Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

Haha, Trump just announced he wants another $100 billion in tariffs against China in retaliation against China's retaliation to our original tariffs. The shit just gets piled deeper

[AlabamAlum]

AA- Where'd you get that? The Wayback Machine?

eCat posted it over at TGP.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Hey Talent, DSL, Wiz, etc,....memories, like the corners of my mind.......

Ah yes..CNNSI...where The_Prophet_ ruled the day...before the accident...and The Notorious King of Trash was killed by Wiz after the famous chokin' in the horseshoe incident of 1998...

Good times.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Good AP article on Trump's demands on the military leaving Syria. Mattis and Dunford puashed back. But Trump wants troops out before the elections-oops-I mean before November.

https://www.apnews.com/4a710b330dc14...-say-'timeline'

At one point, Dunford spoke up, one official said, telling Trump that his approach was not productive and asked him to give the group specific instructions as to what he wanted.

Trump?s response was to demand an immediate withdrawal of all American troops and an end to all U.S. civilian stabilization programs designed to restore basic infrastructure to war-shattered Syrian communities.


Mattis countered, arguing that an immediate withdrawal could be catastrophic and was logistically impossible to pull off in any responsible way, without risking the return of the Islamic State and other terrorist groups in newly liberated territories, the officials said. Mattis floated a one-year withdrawal as an alternative.

Trump then relented ? but only slightly, telling his aides they could have five or six months to complete the mission to destroy the Islamic State and then get out, according to the officials. Trump also indicated that he did not want to hear in October that the military had been unable to fully defeat the Islamic State and had to remain in Syria for longer.

[Dr. Strangelove]

[Kapture1]

[CGVT]

[iam416]

Mulvaney has hired at least eight political appointees since he took over the bureau in late November. Four of them are making $259,500 a year, and one is making $239,595. That is more than the salaries of members of Congress, Cabinet secretaries and nearly all federal judges apart from those who sit on the Supreme Court.

Oh, they hate Mulvaney. But, thankfully the CPFB is completely devoid of oversight. He's really sticking it to Pocohantas. And, as an aside, if it were Cordray paying folks these salaries to do such an important job as protect consumers I rather doubt there would be an uproar.

The representative also said it is up to Congress to change the bureau's structure and compensation practices

A-fucking-men.

[iam416]

Meanwhile, The Atlantic has shown its ass. After a month, they caved to #GentryProgs and fired Kevin Williamson because, well, he's a conservative: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/b...-atlantic.html

The #GentryProg Media carries forward in it's wonderful echo chamber of coastal elite opinion. A great day for all those who don't much give rat's ass about hearing from the other side.

“We are striving here to be a big-tent journalism organization at a time of national fracturing,” Mr. Goldberg wrote. “We will continue to build a newsroom that is, as The Atlantic’s founding manifesto states, ‘of no party or clique.’ We are also an organization that values a spirit of generosity and collegiality. We must strive to uphold that standard as well.”

LMMFAO. I mean, LMMFAO.

[hack]

Michael Kelly was the editor 15 years ago, and was clearly a conservative, so the Atlantic published a dubious argument in favor of the war, and Kelly went to Iraq on embed and died. Andrew Sullivan has a voice there whenever he wants. Megan McArdle built up the coverage of commerce. The Atlantic has a pretty serious history of amplifying conservative voices and giving them decision-making power, regardless of what happened in this case. I'm certainly tired of Jeffrey Goldberg, who is an old-era person, and perhaps this episode shows that the magazine isn't headed for great things with him in an elevated position.

But we should be serious about The Atlantic, including myself. I don't read it much since McArdle left and because it's not open to freelancers. But the wider ownership group has an interesting business model, has consciously jettisoned its snooty New England heritage, and has some interesting secondary publications. The business model could be a way forward, including that unwillingness to rely on freelancers, who are always cheaper because you don't pay them benefits. What they are doing is more sustainable in addition to be more expensive.

We should also be serious about publications that do more than hire or publish a token contrarian now and again. It comes with challenges, including sorting out who exactly these days counts as a robust conservative voice. This same thing just happened at the NYT. But few publications even try to have a diversity of thought and opinion, and I'd wager that most people criticizing The Atlantic this week mostly consume shittier media anyways.

[iam416]

All of that is well and good. The Atlantic hired a very good writer who has unapologetic conservative views. And they buckled to the #GentryProg lynch mob, more or less endorsing itself as the vehicle of the interminably silly and, IMO, despicably intolerant Jessica Valenti.

In any event, I meant what I said -- The Atlantic showed its ass. There isn't much more to the story than that.

And I'm quite sure that everyone who consumes media consumes shitty media. The Atlantic may not be as shitty as some of the other shitty media, but it's still shitty. Though, I will say, Coates writes well enough to read even if I disagree with nearly everything he says. Of course, so does Williamson...

[iam416]

Speaking of totally shitty media, the NYT, CNN and others covered The Pulse massacre as if it were an anti-gay hate crime and even blame Christians and Rs for creating a climate of hate. Well, turns out the evidence shows that it was actually randomly selected by the muslim terrorist: https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/...ian-narrative/ (Opinion piece from David French slamming coverage); https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...b04646b6454dc2 (my first ever HuffPo link because the story is actual, well, reporting).

Turns out that, you know, occam's razor was sort of in play here -- garden variety islamic terrorist motives. As was crystal fucking clear from the jump.

[crashcourse]

meanwhile Sergio is still on the 15th putting for 13

[hack]

Jeffrey Goldberg showed his ass. In truth Williamson had no business being hired in the first place. He was to occupy one of the most coveted and prestigious seats in all of journalism. There ought to be exceptionally high standards. Half-baked hottakez have no business here. Goldberg ought to have known better and this ought to cost him his job. He needs to be guided to a think tank at this point. If The Atlantic is content with what happened, then it too showed its ass. But it doesn't take a lefty to note that what brought down Williamson is not just a stupid opinion but evidence of a faulty thought process that media such as The Atlantic should keep out of its newsroom.

[hack]

What that means on a bigger scale, and for your issue of being annoyed by the way lefties express themselves on mass, is another discussion. In the absence of real quality leadership from the country's executive class, be they in the public or private sector, we are going to get cruder and more clumsy voices in the public sphere. Happens on both sides.

I think that America is at its best when there's someone pushing from behind and putting heat on the asses of people in the best seats. That, to me, is the core of American exceptionalism. Everything will be better when the people pushing from behind can break through. Guys like Jeffery Goldberg had a good run and deserved many accolades, but are so clearly the wrong people to helm such publications. The DNC has different reasons for disallowing the people pushing from behind within its structure to break through, but they're doing it. The Big Ten is run by a bunch of dinosaurs, as is the NCAA. Examples here; examples there. Every one of us can probably think of a person we work with who has grown roots in their chair and aren't a net positive in the senior position they hold.

When you have too many of those kinds of people, you get these stupid incidents which violate the common sense of people who find it easier to support a movement than to find exactly the right words to express their sentiments. Is what it is; no solution. You can treat it by holding people accountable and pushing toward meritocracy as much as possible, but there's no cure for this.