The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705
Sunday
Jan072018
The Commentariat -- January 8, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has raised the likelihood with President Trump's legal team that his office will seek an interview with the president, triggering a discussion among his attorneys about how to avoid a sit-down encounter or set limits on such a session, according to two people familiar with the talks. Mueller brought up the issue of interviewing Trump during a late December meeting with the president's lawyers, John Dowd and Jay Sekulow. Mueller deputy James Quarles, who oversees the White House portion of the special counsel investigation, also attended. The special counsel's team could interview Trump very soon on some limited portion of questions -- possibly within the next several weeks, according to a person close to the president who was granted anonymity to describe internal conversations."
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Monday gave a black death row inmate in Georgia a chance to challenge his death sentence because a white juror in his case later used a racial epithet in an affidavit and questioned whether black people have souls. The justices stayed the execution last fall of Keith Leroy Tharpe, who was sentenced to death in 1991 for the murder of his sister-in-law, Jaquelin Freeman. He shot and killed Freeman and left her body in a ditch while kidnapping and later raping his estranged wife."
Pete Williams of NBC News: "The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to take up a legal battle over a Mississippi law that allows state employees and private businesses to deny services to LGBT people based on religious objections. Signed into law in 2016 in response to the Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling, it allows county clerks to avoid issuing marriage licenses to gay couples and protects businesses from lawsuits if they refuse to serve LGBT customers. The law was immediately challenged. But lower courts, without ruling on the merits of the law, said those suing could not show that they would be harmed by it. A new round of challenges is expected from residents who have been denied service, and the issue could come back to the Supreme Court's doorstep." See also Akhilleus's comment below. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Seems as if the Supremes may have declined to take the case because the law's challengers were deemed to have failed the "standing" test. That doesn't mean the underlying case doesn't have merit; it just means the challengers are going to have to find more convincing victims. That should be pretty easy. I'd guess there are already a number of Mississippi couples who were denied marriage licenses or were refused services because their names were John & Joe or Emily & Heather.
Miriam Jordan of the New York Times on the Trump administration's latest deportation extravaganza: this time, 200,000 Salvadorans who have enjoyed temporary protection status for more than a decade. Mrs. McC: once again, this isn't just cruel; it's stupid.
If you're in danger of imminent arrest & detention, try to look good in your mugshot -- it could pay off.
*****
NEW. Get Out! Washington Post: "The Department of Homeland Security will not renew the Temporary Protected Status designation that has allowed the Salvadorans to remain in the United States since at least 2001, when their country was struck by a pair of devastating earthquakes, according to multiple people with knowledge of the plan." This is a breaking story & will be updated. Mrs. McC: Disgusting how every Trump administration immigration decision is an "only whitey-white people allowed" decision.
NEW. Brian Stelter of CNN: "Oprah Winfrey is 'actively thinking' about running for president, two of her close friends told CNN Monday. The two friends, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely, talked in the wake of Winfrey's extraordinary speech at the Golden Globes Sunday night, which spurred chatter about a 2020 run. Some of Winfrey's confidants have been privately urging her to run, the sources said. One of the sources said these conversations date back several months. The person emphasized that Winfrey has not made up her mind about running." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: We've had two celebrity presidents in the last half-century (and one of them had been governor of California for eight years). How'd that work out? Of course I'd like to see a woman become POTUS, but please, not one who made Dr. Phil a star.
NEW. Yeah, #StableGenius. Louis Nelson of Politico: "For a few minutes Sunday night..., Donald Trump claimed his has been an 'enormously consensual' presidency. The claim was a typo, part of a string of tweets excerpting a New York Post column praising Trump's administration. The original post was soon replaced with a new one that contained the correct word, 'consequential,' but that didn't stop the president's tweet from becoming the subject of online ridicule.... The tweet stood out in part because multiple women have accused the president of harassment or abuse." ...
... Susannah Cullinane of CNN: Conservative New York Post columnist Michael"Goodwin [who wrote the laudatory column Trump misquoted] appears to have retweeted Trump's initial post, thanking the President on his Twitter feed above a box that Sunday night read, 'This tweet is unavailable,' before retweeting Trump's replacement version. Others on Twitter denied that they had 'consented' to Trump's leadership and a number included the hashtag #StableGenius when commenting on Trump's typo...."
"Executive Time." Jonathan Swan of Axios: "Trump's days in the Oval Office are relatively short -- from around 11am to 6pm, then he's back to the residence. During that time he usually has a meeting or two, but spends a good deal of time making phone calls and watching cable news in the dining room adjoining the Oval. Then he's back to the residence for more phone calls and more TV.... This is largely to meet Trump's demands for more 'Executive Time,' which almost always means TV and Twitter time alone in the residence, officials tell us. The schedules shown to me are different than the sanitized ones released to the media and public.... In the earliest days of the Trump administration it began earlier and ended later." ...
... Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "Trump's schedule is significantly shorter than those of past presidents. Former President George W. Bush would arrive in the Oval Office by 6:45 a.m., and former President Obama would arrive between 9 and 10 a.m. after his morning workout. [Mrs. McC: Obama also worked late into the evening after having dinner with his family.] The New York Times reported that Trump spends up to 8 hours a day watching television, which Trump has disputed." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Turns out those fake "working vacations" Trump takes every weekend have stretched into every weekday. ...
... It's Not Trump Who's Unstable; It's Fox "News"! Matthew Gertz in Politico Magazine (Jan. 5): "Everyone has a theory about Trump's hyperaggressive early morning tweetstorms.... But my many hours following the president's tweets for Media Matters for America, the progressive media watchdog organization, have convinced me the truth is often much simpler: The president is just live-tweeting Fox, particularly the network's Trump-loving morning show, Fox & Friends.... After comparing the president's tweets with Fox's coverage every day since October, I can tell you that the Fox-Trump feedback loop is happening far more often than you think. There is no strategy to Trump's Twitter feed; he is not trying to distract the media. He is being distracted. He darts with quark-like speed from topic to topic in his tweets because that's how cable news works."
"Where's My Roy Cohn?" Washington Post Editors: "ALL OFFICIALS entering government must swear an oath of loyalty to the Constitution of the United States. President Trump made his own such promise. Yet he appears to believe that the public servants of the Justice Department owe their allegiance not to the Constitution but to him. The litany of Mr. Trump's attacks on the integrity of federal law enforcement is lengthy.... Most disturbingly, Mr. Trump seems not to recognize anything wrong or unusual in his conduct.... It's the responsibility of those who work with Mr. Trump to restrain him as best they can from destroying the norms he fails to recognize -- as [White House counsel Don] McGahn allegedly failed to do. And it's the responsibility of Congress to fulfill its constitutional role as a check to the president's abuses. The Senate can start by refusing to consider any future U.S. attorney nominee who has been interviewed by Mr. Trump." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: This editorial would have been a lot better if the writers had mentioned that Trump's attempt to manipulate the DOJ is an important & dangerous piece of his dictatorial intention to run the federal government as his private fiefdom. (Or as a Chinese political analyst put it, according to Evan Osnos of the New Yorker, Trump practiced "jiatianxia..., an obscure phrase from feudal China [that means] 'to treat the state as your possession.'") "As long as critics write, "Well, he shouldn't have done this," & in another column write, "He shouldn't have done that," the public will not grasp the whole picture.
Ana Swanson & Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "President Trump will head to Tennessee on Monday to appeal to farmers, a key demographic that helped elect him, as he promotes his tax law and previews a new White House strategy to help rural America. But back in Washington, some of the economic policies his administration is pursuing are at odds with what many in the farm industry say is needed, from a potentially drastic shift in trade policies that have long supported agriculture to some little-noticed tax increases in the $1.5 trillion tax law."
Jeremy Peters, et al., of the New York Times: "Isolated from his political allies and cut off from his financial patrons, Stephen K. Bannon ... issued a striking mea culpa on Sunday for comments he had made that were critical of the president's eldest son. Mr. Bannon, who is quoted in a new book calling Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with Russians in 2016 'treasonous,' tried to reverse his statements completely, saying that the younger Mr. Trump was 'both a patriot and a good man.' Mr. Bannon spoke out after five days of silence, a delay that he said he regretted. He said his reference to 'treason' had not been aimed at the president's son, but at another campaign official who attended the 2016 Trump Tower meeting, Paul Manafort." Also, Stephen Miller got in a fight with Jake Tapper. & Tapper kicked Miller off the air. More on Miller's grand performance below. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Here's Bannon's full statement, via the New York Times. You may recall that a few days ago Asawin Suebsaeng of The Daily Beast reported that "On Wednesday morning, Steve Bannon and his closest advisers were preparing a statement to atone for scorched-earth comments he'd made about ... Donald Trump and his eldest son Donald Trump Jr., that had been printed in Michael Wolff's new book on the Trump White House. But before Team Bannon was able to make its statement public, the president dropped atomic tonnage on his former White House chief strategist." So Bannon decided not to publish his mea culpa." ...
... David Nakamura, et al., of the Washington Post: "Stephen K. Bannon's mea culpa came as Trump and his senior aides continued a barrage of public insults against him.... Trump on Sunday continued to lambaste Wolff on Twitter, denouncing the 'Fake Book, written by a totally discredited author.'... The president's top policy adviser, Stephen Miller, on Sunday called Bannon an 'angry, vindictive person' whose 'grotesque comments are so out of touch with reality.'" ...
... Chris Cillizza of CNN: "White House senior adviser Stephen Miller was by turns combative and obsequious in an interview Sunday with CNN's Jake Tapper -- veering from savaging former ally Steve Bannon and author Michael Wolff to lauding ... Donald Trump's intelligence and political savvy. It was something to behold. Below are the most memorable Miller lines from an epic back-and-forth. (It's worth watching the whole thing!)" Cillizza suggests Miller's "24 most grotesque lines" from the interview. Thanks to MAG for the link. ...
... BUT, as Tapper suggested, Miller's target audience liked it: Trump tweeted "Jake Tapper of Fake News CNN just got destroyed in his interview with Stephen Miller of the Trump Administration. Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!" "Tapper led off his next segment with the words, 'Welcome back to CNN and planet Earth.'" ...
... Wait, Wait, There's a Coda! Linette Lopez of Business Insider: "White House adviser Stephen Miller was escorted off the set of CNN's 'State of the Union' on Sunday after a contentious interview with host Jake Tapper. Two sources close to the situation told Business Insider that after the taping was done, Miller was politely asked to leave several times. He ignored those requests and ultimately security was called and he was escorted out, the sources said." Mrs. McC: This must be the first time in history a top White House official has been throw out of a TV studio. Maybe Miller can share notes with Omarosa, who also knows how it feels to be unceremoniously "escorted" off the premises.
E.J. Dionne: Michael Wolff "deserves our thanks for creating Trump's 'emperor has no clothes' moment, even if this point should have been reached before, say, Nov. 8, 2016. Trump's tweets on Saturday pronouncing himself 'a very stable genius' only underscored the damage Wolff has done and Trump's dumbfounding insecurity.... In response to what is little more than a traditional right-wing agenda, there has been a marked erosion of loyalty to Trump among voters who thought they were casting ballots for a populist and are getting ideological and plutocratic policies instead. A Pew Research Center survey last month found Trump losing ground particularly among whites without college degrees and white evangelical Christians.... On the other hand, the more Trump proves his populism to be phony and behaves like a traditional Republican, the more the congressional GOP will want to prop him up." ...
... Jacqueline Thomsen: "WikiLeaks posted the full text of Michael Wolff's explosive new book about President Trump on Sunday. The website's official account tweeted a link to a Google Drive containing the full text of the book.... 'New Trump book "Fire and Fury" by Michael Wolff. Full PDF: https://t.co/sf7vj4IYAx" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie Update: BTW, I tried the link & it didn't work. First I got a notice from Google that I had to "authorized"; then I got an e-mail from Google that "the address couldn't be found." ...
... Turns out That Was Not Trump's Hair on Fire. Laura Dimon & Terence Cullen of the New York Daily News: "A small fire broke out on the roof of Trump Tower on Monday morning, officials said. Smoke was seen billowing off the top of the Manhattan skyscraper, carrying for several blocks. The blaze appeared to break out in the building's heating and cooling system, the FDNY said. Two people suffered injuries, including one man who was taken away on a stretcher after battling the rooftop fire. Eric Trump ... confirmed the rooftop cooling tower ignited [Mrs. McC: and made a misstatement, which is a requirement for all Trumpentweets]. 'Fire crews are responding to a fire at Trump Tower. There have been no injuries or evacuations, and the President is not currently at Trump Tower,'" Eric Trump tweeted.
Kristen Welker, et al., of NBC News: "Anticipating that Special Counsel Robert Mueller will ask to interview ... Donald Trump, the president's legal team is discussing a range of potential options for the format, including written responses to questions in lieu of a formal sit-down, according to three people familiar with the matter. Lawyers for Trump have been discussing with FBI investigators a possible interview by the special counsel with the president as part of the inquiry into whether Trump's campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.... Trump's legal team has been debating whether it would be possible to simply avoid it.... Justice Department veterans cast doubt on the possibility that Mueller, who served as FBI director for 12 years, would forgo the chance to interview the president directly." The writers note that both Bill (while president) & Hillary Clinton have allowed federal investigators to depose them. Mrs. McC: The feds should put Trump under oath, not so he'll tell the truth but so they'll have another charge against him -- lying under oath to federal investigators, a charge that also would bolster an obstruction indictment. ...
... Jesse Drucker of the New York Times: "... the Kushner Companies' extensive financial ties to Israel continue to deepen, even with [Jared Kushner's] prominent diplomatic role in the Middle East. The arrangement could undermine the ability of the United States to be seen as an independent broker in the region.... Mr. Kushner resigned as chief executive of Kushner Companies when he joined the White House last January. But he remains the beneficiary of a series of trusts that own stakes in Kushner properties and other investments. Those are worth as much as $761 million, according to government ethics filings, and most likely much more.... The Baltimore-area buildings in which Menora [-- an insurer that is one of Israel's largest financial institutions --] invested were the subject of an article by a ProPublica reporter in the The New York Times Magazine last year that documented the poor living conditions and aggressive tactics used by Kushner Companies, including garnishing the bank accounts of low-income tenants and turning off heat and hot water." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: It's kinda hard to reckon why a huge Israeli investment fund would want to traffic in Baltimore slum property -- unless, unless -- Jared!
Chip, Chip, Chipping Away. Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "The Interior Department has approved a land swap deal that will allow a remote Alaskan village to construct a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, according to local officials. The action effectively overrules wilderness protections that have kept the area off limits to vehicles for decades. The land exchange, which has been agreed to but not formally signed, sets in motion a process that would improve King Cove's access to the closest regional airport. The village, with roughly 925 residents, has lobbied federal officials for decades to construct a 12-mile gravel road connecting it to the neighboring town of Cold Bay.... Environmentalists, along with two Democratic administrations, have blocked the road on the grounds that it would bisect a stretch of tundra and lagoons that provide a vital feeding ground for migrating birds as well as habitat for bears, caribou and other species. The refuge was established by President Dwight Eisenhower, and all but 15,000 of its 315,000 acres have been designated as wilderness since 1980. Motorized vehicle access is traditionally prohibited in such areas."
Beyond the Beltway
Matt Arco of NJ.com interviewed Chris Christie during his last days as governor of New Jersey. Among the things Christie said, "He grades himself as a B+ governor (with 'A moments') and thinks people will come to the same conclusion. He says he doesn't care about his bad poll numbers, but blames them on the media -- mostly the New Jersey press and other 'know-nothing voyeurs' -- who he said attacked him mercilessly after Bridgegate with a 'floodgate' of negative stories and attention. He concedes that scandal over closed lanes on the George Washington Bridge changed the course of his administration and political career because he lost 'the benefit of the doubt.' He 'absolutely' believes he'd be president if Donald Trump didn't enter the race." ...
... Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "An acclaimed book about discrimination against African Americans in the criminal justice system has been banned from some prisons in New Jersey, according to newly obtained records. The New Jim Crow, an award-winning book by Michelle Alexander published in 2010, appears on lists of publications that inmates in state correctional facilities may not possess. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which obtained the banned book lists in response to a public records request, called for the ban to be lifted and said it violated the rights of inmates under the first amendment to the US constitution."
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Reader Comments (25)
According to Marty Steinberg over on CNBC: Michael Wolff's 'Fire and Fury': Some of the facts just don't stack up and he includes a transcript from a CNN panel discussion that included Maggie Haberman, Chris Cuomo, et al to prove his points. "fake facts?"
Then I looked at the transcript (excerpt below):
Maggie Haberman on CNN "she said he said"
CAMEROTA: Such as -- I mean do you have any examples?
HABERMAN: So, for instance, I mean he in accurately describes a report in "The New York Times." He inaccurately characterizes a couple of incidents that took place early on in the administration. He gets basic details wrong.
CUOMO: Inaccurately reported that we reported the substance of the dossier.
HABERMAN: Correct. Correct. He inaccurate -- he described in the book Rupert Murdoch's quote, an expletive idiot about Trump. And then in his own column a day later it was expletive moron. So that's --
CAMEROTA: See, that's sloppy.
HABERMAN: Right.
CAMEROTA: The stuff about the CNN dossier, that is public knowledge that CNN didn't publish the dossier.
HABERMAN: Right. Right.
CAMEROTA: He says they did. That's -- that's one -- one fact check away from getting it right.
HABERMAN: Right.
OK, Maggie...agree sloppy editing on Michael Wolff's part...but, exactly how big is the difference between a fucking idiot and a fucking moron? And, true, BuzzFeed first published the dossier, but I believe CNN jumped in close behind on reporting it...who did what first doesn't void the content of the dossier. As I noted in one of my posts last week, "...what continually ticks me off about the MSM is how they still nice-Nelly what was actually said, An earlier version of this report said that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson denied calling President Trump "“a moron.”" He did not directly deny it.
I repeat, Isn't it wonderful how the media is ever so careful to spare our tender sensibilities, they (ahem) skip the fucking adjective that Tillerson used. And, Maggie's paper has done the same.
Is she trying to protect her access to Trump?
"Where's my Roy Cohn?"
DiJiT must have been gratified watching Miller's thumb-wrestling contest with Tapper, thinking "There's my Roy, MY ROY!" as that android nazi kissed DiJiT's ass on cable.
Then Tapper cut his mic, and Miller/Cohn wouldn't leave. Here's the unbroadcast footage.
Stephen Miller resembles Roy Cohn––there's a devious slimy look about them both, although I doubt whether Steve's heart is as corrupt as Roy's but he's still young––only 32, so there's plenty of time to cultivate one. The exchange between Miller and Tapper reminded me of an adult trying to reason with a hot-headed adolescent. When Steverino was in High School he was known for riling up his classmates with controversial statements plus he would tell Latino students to speak English. A guy on his way to save the day. And anyone who would start their career as press secretary to Michele Bachmann certainly got lots of expertise in dem "alternative facts."
For a look at someone who IS worth listening to here is Oprah's excellent and moving speech last night at the Golden Globe ceremony.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/07/movies/oprah-winfrey-golden-globes-speech-transcript.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=photo-spot-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1
@MAG: Totally agree––!
Perhaps Michael Wolff needs to do a bit of mutatis mutandis* thanks to Merriam-Webster's "Word of the Day"
* (which translates literally as "things having been changed that have to be changed")
...And, mea culpa, there'd be my own sloppy writing in my post above where I said: "... includes a transcript from a CNN panel discussion..." when I should've said: "... includes a transcript link from a CNN panel discussion..."
DiJiT's workday actually begins well before 11:00, but that morning work consists of combing and spraying his orange locks, and applying the face makeup. It takes a while, believe me, he can tell you that. A guy's gotta look his best when he's a national figure.
Also: tightening that corset takes some time too, especially when you won't let the valet help.
I know that as we wring our hands in anguish over the still rising fascist-plutocratic world government with all its media, religious, and other quango enablers, and as we enjoy schadenfreude seeing the chaos and general dysfunction brought to D.C. by the callow, socio/psychopathic group in power there, we can easily lose our sense of proportion regarding other current trends. But the important linked story today is that of cutting a new road through the Izembek refuge. That encroachment is just a small reflection of the huge on-going rape and pillage of our base for survival as human population size continues to increase at around 200,000 per day - day after day.
We sneer at climate change deniers, yet turn a blind eye to our own denial of limits to economic growth, access to critical resources, and, most of all, any limit on the ability of humans to manage complex systems.
"quango"
My word of the day. Thanks, OldStone50, and besides that thanks, on the point you make, how right you are!
Continuing population growth all by itself complicates all systems. And as you say, we're not very good at complication.
As it now seems we are stumbling, befuddled and unaware, away from democracy to ??? Democracy is just too hard.
WoPo: 'Trump Tower rooftop fire ‘under control,’ authorities say.'
Small electrical, no big deal, but I did enjoy seeing the smoke coming out of something called Trump.
And OldStone50, excellent post! Climate change is the number one problem facing humanity and now we are the only country on earth ignoring it. And yes, the core of the problem is population.
@Ken Winkes. I hadda look it up. "Quango" is an acronym for "quasi non-governmental organisation" according to Wikipedia.
The question of over-population is, like so many other vital problems, swept aside in the wake of the ongoing clown-show in Washington, where the two biggest goals are making sure the rich and the ultra-rich are made even richer and that the idiot in the White House is protected at all costs. All other questions, including national security, have become second and third rate issues. The problem of over-population, of even discussing it in the US, becomes further complicated because the right-wing (now the absolutist force in government) is inextricably wed to medieval religious beliefs. Talk of controlling the birth rate, especially anything involving birth control and contraceptives (never mind abortion) raises inevitable objections from the mild (they're stealing our freeeeedom!) to the insane (it's all MURDER!).
Oldstone mentions another concern, that of an inability to maintain and manage complex systems. This problem stems in part, at least, from the gathering momentum of anti-intellectualism and suspicion of anything to do with science. Science has always been viewed with great trepidation by the religious minded for whom the work of science is seen as being arrayed against them and their beliefs. In fact, most scientists (at least those I know and have worked with), couldn't give a shit about their beliefs. They're not worried about tearing down religions, they're more concerned with solving problems.
Back around the turn of the century Robert Wright came out with a book ("Nonzero: the logic of human destiny") that seemed, at the time, to offer a useful way of looking at the history of progress by humans. As systems grow more and more complex, he theorized, more cooperation would be required to maintain them. Open systems, groups spread across the planet, and widespread collaboration seemed to be the required prescription for handling and understanding increasing complexity.
Alas, in the Age of Trump, such cooperation has been declared dead on arrival. A dim, barely literate ignoramus like Trump prefers to huddle in the cave and throw rocks at anyone he doesn't know. Plus, his ability to manage complex systems seems limited to the drive-through at McDonalds and changing cable channels with a remote control.
As for quangos (great term-- quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation--there are over a thousand in Britain), I seem to recall that the Decider had a penchant for such groups (the horror of Trump has given cover to the truly awful Bush Debacle). He shoveled taxpayer money hand over fist to religious groups, the infamous, and, I believe, unconstitutional faith-based initiatives. Such efforts invited religious belief systems into government, further demeaning the ability to understand and handle complex systems (if it's not working, that's a message from god).
The whole thing reminds me of a particularly depressing classic sci-fi story by C.M. Kornbluth, "The Marching Morons". The premise is that the wrong people have been propagating (the Trump voters, eg) and the world had been overrun by low IQ morons. A select, much smaller, group of elites were on hand to try to rein in the idiots and keep the railroads running on time, so to speak. The solution was proposed by, of all people, a Reagan era real estate huckster who had been put into suspended animation for hundreds of years. His solution was, basically, genocide. Not exactly trickle down, is it?
Or maybe it is. I guess that's not too complex.
Synapses Burst into Flame!
Funny bit in the Post story about "Executive time!" Great name, in'it? Hey, kids, it's EGG-Zecutive Time! Let's all lounge on the bed, break out the Doritos, and watch imbeciles on TV tell us how hard we're working!
Anyway, Liarby Sanders, doing her job protecting the laziest piece of shit president* we've ever had, sez he's the "hardest working person she's ever seen!"
Well okay! Compared to whom, Sandy? Dad? You mean your huckster, con-man dad? That guy? Your dad who makes money telling diabetics to eat more cinnamon rolls? Ohhh-kaaaay. I guess that explains it.
EGG-ZECUTIVE TIME! Pardon me, kids, I'm off for mine now. Don't call unless the house is on fire. I'll be thinking deep thoughts...with deep thinker Steve Doocy and his pal, Mr. Wisdom, Brian Kilmeade. I can feel my brain expanding already. Stand aside. I don't want anyone to get hurt.
@MAG. I can't speak to Haberman's motives, but she's right to point out that Wolff didn't fact-check easily-verified or -refuted assertions. Other reporters have done the same. (See, especially the Mark Berman part.)
I continually find myself writing something, then fact-checking it only to discover anew I don't have exactly a perfect memory. When I don't bother to fact-check, it shows. As you pointed out yesterday or so, I made a quip about Trump's being "like, smart," but he actually said he was "like, really smart."
We all do that. In your comment, you write, "And, true, BuzzFeed first published the dossier, but I believe CNN jumped in close behind on reporting it." But in fact it was the other way around. CNN reported on the dossier first, but they made an editorial decision not to report on unverified assertions in the dossier. BuzzFeed published the full dossier about an hour later. Your mistake is immaterial, except to CNN's news department, which would like the public to know they were first on the story & way more ethical than BuzzFeed. There's no reason you should remember who published what when, & my own recollection was that the CNN & BuzzFeed stories were published at least a week apart.
But for a book that Wolff must have hoped would have some impact on the public's impression of the president* -- as well as making him richer -- he had a responsibility to correctly identify the news outlet that first published the dossier. He shoulda checked it. He also should have called up Mark Berman & asked him about the Four Seasons breakfast which he falsely claimed Berman attended. (Berman didn't have a hard time remembering where he was at the time of the breakfast: his wife was in the hospital giving birth & Berman was with her.) Wolff bills himself as a "journalist." He's much more like a Fox "News" "journalist" than he is like Haberman & Berman.
I was about to answer that over-population is apparently not a problem for those against birth control and the legal use of abortion, but AK went there much better than I, and also answered the second point about religion-above-all, education-is-for-suckers, so I remain in admiration for AK's tying it all up neatly. Of course, someone taught AK to value writing and self-expression-- how old-fashioned!
Thanks. I had to look it up, too, Bea.
And, Akhilleus, thanks too for "The Marching Morons" reminder. It calls to mind another sf author I've likely mentioned here before: Mack Reynolds, whose fiction often dealt with how we humans organize societies. Reynold came from a socialist background so his imaginings tended to project one of either two scenarios, the first dominated by corporations and their selfish interests, the other devoted to more communitarian principles.
Needless to say, we're not headed toward the latter future.
The nub of it is humans will organize themselves; the question is how, and as Old Stone and others suggest the more social and economic problems we create, the more resource and climate catastrophes we generate for ourselves, the more likely we are to accede to drastic (autocratic) solutions.
From The Dead Horse Dept.
He's, like, the president. Only not so much.
Just wondering about that tweety-thing wherein a Very Stable Genius (more on that in a bit) demanded that everyone recognize that he's really, like, smart.
A while back, a piece by John McWhorter, a linguist and professor of comparative literature at Columbia (and author of a number of compelling books on language), examined the usage of "like". He suggests that, to many, it's use gives off "...an air of the unfinished, of insecurity and even dimness..." All perfectly descriptive of Donaldo.
And I'm not, like, saying that I have never used this construction. Sure. We all have at some time or other. But never in official communications! It's one thing to be sitting around in your living room with a friend watching a game, complaining about a quarterback ignoring a wide open receiver, "The guy is, like, standing in the flat, waving his arms and doing a jig! He never even saw him!" But it's another to be a corporate CEO and offering a report on the previous quarter to stockholders which begins with "We were, like, really kicking it last quarter."
But is he saying that he is "like" a smart person, in other words, not really a smart person, but one who bears a resemblance to a smart person? I'm guessing he doesn't mean that, because he's also, like, a genius.
So, okay, you all get it. He's a fucking idiot. But here's something I find tantalizingly weird. Those commas. I'd have to go back through a few Trumpy tweeties (yeah, like I have that kinda time) to check, but I've not been overly impressed with Trumpy's, like, grammatical abilities. So when I see a tweet of his that's properly punctuated, I have to wonder.
But not for long.
Jesus, what an embarrassment.
As for being a very stable genius. Isn't that, like, a contradiction in terms? I know in my genius days, I was pretty unstable. Geniuses I can think of tend to be operating at such high levels that normalcy, routine stability, is not the most outstanding marker of such achievement.
Just sayin'. I guess he's like a genius, as opposed to, like, a genius.
But not really.
"The [Israeli financing] arrangement could undermine the ability of the United States to be seen as an independent broker in the region."
Can we please just cut the bullshit with the painfully perverse idea that we're somehow "independent brokers" in this dispute? I mean really. Or do we have to keep repeating that sentence in the New York Times to make ourselves feel better?
We lost our thin veneer of "independence" long ago, if it indeed existed, but now we literally have our end of the peace process being led by Kushner, a well-documented financier of the more extremist elements of the Israeli occupation. Unless he's secretely funneling money to Hamas then I'm seriously having trouble seeing any sort of balance in that relationship.
Oops! After reading Marie's comment, I noticed that my point about Trump's tweet was off. I wrote that "he's really, like, smart." Although I wasn't quoting him exactly (ass covering time), he actually tweeted that he's "like, really smart".
Fact checking is an amazing thing. We should all do it, like, more often. Like.
Safari,
Excellent point. We might as well try to get the King of Bongo Bong to oversee negotiations. This is not to say that interested parties can't adopt an impartial tone, but nations do have their priorities. Plus, is there anyone on the Palestinian side who believes a Netanyahu government will sit down and negotiate in good faith?
As for Young Jared, he's toast. He never had a chance. What is his experience negotiating international treaties? Working up some underhanded scheme with a bank to fund a vanity real estate project is not the sort of background I would look for if I were choosing a head negotiator.
Besides, even if he were George Mitchell, or Talleyrand, for that matter, his connection with Russian collusion has destroyed any credibility he may have had (for eight minutes after the inauguration).
Trump may as well look for someone else. Maybe the guy who used to shine his shoes in the Trump Tower lobby.
...and "consensual presidency"?? No...wait. "Enormously consensual presidency". Whoa.
I don't even wanna think about that.
And it wasn't consensual for me, goddamit. I said "NO" and no means NO! So keep your hands to yourself, chubby.
@BeaMcCrab: Who knew fact-checking was so hard! True, Wolff is ultimately responsible, what about the publisher's editor/fact-checker? For this type of book isn't a lawyer usually involved to verify that libel issues won't arise? (...and as commenters, I know better...we, too, have that obligation! and I should have looked back at the dossier timeline), but so far what we've seen re the book hasn't risen to libelous claims.
Wolff claimed confusion over the names arose from his incorrectly naming Mark Berman when he meant Mike Berman. We're still on sloppy.
(Chuck)TODD: “There are a lot of little errors … It adds up. Why shouldn’t a reader be concerned about some of these mistakes?” WOLFF: “I think a reader should read the book. The book speaks for itself.” TODD: “Do you regret some of these errors … It feels as if you didn’t get a copy edit.” WOLFF: “I think I mixed up a Mike Berman and a Mark Berman, for that I apologize. But the book speaks for itself..." (per www.algreen.org)
One more thing, there seems to be a lot of alliterative naming
going on from Sloppy Steve to Supine Steve (the latter, per Jennifer Rubin) and then there is this moniker included with cb155's comment to Aaron Blake's WAPO piece on "EGG-zecutive Time*" (*naming rights attributed to Akhilleus).
cb155 added: "The obsequiousness, ability to tell whoppers with a straight face, and lack of complete shame little toadies like Sarah Sneery-Face have just boggle my mind every day."
Supreme Court sides with Medieval Religious Bigotry
Little Johnny and the Dwarfs (now featuring newest dwarf, Goniff Gorsuch) have refused to hear a case (two, actually) challenging the right of bigots in Mississippi to discriminate against LGBT citizens.
"The court’s refusal to hear the case leaves intact the law, known as H.B. 1523, that says the state government will not take any discriminatory action against persons who don’t believe in same-sex marriage, homosexuality and transgenderism.
LGBT rights groups called the law the 'worst in the nation' and the Supreme Court’s decision a “missed opportunity."
You wanna trot out some bullshit religious belief and wave it around even as you fire a gay employee or deny equal treatment to transgendered residents? Johnny and Dwarfs say "You go, bigots! Up Hatred!"
And this doesn't just inoculate private businesses against hateful bigotry, this protects bigots who work for the government as well, like that county clerk in Kentucky, St. Kim of Redneckia, who refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples, and became a hero to Trump voters.
Expect a lot more of this sort of thing. They're just gettin' started.
I had to look up Robert Wright and Nonzero. The recent movie "Arrival" with Amy Adams, is all about that principal in affairs of our little globe. Thank you.
Fleeting Expletive,
I hadn't considered the core issues of "Arrival" as representative of a world (galactic?) view antithetical to the Trump-Confederate Weltanschauung, but your call on that score is impeccable. I hesitate to review the storyline of "Arrival" for any here who have not seen it (seriously, kids, it's amazing! And Amy Adams is fucking brilliant!
Not to give the store away to those who haven't seen it, but can you think of Trump, or any with the Trump mindset, able to accommodate a picture of the universe (or the US) that includes creatures adept enough to overcome a flamboyant ride of wingers?
I'm in Alabama. The entire bar just booed when fp^6 walked onto the field for the UA/Georgia championship game. Roll tide.