The Frankish Reich

We don't have a lot of serious baseball fans here. But even if you don't ordinarily care about baseball (or don't care until the playoffs, which is kind of where I am most seasons), there's some fantastic entertainment there. Baseball has been slow to recognize the opportunities here, including the best proposal out there: dispense with the All Star game, shorten the season a bit, and do a true World Cup tournament in July. But the product out there now is really good, and particularly players from non-USA teams really care about winning, sometimes a little too much:

Aaron Rodgers wants to play in NJ (not New York). NJ top marginal tax rate: 10.75% WI top marginal tax rate: 7.65% Sometimes it's not just about the taxes.

Romney WAS right, c. 2012 when he called Russia our #1 geopolitical rival, only to be mocked by Obama (he of the "I'll have more flexibility" to give Russia what it wanted after the election). Being right -- foreseeing future events if we continue down the wrong foreign policy path -- used to count for something. Maybe it still should.

Thanks. But if it ever comes back, I'm sticking with my barely used tube of ivermectin cream. Even though it expired a few years ago.

Re: Ivermectin. I was prescribed it about 5 years ago (long before COVID) for rosacea. It worked. The rosacea completely went away. I imagine it is prescribed to many, many people like me. By the way, it is a rather fascinating minor skin condition. It seems we all have these microscopic mites on our skin that sometimes cause a serious reaction in certain people. Ivermectin puts things back in balance. My dermatologist said you can think of it as a kind of an insecticide for the skin .... The blogger/psychiatrist known as Scott Alexander did a deep dive into the ivermectin-COVID literature and he came up with an interesting theory about why ivermectin had some early positive results in some populations; these populations tended to be in geographic regions where parasitic infections are common, so it may be that the ivermectin was effectively treating that (resulting in a healthier patient) rather than the virus itself. Speculative, but intriguing ... https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ivermectin-much-more-than-you-wanted

True. And that's why we find ourselves in this situation where a "return to normalcy" -- interest rates in the traditional stable economy range (where they were headed), inflation also in the post-Volcker range -- seems to be impossible. The slightest hint of actual harm -- a weird bank with a weird depositor base failed! -- and the overreaction will bring us back to zero interest rates and another cycle of inflation, and another world (which many people want!) in which There Is No Alternative (TINA) to the stock market, and another stock market bubble, and another ... and so on and so on.

Finally something we can agree on! Pelosi, Schumer, Trump, Biden: let’s finally say goodnight to our gerontocracy. We are as bad as the old Soviet Politburo’s collection of ancient men running the country.

You guys are missing the point. It's not about Garland or Lynn Cheney going on Brave Culture Warrior Tucker's show. It's about Brave Culture Warrior Tucker going on someone else's show to explain exactly what he meant when he said he hates Trump with a passion and that he believed most of the election fraud claims were nonsense. So when is our Bold Warrior going to address this? Maybe he's not so bold ...

Thanks, MTG. Just make sure to bang your personal trainer before that divorce happens.

If 400 hours of raw footage is out there, and if Carlson has shown about 20 minutes of those 400 hours, then I think that meets anyone’s definition of “edited.” And yes, that would apply to the Committee’s footage of Sen Josh Hawley (“Manhood” author Josh Hawley, that is) running away from the rioters like a scared little girl. They apparently didn’t show other Senators doing the same thing. By a process we call “editing.” Done on something we call “video editing software.”

So do you believe that Dominion voting machines were rigged/hacked?

Is Maria Bartiromo still a Fox employee? If so, why?

No. I wasn’t astonished. I was skeptical from the start. And as soon as I found out the provenance of that Steele memo (Dem connected law firm commissioned investigative group which then retained Steele) I discounted everything in it. So, knowing what we know now about these preposterous election fraud claims, do YOU agree that Biden was fairly elected?

Good question. That’s why defamation suits are hard to win. Under the Supreme Court case (incidentally, one that many Republicans want it to overturn), you have to show “actual malice” in reporting fake news. So intent matters. But “actual malice” here doesn’t mean “I know it’s fake but I’m still airing it because I want to harm Dominion.” Reckless disregard for the truth may be enough. So the timing matters. Powell: I want to go on your “news” show to report that Dominion fixed the election.” Fox producer: “What’s your source?” Powell: “A memo from a woman who says this information comes to her in dreams.” Would that suffice? Definitely. I don’t know that that’s the chronology, but at a minimum they didn’t vet Powell’s source. Which also may suffice. They are trying to fall back on this argument (which may work): “We weren’t reporting it as news in and of itself; we were reporting that a Trump lawyer BELIEVES that Dominion machines were rigged.” But I still say they’ll settle since a huge judgment against them would be the worst case scenario. Even winning (case dismissed) doesn’t help them regain their reputation or whatever is left of it.

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/20/1158223099/fox-news-dominion-wackadoodle-election-fraud-claim Buried in the news cycle (Tucker has tapes! Tucker hates Trump!!) is something so astonishing I thought someone made it up. No. It’s real: Trump lawyer (they tried to disavow her later, but that’s exactly what she was) says she got her info on Dominion Voting Systems from another woman (not named). And here’s where Powell’s source got her information: “The author of the memo in which Powell and Bartiromo put so much stock offered detailed and utterly false claims of how Dominion Voting Systems helped rig the election for Biden. She also shared a bit about herself, writing that she gains insights from experiencing something "like time-travel in a semi-conscious state." But wait, there’s more! “Who am I? And how do I know all of this?... I've had the strangest dreams since I was a little girl," the woman wrote in the email shared by Powell with Bartiromo and Dobbs. "I was internally decapitated, and yet, I live." And THIS is what Fox News aired. And THIS is what a lot of buffoons gobbled up. It’s really hard to win a defamation lawsuit. But I think Fox will have to settle before it goes to trial. They aired accusations of voter fraud by Dominion that quite literally were dreamed up by some undisclosed wacko.

Tonight, you will deny my thrice. Umm, 5 times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/08/business/media/tucker-carlson-trump.html

It was a riot. That was the predominant nature of the January 6 activity at the Capitol. But there was a faction that was more than what the term “rioter” implies. That faction wanted to shut down the lawful operation of the government in order to buy time to coerce state legislators (and, in turn, Mike Pence) to certify false slates of electors, and then to cynically claim that no one has a majority and the House delegations — in which Republicans had the majority of the states — must now decide who will be President. It’s right there in the Eastman memo. It’s not like anyone’s hiding it. Riot + Immediate Political Purpose = Insurrection? I’ve never liked that term (insurrection) but there’s a good argument that that’s exactly what it was. In other words, not everyone was just breaking things as some kind of expression of dissatisfaction with the process in general.

I don’t know about you, but for me: when there’s a riot going on, when people are breaking windows, climbing walls, trashing stuff, burning cars, etc, I usually consider the images of such destruction to be newsworthy, while the images of others just standing around to be the stuff that’s left on the cutting room floor.

Who “sits in jail” awaiting charges on “minor trespass offenses?” Everyone I’ve seen take a plea or get convicted was out on bail. You folks have a serious persecution complex.

As Tucker himself said, most of the footage he’s shown (hand-picked from over 400 hours, just as the Jan 6 Committee hand-picked its release footage) shows “mostly peaceful chaos.” “Mostly peaceful” — the exact terminology ridiculed by the Right when it was used in conjunction with the BLM post-George Floyd protests. It was stupid to use that terminology then; it’s stupid to use it now. If I’m any group of 1,000 protesters just 10% are behaving violently, who cares what the 90% are doing? It’s still 100 rioters.

I don't start butt-kissing threads here entitled "Rachel Maddow." Don't deflect. A lot of people here think Tucker Carlson is some kind of great truth-teller. Except when he's flat-out lying to you. I don't watch him. Did he even mention the "I hate Trump" thing tonight? He IS the news right now. News Fox News probably isn't covering. Seems to me that's what he's posing as right now - I've got the tapes! And I'm a real reporter!! Please don't ever confront me about hating Trump in the depths of my suntanned *****.

What? That I hate Biden with a passion? Your comment makes no sense.

And so now we know what Tucker really thinks about Trump. And about the fools who worship him: https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/03/07/fox-news-lawsuit/ Two months after the election and just days before Jan. 6, Fox host Tucker Carlson texted with an unknown Fox employee about how badly he wanted to stop covering Trump. “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” Carlson texted Jan. 4, 2021. “I truly can’t wait.” “I hate him passionately,” Carlson added. He continues to play you suckers like the suckers you are. And you lap it up.

Does he still have “slow eyes?” Trouble adjusting to which camera took look into?

You may choose to ignore it. But I just quoted the emails. Fox News had built the best election night projection model in the business. Bill Samman looked at his Arizona model and was confident that they could call the state for Biden. He was right. Trumpies didn’t like it, and the Fox commentariat really didn’t like it. So Tucker and others rebelled. Samman got fired. Over being right. Over ratings, not over bad journalism. And your Tucker has never paid any price for his clear dishonesty with his own viewers. I am a subscriber, even though I think Murdoch is slime. Like I said, he leaves his precious WSJ alone for business reasons.