June 15, 2024
"China is the prime AI threat... and... what they need more than anything else is electricity."
"Joe and that other guy are essentially the same age. Let’s not be fooled. But what this election is about..."
Said Jill Biden, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, quoted in "Jill Biden pitches the benefits of age on the campaign trail" (CNN).
"The woman I am today is wiser, stronger, more insightful and more confident than I was all those years ago. Every line on my face has been earned by the furrowed brows of difficult decisions made. By the sun of countless roads traveled, by the sweet strain of deep laughter with the people I love. Age is a gift.”"
"In a chapter entitled 'He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not,' Dr. Fauci described how Mr. Trump repeatedly told him he 'loved' him while at the same time..."
Yesterday, I blogged about an Axios article that said neither Biden nor Trump were doing much to prepare for the debate.
[B]oth campaigns are racing to prepare....
Okay, that's not what I heard yesterday.
"It’s rare to find anyone these days who actually wants to get to early retirement by living off beans..."
FIRE = Financial Independence Retire Early
June 14, 2024
I was watching the old HBO series "John Adams" — Episode 1, "Join or Die" — and I was amazed to see this shot.
The Biden campaign is a disaster and this is what The New York Times dredges up?
Trim and wiry, intense but amiable, Mr. Katzenberg at age 73 still exudes a kind of ambitious, animal energy as if he were one of his movie protagonists. He is famous around Hollywood, and now Washington, for rising at 5 a.m. and riding an exercise bicycle for 90 minutes while simultaneously reading four newspapers before taking as many as three breakfast meetings — and waffles or eggs-and-extra-crispy-bacon breakfasts, not the leafy California kind. “The guy eats like a horse and he doesn’t gain any weight,” his close friend Casey Wasserman, the sports, music and entertainment mogul, groused good-naturedly.
Are Biden supporters in such deep delusion that they would take comfort from this "secret weapon"? This inane filler says: Time to panic!
Katzenberg once ran Disney, so...
"Jeremy was competitive while young and felt immense pressure to demonstrate gifted achievement every day."
Writes David Brooks, in "What Happens to Gifted Children" (NYT).
Neither Biden nor Trump is doing much to prepare for the debate. Why is that?
Joe Biden, busy being president, is leaving most of the prep sessions for his big debate against Donald Trump to the last minute. Trump's team says the ex-president doesn't need much practice.... The message from Trump's campaign: Debate rehearsals are beneath us. We have nothing to worry about....
Both men have done plenty of debates in the past, including with each other, and they're unlikely to change their style. They could bone up on likely questions — on the substance — but what's the point? Both men will finesse or bungle their way through. I expect Biden to have some prepared one-liners, but there's no value to pre-memorizing that stuff.
Earlier this year, White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients was given a friendly reminder by a bipartisan group of former chiefs of staff that incumbent presidents tend to do poorly in their first re-election debate. Their advice was unambiguous: Make time for debate prep or expect the worst. Remember those sluggish performances by Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama. Four years ago, Trump's just-had-COVID-19 performance was, like the debate itself, kind of a mess....
I'm skeptical about this debate happening at all. I think Biden's people are looking for the opportunity to bow out and are going to snap up something that Trump says wrong. Their standard for how bad it needs to be will drop as the debate nears, but in the end, something will be seized on that will be used a reason to declare that the President of the United States cannot share the stage with the obnoxious old orange one. Which would, of course, explain why Biden is not preparing.
That's just my opinion. What's yours?House Committee on the Judiciary — Hearing on the Manhattan District Attorneys Office.
SCOTUSblog is live-blogging the announcement of new opinions, expected imminently.
The second case was Campos-Chaves v. Garland. 5-4. "The court holds that the non-citizens in this case received adequate notice of the removal hearings that they missed and at which they were ordered removed, so that they can't seek rescission of their removal orders (issued in their absence) on the basis of defective notice.
The first case was US Trustee v. John Q Hammons. "The court held that the a statute violated the Bankruptcy Code because it allowed different fees for Ch 11 debtors depending on where they filed their cases. The remedy, the court holds today, is parity going forward, rather than a refund for past fees. This is a victory for the government."
Young sandhill cranes at sunrise on the UW Marching Band practice field.
Biden is lost.
ADDED: If you think more context would help, take a look at this:Anyone who denies this is extremely uncomfortable and embarrassing to watch at this point isn't being honest.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 13, 2024
And I don't understand how Democrats and their pundits believe they can convince Americans it's not happening.
And he wants 4 more years:pic.twitter.com/j1jrzc34u8
Everyone freaking out about that Biden clip at G7.
— Viva Frei (@thevivafrei) June 13, 2024
I found the full video. The longer clip, in context, is even more horrifying. pic.twitter.com/obFINP7RNE
A Flag Day post, by Meade, on X.
— Laurence Meade (@laurmeade) June 14, 2024
"We could probably go outside right now here in California — or really, wherever you are at in North America — and we could easily find a new species of mushroom or fungus that hasn’t been described."
Recent years have brought an explosion in sequencing, Ms. Quark said. More than 21,000 samples have already been sequenced this year, she said, up from 5,600 in 2022. “We will probably end the year with over 40,000,” she said.... Some of these organisms, living as a network of threads hidden in the soil, may not have sent up a fruiting body in years. But after a drenching rain in Southern California, collectors might encounter mushrooms that have not been seen for decades, Ms. Quark said....
"The official website of the Biden for President campaign is a complete mystery. It’s basically a half-hearted request for money with a promise to 'Finish the Job.'"
"Finish the job?? Does this make much sense when voters think the job you’ve been doing is so bad?... Of course, 'Bidenomics,' which famously crashed and burned as a campaign theme, was no better and probably worse. But what is 'finish the job' but Bidenomics without the name or mentioning Biden at all?"
Writes Ruy Teixeira, in "Democrats Should Swap Out 'Bidenomics' for an Abundance Agenda
'Finish the Job' ain’t gonna cut it."
"The 45th president indicated that he’s likely to stick with his plan to announce his VP choice at next month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee."
From "Trump hints he has settled on his VP pick: ‘Sort of a pretty good idea'" (NY Post).
Is Trump on Ozempic?
"Influencers have been given exclusive tours of the White House.... They’ve been wined and dined at lavish parties in New York and at State of the Union watch parties..."
From "Don’t Forget to Like, Subscribe and Vote: Biden’s Rocky Influencer Courtship/The Biden campaign is trying to work its way into social media feeds. But the young, left-leaning voices that control the conversation aren’t making it easy" (NYT).
June 13, 2024
"Supreme Court Upholds Broad Access to Abortion Pill/The justices unanimously rejected a bid to sharply curtail access to a widely available abortion pill, finding that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue."
In a unanimous decision, written by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, the court held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the F.D.A.’s actions....
When the court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, it indicated that it was getting out of the abortion business, leaving the issue to the elected branches. The abortion pill decision vindicated that promise, at least for now....When the case was argued, Justice Alito said he was troubled that it seemed no one had standing to challenge the F.D.A.’s action. Justice Kavanaugh wrote that not every dispute was for judges to decide: “Some issues may be left to the political and democratic processes.”
The classic Trump monologue about sharks and batteries.
"He writes graphically of his own deflowering; how he passes on the favor to his friend Carrie Fisher; of the almost-hand job he gets..."
Writes Alexandra Jacobs, in "Growing Up With Joan Didion and Dominick Dunne, in the Land of Make-Believe/In his memoir 'The Friday Afternoon Club,' the Hollywood hyphenate Griffin Dunne, best known for his role in Martin Scorsese’s 'After Hours,' recounts his privileged upbringing" (NYT).
"For those of us who love to travel, the question of whether to revisit a place you’ve been to before is a repeated conundrum...."
"There was one really good thing about 'Hillbilly Elegy,' meaning the response to it: People were actually genuinely trying to understand something about a part of the country they didn’t understand."
Said J.D. Vance in an interview with Ross Douthat, "What J.D. Vance Believes" (NYT). This is a long interview, and that is a free-access link.
"For more than 20 years, South Korea has prohibited food or food scraps from going into trash bins."
From "White House Announces Strategy to Keep Edible Food Out of Landfills/The government will look at ways to extend the shelf life of foods and to create more composting and other facilities, as well as urge companies to donate more food" (NYT).
June 12, 2024
"The president declared flatly last week that he would not pardon his son if convicted, but did not address a commutation..."
Goodbye to Françoise Hardy.
The Biden campaign throws a random celebrity at me.
"Joe Biden desperately needs some wins — real, not cosmetic, ones. Who in his administration is thinking about how to get him some?"
Writes Bret Stephens, in "The Most Courageous Thing That Joe Biden Can Do" (NYT).
"Later on, Madonna would admit to sharing a lot with the character of Susan. Both used their powers of persuasion..."
"... to get friends and lovers to do what they wanted. Both were charming con artists that didn’t let you know you were being conned. There was an art to seduction, and Madonna had mastered it. She was a flirt who made everyone she flirted with feel a little bit sexier. Men and women. That was her gift."
Writes Susan Seidelman, in "'Directors Don’t Cry!'/Madonna, Rosanna Arquette, and the Wild Birth of Desperately Seeking Susan/In an excerpt from her memoir, Susan Seidelman watches Madonna go from newcomer ('I’ll do anything to get this part') to icon" (Vanity Fair).
June 11, 2024
Hunter Biden found guilty.
Hunter Biden became the first child of a sitting president to be convicted of a crime Tuesday after a federal jury found him guilty on three counts related to lying about his drug use in order to buy a gun....
The first son stared at the jury and made no visible reaction as the foreperson read the verdict.... First lady Jill Biden, who was present at every day of the trial except one, was caught out by the speed with which the verdict was reached — entering the courtroom two minutes after it had been read.
"There’d be a cell-like capsule to provide for some basic human needs, from which one could emerge into a big, semipublic space that was open to the sky."
Writes Ian Parker, in "Kanye West Bought an Architectural Treasure—Then Gave It a Violent Remix/How the hip-hop star’s beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy turned a beach house in Malibu, designed by the Japanese master Tadao Ando, into a ruin" (The New Yorker).
"This is strictly for the grown and sexy, so we’re keeping it classy — ladies 30 and up, fellas 35 and up."
Many of their patrons seem to appreciate the restrictions. “Some people wanna celebrate or kick it to a different vibe sometimes,” one patron posted on Facebook. “Bliss gives you that. I think this is what the city needs.” And he had a message for young people: “WE’RE TIRED OF YALL TEARING EVERYTHING UP!!!!!”
But others chafed at the rules, with some suggesting that managers should simply crack down on unruly patrons if that is the problem....
From the comments over there: "Amen! Crowded NYC restaurants with a table full of 20-something woo-girls (getting drunk means screaming "wooo" alot inside) or tech bros out-yelling each other is a circle of hell. We have stopped going out on Thur/Fri/ or Sat nights because the places are intolerable. Grown-ups at a grown-up restaurant! Great concept and I am all in favor."
"During the coronavirus hearing this week, [Marjorie Taylor] Greene attacked [Anthony] Fauci as she held up a photo of two sedated puppies, their heads placed in mesh cages..."
Writes Glenn Kessler, the WaPo "fact checker," in "Unpacking the story of Fauci and painful experiments involving dogs/Documents obtained by an animal rights group show that NIH was not fully transparent when the controversy erupted in 2021."
Were dull sheep cowed?
Why I read something this blurry.
Inspired by a Gwen Davis story, which has not swum into my ken, so I cannot tell you how fairly or fouly it has been used, the team of musical-comedy writers is making kookie jokes about a girl whose sad fate it is to marry a succession of burgeoning millionaires.
The "girl" hates money, loves Henry David Thoreau, and only wants to live the simple life, but the movie seems to have been made on the theory that the way to make good art is by spending as much money as possible.
June 10, 2024
"The theory largely rests on the fact that former top Justice Department official Matthew Colangelo joined the investigation in 2022."
Writes Aaron Blake, in "GOP overwhelmingly supports a Trump conspiracy theory, yet again/There remains no evidence that Biden was behind the Manhattan prosecution of the former president, but 80 percent of Republicans say otherwise" (WaPo).
"I think she’s beautiful — very beautiful! I find her very beautiful. I think she’s liberal. She probably doesn’t like Trump. I hear she’s very talented. I think she’s very beautiful, actually — unusually beautiful!"
Also from the book, he says, "She is liberal, or is that just an act? She’s legitimately liberal? It’s not an act? It surprises me that a country star can be successful being liberal." By that time, Swift had transitioned to being a pop star. With pop stars, it would be surprising if they can be successful without being liberal... or just acting liberal.
"On one side or the other — one side or the other is going to win. I don’t know. I mean, there can be a way of working — a way of living together peacefully..."
Said Justice Alito, quoted in "Justice Alito Caught on Tape Discussing How Battle for America 'Can’t Be Compromised'" (Rolling Stone).
Alito made these remarks in conversation at the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual dinner on June 3.... His comments were recorded by Lauren Windsor, a liberal documentary filmmaker.... She asked questions of the justice as though she were a religious conservative....
The recording... captures Windsor approaching Alito at the event and reminding him that they spoke at the same function the year before, when she asked him a question about political polarization. In the intervening year, she tells the justice, her views on the matter had changed. “I don’t know that we can negotiate with the left in the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end,” Windsor says. “I think that it’s a matter of, like, winning.”
Alito responded "I think you're probably right" and then said the lines quoted above. I consider his remarks anodyne. When people are ideologically polarized, they don't go in for compromises. They keep fighting. Just like Rolling Stone is keeping fighting with this article and its inflammatory headline. Alito doesn't use the word "battle" or say anything about a "Battle for America." He just responds to the instigator Windsor by observing that ideologues are not compromisers.
Alito talks about sides without putting himself on one of the sides. He doesn't join Windsor in the use of the pronoun "we." His words are neutral: "one side or the other," "there can be a way," "it’s difficult," "there are differences," "They" (meaning the "differences"). It must have been frustrating to Windsor. And yet, here's Rolling Stone serving them up as if Alito had declared himself a bitter ender battling for Christian Nationalism. Ludicrous!
"During the N.B.A. finals that began on Thursday, the Biden campaign ran a TV ad titled, 'Flag,' which really mirrors a strategy..."
"... that senior officials described to The New Yorker earlier this year. It’s highly focused on “freedom” conceptually, through the prism of abortion, voting rights and a few other issues. While the issues are definitely longstanding Democratic priorities, if you watch it, the solemn patriotic tone of the ad feels a little old school Republican to me — it’s an interesting artifact of how things have changed. Biden is running to preserve rights and freedoms, or, through another lens, conserve the old ways."
"For progressives, waiting to have children has also become a kind of ethical imperative."
From "The Success Narratives of Liberal Life Leave Little Room for Having Children" (NYT).
[P]rogressives must not let partisan loyalties stop them from thinking about the ways in which having children does or does not express their values, and what shape they really want their lives to take. Children are too important to allow them to fall victim to the culture wars.
How do you read that and not jump back to that line I put in boldface above: "Gender equality and female empowerment demand that women’s self-advancement not be sacrificed on the altar of motherhood." Of course, children are extremely important, but — watch out — it will be too late if you release one into your life and it doesn't "express [your] values" or fit the "shape [you] really want [your life] to take." You will have "sacrificed" your "self-advancement... on the altar of motherhood."
How do you get out of that bind without drinking the “phony, intrusive,” right-wing toxin? I thought of the answer: You fall in love....
I rushed to search the essay for the word "love." It's not there. Maybe it's "essentially reactionary."
"France is braced for its 'most consequential' election in decades after the country’s president, Emmanuel Macron, stunned politicians and the public..."
The Guardian reports.
"There's a line from the first 'Batman,' Joker, he's like 'I’ve already been dead once already. It's very liberating.'"
June 9, 2024
"Her 245th day in captivity had started like most others until, shortly after 11 a.m., she heard a knock at the door, followed by yelling."
From "Inside Israel’s hostage rescue: Secret plans and a deadly ‘wall of fire’/This account is based on more than a dozen interviews with former and current Israeli military officials, family members of hostages and Palestinian eyewitnesses" (WaPo)(free access link).
"Former President Donald Trump s campaign is hiring extra medics, loading up on fans and water bottles and allowing supporters to carry umbrellas..."
ABC News reports.
He's got dedicated supporters.
"Hot rodent boyfriends are the internet’s latest obsession... These are actual men, lumped into a bizarrely titled group..."
Writes Rachel Kiley, in "PSA: It’s hot rodent boyfriend summer y’all/'If you liked short king spring you’ll love hot rodent summer'" (Daily Dot).
he looks like a very kindhearted mouse who got turned into a prince https://t.co/nqWwgRplXE
— mariana (@pastapilled) April 30, 2024
"The trial found that after 15 weeks of applying a teaspoon amount of the gel on their shoulder blades once a day, 86% of trial participants had sperm counts low enough to prevent pregnancy...."
From "A male birth control gel is one step closer to reality, and that’s worth celebrating" (The Guardian).
"Pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah demonstrators staged an anti-Israel protest near the White House on Saturday, calling for 'jihad'..."
Here's the NYT article about the protests, "Protest Against Gaza War Draws Thousands to the White House/The demonstration included ringing the White House grounds with a red banner showing the names of the more than 36,000 Palestinians killed during the war."DC: Protester holds up a bloody mask depicting President Joe Biden. Another protester burns American flag behind him as statue is sprayed with 'FJB' outside of the White House during Pro-palestine protest.
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) June 8, 2024
Video by @yyeeaahhhboiii2 Desk@freedomnews.tv to license pic.twitter.com/viHOfVToDq
The New York Times seems to think Burgum's the one.
After The Washington Post lists Boise, Idaho as one of its "10 destinations that hit their absolute peak in summer"....
To sample a few others from the top of the most-liked:"No one should travel to Idaho. No tourist dollars should go to a horrible, near-fascist state that so denies the rights of women and people of color...."
• "... Idaho is just filled with crazed militia types and all MAGA all the time. I wouldn’t feel safe there at all."
• "Do not spend one vacation dollar in the Fascist state of Idaho."
• "Boise Idaho- maga central?! Pass!!"
• "You forgot the warning for pregnant women traveling to Idaho."
• Responding to "Oh good—I was hoping a travel article would lead us to a conversation about Donald Trump": "That's the reality MAGA has created in this country. No, it's not a both-sides issue here, it's all on bible-thumping MAGA."