Favorite Rejects 2022-06-04

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 @Noahpinion

The Hezbollah strategy?

Chris Hayes @chrislhayes

An increasingly mainstream message of gun maximalists is that the *reason* to be armed is so that you can use violence or the threat of it to get your way in the political sphere, basically:"People in government need to worry we'll pump their bodies full of lead if they cross us"

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

I’ve been mystified that it’s taken this long for leaks of this nature to come out.

bloomberg.comBloomberg - Are you a robot?

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

My best guess (an informed guess but also an unconfirmed one so don’t put too much weight on it) is the administration assumed Manchin and others would demand big cuts and thus didn’t think too hard about whether $1.8 trillion was optimal or not.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

The way I would put it is that if signing on to @perrybaconjr's ten-point plan made you a "Mainstream Democrat in Good Standing" even if you deviated on other topics, that would open the door to much more moderation and be very constructive.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

I keep seeing different versions of this mistake — Russia’s trade balance is “improving” not despite the sanctions but because of them. They are now unable to import much stuff so the foreign currency is piling up uselessly. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…