The challenges ahead (Biden's America)

[Túrin Turambar]

This is probably more of a post for the 'Trump's America' than 'Biden's America' thread, but given that this is the current one, I'll put it here.

John Daniel Davidson published an article in The Federalist arguing that the conservative movement has failed, and conservatives need to abandon the idea of conservatism and "start thinking of themselves as radicals, restorationists, and counterrevolutionaries" and become comfortable with wielding state power to restore western civilisation. And as for the fear that power will corrupt them? "It is a fair question, and we should attend to it with care after we have won the war". The ideology he is describing has existed throughout the twentieth century, and it has a name, although unsurprisingly Davidson is reluctant to own it. I do find it surprising, though, to see it pushed on the pages of The Federalist. But maybe that's where we've landed now.

[RoseMorninStar]

I'm curious what ideology you are thinking of Túrin. I have a guess but I don't want to assume (Fascism?).

I would certainly say that most 'conservatives' today are not 'conservative' in the traditional sense, at least not the definition I have been familiar with in my lifetime.

The Federalist is considered far-right. (I always look up a source I'm not immediately familiar with).

[N.E. Brigand]

"U.S. Added 261,000 Jobs in October, a Sign of Economy's Resilience. Job growth remained stubbornly robust, defying efforts to curb inflation. Wages also increased, and the unemployment rate rose to 3.7 percent."

Those stubborn jobs.

[N.E. Brigand]

Interesting chart. The U.S. has been producing more oil each month during Joe Biden's administration than during the past several presidencies:



To be fair to Donald Trump -- if you like oil -- the number tanked during the pandemic.

[Sunsilver]

Yes, and the oil companies cut production to buoy sagging prices. Did they INCREASE production again when prices soared after Russia invaded Ukraine??

Not until Biden called them out on it!

[N.E. Brigand]

Crime rates in the U.S. have apparently plummeted in the past ten days, to judge from one network's coverage of the issue:

[N.E. Brigand]

The price of a barrel of oil rose from $82.07 on Oct. 18 to $92.61 on Nov. 4 and has now dropped back to $82.13.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Washington Post reports that the federal prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden has amassed sufficient information to charge the president's son with tax crimes and the illegal purchase of a handgun. (This U.S. Attorney was appointed by Donald Trump, but Joe Biden left him in place to avoid any appearance of impropriety.)

That said, the report appears to be based on FBI sources -- leaking to a journalist with something of a history of reporting leaks from the FBI (it was he who revealed in October 2016 that the FBI was investigating the Clinton Foundation; more recently he broke the news that Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida is unlikely to be charged for sex trafficking) -- who are trying to pressure the prosecutor into filing charges.

And to be clear: if people are normally charged for the acts that Hunter Biden is alleged to have committed, then by all means let him be charged.

But what's most amusing to me are the people complaining that the "mainstream media" won't cover this story. Apparently the Post isn't mainstream?

(Also, CBS, CNBC, the BBC, and other outlets have since picked up the story.)

CBS reports reports the network obtained a copy of Hunter Biden's laptop's "data .... directly from the source who told us that they provided it to the FBI under subpoena." CBS engaged a firm (for free) to analyze the data to "determine its authenticity." Their experts (a father-and-son firm from Minnesota) say that the data they analyzed is real, and that they don't see the added or manipulated materials in the data that were reported by other outlets (like the Washington Post). CBS's experts believe this is because the copy they analyzed is "more pristine" than those that others in the media have seen: it was provided to CBS by (the lawyer of) the owner of the Delaware computer repair store where Hunter Biden is said to have dropped off and forgotten about the laptop. (Mind you, the laptop itself is in the possession of the FBI.)

I am particularly skeptical of anything reported by that particular CBS journalist, Catherine Herridge, whose reporting on the Trump-Russia affair typically gave maximum deference to Trump and particularly to Congressional efforts to undermine the FBI (and this new report about Hunter Biden explicitly notes House Republicans' plans to investigate him). Also this particular report is -- as often is the case with television journalism -- too cursory to make it possible to tell whether CBS's experts really have addressed the issues earlier experts identified. Beyond all that, I think it's worth emphasizing that everything the right accuses Hunter Biden of doing (whether or not he did any of it, I don't know) is less than 1% of what Donald Trump has actually done -- and Hunter Biden has never held political office.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Your friend Marcy is (as I am sure you are already aware), equally skeptical of that report.

[River]

It's almost as if they're trying to make a Real Thing because Trump tried to campaign on Biden's unconditional love for his surviving son being a Bad Thing and then Tucker Carlson saw a ratings opportunity and kept it going. Thing is, Hunter's not in government and with his history I'm not sure he could even get the simple clearance I had to get into the NIST buildings. So basically our incoming Congressional majority is preparing to beat up on a pathetic private citizen who happens to be the President's son just because he's the President's son and the President unconditionally loves him and that's somehow a Bad Thing. I'm not sure how a full investigation of a private citizen's dirty laundry is going to play with anyone who has a semi-functioning soul.

[N.E. Brigand]

What does Fox News have against Christmas?

[N.E. Brigand]

It's almost as if they're trying to make a Real Thing because Trump tried to campaign on Biden's unconditional love for his surviving son being a Bad Thing and then Tucker Carlson saw a ratings opportunity and kept it going. Thing is, Hunter's not in government and with his history I'm not sure he could even get the simple clearance I had to get into the NIST buildings. So basically our incoming Congressional majority is preparing to beat up on a pathetic private citizen who happens to be the President's son just because he's the President's son and the President unconditionally loves him and that's somehow a Bad Thing. I'm not sure how a full investigation of a private citizen's dirty laundry is going to play with anyone who has a semi-functioning soul.

I don't know, the new video of the presidential son posted tonight seems to show someone with issues. Maybe Fox is on to something:

[N.E. Brigand]

I appreciate this essay by Parker Malloy about how the White House press corps has trouble focusing on substantive issues.

[N.E. Brigand]

A previously unreleased text reveals that in May, in support of his plan to buy Twitter, Elon Musk sought and received $100 million from Sam Bankman-Fried, the now infamous CEO of the crypto-currency exchange FTX, a firm which recently filed for bankruptcy as Bankman-Fried's net worth, once estimated to be $26 billion, plummeted 94% on November 8 -- "the largest one-day drop in the [Bloomberg Billionaires] index's history" -- and has him now being assessed as having "no material wealth."

That's from the the Elon Musk / Twitter thread, but on the subject of Bankman-Fried, FTX, and cryptocurrency, here's a reporting about how in March, eight House members -- four Republicans* and four Democrats* -- questioned the Securities and Exchange Commission's decision to make inquiries into cryptocurrency management in a letter to the SEC that "intimated that the SEC's requests violated federal law." That was known in March. What's known now is that one of the firm's the SEC was looking into was FTX, which, as noted above, has collapsed, wiping out billions of dollars. The letter's lead author was Rep. Tom Emmer, who also tweeted at the time that the SEC's questions were "overburdensome ... and stifling innovation." In January, Emmer will hold the number three position in the House. I mentioned before that Bankman-Fried was a major donor to Democrats -- one of the Democrats who signed that letter, Rep. Jake Auchincloss is now complaining that the SEC didn't do enough to prevent the recent meltdown -- but Bankman-Fried's firm, FTX, donated $2.75 million to the Republican Congressional campaign fund that Emmer led.

*Republicans: Tom Emmer (Minnesota), Warren Davidson (Ohio), Byron Donalds (Florida), Ted Budd (North Carolina)
*Democrats: Josh Gottheimer (New Jersey), Jake Auchincloss (Massachusetts), Ritchie Torres (New York), and Darren Soto (Florida)

[N.E. Brigand]

A previously unreleased text reveals that in May, in support of his plan to buy Twitter, Elon Musk sought and received $100 million from Sam Bankman-Fried, the now infamous CEO of the crypto-currency exchange FTX, a firm which recently filed for bankruptcy as Bankman-Fried's net worth, once estimated to be $26 billion, plummeted 94% on November 8 -- "the largest one-day drop in the [Bloomberg Billionaires] index's history" -- and has him now being assessed as having "no material wealth."

That's from the the Elon Musk / Twitter thread, but on the subject of Bankman-Fried, FTX, and cryptocurrency, here's a reporting about how in March, eight House members -- four Republicans* and four Democrats* -- questioned the Securities and Exchange Commission's decision to make inquiries into cryptocurrency management in a letter to the SEC that "intimated that the SEC's requests violated federal law." That was known in March. What's known now is that one of the firm's the SEC was looking into was FTX, which, as noted above, has collapsed, wiping out billions of dollars. The letter's lead author was Rep. Tom Emmer, who also tweeted at the time that the SEC's questions were "overburdensome ... and stifling innovation." In January, Emmer will hold the number three position in the House. I mentioned before that Bankman-Fried was a major donor to Democrats -- one of the Democrats who signed that letter, Rep. Jake Auchincloss is now complaining that the SEC didn't do enough to prevent the recent meltdown -- but Bankman-Fried's firm, FTX, donated $2.75 million to the Republican Congressional campaign fund that Emmer led.

*Republicans: Tom Emmer (Minnesota), Warren Davidson (Ohio), Byron Donalds (Florida), Ted Budd (North Carolina)
*Democrats: Josh Gottheimer (New Jersey), Jake Auchincloss (Massachusetts), Ritchie Torres (New York), and Darren Soto (Florida)

Last night on Tucker Carlson's Fox News program, Terry Duffy, the CEO of CME Group, a financial derivatives exchange that's worth nearly $200 billion, claimed that he saw through Sam Bankman-Fried from the start. But in the course of his commentary, Duffy appeared to admit that he'd bribed a financial regulator to obtain information on Bankman-Fried. If that's just a slip of the tongue, it's a very odd one!

[N.E. Brigand]

U.S. labor historian Eric Loomis says that "no president in U.S. history has been as pro-labor as Joe Biden," despite what some are saying about Biden's intervention in a railroad labor dispute, although Loomis does acknowledge that "all Presidents suck on labor issues" is a reasonable position to take.

[N.E. Brigand]

Arizona has a contractor building a shoddy U.S.-Mexico border wall out of old shipping containers through ten miles of protected desert habitat:





Source with more pictures. Arizona's outgoing Republican governor apparently is rushing to complete this stretch before his Democratic successor takes office next month. It won't stop would-be immigrants, so what's the point? Fortunately, despite claims being made by protesters, because it's so badly built, it probably won't seriously deter the natural migrations of jaguars and other wild felines either.

[N.E. Brigand]

U.S. labor historian Eric Loomis says that "no president in U.S. history has been as pro-labor as Joe Biden," despite what some are saying about Biden's intervention in a railroad labor dispute, although Loomis does acknowledge that "all Presidents suck on labor issues" is a reasonable position to take.

A few months ago, members of the railroad unions threatened to go on strike. President Biden intervened to get the railroad companies to agree to provide their employees with marginally better working conditions than they previously had. Members of most of the railroad unions agreed to this deal, albeit reluctantly, but a few did not, so the possibility of a strike looms again. A railroad strike would damage the U.S. economy, so Biden urged Congress to pass a law basically forcing the agreement into effect. (I really have no understanding of laws governing railroads, but that's a thing.) The workers' big ask had been for seven paid sick days per year. Right now they get none. So today the House passed two bills. One bill would put the tentative deal into effect. The second bill would in addition require railroad companies to give workers seven paid sick days. Now it moves to the Senate, where the first bill is sure to pass, and as for the second bill? Well, some prominent Republicans like Ted Cruz have been saying they support sick leave for the workers -- but are there ten Republicans to break the filibuster?

I'm not holding my breath. Only 3 of 210 Republicans in the House voted for it today.

[N.E. Brigand]

Apparently investors think too many people are working:



It had been forecasted that today's jobs report would show the U.S. added 200,000 jobs in November. The actual number announced this morning was 263,000.

[N.E. Brigand]

Is there a thread on one of the forums for science news? Not seeing one, I'll just note here this news from the U.S. Dept. of Energy about a breakthrough in nuclear fusion.