Month: August 2022

The world’s richest nonsense-maker meets a no-nonsense judge

benfell

Twitter

In my last update, Ankush Khadori had argued that Elon Musk’s legal strategy in a lawsuit over his attempt to withdraw from his agreement to purchase Twitter would necessarily rely on obfuscation and delay.[1] and I wondered how much of Musk’s nonsense the judge hearing the case would be willing to put up with.[2] It doesn’t sound like this particular judge will have much time for such nonsense at all.[3] If Musk gets out of this with a favorable verdict, I think a whole bunch of people, certainly including myself, are going to be really, really surprised.

Dave Michaels, “Judge in Twitter, Elon Musk Case Known for Quick Work,” Wall Street Journal, August 6, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/judge-in-twitter-elon-musk-case-known-for-quick-work-11659791075

Gilead

Gun nuttery

Matt Ford, “The Ecstasy of Watching Alex Jones Get Trounced in Court,” New Republic, August 5, 2022, https://newrepublic.com/article/167321/alex-jones-sandy-hook-trial-ecstasy-watching-trounced-court

Donald Trump

Coup attempt


Eric Tucker and Michael Balsamo, “Trump says FBI conducting search of Mar-a-Lago estate,” Associated Press, August 8, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-government-and-politics-9e8d683afe87389407950af7ccfdbdd6

Ideology as ‘science:’ economics

There are a lot of folks who play economists on television. They even put on sufficiently convincing acts (meaning they regurgitate elite-pleasing neoliberal talking points) that politicians listen to them and universities hire them. But Robert Kuttner is a rare example of the real deal. Read his shit: He supplies arguments and evidence, quite in contrast to those other talking heads, including, by the way, Paul Krugman.

Robert Kuttner, “Our Bewildering Economy,” American Prospect, August 8, 2022, https://prospect.org/economy/our-bewildering-economy/

  1. [1]Ankush Khardori, “I Used to Work on Cases Like Twitter v. Musk. Here’s What Will Happen Next,” New York, July 30, 2022, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/07/what-will-happen-next-with-the-twitter-v-musk-lawsuit.html↩
  2. [2]David Benfell, “Elon Musk’s Achilles’ heel,” Not Housebroken, August 1, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/07/10/elon-musks-achilles-heel/↩
  3. [3]Dave Michaels, “Judge in Twitter, Elon Musk Case Known for Quick Work,” Wall Street Journal, August 6, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/judge-in-twitter-elon-musk-case-known-for-quick-work-11659791075↩

‘The [$750 billion] tax and climate bill passed by the Senate Sunday was a shadow of the $10 trillion plan progressives sought more than a year ago’

benfell

Unauthorized migration

Caitlin Dickerson, “‘We need to take away children,’” Atlantic, August 7, 2022, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/09/trump-administration-family-separation-policy-immigration/670604/

Infrastructure

The [$750 billion[1]] tax and climate bill passed by the Senate Sunday was a shadow of the $10 trillion plan progressives sought more than a year ago.[2]

Despite what the Democrats claim, this is not compromise. It is capitulation.

Alex Rogers, Clare Foran, Ali Zaslav and Manu Raju, “Senate passes Democrats’ sweeping health care and climate bill,” CNN, August 7, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/07/politics/senate-democrats-climate-health-care-bill-vote/index.html

Erik Wasson, Steven T. Dennis, and Laura Davison, “Biden, Democrats Look for Midterm Boost From Breakthrough Bill,” Bloomberg, August 7, 2022, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-07/biden-democrats-look-for-midterm-boost-from-breakthrough-bill

Gilead

Abortion

Curt Anderson, “Florida prosecutor vows to fight Gov. DeSantis suspension,” Associated Press, August 6, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/abortion-crime-tampa-florida-ron-desantis-7c11142121a3c726d3685bcc412b5ebb

  1. [1]Alex Rogers, Clare Foran, Ali Zaslav and Manu Raju, “Senate passes Democrats’ sweeping health care and climate bill,” CNN, August 7, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/07/politics/senate-democrats-climate-health-care-bill-vote/index.html↩
  2. [2]Erik Wasson, Steven T. Dennis, and Laura Davison, “Biden, Democrats Look for Midterm Boost From Breakthrough Bill,” Bloomberg, August 7, 2022, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-07/biden-democrats-look-for-midterm-boost-from-breakthrough-bill↩

The evangelical U.S. Supreme Court

benfell

Gilead

Evangelical Protestants

I’m late getting to this[1] and it should be read in tandem with an earlier article about religious privilege.[2] We are here at an inescapable conflict between Samuel Alito on the one hand, embracing the evangelical position that to proselytize[3] and then to impose their own beliefs on others is essential to their practice and therefore to be protected under so-called “religious freedom,”[4] and, on the other, the necessity of freedom from religion to the protection of actual religious liberty. There remains no way to reconcile these contradictory perspectives,[5] particularly when the Christian perspective is taken as absolute truth in an adamant rejection of relative truth, that is, the very real truths of people in different situations at different times.[6]

Matt Ford, “Samuel Alito Believes That Christians Are Oppressed in America,” New Republic, August 2, 2022, https://newrepublic.com/article/167266/samuel-alito-religious-freedom-doctrine

  1. [1]Matt Ford, “Samuel Alito Believes That Christians Are Oppressed in America,” New Republic, August 2, 2022, https://newrepublic.com/article/167266/samuel-alito-religious-freedom-doctrine↩
  2. [2]Katherine Stewart and Caroline Fredrickson, “Bill Barr Thinks America Is Going to Hell,” New York Times, December 29, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/opinion/william-barr-trump.html↩
  3. [3]Julie Zauzmer and Sarah Pulliam Bailey, “After Trump and Moore, some evangelicals are finding their own label too toxic to use,” Washington Post, December 14, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/after-trump-and-moore-some-evangelicals-are-finding-their-own-label-too-toxic-to-use/2017/12/14/b034034c-e020-11e7-89e8-edec16379010_story.html↩
  4. [4]Matt Ford, “Samuel Alito Believes That Christians Are Oppressed in America,” New Republic, August 2, 2022, https://newrepublic.com/article/167266/samuel-alito-religious-freedom-doctrine; Katherine Stewart and Caroline Fredrickson, “Bill Barr Thinks America Is Going to Hell,” New York Times, December 29, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/opinion/william-barr-trump.html↩
  5. [5]David Benfell, “Freedom of religion,” Not Housebroken, December 31, 2019, https://disunitedstates.org/2019/12/28/freedom-of-religion/↩
  6. [6]David Benfell, “A theory of conservative epistemology,” Not Housebroken, August 6, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/06/a-theory-of-conservative-epistemology/↩

I’m back home and finally caught up

benfell

There is a a new blog post entitled, “A theory of conservative epistemology.”

So I’m back from my vacation and I’ve got some issues I’m going to have to deal with because basically, I don’t have a mechanic in Pittsburgh like the one I have in Petaluma who will do the preventative maintenance I consider important. The trip itself also helps blow off some carbon, hopefully delaying the day when oil consumption becomes an issue.

That means I’m going to have to make this trip every 50,000 miles. With this trip, my annual mileage estimate is just shy of 70,000 miles, close enough that I should almost certainly bump up the mileage on my insurance. That means I’ll be making this trip every few months.

First, I’m unhappy with the stretch between the Mississippi River and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There’s a consolation in Salt Lake City with the Vertical Diner, a great vegan restaurant, but that’s it.

Second, there’s the issue of eating. This time, I brought two coolers, one with dry ice for frozen stuff and one with regular ice for refrigerated stuff. That took a lot of space. But there’s a real problem finding restaurants that serve vegan food that I can eat—I’m hypersensitive to onions, peppers, and cilantro—across large swaths of the country; indeed, this was a limitation in Santa Fe that led me to just give up. And the breakfast I got in Colorado Springs was really kind of a fast food breakfast; it was good but not quite an adequate meal. Louisville turned out just to be a mistake; fortunately, Columbus was on the way from there, where there is the Fourth and State Restaurant, which is wonderful.

Third, the hotels were awful this time. I saw some indications that staffing may be a problem: I’d see the same desk clerk in the morning that I’d checked in with the night before. But a lot of rooms were in dire need of refurbishing; they weren’t what I would consider presentable at all. Bumping up the minimum rating to four stars will increase the cost.

Gilead

White Christian nationalism (Trumpism)

Ishaan Tharoor, “Orban at CPAC brings the ‘far-right international’ into focus,” Washington Post, August 4, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2022/08/04/orban-hungary-far-right-international-cpac-conservative/

Donald Trump

Coup attempt

Hannah Knowles, “Several election deniers backed by Trump prevail in hotly contested primaries,” Washington Post, August 3, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/primaries-arizona-michigan-missouri-washington/

Lisa Rein, Carol D. Leonnig, and Maria Sacchetti, “Homeland Security watchdog previously accused of misleading investigators, report says,” Washington Post, August 3, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/03/homeland-security-joseph-cuffari-watchdog-report/

Laurence H Tribe and Dennis Aftergut, “Time is running out. The Department of Justice must indict and convict Trump,” Guardian, August 4, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/04/justice-department-must-indict-and-convict-trump

John Fetterman

Julian Routh, “John Fetterman’s campaign asks Pa. TV stations to remove ad saying he wants to ‘eliminate life sentences for murderers,’” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 5, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2022/08/04/john-fetterman-mehmet-oz-senate-pennsylvania-campaign-television-ads-life-sentences/stories/202208040094

Self-driving cars

Russ Mitchell, “California DMV accuses Tesla of falsely advertising Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features,” Los Angeles Times, August 5, 2022, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-08-05/dmv-false-advertising-tesla

The expanse and its consequences

benfell

So when last I left my tale, I had actually arrived in Colorado Springs. I don’t have much to say about the place other than that it is now quite clearly a sprawling city. When I was here before, it was as a kid on the way to or from summer camp, probably on the other side of Pike’s Peak, which rises prominently to the city’s west.

I don’t remember much of the place from then but I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say it’s a whole lot bigger now.

It’s a bit curious how abruptly the Rockies end, giving way to the Great Plains. In California, you have the Central Valley, then you have the Sierra foothills, then you have the mountains. On the east side, and this is something I never appreciated when I lived in Reno, you really still have mountains, prominently punctuated by valleys, really all the way to Utah.

The highlight Thursday was crossing the Republican River in Colorado. It was dry, which seemed amusing at the time.

But really, and I’m still hoping to find an exception, what I’m seeing now on three different routes between the Mississippi River and the Sierra Nevada mountains, save for an entirely too brief passage through the Rocky Mountains, is a whole lot of—not a whole lot. It’s no wonder the Donner Party turned to cannibalism; they might already have been mad from what must have been weeks traversing this expanse.

Today, it’s two days by car, and I’m not liking it. I crave trees and even the drive along U.S. Highway 6 into the Rocky Mountains reminded me of a lesson in a survival class at that summer camp on the other side of the Rockys: Look for trees; they signify water and where there is water, you may quench your thirst and follow the rivers downstream to civilization.

I’m writing all this in Kansas City, Missouri. I stumbled across Harrah’s Casino here, in North Kansas City, Missouri; this is the casino I was astonished to find closed in Reno, and the dissonance of finding it here prompts me to think of my association of Harrah’s with Reno. There’s more to think about there in my self-analysis.

There is also more to think about with the people who live in that vast expanse between the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Mississippi River. Sure, I saw the signs left up from the failed attempt to amend Kansas’ constitution to open the way to further restrict abortion there; one said, “Kill relativism, not babies,” which is a topic I should return to.

But I’m thinking of the sameness, the sameness of land where a patch might be indistinguishable from another a hundred miles away, where, until I reached eastern Kansas, trees were rare, and even then, still not common, except along rivers or where people had planted them. I saw, also, blight, even from the highways I followed, abandoned buildings, left to decay, surrounded by the homes of people who are plainly not rich.

This concept of sameness, even in the very land, to say little of the people themselves, underlies a simplistic view of the world, also the source of natural law, a notion which rested on a failed idea that all people in all circumstances would share a common understanding of good and evil, planted in their hears by a Christian god. Its failure has led to the rise of written law,[1] to which our criminal (in)justice system presumes to reduce justice.

In the end, this suggests of our species that we are both too smart, in that we have overrun the planet and are exhausting our ecosystem, and not smart enough to explore the root causes of our difficulties.

And I’m thinking of the U.S., that a path to national reconciliation necessarily lies through a resolution of class inequities, the opposite of what neoliberalism has wrought for decades, but this is a path the people who live in this vast expanse themselves reject.

I’m still not caught up. Tonight I will be in Louisville, Kentucky, then home.

Pittsburgh

Infrastructure

It looks like Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey is making an attempt to come up with a plan to deal with Pittsburgh’s bridges. But a contract he’s awarded toward that end might be the source of future controversy.[2]

Charlie Wolfson, “Pittsburgh officials seek ‘21st century’ bridge plan with $1.5M contract,” Public Source, August 4, 2022, https://www.publicsource.org/pittsburgh-bridges-plan-gainey-consultant-contract-fern-hollow-wsp/

  1. [1]R. H. Helmholz, Natural Law in Court: A History of Legal Theory in Practice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2015).↩
  2. [2]Charlie Wolfson, “Pittsburgh officials seek ‘21st century’ bridge plan with $1.5M contract,” Public Source, August 4, 2022, https://www.publicsource.org/pittsburgh-bridges-plan-gainey-consultant-contract-fern-hollow-wsp/↩

Yes, it’s Frisco. . . . In Colorado.

benfell

I’m hitting publish on this issue. It isn’t getting any fresher, although I’m far behind. Making it all worse is that my room in Kansas City, Missouri, has a desk, but no chair, and my Internet connectivity is pathetic. Not a good working environment.


Fig. 1. I lived in San Francisco for many years, but I finally made it to Frisco. Photograph by author, August 3, 2022.

Herb Caen, the now long-deceased and rarely remembered San Francisco Chronicle columnist, famously objected to folks referring to his beloved San Francisco as ‘Frisco.’ On reading this and digging around a bit, I learned that Frisco is a town in Colorado.

I made it there Wednesday (figure 1) and in fact ate dinner there as I saw I would be arriving in Colorado Springs too late to get dinner.

Google had suggested Interstate 80 from Salt Lake City but said the route using U.S. Highway 6 would only take five minutes longer. I was hoping for better scenery with the latter route, but as it turned out I had to endure a lot of desolation (figure 2) before I got high enough in the Rockies that there were enough trees to be satisfactory.


Fig. 2. The view from Crescent Junction Rest Area in Utah. The sky wasn’t, to my eyes, anyway, really quite that blue. Photograph by author, August 3, 2022.

I’ve driven across the Mohave Desert a couple times. I don’t remember it being so desolate as some of what I encountered Wednesday.

Gilead

Abortion

No, this[1] is not what I meant when I wrote yesterday,

There’s reason to doubt[2] the claim that this [Kansas election] result [affirming abortion rights] has implications for the midterm elections in November.[3] But I do think it might have implications for a similar effort in Pennsylvania.[4] The process is drawn out over a longer time period in Pennsylvania, however, so we shall see.[5]

First, comparing the Kansas election, which was directly about abortion rights,[6] to the November election, which is about electing politicians who will likely, at best, fail, as they have for decades, to protect abortion rights,[7] is an apples and oranges comparison. What we might see with the Kansas result is that when voters are asked to weigh in on abortion rights, they may resoundingly vote to protect them. What we will see in November is how many voters can stomach voting for abject failure and, as it happens, there’s reason to doubt that they will.[8]

The way constitutional amendments work in Pennsylvania is that the legislature has to approve a proposed amendment in two consecutive sessions. The governor does not get a veto. It can then go to the voters for approval. The legislature has done this in the first of the two required sessions but the governor is suing because of the procedure the legislature used to ram the package through.[9] I am not a lawyer, but Governor Tom Wolf’s case seems like a bit of a stretch to me. If, however, he wins, presumably after the present session has ended, the legislature would presumably have to start again in the next session, delaying but not preventing the process, as white Christian nationalists can be expected to remain in control of the legislature for the foreseeable future, even without rigging the system to ensure they never again lose an election.

It’s the potential Pennsylvania constitutional amendment question that I think is a better fit for any implications of the Kansas vote and Jonathan Tamari does delve into why we shouldn’t read too much into that Kansas result:

“Voters made clear in a state much redder than Pennsylvania that they don’t want the GOP’s toxic agenda to take away the rights of Pennsylvania women to make their own health-care decisions,” James Singer, a spokesperson for House Democrats’ campaign arm, said Wednesday. . . .

Of course, there are limits to what we can extrapolate from the Kansas vote. It was one state on one night, and there’s a difference between a vote on a single issue and wider campaigns in which voters will be weighing a collection of different policies — along with individual candidate attributes and records. [U.S. Representative Susan] Wild’s House race or the gubernatorial contest is unlikely to be decided on just one thing.[10]

But Tamari’s assignment seems to have been to talk about November and there, he notes, the economy seems to be, by far, the top concern..[11] After all, babies are cheap and gas is expensive, right?

Annie Gowen and Colby Itkowitz, “Kansans resoundingly reject amendment aimed at restricting abortion rights,” Washington Post, August 3, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/02/kansas-abortion-referendum/

Jonathan Tamari, “What the Kansas abortion vote might mean for Pennsylvania’s key 2022 races,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 3, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/kansas-abortion-vote-pennsylvania-2022-midterm-elections-20220803.html

Police White supremacist gangs

Donald Trump

Coup attempt

Hannah Knowles, “Several election deniers backed by Trump prevail in hotly contested primaries,” Washington Post, August 3, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/primaries-arizona-michigan-missouri-washington/

Lisa Rein, Carol D. Leonnig, and Maria Sacchetti, “Homeland Security watchdog previously accused of misleading investigators, report says,” Washington Post, August 3, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/03/homeland-security-joseph-cuffari-watchdog-report/

  1. [1]Jonathan Tamari, “What the Kansas abortion vote might mean for Pennsylvania’s key 2022 races,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 3, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/kansas-abortion-vote-pennsylvania-2022-midterm-elections-20220803.html↩
  2. [2]Hannah Knowles, Emily Guskin, and Scott Clement, “Americans dismayed at end of Roe are less certain they will vote, poll finds,” Washington Post, July 29, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/29/abortion-roe-midterms-poll/↩
  3. [3]Annie Gowen and Colby Itkowitz, “Kansans resoundingly reject amendment aimed at restricting abortion rights,” Washington Post, August 3, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/02/kansas-abortion-referendum/↩
  4. [4]Mark Scolforo, “Gov. Wolf sues to stop GOP-backed amendments on abortion, voting,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 28, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/governor-wolf-sues-amendments-abortion-voting-20220728.html↩
  5. [5]David Benfell, “Uber claims to have made a profit. Really, this time,” Irregular Bullshit, August 3, 2022, https://disunitedstates.com/2022/08/03/35636/↩
  6. [6]Annie Gowen and Colby Itkowitz, “Kansans resoundingly reject amendment aimed at restricting abortion rights,” Washington Post, August 3, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/02/kansas-abortion-referendum/↩
  7. [7]Anna North, “Abortion has been treated as a fringe issue by Democrats for decades. This is the result,” Vox, May 5, 2022, https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2022/5/5/23057317/abortion-supreme-court-roe-v-wade; William Rivers Pitt, “Democrats Had 50 Years to Save and Protect ‘Roe.’ They Failed,” Truthout, May 6, 2022, https://truthout.org/articles/democrats-had-50-years-to-save-and-protect-roe-they-failed/↩
  8. [8]Hannah Knowles, Emily Guskin, and Scott Clement, “Americans dismayed at end of Roe are less certain they will vote, poll finds,” Washington Post, July 29, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/29/abortion-roe-midterms-poll/↩
  9. [9]Gillian McGoldrick, “Pa. Legislature approves constitutional amendments to declare residents don’t have the right to an abortion, to require voter ID,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 8, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2022/07/08/pennsylvania-senate-advances-constitutional-amendments-residents-rights-relating-abortion-require-voter-id/stories/202207080102; Gillian McGoldrick, “Pa. Senate GOP committee advances late-night amendment to restrict abortion, require voter ID,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 8, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2022/07/08/pennsylvania-senate-republicans-advance-constitutional-amendment-to-restrict-abortion-and-call-for-voter-ids-roe-v-wade/stories/202207080073; Katie Meyer, “Fight gears up over Pa. constitutional amendment to protect ‘every unborn child,’” WHYY, July 1, 2022, https://whyy.org/articles/pennsylvania-abortion-rights-constitutional-amendment-fight/; Mark Scolforo, “Gov. Wolf sues to stop GOP-backed amendments on abortion, voting,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 28, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/governor-wolf-sues-amendments-abortion-voting-20220728.html; Rodrigo Torrejón, “What the Pa. constitutional amendment package could mean for abortion and elections,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 8, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/pa-senate-constitutional-amendments-abortion-elections-voting-20220708.html↩
  10. [10]Jonathan Tamari, “What the Kansas abortion vote might mean for Pennsylvania’s key 2022 races,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 3, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/kansas-abortion-vote-pennsylvania-2022-midterm-elections-20220803.html↩
  11. [11]Jonathan Tamari, “What the Kansas abortion vote might mean for Pennsylvania’s key 2022 races,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 3, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/kansas-abortion-vote-pennsylvania-2022-midterm-elections-20220803.html↩

Uber claims to have made a profit. Really, this time.

benfell

I’m in Salt Lake City, awake in the wee hours. I stopped at the Vertical Diner for dinner, which, if you’re vegan and you’re in Salt Lake City, you definitely need to know about. Everything I had for dinner was just perfect. Everything I had for breakfast when I was on my way out was just perfect. I’m planning on breakfast there again today.

Oh, and by the way, as I was driving away from the restaurant, I noticed the street, actually a twenty-block stretch of 900 South Street (this is how they organize their grid, in a system I haven’t seen outside Utah), had been renamed Harvey Milk Boulevard. Apparently, this happened six years ago.[1]

It’s a longer and more convoluted story than I even remember, but long-time San Franciscans will remember that Dan White, a former supervisor, who had resigned, then demanded his job back, and when refused, shot Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. The latter was gay and thus became a martyr to the gay rights, now LGBTQ+ rights, movement. (This was Dianne Feinstein’s lucky break: She was catapulted from being president of the Board of Supervisors to the mayor’s office—the rest is history—so we actually have multiple reasons for despising White, who ended up committing suicide.)[2]

The Mormon Church, which we’re not supposed to call the Mormon Church anymore,[3] and which (putting it ludicrously mildly) remains a major force in Utah politics, was prominent in the fight to pass California’s Proposition 8, which banned same sex marriage.[4] (This proposition was later overturned by a federal court and the Supreme Court ruled that appellants lacked standing.[5]) So it’s a bit surprising that the Church acquiesced to the street name change.[6]

Gig economy (neoliberal wet dream)

Bezzle

I’m waiting for independent analysis before believing the claim that Uber has actually turned a profit in even a single quarter.[7] The drumbeat of pessimism, with a whole lot more than a whiff of a bezzle has been constant.[8] In particular, I’ll be looking for Hubert Horan,[9] whom we last heard from, apparently, in February.[10]

Laura Forman, “Uber’s Results Gas Up Rivals,” Wall Street Journal, August 2, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubers-results-gas-up-rivals-11659454009

Gilead

Gilead competitive authoritarian regime project

Jonathan Lai, “Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court upheld the state’s mail voting law after a long legal fight,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 2, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/pennsylvania-mail-voting-law-act-77-mclinko-20220802.html

Abortion

There’s reason to doubt[11] the claim that this result has implications for the midterm elections in November.[12] But I do think it might have implications for a similar effort in Pennsylvania.[13] The process is drawn out over a longer time period in Pennsylvania, however, so we shall see.

Annie Gowen and Colby Itkowitz, “Kansans resoundingly reject amendment aimed at restricting abortion rights,” Washington Post, August 3, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/02/kansas-abortion-referendum/

Donald Trump

Coup attempt

[Donald] Trump’s record has been mixed in this year’s primary season, with voters in some states embracing his preferred candidates and others rejecting them. His endorsed candidates on the ballot Tuesday embraced his combative style, with at least one seeking to portray herself as the winner before the Associated Press had made a call in her contest.[14]

Hannah Knowles, “Several election deniers backed by Trump prevail in hotly contested primaries,” Washington Post, August 3, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/primaries-arizona-michigan-missouri-washington/

Secession movements

California

Sam Stanton, “Did Russia provide funding and support for booster of California secession movement?” Sacramento Bee, August 1, 2022, https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article264043131.html

  1. [1]Molly Hennessy-Fiske, “In the heart of Mormon country, a street is renamed for Harvey Milk,” Los Angeles Times, May 12, 2016, https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-adv-utah-harvey-milk-20160510-snap-story.html↩
  2. [2]Jay Mathews, “Dan White Commits Suicide,” Washington Post, October 22, 1985, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/10/22/dan-white-commits-suicide/590322ca-f461-4a98-9c5f-348648f7ac66/↩
  3. [3]Doug Criss, “Mormons don’t want you calling them Mormons anymore,” CNN, August 17, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/17/us/mormon-church-name-trnd↩
  4. [4]Nicholas Riccardi, “Mormons feel the backlash over their support of Prop. 8,” Los Angeles Times, November 17, 2008, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-nov-17-na-mormons17-story.html↩
  5. [5]Dylan Matthews, “The Supreme Court ended Proposition 8. Here’s what that means,” Washington Post, June 26, 2013, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/26/the-supreme-court-ended-proposition-8-heres-what-that-means/↩
  6. [6]Molly Hennessy-Fiske, “In the heart of Mormon country, a street is renamed for Harvey Milk,” Los Angeles Times, May 12, 2016, https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-adv-utah-harvey-milk-20160510-snap-story.html↩
  7. [7]Laura Forman, “Uber’s Results Gas Up Rivals,” Wall Street Journal, August 2, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubers-results-gas-up-rivals-11659454009↩
  8. [8]Aaron Gordon, “Uber and Lyft Are Out of Ideas, Jacking Up Prices in Desperation for Profit,” Vice, May 27, 2022, https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7vmpb/uber-and-lyft-are-out-of-ideas-jacking-up-prices-in-desperation-for-profit; Hubert Horan, “Can Uber Ever Deliver? Part Twenty-Nine: Despite Massive Price Increases Uber Losses Top $31 Billion,” Naked Capitalism, February 11, 2022, https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/02/hubert-horan-can-uber-ever-deliver-part-twenty-nine-despite-massive-price-increases-uber-losses-top-31-billion.html; Preetika Rana, “Uber and Lyft’s New Road: Fewer Drivers, Thrifty Riders and Jittery Investors,” Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-and-lyfts-new-road-fewer-drivers-thrifty-riders-and-jittery-investors-11653651912↩
  9. [9]Hubert Horan, “Can Uber Ever Deliver? Part Twenty-Nine: Despite Massive Price Increases Uber Losses Top $31 Billion,” Naked Capitalism, February 11, 2022, https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/02/hubert-horan-can-uber-ever-deliver-part-twenty-nine-despite-massive-price-increases-uber-losses-top-31-billion.html↩
  10. [10]Can Uber Ever Deliver? Part Twenty-Nine: Despite Massive Price Increases Uber Losses Top $31 Billion↩
  11. [11]Hannah Knowles, Emily Guskin, and Scott Clement, “Americans dismayed at end of Roe are less certain they will vote, poll finds,” Washington Post, July 29, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/29/abortion-roe-midterms-poll/↩
  12. [12]Annie Gowen and Colby Itkowitz, “Kansans resoundingly reject amendment aimed at restricting abortion rights,” Washington Post, August 3, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/02/kansas-abortion-referendum/↩
  13. [13]Mark Scolforo, “Gov. Wolf sues to stop GOP-backed amendments on abortion, voting,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 28, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/governor-wolf-sues-amendments-abortion-voting-20220728.html↩
  14. [14]Hannah Knowles, “Several election deniers backed by Trump prevail in hotly contested primaries,” Washington Post, August 3, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/primaries-arizona-michigan-missouri-washington/↩

Elon Musk still doesn’t have a case

benfell

I’m in Reno tonight and I can’t say I’m thrilled about heading back to a place where I feel surrounded by barbarians, where I’ll have to put at least the Uber stickers back on and go back to work driving.

For now, however, the car is loaded with a fraction of the stuff my mother has been keeping for me.

Twitter

I’ve seen a number of articles suggesting that Elon Musk is on fairly weak legal ground trying to get out of his purchase agreement for Twitter, an agreement in which he waived due diligence.[1] But if you really want the gory details, which I do not quote here, you’re going to want to read Ankush Khardori’s article for New York Magazine:[2]

Whether we actually get a trial [in lawsuits between Elon Musk and Twitter] remains to be seen. On the surface, these major corporate cases tend to look like intractable conflicts headed toward a dramatic final verdict that will give one side total victory and the other total defeat. But from the inside, they tend to be subtle tactical battles where the only real stakes are slightly more or less favorable terms of an inevitable deal. Most major corporate cases settle before trial — the actual litigation functions as a sort of proxy drama over the eventual terms. If things are going well for your side in the early going, you adjust your settlement demands upward and vice versa. Billionaires and large public companies generally do not like uncertainty, and for that reason, they tend to avoid trials with huge amounts of money on the line, which can be the most uncertain of undertakings. (Of course, one question that looms over this particular proceeding is whether the world’s richest man might be playing by a different set of rules.) . . .

It’s not wrong to say that [Musks’ lawyers’] top objective here is to plausibly find ways to waste everyone’s time [forestalling a summary judgment in the company’s favor].[3]

It still doesn’t look like Elon Musk has a case:

Twitter v. Musk does not have the hallmarks of one of these cash-cow disputes — to put it mildly. After Twitter filed its lawsuit against [Elon] Musk, most legal observers quickly concluded, with good reason, that Twitter is on much stronger legal footing than Musk is. (One expert I spoke with before Musk’s filing on Friday, who asked not to be quoted by name, went so far as to say that Skadden [Musk’s lawyers] “should be feeling a little embarrassed” about the weakness of Musk’s defense.)[4]

While we don’t know much about Musk’s countersuit, “the length and quality of a legal filing are often inversely correlated,” Khardori writes, “and again, Musk’s overriding strategic objective is to make this litigation as unwieldy and convoluted as possible even if he ultimately has little to work with.”[5]

Given Khardori’s explanation—he says the judge will want to at least appear to give both sides a hearing[6]—I really have to wonder just how much of Musk’s nonsense that judge will be willing to put up with.

Ankush Khardori, “I Used to Work on Cases Like Twitter v. Musk. Here’s What Will Happen Next,” New York, July 30, 2022, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/07/what-will-happen-next-with-the-twitter-v-musk-lawsuit.html

  1. [1]William D. Cohan, “The Musk Reckoning,” Puck News, July 10, 2022, https://puck.news/the-musk-reckoning/; William D. Cohan, “The Case Against Elon,” Puck News, July 17, 2022, https://puck.news/the-case-against-elon/; Elizabeth Dwoskin and Gerrit De Vynck, “Judge grants Elon Musk an October court date, in early win for Twitter,” Washington Post, July 19, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/19/twitter-elon-musk-trial/; Danny Fortson, “Erratic Elon Musk leaves Twitter with three unbearable choices,” Times, July 9, 2022, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/erratic-elon-musk-leaves-twitter-with-three-unbearable-choices-g3tg5zlbt; Cara Lombardo and Sarah E. Needleman, “Twitter Sues Elon Musk to Enforce $44 Billion Merger,” Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-sues-elon-musk-over-attempt-to-walk-away-from-44-billion-deal-11657660307; Cara Lombardo and Robert Wall, “Twitter Didn’t Seek a Sale. Now Elon Musk Doesn’t Want to Buy. Cue Strange Legal Drama,” Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-twitter-strange-legal-fight-11657488572; Faiz Siddiqui and Gerrit De Vynck, “Elon Musk’s deal to buy Twitter is in peril,” Washington Post, July 7, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/07/elon-musk-twitter-jeopardy/↩
  2. [2]Ankush Khardori, “I Used to Work on Cases Like Twitter v. Musk. Here’s What Will Happen Next,” New York, July 30, 2022, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/07/what-will-happen-next-with-the-twitter-v-musk-lawsuit.html↩
  3. [3]Ankush Khardori, “I Used to Work on Cases Like Twitter v. Musk. Here’s What Will Happen Next,” New York, July 30, 2022, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/07/what-will-happen-next-with-the-twitter-v-musk-lawsuit.html↩
  4. [4]Ankush Khardori, “I Used to Work on Cases Like Twitter v. Musk. Here’s What Will Happen Next,” New York, July 30, 2022, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/07/what-will-happen-next-with-the-twitter-v-musk-lawsuit.html↩
  5. [5]Ankush Khardori, “I Used to Work on Cases Like Twitter v. Musk. Here’s What Will Happen Next,” New York, July 30, 2022, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/07/what-will-happen-next-with-the-twitter-v-musk-lawsuit.html↩
  6. [6]Ankush Khardori, “I Used to Work on Cases Like Twitter v. Musk. Here’s What Will Happen Next,” New York, July 30, 2022, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/07/what-will-happen-next-with-the-twitter-v-musk-lawsuit.html↩

Take that speculation of a Rupert Murdoch-Donald Trump split with more than a few grains of salt

benfell

I expect to depart my mother’s house around 4 pm Pacific Time today, with stops to pick up laundry and mail. First stop tonight is in Reno.

Gilead

Donald Trump

Coup attempt

Jon Allsop doubts that Rupert Murdoch is really breaking up with Donald Trump, but perhaps is rather hedging his bets for a post-Trump future.[1] The point I’d make here is that white Christian nationalism is hardly inseparable from Trump;[2] though I continue to think it likely that Trump regains the presidency with the 2024 election,[3] what I call the Gilead competitive authoritarian regime project long precedes Trump and can be expected to continue even without him.

Jon Allsop, “Does Murdoch make the political weather or follow it? Yes,” Columbia Journalism Review, August 1, 2022, https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/murdoch_trump_influence.php

  1. [1]Jon Allsop, “Does Murdoch make the political weather or follow it? Yes,” Columbia Journalism Review, August 1, 2022, https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/murdoch_trump_influence.php↩
  2. [2]David Benfell, “Trumpism, Donald Trump, the January 6 coup attempt, and a smoking gun that may never be found,” Not Housebroken, January 28, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/12/14/trumpism-donald-trump-the-january-6-coup-attempt-and-a-smoking-gun-that-may-never-be-found/↩
  3. [3]David Benfell, “My 2024 forecast,” Not Housebroken, July 28, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/03/10/my-2024-forecast/↩