Reading

Created
Wed, 01/01/2025 - 10:00
The NY Times published a fun feature called “11 Data Points and Discoveries That Surprised Us in 2024.” I thought this one was particularly pertinent to Democratic navel gazing about the election: Special elections really were all about turnout, and thus meant little for November Why were Democrats doing so well in special elections, even though polls showed Joe Biden doing so poorly? I collected and analyzed data on who had been voting in special elections, and this chart was my “eureka” moment. On the y-axis: how well Democrats fared in a special election, compared with the 2020 election result. On the x-axis: our estimates for the 2020 vote choice of the same special electorates, based on exactly who voted and our previous estimates for the likelihood that registered voters backed Mr. Biden in 2020. As you can see, there’s a decent one-to-one relationship, implying that these election results were mostly a function of turnout, not persuasion. The biggest surprise, for me, wasn’t simply that there was a decent correlation between turnout and results.
Created
Wed, 01/01/2025 - 08:30
Good Lord. According to the NY Times the Feds have arrested a nut who had what they call the largest cache of finished explosive devices ever found in FBI history: The man, Brad Spafford, was taken into custody at a farm outside Norfolk on Dec. 17 on the basis of a single-count criminal complaint accusing him of illegally possessing an unregistered short-barrel rifle. When investigators searched his 20-acre property, in Isle of Wight County, they found in a detached garage more than 150 explosive devices — mostly pipe bombs, some of them labeled “lethal,” prosecutors said. They found more pipe bombs in a bedroom inside Mr. Spafford’s house, loosely stuffed in a backpack that bore a patch shaped like a hand grenade and a logo reading “#NoLivesMatter,” prosecutors said. No Lives Matter is a nihilistic, far-right ideology that largely exists on encrypted online messaging apps like Telegram.
Created
Wed, 01/01/2025 - 07:00
The NY Times reports that Musk has pretty much moved in to Mar-a-lago which explains why Trump was so upset when he didn’t see him around that he mistakenly posted a private text to him on Truth Social telling him he misses him. It’s such a sweet relationship. Trump is elderly, you know, and it’s about time for him to turn over the family business to his son: Elon Musk plays many roles with President-elect Donald J. Trump. He is Mr. Trump’s most important donor, most influential social media promoter and a key adviser on policy and personnel. For most of the time since Election Day, he has also been Mr. Trump’s tenant. Mr. Musk has been using one of the cottages available for rent on Mr. Trump’s property at Mar-a-Lago, the former Marjorie Merriweather Post home in Florida that Mr. Trump converted into a members-only club and hotel in the 1990s, according to two people with knowledge of the arrangement. The cottage where he has been staying, named Banyan, is several hundred feet away from the main house, according to a person who knows the property. Staying right on the grounds has helped provide Mr. Musk with easy access to Mr. Trump.
Created
Wed, 01/01/2025 - 05:00
Trouble in paradise for Trumpy and Kim: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hailed Vladimir Putin as his “dearest friend” in a New Year’s letter to the Russian leader praising close bilateral ties, state media said on Tuesday. The two countries have deepened political, military and cultural ties since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with Putin and Kim repeatedly professing their personal closeness. Moscow and Pyongyang signed a landmark defense pact during Putin’s visit to the isolated North in June. The pact obligates them to provide immediate military assistance if the other is invaded and came into effect this month.
Created
Wed, 01/01/2025 - 02:30
From H1B to H5N1 We move now from the MAGA civil war over H1B visas to the H5N1 bird flu. (It’s getting hard to keep the abbreviations straight without a bound reference.) CDC: December 18, 2024— A patient has been hospitalized with a severe case of avian influenza A(H5N1) virus (“H5N1 bird flu”) infection in Louisiana. This marks the first instance of severe illness linked to the virus in the United States. The case was confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday, December 13. Since April 2024, there have been a total of 61 reported human cases of H5 bird flu reported in the United States. […] A sporadic case of severe H5N1 bird flu illness in a person is not unexpected; avian influenza A(H5N1) virus infection has previously been associated with severe human illness in other countries during 2024 and prior years, including illness resulting in death. No person-to-person spread of H5 bird flu has been detected. This case does not change CDC’s overall assessment of the immediate risk to the public’s health from H5N1 bird flu, which remains low. No need to panic.
Created
Wed, 01/01/2025 - 01:00
MAGA GOP in disarray So NOW reparations are on the table. When they’re presumed for Americans of a certain hue (Daily Beast): Steve Bannon escalated the MAGA civil war Monday by calling for ‘reparations’ for Americans for losing out to immigrants on H-1B visas–who should themselves, he said, be deported. Bannon repeatedly railed against the program—and billionaire Elon Musk, who backs the visas—on Monday’s War Room, asking guests including conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer and former-Democrat-turned-MAGA-backer Allison Huynh whether Musk understood the visas were a “scam.” H-1B visas, which allow U.S. companies to hire highly skilled foreign workers for specialty jobs, were signed into law as part of the Immigration Act of 1990 by President George H.W. Bush, a Republican. President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday he supported the program. See, this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part! And Steve Bannon is just the guy to do it.
Created
Wed, 01/01/2025 - 00:41
Long holidays are nice. But sometimes, amid all the relaxation, you can feel your brain getting a bit mushy. What do you do then? Personally, yours truly usually solves crosswords, chess problems, and the occasional mathematical puzzle to keep the grey brain cells active over Christmas and New Year…
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Wed, 01/01/2025 - 00:38

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We’re counting down our twenty-four most-read articles of 2024. Check back daily for updates to the list, as we make our way to number one. Happy Holidays!

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24. We Are Not a ‘School’—We Are a Hospital System with a Football Team
by Andrew Patrick Clark

23. I Am a Boomer’s iPhone and I Will Not Be Silenced
by Julia Bensfield Luce

22. Deciphering Your Daughter’s ‘MOM’ Texts
by Dani Bostick

21. Gen Z Beowulf
by John-Clark Levin

Created
Tue, 31/12/2024 - 22:14

Trump wants to boost exports, bring back American jobs from overseas and reduce the trade deficit. To achieve this he needs a weaker dollar. Trump also wants a strong dollar and will not brook any challenges to its near monopoly of international payments. Can he possibly have both? Trump’s Problem No.1: His announced tariffs will […]

The post Trump, the Dollar and China: What to watch for in 2025 appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Created
Tue, 31/12/2024 - 12:00
I think we’ll all be talking about Jimmy Carter over the next few days and rightly so. The man led a fascinating and impactful life and there’s a lot to say about his accomplishments, his values and his contributions to America. I thought today that I would just remind everyone of this episode which informs us of the corrupt nature of so much of the GOP’s history, even before Trump. People’s lives were at stake and they did this: It has been more than four decades, but Ben Barnes said he remembers it vividly. His longtime political mentor invited him on a mission to the Middle East. What Mr. Barnes said he did not realize until later was the real purpose of the mission: to sabotage the re-election campaign of the president of the United States. It was 1980 and Jimmy Carter was in the White House, bedeviled by a hostage crisis in Iran that had paralyzed his presidency and hampered his effort to win a second term. Mr. Carter’s best chance for victory was to free the 52 Americans held captive before Election Day. That was something that Mr. Barnes said his mentor was determined to prevent. His mentor was John B.
Created
Tue, 31/12/2024 - 10:30
Josh Marshall has been closely following the recent South Korean coup and subsequent fallout and has uncovered something (via this article) that I’ve not heard anyone else report. He notes that while S. Korea may be a more recent democracy by American standards it’s actually very well entrenched. But it also has a social media ecosystem that resembles our own with right wing extremists dominating the scene. The country’s reaction to the attempt can best be described as a widespread “What the fuck?” Like not even, “this won’t stand!” or “we’ll defend our democracy!”, though those were there too. The immediate reaction to Yoon’s move was as much bafflement as fear or anger. The whole thing was so crazy and out of left field that people struggled to understand what Yoon had even been thinking. That’s why the attempted coup played out as it did and why Yoon is currently out of power and looking at likely treason charges. So back to our far-right YouTubers.