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Change Voters trust the business of change to those who don't seem excessively keen on it. Janesh Ganesh, Financial Times, August 6, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy We are not a democracy. The question has always been whether enough white people even want one. Elie Mystal, The Nation, August 9/16, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Drugs  The authors of a May 2018 research paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland estimated that prescription opioids accounted for 44% of the decrease in men's lablor force participation observed since 2001. Bloomberg Businessweek, August 9, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Fox News As far back as 2007 researchers learned that the mere presence of Fox News on a cable system increased Republican vote share by nearly 1 percent. A more recent study esti- mates that a miniscule 150 seconds per week of watching Fox News can increase the Republican vote share. In a study of real-life impact, researchers found that this means the mere existence of Fox News on a cable system induced somewhere between 3 and 8 percent of non-Republicans to vote for the Republican Party in the 2000 presidential  election. A more recent study estimates that Fox News produced a Republican increase of 3.59 point in the 2004 share of the two-party presidential vote and 6.34 points in 2008. That's  impact. Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, September/October 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Fox News To an extent that many people still don't recognize, Fox News is a grinding, daily cesspool of white grievance, mistrust of deep-state government, and a belief that liberals are literally trying to destroy the country out of sheer malice. Facebook and other social media outlets might have made this worse over the past few years — partly by acting as a sort of early warning system for new outrages bubbling up from the grassroots that Fox anchors can draw from — but Fox News remains the wellspring. Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, September/October 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
History Everything you see is in the past, as far as you are concerned. Katie Mack, The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)  © 2021 Kwiple.com
House of Representatives  Once you've got the gig,  it's yours for life. The reelection rate for incumbents in 2020 was 95%. That's better job security than a pedophile priest. Bill Maher, Real Time with Bill Maher, August 6, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Hunger Across Europe and North America, the number of people to have gone hungry increased for the first time since the UN started collecting data in 2014, according to recently published figures. Nearly 9 per cent of people were moderately or severly food insecure in 2020, compared with 7.7 per cent the previous year. … The figures are dwarfed by the levels in less wealthy economies; nearly a third of the world's population did not have access to ade- quate nutrition in 2020, according to the UN. And unlike poorer countries that lack govern- ment protection, most developed countries have state-backed welfare safety nets. Financial Times, August 10, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Count votes in Congress by: 1. Calculating a Member's Proportional Vote (MPV) for each member, as follows: MPV = SPNP / NLRS where: SPNP = State's Percentage of the National Population NLRS = Number of Legislators Representing the State (in that legislature) 2. Totaling “yes” MPVs and “no” MPVs 3. Passing if total MPV is more than 50 OTHERWISE Abolish the Senate © 2019 Kwiple.com
Local news If news becomes distant, the next step is that news becomes fake. Timothy Snyder © 2021 Kwiple.com
Meritocracy  After the 1970s, meritocracy began to look more and more like Young’s dark satire. A system intended to give each new generation an equal chance to rise created a new hereditary class structure. Educated professionals pass on their money, connections, ambitions, and work ethic to their children, while less educated families fall further behind, with less and less chance of seeing their children move up. George Packer, The Atlantic, July/August 2021 [Michael Young was the author of The Rise of the Meritocracy ] © 2021 Kwiple.com
Post-2020 Senate shituation 15 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming) 2020 population: 40,085,414 Senators: 30 Republicans 1 Senator per 1,336,180 people — 1 state (California) 2020 population: 39,368,075 Senators: 2 Democrats 1 Senator per 19,684,037 people 19,684,037 / 1,336,180 = 14.7, therefore: average 15er's vote is worth nearly 15 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth less than 7% of an average 15er's — 1 state (Wyoming) 2020 population = 582,328, therefore: 1 Senator per 291,164 Wyomians, a Wyomian's vote is worth 68 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 1.5% of a Wyomian's  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Reich wingers Wearing a yellow star of David with the word “unvaccinated” on it to signify vaccine resisters are being treated like Jews in Nazi Germany Reorted in Financial Times, August 12, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Selfie I define a moral action as one that brings advantage to my friends. Frederick Lindermann, 1st Viscount Cherwell, Churchill's buddy  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Selfie Spoiler alert: I actually am a Kenyan-born Muslim and Obama was never at the meetings at the Kenyan mosque. Ali Velshi, guest host for Last Word with Lawrene O'Donnell August 12, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Snapshot We've arranged the carrots in  different ways in different administrations. But all we’ve learnt . . . is that Kim Jong-un is not a rabbit. Kim Jong-un portrayed by Sydney Seiler, national intelligence officer for North Korea at the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in Financial Times, August 10, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Snapshot She supported an insurrection for the "likes". Nancy Mace,  Republican Representative from South Carolina, who criticized the Big Lie like Liz Cheney did and then voted to remove Cheney from her leadership position in the party after Trump's base howled, portrayed by Bill Maher © 2021 Kwiple.com
Snapshot He himself is  a political fiction. What do I mean by that? I mean, there is no such person, as far as we know, anyway, as Donald Trump, successful businessman. That is a political fiction that has been brought to us. Donald Trump portrayed by Timothy Snyder © 2021 Kwiple.com
Social media The crusade against these apps is hardly groundless. But it has become a way of dodging the age and depth of civic rot, and not just in the US. Facebook is easier to confront than the prospect that mature democracies must live with a permanent mass of essentially unreachable citizens. To curse social media is to exonerate society. Janan Ganesh,, Financial Times, July 20, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal. Kerner Commission report [1968] © 2021 Kwiple.com
Tech bros I blame Steve Jobs. And that Zuckerberg fellow. All those clever little psychopaths … They’re the Oppenheimers of the 21st century. John Boyne, The Echo Chamber --> © 2021 Kwiple.com
Technology When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck. Paul Virilio © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpism As long as Donald Trump is breathing,  the odds are that he will run again in 2024. This has become clear not because his ambitions have changed — Trump is no longer concerned with his business except to prevent its collapse — but because Republicans are all in for Caesarism. The party as a whole now has one truth, which is whatever Trump says, even if it is different after breakfast than before. Edward Luce, Financial Times, July 29, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpism Unremarkable people can get a remarkable life in Congress and that's what keeps the average Republican backbencher in fatso's thrall. Sticking with Trump guarantees them something that's bigger than faith, family, country or objective reality. They get to keep the best job they could ever get with absolutely nothing to recommend their lazy, ignorant ass for it. Bill Maher, Real Time with Bill Maher, August 6, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Wannabe autocrats say Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. congressmen From notes taken by Richard P. Donoghue, Acting United States Deputy Attorney General, during a December 27, 2020, meeting in which Trump pressured Jeffrey A. Rosen, Acting United States Attorney General, to have the Department of Justice overturn the election on the basis of claims of widespread voter fraud, for which it could find no evidence © 2021 Kwiple.com
Waste of time We will be asking my Republican friends in Congress and states and cities and counties to stand up, for God's sake. Help prevent this concerted effort to undermine our election and the sacred right to vote. Have you no shame? Joe Biden, July 13, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
 
Wealth inequality Wealth management loans at JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citi and Morgan Stanley have grown 50 per cent in the past four years, compared with only 9 per cent for their overall loan book. … JPMorgan and Citi are now lending more to a small number of ultra-high net worth clients than to their millions of credit card customers. A decade ago, JPMorgan was lending five times as much to credit card customers as it did to private clients. … Controversially, the borrowings can also serve to lower taxes. Instead of selling assets to raise cash — and facing a capital gains tax — high net-worth clients obtain funding by borrowing against the value of their investments. Financial Times, May 27, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com