyone go to the expense. So chapeau to Blitzer's audience for intellectual consistency, if not for compassion.
On “Where are the 5 words?”
My son asked me at the weekend what this "Birthright Citizenship" case is about.
It's been my parenting practice to answer controversial questions as neutrally as possible. But the facts in this case are not neutral. And he's a grown-up now.
"Well," I explained, "the text of the 14th amendment says, with no ambiguity whatever, that anyone born in the US while not enjoying diplomatic protection becomes a citizen. Trump doesn't like that, because sometimes foreigners have children. The Supreme Court gets to rule on what the Constitution means. In this case the meaning is clear, but on the other hand the far right on the Court. which is two-thirds of them, likes to give Trump whatever he wants, so who knows what they'll do."
"That's ridiculous," said he.
"Alas," said I, "being ridiculous doesn't stop it happening. In the last week or so, and off the top of my head, Trump has done the following:
- used regulatory powers to bully a major television network into suspending a comedian indefinitely, because he made fun of Trump's obsession with building a White House ballroom.
- claimed $15bn in damages from the New York Times because they published a true account of Trump's bawdy birthday wishes to Epstein written twenty something years ago. But the 85-page lawsuit was mostly Trump boasting about how great he thinks he is, and contained no clear account of damage suffered, so the judge rejected it.
- made an incoherent speech to the UN complaining that its escalator didn't work properly, denying global warming, and saying that he could run every other country better than its current government. The assembled ambassadors seemed not to agree.
- held a press conference to proclaim an utterly absurd theory that acetaminophen, which he can't pronounce, causes autism, throwing in further nonsense about the purported importance of giving infants more vaccine injections rather than fewer.
- had James Comey, formerly director of the FBI, indicted for perjury. The case is so weak that he couldn't find anyone in the DoJ willing to bring the charges, and had to appoint a lawyer with no experience as a prosecutor to do it.
- announced on social media that he's sending troops into Portland, Oregon, which he described as "war-ravaged". The city itself, which filmed reports show as boringly peaceful, doesn't want them.
- fired, or attempted to fire, Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board, in defiance of the letter and spirit of the Federal Reserve Act, which says he can't do it (this one is going to the Supreme Court also, so again who knows what will happen).
- boasted that he's brought about peace between 'Aberbaijan' and Albania, and also between Armenia and Cambodia.
I thought it worth listing these things (there may be others just as bad I left out) because we're becoming numb to the extent of Trump's abuse of power, and the stupidity and ignorance he brings to it. It's incomprehensible to the rest of the world that the Republican Party is content to go along with it.
On “Ezra Coates DESTROYS Ta-Nehisi Klein!!!”
The malevolent racism comes first: the KKK was not going to be led to righteousness by scholarly exegesis.
Conversely, one hopes that theists do not seek to do good merely because scripture says they should.
On “Notes about commenting”
Hello
Decus et tutamen, or something like that.
On “What to do?”
If it helps, I'd be happy to pay for a domain name, and hosting, for as long as I live.
On “The Schadenfreude Express”
Dubya's regime was malign and incompetent; Bolton was especially malign. But fighting fascism is the priority now.
Thanks to bobbyp for his link on this.
"
Other countries, including the UK, have their own sets of often overlapping problems.
Undeniably. But we don't have a fascist executive.
Non-political officials are not fired for telling the truth.
"
Thankfully, making the USA into a functioning democracy is not my problem.
The rest of the world is looking for ways to work round the descent of the US into fascism. I hope we'll manage.
If any readers here need some help when you emigrate to England, let me know.
On “David Brooks in Laodicea”
I don't understand why one wouldn't be helpful to anyone one works with, or anyone at all. Just, why not?
Early in my banking career I was in a position where I had a fair understanding of a new convertible bond system being rolled out, and of convertible bonds themselves (it doesn't matter it you don't know what they are). A colleague in the USA (I was in London) was responsible for getting things set up in the new system: I helped her a lot. Later it transpired that her husband became a megabucks trader. I got skiing holidays in Aspen as a result.
But if I hadn't, I would still have wanted to be helpful.
On “Giving Away the Store”
It's pretty bad. Trump has gone from "stop fighting or else" to "carry on, we'll have some peace talks".
Letting Trump conduct international negotiations is like letting a toddler conduct brain surgery. But with many more lives at stake.
On “A New Gilded Age”
I doubt that "clever" has got anything to do with "cleaver". It might be related to "claw".
"
The distinction between "smart" and "clever" noted by US commentators doesn't, so far as I'm aware, exist in British English.
I think "smart" here refers to intelligence, unless the context makes it obvious that it refers to dress.
GftNC's suggestion that "smart" can mean "posh" is not part of my idiolect. Bryan Ferry, for example, has always seemed to me to be smartly dressed, but never posh.
On “An open thread”
I disrecommend getting medical advice from LLMs or YouTube videos.
"
I disrecommend getting medical advice from LLMs or YouTube videos.
"
Speaking of Trump: I was sitting in the Sheldonian Theatre on Saturday, for my daughter's graduation. The Vice-Chancellor favoured us with a shortish speech about the university's values, referencing the ceiling painting Triumph of Truth and Learning over Envy, Rapine, and Ignorance. In amongst the complex emotions I was feeling - joy for my daughter, grief for her mother who wasn't there, faint religious hope that perhaps she was watching from on high, and concern for my elderly father alongside me - I reflected that Trump is firmly aligned on the side of Envy, Rapine, and Ignorance, and is, for the moment at least, triumphing over Truth and Learning.
"
Talk of neck and shoulder pain gets my attention.
I've had neck pain and associated nerve symptoms in my hands and feet since October. In April I had decompressive surgery on my neck for degenerative cervical myelopathy. Since then I've been had shoulder pain to go with it, which gets severe with prolonged mild exertion - cooking dinner, for example.
The surgeon is hopeful that some of these symptoms will moderate with time.
It is, as Russell says, an eye-opener. I realise that people live with much worse than this from a much younger age. It's an extraordinary and underappreciated achievement for them to keep going in those circumstances.
On “The law of the letter”
Thanks, Tony P. The two most underrated scientists in popular science history are Kepler and James Clerk Maxwell. (Galileo is the most overrated.)
"
Perhaps the greatest calculator, unmentioned in Devlin's article, was Kepler, who worked out his laws of planetary motion from Brahe's observations.
"
I was taught using the School Mathematics Project, which seemed OK to me. But I may not be one of the "normal people".
I suggest that being able to divide accurately with pen and paper is now almost useless, whereas being able to divide approximately in one's head is useful for avoiding fat-finger errors. That is, the underpinnings have turned out to be more important than the algorithms.
"
...the alphabet contributes somewhat to that difficulty...
I'm puzzled by this. I'm not good at languages, relative to my other skills, but switching alphabets - Cyrillic, Greek, Georgian... is trivial.
(I struggle with Hebrew, where some of the letters are just too alike.)
"
India, with its huge population, already uses it because its people speak 5 mutually unintelligible native languages
Off the top of my head, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu. There are many others.
On “Your Schadenfreude monitoring open thread”
At a guess, there are a fair few powerful men who enjoyed what Epstein had to offer, from both parties. Trump is one of them.
It didn't occur to him before that a real investigation would be bad for him, because he's stupid and entitled.
He's now saying that any "credible" information should be released. "Credible" here means "not implicating Trump".
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.