Category: current events

House Impeachment Inquiry Thread

Thread to discuss the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry. Public hearings started today.

References and Resources

The Just Security website has page with links to transcripts of public testimony. See below.

Notes on Fiona Hill’s testimony, October 14, 2019

I can’t believe I’m reading the transcript of this testimony, which occurred behind closed doors with House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. (I think members of two other committees were also present or allowed to attend.) I say, “I can’t believe,” because I didn’t have a strong interest in reading this. But I just took a peak and got hooked. (We’ll see how long the transcript holds my interest.) These are some notes as I read the transcript.

Disgusted with Washington? Instead of Voting for Someone like Trump, Here’s What Needs to be Done.

I’ve heard that some people who voted for Trump did so because they were so frustrated with Washington. My guess is that a big source of this frustration stemmed from partisan warfare that ultimately leads to gridlock. One solution is to vote for an outsider president, including one who may burn everything down. I’m sufficiently frustrated and disgusted to understand this sentiment. However, voting for wildcard like Trump is not the answer in my opinion. To understand the solution to the problem one must have an understanding of why the problem exists. Continue reading “Disgusted with Washington? Instead of Voting for Someone like Trump, Here’s What Needs to be Done.”

Trump: Impeachment Thread–Is it Time?

This thread is for links and comments about on impeaching Trump. Should the House of Representatives impeach Trump? Should they do so even if the Senate won’t convict and remove him? The first thing I’m going to post is a twitter thread from Yascha Mounk, a political scientist who studies democracies. Mounk lays out the two key questions that one should ask, in my opinion Continue reading “Trump: Impeachment Thread–Is it Time?”

Mueller Report

I figured the report deserves a separate thread.

BREAKING: The House Judiciary Committee is told to expect notification by 5pm that the Mueller report has been delivered to Barr— Ellen Nakashima (@nakashimae) March 22, 2019

While we wait for more information, I think the following David Frum piece,
A Special Prosecutor is not the Answer, written in 2017, is worth reading. The gist is that a Special Prosecutor will focus illegal acts that can be prosecuted, and that a president can do a lot of bad things that aren’t crimes. The Trump campaign coordinating with Russia and its cutouts to harm Clinton may not be illegal, or the Special Prosecutor may decide there isn’t enough evidence to prosecute anyone. This does not mean that the coordination is acceptable. What it does mean is that the question is not something for the legal system to answer, but the political one. In my view, the Republicans has hindered the political system from properly functioning. If Clinton had become president and Clinton campaign behaved similarly with regard to Russia, we would be moving towards, if not completing, impeachment. If a future president behaves in a similar manner, impeachment and removal would be justified.

This is probably better:

Continue reading “Mueller Report”

Is Streaming Video/Music Economically Unsustainable?

Jazz critic Ted Gioia has some tweets about how streaming services are “the black hole of the entertainment business.”

I’ve updated my quick and easy guide to streaming economics—the black hole of the entertainment business.https://t.co/7AXsrUgB0E— Ted Gioia (@tedgioia) March 13, 2019

His basic point is that streaming services lose, and continue to lose, a lot of money, and I assume he thinks this won’t change. At the very least, Gioia doesn’t seem to believe that streaming model will be able to support the making of movies, TV shows, and music. Equally dispiriting is the notion that musicians are getting even less revenue from streaming services (less than money they’d get from the traditional recording industry). That really sucks. I really don’t want to pay for a service where the musicians and artists don’t really get far less than they deserve (which, actually seems to have always been the case, but this is going in the wrong direction). Should serious music fans consider purchasing music in a traditional way (e.g., cds, records), and, even better, from the musicians themselves?

Another question: Why can’t artists ever take control of the distribution so that they can receive the majority of the profits?