The Electoral College chose Bozo.
He has their mandate.
The mandate of, what?, 538 low flying political noodles?
Odd, which mandate cuts ice, eh?
The most usual defense of the EC and its power to defy the preference of the actual voters is that it is thus empowered to save us from the people's choice of some dreadful demagogue, making president in his stead some at least harmless politician, if not some admirable statesman.
I guess we won't hear much of that defense, any more.
But another might be that the EC, like the equal representation of states in the senate, intentionally insulates our political branches and institutions from all always or usually being overwhelmed by the same popular passions at the same time.
If we did not have such braking devices, imagine how much more power horrors like Trump might obtain from "wave" elections dominated by his supporters.
Or how much power underlying popular phenomena like the existence of so many deplorables all supporting the same sort of politician or agenda might gain in a single election or sequence of federal elections if they were all equally or too close to equally responsive to the - hopefully transient - passions of deplorable voters like the Trumpist Republicans.
Maybe that's an argument for both the EC and unequal representation in the senate that potentially survives the counter-example of Trump?
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Who would waste an hour listening to their unendurable merde?
Louie Gohmert On Impeachment: 'Coup, Civil War And Guns'
Not exclusively appalling lies. Sometimes utter gibberish.
As quoted by Frances Langum.
“Never in the history of this country have we had such gross unfairness that one party would put armed guards with guns to prevent the duly authorized people from being able to hear the witnesses and see them for themselves,” the congressman griped.
Gohmert also complained about a whistleblower who brought alleged corruption to light.
“That’s not the kind of evidence that a coup should be based on,” Gohmert ranted.
“If we’re going to have what they’re trying to legalize as a coup, we ought to have a right to see each of those witnesses.”
As was pointed out on MSNBC, when the Republicans of the senate vote to acquit because Trump's crimes and assaults on the constitution don't rise to the level of impeachable offenses they will give permission to every future president to behave like this dreadful, contemptible authoritarian thug who stops short of being an actual fascist only through not knowing himself, what he really believes, and what he really wants.
He is genuinely that stupid.
On the other hand, if they acquit on the excuse that we are close to an election, anyway, and they are putting the question in the hands of the people, they are deliberately accepting in advance that the reelection of Trump would have the same effect in licensing the crimes of the man himself and the like crimes of every future president.
The party that with such egregious mendacity and revolting hypocrisy pretends to love and revere the constitution and the republic it defined.
The party that strikes hammer blows at the constitution with every iteration of the dreadful bullshit they spread in defense of the enemy of the people, of democracy, and of the Republic in the White House.
The interwar European ruling classes in Spain, Italy, and Germany were so frightened of communism that they sponsored, in order of increasing horror, a Catholic traditionalist dictatorship, a Fascist dictatorship, and the Nazis.
Today, in America and in Europe, spooked by a leftward drift toward greater social democracy, they sponsor nationalist and racist thugs whose demagoguery wins power they use to further enrich the rich and further empower the powerful.
Not exclusively appalling lies. Sometimes utter gibberish.
As quoted by Frances Langum.
“Never in the history of this country have we had such gross unfairness that one party would put armed guards with guns to prevent the duly authorized people from being able to hear the witnesses and see them for themselves,” the congressman griped.
Gohmert also complained about a whistleblower who brought alleged corruption to light.
“That’s not the kind of evidence that a coup should be based on,” Gohmert ranted.
“If we’re going to have what they’re trying to legalize as a coup, we ought to have a right to see each of those witnesses.”
As was pointed out on MSNBC, when the Republicans of the senate vote to acquit because Trump's crimes and assaults on the constitution don't rise to the level of impeachable offenses they will give permission to every future president to behave like this dreadful, contemptible authoritarian thug who stops short of being an actual fascist only through not knowing himself, what he really believes, and what he really wants.
He is genuinely that stupid.
On the other hand, if they acquit on the excuse that we are close to an election, anyway, and they are putting the question in the hands of the people, they are deliberately accepting in advance that the reelection of Trump would have the same effect in licensing the crimes of the man himself and the like crimes of every future president.
The party that with such egregious mendacity and revolting hypocrisy pretends to love and revere the constitution and the republic it defined.
The party that strikes hammer blows at the constitution with every iteration of the dreadful bullshit they spread in defense of the enemy of the people, of democracy, and of the Republic in the White House.
The interwar European ruling classes in Spain, Italy, and Germany were so frightened of communism that they sponsored, in order of increasing horror, a Catholic traditionalist dictatorship, a Fascist dictatorship, and the Nazis.
Today, in America and in Europe, spooked by a leftward drift toward greater social democracy, they sponsor nationalist and racist thugs whose demagoguery wins power they use to further enrich the rich and further empower the powerful.
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
The real Trump rising
For the first three years the globalist, establishment types stopped him acting on his Buchananism.
Less and less, lately.
Donald Trump declares Syria ceasefire permanent and lifts Turkey sanctions
He's given both Syria and Turkey to Vladimir Putin.
Donald Trump has announced that the US will lift sanctions on Turkey, taking credit for a ceasefire deal that should end Ankara’s attack on Kurdish-led forces – at the price of ending the Kurds’ dream of local autonomy.
The US president, who has come under withering criticism for abruptly withdrawing US troops – and paving the way for a deadly Turkish offensive against the Kurds – said on Wednesday that a “small number” of US troops would remain in Syria’s oilfields.
In a televised address on Wednesday, Trump emphasized that US troops were “safe” and said America would leave other powers to fight each other in the region.
He added: “Let someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand.
Wednesday’s announcement came as Russian troops expanded their presence across north-eastern Syria, the result of an agreement between Ankara and Moscow.
Just a week ago, Trump announced a series of financial punishments on Ankara – including the reimposition of 50% tariffs on Turkish steel – after Turkey launched its attack on Kurdish-led forces in north-eastern Syria.
That offensive began hours after a phone call between Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in which the Turkish president, informed Trump of his plans, and understood the US president to give a green light.
“The government of Turkey informed my administration that they would be stopping combat and their offensive in Syria, and making the ceasefire permanent,” Trump said.
“I have, therefore, instructed the secretary of the Treasury to lift all sanctions imposed October 14,” he added.
“How many Americans must die in the Middle East in the midst of these ancient sectarian and tribal conflicts?” Trump said. “I am committed to pursuing a different course, one that leads to victory for America.”
Less and less, lately.
Donald Trump declares Syria ceasefire permanent and lifts Turkey sanctions
He's given both Syria and Turkey to Vladimir Putin.
Donald Trump has announced that the US will lift sanctions on Turkey, taking credit for a ceasefire deal that should end Ankara’s attack on Kurdish-led forces – at the price of ending the Kurds’ dream of local autonomy.
The US president, who has come under withering criticism for abruptly withdrawing US troops – and paving the way for a deadly Turkish offensive against the Kurds – said on Wednesday that a “small number” of US troops would remain in Syria’s oilfields.
In a televised address on Wednesday, Trump emphasized that US troops were “safe” and said America would leave other powers to fight each other in the region.
He added: “Let someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand.
Wednesday’s announcement came as Russian troops expanded their presence across north-eastern Syria, the result of an agreement between Ankara and Moscow.
Just a week ago, Trump announced a series of financial punishments on Ankara – including the reimposition of 50% tariffs on Turkish steel – after Turkey launched its attack on Kurdish-led forces in north-eastern Syria.
That offensive began hours after a phone call between Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in which the Turkish president, informed Trump of his plans, and understood the US president to give a green light.
“The government of Turkey informed my administration that they would be stopping combat and their offensive in Syria, and making the ceasefire permanent,” Trump said.
“I have, therefore, instructed the secretary of the Treasury to lift all sanctions imposed October 14,” he added.
“How many Americans must die in the Middle East in the midst of these ancient sectarian and tribal conflicts?” Trump said. “I am committed to pursuing a different course, one that leads to victory for America.”
Making the Justice Department's bad constitutional invention even worse.
Absolutely nowhere in the constitution does it say a sitting president cannot be indicted, prosecuted, tried, found guilty, or even fucking imprisoned.
That is all just sycophantic - c'est-à-dire ass-kissing - bullshit.
Nowhere.
And, really, if you're going to insist on invisible ink, shouldn't it be in support of some valuable constitutional feature rather than being, say, deliberately intended to undermine it?
Like, par exemple, the rule of law?
Trump couldn't be prosecuted if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue, lawyer claims
And could this possibly scream "Guilty! Guilty!" one decibel more loudly?
Update, 102419, this morning on MSNBC Joe Scarborough damned forcefully the Justice Department's absurd doctrine, repeatedly and angrily.
That is all just sycophantic - c'est-à-dire ass-kissing - bullshit.
Nowhere.
And, really, if you're going to insist on invisible ink, shouldn't it be in support of some valuable constitutional feature rather than being, say, deliberately intended to undermine it?
Like, par exemple, the rule of law?
Trump couldn't be prosecuted if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue, lawyer claims
And could this possibly scream "Guilty! Guilty!" one decibel more loudly?
Update, 102419, this morning on MSNBC Joe Scarborough damned forcefully the Justice Department's absurd doctrine, repeatedly and angrily.
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
So, Putin will get to occupy the Bosporus?
And the Turks are still in NATO?
Well, Trump doesn't give a shit about NATO, anyway.
Turkey announces new deal with Russia as US says its Syria ceasefire has succeeded
Well, Trump doesn't give a shit about NATO, anyway.
Turkey announces new deal with Russia as US says its Syria ceasefire has succeeded
Sunday, October 20, 2019
Eh bien. Dansez maintenant!
The Grasshopper and the Ant
And then the wives of the ant and the grasshopper fell ill, and needed to be sent to nursing homes.
Neither had suitable insurance; both applied for Medicaid.
For the grasshopper who had squandered his income over his entire lifetime of travel, partying, and festivities, it was a piece of cake.
Neither he nor his wife had a thing.
Medicaid granted!
But the ant and his wife had scrimped and saved all their lives, living on cold porridge and travelling no further than the next town, doing their best to provide for their "golden years".
They had to give up and sign over everything they had spent a life of sacrifice and prudence to save.
And only then, stripped as naked as the grasshoppers, but not having had the life of ease, riotous living, and heedless pleasure of the grasshoppers, were they given Medicaid.
"Gee," said the ant to himself. "It's as if the state wanted to punish the prudent, the provident, the industrious, the thrifty, the responsible, in favor of the altogether shiftless and thoughtless."
And the grasshopper looked over at the ant. And smiled.
And then the wives of the ant and the grasshopper fell ill, and needed to be sent to nursing homes.
Neither had suitable insurance; both applied for Medicaid.
For the grasshopper who had squandered his income over his entire lifetime of travel, partying, and festivities, it was a piece of cake.
Neither he nor his wife had a thing.
Medicaid granted!
But the ant and his wife had scrimped and saved all their lives, living on cold porridge and travelling no further than the next town, doing their best to provide for their "golden years".
They had to give up and sign over everything they had spent a life of sacrifice and prudence to save.
And only then, stripped as naked as the grasshoppers, but not having had the life of ease, riotous living, and heedless pleasure of the grasshoppers, were they given Medicaid.
"Gee," said the ant to himself. "It's as if the state wanted to punish the prudent, the provident, the industrious, the thrifty, the responsible, in favor of the altogether shiftless and thoughtless."
And the grasshopper looked over at the ant. And smiled.
But there are other questions one could ask about The Expanse.
Why are the Mormons so prominent in The Expanse?
Everybody asks that.
But why do the folks on The Expanse seem like the ethnic mix found in the US or maybe also Europe?
That's a crowd that looks a lot more like America than, say, Southeast Asia or Africa.
Hell, even the UN crowds look like a bunch of Americans salted with an extra dose of east and south asians.
And yet, not one character ever displays the slightest consciousness of ethnicity or race.
Mormons apart, nobody has loyalties other than to Mars, to the UN, or to the OPA and one or another of its many factions.
Nor are identities perceived or felt otherwise.
And why do so many people admire the Martians for being an entire culture and population united in devotion to a single end, terraforming their planet?
As though somehow entire populations devoting themselves, or more likely being devoted by the powerful among them, to a single goal is just admirable in itself, quite apart from the worth of the goal.
So many people so admire totalitarianism?
And yet it seems many people, reading the books, claim the authors are peddling some sort of libertarian ideology.
Don't see it, myself.
Everybody asks that.
But why do the folks on The Expanse seem like the ethnic mix found in the US or maybe also Europe?
That's a crowd that looks a lot more like America than, say, Southeast Asia or Africa.
Hell, even the UN crowds look like a bunch of Americans salted with an extra dose of east and south asians.
And yet, not one character ever displays the slightest consciousness of ethnicity or race.
Mormons apart, nobody has loyalties other than to Mars, to the UN, or to the OPA and one or another of its many factions.
Nor are identities perceived or felt otherwise.
And why do so many people admire the Martians for being an entire culture and population united in devotion to a single end, terraforming their planet?
As though somehow entire populations devoting themselves, or more likely being devoted by the powerful among them, to a single goal is just admirable in itself, quite apart from the worth of the goal.
So many people so admire totalitarianism?
And yet it seems many people, reading the books, claim the authors are peddling some sort of libertarian ideology.
Don't see it, myself.
So, do they now regret the way the US ran away from the war in Vietnam?
Do they retrospectively regret all those "collaborators with US imperialism" we abandoned in the fall of Saigon, in 1975?
They?
Democrats joining Republicans in unanimously deploring the betrayal of the Kurds and the abandonment of Syria.
To be fair, it amazed me at the time how many supporters of the war did not mind at all the abandonment of thousands and tens of thousands of Vietnamese supporters of the US effort to a horrible fate.
I opposed the war but also was deeply ashamed of the betrayal of so many whom we had actively induced to rely on us.
In truth, we could not save everyone who had at least hoped for our victory - that would have been most of the people of South Vietnam - but we could and should have saved those publicly in any way associated with our participation in that war.
Tens of thousands though that would have been.
Because we were responsible for at least some of them sticking their heads up, daring so long to resist the reds, and we had promised them all they could count on us.
Why didn't the Brits give British passports to the entire population of Hong Kong when they agreed to turn over the colony to Beijing?
Why didn't the Commonwealth countries agree to accept them all as refugees, sharing them out among themselves more or less proportionately to their own part in the total population of the Commonwealth?
How was their failure to do any such thing not a shocking betrayal?
Not that they - the Vietnamese or the Hong Kong Chinese - would all have agreed to leave their homes.
But the invitations should have been extended.
They?
Democrats joining Republicans in unanimously deploring the betrayal of the Kurds and the abandonment of Syria.
To be fair, it amazed me at the time how many supporters of the war did not mind at all the abandonment of thousands and tens of thousands of Vietnamese supporters of the US effort to a horrible fate.
I opposed the war but also was deeply ashamed of the betrayal of so many whom we had actively induced to rely on us.
In truth, we could not save everyone who had at least hoped for our victory - that would have been most of the people of South Vietnam - but we could and should have saved those publicly in any way associated with our participation in that war.
Tens of thousands though that would have been.
Because we were responsible for at least some of them sticking their heads up, daring so long to resist the reds, and we had promised them all they could count on us.
Why didn't the Brits give British passports to the entire population of Hong Kong when they agreed to turn over the colony to Beijing?
Why didn't the Commonwealth countries agree to accept them all as refugees, sharing them out among themselves more or less proportionately to their own part in the total population of the Commonwealth?
How was their failure to do any such thing not a shocking betrayal?
Not that they - the Vietnamese or the Hong Kong Chinese - would all have agreed to leave their homes.
But the invitations should have been extended.
Hillary's letter is hilarious!
Hillary tweets a bogus letter from JFK to Khrushchev during the missile crisis.
Dear Premier Khrushchev,
Don't be a dick, OK?
Get your missiles out of Cuba. Everybody will say, ‘Yay, Khrushchev! You’re the best!’ But if you don’t everybody will be like ‘what an asshole’ and call your garbage country ‘The Soviet Bunion’.
You’re really busting my nuts here.
Give you a jingle later.
Hugs,
John Fitzgerald Kennedy.”
The centrality of Christian clericalism to the true Republican agenda
Prominent liberal Catholics have warned the US attorney general’s devout Catholic faith poses a threat to the separation of church and state, after William Barr delivered a fiery speech on religious freedom in which he warned that “militant secularists” were behind a “campaign to destroy the traditional moral order”.
. . . .
In the hallways of the justice department in Washington, there has been a similar furor among some Catholics employees who answer to Barr.
“I was shocked by the speech and all this fire and brimstone,” said a senior department career official who considers himself a devout Catholic, speaking on condition that he not be identified for fear of losing his job.
“At least it helps me understand why Barr has been so willing to put his own reputation on the line to defend Trump so fiercely in every battle,” beginning with the congressional investigation that is likely to end in the president’s impeachment, he said.
“Trump is Barr’s imperfect vessel in serving a much higher cause: the gospel.”
. . . .
He [Barr] warned that Catholicism and other mainstream religions were the target of “organized destruction” by “secularists and their allies among progressives who have marshalled all the force of mass communications, popular culture, the entertainment industry and academia”.
He insisted that “the traditional Judeo-Christian moral system” of the United States was under siege by “modern secularists” who were responsible for every sort of “social pathology”, including drug abuse, rising suicide rates and illegitimacy.
. . . .
The reaction to Barr’s address came as another Trump cabinet member, secretary of state Mike Pompeo, was drawing fire from civil liberties groups over the state department’s decision this week to promote his recent speech titled Being a Christian Leader on the department’s online homepage.
The speech by Pompeo, an evangelical Christian, was delivered on Friday, the same day as Barr’s speech, to a meeting of the American Association of Christian Counselors in Nashville.
“It’s perfectly fine for secretary Pompeo to be a leader who is a Christian,” the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State said in a statement.
But the decision to promote Pompeo’s speech on the department’s official website sends “the clear message that US public policy will be guided by his personal religious beliefs”.
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