2024 archive
This New Gilded Age, Suffer the Children Dept. 0
Sam and the crew talk with Terri Gerstein, director of the Wagner Labor Initiative at New York University, about efforts to bring back industrial child labor.
The Voter Fraud Fraudsters 0
My old NPR station points out that today’s Republican Party is recycling an old lie. A snippet (emphasis added):
(snip)
The myth that immigrants are exerting undue influence on American elections has been floating around U.S. politics for more than 100 years.
Individual states began banning noncitizens from voting more than a century ago, and Congress passed a law in 1996 that explicitly banned the practice in all federal elections.
Numerous studies have also confirmed that it almost never happens, but as more conservative voters say immigration is a key issue for them, it’s become clearer that election misinformation in 2024 will center on the topic as well.
Establishmentarians 0
Disestablishmentarian readers of The Denver Post weigh in on the threat posed by establitarianism.
(I have so wanted to use “disestablishmentarian” in a post.)
Merchants of Death 0
Francis Wilkinson considers a contradiction.
Follow the link for considerable consideration.
Disseminators of Defamation, or Accountability for the No Account 0
Sam and Emma talk with Mark Bankston, partner at the law firm Farrar & Ball, about a new case that he is taking up. A quote from Bankston:
“Today, my co-counsel Greg Adler and I filed suit against Fox, Newsmax, Univision, Timcast, Steven Crowder, Owen Shroyer, Simon Ateba, and Hollywood Unlocked for falsely portraying our innocent client as a neo-Nazi mass shooter.”
One more time, “social” media isn’t.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
An oxymoronic “responsible gun owner” jumps to a conclusion–a wrong conclusion–and concludes an innocent person’s life.
We are a broken society.
Patriot Gamers 0
Aside:
I do not think it a stretch to suggest that today’s Republican Party, at the portion of it in the House of Representatives, is not interested in (small-d) democratic governance.
It is interested in dictating getting its way.
And Now for a Musical Interlude 0
The Lord Peter Wimsey BBC theme song.
If you have not read Dorothy Sayers’s Lord Peter mysteries, do so now. They are most excellent.
My favorite is Murder Must Advertise.
A Sure Thing 0
At The Philadelphia Inquirer, Jonathan Zimmerman looks at the effects of the sudden burst of sports betting and, in particular, the advertisements therefor. He is less than optimistic. A snippet:
Methinks he makes some good points and commend the article to your attention.
Aside:
I find the spate of solicitations for suckers to be most off-putting.
And the thought of a betting app on a phone, well, that’s an invitation to dumb scrolling.
To Live in the Past 0
Thom looks back in time and finds context.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
One again, politeness becomes a family affair.
“You can see her legs buckle. It appears that she’s in pain. It appears that something happens to her leg and we know that she was shot. So those cameras at McDonald’s did capture that,” said Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small.
But new video obtained by police reportedly shows the father getting out of his car and putting the firearm in his pants when it suddenly discharged.
This New Gilded Age, One More Time 0
The rich get richer . . . .
Due in part to the 2017 tax overhaul by Republicans, led by Donald Trump, this small group has seen an explosion of wealth in an extremely short amount of time.
Since the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, U.S. billionaire wealth has doubled, from an already staggering $2.9 trillion. In 2017, none of the richest Americans were centi-billionaires, meaning that they did not have over $100 billion; now, the top 10 U.S. billionaires are all centi-billionaires, according to the report.
More numbers at the link.