Well, This Sucks

Deutsche Bank has run the numbers and determined that, but for the profligate spending on so-called, "Artificial Intelligence," the United States is in a recession.

So basically the most empty bubble since Tulip Mania in the 17th century, sucking up something near a trillion dollars over the past few years.

So, you might be windering why this is a bad thing.

It's a bad thing because AI is exceeding the gross excesses we saw at the height of the dotcom bubble, and when it all collapses, there will be hell to pay.

Money seems to endlessly flow in the AI space, whether it’s Nvidia announcing a $100 billion investment in OpenAI or OpenAI planning to build more massive data centers before the first $500 billion project is even completed. Eventually, some of the folks who have poured money into these ventures are going to expect to see some return on investment. According to a research note from Deutsche Bank, it’s getting harder and harder to see how that is going to happen.

Fortune reports that a note written by George Saravelos of Deutsche Bank warned that spending in the AI sector is “parabolic.” In fact, it is so vast, the researcher said, that it might single-handedly be propping up the American economy. “AI machines—in quite a literal sense—appear to be saving the U.S. economy right now,” he wrote. “In the absence of tech-related spending, the U.S. would be close to, or in, recession this year.” That checks out: earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported capital expenditure spending for AI contributed more to growth in the US economy than all consumer spending combined has so far this year.

Obviously, the contribution of AI spending to GDP is real, but it not a productive activity.  See John Maynard Keynes' mental exercise in General Theory:

If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing. 

AI is burying dollars in coal mines. 

I am Amused

So California Governor Gavin Newsom signs the law enforcement mask ban into law, and the usual suspects completely lose their sh%$.

Here's a suggestion for all of you folks, if you have to remain anonymous to do your job, you are not doing God's work

ICE made the bed and now California law enforcement officers have to lie in it. The flashpoint of ICE backlash occurred in Los Angeles, as Trump’s mass deportation desires manifested itself in the form of masked officers chasing day laborers through Home Depot parking lots.

As protests ensued, ICE officers continued to operate without face masks [sic, should read "with face masks"] and a deliberate dearth of agency insignias. Then Trump added fuel to a mostly nonexistent fire by sending in the National Guard (illegally) along with a few hundred Marines.

In response, California has done what it can. First, it sued the government, pointing out the illegality of the National Guard mobilization. Then the legislature went further, passing a ban on use of identity-obscuring masks by law enforcement officers, whether they’re local or federal. Of course, California’s ban on federal officer face-wear probably won’t hold up in court, but it at least means those deciding to ride shotgun with Trump’s secret police won’t be able to hide their identities from members of public observing them perform their public duties in public.

So, we now have sheriffs and US attorneys with the brain power of a fart from a flea claiming that this is a threat against law enforcement, and falsely claiming that criminals are allowed to wear masks. (No, at least not while criming.  It's a misdemeanor to wear mask in furtherance of committing a crime in California.)

They are so f%$#ing stoopid 

Quote of the Day

This Is Perhaps One of the Weakest Requests for Detention I Have Seen and Something That, Prior to Two Weeks Ago, Would Have Been Unthinkable in This Courthouse

—Federal Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui in response to federal prosecutors request that Paul Anthony Bryant, be denied bail and kept in custody until his trial for saying mean things to National Guard troops patrolling the streets of Washington, DC.

This ain't, "Sandwich Guy," but it is almost as absurd and arguably even more Kafkaesque. 

Jeff Bezos Keeping it Real

First a bit of humor. 

Have you heard the one about Amazon laying off thousands of workers claiming that they had been replaced by "Artificial Intelligence" when they were actually illegally replaced by cheap H1-B workers?

Well, you have now: 

Senators are demanding answers from Big Tech companies accused of "filing thousands of H-1B skilled labor visa petitions after conducting mass layoffs of American employees." 

………

The letters came shortly after Grassley sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem requesting that DHS stop "issuing work authorizations to student visa holders." According to Grassley, "foreign student work authorizations put America at risk of technological and corporate espionage," in addition to allegedly "contributing to rising unemployment rates among college-educated Americans."

If DHS refuses to stop authorizing the visas, Grassley requested a "detailed explanation of what legal authority DHS is relying on to issue these authorizations." He suggested that the authorization violates a law intended to ensure that only highly skilled workers and top talents that can't be found in the US are granted visas.

Seriously, Mr. Grassley, we know why they are doing this.  Cory Lewandowski, Kristi Noem's unofficial "Chief of Staff" and snuggle bunny, is making bank from big tech, and he is returning the favor.

………

Amazon perhaps faces the most scrutiny. US Citizenship and Immigration Services data showed that Amazon sponsored the most H-1B visas in 2024 at 14,000, compared to other criticized firms like Microsoft and Meta, which each sponsored 5,000, The Wall Street Journal reported. Senators alleged that Amazon blamed layoffs of "tens of thousands" on the "adoption of generative AI tools," then hired more than 10,000 foreign H-1B employees in 2025.

The letter similarly called out Meta for its "year of efficiency," laying off "a quarter of its workforce" between 2022 and 2023. Meta followed that with more layoffs impacting 3,500 employees in 2025, Senators noted, while receiving approval to hire more than 5,000 H-1B employees.

The stated purpose of the H1-B program is to allow companies to hire foreigners who have crucial and unique skills.

This almost never happens.  Instead, it is used to hire cheap indentured servants. 

That Amazon and the the criminal enterprise formerly known as Facebook™ are using it for cheap labor is not a surprise.

Notwithstanding its stated purpose, cheap labor is its real purpose,

Oh, Snap

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have released documents showing active relationships between child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein and Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Steve Bannon, and Prince Andrew.

When Prince Andrew is the least important name on a scandalous list, something is indeed very wrong.

Democratic lawmakers on Friday released documents from the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein that may show interactions between the disgraced financier and prominent conservatives, including Elon Musk, Steve Bannon and Peter Thiel.

The six pages of documents made public with redactions come from a batch provided by the justice department to the House oversight committee, which is investigating how the sex-trafficking charges against Epstein, who died in 2019 in federal custody, were handled.

Copies of Epstein’s calendar released by the committee’s Democratic minority show a breakfast planned with Bannon, an influential Donald Trump ally, in February 2019. Other schedules mention a lunch with Thiel in November 2017 and a potential trip by Musk to Epstein’s private island in December 2014.

Republicans, of course are criticizing Democrats for only releasing (some) right-wingers on the list.

OK, release the whole list unredacted. 

Marsupial Justice

Seriously, the only way to describe the indictment of James Comey is as a kangaroo court.

The allegations of obstruction of justice and perjury are actually retaliation against a perceived enemy.

Assuming that Trump and his minions are ever turfed out, we need to make sure that they face major consequences for their actions. 

"Looking forward, not back," is a recipe for more of this sh%$.

This fl;ows directly from Ford's preemptive pardon of Richard Nixon.

Impunity for corruption leads to more corruption.

No Soup Blog for You!

I'm completely wiped. 

Today was Trial by Fire, a medieval cooking event, and while i did not compete, i did cook 2 different parked dishes under camping conditions.

In case you were wondering, i made a Lenten lasagna (no egg nor cheese, sweet with walnuts), and a biscuit from a recipe by Cato the Elder. 

I made the lasagna noodles from scratch, which was most of the work, even with a pasta machine.

Hunger Gets Memory Holed

In response to reports of increased hunger in the United States, the the Trump Administration is terminating the decades-old annual hunger survey.

I guess that's one way of dealing with societal problems, suppress any information about the problem:

The Trump administration is canceling an annual government effort to gather data on how many Americans struggle to get enough food.

The data, which is collected each December and analyzed by the U.S. Agriculture Department, measures food insecurity across states and demographic groups. 

The data has been collected every year since the mid-1990s and is widely used by federal, state and local policymakers to make funding decisions for food-assistance programs and to evaluate how well those programs work.

The decision to discontinue the survey for 2025 was announced in meetings with USDA employees this past week by an administrator for the Economic Research Service, an arm of the Agriculture Department, according to people present at the meetings. 

……… 

Employees inside the USDA as well as economists outside the agency who work closely with the data reacted with shock and anger as word spread about the cancellation. 

“For the past 30 years, the USDA food insecurity measure has provided insight into the extent that American families have been able to cover their food needs,” said Colleen Heflin, a professor at Syracuse University, who has been studying the data since its inception and learned of its cancellation. “Not having this measure for 2025 is particularly troubling given the current rise in inflation and deterioration of labor market conditions, two conditions known to increase food insecurity.” 

………

The decision to end the USDA data collection comes at a time when more Americans are struggling to get enough to eat. Food banks have seen requests for assistance from households rise over the past few years, driven by the end of pandemic aid programs and the impact of inflation on grocery prices. 

………

The decision to end the USDA data collection comes at a time when more Americans are struggling to get enough to eat. Food banks have seen requests for assistance from households rise over the past few years, driven by the end of pandemic aid programs and the impact of inflation on grocery prices. 

………

Lindsey Smith Taillie, professor in the nutrition department at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, said without the study, the nation would have no real compass on a key health indicator for Americans.

“Why would you not want to measure it?” she said. “I think the only reason why you wouldn’t measure it is if you were planning to cut food assistance, because it basically allows you to pretend like we don’t have this food insecurity problem.” 

 When there is a reckoning for these folks, there will not be a dungeon deep enough to throw them into.

Quote of the Day

To That, My Semi-Sardonic Response Has Been to Say That It Is Indeed Very Important That Initiatives like These Not Be Presented as “Rewarding Hamas” -- They Must Instead Be Framed as “Punishing Israel”.

—The Debate Link on accusations that the UK, France, et al recognizing israel is a reward for Hamas' attacks on October 7.

Israel is a Democracy, and in a democracy, a nation and its people have a responsibility for the leadership that they elect. 

That they have repeatedly elected a psycopath as a leader reflects directly on who and what Israel is.

To those of you who ask, "So, what does this mean about the United States and Donald Trump?", I respond, "Pretty much the same thing." 

This has been true since 2004, when George W. Bush was reelected. 

Missing the Point

So, the New York Times writes a story about the severe depreciation of electric vehicles, and the headline is, "Used E.V. Sales Take Off as Prices Plummet."

We are seeing 40-60% depreciation after a few years, and this isn't just limited to Teslas.

It turns out that used EVs are cheaper than comparable used internal combustion and hybrid vehicles because they lose value so rapidly.

Depreciation is a cost to owners, and high depreciation means that EVs are expensive to own and operate.

That's what the lede, and the story focus, should be.

I don't know why EVs depreciate so rapidly, and this story does not suggest a reason either, but it seems to me that this characteristic of the used electric vehicle market should be the headline, rather than ignored entirely.

 

Ecch (Tweet) of the Day

This is like dinosaurs having their picture taken with an asteroid. pic.twitter.com/xdB9KqLss2

— Comrade Sisko 🖖🏾✊🏿 (@Pinko69420) July 20, 2023

Except, of course that dinosaurs did not manufacture the asteroid that destroyed them.

Headline of the Day

Libertarianism, 13, Dies in Argentina Chainsaw Accident 

— The Nerd Reich, on the disaster that is Argentine President Javier Milei

It should be noted that Libertarianism has never worked.

Attempts have always devolved into allegations of fraud, infrastructure collapse, or bear infestations.

Even at the stage of the hunter-gatherer, which covers about 98% of human history, people did not exist alone.  They lived in communities, albeit small ones, and to be separated from the community was death.

I am sure that God is relieved that Libertarians believe that they have created themselves, but this does not make it true.

While it had been around for quite a bit longer, its basic concepts never progressed beyond the early stages of adolescent brain development. Libertarianism—which asserted that society would be better off with minimal government, laws, and taxes—succumbed after chainsaw-wielding Argentine President Javier Milei asked the United States for a massive economic bailout due to his catastrophic leadership.

Milei, a werewolf-clown hybrid in a suit who once hired a spirit medium to communicate with his dead dog, swept into office promising a libertarian-inflected miracle in Argentina. In an early preview of Elon Musk’s DOGE, he slashed government and social spending. Earlier this year, an essay published on the website of the libertarian Cato Institute mocked his critics as doomsayers who “warned that the profane self-described libertarian—who looks more like a still-touring ’80s rockabilly singer than the classically trained economist he actually is—would inflict on Argentina’s already-beleaguered economy ‘deep recession,’ ‘devastation,’ ‘economic collapse,’ and all sorts of other economic horribles.”

But the critics were correct. Instead of miracles, the self-described “anarcho capitalist” has delivered shocking disaster: collapsing institutions, chronic inflation, and the awkward realization that screeching about free markets doesn’t put bread on the shelves.

At the core of libertarian philosophy is the belief that they are all some sort of Randroid supermen.

They are not. 

Headline of the Day

One Bad Thing About Fighting Fascists Is What You Have to Do to Stop Them

Mike the Mad Biologist, on the weak tea proposals of the Democratic "leadership" in Congress are proposing to prevent a government shutdown.

The proposals seem to be weak tea that would benefit the Republican Party more than the Democratic Party, by doing such things as pushing cuts beyond the midterms with a promise of "consideration" for making them permanent.

To quote not-Tallyrand, "This is worse than a crime, it is a mistake." 

………

It was pretty obvious rank-and-file Democrats would have to fight our own party to make them take an actual stand.

This also demonstrates the internal incoherence of party leadership. Their plan has been to let everything go to shit and hope voters figure out who is responsible. Never thought we would see accelerationist moderates and centrists, but here we are. Protecting Republicans from their own stupidity by preventing things from going to shit is the exact opposite of what leadership has decided to do.

That said, the larger problem is that the Democratic leadership, such as it is, still hasn’t internalized that the Republican Party is fascist. That does matter, as once you accept your opponents are fascists, you realize that there will be costs to be paid to stop them. There already have been people hurt, in one way or another, by this regime, and there will be more no matter what we do, until the regime is stopped. And the act of stopping them is going to result in American Carnage, one way or another. Hopefully, it will be less carnage than more and those responsible for it will bear the greatest cost, but it could get very bad–and far worse than a few months of healthcare subsidies (as murderous as that will be). To stop fascists, you actually have to stop them, not work on healthcare policy.

(emphasis mine)

The Democrats proposal in the Senate is to extend the Obamacare subsidies beyond the midterms.

Not roll back their repeal, just extend them for a year or so, because the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is terrified of drawing a line in the sand and fighting a senile fascist.

This is beyond pathetic. 

Even by the Clarence Thomas Standard, This Is a Bribe

How else can you describe taking a $50,000.00 bag of cash from someone in exchange for a promise to help them win government contracts.

Needless to say, when the aforementioned "Someone" are FBI agents, it can be a bit of a bummer: 

Anthony Ulasewicz died in 1997. He was 79 years old. On that day, we Watergate obsessives mourned. He was the underappreciated star of Sam Ervin’s special committee looking into the break-in and the general campaign of dirty tricks and sabotage that led up to it, activities that entered the political lexicon as ratfcking. It was Ulasewicz’s job to deliver hundreds of thousands of dollars in hush money to a variety of Watergate participants, most notably G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt.

He sent the audience in the hearing room into gales of laughter with his tales of carrying huge wads of cash in brown paper bags and leaving them on hotel ledges and in airport station lockers. He even explained why he bought one of those change devices bus drivers use for coins because of all the pay phones he had to use during his rounds. It was the only sustained moment of levity in the endless and sorry recitation of unprecedented White House criminality.

So, therefore, over the weekend, my heart lightened when the spirit of Tony Ulasewicz walked again through the hallways of another corrupt and rancid White House. From MSNBC:

In an undercover operation last year, the FBI recorded Tom Homan, now the White House border czar, accepting $50,000 in cash after indicating he could help the agents—who were posing as business executives—win government contracts in a second Trump administration, according to multiple people familiar with the probe and internal documents reviewed by MSNBC.

... The federal investigation was launched in western Texas in the summer of 2024 after a subject in a separate investigation claimed Homan was soliciting payments in exchange for awarding contracts should Trump win the presidential election, according to an internal Justice Department summary of the probe reviewed by MSNBC and people familiar with the case. The U.S. Attorney’s office in the Western District of Texas, working with the FBI, asked the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section to join its ongoing probe “into the Border Czar and former Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tom Homan and others based on evidence of payment from FBI undercover agents in exchange for facilitating future contracts related to border enforcement.”

On September 20, 2024, with hidden cameras recording the scene at a meeting spot in Texas, Homan accepted $50,000 in bills, according to an internal summary of the case and sources.

Needless to day, the Trump administration is not investigating this, because, "Deep State," or maybe (more likely), "The Aristocrats!"

The Trump administration brings the banality of corruption to the banality of evil.

Benjamin Netanyahu (יִמַּח שְׁמו) Is the Greatest Threat Facing Israel

Netanyahu in his quest to keep his corrupt ass in power and out of jail, has done everything in his power to prevent any sort of negotiated resolution with the Palestinian polity, whether that be Fatah or Hamas, which is why he has been systematically assassinating negotiating teams.

Now we see the results, The UK, Australia, Canada, Portugal, and now France have formally recognized a Palestinian state.

This is a direct result of Netanyahu's machinations to stay in power.

He would throw his wife under the bus if thought that it would save him, and he is throwing the state of Israel under the bus. 

FWIW, I support a 2 state solution.  I am not sure what is possible now.

^*Netanyahu is a clear and present danger to the State of Israel.

Please note that I am not calling him a רוֹדֵף (rodef), literally a pursuer, which would mean that we are required under Halacha (Jewish law) that a רוֹדֵף (rodef) be stopped by any means necessary, including lethal force.

It would be irresponsible for me to call him a רוֹדֵף (rodef).  It would be irresponsible for anyone to ANYONE a רוֹדֵף (rodef).

It is an explicit call for the murder of another individual.

Do not call him a רוֹדֵף (rodef). It is wrong to call him a רוֹדֵף (rodef), even if Netanyahu tacitly endorsed such statements against Yitzhak Rabin before his assassination by a religious extremist.

Also calling him עֲמָלֵק (Amalek) is right out.

 

He's Back!

I am referring, of course, to Jimmy Kimmel whose indefinite suspension ends tomorrow night.

Sinclair Broadcasting, whose right-wing Executive director David D. Smith was caught getting a blowjob from a prostitute in a company car, has announced that they will not carry the show.

This is par for the course for Sinclair Broadcasting, whose right-wing Executive director David D. Smith was caught getting a blowjob from a prostitute in a company car.

If you want to discuss Sinclair's actions, or perhaps put a comment into their file for a local station with the FCC, remember to mention that their right-wing Executive director David D. Smith was caught getting a blowjob from a prostitute in a company car. 

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

So now right wing neanderthug Michael Savage wants RFK, Jr. gone.

Trump is not one to admit error, so I expect that Kennedy will kill hundreds of thousands of Americans before he is done.

Props

Gavin Newsom has signed a bill into law that prohibits the wearing of masks by law enforcement as well as bills limiting ICE access to schools and hospitals.

One hopes that the local constabulary is willing to arrest and book masked armed men randomly kidnapping people across California. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom today signed a set of bills meant to check the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown in California, including a first-in-the nation measure to prohibit officers from wearing masks and others that limit their access to schools and hospitals. 

………

The package of bills Newsom signed included:

• Assembly Bill 49 prohibits schools from allowing immigration enforcement officers on campus without a warrant.
• Senate Bill 627 widely prohibits federal and local law enforcement officers from wearing face masks while conducting their duties. 
• Senate Bill 805 requires that law enforcement officers identify themselves while conducting their duties, with some exceptions. 
• Senate Bill 81 prohibits immigration enforcement from entering restricted areas of a health facility without a judicial warrant or court order. 
• Senate Bill 98 requires schools and higher education institutions to send community notifications when immigration enforcement is on campus, and prohibits immigration enforcement from entering certain areas without a judicial warrant or court order.

 

Headline of the Day

Michigan Bill Would Digitally Cockblock Entire State

—Gizmodo

This hed refers to a bill proposed by Michigan state Representative Josh "Am I projecting much?" Schriver (R-Oxford), which would ban all sexually explicit material from the internet.

In recent years, legislation aimed at restricting access to online porn sites has become more and more popular in conservative states, but in Michigan, lawmakers have just introduced a bill that would ban all online pornography, full stop.

The legislation, which offers a deeply draconian perspective on human sexuality, was introduced on Sept. 11th, and its primary sponsor is Rep. Josh Schriver (R-Oxford). The “Anticorruption of Public Morals Act,” which sounds like a bill whose name (and contents) were sourced from the 1930s, would ban all “pornographic material.” What does that mean? According to the bill text, it means “content, digital, streamed, or otherwise distributed on the internet, the primary purpose of which is to sexually arouse or gratify, including videos, erotica, magazines, stories, manga, material generated by artificial intelligence, live feeds, or sound clips.”

Unsurprisingly, this bill also makes any discussion of transgender people illegal.

Mr. Schriver is playing with fire.  What will his Republican constituents do when they realize that he is trying to take their gay bondage pr0n from them?

Truer than Taxes

NO DEMOCRAT WILL LOSE AN ELECTION IF SOME DEMOCRATS REFUSE TO WORSHIP SAINT CHARLIE KIRK

—No More Mister Nice Blog

And yet, Democrats continue to genuflect.

What do Democrats think? That swing voters will reject certain Democrats in November 2026 based on how other Democrats voted in September 2025 on a purely symbolic resolution? Do they really believe Kirk will still be one of America's main topics of conversation fourteen months from now? And do they realize that Kirk wasn't a universally admired person? 

It's just that they are cowards, and they have been in a defensive crouch for so long that they are useless.

As Steve M. noted, "The resolution passed, but 58 Democrats voted "no" and 38 voted "present." Good for them. An additional 22 did not vote."

The other hundred or so Democrats are useless wasted space.

Vote, and contribute accordingly. 

F%$# Me! Another Stopped Clock!

Donald Trump has announced a $100,000.00 fee to apply for an H1B visa.

For those of you unfamiliar with this visa, it is supposed to allow non-citizen workers with unique skills to live and work in the United States.

There have for many years been credible allegations (incredibly credible allegations) that employers have used the visa program to get cheap labor and lower wages.

While a flat fee is not my preferred mechanism, I have suggested an auction system, along with making the limits monthly rather than annual, so that smaller companies can use the program more easily, but it this fee is much better than the status quo.

Here is the money quote for this article:

………

Congress started the H-1B scheme with the Immigration Act of 1990 as an effort to plug a gap in America's technology workforce and allow highly skilled foreign workers to come into the country, and bring their families with them. Now foreign workers make up nearly 20 percent of the US STEM workforce, and a much higher percentage in Silicon Valley.

Employers love the scheme, Professor Hira said, since it essentially provides indentured workers who face the prospect of being deported if their employer lets them go. While wage levels are supposed to be equal to local salaries, the same doesn't apply to overtime, he pointed out, and companies have become adept at gaming the salary scheme by reclassifying job positions.

Outsourcing companies such as Tata, which had the second-highest number of H-1B petition approvals in FY2025 with 5,505, are going to be hit hardest by the proclamation, unless they are friends with the Secretary of Homeland Security. Such firms, including Infosys (2,004 visas granted) and Wipro (1,523), are renowned for filing massive numbers of H-1B requests and fitting in workers for even relatively low-skilled jobs. Such a high fee level, if enforced, could kill that market dynamic.

The real goal of this program has always been indentured servitude and wage suppression.

This is a good first step at fixing it. 

There Is Evil, and Then There Is

Ticketmaster.

In the latest case, we have the ticket selling website collaborating with scalpers to drive up prices and profits.

Why am I not surprised? 

The Federal Trade Commission sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster on Thursday, alleging that the companies tacitly worked with scalpers to profit from jacking up ticket prices on the secondary market.

As the FTC alleged in a press release, Ticketmaster's years of turning a blind eye to scalpers violated the FTC Act and the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, costing customers "billions in inflated prices and additional fees." Further, artists' efforts to keep event costs low were repeatedly frustrated by executives' greedy bid to drive Ticketmaster revenue by reaping as many additional fees as possible, the FTC alleged.

Rather than blocking scalping, Ticketmaster allegedly provided tech support to help so-called brokers exceed "fake" ticket limits that seemingly only applied to genuine customers buying tickets to see events.

The FTC's investigation revealed that five of the biggest brokers controlled thousands of fake or purchased Ticketmaster accounts buying hundreds of thousands of event tickets and making it impossible for fans to "have a shot at buying fair-priced tickets," FTC chair Andrew Ferguson said.

………

Ticketmaster controls about 80 percent of "major concert venues’ primary ticketing" and increasingly controls "a growing share of ticket resales in the secondary market," the FTC noted.

Seemingly, Ticketmaster uses this dominant position to "triple dip" on fees, maximizing gains from events by charging fees at initial purchase, then again from both sellers and buyers on the secondary market. Ticketmaster generates most of its revenue from these fees, the FTC said, raking in over $11 billion from 2019 through 2024—nearly $4 billion of which came from resale fees.

I'm thinking that these guys, and not the public relations department of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation will be the, "Bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes."

Tech Bros Culture is Racist and Sexist

So it should not be a surprise that the artificial intelligence tools that they have developed downplay symptoms for women and minorities.

This is a feature of Silly-Con Valley culture, not a bug. 

Artificial intelligence tools used by doctors risk leading to worse health outcomes for women and ethnic minorities, as a growing body of research shows that many large language models downplay the symptoms of these patients.

A series of recent studies have found that the uptake of AI models across the healthcare sector could lead to biased medical decisions, reinforcing patterns of under-treatment that already exist across different groups in Western societies.

The findings by researchers at leading US and UK universities suggest that medical AI tools powered by LLMs have a tendency to not reflect the severity of symptoms among female patients, while also displaying less “empathy” toward Black and Asian ones.

………

But research by the MIT’s Jameel Clinic in June found that AI models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-4, Meta’s Llama 3, and Palmyra-Med—a healthcare-focused LLM—recommended a much lower level of care for female patients, and suggested some patients self-treat at home instead of seeking help.

A separate study by the MIT team showed that OpenAI’s GPT-4 and other models also displayed answers that had less compassion towards Black and Asian people seeking support for mental health problems.

That suggests “some patients could receive much less supportive guidance based purely on their perceived race by the model,” said Marzyeh Ghassemi, associate professor at MIT’s Jameel Clinic.

………

The problem of harmful biases stems partly from the data used to train LLMs. General-purpose models, such as GPT-4, Llama, and Gemini, are trained using data from the internet, and the biases from those sources are therefore reflected in the responses. AI developers can also influence how this creeps into systems by adding safeguards after the model has been trained.

“If you’re in any situation where there’s a chance that a Reddit subforum is advising your health decisions, I don’t think that that’s a safe place to be,” said Travis Zack, adjunct professor of University of California, San Francisco, and the chief medical officer of AI medical information start-up Open Evidence. 

They are going to kill us.

Bullet Dodged ……… For Now

So, despite RFJ Jr.'s attempts to stack the deck with anti-vax nut jobs, Hepatitis B vaccination for infants was not rolled back by his pet committee.

My guess is that right now Captain Brain is quoting Max Bialystock right now, "Where did I go right?"

The vaccine advisory panel newly reconfigured by Robert F. Kennedy is delaying its decision on whether to continue recommending that children universally receive their first dose for hepatitis B vaccination at birth.

In a surprise move Friday morning, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) tabled its scheduled vote over the merits of universal hepatitis B vaccination starting at birth—a policy first enshrined by the ACIP over 30 years ago. Experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others strongly pushed back on the change being debated by the ACIP, which would have recommended children whose mothers test negative not receive the vaccine until at least one month of age.

They still opened up the door for a massive explosion in Measles, because they voted to move from the MMRV vaccine to 2 separate shots, which will doubtless result in more missed vaccinations and greater incidence of the diseases.

Now Ted Cruz?

Ted "Joseph McCarthy Without the Charm" Cruz has said something that I actually agree with.

Yes, I know, if you chain enough monkeys to typewriters, you will get the complete works of Shakespeare, but his calling describing FCC Chair Brendan Carr's and Donald Trump's behavior as something akin to threats from a gangster was not on my bingo card.

Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, compared Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr’s threats to revoke the broadcast licenses of ABC stations over late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s commentary to “mafioso” tactics similar to those in Goodfellas, the 1990 mobster movie.

“Look, Jimmy Kimmel has been canned. He has been suspended indefinitely. I think that it a fantastic thing,” Cruz said at the start of the latest episode of his podcast Verdict with Ted Cruz. There were, however “first amendment implications” of the FCC’s role, the senator, a Harvard Law School graduate who clerked for US supreme court chief justice William Rehnquist, added.

Cruz, a formerly fierce political rival of Donald Trump turned strong supporter, called Carr’s comments “unbelievably dangerous” and warned that government attempts to police speech could harm conservatives if Democrats return to power.

“He threatens explicitly: ‘We’re going to cancel ABC’s license. We’re going to take him off the air so ABC cannot broadcast any more’ … He says: ‘We can do this the easy way, but we can do this the hard way.’ And I got to say, that’s right out of Goodfellas. That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it,’” Cruz said.

 I guess that Cancun Ted had to be right about something eventually.

Quote of the Day

We Already Have an Economy Which Largely Floats on Scams. I’m Not Sure How Important Accurate and Timely Inflation Data Really Is!

—Atrios, on the fact that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is delaying an important report on inflation.

He's right about our economy.  The American economi, "floats on scams," and rent seeking, and other generally non-productive activity.

This Is a Uncommon Ruling from a Judge

Though the ruling throwing out Trump's $15 billion dollar lawsuit for being full of extraneous bullsh%$ is pretty common among newspaper editors and English teachers.

The filing was 85 pages consisting primarily of over the top compliments and claims of a vast conspiracy against him, which runs counter to the federal rules for lawsuits.

I'm thinking that the judge should have taken out a yard stick and rapped Trump's lawyers' knuckles as well:

On Friday, September 19, a federal district judge in Florida struck President Donald Trump’s complaint in his $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, four Times reporters, and Penguin Random House, describing the complaint as “decidedly improper and impermissible.” Under Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a complaint is supposed to include “a short and plain statement” alleging enough facts that, if true, could warrant legal relief. The complaint Trump filed on Monday, by contrast, is 85 pages long and reads more like an anthology of his Truth Social posts, with slightly better punctuation.

Most complaints filed in federal courtrooms do not get tossed under Rule 8, but most complaints filed in federal courtrooms do not spend dozens of pages recounting, as Trump’s does, the plaintiff’s “singular brilliance” and “history-making media appearances” in programs like Fallen Champ: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson. Trump’s complaint is also crowded with boasts about his purported magnificence (for example, “President Trump secured the greatest personal and political achievement in American history”) and snipes about legacy media’s anti-Trump bias (for example, “Defendants baselessly hate President Trump in a deranged way”).

Friday’s order, in turn, is full of the judge’s unmasked exhaustion. “As every lawyer knows (or is presumed to know), a complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective,” wrote Steven Merryday, a judge appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1992. “This complaint stands unmistakably and inexcusably athwart the requirements of Rule 8.” Merryday gave Trump 28 days to amend the complaint and come back with something less ridiculous, and not exceeding forty pages. “This action will begin, will continue, and will end in accord with the rules of procedure and in a professional and dignified manner,” he wrote.

I have on many occasions received similar feedback on what I have written, in large part from my father, who reviewed many of my essays when I was in high school.

My mom did this for me in middle school. (She died in my freshman year of high school)

Their sometimes savage reviews made me a better writer, though as my reader(s) are no doubt aware, it could not make me a good writer.

These guys though, I think that they are beyond help. 

Perspective is Important, Skeet of the Day Edition

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— all2human (@all2human61.bsky.social) September 19, 2025 at 2:04 PM

Seriously, pay attention to priorities,

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, following one of the worst initial claims report in years, we get a pretty good report.

Initial claims fell by 33,000, and continuing claims fell by 7,000 (the latter is basically flat).

After last week's report this is good news: 

Initial applications for jobless benefits in the US dropped by the most in nearly four years, reversing an unusually large jump in the prior week and consistent with low levels of layoffs in the economy.

Initial claims decreased by 33,000 to 231,000 in the week ended Sept. 13, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. That’s in line with levels seen throughout this year and not far off the pre-pandemic trend. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 240,000 applications.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, declined to 1.92 million in the previous week.

The decline unwinds a large jump in the prior week, when initial claims rose to the highest level in nearly four years. That period included Labor Day, and the data can be more volatile around holidays. Also, the advance was mostly concentrated in Texas, which a state official attributed to attempted fraud. 

……… 

The overall drop in initial claims suggests companies are still holding onto workers in an uncertain economic environment. Even so, there are signs of weakness underway in the labor market, from a substantial slowdown in the pace of job growth in recent months to cooling in both supply and demand for workers.

The slow climb in continuing claims is very much an indicator of a cooling job market.

Tucker and Karl?

Shoot me now!

Folks, I don’t know what end is up right now.

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— Bradley P. Moss (@bradmossesq.bsky.social) September 17, 2025 at 9:37 PM

I'm agreeing with Tucker "Actual Malice" Carlson and Karl "Turd-Blossom" Rove. 

Both of them are condemning the Trump administration's exploitation of the Charlie Kirk murder for political gain.

Neither of them are particularly happy that Trump and his evil minions are using this to engage on a vicious assault on the 1st amendment.

I'm not sure that this really matters though, the Republican Party apparatchiks are still firmly supporting Donald Trump in all of his senile delusions.

Seriously, how do the writers for The Onion get up and go to work each morning?

When reality serves up S%$# like this, how can you possibly write satire?

Worst timeline ever. 

I Hate Reruns

Donalt Trump wants to return troops to Afghanistan.

Yes, I know, it's just an airbase, but Tonkin is just a gulf. 

The United States is working to regain control of Bagram air base from the Taliban in Afghanistan, President Donald Trump said Thursday, describing it as “one of the biggest air bases in the world” and suggesting it is “an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons.”

“Okay, that could be a little breaking news,” Trump said during a news conference with Prime Minister Keir Starmer during a state visit to Britain. “We’re trying to get it back because they need things from us. We want that base back.”

It was not immediately clear how far talks over the return of the base, which the U.S. military left four years ago, to American control have progressed or how they were conducted.

Such an outcome would signify a remarkable rapprochement. The United States ousted the Taliban from power after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and waged war against them for 20 years before a disastrous withdrawal in 2021 led to the collapse of the U.S.-backed government and the Taliban’s return to power. Relations between the two sides have been almost nonexistent since then amid the Taliban’s repressive rule.

The Taliban are not what one would call the most forward looking of people, but even some of them have to know the old Kissinger quote, "It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."

Allowing an American presence at the airbase would allow it to be used as a launch pad for destabilizing the current regime in Kabul. 

I think that this is just Trump's dementia driven ramblings once again. 

Jury Determines that ICE Agents are Liars

An ICE officer assaults a protestor and then claims that he was assaulted, "Your honor, he repeatedly struck my knuckles with his nose!"

It got caught on tape, and Brayan Ramos-Brito was acquitted of all charges stemming from his beating by immigration officers.

Funny, innit?

A Los Angeles protester charged with assaulting a border patrol agent in June was acquitted on Wednesday after US immigration officials were accused in court of lying about the incident.

The not guilty verdict for Brayan Ramos-Brito is a major setback for the Donald Trump-appointed US attorney in southern California and for Gregory Bovino, a border patrol chief who has become a key figure in Trump’s immigration crackdown. The 29-year-old defendant, who is a US citizen, was facing a misdemeanor and was the first protester to go to trial since demonstrations against immigration raids erupted in LA earlier this summer.

Border patrol and prosecutors alleged that Ramos-Brito struck an agent during a chaotic protest on 7 June in the south Los Angeles county city of Paramount outside a complex where the Department of Homeland Security has an office. But footage from a witness, which the Guardian published days after the incident, showed an agent forcefully shoving Ramos-Brito. The footage did not capture the demonstrator assaulting the officer.

The jury delivered its not guilty verdict after a little over an hour of deliberations, the Los Angeles Times reported. Bovino testified earlier in the day and faced a tough cross-examination from public defenders.

An hour?  Did the jury even make it to the deliberation room? 

Bovino was one of four border patrol agents who testified as witnesses, but was the only one to say he saw the alleged assault by Ramos-Brito, according to the LA Times. Videos played in court captured the agent shoving Ramos-Brito, sending him flying backward, and showed the protester marching back toward the agent, the paper reported. The videos did not capture Ramos-Brito’s alleged assault.

The fact that Gregory Bovino has a long history of disciplinary investigations and lying, and I am sure that his history did not help him with the jury.

Or maybe it was jury nullification.

Either works for me. 

On the Uselessness of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment)

New York State Democratic Party Charman Jay Jacobs is refusing to endorse Zohran Mamdani for Mayor- The New York Times.

Note that this is after Governor Kathy Hochul endorsed Mamdami.

A party purge, preferably one with slightly less violence, but equal enthusiasm to those conducted by Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili is in order.

This sort of timid self-serving bullsh%$ is why Trump is doing his damnedest to implement fascism from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue right now.

The chairman of the New York State Democratic Party said on Thursday that he would not support Zohran Mamdani, his party’s nominee for mayor of New York City, citing fundamental disagreements over Israel and democratic socialism.

The position puts the chairman, Jay Jacobs, directly at odds with both Democratic primary voters and Gov. Kathy Hochul, his de facto boss, who endorsed Mr. Mamdani on Sunday despite her own differences with the nominee.

Mr. Jacobs, a moderate from Long Island, was so opposed to the governor’s endorsement that he told associates in recent days that he would sooner resign as chairman than back Mr. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state lawmaker and democratic socialist, according to people who spoke with the chairman.

Quit, baby, quit!

………

Christine Quinn, a former City Council speaker who serves as a top state party official under Mr. Jacobs, called his choice a “surprise.”

“It’s hard to have a person hold this perch where they are asking other people to stand with the party when they are not willing to stand with the party themselves,” Ms. Quinn said.

Silly rabbit, don't you know that "Vote Blue no matter who." only applies to progressives?

I wonder why he is such a turd?

……… 

Mr. Jacobs, who runs summer camps as his day job, was appointed to lead the party by Mr. Cuomo. He stayed on in the role after the former governor’s resignation in 2021, becoming a loyal adviser to Ms. Hochul.

A Cuomo appointee?  That explans a lot. 

Hold on to Your Wallet

Whenever someone proposes a law to, "Spur investments," particularly in real estate it means that ordinary folks are going to get f%$#ed like a drunk sorority girl.

Case in point, Washington, DC's proposed new tenant laws. 

This won't encourage investment, it will just turbocharge gentrification.

I guess that, "F%$# the poor is the real national pastime of America. 

D.C.’s eviction laws and tenant protections are getting overhauled under legislation the D.C. Council passed Wednesday, policy changes that proponents say are intended to attract housing investment as the market is floundering.

The RENTAL Act — or the Rebalancing Expectations for Neighbors, Tenants and Landlords Act — will speed up the eviction process as a court backlog and citywide crisis in unpaid rent have threatened the solvency of affordable housing developers across the District, leading to fears that the city could lose affordable housing.

The bill also creates exemptions to a decades-old tenant protection law that allows tenants a seat at the negotiating table when their building goes up for sale, provisions that supporters argued would ease regulations that investors could find burdensome but that drew loud opposition from tenant rights advocates.

Council member Robert C. White (D-At Large), chairman of the housing committee, said the city had to confront a housing crisis and take bold action to reverse the downward trend in new housing investment, or else housing would only become more expensive.

Or the city could condemn abandoned properties and require denser development, perhaps even building homes themselves.

Even DC municipal government would find it difficult to lose money on DC real estate. 

Unpleasant Echoes of that Unpleasant Man With the funny Mustache

It looks like the FBI and the DoJ are looking to declare all transgender people terrorists.

I did Nazi that coming:

The Trump administration is preparing to designate transgender people as “violent extremists” in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, two national security officials tell me.

“We're looking at the entire spider web for any of these attacks,” FBI director Kash Patel told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, when asked about shootings by trans individuals.

“They,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said after the Kirk murder, are “putting this crazy ideology in our schools,” echoing the growing view of many in Trump’s inner circle that a “cult of gender ideology” is behind an explosion of violence by some as yet unidentified “radical left.”

Two days before Kirk was killed, Donald Trump condemned “transgender insanity.” Then in an interview about the shooting, he blamed “the radicals on the left,” saying: “they want transgender for everyone.”

That's awfully convenient for the Trump administration.

Kind of like the Reichstag fire, and we know who ordered that.

Maybe Charlie Kirk was whacked by the Trump administration.

………

The senior official explains that there is no process per se for dealing with trans people as a “threat group,” but feels that trans individuals will be increasingly targeted under the banner of “violent extremism.”

Under the plan being discussed, the FBI would treat transgender suspects as a subset of the Bureau’s new threat category, “Nihilistic Violent Extremists” (NVEs).

The Trump administration first created the NVE designation earlier this year to replace the Biden-era label “Anti-Authority and Anti-Government Violent Extremists” (AGAAVE), created to categorize January 6 rioters and other right-wing groups.

The new classification, sources say, gives Trump officials political (and media) cover. Rather than directly naming transgender people as some enemy, the White House has preferred euphemisms like “gender ideology extremism.”

 This is not going to end well.

This is the Most Accurate Presentation of the Jewish Relationship to God I've Seen in a Comic Strip

Yes, I know, this describes a very highly constrained data set, but it is true.

To my gentile reader(s), surely you have a Jew whisperer who might be able to explain this to you? 

Isn't This Against the Law?

If not, strong-arming your employees to lobby on your behalf, as the tape of charter school Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz demanding that her employees doing just that SHOULD be against the law.

Of course, Moskowitz has always been skeevy, she literally closed her schools for a day to send the students to Albany to lobby legislators, so this is not surprising.

The founder of Success Academy, New York City’s largest network of charter schools, admonished several hundred employees this week during an “emergency meeting” for failing to lobby elected officials in sufficient numbers ahead of a march over the Brooklyn Bridge on Thursday.

CEO Eva Moskowitz's 20-minute harangue was captured in a secret recording obtained by Gothamist. Her remarks are the latest sign that she is bracing for a fight if Zohran Mamdani — who is critical of the privately run, publicly funded schools — is elected mayor in November.

Moskowitz made clear that the employees — many of whom work in administrative roles at Success Academy’s headquarters on Wall Street — had not met expectations for “phone to action” outreach to politicians urging them to support charters. Moskowitz said the employees are required to participate in the rally, which is considered part of the school day. Students will be attending.

“You did not do the phone-to-action because you thought, ‘This is not very serious,’” Moskowitz said. “So I want to just reset for all of you. It is an existential threat.”

Well, it's an existential threat to Eva's salary of nearly one million dollars a year. 

………

An attendee of the meeting who was uncomfortable with Moskowitz’s demands provided the recording to Gothamist. She said employees are “pissed” but also scared to oppose Moskowitz.

Moskowitz, a former city councilmember known for her sharp and aggressive questioning, reminded staffers about Success Academy’s “chain of command.”

It appears that Moskowitz's goal with her employees is that they be, "Good Germans."

Based on the stories I've heard about the school, this is also her goal for the students. 

Remember Those Blue Exam Books?

F%$#, you're old!

If you do, then I need to invoke the Negasonic Teenage Warhead quote from Deadpool.  (It applies to me.

But less about me, and more about the fact that teachers are requiring that assignments be turned in handwritten in those little blue books, because it prevents people from cutting and pasting from AI programs.

Maybe I don't get this, but hand copying into the little blue books is still a lot easier than doing original work in those little blue books:

I’m waiting on a call back from someone at the Roaring Spring paper company in Roaring Spring, Pennsylvania that probably isn’t coming. I get it; they’re busy. As the school year begins, the biggest manufacturer of blue books in the United States is currently in very high demand. A new status quo of laptops and tablets seems to have made those flimsy, 24-page exam books with their robin’s-egg blue covers as obsolete as inkwells. Instead, blue books are being stockpiled by educators and institutions seeking ways to redirect students from the call of ChatGPT, Claude and other large language models willing and able to do everything students need.

Since the 2023 launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, researchers have been scrambling to collect data on how many students are using AI regularly, what they’re using it for and how it’s impacting their education. In a May 2025 report, the Chronicle of Higher Education estimated that 86% of students in 16 countries use AI, 56% of American college students, and a whopping 92% of UK students. The year-over-year increase has been dramatic: A survey of K–12 students conducted in 2024 found that use of LLMs doubled since the year before. A study of 558 college students conducted by Intelligent revealed that three out of every four college students believe that using AI to find answers to test questions, write essays and summarize textbooks is cheating — and that about 69% do it anyway.

If the students thought that the educational industrial complex were about education, and not to provide credentials so that one can serve what Roosevelt (Teddy) called the, "Malefactors of Great Wealth," maybe there would be less of this.

If all education is good for is that piece of paper at the end, then cutting corners does not matter. 

The Fed Blinks

There are a number of reasons for the Federal Reserve to make an interest rate decision.

I think that one of them is to assert its independence from elected politicians, which is why I thought that the Fed would not cut rates today.

I was wrong.  They did cut rates, which either means that they thought that the economic circumstances justified their not asserting their independence, (HAH!) or they pre-surrendered to Trump because they do not want to get fired.

My money is on the 2nd option, but attempting to get into the head of the FOMC is as much of a path to madness as reading the subway schedule for the city of  R'lyeh.

The Federal Reserve approved a quarter-point interest rate cut Wednesday, the first in nine months, with officials judging that recent labor-market softness outweighed setbacks on inflation.

A narrow majority of officials penciled in at least two additional cuts this year, implying consecutive moves at the Fed’s two remaining meetings in October and December. The projections hint at a broader shift toward concern about cracks forming in the job market in an environment complicated by major policy shifts that have made the economy harder to read.

Recent declines in the growth rate for both the number of people looking for jobs and those gaining employment have “certainly gotten everyone’s attention,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at a news conference.

Powell, who referred to “downside risk” six times at a news conference in July, said on Wednesday, “That downside risk is now a reality.”

The Fed’s carefully drafted postmeeting statement pointed to those concerns when it said the rate cut was justified “in light of the shift in the balance of risks.” The statement no longer described the labor market as “solid.”

Headline of the Day

Democrats Assemble A New Band of Centrist Dimwits to Help Them Lose Elections and Insult Harry Reid's Legacy

—Splinter, discussing the creation of yet another group within the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) to fight their real enemy, the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

The New York Times makes much hay over the fact that the founder of The Searchlight Institute, former chief of staff for chief of staff for Harry Reid and [sotto voce] John Fetterman. Adam Jentleson.

The problem according to him is that Democrats are not hating enough on the ghey or the transgender. 

I guess he knows what to do to rake in Democratic billionaire money: 

“A new Democratic think tank wants to curb the influence of liberal groups” reads a headline in the New York Times today. This is led by one of the Democratic Party’s premiere peacockers for billionaires, Adam Jentleson, the former Chief of Staff to Senator John Fetterman who would very much like you to only remember him as a Deputy Chief of Staff to the late great Senator Harry Reid, and the Times acquiesced. There are three references to Jentleson’s time with Reid that ended in 2015 in this writeup, versus just one of the last job he held as a much more powerful figure in John Fetterman’s orbit. This article is another profile as stenography, a specialty of political media, where they frame an entire story about someone through the lens that person would want it shot through.

Jentleson wants you to think that Democrats are under threat from the dreaded “groups,” just not his group. The other groups. You know. Those ones. Those lefty loony tunes who lost Democrats the 2024 elections and…uh…also helped drive perhaps the largest youth voter turnout ever in 2020 that Democrats like Jentleson never ever want to talk about. The story this wing of the party tells itself is that Democrats went woke in early 2020, lost in 2024, and we’re not going to talk about anything that happened in between. I am so sick of having this same nonsensical debate with a group of powerful people with far more control over the party than like, Sunrise Movement. The belief is that somehow small organizations like that are more responsible for why Kamala Harris lost Michigan than Kamala Harris or the Democratic Party is, who supposedly had no choice but to adopt these supposed narrow issues the “groups” like that lost Democrats the election.

………

This is a grift the same way that all Democratic consulting is a grift. It’s a bunch of (white) people like Adam Jentleson and Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias with a very narrow and extremely superficial vision of politics only shared by the rich people whose funding they covet. All that places like Searchlight Institute do is sell liberal out of touch rich people’s ideology back to them as wise and brilliant. The story this kind of politics tells is completely incoherent, because Democrats won an election doing the woke stuff they hate and lost the one where they backed a genocide to the dismay of all the woke folks who voted for them in 2020. Democrats even unexpectedly held on to the Senate in 2020, which enabled them to pass half of Biden’s key domestic agenda, something so impressive it makes Barack Obama jealous.

 You know, people like Mr. Jentleson make me think more faborably on the idea of party purges.

Robert Redford has Died

I've seen a lot of his films, and I always thought that he was a movie star with the soul of a character actor.  (Meant as a compliment) 

Also, I agree with Charlie Pierce's recommendation regarding the most timley of his oeuvre, it's The Candidate, though 3 Days of the Condor comes close.

I'll leave a discussion of his activism to others better equipped to discuss that.

He was 89. 

I Cannot Believe that this Shit is Political News

First is the news that Trey Parker and Matt Stone have delayed the latest South Park Episode, saying that the famously last minute production for the show had not gotten the episode done in time. (note, this had only happened once before, when they lost power at the studio)

Some fans are wondering if they produced an episode with Cartman doing a Charlie Kirk parody again, and that they had to pivot to something else.  

Despite the bi-weekly release schedule for South Park Season 27, and amidst heightened public scrutiny of the show’s political rhetoric, Comedy Central has postponed tonight's planned premiere of the next South Park episode to Wednesday, September 24th.

This last-minute cancellation comes one week after a gunman at Utah Valley University murdered right-wing political activist and recent South Park parody target Charlie Kirk. Just minutes after graphic videos of Kirk’s high-profile assassination went viral on social media, far-right figures and Kirk followers called for Trey Parker, Matt Stone and South Park to suffer consequences for their ridicule of the late media figure in the August 6th episode “Got a Nut.” [FWIW, that episode was loved by the late right wing pundit, despite it mercilessly savaging him]

Now, with the political world and the South Park fandom both anxiously awaiting Parker and Stone’s next move, the South Park duo have asked their viewers for a rain check.

Also, in response to some relatively mild statements, basically that the right-wing MAGAts are using the killing to promulgate their agenda, ABC has pulled Jimmy Kimmel, "Indefinitely."

ABC announced on Wednesday evening that it was pulling Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show “indefinitely” after conservatives accused the longtime host of inaccurately describing the politics of the man who is accused of fatally shooting the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

The abrupt decision by the network, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, came hours after the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, assailed Mr. Kimmel and suggested that his regulatory agency might take action against ABC because of remarks the host made on his Monday telecast. 

……… 

The decision to suspend “Jimmy Kimmel Live” was made by Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, and Dana Walden, the company’s television chief, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private process. 

In his opening monologue on Monday, Mr. Kimmel addressed the killing of Mr. Kirk by saying: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” 

This should really be shit that I don't have to care care about .

Fascism sucks, and so does Brendan Carr. 

In the Contest for Worst Trump Administration Official, We Have a Winner

In news that should surprise no one, it's RFK Jr. who is now trying to take down the Hepatitis B vaccine.

Normally, I would say that separating the excrement from the chaff in the Trump administration would be a difficult task.

RFK, Jr. makes it easy.

An influential vaccine committee will revisit recommendations around the hepatitis B shot on Thursday and may change the current practice of vaccinating newborns, an intervention that for decades has contributed to falling rates of the disease.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly questioned whether babies should continue to receive the vaccine on their first day of life.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee has recommended the hepatitis B vaccine for all infants since 1991. (The panel later recommended catch-up vaccinations for children who were not immunized as babies; it first recommended the vaccine in 1982 for people who were at high risk.) The goal was to guard against an infection that can leave lasting liver damage.

Yet another case where this lunatic is trying to dismantle one of the great public health successes of the past half century. 

This man is a menace. 

Not a Surprise

Prosecutors over-filed their indictment against Luigi Mangioni, so it is no surprise that the judge threw out his terrorism and his first degree murder charges.

First degree murder is pretty much limited to murder for hire and murder of someone in law enforcement under New York State law, and the prosecution proved little evidence for the terrorism charge.

The prosecution's argument, basically that shooting rich white CEO Brian Thompson was terrorism just because.

New York State terrorism charges against Luigi Mangione, the defendant in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive last year, were dismissed on Tuesday, including a first-degree murder count that could have landed him in prison for the rest of his life.

The judge overseeing the case, Gregory Carro, said he had found the evidence behind the charges “legally insufficient.” Mr. Mangione, 27, also faces federal charges, and is still charged in New York with second-degree murder, for which he faces a sentence of 25 years to life, among nine other counts. Those cases will proceed, though no trial dates have been set.

In charging Mr. Mangione with terrorism, the Manhattan district attorney’s office seemed to acknowledge the seismic effect of a shooting that sent shock waves through American society and set off a groundswell of support for a defendant protesting the nation’s health care system. But the judge’s decision means that while Mr. Mangione may ultimately be proved a murderer, New York’s legal system will have nothing to say about the broader implications of his actions. 

"Legally insufficient," is putting it mildly. 

Headline of the Day

How Gavin Newsom made Mike Johnson look like a Democrat

—The Ediutorial Baord, describing how Gavin Newsonm's attack dog public face right now is putting the .Phants on their back heel.

I approve.

The president has been working hard trying to convince Americans that crime is so bad right now that he has no choice but to send armed military to patrol major cities to restore law and order, in the process stripping citizens of rights and liberties in the name of public safety.

Unfortunately, the reaction among Democratic leaders has been mixed, to put it mildly, but I think California Governor Gavin Newsom has shown a way forward. This week, he said that if Donald Trump truly cared about crime, he would “invest in crime suppression” in states like “Speaker Johnson’s state and district.” Look at the murder rate in Louisiana, he said. It’s “nearly four times higher than California’s.”

The implication, of course, is that neither Trump nor the Republicans in the Congress actually care about crime. They only say they do as a smokescreen for trying to subdue, control and “own” their perceived liberal enemies residing in cities and states governed by Democrats. 

And because Newsom’s allegation – that Trump and the Republicans care less about crime than they do political oppression – rang so loudly and clearly, the House speaker was asked this morning on Fox to respond. What I want to tell you is that it was a sight to behold!

“We have crime in cities all across America and we are against that everywhere,” Johnson said. “My hometown of Shreveport has done a great job of reducing crime gradually. We’ve got to address it everywhere that it rears its ugly head, and I think every major city in the country, the residents of those cities are open to that, and anxious to have it, and we’re … the party that’s going to bring that forward.”

Amazing! Why? Because in that brief moment, the Republican leader of the United States Congress sounded just like a Democrat would sound after being attacked by a Republican. Johnson does not counterattack. He did not say Newsom was lying (Newsom was not lying). Instead, Johnson did what his counterpart Hakeem Jeffries often does after a Republican lays into him. He retreated to a “reasonable man’s” position to show that his party is the party that really cares about crime. 

To quote Georges Jacques Danton, "Il nous faut de l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace!" 

Another Trump Murder in Venezuela

Another boat sunk, and once again, no evidence is provided to support Trump's accusations.

Even if they were true, this would still be a murder, and even if the justification is that Trump declared war on them (he can't he needs Congress), the followup strikes constitute strafing people in lifeboats. 

It was a war crime when George Herbert Walker Bush did it in WWII, and it's a war crime now. 

What is really going on here is that Trump is attempting to provoke a reaction to justify an invasion of Venezuela. 

How About a Vacation in Iraq?

They have restored the ancient city of Babylon.

Now that's a good way to get your archeology freak on.

Mentioned in the sacred texts of all three Abrahamic faiths, the ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon, in modern-day Iraq, is today undergoing a revival. Two World Monuments Fund (WMF) projects are nearing completion and much-needed cultural tourism is returning.

One project mitigates groundwater damage to the north retaining wall of the Ishtar Gate. The second is a restoration of the Temple of Ninmakh, dedicated to the Sumerian mother goddess. The team hopes there will be an official reopening for the temple this autumn, after which it will be available for gatherings such as weddings and concerts, as well as for the Babylon Festival, a celebration of international cultures that takes place every spring.

Largely funded by the US embassy in Baghdad, the restoration of the temple and the north retaining wall are part of the Future of Babylon Project, initiated 15 years ago, which aims to document, waterproof and stabilise structures throughout the 2,500-acre site. (The US embassy cancelled funding for a planned walkway spanning the site of the Ishtar Gate in July due to budget cuts.)