The latest Counterpunch misstep

Will Solomon, writing at Counterpunch, was apparently impressed by Glenn Greenwald more recently than I was, and by Sam Harris far more recently than I was. I say "apparently" because it's paywalled, as that site continues to slouch toward Gomorrah. (The title is about how "tech billionaires have bought the loudest voices on left and right.) 

I would pay to read THAT?  Some Captain Obvious shit that may imply that, in years past at least, Glennwald was a leftist, too?

Beyond the likely nature of this piece, it's not the first one that's a semi-Captain Obvious one that St. Clair and Cockburn have paywalled in the last three months or so as part of getting more aggressive in general with paywalls.

Seriously, I need to get that updated blogroll done and my old one hauled down.

Joe Biden, full of shit one last time

In his "farewell address," Genocide Joe / Warmonger Joe / Wallbuilder Joe, etc. warned about a number of issues. I roasted him with some flash snark on Shitter, but wanted to go more in depth about the full reality of his outright mendaciousness.

This was the first warning of his:

“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,” Biden said.

Really? 

Yes, your Democraps have been out-oligarchied by Rethuglicans, perhaps, but not for want of trying.

Your Veep blew through billions on her presidential campaign, went massively in debt, and will stiff every non-oligarch she can.

You yourself cut back, or rather, gutted COVID aid (just like your old boss, Dear Leader, not spending enough on the Great Recession because Rahm Emanuel said so) and other issues.

You've done nothing for national healthcare.

But, you DID have your Department of Justice pile on, with the person angry to violence about healthcare and the oligarchs who run it, Luigi Mangione, and file a federal case in addition to state charges.

Fuck off right there.

On to the rest:

The president outlined some of his most pressing concerns, including what he described as a “crumbling” free press, the outsized influence of the military-industrial complex, rising disinformation, and the need to remove dark money from politics.

Oh, you're getting your ass kicked.

"Crumbling" free press? Coming from the guy who wants to ban TikTok because he's afraid of ChiNazis, tried to get social media to self-censor and other things?

Update: Throwing Sam Husseini out of a presser with Tony Blinken is sure as hell crumbling the free press.

"Criminal! Why aren't you in The Hague," shouted Sam Husseini, an independent journalist and longtime critic of Washington's approach to the world. The Hague is where the International Criminal Court is located.

The unusually confrontational scene in the State Department briefing room only ended when security personnel forcibly picked up Husseini and carried him out of the room as he continued to heckle Blinken.

Max Blumenthal was escorted out, but without force:

"Why did you keep the bombs flowing when we had a deal in May?" Max Blumenthal, editor of the Grayzone, an outlet that strongly criticizes many aspects of U.S. foreign policy, called out to Blinken, before he was escorted out.

Yeah, self-crumbling the free press. Here's Husseini writing about it himself. And, video:

Here's Max's video.

This is, per The Nation's Jeet Heer, "ultra-hawk" Tony Blinken, surely one of the Team Biden insideres who has long known about his dementia and who ran foreign policy as an independent fiefdom like Henry Kissinger. As for Biden himself? Heer notes his fawning over Scoop Jackson:

In a 1983 eulogy on the Senate floor, Biden said that “Jackson changed a major part of my political life” by teaching him the importance of Israel to American foreign policy.

Blech. That said, the farthest left Jeet can go for people criticizing Biden's military Keynesianism is Adam Tooze.

Outsized influence of the military-industrial complex? This is Genocide Joe, the man who never met a bomb for Israel he didn't like.

Rising disinformation? 

Like when Anthony Fauci told people NOT to wear masks at the start of COVID (and went on from there)? When he claimed Peter Daszak was NOT doing gain of function research? When he himself claimed that a "red line" with Bibi Netanyahu was a red line? When he said four years ago he'd only run for one term?

Dark money in politics? Neither you nor Dear Leader tried to do any repairs to McCain-Feingold, for starters.

There is no reason for many people to die in wildfires

The Paradise Fire (Camp Fire by name, Paradise being the town) was and is a tragic exception, but let's note that — it was tragic, and it was and is an exception to what I mention in the header.

I decided to pull information I had written about the earliest reported deaths from the Palisades and Eaton fires from the roasting I had given Joshua Frank of Counterpunch to reference them separately.

On the 11 deaths recorded through Saturday afternoon? And on why they died? I'll take them in order of presentation in the story.

First, pets are not people. I know that, Robert Putnam "bowling alone" cliches aside, for more and more people living alone, they've become quasi-people. But? They're not people. And, while not talking about LA wildfires, but rather, the ice storm in his Atlanta area, Ed Buckner agrees that pets aren't people.

Second, if an amputee father told his out-of-state daughter he was going to evacuate, wouldn't that have originally included his cerebral palsy son living with him, so what changed his mind? Something happened. But, it didn't need to. He should have evacuated with his son.

Third, it wasn't in god's hands, because, per Muhammad, there is no god and I am his prophet, and unlike nutters in Tex-ass with tornadoes, nobody prayed away the fire. To be really blunt, and switch from theology to secularism? People who have a fatalistic version of "god's will" and get their asses killed in natural disasters are Darwin Award candidates. 

Fourth, in the reverse of social media rumors, don't try to fight fires like this if you're not a firefighter. Sixth is No. 4 in spades — definitely don't try to be a professional firefighter if you have cerebral palsy. Seventh, don't try to be a professional firefighter.

Fifth, why was the person talking to his family on his cellphone not self-evacuated long before? (Story doesn't explain why he stayed.)  

Someone who did not die, but was it worth the risk? It is craptacular for 90-year-olds to have their insurance cancelled, but is it worth it for a 60-ish child to risk dying, especially since you don't know that you can keep their house from burning or not? And, on this whole issue, I'm not meaning to excuse property insurers, but, per Abrahm Lustgarten, maybe insurance against both fire and hurricane needs to be less state-socialized; Lustgarten specifically noted in his book that making people feel enough pain on this aspect of climate change might actually spur action. The story linked at the top of the piece notes that Cal state regulators have allowed a bunch of insurance hikes; socialist Florida and Tex-ass refuse to do that with hurricanes. The piece also notes that the state's former insurance commissioner forced all state-operating property insurers to look at their investments in fossil fuels; unfortunately, no divestments were required.

Side note: SCOTUS is allowing state-based climate change lawsuits to proceed. Team Biden wanted this, but Team Biden has also refused to file amicus briefs let alone its own lawsuits.

Four and seven remind me of Florida hurricane nutters. This paragraph may sound callous, but, as with Florida hurricane nutters, none of these people had to die. They didn't, period and end of story.

==

The Beeb has a Jan. 13 update. In addition to the above, you have a person saying "the fire would pass over" (equivalent of act of god and/or hurricane nutters), a "fires didn't get here before" (hurricane nutters), and at least one other amateur firefighter.

==

What are best practices to prevent wildfire spread? Stephen Eisenman offers some at Counterpunch, while claiming others, such as prescribed burns, will make things worse. OK, that's good reason to have fewer rebuilds. As for "house-hardening"? That's going to push California housing costs even higher. As for, per Naked Capitalism, the slow pace of rebuilding in the Santa Monica Mountains after a 2020 fire being a harbinger for LA? Maybe most that rebuilding shouldn't happen. Move to Cleveland or St. Louis, where the water is and the wildfires are not. Counterpunch's Jeff St. Clair linked to that, and is drawing the same wrong conclusions as Joshua Frank.

Burrows as Texas House Speaker? No, not "surprised"; and is this a mess of pottage for House Dems?

Dustin Burrows was elected Texas Speaker of the House 85-55 in the second round. The Trib reports nine "present" after Ana Maria Ramos fell out after the first round. That's still one short of 150; why Yvonne Davis wasn't there, I don't know. BUT, contra the Trib, the stormtrooper followers of Christofascist Tim Dunn are NOT "insurgents." Shock me that Justin Barragán and Jasper Scherer have the bylines; they probably wrote the fucking header, too.

That said, contra Kuff, I'm not "a little surprised." (At least he had the "a little" qualifier.) Both Burrows and Cook were playing their cards close to the vest ever since the House GOP Caucus meeting last month. In the last 48 hours before the voting, both had one or two announcements of people on the wagon, but that was it. Otherwise, Burrows was of course aggressive in his claim of 76 supporters right after the caucus, even if that initially blew up in his face.

Now, the mess of pottage issue? 

Per the "blew up" link, Burrows had already said no Democrat committee chairs. He had already said he would let any vouchers bill reach the House floor. And, he was already known for 2023's "Death Star" bill sponsorship. So, unless there were some private deals we don't yet know about, what did Dems gain by not letting David Cook have the job? I already talked about that, as well as whether or not the state GOP will really censure any Burrows voters, including the new of 2024 state resolution to include a primary election ban, late last year.

Anyway, summarizing a shitload of snark I posted on Twitter yesterday? I loved the Texas exceptionalism blather coming from nomination speechifiers, including from presumed ConservaDem Toni Rose in seconding Burrows' nomination. I also loved Ana-Maria Ramos doing her best Castilian-lite Spanish in imitation of Maria Hinojosa of Latino USA.

Missed by me from the Trib? Lone Star Left says Ramos voted for Cook not Burrows in round two. Butt-hurt? I also loved Ramos seconding her own nomination. Add egotistical to butt-hurt. No wonder Dems still can't win more in the not-so-great, not-blessed-by-a-nonexistent-critter Pointy Abandoned Object State™.

If the MSM is dying, so too will, or should, certain forms of longform alt-journalism

That latter phrase is referring primarily to Substack and by extension to places like Beehiiv, if they're attracting any of the same people as a certain type of Substack.

First, I don't deny that fair chunks of the MSM is doing. Gannett's new deal with Reuters has the same Gannett lies as before about what the prospective savings will do. AP's lies earlier in 2024 about how little vs how much it still depends on US print journalism will come home to roost in 2025.

Among major individual papers, though I largely agree with with the non-endorsement angles of both of them, including the full background, the LA Times and Washington Post will both leak oil this year, and the Post is already shot itself in the foot again with how it's handling Ann Telnaes' resignation. It's leaking further oil since then; I'm no fan of Jennifer Rubin, but her leaving is another black eye.

Otherwise? Per The Hill claiming that Dustin Burrows' election as Texas Speaker of the House is a blow to the far right when it's really a blow to the far far right, is another reason the MSM, and its political analysis and news mags are failing. These people continue to willingly shift Overton Windows.

Then?

New Republic turning to semi-winger of old Mona Charen to discuss Bannon vs Musk? This is going to be a long four years if this is what the librul opinion mag version of the MSN thinks is hot stuff. 

But? Back to Substack.

The Substacks I'm thinking about are largely single-issue, including some, like Simplicius, who has made the "MSM is dying" claim.

Whichever of "two sides," or rejecting "two sides," one takes on Russia-Ukraine, as the war (not "special military option") enters its third year, especially if Trump doesn't end it anywhere close to his first day in office, appetite for reading about it, except among the most rabid Uki-tankies/NAFO Nazis on one side, and Putinistias/Russia-tankies on the other, will continue to ebb.

There's only so often you can write about one side or the other gaining or surrendering a whole 10 acres of generally meaningless ground on the steppes of eastern Europe before people who aren't into war porn or weapons geekery have their eyes glaze over.

For the rest of the steppe winter and early spring, there will be no land breakthroughs, no major new weaponry or anything else. 

And, assuming Trump, Putin and Zelensky come to no deal by April, there will be no big breakthroughs after that. Trump, his weathervaning and blather aside, will not make major cuts to current sanctions on Russia, though he won't add to them, either. China's Xi will do enough to continue to string Putin along, but major aid increases won't happen.

In fact, reports that Trump is behind the push for Ukraine to lower its draft age (a human capital version of "NATO members should pay more") is already throwing off the calculus of at least some Substackers, I'm sure. That said, Trump could still lessen the pipeline of US aid, and could still push for a deal with Putin. But, you know what? Trump has not said a thing about the Biden Adminstration's new sanctions on Russia's energy industry, including the so-called "ghost tankers." Now, Newsweek is trying to spin Trump's NSA designee Mike Waltz's push on the draft, saying that it could be setting a precondition for manpower to stabilize the lines. I don't buy it. See above; the lines are stable until at least April. Per "The Dissident" Substack, Trump gave private backing to GOP Congresscritters to vote FOR previous aid packages to Ukraine. And, we're again reminded that Trump 1.0 sold arms packages to Ukraine that Dear Leader Obama refused to do. Plus, Waltz has been a past supporter of the war. (As of a week ago, Simplicius was still saying "we'll wait and see" if this is Trump's policy or not; The Dissident's piece was from last year.)

Lather.Rinse.Repeat.

I pick that as a primary example, but other types of single-focus journalism will likely also struggle, if their single-focus isn't that big of an issue in terms of reader interest, and there's just not a lot new happening.

==

That said, traditional MSM fellow-traveler opinion or analysis sites like Wonkette, having traveled to Substack, let alone the still-odious Never Trumper Jennifer Rubin leaving the post to pair with Norm Eisen, need to die as well, and probably will shrink, if not die.

Texas Progressives "await" the start of the Lege

The Texas Speaker of the House battle hit a new high, or low, last week, when GOP Housecritter Cody Harris (presumably backing Dustin Burrows) filed a legal complaint against Texas GOP Chair Abraham George alleging intimidation and other issues over the threat to censure, complete with two-year primary ban, dissidents. Lone Star Left adds what the Trib missed — and maybe that Cody overlooked, too? Part of his complaint involves matters of criminality, not just civil law.

UPDATE: It's Burrows, 85-55 in the second round. The Trib reports nine "present" after Ana Maria Ramos fell out after the first round. That's still one short of 150; not sure if anybody was legally absent or what. BUT, contra the Trib, the stormtrooper followers of Christofascist Tim Dunn are NOT "insurgents." Shock me that Justin Barragán and Jasper Scherer have the bylines; they probably wrote the fucking header, too.

==

Shades of "Cadillac Desert" stupidity! Strangeabbott wants to take water from Houston and sell it to West Texas. Other than the water stupidity itself, one wonders if, in today's Tex-ass, this isn't a backdoor political punishment for Helltown. 

How well will New York State's shield law protect the mifepristrone-prescribing doctor being sued by Kenny Boy Paxton? It may hang on the difference between a lawsuit by a private actor and one by a state government, an issue rarely explored by federal courts.

To me, it's no surprise that UT-Austin's presidency remains vacant. DEI-busting, or busting anything that looks close to that, by the state, and more. At the same time, people like UT's outgoing Jay Hartzell have done little at public universities to protect pro-Palestinian students, so good fucking riddance — and I wish the best to pro-Palestinian protestors at SMU, where Hartzell is headed.

Disgusting — Texas has the fifth-highest rate of abandoned calls on any state's national suicide hotline. Why? In fair part due to a federal funding deficit that is set to grow, in part due to the state not picking up the gap. Not having more counselors manning more phone lines also wears out the ones who are already there.

Strangeabbott, Kenny Boy, et al, paid out $1M in private legal contracts to defend the state vs the feds on the floating buoys and razor wire in the Rio Grande. 

SocraticGadfly critically reviewed Jimmy Carter's presidential years and also discussed 1976 Democratic options.

In an overlooked part of the story that Fuckbook is getting rid of fact-checking, Hucksterman said that Fuckbook's safety and content team is being moved from California to Tex-ass because California might be biased. And Tex-ass isn't?

Look out for the New World screwworm in south Texas.

The Monthly thinks an "Ode to High Beams" is worth paywalling. It also thinks mini-profiling 10 rando librulz who left Tex-ass, even though four left back in 2022 and one in 2021, is worth something. It's "worth something" to the Monthly to presumably goose circulation for its paywall outside of Tex-ass borders, by 10 randos gushing to their friends that they were in the Monthly.

What's up with Matt Mullenweg putting his thumb on the scale at WordPress?

Off the Kuff analyzed the precinct data for the Railroad Commissioner's race in Harris County. (A piece that only a Kuffner could love; I got the Speaker's challenge links off Kuff and he could have submittted that.)

The Texas Signal has a timeline of Texas Republicans and January 6. 

The Observer documents how Texas' ban on testing strips contributes to fentanyl-related deaths. 

 Jef Rouner says book reading challenges are doing it all wrong.