NBC says staffers allied with Jared and Ivanka have made a bunch of seriously damaging leaks about Kelly.
They say he called Trump an idiot more than once, that he got into a shouting match demanding Trump abandon the idea of withdrawing all American military from Korea, that he bullied Trump into abandoning his deal with the Democrats on DACA and immigration and forced him into a harder line, that Kelly has tried to stop him pushing on the Wall, that Kelly constantly opposes the president and harasses him into acceptance of Kelly's policies, and more.
Thing is, if the story is true then Trump's instincts are to pursue the kind of isolationist foreign policy he spoke of during the campaign, and globalists and "the deep state" are indeed stopping him doing that.
So why is the pro-globalist NBC undermining that effort?
If he goes Jim Mattis is the last one standing.
At the same time, Trump is still allegedly talking to Steve Bannon and increasingly impatient with people who oppose that same campaign agenda of Buchananism.
Monday, April 30, 2018
Not in more than 50 years . . .
. . . have I been bicycling.
I've ridden a motorcycle since then, but not a bike.
Just bought this Schwinn, but green and with the handlebar more nearly horizontal, online through Dick's a couple weeks ago.
I took it to their local store for free assembly.
It's too big (43 pounds) for a trunk or roof rack - a hitch rack would work but the hitch and rack together cost more than the bike (almost twice the price ), and then there's the cost of installation - and the front wheel does not pop off, but it's a nice hybrid bike all the same.
Oddly, a lighter bike would have cost nearly as much as that hitch and rack.
I've been riding it around the circle at the entrance to Bird Park off Cedar Boulevard, with an occasional side trip up the trail into the park, to get used to the controls and brush up on my skills before trying it out on any of the local bike trails.
I did check with my doctor before buying it (I'm 69 years old) and he encouraged me.
Bicycling is a heck of a lot more exercise than walking for the same length of time.
Particularly since my usual walk is indoors at a mall.
So that's totally flat and zero-grade, of course.
Riding anywhere nearby involves an actual grade - this is a Pittsburgh suburb, after all - , and I do feel it in the legs.
Beautiful day for it, today.
63 degrees F and sunny.
No-sweat biking.
Update 05112018.
Since writing the above I have twice driven to a Montour Trail entry point in Upper Saint Clair - free parking near an elementary school - and biked from there to an entry point in Bethel Park.
A marker near the USC entry point says that's the highest point along the trail, 1223 feet in elevation, so it's a slight downhill grade from there to Bethel Park and uphill all the way back.
The trail is about a car lane and a half wide and has benches - few and far between - and mile markers.
Along that stretch you are mostly enclosed on both sides by woods, but here and there the trail runs along behind the back yards of several houses in a row.
The surface seems to be hard-packed light gray crushed rock, not as easy to ride as actual blacktop.
The interactive map says the surface at Bethel Park is dirt and the surface at Upper Saint Clair is asphalt.
Wrong both times.
The surface is the same in both places, and as I have described it.
I've ridden a motorcycle since then, but not a bike.
Just bought this Schwinn, but green and with the handlebar more nearly horizontal, online through Dick's a couple weeks ago.
I took it to their local store for free assembly.
It's too big (43 pounds) for a trunk or roof rack - a hitch rack would work but the hitch and rack together cost more than the bike (almost twice the price ), and then there's the cost of installation - and the front wheel does not pop off, but it's a nice hybrid bike all the same.
Oddly, a lighter bike would have cost nearly as much as that hitch and rack.
I've been riding it around the circle at the entrance to Bird Park off Cedar Boulevard, with an occasional side trip up the trail into the park, to get used to the controls and brush up on my skills before trying it out on any of the local bike trails.
I did check with my doctor before buying it (I'm 69 years old) and he encouraged me.
Bicycling is a heck of a lot more exercise than walking for the same length of time.
Particularly since my usual walk is indoors at a mall.
So that's totally flat and zero-grade, of course.
Riding anywhere nearby involves an actual grade - this is a Pittsburgh suburb, after all - , and I do feel it in the legs.
Beautiful day for it, today.
63 degrees F and sunny.
No-sweat biking.
Update 05112018.
Since writing the above I have twice driven to a Montour Trail entry point in Upper Saint Clair - free parking near an elementary school - and biked from there to an entry point in Bethel Park.
A marker near the USC entry point says that's the highest point along the trail, 1223 feet in elevation, so it's a slight downhill grade from there to Bethel Park and uphill all the way back.
The trail is about a car lane and a half wide and has benches - few and far between - and mile markers.
Along that stretch you are mostly enclosed on both sides by woods, but here and there the trail runs along behind the back yards of several houses in a row.
The surface seems to be hard-packed light gray crushed rock, not as easy to ride as actual blacktop.
The interactive map says the surface at Bethel Park is dirt and the surface at Upper Saint Clair is asphalt.
Wrong both times.
The surface is the same in both places, and as I have described it.
Bait and switch? Well, a little
But the article is equally a pretty good take-down of an absurd celebration of Marxism published today by the NYT.
Marxist philosopher Jason Barker has an op-ed in the New York Times celebrating Marxism, a philosophy, he claims, that has been proven entirely correct.
Marxist philosopher Jason Barker has an op-ed in the New York Times celebrating Marxism, a philosophy, he claims, that has been proven entirely correct.
After many celebratory words, Barker does briefly concede, 15 paragraphs in, that Marxism has run into a few snags translating its ideals into practice.
“The subsequent and troubled history of the Communist ‘states,’” he concedes, leaves “a great deal to be learned from their disasters, but their philosophical relevance remains doubtful, to say the least.”
It is philosophically irrelevant that every nation-state founded on Marxist philosophy almost immediately metastasized into a repressive tyranny, he breezily insists.
It is philosophically irrelevant that every nation-state founded on Marxist philosophy almost immediately metastasized into a repressive tyranny, he breezily insists.
Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that the parties that ruled them all shared a common philosophy, and that this philosophy identified within their society an oppressor class whose political rights could and should be eliminated?
No, no, reply the Marxists.
All these real-world examples of governments attempting to actualize Marxist principles tell us nothing about Marxism.
The same process of abstracting away real-world failure can be seen in American conservatism.
Unlike right-of-center parties found in other countries, the American right has never accepted the basic legitimacy of the New Deal.
It has hysterically opposed every extension of government since the 1930s, and the failures of either their apocalyptic predictions to come true, or of right-wing politicians to roll back these dastardly extensions of federal power, have not inspired any wholesale rethinking of their creed.
Like any strain of fanaticism, American conservatism sustains itself on the premise that it has Never Been Tried.
Bareknuckle, low government capitalism was tried in the US right from the beginning, the only departure being slavery, abolished in 1865.
The experiment was at its peak in the Gilded Age, and so horrific were its results that it gave birth to the Progressive Movement and the construction, over many decades, of the regulatory and welfare states so hated by American conservatism.
. . . .
Decade after decade, they [conservatives] have attributed their failures to the fecklessness of their leaders.
Bareknuckle, low government capitalism was tried in the US right from the beginning, the only departure being slavery, abolished in 1865.
The experiment was at its peak in the Gilded Age, and so horrific were its results that it gave birth to the Progressive Movement and the construction, over many decades, of the regulatory and welfare states so hated by American conservatism.
. . . .
Decade after decade, they [conservatives] have attributed their failures to the fecklessness of their leaders.
It has never occurred to conservatives to question the viability of their absolutist free-market philosophy itself.
Conservatives continue to celebrate Ronald Reagan’s urgent warning in 1961 that the establishment of Medicare would lead first to the government telling doctors how many patients they could treat and where they would live, and ultimately to the total dissolution of freedom in the United States — “one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”
The moment of crisis of the welfare state never comes, but it simply moves further and further into the future.
The fact that conservative voters themselves have no interest in eliminating or even paring back Medicare is not factored into the equation.
Sunday, April 29, 2018
Dread is entirely in order
Will Trump attempt a coup?
I ask as I contemplate the copy of Fascism: A Warning that sits, so far unread, on the low bureau beside my bed.
Update, the following day.
Update, the following day.
And as I read about his speech in Michigan.
There is video of the entire speech at RCP.
View at the risk of despair.
Or maybe a panic attack.
There is video of the entire speech at RCP.
View at the risk of despair.
Or maybe a panic attack.
Chapter 32
From the outside, love is madness, possession by hormones, utterly stupid.
From the inside, it is the redemption of life.
Provided the beloved does not turn out to be unworthy.
Lord Jim.
Whatever else he was, Conrad was a romantic, to use his own word.
Well, everyone would just admit the peace prize has long been a load of crap
As Maureen Dowd pretty much has.
Trump: Our Cartoon Nobel Laureate
“The guy who said he could be as presidential as any president except for Abraham Lincoln is instead about as presidential as Yosemite Sam,” says his [Trump's] biographer Tim O’Brien.
“I really think of him as Yosemite Sam — just hopping around in anger, firing his gun wildly, sometimes at his own foot. He was so unhinged and ranting in that call to ‘Fox & Friends’ this week that even the hosts couldn’t wait to get him off the air.”
Yet Lindsey Graham, who once labeled Trump “a kook,” “crazy” and “unfit for office,” told Fox News on Friday: “Donald Trump convinced North Korea and China he was serious about bringing about change.
We’re not there yet, but if this happens, President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.”
And here’s the part that would drive Trump haters into a frenzy: If he could pull off denuclearizing North Korea, he would deserve it more than Barack Obama did when he had that bouquet thrown at him seconds into his presidency.
And Trump certainly would deserve it more than Henry Kissinger, who won the prize in 1973 for his efforts to end the Vietnam War, after privately persuading Richard Nixon to keep it going for years and while secretly bombing Cambodia.
If he won, President Trump would be within his rights when he claimed it as a personal victory since he decimated the State Department to the point that we wondered if interns in Foggy Bottom were crafting North Korea policy.
It would be a paradox: The man so many Americans loathe as a villain taming a charter member of the Axis of Evil.
Trump: Our Cartoon Nobel Laureate
“The guy who said he could be as presidential as any president except for Abraham Lincoln is instead about as presidential as Yosemite Sam,” says his [Trump's] biographer Tim O’Brien.
“I really think of him as Yosemite Sam — just hopping around in anger, firing his gun wildly, sometimes at his own foot. He was so unhinged and ranting in that call to ‘Fox & Friends’ this week that even the hosts couldn’t wait to get him off the air.”
Yet Lindsey Graham, who once labeled Trump “a kook,” “crazy” and “unfit for office,” told Fox News on Friday: “Donald Trump convinced North Korea and China he was serious about bringing about change.
We’re not there yet, but if this happens, President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.”
And here’s the part that would drive Trump haters into a frenzy: If he could pull off denuclearizing North Korea, he would deserve it more than Barack Obama did when he had that bouquet thrown at him seconds into his presidency.
And Trump certainly would deserve it more than Henry Kissinger, who won the prize in 1973 for his efforts to end the Vietnam War, after privately persuading Richard Nixon to keep it going for years and while secretly bombing Cambodia.
If he won, President Trump would be within his rights when he claimed it as a personal victory since he decimated the State Department to the point that we wondered if interns in Foggy Bottom were crafting North Korea policy.
It would be a paradox: The man so many Americans loathe as a villain taming a charter member of the Axis of Evil.
The undeserving sick and socialized health insurance
You want the government deciding you don't deserve proper medical attention?
What, because that million it would cost could be better spent in a tax cut disguised as a program to straighten teeth on a thousand kids (the kids are already getting their teeth fixed)?
Medicare for all means the government has a monopoly on the health insurance business and will absolutely start making calls like that.
Already there are plenty of people whining that money spent on health care for the old, livers for ex-alcoholics, hearts and lungs for ex-smokers and the like is money spent on the undeserving sick.
Whines that fold in wonderfully with the agenda of Republicans as tax cutters and saboteurs of government, providing softening up propaganda for efforts to cut costs by cutting coverage.
Recall how much they, led by such heroes of ordinary people as the Bozo in the White House and Paul Ryan, bellyached about Obamacare's coverage requirements for policies to be sold through the exchanges or qualify for subsidies.
And that they already have insured no government program will pay for an abortion, and have tried their best to cut out coverage even for birth control, all allegedly in deference to the moral sensitivities of Evangelicals and Catholic nuns.
It's a lot easier to resist such pressures when public health insurance programs aren't providing coverage for most Americans, let alone all of them.
Create a socialist monopoly in health insurance and just watch how fast secularist Democrats will join the Christian clericalists of the GOP in deciding the devil can take the old, the weak, the most vulnerable, the most beset and needy, along with all those slutty women baby-killers.
And they will all the while dress up the whole sorry, greedy business as an heroic effort to preserve scarce resources for the young and the deserving, for the children, for God's sake.
Oh, the moral ago of the New York Times.
These are liberals talking like this, people.
Injecting Drugs Can Ruin a Heart. How Many Second Chances Should a User Get?
What, because that million it would cost could be better spent in a tax cut disguised as a program to straighten teeth on a thousand kids (the kids are already getting their teeth fixed)?
Medicare for all means the government has a monopoly on the health insurance business and will absolutely start making calls like that.
Already there are plenty of people whining that money spent on health care for the old, livers for ex-alcoholics, hearts and lungs for ex-smokers and the like is money spent on the undeserving sick.
Whines that fold in wonderfully with the agenda of Republicans as tax cutters and saboteurs of government, providing softening up propaganda for efforts to cut costs by cutting coverage.
Recall how much they, led by such heroes of ordinary people as the Bozo in the White House and Paul Ryan, bellyached about Obamacare's coverage requirements for policies to be sold through the exchanges or qualify for subsidies.
And that they already have insured no government program will pay for an abortion, and have tried their best to cut out coverage even for birth control, all allegedly in deference to the moral sensitivities of Evangelicals and Catholic nuns.
It's a lot easier to resist such pressures when public health insurance programs aren't providing coverage for most Americans, let alone all of them.
Create a socialist monopoly in health insurance and just watch how fast secularist Democrats will join the Christian clericalists of the GOP in deciding the devil can take the old, the weak, the most vulnerable, the most beset and needy, along with all those slutty women baby-killers.
And they will all the while dress up the whole sorry, greedy business as an heroic effort to preserve scarce resources for the young and the deserving, for the children, for God's sake.
Oh, the moral ago of the New York Times.
These are liberals talking like this, people.
Injecting Drugs Can Ruin a Heart. How Many Second Chances Should a User Get?
Korean reunification?
Please do recall that German reunification was made possible by the abandonment of Communism by the GDR.
You figure Kim is for one second contemplating anything of the kind?
You figure Kim is for one second contemplating anything of the kind?
Saturday, April 28, 2018
Friday, April 27, 2018
The verdict is absurd
Verdict in Pamplona Gang Rape Case Sets Off Immediate Outcry
In a case that was seen as a bellwether for women’s rights in Spain, a court on Thursday sentenced five men for sexually abusing a woman during the bull-running festival of Pamplona, but cleared them of raping her, to the dismay of women’s associations.
Shortly after the verdict, various women’s groups announced that they would lead protests on Thursday evening across Spain to condemn the ruling.
The five men were sentenced to nine years in prison for “continuous sexual abuse,” rather than the almost 23 years in prison that the prosecution had sought for rape and other charges.
. . . .
An 18-year-old woman, whose identity has been protected by the authorities, was attacked in the early hours of the morning by five men, who filmed the assault using a cellphone.
The incident set off mass street protests and a national outcry at the time.
The court on Thursday found the five young men, who are from Seville, guilty of “sexual abuse” of the woman, but cleared them of the more serious charge of rape, which must involve violence or intimidation under Spanish law.
On top of their prison sentence, the men were ordered to pay a combined 50,000 euros ($60,600) in compensation to the woman.
One of the defendants, who was a military police officer at the time, was also fined €900 for stealing her cellphone.
. . . .
Thursday’s verdict followed a long trial that had already set off significant controversy after lawyers for the five men started to portray the victim as a consenting sexual partner who suffered no lasting damage.
The defendants’ lawyers also used a private detective to follow the woman and gather evidence that she returned to a normal life after the assault, but part of that evidence was eventually withdrawn by the judges.
Instead, the woman said that she was undergoing long-term therapy to help her overcome the trauma of the sexual assault.
Following Thursday’s ruling, Soledad Murillo, a former state secretary for gender equality, called for an overhaul of Spain’s criminal code.
The ruling, she said, left the impression that “these guys went a bit too far but didn’t want to hurt.”
Pedro Sánchez, the leader of the main Socialist opposition party, wrote on Twitter: “If what the wolf pack did as a group wasn’t violence against a defenseless woman, what do we then understand to be rape?”
The official spokesman of the Basque regional government, Josu Erkoreka, warned that the ruling would give legitimacy to machismo violence and would not be understood “by the society of the 21st century.”
In a case that was seen as a bellwether for women’s rights in Spain, a court on Thursday sentenced five men for sexually abusing a woman during the bull-running festival of Pamplona, but cleared them of raping her, to the dismay of women’s associations.
Shortly after the verdict, various women’s groups announced that they would lead protests on Thursday evening across Spain to condemn the ruling.
The five men were sentenced to nine years in prison for “continuous sexual abuse,” rather than the almost 23 years in prison that the prosecution had sought for rape and other charges.
. . . .
An 18-year-old woman, whose identity has been protected by the authorities, was attacked in the early hours of the morning by five men, who filmed the assault using a cellphone.
The incident set off mass street protests and a national outcry at the time.
The court on Thursday found the five young men, who are from Seville, guilty of “sexual abuse” of the woman, but cleared them of the more serious charge of rape, which must involve violence or intimidation under Spanish law.
On top of their prison sentence, the men were ordered to pay a combined 50,000 euros ($60,600) in compensation to the woman.
One of the defendants, who was a military police officer at the time, was also fined €900 for stealing her cellphone.
. . . .
Thursday’s verdict followed a long trial that had already set off significant controversy after lawyers for the five men started to portray the victim as a consenting sexual partner who suffered no lasting damage.
The defendants’ lawyers also used a private detective to follow the woman and gather evidence that she returned to a normal life after the assault, but part of that evidence was eventually withdrawn by the judges.
Instead, the woman said that she was undergoing long-term therapy to help her overcome the trauma of the sexual assault.
Following Thursday’s ruling, Soledad Murillo, a former state secretary for gender equality, called for an overhaul of Spain’s criminal code.
The ruling, she said, left the impression that “these guys went a bit too far but didn’t want to hurt.”
Pedro Sánchez, the leader of the main Socialist opposition party, wrote on Twitter: “If what the wolf pack did as a group wasn’t violence against a defenseless woman, what do we then understand to be rape?”
The official spokesman of the Basque regional government, Josu Erkoreka, warned that the ruling would give legitimacy to machismo violence and would not be understood “by the society of the 21st century.”
Thursday, April 26, 2018
So this is a thing?
Who does not know that men usually want sex more urgently and more often than the women in their lives, and can pester them quite a lot about it?
Who does not know that young men are pretty much driven all day and all night, every day and every night, by sexual furies?
Who does not know, who has not known forever, that celibacy drives people, but especially males, nuts?
Nobody can pretend surprise that chronic sexual frustration powers resentment.
There is no doubt it is behind many rapes.
But an on-line "incel" ("involuntary celibacy") movement?
Turning chronic and acute personal sexual frustration into something close to an ideological justification for murder?
When Misogynists Become Terrorists
Anger like that deserves the name of "hate," but not every hate crime is an act of terrorism.
Jessica Valenti doesn't care what the word means.
She just wants to use it as a political and social weapon.
And yet the facts she reports are surprising, frightening, and shocking.
A sample.
In the wake of the Toronto attack, a well-known member of the “pickup artist” community, Daryush Valizadeh, tweeted that “sleeping with only two or three Toronto Tinder sluts would have been enough to stop” Mr. Minassian’s “urge to kill.”
Mr. Valizadeh has argued for the legalization of rape.
In some of these groups, men who kill women have become heroes.
After Mr. Rodger went on his shooting spree, one men’s-rights community called what he did “Going Sodini” — a reference to the 2009 shooting in a gym outside of Pittsburgh.
Before his rampage, Mr. Sodini, 48 at the time, was seeking advice from pickup artists out of a frustration that women decades younger than he was wouldn’t date him.
Later, after Mr. Rodger’s 140-page manifesto was released — outlining his fury over still being a “kissless virgin” — his name became synonymous on misogynist forums with revenge on women who reject men.
A manifesto left by Chris Harper-Mercer, who shot and killed nine people at Umpqua Community College, even mentioned Mr. Rodger by name as he wrote about being 26 years old with “no girlfriend, a virgin.”
Where the hell is the sexual revolution when you need it?
Wasn't sex education in the schools supposed to help ease kids into being comfortably active with safe, responsible, and un-frightening sex not too long after the onset of puberty?
Who does not know that young men are pretty much driven all day and all night, every day and every night, by sexual furies?
Who does not know, who has not known forever, that celibacy drives people, but especially males, nuts?
Nobody can pretend surprise that chronic sexual frustration powers resentment.
There is no doubt it is behind many rapes.
But an on-line "incel" ("involuntary celibacy") movement?
Turning chronic and acute personal sexual frustration into something close to an ideological justification for murder?
When Misogynists Become Terrorists
Anger like that deserves the name of "hate," but not every hate crime is an act of terrorism.
Jessica Valenti doesn't care what the word means.
She just wants to use it as a political and social weapon.
And yet the facts she reports are surprising, frightening, and shocking.
A sample.
In the wake of the Toronto attack, a well-known member of the “pickup artist” community, Daryush Valizadeh, tweeted that “sleeping with only two or three Toronto Tinder sluts would have been enough to stop” Mr. Minassian’s “urge to kill.”
Mr. Valizadeh has argued for the legalization of rape.
In some of these groups, men who kill women have become heroes.
After Mr. Rodger went on his shooting spree, one men’s-rights community called what he did “Going Sodini” — a reference to the 2009 shooting in a gym outside of Pittsburgh.
Before his rampage, Mr. Sodini, 48 at the time, was seeking advice from pickup artists out of a frustration that women decades younger than he was wouldn’t date him.
Later, after Mr. Rodger’s 140-page manifesto was released — outlining his fury over still being a “kissless virgin” — his name became synonymous on misogynist forums with revenge on women who reject men.
A manifesto left by Chris Harper-Mercer, who shot and killed nine people at Umpqua Community College, even mentioned Mr. Rodger by name as he wrote about being 26 years old with “no girlfriend, a virgin.”
Where the hell is the sexual revolution when you need it?
Wasn't sex education in the schools supposed to help ease kids into being comfortably active with safe, responsible, and un-frightening sex not too long after the onset of puberty?
Still, it's not a privilege
The White Rebellion
It is not a privilege not to be lynched, denied a job, denied recognition or promotion, treated abusively or with contempt, or excluded from participation in politics or from the vote by members of the racial majority solely because you are not of their race.
It is an injustice and in many cases an actual crime to be so abused.
Hence resentful and accusing talk of so-called "white skin privilege" is annoying bullshit that, in the end, amounts to resentment of the white majority because it is white and the majority.
All the same, this is a perceptive article by Charles Blow, though it is certainly overdoing it to characterize as "petrifying fear" the resentment and alarm of some whites as those injustices wane and monuments honoring whites who fought for slavery, many erected by other whites as an affirmation of white supremacy, are finally pushed over like so many statues in Eastern Europe of Marx or Lenin.
And, anyway, it is more a question of contemporary whites fearing loss of majority status as some (many) of the whites in the South at the end of the Civil War feared, literally feared, the freed slaves.
A point Blow makes very well.
And this is dead on.
Remember the expression, "Obama derangement syndrome"?
A 2016 analysis, also published in The Post, found that “economic anxiety isn’t driving racial resentment.
"Racial resentment is driving economic anxiety.”
When one accepts this rationale, the inexplicable becomes rather easy to explain.
How could anyone vote for this buffoonish character, and how can they continue to support him even as he makes a fool of himself and a mockery of America?
Simply put, Trump is one of the last gasps of American white supremacy and patriarchy.
He is one of its Great White Hopes.
. . . .
Trump is white anguish encapsulated.
It is not a privilege not to be lynched, denied a job, denied recognition or promotion, treated abusively or with contempt, or excluded from participation in politics or from the vote by members of the racial majority solely because you are not of their race.
It is an injustice and in many cases an actual crime to be so abused.
Hence resentful and accusing talk of so-called "white skin privilege" is annoying bullshit that, in the end, amounts to resentment of the white majority because it is white and the majority.
All the same, this is a perceptive article by Charles Blow, though it is certainly overdoing it to characterize as "petrifying fear" the resentment and alarm of some whites as those injustices wane and monuments honoring whites who fought for slavery, many erected by other whites as an affirmation of white supremacy, are finally pushed over like so many statues in Eastern Europe of Marx or Lenin.
And, anyway, it is more a question of contemporary whites fearing loss of majority status as some (many) of the whites in the South at the end of the Civil War feared, literally feared, the freed slaves.
A point Blow makes very well.
And this is dead on.
Remember the expression, "Obama derangement syndrome"?
A 2016 analysis, also published in The Post, found that “economic anxiety isn’t driving racial resentment.
"Racial resentment is driving economic anxiety.”
When one accepts this rationale, the inexplicable becomes rather easy to explain.
How could anyone vote for this buffoonish character, and how can they continue to support him even as he makes a fool of himself and a mockery of America?
Simply put, Trump is one of the last gasps of American white supremacy and patriarchy.
He is one of its Great White Hopes.
. . . .
Trump is white anguish encapsulated.
The Worst president in US history is the Bozo in office today
Not least, but certainly not only, because of this.
Trump’s ‘Best People’ Are the Worst
At this point you have to ask: Just what do job postings for the Trump administration look like?
Surely they must stipulate that relevant experience isn’t a plus, but that a flexible notion of ethics is.
They must demand references who can recount specific instances of demonstrated incompetence.
How else to explain the sheer number of poorly prepared or careless or sticky-fingered officials crammed into this careening clown-car of an administration?
. . . .
More than 20 people who have worked with Dr. Jackson told senators either that he was drunk on the job, handed out sleeping pills, and even opioids, like Skittles, or screamed at his staff.
The latest allegation is that he reportedly got drunk and wrecked a government car.
Maybe, maybe, you could have overlooked all that if he had impressive qualifications to run one of the country’s largest and most important health systems — like management experience.
But as best as anyone can tell, Mr. Trump picked Dr. Jackson because he is in the military, looks like a grown-up Doogie Howser and gave the president a glowing bill of health, including saying that the president has great genes and could have lived to 200 if he had had a better diet.
. . . .
No one should have expected the lack of qualifications to matter to Mr. Trump.
That wasn’t an obstacle to his decision to give his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a portfolio that includes negotiating peace in the Middle East, reforming the criminal justice system and making the government more tech-savvy.
Mr. Trump also considered appointing his personal pilot to head the Federal Aviation Administration.
As for the lobbyist-loving wing of the Trump administration, one of its leading members — Mick Mulvaney, who heads the Office of Management and Budget and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — was extolling the practice of pay-to-play public service the other day.
At a speech before the American Bankers Association on Tuesday, Mr. Mulvaney said that as a congressman he would only meet with lobbyists who gave money to his campaign.
He also encouraged bankers — many of whom have given generously to him — to let their needs be known to lawmakers.
Mr. Mulvaney was just making old friends happy.
He did that for years as a congressman, defending bankers and fending off consumer protection.
Since he took over the consumer agency that Congress created after the financial crisis, he has been working overtime to gut it for his pals.
On the other hand, Scott Pruitt, who runs the Environmental Protection Agency, has been taking care of himself.
He got a sweetheart deal for a $50-a-night room from the wife of a lobbyist whose company was seeking goodies from the E.P.A.
He has liberally spent government funds on first-class flights and a security detail large enough for a minor potentate.
He also spent $43,000 on a soundproof phone booth for his office that might remind some of the “cone of silence” from “Get Smart.”
When he was an Oklahoma state senator, The Times recently reported, Mr. Pruitt came to own a stately house overlooking the State Capitol, a million-dollar lakeside manse in Tulsa and a stake in a minor-league baseball team.
He accomplished all that with the help of a couple of old associates, one a banker and the other a lawyer … both of whom are now on the public payroll, working with Mr. Pruitt at the E.P.A.
Remember when Mr. Trump said he would hire the “best people”?
Of course, he said Mexico would pay for his border wall, too.
Trump’s ‘Best People’ Are the Worst
At this point you have to ask: Just what do job postings for the Trump administration look like?
Surely they must stipulate that relevant experience isn’t a plus, but that a flexible notion of ethics is.
They must demand references who can recount specific instances of demonstrated incompetence.
How else to explain the sheer number of poorly prepared or careless or sticky-fingered officials crammed into this careening clown-car of an administration?
. . . .
More than 20 people who have worked with Dr. Jackson told senators either that he was drunk on the job, handed out sleeping pills, and even opioids, like Skittles, or screamed at his staff.
The latest allegation is that he reportedly got drunk and wrecked a government car.
Maybe, maybe, you could have overlooked all that if he had impressive qualifications to run one of the country’s largest and most important health systems — like management experience.
But as best as anyone can tell, Mr. Trump picked Dr. Jackson because he is in the military, looks like a grown-up Doogie Howser and gave the president a glowing bill of health, including saying that the president has great genes and could have lived to 200 if he had had a better diet.
. . . .
No one should have expected the lack of qualifications to matter to Mr. Trump.
That wasn’t an obstacle to his decision to give his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a portfolio that includes negotiating peace in the Middle East, reforming the criminal justice system and making the government more tech-savvy.
Mr. Trump also considered appointing his personal pilot to head the Federal Aviation Administration.
As for the lobbyist-loving wing of the Trump administration, one of its leading members — Mick Mulvaney, who heads the Office of Management and Budget and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — was extolling the practice of pay-to-play public service the other day.
At a speech before the American Bankers Association on Tuesday, Mr. Mulvaney said that as a congressman he would only meet with lobbyists who gave money to his campaign.
He also encouraged bankers — many of whom have given generously to him — to let their needs be known to lawmakers.
Mr. Mulvaney was just making old friends happy.
He did that for years as a congressman, defending bankers and fending off consumer protection.
Since he took over the consumer agency that Congress created after the financial crisis, he has been working overtime to gut it for his pals.
On the other hand, Scott Pruitt, who runs the Environmental Protection Agency, has been taking care of himself.
He got a sweetheart deal for a $50-a-night room from the wife of a lobbyist whose company was seeking goodies from the E.P.A.
He has liberally spent government funds on first-class flights and a security detail large enough for a minor potentate.
He also spent $43,000 on a soundproof phone booth for his office that might remind some of the “cone of silence” from “Get Smart.”
When he was an Oklahoma state senator, The Times recently reported, Mr. Pruitt came to own a stately house overlooking the State Capitol, a million-dollar lakeside manse in Tulsa and a stake in a minor-league baseball team.
He accomplished all that with the help of a couple of old associates, one a banker and the other a lawyer … both of whom are now on the public payroll, working with Mr. Pruitt at the E.P.A.
Remember when Mr. Trump said he would hire the “best people”?
Of course, he said Mexico would pay for his border wall, too.
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
An echo of Trump
Don Blankenship, West Virginia Candidate, Lives Near Las Vegas and Mulled Chinese Citizenship
Another anger-driven criminal and thug.
Figures he will do well in West Virginia.
Another anger-driven criminal and thug.
Figures he will do well in West Virginia.
Krugman puts it in a nutshell
We Don’t Need No Education
We have Pink Floyd to thank for the dumbest lyric on record.
By the way.
To the point:
The federal government, as an old line puts it, is basically an insurance company with an army: nondefense spending is dominated by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
State and local governments, however, are basically school districts with police departments.
Education accounts for more than half the state and local work force; protective services like police and fire departments account for much of the rest.
So what happens when hard-line conservatives take over a state, as they did in much of the country after the 2010 Tea Party wave?
They almost invariably push through big tax cuts.
Usually these tax cuts are sold with the promise that lower taxes will provide a huge boost to the state economy.
This promise is, however, never — and I mean never — fulfilled; the right’s continuing belief in the magical payoff from tax cuts represents the triumph of ideology over overwhelming negative evidence.
What tax cuts do, instead, is sharply reduce revenue, wreaking havoc with state finances.
For a great majority of states are required by law to balance their budgets.
This means that when tax receipts plunge, the conservatives running many states can’t do what Trump and his allies in Congress are doing at the federal level — simply let the budget deficit balloon.
Instead, they have to cut spending.
And given the centrality of education to state and local budgets, that puts schoolteachers in the cross hairs.
We have Pink Floyd to thank for the dumbest lyric on record.
By the way.
To the point:
The federal government, as an old line puts it, is basically an insurance company with an army: nondefense spending is dominated by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
State and local governments, however, are basically school districts with police departments.
Education accounts for more than half the state and local work force; protective services like police and fire departments account for much of the rest.
So what happens when hard-line conservatives take over a state, as they did in much of the country after the 2010 Tea Party wave?
They almost invariably push through big tax cuts.
Usually these tax cuts are sold with the promise that lower taxes will provide a huge boost to the state economy.
This promise is, however, never — and I mean never — fulfilled; the right’s continuing belief in the magical payoff from tax cuts represents the triumph of ideology over overwhelming negative evidence.
What tax cuts do, instead, is sharply reduce revenue, wreaking havoc with state finances.
For a great majority of states are required by law to balance their budgets.
This means that when tax receipts plunge, the conservatives running many states can’t do what Trump and his allies in Congress are doing at the federal level — simply let the budget deficit balloon.
Instead, they have to cut spending.
And given the centrality of education to state and local budgets, that puts schoolteachers in the cross hairs.
Just another American mystery
Why a program unconstitutionally created by Barack Obama cannot be ended by Donald Trump, a president who claimed to be ending it for exactly that reason, simultaneously (though utterly hypocritically) urging congress to make an honest woman of it by legislation.
U.S. Must Keep DACA and Accept New Applications, Federal Judge Rules
The effrontery of this absurd judge is amazing.
And I write that though I favor congressional action to legislate DACA, and condemn the president's hypocrisy.
U.S. Must Keep DACA and Accept New Applications, Federal Judge Rules
The effrontery of this absurd judge is amazing.
And I write that though I favor congressional action to legislate DACA, and condemn the president's hypocrisy.
The enemy within
The Fox in charge of the henhouse.
Mulvaney, Watchdog Bureau’s Leader, Advises Bankers on Ways to Curtail Agency
Their anti-government outlook is not a pose.
The GOP is run by people who hate the government and use responsible posts within it to sabotage it, to frustrate its mission, and to cut out its heart, as Tillerson did to State, wherever they can.
Mick Mulvaney, the interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, told banking industry executives on Tuesday that they should press lawmakers hard to pursue their agenda, and revealed that, as a congressman, he would meet only with lobbyists if they had contributed to his campaign.
“We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress,” Mr. Mulvaney, a former Republican lawmaker from South Carolina, told 1,300 bankers and lending industry officials at an American Bankers Association conference in Washington.
“If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.”
Mulvaney, Watchdog Bureau’s Leader, Advises Bankers on Ways to Curtail Agency
Their anti-government outlook is not a pose.
The GOP is run by people who hate the government and use responsible posts within it to sabotage it, to frustrate its mission, and to cut out its heart, as Tillerson did to State, wherever they can.
Mick Mulvaney, the interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, told banking industry executives on Tuesday that they should press lawmakers hard to pursue their agenda, and revealed that, as a congressman, he would meet only with lobbyists if they had contributed to his campaign.
“We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress,” Mr. Mulvaney, a former Republican lawmaker from South Carolina, told 1,300 bankers and lending industry officials at an American Bankers Association conference in Washington.
“If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.”
Macron speaks up
To a joint session of congress, for NATO, for the EU, for American leadership, for the friendship and steadfast alliance tying France and America together, against protectionism and trade wars, for the Paris Accords and the need to deal globally with global warming, for the continued fight against ISIS and other Muslim Jihaders in Africa as well as the Middle East, for continuing but strengthening the Iran deal, for denuclearization of Korea, to repeated rounds of applause from both sides of the aisle, and to a standing ovation at the end.
And see this.
And see this.
Once a flunkey . . .
Andy Card told Andrea Mitchell, about the Jackson nomination, that the president is entitled to have in his cabinet anybody he wants.
The senate's job is to rubber stamp his choice but "hold him accountable".
The senate's job is to rubber stamp his choice but "hold him accountable".
Monday, April 23, 2018
The Duce opposes birth control
I missed this last month.
Trump's massive hypocrisy is just beyond anything.
The Trump Administration’s Backward Attitude Toward Birth Control
[T]he Trump administration appeared to accept the conservatives’ retrograde thinking with a recent announcement from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Population Affairs outlining its priorities for awarding Title X grants.
Alarmingly, unlike previous funding announcements, the document makes zero reference to contraception.
In setting its standards for grants, it disposes of nationally recognized clinical standards, developed with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that have long been guideposts for family planning.
Instead, the government says it wants to fund “innovative” services and emphasizes “fertility awareness” approaches, which include the so-called rhythm method.
These have long been preferred by the religious right, but are notoriously unreliable.
The announcement also says the government will look to fund programs that involve parents or guardians in minors’ family planning decisions, and get spouses involved, with no mention of privacy.
And the announcement suggests that the government wants to promote abstinence until marriage.
This is not a surprise, given who is in charge of the Trump administration’s Title X office — Valerie Huber, a longtime advocate of abstinence-until-marriage education programs, which are generally considered to be less effective than comprehensive efforts.
Ms. Huber landed that post in January, after the resignation of Teresa Manning, who vocally opposes abortion and contraception.
The new funding announcement is in keeping with the Trump administration’s thwarted attempt last year to roll back the mandate in the Affordable Care Act that employer-sponsored health insurance policies cover contraception.
Advocates for women’s health care are angered by this attack on their work.
Trump's massive hypocrisy is just beyond anything.
The Trump Administration’s Backward Attitude Toward Birth Control
[T]he Trump administration appeared to accept the conservatives’ retrograde thinking with a recent announcement from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Population Affairs outlining its priorities for awarding Title X grants.
Alarmingly, unlike previous funding announcements, the document makes zero reference to contraception.
In setting its standards for grants, it disposes of nationally recognized clinical standards, developed with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that have long been guideposts for family planning.
Instead, the government says it wants to fund “innovative” services and emphasizes “fertility awareness” approaches, which include the so-called rhythm method.
These have long been preferred by the religious right, but are notoriously unreliable.
The announcement also says the government will look to fund programs that involve parents or guardians in minors’ family planning decisions, and get spouses involved, with no mention of privacy.
And the announcement suggests that the government wants to promote abstinence until marriage.
This is not a surprise, given who is in charge of the Trump administration’s Title X office — Valerie Huber, a longtime advocate of abstinence-until-marriage education programs, which are generally considered to be less effective than comprehensive efforts.
Ms. Huber landed that post in January, after the resignation of Teresa Manning, who vocally opposes abortion and contraception.
The new funding announcement is in keeping with the Trump administration’s thwarted attempt last year to roll back the mandate in the Affordable Care Act that employer-sponsored health insurance policies cover contraception.
Advocates for women’s health care are angered by this attack on their work.
Mileage still sucks and it takes hours to recharge
Places to recharge are very few and far between, and the price of the car is still actually more than three times what you pay, the rest being subsidized by government.
Electric cars are still not the answer they may be, some day.
Could Saudi plans for $100/ barrel oil hugely expand electric car market and save Tesla?
Electric cars are still not the answer they may be, some day.
Could Saudi plans for $100/ barrel oil hugely expand electric car market and save Tesla?
Naked shooter in the Tennessee Waffle House
‘No credible sightings’ of Waffle House shooting suspect as manhunt continues, police say
Police continued their intensive search Monday for the 29-year-old suspected of opening fire at a Tennessee Waffle House and killing four people one day earlier.
The Metro Nashville Police Department said early Monday that “there have been no credible sightings” of the suspected gunman, Travis Reinking, after an overnight search by local, state and federal law enforcement officers.
Reinking, police said, was last seen Sunday morning behind his apartment complex.
. . . .
Months before Reinking became the target of a manhunt, authorities arrested him for trying to breach a barrier near the White House and later seized his guns.
Among the four weapons they took from Reinking was the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle that police say he used in the Waffle House on Sunday.
One of the other weapons — a pistol — is missing from Reinking’s apartment, police said.
Reinking was trying to meet President Trump when he attempted to cross a security barrier at the White House complex in July, federal authorities said.
After an investigation by the FBI office in Springfield, Ill. — near where Reinking lived at the time — state and local officials confiscated Reinking’s guns and revoked his firearm license.
The guns, however, were later returned to Reinking’s father, who has acknowledged he gave them back to his son, officials said.
Under Illinois law, certain confiscated guns can be released to a family member, but Reinking could not lawfully possess the weapons in that state. It’s unclear whether possessing the weapons was illegal in Tennessee.
. . . .
Authorities say the gunman, wearing nothing but a green jacket, opened fire at the Waffle House restaurant in Antioch, Tenn., a suburb southeast of Nashville, just before 3:30 a.m. Sunday.
He had been sitting in his pickup truck at the Waffle House for a few minutes, looking around, before he got out and immediately began shooting at customers in the parking lot, Metropolitan Nashville Police Department spokesman Don Aaron said.
The man kept shooting as he walked inside, shattering the restaurant’s glass windows.
At one point, he stopped, presumably to reload.
That’s when police say a customer, James Shaw Jr., lunged at the gunman, wrestled the weapon away from him and tossed it over the counter.
. . . .
The gunman fled the scene, cursing, Shaw said.
Police said he took off the only article of clothing he was wearing less than a block from the restaurant.
Two magazines were found in the jacket’s pockets.
. . . .
“You balance the rights of people to have this privacy, but on the other hand, there needs to be a coordinated effort, especially in terms of mental health issues, to make sure that weapons don’t fall into their hands,” Metro Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson told reporters at a news conference Sunday.
He added that police suspect mental issues may have played a role in the Waffle House shooting, although the motive remains unknown.
Ya think?
USA Today says he's a "sovereign citizen".
Perfect.
Police continued their intensive search Monday for the 29-year-old suspected of opening fire at a Tennessee Waffle House and killing four people one day earlier.
The Metro Nashville Police Department said early Monday that “there have been no credible sightings” of the suspected gunman, Travis Reinking, after an overnight search by local, state and federal law enforcement officers.
Reinking, police said, was last seen Sunday morning behind his apartment complex.
. . . .
Months before Reinking became the target of a manhunt, authorities arrested him for trying to breach a barrier near the White House and later seized his guns.
Among the four weapons they took from Reinking was the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle that police say he used in the Waffle House on Sunday.
One of the other weapons — a pistol — is missing from Reinking’s apartment, police said.
Reinking was trying to meet President Trump when he attempted to cross a security barrier at the White House complex in July, federal authorities said.
After an investigation by the FBI office in Springfield, Ill. — near where Reinking lived at the time — state and local officials confiscated Reinking’s guns and revoked his firearm license.
The guns, however, were later returned to Reinking’s father, who has acknowledged he gave them back to his son, officials said.
Under Illinois law, certain confiscated guns can be released to a family member, but Reinking could not lawfully possess the weapons in that state. It’s unclear whether possessing the weapons was illegal in Tennessee.
. . . .
Authorities say the gunman, wearing nothing but a green jacket, opened fire at the Waffle House restaurant in Antioch, Tenn., a suburb southeast of Nashville, just before 3:30 a.m. Sunday.
He had been sitting in his pickup truck at the Waffle House for a few minutes, looking around, before he got out and immediately began shooting at customers in the parking lot, Metropolitan Nashville Police Department spokesman Don Aaron said.
The man kept shooting as he walked inside, shattering the restaurant’s glass windows.
At one point, he stopped, presumably to reload.
That’s when police say a customer, James Shaw Jr., lunged at the gunman, wrestled the weapon away from him and tossed it over the counter.
. . . .
The gunman fled the scene, cursing, Shaw said.
Police said he took off the only article of clothing he was wearing less than a block from the restaurant.
Two magazines were found in the jacket’s pockets.
. . . .
“You balance the rights of people to have this privacy, but on the other hand, there needs to be a coordinated effort, especially in terms of mental health issues, to make sure that weapons don’t fall into their hands,” Metro Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson told reporters at a news conference Sunday.
He added that police suspect mental issues may have played a role in the Waffle House shooting, although the motive remains unknown.
Ya think?
USA Today says he's a "sovereign citizen".
Perfect.
Odd. At least.
Stein relates he killed three men and thought so little of it he went off chasing a butterfly.
Indeed, he gloats in retrospect he had annoyed the enemy who sent them.
Make of that what you can.
Lord Jim.
All the same, Stein is wonderful.
About romantics.
And about missed opportunities.
Sunday, April 22, 2018
Marlow on crime
The real significance of crime is in its being a breach of faith with the community of mankind, and from that point of view he was no mean traitor [.]
Marlow, about Jim, chapter 14, Lord Jim.
Saturday, April 21, 2018
Poor pursued Hillary
‘They Were Never Going to Let Me Be President’
Speaking of the Electoral College, no doubt, since she won the majority of voters by some three to five millions.
Robby Mook, the drained and deflated campaign manager, told his boss she was going to lose.
She didn’t seem all that surprised.
“I knew it. I knew this would happen to me,” she said, now within a couple of inches of Mr. Mook’s ashen face.
“They were never going to let me be president.”
But nope.
I figured that if anyone knew whom Mrs. Clinton was referring to with that insidious “they” that, like some invisible army of adversaries (real and imagined), wielded its collective power and caused her to lose the most winnable presidential election in modern history, it was me.
They were the vast-right wing conspiracy.
They were the patriarchy that could never let an ambitious former first lady finally shatter “that highest, hardest glass ceiling.”
They were the people of Wisconsin and James Comey.
They were white suburban women who would rather vote for a man who bragged about sexual assault than a woman who seemed an affront to who they were.
And yes, they were political reporters (“big egos and no brains,” she called us) hounding her about her emails and transfixed by the spectacle of the first reality TV show candidate.
. . . .
I’ve started to see the “they” she spoke about on election night differently.
They were Facebook algorithms and data breaches.
They were Fake News drummed up by Vladimir Putin’s digital army.
They were shadowy hackers who stole her campaign chairman’s emails hoping to weaken our democracy with Mr. Podesta’s risotto recipe.
And they were The Times and me and all the other journalists who covered those stolen emails.
Of course, these outside forces wouldn’t have mattered or weighed so heavily on me, on the country, had Hillary Clinton, her campaign and her longtime aides — the same box of broken toys who’d enabled all of her worst instincts since the 1990s — not let the election get so close in the first place.
The Russians, after all, didn’t hack into her calendar and delete the Wisconsin rallies.
Speaking of the Electoral College, no doubt, since she won the majority of voters by some three to five millions.
Robby Mook, the drained and deflated campaign manager, told his boss she was going to lose.
She didn’t seem all that surprised.
“I knew it. I knew this would happen to me,” she said, now within a couple of inches of Mr. Mook’s ashen face.
“They were never going to let me be president.”
But nope.
I figured that if anyone knew whom Mrs. Clinton was referring to with that insidious “they” that, like some invisible army of adversaries (real and imagined), wielded its collective power and caused her to lose the most winnable presidential election in modern history, it was me.
They were the vast-right wing conspiracy.
They were the patriarchy that could never let an ambitious former first lady finally shatter “that highest, hardest glass ceiling.”
They were the people of Wisconsin and James Comey.
They were white suburban women who would rather vote for a man who bragged about sexual assault than a woman who seemed an affront to who they were.
And yes, they were political reporters (“big egos and no brains,” she called us) hounding her about her emails and transfixed by the spectacle of the first reality TV show candidate.
. . . .
I’ve started to see the “they” she spoke about on election night differently.
They were Facebook algorithms and data breaches.
They were Fake News drummed up by Vladimir Putin’s digital army.
They were shadowy hackers who stole her campaign chairman’s emails hoping to weaken our democracy with Mr. Podesta’s risotto recipe.
And they were The Times and me and all the other journalists who covered those stolen emails.
Of course, these outside forces wouldn’t have mattered or weighed so heavily on me, on the country, had Hillary Clinton, her campaign and her longtime aides — the same box of broken toys who’d enabled all of her worst instincts since the 1990s — not let the election get so close in the first place.
The Russians, after all, didn’t hack into her calendar and delete the Wisconsin rallies.
Friday, April 20, 2018
"Unthinkable" on Netflix
The argument from The Bomb, acted out on screen.
This is by no means the only movie to depict government officials dealing with a criminal who has done something or is about to do something that will result in the death of at least one innocent victim, and finding they can only save the prospective victim or victims by torturing the criminal for information.
Child abusers who have kidnapped children hidden somewhere.
Serial killers who have a kidnapped girl buried alive, about to run out of air.
You know the genre.
So, of course, they do it.
They use torture and find the children or the buried girl.
Or the nukes.
Remember Jack Bauer of 24?
And few in any audience object, that I know of.
The point is not to punish the criminal.
The point is not to obtain evidence for use in a trial.
The point is to prevent the criminal killing innocents, to save the prospective victims.
Think on the analogy of an active school shooter.
May police - or for that matter any armed passers-by - shoot to kill to stop or prevent such slaughter?
You bet.
May they do whatever else may be needful, provided they don't harm innocent people?
Yeah, pretty much.
Legally, use of torture to find the victims or find the bombs may not be in the same boat as use of force to stop an active shooter.
All the same, I'm not only OK with it, I would do it myself.
But I'm sure there are well trained people who would do a better job.
This is by no means the only movie to depict government officials dealing with a criminal who has done something or is about to do something that will result in the death of at least one innocent victim, and finding they can only save the prospective victim or victims by torturing the criminal for information.
Child abusers who have kidnapped children hidden somewhere.
Serial killers who have a kidnapped girl buried alive, about to run out of air.
You know the genre.
So, of course, they do it.
They use torture and find the children or the buried girl.
Or the nukes.
Remember Jack Bauer of 24?
And few in any audience object, that I know of.
The point is not to punish the criminal.
The point is not to obtain evidence for use in a trial.
The point is to prevent the criminal killing innocents, to save the prospective victims.
Think on the analogy of an active school shooter.
May police - or for that matter any armed passers-by - shoot to kill to stop or prevent such slaughter?
You bet.
May they do whatever else may be needful, provided they don't harm innocent people?
Yeah, pretty much.
Legally, use of torture to find the victims or find the bombs may not be in the same boat as use of force to stop an active shooter.
All the same, I'm not only OK with it, I would do it myself.
But I'm sure there are well trained people who would do a better job.
And interesting story more about the DSA than the Democratic Party
And about the apparently increasingly popular fantasy of democratic socialism, by which the Gene Debs/Michael Harrington tradition means public ownership of most, or at least "the towering heights", of the means of production, brought about and surviving under a normal democracy committed to civil liberties and human rights.
Though support for so tame a Utopia is by no means universal among DSA members, and never was, part of the membership being considerably further left than the name of the organization would reveal.
‘Yes, I’m Running as a Socialist.’ Why Candidates Are Embracing the Label in 2018
There was no question on primary night in Texas last month that Franklin Bynum would win the Democratic nomination to become a criminal court judge in Houston.
The 34-year-old defense attorney had no challengers.
But for his supporters who packed into a Mexican restaurant that evening, there was still something impressive to celebrate.
Many in the crowd were members of the Democratic Socialists of America, or D.S.A., a group that has experienced an enormous surge of interest since the election of President Trump, even in conservative states.
And Mr. Bynum was one of their own — a socialist who, along with at least 16 others, appeared on the ballot in primary races across the state of Texas.
“Yes, I’m running as a socialist,” Mr. Bynum said.
“I’m a far-left candidate. What I’m trying to do is be a Democrat who actually stands for something, and tells people, ‘Here’s how we are going to materially improve conditions in your life.’”
Rather than shy away from being called a socialist, a word conservatives have long wielded as a slur, candidates like Mr. Bynum are embracing the label.
He is among dozens of D.S.A. members running in this fall’s midterms for offices across the country at nearly every level.
In Hawaii, Kaniela Ing, a state representative, is running for Congress.
Gayle McLaughlin, a former mayor of Richmond, Calif., is running to be the state’s lieutenant governor.
In Tennessee, Dennis Prater, an adjunct professor at East Tennessee State University, is running to be a county commissioner.
Supporters, many of them millennials, say they are drawn by D.S.A.’s promise to combat income inequality, which they believe is tainting every facet of American life, from the criminal justice system to medical care to politics.
They argue that capitalism has let them down, saddling them with student debt, high rent and uncertain job prospects.
And they have been frustrated by the Democratic Party, which they say has lost touch with working people.
. . . .
Since November 2016, D.S.A.’s membership has increased from about 5,000 to 35,000 nationwide.
The number of local groups has grown from 40 to 181, including 10 in Texas.
Houston’s once-dormant chapter now has nearly 300 members.
. . . .
Studies suggest that young people with few memories of the Cold War embrace socialism far more than older people do.
A 2016 survey of 18- to 29-year-olds by Harvard’s Institute of Politics found that 16 percent identified as socialists, while 33 percent supported socialism.
Only 42 percent supported capitalism, while a majority — 51 percent — said they did not.
Those results surprised John Della Volpe, the institute’s director of polling, so much that he thought they might be a mistake.
He conducted a new study, this time of the general population, and got the same result.
. . . .
“The only group that expressed net positive support for capitalism were people over 50 years old,” he said.
“The largest generation of Americans in history — millennials — have lost confidence. They are interested in finding a better way.”
Many socialist candidates sound less like revolutionaries and more like traditional Democrats who seek a return to policies in the mold of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.
They want single-payer health care, a higher minimum wage, and greater protections for unions.
But others advocate more extreme changes, such as abolishing the prison system.
. . . .
D.S.A., despite its criticism of the Democratic Party, does not identify itself as a third party.
Instead, many members work within the party’s progressive wing to support their goals.
“Diversity helps the party,” said Christine Pelosi, a California member of the Democratic National Committee who has focused on making the party more connected to grass-roots activists.
“I welcome their constructive criticism.”
Many Democrats have begun to ask socialists for their support and adopt some of the D.S.A.’s platform on health care and pay.
In Pittsburgh, eight Democrats in this year’s midterm cycle sought the endorsement of the local D.S.A. chapter.
“People are more willing to come out and say ‘I’m a Democratic socialist running,’” said Jorge Roman-Romero, 24, who helps lead a new D.S.A. chapter in Tulsa, Okla., where six Democratic candidates — four of whom were willing to run as Democratic socialists — sought the group’s endorsement. “It’s not a liability to say that anymore.”
. . . .
Acceptance of socialism today still falls far short of its heyday in the 1910s and 1920s, when the Socialist Party of America had over 113,000 members and more than 1,000 elected officials, including two members of Congress, according to Jack Ross, author of “The Socialist Party of America: A Complete History.”
By the 1950s, socialism was widely seen as antithetical to the American way of life.
In 1982, Michael Harrington, author of “The Other America,” a seminal book about poverty, helped found the Democratic Socialists of America, which aimed to realign the Democratic Party toward increased protections for unions and the poor. But the group never gained much traction, until now.
Though support for so tame a Utopia is by no means universal among DSA members, and never was, part of the membership being considerably further left than the name of the organization would reveal.
‘Yes, I’m Running as a Socialist.’ Why Candidates Are Embracing the Label in 2018
There was no question on primary night in Texas last month that Franklin Bynum would win the Democratic nomination to become a criminal court judge in Houston.
The 34-year-old defense attorney had no challengers.
But for his supporters who packed into a Mexican restaurant that evening, there was still something impressive to celebrate.
Many in the crowd were members of the Democratic Socialists of America, or D.S.A., a group that has experienced an enormous surge of interest since the election of President Trump, even in conservative states.
And Mr. Bynum was one of their own — a socialist who, along with at least 16 others, appeared on the ballot in primary races across the state of Texas.
“Yes, I’m running as a socialist,” Mr. Bynum said.
“I’m a far-left candidate. What I’m trying to do is be a Democrat who actually stands for something, and tells people, ‘Here’s how we are going to materially improve conditions in your life.’”
Rather than shy away from being called a socialist, a word conservatives have long wielded as a slur, candidates like Mr. Bynum are embracing the label.
He is among dozens of D.S.A. members running in this fall’s midterms for offices across the country at nearly every level.
In Hawaii, Kaniela Ing, a state representative, is running for Congress.
Gayle McLaughlin, a former mayor of Richmond, Calif., is running to be the state’s lieutenant governor.
In Tennessee, Dennis Prater, an adjunct professor at East Tennessee State University, is running to be a county commissioner.
Supporters, many of them millennials, say they are drawn by D.S.A.’s promise to combat income inequality, which they believe is tainting every facet of American life, from the criminal justice system to medical care to politics.
They argue that capitalism has let them down, saddling them with student debt, high rent and uncertain job prospects.
And they have been frustrated by the Democratic Party, which they say has lost touch with working people.
. . . .
Since November 2016, D.S.A.’s membership has increased from about 5,000 to 35,000 nationwide.
The number of local groups has grown from 40 to 181, including 10 in Texas.
Houston’s once-dormant chapter now has nearly 300 members.
. . . .
Studies suggest that young people with few memories of the Cold War embrace socialism far more than older people do.
A 2016 survey of 18- to 29-year-olds by Harvard’s Institute of Politics found that 16 percent identified as socialists, while 33 percent supported socialism.
Only 42 percent supported capitalism, while a majority — 51 percent — said they did not.
Those results surprised John Della Volpe, the institute’s director of polling, so much that he thought they might be a mistake.
He conducted a new study, this time of the general population, and got the same result.
. . . .
“The only group that expressed net positive support for capitalism were people over 50 years old,” he said.
“The largest generation of Americans in history — millennials — have lost confidence. They are interested in finding a better way.”
Many socialist candidates sound less like revolutionaries and more like traditional Democrats who seek a return to policies in the mold of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.
They want single-payer health care, a higher minimum wage, and greater protections for unions.
But others advocate more extreme changes, such as abolishing the prison system.
. . . .
D.S.A., despite its criticism of the Democratic Party, does not identify itself as a third party.
Instead, many members work within the party’s progressive wing to support their goals.
“Diversity helps the party,” said Christine Pelosi, a California member of the Democratic National Committee who has focused on making the party more connected to grass-roots activists.
“I welcome their constructive criticism.”
Many Democrats have begun to ask socialists for their support and adopt some of the D.S.A.’s platform on health care and pay.
In Pittsburgh, eight Democrats in this year’s midterm cycle sought the endorsement of the local D.S.A. chapter.
“People are more willing to come out and say ‘I’m a Democratic socialist running,’” said Jorge Roman-Romero, 24, who helps lead a new D.S.A. chapter in Tulsa, Okla., where six Democratic candidates — four of whom were willing to run as Democratic socialists — sought the group’s endorsement. “It’s not a liability to say that anymore.”
. . . .
Acceptance of socialism today still falls far short of its heyday in the 1910s and 1920s, when the Socialist Party of America had over 113,000 members and more than 1,000 elected officials, including two members of Congress, according to Jack Ross, author of “The Socialist Party of America: A Complete History.”
By the 1950s, socialism was widely seen as antithetical to the American way of life.
In 1982, Michael Harrington, author of “The Other America,” a seminal book about poverty, helped found the Democratic Socialists of America, which aimed to realign the Democratic Party toward increased protections for unions and the poor. But the group never gained much traction, until now.
Their fault, not his
It is completely their fault that he jumped, and not his, says Jim.
Chapter 10.
Lord Jim.
Thursday, April 19, 2018
Not so fast, my utilitarian friend
Societies A and B have the same population size at any given time.
In society A, people live for an average of 75 years.
In society B, people live for 35 years and are then killed by the government to make room for more young people.
Because younger people are happier than older people, the average utility of people living in society B is greater than that of people living in society A, though the utility of people in society A is generally positive throughout their lives.
And for the first 35 years of their lives, persons in society A are as happy as persons in society B.
So the total, lifelong happiness of people in society A is greater than the total, lifelong happiness of people in society B.
And no one in society A is deprived of a future they have every expectation would be happy by their government.
Egoists in the Original Position would surely choose A over B.
It is not true, as some utilitarian critics of Rawls claimed from the first, that each of us in such a position could be confident that the greater the average utility of the whole population the greater our own expectations.
In society A, people live for an average of 75 years.
In society B, people live for 35 years and are then killed by the government to make room for more young people.
Because younger people are happier than older people, the average utility of people living in society B is greater than that of people living in society A, though the utility of people in society A is generally positive throughout their lives.
And for the first 35 years of their lives, persons in society A are as happy as persons in society B.
So the total, lifelong happiness of people in society A is greater than the total, lifelong happiness of people in society B.
And no one in society A is deprived of a future they have every expectation would be happy by their government.
Egoists in the Original Position would surely choose A over B.
It is not true, as some utilitarian critics of Rawls claimed from the first, that each of us in such a position could be confident that the greater the average utility of the whole population the greater our own expectations.
Nope. Pregnancy is not beautiful.
Especially not in humans, though feminists have been lying their best about this for decades.
Put that next to their agitation for public breastfeeding - even at work! - and their delight that Tammy Duckworth brought her baby to work in the senate.
These are all hoaxes caused by an estrogen overdose.
Some bodily functions are just gross.
And babies aren't always and everywhere a welcome dash of cuteness.
Put that next to their agitation for public breastfeeding - even at work! - and their delight that Tammy Duckworth brought her baby to work in the senate.
These are all hoaxes caused by an estrogen overdose.
Some bodily functions are just gross.
And babies aren't always and everywhere a welcome dash of cuteness.
Not the Alan Dershowitz of years gone by
Decades ago he was a renowned liberal.
Now he is a Trumpist.
Trump allies worry Cohen will flip
Two sources close to the president said people in Trump’s inner circle have in recent days been actively discussing the possibility that Michael Cohen — long seen as one of Trump’s most loyal personal allies — might flip if he faces serious charges as a result of his work on behalf of Trump.
“That’s what they’ll threaten him with: life imprisonment,” said Alan Dershowitz, the liberal lawyer and frequent Trump defender who met with the president and his staff over two days at the White House last week.
“They’re going to threaten him with a long prison term and try to turn him into a canary that sings.”
. . . .
The Trump lawyer is a figure in the ongoing Russia investigation overseen by special counsel Robert Mueller in Washington, but Manhattan-based government attorneys said in court that he is also under separate investigation for his business dealings.
Cohen, who has not been publicly charged with any crimes, owns New York City taxi medallions.
He has also been deeply involved in the $130,000 payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who has accused Trump of trying to cover up an affair she says the two had in 2006.
In an interview with CNN last week, Cohen called the raid “unsettling to say the least.”
But he also said in the same interview that the federal agents were “extremely professional, courteous and respectful” — a dramatic departure from his usual combative style.
Those comments raised eyebrows among some in Trump’s inner circle, who noted that one of the
“When anybody is faced with spending a long time in jail, they start to re-evaluate their priorities, and cooperation can’t be ruled out,” said one Trump ally who knows Cohen.
Now he is a Trumpist.
Trump allies worry Cohen will flip
Two sources close to the president said people in Trump’s inner circle have in recent days been actively discussing the possibility that Michael Cohen — long seen as one of Trump’s most loyal personal allies — might flip if he faces serious charges as a result of his work on behalf of Trump.
“That’s what they’ll threaten him with: life imprisonment,” said Alan Dershowitz, the liberal lawyer and frequent Trump defender who met with the president and his staff over two days at the White House last week.
“They’re going to threaten him with a long prison term and try to turn him into a canary that sings.”
. . . .
The Trump lawyer is a figure in the ongoing Russia investigation overseen by special counsel Robert Mueller in Washington, but Manhattan-based government attorneys said in court that he is also under separate investigation for his business dealings.
Cohen, who has not been publicly charged with any crimes, owns New York City taxi medallions.
He has also been deeply involved in the $130,000 payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who has accused Trump of trying to cover up an affair she says the two had in 2006.
In an interview with CNN last week, Cohen called the raid “unsettling to say the least.”
But he also said in the same interview that the federal agents were “extremely professional, courteous and respectful” — a dramatic departure from his usual combative style.
Those comments raised eyebrows among some in Trump’s inner circle, who noted that one of the
“When anybody is faced with spending a long time in jail, they start to re-evaluate their priorities, and cooperation can’t be ruled out,” said one Trump ally who knows Cohen.
Two points.
The first point is that Hannity is a shameless and disgusting mini-Goebbels.
The second is that what the FBI was willing to do is terrifying and disgraceful, and a perfect proof that far too many people in power are abundantly willing to do evil that good may come, convinced that the end justifies the means.
Such people set all our rights at nothing, and do it as a matter of principle.
"Making the hard choices," they call it.
Note that there is no hint any of them went to jail, as they all should have for decades.
And the money paid to the victims of wrongful imprisonment all came from the taxpayers, not from the criminal bastards of the FBI who colluded in perjury and sent four innocent men to prison - two of whom died there - to protect the actual murderer because he was an informant.
Smearing Robert Mueller
In an April 8 interview with John Catsimatidis on his New York radio show, Mr. Dershowitz asserted that Mr. Mueller was “the guy who kept four innocent people in prison for many years in order to protect the cover of Whitey Bulger as an F.B.I. informer.”
Mr. Mueller, he said, was “right at the center of it.”
Mr. Bulger was a notorious crime boss in Boston, the head of the Winter Hill Gang, and also a secret source for the F.B.I.
There is no evidence that the assertion is true.
I was the federal judge who presided over a successful lawsuit brought against the government by two of those men and the families of the other two, who had died in prison.
Based on the voluminous evidence submitted in the trial, and having written a 105-page decision awarding them $101.8 million, I can say without equivocation that Mr. Mueller, who worked in the United States attorney’s office in Boston from 1982 to 1988, including a brief stint as the acting head of the office, had no involvement in that case.
He was never even mentioned.
The case wasn’t about Whitey Bulger but another mobster the F.B.I. was also protecting, the hit man Joseph Barboza, who lied when he testified that the four men had killed Edward Deegan, a low-level mobster, in 1965.
Mr. Barboza was covering for the real killers, and the F.B.I. went along because of his importance as an informant.
But the evidence — or rather, lack of it — hasn’t stopped the piling on against Mr. Mueller, particularly by Mr. Hannity.
In a March 20 broadcast, he said, “Robert Mueller was the U.S. attorney in charge while these men were rotting in prison while certain agents in the F.B.I. under Mueller covered up the truth.”
He returned to this theme on April 9, noting the Catsimatidis interview with Professor Dershowitz, and said: “Four men went to jail. Mueller was involved in the case. Two of them died in jail. They were all later exonerated.”
. . . .
The record simply doesn’t support these assertions.
As I explained in my decision, because of the gravity of the accusations made by the imprisoned men, I analyzed the evidence “with special care in order that the public, and especially the parties, could be fully confident of my conclusions.”
That said, I was unsparing in my criticism of the F.B.I. and Justice Department officials who were responsible for this wrongful imprisonment.
I named names where the record supported it.
I resoundingly condemned the government in an unusual court session in which I read my conclusions.
Mr. Mueller is mentioned nowhere in my opinion; nor in the submissions of the plaintiffs’ lead trial counsel, Juliane Balliro; nor in “Black Mass,” the book about Mr. Bulger and the F.B.I. written by former reporters for The Boston Globe.
. . . .
Mr. Barboza’s F.B.I. handlers, Dennis Condon and H. Paul Rico, and their superiors, knew that Mr. Barboza had perjured himself and that he was protecting Mr. Flemmi, but they withheld that information from state prosecutors because of his importance as an informant and to protect the informant program.
They continued to withhold the truth during commutation hearings for the men; each time the F.B.I. could have disclosed Mr. Barboza’s lie, it did not.
In fact, the agency lobbied against clemency.
. . . .
When Mr. Hannity and others say Mr. Mueller was responsible for the continued imprisonment of those four men, they are simply wrong — unless they have information that I, Ms. Balliro, the House investigators and the “Black Mass” authors did not and do not have.
If they do, they should produce it. If they don’t, they should stop this campaign to discredit Mr. Mueller.
The second is that what the FBI was willing to do is terrifying and disgraceful, and a perfect proof that far too many people in power are abundantly willing to do evil that good may come, convinced that the end justifies the means.
Such people set all our rights at nothing, and do it as a matter of principle.
"Making the hard choices," they call it.
Note that there is no hint any of them went to jail, as they all should have for decades.
And the money paid to the victims of wrongful imprisonment all came from the taxpayers, not from the criminal bastards of the FBI who colluded in perjury and sent four innocent men to prison - two of whom died there - to protect the actual murderer because he was an informant.
Smearing Robert Mueller
In an April 8 interview with John Catsimatidis on his New York radio show, Mr. Dershowitz asserted that Mr. Mueller was “the guy who kept four innocent people in prison for many years in order to protect the cover of Whitey Bulger as an F.B.I. informer.”
Mr. Mueller, he said, was “right at the center of it.”
Mr. Bulger was a notorious crime boss in Boston, the head of the Winter Hill Gang, and also a secret source for the F.B.I.
There is no evidence that the assertion is true.
I was the federal judge who presided over a successful lawsuit brought against the government by two of those men and the families of the other two, who had died in prison.
Based on the voluminous evidence submitted in the trial, and having written a 105-page decision awarding them $101.8 million, I can say without equivocation that Mr. Mueller, who worked in the United States attorney’s office in Boston from 1982 to 1988, including a brief stint as the acting head of the office, had no involvement in that case.
He was never even mentioned.
The case wasn’t about Whitey Bulger but another mobster the F.B.I. was also protecting, the hit man Joseph Barboza, who lied when he testified that the four men had killed Edward Deegan, a low-level mobster, in 1965.
Mr. Barboza was covering for the real killers, and the F.B.I. went along because of his importance as an informant.
But the evidence — or rather, lack of it — hasn’t stopped the piling on against Mr. Mueller, particularly by Mr. Hannity.
In a March 20 broadcast, he said, “Robert Mueller was the U.S. attorney in charge while these men were rotting in prison while certain agents in the F.B.I. under Mueller covered up the truth.”
He returned to this theme on April 9, noting the Catsimatidis interview with Professor Dershowitz, and said: “Four men went to jail. Mueller was involved in the case. Two of them died in jail. They were all later exonerated.”
. . . .
The record simply doesn’t support these assertions.
As I explained in my decision, because of the gravity of the accusations made by the imprisoned men, I analyzed the evidence “with special care in order that the public, and especially the parties, could be fully confident of my conclusions.”
That said, I was unsparing in my criticism of the F.B.I. and Justice Department officials who were responsible for this wrongful imprisonment.
I named names where the record supported it.
I resoundingly condemned the government in an unusual court session in which I read my conclusions.
Mr. Mueller is mentioned nowhere in my opinion; nor in the submissions of the plaintiffs’ lead trial counsel, Juliane Balliro; nor in “Black Mass,” the book about Mr. Bulger and the F.B.I. written by former reporters for The Boston Globe.
. . . .
Mr. Barboza’s F.B.I. handlers, Dennis Condon and H. Paul Rico, and their superiors, knew that Mr. Barboza had perjured himself and that he was protecting Mr. Flemmi, but they withheld that information from state prosecutors because of his importance as an informant and to protect the informant program.
They continued to withhold the truth during commutation hearings for the men; each time the F.B.I. could have disclosed Mr. Barboza’s lie, it did not.
In fact, the agency lobbied against clemency.
. . . .
When Mr. Hannity and others say Mr. Mueller was responsible for the continued imprisonment of those four men, they are simply wrong — unless they have information that I, Ms. Balliro, the House investigators and the “Black Mass” authors did not and do not have.
If they do, they should produce it. If they don’t, they should stop this campaign to discredit Mr. Mueller.
Falling dominoes
Damage to Great Barrier Reef From Global Warming Is Irreversible, Scientists Say
An underwater heat wave that damaged huge sections of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef two years ago spurred a die-off of coral so severe that scientists say the natural wonder will never look the same again.
Scientists said nearly one-third of the reef’s coral were killed when ocean temperatures spiked in 2016, a result of global warming, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
An underwater heat wave that damaged huge sections of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef two years ago spurred a die-off of coral so severe that scientists say the natural wonder will never look the same again.
Scientists said nearly one-third of the reef’s coral were killed when ocean temperatures spiked in 2016, a result of global warming, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
The first engineer gets it right
Addressing Jim, '"Won't you save your own life - you infernal coward," he sobs.'
And that is exactly the difference between Jim and him, between Jim and the Captain and the others who deserted the pilgrims of the Patna.
He deserted out of uncontrollable fear.
They deserted out of unscrupulous self-love.
Conrad, Lord Jim.
Update.
Well, no, that is not quite how they differ from Jim.
Not if Marlow is right that "a turmoil of terror [that] had shattered their self control" is what drove them.
But I think perhaps he is not entirely, unqualifiedly right.
Chapter 9.
All the same, the point is repeatedly made that they call him a coward with hate and contempt.
Pot and kettle?
Or is he truly more the victim of possession by fear than they?
And yet . . . .
"They were exasperated with him for being a half hearted shirker; he focused on them his hatred of the whole thing [.]"
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
Seen on Netflix
The Siege of Jadotville is one hell of a Netflix original, a strong reminder of Zulu.
And makes out Dag Hammarskjold and Conor Cruise O'Brien to be self-serving, scheming, lying political slime.
Both are liberal heroes of the UN, and the latter used to be regularly published in the NYRB.
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Admit it. You believed it on first reading of it.
The only question is whether the Russians actually have it on tape.
Well, also whether they have video, right?
Or just audio.
Or just audio.
Comey was referring, of course, to a claim in the dossier about Donald Trump’s ties to Russia compiled by the British ex-spy Christopher Steele.
While in Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant in 2013, Trump reserved the Ritz-Carlton’s presidential suite, where Barack and Michelle Obama had stayed previously.
Citing multiple anonymous sources, Steele reported that Trump had prostitutes defile the bed where the Obamas slept by urinating on it, and that the Kremlin had recordings.
Since BuzzFeed News published the dossier last year, the right has treated this allegation as so outrageous as to be almost prima facie false, like a report that Trump had been abducted by aliens or plotting with the Illuminati.
Wow.
Call bullshit on that.
Everybody believes this on first exposure.
Still, I think Ben Cohen is wrong and the reasons for Trump's fealty to Putin are much more serious and extensive than the alleged Russian pee tape.
Still, I think Ben Cohen is wrong and the reasons for Trump's fealty to Putin are much more serious and extensive than the alleged Russian pee tape.
Uh, you don't get to decide what laws apply to you
And that includes tax laws.
Nor do you have a veto on what the government decides to do, what policies it adopts, or how it decides to spend its revenue.
You get to vote.
That's your input.
But no, individually and all on your own, just you and your so-called "conscience", you don't get to decide.
Bearing that in mind:
On Tax Day, Reread Thoreau’s ‘Civil Disobedience’
Nor do you have a veto on what the government decides to do, what policies it adopts, or how it decides to spend its revenue.
You get to vote.
That's your input.
But no, individually and all on your own, just you and your so-called "conscience", you don't get to decide.
Bearing that in mind:
On Tax Day, Reread Thoreau’s ‘Civil Disobedience’
Donald to Vlad: I'm still your guy!
MSNBC reports that, despite Nikki Haley's attacks and Trump's own promise the Russians would pay a price for the company they keep - the war criminal, Animal Assad, that is - , the White House today announced that it will not be putting additional sanctions on Russia at this time.
Sanders explained this was because Trump is firmly convinced of the need for better relations with Putin.
Watch what he does, ignore what he says.
Trump Scraps New Sanctions Against Russia, Overruling Advisers
President Trump rejected, for now at least, a fresh round of sanctions set to be imposed against Russia on Monday, a course change that underscored the schism between the president and his national security team.
The president’s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, had announced on Sunday that the administration would place sanctions on Russian companies found to be assisting Syria’s chemical weapons program.
The sanctions were listed on a menu of further government options after an American-led airstrike on Syria, retaliating against a suspected gas attack that killed dozens a week earlier.
But the White House contradicted her on Monday, saying that Mr. Trump had not approved additional measures.
“We are considering additional sanctions on Russia and a decision will be made in the near future,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in a statement.
Speaking later with reporters aboard Air Force One as Mr. Trump headed to Florida, Ms. Sanders added that “the president has been clear that he’s going to be tough on Russia, but at the same time he’d still like to have a good relationship with them.”
Sanders explained this was because Trump is firmly convinced of the need for better relations with Putin.
Watch what he does, ignore what he says.
Trump Scraps New Sanctions Against Russia, Overruling Advisers
President Trump rejected, for now at least, a fresh round of sanctions set to be imposed against Russia on Monday, a course change that underscored the schism between the president and his national security team.
The president’s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, had announced on Sunday that the administration would place sanctions on Russian companies found to be assisting Syria’s chemical weapons program.
The sanctions were listed on a menu of further government options after an American-led airstrike on Syria, retaliating against a suspected gas attack that killed dozens a week earlier.
But the White House contradicted her on Monday, saying that Mr. Trump had not approved additional measures.
“We are considering additional sanctions on Russia and a decision will be made in the near future,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in a statement.
Speaking later with reporters aboard Air Force One as Mr. Trump headed to Florida, Ms. Sanders added that “the president has been clear that he’s going to be tough on Russia, but at the same time he’d still like to have a good relationship with them.”
Monday, April 16, 2018
I guess they teach everybody blame shifting, nowadays
MSNBC had an arab professor from AUB telling their viewers this morning that the Western reaction to the use of chemical weapons in Syria by Assad against civilians is hypocritical because the Brits first introduced such weapons to the region . . . . in 1922.
Neither Velshi nor Ruhle protested.
Neither Velshi nor Ruhle protested.
I guess they teach blame-shifting to MBA's
Arrest of two black men at Starbucks for 'trespassing' sparks protests
Restaurants, snack bars, or whatever have a perfect right to ask you to leave if you don't buy something.
If you don't go you are a trespasser and they can ask the police to boot you.
Protesters targeted a Philadelphia Starbucks on Monday after two black men were arrested last week when a store employee called police to say the men were trespassing.
The protests followed the release of a video that showed the two men being arrested after a store manager called the police because they were sitting in the store without placing an order.
The two said they were waiting for a friend who arrived just as they were taken away in handcuffs.
. . . .
The arrests have caused a PR crisis for Starbucks.
Kevin Johnson, Starbucks’ CEO, said he was hoping to meet the mayor, police and hopefully the men who were arrested in an interview on Monday on ABC’s Good Morning America.
Johnson called the arrests “reprehensible”.
“I’d like to have a dialogue with them so that I can ensure that we have opportunity to really understand the situation and show some compassion and empathy for the experience they went through,” he said.
Restaurants, snack bars, or whatever have a perfect right to ask you to leave if you don't buy something.
If you don't go you are a trespasser and they can ask the police to boot you.
Protesters targeted a Philadelphia Starbucks on Monday after two black men were arrested last week when a store employee called police to say the men were trespassing.
The protests followed the release of a video that showed the two men being arrested after a store manager called the police because they were sitting in the store without placing an order.
The two said they were waiting for a friend who arrived just as they were taken away in handcuffs.
. . . .
The arrests have caused a PR crisis for Starbucks.
Kevin Johnson, Starbucks’ CEO, said he was hoping to meet the mayor, police and hopefully the men who were arrested in an interview on Monday on ABC’s Good Morning America.
Johnson called the arrests “reprehensible”.
“I’d like to have a dialogue with them so that I can ensure that we have opportunity to really understand the situation and show some compassion and empathy for the experience they went through,” he said.
Sunday, April 15, 2018
Teddy Roosevelt would spin in his grave
Gray Ghosts, the Last Caribou in the Lower 48 States, Are ‘Functionally Extinct’
The battle to save the so-called gray ghosts — the only herd of caribou in the lower 48 states — has been lost.
A recent aerial survey shows that this international herd of southern mountain caribou, which spends part of its year in the Selkirk Mountains of northern Idaho and Washington near the Canadian border, has dwindled to just three animals and should be considered “functionally extinct,” experts say.
The Selkirk herd had been disappearing for the last several years.
In 2009, the herd, the southernmost in North America, had about 50 animals and was declining. Wildlife officials in Canada began a last-ditch effort to protect them by killing wolves, which occasionally preyed on the few caribou that remained.
But the root cause of the extirpation of this herd and the decline of others in Canada is extensive industrial development in British Columbia, experts say.
“The functional loss of this herd is the legacy of decades of government mismanagement across caribou range,” said Mark Hebblewhite, a wildlife biologist at the University of Montana.
British Columbia “has permitted logging, road building, unsustainable recreation, oil and gas development, and mining to continue in mountain caribou habitat,” he added.
“The tragic outcome was very predictable.”
The battle to save the so-called gray ghosts — the only herd of caribou in the lower 48 states — has been lost.
A recent aerial survey shows that this international herd of southern mountain caribou, which spends part of its year in the Selkirk Mountains of northern Idaho and Washington near the Canadian border, has dwindled to just three animals and should be considered “functionally extinct,” experts say.
The Selkirk herd had been disappearing for the last several years.
In 2009, the herd, the southernmost in North America, had about 50 animals and was declining. Wildlife officials in Canada began a last-ditch effort to protect them by killing wolves, which occasionally preyed on the few caribou that remained.
But the root cause of the extirpation of this herd and the decline of others in Canada is extensive industrial development in British Columbia, experts say.
“The functional loss of this herd is the legacy of decades of government mismanagement across caribou range,” said Mark Hebblewhite, a wildlife biologist at the University of Montana.
British Columbia “has permitted logging, road building, unsustainable recreation, oil and gas development, and mining to continue in mountain caribou habitat,” he added.
“The tragic outcome was very predictable.”
People are surely nuts
A Black Teenager Asked for Directions. A Man Responded With Gunfire
Brennan Walker, 14, of Rochester Hills, Mich., woke up around 7:30 a.m. on Thursday — too late.
He had slept through his alarm and was going to miss the school bus.
So he decided to walk to Rochester High School, where he is a freshman.
That takes about an hour and a half, but he thought he would at least make it in time for his third-period class in world studies, his favorite subject.
. . . .
He tried one home, and then another.
A [white] woman answered the door, he said, and began yelling almost immediately, as if he were trying to break into her house.
“She didn’t really give me a chance to speak a lot, and I was trying to tell her that I go to Rochester High and I was looking for directions,” Brennan said on Friday.
“A few moments later the guy came downstairs, and he grabbed the shotgun.”
Brennan ran.
The man followed briefly, walking out of his house and stepping off his porch, according to home security camera footage reviewed by the authorities.
He fired a single shot with a 12-gauge shotgun, but Brennan was not hit.
The teenager kept running.
A few minutes later he encountered deputies — the woman at the home had called the authorities — and told his story.
To their credit and my surprise, the police apparently behaved sensibly.
“It’s disgusting, it’s disturbing and it’s unacceptable on every level,” Sheriff Michael Bouchard of Oakland County said.
On Friday, the man, Jeffery Zeigler, 53 [and white], was charged with assault with intent to murder and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, the authorities said.
Brennan Walker, 14, of Rochester Hills, Mich., woke up around 7:30 a.m. on Thursday — too late.
He had slept through his alarm and was going to miss the school bus.
So he decided to walk to Rochester High School, where he is a freshman.
That takes about an hour and a half, but he thought he would at least make it in time for his third-period class in world studies, his favorite subject.
. . . .
He tried one home, and then another.
A [white] woman answered the door, he said, and began yelling almost immediately, as if he were trying to break into her house.
“She didn’t really give me a chance to speak a lot, and I was trying to tell her that I go to Rochester High and I was looking for directions,” Brennan said on Friday.
“A few moments later the guy came downstairs, and he grabbed the shotgun.”
Brennan ran.
The man followed briefly, walking out of his house and stepping off his porch, according to home security camera footage reviewed by the authorities.
He fired a single shot with a 12-gauge shotgun, but Brennan was not hit.
The teenager kept running.
A few minutes later he encountered deputies — the woman at the home had called the authorities — and told his story.
To their credit and my surprise, the police apparently behaved sensibly.
“It’s disgusting, it’s disturbing and it’s unacceptable on every level,” Sheriff Michael Bouchard of Oakland County said.
On Friday, the man, Jeffery Zeigler, 53 [and white], was charged with assault with intent to murder and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, the authorities said.
Saturday, April 14, 2018
Pshaw and Fiddlesticks
He's got it exactly wrong.
He has no idea of The Promise of American Life or the project of The New Nationalism.
And anyway it's not about liberals and progressives, it's about "liberals" and "progressives".
And the political outlook in question was called progressivism before it was called liberalism.
When Liberals Become Progressives, Much Is Lost
He has no idea of The Promise of American Life or the project of The New Nationalism.
And anyway it's not about liberals and progressives, it's about "liberals" and "progressives".
And the political outlook in question was called progressivism before it was called liberalism.
When Liberals Become Progressives, Much Is Lost
Proof of collusion?
Did Cohen go to Prague, and can Mueller prove it?
McClatchy reported Friday that Mueller has evidence that Cohen traveled to Prague in the summer of 2016, a claim first made in the so-called "Steele dossier" compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.
The document alleged that Cohen had secretly traveled to Prague during the 2016 campaign and met with a prominent ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, purportedly Konstantin Kosachev.
It’s not clear whether Mueller has evidence of such a meeting.
Cohen denied that he had been to Prague shortly after the dossier was publicly released early last year.
According to MSNBC, the dossier says the meeting in Prague was to coordinate efforts to hire hackers to get emails and such from the DNC.
Conspiracy to hack is a felony, and accepting Russian finance of such is felonious acceptance of an in-kind campaign contribution from a foreign power.
McClatchy reported Friday that Mueller has evidence that Cohen traveled to Prague in the summer of 2016, a claim first made in the so-called "Steele dossier" compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.
The document alleged that Cohen had secretly traveled to Prague during the 2016 campaign and met with a prominent ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, purportedly Konstantin Kosachev.
It’s not clear whether Mueller has evidence of such a meeting.
Cohen denied that he had been to Prague shortly after the dossier was publicly released early last year.
According to MSNBC, the dossier says the meeting in Prague was to coordinate efforts to hire hackers to get emails and such from the DNC.
Conspiracy to hack is a felony, and accepting Russian finance of such is felonious acceptance of an in-kind campaign contribution from a foreign power.
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