Malazan Empire: amphibian - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

I don't think the ultra progressives (who are often close to centrists in Europe) are the millstones. If they were getting big things done, which they are on a small scale, they'd be rather respected.

The people maddest about AOC are never gonna vote Democrat anyways. There's no point in moving rightward on her in order to get future votes. It'd be moving rightward to still lose votes and AOC.

The problem is that there's no fucking plan by the leadership to get things done and when they do try, they end up stepping things down. They should be pitching the absolute most ludicrously packed legislation possible, stepping that down for Manchin, and coming out with something decent. Instead, they're starting with something decent, forced to step it down, coming out with a shit sandwich nobody really likes. That's the curse that's poisoning them in my view.

If I were Schumer, I would make McConnell's life living hell for every single vote, no matter what - partly to exhaust him and partly to show fight to the American people.

But he won't do that because he believes in all the senators being friends. That's a fantasy that never existed, yet the wrong people keep falling for it.

 Lady Bliss, on 24 June 2022 - 08:45 PM, said:

I think it's more that the leadership, which is mostly the centrists, do not particularly feel that things are "really bad".

The slow moves on impeachment, the refusal to make Feinstein step down, accepting the McConnel stealing of a supreme court, the "just vote" rhetoric - it's all indicative that they don't think they can do direct things to stop or change the course of things despite having a numerical edge enough to push stuff through.

Schumer and Biden should be doing LBJ stuff and finding + using the levers that keep Manchin and Sinema on their side - even the painful ones. Why hasn't Manchin's old coal company or his daughter's pharmaceutical company gotten federal audits?

The January 6 hearings need to result in people in jail.

There needs to be a shit ton of executive orders doing stuff if legislation isn't possible.

It's the lack of direct action that's allowing spin and apathy to work effectively.

Clarence Thomas is one of the all time weirdest and completely self centered legal figures in history. He is someone who firmly believes in radical self sufficiency to the point of closing doors he went through, harassing others, being a well paid tool of the rich and racist whites he hated as a young teen, and has decades of some of the strangest legal opinions in the last 100 years. The shitty thing is that Scalia was on the bench with him and his opinions were often even worse than that.

Reagan fucked us back in the 70s and 80s and continues to do so today.

 Maark Abbott, on 23 June 2022 - 07:40 AM, said:

I've gotten to second interviews 3x in the past year. I think I got better at playing off the cues people were given, but it's brutal to start afresh with an entirely new set of people and a different job each time out.

What's your impressions of how the first interviews are going? I found that trying to head off the "where do you see yourself in 5 years?" faff was super useful to me. I hate the question because I tend to be a "can't plan it until you know some of the landscape" person and a workplace culture beyond an interview is definitely a huge component I can't plan too intensely without.

So I started asking people "In two years, what do you want me to be doing for the company or agency? What skills should I be developing early on? What should I be building towards being able to handle?"

That got immediately better results for me. The first way seemed to be a litmus test of my ambition and ability to project out with very little to go on regarding work and/or to start sharing my private/family life, which I don't like that much in an interview. The second way seemed to be a way that let them talk about development, big picture, how prepared they are for actually bringing someone on board etc. That seemed to give me more substantial things to work with.

I did botch one second interview by continually referring to my practical experience in investigations rather than taking a cue from the people interviewing me about how they are looking for a lawyer to go through the investigative paperwork and backfill or mildly supervise the actual investigators. I got caught up on the "connect back to lived experience" rather than meet them where they wanted to be.

If you want, we can go backstage and talk out interviews. I'm not an expert, yet my partner actually interviews people much more often for hiring and has coached me up quite a bit to help me suss out what the talking heads want.

Will Wight already has the next book ready? Wow, this is great. I hope he keeps up the full head of steam.