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May 10, 2022 09:46 PM UTC

Sine Die Open Thread

  • 30 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Evil is inevitable, but is also remediable.”

–Horace Mann

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30 thoughts on “Sine Die Open Thread”

  3. HCR This Morning, speaks on the John Birch anti-Democracy and anti-Socialist rhetoric.

    In Michigan, Republican Ryan Kelley, who is running for governor, has openly attacked the idea of democracy. “Socialism—it starts with democracy,” he said. “That’s the ticket for the left. They want to push this idea of democracy, which turns into socialism, which turns into communism in every instance.” Kelley’s distinction between “democracy” and a “constitutional republic” is drawn from the John Birch Society in the 1960s, which used that distinction to oppose the idea of one person, one vote, that supported Black voting. 

    In turn, the Birchers drew from the arguments of white supremacists during Reconstruction after the Civil War, who warned that Black voters would elect leaders who promised them roads, and schools, and hospitals. These benefits would cost tax dollars that in the postwar South would have to be paid largely by white landowners. Thus, white voters insisted, Black voting would lead to a redistribution of wealth; by 1871, they insisted it was essentially “socialism.”

    That context explains Kelley’s insistence that “we truly are losing our country to the radical left.” But the argument is not only racial and economic. American evangelicals are converting to the Russian Orthodox Church out of support for its nativism, white nationalism, rejection of LGBTQ rights and abortion, and support for authoritarian Russian president Vladimir Putin. Like him, they object to the diversity inherent in democracy. 

  4. Not good, people …

    Live Updates: April CPI Report and Inflation News – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

    8.3% in April which, I suppose, is better than the 8.5% in March. And it isn’t as bad as the 15% we had back in the final days of Jimmy Carter.

    But this is still going to be a big problem come November.

    Biden said he is going to “look at” lifting Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports. Look at. That’s a start.

    At least the Fed has initiated monetary policy changes which should tame the inflation …. albeit, by triggering a recession. 

    1. Live Update: Biden Boom Continues to Thunder!

      In related news, Putin's attack on Ukraine has solidified NATO, focused America's allies, and caused a run-up in the value of the dollar.

    2. Inflation: 

       * yep, if it stays "hot" it will be a drag on Democratic prospects based on "perceptions"

       * US inflation is almost the EXACT middle of the multiple nations making up the OECD.  In other words, it isn't a US caused problem, its world-wide.  

       * "real" inflation, the CPI minus the average pay for workers is something worth looking at.  "Higher inflation means the buying power of workers' take-home pay is shrinking. Real (inflation-adjusted) average hourly earnings fell 2.7 percent, seasonally adjusted, from March 2021 to March 2022, the BLS separately reported on April 12."

       * given a choice between higher unemployment and higher inflation, the economy looks a bit different.  Last Friday, BLS reported "Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 428,000 in April, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported"  

       * Economy has basically clawed back to pre-pandemic levels "Both the labor force participation rate, at 62.2 percent, and the employment-population ratio, at 60.0
      percent, were little changed over the month. These measures are each 1.2 percentage points below their February 2020 values. "

      1. JiD, your analysis is right on, but it is also irrelevant….

        It IS a global problem, but most voters don't care. They simply realize that when the go shopping or fill the gas tank, it costs more. They will retaliate against the administration which is in power and does not do enough to solve the problem be it global or local.

        Your first sentence hit the nail on its head: "it will be a drag on Democratic prospects based on 'perceptions.'"

  6. Sometimes, you just have to take the good with the bad.  As a Tesla owner, I think Elon Musk is an engineering savant.  Unfortunately, I also think his emotional IQ is about that of a 13 year old, and makes me shudder if his acquisition of Twitter succeeds. 

    But in another area, he is besting even the US military in the robustness of his StarLink internet service that is providing 150,000 Ukrainians daily access to information despite Russian government hackers attempts to bring it down.

    The UK Government stated in a press release that Russia’s efforts against Viasat in Ukraine affected even internet users outside the country. Viasat customers from other EU member countries reported losing their internet connection when the war began as well. 

    Viasat has stated that “tens of thousands of terminals have been damaged, made inoperable and cannot be repaired.”

    Starlink, on the other hand, has been able to avoid Russia’s attacks so far. This is not to say that there were no attempts to disrupt the satellite internet system, however. Dave Tremper, a Pentagon official, stated in April that Russia had attempted a jamming attack against Starlink. SpaceX fought off the cyberattack at a speed that exceeded that of the US military. 

    In a statement to Russian state media, Roscosmos Space Chief Dmitry Rogozin expressed his frustrations with Elon Musk and Starlink’s satellite service, which now serves an estimated 150,000 users in Ukraine every day. Rogozin issued a subtle threat to Musk, noting that the CEO would be held “accountable” for his contributions to the war.

    Perhaps if Elon had just added space lasers to his satellites, we could have returned fire!

    2. He’s not an engineer and his company was the failed one that PayPal bought. He is just the money don’t confuse a bull market with brains.

      1. Correct, Musk is not an engineering savant.

        Much as I dislike his rich high-tech libertarian arrogance, I have to admit that Musk is an audacious and creative thinker. Out of a hundred ideas, he has had the fortune (literally) to succeed with some of them.

        1. Musk (and the advisors he listens to) are quality administrators, enabling engineers and sustaining the effort beyond where a number of other CEOs would be willing to go. 

          In a certainty that he is "right," he's able to hang on long enough to allow accomplishments to accumulate. 

          1. With degrees in physics and economics, he grasps what is theoretically and physically possible, and attracts and inspires the best engineers to create the resulting breakthrough products.  Having one successful startup (ahem, Bill Gates) or two (Steve Jobs, sort of) is exceptional.  To have multiple unicorn successes is like the plot of "The Man Who Fell To Earth".

                1. Because you do it for free? You know that doesn't make him smart or his products better as much as it makes you a cheap slave. 

                  1. C'mon John, you're better than that.  Harry is a fine, decent, man and sincere in his admiration of the Musk Melon.

                    Myself, no matter how rich a guy is, when he announces that he is an absolute genius who needs no advice from anybody, I sell his stock short.

                    I've been at the site of the battle of waterloo and know how these stories end.

                    1. Exactly.  The whole point of my post was to illustrate that great genius is often accompanied by great flaws.  But on the whole, with art, politics and industry, more often than not, we gain much more than we lose.

                      Even our saints really aren't — without exception.

    4. Elon Musk aside, does anybody else love Twitter? The platform’s 280-character tweets are an essential tool for governments, institutions, politicians, and journalists — as well as eccentric billionaires, of course — but in the grander scheme, not a lot of regular folks are hooked. We look at the brave — and scary — user numbers of social media, where not many care whether you RT’d or simply liked their thread.

    1. Tragic. Be on the lookout for legislators exploiting this epidemic for ineffective "tough-on-crime" (but lacking-in-empirical-rehabilitation) measures. 

      Hopefully resources will be directed appropriately to address this medical issue.

  8. Conservative Luminary and former CU Professor John Eastman uses creative mathematics to try to overthrow the constitution.

    We need to be reminded that John Eastman is a former law clerk to Clarence Thomas. It's funny (but scary), how Thomas's network of law clerks keeps coming up. Not to mention his adam's rib, Ginny.

    Not only should the state’s legislators declare the election invalid, Eastman wrote in the Dec. 4, 2020 message, they should choose a new slate of electors for Trump.

    “Do you want to only go half way, and require another resolution to actual choose a slate of electors? Or should you do it all in one resolution?” Eastman wrote. “I don’t know the dynamic of your Legislature, so can’t answer that. But my intuition is that it would be better to do what you need to do in one fell swoop.”

    Eastman added that Diamond should add a section to the resolution that included “factual findings,” based in part on hearings held before the Pennsylvania state legislature the week before. …

    Eastman went on to articulate a series of claims that the legislators could make to do just that: why not just “pro-rate” the vote totals, ignoring a subset of mail-in ballots?

    “For example, depending on how many ballots were counted that were received after the statutory deadline (say 10,000 for example’s purpose), those 10,000 votes need to be discarded, and you can take the absentee ballot ratio for each candidate in the counties were late-received ballots were illegally counted and deduct the pro-rated amount from each candidate’s total,” Eastman wrote.

     

    1. The pro-rating part of the good CU scholar's argument does not seem to be quoted verbatim from any statute I've ever heard of. Also wondering where our good Postmaster General DeJoy fits into all of this, since some not unsignificant number of voted ballots sat undelivered in postal offices for periods of time during the run-up to Election Day. 

        1. DeJoy is an independent agency administrator the President can appoint but not directly fire. These are the limitations that institutionalist accept. Rather than punish Biden for something he has no control of, confront Republican mismanagment and waste.

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