Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
as well as live streaming it at the site of his partner, the L.A. Times. Start here:
Comments
I watched part of the debates so far, including the part where they got into fund raising (and the whole wine cave thing with Mayor Pete.) And on immigration. I was very impressed with them all, even Tom Steyer! When they argued about each other's downsides, they did it in an honest, respectful manner. No dirty tricksters, just vigorous honest debate and always somehow making it clear that they would support the other if they lost. Bernie behaved, didn't do the cranky thing. Each showed their own personality "charms". They went aggressive positive rather than negative about immigration in a great manner, it was shining city a hill inspirational stuff almost as if they had ganged up and figured that out together, that that was the way to go, that Trump was using immigrants of color as scapegoats (like Hitler used the Jews.) Andrew Yang said he missed having the other people of color there (and mentioned he thought Corey might be back, don't know what that's about) but truth be told, now I think Kamala was no loss, she was too prosecutorial, tricky and toxic and her not being there made them all seem more presidential.
by artappraiser on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 12:23am
by artappraiser on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 2:46am
I'm waiting for that East Coast wine cave vs West Coast wine cave feud to kick in.
(is class warfare best Dems can do?)
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 7:47am
eh, the political horse race media latched onto the wine cave thing right away, I could see evidence of them doing it on twitter while the debate was still live. And now they are blowing it up as a pile on Mayor Pete and class warfare. But I watched that section of the debate twice now after I finally listened to the whole thing. And what it was was a grownup, respectful debate on how to defeat Trump, mostly between Warren and Mayor Pete, whether they need to take friendly big money now in order to win and reform later or whether it's more important to stop taking big money of any kind right now. And Mayor Pete was very strong on that on his p.o.v. that the urgency matters, very logical, used good arguments, and Warren was strong as well, basically presenting that right now they've got to sell that they aren't taking big money, that that's the hook to defeat Trump. Then Klobuchar got in and strongly basically made the point that Americans watching don't need to hear this point of debate between you two right now, there's more important stuff to say!
The other main disagreement was about Mayor Pete dissing the experience of Capitol Hill people in the past, along the lines of "Washington insiders losing sense of reality" and that was brought up by Klobuchar. And I thought the debate on that was also handled quite well by all sides. Including with hurt feelings worked out.
BUT HERE'S THE MAIN TAKEAWAY FOR ME: Each and every one of them strongly got across that they would be happy to support any of the others, that they are all going to get behind who wins. An A Team all around! Of adults. No drama queen stuff, little spin, just honest debate between members of a team. All very promising to me.
by artappraiser on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 12:01pm
For me it's less that he's taking the money but more that he's doing it behind closed doors. What's he saying to these rich fucks that he couldn't say with a reporter present?
by ocean-kat on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 12:31pm
You know, Zelenskii wasn't rich, but rich fucks got to him.
The best that'll happen is they'll hold meetings you'll never know about.
With Bernie, with Liz, with whoever.
If you don't trust them, they will never be trustworthy.
A closed door with 50 rich guys is hardly the worst scenario.
A simple bit of kompromat or a capo threat in passing can be much much worse.
"Nice daughter you got - hate for anything to happen to her".
No need to get all scared about "oh the transcripts" all over again.
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 1:12pm
A closed door with 50 rich guys is hardly the worst scenario
Yeah, it's not the worse scenario. But I'm not just looking to avoid the worse scenario. I'm looking for what I consider the best scenario. It wouldn't be the worse scenario if Biden was elected even though he's a doddering old fool. Anyone who hasn't grasped how far along he is on the mental decline of age should watch his debate with Palin. Just a few minutes and you'll realize that today's Biden is a very different man then he was 10 years ago.
by ocean-kat on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 2:02pm
Or the 77-year old who just had a heart attack so now has an avg life expectancy of 3.8 years from 3 months ago. Dunno how we ended up with all these non-ideals. I was upset we didn't have new blood four years ago, and now half the field is septagenarians, another third has no credible high level federal or governor experience. Ok, mayor of NYC or similar is pretty big time.
(surprise, Steyer's only 62, good, thought he was older)
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 2:33pm
I agree, both Sanders and Warren are too old but at least with them I can't see any loss of cognitive function. But that heart attack isn't meaningless, speaking as someone who had one. I had thought the loss of heart function merely affected my strength and stamina but I've come to realize it's affected my concentration as well.
I've always been poor and when I did some building project for my self I used what ever pieces of wood left over from other jobs or picked up from the dump. It was never a problem to puzzle piece them together. I just visualized and measured and got it done. I just built a floor for a shed with all these pieces and kept making errors. Bad measurements, bad cuts. The mental decline from the heart attack was obvious to me and I'm only 62.
I support Warren as the most progressive that seems to still have it together despite her age. But if we're going to go with a centrist why not Klobuchar instead of Biden, or Cory Booker?
by ocean-kat on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 3:22pm
I'm not a big Biden fan, but I'll definitely take the win over puzzling over another loss for 4 years.
I was happy re: Booker, but it seems he just didn't push out of his comfort zone, dunno why.
If Klobuchar can catch fire, fine. I'm worried Warren will scare off a lot of people carrying Bernie's water.
Don't know if Steyer's making a dent with the last debate et al.
Andrew Yang just seems to make too many rookie mistakes.
Though I'm for some reason not really paying attention to any of the debates or speeches,
so my word is pretty meaningless.
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 12/21/2019 - 2:56pm
cocktails:
by artappraiser on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 3:05am
FiveThirtyEight.com: What Went Down At The December Democratic Primary Debate, 12/20, 10:56 pm
by artappraiser on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 3:25am
by artappraiser on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 11:46am
Very interesting thread on Warren and the debate from a guy that is not ashamed to be called neo-liberal:
Edit to add: not the least of which because, as opposed to our NCD at Dag, he likes that Liz has lots of plans, he likes a lot of her plans. But then, there's that also that he's a policy econ wonk guy and not your average voter...Still, he is know to piss off lots of leftie "progressives".
by artappraiser on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 6:08pm
WARREN has a plan for wine caves. #65. Everyone gets one. For free. 'Bout time!
by NCD on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 6:30pm
We all know you hate Warren. More than Sanders apparently since you rarely if ever criticize him. There's a lot a meaningful critiques you could make about her but you don't. You just make nonsense insults or distort her positions. You've become the Tucker Carlson of Dagblog when it comes to Warren. Or more appropriately, the peter of the left.
by ocean-kat on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 6:59pm
Good one!
More
by artappraiser on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 7:03pm
Axelrod on the wine cave "error":
by artappraiser on Sat, 12/21/2019 - 1:55pm
He goes on to advise:
by artappraiser on Sat, 12/21/2019 - 2:00pm
FiveThirtyEight & Ipsos did a poll of debate watchers, very interesting: The December Democratic Debate in 6 Charts, Dec. 20, and they also previously posted this staff chat: What Surprised Us About The December Democratic Debate
by artappraiser on Sat, 12/21/2019 - 7:38pm
Luntz is a pro, not a hack:
by artappraiser on Sat, 01/18/2020 - 8:49pm