14 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread”

1. In shocking news today, a close advisor to the Con Man-in-Chief is accused of influence peddling, selling his services to wannabe Trump Administration lackeys. Corruption inside Trump’s inner circle!  How could that be?

   The review claimed that Mr. Epshteyn had sought payment from two people, including Scott Bessent, whom Mr. Trump recently picked as his nominee for Treasury secretary.

   According to the review, Mr. Epshteyn met with Mr. Bessent in February, at a time when it was widely known that he was interested in the Treasury post, and proposed $30,000 to $40,000 a month to “promote” Mr. Bessent around Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s estate in Florida.

   Greed is one thing, but to not share the spoils with the boss is the ultimate sin, capiche?

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   1. I liked the part where the writers seemed to hint he said something like "I am Boris Fu(%!ng Epshteyn!" FDFQ just called one of the NYT writers of this piece "Magot" Haberman on social media. I don't have enough of a sense of humor to live through four more years of this, folks. As the Beatles once sang:

      You're giving me the same old line
      I'm wondering why
      You hurt me then, you're back again
      No, no, no, not a second time

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2. Trump demands Republicans “kill” PRESS Act which would protect journalists and their sources.

   According to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, one of the many groups advocating for the bill, “The PRESS Act would bar the federal government from using subpoenas, search warrants, or other compulsory actions against journalists to force the disclosure of information identifying confidential sources as well as other newsgathering records, except in very limited circumstances. It would also broadly limit the government’s ability to use the same actions against third parties, including email providers and search engines, to seize journalists’ data, with narrow exceptions.”

   The bill has overwhelming bi-partisan support passing the House twice and awaiting passage in the Senate, but has been stalled for months in the Senate Judiciary Committee, with Sen. Tom Cotton  said to be holding up the measure. It is now feared with Trump’s opposition and Democrats fixated on getting judicial appointments approved before the end of session the bill may die.

   “Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.”    Justice Hugo Black, concurring opinion, New York Times v. United States  | 403 U.S. 713 (1971)

    

    

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3. How bad is the Texas abortion ban? No one will ever know. The committee that reviews maternal deaths just isn't going to look at the reports from '22 and '23. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/11/26/texas-committee-wont-examine-maternal-deaths-first-years-after-abortion-ban/

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4. .Trumpflation is already becoming a thing

   Americans want lower prices. Too bad: Trump wants tariffs.

   In 2022, the United States imported $2.6 billion in tomatoes (and $8.4 billion in vegetables overall), $1.7 billion in beef, $3.4 billion in tropical fruit (from a total of $8 billion in fruit and nuts) and $2.2 billion in baked goods. And that’s just a sampling of the food products that are shipped north over the border — all of which could now get 25 percent pricier under Trump’s proposal. Some of that increase might be borne by the exporter and the importer, sure, but not all of it.

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   1. "Day One" tariffs won't impact guacamole for Super Bowl parties … but I suspect there will be impacts before March Madness parties.

      Consumption of avocados in the United States has exceeded domestic production and supply since the early 1990s, resulting in a surge in avocado imports since 2000/01 (Figure 4). In 1990, the United States imported 38 million pounds of avocados. Imports grew steadily, rising to 2,789 million pounds in 2023. Nearly all these imports (99%) are of Hass or Hass-like varieties (Harmonized System’s HS-code: 0804400040), with over 90% originating from Mexico. …

      Among imported shipments, both Mexico and Peru exhibit a similar fluctuating trend. The average shipping point price for Mexico was $32.96 per box [two-layer carton (around 26 pounds)].

      A quick look did not find an estimated impact on retail prices — maybe only 10%? 

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      1. Prices on goods from impacted Canadian and Mexican industries could be 5% to 10% depending on how much, if any, is absorbed by the supply chain.  Overall, according to an analysis by Deutsche Bank, it could increase inflation from a projected 2.2% next year to 3.7%.

         Trump's tariffs on Mexico, Canada would sharply boost inflation, hurt economy, experts say

         New fees on goods from Mexico, Canada and China would cost a typical American family an additional $1,300 a year, said Brendan Duke, senior director of economic policy a the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

         Tariffs would especially hobble the U.S. auto industry, which imports raw materials from Mexico to make parts that are then shipped back to that country for vehicle assembly, Hufbauer said. Some parts cross the border several times as they’re enhanced before vehicles are sold to American consumers, potentially piling on several rounds of tariffs.

         The duties could increase the price of cars and trucks sold in the U.S. by about 10%, Hufbauer said. And by damping auto sales or prompting manufacturers in other countries to switch to non-U.S. parts suppliers, the levies could mean layoffs for some of the 1 million U.S. auto manufacturing workers., Hufbauer said.

         And that may not reflect the costs of retaliatory tariffs from an ensuing trade war.

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5. Bluesky Reaching Crtical Mass – It's about the "network effect", folks. Josh Marshall at TPM.

   And, the Algorithm.

   late 2024 Twitter is a lot like living in the home of an emotionally-stunted, middle aged egomaniac with more money than he knows what to do with. And I think we all know what that home looks like on the inside.

   When I realized this was real and to just Bluesky hype I’ve been caught up in is when I heard that Meta and its ‘Threads” Twitter competitor was starting to roll out features and changes to deal with competition from Bluesky. Those are largely tied to allowing users to opt out of some aspects of its algorithm. I was even more interested when I saw this report this morning that Chinese state media is concerned about Bluesky’s rapid growth relative to Twitter. Like other state actors, China has invested huge resources into amplifying its voice on Twitter, Facebook and other networks – most of all on TikTok which is a Chinese company with close ties to the government.

   The key issue here is the algorithm. That’s what makes this potentially more than just another story about Bluesky emerging as a rival to Twitter. After all, the Chinese state has a lot of resources. So, fine, what’s the problem? They’ll just build up on Bluesky, right? But again, the algorithm is the key.

   Twitter was never a particularly large social network. It was totally dwarfed in the old days by Facebook. And it wasn’t profitable. That’s the reason Musk was able to buy it. What made it important and worth buying was it packed way more influence over media and communications than it size suggested. A big factor underlying Bluesky’s recent growth is that it’s use of algorithms is very light. The big move Meta/Threads just made to compete was – breaking all Meta business doctrine – allowing users a bit more ability to opt out of its algorithm. There’s a reason that’s Meta business doctrine. Social media platforms harvest engagement like mines harvest coal from the ground. More engagement, more money. That’s the role of the algorithm. It’s the drilling machinery of social media platform wealth. The pre-Musk Twitter absolutely used algorithms but not as effectively or with as expansive a social grid as Facebook. That’s why it was never that successful as a business.

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   1. Josh continues:

      The algorithms which are the central profit drivers of all contemporary social media platforms are also what makes them so useful for state actors. As that article argues, Bluesky’s light algorithmic structure may make it harder for China, Russia and everyone else operating on these platforms (very much including domestic actors) to turn it to their purposes.

      That’s interesting.

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   2. The quantity of regular people moving to BlueSky is great, one million per day right now.  What is really important is the media and other influencers moving from twit to BlueSky which means their followers will do the same.  BlueSky is really perking up.  One of my things is supporting Ukraine. It took a lot of hard work to get the Ukraine interface people to move too.  There are still some infrastructure problems keepin Ukraine people from using BlueSky.  But, things are still changing and those people are finding ways to get to it.

      Being able to read the media on BlueSky made the tip point move to BlueSky a couple weeks ago.  The constant garbage on twit is making it easy to move. Add that BlueSky has a serious cleanup of the russian and other bots.  Makes it safe to be on BlueSky compared to twit.

      @pamsails.bsky.social

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6. So all you Good Will Huntings out there, finish this equation:

   Bird flu's been discovered in raw milk (see link) > rfkjr thinks raw milk is the bee's knees > Elonia wants to use his cute little doggie acronym to slash federal spending > tax cuts for the wealthy will decrease federal revenues > the last time we had a pandemic (oh I know, we've all forgotten what happened 4 years ago) our fearless leader told people to just take unproven remedies = ??????

   https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influenza-bird-flu/california-reports-avian-flu-retail-raw-milk-sample

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7. Dr. Jerome Adams, Trump 45 Surgeon General, has a few thoughts for the incoming Sad!-ministration for Trump 47.

   https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:6wwty6iar2ya7heph6d25cw3/bafkreifnh7qgxi5ficur4xtcfxsfpt6qmsggnhzcxoo35asoldsc5wybqm@jpeg

    

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   1. They won't be distracted because they can just tell their supporters that none of those things are real and just forge ahead as deaths stack up.

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   2. That's what I thought, JohnInDenver. I'll be spending the next four years in a Michael Jackson oxygen tent, hopefully with wifi.

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