q: what do you call a teeny tiny sword fight?

a: a war of awl against awl.

“[T]oo much attention in the 1950s was paid to Democrats trying not to appear soft on communism, and too little attention to Republicans accepting most of the acquis of the New Deal in return for safety of private property.” glineq.blogspot.com/2024/09/th

Screenshot of text:

As Gerstle writes, too much attention in the 1950s was paid to Democrats trying not to appear soft on communism, and too little attention to Republicans accepting most of the acquis of the New Deal in return for safety of private property. (“The threat of international communism made possible the transition of the New Deal  from political movement to political order and ensured its dominance in American life for 30 years”, p. 46).

With the declining appeal of communism and then its eventual fall, there was much less need to acquiesce to labor’s demands. Labor had nowhere to go, or dream that it could go, or threaten to go. Reagan’s firing of thousands of air-controllers was the opening salvo of the war on labor. (Globalization and outsourcing to China might have been the second.) This argument is worth making, but is not new. Screenshot of text: As Gerstle writes, too much attention in the 1950s was paid to Democrats trying not to appear soft on communism, and too little attention to Republicans accepting most of the acquis of the New Deal in return for safety of private property. (“The threat of international communism made possible the transition of the New Deal from political movement to political order and ensured its dominance in American life for 30 years”, p. 46). With the declining appeal of communism and then its eventual fall, there was much less need to acquiesce to labor’s demands. Labor had nowhere to go, or dream that it could go, or threaten to go. Reagan’s firing of thousands of air-controllers was the opening salvo of the war on labor. (Globalization and outsourcing to China might have been the second.) This argument is worth making, but is not new.

“There are four types of mens rea, acting purposely, acting knowingly, acting recklessly, and acting negligently.” grievelaw.com/WICriminalProces

I wonder if really strict parental liability would be a form of gun control we could actually pass at a national level. Even red jurisdictions seem to be evolving their way towards it.

@rieyin Yeah, but they make only their personal software available on Macs. Maybe it handles sole proprietership business income, but not partnerships/LLCs/S-corps. See TurboTax Business Desktop turbotax.intuit.com/small-busi

does anyone know any business tax software downloadable to the Mac (as opposed to online tax return production and filing services)?

TurboTax and TaxAct have downloadable business return software for Windows. (i used to buy Parallels and Windows just for TurboTax, but i really don’t want to.) i literally can’t find any similar products downloadable to a Mac.

Intuit (TurboTax), H&R Block, and TaxAct all have desktop small business tax prep software (meaning partnership/LLC/S-corp) downloadable for Windows, but not for Mac.

in reply to self

One thing I’ve learned the past few years is that judges—not the ideological justices of the Supreme Court, but ordinary judges—are chickenshit, afraid to disrupt status quo power even when clear precedent, ordinary legal reasoning, standard court procedure demand it. They make exceptions, reason with wild creativity, to avoid putting themselves in a hot seat. Examples include deferring Trump proceedings past the upcoming election, inverting the purpose of securities law to not blow-up crypto.

@Adam_Cadmon1@mastodon.online I think oppositional media is a net good, necessary, but readers should distinguish between what becomes a devil’s advocate from a genuinely independent voice. 1/

@Adam_Cadmon1@mastodon.online I think the branding as independent media is misleading. I would like to see a whole lot more genuinely independent media.

With due respect, saying “what makes them independent IS the very opposition they take to the accepted ‘corporate’ narrative” is redefining the word “independent”. If you are defined by generally taking the other side of someone else’s view, you are the opposite of independent. /fin

in reply to self

@Adam_Cadmon1@mastodon.online one way to put it is it’s usually predictably *oppositional* journalism, writing against or trying to debunk perspectives of the “mainstream” or “corporate” media.

but it’s even more predictable than that. there might be many different frames/perspectives at variance with a US/Western mainstream. "independent journalists” a very particular frame, oppositional to and undermining of status quo US/Western projects + authorities.

sometimes perusasively! sometimes not.

The perspective of people who style themselves “independent journalist” is surprisingly predictable.

they call it horse race journalism but it feels more like a hearse race.

“The point of Open-Source isn’t and has never been ‘source available’. That’s just a prerequisite and a nice to have. The purpose has always been giving users the freedom to use for whatever purpose, or to fork the software, which in turn translates to lower development costs for the software makers.” @alexelcu alexn.org/blog/2024/09/06/trus

“This absurd both-sidesing is inherent to our terrible journalism culture but there is also something else going on here. Even with Harris in the race, Trump still has a ~45% chance of winning it all. If he does win, these journos don’t want to be on the “enemies” list. And there will be an enemies list this time around for sure if Trump does take the prize.” technologyasnature.com/2024/09

Since Trump is a narcissist, he assumes the more that people see him, the more they will like him, so he’s unafraid of ad-libbing. In fact he’s terrible, but still his “indiscipline” communicates a kind of openness, he his what he is he has nothing to hide.

Kamala’s campaign is professional, “disciplined”. Which does prevent potentially costly gaffes! But the public does perceive the stage management, knows she is not “letting it all hang out”, wonders then if she might have something to hide.

one flew over a (privatized) cuckoo’s nest. x.com/moreperfectus/status/183

@artcollisions (i’m subtooting JD Vance referring to school shootings as “a fact of life”.)

i liked it better when “the facts of life” referred to sex stuff.

if you vote early or by mail, but then die before election day, does/should your vote count?

netanyahu and sinwar have gotten exactly what they wanted all along. it’s only everybody else who suffers.

Given the news about Tenet Media — a DoJ indictment alleges $10M in secret Russian funding to support people like Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, etc — has anyone looked into the possibility that Substack subscriptions to very lucrative newsletters may not reflect organic subscribers, but may be sock-puppeted by sponsors interested in financing sympathetic media personalities?