151 Comments

I've moderated a few decent-size communities, so let me make the case for not giving second chances to users like that one:

Your goal here is to have a functional and productive community. A lot of that comes down to the most thoughtful 10% of commenters. It is very easy for someone who is obnoxious to drive off people from that 10%. By contrast, even if the obnoxious person gets reformed they're probably never going to be top 50%, much less top 10%. The benefit of giving them a second chance is that they might get better and stick around, but you probably don't want them to stick around even if they do tone the assholeishness down a bit. And the cost is the very high risk of driving away other, better people.

Also, there is basically zero chance that a user who leans in to being an asshole is going to be mollified by a temporary ban.

Remember, there's a human instinct towards forgiveness, but kicking someone out of your newsletter's comment section doesn't mean they aren't going to eat.

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Nov 18, 2020Liked by Matthew Yglesias

At FCC, former FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn gets Chair if she wants it (last name sound familiar? She’s Rep Clyburn’s daughter). Current Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel (Dem) gets it if Clyburn declines. That’s the word about town in communications circles.

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Yglesias finally unleashed, so he can bore everyone except us nerds! Yesss.

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I'm worried this message is going to be lost on most of the left. I've seen lefty twitter setting its hair on fire the last couple of days as rumors of staffing positions and cabinet appointments leak out. They seem primed to see Biden as a corporate sell out and jump at any news that confirms their priors. Reading a lot of the commentary, I also feel like they forgot that their people lost and somewhere along the way they mistook Biden for some liberal champion. He's going to appoint a moderate cabinet and hire a middle of the road staff. That's what he's promised the whole time. The idea that he'd suddenly put Bernie, Warren, etc into the cabinet was more scare tactics from the right then a real option.

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founding

If you want to help Ossoff and Warnock, volunteering to write letters to people who are qualified to vote, but might not, seems more useful than donating money: https://votefwd.org/

Phonebanking, and if you're local, door-to-door canvassing, will also matter. The campaigns have "I want to volunteer" signup forms on their websites. There is some speculation that Dems' reluctance to do door-to-door canvassing in the pandemic may have contributed to losing some marginal races, especially in the House. And really, as long as you wear your mask and you stay well back from the door after knocking/ringing, it seems relatively safe.

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Many good reminders here as to how power actually works in DC.

My only issue is with the last sentence. I was a donor to a large number of Democratic Senate races this year -- and all my candidates lost. I have begun to wonder whether campaign donations matter very much anymore. Such contributions assume there is a significant percentage of "persuadable" voters who can be reached through TV spots and other traditional techniques. But what if we are confronting a situation in Georgia (and elsewhere in the South and Midwest) where Republicans will vote Republican regardless of the size of Democratic campaign budgets and efforts to convince them to do otherwise? If you believe the survival of the world you know hinges on getting someone of your party a seat in the Senate, how effective will donations to the other party be? Just wondering'...

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Great read! This is the kind of stuff they should be teaching in high school civics.

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"Part of the fun of a return to more blog-style content is the ability to be a bit whimsical even as our topics are generally pretty serious. " +1 for the return of Friday music post

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I did find this piece from Slate to be informative about how Joe Biden could play a little hardball of his own in staffing his cabinet, although I would be interested if there are any clear holes to it.

Especially with Dems in control of the House, the ability to recess appoint does seem pretty airtight to me.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/mitch-mcconnell-cannot-veto-joe-biden-cabinet.html

To quote:

"The recess appointment clause, meanwhile, allows presidents to install “acting” officials while the Senate is in adjournment for at least 10 days. It too has been used regularly in the recent past: George W. Bush made 179 recess appointments, 99 of which were to full-time positions. Moreover, Biden can force the Senate into recess if McConnell attempts any blockade of his Cabinet. Under the Constitution’s presidential adjournment clause, if the Senate and House cannot agree on whether or not to adjourn, the president can adjourn Congress “for such time as he shall think proper.” With an allied speaker of the House, Biden can instigate an adjournment standoff, resolve it, and make his appointments in the interim."

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I hate to turn this important post about the centrality of OMB and OIRA to regulatory policy into electoral speculation, but what is the optimistic case for Ossoff and Warnock in January? I will donate to them because I fully understand the "non-stop constitutional crisis" stakes, but I currently struggle to see the upside to their chances. Ossoff lost by two in the first round and one of the main reasons it went to run-off appears to be some random libertarian candidate. Democrats got fewer votes total in the special election race than Republicans. History shows that Republicans perform significantly better in Georgia run-offs (as designed). I don't buy that sowing doubt about the election results or ragging on Raffensperger will depress Republican turnout. Georgia is *trending* left but the underlying demographics don't favor Democrats. It is difficult to increase turnout among your base after you win a Presidential election. I really want to be wrong. I want someone to tell me Obama's memoir will boost Democrats' turnout to 98% and that Kelly Loefler will block traffic on a highway demanding the deep state release Q from federal prison. But barring a minor miracle, I don't see it happening in Georgia. Am I being too pessimistic/missing something? In one sense it doesn't matter, it all comes down to these two races, but I also want to be clear-eyed about how likely the non-stop constitutional crisis is.

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An underrated issue under the radar is that of federal rulemaking. Agencies, under the purview of OIRA, have the power to make a lot of rules that greatly affect economic life, and sometimes even immigration (DACA, DAPA). This may be very important for Biden, especially if he doesn't have a Senate majority. The Chevron Doctrine states courts should give broad latitude to federal agencies to set rules.

Many conservative jurists, unhappy with the growth of the administrative state, most famously Gorsuch, think this gives too much power to agencies. I expect the Chevron Doctrine to be severely curtailed, especially with the current composition of the Court.

https://www.nclc.org/issues/gorsuch-expresses-openness-to-reexamine-chevron.html

Kavanaugh has also expressed a preference for reining in the Chevron Doctrine.

https://www.theregreview.org/2018/09/03/barnett-boyd-walker-kavanaugh-chevron-deference-supreme-court/

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Great post. One position I like to follow is who gets to be ambassador to Japan. American Japanese relations is obviously important but the ambassador doesn't really do much in terms of managing that and so instead it's historically been something of a "put someone out to pasture" job (although not under Trump). For example making HRC ambassador could be a good call as she could then host a bunch of sumits and stuff in Tokyo and Bill could play golf with the CEO of Toyota and the Emperor's nephew or whatever and the press wouldn't have to obsess over them anymore (because they are living in Japan). Win win!

Or you could give it to Rahm so he's not on TV anymore etc.

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I’m not the biggest Mayor Pete fan, but if the party is interested in raising the profile of young Democrats who could be potentially POTUS candidates in the future, giving him a more prominent position than Veterans Affairs may make sense. It would be nice to see some of the more prominent roles used to raise the profile of some younger Democrats instead of rewarding Ex-Senators.

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How much use does donating to Ossoff/Warnock actually have? All the donating done to Senate candidates in the general election don't seem to have gotten us very far.

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I think it is possible to overstate the case for how dire it would be if the Democrats don't control the Senate. The Republicans need to get stuff done too. Particularly with regard to things like agriculture which looms large in many red states. Leverage is where you find it.

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I don't think I understand why Biden would want to "put a brave face on" and not admit that he can't do much without 50 Democratic senators. 1) Making the case that he needs Ossoff and Warnock in the senate seems like it would help their chances (Biden did win GA after all) and 2) if they don't win and everything is deadlocked forever, won't he want to direct blame to the Republicans controlling the Senate?

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