#(along with all of her ten million other shitty political decisions)

[navree]

"rhaenys could have ended the war by dracarysing all the greens right there" yes because a distant relation to the throne deciding to barbecue an anointed and publicly positively hailed king and his entire family who is well loved within the city and in multiple other parts of the country for the sake of the succession of a far-away princess no one was ever on board with who hasn't been seen by the populace in literal years, her psycho husband, her three obvious bastards, and two toddlers from the psycho husband would go over super well with westeros and especially in king's landing where scores of the still-cheering population were killed for no reason by that same dragon who would do the barbecuing, because when targaryens act unilaterally without thinking of how the people would react there's never any problem, which is why the storming of the dragonpit and robert's rebellion were actually just collective delusions dreamed up by readers who hate rhaenyra and not key parts of the story and house targaryen's history that directly contributed to their demise and are intrinsic to the plot

truly team black stans are made up of only the most genius and media literate amongst us

[mostlysignssomeportents]

For 40 years, American Conservatives have filed down the definition of "corruption," wearing away the Framers' spear until all that remains is a blunt nub

Zephyr Teachout's (previously) 2014 book Corruption in America is an incredibly important, timely book about the way that American policy and politics have been distorted by money, something that's gotten steadily worse as it is supercharged by (and supercharges) wealth inequality.

But Teachout's been on this subject for her whole career, and in 2009, she published The Anti-Corruption Principle in the Cornell Law Review, and as ridiculous as this sounds, if you only read one nine-year-old, 74 page law review article this weekend, you should read this one.

Teachout is a wonderful writer, and has the gift of making abstruse and technical questions of Constitutional law jump off the page, bringing to life the underlying principles and the human consequences of them, along with the stories of the Constitutional framers who established the American conception of corruption, and the wealthy power-brokers who systematically dismantled it over the past 50 years.

Teachout's history revolves around Buckley v Valeo, a decision that has been cited in hundreds of corruption cases, but which is not "an  amendment  to the  Constitution,  or,  for  that  matter,  a  particularly  coherent   opinion. But courts treat it as if it carried the weight of all of these." For 40 years, Buckley has been a kind of Dremel tool deployed by apologists for corruption, used to grind away the Framers' expansive conception of corruption to a worn-out little nub that defines corruption as a direct quid-pro-quo in which a politician gets a sum of cash for taking a specific action to benefit the giver -- anything less is handwaved away as a form of "speech" (see, e.g., Citizens United).

But as Teachout shows, the Constitutional Convention, the Federalists Papers, the framers' diaries and letters, and the Constitution itself sets out a much more expansive definition of corruption: "self-serving use of public power for private ends, including, without limita- tion, bribery, public decisions to serve private wealth made because of dependent relationships, public decisions to serve executive power made because of dependent relationships, and use by public officials of their positions of power to become wealthy."

The framers were worried that their new nation would fall prey to the corruption that had turned them away from England. The structure of the government they created in the USA was designed to prevent corruption, by spreading around powers, by making it hard for secret conspiracies to flourish, by creating checks and balances. The contemporary conservative account of this separation of powers is that it is designed to stop a despot, not a crook -- but the framers' own words tell a very different story.

The framers were obsessed with Montesquieu and his idea of a corrupt society, "when  the  people  have  been  corrupted  by  silver;  they   become cool, they grow fond of silver, and they are no longer fond of public  affairs;  without  concern  for  the  government  or  for  what is proposed  there,  they  quietly  wait  for  their  payments." They believed that people could be motivated by a desire for public service, but that this pure intent could be corrupted by money, and created systems to serve as Ulysses pacts in which public servants voluntarily subject themselves to unbreakable promises that make private gain harder to wring from the system. As Bruce Schneier has pointed out, the Constitution can be viewed as a security system designed to protect humans from their own frailties.

Teachout's paper, nine years old, is fantastically prescient in predicting our current moment, right up to last week's Republican tax plan in which rogue Republicans were brought into line one at a time by having language added to the bill to specifically give each of them titanic tax breaks.

It's also a fascinating look at the way that the Reagan years represent a sustained attack on the idea of public service and the common good. Rand and Hayek and their disciples held that acting in your own self-interest produced the best possible outcomes, and their mathematically inclined acolytes at the University of Chicago produced endless shitty equations to prove that selfishness was Pareto-optimal.

But Teachout doesn't talk about inequality and neoliberal economics in this 2009 paper, though I think she'd be more inclined to do so today. We've gone through a tipping point, the Piketty singularity in which it is rhetorically acceptable to observe that markets make rich people richer and magnify their bad ideas into catastrophic ones, without being dismissed as a relic of the last century's Marxist left.

We're undergoing a similar tipping point today. As Trevor Noah recently pointed out, racists have managed to make pointing out racism into a graver sin than racism itself, forcing us to talk about Donald Trump and his base as "ethno-nationalists" and "alt-righter" and other such euphemisms. Soon enough, we'll just call a Klansman a Klansman.

After all, the conservative conception of corruption is obviously wrong. Sam Walton -- arch-conservative founder of Walmart -- famously refused to allow his buyers to accept anything, even a glass of water, from a seller's representative. He knew that any exchange of value distorts priorities, and would turn his employees into de facto agents of his suppliers. Yet, Walmart directly and indirectly funnels tens of millions of dollars to public servants and insists that this is in no way untoward, and will not distort those public officials' judgments.

https://boingboing.net/2017/12/29/corruption-in-america.html

[oncethrown]

2x14 High Fiving a Million Angels (But Still Not Lady Angels)

I wrote a post a few months ago about how Shadowhunters was finally starting to find its feet and all signs were pointing to 2B being the point where the show would come into it’s own and really be something. 

And I finally feel like I was right. after 2x14.

This was a great episode, it promised that the flashes of social concious the show focused on in 2x13 weren’t just filler to make Clary look good, but real problems in both the world and the narrative of the show that the show intends to deal with. It also managed to finally deliver strong character moments and not choke itself with action for once. While overall it was really strong, it still failed it’s female characters, but it’s not like I’m shocked anymore. 

I think Alec, Luke and Maryse had the strongest episode, with Sebastian as a runner up. 

Alec finally becoming Head of the Institute was written perfectly. He understands the issue, but not perfectly. He starts the downworld council, but all of the participants are quick to remind him that they’ve seen this sort of empty gesture from the Clave before, and Alec is unable to actually deliver what those downworld leaders want, despite his openness, because the Clave won’t budge. 

They also show that he’s going to face resistance from the rank and file shadhowhunters, who don’t think it’s appropriate for him to bring downworlders into their place, assume its because he’s fucking a downworlder, and expect him to fail. 

We also get to see just how much he wants this and how much work  and thought he’s putting into it. He’s in a suit this entire episode. He’s dressing the part of Head of Institute. He puts in a call to Magnus to establish boundaries in this new arena for them and their relationship. He’s measured and careful and thoughtful with everything he says, (though I do think Matthew Daddario made the professionalism feel a little wooden) and he brings in Izzy, who he knows has stronger personal relationships with the more resistant members of his proposed cabinet, Meliorn and Raphael.  

Plus the exchange with Maryse about baby Alec seriously writing crayon memos was gold.

Luke shows up hard as pack leader in this episode, he’s the perfect character to refuse to let the Clave off without a concession, and Isaiah Mustafa carries his indignation at the whole situation so perfectly. The writing is strong here too, with Luke’s episode arc of demanding concessions from the Clave, not getting them, and seeking his own revenge against Valentine because he knows the Clave will never give in to Downworld demands (also, holy foreshadowing from Raphael last week, let’s hope that goes somewhere). The way they heightened that with his interactions with Maryse was also gold.

Maryse is getting the redemption arc that I have been desperate for for 14 episodes. I am pretty salty that they’ve dropped her into the plot twice to work on that instead of giving this story line more time to breathe, especially since no one is acknowledging that Aldertree is to blame for Izzy’s addiction, so nothing he did meant anything and he was a pointless waste of time and Maryse could have been playing his role the whole time if Shadhowhunters didn’t hate women so much. 

I like that they are actually using Robert’s affair to mean something. Maryse was betrayed and hurt by someone she thought loved her, and now she’s seeing herself in a new light because of it, and that barrier between herself and her children and her old friends is starting to break down. 

Her scene with Izzy is easily the best scene of the episode. She’s seeing Izzy as her daughter instead of her legacy and is actually thinking about how things effect Izzy emotionally, like her knowing about Robert’s affair, and how the way Maryse raised Izzy could have made her more susceptible to a yin-fen addiction. 

Her scene with Luke is also perfectly placed. She’s not only starting to think about how she raised her children, and her homophobia, she’s given real thought to the tremendously anti-downworlder things she did in the past, and we even see her look genuinely surprised that the Clave wouldn’t let Luke attend Jocelyn’s funeral. 

I love that they have her starting to reach out to Alec, but that her lines about how proud of him she actually is are delivered to other people. She tells Izzy that it’s good that Alec fought for love for himself. She tells Luke that Alec’s idea for a downworld council is wonderful. She knows that the divide between she and Alec is too wide and deep right now and she needs to approach him carefully.

Her scene with Alec is still about duty and legacy. She’s excited that Alec is head of the Institute... but she’s not going to divorce Robert because she doesn’t want to risk the Lightwood legacy. 

Sebastian is givin this fantastic one episode development from seemingly sweet and caring, to creepily over involved, to ‘don’t forget he’s a psycho’ and it plays so well against the rest of the episode. Will and Nicola have the same skill for giving you a ton of emotion and subtext in their eyes. 

But There Were A Lot of Things That Sucked Here Too

But at least not all of them are Clary This Time

Izzy Nonsense

The two men vying for Izzy’s affection in this episode, could have done their whole schtick for the episode without her being there at all. Sebastian telling Raphael to back off when he’s known him for a hot minute and only sees him as a source of venom out there corrupting sweet Innocent, helpless to stop herself Isabelle is shitty (also... ALDERTREE IS TO BLAME HERE. BAD SHADOWHUNTER, NOT BAD VAMP). And then Raphael’s whole matyr thing rubs me the wrong way too. Everyone is always talking about Izzy being so strong and such a good shadowhunter and blah blah blah... and for the last like ten episodes she is only allowed to be strong as an addict. They don’t let her be strong as a person. It sucks. I’m over it. 

And like... neither Sebastian nor Raphael are wrong, I get that, but I want to watch a show where Isabelle gets to make that decision, instead of the dude’s penising in and dickily deciding, with great turtleneck bishopry, that only they can save Izzy... from herself. 

That scene also sucked because Raphael is a bad choice beyond just the yin fen thing. He hid Isabelle’s phone from her when her family needed her. If someone takes your phone away, and cuts you off from your family... you do not date them. You kick them in the nads until they puke. 

Clary Nonsense

I imagine that the original first scene from this episode was cut, and went like this:

(Alec and Magnus shirtless in bed together)

Alec: One of the first things I’m doing as head of the Institute is getting Clary in some Seelie Politics training. The queen wants to see her and I can’t have her insulting someone and starting a war. 

Magnus: What’s the point? She won’t listen anyway and she’ll yell at someone else when it goes wrong. 

Alec: All experience tells me you’re right. 

Magnus: Doi. Let’s make out. 

FIN

Clary’s position as POV character who can see how the rules of the magical society aren’t fair doesn’t work if none of those rules ever affect her in anyway. She needs to be able to hear that Jace speaks to the queen very formally, and at least try to play along. She’s been in the world long enough to know that maybe dragging an uninvited guest to see a queen, is a bad plan. And her line about the Seelie Queen looking prepubescent was just stupid. Why do the writers need me to believe that that main character is stupid?

She also suffers the same fate as Isabelle, where the menfolk are so much better at everything than her, and half to make her decisions. She’s shadowhunter, but her vampire boyfriend can’t let her go off alone. It’s not safe. Blah blah blah. No agency for women, Shadowhunters hates women. 

We all knew the stupid kiss was coming, and Clary’s inability to realize that like... something wasn’t about her somehow was deeply annoying, but I did like that the kiss was actually used to drive home a political point. The Seelie Queen has been around as long as the rest of the immortal downworlders who all know that Shadowhunters don’t respect them, and don’t keep their promises. 

I am insanely pissed off that when Isabelle came into Clary’s room to talk about her feelings for once, they got steamrolled by Clary’s long list of stupid decisions when Isabelle has like... real problems. 

Simon Nonsense

Simon is a better character than this episode made him out to be. He should know he doesn’t need to defend Clary, his insecurity about her being alone with Jace is just gross, and for the love of God the last time he didn’t listen to Shadowhunters he was turned into a fucking vampire. Come on, Lewis. 

Watching Reactions:

Boo New Intro. Go Away. Boo

Yay. Hopeuflly this flashback means more Jaia. Here for it. 

It’s too bad the official instrument of brooding isn’t more portable.

Hmmm... I wonder if the resentment of the only extras who get lines will go anywhere. 

Nice Suit, Mr. Lightwood

I love that “Book Club” is Jace’s code for casual sex and Alec and Izzy both know it. 

Clary is incapable of not fucking this up. Maybe Max can teach her things about Seelies. She is too dumb for this mission. 

Alec and Luke! A Real Plot! Awesome!

Boo. Simon you are better than this. 

I am LIVING for this complicated Maryse. This is everything I’ve wanted since 1x12

Goddamn it Clary and Simon. You are both better than this. I’m tired of hating you. 

I’m very invested in where they go with Sebastian. It feels like it’s going to be good. 

The fire message is cool. I didn’t expect it to be cool.

I’m actually not into this vision of the Seelie Realm. Very Renfest. The books made it a lot more menacing. 

Whats wrong with Meliorn’s face?

Izzy is politcally important! Yay!

This scene between Sebastian and Raphael, while a disaster, Izzy wise, is really well acted. Will is bringing David up a lot. 

Fuck you Clary. You’re fucking simon. Where Jace is putting his dick is none of your business. You fucking hypocrite. 

Leader Luke! Leader Luke!

Ha. The thing is it totally makes sense for all of them to look the same to Meliorn. There have been so many lines about Jace looking like the rest of the Herondales, and he and Sebastian do look pretty similar, and Meliorn’s been alive long enough for them to just all run into “Blond and Tall” “Red Head” “Loud and Angry Blonde”. 

Raphael, this is really not your place. 

Sooo... does this cut prove that Sebastian isn’t the voice?

Maryse Redemption!

This episode is great, Clary’s had sic lines. Coincidence?

Boo. She’s talking more. Sigh. 

Really Clary? Jace is dying and you gotta kick him like this?

This is too much kissing for the least engaging plot line. No matter how much pathos Dom puts into this it’s still too stupid a plot and he’s carying it all alone. 

Don’t yell at the queen, dumbass. 

Mother Daughter Scene! Mother Daughter scene! This is the best. 

Bad Ass Luke!

The outcome of this whole Sebastian plot has better be political disruption. It is too fucking late in the game to write this time of story about romance. 

I like the pointedness of Alec moving the chair. Everything from the type of chair to the way the shot is structure to how the characters are facing emphasises that Alec is not Imogen, and he did not come down here to torture a downworlder. 

Alec gets the politics! Alec is good at this!

He... stole your phone to keep you in his lair while your family was facing death. He is a bad person. He is not for dating. Why are the writers allergic to letting Izzy make good choices about men?

Don’t let her in Simon! Never let her in!

I am so excited that Clary might have to learn that consquences exist. It must come as such a shock to her. 

Are you fucking kidding me? How does this scene end up about Clary? Isabelle has real problems and Clary doesn’t even know about them because she’s been so selfish, and now... Izzy just has to drop all of that because Clary has a self-imposed sad? Fuck this. 

Hot Damn. That’s what I call an ending.