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Time for another NY Times Op-Ed?

Friday, June 5, 2020

The New York Times has taken some well deserved shit for running an Op-Ed by Tom Cotton, in which the fascist Senator from Arkansas argued for more fascism, i.e., that we should unleash the armed forces on protestors with whom he disagrees. The Times defended itself initially on the grounds that it has an obligation to provide “both sides” of policy questions, though, like all other media, “both sides” seems to have a pronounced right-wing shift. (Senator Brian Schatz tweeted that the Times has refused to run several Op-Eds he submitted, none of which suggested making war on Americans.

Besides being a loathsome argument on the merits, Cotton’s piece was, predictably, full of typical Republican lies and half truths, and the Times is now partly walking its decision back, saying, in essence, that it didn’t bother to fact check the piece before publishing it. Odd that, considering that lying is the default Republican modus operandi, and one should assume anything emitted by a Republican Senator is filled with mendacity. It would probably have made more sense, and taken less time, for them to examine it to see if there was any truth in it.

Is it possible that the Times will now truly change its ways? Too bad, because I was going to suggest that in the interests of presenting both sides of important questions, that they consider giving Texas GOP chairs Jim Kaelin and Cynthia Brehm space on the Op-Ed page to give us the other side of the George Floyd story: that the entire event was in fact staged to make Trump look bad, or, perhaps, to yet another Texas GOP chair, Sue Piner, who “shared a post on Sunday that included an image of liberal billionaire George Soros and text that said, ‘I pay white cops to murder black people. And then I pay black people to riot because race wars keep the sheep in line.’”

These are views that deserve to be heard as much as those of a United States Senator who proposes that we make war on those American people with whom he disagrees. Well, if the Times truly is going to start fact checking Op-Eds from rightwing figures, those folks from Texas may just have to settle for the New London Day.

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Roseanne has some questions

Thursday, June 4, 2020

My spouse just forwarded this Facebook post from Aundre Bumgardner. As I’m not sure how to embed a Facebook post, I just took a screenshot.

Aundre is a former Republican state representative, who has come over from the dark side and is now a Democratic Town Councilor here in Groton. Roseanne is a Republican member of the Representative Town Meeting. Within living memory, even within the memory of someone born less that 20 years ago, the Groton Republicans were, by and large, a fairly moderate and responsible group, but those folks have slowly but surely been pushed to the sidelines by folks like Roseanne, who is, shall we say, a bit on the extreme edge.

When I first read this I toyed with the idea of answering each question in turn, but the absurdity sort of speaks for itself. As a bit of a side note, I just returned a few hours ago from a demonstration in Mystic, the fourth of five (all peaceful so far) being held in downtown Mystic on each day this week. There were at least a hundred of us, and since we were on the Stonington side of the river we were policed by two officers from the Stonington force, who spent most of their time chatting with the organizers and posing for pictures, except for a brief period when one of the officers had to gently intervene when an aggressive fellow in a Trump shirt got a bit too close for comfort to some of the demonstrators.

What struck me about Roseanne’s questions is her use of the word “dominant” in question four. It reminded me of Gail Collins’ column, entitled “Trump’s Magic Word”, in this morning’s New York Times, in which she notes the use of that word or its variants by the chicken in chief:

Have you noticed how almost every other word out of Donald Trump’s mouth lately seems to be some variation on “dominate?”

“If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time,” he told America’s governors. “They’re going to run all over you. You’ll look like a bunch of jerks.”

This, of course, was in that telephone rant about protesters. There is something about crowds of people willing to take to the streets to denounce racism that seems to make the president feel, um, unmanly.

“I will not allow angry mobs to dominate,” he told the country during his visit to the space launch.

Minneapolis authorities, he contended, were “weak and pathetic” until events spiraled out of control and the National Guard moved in. (“Domination … it’s a beautiful thing to watch.”)

Tweeting on the same subject, Trump reported: “Great job done by all. Overwhelming force. Domination. Likewise, Minneapolis was great. (thank you President Trump!)”

With Trump it’s yet another sign of his basic insecurity, his inner knowledge that while he’s an accomplished scam artist, he’s a failure at everything else and a physical coward to boot. But it’s interesting that Roseanne, and most likely a lot of other Trumpers, have picked up on it, since it has some fairly obvious fascistic implications.

You don’t need a degree in psychology to realize that when police show up at a demonstration looking like jackbooted thugs, as Roseanne urges they should, they are more likely to provoke a reaction than if they show up like the two cops from Stonington did. But, of course, that’s the whole point, as it serves to justify the police brutality that the folks like Roseanne find so reassuring. (Lest there be any doubt, as I’m sure there isn’t, Roseanne is white.) The fact is that mainstream Republicans these days are reflexively fascist.

Though I won’t be responding to each of Roseanne’s questions, I will respond to the last of them. No, Roseanne, you can’t tell people with whom you disagree that they can’t demonstrate because the town can’t afford it. We can’t afford the costs of the willfully misinterpreted Second Amendment, but I’m sure that you wouldn’t want to keep your right wing thugs from displaying their firepower. You see, the First Amendment actually does quite specifically say that people have the right to peacefully assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances. They still have that right, even if they disagree with a Republican president, though the present Supreme Court may soon have other ideas.

Of course, Roseanne knows very well that there won’t be any rioting or brick throwing during Sunday’s demonstration, though she sure would like there to be. It just bothers her that the demonstration is likely to draw a huge number of people, while she’d be lucky to get a handful if she tried to organize a Black Lives Don’t Matter rally. Maybe she should move to Alabama, where she’d have better luck with that.

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Most of us won’t get fooled again

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Abraham Lincoln was mostly right when he remarked that you can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people, all of the time. In truth you can never fool all of the people even sometimes, but more importantly, as Abe surely knew, all a politician or political party must do to thrive is fool most of the people most of the time.

This brings me to the genius, who has never been able to fool most of the people at any time, and who is where he is only because he fooled some of the people in just the right places. He has always been a scam artist, but that required only that he fool some of the people some of the time. All he needed to do was fool the right people. It’s been his modus operandi for a long time, and he’s wedded to it. It’s why he does things like tear gas people to clear a path for a photo op in front of a church. It never occurs to him that while that sort of thing will assure that he continues to fool some of the people enough of the time, it will lessen his chances of fooling most of the people at any time.

Nate Silver notes that Trump now has the highest disapproval rating of any president ever.

In my own humble opinion he has now reached the point with most of the people that they will not believe a word he says, ever. If he walked on water most of the people would believe he was conning them.

Joe Biden may not be inspiring, but most of the people feel comfortable with him, particularly given their choices.

Which means, if these were normal times, that we could be pretty sure that Biden will win the election. And he will, provided we are allowed to have an election. Based on the genius’s recent actions, and those of his attorney general, I’d give even odds that they will steal the next election, either by cancelling it, or by blatantly and openly fixing it, in the well founded belief that neither Congress nor the Supreme Court will do anything about it. The last few days have given us an indication of what would happen if most of the people were to rise up against that.

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Facebook is evil

Sunday, May 31, 2020

It is an unfortunate fact of American life that the rather tepid enforcement of our antitrust laws has now completely evaporated. Remember when Microsoft was sued or making it hard to change the default browser in Windows. IOs makes it impossible, but no one does anything about it.

Far worse is Facebook, which is headed by one of the world’s biggest assholes, an asshole of Trumpian proportions:

This past week, Mark Zuckerberg chastised Jack Dorsey of Twitter for putting a note on one of Donald Trump’s sensationalistic tweets that threatened Minneapolis protesters that “we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Twitter decided the tweet glorified violence, a violation of Twitter Terms of Service, and forced the reader to lift a screen to read it.

“If anyone, including a politician, is saying things that can cause, that is calling for violence or could risk imminent physical harm…we will take that content down,” Zuckerberg had testified to Congress in response to a question by Congresswoman Alexandria Octavio Cortez (D-NY) last October. Yet, in response to a tweet invoking violence by Trump, posted on his personal account this week, Zuckerberg asserted that it was “free expression” and did not violate Facebook’s Terms of Service. He allowed the same posting to not be flagged on Facebook or Instagram.

Zuckerberg also asserted “I don’t think that Facebook or internet platforms in general should be arbiters of truth,” to CNBC’s Andew Ross Sorkin in a May 28 interview.

…

However, Zuckerberg is misleading the press and the public in implying that Facebook doesn’t “fact check” content. In fact, Zuckerberg has boasted that Facebook has set up a “Check Your Fact” division to police the Internet for “fake news.” The “Check Your Fact” program includes a “panel” of “independent” fact checkers who have enormous powers to “flag links on the social network as false, demoting their ranking in the News Feed as well as the visibility of the entire outlet that posted it.”

And one of those fact checkers, among other right-wing panel members, is none other than Tucker Carlson’s The Daily Caller.

BuzzFlash discovered this after I posted a Politico article on BuzzFlash Nation on Facebook the morning of Saturday, February 29, the day of the South Carolina Democratic Primary. Trump had held a campaign rally in Charleston the night before, aimed at stealing headlines from the Dems. The article header can be seen in the image at the top of this page, and the lower portion of the Politico article Facebook image also indicated that Trump presented the concern about a potential Coronavirus catastrophe (this was around the time that he was still claiming that it would “disappear” like “magic”) as a Democratic “hoax.” “Trump rallies his base to treat Coronavirus as a ‘hoax,’” Politico wrote, and that is what he did at that time.

In the afternoon, I was posting articles on BuzzFlash Nation on Facebook and scrolled down the page only to find that the Politico article that appeared eminently sound had been declared “False Information” and had a screen over it, as if it were “fake news.” I went to the Politico Facebook page, scrolled down, and found that indeed the same “False Information” screen was placed over the article summary and headline link on the Politico Facebook page. When I clicked open the screen, I found the message below:

…

When I clicked open the screen, I ultimately found a written “opinion” on how a Daily Caller staffer had “determined” that the Politico story was “False Information,” which appeared to be a partisan screed to make Trump appear to be serious about the Coronavirus, a hard case to make, particularly at that time. Heck, just a week or so ago, Trump’s dimwitted son, Eric, implausibly claimed that indeed the Coronavirus was a “hoax” and would disappear after the Democrats lost the November election.

The article goes on to demonstrate that Zuckerberg’s fact checkers have a pronounced right wing slant and makes the case, which is surely true, that he will enable the spread of Republican lies in the coming election. Facebook is a monopoly and should be broken up, just as Ma Bell was, for it is capable of far more damage than was the phone company at the time of its breakup. It will be a tough job, because even if the Democrats take over and Biden appoints an attorney general interested in taking Zuckerberg down, the Supreme Court will no doubt step in and explain that over 100 years of precedent is just so wrong, and anti-trust laws are unconstitutional when applied to Republican enablers.

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It’s them outside agitators!

Saturday, May 30, 2020

One of the things you can always count on with the right is that they constantly accuse others of crimes of which they have a near monopoly. I can remember, though I was not yet thirteen, hearing Southern racists complaining on TV that their (n-word here) were perfectly happy, and that it was those outside agitators causing all the trouble.

So, what have we here:

During this morning’s press conference, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Saint Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey all said that the criminal actors in this week’s protests seem to be from outside the community. Walz is now consulting with the Department of Homeland Security about the possibility of foreign intervention.

MSNBC host Joy Reid broke away from the presser to discuss the issue with Minnesota’s Attorney General Keith Ellison. In addition to the fact that Carter said that every person arrested last night was from outside the state, Ellison said there is video evidence of outside infiltration, too.

ELLISON: My reaction is that just a few days ago, on like the second day of protests, there was a man who was dressed in all black, he was a Caucasian person. He had a gas mask, black gloves, an umbrella. It was not raining, and he was smashing windows and apparently throwing incendiary devices into businesses that had nothing to do with the tragedy around Mr. Floyd. And so people, protesters photographed this.

The video is existing and you can see it. And they confronted him, who are you and he just walked away. That led me to believe that there is real legitimate evidence that this is a very serious operation being done to tarnish the legitimate protest that is going on. We need an investigation on who these people are and their identity and I will just say as I close, that when Jamar Clark protest was going on, a group of white supremacists went on Facebook announcing they were going to attack the protests, did so, but — and then shot people. They were caught and then they were prosecuted. So, we know that this kind of thing happens, it’s planned. We have no good reason to believe that it’s not happening now. It needs to be a separate and independent investigation.

Apparently, an oddly high percentage of those arrested have been white. I suppose the police should be congratulated for arresting them. Maybe they weren’t carrying assault weapons so the cops figured they weren’t entitled to the full measure of white privilege.

Just as an aside, another great example of Republicans doing what they accuse others of doing is voter fraud. I don’t know of a high profile voter fraud case that didn’t involve a Republican.

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Say you aren’t Joe, Matt

Saturday, May 30, 2020

I’ve been writing this blog since early 2005. When I started, I was one among many Connecticut left wing bloggers, all of whom, so far as I know, have fallen by the wayside, blog wise, and confine themselves to twitter, a medium in which I have never felt particularly comfortable. Anyway, in those long ago days when we thought we were enduring the worst president that we could possibly have (what fools, we!), while we might disagree around the edges, there was one thing about which all us lefty bloggers agreed. Joe Lieberman had to go. And, eventually he did. I still have fond memories of “The Kiss”, a mobile work of art put together by Connecticut Bob, depicting Bush kissing Lieberman as Bush walked down the aisle to deliver his state of the Union, and yes, that really happened.

Well, here we are in 2020. Only a few years ago Joe’s name was bandied about as a possible head of the FBI. Even worse, it was reported that Joe was an closet Trump supporter, which would come as no surprise to those of us so glad to see the back of him.

So, where am I going with this? I get approximately 100 emails a day from Democratic candidates asking for money. One of my most frequent correspondents is Matt Lieberman, Joe’s offspring, who is running for the Senate in Georgia. As a Democrat, of all things! I don’t actually read the emails, but I’ve gathered enough from the subject lines that he is claiming to be very much in the running to win the race. There are actually two Senate races in Georgia, one to fill the seat of a guy who retired early and was replaced by the loathsome Kelly Loeffler.

Now, I’ve come to a place politically where I feel quite strongly that any Democrat, particularly in the Senate, is better than any Republican. I’ve even gone so far as being prepared to settle for a “moderate” who can win in lieu of a progressive that would likely lose. See, e.g., the Democratic Senate primary races in Maine and Kentucky. But I just can’t bring myself to actually give money to a Lieberman. I know I should do some research and try to find out where this guy stands on the issues. Who knows, maybe the wind was blowing really hard, and he fell fairly far from the tree. Then again, what’s a Connecticut guy doing living in Georgia, never mind running for the Senate. Long and short, I’m just not prepared to believe he’ll stick with the Democrats when they need him, unless he’s prepared now to say he’s not Joe.

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Heavy, Man!

Saturday, May 30, 2020

Any long time readers surely know that I’m a big fan of Randy Newman. I have, heretofore, wholly subscribed to his theory of the origins of the Judeo-Christian religions, as set forth by the devil as he addresses god, in Randy’s largely unappreciated Faust:

Some fools in the desert
With nothing else to do
So scared of the dark
They didn’t know if they were coming or going
So they invented me
And they invented You
And other fools will keep it all going
And growing

But it turns out that it may be something completely different that led those long ago men to set down their fever dreams in a collection of fables that, despite its internal contradictions and portrayal of a petty god, some people still insist is absolutely true, contradictions be damned. (See Tom Paine’s The Age of Reason for a rundown of the most glaring contradictions.)

Anyway, back to the main point, and all I can say, as I hearken back to the days when I some people ingested tons of the stuff: Heavy Man!

The Kingdom of Judah, an Iron Age civilization centered around Jerusalem, features prominently in the Hebrew Bible, distinguishing it as a site of widespread cultural enchantment.

But now, archaeologists have serendipitously solved a mystery that has probably never been broached in any Sunday school class: Yes, some Judahites deliberately inhaled cannabis vapor, and yes, they likely did so to get high.

This incredible find is the result of chromatographic studies of residue found on an altar that dates back to the 8th century BCE. The results represent “the first known evidence of hallucinogenic substance found in the Kingdom of Judah” and “the earliest evidence for the use of cannabis in the Ancient Near East,” according to a paper published on Thursday in the journal Tel Aviv.

“Our cannabis evidence is the earliest in our region,” study co-lead Eran Arie, curator of Iron Age and Persian Period Archaeology at The Israel Museum, confirmed in an email. The discovery “was naturally a huge surprise,” he added.

The limestone altar that preserved this charred cannabis was found in the “Holy of Holies,” a sacred space at Tel Arad, an ancient fortress in Israel’s Beer-sheba Valley. Excavations at Tel Arad began in the 1960s, and the odd altar residue was sampled at that time, but tests of its chemical content proved inconclusive. The Holy of Holies was transported to The Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where it has been a main attraction for decades.

So, maybe it wasn’t fear of the dark that gave us Jehovah and all those stories. Turns out those were groovy times, and the boys smoking that weed probably engaged in some heavy philosophical thought while under the influence, just like we some people did, back in those halcyon days. If, in fact, the Bible is the collected ramblings of dope smoking Judahites, it must have been inferior weed, since in my humble opinion, the music that dope helped make in the sixties has it beat hands down.

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Almost in words of one syllable

Friday, May 29, 2020

If you have any Trumper friends who can’t quite see the point of social distancing, mask wearing, or other rational responses to the current plague, you might try referring them to this article, which spells it out so clearly even a six year old could understand it. I realize that would mean a certain very stable genius would still have a hard time understanding, but it might be a start.

I especially enjoyed this explanation of exponential growth:

A popular way to understand how a virus can appear to “suddenly” explode into a local epidemic is the example of a pond and a lily pad.

On day one, the pond is clear of vegetation and somebody puts a single lily pad plant into it—one that doubles every day. By the 30th day, the pond is entirely covered with lily pads and you can’t see the water.

The question that’s key to understanding what this has to do with COVID-19 is: “On what day was the pond half-covered by lily pads?”

People who don’t know science would say that it’s probably halfway through the 30 days—day 15, or sometime around then, maybe day 20.

But the correct answer is day 29, the day before “half-covered” doubles and becomes “fully covered.”

Similarly, the day when the pond was one-quarter covered was day 28—two days before it was entirely covered. It was one-eighth covered (far less worrisome) on day 27, three days before it was entirely covered.

Although it may take more than just one day for COVID-19 incidents to double, this explains why one day it seems like there are just a few cases and within a week or two hospitals are “suddenly” overwhelmed, and unthinkable numbers of people are gasping for air and dying.

Not to carp, but that must be a pretty big pond. At day thirty there would be 2^29 lily pads in that pond, which, if I’m not mistaken, would amount to a bit more than half a billion lily pads. I think we’d have to promote it to a lake.

Quibbles aside, it’s a good article.

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Lessons learned

Friday, May 29, 2020

Susan Collins famously said that Trump would learn his lesson from his impeachment. She was absolutely right, and I think her opponents in Maine should admit as much in commercial after commercial in the state of Maine.

For instance, Trump learned the lesson that he can sell weapons to the Saudis if he wants, no matter what Congress may say, because there’s nothing on God’s earth that the United States Senate will do about it.

He’s also learned that he can legislate without needing to go through Congress, which takes such a long time and can be so inconvenient, especially when the whole point of your executive order is to take revenge on a perceived political enemy.

And those are only the lessons we know he’s learned from what’s happened in the past two days! It’s almost impossible to count the number of ways that, over the past few months, he’s proven that he learned his lesson from the impeachment.

Sure, the whole point of politics is to score a victory against your political foes, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be prepared to admit that they were absolutely right when they were. I just hope that the Democrats can find it in their hearts to be humble, and remind the voters of Maine how right Susan was when she made that prediction.

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A Special Talent

Friday, May 22, 2020

It takes a special talent to fearlessly stand astride both sides of an issue, but our State Senator, Heather Somers, has it down to a T. Republicans these days must walk a fine line. They must satisfy their base while not alienating “moderate” Republicans who have not yet come to terms with the fact that their parent’s Republican Party now consists of a corrupt party elite that derives its power from a fascist base. Heather is a master of, as the Firesign Theatre might sing, being in two places at once when, on close examination, she’s not anywhere at all.

Latest example: a whackjob hair dresser in Pawcatuck decided that she was going to open her barber shop on the 20th, despite Lamont’s order to defer such re-openings. For any readers who might be from outside this region, Pawcatuck is part of Stonington, the most easterly community on the coast. It borders directly on Rhode Island. In fact, were you passing through for the first time, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Pawcatuck and Westerly, Rhode Island were one town. The whole point of Lamont’s amended order was to synchronize salon openings with Rhode Island, so while the order made sense everywhere, it made more sense in Pawcatuck than anywhere else.

Heather was on hand for the woman’s arrest to…well…, to show that she both supported the woman and that she did not support the woman. At least that’s the best I can gather from this article in the New London Day.

First, there’s this:

State Sen. Heather Somers, who accompanied Thibodeau to the police station on Thursday, said “nobody is interested in having anything have to happen.”

Okay, I have to confess that that my grammar school teachers, Sister Thomas and Sister Joseph Theresa, who drilled us on these things, would be disappointed in me right now. I believe I could make a stab at diagramming that quote to their satisfaction, but for the life of me I can’t figure out if it contains any meaningful content. Brilliant, really, because anyone who wants to believe that Heather is on their side can read their preferred meaning into it.

Then we learn:

Somers said she showed up to support her constituent but not to encourage her decision either way. She attended the meeting between Thibodeau and Stonington police Cap. Todd Olson, she said, to help Thibodeau understand “what the process looks like so she can understand how to proceed or not proceed.”

You see, she’s not trying to signal to her whackjob base or encourage this woman at all as she accompanies her to booking. Heather always makes sure she’s there to lend a hand any time a constituent announces in advance that they intend to commit a criminal offense. It’s just part of her job.

Anyway, Heather can see both sides of the issue:

On Thursday, Somers said she thinks people defying or protesting the governor’s order to keep salons and barber shops closed are confused about why getting a haircut poses such a risk in the governor’s eyes.

“How is that any less safe than going to a big box store?” she said. “I think that’s what people are struggling with, but the governor’s order is the governor’s order, we have to follow the law. It’s been clarified, it’s clear, so we have to see how things go.”

You see, even Heather is confused. Some might say that explaining the reason why hair salons pose a greater risk than big box stores might be a job for Obviousman, but lets cut Heather some slack. Sure, as a member of the Health Committee she should be expected to know or research the reason salons are less safe. If she’s really curious, she could ask her cardiologist husband who, though not an epidemiologist, could probably explain the reason in words of one syllable that she could understand and even pass along to her base, not that any of the Foxaholics would listen. But she has only so much time on her hands and you can’t expect her to actually read up on these things or even give them a little thought. In case you’re confused too, the Day’s reporter noted:

In its original letter directing barbers, hairdressers, cosmetologists, nail technicians, estheticians, eyelash technicians and massage therapists to close, the state Department of Public Health told them, “The nature of your profession puts you in direct contact with your clients and customers. Therefore, the risk of transmission if you or a client is infected is higher than professions that do not require direct contact.”

As Obviousman might say: DUH!

Now, for myself, I can’t muster up sympathy for the other whackjob interviewed in the linked article who just has to get his haircut now. I have no problem with letting my freak flag fly almost as much as it did back in the 70s (albeit, a bit grayer) when we endured the second most crooked president in history. Almost makes me feel young again, until my wife assures me I’m deluded. But I will remember, if it crosses my mind to break the law, to let Heather know in advance so she can hold my hand when they take me down to the police station.

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