Quote of the Day

The Saudis are going to fight Tehran to the last dead American

—Larry Wilkerson

The House of Saud is not an ally.

Tweet of the Day

Life hack: I called Walgreens to check on something and got a lengthy ad for flu shots and I shouted “fuck OFF” and it took me right to the main menu

— Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) November 18, 2017

This is brilliant.

Please note my profanity expurgation exception for Twitter.

Matt Taibbi Shows What a Proper Apology Looks Like

Taibbi, back in his days at The eXile wrote some awful sh%$.  (Full disclosure:  I love his stuff from back then.)

He frankly admits that what he wrote was, "horrifying, embarrassing, hurtful, and stupid,"

It's a long read, but well worth the time.  Read it.  Seriously.

Tweet of the Day

Much of the decline in the US unemployment rate has been due to falling labour participation. Otherwise, the rate would be 8%, not half that at 4%. So it isn't that much of a jobs miracle.@ProfSteveKeen @TheBubbleBubble @jtepper2 pic.twitter.com/p5Ldht35WY

— Philip Soos (@PhilipSoos) November 8, 2017

This is why people are not satisfied with the current economy even though the economists seem to think that it is wonderful.

Aaron Burr's Gift to the Republic

While Alexander Hamilton was clearly a highly intelligent man, an examination of who and what he was reveals that he was the founding most hostile to the idea of a constitutional republic, and the one most likely to turn the US into a monarchy or dictatorship.

Among other things, he:

• Advocated for the creation of a standing permanent army run by and for the Federalist party.
• Called for the use of military force to prevent Thomas Jefferson becoming president after he was elected.
• Attempted to foment a coup against the US government.
• Was a slave trader, not an abolitionist.
• Attempted to put that day's big finance in charge of the government.

 Hamilton was a bad guy, and here is the money quote of this article:

But the agenda is hidden, because in America, no political leader, not even Donald Trump, can credibly come right out and pronounce democracy a bad thing and agitate for rule by big finance. And the reason for that is that Alexander Hamilton, despite his success in structuring Wall Street, lost the battle against American democracy. Thank God for that.

Read Harold Feld

He is a lawyer for the Public Knowledge, which advocates for, "Policies that serve the public interest."

He lives and breaths this stuff, and he has looked at the merger between AT&T and Time Warner, and the rumored remedies that the US Department of Justice is demanding, and concludes that the remedies demanded by the government, including requiring a divestiture of CNN, have extensive precedent and are reasonable in the context of the industry:

I want to start by applauding Randal Stephenson for coming out quickly and denying the rumors that DoJ asked them to sell CNN as the price of getting the merger done. At the same time, however, he acknowledged that negotiations were “complicated,” and that he and recently confirmed Asst A.G. for Antitrust Makan Delrahim were still “getting to know each other” and “figure out the ask on the other side of the table.” He also made it clear that, if DoJ does challenge, AT&T is prepared to go to court and are confident they will win.

AT&T is generally pretty good at persuading everyone that DoJ doesn’t really have a case against them. As folks may recall, despite the fact that the proposed AT&T/T-Mo transaction violated just about every basic tenant of existing antitrust law, AT&T managed to convince everyone for the longest time that DoJ was just playing hardball with them and didn’t really mean it because DoJ didn’t really have a case. While Stephenson refused to discuss what was negotiated, the rumors suggest it was a demand to divest either DIRECTV or the Turner Broadcasting cable channels (which include CNN, as well as TNT, HBO and a bunch of other real popular programming.) Once again, you have antitrust experts who do not have any particular experience with cable mergers shaking their heads and predicting that DoJ has no case.

In fact, demanding divestiture of either the must have content or the DIRECTV distribution platform is precisely the remedy you would expect if you believe the deal presents significant harm because of the vertical integration issues. That’s been the position of my employer, Public Knowledge, which has opposed the transaction since AT&T announced the deal. (That predates Trump’s election, for those of you wondering.) If you want a more detailed understanding of the theory of the harms, you can find it in my boss Gene Kimmelman’s testimony to Congress here. While generally true that vertical deals are hard to challenge, the cable industry has long been something of an exception, and the remedy here is similar to what the FTC imposed on the AT&T/Turner deal in 1996, where the FTC imposed stock divestitures and restructuring to eliminate the voting interest of John Malone and Liberty Media because of Malone/Liberty’s ownership TCI, which was then the largest cable operator in the United States (25% national market share). Given the massive criticism of “behavioral” remedies and a call to return to “structural” remedies from the right and the left, it’s unsurprising that DoJ would want actual divestiture rather than go the Comcast/NBCU consent decree route.

I would add that consent decrees tend to have limited effect over the long run, and that Public Knowledge has opposed this merger since before Trump's election.

While a lot of people have tried to cast opposition to the deal as political interference by Trump and his Evil Minions^™, it is clear that opposition could be easily justified.

This might be another case of a stopped clock being right twice a day, or it might be a vendetta by Donald Trump. 

Just don't jump to conclusions yet.

Read the rest.

Quote of the Day

Bill Clinton Was A Horrible President

He really was. 20 years later I am tired of people defending him. Impeachment was bullsh%$ but he was a bad man and a bad Democrat and a bad president.

—Atrios

(%$# mine)

Mass incarceration, destroying welfare, repealing Glass-Steagall, privatizing core government functions, DADT, DOMA, etc.

He's right.

Taibbi Nails it Again

In reviewing the revelations of Donna Brazile's new book, Matt Taibbi identifies the root problem here:

………

The point of the Brazile story isn't that the people who "rigged" the primary were afraid of losing an election. It's that they weren't afraid of betraying democratic principles, probably because they didn't believe in them anymore.

If you're not frightened by the growing appeal of that line of thinking, you should be. There is a history of this sort of thing. And it never ends well.

That Republicans have believed this is not a surprise. Disdain for the hoi polloi is at the core of conservative ideology, and has been since before Plato's Republic.

The neoliberal wing of the Democratic Party has embraced this as well.

We see it in opaque and confusing programs (Obamacare), "nudge" theory, unaccountable "experts" running our lives (ISDS, Fed, etc.).

It's why we are seeing an upsurge in populism.

Tweet of the Day

So many members of the Cabinet ought to resign that none of them can. It's like the Three Stooges trying to get through a door.

— Hugo Rifkind (@hugorifkind) November 7, 2017

Yeah, pretty much.

Read Matt Taibbi: College Loan Edition

I really cannot do justice to Taibbi's treatment, but it is classic Taibbi.

His basic thesis is encapsulated in this paragraph:

But the separateness of these stories clouds the unifying issue underneath: The education industry as a whole is a con. In fact, since the mortgage business blew up in 2008, education and student debt is probably our reigning unexposed nation-wide scam.

The solution is relatively straightforward:  Change the law that forbids debtors from using bankruptcy to discharge their debts, and change the loan program so that it no longer encourages tuition inflation.

Tweet of the Day

While they raped my Grandmother,lynched my Uncle,broke up my family to lost history, you find honor & compromise in that, you racist, prick? https://t.co/bOihrwd67N

— Wendell Pierce (@WendellPierce) October 31, 2017

It's in response to these comments by Trump CoS Kelly:

Kelly says Civil War was caused by 'lack of compromise' https://t.co/0FddNmwxCU pic.twitter.com/zR1PRAqvLO

— POLITICO (@politico) October 31, 2017

Yeah, Confederate lost causers are racist pricks.

If There Were a Nobel Prize for Snark………

Then I know who would win the award this year.

Emmett Rensin decided to write a review of Hillary Clinton's campaign memoir, What Happened, as if she had never heard of either Hillary Clinton or the 2016 campaign.

It is an inspired bit of sarcasm, and it is absolutely brutal.

I cannot excerpt it in a way to justice.

Just read it.

Headline of the Day

Question the Generals? Hell, Yes

—The South Florida Sun Sentinel editorial board

This is in response to rather egregious behavior of the Trump administration in general, and former general and Chief of Staff John Kelly.

I think that we may be approaching some sort of tipping point on blind acceptance of military bullsh%$.

At least I hope that we are.

Tweet of the Day

These five smiling US presidents have been responsible - through invasion, bombing, droning and violent destabilisation - for decades of US instigated death, destruction and displacement worldwide. They have never had to answer for the suffering caused. pic.twitter.com/sgMZvOjUgD

— Richard Woolley (@beingrichard) October 22, 2017

So, Mr. Woolley, tell me how you really think.

Headline of the Day

House (of Representatives) Negroes Rally Against Russia

—Black Agenda Report

Today's must read take-down of the Congressional wing of what BAR executive editor Glen Ford calls the, "Black Misleadership Class."

This is Called, "Owning It."

The Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer Phillip Hammond, has claimed that Jeremy Corbyn is an, "Existential challenge to our economic model," Jeremy Corbyn wholeheartedly agrees with the Conservative official:

Jeremy Corbyn will say the chancellor, Philip Hammond, is right to call the Labour party an “existential challenge to our economic model” as he pledges to lead a government that will overturn the economic status quo.

Corbyn will tell the Co-operative party conference on Saturday that Labour would forge a fresh consensus for a modern economy, which would allow digital platforms and technological advancement such as automation to flourish in ways that empowered workers.

Responding to Hammond’s warning in his speech at this month’s Conservative conference, Corbyn will say the chancellor is “absolutely right” to say that Labour is threatening to destroy the current economic model, adding that the current system “allows homelessness to double, 4 million children to live in poverty and over a million older people not getting the care they need”.

This is how you do it.

Tweet of the Day

Centrists: US healthcare system is the best.

Me: Shooting victim needs fundraiser to pay medical bills

Centrists: Fundraisers are awesome! https://t.co/U51pgBXlGb

— Salam Morcos (@SalamMorcos) October 16, 2017

Yea, pretty much.

Headline of the day

It's Time for Democrats to Stop Being Such Gormless Chumps

—The Week

The thesis of the article is that Democrats need understand that Republicans have no respect for the traditions of government, and that the Democrats insistence on preserving these niceties, when Republicans end them as soon as they become inconvenient, is a sucker's game:

One of the most marked characteristics of 21st century political history is the one-sided application of political norms. Democrats have done things like abolish earmarks, adopt "PAYGO" budgeting (in which the long-term stability of the national debt is written into the budget process), and respect the "blue slip" rule, which gives senators a veto over judicial appointments in their home state.

In return, Republicans have shredded those norms the moment they got in the way of their application of power. Word is, they now plan to use imaginary future growth to sidestep PAYGO rules, and it seems likely that the blue slip rule is next on the chopping block.

It's time for Democrats to stop being such gormless chumps, and start matching Republicans' procedural hardball.

The problem right now is that there is no blow-back for Republicans doing this, because when the Democrats get back in power, they pretend that the past never happened.

To quote David Mamet (he wrote the script), "They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue."

Tweet(s) of the Day

They both have to do with Russia, and the current hysteria that posits that $100,000 in ads on Facebook somehow trumped the $1,000,000,000 that the Clinton campaign spent.

The first is about bus kiosk ads from RT:

While everyone freaks out about Russian ads, RT takes out more Russian ads pic.twitter.com/Z5eW8GS6pg

— Jane Lytvynenko (@JaneLytv) October 10, 2017

The second one, from the Russian ambassador to the UK, hits the British where it hurts, their 52 year drought in the World Cup:

A football team would be a better option pic.twitter.com/4Psj4ZkGy5

— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) October 10, 2017

Dayyymmmm! That one is going to leave a mark.

H/t Naked Capitalism.

Headline of the Day

Oh Chris Cillizza, You F%$#ING Sh%$heel

—Evan Hurst at Wonkette

Over at everyone's source of snark, Mr. Hurst did two things:

1. Called out Chris Cilizza for being a completely worthless prat. (Easy)
2. Changed my mind.  (Not so easy)

Specifically, he was, with an assist from John Cole, talking about Cillizza's demand that Hillary Clinton issue a statement about the revelations about Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment sexual assault over the past few decades.

I was actually considering doing the same thing, but then I read this:

Make no mistake, this is no “analysis” as he has it labeled. And the thing you need to realize is Cillizza KNOWS that Clinton doesn’t support rape and sexual assault, he just wants make her respond. It’s him using his forum to make her jump- he might as well be saying “Dance, mad bitch, dance,” because we all know that if she does respond, Cillizza’s next piece will be “what took her so long” and “was she sincere” and so on. 

They are right, and so I put the kibosh on writing a similar article to Cillizza's.

I'm now actually feeling a bit ashamed that I was considering doing something like this.

As an aside, Hillary Clinton did condemn Weinstein today, as did the Obamas, but that really none of my f%$#ing business.

Keeping a score card on this sh%$ is lame.