Beautiful video, as usual.
Excellently written and acted.
Political overtones as in the first two seasons, anti-Brexit and pro-EU.
Anti-nationalist and pro-immigrant, immigration, and refugee.
No idea why they decided to stop with the third season.
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
We're number one?
Doesn't look it.
Read this and wonder why our food supply is allowed to be less safe than the UK's.
Maybe what's her face was right and Americans are just stupider than Europeans.
Chlorinated chicken: How safe is it?
The Brits don't use a chlorine wash finishing the production process for chicken and the Americans do.
But British chicken and its food supply on the whole seems safer than America's.
Read this and wonder why our food supply is allowed to be less safe than the UK's.
Maybe what's her face was right and Americans are just stupider than Europeans.
Chlorinated chicken: How safe is it?
The Brits don't use a chlorine wash finishing the production process for chicken and the Americans do.
But British chicken and its food supply on the whole seems safer than America's.
You have to wonder whose lies they are. And she names the usual suspects.
The anti-EU lies are back to exploit Britain’s weak spot again
Perhaps she means the Brit brain.
Post after post [in Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit] is spreading a fake list of the treaty’s contents.
If Britain stays in the EU, by 2020 we will be locked into vassalage of a new super-state.
There is never, of course, any quote or link to the real treaty.
So who’s doing this?
Are these posts real, Russian, or US-financed far-right bots, generated by any of the linked Brexit groups under different names?
Impossible to tell, says Steve Peers, a professor of EU law at Essex University who has been chasing down this monster with painstaking rebuttals, refuting it point by point.
He says the similarity of the words used – the “I’ve just been reading the Lisbon treaty” phrasing – suggests a highly organised and well-financed campaign of disinformation, backed by expensive ads disseminated virally.
If it weren’t so avidly believed and shared, this absurdity could be ignored, but it’s typical Brexitology.
Here are its claims: in 2020 all EU countries lose their veto.
In 2022 all become states of the new federal nation and must join the euro.
The London Stock Exchange will move to Frankfurt to an EU exchange and the EU parliament and court of justice become “supreme”.
Borders are lost as Schengen becomes compulsory and countries lose control of planning and tax policies.
The UK hands over its armed forces and nuclear deterrent to an EU force.
There’s a lot more of this balderdash, with each claim meticulously debunked by Peers.
No, nothing new is about to be enforced: there is no mention of 2020 or 2022 in the real treaty, as all was fixed in 2009. No, the word “federal” is not in there, except in Germany’s official name.
No, the veto isn’t being lost, while the need for unanimous votes gets 100 mentions.
Some claims sound vaguely plausible: true, we have no absolute control of our fisheries and never did, in or out of the EU.
But no, the UK won’t lose the Falklands, Caymans and Gibraltar.
And it will all get so much worse if it looks like there will be a new referendum.
Perhaps she means the Brit brain.
Post after post [in Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit] is spreading a fake list of the treaty’s contents.
If Britain stays in the EU, by 2020 we will be locked into vassalage of a new super-state.
There is never, of course, any quote or link to the real treaty.
So who’s doing this?
Are these posts real, Russian, or US-financed far-right bots, generated by any of the linked Brexit groups under different names?
Impossible to tell, says Steve Peers, a professor of EU law at Essex University who has been chasing down this monster with painstaking rebuttals, refuting it point by point.
He says the similarity of the words used – the “I’ve just been reading the Lisbon treaty” phrasing – suggests a highly organised and well-financed campaign of disinformation, backed by expensive ads disseminated virally.
If it weren’t so avidly believed and shared, this absurdity could be ignored, but it’s typical Brexitology.
Here are its claims: in 2020 all EU countries lose their veto.
In 2022 all become states of the new federal nation and must join the euro.
The London Stock Exchange will move to Frankfurt to an EU exchange and the EU parliament and court of justice become “supreme”.
Borders are lost as Schengen becomes compulsory and countries lose control of planning and tax policies.
The UK hands over its armed forces and nuclear deterrent to an EU force.
There’s a lot more of this balderdash, with each claim meticulously debunked by Peers.
No, nothing new is about to be enforced: there is no mention of 2020 or 2022 in the real treaty, as all was fixed in 2009. No, the word “federal” is not in there, except in Germany’s official name.
No, the veto isn’t being lost, while the need for unanimous votes gets 100 mentions.
Some claims sound vaguely plausible: true, we have no absolute control of our fisheries and never did, in or out of the EU.
But no, the UK won’t lose the Falklands, Caymans and Gibraltar.
And it will all get so much worse if it looks like there will be a new referendum.
Macron steps up
Dear Europe, Brexit is a lesson for all of us: it’s time for renewal
But this guy isn't having it.
Macron’s overblown vision for Europe shows how much it needs Britain
Roughly similar to the difference between people who went to Philadelphia to patch up the Articles of Confederation and those who went to create a new national government.
But this guy isn't having it.
Macron’s overblown vision for Europe shows how much it needs Britain
Roughly similar to the difference between people who went to Philadelphia to patch up the Articles of Confederation and those who went to create a new national government.
Why is that a problem?
Sometimes it's all women talking.
Sometimes it's all black people.
So if the panel is all white, why is that an issue?
Though I agree with white lady Susie Madrak's other grousing in the piece.
More White People On CNN Asking: How Do All These Investigations Look?
CNN's New Day had a panel of Jeff Toobin, Dancin' Dave Gregory, and Mary Katherine Ham as the token winger, to talk about the burning issue of the day: How do all those House investigations look?
Not whether the president of the United States is a crook, the head of a criminal enterprise, siphoning bribes through the White House, or even whether he's a Russia asset.
Nope, it's always about how it looks from the Beltway.
. . . .
But of course there's a larger purpose to all these hearings.
The Dems can't openly organize for impeachment until there's general acknowledgement among the public that Trump did Really Bad Things.
Just like with the Watergate hearings!
(Remember, Nixon did get reelected after those hearings, but his political and public support fell apart shortly into his second term.)
This is going to take a long time.
Sometimes it's all black people.
So if the panel is all white, why is that an issue?
Though I agree with white lady Susie Madrak's other grousing in the piece.
More White People On CNN Asking: How Do All These Investigations Look?
CNN's New Day had a panel of Jeff Toobin, Dancin' Dave Gregory, and Mary Katherine Ham as the token winger, to talk about the burning issue of the day: How do all those House investigations look?
Not whether the president of the United States is a crook, the head of a criminal enterprise, siphoning bribes through the White House, or even whether he's a Russia asset.
Nope, it's always about how it looks from the Beltway.
. . . .
But of course there's a larger purpose to all these hearings.
The Dems can't openly organize for impeachment until there's general acknowledgement among the public that Trump did Really Bad Things.
Just like with the Watergate hearings!
(Remember, Nixon did get reelected after those hearings, but his political and public support fell apart shortly into his second term.)
This is going to take a long time.
The Dem agenda will be dead on arrival, says Boo.
The Boo is pessimistic.
Paul Waldman ably describes the two most common fallacies pundits and politicians use to explain how Democratic presidents can get stuff done in Washington.
One can be called “the Bernie Sanders fallacy.”
It involves leading “a grass-roots movement so powerful that it would force Republicans in Congress to vote for things they despise such as single-payer health care and free college.”
It’s a manifestly absurd campaign promise and it really shouldn’t even qualify as an aspiration–because it’s delusional.
The Republicans will not vote for a progressive vision for America, let alone a Democratic Socialist one.
No amount of citizen pressure could ever convince them otherwise.
The second fallacy can be called “the John Hickenlooper fallacy,” after the former Denver mayor and Colorado governor who just announced his candidacy for president.
In this scenario, you can convince a sufficient number of Republicans to vote for your agenda by having a respectful dialogue with them.
. . . .
As Waldman correctly points out, this is every bit as ridiculous as the Bernie Sanders fallacy.
. . . .
The only way to pass progressive legislation in Congress is to do it without any Republican votes.
But that is not how Congress works.
Congress includes the Senate, and the Senate requires sixty members to overcome a legislative filibuster.
There are two things that will not happen between now and Inauguration Day, 2021: The Senate Republicans won’t become responsive to citizen pressure or presidential cajoling, and the Democrats will not get enough votes in the Senate to end a filibuster on their own.
Any presidential candidate who promises to accomplish anything legislatively needs to explain how they’ll go about overcoming this problem.
They’ll need a better answer than the ones Sanders and Hickenlooper have provided thus far.
If this is right, any moderate Democrat who disses the AOC/Bernie agenda saying "That's not going to happen; that's just too radical" needs to explain how his plans to expand Medicare and firm up Obamacare are the least bit more realizable.
But maybe it's not right, in which event the Dems could as well pass the AOC/Bernie agenda as the moderate one of, say, Ed Rendell, if they can unite for it.
According to the Supreme Court's ruling in United States v. Ballin (1892), Senate rules can be changed by a simple majority vote.
Nevertheless, under current Senate rules, a rule change could itself be filibustered, requiring two-thirds of senators who are present and voting to end debate. (This differs from the usual requirement for three-fifths of sworn senators.)
However, despite this two-thirds requirement being written into the Senate rules, any Senator may attempt to nullify a Senate rule by making a point of order that the rule is unconstitutional or just that the meaning of the rule should not be followed.
The presiding officer is generally expected to rule in favor of the rules of the Senate, but any ruling from the chair may be appealed and overturned by a simple majority of Senators.
This happened in 2013, when Harry Reid of the Democratic Party made a point of order that "the vote on cloture under rule XXII for all nominations other than for the Supreme Court of the United States is by majority vote."
Although there is no simple majority vote provision in the text of rule XXII, Reid's point of order was sustained by a 52-48 vote, and that ruling established a Senate precedent that cloture on nominations other than those for the Supreme Court requires only a simple majority.
On April 6, 2017, that precedent was further changed by Mitch McConnell and the Republican majority to include Supreme Court nominations.
More briefly,
The nuclear option is a parliamentary procedure that allows the United States Senate to override a rule – specifically the 60-vote rule to close debate – by a simple majority of 51 votes, rather than the two-thirds supermajority normally required to amend the rules.
The option is invoked when the majority leader raises a point of order that only a simple majority is needed to close debate on certain matters.
The presiding officer denies the point of order based on Senate rules, but the ruling of the chair is then appealed and overturned by majority vote, establishing new precedent.
This procedure effectively allows the Senate to decide any issue by simple majority vote, regardless of existing procedural rules such as Rule XXII which requires the consent of 60 senators (out of 100) to end a filibuster for legislation, and 67 for amending a Senate rule.
But would enough Democrats agree to end the filibuster?
As many as needed to constitute a majority of 51?
Perhaps it is this that Boo is pessimistic about (I took him to be thinking the Democrats would not alone be able to contribute the 67 votes allegedly needed to change a rule in the senate).
Paul Waldman ably describes the two most common fallacies pundits and politicians use to explain how Democratic presidents can get stuff done in Washington.
One can be called “the Bernie Sanders fallacy.”
It involves leading “a grass-roots movement so powerful that it would force Republicans in Congress to vote for things they despise such as single-payer health care and free college.”
It’s a manifestly absurd campaign promise and it really shouldn’t even qualify as an aspiration–because it’s delusional.
The Republicans will not vote for a progressive vision for America, let alone a Democratic Socialist one.
No amount of citizen pressure could ever convince them otherwise.
The second fallacy can be called “the John Hickenlooper fallacy,” after the former Denver mayor and Colorado governor who just announced his candidacy for president.
In this scenario, you can convince a sufficient number of Republicans to vote for your agenda by having a respectful dialogue with them.
. . . .
As Waldman correctly points out, this is every bit as ridiculous as the Bernie Sanders fallacy.
. . . .
The only way to pass progressive legislation in Congress is to do it without any Republican votes.
But that is not how Congress works.
Congress includes the Senate, and the Senate requires sixty members to overcome a legislative filibuster.
There are two things that will not happen between now and Inauguration Day, 2021: The Senate Republicans won’t become responsive to citizen pressure or presidential cajoling, and the Democrats will not get enough votes in the Senate to end a filibuster on their own.
Any presidential candidate who promises to accomplish anything legislatively needs to explain how they’ll go about overcoming this problem.
They’ll need a better answer than the ones Sanders and Hickenlooper have provided thus far.
If this is right, any moderate Democrat who disses the AOC/Bernie agenda saying "That's not going to happen; that's just too radical" needs to explain how his plans to expand Medicare and firm up Obamacare are the least bit more realizable.
But maybe it's not right, in which event the Dems could as well pass the AOC/Bernie agenda as the moderate one of, say, Ed Rendell, if they can unite for it.
According to the Supreme Court's ruling in United States v. Ballin (1892), Senate rules can be changed by a simple majority vote.
Nevertheless, under current Senate rules, a rule change could itself be filibustered, requiring two-thirds of senators who are present and voting to end debate. (This differs from the usual requirement for three-fifths of sworn senators.)
However, despite this two-thirds requirement being written into the Senate rules, any Senator may attempt to nullify a Senate rule by making a point of order that the rule is unconstitutional or just that the meaning of the rule should not be followed.
The presiding officer is generally expected to rule in favor of the rules of the Senate, but any ruling from the chair may be appealed and overturned by a simple majority of Senators.
This happened in 2013, when Harry Reid of the Democratic Party made a point of order that "the vote on cloture under rule XXII for all nominations other than for the Supreme Court of the United States is by majority vote."
Although there is no simple majority vote provision in the text of rule XXII, Reid's point of order was sustained by a 52-48 vote, and that ruling established a Senate precedent that cloture on nominations other than those for the Supreme Court requires only a simple majority.
On April 6, 2017, that precedent was further changed by Mitch McConnell and the Republican majority to include Supreme Court nominations.
More briefly,
The nuclear option is a parliamentary procedure that allows the United States Senate to override a rule – specifically the 60-vote rule to close debate – by a simple majority of 51 votes, rather than the two-thirds supermajority normally required to amend the rules.
The option is invoked when the majority leader raises a point of order that only a simple majority is needed to close debate on certain matters.
The presiding officer denies the point of order based on Senate rules, but the ruling of the chair is then appealed and overturned by majority vote, establishing new precedent.
This procedure effectively allows the Senate to decide any issue by simple majority vote, regardless of existing procedural rules such as Rule XXII which requires the consent of 60 senators (out of 100) to end a filibuster for legislation, and 67 for amending a Senate rule.
But would enough Democrats agree to end the filibuster?
As many as needed to constitute a majority of 51?
Perhaps it is this that Boo is pessimistic about (I took him to be thinking the Democrats would not alone be able to contribute the 67 votes allegedly needed to change a rule in the senate).
Anyway, Boo himself in the past has opposed scrapping the filibuster and opposed elimination of the Electoral College.
Don't recall off-hand whether he has opposed proportional representation in the senate, but I would expect him to.
All about name recognition?
Biden is the front runner, followed by Bernie and then Harris in the Democratic popularity contest.
Ms. Warren is fourth.
Ms. Warren is fourth.
Monday, March 4, 2019
Rendell, quondam Hillary supporter, says no Dem who embraces "socialism" or the AOC/Bernie agenda can beat Trump
He agrees we should drop fossil fuels but says it's impossible to have it completely done before 2045, and like Fox News he says we can't afford either Medicare for All or tuition free secondary education in publicly owned schools.
He urges making people over 50 eligible for Medicare and some sort of help with the growing problem of student debt, as well as better financing for Obamacare.
He's clearly not a Republican and he calls himself, accurately, a progressive, though not progressive enough to embrace the AOC/Bernie agenda and say it's just more progressivism.
Instead he rejects that agenda as well as socialism and "socialism".
Instead he rejects that agenda as well as socialism and "socialism".
He really needs to stop doing the GOP's work for it.
The GOP and conservatives always call any progressive reform, program, or proposal socialistic, socialism, communistic, Marxist, and Communist.
Screw it.
On You Tube the other day I watched an episode of the David Pakman show in which DP explains that, yeah, we can afford the entire AOC/Bernie agenda.
Unsurprisingly, a necessary part of any plan to finance all that requires raising taxes a lot, partly by reversing the Bush and Trump cuts and partly by adding more income tax brackets topping off at about 50% or more for income above ten million, if I recall correctly.
Pakman, by the way, calls himself a liberal and a progressive and rejects actual socialism, though he willingly calls the AOC/Bernie agenda socialistic or social democratic, in the same sense that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are socialistic or social democratic.
The GOP and conservatives always call any progressive reform, program, or proposal socialistic, socialism, communistic, Marxist, and Communist.
Screw it.
On You Tube the other day I watched an episode of the David Pakman show in which DP explains that, yeah, we can afford the entire AOC/Bernie agenda.
Unsurprisingly, a necessary part of any plan to finance all that requires raising taxes a lot, partly by reversing the Bush and Trump cuts and partly by adding more income tax brackets topping off at about 50% or more for income above ten million, if I recall correctly.
Pakman, by the way, calls himself a liberal and a progressive and rejects actual socialism, though he willingly calls the AOC/Bernie agenda socialistic or social democratic, in the same sense that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are socialistic or social democratic.
Sure, it's about whose ox gets gored. But still, it's a good thing, I think.
Trump says executive order coming to protect free speech on campuses
Trump, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference this weekend, said, “Today, I am proud to announce that I will be very soon signing an executive order requiring colleges and universities to support free speech if they want federal research funds.”
Cambridge civil-rights attorney Harvey Silverglate said he supports a move like this, saying, “Federal funds should not be funding censorship.”
“There is a real tyranny of correctness if you deviate from the real progressive view of things,” Silverglate said of the state of discourse on college campuses, though he said he suspects Trump is simply “grandstanding” because “other times he has no problem telling people in the federal government to shut up.”
Trump and other conservatives have increasingly taken issue with what they see as campus crackdowns on opinions that aren’t considered politically correct.
Conservative speakers have faced protests and even some rioting from left-wing protesters, and many universities have codes that limit some speech deemed offensive but is legally protected in the non-college world.
The federal government currently provides colleges and universities with a total of $30 billion in research funding — money the president and the Department of Education could route away from schools they see as behaving badly.
The White House did not release any further details about the order.
Trump, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference this weekend, said, “Today, I am proud to announce that I will be very soon signing an executive order requiring colleges and universities to support free speech if they want federal research funds.”
Cambridge civil-rights attorney Harvey Silverglate said he supports a move like this, saying, “Federal funds should not be funding censorship.”
“There is a real tyranny of correctness if you deviate from the real progressive view of things,” Silverglate said of the state of discourse on college campuses, though he said he suspects Trump is simply “grandstanding” because “other times he has no problem telling people in the federal government to shut up.”
Trump and other conservatives have increasingly taken issue with what they see as campus crackdowns on opinions that aren’t considered politically correct.
Conservative speakers have faced protests and even some rioting from left-wing protesters, and many universities have codes that limit some speech deemed offensive but is legally protected in the non-college world.
The federal government currently provides colleges and universities with a total of $30 billion in research funding — money the president and the Department of Education could route away from schools they see as behaving badly.
The White House did not release any further details about the order.
Saturday, March 2, 2019
How odd
Slaughter writes repeatedly of a Wingmaster 12 gauge rifle.
It is a shotgun, not a rifle.
Reading A Faint Cold Fear.
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