Brexited

I appreciate the change of subject but it's a bit funny that after years of being about nothing else the UK political conversation has sort of abandoned Brexit. Sure there is talk in the context of the Tory leadership contest (aka the Prime Minister Election) but they are all totally full of shit about it and there is no real talk. There is no renegotiation with the EU. May's "deal" is, give or take a few commas, the "hardest possible Brexit." Nobody knows what's going to happen and no one really talks about it anymore.

Summer In The City

They don't open for long enough but I am always amazed when I go past a city public pool. We built these things that people can just use?

Morning Thread

Paul Rebmann has his newsletter up. Click through for his photos of wildflowers and achieve your morning Zen. Best way to start the day.

Dinner Thread

Tuna fish salad sandwich with a vine ripened tomato. Yum.

Solidarity

I don't think conservative rule hastens the revolution, or that heightening the contradictions automatically leads to better things, but at least it helps to provide a bit of unity to the opposition. I think liberalish people become more hardened to liberal positions than they would have otherwise during the Bush years. And, sadly, softened on some during the Obama years.

The flip side is that it was and is a thing to say that WE CAN'T COMPLAIN ABOUT DEMOCRATS. Yelling at them is always the role of activists. You know who really complains about Democrats? The rich people they talk to every day.

Wow They Are Bad

Obviously none of this is about MEEE, really, but I gotta blog and wow is it hard sometimes. How many ways can you point out that Sarah Sanders is a big horrible liar and also Trump is bad too?

I still maintain that the Bush years were worse (so far) for many reasons, but they did at least fake running a real administration. Criticizing that required a bit of nuance. Sometimes at least. But now it's just LOL DONALD TRUMP IS PRESIDENT DID YOU SEE HIM ON TEEVEE.

Lunch Thread

enjoy

Democracy. Whisky. Sexy.

Weird but dangerous people.

Trump is the symptom of the Republican Party’s turn toward illiberalism, not its cause; even before Trump ran for president, some Republican elites were plotting to diminish the political power of minorities and enhance those of white voters. Whatever their disagreements, the leaders of both the populist and establishment wings of the Republican Party have concluded that they cannot be allowed to lose power simply because a majority of American voters do not wish them to wield it. The president speaks of imprisoning his political rivals and his voters cheer. He valorizes political violence and his followers take note. His attorneys argue both that Congress cannot investigate criminality in the executive branch, and that the president has the authority to end criminal investigations into himself or his allies, while ordering them against his opponents. Trump’s supporters exult in the head of state attacking private citizens who demand equal rights, then wave the banner of free speech exclusively in defense of expressions of bigotry. In the end, Trump will dictate the course of his party on these matters, and his base will do whatever he gives them license to do. Writers like French and Ahmari cannot shape this course, they can only argue about it after the fact.

Thread

Enjoy

Congratulations Sarah Sanders

After your much hard work not actually doing anything except maybe whispering in Maggie's ear the Harvard IOP welcomes you with a 7 figure fellowship.

Afternoon Thread

Enjoy

Pay Me

I don't begrudge media outlets for landing on the strategy of asking readers to pay them, but it has ruined the internet. There is nothing you can link anymore which isn't behind some sort of paywall, or blocks your adblocker, or has annoying popovers. And this would be ok in concept if any of them managed to keep you logged in but somehow they don't even if you do pay.

Infrastructure Week

She's so corrupt there's nothing we can do!

House Democrats are poised to launch an investigation into the Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao over allegations that she used her position to advance the interests of her family and her husband’s political career.

But even as some members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee say such a probe is inevitable, other Democratic lawmakers have expressed doubts about whether the current evidence is sufficient to warrant it, according to three lawmakers with direct knowledge of the conversations that have taken place over the last several days. And some lawmakers who spoke to The Daily Beast expressed unease—at this time—to call out the secretary for fear that doing so would impact their ability to advance infrastructure projects in their home districts.

There wasn't even ever an infrastructure week.

Morning Thread

That's enough Happy Hour. Time to get to work.

Happy Hour Thread

Buh bye, Schultz.  One down, 3,486 to go!

Joe the Biden

Wisdom doesn't automatically come with age but I like to think I am much smarter about certain things. One thing is the toxic messages about female sexuality I received as a teen. I don't know if it was the worst era but it was the height of the religious right and the sexual backlash and AIDS fear and generally it was, for lack of a better word, a prudish time. That men were protectors and predators both was a common message and confusing to boys and girls. I don't know how Grandpa Gropey Joe sees a 13-year-old girl and jumps right there but...

Joe Biden meets a voter’s granddaughter in an Iowa coffee shop and asks her age. She says she’s 13. He addresses her brothers. “You’ve got one job here, keep the guys away from your sister.”

— Liz Goodwin (@lizcgoodwin) June 12, 2019

Maybe Jailed Toddlers..Something Else?

I know part of the problem is that Trump is so horrible that...where do you start? But just pointing and saying "Trump is horrible" is not enough. Pick a few issues. Get on teevee every day. Talk about them.

I don't buy the idea that Democrats are just bad at "the game." I mean, I do, but it doesn't excuse the press who will get very mad if you tell them they are just pawns in that game. And then, very savvily, explain the game to you. But they are bad at it.

Stolen Valor

I think this more of an issue in the UK where the war was not something which happened mostly elsewhere and the aftermath lasted awhile, but the baby boomers are, by definition, people who were born after WWII and the weird ownership of a war they weren't alive for is strange.

Searching Twitter for the words “licence fee” and “veterans” is asking for trouble, obviously – but it nonetheless brings up a set of depressingly common, and depressingly predictable, sentiments. “D-Day veterans will now have to pay a licence fee to fund shite such as local BBC radio,” says “full-time binge-drinker” Rob. “The BBC propaganda machine,” writes James, whose love of Chelsea F.C. is matched only by his love of his wife and daughter, “has hit the wall today by trying to charge veterans the licence fee.”

Except – that’s not what’s actually happening at all, is it? The numbers don’t add up.

Today’s 75-year-olds were born in 1943-4. Even at a time of total war, toddlers were not being conscripted, kitted up and sent to help out at D-day. To have seen combat during the war you’d need to have been born in 1927 or earlier, making you at least 91 today. And while there were a few younger boys who lied about their age in the hope of seeing action, that a) was unusual, and b) shifts the age bar to about 88 at the lowest.

#ofcoursenotallboomers

Vampire Hour Thread

Tuesday Night

I can't keep up.

Curiosity Killed The Pundit

I am a very well-educated (credentials) man. I have read a few books in my life. Took a few history courses. Know a few things. I am still pretty dumb. I accept that. How is it that people don't get that most of our pundits are actually dumber than me?

Lunch Thread

Get your lunch on.