NEW: NYT columnist David Brooks draws a second salary for leading an Aspen Institute project funded by Facebook, Jeff Bezos’ dad, & others. He didn’t disclose this to readers. The Times refused to say if the paper was aware of Brooks’ second salary: https://t.co/7WN3zrtrKp
— Craig Silverman (@CraigSilverman) March 3, 2021
Professional ethics are for the little people, eh, Mr. Brooks?…
At the Applebee’s salad bar, these men with younger wives discuss the importance of David Brooks being given a mulligan for this one. https://t.co/YMLPhylfXu
— Jeff Fecke (@jkfecke) March 4, 2021
Along with columns about Weave, Brooks published Times columns that mention Facebook, its founder Mark Zuckerberg, and the company’s products without disclosing his financial ties to the social networking giant.
— Craig Silverman (@CraigSilverman) March 3, 2021
here’s some of the ways he responded: called the reporter ‘totally unethical,’ asked ‘if this was the way you want to start your career’ and told him he wasn’t ‘acting in the spirit of an honest reporter’
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) March 4, 2021
this seems like an open-and-shut violation of what i have to assume is NYT internal company policy. not that i think that will actually dictate whether any action is taken. https://t.co/ZX0XSijNw0
— cobras for alligators scheme machine (@golikehellmachi) March 4, 2021
i’m a broken record here, but most of the NYTs problems are not editorial in nature, they’re managerial. the editorial problems are downstream from the managerial ones.
— cobras for alligators scheme machine (@golikehellmachi) March 4, 2021
bit worried about Brooks’ upcoming title WHY NOT TO MURDER PEOPLE AND LEAVE THEIR BODIES IN THE SWAMP https://t.co/0IuGE1dlaD
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) March 4, 2021
debbie
One would have to be pretty stupid not to tell your employer about an outside job. Where I work, it would result in instant dismissal for violating the Code of Conduct.
debbie
@debbie:
Look at me! Frist and second!
Kropacetic
The race for most objectionable NYT columnist heats up…!
Mo Salad
Delete.
AndyG
I’m just going to leave this recent Brooks column here and walk away. The title says it all..
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/opinion/inequality-medicine-law.html
craigie
Nevermind.
A Ghost to Most
FTFNYT. And Bobo twice. Read WaPo.
mrmoshpotato
@Kropacetic: Fuck ’em!
Nicole
Ugh. David Brooks was one of those columnists that, about 5-10 years ago, friends on FB (natch) LOVED to link to, with, “I’m not a conservative but this is really smart-” and it was never smart and (to borrow from John Rogers) I always felt like Kevin McCarthy in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, screaming “CAN’T YOU SEE IT?”
Jeffro
Unfortunately Brooks is far too well aligned with the NYTs long-time subtly pro-GQP ethos, so I have no doubt that he and they will just shrug it off.
it’s funny, I haven’t actually read any of his columns in a few months. Too predictable, and there is enough to be outraged about as it is.
dmsilev
@debbie: Yeah, no kidding. I have to, every year, fill out a long form informing my employer of anything that could even potentially be a conflict of interest. And it’s the sort of thing that they have very little sense of humor about.
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
Never really found him to be worth worrying about one way or another. He’s just an empty buffet station.
Roger Moore
@debbie:
I think a lot of newspaper columnists are expected to do other opinonating on the side. So, for example, Brooks has a column at NYT, but he also appears on NPR and PBS and writes books. I don’t know if he has to get permission to do all those things or if he’s just allowed to hustle as much as he wants as long as he turns his columns in on time. It’s also likely that a big name like Brooks gets more leeway than a rookie would.
japa21
@debbie:
Careful, Steve in WTF will be after you.
Baud
I guess I should disclose to you all that I’m on the payroll of Piggly Wiggly. I would like to assure you all that this relationship played no influence of my criticism of Kroger’s.
Also, too, the NYT is garbage.
debbie
@dmsilev:
We have yearly training on this. They present all kinds of scenarios and then ask if you think it would be permitted. The quickest way to get through the hourlong training (my record is 12 minutes) is to click “No, it would not be permitted” every single time.
debbie
@japa21:
I share his sentiment, but it was just too irresistible. Literally.
Kropacetic
The only reason I found Brooks somewhat more tolerable than other NYT conservatives was that he often spoke of building and maintaining communities. That’s at least a reasonable value I can latch onto.
Then again, see above re: preaching social cohesion while taking pay from FB. Bonus points: AndyG’s article that seems to prize the pursuit of money above all else.
debbie
@Roger Moore:
It’s the “leading the project” that caught my eye. That seems like something that should be shared with management.
Nutmeg again
Adultery and cheating on your wife of xx decades is expensive. Trying to front with a baby-wife downgrade, in a new religion no less, is expensive. Buying that big fancy house for parties (uh-oh) is expensive. Wow this complete personal makeover and what? personality breakdown, was expensive. Lying about his side hustle is just par for the course with this spineless gasbag.
NotMax
@Nicole
Brooks has somehow carved out a career consisting of rewriting the same 3 or 4 columns over and over and over again.
Timurid
Jesus Christ. People were speculating about Sinema’s mental health earlier, but Manchin is having a full on psychotic break this evening.
steppy
Isn’t this what “blogger ethics panel” was defined for? Isn’t that how old I am?
Baud
@Timurid:
What happened with Sinema and Manchin?
Darkrose
@Roger Moore: I’ve noticed that WaPo columnists (the ones that I read, at least), disclose their outside affiliations. Jennifer Rubin always mentions that she’s an MSNBC contributor. I think it’s also company policy to note that they’re owned by Bezos when they’re writing about Amazon.
japa21
@debbie: I also share it and I understand the temptation, figuratively.
Freemark
@Baud:
He’s been trying to make the Democrats look like idiots. Keeps demanding aid reduction, gets it, then demands some more. Doing his best to turn a victory and needed aid to a loss and less aid. Considering his state really wants it with more aid he appears to be mentally deficient.
Baud
@Freemark:
I haven’t seen any news on it. What aid did he cut besides the stimulus?
Timurid
@Baud: Sinema, earlier today. Manchin is apparently threatening to withhold his vote for the stimulus unless the Democrats agree to at least one and possibly multiple amendments proposed by GOP senators. They involve reducing the unemployment benefits and the tax exemptions for those benefits included in the bill.
Baud
@Timurid: Ok, that was weird.
Where would the money go? The amount of the spending is fixed.
Cacti
@Baud: Not sure about Manchin. Sinema is taking some deserved heat for not just voting against the minimum wage increase, but giving a theatrical thumbs down when doing so.
CaseyL
I read Bobos in Paradise when it came out, and thought it was a hoot. On the basis of that, I was inclined to give Brooks-the-columnist a read, but whatever points he’d earned from amusing me with the book soon died under the onslaught of his smug ignorance.
And then I saw him on a few talk shows, back when I watched TV news, and he sounded to me like a child molester. That almost-monotonal, mild, soporific voice gave me a horrid case of the creeps. Haven’t watched him, read him, or had any positive feelings for him since.
(And I had no idea Bobos in Paradise was mostly, if not all, made up. Figures.)
Bill Arnold
@Timurid:
Does he (seriously) expect to gain 1 or more Republican Senator votes?
Baud
@Cacti:
Just saw the video. Looks like she’s trying to mimic McCain and the ACA vote, although the context is the opposite.
Kent
@AndyG: That actually wasn’t a bad column and rang pretty true. He’s written much worse.
tokyokie
Several years ago, while I was still working as a newspaper copy editor, I wrote a piece for an obscure website about a couple of Seijun Suzuki films making their debuts on home video. It was for a different medium, headquartered two time zones away, and it covered a couple of films about which the newspaper would have no interest because Suzuki films are far outside the cultural mainstream, even in Japan. And I worked for free to help out a friend.
A few days after the piece showed up online, the newsroom staff received a memo restating the need to obtain prior approval for all work done for publications other than the newspaper and that ALL other media outlets should be considered competitors.
Different rules for different fools, I guess.
Cacti
@Baud: McCain’s vote was to spite Trump, but had the side effect of actually helping people.
Not sure what Sinema thinks she’s accomplishing here.
patrick II
Brooks just didn’t want to sound too boastful about his Aspen Institute project, after all, he taught a class named “Humility” at Yale a few years back, featuring the analysis of a few deeply insightful David Brooks columns.
Baud
@Cacti:
Me either. That was nuts.
Poe Larity
Why hasn’t the Ombudsperson been called?
patrick II
John Cole has, in the past, been respectful of Manchin’s need to vote against some Democratic bills because Democrat from WV, but voting D when the vote was important or needed. I wonder what he is thinking now?
Baud
@Timurid:
I don’t understand this. Do amendments require 60 votes? Machin can otherwise pass any GOP amendment by voting with them on it.
debbie
@Timurid:
That was unseemly.
Old School
Per Atrios:
Mary G
Wasn’t it here where someone would write long outraged condemnations of David Brooks’ columns? Tom maybe?
Subsole
@Cacti: Is it possible she’s just weird?
Like, I get nerves are raw, but it just seemed an eccentricity.
Manchin, on the other hand, I am starting to suspect is an actual goddamned Republican mole.
Baud
The Machin thing is wierd. I found this giving a run down. Possibly resolvable.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a35745785/kyrsten-sinema-vote-against-15-dollar-minimum-wage/
Subsole
@Poe Larity: It’s Pinche Sulzberger’s NYT.
The ombudsman is Twitter dot com.
Mary G
Wasn’t it here where someone would write long outraged condemnations of David Brooks’ columns? Tom maybe?
The LOOK AT ME, I’M A CONTRARIAN senator from WV has graciously folded after agreeing with some GOP amendments:
Roger Moore
@debbie:
My gut feeling is that management either knew or didn’t want to know; this isn’t something he was carefully hiding from them. Management is just fine with columnists like Brooks doing things at the Aspen Ideas Festival or whatever. Maybe they will have problems with him taking money from companies and organizations he gives favorable treatment in his columns, but I doubt it. FTFNYT management wouldn’t know ethics if it hit them in the face.
Baud
@Mary G:
I don’t know what Manchin gets out of nickel and diming this bill, but it doesn’t sound like an awful change. Just annoying.
Mary G
@Roger Moore: Totebaggers love him, so he probably screams about how he’s going to complain on PBS, and all his fans will cancel their FTFNYT subscriptions.
Mary G
@Baud: Power has gone to his head.
ETA: His word salad explanation:
Freemark
@Baud:
That is completely right. If any Democrat sides with the Republicans their amendment gets added. But then it becomes more difficult to get passed in the House immediately. There would have to be another negotiation and go through this process again.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Maybe it’s performance art for voters back in WV?
dmsilev
Here’s what the Post has:
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Subsole:
Who NYT management and reporters freely ignore
Ken
If we’re going to misspell the one, we should misspell the two too. I suggest “seconal”.
realbtl
I’m waiting for Moral Hazard to weigh in on Brooks.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I just don’t understand who the constituency is other than people who like seeing Dems annoyed.
But that might be a big constituency in WV.
Subsole
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): WV peeps, where you at?
Subsole
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Almost as if…
Subsole
@Ken: Sectional!
waratah
@Mary G: I could not find out what happened when the voting stopped. I checked here and nothing. I told myself I bet that someone forgot to wash Manchins feet. Sure enough.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
He would be an empty buffet station if he wasn’t published in the FTFNYT. And of course it isn’t his being there that makes it anything, he’s a worse than useless hack, no doubt about that, but a recognized, worse than useless hack.
BC in Illinois
The United States Senate:
The World’s Greatest Deliberative BodyA Not-Insignificant Deliberative BodyOne of the World’s Deliberative BodiesAn Occasionally Deliberative BodyBaud
When is the final vote?
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Even repeatedly. Which it should be doing. Not that it would help.
zhena gogolia
@Jeffro:
Only a few months?
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
I don’t believe The NYT can or should hide from Brooks openly promoting his Aspen Institute side gig, which pays him a salary, in his column. Aside from being a sacking offence at most employers, such a blatant conflict of interest affects The NYT’s credibility.
Baud
On TV, they are saying AZ has a $12 minimum wage already.
cope
@Mary G: Charles Pierce used to skewer Brooks with regular columns. Brooks was almost always accompanied in these pieces by his loyal Irish setter Moral Hazard.
Mary G
I might be going to Disneyland in the fall or summer:
Not that I love Disneyland for itself, but my grandmother loved the Tiki Room and my mom and I would sit on a bench and people watch while Grandma sat through five or six showings in a row of singing bird puppets. It will feel like normal life is resuming plus not too crowded.
debbie
@Mary G:
DougJ?
waratah
@Baud: They are supposed to be having a lot of amendments to the bill now with the Republicans trying to get some awful things passed and I think Manchin signaled he was going to vote for a Republican one on unemployment benefits.
zhena gogolia
@Roger Moore:
I can’t imagine they don’t have a rule that they have to disclose the other income, even for the big shots.
Baud
@waratah:
Sounds like they worked it out.
Guests on Chris Hayes saying the same thing we are. Manchin is playing small ball for the drama.
zhena gogolia
@Mary G:
I’d guess DougJ.
NeenerNeener
@Mary G: I know Driftglass has devoted entire blog posts to taking down Brooks at his site, but I don’t remember anyone here doing it.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
I think NYT has a gigantic blind spot about the kind of conflict of interest Brooks is engaged in. They just don’t seem to care as long as he keeps getting engagement.
Roger Moore
@NeenerNeener:
Tom Levenson has spent a lot of time dissecting Brooks columns here. I think he finally gave up on it, but he certainly did it.
Suzanne
@Mary G: I adore the Tiki Room, and the last time I went to Disneyland, it was closed for renovation. I will have to make a trip back.
guachi
It’s kinda sad Manchin is being such a huge dick on something so small.
Jay
NoMoreMisterNice.Blog used to regularly eviscerate Brooks and Family.
Yutsano
85 comments in and no one is thinking he’s also hiding this income from the IRS as well?
Just Some Fuckhead
Kudos to this antifa guy who was so deep cover he got appointed by Trump to a position in the White House.
Jeffro
@Brachiator: I never worry about his extremely predictable ideas…I worry about his ‘appeal’, similar to what Nicole noted in #9
Come on NYT, are there no interesting 30-somethings out there who could use a little extra dough?
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
There is only so much that can be said about Brooks’ combo platter of ignorance, smugness, hypocrisy, muddled thinking, and sloppy writing. And once you’ve said all of it, you start repeating yourself.
Jeffro
@Freemark: trying for Blue Dog of the Century or something? Jesus.
This bill is popular as all hell. God forbid our blessed D Senators would have to stand up for something needed, but not entirely popular.
Yutsano
@Amir Khalid: You actually make tire rims and anthrax sound palatable…
Jeffro
@BC in Illinois:
Like an appendix, only less even less useful.
Morzer
The NYT can waste millions on empty suits like Brooks – but they can’t make me read that drivel.
Jeffro
@zhena gogolia: yes…I think I stopped even clicking on his stuff (much less getting wound up, parsing his nonsense, etc) back around September.
Oh wait that was a half year ago. Several months ;)
Lapassionara
@Jay: where are the blogs of yesteryear?
Ken
@Jeffro: The appendix may serve a minor function, as a kind of “refuge” for good gut bacteria during infections with bad bacteria. After everything, ah, passes the good bacteria re-colonize your colon. Turning this into an analogy for the Senate is left as an exercise for the reader.
TriassicSands
@A Ghost to Most:
I think the political reporting at the Post is better than that at the Times (retire Dean Baquet!), but the Post has several regular opinion columnists that are worse — much worse — than anyone on the Times opinion pages. Times “conservative” columnists seem to lean toward the pretentious and annoying (Brooks, Douthat, and Stephens.), while the Post’s are just flat out right-wing assholes. (Right-wing “nutjobs” seems wholly inadequate for Hewitt, Thiessen, and Olsen.)
One major reason why I maintain a subscription to the Times is for all the things that are not political reporting. In that regard, the Times outshines the Post.
For what it’s worth, I think that on the opinion pages, Krugman is as good or better than anyone writing for the Post.
JanieM
@BC in Illinois: From a column by George Will (of all people, but I’m sure I saw it only because someone here linked to it):
(My bold.) That last sentence, starting with “Praying,” is one of my all-time favorite op-ed sentences.
PsiFighter37
Both Brooks and Maureen Dowd are long past their sell-by date. Honestly, even Bret Stephens has his head up his ass far less than Brooksie does.
As for Maureen Dowd, they should can her. Gail Collins is about as much of the ‘witty liberalism’ I can take from the NYT editorial pages, and even then, she is far more thoughtful than Dowd.
Gvg
I think the NYT probability approves of him appearing on PBS and other shows as it raises his profile and probably gets some people to read them because they liked him on TV.
Abbot this latest gig,…it occurs to me to wonder if management and ownership are also not disclosing conflict of interests. They always seem to be acting against the interests of much of their readership. Oh, well, I guess we will see what comes next.
Pete Downunder
With regard to The Land of the Mouse, amazingly some people over the age of 10 enjoy it. I had a secretary years ago, a sensible woman of some years and probably the best secretary I have ever had, who just loved Disneyland and would go every chance she could. I just loathed every time I was conned into going as an adult and my view is that it is so bad you could use it to interrogate prisoners of war except that it would be banned by the Geneva Convention. If he won’t talk run him through It’s a Small World a few more times. They always crack after that.
PsiFighter37
@Gvg: The NYT editorial board is mostly* filled with people who are looking after their own self-interest and long ago stopped caring about what the little people thought. How else do you explain endorsing 2 Democrats in the 2020 primary…and then making a fucking documentary out of it to boot?
*Asterisk here because I went to school with a current EB member, and she was / is stellar.
Sure Lurkalot
Charlie Pierce had some epic posts about Bobo before he seemed to yield the floor to Driftglass. Another: http://yastreblyansky.blogspot.com/ is worth perusal from time to time.
TriassicSands
@PsiFighter37:
It always amazes me to recall that Dowd won a Pulitzer in 1999 (Distinguished Commentary) and was a finalist (National Reporting in 1992). I haven’t read (suffered through) a Dowd column in ages, but I found links to the columns for which she won her Pulitzer and I may try reading them to see if she was ever any good. Then again, do I really want to…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@PsiFighter37: I was hoping Pierce would bestir himself to take Dowd down a few pegs after she declared herself the Watcher on the Wall last week (yeah, I know I’m mixing pop-culture sources, I’ve never actually seen the Cruise Nicholson movie, Cruise grates on me), but apparently he’d rather watch Marquette U basketball. She’s such a spectral media presence in spite of her prime real estate that once the Peter Bakers had retweeted her, everybody went back to ignoring her
catclub
@Baud:
I guess I should disclose to you all that I’m on the payroll of Piggly Wiggly.
The absolute best Piggly Wiggly related story I know is this:
A Jitney Jingle was the tune the jitney bus/tolley played. New grocery store puts out ad flyers with Jitney Jungle, oops!,
and that is their name today.
Lyrebird
@debbie:
Memories!!! In my old job I was grateful we had those trainings set up where you could skip the video so long as you clicked the right answers, now it’s timed and even logs you out if you have a different browser window in the foreground, ugh. Same darn videos every year, too, so now I play them on mute and do laundry.
Bobo Brooks, though,
I don’t know how to get my older relatives to stop finding him so persuasive. UGH.
TriassicSands
@PsiFighter37:
It always amazes me to recall that Dowd won a Pulitzer in 1999 (Distinguished Commentary) and was a finalist (National Reporting in 1992). I haven’t read (suffered through) a Dowd column in ages, but I found links to the columns for which she won her Pulitzer and I may try reading them to see if she was ever any good. Then again, do I really want to…
catclub
@Jeffro:
Obama invited Brooks to opine at him. Makes me respect Obama much less.
catclub
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I am still betting he filled out his time card and said he was at work – which is another fraud on the USG
azlib
AZ’s minimum wage is $12.15
Jay
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/David_Brooks
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
Tom Levenson was good about dissecting his articles to show how his rhetoric worked and where he was sneaking in hidden assumptions he could then use to draw his desired conclusions. He’s actually pretty good at slipping things by an unwary reader, and having someone show exactly how he was pulling it off was very useful.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Amir Khalid
@Lyrebird:
Brooks is often thought of as an Old himself, but he looks older than he is. He is in fact a week younger than Barack Obama — date of birth 11th August 1961. The last time I mentioned this, the jackaltariat were astounded.
Jay
JWR
Wow. Just now on PBS Snooze Hour, David Brooks gets a question from Judy Woodruf, of all people, about Weave. His voice was shaking. I couldn’t tell if he was pissed about being asked about it, or if he was just being incredibly defensive. And even after Woodruf consoled him by telling him that his was such a wonderful voice to have on, he could barely get out a “thank you” for all the shaking going on. Very weird.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@TriassicSands:
it would be a waste of time. she got her pulitzer for raggin on Clinton’s penis.
it’s mind numbing how obsessed they were with Clinton’s sex life.
Lying about a war that killed 600,000 civilians, that’s okay.
Torture, that’s okay
putting children in cages, that’s okay.
consensual sex by a democrat outside of marriage, DEFCON 1
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
Noted. I’ll add mendacity to Bobo’s list of sins.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: I believe that he may have been a classmate of respected commenter Another Scott at U of C.
Jay
Brachiator
@Jay:
There is a video or Gif of her giving her thumbs down. She does a little dip at the knees as she does the thumbs down with a flourish.
I recall when McCain did his gesture to save Obamacare, no one thought his moves were gendered. And people seem to be upset at Sinema’s vote, nothing more.
AnotherBruce
@Mary G: Looks good to me. Instead of $1400. It’s a steady spigot of money, instead of a one off. The first part of the deal is tax exempted.
Jay
@Brachiator:
her “spokesperson” is flinging monkey poo to distract from her assholeness, and hiding behind gender.
Yutsano
@AnotherBruce: It’s not going to last very long. Remember: this benefit is on top of what the unemployed would normally get in the state. So if we’re talking Alabama’s max benefit of $285, that’s now $585 a week. The non-taxable benefit would deplete pretty fast.
James E Powell
@Baud:
It just might be that he is an asshole.
I have remarked in other comments on this subject that these people who object should support Biden and collect an IOU. Tonight, as I drained my second glass of wine, it occurred to me that maybe Biden isn’t giving out IOUs. Maybe he told Manchin and others, look, I need your vote and I’m offering nothing. I mean, it’s possible he’s trying to avoid an open market free for all.
James E Powell
@azlib:
Flagstaff’s minimum wage went up to $15 on January 1, 2021.
stacib
@Cacti: I didn’t see it myself, but my daughter says she also specifically got McConnell’s attention before she did it. Needless to say, my kid is livid. My assumption, she was “pulling a McCain”.
Jay
@James E Powell:
Biden’s been in the IOU/Earmark business for decades.
It’s much more likely that Manchin isn’t in the IOU Business anymore after the Former Guys one term.
Brachiator
@Baud:
I don’t know what Manchin gets out of nickel and diming this bill, but it doesn’t sound like an awful change. Just annoying.
There is this paragraph in a CNN story on the Senate debate:
But you are right. Aside from a power flex and a pointless delay, there is not much here.
And I don’t know how voters will react to this, or if they will even remember it, but there have been all kinds of related stories about how the bill helps fewer people than earlier relief bills.
The revisions have been minor. And what is there offers a tremendous amount of help overall. But some in the press are hot to try to make it look as though Biden did not do enough, and the senators who insisted on tinkering with the bill didn’t help things.
The Fat White Duchess
@Amir Khalid: Anyone who thinks the NYT still has credibility probably takes ho issue with Brooks.
I’m reading the WaPo these days, but I do wish they would get rid of Thiessen and Hewitt. And I post a complaint in the comments section almost every time I catch a column by either of them. (I think there’s a third member of that club, but I can’t remember who and am too lazy to track down the name.)
The Fat White Duchess
@TriassicSands: Olsen, yes. Thank you.
AnotherBruce
@Yutsano: It’s 6 months more or less. Maybe 5 months because it is unknown how soon the money will be distributed. It’s more money. $6900. Again Thats an estimate. It runs out in September.
Jay
Ivan X
I just assume Manchin is enjoying being what he imagines to be some kind of kingmaker role. Being pointlessly obstructionist against our side keeps his name in the headlines. I think the same applies to Sinema, though I think she also has some mavericky identity thing going on.
NoraLenderbee
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I wish he would wink or cross his fingers or something when he does it. I’m tired of having a near-stroke every time Joe Freakin Manchin opens his mouth.
Jay
@AnotherBruce:
Covid’s not going to be over by September,
Jobs arn’t going to be back by September.
There will be a repeat of this shit show starting all over again in May/June.
NotMax
Haven’t seen it mentioned that early voting for the two different special elections to fill House seats from Louisiana begins tomorrow.
5th district almost certain to stay R, 2nd district to stay D. With so many names on each ballot, probably both will go to runoffs in late April.
2nd district has 8 Democrats, 4 Republicans, 2 Independents, and one Libertarian running.
5th district has 9 Republicans, 1 Democrat and 2 Independents running.
Villago Delenda Est
@The Fat White Duchess: Thiessen and Hewit should both be exiled to the moons of Meepzorp.
Subsole
@James E Powell:
WHO.
RUN.
BARTERTOWN?
Subsole
@Brachiator: Yep.
That’s the problem. Our bullshit press is working to demoralize our coalition, and these dipshits are feeding them ammo.
Amir Khalid
@The Fat White Duchess:
Being a one-time journo myself, I tend to grant any media org a presumption of credibility. That said, I do agree that on that score The NYT‘s account is sometimes overdrawn.
stacib
@Yutsano: Will the $10k be applied to 2020 taxes or 2021? Considering the $600 bump people got for four months last year, most of that benefit will already be used, and folks will still have big tax bills from all of the other UI they collected.
NotMax
@NotMax
Somehow omitted that the date for both elections is March 20. If no one exceeds 50%, then a runoff for the two top finishers held on April 24.
AnotherBruce
@Jay: I’m aware of that. And so?
RaflW
So the right can get a person fired seemingly at will for shit far less unethical than this. What are we going to do to get BoBo out of his NYT sinecure?
Oh, and while we’re at it, we should be writing to Nice Polite Republicans to demand a review of all the times Brooks has spoken kindly of Facebook, Zuck, etc in his weekly Friday ‘both sides’ segment on NPR-ATC.
James E Powell
@Jay:
That’s what I was thinking, but maybe what Biden is trying to avoid having half of the D senators lining up with their list of demands for their vote. Kind of like what happened with Obama’s recovery act. Who knows?
I was watching CNN, but McConnell started talking and I had to switch it off. Every time he mentions bipartisanship, somebody should shout “point of order!” and then say “Amy Coney Barrett” and sit down.
Don Lemon was eager to call what’s happening with the COVID recovery bill a big loss for Biden, but the experts he keeps asking are telling him that every other bill of this size has had a haircut on its way through the senate. They’re right.
James E Powell
@Subsole:
Master Manchin run Bartertown.
Jay
@AnotherBruce:
other than a rare few of our ( Western) Politico’s, most are completely disconnected from our Modern World.
They are slapping bandaids on a supportating wound while the “patient” is bleeding to death, and high fiving each other over that achievement.
So this whole shitshow will start over again in 1,2,3,4 months.
Jay
@James E Powell:
yurp, it will help, it’s better than nothing, but it’s less than before.
and it’s a short term fix.
Personally, I think “certain politicians”, really don’t give a rats ass about the public, just their image narratives.
Jay
Mary G
@Suzanne: They changed it to make it new and hip, and everyone hated it, so they pretty much changed it back.
Mary G
@The Fat White Duchess: The Gary Abernathy guy they supposedly found in a diner in the Midwest to explain misunderstood The Last Guy voters to the clueless elites and turned out to be less of a newspaper writer and more of a Republican Party intern of Frank Luntz?
Martin
@Yutsano: WV already pays a max of $424/wk at a base wage of $40K. So if you earned $40K and lost your job 1/1/21, and got a new one the day the benefits expire, you’d probably come out right about expected. You’d get $824/wk for the first 10 weeks of 2021, $724 for the next 16 weeks = $19,824 over 6 months. This looks to me like a way to zero out the need for withholding, so you do actually get to keep all the money, and since it’s non-taxable it’s actually lowering your top marginal rate, though that’d only be 12% for most people. And if you make more than $40K adjusted, you’re handing back at least 22% anyway over $41K. So, anyone who was in the $40K+ AGI range probably breaks even here, and if they were in a state with high state income taxes they probably come out a bit ahead.
WV is about median in terms of benefits. Florida is the worst $275 for 12 weeks. Washington the best at $760 for 26 weeks – though I expect you need to pull down relatively high income for that. Rhode Island does go to $867 for 26 if you have dependents, which is a nice tier option.
Still, it’s an odd hill to die on.
Jay
Mike G
Brooks has written books titled, “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life” and “The Road to Character”.
Being a Republican means zero accountability or rules and no shame about hypocrisy, which makes them a magnet for breezy con artists and mediocrities.
AnotherBruce
@Jay: We really should get rid of the Senate, but not gonna happen.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Mike G:
Kind of like degenerate gambler William Bennett writing a finger wagging book on virtue.
James E Powell
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
Or the whole crew of Republican philanderers who led the impeachment against Bill Clinton.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Boo-Boo in Paradise was an attempt to argue there is a biological reason American rich are rich. Brooks is a closet racists on top of everything else.