#jordan weissmann

[tomorrowusa]

NO great outcome was possible in the debt limit negotiations with Republicans. But Biden ended up with one which was far less bad than many people had feared.

Even though this crisis was provoked by House Republicans, many voters would have blamed Biden if the US had defaulted. As it turned out, Biden ended up with just a little dust on his jacket while McCarthy ends up with a self-made shit sandwich. 💩

Dan Pfeiffer was an aide to President Obama and has witnessed GOP blackmail close up. He writes...

Let’s be clear, this is shitty public policy foisted on the nation by a radical Republican House willing to blow up the economy and cause millions of jobs to vanish. Efforts to deal with deficits that do not include asking the wealthy and corporations to pay what they owe are cruel and wholly unserious. The tightening of access to aid for the most vulnerable Americans serves no purpose other than performative cruelty to appease the MAGA base.

But this could have been way worse in so many ways. The devil is very much in the details, but it seems like President Biden and his team outplayed McCarthy.

Republicans like to portray Joe Biden as doddering and totally out of it; never mind that Trump is only slightly younger and shows obvious signs of hysteria. But even if you don't grade Biden on a curve, he still comes out ahead of the GOP.

The far right MAGA fanatics absolutely hate the deal.

Jordan Weissmann at Semafor writes...

Afterwards, a quick consensus formed among much of the right and left: Republicans got blanked.

The agreement would temporarily freeze a portion of non-defense spending, while temporarily tightening the food stamp program’s work requireme​​nts for childless adults, and enacting modest changes to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

The early details prompted furious reactions from members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, who’d hoped to extract vastly more sweeping budget cuts and changes to the federal safety net in return for hiking the borrowing limit.

[ ... ]

As Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo put it, it’s a bit like they walked into a Denny’s with a gun, demanded all the money in the cash register, and left with a breakfast instead. Extraordinary threats at the start, an ordinary transaction at the finish.

While this was not a great deal for anybody, Speaker McCarthy will likely suffer the most because of it.

Timothy Noah at The New Republic writes...

When this debt ceiling mess is concluded, Biden will stay president at least until January 20, 2025. McCarthy, I predict, will be gone by Christmas, and possibly before Labor Day. Should he somehow hang on to his speakership, he’ll be so diminished that you’ll barely notice he’s still there. He won’t be able to get anything done. So either way, McCarthy is toast.

McCarthy will probably have to rely on Democratic votes for the debt deal to pass. That will infuriate the far right even more.

Let's remember that one of McCarthy's concessions to the far right during the marathon election for Speaker in January was to make it possible for any member to introduce a motion to "vacate the chair". So any GOP members dissatisfied with the debt ceiling agreement could theoretically topple McCarthy – if Democrats decided to go along.

So while Republicans make a public spectacle of themselves, Dems can stock up on popcorn and collect crazy soundbites from Republicans who are more interested in nihilism than in governance.

[saschaederer]

- „Unapologetically, sorry for everything“ (Chorus of ‚American football - Heir apparent‘ playing in my head, initial reference as meant towards me)

- “Nietzsche” (Word I sometimes use instead of ‘nice’)

- “Coral”

- Artificial dream of me seeing my hypertension drug reading ‚Satan‘ instead of ‚condensartan‘

- “(Initial reference to to a delta alter) Taylor Swift”

- “Joshua” (initial reference to an acquaintance of mine) - “Weissmann” - “Weißbrot” (German: White bread)

- “(I may) sacrifice my children” - “Jordan Peterson voice”

- “Lea Pollert (“Bitch” - “works”)” - „Computex”

- “Denise Oppitz”

- “Lisa (initial reference to a girl from the theatre I used to act in) Schwegler”

- “Gemma” (A girl who was at King William’s College)

- “Dick”

- „Computex“

- “Dirty water” (initial reference to the water in my waterbottle which when I filled it up, had a brown hue, allegedly not from residue coke) - “jeder (“Keiner”, German: No one) weiß” (German: Everyone knows)

- “Mikhaila Peterson” - “Bitch” - “works”

- “Scarlett Peterson”

- “(Im just looking for a) Rothschild” (to ‘Kesha - Joyride’ playing in my head, initial reference to Mikhaila Peterson) - “Get in motherfucker for the, Rothschild” (part of the same song, initial reference to me)

- „San“ (Japanese: Three, initial reference to a third CO2 bottle having appeared in my kitchen) - „Taylor Swift“

- Torture images (initial reference to me)

- “Julian Sens (“Sascha” (Ederer)) pertain rape” - “all” - “of the above”

- “Julian Sens” - “Torture” (initial reference: As a perpetrator)

- „Cover“

- „Pertain“ - „hole tragedy“

- „(Overall I still) personalize („publicize“) (them)“ (Initial reference to the system as a perpetrator)

______________________________________________

REPORTS

- The internet showing me in a relatively unconvincing fashion (if anyone was to ask me), that there’s been a rule change in Hearthstone since about 6 months ago (multiple auras, objectives or sigils may be active at the same time) which I‘m certain hasn’t been the case, at least for me

______________________________________________

PLEASE READ

How I handle threats I receive (Last Update: 18. 9. 2024):

- Modified the paragraph referring to spam and included a list where I enumerate the current significant ones

[arcticdementor]

Also, the idea that taxing UI payments ‘equalizes’ their value with wages is such a weird red herring. It’s just a roundabout way of playing with the benefit levels, while subtly inserting some means testing.

Jordan Weissmann

[romanticsuspense]

But even if this election does bring an orderly end to the Trump era, do not for a second forget that absolutely everything about it, and the year that has led us to this point, has been utterly, incalculably insane, a 50-car pileup of reminders that we are a broken society with a broken political system that seems ever-more untenable, whether or not we are doomed to spend four more years with our addled president. It is insane, for starters, that he even has a shot of pulling this race out. Nobody, least of all Trump, believes that he will win the popular vote. It is not even a discussion at this point. But we’re all trapped in a mad house erected upon the Electoral College, an anti-majoritarian barbarism that, according to conventional wisdom, now requires Democrats to win by at least 3 percent to have a shot at the White House and drives otherwise sensible Americans to spend sleepless nights and precious emotional energy freaking out over early voting patterns in Miami-Dade. Other countries—the ones we like to think of as our peers, even if they see us more like a tragic, strung-out uncle these days—don’t do this to themselves. In normal, advanced presidential democracies, the candidate who gets the most votes actually wins. We’re the only one where the person who comes in second can still somehow end up in charge. There is no good argument for it, in this year of our collective misery 2020. It is nuts.

Do Not Lose Sight of the Fact That Every Aspect of This Is Absolutely Insane by Jordan Weissmann for SLATE

[club577]

i hope he likes it 🥺

also sbjksdvbkjdsbvkjds mood

u know what. mayhaps i should stick to bastille tumblr

[nodynasty4us]

Joe Biden and his party would be wise to do anything within their power to keep the conversation focused on abortion issues, given that Democrats are probably going to get trounced in any discussion of the economy due to inflation and gas prices right now. And there may not be a better topic to focus on than the fact that many Republican-run states won’t even make exceptions for cases of rape. If your opponent sounds like a total ghoul talking about an issue, it’s probably best to make them talk about it as much as possible.

Jordan Weissmann in Slate

[markcoatney]

This was so spot-on: 

There was a moment in last week’s debate that crystallized the tenor of this moment for me as an amalgam of resignation and fury. Confronted with a damning report about 545 children his administration separated from their parents and has failed to reunite despite a court order, Trump tried to say the children came without their parents (wrong), tried to blame Obama (who, yes, deported more people than even Trump but never implemented a punitive family separation policy), and finally bragged that the facilities where these children—some infants, some too small to even know their parents’ names—were taken from their families were well run. The facilities, Trump said, were “clean.” It was an outrageous, unforgettable moment, but I wonder, if you watched the debate, if you even remember it now. Or anything else. There is too much to be angry about, but the anger is not interesting; it has matured to an urgent feeling that this simply must end. As my colleague Jordan Weissmann put it, “It feels like there’s so much going on, and just nothing really left to say about it.”

[ourquietman]

The coronavirus crisis is going to create a severe economic hardship. There’s no escaping that. The question is whether it will be a short-lived disaster that we can begin pulling ourselves out of with the help of a serious public health mobilization, or if it will be a long, lingering horror we muddle through as people die. The fact that Trump is already having doubts about the half-measures he took last week unfortunately suggests he doesn’t have the stomach or foresight to pick the right course, because he’s too worried about the daily fluctuations of the stock market. Instead, he’s steering us toward a long pandemic and a depression all at once.

Jordan Weissmann in SLATE.

[rodgermalcolmmitchell]

Do you deserve to be a desperate, low-wage worker? Protest. Learn. Vote.

Do you deserve to be a desperate, low-wage worker? Protest. Learn. Vote.

It takes only two things to keep people in chains: The ignorance of the oppressed and the treachery of their leaders. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The pundits continue to mislead the public about Monetary Sovereignty, and that is just what the rich want. If you accept their lies, you will have less and less, while they have more and more — and that will make…

[jerseydeanne]

JD, Mueller DID NOT write the report! He was asked about Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson. It's all in the report. He had no idea who Glenn Simpson was. He could not answer simple question. Who wrote the report? The STAFF. Allegedly, Andrew Weissmann. Whoever believes Hillary still has a chance needs to face the reality. No, impeachment wont help Hillary to defeat Trump. She was defeated in 2016.

I knew that watching the judicial committee, he didn’t recall Fusion GPS when Jim Jordan asked him. 

Yep, and the Mueller staff was loaded with Hillary Clinton cronies. Volume two footnotes were mainstream headlines. Not to stacked against the president?

Mueller seemed frail and constantly asked can you repeat the question when republicans asked him questions.  I believe it was to run the clock down. 

Thank you anon, 🌸😎🥰

[loconservative]

Tweeted

Here's how much of their income 2020 Dems gave to charity in 2017: Beto - 0.31% (no, that's not a typo) Harris - 1.4% Gillibrand - 1.7% Klobuchar - 1.9% Sanders - 3.4% Inslee - 4% Warren - 5.5% Why does it not surprise me that Warren leads the pack? https://t.co/UVw0QEEqEU

— Jordan Weissmann (@JHWeissmann) April 16, 2019

[forsetti]

On Defending Misogyny: Ross Douthat Edition

Ross Douthat’s latest nonsense in the New York Times is quite the pile of crap, even when compared to other piles of crap written by Douthat.  Here is my take on the article (Douthat’s article in bold.) One lesson to be drawn from recent Western history might be this: Sometimes the extremists and radicals and weirdos see the world more clearly than the respectable and moderate and sane. All kinds of phenomena, starting as far back as the Iraq War and the crisis of the euro but accelerating in the age of populism, have made more sense in the light of analysis by reactionaries and radicals than as portrayed in the organs of establishment opinion. Not one single person with an ounce of credibility thinks that extremists and radicals and weirdos see the world clearly because SEEING THE WORLD CLEARLY IS ANTITHETICAL TO BEING AN EXTREMISTS, RADICAL, OR WEIRDO.  The ONLY way Douthat's statement makes any sense is if he thinks people with enough common sense to know invading Iraq on bogus reasons with zero plan on what to do after the initial invasion was a fucking horrible idea, were extremist, radical, weirdo.

This is part of why there’s been so much recent agitation over universities and op-ed pages and other forums for debate. There’s a general understanding that the ideological mainstream isn’t adequate to the moment, but nobody can decide whether that means we need purges or pluralism, a spirit of curiosity and conversation or a furious war against whichever side you think is evil.

For those more curious than martial, one useful path through this thicket is to look at areas where extremists and eccentrics from very different worlds are talking about the same subject. Such overlap is no guarantee of wisdom, but it’s often a sign that there’s something interesting going on.

A classic Douthat move-lay out a completely bogus claim right out of the block and then construct a whole argument on top of it.

Which brings me to the sex robots. People having opinions about the Iraq war and the European Union logically leads us to sex robots because of course it fucking does.

Well, actually, first it brings me to the case of Robin Hanson, a George Mason economist, libertarian and noted brilliant weirdo. Commenting on the recent terrorist violence in Toronto, in which a self-identified “incel” — that is, involuntary celibate — man sought retribution against women and society for denying him the fornication he felt that he deserved, Hanson offered this provocation: If we are concerned about the just distribution of property and money, why do we assume that the desire for some sort of sexual redistribution is inherently ridiculous?

If you use “libertarian,” you don't get to follow it up with “brilliant.” Never....fucking ever. ��As crazy as that juxtaposition of terms is the casual acceptance by Douthat of what “incel” means is even more disturbing.  The idea that women in society have to have sex with men is repulsive on every level.  That someone gives voice to this notion and give it its own term is fucked up beyond reason. Sorry men, women are not here for you to have sex with.  Here's a thought, if men want to have sex with women, then maybe, just maybe, they should behave in ways that women deem appropriate enough to where they will give up their bodies willingly to them.  Anything short of this is misogyny at the least and rape a the most. After all, he wrote, “one might plausibly argue that those with much less access to sex suffer to a similar degree as those with low income, and might similarly hope to gain from organizing around this identity, to lobby for redistribution along this axis and to at least implicitly threaten violence if their demands are not met.” Let me de-fuckify this statement because it is a Ceasar's Word Salad of nonsense.  “Men who don't get as much sex as they want, think they deserve, need to band together to find ways, even through violence, to get women to fuck them against their wills.”

This argument was not well received by people closer to the mainstream than Professor Hanson, to put it mildly. A representative response from Slate’s Jordan Weissmann, “Is Robin Hanson the Creepiest Economist in America?”, cited the post along with some previous creepy forays to dismiss Hanson as a misogynist weirdo not that far removed from the franker misogyny of toxic online males.

I can't understand why the “mainstream” would find the unionization of violent, horny men hell-bent on making women their sexual subjects offensive.  But, see what Douthat has done.  He has already constructed his argument where the mainstream is the ones who don't “see the world clearly.”  Since the mainstream has been pigeon-holed as not seeing reality for what it really is, then it logically follows for Douthat that their view cannot be correct.

But Hanson’s post made me immediately think of a recent essay in The London Review of Books by Amia Srinivasan, “Does Anyone Have the Right To Sex?” Srinivasan, an Oxford philosophy professor, covered similar ground (starting with an earlier “incel” killer) but expanded the argument well beyond the realm of male chauvinists to consider groups with whom The London Review’s left-leaning and feminist readers would have more natural sympathy — the overweight and disabled, minority groups treated as unattractive by the majority, trans women unable to find partners and other victims, in her narrative, of a society that still makes us prisoners of patriarchal and also racist-sexist-homophobic rules of sexual desire.

There is a lot to unpack here.  First, Douthat uses a philosopher, in order to bolster the credibility of his argument.  As someone with two degrees in philosophy, I can tell you that there are a lot of batshit crazy people with philosophy degrees who throw out outlandish arguments for no other reason than to be controversial and get their shit published in order to placate the Publish or Perish Gods. Second, having sympathy for how a culture views and treats groups outside the accepted norms like “overweight,” “trans,” “disabled,”... who have a difficult time having sex for a host of reasons is, to quote Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, “...ain't the same fucking ballpark. It ain't the same league. It ain't even the same fucking sport.” Third, Douthat, a devout Catholic who has carried water for the patriarchy, for misogynists, for homophobes...for years now doesn't get to pretend he is worried about the very structure he helped build.

Srinivasan ultimately answered her title question in the negative: “There is no entitlement to sex, and everyone is entitled to want what they want.” But her negative answer was a qualified one. While “no one has a right to be desired,” at the same time “who is desired and who isn’t is a political question,” which left-wing and feminist politics might help society answer differently someday. This wouldn’t instantiate a formal right to sex, exactly, but if the new order worked as its revolutionary architects intended, sex would be more justly distributed than it is today.

Not only did Douthat use a philosopher to bolster his argument, he completely misused their words in order to do so.  Notice how he uses Srinivasan's comment, “who is desired and who isn't is a political question,” and dovetails his own comment “which left-wing and feminist politics might help society answer differently someday,” as if they were one and the same statement.  Every culture has their own ideas of what is/isn't sexually desirable.  It has nothing to do with “left-wing” or “feminist” politics.  Some cultures sexually value heavier companions, those with smaller feet, those with longer necks, those with fairer skin...  We can argue the rationality of all of these but none of them are based on leftist or feminist beliefs.  In fact, left-leaning and feminists would argue the fuck against these arbitrary sexual values.

A number of the critics I saw engaging with Srinivasan’s essay tended to respond the way a normal center-left writer like Weissmann engaged with Hanson’s thought experiment — by commenting on its weirdness or ideological extremity rather than engaging fully with its substance. But to me, reading Hanson and Srinivasan together offers a good case study in how intellectual eccentrics — like socialists and populists in politics — can surface issues and problems that lurk beneath the surface of more mainstream debates.

By this I mean that as offensive or utopian the redistribution of sex might sound, the idea is entirely responsive to the logic of late-modern sexual life, and its pursuit would be entirely characteristic of a recurring pattern in liberal societies.

Shorter Douthat: “Smart people reacting honestly to the arguments of a libertarian nut job don't know what the fuck they are doing but I, a dyed-in-the-wool social conservative does because of some magical reason that is never explained.”  If you think placating angry, resentful, horny men is the way to utopia, I'm pretty sure you are either stupid as fuck and/or just about the most intellectually dishonest person I've ever read.

First, because like other forms of neoliberal deregulation the sexual revolution created new winners and losers, new hierarchies to replace the old ones, privileging the beautiful and rich and socially adept in new ways and relegating others to new forms of loneliness and frustration. Douthat's use of “neoliberal” was done on purpose and as meaningless as the term itself.  What Douthat really means by this statement is, “In the past, men could do whatever the fuck they wanted to women, whenever they wanted and women had to take it because that is the fucking way it was.  Now men can't do this and they are having a sad about it so we need to blame the women and those who support them instead of the fuck wad misogynists who were morally wrong 50, 100, 200... years ago for their behaviors.”

Second, because in this new landscape, and amid other economic and technological transformations, the sexes seem to be struggling generally to relate to one another, with social and political chasms opening between them and not only marriage and family but also sexual activity itself in recent decline.

“The sexes seem to be struggling generally to relate to one another, with social and political chasms opening up between them.”  Holy Both-Fucking-Siderism!  NO!!!  The “sexes” are not having a problem.  MEN caught up in an archaic belief system are having a problem-a big fucking problem.  Douthat doesn't get to lay the responsibility and consequences of men not adapting to women's rights on the doorstep of women.

Third, because the culture’s dominant message about sex is still essentially Hefnerian, despite certain revisions attempted by feminists since the heyday of the Playboy philosophy — a message that frequency and variety in sexual experience is as close to a summum bonum as the human condition has to offer, that the greatest possible diversity in sexual desires and tastes and identities should be not only accepted but cultivated, and that virginity and celibacy are at best strange and at worst pitiable states. And this master narrative, inevitably, makes both the new inequalities and the decline of actual relationships that much more difficult to bear …which in turn encourages people, as ever under modernity, to place their hope for escape from the costs of one revolution in a further one yet to come, be it political, social or technological, which will supply if not the promised utopia at least some form of redress for the many people that progress has obviously left behind.

There is an alternative, conservative response, of course — namely, that our widespread isolation and unhappiness and sterility might be dealt with by reviving or adapting older ideas about the virtues of monogamy and chastity and permanence and the special respect owed to the celibate.

So let me get this straight, the problem with sex in America is because of feminists and leftists but, “ the culture’s dominant message about sex is still essentially Hefnerian.”?  I've never known a single feminist or leftist who was not only okay with the views and attitudes about sex espoused by Hugh Hefner but who used them as the basis of their sexual ethics.   In fact, it has been the direct opposite.   Douthat's view of feminism and left-leaning is comical and beyond conservative stereotyping.  

But this is not the natural response for a society like ours. Instead we tend to look for fixes that seem to build on previous revolutions, rather than reverse them.

In the case of sexual liberation and its discontents, that’s unlikely to mean the kind of thoroughgoingly utopian reimagining of sexual desire that writers like Srinivasan think we should aspire toward, or anything quite so formal as the pro-redistribution political lobby of Hanson’s thought experiment.

By defacto argument, the sexual revolution was bad so men trying to come to terms with how to really treat women as equals would be a misguided approach to the problem.  We need to go back in time to when women had limited rights and almost none with regard to their bodies, their sexuality, and start from there in order to build a more perfect union where men get to get laid when they want by whomever they want.

But I expect the logic of commerce and technology will be consciously harnessed, as already in pornography, to address the unhappiness of incels, be they angry and dangerous or simply depressed and despairing. The left’s increasing zeal to transform prostitution into legalized and regulated “sex work” will have this end implicitly in mind, the libertarian (and general male) fascination with virtual-reality porn and sex robotswill increase as those technologies improve — and at a certain point, without anyone formally debating the idea of a right to sex, right-thinking people will simply come to agree that some such right exists, and that it makes sense to look to some combination of changed laws, new technologies and evolved mores to fulfill it.

Whether sex workers and sex robots can actually deliver real fulfillment is another matter. But that they will eventually be asked to do it, in service to a redistributive goal that for now still seems creepy or misogynist or radical, feels pretty much inevitable.

So, for Douthat, the need to address and placate incels is important but we shouldn't do it with legalizing prostitution or other means.  What Douthat is really saying is, “If men cannot dominate and be in control of women, then any sexual solution won't be acceptable.  Not legalized prostitution. Not sex robots.  Nothing short of actual, real women being subservient to men will do.”

At no point in this entire article by Douthat are men held responsible for their beliefs, for their actions.  NOT ONE SINGLE FUCKING TIME! “Feminists” and “left-leaning” people are the real reason behind backward thinking, immoral. egotistical men for behaving the way they do towards women. GTFOH!

[truck-fump]

<b>Trump</b> Wine Refuses to Be Canceled

New Post has been published on https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://slate.com/business/2021/05/trump-wine-winery-charlottesville-sales-eric-trump.html&ct=ga&cd=CAIyGjUzM2UwMTY5ZmFhZTIwMGQ6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNGPip8odaIWzyxgFxsui1J-wGLMvQ

Trump Wine Refuses to Be Canceled

Trump Wine Refuses to Be Canceled. The curious resiliency of a dreadful product. By Jordan Weissmann. May 12, 20215: …

[2plan22]

RT @JHWeissmann: Hey, maybe Democrats should step in and stop the IRS from sending surprise tax bills to millions of people who lost their jobs during the pandemic. Just a thought. https://t.co/wjTYzBku5J 2PLAN22 http://twitter.com/2PLAN22/status/1363973256995364864

Hey, maybe Democrats should step in and stop the IRS from sending surprise tax bills to millions of people who lost their jobs during the pandemic. Just a thought. https://t.co/wjTYzBku5J

— Jordan Weissmann 🗽 (@JHWeissmann) February 22, 2021

[marcel334]

SLATE By JORDAN WEISSMANN NOV 20, 20204:54 PM ----------------------------------

We can now add Steve Mnuchin to the list of Trump officials who are doing their part to undercut the next administration before moseying out the door.

[egregious1942]

Who Killed the Postal Service?

Who Killed the Postal Service?

Now TOTUS has installed a Postmaster whose sole goal is to undo the post office according to TOTUS’s wishes, those wishes are  based on TOTUS’s  limited and uninformed thinking.MA

BUSINESS :The Postal Service is cutting services to avoid bankruptcy. How did it get into such a sorry state?

JORDAN WEISSMANN

DECEMBER 5, 2011

  USPS is slashing first-class delivery, cutting billions of dollars, and…