Thursday Night

Tomorrow is...

Leon and TNR

From Clio Chang.

Ted Cruz's Dad Killed JFK

When they finally get released anything interesting won't be, so...

The U.S. government was in danger Thursday of missing the deadline to release a trove of previously classified records from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, adding an unexpected twist to a saga already rife with rumors and conspiracies.

I Doubt She Read The Summaries

This is pretty dumb as of course she didn't read the full reports.

Theresa May was put on the spot today after David Davis suggested she had not bothered to read the “excruciating detail” of secret Whitehall studies into the impact of Brexit.

In an eyebrow-raising exchange with a Labour MP, Brexit Secretary Mr Davis said he thought Mrs May would only have read summaries of the assessments, but not an entire report.

It's a bit like complaining that members of Congress don't read the full text of bills. They're largely gibberish, referring back other legislation, striking this and replacing that, etc. Legislative staff exist to explain them to you. The real issue is I doubt May even read the summaries.

Vaporware

No one listens to me.

Maybe not. What followed were months of setbacks, delays, and in-house turmoil. A year later, there’s still no sign of Full Self Driving, and even the less ambitious “Enhanced Autopilot” hasn’t quite reached parity with an earlier, discontinued version. The head of Tesla’s Autopilot division left in January, and six months later his successor did, too. Meanwhile, Tesla owners who paid thousands of dollars for the options filed a class action lawsuit, alleging they were tricked into buying a feature that doesn’t exist and—in some cases—an unsafe car. Tesla has yet to formally respond to those disgruntled drivers who want refunds and punitive damages, and the case is currently in mediation.

Clinton-Weinstein

The extreme obsession with connections between the Clintons and Weinstein - somehow he morphed into the biggest Democratic donor in history (he wasn't) and Clinton's primary patron (he wasn't) - was a great trick. I don't have a problem with highlighting that there are horrible rich men no what their claimed politics is. It isn't a left/right issue. Of course even as every person remotely on the D side of the aisle was falling all over themselves to condemn Weinstein (genuinely or not, they did it!), the issue become "hurhur liberal hypocrites won't even condemn Weinstein so shutup about Bill O'Reilly!!!"

I bet few elite pundits (sure plenty of lower ranked journalists will - especially women who worked for him - just not Mark's jolly pals) will feel the need to do as they demanded of Clinton for days.

America's Worst Humans

Lisa Bloom.

I'm not diminishing the actual crimes and abuse behavior that the men engaged in, but the details of her actions...wow.

401Ks Are Bad But The Estate Tax Is Good

There's a lot of talk about how, well, things like the mortgage interest deduction, state and local tax deductions, and 401Ks contributions, are actually regressive because for various reasons most of the benefits go to higher income people. The extent to which this is true is being exaggerated a bit. It's true they don't go to poor people, but they aren't all just going to the top 5%. But in any case, the trade-off being discussed (and we shouldn't discuss these "bargains" anyway, as they're just a sucker's game for liberals) isn't, say, raise upper middle class taxes to give the money to poor people. The trade-off is raise upper middle class taxes to give all the money to SUPER SUPER SUPER RICH PEOPLE.

That doesn't make the tax code more progressive.

Surprised Face

Not really.

Veteran journalist Mark Halperin sexually harassed women while he was in a powerful position at ABC News, according to five women who shared their previously undisclosed accounts with CNN and others who did not experience the alleged harassment personally, but were aware of it.

"During this period, I did pursue relationships with women that I worked with, including some junior to me," Halperin said in a statement to CNN Wednesday night. "I now understand from these accounts that my behavior was inappropriate and caused others pain. For that, I am deeply sorry and I apologize. Under the circumstances, I'm going to take a step back from my day-to-day work while I properly deal with this situation."

Wednesday Night

Enjoy

It's Still A Year Away

But my big fear is that during the midterms the Dems will run with "isn't Trump gross and awful" which won't be enough.

My Life's Work Up In Smoke

Dems now have a 51/42 favorable view of George W. Bush https://t.co/apCxphTX7z pic.twitter.com/U2JhDxbPZU

— Ariel Edwards-Levy (@aedwardslevy) October 25, 2017

What is wrong with Democrats.

Afternoon Thread

enjoy

Clinton Campaign Plots To Win Election

One thing about 25 years of coverage of the Clintons is that perfectly normal things which anyone who works in politics or journalism knows are perfectly normal are portrayed as being suspicious, deviant, and corrupt. This story isn't even new, except for the involvement of one particular person on the Clinton campaign, which doesn't seem important. But frame it just right and it sounds suspicious, and everybody gets to BothSides and balance to the universe has been returned.

Good

A loss for the forced birth advocates, and win for this girl's life.

BREAKING: undocumented teen at center of court battle, had abortion this AM before DOJ could appeal fed appeals court ruling to SCOTUS.

— Paula Reid (@PaulaReidCBS) October 25, 2017

Competence

Running things is actually hard work. Even if you're nominally in charge (the "boss") you don't actually have to run things, but you have to hire people who can. I'm sure most senators, for example, are horrible managers, but if they hire a competent chief of staff and let them take care of things, that's fine. Senators can set the big picture and go chat with people and be on teevee or whatever, and leave the actual implementation to others.

Morning Thread

Phbbt.

The Resistance

Please just stop calling it that. Please. For my sanity.

Took A Walk

What'd I miss?

How About Some Happy Hour

If nothing else, we can celebrate Flake's retirement. May there be many more on that side of the aisle.

No True Conservatives

One problem with political discourse is that the media lets conservatives run away from conservatism the instant it becomes unpopular. The Trump agenda is gibberish because he knows nothing about nothing, but it is still, in its broad outlines, conservative. George Bush was like Conservative Jesus until he became unpopular and then suddenly he was an apostate.

At its root is that conservatism is, mostly, Cleek's Law - against whatever liberals are for, updated daily. True for the riffraff, at least, but the Great Conservative Thinkers like Jonah Goldberg shouldn't be able to get away with this dodge.

Getting The Job Done

What I mean here is that there's inevitably going to be some waste and corruption in government. I'd even argue that some of that corruption is just politics by a different name. But it's one thing to pay the 20% or 50% or even 100% corruption tax if your local politically connected waste removal company actually shows up and takes the trash away, and quite another if they don't. Puerto Rico needs to get its electricity back. If we overpay some cronies and they actually do the work, I'm not going to cry too much. Most likely we will overpay some cronies and the work won't get done.