Althouse: At the Sunrise Café...

October 29, 2020

At the Sunrise Café...

... you can write all night.

43 comments:

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: Deepfakes!

deepfakes, I tell ya!
Any incriminating video of Dems is a deepfake!

and instead of 'fake but accurate', we may go with 'true but inaccurate'!; 10/29/20, 8:11 PM
Jaq said...: Oh Barrack, you didn’t!

https://twitter.com/RaheemKassam/status/1320727919019393024

Circulez, rien á voir.; 10/29/20, 8:17 PM
MountainMan said...: I saw two headlines in passing today that were interesting but did not get to follow up by reading the articles.

One headline said that half of all requested main-in ballots had yet to be returned.

The other said that several states had said that after today it was too late to return a mail-in ballot to be received by Election Day.

Now several weeks ago I saw a poll on TV that Ds were going to vote by mail at twice the rate that Rs were, something like 50% to 25%.

If the above two headlines are correct the current situation with respect to mail-in ballots would seem to be significant.

Anyone else have any insight into this?; 10/29/20, 8:23 PM
Phil 314 said...: Given he explosion in COVID in Wisconsin I’m surprised no posts regarding this.; 10/29/20, 8:29 PM
stephen cooper said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/29/20, 8:43 PM
Achilles said...: Ann ignores the Biden corruption story for another day.

This isn’t going away.

We will not accept a corrupt traitorous pedophilic rapist as president.

The people and institutions that are all in for Biden are acting like fascists.

We will never let the people that support him have power over us.

If you reward Democrat violence you deserve what comes next.; 10/29/20, 8:43 PM
Lawrence Person said...: Hunter Biden, Tony Bobulinski, and the Spy King of China.; 10/29/20, 8:45 PM
Achilles said...: Lil Wayne endorsed Trump.

34 million followers on Twitter.

I am willing to bet 33 million of those followers never see the endorsement.; 10/29/20, 8:48 PM
Achilles said...: On Twitter anyway.; 10/29/20, 8:48 PM
narciso said...: What do we have here

https://mobile.twitter.com/JordanSchachtel/status/1321954543719034882; 10/29/20, 8:55 PM
Big Mike said...: Roger Simon speaks for me:

”Roughly half the country, the so-called ‘Deplorables,’ knows all this. How are they supposed to react should Biden win? Accept him and give him a chance in the grand tradition of the peaceful transitions in our country when so many Democrats and nearly all our mainstream media never accepted Trump from day one?

Not bloody likely.”; 10/29/20, 9:11 PM
narciso said...: Oops

https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/dem-superlawyers-assistant-engaged-in-possible-voter-intimidation/amp/; 10/29/20, 9:12 PM
bagoh20 said...: The emotion of democracy leaves me longing for the ability to vote really hard, not just vote, but really really vote. If I didn't so love the delicate virtue of the honor system that democracy really is, I'd simply vote a bunch of times. It's really easy. I doubt I'd get caught, and if I did, I doubt I would pay any price. It's really frustrating that I know my vote will be disenfranchised multiple times by someone who will do it with no second thought or guilt.

It's like lovingly caring for your yard, and then watching someone let their dog take a shit on it and just walk away.; 10/29/20, 9:29 PM
traditionalguy said...: The best source of accurate war news today is a live YouTube broadcast by Steve Bannon called The War Room. Bannon wants Wray fired today.; 10/29/20, 9:33 PM
Big Mike said...: In 2016 the Democrats ran a candidate who was, hands down, the most corrupt major party nominee since James Blaine in 1884. Now it turns out that Joe Biden, senile groper of adolescent girls, is at least as corrupt. It seems to me that there are three ways for a person to vote based on corruption:

(1) Explicitly accept Joe Biden’s corruption by voting for him. You can rationalize your vote by telling yourself that “everybody does it.” You’re lying to yourself, but if you’re going to be accepting of corruption then you’re going to be accepting of lies.

(2) Implicitly accept Joe Biden’s corruption by not voting for either him or Trump.

(3) Explicitly reject corruption by voting for Donald Trump.; 10/29/20, 9:41 PM
bagoh20 said...: Hey hey, Ho Ho, moderation has to go. The comments definitely have less crap now, but the experience and actual debate is just a shell of what it could be.; 10/29/20, 9:41 PM
narciso said...: Never mind

https://mobile.twitter.com/DissidentRabbi/status/1321979358286893056; 10/29/20, 9:44 PM
narciso said...: https://www.thecrimson.com/column/for-sale/article/2020/10/19/hava-the-other-chan/; 10/29/20, 9:47 PM
Narr said...: Sure, moderation sucks, but I remember how bad it got before.

If Prof and Meade want to do the extra work, I can't complain.

Narr
Manana; 10/29/20, 10:17 PM
effinayright said...: When Trump wins bigly next week he will become a World-Historical figure.

What's the over/under that all the Hollywood celebs who threaten to leave the US will wind up sitting and seething in their Malibu estates, realizing they have nowhere else to go w/o incurring huge losses?

If there's a "Hollywood Celeb Exit Futures" market, I'd advise going short.; 10/29/20, 10:24 PM
narciso said...: Ditto
https://mobile.twitter.com/proteinwisdom/status/1321951072609554434?fbclid=IwAR0Jt8fdfbRpjOBtjH9pUoP329CyQ3BV2pxqzwjgXtBdltCdTy4kiOaPLfc; 10/29/20, 10:33 PM
n.n said...: when so many Democrats and nearly all our mainstream media never accepted Trump from day one?

The violence progressed with the administration's birth ("inauguration") is one milestone, yes; but, the protests: "he's not viable", started from conception ("announcement"), and evolved over 16 trimesters in diverse... divergent directions from allegations... as it turns out, projections of sexual misconduct to collusion with the Soviet... Russian bloc.; 10/29/20, 11:01 PM
Wandering Badger said...: If "Dem Registered" votes are coming in somewhat higher than "Repub Registered" votes - nothing really can be really be extrapolated. There are more "Dem Registered" voters switching to Trump (Union / Blue Collar / Black / Walk-Away etc) than "Repub Registered" voters that are "Never Trump" (96% Repub approvals". So how much of the early "Dem Registered" votes are actually Trump votes ? I could see the "Walk Away" crowd being highly motivated to (1) vote early and (2) vote my mail.; 10/29/20, 11:05 PM
Yancey Ward said...: "If the above two headlines are correct the current situation with respect to mail-in ballots would seem to be significant."

Unless the state sends you the ballot unsolicited, voting by mail is significantly more hassle than voting in person. Even then, though, it is probably more hassle to vote by mail than in person, but not as bad as having to request the ballot.

I have predicted in these sections that the Democrats have made a mistake- they have scared their own voters from voting in person- in short, they have driven their voters to choose a more difficult method of voting. I think when the votes are counted, the Democrats are going to be missing some of their turnout from 2016- anywhere from 2-10%. This is why I am optimistic about Trump's chances- answering a poll is significantly easier than voting by mail or voting in person during COVID. I simply trust Republicans to manage the system regardless of the method, including showing in person to vote.; 10/29/20, 11:32 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Achilles wrote:

"Lil Wayne endorsed Trump.

34 million followers on Twitter.

I am willing to bet 33 million of those followers never see the endorsement"

Google already trying to bury the endorsement. Usually, when I type in a name along with the word twitter in a google search, the top return is always the twitter account of the named person. Not the case with "Lil Wayne Twitter"- the top returns are twitter accounts attacking Wayne.; 10/29/20, 11:37 PM
Joe Smith said...: If Trump wins, he needs to go all-in on wooing blacks back to the Republican party.

The best and easiest way is to push HARD for school choice.

Four years from now the GOP could be getting 50% of the black vote.; 10/30/20, 12:52 AM
Gospace said...: Earlier h said "But I can't explain why there aren't successful competitors to facebook, twitter, and WaPo/NYT that just deliver the stories these places ignore." There are competitors to MSM-some more successful than others. Even Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog is a competitor, putting out and linking info they ignore.

As for Facebook and Twitter, why there are no successful competitors is both easy and hard to understand. Let's start with- telephones. Early on, Bell telephone became Ma Bell, the phone company. There were a few small local telcos, some surviving to this day, but it made sense for there to be only one nationwide that set standards, that even the small telcos had to follow. After all, if you lived in the middle of nowhere NY and wanted to phone California, everything along the way needed to be compatible. In 1982, Bell was broken up, but AT&T kept the long distance service- which was highly profitable. Then other companies wanted in- I switched to Satellite Business Systems for long distance when competition first came out. It became MCI. But everything had to be compatible with the legacy phone system. Then- the first real wireless systems. Motorola had had a lock on radio-telephones- that quickly melted away. I talked on a few- but held off until Sprint had the first digital network, and I could actually hear clearly when I could get a signal... But anyway, the monopoly went away, but everything has to be backward compatible. But- they all are common carriers- they cannot refuse to carry your calls unless, of course, you fail to pay them.

Now- social networks. Why do I stay on Facebook with it's censorship instead of moving to Mewe? Network compatibility. More people are on Facebook, more people I know, and I can't see their posts or communicate with them from a Mewe account. Social networks, like telcos in the early stage, are natural monopolies. In order for everyone to connect to each other, everyone has to use the same standard. Myspace was once bigger than Facebook. Brief Facebook history- The website's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and gradually most universities in the United States and Canada, corporations, and by September 2006, to everyone with a valid email address along with an age requirement of being 13 and older In September 2006 is when they took off. Their interface was easier than Myspace. It was easier to find other people. Because of initial membership restrictions, there were a number of influential people already on it. There are significant differences between social networks and telcos. Telco- I'm the customer. Social networks, I'm the product. The big question regarding social networks is- are they publishers or common carriers? They want the protection of being common carriers while carrying out editing functions the same as publishers... and they can't be both. Another big difference between telcos and social networks is- the telcos can see who you're calling and talking to, but can't listen in on what you're saying or talking about. (The NSA can....) On a social network- everything you do is visible. So it's easy to censor. Now, the government could demand that Facebook make it's operating system open so others could use it and cross communicate with Facebook users and see their posts. Now that would be interesting. If they had a competitor who didn't censor- the competitor's users could see all the posts of their friends on Facebook (that weren't censored), but their friends could only see their posts that met "Facebook community standards". You could join a competitor network without losing track of your Facebook friends! How long would Facebook last before it's "product base" migrated over completely to a non-censored network?; 10/30/20, 1:15 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Hahahahaha https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G87UXIH8Lzo&feature=emb_logo; 10/30/20, 1:38 AM
Readering said...: Reject corruption by voting for the most corrupt president of my lifetime, hah! (And I qualify for ss.)

No matter, it's about the pandemic, the third leading cause of death in USA, and not changing anytime soon.; 10/30/20, 1:44 AM
Guildofcannonballs said...: How about for an ALthouse motto:

With proper cheese portions, almost anything can come out tasting right.; 10/30/20, 1:48 AM
stevew said...: "How are they supposed to react should Biden win? Accept him and give him a chance in the grand tradition of the peaceful transitions in our country when so many Democrats and nearly all our mainstream media never accepted Trump from day one?"

Yes, that is exactly what the Right will do if Biden wins. Not because they agree with it or him or the Left, but because they cannot bring themselves to play the tit for tat game. At least on this. They will undermine Biden, as best they can, using the old normal means.; 10/30/20, 4:34 AM
stevew said...: I, for one, do not miss the trolls and the angry, hate filled posts that they inspired. In this place, the pace and the style have changed, changed utterly. Don't compare this to some idealized concept of the perfect comments board, this place was never that (in my time coming here).

35 degrees F, rising to 39 today. Chilly in Maine. Fortunately the heater works, now that the propane tank is refilled.; 10/30/20, 4:40 AM
Marcus Bressler said...: BREAKING: Reports are that Hunter Biden uploaded some of his videos to an account labeled RHEast on PORNHUB, referring to himself as "Harper" in some captions.
BREAKING: It has been decided that "No Nut November" will start two days early; 10/30/20, 4:49 AM
narciso said...: Except biden is working with a former terrorist with klaus schwab who wants ti reset the world with the chinese and the media is complicit with all of this.; 10/30/20, 6:36 AM
Big Mike said...: If Trump wins, he needs to go all-in on wooing blacks back to the Republican party.

@Joe Smith, Trump’s First Step Act released a lot of young men — mostly black — who had been railroaded into long prison terms for minor crimes. Incidentally, railroading young black men into long prison terms for minor drug charges was how Kamala Harris made a name for herself (that and Willie Brown). Trump inked a $500 billion deal to help black businesses get started. His efforts to end illagal immigration ended downward pressure on wages for unskilled workers at the bottom of the economic ladder, disproportionately helping young black (and Hispanic) men. He has not been idle.

And, trust me, getting school vouchers passed nationwide would not be at all easy.; 10/30/20, 6:39 AM
Big Mike said...: Right on cue Readering asserts, without evidence, that Trump is “the most corrupt president of [his] lifetime.” He is, of course, lying to us. If there was the slightest hint of any corruption associated with that man the FBI would be all over it.; 10/30/20, 6:44 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: What Gospace is talking about is termed “network effect”. As we can see with these companies, it can be very profitable. Legally though, as we have seen, it can be abused. And that means that these companies may very well have violated our antitrust laws.

While there are some (presumably intentional) glaring gaps in coverage (not surprising given the industry), Wikipedia has a decently good treatment of US Antitrust laws. The major laws involved are the Sherman Antitrust Law, the Clayton Antitrust Law, and the Interstate Trade Commission (ITC). Looking at the Sherman it, it has several parts or sections. Section 1 involves the creation of a monopoly. Section 2 prohibits “monopolization”, which is the unfair use of monopoly power. There really wasn’t much wrong with how these monopolies were formed, which means that Section 2 Monopolization is more of a issue.

The law on public services and administration goes significantly beyond the realm of antitrust law's treatment of monopolies. When enterprises are not under public ownership, and where regulation does not foreclose the application of antitrust law, two requirements must be shown for the offense of monopolization. First, the alleged monopolist must possess sufficient power in an accurately defined market for its products or services. Second, the monopolist must have used its power in a prohibited way. The categories of prohibited conduct are not closed, and are contested in theory. Historically they have been held to include exclusive dealing, price discrimination, refusing to supply an essential facility, product tying, and predatory pricing.

Here, esp with FB and Twitter, all of those factors may be relevant, but the refusing to supply an extra essential facility may be the most important. Both companies are using their monopoly power, derived through the network effect of their products, to demonetize disfavored companies and individuals, and esp in the political realm. That is very likely a No, No. they are abusing their monopoly power, and that is why it feels so wrong to those impacted By their monopolization.

I do expect that the Antitrust Section at the DOJ to become more active if Trump wins re-election next month. Biden/Harris, having been the direct beneficiary of the monopolization, would very likely look the other way, at Google and Amazon, instead of Twitter and FB. The organization has a limited budget, which probably means that they can’t go after all four at once. If I were general counsel for Google or Amazon, and Trump wins re-election, I think that I would reach out to AG Barr, hiscantitrust Chief, and any Trump insider I could reach, and offer whatever it takes to settle, because I have little doubt that they would prefer to be going after FB and Twitter.

What is going to be interesting though is that I suspect that one of their defenses is going to be the 1st Amdt. They are merely expressing themselves politically, which is just fine, under Citizens United. I ultimately don’t think that this will prevail, because their abuse of their monopoly power very much seems to have been massive in kind political contributions, and thus illegal, due to it grossly exceeding campaign limits. It should be very interesting.; 10/30/20, 8:00 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Now comes the question of why have these two companies so grossly abused their monopoly powers this election cycle. Sure, they are staffed by SJWs, and we have the adage: Get Woke, Go Broke, suggesting that choosing the dark side, as they did, often results i economic failure. But, it might be more insidious - that they know that they are very vulnerable to being broken up as monopolies and regulated as utilities, as happened to the phone industry and AT&T.

Brief sidetrack here. I took antitrust in LS in the latter 1980s because I was intending on working in computer and cyber law (patent law was initially defensive, so I wouldn’t lose IP clients to patent attys). I thought antitrust would be applicable because I had seen the effects that the two big cases of that decade (AT&T and IBM) had had on the industry. My LS prof had talked the Air Force into paying for an economics PhD along with his JD. When he left active service (he ultimately retired as a LT Col in the AF Reserves), the logical place to work was for the Antitrust section of the DOJ. He worked on the (third) IBM Antitrust case. His view was that the government’s case against IBM was a lot stronger than their case against AT&T. IBM had been formed by the head of the dirty tricks department at NCR, and they had abuse of monopoly power in their blood. He was not a fan of theirs, and believed that they had IBM cold again (1st was punch cards, 2nd was typewriters(?), and 3rd was mainframe computers). But essentially IBM won and AT&T was broken up. What happened? His (cynical) explanation was that IBM managed to get its head antitrust attorney appointed AAG over the Antitrust Section, and his first action was to drop the case that he had recently been defending, as unwarranted. That’s when he moved into academia. My wife at the time insisted that I take his classes, after having take his Computer Law class working on her second Master’s degree. And I did, ultimately getting sucked into writing several chapters in one of his textbooks. He has kids the same age as mine and they are still close.

What was the relevance of that brief detour? To show that politics (in that case, the election of Reagan) can affect antitrust litigation. We have two companies that went all in to beat Trump, and flip the Senate. Why take the gamble? The IBM case was filed the first year that Nixon was in office, proceeded throughout the 1970s and wasn’t settled until IBM could gain control of antitrust litigation at the DOJ. During that entire time, everything they did was reviewed by their antitrust counsel, to determine if it would adversely affect their case. This was a classic case of the process oftentimes being worse than the penalty. They can probably expect the DOJ (and FTC) breathing down their necks as long as the Republicans control the Presidency. A Biden/Harris DOJ would very likely studiously look the other way - first out of gratitude, and secondly out of fear, having seen what these companies can do to their enemies.; 10/30/20, 8:54 AM
Joe Smith said...: @Big Mike

"And, trust me, getting school vouchers passed nationwide would not be at all easy."

Agree with what he's done recently...but if a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it...

I'll be more people know about it from a Kanye tweet than from the news.

As a school voucher bonus, it could be the straw that breaks the back of the teachers' union.

I have teachers in my family and among my friends...I know how the scam works.; 10/30/20, 9:20 AM
Jaq said...: "Now comes the question of why have these two companies so grossly abused their monopoly powers this election cycle. “

Who hands out the consequences? The winners.

Who “investigates” voter fraud? The winners.; 10/30/20, 10:59 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: People who know me in real life but don't know my politics usually assume I'm a progressive. So lots of progressives encourage me to vote. "Oh, I always vote. Don't worry." Heh heh heh.; 10/30/20, 11:47 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: In honor of his 2005 divorce anniversary, and France’s having to go into complete COVID-19 lockdown, again - but, now, while under a jihad any “woke” POC could’ve seen coming who’s lived there - The Crack Emcee presents another new musical collection:

“The First ‘Karen’”.

10 songs about The Crack Emcee’s arrogant French ex-wife, and the various cults within the NewAge Movement she frequented (and eventually left him for), as, ultimately - what he sees as - the true source of the world’s current assholery, which Crack was railing against long before President Trump had considered a life in politics, or had ever even heard of vaccines (There’s no debating anyone who thinks they’re a goddess”). As far as The Crack Emcee is concerned, blaming the President - who’s only been in politics for five years - and not Oprah Winfrey - after her previous, daily, 30-year contribution of quacks, cults, and con artists - is a misguided lie that’s been erected by the NewAge Movement to distract, and protect, it’s own interests.

Feel free to share the link with your friends.; 10/30/20, 12:20 PM
Jaq said...: https://www.covid19insweden.com/en/

That’s weird, intensive care cases and deaths are starting to climb in Sweden (chart is log and seven day rolling averages) and they are starting to ask people to avoid going to shops, etc in more and more places unless it is essential as cases are climbing fast. Maybe the intensive care numbers and deaths are just a blip. I hope so.

There is no easy way out of this.

“We’re beginning to approach the ceiling for what the healthcare system can handle. Together, as during the spring, we can push down this curve and avoid the strain on healthcare,” Chief Epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told a news conference.

The Health Agency also moved to tighten pandemic recommendations for three additional regions, including Sweden’s biggest cities Stockholm and Gothenburg, saying infection rates were rising sharply in these areas.

Sweden has relied primarily on voluntary measures, largely unenforced but still widely adhered to. The new tighter local recommendations, already introduced in two regions with surging infections, included advice to avoid indoor environments such as shops and gyms. - reuters

Lockdown is as lockdown does. Japan didn’t have mandatory lockdowns either, but they may as well have.; 10/30/20, 3:22 PM