Friday, June 10, 2022

Althouse

Althouse

Fennel with — look closely — columbine at sunrise.

Posted: 08 Jun 2022 06:03 PM PDT

IMG_0951

It was overcast at 5:28 a.m., and despite the storm that was to arrive soon, there was no "red sky in the morning." A little pinkishness to the west, and no sight of the sun. So let the little pop of red in that columbine stand in for the sun. Click and click again to enlarge and increase the chance of seeing the columbine.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments.

ADDED: Is it fennel? Sweet fennel — that's what my plant identification app told me. But here's my post from last year, at the same location, and the plant app said Golden Alexander. The important point is just that it's not the hated plant called wild parsnip. So don't get cranked up about that.

I've got 9 selections from TikTok for you today. Let me know what you like best.

Posted: 08 Jun 2022 03:47 PM PDT

1. A baby camel.

2. What people in different parts of the world put on their oatmeal.

3. Dark colors are exactly right for this Victorian house.

4. The metal container, the mountain of sugar, and the cup of coffee with the spinning foam.

5. The Scotsman talks to the Englishman.

6. The denouncement of "performative work."

7. Maybe you don't know how to close a door.

8. Here's a good lesson in pausing a moment and not giving the obvious answer to a question.

9. Here's a good lesson in you are not alone.

"After a weeks-long impasse, Twitter’s board plans to comply with Elon Musk’s demands for internal data by offering access to its full 'firehose,' the massive stream of data..."

Posted: 08 Jun 2022 12:45 PM PDT

"... comprising more than 500 million tweets posted each day, according to a person familiar with the company's thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the state of negotiations."

WaPo reports.

"[T]he boys are arguing that their use of biologically correct, if politically incorrect, pronouns is speech protected by the First Amendment."

Posted: 08 Jun 2022 12:39 PM PDT

"The Constitution also forbids the district from compelling them to speak as district bureaucrats suddenly — how long ago did they embrace this orthodoxy? — prefer. Furthermore, the [the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty] says it has spoken with another Kiel Area family "whose daughter was recently given an in-school suspension for 'sexual harassment' based on a single statement using an allegedly 'wrong' pronoun — and the statement was said to a third party, not even to the allegedly 'misgendered' student."

Writes George Will in "When the pronoun police come for eighth-graders" (WaPo).

The highest-rated comment over there is: "Misgendering someone maliciously is discrimination. Your crutch of 'biological sex' gives your argument a veneer of legitimacy, when you're really arguing that it's fine for these boys to bully this kid. You devoted a whole column to defend teenage bullies picking on the kid that's different. Please think about how sad that is. Why make an argument against inclusion, just because it doesn't fit perfectly into your worldview? Genderqueer people are only asking for basic dignity and respect, it's not 'woke-ness,' it's basic human decency."

"The hearings starting Thursday will feature a documentary filmmaker who has new video evidence of the violent mob assault incited by Donald Trump..."

Posted: 08 Jun 2022 12:28 PM PDT

"... and extensive advance planning among paramilitary-type groups. Riveting material about Trump's corruption and the GOP's enabling of it will follow. By contrast, Fox hosts are gearing up to substitute a propagandistic alternative story in which the only real victims related to Jan. 6 and the hearings are Trump and his supporters. House Republicans allied with Trump will manufacture material for this disinformation push designed to keep the truth from the base at all costs."

Writes Greg Sargent in "Fox News's blackout of Jan. 6 points to a hidden crisis for Democrats" (WaPo).

A propagandistic alternative story or an alternative propagandistic story?

Garner, the name (I approve!).

Posted: 08 Jun 2022 11:47 AM PDT

ADDED: The film will be directed by Madonna!

"As execs call employees back to the office, many workers wonder why, if they spent the past years toiling in gym shorts, they should suddenly be thrust back..."

Posted: 08 Jun 2022 10:13 AM PDT

"... into business-casual khakis and ties. Shorts may, in fact, represent one way to lure staff back into the office this summer.... ... Blake Markus, 38, the president of a small law firm in Jefferson City, Mo.... wears straight-fitting shorts in red or teal to compliment his red Chuck Taylor sneakers and maintains no actual dress code at his office, only asking staff to dress up if they're heading to court. He claims that wearing shorts also endears his staff to clients. 'It actually comes off as being extremely authentic and in some weird way helps build rapport with our clients and vendors,' he said.... 'Having my bottom half of my legs exposed at work feels somehow wrong unless I've been given explicit permission to do so,' said Pete Treigan, 27, who works in advertising in Durham, N.C. He was recently startled to spot his company's CFO in shorts: 'I was like, "Oh, didn't see this for you -- but all right."' Still, as a relatively new junior employee, absent a companywide 'shorts are good!' sign-off, Mr. Treigan plans to wear lightweight khaki trousers from Banana Republic."

From "Finally, We Can Wear Shorts in the Office. (Maybe)/Once-settled etiquette questions are open again, thanks to a return-to-office summer with fewer style rules and more casual norms" (Wall Street Journal).

Not mentioned in the article: Air conditioning. You don't need your legs exposed if you're sitting in an air conditioned office. I think Mr. Treigan has it right. Keep your pants on. But I must say, the notion that wearing shorts gives the impression of extreme authenticity is funny. Nudity is authentic too. How much "authenticity" do people want?

"In the 1980s and ’90s, the Democratic Party embraced big increases in police funding, longer prison sentences and greater use of the death penalty."

Posted: 08 Jun 2022 09:34 AM PDT

"Part of the rationale was a well-intentioned effort to fight crime. But part of it was also an electoral one — a desire to appease the conservative and anti-Black sentiments of some White swing voters.... In the 1990s, Democrats didn't have the evidence that has since accumulated suggesting that many punitive criminal justice policies don't reliably reduce crime, nor did they have a stream of videos displaying horrible incidents of police brutality. And back then, the political rationale was largely about keeping Republicans out of office. Now, some centrist Democrats are using alarmist rhetoric hyping America's crime rates and misleading statements about progressive policies to undercut the party's emergent left wing....  It's clear, though, that two things did not cause this increase: 'reform prosecutors' like [Chesa] Boudin and the 'defund the police' movement. Few cities have actually reduced their police budgets, and homicide rate increases happened in many cities that increased spending. There is no correlation between more progressive prosecutors and homicide rates."

From "Centrists' new war on crime is also a war on the left" by Perry Bacon Jr. (WaPo).

"I’m very skeptical about much of psychoanalysis... I think it’s such a narcissistic indulgence that I cannot believe in it."

Posted: 08 Jun 2022 09:19 AM PDT

Said Sophie Freud, quoted in "Sophie Freud, professor who challenged her grandfather's doctrine, dies at 97/The last surviving grandchild of Sigmund Freud described her grandfather as one of the 'false prophets of the 20th century'" (WaPo).

She dismissed "penis envy," a developmental stage that Sigmund Freud attributed to young girls, as "nonsense" and the ideas of a "3-year-old boy." Of her grandfather's theory of the parent-child dynamic, she dryly remarked, "I have some questions about this Oedipal relationship." 

She found particularly flawed her grandfather's understanding of female patients. "My grandfather was a good and loving man," Dr. Freud told the Associated Press, "but he understood nothing about a woman's sexuality." 

Dr. Freud saw value in her grandfather's notions of unconscious motives and defense mechanisms, as well as in some of his ideas about the role played in the human psyche by unexplored childhood experience. But there was a limit, she argued, in ceaselessly revisiting that experience, as psychoanalysts traditionally challenged patients on their couches to do. 

"My message is you have the chance to change the way you think about life without having to go back and redo it all," she once told a gathering of social workers. "There are so many paths to a person. All you have to do is unpack another self who has been waiting to be unpacked anyway. And then go with that self instead of the messed-up self that you've been attached to."

"A California man carrying at least one weapon near Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Maryland home has been taken into custody by police after telling officers he wanted to kill the Supreme Court justice..."

Posted: 08 Jun 2022 09:49 AM PDT

"... according to people familiar with the investigation. The man, described as being in his mid-20s, was found to be carrying at least one weapon and burglary tools, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.... Two people familiar with the investigation said the initial evidence indicates that the man was angry about the leaked draft of an opinion by the Supreme Court signaling that the court is preparing to overturn Roe. v. Wade..."

WaPo reports.

AND: This is absolutely right: "So Long As Dobbs Remains Undecided, The Lives of the Justices Are At Risk/The Dobbs 5 should immediately issue an unsigned per curiam order, with an opinion to follow, even over the Chief Justice's objection" (Josh Blackman at Volokh Conspiracy).

"Why would anyone assume they could get onstage at Disney for their own personal reasons? The article makes it sound so sad, their dreams were dashed."

Posted: 08 Jun 2022 08:07 AM PDT

"But... if my dream were to propose in front of a Broadway crowd, I should just get a new dream (and certainly wouldn't expect apologies and free tickets!)" 

That's the top-rated comment at "Disney Apologizes After Employee Thwarts Marriage Proposal/A man had been planning for months to pop the question at Disneyland Paris, but the employee instead snatched the ring and ushered the couple off a stage" (NYT). 

Second-highest: "I don't understand why people feel the need to have public proposals in the first place." 

Third: "OMG grow up. this whole thing is ridiculous. fire the employee? discipline the employee? dont go up on a stage at disney with its uber security measures without getting permission from a proper authority WAY in advance."

You can see the video here — at Reddit, where the headline is "POS destroyed my best friends moment. He asked for permission beforehand." But did he have permission? The NYT says:

Before climbing up to the stage, he said, he whispered into an employee's ear, asking her for permission. Disney did not immediately answer questions about whether that was the case, or whether the employee who shunted them off the stage had faced disciplinary action.

There are too many apologies these days. I feel sorry for employees who follow and enforce rules and then get undercut by management that's afraid of criticism, even unjustified criticism.

"Her Harvard-educated lawyer father drove her to skating practice, and her Cornell-educated grade-school-teacher mother gave her standardized tests 'for fun'..."

Posted: 08 Jun 2022 07:47 AM PDT

"... and made sure Keri tried 'all the possible childhood activities,' including piano, soccer, horseback riding, gymnastics, Girl Scouts — 'a smorgasbord of suburbia.' Blakinger was an A student, won writing awards and became a competitive figure skater.... [B]y fifth grade, she 'discovered self-destruction'... Blakinger drank alcohol, huffed glue, ate Tylenol 3s, smoked pot and took Adderall and Ecstasy.... 'They say that eating disorders are about control, but it is not that straightforward,' she writes. 'They are also about self-destruction that feels like success. I wanted to waste away, slowly and tragically.'... At 17, Blakinger began engaging in sex for the money she needed to support her addiction. She writes, 'I would always count the stars through every trick. If I could not see the stars, I would count ceiling tiles or specks on the floor. If I could not do that, I would close my eyes and count twinkling points of light in my mind.'... Blakinger was convicted of criminal possession of a controlled substance (six ounces of heroin in a Tupperware container) and spent almost two years in jails and prisons...."

From "A Harrowing Journey From Cornell to Addiction to Prison In her memoir, 'Corrections in Ink,' Keri Blakinger writes about her determination to improve the criminal justice system" by David Sheff (NYT).

"She contextualizes fandom as a culturewide coping mechanism and creative outlet..."

Posted: 08 Jun 2022 07:36 AM PDT

"... it can be a lifeline for a lonely and powerless teenager, a site of reflection for a middle-aged mom or a wonderful excuse for anyone to scream into the void."

Writes Amanda Hess in "'We Took a Chonce,' and Other Dispatches From Fandom/In defense of One Direction, Twitter teens and screaming women everywhere" (NYT). 

The "She" who "contextualizes" is Kaitlyn Tiffany, whose new book is "Everything I Need I Get From You: How Fangirls Created the Internet as We Know It."

We were just talking about that word yesterday — "contextualize." Remember? "[Stacey] Abrams immediately tried to 'contextualize' her remarks..." That's the post where I got into the Southern idiom "Bless her heart," but several commenters wanted to go after "contextualize." I remembered and am getting to that today. Let's talk about "contextualizing." 

In the Kaitlyn Tiffany book, something transitory and light — teen idols — is given depth and dimension — or so we're told — by "contextualizing" it within something big and profound — human psychology. In the case of Stacey Abrams, she said something she totally meant to say — Georgia is "the worst state in the country to live" — and she tried to turn it into something sound and empathetic with information about real-life living conditions. You don't want a governor who just thinks the state sucks, but you might want a governor who sees problems that can be solved.

"Contextualize" is one of those creations achieved with the suffix "-ize" — which were highly disparaged back in the 1960s when I went to high school. Didn't Strunk and White rail against "finalize"? Ah, yes:

"-ize. Do not coin verbs by adding this tempting suffix. Many good and useful verbs do end in -ize. . . . But there is a growing list of abominations: containerize, prioritize, finalize, to name three. . . . Why say 'utilize' when there is the simple, unpretentious word use?" (p. 50)

Ha ha.  I remembered that for more than 50 years! And as long as I'm mentally back in the 1960s — have I ever left? — I've got to quote you Bob Dylan's famous "finalize": 

I ain't lookin' to block you up
Shock or knock or lock you up
Analyze you, categorize you
Finalize you or advertise you
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you
Presumably, Strunk and White would be okay with "advertise," but they'd hate "categorize" almost as much as "finalize."

By the way, the oldest meaning of "context" is "The weaving together of words and sentences" (OED). That's now obsolete, but it made me wonder, for the first time, if there's a connection between "text" and "textile." Yes! It all goes back to:

teks-

Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to weave"....

So... to ask the Strunk and White question: Why say "contextualize" when there is the simple, unpretentious word use? The simple, unpretentious word is: WEAVE.

When you're tempted to write "contextualize," see if you can rewrite using "weave." And if you've got any other extra time, I would love to see a new verse of "All I Really Want to Do" using the word "contextualize": I don't want to contextualize you....

"What we're trying to say...." Just say it! Otherwise it sounds as though you're not really saying it but referring to something written down somewhere.

Posted: 08 Jun 2022 06:34 AM PDT

I was going to say that reminded me of George H.W. Bush's "Message: I care," but then I found that old clip and watched it...

  

... and even though that still makes me laugh, by contrast to Karine Jean-Pierre's performance, it felt kind of authentic. What's similar is the sense that he was referring to talking points that he wasn't supposed to say out loud. It sees that he'd been given the note that he ought to convey the message "I care," and instead of showing his caring, he stated the contents of the note. That's what Jean-Pierre did. It seems that she couldn't directly say the economy is in something like a good place. She knew that's what she was supposed to say. And then what she said was revealing that background scenario: They've figured out what they should try to say. That gives the whole game away!

"Voters in California delivered a stark warning to the Democratic Party on Tuesday about the potency of law and order as a political message in 2022..."

Posted: 08 Jun 2022 06:31 AM PDT

"... as a Republican-turned-Democrat campaigning as a crime-fighter vaulted into a runoff in the mayoral primary in Los Angeles and a progressive prosecutor in San Francisco was recalled in a landslide. The two results made vivid the depths of voter frustration over rising crime and rampant homelessness in even the most progressive corners of the country — and are the latest signs of a restless Democratic electorate that was promised a return to normalcy under President Biden and yet remains unsatisfied with the nation's state of affairs. 'People are not in a good mood, and they have reason not to be in a good mood,' said Garry South, a Los Angeles-based Democratic strategist. 'It's not just the crime issue. It's the homelessness. It's the high price of gasoline.'"

From "California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime/The recall of a progressive prosecutor in San Francisco and the strong showing by a former Republican in the mayor's race in Los Angeles showed the shifting winds on criminal justice" (NYT).

"For Democrats, the issue of crime and disorder threatens to drive a wedge between some of the party's core constituencies, as some voters demand action on racial and systemic disparities while others are focused on their own sense of safety in their homes and neighborhoods. 'People walking the streets, in many cases, feel themselves in danger, and that's got to be dealt with,' said Willie Brown, a Democrat who is the former mayor of San Francisco. But Mr. Brown said too many Democrats do not want to talk about 'what cops do' for fear of crossing the party's activist class and offending 'A.O.S. or A.O.C. or whatever that woman's name is,' he said dismissively of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, the influential progressive."

Or whatever that woman's name is.... Are Democrats going to overdo their sloughing off of their own extreme left?

"TikTok has been remarkably clear that partisan and political ads—and these are ads, in that people are being paid to promote something on behalf of a third party—are not OK..."

Posted: 08 Jun 2022 05:52 AM PDT

"... issuing a statement in October 2019, that read, in part, '[W]e will not allow paid ads that promote or oppose a candidate, current leader, political party or group, or issue at the federal, state, or local level—including election-related ads, advocacy ads, or issue ads.'... Even as progressive and Democratic-aligned organizations are increasingly interested in fighting 'disinformation,' progressive and Democratic-aligned organizations are employing strategies, like covert paid ad campaigns, that would presumably be found distasteful or immoral—or described as disinformation—if utilized by someone from across the aisle.... In a statement, a spokesperson for TikTok told us, '... Political discourse is allowed as long as it complies with our community guidelines and is organic content, meaning there is no sponsorship or paid promotion behind it.'"

From "A PR Firm Is Paying TikTok Influencers to Promote Liberal Causes and Hype Democrats' Middling Accomplishments/Vocal Media "recruits, trains, and pays influencers" to promote liberal causes on TikTok. It's easy to see how less-benign actors could use their model" (Vice). 

Where is the line between advertising and political speech? And how does that question relate to the concept "organic content"?

The TikTok statement defines "organic content" as content with "no sponsorship or paid promotion behind it." But is that precise? Here's a recent Forbes article, "The Differences Between Paid And Organic Content On Social Media": 

Organic social media content is any free content shared on social media profiles including posts, videos, stories and more....

That doesn't seem to say anything about whether the content-provider is receiving money. It seems to be about whether the platform is getting paid. Of course, TikTok can have its own policy on whether content-providers can receive money, and it can give a distinctive meaning to a term for the purpose of its own rules. (I mean, bees can be fish. That's not hard to understand!)

Some great examples of organic content include: • Testimonials/reviews. • Meet the team posts. • Real-life examples of how your product and/or service is used. • Relatable information. • How-to guides (bonus points if you turn it into a fun video).... 

[O]rganic content should include posts that make people want to interact and share... Remember that organic content should help you establish and grow your brand voice and connect with existing customers, and paid content should be designed to precisely target your ideal audience and reach the masses. Rather than posting just to post, if you can create a balanced strategy and maintain social media pages that truly represent your brand well, you'll continue to reap the benefits of social media marketing and stand out from your competition.

TikTok is having content-providers who are promoting a brand other than their own. But why is that a problem?

"CNN's new boss, Chris Licht... wants to give personalities that may appear polarizing a chance to prove they're willing to uphold the network's values..."

Posted: 08 Jun 2022 04:11 AM PDT

"... so that they don't tarnish CNN's journalism brand.... Licht doesn't want to necessarily shy away from personality programming, especially in prime time, but he wants to ensure that partisan voices don't dominate in a way that harms CNN, a source notes.... Licht said he agrees with complaints from 'people both inside and outside the organization' that the network overuses the 'Breaking News' banner. 'We are truth-tellers, focused on informing, not alarming our viewers,' he said...."

Says Axios.

It still sounds as though journalistic values are a means to an end, the end being profit. If the overheated sensationalism and Breaking News!!!! alarms were working, would they perceive a problem to be solved?

What TV news do I watch? That's easy: None. I read the news, and if there's a video clip I need to see, I find it on line. No change to the programming could bring me back. I wouldn't even notice it.

At the Sunrise Café...

Posted: 07 Jun 2022 06:29 PM PDT

IMG_0942 2

... you can write about whatever you want.

IMG_0946 2

"If the Great Salt Lake, which has already shrunk by two-thirds, continues to dry up, here’s what’s in store..."

Posted: 07 Jun 2022 02:57 PM PDT

"The lake's flies and brine shrimp would die off — scientists warn it could start as soon as this summer — threatening the 10 million migratory birds that stop at the lake annually to feed on the tiny creatures. Ski conditions at the resorts above Salt Lake City, a vital source of revenue, would deteriorate. The lucrative extraction of magnesium and other minerals from the lake could stop. Most alarming, the air surrounding Salt Lake City would occasionally turn poisonous. The lake bed contains high levels of arsenic and as more of it becomes exposed, wind storms carry that arsenic into the lungs of nearby residents, who make up three-quarters of Utah's population. 'We have this potential environmental nuclear bomb that's going to go off if we don't take some pretty dramatic action,' said Joel Ferry, a Republican state lawmaker and rancher who lives on the north side of the lake....  In theory, the fix is simple: Let more water from melting snowpack reach the lake, by sending less toward homes, businesses and farms. But metropolitan Salt Lake City has barely enough water to support its current population. And it is expected to grow almost 50 percent by 2060...."

The NYT reports.

"So whether the staffers and editors at places like the Times and the Post ignored the riots of summer 2020 while genuflecting to the lunatic idea that op-eds are violence..."

Posted: 07 Jun 2022 02:45 PM PDT

"... because they were true believers in the new dogma or because they were careerists or because they were just plain scared only meant that some of them broke your heart more than others. But knowing that wasn't enough to untether me, even after I left. The real way I finally left old media is through the thrill of building something new. The moment I began this publication was the moment everything changed for me. As someone who was used to sitting in the bleachers with the other critics, I finally understood what all that talk about building new things was about. I'm making something that I am proud of with people I admire.... If the best journalism right now is fractured between hundreds of Twitter feeds, newsletters and podcasts, making it impossible for normal, busy people to discover it, we ultimately want to bring it all together in one place. We want to be your algorithm."

Writes Bari Weiss in "The Washington Post's Descent Into Middle School Antics/And why we're building something new" (Common Sense).

"They’re scary motherf-----s to get involved with. We know they killed [Khashoggi] and have a horrible record on human rights."

Posted: 07 Jun 2022 02:34 PM PDT

"They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates." 

Said Phil Mickelson, quoted in "Dustin Johnson quits PGA, joins Phil Mickelson on Saudi-backed tour" (WaPo).

"[Stacey] Abrams immediately tried to 'contextualize' her remarks..."

Posted: 07 Jun 2022 10:27 AM PDT

"... by pointing to declining wages and the state's high maternal mortality rates. Days later, she called her comments 'inelegant' but her sentiment true."

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, in "'Bless her heart.' Kemp ad slams Abrams for 'worst state in the country to live' remark." 

Here's Kemp's ad:

ADDED: To what extent is "Bless her heart" an insult? That's a question I considered 10 years ago, when Mitt Romney said it about Obama.

AND: Southern Living says: "Southerners know that the meaning of the phrase depends on the tone in which it's spoken, and a slight change in inflection or volume can make all the difference...."

"Nowadays, if my wife Belinda and I start to square off... we take a break for 20 to 30 minutes, and we’ll come back."

Posted: 07 Jun 2022 09:36 AM PDT

"And one or the other of us will say something like: 'Hey, do you want to fight? I don't really want to fight. Can we get out of it? What do you need from me?' And Belinda will say, 'Well, you can say you're sorry about blah, blah, blah.' I say, 'OK, you're right. I apologize.' Then, I might ask her to be accountable for three things, and she'll take ownership of one and I let the other two go. And we're done. What would take five or six days now takes 20 minutes.... There's no such thing as an individual. We co-regulate each other's nervous systems all day long. We need to shift from the control model to a collaborative one, an ecologically humble model. You're not above the system, you're in it. You breathe it."

From "A Couples Counselor Takes On 'Normal Marital Hatred'/In his new book, 'Us', Terrence Real explores how 'enlightened self interest' could save your relationship" (NYT).

"Many of us grew up being told by phys ed teachers that we should run as fast as our little legs could carry us...."

Posted: 07 Jun 2022 07:40 AM PDT

"When I talk about being a devoted runner, I always qualify it by saying that I'm slow — just in case the person I'm speaking to decides to look up my race times and call me out for being an impostor.... Over the years I have learned that, like body acceptance, pace acceptance can come from shifting our focus from external metrics and others' perceived judgments to how we actually feel in our own skin... There are also physical benefits to running at a pace that doesn't feel punishing.... Running with intensity might build muscle, but running at an easy pace... does a better job of conditioning our heart and lungs and boosting our endurance.... Exercise scientists suggest running at a 'conversational' pace — one at which you can run and talk without feeling winded. The other benefit of the talk test is the talk itself. Jogging and conversing with others forms community — and social bonding releases even more endocannabinoids...."

Writes in "How I Learned to Love Finishing Last/In a sport that rewards speed, sometimes it's healthier to be the tortoise than to be the hare" (NYT).

"Democrats Can Win This Fall if They Make One Key Promise... Give us the House and two more senators, and we will make Roe law in January 2023."

Posted: 07 Jun 2022 07:33 AM PDT

Writes Josh Marshall (in the NYT).

Democrats hope to make November's midterm elections a referendum on Roe v. Wade.... But you can't make an election into a referendum on an issue if you can't point to anything winning the election would accomplish. To make the 2022 elections a referendum on Roe, Democrats have to put protecting Roe and abortion rights on the table. 

Here's one way to do that: get clear public commitments from every Senate Democrat (and candidate for Senate) not only to vote for the Roe bill in January 2023 but also to change the filibuster rules to ensure that a majority vote would actually pass the bill and send it to the White House for the president's signature.... 

If... there are 48 Senate Democrats ready to make that pledge... That is, all current Democratic Senators except Manchin and Sinema. they need two additional Democratic senators in the next Congress.

There needs to be a specific commitment to an explicit statutory text and to changing the filibuster rule.

No ambiguity, no haggling, no living in Senator Manchin's head for a year. You give us this, and we'll give you that. That tells voters exactly what will be delivered with a Democratic win. It also defines what constitutes a win: control of the House and two more Senate seats.

I don't know if that strong position would win them the majority they'd need to follow through. What if their commitment to ending the filibuster ends up inspiring Republicans — if Republicans, as predicted, take the majority — to end the filibuster and pass some things they like — including anti-abortion legislation?

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