National Republicans appear to be putting one of Steve Bannon's plans into action, by training an "army" of poll workers and linking them up with local Republican D.A.s. In the short term, I expect this plan could work pretty well in places like Michigan -- though it'd work better if their gubernatorial candidates could get enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, amirite? -- but it won't work as well in places like Hawaii. I'm pretty sure 2022, which Republicans figure will go their way wherever they like though voters could prove them wrong, is just a dry run for a much bigger operation in 2024, when the party's biggest dick runs for President again.
Political Wire's Taegan Goddard, writing about why he has a membership model for his website, describes pretty well why the advertising model doesn't really work for our internet anymore. If you still think the world is all publications going out and getting advertisers so they don't have to charge customers, note well that the internet advertising model involves very little active involvement from publishers; too many middlemen control the process, hence you're bound to see an ad you can't stand. Like so much of modern life -- Amazon, social media, Bluetooth-enabled appliances, pharmacy benefit managers -- internet advertising cartels may make things easier, but they don't make them better. And they don't even make things easier for you, unless you're a CEO who hates doing real work.
Kentucky Democratic Senate candidate Charles Booker runs a campaign ad with a noose around his neck. I wish it were 42 seconds shorter, of course, and at first I thought attacking Rand Paul for holding up anti-lynching legislation might be a mistake, since Mr. Paul eventually co-sponsored a similar anti-lynching bill that became law and will be more than happy to tell us that repeatedly. But what if that issue's a feint? After all, Mr. Paul will still happily tell you that Medicare-for-All is slavery, and his problems with the Civil Rights Act were the first thing anyone learned about him! And those charges will stick while he thinks he's brushing the other one aside. At least, I hope it works that way. And folks won't just remember the noose around Mr. Booker's neck; they'll remember him removing it at ad's end. All in all, pretty good, but, at the risk of sounding like Gordon Lish, make it 30 seconds -- or 15.
I'm pleased to see that professional athletes (and their bosses) have doubled down on their support for gun control legislation even though (because?) professional whiners like Sen. Marco Rubio (E-FL) didn't like it. (Want me to evaluate Mr. Rubio's complaints about China's treatment of Uyghurs and the NBA's complicity therein? Nah, screw that -- every time Marco Rubio seems sympathetic or smart, it's a feint, meaning to draw you into some offensive drama you'd otherwise never let yourself get bogged down in.) Watch out for Philadelphia Union soccer player Alejandro Bedoya, who says "(i)t ain’t freedom that we have to now look over our backs all the time." I'd like him to become a political consultant at career's end; America suffers too much from all the numbnuts who do that now.
When I hear, for the 443rd time, that Joe Manchin really, really wants to do something about prescription drug prices by the end of the year, I am compelled to note that it's a bit rich to hear the guy most responsible for Democrats Not Doing Enough suggesting that Democrats didn't do enough. Also, he better not forget to check with America's Other One True Great and Awesome Real American President, Kyrsten Sinema, who vetoed Medicare drug price negotiation and higher tax brackets on the rich and on corporations in 2021. My advice to Democrats, not that they'd ever take it, would be to cut through the Manchinema drama, produce a bill that addresses all their "concerns," and make everyone vote on it immediately. And if certain people vote it down because "it would strangle innovation" or "it's not bipartisan enough" or "it didn't go through the committee process," then let their words hang them. We don't need more Democrats as much as we need better Democrats.
Finally, buried in this horserace account entitled "Biden battles CEOs in inflation blame game" -- everything's a "game" when losing causes someone else to suffer, right, Politico? -- we get this shameful whinefest from an unnamed "CEO of one of the country's largest banks": "They said everything was going to be different under Biden and they would be more engaged with us, and they weren’t." And all I can say is: having all the power ain't enough? We shouldn't ask banksters for advice about anything, since they've amply demonstrated over the years that they don't care about anyone but themselves; really, we should be breaking their sorry asses up into much smaller and less harmful banks, which work I hope our FTC will begin soon.
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