Happy Hour

 Get happy

Sleepy Don

Trump's inability to stay awake isn't actually just normal old guy stuff.  Grandpas might nod off in the la-z-boy, but not in these situations.

...I make typos for lots of reasons, but one that isn't my fault is google putting a hovering "AI" button covering the blogger CMS so I can't see what I am typing.

Exploding Conference

No idea what will happen in this Tennessee special election, but if a Dem upset does happen, will this prediction come true?

“If our victory margin is single digits, the conference may come unhinged,” one senior House Republican said. A loss would be catastrophic and the conference would “explode,” the Republican added.

Elite On Elite Violence

I had missed Larry Lessig going after Summers/Harvard in the Crimson. Doesn't Lessig understand that Summers is a member of the club?

From 2003 through 2019, Summers had been a central figure in Epstein’s relationship to Harvard. He had attended events hosted by Epstein and planned private meetings. Besides Epstein’s lawyer, and now-professor emeritus, Alan M. Dershowitz, he was by far the most prominent of the Harvard elite at the center of Harvard’s Epstein relationship.

Yet Summers is essentially invisible in the official accounts. A gift to support the work of Summers’s wife was mentioned in a footnote to the 2020 report, though obscurely, since she does not share Summers’s name. And never subsequently has Harvard disclosed anything more about his ongoing relationship with Epstein, which continued, as we’ve now learned through the published Epstein emails, until Epstein’s 2019 arrest.

...and the hits keep coming.

The American Economic Association (AEA) has accepted Lawrence H. Summers' voluntary resignation from membership and, pursuant to the AEA's Policies, Procedures, and Code of Professional Conduct, has imposed a lifetime ban on his membership. In addition, effective immediately, the AEA has imposed a lifetime prohibition on Mr. Summers' attending, speaking at, or otherwise participating in AEA-sponsored events or activities, including serving in any editorial or refereeing capacity for AEA journals. The AEA condemns Mr. Summers' conduct, as reflected in publicly reported communications, as fundamentally inconsistent with its standards of professional integrity and with the trust placed in mentors within the economics profession. Consistent with longstanding AEA practices and to protect the integrity and confidentiality of AEA processes, the AEA will not comment further on individual matters or the specific considerations underlying this determination.

I'm In Charge

It is amusing that Pete Hegseth thought he could take control of the fucking military, which is, mostly, a giant civilian corporation, and just yell things at it and have it behave. One doesn't have to imagine the DoD - civilian or military bits of it - are "good" in any sense to understand that it existed before Pete and it will exist after him.

Modern "Masculinity"

Hegseth and Trump do epitomize it. Do horrible things you refuse to take responsibility for.

Officials in Congress and the Pentagon said Monday they are increasingly concerned that the Trump administration intends to scapegoat the military officer who directed U.S. forces to kill two survivors of a targeted strike on suspected drug smugglers in Latin America, as lawmakers made initial moves to investigate whether the attack constituted a war crime.

Not that the admiral is innocent.

Big If True

Gramps is having a normal one.

Morning

Tantalizing Tuesday

Happy Hour

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Out To Dry

Gotta admit the admiral involved deserves this.

Karoline Leavitt defends second strike on alleged drug-smuggling boat; Trump says he believes Pete Hegseth’s statement ‘100%’ that defense secretary didn’t ordered the attack

We did not do the thing which was good, akshually.

We're Going To Kill You And Everybody You Know

And a lot of other people, too, of course.

As Washington prepares to launch land attacks inside Venezuela, a long-awaited phone call between the White House and Caracas aimed at defusing the crisis carried a blunt message for strongman Nicolás Maduro: You can save yourself and those closest to you, but you must leave the country now, sources familiar with the exchange told the Miami Herald.

The call — which The New York Times reported took place last week — quickly reached an impasse as it became clear that the two sides’ positions were far apart. Washington demanded that Maduro and his top allies leave Venezuela immediately to allow the restoration of democratic rule, while regime leaders proposed handing political control to the opposition but retaining command of the armed forces.

According to the sources, the U.S. message to Maduro was direct: Safe passage would be guaranteed for him, his wife Cilia Flores, and his son only if he agreed to resign right away.

The Gang Of 500

Reminisicing a bit here, though of course it still has relevance, but the press corps we were "gifted" with for the post 9/11 era were people who had spent years absolutely having the time of their fucking lives over Monica Lewinsky and related. They decided that they - and the trivialities and gossip that obsessed them - ran That Town and that politics basically didn't matter except for their personal entertainment an bank accounts.

Sure put George W. Bush in charge, it'll be fun! Much more fun than that AL BORE amirite? You might remember how after 9/11 a few of them asserted that it was time to get serious, without giving much thought to why they had approached the previous few years as a party at Gatsby's.

A Good Senator

Van Hollen is one of the few who has been getting out there on a variety of issues other than healthcarandaffordability.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said Sunday he believes "it's very possible there was a war crime committed" in the administration's first strike against an alleged drug trafficking boat in the Caribbean Sea in September.

"I think it's very possible there was a war crime committed. Of course, for it to be a war crime, you have to accept the Trump administration's whole construct here ... which is we're in armed conflict, at war with this particular -- with the drug gangs. Of course, they've never presented the public with the information they've got here," Van Hollen said on ABC News' "This Week." "If that theory is wrong, then it's plain murder."

Always Be Posting

It isn't the most important thing, but I do find it rather odd that all these weirdos are always thinking about how their instagram posts might look. Always posing, always posting.

Flip

This kind of kool kid banter tone reminds me of the Mark Halperin/The Note era of political journalism. It never went away entirely, but I wouldn't say it is the dominant dialect of the Gang of 500 anymore.

Morning

Manic Monday

Sunday Sunny Afternoon

I recently saw The Kinks jukebox musical Sunny Afternoon. I normally don't go to such things (jukebox musicals) but I did enjoy it quite a bit.

Now Is The Time

There Dems will probably take the House. I mean, if they don't then my somewhat cynical view of their strategy will be more than validated, but I still expect them to.

Whem the Dems won in 2006, the legend of Rahm Emanuel was born. Do we think his genius really won it? No, but he made sure that was the story. 

Are You Going To Do Something

We can't have elections going back and forth between political parties claiming to be able to solve "affordability" and then not doing it. It is a problem that "affordaility" is not one thing and there is not one magic "affordability" button. Energy prices are one simple thing to focus on, but even if the follow through on these promises (they had better!) they are just one thing.

Across the country, Democrats have seized on rising anxiety over electricity costs and data centers in what could be a template for the 2026 midterm elections.

In Virginia, Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger pledged during her campaign to lower energy bills and make data centers pay more. In the House of Delegates, one Democratic challenger unseated a Republican incumbent by focusing on curbing the proliferation of data centers in Loudoun County and the exurbs of the nation’s capital.

In New Jersey, Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill promised to declare a state of emergency on utility costs and freeze rates. And in Memphis, State Representative Justin J. Pearson, who is challenging Representative Steve Cohen in a high-profile Democratic primary next year, has vowed to fight a supercomputer by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, that would be located in a predominantly Black neighborhood.

A nontrivial chunk of the party (hi, Senator Gillibrand) are tech shills and there are going to be some conflicts

Morning

Sunday funday