Regarding that pickup that plowed into participants of a Pride parade in Florida, it was an accident. The driver was going to be in the parade with his truck.
the driver was a 77-year-old man who was going to be a participant in the parade, planning to drive his truck in the procession instead of walking. But as he started moving his truck forward, “it suddenly accelerated and it, unfortunately, hit two pedestrians, striking them across the street there and then he plowed into that garden center you see with the yellow tape there.” The driver and all of the victims are members of the Gay Men’s Chorus
OT But start your day with a smile.
Can’t Johnson be charged, tried, found guilty, sentenced and jailed?
If he were capable of shame he’d die of embarrassment.
That is a promising development. A dream of mine is (1) a focus on the reality that the American experience is a unique set of items and (2) the fact that what unites us is substantial, across vast sectors of our population.
ETA…The Trump Hustle was this: Division Sells
Meanwhile in AZ, the real thing. Horrific scenes as truck driver rams into bike race [Video] (aol.com)
I know. Up-thread I posted the story and a photo of the driver’s Ford Super Duty pickup with a bicycle tire still embedded in the grill after he was stopped and shot by the police a mile away. Have they ruled it intentional yet?
Do what?
The unfortunate** result of Trump as a public figure is his presence
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In many disciplines in academia
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In literature
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In Non-fiction
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In print and broadcast Fourth Estate
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In film
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etc
For this Century and beyond…and it will be mostly highly damaging to the name
** maybe “fortunate” if we can learn and grow from the experience
The low, low turnout in the French regional elections should be a warning light that flashes for both the Dems and the GOP (at least still as a traditional political party). If government exists to solve the myriad problems left to the public part of the economy, massive apathy about voting is bad news indeed. Even the far-right leader Marine Le Pen called the French vote a civic disaster.
Interestingly, this vote and the collapse today of the Swedish government both had a housing theme, especially the availability of affordable rental housing. Around the US, the housing market has seen disruption from the Covid Recession. The upper-middle class has struggled fo find places out of town, slum lords have dumped their investments, a whole lot of people owe back rent, and financial markets are cynical. The last thing the Biden administration needs is less political engagement, yet Manchin seems to be doing his darndest to make sure 2022 is a civic disaster as well.
Brad De Long, writing about the bond market, a forward-looking space, recognizes that something is coming.
Back in March 2009, the University of Chicago’s Robert Lucas confidently predicted that within three years the U.S. economy would be back to normal. A normal U.S. economy has a short-term nominal interest rate of 4%. Since the 10-Year U.S. Treasury bond rate tends to be one percentage point more than the average of expected future short-term interest rates over the next decade, even five expected years of a deeply depressed economy with essentially zero short-term interest rates should not push the 10-Year Treasury rate below 3%. (And, indeed, the Treasury rate fluctuated around 3 to 3.5% for the most part from late 2008 through mid 2011.) But in July of 2011 the 10-Year U.S. Treasury bond rate crashed to 2%, and at the start of June it was below 1.5%. The normal rules of thumb would say that the market is now expecting 8 3/4 years of near-zero short-term interest rates before things return to normal. And similar calculations for the 30-Year Treasury bond show even longer and more anomalous expectations of continued depression.
The possible conclusions are stark: either those investing in financial markets expect economic policy to be so dysfunctional that current global depressed economy to endure in more-or-less its current state for perhaps a decade, perhaps more; or–even now, more than three years after the end of the financial crisis–the ability of financial markets to do their job and sensibly price relative risks and returns at a rational level has been broken at a deep and severe level, a level that makes them incapable of doing their proper job of bearing and managing risk and channeling savings to risky and entrepreneurial ventures.
Yeah, 66% didn’t bother to vote. And the ones that did bother to vote are sending a message:
Mr Macron’s centrist party is projected to gain more than 10% of the vote - just enough to take part in the second round next weekend.
Ms Le Pen’s far-right National Rally has also fallen short of expectations.
Both are trailing the conservative party, Les Républicains.
One of Mr Macron’s MPs, Aurore Bergé, described her party’s poor performance as a “democratic slap in the face for all of us”.
Added:
And with our current debt levels of more than 30 trillion combined with the current administration’s spending plans, we can’t afford 4-5 percent interest rates anymore. Not without making some serious changes. Housing will take a hit if interest rates spike also.
Yep. Democracy in this country is over. 2022 and 2024 are in the bag for the GQP and there’s nothing we can do but wait for people to realize that yes, sometimes violence is the only answer left.
A lovely articulation of precisely what the GQP doesn’t want to happen.
Spectators seem to think it was highly intentional. Police still quiet. But they saw fit to shoot him during the pursuit and arrest.
OT
But this makes me laugh to think of Chump and Weisselberg eating each other’s hearts out in the uplifiting environs of Chump Tower.
“Allen, you’ve been in the bathroom a long time. What’s going on in there?”