It was interesting perusing the comments to Grim's post about this year's International Women's Day strike. Although I hesitate to offend any regulars at the Hall, let me suggest you are viewing this event through a certain, well, myopia.
You see, when all of these Progressive Princesses (and I use that title with its full measure of royal respect), these Social Justice Warrior Womyn, are absent, it leads to reflection on the part of those of their co-workers who suffer a certain lack of Progressivity or SJ Warriory-ness. Yes, this denial of Progressive Princess presence engenders a certain bittersweet sensation somewhat reminiscent of ... well, vacation.
In their absence, one feels the weight of freedom, the sense that it might be possible in some plebeian utopia to discuss world affairs out in the open, like free men and women, without triggering tearful displays of reality denial at the words "President Trump," or snippy reminders that some of us feel deeply oppressed, or the sotto voce jokes about incipient fascism that we're not supposed to hear but are. It makes one pensive.
So, allow me to suggest that we ... empathize with these courageous Womyn Warriors, praise them, even. Suggest, if we may, that they make this a quarterly event, even a monthly one, because womyn are worth it, yo!
Well, no, we couldn't join them; we are too mired in the internalized oppression of the patriarchy, you see. We could never do that! But we are inspired by them! In fact, because of the obvious strength they displayed with their absence, we even felt a little tug to break free ourselves ...
Responsible Blue-State Government
The Rhode Island Statehouse is full of drunk legislators doing shots inside the capitol, newly elected Providence Democratic Rep. Moira Walsh alleged this week....
“I am probably gonna get in a lot of trouble for saying this but the drinking, it is the drinking that blows my mind. You cannot operate a motor vehicle when you’ve had two beers, but you can make laws that affect people’s lives forever when you’re half in the bag?” she said. “That’s outrageous.”
When asked to clarify if lawmakers are drinking during session Walsh demurred, though she did say they took shots together on the floor on at least one occasion.
“Dude they put shots on our desk for the Dominican Republic day and we all just did shots on the floor,” she offered.
Rolling Stone: This Russia Story is Dangerous to the Press's Credibility
The magazine that gave us Hunter S. Thompson has begun to publish queasy second-thoughts about all this Russia stuff.
This is the former Director of National Intelligence telling all of us that as of 12:01 a.m. on January 20th, when he left government, the intelligence agencies had no evidence of collusion between Donald Trump's campaign and the government of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Virtually all of the explosive breaking news stories on the Trump-Russia front dating back months contain some version of this same disclaimer....There is a real danger to the press in proving the spirit of Trump's accusations against it: that it is an enemy, if not of 'the People,' certainly of him personally and his administration in general. Credibility is the currency, and the media's is in grave danger here. If it becomes obvious that they allowed themselves to become the willing puppets of administration opponents within the security state, the press has a lot to lose.
Setting all of that aside, look at the techniques involved within the more "legitimate" reports. Many are framed in terms of what they might mean, should other information surface. There are inevitably uses of phrases like "so far," "to date" and "as yet." These make visible the outline of a future story that isn't currently reportable, further heightening expectations....
These constructions are an end run around the [NYT']s own reporting standards. The Times by itself could never have run that "explosive" Steele dossier, or mentioned the "embarrassing videos" – because the dossier material can't be confirmed....
[W]hat if there is nothing else to find?
Reporters should always be nervous when intelligence sources sell them stories. Spooks don't normally need the press. Their usual audiences are other agency heads, and the executive. They can bring about action just by convincing other people within the government to take it.
In the extant case, whether the investigation involved a potential Logan Act violation, or election fraud, or whatever, the CIA, FBI, and NSA had the ability to act both before and after Donald Trump was elected. But they didn't, and we know why, because James Clapper just told us – they didn't have evidence to go on.
Thus we are now witnessing the extremely unusual development of intelligence sources that normally wouldn't tell a reporter the time of day litigating a matter of supreme importance in the media.
I Love This Plan
We've heard the sanctimonious "Blue States pay more in taxes!" arguments for more than a decade now, and of course the moralizing about how Red States are full of losers is old hat. Still, the actual plan here is wonderful.
Frankly, I think much of that spending done in Red States is harmful anyway. The opioid epidemic is paid for by Federal welfare money: poor people can't afford all those pills. However, they get food stamp money that can launder, and they get subsidized pills thanks to Federal medical aid. So ending all those transfer payments would ultimately be of benefit to our society: the transfer payments and welfare schemes often cause harm, however much they are intended to do good. Likewise, I don't worry too much that industry will flock only to blue states (with their high state taxes) and avoid red states (with their far lower ones).
This is what I think of as "true" Federalism -- the Federal government has a few, specific, explicitly stated duties. It has all, but only, the powers it needs to do those few things. Everything else is reserved to the states, or to the people, as the 10th Amendment plainly says.
So by all means, let's get to work on this new idea of theirs.
We give up. You win. From now on, we’ll treat the animating ideal on which the United States was founded—out of many, one—as dead and buried. Federalism, true federalism, which you have vilified for the past century, is officially over, at least in spirit. You want to organize the nation around your cherished principle of states’ rights—the idea that pretty much everything except the U.S. military and paper currency and the national anthem should be decided at the local level? Fine. We won’t formally secede, in the Civil War sense of the word. We’ll still be a part of the United States, at least on paper. But we’ll turn our back on the federal government in every way we can, just like you’ve been urging everyone to do for years, and devote our hard-earned resources to building up our own cities and states. We’ll turn Blue America into a world-class incubator for progressive programs and policies, a laboratory for a guaranteed income and a high-speed public rail system and free public universities. We’ll focus on getting our own house in order, while yours falls into disrepair and ruin.That's fantastic. In return, let's cut Federal taxes to the bone so that it has the money it needs to take care of the military and its other few explicitly Constitutional functions. That'll leave more money for blue states to redirect to all those local projects.
Frankly, I think much of that spending done in Red States is harmful anyway. The opioid epidemic is paid for by Federal welfare money: poor people can't afford all those pills. However, they get food stamp money that can launder, and they get subsidized pills thanks to Federal medical aid. So ending all those transfer payments would ultimately be of benefit to our society: the transfer payments and welfare schemes often cause harm, however much they are intended to do good. Likewise, I don't worry too much that industry will flock only to blue states (with their high state taxes) and avoid red states (with their far lower ones).
This is what I think of as "true" Federalism -- the Federal government has a few, specific, explicitly stated duties. It has all, but only, the powers it needs to do those few things. Everything else is reserved to the states, or to the people, as the 10th Amendment plainly says.
So by all means, let's get to work on this new idea of theirs.
"Preach what you Practice"
A reasonable point on the virtues of the virtuous:
They say the popular things to say, not the hard things. If the poor and the weak hear these things from the righteous and successful, how many of them will find the heart to say that the righteous and successful are wrong? Well, they are wrong: not so much in what they do, but very often in what they say. Very often, likewise, in what they consent to their government saying.
Murray’s upper-middle-class professionals are not the callous and un-American “Davos Men” of Steve Bannon’s rhetoric. They’re guilty of some mostly benign neglect, but in general their lifestyles are fairly admirable.It's fair to draw a distinction between decent 'elites' and the "Davos Men" (and women, including especially the recent Democratic candidate for President). But let's not lose the fair criticism, either: how many of these don't preach what they practice? How many preach that the traditional family structure is a kind of trap for women and children, or that marriage is a very fluid concept, or that really it's fine if the best jobs go to strangers overseas? They don't practice this way. They practice as if their marriage and family are sacrosanct, and their children need to position themselves to get the increasingly few good jobs that exist in a changing economy.
They’re disciplined and hard-working. They embrace healthy life habits. They are conscientious parents who get involved in their (bubbled) communities. It’s also interesting to note that Murray sees his upper middle class as a genuine cognitive elite.... In short, Murray in “Coming Apart” seems to regard the residents of “Belmont” as fine exemplars of many core American values. He doesn’t want to see them deposed. He just wants them to try harder to reach out to their less-fortunate compatriots, which is especially critical because “Fishtown” needs some help in this regard....
We don’t have to choose between a theory suggesting that “Fishtown” needs more and better professional and educational opportunities, and one suggesting that Fishtowners need more discipline and better life habits. These claims can easily both be true.
But if they are both true, then we won’t be able to lift “Fishtown” up just by tearing “Belmont” down. Populism likes to lionize the common man, but that wasn’t Murray’s impulse. He wanted the elite to “preach what they practice,” negatively judging Fishtowners’ misbehavior for their own good and the good of our shared society.
They say the popular things to say, not the hard things. If the poor and the weak hear these things from the righteous and successful, how many of them will find the heart to say that the righteous and successful are wrong? Well, they are wrong: not so much in what they do, but very often in what they say. Very often, likewise, in what they consent to their government saying.
This is a Strange Day for this Argument, Comey
Default powerful encryption "breaks the bargain" between citizens and government, argues the head of the FBI.
I'm pretty sure we just this week had it confirmed that you have backdoor capacities to turn on the microphones in like everything we own, which means that encryption of voice calls is useless. Malware that lets you read keystrokes captures data before the start of the end-to-end encryption process, and if you can seize control of the computer you can read the data on the other end anyway.
Besides, encryption is a branch of mathematical logic. You can't ban it any more than you can ban people from doing math. If you made it illegal to manufacture commercial encryption, anyone with a computer could still brew it up if they bothered to learn how. At least this way you can bribe the tech companies to give you a backdoor or to leave vulnerabilities for you to exploit in the system (as the Vault 7 documents claim your friends at CIA have been doing).
If anyone has a right to complain about the bargain being broken, I would think it was the citizenry. The right to be secure in 'person and papers' without your having to get a warrant seems to be fading in this technological age. If there remain ways of defending yourself from intrusive surveillance, good.
I'm pretty sure we just this week had it confirmed that you have backdoor capacities to turn on the microphones in like everything we own, which means that encryption of voice calls is useless. Malware that lets you read keystrokes captures data before the start of the end-to-end encryption process, and if you can seize control of the computer you can read the data on the other end anyway.
Besides, encryption is a branch of mathematical logic. You can't ban it any more than you can ban people from doing math. If you made it illegal to manufacture commercial encryption, anyone with a computer could still brew it up if they bothered to learn how. At least this way you can bribe the tech companies to give you a backdoor or to leave vulnerabilities for you to exploit in the system (as the Vault 7 documents claim your friends at CIA have been doing).
If anyone has a right to complain about the bargain being broken, I would think it was the citizenry. The right to be secure in 'person and papers' without your having to get a warrant seems to be fading in this technological age. If there remain ways of defending yourself from intrusive surveillance, good.
SoA: Celebrating the Kurdish Female Peshmerga
Spirit of America has chosen to celebrate "International Women's Day" with this series of interviews. By virtue of necessity, 40% of the Kurdish fighting force is female as they struggle against ISIS and are surrounded by regional aggressors.
NSA Wiretap Whistleblower: Of Course Trump Is Right
Eat the rich? No, we eat everything.
He's almost twenty years out of date as a man in the service, which either makes this better or worse. If a 36 year member of the service says this is plausible based on nearly 20 year old data, then it's way more plausible today. On the other hand, he's been out of the game for a long time.
He's almost twenty years out of date as a man in the service, which either makes this better or worse. If a 36 year member of the service says this is plausible based on nearly 20 year old data, then it's way more plausible today. On the other hand, he's been out of the game for a long time.
Pineapple Pizza
I once bought a friend a pineapple pizza that he didn't eat at all, because he hated the stuff. I meant it kindly.
This happened in Iraq, in 2008 or 2009. My friend was a Warrant Officer in the US Army, and I had recently observed him -- on a trip to Victory Base Complex, where there were multiple Pizza Hut trailers as well as a real-life pizza restaurant on the west side -- to bring back several pizzas, including a Hawaiian pizza. This kind of pizza is not really Hawaiian. It's actually Canadian.
Anyway, I assumed he wouldn't have bought the thing if he didn't like it, so the next time I got over there I brought one back for him. He thanked me very kindly, and never once mentioned that he hated the idea of pineapple on pizza. I only found that out later. I felt bad at the time, although the only sad thing was that I guess the pizza was wasted. He appreciated that I'd tried to do something nice for him, and that was the really important thing.
I personally like very many things on pizza. This attitude is described by the author from the first link as proper to "[o]thers from pizza wastelands such as Australia and Atlanta [who] extolled the virtues of complementing pineapple and ham with even more revolting toppings such as... jalapenos." Why, yes, I would also like jalapenos on that pizza.
I mean, where pizza is concerned, I'm fairly broad-minded.
In any case, I didn't bring this up to offer a binding opinion on the question of what ought to be on a pizza. I was just appreciative of the occasion to remember a friend I haven't ever seen since he boarded a helicopter on FOB Falcon, to rotate back to Germany after a long and honorable service in Iraq. I hope he's doing well.
This happened in Iraq, in 2008 or 2009. My friend was a Warrant Officer in the US Army, and I had recently observed him -- on a trip to Victory Base Complex, where there were multiple Pizza Hut trailers as well as a real-life pizza restaurant on the west side -- to bring back several pizzas, including a Hawaiian pizza. This kind of pizza is not really Hawaiian. It's actually Canadian.
Anyway, I assumed he wouldn't have bought the thing if he didn't like it, so the next time I got over there I brought one back for him. He thanked me very kindly, and never once mentioned that he hated the idea of pineapple on pizza. I only found that out later. I felt bad at the time, although the only sad thing was that I guess the pizza was wasted. He appreciated that I'd tried to do something nice for him, and that was the really important thing.
I personally like very many things on pizza. This attitude is described by the author from the first link as proper to "[o]thers from pizza wastelands such as Australia and Atlanta [who] extolled the virtues of complementing pineapple and ham with even more revolting toppings such as... jalapenos." Why, yes, I would also like jalapenos on that pizza.
I mean, where pizza is concerned, I'm fairly broad-minded.
In any case, I didn't bring this up to offer a binding opinion on the question of what ought to be on a pizza. I was just appreciative of the occasion to remember a friend I haven't ever seen since he boarded a helicopter on FOB Falcon, to rotate back to Germany after a long and honorable service in Iraq. I hope he's doing well.
Anybody 'On Strike' Tomorrow?
I asked my wife if she knew that she was supposed to be on strike tomorrow. She said, "No, what's tomorrow?"
"International women's day," I said.
"That sounds like some UN Commie bull****," she might have said.
"Well, you're supposed to refuse to go to work tomorrow," I told her, "and also not to do any work here around the house. It's a way of protesting Donald Trump."
Her response to that was unprintable.
What about those of you around the Hall of the feminine persuasion? Don't take my ferocious wife to be off-putting. Thomas, who met her recently in Dallas, can tell you that she's a woman of her own mind (as well she ought to be). If you've chosen to strike, that's just fine. Feel free to tell us about your reasons, assured of a respectful discussion according to Hall rules.
"International women's day," I said.
"That sounds like some UN Commie bull****," she might have said.
"Well, you're supposed to refuse to go to work tomorrow," I told her, "and also not to do any work here around the house. It's a way of protesting Donald Trump."
Her response to that was unprintable.
What about those of you around the Hall of the feminine persuasion? Don't take my ferocious wife to be off-putting. Thomas, who met her recently in Dallas, can tell you that she's a woman of her own mind (as well she ought to be). If you've chosen to strike, that's just fine. Feel free to tell us about your reasons, assured of a respectful discussion according to Hall rules.
Georgia Legislature Update
Religious freedom is dead this year, having been referred to languish until it was too late to act upon. Last year it passed and was vetoed by Governor Deal. Support for religious freedom is even weaker in the legislature this year, while corporate opponents of religious freedom have proliferated.
SB 49, the 'redefine what a knife is' bill, also appears not to have managed to "cross over" to the House by the required deadline. It will not become law.
However, three gun related bills did cross over, and are still in the running. This includes this year's version of Campus Carry, HB 280. You will remember that Governor Deal, who is still the governor, vetoed that bill last year as well. However, Rep. Powell of Hartwell, Georgia, says he believes this year's version addresses the governor's concerns. We'll see, maybe.
SB 49, the 'redefine what a knife is' bill, also appears not to have managed to "cross over" to the House by the required deadline. It will not become law.
However, three gun related bills did cross over, and are still in the running. This includes this year's version of Campus Carry, HB 280. You will remember that Governor Deal, who is still the governor, vetoed that bill last year as well. However, Rep. Powell of Hartwell, Georgia, says he believes this year's version addresses the governor's concerns. We'll see, maybe.
USMC Scandal, Continued
American Military News has interviews with some female Marines, at least one of whom appears in the database of nude female Marines. At least the ones they spoke to all agree that this is a problem with male Marines, period. At no point do any of them appear to entertain any idea that there's any additional discipline that might be imposed on the exercise of sexuality in general.
Maxmilian, the creator of Terminal Lance, agrees. The idea that discipline should be imposed on sexuality is right out:
This is an area where the law is really not very helpful. In general, if I take a photograph that photograph is my intellectual property and I can share it if I want to do. If I share it with you and you, without my consent, publish it widely I can sue you for copyright infringement. But if you took the photo -- even if it's a photo of me taken without my consent, if I was in a public place at the time -- you can do whatever you want with it. It's your intellectual property.
One woman in another context tried to copyright the image of her own breasts as a method of using copyright infringement law to get her images taken down from 'revenge porn' sites. The method seems clumsy and impossible to extend to a broader set of cases, and may only have worked because she herself took the photos. If her boyfriend had taken them, it's not clear to me that she would have had a claim to copyright his photos (taken with her consent) even though they were images of her.
It may also be the case that copyright law, which is how we usually control images, really misses the point of what's going on here. We have stalker laws that punish what is otherwise perfectly legal behavior, for example, taking photos of someone in a public place. Perhaps the nature of the offense here is such that the ordinary laws shouldn't apply.
Maximilian speaks to this issue:
Nevertheless, I still think that the coed combat arms are going to present a very real readiness concern that earlier integration did not. The Marine Corps' leadership was prescient about it, but they were told to shut up and stop thinking by Secretary Ray Mabus. Here are the first fruits.
UPDATE: The DB takes another swing.
Maxmilian, the creator of Terminal Lance, agrees. The idea that discipline should be imposed on sexuality is right out:
To the first point, everyone sends nudes in 2017. There are so many photos of myThat's a pretty big generational shift. Even 20 years ago, the mere existence of nude photos -- physical ones, which couldn't be instantly transmitted around the globe -- was pretty racy stuff.modestly largepenis out there that you could fill a 7-ton if you printed them out. The argument that women are asking for it is rapey as hell and straight up victim-blaming. Nude photos sent or received, unless otherwise specified, have a pretty clear implication of privacy involved in it.
This is an area where the law is really not very helpful. In general, if I take a photograph that photograph is my intellectual property and I can share it if I want to do. If I share it with you and you, without my consent, publish it widely I can sue you for copyright infringement. But if you took the photo -- even if it's a photo of me taken without my consent, if I was in a public place at the time -- you can do whatever you want with it. It's your intellectual property.
One woman in another context tried to copyright the image of her own breasts as a method of using copyright infringement law to get her images taken down from 'revenge porn' sites. The method seems clumsy and impossible to extend to a broader set of cases, and may only have worked because she herself took the photos. If her boyfriend had taken them, it's not clear to me that she would have had a claim to copyright his photos (taken with her consent) even though they were images of her.
It may also be the case that copyright law, which is how we usually control images, really misses the point of what's going on here. We have stalker laws that punish what is otherwise perfectly legal behavior, for example, taking photos of someone in a public place. Perhaps the nature of the offense here is such that the ordinary laws shouldn't apply.
Maximilian speaks to this issue:
There’s an underlying reality that needs to be addressed, and that male Marines need to really internalize here.He goes on to note that women are only 7% of the Marine Corps, and thus can't effect changes in the culture on their own. Male Marines will have to help them, if it is to be done.
Female Marines are female.
We can talk about one team, one fight and all of that, but at the end of the day they are still women.
Nevertheless, I still think that the coed combat arms are going to present a very real readiness concern that earlier integration did not. The Marine Corps' leadership was prescient about it, but they were told to shut up and stop thinking by Secretary Ray Mabus. Here are the first fruits.
UPDATE: The DB takes another swing.
Big Stories, Small Time
There are two huge stories today: Paul Ryan's Obamacare-lite bill, which will surely die as it is opposed by CATO, the Club for Growth, Paul's libertarian faction, Cruz's conservative faction, all Democrats, but not Susan Collins. It deserves more attention, but won't get it because...
...of the second big story, Wikileaks' huge CIA dump. This purports to come from a leaker within the intelligence community itself, and to give away the store on the CIA's hacking techniques. Allegedly they can take over your car (or a big truck near your car) for assassination purposes, and listen in to your conversations through your iWhatever or smart television. This, likewise, is huge news if true and needs to be carefully studied, but we won't get to do that because...
...of yesterday's big story, the new EO on immigration and refugees. It is supposed to be a significant improvement over the first one, and Trump's legal team is in place to fight challenges as they arise. Opponents are swearing to combat it, but most of us won't have time to pay attention because...
...of the weekend's big story, on 'wiretapping' accusations, which threatens to turn into an all-engulfing war between the two leading political factions in America. This is likewise an intricate story that needs very careful parsing, but we won't get to do that because...
...of all the other stories, and the ones that will come starting tomorrow.
...of the second big story, Wikileaks' huge CIA dump. This purports to come from a leaker within the intelligence community itself, and to give away the store on the CIA's hacking techniques. Allegedly they can take over your car (or a big truck near your car) for assassination purposes, and listen in to your conversations through your iWhatever or smart television. This, likewise, is huge news if true and needs to be carefully studied, but we won't get to do that because...
...of yesterday's big story, the new EO on immigration and refugees. It is supposed to be a significant improvement over the first one, and Trump's legal team is in place to fight challenges as they arise. Opponents are swearing to combat it, but most of us won't have time to pay attention because...
...of the weekend's big story, on 'wiretapping' accusations, which threatens to turn into an all-engulfing war between the two leading political factions in America. This is likewise an intricate story that needs very careful parsing, but we won't get to do that because...
...of all the other stories, and the ones that will come starting tomorrow.
Privileges Abound
A couple of experiments that both involve switching the sex of a person to see how it impacts how people receive them. It turns out that, liberal though the professors and their audience both were, switching the sex in the second Trump/Clinton debate only proved why Clinton lost.
Clinton's mode of trying to smile off serious charges, backed with carefully-worded responses that are technically true but completely misleading, turns out to look even worse on a man. The audience described him as “really punchable.” The kind of smarmy 'I think I'm smarter than you so I'm going to give you an answer you know is false but can't prove is false' mode is completely unacceptable from a man, so much so that it provokes the impulse to give him a sock in the chops for trying it.
I wonder if it isn't only our society's very strong mores forbidding violence against women that allows someone like Clinton -- or Pelosi, or DWS -- to get away with this mode. Maybe Obama could do it, protected by a similar set of mores among educated Americans against similar lashing out at African-Americans. The protections extended to them, out of a kind of respect for the vulnerability of their position, can turn out to enable bad behavior. Not voting for one of them, though, isn't violence against them -- and it isn't sexist or racist, not if you'd reject the same mode in a white man (and indeed, even more strongly reject it).
The female Trump stand in, meanwhile, was not rejected (as the organizers expected her to be) for being too 'pushy' or outspoken. Instead, people were suddenly able to see in her answers what they had been unable to see in the same answers given by Trump himself.
Clinton's mode of trying to smile off serious charges, backed with carefully-worded responses that are technically true but completely misleading, turns out to look even worse on a man. The audience described him as “really punchable.” The kind of smarmy 'I think I'm smarter than you so I'm going to give you an answer you know is false but can't prove is false' mode is completely unacceptable from a man, so much so that it provokes the impulse to give him a sock in the chops for trying it.
I wonder if it isn't only our society's very strong mores forbidding violence against women that allows someone like Clinton -- or Pelosi, or DWS -- to get away with this mode. Maybe Obama could do it, protected by a similar set of mores among educated Americans against similar lashing out at African-Americans. The protections extended to them, out of a kind of respect for the vulnerability of their position, can turn out to enable bad behavior. Not voting for one of them, though, isn't violence against them -- and it isn't sexist or racist, not if you'd reject the same mode in a white man (and indeed, even more strongly reject it).
The female Trump stand in, meanwhile, was not rejected (as the organizers expected her to be) for being too 'pushy' or outspoken. Instead, people were suddenly able to see in her answers what they had been unable to see in the same answers given by Trump himself.
We heard a lot of “now I understand how this happened”—meaning how Trump won the election. People got upset. There was a guy two rows in front of me who was literally holding his head in his hands, and the person with him was rubbing his back. The simplicity of Trump’s message became easier for people to hear when it was coming from a woman—that was a theme. One person said, “I’m just so struck by how precise Trump’s technique is.” Another—a musical theater composer, actually—said that Trump created “hummable lyrics”...The second one is about a lesbian feminist who undertook the experiment without telling people she met she wasn't the man she was pretending to be. You've probably seen this one before, but it compares and contrasts nicely with the NYU experiment around Trump/Clinton.
I was surprised by how critical I was seeing [Clinton] on a man’s body, and also by the fact that I didn’t find Trump’s behavior on a woman to be off-putting. I remember turning to Maria at one point in the rehearsals and saying, "I kind of want to have a beer with her!"
Clarance Thomas on Civil Asset Forfeiture
“This system — where police can seize property with limited judicial oversight and retain it for their own use — has led to egregious and well-chronicled abuses,” wrote Thomas. “I am skeptical that this historical practice is capable of sustaining, as a constitutional matter, the contours of modern practice.”That's a good originalist objection: that the original justification for the practice no longer applies to the way the practice is currently being used. Piracy and customs involve things moving into the jurisdiction of the United States that, for example, you might have reason to believe were stolen goods. "Prove that these goods were not stolen if you want to bring them here" is much more reasonable than "prove that this money in your pocket was not stolen" when you and your money were always here. The burden of proof much more obviously falls on the government when the whole affair has happened within the jurisdiction of its courts and law enforcement officers.
Thomas went on to outline his concerns, noting that legal precedent ― most recently in the Supreme Court’s 1996 Bennis v. Michigan decision ― has been based largely on “early statutes” involving property related primarily to piracy and customs.
Not your circus, not your monkeys
Or as Ace says, don't buy tickets on the crazy train. He likens the psychic dislocations of 9/11 to those of 11/9.
Raising babies
Here's a theory that has a superficial appeal, especially to someone like myself with such ingrained anxiety about (and hostility to) dependence:
I'm much more drawn to the approach of this sensible lady, Brene Brown, who has my number when it comes to the fear of vulnerability.
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has found:
Children in full-time day care were close to three times more likely to show behavior problems than those cared for by their mothers at home.
…
The more time in child care of any kind or quality, the more aggressive the child.
The result is young people who, a decade and a half after daycare, scream at the parent/State for not protecting them sufficiently. It is no coincidence that “safe spaces” resemble daycare centers.Granted, I recognize the behavior, but I can't reconcile it with my own experience of motherlessness. Maybe you have to combine daycare with the other silly trends in child development, which my full-time working father and stepmother were, to put in mildly, not into.
I'm much more drawn to the approach of this sensible lady, Brene Brown, who has my number when it comes to the fear of vulnerability.
Irish Unification
Sinn Fein did very well in the recent Ulster elections, and is now the second-largest party in the North -- second by only one seat. But that's not enough. It's time to re-unify, says Martina Devlin.
A united Ireland, a free Scotland, a newly-liberated England and an end to EU international socialism. All thanks to Brexit.
UPDATE: Coincidentally, there's a new documentary on women of the Irish revolution.
A united Ireland, a free Scotland, a newly-liberated England and an end to EU international socialism. All thanks to Brexit.
UPDATE: Coincidentally, there's a new documentary on women of the Irish revolution.
Swords at Dawn
"As for me, I was in a place by myself; in a time by myself. I remember the water sparkling around our ankles as we fought. One part of my mind could not help admiring how so very picturesque it was. I remember my opponents eyes especially. They were yellow, like he was on drugs."An actual knife fight, as metaphor for the current political feud. Wretchard, of course.
"Then I sensed, more than reasoned that I would die unless I ended this," he said. "So I stepped in and struck his arm. I didn't even feel the hit on my knee."
Media Moves to Make "Wiretapping" Purely About Phones
CBS: " Former president Barack Obama has denied President Trump's claims that the Obama administration wiretapped phones..."
Independent: "The FBI disputing Donald Trump's claim Barack Obama had his telephones tapped..."
AP: "President Donald Trump on Saturday accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his telephones..."
The FISA warrant apparently targeted a server, so it would be surprising if they tapped a telephone to find out what the server was saying to another server. I'm going to guess that the Obama team's careful denials, parroted by all these media outlets, mean that no actual telephones were "tapped." So we're only talking about internet traffic, servers being penetrated and covertly examined, maybe reading emails... but no, absolutely no "telephones."
The right thing to do would be to come clean on what spying was done, but of course they can't: all the information is surely classified at a high level. Still, some sunlight and honesty -- and not these carefully construed denials -- is the only way to restore any sort of trust.
Independent: "The FBI disputing Donald Trump's claim Barack Obama had his telephones tapped..."
AP: "President Donald Trump on Saturday accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his telephones..."
The FISA warrant apparently targeted a server, so it would be surprising if they tapped a telephone to find out what the server was saying to another server. I'm going to guess that the Obama team's careful denials, parroted by all these media outlets, mean that no actual telephones were "tapped." So we're only talking about internet traffic, servers being penetrated and covertly examined, maybe reading emails... but no, absolutely no "telephones."
The right thing to do would be to come clean on what spying was done, but of course they can't: all the information is surely classified at a high level. Still, some sunlight and honesty -- and not these carefully construed denials -- is the only way to restore any sort of trust.
That's How I Want Government to Work All The Time
Charles M. Blow at the NYT:
The American people must immediately demand a cessation of all consequential actions by this “president”.... no action to put this presidency on pause is extreme. Rather, it is exceedingly prudent.Don't stop there! Let's adopt this as the model going forward: the Federal government should do only the bare minimum of things that absolutely have to be done. I'd suggest that we draw the line at "anything for which there is not explicit constitutional warrant." But if that's not good enough, I'll consider constitutional amendments designed to make the "bare minimum standard" for Federal action even tighter.
Some things must be done and some positions filled simply to keep the government operational. Absolute abrogation of administrative authority is infeasible and ill advised. But a bare minimum standard must be applied until we know more about what the current raft of investigations yield.
Of Course the Ambassador is a Spymaster
That is one of the principal functions of ambassadors.
That said, American ambassadors are often political donors -- especially ambassadors to countries without much need for aggressive intelligence collection. Still, this is a major part of their role, as everyone knows who has to deal with ambassadors in any official capacity.
UPDATE: Right on cue, Wikileaks sets out to prove the point.
“I don’t think they’d make the ambassador to the United States a KGB guy. It’s not really their style.”That is also how our own system works: the ambassador, in his role as Chief of Mission, leads and directs the Country Team. That team includes the CIA's Chief of Station. Though the COS reports back to Langley as well, the COM has the overall responsibility for directing US government operations in the country concerned.
That said, the job of any Russian ambassador is to oversee the rezidentura, or mission-bound spy station, putting Kislyak at the top of the pyramid of Russia’s security services in Washington. He would, therefore, likely have intimate knowledge of everything Russia's foreign and military intelligence operatives were up to in Washington and wouldn’t necessarily need to hail from the SVR or GRU or any of the other “power ministries" to cultivate assets and informants on foreign soil.
That said, American ambassadors are often political donors -- especially ambassadors to countries without much need for aggressive intelligence collection. Still, this is a major part of their role, as everyone knows who has to deal with ambassadors in any official capacity.
UPDATE: Right on cue, Wikileaks sets out to prove the point.
Black Rifle Coffee
Another Mat Best & Company operation, they've recently posted their "hold music" online.
I'd post some of their videos, but... well, go see for yourselves if you dare. No warranty express or implied.
I mean, there's no excuse for this stuff.
Well, OK: maybe one excuse. If you're a Medal of Honor recipient, you can wink at this stuff if you want.
I'd post some of their videos, but... well, go see for yourselves if you dare. No warranty express or implied.
I mean, there's no excuse for this stuff.
Well, OK: maybe one excuse. If you're a Medal of Honor recipient, you can wink at this stuff if you want.
Orin Kerr, Troll Lord
I know Cass just said she hates this concept, but you have to give the man credit where credit is due.
Going To Have To Work On This
The USMC is having a bit of a scandal right now, over the existence of a Facebook group made up of Marines and former Marines that shared nude pictures of female Marines.
Oddly enough, it's the less-revealing images that are the greater concern.
The stalking is genuinely improper. On the other hand, what about this?
So... what exactly do you do about that? Presumably the woman has a right to take a photo of herself naked if she wants to, even though she's a Marine. She has a right to share it, arguably, even though she's a Marine (indeed, she's certainly not in uniform). So what do we say about the unauthorized sharing? Is it a copyright violation?
If you're sharing nude photos of yourself with other members of the Marine Corps -- not your spouse, I presume -- aren't you partially responsible for the collapse of good order that this represents? If you allow yourself to be videoed having sex by other members of your unit, aren't you partially responsible for the collapse of good order?
No, of course not. These are all "victims," and the PAO has put out a 10 page document in part devoted to explaining their rights under the law.
Meanwhile, the news stories about this are taking pains to paint this as a USMC failure, claiming that the Corps' hostility to the idea of integrating women into the combat arms is responsible for this whole incident. A gentle suggestion: is it worth considering that the leadership's hostility to the idea was built around the understanding that a collapse of good order and discipline such as this was highly likely? Doesn't this scandal prove the leadership's concerns about what this would do to their organization to have been fairly sound?
No, of course not. No one should ever think that.
UPDATE: Related.
Like the nude photos that female Marines consented to having taken, or took themselves, female sailors have a right to get pregnant if they want to do so. If you want to solve this problem, though, you have to question the degree to which what we used to call 'liberated sexuality' is compatible with coed military service. You'll have to do more than crack down on predatory male behavior, though of course you should do that. You'll also have to reconsider what we currently believe are inalienable rights -- more inalienable to these female servicemembers than their right to free speech, for example, as that right is constrained quite a bit while in the service.
UPDATE: The DuffelBlog checks in.
Oddly enough, it's the less-revealing images that are the greater concern.
In one instance, a woman corporal in uniform was followed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina by a fellow Marine, who surreptitiously photographed her as she picked up her gear. Those photographs were posted online in the Facebook group “Marines United,” which has nearly 30,000 followers, drawing dozens of obscene comments.That woman, in her full dress, was victimized by being stalked -- and perhaps, again, by the commentary on her desirability. (I say 'perhaps' because it's unclear. Would she have been victimized if the comments had not been made public? Her identity is not public, so perhaps she doesn't even know herself what was said about her. Is she a victim of 'harassment' if she's suffered no mental harm? Maybe -- perhaps she could be victimized by being in a culture that was hostile to her even if she was completely unaware that it was hostile to her. On the other hand, a group of anonymous posters on Facebook is not her chain of command, so perhaps this group doesn't rise to the level of 'a hostile work environment.' I leave all that to others to sort out.)
The stalking is genuinely improper. On the other hand, what about this?
Many images appear to have originated from the consensual, but private, exchange of racy images, some clearly taken by the women themselves.Here, the women consented to being photographed -- photographed themselves, even -- but not to having the images shared in a creeper database of which they knew nothing.
So... what exactly do you do about that? Presumably the woman has a right to take a photo of herself naked if she wants to, even though she's a Marine. She has a right to share it, arguably, even though she's a Marine (indeed, she's certainly not in uniform). So what do we say about the unauthorized sharing? Is it a copyright violation?
If you're sharing nude photos of yourself with other members of the Marine Corps -- not your spouse, I presume -- aren't you partially responsible for the collapse of good order that this represents? If you allow yourself to be videoed having sex by other members of your unit, aren't you partially responsible for the collapse of good order?
No, of course not. These are all "victims," and the PAO has put out a 10 page document in part devoted to explaining their rights under the law.
Meanwhile, the news stories about this are taking pains to paint this as a USMC failure, claiming that the Corps' hostility to the idea of integrating women into the combat arms is responsible for this whole incident. A gentle suggestion: is it worth considering that the leadership's hostility to the idea was built around the understanding that a collapse of good order and discipline such as this was highly likely? Doesn't this scandal prove the leadership's concerns about what this would do to their organization to have been fairly sound?
No, of course not. No one should ever think that.
UPDATE: Related.
The evacuation of pregnant women is costly for the Navy. Jude Eden, a nationally known author about women in the military who served in 2004 as a Marine deployed to Iraq, said a single transfer can cost the Navy up to $30,000 for each woman trained for a specific task, then evacuated from an active duty ship and sent to land. That figure translates into $115 million in expenses for 2016 alone.... [B]y August 2016 that number reached nearly 16 percent, an all-time high. The Navy reported that 3,840 of the 24,259 women sailors who were aboard Navy ships were pregnant.The article goes on to note that the Navy has declared a policy of making sure that 25% of personnel on ships are women. That shifts this issue from a relatively easy to address situation to a front-and-center problem for the readiness of our warships. The Navy also grants a year of maternity leave (forced by former SECDEF Ash Carter to back down from 18 months, and vice 10 days of paternity leave), so it's a lengthy problem when it happens.
Like the nude photos that female Marines consented to having taken, or took themselves, female sailors have a right to get pregnant if they want to do so. If you want to solve this problem, though, you have to question the degree to which what we used to call 'liberated sexuality' is compatible with coed military service. You'll have to do more than crack down on predatory male behavior, though of course you should do that. You'll also have to reconsider what we currently believe are inalienable rights -- more inalienable to these female servicemembers than their right to free speech, for example, as that right is constrained quite a bit while in the service.
UPDATE: The DuffelBlog checks in.
A "Broader Point" About Truth
It's the last paragraph that marks out an interesting claim, but I'll give you enough of the setup to judge its worth in this context.
Obama and his surrogates–notably the slug (or is he a cockroach?) Ben Rhodes–harrumph that Obama could not unilaterally order electronic surveillance. Well, yes, it is the case that Obama did not personally issue the order: the FISA court did so. But even if that is literally correct, it is also true that the FISA court would not unilaterally issue such an order: it would only do so in response to a request from the executive branch. Thus, Obama is clearly implicated even if he did not issue the order. He could have ordered his subordinates to make the request to the court, or could have approved a subordinate’s request to seek an order. Maybe he merely hinted, a la Henry II–“will no one rid me of this turbulent candidate?” (And “turbulent” is a good adjective to apply to Trump.) But regardless, there is no way that such a request to the court in such a fraught and weighty matter would have proceeded without Obama’s acquiescence.With apologies to the lawyers among us, whom I am sure are careful never to do this, this 'strictly speaking correct, but fundamentally misleading' bit is what people hate about lawyers. Sometimes also journalists.
I therefore consider that the substance of Trump’s charge–that he was surveilled at behest of Obama has been admitted by the principals.
This episode illustrates a broader point that is definitely useful to keep in mind. What Obama and his minions (and the Democrats and many in the media) say is likely to be correct, strictly speaking, but fundamentally misleading. In contrast, what Trump says is often incorrect, strictly speaking, but captures the fundamental truth.
Resistance
From a comment at Maggie's Farm, referring to a link identified by the website as "Rebellion: Trump Takes on The Blob - Washington’s foreign policy elites are used to battling America’s adversaries. Now they have a new common enemy: the president."
The people rebel. The bureaucracy mutinies.
MPCOA vs MDCOA
This explosion around the FISA court is surprising to me, as I've known about this warrant since last year at least. Heat Street broke the story right before the election, which means the existence of the investigation was leaked in a blatant partisan attempt to sway the election. The existence of the server around which the warrant revolves had been reported in the press even earlier in the campaign
Nevertheless, there's an interpretation of this story in which no one -- except the leaker -- did anything wrong. On this interpretation, the FBI sought the warrant out of legitimate concerns, without political officers pressuring them in any way. The FISA court took the unusual step of rejecting the warrant until it was narrowed in scope precisely to avoid the kind of worries about wiretapping a political opponent that are now playing out. Though the Obama administration would of course have taken an interest in the findings, that is only because they had a duty not to hand the keys to a Russian agent (or a President under the influence of Russian agents). However, as no one on Team Trump was doing anything nefarious, the investigation came and went without anyone being charged.
On this interpretation, the pings from the Russian bank's server were part of the generalized Russian intelligence collection effort aimed at Team Trump -- an effort exactly similar to our CIA's efforts in France, and for the same legitimate purpose. While we have reason to contest Russia's intelligence collection efforts even where they have a legitimate purpose, in fairness we would have to say that Russian intelligence collection efforts aimed at understanding a candidate who might win the election represents a perfectly understandable interest.
So, there is at least one plausible interpretation in which no one has done anything wrong, except the leaker who decided to betray their oath to keep classified secrets for partisan political advantage.
Of course, there are also other interpretations. These run the gamut from the investigation into Trump being a purely political gambit aimed at using the national security state to destroy a political opponent -- similar to the IRS targeting scandal involving Lois Lerner -- to Trump or some of his close associates being spies in the service of Mother Russia.
In military intelligence, the MPECOA is the 'most probable enemy course of action.' Officers typically assess both that and what they take to be the 'MDECOA,' the 'most dangerous enemy course of action.' I have dropped the 'e' here because we are speaking of fellow Americans, both Team Trump and Team Obama.
I assess that the MPCOA is that something close to the 'everyone was legit' interpretation will prove to be true, and that the investigation that is likely to result from this will end up serving as a warning shot from Team Trump to Obama and his loyalists. Two can play at this game of using the national security state to delegitimize each other, and Team Trump controls all the actual levers of power. If that works out, we might see some backing-off on the constant leaks and attempts to delegitimize the Trump administration by Obama loyalists. That would work to the general benefit of everyone, even them, though they surely don't realize it. Still, the best thing for everyone would be for them to return to being a legitimate political opposition, and stop trying to overthrow the government through leaks and "narratives."
The MDCOA is that the investigation will turn up something that Team Trump can use to try to prosecute Obama loyalists, or worst of all, Obama himself. This is an extremely dangerous situation regardless of whether Obama deserves to be prosecuted or not. At that point the country will divide sharply, and turning back will be very difficult indeed. It could still be done -- Trump could magnanimously pardon Obama, and the two could shake hands and agree to respect one another henceforth. That isn't very likely, however. What is more likely is a heightened political division that would result in severe sheer stresses on the Republic.
Nevertheless, there's an interpretation of this story in which no one -- except the leaker -- did anything wrong. On this interpretation, the FBI sought the warrant out of legitimate concerns, without political officers pressuring them in any way. The FISA court took the unusual step of rejecting the warrant until it was narrowed in scope precisely to avoid the kind of worries about wiretapping a political opponent that are now playing out. Though the Obama administration would of course have taken an interest in the findings, that is only because they had a duty not to hand the keys to a Russian agent (or a President under the influence of Russian agents). However, as no one on Team Trump was doing anything nefarious, the investigation came and went without anyone being charged.
On this interpretation, the pings from the Russian bank's server were part of the generalized Russian intelligence collection effort aimed at Team Trump -- an effort exactly similar to our CIA's efforts in France, and for the same legitimate purpose. While we have reason to contest Russia's intelligence collection efforts even where they have a legitimate purpose, in fairness we would have to say that Russian intelligence collection efforts aimed at understanding a candidate who might win the election represents a perfectly understandable interest.
So, there is at least one plausible interpretation in which no one has done anything wrong, except the leaker who decided to betray their oath to keep classified secrets for partisan political advantage.
Of course, there are also other interpretations. These run the gamut from the investigation into Trump being a purely political gambit aimed at using the national security state to destroy a political opponent -- similar to the IRS targeting scandal involving Lois Lerner -- to Trump or some of his close associates being spies in the service of Mother Russia.
In military intelligence, the MPECOA is the 'most probable enemy course of action.' Officers typically assess both that and what they take to be the 'MDECOA,' the 'most dangerous enemy course of action.' I have dropped the 'e' here because we are speaking of fellow Americans, both Team Trump and Team Obama.
I assess that the MPCOA is that something close to the 'everyone was legit' interpretation will prove to be true, and that the investigation that is likely to result from this will end up serving as a warning shot from Team Trump to Obama and his loyalists. Two can play at this game of using the national security state to delegitimize each other, and Team Trump controls all the actual levers of power. If that works out, we might see some backing-off on the constant leaks and attempts to delegitimize the Trump administration by Obama loyalists. That would work to the general benefit of everyone, even them, though they surely don't realize it. Still, the best thing for everyone would be for them to return to being a legitimate political opposition, and stop trying to overthrow the government through leaks and "narratives."
The MDCOA is that the investigation will turn up something that Team Trump can use to try to prosecute Obama loyalists, or worst of all, Obama himself. This is an extremely dangerous situation regardless of whether Obama deserves to be prosecuted or not. At that point the country will divide sharply, and turning back will be very difficult indeed. It could still be done -- Trump could magnanimously pardon Obama, and the two could shake hands and agree to respect one another henceforth. That isn't very likely, however. What is more likely is a heightened political division that would result in severe sheer stresses on the Republic.
Existential Threats and Lies
Harvard professor Charles Murray, most known for his book The Bell Curve, was invited to speak at Middlebury College in Vermont this past Thursday. Protestors disrupted the room and he was moved to a private room where he spoke via live web stream. After the protest, as he was leaving, a Middlebury professor who was escorting him was assaulted and injured.
In the past, I've seen a number of comments from the right that the pajamaboys of the left can't really be dangerous, but I disagree. It's not like one of them is going to step up and challenge a conservative or libertarian to individual combat. No, when it happens, it will begin like this, hundreds of lefties surrounding the target, shouting hatred, someone pushing the target to the ground, and then a frenzied beating and stomping. God forbid, but that's where I see this trend heading.
But what was the protest about? Why did the protestors feel justified, even compelled, to attack? Before Murray spoke, apparently 500 alumni wrote a letter in beyond the green, which claims to be a student-run blog at Middlebury College. The claims in that letter are worth considering, so I will excerpt them at length.
“The protestors then violently set upon the car, rocking it, pounding on it, jumping on and try to prevent it from leaving campus,” he said. “At one point a large traffic sign was thrown in front of the car. Public Safety officers were able, finally, to clear the way to allow the vehicle to leave campus.
“During this confrontation outside McCullough, one of the demonstrators pulled Prof. Stanger’s hair and twisted her neck,” Burger continued. “She was attended to at Porter Hospital later and (on Friday) is wearing a neck brace.”
In the past, I've seen a number of comments from the right that the pajamaboys of the left can't really be dangerous, but I disagree. It's not like one of them is going to step up and challenge a conservative or libertarian to individual combat. No, when it happens, it will begin like this, hundreds of lefties surrounding the target, shouting hatred, someone pushing the target to the ground, and then a frenzied beating and stomping. God forbid, but that's where I see this trend heading.
But what was the protest about? Why did the protestors feel justified, even compelled, to attack? Before Murray spoke, apparently 500 alumni wrote a letter in beyond the green, which claims to be a student-run blog at Middlebury College. The claims in that letter are worth considering, so I will excerpt them at length.
Prof. Borjas on Immigration, Again
We've talked about Harvard Kennedy School economics professor George Borjas twice before at the Hall. Once when he wished Fidel Castro "Good riddance!" and again in the comments of a post on refugees as the author of a study on immigration.
Here he is recently at the NYT:
Personally, I think he's casting his pearls before swine, but maybe this is how the conversation starts. There are some sensible people at Harvard, and at the Ivies in general. They are just a minority, and they're not usually the loud ones.
Here he is recently at the NYT:
...Over the past 30 years, a large fraction of immigrants, nearly a third, were high school dropouts, so the incumbent low-skill work force formed the core group of Americans who paid the price for the influx of millions of workers. Their wages fell as much as 6 percent. Those low-skill Americans included many native-born blacks and Hispanics, as well as earlier waves of immigrants....The National Academy of Sciences recently estimated the impact of immigration on government budgets. On a year-to-year basis, immigrant families, mostly because of their relatively low incomes and higher frequency of participating in government programs like subsidized health care, are a fiscal burden. A comparison of taxes paid and government spending on these families showed that immigrants created an annual fiscal shortfall of $43 billion to $299 billion....Similarly, the ideological climate that encouraged assimilation back then, neatly encapsulated by our motto “E pluribus unum” (Out of many, one), is dead and gone. A recent University of California directive shows the radical shift. The university’s employees were advised to avoid using phrases that can lead to “microaggressions” toward students and one another. One example is the statement “America is a melting pot,” which apparently sends a message to the recipient that they have to “assimilate to the dominant culture.”
Europe is already confronting the difficulties produced by the presence of unassimilated populations. If nothing else, the European experience shows that there is no universal law that guarantees integration even after a few generations. We, too, will need to confront the trade-off between short-term economic gains and the long-term costs of a large, unassimilated minority.
...
He points out that Trump's answer to the immigration question is to put Americans first, and asks a poignant question.
Many of my colleagues in the academic community — and many of the elite opinion-makers in the news media — recoil when they hear that immigration should serve the interests of Americans. Their reaction is to label such thinking as racist and xenophobic, and to marginalize anyone who agrees.But those accusations of racism reflect their effort to avoid a serious discussion of the trade-offs. The coming debate would be far more honest and politically transparent if we demanded a simple answer from those who disagree with “America First” proposals: Who are you rooting for?
Personally, I think he's casting his pearls before swine, but maybe this is how the conversation starts. There are some sensible people at Harvard, and at the Ivies in general. They are just a minority, and they're not usually the loud ones.
Poker Card Shootout
I've hit upon a new thing, inspired by the local rifle team, of setting up a poker card for my first set of practice shots. Not my last, at the end of the session. Not a set after I've warmed up and gotten into it. The very first six out of the very first cylinder, because that's how you're going to shoot -- at best -- in the field.
These were at forty feet.
At Least McCarthy Was Worried About a Deadly Enemy
The Russians are not our friends, to be sure. They have their own interests, to be sure. They violated the sovereignty of an allied and friendly nation, Georgia, when they seized south Ossetia. Georgia's army was unable to resist in part because a large portion of it was deployed in Iraq alongside American forces at the time. At some point, we owe both the Georgians and the Russians a debt over that.
On the other hand, Russia is not formally our enemy. The Communists meant to destroy America, and indeed the whole capitalist world. The Russians want a regional hegemony. There are plenty of things that are in Russia's interests that are also in our own, such as encouraging energy development and trying to figure out how to tamp down Islamist terrorism.
Watching people go after Jeff Sessions for being a Russian agent today -- Jeff Sessions! -- is like watching the Red Scare play itself out again, only without an Evil Empire that really does intend to destroy the United States.
It's not just that the accusation is contrived, as the written context for the oral questions clearly established that Sessions wasn't being asked about his work with Senate Armed Services. It's not just that the Hillary Clinton State Department played the same games with Putin that Putin was playing with Hillary. It's not just that Russian intelligence collection efforts aimed at the Trump campaign mirror CIA collection efforts aimed at the Socialists in France, which the CIA did for perfectly legitimate reasons of national interest.
No, this is chasing after Russian spooks even where it is completely implausible that they exist. Sessions may have moderated his tone on Russia in order to align himself with the Presidential campaign he was supporting, but that doesn't change the fact that he's been one of the biggest Russia hawks in DC forever and a day.
Meanwhile, as W.R. Mead was recommending recently, why not look at the actions of the Trump administration to see how friendly it really is to Russia?
Is all this paranoia indicative of self-medication by the defeated elite?
On the other hand, Russia is not formally our enemy. The Communists meant to destroy America, and indeed the whole capitalist world. The Russians want a regional hegemony. There are plenty of things that are in Russia's interests that are also in our own, such as encouraging energy development and trying to figure out how to tamp down Islamist terrorism.
Watching people go after Jeff Sessions for being a Russian agent today -- Jeff Sessions! -- is like watching the Red Scare play itself out again, only without an Evil Empire that really does intend to destroy the United States.
It's not just that the accusation is contrived, as the written context for the oral questions clearly established that Sessions wasn't being asked about his work with Senate Armed Services. It's not just that the Hillary Clinton State Department played the same games with Putin that Putin was playing with Hillary. It's not just that Russian intelligence collection efforts aimed at the Trump campaign mirror CIA collection efforts aimed at the Socialists in France, which the CIA did for perfectly legitimate reasons of national interest.
No, this is chasing after Russian spooks even where it is completely implausible that they exist. Sessions may have moderated his tone on Russia in order to align himself with the Presidential campaign he was supporting, but that doesn't change the fact that he's been one of the biggest Russia hawks in DC forever and a day.
Meanwhile, as W.R. Mead was recommending recently, why not look at the actions of the Trump administration to see how friendly it really is to Russia?
Is all this paranoia indicative of self-medication by the defeated elite?
Pagan metal
Maybe Ash Wednesday isn't the best day to showcase a proudly heathen band, but I do like this music. Although the band seems to have some connection to the Netherlands, its vocalists are Northmen of various sorts, channeling the old culture.
Trump Channels Malory
... lexicographer Kory Stamper, who writes and edits dictionary definitions for Merriam-Webster, wants it known that bigly is a real word — even if it’s not the word Trump meant to use.
...
Stamper offers a brief history of the word bigly. This adverb came into use around 1400 and stuck around for roughly 500 years. It has been used two different ways over the centuries.
The first meaning, says Stamper, was to mean “with great force or violently or strongly.” It appeared in such fashion in the classic King Arthur tale Le Morte d’Arthur, published way back in 1485: “So roughly and so bigly that none might withstand him,” wrote Sir Thomas Malory.
The second meaning, which has been more popular in recent centuries, means “boastfully, haughtily or proudly.” Thomas Hardy put it to use in his 1874 novel Far From the Madding Crowd: “I don’t see that I deserve to be put upon and stormed out for nothing, concluded the small woman bigly.”
So, yes, let's cut taxes with great force, indeed.
The Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian
O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.
Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen.
DB: Pentagon Cadence Study
"We know the saying: train like you fight," said Evans. "So why are you going to be chanting something that you're never going to encounter in a combat environment?"Good news about napalm, though.
According to Evans, the drive to overhaul cadences came when after-action reports from the 75th Ranger Regiment on the popular multi-service "C-130 Rolling Down a Strip" cadence showed that not only did Airborne Rangers' chutes not open wide, but when the reserve failed they were not able to go after Satan.
"Most couldn't even penetrate the ground," according to Evans...
The Elite Smokestack in Britain
We have a problem here in America that I was recently discussing as the problem of the cursus honorum. All our leadership thinks alike, because nearly all of them went to Ivy League schools, then Ivy League grad schools, Ivy League law, then Wall Street or a ladder in government.
It's even worse in Britain. As the Guardian points out, the UK's government is almost wholly led by people who graduated from one university, Oxford, with exactly the same degree: Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE).
These schools, including Oxford, are not necessarily bad schools. They may well deserve much of the accolades and respect that attaches to them. But they produce tokens of a type, and that type has its own biases, and places where its mind is closed.
Of course, that view is the very reason that "diversity" arguments are floated at these very institutions: the idea is that more people from different backgrounds should undergo exactly the same education. What is needed is diversity on the other end, in terms of electing and appointing leadership.
That kind of diversity would undermine the existence of these schools, however. So much of what they do is built around producing the leadership class, which then hallows their position by sending its offspring back to the very same schools.
It's even worse in Britain. As the Guardian points out, the UK's government is almost wholly led by people who graduated from one university, Oxford, with exactly the same degree: Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE).
These schools, including Oxford, are not necessarily bad schools. They may well deserve much of the accolades and respect that attaches to them. But they produce tokens of a type, and that type has its own biases, and places where its mind is closed.
Of course, that view is the very reason that "diversity" arguments are floated at these very institutions: the idea is that more people from different backgrounds should undergo exactly the same education. What is needed is diversity on the other end, in terms of electing and appointing leadership.
That kind of diversity would undermine the existence of these schools, however. So much of what they do is built around producing the leadership class, which then hallows their position by sending its offspring back to the very same schools.
First Amendment Update
A Georgia couple is facing a combined 35 years in prison today after flying Confederate flags at a black child's birthday party. The longest sentence, 20 years with 13 years mandatory prison time, is technically for "aggravated assault," although it actually sounds less like assault and more like the misdemeanor offense of pointing a weapon. The state managed to convict on three counts of aggravated assault in spite of the absence of an actual assault.
The group was prosecuted under the Street Gangs Terrorism and Prevention Act, on the strength of the fact that they were part of a named group ("Respect the Flag"). In other words, organizing for a political purpose -- a protected 1st Amendment free association liberty -- now opens you to prosecution as a street gang.
Although the prosecutor denies that their choice to fly the Confederate flag in any way relates to the incredibly harsh sentences for a nonviolent confrontation, the judge described the confrontation as "a hate crime."
Georgia doesn't have a law against "hate crimes."
It looks a lot like the judge chose to accept a theory of prosecution under which free expression and free association are aggravating factors. The protected political freedoms, in other words, are themselves the reason why a misdemeanor is transformed into a 20 year felony. They chose to create a group to pursue a political agenda, and the fact that they had a group name is what lets them be prosecuted as a "street gang." They chose to fly flags and speak disapproved words, and that's what allows them to be convicted of "aggravated assault" instead of "pointing a weapon." They were convicted of the hate crime, in other words, that exists in the judge's mind even though it does not exist in the law.
AVI often says that we never get to pick the things we have to defend, and here's a good example. Doubtless these people are rednecks, probably they are racists, and nevertheless their protected liberties have been transformed by the state into crimes. That has to be opposed, even if the people involved are not particularly worthy of respect.
UPDATE: According to NPR, the sentence extends even to banishment.
UPDATE: This reminds me of a story I've been thinking about for a few days, but that I only know firmly know what to think about. Arizona has been considering a law to apply racketeering laws to political organizations whose protests become violent. This also allows the government to treat people who have come together to express a political opinion as a criminal organization, if at any point there is an altercation about it.
These are serious threats to important First Amendment freedoms.
The group was prosecuted under the Street Gangs Terrorism and Prevention Act, on the strength of the fact that they were part of a named group ("Respect the Flag"). In other words, organizing for a political purpose -- a protected 1st Amendment free association liberty -- now opens you to prosecution as a street gang.
Although the prosecutor denies that their choice to fly the Confederate flag in any way relates to the incredibly harsh sentences for a nonviolent confrontation, the judge described the confrontation as "a hate crime."
Georgia doesn't have a law against "hate crimes."
It looks a lot like the judge chose to accept a theory of prosecution under which free expression and free association are aggravating factors. The protected political freedoms, in other words, are themselves the reason why a misdemeanor is transformed into a 20 year felony. They chose to create a group to pursue a political agenda, and the fact that they had a group name is what lets them be prosecuted as a "street gang." They chose to fly flags and speak disapproved words, and that's what allows them to be convicted of "aggravated assault" instead of "pointing a weapon." They were convicted of the hate crime, in other words, that exists in the judge's mind even though it does not exist in the law.
AVI often says that we never get to pick the things we have to defend, and here's a good example. Doubtless these people are rednecks, probably they are racists, and nevertheless their protected liberties have been transformed by the state into crimes. That has to be opposed, even if the people involved are not particularly worthy of respect.
UPDATE: According to NPR, the sentence extends even to banishment.
UPDATE: This reminds me of a story I've been thinking about for a few days, but that I only know firmly know what to think about. Arizona has been considering a law to apply racketeering laws to political organizations whose protests become violent. This also allows the government to treat people who have come together to express a political opinion as a criminal organization, if at any point there is an altercation about it.
These are serious threats to important First Amendment freedoms.
Of Course
Headline: "Ex-Calif. State Sen. Leland Yee, gun control champion, heading to prison for weapons trafficking."
His organized crime associates know perfectly well that gun crime works better when the victims are disarmed.
His organized crime associates know perfectly well that gun crime works better when the victims are disarmed.
Sword and Sorcery Future
Wretchard writes that we are returning to an age of magic.
This, though, should not be a surprise. King Arthur came after the Roman age, not before it. A few years earlier, and Tacitus was writing his histories. A few years later, and you might ride out into a dark and mysterious forest and encounter a giant or a dragon.
I only wish I were younger again. But maybe I shall be.
This, though, should not be a surprise. King Arthur came after the Roman age, not before it. A few years earlier, and Tacitus was writing his histories. A few years later, and you might ride out into a dark and mysterious forest and encounter a giant or a dragon.
I only wish I were younger again. But maybe I shall be.
Declassified Commie Jokes
No, really. The Agency apparently collected them like we'd collect "atmospherics" in Iraq. They just declassified a bunch of them.
Sentence from a schoolboy’s weekly composition class essay: “My cat just had seven kittens. They are all communists.” Sentence from the same boy’s composition the following week: “My cat’s seven kittens are all capitalists.” Teacher reminds the boy that the previous week he had said the kittens were communists. “But now they’ve opened their eyes,” replies the child.I guess this is the week for Communist jokes, because I just ran across this one the other day.
American Legion Riders Unwelcome
We are extremely grateful to all of our active military members and veterans and are honored to have them as valued guests in any of our locations.Seems like there's a well-known quote about foolish consistency.
“Our dress code, which prohibits evidence of gang affiliation, is in place to ensure that everyone is able to enjoy themselves in a fun and safe environment. Though we understand that the American Legion promotes a positive mission, for consistency reasons we cannot allow motorcycle jackets displaying patches or rockers.
This is roughly like deciding that, since you don't like fascists, and fascists wore uniforms, you won't allow anyone in uniform to eat in your place. Boy Scouts, cops, soldiers, nuns... we have to be consistent about providing that 'fun and safe' no-uniform environment!
Morons.
If They're 3,000 Years Old, They're Not Scottish
Headline: "Archaeologists Uncover 3,000-Year-Old Scottish Weapons Under Soccer Field Site."
Preach It
I have seen, in Catholic churches, minimalist Stations of the Cross that hardly can be recognized as depictions of the Passion. I have seen crosses that look as if a modernist Jesus were flying with wings outspread, like a theological pterodactyl. I have seen the Eucharist relegated to what looks like a broom closet. I have seen a baptismal font that bubbles. I have seen beautifully tiled floors, with intricate cruciform patterns, covered over with plush red carpet.
I have heard for decades effeminate “hymns” with the structure and melody of off-Broadway show tunes. I have read hymn texts altered so as to obliterate references to God with the personal pronoun “He.” This music would not be acceptable for a jingle to sell jelly doughnuts on television.
I have seen and heard enough.
This One's Going to be a Hard Sell
ISIS: Cannibalism is halal!
I'd love to see the argument, because I have a feeling that one is a stretch too far. Sex slavery of infidel women, yes, I can see the argument for that one. Eating human beings, well, I'm not sure how they're going to get there. But hey, let's keep an open mind and see what they have to say.
I'd love to see the argument, because I have a feeling that one is a stretch too far. Sex slavery of infidel women, yes, I can see the argument for that one. Eating human beings, well, I'm not sure how they're going to get there. But hey, let's keep an open mind and see what they have to say.
Talent Creates Conflicts of Interest
COL(R) David Johnson points out that our country is losing a lot of talent because government ethics officers are so worried about conflicts of interest. The more talented you are, however, the more likely you are to have created something that will result in a conflict of interest if you should enter government:
As part of his effort to eliminate conflicts of interest, Viola was negotiating the sale of his majority share in Eastern Air Lines for part ownership of Swift Air. Ironically, this divestiture created another conflict. The New York Times reported that Swift Air is “a charter company with millions of dollars in hard-to-track government subcontracts,” and that Viola “would find himself in the precarious position of being a government official who benefits from federal contracting.” More broadly, “his airline negotiations bring an unexpected twist, showing that even when appointees try to sell assets, the transactions can be bedeviled with ethical issues.” Viola withdrew his nomination.There may be other reasons to prefer a different candidate, of course. Still, there's a point to be made here. Aren't the people who have succeeded in creating successful businesses often going to be the very people we want?
Viola is yet another example of the costs one’s success can impose on those who seek to enter public service. Nevertheless, in the eyes of ethics lawyers in the government, it is an open and shut case. It is also a high-profile case where the conflicts are easy to identify yet the remedies by the individual, difficult to provide.
"Drastic Cuts" Has Such A Nice Sound
Of course, "drastic" is in the eye of the beholder. My guess is that anything less than a continually-increased EPA budget will strike many as "drastic."
Germania
DB Headline: "‘We’re making real progress,’ say last 17 commanders in Afghanistan."
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Germania, chapter 37:
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Germania, chapter 37:
It was on the six hundred and fortieth year of Rome, when of the arms of the Cimbrians the first mention was made, during the Consulship of Caecilius Metellus and Papirius Carbo. If from that time we count to the second Consulship of the Emperor Trajan, the interval comprehends near two hundred and ten years; so long have we been conquering Germany.
When You're Right, You're Right
Apropos of the last post:
Challenge: "Design a wearable solution that can keep women safe."
Accepted: "Didn't Col. Colt and John Moses Browning take care of this over a century ago?"
Turns out. Equality is a function of the firearm.
Challenge: "Design a wearable solution that can keep women safe."
Accepted: "Didn't Col. Colt and John Moses Browning take care of this over a century ago?"
Turns out. Equality is a function of the firearm.
Women With Guns
Subtitled "the newest threat to the Democratic party," this article takes note of the increasing popularity of shooting among American women and wonders about its effect on electoral politics.
Well, anyone who believes the Second protects a real and vital right is going to have trouble finding Democrats to vote for right now.
Well, anyone who believes the Second protects a real and vital right is going to have trouble finding Democrats to vote for right now.
Hunting, she said, "has always been a gender-neutral sport, and I think more and more women are realizing they want to be part of the adventure and the advantages of being able to feed your family with your own hands.
"Women have a tendency ... to not only feel but behave much more confidently when they know they are not only able to provide food for the table but also be able to protect ourselves."
Protecting the constitutional right to bear arms has driven women like her to vote for political candidates who are Second Amendment advocates.
"It was the leading reason that I voted for Donald Trump last November," Croney says. "He gave voice to a strong support of Second Amendment rights when he released his picks for the Supreme Court during the campaign [and] he followed that up, true to his word, with his pick of Neil Gorsuch."
Navy SEALs Granted Tartan
You might wonder why the US Navy SEALs would want a Scottish tartan. I do not have the answer to that question, although I did know a SEAL who was a prominent figure at the Grandfather Mountain Scottish Highland Games at one time.
In any case, a surprisingly large number of members of US military units have registered them in honor of their particular branch of service. The United States Marine Corps has the Leatherneck Tartan, which you can get in two quite different shades as you prefer. The US Army has a tartan, as do the US Special Forces, the US Army Rangers, and US Army Civil Affairs. The US Navy has a tartan as well. The US Air Force has one for the service, and one for its Reserve pipe band. Even the US Coast Guard has a tartan.
I'm probably even missing a few.
I guess a lot of Americans of Scottish heritage serve in the armed forces. In any case, though you rarely see a servicemember wearing a kilt outside of a Scottish Highland Games, it's more common than not for the option to exist.
In any case, a surprisingly large number of members of US military units have registered them in honor of their particular branch of service. The United States Marine Corps has the Leatherneck Tartan, which you can get in two quite different shades as you prefer. The US Army has a tartan, as do the US Special Forces, the US Army Rangers, and US Army Civil Affairs. The US Navy has a tartan as well. The US Air Force has one for the service, and one for its Reserve pipe band. Even the US Coast Guard has a tartan.
I'm probably even missing a few.
I guess a lot of Americans of Scottish heritage serve in the armed forces. In any case, though you rarely see a servicemember wearing a kilt outside of a Scottish Highland Games, it's more common than not for the option to exist.
Subsidies
The Heritage Foundation has claimed that the average annual benefits paid to Illegal-Alien Headed Families is $24,721. Wretchard asks the right question which is, "Isn't this a subsidy to employers who can hire for less because the govt pays more?"
It sure is.
It sure is.
It used to be the case that the Forsyth County Sheriff's Department paid such low wages that deputies were eligible for food stamps, Medicaid, and all sorts of other assistance from the state and Federal governments. The county commission argued that they were being good stewards of our tax dollars by getting a great deal on law enforcement paychecks.What's the benefit that we taxpayers obtain from high levels of illegal immigration? I know what benefit the corporations obtain, and what benefit the Democratic Party expects. But what's in it for us who are paying for it?
In a way that was true: they had hit upon a successful scheme to push part of the cost of employing a deputy off onto taxpayers from outside the county (indeed, from across the entire nation). However, it was never clear to me why anyone in Oregon (say) should help pay the freight for local law enforcement from which they obtained no benefit whatsoever.
Patton
Turns out the famous speech that opens the movie was a highly-edited version of a speech Patton regularly gave. You can read the original, in all its profane glory.
Didn't Think That Through
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is one of those people whose chief claim to fame is being a "first," in his case being London's first Muslim mayor. Now, it can by accident happen that any given person is the "first" of a type to occupy some position -- first prominent member of the Rotary club, first semi-professional golfer, whatever. The issue with these people who focus on being the "first" whatever is that they're offering their accidental identity as if it were proof of some positive accomplishment -- as if it were a reason to vote for them, some virtue in respect of which they ought to be preferred for the office.
In any case, he decided to give a speech on the evils of nationalism.
Oops.
The second problem is that Khan himself is a living symbol of an even more divisive, even more narrow mode of 'pitting different parts of our country or sections of our society against one another.' If this is the right standard for judgment, identity politics fares even worse than nationalism, which at least is willing to take any kind of Scot as long as they're Scottish. Drawing the division at the level of the nation at least avoids drawing divisions below that level.
Nor is it clear that it is the right standard in any case, as even supra-nationalist divisions can end up being destructively divisive. Communists were not usually guilty of nationalism -- Ho Chi Minh and a few others excepted -- because they wanted to dispose of all nations in favor of a global government. They still ended up dividing members of nations against one another. Indeed, if strife is the proper measure, it was the singers of the Internationale who had more blood on their hands than anyone.
In any case, he decided to give a speech on the evils of nationalism.
The world is becoming an increasingly turbulent and divided place. We’ve seen Brexit, President Trump elected in the United States and the rise of right-wing populist and narrow nationalist parties around the world.... The last thing we need now is to pit different parts of our country or sections of our society against each other — or to further fuel division or seek separation.There are two problems with this. The first is that he decided to give this speech in Scotland, a nation whose elective offices have been recently dominated by an organization called The Scottish National Party.
Oops.
The second problem is that Khan himself is a living symbol of an even more divisive, even more narrow mode of 'pitting different parts of our country or sections of our society against one another.' If this is the right standard for judgment, identity politics fares even worse than nationalism, which at least is willing to take any kind of Scot as long as they're Scottish. Drawing the division at the level of the nation at least avoids drawing divisions below that level.
Nor is it clear that it is the right standard in any case, as even supra-nationalist divisions can end up being destructively divisive. Communists were not usually guilty of nationalism -- Ho Chi Minh and a few others excepted -- because they wanted to dispose of all nations in favor of a global government. They still ended up dividing members of nations against one another. Indeed, if strife is the proper measure, it was the singers of the Internationale who had more blood on their hands than anyone.
Doing no harm
Not having a heart attack? You probably shouldn't have a stent. Beta-blockers are iffy, too; it may be that they will have no effect on your likelihood of heart disease or death, though you'll probably die with better-looking blood pressure numbers. That proposed knee operation might bear a little scrutiny, too. The article doesn't discuss statins, so don't even get me started on those.
A good way to look at proposed treatments is to compare the "number needed to treat" with the "number needed to harm."
Walter Russel Mead: No Way Trump is in Russia's Pocket
If Trump were the Manchurian candidate that people keep wanting to believe that he is, here are some of the things he'd be doing:For now, as Dr. Mead goes on to note, this is all talk from Trump. He has a prediction about how to judge the actions that follow the talk too.
* Limiting fracking as much as he possibly could
* Blocking oil and gas pipelines
* Opening negotiations for major nuclear arms reductions
* Cutting U.S. military spending
* Trying to tamp down tensions with Russia's ally Iran
That Trump is planning to do precisely the opposite of these things may or may not be good policy for the United States, but anybody who thinks this is a Russia appeasement policy has been drinking way too much joy juice. Obama actually did all of these things, and none of the liberal media now up in arms about Trump...
Wasters
We use wooden wasters for a lot of Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA). Via Insty, here's a video about how dangerous these little things really can be.
Still, you gotta practice with something.
Still, you gotta practice with something.
A Pretty Clever Protest
CPAC attendees were tricked into waiving little Russian tricolor flags with "TRUMP" inscribed in gold upon them.
The protest group that pulled that off deserves a moment of credit. I might not have noticed the symbolism myself, given that the Russian tricolor is red, white, and blue. In my mind's eye, the Russian flag still looks like this:
Any other flag is barely going to impact my consciousness as a symbol of Russia.
The protest group that pulled that off deserves a moment of credit. I might not have noticed the symbolism myself, given that the Russian tricolor is red, white, and blue. In my mind's eye, the Russian flag still looks like this:
Any other flag is barely going to impact my consciousness as a symbol of Russia.
Bent Out Of Shape
People are all bent up about the 90-day by-country bar on entry in Trump's immigration Executive Order. The only thing it was meant to accomplish was to give the various agencies involved time to come up with a better method of vetting those who wanted to enter the United States from seven terror-prone regions -- I say "regions" and not "countries" as parts of some of them are effectively ungoverned. The bar was never meant to be in place for more than 90 days, it was just meant to buy time for study.
When the AP trumpets this leaked report, they see a pungent criticism of the Trump administration's order.
It's interesting that one of the early conclusions is that the list of seven "countries" -- which, we all know, was generated by the Obama administration -- was itself faulty in excluding many of the worst offenders. Note that Saudi Arabia didn't make this list either, which is interesting given that the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis.
So: if the list of nations wasn't solid, and citizenship is a poor indicator anyway, what's better? That's the thing that we really need an answer to, and it's work like this that is going to help us get there. Rather than proving that Trump is a fool (quod erat demonstrandum for the media these days), this seems to prove that his people are taking the task seriously and trying to sort out a good answer to that question.
When the AP trumpets this leaked report, they see a pungent criticism of the Trump administration's order.
A draft document obtained by The Associated Press concludes that citizenship is an "unlikely indicator" of terrorism threats to the United States and that few people from the countries Trump listed in his travel ban have carried out attacks or been involved in terrorism-related activities in the U.S. since Syria's civil war started in 2011.... The three-page report challenges Trump's core claims. It said that of 82 people the government determined were inspired by a foreign terrorist group to carry out or try to carry out an attack in the United States, just over half were U.S. citizens born in the United States. The others were from 26 countries, led by Pakistan, Somalia, Bangladesh, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iraq and Uzbekistan. Of these, only Somalia and Iraq were among the seven nations included in the ban.I don't know that it's right to say that the document "challenges Trump's core claims," since his core claim was that he wanted his agencies to study the issue during the 90 days and come up with a better system. That sounds like what they're trying to do.
It's interesting that one of the early conclusions is that the list of seven "countries" -- which, we all know, was generated by the Obama administration -- was itself faulty in excluding many of the worst offenders. Note that Saudi Arabia didn't make this list either, which is interesting given that the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis.
So: if the list of nations wasn't solid, and citizenship is a poor indicator anyway, what's better? That's the thing that we really need an answer to, and it's work like this that is going to help us get there. Rather than proving that Trump is a fool (quod erat demonstrandum for the media these days), this seems to prove that his people are taking the task seriously and trying to sort out a good answer to that question.
Symphony in Consciousness
We're also putting in a massive budget request for our beloved military. And we will be substantially upgrading all of our military, all of our military, offensive, defensive, everything. Bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and hopefully we'll never have to use it, but nobody's going to mess with us, folks. Nobody. It will be one of the greatest military buildups in American history. No one will dare question, as they have been, because we're very depleted, very, very depleted sequester. Nobody will question our military might again....His style is inimitable, but there really is a kind of style to it.
I say Democrats, please, approve our Cabinet and get smart on health care, too, if you know me. But we're taking meetings every day with top leaders in business, in science and industry. Yesterday I had 29 of the biggest business leaders in the world in my office. Caterpillar Tractor, Campbell Soup, we had everybody. We had everybody. I like Campbell Soup.
What did you think of the speech?
The Worldview of the Hillary Clinton Supporter
There's a rich irony in finding such a succinct explanation of their view of the right use of power expressed in terms of actual witchcraft. These are instructions for casting a spell against Donald Trump and his supporters.
That's almost the whole ideology in a nutshell, isn't it?
To clarify, the original document states that this is a binding spell, which seeks to restrain someone from doing harm instead of harming the targeted individual themselves. Binding does not generate the potential negative blowback to the caster’s karma.So, the idea is that no bad karma comes from using your power to strip away the freedom to do things you think are harmful.
That's almost the whole ideology in a nutshell, isn't it?
"Take a Cue from Psychopaths"
That's the title of a whole section of this Vox piece on how to deal with Trump voters.
It's a more fair-minded piece than the title, or the advice, would suggest.
It's a more fair-minded piece than the title, or the advice, would suggest.
The Fourth Circuit is Wrong
So, let's say you're a liberal judge -- or, in this case, a whole bunch of liberal judges ruling en banc -- and you really don't like the Heller decision. However, the author of that decision recently died, so you figure you can tee up the Supreme Court to reverse it in a new precedent. Thus, you decide to issue a ruling completely ignoring the Heller decision, and creating a wholly new standard for what kind of weapons deserve 2nd Amendment protection.
The problem is that the new standards doesn't just ignore Heller. It also directly violates the logic of the prior most-important 2nd Amendment Supreme Court Ruling, United States vs. Miller.
The Miller ruling appears to say that the only weapons the 2nd Amendment protects are those that are suitable for militia service, as for example by being of "ordinary military equipment." What the new 4th Circuit case says is that no weapons are protected if they are "most useful in military service." In other words, the two categories are mutually exclusive: the Supreme Court's standard is exactly the opposite of the 4th Circuit's.
And that's if you throw out the Heller decision entirely, as if it never existed.
However, it does exist.
The problem is that the new standards doesn't just ignore Heller. It also directly violates the logic of the prior most-important 2nd Amendment Supreme Court Ruling, United States vs. Miller.
The Miller ruling appears to say that the only weapons the 2nd Amendment protects are those that are suitable for militia service, as for example by being of "ordinary military equipment." What the new 4th Circuit case says is that no weapons are protected if they are "most useful in military service." In other words, the two categories are mutually exclusive: the Supreme Court's standard is exactly the opposite of the 4th Circuit's.
And that's if you throw out the Heller decision entirely, as if it never existed.
However, it does exist.
DB: Russia Names Snowden Ambassador to United States
"I look forward to investigating the charges of a Russian cyber-hack of the U.S.," a grinning Snowden told reporters....
Though American by birth, Snowden has lived in Russia since 2013 after having what he called "creative differences" with his former employers. He was awarded Russian citizenship last year by Russian president Vladimir Putin for what Putin called, "outstanding and irreplaceable services provided to the Motherland."
An Arthurian Kickstarter Project
From the Kickstarter page:
Le Morte d'Arthur & The Arthurian ConcordancePhotos at the link. I like those wide margins.
With great pleasure we offer this project to fund the beginning of an “Arthurian Library”. Three amazing books are a part of this single project.
There’s a new edition of the classic text that’s the most important source of the legend as we know it today. We also offer the first volume of an illustrated graphic novelization of Le Morte d’Arthur. Finally, we offer The Arthurian Concordance, an encyclopedia overflowing with lore.
...
The new text edition of Le Morte d’Arthur is edited by renowned Arthurian scholar John Matthews. The author of dozens of Arthurian books, John brings a lifetime of knowledge and insight to this edition of the classic by Sir Thomas Malory.
The deluxe hardcover book features reinforced binding and an interesting 8x8 inch format to feature the stunning cover art by Natee Puttapipat. The book will be an awesome 750+ pages and full-color throughout.
The interior design features an outside margin for notes to annotate the classic Malory text. This text is provided by John Matthews as well as Arthurian scholar and storyteller Greg Stafford, the renowned game designer of King Arthur Pendragon, a bestselling and award-winning tabletop roleplaying game considered among the most influential.
3 EPA principles I can live with
Despite being an avid environmentalist, I've come to despise the EPA in recent years. Scott Pruitt's introductory speech included three points I admire:
“Regulations ought to make things regular,” Pruitt said. He added, “Regulators exist to give certainty to those that they regulate. Those that we regulate ought to know what’s expected of them so that they can plan and allocate resources to comply.”
Pruitt then turned to the rule of law saying, “As we do rule making…it needs to be tethered to the statute. The only authority that any agency has in the executive branch is the authority given to it by Congress.” He went on to say that sticking closely to the law would help avoid uncertainly and litigation.
Finally, Pruitt said, “Federalism matters.” “I seek to ensure that we engender the trust of those at the state level,” he continued. “That those at the state level see us as partners, in this very important mission we have as an agency, and not adversaries,” he said.
Divisions
Majorities of Democrats consider Trump "the enemy," but an exactly equal majority of Republicans consider Democrats "the enemy."
That focus is to mis-state the problem, argues The American Interest:
The way they have been trained to think isn't working.
That focus is to mis-state the problem, argues The American Interest:
The basic division in American politics today is not over the merits of President Trump. Many of those who voted for him believed that he lacked the moral grounding and gravitas that great Presidents must ultimately draw on. The division is between those who think that, before Trump, things were going just fine and the American elite was doing an excellent job and those who blame the rise of Trump on the failures and blindness of the so-called “meritocratic elite” who, they would argue, have been running the country into the ground.The cursus honorum has ceased to provide us with reliable leadership. We've had a nearly endless stream of people leading the government whose resume reads something like this: 'Ivy League, Ivy League grad school, Ivy League law school, minor post in government or Wall Street, bigger post in government or Wall Street.'
In foreign policy, the United States has had two failed presidencies in a row.... Domestically, our leadership elite has watched passively as infrastructure decays, state and local pension systems accumulate unsustainable debt loads, the national debt inexorably climbs, and the social capital of the nation erodes.
There was no sign from the Clinton campaign that anybody understood that the nation’s path was unsustainable.
The way they have been trained to think isn't working.
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