The Conversation -- December 31, 2024
Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Former President Jimmy Carter’s state funeral at Washington National Cathedral will be held on Jan. 9, featuring a eulogy by President Biden and culminating more than a week of ceremonies and honors, organizers said on Monday. Mr. Biden also ordered the federal government to close on Jan. 9 and declared it a national day of mourning. Because of the New Year’s holiday, the eight-day plan that organizers had long envisioned for Mr. Carter’s memorial services will not kick off until later this week. The former president will be brought to Atlanta by motorcade and lie in repose on Saturday and Sunday at the Carter Center, which was the home of his post-presidential humanitarian work.... Mr. Carter ... will then be flown on Monday, Jan. 6, to Washington. He will lie in state at the Capitol." The NBC News report is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
~~~ Marie: It may not be a fortunate accident that President Carter died just before Donald Trump assumed the presidency*.
Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale thought he would still be around to speak at the funeral for Jimmy Carter, who was a little more than three years his senior. But even though Mr. Mondale died first, in 2021, he left behind the eulogy he planned to deliver, which will be read at Mr. Carter’s memorial service at Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 9 by his son Ted Mondale. Former President Gerald R. Ford, who died in 2006, likewise left a eulogy that will be read by his son, Steven Ford. In the tribute he left behind, Mr. Mondale hailed Mr. Carter especially for making human rights the centerpiece of his foreign policy, for promoting environmental measures long before the term climate change became widely known and for placing more women in high office than any of his predecessors — including an appeals court judge named Ruth Bader Ginsburg." (Also linked yesterday.)
In today’s world, some may look at Jimmy Carter and see a man of a bygone era — with honesty and character, faith and humility.... But I don’t believe it’s a bygone era. I see a man not only of our times, but for all times. Someone who embodies the most fundamental human values we can never let slip away.… We may never see his like again. But we would all do well to try to be a little more like Jimmy Carter. -- President Biden, to reporters in St. Croix, Virgin Islands. ~~~
~~~ Matt Viser & Yasmeen Abutaleb of the Washington Post: "It was half a century ago when Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter met in Atlanta.... Biden was in town to deliver a speech, and Carter — then the governor of Georgia — invited Biden to stay at his home.... '... He actually asked my advice about running a long-shot campaign [for president]. Biden would ultimately be the first sitting U.S. senator to endorse Carter, quickly becoming perhaps his most important political ally at a time when many saw Carter’s presidential ambitions as a joke. The young senator was the first major political figure outside of Georgia to back Carter, and he would campaign for him in 30 states during the 1976 election. It was the start of a decades-long friendship and political partnership, in which the two men clearly saw something of themselves in each other." (Also linked yesterday.)
Joseph Gedeon of the Guardian: "Joe Biden said Donald Trump should learn 'decency' from Jimmy Carter’s legacy, in remarks delivered hours after the former president’s death on Sunday.... Speaking to reporters during a family vacation in the US Virgin Islands, the outgoing US president drew sharp contrasts between Carter’s character and that of his predecessor Trump, who is set to begin a second term in January. When asked if there was anything Trump could learn from Carter, Biden replied: 'Decency. Decency. Decency.'... The outgoing president spoke for nine minutes about Carter, describing him as a humanitarian, a personal friend and a 'remarkable leader'. He emphasized how Carter’s values reflected on America’s global standing, noting that 'the rest of the world looks to us. And he was worth looking to.'” You can hear President Biden's remarks in this YouTube video.
Paul Krugman on President Carter's bad luck. Also see Ken W.'s commentary, about the 8th post in today's thread. (Also linked yesterday.)
AP: "President Joe Biden’s administration said Monday it is taking steps to bar oil, gas and geothermal development for 20 years in northeastern Nevada’s Ruby Mountains. The administration said it has submitted an application to withdraw about 264,000 acres (107,000 hectares) of federal lands in the area from such leasing. That starts a 90-day public comment period on the 20-year prohibition and prevents oil, gas and geothermal development for two years during the process. The lands would remain open to mining."
Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "The United States is sending nearly $2.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, as the Biden administration continues to rush military aid to Kyiv in the weeks before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office. The aid will include air defense, artillery and other critical weapons systems, President Biden said in a statement on Monday morning." (Also linked yesterday.)
Ana Swanson & David Sanger of the New York Times: "One of China’s intelligence agencies hacked the U.S. Treasury Department, gaining access to the workstations of government employees and unclassified documents, the Biden administration said on Monday, the latest in a series of embarrassing surveillance operations against major American institutions.... Senior officials with access to the intelligence on the breach said that it appeared to be entirely an espionage operation and not part of other Chinese efforts to insert malicious computer code into utility grids and water supply systems.... Top Chinese officials have a deep interest in the activities of the Treasury Department, which oversees sensitive data about global financial systems — and estimates of China’s own troubled economy. The department also implements sanctions against Chinese firms, including, in recent times, those aiding Russia in the war against Ukraine." CNN's report is here.
House Guest or Tenant? Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "For most of the time since Election Day..., [Elon] Musk has been using one of the cottages available for rent on Mr. Trump’s property at Mar-a-Lago.... Staying right on the grounds has helped provide Mr. Musk with easy access to Mr. Trump.... The cottage ... historically has rented for at least $2,000 a night.... Mr. Musk’s employees from his various businesses have also been integrally involved in the transition, vetting prospective candidates for senior administration jobs, in interviews at the Trump transition headquarters in West Palm Beach." It isn't known whether or not Trump will charge Musk rent.
Digby in Salon: "Elon Musk [has been winning] internecine GOP brawl[s] and proved that he has the next president of the United States firmly under his thumb. Trump seems to be dazzled by him and his tech-bro billionaire buds in the same way he's dazzled by Vladimir Putin. Having the richest man in the world be his friend is more meaningful to him than being president again. I think we've all been thinking that Trump was going to get jealous and kick Musk to the curb sooner rather than later. But that's no sure thing. He's lost more than a step. He's four years older than when he left the White House and he's bored with the details of the presidency. From what we're seeing, he's ready to let his bff do whatever he wants and it's becoming clear to the MAGA activists who've worshipped him that it's not going to be Musk who's kicked to the curb — it's going to be them." A fun read. ~~~
~~~ Marie: There's a good chance Digby is right. After all, Trump has more in common with billionaires than he does with MAGA believers. It's true he shares the hoi polloi's ignorance, discontent, and lifetime of failure & disappointment. But because of luck, he shares economic interests with biillionaires. Since he doesn't have to worry about re-election (unless he decides to run again), the mob has lost much of its utility. It's true that the madding crowd could still help Trump maintain some control over Congress, but billionaires and their campaign contributions are mighty good at that, too. AND, despite Trump's fundraising talents, it seems more likely that he himself will benefit financially far more from alliances with billionaires than from the loyalty of MAGA adherent. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Oh, and here's something I learned from Digby. I thought it was odd that in his pining tweet to Musk, Trump wrote, "We miss you and x!" Trump has his very own failing social media platform (which ripped off Twitter); why would he miss "x"? Turns out Musk has a child named X (full given name, "X Æ A-Xii"), and the child has been visiting Mar-a-Lardo with Elon. ~~~
~~~ AND Adam Lashinsky in a Washington Post op-ed: "... the fight over the visas is the shape of scrapes to come. Trump’s new tech backers harbor decidedly different — and much more establishment-minded — instincts about trade, tariffs and foreign policy than the folks between the coasts who gave Trump his start. The fissure between these two branches of Trump’s coalition is only likely to grow.But there is little doubt about which side will win.... Self-interest is a foundational ethos in Silicon Valley, a place where boys who read science fiction in their bedrooms and then Ayn Rand in their college dorms grew up to be today’s Masters of the Universe. For years, the tech crowd tried its best to ignore Washington, barely acknowledging that their industry was built on government contracts...." Lashinsky seems to believe that the tech bros will be the winners (although he really does not make this clear, IMO). ~~~
~~~ BUT. Andrew Prokop of Vox writes that the real feud between Elon Musk & MAGA over H-1B visa is between Musk & "someone with far more power, influence, and bureaucratic savvy: Stephen Miller.... And the biggest problem for Musk and his tech allies is that, if they want H-1B expansion, they’d have to go through Miller, a formidable opponent.... Trump may say things, but it’s Miller who turns those things into policy, and who knows how to slow-walk or squelch proposals he dislikes.... Finally, there’s yet another twist to this messy saga — shortly before this dispute began last week, Trump announced he’d chosen a new appointee to join Musk and Ramaswamy at DOGE. Her name? Katie Miller — Stephen’s wife. 'Congratulations to Stephen and Katie!' Trump posted."
Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump endorsed Mike Johnson for another term as House speaker on Monday, roughly two weeks after Mr. Trump helped put Mr. Johnson’s chances in jeopardy by sinking a bipartisan spending bill that the speaker had negotiated to avert a government shutdown. The announcement from Mr. Trump on his website, Truth Social, ended days of private discussions by the president-elect and his allies about whether to try to save Mr. Johnson or find another option, as some conservatives have been agitating for. The House is set to choose a speaker on Friday, just three days before Mr. Trump’s Electoral College victory is certified by a joint session of Congress, and Mr. Johnson needs to cobble together a majority to keep the job." The AP story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Hailey Fuchs of Politico: "The House Ethics Committee closed investigations into at least four members Monday for violating campaign finance rules. The investigations involved Reps. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), Wesley Hunt (R-Tex.), Ronny Jackson (R-Tex.), Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.) and 'other confidential matters that have been under review.' The committee declined to disclose further details on those cases."
Perry Stein & Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post: "A federal appeals court Monday upheld a $5 million New York civil trial jury verdict that found Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. The ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in Manhattan said that Trump did not demonstrate that the district court 'erred in any of the challenged rulings.'... In response to the appeals court’s ruling, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement that the decision would be appealed and that the case should be dismissed." The AP report is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Tom Jackman of the Washington Post: "Matthew M. Graves, the top federal prosecutor for the District [of Columbia], announced Monday that he was resigning his post as U.S. attorney days before ... Donald Trump takes office. Graves led what the Justice Department has called the largest investigation it has ever conducted: prosecuting those who participated in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But Trump has promised to pardon many of the rioters, undoing much of Graves’s work.... Nearly 1,600 people have been charged in the Capitol riot, and more than 1,250 have been convicted.... More than 170 Jan. 6 defendants took their cases to trial, and federal prosecutors have won 99 percent of those."
A Story to Frighten Urban Americans. Geoffrey Fowler of the Washington Post: "Living in [San Francisco]..., I have lately found myself in a game of chicken with cars driven by nothing but artificial intelligence. Waymo robot taxis, owned by the same company as Google, are everywhere in San Francisco — and they will soon be driving themselves in six U.S. cities. During rush hour each weekday, easily two or three dozen of the white SUVs, loaded up with cameras and spinning sensors, pass by a street near my house.... When I try to cross my street at a marked crosswalk, the Waymo robotaxis often wouldn’t yield to me.... Using my phone..., I documented more than a dozen Waymo cars failing to yield in the span of a week.... At my crosswalk, which is not protected by a stop sign, the Waymo would yield for me about 3 out of 10 times."
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North Dakota. Alexandra Petri of the New York Times: "The son of Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, was sentenced to 28 years in prison on Monday in connection with a high-speed car chase that ended with a crash that killed a sheriff’s deputy last year. Ian Cramer, 43, led the police on a highway pursuit on Dec. 6, 2023, after speeding away from a hospital in Bismarck, N.D., where his mother had tried to take him that day because he was experiencing a mental health crisis, the authorities said. The authorities were able to locate Ian Cramer in Hazen, N.D., roughly 70 miles away in Mercer County and pursued him for about five miles until he crashed into an unoccupied sheriff’s patrol car that was parked on the side of a highway. The impact killed Paul Martin, 53, a Mercer County sheriff’s deputy who was standing behind the car when it was struck."
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South Korea. Qasim Nauman & Choe Sang-Hun of the New York Times: "A court in South Korea cleared the way for officials to detain President Yoon Suk Yeol for questioning on Tuesday, as the authorities investigated whether his declaration of martial law this month, which plunged the country into political crisis, amounted to an insurrection. The court order stops short of a formal arrest warrant. The warrant issued on Tuesday only allowed investigators to detain him for questioning for a limited period of time; they need a separate warrant from a court to formally arrest him.... Mr. Yoon planned to ask the Constitutional Court, which is hearing his impeachment trial, to reject the validity of the detention warrant and would seek an injunction against it, said his lawyer, Yoon Kab-keun."
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Reader Comments (16)
MAGA-Texas gubernator, Greg Abbott (no Einstein visa for him), sends his condolences to Jimmy Carter’s wife, Rosalynn…who has been dead for over a year.
Hey, Greggy, don’t wait up for a reply. You fucking moron.
There’s stupid, and then there’s MAGA stupid.
@Akhilleus: Yeah, I saw that, too. I suppose that was a genuine mistake, but I don't think Abbott's popularity (however strong or weak it may be) will suffer any from it. Not bothering to find out if a 100-year-old man's wife of 77 years was still alive (actuarial odds being against it) is simply evidence that you don't give a damn about the deceased or his family. MAGA will not fault Abbott for not caring about the Carters.
Marie,
True. In fact, in some bizarre MAGA-mind way, they might even interpret it as Abbott owning the libs. Again. MAGAts are never wrong, never apologize, and never give a shit about insulting or offending anyone not in the tribe. Just like the Dear Leader.
Re the Musk/Bannon-Miller spat.
It's not that Musk isn't a racist. He is, but he''s a racist of convenience. He views his enterprises as modern day plantations, and visa workers are in many ways, slaves. There's no danger they will form a union, for just one instance.
Bannon and Miller should be able to understand that.
Will Bunch
"Forget Greenland. Trump and Musk’s real WWIII is an all-out war on the truth.
Amid a fog of MAGA lies, the Trump-Musk tag team escalates its war on facts, from Wikipedia to the State Department.
With little fanfare, the recent Musk-initiated, Trump-enabled assault on the federal government funding deal managed to shut down a $61 million-a-year U.S. State Department office — set up in 2016, amid the first wave of Russian election interference — that employed 120 people to combat foreign-generated disinformation.
Much like the global upheaval of the 1940s, the real Trump-Musk war is already well underway, waged in every possible theater. In a world where content is king, Trump and his Lion King-hyenas alliance with billionaire oligarchs has now bought and ruined the most prominent real-time information exchange in Twitter-turned-X — while fighting relentlessly to destroy traditional newsroom or network journalism, through lawsuits, licensing threats or nonstop verbal attacks, on Musk-owned X or elsewhere."
Meta
"Goodbye to human users on Facebook and Instagram: Meta wants to add thousands of artificial intelligence users
Meta is setting off alarms by announcing an implementation of AI-powered users on Facebook and Instagram."
What could go wrong?
Drowning
Max Read
"Drowning in Slop A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage — and it’s only going to get worse.
But the slop tide threatens some of the key functions of the web, clogging search results with nonsense, overwhelming small institutions like Clarkesworld, and generally polluting the already fragile information ecosystem of the internet
Worse than the havoc it wreaks on the internet, slop easily escapes the confines of the computer and enters off-screen systems in exasperating, troubling, and dangerous ways. In June, researchers published a study that concluded that one-tenth of the academic papers they examined “were processed with LLMs,” calling into question not just those individual papers but whole networks of citation and reference on which scientific knowledge relies."
RAS,
But will the AI presences heed the ads and buy the products?
Seems the Meta revenue stream will still depend on beings with bank accounts....
What are we getting? Oligarchy, kakistocracy, or patrimonialism (or all 3)?
Stephen E. Hanson and Jeffrey S. Kopstein, in a guest essay in The New York Times ask Do Americans Really Want This?
"What we are seeing in the United States today, though, is not so new. It echoes what is happening all over the world: an assault on the modern state as we know it. In countries including Hungary, Israel and Britain, the civil service, judiciary and law enforcement have been attacked by the very leaders elected to manage them.
We have seen the sort of damage these types of attacks cause — they enrich loyalists, weaken independent sources of expertise and information and erode vital public services. They will do much the same here.
Eviscerating modern state institutions almost always clears a path for a different type of political order, one built on personal loyalties and connections to the ruler. The German sociologist Max Weber had a word for this type of regime: patrimonialism, based on the arbitrary rule of leaders who view themselves as traditional 'fathers' of their nations and who run the state as a family business of sorts, staffed by relatives, friends and other members of the ruler’s 'extended household'.”
Ken,
Yes, they will. Though to the advertisers they will be able to point to their increased "engagement" numbers to try to get more out of them. And they will probably be able to try selling more things to real people that are recommended to them by their AI "friends". But seeing how many awful things the algorithms push to me now I don't think fake friends pushing things on people will turn out well for any of us.
Re: Zuckerberg’s AI universe of fake people:
Sci-Fi master Ray Bradbury once wrote a story about a guy stranded on Mars He’s there for 20 years, keeps sending out requests for help. Nothing. Finally, he starts talking into the void, just to feel like there might be someone listening. One day, the radio crackles and he starts getting messages from someone out there. He talks to the voice and gets odd responses. Sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don’t. Finally he realizes the messages are his own voice coming back to him, bouncing off various astral objects, coming back in snippets. He’s talking to himself. How is that different than talking to one of Mark Zuckerberg’s AI bots? What’s the point? A completely artificial world with “people” who don’t exist. This is real “Matrix” bullshit.
The Muskrat is coming up something similar.
Musk’s AI operation is based on actual messages posted by users on X. And you know that people with brains are leaving that thing in droves. It’s a wasteland of conspiracy nuts, white supremacists, weenie incels, and violent Nazi fuckwits. So now imagine, if that’s your database for AI bots, you say “Tell me about the Holocaust”. You get responses ranging from “It never happened” to “Jews must die!” It’ll be a sort of “Ask Hitler” operation.
Well, "Happy New Year," all of you. This whole comment section is virtually un-understandable by former musicians like myself. I am hereby giving myself permission to NOT understand, and furthermore to NOT care that I don't get it. I already don't get why the baloney sellers are important voters (please, journalists, never more interviews with idiots in diners--) and I don't know why we should care about the billionnaires who are giddy about their newfound fame and enhanced fortunes.
I really appreciate those that do get all the nuances of statecraft, but since nothing I ever do or say will make one bit of difference in the present and coming toxic sludge passing for journalism, I will most likely still enjoy the work of an expert (Marie) and the wonderful comments from all of you. BUT I think I will make less and less sense as time goes on, so forgive me please! Spend time outdoors, people-- while it still stays pure. It's all we have left, and for how long...?
Snakes eating their own tails.
Ex-con Three Shirt Steve Bannon, who typically looks like an alky who’s been sleeping under a bridge, is demanding reparations! Yeah, baby! Reparations!
Wow! Reparations. Really? Reparations connected to hundreds of years of slavery??
Umm…no. Reparations for Joe the Plumbers who haven’t been hired for high tech and specialized jobs currently filled by H-1B visa holders.
So…wait…he’s not talking about Americans who were fired and replaced by H-1B visa holders, but people who MIGHT have been hired, but weren’t, because they weren’t qualified? Soooo…how is that a reparation situation?
Oh, pshaw! Details, schmetails. All that matters is whipping up MAGA morons against…wait for it…Capitalists!! So…Steve Bannon is now an Occupy Wall St guy? He’s a former Goldman Sachs investment banker!!
Oh, never mind. MAGA boogie-woogie doesn’t require internal consistency. As long as you can scream about immygrints swiping ‘merican jobs, it’s all good. Fuckin’ furriners! Joe the Plumber or one-a them Proud Boys gun knobbers can write code just as well as some Indian guy, right?
Even better, Fatty’s man crush on former illegal immigrant Elon now pits him against Three Shirt Steve.
The snakes are starting to eat their own tails.
Get the popcorn!
Test…
@Akhilleus: I have sometimes found when a comment doesn't appear right away after I reload the page that if I follow up with another comment and use the "preview post" that I can see it waiting in the inbetween zone and if I then create a post with the new comment that both of them will pop up as if square space then decides that I must not be a bot if I am posting back to back comments. It is not 100%, but it is a little hack that has worked for me most of the time. Though there times or some certain website links that they just don't like and get sent into the ether no matter what you do.