"[D]ivide most politicians into two broad categories: Enemies, and Cowards. [E]nemies are…opposed to your policy goals. [C]owards…agree with your…goals, but will sell you out…to protect their own interests. Embrace the idea that we are…pushing to elect…cowards, rather than…enemies. [T]he…work …is not to identify idealized superheroes to run for office [but] to create the conditions…that make it safe for the cowards to vote the right way." #HamiltonNolan https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/how-to-think-about-politics- ht @ryanlcooper

"There’s an old idea that elected governments are structurally biased toward deficits and generous social benefits. But it’s clear this is no longer true, if it ever was… I think both the broader recognition of hysteresis and chronic demand shortfalls in the 2010s, and the aggressive response to the pandemic in this decade, are positive lessons that need to be preserved and defended and built upon." @jwmason https://jwmason.org/slackwire/at-the-international-economy-low-interest-rates-were-ok/

#economics

a disadvantage of a two-party system is one would like to be able to shun and shame people who vote for fascist political parties, but that forecloses any meaningful democratic choice to those who would remain within the pale. it's better if those who opt out of democracy leave some for the rest of us.

“Is Laura Loomer the Jackie O America needs?”

“it’s raining cats and dogs!”

“manna from heaven!”

how many of the things that were described to you as “unforgettable” can you remember?

suppose, hypothetically of course, that the owner of a key military supplier, upon whose products national security depends, is himself a grave security risk. is there nothing in American law that could force the security risk to divest?

so, i guess it’s settled then.

seen in Daytona Beach, FL.

from “concerned that so sharp an immigration wave might pose challenges to a community” to “they’re eating the cats” is the ultimate motte and bailey.

rewatched “The Warriors” forty years later. found myself nostalgic for a lost dystopia.

if crypto weren’t so sexist, they’d mint some tobarbies too.

who in your life has succumbed to the Vump Trance?

you’d think Vance would be supportive of cat-eating on pro-natalist grounds.

“Congress simply doesn’t legislate much anymore, focusing on confirming judges, who are now perceived…as super-legislators… the Biden [Administration] made an aggressive argument to limit judicial reaching” @matthewstoller https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/justice-department-moves-to-roll

“It is often alleged that means-testing proponents actually like the fact that the administrative burdens of the tests exclude some poor people because that saves money. But rarely do you ever see it laid out this explicitly.” #MattBruenig on the now means-tested UK “Winter Fuel Payment” https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2024/09/13/the-comedy-of-the-winter-fuel-payment-means-test/

“The lesson of history is that it does not matter where you draw the lines on the map. What matters is what kind of society lies on each side of that line. Liberal democracy is the only thing yet discovered that offers a chance for climbing out of the bloody river. Until Palestinians and Israelis both choose liberal democracy, there will be no peace. I do not know how to get there. I only know it is where we must go.” @sjshancoxli https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-bloody-river/

perhaps laura loomer is an antibody, an apparatus to which a threat is drawn, rendering it visible and visibly noxious to the larger system.

“the right to interstate travel is a lot like the right to abortion once was: a core freedom that is grounded in our Constitution but does not appear in the text of the document” @andyreports and Lisa Needham https://www.publicnotice.co/p/texas-medical-records-abortion ht @memeorandum

“social housing development can impose competitive discipline on private rivals. As a public option in the housing market, it can rein in the pricing power of private landlords and pressure them to raise standards of habitability for poor, working, and middle-class families.” #BrianCallaci #SandeepVaheesan https://hbr.org/2024/09/the-market-alone-cant-fix-the-u-s-housing-crisis ht @jwmason

This (apocryphal) practice that has overtaken the national debate, I think I have a name for it — fidophagia.