A report on the Titanic sinking that doesn't mention icebergs

My Sunday movie was 10Dance. Netflix showed it ecent. I read what it was about and since I saw no reviews I decided to take a chance on it. In the world of competitive dancing there are two broad categories, Ballroom and Latin. Each has five different dances. The dancers in one rarely do the other. The exception is the World Championship, when the dancers do all ten dances from both categories. This is a challenge because dancing in one category means by the time a couple gets to the finals they have danced each one four times, or twenty dances. Doing both categories means doubling the effort and stamina becomes an issue. The setting is Japan. Shinya Suzuki is a male (we Americans don’t always know the gender of non English names) dancing in the Latin category. He dances with Aki (female) and he has some Cuban ancestry. His dancing emphasizes the erotic. Shinya Sugiki (yes, the names are quite similar) is a top competitor in the ballroom category. He is elegant and cultivates being a gentleman and dances with Fusako (also female). He can’t seem to win first place. Sugiki proposes to Suzuki that they go for the 10 Dance. After his manhood is challenged Suzuki accepts. Each is to teach the other their style of dance. And that requires a great deal of close contact. Aki and Fusako see the men look at each other quite differently than they look at the women, though the men take a while to figure it out. Along the way there are more dance competitions, explorations of the past, and mentors telling them that a major component of dance is love between the dancers. Before watching I had checked Metacritic for reviews. They had none. Afterward I looked it up on IMDb. It doesn’t link to professional critics, but does have user reviews, which give it 6.9 out of 10. I enjoyed the film, though that rating seems about right. One question IMDb did not answer was whether the leads were dancers that had to be trained in acting or actors that had to be trained in dancing. They were quite good in both talents. I found online reviews, though the one I read today was on Fangirlish, not a major media outlet with well known reviewers. The writer was Lisette Lanuza Sáenz. The story is taken from a Japanese Boys’ Love manga by Inouesatoh. The choreography is great. The ending begs for a sequel. When you make it, add more yearning. But please drop the stereotypes of Latinos! At least the show wasn’t as racist as the original manga. Recently I wrote the Democratic National Committee declined to release the autopsy on the 2024 election to explain what led to Kamala Harris’ loss. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos reported that party Chair Ken Martin has now released it.

But the actual document is a puzzling 192-page compilation made by Martin ally and Democratic strategist Paul Rivera. The report avoids conclusions about party strategy during the election and omits references to key issues, like former President Joe Biden’s initial decision to run for reelection and controversy over his stance on the Israel-Hamas war. Rivera neglected to interview Harris, Biden, and senior campaign operatives. Also, the report contains many basic factual errors and is annotated with remarks from the DNC distancing itself from the report’s assertions. The autopsy does note that Democrats were unprepared for the right’s political onslaught, which included smears of Harris, her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and the wider left-wing movement. But as a “comprehensive review” of what went wrong, the report comes up woefully short, which makes the decision to bury the document for months even more curious.

The mess is another reason why Martin isn’t the right guy to head the DNC. Some Democrats are now calling for his removal. Stephen Fowler of NPR also discussed the release. The article discussed Martin and his reasons to delay the release. Then Fowler described the report, referring to Martin.

He defended the work the national party has undertaken in his year and a half as chair to invest more into state parties and reiterated his belief that the Democratic Party brand needs fixing and its infrastructure needs to be updated to focus on year-round organizing. Similar themes emerged in the autopsy, which said since former President Obama's first election in 2008, the "Democratic Party has vacillated between stagnation and retrogression." Former President Joe Biden's name only appears a handful of times in the document, but one key takeaway the author suggests is that the White House "did not position or prepare" former Vice President Kamala Harris to help Biden govern.

If the Democratic Party brand needs fixing and its infrastructure needs to be updated, when is that work going to begin? There is little evidence that it has. After Fowler presented the basic story host Steve Inskeep of NPR spoke to Paul Begala, a longtime political strategist who helped orchestrate Bill Clinton's presidential win in 1992. Inskeep asked Begala what he had learned from the report.

Oh, my gosh. It's not just the errors and omissions, OK? It's - I mean, as your reporter mentioned, affordability, cost of living inflation - it's barely even mentioned. Imagine the after-action report after the sinking of the Titanic and it doesn't mention icebergs. That's what drove the election. By the way, apparently, they didn't even speak to President Biden, Vice President Harris, Governor Walz or any of the top strategists. Not Mike Donilon, not Anita Dunn, not Steve Ricchetti, not Bruce Reed, not Jen O'Malley Dillon, not Steph Cutter. So imagine a medical autopsy, where you don't examine the brain, the heart, the liver, the lungs, the kidneys. But, man, we know everything about her left foot.

Asked if Martin was doing a good job:

It's hard to argue he's doing a good job. OK, we are winning, but I don't think anybody believes Democrats are winning because of the party chair.

One big problem with Harris’ campaign was people felt the economy was in a bad way and she didn’t run on economic change. Another problem was, according to James Carville, “she didn't get any votes on Election Day she didn't already have on Labor Day.” As for the current election cycle Begala said Democrats closer to the center are doing better than those farther to the left. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted G Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers discussing the Democrat’s 2024 autopsy report.

But the biggest problem is that the autopsy straight up ignores the major reasons Harris lost in 2024. Yes, it’s bad enough that the report doesn’t mention that party bosses failed to coordinate an early exit for Joe Biden, who was too unpopular to win. And there is no mention of Israel/Gaza, low turnout in the cities, and nothing on Harris’s race or gender. But this is a data-driven site, so I want to really focus in on what the numbers can tell us. When we boot up the data, it’s obvious the main reason Harris lost — and the reason I am going to explore here, at this website, it being a data-driven website — is that 2024 simply had too much inflation-induced anti-incumbent sentiment for the incumbent party to overcome. This is curiously missing from its main diagnosis. The word “inflation” isn’t mentioned in the autopsy a single time (except in the context of inflation-adjusted ad spending). ... Another reason consultants don’t focus on structural factors more often is that they can’t sell you any services to solve that problem, because there’s nothing you can do about them.

Jonathan Cohn of The Bulwark discussed the Ebola outbreak in Africa and the hampered world response to it compared to the previous outbreak (in 2015?).

After a slow start, the Obama administration poured personnel and materiel into the affected countries, while helping to coordinate the global response. It was, as officials said at the time, a “whole-of-government” effort, with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) playing a big role because it possessed the knowledge and contacts necessary to make public health efforts work on the ground. USAID isn’t part of the American effort this time. Trump and his then-adviser Elon Musk effectively killed the agency last year. And according to almost everything I have seen and heard, including several advocates and scientists I interviewed over the past forty-eight hours to gauge how seriously we should be taking this outbreak, the withdrawal of so much American assistance has left African governments and independent organizations less able to mount an effective response.

Andrew Mangan of Kos discussed a recent survey:

Let me make you an offer. I want to build a warehouse of machinery that will fill the ears of every passerby with the soft whine of industrial noise, will drink up your water reserves so much it lowers the pressure in your shower, and will jack up your utility bills—if not force your town to risk losing its access to electricity altogether—all in support of a technology expected to cost millions of Americans their jobs. In return, my warehouse will hypothetically provide you with significant tax revenue, though you will need to give me a 90% tax abatement for the next 20 years. Fair trade? It is little surprise the vast majority of Americans say no. In fact, about half say, “Hell no.” Over 7 in 10 Americans oppose the idea of an AI-focused data center being built in their area, according to a new poll from Gallup. Nearly half (48%) “strongly oppose” it.

Near data centers wholesale electricity rose 267% in five years. Around Lake Tahoe in about a year the nearly 50,000 residents will lose electricity because it will be redirected to data centers. Another worry is data centers use vast amounts of water for cooling. A big center can use as much water as a town of 50,000 people. There is a need for more water infrastructure – and more water when much of the US is in drought. Data centers may require hundreds of workers to build the place, but may need only 20-50 people to run it. So the claim of creating jobs is hollow. This article includes a map of the number of data centers in each state. The highest is Virginia with 603 and the lowest is 3 for Vermont. Even Alaska has 8. That got me wondering how many data centers are there (so far) across the country. I went to the source of the data for the map which is Data Center Map. It says there are 4287 data centers across all 50 states. I work that out to be about one data center for every 79,000 people. https://www.datacentermap.com/usa/ Not surprisingly a citizen revolt is building. Both major parties are responding to it. Some towns are enacting bans and some states are enacting moratoriums. I’ve written about the slush fund the nasty guy created to pay the Capitol attackers for the indignity of being found guilty. Last Thursday Emily Singer of Kos reported that many Senate Republicans are furious at the nasty guy for creating that fund, furious enough to refuse to pass a needed immigration funding bill. Because of the fear of them putting limits on the slush fund and enraging Dear Leader Senate Majority Leader John Thune started the Memorial Day recess a day early. The nasty guy just might endorse more primary opponents.

That means putting an amendment on the floor that blatantly rebukes Trump could cause them just as many problems as allowing this corrupt slush fund to proceed.

Why couldn’t the nasty guy announce the slush fund until after the important bills were passed? In a thread unrolled on Threadreader Barb McQuade listed the way the slush fund is corrupt. + He’s suing himself, strange for the unitary executive theory. + He’s evading judicial review. + In the background case of leaked tax returns the DOJ didn’t follow procedures and didn’t show actual harm. + There is no “weaponization” statue. + The money is going to people unrelated to the nasty guy’s original suit. + The fund will be administered by Blanche, who had been the nasty guy’s personal lawyer. + The deal pushes the false claim that the attackers were victims instead of perpetrators of serious crimes. In Friday’s pundit roundup Dworkin quoted several sources discussing Republican fury at the slush fund, including this one from Semafor:

The most urgent reason for the delay is boiling anger among Senate Republicans at the president’s $1.8 billion fund of taxpayer money for people who allege they’ve been targeted by the government. That includes, potentially, rioters who participated in the 2021 Capitol attack. But the bill is slowing down for other reasons, none of them related to immigration: Trump is unsuccessfully pushing for security funding for his White House ballroom renovation, and his goodwill with GOP senators is at a second-term low as he seeks to defeat his second Republican incumbent in as many weeks. Republicans had little appetite for giving Trump what he wanted this week, according to senators and aides.

Senators are furious at this slush fund because many of them were in the Capitol when it was attacked by the people slated to get the money. In Saturday’s roundup Dworkin quoted The Bulwark

How far beyond the pale, how ludicrously far outside the bounds of law and morality, is Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund? Far enough, apparently, to shock even the dead, embalmed consciences of GOP lawmakers back to life. House and Senate Republicans do not, as yet, share my view that the creation of the Slush Fund from Hell is a cut-and-dried impeachable offense. But the energy to oppose it is stronger in both houses than I expected it to be. In the House, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) joined Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) to introduce a short, simple bill: “No federal funds,” it reads, “may be used for the payment of any claim submitted to the Anti-Weaponization Fund, established by the Department of Justice on May 18, 2026.” And in the Senate, Republican anger over the fund burned hot enough to derail, for now, the must-pass reconciliation bill intended at long last to restore funding for ICE and the Border Patrol.

Robert Kagan of The Atlantic discussing the Iran war:

The outlines of President Trump’s endgame in the Iran war are now emerging. In a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, Trump reportedly explained that the United States was negotiating a “letter of intent” with Iran that would “formally end the war and launch a 30-day period of negotiations” on Iran’s nuclear program and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The purpose and effect of such an agreement should be clear: The United States is walking away from the crisis. Trump may launch another limited strike to look tough and satisfy the demands of the war’s supporters, but it would be a performative gesture. Endgame in this case is a euphemism for “surrender.”

In Sunday’s roundup Derek Thompson wrote:

Again and again, the president has taken the federal government in his hands, turned it upside down like a child’s piggy bank, and smacked it on the side until billions of dollars poured out of the hole in its back. As Republicans excuse his behavior by alleging misdeeds by the other side, I fear that a warped philosophy of amorality is settling over American politics, where fewer people are arguing for universal principles of decency and more people are perfectly comfortable justifying their own side’s uninterrupted immorality by insisting on the enduring presence of a greater evil on the other side. This is no way to build a world. After years of conservatives criticizing the left for “virtue signaling”—that is, cravenly performing a version of virtue for public approval—we now have something even worse than its opposite. The president and his allies are not merely vice-signaling. By empowering a figure who is oblivious to virtue and choosing to ignore his crescendoing depravity, we are creating a mode of politics that openly celebrates the death of morality. This is the age of vicemaxxing. The question is whether this is our new normal—or, I hope, the sort of cultural overreach that shocks our collective conscience and sets the stage for a more decent politic.

I’ve written many times about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported. A court required him to be returned to the US. Instead admitting an error the nasty guy administration has been working hard to accuse Abrego Garcia of something so they can deport him again. An article by the Associated Press posted last Friday on Kos reported that the latest case against him has been thrown out. The case accused him of human smuggling. Abrego Garcia’s team successfully argued the prosecution was vindictive. He was charged only because he was back in the US.

Meanwhile, Trump administration officials have said Abrego Garcia cannot remain in the U.S. They have vowed to deport him to a third country, most recently Liberia.

They aren’t giving up. Kos community member commander ogg says recent research confirms a statement attributed to President Lyndon B. Johnson, one I’ve mentioned in the past.

If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket, Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.

The research was posted in Sage Journals and an article on Alternet discussed it, which commander ogg excerpted.

Research reveals that white people appear to support social safety net programs unless they perceive those programs as also helping nonwhites…“This effect only appears when people compare their political standing directly to that of racial minorities… …in many developed nations, high levels of income inequality usually lead to increased public demand for these programs…the U.S. is different in this regard…University of Delaware scientists Sumeyye Mine Iltekin Gocer and Joanne M. Miller learned…that hostility to safety net programs appears to be…primarily with White people — even those in poverty — because they fear the programs give nonwhites a boost.

Oliver Willis of Kos, in his series Explaining the Right, explores why conservatives get so mad at movies. This time I think he actually answers the question. After giving several examples of movies that get the Right in a tizzy, Willis wrote:

What the right’s serial anger about the movies is truly about is the influence that the arts have on society. When entertainment better reflects the diversity of the world, there’s a documented positive effect on society’s attitude toward race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. And that’s exactly what the right hates. Conservatives hate that a moviegoer—especially a child—might see acceptance and openmindedness on screen and adopt those attitudes. What also causes a backlash is the right’s ineptitude on this topic. Conservatives are notoriously bad at creative endeavors. For all the right’s political success, their movies, television shows, and books are niche with little to no cultural impact.