The challenges ahead (Biden's America)

[Frelga]

NE - What is a Scaramucci?

It's lucky for DeSantis that Disney is notoriously chill and lackadaisical about its trademarks, and also reluctant to deploy lawyers to protect them.

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[Sunsilver]

Just had to post this!

President Biden: "This Take Your Child To Work Day, I had the honor of being protected by some of the toughest agents in town."

Click on the spoiler to see the agents...
Gosh, I love this man!

Hidden text.

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[RoseMorninStar]

[Inanna]

That is the front page of todays WSJ.

[N.E. Brigand]

Can you fill in the blanks below without peeking at this East Bay Times headline and subhed?

"___ _____________ dined with ________ ___ ______ and _____ _______ to get _____ money: report
In the desperate weeks before ___'s collapse, _____________ asked his friend _______ __________ to take him to the ______ _____ to hit up some of the region's __________ rulers for funding."

Here's one hint: since July 2017, the friend's last name has also been used a unit of time.

NE - What is a Scaramucci?

Yes, that's the unit of time! Here's the quote above with the blanks filled in:

"Sam Bankman-Fried dined with Mohammed bin Salman and Jared Kushner to get Saudi money: report
In the desperate weeks before FTX's collapse, Bankman-Fried asked his friend Anthony Scaramucci to take him to the Middle East to hit up some of the region's autocratic rulers for funding."

[N.E. Brigand]

The Washington Post, via FOIA requests, has pried lose some photographs that were classified during the Obama adminstration, including this one, featuring the current president, Joe Biden, in a planning session for the 2011 raid that killed the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden:



This has prompted several people to cite an previously published account of that conversation, although I think not the exact moment pictured (which appears to show Defense Secretary Robert Gates -- a George W. Bush appointee, as it happens -- saying something that no one else in the room agreed with). As you may recall, the Abbottabad raid happened on a Sunday night. However, in this discussion, "Saturday night was first raised as a possibility. But someone pointed out that Obama was scheduled to be at the Correspondents' Association dinner on that night and his absence (and that of other top administration officials) could tip-off the journalist filled room that something was up."

Here I will pause to note that this year's Correspondents' dinner is scheduled for tonight. And I will note that if there is an origin story for Donald Trump's presidency, it is to be found at the Correspondents' dinner of 2011, which Trump attended, and at which President Barack Obama told several jokes at Trump's expense: Trump had at that been time been very busy promulgating the racist rumor that Obama had not been born in the U.S. (There were also jokes by the event's emcee, Seth Myers, about Donald Trump as well as one about Osama bin Laden.) But had Trump not been mocked that night, maybe he wouldn't have run for president in 2016, or maybe he would have been less engergized and lost the narrow race. Maybe Hillary Clinton would now be in her second term as president.

Anyway, here's how that paragraph ends:

"At which point, Hillary Clinton looked up and said simply, 'Fuck the White House correspondents' dinner.'"

[N.E. Brigand]

"How Bidenomics Has Finally Defeated Reaganomics." That opinion piece by Daily Rothkopf in the Daily Beast argues that Biden "has done more to dramatically transform U.S. policy and thinking in more areas than any of his predecessors since Franklin Roosevelt" because of his funding for infrastructure, his "prioritized investment in combating climate change" and his decision on "foreign policy ... [to] pivot away from a Middle East and terrorism focus to a long-term commitment to placing the Indo-Pacific region and our rivalry with China atop our list of priorities." I guess we should check back in a few decades and see if Rothkopf was right.

[N.E. Brigand]

The U.S. added 236,000 jobs in March. That is the fewest jobs added since December 2020 and thus the smallest gain since Joe Biden took office.

On the other hand, it's more than were added in 33 of the 48 months of Donald Trump's presidency. And U.S. unemployment fell last month, going from 3.6% to 3.5% -- which as I've noted before ties the lowest rate of my lifetime, with the exception of January 2023, when for the first time since the late 1960s it was 3.4%.

Also the unemployment rate for Black Americans in March is the lowest ever at 5%. The previous low was 5.3% in August 2019.

For only the second time in my lifetime -- and the second time this year -- the U.S. unemployment is down to 3.4%, after 253,000 jobs were added in April.

[N.E. Brigand]

The U.S. added 236,000 jobs in March. That is the fewest jobs added since December 2020 and thus the smallest gain since Joe Biden took office.

On the other hand, it's more than were added in 33 of the 48 months of Donald Trump's presidency. And U.S. unemployment fell last month, going from 3.6% to 3.5% -- which as I've noted before ties the lowest rate of my lifetime, with the exception of January 2023, when for the first time since the late 1960s it was 3.4%.

Also the unemployment rate for Black Americans in March is the lowest ever at 5%. The previous low was 5.3% in August 2019.

For only the second time in my lifetime -- and the second time this year -- the U.S. unemployment is down to 3.4%, after 253,000 jobs were added in April.

And the unemployment rate for Black Americans fell even further, to a new record low of 4.7%.

[N.E. Brigand]

The U.S. added 236,000 jobs in March. That is the fewest jobs added since December 2020 and thus the smallest gain since Joe Biden took office.

On the other hand, it's more than were added in 33 of the 48 months of Donald Trump's presidency. And U.S. unemployment fell last month, going from 3.6% to 3.5% -- which as I've noted before ties the lowest rate of my lifetime, with the exception of January 2023, when for the first time since the late 1960s it was 3.4%.

Also the unemployment rate for Black Americans in March is the lowest ever at 5%. The previous low was 5.3% in August 2019.

For only the second time in my lifetime -- and the second time this year -- the U.S. unemployment is down to 3.4%, after 253,000 jobs were added in April.

And the unemployment rate for Black Americans fell even further, to a new record low of 4.7%.

Skanda Amarnath digs deeper into the "remarkable" new jobs numbers.

The last years of the Clinton administration were really strong economic years in many respects.

[N.E. Brigand]

An interesting new poll surveyed Americans' opinions about more than 40 media outlets and finds that Democrats are more trusting than Republicans of almost all outlets including even conservative sources like the Washington Examiner and the Daily Caller. The only media outlets that Republicans trust more than Democrats are Newsmax, One America News, Fox News, the Federalist, and Breitbart.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm moving the post about George Santos to the "Chaos in the House" thread where the discussion about him has been.

[N.E. Brigand]

A local radio station that carries various syndicated conservative talk show hosts was airing a Republican press conference this morning, and I heard a few minutes. It concerns a Congressional report on Hunter Biden, and until just before I turned it off, you would have thought the Congressman (Byron Donalds?) was describing the Trump family as he talked about shell companies and money transfers. Only at the end did he acknowledge that his Democratic colleagues were likely to make this point, to which he pre-responded with the argument that unlike the Trumps, the Bidens didn't have a family business.

Anyway, here's what they're calling their interim report.

[N.E. Brigand]

For much of the pandemic period, the United States has been deporting many would-be immigrants under what is known as Title 42 Explusions, which by reference to that part of U.S. law permits the swift removal of immigrants who arrived here from a country where communicable disease is present. (Never mind that the Covid-19 pathogen was very much present and indeed rampant right here!) With the official end of the pandemic period in the U.S. tomorrow, May 11, this provision also ends. There has been a lot of discussion in the media, particularly conservative media, about how this will result in a flood of border crossings. However, the Biden administration is replacing Title 42 with new regulations which, for many immigrants, will be even more restrictive. The ACLU plans to sue the Biden administration.

[Dave_LF]

Where does this belong? I don't know. A number of far-right websites, including 8Chan, KiwiFarms, and The Daily Stormer, abruptly went under tonight when their host shut down. It may or may not be a coincidence that this is happening just hours after the announcement that the US cracked a major piece of Russian malware ("The Snake").

[Sunsilver]

Wow. Very interesting! :o

[N.E. Brigand]

The "missing informant" bit is so dumb that I wonder if it's actually a Republican trick. Announce that you've learned of a secret informant who's poised to blow the lid open on Joe Biden's supposed corruption, present a report that seems to show some Biden family members had shady business dealings but nothing about Joe Biden himself, and then admit a week later that you've "lost" your secret informant. If I were a Republican, I might then wait and watch for a few days as lots of commentators chortle about the informant never having existed in the first place, only to "find" him again and point to all those commentators being wrong.

But I have a hard time thinking that Rep. James Comer & co. are that clever.

[Dave_LF]

1. ZOMG! Informants! Informants are everywhere!
2. This is BLOWING. MY. MIND!!!
3. The people have to know!
4. You, sir, you have to know!
5. You too, ma'am!
6. And you as well, little boy!
7. 911
8. Emergency antipsychotic
9. Where did all the informants go??
10. Sleep
11. I feel better now. Why should I keep taking these meds?
12. Goto 1

[N.E. Brigand]

Noting this story here because of how it was being portrayed in the mainstream media and elaborated on in social media as a commentary on urban crime. Nine days ago, Bob Lee, the 43-year-old founder of Cash App, was stabbed to death on the street in San Francisco. Here's a New York Times tweet about the murder:

"The CashApp creator Bob Lee’s killing has stirred outrage among tech leaders and comes at a precarious time for the industry — and for the city it calls home. “I hate what San Francisco has become,” the founder of the industry blog TechCrunch said."

Today police arrested Nima Momeni for Lee's murder. Momeni, of the nearby city of Emeryville, was himself a (much less successful) tech entrepreneur who apparently knew Lee.

New reporting on this story: "Slain tech executive Bob Lee visited a suspected drug dealer's apartment with the sister of his alleged killer just hours before his violent death, The Standard has learned from a source with knowledge of the case."

Crime, boy, I don't know.

New Wall Street Journal report: "Before His Killing, Tech Executive Bob Lee Led an Underground Life of Sex and Drugs."

By no means does this mean he deserved to be murdered! But did reporter ever follow up with "the founder of the industry blog TechCrunch."

[N.E. Brigand]

For much of the pandemic period, the United States has been deporting many would-be immigrants under what is known as Title 42 Explusions, which by reference to that part of U.S. law permits the swift removal of immigrants who arrived here from a country where communicable disease is present. (Never mind that the Covid-19 pathogen was very much present and indeed rampant right here!) With the official end of the pandemic period in the U.S. tomorrow, May 11, this provision also ends. There has been a lot of discussion in the media, particularly conservative media, about how this will result in a flood of border crossings. However, the Biden administration is replacing Title 42 with new regulations which, for many immigrants, will be even more restrictive. The ACLU plans to sue the Biden administration.

Following the end of Title 42 on May 11th, the number of people crossing the border from Mexico into the U.S. each day actually declined, and during the week since then, that number has been lower than it was before. I have no idea why that happened or if it will last, but it's irking some Republican politicians.

Also, a few days ago there was a mini-scandal about veterans being removed from housing in order to make way for the non-existent migrant surge, but several homeless men in Poughkeepsie tell the Albany Times-Union that they were recruited by a conservative non-profit to pretend to be veterans for those stories.