The Commentariat -- October 3, 2017

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "In the frustrated anguish of Puerto Rico, we can see the real-world consequences of Donald Trump's flagrant incompetence. A little more than eight months ago, the United States inaugurated one of its worst people as president, a nasty showbiz huckster whose own staffers speak of him as if he were a malevolent toddler.... Under any president, Hurricane Maria would have been disastrous, but it seems clear that Trump's inattention made the fallout worse.... According to The [Washington] Post, it was only when Trump started seeing Puerto Rico coverage on cable television that a sense of urgency kicked in. Maria should be a lesson: We need a working executive branch. The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services both lack permanent leadership. The State Department has been hollowed out, and Trump undercuts his own secretary of state while threatening war with North Korea. America has largely survived eight months of Trump. That's no guarantee we'll survive eight months more." ...

... Steve Benen: Despite all of Trump's bad behavior, Paul Ryan gave the presidunce a thumbs-up on CBS's "Face the Nation." "His heart's in the right place," Ryan said. Benen: "Reasonable people can debate whether that core goodness exists or not, but the significance of the answer pales in significance to the president's actions." ...

     ... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Here was the question 'FTN' host John Dickerson asked Ryan: "A year ago we talked about race relations in the country and -- and you said you hoped candidate -- then-candidate Trump would be inclusive.... It's been a year now. How would you rate his ability to bring this country together, which has clearly [been] -- an issue[.]" This is apparently the new, popular, euphemistic way "journalists" handle the question of Trump's racism & his other biases. They don't say he's a racist, sexist, etc., bigot, or ask such a question of the interviewee. No, the "issue" isn't racism or whatever; the "issue" is whether or not Trump "can bring the country together." What bull! President Obama couldn't "bring the country together," either, but it surely wasn't because he was a racist or some other "ist." It was because powerful forces were bigots who would not accept him.

... Timothy O'Brien of Bloomberg: "... 'POTUS vs. the media' is ... of note because of the fear that animates the president's attacks.... Trump is waging a war on the press because of the role it plays in recording, sometimes imperfectly, what occurs in real time all around us and during harrowing events, such as those in Puerto Rico. The president is waging a war on the media as part of his war on the public;s collective memory.... Pushed back on his heels by criticism about how quickly he recognized and called attention to the crisis in Puerto Rico, Trump is trying to hide by reshaping any criticism as an attack on first responders and the military.... As Martin Dempsey, a retired U.S. Army general and former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed out on his Twitter feed on Sunday: 'Great leaders are motivated by results not reviews, accomplishments not accolades, humility not hubris.'" ...

... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Dhrumil Mehta of 538: "... compared to the other natural disasters of the past few weeks, Hurricane Maria has been relatively ignored. Data from Media Cloud, a database that collects news published on the internet every day, shows that the devastation in Puerto Rico is getting comparatively little attention. U.S. Top Online News' collection, which looks at 49 top online news sources as of 2015 according to Pew/Comscore. This includes newspapers like The New York Times and digital-native sites like Vox." ...

... Alvin Chang of Vox: "But even with the dismal levels of coverage, there's one particular media outlet that has neglected Puerto Rico more than everyone else -- and it happens to be the most-watched cable news outlet in the country. That is, of course, Fox News.... And it's not just the volume of coverage but also the content. Both CNN and MSNBC spent a lot of time talking about the resource shortages in Puerto Rico -- the lack of fresh water, food, electricity, and gas. This is the kind of coverage that reiterates that Puerto Ricans are both part of the American tribe and facing a dire situation. It's the kind of coverage that humanizes a disaster. But Fox News didn't dwell on this aspect of the story[.]... It focused on what Trump was doing, like waiving the Jones Act, saying there are 'tremendous strides' being made, and, of course tweeting.... There was also a brief focus on how the mainstream media is politicizing Puerto Rico."

Fred Kaplan of Slate: "What to make of President Trump's slap-down of his top diplomat's back-channel overture to North Korea? 'I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,' Trump tweeted early Sunday morning, adding one minute later, 'Save your energy, Rex, we'll do what has to be done!'... We were witnessing the stumbling interaction between a secretary of state who doesn't get diplomacy and a president who doesn't want it.... Normally taciturn to the point of cloistered, he told reporters traveling with him in Beijing on Saturday -- on the record -- that he had 'a couple, three channels' of communication going on with North Korean officials.... Tillerson doesn't seem to realize that the whole point of ... 'back channels' ... is to explore intentions and possibilities out of the limelight away from political pressure.... Tillerson had the right idea. There need to be direct talks.... Too bad that Tillerson doesn't know how to do this sort of thing. And worse still that we have a president who doesn't want to back him up, whether because he;d rather solve the problem militarily or because he really believes that acting 'crazy' will sire a better deal." Mrs. McC: As usual, I like Kaplan's analysis better than my own -- in this case, one I made a few days ago.

Jonathan Chait: "Republicans Angry at Economists for Finding Their Tax Cuts Go to the Rich. Friday, the Tax Policy Center published an analysis of the Republican tax-cut plan, finding that nearly 80 percent of its benefits would accrue to the highest-earning one percent of the public. Asked about these findings, White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney called the center the 'National Tax Center,' erroneously charged that a former economic adviser to Joe Biden works there, and used this imagined fact to discredit its calculations[.]... The [Wall Street] Journal dismisses the Tax Policy Center's findings as 'propaganda,' arguing that the Republican plan is not completely finished." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... How to Manage Inconvenient Facts -- Erase Them & Lie Like Hell. Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: In 2012, Treasury's Office of Tax Analysis "released a paper explaining ... that 82 percent of corporate taxes were borne by capital owners, and 18 percent were borne by labor.... The answers these Treasury staffers produced are not so far from those of most other major nonpartisan tax crunchers, including the Congressional Budget Office, the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Tax Policy Center. The Treasury paper ... [was] generally ignored. Until now. That's because Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has been lately claiming that nearly all of the corporate tax burden is passed on to workers. It's an argument that he has to make if he hopes to sell the administration's tax cuts ... as a helping hand for the Forgotten Man. On Fox News, Mnuchin claimed that 'most economists believe that over 70 percent of corporate taxes are paid for by the workers.' At an event in Kentucky, he declared that 'over 80 percent of business taxes is borne by the worker.'... Tax watchers and interviewers began pointing out that Mnuchin's claims were at odds not only with most credible estimates but also with those of his own staff. Which clearly annoyed Mnuchin. So Treasury took the unusual -- unprecedented? -- step of quietly deleting the inconvenient findings from its website." Rampell suggests that Mnuchin can't get his own lies straight, even in a single conversation. ...

... Paul Krugman: "Last week the Trump administration and its congressional allies working on tax reform ... released a tax plan -- or, actually, a vague sketch of a plan — that manages both to add trillions to the deficit and to raise taxes on a large fraction of the population. That takes talent. But like the G.O.P.'s terrible, no good, very bad health plans, this tax debacle was years in the making. On taxes, as with health, leading Republicans have been lying for years. And now the fraud has caught up with the fraudsters.... Almost 60 percent of households between the 80th and 90th percentiles of the income distribution would face tax increases.... Did I mention that many of those facing tax hikes vote Republican?... In broad outlines, the tax story is a lot like health care. In both cases, Republicans have spent years getting away with big promises backed by lies. Now, with real policy to be made, the lies won't work anymore. And they can't handle the truth."

Ben Lefebvre of Politico: "The Interior Department;s inspector general's office has opened an investigation into Secretary Ryan Zinke's use of taxpayer-funded charter planes, a spokeswoman said Monday.... The secretary has flown on government-owned or -chartered aircraft several times this year, including one $12,000 trip from Las Vegas to an airport near his hometown in Montana and another trip in the Caribbean, as Politico reported last week. The Las Vegas trip has attracted particular scrutiny, because Zinke was appearing at an event affiliated with a major campaign donor that kept him from catching a commercial flight to Montana."

William Wan, et al., of the Washington Post: "Before he opened fire late Sunday -- killing at least 50 people at a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip -- the gunman Stephen Paddock lived a quiet life for years in a small town outside Las Vegas. A retired man, Paddock, 64, would disappear for days at a time, frequenting casinos as a professional gambler with his longtime girlfriend, neighbors said. Relatives also said Paddock had been quietly living out his retirement years, visiting Las Vegas to gamble and take in concerts." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... New Lede: "Before he opened fire late Sunday, killing at least 58 people at a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip, gunman Stephen Paddock was living out his retirement as a high-stakes gambler in a quiet town outside Las Vegas. Paddock, 64, would disappear for days at a time, frequenting casinos with his longtime girlfriend, neighbors said. Relatives also said Paddock had frequently visited Las Vegas to gamble and take in concerts." ...

... Ken Belson, et al., of the New York Times: "The police said they found 23 firearms in [Paddock's hotel] suite. And when they searched the attacker’s house, they discovered an additional 19 firearms and, according to Sheriff Joseph Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, 'some explosives, and several thousand rounds of ammo.' He added that they also found ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer sometimes used in making bombs, in the gunman's car. The sheriff said some rifles found in the hotel room may have been modified to make them fully automatic. Automatic rifles, which fire multiple rounds with a squeeze of a trigger, are highly regulated, and on videos posted online by witnesses, the rapid-fire sound indicated that at least one weapon was fully automatic.... [Paddock] brought in more than 10 suitcases during his stay [at the Mandalay Bay hotel], but no one saw anything amiss, the sheriff said." ...

... Odd. Ed Kilgore: "After expressing shock that his brother, 'just a guy' who liked to go to Vegas and gamble and see some shows and 'eat burritos,' had gone on a murder spree from the window of his room at Mandalay Bay hotel, Eric Paddock disclosed something else about Stephen Paddock's background. '...their father was Patrick Benjamin Paddock, a bank robber who he says was on FBI Most Wanted list.' citing Peter Alexander.].... There was indeed in the late 1960s and early 1970s a bank robber, an escaped federal prisoner, and eventually a fugitive by that name (and others) who made the Most Wanted list. The FBI poster ([pictured in the story]) from 1969 notes that Paddock the Elder had been 'diagnosed as psychopathic, has carried firearms in commission of bank robberies' and 'reportedly has suicidal tendencies and should be considered armed and very dangerous.'... Paddock apparently stayed on the lam until 1978, when he was 'captured in 1978 in Oregon where he was running a bingo parlor.'" Mrs. McC: Several news outlets have confirmed the report. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Trump's Ability to Stiffly Read Scripted Speech Awes CNN. Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "There was nothing glorious about President Trump's short speech Monday morning in reaction to the massacre that unfolded Sunday night in Las Vegas. There was plenty of language that has become grimly standard in situations like this one.... Nor was there anything embarrassing or dismal about the presentation. No big blunders, though the speech had that hollow feel that accompanies scripted presentations from Trump.... On CNN, though, it was a marvel of possibly historic proportions. 'Look, pitch perfect from the president right there,' said John King.... Poppy Harlow said, 'This is the time to bring the country together -- that is exactly, John King, what the president did with those remarks. This is not a time for politics, nor did he inject them at all in those remarks.' Jeff Zeleny said, 'The president clearly, as John said, striking a pitch-perfect tone.' And analyst David Chalian: 'That's everything you would want to hear from a president of the United States, everything that you wanted to hear there. I agree with what John and Jeff were saying -- this was certainly pitch perfect.'... Speeches provide journalists from mainstream organizations a remarkable opportunity to render a positive judgment on a man who is patently unfit to discharge the duties of his office." ...

... John Bresnahan, et al., of Politico: "A controversial bill to loosen restrictions on purchasing gun silencers won't be reaching the House floor anytime soon after a horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas that left at least 59 dead and hundreds more wounded, according to GOP sources. A bill to allow concealed-carry permit holders to take their guns with them to another state could also be affected after the tragedy, the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.... [The silencer] bill, introduced by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), has been approved by the Natural Resources Committee and was expected to be on the House floor soon though it had not yet been scheduled for a vote. Consideration of the bill was postponed earlier this year after Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) was shot in June at a congressional baseball practice." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: And that's what passes for "gun control" in GOP circles: delaying votes on reprehensible bills to loosen gun restrictions for a short period of time following mass shootings perpetrated by white people. I'm sure these bills would have gone sailing thru Congress if the shooters had been called Ahmed & Mohammed. ...

... Former Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), in a New York Times op-ed: "In the wake of one the deadliest mass shooting in our nation's history, perhaps the most asked question by Americans is, 'Will anything change?' The simple answer is no. The more vital question is, 'Why not?' Congress is already doing what it sees as its part. Flags have been lowered, thoughts and prayers tweeted, and sometime this week it will perform the latest episode in the longest-running drama on C-Span: the moment of silence. It's how they responded to other mass shootings in Columbine, Herkimer, Tucson, Santa Monica, Hialeah, Terrell, Alturas, Killeen, Isla Vista, Marysville, Chapel Hill, Tyrone, Waco, Charleston, Chattanooga, Lafayette, Roanoke, Roseburg, Colorado Springs, San Bernardino, Birmingham, Fort Hood and Aurora, at Virginia Tech, the Washington Navy Yard, and the congressional baseball game practice, to name too many.... [After Sandy Hook,] I heard my colleagues turn this into a debate over the rights of gun owners instead of the right to life of children." Read on. Israel describes the craven self-interests of members of Congress, the righty-right-wing NRA & the willingness of "responsible" citizens to vote for members the NRA has captured...." ...

     ... When will Trump lash out against Jimmy Kimmel? ...

... Alan Yuhas of the Guardian: "The lead guitarist of a country music band playing Route 91 Harvest festival, where a gunman murdered 58 people on Sunday night, has said the horrific experience of the attack has changed his views on gun laws in America. 'I've been a proponent of the [second] amendment my entire life,' Caleb Keeter posted on Twitter. 'Until the events of last night. I cannot express how wrong I was.'... But Keeter went further, describing the deadliest shooting in modern US history as a revelation. He said that members of the band's crew have concealed handgun licenses, and legal firearms on the bus. 'They were useless,' he said. 'We couldn't touch them for fear police might think that we were part of the massacre and shoot us. A small group (or one man) laid waste to a city with dedicated, fearless police officers desperately trying to help, because of access to an insane amount of firepower. Enough is enough.... 'We need gun control RIGHT. NOW.... My biggest regret is that I stubbornly didn't realize it until my brothers on the road and myself were threatened by it.'" ...

... Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker: "If the ... [mass murderer] was someone who had, even once, communicated with or been radicalized by ISIS, no matter how remote or long-distance that radicalization, or if he was merely a Muslim from a Muslim country, then a massive act of terrorism would have been committed and a militant response, including travel bans and broad suspensions of rights, would be essential. If it was just one more American 'psycho,' then all we can do is shrug and, as the occupant of the Oval Office put it, send 'warmest condolences and sympathies...' President Trump, deprived from birth by some genetic accident of all natural human empathy ... speaks empathy as a foreign language and makes the kinds of mistakes we all make in a second language that we have barely mastered.... Between the consolidated power of the pro-gun right, and the truth that gun control has slipped down the agenda of even anti-violence liberals, this means that the only American response to regular mass gun killings will be a shrug and faked sympathy." ...

... The Right-Wing Lynch Mob. Abby Ohlheiser of the Washington Post: "Geary Danley was not the gunman in Las Vegas who killed at least 50 people late Sunday. But for hours on the far-right Internet, would-be sleuths scoured Danley's Facebook likes, family photographs and marital history to try to 'prove' that he was. Danley, according to an archived version of a Facebook page bearing that name, might have been married to a Marilou Danley[, the woman who reportedly lived with the actual shooter].... The briefest look at the viral threads and tweets falsely naming Geary Danley as the attacker makes it easy to guess why a bunch of right-wing trolls latched on to him: His Facebook profile indicated that he might be a liberal.... [The far right's] That phony story quickly embedded itself into the algorithms of Google and Facebook, where sites promoting the rumor remained at the top of the results for anyone searching for Danley's name." ...

... Cale Weissman of Fast Company: Facebook & Google algorithms have pushed numerous alt-right conspiracy theories to the top of the "news." The spread of misinformation remains a huge problem for large platforms like Facebook and Google, which rely on algorithms to push the most engaged stories to the top. ...

... Callum Borchers of the Washington Post: Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Wayne Allyn Root "could not wait to weigh in on Sunday's mass shooting in Las Vegas. On Twitter, he jumped to the conclusion that the shooter must be Muslim, before police had identified him.... Several hours later, police identified the gunman as a Nevada man named Stephen Paddock, who Las Vegas police described as a white man. Root, however, was not ready rule out a connection to Islamic terrorism. In fact, he argued that 'liberals' are the ones rushing to judgment by assuming the shooter is not a Muslim.... Root is not alone in spreading the idea that Islamist terrorism was behind the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history on Sunday -- despite the absence of evidence." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Ryan Broderick of BuzzFeed lists 19 hoaxes being spread on the Internet about the Las Vegas mass shooting. Mrs. McC: I'm sure Broderick's report will be quite outdated by the time you read it.

Tom Hamburger, et al., of the Washington Post: "Associates of President Trump and his company have turned over documents to federal investigators that reveal two previously unreported contacts from Russia during the 2016 campaign.... In one case, Trump's personal attorney and a business associate exchanged emails weeks before the Republican National Convention about the lawyer possibly traveling to an economic conference in Russia that would be attended by top Russian financial and government leaders, including President Vladimir Putin, according to people familiar with the correspondence. In the other case, the same Trump attorney, Michael Cohen, received a proposal in late 2015 for a Moscow residential project from a company founded by a billionaire who once served in the upper house of the Russian parliament.... The previously unreported inquiry marks the second proposal for a Trump-branded Moscow project that was delivered to the company during the presidential campaign...." ...

... Mike Isaac & Scott Shane of the New York Times: "The Russians who posed as Americans on Facebook last year tried on quite an array of disguises. There was 'Defend the 2nd,' a Facebook page for gun-rights supporters, festooned with firearms and tough rhetoric. There was a rainbow-hued page for gay rights activists, 'LGBT United.' There was even a Facebook group for animal lovers with memes of adorable puppies that spread across the site with the help of paid ads. Federal investigators and officials at Facebook now believe these groups and their pages were part of a highly coordinated disinformation campaign linked to the Internet Research Agency, a secretive company in St. Petersburg, Russia, known for spreading Kremlin-linked propaganda and fake news across the web. They were described to The New York Times by two people familiar with the social network and its ads who were not authorized to discuss them publicly. Under intensifying pressure from Congress and growing public outcry, Facebook on Monday turned over more than 3,000 of the Russia-linked advertisements from its site over to the Senate and House intelligence committees, as well as the Senate Judiciary Committee." ...

... Elizabeth Dwoskin, et al., of the Washington Post: "Russian operatives set up an array of misleading Web sites and social media pages to identify American voters susceptible to propaganda, then used a powerful Facebook tool to repeatedly send them messages designed to influence their political behavior, say people familiar with the investigation into foreign meddling in the U.S. election. The tactic resembles what American businesses and political campaigns have been doing in recent years to deliver messages to potentially interested people online. The Russians exploited this system by creating English-language sites and Facebook pages that closely mimicked those created by U.S. political activists." ...

... Adam Entous, et al., of the Washington Post: "One of the Russian-bought advertisements that Facebook shared with congressional investigators on Monday featured photographs of an armed black woman 'dry firing' a rifle -- pulling the trigger of the weapon without a bullet in the chamber, according to people familiar with the investigation. Investigators believe the advertisement may have been designed to encourage African American militancy and, at the same time, to stoke fears within white communities.... The apparent tactic underscores how the Russians used U.S.-based technology platforms to target Americans with highly tailored and sometimes-contradictory messages to exploit divisions in American society over the past two years.... The Russian campaign frequently sought to widen existing fractures in American society, while also helping to boost Republican Donald Trump's presidential campaign.... In addition to sharing the ads, Facebook is providing information to lawmakers about which users those ads targeted, the views and clicks the ads received, and the methods of payment used by the Russian operatives, said people familiar with the investigation. The ads were viewed tens of millions of times...."

To Nanny Yulia: Mr. Kushner and I are going on a secret visit to Russia next Tuesday to deliver a top-secret message from Daddy to a friend in the Kremlin Moscow. Best not to tell the kids or your boyfriend Boris. I'm sure we can count on your discretion. Ivanka ...

... E-mails! Javanka, Oh My. Josh Dawsey & Andrea Peterson of Politico: "White House officials have begun examining emails associated with a third and previously unreported email account on Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump's private domain, according to three people familiar with the matter. Hundreds of emails have been sent since January from White House addresses to accounts on the Kushner family domain, these people said. Many of those emails went not to Kushner's or Ivanka Trump's personal addresses but to an account they both had access to and shared with their personal household staff for family scheduling. The emails which include ... some official White House materials -- were in many cases sent from Ivanka Trump, her assistant Bridges Lamar and others who work with the couple in the White House. The emails to the third account were largely sent from White House accounts but occasionally came from other private accounts, one of these people said. The existence of additional accounts ... raises new questions about the extent of personal email use by the couple during their time as White House aides. Their use of private email accounts for White House business also raises concerns about the security of potentially sensitive government documents which have been forwarded to private accounts."

NEW. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on Tuesday in a case that could reshape American democracy. The justices will consider whether extreme partisan gerrymandering -- the drawing of voting districts to give lopsided advantages to the party in power -- violates the Constitution. The Supreme Court has never struck down an election map on the ground that it was drawn to make sure one political party wins an outsize number of seats. The court has, however, left open the possibility that some kinds of political gamesmanship in redistricting may be too extreme."

Typed on my HP Computer:

Capitalism is Awesome, Ctd. Joel Schectman, et al., of Reuters: "Hewlett Packard Enterprise allowed a Russian defense agency to review the inner workings of cyber defense software used by the Pentagon to guard its computer networks, according to Russian regulatory records and interviews with people with direct knowledge of the issue. The HPE system, called ArcSight, serves as a cybersecurity nerve center for much of the U.S. military, alerting analysts when it detects that computer systems may have come under attack. ArcSight is also widely used in the private sector. The Russian review of ArcSight's source code, the closely guarded internal instructions of the software, was part of HPE's effort to win the certification required to sell the product to Russia's public sector, according to the regulatory records seen by Reuters and confirmed by a company spokeswoman." Mrs. McC: Just un-fucking-believable.

Bill Vlasic & Neal Boudette of the New York Times: "In a push to produce cars powered by batteries or fuel cells, General Motors on Monday laid out a strategy to vastly expand the number of electric models in the marketplace. G.M. said it would introduce two new all-electric models within 18 months as part of a broader plan toward what the company says is its ultimate goal of an emissions-free fleet. The two models will be the first of at least 20 new all-electric vehicles that G.M. plans to bring out by 2023. The announcement came a day before a long-scheduled investor presentation by Ford Motor that was also expected to emphasize electric models. After the G.M. news emerged, Ford let loose its own plan, saying it would add 13 electrified models in the next several years."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Raphael Minder of the New York Times: "A day after a referendum on independence for Catalonia that was marred by clashes between supporters and police officers, the Spanish region's leaders were meeting on Monday to determine how to convert the vote into a state free from the rest of the country. Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan leader, said late Sunday that Catalans had won the right to have their own state and that he would soon present the result of the referendum to the regional Parliament to make it binding." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

News Ledes:

Washington Post: "Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne have won the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics. The three are members of the LIGO-Virgo detector collaboration that discovered gravitational waves. The prize was awarded 'for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves,' the committee said in a news release. 'This year's prize is about a discovery that shook the world,' said the Nobel committee representative Göran K. Hansson during a conference in Stockholm on Tuesday. Albert Einstein had predicted that distortions in gravity would ripple through space-time like a shockwave. It took nearly a century to confirm these distortions exist. One half of the prize went to Weiss, born in Berlin and now a U.S. citizen, who is a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The other half was split by Barish, a Nebraska native, and Thorne, who was born in Utah. Both work at the California Institute of Technology."

New York Times: "Tom Petty, a songwriter who melded California rock with a deep, stubborn Southern heritage, died on Monday after suffering cardiac arrest. He was 66 and had lived in Los Angeles." ...

... Petty's Rolling Stone obituary is here.

Comments

[MAG]

The Washington Post has a striking graphic for "Has your U.S. Congress person received donations from the NRA?"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/nra-donations/

Provides names and amounts from the NRA. Any surprise that almost every congress person mentioned is Republican?

[PD Pepe]

It's hard now to type with bleary eyes––as Marie said some days ago–-I am so pissed I can't stop crying. Having just watched Jimmy Kimbel's strong messages, especially the fact that those congress critters that vote against any kind of gun laws have "the NRA balls in their money clip," I wonder whether we could have a bill put forward that makes taking money from the NRA a felony. Wouldn't that be a shot in the old cowboy sensibility of America's love of shoot -em- up feel- like- a gunslinger mentality.

And these prayers are like thin sheets of paper that float about as long as the wind allows and then disappear.. Over and over we repeat the same comforting words and yet refuse to do anything in order not to have to keep saying them.

[Marvin Schwalb]

It's time to start using the right word. The NRA doesn't 'donate' to politicians. They BRIBE!

[Akhilleus]

The Taj Mahal it Ain't

Doncha just love Confederate con artists? You catch them with a hand in your pocket, you call them on it, and they try to tell you they were just about to GIVE you some money.

So, double asshole Mick Mulvaney, the "budget" guy who knows so much about disaster responses, a 'bagger and founding member of the Freeeeedom Cock-us, is crying about depictions of the Confederate tax "overhaul" (once, again, it's nothing of the kind; it's a giveaway to the rich and a helpmeet to corporate giants everywhere) that point out that this "plan" is, well, a giveaway to the rich and a helpmeet to corporate giants everywhere.

"But...but...unfair, unfair!! Wahhh, our plan isn't finished yet. It'll look a LOT different when we're done!"

No it won't.

And trying to claim that even a cursory glance at these "plans" can't give the viewer any idea of what the final product will look like is just another con to gull the rubes.

Look at it this way. I show you a rudimentary plan for my upcoming building project. It's pretty basic, but it has a square base and four sides, all triangular, coming together at a single point on top of the structure. You say, "Hey man, you're building a pyramid." I, channeling my inner Mick Mulvaney, stamp my feet and shout "My plans aren't finished. When I'm done, it will look like the Taj Mahal!" You say "Dude. You're high. This is a fucking pyramid." I can paint it glow in the dark orange, put gang signs all over it, LEDs that can be seen from space, and a big sign out front that says "Taj Mahal". It's still gonna be a pyramid.

It's a giveaway to the rich. No amount of jiggering the "plans" at this point, short of tossing them into the nearest dumpster, will have a different end result. I mean, look at the architect. Has the little king ever missed a chance to grift for himself?

It ain't no Taj Mahal. It's the Great Pyramid of King Trumpy. And boy, have I got just the sarcophagus for him! Loads of fake gold...gaudy, glitzy, pretentious, just screaming of vulgar, nouveau riche-style insecurity...he'll love it. But, um. It might be too small. "Boys, go get me the XXL sarcophagus. We got a fat one."

[Akhilleus]

Lyin' Ryan says that Trump's heart is "in the right place". By which, I'm sure, he means somewhere in the chest cavity as opposed to behind the kneecap.

Any alternative understanding, metaphorical or otherwise, would be purely the bunk.

Just another example of what a cowardly, sycophantic quisling Ryan is. There are no leaders among Confederates, only opportunistic, mewling slugs.

Question: Why does Paul Ryan keep a handful of jello in his wallet?

Answer: For purposes of identification.

[Akhilleus]

I see where Pat Robertson (yeah, I thought he was dead too) is running around yelping that the Las Vegas mass murder is god's doing. Why? Well, according to ol' Pat, god is going to keep sending horrible shit our way until we're all "Biblical". Hey! Great idea. Is this the latest in sales pitches? Beating the crap out of people until they buy your shit? Over the last few years we've heard that murder, chaos, hatred, 9/11, wars, AIDS, death, disease, and destruction, are all coming from god to let us know, what? How much he loves us? To convince us to worship him?

See, this is a problem I have with organized religion. When you tell me that I better do X,Y, or Z or else god is gonna visit death and destruction upon my house, my response is this: I'm not perfect, but I'm also not an axe murderer. I think I'm a pretty decent guy. I don't disrespect others, I don't lie about them, I don't try to stick it to others to improve my lot in life. I try to help others wherever I can and I'm kind to animals and small children. In other words, I'm not Trump. BUT, according to the Bibleists, I'm going to hell anyway. Because.

Really? Is that your selling point? Do what you tell me or else eternal damnation? And before that, a life of pain and misery with horrible shit set on fire and shoved up my ass?

Well fuck that for a game of soldiers.

All the misery in life is sent by god to punish us for not doing what he says? What about all the so-called good people who get fucked along side the rest of us sinners?

That's some god you got there, guys. Nice job. Could I see one in a less, shall we say, hateful and vengeance filled color, please? Thanks.

(Oh, and I'm not gonna link this Pat Robertson thing because fuck him. I still think he's really dead. This is someone pretending to Pat Robertson. Some OTHER asshole.)

I'll close with a line from Randy Newman's "That's Why I Love Mankind" Oh, and Pat? This came for you while you were out.

"I burn down your cities-how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
You all must be crazy to put your faith in me
That's why I love mankind
You really need me
That's why I love mankind"

Y'all have a blessed day now. Hear?

[Akhilleus]

Childe Donald in Puerto Rico

Idiot in Chief is finally in Puerto Rico. And what are his takeaway messages for these American citizens?

First,

Be glad more aren't dead. Katrina killed a ton of people. You guys got off easy.

Second,

By the way, you're fucking up my budget. Moochers.

I'm not making this up, kids.

He really said "I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you’ve thrown our budget a little out of whack.

They did? What about Texas and Florida? Nope, the Puerto Ricans are the budget busters. Yeah, yeah, I know. He's trying to be funny. But Trump isn't a funny guy. He's the kind of guy who, when he makes a joke, uses it as a way of saying what he really thinks. How many times now have we had Trumpy loyalists come to his defense after a stupid or insulting comment or tweet to try to blow off any criticism by saying "Chill! It's just a joke. You liberals have no sense of humor!"

Oh, we got a sense of humor. The joke is your president*. And it's on us.

And that bullshit about how Katrina was a lot worse is him saying "Real Americans suffered greatly. But you? You brown people got off with a scratch, so quit your complaining. Sixteen dead? What's the big deal?" Death tolls matter, but so do people who cling to life because of support and aid that comes too little too late, sent by an incompetent clown who then pats himself on the back for an "A-Plus Job!" while making backhanded jokes about the people still down in the hole.

Prick.

[MAG]

A few days back I posted that if and when Trump finally went to Puerto Rico that I doubted whether he would get further than the airport in San Juan.

Just finished reading several of the reports of what he said (and came here to find Ak already on it), the stupid f**king presidunce* is so totally tone deaf, his unscripted and inappropriate remarks almost seem to lose their shock value as it is one inanity after another on every issue or topic.

Prick. Despicable prick.

[Akhilleus]

Kooky Action at a Distance (apologies to Albert Einstein)

The Supremes are back at it, this time with even more Confederate Scouring Power. The docket is stacked with potentially history making cases. The actions of the SCOTUS don't always affect each and every American equally or at the same time, but, like the quantum concept of entanglement (physical entities such as particles which can exert an influence on each other at great distances), the decisions of the court push and pull on American particles (citizens and the basic idea of what America is, or should be) in ways that are immediate and, in most cases, long lasting.

As the court now has a clear Confederate majority (with Kennedy operating in a true quantum state, now here, now there), the action at at distance is about to get even kookier. New quantum particle, Gorsuch, will, I predict (not a tough one), have no ambivalence about how he is to affect all those other American particles. His job, and it's been clear as a shallow limpid pool at noon since his lying and shucking and jiving during his confirmation what that job is, is to bring back wins for his side. Justice is a moot point. The only justice, as the right sees it, is that they win. Period.

Gorsuch already acts as if he's been on the court for decades and he has no problem trumpeting his partisanship (his smirking victory lap with Turtle Man in Kentucky last week), even sniffing today that the federal guv'mint should just let states do their thing (this during questioning about the Wisconsin gerrymandering scandal).

But of COURSE they should! Whoever would think that the Supreme Court should intervene where democracy itself was being shanked? Oh, as long as it's the Confederates doing the shanking.

Of all the atrocities perpetrated by the little king, this stacking of the court with this partisan particle could be the most devastating to democracy and the idea of America.

Physics has laws. The laws of Quantum Physics are still being discovered. Confederates have laws too. They win. You lose. And Gorsuch knows that law very well.

[Victoria]

As I watched on MSNBC, I couldn't have the volume up, because I knew I wouldn't be able to tolerate el presidente*s comments. Did anybody notice that t-Rump had a hoodie rain jacket on? I noted, both inside and outside, he was in comfortable clean surroundings, and nobody looked distressed, sweaty, dirty - or very brown either. Our CIC is a pusillanimous anus; he didn't move from the immediate surroundings of the landing zone.

[Akhilleus]

One other amazing claim made by Racist in Chief. He complained that he spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico (budget busting brown people) but that he "saved a lot of lives".

I want to know how someone who ignored a humanitarian crisis--while he played golf--then stayed silent for almost a week, gets to trumpet his superior humanity by claiming that we "saved a lot of lives". It doesn't matter that he employed the first person plural pronoun. For Trump, "we" means "me". There is no "we" in Trump.

If the planet were on track for total annihilation tomorrow, Trump would go on TV right to the end to declare that no one--NO ONE-- had done more than he had to save the world or make it great again. This, rather than actually doing anything to save it.

"The governor is not even from my party and he was tremendously supportive"...Hey, I don't give a shit about anyone outside of San Juan, even if they're starving or dying or out of fuel and food, because it's all about me ME ME ME ME ME! The Donald! I save lives, I'm great, so great! And everyone is so complimentary to me! They're NOT EVEN IN MY PARTY!!!!!!!!!! And they LOOOOOOVE ME!

We're only 8 months into this horror show but it's already gone far beyond what can be tolerated. He's not an embarrassment, he's not even a disgrace anymore. He's far beyond a disgrace. A disgrace is someone like Paul Ryan. Little King Trumpy is an infernal disgrace. There is a crippling, simple minded, stupefied depravity to the whole doltish, narcissistic tableau. A gainsaying of decency, a spitting upon of virtue and civil discourse, a decapitation of moral behavior, replacing them with a perversity, a form of vicious, self-serving pap. It's a kind of Walpurgisnacht of counterfeit Confederate pomp.

I Saved lives!!!

[Akhilleus]

The Ethics President

Sorry, but the bullshit never ends with the little king.

Participants of the Trump Debacle, in this case Nikki Haley, she who has been yelling about how there can be no more diplomatic solutions to North Korea, opining that we might just have to nuke the whole fucking place, have been coming out in favor of Confederates up for election. Now this might be expected if she were some podunk pol, but she's King Trumpy's UN ambassador. Diplomacy is supposed to be her metier. But no, it's as if you had an oncologist suggesting that cancer treatments don't work so screw it; if you got 'em, smoke 'em.

But Trump Administration failures go far beyond ideological abetment. Haley is in the business of shilling for an SC confederate running for congress. This is a violation of the Hatch Act, which is "...An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, is a United States federal law whose main provision prohibits employees in the executive branch of the federal government, except the president, vice-president, and certain designated high-level officials of that branch,[1] from engaging in some forms of political activity."

Which means, Haley does NOT get to shill for one of her ideological, political, partisan pals. End of story: Pernicious Political Activity.

But this is Trump Territory. Nothing is off limits for these fuckers.

The Office of Special Counsel has had to reprimand three Trump courtiers in just the last few months for shilling for members of their own party, activity that is stupendously illegal.

"'One is unfortunate, two is a coincidence, but three in less than a year is a pattern,' [Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics Executive Director Noah] Bookbinder said in a statement on Tuesday. 'This all stems from the President's permissive attitude toward ethics; the tone is set at the top.'"

Jesus. You got that right.

[MAG]

Just when you think Trump might run low on stoopid, he's there with more un-f**king unpresiduncial behavior. Latest example: The paper towel toss in Puerto Rico!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-helps-suffering-puerto-ricans-by-throwing-paper-towels-at-them_us_59d3db64e4b0218923e5b4f