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Both sides are equally bad! Republican edition

Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Every once in a while you read about one or more Republicans doing the right thing and you get sort of stunned. But then, if you look closer your faith in the party of fascism is fully restored. If they do something right, it will always be for all the wrong reasons.

Case in point, the Tennessee GOP just voted to remove a loathsome Trumpist carpetbagger from the primary ballot for a (presumably safe) open Congressional seat in Tennessee.

The Tennessee GOP voted Tuesday to remove former State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus and others from the ballot.

The former State Department spokesperson and Fox News contributor thought she had an inside track on running for Congress by moving to Tennessee after her time in Trump’s White House and working for Mike Pompeo. Alas, it was not to be as Tennessee Republicans don’t take kindly to carpetbaggers and found some novel ways to keep her and a few others off their ballot.

Ortagus made local headlines in March when she scored a big ZERO in a talk radio quiz about the district she wanted to represent.

Sounds good, right? Well, as you would expect after remembering these are Republicans we’re talking about, it turns out that for once, the media’s shibboleth about both sides being equally bad, turns out to be absolutely true. You see, as one of the folks responsible for keeping her off the ballot explained, Trump does not really care about her, and what they’ve done was for the sake of preserving the GOP’s monopoly on bigotry of all forms:

One Tennessee Republican opined that the only reason Ortagus had gotten Trump’s endorsement was that she’s a Jew.

“I don’t think Trump cares one way or the other,” he said. “I think Jared Kushner — he’s Jewish, she’s Jewish — I think Jared will be upset. Ivanka will be upset. I don’t think Trump cares.”

The Tennessee Republican in question is one Fred Nicely. Nicely “is also the same guy who last week made the Hitler reference as a former homeless person who made good”.

Of course Ortagus is incensed that Nicely would be openly anti-Semitic in the case of a Trump supporter, though one has to wonder whether, if she gets into Congress, she will join the rest of the nutjobs and cast aspersions on the Democratic Congresswomen who are Muslims.

At all events, it’s good to see some disarray among the Republicans. There’s an old saw about revolutions eating their own, and maybe the table is being set already.

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It’s Good Friday again, time to look on the bright side

Friday, April 15, 2022

Though I must admit, politically speaking, even the bright side is looking somewhat dim.

At this point, I feel I have no choice but to put this up every year. It’s a CTBlue tradition.

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No cheers for Lamont

Thursday, April 14, 2022

I’m not totally a James Carville fan, but he’s got this right:

“If we can’t stand in there for Joe Biden and talk about the great things he’s done, then we don’t deserve to win this election in 2022,” the Democratic strategist said.

More at the link. This echoes a complaint I’ve made many times, and I think we have a perfect example close to home.

By any reasonable measure, Ned Lamont has done a good job as governor. Unfortunately, Ned had this sort of weird idea that his job was to do his job as well as possible. He forgot about the part where he must endlessly trumpet his accomplishments, or to have others in the Democratic Party do it for him. Just as an example, his handling of COVID was far better and more honest than that of the unlamented Andrew Cuomo, but who was it that got all the self generated attention?

Besides the excellent COVID response, the state is in excellent financial condition, a direct result of the fact that Democrats have been in charge for the past several years, and thus have not had to contend with obstructionist Republican governors, like the now Floridian Jodi Rell. It’s really up to Democrats to trumpet these accomplishments, but their efforts, as always, are lackadaisical at best.

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Logic 101

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Now here’s a guy,”chiropractor, acupuncturist, and medical researcher” Bryan Ardis, who has used his brain, almost like Sherlock Holmes, to make a logical deduction from the facts available to him. He has deduced that COVID was developed and injected into the world by the Catholic Church, and his evidence is airtight. He had proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that COVID:

….is not a virus at all but rather a synthesized form of snake venom that is intentionally being spread via drinking water, COVID-19 treatments, and vaccines, possibly as part of a plot by the Catholic Church to turn everyone into “a hybrid of Satan.”

“The Latin definition historically for virus—originally and historically, virus meant, and means, venom,” Ardis said. “So, I started to wonder, ‘Well, what about the name ‘corona’? Does it have a Latin definition or a definition at all?’ So I actually looked up what’s the definition and on Dictionary.com, it brings up 13 definitions: ‘Corona, religiously, ecclesiastically, means gold ribbon at the base of a miter.” (A miter, the documentary then reported, is the traditional ceremonial headdress worn by Catholic bishops.)

“So, this actually could read, ‘The Pope’s Venom Pandemic,’” Ardis asserted. “In Latin terms, corona means crown. Visually, we see kings represented with a crown symbol. So put that together for me: king cobra venom. It actually could read, ‘King Cobra Venom Pandemic.’

Now, some people (not necessarily the same some people inside the head of a certain genius) might say that this deduction is highly illogical because if one is going to cause a worldwide pandemic killing millions of people, including lots of Catholics, one would not essentially sign one’s name to the crime by giving it a name that gives away the identity of the perpetrator.

But, this is where Ardis’s logical mind really shines. As I’m sure he would go on to say, the Pope knew that people would reject the idea of his being the author of the pandemic precisely because some people would say that no criminal would leave such hints as to his identity. It was, therefore, a brilliant piece of misdirection.

But some people would respond to Ardis: But even though some people would make the argument we have, other people would make an issue of the clues, so the Pope was running a needless risk. He should still have named the pandemic after something else, like maybe BIDENSFAULT 19.

But Ardis has them again. No way did the Pope have to worry, he would say, because anyone with a brain can see that anyone who tried to expose his malicious scheme based on the evidence that I’ve cited would be dismissed as a total whackjob.

So not only has Ardis proved his case with logical rigor, but he has also proven that the Pope will never be brought to justice for unleashing this snake venom on an unwary world.

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It doesn’t take Nostradamus to predict this

Tuesday, April 12, 2022

Well, this is totally unsurprising. Seems that Jared Kushner has been paid handsomely by Saudi Arabia for serving its interests, including covering up a murder. A good discussion about it by Juan Cole here. You have to hand it to Jared. He may have set a record so far as the amount of money that anyone has ever gained through corruption.

Now, here’s a prediction. Long after Jared’s corruption becomes a non-story (maybe it already is) we will still be hearing about Hunter Biden, not just from Fox, but from the “mainstream” media, that has lately felt it is its duty to try to resurrect the “laptop” story.

It remains the case that the unstated position of the media is that lying and corruption is just what Republicans do, so it’s not big news, while Democrats are expected to act ethically, and any hint of corruption, even if spread by Republicans accusing Democrats of what they themselves routinely do, is a big story.

It doesn’t help, of course, that the Democrats as a party are likely to be complicit in burying this story. A day doesn’t go by that some Republican doesn’t bring up Hunter Biden. The Democrats will likely be silent about Jared.

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Mike Lindell steps in it again

Thursday, April 7, 2022

I’m no longer practicing law, but I still can’t help but feel just a twinge of pity for whatever lawyer is representing Mike Lindell in the various libel suits that have been filed against him. Only a twinge, mind you, because he or she is probably as loathsome as Lindell. The guy just keeps making the case for the plaintiffs.

Recently he was served in a case brought by Eric Coomer, a former employee of Dominion for defamation.

Now, under still relevant Supreme Court precedent, a “public figure” can prevail in a libel suit only if he or she can prove actual malice on the part of the defendant. Now, the plaintiff in this case may or may not ultimately be ruled to be a public figure, but Lindell’s lawyers will no doubt want to argue that he is. So, here’s Lindell’s public reaction to the lawsuit:

During a broadcast later on Wednesday, Lindell claimed that he had “never talked about Eric Coomer” despite numerous statements accusing the former Dominion employee of fraud and being a “traitor.”

“Apparently he’s the president of Dominion,” Lindell stated incorrectly, “the criminal crime family here in Denver.”

“He served papers, everybody!” he continued. “Eric Coomer, you are a criminal! Eric Coomer, your lawyers better look out. I’m not putting up with this. MyPillow doesn’t even know who you are. My employees — I have 2,700 employees. Shame on you, Eric Coomer. You did a very, very stupid move, Mr. Coomer!”

Lindell claimed that Coomer would be “the first one” who goes to jail over the election.

“You’re number one on my list,” he ranted. “You’re disgusting. You belong behind bars. I heard you ran into a building the other day drunk or whatever you were, you know, whatever you did. You know, allegedly! I’ll say that for the lawyers.”

“But I will accuse you of this,” Lindell said. “You’ve been part of the biggest crime this world has ever seen, Eric Coomer, president of Dominion! You’ve even said what you did or what you were going to do. You’re disgusting. You’re disgusting, you’re evil and you belong behind bars and we will not stop to you are behind bars.”

He added: “We’re going to melt down your little machines and you’re going to hang on to your little prison bars. ‘Let me out, let me out!’ Should have thought about that, Eric Coomer, before you did crimes against the United States, the world and quite frankly all of humanity.”

If they get a super friendly right wing judge, they may be able to get these statements excluded, but it seems to me that any fair observer would have to conclude that they are evidence of actual malice against Mr. Coomer. For that matter, they could form the basis for additional counts against him.

I remember being involved in a case in which my client, several times, told me something that she thought would help her case and which I consistently told her would hurt it and that she should not mention it. She did anyway, and she lost the case. I can’t help but believe that even the most right wing lawyer would have cautioned Lindell to keep his mouth shut about Dominion from now on. It is looking more and more likely there’s one hopeful thing to which we can look forward: the end of the MyPillow grift.

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Who could have guessed?

Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Some researchers at Stamford and Yale have just announced the results of what purports to be a scientific study. It turns out, shockingly enough, that if people stop watching Fox propaganda, a fair number of them actually start trending toward the rational:

Broockman and Kalla recruited a sample of regular Fox News viewers and paid a subset of them to watch CNN instead. (Compliance was enforced with some news quizzes, for which additional compensation was offered.) Then the treatment group of switchers and the control group of non-switchers took three waves of surveys about the news.

The results: Not only did CNN and Fox cover different things during the September 2020 survey period, but the audience of committed Fox viewers, which started the month with conservative predispositions, changed their minds on many issues.

I confess that while I have some doubts about the methodology of this particular study, I am not all that surprised by its conclusion. In fact, it immediately brought to mind this exchange from Hamlet, in which Hamlet, reluctant to divulge too much in front of other witnesses, tells a curious Horatio what he’s learned after talking to his father’s ghost:

HAMLET: There’s never a villain dwelling in all Denmark But he’s an arrant knave.

HORATIO: There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave To tell us this.

To drive the point home, there needs no University professors come from the halls of Ivy, to tell us that Fox brainwashes its viewers or that stopping the washes will restore at least some of the brains.

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What could go wrong?

Thursday, March 31, 2022

Maybe I’m getting to be a curmudgeon in my old age. Maybe I’ve always been a curmudgeon, but this non-political article I just read sure got me into high curmudgeon. It’s about some scientists who have developed a “language” that they hope will be easily interpreted by the aliens to whom they intend to beam insterstellar messages. I’ve got no problem with doing this, but this got me scratching my head:

Humans have sent many messages intended for aliens to outer space over the years, including the physical Golden Records onboard NASA’s Voyager probes, which, like BITG, also carry images of the naked human form. However, these attempts to establish contact with an alien race are not without controversy. Some experts have warned that broadcasting Earth’s position in the galaxy could be an invitation for a potentially hostile species to do damage to our world. Jiang and his colleagues acknowledge this risk, but ultimately counter that any aliens capable of deciphering the BITG message are not likely to be aggressive conquerors.

“Logic suggests a species which has reached sufficient complexity to achieve communication through the cosmos would also very likely have attained high levels of cooperation amongst themselves and thus will know the importance of peace and collaboration,” the team said.

(Emphasis added)

I would really like to know where the “team” studied logic. Homo Sapiens has “reached sufficient complexity to achieve communication through the cosmos” a fact proven by the very team making this logical assertion, and hasn’t, so far as I’m aware, “attained high levels of cooperation amongst themselves” nor does it seem to know the “importance of peace and collaboration”. Or, to put it another way, for every example of cooperation one might cite, there is a counter-example, else there would have been no Hitlers, no Stalins, no Putins, no Trumps, etc., etc., etc. I don’t expect us to be attacked by aliens in the near future, but logic suggests that the history of humanity establishes as a near certainty that any aliens that have reached sufficient complexity to achieve communications through the cosmos might very well pose a threat somewhat akin to the threat that Columbus posed to the inhabitants of the Americas.

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This is familiar

Wednesday, March 30, 2022

I have been voted out of every elective office here in the Town of Groton, which means I have also held each elective office, so I became familiar with the budget process. So this sounded familiar:

The leadership of the Congressional Progressive Caucus voiced opposition to President Joe Biden’s $813 billion military budget request on Monday and lamented that the question so often asked of critical social spending measures—”how will we pay for it?”—is never applied to soaring Pentagon outlays.

The town doesn’t have an army, but it does have a police force, and the same rule applied. The budgets for essential services always take a hit, but whatever the cops propose they get, no questions asked.

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Those were the days

Tuesday, March 29, 2022

So it turns out that there is a seven and a half hour gap in the White House phone records on the day of the insurrection.

I was a Watergate fan. The summer the hearings were taking place I was lifeguarding at Indian Well State Park in Shelton, and when the hearings were taking place I’d use my break time in our sleeping quarters to watch as much of the hearings as I could. Believe it or not, there were honest Republicans on the committee who actually were interested in uncovering the truth!

Those were the days.

Anyway, I do recall that when the 18½ minute gap in the White House tapes came to light, the press couldn’t get enough of it. It wasn’t proof of guilt, as there could actually have been an innocent explanation, but no one quite believed that to be the case. After all, Nixon had already been found guilty by most of the American public. That was back in the day when we lacked a propaganda network and social media that prefer dollars to democracy.

Trump’s gap far exceeds Nixon’s, and is far more convincing evidence of guilt. There is no innocent explanation. Either a conscious decision was made not to keep records of Trump’s criminal behavior (for all of us non-Q folks know he was engaging in criminal behavior) or a conscious decision was made later to destroy the evidence. This is all very convenient for both Trump and his multiple co-conspirators.

Now’s the time for an easy prediction: the press will spend more time obsessing about Biden’s “gaffe!”, which wasn’t particularly gaffy (just made up that word) than it will on Trump’s 7½ hour gap, which will be quickly forgotten. At least by the media. The January 6th committee may have something to say about it, and here’s hoping the DOJ is on the case, since it’s possible the American people will deliver the House into the hands of the insurrectionists in November. Yet another thing that would not have happened in Watergate days.

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