Pragmatic politics focused on the public interest for those uncomfortable with America's two-party system and its way of doing politics. Considering the interface of politics with psychology, cognitive science, social behavior, morality and history.
Etiquette
DP Etiquette
First rule: Don't be a jackass.
Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.
In more evidence that corrupt, authoritarian radical right (CARR) Repubs could not care less what majority opinion wants when it goes against what CARR Repubs want, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports:
Ohio GOP lawmakers propose stripping judges of power to
"To prevent mischief by pro-abortion courts with Issue 1, Ohio legislators will consider removing jurisdiction from the judiciary over this ambiguous ballot initiative," according to a Thursday night news release with quotes from four GOP House representatives. "The Ohio legislature alone will consider what, if any, modifications to make to existing laws based on public hearings and input from legal experts on both sides."
The news release from Reps. Jennifer Gross, R-West Chester; Bill Dean, R-Xenia; Melanie Miller, R-Miller; and Beth Lear, R-Galena and was titled: "DECEPTIVE OHIO ISSUE 1 MISLED THE PUBLIC BUT DOESN'T REPEAL OUR LAWS." Ohio Value Voters, an anti-abortion organization, shared the same quotes in a Friday news release.
“We will withdraw jurisdiction from the courts so that they cannot misapply Issue 1 for the benefit of the abortion industry,” Gross said in the Ohio Value Voters' release.
This is what tyranny looks like. It is also what the CARR Republican Party looks like because that’s what it is. CARR Repub elites are solidly pro-tyranny. Tyrants don't accept the will of the voters or the people, unless they are forced to accept it. Period.
We're in a war over wealth and power for the elites vs. the rest of us. It really is just that simple.
Hillary Clinton compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler this week as she warned about the dangers of a second Trump presidency.
"I think it would be the end of our country as we know it, and I don't say that lightly," the former first lady and U.S. secretary of state said on daytime talk show The View on Wednesday.
During the interview, Clinton, 76, recalled her tenure as U.S. secretary of state and said she used to refer to the concept of elected leaders who were "one and done," meaning they would be democratically elected, and then do away with the electoral system and an independent press.
"And you could see it in countries where — well, Hitler was duly elected, right?" said Clinton, who is a Democrat.
"And so all of a sudden, somebody with those tendencies, those dictatorial, authoritarian tendencies, would be like, 'OK, we're going to shut this down. We're going to throw these people in jail,' and they didn't usually telegraph that.
"Trump is telling us what he intends to do. Take him at his word. The man means to throw people in jail who disagree with him, shut down legitimate press outlets, do what he can to literally undermine the rule of law and our country's values."
Hm, that sounds somewhat familiar. Think . . . . think . . . . . think . . . . . oh yeah, now I remember. Russian journalist Masha Gesson. She reported on the fall of Russian Democracy to Putin. She wrote this after Hillary made her concession speech to DJT the day after the 2016 election. This is from Autocracy: Rules for Survival, that Gessen wrote for the New York Review of Books, in November 2016 (my 2020 post about it is here):
“Thank you, my friends. Thank you. Thank you. We have lost. We have lost, and this is the last day of my political career, so I will say what must be said. We are standing at the edge of the abyss. Our political system, our society, our country itself are in greater danger than at any time in the last century and a half. The president-elect has made his intentions clear, and it would be immoral to pretend otherwise. We must band together right now to defend the laws, the institutions, and the ideals on which our country is based.”
That, or something like that, is what Hillary Clinton should have said on Wednesday [in her concession speech to Trump].
That speaks for itself. Hillary did not speak up in Nov. 2016. But now she is in 2023. Good for her. Another mind was gone woke about the threat of American kleptocratic tyranny from the CARR Repub Party and its undisputed, morally rotted leader and dictator wannabe.
Looking on the (B)right Side of Life: Cognitive Ability
and Miscalibrated Financial Expectations
You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. — Ayn Rand (normally I would not quote Rand because she was a deranged lunatic and a monster, but this bit makes sense)
It is a puzzle why humans tend toward unrealistic optimism, as it can lead to excessively risky behavior and a failure to take precautionary action. Using data from a large nationally representative U.K. sample (N = 36,312), our claim is that optimism bias is partly a consequence of low cognition—as measured by a broad range of cognitive skills, including memory, verbal fluency, fluid reasoning and numerical reasoning. We operationalize unrealistic optimism as the difference between a person’s financial expectation and the financial realization that follows, measured annually over a decade. All else being equal, those highest on cognitive ability experience a 22% (53.2%) increase in the probability of realism (pessimism) and a 34.8% reduction in optimism compared with those lowest on cognitive ability. This suggests that the negative consequences of an excessively optimistic mindset may, in part, be a side product of the true driver, low cognitive ability.
Unrealistic optimism or optimism bias—the tendency for individuals to overestimate the chance of favorable outcomes occurring and underestimate the chance of bad (Weinstein, 1980)—has been found to be one of the most pervasive human traits across many domains (Sharot, 2011). For instance, research has shown that individuals tend to underestimate the likelihood of developing a drinking problem or getting divorced (Weinstein, 1980) and to overestimate their future earnings (Dawson, 2017) and how long they are going to live (Puri & Robinson, 2007). Our established tendency toward unrealistic optimism poses an evolutionary puzzle as normative models of human judgment, like expected utility theory, suggest unbiased assessments of probabilities are advantageous. Like any other judgmental bias, optimism bias distorts the decision-making process, leading to systematic decision errors, increased rash and risky behavior (de Meza et al., 2019) and a failure to take precautionary measures (Dillard et al., 2009).
Below is a 3 minute video montage that shows some of what various experts (lawyers, scholars, UN officials I discuss below ) now consider to be very good evidence of genocidal intent-- which is usually the hardest part of genocide to establish. Following that is an op ed piece the NYT published on 11/10 by the renowned Israeli-American professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University, Omer Bartov. The video montage gives a 3 minute slice of some of the evidence Bartov cites in the article reprinted below
Bartov's views are of great value, I think, because he has both deep personal and academic knowledge of all the issues in play here. He served in the IDF, worked in an occupied territory, is sympathetic to Israel yet highly critical of its policies in recent decades, and was affected by loss personally on October 7 (as he explains in an extended interview with Amy Goodman elsewhere). Educated in Tel Aviv and then Oxford, he later moved to the US and is considered one of the leading historians of the Holocaust. His 2018 book Anatomy of a Genocide won the National Jewish Book Award that year. He discusses the concepts of genocide, genocidal intent (required to prove it), ethnic cleansing and war crimes (e.g. disproportionate attacks on civilians, forced evacuations, attacks on functioning hospitals and others as outlined in the Geneva Convention of 1948 and The Rome Statute).
Accusations of war crimes and genocide are now being made in lawsuits against Israel brought before the ICC which will be evaluated by its lead prosecutor, Karim Khan. He, in turn, wrote an article in The Guardian warning Israel that:
"They will need to demonstrate that any attack that
harms innocent civilians or protected objects is conducted in
accordance with the laws and customs of armed conflict. They will need
to demonstrate the proper application of the principles of distinction,
precaution and proportionality.
For those
responsible for targeting and firing missiles, I wish to be clear on
three points in particular. One: in relation to every dwelling house, in
relation to any school, any hospital, any church, any mosque – those
places are protected, unless the protective status has been lost because
they are being used for military purposes. Two: if there is a doubt
that a civilian object has lost its protective status, the attacker must
assume that it is protected. Three: the burden of demonstrating that
this protective status is lost rests with those who fire the gun, the
missile, or the rocket in question."
In a dramatic statement made this week by the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, Volker Turk accused Israel of several war crimes after visiting the Rafah Gate. Among other things, the UN chief said:
"The collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians amounts
also to a war crime, as does the unlawful forcible evacuation of
civilians. The massive bombardments by Israel have killed, maimed and
injured in particular women and children. The latest death toll from the
Gaza Ministry of Health is in excess of 10,500 people, including over
4,300 children and 2,800 women. All of this has an unbearable toll on
civilians....We have fallen off a precipice. This cannot continue."
A week earlier, on October 28, the Director of the New York Department of the UN Office of Human Rights wrote his boss Volker Turk, in Geneva, a letter of resignation in which he stated:
"This will be my last communication to
you... We are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organisation that we serve appears powerless to stop it."
On 11/9/23, three Rights groups filed am International Criminal Court lawsuit against Israel with accusations of genocide and various war crimes. The PM of Belgium cut ties with Israel this week. President Macron of France pressured Israel to stop the bombing and implement a ceasefire yesterday, to which Netanyahu replied:
"While Israel is doing everything to refrain from harming civilians and
calling on them to leave areas of fighting, Hamas-Isis is doing
everything to prevent them from leaving for safe areas and is using them
as human shields." (Guardian live updates 11/10/23)
He continued by saying that Hamas and not Israel is responsible for the civilian deaths-- a non-starter both legally and morally in which Israel literally denies its own agency in pulling the triggers. The "Hamas uses human shields" defense is not a blank check. As the top UN and ICC officials have stated, the burden will be on Israel to show that each and every school, hospital, mosque, residential building was being used by the enemy to launch attacks-- and that's a LOT of buildings, as the UNDP reports that 50% of Gaza's residential buildings have now been destroyed. Further, the loss of life incurred in such attacks must not be indiscriminate or disproportionate. It is doubtful that anything close to all these bombardments are precision strikes based on actionable intel on enemy positions in buildings, hospitals et al. Right from the start, Adm. Daniel Hagari, head of the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, said that "the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy."
Blinken and Biden have begun to change their tune from "no red lines" for Israel to stipulating "red lines" which include "humanitarian pauses," "fewer civilian deaths," and the "ruling out of reoccupation of Gaza"-- though Netanyahu's latest word on that is his plan for "indefinite occupation" of Gaza until things can be "stabilized."
With all of this in mind, here is the video montage of official statements taken by many to be evidence of genocidal intent, followed by historian, Omer Bartov's op ed.
Israeli
military operations have created an untenable humanitarian crisis,
which will only worsen over time. But are Israel’s actions — as the
nation’s opponents argue — verging on ethnic cleansing or, most
explosively, genocide?
As a historian
of genocide, I believe that there is no proof that genocide is currently
taking place in Gaza, although it is very likely that war crimes, and
even crimes against humanity, are happening. That means two important
things: First, we need to define what it is that we are seeing, and
second, we have the chance to stop the situation before it gets worse.
We know from history that it is crucial to warn of the potential for
genocide before it occurs, rather than belatedly condemn it after it has
taken place. I think we still have that time.
It
is clear that the daily violence being unleashed on Gaza is both
unbearable and untenable. Since the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas — itself a
war crime and a crime against humanity — Israel’s military air and
ground assault on Gaza has killed more than 10,500 Palestinians,
according to the Gaza Health Ministry, a number that includes thousands
of children. That’s well over five times as many people as the more than
1,400 people in Israel murdered by Hamas. In justifying the assault,
Israeli leaders and generals have made terrifying pronouncements that
indicate a genocidal intent.
Still,
the collective horror of what we are watching does not mean that a
genocide, according to the international legal definition of the term,
is already underway. Because genocide, sometimes called “the crime of all crimes,”
is perceived by many to be the most extreme of all crimes, there is
often an impulse to describe any instance of mass murder and massacre as
genocide. But this urge to label all atrocious events as genocide tends
to obfuscate reality rather than explain it.
International humanitarian law identifies several grave crimes in armed conflict. War crimes are defined
in the 1949 Geneva Conventions and subsequent protocols as serious
violations of the laws and customs of war in international armed
conflict against both combatants and civilians. The Rome Statute, which
established the International Criminal Court, defines crimes against humanity as extermination of, or other mass crimes against, any civilian population. The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”
So
in order to prove that genocide is taking place, we need to show both
that there is the intent to destroy and that destructive action is
taking place against a particular group. Genocide as a legal concept
differs from ethnic cleansing
in that the latter, which has not been recognized as its own crime
under international law, aims to remove a population from a territory,
often violently, whereas genocide aims at destroying that population
wherever it is. In reality, any of these situations — and especially
ethnic cleansing — may escalate into genocide, as happened in the
Holocaust, which began with an intention to remove the Jews from
German-controlled territories and transformed into the intention of
their physical extermination.
My greatest concern watching the
Israel-Gaza war unfold is that there is genocidal intent, which can
easily tip into genocidal action. On Oct. 7, Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said that Gazans would pay a “huge price”
for the actions of Hamas and that the Israel Defense Forces, or I.D.F.,
would turn parts of Gaza’s densely populated urban centers “into rubble.” On Oct. 28, he added,
citing Deuteronomy, “You must remember what Amalek did to you.” As many
Israelis know, in revenge for the attack by Amalek, the Bible calls to
“kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings.”
The deeply alarming language does not end there. On Oct. 9, Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said,
“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” a
statement indicating dehumanization, which has genocidal echoes. The
next day, the head of the Israeli Army’s coordinator of government
activities in the territories, Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, addressed the
population of Gaza in Arabic: “Human animals must be treated as such,”
he said, adding: “There will be no electricity and no water. There will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.”
The same day, retired Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland wrote
in the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, “The State of Israel has no
choice but to turn Gaza into a place that is temporarily or permanently
impossible to live in.” He added, “Creating a severe humanitarian crisis
in Gaza is a necessary means to achieving the goal.” In another article,
he wrote that “Gaza will become a place where no human being can
exist.” Apparently, no army representative or politician denounced this
statement.
I could quote many more.
Taken
together, these statements could easily be construed as indicating a
genocidal intent. But is genocide actually occurring? Israeli military
commanders insist
that they are trying to limit civilian casualties, and they attribute
the large numbers of dead and wounded Palestinians to Hamas tactics of
using civilians as human shields and placing their command centers under
humanitarian structures like hospitals.
But on Oct. 13, the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence reportedly issued a proposal
to move the entire population of the Gaza Strip to the Egyptian-ruled
Sinai Peninsula (Mr. Netanyahu’s office said it was a “concept paper”).
Extreme right-wing elements in the government — also represented in the
I.D.F. — celebrate the war as an opportunity to be rid of Palestinians
altogether. This month, a videotape emerged
on social media of Capt. Amichai Friedman, a rabbi in the Nahal
Brigade, saying to a group of soldiers that it was now clear that “this
land is ours, the whole land, including Gaza, including Lebanon.” The
troops cheered enthusiastically; the military said that his conduct
“does not align” with its values and directives.
And
so, while we cannot say that the military is explicitly targeting
Palestinian civilians, functionally and rhetorically we may be watching
an ethnic cleansing operation that could quickly devolve into genocide,
as has happened more than once in the past.
None
of this happened in a vacuum. Over the past several months I have
agonized greatly over the unfolding of events in Israel. On Aug. 4,
several colleagues and I circulated a petition
warning that the attempted judicial coup by the Netanyahu government
was intended to perpetuate the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
It was signed by close to 2,500 scholars, clergy members and public
figures who were disgusted with the racist rhetoric of members of the
government, its anti-democratic efforts and the growing violence by
settlers, seemingly supported by the I.D.F., against Palestinians in the
occupied West Bank.
What we had
warned about — that it would be impossible to ignore the occupation and
oppression of millions for 56 years, and the siege of Gaza for 16 years,
without consequences — exploded in our faces on Oct. 7. Following
Hamas’s massacre of innocent Jewish civilians, our same group issued a
second petition
denouncing the crimes committed by Hamas and calling upon the Israeli
government to desist from perpetrating mass violence and killings upon
innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza in response to the crisis. We
wrote that the only way to put an end to these cycles of violence is to
seek a political compromise with the Palestinians and end the
occupation.
It is time for leaders and
senior scholars of institutions dedicated to researching and
commemorating the Holocaust to publicly warn against the rage- and
vengeance-filled rhetoric that dehumanizes the population of Gaza and
calls for its extinction. It is time to speak out against the escalating
violence on the West Bank, perpetrated by Israeli settlers and I.D.F.
troops, which now appears to also be sliding toward ethnic cleansing
under the cover of war in Gaza; several Palestinian villages have reportedly self-evacuated under threats from settlers.
I
urge such venerable institutions as the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to step
in now and stand at the forefront of those warning against war crimes,
crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and the crime of all crimes,
genocide.
If we truly believe that the
Holocaust taught us a lesson about the need — or really, the duty — to
preserve our own humanity and dignity by protecting those of others,
this is the time to stand up and raise our voices, before Israel’s
leadership plunges it and its neighbors into the abyss.
There is still time to stop Israel from letting its actions become a genocide. We cannot wait a moment longer.
MSNBC recently broadcast a segment on what the corrupt dictator wannabe, his corrupt dictator goons and other GOP elites are planning for when a Republican gets back in the White House. This is just a reminder. I posted about Project 2025 in September.
During the interview on the Spanish-language TV network, journalist Enrique Acevedo asked Trump if he would weaponize the FBI and Justice Department on his opponents in the same way he claims federal law enforcement agencies have been weaponized against him.
“Yeah. If they do this, and they’ve already done it, but if they follow through on this, yeah, it could certainly happen in reverse,” Trump told Acevedo, according to excerpts of the interview.
“What they’ve done is they’ve released the genie out of the box,” the former president continued, adding, “You know, when you’re president and you’ve done a good job and you’re popular, you don’t go after them so you can win an election.”
“They have done something that allows the next party … if I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business. They’d be out of the election,” Trump continued.
DJT’s intention to implement full blown dictatorship and persecute political opposition could not be clearer.
The one-way ratchet toward a kleptocratic plutocratic-autocratic-theocratic dictatorship is humming along nicely as the Repubs intend. The AP reports that Repubs successfully blocked consideration of corruption in the USSC:
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee abruptly adjourned a meeting on Thursday without holding an expected vote on subpoenas for two conservatives who have helped arrange luxury travel and other benefits for Supreme Court justices.
The panel’s Democratic chairman, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, gaveled out after Republicans on the committee made clear they would call for subpoena votes on a raft of Democratic officials and others, a protest of the planned subpoenas for Republican megadonor Harlan Crow and conservative activist Leonard Leo. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the panel, warned majority Democrats that the hearing would be contentious.
Jammed with amendments and the possibility of hours of debate, Durbin gaveled out. He said in a statement after the meeting that there were “scheduling issues” but that they would try again.
See how easy it is to defend corruption and dictatorship? See how impossible it is to vindicate the rule of law? Just threaten to subpoena Dems and the Dems cave in. One has to ask, what are the Dems hiding? Nothing or something? As far as I'm concerned, the Repubs can subpoena and grill whoever the freak they want and the Dems should do exactly the same. If there's significant evidence of corruption or lawbreaking by anyone, anyone at all, turn it over to the DoJ for investigation and prosecution if the evidence supports it.
In my opinion, this country desperately needs a secular, rational, evidence-based, more transparent, less corrupt political party.
From the Well, Duh Files:The NYT reports about something that comes as no surprise to anyone who paid even a little attention to history:
A senior Biden administration official told Congress on Wednesday that the number of deaths in Gaza from Israel’s military campaign might be “even higher than are being cited.”
Testifying before the House Committee on Foreign Relations, Barbara Leaf, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, said that the Palestinian death toll, while difficult to assess accurately, was “very high, frankly — and it could be that they’re even higher than are being cited.”
Frankly, the body count probably is higher than what Israel claims and lower than what Hamas claims. But there’s no reliable way to know. So, we are left to pick a number that feels the best.
The endless Israel-Palestine disaster is intractable. It generates intense emotions. Rationality and facts are significantly or mostly replaced by irrational blither and lies. Parties and governments involved are lying about just about everything, making nearly all detailed information suspect. The Hill puts it in some perspective:
The highly charged debate over U.S. policy in Israel has exposed long-standing frictions among House Democrats, pitting Israel’s staunchest allies against pro-Palestinian liberals and posing a stark challenge for party leaders who are racing to ease the tensions.
The divisions surfaced last month, when 15 Democrats declined to support a resolution declaring U.S. solidarity with Israel following Hamas’s deadly terrorist attacks several weeks earlier. They bubbled up again last week over legislation providing U.S. military aid to Tel Aviv. And they were thrust into the spotlight once more on Tuesday, when 22 Democrats voted to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) for her harsh criticisms of Israel’s military response in Gaza.
The emotional clashes have chilled long-standing relationships between once-friendly lawmakers, sparked a potential challenge to at least one leadership post, and prompted talk of a bid to expel Tlaib, according to several lawmakers familiar with the private discussions.
Some Capitol Hill veterans said they’ve never seen the rancor so high within the caucus.
“It’s hell,” said one Democratic lawmaker, who spoke anonymously to discuss a sensitive topic. “I’m really worried about the hate that I’m seeing everyplace.”
Israel is a curse on mankind. So is religion. Or, is that too emotional or irrational?
House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) on Wednesday subpoenaed President Joe Biden’s brother, James Biden, who Comer has implicated in unsubstantiated allegations of “shady business practices” in the Biden family.
Comer has in particular been trying to make hay out of two personal loan repayments from James Biden to his brother, for $40,000 and $200,000—with all transactions occurring in 2017 and 2018, when Joe Biden was neither in office nor a candidate.
But if Comer genuinely believes these transactions clear the “shady business practices” bar, he might want to consider a parallel inquiry into his own family.
According to Kentucky property records, Comer and his own brother have engaged in land swaps related to their family farming business. In one deal—also involving $200,000, as well as a shell company—the more powerful and influential Comer channeled extra money to his brother, seemingly from nothing. Other recent land swaps were quickly followed with new applications for special tax breaks, state records show. All of this, perplexingly, related to the dealings of a family company that appears to have never existed on paper.
The Hill reports about a blast of snark aimed at Comer and his hypocrisy:
The Oversight panel posted a video Wednesday of Comer signing subpoenas for the president’s son Hunter Biden, brother James Biden and their business partner Rob Walker as part of Republicans’ impeachment probe into the president.
Moskowitz’s post recreated the video shot-for-shot with the congressman signing a prop “subpoena” for Comer instead, calling him a hypocrite over the investigation.
“It has been reported that Comer also loaned his brother $200k. We fully expect James to comply, just like the Trumps,” Moskowitz said on X.
Unlike the endless Biden saga which is probably a nothingburger, Comer just might have been caught with is dirty hand in the cookie jar, evading taxes and breaking whatever other laws he feels he needs to break. But, my minions have researched this. They tell me there is a ~0% chance that Comer will investigate himself. That sounds about right.
Meanwhile, Comer says he wants to wrap up the Biden nothingburger soon. The Daily Beast reports:
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) indicated on Tuesday that the impeachment inquiry he’s spearheading against President Joe Biden is in the “downhill phase” as he looks to “wrap it up as soon as possible.”
The announcement that Comer wants to quickly finish up his probe into the “Biden crime family” comes a week after he admitted he didn’t want to hold any more public hearings, claiming he “can do more with” depositions. In the inquiry’s only hearing last month, Comer was roundly mocked after his own witnesses said there wasn’t enough evidence to support an impeachment.
“We know not only there were crimes, we know there are cover-ups,” the Kentucky congressman told Johnson. “We have mountains of evidence and now we’re ready to bring ‘em in. We’re in the downhill phase of this investigation now because we have so many documents and we can bring these people in for depositions or committee hearings, whichever they choose, and we can ask these questions with evidence.”
Yeah, Comer-style government is in the downhill phase for sure. Democracy and transparency are going downhill and dictatorship and corruption are going uphill.
Sensory overload (sensory processing disorder) is a real thing. I just thought it was fairly rare and usually not debilitating. Anyway, for whatever reasons Walmart seems to be locked onto the concept according to a report by The Hill:
In a Tuesday news release, Walmart said from 8-10 a.m. local time, it will change its TV walls to a static image while also lowering or turning off lights where possible in an effort to make customers with sensory disabilities feel more comfortable.
“During these hours, we hope our customers and associates will find the stores to be a little easier on the eyes and ears,” the company said in its news release. “These changes are thanks to those who shared their feedback on how their stores could help them feel like they belong.”
Walmart said that it ran a pilot program of its new initiative Saturdays during the back-to-school season, adding the feedback it received was “overwhelmingly positive.”
Good for Walmart. It's turning down the garbage intensity for at least two hours/day. That's a lot better than no hours/day.
Along with DJT, Mark Meadows and all the 1/6 insurrectionists, another DJT-related felon I very much want to see behind bars is the scumbag extraordinaire Steve Bannon. Bannon coined the now-standard authoritarian radical right attack label, flood the zone with shit, meaning spew tones of lies, slanders and crackpottery to deflect and divert attention from the corruption and authoritarian horrors the ARR is engaged in. The Hill updates the status his legal saga:
Steve Bannon’s bid to avoid prison
heads to appeals court
Steve Bannon’s bid to avoid prison heads to a federal appeals court Thursday as the onetime Trump White House strategist attempts to overturn his conviction.
A jury last year found Bannon guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress after he defied a subpoena from the Jan. 6 House select committee.
With his four-month prison sentence on hold, Bannon’s attorney will go before a three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday to argue his client’s constitutional rights were violated.
The onetime former President Trump aide and “Bannon’s War Room” podcast host is advancing several arguments rejected by a lower court, including that the Jan. 6 committee’s subpoena wasn’t valid in the first place.
Even if it was, Bannon contends he was entitled to present various defenses to the jury to explain his defiance. Bannon insists he is innocent because he relied on his attorney’s advice and legal opinions from within the Department of Justice.
I so much hope that Bannon has to serve his full 4 months in the slammer. I see the 4 month sentence as more evidence of how weak the rule of law is for elites, and the rich and powerful. In my opinion, he should spend at least 10 years in the slammer for the damage he caused to democracy and society.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) called Tuesday’s election results “very disappointing.”
“Part of what we have to do is get the vote out. I don’t know if you all saw the disturbing number[s] [for] turnout. Clearly, these were races that Democrats didn’t win, Republicans lost. We didn’t show up,” he said.
“It’s about execution; it’s about messaging, and we’ve got to do a better job,” he said. “Yesterday, to me, was complete failure.”
Faux News is spinning it's black little heart out to reframe the abortion situation in terms of a gigantic lie. The HuffPo writes:
Sean Hannity's Gaslighting Post-Election Abortion
Claim Doesn't Fool Onlookers
In the face of resounding victories for abortion rights in Tuesday’s elections, Sean Hannity quickly started rewriting facts for Fox News viewers. “Democrats are trying to scare women into thinking Republicans don’t want abortion legal under any circumstances,” the host said Tuesday night. As many commenters pointed out on social media, the main reason for that perception is probably because it’s true in many cases.
Dang, if I'm not self-deluding here, it seems that a few allegedly professional journalists are going from dim bulbs (maybe ~3 watts incandescent) to almost bright lights (~150 watt incandescent, ~20 watts LED).
Wait, wait a gol' darned minnit! Is bright light even possible from the MSM? Nah, couldn't be. Or could it? A WaPo opinion by Jennifer Rubin evinces a glimmer of a bulb (mind) that was or has brightened considerably relative to current affairs and circumstances. YAY Jennifer, you go girl! Give 'em hell!
Resign if you cannot follow the Constitution?
Great idea.
After a hearing in the Western District Court of Appeals, Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a Republican candidate for governor, “was asked by reporters whether he, as governor, would be able to defend reproductive rights if Missouri voters enshrine them in the Missouri Constitution next fall,” the local CBS news affiliate reported. His answer: “Anytime a statewide official is sworn in, we swear an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Missouri.” He added: “If I cannot do that, then I would have to leave my position. I cannot swear an oath and then refuse to do what I’d said I would do.”
“I would have to quit,” he said. [Ashcroft is staunchly anti-abortion]
New House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) .... said in a Fox News interview: “‘What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?’ I said, well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it — that’s my worldview. That’s what I believe, and so I make no apologies for it.”
Johnson swore an oath to a Constitution that includes a First Amendment that prohibits the establishment of religion. The Constitution bans slavery and cruel and unusual punishment; the Bible condones slavery and stoning, among other things. Which is his rule book: the Constitution or the Bible? He should tell us.
This is more than theoretical. The Supreme Court (for now) has ruled same-sex marriage is constitutionally protected. Johnson, however, makes no bones about his anti-gay bigotry. He has condemned homosexuality in print multiple times. Can he set aside his religious views and accept that gay marriage is the law of the land? His oath requires him to.
So the question remains for him and others who cite the Bible as their “rule book”: Will they follow the Constitution when it’s in conflict with their religious views? If not, they should follow Ashcroft’s statement and resign. Officeholders might take an oath on the Bible (or other text), but they take an oath to the Constitution, which, unsurprisingly, contradicts the Bible in many significant respects. You cannot have two rule books if you are to abide by your oath.
Ashcroft and Johnson have been more candid than most, but, to a frightening degree, the Republican Party has become a vessel for White Christian nationalism, which seeks to impose “a worldview that claims the U.S. is a Christian nation and that the country’s laws should therefore be rooted in Christian values,” as NPR put it. (According to the American Values Survey, 75 percent of Republicans believe the Founding Fathers “intended it to be a Christian nation with western European values.”) That belief is the foundation for effectively obliterating the anti-establishment clause and for a host of views on immigration (the “great replacement theory”), abortion, gay rights, education and more.
There are two ways to resolve the issue. Ashcroft presents one: Resign if you cannot put your religious views aside. The other is to admit that you must put those views aside to hold public office. When the issue is not evangelical Christianity, but rather John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism or Mitt Romney’s Mormonism, politicians have taken pains to assure voters that their religion would not dictate their actions in office. We should expect no less of today’s elected officials, including Johnson.
This is soooo refreshing. An elite among the journalist cognoscenti is asking an important, pointed question for a change. Do it again Jennifer.
The elephant in the room is Christian nationalist dogma. It explicitly puts God's law (Christian Sharia law) above human secular law (the US Constitution).
Jennifer Rubin
Q: What are the odds that Johnson will either (i) publicly say he will follow the rule of law when it is at odds with how he personally reads his personal copy of the bible, or (ii) employ the popular corrupt authoritarian-liar KYMS tactic?
My guess is ~90% chance of KYMS to avoid FIMS, etc.
KYMS - Keep Your Mouth Shut (to avoid embarrassment and FIMS (Foot In Mouth Syndrome))
NOT on policy. On body language. Because none won on policy. But POLITICO has taken on the task of "reading" the body language of the GOP candidates in last night's debate.
Ron DeSantis’ awkward smile, Nikki Haley’s killer eyeroll, Vivek Ramaswamy’s angled eyebrows — I saw a veritable stage play tonight, only the best dialogue was unspoken.
During the first GOP debate, I wrote that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis failed to smile. He seems to have taken that advice to heart. Unfortunately, he fumbled the execution.
(My assessment - a totally phony smile)
At the first debate, Vivek Ramaswamy looked like he was having a ball, with a supernova smile and big, emphatic hand gestures that grabbed him attention as a feisty newcomer. Tonight, as Ramaswamy took his last shot at drawing daylight between himself and his opponents on a debate stage, it was clear the fun is over.
(My assessment - he is bleeding support and he is pissed)
The tension on Haley’s face from the start spoke to her commitment and resolve. She was cogent and focused, and her delivery was precise. Her use of humor to defang Vivek’s sexist remark about her heels was flawless. She clenched her jaw and rolled her eyes in a devastating, dismissive way, showing that she’s in control even when she’s seething and that she considers Ramaswamy insignificant.
(My assessment - too bad she is neo-con. Too bad she isn't on the Dems side. She can deliver "the look" and is articulate. Kinda cute too)
Christie was as polished as always. As a former prosecutor practiced at charming a jury, he used his smooth vocal cadence to deliver talking points in a way that was easy to understand.
(My assessment - he might even be sane. He has that buddy buddy approach)
Scott looked presidential. He was eloquent and poised. Once again he quoted scripture on the stage, speaking with the measured and comforting cadence of a pastor. Of all the candidates, he appears the most approachable, thanks to his easy smile, his deep baritone voice and the way he turns to all sides of the audience as he speaks, making everyone feel addressed.
(My assessment - Joe Navarro got this one all wrong. Scott comes across as sanctimonious. Scott might be ok as a pastor, he talks like one, but as a politician, he is as stale as week-old bread)
