Jeff Sharlet Thread

 

I'm saving this Twitter exchange here because for some reason Threadreader cannot access it, likely because the account is locked. 

Jeff Sharlet is a well-known journalist whom I have followed for years, author of The Family and co-founder of the website Killing the Buddha. 

Sharlet: I confess that I read almost all of the Trump books by access reporters who hold material back. I learn a lot! But it’s not my way, & I can promise you that my new book, The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, is not based on trading for access to power.

Part of the reason, I should admit, is that I’m terrible at that kind of access journalism. Like, just not good at it. I can’t imagine living my life developing those kinds of sources, even as I’m often grateful to journalists who do.

But access to power just isn’t what I’m interested in, as a writer or as a person concerned by they threat of fascism. My writing life has been organized around the question of what the margins can reveal about the center of things.

I’d be terrible at jockeying for connection with a bunch of type A big-brained, Ivy-educated reporters. I’d lose that contest every time. I’m not dismissing the contest; I read & often value their work. But there is other work to be done, at the margins.

And in more ways than Twitter has counted, access journalism obscures important aspects of reality—not least of which the way power is constructed & experienced far from the bodies in which it’s concentrated.

LC:  I hate myself for watching MH because of her ethics in journalism but she knows a lot and I want to know what she knows. It’s very annoying.

JS:  I don’t hate myself for it. I think people proudly proclaiming they’d never read Haberman are being silly. Obv it’s not my kind of journalism, & it comes at cost; *&* at same time she uncovers *a lot.* I’ve read almost all of em, and Confidence Man is one of the most insightful.

MM: I understand what you mean!  My "way" is to think slowly and deeply about a topic, and wait until some sort of narrative throughline makes itself known to me.  

Writer's Block -- a Thread by Heather Cox Richardson

Writer's Block, a Thread by Heather Cox Richardson

A thread for @alixabeth and others. This is not about writing problems in general: procrastination, frustration, stress eating, pain, and so on. It's for when you cannot remember how to write- like there is a gap in your brain- and the whole world goes gray. 1/

You might well be a prolific writer, but it starts to dry up. It's honestly like you can't remember how to do it. Upset, you tell friends, who joke about it, because OF COURSE you can write. But you can't, and you can't convince anyone you have a big problem. So you wither. /2

The harder you try to meet that deadline, or outline that book, the more elusive it gets. It is like you have lost a piece of yourself, and you are terrified you will never get it back. But no one understands. So you try harder to write, and it gets worse. /3

When this happened to me, I had the extraordinary fortune to see an older colleague, also a writer, who happened upon me at a bad moment and recognized that I was in a bad place, and actually listened. Here was his advice... and it worked. He compared what we do to athletics. /4

As an athlete, you would never train doing the same workout every day. That would injure the muscles you need, while letting the others weaken, and you would be on your way to a catastrophic injury that would knock you out of the game. This is why athletes cross train. /5

He told me I had our version of a repetitive injury, and had been knocked out of the writing game when it had become catastrophic. The harder I tried to get back in, the more I would injure myself. Put away the laptop, he said, just as I would stop running if I had a fracture. /6

Work on healing the injury, first by staying off it, then by cross training. Feed other intellectual muscles. Learn about art, music, gardening, whatever is outside your field. Get outside your intellectual comfort zone: Kpop or film noir or birding. Cook new foods. Exercise. /7

Do not write, and don't let yourself be pressured into it, any more than you would start running on a broken leg. There will come a day when you feel like writing something again, nothing big, maybe a postcard or an overdue recommendation. Even a shopping list. /8

You will be afraid to try because it might bring back all the terror of the early days. So don't. Until you decide you're willing to try. Then limit yourself. Even if it's going well... take it really, really easy. (Injury, remember?) Do the postcard and nothing else. /9

And if you can't do it, put the idea aside and revisit it later. You will want to try it again, and likely soon. Try. Eventually you'll be able to do it. Easily. Rebuild your muscles gradually. They WILL come back when you are ready. /10

And now that I have terrified you... here's the good news. All that intellectual cross training means you will come back much stronger than you were when you had to stop. Your writing- and your intellectual maturity- will be at an entirely different level. /11

It worked for me. Maybe just having permission to stop trying turned the trick; I don't know. But I was writing well again within a year. I remember it as weeks, but it was probably months. And now I'm really careful to cross train. It shows in my work now, I think. /12

So hang in there. You would not be a writer if it weren't baked into you, and it WILL come back. Giving yourself some space and some grace will be the best way to shorten the problem, and in the end, it will help your writing. But it TOTALLY sucks, I know. I hope this helps. /END

Twitter thread recommended by Heather Cox Richardson.

Twitter thread recommended by Heather Cox Richardson.

Yesterday, two things went by on my Twitter feed that raised my eyebrows, because it showed that the Fascist wing of the GOP is not only young and growing, but also saying the quiet part loud to a receptive audience. If they succeed, the US will become a living hell for most. 1/n 

First from Politico, which fails to call fascism what it is. What the authoritarian wing of the GOP calls it is "Common Good" constitutionalism. Essentially, it espouses ditching originalism, and putting in place a court that functions like Iran's. 2/n

Critics Call It Theocratic and Authoritarian. Young Conservatives Call It an Exciting New Legal Theory.

‘Common good constitutionalism’ has emerged as a leading contender to replace originalism as the dominant legal theory on the right.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/12/09/revolutionary-conservative-legal-philosophy-courts-00069201

The court does everything through a lens of "Conservative Christianity is what's best for people and the nation, and freedom is dangerous." It's embraced by a lot of TradCaths and (increasingly) white evangelicals. It stands in opposition to FedSoc Originalism. 3/n 

What's really scary is that it's adherents tend to be much younger. At it's head is Adrian Vermeule, who was one of the main architects of the plan to steal the 2020 election and to end US democracy (and replace it with a theocracy). 4/n

These young Fascists (err.... Republicans) in the legal profession will be hitting the federal bench in the next decade, and perhaps on SCOTUS in 15. Some of them even sooner. But, we can already see it is the future of the GOP legal theory. SCOTUS gave some big hints. 5/n 

During oral arguments in Moore v. Harper, conservative justices were quick to pull a Judas on originalism when they saw an opportunity to usher in permanent GOP rule in any state where the Republicans can gerrymander maps. 6/n 

We will likely see the "Common Good" theory come up when SCOTUS is asked to overturn Lawrence v. Texas, and are told of all the supposed harms that homosexuality causes to individuals in society. We could easily see this case come within the next five years. 7/n 

Which brings me to the second half of "educated Republicans for Fascism": The Claremont Institute. I've written about them and their naked desire to eliminate democracy, install a dictator, and re-shape the country based on their religion 8/n

Sleepwalking Toward a Post Democracy America | Dame Magazine

https://www.damemagazine.com/2021/10/18/sleepwalking-toward-a-post-democracy-america/

Fundamentally, they don't see Americans who aren't conservative Christians as Americans at all. Cue Larry Ellmers, who previously wrote for Claremont that less than half of the US is really American, because they aren't Conservative Christians. 9/n

Again Ellmers is writing for Claremont, and proclaiming that it is time to end democracy and replace it with a conservative Christian theocracy. Because elections don't measure public will and the public is too stupid to know what's good for them. 10/n

The answer, of course, is to overthrow the government (and democracy) to place their leaders in charge. This is a moral necessity, because only conservatives (Christians) can truly discern what's good for society and the nation. 11/n 

The sad part is, this is all happening in the open, and no one is noticing. Far more attention is paid to right wing hacks like Taibbi and Weiss, who are poring over internal documents, misinterpreting them, and threating mundane stuff as giant "Gotchas!". 12/n 

We're treating fundamentally unserious, bad faith actors as the opposite of this as they suck all the oxygen out of the room with their deliberately flawed analysis that "shows" content moderation aimed at preventing stochastic violence is the end of democracy. 13/n 

But at the same time, the thought leaders of the modern GOP, and the lawyer whom they will be putting on the state and federal bench starting in (probably) 2025 are calling for the immediate destruction of democracy and implementation of theocracy... and nothing happens. 14/n 

I have no doubt that DeSantis will happily listen to those calling for the end of democracy to make sure the interests of "real Americans" are the only ones represented. For the greater good of course. I have no doubt he would put these young lawyers on the bench. 15/n 

And increasingly I believe that the media, and American "Centrists" like Sinema would have no idea what was happening, because tools like Musk, Weiss, Greenwald, Taibbi, etc... would continue to churn out propaganda saying the left is the real threat. 16/n 

Most Americans don't pay close enough attention to politics, and would end up like my confused 76 year old Mother, who just doesn't know who to believe. So she keeps pulling the lever for Republicans. 17/n 

However, the goal isn't just to make it irrelevant whom you vote for: it's to keep people from realizing that it doesn't matter. Or to believe that tyranny and oppression of "those people" is good, because they were the ones who were going to take democracy away first. 18/n 

Roubini says another economic crash is inevitable.

* Blog copy for future reference. Go to the link for many further links validating the content.

The Unavoidable Crash

Dec 2, 2022
NOURIEL ROUBINI

After years of ultra-loose fiscal, monetary, and credit policies and the onset of major negative supply shocks, stagflationary pressures are now putting the squeeze on a massive mountain of public- and private-sector debt. The mother of all economic crises looms, and there will be little that policymakers can do about it.

In the private sector, the mountain of debt includes that of households (such as mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, student loans, personal loans), businesses and corporations (bank loans, bond debt, and private debt), and the financial sector (liabilities of bank and nonbank institutions). In the public sector, it includes central, provincial, and local government bonds and other formal liabilities, as well as implicit debts such as unfunded liabilities from pay-as-you-go pension schemes and health-care systems – all of which will continue to grow as societies age.

Just looking at explicit debts, the figures are staggering. Globally, total private- and public-sector debt as a share of GDP rose from 200% in 1999 to 350% in 2021. The ratio is now 420% across advanced economies, and 330% in China. In the United States, it is 420%, which is higher than during the Great Depression and after World War II.

Of course, debt can boost economic activity if borrowers invest in new capital (machinery, homes, public infrastructure) that yields returns higher than the cost of borrowing. But much borrowing goes simply to finance consumption spending above one’s income on a persistent basis – and that is a recipe for bankruptcy. Moreover, investments in “capital” can also be risky, whether the borrower is a household buying a home at an artificially inflated price, a corporation seeking to expand too quickly regardless of returns, or a government that is spending the money on “white elephants” (extravagant but useless infrastructure projects).

Such over-borrowing has been going on for decades, for various reasons. The democratization of finance has allowed income-strapped households to finance consumption with debt. Center-right governments have persistently cut taxes without also cutting spending, while center-left governments have spent generously on social programs that aren’t fully funded with sufficient higher taxes. And tax policies that favor debt over equity, abetted by central banks’ ultra-loose monetary and credit policies, has fueled a spike in borrowing in both the private and public sectors.

Years of quantitative easing (QE) and credit easing kept borrowing costs near zero, and in some cases even negative (as in Europe and Japan until recently). By 2020, negative-yielding dollar-equivalent public debt was $17 trillion, and in some Nordic countries, even mortgages had negative nominal interest rates.

The explosion of unsustainable debt ratios implied that many borrowers – households, corporations, banks, shadow banks, governments, and even entire countries – were insolvent “zombies” that were being propped up by low interest rates (which kept their debt-servicing costs manageable). During both the 2008 global financial crisis and the COVID-19 crisis, many insolvent agents that would have gone bankrupt were rescued by zero- or negative-interest-rate policies, QE, and outright fiscal bailouts.

But now, inflation – fed by the same ultra-loose fiscal, monetary, and credit policies – has ended this financial Dawn of the Dead. With central banks forced to increase interest rates in an effort to restore price stability, zombies are experiencing sharp increases in their debt-servicing costs. For many, this represents a triple whammy, because inflation is also eroding real household income and reducing the value of household assets, such as homes and stocks. The same goes for fragile and over-leveraged corporations, financial institutions, and governments: they face sharply rising borrowing costs, falling incomes and revenues, and declining asset values all at the same time.

Worse, these developments are coinciding with the return of stagflation (high inflation alongside weak growth). The last time advanced economies experienced such conditions was in the 1970s. But at least back then, debt ratios were very low. Today, we are facing the worst aspects of the 1970s (stagflationary shocks) alongside the worst aspects of the global financial crisis. And this time, we cannot simply cut interest rates to stimulate demand.

After all, the global economy is being battered by persistent short- and medium-term negative supply shocks that are reducing growth and increasing prices and production costs. These include the pandemic’s disruptions to the supply of labor and goods; the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine on commodity prices; China’s increasingly disastrous zero-COVID policy; and a dozen other medium-term shocks – from climate change to geopolitical developments – that will create additional stagflationary pressures.

Unlike in the 2008 financial crisis and the early months of COVID-19, simply bailing out private and public agents with loose macro policies would pour more gasoline on the inflationary fire. That means there will be a hard landing – a deep, protracted recession – on top of a severe financial crisis. As asset bubbles burst, debt-servicing ratios spike, and inflation-adjusted incomes fall across households, corporations, and governments, the economic crisis and the financial crash will feed on each other.

To be sure, advanced economies that borrow in their own currency can use a bout of unexpected inflation to reduce the real value of some nominal long-term fixed-rate debt. With governments unwilling to raise taxes or cut spending to reduce their deficits, central-bank deficit monetization will once again be seen as the path of least resistance. But you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. Once the inflation genie gets out of the bottle – which is what will happen when central banks abandon the fight in the face of the looming economic and financial crash – nominal and real borrowing costs will surge. The mother of all stagflationary debt crises can be postponed, not avoided.

Nouriel Roubini, Professor Emeritus of Economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business, is Chief Economist at Atlas Capital Team, CEO of Roubini Macro Associates, Co-Founder of TheBoomBust.com, and author of MegaThreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, and How to Survive Them (Little, Brown and Company,  2022). He is a former senior economist for international affairs in the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton Administration and has worked for the International Monetary Fund, the US Federal Reserve, and the World Bank. His website is NourielRoubini.com, and he is the host of NourielToday.com.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) The Scheme 19

 

November 30 | Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Courts Subcommittee, delivered the nineteenth in a series of speeches titled “The Scheme,” exposing the machinations by right-wing donor interests to capture the U.S. Supreme Court and achieve through the Court what they cannot through the elected branches of government.  

 

Whitehouse discussed “Operation Higher Court,” a private campaign by right-wing activists to “embolden the justices” to write “unapologetically conservative opinions.”  Whitehouse also called on Congress to pass his Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, a bill to enact stronger recusal standards, require the Supreme Court to adopt a binding code of conduct, and mandate more robust rules governing judges’ duty to disclose gifts and travel paid for by outside parties.