Sunrise — 6:49, 6:53, 7:00, 7:03.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments. And support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

How to time a sunrise photoshoot.

You see the official sunrise time is 7:15, and you need to make it to a vantage point. How early should you go? I know from over 1,000 efforts at catching the best part of a sunrise that it depends on the kind of sunrise. But how can you know what kind of sunrise it is? This morning, the sky was unusually dark, and I felt I should delay going out, but it was crucial to go out early.

It looked like this at 6:53:

And then like this at 7:11:

That was still 4 minutes before the official sunrise time. I saw another woman who was just coming in toward the vantage point. I've been in her position many times, I'm sure, with no idea I'd missed a highly colored sunrise. Many times, too, I've seen the intense red through the trees and knew I was missing it.

Most days, getting to the vantage point 4 minutes before sunrise will work and you'll see the best color, as the sun breaks through. But the very red sunrises tend to come early. They're not at all about the sun coming into view. The sun is still pretty far below the horizon, but it's reflecting off the clouds. If it's half an hour before sunrise and you see a rosy tinge beginning to appear on heavy, bumpy clouds, move fast. Get to your vantage point. It might be the reddest sunrise of the year.

More pictures later. These aren't my best photos of the today's sunrise. I just wanted to make a point about timing.

Sometimes not understanding is the greatest understanding of all.

Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo discuss the viral “Holding Space” moment in recent Wicked interview. pic.twitter.com/kdbULBcwgB

— wicked news hub (@wickednewshub) December 7, 2024

Succinct perfection in hypocrisy.

The most overpaid actress ever. pic.twitter.com/2tx3PqdA8c

— MAZE (@mazemoore) December 6, 2024

"Musk is the dynamist, the believer in growth and innovation and exploration as the lodestars of American civilization..."

"[H]e has adopted a more libertarian pose, insisting on the profound wastefulness of government spending and the tyranny of the administrative state. Vance meanwhile is the populist, committed to protect and uplift those parts of America neglected or left behind in an age of globalization.... Despite this contrast, the Musk and Vance worldviews overlap in important ways. Musk has moved in a populist direction on immigration, while Vance has been a venture capitalist and clearly has a strong sympathy for parts of the dynamist worldview, especially its critique of the regulatory state.... And there is modest-but-real convergence between the Muskian 'tech' worldview and Vance’s more 'neo-trad' style of religious conservatism...."

Writes Ross Douthat, in "JD Vance, Elon Musk and the Future of America" (NYT). Douthat thinks dynamism needs populism and populism needs dynamism and, embodied in these 2 men, there's potential for a synthesis into something great, but also a risk of losing "downscale swing voters for the sake of an unrealistic libertarianism."

Count the many emotions that cross Trump's face in a few seconds.

Let the actors cast to play Trump in future movies study this clip and despair.

🚨 #BREAKING: President Trump has just met with Emmanuel Macron in France

It’s clear how much Macron respects Trump. America FINALLY has strong leadership again. pic.twitter.com/dfjeuz3A8N

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) December 7, 2024

Robot bird, robot rat.

"Happy Dark Month, Ann! Thanks for introducing me to this concept, of which I think yearly."

Writes Darconville, in the comments to last night's "Lake Mendota ice at noon."

Maybe Darconville is Alexander Louis Theroux, the author of the novel "Darconville's Cat," who is about 85 years old at the moment, or maybe he's a fan of that novel, or maybe Darconville built his pseudonym beginning with the word "dark."

I wonder if he began with a liking for the dark and the idea of Darkmonth played into his preference or if — like Christmas — it helped make a difficult time of year easier to bear. 

I first mentioned Darkmonth in the first year of this blog, 2004. And here's something I wrote in 2020: "My word for this time of year is 'Darkmonth'... I put the solstice in the center — it's December 21st — and count back 15 days to get to the first day, and that is today, the 6th. We have not yet reached the coldest month-long period of the year — and you never know exactly when that's going to be (and it's very rarely 30 consecutive days). But we have reached the 30 darkest days of the year, and by the first day of winter, we'll be halfway through the darkest month."

The winter solstice this year is also December 21st — it's not always December 21st — so Darconville correctly identified yesterday, December 6th, as the first day of Darkmonth. Revere the dark through January 5th.

On January 6th — it's always Epiphany — we will be out of the dark. 

Is there any alternative interpretation I should consider?

pic.twitter.com/eYTt40ahVq

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 7, 2024

I'm assuming this clunky labeling is correct. But why would Musk want his effort to be represented by a dust storm and the bloated government to be represented by an orderly suburban neighborhood?

Musk seems to feel comfortable — and amused! — portraying his worldly efforts as divine retribution. 

I remember, "it is written, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,' says the Lord."

The dog is cute, so that takes the edge off, but Satan would take the edge off. Ha ha. So amusing. Destruction! 

"Rejection of genuine expertise is both a precondition and a function of autocracy. Joseph Stalin’s regime outlawed genetics as 'pseudoscience'..."

"... while he himself was declared an expert in all fields, from linguistics to biology. Contempt for expertise is not the only autocratic force at work in the case of S.B.1 [the Tennessee law banning puberty blockers and hormones for transgender children]....  I expect the court to uphold the Tennessee law.... [I]t won’t stop with trans care. Governments at different levels will be emboldened to meddle in what should be private, family decisions. In and out of government, people who know what they are talking about will be supplanted by people who perform their loyalty most loudly. Quackery will continue its ascent; expert consensus, not only in medicine but in all the disciplines that enable us to know and navigate the world, will be marginalized...."

Writes M. Gessen, in "The Supreme Court Just Showed Us What Contempt for Expertise Looks Like" (NYT).

Why did Gessen write "genuine expertise" if not to admit that experts can go wrong? Obviously, autocrats have their "experts" too, and respecting them has done great harm. I think first of Josef Mengele, who earned a cum laude doctorate in medicine from the University of Frankfurt for a thesis dealing with genetics and who conducted genetic research at Auschwitz. That doesn't make genetics a "pseudoscience," but it does show that we'd be fools to think there's a binary choice between deference to experts and marginalizing them.

Here's the Wikipedia article about the Soviets' banning of genetics. I can see that those who did the banning regarded themselves as experts:

Lake Mendota ice at noon.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments. And support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

We'll have to find a new way of living.

I'm reading "TikTok Loses Bid to Overturn Law Forcing a Ban or Sale/A federal court on Friday upheld a law that will ban the video app in the United States by Jan. 19 if its owner, ByteDance, does not sell it to a non-Chinese company" (NYT).

The decision [by a 3-judge panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals] could be a death blow for the app in [the U.S.]. More than 170 million Americans use TikTok.... The decision also raises new questions for President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has repeatedly signaled his support for the app, but who doesn’t have a clear path for rescuing it under the new law.... 

The company argued that the law unfairly singled out TikTok and that a ban would infringe on the First Amendment rights of American users....

ADDED: Will truth, beauty, and love save the world?

"Trump’s allies already pounced on the Hunter Biden pardon as evidence of their wilder allegations about the elder Biden’s own culpability in his son’s."

"There’s no doubt they would again spin additional pardons as validation for Trump's bogus claims that he has long been a victim of hoaxes, witch hunts, and 'deep-state' political attacks."

Writes Eric Lutz, in "Pardoning Trump’s Enemies Is a Double-Edged Sword/By offering preemptive pardons to the likes of Liz Cheney and Adam Schiff, Joe Biden might rescue them for legal retribution. But Trump would falsely use it as evidence that they committed crimes" (Vanity Fair).

It's always amusing to Democrats' problems phrased in terms of Republicans "pouncing" on them, and I like that the person writing "pounce" is named "Lutz" — both a pounce and a lutz are jumps.

"Children as young as 12 are being arrested on suspicion of extremism offences, Britain’s most senior counterterrorism police officer has said."

"Matt Jukes, assistant commissioner at the Metropolitan Police, said there was a 'conveyor belt leading children towards extremism' being driven by tech companies 'making vast amounts of money' from them.... [G]overnment figures revealed that the largest group of people referred to the government’s counterextremism programme Prevent were children aged 11 to 15, who made up 2,729 referrals — 40 per cent...."

The London Times reports.

"Pete Hegseth is doing very well. His support is strong and deep, much more so than the Fake News would have you believe."

"He was a great student - Princeton/Harvard educated - with a Military state of mind. He will be a fantastic, high energy, Secretary of Defense Defense, one who leads with charisma and skill. Pete is a WINNER, and there is nothing that can be done to change that!!!"

Writes Donald Trump, at Truth Social, wisely standing behind Pete Hegseth.

I say "wisely," because the moment Hegseth is defeated, somebody else will come under attack, just as strongly, and it will not end. The lust to destroy Trump will never be appeased, and he must know that. And don't his enemies know that he knows? They are making him more hardcore. I'm going to assume that's what they want.

"The University of Michigan will no longer require diversity statements as part of faculty hiring, promotion and tenure decisions...."

"Critics view them as a form of compelled political speech that are often used to evade legal restrictions on affirmative action.... [A] survey conducted for the committee found that more than half of Michigan faculty members believed diversity statements placed pressure on professors to express specific moral, political and social views.... Thomas Braun, a biostatistics professor who led the committee, said he hoped the university would still find a way to allow job applicants to discuss how their work related to diversity in the broad sense, without imposing ideological litmus tests. 'I think all faculty should be able to explain how their own personal experiences inform what they do everyday as a faculty member, and how it fits in the core values and mission of UM,' Mr. Braun said in an email. 'If that seems impossible to some individuals, then maybe UM is not the right fit.'..."

The NYT reports.

That word "fit" is doing a lot of work. Anyway, at least now faculty and prospective faculty won't have to formally explain how they fit the University's specific moral, political and social views, but they will still need to fit and to be able to explain how they fit. 

Isn't the formal statement the easier part of this fitness test? Especially with A.I.

"More than a dozen transgender activists... were arrested Thursday after storming a women’s restroom inside the US Capitol complex."

"The activists were protesting a new rule unveiled by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) last month requiring individuals to use single-sex facilities that correspond with their biological sex.... Demonstrators staging the sit-in held banners that read 'Flush Bathroom Bigotry' and 'Congress Stop Pissing On Our Rights' as they directed chants at Johnson and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC)...."

From "Capitol Police arrest Chelsea Manning, more than a dozen others, after transgender bathroom protest" (NY Post).

So, political protesters go where it's not legal for them to go in the U.S. Capitol?

Protesters trespass on/in a government building — an American tradition.

Sounds like January 6th.

How about a big massive sweeping pardon for everyone, Joe?

***

Note to commenters: You are not the first one to think of jokes about Chelsea Manning "leaking" documents and "taking a leak," so please don't imagine you are.

"Extremism researchers say they expect one immediate effect of Trump’s return to be a repeal of the culture shift Biden tried to bring about with his 2021 domestic terrorism strategy..."

"... which pledged more training and personnel to monitor violent far-right networks.... Academic researchers and community groups were awarded federal grants to study and prevent radicalization. That work, however, is not in line with the MAGA agenda. Trump-aligned Republicans have portrayed the stepped-up fight against domestic terrorism as a thought-police exercise that could infringe on First Amendment rights. Some Democrats and civil liberties groups also have expressed wariness of federal overreach...."

From "Trump could hobble renewed fight against domestic terrorism, analysts warn/Based on his first-term record, researchers expect the next Trump administration to shift the government’s focus from white supremacists and other far-right militants" (WaPo).

Yes, some Democrats and civil liberties groups are wary that it is a thought-police exercise that could infringe on First Amendment rights because it is a thought-police exercise that could infringe on First Amendment rights. Thanks to the Democrats and civil liberties groups that haven't lost their way.

Alex DiBranco, executive director of the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism, said some anti-fascist and gender-focused nonprofits are concerned again about the Trump administration seeking to discredit or even prosecute them by classifying them as far-left domestic terrorist groups....

So join the Trump-aligned Republicans and the Democrats and civil liberties groups who are wary of thought-police exercises that could infringe on First Amendment rights. The great thing about dedication to First Amendment rights is that they are there to protect your side when your side loses its grip on majoritarian power.

Canada man.

"Canada man jumps on polar bear to defend wife from attack" (BBC): "A man in Canada's far north leapt on to a polar bear to protect his wife from being mauled, police say. The unnamed man suffered serious injuries but is expected to recover...."

I like "Canada man" as a contrast to the familiar "Florida man." Canada man is strong and effective and a loyal husband.

Also, this story contrasts to the familiar bear-related advice: "If it's brown lay down, if it's black fight back, if it's white good night."

Alysa McCall, a scientist at Polar Bear International, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) that polar bears rarely attack humans. When an attack occurs, the bear is often hungry, young and unwell, she said.... "If you're attacked by a polar bear, definitely do not play dead — that is a myth," she told CBC. "Fight as long as you can."

"How ’70s Rockers Rebooted for the ’80s... The stars who’d made it big the previous decade had to embrace new instruments and MTV or risk being left behind."

This is a great article in the NYT by Ben Sisario, and this is a gift link so you can get to all the many fine elements of the article, which I will hint at with this excerpt:

“Everybody wanted to sound more modern,” said Trevor Horn, who produced key ’80s albums by Yes, Grace Jones and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. “And drum machines and synths sounded more modern.”... Yes hired Horn... to produce... the band its first, and only, No. 1 hit.... 

That single was “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” with a sharp-edged guitar riff and a dreamy irresistible hook. Horn was intrigued by the short synthesizer interjections on the demo version by Trevor Rabin, the group’s newest member; Horn used the Synclavier keyboard — then the cutting edge of studio tech — to turn them into jarring multi-layered sonic goblins that seem to leap from the shadows.

The 3 phrases in boldface can be clicked on, at the article link, and you'll hear exactly what they refer to. Unlike the link on the song title — which goes to the music video on YouTube — I wasn't able to copy the code and make it work here. So please click on the gift link if you want to know what counts as "sonic goblins" in the mind of Ben Sisario.

"Pluralism... is about recognizing that, in a democracy, power comes from forging alliances and building coalitions, and making room in those coalitions not only for the woke, but the waking."

Said Barack Obama, quoted in "In First Post-Election Speech, Obama Calls for ‘Forging Alliances and Building Coalitions’/'Purity tests are not a recipe for long-term success,' the former president said in the speech in Chicago" (NYT).

For Mr. Obama’s friends, he said, talk of bridging differences in a bitterly divided country seemed like an academic exercise.

“It felt far-fetched, even naïve, especially since, as far as they were concerned, the election proved that democracy’s down pretty far on people’s priority lists,” he said. But, he said, “it’s easy to give democracy lip service when it delivers the outcomes we want,” adding, “it’s when we don’t get what we want that our commitment to democracy is tested.”...

There's a special meaning to "democracy" in Obama's world, it seems — something like: It's democracy when we win. It seems to me that the election proved that we have a democracy and the people delivered their opinion. Obama seems to be saying that democracy is a background value, not the process of going through an election, and when that value is properly in place, people vote against Donald Trump.

Speaking of words, I wonder if "the waking" will catch on. It sounds like the title of a zombie movie.

ADDED: The meaning of "the waking" is like that special meaning of democracy. It's not a process that might go anywhere. It's a process toward a particular outcome. Those who are not progressing toward the prescribed outcome all outside of the process of democracy or waking. The "pluralism" is illusory.

ALSO: "Woke" and "waking" use the metaphor of sleep. When you are asleep, you have no consciousness or the illusion of dreams, which could be highly individualistic and include all sorts of unreal, unlikely, and impossible things. If you wake up, you have only one place to go: reality. 

The Biocore — at 1:45.

Photo by Meade.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments. And support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"Singing Simon and Garfunkel’s 'America' to heal my brain 🧠 In 2017, I sustained a brain injury caused by never treated Lyme disease."

"My first symptom was a psychosis that would make me see horrific images nonstop 24 hours a day for 22 months.... About six or seven months into the psychosis I lost all control of the muscles in my body including the muscles in my face. I lost my ability to speak.... By then it was too late to treat the Lyme disease; it was all about strengthening my brain and getting my ability back. Two years ago, after progressing from wheelchair, to walker, to cane, back to my feet I was still struggling with my speech when I intuited that playing the ukulele could help by doing multiple things at the same time as a regular practice...."

Awful yelling in Congress today.

Secret Service chief Ronald Rowe Jr. got into a screaming match with a GOP lawmaker over 9/11 during an otherwise cordial hearing. https://t.co/SK6rnmRGdj pic.twitter.com/eKwBOkO1mN

— POLITICO (@politico) December 5, 2024

"There’s a movie about me opening soon called A Complete Unknown (what a title!). Timothee Chalamet is starring in the lead role."

"Timmy’s a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me. The film’s taken from Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric – a book that came out in 2015. It’s a fantastic retelling of events from the early ‘60s that led up to the fiasco at Newport. After you’ve seen the movie read the book."

Tweets Bob Dylan (who writes his own tweets, obviously and reportedly).

I love the way Bob endorses the movie and the book without assuring us that the story they tell is the truth. In fact, I hear him saying that they are not the truth. The book is a "fantastic retelling." And Timmy's portrayal is "going to be completely believable" not because he really is like Bob, but because "Timmy’s a brilliant actor." And there isn't even one Bob: there's Bob, younger Bob, and some other Bob. Who is Bob? He's teasing us to think that he isn't really anyone in particular. It ain’t no use a-talking to him/It’s just the same as talking to you. That's why "A Complete Unknown" is a great title. We don't know him and we won't know him, but I'm sure Timmy'll do a fine job. He's brilliant. You can believe him as the lead character in the fantastic retelling of The Fiasco at Newport. That was something like The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, I believe.

The word "believe" only appears in 1 Bob Dylan song. I'm not counting "I Don't Believe You," because "believe" is only in the song title. It's this song, "I Believe in You":

UPDATE: A reader emails that there are plenty more Dylan songs with the word "believe." Redoing my search, I see the fine print, in faint aqua:

Clicking that "SONGS (42)," I get to the additional "believe"s — "I couldn't believe after all these years that you didn't know me any better than that" "If you really believe that, you know you've got nothing to win and nothing to lose," "I believe I'll go see her again," "I'm going back to New York City/I do believe I've had enough" — etc. etc.

"Those who could face exposure include such members of Congress’ Jan. 6 Committee as Sen.-elect Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming."

"Trump has previously said Cheney 'should go to Jail along with the rest of the Unselect Committee!' Also mentioned by Biden’s aides for a pardon is Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who became a lightning rod for criticism from the right during the Covid-19 pandemic.... The president himself, who was intensely focused on his son’s pardon, has not been brought into the broader pardon discussions yet, according to people familiar with the deliberations. The conversations were spurred by Trump’s repeated threats and quiet lobbying by congressional Democrats, though not by those seeking pardons themselves. 'The beneficiaries know nothing,' one well-connected Democrat told me about those who could receive pardons...."

From "Biden White House Is Discussing Preemptive Pardons for Those in Trump’s Crosshairs/The nomination of Kash Patel, who has vowed to pursue Trump’s critics, as FBI director has heightened concerns within the president’s inner circle" (Politico).

Comfortable soup.

 

Were you expecting "potato flakes" — AKA "instant mashed potatoes"? I loved that. 

I'm posting this video because Jacques Pépin making this soup is comfort food for your mind... but I will tell you that you can get some nice "potato flakes" at Amazon, and I'll earn a commission if you use that leek... I mean link. But commission-earning is not why I'm posting this video.

I bet this soup is actually really good. It's obviously simple to make. And I don't know about you but I didn't know exactly how to clean and cut up a leek. Please try to avoid using the phrase "take a leek" in the comments. Pépin refers to it as a "lick," so there's another path to childish humor.

Goodbye to commenter Michael K.

Other commenters mark his passing in the comments to Tuesday night's sunrise post and in this earlier post that day.

This morning I'm seeing Neo's blog post, "RIP commenter 'Mike K'": "RIP Mike K, and all the commenters here who may have died but all we know is that they disappeared never to return."

Yes, I've mourned the unexplained loss of Bissage for 15 years.

Bissage was a dearly beloved commenter on this blog who disappeared one day, when the uncooperative dear became uncooperative. I've tried to call him back: "Come back, Bissage. We're counting oranges again. Remember? 42. 42. 42..." To no avail.

I appreciate hearing the specific news that a commenter has died, like when Gahrie's brother's dropped into a comments thread: "Hello.... This is my brother gahries account, and it appears this post was close to the last thing he read/saw before he passed away Sunday morning sometime after 130am...."

I miss Gahrie and Bissage and Michael K and many others who died or drifted away and even some of those who left in a huff. They, unlike the dead, can drop back in. Why don't they? It's not for me to figure out. The blog, like life itself, can only move forward, and the day will come when we will all be left behind. So thanks to all — except the actual trolls — who walked along this way as far as they did.

"Even if [Daniel] Penny’s found innocent on all charges, his ordeal still sends a grim message to all New Yorkers remains: Don’t think about standing up to protect the innocent."

"And this is far from Bragg’s only outrage. Consider his prosecution of Jose Alba, the bodega clerk attacked in his workplace who accidentally killed in self-defense — the charges dropped only when the 'optics' got bad. Or Bragg’s two-years-belated indictment of a cop for punching an unruly perp (who wasn’t harmed) he was escorting out of an Upper West Side Apple Store. Or the charges against Scotty Enoe, a CVS worker, who stabbed a serial shoplifter to death after the homeless man pulled the knife on him. This DA sides with the perps every time — and against those who resist them. Not to mention the resources wasted on his ultimate political persecution: the ridiculous pursuit of now-President-elect Donald Trump over 2017 book-keeping entries that supposedly tampered with the 2016 election...."

Writes the NY Post Editorial Board in "Daniel Penny trial: Alvin Bragg is a menace to our society and must GO."

"You mentioned fertility and regret, and I'd like to take both of those concerns head-on."

Said the Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar, arguing against state law that restricts access to puberty blockers and hormones as a treatment for gender dysphoria. Full transcript here. Audio here.

I do want to acknowledge that there is evidence to suggest that gender-affirming care with respect to hormones can have some impacts on fertility. Critically, puberty blockers are -- are -- have no effect in and of themselves on fertility, so I don't think that concern can justify the ban on puberty blockers, which is just pressing pause on someone's endogenous puberty to give them more time to understand their identity. With respect to hormone use, there are some effects on fertility, but the court found that many individuals who are transgender remain fertile after taking these medications. They can conceive biological children. 

Sunrise — 7:05.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments. And support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"A no-confidence vote in the French parliament on Wednesday has triggered the collapse of the government, plunging the country into political chaos..."

"... and stoking anxiety about the euro zone’s second biggest economy. Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s administration becomes the shortest-serving government in the modern French republic and the first in six decades to be toppled by a no-confidence vote. Although the motion was put forward by a leftwing alliance, the swing votes of Marine Le Pen and her far-right lawmakers, wielding unprecedented influence, were key to its passage.... In a fiery address during Wednesday’s debate, she said her decision to back a no-confidence vote was about stopping a budget that 'takes the French hostage, and particularly the most vulnerable, low-income pensioners, sick people, poor workers, the French considered too rich to be helped but not poor enough to escape the tax bludgeoning.'"

From "No-confidence vote topples French government, plunges country into chaos/The support of Marine Le Pen’s far-right lawmakers was key to the motion, which made this the shortest-serving administration in the modern French republic" (WaPo).

"Four years ago, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion in the Supreme Court’s first case on transgender rights..."

"... ruling that a federal civil rights law protects gay and transgender workers from employment discrimination. But he was silent on Wednesday, the only member of the court to ask no questions. That made it harder to predict how the court will rule, though there is reason to think that the five other members of the court’s conservative wing were not inclined to strike down the Tennessee law before them or to instruct lower courts to subject it to demanding judicial scrutiny. At the same time, it would be a mistake to read too much into his silence or his 2020 majority opinion, which was tightly bound to the text of the law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Justice Gorsuch is a committed textualist, meaning that he interprets the plain words of statutes without regard to their apparent purpose.... The case now before the justices does not turn on the Civil Rights Act but on the Constitution’s equal protection clause...."

From "Live Updates: Supreme Court Appears Inclined to Uphold Tennessee Law on Transgender Care/Assessing the court’s ultimate direction was complicated by the silence of one justice in the conservative majority, Neil M. Gorsuch, the author of a key case on employment discrimination. The court’s decision is expected by June" (NYT).

"The Democratic Party needs to figure out better ways to counter disinformation, including the disinformation that it is elitist."

Writes Patrice La Belle, M.D., in the comments section of the Michelle Goldberg column in the NYT, "If Anyone Can Save the Democrats, It’s Ben Wikler."

"Trump Talks to DeSantis About Replacing Hegseth/And about appointing Lara Trump to the Senate."

A pithy headline at The Bulwark.

This is too tit-for-tatty.

Look out, Ron!

"Currently, the Justice Department and the F.B.I. are barred from using compulsory legal processes, like subpoenas and search warrants, to go after reporters’ information..."

"... including by asking third parties, like phone and email companies, to turn over their data, or to force them to testify about their sources. But that limit is in a rule issued by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. Should Mr. Trump’s attorney general rescind that regulation, the F.B.I. would be freed to go after reporters’ information. Internal guidelines also flatly ban investigating someone on the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment. And there are strict limits around opening investigations into members of Congress or reporters. But an F.B.I. director, especially if there is a like-minded attorney general, could interpret those limits so narrowly as to make them meaningless, or even throw them out. Mr. Patel has also called for using the Justice Department more aggressively to uncover who in the government is providing information to news reporters, and said that leakers should be prosecuted. He wrote in his book that all federal employees should be forced to submit to monthly scans of their devices 'to determine who has improperly transferred classified information, including to the press.'..."

From "Kash Patel Has Plan to Remake the F.B.I. Into a Tool of Trump/President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the F.B.I. has called for firing the agency’s top officials, shutting down its Washington headquarters and prosecuting journalists" (NYT).

"There are people who enjoy dressing up and going out for a special night."

Said David Fisk, president and chief executive of The Charlotte Symphony, quoted in "Arts Galas Show That Extravagance Never Goes Out of Style/They are costly, labor-intensive and seemingly dated, but cultural organizations say black-tie dinners remain essential to pleasing donors and paying the bills" (NYT)(free-access link).

Yes, I'm expending one of my 10 gift links of the month on this thing. I selected the quote in the title because that one guy said what I was thinking the whole time I was reading the article: Rich women need events to which they can wear expensive evening gowns. But I'm sending you over there so you can see some gowns (and lavishly set tables and fussily arrayed foods). I don't want you to miss that absolutely crazy photograph by Michelle Groskopft that I'll just excerpt a bit of so you can find it:

Rich women have needs, and arts associations need their money.

The other reason you should go there is to look at the numbers — how much is spent to put on the event and how much is netted. And read the comments, e.g., "This type of article is useful for showing the magnitude of the excess. The cost vs gain. This is about vanity, greed and self-promotion. The attendees don’t care about the art or the causes. If they did, they’d write checks and forgo the snow crab."

They may not care about "the art," but they care about art — the art of their own self-presentation. An audience is needed for that art — the hair, the makeup, the plastic surgery, the jewelry, the fingernails, the shoes, the gowns. Without all that would it even be worth amassing riches in the first place? 

Sunrise — 7:08.

AND: As you can see in the previous post in the video I was taking of swans, this redness suddenly occurred. It lasted only about a minute. I've seen redness like this before and missed it because I didn't have a good enough vantage point. This occurred 3 minutes before the official sunrise time and was gone before the sunrise time. It's hard to time sunrise photography, because you can know the sunrise time, but many days don't have interesting color at all, and some of the very best color — especially the most intense color — comes on suddenly and fades before the usual time for optimum color.

I thought I could turn away from the eastern sky for a minute, because it was just looking like this...

The swans were kicking up a fuss at 7:06 a.m. over here toward the north...

"Taking photos and videos of the screen at movies has somehow become a common practice these days...."

"The problem with cellphones in theaters used to be mostly errant ringing or excessive texting. Now it’s people holding up their devices so they can get bits of the film and post to their accounts.... Social media has conditioned people to think that they can only claim to have had an experience if they put evidence of it online.... I even get the sense that studios just see all of this as free promotion.... When people post photos from movie theaters... they are ignoring the communal experience they are having at that very moment. Sitting in awe beside other people in a cool, dark theater watching cinema is incredibly special...."

Writes Esther Zuckerman, in "The ‘Wicked’ Practice of Taking Pictures of the Movie Screen/Why are so many people snapping photos and taking videos at the movies? Will this trend ever go away?" (NYT).

Eh. What's so great about sitting next to other people in cold darkness? If you can't get caught up in the silliness of a new blockbuster-style movie that's attracting a lot of young people, just stay home and stream something. What's the point of trying to fine-tune your environment by controlling young people? You seem to want to absorb their life force, but that energy — that "awe" — is supposed to emanate quietly and politely for your enjoyment.

"This is repulsive to me. I mean, that anyone would do this to an animal. And an animal’s like a child. I don’t know if you understand that or not."

Said the judge, quoted in "Disgusted judge puts away woman who ate cat in stomach-turning video: 'You’ve embarrassed this nation'" (NY Post).

"Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire World, in the Middle East..."

"... But it’s all talk, and no action! Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity. Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!"

Writes Donald Trump, at Truth Social.

Harder than anybody has been hit in the history of the United States? Harder than Japan in WWII? Is this a threat to use nuclear weapons? A transparent bluff?

WaPo's mild response: "It was not immediately clear whether Trump was threatening to directly involve the U.S. military in Israel’s ongoing campaign against Hamas in Gaza. Trump allies have said he hopes there will be a ceasefire and hostage release deal before he returns to office early next year."

NYT, similarly mild: "It was not clear what tactic Mr. Trump might take that has not already been taken already by Israel....  [A]t the Republican National Convention in July, he said that he wanted the hostages returned and that captors 'will be paying a very big price.' His latest warning came after Hamas released a propaganda video showing the American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander, 20, pleading with Mr. Trump to secure his release."

The NYT purports to show us "how" Biden did something we don't even know that he did.

This is an embarrassing headline: "How Biden Changed His Mind on Pardoning Hunter: ‘Time to End All of This’/The threat of a retribution-focused Trump administration and his son’s looming sentencings prompted the president to abandon a promise not to get involved in Hunter Biden’s legal problems."

They — the authors are Katie Rogers and Glenn Thrush — cannot know the interior of the President's mind. He may have changed what he was saying about his thoughts, but I presume that he was lying all along, for political purposes, when he said he wouldn't pardon Hunter, and I presume that he always intended to pardon him.

The phrase "How Biden Changed His Mind" is misdirection — sleight of hand. If we fall for it, we unwittingly form a belief that Biden did change his mind. He and his supporters weren't lying to us throughout the campaign season. He was weighing all the factors and the factors changed after the election. He painfully reweighed and his consistent and honorable decision-making process yielded a new result. Let Rogers and Rush detail the factors and burnish our respect for the venerable statesman.

No, no, absolutely not. Now, and only now, am I reading past the headline. So let's see:

A dark sky had fallen over Nantucket, Mass., on Saturday evening when President Biden left church alongside his family after his final Thanksgiving as president.

It was a dark and stormy night. We begin with a weather report.  

Inside a borrowed vacation compound earlier in the week, with its views of the Nantucket Harbor, Mr. Biden had met with his wife, Jill Biden, and his son Hunter Biden to discuss a decision that had tormented him for months....

Who, if anyone, is the source of this knowledge of Biden's months-long mental torment? 

Support for pardoning Hunter Biden had been building for months within the family...

Who? Jill? Hunter? Who's talking to the NYT? How is building support observed? Was this support in the mind of Jill? Was it voiced to the President? 

... but external forces had more recently weighed on Mr. Biden, who watched warily as President-elect Donald J. Trump picked loyalists for his administration who promised to bring political and legal retribution to Mr. Trump’s enemies.

Biden also "watched" as Trump got elected, but that's not mentioned. It's not politically convenient to characterize Biden as waiting to see if his party might win, lying about the pardon in an effort to produce that win, and needing a new plan when the party lost. It needs to be about Trump's bad behavior, and son of a bitch, it was!... in this dark-and-stormy-night tale the NYT is telling. 

Mr. Biden had even invited Mr. Trump to the White House, listening without responding as the president-elect aired familiar grievances about the Justice Department — then surprised his host by sympathizing with the Biden family’s own troubles with the department, according to three people briefed on the conversation.

So Trump was sympathetic, and it's here, for the first time in the article, that we see a reference to sources. It's harder to portray Trump as a vengeful narcissist when 3 sources say he sympathized with Biden. It was sympathy, we're told, in the context of Trump's complaining that Biden's administration was using criminal prosecution against Trump. Maybe that inspired Biden to see how a pardon of Hunter could be portrayed not as a political favor to Hunter but as an end to political disfavor. It sounds crazy, but we're looking for "How Biden Changed His Mind."

But the article doesn't pursue that, perhaps because it had no evidence that the meeting with Trump jogged Biden's thoughts on the subject. Or do you think the fact that Biden was smiling widely is circumstantial evidence that a wonderful new idea had arisen?

The next thing in the article is this:

But it was Hunter Biden’s looming sentencings on federal gun and tax charges, scheduled for later this month, that gave Mr. Biden the final push....

The final push. So we were supposed to see the Trump meeting as a push? This is a long article, and it purports to tell us "How Biden Changed His Mind," but there was no elaboration of "how" in that bit about the meeting with Trump. Now, I'm wondering if Trump cleverly played Biden somehow? The Times had 3 sources about the conversation and we got one unenlightening sentence.

But there is much more to the article after that introduction. We're told the NYT spoke with "a half dozen people close to the president and his family," but not told who they are or anything about how they could have access to Biden's mind and why they should be trusted to tell the truth.

When the president returned to Washington late Saturday evening, he convened a call with several senior aides to tell them about his decision. “Time to end all of this,” Mr. Biden said, according to a person briefed on the call....

That's says nothing about how or when Biden decided to pardon Hunter, only about the timing of the action. 

Mr. Biden’s decision has tarnished a storied public legacy that began more than 50 years ago....

Here's a good place for elision. 

Hunter Biden’s decision to plead guilty on the tax charges — after a weeklong gun trial in Delaware in June that rehashed the family’s darkest days — had further embittered Mr. Biden....  [who] began to realize there might not be any way out beyond issuing a pardon. It appears that there was never serious consideration of anything short of a full pardon, such as a commutation of his sentence, they said.

Was there any serious consideration of restricting the full pardon to the gun and tax charges? The article doesn't mention the sweep of the pardon Biden gave, covering every possible federal crime in a 10-year period, such as the oft-alleged corrupt dealings with Ukraine and China!  

For his part, Hunter Biden was hardly shy about telling the people around him that he wanted — needed — a pardon, although it is unclear how often he had discussed the matter directly with his father before this past week....

You've got sources. What did he say? Did he threaten to do drugs again and yell about how it would all be dad's fault? Did he say he's writing a memoir that will destroy Joe's reputation forever? Did he threaten to offer his testimony to Trump officials about Joe's involvement in corrupt dealings with Ukraine and China? You're inviting your readers to visualize this scene. That's what I'm seeing.

And here's a hint that the corrupt dealings were part of the discussion:

While both father and son expressed anger over the yearslong effort by Republicans to link Hunter Biden’s questionable foreign business consulting to the president — the unproven “Biden crime family” narrative — they were almost equally contemptuous of the prosecutors who aggressively pursued both cases....

The door was cracked open for half a sentence, then quickly shut.

The statement that followed from Mr. Biden on Sunday offered a window into the mind-set of an aggrieved president who, in the end, could not separate his duty as a father from his half century of principled promises as a politician....

The most comforting possible narrative is chosen! That's the answer to how — how Biden "changed" his mind. He's just too devoted a father — to his duty as a father. Surely, you won't subtract very much from the value of his half century of principled promises as a politician!

I've read the whole thing now, and the NYT hasn't rebutted my presumption that Biden was lying all along, for political purposes, when he said he wouldn't pardon Hunter. And I need to know much more about the 10-year sweep of the pardon, covering all federal crimes, and how that connects to Joe Biden's own possible corruption. Don't just label that "unproven." Investigate it!

ADDED: I just listened to this morning's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, and it is much better. The guest is the NYT reporter Peter Baker. Excerpts:

I think obviously the only thing that's changed between June... and December when he gives this pardon, is the election. And you can look at it a couple of different ways. You could look at it in the way of him not being honest in the summer. That he really was in fact considering this, but didn't want to say before an election because it would be politically damaging. And only after the election does he admit that in fact he is going to use his extraordinary power for his son. Or — and this may be an and/or — you can also look at it as waking up to the reality of a Trump-run Justice Department in which this new president is promising retribution and specifically to go after Hunter Biden and a president who's on the way out thinking, I'm not going to let that happen. I'm not only going to pardon him for this tax and gun charges. I'm going to protect him from the next guy who's making very clear he's going to use the FBI for retribution....

[In his statement announcing the pardon, Biden] talks about the current prosecutions that his son has faced being unfair and selective. He doesn't say the other part... which is that he is guarding against politicization of the Justice Department by his successor. Right? He could have framed it that way, but he didn't. But the net effect of what he did by making it a 10-year sweeping pardon for any and everything that his son might have done does have that effect. And it does tell you what was probably going through his mind when he decided to issue the pardon.

What Peter Baker says was "probably going through his mind" is what I was saying Rogers and Thrush left out of their "How Biden Changed His Mind" article.

Lake Mendota — in the early afternoon.

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"'Looking at a girl totally naked is not exciting,' said Éric Stefanut, the communications director for the French Naturist Federation."

"Naturists, he explained, see new people naked all the time. 'So,' he added, 'it’s boring.'... When everyone in a room is naked, no one person stands out — although there were many body types among the visitors on Friday. There were tattoos and pierced nipples, ribs and fleshy tummies, bald spots and wispy beards. Scrotums and breasts swung wide. Some had cesarean scars.... Lucca Linke, 31, said she had thought about trimming her body hair. But why bother? Her friend, Kaja Baumgart, 22, agreed. She had worried that other guests would notice her tampon string. But soon, she said, she relaxed. 'Everybody is acting like normal,' she said. 'I can also be acting like normal.'"

From "At This French Exhibition, Check Your Clothes at the Door/A museum in Marseille, France, has a show dedicated to the history of social nudity. On a few special nights, visitors strolled around naked, too" (NYT).

It's art — purportedly — to take what is very interesting and endeavor to make it boring.

"While England endeavors to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?"

Wrote Henry David Thoreau, quoted in "Oxford’s 2024 Word of the Year Is… Brain Rot" (NYT).

Thoreau published that sentence in 1854 — it's in "Walden" — but somehow, 170 years later, his word/phrase is the official Word of the Year. I'm just going to guess that Thoreau would consider choosing a word of the year to be a rotten-brain activity. 

Is this word-of-the-year-choosing "Oxford" really the same as the Oxford English Dictionary? The NYT says it's "the publisher of the august Oxford English Dictionary," but I look up the word in the OED, and I get:

Here's a tightly edited 9-minute montage of lavishing praise on Joe Biden for not pardoning his son.

All of it done, I presume, with an intent to influence the 2024 election. All of it bullshit. By the midpoint you'll have lost the capacity to take the phrase "rule of law" seriously:

One of the best supercuts ever.

President Biden won't pardon Hunter because Joe Biden is a man of great character! 🤣😂pic.twitter.com/lM8aTRGrq5

— MAZE (@mazemoore) December 2, 2024

My favorite nugget: "There's a kind of old-school, sort of flinty core to his conception of how you are to be in the system — how you are to be as a person, a moral person...."

Flinty core!

(I googled the phrase "flinty core" and setting aside a couple descriptions of a singer's voice everything was about wine, where I hear it as a fancy/bullshit way to this tastes like a rock.)

Democrats need to figure out if they ought to trash Biden for pardoning Hunter and build the strongest foundation for attacking Trump over the pardoning spree he's about to launch.

Yes, yes, of course, you Democrats can pose fussily and piously making distinctions between all the crimes Hunter may have done in the last 10 years and anything attributable to Trump's pardonees. Go ahead. Try. I see your efforts. They're so self-serving they underscore the essential problem: political favoritism.

Fine distinctions are confusing and hypocritical. You're going to say violating gun laws doesn't really matter? Then how are you going to pull off the call for more gun laws, which you know you're going to need for your usual political theater on the occasion of the next massacre? You're going to say a rich man's tax evasion is a measly offense and still hope to see us to respond to your cries for severe taxing of the rich?

No, no, your best move is to trash Biden. You already kicked him to the curb last July. No one remembers the show of honoring his statesmanship you staged at the Democratic National Convention. You've already lost the election and suffered a complete breakdown of confidence in your party. You need to rebuild the foundation. There's nothing to keep. Your party is a teardown.

Trump is about to take over and make a show out of throwing light on the deep state. Don't condemn yourself to defending every awful thing that may come out — which may include corrupt dealings with Ukraine and China that were blithely swept into Biden's pardon of Hunter. Trash Joe Biden now to position yourself to seem to welcome all this forthcoming bad news and to offer yourself as the staunch new party of reform. 

"In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me"/"And guess what, we broke them and now they’re whining like little children"/"Hitler knows that he will have to break us...."

This blog has a theme today.

The quotes in the post headline are from the first 2 posts of the day, below. The Bannon article has 2 more quotes about breakage:

• Spoken in a new interview: "Somebody’s got to break the system so somebody else can come in and build it. People have roles in life, right?"

• Spoken on January 5, 2021: "All hell is going to break loose tomorrow."

"They’re all infesting the Cotswolds. F*** them. They’re not resilient … They had every advantage of state power. They had the high ground."

"And guess what, we broke them and now they’re whining like little children...."

Said Steve Bannon, from his house in Arizona, referring to Ellen DeGeneres and others who are relocated, out of fear of the Trump administration.

Quoted by Louise Callaghan in "Steve Bannon: Maga can rule for 50 years and Farage will be PM/For the firebrand Trump guru, beating ‘whining’ Democrats was just the beginning — at home and abroad" (London Times).

“We are so close,” he tells me. “We just need to see this through.” Trump may have won the presidency, but to enact the sweeping changes he wants to make — chief among them destroying the administrative state and deporting millions of undocumented migrants — he needs to move fast, with the support of his party.

"President Biden and President-elect Donald J. Trump now agree on one thing: The Biden Justice Department has been politicized."

Thanks to the NYT for stating the obvious point obviously.

The article, by Peter Baker, is "In Pardoning His Son, Biden Echoes Some of Trump’s Complaints/President Biden complained about selective prosecution and political pressure in a system he has spent his public life defending."

The prosecutions of Mr. Trump and the younger Mr. Biden were each handled by separate special counsels appointed specifically to insulate the cases from politics.... There is no evidence that Mr. Biden had any involvement in Mr. Trump’s cases.... But Mr. Biden’s pardon will make it harder for Democrats to defend the integrity of the Justice Department and stand against Mr. Trump’s unapologetic plans to use it for political purposes even as he seeks to install Kash Patel, an adviser who has vowed to “come after” the president-elect’s enemies, as the next director of the F.B.I. It will also be harder for Democrats to criticize Mr. Trump for his prolific use of the pardon power to absolve friends and allies, some of whom could have been witnesses against him in previous investigations.... 

Mr. Biden’s pardon will also give ammunition to Republicans who have contended that Hunter Biden was guilty of wrongdoing beyond the charges for which he was actually prosecuted.... The pardon Mr. Biden issued to his son specifically covers any offenses “which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024,” not just the tax and gun charges.... 

“There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,” the president said. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

You can only cogently say "Enough is enough" about the things that lie within your own power.

Globular icicles.

Lake Mendota, today at 1:53 p.m.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments. And support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

How are you feeling about the impending Trump administration?

You have to pick one:

Oh, no!

Bring it on!

 

pollcode.com free polls

RESULT:

Oh, my! 

"Two smart, insecure, witty singles meet at a Manhattan tennis club, consciously couple, measure their lives in psychotherapy sessions, find lobster humor in the Hamptons and disagree about whether Los Angeles is beyond redemption."

A summary of "Annie Hall." 

From the obituary for Marshall Brickman, "Marshall Brickman, Woody Allen’s Co-Writer on Hit Films, Dies at 85/The duo won an Oscar for 'Annie Hall.' Mr. Brickman went on to write Broadway shows, including 'Jersey Boys,' and make movies of his own" (NYT).

Also, he was a UW alum: "Marshall...  attended the University of Wisconsin, a school he chose casually because a friend was going there and seemed to like it."

And: "In 1964, Mr. Brickman played banjo as a member of the New Journeymen, a trio with John Phillips and Michelle Phillips. When Mr. Brickman left the group, the couple took on two new partners and created the Mamas & the Papas. That may have seemed like bad timing, but a few years later he and a friend were invited to Sharon Tate’s house in Beverly Hills and decided at the last minute to go to Malibu instead. It was the night of the Manson family murders."

In the late 1960s, Brickman was a writer on "The Tonight Show," and he created Carnac the Magnificent!

"This is firing the F.B.I. director.... It is extremely dangerous to have a change in an F.B.I. director just after a change in administration."

Said an anonymous "law enforcement official," quoted in "Trump Says He Will Nominate Kash Patel to Run F.B.I./President-elect Donald J. Trump turned to a firebrand loyalist to become director of the bureau, which he sees as part of a ‘deep state’ conspiracy against him" (NYT).

Mr. Patel laid out his vision for wreaking vengeance on the F.B.I. and Justice Department in a book, “Government Gangsters,” calling for clearing out the top ranks of the bureau, which he called “a threat to the people.” He also wrote a children’s book, “The Plot Against the King,” telling through fantasy the story of the investigations into Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign’s possible ties to Russians.... 

In planning to remove Mr. Wray from atop the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, Mr. Trump would be echoing one of the most defining acts of his first term, his dismissal of James B. Comey as F.B.I. director as investigations of Trump associates began to heat up. That act led to the appointment of the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who spent nearly two years examining the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia....

ADDED:

Do you guys even understand how amazing this Kash appointment is?!

Let me remind you pic.twitter.com/nLo4aIFuDF

— Defender of the Republic 🇺🇸 (@realdefender45) December 1, 2024

AND:

🧵 of MSNBC Meltdowns tonight over Kash Patel 🤣

“The most dangerous nominee we’ve seen yet to our democracy” pic.twitter.com/QRhzfFUNOT

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 1, 2024

PLUS:

This is Kash Patel, Trump's nominee for FBI Director. The Deep State is f*cked. pic.twitter.com/cejy7hhioP

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 1, 2024

"It’s clear from this election that there are many voters, especially those hardest hit by rising prices, those who experienced the pandemic-era financial support slipping away, who voted primarily on the economy."

"We’ve seen in the United States and worldwide if you have to break pearls in half to be able to afford your groceries, that is going to be the top-of-mind issue when you go to the ballot box. Democrats win when voters know that we’re the ones fighting for them against those who will seek to rip them off to add an extra billion dollars to their bank account."

That's Ben Wikler, answering the question: "You have said for years that abortion rights is the issue that best motivates Democratic voters and best convinces Republicans to vote for Democrats. Did something change about that in this election, or did the Harris campaign not focus enough on abortion rights?"

From "Wisconsin Democratic Chair Says He Is the One to Revive a Distressed Party/Ben Wikler, who has led the Wisconsin Democratic Party since 2019, announced a bid to be national party chair with a platform to 'unite, fight, win'" (NYT)(free-access link).

I like Ben because I knew him quite well when he was a teenager. He's obviously got highly developed verbal skills. Not highly developed enough to keep me from noticing that he didn't confront the complexities of the Democrats' involvement with the abortion issue. They forefronted it, and he wanted them to forefront it.

Did something change about that in this election, or did the Harris campaign not focus enough on abortion rights? What's the answer? The question required him to pick. Either it's no longer true that abortion is the Democrats' best issue OR the Democrats needed to push even harder on the abortion issue. But maybe leaping past a reporter's well-structured question and saying "It's the economy, stupid" in elaborate, elegant language is a good demonstration of the skill Democrats want in their chair.

ADDED: I spent a lot of time trying to ascribe meaning to "break pearls in half." A commenter — wild chicken — asked if that's "a saying in Wisconsin." And I got all involved:

I googled it when I was writing the post, and I considered elaborating on this figure of speech. I couldn't find any example of "break pearls in half" as a figurative expression. I did find out that pearls are *cut* in half for some purposes, but these were real, not metaphorical, pearls. What did Ben mean? All I can think of is Mickey Mouse, starving, and cutting one bean into slices.

Then I got a text from Meade: "Pills/Bad transcription by NYT."

For more laughs, here's Mickey:

"Pardon your son. Let the Republicans howl. Who cares?"

That's the top-rated comment at the Washington Post's article "Hunter Biden’s team issues a fiery defense ahead of sentencing, possible pardon/Judges are scheduled to sentence the president’s son for gun and tax offenses in December."

President Biden, we're told, "repeatedly said that he will not pardon or commute the sentences of his son." But, yeah, who cares? He was running for office, and he didn't even win on that promise. He didn't even lose. He got ousted by fellow Democrats who thought he couldn't win and then they lost. Worst loss ever. Ignominious. And he's still got to drag his ancient body through 7 more weeks of this "presidency" nobody thinks he can do anymore. Surely, he can do one thing — that thing maybe he can't even remember promising he wouldn't do — and pardon his only living son, the scoundrel Hunter. Who believes promises these days? Everyone promises anything and everything to get elected. Is he supposed to drag himself through his last days on Earth — his post-presidency days — with his son in prison? Is he supposed to satisfy himself instead with the hollow, icy honor of posing as a weirdly scrupulous man who kept a promise not to pardon his son? Promise? Was there really a promise? Love. Family love. That's the greater thing. No joke.

UPDATE, later the same day: Biden pardoned Hunter. 

Eschewing an irritatingly newsy story, I looked back into my archive to confirm that I had eschewed it the first time around.

Chew on this, from 2019:

December 8, 2019

Part of blogging is choosing what not to blog.

There's one thing in the last few days that so many people seemed to think needed to be blogged (or tweeted or Facebooked) about, and I knew not to be part of the virality. It's nothing that involved anyone dying or anything evil, just something where I could see people were accepting a cultural con and doing free PR for somebody. There's an additional development that makes it more obvious that it was that sort of thing, but many people are doing another post about that. I'm pleased with myself for passing on this story, which I won't identify because that's my point. I didn't let myself be used in someone else's promotion. Didn't do it before, and won't do it now.

ADDED: I said "I won't do it now," when "now" was 4:57 a.m., but I will do it now, at 2:58 p.m., because the post did get people guessing, and I want to recognize the winner, who posted at 8:11 a.m.  The winner is dustbunny, who said: "The duct-taped banana art scam."