…too slow [DOT 9/12/21]

unless that's just me...

9/12/21 SplinterRIP 38

…so…I’m behind today…which the early risers will have figured out on account of this being late going up…but I have a feeling it may go beyond that…there’s just too much in the news that could handily be described as “a wind up”…so although I promise I’m not going to try to link to literally all of it…it’s still likely to be a little much

Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun [The Atlantic]

…& yeah…that headline seems like the sort of thing that ought to be click-bait hyperbole…but if you swap out the “coup” part for “attempt to game the system in his own interests at the expense of everyone & everything else” then it just seems like a statement of the obvious…so…it might be worth a glance…but I can’t honestly recommend reading it at the outset of your day…even if most of what it has to say is hardly new it’s still enough to put you in a foul mood…not that there’s any shortage of stuff that could do that

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/09/one-rule-for-them-newspapers-savage-boris-johnson-over-party-scandal

…yeah…that thing I was banging on about the other day?

…it got worse

In the leaked video of a mock televised press briefing, an adviser to Johnson is seen joking with Allegra Stratton, the prime minister’s then press secretary, about “a Downing Street Christmas party on Friday night”.

The footage, obtained by ITV, was shot on 22 December 2020. The Friday before was 18 December, the date on which multiple sources have said there was a staff party inside Downing Street, which would have contravened strict Covid regulations in place at the time.

It shows Stratton, prime ministerial adviser Ed Oldfield and other staff making a series of jokes about a party, including references to “cheese and wine”, the lack of social distancing and making the excuse it was a business meeting.

Quizzed in the leaked footage, Stratton laughingly says: “This is recorded … This fictional party was a business meeting and it was not socially distanced.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/07/leaked-video-shows-no-10-officials-joking-about-holding-christmas-party

…so if you felt like reading john crace’s take on that & skipping the rest of this I can’t say as I’d blame you

There had been a few boos from the opposition benches and a silence from his own that Johnson tried to style out as he took his place for PMQs. But his eyes gave the game away. Bloodshot, furtive pinpricks. The telltale signs of the chancer who feels his world beginning to close in on him. Boris started with the non-apology.

“Let me get this straight,” he said. A sure sign he was about to start lying. There again, breathing is also a sure sign Johnson is about to start lying. He was absolutely furious. But only that the video had been leaked. It would have been far better if its existence had never come to light. But now that it had, he was very, very angry with Naughty Allegra Stratton and her mates for undermining lockdown guidelines by being caught practising their excuses for a hypothetical Christmas party.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/08/its-my-non-party-and-ill-lie-if-i-want-to-boris-johnson-is-bang-to-rights

…or…if literally nothing about any of that makes any kind of sense to you…the guardian has your back

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/08/why-is-there-a-row-in-the-uk-about-boris-johnson-and-christmas-parties

…& it’s worth mentioning that the tories have a tendency to support the hell out of their leaders right up to the part where they stab them in the back & replace them…just sayin’…although…it might be a little late

Whenever you watch a documentary about a dictator’s path to power, there comes a moment when you think: “Why didn’t people do something? They could have stopped him while there was still time.” We have now reached this moment. As Boris Johnson rams yet more powers into the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill, a vaguely democratic nation is sliding towards autocracy.

It was bad enough when I wrote about this legislation last week. After the bill had mostly passed through parliament and could be properly debated, the government slipped in a series of terrifying amendments. By curtailing the right to protest, it already amounted to the most oppressive legislation tabled by a government of this country since the end of the second world war.
[…]
In the previous batch of post-debate amendments, the bill sought, among other measures, to criminalise any protest that might interfere with the construction of new infrastructure. This most recent amendment will apply to existing infrastructure, potentially banning all effective protests, pickets or any other kind of action in places “such as” roads, railways, ports, airports, oil refineries and printing presses. The named infrastructure is bad enough, greatly limiting the scope of protest, but what does “such as” mean? Well, if printing presses are considered key infrastructure – an offering to the Murdoch empire, whose presses were targeted by Extinction Rebellion – this might apply to any corporate or government premises, as well as any public spaces.

These are dictators’ powers. Parliament should be in uproar. The press should be in uproar. Yet you could hear a pin drop. There have been roughly as many stories published over the past fortnight in the UK press that mention Nestlé’s Quality Street chocolates as there have been about this massive attack on democratic rights.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/08/boris-johnson-grabbing-more-power-amendments-to-oppressive-legislation-uk

…the thing is…that whole “one rule us & one rule for the rest” approach is very much the way things have sort of always been as far as the UK is concerned…magna carta was a good start & all…but noblesse oblige isn’t what it used to be

There is a fundamental problem in contemporary discussion of climate policy: it rarely acknowledges inequality. Poorer households, which are low CO2 emitters, rightly anticipate that climate policies will limit their purchasing power. In return, policymakers fear a political backlash should they demand faster climate action. The problem with this vicious circle is that it has lost us a lot of time. The good news is that we can end it.

Let’s first look at the facts: 10% of the world’s population are responsible for about half of all greenhouse gas emissions, while the bottom half of the world contributes just 12% of all emissions. This is not simply a rich versus poor countries divide: there are huge emitters in poor countries, and low emitters in rich countries.

Consider the US, for instance. Every year, the poorest 50% of the US population emit about 10 tonnes of CO2 per person, while the richest 10% emit 75 tonnes per person. That is a gap of more than seven to one. Similarly, in Europe, the poorest half emits about five tonnes per person, while the richest 10% emit about 30 tonnes – a gap of six to one. (You can now view this data on the World Inequality Database.)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/07/we-cant-address-the-climate-crisis-unless-we-also-take-on-global-inequality

…meanwhile

…so…the fox christmas tree turning into a burnt offering was objectively funny…& fitting…even the part where it wasn’t actually a tree

…the debt ceiling stuff is more than I have time to get into today…though there are certainly options, plural…if not action exactly…but even when there’s apparently only one option…it turns out it isn’t the one that skips to the actually-doing-something part

The leaders of the House committee investigating the 6 January Capitol attack have said they have “no choice” but to hold former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress after his lawyer said Tuesday that his client will cease cooperating with the panel.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/08/mark-meadows-capitol-attack-panel

…& while for every action there may be a reaction…newton may have been wrong about the “equal & opposite” part

WASHINGTON — Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff for President Donald J. Trump, filed suit on Wednesday against Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol in an attempt to persuade a federal judge to block the committee’s subpoenas.
[…]
His lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, accuses the committee of issuing “two overly broad and unduly burdensome subpoenas” against him, including one sent to Verizon for his phone and text data.

“Mr. Meadows faces the harm of both being illegally coerced into violating the Constitution,” his lawsuit contends. It asks a judge to declare the subpoenas “unlawful and unenforceable,” and claims the inquiries violate his constitutional rights to free speech and privacy.
[…]
In a statement Wednesday night, Mr. Thompson and Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the committee’s vice chair, said that Mr. Meadows’s “flawed lawsuit won’t succeed at slowing down the select committee’s investigation or stopping us from getting the information we’re seeking.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/us/politics/mark-meadows-contempt-jan-6-committee.html

…I mean…they say that…but it sure seems like the fact is we’re still in the opening stages of slow-walking towards the mere possibility that some of the people responsible for that debacle might see legal repercussions…so slowing down investigations & stopping us from getting information seems like it’s been a pretty viable strategy so far…why, it’s almost like the law is a joke to these people

The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared likely to rule that state programs providing money to parents for their children’s high school tuition cannot exclude schools offering religious education.

Such a ruling would loosen longstanding restrictions on using taxpayer money to pay for religious instruction, further lowering the wall of separation between church and state.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-decide-whether-states-can-refuse-pay-religious-education

…even when it’s literally life or death hanging in the balance

State officials in Arizona are asking the nation’s highest court to bar the two condemned prisoners – one with a strong claim of innocence, the other with a history of intellectual disability and family abuse – from presenting evidence in federal court that could save their lives.

The Arizona officials argue the prisoners should not be allowed to put forward the evidence because they failed to do so in state court at an earlier stage in their legal proceedings.
[…]
Death penalty experts warn that if the country’s highest court sides with Arizona it would erect new hurdles that could impede all convicted prisoners, including death row inmates, from seeking redress in federal court for possible miscarriages of justice. At its most stark, individuals who should have been exonerated or who should never have been put on death row because of their intellectual disabilities would face increased risk of being unjustly executed.
[…]
At its most visceral, the Arizona case, Shinn v Ramirez and Jones, is a matter of life and death. But the hearing is also being seen as profoundly important by close observers of the supreme court as a litmus test of how radical the new court is intending to be.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/08/us-supreme-court-arizona-death-penalty-case

The cases raise fundamental questions about whether the federal courts must allow states to execute people whose convictions or sentences are illegal, including people who may very well be innocent. While the formal issues in the cases are highly technical, they both are of immense practical importance to the enforcement of constitutional rights and the fundamental fairness of the criminal legal system.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/death-penalty-cases-supreme-court-could-keep-innocent-people-prison

…& not to flat out give in to the voice of doom thing…but…much like boris…this isn’t subtle

…& hell, there’s a non-zero chance that the lady who put that thread together stands a better chance of getting forced off twitter than a flock of proud boys

Twitter is reviewing a controversial policy that penalizes users who share images of other users without their consent.
[…]
“After this was rolled out, we became aware of a significant amount of coordinated and malicious reports and unfortunately, our enforcement teams made several errors,” said Twitter spokesperson Trenton Kennedy. “We’ve corrected those errors and are undergoing an internal review to make certain that this policy is used as intended – to curb the misuse of media to harass or intimidate private individuals.”
[…]
Activists swiftly warned that the policy as it was published would backfire. The policy was vague and had been put together without much input from the communities most vulnerable to harassment and doxxing, the activists argued. They had little faith in Twitter’s reporting and appeals process, which they described as unreliable, automated and allowing for little discussion about the enforcement of policies.

And indeed, hours after the policy became public, users affiliated with far-right movements like the Proud Boys and others espousing QAnon conspiracies put out calls to their followers, urging them to weaponize the new rules to target activists who had posted about them.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/08/twitter-new-privacy-policy-far-right

…but don’t worry…there’s a whole commission into what to do about the supreme court being in the pocket of a bunch of shamelessly partisan right wing idealogues

President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court commission does not plan to make a recommendation on whether to expand the court, according to a draft report obtained Monday by NBC News.
[…]
Instead, the report discusses the historical overview of court reform discussions, scenarios around expanding the Supreme Court, questions about the scope of the judiciary and judicial ethics.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/biden-commission-punts-whether-recommend-expanding-supreme-court

President Biden’s Supreme Court reform commission approved its final report Tuesday. The big headline is that the commission described a liberal-backed plan to “pack the court” with more justices as being fraught and contentious, while it was more bullish on the bipartisan prospects of some type of term limits.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/12/08/big-ideas-bidens-supreme-court-commission-explained/

…& I can’t help but feel that there’s entirely too many articles on entirely too many topics that seem to boil down approximately to “it’s been obvious this was going to happen for long enough that you’d be forgiven for assuming we would have made preparations to deal with it or even prevent it from happening in the first place…but…”

Nearly two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, the world remains “dangerously unprepared” for the next major outbreak, according to a new report.
[…]
Overall, the world is not any better prepared today, according to the 2021 index, which was created by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a global security nonprofit group, and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.
[…]
More than 90 percent of countries have no plan for distributing vaccines or medications during an emergency, while 70 percent lack sufficient capacity in hospitals, clinics and health centers, the report found. Political and security risks have risen worldwide, and public confidence in government is declining.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/health/covid-pandemic-preparedness.html

…which I guess suits some people just fine

The Senate on Wednesday voted narrowly to roll back President Biden’s vaccine and testing mandate for large employers, taking mostly symbolic action as Republicans escalate their protest of the administration’s push to immunize Americans against a deadly pandemic.

The vote was bipartisan, as two centrist Democrats — Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana — joined all 50 Republicans in voting to overturn the regulation, which has already been blocked amid a wave of litigation by large employers and Republican-controlled states. But the House is not expected to take up the measure, and administration officials said Mr. Biden would veto it should it reach his desk.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/us/politics/biden-vaccine-mandate-senate.html

…although once again that’s not exactly news…the GOP couldn’t care less if their voters drop dead…& those “large employers”?

Wage theft occurs whenever an employer doesn’t pay workers according to the law. And it can take many forms. Sometimes employers fail to pay minimum wage. Sometimes employers don’t pay overtime to employees who work more than 40 hours a week. In other cases, employers force workers to perform tasks “off the clock” and without pay.

A 2017 study of minimum wage violations, which is just one kind of wage theft, found that in the 10 most populous states “2.4 million workers lose $8bn annually (an average of $3,300 per year for year-round workers) to minimum wage violations –nearly a quarter of their earned wages.” In these states, wage theft affected “17% of low-wage workers, with workers in all demographic categories being cheated out of pay”. A typical victim of wage theft “is losing, on average, $3,300 per year and receiving only $10,500 in annual wages.”

If similar levels of wage theft are found in other states, it suggests “the total wages stolen from workers due to minimum wage violations exceeds $15bn each year.” That’s more than the value of stolen goods in all property crimes, according to the latest FBI statistics.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/07/want-to-be-a-criminal-in-america-stealing-billions-is-your-best-bet-to-go-scot-free

…it’s hard to tell where the reasonable concerns end & the hyperbole kicks in

Because if the assaults on democracy that occurred in America in 2021 had happened in another country, academics, diplomats and activists from around the world would be tearing their hair out over the nation’s apparent unraveling. If you were a reporter summing up this American moment for readers back home in Mumbai, Johannesburg or Jakarta, you’d have to ask whether the country is on the brink: A decade from now, will the world say that 2021 was the year the United States squandered its democracy?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/opinion/american-democracy.html

…but…well…if you can’t access assistance without…well…assistance…it doesn’t exactly seem like things are working the way they ought to?

“Too much bureaucracy prevents people from getting the help they need,” said Mr. Chen, whose start-up, Propel, offers a free app that five million households now use to manage their food stamp benefits.
[…]
Barriers to aid are as old as aid itself, and they exist for reasons as varied as concerns about fraud, the bureaucratic tension between accuracy and speed, and hostility toward people in need. But the perils of red tape have drawn new attention since the coronavirus pandemic left millions of Americans seeking government help, many for the first time.
[…]
Poverty has long been linked to oppressive bureaucracy. “Little Dorrit,” the 1857 novel by Charles Dickens, lampoons the omnipotent “Department of Circumlocution,” whose stupefying procedures keep the heroine down. The 1975 documentary film “Welfare” offers a modern parallel with footage that one critic called “unbearable in its depictions of frustration and anger” among caseworkers and clients.

Sometimes barriers to aid are created deliberately. When Florida’s unemployment system proved unresponsive at the start of the pandemic, Gov. Ron DeSantis told CBS Miami last year that his predecessor’s administration devised it to drive people away. “It was, ‘Let’s put as many kind of pointless roadblocks along the way, so people just say, oh, the hell with it, I’m not going to do that,’” he said. (Mr. DeSantis and his predecessor, Rick Scott, are both Republicans.)

Other programs are hindered by inadequate staffing and technology simply because the poor people they serve lack political clout. Historically, administrative hurdles have been tools of racial discrimination. And federal oversight can instill caution because states risk greater penalties for aiding the ineligible than failing to help those who qualify.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/us/politics/safety-net-apps-tech.html

…there may be more to this in a little while

Eight days before the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, a little-known Trump donor living thousands of miles away in the Tuscan countryside quietly wired a total of $650,000 to three organizations that helped stage and promote the event.

The lack of fanfare was typical of Julie Fancelli, the 72-year-old daughter of the founder of the Publix grocery store chain. Even as she has given millions to charity through a family foundation, Fancelli has lived a private life, splitting time between her homes in Florida and Italy, and doting on her grandchildren, according to family members and friends.

Now, Fancelli is facing public scrutiny as the House committee investigating the insurrection seeks to expose the financing for the rally that preceded the riot at the U.S. Capitol. Fancelli is the largest publicly known donor to the rally, support that some concerned relatives and others attributed to her enthusiasm for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
[…]
Fancelli was a regular listener to Jones’s show and had an assistant make contact with him at his office in Austin to find out how she could support Trump’s attempt to undermine Biden’s victory, the person said. She and Jones talked by phone at least once between Dec. 27 and Jan. 1, the person said.
[…]
A few weeks after the rally, top executives of the Republican National Committee called to check on Fancelli, according to a person familiar with the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation. Fancelli — who records show had donated roughly $1 million to a joint account for the Trump campaign and Republican Party in 2019 and 2020 — told the RNC executives that she believed the election was stolen and backed the rally “to fight for Trump,” the person said. She also said she had no idea there would be violence at the Capitol, according to the person.

Fancelli has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to GOP candidates and party organizations over the past two decades but did not become a top-tier donor until Trump moved into the White House, records show.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/publix-heiress-capitol-insurrection-fancelli/2021/12/08/5144fe1c-5219-11ec-8ad5-b5c50c1fb4d9_story.html

…& there will eventually be tunes at the end…but I do know the thing I aimed to end on (tunes notwithstanding)…I don’t know if it’s a consolation or if it makes the whole thing worse…either way…never underestimate the degree to which pretty much all of this shit relies fundamentally on people being dumb enough to go along with it

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38 Comments

  2. The whole Christmas Partygate situation…Allegra Stratton, briefly mentioned in your excerpt, is like something out of “AbFab” or “Flack.” As a PR person working for Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer, she was the one behind the slogan “Eat Out to Help Out” (that is, eat out as often as you could to support small, local businesses, in the midst of a pandemic, and this was subsidized somehow, like you spent £20 at a restaurant you’d somehow get £10 back, money from the government) and the nickname “Dishy Rishi” when she crafted her boss’s very aggressive personal media campaign. When BoJo needed a spokesmodel his advisors wanted to go with someone more serious and poised, but Carrie, Johnson’s third and current wife (not to mention all the mistresses and children along the way) was palsies with Allegra, so she got the job. And can we stop for a moment and ask how Boris Johnson lured more women to sleep with him than Hugh Hefner? Anyway, BoJo was extremely jealous of Dishy Rishi for now being much more popular than him, so he stole away the fair Allegra, which infuriated Dishy.

    But it all comes back to Dominic Cummings, as everything did. Carrie schemed secretly and openly to get rid of BoJo’s best bro and Allegra was deeply complicit in that plot. Dom kind of started the whole “one rule for thee and one for me” row when he broke lockdown and drove up to Fabled Barnard Castle to “test his driving vision.” I don’t think Americans can conceive of how heavy the lockdowns have been in much of the world. Imagine telling an American they could only leave the house once per day for one hour for exercise, and otherwise must stay in, seeing no one, except to go to work and pick up groceries and medicine. In Britain there was also some kind of travel limit, a certain number of miles from your home, and Dom far exceeded that by paying a visit to Fabled Barnard Castle.

    To wind things up, one of the articles I read about Christmas Partygate mentioned that BoJo’s entire Cabinet, every single department, seems to be run like the Department of Social Affairs in “The Thick of It.” This prompted me to run off to Hulu and start a rewatch. It’s vintage, the foul-mouthed enforcer is Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s pit bull, but the trope as regards British government seems evergreen.

    • …aside from the part where I think maybe the “one rule for thee & one for me” part is a foundational principle of the tory approach…& very possibly is an unbroken tradition dating back to fuedal times, I think you’re on the money there

      …it’s an absolute fucking mystery why anyone (much less large numbers of someone’s) would sleep with boris…but if you trawl through the various sex scandals the tory party has weathered in the past few decades you’ll find it’s somehow not unique…if you feel really brave check out what david mellor looked like along with the lady who obliged him

      …either way the thick of it was painfully close to seeming like a documentary at times, at least as I recall…though if you check out the less sweary yes, minister/yes, prime minister shows from back in the day it seems like it’s mostly just the added swearing that’s changed

      …& if you want a truly sublime instance of the insane PR lady…try watching W1A…in which jessica hynes is sublimely vapid…it was a BBC-centric follow up to the twenty twelve show about the london olympics…which had a lot of the same cast

      • Oh yes, I’ve seen both W1A and 2012 because Hugh Bonneville/Lord Grantham is a favorite of mine and my father-in-law AND a blood relative.

        And not only have I seen Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, I have a secondhand book I picked up in Londontowne that’s a series of episodes recast as short stories, sort of like Agatha Christie in reverse, being that in her case the stories came first and the TV episodes later.

        Of all the things to bring down the Johnson government, a Christmas Party.

        • …I did figure hugh being the lead meant there was a pretty good chance you’d seen those…although I tend to forget which things from the BBC require messing about with VPNs to access so I wasn’t sure

          …but bonus points for being up on the yes, minister stuff…pretty sure my dad has a box-set of scripts that he got for christmas one time when I was a kid…so those are something of an old friend to me

          …it’s another thing that may not be as easy to watch as I’d like but there’s a guy called rory bremner who used to be pretty well known as an impressionist with a leaning towards politicians & on one of his shows “the two johns” (john bird & john fortune) used to do skits that owed a lot to the yes, minister approach to commentary…particularly the ones with “george parr”

      • Just in case anyone ELSE is as terminally*** curious as I am, and hates to not know, when things are left hanging out there, like RIP did with the mention of Mellor’s name, here is a(nother) link;

        http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/24/newsid_2529000/2529115.stm

        Predictably, Mellor looks like a schlub, while the lady in question sparks memories of an early 90’s Annie McDowell😉

         

        ***if I were a cat, I’d most likely be teetering on the brink of life 9 or so…😉🤣😆💖

    • …I did, as it happens, know this…having been in the UK when that came out it was sort of hard not to…but I felt like I’d probably foisted more than enough horrible mental images on folks already…pretty sure it comes up in that george parr clip I posted in the other reply, though…so hopefully at least something I’ve included today has the potential for a rabbit hole that might come with a side order of amusement?

  4. I have great appreciation and respect for someone who spends so much time putting together a news roundup and then starts out by saying, “You know, I don’t recommend you read any of this because it’ll just wreck your day, so you should probably just move along”.

    • …I, on the other hand, have great appreciation & respect for people who are good enough to click on these things in the first place…particularly the ones who leave comments hereabouts…I really can’t overstate the extent to which it helps me feel like I might still have some vestigial grip on sanity despite all evidence to the contrary…but I kinda suck at brevity (which I believe is supposed to be the soul of wit)…& I’ve been told a time or two that I read more of this stuff than could be considered healthy…so I feel like expecting folks to make their way through all of it is an unreasonable ask

      …thanks, though…it’s nice to hear I might not be driving folks demented with these…if I were better at the brevity thing I guess I could just post a picture of a set of toothpick instructions & call it a day?

      • Brevity be damned, you’re very witty. I don’t like to comment until I’ve had a chance to read at least some of the links. But I find my mornings so busy lately. By the time I get to them in the afternoon the conversation is mostly over. But don’t let my lack of participation lead you believe I’m not interested and ugrateful for the long sleepless hours you put in on our behalf.

      • Jake, I know that you seem to worry ’bout the length of the DOT’s, (and so does Myo!😉😆💖),

         

        But as a fellow “news junkie” who’s always been a broad reader of news sources, and who starts to get–if I’m honest–a bit twitchy, if I go for too long without staying on top of stories & only catch them when they trickle on down to the small portion that gets 30 seconds on the nightly news/things the AP roundup…

        It’s comforting, tbqh, to know that I am NOT the only weirdo who feels that need to stay “informed” about the goings-on in the world….

         

        Now, would it do both our stress-levels & blood pressure levels a great deal of good, to be able to give up that compulsive need “to know what’s going on!!!”

        Probably, yeah!😉😆🤣💖

        But you make me feel SO much less alone in the world–because there are very few folks in my meat-space side of the world, who even care a little bit, about these sorts of things…

         

        Yeah, it feels like we’re going to hell in a handbasket, and like there’s not a damn thing that we can actually do to stop much/any of it.

        But at least I know someone else sees this shit, too, and I’m NOT just walking around here, hallucinating all of it, like it may feel sometimes, in the meat-space world.

         

        So THANK YOU, my fellow news-junkie!😉💖

  5. There is one big thing I wish people would add to the entirely correct fact that Roe isn’t the end game, it’s a stepping stone.

    It’s not just a stepping stone to overturning everything related to the right to privacy. It’s about attacking a vastly wider swath of liberties, including the First Amendment.

    The press does not understand how tenuous their protections are in the face of right wing judges still seething over the facts of their abuses coming to light.

    Reporters, editors and publishers don’t get how easily activist hacks like Thomas, Kavanaugh, Barrett and Alito will throw out decades of established law to gut press protections the same way they will gut privacy law.

    Sulzberger, Baquet, Kingsbury, Baker, Haberman and the rest don’t get how they personally are at risk even as an activist judge in NY is letting Project Veritas run roughshod over the Times. Nothing is going to insulate them from being personally liable for defamation settlements that will leave them facing bankruptcy, prison sentences for contempt, and more.

    • And (as I’ve said before!), the women in journalism, especially–and the women who read those writers & think “oh it’s not a big deal!” grossly OVERestimate their own rights!!!

       

      As women, we are only guaranteed the right to vote.

      That’s IT!!!

      We have no other *spelled out* rights that we are guaranteed under the constitution.🙃🙃🙃

      And we’re well & truly fucked, if WHEN the “Constitutional Literalists” on the court do finally decide to be literal in their decisions😱😱😱😱

       

    • A bit of levity, and light-hearted debate, from a story I saw over on Buzzfeeed;

       

      https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexalisitza/mom-goes-viral-kids-birthday-party-invite

      Apparently the mom in question posted a Tiktok video about how, If one of her children is invited to a party/birthday–according to the headline, she brings ALL her kids…

      The real story, of course, is MUCH more nuanced–turns out, she calls the other parents, asks if it’s ok for HER TO PAY ANY COSTS OF BRINGING THE OTHER CHILDREN, *AND* she makes SURE that they bring a good gift for the child.

      The Mom is Haitian, so she comes from a culture where things like birthdays are celebrated with whole family celebrations.

      And YES, she’s both asking well in advance and never expecting the hosting family to pay for the additional family members.

      Basically, she explains that 1. It’s a cultural thing, from her own upbringing, 2. A safety thing–she doesn’t necessarily know the inviting parents well, so she goes to keep an extra set of eyes on her child for safety sake, and 3. She has 4 other kids–so loading everybody up *twice* to drop off & pick up is a big deal, logistically.

      Her husband typically works long hours during the week, so SHE has all the kids those days**

      I don’t have Tiktok, so can’t see the comments–but the Buzzfeed ones are… interesting, imo.

      LOTS of folks are getting very riled up over the same things *I* thought, when I first started the article…

      But very few folks are seeming to come around to an opinion of it being ok, once they realize she is offering to cover any extra expenses.

       

      What do y’all think?

      Is it really that rude, to ask another parent well in advance, if you are offering to cover any & all extra expenses?

      Personally–and maybe it’s because I grew up with lots of cousins who ranged over a 12-ish year age-span–i really don’t think it’s rude, OR a problem at all. The inviting parents are FINE to say “I’m sorry, that won’t work this time,” and then, also have it on their radar, that “If I invite ____, Mom will likely ask & offer to cover costs in the future, too.” Which helps a parent prepare for this sort of question/ scenario.

      And–unless it was something *Super* specific, I just don’t get how it’s really that big a deal, when the other parent is offering  to cover all the costs of the additional kids…

      Like, if she offered & then didn’t pay those costs, it’s 100% reasonable to be upset… but she’s willing to cover it, so if *I* were a parent who she was calling, most likely I’d be like, “SURE! Bring ’em along! The cost is _____, here’s the info, the additional payment needs to be in by____.”

      It’s fascinating,  realizing how differently people see something like this–which was why I’m curious what y’all think?😉

       

      (**and the youngest is about 4 months old… so it IS a production, to get THAT many kids ready & loaded up, i can assure y’all, having nannied a family of 5, when I was younger!😉)

      • …from my (admittedly not huge but more than none) experience of parties for small children the added expense might very well be a small price to pay for an extra adult being in attendance…indeed a time or two my childless ass has been invited to that sort of thing expressly for that reason…so my vote is asking with a bit of notice & offering to chip in to cover the extra cost puts her in the “would invite again” column for sure

        …unless her kids turn out to be specifically some kind of nightmare…but I have no reason to believe they would

      • I don’t have kids, so grain of salt here, but five extra people at an event is a lot, if you have already planned for food, drinks, games, etc. She said she brings nice gifts. I don’t know what that entails, but I’m just thinking back to my childhood parties at Enchanted Castle or Chuck E Cheese… A bunch of extra people showing up at a planned party for x means less food and tokens for the actual invitees. Does her “gift” mean paying their own way? Plus, a lot of people would not say no to her asking! They would feel it’s rude or they’re just too flabbergasted by the gall. And I can’t relate to the safety issue, as a child of the 80s/early 90s. Your kid’s friend’s aren’t safe? Their house and parents? I know things ARE different now, but are they? We had creeps and killers back then, too.

        • …I guess I was thinking the sort of do that’s hosted at home rather than at a venue…& that if one kid is basically an infant (at least at present) it’s basically two extra kids tagging along for the price of an extra adult on hand & something towards the costs (which I read as in addition to the gift for the birthday kid)…& I seem to recall when I was a kid it not being unusual for the parents to stay for these things which often made it likely siblings would also be in attendance so it seemed like a point in her favor that she’d ask in advance & offer to “pay the difference”

          …but I can understand how some might prefer to decline & I don’t think I’d argue that wasn’t an acceptable response…but then, I’m no expert?

          • I’m certainly no expert either, and am from when parents didn’t think twice about dropping little Jimmy off at someone’s house for 6 hours. I had bday parties at the house, too. I was never friends with any of my friends siblings so this never came up for me. It would probably be less harsh on the resources at home, there’s almost always leftover party food. It’s just not a concept that would occur to me, to invite myself and my extras someplace.

        • In the Tiktok, smd in the interview, she says that YES, she pays their way for the additional family members, and then they do “a good gift” on top of that.

          I guess that was why, if *I* were a parent, I wouldn’t mind–extra eyes to watch the kids when you’re out somewhere is always a good thing, and since SHE is covering the extra costs imo, that’d be fine, if I were part of the inviting parents.

  6. Speaking of being in “The Thick of It”:

    https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1UE324Ptu8sJ:https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/new-york-elections-government/ny-nyc-de-blasio-blames-global-paper-shortage-city-retirees-health-plan-info-20211209-z5rh4ouc3nc7tacxvakx7ojbei-story.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

    (URL is so long to avoid Daily News paywall.)

    The upshot: NYC changed health plans for 250,000 civil servants. The info they sent out was riddled with errors. De Blasio admin can’t send out new, corrected materials “because of a paper shortage.”

    Only 22 days, 14 hours, and 43 minutes to go until we’re rid of this clown.

  7. My recent prediction came true!

    https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2021/12/suny-chancellor-jim-malatras-announces-resignation/187412/

    I am not a SUNY graduate but I know plenty of people who are.

    The Chair of the Board of SUNY trustees is Merryl Tisch. She is Mrs. James Tisch, the CEO of the Loews Corporation, which his father and uncle helpfully co-founded. She is a lavish supporter of Democratic politicians, and for some reason likes Malatras a lot and has been working the phones 24/7 telling various pols to lay off. To no avail. Well, to some avail. Liz Krueger, Merryl’s State Senator, originally called on Malatras to resign but recanted, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end of that phone call from Merryl.

    I feel like I’m living in a Soviet satellite state circa 1989, when all things seemed possible. We all know how that turned out, could go either way, but for now there is hope.

    • …it really is…I mean, a lot (if not all) of his threads are more than worth the read…but whoever put the images together for that won really came through on their assignment

      …I think I saw something the other day that suggested he’d parted ways with the root, which is a shame – but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen his byline in the guardian at least once recently…so hopefully his stuff will still show up in places I visit…& if not he’ll remain one of the few things that gets me to voluntarily point myself in the direction of twitter

      • Michael Harriot and Stephen Carter. I would really love to know what Herb Spamfellow’s endgame is here for Get/Out Media. Save money by hiring 22-year-olds who’ll work for $50 per blog post and expect the same quality of output? And then, to stifle criticism, keep turning the screw on the commentariat until they dwindle to insignificance? That’s Step 1. Step 2…? Step 3: Profit!

        • …I believe I may have previously admitted that I tend to think the “profit” being sought doesn’t have much in common with the sort found on the balance sheet & does have a very great deal indeed to do with killing off what the likes of peter thiel find to be an unsightly collection of places where people were wont to air dirty laundry of people who’d paid quite significant sums to ensure that it stayed firmly behind closed doors

          …to wit, I believe there was an announcement (possibly even today) about the AV Club – which has been chicago-based in terms of office space for a considerable time – will be requiring staff to move to LA or lose their jobs…apart from seeming like epic laziness from the newly appointed editor who happens to live in LA that reads to me as very much like a tactic used by dolt45’s administration to engineer the firing of federal employees they didn’t like…make an unreasonable request to move clear across the country (in the AV Club’s case I think thery were offering $5,000 to “cover” the associated expenses) in order to keep a job that’s conspicuously in jeopardy…& then claim it’s the employees’ choice to part ways

          …but as someone elsewhere pointed out…it’s also taking the publication out of the purview of the one part of the country (which I’m given to understand only extends so far from the east coast) in which the writer’s guild union actually does much in the way of doing the whole union thing for online publications…& we already know how it went when staff at those websites tried to do the whole form-a-union thing…so that seems like a fairly astute bit of reasoning as far as I can make out

          …I think they had to tread a bit more carefully with the root…or at least at a slower pace…because flagrantly tanking a website that was a popular (& I think solvent?) outlet for some pretty robust takes on various things from a black point of view is the sort of thing that can get you in hot water…but I guess I’m not surprised that it’s no longer worth hanging in there for those guys…the place is at best a shadow of its former self…& there doesn’t seem much question at this point that the part of that which is demonstrated by the parlous state of a once thriving comment section is very much a feature to the likes of the herb…very possibly because of rather than despite the fact those sections were probably the biggest asset those sites had despite not making an appearance on that balance sheet…& therefore very easy to drive into the dirt without ruffling the feathers of the investors they found who seem so content to take a loss where they could have enjoyed a profit

          …not that I have a scrap of hard evidence but things like the sudden influx of trolling comments that blew up anytime there was an article about guns on splinter, for example, I would be entirely unsurprised to find that a significant chunk of those came from accounts whose time was underwritten by the selfsame interests that seem overwhelmingly interested in managing those sites in the sense of “a managed decline”

          …but…well…it’s not like I have the money to have made them offer they couldn’t refuse…so maybe I’m just bitter?

          • Even with recent departures, The Root is still producing quality takes unlike most of the rest of G/O. Jez isn’t even trying anymore and they seem to openly hate their jobs & readers. The kinja team also forked with the comments section again.

            I’m not sure why ANY of the teams *need* to be based anywhere. Covid has proved a lot of jobs don’t need an office and I would think writing for an online news aggregator would be at the top of that list.

    • …I think I saw something about that elsewhere…which shared this quote that appears in that piece

      “He can’t be scripted, and he’s injudicious, and he often doesn’t understand that the process is about events and facts, rather than being performance art,” said former biographer Tim O’Brien.

      …so I very much hope that when it rolls around it’s worth the popcorn I imagine will be consumed

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