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
Monday
Sep102018
The Commentariat -- September 11, 2018
New Hampshire's primary is today. Sydney Ember of the New York Times reports on the top races.
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Sharon Otterman of the New York Times: "The family members and loved ones of the victims of the Sept. 11 terror attacks gathered under misty skies at the World Trade Center site on Tuesday to honor and remember the legacies of those lost by reading their names aloud in a somber ritual repeated each year in New York on the anniversary of the attacks." ...
... MEANWHILE, WTF is wrong with this man?
Donald & Melania Trump arriving in Pennsylvania for ceremony to honor the Shanksville heroes of 9/11.... Tierney McAfee of People: "Donald Trump is facing widespread social media backlash after he was pictured greeting supporters with a triumphant double fist pump as he arrived to a 9/11 memorial service on Tuesday, the 17th anniversary of the terror attacks.... 'We have found nothing to show collusion between President Trump & Russia, absolutely zero, but every day we get more documentation showing collusion between the FBI & DOJ, the Hillary campaign, foreign spies & Russians, incredible,' [Trump tweeted this morning.]... As more than one Twitter critic noted, Trump first marked Tuesday's 9/11 anniversary 'with an angry morning tweet about Russia and Hillary Clinton.'" ...
... Update: See Akhilleus's commentary below on how Trump behaved in the days following September 11, 2001.
Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "As politicians and others went on Twitter on Tuesday morning to mark the 17th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President Trump used the platform to launch a fresh round of assaults on the FBI and Justice Department. Trump -- apparently seizing on allegations leveled the night before by one of his conservative allies in Congress -- referred in particular two former FBI officials who have become infamous for trading anti-Trump texts: Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. The president repeated a claim from Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) that the pair employed a 'media leak strategy' to undermine his administration.... The claim from Meadows is debatable; Strzok's attorney said his client's reference to a 'media leak strategy' was an effort to stem unauthorized disclosures of information. Both Strzok and Page have left the FBI, Strzok because he was fired over his anti-Trump texts. 'New Strzok-Page texts reveal "Media Leak Strategy." @FoxNews So terrible, and NOTHING is being done at DOJ or FBI - but the world is watching, and they get it completely,' Trump wrote."
*****
Erin Durkin of the Guardian: "As people who lost loved ones in the [9/11] attack on lower Manhattan will gather on Tuesday once again to mark the anniversary, on the site of the towers, New York is nearing a grim milestone: 10,000 people diagnosed with cancer linked to September 11, 2001.... In all, more than 43,000 people have been certified with a September 11-related health condition.... Survivors are speaking out to encourage others to sign up for the health program and get checked. Anyone who lived, worked or went to school near the site and develops a related illness is eligible for health care and possible compensation under the ;Zadroga Act." --safari
Ignoramus-in-Chief. Pilar Menendez of The Daily Beast: "In what now seems like a daily occurrence, Donald Trump woke up Monday morning and fired off 16 bizarre tweets, including several misleading or false claims about the economy -- one of which was so patently false that both Fox News and Trump's own top economic adviser had to publicly correct the president. 'The GDP Rate (4.2%) is higher than the Unemployment Rate (3.9%) for the first time in over 100 years!,' Trump wrote at 6:03 a.m. [The truth is 10 years, not 100].... The president's claim that the U.S. gross domestic product is higher than the unemployment rate for the first time in over a century is, however, incorrect....In fact -- though comparing unrelated economic measurements is already odd -- this has happened several times since 1948, according to several economists and the Fox News research team...[I]n the 70 years since the U.S. Labor Department started publishing monthly unemployment statistics, the growth rate has been higher than the jobless level more than 20 percent of the time." --safari ...
... The News from Professor
PlumpTrump, Economic Historian:The GDP Rate (4.2%) is higher than the Unemployment Rate (3.9%) for the first time in over 100 years! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet yesterday
False. It has happened in 185 months since 1948, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. -- Linda Qiu, New York Times
Hahahahaha. Emily Goldberg of Politico: "... Donald Trump promised Monday that he would 'write the real book' to set the record straight on his administration, once again lashing out against veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward, whose incendiary book about the Trump White House will be released this week. 'The Woodward book is a Joke -- just another assault against me, in a barrage of assaults, using now disproven unnamed and anonymous sources. Many have already come forward to say the quotes by them, like the book, are fiction,' Trump tweeted on Monday morning. 'Dems can't stand losing. I'll write the real book!' Trump added on Twitter, 'The White House is a "smooth running machine." We are making some of the biggest and most important deals in our country's history -- with many more to come! The Dems are going crazy!'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: As Colbert says to Trump, "That a bold statement, considering that you didn't even write your own fake book."
... Annie Karni of Politico: "... Donald Trump has called journalist Bob Woodward’s book on his administration a work of 'fiction' and a 'scam,' claiming that quotes in the book are 'made up' and that the author is a 'liar.' At the same time..., he is livid at his former economic adviser, Gary Cohn, and his former staff secretary, Rob Porter, for 'leaking' to Woodward. It's difficult to rationally argue that the book could be both: fiction dreamed up by Woodward, and a betrayal by former top stewards of the administration...."
Courtney Cube & Carol Lee of NBC News: "As ... Donald Trump issues a steady stream of praise for Kim Jong Un in interviews and on Twitter, a steady stream of evidence that North Korea is still making nuclear weapons has pushed his administration to take a much more aggressive stance toward Pyongyang. The newest intelligence shows Kim's regime has escalated efforts to conceal its nuclear activity, according to three senior U.S. officials. During the three months since the historic Singapore summit and Trump's proclamation that North Korea intends to denuclearize, North Korea has built structures to obscure the entrance to at least one warhead storage facility, according to the officials." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yes But. As we learned last week, Trump needs Kim as a character witness.
Trump's Giant Fart. Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Trump administration, taking its third major step this year to roll back federal efforts to fight climate change, is preparing to make it significantly easier for energy companies to release methane into the atmosphere. Methane, which is among the most powerful greenhouse gases, routinely leaks from oil and gas wells, and energy companies have long said that the rules requiring them to test for emissions were costly and burdensome. The Environmental Protection Agency, perhaps as soon as this week, plans to make public a proposal to weaken an Obama-era requirement that companies monitor and repair methane leaks, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times." ...
... Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "Under President Donald Trump, the staff of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has shrunk to levels not seen since the Reagan administration. But if Trump has his way, pollution levels will rise to Reagan-era levels too. Not only is the president seeking to roll back or terminate countless clean air and clean water rules, but he wants to make sure that the laws we do have in place are not enforced. Since Trump took office, some 1,600 workers have left the EPA.... EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance has shrunk a stunning 15.7 percent in the past 18 months -- nearly one in six workers have left.... As one recently retired 34-year EPA veteran described the current regime, 'These people are like termites, gnawing at the foundation.'" --safari ...
... MEANWHILE. Paul Rogers & Katy Murphy of the (San Jose) Mercury News: "In a major environmental milestone, Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday signed a law requiring California to obtain 100 percent of its electricity from clean sources such as solar, wind and hydropower by 2045. The new law keeps California at the forefront of addressing climate change and essentially commits the world's fifth-largest economy with 40 million people to a phase-out of fossil fuels from power plants. It also requires that 50 percent of the state's electricity come from renewable energy by 2026 and 60 percent by 2030, up from the current level of 32 percent. At a ceremony in the state Capitol, Brown signed SB 100, by State Sen. Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles. The new law gives California the most far-reaching clean energy goals of any U.S. state, along with Hawaii, which set a similar target in 2015 of 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2045." ...
... AND. Somini Sengupta of the New York Times: "Warning of the risks of 'runaway' global warming, the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, on Monday called on global leaders to rein in climate change faster. 'If we do not change course by 2020, we risk missing the point where we can avoid runaway climate change,' Mr. Guterres said at United Nations headquarters in New York. 'Climate change is the defining issue of our time, and we are at a defining moment,' he said.... His remarks came with countries around the world far short of meeting the goals they set for themselves under the 2015 Paris accord to reduce the emissions that have warmed the planet over the last century. The next round of climate negotiations is scheduled for this year in Poland."
Mark Landler of the New York Times: "The Trump administration threatened the International Criminal Court with sanctions if it pursued an investigation of American troops in Afghanistan, opening a harsh new attack on an old nemesis of many on the political right. 'The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court,' President Trump's national security adviser, John R. Bolton, said in a speech on Monday in Washington.... Mr. Bolton also announced that the United States would shut down the Palestine Liberation Organization's office in Washington -- a decision linked to the International Criminal Court, which he said was being prodded by the Palestinians to investigate Israel." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Reuters: "The international criminal court has said that it will 'continue to do its work undeterred', a day after US national security adviser, John Bolton, threatened sanctions if the tribunal investigated US activities in Afghanistan. The Hague-based court said in a statement it was an independent and impartial institution with the backing of 123 countries.... ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said last year there was a 'reasonable basis to believe' war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed in Afghanistan and that all sides in the conflict would be examined, including members of the US armed forces and Central Intelligence Agency." --safari
** Josh Lederman, et al., of NBC News: U.S. "Intelligence agencies investigating mysterious 'attacks' that led to brain injuries in U.S. personnel in Cuba and China consider Russia to be the main suspect, three U.S. officials and two others briefed on the investigation tell NBC News. The suspicion that Russia is likely behind the alleged attacks is backed up by evidence from communications intercepts, known in the spy world as signals intelligence, amassed during a lengthy and ongoing investigation involving the FBI, the CIA and other U.S. agencies. The officials declined to elaborate on the nature of the intelligence. The evidence is not yet conclusive enough, however, for the U.S. to formally assign blame to Moscow for incidents that started in late 2016 and have continued in 2018, causing a major rupture in U.S.-Cuba relations." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yeah, well, Donald can just call his BFF Vlad & ask him about that.
Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Monday blasted U.S. prosecutors and defense attorneys during a hearing in which the defense sought to have a Russian woman freed on bail pending trial on charges she was a foreign agent attempting to infiltrate the National Rifle Association and other American conservative groups. In ordering continued detention for Maria Butina, 29, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan said Butina remained a serious flight risk. Chutkan also imposed a gag order after slamming prosecutors for their mistaken claim in court filings that Butina traded sex for access, and her defense for repeated public statements that the judge said could bias potential jurors." ...
... It's Not about the Sex. Vera Bergengruen of BuzzFeed News: "A tantalizing sentence inserted into the case against Maria Butina proved irresistible for journalists and lawyers alike. Although it was just an aside in a sweeping case alleging that the 29-year-old Russian worked to curry favor with American conservatives, the claim that she had offered sex for a job dominated much of the news coverage about her for weeks. So did the Justice Department's two-line acknowledgment in a 22-page late-night filing Friday that the allegation was false. But the breathless coverage of a sexual-proposition-that-wasn't missed many new details that the court filing reveals about a calculated five-year effort to make inroads with prominent Republicans through gun rights and religion, including the assertion that Butina and her American partner, GOP operative Paul Erickson, saw the scrutiny brought on by hacking of the Democratic National Committee's computer system as undoing a years-long influence campaign." ...
... Tim Dickenson of Rolling Stone: "In a federal court filing, prosecutors allege that [Maria] Butina has offered to flip on [Paul] Erickson -- who is also identified as 'Person 1' in case documents. 'Although the defense contends that the defendant is in a committed relationship with Person 1,' the feds write, 'she recently offered to provide information to the government about his illegal activities.'"
Cristian Farias of New York puts the Papadopoulos flop in perspective. Observers thought he was the key to unlocking a great criminal conspiracy. But the Mueller team saw early on that Papadopoulos was just a petty liar with grand ambitions. Now he's off to Hollywood to shop his life story or something.
** Hamed Aleaziz of BuzzFeed News: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday warned incoming immigration judges ... against allowing sympathy for the people appearing before them, which might cause them to make decisions contrary to what the law requires. 'When we depart from the law and create nebulous legal standards out of a sense of sympathy for the personal circumstances of a respondent in our immigration courts, we do violence to the rule of law and constitutional fabric that bind this great nation. Your job is to apply the law -- even in tough cases, he said. The comments immediately drew criticism from the union that represents the judges and from former judges.... Sessions also told the judges that they should focus on maximum production and urged them to get 'imaginative and inventive' with their high caseload. The courts currently have a backlog of hundreds of thousands of deportation cases." ...
... Andrew Gumbel of the Guardian: "The childhood rabbi to Stephen Miller, special adviser to Donald Trump and a key architect of his 'zero-tolerance' immigration policies, criticized his former charge on Monday as a purveyor of 'negativity, violence, malice and brutality' who had learned nothing from his Jewish spiritual education. Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels of Beth Shir Shalom, a progressive reform synagogue in the beachside city of Santa Monica where Miller grew up, devoted his sermon marking the Jewish New Year to a striking denunciation of Miller and the now-abandoned policy he championed of separating immigrant families at the border."
Eric Levitz: "Susan Collins won election to the Senate by running as a pro-choice Republican who would put Mainers, and ideological moderation, above her party and its orthodoxy.... And yet, Susan Collins has signaled that she's happy to make her constituents look stupid by (once again) playing Mitch McConnell's useful idiot.... In mid-August, liberal activists started a crowdfunding campaign that aimed to raise $500,000 for Collins's Democratic challenger in 2020 -- a sum that it pledged to return to donors if the incumbent Republican votes 'no' on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination. As of this writing, that campaign has raised more than $878,000." ...
... Michael Tomasky of The Daily Beast: "Brett Kavanaugh lied. The best estimate is that he lied five times.... Senator Pat Leahy, usually a man of rhetorical restraint, tweeted: 'Untruthful testimony, under oath and on the record.'... With respect to judicial fights, the Republican Party is intent on accomplishing two goals. The first is stacking the Court -- actually all federal courts -- with hard-right originalists. The second is getting them on the bench in as belligerent and aggressive a way as possible.... The Trump administration had loads of people to choose from who weren't involved in making torture policy and didn't read pilfered papers and then mislead the Senate about it under oath 14 years ago. But they said fuck it. This is our man, and to boot, we're going to short-circuit the process[.]" --safari ...
... Michelle Goldberg: "Garza v. Hargan was the only major abortion-rights case Kavanaugh ever ruled on. ... Even on a lower court, Kavanaugh put arbitrary obstacles in the way of someone desperate to end her pregnancy. Thanks to Trump, he may soon be in a position to do the same to millions of others.... We shouldn't expect a Trump nominee, however personally decent his friends say he is, to care about women's wishes." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: What restricting or overturning Roe v. Wade will do is further divide the country into blue states that respect women & red states that do not. For women living in red states, the divide between rich & poor will be further exaggerated: traveling to a blue state for an abortion will be an inconvenience for upper-middle-class women & their families; it may be a near-impossibility for poor women. Republican men understand this: they will make sure their wives & daughters have access to abortion & other reproductive needs, but they don't care about other women. This is, as they say, every man for himself. ...
... Mark Stern of Slate: "Brett Kavanaugh hasn't even been confirmed to the Supreme Court, and lower-court judges have already declared war on Roe v. Wade. On Monday morning, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an astonishing decision upholding a law that’s virtually identical to an anti-abortion measure the Supreme Court struck down in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. The three-judge panel, composed entirely of Republican appointees (including a Trump judge), essentially defied the Supreme Court in allowing Missouri to saddle abortion clinics with pointless regulations designed to guarantee their closure. It's a preview of how the courts will overturn Roe &'' swiftly, ruthlessly, and dishonestly -- once Kavanaugh is confirmed."
"Capitalism is Awesome", Ctd. Kelly Weill of The Daily Beast: "Jeff Bezos's tech giant is the second U.S. company to be worth thirteen-digits on the stock market, following Apple, which hit $1 trillion in August. That's all well and good for Bezos, whose net worth exceeds $150 billion. But workers at the growing network of Amazon-owned companies say they aren't seeing the money and Senator Bernie Sanders rolled out a new bill that would penalize Amazon for leaving workers dependent on public assistance.... [T]he Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act (Stop BEZOS Act) ... would penalize large employers for every dollar of public assistance their workers receive. Sanders, who drafted the bill after polling Amazon employees on their pay and work conditions, said the legislation could save the U.S. $150 billion annually." --safari
Election 2018
** Conservative Men's Nightmare. Elena Schneider of Politico: "A flood of women, minorities and first-time candidates is poised to radically alter the composition of Congress next year after winning Democratic primaries in record numbers in 2018. White men are in the minority in the House Democratic candidate pool, a Politico analysis shows. Democrats have nominated a whopping 180 female candidates in House primaries -- shattering the party's previous record of 120, according to Rutgers' Center for American Women and Politics. Heading into the final primaries of 2018 this week, Democrats have also nominated at least 133 people of color and 158 first-time candidates to run for the House.... Their success in primaries could herald a major shift in Congress, which is majority-white, majority-male and still mostly made up of former state legislators who climbed the political ladder to Washington. And the candidates could also mark the beginning of a new era for the rebuilding Democratic Party, which is counting on new types of candidates to take back the House." --safari ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Now even Democratic party leaders are starting to look a lot like America, where white men have always been the minority.
One of Republicans' favorite voter suppression mechanisms:
Senate Race. How perceptions of health insurance have changed:
Goobernatorial Races
Florida. Mrs. McCrabbie: I could have done this myself, but not as well as Akhilleus did, so I'm going with his take: "Florida goobernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis has announced that he is stepping down from his do-nothing job in the Confederate House so that he might have more time for some high quality -- and quantity -- racist tweeting." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Wisconsin. Natasha Korecki of Politico: "There's every reason to believe this is the beginning of the end for Scott Walker.... The signs that Walker is ripe to be taken down are everywhere. His opponent, Schools Superintendent Tony Evers, has a slight lead in recent polls and there's evidence that critical suburban voters are shifting leftward. Three former Walker aides have even turned on the governor, with two cutting ads for Evers.... A career educator, Evers presents a crisp contrast with Walker, who's held elected office for more than two decades. Democrats have seized on a 'Walker fatigue' message that blames him for a teacher shortage, deteriorating roads ('Scottholes' as one group calls them) and rising health care costs." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Way Beyond the Beltway
Karen McVeigh of the Guardian: "Starvation being used as a weapon of war has become the new normal, according to Save the Children. Its analysis shows more than half a million infants in conflict zones could die of malnutrition by the end of the year if they do not receive treatment, the equivalent of one every minute. The charity makes its own estimates using UN data, and projects that 4.5 million under-fives will need treatment for life-threatening hunger this year in the most dangerous conflict zones -- an increase of 20% since 2016. At current rates, only one in three will receive treatment, and 590,000 could die as a result." --safari
Alice Speri of The Intercept: "In his riveting book, 'The Good Mothers: The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World's Most Powerful Mafia,' journalist Alex Perry explores the tragedy ... of four women who turned against their own families and stood up to the [Italian] ’Ndrangheta [mafia clan].... Perry makes an urgent case that the group's meteoric journey to the vortex of global crime -- it controls nearly three-quarters of Europe's cocaine traffic, launders money on behalf of a host of other criminal groups, and sells weapons to multiple actors in the Syrian conflict -- transpired before our eyes. He argues that modern organized crime is an often-ignored but ballooning threat[.]" --safari
Justin McCurry & Graham Readfearn of the Guardian: "Japan has launched a controversial bid to end the ban on commercial whaling, claiming that populations of certain types of whale have recovered sufficiently to allow the resumption of 'sustainable' hunting.... Although Japan is not expected to secure the votes it needs to reform the IWC [International Whaling Commission]'s decision-making rules, conservation groups warned against complacency.... It wasn't immediately clear when IWC members would vote on Japan's proposal. Waiting until Friday, when the meeting ends, would give dozens of Japanese officials in Florianópolis more time to lobby other delegations -- a tactic they have used in the past to frustrate measures to protect other marine species." --safari
The Guardian: "Saudi authorities have arrested an Egyptian hotel worker who appeared in what officials described as an 'offensive' video eating breakfast with a female co-worker.... The point that has prompted the most anger is at the end of the 30-second video when the woman appears to feed the man.... The backlash underscores the challenges facing the prince as he seeks to modernise a country steeped in conservatism. In April, Saudi sports authorities shut down a female fitness centre in Riyadh over a contentious promotional video that appeared to show a woman in tight gym clothes. Later in June, Saudi Arabia sacked the head of its entertainment authority, following an online backlash against a circus featuring women wearing skin-tight leotards." --safari: mike pence's dream
News Ledes
(South Carolina) State: "As nearly a million people hit the road before Hurricane Florence nears the coast, 934 inmates and as many as 119 prison staff were ordered to stay behind despite a mandatory evacuation." ...
... Weather Channel: "Hurricane Florence will lash the Carolinas beginning late Thursday as an intense Category 4 hurricane with life-threatening storm surge, destructive winds and massive inland rainfall flooding in one of the strongest strikes on record for this part of the East Coast. Tuesday morning, a hurricane watch and storm surge watch were issued for the entire coast of North Carolina..., and the South Carolina coast as far south as Edisto Beach. This includes Charleston, Myrtle Beach, Wilmington and the Outer Banks." ...
... Washington Post: "State and local officials in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia have ordered about 1.5 million people to evacuate a lengthy stretch of coastline ahead of Hurricane Florence's potentially catastrophic landfall, which is expected Thursday." ...
"The [Washington] Post has removed article limits on coverage of Hurricane Florence to make these stories available without a subscription."
New York Times: "Adam Clymer, who covered congressional intrigue, eight presidential campaigns and the downfall of both Nikita S. Khrushchev and Richard M. Nixon as a reporter and editor for The New York Times and other newspapers, died early Monday at his home in Washington. He was 81."
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Reader Comments (22)
We are getting a taste of what nature is capable of when the planet, through ignorance and stupidity, is allowed to warm up too much. Florence is getting ready to unleash holy hell on the Carolinas, and more storms are lined up right behind to take advantage of the power channeled up into the atmosphere from ocean water that gets warmer by the year.
So what’s Trump’s response? “Hey, let’s make it even hotter!” Which is the same as telling Mother Nature “Thank you ma’am, may I have another?”
Stormy Daniels did say that Trump liked to be spanked, didn’t she?
I think it is beyond Obama-whining now with the Fat Fascist Freak. His EPA is on a ideological bender to take us back to the bad ol' days when water and air were simply "there" to be polluted and corrupted. When all the regs are rolled back and all the EPA is eliminated, it really will be "small government" and only that for a select few. I hope the red states are inundated with awful. (Workhouses and reform schools and prisons and cancer for all!) NC was purple for a while-- I have hopes for it, mostly due to the reverend whose name I forget-- certainly not to the legislature. But from NC south, there is no hope for the poor, for immigrants, for the planet. Yep, grouchy today...
I look at the following items from the news today (just today)...
1. Kavanaugh moves closer to confirmation
2. Trump moves to remove remove requirements that oil and gas companies mitigate methane leaks
3. Trump administration accelerates plans to open public lands to oil and gas exploration
4. Bolton threatens International Criminal Court for having the nerve to investigate suspected US war crimes
5. Betsy Devos proposes new rules substantially limiting sexual misconduct allegations on the nation's university campuses
6. The CIA is expanding its use of drones in North Africa - a program Barack Obama had seriously curtailed - to bomb suspected Islamist militants and their families, taking the decision to conduct such raids out of the command/control loop of the US military
...and I think that, although I don't believe in hell, I hope there's a special place in it for all those on the left who not only stayed home on election day, but did their damndest to convince everyone that Trump and Hillary were two sides of the same corporatist coin.
Let's pray that these people have seen the error of their ways and will get out to vote for Democrats - however flawed they may be - in November. The lesser of two evils is, by definition, less evil than the alternative, and in this case so much so as to beggar the imagination.
Well, Jeanne, God is about to whack North Carolina in a visit from the Angel Flo, in righteous retribution for their gerrymanderin', voter-suppressin' ways. It won't be 40 days and 40 nights, but it will be a clear sign from the heavens. Two feet and rising.
But will they get the message, or will they harden their hearts against the Lord?
Somehow, when the Lord sends them deluges, they never, ever hear. Even when Rev. Wm Barber speaks it out for them.
(file under "Sarcasm")
@Schlub: I think -- and I hope -- you're right. My guess is that a lot of people who voted for Trump -- and I'm not talking about the "deplorables" here -- rationalized it this way: "He's just playing a jerk on the campaign trail to get attention. Nobody can be that much of a jerk." He said he could be "so presidential," & that's probably the one true thing he said. Otherwise, he's a big fat liar, so there's no reason to think he'll keep his insane campaign promises; politicians never do. AND he's a great businessman & dealmaker! He'll get everything straight with North Korea & China & all, the way "ordinary" politiciany presidents never could.
Of course anybody who read a single story about Trump's actual history would know better, but most people don't bother to do that. I feel like getting a T-shirt printed that reads, "If you voted for Trump, you owe me an apology."
We are scheduled to go to the Outer Banks (our idea of heaven--) in a bit more than a week and a half. Terrified that it will be no more-- Every time it hurricanes, a new channel is cut and the sounds empty out... Mother Nature is pretty violent in her retribution. Yes, Patrick-- there's lots to decry happening there but we can't seem to break our habit-- Fingers and toes crossed. (Yes, Barber-- he's fabulous--)
Colbert's Mikey Pence piece is funny enough to at least get a good laugh today: Will Pence sit for a electronic "let's see how much you lie" machine? You bet! In a heart beat which beats every two seconds but accelerates "when mother wears low cut socks." Yowsa!
Kellyanne was interviewed by Christiane Amanpour last night and I thought, ok, this is gonna be good. But good got demoted to fair––a C plus at the most. If one is ever going to get an A with this woman you'd have to stop her in midstream and loudly say, Nope! ain't so, honey and spell out why. Her loyalty to her boss borders on ludicrous, and I wonder why. It's one thing to stand by your "man", it's another thing to lavish accolades about his accomplishments when they are pure applesauce. Privately she criticized her own husband and when that was leaked she castigated the leaker for outing her, yet she said the NYT's Op-Ed person should come forward––despicable! she said.
@Jeanne: Your comments re: the EPA's destructive methods should be front and center during this campaign season. But someone said "Many people are just concerned about their pay check and their jobs and pay little attention in the political arena." I get that, but then it's the Democrat's job to ram this through. A hurricane is coming and its aftermath will probably be catastrophic––time to talk about what we are NOT doing for this planet.
Grouchy? Grrrrrrr––I'm with you!
"Asked whether he thinks any laws were broken, Trump Jr. said: “Listen, I think you’re subverting the will of the people. I mean, to try to control the presidency while not the president. You have millions and millions of Americans who voted for this.”
What? Please explain in little words that I can understand!
...ah, and the son also speaketh in word salad-ise
Above excerpt from WAPO by John Wagner: Donald Trump Jr. says his father can’t trust everyone around him after the anonymous op-ed "...Poor Dad, Sad Dad"
'It’s difficult to rationally argue
however, incorrect.
several misleading or false claims
1,600 workers have left the EPA'
Just a typical Trump day.
MAG,
Next thing you know, Junior will take a page out of the Tailgunner's book and start reciting "Hop on Pop":
They love to hop on pop.
The all will hop on pop.
The failing Times and Washy Post
All hop on pop the most.
Stop, stop, stop, you must not hop on pop, pop, pop.
Talk, talk, talk, we like to talk.
We do the talk but not the walk.
But some will nob. They'll nob with Bob
and talk, talk, talk, for his book, oh look!
See? They hop on pop.
Stop, stop, stop, or he will pop
a gasket in his basket, will pop, a tisket and a tasket.
Jail, jail, jail. We cannot go to jail,
We wail. We've put the country up for sale
Hill and dale, it's all for sale,
so we cannot go to jail!
Sad dad. Dad is sad. Very sad.
Really fucking sad is dad.
What a bad, bad day dad had.
What is that thing? I hear him sing.
Is it Kelly? Is it Pence? Some traitor on the fence?
Poor dad. Dad is sad.
Dad is bad. Oh, wait. Did I just say dad's bad?
Words into my mouth are put. Or maybe it's my big fat foot.
Wah, wah, wah. Foot my ass.
And now I'm running out of gas.
So do not hop on pop.
Hop on pop you should not.
Or pop will have you shot.
So there.
Haha! Excellent book, Ak. and also kudos to MAG, who seems to have made a reference to Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You In The Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad...a long-ago play. In college I worked at a playhouse in Ohio and they did that play. It was probably gone from Broadway and into regional theater at that point... Oh my. Am super-dating myself...
We would be remiss if we did not, on this anniversary of 9/11, recall that it would not be necessary to remember it at all if we had had a president who was not an arrogant, incompetent douchebag. The Bush and Cheney War of Choice was a direct result of embarrassment at allowing 9/11 to happen. The whole kit and caboodle of them deserve perdition, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Rice, Wolfowitz, Addington, Bolton, Yoo, Colin Powell, and the rest of the criminals, malcontents, bunglers, torturers, and grifters who gave us decades of war, world wide economic collapse, and, of course, 9/11.
A number of those creeps are still around. Bolton for one is still stinking up the joint. Elaine Chao, another grifter, who when she ran the Labor Department for the Decider, left it in such a shambles that staffers threw her a "Good Riddance" party. Now she's back to fuck up transportation.
Cheney, unfortunately, is still around to spread his poison, and the Decider himself? He's passing out candy at funerals and painting pictures of his piggy toes.
Happy 9/11, assholes. Thanks for nothin'.
@Akhilleus: I think you've got a one-hit wonder there. Sadly, you will be forever known as the hip-hop-pop legend who took down Donnie J.
@Ak: You are too, too funny!
You're fast! You're hip, or is it hep?
Your ripostes are always ahead a step.
Rhyme or verse, better or worse
The Ak-man cometh with forth with his salient mirth
never at loss for words or views as shown above
.......with his latest burst of worth
...funny, ironic, he's the Renaissance mensch
his waggish wit adds much serious commonsensch!
God, you made me laugh!
MAG,
"Renaissance mensch" is going on my resume.
Thanks!
and Marie...
One-hit wonders are some of my favorite songs (think Norman Greenbaum and Question Mark and the Mysterians).
And "hip-hop-pop legend" ain't so bad.
I'll take it.
Another finding at NakedCapitalism.com that people here may find worth their time:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/09/read-book-itll-make-radical-conversation-thomas-frank.html
Whoa. Let me get this straight...
Stephen Miller is (was) a reform Jew? Seriously? Reformed from being a human being maybe. I just can't picture this sad excuse for a man attending a reform synagogue.
But hey, kudos to Rabbi Comess-Daniels for speaking out about, and to, this piece of shit. Miller, if he even cares to read about it, probably looks at this message as proof that his lifetime mission of becoming a supreme asshole has been achieved, and how.
The story about him slamming his hand down on the last piece of pizza is indicative of his style, his penchant for using shock to "win" an argument, or at least to stop it in its tracks. It's also indicative of what kind of person he is that he only had two friends in school, one of whom he cut off because the kid was Hispanic. Miller informed the kid that, because of that, they could no longer be friends.
Mighty white of him.
He seems smart, in a nasty, smarmy, conniving way, but he also seems to be missing an essential part of his humanity. Maybe growing up in a largely liberal part of the country and attending a reform synagogue gave him the springboard he needed to assert himself as the bad boy who isn't going to go along, no matter what.
His speech in high school complaining about not wanting to pick up his trash from the floor because they had black janitors to do the dirty work for them, was put off by his (apparently only) friend as "satire". He seems to think everyone else "got it". From other interviews, this does not seem to be a view much shared by anyone else. If it was satire, that world view ("I'm a white man and I'm superior to other people") became hardened pretty quickly. In college, he jumped into a race at a track meet (a women's race) in order to prove male superiority. I've never read whether or not he actually won. If he had, I'm sure we'd have heard about it, so I'm guessing the point he was trying to make (men are better) didn't pan out.
(Funnily enough, White House apologists say that that race thing was okay because he jumped into a race being run by a different school, not his own, so it was, ya know, okay. Oh, well then, why didn't you say so? Because that makes all the difference.)
Miller is way beyond the usual asshole who just wants to take an opposing point of view and cause trouble. Those people tend to be looking for attention as much as trying to make a point.
For Miller, as with other Trumpers, like Bannon and Sessions, it's about using their new-found power in government to force their dark visions on the rest of the world, everyone else be damned.
A sidebar to this is the fact that Miller, like the Christian haters on the right, never seemed to have learned the (better) lessons of his religion. All they seem to have learned is intolerance.
No wonder he's such a star in the Trump firmament.
Keith,
Thanks for that link. Very informative, especially Frank's thoughtful analysis on why government by experts, under Obama, was such a letdown. Oft times we are victims of what we are unable to see clearly about ourselves, things that should be obvious but are not.
Good intentions are not enough.
As Frank suggests, having a rock solid conviction that right is always on your side can be crippling. The other day I mentioned a Zen observation about awakening and doubt.
Great doubt, great awakening.
Small doubt, small awakening.
No doubt, no awakening.
If we are to escape the torpor and cloudy thinking that brought us to this Trumpian impasse, we have to re-examine what we think we know and are sure of. Democrats who wonder why the working class has abandoned them should go back what made that connection so strong years ago. This diddling with Wall Street and the supine tolerance for the arrogance and actions of the Masters of the Universe is deadly.
@Akhilleus: The same thing applies to all those nice Republicans who claim to be Christians. All three synoptic gospels repeat a version of Mark 12:28-31: "And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, 'Which commandment is the most important of all?' Jesus answered, 'The most important is, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." The second is this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." There is no other commandment greater than these.'”
In the Gospel of Luke, this is the top of the "frame" around the Parable of the Good Samaritan." After Jesus repeats the commandments, a lawyer asks him, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus tells the parable: The Samaritan belongs to an "unclean race," yet he is the only one who will help a Jewish man who has been beaten & left by the side of the road. A priest & a Levite -- two holy Jewish men -- have refused to help the beaten man because the beating made him "unclean," too. At the end of the parable, Jesus, rhetorically, asks the lawyer which of three men is his neighbor. The lawyer answered the one who shows mercy -- the Samaritan.
The two greatest commandments of course come from Jewish teachings, as do all of the tenets of Christianity expressed in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew & Luke). "Love thy neighbor" is the essence of Christianity, and "neighbor," as the parable illustrates, is not limited to the guy next door. It means everyone, including the "unclean" foreigner.
As Stephen Miller's rabbi remarked, Stephen Miller didn't get it. Jeff Sessions belongs to the United Methodist Church, & some of its members were paying attention. In June, "More than 600 members of the United Methodist Church have issued a formal complaint against Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a fellow church member, charging that his 'zero tolerance' policy on immigration violates church rules and may constitute child abuse." (The church leadership later dropped the charges because, they said, Sessions was acting on behalf of the government.)
The hateful racism of the Trump-Sessions-Miller immigration policy (and related policies, like Sessions' abominable "religious liberty task force" designed to enable discrimination against gays & others) is a direct attack on the foundation of Judeo-Christian theology. "Love thy neighbor" is not optional; it is not one of those tenets that is "open to interpretation." It's a bedrock principle of the faith. If you don't want "those people" coming to America, don't call yourself a Christian or a Jew.
And while we're remembering the asshole president responsible for 9/11, let's not forget the asshole president who has used this tragic event to bolster his own ego.
The morning of the attack, the very morning of the attack, downtown was still covered in a cloud of debris with people coughing up their lungs, the ones who were still alive that is (and ones who would later go on to develop various conditions, including cancer), Trump went on a radio show and bragged (I still can hardly believe this--even for a narcissistic pig like Trump) that now that the Twin Towers were out of the way, his building was the tallest in that part of the city.
Thousands of people are dead, the country is in a panic, the vice president skedaddles to a hiding place, the president gets on a plane and flies in the opposite direction to New York as fast as Air Force One can go. We have no idea if we'll be attacked again. And what is Trump's biggest concern?
His building is now the biggest.
This is way beyond narcissism. This is pathological.
Of course later he'd claim (a lie) that he was there, at Ground Zero, bravely helping to remove the rubble. He was there, dammit!
A short while later, when funds were made available to help with buildings damaged by the attack, Trump helped himself to a pile of money even though his building suffered no damage at all. Didn't matter that he was scarfing up money that should have gone to some deserving party. He's the Donald and there's free money to be taken off the table. Who's to tell him no?
During his campaign for president, he claimed to have seen "thousands" of Muslims in New Jersey cheering for the fall of the buildings. So which was it, was he downtown helping clear the rubble, or was he in New Jersey watching these mysterious Muslims whom no one else seems to have seen?
Just this week he referred, obliquely and snidely, to the effects of 9/11 by claiming that his poll numbers are the highest for any Republican in history, except, he sniffed, for a "very short period" because of something about a guy with a bullhorn at Ground Zero.
He couldn't even say Bush's name. And the only reason for bringing it up was to disparage it as a popularity blip that blemishes, in his own mind, his own dominance as the Most Popular Ever.
And now fist pumps and tweets about Russia.
What a sick, sick bastard.
@Keith Howard & @Akhilleus: Yeah, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) was alarmed by Obama's bad choices, as I've written before. “I don’t understand how you could do this. You’ve picked the wrong people!” he yelled at Obama. That is, Obama chose as his Cabinet & advisors the very people who created the mess. And it's true Obama likes those people. He likes Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whom he chose to head the DNC (or run it further into the ground, by my way of thinking). It's not so much that these are "elite experts," but that they're not boat-rockers. They're the "establishment." Obama picks Debbie & Debbie picks Hillary, and the "establishment" is humming right along.
There is a damned-if-you-do & damned-if-you-don't aspect to it. You can't just have Joe Blow from Kansas setting economic policy. Joe, bless his heart, doesn't know much about macroeconomics. But in truth, there were a lot better people to pick than Larry Summers & Tim Geithner. Dorgan was right. And I do think we're seeing a change in Democrats now. A bigger percentage of the primary winners, I think, are people who not only do not belong to the establishment, they'e not going to put up with it.
Just a quick thought.
I've been coming across writers and commenters marveling at the fact that a self-absorbed creep like Trump who, on the morning of 9/11, was more concerned that he had the tallest building in lower Manhattan now that the WTC had conveniently fallen down, could be elected president.
I think it has a lot to do with the point Marie makes in her comment about the lack of faithfulness or consideration or even belief, by many so-called Christian Trump supporters to the most basic tenets of their religion, the First Principle of which, as clearly indicated by Jesus Christ, is to love their neighbor.
They don't love their neighbor unless that neighbor believes exactly what they believe, and even that love is contingent. In fact, they hate most of their neighbors and that ability to disparage and dispense with vast swaths of humanity, as Trump does, makes them fellow travelers in the world of "what's in it for me?", the place Trump has resided all his life.
If you really don't give a shit about billions of other human beings who share this planet with you, you're much more likely to side with a person who feels the same way, a person for whom empathy is an empty concept. Other humans are only valuable if they have something to offer you personally. Like picking up your trash off the floor. And that value is temporary and contingent at best.
Result? Donald Trump, president*.
If these people truly were believers in the religion they claim should control us all, he wouldn't have won a single primary.
In fact, no Republican candidate would.