Bullshit hall of fame. Didn’t mean what you said when you thought reporters weren’t listening? http://t.co/t872gmxM0X pic.twitter.com/Nc1layQPnH
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) November 18, 2014
I couldn’t get motivated for a post on the Axis of Terrible — Michael Wolff, Buzzfeed Ben Smith, and one of the Uber douchecanoes — on the grounds that any BJ readers who cared already had plenty of reading material. (Gawker, TBogg, and the usually pro-glibertarian Matt Yglesias agree that “Uber has an asshole problem“; Politico‘s Dylan Byers is an indignant defender of Emil Michael‘s “right” to be a rich-fvck rat-fvcker.)
But the latest development reported in the NYTimes takes the fight to another level:
… Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, sent a scathing letter to the ride-sharing start-up on Wednesday evening, publicly questioning how Uber treats the location and ride history of its passengers.
In the letter, which was addressed to Travis Kalanick, Uber’s chief executive, Senator Franken asked how the company uses the data it collects on the many passengers who use the service on a daily basis, and which of the company’s employees are allowed to view such sensitive information…
The letter comes just days after a senior Uber executive detailed a plan to conduct “opposition research” on journalists who cover the company in a negative light. The Uber employee, Emil Michael, made the comments in a private dinner hosted by Uber last week. BuzzFeed News first reported Mr. Michael’s comments…
The letter ends — curtly but politely — with a request for a response by mid-December.
***********
Apart from casting a cold eye on the sausage-factory ethics behind the bold disruptive technologies of our new self-pretreneurial share-conomy, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Botsplainer
Going out to a dawn dive, presuming my dive buddy’s non diver girlfriend isn’t still presumably kicking his ass for not being sufficiently supportive after 1) not arranging her a floatation vest so she could snorkel off the dive boat which she finally got on yesterday, as she’s not much of a swimmer and 2) her seasickness as she yakked her lunch all over the deck of said dive boat.
dance around in your bones
I don’t know about daily use of Uber. I’ve ridden with them once from the airport, once to the doctor, once to the dentist….but all the other SB-ians I know seem to primarily use them for when they are too fucked up to drive home from a bar.
Since I don’t have that problem, I have always found the Uber guys and gals to be very polite and kind, and have had a couple proffered tips plainly refused. I don’t know about the Uber company practices, but I have talked with several drivers about their experience ….well, driving for Uber. Everyone was enthusiastic about it and that made me like them even better.
I knew a guy back in the day who drove a cab in LA (with a license and everything!!) and it made him miserable. Just sayin’. Plus, it was fucking dangerous.
Botsplainer
He didn’t make it. Narrow window for a dawn dive, and there wasn’t a soul on the dock that I could ask to buddy up with. Bummer. Conditions were perfect, but I won’t go in without backup.
Amir Khalid
Is this guy now suggesting he didn’t actually say the damning words?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: I guess he’s saying, “who ya gona trust, me or your lying eyes”.
BillinGlendaleCA
@dance around in your bones: Uber got raked over the coals pretty bad in an investigative segment on the local news here in LALA land(KNBC). Their background checks turned out to be a bit less than thorough. Basically they got a convicted felon to apply as a driver, no problemo.
sm*t cl*de
Evidently the dude is so accustomed to lying and denying that even when he goes on to admit that those were his words, to apologise for them and to promise that his statement of policy was not actually a statement of policy, he still feels obliged to begin with semi-denial doubt-shedding bafflegab about them being “remarks attributed to me”.
BillinGlendaleCA
I’m continuing in my efforts to fully automate the Cave, pretty much all the light sources with the exception of the outside lights and bathroom lights are on WeMo’s and programmed on my phone. I’ve ordered a wifi thermostat and intend to put some simple triggers to control it.
Schlemazel
@Botsplainer:
Glad you were smart about it – sorry the dive got screwed up. Never understood couples that felt they had to do everything together, if one does something the other can’t enjoy then let them do it without the whining & do something you like instead.
Schlemazel
@Amir Khalid:
I think he is trying to say that the words didn’t sound as ugly to him when he said them out loud in what he assumed was a friendly crowd, but on paper – YIKES! Therefore he didn’t really mean it and it the reporting made it sound worse than it was. Classic non-denial denial.
Mustang Bobby
I’ve been through Buffalo a couple of times in the summer and it looks like a nice place, but wow I’m glad I’m not there now. I thought northern lower Michigan’s lake-effect snow was bad but what they’ve got going on is way over the top.
It’s 62 in Miami now.
OzarkHillbilly
Ok, let me get this straight: Company set up with their business model having the specific goal of exploiting a loophole and skating around just this side of the law has an executive who is a rich entitled prick and thinks “character assassination” is the proper way to deal with bad press.
I am shocked, SHOCKED I tell you.
raven
Pretty cold down here at the beach but it’s supposed to get into the 60’s today. I got an email from Jim Webb asking for dough as he explores running for prez.
PurpleGirl
I don’t understand how Uber and Lyft are supposed to work: Do you call a number and order a car as you do for a car service or hail them on the street as you do for metered taxis? Then what makes them ride-shares and different from car services or taxis? Do they have established payment rates?
raven
@PurpleGirl: You go online and pay for it there, then they come and get you (I think).
Schlemazel
@PurpleGirl:
Not positive all the angles they are working but its a loose affiliation of people with cars I think. You want to drive people around you agree to pay Uber a share of what you make & you get added to their app. People punch in their need for a ride & if you are close or can get there & want to you do. Fairs are set by distance and timing – if a big deal is going on rates go through the roof as I understand it, classic supply and demand thing.
OzarkHillbilly
@Botsplainer: Sorry to hear that. Morning (dawn) is the best time for damn near everything and we have so few of them.
Schlemazel
@OzarkHillbilly:
I thought we got one every day?
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel: A thousand years worth of mornings is not enough.
Elizabelle
@raven:
Petedownunder put up a brilliant response to his “exploratory” email from Jim Webb in thread below.
Well said!!
Baud
The comments attributed to me on this blog do not reflect my actual views. They are wrong no matter the circumstances and I regret them.
Schlemazel
@Elizabelle:
I am going to save that for future use! Thanks for sharing.
Schlemazel
@OzarkHillbilly:
thats a maybe, some days the current one is one too many
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: If I see dawn, it means I’ve stayed up too late.
Elizabelle
@Schlemazel:
Thank Pete! And it is so well said.
Elizabelle
Robert Osborne of Turner Classic Movies is 82. That surprised me. Dapper guy.
Good profile from the New York Times.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Mustang Bobby: Show off.
kindness
@Elizabelle: Well….Did Webb say he was going to run as a Democrat? While he served as one as a Senator he was kinda milquetoast about being one.
Elizabelle
From Osborne profile: TCM learned that some of its viewers even sport TCM tattoos.
Escape, yes, but there are many parallels with 1930s America that viewers might perceive. Uneasily, to some extent.
TCM’s movies are a good assortment of social issues grappled with since cinema began, some solved, some ever present.
Baud
@kindness:
Maybe he’s running as a grifter?
Kay
@Elizabelle:
It’s the “opportunity gap” message. It’s not going to resonate, in my opinion. I know because Democrats just ran on it. They literally just lost big with this exact same language 3 weeks ago.
Republicans are saying exactly same thing. This is what Jeb Bush will run on. The Opportunity Gap. It’s a way to “address” wage stagnation and income inequality without offending anyone or changing anything.
The GOP opportunity message is more appealing because it involves magic, where people don’t have to pay for anything that is publicly-funded or subsidized and provides “opportunity”. Low taxes plus equality of opportunity; in other words, getting stuff like public education without paying for it.
Democrats have to come up with something else. I suggest a focus on “economic security” because that speaks to how people feel about the economy after surviving such a huge economic disaster. They need some basic level of security in order to have the tolerance for risk that “opportunity” assumes.
I think it’s out of touch to keep talking about opportunity. It presupposes economic security that doesn’t exist. What it makes me think when I hear it is that the speaker is economically secure so comfortable telling others to seize opportunity.
Wally Ballou
Mike Nichols has died. Nuts.
Elizabelle
@kindness:
Don’t know. Didn’t get the email (I don’t think…) That was petedownunder’s response. Raven, skerry and he got the Webb plea for money.
I volunteered enthusiastically for Webb when he ran against George “Macaca” Allen. Was not thrilled he abandoned the seat after one term (there’s an iconoclast for you, and he had the easiest commute of just about any Senator), although more reliably Democratic Tim Kaine won the seat.
I like Jim Webb, and if he can appeal to people in Appalachia who won’t vote for Democrats even though Democrats better serve their interests, more power to him.
Prefer another candidate for 2016 — definitely Elizabeth Warren, and she should run to get her issues out there. She communicates so well, and clearly cares about her issues — I think she’s way electable.
I’m deeply concerned about the “all eggs in Hillary’s basket.” She’s entirely defeatable, and what if a health issue or something else surfaces late? She ran a shambling 2008 campaign and still listens to Democratic bottom-feeders.
2014 was a wakeup call to your standard issue Democrat.
Elizabelle
@Wally Ballou: Oh, that’s a shame. Talented guy.
Nichols was going to direct “The Master Class” re Maria Callas for HBO. Terrific play. Would have been good with him at helm.
Keith G
My experience is that there is a certain type of enterprenuer who is successful due, in part, to the amount of drive powered by a high level of inner asshole. I work for one now. If I made public his statements made to me in private, his customer base would take a hit.
I have come to the conclusion that one of the prime reasons one starts a small business (which may or may not grow large) is an innate inability to “play well with others”.
In an unrelated note: Today a NY Times editorial used the phrase, “When the Republican fever breaks”. This usage needs to be banished. It makes me viscerally ill. The current mentally of Republicans (actually the word used should be Conservatives) can only be temporarily defeated in an process of ideological combat that will span generations – as it already has.
The bullshit belief in some self-correcting post-partisan nirvana is juvenile and destructive.
/rant
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel: In the morning, all things are possible, the bad as well as the good. I’ve had more than my share of bad days over the years, and if I manage to stay alive I’ll see yet a few more. But I get to choose whether to make the best I of even the worst of them.
@BillinGlendaleCA: Some of my favorite dawns have come at the expense of staying up too late. One of favorites was coming out of Ellison’s Cave on top of Pigeon Mountain in GA after a 22 hour trip. We were all completely trashed. Digger was so bad he couldn’t push the 600′ rope thru the entrance so I took it from him and carried it down the mountain. The sun was just rising and everything had that pale yellow glow and the frost on every branch and blade of grass twinkled with it’s light. I was tired, I hurt in every part of my body and wanted nothing so much as to just lay down. But after 22 hrs of absolute darkness and damp, that sun was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and I felt damn near reborn. I all but ran down that mountain and when I reached camp I even had a couple beers before I finally crashed and slept like the dead for 3 or 4 hrs.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
So was 2010. I see no signs that any part of the Democratic Party is in the process of waking up.
Baud
@Keith G:
Agreed. The Village wants the fever to break, but refuses to provide the medicine of holding them accountable.
jibeaux
I don’t understand Uber. I’m supposed to give you my credit card info, and at some point after the ride I’ll learn what I was charged after the various upcharges for the time and place and whether it was busy? Um, no. Maybe it works differently, I’ve just read the $400 Uber rode stories.
Iowa Old Lady
@Baud: And really, they’ve paid no penalty for being sick with fever, so why change?
Elizabelle
@Kay:
Economic security is brilliant. And the Affordable Care Act is a huge part of that. Don’t dare run away from Obama again.
Economic security does not play to ANY of the Republicans’ strong points. They’re all about protecting the wealthy and defense contractors.
NotMax
@Elizabelle
Speaking of TCM, while not the greatest flicks ever made, a couple of niceties this weekend, both on Saturday. All times Eastern.
8:30 a.m. – Larceny, Inc. – modest romp with Edward G. Robinson reveling in a comedic take on his gangster persona.
6:00 p.m. – Five Million Years to Earth (a/k/a Quatermass and the Pit) – British thinking man’s science fiction, a crisply woven tale that rises above what must have been a limited budget.
Elizabelle
Economic security: who DOESN’T that resonate with? Young people looking at underperforming job market, or even wondering if college will pay off for them at all. The hollowed out middle class. Midlife people with tenuous hold on a good job, or who’ve been cut loose.
Elders, who appreciate the security of Medicare and Social Security and want it for their younger loved ones, not the IGMFY types who will vote Republican anyway.
We’re in the new normal, most of the country. And it’s perilous.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady:
Right. I almost can’t even blame the GOP. It’s like blaming the child for being spoiled.
NotMax
@Wally Ballou
Here he is with comedy partner Elaine May, both playing nervous teenagers parked at the local makeout spot.
Mustang Bobby
@Wally Ballou: Oh, how sad. He was an amazing talent.
One of my favorite stories about him was while he was directing the original production of “The Odd Couple” with Art Carney and Walter Matthau. He and Matthau did not get along and after one particularly nasty exchange between the director and actor, Matthau came down to the apron of the stage and said, “Okay, Mike, is it okay if I get my balls back now?” Without missing a beat Nichols snapped his fingers and yelled “Props!”
NotMax
@NotMax
Link fail in #45.
Link fix:
Here he is with comedy partner Elaine May, both playing nervous teenagers parked at the local makeout spot. (Audio kicks in about 15 seconds in.)
Kay
@Elizabelle:
It plays into a part of the GOP base, too, and Webb does the same in that email, where he says “handouts”. GOP base voters like the “opportunity” theme because they have a chip on their shoulder about the social programs that they don’t (directly) benefit from. If the food stamp people were just offered equality of opportunity they’d stop taking handouts. It’s how young Republicans talk, because it’s kinder and gentler than just cutting food stamps, and it also allows them to depict liberals as denying opportunity and promoting dependency.
I just don’t think Democrats can sound exactly like Jeb Bush and John Kasich. At this point it’s almost word for word. I listened to national Democrats campaigning in Ohio and that is the message they used. It doesn’t work on our side. It sounds like they’re blaming working and middle class people for wage stagnation and income inequality. It comes off as patronizing and scolding and out of touch. They have to drop it. It failed.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
Right, which is why you can’t tell them to get an education and grab opportunity. They just did that. They tried that.
It’s both insulting and infuriating if you did that.
Punchy
3 dead in shooting at FSU. Cant link but all over my tube. If only there were more guns and ammo on college campuses…..
skerry
For those lucky folks that didn’t get the email but are curious, Webb 2016 Exploratory Committee website. It has the letter and a video (I’ve not viewed) as well as links to donate! and a tiny little button to contact him via email down in the lower far right. I sent a reply last night, but was no where near as eloquent as Pete.
OzarkHillbilly
There is a certain amount of truth to that. Which is why it is all the more ridiculous coming from the Party that ensures a lack of equal opportunity for the vast majority of Americans.
Matt McIrvin
@Elizabelle:
People who don’t want somebody else to have it at their expense, which is about half of the country.
JPL
@Punchy: Hopefully that is not true. The news is still reporting wounded.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
I think part of what Republicans have done with the health care law is portray it as unreliable, subject to change, might be overturned. I don’t think that rattles their base, I think it rattles ours.
I’m to the point that I think the legal challenges are specifically designed to keep “our” people wondering whether they can rely on the health care law.
We talk a lot about how they scare people, but I think we underestimate who they are scaring. It’s not just their base. It’s also our base, the economically vulnerable portion of our base.
Baud
@Kay:
It’s a perversion of normal supply-and-demand theory. In normal thinking, firms demand labor, and workers supply it for remuneration. But this puts the onus on firms to demand labor, which is unacceptable. So they’ve flipped the responsibility. Workers now need to demand jobs in order for firms to supply them, and when there aren’t enough jobs available, it’s because the workers haven’t demanded them enough.
Elizabelle
@Matt McIrvin:
And that is what has to be spelled out, explicitly. Because economic security if self-interest, and it’s not a zero sum game. It truly is a multiplier effect for society.
Democrats cannot assume their audience knows that.
Republicans are the free lunch crowd, but pollsters tell us the American public sees the GOP as the party of economic responsibility.
That is effing nuts.
The GOP does hit a nerve accusing Democrats of taxing and spending — unsaid is “spending on OTHER people.” Democrats must make it clear — the spending is for YOU — and us — and for creating economic security for the vast majority of Americans. (Some people will always be endangered; they’re not wired for this world. That is a separate issue.)
Punchy
@JPL: yes, you are correct. Gunman dead, others wounded.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Hearing the ACA might falls scares me. It’s been a boon to the self-employed and those in small business and those who’ve been uninsured for years and — even if healthy, you know the insurance companies would be combing your application for a reason to deny and limit.
What’s sad is that ACA coverage in Virginia is still too expensive for me. Transvaginal Bob and the GOP legislature ensured Virgina did not expand Medicaid.
Baud
@Kay:
If our base is going to be rattled by what Republicans say — and the result of that rattling is that the base does not vote — then the game is lost. No amount of rhetoric about economic security is going to be sufficient to overcome GOP fear-mongering.
Keith G
@Baud: Indeed, that attitude on the part of some in the press is maddening enough, but there are also Democrats, some living in rather ritzy real estate in DC, who seem to have the same feelings. Or at least they had the same feelings until just recently.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@PurpleGirl: There’s been a battle between the DC Taxi Commission and Uber/Lyft/etc. going on for years now. One of the battles has been over insurance. Uber says they have an umbrella policy that is just as good as what the taxis are forced to have. Others disagree. They’re coming close to a decision on how to regulate the “services” like these.
I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the reasons why this story is getting more press now is due to the DC decision timing.
It seems to me that if taxis are forced to accept everyone, charge standard fares, have regulations on working hours, carry particular kinds of insurance, have limited numbers of cars, have a standardized meter and payment terminal installed, etc., then any city should be very careful about letting a “service” that doesn’t have many or any of those constraints come in and do what they want. Sure, being able to quickly hail a ride on the cell phone is great, but …
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
@Baud: I think that’s exactly what happened, though. Constant Citizens United ads, wall to wall, all politicians are slime and Washington cannot do anything.
And Democrats promising we will fix the gridlock. We will work across the aisle. They needed to say: Republicans ARE the gridlock. Are you out of your mind to vote for them? If you want gridlock, vote for Republicans.
Cynicism and greed will destroy us.
JPL
@Punchy: If only more students were armed, ………………………………………
Elizabelle
@JPL:
Stand your library. Stand your coffeehouse. Stand your elementary school classroom.
It is madness.
NotMax
@Elizabelle
Stand your Starbuck’s. Or, Stand Your Grounds.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Here’s what I said before the election:
No amount of rhetoric or policy changes by Democratic leaders can have an effect on a constituency that simply is not receptive to receiving and acting upon it.
ETA: Let me add that, despite the election, I continue to hope that this is not the case.
FlipYrWhig
@Elizabelle:
I find this particular part of Pete’s note slimy and the whole thing smug and self-congratulatory. YMMV.
Elizabelle
Unbelievable. Those are public airwaves:
This is awful. Your average (real average) American will hear what talking heads tell them what the president said; they won’t hear the president’s reasoning.
The press hopped on board to sell a war based on lies. How dare they turn down informal inquiries?
And how god-awful stupid. You would get a huge audience watching, maybe people who don’t watch network TV in real time ….
Kay
@Baud:
But it’s rational to wonder if the health care law is going to survive, particularly if you’re dependent on it. Indeed, Democrats in tight Senate races added to the uncertainty around it- they all ran on changing it.
I don’t think Democrats know where our base is on many things. I hear all this frustration that sounds to me like miscommunication. Democrats are talking past Democratic voters. They’re not reaching them. Their response to not reaching them seems to be to deliver another scolding lecture – they need better voters, more wonkish, better informed, and that is just an absolute loser.
Elizabelle
@Baud: I saw your comment then about GOP voters caring more about voting, and it’s true. Chastening, but true.
I don’t know how you get around that. Education, yes, but if you have to pull out all the stops to just get people to do something they’re reluctant to do …
Baud
@Kay:
Well, I don’t think any politician should say that. But I’m not a politician.
And the voters don’t have to be better, more wonkish, or better informed, but they do have to be voters. I would love to see Democrat leaders follow your advice and for voters to respond by supporting those Democrats in the polls. But you need both.
Elizabelle
@FlipYrWhig: I had no problem with that. And am a true O-bot.
But working with Republicans is a non-starter. Don’t pretend that you can. Make the voter own this: you sent these loons to congress. You expect magic. They’re getting paid to not work, you are not.
The crazy ass conservative wing is in control, and even if some of the politicians can see the merits of working together, the GOP base — driven by “entertainers” aka radical anarchists and those mouthpiecing for uberrich corporations and individuals — won’t let them.
These are not times in which “centrist Democrats” can prevail, because they’ll try to engage with “sensible Republicans”. Who either don’t exist or have no incentive to engage.
The DLC approach is dead in the water.
MomSense
@raven:
Did you watch the video? Apparently one of his lines is “Walk into some of our inner cities if you dare”
Ohboyohboyoh I am not looking forward to the next election.
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
It’s all the more egregious since we all just lived through an election in which there was so much fear mongering about immigration.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Kay: “Training” and “Education” has been a political hobby-horse since NAFTA and the ’80s, if not earlier. It’s time that people recognize that Training and Education doesn’t create jobs in the field. Training and Education are great on their own, and very important. People need to think rationally. But that’s not the problem. The problem is that our economy is changing, and has been changing for decades. The government needs to guide and manage that change so that people who invest the time and reduced income to get Training and an Education have some reward at the end.
Why do people spend decades learning how to play basketball and football well? It’s often because there’s a chance to get a reward at the end. Why do people become physicians? Why do people get PhDs in fancy math? Why don’t more people study art and social work?
So much of our life decisions are reward-based. If we want people to study STEM rather than CDOs, we need to rebalance the risk/reward ratio in things that are valuable to society.
I think that people are waking up to the empty rhetoric about Training and Education. People are seeing how expensive training is, and the poor results of people that spend lots of money for Training at for-profit tech schools. But they often don’t see alternatives. So, student loan debt is as high as it has ever been, yet too many people with decades of experience in tech fields (who obviously could be Trained in modern software creation) languish without a full-time job.
Yes, economic security is a great thing to run on! But there needs to be some meat there and a sensible proposal for how to pay for it. Selling it as a free lunch won’t work. Cheap loans isn’t the answer – we’ve tried that too. More emphasis needs to be on the jobs at the end of the Training and Education.
Make it easier for people to retire and have a non-destitute living. Reduce the SS and Medicare eligibility age so that oldsters who don’t want to work, and who are limiting the advancement potential of colleagues, can retire. Increase the SS benefits. Increase the minimum wage, and remove the incentives for companies to have people work < 40 hours a week. Phase in paying for the changes by slowly removing the FICA tax cap, making unearned and earned income pay the same tax rates, etc., etc. is important – make those who have money and who have benefited from the way the system used to work help pay for the progress of society as a whole.
We know how to solve the economic security problem. We need to articulate that and show that we can actually do it without making a dystopia that the Teabaggers claim to fear…
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
skerry
@Kay: My RWNJ brother who lives in Kansas was visiting here yesterday. We had lunch before I took him to the airport. He was telling me how ACA can die now that the republicans have “control”. I told him that 2 of my 3 children currently have medical insurance due to the law. He was visibly surprised that anyone in his family was directly affected.
I swear, some of these people have no ability to think outside of their personal experience. And I’m related to some of them.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: You’re on the ground, Kay, so you probably have a better answer to this, but I’ve been figuring that Democrats _do_ know where the base is on many things — it’s just that the base is all over the place. Like that Simpsons episode with Poochie, where they do the focus group testing:
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
And whose job is it to educate their voters? To inform them? I was listening before the election and I heard very few owning the ACA much less explaining it or how important it is or the economic security it provides and equality of opportunity for all.
Instead of doing it themselves (as Warren is) too many let FOX do it for them.
FlipYrWhig
@skerry: I’m telling you, they all think it’s “welfare.”
Kay
@Baud:
It’s difficult for me to articulate how they sound to me, but the phrase that comes to mind is “tough love”. For this I blame the Obama Administration more than the “the Democrats” because Obama people seem to adore this approach.
It is daily with Arne Duncan. He’s fucking insufferable. I’m a partisan Democrat and my gut response to Duncan is “where do you get off with this tone?”
Even people who are appealing, seem like nice guys, are not insufferable, Obama people like the Sec of Labor, sound like they are scolding us. They have to stop doing it.
“Tough love” is not, actually, what people need right now. They may need it in the future! Not right now.
Elizabelle
I hope Don Blankenship is quaking in his boots. Or, maybe, grateful he is not facing South Korean justice:
Elizabelle
More from the NYTimes story.
Criminal business practices have consequences. In South Korea, anyhoo.
Nail these suckers to the wall. Don’t curry them for campaign contributions, as in this country.
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense:
Methinks it is time for Mr Webb and I to have a little conversation.
FlipYrWhig
@Elizabelle: I bristle at the idea that Obama’s Big Problem is that he still wants to work with Republicans, to the point where anyone who says he’s willing to work with Republicans is pulling an Obama. And that’s the tenor of the note. I guaran-damn-tee you that if Elizabeth Warren ran for President she’d say she was willing to work with Republicans. It’s like the Pledge of Allegiance. It’s a bunch of nice-sounding words that no one thinks that much about.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m sort of curious about how taking a “security” tone and actually speaking to the benefits of the health care law in a protective manner might have gone. Something like “we will not go back to 1 million uninsured in this state, and we will not go back to policy limits…etc”
Instead Republicans were saying they were going to overturn it and Democrats were saying they had these unspecified changes in mind.
It’s a real misunderstanding of our base to assume all of them think “change” is always positive. They don’t. A lot of our base runs the other way. They assume a change in something they depend on will be bad. That’s because they’re not economically secure. They can’t take risks. They have no room for error.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle: Can you see that happening to Jaime Dimon?
BWAHAHAHAHHAAAHAAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAAA…. gasp… wheeze…
Sometimes I just crack me up.
Elizabelle
@FlipYrWhig:
Yeah, Elizabeth Warren could say that, but spell out how hard it is in practice, and that the GOP have NO reason to cooperate. In fact, they get penalized for it.
It’s insane to talk nice with people who drag the goalposts into insane rightwing territory, and then expect you to “compromise” and meet them halfway.
I realize that Republicans feel the same way. Difference being, the goalposts for today’s “radical leftist socialist libtard Democrats” are what would have been consensus Republican goalposts 30 years ago.
The political climate has changed that disastrously.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: I too am curious and would have loved to see how it would have turned out. But all too often, especially in mid terms, Dems play to the middle instead of their base. It is a mistake Republicans don’t often make.
lol
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
See here’s the problem. The cabs don’t do any of that. They’re supposed to but they don’t.
It wasn’t until Uber entered the market that DC cabs started taking credit cards and otherwise started cleaning up their act. And even then they still refuse to take you to certain parts of the city (illegal), refuse to pick you up because you’re black (illegal), pretend their credit card machine is broken (illegal). Report it? hahahahah like it’ll do anything. The commission does jack and shit.
No love for Uber but the reason they’re so popular in some parts of the country is because the cabs are utter garbage. I’m completely find with Uber dragging cabs kicking and screaming into the 21st century because no one else has been willing to do so.
Also, there’s a lot of conflation between standard Uber black car and UberX. The former are luxury black car drivers working in between gigs. They’re probably better insured, trained and checked than any cabbie. The latter, UberX, is the cheap crazy uninsured crackheads that make cabbies look reliable.
@jibeaux:
It works differently. The rates are on the website and comparable to a taxi (maybe a few dollars more most trips). If you plug your destination into the app, you can get an estimate of how much the ride will cost. If surge pricing is in effect, it indicates how much in bigger flashing text before the vehicle is summoned.
But yes, there are a few drunk morons who mindlessly confirmed everything the app showed them, ended up surprised that they got charged exactly what Uber said they would and ran to the press to complain.
Belafon
@OzarkHillbilly: Saw a poll the other day that said that 60% of Democrats wanted compromise, while roughtly the same percentage of Republicans wanted their representatives to stand by their principles. I’m curious what you think a Democrat is supposed to think when states like generally traditional Democratic states like Massachusetts elect Republican governors.
And California doesn’t count as an example of how Democrats do things right because the one thing the state has gone through is Republicans being in charge and fucking things up.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So this exec at a totally NOT dick wagging named company called “Uber” has a dinner with a bunch of journalists were he threatens to harass journalists, and then is surprised journalists are trashing him in the press. You can tell this guy is a Silicon Valley 1% with that level of lack of empathy.
burnspbesq
@raven:
The thought of Webb as the Democratic nominee is probably the only thing that could increase my enthusiasm for Clinton.
FlipYrWhig
@Elizabelle:
Sure, she _could_, hypothetically, but if she were running for President, she wouldn’t say that any more consistently than Obama himself already does. He mocks and disparages Republicans plenty. Then he says he’d be willing to work with the honest and reasonable ones. That’s how Democratic politics sounds. And, lest we forget, that’s how _George Dubya Fuckin’ Bush_ sounded when he was running; and it’s baked into the cake with John McCain. Republicans scorch the earth. We know that. But even Republicans running for President don’t. It’s unreasonable to fault Obama for not doing more to tear down the other side, something that no one does. And it’s unreasonable to fault Webb for being too much rhetorically like Obama, as though Obama invented it.
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’d like to give him a piece of my mind if you know what I mean.
jibeaux
@lol: fair enough, then.
FlipYrWhig
@OzarkHillbilly: As Belafon points out, Democrats don’t want a partisan campaign. That’s one of the biggest problems with this whole “base” idea that everyone latches onto. The Democratic Party isn’t ideologically uniform, and even the Democratic “base” isn’t ideologically uniform. If you presume it to be so, and design a campaign accordingly, most places you’re going to get smoked, because you’re actively turning off more people than you’re galvanizing. Democratic campaigns sound wishy-washy because Democrats are all over the place. Republicans aren’t. Republicans are lock-step and fueled by rage and resentment. And yet _even their politicians_ make “reasonable” noises when they’re running.
Elizabelle
@FlipYrWhig: Truly curious here.
Was FDR making noise about working with Republicans when they were trying to gut his New Deal programs? Maybe he was.
I remember him for the “I welcome their enmity” rhetoric.
That doesn’t work so well today, when Democrats are trying to welcome the miscreants campaign contributions as well. (“Helloooo, Mr. Dimon,” as Ozark Hillbilly mentions upthread.)
OzarkHillbilly
@Belafon:
Well, for starters, I want them to think like a Democrat, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is not having the balls to stand for something, to actually have some core convictions.
Claire McCaskill is hardly my idea of an ideal Democrat (a blue dog if ever there was one) but she is tuff as nails and willing to fight, dirty if neceassary. She campaigned for Obama in ’08 and didn’t run away from that or the ACA in 2012. Obama lost MO by double digits but McCaskill won handily.
She could not win here in MO if she tried to be the Elizabeth Warren of the Wastelands. But neither could she have won by trying to be Jim Talent lite.
Belafon
@Elizabelle: FDR had supermajorities in both chambers. And his New Deal programs came to a halt when he pissed off conservative Democrats with his comments about packing the Supreme Court.
Paul in KY
@Botsplainer: Good idea.
Belafon
@OzarkHillbilly:
So, she played to the middle-right, which just happens to be her base.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m going to a big Ohio Democratic meeting on Saturday so I will tell them what they should have done.
People love that! :)
Marcy Kaptur is leading it and she’s really a pro- she’s good with cranks- so she’ll shut me down if I go on too long :)
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly:
That is what voters want. For Democrats to grow a pair. And sometimes Democratic women are stronger than their male counterparts there.
And Democratic voters can see it, to some extent, realized with Obama. They heard his words on race in the 2008 election, and he does use his stiletto. They know he’s faced some challenges and issues 43 whitebread presidents did not.
Problem being, he’s a stiletto and elegance up against a political and media environment that is big, badly aimed, out of date cannons. All sorts of noise and smoke.
FlipYrWhig
@Elizabelle: I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that there were very few Republicans to contend with. After the 1934 elections there were 69 Democrats, 2 non-Democratic progressives, and 25 Republicans. With margins like that you can probably dispense with the pleasantries and lip service.
OzarkHillbilly
@FlipYrWhig: Read #99. I think you’ll agree.
Elizabelle
@Belafon: Thank you. I need to read up on FDR and his times.
FlipYrWhig
@Belafon: Exactly. OzarkHillbilly, you’re talking more attitude than ideology. That’s not unreasonable but that wasn’t where you started the conversation, which was with “middle” vs. “base” stuff. As you know, the Democratic “base” is center-right in a lot of states. Center-right with balls is better than center-right without, I suppose, but that’s not going to bring about liberal nirvana–it’s going to bring about center-right-ness.
OzarkHillbilly
@Belafon: Whoosh! You missed the point entirely. The so called** middle right did NOT vote for Obama in 2012 OR ’08. But they did vote for her. AND they knew where she stood on Obama and the ACA.
** I say “so called” only because that is on the left side of the political spectrum here in MO
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Tell her for me too!
Elizabelle
This country is just not working, for too many people, and politeness may be an unaffordable luxury.
Civility, yes. But call malfeasance by its real name.
(And try to get that past the corporate press we have.)
FlipYrWhig
@Elizabelle:
But see Belafon earlier:
Compromise with cojones?
FlipYrWhig
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m very confused about what you think the Democratic base is in MO, then. It still sounds to me like you’re saluting McCaskill’s attitude and personality more than anything else. That’s not determined by her fidelity to her base. Consider Chris Christie, whose attitude allows him to occasionally be out of step with his party’s base.
Elizabelle
@FlipYrWhig:
Actually, you are on to something.
Belafon
@FlipYrWhig: If you think about the way most people in this country pay attention – look down for 23 – or sometimes 47 – months and then look up long enough to vote, the way things work out for Democrats makes more sense. We Democrats do believe that it takes a lot of ideas to come up with a solution, while a lot of Republicans want a single authority to make it. So, when Democrats look up, and no ones agreeing, they start wondering why our side isn’t compromising just so that things get done.
And, for the record, just because I know this is how things work doesn’t mean I like it.
OzarkHillbilly
@FlipYrWhig: I am not defining the “base” as in each state it is different. AL Grimes probably would have lost to McConnell no matter what, but Kentuckians would remember her far differently, and respect her far more, if she had just up and said, “Yes, I voted for Obama, and I was proud too.” and then gone on to explain why (the stump speech writes itself) She might even have energized enuf Kentucky Dems to win. I doubt it (as in really doubt it), but maybe. As is, I suspect her political career is done because Kentucky Dems have lost all respect for her.
I certainly would never vote for her.
FlipYrWhig
@Elizabelle: There IS the whole mythology of “driving a hard bargain” and so forth. Hard to own that proudly, though, because every compromise means, by nature, concessions, givebacks, and small defeats. But you’re right that there doesn’t need to be a gulf between “I’ll fight for you” and “I’ll drive a hard bargain for you.”
FlipYrWhig
@OzarkHillbilly: Bah. I didn’t have a front-row seat but from what I could tell she skewered McConnell daily. That was a lousy moment, and she was distancing herself from Obama, but her problem definitely wasn’t that she was running as McConnell Lite. She ran with attitude and fighting spirit, like what you were saying you wanted. She didn’t cringe or cower or blur the differences between herself and her opponent. She’s ideologically not what I’d wish for, but the other components are certainly there. It didn’t work, but not for lack of trying something pretty close to what you were just advocating.
OzarkHillbilly
@FlipYrWhig: No, I respect courage of her convictions. Convictions that overlap my own in some significant areas if not all. In ’03 Jeanne Carnahan, who got her seat after her dead husband was elected, (I VOTED FOR THE DEAD GUY!!) (still kinda proud of that) voted for the Iraq invasion. Why? for the same reason every other Dem who voted for it did: Political expediency. I lost all respect for her and when it came time to vote for that Senate seat in ’04, I left that part of my ballot blank.
Jim Talent won. He at least seemed to believe in something (not that I would ever vote for anyone like him), who knew what Carnahan believed in anymore.
Belafon
@OzarkHillbilly: I suspect the dive in support for Grimes was the same one we saw when Stephen Colbert’s sister ran against Mark Sanford, where she had a lot of support until right at the end, when people started realizing that an actual election was coming up. I don’t think Grimes would have won, but yes, she totally whiffed on her handling of that question.
Paul in KY
@FlipYrWhig: It should be phrased as “I’m willing to work with Republicans, if they’re willing to work with us. I will not waste my time, though”
OzarkHillbilly
@FlipYrWhig: Like I said, she probably would have lost anyway, and I did not have a ringside seat either, but that became the defining moment of her campaign. When the low info voter walked into the voting booth, that was what they remembered. And when the already overstressed, too busy Dem voter was trying to decide if they had the time to go to the polls or not, they too remembered.
Paul in KY
@Elizabelle: I think it would work today. It would emphasize why they hate him/her (because that person is working for the 99%) and would show that you are proud of the job/principles you have.
PurpleGirl
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
@raven:
@Schlemazel:
Thank you all for your answers. I’m late getting back to you because I fell asleep after I wrote my comment.
Maybe because I live in NYC where we have street taxis and car services, I’m not impressed with the ride-share idea. There is a car service I call on regular basis when I need a ride and since the City began the Green taxis for the outer boroughs, it’s easier to get a street hail.
Paul in KY
@FlipYrWhig: FDR wasn’t particularly talking about the Senators, etc. He was talking about their Republican plutocrat overlords.
Morzer
@Elizabelle:
I will tell you that there have been howls of rage and demands for a retrial and the death penalty from many of the families of the people (mostly kids) who died in the disaster. It’s pretty clear that the owners of the company/ferry were crooks, while the captain of the ferry was incompetent at best.
Morzer
@Belafon:
I wasn’t much impressed with what I saw of Grimes as a speaker. Lots of attack lines yelled out one after the other, but not too much that you could point to and say “That’s a great idea and we need to get this woman elected.” There’s a point where negativity about the opponent ceases to reap dividends and starts to get people thinking “Is that all you’ve got to offer me?”
FlipYrWhig
@OzarkHillbilly:
Of course the alternative is that the low info voter walks into the voting booth and chiefly remembers that the pretty white lady really likes the shifty black President.
@Paul in KY: Fine by me. Obama says pretty much that every time he addresses the subject. That hasn’t stopped our side from tearing into him every time he does, because he’s a weakling and a compromiser and thinks Republicans are reasonable when they aren’t ARRGGH ACKTHPHT
FlipYrWhig
@Morzer:
Does it? Republicans ran on nothing but that and cleaned up.
Paul in KY
@FlipYrWhig: I think he needs to address their crazy obstructionism more directly. He beats around the bush a little (IMO).
Some of the stuff Colbert & Stewart skewer can be restated and be very stark & hard hitting.
PurpleGirl
@PurpleGirl: I also guess the Uber and Lyft idea doesn’t do anything for me is that I’m an old. So I’m an old who lives in NYC with street hail cabs and car services I can call to order a car by phone. I guess I’m not the demographic that Uber and Lyft are aiming for.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Uber is the Airbnb of taxi service.
My dream is to see Airbnb sued out of existence. The risks they expose their customers – both renters and landlords – to is unconscionable.
dance around in your bones
@Elizabelle: Ok, I love the TCM movies, and I watch it FAR more often than any other channel…….but???? a TCM tattoo?
That’s just not right.
Morzer
@FlipYrWhig:
We underestimate the appeal of the GOP’s talk of freedom and resistance to tyranny. Is it hogwash? Yes, objectively – but it tells a story that voters can get excited by, however much damage they may be doing to their own lives in the process. As for the message from Democrats as a party, damned if I know what it was, other than an occasional tepid snuffling of “The GOP are crazy.” True enough – but it’s not going to win anyone over. If people think that neither party is going to help them, they might as well vote for the party that tells them that government is their problem, rather than their own various failings and follies. It doesn’t help that so many people have seen flat or falling wages – and yet they are being told that the economy is fine and recovery is ongoing. What message were we offering that could win over red state voters? I honestly don’t know that we even made an effort to craft one.
Paul in KY
@PurpleGirl: Need to have a superphone ™, loaded with apps & shit (I guess).
Paul in KY
@CONGRATULATIONS!: You know what I hate about airbnb? Getting a room is like dating.
You need a video & then you have to write a nice note, selling yourself. I think they can legally discriminate, so it isn’t 1st come, 1st served. It’s who they think is the coolest or whatever the Hell the ‘renter’ is looking for. Very maddening to me.
Gene108
@Kay:
The Democratic base is, unfortunately broad, and does not agree on many things.
For example, feminists complain about cat-calls from construction workers. Construction workers are part of the labor vote Democrats want to attract on thei economic policies.
Maybe not a great example above, but many unions want the a Keystone XL pipeline built and do not care much for environmentalists.
Sort of like the Spotted Owl was used as a wedge issue to turn labor against environmentalists – both part of the Democratic coalition – a generation ago.
The Republicans have only two components to their base. The Fundies, who want to ban abortion, have Christian prayer in schools, and generally increase the roll of their Church in everyday life, which is why they oppose things like SNAP, because they’d rather have their churches have that kind of power.
And the Hedge Fund managers, who are rich and ensconced in socially liberal-ish enclaves like Silicon Valley, San Francisco and the greater New York area, who only care about making more money and paying less in taxes and realize (a) the Fundies social backwardness is confined to the West and South and (b) even if it creeped into their blue heaven they have the money to be above it all.
The real downside to the GOP narrow focus is, if more than 35% do people can be bothered to vote, they will go down in flames, but so far their calculated gamble is paying off.
FlipYrWhig
@Morzer: I don’t think anyone’s voting on messages or being persuaded, which is the problem. Republicans captured the vote of the old and angry, thanks to Fox News’s relentless hell-in-a-handbasket-ism, and rode that to victory. They didn’t say what they would do or what they were for, just that they would oppose Obama, and that was enough. It was substanceless. The sad reality is that Democrats, except for obsessives like us, really only care who’s President and sit out non-Presidential elections.
I know you know this, but it’s not like there’s a blank slate every cycle and voters wait to hear from both sides, then make a concerted effort to choose. Persuadables are dwindling. Old people vote, and nowadays they vote Republican. Not enough non-old people vote. The way to make non-voters vote isn’t through a message that no one has ever heard before. But no strategist really knows what that way is, and the only one who’s cracked it lately is Obama, and it hasn’t worked for anyone who isn’t Obama. Unfortunately, the killer app isn’t a killer message, it’s a killer candidate. So I think it’d be great for Democrats to have A Message, but I don’t think it was lack of A Message that led to losses. I guess it depends on what the meaning of “message” is.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@lol: I have to say that I obviously haven’t kept up with the issue as much as you (it’s been years since I’ve been in a DC cab except for a ride from DCA (and they’re regulated by a different outfit, I assume)). Thanks for the info on the Uber/UberX distinction.
However, aren’t the issues you raised a sign that the DC Taxi Commission is not doing its job? I’m very uncomfortable with the idea that the “magic of the marketplace” is going to solve these problems.
It looks like Maryland has been having issues with Uber as well…
tldr; I’m not claiming that there aren’t issues with DC taxis or the DC Taxi Commission. I don’t think we should take at face-value that Uber/Lyft/etc. are the solution though.
Cheers,
Scott.
FlipYrWhig
@Gene108: There’s also what Davis X. Machina has called the “one-truck contractors.” “Hard-working white people,” as the phrase goes, who work for themselves. They’re a very important and influential Republican constituency. They see themselves as independent strivers, hate government regulations and taxes, don’t like competition from people of color, don’t like elitists and busybodies and meddlers. They’re the ones who get worked up by soda taxes and the War on Christmas and OSHA and tree-huggers and gun control, and used to get worked up by gay marriage.
Elizabelle
@Morzer: That’s right. You have a front and center seat.
I am glad to see the accountability, and the public acknowledgement of rot and corruption.
gene108
@FlipYrWhig:
Like abortion, we should not rest easy now that courts are legalizing gay marriage. The Fundies have not changed their minds about the issue and they will look to claw back gains made by “others”.
Sound like small business owners, who could not expand their business and are looking for someone else to blame.
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
I made the mistake of reading comments at the Washington Post the other day and was depressed as hell by one of those guys, who apparently has cancer but prefers to spend every penny he has on treatment and stop treatment when he runs out of money rather than buy some freakin’ health insurance, which he regards as a handout. IOW, he prefers to leave his wife and son impoverished and fatherless than get health insurance.
I have no idea how you even reach someone like that. They’re obviously well beyond any kind of rational argument.
Keith G
@FlipYrWhig:
The use of mockery and disparagement is a very hipster thing to do. What is needed is a full frontal assult on the horrible ideas that are causing damage to so many Americans.
I think the disengagement on the part of so many from the Democratic Party is in part a result of them feeling that they really don’t have a champion who is going to fully commit to fight against those things that are continually hurting them.
lol
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
All I know is that even when it was just the *more expensive* (and probably more regulated) Uber Black Car, taxis were screaming bloody murder about “unfair competition”. Think about that, people in DC were willing to pay *more money* for substantially better service and the cabs thought that was “unfair”.
Uber has forced a lot of positive change. Credit card readers are finally mandatory after years and years of being postponed for bullshit reasons though drivers will still frequently pull “the machine is broken” scam. Cabs still discriminate against minorities and they still refuse to take people to certain parts of the city. But the taxi commission is finally taking note. They know the public has no patience for them and they’re getting pressure from the council.
FlipYrWhig
@Keith G: 60% of Democrats say you’re wrong, because they support the idea of compromising with the other party. See above. “Fighting” is an answer in search of a question. It always has been. Maybe it’d be good, but not because it’s what some large group of people actively misses and wants.
Tree With Water
Franken is grandstanding. He could investigate any major corporation on the planet and unearth far more disturbing information than anything Uber offers up, and he knows it. Nothing wrong with it, mind you. Uber rates having a spotlight thrown on it. But it’s still grandstanding.