one way to understand this moment is that the golden age of television — with its antiheroes and garish plot twists — has finally caught up with US electoral campaigns, replacing past decades’ formulaic procedurals.
unfortunately, at least so far, the better the television, the worse the consequences of the politics.
I think this article is unpersuasive, because it worries about what intelligence agencies will do with commercially available data and asks we restrain them, without discussing what private actors might do with the same data, and how we restrain them.
I certainly want the US intelligence community to be able to do anything Elon Musk is able to do. I distrust both, but I distrust Musk and his fellow plutocrats more. ht @Geoffberner https://newsie.social/@freedomofpress/112808439487349216
only god knows what these fuckers are going to do next.
"Against choosing your political allegiances based on who is 'pro-crypto'" @vbuterin https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2024/07/17/procrypto.html
"Wisdom and intelligence have shockingly little to do with one another. Sometimes, I think they might be inversely correlated." #quoderat http://www.technologyasnature.com/core-issue/
from #PaulStarr https://prospect.org/justice/2024-07-17-supreme-courts-license-presidential-vengeance/
Text: Trump and other Republicans have made no secret about the many people and institutions they consider to be their enemies. Journalists, Trump has often said, are “the enemy of the people.” With much of the media in a precarious financial position, they make an easy target. Colleges and universities make another vulnerable target. Many are also in financial straits, and even if they are private, they are vulnerable to government pressure because they depend on government funds for research that can be cut off. The whole nonprofit sector, especially nonprofits that are active on political issues, is vulnerable because of potential jeopardy to their tax exemptions, as my colleague Robert Kuttner explains in this issue. We have lived in a relatively free society because of legal and normative restraints on the power of the government. The commentators who have talked about the Court’s decision as a prescription for dictatorship are not overstating the case. That is what the Court has produced. If Trump has a second term, the institutions and the people who stand up against him should be prepared for a full-fledged attack with all the powers of the government arrayed against them. We have already seen the entire Republican Party cowed and brought under Trump’s thumb. The rest of the country could soon face the test of courage that the Republicans have failed.
The New York Times (which I think it is fair to describe as very activist on this issue) describes the Biden Administration's (non)reaction to Biden's apparent unpopularity and concerns surrounding his age as Joe Biden putting "Self over party".
Do you think that characterization accurate, that the determining factor in administration strategy is the career- or self-interest of Biden and/or his staff and advisors?
Or do you think it inaccurate, and broader concerns are governing their choices?
This Supreme Court is undermining the administrative state so that labor conditions everywhere can be like those in Oklahoma marijuana farms.
from #SebastianRotella @kirstenberg https://www.propublica.org/article/marijuana-oklahoma-china-immigration-safety-workers ht @ZhiZhu
Text: Because marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, OSHA has not developed specific workplace safety regulations for the cannabis industry, and relies mostly on the agency's general duty clause, which covers all employers, for enforcement.
on the bright side, the opportunity cost of welcoming their hatred has grown small. https://mastodon.social/@dangillmor/112801694378200717
they call news what so often is just noise.
"look, October surprises are part of American democracy, and whether you think Hunter Biden is as major an issue as I do or disagree, in American democracy you let the voters decide." #JDVance https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/13/opinion/jd-vance-interview.html
// if "October surprises" are part of American democracy, i think they are a part we should work assiduously to reform away. i don't see how arranging transient changes in voter sentiment strategically just before elections contributes to deliberation or legitimacy.
@admitsWrongIfProven i don’t see a lot of hope or virtue in plutocratic charity.
“I can imagine being powerful without losing my sense of what's right. I think that many well-meaning folks, technologists or otherwise, feel that way. But that is precisely the mistake: power does not corrupt moral fibre, power corrupts intelligence. The greater the power differential the lesser the access one has to others' realities. The more powerful you are the harder it is for feedback to reach you and force you to adjust, whether you seek it or not.” @robin https://berjon.com/ethicswishing/
Elon Musk has promised to donate $45 million per month to a pro-Trump super-PAC. He is also working to have the Supreme Coup declare the NLRB unconstitutional. https://onlabor.org/tracking-attacks-on-the-nlrb-spacex-tries-its-luck-again/
Meanwhile, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien gives a barnburner of a speech at the Republican National Convention, extolling in sometimes very personal terms the necessity and value of labor unions, skewering tech firms including Amazon, Uber, and Lyft. (But no Musk firm was directly named.)
Weird times.
@guncelawits excellent! to eat accompanied by Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda.
this ice cream shop could only be in one city.
Photo of toppings available on an ice cream shop menu: Banana, Brownie, Butterfinger, Caramel, Chocolate Sauce, Chocolate Chips, Cinnamon, Cookie Dough, Fudge, Graham Cracker, Gummy Bears, Heath, M&M, Oreos, Marshmallows, Marshmallow Sauce, Old Bay, Peanut Butter Cups, Peanut Butter, Peanuts, Pretzel, Sweetened Strawberry/Pineapple
from an excellent analysis by @AshaRangappa https://asharangappa.substack.com/p/the-bloodless-coup-has-startedwith
Text: The worst part of this case is that it becomes obvious that there was a moderate position that the justices could have taken that would have achieved the majority's purported goals. The Court could have simply said that any official act - even one in the outer perimeter of the president's duties - has presumptive immunity. That presumption can be rebutted if the government shows that the action was taken with a corrupt motive or for personal gain. That would have discouraged politically motivated prosecutions, reinforced the rule of law, and helped protect the executive branch. It also would have preserved the difference between lawful and unlawful acts.
in the most amusing timeline, it turns out he was radicalized by ex-Bush-Administration Never Trumpers.
you can love the human without admiring the candidate.
is it fair to define a subgenre of pop music that includes only Barry Manilow and Neil Diamond?
