Author: Matthew G. Saroff

I Went to the National Civil Rights Museum Today

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It’s at the Lorraine Motel building, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

It’s a good museum, and you should go.

I am a profoundly weird person though, becuse the thing that effected me the most was just walking in, having to empty my pockets, and walk through a metal detector.

At a memorial to one of the most prominent proponents of non-violence in American history, they have to have a metal detector, and a wand, to prevent some James Earl Ray wannabe from shooting up the place.

If this doesn’t outrage you, you are seriously dense.

It’s Called Shoe Leather Journalism

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It turned out that they were dealing with a community that was hard to reach and dubious of journalists, but instead of throwing up their hands in despair, their team rolled up their sleeves, went to work, and listened to potential sources.

This is an anathema to journalists who dream of meeting “Deep Throat” in a parking garage, or who want make stories out of trial balloons from politicians, but they got their story, and the abuse stopped:

In August, we spent an evening hand-addressing more than 200 letters, mostly to residents of Memphis, Tennessee. The city is the second-poorest large metropolitan area in the country, with nearly 1 in 4 residents living below the poverty line. About half of the letter recipients had been sued by a private-equity backed doctors group because of unpaid medical bills. The other half had been sued by a separate company.

Our team, led by reporter Wendi C. Thomas of MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, was investigating the way large institutions profit off people who are poor in Memphis. She had already reported that Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, the area’s largest hospital system, had aggressively sued poor people — and the hospital quickly suspended the practice.

Several other companies also were filing lawsuits against people unable to pay their bills. Court records showed us who these people were, but we didn’t know what these debts meant for their lives. We knew letter-writing alone wouldn’t be enough to connect with people, but it was a start.

After we put our letters in the mail, we continued to try to reach people who had been sued by posting flyers in neighborhoods, making dozens of calls (and getting hung up on plenty of times) and speaking to community leaders.

We understood, through research, that many journalists have historically covered these communities in extractive and self-serving ways, partly because of resource constraints and partly because many aren’t from the communities they cover. Our partners launched MLK50 to break patterns like these. We hoped deliberate engagement would result in real change for the people we reached.

It worked. Even before our story on the doctors group was published with MLK50, the company said it, too, would stop suing its patients.

………

Lessons

  1. You can still do engagement reporting on a topic people don’t like to talk about. But don’t underestimate the amount of work it takes to do it right.
    ………
     
  2. Be specific about who you’re trying to reach. Don’t expect to reach everyone. They don’t owe you anything.
    ………
     
  3. Be specific about who you’re trying to reach. Don’t expect to reach everyone. They don’t owe you anything.
    ………

Read the whole thing.

It’s not just a demonstration of good journalism, it’s an indictment of how much of journalism is practiced today.

Oh Snap!

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Donald Trump’s stacked environmental science review panel just reported that the White House’s rollback of environmental regulations lacks proper justification:

A top panel of government-appointed scientists, many of them hand-selected by the Trump administration, said on Tuesday that three of President Trump’s most far-reaching and scrutinized proposals to weaken major environmental regulations are at odds with established science.

Draft letters posted online Tuesday by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Scientific Advisory Board, which is responsible for evaluating the scientific integrity of the agency’s regulations, took aim at the Trump administration’s rewrite of an Obama-era regulation of waterways, an Obama-era effort to curb planet-warming vehicle tailpipe emissions and a plan to limit scientific data that can be used to draft health regulations.

In each case, the 41 scientists on a board — many of whom were appointed by Trump administration officials to replace scientists named by the Obama administration — found the regulatory changes flew in the face of science.

………

Legal experts said the advisory body’s opinion could undermine the Trump administration’s rollbacks in the courts. “The courts basically say if you’re going to ignore the advice of your own experts you have to have really good reasons for that,” said Patrick Parenteau, a professor of law with the Vermont Law School. “And not just policy reasons but reasons that go to the merits of what the critiques are saying.”

Many scientists on the advisory board were selected by Trump administration officials early in the administration, as President Trump sought to move forward with an aggressive agenda of weakening environmental regulations. During the first year of the Trump administration, more than a quarter of the academic scientists on the panel departed or were dismissed, and many were replaced by scientists with industry ties who were perceived as likely to be more friendly to the industries that the E.P.A. regulates.

This crew can’t even set up a biased jury right.

It’s both pathetic and reassuring.

Quote of the Day

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Honestly, I don’t think I would have said anything because obviously he’s not listening to scientists and experts, so why would he listen to me?

—Greta Thunberg when asked about what she would say if given the chance to talk to Donald Trump

This young woman has a legendary level of bad-assery.

As I’ve said  before, she is living proof as to why Vikings scared the sh%$ out Europe for 500 years.

Worst 1979 Cover Band Ever

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Once again short-sighted and stupid foreign policy is putting a US embassy in the Middle East at risk:

Iraqi protesters and militia fighters angry over recent deadly US airstrikes on an Iran-backed Shiite militia group attacked the heavily fortified US embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday.

Hundreds of men waving Iraqi and militia flags torched a security post and hurled stones at security forces, as embassy guards fired stun grenades and tear gas to disperse crowds that breached the outer wall of America’s largest embassy.

There were no reports of casualties, but the breach was one of the worst attacks on a US embassy in recent memory. The Pentagon said it had deployed extra troops to protect the mission. Meanwhile, the State Department said there were no plans to evacuate the compound.

………

The militiamen were demonstrating against US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria on Sunday targeting Kataeb Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Iraqi militia. At least 25 militiamen were killed.

Iraqi security forces allowed thousands of protesters to march to the heavily-fortified Green Zone after a funeral held for those killed, letting them pass through a security checkpoint leading to the area.

Many in the crowd shouted “Down, Down USA!” and “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” outside the embassy compound as they threw objects over its walls.

I am old enough to remember the the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979.

If history does not repeat itself, it certainly rhymes.

Autocorrect Changed “Biden” to “Buffoon”.

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I am beginning to think that the predictive AI on my phone’s keyboard is better than I originally thought, because, it was when I was forwarding a story about how Biden is open to having a Republican as his Vice Presidential running mate.

Seriously, this guy is living in a complete delusion, and if anyone thinks that he can beat Donald Trump by sh%$ting on the party and ignoring what the Republican party has become, they are as delusional as Joe is:

Former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, said on Monday he would consider choosing a Republican running mate if he is the party’s nominee next year.

However, even as he raised the possibility of a Republican running mate while speaking to a crowd at a campaign event in Exeter, New Hampshire, Biden said, “But I can’t think of one right now.”

Biden has premised much of his presidential bid on appealing to moderate Democrats, independents and Republicans who have been alienated by President Donald Trump. On the campaign trail, Biden has regularly spoken about the need to work with Republicans in Congress should he prevail in the November 2020 general election.

In response to a question by an attendee at the event, Biden elaborated on his answer, contending that Trump’s party has not done enough to hold the president accountable. “There are some really decent Republicans that are out there still, but here’s the problem right now,” he said. “They’ve got to step up.”

He really believes this sh%$, and the country cannot afford to have 2 delusional Presidents in a row.

The Bedbug at “All the News That’s Fit to Print” Endorses Eugenics

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I am referring, of course, to Brett Stephens, who is now claiming that Ashkenazi Jews are genetically more intelligent, at least a bit:

Ashkenazi Jews might have a marginal advantage over their gentile peers when it comes to thinking better. Where their advantage more often lies is in thinking different.

Seriously, between Brett Stephens and Bari Weiss, I’m beginning to wonder if the Times Editorial Page Editor James Bennet is literally trying to find the most contemptible Jews possible to become regular columnists.

Seriously, as a human being and an American, I find Stephens an embarrassment, and as a Jew, I find him a Shanda fur die Goyim.*

*Yiddish for a, “Shame before the nations,” meaning that this person is an embarrassment to the whole Jewish people.

Quote of the Day

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It’s vulgar to say this, but it’s may be true that we learn less about the materialist politics of academic writing by reading it — and some of it can be famously obscure; Butler was the winner of a Bad Writing contest in 1998 — than by looking up the author in the Federal Elections Commission records.

—Liza Featherstone writing in Jacobin

The article notes how many radical leftist academics are donating to conservative Democrats.

Academe is not an environment that rewards forthright personal statements, so I agree with Ms. Featherstone, this says more about the academics listed than does their writings.

After Major Sh%$-Storm, Biden Clarifies

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In an interview with the Des Moins Register, Joe Biden said that he would defy a Senate subpoena as a part of the impeachment investigation.

After his statement exploded, Biden “clarified” that he WOULD comply with any Senate subpoena, but he would call them out on their bullsh%$:

The shadow of impeachment clouded Joe Biden’s trip through eastern Iowa on Saturday after the former vice president confirmed he would defy a congressional subpoena if he didn’t believe there was a legal rationale behind it.

Biden told the Des Moines Register’s editorial board Friday he would not comply with a Senate subpoena during President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate. It confirmed a statement he made in an interview with NPR earlier in the month.

He began the day Saturday clarifying those remarks on Twitter before making appearances in Tipton, Washington and Fairfield.

“I have always complied with a lawful order and in my eight years as VP, my office — unlike Donald Trump and Mike Pence — cooperated with legitimate congressional oversight requests,” Biden tweeted. “But I am just not going to pretend that there is any legal basis for Republican subpoenas for my testimony in the impeachment trial.”

Seriously, Biden basically sold the entire impeachment effort down the river, and when it blew up, he “Clarified.”

This is, for a lack of a better term, pure malarkey.

Unfortunately, Ajit Pai Will Police This Law

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Part of the recent appropriations bill passed by Congress is the The Television Viewer Protection Act of 2019, which forbids a whole host of cable company rat-f%$#ery:

For a decade we’ve talked about how the broadband and cable industry has perfected the use of utterly bogus fees to jack up subscriber bills — a dash of financial creativity it adopted from the banking and airline industries. Countless cable and broadband companies tack on a myriad of completely bogus fees below the line, letting them advertise one rate — then sock you with a higher rate once your bill actually arrives. These companies will then brag repeatedly about how they haven’t raised rates yet this year, when that’s almost never actually the case.

………

But something quietly shifted just before the holidays. After a longstanding campaign by Consumer Reports, The Television Viewer Protection Act of 2019 passed the House and the Senate last week buried inside a giant appropriations bill that now awaits President Trump’s signature.

The bill bans ISPs from charging you extra to rent hardware you already own (something ISPs like Frontier have been doing without penalty for a few years). It also forces cable TV providers to send an itemized list of any fees and other surcharges to new customers within 24 hours of signing up for service, and allows users shocked by the higher price to cancel service without penalty.

The bill’s not perfect. Because of the act itself it largely only applies to cable TV, not broadband service where the problem is just as bad. And cable TV providers can still falsely advertise a lower rate, thanks to what appears to be some last minute lobbying magic on the part of the cable TV sector:

………

The trick now will be enforcement by a government and FCC that has routinely shown it’s entirely cool with industry repeatedly ripping consumers off with bullsh%$ fees to the tune of around $28 billion annually:

Unfortunately, under current FCC management, I expect that the resulting regulation will render this meaningless.

I honestly that Pai may be the most venal and corrupt member of the Trump administration, though that concept truly buggers the mind.

F%$# Me. I Agree with Governor Andrew “Rat Faced Andy” Cuomo

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To be fair, it appears that Cuomo did so in a fit of pique, and not out of any sense of good governance or the public weal:

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has vetoed a bill that would have made electric scooters and bikes legal in the state, citing the lack of a mandatory helmet requirement and other safety concerns. The veto means e-bikes and e-scooters will continue to remain technically illegal across the state, and will further delay any adoption of popular (if polarizing) shared mobility services like Lime or Bird.

The bill to legalize e-bikes and e-scooters was passed in June with overwhelming support, clearing the state Senate by a 56-6 margin and the state Assembly by a 137-4 margin. But state lawmakers reportedly waited to send the bill to Cuomo until this week out of concern that he would try to stand in the way of the proposal. Cuomo has voiced support for legalizing e-bikes and e-scooters in the past, but reportedly soured on the bill after he was criticized by one of its co-sponsors earlier this year.

Which means that Cuomo has exercised a pocket veto, and it appears that it’s all down to political score settling.

While the bill would have broadly legalized both modes of transportation across the state, it was also designed to give cities control over e-bike and e-scooter sharing services. Cities would have been allowed to use permits as a tool to control the influx of these sharing companies, which would help prevent them from being inundated like some other cities around the world. It also would have given these local governments leverage to help negotiate their own regulations around shared e-scooters and e-bikes.

If there is a lesson from Lime and Bird, it is that the promise of strong regulation is a mirage.  They will subvert and ignore any regulations, and lobby aggressively for a get out of jail free card.

Cuomo have have done the right thing for the wrong reason, but in the case of Rat Faced Andy, this is probably the best you could get.

Linkage

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Dear Satan, An Animated Short About a Girl Who Accidentally Writes Letter to Satan Instead of Santa: (Narrated by Patrick Stewart)

Welcome to the Post Antibiotic World

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The perverse incentives of our drug exclusivity regime looks to result in the collapse of antibiotic research and development, because, unlike things like cholesterol and diabetes meds, antibiotics are only taken for a few days, so the profits are not there to get financing for drug development.

The pharmaceutical industry will demand higher prices, extended exclusivity periods, and other subsidies.

I will suggest reducing the subsidies on drugs for chronic conditions, which is what pulls money from antibiotics.

Also, ban antibiotic use in livestock, which contributes to the evolution of antibiotic strains of microbes:

At a time when germs are growing more resistant to common antibiotics, many companies that are developing new versions of the drugs are hemorrhaging money and going out of business, gravely undermining efforts to contain the spread of deadly, drug-resistant bacteria.

………

Experts say the grim financial outlook for the few companies still committed to antibiotic research is driving away investors and threatening to strangle the development of new lifesaving drugs at a time when they are urgently needed.

“This is a crisis that should alarm everyone,” said Dr. Helen Boucher, an infectious disease specialist at Tufts Medical Center and a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria.

The problem is straightforward: The companies that have invested billions to develop the drugs have not found a way to make money selling them. Most antibiotics are prescribed for just days or weeks — unlike medicines for chronic conditions like diabetes or rheumatoid arthritis that have been blockbusters — and many hospitals have been unwilling to pay high prices for the new therapies. Political gridlock in Congress has thwarted legislative efforts to address the problem.

The challenges facing antibiotic makers come at time when many of the drugs designed to vanquish infections are becoming ineffective against bacteria and fungi, as overuse of the decades-old drugs has spurred them to develop defenses against the medicines.

Drug-resistant infections now kill 35,000 people in the United States each year and sicken 2.8 million, according a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released last month. Without new therapies, the United Nations says the global death toll could soar to 10 million by 2050.

………

Public health experts say the crisis calls for government intervention. Among the ideas that have wide backing are increased reimbursements for new antibiotics, federal funding to stockpile drugs effective against resistant germs and financial incentives that would offer much needed aid to start-ups and lure back the pharmaceutical giants. Despite bipartisan support, legislation aimed at addressing the problem has languished in Congress.

“If this doesn’t get fixed in the next six to 12 months, the last of the Mohicans will go broke and investors won’t return to the market for another decade or two,” said Chen Yu, a health care venture capitalist who has invested in the field.

Well, Chen Yu would say that, wouldn’t he?

He’s in the business of extracting money from monopoly rents and subsidies, so he is calling for additional monopoly rents and subsides.

What he really wants is this times 10:

Many of the new drugs are not cheap, at least when compared to older generics that can cost a few dollars a pill. A typical course of Xerava, a newly approved antibiotic that targets multi-drug-resistant infections, can cost as much as $2,000.

The problem is that no one can see beyond the for-profit model, looting, and subsidies:

Some of the sector’s biggest players have coalesced around a raft of interventions and incentives that would treat antibiotics as a global good. They include extending the exclusivity for new antibiotics to give companies more time to earn back their investments and creating a program to buy and store critical antibiotics much the way the federal government stockpiles emergency medication for possible pandemics or bioterror threats like anthrax and smallpox.

The solution to this is, dare I say it? Socialism.

As opposed to government subsidies, government ownership.

Not Enough Bullets

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After running a transparent scam, and engaging in some of the most egregious self-dealing that has not ended up inside a criminal court ever, Adam Neumann’s looks set to make millions more in addition to his $1.6 billion payout from Softbank to eject him from WeWork:

WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann, who left the lossmaking office-space provider with a $1.6bn exit package, could earn hundreds of millions of dollars more under an agreement struck with the company and its top shareholder in October, according to documents reviewed by the Financial Times and people briefed on the matter.

The deal revised the terms of a class of shares held by Mr Neumann — known as profits interests — that were created by the company’s complex restructuring this year and had little value after plans for a WeWork initial public offering fell apart.

But a future flotation — even at a valuation significantly lower than the company was seeking this summer — could result in Mr Neumann receiving hundreds of millions of dollars if he sells the stake.

In October, a month after Mr Neumann stepped down as chief executive, he agreed with WeWork and SoftBank, its biggest investor, to forfeit some of his profits interests, while receiving improved terms for his remaining stake, positioning him for future gains.

Seriously, if we have the space in prisons to lock up some low level junky for decades, why can’t Neumann get a couple of years?

Seriously?

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The man is indicted for corruption, he is clearly the most toxic person in Israeli politics, but still Likud cannot see beyond him.

That is profoundly sad:

Benjamin Netanyahu has won a landslide victory in a primary election for leadership of the ruling Likud party in Israel.

Official results announced early on Friday showed Netanyahu capturing 72% of the votes, compared with 28% for challenger Gideon Saar. Earlier, Netanyahu had declared a huge victory following an exit poll that put him on course for more than 70% of the vote.

The prime minister, head of Likud for the past 14 years, retained the famously loyal rightwing party’s leadership in the internal ballot, despite battling three damning corruption indictments.

This is f%$#ed up and sh%$.

Deep Thought

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Trump’s fundraising for Senators who are jurors in his impeachment trial may qualify for bribery under federal statutes.

While Pelosi is waiting for the impeachment rules from McConnell, maybe she should start investigating that, and demand that the Senators in question recuse themselves.

(On Edit)

Actually, instead  of calling on the Senators to recuse themselves, they, and their staff, should be called by the House as witnesses.

According to the Customs of My People

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Today, we engaged in a Jewish tradition from time immemorial, we had Chinese food, and went to a movie.

Actually, we saw 2 movies.

What follows is a spoiler free, and hence vague, review.

Last night, we watched Star Wars: The Force Awakens (TFA) on pay-per-view, (we also had Chinese food), and tonite, we saw Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (RoS) in a movie theater.   (also Chinese food)

They were both decent movies, but I much preferred TFA to RoS.

I could consider TFA to be the 3rd best of the Star War movies, though I was never able to sit through the first two of the prequels.

TFA was self-aware, actually commenting the Star Wars mythology and conventions, and it was true to the characters, and the plot, while possessing some holes, was relatively coherent.

Also, there was what is arguably the least subtle anti-fascist message of any of the films in the series.  (Anti-fascism is IMHO a common throughout the series)

Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), who was introduced in TFA, was firmly relegated to the background in RoS, probably as a result of the Twitter sh%$-storm from alt-right fanboi after TFA.

Also, as befits J.J. Abrams, he directed the RoS but not TFA there was a big Chekhov’s gun* violation.

In both movies, the performances of Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac, and Adam Driver’s performance was better, though I think, particularly in RoS that it served to highlight some of the shortcomings of the script.

Mark Hamill’s performance in TFA, largely playing the role of sensei from many Japanese Samurai movies, is arguably his best performance in a Star Wars movie.

Carrie Fisher’s performance in TFA was good, but that might be colored by her death following filming, and in RoS, her performance was a combination of archival footage and possibly CGI.

Of the supporting characters, the best performance was probably that of Kerri Russell in RoS, who did so either fully or partially masked, and the always entertaining Benicio Del Toro in TFA.

*Chekhov’s gun (Russian: Чеховское ружьё) is a dramatic principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary, and irrelevant elements should be removed; elements should not appear to make “false promises” by never coming into play.