Tag: ezra klein

I dunno, folks. What *do* you call a socialist who ISN’T an internationalist?

I mean, this is a fascinating moment:

Ezra Klein

You said being a democratic socialist means a more international view. I think if you take global poverty that seriously, it leads you to conclusions that in the US are considered out of political bounds. Things like sharply raising the level of immigration we permit, even up to a level of open borders. About sharply increasing …

Bernie Sanders

Open borders? No, that’s a Koch brothers proposal.

Ezra Klein

Really?

Bernie Sanders

Of course. That’s a right-wing proposal, which says essentially there is no United States. …

Continue reading I dunno, folks. What *do* you call a socialist who ISN’T an internationalist?

I take exception at what @instapundit said about the Silver/Klein fight.

Basically, Glenn called this objection by Nate Silver with regard to Vox’s habit of stealing stuff ‘When nerds call out nerds.’  Look, I have had my differences with Nate Silver – but he’s the only nerd in this fight.  Ezra Klein doesn’t deserve that honorable and venerable title.  You need to care about something, to be a nerd.  You need to care about something so much that an attack on it is an attack on you. And that your sense of integrity will keep you from allowing that thing to be abused.

I believe that Nate Silver has those things. I do not believe that of Ezra Klein. And yes, I’m making a moral judgment, here.

@charlescwcooke pulls off the most epic Twitter backhand you will see today.

This is the kind of backhand that uses the hand that wears the most rings. Because chipping a tooth is the goal.

Continue reading @charlescwcooke pulls off the most epic Twitter backhand you will see today.

@ezraklein out at WaPo, @VolokhC in.

Out:

Ezra Klein, an analyst, columnist and pundit who runs The Washington Post’s Wonkblog, will leave the newspaper, taking two of his colleagues with him, according to an internal memo sent on Tuesday.

Mr. Klein is “looking to start his own news organization,” according to the memo, but his destination was not identified. He declined to comment on the matter when reached by email on Tuesday, but said he had not “signed anything with anyone.”

Continue reading @ezraklein out at WaPo, @VolokhC in.

:holding head in hands: …Ezra, why did you think you needed ten million dollars?

More to the point: why did you think that Jeff Bezos was going to give you at least ten million dollars?

Mr. Klein, who quickly ascended into the ranks of the Washington media establishment with a multiplatform blend of policy nuance and number-crunching on Wonkblog, approached Katherine Weymouth, the Post’s publisher, in recent weeks, the people said.

After consultation with the newspaper’s editor, Marty Baron, according to one of the people, he put forward a proposal with detailed revenue projections to build a new website dedicated to explanatory journalism on a wide range of topics beyond political policy. It would have been affiliated with The Post, the person said, but would have been a separate enterprise. The investment he sought, the person said, was in eight figures.

Ms. Weymouth and the paper’s owner, Jeff Bezos, declined to support the project.

Continue reading :holding head in hands: …Ezra, why did you think you needed ten million dollars?

Quote of the Day, @EzraKlein Picked A Bad Year To Pretend To Lose His Cognitive Abilities edition.

Because I refuse to believe that he’s this dumb:

If these people aren’t up to the most important tasks of Obama’s second term, why haven’t they been fired and replaced by people who are?

These people being Kathleen Sebelius, Rob Nabors, and Miguel Rodriguez: three executive branch officials who have utterly screwed up their jobs, even by the generous standards of the Obama administration*.  But, fine: I’ll play along.  The reason why Barack Obama has not fired these people is because Barack Obama built his career by stroking the guilty egos of people like Ezra Klein.  Obama based his career on being, well, perfect. Continue reading Quote of the Day, @EzraKlein Picked A Bad Year To Pretend To Lose His Cognitive Abilities edition.

So. It is to be war, then. #obamacare #blueonblue #rootingforinjuries

And not a particularly romantic war, at that. This is tantalizingly half-promising to end up being a real blood-and-filth-in-the-mud, Thirty-Years-War-style kind of conflict.

Wonder who will end up being on which side.

Moe Lane

PS: Although surely the grownups in the room will keep the two wings of the Democratic party – and may God forgive me for using this term – ‘elites’ from savaging each other too deeply.

Ezra Klein attempts to not let the Newtown crisis go to waste.

Well, here’s something ironic for you.  Ezra Klein, after writing this laudably honest admission about policy responses to atrocities like the Newtown mass murder:

I’ll tell you what scares me: I don’t think we know how to prevent a tragedy like the Newtown massacre. The more information that emerges on the killings, the less effective any of the potential policy remedies appear to be.

…and listing some of the most common rhetorical arguments, pros and cons, Klein then promptly brings up the thought of seeing if there’s a way to restrict handgun purchases… despite the fact that nobody at Newtown was murdered with one.  In fact, he’s pretty explicit in trying to come up with a way to generalize a response to the aforementioned atrocity.  And they wonder why pro-2nd Amendment folks don’t trust anti-gun Democrats…

Moe Lane

PS: We will have no consensus on what to do about awful events like Newtown until we come to a consensus on what constitutes ‘sick,’ ‘crazy,’ and ‘evil.’  Sorry to say that, but that’s how I see it.

Your 2012 baseline for ‘pathetic.’

Being this bitterly envious and jealous of… Ezra Klein.

Ezra.
Klein.

Talk about lowered expectations: I sincerely hope that somebody will intervene before I ever get this bad.

Moe Lane

PS: Seriously: this is so inane that it wasn’t even worth a RedHot.