DL Open Thread: Saturday, November 9, 2024

Filed in Featured, Open Thread by on November 9, 2024 24 Comments

Yesterday I set out to find an alternative to fill the void in the post-MSNBC phase of my life.  I’d always been intrigued with the notion of Scandinavian noir.  Perhaps because I’d never immersed myself in it.  So, I decided to binge-watch a Scandinavian noir TV show.  After consulting those ‘Best Of Scandinavian Noir’ lists, and seeing what was available on the streaming services we have, I opted for a Finnish noir called Deadwind12 fucking episodes, shoulda been eight at most, but I was determined to make it through.  Which I did.  Finished at about 2 this morning.

Mistake.  12 episodes, not a single joke.  Beautiful, but bleak, landscapes.  Shoulda counted how many times someone’s cellphone rang.  Those cop flashlights that illuminate everything save motive or plot.

Depressing in every way, not what you want in a post-democratic America.  However, if you’re looking for a wallow or, warning, bad Nordic noir joke ahead, Wahloo, you might want to consider it.

Me? I came, I saw, I shrugged.

The bright side?  I watched Nordic noir so that you don’t have to.

Hmmm, what rabbit hole should I dive down into next?  Any suggestions?  My wife devours fantasy fiction, but even post-democracy, I need something more rooted in an approximation of the real world.

Trump Judge Rules Illinois Assault Weapons Ban Unconstitutional.  Get used to this shit:

An Illinois law banning semiautomatic guns like AR-style rifles is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Friday, citing recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that strictly interpret the Second Amendment, including a watershed 2022 ruling that law-abiding Americans have a right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense.

Judge Stephen McGlynn for the U.S. District of Southern Illinois determined that the Protect Illinois Communities Act, which outlaws hundreds of firearms and accessories such as bump stocks and high-capacity magazines, violates an individual’s rightto bear arms. McGlynn stayed his order for 30 days, during which time the Illinois Attorney General’s Office plans to appeal the judge’s decision.

“The Government may not deprive law-abiding citizens of their guaranteed right to self-defense as a means of offense,” McGlynn, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2020, wrote in a 168-page ruling.

Shitty Democrats.  First Of A Limitless List:

Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York is exploring options for reviving a congestion pricing plan for New York City before President-elect Donald J. Trump has a chance to kill it, according to four people familiar with the matter.

Ms. Hochul’s move to salvage the contentious plan comes as she faces pressure from various corners, including a group that represents transit riders, and is planning to start an advertising blitz on Monday in support of the tolling program.

The plan that Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, is now exploring differs slightly from the one she halted in June. She is trying to satisfy opponents who had complained about the $15 congestion-pricing toll that most motorists would have had to pay as well as supporters who want to reduce car traffic and fund mass transit improvements.

The governor has talked to federal officials about the possibility of a $9 toll and about whether such a change might require the lengthy, involved process of additional environmental review, according to a Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member familiar with the matter. The discussions were first reported by Politico.

Josh Marshall Eschews The Blame Game.  I think he’s on the right track:

I’m going to go into more depth in a future post about why I think Harris lost. But the short version is that Joe Biden owned the hardships of the post-pandemic – principally but not only economic – and the public simply rejected his presidency because of that. That’s very similar to what has happened when almost every other incumbent party in the West came up for reelection in the post-pandemic era. It’s a pretty thorough public rejection of Biden’s whole presidency. Tough to face but true.

Combined with that are a raft of stylistic challenges and cultural baggage, problems tied to communications and media and technocracy that have dogged Democrats in the past, dogged them in this cycle and need to be addressed going forward. But those issues aren’t new. They didn’t prevent Democrats from having a solid election in 2020 or beating expectations in 2022. Or 2018 for that matter. The public pretty clearly agrees with Democrats on abortion and reproductive rights because public votes on that issue won almost everywhere in the country. But the folks in charge, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris who ended up holding too much of that blame, were rejected.

I could list ten other potential reasons. But again, I’ll get to that later. My point in addressing this is because Harris and Harris’s campaign are a distraction from this necessary conversation, a form of denial. She and her campaign weren’t where the problem was. Given the constraints she had to operate under it was a bravura performance.

Something to eschew on.

Kent County Administrator Ousted For Exposing Corruption.  Does this sound familiar?:

When Kent County Levy Court commissioners voted to fire Ken Decker, the former county administrator, they did so in a nearly empty chamber quickly after an executive session, without offering the chance for Decker to challenge the ruling.

Through his lawyer, and some testimony of his own, Decker argued his firing was retaliation for multiple referrals he made to a state ethics commission involving commissioners of the Levy Court.  Action was limited at the hearing, but should commissioners decide to adopt a final resolution sealing his termination, Decker intends to file a wrongful termination suit against the county.

The conflict in question concerned Kent County Levy Court Commissioner George “Jody” Sweeney, and his involvement with the POLYTECH School District, which operates the county’s career and technical education high school.

According to a letter sent to the PIC by Decker, Sweeney worked as a substitute teacher, and had family working in the district, yet took votes on matters related to a property used by the school district.

In the end, the PIC found there was a conflict of interest. But because the PIC is purely an advisory commission, it doesn’t have any way to enforce its findings.

Repeat after me:  The Public Integrity Commission has no authority whatsoever to enforce blatant ethical violations by government officials. Not gonna link once again to my Transparency Agenda, but this needs to change.  Otherwise, corruption continues unabated.

What do you want to talk about?

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  1. RAB says:

    Sorry, but Harris did, in fact, run a bad campaign.

    The Dem polling bump after Biden passed the torch was a very clear indication that people specifically had a problem with Biden. They were hopeful that Harris was gonna shake things up. She should have run on that! She should have explained what she’d do differently! Instead we got months of radio silence, and then she got on The View and said she WOULDN’T do anything different. That’s what doomed her campaign. If we’d had the election in August, she almost certainly would have won. So no, it’s not just Democrats getting the blame for how much the past 4 years sucked. Harris had a chance to address that, and she whiffed it.

    That’s not to say that we need to be out to punish her. Everybody already understands that her political career is over, and Biden himself played a big role in this mess. But the party DOES need to learn. Democrats in general have a problem with campaigning too conservatively (for president, at least) and it desperately needs to be fixed. This should have been obvious in 2016 but the party stuck its head in the sand, and look where we are now.

    When the status quo sucks, running a campaign on keeping the status quo isn’t gonna work.

  2. Y’know, if you want to pick the exact moment where the Democratic Party jumped the shark, I would argue that it was when Hillary Clinton bypassed Bernie Sanders for the Veep spot in 2016.

    With Sanders on the ticket, we never would have gotten Trump as President, and the Party could have moved towards a more worker-friendly model rather than continuing to embrace the corporate takeover of the Party that Bill Clinton enabled.

    • AnnB says:

      Yeah, my young adult child just told me the same thing. That purging Bernie’s ideas and elevating Clinton was choosing the wrong fork in the road. The Dem party chose corporate Dems. The party could have chosen Bernie, an effective populist with a pro-worker agenda. This wrong choice led to Trump playing a populist on TV for the last four years and now, well, it’s voters who have been played.

  3. Nunya says:

    House leadership just announced.

    Mimi
    Kerri
    Osienski

    Blah

  4. AnnB says:

    Watch ‘The Americans’ if you haven’t seen it yet. If you want something multi-season. Perfectly appropriate.

    Watch ‘Fleabag’ and ‘I May Destroy You’ if you want something shorter. These have female protagonists, and yes, they have some laughs, weirdness and depth.

    • Joe Connor says:

      It’s time to Primary earlier WFP endorsees. Take the help and snake your support then get snaked yourself.

  5. Bamboozer says:

    Bernie was right, but he was the wrong messenger. Progressive ideas poll well, just like abortion and women’s health, which triumphed at the ballot box. In the bigger picture until we replace Corporate Dems like Coons, Carper, Carney and many others we have lost the connection with working men and women. It is a sad reminder that money wins elections in America, and the billionaires now have a death grip on our political system.

  6. AnnB says:

    “… self defense as a means of offense.” Does that mean I can go on offense and shoot a guy who looks at me funny and makes me feel kinda angry, as long as I say ‘afraid’?

    • That’s what the cops do.

      They get away with it more often than not.

      • Wayne S Whirld says:

        Speaking of cops, what’s up with WPD stealing the bench of the sidewalk outside Friendship House and SSAM? Too close to Buccini’s apartments?

        • mediawatch says:

          Exactly. The idea is to make those who care fore the less fortunate recognize that they’re not welcome in this part of town. These not-so-subtle nudges pushed the Creative Vision Factory off Shipley Street. Fortunately it found new life as the Wilmington Recovery Cafe on Union Street in the more welcoming Little Italy. They’re trying to do the same thing with Friendship House. Good luck with trying to move a church that’s a community landmark.

        • That’s not (just) the cops.

          That’s Purzycki.

          Welcome (or not) to Buccini/Pollinville.

          • mediawatch says:

            Yep. Mike trying to solve a problem so John won’t have to think about how to address it.
            Note also that when Mike talks about Buccini/Pollinville he makes the point that they’ve never had to relocate neighborhood RESIDENTS to make way for the luxury apartments/condos. The folks who live on the streets or in shelters … well, they just gotta go.

          • Joe Connor says:

            Mad Mike and little Johnny have bitten off more they can chew . In ‘15 they ran my homeless newspaper off the street with the help of the late Loretta Walsh and several current Wilmington “leaders” and yes they finally got CVF and Michael K off Shipley but Friendship House has strong and deep roots in the faith and justice community as does SSAM. This may be the infection point to bring back a little basic compassion. At the very least the backlash will slow the Scrooge imitators down.

  7. Pole says:

    Kerri being in leadership is a slap in the face to progressives.

    Primary time

    • Word on the street is that the anti-progressive bloc in the caucus was so PO’d that WFP took down Their PAL Val that they bullied their way into the leadership positions. Instead of building a strong caucus, they’ve opted for junior high politics.

      Kinda reminds me of Hillary saying FU to the Bernie supporters. Hey, it cost her the election, but at least it kept Jamie Dimon happy.

      And, lest we forget, WFP was largely a movement that grew out of the Sanders candidacy.

      They’ll never learn until they too are run out of office.

      • Pole says:

        Don’t worry, the narrative will be “first black speaker and first lqbt leader” because that’s their jam. Just like Val was the first female speaker or Betsy was the first female dem chair.

        As a woman, this is saying something for missing some of the dudes haha

        We learned nothing from the 2024 loss. Identity politics is out Democrats. Talk issues and policy.

        • Alby says:

          It shouldn’t be hard to take out Harris in a primary. She has no skills or personality.

          • Word on the street was that lots of people wore stickers bearing the slogan ‘495–2023 to 2024’. Lots of people, including state reps and House staff wore them.

            Turns out that 495 was the number of days that Val inflicted her Speakership on everybody.

            Now her ‘Mean Girls’ colleagues are in charge. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

            Come back Monday, and we’ll start the list. Trust me, you won’t want to miss this one…

  8. paul says:

    Try “Slow Horses” on Apple tv

    • Was gonna do that. Looks like I had to pay extra.

      Apple TV is getting like the NYTimes–your subscription doesn’t entitle you to the full range of services. Only reason I keep my Times subscription is Spelling Bee. They make me pay extra for that, and I’m gone.

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