- Ben Wittes at Lawfare: The Situation: Chris Wray Rolls Out the Red Carpet for Kash Patel.
- Along the same lines, Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic: A Scandalous Resignation. “The problem that keeps arising is that there is no way to remain in Trump’s favor while following the law.” Yup.
- A local (for me) tale about the ongoing prejudice against LBGTQ+ persons via the Alabama Political Reporter: Judge rules Prattville must allow pride float in parade.
- Vis Axios: Exclusive: RFK Jr.’s secret push to prove CIA killed uncle. It really does feel like we are through the looking glass these days.
- Via NBC News: Trump plans to scrap policy restricting ICE arrests at churches, schools and hospitals. But, no doubt, the incompetence will save us. Or something.
- Paul Krugman: The Fraudulence of “Waste, Fraud and Abuse”.
- Don Moynihan: You Should Be More Worried About Trump’s Planned Military Purge.
- Via The Hill: Manchin, Sinema block Democratic control of NLRB. Because, of course they did.
- Via the FT: Mitch McConnell: ‘We’re in a very, very dangerous world right now’. Yeah, and who could have helped prevent that, Mitch? This is infuriating.
Tabs for Thursday
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15 responses to “Tabs for Thursday”
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Because of Americans’ disproportionate attention paid to national politics, we often miss stories like the Prattville one. At a local level, nearly everything we care about is an issue, and we often face very dumb arguments like, “We can’t let gay people have a parade float because someone might attack them.”
A grandparent of Douglas County students opposed the course, saying “some of the developers of this course have expressed in videos very biased political pro-Marxist and communist beliefs, negative perceptions of charter schools, our elections systems, electoral college, being racists and much more.”
Internet arguments and editorials in national media outlets are of limited value if they don’t touch on the debates in your own backyard.
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Re Krugman. A couple weeks ago WAPO did a week plus long paean to George Will for reaching a 25 year anniversary at age 83 and soldiering on into his dotage, which I believe started in the 1970s. This week Krugman left the Times and has started up his old newsletter, but on Substack, as linked above. But neither he nor the Times has said anything about why he left the Times, or was pushed. He’s 71 and entitled to retire from deadlines, if he wished. Anybody seen anything more on what happened?
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Biden created more than 16 million new jobs, the most in any four-year presidential term in U.S. history.
And these chucklefluckers constantly assert Biden’s economy was not good.
Who wants to bet Trump won’t approach that number?Also, @Kingdaddy: It’s always fun to note that the people making stupid objections like that are themselves biased. One of the “assumptions” that frustratingly isn’t challenged frequently enough is the concept that Republicans magically drape themselves in the flag of patriotism because reasons.
Facts over feelings: Republicans simply aren’t the only patriots. -
@gVOR10:
There was a report the day after Krugman’s announcement that he didn’t see eye to eye with editing decisions being made by the new Times opinion editor.
Leaving rather than constantly arguing makes sense for a 70 something. Besides Substack and other venues provide plenty of opportunities for him to share his thoughts.
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The reality is that people like Krugman are brands unto themselves and the need for platforms like the Times is small.
When Ezra Klein was a twenty something at the WaPo, he was publically humiliated by one of the Posts senior editor and grinned and bear it. As a sympathetic commentator put it, Klein was a talented nobody and his career could have been buried by the Post. Krugman and Klein aren’t in that situation now.
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@Gavin: Exactly. The key word is “constantly”. When is it going to get through Democrat’s thick heads that it isn’t facts that are going to win elections, it is propaganda. Every sentence should have included “failed Trump administration”, “weak Trump economy”, “hugely successful Biden economy”, etc.
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@CSK: @Sleeping Dog: I saw that earlier. I didn’t see it in the paper, somebody linked to it. I can’t find it with NYT’s search function. Was it ever in the paper or is it a press release or something?
It just says Krugman “has decided to retire from The Times”. It was written by the Opinion Editor, Kathleen Kingsbury, who as far as I can find has been Opinion Editor for a few years. And Krugman didn’t add any explanation in his final column. It all smells like there’s an NDA in place.
It may just be Krugman wants to semi-retire. Or maybe he felt he could make more money on Substack with less pressure. But I can’t help but wonder, given WAPO and LAT, whether they had issues over some creeping Quislingism (Quislingitis?).
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@gVOR10:
The article that detailed Krugman’s clashes with the editor, wasn’t in the Times, but on a blog/substack of someone that follows the media. I probably saw the initial link at Memeorandum and likely it went first to Mediagazer, an affiliate.
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@Sleeping Dog: Thanks. Paywalled after the first few paragraphs and I failed to find an archive copy that wasn’t paywalled. The first graphs say vaguely conflict with Kingsbury but not the nature of it. If there’s a paragraph or couple that explain more, I’d appreciate you sharing, if it isn’t inconvenient.
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@gVOR10:
When I saw it, it either wasn’t paywalled or it was a different source. To find it today I just googled kurgman’s reason for retiring.
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@Sleeping Dog: Thanks.
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