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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • Additionally, and most interestingly:

    A pro-Trump super PAC called Future Coalition PAC has been placing contradictory ads targeting Arab voters in Michigan and Jewish voters in Pennsylvania. The group’s digital ads in Michigan portray Harris as taking Israel’s side against pro-Palestinian protesters. In Pennsylvania, on the other hand, the group’s ads question her support for Israel and accuse her of “pandering to Palestine.”

    Sorry not sorry, but the left got played like a fiddle by not understanding the more immediate existential threat to their survival, and now I’m afraid we’ll all suffer for it. Bibi put Biden in what he knew was an unwinnable situation where he had to choose between appealing to 3% of Michigan voters (Arab-Americans) and appealing to 3% of Pennsylvania voters (Jewish Americans), and now the left flank is turning toward Trump over it and he might win both states:

    “Because the situation has escalated in recent weeks, I think a lot people say what’s the difference?” said Warren David, a third-generation Arab American who is president of Arab America, a digital media platform. “ I am shocked at how many people say they are voting for Trump, when we were talking to people on the streets in bakeries and in different places. Trump is really capitalizing on this.” David said he was approached by a Trump surrogate to appear at his conference in Michigan this weekend and said no. Others — including leaders from the “uncommitted” movement who urged votes against Biden in the Democratic primary race — are appearing, he said.

    Heaven help us all.




  • Absolutely refreshing 9-minute conversation that put Cooper on his heels, capped off with this:

    “Some of what we’re talking about tonight, Anderson, is not actually an opinion at all. It is just the facts. And you are one of the most trusted voices on television, and it is important in those moments where you know those conversations devolve into nonsense, particularly on the other side of the aisle. There are conspiracy theories–they won’t even say her name right! That has to be checked in the moment because that is what fascism looks like, that is how we start sliding down a very slippery slope, and we cannot afford to be here. The election is 12 days away, and this should not be even what is on the ballot, but democracy is on the line. That is not a partisan issue, it is the truth. And I think that’s what’s important for cable news networks, in particular, to be saying, whether you’re on Fox, you’re on CNN, or you’re on MSNBC. For all of us, that is our responsibility and our patriotic duty.”

    God damn I hope we don’t look back on these moments as our last chance before the dominoes started falling…


  • I was hopeful when media figures started to ask themselves how to better cover Trump after 2016. NPR and On The Media had some decent journalism panels where they dug into the problems with obeying long-standing rules/norms to cover a candidate that weaponizes them. I saw a possibility for real reflection and maybe a significant course correction. That door slammed shut like 2 fucking years ago, and they’ve played EXACTLY the same game over this campaign. I knew we were fucked when a reporter came on after the Biden-Trump debate to say, essentially, “…and some of Trump’s supporters have claimed, without evidence, that Joe Biden has died.”

    That’s it. That was the end of her coverage. They can’t even bring themselves to open their eyes long enough to observe unequivocally THAT THE PRESIDENT IS NOT DEAD. If the American experiment fails, a shitload of blame will lay at the feet of the media, who have long since abandoned their pursuit of "T"ruth in favor of the toxoplasma of rage.










  • It’s certainly an interesting exercise in contrasting responses to a huge market shock. Obama was criticized for not doing enough, so Biden went all-in. We now know the Covid-era supply chain shocks were somewhat temporary, and rather than falling off a cliff like it did in 07/08, demand simply shifted to different markets, so one could reasonably conclude that the amount of demand-side spending through the pandemic was a bit excessive. That somewhat unnecessary influx of money is what allowed prices to jump, but it’s also interesting that our rate of inflation was persistently lower than many other developed nations, so it may not have been totally unnecessary. Hopefully economists have learned valuable lessons about the appropriate response to structural failures (like the housing crash) versus structural disruptions (like the pandemic), and adjust their recommendations going forward. Whether or not the recovery fixed some of our more long-term and systemic economy-wide failures like income inequality and the GFC-induced housing shortage (i.e. it didn’t), it’s laudable that Biden and Powell managed a very rare soft landing when they could have just as easily triggered a full-blown recession.