Favorite Rejects 2022-09-07

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Trump is *bad at his job* (sloppy, crass, alienating, personally corrupt) in a bunch of ways that are distinctive and absolutely worth talking about but in a big picture sense there are a lot of continuities which is why conservatives love him — they’re just wrong about things.

Liam Bright @lastpositivist

I actually agree with @mattyglesias on this one: a lot of the worst things about Trump and his wannabes and hangers on among Republicans are ways in which they are basically continuous with a long tradition of plutocratic and anti-democratic conservatism. https://t.co/fe5R4KtDbK

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Blake Masters, a centrist moderate Republican, is aware that 9/11 was an inside job designed to install Bushitler’s fascist regime and the media libs paint that as a bad thing. https://t.co/4LtlclWtBw

Kevin Robillard 🇺🇸 @Robillard

NEW: In e-mails to his college classmates obtained by HuffPost, Arizona GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters defended skepticism of the “official story” of the 9/11 attacks, argued voting was often “immoral” and said America circa 2006 was “fascist.” https://t.co/dnFMizrD4U

Matina Stevis-Gridneff @MatinaStevis

Ancient forests in the EU ravaged for wood pellets, which are considered *wait for it* "renewable" energy (coz trees grow back, right?) Fantastic work here by @HurtesSarah, our newest Brussels bureau member.

nytimes.comEurope Is Sacrificing Its Ancient Forests for EnergyGovernments bet billions on burning timber for green power. The Times went deep into one of the continent’s oldest woodlands to track the hidden cost.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Losing my mind over this — in a traditional system Palin would’ve won the primary and then lost the general. There are cases where RCV makes a difference but not this one!

Emily Brooks @emilybrooksnews

Tom Emmer tells me: "Ranked choice voting, I think, is unconstitutional" "60% of the voters in Alaska voted for the Republican agenda. And someone with less than 40% is going to represent that. See, that doesn't make much sense. A constitutional republic wasn't designed that way"

Aaron Green @AaronGuhreen

Some grifter consultant is gonna get paid up to $25M to figure out whether bus lanes are good for the environment. What a massive scam.

numble @numble

LA Metro says they plan to advertise for a contractor in December 2022 for CEQA environmental study for Broadway BRT, at an estimated $3-$25m cost—18 months after staff said they would pursue Broadway BRT as a “quick-build” project to be implemented with a 1-year timeframe. https://t.co/gzPWWaLppk https://t.co/6WzahBO9kB

Derek Thompson @DKThomp

2) America is an OECD leader in "preventable" deaths, in part bc our medical education system is so expensive that it encourages doctors to discharge the debt in highly paid specialist positions rather than be primary care physicians. Thus: scarcity of access for prevention

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Strict rules with weak enforcement has been the lodestar of Covid NPIs for a while now and while it’s tolerable it doesn’t make much sense and I think is corrosive over time.

Natalia Mehlman Petrzela @nataliapetrzela

Glad to see ⁦@DanaGoldstein⁩ on Head Start toddler mask mandate Reassurance HHS won’t check for compliance is maddening tho, bc it puts too much on teachers + is part of a trend where stated covid rules are blatantly ignored, sowing general mistrust https://t.co/4MSSDncHFy

Ethan Mollick @emollick

Anger surges through social networks since it moves through the weak ties that make up so many of our online connections. Joyful posts stop at the borders of our friend groups, bounded by the strong ties of people who know us well. Neat study on Weibo: arxiv.org/abs/2005.01924

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

The biggest problem facing low-income Californians by far is decades of bad housing policy. Newsom, to his credit, has signed multiple pieces of deregulatory legislation to try to improve things. By the same token DeSantis should expand Medicaid. https://t.co/FLnfKgVl5T

Pradheep J. Shanker @Neoavatara

Its just a matter of time before the Left calls DeSantis worse than Trump. For the record...poor people are doing worse in California than Florida right now...does Gavin Newsom hate poor people? https://t.co/ZNT81ciwpX

John Siracusa @siracusa

(I heard it's just two Apple Watch Maxes connected with an interposer.)

Mountain View YIMBY 🥑 @MVyimby

Mountain View's population grew 370% in the 50s. 👏normalize👏triple👏digit👏growth👏

China Media Project @cnmediaproject

"In the shadows, resentment among CCP elites is rising." A must-read from someone who knows China's system from the inside like few others.

foreignaffairs.comThe Weakness of Xi JinpingHubris and paranoia threaten China’s future.

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 @Noahpinion

LOLLLLLLLLLL