DL Open Thread Thursday, October 7, 2021
If you’re paying close attention to the latest Debt Limit Ceiling Crisis, well, I pity you — you’re an all-day sucker. Last I checked Republicans were offering to move the standoff to December, but frankly, I don’t give a flying fuck. It will happen or it won’t, and nothing you or I do will make the slightest bit of difference to the outcome.
Ditto the Texas abortion law, enforcement of which has been suspended by a federal judge, the next step in what figures to be a long legal battle. You can read all about it, over and over again, for the next two years or so.
Those of us who thought the country would eventually emerge from its Trump bender were right — it’s the media that have been slow to catch on. An outfit called SocialFlow that tracks internet traffic told Axios interest in Trump-related stories is still dropping, down from even the deflated levels of earlier in the year (handy chart at link). The expired equine will be flogged regardless.
Here’s a story the media buried: Elizabeth Warren (‘memba her?) called attention to a revolving door at the Treasury Department through which people from the big accounting firms are hired at Treasury, where they change rules to benefit their former/future employers. The media, of course, would rather tell you what turds just fell from Trump’s mouth, because it’s a fuckton easier and won’t upset their few remaining advertisers.
Of course, the media-consuming public — that's us — is the ultimate problem. We get bored easily and tune out stories that seem stale and repetitive, like those detailing Trump’s very-much-involved efforts to stage a coup. We all figured that’s what he was doing, amirite, so why dawdle over details?
We’d like to think that all the money funding the wingnutosphere comes from rich Right Wing Nut Jobs, but it’s just not so. One America Network, the kook show that out-Foxes Fox, has been totally funded by AT&T, and was born from a suggestion from their execs. This was in sworn court testimony:
OAN founder and chief executive Robert Herring Sr. has testified that the inspiration to launch OAN in 2013 came from AT&T executives. “They told us they wanted a conservative network,” Herring said during a 2019 deposition seen by Reuters. “They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other [leftwing] side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one.”
Since then, AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue, court records show. Ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including satellite broadcaster DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant.
Herring has testified he was offered $250 million for OAN in 2019. Without the DirecTV deal, the accountant said under oath, the network’s value “would be zero.”
The floor’s yours. You will be held responsible for mopping up any spills.
The “Debt Limit Ceiling Crisis!!” is something I tuned out immediately.
What a load of crap. Anyone (or anything) that wants to pretend that the GOP has any interest in anything other than driving down Biden’s approval ratings has his head up his ass. And that goes for Biden himself.
mint the coin
mint the coin and shit can the filibuster. Doing (or not doing) things because Joe Scarborough will have a sad is so 2018.
Senate procedural rules and the “budget deficit” are both made up. Totally fake. More and more people are saying this
Abolish the Senate
http://delawarecall.com/2021/02/20/abolish-the-u-s-senate/
Abolish the Senate! Replace the Constitution! Sounds kinda Trump-like, just on the other end of the spectrum. And it’s sure to bring in a lot of voters needed to make reform possible.
We should have replaced the Constitution in 1865. Not a Trumpian idea.
Yeah winning the Civil War was definitely the other end of the spectrum though. That’s true.
Imagine advocating for more democracy. Don’t be scared.
Voters hate democracy. They love 18th century aristocratic checks on democratic power protecting an elite minority. It’s the dang voters folks. They love the Senate. Especially the parliamentarian! They love it.
We should go back to state legislatures picking Senators. I think that because I’m an originalist. Otherwise I’m the other end of Trump.
It’s obvious!
It would be easier to support democracy* if it did a better job of selecting good leaders. Unfortunately, if you look at the historical record, it doesn’t seem to do any better than other systems at extracting the silver from the dross. No worse, but no better, leading me to believe the problem isn’t who’s picking the leaders.
As long as you’re imaging worlds that will not be — abolish the Senate, really? You think that will come BEFORE the collapse of the government? — try imagining one in which you had personal freedom but didn’t have to depend on the whims of your fellow citizens to protect it.
*Yeah, I know, it’s not real democracy. It never is.
I know you guys have a hard on for “Nathan Arizona” but that’s fucking stupid. Poor effort.
Someday, perhaps, you will learn that not everyone agrees with you and it doesn’t make them bad people.
If we’re discussing poor efforts, “abolish the Senate” is standout-level stupid.
Tell the guy who wrote it.
Anyway, your argument is that “it’s crazy” so I’m good.
No, I said “it’s stupid.” Big difference, even if you don’t see it.
My arg is way better. 🤓🤓🤓
You made no argument. You mocked. As always.
I said why the Senate is undemocratic, Gave examples and posted a link. Not every “radical” idea is Trumpian. See also below.
REV, It’s Trumpian to want to demolish the forms of democratic government because he/you can’t have the perfect world you want. (“Replacing the constitution” was in the story you linked to.) I’m not sure you’re a very good reader (or writer?). I am sure you go nuts if somebody disagrees with you, even when there are millions and millions of people who disagree with you more than I do. Come to the think of it, going nuts about that is pretty Trumpian too.
Anyway, just trying to be helpful!
I want to demolish undemocratic government. And said why. You called that Trumpian. And I said that assessment is fucking stupid. Because it is indeed stupid.
Sometimes people disagree and aren’t being stupid. This isn’t one of those times. You opinion is wrong and dumb.
The senate adds zero value. I’m all for getting rid of it. In fact, isn’t it kinda a dumb and anti-American to say we have to stick with some broken dumb thing out of tradition?
No, it’s anti-American — if by “American” you mean the government we’ve had since 1789 — to suggest that we could “abolish” the Senate.
The Senate isn’t broken. The country is broken. Both are the fault of the Constitution, which I’m wholly in favor of tearing up. But to pretend that you could abolish the Senate without getting rid of the entire government is incredibly unrealistic. Even ancient Rome kept the Senate for ceremony’s sake, long after it ceased its “democratic” function.
So, y’know, if deciding to be bound by the laws of history and human nature is now enough to make a person hidebound, I’m glad to be such.
I discuss the “horseshoe Theory” and why red-brown alliance talk is undermining and absurd on tomorrow’s show. That should explain it.
REV, There are forms of liberal democracy that restrict the far left in its search for a perfect world and forms that restrict Trump’s goal of establishing a new Reich. The point is (try to stay with me) that I think both attempts are recklessly extremist. He wanted to get rid of the court system and you apparently want to get rid of the senate. (I agree the senate needs reform.)
OF COURSE, if I had to choose, I’d take take the reckless extremism of the left. I just think abolishing our admittedly imperfect “democratic” system (or whatever it is) is a cure worse than the problems seen by either extreme.
And it’s self-defeating because not enough people would vote for what you want to keep us safe from the things you fear — unless that didn’t matter since that messy democracy would be done with.
If you think abolishing the Senate is “reckless extremism” you’re being obtuse. This is your problem. I don’t know if that’s on purpose or not.
I also don’t believe you have your finger on the pulse of “the voters.”
You’re just a condensing old man who thinks he knows everything. (Stay with me here.). This is entirely what you yourself think.
I hardly ever “condense.”
I don’t know everything, or maybe not even very much. But I’m pretty sure I know voter tendencies as well as you do. I’m going to end this charming discussion now. You can carry on, but it won’t be a discussion. I assume that’s the way you like it, I