Is Parliament Burning?

by

by Doctor Science

This is a thread for our UK friends. It’s going up later than I hoped because I’ve been watching live-blogs of our own Constitutional crisis. Perhaps the most distressing part is that Republican members of the Judiciary Committee are laughing during the markup hearing. I suppose this is tactical, to convey that they think this impeachment is a farce. But it also conveys that they don’t take government seriously in general, which I guess is #onbrand.

I still find Brexit baffling, though I’ve recently read some good explanations–or at least coherent stories. One is Heroic Failure by Irish journalist Fintan O’Toole. He talks about Brexit as being part of the English (specifically English, not British) tradition of heroic failures: Scott of the Antarctic, the Light Brigade, the Franklin Expedition, General Gordon, Dunkirk, Kipling’s “If”. The original Heroic Failures were a mis-direction from Empire, a way for the English to center *their* suffering, to distract from noticing the sufferings of their unfree subjects.

They keep going back to WWII as a touchstone, more than the rest of the EU does, because though the UK was on the winning side it wasn’t made better off by the War, while Germany and Japan quickly became economic powerhouses.

It’s a particularly English problem because since the late 90s the other nations in the UK have devolved assemblies or parliaments to decide local questions, while England’s issues are decided by the general Parliament in Westminster.

My father is Irish-American and his mother emigrated due to The Troubles in the early 20s. Like O’Toole, I am gobsmacked that UK leaders and Brexit voters don’t realize that the free, open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic is a bloody big deal that keeps Ireland (and the UK!) from going back to the status quo ante, which was just bloody. The British in general don’t seem to grasp that the core value of the EU is *peace-keeping*, and that the Irish border is not a secondary issue for them.

O’Toole also talks about how Brexitism overlaps with the nihilism of punk, where life is dull and grim and you just want to burn it all down. And how that’s connected with the English tradition of masochism (there’s a reason French sex workers called flagellation “The English Vice”). Maria Farrell at Crooked Timber writes about Brexitism and England’s Ruling Pathology: Boarding School Syndrome, and, like O’Toole, notes that to sustain an Empire you have to grow reliable crops of heartless imperialists.

I have to go to sleep now so I can’t really make this a terribly coherent post. Good luck, Britfriends, we’re rooting for Team Sanity.

1024px-Joseph_Mallord_William_Turner _English_-_The_Burning_of_the_Houses_of_Lords_and_Commons _October_16 _1834_-_Google_Art_Project

555 thoughts on “Is Parliament Burning?”

  1. I am gobsmacked that UK leaders and Brexit voters don’t realize that the free, open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic is a bloody big deal that keeps Ireland (and the UK!) from going back to the status quo ante, which was just bloody. The British in general don’t seem to grasp that the core value of the EU is *peace-keeping*, and that the Irish border is not a secondary issue for them.

    I think it’s a varient of the old truism that “all politics is local.” For most people, the idea that life is significantly different elsewhere rarely if ever breaks thru. The idea that something that is good (they think) for them might be a disaster for others? Most people can’t wrap their heads around that, even if it occurs to them to try. Everything filters thru what they see in their own town, their own neighborhood.
    One of the ways national leaders are supposed to be different is that their job requires them to at least broaden their vision to encompass the whole country. The tragedy for the UK today (not to mention the US) is having leaders, and would-be leaders, who either can’t manage that or just don’t care.

  5. Assuming there is no solid majority as a result of today’s election in GB, what would be the most likely outcome for either Corbyn or Booris when it comes to forming a majority coalition? Would the Liberals be willing to join Labor in forming a government?
    Just asking.

  6. Nigel,
    Our wingnuttery is unsurpassed. It is brash, bold, unashamed, and totally untethered to reality.
    MAGA.
    Bobby

  7. Is not the lack of evidence that you’re talking about itself evidence of bias?
    What is most disturbing to me in all of this is that the House (R)’s are not all unintelligent people. At least some if not many of them understand what the evidence that has been presented means, understand the Constitutional limits obligations and responsibilities that apply to them and to the President.
    At least some if not many of them understand that they, themselves, are promoting falsehoods, and deliberately obscuring or attempting to deflect attention from the basic issues under consideration.
    All of which is to say, at least some if not many of them are lying, knowingly. And encouraging others to do likewise.
    I would not expect all of the (R)’s to jump ship and withdraw their support from this president and his criminal pals and activities.
    I would expect some, even just a handful.
    I see none. I can’t think of this as anything other than craven cowardice.
    So it’s going to be scoundrel time here in the US, until some of these folks grow a spine and a sense of responsibility to something other than their own careers.
    Probably gonna be like this for a while. There is a lot of bile to be walked back. Decades of it.
    Trump is not going to be removed from office. But in the imaginary world where Trump was removed from office, people would be killed. Harmless normal innocent people would be killed, by enraged MAGAs who have been dreaming of the moment when they could go out and shoot some liberals for years, and now it’s arrived.
    Trump and the (R)’s in general fire up people’s resentment with claims that “coastal elitists” – people like me, people who make up communities I live in and participate in – “hate” the “regular Americans” who live somewhere other than near the Pacific or North Atlantic oceans.
    So now we are treated to spectacles like the dude who tells us “his .357 Magnum” is the reason that Trump will not be removed from office. And people like me need to factor that in as one of the risks of opposing this president.
    I’ve been listening to bullshit like this for as long as I’ve been talking to conservatives more or less daily, in an attempt to understand WTF is going through their heads. Which is basically since about ’02.
    If Trump is removed, some of these folks are going to shoot some people.
    And I say fnck it, do your worst.
    ITMFA and it will land wherever it lands. It’s time to stop coddling crooks liars and assholes.

  8. So it’s going to be scoundrel time here in the US, until some of these folks grow a spine and a sense of responsibility to something other than their own careers.
    Funnily enough, “scoundrel” is the word that has been running through my head for weeks when I fantasise about being stopped for a political voxpop. Boris Johnson has been fired from two jobs for lying, is an unprincipled scoundrel, and is probably still going to be PM in 24 hours. So russell’s remark applies to many of our politicians as well.
    Anybody not familiar with the West Lothian Question (as the anomalous position of English-only issues being decided in Westminster is called) will appreciate the Doc’s succinct exposition. I do think the English, and I suppose the Welsh, with their stubborn, nihilist pursuit of Brexit despite the warnings, are a pretty rum bunch. I guess both we (as well as the Americans) are just going to have to get used to the idea that half of our populations are stark, raving mad.

  10. The thing about Brexit which may be invisible from overseas is that the EU is an unlovable institution. A bit like the federal government in the USA, but with much less democratic accountability. And it’s generally tone deaf regarding British (perhaps I should say English) sensibilities.
    The UK pays a lot of money to the EU, and gets little tangible benefit for it – it’s the second largest net contributor after Germany. This is because the UK has a relatively large economy (so it pays a lot) with a relatively small and efficient agricultural sector (so it receives not much). So there’s a common perception that the EU is a mechanism by which we pay money to foreigners so that they can tell us what to do.
    I believe it’s very much in the UK’s economic interest to remain in the Single Market, and the point about the Irish border is spot on (but was hardly mentioned by the Remain campaign in the referendum). I’ve voted in the referendum and in general elections (including today’s) against Brexit. But I think it’s a mistake to dismiss Brexit as a nihilist project.

  11. Is not the lack of evidence that you’re talking about itself evidence of bias?
    This is actually not quite as barking mad as it seems initially. IF you understand the assumptions behind it.
    Assume that the bias exists. Then the fact that evidence of bias is lacking must be due to a deliberate effort to hide it. The assumption is flat wrong. But once you stipulate it, the rest follows relatively reasonably.
    It may be an interesting question whether Senator Lee is so adrift from reality that he personally believes the assumption. But he’s doubtless aware that his constituents believe it, and that’s the audience he’s playing to.

  12. “coastal elitists” – … – “hate” the “regular Americans”
    just for fun:
    Trump : NYC
    Rudy: NYC
    Barr: NYC
    Pompeo : Orange CA (aka LA)
    Manafort : CT
    Kellyanne Conway: Atco, NJ
    Hannity : NYC
    Maria Bartiromo: NYC
    Bill O’Reilly: NYC
    Coulter: NYC
    Pat Buchanan: DC
    Andrew Breitbart: LA
    Carlson : SF
    Ben Shapiro: LA
    Jonah Goldberg: NYC
    Limbaugh: FL
    Fox News HQ: NYC

  13. Even if you start with such priors, to call it ‘evidence’ is still barking.
    The UK pays a lot of money to the EU, and gets little tangible benefit for it…
    The UK derived substantial benefit from its membership, even in relation to its (relatively modest) financial contribution.
    The problem is more that those benefits are not particularly visible… until after they’re gone.

  14. Kellyanne Conway: Atco, NJ
    Atco is actually pretty damned podunk. Maybe a bit less so now, but when Kellyanne was growing up there, very much so. It’s borderline pine barrens. Still not Kansas, but also not remotely cosmopolitan.
    (Not that I take issue with your overall point, cleek. It’s just funny to me to see Atco on that list.)

  15. cleek, the people on your list may actually speak truth as far as they themselves are concerned, although ‘despise’ seems more likely to me. At least I see no signs of genuine sympathy for the ‘heartland’ people in these guys (all of them far too intelligent to believe their own BS and/or on (usually involuntary) record stating that it is BS and what they really think about the ‘regular’ Americans).

  16. the people on your list may actually speak truth as far as they themselves are concerned, although ‘despise’ seems more likely to me.
    Which would be in sync with the Trumpian fondness for accusing his opponents of things that are actually true of him.

  17. “Even if you start with such priors, to call it ‘evidence’ is still barking.”
    Saddam Hussein only had to give up his WMDs to prove that he didn’t have WMDs, also too.

  18. The problem is more that those benefits [i.e. from the EU] are not particularly visible… until after they’re gone.
    Yes. This reminds me of the beginning of Carole Cadwalladr’s TED talk (I think it was there) where she tells about going back to Wales to talk about the Brexit referendum, and her taxi passing through the rather disadvantaged town, with various public/community buildings which had plaques outside saying “Funded by the EU”, and getting to the hall where the Brexit debate was to take place, and various locals saying “the EU has done nothing for us”. Wales is of course (like many of the Leave voting places) a net beneficiary of EU funds.

  19. Wales is of course (like many of the Leave voting places) a net beneficiary of EU funds.
    Just as the parts of the US which are most opposed to the Federal government are typically recipients of far more Federal dollars than they pay in taxes. One wonders whether it’s a matter of carefully maintained ignorance or straight out hypocrisy.

  20. Just listened to the Fugue on Youtube titled “Boris Johnson is a Lying Shit”, and one of the comments below it, from someone called alexanderkoller says “This kind of thing is exactly why we on the Continent really really want the UK to stay in Europe.” One takes one’s small consolations where one can.

  21. Pro Bono,
    The undemocratic nature of the EU is, in fact, more of a memory than the current situation. The Union can no longer make legislation or form a budget without the approval of the Parliament, which is a democratic body. The Parliament also can force the Commission to resign – and has done this.
    The only areas where the Parliament cannot legislate are those that are reserved for unanimous decision making by member states, e.g. taxation. Most of those exist because the British have wanted it so, so having a Briton complaining about those is hypocritical.
    Considenring that the European Parliament has multi-member constituencies with proportional representation, and that there is, indeed very little gerrymandering (just look at the map), the European Parliament is actually a very democratic institution.
    In fact, I would say that the two chambers, the Council and the Parliament, represent the European people better than the US House and Senate represent the American people or the Commons and the Lords represent the British. The great benefit of the Council is the dact that its members have votes that relate to the size of their countries.

  22. wj, I think it’s mostly ignorance. Most Americans “know” many more false things about economics than true ones.

  23. wj, I think it’s mostly ignorance. Most Americans “know” many more false things about economics than true ones.
    When discussing economics, you go with the facts you want, not the facts you have, because somebody somewhere at some time will provide them.

  24. Absolutely terrible exit poll, Tory majority of 86. Even if it’s slightly off, this is appalling. Fucking Jeremy Corbyn.

  31. Labour officially (John McDonnell, the shadow Chancellor) blaming it on Brexit, but tons of evidence coming in from Labour MPs and canvassers that on the doorstep, Corbyn was just as big a problem, if not bigger.

  32. Well that is the end of Corbyn if the exit poll is correct.
    I have to wonder. It was obvious that Corbyn was going to be a major impediment to Labour success in the election. So why didn’t Labour get themselves a different leader before the election? Was the devotion to ideological purity really that strong?

  33. From the point of view of you guys, I just hope there’s no correspondence between Corbyn and Sanders (or even Warren)….

  34. Yes, I think this is very probably the end of the union.
    So where does that leave the Northern Irish “unionists”? If there is no union to be a part of…? Hard to insist on being British if there is no Britain, just England.
    Also, what Dr S said. Really sorry, guys.

  35. So why didn’t Labour get themselves a different leader before the election?
    I believe there’s no good mechanism for doing so. Not to mention, the Corbynistas and their Momentum group moved fast to start taking over the local (and national) Labour organisations. Some people say the left has always been more interested in taking over the party, than in winning the country.

  36. When I said the end of the union, I meant the union with Scotland. Although I guess BoJo’s deal makes the eventual unification of Ireland more likely as well.

  39. So why didn’t Labour get themselves a different leader before the election? Was the devotion to ideological purity really that strong?
    Amongst the membership ? Probably still is.
    Corbyn will go – but his wing of the party could well produce the next leader.
    Don’t think so, Charles. A Johnson Brexit will very likely produce a majority for Scottish independence, in which case a second referendum (while denied and delayed by the Conservative government) will happen at some point.
    And a second Trump term would not greatly more malign than ‘muddling on’.

  40. the European Parliament is actually a very democratic institution.
    So when did I get to express an opinion on Charles Michel as President of the European Council, or Ursula von der Leyen as President of the European Commission?
    If I favour smaller agricultural subsidies, how should I vote in European elections?
    The EU is formally democratic, but in practice there’s no way for me to vote for what I want.

  41. Long time lurker, first time commenter. The soundtrack to today’s UK vote is Liverpool by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. “She should buy us all a drink.”

  42. This is a pretty acerbic take down of both Johnson and Corbyn, but mostly aims the ire a Jeremy.
    One thing that continues to astound me is the right will hold their nose and vote “for the good of the team”, but the “left”, broadly construed, cannot bring itself to do so.
    etc., etc.
    All we get are circular firing squads…
    Nader cost Gore the presidency.
    Hillary used the DNC to sabotage Sanders.
    We have to tack to the center to maintain the majority.
    Both parties are the same, so vote for an idiot like Jill Stein.
    Johnson is an utter prick who will institute disastrous policies that will KILL THE POOR…but poor Jeremy is kinda’ wimpy, so I’ll vote Liberal.
    This is suicide politics. If the Left is to ever gain the upper hand, we have to get our effing act together.
    You want to take Corbyn out? You should have joined Labor in droves two years ago and taken him off the board. But when he’s against a total asshole like Johnson? Time to bail.
    I utterly disagree. It is a form of purity politics that I have deep qualms about. Not saying it is easy. Never is.
    But this will not end well for the British Isles.
    My intervention with the British election is now over. Thanks.

  43. I joined the Labour Party a couple of years ago with the sole purpose of voting Corbyn out. It didn’t work.
    Reminds me of the very famous British journalist applying for a US visa many years ago, who answered the asinine question on the application “Do you plan to overthrow the government of the USA by force?” with the perfect “sole purpose of visit”.
    Gallows humour, y’all. Good night.

  44. answered the asinine question on the application “Do you plan to overthrow the government of the USA by force?” with the perfect “sole purpose of visit”.
    Brilliantly played.
    A disgruntled American would fill the 8 square inch reply box with a 1,000 word screed about Our Sacred Liberties and Precious Bodily Fluids. Most likely in all caps. Your guy got it done in four words. And got a laugh out of it.
    You all are so much better at that sort of thing than we are. I am in awe.
    Gallows humour, y’all.
    we’ll take what we can get.
    🙂

  46. Pro Bono,
    You and I gave our opinion on von der Leyen and Michel via our representatives. Our democratically-elected national governments made the choice in the Council, and the Parliament ratified the choice on 27th November, after forcing the change of three commissioners.

  47. I joined the Labour Party a couple of years ago with the sole purpose of voting Corbyn out. It didn’t work.
    Stay. Fight.
    A terrible blow GFTNC, my deepest sympathies and ongoing support.
    U2 nigel.

  48. You and I gave our opinion on von der Leyen and Michel via our representatives….
    I understand how it works, I’m telling you how it looks when the latest panjandrum is appointed to rule over us.
    I suppose this doesn’t matter very much in countries which benefit from EU largesse, or in Germany which benefits from a massive trade surplus with the rest of the EU. But it makes it hard to promote the EU to voters in the UK.

  49. ….Germany which benefits from a massive trade surplus..
    Given the German proclivity for austerity, this is a big problem with the EU. There are no offsetting spending programs to offset this imbalance.

  50. My condolences to our British commenters (and lurkers, I suppose). It’s a scary thought that we might be in your shoes in a little less than a year from now.

  52. U2 nigel
    Cheers, bobby.
    (Though stay & fight does not apply to me, as I have never been Labour – rather a pluralist who doesn’t really belong in a party.)
    This twitter thread seems like a reasonable critique of Labour as led by Corbyn:
    https://twitter.com/RussInCheshire/status/1205249029887709184
    With the benefit of hindsight, I do wonder if Corbyn considers the possibility that if he’d voted for May’s Brexit withdrawal agreement, he could have sat back and watched the then minority Conservative government tear itself apart as it had then to manage the process….
    And as for the centre in British politics… there isn’t much of it left for now.

  53. I am gobsmacked that UK leaders and Brexit voters don’t realize that the free, open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic is a bloody big deal that keeps Ireland (and the UK!) from going back to the status quo ante, which was just bloody…
    It might be more that they don’t greatly care ?
    I’m seeing a lot of claims (including from Varadkar) that Johnson is a liberal pragmatist by instinct, and a deal will be done which avoids unpleasantnesses… we’ll see.
    I don’t think Johnson has much in the way of fixed principles, moral or otherwise, so I guess anything is possible. What that anything might be, I can’t for now predict.

  54. Putin is having a good year
    Yup. Several good years.
    Yes, thanks bobbyp, but just to confirm, like Nigel I was never proper Labour, I only joined for a year to try to get Corbyn out because I foresaw that his continued leadership would guarantee years more of Tory rule.
    I’ve been half-heartedly proposing the theory that Nigel lays out in his penultimate paragraph at 10.09 referring to Varadkar, but since I also agree with Nigel’s final paragraph I’m not holding my breath.

  55. Working-class revolt against the left?
    “‘The British election results, like any election result, is the result of unique circumstances and multiple factors,’ suggests Jonathan Chait at Intelligencer. ‘It is also, however, a test of a widely articulated political theory that has important implications for American politics. That theory holds that Corbyn’s populist left-wing platform is both necessary and sufficient in order to defeat the rising nationalist right. Corbyn’s crushing defeat is a decisive refutation.'”
    U.K. Election: Brexit Wins, Jeremy Corbyn Crashes

  57. since the US and UK are identical in every way, i see no reason why this refutation should be challenged.
    Happily for us, none of the major Democratic contenders, even Sanders, is anything like the electability disaster Corbyn is. Not that the Democrats can’t manage to lose next fall. But at least a win is far from impossible, no matter who they nominate. (Gabbard might make losing easiest. But even she would have a better shot than Corbyn.)
    Nonetheless, the fact that the furthest left candidates keep failing to win even the Democratic nomination is a bit of a clue. Anyone demanding a local “decisive refutation” might want to explain that first.

  58. “left” in the US translates to “moderate conservative” in virtually every other developed nation. As well as to the US ca. mid 20th C.
    I’m not sure if the comparisons are apt.
    All of that said, I give Trump even odds in 2020. He’s already tuning up for a shot at a third term, because everybody has been so mean and unfair to him in his first.
    None of this will end well.

  59. “left” in the US translates to “moderate conservative” in virtually every other developed nation. As well as to the US ca. mid 20th C.
    Which is why I carefully said “furthest left”, rather than just “left” or “far left”.
    I agree that this doesn’t end well. But I’m hoping for “not as horrible as it might well have been.”

  60. Which is why I carefully said “furthest left”, rather than just “left” or “far left”.
    Yes, sorry wj, my comment was a response to Charles’ link rather than to you comment immediate previous to mine.
    I would actually say that my comment applies to our domestic “furthest left”, e.g. Warren and Sanders. But agreed that they are to the left of what most Americans appear to find palatable.

  62. I would actually say that my comment applies to our domestic “furthest left”, e.g. Warren and Sanders. But agreed that they are to the left of what most Americans appear to find palatable.
    This. As I’ve made clear, I’m very keen on Warren, while obviously having something approaching contempt for Corbyn. But this has shaken me badly; if any considerable proportion of the US electorate sees someone like Warren as so far left, I really wonder how sound a choice she would be in the era of Trump. However, pace sapient, if nominated she would be an awful lot better (for every possible reason) than even the most delectable of jamon iberico sandwiches. And, if it’s at all relevant (hard to tell if it is) she is very impressive and inspiring compared to Corbyn.

  63. Separation of powers, (R) style.
    If a “kangaroo court” is one where a guilty verdict is pre-ordained, what is the term where an acquittal is pre-ordained?

  65. Pro Bono,
    you are moving goal posts. I described the actual methods that are used by European legislation and for the appointment of the Commission. Now you are complaining that the process does not look as democratic as you wish.
    In democracies with proportional representation, such as the EU, you must acknowledge that any vote you give is for a person and for a party: you vote for a person and for a party that you want to entrust the actual political governance to. We know that any government is likely to be a coalition, so all political positions are, by default, negotiable. You simply vote for someone you believe to negotiate well and in good faith.
    The choice of von der Leyen as the president of the Commission is a result of very complicated negotiation process, but everyone involved had a democratic mandate. That is how democracy works: you elect politicians to make complex and, sometimes, shady deals for you.
    And for your practical question: I don’t know the British political map well enough to tell you who in your constituency would be opposing agricultural subsidies. As Britain does not get them, nor pay for them, I don’t think it should be very high on the priorities list of British MEPs anyhow.

  68. The UK pays a lot of money to the EU, and gets little tangible benefit for it
    Wait until the City looses passporting… ouch!
    GFTNC
    I really don’t get your deep seated Corbyn aversion. He wasn’t my preferred Labour leader either and I didn’t vote for him because of his Brexit stance. But his policies have actually been pretty reasonable and he’s by all accounts a decent man.
    Could you elaborate maybe – I’m genuinely interested, don’t want a fight.

  69. Wait until the City looses passporting… ouch!
    Not to mention wait until the UK’s biggest export market becomes far harder to sell to. Ouch and then some! Because I somehow don’t see the EU being willing to bend over backwards to make particularly favorable trade deals with the UK after this fiasco.

  70. novakant,
    What is your take on the accusations of antisemitism against Corbyn, and other Labourites?
    From my perspective as an American Jew they don’t seem baseless. He does seem, at a minimum, to be quite willing to countenance antisemitism in his associates.

  71. novakant:
    1. I thought immediately that he was unelectable, and this rendered prolonged Tory rule pretty much inevitable (this did not make me despise him).
    2. I do not think he is actually personally antisemitic, but if that is right he is astonishingly stupid to have defended that mural, which was clearly full of openly anti-semitic tropes if you looked at it for 3 seconds or more. I am unkeen on very stupid party leaders.
    3. During the run-up to the Brexit referendum, he sabotaged the Labour part of the Remain campaign. Alan Johnson was leading the campaign for Labour, and said he couldn’t even get Corbyn to OK the press releases. No wonder such a high proportion of polled Labour voters said they had no idea what Labour’s official stance on Brexit was. Corbyn refused to sit on a stage with the other living Labour leaders (Kinnock, Blair and Brown) because he wouldn’t share a platform with Blair (although he has shared platforms with Hamas and Hezbollah – see also point 2). When they tried to accommodate him by arranging for there to be a televised split screen with Kinnock on stage in Wales, Blair on stage in Northern Ireland and Brown on stage in Scotland, with Corbyn on stage in England, he refused. All of this made me have utter contempt for him.
    4. His ongoing failure to apologise and deal with at least the perceived (and maybe actual) anti-semitism in the Labour Party was clearly deeply damaging to the party, and his ongoing, repeat statements about it amazingly self-righteous.
    5. His policies are perceived as so prehistoric that even ex-mining communities in the north turned against him (see my point 1). Although the post-election Labour talking points said their loss was all about Brexit, everybody out talking to voters say Corbyn, personally, was constantly brought up as the main problem. All the lefties I know say this is mainly because of a huge campaign of misinformation aimed at him, but although I am sure there was plenty of that, I think it was knocking at an open door.
    6. He came across as weak, petulant and (again) self-righteous. Even the lefties I know admit this.
    I’m sure there’s plenty more, but even itemising all this makes me angry all over again. I’m stopping here. Each to his own.

  72. I’m tired, so briefly, what GFTNC said.
    I’ll add to that (re the ‘reasonable’ policies), to govern is to choose.
    Labour’s manifesto had a huge number of spending commitments, ALL of which were priorities. Listening to a host of post election vox pops from formerly Labour constituencies, it was extremely clear that his promises simply weren’t believed by very many previously Labour voters.
    One could make exactly the same point about Brexit – he has spent the last three years declining to take a stand one way or the other.
    For a detailed harangue from a Labour perspective, read the twitter thread I posted a link to above.

  73. Corbyn. My personal perspective is that he’s just not very bright.
    Anti-semitism: he’s not personally anti-semitic. But he is utterly deaf to the difference between anti-zionism, which is a rational perspective, and anti-semitism in the guise of anti-zionism, which is simply racist.
    The Labour party produced a detailed document (the ‘grey book’) costing its extravagant promises. Then, apparently as an afterthought, it promised an extra £58bn, which is a lot of money for the UK, to reverse the advancement of pensionable age for women, most of which had been been in the pipeline for 25 years as an entirely justified equalisation of the pensionable age of men and women. Which gave me and others the impression that it didn’t actually care about what things cost.

  74. Lurker: I’ve not explained myself clearly. Having ranted at the British electorate for its stupidity, and at the Labour Party for its self-indulgence in backing Corbyn, I’m now having a go at the EU for its indifference to British sensibilities.
    How do the Eurocrats think they look to the UK? What have they done to explain themselves here? The answer seems to be that they don’t care, and they’ve done nothing. How am I supposed to justify the EU when the EU itself seems not to care about how it looks?
    Should California secede from the USA? I don’t have a view on that. But I do know that the Federal government at least pretends to care what Californians think. What has the EU government done to make the UK electorate think that it cares?

  75. I do know that the Federal government at least pretends to care what Californians think.
    The current administration? Not so’s you’d notice. At least this Californian sees no signs of it.

  76. I am gobsmacked that UK leaders and Brexit voters don’t realize that the free, open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic is a bloody big deal…
    Please correct me if I’m wrong. Assuming that Brexit now means Parliament approving Johnson’s deal, the EU has signed off that the terms of that deal keep the Irish border open in conformance to the Good Friday Agreement. There’s still a backstop, but this time it keeps NI in the EU single market and customs union and puts the hard border between NI and the rest of the UK.

  78. We would have won more if it hadn’t been for those divisive Lib Dems and Greens….
    I’m not really sure of the point of this comment, as the author goes on to recognise that it’s futile to expect your opponents not to stand against you in a democracy.
    As for ‘divisive’…. The Labour left has a curious attitude towards others on the left. They are excoriated as traitors, as ‘red Tories’, or ‘not really Labour’, or a hundred other insults.
    Every effort is made to drive them out of any position of influence, and their resulting departures celebrated.
    They then complain about the electoral consequences of such ideological exclusivity.

  79. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
    You’re not, Michael.
    But in practical terms, it is a considerably inferior arrangement to EU membership for the people of NI, and it’s possible that the anger of Unionists at the creation of an Irish Sea border will have consequences.
    It might well go on to lead to the reunification of Ireland – a process which might be messy (notable that Unionists lost seats in this week’s election).

  81. It’s remarkable that the Conservative and Unionist Party should have created a customs border between Britain and Northern Ireland, and a grave breach of their promises. Unionists in Northern Ireland are deeply unhappy.
    However, I see a promising economic future for Northern Ireland as a sort of entrepot between Britain and the EU. Perhaps if the money starts to flow the border arrangements will seem less problematic.

  85. I realise on re-reading my itemised reply to novakant how incoherent and clumsy it was; it just poured out of me in an exhausted stream. And I’m still too disgusted to go into much now. But on the subject of Donald’s second twitter thread, I stopped when I got to this:
    The real charge against Corbyn is that he fundamentally believes that British/white lives are of equal value with the lives of others.
    I don’t doubt that Corbyn is a reasonably decent, egalitarian, anti-racist person. But this kind of accusation is purely to give comfort to those who were unwise enough to back him, and still want to tar his detractors as racists and elitists. Alan Johnson, an impeccably working-class politician (extremely deprived childhood, ex-postman) was closer to the mark when he said on ITV on election night, sitting next to Jon Lansman (the founder of Momentum) “The working classes have always been a big disappointment for Jon, and his cult. Corbyn was a disaster on the doorstep. Everyone knew that he couldn’t lead the working class out of a paper bag.”

  86. They then complain about the electoral consequences of such ideological exclusivity.
    The disdain goes both ways.
    I am reminded of the endless debates after the 2000 election where the “center” and “center-left” Democrats excoriated Nader voters in Florida for handing the presidency to George W. Bush, who turned out to be a fucking disaster.
    (I have come around to that opinion. The argument is essentially correct.)
    “You have nowhere else to go”, the Center shouted.
    There was similar bile from both sides of the Dem coalition after the 2016 election as well.
    (I voted for Clinton without hesitation despite my opinion she was a deeply flawed candidate who held some opinions that I vigorously detested).
    Now here we are with the shoe on the other foot, and a similar tragic and terrible outcome.
    The point of politics to take power and use it. An ineffectual hapless government under Corbyn is to be preferred over a Tory Johnson government anytime, anywhere. The logic of this is clear….hold your nose and vote Labor.
    In my uninformed opinion the Labor (remain) center left has made a huge political miscalculation.

  87. Apologies for leaving the “u” out of Labour.
    I am an old geezer, and I remember well the “working class” hanging George McGovern out to dry in 1972.
    I have never forgotten it, but I’ve tried (and mostly succeeded) to forgive it.
    When they say politics makes for strange bedfellows, take it to heart.
    Thanks.

  88. In my uninformed opinion the Labor (remain) center left has made a huge political miscalculation.
    I think the Labour (remain) centre largely held their noses and voted Labour, as I would have if I lived in a Tory/Labour marginal. If you are talking about their rearguard actions in the House to stymie Brexit, you are probably right, but how far back do we go in tracing causes and effects? In my opinion the necessity for those actions was a direct consequence of Corbyn’s pathetic fence-sitting before the referendum. Both then and before this election that inspired so much distrust and contempt (among both leavers and remainers!) that it affected (to an extent of which we cannot be certain) the result of both the referendum and the election. Woe is the day that a leader was chosen who could not even beat BoJo, even after 10 years of austerity.

  89. In my opinion the necessity for those actions was a direct consequence of Corbyn’s pathetic fence-sitting before the referendum.
    Points taken and well said as always GFTNC, but just which way was Corbyn supposed to jump prior to the Brexit vote?
    A strong position either way would be a slap at a significant portion of the Labour electorate, correct? That would necessitate him finding a way to bring in new voters….given his many flaws as a politician, that was something he is simply incapable of as you have so eloquently stated.

  90. from Donald’s “commie view” link:

    Labour was weak in its historic heartlands, where it had been losing ground for decades. New Labour had done nothing to stop the erosion-tending-toward collapse of local industry, trade unions, employment and incomes.

    This does, I think, translate to the American context.
    We have very low unemployment, but we also have oxy addiction and people using social media fundraising to pay for medical care and funeral expenses. I get several medical Kickstarters every week. I think there are 3 or 4 on my FB feed right now.
    Can you please help us care for our friend while she dies?
    Can you please help this family that is getting kicked out of a homeless shelter because their kid acts out, and now they have to live in their car, in MA, in December?
    People are just beginning to dig themselves out of the freaking catastrophe of 2008, and so they think they’re rich again. But nobody has money put away to retire on. People have to hit their credit cards if they need anything that costs more than a couple of hundred dollars. If you have a minute, go look at historical figures for household debt in the US.
    I vastly prefer the (D)’s to the (R)’s, but I don’t think anybody has a grasp of how to fix this stuff. I don’t hear a credible story from anyone that lays out anything like a strategy to get us to a place where tens of millions of people living in a fantastically wealthy society don’t have to live in constant, daily anxiety about their future. I’m not talking pie in the sky stuff, I’m talking about basic, workaday stuff.
    A place to live, food to eat, a way to get around, useful and meaningful work. Somebody getting their back if they get sick or their lives turn to shit in one or another of the 1,000 ways that that can happen, to anyone.
    We have more fucking money than god, and people still worry about stuff like that. Tens of millions of people. You know some of them.
    This is making the rounds on social media and elsewhere. It’s on Medium, probably a paywall, but I think you can sign in for free long enough to read the piece. It is, IMO, worth the read. Dramatic language, but I defy anybody to argue against the substance.
    Stock markets are roaring, tax cuts, business friendly policies. So it’s all good, right? Meanwhile people are offing themselves with Oxy and hitting up their friends on social media to pay for their palliative care while they die.
    We’ve fallen and we can’t quite get up, y’all. Sh*t is broken. I support and respect the traditional labor movement, but capital appears to have done an end run around the levers they used to be able to bring to bear. Factory floor is now the gig economy, and it ain’t going back.
    We need new remedies.

  91. And, because the (R)’s have nothing to offer a nation in pain but tax cuts and deregulation and “business friendly” policies, this is what they do to win.
    They say they “speak for the people”, but they don’t want people to vote.
    Cowards and moral and intellectual bankrupts.

  94. just which way was Corbyn supposed to jump prior to the Brexit vote?
    A strong position either way would be a slap at a significant portion of the Labour electorate, correct?
    Sometimes, even if you are a politician, you have to do what’s best for the country and try to lead. If you can’t explain and persuade, you may pay a price. But if you aren’t willing to do it, don’t expect anyone to see you as a leader.

  95. Jabba-Bonk is already signaling that there will be another huge corporate tax cut after his re-election.
    You have to wonder, once corporate taxes hit zero, and everybody who’s rich has incorporated themselves to take advantage, what will they do for an electoral platform?

  96. just which way was Corbyn supposed to jump prior to the Brexit vote?
    A strong position either way would be a slap at a significant portion of the Labour electorate, correct? That would necessitate him finding a way to bring in new voters….given his many flaws as a politician, that was something he is simply incapable of as you have so eloquently stated.
    If the Labour leadership had come out strongly and unambiguously for remain before the referendum, instead of sabotaging Alan Johnson’s attempts, there is a chance they could have made inroads into EU- hatred among the working class in Labour’s northern heartland. After all, many of the worker protections etc that the UK enjoys are a result of EU legislation, and anybody who thinks a Tory government will equal such protections after Brexit is misguided. The anti-EU rhetoric which has flourished in this country for decades (interestingly much of it as a result of BoJo exaggerations and half-truths when he was a Telegraph columnist stoking anti-EU sentiment for the laughs and the circulation) could be countered, at least to some extent, by proper targeted information if the whole party had been pulling together. And if Labour had come out strongly for remain, even if it didn’t affect the result of the referendum, they would have stymied the SNP to some extent in this election, and Plaid Cymru, probably have won some Lib Dem seats too, and given themselves more credibility when arguing for the NHS (which has been haemorrhaging foreign staff since the referendum) and against the Trump relationship. Labour could not have been strongly pro-leave before the referendum: almost the whole PLP was for remain, and a majority of the membership. Jeremy Corbyn et als’ long history of anti-EU feeling was what dictated the fence-sitting, which was what led to such distrust and mockery. Even people who agreed with him and Labour about other policies were disgusted by the dishonesty of their Brexit policies, which (along with the anti-semitism stuff) led several longtime Labour voters of my acquaintance to desert.

  97. You have to wonder, once corporate taxes hit zero, and everybody who’s rich has incorporated themselves to take advantage, what will they do for an electoral platform?
    Negative tax rates.
    Under Bush the Lesser at least one corporation (Bechtel?) got a 100 million dollar tax rebate after not paying ANY corporate taxes for seven straight years.
    Job creators have to be incentivized (even if or maybe even especially when their job creation is actually negative).

  98. Sometimes, even if you are a politician, you have to do what’s best for the country and try to lead.
    Politicians rarely lead. They generally seek to jump into the head of the parade. Counterexamples are few and far between. I can think of only two:
    1. FDR staking out a strong position for taking sides in the fight against fascism, 1939-1941.
    2. LBJ beating civil rights legislation through a Congress where southern segregationist still held great sway.
    However, even these have to be viewed in their historical contexts. There were other reasons why these two could effectively lead.

  100. Jabba-Bonk is already signaling that there will be another huge corporate tax cut after his re-election.
    Corporate taxes are largely an exercise in futility making up only about 6% of federal revenue. They’re just another business expense to the corporations and ultimately come out of some individual’s pocket. The pockets of the corporations’ employees, shareholders, and the consumers of its products and services. The taxes make the corporations less competitive with foreign corporations who enjoy lower tax rates. And encourages corporations to relocate to those countries with the lower tax rates.
    Perhaps the greatest return on corporate taxes is the satisfaction some people get from sticking it to the man.

  101. What GFTNC said.
    To make the point again, to govern is to choose. If you can’t do that, you’re abdicating leadership before you begin.
    The real charge against Corbyn is that he fundamentally believes that British/white lives are of equal value with the lives of others.
    That’s one way of framing it. The traditional Labour voter might consider that Corbyn just wasn’t that interested in representing them.

  102. I’ll trade you 0% corporate tax in exchange for no distinction in tax rates between earned and un-earned income.
    Deal?

  103. Is there any hope?
    doesn’t seem like the US left wants to hope. seems like they suddenly want to give up.
    that’s not a great way to win.

  104. I’ll trade you 0% corporate tax in exchange for no distinction in tax rates between earned and un-earned income.
    Deal?
    Nope.
    I just can’t see any reason for taxing un-earned income at a lower rate, regardless of the corporate tax rate. But if you want to charge different rates for earned and un-earned income, I think there’s a far stronger case for charging un-earned income at a higher rate than there is for our current practice.

  105. seems like they suddenly want to give up.
    Who are “they”, and what evidence can you provide to us backing this assertion up?

  106. The traditional Labour voter might consider that Corbyn just wasn’t that interested in representing them.
    Well, OK. So give me an example of what he could have said to allay this opinion?
    I am reminded of the back and forth at LGM (and elsewhere) with lefty types asserting that only if Obama would have forcefully led that we would have gotten the public option. They disparaged this as the “Green Lantern” version of politics. After a good deal of consideration, I think Lemieux, et. al make a good case.
    It is somewhat disconcerting to now see more moderate types invoking Green Lanternism.
    Maybe we need a political version of vaccination.
    😊

  107. Who are “they”,
    i refer you to the sentence before the one you quoted … ?
    and what evidence can you provide to us backing this assertion up?
    really, it’s everywhere. i’ve read more “Oh noes! Trump is going to win because nobody cares, and the economy, and the Senate, and nobody sees how great %%MY_PREFERRED_CANDIDATE%% really is!” comments in the past week than i can count. and i’m not alone in noticing it:
    Michelle Goldberg noticed it:
    http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/12/democracy-grief
    Drum:
    https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/12/america-in-2020-will-probably-rhyme-with-britain-in-2019/
    and of course there are countless pieces about how the UK result means the left is done in the US too.

  108. I realise that although everything I said about the pre-referendum situation was true (i.e. that Labour couldn’t support leave), nonetheless they could have said for this election: OK, we supported remain, but in recognition of democratic imperatives we have now to support leave, but on better terms than the Tories have achieved, to protect the NHS etc. (Of course they tried some variant of this, but in their continuing fence-sitting, wishy washy mode). I wouldn’t have been happy, of course, but it might have preserved the “red wall”. What stopped this really working was their inability to show they had really supported remain before the referendum.

  109. I think there’s a far stronger case for charging un-earned income at a higher rate than there is for our current practice.
    But, if you use earned income to invest, taxes on income from those investments is, in effect, a double tax.

  111. and then if you buy something from that corp and pay sales tax, it’s a quadruple tax. but the money goes back to the corporation and then enters the tax cycle again. so, it’s really an infinite tax.
    the only way to win is to not play.

  112. taxes on income from those investments is, in effect, a double tax.
    If I earn $100, pay $30 in income tax, spend $50 of the remaining $70, invest the remaining $20, and make $1 on the $20, I will pay tax on the $1. Not on the original $20.
    Unless I’m missing something, which is possible.

  113. so, it’s really an infinite tax.
    It’s amazing that there’s any money left at all!! How ever do we survive?

  114. If the Labour leadership had come out strongly and unambiguously for remain before the referendum…
    Would have needed a different leadership.

  115. If I earn $100, pay $30 in income tax, spend $50 of the remaining $70, invest the remaining $20, and make $1 on the $20, I will pay tax on the $1. Not on the original $20.
    Unless I’m missing something, which is possible.
    You are not missing anything.
    The double tax argument is usually applied to dividends, since corporations pay them out of after-tax income. But this is not much of an argument. The corporation is not the shareholder. They are two different taxpayers. If I pay a plumber to do some work at my condo, that’s money I’ve already paid tax on, but the plumber still has to pay tax on it too.
    Besides, all sorts of things are “double taxes.” Payroll taxes are calculated on gross income, for example, and sales taxes are also paid with money that has already been taxed.

  116. The way I see it, money I pay in taxes is money that gets spent on something. Maybe that “something” benefits me directly, maybe it doesn’t. Most likely some does and some doesn’t.
    But it isn’t like taking a pile of money and setting it on fire, taxes I pay turn into income for somebody else. And at least some of the taxes that person pays turns into something I end up using, or depending on what I do for living perhaps even income to me, directly.
    We’re all just passing money around to each other. And the money that gets passed around is just a token of value that each of us turn into tangible things that we need. In the process of turning money into something I need, the money becomes income to somebody else.
    There’s “waste” along the way in the form of inefficiency, but that usually ends up paying for something somebody somewhere needs, too. And inefficiency of that sort is basically baked into the human condition, to some degree. We shouldn’t be stupid or careless or reckless, but you have to let the small stuff go or you’ll go nuts.
    The issue is whether the money we pay in taxes is paying for stuff we actually want to pay for. And, for pretty much everybody, some is and some isn’t. And that’s the price we pay for living in a community big enough to contain different points of view.
    My personal tax burden doesn’t deprive me of anything I need or even especially want, and the various governments I pay taxes to generally do things I find useful. Other stuff, too, stuff I think is wasteful or that I simply would prefer not contributing to, but from my point of view it’s far from a dead loss. So I just don’t worry about it all that much. I mean, I pay attention, but I don’t sit around resenting every dollar I don’t have for my own personal use because it went to one tax or another.
    We’re all swimming in a great big river of money. IMO it’s better – it does more good to me, and to everybody else – to let it flow and not to just bury it in a coffee can out in the backyard.
    My opinion.

  118. For what it’s worth, (and obviously I agree with every fucking word), the following is from a piece in Friday’s Guardian by Polly Toynbee, headlined “Devoid of agility, charisma and credibility, Corbyn has led Britain into the abyss”:
    Given the worst choice in history, the public preferred him to his opponent. How bad did Labour have to be to let this sociopathic, narcissistic, glutton for power beat them? That’s the soul-searching question every Labour member, office-holder and MP has to ask.
    Labour was disastrously, catastrophically bad, an agony to behold. A coterie of Corbynites cared more about gripping power within the party than saving the country by winning the election. The national executive committee, a slate of nodding Corbynite place-persons, disgraced the party with its sectarian decisions. Once it was plain in every poll and focus group that Corbynism was electoral arsenic, they should have propelled him out, but electoral victory was secondary.

  119. I also recommend from yesterday’s Guardian the peerless Marina Hyde’s “This was a stunning victory for the bullshit-industrial complex”. Everything she writes is so witty and perfect that it’s hard to pick quotes, but from her first paragraph:
    Well. A new dawn has shat, has it not? Shortly after 7am, Boris Johnson slipped into the costume Dominic Cummings has been sewing for him out of the skins of missing statesmen. “I am humbled that you have put your trust in me,” announced the nation’s foremost liar in front of a backdrop reading “the people’s government”, as though this ideally axiomatic concept was an innovation.

  121. There’s “waste” along the way in the form of inefficiency, but that usually ends up paying for something somebody somewhere needs, too. And inefficiency of that sort is basically baked into the human condition, to some degree.
    Especially when one considers the inefficiency involved in non-governmental organizations. (And anybody who claims that private businesses are marvels of efficiency hasn’t worked in one!) Some are better than others; some are more efficient than government . . . but others are even less efficient.

  122. Well, novakant, this sneering description of David Milliband (an impressive politician, whether one supports him or not, and whatever you think of New Labour they did actually win three successive elections and brought in many of the policies that the left howled about being cut during the austerity years) from your link shows something about “old Labour’s” capacity for myopia:
    This tribune of the Tyneside proletariat now works 3,000 miles away at a New York-based charity that in 2017 reportedly paid him £680,000.

  123. Q: Is there any hope? (asked more for rhetorical effect…..I had hoped…alas to apparently no avail).
    R: “doesn’t seem like the US left wants to hope. seems like they suddenly want to give up.”
    Q: Who are “they”?
    R: The “US left”
    Q: “what evidence can you provide to us backing this assertion up?”
    R: A column by Michelle Goldberg who laments her “democracy grief” and claims “many liberals” are retreating into some kind of “self-protective” cynicism conceding a Trump victory in 2020. What liberal does she cite: None…. other than a NeverTrump conservative. Yep, many. Furthermore, I’m not quite seeing how a lament of the possible pending loss of democracy is “giving up”, but whatever.
    Then a blog entry by K. Drum is cited, where he claims there are lessons to be learned from the British election despite the recent “bullying” by those asserting the lessons, if any, to be learned from that election are small to none (citation omitted). So don’t go too far left, kiddies, because bad things happen. This is an arguable point, but I’m not seeing anything here about “giving up hope.”
    So, cleek, I remain a bit confused.
    Conceding a Trump acquittal in the forthcoming Senate trial is not “giving up”. Even so, the House could (if they had the political will) just impeach him on something else. I’d say there’s lots to choose from.
    Never give in.

  124. Especially when one considers the inefficiency involved in non-governmental organizations.
    It’s as if they have never guffawed over a Dilbert comic strip (created by one the world’s few funny libertarians).

  125. Never give in.
    Absolutely. I do think people are in a state of depression right now, and cleek is right in believing that we all need to buck up.
    The thing is, we need to do more than one thing:
    1) The 2020 elections are going to be influenced by the usual money interests, by foreign influence, and by structural factors. We need to be aware of those things. That means picking the candidate whose policies we prefer in the primaries, but letting that go and supporting whoever wins in the general. (One exception: Gabbard, the Putin candidate).
    2) We need to work hard to defeat R’s at all levels in 2020. We made it happen in Virginia, folks!
    3) We need to start planning what to do if Trump wins reelection. We also need to plan what to do if the Supreme Court votes in favor of Trump on the finance issues. We have states which are capable of obstructing the Trump agenda. We should support all of their efforts to do so.
    4) Other than the election, we need to focus on obstructing the new R infrastructure. For example: refugee internment camps: we have to show up constantly and make good trouble. We have to resist private prisons. Anyone have them in their stock portfolio? Do something else.
    5) Get your money out of the stock market, people! Put it elsewhere. The economy is going to go bust. Protect yourself. (Was I a prepper? No. Am I a prepper now? Not really, but thinking that it’s not a bad idea.)
    6) I’ve been thinking about getting firearms training. I’m not interested in owning a gun, and really don’t want to support the weapons industry. But…. I actually think that some blue-state arsenals should be established, where people can train at reasonable intervals, get qualified to check out guns, and be ready if things turn weird.
    Add to this, People! We need to figure out what to do.

  126. Regarding No. 5 of my previous rant:
    I have long been a believer in the stability of American business, and its relative lack of corruption. (Okay, “relative” .)
    No more. There’s no way that American businesses won’t be anything but corrupt if Trumpism remains pre-eminent.
    Obviously, in my list, if we can get rid of Trumpism, and begin restoring normalcy, go right ahead – the stock market’s century-long record is the best place to put your retirement money.
    If not, anything goes. And even if the stock market continues to do well under Trump, do you want to be contributing to the businesses that support his economy? Put your money in your home equity or something instead.

  127. Add to this, People! We need to figure out what to do.
    Send all your money to me:
    Bobbyp
    2472 Alaskan Way S.
    Seattle, WA 98044

  129. Conceding a Trump acquittal in the forthcoming Senate trial is not “giving up”.
    ok, i wasn’t talking about the trial. it would have never even occurred to me that there’s any way to ‘fight’ there. that’s preordained. i was talking about the election.

  131. I was intrigued by this piece on the election. It’s from a Labour supporter, but struck me as a reasonably restrained lefty take as opposed to the generic lefty cant.
    Submitted with all due respect…for what it’s worth.

  132. Actually, bobbyp, and also for what it’s worth, I thought that piece was reasonably fair. But it leads me immediately to broach a subject which wj regularly brings up, often to great disagreement if not scorn.
    It doesn’t matter how good the prospectus (or manifesto) is (and I think the author understates how unrealistic the Labour manifesto was – something which Pro Bono has alluded to, and which traditional Labour voters in the North also were well aware of), if the people selling it can’t get elected. The author, just before the election, sees some of Corbyn’s disadvantages as leader, but some of us were very aware of them from the moment he won the leadership. A more centrist Labour leader might not have been as transformative as the author thinks Corbyn would have been, but would instead have had a chance to actually begin to change things, and short-circuit the seemingly inexorable rise of the plutocracy, as well as help green policies along, Instead, we get Boris, as an example openly backed by (among others) the billionaire hedgefunder and ex-Murdoch son-in-law Crispin Odey.

  133. GftNC, in fairness I would note that quite often those objecting honestly do believe that a pure, very left (for the US) platform would win for them, where a center-left platform would not. To my mind, the evidence — which candidates have won, nationally, and which haven’t — is overwhelmingly otherwise. But they object because they don’t see it.

  134. Yup, wj, I do understand that. And I’m rather sympathetic to them, because by European standards people like e.g. Warren don’t seem remotely extreme, but of course what matters is how she seems to Americans, and if the situations are at all comparable (which I now fear), it does give one (me, at any rate) serious pause.

  135. Ahem, Brown and Milliband lost the election as well, and yet I don’t recall comparable outrage about their leadership.
    ‘Centrism’ doesn’t solve the problem.

  136. GftNC, I suppose it just show the far right isn’t alone in living in a fantasy world. The difference being that, these days, the right’s fantasy world embraces more people. A minority, but a somewhat larger one.

  137. Ahem, Brown and Milliband lost the election as well, and yet I don’t recall comparable outrage about their leadership.
    Yes. After Labour won three successive elections, and transformed quite a few public services (e.g. the NHS) for the better. On the other hand, when they left power they did leave very little money in the exchequer, but they had had to cope with the 2008 crash, and ended up paying the price (for that as well as the understandable Labour-fatigue of the public). Brown was a bad candidate (although I had a great deal of respect for him), temperamentally unfit for campaigning, and Milliband was campaigning during austerity where Labour was constantly (and not totally unreasonably) being blamed for it. The situations cannot be realistically compared.
    I know this is very hard for the left (including some of my nearest and dearest), but the choice of Corbyn as leader was a disaster, and this country is going to suffer for it.

  139. GB: “I know this is very hard for the left… but the choice of Corbyn… was a disaster, and this country is going to suffer for it.”
    USA: “I know this is very hard for the center… but the choice of Clinton… was a disaster, and this country is going to suffer for it.”
    Not exactly analogous, but you get the idea. Yin meet yang. It will always be so.
    One can only press on in the face of such massive setbacks.

  140. Analogous to the extent that one must try to take utmost care that one’s chosen candidates do not have such perceived negatives that even corrupt scoundrels can defeat them, by winning the votes of people who will suffer for it. Very much easier said than done, of course. Despite my prescience about Corbyn, I would never have thought that Trump could defeat HRC, whatever her perceived faults (and in my opinion they were not as bad as all that).
    One can only press on in the face of such massive setbacks
    This is true, bobbyp, and I don’t want to fight with you. There is no joy for any of us in this.

  141. Donald, in (not very brilliant) answer to your quesstion at 04.35, which I’ve only just noticed, see my comments (passim) upthread, saying how the opinion in the country might have been swayed before the referendum if Labour had enthusiastically supported remain, at least enough to have a chance of a different referendum result. But given the actual referendum result, see my 02.59 upthread as to how they might then have dealt with it. By the way, all, I’m not pretending to complete rationality or to having the answers. I’m in a state of low-level rage and misery at what is probably coming, although not as bad as I was after the referendum, possibly because of my personal losses in the meantime.

  142. I remain unconvinced both by the standard centrist “electability” argument and the standard leftist “better platform” arguments because it seems that both, as usually argued and analyzed, seem to miss a key element seen by those on the other side.
    The “electable” centrist Democrat candidate polls well in the middle and in the swing states, but generally has a hodgepodge of policy (many parasitized from the right) and a corporatist bent and they come off as serving the status-quo and having no governing principles and so leak votes from the left.
    The “platform” center left, meanwhile, focuses on ambitious policy and egalitarian principles, but lose points for a perceived lack of pragmatism and leak votes from the center-right while drawing fire from the corporate media.
    What the Democrats really need is Beto in service to Warren’s principles and a more incrementalist approach to getting there. But the Dems are crap at linking pragmatism and principles.

  143. Ahem, Brown and Milliband lost the election as well, and yet I don’t recall comparable outrage about their leadership.
    There’s no denying that the center left loses at least as often as they win. This distinguishes them from the far left, which doesn’t (because they aren’t in a position to) lose anywhere near as often. But doesn’t win at all.
    So obviously a gradualist, center left, approach is to be avoided at all costs. At least by anyone who desires the right to prevail.
    ‘Nuff said.

  145. Like I said, centerist Democrats lose as often as they win. Being a centerist is no guarantee of victory. (Just as winning the popular vote isn’t a guarantee of getting elected.)
    But something can be, on the evidence, pretty much necessary without being in any way sufficient.

  146. “ I’m in a state of low-level rage ”
    I know the feeling. My guess from 3000 miles away is that there was no winning strategy for Labour. I like Corbyn in many ways, and think the antisemitism criticisms were mostly unfair , but agree that Corbyn has demonstrated a talent for being dimwitted on this topic ( and others). No matter what the ideology, being a bit dim is usually a handicap. That painting you mentioned, for instance— the man is not bright.

  147. my spreadsheet looks like this:
    Trump’s base size is the same as it was in 2016, and their support hasn’t budged. so his baseline is getting elected by the EC.
    and if you only care about the economy, and not politics, diplomacy or foreign policy, he’s done fine; the people most hurt by his trade wars seem willing to swallow a lot of shit. yes, it’s a straight-line continuation of Obama’s economy in every single way, but not fucking it up counts for people who don’t care about the details.
    that leaves the middle and the Dem base.
    so, what the Dems need is charisma to woo the middle and enthusiasm to turn out the base.
    the actual platform is irrelevant, if he/she can woo.
    who brings that?

  148. I like Corbyn in many ways, and think the antisemitism criticisms were mostly unfair
    No. They were not unfair. Corbyn has a habit of putting himself in stupid positions wrt antisemitism and then trying to back out with “I didn’t mean that.”
    “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”

  149. “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”
    And some people are their own worst enemy.

  150. who brings that?
    If that is the sole criteria, I would say Cory Booker, but he needs to go (and convincingly so) a bit left to get the support of (enough of) the base in the primaries. (He has utterly failed to do so, and instead tries to carve a place out of the middle. Admittedly, he is in a tough spot.)
    He can do whatever he wants once he is nominated, because then it’s all about the fcuker in the WH.
    The Dem base will fall in line no matter what-unless the party is dumb enough to nominate a Blumberg. The middle is an illusion. Find new voters from those who don’t vote. They are usually Dem leaners.

  151. I for one am really, really, tired of being admonished to kowtow to the likes of Joe Manchin, Joe Lieberman, or this asshole. Anybody who calls that POS a “moderate” is out of their minds.
    But hey, the data shows about 12% of Dem voters to be stone racists….so what do I know?

  152. No. They were not unfair.
    This is similar to Clinton’s emails. All smoke, no fire. I am not aware of any evidence that Corbyn is personally an anti-semite.* The press got a lot of mileage out of some anti-semitic behaviour in the party, and Corbyn addressed it very ineptly (seems to be a pattern with him).
    And the conservatives? Up to their ‘effing gills in standard right wing anti-semitism across the board, but nary a peep.
    For the most part, my take is Brexit hammered Labour. They had no good outs.
    *unless you are the type whose default position equates support for the Palestinian cause as ipso facto anti-semitism, in which case we have nothing to talk about.

  155. Political ineptitude is a disease that knows no ideological boundary.
    Absolutely true. An inept politician with a winning program can manage to lose an election. But even a competent politician won’t win with a bad program . . . unless he lucks out and gets an inept opponent.

  156. I could get into a long extended rant or a short one or something in- between about the antisemitism charge. I think it is complicated. I just started typing paragraphs and deleted them. I’m trying to avoid heated arguments that waste time and emotional energy. If I decide to follow up on this I will post links later.

  157. Here is a link. Longwinded and old and not directly relevant to Corbyn, but I put it in because I just saw Peter Beinart ( who I generally respect) repeating this charge about Raed Salah, who was apparently a Corbyn associate at some point.
    http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2015/08/stephen-pollard-jewish-chronicle-editor.html
    The claim is that in a poem in Arabic, Raed Salah had invoked a classic European blood libel against Jews. His claim is that they misunderstood the poem— he was criticizing Israel by comparing them to European bigots who persecuted Jews.
    I don’t know who is right in that case, and that is part of the point. When you hear one side you are dead certain that it is a case of vicious antisemitism and when you hear the other then it is a case of cynical misrepresentation. Much of the controversy is like that.

  162. And actually, the comments underneath the post are in some cases better than the post. “ Clive” is a very effective ranter ( I mean that in a good way).

  163. Clive, I should add, strongly disagrees with some of the front page article, in case you feel the same way and think I am recommending more of the same.
    I don’t have a firm view or much of any view of what Labour could have done. Clive sounds reasonable.

  164. An alternate view:
    http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2019/12/15/labours-delusions/
    FWIW, I think the arguments over the precise nature of what led to Labour’s loss fairly sterile. Of rather more concern is the direction they head in now.
    Clearly you can’t completely dissociate the two things, but equally setting out to refight the issues of the last election rather than helping determine the issues of the next one is a sure recipe for failure.

  165. One other point all this analysis misses is that parties’ electoral fortunes do not depend entirely on themselves.
    The Lib Dems, for example, ran an exceedingly poor campaign too, managing to lose around 10% of the vote to Labour in the space of two weeks. Imagine how badly Labour might have done, had a leader with rather more experience and media savvy than Swinson been in charge…

  166. What Nigel said, despite my anti-Corbyn rants and jeremiads. And that’s a good link, too.
    I also agree with quite a lot of the views in Donald’s nakedcapitalism link.
    I’m going to stop reading the post-mortems, at least for a while, it’s a) too depressing and b) too intimidating about the future when one contemplates the size of the mountain which now needs to be climbed, and the time it will take to climb it.
    byomtov, on the antisemitism thing. I was inclined to think as you do, particularly when I saw the BBC Panorama about how complaints about anti-semitism in the party had been handled. But friends of mine who knew more about it than I did and understood the actual statistics better (not hard in my case!) pointed me towards more detail, including but not limited to the history of the witnesses Panorama interviewed, and in the end I was pretty sure they were right. But that doesn’t excuse the stupidity and carelessness with which the Labour leadership handled the issue. We all know that you can be Jewish, and/or not anti-semitic, and oppose the actions of the Israeli government, but there is no doubt that many anti-semites use anti-Israel, anti-Zionist ideas as a convenient cover for antisemitism. However, as others have pointed out, this is hardly confined to the Labour party.

  168. Here‘s a list of 18 examples of alleged anti-semitism perpetrated by Corbyn.
    The list makes no attempt to distinguish anti-semitism from anti-zionism.
    This is a motion submitted to the House of Commons a few years ago by Corbyn and others, seeking to rename Holocaust Memorial Day.
    I don’t know whether it should be considered anti-semitic. But it shows a frightening lack of empathy with Jewish feelings about the Holocaust.
    I don’t strongly identify as Jewish, but because of the Holocaust I have no known living relatives in continental Europe. For me, it’s not something to play political games with.

  169. I don’t know whether it should be considered anti-semitic. But it shows a frightening lack of empathy with Jewish feelings about the Holocaust
    I understand the wish to include anti-semitism with other forms of racism, and to include the holocaust with other genocides, when trying for example to understand the psychological mechanism which allows some groups to turn other groups into objects whom it is OK to murder and persecute. But you get no argument from me with your second sentence.
    because of the Holocaust I have no known living relatives in continental Europe. For me, it’s not something to play political games with.
    Same here.

  170. I don’t know whether it should be considered anti-semitic. But it shows a frightening lack of empathy with Jewish feelings about the Holocaust
    I understand the wish to include anti-semitism with other forms of racism, and to include the holocaust with other genocides, when trying for example to understand the psychological mechanism which allows some groups to turn other groups into objects whom it is OK to murder and persecute. But you get no argument from me with your second sentence.
    because of the Holocaust I have no known living relatives in continental Europe. For me, it’s not something to play political games with.
    Same here.

  171. I don’t know whether it should be considered anti-semitic. But it shows a frightening lack of empathy with Jewish feelings about the Holocaust
    I understand the wish to include anti-semitism with other forms of racism, and to include the holocaust with other genocides, when trying for example to understand the psychological mechanism which allows some groups to turn other groups into objects whom it is OK to murder and persecute. But you get no argument from me with your second sentence.
    because of the Holocaust I have no known living relatives in continental Europe. For me, it’s not something to play political games with.
    Same here.

  172. bobbyp,
    All smoke, no fire. I am not aware of any evidence that Corbyn is personally an anti-semite.* The press got a lot of mileage out of some anti-semitic behaviour in the party, and Corbyn addressed it very ineptly (seems to be a pattern with him).
    I think you are understating matters. To deal with one celebrated case, it is inconceivable that anyone could look at the famous mural and not see it as antisemitic. Inconceivable.
    Is Corbyn personally antisemitic? I don’t know and neither do you. We are not mind-readers. I do know that Corbyn himself, not just members of his party, has behaved in ways that suggest he is antisemitic, or that he is just happy to associate with those, like DYR, who are.
    Let me ask you, and Donald, this. Suppose there were a prominent American politician whom 87% of African-Americans regarded as racist. Would you shrug off the charge?

  173. But friends of mine who knew more about it than I did and understood the actual statistics better (not hard in my case!) pointed me towards more detail
    byomtov, in view of your (very understandable) privileging of Jewish opinion on whether Corbyn/Labour are antisemitic, perhaps I should have made clear that the friends to whom I refer are Jewish, and perfectly prepared to identify anti-semitism where they think it exists. They are very hot on the Palestinian issue, of course, which puts them at odds with a great deal of institutional Jewish opinion, both here and in the US, but they are from traditional Jewish backgrounds, and very far from (the insult so regularly deployed against those who don’t unthinkingly follow the pro-Israel line) “self-hating Jews”.

  175. Yeah. I noticed that India has moved to provide expedited citizenship processing for members of six (6) religions . . . not including Islam. Only some 200 million Muslims in India. But I suppose Modi figures that including 5 religions other than Hinduism will somehow insulate him from charges religious bigotry.

  176. byomtov,
    I am well aware of the minefield one gets into when it comes to discussions of I-P and “Zionism”. There never seem to be any winners. As to your query, I would naturally respond with a “no”.
    I may be understating matters, yes. But I also believe the Corbyn has been subjected to an intense oppo media campaign which included a good deal of pure political mudslinging.
    My take is Corbyn’s longstanding opposition to the policies of Israel makes him inherently suspect in the eyes of that state’s more enthusiastic supporters which, as should be rather obvious, includes many adherents to the Jewish faith.
    On a related matter, what do you think of Trump’s latest executive order regarding campus freedom of speech on this issue? I sincerely hope you found it as odious as I did.
    Thank you.

  178. I think everything about Corbyn’s alleged antisemitism ( including the fact that at least some socialist Jews like him and defend him) can be explained on the theory that he is a mostly well intentioned leftwing ideologue who happens not to be very bright. I can’t read his mind. He might be a bigot. I think it is much more likely that he is a bit dumb.
    So take the mural. It savages bankers. It ncludes Rockefeller, Morgan and Rothschild. Rockefeller was a Baptist, I looked up a Morgan— afaik he isn’t Jewish. Imagine you are a somewhat dim lefty who sees a mural savaging bankers and you know at least two aren’t Jewish. No problem, you say to yourself. It’s about the role of evil financiers.
    It’s a fact that some of the rhetoric demonizing or attacking the role of finance can easily turn into antisemitic rhetoric. It doesn’t stop lefties from attacking Wall Street, though no doubt antisemites hear Wall Street and think of something else.
    If Corbyn had any sense, he would have realized the problem with that mural, but he is an ideologue instinctively and just doesn’t notice the antisemitism until someone points out out. You can call that antisemitism. I’d call it stupidity unless malice is involved. It is a level of idiocy one would prefer not to see in a possible PM, though this is now water under the bridge.
    On Eisen, Corbyn is your bog standard leftist anti imperialist. I am guessing he hears of a group called Deir Yassin Remembered and thinks he should show solidarity. I would agree. He doesn’t find out until later that the leader is a Holocaust denier. Or that is my interpretation.
    Why does this keep happening? Because the Israel- Palestinian issue is a unique sort of minefield which ( I have noticed) most liberals run screaming away from and Corbyn walks right in. It attracts angry lefties who are anti imperialist ( waves hand) and also some other types with unsavory motives and I also notice ( from outside) that Jews who argue about this argue about where the line is between antizionism and antisemitism. And then the other side is not exactly free from racism either, but they usually don’t get called out for it in the mainstream. ( I could go into a rant here, but won’t.) This makes the pro Palestinian activists angry which can lead to that wagon circling that some accuse Labour of doing. And then this can become antisemitism— there is an example of this in the Klug piece I linked. Look for the Daphne anecdote. That was definitely antisemitism.
    So it is complicated, imo.
    Bernard, on your question about an American politician widely believed to be racist by most blacks— I don’t think it is a good analogy because there is nothing comparable to the Israel issue. As far as I can tell, an enormous amount of the antisemitism issue was about Israel. Can some of that discussion become antisemitic? Yes, as mentioned above. Has Corbyn handled it well? No.
    This argument about Israel, racism, and antisemitism is happening here too and Trump’s executive order is based on the IHRA definition of antisemitism that was pushed on Labour. The author of that definition, Kenneth Stern, thinks it is wrong to apply it to colleges. The issue will only get bigger with time.

  181. For someone who isn’t going to participate, jesus, Donald. Google news for all things Corbyn.
    By the way, my impression is that no one much liked him, and he lost.

  183. Via Balloon Juice:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_G-FBSf1UI
    Jacob Rees-Mogg and Neil Farage, racist antisemites, will be the subjects of their own dedicated percussive suites of automatic gunfire a la Dunkirk shortly, with grenade explosions in the mealy-mouthed Corbyn’s, antisemitic foxhole as counterpoint to show that bipartisanship can stoop lower than hate to kill haters.
    Avenge the murder of Jo Cox with utter savagery.
    More on Modi:
    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/09/blood-and-soil-in-narendra-modis-india
    Modi and the nationalist, murderous RSS must be subjected to slaughtering, butchering genocide and held a bloody, chaotic example of what’s coming to the nationalist, racist, populist, bigoted, state-and market-monopolizing conservative movement in every country the world over, West and East, the Occident and the Orient.
    It’s time for politically incorrect Genghis Khan to rise and reclaim his horrific record .. everywhere, in every corner of the Earth the predatory right wing filth operate and I include the murderers of Hong Kong demonstrators and Putin and the right wing mullahs and rabbis as well.
    America will be no sanctuary for our home-grown hateful right wing vermin, the tens of millions of them. Hunt them all down.
    Make a Yemen of every reactionary murderous right wing regime the world over, in every continent.
    Breathe easy, I now return to lurking.
    ‘Tis the Season.

  184. Corbyn was and remains very popular with Labour Party activists. But most of the rest of the country thought he’d be hopeless as Prime Minister.
    Michael Foot had the same problem (rather unfairly, I thought). So, once he’d been seen doing the job, did Gordon Brown.
    So does Boris Johnson. But someone had to win.

  186. So does Boris Johnson.
    True – but Johnson’s leadership approval ratings were somewhere around minus 11%; Corbyn’s around minus 70% (the lowest recorded since pollsters started asking the question).

  187. Corbyn beat Boris with the under 45 crowd
    Actually, I believe this time around, the crossover was around 39, not 45 (as it was at the last election).
    Johnson’s share of the youth vote was better than May’s, similar to Major and Cameron, and significantly worse than that of Thatcher.

  192. Heartily recommended reading (esp. for McKinney):
    God’s Crucible by David Levering Lewis.
    We exist in the currents and eddies of a history created long ago.

  193. From bobbyp’s Intelligencer link:

    Although Sanders’s approval rating is much lower now than it was three years ago, only 2.6 percent more Americans disapprove of the socialist senator than approve of him, according to RealClearPolitics’ polling average. For Corbyn, the analogous figure is 40 percent. In other words, Sanders is more than 15 times as popular as his British comrade.

    Does that strike anyone else as an odd way to quantify relative popularity?

  194. what is motivating the tendency toward nationalism?
    Ah, that is indeed the important question. Or to put it another way, quoting Larkin:
    Ah, solving that question
    Brings the priest and the doctor
    In their long coats
    Running over the fields.

  195. asked a different way – why has nationalism become so attractive, in so many places?
    Because so many people in developed countries now believe that the answer to the question “Will tomorrow be better than today?” is no. And nationalists always promise that the answer can be yes, if we just quit letting other countries (or our own minorities) take advantage of us.

  196. asked a different way – why has nationalism become so attractive, in so many places?
    I’m on a break between depositions, so let me ask, Russell, what do you mean, as in, how do you define “nationalism?”
    Heartily recommended reading (esp. for McKinney):
    God’s Crucible by David Levering Lewis.
    Read some reviews. Meh. If Islam was somewhat less barbaric than the Franks et al in 750 CE, the bar was low. Fast forward from 750 CE 500 years and do a comparison, then repeat every 100 years. Long term, the Judeo-Christian ethos proved more supple and ultimately far more classically liberal, yet still painfully human, than any other major religion or philosophy.

  197. why has nationalism become so attractive, in so many places?
    An integrated global economy, and vastly cheaper and easier travel and shipping, means that more and more people find themselves impacted by the rest of the world. A change on the economy half way around the world can mean layoffs or bankruptcies (or, though it gets less attention, booming growth) here.
    Also, people find themselves, like it or not, interacting with people from elsewhere — people with, often, quite different cultures and approaches to life. In the past, this kind of increased interaction was typically the result of immigration. That’s still a factor, of course. But you can also find yourself on the phone and trying to work with someone who turns out to be, not just down the road but thousands of miles away.
    Lots of people find that uncomfortable at best. And any time their local economy hiccups, or their own job has to change, they blame “those people” elsewhere. The packaging of that blame-the-other-guys view is, as it traditionally has been, nationalism. What’s different today is how many more people, in how many places, find themselves impacted and are looking for a “solution” to the disruption they feel.

  198. how do you define “nationalism?”
    It is my way of characterizing the simultaneous phenomena of Trump and “America First”ism in the US, Johnson and Brexitism in the UK, and Modi and Hindu group identity as a political movement in India.
    And there are other examples.

  199. why has nationalism become so attractive, in so many places?
    seems like immigration is probably a big factor in Europe – immigrants from Africa and the ME, especially, seem to be driving a lot of xenophobia.
    in the US, our right wingers decided to make a bogyman out of SA immigration.
    and if you’re going to be mad at the Other, you’ll want to take increase the pride you take in your own identity, for contrast. so when people are mad at foreigners coming into ‘their’ country, they fluff up their own national identity for contrast. nationalism.
    IMO

  200. bobbyp,
    On a related matter, what do you think of Trump’s latest executive order regarding campus freedom of speech on this issue? I sincerely hope you found it as odious as I did.
    If Trump does something there is a strong chance it’s odious.
    The whole thing seems sort of muddled to me. I think it’s wrong to stifle anti-Israel speech on Title VI or other grounds. I also think it’s stupid, and not without risk, to try to wedge Jews into the “nation” category for purposes of Title VI. The statute just doesn’t include religion as protected.
    It would be nice if we could do the simple thing and add “religion” to the Title VI prohibitions on discrimination, but I suppose that might create problems for schools affiliated with some religions, and it would also protect (shudder) Muslims.
    Donald,
    It seems that the best defense of Corbyn you can muster is that he is stupid and careless. He also seems incapable of learning. I guess my response is that when you have repeated incidents of this type – see the link provided by pro bono yesterday at 10:03AM – then the pattern tells you more than any individual incident.
    And it’s not really much of a defense to say he is just careless and ill-informed on these subjects, as well as not being very bright. The man was running for PM of the UK, for Pete’s sake. Who knows when his carelessness about Jews and antisemitism might make him do something quite harmful? Even if you and bobbyp are correct, he surely is disqualified from high office just for those reasons.
    To take my analogy further, suppose an American politician had repeatedly offended African-Americans, and followed each incident with apologies and dubious explanations. What would you think?

  201. Byomtov
    What I think is that Corbyn is a decent man who somehow rose to the top of Labour, I don’t think he was smart enough for the position. I don’t follow British politics closely enough to understand how he became the leader.
    I already said what I find lacking in the African- American analogy. I said where I think Labour was weak. I haven’t said what I think about many of Labour’s critics— just hinted at it. But what I think is that many of them have double standards on human rights and that anti – Palestinian racism is ubiquitous in American and apparently British culture. I said this a year or two ago here— when criticism of Israel is involved, it is impossible to have a serious discussion of real or alleged antisemitism without looking at the anti- Palestinian double standards that most Westerners bring to this subject. Getting into that would lead to a repeat of our argument some time back and I’m not in the mood. Plus I’d have to go looking for more links.
    My views are probably closest to Robert Cohen, whose blog I linked above.
    But from what I can tell, the main reason Labour lost was that their supporters were split on Brexit. Corbyn tried to walk a tightrope and just ended up looking like a weasel. I am not sure that anyone could have won but clearly Corbyn wasn’t the right choice. My lefty sources claim his far left positions polled well, but he obviously did not.

  204. Weird. DOB was a typo— I started to correct it and instead I posted it.
    About as far off topic as I can get… I have a piece of JavaScript that runs on almost every web page I download. It fixes fonts, sizes, and colors to some extent to make everything look consistent. One of the lesser things it does is find the name and email fields for comments here at ObiWi and fills them in for me.

  207. Interesting article in NYRB here with insights (and not particularly laudatory ones) into the role of the hard left in the politics of the Labour Party over the last four decades, and the dim prospects for social democracy going forward.
    Grim. Very grim.

  208. Who knows when his carelessness about Jews and antisemitism might make him do something quite harmful?
    As opposed to the deliberate cruelty of Conservative rule? The destructive barbarism of its public policies? Its racism? Its authoritarian bent? It’s rabid Islamophobia? And yes, its anti-Semitism.
    Nothing to see here folks…move along now.
    Surely you jest.

  209. About the only useful lesson to take from the UK election is that if the Democrats spend the next six months knocking lumps out of each other, they will lose to Trump again.
    Someone needs to pull the left of centre coalition together. I understand the reason for the passionate policy arguments, but if they lead to a Trump second term, they are essentially futile.

  211. The British public seems to be appalled by antisemitism, which is great, but many don’t mind a bit of casual racism, Islamophobia and classism, otherwise we wouldn’t have ended up with Johnson – and most of the media are complicit or could care less.

  212. Corbyn is gone, so let’s move on.
    I think Keir Starmer might be able to do that…
    We will see – FWIW, I suspect Starmer might even fall at the nomination hurdle.
    In any event, it’s a much more complicated problem in the UK given FPTP and our proliferation of parties – most of which are not on the right. (I’ve been a proponent of PR for a long time, but it’s hard to see a route to it.)
    The US, with essentially only two parties, has no such excuse.

  214. bobbyp,
    It was not my intention to defend the Conservatives, or to argue that they should not be subject to more criticism than they have received. Boris Johnson would not have gotten my vote, though I don’t know enough to say who would have – not Corbyn, certainly.
    Corbyn’s missteps have been more widely covered, no doubt, which is probably why I am more familiar with them.

  222. * Lost popular vote
    * Impeached
    That’s two (2!) things he’s accomplished that Obama never managed to pull off!
    And with a little luck he will make history by getting more Senate votes for removal than Clinton managed. (Removal may be wildly improbable, but a handful of GOP Senators deciding to actually live up their oaths could happen.)
    Living the dream….

  223. So a serious question- what, procedurally, prevents McConnell from ignoring the impeachment? Is there any recourse to force at least a sham trial, or can he, metaphorically or literally toss the articles in the ashcan? What mechanism exists to prevent that?

  225. But He the Donald gets it worse than Jesus H. Christ who, according to a GOP congressbeing last night, got a fairer trial from Pontius Pilate that He the Donald got from the Democrats.
    But Louis Gohmert may have spoken truth for once when he said in the same ‘debate’ that he fears that this is the end of the republic and that he hopes not to live to see it.
    By Jove, so do we.

  226. That’s a fascinating article, bobby. I wonder of a Senator announcing that he intends to ignore his oath, which he has to give at the start of an impeachment trial, is grounds for impeaching that senator. (Looking at you, Senator Graham.)
    Pointless in the current Congress, of course. But in time, it might be a means to finish cleansing the Senate.

  227. Interesting.
    On the difficulty of financing even the cheapest fossil fuel power developments in Africa:
    https://www.petroleum-economist.com/articles/politics-economics/africa/2019/lng-to-power-a-hard-nut-to-crack-in-africa
    …There is a clear need and appetite for gas-fired power in Africa. Although renewable energy remains a small part of current installed capacity, the price revolution means it is now the cheapest technology to add and has other benefits for governments and utilities in terms of low construction risk, a more predictable impact on foreign exchange reserves, and some location flexibility.
    On the basis of the current pipeline alone, estimates based on the projects recorded by Live Data show solar capacity doubling by end-2020; wind capacity is expected to have doubled by 2021, and if current projects are followed through geothermal capacity will double during 2020 and treble by 2023…

  228. Wisher of murderous school shootings, Charles C. Bonniwell, the republican conservative trump- supporting subhuman vermin referenced above, publishes my neighborhood rag.
    I just received the latest copy in my mailbox today:
    http://glendalecherrycreek.com/
    Should I alert Denver schools regarding his murderous conservative fascist radio talk-show musings?
    Maybe the children of Colorado are fully equipped in pig fucker republican vermin America with bullet-proof backpacks .. a trending investment opportunity in entrepreneurial, exceptional asshole America .. to protect them from Bonniwell’s bouts of impeachment boredom.
    He’s going to become my new friend.
    So is his c”nt-Friday conservative vermin female radio co-host who attempted to shush his murderous pantsless rants.
    He lives nearby. His rag is published blocks away from where I live.
    Trump’s whacked bullshit letter to Pelosi was referred to on FOX News as the contemporary equivalent of the Gettysburg Address.
    One does wish for a million John Wilkes Booths to give up acting and act.
    Too bad all of them are conservative republican racist, anti-Semite, liberal-murdering rat fucking subhumans with minimal to non-existent tax burdens, else they would come in handy in preserving the Republic.

  230. procedurally, prevents McConnell from ignoring the impeachment?
    it has to perform some kind of trial. but what that trial consists of is up to the Senate to decide. and the Senate rules can be changed with a simple majority, if McConnell is willing to do another ‘nuclear’ option maneuver.

  231. First, Pelosi has to send the articles to the Senate. Unclear if she will, given McConnell’s public statements.

  233. Should I alert Denver schools regarding his murderous conservative fascist radio talk-show musings?
    In some (most? all?) jurisdictions, advocating the commission of a felony is illegal. See also 18 U.S. Code § 373
    Of course the downside is how close some of your writings here come to the same statutes…. (You can claim “performance art,” of course, but I suspect he could as well.)

  234. First, Pelosi has to send the articles to the Senate. Unclear if she will, given McConnell’s public statements.
    I’m just not seeing the up-side of this. All a delay, especially a long delay, will do is open the Democrats up to charges that the whole thing was just political posturing. This time with something that is arguably evidence of said lack of seriousness.
    Yes, McConnell is saying he will run the Senate trial as a farce. But I see no way a delay pressures him to do otherwise.

  235. That 18 U.S. Code 373 is a needless and burdensome regulation which infringes on my personal freedom.
    Again, with the flush toilets, only this time it’s dishwashers.
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-says-women-complain-to-him-about-ineffective-dishwashers?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition
    Apparently, every time a Presidential dump is deposited in the White House facilities by said President F*ckfingers, it is so malodorously HUUUGGGE that it listlessly and unflushably circles the bowl to the brim and Nixon’s plumbers have to be called in.
    They say to themselves, plumbers’ helper at the ready (by the way, those things don’t suck like they use to either on account of regs promulgated by previous low-suck busybody administrations) “My God, this is the fifth time today he’s tweeted another bathroom battleship from his enormous hindquarters!”
    Melania has taken to daintily removing the presidential product from the bowl with diamond-studded tongs and flinging them out the window into the White House shrubbery, where a lowly EPA regulator, faceless, unelected, but a guy needs something to do, carries them in a bucket down to the Potomac to share with the rest of America and the rising, low oxygen Atlantic Ocean.
    “So much winning!” she coos.
    Apparently, the woman who whispers sweet regulatory nothings into Trump’s earholes regarding nipped in the bud “electric” and “water flow” socialism, is actually Stephen Miller in a house dress and a wig who, kneeling with rasPutinly intent under the President’s desk to apply his hourly tongue-bathings, sez ya know, my liege .. my Judeo-Christian Godhead … the liberal Jews and pickaninnies and libtards we are trying to kill are going to be APPALLED when they here my latest.
    America …. frozen in steady-state, paralyzed appallment while it crosses the t’s and dot the i’s on a non-existent, thoroughly dead rule of law.
    Graveyard up ahead. Everyone whistle in unison.

  237. Yes, McConnell is saying he will run the Senate trial as a farce. But I see no way a delay pressures him to do otherwise.
    McConnell points out today that the relevant precedent in Senate procedure, established during the Clinton impeachment, is to vote on a resolution that the initial procedure be a briefing, opening arguments, senators’ questions, and a vote on a motion to dismiss. The resolution passed unanimously in 1999 and the motion to dismiss failed.
    You have no idea how much I hate that Congress has written procedural rules, then thousands and thousands of exceptions to the rules that only the Parliamentarians know.

  238. Update:
    The subhuman f*ck and his whore were fired!
    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/radio-host-is-sick-of-the-impeachment-process-says-we-need-a-nice-school-shooting-as-a-distraction-2019-12-19?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
    And what a relief it is to learn that Russian asset and traitor Sebastian Gorka will replace the I-want-a-school-shooting-in-which-no-one-is-hurt (kids everywhere agree!) mouthshitter in the empty time slot.
    Maybe we’ll get to hear Gorka express his I-don’t-worry-which-side-will-win-the-coming-Civil-War trash talk.
    It’ll be a step-up in the quality of the national monodialogue.
    “Forget killing school children; that can wait until we murder all liberals!” — the radio station’s coming advert fluffing Gorka’s show.
    I’m sure Bonniwell frequents local restaurants where I dine, in fact, I’ve probably rubbed shoulders with him at least once over the past ten years.
    I don’t see how his digestion is going to hold up now that I’ll recognize him next time I spot the fascist cuck shoveling protein into his murderous gob.
    I suspect he carries in case the First Amendment disturbs his feeding time.
    He’s probably a sensitive, politically correct type with hurt fee-fees deep down in his quirky conservative, overactive colon.
    I hope it’s not a restaurant where I enjoy the food, so I that mind having the cops called to throw me out and have to wear a disguise to sneak back in later.

  239. Can you imagine if Obama had suggested that a recently deceased Republican member of congress was in hell?

  240. I remember when “double standard” was all about treating men and women differently. Now, it seems to be mostly about treating Democrats and Republicans differently.

  241. Can you imagine if Obama had suggested that a recently deceased Republican member of congress was in hell?
    Trump: “I like people who don’t get captured”
    GOP: “Oh yeah! That’s the stuff!” /mass simultaneous O-face.

  242. I’m just not seeing the up-side of this. All a delay, especially a long delay, will do is open the Democrats up to charges that the whole thing was just political posturing.
    I dunno. They’re doing it anyway and while it may give some weight to the notion, it also affords Pelosi the opportunity to spotlight the potential farce that McConnell & Graham have seemingly predetermined. The right to a speedy trial might have more traction, but maybe it’s leverage to open up witness testimony?
    The GOP grouses about “process” and “rush to judgment” only to have Pelosi get the articles passed and slam on the brakes. It’s an interesting ploy I hadn’t considered.

  245. KNUS, Salem Nazi Media (annual murderous hate revenues of $250 nationally as a clearinghouse for threatening conservative republican vermin filth), listened to by republican trump cocksuckers all along the Colorado Front Range, employs this piece of pure republican shit:
    https://cospringsantifa.noblogs.org/post/2019/12/04/kirk-widlund-nazi-executive-producer-at-710-knus-co/
    Jew burner Widlund produced Craig Silverman’s show on the station. Silverman was fired MID-SHOW (literally his mic cut and escorted from the building mid-show) a couple of months ago for daring to criticize vermin republican trump.
    https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/denver-talk-radio-host-fired-mid-show-by-conservative-radio-station-after-criticizing-trump
    Silverman is Jewish. His producer is a Nazi.
    That’s some kinda multicultural politically identity correct in pig fucking America.
    I wonder where Widlund eats out.
    Obviously not at Bagel shops or Jewish delis.
    If it’s Burger King, he’ll be safe from me.

  247. I remember this in 1984 when Nazi republican militia vermin murdered Jewish radio talker Alan Berg:
    https://www.google.com/search?q=radio+shock+jock+murdered+in+denver&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS774US774&oq=radio+shock+jock+murdered+in+denver&aqs=chrome..69i57j33.14269j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
    Berg was this guy’s best friend.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Boyles
    In 2019, as we speak, Boyles has a lead slot on KNUS among the Nazis AND writes the lead column in the Cherry Creek Chronicle published by the friend of school shooters everywhere, Chuck Bonniwell.
    Boyles is full-in trump and a massive subhuman deplorable hater of liberals.
    He grew up in Pittsburgh PA, my hometown, and has managed to tailor himself as one of the biggest jagoffs, we breed them there, in the right wing talk radio universe in Denver.
    Hate pays good.

  249. Tulsi proposed to censure Trump for these reasons—
    https://gabbard.house.gov/news/press-releases/rep-tulsi-gabbard-calls-house-censure-president-putting-personal-political-gain
    It includes the Yemen War ending the INF treaty, the Iranian nuclear treaty, abandoning the Kurds while stealing Syria oil and also Ukrainegate.
    I kinda like this, actually.
    As for the politics of it, I don’t know. It might win some more votes in the Democratic primaries, but not enough to matter.

  250. Tulsi is apparently running for the coveted Even-The-Liberal- spot on Fox News. maybe she can cover a shift or two for Greenwald while he’s busy not understanding how the world works.
    censure would get exactly the same vote totals as impeachment. no Republican would vote for it because the GOP is a cult.

  251. If her career goal is to be a regular guest on Fox where she gets to condemn Trump for his support for the genocidal war in Yemen and various other policies, then I am all for it.

  254. A typically American, conservative, Friedmanesque sadist’s cure for raising productivity among the schmucks who work for them:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/12/slanted-toilet-standardtoilet-productivity/603898/
    Jeff Bezos will be the first to introduce the device company-wide, I’ll wager, to go with the diapers his warehouse workers slosh around in getting my f*cking books to me in nanoseconds.
    I think a better idea would be to introduce a heated toilet seat that would, say in two minutes, cause second and third degree burns to the undersides of thighs for toilet malingerers, or better an electrical current that would zap the sitter after a few minutes of thoughtful bowel movement.
    My solution as a worker, should I have an asshole boss who invests in this capital improvement expenditure, would be to squat on his desk when he or she themselves are in the hurryupandsh*troom and take a magnificent dump in his inbox.
    Now get back to work, you blogging malingerers.
    Trump and conservative vermin are about to make homelessness a criminal offense, via Ben Carson, while keeping intact the perfectly legal practice of gummint NOT providing homes for the homeless.
    I’m going to purchase firearms and hand them out to the homeless with a supply of ammo.
    They can be libertarians too.
    Oh yeah, lurking.

  255. If her career goal is to be a regular guest on Fox where she gets to condemn Trump for his support for the genocidal war in Yemen and various other policies, then I am all for it.
    If only. See Modi.
    Living in delusion must be super comfortable. I’m trying to find my brand.

  256. I’ve just watched a documentary about Woody Guthrie, and was interested to see that he wrote some insulting songs about Trump’s father, who was his landlord, and whose racist policies he had discovered. I didn’t know that WG had been brought up a racist, by a Klan-supporting father, but had seen the light in his adulthood (it’s always impressive when people are converted despite their childhood indoctrination). There were scenes of Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen, and the whole crowd in front of the Lincoln Memorial singing all six verses of This Land is Your Land at Obama’s inauguration, and tears came to my eyes when I thought about that inspiring day, and what we’ve come to now. I thought “How did we get from that to this?”, and then (rather obviously) “Maybe that’s partly why we got from that to this” (i.e. because of racist backlash after the Obama presidency). Nothing original, but it just depressed the hell out of me.

  257. At long last, ITMFA can be used in the past tense.
    “Speedy trial”? Sure, but the defendant needs to be, and be seen to be, McConnell, Graham & Co.
    Members of the criminal bar can correct me if I’m wrong, but my impression is that many trials are not about “whodunit?” or even “what did he do?” but rather “what charge, and thus what sentence, fits?”. In the present case, “whodunit” and “what did he do?” are not in question. The only question is: are the Senate Republicons shameless enough to call it “perfect”?
    To try that question, Schumer needs to grow a pair. Or at least borrow one from Nancy.
    –TP

  259. GftNC, your 6:20 is hugely moving. But don’t be depressed. Be inspired. It’s going to take awhile.
    I often cite my dad (a WW2 vet, who became a lawyer, and who was a military officer for a career stent). He was a liberal d[D}emocrat. He faced this when he was a kid – he told me that we could very well have gone the way of
    Germany (although, he said too – “oh no, trust the American people” – which was right if you look at the popular vote). The people in the 1940’s beat it.
    We have to do it too. It’s going to take work, but we have to stay strong.
    2010 was a disaster for American democracy. We [some of us] were asleep at the wheel. There was no excuse for that. There was certainly no excuse for us thereafter, for the Obamabashing, and such. It was cumulative, and we are responsible. We have to do better. The trick is: we have to be non-traitors, reasonably good citizens, reasonably good policy makers, BUT STAND IN LINE for reasonable Democrats.
    That’s always been my mantra. Please, people, get it! russell calls it ham sandwich. If [I hope] ham sandwich wins, write her/him strongly worded letters. Don’t be speaking out giving fascist R’s talking points.
    Thanks.

  261. russell calls it ham sandwich.
    I wish I could take credit, but it’s an adaptation of the famous quote from judge Sol Wachtler about district attorneys and grand juries.
    Any (D) running would be better than Trump. Vermin Supreme would be better than Trump. At least we’d all get a pony.
    And yes, a ham sandwich would be better than Trump. At least we’d get lunch.
    I’m just not seeing the up-side of this.
    I can imagine it playing out to the advantage of either side. Or neither. All the usual people will say all of the predictable, usual things about it, whatever Pelosi or anyone else does.
    There are a couple of basic facts in play, which are wrapped in 100 layers of political kabuki. One of those basic facts is that Mitch McConnell will take every opportunity to bring the impeachment effort to an ineffective conclusion, as quickly as possible. The one lever Pelosi has at the moment is the timing of naming managers and bringing the articles to the Senate. So, she appears to be trying to use that one lever to gain whatever advantage she can.
    Godspeed, Madame Speaker.
    We’re in a weird place, with some very weird players involved. I don’t think anybody can really predict how any of this is going to turn out.
    I sure don’t.
    Cross your fingers, roll the dice, and hope for the best. That’s where we are right now.
    Best of luck to all.

  264. The evil laughter of the Moss Cow Midge from his recent interview with Hannity needs to get into as many political ads as possible.

  266. Of course criticism BY Democrats is treason. Criticism OF Democrats is obligatory.
    The sole exception of the former is of course Democrats criticizing other Democrats to the left of them.

  268. The sole exception of the former is of course Democrats criticizing other Democrats to the left of them.
    Democrats (and “the left” whoever that is) criticizing Democratic candidates and elected officials hasn’t been working out too well. Or maybe from novakant’s perspective it has accomplished a lot.
    “Putin told me.”
    I see that the LGM folks are already on this.
    When will this nightmare be over?

  269. So criticism of Democrats is treason – thanks for spelling it out so clearly.
    I must have missed that.
    I think the point is rather that internecine struggles on the left ahead of elections are utterly self defeating.

  270. I think the point is rather that internecine struggles on the left ahead of elections are utterly self defeating.
    can we make that the ObWi sub-head for the next 7 months?

  271. Maybe we could arrange that the GOPsters get into the crossfire. “Sorry, officer! I was aiming for that commie over there but the newt and the midge turtle walked into my line of fire. They aren’t a proteced species, are they?”
    For the record: don’t shoot them, rather lower them slowly into bubbling BS (with a radish up their behind for measure).

  272. For the record: don’t shoot them, rather lower them slowly into bubbling BS (with a radish up their behind for measure).
    “Some people say…” that fate awaits Trump in the afterlife.

  277. “ If only. See Modi.
    Living in delusion must be super comfortable. I’m trying to find my brand.”
    You succeeded a long time ago.
    As for Tulsi, I have no stake in her or whatever really drives her. She sometimes says things antiwar leftists like, but there are also reasons to be suspicious of her. She isn’t going to be President so I don’t worry about it.
    But I did like her censure resolution. It pretty much said what I would say about Trump. There are some rightwingers who are antiwar or can be swayed that way. I wouldn’t vote for their candidates or expect them to vote for lefties, but if there are more antiwar types in both parties that is a good thing. If Tulsi has admirers on the right, as she does, and they accept that it is a bad idea to give a blank check to the Saudis, that is progress.

  279. Republican lawmaker is literally a domestic terrorist:

    An independent investigation has concluded that Washington state Rep. Matt Shea “participated in an act of domestic terrorism against the United States” by helping plan the armed takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon three years ago.
    The investigation found that Shea similarly played a key role in two other armed conflicts against the U.S. government — not only by showing up and participating in the standoffs, but by helping plan them, which involved recruiting armed militia members to oppose federal law enforcement agents.

    the world is catching up to you, JDT.

  280. wj, radish is the traditional choice for that purpose (iirc it already was in classical Rome).
    ObWi is a constant source of educational tidbits.

  282. I think the point is rather that internecine struggles on the left ahead of elections are utterly self defeating.
    This is completely ridiculous: we shouldn’t criticise Democratic candidates before the elections and should they get elected we shouldn’t criticise them either (Obama) and even if they failed to get elected we shouldn’t criticise them (Clinton)and even if they are long-gone ex-presidents we shouldn’t criticise them (Clinton.)
    That’s the world according to sapient and cleek.

  283. You can say whatever you want as long as vote for the ham sandwich.
    Bonus points if, in the course of saying whatever you want, you avoid persuading other people to NOT vote for the ham sandwich.
    You’re probably pretty safe saying anything you like, at all, here on ObWi.
    Ham Sandwich 2020 – Do It For The Children

  284. I would vote for a ham sandwich if it was an actual ham sandwich.
    “Somehow we’ve decided that the one job in America that gets the most job protection is the one where you actually get nuclear weapons.” —Gene Healy, Cato Institute.

  285. Good to know, I guess, that he thinks he pardoned more than one….
    The Trump era has basically given the most egregious belligerent misanthropic weirdos license to let their freak flags fly. At some point (one hopes) it will start undermining support for him (Trump) and – who knows, a guy can dream – the (R) party in general.
    There is, for most people, a limit to their tolerance for actual violent insurrection and school shooting jokes.
    I figure it’s another few years before the fever breaks. The timeline depends a bit on how 2020 plays out, but sooner or later most people get sick of being associated with such obvious creeps.
    We’ll see how it goes.

  286. You can say whatever you want as long as vote for the ham sandwich.
    It’s my understanding that novakant isn’t a US citizen, so he won’t be voting. He just wants us all to know that both sides do it, but Democrats are worse.

  288. Sapient wants Democrats to be disciplined, so that none ever criticize each other. Tell that to Buttigieg, Warren, Klobucher, Biden, and Sanders. It won’t happen. It shouldn’t happen. It seems to work that way with the Trumpian Republican Party, but for that very reason they discredit themselves with anyone who isn’t an idiot.. They don’t win supporters with their Trumpian idol worship. They just hold onto what they hope is enough in the landscape set by the Electoral College. If the economy crumbles, much of Trump’s support crumbles.
    But on the subject of daydreaming, I’d like to see us have extremely short campaign seasons— say Labor Day to November. I’d abide by sapient’s rule for a couple of months, where we would only focus on which of the candidates is best ( or least bad). Even here we admit the flaws in our preferred candidate but point out why the other candidates are worse ( or have no chance of winning if it is a third party candidate). Treat people like adults rather than children who should only be fed the proper slogans.
    The other 46 months of the four year Presidential cycle we talk about issues and what we think about them, without regard to how it effects parties. People argue about policies and the evidence for or against them.
    What we have instead is a campaign season which never ends and one of the consequences is that nobody believes what most politicians or pundits say, because we assume they are saying it to score points for the team. That is the problem with party discipline. Even when talking about candidates I like, I’d rather read someone who admits his or her flaws than someone who won’t.
    I said it was a daydream. But it doesn’t have to be completely ridiculous daydream. Or we could continue to live in a political culture where we are supposed to believe that incredibly crude mind numbingly stupid Russian social media ads were a serious threat to our democracy. If that’s true, we need to hire some Russian trolls to trick the idiot voters into supporting our candidates.
    But to be clear, I will vote for a ham sandwich or even Joe Biden over Trump. Unless some Russian sends me a picture of Jesus armwrestling Satan. Then all bets are off.

  289. nobody believes what most politicians or pundits say, because we assume they are saying it to score points for the team. That is the problem with party discipline.
    Actually, that is the problem with lack of party discipline. At least, lack of the right kind of party discipline.
    With proper party discipline, politicians could score points based on what they actually believe. Rather than what (true or not) will make their opponents look bad. If politicians were disciplined that way, primaries could be focused on substance, rather than on what opposition research has turned up that can be spun to make each other look bad.
    Might do marvels for how politicians are viewed.

  292. That’s the world according to sapient and cleek.
    no, it isn’t.
    but, i doubt you’re interested in being corrected.

  293. I don’t expect people who work under these conditions to have the time to worry about Yemen or the Ukraine or how Trump violates norms. Anyway, maybe Trump is the norm with the mask ripped off.
    https://newrepublic.com/article/155666/life-algorithm
    Wj, you can define party discipline however you want, so long as people argue about the substance of issues without slanting what they say for the sake of the party.

  294. without slanting what they say for the sake of the party.
    we have party-based governments in the US and UK.
    if their party isn’t in control, the ideology of an individual representatives almost doesn’t matter, since they will have almost no way to positively express that ideology. they will have limited opportunities to say ‘no’, and endless opportunities to complain to sympathetic supporters.
    narrowly focusing on the ideology of the individual candidates and to pretend party should not matter is to ignore the fundamental nature of the system.

  295. This is completely ridiculous: we shouldn’t criticise Democratic candidates before the elections and should they get elected we shouldn’t criticise them either (Obama) and even if they failed to get elected we shouldn’t criticise them (Clinton)and even if they are long-gone ex-presidents we shouldn’t criticise them (Clinton.)
    That seems a rather strained reading of refrain from an internecine struggle in the run up to an election…..
    (Which if you think about it is precisely a criticism of the Democratic contenders at the moment.)

  296. God help the NHS.
    Gosh, the Tories privatized Rolls Royce. And British Leyland. So of course that means the NHS is next.
    Not saying they won’t — I’m too far away from UK politics to know. But that twitter list seems more like hysteria than anything else.

  305. The biggest impediment to Trump Is Forever is simply the fact that his mental deterioration seems to be accelerating.
    I suspect that, in 3-4 years, making sense of his tweets will become next to impossible. (Those with experience doing psychic reading, etc. will doubtless step in to help.) If all the people who he attacks are no longer in politics, its effectiveness as a tool for intimidation and party discipline diminishes.

  307. An update of the Stanford global plan for 100% carbon neutral power:
    https://phys.org/news/2019-12-country-green-stanford-paths-countries.html
    “… To be honest, many of the policymakers and advocates supporting and promoting the Green New Deal don’t have a good idea of the details of what the actual system looks like or what the impact of a transition is. It’s more an abstract concept. So, we’re trying to quantify it and to pin down what one possible system might look like. This work can help fill that void and give countries guidance.”
    The roadmaps call for the electrification of all energy sectors, for increased energy efficiency leading to reduced energy use, and for the development of wind, water, and solar infrastructure that can supply 80% of all power by 2030 and 100% of all power by 2050. All energy sectors includes electricity; transportation; building heating and cooling; industry; agriculture, forestry, and fishing; and the military. The researchers’ modeling suggests that the efficiency of electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles over fossil fuel vehicles, of electrified industry over fossil industry, and of electric heat pumps over fossil heating and cooling, along with the elimination of energy needed for mining, transporting, and refining fossil fuels, could substantially decrease overall energy use.

  309. …, and for the development of wind, water, and solar infrastructure that can supply 80% of all power by 2030 and 100% of all power by 2050.
    The more likely outcome is that by 2050 energy sources will be 80% fossil and nuclear.

  310. The more likely outcome is that by 2050 energy sources will be 80% fossil and nuclear.
    You hope? If I recall correctly, you have a stake in the fossil fuel industry, which is why (I suppose) you’re a libertarian, so that your interests will be protected from regulation.
    And you may be right if the current Putin world order continues to strengthen. Fossil fuels and dictators go together like horse and carriage.
    As to nuclear energy, that’s something that we need to continue to try to fix and rethink.

  311. “The more likely outcome is that by 2050 energy sources will be 80% fossil and nuclear.”
    So, if the negative externalities of your vision, myopic as it is, not that I completely disagree with the nuclear option, murders millions of human beings, and cause millions of others around the globe unspeakable misery, even in your own pigfucking state pf Texas, shall you post your address here so we may pay a visit to you, Charles, for vicious vengeance against you.
    Do you have an algorithm to predict when that will happen? You got it all figured out?
    At least McKinneyTexas admits to wanting to take his chances with Mother Nature (apparently the rest of us must as well, at his regulatory, but anti-regulatory will), although he neglected to admit the 200 billion dollars of (hard-earned) taxpayer dollars that may have to be doled out to the predatory, and at the same time parasitical Gulf Coast of Texas and Houston once a decade or so to widen their inadequate swales, eliminate their mold, and, incidentally, cover up the amount of poisons seeping into the area from its conservative fucking corrupt Citizens United petro-chemical industry.
    David Bossie.
    He needs to kiss his vermin revolutionary conservative goodbye. He will be executed.
    He can kiss my ass first. It’s all I ask.

  312. The more likely outcome is that by 2050 energy sources will be 80% fossil and nuclear.
    How that 80% is distributed between fossil ans nuclear will be rather critical from a global warming perspective.
    The issue of disposing of waste from nuclear power wiil have to be dealt with (I incline incline to shoving it into a subduction zone), but it is far less urgent than reducing CO2 production.

  313. If I recall correctly, you have a stake in the fossil fuel industry, …
    The only stake I have is how much it’s costing me to stay warm this winter.
    …, shall you post your address here so we may pay a visit to you, Charles, for vicious vengeance against you.
    So, assault by vigilantes for the crime of making an observation?
    Any plan for 100% elimination of fossil fuels won’t amount to much unless China, India, Africa, and other developing countries go along with it. And that’s pretty unlikely to happen.
    And there are physical and economic limitations. The closer you get to 100% renewable, the more it’s going to cost.
    Real Engineering: California’s Renewable Energy Problem (YouTube)

  314. Any plan for 100% elimination of fossil fuels won’t amount to much unless China, India, Africa, and other developing countries go along with it.
    any plan that eliminates even 50% of FFs will be the kind of thing that will absolutely be shared with the world. there’s literally no way any country can do it in a way that no other country would benefit from.
    if we find a way to provide 50% of our energy without FFs, it will be a true revolution in energy production and a lot of people will stand to profit from it. if we do it, China and India will jump to come along because doing so will be worth it.
    there’s money to be made. we should be tripping over own feet to figure out how to do it, not sitting around complacent and dumb.

  315. The observation is harmless.
    The outcome not so much. Like Stalin’s observations of crop output in Ukraine.
    You have big plans for fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
    I presume we will be forced by private actors to participate in your scheme.

  316. if we find a way to provide 50% of our energy without FFs, it will be a true revolution in energy production and a lot of people will stand to profit from it.
    Even with the far small level we have achieved, it’s already a revolution. To the point that, in a lot of places which don’t aleady have extensive FF infrastructure in place, it’s alreadycheaper (amortized over a decade or so) to go renewable for anything short of serious heavy industry. Which is to say, for most applications. And it’s pretty clear that the technologies are going to get substantially better and cheaper.
    Lots of people with big financial interests in extending FFs, of course. To the point of subsidizing new infrastructure even. But, like demograpgic trends in the US, it’s obvious to anyone who looks what the future will be.

  317. The more likely outcome is that by 2050 energy sources will be 80% fossil and nuclear.
    That is, frankly, delusional.
    The real question is whether we transition to renewables fast enough.
    if we find a way to provide 50% of our energy without FFs, it will be a true revolution in energy production and a lot of people will stand to profit from it. if we do it, China and India will jump to come along because doing so will be worth it.
    China is already, in some respects, way out in front.
    https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/photovoltaic-solar-panel-market-size-2019-global-industry-sales-supply-consumption-analysis-and-forecasts-to-2024-2019-04-29

  318. If Jabba-Bonk’s successor is a WASP Bolsonaro, the US may go their own way of ‘eff the world’ on climate even if China, India etc. really get serious on it (or maybe even more so because of it). Local initiatives to punish the use of renewables* (by special taxes or outright bans) could go national. There is (almost) nothing that cannot be turned into a litmus test and/or totem for the cult.
    *already existing, justified by either deleterious effects on the fossil fuel industry or by claims that renewables are noxious in multiple ways (spoil the view, cause cancer, withdraw the sunlight from agriculture etc.[I kid you not]).

  319. I apologise for suggesting Charles might be delusional.
    This is the real deal:
    https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/475701-trump-rails-against-windmills-i-never-understood-wind
    …“I never understood wind,” Trump said, according to Mediaite. “I know windmills very much, I have studied it better than anybody. I know it is very expensive. They are made in China and Germany mostly, very few made here, almost none, but they are manufactured, tremendous — if you are into this — tremendous fumes and gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right?”
    “So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint, fumes are spewing into the air, right spewing, whether it is China or Germany, is going into the air,” the president added…

  320. The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

    We have successfully managed part one. Part two soon to come (assuming that ‘either…or’ is replaced with ‘first…then’). Don’t know about it being peaceful and safe though.
    —-
    Hac in mole Rylehque moraritur – Iä – Cthulhu.
    Mortuus est ast somniat usque ad sidera recta.

  321. “You may not have noticed it, amid the flood of bad news about the “Emissions Gap” and the collapse of the COP25 climate conference in Madrid, but over the last few weeks a new narrative about the climate future has emerged, on balance encouraging, at least to an alarmist like me. It is this: As best as we can understand and project the medium- and long-term trajectories of energy use and emissions, the window of possible climate futures is probably narrowing, with both the most optimistic scenarios and the most pessimistic ones seeming, now, less likely.”
    We’re Getting a Clearer Picture of the Climate Future — and It’s Not as Bad as It Once Looked: For once, the climate news might be better than you thought. It’s certainly better than I’ve thought.

  322. Doesn’t sound very encouraging to me.
    The third takeaway is that anyone who sees a world of 3 degrees warming — or even 2.5 degrees — as a positive or happy outcome has a pretty grotesque, or at least deluded, perspective on human suffering. At just two degrees, the U.N. estimates, damages from storms and sea-level rise could grow 100-fold. Cities in South Asia and the Middle East that are today home to many millions of people would be so hot during summer heat waves, scientists have projected, even going outside during the day could mean risking heatstroke or heat death. The number of climate refugees could pass 200 million, according to the U.N., and more than 150 million would die from the impacts of air pollution alone. North of two degrees, of course, the strain accumulates and intensifies, and while some amount of human adaptation to these forces is inevitable, the scale of adaptation required at even two degrees begins to seem close to impossible.
    The fourth is that these findings do not, actually, make it look easier to get to “safe” levels of warming — say 1.5 degrees, or even, for that matter, 2. All future emissions paths are charted from the present forward, of course, not from some projected scenario backward. And the state of things is in the present tense is really quite dire — new emissions records every year. To stay safely below 2 degrees, we would still need to roughly halve our carbon output by 2030 and zero it out entirely by 2075, as the U.N. warned last October in its “Doomsday” report. …
    And tends to confirm my view that the coming election is critical in terms of climate policy.

  323. “In a remarkable essay last week titled, “We’re Getting a Clearer Picture of the Climate Future — and It’s Not as Bad as It Once Looked,” David Wallace-Wells of New York Magazine wrote, “the climate news might be better than you thought. It’s certainly better than I’ve thought.” The essay was remarkable because Wells, a self-described “alarmist,” is also the author of The Uninhabitable Earth, which describes an apocalyptic vision of the future, dominated by “elements of climate chaos.””
    In 2020 Climate Science Needs To Hit The Reset Button, Part One

  324. To be clear, the IEA report only measured emissions from energy use, which is not at all the whole picture when it comes to emissions. RCP stands for “representative concentration pathways,” and theoretically climate feedback loops and other natural processes could deliver those carbon concentrations even if coal use fails to grow at the predicted rate….
    There is nothing theoretical about the feedback loops any more.
    Just take a glance at Siberia.

  329. The grifter grifted
    As ye sow, so shall you reap.
    Must be particularly irritating for him that, regardless of whether the other groups do anything to help the campaign, they keep the money from being available for the Trump family to siphon off.

  330. From time to time in the past, someone on the right has lamented the way their voters are so easily exploited by the grifters in their midst. But in the Trump era, such protestations have become pointless. If there’s anything Trump has proven, it’s that the conservative rank and file are not just easily hoodwinked; they’re practically begging for you to take their money.
    They didn’t just elect America’s biggest con artist, the man who created Trump University and the Trump Network and the Trump Institute and the Trump Foundation and all his other scams. They rallied behind him with an absolutely rapturous fervor, long after everyone understood exactly what he is. They cheer every lie he tells them, repeat every bizarre argument he makes and treat him like a demigod walking amongst us. If these suckers aren’t asking to be separated from their money, who could be?

  331. From cleek’s link:

    Even the semi-legitimate ones are essentially pulling a scam. Some of these groups do indeed spend a portion of their contributions on pro-Trump advertising, but it’s only after they pay hefty fees to the consultants who set up the group in the first place.

    Makers and takers!

  332. I found this really, really fascinating. For instance:

    This debate is remarkable because McConnell is unlikely to be making the key decisions about the shape of a Senate trial. The contours of the trial will be set by rules dating to the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, in 1868. Those rules leave answers to such questions as whether witnesses will appear, and when the trial may be adjourned, to the chief justice of the United States, John G. Roberts Jr., who — as set forward in the Constitution — presides over the proceedings.
    To be sure, senators can pass a special resolution setting rules for Trump’s trial, as they did for President Bill Clinton’s; such a resolution is the subject of last week’s skirmishing. But doing so would require more comity than is evident, as it needs a supermajority of 60 votes and there are just 53 Republican senators. Absent a special resolution, on the questions now causing debate, senators must defer to Roberts — or overrule him, if they dare. [emphasis added]

    I, for one, didn’t realize that McConnell would need more than a simple majority to fix the rules on witnesses and evidence. By far the most hopeful thing I have read on impeachment in quite a while.

  334. “Why it matters: It shows how change can happen rapidly and unexpectedly, even in an industry known to move gradually and predictably. With a new decade upon us, let’s look back at the last one’s biggest, most surprising energy changes.
    Where it stands: The following five charts show the U.S. Energy Information Administration projections for the future from a decade ago, along with current EIA data to compare those projections with what actually has happened.”
    The decade that blew up energy predictions: America’s energy sources, like booming oil and crumbling coal, have defied projections and historical precedents over the last decade.

  335. McConnell can override any rule or precedent, including those that require super-majorities, if he has a simple majority (absent actual statute or constitutional language to the contrary). The presiding officer rules that a simple majority is adequate; some member raises a point of order that the presiding officer is wrong; the question is settled by a simple majority vote.
    This is how SCOTUS appointments are settled by a simple majority, even though the written rules say you need 60 votes for cloture, and 67 votes to modify the written rules on cloture.
    Have I mentioned lately how much I hate this?

  336. America’s energy sources, like booming oil and crumbling coal, have defied projections and historical precedents over the last decade.
    The Western Interconnect will get approximately 49% of its electricity from low-carbon sources this year, about 41% from renewables. Coal will be about 20% of the mix. Of course, as the population continues to boom, the West has water-related reasons to avoid thermal power plants entirely.

  337. About to go out of town for a few days, may or may not have connection, so:
    A very happy Christmas, Hannukah or other applicable holiday to all, and may the new year not be as terrible as it could be (as an old colleague of mine used to say “The secret to happiness is low expectations”).

  338. I notice coal’s usage is dropping, except for taking away space in America’s and England’s Christmas stockings from the imported cheeses I use to savor.
    Trump wants to lynch the Christmas stockings, instead of just hanging them high for most decent Americans.
    Hey, we could witness a second impeachment, if we’re lucky. But will it come before martial law, or after?
    Count (me in) yer blessings:
    https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide/status/1207478434206638081
    Marry Christmas and Happy New Year, as GFTNC notes.
    See ya next year, though I’m going to really try for permanent lurking.
    It’s my gift to y’all.

  341. The presiding officer rules that a simple majority is adequate; some member raises a point of order that the presiding officer is wrong; the question is settled by a simple majority vote.
    aka “The Nuclear Option”

  342. somewhere, Bellmore’s chickens are smiling:

    On Friday, the Energy Department announced it would keep incandescent and halogen bulbs on the market rather than phasing them out on Jan. 1. The reprieve for old-fashioned lightbulbs affects roughly 3 billion — nearly half — of the bulbs in sockets in U.S. homes.
    “If you like your lightbulbs, you can keep your lightbulbs!” the official White House Twitter account posted Saturday. “The Obama Admin tried to limit Americans to buying more-expensive LED bulbs for their homes — but thanks to President @realDonaldTrump, go ahead and decorate your house with whatever lights you want.”
    …
    Democrats and environmental activists have said Trump is selling out the long-term health of the planet in an attempt to secure short-term political gain. Trump’s lightbulb decision, for example, will boost energy costs by $14 billion a year and generate 38 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, according to consumer group estimates.

  343. I’m sure there’s a large overlap between Rump supporters and the people who, long before Rump was president, were purposely using extra electricity on Earth Day. “Conservatives” who don’t like to conserve, because liberals. (Someone should make up some kind of law that explains this phenomenon.)

  344. It seems to me that LEDs are now both cheaper and much more reliable than filament bulbs in decorative lighting.
    A Merry Christmas to everyone trying not to destroy the environment.

  345. Time to change political mascots from elephants and donkeys to grasshoppers and ants.
    Locusts – they stand for freedom!

  348. It seems to me that LEDs are now both cheaper and much more reliable than filament bulbs in decorative lighting.
    They ought to be more reliable. The LED itself has a longer time-to-failure than any of the parts around it. Most LED light bulbs don’t fail because of the LED, they fail because the AC-to-DC power converter fails. I have a home automation project from several years ago with a small touch screen with LED backlighting. The backlight LEDs are turned on and off 250 times per second, with the perceived brightness determined by the relative length of the on and off intervals. For some reason last year I did a back of the envelope estimate; those LEDs have been turned on and off something over four billion times.

  352. “Trump’s lightbulb decision, for example, will boost energy costs by $14 billion a year and generate 38 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, according to consumer group estimates.”

    Perhaps. But, on the other hand, the more energy-efficient devices are, the more people will use them. Thus, at least in part, offsetting the gains in less energy use.
    “The growing evidence that low-cost efficiency often leads to faster energy growth was recently considered by both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency. They concluded that energy savings associated with new, more energy efficient technologies were likely to result in significant “rebounds,” or increases, in energy consumption. This means that very significant percentages of energy savings will be lost to increased energy consumption.”
    The Problem With Energy Efficiency

  353. I have one word for you, young man.
    Yes sir.
    Just one word. That word is …
    Yes sir?
    Candles. Candles are the future.
    What about the fumes, sir?
    Scented, my dear boy. Now go forth.
    Hmmm … fire danger?
    Deregulate the fire codes, son, and death by immolation will be considered freedom of choice. And speech. The highest good. You think a siren and and a dalmation make these gummint bureaucrats experts?
    Let it burn.

  354. But, on the other hand, the more energy-efficient devices are, the more people will use them.
    oh contrarianism… when will you ever help ?

  355. the more energy-efficient devices are, the more people will use them.
    Do you have any evidence for this? Any evidence at all?
    Because, in my experience, people don’t generally give a second thought to how energy-efficient things are in daily life. When they are buying something? Especially something major? Sure. But when using it? No. They certainly don’t say to themselves: “Wow, this is so efficient that I can use it lots more.”

  356. But, on the other hand, the more energy-efficient devices are, the more people will use them.
    Seven times as much ?
    And how do we drive two cars at the same time ?
    I mean, in the long term, you aren’t wrong. When the marginal cost of most energy production is zero (wind and solar), we will be able to do economically all kinds of stuff which we can’t do now.

  357. we could always do something like this:

    • charge more for sources of energy whose use we want to discourage.
    • charge less for sources of energy whose use we want to encourage.

    all of this assuming that there are sources of energy whose use we want to encourage or discourage, for reasons above and beyond simply making things go. which is, I think, a safe assumption.
    Merry Christmas / Chanukah / Diwali / whatever form of creating light in a dark season you personally observe, if any, everyone.
    A good day here chez russell. I got Fernand Braudel’s “Civilization and Capitalism”, a new Small’s Jazz Club T-shirt, “Jazz Bata” by Chucho Valdes, and a belt. Wife got some new choral music, some new and improved cooking implements, and a box of maple sugar candy. Doing family and friends stuff, singing and eating and general merriment. A nice holiday. Hope you all had / are having a great holiday as well.
    All of the bullshit will continue until it can’t anymore. in the meantime, let’s all do our best to not let it get us down, and we’ll plan on fixing whatever we can when the brain fever breaks, whenever that is.

  358. I’m having a lovely, if quiet, Christmas, and am hoping that everyone’s holiday (whatever you celebrate!) is just the way you like it!
    I’m so grateful for so many things that are happening in my immediate range of family and friends. I wish all of it for everyone!
    All of the bullshit will continue until it can’t anymore. in the meantime, let’s all do our best to not let it get us down, and we’ll plan on fixing whatever we can when the brain fever breaks, whenever that is.
    Yes, this.
    Happy holidays, everyone, and be strong!

  359. Because, in my experience, people don’t generally give a second thought to how energy-efficient things are in daily life
    i just now calculated that it costs me $0.006 per hour to run a 60W light bulb – 6/10ths of a cent. but if electricity got 10x cheaper or bulbs got 10x more efficient, i wouldn’t turn on more lights… because i don’t need any more light than i’m already using.
    it’s already cheap enough that i don’t notice the cost, even in aggregate. i know some people do notice, and they could really use more efficiency and less cost. but it wouldn’t matter much to me. my use is already at its max because i don’t need any more.

  360. Encourage/discourage…
    It’s not difficult:
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/25/2020-set-to-be-year-of-the-electric-car-say-industry-analysts
    New European Union rules come into force on 1 January that will heavily penalise carmakers if average carbon dioxide emissions from the cars they sell rise above 95g per kilometre. If carmakers exceed that limit, they will have to pay a fine of €95 (£79) for every gram over the target, multiplied by the total number of cars they sell.
    The excess emissions bill would have been £28.6bn on 2018 sales figures, according to analysis by the automotive consultancy Jato Dynamics, illustrating the extent of the change required by carmakers over a short period of time. Jato analyst Felipe Muñoz said there will still be large fines, as companies keep selling profitable internal combustion engine cars and struggle to bring down EV prices to parity with their fossil-fuel peers.
    “It is very difficult for carmakers to change manufacturing infrastructure in such a short period of time,” Muñoz said.
    However, some analysts take a more sceptical view of the industry that spawned the Dieselgate scandal, in which Volkswagen and Daimler were shown to have deliberately cheated emissions regulations. Carmakers successfully lobbied for a rule that means cars emitting less than 50g of carbon dioxide per kilometre are eligible for so-called super-credits, a controversial policy which means that every electric vehicle sold counts as two cars. That makes it easier for carmakers to meet their targets, even if average emissions from their cars are actually higher than the rules stipulate….

  361. “New European Union rules come into force on 1 January that will heavily penalise carmakers if average carbon dioxide emissions from the cars they sell rise above 95g per kilometre.”
    I think I heard a sigh of relief from the UK auto industry.

  362. Well, soon they will have only their domestic market left, so there’ll also be an end to the trouble of building different cars for left- and right-hand-traffic.

  363. On the contrary, UK volume car manufacturing is facing extinction, as it’s likely to face tariffs from its largest export market.
    The decision of Tesla to ignore the UK as a location for its new factory is one symptom of that; the lack of any plans for mass battery manufacturing (in sharp contrast to the dozen or so plants in the works across Europe) another.

  365. I own Tesla stock, from a lower price, for a trade (when in asshole Rome, etc. …) though the company would be better served if someone cut Elon Musk’s tongue out of his head (and toss it into the gigantic pile of bullshit-emitting severed tongues America requires to survive)
    But this is what I’m seeing more frequently from so-called “analysts” (predatory fucking Americans) and I don’t ever remember this phenomenon occurring in previous market cycles to this extent, and I’ve been investing since 1979.
    Read the sub-headline and see if you can suss out what I’m talking about:
    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-stock-continues-record-setting-run-after-analyst-raises-price-target-by-100-2019-12-26?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
    I call it the Kudlowian 12-step blowing bubbles in the kool-aid cure.

  366. I don’t have too much of a problem with the Lamborghini article – his larger conclusion is essentially correct, and more or less what I’ve been arguing here.
    He’s wrong about electric cars (and other individual decisions to switch to renewables), though. That has helped create a market and helped jump start technologies which are available now, rather than in a few years time after government gets its act together.
    And in any event, in three or four years time, electric vehicles are going to be cheaper than their direct ICE equivalents, which is going to see a very rapid change in manufacturing and energy demand.
    Musing further on Charles’ comments above, it’s surprising just how reactionary US libertarians appear to be.

  368. I don’t ever remember this phenomenon occurring in previous market cycles to this extent
    I follow US biotechs in a desultory manner, and this sort of thing seems quite familiar since more or less forever.

  369. You mean, “I’m coming out with a table-pounding buy with both hands recommendation at $429/share because my price target is $379/share”?
    It’s the new trickle down theory of investing.
    It’s a variation of what’s happened before (Will Rogers: “Buy em if they go up, if they don’t go up, don’t buy em”), but I’ve never seen it expressed with such specific incoherence before.
    As I said, it’s Kudlowian, the type of desperate optimism expressed by recovering drug and alcohol addicts.

  370. He’s wrong about electric cars (and other individual decisions to switch to renewables), though. That has helped create a market and helped jump start technologies which are available now, rather than in a few years time after government gets its act together
    That’s the flaw in the “one person’s actions aren’t big enough to make a difference” argument. It fails to recognize that multiple “one person” actions end up creating conditions that do make a difference. Government action isn’t the only path to collective action. That, after all, is the whole idea behind how markets work.

  371. I’m neither a mod nor a rocker, I’m a mocker.
    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/nyc-anti-semitic-attacks-holidays
    Attacks ordered by the un-elected, self-proclaimed King of the Jews to his right-wing filth republican base, who will blame the attacks on George Soros, using sweet diversionary and always eminently successful (see historical body counts) Hitlerian illogic:
    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-tweets-quote-calling-him-the-second-coming-of-god-to-jews-in-israel/
    Buy Trump at a million dollars a share. My price target, which is affixed to his back, is zero, but he’s a bargain up here.

  372. Yeah, back to incandescent light bulbs and internal combustion engines. Because we just luurve how efficient and reliable they are!
    While they’re at it, why aren’t the grumpy old pigheads demanding a return to CRT computer monitors and TVs instead of these newfangled ‘flatscreen’ things?
    Just amazing how CRTs went from ‘ubiquitous’ to ‘what are these strange antiques?’ in just a few years. It gives one hope, it does.

  373. Just amazing how CRTs went from ‘ubiquitous’ to ‘what are these strange antiques?’ in just a few years. It gives one hope, it does.
    Partly, the new stuff works better. And partly, to be frank, fashion. There’s also the detail that they are far more energy efficient, but that doesn’t seem to be a real factor in why people bought them.
    Probably a lesson there for those who want more energy efficient cars, etc., etc. Not because you are wrong to want them, but because you need to look at what works to move people’s behavior. And, in general, logic is a minor part.

  374. While they’re at it, why aren’t the grumpy old pigheads demanding a return to CRT computer monitors and TVs instead of these newfangled ‘flatscreen’ things?
    Because once they’ve watched a football game in high-def on a 65-inch display, there’s no going back.
    Many years ago when I was doing tech demos for one of the few innovative cable companies, we had a 30-inch high-def CRT monitor Sony had loaned us. We put it up on a specially-built stand at our shows so people could see it over the folks in front of them. When it was time to put it up there, I rounded up three other people so we had one person on each corner. That sucker was heavy. And deep from the screen to the back of the enclosure. No way you were going to put it on any normal sort of family room furniture and not have it end up on the floor at some point.

  375. Not because you are wrong to want them, but because you need to look at what works to move people’s behavior.
    With my technology forecasting hat on, I predict that in about ten years there will be a surprising number of small (two-seat) self-driving electric cars sold. To Boomers (perhaps at the insistence of their children), so they can stay in their houses for another decade because the car can get them to the grocery, doctor, etc.

  376. While they’re at it, why aren’t the grumpy old pigheads demanding a return to…
    easy. the liquidation of the incandescent bulb and the larger than bowel movements toilet flush tank were MANDATED by the EVIL GOVERNMENT. FREEDOM!
    cheap flat screens, on the other hand, are the creation of the free trade policies market that shipped millions of good paying jobs overseas so we could have cheap stuff. MOAR FREEDOM.

  377. There’s also the detail that they are far more energy efficient, but that doesn’t seem to be a real factor in why people bought them.
    I don’t know. The battery life of a mobile phone with CRT display would be disappointing…

  378. If you compare the cost of operating a small electric car vs. a similar gas-powered car, there’s a huge electric advantage, even in places where your home electricity is rather expensive. Not even counting in the repairs of electric motors vs. i.c. monstrosity.
    For frequent short trips (home/school, home/store, etc) electric is the clear winner. It just takes a while for the obvious to be obvious, I guess.
    CRT laptop? Anyone remember the Kaypro ‘luggable’?

  379. The battery life of a mobile phone with CRT display would be disappointing.
    my grandfather was an engineer for Corning glass. a couple of times, back in the 70s,i spotted some mini CRT tubes in the back seat of his car. 3″-4″.
    not sure what happened to those tubes. i assume my uncles made bongs out of them.

  381. My son’s girlfriend bought a new Nissan Leaf. She says the routine maintenance schedule is a hoot: check the fluid levels and rotate the tires. Longer term, the seldom-used friction components in the brakes are supposed to be good for 150k miles. Replace the 12V battery — used for the electronics other than the drive train — every 60 months.
    For an oldster not putting many miles on per day, park the car over an induction charging pad in the garage so they don’t forget to plug it in.

  382. I keep considering an electric car. But at the moment, the technology (not to mention the infrastructure) looks to be just short of cascade. That is, the point where it goes from only-enthusiasts-have-one to seems-like-everyone-does. And the price plummets while the capabilities take off. So if I hold off just a couple more tears….
    Most of us can remember when home/personal computers when thru that. (I’m recalling the late 1990s when my mother, 80 years old and in a nursing home doing rehab for a hip replacement, was bitching about the lack of Internet access there.) I think the next few years will see electric vehicles do the same. Probably with short haul delivery trucks leading the charge — they seem a prime market: lots of short haul stuff.

  383. The charge (pardon the pun) is being led by the top end of the market.
    Tesla already outsells all of the pricey German imports.
    Two or three years’ time it will pay the rest of us plebs to switch too.
    And yes, commercial vehicles will be a compelling economic proposition too.

  384. I have a hybrid, and won’t buy a new car until mine is run into the ground, and by that time (I think) I’ll be too old to drive – self-imposed. Speaking of not driving, I’m actually also looking forward to driverless cars, although I don’t know anyone else who welcomes them. (Obviously, the technology has to improve, but when it does, and when self-driving becomes mandatory, the accident rate will be amazingly diminished.)

  385. when self-driving becomes mandatory, the accident rate will be amazingly diminished.
    If nothing else, we will require a terminology change. Because “accident” won’t really be right for that kind of event. 😉

  386. And efficiency of traffic flow, only part of which will be the result of a reduction in collisions. Cooperative and uncompetitive driving algorithms, shorter following distances, narrower lanes, networked route management. That’ll be some sh1t.

  388. I expect there will be those who trumpet that you’ll have to “pry their steering wheel from their cold, dead fingers”.
    While rolling-coal, also, too.
    It is for such problems that the Jaws Of Life were invented, amirite?

  389. One of the features of Tesla’s always on cameras is the documenting of multiple idiocies perpetrated by those who simply can’t accept the existence of vehicles which don’t run on gasoline…. from paint vandalism, futile attempts to race off traffic lights and brake testing – all the way to attempts to run them off the road.
    So, yes, I think you’re probably right.

  390. From Alan Bennett’s always wonderful diaries, this from the end of 2019 on the death of Jonathan Miller:

    Ours was a not unrivalrous relationship, with neither particularly generous about the other’s work. Whereas a play or whatever on TV would invariably prompt a tipsy telephone call from Peter Cook with congratulations that one had got away with it yet again, Jonathan and I were less indulgent, tending to ignore each other’s efforts. I never saw one of his operas and I’m not sure he ever saw one of my plays. He did try though, which is more than I did, and en route to the premiere of The History Boys a traffic jam enabled him to abandon the car (and the attempt) in the middle of Waterloo Bridge. Still, I wouldn’t even have tried.
    I learned quite early on in our friendship not to discuss what I was working on lest it turn out he knew more about the subject than I did – or seemed to. It was always difficult to tell Jonathan anything, only to remind him of it.
    Talking to Jonathan found its way into my work. Mr and Mrs T.S. Eliot saw Beyond the Fringe and said that Jonathan reminded them of Auden, and as such he crops up in the preface to my play The Habit of Art: ‘Wystan was the first person to go to Iceland, did you know that? And Christopher Columbus didn’t discover America. Wystan did.’ That was Jonathan. Now that he’s gone I feel remorse as well as sorrow. But, jokes apart, it was a question of survival. I needed to write. Jonathan needed one to listen.

    And on the result of the December 12th election:
    13 December. It’s a gang, not a government. Sure, he smells – but you can get used to anything.

  391. my next car, as soon as we save up enough downpayment, will be a Tesla 3. i’m moving on from two Audi A4s and two VWs before that. i do love the way those Audis drive, but there is zero chance i’m paying $80K+ for the electric version.
    the T3 comes in under the cost of a new A4, plus i can charge at work for free.
    Because “accident” won’t really be right for that kind of event.
    the software “crash” will move from metaphoric to reality.

  393. i will not be buying Tesla’s “self-driving” package. not this time, probably not ever.
    anyone wanting to trust software to drive them around should just look at Boeing’s year in software.

  394. I will not be buying Tesla’s “self-driving” package. not this time, probably not ever.
    anyone wanting to trust software to drive them around should just look at Boeing’s year in software.
    In the short term, absolutely. Many of us here have way too much experience with software, up close and personal, to want to be anywhere near what will be a really massive beta test. Which is what the early versions will be.
    But in time, we’ll go there. Only think how many functions in you existing car run of one of the dozens of computer chips it includes. There days, and auto mechanic needs computer skills almost as much as a wrench. Maybe more.

  395. as soon as software can predict an individual human’s behavior as well as a human can, i’ll trust it to drive me around.
    because, no matter howe good your sensors are, reaction speed becomes irrelevant when dealing with large mass and high velocity. if your predictions are wrong, and you’ve got yourself moving too quickly, you’re might just find yourself with too much momentum and no time to deal with it.

  396. I refer you to the link above about safety standards.
    Would I take Tesla’s word for it ? No way.
    If they demonstrate they can conform to independent standards which are verifiable, perhaps.
    Will take a few years, of course.

  397. I can’t see self-driving cars being practical other than in some very narrow cases until and unless pretty much all roads and highways are re-engineered. Just to make conditions consistent enough to make them amenable to automation, if nothing else.
    Basically, we have to create the conditions for driving to be simple enough that a machine can do it. Which is not a small lift. There are lots of crappy roads out there, they are always in some state of repair or disruption due to their own wear and tear and/or the fact that they share a footprint with lots of other systems – water, sewer, gas, electric. Vehicles share the roads with pedestrians, motorcycles, bicycles, and the occasional stray animal. And self-driving vehicles will be sharing the road with human-driven vehicles for at least another generation.
    And, then there’s weather.
    Creating the conditions for self-driving vehicles to be practical will take significant public investment. And if we are going to make significant public investment, I wish we would spend it on something more like public transportation, and less like baking the practice of everybody driving their own personal vehicle (or having their own personal vehicle drive itself, with them in it) every time they leave the house to go somewhere.
    To be honest, I don’t really see the point of self-driving vehicles. I can’t think of a single upside that can’t easily be achieved by other simpler, less expensive means. They just seem like another example of the seductiveness of shiny new gadgets.
    Electric vehicles are great, torquey as all get out. Right now they’re a niche luxury good, and are likely to stay that way until (a) places and means to recharge them are ubiquitous, and (b) you can buy a good, reliable electric vehicle for less than $20k. That last either means car makers have to build something like that, or else enough people buy the $30K and up kind that there’s a significant used car market.
    The “affordable” electric vehicles are the Chevy Bolt, which starts at $36K, and the Nissan Leaf, which starts at just below $30K. The entry level Tesla is the Model 3, at $36K.
    Median household income in the US is currently about $60K. Which means that, for half of the households in the US, a new EV will cost them at least half of their annual household income. Nobody is going to spend half their annual income to help save the planet.
    Technology is fun and interesting, but if we really want to make a dent in the issues that are created by People Driving Cars, we should think about figuring out how to make it possible for people to simply drive less.

  398. Current road conditions and traffic flow, for Boston, on a non-work day.
    The big red circles are “critical incidents” – something going on that is likely to have a critical impact on traffic flow. There are something like two dozen of them at the moment, in an area that is maybe a couple of square miles.
    Will the self-driving vehicle understand what the guy in the orange vest with the flag is telling it to do?
    Best of luck to self-driving vehicles.

  399. The Honda Fit starts at $17.5K. It’ll carry four adults in reasonable comfort, and you can fit pretty much anything smaller than a horse in the hatch with the back seats down.
    It’s the official vehicle of the gigging musician, because it will hold a drum set, vibraphone, PA system, upright bass, tuba, multiple keyboards, or various combinations of the above.
    If you play the harp or a Hammond B3, you need something bigger.
    If you keep up with oil changes etc., you’ll probably get 150-200k miles out of it. Realistic, real-world mpg is probably mid-30’s. It’s not clear to me that an EV is, net/net, environmentally better than a vehicle that gets mid-30’s mpg.
    It’s even semi-fun to drive.
    If America wants to move to electric vehicles in numbers that will actually move the needle on fossil fuel use, car makers need to produce EV’s that can compete with something like the Fit.
    But if we really, truly want to move the needle on fossil fuel use, we need useful public transportation. Yes, I know that’s problematic for folks in rural areas. Most people don’t live in rural areas.

  400. Autonomous vehicles, should they come about, will provide public transportation.
    Which is why Tesla are attempting to engineer their vehicles to be good for 500k miles.
    As far as the price thing is concerned, battery costs are falling fast, and EVs will likely be cheaper than their direct ICE equivalents within five years.

  401. Autonomous vehicles, should they come about, will provide public transportation.
    If you have to buy the autonomous vehicle, and you don’t make enough money to buy the vehicle, then you don’t have transportation.
    If municipalities are going to field fleets of autonomous vehicles in numbers large enough for everyone who uses public transportation and / or wants to use public transportation, public roadways are going to turn into parking lots.
    It is the most expensive, least scalable form of public transportation imaginable.

  402. FWIW – this is from 2017, but it’s probably still reasonable accurate – half a million people take 1.4 million trips per day on the Boston MBTA.
    About half are on the subway, a little more than a quarter on the bus, the rest on commuter rail.
    Addressing demand like that with autonomous vehicles would bring metro Boston to halt. Full stop.
    Everyplace isn’t like Boston. Lots of places are, and places that aren’t will increasingly become so.
    Technology is cool and fun, but self-driving vehicles are not a silver bullet for any other than the most narrow of transportation issues.

  403. Will the self-driving vehicle understand what the guy in the orange vest with the flag is telling it to do
    That? Probably a long ways away. But for just knowing about the problems and avoiding them? Wayz already does a passable job on that stuff. And no doubt a little work will make the system even better.

  404. There are lots of crappy roads out there, they are always in some state of repair or disruption due to their own wear and tear and/or the fact that they share a footprint with lots of other systems
    And, above else, “deferred maintenance”. If self-driving cars force an end to the folly of deferred maintenance, which they will pretty well have to, that may be the biggest benefit of all to everybody else who uses the roads.

  405. Wayz already does a passable job on that stuff.
    In general, Wayz shunts traffic from congested major / larger roads, onto less congested local roads.
    Which makes the local roads more congested.
    I live the waking nightmare of getting around Boston and Cambridge most days of the week. Including stitching a path from home to work and back through a fairly byzantine web of major highways and local roads, with the choices du jour depending on accidents, road work, weather, general road conditions, and time of day.
    Getting from point A to point B efficiently also requires skillful choice and timing of which lane to be in, knowledge of which traffic lights have a left turn option and which don’t, and what time the school buses are on the road.
    And I’m leaving out ephemeral phenomena like sinkholes, street sweeping machines, people attending sporting events, and road closures due to high speed chases involving bank robbers.
    I understand that every place isn’t Boston, but most large American cities have similar issues – and most of those don’t have the transportation infrastructure that Boston has. Crappy as it is.
    My point overall is that driving an automobile is actually a very complicated thing, for a very broad range of reasons. And, people are in general actually pretty good at it, and the causes for people not being so good at it are probably easier to address directly, rather than try to teach machines to do it instead.
    I suppose it’s possible that the technology could evolve to the point where we could have hundreds of thousands if not millions of one-ton-plus metal robots with people inside whizzing around without incident, but I really don’t see it happening without re-engineering the public road system to basically dumb it down enough to make that possible.
    And if that’s what’s required, I don’t see that as the most productive or intelligent use of whatever public effort is required.
    I just don’t see an upside that warrants the investment. There are easier / better / more practical ways to do whatever things autonomous vehicles are supposed to do for us.
    Is it possible? Probably – we sent a man to the moon, right? We mapped the genome, right? If we want to spend the time, talent, and money, we can probably figure out how to build a world where robot cars can zoom around without killing everybody.
    Is it a good idea? Is this the best thing we can come up with to move people around?
    I don’t see that it is. I’m not seeing the value of it, at least compared to other choices.

  406. It’s not clear to me that an EV is, net/net, environmentally better than a vehicle that gets mid-30’s mpg.
    in my case…
    my current A4 gets about 27MPG on my daily commute. that’s 26 miles, half highway and half city. i fill it up roughly every 10 days. 15 gallons a shot. ~540 gallons of gas per year.
    electricity in my area is generated by Mr Duke’s clean-burning nuclear rods. so, every EV in the area is at least fossil-fuel free.
    in addition, my company has a dozen acres of solar panels generating 3.6MW on-site (with sheep providing lawn care around them). and it provides plenty of EV charging points. so, the dozens of EVs charged there run primarily on Mr Sol’s clean-burning photons – even better.
    so, any EV i buy will be running as close to 100% carbon free as anything can.

  408. in my case…
    That’s all good. And, I’m sure there are lots of people for whom an EV is a great choice. I wish it made sense for me to drive one.
    All of that said, it’s not a technology that is likely to really move the needle on fossil fuel use until it’s adopted widely. And that really can’t happen until most folks can afford one, and have a convenient way to recharge them.
    I’d love to see that happen, FWIW, I’m just calling it out as a pre-requisite.

  409. If self-driving cars force an end to the folly of deferred maintenance, which they will pretty well have to
    More or less my point, with “the folly of deferred maintenance” expanded to include an additional basket of things that make autonomous vehicles problematic in the real world.
    It will require significant public investment. If we’re going to spend public money, time, and effort, are autonomous vehicles really the best option?

  410. 40,000 die in car accidents every year, and a lot more people are maimed.
    I would be happy for solutions resulting in people driving less, including and especially public transportation. It seems to me that’s a more complicated plan, but I’m all for whatever can be done. The problem is, I’ve been all for it for my entire adulthood, and it hasn’t gotten much better in the localities where I’ve lived.
    DC created what seemed like a wonderful Metro system, and I used it faithfully when I lived in the area and worked in DC. I had to commute by car to a station however, and I don’t think that’s changed much. I moved from the DC area in about 1990, and only visit occasionally. I’m sure that I would still be a loyal user, but according to what I read, Metro is besieged by problems. (Link is to an old story, but still applicable.) The outskirts of Washington DC are a road rage nightmare (and my little city is starting to catch up).
    Charlottesville has a bus system that serves a few people well, but most people poorly. If you’re wealthy enough to live in downtown Charlottesville you can afford to be very green with public transportation. Also, they have a service for disabled people that’s theoretically available to everyone, but I don’t know of anyone who is not disabled who uses it – perhaps that’s the answer (but in the short term, it would just increase the ride time for people who need to be shuttled). I don’t use public transportation here at the moment. I drive a hybrid.
    Like most people who live here, I have to drive (although I’m exploring the possibility of moving since I’d like to be driving even less often as I get older).
    Public transportation has always been something I’ve supported. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sell very well where I’ve lived.
    I started this comment with a statistic about people dying on the roads. Driving is a complicated skill, but human drivers aren’t perfectly programmed for it. I’m not sure how we compare to what robots might be able to do within the next couple of decades.

  411. total agreement about the price. but it will probably come down, once the big makers really get into it.
    and, of course, you can lease EVs. right now, a Leaf lease is $3K down, $199/mo. that’s cheaper than leasing a Honda Civic.

  412. Agreed that prices can and likely will come down. There’s a bit of a chicken and egg thing – car makers will want to see the market before they invest in building the cars, the market will be hard to grow without the product to buy.
    But somebody will make the long bet and get things going.
    You can get a level 2 charger installed at home for something like $2-$3K, which is not so bad if you are committing to driving an EV and can amortize the cost over many years. Hopefully those will become common as something that just comes with housing.
    I’d actually love to drive an EV, and looked at the Leaf. The whole package is just not there for me. We don’t actually have a garage, so it might not ever be – I’m not sure the logistics of unsheltered outdoor charging stations are all that great.
    But they’re a promising option, and hopefully will become practical for more and more people.
    sapient, I hear you about public transportation being a tough sell. And, I can see autonomous vehicles having value in places where populations are too sparse for buses or light rail to be practical. My guess is that some form(s) of autonomous vehicle will make it to market, they’ll require a lot of public infrastructure changes to actually be safe and practical, and they’ll be great in some places and be a freaking nightmare in others.
    Mostly, I think Americans outside of urban cores are used to going wherever they want, when they want, without having to sit with people they don’t know, and autonomous vehicles are a better fit for that cultural norm. So, they may win the day just on that basis, and whatever has to happen to make them practical is what we’ll do.

  413. Price per kWh 2016 – around $350
    Current – around &250
    2025 (without novel battery chemistries) – around $100
    Sure, the early adopters oay through the nose… was’t the original Macintosh about $5k ?
    And I think you’re missing the point about AVs. That effort will happen irrespective if whatever changes take place ,
    You next bus will be electric in any event.

  414. To quote the venerable Colonel Blimp:
    Gad, sir, Lord Beaverbrook is right. The country must face the alternative – wider roads or narrower pedestrians

  416. Sure, the early adopters oay through the nose… was’t the original Macintosh about $5k ?
    FWIW, I bought one for about $3000 practically the day they came out.
    Otherwise, in general and as usual, wrs starting at 2:29 today. As Jared Diamond put it: Invention is the mother of necessity. Unfortunately in some cases, IMHO.

  417. my father in law never let me live down the fact that i bought a flat screen LED TV in the late 1990s – $2500 for a 28″.
    thus funding continued research into the tech that makes the same capability available for $250.
    you’re all welcome.

  418. And I think you’re missing the point about AVs.
    Entirely possible.
    What is the point about AVs? Fewer accidents? Don’t have to hire truck drivers? Don’t have to own a car because the car will just come to you when you need it?
    I can see the value of each of those. Less so for the second case, especially if you’re a truck driver.
    The last one is basically Uber without the necessity of human drivers. Most folks could probably get by without having a car at all – just summon one up as needed. Instead of everyone having one (or two) cars, each of which essentially remains idle for 90% of the time, one car could serve something like ten people, and be in use more of the time.
    It’s an interesting idea. Maybe we could reclaim a lot of the space currently devoted to parking lots.
    All of that said, you’ll still have at least the same number of cars in motion as you do now. Which, where I live and in most places like where I live, is much if not most of the problem.
    And we will probably have to significantly rebuild a hell of a lot of public infrastructure to make driving simple enough for machines to do it safely.

  419. Will the autonomous vehicles have incandescent bulbs in the overhead lights?
    How are autonomous vehicles “autonomous”?
    Autonomous from what and whom? If I’m in an autonomous vehicle, does that make me autonomous as well?
    Are they autonomous in the Kantian sense, as in acting in the sense of one’s moral duty rather than one’s desires.
    Can they be used as getaway cars when the trouble starts? Will anonymous vehicles be available for such purposes?
    Will they get me to the church on time?
    I’m not against the concept, indeed, I see the upsides, but a fella has time to think up annoying queries when he doesn’t need to keep his eyes on the road.

  420. And we will probably have to significantly rebuild a hell of a lot of public infrastructure to make driving simple enough for machines to do it safely.
    How safe are we now? 40,000 deaths per year. Even more than gun violence (and I am anti-gun).
    We’re not safe now. I do hope that people measure their worries against the reality that exists now. And sure, maybe we’ve made it until now without being in a debilitating accident. We are lucky. Two friends of mine, both over 65, had a “spell” of some sort, where they zoned out and had an accident. Neither hurt anyone else (thank goodness), but both were seriously injured themselves. One of them died shortly thereafter, partly from the injuries, but also from the cumulative effect of that and other health problems (she stopped eating – she’d had it). The other friend survives, but isn’t well.
    People aren’t programmed to drive cars. It’s a necessary habit that most of us can manage for a long time, but when we suffer a moment of [whatever] it can be the end.

  423. Say an autonomous (Doomsday Machine, they used to call it; trump mastered all of it in depth in a nifty 25 minutes) hypersonic nuclear tipped missile is headed my way from Vice President Putin, and all of us are in well-behaved autonomous vehicles bumper to bumper at 30 mph heading for the hills, and the hills are 35 minutes away and the missile is 25 minutes away, will there be an over-ride gear?

  424. Can they be used as getaway cars when the trouble starts?
    It does raise an interesting issue. To what extent do these autonomous vehicles rely on infrastructure, specifically powered infrastructure, to guide them? And what happens there is a power outage?
    I’m thinking of a disaster like fire, earthquake, hurricane, etc., where the user may need to get away, but the power is disrupted by the disaster. It’s bad enough when you just can’t get information because your ISP is down, and your TV, phone, and computer are all tied together to their infrastructure. But if your transportation is down….

  425. Waymo’s approach seems to be that the autonomous vehicle will have to know precisely where it is. Tesla’s that the vehicle can function without knowing where it is.

  426. 40,000 deaths per year
    Americans drive over 3 trillion miles per year, in total.
    3 million million miles. 3 billion coast to coast road trips. Ten trips from the Atlantic to the Pacific, per human being in the US, per year.
    40k fatalities is a lot, but it’s one fatality every 75 million miles.
    If we had one fatality every 75 million guns, about 4 people a year would die from firearms.
    Apples to oranges, but I think you take my point.
    I am neither for nor against autonomous vehicles, per se. I don’t think they will provide the upside folks expect from them, without significant public investment in infrastructure.
    And if we’re going to make that investment, I am not convinced that autonomous vehicles are our best bet.
    That’s my argument.

  427. Apologies.
    One billion coast to coast road trips, per year. 3 per human, with a fourth trip ending in Chicago or Denver, depending.
    Nonetheless.

  428. I’m not leading a social movement to advocate for autonomous vehicles. I just don’t want to drive. I haven’t studied whether society would have to invest in a new infrastructure to accommodate them, and if that’s true, I’m not for it. I’m skeptical about whether we can get our act together to develop any grand infrastructure plan.
    So, again, I personally know people who have been badly hurt or killed in car accidents, so despite the odds you cite, it seems pretty common. I’m not sure whether driverless cars would do better or worse. It seems to me that we wouldn’t tolerate 40,000 deaths per year from that technology, although we seem to take it in stride when it’s a result of human error.
    We’re probably not willing to put it to the test anytime soon.

  429. I haven’t studied whether society would have to invest in a new infrastructure to accommodate them, and if that’s true, I’m not for it.
    Here’s a report that includes a lot of information about that, which I might originally have seen linked right here at ObWi.
    It’s nowhere near as simple as “how many deaths this way vs that way,” because it’s not clear how we’d tally the hidden costs of such a massive investment in new infrastructure, including the question of what else the money might have been better spent on (as russell keeps saying).
    The people hyping driverless cars are already pushing (though I’m not going digging for a cite) for huge governmental expenditures on infrastructure — naturally, we as taxpayers will pay for both the initial infrastructure and the later hidden costs, and they (some handful of them) will reap the profits.
    One of my kids has a good friend from college who works for an AV company. He just rolls his eyes at the hype. I stopped looking at Tech Review years ago because of the incessant stream of articles about how technology is going to fix everything. Don’t they teach these people any history, or any common sense? (Rhetorical question.)
    Yet another in a series of answers to the question, “How can smart people be so dumb?”

  430. P.S. all the way back to something from earlier in (I think) this thread.
    I suffered from frequent headaches when I was younger. A friend who was a doctor kept telling me to get them checked out, but I never did. I thought they were sinus headaches, since I’ve had chronic drippy sinuses since childhood.
    After menopause (which also was roughly when I stopped eating wheat, so it wasn’t a clean experiment), the headaches mostly stopped.
    Then, about ten years ago, I started having ocular migraines (aka “auras”; I had never had those before), sometimes with full-blown headaches (which I now understood were in fact migraines) and sometimes with just a day or so of feeling kind of crappy and off.
    It didn’t take me long to make a connection: this started not long after I switched most of the light bulbs in my apartment to compact fluorescents. So — I switched them all back.
    Cut to the present: as far as I can tell, incandescent bulbs are the least likely to trigger migraines for me. I.e., they don’t seem to trigger them at all. (LEDs are not as good. Certain foods and certain weathers are also culprits.) Before the ban on selling incandescents, I bought what I suspect is more than a lifetime supply of 60-watt bulbs at Lowe’s, a couple of cartons at a time.
    Even as a committed conservationist, I am unrepentant. I don’t have a clothes dryer, a dishwasher, a microwave, AC, or a TV. I have by far the lowest electric bills of anyone I know. I keep my thermostat at 64 or lower in the winter. I work(ed) mostly from home, so/and I don’t drive that much, especially for someone living in a rural area.
    Why can’t we have quotas for energy use and let people decide for themselves how to use their energy budgets? (Another rhetorical question. I’m sure it would get as complicated as the tax code in a quick hurry.)

  432. Why can’t we have quotas for energy use and let people decide for themselves how to use their energy budgets?
    Makes sense to me.
    It also seems like something that would be fairly easy to enforce via something like a sliding scale for rates. The less you use, the lower your rate per unit, and vice versa.

  434. RTA death rates in the USA are three or four times the rates in Western Europe. A lot of lives could be saved by safer, more restrictive, driving laws. But they aren’t, because people in the US choose to have the freedom to kill one another.
    On the other hand, people in the USA love blaming car manufacturers for their mistakes – see the DoJ’s expropriation of $1.2bn from Toyota. Which suggests that legal costs alone will mean that Automated Vehicle technology will have to be very much better than human driving before it can become widely used.
    AV technology is already pretty good: a semi-autonomous vehicle with a human driver correcting any failure to recognise hazards would be a very safe system. Unfortunately this doesn’t work well in practice because humans are not good at paying attention when they are unlikely to be needed. As Tesla drivers have demonstrated.
    It’s better either to have a human driver with automated assistance, or, as Waymo has recognised, to go straight to full automation. It seems to me that Tesla must know this too, but needs the money from its Autopilot sales.

  435. RTA death rates in the USA are three or four times the rates in Western Europe.
    And the death rates in China are about six times that of the US. In general, the Chinese drive insanely bad, especially Chinese boomers. That would seem to give autonomous vehicle technology a lot of room to develop there.

  436. I thought driving in Israel was the most terrifying I had ever seen, until I went to Vietnam….

  437. As Tesla drivers have demonstrated.
    the marketing hype about ‘self-driving’ cars is going to kill a lot of people before the software even approaches human levels of competence.

  439. a human driver with automated assistance
    I appreciate this feature in cars that are being manufactured now. And you’re right, it may be the best thing.

  440. humans are not good at paying attention when they are unlikely to be needed.
    Just out of curiosity, how do accident rates compare with vs without cruise control? Which is, after all, a small step towards AV technology that crept in while nobody was paying attention….

  441. Tesla Autopilot FSD V10 UK:
    /jogger appears on road:
    “oh, we’ve got a person coming. so i’m going to obviously have to run off autopilot and go around him”
    like i said, a lot of people are going to die.

  442. For Germans freedom of the road (freie Fahrt für freie Bürger)* is what the 2nd amendement is for USians but still our roads seem to be safer.
    *there is again a heated political discussion about a possible speed limit of 130km/h (81 mph) on the highway right now.

  443. “Safety agencies are in favor of new age driver assistance technologies!
    Data released by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 2018 clearly suggested that new model vehicles are safer than older cars largely due to the latest crash prevention technologies. In fact, NHTSA’s analysis also showed that older cars led to a greater number of accident fatalities and severely injured passengers.”
    Are safe driving technologies reducing motor vehicle crashes?

  444. real world driving .
    The last video is titled “bad boston drivers” but it could also be simply titled “boston drivers”.
    The first two are plain old every-day traffic. The first one would be considered an easy drive.
    Every place ain’t Boston, but lots of places are like it.

  445. Actually, both of the first two videos would qualify as seriously light freeway traffic in the San Francisco Bay Area. Certainly nothing like rush hour on our freeways — we have basically circa 1970 road infrastructure capacity, combined with 5 to 10 times the population it was built for.
    As for the “bad Boston drivers”, there are idiots anywhere you go. Get a big enough population (i.e. any urban area) and there will be lots of them on the roads.

  449. Scientists……
    And, to my delight, close observers and chroniclers. From Parson Woodforde’s Diary in 1778:
    1778 April 15… Brewed a vessel of strong Beer today. My two large Piggs, by drinking some Beer grounds taking out of my Barrels today, got so amazingly drunk, that they were not able to stand and appeared like dead things almost… I never saw Piggs so drunk in my life… April 16. My 2 Piggs are still unable to walk yet, but they are better than they were yesterday. They tumble about the yard and can by no means stand steady yet. In the afternoon my 2 Piggs were tolerably sober. March 23. Memorandum. In shaving my face this morning I happened to cut one of my moles which bled much, and happening also to kill a small moth that was flying about, I applied it to my mole and it instantaneously stopped the bleeding

  450. My two large Piggs, by drinking some Beer grounds taking out of my Barrels today, got so amazingly drunk, that they were not able to stand…
    When I was a kid in corn country, sometimes an old silo roof would leak and rain water would seep its way down the whole column of corn, fermenting as it went. Eventually it would leak out near the bottom of the silo. Hogs loved it, and would get staggering-around drunk on it.

  454. Since we have wandered far afield… First information is out on the software problem in the Boeing Starliner that kept it from reaching the international space station. The system includes multiple elapsed-time clocks. The software was supposed to be looking at the clock that counts time elapsed since launch. Instead, it was looking at the clock that counts time elapsed since the computer was powered up, 11 hours before launch. This strikes me as rather embarrassing. Don’t they do code reviews? Don’t they run simulations?

  455. “This strikes me as rather embarrassing. Don’t they do code reviews?”
    Is it worse than having your expensive interplanetary probe miss Mars because the scientific team used metric units, while the engineering team used english units?
    Or having a rocket blow up because someone’s code wrote a “real” value in an “integer” variable (or vice-versa) in your FORTRAN code?
    I think that having an electoral college install a dotard is a far worse software bug.

  456. I read somewhere that, just before the first moonshot, they discovered that the navigation software was treating the moon’s gravity as repulsive instead of attractive.

  457. I will note that all of the other examples of dumb software errors in space flight given here are more than 20 years old, and a couple are more than 50 years old. We have better tools; we have better processes. Maybe it doesn’t bother the rest of you, but I am embarrassed that we are spending billions of taxpayer dollars to write real-time code that does stupid things because it looked at the wrong clock.

  458. My thought about the software thing is this:
    The complexity of the problems and use cases that software is intended to address has become too complicated for people to understand. So, the systems have become too complicated for people to understand.
    We do have better processes and tools in place than we used to, but those alone are not sufficient to make the inherent complexity of the real-world problems simple enough for people to hold in their heads and reason about.
    Using the wrong clock is an obvious bonehead error, and is something that should really have been caught by the most basic of testing regimes. And, in general, probably would have been.
    But the larger issue, to me, is the fact that we increasingly depend – for really critical things – on systems that are too complicated for anybody to understand fully and accurately.

  460. Yes, life is uncertain, russell. 🙂
    My own view is that computation (and stuff like documentation of procedures) merely gives us a slightly better grasp of how uncertain it all is…

  462. But the larger issue, to me, is the fact that we increasingly depend – for really critical things – on systems that are too complicated for anybody to understand fully and accurately.
    My sense is that we have reached the second (at least) level of incomprehension. That is, we can only understand some systems by using other systems. Systems which themselves are too complex to understand. Which further increases the chances of errors slipping thru . . . until they manifest outside the system.
    At that point, they may seem like obvious errors. But, due to the complexity of the system, no one person had all the relevant facts earlier.

  463. But, due to the complexity of the system, no one person had all the relevant facts earlier.
    Try to tell politicans and government buearucrats that.

  464. Politicians work in a world where nobody ever has all the relevant facts. Most of them can’t even picture it. But they slam each other (and are slammed by non-politicians) whenever they prove to have missed something.
    Not surprisingly, they treat others the same way, even when they are not politicians. It’s not so much that they are unaware of the problem. It’s just that, in their world, it’s not an excuse.

  466. But the larger issue, to me, is the fact that we increasingly depend – for really critical things – on systems that are too complicated for anybody to understand fully and accurately.
    I’m getting started on a couple of hobby projects, one that will require some computer vision stuff and one that will need some voice recognition. Neural networks and deep learning:
    “This NN model, with these coefficients, recognizes cats.”
    “How? Why are those coefficients cats rather than dogs, or cows?”
    “We have absolutely no idea.”

  467. I read somewhere where someone had trained a NN to recognize sheep. With further scrutiny, they realized that what the NN really recognized was the environments that sheep are found in.

  469. Those of us who have challenges with facial recognition tend to do a lot of that kind of thing, too. Sounds like they did good training, just not quite for the behavior they were aiming for. Serendipity?

  470. A video on cheap face recognition hardware. And how wonderfully weird and strange people can be.
    “I test out a face recognition NVR I bought on Aliexpress- does it really work in the real world?”
    Naomi ‘SexyCyborg’ Wu: Discount Dystopia! $50 Face Recognition Security System (YouTube)

  471. It’s super-easy for a computer to tell the difference between a cat and a cow.
    Cows rarely chase a laser-dot. QED.

  472. …Instead, it was looking at the clock that counts time elapsed since the computer was powered up, 11 hours before launch.
    As I understand it, the Starliner’s Mission Elapsed Timer (MET) is set by querying the Atlas V rocket. The problem seems to have arisen in communication between the two.
    I guess that in so far as they tested the interaction with the Atlas V software, they did it with the Atlas V MET set to the same time whatever other clock they mistakenly got a reading from.
    Which is not good, but the sort of thing that can happen when working with third-party software.

  473. Ouch…
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/2010s-were-foreign-policy-disaster/604315/
    ….The nationalists believe they are winning, and they are not necessarily wrong. They have encountered less resistance than expected. Republicans used to wonder why moderate Muslims would not speak out against jihadists in their midst. They surely know the answer to that question now. With little to fear except a nasty tweet and a loss in a primary, GOP elected officials have capitulated to a man whom they regarded as a buffoon and completely unfit to be president…

  475. “self-consciousness” sounds like one of those PoMo commie PC things. none of it for me, thank you very much; I’m an American!

  481. Will an irrelevant Parliament even require burning?
    But, the match dropped on it might well come from above, which is now synonymous with ABOVE, in the God-bothering sense.
    What if the the King of the Jews decides a King doesn’t require earthly election?
    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-soleimani-strike-evangelicals-coalition
    The King can disregard all law and bring his exceptional, virtuous, court martialed, murderous military home to close America’s borders at the behest of his chosen vermin evangelical base, the many evil, vermin, subhuman Grahams.
    And then, after murdering brown children, sic them (murder) on liberal Jews, who now have no King to look after them in the world and America, the entire LGBT cohort, all liberals and Democrats, Joepiscopelians, women who dare step outside the home and attempt an illegal abortion after being raped by the King of the Jews and his faithful men of the bloody, victimized cloth, for right wing evangelical and Catholic Orthodox Dreher Christians are the truest deserving victims and remnant of the true America and its sword of God, the virtuous, exceptional military led by its most exceptional victim and martyr of socialist liberal justice, Eddie Gallagher.
    Will Christianity Today be folded into the Murdoch empire and re-issued as Prosperity Gospel for the Remnant of the Two Unnamed Crucified Thieves Only?
    Will the unelected bureacratic deep state King of the Jews encourage Q-Anon to jail and execute Tom Hanks, felling imagined corrupters of American Christian youth Walt Disney and Mister Rogers (wait, we just murdered Forrest Gump too, oh well) at one swoop as well, while ignoring the rape crimes of the Daddy of the kneeling Richard Viguerie, Billy James Hargis?
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-throws-fresh-fuel-on-dangerous-qanon-conspiracy-theory?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning
    In the late 1970’s, when theocrat conservative republican filth Paul Weyrich dreamed his theocratic dreams (“I don’t want everyone to vote.” 1977), how would American history have unfolded if a bullet had been put in his subhuman, theocratic, conservative, republican brain, aborting his Plan?
    http://www.theocracywatch.org/yurica_weyrich_manual.htm
    THAT act alone would have justified the tax-exempt status of vermin America’s State Church and Vatican, the NRA.
    While viewing the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life” the other day (WRS), not for the first time did it occur to me how much more wonderful the lives in Bedford Falls could have been if Frank Capra chose to have Clarence the Angel interrupt George Bailey’s attempted plunge into the icy river right off the bat by assassinating the verminous conservative Mr Potter and his morose sidekick, who, let’s face it, had a crush on Violet Bick, and the means to pay for it.
    If Mr. Potter hadn’t been fucking born …. THAT is the question?
    https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/12/quote-of-the-day-voter-suppression-isnt-enough-anymore/
    They’ll never stop.
    “We will continue to fight these battles. It is a never-ending struggle until … the Rapture.”
    Mike Pompeo, 2015.
    There will be killing, slaughtering and butchering.
    Who is it gonna be on the receiving end? Us or them?
    Amazon.com, under trump’s tax tutelage and regime, got out from under paying for the drone strike that killed Soleimani, like so many tax-hating filth did in America.
    I hope, at the very least, that Amazon uses the knowledge gained from that murderous drone technology to deliver my purchases to me even faster, even if the guy reaching for the item on the Amazon warehouse shelf keels over in his meager, not-good-enough attempt at productivity.
    Ploughshares, etc.
    Where IS the lurk button on this contraption?
    Oh, yeah, it’s labeled “Delete”.

  482. So some people ( including me) are wondering how the giant brains of the anti- Trump resistance reconcile the assassination of Soleimani with the fact that he was instrumental in bringing Russia into Syria. Seems odd that Putin’s puppet would murder one of Russia’s friends.
    It’s not the only example where Trump’s actual policies went against Russian interests. It would be nice if anti- Trump resistance for the past three years had been mostly focused on his actual horrific policies, including his warmongering and meddling in Latin America and the Middle East, rather than wasting time on crackpot McCarthyite fantasy crap. But then we might have to talk about actual issues which are deeper than the narcissistic idiocies of one man.
    Speaking of influence
    https://twitter.com/nedprice/status/1213279845377024001
    It’s also depressing but unsurprising that many of the critics of Trump regarding his assassination policy is that they don’t actually condemn it. They start out saying Soleimani was a “bad guy” and it is great that he is dead. Justice was served, but maybe in a foolish way. Maybe so. So does this mean every bad guy can be assassinated by drone strike or does this only apply to bad guys who aren’t our allies or in our own government?
    I haven’t talked about drone strikes in awhile because Yemen and Gaza and our bombardments of Raqqa and Mosul put all that in the shade, but we have set this precedent where we take for granted our right to kill anyone we deem a “ bad guy” whenever and wherever we want and where we only worry about our lack of a “ strategery” to deal with the aftermath. We can’t oppose it because it’s wrong. No, we only oppose it because of the likely blowback. If we limit ourselves to less blatant acts — things like brutal sanctions or endless wars where unimportant people die— then it is all more manageable and acceptable and frankly, boring. This is why MSNBC in a one year span broadcast several hundred stories about Stormy Daniels and just one on Yemen.
    So f@@k Trump, but just a few months ago I saw articles in the NYT criticizing him for not striking Iran after the Saudi oil installation was hit. We had to establish deterrence against Iran so they wouldn’t react to the brutal sanctions we imposed or the war we supported in Yemen. Sometimes these things escalate up to the point where real people might get hurt.

  483. Putin is all about the oil, Donald. Everything else is just theatrics. He’s a world class liar, and he has no “friends”.

  484. We can’t oppose it because it’s wrong. No, we only oppose it because of the likely blowback.
    We can do both. And we can even think Soleimani was a “bad guy” (personally I have no idea, given the multiplicity of bad guydom now loose in the world, how he measured up) so that we don’t mourn him too much, while still thinking that extra-judicial killings are wrong, and a bad idea because of the likely blowback. As for Putin’s occasional stooge Trump killing Putin’s opportunistic buddy Soleimani, your perception that this is a strategic contradiction brings to mind Snarki’s recent verdict: assumes facts (and mental capacities) not in evidence.

  485. Girl from the North Country: Upvote.
    So now Trump is threatening to bomb cultural Iranian sites, while Pompeo is professing love for the Iranian people.
    I’m not sure the Iranians have the precision to obliterate Trump and his properties, but that would be the most effective and humane way to deal with this.
    WWJD?

  486. Chris Murphy, who is one of the better Democrats, speaking about why we shouldn’t do assassinations even if Iran is full of “malevolent evildoers”.
    https://mobile.twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1213510762817376261
    I think we should put Dubya on Mt. Rushmore. Practically everybody in American politics talks like him and both Ellen Degeneres and Michelle Obama find him kind of cuddly. A man with that kind of impact on public discourse deserves a piece of a mountain.
    Sarcasm aside, I think most of the mainstream political spectrum has forgotten what it even means to be antiwar, assuming they ever knew. They oppose war if it seems likely that a lot of Americans might die. But the idea that you begin an antiwar argument with a statement that some country is full of malevolent evildoers is just so freaking depressing I feel it necessary to take refuge in sarcasm.
    Not that Iran is lacking in malevolent evildoers. They have their fair share. America has a monopoly on benevolent evildoers, perhaps. We are forever “ blundering into quagmires with the best of intentions.” That’s the sarcasm reflex kicking in.

  487. I think most of the mainstream political spectrum has forgotten what it even means to be antiwar, assuming they ever knew.
    I don’t know what you’re talking about, unless you mean antiwar=pacifist. That’s fine, but you never owned up to being a pacifist.
    A lot of people are anti-war, depending on which war. I was anti-Vietnam war. I was anti-Iraq war. I was anti-Afghanistan war, with Bush having led that effort (it would have been better to wage an early focused campaign against al Qaeda taking refuge there, including Osama bin Laden). I am anti-Iran war.
    Obama tried to forestall the war against Iran with the Iran deal, which [apparently, and I’ll trust] required a buy-in from the Saudis for which we paid the price of offering peripheral assistance to them in Yemen. (Which Obama drew down prior to his departure).
    This Iran aggression is not a case of benevolent anybody. This is a case of wag the dog. And Putin is probably all for it. Your earlier comment was refuted, and you have no response.

  489. Not that Iran is lacking in malevolent evildoers. They have their fair share. America has a monopoly on benevolent evildoers, perhaps. We are forever “ blundering into quagmires with the best of intentions.” That’s the sarcasm reflex kicking in.
    I’m guessing almost everybody here feels your pain, Donald, and doesn’t altogether disagree with you. This seems like a major clusterfuck from every possible viewpoint: moral, practical, strategic, and all points in between. God help us (and I don’t believe in God).

  490. Actually, on second thought, I won’t post the second article. I think it was a bit unfair to Biden and Buttigieg. Not that I like their response, but it didn’t strike me as quite as bad as Mackey said. But the Scahill piece I linked was good.

  491. The entire problem with Trump as Putin’s puppet is precisely the fact that Putin, whatever else one could say about him, is smart and Trump is not. Trump can be flattered into supporting people sometimes, but I have seen liberals claiming for three years that everything Trump does leads back to Putin, which is a statement that simply doesn’t fit the facts. Trump ended the INF agreement. He is building or wants to build a new class of tactical nukes. He opposes the Russian pipeline to Germany. He interfered in the Ukraine against arms shipments for his own benefit, but agreed to supplying more weapons than Obama did. He wants a massive increase in defense spending and got it. Putin wants that? I doubt it.
    If people were genuinely serious about foreign influence on our policies, as Scahill says it has been out in the open all along. Trump, like many others ( but it goes farther with him) is influenced by the UAE, the Saudis, and Israel. He ended the agreement with Iran which was not what Putin wanted but is what Israel and the Saudis wanted. He increased US support for the war in Yemen. He essentially ended the admittedly comatose US opposition to Israeli settlements, which goes against a few decades of US policy.
    What has Putin gotten? He got the sort of cooperation in fighting some jihadists that he would have gotten from Obama. Trump is not fond of NATO because he sees almost everything in financial terms, so Putin gets that, if it ever amounts to anything. And Trump says nice things about anybody who flatters him. But his record with Putin is mixed.
    As for pacifism, the ad hominem is silly, but I will play. I would have supported WWII. Korea would be a close call. In hindsight it was justified. South Korea is a democracy, which came about decades later. As actually conducted at the time it was an abomination, one long massive war crime on all sides. I am not sure I’d have supported any of our wars since.
    Yemen was another abomination, clearly so from the very beginning. You didn’t have to be a pacifist to oppose Saudi bombing of civilians.
    Anyway, that’s enough ranting for one night.

  492. Putin wants that? I doubt it.
    Why? Are you operating under the assumption that Putin wants what’s good for Russia? That’s not correct. Putin wants what’s good for Putin. And what Trump wants or opposes is not necessarily what Trump states. They’re liars. And they’re working for their personal interests, not the interests of their respective countries.
    You didn’t have to be a pacifist to oppose Saudi bombing of civilians.
    Of course you didn’t. The Obama administration also opposed it, which is why US support was eventually curtailed (until Trump). It became obvious that the bombing of civilians wasn’t a result of Saudi incompetence. That price was too high to pay for Saudi support of the Iran deal.

  493. Darn it, I lied, I forgot where I was going in the second paragraph.
    The danger with Trump all along is that there are people who want to overthrow the Iranian government and he listens to them. He backed away from the air strike months ago because there is another group of antiwar conservatives who know how to flatter him ( among them is Tucker Carlson,God help us). But the prowar group seems to have greater sway and they only need it once to start a real war.
    This isn’t coming from Putin. But it is more fun to talk about Russian spies and fictitious pee tapes and all that crap than it is to talk about the Americans who want a war with Iran. And if one wants to blame evil foreigners for our political idiocies, well, unfortunately the evil foreigners who want us bombing Iran are not based in Moscow. But I wouldn’t go overboard blaming the foreigners. It’s a convenient excuse. Superpowers can’t be made to do stupid evil things.
    A rant by proxy
    https://mobile.twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/1213356806329847814

  494. “ Of course you didn’t. The Obama administration also opposed it, which is why US support was eventually curtailed (until Trump). I”
    Bullshit. They did a token slap on the wrist after the bombing of a funeral which killed 150 people in Sana’a got worldwide attention towards the end of Obama’s term.. It was clear from week one that the Saudis were going to fight a dirty war and the Obama people had to claim civilians were being killed accidentally because an open admission of their guilt would be a confession of complicity. Privately there were lawyers in the Administration that worried that US forces could be accused of war crimes.
    In the interests of getting offline, I won’t look at whatever response you type until sometime tomorrow.

  495. Over at BJ, Betty Cracker sez:

    If the Iranian regime is smart, they’ll just stand by while Trump transitions the U.S. to pariah-state status, paving the way for Iran to fully rejoin the family of nations.

    Which is certainly one of the ways it could play out. The US kinda acts like a dick, everybody else seizes on that as their excuse to blow off the sanctions and start doing business with Iran again.
    I find it hard to know who the good guys and bad guys are in the middle east, and that includes us. There’s oil there, therefore there’s money there, and that FUBARs everybody’s moral compass.
    Hope we don’t go to war with Iran, I can’t think of one good thing it would accomplish.

  496. From Putin’s POV what would be the alternative? Jabbabonk may not be under his full control but an easily misled buffoon open to flattery and (to a degree) blackmail serves Ras Putin’s interests more than an intelligent, experienced ‘realist’. The least His Kremlinship gets out of it is a significant self-weakening of the US. Plus, Jabbabonk is not the only beneficiary. The Moss Cow Midge also receives massive indirect support (through targeted Russian investment in Kentucky). The Turtle isn’t a direct lackey but his purely self-serving ‘grim reaper’ politics are advantageous to Vladimir. They see each other as useful idiots (as with US RW evangelicals and the RW in Israel).

  497. …what has Putin gotten ?
    A fractious, and possibly fractured NATO; a US which appear to have lost a great deal of influence in Asia; a weakening of US alliances around the world; a significant pause in US leadership in replacing fossil fuels.
    Is Trump a Putin puppet ? Of course not.
    But he is a useful idiot, and there is significant evidence the Russians have backed him financially (underwriting his loans from Deutschland Bank, and engaging in mutually profitable money laundering), and likely to some extent during the election too.

  498. i don’t think Trump is under Putin’s direct control. but it seems quite possible and likely that Putin has talked Trump into doing and saying a few things here and there which benefit Russia.
    and yes, the US is the cause and source of all evil in the world, second to non. nobody else has free will or agency or their own desires – everything is a reaction to the evil that gushes from the black heart of almost every American.

  499. In the interests of getting offline, I won’t look at whatever response you type until sometime tomorrow.
    Didn’t see this until now. Funny.

  500. This isn’t coming from Putin. But it is more fun to talk about Russian spies and fictitious pee tapes and all that crap than it is to talk about the Americans who want a war with Iran….
    More than a touch of straw manning about this.
    The US’ long history of clusterfucks in its relationship with Iran goes back to the postwar decade, so it would be somewhat otiose to ascribe all the blame to Putin. Having said that, Russia is every bit as malign a meddler in the region as the US, and doesn’t even have the excuse that it is endeavouring to maintain the steady supply of oil to the West…

  503. … Only hours after the assassination of General Qassem Soleiman, Russia quietly cut off oil supplies to Belarus as economic talks collapsed, a move that went almost entirely unremarked…
    And Trump is not a useful idiot ?

  504. Today’s news feed:

    • Iran is abandoning whatever remained of the nuclear treaty.
    • The Iraqi Parliament voted 170-0 to require US (and likely other foreign) forces to leave Iraq
    • US troops in the area are putting aside any remaining efforts to counter ISIS so they can focus on protecting themselves

    Cui bono? I have no idea, but probably not us. Maybe nobody.
    As far as Trump being Putin’s “puppet” or “Russia’s stooge”, I don’t really see that. I doubt he would be desirable in those roles, he’s too freaking random.
    What Trump is, is manipulable. Tell him that folks don’t appreciate what a genius he is, and you have his undivided attention and interest.
    As far as “what Putin got”, compare the position of Russia today relative to 4 years ago. In Europe, the Middle East, anywhere you like.

  505. he’s manipulable, yeah. and his own isolationist tendencies directly benefit Russia’s (and China’s) current expansionism. he doesn’t want to compete with them as they branch out into new areas; he’s mostly happy to let them do what they want (even when it comes to meddling in US politics).
    Putin really couldn’t have designed a better ally.

  506. As far as Trump being Putin’s “puppet” or “Russia’s stooge”, I don’t really see that. I doubt he would be desirable in those roles, he’s too freaking random.
    Not sure why they’ve paid him so much then.

  507. What Putin got in the Mideast so far was a victory in Syria and the maintenance of the Russian allied Assad government. Of course if Assad had fallen then the US would be in the position of supporting a rebel movement whose most effective fighters were jihadists intent on exterminating Alawites. I cited a NYT Sunday Magazine piece about this sometime back. Our policy in Syria under Obama was an incoherent disaster. If Putin has acquired more influence in the Middle East we can blame about 17 years of bipartisan geniuses doing whatever it is they do. Some of them applauded the recent assassination, including warrior scholar David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker.
    I don’t think I am strawmanning here at all. Liberals are obsessed with Putin and Russia in ways that are absurd. Yes, Trump is easily manipulated, but where did this obsession about Iran come from? Who pushes it? It’s essentially the same collection of clowns that were saying real men go to Tehran back in the early Bush era. It’s not Putin.. He doesn’t have to whisper into Trump’s ear to do things that will push Iran, China, and Russia together. There are plenty of others doing that.
    And obsessing about Russia means this warmongering against Iran got a free pass. Actually, it even got a boost. Back in 2017 only Sanders and Ron Paul voted against a bill imposing sanctions against Russia, North Korea and Iran. Sanders explicitly said he opposed it because of the Iranian sanctions, which he thought it was part of a push to end the Iran nuclear deal and to bring about war with Iran. That didn’t take a genius to see, but only two senators voted accordingly.

  510. if Assad had fallen then the US would be in the position of supporting a rebel movement whose most effective fighters were jihadists intent on exterminating Alawites.
    I didn’t realize that described the Kurds….

  511. Yes, Trump is easily manipulated, but where did this obsession about Iran come from?
    The Iran deal was Obama’s biggest foreign policy accomplishment. And Trump is obsessed with Obama. So he will do anything which can be made to look like the opposite of Obama — without regard to anything else.

  512. Money laundering. All the other stuff is just gravy.
    Russia laundered money through the NRA to support Republicans. The support of his Deutsche Bank loans was a direct benefit. Sure, money laundering was a piece of it, but the benefit to him was more precise.

  514. Liberals are obsessed with Putin and Russia in ways that are absurd.
    If we’re still hoping for elections to bail us out, we might want to consider that Russians helped to elect Donald Trump. Not just by social media (although that was part of it), but by hacking Democratic information with the exact same result as Watergate would have been if it were successful. With a lot of money, too, of course. There is also evidence of their having hacked voter rolls, and even (yes) election results.
    Obviously, some on “the left” think that’s all a big nothing burger, because they spent the entire 2016 election parroting Putin bots’ talking points. Retreating now would be so embarrassing for them: they would have to own their part in this permanent global disaster.
    We’re f’d. I plan to work for change in my state, vote Democratic locally and nationally, and hope for the best. Who knows – sometimes we’re surprised.

  516. Yes, Trump hates Obama, but there are people who have long wanted to topple the Iranian government and Trump is their puppet. If this could be blamed on Putin people would be all over it. Since it is the same people pushing the same warmongering policies they are ignored
    “ I didn’t realize that described the Kurds.”
    As snark that seems pretty weak. My comment doesn’t describe the Kurds , but it describes the people who were allied with the Free Syrian Army. Al Nusrah for one.
    Ben Rhodes in his book discusses how he thought it was weird we had Al Nusrah on our terrorism list when we were arming people who fought beside them.
    On 2016, I agree the hacking of emails might have swayed the election. It might have swayed it because it revealed embarrassing facts about the Democrats. Personally, I don’t think people should have refrained from voting for Clinton because of that but I also thought Democrats should be honest about their So obviously the face saving thing to do was talk about how Putin was endangering our democracy.
    But frankly I am willing to spread blame all around. Lefties too pure to vote for Clinton were wrong. I read some of them. Clinton sucked, but Trump is beyond the normal scale of suckness.. People who make excuses for our war crimes or ignore them are guilty. Trump is a fascist and people who support him should face up to that. This includes members of the Resistance who have in practice done almost nothing to restrain his warmongering towards Iran and in fact helped lay the foundations for Trump’s ability to start a major war all on his own.
    Speaking of which, war criminal presidents are nothing new, but I don’t recall one who openly advertised his intent to commit war crimes like Trump does. That ought to clear the bar for high crimes and misdemeanors.
    I really would like to see Democrats and the handful of antiwar Republicans speak out very loudly on this. This is way beyond political corruption. It might finally sink in that both parties have made the Presidency an office which amounts to being an elected monarch, someone who can commit war crimes with impunity. It’s all just fun and games when 200,000 Yemeni children starve to death, but nobody knows what the Iranians might do. Maybe, just maybe, people might realize there might really be a rule of law issue here that is a bit more serious than the stuff the Beltway usually worries about stolen emails.

  518. Take two of an earlier post which I probably only previewed and forgot to post.
    Liberals are obsessed with Putin and Russia in ways that are absurd.
    Trump isn’t Putin’s “puppet”. That said, Putin appears to occupy more space in Trump’s head than is desirable.
    Hard to say where the line between “absurd” and “merits attention” lies.
    Iran:
    There are folks who have been chomping at the bit to go to war with Iran as long as I can remember. Nothing new there.
    I have no idea what kind of guy Solemeini is. All I know about him is his reputation as an effective military and strategic leader. I’m sure he’s responsible for the deaths of some Americans. I’m sure our military are responsible for the deaths of some Iranians. We – the US and Iran – are at cross purposes and are not friendly.
    So it goes, as Vonnegut would say. Po-tee-weet.
    As far as I can tell, it’s unusual for one country to assassinate the military leader of another country, certainly in the absence of an explicit declaration of war. I’m not sure what the legalities are, but at a minimum it seems like one of those Things That Are Not Done.
    Some doors you don’t really want to open.
    What is the end game here? Where does this lead? What is the strategic objective, and how is it in our, or anybody’s, interest?
    How does killing Solemeini, at this time, in this way, advance any of it? What risks and downsides does it create?
    I’m talking about all of this in more or less transactional terms. There is a whole other dimension to all of this – i.e., the moral weight and peril of warfare mayhem and raining fire down on people’s heads, because you can – that I don’t even want to get into, because (a) that horse is out of the barn, and (b) I have zero interest in the whole exercise of jousting for the moral high ground. We all have blood on our hands, even if we don’t personally pull any triggers.
    So – stipulated that the moral calculus is FUBAR. WTF was accomplished by killing Solemeini?
    If this turns into an actual war it is going to be a total fncking mess. My prayer is that Iran continues to be the adult in the room and doesn’t do anything to prompt further military action from us. Because the only sense I can make out of Trump and Pompeo’s rhetoric is that they can’t wait to blow up more people and stuff.
    What a freaking mess.

  519. and now Trump is threatening sanction in Iraq if they ask our troops to leave?
    what the fuck is wrong with this guy?
    and what the fuck is wrong with his supporters?

  520. Speaking of which, war criminal presidents are nothing new, but I don’t recall one who openly advertised his intent to commit war crimes like Trump does.
    I completely agree that Trump’s willingness to trumpet his enthusiasm for war crimes, a wide variety of them, is unique. Actually, if someone piunts out to him one he has missed, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was sufficient to generate a supportive tweet.
    But it occurs to me to wonder: When (if ever) did the US last have a President who wasn’t guilty of war crimes? In your opinion, Donald. That is, are we just experiencing an unusual flurry? Or has it always been thus?

  521. As far as I can tell, it’s unusual for one country to assassinate the military leader of another country, certainly in the absence of an explicit declaration of war. I’m not sure what the legalities are, but at a minimum it seems like one of those Things That Are Not Done.
    Well, if not in violation of US law, it is definitely contrary to Executive Order 12333. Issued by that noted appeaser Ronald Reagan. It’s been relaxed slightly for non-state actors engaged in terrorism. But not for government official of countries with which we are not at war. It’s a couple of levels beyond Not Done.

  522. What is the strategic objective, and how is it in our, or anybody’s, interest?
    this is the Ledeen doctrine gone feral after spending 18 years running free in wingnut comment sections:

    “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business,”

    Trump thinks he’s showing the word we mean business – big, tough business.
    everyone else thinks he’s lost his mind.

  523. I think we should leave Iraq, and Afghanistan and declare sanctions all around. And when Iran uses the surrogate states of the ME to attack Europe we will fight on European soil once again.
    Trump is unstable but Iran being the adult in the room is absurd. They have attacked us in various ways to see if they could get this response, from us, their people, the Iraqis, next the Saudis. It is a well crafted provocation short of Trumps instability.
    Iran wants an excuse to be a nuclear power, now they have it unless the West stands with us.
    In the days leading up to the Iraq war, Iraq played these games. The hawks in Washington have their provocation, the Iranian leaders have theirs. War is an inevitability. The only remaining question is how it is fought.

  524. I think we should leave Iraq, and Afghanistan and declare sanctions all around.
    Sanctions on whom? Because, while nationwide sanctions can have an impact on government policy in something resembling a democracy, in a dictatorship or a plutocracy/kleptocracy, you have to sanction individuals. (And a theocracy is even harder.)
    “Sanctions”, all too often, gets treated like a magic word. But it requires focus to make it accomplish anything.

  525. Not to mention that sanctions pretty much hurt and kill the poor, women, and children and merely inconvenience the people in charge.
    But boy do they do wonders for one’s sense of moral hazard.

  526. Well, badly constructed sanctions certainly do.
    It’s possible to craft sanctions that target the right people, and in some cases (e.g., I believe, some Russian oligarchs) we have done so. Unfortunately, the chances that this administration would come up with such are a close order approximation of zero.

  527. I have to say I have massively more sympathy for Donald’s view of things than Marty’s – which I barely understand. What is this war he wants to fight in Europe ?
    Meanwhile, with any luck developments like this will reduce the strategic significance of the Middle East.
    A potentially workable lithium/sulphur battery architecture:
    https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/1/eaay2757
    At around three to four times the energy density of current batteries, it would obsolete the internal combustion engine very rapidly.

  530. The war in Europe is the outcome of a nuclear Iran continuing its expansion. It is a heavily armed modern jihadist state. The second guy in their government is responsible for managing their terrorist network. It is an organizational statement.
    Once more, every administration in the last 50 years had a policy of limiting Iran. We have fought their proxies in multiple places and only used sanctions on them. They have intentionally provoked Trump into retaliation .

  532. Once more, every administration in the last 50 years had a policy of limiting Iran.
    Yes indeed, and the last administration even (along with the rest of the P5+1 and the EU) signed a treaty preventing their acquisition of nuclear weapons for 15 years. The European powers have been frantically trying to keep this treaty in operation ever since Trump was elected, and ignorantly charged in trying to undo one of Obama’s significant achievements.
    The war in Europe is the outcome of a nuclear Iran continuing its expansion.
    See comment above.

  534. I can only read Marty’s 10:08 PM comment as an explanation of Iran’s successful manipulation of Rump.
    Unless this assassination is part of a larger strategic plan. *tries not to laugh*

  535. To clarify, I don’t think Iran wanted this specific thing to happen. I just think Marty’s comment reads as though Iran is getting a bunch of stuff they’ve always wanted because of Rump’s impulsiveness, after they’ve been poking at him.

  536. it was pretty amazing to watch Solemeini go from “guy nobody’s heard of” to “WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS TERRORIST EVER” in the span of 36 hours.
    and the quick return of “DEMS WANT THE TERRORISTS TO WIN” has been like sticking my head in a big bowl of 2004.

  537. Reportedly (and who knows if this is true), Soleimani was travelling to respond to a Saudi peace overture…
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7854971/Soleimani-Iraq-discuss-escalating-tensions-Saudis-killed-PM-says.html
    It has a certain amount of credibility, as Soleimani was the same guy who tried for rapprochement with the US ahead of the Iraq invasion in 2003 (the ‘axis of evil’ speech put paid to that, of course, and it still seems to be Republican orthodoxy that Iran was implicated in 9/11, despite all evidence to the contrary).

  539. Some links which I will post one at a time. The first two are intended to show that there are so called serious people who supported the assassination. Trump is an idiot, but there is and continues to be a constituency in the foreign policy community for endless war.
    (Incidentally, Crocker leaves out the fact that US warships were shelling factions in Lebanon before the truck bombings in 1983. His historical retrospective is one sided.)
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/05/opinion/suleimani-iran-trump.html

  542. Once more, every administration in the last 50 years had a policy of limiting Iran. We have fought their proxies in multiple places and only used sanctions on them.
    This betrays an astounding ignorance of the history of the region.

  544. Payback. Not pat back. Trying to figure out what patback is. My subconscious should know.
    Anyway, I actually have to do some real life things.

  545. That first Reza thread I linked for some reason takes you to the middle of tge tweet storm when you click on it. You will want to scroll up.
    Okay, real life and all that.

  546. The war in Europe is the outcome of a nuclear Iran continuing its expansion.
    Iran has generally been working to various Shia minorities around the Middle East. They haven’t been trying to expand, except for their influence in those places.
    Europe doesn’t really have a significant Shia population. So it’s hard to see why Iran would be particularly active there. In Iraq? Certainly. In the southern Arabian Peninsula? Likewise. In Lebanon, Syria, etc.? Sure. But Europe? Just can’t see it.
    Europe’s biggest objection to a nuclear Iran, it seems to me, is that it leads rapidly to a nuclear Saudi Arabia. And the Saudis actually could be seen as an expansionist, jihadist even, state.

  547. “In your opinion, if anyone around the world wants to take their revenge on the assassination of Soleimani and intends to do it proportionately in the way they suggest — that we take one of theirs now that they’ve got one of ours — who should we consider to take out in the context of America?
    “Think about it. Are we supposed to take out Spider-Man and SpongeBob? They don’t have any heroes. We have a country in front of us with a large population and a large landmass, but it doesn’t have any heroes. All of their heroes are cartoon characters — they’re all fictional.”
    — Iranian cleric, Shahab Moradi

    i’m all for having Trump and Iran settle this whole thing with snarky comments.

  549. Iran is a predominantly Shia nation surrounded mostly by predominantly Sunni nations. It’s neighbors and near neighbors include Russia, Pakistan, India, and Israel, all nuclear powers.
    Iran’s democratically elected government was overthrown with the assistance and direction of the US and UK, and was replaced by the Shah, who during his tenure as dictator imprisoned, killed, and tortured thousands of his political opponents.
    Iran and Iraq fought an 8-year war, in which somewhere between 100K and 300K Iranian soldiers were killed. The Iraqi effort was supported by the US, Russia, and various other Western nations. The famous photograph of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein comes from that time, and we famously supplied Saddam with the chemical weapons that were later the pretext for our 2003 invasion. Those weapons were used against Iran.
    I’m not raising any of this to defend Iran, its foreign policies, or its behavior in the Middle East or elsewhere. Nations have interests, they pursue those interests, and often do so by killing people. It’s probably the least attractive thing about human beings. But Iran is not, in any way, unique in that.
    I’m sorry for the friends of Crocker’s that he buried. I’m sorry for Petraeus’ frustration in trying to make something like a success of our War On Terror invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. I’m sorry for all of the people Solemeini had a hand in killing.
    But there was nothing special about Solemeini in any of that, other than his apparent competence.
    There are a number of constituencies in the US whose fondest dream is going to war with Iran. Their motivations range from revenge to a desire to usher in the apocalypse. As far as I can tell, none of those people seem to care much about all of the people that will be killed in the process of making their dream come true.
    An actual, straight-up, direct military engagement with Iran will not be a simple matter. It’s big – about four times the size of Iraq – has an inconveniently mountainous geography, and has been making defensive plans for exactly this scenario for decades, i.e., about as long as people here have been talking about attacking them. We’ve been in Afghanistan for almost 20 years now, and in Iraq for almost 17, without making a particular success out of either. Iran would likely be an order of magnitude more challenging.
    What I really hope is that Iran refrains from doing the natural thing, which would be to ratchet up the escalation another notch. Because there are not many steps left between where we are now, and total fucking war.
    As far as Trump goes, all of the reasons Donald mentions for why Trump is doing the things he is doing make sense. And there are probably another dozen boneheaded bullshit motivations to add to it, all of which come down to Trump’s vulnerability to what he thinks other people are thinking or saying about him.
    The most dangerous thing about Trump is how pathetically weak and insecure he is.

  550. Now he’s upset that Iran is further backing out of the 2015 nuclear deal. (So am I, actually, but I did nothing to cause that.)

  551. “i’m all for having Trump and Iran settle this whole thing with snarky comments.”
    Hell NO! They can stay OFF of my turf, thankyouverymuch. Trump is incompetent in that department (and so very many others), anyhow.
    Now, if they want to settle it with hand-grenades at 2 paces, that would be fine.

  552. As far as I can tell, none of those people seem to care much about all of the people that will be killed in the process of making their dream come true.
    Not quite none. There is Trump (and I don’t think he is entirely alone), for whom all those deaths are a plus. Because they make this pathetically insecure and weak PoS feel strong and macho.

  555. An actual, straight-up, direct military engagement with Iran will not be a simple matter.
    Nukes.
    Conservatives have always wanted to go their since MacArthur.
    It’s their ultimate wet dream.

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