US Politics: Biden vs. Ron DeCardassian in the Delta quadrant

[mcbigski]

9 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

He said he would donate the royalties ***if they made them*** but that he hasn’t made any- this is because he is not donating the portion of his advance they represent. So technically, his advance was, in part, his royalty payment for these books. If he ever reaches the amount where he would be paid beyond the advance, since those are technically different sales, he wouldn’t donate that either. But, he wouldn’t have reached the sales where he would get additional payment without the books he bought with campaign funds and likely still has a large portion of. That’s how it’s a double dip. Surely, you see that.

When I read the source article, I thought it said x% royalties until y books are sold then x% plus z%.  If he's buying books with campaign dollars to hit some target for a payout and then pulping them, that's one thing.  But it seems like paying full price to earn a .15 return from royalties on hopeful future purchase isn't good capitalism, and doesn't reduce total sales from the publisher.  Campaigns should still be able to buy merch to resell, unless we've already reached soviet utopia.  Where is the harm, and where is the benefit?

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

Where is the harm, and where is the benefit?

.....Is this a serious question?  He's using campaign funds to affect a larger payout for himself.  At least that's the most likely reason for buying that many of his own books.  It's obviously unethical, but again, it may not technically be illegal based on the FEC guidelines if he's not taking "royalties."

[Fury Resurrected]

25 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

When I read the source article, I thought it said x% royalties until y books are sold then x% plus z%.  If he's buying books with campaign dollars to hit some target for a payout and then pulping them, that's one thing.  But it seems like paying full price to earn a .15 return from royalties on hopeful future purchase isn't good capitalism, and doesn't reduce total sales from the publisher.  Campaigns should still be able to buy merch to resell, unless we've already reached soviet utopia.  Where is the harm, and where is the benefit?

An Advance works this way

you get x% of sales. Toward that amount, we pay your advance up front. If x% total ever gets beyond the advance amount, you get paid continual x% as long as books are selling. That’s why is called an advance. They are paying you from what you are expected to earn in advance. $350k is not a large advance for a book deal. That he hasn’t even passed the threshold while campaigning for president (free advertising) and buying vast quantities of his own books besides shows that nobody wants this fucking book.

[Ser Reptitious]

9 hours ago, Fury Resurrected said:

That’s how it’s a double dip. Surely, you see that.

He would see that if it was Hunter Biden doing it. But since Ted Cruz is a Republican... 

[Larry of the Lawn]

Kinda surprised Business Insider ran this opinion piece.  Have to admit only noticed that because the writer is local to here.  

https://www.businessinsider.com/pro-war-pundits-afghan-citizens-withdraw-troops-kabul-veterans-2021-8?amp&__twitter_impression=true

 

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Now, as Biden's withdrawal process comes under criticism, a number of voices are calling on the president to recommit US soldiers to an open-ended conflict that has no clearly defined version of victory and will only cause more pain and suffering for the Afghan people. 

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens implied the US should stay in the country for decades, approvingly citing the continued American presence in South Korea after 71 years as a model. At the Washington Post, war cheerleader Max Boot echoed that call.

"That's only true if it was inevitable that the US military would pull out," Boot wrote. "But US forces are still present in far larger numbers in countries such as Germany, Japan and South Korea after more than 70 years."

The Atlantic's Tom Nichols, an early supporter of the war, complained that Biden's decision to leave the country was made because Americans didn't have the stomach to continue the war indefinitely in an article titled, "Afghanistan Is Your Fault." John Bolton told NPR that "a continuing presence there would have been an insurance policy." And so on.

"If there's any one thread throughout this whole venture, in my opinion, it is our limitless contempt for the Afghan people, who are some of the poorest and most victimized people on this entire planet," veteran Nate Bethea told me. 

 

Seldom mentioned in these complaints over the withdrawal is the real human cost of staying in Afghanistan. Thousands of Afghan civilians bore the brunt of America's war in the country, caught between a foreign occupying force and a homegrown militant resistance, neither of which were ever accountable to the population they terrorized in the crossfire of their battles. 

Attempts by the foreign troops to make things better were half-hearted at best. Bethea told me that coalition forces would give the families of victims between $1,000 and $2,000 for the death of a loved one. 

"People thought, 'Okay, this is fine, we paid them out' — but you killed their fucking family," Bethea said. "How could they not hate you forever?"

The war began with a callous disregard for Afghan lives as American forces attempted to exact a blood cost for the 9/11 attacks. Between October, 2001 and February, 2002, coalition forces dropped around 14,000 tons of bombs on Afghanistan, killing — conservatively — around 3,500 civilians, according to research by University of New Hampshire Professor Marc Herold. 

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

 

Re: Me, Cruz

What a maverick! 

 *$swoons$*

[Ran]

I was listening to the latest Lawfare Podcast, which is part of the venerable Brookings Institution -- a centrist, extremely-establishment think tank -- and I thought what was said there was the most perfect example of histrionics from people way too  deeply and personally involved to be able to see things with any sense of balance. The guests were all NGO and think-tank people, at least one was a veteran, and the hysterical language they used about Biden's "betrayal", the warnings that veterans and so on would "never forget" what he did, how  the failure of having achieved anything "real" was a huge blow that Biden would never live down, etc., etc. was stomach-churning.

I understand the fact that these were people who invested real time and effort into Afghanistan, as veterans and as part of NGOs trying to help there. But they basically all simply reinforced one another and there was no push back at all from the host about the fact that they were not engaging with the fact that Afghanistan was a failure as a nation-building project, one that people were calling a failure for years, nor with the idea that what they were all seemingly advocating was some variation of "forever war".

I think a lot of Americans understand, or will come to understand, how genuinely important it is that Joe Biden was the president we had at this moment. He has been resolved to get the US out for over a decade, and when finally in the position to do it, he didn't shy away from the flak he'd get from the national security blob and the media. 

[Zorral]

3 minutes ago, Ran said:

He has been resolved to get the US out for over a decade, and when finally in the position to do it, he didn't shy away from the flak he'd get from the national security blob and the media. 

Joe is brave.

No matter when we left this was what would happen; it should have been long ago, before there was a pandemic too make everything more complicated and worse.

But politicians are gonna politic first, second and third and would never have the guts to do it, admit the disaster this was from the gitgo.

 

[DMC]

43 minutes ago, Ran said:

the venerable Brookings Institution -- a centrist, extremely-establishment think tank

Let's not get crazy here with the "centrist" label.  Brookings is decidedly liberal, which used to mean left wing.  Nixon don't wanna bomb no centrist think tank.  I suppose some among the emergent left may think Brookings is "centrist," but that's their own problem.

[Zorral]

However, there seems to be a whole lot going on that the media isn't bothering to notice. Josh Marshall has, though.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/you-wouldnt-know-it-from-the-us-news-coverage-but

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The bonfire of hyperboles in US press coverage seems limitless at the moment. And the consequences of the fall of the US-backed government in Kabul are likely to be very, very limited beyond Afghanistan itself. But I wanted to focus on something that seems to be getting very, very little above-the-fold coverage in the American press coverage: the key leaders of the US backed government over the last two decades are relaxedly meeting with the political leadership of the Taliban in Kabul about the formation of the new government.

Meanwhile, Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan President whose precipitous flight hastened the rapid collapse of the government last weekend says he supports these negotiations and is in the process of negotiating his own return to the country. . . . .

 

 

[Ran]

7 hours ago, DMC said:

Nixon don't wanna bomb no centrist think tank.

Not sure Nixon wanted to bomb Brookings either -- it's John Dean who said Chuck Colson told him they should do it to fulfill Nixon's demand for papers about LBJ's bombing halt which he believed were in Brookings' safe, allegedly deposited there by former LBJ officials who were fellows there.

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  I suppose some among the emergent left may think Brookings is "centrist," but that's their own problem.

I say "centrist" because of the study that examined citations in the Congressional Record, which found that Brookings was cited almost as often by Republicans as Democrats, and leading to a 53 out of 100 score on its conservative-to-liberal scale. Things may have changed since then, thanks to the like of the Tea Party and Trump.

But it being very establishment is its most important feature, in any case. Lots of admin officials at various levels pass through its doors, on both side of the aisle.

[DMC]

4 hours ago, Ran said:

Not sure Nixon wanted to bomb Brookings either -- it's John Dean who said Chuck Colson told him they should do it to fulfill Nixon's demand for papers about LBJ's bombing halt which he believed were in Brookings' safe, allegedly deposited there by former LBJ officials who were fellows there.

.....I don't know why we have to argue this technicality.  It's kind of a joke, yeah, but there's tape.  Tape of him saying this:

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(President Nixon): I mean, I want it implemented on a thievery basis. Goddamn it, get in and get those files. Blow the safe and get it.

 

4 hours ago, Ran said:

I say "centrist" because of the study that examined citations in the Congressional Record, which found that Brookings was cited almost as often by Republicans as Democrats, and leading to a 53 out of 100 score on its conservative-to-liberal scale. Things may have changed since then, thanks to the like of the Tea Party and Trump.

But it being very establishment is its most important feature, in any case. Lots of admin officials at various levels pass through its doors, on both side of the aisle

Brookings is definitely "establishment," no denying that.  But I'm distinctly averse to describing them as "centrist" just because they're cited by both sides.  Perhaps this is a semantic hang up to most, but I think it's important.

[Ran]

3 hours ago, DMC said:

.....I don't know why we have to argue this technicality.  It's kind of a joke, yeah, but there's tape.

Let me put it another way: Nixon wanted documents that he believed Brookings had. It had nothing to do with whether he judged it leftist or centrist, so using this particular detail to refute the centrist label is misleading. The establishment was starting to turn against him, and Brookings was a bellweather of that.

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Perhaps this is a semantic hang up to most, but I think it's important.

I can see what you’re getting at, since centrist can be about deliberate messaging. But I think if you are very much deeply tied to the establishment, your policy views probably end up balanced pretty well between both factions of the establishment.

My views are no doubt colored by the fact that Benjamin Wittes, co-founder of Lawfare and one of the regular hosts of the Rational Security podcast, has national security views are definitely conservative, who was initially supportive of Barr as AG and Kavanaugh’s nomination (to his rue), regularly has lunch with James Comey, and is presently tearing out his hair and beating his chest over the American “abandonment” of Afghanistan.

But to be fair, his wife and fellow Rational Security host/Brookings fellow has been nominated to a post at USAID and Susan Hennessey (the other host and Brookings fellow) is now at DoJ and is certainly more left-of-center than Ben. Brookings definitely pulls in people from both sides of the aisle.

[DMC]

31 minutes ago, Ran said:

It had nothing to do with whether he judged it leftist or centrist, so using this particular detail to refute the centrist label is misleading. The establishment was starting to turn against him, and Brookings was a bellweather of that.

It had everything to do with Nixon thinking Brookings was the "establishment left" that was out to get him.  This is thoroughly demonstrated by any decent scrutinization of the plethora of evidence provided in such a case.

35 minutes ago, Ran said:

But I think if you are very much deeply tied to the establishment, your policy views probably end up balanced pretty well between both factions of the establishment.

Fair point.  It's just I think there's an important distinction between the establishment right and the establishment left.  Like, I would never describe the Heritage Foundation as "centrist" just because it's ingrained inside the beltway and cited by both sides.

39 minutes ago, Ran said:

Brookings definitely pulls in people from both sides of the aisle.

Of course, and there's nothing wrong with that.  This is what I think should be emphasized - just because an institute welcomes alternate views does not change its overall stance.  We've gone too far if Brookings is "centrist" simply because they employ Republicans.

[ThinkerX]

This is a bit bizarre in today's political climate, as conservatives tend to be relentlessly opposed to anything to do with the environment, climate change, and energy conservation.  Almost enough to wonder if there be a feeble spark of sanity or three remaining on the right...or if this represents a forced acknowledgement of reality.

https://c3newsmag.com/senate-infrastructure-plan-climate-and-energy/?utm_source=social&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=senate-infrastructure&utm_term=facebook-ad&fbclid=IwAR0Cu6uDr6vE1F1fohycj0s-RoJYrID49lxEZBSxUn_LNVmcprtadOY2PTs

 

The Senate’s 2700-page bipartisan infrastructure bill includes a slew of energy, environmental, and climate programs. The bill carries a hefty $1.2 trillion price tag, and many programs overstep the role of the federal government by subsidizing mature technologies. However, others would enhance government research and development, dedicate taxpayer resources to conservation, and allow infrastructure projects to be built in a timely manner.

The legislation would increase government spending for several energy research and development initiatives including hydrogen, carbon capture and sequestration, renewable energy, battery storage and more. One of the highlights is $21.5 billion for the creation of a new Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations to see early-stage research through demonstration as a pathway for increased market viability.

It also includes $3.5 billion to establish four direct air capture (DAC) hubs and would appropriate funding for pre-commercial and commercial DAC prizes that the Energy Act of 2020 authorized. DAC is an intriguing technology as it effectively vacuums carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to reverse climate change. DAC is attracting major investments and could be a key piece of the puzzle to solve the collective action challenges global climate change presents, where a majority of current and future emissions are coming from China and other developing countries.

[Freshwater Spartan]

On 8/20/2021 at 11:25 PM, Martell Spy said:

California judge strikes down tech industry's Prop. 22

https://www.politico.com/states/california/whiteboard/2021/08/20/california-judge-strikes-down-tech-industrys-prop-22-9427135

 

That's great news. Over the last two decades I have changed my mind about ballot initiatives. Granted there has been some good ones that have passed from time to time but more and more it seems that private interest has hijacked initiatives to serve their own twisted agendas. Prop 22 was one of the worst examples of these in 2020. Ballot initiatives tend to bring out the worst outcomes of direct democracy. I would love to see them disappear altogether.

[Martell Spy]

14 minutes ago, Freshwater Spartan said:

That's great news. Over the last two decades I have changed my mind about ballot initiatives. Granted there has been some good ones that have passed from time to time but more and more it seems that private interest has hijacked initiatives to serve their own twisted agendas. Prop 22 was one of the worst examples of these in 2020. Ballot initiatives tend to bring out the worst outcomes of direct democracy. I would love to see them disappear altogether.

The worst outcomes? Like many raises of states minimum wage?

[Freshwater Spartan]

15 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

The worst outcomes? Like many raises of states minimum wage?

See sentence three. It would be preferable for legislators to do this work.

[Martell Spy]

Revealed: how California police chased a nonexistent ‘antifa bus’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/23/revealed-california-police-antifa-misinformation

On 1 June 2020, a law enforcement official in the small northern California city of Redding sent screenshots of two social media posts to her staff, asking them to investigate.

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One was an Instagram story. “BE AWARE … I have heard, from a reliable source, that ANTIFA buses with close to 200 people (domestic terrorists) are planning to infiltrate Redding and possibly cause distraction and destruction,” it read.

The second, a Facebook post, warned that buses of protesters planning to “riot” had stopped in Klamath Falls in southern Oregon, “but there was no rioting or burning as they decided to move on”. The post included a grainy image of a small van with “Black Lives Matter” written on the back.

Elizabeth Barkley, then chief of the California Highway Patrol (CHP) northern division, which covers rural parts of the state just south of Oregon, asked her colleagues to look into the claims and “notify our allied agencies in town”. Ninety minutes later, another CHP official forwarded the message to officers saying, “The thought is these buses are roaming – looking for events to attend (and possibly cause problems).”

Fifteen minutes after that, a CHP sergeant told a listserv of commanders that “possible ANTIFA buses [are] heading to Redding”, adding that the agency’s tactical alert center had been notified. The official said that CHP aircraft operations were now actively trying to locate a vehicle on the freeway. The sheriff of nearby Humboldt county, William Honsal, shared the information with his entire staff, saying, “BOL [be on the lookout] for ANTIFA buses from Oregon.”

The actions of officials in Shasta and Humboldt counties last summer were outlined in internal documents obtained through a public records request by Property of the People, a not-for-profit group, and shared with the Guardian.

They show how officers in these rural counties, known for weed farms and hiking and overwhelmingly white, were swiftly duped by unfounded allegations about “Antifa buses” threatening to “infiltrate” the community as the United States wrestled with the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that sprung up in the aftermath.

The records also show how the agencies’ response to those unsubstantiated allegations helped spread misinformation rooted in online conspiracy theories. The files were particularly troubling, experts said, because antifa conspiracy theories have inspired armed rightwing vigilantes to organize in response, sometimes with violent demonstrations.

 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Revealed: how California police chased a nonexistent ‘antifa bus’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/23/revealed-california-police-antifa-misinformation

On 1 June 2020, a law enforcement official in the small northern California city of Redding sent screenshots of two social media posts to her staff, asking them to investigate.

 

How to make law enforcement demonstrate their bias and stupidity without really trying…