…how’s it looking? [DOT 15/10/24]

what isn't clear...

…when it comes to things looking darker…the days getting shorter doesn’t help…but…maybe the numbers will start getting some points across that feel like other signs should have

The earliest estimates suggest the latest storm, Hurricane Milton, may have unleashed roughly $50 billion in damage across Florida, destroying countless homes, businesses and critical infrastructure that will need to be repaired or replaced, probably with the help of urgently needed federal aid.

But Milton is only the most recent extreme weather event in a nation that experiences on average a billion-dollar climate disaster roughly every three weeks, according to some federal estimates. As these storms, droughts, wildfires and floods strike with greater frequency and intensity, the work to rebuild after them has grown more expensive, too. That has exacerbated the many financial strains on the federal government at a time when the national debt exceeds $35 trillion.

“I think the cost of climate [change] is increasingly a threat to our already very fragile fiscal outlook,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. Factoring in the prospect that the government must spend “tens of billions or hundreds of billions more each year to help mitigate the fallout of climate events,” he added, “the outlook looks even darker.”

…that part at least seems clear

The dire warnings contrast starkly with the mood in Congress, where Democrats and Republicans often have warred over who should foot the bill for the costs of extreme weather. In late September, lawmakers departed Washington for the campaign trail, and they have expressed little willingness to return on an emergency basis.

Biden, meanwhile, has not demanded that Congress reconvene after Milton and its immediate predecessor, Helene, which decimated North Carolina. This week, the president urged lawmakers to “move as rapidly as they can” and approve emergency funding.
[…]
Its disaster relief fund, which allows FEMA to finance immediate response and assist local communities with recovery costs, soared to more than $41 billion in fiscal 2023, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. The last four years marked the four most expensive for the program, which FEMA also tapped over that period to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

The figure tells an incomplete story, because FEMA is one of more than a dozen federal agencies that aid in a disaster, and it often supplies funds to the hardest-hit communities for many years. W. Craig Fugate, who ran the agency under President Barack Obama from May 2009 to January 2017, said he was still approving aid related to Hurricane Katrina in his final year on the job — 11 years after the deadly storm.

…the numbers may or may not be as short of the reality as the estimate biden’s lot gave for the next few years…but even as they stand they seem hard to ignore

Repeatedly, the government’s budget analysts have pointed to the rapid rise in spending by the National Flood Insurance Program, which covers millions of Americans, as wider swaths of the country begin to face new risks from rising waters.

The National Forest Service more recently reported that it spends an average of $2.9 billion on wildfire suppression on covered lands annually, but it projected that the estimate — issued in May — could rise by as much as 84 percent over the next 25 years without substantial federal intervention.

In a worst-case scenario, federal health-care spending could skyrocket by as much as $22 billion by the end of the century if people become sicker because of extreme temperatures and worsening air quality, one study found, though its authors cautioned that it “may only be a small portion” of the total price tag. Outside analysts at the Rand think tank last year cited past federal findings as they sounded the alarm about Social Security, noting that its finances could sour “if people retire earlier or disability rates increase in response to climate change.”

And the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog, has issued multiple reports about a key federal program that insures farmers’ crops against drought and other adverse conditions. Its costs have steadily increased since 2016, topping $17 billion in 2022, the last year studied.

“We know the costs are going to continue to grow in the future as climate change intensifies,” said Anne Schechinger, the Midwest director for the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy nonprofit that has studied the program and recommended changes.

By the organization’s estimate, payments in the federal crop program rose about 500 percent between 2001 and 2023. Drought in states including Texas and excess moisture from high rainfall in areas like the Midwest have helped drive up the costs to taxpayers, often resulting in repeat insurance payments to areas that are regularly exposed to extreme weather, according to EWG.

…the way it works…if it’s true in one place it’s broadly true pretty much everyplace in one sense or the other…so I imagine that’s lit a fire under sensible people who are doing reasonable things because they can all agree that it’s a fucking problem…checks notes

The widening fiscal risks have troubled some fiscal hawks in Washington, who have called on federal lawmakers to offset any new climate expenses — including some emergency disaster spending — with other budget cuts or new savings.

…oh…yeah…I remember now

At times, Republicans in Congress have halted some of these measures in an attempt to ensure they do not add to the deficit, though some have reversed course when their communities have been in harm’s way. Surveying the extensive damage this week in North Carolina, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) did not explicitly address the looming fight: He assured locals that FEMA has enough money, but promised Congress would convene soon and, if necessary, approve “the appropriate amount.”

Democrats, meanwhile, broadly have supported massive new federal investments to slow climate change or blunt the expensive consequences of a gradually warming planet.

…so…let’s say there’s a storm coming…looks like it’s going to fuck the place up…& the school is where people are supposed to shelter…but it needs boarding up…do you head down the hardware supplies place & grab what you need & get on with that…or do you argue about whether the costs in the first instance should be borne by the municipality or the school or require a ballot measure to levy a new tax & insist nobody weatherproof anything until after the next election…& leave all those big panes of glass uncovered when you stuff the buildings with people & unleash a hurricane on them?

…I know it’s an oversimplification…but…that I don’t know that it isn’t still a fair one does tend to fuck with me some

The rising risks also prompted the White House to calculate the fiscal effects of climate change in the annual budgets it submits to Congress. The inaugural document, issued in 2022, projected that some climate scenarios could hammer U.S. output and raise the country’s expenses — leading U.S. debt to reach 124 percent of its gross domestic product over the next 25 years, along with higher spending on Social Security and Medicare as the population ages.

Each subsequent fiscal year, the White House has continued raising alarms about the fiscal consequences of climate change, predicting it could raise costs for the military, create new demands on anti-poverty programs and threaten its ability to service federally backed mortgages if homes are damaged or destroyed due to extreme weather.

“The effects of human-caused climate change are already far-reaching and worsening across the United States,” the administration added in its latest budget issued in March. “As broad economic damages from climate change grow, so does the impact of the climate crisis on the Federal Budget.”

Rising disaster costs leave U.S. confronting fiscal risks of climate change [WaPo]

…but…no…it’s an election year…with a wildly destructive criminal in the running…if we’re going to do it properly

…then in my sorry analogy we’d need a cohort who hot-foot it down to the lumber yard & torch the joint while screaming that the government owes them money because their house (& or compound) drowned

The Washington Post reported late Sunday that federal emergency responders were ordered evacuated from Rutherford County, N.C., on Saturday due to a reported threat from militia. An official with the U.S. Forest Service said the National Guard “had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying there were out hunting FEMA.”

Earlier in the day, a resident threatened FEMA personnel in a trailer in the same county, according to two volunteers with Cajun Navy, a relief organization. Former Forest Service official Riva Duncan also said people had been harassing federal employees who were delivering aid to the area, saying they didn’t want the help.

Ashe County, N.C., sheriff Phil Howell cited “threats” made against FEMA employees in nearby counties — though not in his, he said — and said the officials had “paused their process as they are assessing the threats.”

Separately, Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) told MSNBC on Sunday that “we had two counties [where] folks reported different militia groups attacking and threatening FEMA.”

…&…look…even after ’16 I’m not persuaded that the people shovelling coal in the furnace of their long-since runaway train are in the kind of control they think they are when they do shit like this to “steer” things their way…but…can we just acknowledge what the course that charts looks like, for a second…or…hell…probably a hot minute?

To be clear, it’s not just social media users promoting this underlying theory. It has also been Trump, Musk and prominent MAGA influencers.

They haven’t specifically cited the claims about lithium deposits, but they have promoted the idea that the government is blocking and seizing things. Musk on Oct. 4 passed along a claim from a SpaceX employee who claimed that FEMA was “actively blocking shipments and seizing goods and services locally and locking them away to state they are their own.” Trump then reposted Musk’s X post on his Truth Social platform. Trump has also claimed without evidence that the hurricane response is deliberately withholding aid from Republican-leaning areas.

…&…I’m probably coming back to this part

…& that whole “militia” mess…but to finish up with this one

Those are among a battery of false claims Trump has made about the hurricane response, in a transparent effort to politically harm the Democrats atop the federal and state governments — including his 2024 election opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Shortly after the hurricane hit, Trump claimed Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) hadn’t been able to reach President Joe Biden, even though Kemp had already said he’d spoken to Biden. Trump has also falsely claimed FEMA funding was diverted to helping migrants.

It’s difficult to attach what we know of the apparent threats in North Carolina directly to Trump or even Musk, vs. others promoting such claims. The claim about seized materials has not been Trump’s most prominent conspiracy theory, even as he has clearly trafficked in it and made other false claims about FEMA.
[…]
But regardless of the origin of the threats, it’s clear the underlying conspiracy theories are creating real problems on the ground and unnecessary confusion and fear in North Carolina. And as with the Jan. 6 insurrection, while Trump’s direct culpability might be an open question, it’s incontrovertible that he has made a tense situation worse with his misinformation.

Americans are experiencing the real-world consequences of throwing conspiracy theories into a tense situation — again. [WaPo]

…now…call me a conspiracy theorist if you will…but…might there be…I dunno…a connection, maybe…between that stuff…&…another again, again?

A man armed with guns and false press and VIP passes was apprehended by authorities at a campaign rally in California on Saturday being held by Donald Trump.

The suspect, identified as Las Vegas resident Vem Miller, was intercepted by police at a checkpoint about a half-mile from an entrance to the rally in Coachella Valley, California, soon before it began, police said Sunday.

Police said Miller was carrying a loaded shotgun, handgun and high-capacity magazine and is believed to be a member of a rightwing anti-government organization.

Miller was booked for possessing a loaded firearm and a high capacity magazine – and was released after posting $5,000 bail, police records show.

“The incident did not impact the safety of former president Trump or attendees of the event,” the Riverside county sheriff’s office said in a press release.

The Secret Service put out a statement saying it was apprised of the arrest: “The incident did not impact protective operations. The Secret Service extends its gratitude to the deputies and local partners who assisted in safeguarding last night’s events.”

…if I’m not mistaken he’s already saying that’s the trifecta of assassination attempts he’s survived…never mind this part

The suspect later told US media that he was a Trump supporter who bought the guns for his own safety and notified police at a checkpoint that they were in the trunk of his car. “These accusations are complete bullshit,” Miller said. “I’m an artist, I’m the last person that would cause any violence and harm to anybody.”

He said he was surprised by his arrest, and had been detained for about eight hours.

Miller holds a UCLA master’s degree, and in 2022 ran for Nevada state assembly. Bianco said Miller considers himself a so-called sovereign citizen, a group of people who do not believe they are subject to any government statutes unless they consent to them.

Bianco said Miller’s identity card was enough to raise suspicion with local rally security. “They were different enough to cause the deputies alarm,” he said, according to the Riverside Press-Enterprise.

sovereign citizens…not to be confused with that book with a rees-mogg on the cover & its sovereign individual…not for nothing…but the incidence of the former historically aligns pretty correlatively with those militias…&…those & the musky stench of bro have a fondness for the latter these days…so that’s a heady bunch of fumes to huff…could be more like nitro than nitrous, even…which is why it seems like the question that tweet of elon’s begs the hardest, for me…is whether this employee telling him exactly what it suits him to hear might check a few more boxes on the down-there-to-leverage-it-online-for-the-batshit-right bingo card

The politicization of the response to Helene and later Milton has provided a recruitment opportunity for white supremacist groups who have assembled in devastated regions that government emergency services have struggled to reach as part of a recruitment drive and PR effort.

Fema has also long been a target of unfounded anti-government conspiracy theorists – especially on the US’s far right – going back more than a decade.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that white nationalist groups, including Patriot Front, had joined recovery efforts in Florida and in the Carolinas. An X post from western North Carolina read: “We in Patriot Front are here to help out the local communities … Our politicians can hem and haw and switch over quickly to their talking points about Israel, but we truly are supporting our communities and being America first.”

A Guardian report from 2020 described people in Corbett, Oregon, being stopped at armed civilian checkpoints and asked to identify themselves during wildfires, sparking a debate about vigilante activity and how law enforcement should respond.

…& there’s always the self-fullfilling element to this species of chucklefuckery

Fema had reportedly responded to the threats by ceasing to go door-to-door and instead were operating from fixed locations. “For the safety of our dedicated staff and the disaster survivors we are helping, Fema has made some operational adjustments”, an anonymous official told the Post.
[…]
Federal officials co-ordinating the Helene response have been subjected to antisemitic attacks that travel alongside anti-government conspiracy theories, according to a report by the non-profit Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD).

Tensions between residents and government emergency workers resulted in harassment, Riva Duncan, a former Forest Service official in the area, including some being told: “We don’t want the government here”.

“It’s terrible because a lot of these folks who need assistance are refusing it because they believe the stuff people are saying about Fema and the government,” Duncan told the Post. “And it’s sad because they are probably the ones who need the help the most.”
[…]
Anti-government sentiment and disinformation have spread far beyond Appalachia, with the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, accused of echoing misinformation for political gain. Some Republicans have even claimed the US government can control the weather, triggering widespread condemnation, especially by local Republican figures.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/14/north-carolina-hurricane-helene-fema-armed-militia-threat

…so…toy soldiers on tik tok bragging about how they…I dunno…shot the ground so the water drained away…or used a machine gun instead of a chainsaw to cut one into bits to drag off a road because fully-automatic military hardware is only illegal for other people or whatever makes them feel big & strong & gets “engagement”…while the people watching that shit are turning away the emergency services “with malice aforethought” & the ones actually trying to provide aid are having to curtail their assistance while listening to people make mileage out of how they can’t & won’t do enough to help the people stopping them

…do I have that…”right™”?

The town hall, moderated by South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R), began with questions from preselected attendees for the former president. Donald Trump offered meandering answers for how he would address housing affordability and help small businesses. But it took a sudden turn after two attendees required medical attention.

…because apparently these are

Donald Trump pens 1am screed against controversial biopic The Apprentice [Guardian]

…dancing days?

And so Trump, after jokingly asking the crowd whether “anybody else would like to faint,” took a different approach.

“Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” he said.

For 39 minutes, Trump swayed, bopped — sometimes stopping to speak — as he turned the event into almost a living-room listening session of his favorite songs from his self-curated rally playlist.

He played nine tracks. He danced. He shook hands with people onstage. He pointed to the crowd. Noem stood beside him, nodding with her hands clasped. Trump stayed in place onstage, slowly moving back and forth. He was done answering questions for the night.

…back to this in a sec

…because “fuck a fact-check – & fuck you for fact-checking anything but most especially me”

Trump nearly backed out of an August interview with a group of Black journalists after learning they planned to fact-check his claims. The following month, he and his allies repeatedly complained about the fact-checking that occurred during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, berating journalists and news executives in the middle of the televised debate.

And this month, Trump declined to sit down for an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” because he objected to the show’s practice of fact-checking, according to the show.

Campaign advisers also expressly asked CBS News to forgo fact checking in its vice-presidential debate with Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance — who then complained on air when a moderator corrected him.

The moves are the latest example of Trump’s long-held resistance to being called to account for his falsehoods, which have formed the bedrock of his political message for years.
[…]
Lucas Graves, a journalism and mass communications professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said that publicly chafing at fact-checking has become a form of tribalism among some Republicans.

“Within the political establishment on the right, it is now considered quite legitimate — and quite legitimate to say publicly and openly — that you disapprove of fact-checking,” said Lucas, author of “Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism. “Precisely because of Trump’s unusual relationship with the truth — even for a politician — it’s hardly surprising that he would object to it so volubly and so forcefully.”

The Washington Post Fact Checker team tallied that by the end of Trump’s presidency, he had made 30,573 false or misleading claims — an average of about 21 false, erroneous or misleading claims a day.
[…]
But Harris does not misstate the truth regularly, as Trump does, and she has also not protested being fact-checked. And unlike Trump, she sat down for a wide-ranging interview with “60 Minutes” that aired last week.

As part of Harris’s interview, the show took the extraordinary step of explaining why it was not airing a similar segment with Trump, who had initially agreed to an interview before changing his mind.

“A week ago, Trump backed out,” CBS correspondent Scott Pelley explained. “The campaign offered shifting explanations. First, it complained that we would fact-check the interview. We fact-check every story. Later, Trump said he needed an apology for his interview in 2020.”

Pelley went on to explain that the 2020 incident for which Trump requested an apology had never occurred.
[…]
“Margaret, the rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact check,” Vance said. Behind the scenes, his team also raised strenuous objections with the network, arguing that such a moment was not supposed to have occurred. CBS declined to comment.

The exchange was brief, but by then, the Trump-Vance ticket’s desire to eschew fact-checking had so penetrated the public consciousness that “Saturday Night Live” poked fun at it in their next episode, when Bowen Yang, playing Vance, uttered a series of falsehoods while repeatedly muttering for the moderators not to check his facts.

“You know, Nora, it’s rich to say that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over power — we said no fact checking — and willingly, and willingly — don’t check that — got on his plane without incident — don’t — right after saving Obamacare — don’t check that,” Yang-as-Vance said as the audience laughed.

The moves are the latest example of Trump’s long-held resistance to being called to account for his falsehoods. [WaPo]

…when the required display of fealty includes active & continuous denial of objective reality…generally speaking you’re in trouble…give or take how established the religion is, I suppose…& whether or not it demands human sacrifice in a literal rather than transubstantiatied sort of a way…so…I’m pretty comfortable saying shockingly-obviously-bad-man-does-bad-things-&-lies-about-how-he-didn’t is…shockingly obvious…with most of the actual shock being that people still get all oliver-twist-with-an-empty-gruel-bowl about it…but…then I keep reading about a world that makes weeping seem like a reasonable response…so…who’s the real masochist…or something?

Some in the crowd began to leave. Some looked around, wondering whether he was done speaking for the night and how much longer the dance — or sway — session would last. Many stayed holding their cameras and watched as Trump took in the music, at times looking over at a screen beside him that showed videos of James Brown singing “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” and Sinéad O’Connor performing “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

…this…actually happened?

He briefly returned to talking about the election and the importance of winning Pennsylvania. After Noem gave Trump the option of closing “with a specific song” or taking “two more fast questions,” he addressed one of his aides: “So Justin, how about a couple really beauties and we’ll sit down and relax.”
[…]
It was time to listen to Andrea Bocelli’s “Time to Say Goodbye.” After listening to James Brown, Trump began to speak again, as if remembering that he was still at an event that was billed as a town hall.

“This is the most important election in the history of our country,” Trump said, once again accusing Democrats of weaponizing elections. But then he went back to his music.

“Those two people that went down are patriots and we love them and because of them we ended up with some good music, right?” he asked. “So play ‘YMCA!’ Go ahead, let’s go nice and loud!”

“Here we go, everybody,” Noem interjected.

The crowd cheered and danced to the Village People song from the 1970s, which celebrates gay cruising culture. Noem put her hands up in the shape of a “Y.” As the song began to end, Trump mouthed the words: “Nobody’s leaving.”

“Nobody’s leaving, what’s going on? There’s nobody leaving. Keep going,” he said, as Rufus Wainwright’s version of “Hallelujah” played next. “All right, turn that music up! Turn that up. Great song!”

Then it was “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinéad O’Connor. “An American Trilogy” by Elvis Presley. “Rich Men North of Richmond” by Oliver Anthony. Trump stood and swayed.

As “November Rain” by Guns N’ Roses played, he walked off the stage. He spoke to attendees on his way out, as “Memory” from “Cats” the musical played in the background.

Trump sways and bops to music for 39 minutes in bizarre town hall episode [WaPo]

…if rome were literally burning in the backdrop you couldn’t get much more on the fucking nose than this shit, surely?

But vulnerabilities persist. The risks this year will depend on the particulars of the election — and the closeness of the results. Many election officials and experts are worried false narratives could again take off, eroding public trust and leading to chaos, confusion and, in a worst-case scenario, violence. David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said that those who oversee elections in key states are once again bracing to be harassed and threatened for doing their jobs.

“This is not a hypothetical,” he said. “This is not fearmongering. This is what happened in 2020 and since, on a widespread scale.”
[…]
“We also don’t know how the threat landscape will morph,” said Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee for Trump’s first impeachment. “The way the litigation landscape looks [weeks before the election] is almost never the way it looks in November.”
[…]
“If you inundate the system more than it can handle, you result in a kind of denial of service attack and you kind of shut the whole system down,” said Edward Foley, the director of the election law program at Ohio State University. “And our judicial system isn’t built for massive amounts of litigation around election results.”
[…]
Election experts are worried rogue local or state officials could refuse to certify their results and hamper the dispatch of electoral votes to Congress on time.

Trump supporters who might not accept the election results “will not be spending two months packing up their SUVs and driving to D.C. They are going to be focusing their efforts on county seats, county courthouses, little county voting centers in hundreds of places all over the country if Trump loses,” said Becker.
[…]
When House members are sworn in on Jan. 3, their first task will be to elect a speaker. In 2023, it took four days and 15 votes to elect a speaker. Later that year, it took three weeks to choose a new leader. Congress would be in uncharted territory if it didn’t have a speaker by Jan. 6, when it must meet to certify the presidential results. The House can perform few functions without a speaker, according to historians, and in October 2023 was largely immobilized while members debated who should lead them.
[…]
In 2020, Trump allies came up with their plan to have Republican electors meet in states that Biden won at the last minute. Its full scope didn’t become apparent until a year or more after the election. Similarly, this year something new could be tried that attorneys and election officials haven’t yet gamed out.

How Trump may try to challenge the election results if he loses again [WaPo]

…so…it’s all very well coming up with this sort of thing

Hey Dems, stop doomscrolling and go win the election [WaPo]

…but in a variety of ways it’s a lot easier said than done

Donald Trump has provoked an angry backlash from Democrats after calling for the US armed forces to be turned against his political adversaries when voters go to the polls at next month’s presidential election.

In comments that added further fuel to fears of an authoritarian crackdown if he recaptures the White House, the Republican nominee said the military or national guard should be deployed against opponents that he called “the enemy within” when the election takes place on 5 November.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/14/trump-military-enemy-within-armed-forces-election-day

…the fucking enemy within…just switching out the dog-whistles for bullhorns, are we?

…still…does leave even the hard of hearing with a dwindling supply of excuses for not noticing

The New York Times is clearly not a disinterested bystander on this issue. It is this board’s conviction, shared by most independent news media, that governmental restrictions on freedoms of the press are a certain route to abuse of power and authoritarianism. The Times and its reporters have been involved in numerous legal battles to ensure that the press remains free and independent.

But this is not purely a matter of press versus government. This law would effectively protect those who serve the public interest by blowing the whistle on government wrongdoing. And it would help protect all Americans, who deserve nothing less than the full truth about the officials they elect and the government they fund.

The nation’s founders saw freedom of expression as a critical component of democracy. George Washington’s formulation is almost biblical: “The freedom of speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the slaughter.”

Today, every member of the House, some themselves targets of sharp investigative reporting or frequent critics of the news media, has supported swift passage of the PRESS bill. There are three Republican sponsors of the bill in the Senate, but it is opposed by a small clutch of conservative senators — most notably Tom Cotton, a hard-right Republican from Arkansas — attempting to keep the legislation bottled up in the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Cotton’s argument is that the PRESS Act would open a floodgate to leaks that would undermine law enforcement and national security. That argument, however, is based not on evidence but on a visceral hostility to the news media, which he has made clear he views largely as an ideological foe. Too many reporters, he said in a statement, are “little more than left-wing activists who are, at best, ambivalent about America and who are cavalier about our security and the truth.”
[…]
Administrations of both parties — and especially those of Barack Obama and Donald Trump — have tried varying means to block leaks that would be in the public interest and to pressure reporters into revealing their sources. Attorney General Merrick Garland ended these abuses for the duration of President Biden’s administration, announcing that the Justice Department would no longer dig through the phone records of reporters to identify sources for leak investigations. Without a law in place, though, a future administration could easily reinstate that practice.

Nothing in the PRESS Act would prevent the government from prosecuting leakers, and the government has vast powers to monitor its officials without demanding that reporters divulge the information they seek.

There is no evidence that states with press shield laws have been hamstrung in combating crime, and the federal government has identified and prosecuted major leakers without information coerced from reporters. The Obama administration spent years trying to force the reporter James Risen, formerly of The Times, to identify his source for a book in which he detailed a failed C.I.A. plan to undermine Iran’s nuclear program. Though required by a subpoena to testify, Mr. Risen steadfastly refused to identify his source and was not compelled to do so. The leaker was arrested and imprisoned anyway.

The PRESS Act would not protect journalists who violate laws to acquire information, and the exceptions for national security are broad. But hostility toward the news media in the polarized politics of the day makes it more urgent than ever to ensure that reporters can continue to pursue their essential role as watchdogs over the government without the threat of court-ordered demands for their sources and information. The PRESS Act is needed now.

A Reporter’s Shield Law Is Vital to Prevent Abuses of Power [NYT – the editorial board, even]

In recent years, though, the distance has narrowed between memory and identity, between immigration as a once upon a time versus a here and now. In our politics, the presence of immigrants is again a contested campaign issue. But even that word — “issue” — is too convenient, a buffer between policy and humanity. It’s one thing to ponder and debate issues, as I do in my work. It’s another to be one.
[…]
It would be wildly ahistoric to say that Trump, on his own, has eroded the ideal of America as a nation of immigrants. His opponents love to say that “this is not who we are,” even if, in truth, it is who we have often been. For all of Trump’s particular efforts — the wall, the travel ban, the family separations and now the pledge of mass deportation — he is part of a long tradition. You don’t have to go back to the expulsion of Mexicans and Mexican Americans during the Great Depression, or the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in the late 19th century, or Benjamin Franklin’s musings on those inassimilable Germans. But you could.
[…]
I do not speak for immigrants, for Hispanics or for my family; I take on neither the burden nor the arrogance of representation. No doubt, Trump’s various statements attacking immigrants strike different people, including other newcomers, in different ways. To me, they show that the man who accuses immigrants of poisoning the blood of America is administering his own brand of venom, one whose cumulative effect is to disfigure a nation rather than exalt it.
[…]
When Trump twice stressed “they’re not sending you,” he physically pointed at his audience, at you, emphasizing the gap he finds between those who belong and those who never will. And when he could only “assume” that some immigrants were good people, he tacitly acknowledged the remove at which he holds them. Trump does not say that he knows any good immigrants; he must imagine their existence.

But to me, Trump’s starkest message in that moment was the passivity he implied with one word. “They’re not sending their best.” Sending.

Nobody sent me. No government shipped me, my parents or my sisters to LAX, our official port of entry. We chose to leave, and we chose this place. Obsessed with our education, my father believed his children would receive better schooling in the United States, that we would learn to speak English well. I have few strong memories of those earliest days — I do recall how distasteful it was to drink my milk cold for the first time — but I know the story of our choice, because I heard it so often. No one forced us aboard that plane. I’ll forever wonder if it was the right choice, but I’ll never doubt that it was ours to make.

“Little is more extraordinary than the decision to migrate, little more extraordinary than the accumulation of emotions and thoughts which finally leads a family to say farewell to a community where it has lived for centuries, to abandon old ties and familiar landmarks,” John F. Kennedy wrote in “A Nation of Immigrants.” He called it a “highly individual decision” and “an enormous intellectual and emotional commitment.”

“Sending” reflects not just how Trump views immigration but how he sees the world: all-powerful leaders making decisions, unquestioned and unreviewable, over people’s lives. But “sending” robs me of agency over my own fate. After seven years in California, we moved back to Lima, and I lived there for another seven years until I finished high school. Then I decided to return to the United States for college, to make this my home. These were choices, not orders. “Sending” renders the immigrant not just unwanted but submissive.

When Trump Rants, This Is What I Hear [NYT]

…agency, huh?

…feel like that part keeps coming up in different places…generally not on account of most people having too much…but others having the appearance of it being out of hand…but somewhere in particular…maybe I’ll remember before I give up but I’m nearly out of time as it is & I haven’t scratched the surface of the shit that continues to feel like it ought to be stopping the world & putting all the militaries on time-out until we get some basic ground-rules thrashed about about the henious shit you “just don’t do”…as chris rock once put it

…the pressures in some proportionally small chambers are pretty extreme

This is the third in a series of three stories on the run-up to the 2024 US presidential election in Shasta county, a region of 180,000 people in northern California that has emerged as a center of the election denial movement and hotbed for far-right politics. Read the first and second story.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/14/election-shasta-california-extremism

…&…this is probably worth a look

Trio of professors win Nobel economics prize for work on post-colonial wealth [Guardian]

…& it’s no easier than ever to turn a blind eye to what’s going on in ukraine or israel’s orbit…so who has time to take jokers like this seriously

Kash Patel: The Magical Rise of a Self-Described ‘Wizard’ in Trump World
The MAGA loyalist Mr. Patel aims to run the C.I.A. if Donald Trump wins the presidency. But critics say his swagger masks deep inexperience.
[NYT]

…actually…the time part reminds me…I’m out but after I get this posted I’ll dig out the thing I was reminded of…eventually?

…right…so…despite leading with being another some of these kids are reportedly spending not just 2-4hrs a day on social media apps but as much as 8…which is hard for me to really credit & begs a bit of a litany of questions about methodology & data collection…but…you know the drill…bits of it, though…after we get through the obligatory correlation between being online & being in need of remedial actions regarding mental health…feels like you maybe could get to the “writ large” kind of scaled up?

“Mental illness is the world’s leading public health challenge,” said Gallacher. “It has a devastating effect on economies because it affects many, tends to start young, and recur throughout life.”

The “missing piece is the science”, he added. “For young people, the gap between evidence and policy is stark. We need large-scale cohort studies focusing on young persons’ mental health if we are to achieve change.”
[…]
The initial study found that “agency” — defined as a feeling of control over actions and their consequences — was strongly correlated to mental health. “Both anxiety and depression are high when agency is low, and they decrease when agency is high. Wellbeing and flourishing are also strongly correlated to high agency,” it concluded.

Teenage social media use strongly linked to anxiety and depression, UK study finds [FT – or archive.ph]

…anyway…it’s tuesday…& even in the best case scenario most of the cast will be around to be seeing you…next tuesday…so…before I blot my copybook & upset anybody I’ll see about digging up something to listen to & then see how I do at shutting up for a bit?

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32 Comments

  1. Has it always been this stupid?  I can’t recall it being quite this stupid.

    • …well, at least that’s two of us, then…there’s probably…dozens?

    • Yes. The problem is that they got a big megaphone in FB and Swastika aka X.

    • There has never been a major party candidate as crazy as Trump. Never.

      That he has gotten so much sanewashing – bryanlsplinter’s point about the music insanity – is a form of insanity itself. The defenses for not calling insanity insane are a form of insanity on top of it. The idea that the enormity of his insanity somehow excuses the failure to treat him as insane is insane.

      But as that NY Times article documenting his decline points out, this has been happening for a long time, and what’s damning about that article – although it never admits it – is that it was the first deep dive they ever did, and probably the last until he’s gone. Biden Old was a crusade for them. Trump insane was a one and done.

    • No, he’s really, really sunsetting, and I say that as someone who has always resisted the diagnose-at-distance take. But it’s pretty clear that whatever grasp he had a decade ago is slipping away. Not to mention: He doesn’t have another event scheduled until the 22nd! That’s … unheard of.

      Not to do it but I’ll do it, if Biden did what Trump did the Times would literally have a full-paper takeover to write stories about it. Front page: Slipping Biden; Sport page: Sports Biden is incapable of playing now; Arts page: Maggie Haberman’s new one-woman show “Biden: A Lyin’ In Winter”; Weddings: How they bonded over Biden’s growing dementia; Obits: Joe Biden’s career, 1973-2024; Metro: Undecided New Yorkers like Curtis Silwa say Biden must go; Travel: Best places to take dementia patients like Joe Biden; Business: How Biden’s illness hurts your 401(k); World: Netanyahu, Putin say Biden must go; Entertainment: Netflix green-lights new New York Times documentary “Biden Old”; Editorial page: “BIDEN TOO OLD”; Op-Ed page: “Old Yeller and Biden deserve same fate”

      • I usually don’t agree with “look at what their guy did but what if our guy did it” criticism of the press, because they tend to compare two specific incidents and extrapolate too far.

        But you’re absolutely right when you look at full blown crusades like Biden Old. It becomes absolutely devastating to note how much sanewashing Trump has gotten in comparison within that larger context.

        James Fallows did something similar when he compared the reaction of the press to the new Jack Smith indictment to the Comey announcement that he was just taking a new look at the Weiner laptop.

        Front pages, websites, and broadcasts were 50% or more focused on the mere possibility that something might, in a worst case scenario, lead to somebody being indicted. All kinds of space and time was handed over to anonymous sources doing nothing but speculating.

        Jack Smith’s literal indictment – filled with all kinds of new, awful, engaging details – got a small fraction of that coverage, despite reams of information being completely on the record, and there was no shortage of knowlegable secondary sources willing to talk either.

        But Her Emails was a crusade and it generated its own logic separate from reality. Trump’s direct, documented role in the mob attack combined with chilling new details like his willingness to see Pence die, was not a part of a press crusade. And so it died as a story.

        And part of the stupidity is that Trump’s election denialism and leadership of the mob is easily linked to his current insanity! These aren’t purely discrete events – his insanity then and insanity now are legitimately part of the same narrative. But they refuse to make any of it a narrative for the monster.

  2. The suspect, identified as Las Vegas resident Vem Miller, was intercepted by police at a checkpoint

    Vem? What kind of name is Vem? Is it short for something? I don’t know if they still have these laws but in France and Germany, and maybe Italy I think, it was illegal to try to give your child “unique” names. They do not have a Vem. No. If Vem were German no doubt he would be a Hartmut or a Horst or a Gerd, or maybe more prosaically a Tomas or a Peter.

  3. The Trump music show is seriously pissing me off. Of course alternative press jumped on it, but all the other outlets seem to have shrugged it off.

    If Joe Biden went into a dementia fugue state like this, it would be top headlines all across the world. The orange fucker stages an impromptu remake of Lawrence Welk and nobody cares? This is absolute insanity. He had a fucking mental break, and he should be hospitalized and under observation. This. is. not. normal.

    • The Senate rejected Haynsworth [for the Supreme Court] in 1969, and the next year Nixon nominated G. Harrold Carswell to replace Fortas [who sat on the Court but was “persuaded” to resign, similar to how Joe Biden was “persuaded” not to run again and make way for Mamala.] Some critics claimed Carswell’s career was mediocre, leading one Republican senator [Roman Hruska of Nebraska] to mount this defense: “Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers, and they are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they?”

      Well, you can’t argue with that, can you? At this point I’d settle for mediocre in my day-to-day dealings, rather than the decidedly subpar experiences I’ve been having.

    • Poor Mitch McConnell thinking “Damn, if only I’d have had music going in the background when I shorted out mid-presser.”

  4. Kash is not very Cash Money for the CIA. Serving under noted idiot and Dunning Kruger affectionado Devin Nunes as an aide who fucked up and made false accusations about the FBI is not a plus on any resume.

    Probably most of his experience comes from watching James Bond and Bourne movies. I suspect I’m better qualified because I read LeCarre novels (that’s not much to be honest.)

    No organisational experience, no actual leadership role and no background in foreign affairs or intelligence. Perfect clown appointee for the Trump admin.

    • When Rex Tillerson was named Secretary of State,  he was  unqualified but was sane. Patel is an utterly deranged conspiracy nut.

      By the way Tillerson notably by 2021 was calling  Trump mentally unfit, joining with people like Joint Chiefs of Staff head General Milley and former Chief of Staff John Kelly in calling him unhinged. Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein looked into invoking the 25th Amendment.

      And yet the narrative was completely unbalanced to “Biden Old! How Bad Is It?” based on the thinnest sourcing and pure speculation. The claims by people like Maggie Haberman that journalism can’t deal with this kind of insanity is only true when you realize her meaning of journalism is insane.

       

  5. I agree with that study on social media as most of the freakouts Cokehead Narcissist had were caused by shit talking on social media. I told her that it is best to let it go but nope. She didn’t stop (like her coke use.)

    I give mostly zero fucks what people say on social media anyway. I think I’m happier off FB than being on it.

  6. Can’t wait for this guy to be in charge of the military!

    https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/michael-flynn-executions-trump-gates-of-hell-unleashed-rcna175387

    Hmmm?  I’m guessing you get a signed dirty adult diaper, a happy meal & a red hat?

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-maga-experience-donation-package-rally-b2629236.html

  7. And now, a word from our Democratic nominee for President, VP Kamala Harris:

    “I talked with somebody once who said, ‘You know, if you just look at, where the stars are in the sky. Don’t look [at] ’em as just random things, if you just look at ’em as points,’ ” Harris responded. ” ‘Look at the constellation — what does it show you?’

    “So you just outlined it, Roland, what does it show you? That the cities that he picks on in terms of black population or black mayor or both,” she said. “C’mon.”

    Sis enjoys a good spliff, doesn’t she? It makes me love her even more. And I don’t even smoke pot. Now that there are three pot shops on every block, most of them illegal, maybe I should look into gummies so that I would come up with insights like this. I would be feeling groovy:

    God. Paul Simon’s hair. Hot or not? I’m on the fence.

     

    • That’s a quote being shopped by your Eric Adams loving friends at the NY Post doing their best to dig up something, anything to push the right wing’s racist attacks on her as dumb and a DEI baby.

      There’s a new book out, by the way, Paper of Wreckage, about how badly the Post has slipped in recent years, and how little impact Page Six has compared to its glory days. The authors should know – they worked there for years.

      In interviews the authors have pointed out how the collapse of their value as a source of gossip has coincided with their eagerness to carry water for people like Adams. It’s become a place for preaching to the choir, which is why their influence in NYC has slipped so much. The only people who can’t see it are in the choir.

    • Does Doug Henning and Gallagher know Simon stole his hairstyle?

  8. Harris is being interviewed by Fox News and it will be broadcast tomorrow. She obviously thinks she can handle it, and odds are very strong she’s right. Walz already appeared on Fox, and did well.

    I’m sure this will feed the resentment of AG Sulzberger, Joe Kahn  and hacks like Peter Baker.

    You can bet that her team will be making clear the contrast with Trump. He ran from 60 Minutes, as linked above, and he is babbling and incoherent, while she is clear and relatable.

    I’m not counting on any of this contrast breaking through, though. Trump’s team and the GOP desperately wants to avoid head to head comparisons, which is why he fled both 60 Minutes and the second debate, and the political press seems willing to help.

    Simply saying in the same article that Harris is sane and Trump is not is allowed, even though reporters like Peter Baker made direct comparisons between Biden and Trump’s competency, with Trump coming out ahead of course.

    • You can bet that her team will be making clear the contrast with Trump. He ran from 60 Minutes, as linked above, and he is babbling and incoherent, while she [Kamala Harris] is clear and relatable.

      You’re joking. Trump is babbling and incoherent, but Kam is about as clear and relatable as a young niece or nephew who has been smoking pot since they were 12 and now, at the age of 30, are living with their parents and gaming 15 hours a day.

      I don’t think that’s such a bad thing, though. Meet the voting public where they live, in their own semi-informed, inarticulate homes with the “Hate Has No Home Here” yard signs. Coach Walz claiming that he befriended school shooters might have turned off a slice of that electorate but you can easily imagine that Coach was concussed more than once in his own sports career and he probably meant something else. Probably. Maybe not. Who knows?

  9. Looks like we have no chance of winning the Florida boat nazi vote!

    • The right wing press like The Daily Mail is amplifying lies that the Democrats somehow stopped the buses.

      The people who read that junk are stewing their brains in formaldehyde every single day, and as these reports get across, it’s leading to violence by Trump’s mobs.

      Far too many people think the right wing press is being funny somehow, or it can be read ironically. It’s leading to innocent people getting hurt and worse.

  10. soooo… remember my suspended and probably about to get fired co worker i mentioned a couple days ago?

    he decided to upgrade his problems to definitely fired and going to be arrested…and in the process put my remaining co worker out of comission for a spell

    remaining co worker popped out for lunch today and ran into suspended co worker in town…who decided to have a shitfit at him and then layed him out

    found out from hr that mr suspended has been threathening a bunch of co workers since getting suspended….guess its not threats anymore

    some people just cant resist digging the hole deeper….

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