@BenRossTransit It’s not punishment, any more than a general is punishment. That framing is just the bullshit they’ve used to lock themselves in.

Primaries are giving the public an opportunity to weigh in, and reducing the US’ catastrophic incumbency bias.

The legit question, in my mind, is what effect it would have on the general. If it leads to more Republican elected, that’s the problem. Not that incumbents have to stand in front of their base as well as their donors.

@mattlehrer how does one encourage redefining the game if you don’t alter the incentives on the players?

@ItsThatDeafGuy each of us individually have very little likelihood of rubbing shoulders. but all of us collectively run the restaurants they patronize. we caddy their golf games. if many of us collectively choose to shun and express disgust towards them, they will experience that.

we can’t boycott everything, no. but we can condition our purchases. i can’t never buy amazon, but i avoid it. online you and i both obviously seek alternatives.

we can impose costs. we’re not powerless.

Should people who openly bribe the President, even if they are “respected” lawyers or CEOs or whatnot, doing it because “it’s in the best interest of shareholders” be welcome in polite society? Should you serve them in your restaurant? Speak politely with them at conferences?

@BenRossTransit It doesn’t “punish” anyone. It requires more accountability.

The status quo is social democrats are disproportionately primaried. It’s only “punishment” when some are and some aren’t. But that’s the mistake, the problem.

The public, especially the Democratic-primary-voting public, is to the “left” (on economics / social democracy) of the center of Congressional Democrats. How on Earth would having to answer to primary voters drive them to the right?

@BenRossTransit (I mostly don’t know them. But I think I would primary everyone, the ones I love, the one I hate, the ones I know very little about, because democracy demands it under circumstances where general elections are gerrymandered, because the ones I do know I support are primaried anyway, because overall, collectively, Congressional Democrats have become a complacent jobs program rather than an effective agent for any worthwhile politics.)

This is fine.

Musk wanted access to the literal spigot of Federal money in a way that made the totally nonpolitical guy who supervises it, a guy Trump and all his Project 2025-ers had been happy to reappoint, feel like he had to resign. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/31/elon-musk-treasury-department-payment-systems/
ht @emptywheel @marisakabas

We are all so proud of our great American corporate champions. cf @40Years https://40yrs.blogspot.com/2025/01/ecch-tweet-of-day_30.html

@scott i might prefer challengers aligned with me, but i'm asking the broad D-leaning electorate, whether it would be better if "we" could agree to insist upon and stand up meaningful primaries (against the wishes of incumbents and the formal party they dominate) regardless of their faction.

i'd want AOC to beat any primary challenger, but at least in this proposal i'd not absent her from having to face one. (in her case, "moderates" do that anyway. but on principle.)

@scott that's a bit more specific, since it encouraged challengers from a particular faction (the one i most align with, but still). in any case, it looks like it had some pretty important successes, if one attributes the winning challenges to the group!

Good idea or bad? "Ensure every Congressional Democrat in 2028 faces a meaningful primary challenger."

(at first blush: upside is accountability for people some of whom seem to worry about more about risking their jobs than risking the country; downside is primary challenges might cripple in the general.)

@Unsightly3055 maybe i should try a bunch of browsers. it's a very weird message. i've tried making a new account, and the registration page just submits… back to a blank registration page. i'll switch browsers and see.

thanks for running the experiment!

@Unsightly3055 Thanks! It’s not so urgent to me, there’s no need for you to download and forward. But if you want to see if the issue affects you, I’d love to know that. I was trying to download Mac Java 7 from here https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase/javase7-archive-downloads.html

Anyone here work for Oracle? No shade.

Sometimes I want to download old JVMs from Oracle. It makes me checkbox some licensing stuff then sends me to a sign-in. I have an account, I know the password, but every time I try to login I get an error, "A federated user can't perform local authentication."

Seems bad! Haven't found a workaround, don't understand the issue. There's no one to contact, so I'm sending out this message in a bottle in a toot. (Better I suppose than a toot in a bottle.)

Normie white dude: This renaming shit is just stupid. Let Ulysses S. Grant Elementary stay Ulysses S. Grant Elementary. Yes, the Black Hills. It was 150 years ago. I mean, even Robert E. Lee Elementary. Who cares? Let's get real stuff done.

Trump: Have I told you about the Gulf of America?

9/11: “They hate us for our freedoms.”

1/6: “They free us for our hatreds.”

is there a list of domains where Congress has imposed mandates the Trump Administration would characterize as DEI, so we can monitor the degree to which it is “tak[ing] Care that the laws be faithfully executed”, at least until it can persuade Congress to change the laws, as is its right to try?

“it turns out that most Americans are uninterested in acting like a belligerent asshole on the global stage.” @dandrezner https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/the-pretty-prudent-american-public

we have to learn to appreciate the small pleasures.