dasfoo
6mo ago
Doesn't this answer itself? Ted Lieu repeated accusations that Trump raped a child and killed it, this isn't a serious matter, these aren't serious people.
Explaining that would've been better than yelling at Lieu. It would've made him look foolish. Instead, she upped the foolish stakes.
I'm not joking when I say I miss the days of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfield. Whatever crimes you may think they committed, they appeared like civil servants who take their roles seriously and are informed about how to make it look like our institutions are working. Now we have a clown show. You might think that the clown show more accurately reflects reality, but Joe Public is less likely to act like clowns are in charge when he can't see any clowns, and that's good for society.
If there's nothing substantial to be gleaned, why is there still so much being actively hidden? Does the Trump admin just engage in coverups for the fun of it? This strategy of drawing it out for seemingly no reason has been nothing but egg on their face over and over, why do they insist on slow walking it and hiding so much of the files?
I try to maintain skepticism in the face of most partisan-flavored claims, but Bondi's performance in front of Congress was so weirdly and unnecessarily belligerent, it's hard not to entertain the "What are they hiding?" questions more seriously now. As a conservative who is allergic to both Trump and TDS, it's bewildering to me how thoroughly his anti-civics adversarial temperament has spread throughout his administration in areas where it is best played cool. Why the AG chose to treat that hearing as a defensive MAGA brawl, drawing more attention to it, than just matter-of-factly answering the questions as if there are serious people working on serious matters, is something I will never understand. Ted Lieu's presentation of uncorroborated tip line craziness should've been easy for her to smack down with a clinical legal response, but instead she went apeshit. It has to be more than just incompetence, right? It's like actively malicious incompetence, at best.
dasfoo
6mo ago
It reminds me of how the Hollywood studio system had grown stagnant in the 70's and 80's, which allowed up and comers like Spielberg, Lucas, and Cameron to innovate and eventually take over the studio system themselves.
Your timing is off a bit there. The studio system declined in the late 1960s. "New Hollywood," incl. the Spielberg/Lucas class, got started circa 1967 and rose to prominence in the 1970s (Jaws / Star Wars), and then dominated the 1980s. Cameron rode their blockbuster wave a bit later, making his first big splash in the mid-80s.
dasfoo
8mo ago
Are "the proles" worried about CEO pay, or is it the left-wing academics/intelligentsia who are worried about it and ascribe those worries to "the proles." Most of the proles would like promotions to move up to the higher paying jobs, but maybe don't know how to optimize their skills to climb that ladder. There may be some fraction of over-educated leftist agitators who work amongst proles who, instead of utlizing their intelligence in more important higher-paying positions, harbor fantasies about CEOs earning less than warehouse workers, but most proles probably think they're crazy.
dasfoo
8mo ago
This is an academic test for both the student and the TA: Can the student craft an argument, citing sources; and, Can the TA judge the student's work on its academic merits, regardless of the TA's own viewpoint on the subject matter. They both failed. If the TA had restricted their comments to the essay's academic (lack of) quality, I probably would have little issue with it, but to complain about the use of the word "demonic" from an emotional POV rather than an academic one shows this this TA is not intellectually or tempermentally cut-out for this role. I did repect that the TA, sensing their potential for bias, asked a colleague for a second opinion -- but even that colleague could not focus on the academic quality of the paper, starting with shock that a paper would argue in favor of bullying. That educator should be fired as well.
dasfoo
10mo ago
TBF, many very sincere progressives find joking about Hitler even worse than sincerely praising him, because what kind of moral monster jokes about the worst person ever? (Meanwhile, Free Palestine, and its 2 million unironic Hitler admirers.)
dasfoo
10mo ago
Is there really not a single right-wing hacker competent enough to find whatever horrifying racist nonsense Democrat-associated activists say in their group chats? I get the feeling it's a lot less irony-infected than this kind of thing.
You would think any Democrat group with a modicum of foresight immediately deleted their chat histories the moment this story broke.
dasfoo
11mo ago
A single day of terrifying violence for legislators versus months and months of wondering if your town would burn down, or a mob would form outside your home, for years and years?
I live in a purple city directly bordering Portland, with its 100+ days of riots. There was even a Proud Boys vs Antifa fracas in a park 5 minutes from my house that made the national news. Yet, I never for one second worried about my town burning down or a mob forming outside my house. These "mostly peaceful protests" were still fairly isolated to very specific small urban areas. I guess if you were unlucky enough to live next door to a police precinct, you'd have reason to fear those things, but there has not been cause, IMO, for any general panic over these things, even near the heart of the problems.
Presumably -- I shouldn't presume this about anyone in Trump's 2nd administration -- Bondi was prepared for some jackwad to come at her with one or more of the more hysterical tips and could have not only crafted a comprehensive and intelligent rebuke, but could've dug up some bizarre tips about Lieu or anyone else.
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