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The Pillow Man Speaks

Monday, March 29, 2021

Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy, says the Supreme Court is going to put the genius back in office by July. He has inside information, he says, quite likely of the same quality as the information he claims to have about the voting machine companies. The Pillow Man, along with all the other things he doesn’t know, doesn’t know anything about the Supreme Court, as I’ll explain in due course.

Part of me, I must admit, misses the Trump years. It was so much easier to think of things to post on this blog. If you couldn’t come up with anything else, there was always the outrage of the day to fall back on. Those days are gone. Up to now, Joe Biden has been the Ned Lamont of presidents, quietly going about the job of doing his job. Even the right wing outrage machine has had a bit of a tough time ginning up controversies, though some in the media are doing their best to buttress the right wing talking point that Biden is somehow responsible for a border situation that commenced long before he took office and which, curiously enough, was worse under Trump but for which Trump was not responsible. Oh well.

Anyway, back to my main point, assuming I have one. If the court handed the genius his “job” back, it would make it far easier to come up with things to write about. On the other hand, were that to happen, we on the left could kiss free speech good-bye, as any such decision would spell the end of American democracy. That denouement is an ultimate objective of the current Supreme Court, but they prefer to do it, as the Wicked Witch said, “delicately”, and, as the Three Stooges often said, “step by step, inch by inch”. The objective is to create an autocracy gradually, so that the warnings from people like me and every other left wing blogger can go unheeded. So the genius will continue to ramble on at Mar-a-Lago for the time being, and should the state of New York manage to convict him of fraud, the Supreme Court will not stand between him and a prison cell. He has already served his purpose, so far as they are concerned. In the meantime, the court will slowly but surely go about its business of dismantling the Republic.

As for Lindell, he’s going to have to sell a lot of pillows to the rubes to pay that libel judgment.

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Upcoming Judicial Decision, A CTBlue exclusive!

Tuesday, March 23, 2021

RULING ON MOTION TO DISMISS

Defendant Sidney Powell has moved to dismiss this libel action brought by Smartmatic, a manufacturer of voting machines. Powell is a lawyer who puts herself forward as being an expert in election law. She has, while purportedly acting on behalf of the former guy appeared on Fox and other right wing media platforms claiming that Plaintiff Smartmatic’s voting machines were rigged, thereby throwing the recent election to Joseph Biden. Plaintiff has suffered damages as a result.

Powell initially recites the legal requirements for proving libel, then states:

This inquiry is determined as a matter of law. Bucher v. Roberts, 595 P.2d 235, 241 (Colo. 1979) (“Whether a particular statement constitutes fact or opinion is a question of law.”). Analyzed under these factors, and even assuming, arguendo, that each of the statements alleged in the Complaint could be proved true or false, no reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact.

Defendant thus refuses to admit that her repeated allegations that plaintiff rigged its voting machines were fabrications, but maintains that if they were fabrications, no reasonable person would have believed them. Defendant thus implicitly asks this court to suspend judgment as to whether the statements she made were true, while arguing that no reasonable person should believe they could be true. For the reasons stated below, this court is constrained to do exactly that: pretend the statements might have been true, yet rule that because no reasonable person would have believed them, defendant was free to spread her fabrications without legal consequence to her.

Plaintiff submits that the purpose of libel law, like any other tort law, is to compensate the plaintiff for damages suffered as a result of a legal wrong. Defendant, however, argues that there should be an exception: that a person may engage in libel so long as those libels are directed at unreasonable people who believe the lies. This implies that any person may spread an outrageous lie designed to be believed by Fox viewers (who apparently are, by definition, not reasonable people) and that any murder, death threats, injuries to business, or destruction of property (such as that in the US Capitol by the unreasonable people to whom defendant apparently claims to have intended to direct her remarks) that may result from the actions of people motivated by defendants statements of asserted fact must be borne by the plaintiff, despite being caused by the defendant, because those people are not reasonable.

The Supreme Court has not yet carved out an exception from the laws of libel for right wing conspiracists. However, this court is obligated to make a good faith effort to determine what the court would do when presented with these facts. The court finds that the Supreme Court will likely rule that there is an exception to the law of libel for individuals who propagate lies intended to benefit the Republican Party, Republican candidates, or intended to stir up resentment among unreasonable people provided those people are predominately white. The court is unable to conjure up the precise obfuscatory language the court will employ to do this, but is confident of the net result. The court also notes the persuasive precedent of McDougal v. Tucker Carlson, et. al., in which a district court ruled that Tucker Carlson is incapable of libeling anyone, because no reasonable person would believe anything he said.

Plaintiff argues that such a ruling would give the media carte blanche to libel anyone and get off the hook by simply arguing that no reasonable person should have believed them. The plaintiff is simply incorrect. For example, were Rachel Maddow to allow a guest to spread a falsehood of the nature of that spread by the defendant on Fox, she would be liable for the simple reason that reasonable people do believe what she and her guests have to say.

Plaintiff argues that if such is the case, then Fox and its ilk should be required to run disclaimers to the effect that its viewers can not believe a word anyone says on their media platforms. The court declines to issue such an order because free speech.

For the foregoing reasons, the court grants the motion to dismiss.

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Friday Night Music, Connecticut Edition

Friday, March 19, 2021

A week or so ago, I got yet another app for my IPad and IPhone, an internet radio app called Radio Garden. It’s a fun app. You can explore a map of the world, and find radio stations by location. You can also search by name and, to a certain extent, genre.

Anyway, I chanced upon a radio station from London, The UK 1940s Radio Station, which I put on my favorite list, so I can listen to it when my wife’s not around, as she is not a fan of the old time stuff. Anyway, here I am listening to a radio station from London and what do I hear? Judy Garland and Bing Crosby teaming up to sing Connecticut (is the State for Me), a song about our fair state! And I had to go to England to hear it.

I broke a rule I stuck to when this was a regular feature, as I avoided YouTube “videos” that consisted of a song and a picture, but I made an exception for this song for the obvious reason that there is no video for a song this old. Near as I can gather it was written by Hugh Martin, the guy who wrote Have Yourself a Very Merry Christmas for some sort of Yale related event.

DuckDuckGo tells me that the official state song of Connecticut is Yankee Doodle, which never mentions the state of Connecticut. I seem to recall that Tom Meskill tried to get a song called The Hills of My Connecticut named the state song. It doesn’t hold a candle to Connecticut, as you can hear here, but then, The Yankee Nutmeggers are not Judy Garland and Bing Crosby. Nothing against Yankee Doodle, but it seems to me that Connecticut does a better job promoting our fair state.

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The Republican Party, the eternally black pot

Thursday, March 18, 2021

If you want to know what crimes Republicans are committing, all you have to do is listen to what they are accusing others of doing:

Yet another case in point:

The former Florida state senator accused of masterminding and funding a sham candidate to manipulate voters last November is now facing charges of felony campaign finance crimes.

Frank Artiles was booked into Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on Thursday, a day after his Palmetto Bay home was raided.

Shill candidate Alex Rodriguez was also booked Thursday morning.

Their charges (all third-degree felonies) include: ?>>Making or receiving campaign contributions over or in excess of limits??>>Conspiracy to make or receive two or more campaign contributions over or in excess of limits??>>False swearing in connection with voting or elections

According to a warrant obtained by Local 10 News, investigators say Artiles offered to pay Rodriguez $50,000 — half during the election and half afterward — for Rodriguez to enter November’s District 37 state senate race, where he shared a last name with the incumbent Democrat candidate Jose Javier Rodriguez.

Republican challenger Ileana Garcia ultimately defeated Jose Javier Rodriguez by just 32 votes for that seat. The plant candidate Alex Rodriguez, a deep-in-debt machinery rep who actually lived two counties away from the district, got over 6,000 votes despite not actually campaigning, nor having actual political aspirations.

In this particular case, the fraud was successful. No doubt the Republican “winner” will feel no compunction about keeping the seat that was stolen on her behalf.

It truly is a useful guide for prosecutors. If Republicans accuse others of crimes, you know just what to look for.

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Are the Democrats Learning?

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

It seems that, perhaps, the Democrats have learned some lessons from their experiences over the last 12 years. This is a remarkable phenomenon, since as recently as a year ago, Joe Biden seemed determined to learn nothing, as he predicted that the Republicans would have an epiphany should they lose the election in 2020. We’ve all seen how that worked out, but apparently Biden put that belief aside long before the moment when that epiphany was supposed to happen. Now we have a couple of other encouraging developments.

If you want to change your ways, it helps to admit your mistakes, and apparently the Democrats are coming to terms with one of the biggest mistakes they made:

As Democrats pushed this month to pass the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, they were eager to rebuke Republicans for opposing en masse a measure filled with aid to struggling Americans. But they had another target as well: the core policy of President Barack Obama’s first-term agenda.

Party leaders from President Biden on down are citing Mr. Obama’s strategy on his most urgent policy initiative — an $800 billion financial rescue plan in 2009 in the midst of a crippling recession — as too cautious and too deferential to Republicans, mistakes they were determined not to repeat.

It wasn’t just Obama. I can’t recall a single Senator questioning this strategy, though I may be wrong about that. Despite evidence that proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Republicans would obstruct and do nothing else, Democrats continued to pay lip service to the fairy tale that they could bargain in good faith with McConnell and his ilk. Even Susan Collins played them, trading an affirmative vote for neutering the bill by making it heavily skewed toward unnecessary tax breaks for…well, you know who for.

Besides acknowledging that there’s no use bargaining with Republicans, Democrats are also facing up to the fact that they can’t allow the Republicans to frustrate the Democratic agenda by using the filibuster. Dick Durbin’s recent speech can only be interpreted as the opening shot in a campaign to change the rules to render the filibuster fairly toothless. It also may mean that they have persuaded Manchin, Synema and Feinstein that they must get with the program, and pronounce themselves satisfied with whatever fig leaf they are given so they can claim that the filibuster survives.

Mitch McConnell wouldn’t be making threats about what he will do if back in power if the filibuster is destroyed, if he wasn’t afraid that the end is near, and those threats provide further proof that the Democrats have learned their lesson, since they have essentially responded that he would do those things anyway if he took power once again. The filibuster has never served the purposes of progressives; it has always been a weapon of the right. They want to use it now to make sure they can keep the federal government from interfering with the states that are trying to disenfranchise Democratic leaning population groups. If the Senate does not pass HR 1, we can pretty much kiss Democracy in America good-bye.

If the Democrats want to maintain control of the House and Senate (while hopefully expanding their majorities) they have to prove to the people of this country that they can deliver. Republicans don’t need to do that; all they have to do is feed the base red meat, suppress the vote where possible (with the help of the right wing judiciary), and convince a slice of the electorate that there’s no use voting. They do the latter by harping on the theme that the Democrats have failed to deliver on promises. It was exactly that strategy that they used against Obama after he agreed to the weak tea that was the stimulus bill of 2009.

It appears that the Democratic establishment may have learned what has been obvious to us dirty hippies all along. Here’s hoping they pull it off.

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Maybe you can’t be wrong all the time

Saturday, March 13, 2021

I’ve mentioned before that my wife and I helped found a chapter of Drinking Liberally which has (hopefully) survived to this day, as we are very much hoping to leave the confines of Zoom and meet in person soon, and actually drink, albeit not all that liberally.

One of the regulars has been faithfully attending since the first meeting, many a year ago. I won’t mention his name, as I don’t want to needlessly embarrass him given the revelations I’ll be making about him. I’ll just call him “Mr. S”.

Now, you would think that when a bunch of liberals get together to talk politics they would agree about just about everything, but when it comes to Mr. S and me, that’s simply not the case. We disagree all the time. In fact, it is a provable fact that he’s always wrong, a fact demonstrated by the fact that he insists that I’m always wrong, which of course is totally absurd. It doesn’t bother me that he insists I’m always wrong, because since he’s always wrong, it follows logically that I must, in fact, always be right.

That conclusion certainly seemed to follow logically, based on all the evidence, but lately, I’ve come to the conclusion that he may actually have been right about something fairly recently! It therefore follows that on at least one occasion I may have been wrong!

You see, he backed Joe Biden right from the start, while I had to force myself to get enthusiastic about the man once it was clear I had no choice.

I now am coming around to the view that for a number of reasons, Biden was the best choice available. In an ideal world, either Bernie or Elizabeth would have made better presidents, but it may come as a shock to some that this is not an ideal world. So, here are some of the reasons Biden may have been the best choice:

First, he was eminently electable, as it never looked like they’d be able to make the Hunter stuff stick. Second, he has actually, so far, been reasonably progressive. For this, I think, we have the likes of Bernie and Elizabeth to thank, for pushing him in that direction. Third, it appears he listens to reason, for he clearly came to realize that the Republicans were not going to have the come to Jesus moment he once predicted they would have if they lost the election. He made no attempt to attract Republican support for his program, did not allow any of them to hold it hostage, and did not neuter it in order to get a meaningless vote or two. Finally, it is likely the case that if either Bernie or Elizabeth had been elected, and they had proposed the same $1.9 Trillion dollar rescue package, upwards of fifty Congressional Democrats would have considered it their solemn duty to water it down in order to show that they didn’t share the President’s wild eyed socialism. Those same Congress members were perfectly happy to vote in favor of such a bill with Biden’s moderate image tacked onto it. Politics is the art of the possible, and it’s just possible that it would only have been possible to pass that bill with Biden in the White House. If that bill works as well as folks like Krugman expect, it just may enable the Democrats to maintain their majority in the House, and expand it in the Senate.

So Mr. S was right(!), though I can take comfort from the fact that though he may have been right, he was, surely, right for all the wrong reasons. I say this even though he never told me his reasons. Also, even though he may have been right this once (after all, even a stopped clock…), he was still wrong all those other times, as history has shown. I can also take comfort from the fact that it is a certainty that he will go back to always being wrong, and this one time that he got it right will recede into the dim and distant past. So, I look forward to our next in person DL, when I can lift a glass to him and greet him in our time honored fashion by proclaiming emphatically: “You’re wrong!”

AFTERWORD: As I’ve mentioned in the past, the comments aren’t working on this site, and I still haven’t gotten them fixed. So, if Mr. S happens to read this, and feels he must defend his honor by making some pathetic attempt to prove that he’s not always wrong, he can send me an email and I promise to post it, even though it will be completely wrong, as usual, as will be obvious to anyone who reads it.

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Republicans being Republicans

Thursday, March 11, 2021

I ran across this article today, in which we learn that Senator Rick Scott (Felon-Florida) is urging state governors to return any money the Feds give them as a result of the COVID-19 relief measure the Democrats just passed.

The equally corrupt governor of Florida, meanwhile, has not only said he won’t take Scott’s advice, but he’s also criticizing Scott for not following Lisa Murkowski’s lead: pushing for an amendment to get more funds for your state, then voting against the bill.

Scott’s bloviating is emblematic of the current Republican approach to “governing”: Unless you are in a position to shovel money toward the rich, simply engage in moral scolding, knowing full well, as in this instance, that the folks you’re scolding will ignore you, but that it will play well with the folks at Fox and the brainwashed base. Actually doing anything for their constituents is the last thing on their minds. The first thing on their minds is propagandizing the sheep into believing that the government shouldn’t do anything for them, because if the government is doing it, all the best stuff always goes to those nasty brown and black people.

I have a very young granddaughter, and when she gets old enough to understand, I suppose I’ll be boring her with stories about how when I was her age, there were actually Republicans, with whom I could disagree, but who I could still respect as people who cared about their country and their constituents. Republicans who actually wanted to do the right thing. She probably won’t believe me. She’ll simply see it as a sign of dementia.

Afterthought: On a somewhat related note, it appears that the Republicans have known all along that the American Recovery Act would work, and have now settled on a line of attack to propagandize against it:

After failing to stop the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell now hopes no one will notice when it helps stimulate the struggling economy.

“The economy’s coming back. People are getting vaccine. We’re on the way out of this. We’re about to have a boom,” McConnell (R-KY) told reporters on Wednesday. “And if we do have a boom, it will have absolutely nothing to do with this $1.9 trillion.”

You might think that’s far too transparently absurd, but this is America in 2021. The boom will, of course, have everything to do with the $1.9 trillion, but Fox will pick up the baton, and the brain dead will believe it even as they cash their checks and get their rent relief. Much to my surprise, however, it appears that Biden is fully aware of the strategy, and for once, the Democrats are prepared to beat the drums on their own behalf.

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Republicans being Republicans

Thursday, March 11, 2021

I ran across this article today, in which we learn that Senator Rick Scott (Felon-Florida) is urging state governors to return any money the Feds give them as a result of the COVID-19 relief measure the Democrats just passed.

The equally corrupt governor of Florida, meanwhile, has not only said he won’t take Scott’s advice, but he’s also criticizing Scott for not following Lisa Murkowski’s lead: pushing for an amendment to get more funds for your state, then voting against the bill.

Scott’s bloviating is emblematic of the current Republican approach to “governing”: Unless you are in a position to shovel money toward the rich, simply engage in moral scolding, knowing full well, as in this instance, that the folks you’re scolding will ignore you, but that it will play well with the folks at Fox and the brainwashed base. Actually doing anything for their constituents is the last thing on their minds. The first thing on their minds is propagandizing the sheep into believing that the government shouldn’t do anything for them, because if the government is doing it, all the best stuff always goes to those nasty brown and black people.

I have a very young granddaughter, and when she gets old enough to understand, I suppose I’ll be boring her with stories about how when I was her age, there were actually Republicans, with whom I could disagree, but who I could still respect as people who cared about their country and their constituents. Republicans who actually wanted to do the right thing. She probably won’t believe me. She’ll simply see it as a sign of dementia.

Afterthought: On a somewhat related note, it appears that the Republicans have known all along that the American Recovery Act would work, and have now settled on a line of attack to propagandize against it:

After failing to stop the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell now hopes no one will notice when it helps stimulate the struggling economy.

“The economy’s coming back. People are getting vaccine. We’re on the way out of this. We’re about to have a boom,” McConnell (R-KY) told reporters on Wednesday. “And if we do have a boom, it will have absolutely nothing to do with this $1.9 trillion.”

You might think that’s far too transparently absurd, but this is America in 2021. The boom will, of course, have everything to do with the $1.9 trillion, but Fox will pick up the baton, and the brain dead will believe it even as they cash their checks and get their rent relief. Much to my surprise, however, it appears that Biden is fully aware of the strategy, and for once, the Democrats are prepared to beat the drums on their own behalf.

Filed in Republicans | | Comments (0)

Republicans being Republicans

Thursday, March 11, 2021

I ran across this article today, in which we learn that Senator Rick Scott (Felon-Florida) is urging state governors to return any money the Feds give them as a result of the COVID-19 relief measure the Democrats just passed.

The equally corrupt governor of Florida, meanwhile, has not only said he won’t take Scott’s advice, but he’s also criticizing Scott for not following Lisa Murkowski’s lead: pushing for an amendment to get more funds for your state, then voting against the bill.

Scott’s bloviating is emblematic of the current Republican approach to “governing”: Unless you are in a position to shovel money toward the rich, simply engage in moral scolding, knowing full well, as in this instance, that the folks you’re scolding will ignore you, but that it will play well with the folks at Fox and the brainwashed base. Actually doing anything for their constituents is the last thing on their minds. The first thing on their minds is propagandizing the sheep into believing that the government shouldn’t do anything for them, because if the government is doing it, all the best stuff always goes to those nasty brown and black people.

I have a very young granddaughter, and when she gets old enough to understand, I suppose I’ll be boring her with stories about how when I was her age, there were actually Republicans, with whom I could disagree, but who I could still respect as people who cared about their country and their constituents. Republicans who actually wanted to do the right thing. She probably won’t believe me. She’ll simply see it as a sign of dementia.

Afterthought: On a somewhat related note, it appears that the Republicans have known all along that the American Recovery Act would work, and have now settled on a line of attack to propagandize against it:

After failing to stop the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell now hopes no one will notice when it helps stimulate the struggling economy.

“The economy’s coming back. People are getting vaccine. We’re on the way out of this. We’re about to have a boom,” McConnell (R-KY) told reporters on Wednesday. “And if we do have a boom, it will have absolutely nothing to do with this $1.9 trillion.”

You might think that’s far too transparently absurd, but this is America in 2021. The boom will, of course, have everything to do with the $1.9 trillion, but Fox will pick up the baton, and the brain dead will believe it even as they cash their checks and get their rent relief. Much to my surprise, however, it appears that Biden is fully aware of the strategy, and for once, the Democrats are prepared to beat the drums on their own behalf.

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An under the radar development

Sunday, March 7, 2021

There are always things going on under the radar whose effects sneak up on us when it’s too late to do much about them, or at least when it’s too late to prevent the harm they cause. This one is likely among those that may cause quite a bit of harm before it can be unwound:

The private consortium that oversees the model building codes for much of the United States and parts of the Caribbean and Latin America on Thursday stripped local governments of their right to vote on future energy-efficiency codes. 

The decision came more than a year after the construction and gas industry groups that wield heavy influence at the International Code Council objected to aggressive new energy codes for which government officials voted. 

The change, though technical and wonky, marks what environmental advocates say is one of the most consequential roadblocks to decarbonizing the U.S. economy. It also illustrates the limits of both the new Biden administration’s powers and the causes for which activists can mobilize public support. Local governments, members of Congress, environmentalists and architects overwhelmingly opposed the proposal.

Under the new system, the building codes that govern energy systems and insulation ? once subject to a vote by the city and state governments tasked with implementing them ? will instead fall under a separate “standards” process that, despite soliciting input from local officials, will give industry more control over the outcome. 

I had a number of cases involving building codes. It’s a technical subject, and there’s no doubt that there are good reasons to have uniformity in our codes. I was dimly aware of the existence of the Code Council, or an entity like it, but never really had to get into the weeds of how it was organized or the process by which it made it’s recommendations.

As the linked article demonstrates, the Council has essentially been taken over by the industries that building codes regulate or affect, i.e., the construction and energy industries. Naturally, the Council is now spinning the changes it made as a net gain for energy efficient construction, but that position is belied by the identities of the groups that support and oppose the changes. Basically, it’s environmentalists and governmental planners on one side, and energy interests and home builder interests on the other.

Ultimately, the Commission can make recommendations only. It’s up to localities to actually adopt its recommendations, which most have done simply because they lack the resources and expertise to draft them themselves and because there’s merit in having uniform standards. It looks like there’s a movement to create an alternative, which would probably be the best solution. It is, after all, about time that we mandate energy conserving measures in new construction, such as solar panels, etc. The Council’s action demonstrates once again the almost inevitable result of privatizing governmental functions.

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