Patterico's Pontifications

11/5/2021

Weekend Open Thread

Filed under: General — Dana @ 6:10 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Let’s go!

First news item

An unlikely candidate will likely win:

The man who is poised to topple one of New Jersey’s most feared political kingpins has never held public office, he has been a commercial truck driver for 25 years and he claims to have spent a whopping *$153 during the primary portion of his campaign.

His name is Edward Durr, and he may be on the verge of one of the most unthinkable upsets in New Jersey political history.

With 98% of the vote counted, Durr, the Republican Senate candidate in the South Jersey-based 3rd legislative district, leads New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney by roughly 2,000 votes — 32,134 to 30,125.

In answer to his question: clearly he had a pretty darn good chance:

“I joked with people and I said, ‘I’m going to shock the world, I’m going to beat this man,’” NJ quotes Durr as saying on Wednesday afternoon. “I was saying it, but really kind of joking. Because what chance did a person like me really stand against this man?”

Durr reportedly spent less than $10,000 on his campaign.

And, in what has now become inevitable for public figures, especially newbies:

Edward Durr, the newly elected Republican state senator who shocked New Jersey by knocking off incumbent Senate President Steve Sweeney, has apologized and deleted his social media accounts after past xenophobic and anti-Muslim messages surfaced.

“I’m a passionate guy and I sometimes say things in the heat of the moment,” Durr said in a statement released Friday morning and reported by the New Jersey Globe. “If I said things in the past that hurt anybody’s feelings, I sincerely apologize.”

Here is his $153 $2300 iphone campaign ad:

Second news item

More advancements made:

Pfizer Inc. said Friday that its experimental antiviral pill for COVID-19 cut rates of hospitalization and death by nearly 90% in high-risk adults, as the drugmaker joined the race for an easy-to-use medication to treat the coronavirus…Pfizer said it will ask the FDA and international regulators to authorize its pill as soon as possible, after independent experts recommended halting the company’s study based on the strength of its results. Once Pfizer applies, the FDA could make a decision within weeks or months.

Third news item

Unsurprising:

Gov. Greg Abbott has a comfortable lead over potential Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke, according to a new poll from the University of Texas at Austin and The Texas Tribune.

The survey of registered voters found Abbott with a 9-percentage-point advantage over O’Rourke, 46% to 37%. Seven percent of respondents picked someone else in the hypothetical matchup, and 10% said they have not thought about it enough to have an opinion…

Abbott’s approval rating has slightly improved since the last poll in August, but it remains underwater, with 43% of voters approving of the job he is doing and 48% disapproving.

O’Rourke, meanwhile, has a well-defined — and negative — image with voters. Only 35% of respondents said they have a favorable opinion of him, while 50% registered an unfavorable opinion. Only 7% of voters said they did not know him or had no opinion of him.

Fourth news item

Maybe STFU until you’ve walked in their shoes…and all of their kids’ shoes:

A large family featured on CNN discussing the rising costs of basic groceries like milk was mocked by some progressive media figures on Thursday.

To demonstrate the “squeeze” of inflation and supply chain issues on everyday Americans, CNN’s “New Day” featured the Stotlers, a Texas couple looking after nine children – two of whom are their biological kids, while they’ve adopted six more and have one foster child.

Krista Stotler said she started seeing prices rising this summer and it was costing them an extra $100 a week on groceries.

“A gallon of milk was $1.99. Now it’s $2.79. When you buy 12 gallons a week times four weeks, that’s a lot of money,” she said, as her husband Larry added he felt guilty that they were being forced to buy less healthy food to save money.

Responses from those who clearly have trouble watching a video from beginning to end, yet believe themselves better than you:

Fifth news item

Wholly unsurprising:

Because the defund movement took off in mid-2020, it was largely too late for the issue to be truly reflected on that year’s ballot. But versions of it were very much before voters in Tuesday’s election and in the 2021 primaries. The lesson: Voters are open to police overhauls and new oversight, but they strongly rejected some of the more drastic ideas — including in some very blue areas. And amid rising crime nationwide, pro-policing messages won the day.

The big results came in Minneapolis, Buffalo and Seattle.

In Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed by a police officer, voters rejected by double digits a proposal to turn the Minneapolis Police Department into a somewhat-nebulous Department of Public Safety that would have been overseen by the city council. Two city council members who had supported the proposal also lost their seats by wide margins.

In Buffalo, democratic socialist India Walton had defeated incumbent Mayor Byron Brown in a primary earlier in the year but lost to Brown’s write-in campaign Tuesday. Walton had said at one point that she would “absolutely” run on a defund platform, though she later sought to moderate that stance.

Results on Long Island in New York also appeared to demonstrate uneasiness with going too far on criminal justice change. Republicans flipped district attorneys’ races in Nassau and Suffolk counties while focusing their campaigns on the state legislature’s move to limit judges’ ability to set cash bail for more-minor charges — an effort that had pitted moderate Democrats against liberals.

Sixth news item

Fear motivates people to arm themselves:

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a national trade association in the firearms industry, says that when comparing 2019 to 2020, there was a 58.2% increase in gun purchases among Black people, a 43% increase with Asians and 49% among Latinos. The NSSF estimates that 40% of gun sales overall were for first-time gun buyers.

There are many factors motivating new gun purchases among people of color: some buyers who spoke with ABC News cited concerns about safety in the U.S., while others claim that pro-gun outreach by various gun advocacy groups is behind the rush to arm oneself.

Anti-Black hate crimes rose nearly 40% from 2019 to 2020, according to the statistics. There were 2,755 reported incidents targeting Black or African American people in the U.S. in 2020, making this demographic the most targeted racial group by a large margin.

Hate crimes targeting the Asian community in the U.S. rose by about 73% in 2020 when compared with 2019’s numbers, from 158 to 274, according to FBI hate crime statistics.

And hate crimes against Latinos dropped just slightly, but still surpassed 500 incidences in both years.

Seventh news item

What an infantile culture:

But as is so often the case when liberals use a double standard, conservatives suddenly discover it, too. Partisans on the right were often outraged by crude attacks on Republican presidents. They condemned such epithets as offensive and disrespectful. Now they think they’re great. If the left should lighten up, the right should grow up.

Part of the problem driving this coarseness is the breakdown of the blood-brain barrier between social media and real life. Often, what’s funny or arguably defensible on Twitter, TikTok or Facebook is simply inappropriate in real life.

The way social media encourage people to behave like jackasses is itself part of a deeper and more pernicious trend in society. In his book “A Time to Build,” Yuval Levin catalogs how leaders — in politics, business, sports, media — increasingly use their institutions as “platforms” to perform on, rather than the organizations molding their members to specific missions. De Niro used award shows to lecture and scold. Colin Kaepernick used the NFL as a platform for his causes. Trump saw the presidency as a stage on which he could celebrate himself.

Eighth news item

How about just making sure they can add and subtract, know their multiplication tables, and be able to solve for X. No more pi-in-the-sky distractions:

But ever since a draft was opened for public comment in February, the recommendations have set off a fierce debate over not only how to teach math, but also how to solve a problem more intractable than Fermat’s last theorem: closing the racial and socioeconomic disparities in achievement that persist at every level of math education.

The California guidelines, which are not binding, could overhaul the way many school districts approach math instruction. The draft rejected the idea of naturally gifted children, recommended against shifting certain students into accelerated courses in middle school and tried to promote high-level math courses that could serve as alternatives to calculus, like data science or statistics.

The draft also suggested that math should not be colorblind and that teachers could use lessons to explore social justice — for example, by looking out for gender stereotypes in word problems, or applying math concepts to topics like immigration or inequality.

Even in heavily Democratic California — a state with six million public school students and an outsize influence on textbook publishing nationwide — the draft guidelines encountered scathing criticism, with charges that the framework would inject “woke” politics into a subject that is supposed to be practical and precise.

The question is why?, also, the potential for damage to students is real:

States are lagging behind those in other industrialized nations. And within the country, there is a persistent racial gap in achievement. According to data from the civil rights office of the Education Department, Black students represented about 16 percent of high school students but 8 percent of those enrolled in calculus during the 2015-16 school year. White and Asian students were overrepresented in high-level courses.

“We have a state and nation that hates math and is not doing well with it,” Dr. Boaler said.

Critics of the draft said the authors would punish high achievers by limiting options for gifted programs. An open letter signed by hundreds of Californians working in science and technology described the draft as “an endless river of new pedagogical fads that effectively distort and displace actual math.”

Ninth news item

The House divided:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plan to pass a $1.9 trillion economic package and a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill…was at risk of collapsing as leaders struggled to unify progressives and moderates, though signs of progress emerged Friday night as Democrats resumed debate on the House floor.

After previously expressing confidence that both bills will pass on Friday, Pelosi indicated in the afternoon that they would just move the infrastructure bill amid push back from moderates that the $1.9 trillion bill needs an official cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office, a process that could take about two weeks.

After hours of negotiating, the House finally moved forward to a series of procedural votes Friday night…despite opposition from progressives who have warned that they will sink the infrastructure bill if it moves ahead without the separate economic package, known as the Build Back Better Act.

Throughout Friday, progressives made clear that both bills must move in tandem, and they have pushed that if the $1.9 trillion dollar bill is delayed then the infrastructure bill should be voted on at the same time.

MISCELLANEOUS

Oh hello:

Have a great weekend!

–Dana

228 Responses to “Weekend Open Thread”

  1. Hello, and happy Friday!

    Dana (174549)

  2. Only one slight at Trump? And it is a portion of a quote??

    We must be moving on. Bravo!!

    BuDuh (5266dd)

  3. Yeah, you can hold on to the lipstick, BuDuh. You don’t need it just yet.

    nk (1d9030)

  4. You’re so funny, Buduh. We all know, including you, that the one who won’t move on is Trump. But keep up your silly snark if it makes you feel good.

    Dana (174549)

  5. More NeverTrump players:

    Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm laughs when asked about Biden’s plans to bring gas prices down.

    “Ha ha ha. That is hilarious!”

    https://mobile.twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1456610771186634757

    HO HO!!

    (I apologize…. Trump thinks about himself so shut up… I get it)

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  6. ‘A gallon of milk was $1.99. Now it’s $2.79…’

    A bargain: it’s $3.49 for a gallon of whole milk in San Diego area; $10/lb., for London Broil– and still $3/10/gal., for Shell unleaded. Butterball turkeys out- $1.99/lb.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  7. More things for which we can thank NeverTrump Biden voters:

    Paul H. Kupiec estimates that with inflation currently running at 5.4%, inflation will transfer at least $1.9 trillion in wealth from the public to the federal government this year.

    https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/580043-the-inflation-tax-is-not-only-real-its-massive?utm_content=buffera0ea0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

    Obudman (a91251)

  8. The House just passed the $1.2 TRILLION infrastructure plan. It now goes to the POTUS to be signed into law.

    Never though I’d live to see banter over use of numbers like a trillion dollars be so quickly accepted. ‘Course, it’s not their money. Little wonder abandoning $85 billion in military equipment meant nothing to them.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  9. “More things for which we can thank NeverTrump Biden voters”

    What Biden policy caused the jump in inflation?

    Davethulhu (fb44c3)

  10. His atrocious energy policies for starters.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  11. https://taibbi.substack.com/p/rachel-maddows-shocking-new-low

    Russiagate is already a sizable boil on the face of American journalism, but the indictment of Danchenko has the potential to grow the profession’s embarrassment to fantastic dimensions. For instance, a key claim of the Steele dossier involved a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” between Trump and Russia that supposedly went back years, and was managed on the Trump side by Paul Manafort and Carter Page. At one point, it was believed this claim was sourced to an anonymous phone call Danchenko thought came from the former president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, Sergei Millian. Danchenko moreover reportedly told the FBI that he and the “anonymous caller” made an appointment to meet in New York.

    The indictment, however, asserts that Danchenko never even spoke to Millian, repeatedly emailing him and getting no response. As for that trip to New York, hoo boy:

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  12. “His atrocious energy policies for starters.”

    Be specific.

    Davethulhu (fb44c3)

  13. If that family was Hispanic or Black, no wokester would have cracked wise about the milk or contraception.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  14. Part of the problem driving this coarseness is the breakdown of the blood-brain barrier between social media and real life. Often, what’s funny or arguably defensible on Twitter, TikTok or Facebook is simply inappropriate in real life.

    It’s also a feeling that nothing will cross the fist/nose barrier when you’re at home posting by VPN as Wokey McWokester.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  15. The draft also suggested that math should not be colorblind and that teachers could use lessons to explore social justice — for example, by looking out for gender stereotypes in word problems, or applying math concepts to topics like immigration or inequality.

    “So, you got 5 hos working for you weekdays, and 11 hos on weekends. If they make twice as much on weekends, and they average $25/trick on weekdays, how much money will you have at the end of the month?”

    Just illustrating the problems difficulties that might arise with this kind of condescension.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  16. Never though I’d live to see banter over use of numbers like a trillion dollars be so quickly accepted

    Dirksen explained this long ago.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  17. The Republicans could have defeated this had they tried.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  18. Since I didn’t see any of your cool photos, Dana, allow me to fill the gap here, on the Faroe Islands.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  19. fbi-raids-project-veritas-journalists-homes-looking-for-ashley-bidens-diary-n470674

    I expect to hear condemnation from the NY Times and Washington Post over this.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  20. What Biden policy caused the jump in inflation?

    Said on the same day that pass a 1.2 trillion dollar porkfest.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  21. Be specific.

    It’s well-known that gas prices move up when future production is curtailed, and down when future production is expanded. Oil producers hoping for higher prices during scarcity turn off the tap today. It’s strangely self-fulfilling.

    See here: https://scholar.harvard.edu/feldstein/publications/we-can-lower-oil-prices-now

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  22. So, when the President says he will cut off fracking on public lands (e.g. all of New Mexico), this means that oil that might have been marketed in a few years won’t be. This drives today’s prices up.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  23. “Said on the same day that pass a 1.2 trillion dollar porkfest.”

    If it was passed today, it can hardly have affected inflation before today.

    Davethulhu (fb44c3)

  24. “So, when the President says he will cut off fracking on public lands (e.g. all of New Mexico), this means that oil that might have been marketed in a few years won’t be. This drives today’s prices up.”

    Despite his stated objective, Biden has not curtailed oil and gas production. In fact it’s the opposite:

    Approvals for companies to drill for oil and gas on U.S. public lands are on pace this year to reach their highest level since George W. Bush was president, underscoring President Joe Biden’s reluctance to more forcefully curb petroleum production in the face of industry and Republican resistance.

    The Interior Department approved about 2,500 permits to drill on public and tribal lands in the first six months of the year, according to an Associated Press analysis of government data. That includes more than 2,100 drilling approvals since Biden took office January 20.

    New Mexico and Wyoming had the largest number of approvals. Montana, Colorado and Utah had hundreds each.

    Biden campaigned last year on pledges to end new drilling on federal lands to rein in climate-changing emissions. His pick to oversee those lands, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, adamantly opposed drilling on federal lands while in Congress and co-sponsored the liberal Green New Deal.

    But the steps taken by the administration to date on fossil fuels are more modest, including a temporary suspension on new oil and gas leases on federal lands that a judge blocked last month, blocked petroleum sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and cancellation of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada.

    Because vast fossil fuel reserves already are under lease, those actions did nothing to slow drilling on public lands and waters that account for about a quarter of U.S. oil production.

    https://www.npr.org/2021/07/13/1015581092/biden-promised-to-end-new-drilling-on-federal-land-but-approvals-are-up

    Davethulhu (fb44c3)

  25. House passes $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, the largest transportation package in U.S. history

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/11/05/house-passes-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill/8580227002/

    The infrastructure bill would provide:

    -$110 billion for roads and bridges. More than 45,000 bridges nationwide are rated in poor condition. The bill also includes $16 billion for major projects that are too large or complex for traditional funding.
    -$66 billion for Amtrak for passenger and freight rail. The bill aims to eliminate Amtrak’s maintenance backlog and to modernize the Northeast Corridor.
    -$65 billion to expand broadband internet access. The White House estimated as many as 40 million Americans lack broadband access. Biden initially sought $100 billion.
    -$65 billion to rebuild the electric grid with renewable energy and thousands of miles of new power lines.
    -$55 billion to upgrade water systems, with a goal of replacing the country’s lead service pipes.
    -$42 billion for airports, waterways and port infrastructure. Airports would receive $25 billion.
    -$39 billion for public transit. The bill aims to repair and upgrade transit systems and make stations more accessible to elderly and passengers with disabilities.
    -$7.5 billion for charging stations for electric vehicles and $7.5 billion for electric buses.

    _______________________

    Amtrak has lost money every year since 1971. Here’s why train tickets are so expensive.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/amtrak-why-so-expensive-america-train-system-2019-3

    Amtrak has been operating since 1971, but it has yet to become profitable. With high ticket costs, Amtrak has become a less viable mode of transportation in the United States.

    Has Joe ever wondered why he flew aboard a 747 to Europe and didn’t travel by steamship and rail? Or whatever happened to the S.S. United States? Or visited the R.M.S. Queen Mary in Los Angeles Harbor for a photo op lunch after viewing the container ships stacked up off the California coast waiting to be unloaded… for Easter, 2022?

    Does Joe know the fastest commercially-operated bullet train is in China? Or that Japan may be the most famous speeding trains, but the Shanghai Maglev Train routinely hits 268 mph with passengers on board. Does he know the fastest non-maglev bullet train is French? -source, https://www.thrillist.com/cars/bullet-trains-facts-history-and-trivia-about-the-fastest-ground-transportation-on-earth

    Is Joe know aware of the recent advances in hypersonic flight systems?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersonic_flight

    Has Joe stopped the clock on his Betamax from flashing yet? A man closing in fast on starting his 80th year [he was born Nov., 20, 1942], is not one to be rallying a 21st Century America to a path toward the future when his own is path is nearing the end.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  26. This is on you people that didn’t vote for Trump. You people need a honest education. You people seem rather dumb. You people are handicapped. You people are democrats.

    mg (8cbc69)

  27. The Hispanic Paradox:

    The Hispanic paradox, or Latino paradox, is an epidemiological paradox that refers to the finding that Hispanic and Latino Americans tend to have health outcomes that “paradoxically” are comparable to, or in some cases better than, those of their U.S. non-Hispanic White counterparts, even though Hispanics have lower average income and education. Low socioeconomic status is almost universally associated with worse population health and higher death rates everywhere in the world.[2] The paradox usually refers in particular to low mortality among Latinos in the United States relative to non-Hispanic Whites.[3][4][5][6][7][8] According to the Center for Disease Control’s 2015 Vital Signs report, Hispanics in the United States had a 24% lower risk of mortality, as well as lower risk for nine of the fifteen leading causes of death as compared to Whites.

    Some years ago, when I was looking into this I observed that, according to the CDC, of the six largest demographic groups in the United States, the longest lived were — Hispanic women. As I recall, the life expectancies for these six groups go like this: black men, white men, (Hispanic men and white women, roughly tied), Hispanic women.

    (Again, as I recall, black women passed white men in life expectancy sometime in the 1980s.)

    COVID will temporarily change this, but I predict that we will see that order return in a few years.

    The Wikipedia article gives a number of hypotheses to explain this Hispanic advantage; I think stronger families and stronger communities is the most likely. (That explanation is consistent with the longer life expectancies of Japanese-Americans.)

    I have yet to meet anyone who knows about this “Hispanic paradox”. I suppose it isn’t discussed much because it doesn’t fit popular theories about how to build a better society.

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  28. Another surprise for biologists, this time from Claifornia condors:

    Now, scientists at the San Diego Zoo say the California condor — the largest flying bird in North America with a 10-foot wingspan — can be added to the list. In a paper published last week in the Journal of Heredity, the scientists said parthenogenesis has been observed in condors for the first time.

    (It helps when you have all the “genetic profiles of every condor born since the restoration effort”.)

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  29. The point was that the CNN story on milk buying didn’t actually do a good job of checking the facts re the price of milk:

    https://slate.com/business/2021/11/cnn-milk-inflation-gallons-stotler-family-wowzers.html

    The average price of milk has not been $1.99 in the country in quite literally decades. In January of this year, before inflation really kicked in, the lowest average price in any of the 31 major cities tracked by the Department of Agriculture was $2.52 a gallon. It also hasn’t gotten that much more expensive: Year over year, the price of fresh whole milk has only increased by 3.2 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks consumer prices.

    Victor (4959fb)

  30. I see your Hispanic Paradox (on the ground anecdotal seems iffy) and raise with a Hispanic Paper Bag Test.

    Hint:
    Some theorize it’s a setup to get kick them out of the POC tent.

    urbanleftbehind (c073c9)

  31. What world do we live in where slate has to cross check CNN because slate wanted to run interference for all of the mean tweets?

    Usually this sort of stuff is routed through FOX. Seems like the wrestlers are trying some script flipping.

    The important point, and this can never be forgotten, there is no inflation and if there is there’s nothing president cornholio can do about it because it’s all your fault for wanting food and energy and treadmills.

    frosty (f27e97)

  32. You know what provably reduced armed conflicts over past centuries? Potatoes. Yes, potatoes. It’s a miracle root vegetable.

    Abstract: This paper provides evidence of the long-run effects of a permanent increase in agricultural productivity on conflict. We construct a newly digitized and geo-referenced dataset of battles in Europe, the Near East, and North Africa from 1400–1900 ce and examine variation in agricultural productivity due to the introduction of potatoes from the Americas to the Old World after the Columbian Exchange. We find that the introduction of potatoes led to a sizeable and permanent reduction in conflict.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  33. urbanleftbehind (c073c9) — 11/6/2021 @ 6:36 am

    There lease is coming due and won’t be renewed. They’ll have to find some space near the Asians soon.

    frosty (f27e97)

  34. 14, they might have cracked wise about the possible relief from the post-consumption effects of lactose intolerance “prevalent” in Black and Brown communities.

    In picking that particular family to interview, Was CNN’s B. Kellar trying to be Salena Zito (genuine concern) or Sasha Baron Cohen (mocking)?

    urbanleftbehind (c073c9)

  35. Why will the inflation surge continue? Three reasons:
    (1) The PPI. The author says its mostly about the supply chain, but higher energy prices have to come into it.
    (2) Government spending.
    (3) The Fed, which has been adding $120 billion to the monetary supply every month.
    (4) I’ll add a 4th. I don’t see oil/gas prices going down for awhile. I’m paid $3.60/gallon at Costco the last time I filled up. A year ago, I paid $2.36.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  36. Women’s liberation is emerging in Serbia, through hip hop. Their tune is actually pretty good. It may sound odd, but it reminds me of the Sex Pistols message on British society, back in the 1970s.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  37. More here on Charles Dolan, a main source for Danchenko’s input into the Steele report. The longtime Clinton apparatchik who also was a paid Putin propagandist in 2006-2014.

    Reflecting on his interactions with Danchenko around that time, Dolan told an acquaintance in the United States that he believed the analyst “worked for FSB,” referring to the Russian security agency, according to the indictment. Dolan later admitted to the FBI, the indictment states, that he had “fabricated” the basis of certain details he had provided to Danchenko.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  38. Why will the inflation surge continue? Three reasons:

    Covid. Covid. Covid. Everything is the fault of Covid, if you caught Joe’s presser this AM.

    He also reversed position from just days ago; says illegals separated from their kids “under the policies of the previous administration” — deserve compensation.

    Deserve.

    Take your kids on holiday to Mexico, change your name from Paul to Pablo, ford the Rio Grande with ’em and claim a few hundred thousand dollars. Tell’em at the border the password:

    “Joe sent me.”

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  39. also known as a kickback

    A Democratic Dole for the Press

    Why do journalists deserve subsidies more than, say, nurses?

    The Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget bill features tax breaks for countless progressive causes, but one buried in the fine print is a doozy. The House Ways and Means Committee voted last week to subsidize journalists. Congress wants to subsidize the only institution less popular than . . . Congress.

    The “Payroll Credit for Compensation of Local News Journalists” offers print and digital publishers up to $50,000 a year for each journalist on staff.

    JF (e1156d)

  40. Davethulhu (fb44c3) — 11/5/2021 @ 11:32 pm

    ‘thulhu, you don’t usually troll this badly.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  41. Despite his stated objective, Biden has not curtailed oil and gas production. In fact it’s the opposite:

    Doesn’t matter. It’s the perception that future oil prices will be higher that gets current oil producers to slow sales in hopes of higher prices tomorrow.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  42. House passes $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, the largest transportation package in U.S. history

    I believe, if there are civilizations out among the stars, that road building is crooked there too.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  43. How much in the bill for the Moonbeam Express? Money is being spent there where adequate alternatives already exist; both air travel from LA to SF and car travel up I-5 and CA-99 are cheaper and probably faster than the train will be, if it is every built.

    OTOH, car travel in the L.A. basin has reached its limits. New roads do very little to fix the mess, but subways and light rail — if ever built into a comprehensive system — might. Everyone on a subway is someone not on the road. But the money is going to a bullet train between two cow-towns.

    It’s almost as if there was a contest for the stupidest and most graft-ridden public project.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  44. Why will the inflation surge continue? Three reasons:

    Sometime in, oh, 2026, the Fed chairman that Nikki appoints will turn off the money spigot like Volker did. It’ll be a good time to be in cash.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  45. He also reversed position from just days ago; says illegals separated from their kids “under the policies of the previous administration” — deserve compensation.

    I am no fan of Donald Trump, but this is just “what else can we blame on Trump.” If a Democrat President had done this — and it was not only lawful, but almost required by law — Biden would be saying “mistakes were made” but refuse any compensation.

    I hope to see an amicus intervener in these suits because otherwise it’s just cosplay.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  46. BIDEN: MIGRANT FAMILIES SEPARATED UNDER TRUMP ‘DESERVE’ COMPENSATION

    ‘President Biden on Saturday forcefully supported the idea to compensate migrant families separated under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy, clarifying that his issue days earlier was with the dollar amount that had been reported.

    “Now here’s the thing. If in fact, because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration, you coming across the border, whether it was legal or illegal, and you lost your child,” Biden said, wagging a finger and raising his voice. “You lost your child. It’s gone. You deserve some kind of compensation, no matter what the circumstance. What that will be, I have no idea.”

    Biden’s impassioned comments came during a press conference on the passage of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. He was questioned about his remarks earlier in the week when he was asked about reports that his administration was preparing to pay separated families up to $450,000 per individual, which Biden said was “not gonna happen.”‘

    https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2426170010269/biden-migrant-families-separated-under-trump-deserve-compensation

    You got that, taxpayers? On top of failing to maintain border control and preventing migrants illegally entering the country, he and his administration now supports paying these illegals for the distresses they’ve faced for their criminality at breaking in to the United States.

    “Never mind what I told you. I’m telling you!” – Captain Morton [James Cagney] ‘Mister Roberts’ 1955

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  47. Postscript. You have to see the video- the fury and finger pointing he exhibited; literally shouting with an angry voice raised to the press- and the nation.

    Might as well been barking at Americans to get of his GD lawn.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  48. ‘thulhu, you say:

    Despite his stated objective, Biden has not curtailed oil and gas production. In fact it’s the opposite:

    Then you quote:

    But the steps taken by the administration to date on fossil fuels are more modest, including a temporary suspension on new oil and gas leases on federal lands that a judge blocked last month, blocked petroleum sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and cancellation of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada.

    Because vast fossil fuel reserves already are under lease, those actions did nothing to slow drilling on public lands and waters that account for about a quarter of U.S. oil production.

    So, leases have gone forward on federal land because a judge said Biden could not block them without going through the rule-making process established in federal law. He isn’t “allowing” them, he just has not managed to block them, despite trying.

    He HAS blocked leases in the ANWR and he HAS killed Keystone XL. He gets no credit for the new leases issued over his (almost) dead body.

    To say that there are existing leases that continue has more to do with Fletcher v Peck than anything Biden wanted. I suspect that New Mexico may get some leases due to the fact that 1) it has a Democrat government; 2) that government gets more than a third of its revenue from oil and gas leases, and 3) Secretary Haaland was the Congresswoman from Albuquerque.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  49. Meanwhile in Nicaragua:

    Nicaragua Veers Toward Dictatorship

    SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica—Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, running for a fourth consecutive term after imprisoning seven rivals, is widely expected to win an election on Sunday seen as a sham by the U.S. and opponents.

    Since May, Mr. Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, have unleashed a wave of repression that analysts say exceeds any seen in Latin America since the end of its military dictatorships in the 1980s. He has imprisoned 39 leading political opponents, businessmen, journalists and student and peasant leaders.

    Analysts and opponents say he has effectively decapitated Nicaragua’s civil society and is moving closer to converting his autocratic government into a family dictatorship.

    Last month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the ruling couple were “preparing a sham election devoid of credibility, by silencing and arresting opponents, and, ultimately, by attempting to establish an authoritarian dynasty unaccountable to the Nicaraguan people.”

    All of the 39 people detained have been accused of either money-laundering or treason, which they deny. The charges were brought under broad laws passed last year that criminalize criticism of the government under the rubric of fighting misinformation and subversion.

    It has gotten so bad that the Biden administration can no longer look the other way. I expect AOC and Bernie to be apologists here.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  50. It would really be news if we learned that the under-aged Youngkin intended to vote for McAuliffe.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  51. 51, I just wonder if it was a probe (or a prank) of the type done by James O’Keefe. Maybe Younger kin ditched the campaign button, donned a more lefty youth persona and was trying to trick the election officials into an unlawful onsite registration.

    urbanleftbehind (c073c9)

  52. If that family was Hispanic or Black, no wokester would have cracked wise about the milk or contraception.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 11/5/2021 @ 11:02 pm

    Those comments were made by a class of largely childless neoyuppies who tend to shop at Whole Foods or get it delivered, and have no intellectual conception as to how much kids eat and drink, especially one with nine to feed.

    Victor (4959fb) — 11/6/2021 @ 5:14 am

    So Slate’s dishonestly extrapolating a story on a couple in a very specific location with national averages? What a shock. Incidentally, we were paying between $1.79-$2.25 a gallon as late as this past winter. It’s $3 a gallon now.

    I suspect that New Mexico may get some leases due to the fact that 1) it has a Democrat government; 2) that government gets more than a third of its revenue from oil and gas leases, and 3) Secretary Haaland was the Congresswoman from Albuquerque.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 11/6/2021 @ 8:54 am

    Lujan-Grisham is in a real bind as a governor–she so desperately wants to emulate California’s energy policies, but she can’t because the state would go in to a tailspin if she cut off the oil and gas spigot. And high gas prices overall don’t exactly help the state’s tourist industry, either.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  53. If the NM governor brought NM gas prices up to the CA average (about $1.20 more), the GOP would walk all over the Democrats in the next election. In New Mexico it’s wide open and people think nothing of a casual 30-mile drive. The most common car is a big truck, hybrids are rare and I have yet to see a Tesla.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  54. I expect to hear condemnation from the NY Times and Washington Post over this.

    But, as you know, they don’t consider Project Veritas to be journalists, so they will remain silent over this outrage.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  55. By the way, NM’s 3 Congressional seats (now split 2-1 Dem) are likely to be gerrymandered into 3 Democrat seats. They’ve figured out how to make each seat include part of ABQ, so that the rural counties (almost all Red) are dominated by ABQ voters.

    And this from a commission created to avoid gerrymanders.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  56. By the way, NM’s 3 Congressional seats (now split 2-1 Dem) are likely to be gerrymandered into 3 Democrat seats. They’ve figured out how to make each seat include part of ABQ, so that the rural counties (almost all Red) are dominated by ABQ voters.

    And this from a commission created to avoid gerrymanders.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 11/6/2021 @ 10:43 am

    Wasn’t the commission mostly people from Albuquerque? Not surprising they’d craft districts that favored their own interests if that was the case.

    Colorado ended up passing a map that doesn’t really change the status quo all that much and includes a relatively competitive new district, and the Democrats–who were primarily responsible for the framework that allowed for that kind of construction in the first place–are now lamenting that they cut their own throat politically, and won’t be able to marginalize the areas outside the Denver metro and uber-liberal ski towns even further.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  57. In New Mexico it’s wide open and people think nothing of a casual 30-mile drive. The most common car is a big truck, hybrids are rare and I have yet to see a Tesla.

    New Mexico is one of my favorite states in which to drive. Beautiful scenery, well-maintained roads (especially compared to California), and traffic is generally pretty light.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  58. I added a Tweet with the Ed Durr campaign video to the post. This latest version of WordPress no longer seems to let us embed YouTube videos. It is an absolutely outstanding video, mostly because it lacks the slick production values that would have been put in had this come from a high-priced professional campaign crew.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  59. My God. How did Twitter ever let all those “lies” stay up? Those statements all contradicted what the state’s newspapers were saying!

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  60. It would be amazing if Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson are playing against each other next weekend, what with Wilson’s recovering finger injury and Rodgers taking medical advice from a talk-show host with no medical training.
    One correction to the link: Rodgers didn’t say he was vaccinated, he said he was “immunized”, whatever that means.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  61. Let’s note the most relevant information about the NJ election that Dana isn’t posting:


    Washington Examiner
    @dcexaminer
    #BREAKING — Powerful New Jersey Senate Democrat says ‘12,000 ballots recently found‘ support refusal to concede to truck driver”

    Democrat saying ballots representing about 1/20 people in the district were LOST BUT NOW FOUND days after the election…is this what you’d call a common occurrence in Democrat districts in all elections but 2020?

    “he said he was “immunized”, whatever that means.”

    Liberals don’t get to talk about the meanings of words, since they’ve already redefined ‘vaccinated’ since getting into office.

    The typical consequences of relying on poisoned sources:

    “If that family was Hispanic or Black, no wokester would have cracked wise about the milk or contraception.”

    Dana is either a wokester herself or only reads woke media then, because it was a FOSTER FAMILY of 11 kids and she’s retweeting typical liberal arguments about CONTRACEPTION LOL BREEDERS MILK IS JUST A LUXURY DON’T YOU KNOW.

    “What Biden policy caused the jump in inflation?”

    *Sees several dead bodies wearing Bloods and Crips colors*

    *looks around*

    *checks blue phone for message of the day*

    “WHAT SPECIFIC CRIPS COMPANY POLICY WRITTEN ON CRIPS COMPANY LETTERHEAD CAUSED THIS COMPLETELY UNPREDICTABLE YET TOTALLY NORMAL JUMP IN VIOLENCE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR WHICH WE SHOULDN’T BLAME THE CRIPS WITHOUT FORMS FILED IN TRIPLICATE?”

    The policy of ‘no leadership, just let your underlings run a thieving oligarchy that rewards only their supporters.’

    Janny Smasher (cd6327)

  62. The New York Times editorial page is its typical confused self when evaluating what happened to Democrats on Tuesday. On the one hand, they think that the party needs to back off of the divisive woke nonsense (though they don’t come out and say that explicitly) because it is getting in the way of the party’s plans for a grand spending orgy:

    Familiar takeaways like “wake-up call” and “warning shot” don’t do justice here because the danger of ignoring those trends is too great. What would do justice, and what is badly needed, is an honest conversation in the Democratic Party about how to return to the moderate policies and values that fueled the blue-wave victories in 2018 and won Joe Biden the presidency in 2020.

    Given the stakes for the country, from urgent climate and social spending needs to the future of democracy, Americans badly need a rolling conversation today and in the coming weeks and months about how moderate voters of all affiliations can coalesce behind and guide the only party right now that shows an interest in governing and preserving democratic norms.

    On the other hand, maybe all of this reckless spending isn’t such a bang-up idea:

    Many in the president’s party point to Tuesday as proof that congressional Democrats need to stop their left-center squabbling and clock some legislative wins ASAP by passing both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and a robust version of the Build Back Better plan, the larger social spending and environmental proposal. They believe this will give their candidates concrete achievements to run on next year and help re-energize their base.

    But Tuesday’s results are a sign that significant parts of the electorate are feeling leery of a sharp leftward push in the party, including on priorities like Build Back Better, which have some strong provisions and some discretionary ones driving up the price tag. The concerns of more centrist Americans about a rush to spend taxpayer money, a rush to grow the government, should not be dismissed.

    So there you have it, according to the NYT: the American people want huge spending programs, but the Democrats need to make it look as though this is about more than taxpayer-funded jobs for the bureaucracy. The editorial board naturally suffers from the typical progressive delusion that government is competent in managing people’s lives on their behalf, and until they are willing to rethink that assumption I don’t see the national Democrat Party changing their tune anytime soon.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  63. This is what awaits if gas prices and inflation bcontinue on their respective trajectories.

    urbanleftbehind (3f5c06)

  64. Dana is either a wokester herself or only reads woke media then, because it was a FOSTER FAMILY of 11 kids and she’s retweeting typical liberal arguments about CONTRACEPTION LOL BREEDERS MILK IS JUST A LUXURY DON’T YOU KNOW.

    Janny Smasher, had you actually read Dana’s post you would have noticed that she is critical of those Twitter blue-checks who mocked the Stotler family. And she quotes an article which mentions that they are fostering children. Your criticism of her is utterly mindless, and you need to improve your commenting game if you are going to be taken seriously here.

    As to the Washington Examiner story about 12,000 uncounted ballots found in New Jersey, the only person who has made the claim is the defeated candidate, Steve Sweeney, and I can’t find any corroboration from New Jersey election officials that this is true. And it would appear that nobody in the Philadelphia-New York-New Jersey media sphere is acting as if this election result is still undetermined.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  65. Got gas yesterday outside of San Diego. Shell regular is still $5.10/gal. At the grocery store, milk is $3.49/gal., and a London Broil remains $10/lb. w/holiday Butterballs at $1.99/lb. Guess that’s a good reason for Joe to give illegals $400,000 or so after breaking in to a country with rampant inflation. ‘Course beans are still $2 a can at ‘The Dollar Store’ and Minute Rice just $1.50 a box.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  66. Dana is either a wokester herself or only reads woke media then, because it was a FOSTER FAMILY of 11 kids and she’s retweeting typical liberal arguments about CONTRACEPTION LOL BREEDERS MILK IS JUST A LUXURY DON’T YOU KNOW.

    Oh, FFS, read the post, then read it again. Then, and only then, consider making a comment. But just to make sure you comprehend it and have a grasp on the entirety of it, read the post once more before commenting because it’s very clear that you need to.

    Dana (174549)

  67. Liberals don’t get to talk about the meanings of words, since they’ve already redefined ‘vaccinated’ since getting into office.

    Since I’m not a liberal, Socko, I’ll go with the dictionary definitions.
    Vaccinated: treat with a vaccine to produce immunity against a disease; inoculate.
    Immunized: make (a person or animal) immune to infection, typically by inoculation.

    Mr. Rodgers obviously went atypical, rejecting the jab and choosing talk-show host voodoo. Along those lines, Prevea Health dropped him as a spokesperson for behaving like a selfish idjit.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  68. “Mr. Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, have unleashed a wave of repression that analysts say exceeds any seen in Latin America since the end of its military dictatorships in the 1980s. He has imprisoned 39 leading political opponents, businessmen, journalists and student and peasant leaders.”

    Maybe prices will go down:
    https://aurorabeachfront.com/

    It’s about as far away from Managua as you can get (on the Pacific side)

    steveg (e81d76)

  69. Natural selection less votes for trump.

    asset (d09ddf)

  70. Maybe prices will go down

    The price of ownership is low in Communist countries. Or very high.

    And then there are construction issues

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  71. Grave and serious constitutional issues.

    Before you get to those, there is the matter of the Administrative Procedures Act with the DoL and OSHA making regulations by order of the President (and didn’t Biden promise that departments would be immune from orders like that?)

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  72. This infrastructure bill is the largest public works bill since Ike pushed through the Interstate Highway System. Of course, we got something from Ike’s bill. This trillion will disappear down every conceivable rathole.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  73. Kevin- And remember, one of the components of Ike’s ’56 bill for the National Highway System involved Interstate Highways improving the mobility of military troops to and from airports, seaports, rail terminals, and other military bases. Interstate Highways also connect to other roads that are a part of the Strategic Highway Network, a system of roads identified as critical to the U.S. Department of Defense. So DoD $ went into the pot. Wonder how much DoD kicks into this legislation. Guess now that it has passed it might be time for them to read it. 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  74. We’re Number 1!

    After lunch, I went shopping for some small Christmas presents (no luck), and picked up the October 23rd issue of The Economist. I turned first, as I often do, to the league table in the back, the economic statistics for 43 nations.

    The “Budget Balance” column revealed that every single nation in their list is currently running a budget deficit. As a percentage of Gross National Product, ours is the largest at 12.2%, and so, of course, the largest, absolutely. By a lot.

    Thanks, Barack. Thanks, Donald. Thanks, Joe. We couldn’t have done it without all three of you.

    (If I recall correctly, Donald once said that his budgets would pay off the national debt in ten years. He was betting on widespread innumeracy to make such a claim.)

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  75. ours is the largest at 12.2%, and so, of course, the largest, absolutely. By a lot.

    China’s would be as large or larger if they were honest about it. But China is assh0le.

    Their trade surplus is another matter.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  76. Pfizer Inc. said Friday that its experimental antiviral pill for COVID-19 cut rates of hospitalization and death by nearly 90% in high-risk adults,

    Ten people had to die for them to (hopefully) prove it. They cut the clinical trial short, but the truth is, they didn’t need this trial. The FDA basically demanded these deaths (of those on the half of the people n the trial given a placebo.)

    The FDA is still taking its own good time about this. Next meeting about this: November 30, I think.

    There are still two other Pfizer trials going on.

    Merck also has a an antiviral pill.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  77. Correction: Gross Domestic Product. (I’m showing my age, since GNP used to be used to make comparisons between nations. For most countries, the two are fairly close.)

    I don’t doubt that the Chinese are fibbing about budget deficits (and many other statistics) but, lacking telepathy, or access to secret analyses, have no idea how much.

    (By the way, they are probably fibbing to themselves, too, since there are — to put it mildly –strong incentives for underlings in the Communist dictatorship to pass only very good news to their superiors.)

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  78. NJRob (eb56c3) — 11/5/2021 @ 10:39 pm

    The indictment, however, asserts that Danchenko never even spoke to Millian, repeatedly emailing him and getting no response.

    One of his true sources, Charles Dolan, appears to me to be much closer to the Kremlin than the Clintons.

    Big question: Did anyone Danchenko talked to know for whom Christopher Steele was working for?

    My theory has always been that a lot of what was in the Steele dossier was genuine Russian disinformation, and the Kremlin thought Steele was working for some people in the U.K.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  79. Jim Miller (edcec1) — 11/6/2021 @ 3:26 am

    The Wikipedia article gives a number of hypotheses to explain this Hispanic advantage; I think stronger families and stronger communities is the most likely.

    Lying about their age (claiming to be older than they are) could be a reason – or maybe people who lie about their age are more likely to say they are Hispanic.

    Maybe some of the bad factors, present among blacks, like drug addiction, or present among affluent whites, like seeing doctors too much, are less present.

    Diet could be a factor.

    Somebody must have an idea.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  80. 50. evin M (ab1c11) — 11/6/2021 @ 9:08 am

    Analysts and opponents say he has effectively decapitated Nicaragua’s civil society and is moving closer to converting his autocratic government into a family dictatorship.

    But at least it’s not a Communist dictatorship. More like Somoza squared.

    I expect AOC and Bernie to be apologists here.

    I’m not sure Oretega claims to be a SOCIALIST in this incarnation.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  81. In 2012: https://www.theperspective.se/daniel-ortega

    Ortega has not only changed the laws of Nicaragua to remain in power but he has also changed his ideologies. In a short number of years, Ortega has evolved from a socialist idealist to an anti-abortion, pragmatic capitalist. Since coming to power for a second term in 2006, he has adapted policies which would have been simply unthinkable to him a number of years ago. Ortega has transformed into one of the most cunning political operators throughout not only Latin America but also the world. Much of Ortega’s and the FSLN’s recent success can be attributed to their close Latin America ally Venezuela and more specifically Ortega’s personal friend, Hugo Chavez.

    He’s gotten worse, because he needs to do more t hold on to power.

    Conttinuing that 2012 artocle:

    Since 2007, Venezuela has been funding the FSLN with $500 million every year as part of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Alliance for the Americas, a bloc of leftist leaders designed to counter US influence in Latin America. In 2010 alone, Venezuela’s contribution of $511m in oil discounts and direct aid accounted for 7.6 per cent of Nicaraguan GDP. This money has been assisting Nicaragua in its mini economic miracle of recent years. Despite 57% of the population living in poverty, Nicaragua’s economy is one of the fastest growing in Latin America. Ortega’s current policy of few taxes, low-wage manufacturing and primary commodity exports have all contributed in transforming Nicaragua’s economy.

    As well as boosting the national economy, Ortega’s new capitalist policies such as low taxes, have also helped in appeasing the Nicaraguan elite. He has won approval from various international institutions such as the IMF for his control over the Nicaraguan economy. Ortega has also won the support of the hugely influential Catholic Church by outlawing all abortions, even when a woman’s life is in danger. In winning the support of the business, political, religious and Western elite, Ortega has been able to consolidate his power. However, Ortega has lost a lot of supporters with these new polices. Numerous social groups that were once the backbone of the FSLN, such as the large women’s movement, have become disillusioned with the still socialist-in-name FSLN….

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  82. 68. Paul Montagu (5de684) — 11/6/2021 @ 1:42 pm

    Liberals don’t get to talk about the meanings of words, since they’ve already redefined ‘vaccinated’ since getting into office.

    The Centers for Disease Contrl redefined vaccination on September 1, 2021. But I think they are correct. Their critics had a point. It just wasn’t the point they were arguing.

    https://bigleaguepolitics.com/leaked-cdc-emails-we-must-change-definition-of-vaccine-thanks-to-right-wing-covid-19-deniers

    “Right-wing covid-19 deniers are using your ‘vaccine’ definition to argue that mRNA vaccines are not vaccines…” …

    “The definition of vaccine we have posted is problematic and people are using it to claim the COVID-19 vaccine is not a vaccine based on our own definition.”

    So they changed their definition from saying it produces immunity to saying it produce protection.

    We simply never had a disease with so much exhaustive testing.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  83. In any event, the last free election was in 2001, which Ortega won with 37% of the vote. Since then he has won 2 landslide re-elections after the opposition was excluded from the race. The two-term limit was changed to 3 and now to however many. The only other parties on the 2021 ballot are bogus Sandinista ally parties created for pretend plurality.

    Is it socialist? So they claim, but Ortega really seems to be just another caudillo, mostly about staying in power for power’s sake.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  84. So they changed their definition from saying it produces immunity to saying it produce protection.

    Very few vaccines produce “immunity” and even the most successful ones mostly get to that point through herd protection.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  85. Kevin M @11;13 pm

    https://dirksencenter.org/research-collections/everett-m-dirksen/dirksen-record/billion-here-billion-there

    Did Dirksen ever say, ” A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money”? (or anything very close to that?)

    Perhaps not. Based on an exhaustive search of the paper and audio records of The Dirksen Congressional Center, staffers there have found no evidence that Dirksen ever uttered the phrase popularly attributed to him.

    I think he is supposed to have said that in 1957.

    I think it was a political cartoon in Newsweek. I think I saw it in an old copy of Newsweek in a bound periodical in a library circa 1980.

    But he may have said it extemporaneously, as a half joke:

    The chief evidence in support of Dirksen making the statement comes from people who claim to have heard him. The Library of Congress, for example, cites someone’s personal observation on the campaign trail as evidence. The Dirksen Center has received calls from people who heard Dirksen say those words, some even providing the date of the event. But cross-checking that information with the records has, so far, turned up nothing in the way of confirmation.

    The closest documented statement came at a joint Senate-House Republican leadership press conference on March 8, 1962, when Dirksen said, “The favorite sum of money is $1 billion – a billion a year for a fatter federal payroll, a billion here, a billion there.” [EMD Papers, Republican Congressional Leadership File, f. 25] But the “and pretty soon you’re talking real money” is missing.

    In another close call, the New York Times, January 23, 1961, quoted Dirksen: “Look at education – two-and-one-half billion – a billion for this, a billion for that, a billion for something else. Three to five billion for public works. You haven’t got any budget balance left. You’ll be deeply in the red.” [Cited in Byron Hulsey’s “Everett Dirksen and the Modern Presidents,” Ph.D. dissertation (May 1998, University of Texas, p. 226]

    Of course, the Dirksen Papers do not document completely the late Senator’s comments. For example, The Center that bears his name does not have his testimony before committees. Their collection of Congressional Records ends in 1965, omitting the last four years of Dirksen’s life and career – he might have employed the phrase only late, although witnesses claim he said it throughout his career. Dirksen’s campaign speeches tended not to produce transcripts, only sketchy notes or abbreviated newspaper accounts. Dirksen also held center stage before the video age, meaning that many remarks, particularly those in campaigns, escaped capture.

    Bottom line: the late Senate Minority Leader certainly would have endorsed the meaning behind the phrase, but it is questionable that he ever coined it.

    Update, May 25, 2004. A gentleman who called The Center with a reference question relayed that he sat by Dirksen on a flight once and asked him about the famous quote. Dirksen replied, “Oh, I never said that. A newspaper fella misquoted me once, and I thought it sounded so good that I never bothered to deny it.”

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  86. Update, January 15, 2009. We received a call from someone in Pennsylvania who recalled a very clear, even emphatic memory of Senator Dirksen uttering this famous phrase on the “Johnny Carson Show.” This is the second person who shared such a recollection. Unfortunately, a Google search failed to turn up confirmation—apparently the “official” Web site for the “Tonight Show” has video beginning only in 1969—Dirksen died in September of that year.

    Update, September 25, 2012. Historian John Steele Gordon concurs with the January 15, 2009, update. He also recalls Dirksen making the statement on Johnny Carson’s show. With regard to the lack of hard documentation authenticating the phrase, Gordon writes, “But I really don’t see a historiographical problem here. It’s long been attributed to Senator Dirksen and several people, including myself, remember him saying it at the same time and the same place. For this historian, at least, that’s good enough.” [Gordon to Mackaman, e-mail, September 25, 2012, Dirksen Information File]

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  87. Sammy – One of the reasons I believe the Hispanic advantage is real is that you find it on both ends, both in life expectancy and infant mortality.

    Another important indicator of health is the infant mortality rate, which is also either equal or better in Hispanic Americans than in non-Hispanic Americans. A study by Hummer, et al. found that infants born to Mexican Immigrant women in the United States have about a 10 percent lower mortality in the first hour, first day, and first week than that of infants born to non-Hispanic white, U.S.-born women.[22] In 2003, the national Hispanic infant mortality rate was found to be 5.7, nearly equal to that of non-Hispanic white Americans and 58 percent lower than that of African Americans.[12] Hispanic immigrants also have a 20 percent lower infant mortality rate than that of U.S.-born Hispanics, though the latter population usually has a higher income and education, and are much more likely to have health insurance.

    So more money is spent, on the average, on white pregnancies — but Hispanic pregnancies have about as good outcomes, in spite of getting less care.

    I can understand why leftists don’t want to face the Hispanic paradox, because it implies that their universal prescription for social problems — more government spending — may not have the effects they promise. And I can understand why some conservatives don’t want to face it, either, since they dislike telling their strongest supporters, working class whites, that they can learn from other groups (and their grandparents).

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  88. Giving everyone vaccines seems to produce no cases, but that’s because they are not testing everyone so much.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  89. (If I recall correctly, Donald once said that his budgets would pay off the national debt in ten years.

    It’s better than that: He claimed that he could get rid of the national debt in eight years, by negotiating better trade deals.

    Shortly afterward, someone interviewing him recalled it as ten years, or a decade, and Trump replied that he never said that. Now, in Trumplandia, Donald can never lie, so of course he had to mean he never said precisely “ten years.”

    Radegunda (f216a2)

  90. Radegunda- Thanks for the correction.

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  91. @76: “Thanks, Barack. Thanks, Donald. Thanks, Joe. We couldn’t have done it without all three of you.”

    the trend started with bush junior

    don’t make him feel left out

    JF (e1156d)

  92. https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/a_billion_here_a_billion_there_pretty_soon_youre_talking_real_money

    entry dated January 22, 2009

    Several people recall that Dirksen said it on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in the 1960s, and that Carson often used the line in his opening monologues. The Tonight Show television archives are not easily available, but so many people remember it that the Dirksen association with the quotation probably was popularized there.

    The “billion here, billion there” quotation, however, goes back to the 1930s Depression years and even further. “A billion here, a billion there until billions are getting common” is recorded as early as 1917. The January 10, 1938 New York (NY) Times reported: “Well, now, about this new budget. It’s a billion here and a billion there, and by and by it begins to mount up into money.” Another near match for the quote is recorded in the 1940s: “A billion here and a billion there. It begins to run into money.” Numerous printed citations appeared in the 1950s and 1960s.

    It is said to have been attributed to Everett Dirksen in the New York Times on 28 Aug. 1975 but I can’t find it.

    ) In 1954 a Saturday Evening Post cartoon by Edwin Lepper portrayed two senatorial-looking men walking past the Capitol building. One says to the other, “You save a billion here, a billion there, and the first thing you know it adds up.”

    I don;t think the library even had the Saturday Evening Post, and I don;t remember looking into it – II think there was a different cartoon in Newsweek in 1957. (or the same one was reprinted)

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  93. Sian Proctor is so pleased just to have gotten to go into space, finally.

    She makes a valid point in this interview:

    There’s criticism of the billionaire space race when there are so many problems here on Earth that those resources could be put toward.

    The reality is that solving for space solves for Earth. That’s the message I don’t think gets portrayed enough. Because everything that we do are real dollars spent here on Earth to advance human spaceflight. There are jobs. And not only that, but the technology and the spinoffs. They all come back here to help us. NASA’s had basically 50 years of spinoff technology.

    And I don’t think she is saying that just because she finally got to be a space pilot. (Wikipedia biography)

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  94. 85. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 11/6/2021 @ 5:52 pm

    In any event, the last free election was in 2001, which Ortega won with 37% of the vote.

    And before that he made a corrupt deal to change the rules, so there would not be a runoff. That chane was made starting with the 2001 election. But he first got back in power in 2006.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Nicaraguan_general_election

    The electoral reforms introduced in January 2000, as a result of the pact between the PLC and the FSLN, established new rules for the contending parties in the elections.
    The required percentages to win the Presidential Election was reduced from 45 to 40 percent. The electoral law states that a participating candidate must obtain a relative majority of at least 40 percent of the vote to win a presidential election. However, a candidate may win by obtaining at least 35 percent of the vote, with at least a five percent margin over the second-place finisher. The law also established a second-round runoff election if none of the candidates won in the first round.

    Things started to spiral out of control for Daniel Ortega in 2018, when he made a very bad economic decision, and now Daniel Ortega may fear prison if he is no longer president per this recent report:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIvzlBRpus4

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  95. #93 JF – Nope.

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  96. @97 Jim Miller – Yep

    JF (e1156d)

  97. #98 – How can I put this nicely? You might want to get some practice in learning to read ordinary graphs. A good tutor might help. (I might even help you, were I to receive proof that you had made a large — say a thousand dollars — contribution to this site.)

    (If anyone else wants to help JF out, from the kindness of your hearts, feel free to do so.)

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  98. @99 yeah, snark is your best play, Jim

    JF (e1156d)

  99. oh, and Jim Miller, you need not even burden yourself with making sense of those pesky graphs.

    my link is an official government site, not wikipedia, and you only have to read the first sentence:

    “Since 2001, the U.S. has experienced a deficit each year.”

    or, did you forget when bush was president?

    JF (e1156d)

  100. “Since 2001, the U.S. has experienced a deficit each year.”

    or, did you forget when bush was president?

    JF (e1156d) — 11/6/2021 @ 7:40 pm

    It’s actually worse than that–technically speaking, we haven’t paid down the debt on an annualized basis since 1957 (this is in the Treasury’s Debt to the Penny charts). The only reason they say Clinton ran a “surplus” was due to the money that went in to the Social Security trust bonds.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  101. The Centers for Disease Contrl redefined vaccination on September 1, 2021.

    I agree with the CDC, Sammy. They changed some wording without the changing the definition. FTR, I used a generic definition from Oxford. I think you should take hyperpartisan right-wing sites like Big League Politics with a grain of salt.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  102. There’s criticism of the billionaire space race when there are so many problems here on Earth that those resources could be put toward.

    It’s an old story.

    Back in the day, the wealthy Guggenheim w/t backing of Lindbergh helped finance Goddard to get his research off the ground. And Von Braun’s team in Germany had ‘a standing order’ for all of Goddard’s patents.

    More recently, the 1970 book ‘First On The Moon’ has an epilogue, quilled by Arthur C. Clarke, who envisioned LEO ops to become the venue of the private sector by 2000 or later [albeit, for manufacturing, not tourism] while BEO ops would be the province of government exploration space efforts. The largess of the capital needed for such exploratory projects beyond Earth orbit plus the fiscal risks involved made the costs prohibitive to private enterprise. Neil Armstrong reiterated this in 1994. The low to no ROI for private investment capital firms in a quarterly driven marketplace keeps them searching for better investments w/a faster return. [They’d do better investing in oil wells.] That’s why governments do it.

    But the ‘spinoff’ from government investment in NASA projects [and DoD] has been returned to the economy many times over. The list is long and touches many elements of modern life. For instance, in the 1960s, the necessity for miniaturization spurred a massive R&D surge for the development and need for IC chips. And the compact, lightweight computer systems demanded by the design and weight conscious Apollo program fueled rapid advances in computer technology as well.

    When you wake-up, start a list of all the items that touch your daily life which can trace their origins to the space program and you’ll have a long one in about 10 minutes– start in w/t chip operating your digital alarm clock. The space program is the best investment the United States has made in itself since Seward bought Alaska; every dime spent here on Earth.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  103. Perhaps not. Based on an exhaustive search of the paper and audio records of The Dirksen Congressional Center, staffers there have found no evidence that Dirksen ever uttered the phrase popularly attributed to him.

    I saw a tape of him saying it, long ago.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  104. There’s criticism of the billionaire space race when there are so many problems here on Earth that those resources could be put toward.

    They don’t actually take the money into space with them. It is ALL spent on Earth.

    They pay people and businesses and such to make the Buck Rogers stuff. Those people spend the money on groceries, rent, taxes, stuff other people make, etc. It’s called “an economy.” It solves a lot of problems for a lot of people (e.g. rent, food, transportation, tuition, taxes … but you get the idea).

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  105. And what they really mean is that it could have been spent on larger welfare payments.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  106. In the mid 80’s the national debt was TWO TRILLION DOLLARS!!! and people were freaking. Now it’s more than 10 times that and we are just charging everything to the card until they take them away.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  107. In the mid 80’s the national debt was TWO TRILLION DOLLARS!!! and people were freaking. Now it’s more than 10 times that and we are just charging everything to the card until they take them away.
    Thank McConnell and Ryan and Booosh and Boehner. These twits failed in getting a budget. Nor did they try.

    mg (8cbc69)

  108. Like with the Taliban, the Iranians are who we thought they were.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  109. Igor Danchenko arrested, charged with lying to FBI about information in Steele dossier.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/steele-dossier-arrest-danchenko-trump-durham/2021/11/04/7e76b9ae-3d77-11ec-8ee9-4f14a26749d1_story.html

    “The charges are that not only did Clinton/Democrats fund the dossier but a longtime Clinton/Dem operative was one of the sources for the rumors about Trump. Doesn’t get much worse.”

    https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/1456619895685267457?s=21

    “These last two DOJ indictments — first of Hillary’s lawyer, then of Christopher Steele’s main source — show that the Clinton campaign funded and fed to the FBI a gigantic batch of lies in the 2016 election, which the vast bulk of the media spent 3 years ratifying and spreading.”

    They weren’t the only ones ratifying and spreading…

    Obudman (ff7852)

  110. 103. Paul Montagu (5de684) — 11/6/2021 @ 8:56 pm

    . I think you should take hyperpartisan right-wing sites like Big League Politics with a grain of salt.

    But I did. But I think they changed the definition of vaccination and they were right to do so

    The old definition was flawed, or the meaning of the word immunity was unclear (it does not necessarily mean total)

    The CDC et al are now arguing that breakthrough cases could transmit dangerous infections to others. (that’s speculation – although that it could start a chain of steadily worse cases is more reasonable)

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  111. Now they’re mad at Big Bird.

    At this point social cons have lost the culture war so badly I lack words to describe it.

    https://twitter.com/prchovanec/status/1457319389032767493?s=21

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  112. 105. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 11/6/2021 @ 10:34 pm

    I saw a tape of him saying it, long ago.

    They have too strict standards for proof. I think it is obviously a joke, and so wouldn’t be used in a speech on the Senate floor or similar prepared remarks. And maybe Dirksen wasn’t the first person to make that quip and maybe it was first attributed to him by mistake.

    I think I read somewhere that Senator Howard Baker, who was the son-in-law of Senator Everett Dirksen, ir more precisely, Baker was quoted somewhere (in some newspaper article I think) where he mentioned that that Everett Dirksen had said that.

    Can you recall something about where Dirksen said it.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  113. 112. Obudman (ff7852) — 11/7/2021 @ 8:47 am

    “The charges are that not only did Clinton/Democrats fund the dossier but a longtime Clinton/Dem operative was one of the sources for the rumors about Trump. Doesn’t get much worse.”

    I think Cg=harles Dolan can be better characterized as a Kremlin operative, and so also for another source of Danchenko’s who was the person who came up with the supposed Michael Cohen meeting in Prague. She also claimed that a company she had worled for, and been fired from, was responsible for hacking the DNC.

    f course I guess the first thought of anyone who sees a Russian connection to the lies in the Steele dossier is that that can;t possibly mean anything – why would Putin, who was supporting Trump, leak damaging informaton about Trump?

    I think the reason is that Putin did not think that Steele was working for the Democrats, and because Steele’s main line of inquiry was why was Putin supporting Trump, so he was given false reasons. Either that Trump had a longstanding relationship with Russia, or that the Russian government had compromat on Trump. Whereas the real reasons was that Putin thought Hillary had principles, and one of her principles was opposition to Putin, and had thought so since 2014 (hillary knew this and tried to mislead people by saying it dated to 2011) and because he thought he had a good chance of planting spies high up in in the American Administration if Trump was elected. In particular, Mike Flynn and Paul Manafort and Rick Gates.

    By the way, no one should assume that Igor Danchenko’s later versions are the truth, which I think the indictment does, r pretends to. He would have wanted to turn away any suspicion that anything he reported was a deliberate lie and who wanted him to lie.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  114. The anti-vaxxers are escalating their claims. Now it is supposed to be certain to kill children. And people who don’t do their own due diligence are complicit in murder.

    I received a call from 917-999-0932 (you can hear this extremely long robocall by calling back that number) where they are now saying children will die from the vaccine and it includes such claims such as this is all for profit, and that Bill Gates repeatedly said he wanted to reduce world population by giving people vaccines and that the people who approved it know children will die and that’s why they also approved a blood thinning drug for children. And in so doing ignored recommendations from over 140,000 people.

    And it opposes even testing because, (the female voice said) that is a Chelek (Hebrew term for portion) of the government’s evil plan. And the American Academy of Pediatrics can’t be trusted because they are getting money from Pfizer. And that after it was approved, something in the formula was changed by Pfizer (a heart attack drug was used as a preservative she said) and that wasn’t tested at all and this is illegal.

    And that there was some 8 hours of testimony (some from people who handle Jewish burials – also from doctors, experts and a lawyer) on October 26 before some (hand-selected no doubt) rabbis, who then issued a ruling that it is forbidden to take the vaccine.

    And that some women had miscarriages because their husbands or others around them were given the vaccine. And that 1 out of every 318 young people given the vaccine came down with myocarditis, and half of them will die in 5 years (it also gives another unrelated statistic – the number of 54 as children who already died) and would you let Dr. Mengele inject your child with anything? And that data is being hidden and doctors and hospitals are being ordered not to report bad events. And someone on the FDA panel said that we don’t know if it works until we use it, which means “our children” are mice. (I bet this young woman doesn’t have any children herself) And the fact that the vaccine for children ages 5-11 was ready to go is proof that the panel was just for show..The Biden Administration bought enough vaccine for all 28 million kids. And the shots don’t work because 82% of the deaths in the UK were of people who fully vaccinated. And this virus, unlike polio, has effective medication for treatment. And they are forcing people with natural immunity to get the shots or lose their jobs and that doesn’t make sense. And where we live everyone has (sic) corona and we know that children don’t die of this. And it’ not even a vaccine, but a “computer created genetic code.”

    All is delivered with her attempting a note of urgency but nothing is more stressed than another. I’m not even sure she understands all of what she is saying. It’s all given at the same, steady, slightly speedy, rate of speech, with no pauses (a bit faster than a radio ad) A few times she slightly stresses something.

    And it gives you some URL to click on for a livestream and a telephone number to phone for a meeting in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn today.

    I wonder if some of the same people are involved in coming up with and circulating both anti-vaccination and election fraud claims.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  115. And what they really mean is that it could have been spent on larger welfare payments.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 11/6/2021 @ 10:45 pm

    Believe it or not, that’s been a criticism of the space program for a long time. There’s an essay in “The Economic Impact of the Cold War,” published in 1970, that discusses this in some detail.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  116. These twits failed in getting a budget. Nor did they try.

    W in particular. Clinton and Gingrich balanced the budget, and did thing like ended crop subsidies. W started them up again. He spent a lot of money domestically to try to appease the unappeasable.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  117. This is the price of UK’s bent toward populism and xenophobia.

    All of Boris Johnson’s new post-Brexit trade deals put together will have an economic benefit of just £3 to £7 per person over the next 15 years, according to the government’s own figures.

    The tiny economic boost – amounting to just 0.01 to 0.02 per cent of GDP, and less than 50p per person a year – is dwarfed by the economic hit from leaving the EU, which the government estimates at 4 per cent of GDP over the same period.

    According to analysis commissioned by The Independent from top academics at the University of Sussex UK Trade Policy Observatory, the much-trumpeted free trade agreements (FTAs) “barely scratch the surface of the UK’s challenge to make up the GDP lost by leaving the EU”.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  118. Can you recall something about where Dirksen said it.

    IIRC, he was talking to a TV reporter after some LBJ spending bill had passed. I can’t tell you if I saw it at the time, or later (possibly when he died).

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  119. Believe it or not, that’s been a criticism of the space program for a long time.

    Do tell. I lived through that period. The classic form is “If we can spend all that money in space, why can we spend it here on Earth?!”

    When in fact we DO spend it all here on Earth.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  120. Paul, do you regard “populism” as the opposite of democracy?

    I see it as the canary in the coal mine. It only happens when the powers that be have screwed up so massively that people who ordinarily would rather be bowling take to the hustings. They’re “mad as Hell and can’t take it anymore” and generally pick someone equally angry to rip new assh0les in the political class.

    It’s temporary, and only lasts as long as it takes saner people to get their thumbs out.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  121. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Everett_Dirksen

    Misattributed:

    “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money.”

    Although often quoted, it seems Dirksen never actually said this. The Dirksen Congressional Research Center made an extensive search when fully 25% of enquiries to them were about the quotation. They could find Dirksen did say “a billion here, a billion there”, and things close to that, but not the “pretty soon you’re talking real money” part. They had one gentleman report to them he had asked Dirksen about it on an airplane trip and received the reply: “Oh, I never said that. A newspaper fella misquoted me once, and I thought it sounded so good that I never bothered to deny it.”

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  122. Question: Why hasn’t the United States gone all out to set up a free-trade deal with the UK? It would seem an opportunity. Are we afraid of offending Macon and Merkel?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  123. A newspaper fella misquoted me once

    Which means he said something similar.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  124. In any event, the quotation fits this administration to a “T” (as in Trillion).

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  125. They don’t actually take the money into space with them. It is ALL spent on Earth.

    Well, the Mercury astronauts took a few rolls of Mercury head dimes up along with them to pass out as souvenirs/mementos to ground personnel– [52 dimes were recovered from Grissom’s Liberty Bell 7 Mercury spacecraft in 1999 when it was was found and salvaged.] Technicians rolled up dollar bills and inserted them into some of the wiring bundle insulation on Glenn’s flight and a few of the others as well– so a few bucks flew with the ‘Buck Rogers.’

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  126. @118. ‘Believe it or not, that’s been a criticism of the space program for a long time. There’s an essay in “The Economic Impact of the Cold War,” published in 1970, that discusses this in some detail.’

    Have a lot of data on this in my library/collection accumulated since the 1960s. Support for the space program in the United States was always wide- but shallow, not deep, and it waxes and wanes, much like the moon– even today. The time between the initial R&D investment to actual commercial benefit/spinoff was usually 5-10 years. But the contractors/manufacturers who could make use of the materials/developments for transfer to commercial use did it ASAP. You can research the list on your own– and it is impressive. What you will not find is velcro, Tang or Teflon. Those existed before the program and were simply popularized at the time by marketers- such as General Foods- maker of Tang.

    In discussions of same, my personal favorite to cite is the home VCR. The tiny, efficient, reliable, lightweight, high speed electric motor used to spin the video head drum in home videocassette recorders can trace its lineage back to the small electric motor developed and used to run the fans/pumps inside the Apollo Portable Life Support System [PLSS]– the backpacks that kept the astronauts alive during their moonwalks.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  127. The scientific calculator (and really, all small hand-held calculators) was an outgrowth of the work Hewlett-Packard did for Apollo-Soyuz. The astronauts had a prototype version of what was later called the HP-65, which used magnetic strips to hold complicated astrogation programs, in a very small package.

    This was returned quickly, as I got an HP-35 (same calculator without the card reader) in 1976 for my first year at Mudd. Still have it somewhere.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  128. The HP-35 prototypes were used in Skylab in 1972.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  129. Paul, do you regard “populism” as the opposite of democracy?

    No, not the opposite, Kevin, more like a threat to democracy if taken too far, and nationalism tends to come along with it, and xenophobia as well, none of which are traditionally conservative.
    I don’t like to get too far into the weeds on it because folks can hardly agree on a definition of the term.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  130. I see it as a symptom of a political class that isn’t listening, and hasn’t been listening for a long time. In some cases refusing to listen. “Populism” is always here, but rarely does it reach the point where it has political power. The level of discontent to elect a “Trump” needs to be enormous; the opponent being a poster-person for the deaf political class did not help.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  131. The EU was created by a political class that intended to insulate government from the people. The federal portion of the system was largely self-appointing and interlocking boards and commissions. Sure there was local democracy but all important issues were federal and handed down from Olympus.

    Then it was “ratified” by governments after the plebiscites started to fail, and in the UK they reneged on a plebiscite entirely.

    I will live to see the EU fail, possibly to be reformed with a different structure, possibly not.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  132. ‘Pragmatic Populism’ is hardly a threat to democracy nor is it the province of any single party– but it does isolate ideological elitists craving party control.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  133. @130/131. Yeah, the commercial explosion of small, hand-held calculators really was a big thing in the mid-70s. They were pricey at the time, too–even the simpler ones, but the $ dropped fast. Remember one kid got one and passed it around like it was a new video game. Recall the physics and engineering profs at the time discouraged students using them in classes at the time, too– as it stopped them from ‘showing the math.’

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  134. as it stopped them from ‘showing the math.’

    Also, the idea of “significant figures” (that a slide rule enforced) was lost. I really do not miss slide rules.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  135. I think that HP-35 was $450, which was a lot of money in 1976.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  136. Vice President Kamala Harris asks if NASA can track trees ‘by race’ in pursuit of environmental justice

    https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2021/11/06/vice-president-kamala-harris-asks-if-nasa-can-track-trees-by-race-in-pursuit-of-environmental-justice/

    ‘As Twitchy reported earlier, Vice President Kamala Harris, who serves as chair of the National Space Council, declared that “space activity is climate action.” She’s right, in a sense, as climate huckster Al Gore said at #COP26 that satellites will serve as the “neighborhood watch” to monitor compliance with emissions pledges.

    Harris really means neighborhoods, too. She’s talking about environmental justice and wants to know if NASA can track the population of trees against race. As we reported back in September, part of the Democrat’s spending bill put $3 billion toward “tree equity,” as white folks in the suburbs have a lot of trees to shade them from climate change, whereas blacks living in the cities do not and thus suffer higher temperatures.

    So NASA’s going to cooperate with the Census Bureau or something to measure tree density by race?’

    =head-smack=

    Leave it to Kamala to put the “ASS” In “NASSA.”

    ____

    In Joe’s day, CRTs showed everything in the world in black and white: a TeeVee Cathode Ray Tube usually measured 19 inches, diagonally, and was made in the USA!

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  137. @137. Yeah, recall using a slip stick in HS– might still be out on the garage someplace- but once the calculators took root there wsa no stopping them. Those costly, Tandy/RS ones w/t glowing digital figures were all the rage.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  138. With reference to populism, Biden seems just as deaf as his predecessors, if not more so.

    I hear he’s planning on shutting down a Canadian pipeline that crosses the US to go between Alberta and Ontario. It also delivers propane to northern Michigan, a place where propane prices are already high.

    https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-admin-weighing-shutting-down-oil-pipeline-in-michigan-as-gas-prices-skyrocket-across-u-s-report

    As it stands now, whoever gets the GOP nomination in 2024 will win in a landslide. Maybe even Trump. Biden’s campaign promise to govern from the center is clearly just a pack of lies.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  139. climate huckster Al Gore

    As VP (and head of the Space Council) VP mandated that NASA use “off the shelf” parts in its space missions. None of these crazy expensive things, you understand. So they did. A number of still-expensive space probes failed as a result. One example: a modem used on a Mars lander failed as the off-the-shelf device’s oscillator was way out of tolerance at the severe cold Martian temperatures.

    https://mars.nasa.gov/MPF/rovercom/rovfaq.html#faq4

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  140. @141. It’s classic overreach. All kidding aside, the guy’s mindset really is still in the 1970s/1980s. And when he drifts into ‘folks’ he’s worked with before– most all dead, it really becomes evident. Really would be enlightening to know who is really running the show. Susan Rice, maybe? But it’s not Joe.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  141. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmuPcPH9K6M

    Watch this from Saturday. This is frightening.

    “… and by the way America, get the hell off my lawn!”

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  142. Regarding HP calculators, I started my career in the 1990s using the HP 12C, and now I don’t have to carry it around because there’s an app for it. Best $15 I’ve ever spent.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  143. But it’s not Joe.

    The incompetence might be a clue.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  144. @146. But there are so many suspects!

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  145. @145: I have an HP-42S app on my phone. I also have an HP32SII (best sci calculator HP ever made) on my desktop. I actually own 3, just in case. It adds base conversion and logic operations to a full sci/stat calculator. I have a 12C around here someplace, but I really never use a fin calc.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  146. With Wilson it was his wife.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  147. @149. Hmmm. Recall those early images of Jill at the desk aboard AF1– could be a tell.

    Just as with that video clip from yesterday– Joe’s really carrying some heavy emotional baggage from losing Beau– it clearly flares up in that exchange. It’s concerning.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  148. @148- After the folks passed, was going through some old boxes of gadgets and came across several plug-in powered calculators from the mid 70s/early 80s. The kind w/t transformer-sized plugs and electric light-up digits. Before the solar wafer days. One was made by Singer. Seem bulky and awkward by today’s standards but they’re quaint– and still operate.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  149. I don’t remember much about Lewis Fry Richardson’s Statistics of Deadly Quarrels — I read it a long time ago — but I do remember him thanking some company (Marchant?) for loaning him a desk calculator.

    (His dismaying conclusions in that work show up in some science fiction stories.)

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  150. The NY Post covers all the news. As Giuliani will tell you, better to let it rip than keep it in.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  151. Yes, yes, first with Sputnik (did you know that for a time “sputnik” was the generic term for artificial satellite worldwide and even in America?) and then with Yuri Gagarin, the Russians slapped us with both gauntlets and we had to respond to protect our national honor.

    But even though we won the space race, Putin recently threw down a new gauntlet. He said that Russian prostitutes are “undoubtedly the best in the world”. “Undoubtedly”, that’s what he said! Are we going to take that lying down? We need to move on from ad astra to grande horizontale with our own well-funded and brilliantly-staffed prostitution program.

    nk (1d9030)

  152. 11 minutes of revelations to NeverTrump, which will no doubt be called a lazy whatever by detractors who can’t last more than 2 minutes. As far as the rest of us who didn’t want Biden, it is 11 minutes of stating the obvious:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQNl8PpcSHw

    I once heard a saying which went something like, “it is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they were fooled.”

    But, Russia….

    Sure.

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  153. BuDuh, again, to remind us of Trump’s continued existence. Hope he’s getting paid for it. If not by Trump directly, maybe by some pig-lipstick company.

    Let’s play the name-game, why not? A little trip with Trump:

    Orange, orange, po porange.
    Banana, fana, fo forange.
    Fie, fie, mo, morange.
    Borscht!

    nk (1d9030)

  154. Makes more sense if it was a submarine, for a few reasons.

    urbanleftbehind (c073c9)

  155. @156. BuDuh, again, to remind us of Trump’s continued existence.

    SNL surely is. Rather than mutiny and lampoon the ‘Bounty’ of humor that is Slow Joe, their cold open was another ‘Titanic Tri-Trump-h…’ all about the Bad Orange Man.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  156. “it is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they were fooled.”

    From a guy who, ya know, is telling us Trump didn’t do nothin’ wrong with Russia (hysterical given what we saw for four years).

    If you’re still rambling about nevertrump this nevertrump that, you need to get over Trump.

    Dustin (153d7d)

  157. “He said that Russian prostitutes are “undoubtedly the best in the world”. ”

    Kazakhstan’s prostitutes, cleanest in the region
    Except of course for Turkmenistan’s

    Davethulhu (d51add)

  158. our own well-funded and brilliantly-staffed prostitution program.

    Clinton and Trump can be co-chairmen.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  159. I wonder why a Trump would get you panties in a twist, Dustin? That would suggest you need to get over him.

    BuDuh (256c84)

  160. Well,
    The Ukraine girls really knock me out (… Wooh, ooh, ooh)
    They leave the West behind (Da, da, da)
    And Moscow girls make me sing and shout (… Wooh, ooh, ooh)
    That Georgia’s always on
    My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my mind
    Oh, come on
    Woo (Hey)
    (Hoo) Hey
    Woo hoo (Yeah)
    Yeah, yeah
    Hey, I’m back In the U.S.S.R.
    You don’t know how lucky you are, boys
    Back In the U.S.S.R.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  161. From @153.

    “It was long and loud and impossible to ignore,” the source told the outlet.

    “Camilla hasn’t stopped talking about it.”

    And neither has Prince Charles, a former Royal Navy man: “Remarkable! He’s still a virgin!” he marveled.

    nk (1d9030)

  162. …Trump Post…

    and I apologize for the “panties” remark. Totally uncalled for on my part, Dustin.

    Checking out.

    BuDuh (256c84)

  163. @162. our own well-funded and brilliantly-staffed prostitution program. Clinton and Trump can be co-chairmen.

    Well, Kevin, it certainly would bring a fresh slant to ol’Walter Cronkite’s cries of “Go, baby, GO!’ during space shots. 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  164. @165. Camilla Parker Bowles can’t stop talking about Joe Biden’s ‘long fart’

    She’s 78 years old– so it takes an old one to know an old one. 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  165. Some group attempted to assassinate Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi with drones:

    The failed assassination attempt against Iraq’s prime minister at his residence on Sunday has ratcheted up tensions following last month’s parliamentary elections, in which the Iran-backed militias were the biggest losers.
    . . .
    There was no claim of responsibility, but suspicion immediately fell on Iran-backed militias. They had been blamed for previous attacks on the Green Zone, which also houses foreign embassies.

    The BBC notes that ISIS has used commercial drones in the past.

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  166. My father had a big calculator about the the size of a telephone pf that era (with a standard plug) about 1972. Later on he had a smaller one that ran on some kind of battery that worked till after the year 2000. I replaced it. I used plastic ones that broke for awhile but now I use Swntry 338 calculators

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  167. The thing is, Joe Biden was maybe always incompetent in the sense of mot foreseeing what is reasonably foreseeable.

    But a Senator doesn’t need to be competent in that sense.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  168. If it has an “=” key, it isn’t a real calculator.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  169. This sounds about right. Trump was ready to leave the GOP (for his own selfish reasons, of course) until the RNC said they would not pay his legal bills and would take back the RNC donor list. Of all the people this party decided to cling to, they picked this guy.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  170. Sources say…

    LOL.

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  171. Sources say…

    LOL.

    As if the reported conversation weren’t entirely consonant with publicly known words and actions by Trump and the consistent pattern of his life.
    LOL

    The puzzle is why some people are so very hurt by anything that doesn’t cast him in a flattering light.

    Radegunda (1d2937)

  172. It is nice that you are consumed by worrying about those people. If I come across any, I’ll send them your way.

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  173. it does sound out of character for mr. trump the donald who will be mr. president again on thanksgiving day

    just in time to pardon the turkey too

    mr. donald the trump is not the kind of mr. president-by-thanksgiving-day who throws a tantrum and then goes off to sulk when mommy tells him to behave or he gets no dessert

    no, no, no, that is not like him at all

    nk (1d9030)

  174. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 11/8/2021 @ 12:27 am

    Never let it be said that I can’t acknowledge both wisdom, intelligence, and experience when I see it.

    If it has an “=” key, it isn’t a real calculator.

    When you’re right you’re right. I don’t use it much anymore but I’ve had my hp48 for 30 years and it’s still here on my desk.

    frosty (f27e97)

  175. Radegunda (1d2937) — 11/8/2021 @ 7:39 am

    The puzzle is why some people are so very hurt by anything that doesn’t cast him in a flattering light.

    Does “why are you hurt”, which is the Dane Cook of “why you made bro”, ever work?

    frosty (f27e97)

  176. Of all the people this party decided to cling to, they picked this guy.

    The Party didn’t “pick” him. The primary voters inflicted him on the Party. Worse, Trump’s personality cult is such that anyone who crosses him will lose their next election, or so they think. But this, too, will end. The Democrats had their Huey Long, the GOP their Joe McCarthy. Both had the same kind of power — the angry mob — but it ended. So will this.

    Liz Cheney winning in WY would help things a lot. Once his hold on people is broken even a little bit, the end will come quickly.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  177. I don’t use it much anymore but I’ve had my hp48 for 30 years and it’s still here on my desk.

    I have real trouble using the other kind.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  178. @180, i really hope you’re right. But I think the Trump formula is what most. GOP primary voters want.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  179. Susan Estrich, who managed Dukakis’s campaign in 1988, had a column that ran in the New York Post in which she McAuliffe, and Democrats in general, lost because they were out of touch – but she was in touch and knew the price of a dozen eggs – except that she’s out of touch herself with that!,

    https://nypost.com/2021/11/05/terry-mcauliffes-doom-joe-biden-and-the-price-of-eggs

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  180. “But I think the Trump formula is what most. GOP primary voters want.”

    I tend to agree, though as we get closer to 2024, let’s see who emerges as opposition (if Trump even runs which I can’t imagine him not except for health problems).

    Trump taps into the base’s anger and nationalism. People really feel like they are giving their opponents the middle finger…..and they love the Trump show. The question will be how the base responds to likely congressional pickups in 2022…..and I guess whether those pickups are Trumpy or not. Given the Biden train wreck, whichever GOP nominee will have a strong advantage…..so we can certainly see Trump again. It would take another loss for the magic to die. I’m just hoping that someone like Haley can catch fire and energize a new direction. We will see…

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  181. AJ, I don’t think there’s going to be opposition to trumpism, I think it’s going to be a fight over who the one true heir is.

    But I hope you’re right.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  182. Further re: 183: 11/8/2021 @ 9:57 am

    Susan Estrich:

    I’m up-to-the-minute on the price of eggs. And the cost of cans for cranberry. And the likelihood of empty shelves when I shop for all the children in my life come December.

    I’m up-to-the-minute on all the big ships you can see lined up just waiting to unload at San Pedro, which is pretty far south of where we’re sitting.

    Twelve dollars for a dozen eggs. At the farmers market on Sunday, I did my own survey. Three stands were $11. The rest were $12. Ten minutes ago, they cost $6.

    !!!!!

    The highest I’ve been quoted, in a small store, and that was, I think, the week before last, was $3.00 for a dozen eggs.

    During the last several months, the price of a dozen eggs at Moisha’sKosher Discount Supermarket, 325 Avenue M in Brooklyn has ranged from 89 cents (one time) to $1.59 for a dozen eggs, and they’ve dropped back down to $1.29. I know they are cheaper there and the store always has a lot of them..

    Sample prices:

    July 19: $1.19
    July 23: $1.19
    Aug. 6: $1.19
    Aug. 21: $1.39
    Sept. 5: 99 cents
    Sept 14: $1.59
    Oct. 6: $1.59
    Oct. 29:$1.29

    Now pasta has gone up – maybe.

    One brand or another is almost always on special in Shoprite (at various prices, but sometimes as low 88 cents for a pound with the Shoprite card)

    Closer to me, Moderna pasta 7 oz packages (I think the packages used to be 7.05 oz) has gone from 69 cents to 89 cents to – today 0 $1.09.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  183. I think the people who like Trump basically think the Democrats (and other politicians) are not good.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  184. There are several items in the news about China:

    1. More Internet companies, like Linked-in are withdrawing from China.

    2, Xi King Ping’s new idea is to build “patriotism” or a cult. Everyone born before 2009 will know it is a lie. It won’t help him.

    3. People are being prosecuted and sent to jail for what amounts to les majeste about anything the Chinese government promotes – telling the truth about the history of the Communist Party doesn’t even factor in here – mostly because people don’t know it.

    4. Xi Jinping is rewriting the history of the Communist Party. In the new edition one fourth of the space is devoted to him. He was a great leader including about the coronavirus.

    Mao is assigned the glory of making China free of foreign control, Deng Xiaoping of making China prosperous (like nobody in the world figured out how to do it before him) , and Xi Jinping with something like making China great.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  185. Sammy – In Frederick Lewis Allen’s Only Yesterday, as of May 1919, eggs were selling for 62 cents a dozen. (I’ll let you, or anyone else inclined, run that through an inflation calculator, to see how much cheaper eggs are, in real terms, now.)

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  186. @180, i really hope you’re right. But I think the Trump formula is what most. GOP primary voters want.

    They wanted things shaken up, sure, and were tired of politicians kicking the can down the road as if problems could be postponed forever. Trump was a change agent, undeniably the real thing. The 1980-2015 party system is kaput. But they also want something done and all Trump can is talk about change. Someone who was effective, and perhaps more consistent and rational, might bring the change they seek.

    At least I hope so.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  187. May 1919

    A post-war-scarcity period. In 1913, those “62 cent” eggs were only 36 cents. The same eggs in 1939 were 50 cents.

    Of course since then things have gone up and they’d be about $10 today. In 1960, a new custom-built mid-century modern on a half acre overlooking a canyon in Los Angeles cost $50,000. Today that same house is about $2 million. But gasoline is about the same price it was in 1975.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  188. Jim Miller (edcec1) — 11/8/2021 @ 12:08 pm

    Sammy – In Frederick Lewis Allen’s Only Yesterday, as of May 1919, eggs were selling for 62 cents a dozen. (I’ll let you, or anyone else inclined, run that through an inflation calculator, to see how much cheaper eggs are, in real terms, now.)

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 11/8/2021 @ 12:48 pm

    May 1919

    A post-war-scarcity period. In 1913, those “62 cent” eggs were only 36 cents. The same eggs in 1939 were 50 cents.

    There was a almost a doubling of prices during World War I, followed by the Great Deflation in 1920 (wholesale or commodity prices in May, consumer prices around November or December. Harry Truman’s haberdashery went bankrupt, Prices dropped further during the Great Depression so that price levels in 1933 were about what they had been in 1913.

    Prices in the United States doubled from about 1940 to 1948 – then the inflation suddenly vanished in October, 1948. Dewey never knew what hit him. Inflation was the primary thing the “do nothing” Congress was doing nothing about – not the Republican platform. Economists never figured it out what ended the inflation but I think it was that supply curve finally overtook the demand curve/

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  189. Wholesale price index (1947-1949 = 100)

    1900: 36.5

    1913: 45.4

    1919: 90.

    1020: 100.4

    1921: 63.4

    1929: 61.9

    1933: 42.8

    1940: 51.1

    1948: 104.4
    1949: 99.2

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  190. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com

    Prices are about 27 times as much as they were in 1919, so eggs selling at about 62 cent a dozen are equivalent to about $16.75 a century later.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  191. Wholesale price index 1919 (this is an average for the entire calendar year) 90.1

    I left out the .1

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  192. The Wholesale Price index stats in 1749 (spliced backwards) at either 35 or 30 depending on what index you use,

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  193. No, Sammy, you are wrong. The gain 1919 to 2021 is 14.86, so the 62 cent eggs are $9.83

    You need to hit “calculate” each time, changing the fields doesn’t do it.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  194. Opinion: She told the truth about Wuhan. Now she is near death in a Chinese prison.

    China committed one act of barbarity when it prosecuted the citizen journalist Zhang Zhan for her revealing look at Wuhan in the first stages of what became a global pandemic. Ms. Zhang was sentenced in December to four years in prison on the specious charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” which China uses to suffocate free speech. Now her health has deteriorated, and relatives say she is near death. China will compound the barbarity unless it sets her free and saves her life.

    Ms. Zhang, a former lawyer, made an indelible contribution to our understanding of what happened in Wuhan. Over three months there, she posted 122 YouTube videos, the first of which she titled “My claim for the right of free speech.” When she got to Wuhan on Feb. 1, 2020, she later recalled, “There was not a single soul. It felt as if I stumbled on a movie set right after the shooting was over and everybody has left the set. The world didn’t feel real.” Her videos confirmed chaos inside a hospital. Ordered to stop filming, she moved around the city in February and March, posting what she witnessed.

    Her arrest and imprisonment are part of China’s larger coverup. In December 2019, officials in Wuhan attempted to hide information about the outbreak of a new disease; when eight doctors expressed concern about the sickness, they were reprimanded. A second coverup occurred in early January 2020, when top Chinese officials remained silent, although they knew of human transmission of the virus, and informed the public only on Jan. 20. A third coverup has involved their repeated attempts to frustrate investigation into the origins of the pandemic and their campaign to blame it on sources outside China.

    Everything I read convinces me that China has something terrible to hide. You don’t cover up to this degree because someone ate a bat. At the very least, China was experimenting with viral disease vectors and aiming at making them more communicable, and the virus escaped the lab. Local officials, at least, knew about it immediately and tried to contain it, while already lying. No the stonewall and limited hangouts.

    Far as I’m concerned, trade from China can stop. We can get all we need other places. We’ll just have to pay more. MAYBE if they pay about $10 trillion dollars, we might reconsider.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  195. Kamala Harris’s approval rating worse than Dick Cheney’s, poll finds

    Less than a year into the Biden administration’s tenure, the first Black woman to hold America’s second-highest office is less popular than a predecessor who once famously shot a hunting companion in the face.

    According to a new poll commissioned by USA Today and carried out by Suffolk University, only 28 per cent of Americans approve of how Vice President Kamala Harris has performed in the position voters elected to her one year ago.

    That’s a full 10 points lower than the approval rating for President Joe Biden, according to the same poll.

    Worse yet for Ms Harris, the poll shows that a majority of Americans — 51 per cent — say they disapprove of the job she’s done as vice president.

    Ms Harris’ 28 per cent approval rating is a record low for a modern vice president, and goes even lower than the 30 per cent, according to Gallup tracking polls, who in 2008 said they approved of the performance in office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

    But FIRST. BLACK. WOMAN. Isn’t being historic more important than being good?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  196. @180/182/184- AJ/Kevin/Time- But I think the Trump formula is what most. GOP primary voters want.

    From another thread:

    Consider those 74+ million voters, a number that grew from the previous cycle. I think we’re looking at the wrong end of the telescope. Trump is who he is. It’s the same act now as it was for NYers in the 80s. The real question is why the draw to him by the electorate.

    The data from an old thesis indicates a candidate like Trump, with no previous elected office experience, was going to be nominated by a major party for the POTUS spot as their ‘initial elected office’– and win [the projections from 1976 suggested around 2000- and it turned out to be 2016.] Youngkin follows the pattern as well on the state level. We debated the data and projected trends back in the day and the conclusions came back to the flareups rooted in populism due to the failures of the major parties to deliver for the electorate. Angst, if not anger, fueled voter disappointments at simply wanting to see things ‘get done’ and little happening. The populist pattern is there; Anderson, Perot, Buchanan, Palin…etc. And it’s not necessarily unique to either major party. It’s ironic that the 45 year-big government-experienced of Biden, elected to return ‘calm,’ is ending up reinforcing the very rationale why a Trump-style candidate was elected. He’s Trump’s best campaigner by his own actions. The $2000 is $1400; the 100% is 90%; The abandoning $85 billion in equipment; the sale of carriers for scrap for a penny a piece; the border mess; inflation; proposing paying illegals compensation; the vaccine mandate confusions… etc. Look at his poll numbers today. Dismal, and not even a year in office.

    Gingrich’s GOP response is pitching another ‘contract w/America.’ Few will buy that ploy anymore. Voters want things done. Just review the infrastructure legislation. People expect bridges, dams and roads and water works working. It’s bipartisan- but they add costly elements- some superfluous- that simply aren’t truly basic, essential, immediate infrastructure necessities– and this ticks off the electorate all the more and only fuels ‘pragmatic populism.’ This isn’t going to dissipate. Not for several cycles, until a competent candidate gets elected and gets things done. Trump isn’t a ‘cult.’ He’s ‘pragmatic populism’ on the march– a power the Biden camp oh-so-wish-they could harness.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  197. @199. But FIRST. BLACK. WOMAN. Isn’t being historic more important than being good

    That’s what happens when you check boxes instead of checking credentials and competence.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  198. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 11/8/2021 @ 1:22 pm

    No, Sammy, you are wrong. The gain 1919 to 2021 is 14.86, so the 62 cent eggs are $9.83

    Yes, 27 times is for 1013.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  199. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 11/8/2021 @ 1:28 pm

    Far as I’m concerned, trade from China can stop. We can get all we need other places. We’ll just have to pay more. MAYBE if they pay about $10 trillion dollars, we might reconsider.

    It’s really just a matter of time. At some point things will unwind.

    frosty (f27e97)

  200. Far as I’m concerned, trade from China can stop. We can get all we need other places. We’ll just have to pay more. MAYBE if they pay about $10 trillion dollars, we might reconsider.

    Don’t really see how that can happen– just adds a ‘middle man’ or two; it’s a matter of marketing; change logo and sourcing – like “Packaged in France’ or ‘Export of Indonesia’ etc., when the product is manufactured in China. Japan’s Matsush!ta, the parent company of JVC, Panasonic, Technics, etc., routinely licensed/repackaged product in off-brand after market labels [for example, Radio Shack batteries were all made by Panasonic] and managed yo distribute product worldwide. And, of course, back i the day, the VHS machines and format- Matsush!ta inented, was licensed to other manufacturers – for example RCA– [even Sony]to peddle the product.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  201. I spent most of the weekend staring at Houston in absolute horror and rage.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  202. But FIRST. BLACK. WOMAN. Isn’t being historic more important than being good?

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 11/8/2021 @ 1:31 pm

    First woman VP, period. And as far as I’m concerned, the fairer half of our species is not being well-represented.

    Demosthenes (3fd56e)

  203. https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/484060/

    Indeed, aphrael. T. Scott’s encourage me to of chaos here and at several previous concerts is a by order of magnitude lethal version of tricking white kids to rap along onstage so that they “accidentally” say a certain six letter word (proper spelling, hard R).

    urbanleftbehind (e654c9)

  204. She would have far better political instincts if she was still a Willie Brown thing holster.

    urbanleftbehind (e654c9)

  205. Well, she is the Vice President. They don’t do much.

    nk (1d9030)

  206. But guess who’ll be counting the Electoral College votes on January 6, 2005.

    nk (1d9030)

  207. Eek! 2025 I mean.

    nk (1d9030)

  208. urbanleftbehind, @208: i’m a festival kid. this sort of thing is one of my worst nightmares.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  209. “Trump isn’t a ‘cult.’ He’s ‘pragmatic populism’ on the march”

    Then why the focus on the “steal” when evidence of election-turning corruption is so lacking? Why the manic fixation on Cheney and those critics who question Trump’s fitness? The tent seems remarkably shrinking. Why the de facto loyalty oaths to the man rather than the pragmatic cause? This is about personality and feeding the right-wing rage machine. Trump understood early that if he gave his base judges and irreverent pot shots in the culture war….they would let him get away with anything. That “anything” included twisting Ukrainian arms, muscling Georgia politicians and his own VP, irresponsibly punching down at every opportunity, and sitting smugly as the Capitol was breached.

    Populism isn’t SO desperate and isn’t SO tied to a narcissist. Pragmatism suggests compromise, reasoned positioning, thoughtful articulation, building consensus, getting half a loaf. Does any of that sound anything like Trump? If Trump has two paths….does anyone doubt he takes the one that generates the most personal attention….rather than a smaller quieter pragmatic victory. The wall was always more about stirring controversey and personal aggrandizement than it was about…you know…actually maximizing the pragmatic placement of obstacles and attacking the root cause of illegal immigration. But those ensnared by the cult are the last ones to recognize what is actually going on. Jim Jones was just getting things done. David Koresh had a divine mission. Who knew it included so much sexual abuse? If Trump’s pragmatic program has so much appeal, it would eclipse the flawed messenger and comfortably go on. The problem is that there is not much beyond Trump. No one channels the anger like Trump…and that’s what his kool-aid drinkers want…..

    AJ_Liberty (3cb02f)

  210. Well said, AJ.
    Speaking of pragmatic, my party hasn’t been so pragmatic or scientific with the vaccines, and the charts put together by David Leonhardt paints the picture.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  211. Distrust results from stagnant living standards???

    Words don;t matter?

    This is economic determinism, and it probably wouldn’t check out any more than attributing the disparity in Covid deaths per capita between different counties in recent months was because of differences in the age breakdown or the weather between those different counties.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  212. Frozen peas have been getting very expensive. But there hasn’t been such a rise with broccoli.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  213. Then why the focus on the “steal” when evidence of election-turning corruption is so lacking? Why the manic fixation on Cheney and those critics who question Trump’s fitness? The tent seems remarkably shrinking… Pragmatism suggests compromise, reasoned positioning, thoughtful articulation, building consensus, getting half a loaf..

    No. pragmatism is an efficient route to solutions. Your angst is over process, not the solution. You’re missing the forest for the trees. Populism has been simmering to a boil for decades. It was ready to boil over. The pattern is there– Wallace, Anderson, Buchanan, Perot, Palin… then Trump. And the numbers Trump drew increased in the second cycle, not decreased, even w/t defections of the Lincoln Project group, the National Review naysayers and “never-trump” gang. It’s growing. And it is as much the weakness of the opposing candidates as it is the power of populism, too. HRC…now Biden… incredibly dismal performers. You don’t fully understand the Trump act– as it upsets your ideological apple cart. NYers do. PT Barnum dipped in WC Fields. Whether they enjoyed the show through the 80s or not was always a subject of debate around the water cooler. All ‘city players’ are/were narcissists;- Helmsley, Steinbrenner, Boesky, Milken, Gotti– even the mayor [‘How’m I doin’ steady Eddie Koch] — they put on an act and got mentioned on Page Six. You ever catch some of Giuliani pressers in the city during his Dudley-Do-Right days in the ’80s? Always a big show. Most of America west of the Hudson saw and learned of Trump’s act, his established persona, through the lens of a scripted television program- or a board game and SNL skits. But it’s the same act he pitched locally in the tri-state area. Anecdotally speaking speaking, back in the day, ‘did you hear/see what Trump did last night?’ more often than one cares to remember was discussed over a bagel and coffee before a morning meeting would start.

    He’s no cult. Trump’s more a Broadway show, a la “Fiorello!” the 1959 musical about NYC mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, a reform Republican. And you can bet when the production of ‘Trump!’ is actually scripted and there’s a casting call, he’ll audition to play himself.

    ‘No one channels the anger like Trump…’

    No one? You must have missed Mr. Biden wagging his finger at you:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmuPcPH9K6M

    Or missed a few Christie bridge-too-far-pressers… or seen a cabbie caught in traffic at 48th & 6th.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  214. 198. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 11/8/2021 @ 1:28 pm

    From the Washington Post Op-ed:

    China committed one act of barbarity when it prosecuted the citizen journalist Zhang Zhan for her revealing look at Wuhan in the first stages of what became a global pandemic.

    This is not Fang Fang who published a book.

    She was arrested early – on or about May 14, 2020, either because she was persistent and didn’t heed warnings, or was relatively unknown, or because she was getting close to stumbling on some important secrets.

    From the Committee to Protect Journalists:

    https://cpj.org/2020/05/journalist-zhang-zhan-arrested-for-covering-covid

    hang, an independent video journalist who had been posting reports from Wuhan on Twitter and YouTube since early February, went missing in the city on May 14, one day after she published a video critical of the government’s countermeasures to contain the virus, according to news reports.

    On May 15, the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau issued a notice stating that Zhang had been arrested and detained for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” and was being held at the Pudong Xinqu Detention Center, according to those reports.

    “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” or what is translated that way was the standard charge for creating a controversy that the authorities did not like, until they passed a new national security law this year. The nature of the old charge seems to offer the Chinese citizen an chance to stop when they get told to because after all, they might not know that a subject matter is sensitive especially since the fact that something is sensitive and secret is also a secret.

    Now her health has deteriorated, and relatives say she is near death.

    This (having someone die accidently on purpose) is an idea borrowed from Russia I think.

    she posted 122 YouTube videos, the first of which she titled “My claim for the right of free speech.”

    She was being openly defiant! But it seemed the topic was permissible at that time (from about Jan. 20 to Feb 12, 2020)

    Her videos confirmed chaos inside a hospital. Ordered to stop filming, she moved around the city in February and March, posting what she witnessed.

    So she listened somewhat.

    . A second coverup occurred in early January 2020, when top Chinese officials remained silent, although they knew of human transmission of the virus, and informed the public only on Jan. 20.

    They postponed the revelation that there was person to person transmission (for a few days or maybe even a week or two after they concluded they had to admit it) probably because they wanted to conclude a trade deal with Donald Trump. They promised to import some goods that they knew would never happen because of the virus.

    A third coverup has involved their repeated attempts to frustrate investigation into the origins of the pandemic and their campaign to blame it on sources outside China.

    And there is useful data we know they have they they haven’t let anyone look at.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  215. Kevin M @198:

    Everything I read convinces me that China has something terrible to hide. You don’t cover up to this degree because someone ate a bat.

    It wouldn’t be eating a bat – it would be breathing in what a bat or other animal exhaled.

    A “wet market” means a market with live animals that are killed to order (they thrived, despite being outlawed because people in China, including the local despots, did not trust processed foods that were not imported.)

    They blamed a seafood market for the outbreak – which should not have had animals that breathe air. (they later published a study that was done in 2017 with pictures that showed there were indeed some animals that breathed being sold there. I don’t think any of the right suspects.

    At the very least, China was experimenting with viral disease vectors and aiming at making them more communicable,

    Sponsored by the Chinese military, but that little detail can be carved away

    and the virus escaped the lab.

    Maybe by doing something very clumsy.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  216. I think there were at least two separate lab leaks, and the first one was successfully covered up. It didn’t produce such a severe disease.

    I say two lab leaks because:

    2) The database of bat viruses of the Wuhan Institute of Virology was taken offline on September 12, 2019 – but that is too early for a disease that took off in December.

    2) In early 2020, there were two variants, or strains, in China, neither of which could be a direct ancestor of the other, and the weaker version spread further in China – it also spread to the USA and throughout the world, but was contained and was eventually replaced by what can be called the “Wuhan flu”.

    3) They have samples of virus taken from people with serious disease but they won’t let anyone see it. I think the big secret here is that there were at least two separate leaks int the population.

    There may be a connection to the change of address of the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention which moved to within 300 yards of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market on or about December 2, 2019.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  217. Kevin M:

    Local officials, at least, knew about it immediately and tried to contain it, while already lying. No [sic – should it be “so?”] the stonewall and limited hangouts.

    They are trying to avoid any kind of hangout.

    Far as I’m concerned, trade from China can stop. We can get all we need other places. We’ll just have to pay more. MAYBE if they pay about $10 trillion dollars, we might reconsider.

    Some things just can’t be ramped uup – like rare earthes.

    But trade made be cut iff anyway, because China seems to be preparing for war with the United States.

    It reminds people of Germany circa 1910.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  218. Scenes from the snakepit:

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-remedy-antiviral-government-funding-merck-molnupiravir-11633897174

    When Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics announced on Oct. 1 that their new antiviral pill reduced Covid hospitalizations by roughly half, some in the media blamed Donald Trump. An Axios headline: “Before Merck backed COVID antiviral, Trump admin turned it down.” In fact, Trump officials pushed for government funding to accelerate the development of the drug, molnupiravir. They were opposed by a career official, Rick Bright, whom Democrats praised as a “whistleblower.”

    Mr. Bright joined the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority in 2010 and became Barda’s director in 2016. The authority, part of the Health and Human Services Department, is charged with preparing for and responding to public-health threats. After Mr. Bright repeatedly clashed with HHS officials, he was reassigned in April 2020 to a lower-level job at the National Institutes of Health. Mr. Bright then filed a complaint accusing Trump officials of pressuring him to fast-track unsafe drugs and award contracts “based on political connections and cronyism.”

    He claimed that even before the pandemic, they were inappropriately pressing Barda to fund clinical studies of molnupiravir, which had shown promise against other viruses in lab experiments at Emory University. Mr. Bright’s complaint alleged that George Painter, CEO of Drug Innovation Ventures at Emory, and Trump HHS official Robert Kadlec had urged Barda in November 2019 to “invest millions of dollars into their ‘miracle cure.’ ” It noted that “similar experimental drugs in this class had been shown to cause reproductive toxicity in animals, and offspring from treated animals had been born without teeth and without parts of their skulls.” But similar effects hadn’t occurred with molnupiravir. Mr. Bright rejected the Emory funding request; the decision “clearly frustrated Dr. Kadlec and further strained their relationship,” according to the complaint.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  219. I agree that Trump is playing a part…and it’s largely the part he’s played all his life. I just disagree that he’s trying to “efficiently” chart a path to “solutions”….or that many of his “priorities” are things that he even cares about. Now the cynic/realist might say that without 60 Senate votes, nothing REALLY will get done anyway…so it all devolves to theater and posturing to stay in power. Perhaps. Do we really believe that Trump suddenly became pro-life and wanted to add 3 presumably pro-life justices to the Court….or was that just the cost of admission to right-wing politics? The same could be said about immigration…..he didn’t go pragmatic…he went with the most audacious, simplistic solution possible….and it fit his character, especially the part of calling out the Mexicans to pay for the wall. His Johnny Dangerous part dictated the policies, not principle or a sincere desire to change anything. I think he wanted attention and power.

    Now you might say, don’t most politicians these days want the same….with the true believers like Bernie and Warren being even more worrisome with what they would actually try to do. I don’t know, but it makes me think of John Goodman’s Walter-character decrying nihilists. I still believe in leadership and that leaders should have noble purpose. I don’t think that Trump does. Look Trump understood marketing….and understood how to build excitement and leverage what was already going on in social media and Talk Radio. But it’s Machiavellian because the system is teetering…things are becoming more and more combustible….and he’s fiddling while our democracy burns.

    Most people don’t really understand leadership…or its importance. Too much is about entertainment value….and the need for external stimulus. It’s why so many people can’t go 5min without looking at their phone/email/internet. It would be comical if it wasn’t so sad. They need their hit. There are good leaders out there. Trump is just delaying their emergence….and feeding America’s Twinkee-thinking addiction. A WWE White House is not what we need. It’s survivable when things are normal…the problem is when we hit crises. Storms are ahead…especially financially…we need people who can get us prepared….and not throwing a kegger….

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  220. I just disagree that he’s trying to “efficiently” chart a path to “solutions”….or that many of his “priorities” are things that he even cares about.

    Well, put aside his persona and review what he accomplished. Changed the face of SCOTUS for decades- that should thrill even the most skeptical conservative; tax reform; border security; Space Force; Mideast– embassy move to Jerusalem, etc., Abraham Accords… and my personal favorite- keeping bureaucrats as ‘acting-such-and-such’… never confirming and able to fire them for underperforming. Just as in the private sector.

    Most people dont understand leadership. Too much is about entertainment value….and the need for external stimulus

    You underestimate people. Most do- particularly the elements of showwmanship. Durocher, Martin, Stengel… Barry Goldwater…George Murphy … and, ‘well’ — Ronald Reagan, who famously quipped you had to be an actor to perform in the role of POTUS.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  221. Here’s some light reading from an obscure journal, describing different strategies against COVID:

    We use two approaches to evaluate counterfactuals which transpose the transmission profile from one country onto another, in each country’s first wave from 13th March (when stringent interventions began) until 1st July 2020. UK mortality would have approximately doubled had Swedish policy been adopted, while Swedish mortality would have more than halved had Sweden adopted UK or Danish strategies. Danish policies were most effective, although differences between the UK and Denmark were significant for one counterfactual approach only. Our analysis shows that small changes in the timing or effectiveness of interventions have disproportionately large effects on total mortality within a rapidly growing epidemic.

    In short, if you want to reduce deaths from COVID, emulate Denmark, not Sweden.

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  222. Uh Oh. COVID cases are down in warm states, but up in cold states:

    Colorado’s setback is not an outlier on the national landscape. The late summer and early autumn easing of the nation’s burden of new coronavirus infections has come to a halt over the past two weeks, according to health department data analyzed by The Washington Post. Dramatic drops in caseloads in the Deep South, including the high-population states of Florida and Texas, have been offset by increases in the Mountain West and the northern tier of the country.

    Twenty-four states have seen at least a 5 percent increase in cases over the past two weeks, led by New Hampshire with a 63 percent increase, Vermont with 50 percent, New Mexico with 48 percent, Minnesota with 42 percent and Nebraska with 37 percent. The aggregate national caseload, having eased for two months, begin ticking up after hitting a low of about 69,000 new cases a day in late October. On Tuesday that average topped 75,000.

    I have been seeing a small — so far — increase in COVID deaths in the United States, in the last week.

    (I would pay this less attention, if it were not for the fact that a similar increase back in July marked the beginning of the Delta variant surge.)

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  223. New York Post account of Russia scandal, They don’t get every nuance right. Forinsance Fusion GPS was earlier hired (for a different job) by the Washington Free BEacon and the Dems tried to make it appear that Steele haad started when paid by Republicans. Also Charles Dolan Jr.had stroner ties to the Kremlin than to the Clintons.

    https://nypost.com/2021/11/09/how-the-media-pushed-hillary-clintons-lies-against-trump

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)


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