This is the kind of thing where you say, “Man, I wish I’d had that idea 40 years ago.”
Allow me to say, this is awesome. https://t.co/87aXjtmHV9
— ***Dave Hill (@Three_Star_Dave) June 14, 2019
Allow me to say, this is awesome. https://t.co/87aXjtmHV9
If we don’t pay congressfolk enough, then only the rich will be congressfolk
Freezing congressional salaries, as inflation has slashed their income over time, while they must maintain two homes and work in one of the pricier cities in the nation, is a great way to ensure that only independently wealthy folk run for Congress.https://t.co/GAqcTYwN2p
— ***Dave Hill (@Three_Star_Dave) June 13, 2019
Freezing congressional salaries, as inflation has slashed their income over time, while they must maintain two homes and work in one of the pricier cities in the nation, is a great way to ensure that only independently wealthy folk run for Congress.
https://t.co/GAqcTYwN2p
We already have a problem with Congress being the playground of millionaires (of both parties); freezing congressional salaries (which has a knock-on effect on the salaries of aids, too) only makes this problem worse.
Yeah, I know, everyone hates Congress. But we’re stuck with it as an institution, and the public always seems much more eager to vote out other folks’ reps than their own. Given that, is Congress likely to improve if it’s only the realm of the independently wealthy, folk who don’t need to care about what congressional salaries are?
Consider that working as a Representative or a Senator means having to maintain two households, one at the home district and one in DC. Yeah, being a congresscritter has a lot of perqs, but it also carries a lot of expense — something that “ordinary” people might not be able to swing if the salary doesn’t support it.
Congressional salaries are supposed to include a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) to keep up with inflation and avoid arguments about Congress getting raises. But congressfolk who are (a) sensitive to optics or (b) wanting to be seen as fiscal hawks, as well as (c) not dependent on those raises … they’ve have kept that from happening.
Lawmakers have voted since 2009 to block their annual pay raise, which some are now trying to change this year since the cost of living has skyrocketed since then. […] The Congressional Research Service estimated that, when adjusted for inflation, lawmaker salaries have decreased 15 percent since the last pay increase in 2009.
Again, you don’t like Congress? They serve two-year or six-year (depending on the chamber) contracts — feel free to give them their walking papers at that time if they aren’t doing the job you want them to. But choking off their pay isn’t going to make them any better — it’s just going to make them less representative.
Which, y’know, kind of defeats the purpose.
Do you want to know more?
Two notes from the Twitter comments:
Except for those ostensibly Christian leaders who want to execute LGBTQ people. Yeesh.
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
— John 13:34-35
(Not to mention a hymn I grew up with.)
Two stories I ran across today. First:
Authorities ‘looking into’ pastor’s church sermon calling for execution of LGBTQ people | TheHill
Here’s Pastor Grayson Fritts, preaching at All Scripture Baptist Church:
“Here’s how it should work. It shouldn’t work when we go out and we enforce the laws, because the Bible says the powers that be are ordained of God and God has instilled the power of civil government to send the police in 2019 out to these LGBT freaks and arrest them,” Fritts said in his June 2 sermon.
“Have a trial for them, and if they are convicted then they are to be put to death … do you understand that? It’s a capital crime to be carried out by our government.”
Do we feel more comfortable that Pastor Fritts is a detective in the Knox County Sheriff’s Office?
The next headline is relatively innocuous in its text …
… until you start reading about these preachers who, remarkably, don’t include Pastor Fritts, above.
There’s Steven Anderson, who celebrated the [Pulse Nightclub] massacre as soon as it happened because there were “50 less pedophiles in this world.” He added that he’s “not gonna sit here and cry about it and say it’s a tragedy, because it’s not.” He’s also said if he could push a button and kill every homosexual, he would “push it until it breaks.”
There’s Roger Jimenez, who said the worst thing about the massacre was that the shooter “didn’t finish the job.” He also longed for the government to round up all the gay people, “put them up against a firing wall, put a firing squad in front of them, and blow their brains out.”
There’s Tommy McMurtry, who wishes we could go back to the time when society put gay people in their place: “six feet under.”
[…] The man hosting the conference is Patrick Boyle of Revival Baptist Church in Orlando, so it’s presumably at his church or somewhere close by. Boyle, by the way, insists he’s just echoing the Bible when he says gay people “are worthy of death.”
Those folk are preachers at Faithful Word Baptist, Verity Baptist, and Liberty Baptist Church, and Revival Baptist Church.
Three points.
First, I am not suggesting this is the “Christian,” or even “Baptist” attitude toward LGBTQ folk. I know too many Christians, and read too many more, to make such an assertion.
Second, I am always seriously reluctant to brand people as not being “Christian.” That’s a tactic that’s been used by tyrants and theocrats down the centuries to discredit and persecute folk of all stripes.
But I find it impossible to reconcile the gleeful homophobic bloodthirstiness of these self-identifying Christian preachers with anything in the Biblical teachings of Christ, let alone the beliefs of many Christians I know.
Third, whenever there is a terroristic crime, or even violent sentiment of precisely this sort, by self-identifying Muslims, there is a public demand that other Muslims pointedly condemn such things, so as to demonstrate that they don’t support such sentiments (and, even then, law enforcement is encouraged and follows through on efforts to monitor Muslim organizations and gathering places to ensure we’re not seeing a terror attack in the making).
It would not be inappropriate, given these particular individuals, to similarly insist that Christians condemn their sentiments, lest people draw the conclusion that this is how all Christians feel (and, presumably, want to act upon), or even use as a justification to put Baptist congregations under police and FBI observation.
Consider this my own condemnation of same. This is, as I said, antithetical to my own religious beliefs, and my understanding of Christianity, not to mention my beliefs as to how a civil society operates in general, and how America operates specifically.
I would say more about the individuals involved … but it would involve language that doesn’t seem particularly loving. Because some folk make it very difficult to love them, Jesus’ dictates or not.
The US wants to Europe to spend more on defense … or, rather, on US weapons.
The Trump Administration wants Europe to spend more money on defense … but only if they are buying weapons from the US. Yeesh. https://t.co/Ijx53aijh7
— ***Dave Hill (@Three_Star_Dave) June 11, 2019
The Trump Administration wants Europe to spend more money on defense … but only if they are buying weapons from the US. Yeesh. https://t.co/Ijx53aijh7
Donald Trump has long lambasted our NATO allies for not spending more of their own money on defense, rather than letting the US do so. There’s some fairness in that, though it’s distorted by the degree to which the US has wanted to maintain bases in the NATO nations (in our own opposition to the Soviet Union, and then Russia), and the degree to which the US feels it needs to spend more money on defense than the next eight biggest spenders on the planet.
But, hey, the NATO nations have apparently been convinced that Donald might desert them if they don’t pay the US more (a model which doesn’t actually exist) or if they don’t boost their own spending (as, again to be fair, they have previously agreed to).
Except … they’re not doing it the way Donald wants.
The New York Times reported last week that Michael J. Murphy, a top official in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, “lectured” European Union ambassadors about their attempt to launch a new program that would exclude “third parties”—including the United States—from participating in cooperative military projects unless absolutely necessary.
Murphy was so angry about the issue, the Times reports, that he left no time in the session for discussion after his remarks. A “similar but less aggressive meeting” took place at the Pentagon, where discussion was allowed.
At his meeting with the ambassadors, Murphy accused the EU of “pursuing an industrial policy under the veneer of a security policy.”
We (the US) want them to spend more … but, apparently just as important, we want to profit from that spending. If they decide to boost their own military industry through defense spending (like we do in the US), well … that’s just … not … fair.
So, let’s summarize the messages that the Trump Administration is sending here to our European allies:
I’m sure I read all about just that kind of tactic in How to Win Friends and Influence People.
The Supreme Court is returning to its classic role of protector of the status quo and its power interests.
For over half a century, SCOTUS has been a key in enabling social change and promoting justice for the weak. Prior to that, it was more often a protector of the status quo and powerful, a conservative opponent to progress. We're headed that way again. https://t.co/yxVs5dqHmS
— ***Dave Hill (@Three_Star_Dave) June 12, 2019
For over half a century, SCOTUS has been a key in enabling social change and promoting justice for the weak. Prior to that, it was more often a protector of the status quo and powerful, a conservative opponent to progress. We’re headed that way again.
https://t.co/yxVs5dqHmS
Since, oh, the days of the Warren court, the Supreme Court has, imperfectly and to very broadly generalize, found ways that the words and principles of the Constitution protected those who needed protection. Brown vs. Board of Ed, Roe v. Wade, Gideon v. Wainwright, Engel v. Vitale, New York Times v. Sullivan, Miranda v. Arizona, Loving v. Virginia, Texas v. Johnson, Lawrence v. Texas, United States v. Nixon, Obergefell v. Hodges … the Court has found profound ways the Constitution protects individual freedom and equality under the law.
What most people today don’t realize is that, for much of its existence, the Supreme Court usually served as a conservative force for the status quo, protecting majorities and power structures and the establishment. This was not a matter of “activism” vs. “non-activism” (if the meaning and bounds of the Constitution were obvious and inarguable, then we wouldn’t need a Supreme Court, or we would need a court of one justice). It was the culture of what was expected of the Court, and resulted in everything from Dred Scott v Sanford to Plessy v. Ferguson to Korematsu v. United States.
Since the 1980s, conservatives in the US have been playing a long game to roll back the clock to those Bad Old Days. The nomination and (usual) confirmation of more ideologically reliable justices was part of that, and the strategy culminated in Mitch McConnell asserting a brand-new (and admittedly disingenuous) tradition of Never Letting a President Appoint a New Justice [When It’s Not One Of Our Presidents] to deny Obama a replacement on the Court.
The point of the article (link repeated below) is that the result is likely to be not only a return to a Supreme Court that protects the powerful interests within the US and majority sentiments over minority rights, but one that will eagerly roll back the last 60-70 years of precedent (stare decisis be damned). Those who find protections of free speech, of minority rights, to be of value, will need to consider how to protect them against a conservative majority that wants to turn the judicial clock back to the 1940s, if not the 1840s.
Do you want to know more? We need to prepare for a complete reversal of the role the Supreme Court plays in our lives – The Washington Post
The proposal seems driven part by safety, party by fear.
There is apparently very serious talk about tearing down Columbine HS, not all that far away from where I live. Though it’s been twenty years (!) since the mass shooting at the campus, it remains an icon of … admiration? … among some disturbed folk, and the idea is that tearing down the school will break that cycle by, um, removing it as a focal point, a pilgrimage site for folk unhealthily obsessed and admiring of the killings by the Klebold kids.
Except … yeah, not so much.
First, while the 1999 killings placed an indelible stain upon the name and site, the school itself has been in operation since 1973. That’s nearly a half-century (!) of students, whose heritage would be torn down — including the heritage of the last two decades of community coming back from something so awful.
Second … the proposal is acting by half-measures. The idea is to tear down almost all of the school, but leave the library, and then build a new school adjacent to that on the property, but still call it Columbine … and still have the memorial at the site.
Um … and this is going to somehow keep the whackadoodles from being attracted to the place … how now?
It’s not like we’re Pharaoh, ordering all evidence of Columbine HS to be eradicated. I mean, if you’re going to do this, you raze the whole place, sell the property to a commercial developer, build a new school someplace nearby, call it something different … and, yeah, you probably want to get rid of the memorial, too. You erase everything, and so there’s nothing there for the disturbed to relate to.
Conversely, third … why would you give the Klebold kids the final victory, destroying the place they wanted to make their violent heritage in shooting up?
When terrorists took down the World Trace Center, proposals to leave the site in a flattened condition were roundly, and rightly, rejected. Tearing down Columbine HS, under the proposal, is a halfway measure at best, and sends precisely the wrong message.
Ultimately, it’s not my decision. It’s the decision of the people of and around the school. I hope they choose wisely.
Do you want to know more?
We assume everyone groups colors the same way as we do. We assume wrongly.
In Japan, the “green lights” are colored … well, pretty much blue. The reason has to do with a challenge to the idea that language about so many things — in this case, color differentiation — is some sort of universal constant.
Different languages refer to colors very differently. For instance, some languages, like Russian and Japanese, have different words for light blue and dark blue, treating them as two distinct colors. And some languages lump colors English speakers see as distinct together under the same umbrella, using the same word for green and blue, for instance. Again, Japanese is one of those languages. While there are now separate terms for blue and green, in Old Japanese, the word ao was used for both colors—what English-speaking scholars label grue.
The result? Though Japan adheres to international standards for green traffic signals, they use a very bluish shade of green in the signals themselves, to align with their own linguistic heritage.
Do you want to know more? Why Does Japan Have Blue Traffic Lights Instead of Green? | Mental Floss
Donald is a bold, inspiration leader … in whatever direction Fox is talking about today.
Oh, look. President Random-Neuron-Firing is making arbitrary and inconsistent policy statements on Twitter. Again. I offer a shiny nickel to the first person who can identify the Fox News, etc., item that triggered him. #nasa #moon #trumptantrum https://t.co/AwbZH9gt9m
— ***Dave Hill (@Three_Star_Dave) June 7, 2019
Oh, look. President Random-Neuron-Firing is making arbitrary and inconsistent policy statements on Twitter. Again. I offer a shiny nickel to the first person who can identify the Fox News, etc., item that triggered him. #nasa #moon #trumptantrum https://t.co/AwbZH9gt9m
After months of proudly proclaiming that NASA was going to put us back on the Moon, for long-term occupation and exploration (said statements then faithfully echoed by NASA itself, as well as by VP Pence and other administration members), all of a sudden, Trump blurted this out yesterday:
For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon – We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2019
Why the sudden change of heart? As far as anyone can tell, because an hour earlier, His Closest Advisors (Fox) said that the Moon was for chumps (and a bright, shiny nickel has been delivered to Stan for spotting this).
Trump's weird moon/Mars tweet appears to be inspired by this Fox Business segment, which aired about hour ahead of his tweet. (ht @MattGertz)
"I understand [the moon] would be a launching point for other initiatives going further out, but I thought we would advance beyond that." pic.twitter.com/uIaTur2KRG
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 7, 2019
We literally have a president whose mood and policies on any given day are influenced by Fox News and Fox Business News. No matter what he’s said, even assuming he remembers it, a critique on Fox is enough to get him to pivot in another direction.
That would be annoying enough if we were just employees of his company (yes, I’ve worked for bosses like that). But as President of the United States? Yeesh.
Maybe Donald thought he was putting his name on a school paper.
This is a joint D-Day proclamation by the world leaders who were present at the 75th anniversary commemoration of the event.
And, yes, that’s Donald’s signature, way at the top.
Who signs a document, all by itself, at the very top, when everyone else is signing it, together, at the bottom the way one does? Why would he do that?
I can think of only three reasons.
Of course, I also don’t believe that Donald agrees with half the sentiments in that proclamation, assuming he even read it. “Democracy, tolerance, and the rule of law”? “Shared values”? “Work together as allies and friends”? “Work constructively as friends and allies to find common ground where we have differences of opinion”? “Work together to resolve international tensions peacefully”? Does any of that sound like Donald Trump or what passes for his foreign international economic policy?
I suppose we’re lucky he decided to sign it at all.
Some interesting articles, and my current candidate thoughts (for what they’re worth)
These were a few interesting articles I’ve run across the past few days (followed by my early candidate preferences):
The first post-9/11 vets are running for president. Do voters care? – POLITICO — Apparently Dems are a lot less impressed by military credentials than they used to be when sizing up presidential candidates. I know for myself I find it an interesting datum, but more for how they relate it to their life’s experience, service, concern over putting contemporary troops in harm’s way, etc.
Which 2020 Candidates Are More (Or Less) Popular Than They ‘Should’ Be? | FiveThirtyEight — Polling right now is … of dubious value for identifying the winners, but it is kind of interesting in looking at trends — whose numbers are moving, whose aren’t, and whose are moving in the wrong direction.
I expect things to shake out a lot more after the debates rumble through and people actually start paying attention, at least at the sound bite level.
Presidential historian: Democrats’ ‘conventional wisdom’ on picking nominee is ‘all wrong’ | TheHill — The DNC (and a sizeable array of media punditry) seem convinced that the only way to win is to nominate a comfortable centrist. While Biden’s initial surge in the polls seems to support that, this historian notes that the Dems have won in the last half-century with outsiders and non-centrists, and when they’ve gone for moderate candidates (who are lambasted as radicals by the GOP anyway), they haven’t fared so well.
2020 Democratic Debates Guide – POLITICO — Given the gobsmacking number of candidates, it’s little wonder that, even with pre-planning, the selection criteria for the debates is resulting in a lot of shouting and stomping of feet.
Oh, and since the question has come up elsewhere, here are the only candidates I have much interest (one way or the other in) at the moment:
Biden — He’s an entire political generation (or two) behind. I don’t think he’s the awful person some folk are trying to paint him as, but I don’t think he’s the Great Moderate Hope who can beat Trump. I want someone a bit –fresher.
Sanders — Frankly, I find the guy irritating, perpetually angry and scolding and shouting and scowling. He’s done a tremendous service in raising a lot of ideas that have gone from zany-and-way-out-there in 2016 to what most of the Democratic candidates are standing behind this election. All credit to him for that. Now I wish he’d go away and throw his weight behind the nominee.
Warren — Wonky and feisty and, from what I can see, earnest. I like her. She’s older than I’d prefer (as are the other two mentioned above, and their presumed opponent this election), but she has a heck of a spring in her step, and I can see her going toe-to-toe with Trump.
Buttigieg — I’ve yet to hear him say anything I didn’t like. I’m a scosh hesitant about promoting someone from mayor to president, but on the other hand he’s got actual executive experience (if on a far smaller scale). I want to see more of him.
O’Rourke — I’d have love to have seen him boot Ted Cruz out of the Senate, and mad props to him for getting so close, but that’s about the best I can say for Beto. I don’t have a sense of much substance on issues here, just a lot of charisma. I’m still willing to listen.
Booker — My sense from having seen him interviewed a lot over the past several years is that he’s a political hack. I might be wrong, but he’s just seemed to be light on policy, heavy on partisanship.
Harris, Gillibrand, Castro, Klobuchar — I haven’t heard enough of to really get excited or outraged, just enough to recognize their names.
Hickenlooper, Bennet — Yeah, they’re from my home state. Um, yay, team?
And All the Rest — Enjoy your 5 minutes in the spotlight (if you are lucky). I don’t see anyone from that far down in the pack getting anywhere except to use this run as a publicity springboard for further office-seeking.
And with that said, here’s the biggest caveat: Short of learning about something profoundly horrible in their past (or present) — I mean of the “eats live puppies with guacamole” level of horrible — there’s not a single one of the people on this list I would not vote for to get Trump out of office. There are some I’d prefer to vote for to that end, but when it comes to November 2020, I’m there for whomever is on the Democratic ballot. And that’s not just about partisanship — it’s about literally saving this country (and possibly human civilization).
That’s hyperbole of the sort I have usually rolled my eyes at in the past. I fully believe it when it comes to the 2020 election.
And the state’s done the minimum amount to fix that.
Alabama has been an outlier in the US for allowing rapists to assert parental rights — child custody, visitation, etc. — over the offspring their assaults result in.
That particular bit of local charm slipped lawmakers’ minds when Alabama gleefully passed its new anti-abortion law, which provides no exception for cases of rape. The state legislature has since had to scramble to put some sort of provision into state law to deal with the presumed increased number of cases where women who are raped are forced to carry their baby to full term … and then potentially forced to associate with their rapists for the next couple of decades.
Scramble they did, and now Alabama will prevent that from happening. Kind of. Sometimes. Maybe. Their new “Jessi’s Law” only allows a court to terminate or restrict parental rights of rapists when there’s a conviction for first degree rape or incest.
Given the dramatic underreporting of rape, and the low numbers of convictions even when reported, that dependency on conviction makes it a minor comfort indeed.
And the limitation to first degree rape means second degree sexual assaults — which includes statutory rape — are excluded from the law. So when Mom’s skeevy boyfriend assaults and impregnates her 13-year-old daughter, he can still ask for parental rights for the baby (or, more likely, threaten to do so to get them to drop any possible charges).
Huzzah for family values!
Do you want to know more? Alabama Banned Abortions. Then Its Lawmakers Remembered Rapists Can Get Parental Rights. – Mother Jones
Which is, at best, delusional. At worst, it’s simple self-justified prejudice.
Oh, you British press. You don’t sweat over whether you’ll be invited to the next US Presidential Press Conference, so you’re free, free, to ask irritating questions …
On his trip to the UK, Donald granted a single interview. It was to Piers Morgan (a one-time “Celebrity Apprentice” contestant), who actually raised some difficult issues for Donald to answer. While his farcical answers about climate change drew the most national press attention, I found his answers about transgender folk in the military to be even more indicative of … well, something unpleasant.
Morgan pressed Trump about his self-trumpeted support for LGBT* folk, in the face of multiple actions against that community, in particular transgender people, and specifically booting them out of the military.
'You have to have a standard and you have to stick by that standard.'
The POTUS defends his decision to ban transgender people from serving in the military.@piersmorgan | #GMBTrump pic.twitter.com/heBUjhwiUH
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) June 5, 2019
Trump trotted out a singular reason — the incredibly high cost of dealing with transgender folk in transition. The problem is, not only is that not what his administration argued in court about the ban, it’s also simply not true.
Quoth Donald:
Because they take massive amounts of drugs — they have to — and also, and you’re not allowed to take drugs, you know, in the military, you’re not allowed to take any drugs, you take an aspirin. And they have to, after the operation, they have to, they have no choice, they have to. And you have to actually break rules and regulations in order to have that.
When Morgan noted that the costs of hormone therapy were relatively small, and less than the amount the Pentagon spends on Viagra prescriptions, Trump went on:
Well, it is what it is. Look, massive amounts, and, also, people were going in and then asking for the operation, and the operation is $200,000, $250,000, and getting the operation, the recovery period is long, and they have to take large amounts of drugs after that, for whatever reason, but large amounts, and that’s not — the way it is. I mean, you can’t do that. So, yeah, I said, when it came time to make a decision on that, and because of the drugs, and also because of the cost of the operation, people were going in —
Morgan noted the number of transgender folk who had served with distinction. Trump replied:
Well, I’m proud of them, I’m proud of them, I think it’s great, but you have to have a standard, and you have to stick by that standard. And we have a great military, and I want to keep it that way, and maybe they’d be phenomenal, I think they probably would be. But, again, you have very strict rules and regulations on drugs and prescription drugs and all of these different things and — they blow it out of the water.
How many ways is this inaccurate? Let me hit a couple, speaking in the context of having a transmale son who is going through treatment, etc., at the present time.
Speaking anecdotally, the required hormone treatment is not “massive,” and is, in fact, not even all that frequent. It’s certainly less obtrusive or regular than insulin shots.
The other point worth noting is that this is only a small fraction of the arguments previously raised by Trump’s Administration in court as to why they couldn’t possibly have trans folk serving (even though they’ve been serving with distinction). Those arguments included:
Despite Donald’s expressed sentiment that trans folk would be “phenomenal” in the military, despite fact checking by the interviewer, despite the noted track record of openly trans folk serving in the military … Donald just won’t have it.
Which raises the question: is it simply because he personally thinks trans folk are icky and deluded and unfit (no matter what he says publicly)? Or is it because he feel he can score points among supporters who think trans folk are icky and deluded and unfit (no matter what he says publicly)?
Neither says much about the coherence of Donald’ statements or his moral leadership.
Do you want to know more?
Gaiman has kept his word to Pratchett to make this a production to be proud of.
Finished up this evening the Amazon Prime adaptation of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s delightful novel of the Apocalypse, Good Omens.
Besides everyone liking doughnuts, that is.
Well, the obvious answer is, “To sell more doughnuts.”
As to why there is even one National Doughnut Day (not to mention a National Jelly-Filled Doughnut Day and a National Cream-Filled Doughnut Day) … well, this article helps explain the World War I-related origins of at least the first one.
Do you want to know more? Why Are There Two National Doughnut Days? | Mental Floss
Ultimately, Congressional checks are limited against an Administration without shame.
Faced with an Executive Branch that’s basically putting its fists on its waist and saying, “Nuh-uh” to legal requests from the House, Democrats in Congress have a limited number of options. As the article below notes, it’s ultimately limited to (and these are the big guns it can use):
There are really only two other powers the House can exert here:
First, it can simply use the power of the purse to shut administration down. That’s highly dangerous, if the citizenry doesn’t see it framed appropriately, especially given the overall damage it can do to innocent bystanders.
The second is impeachment. That’s got high stakes as well, and is further complicated by, well, this kind of blanket obstruction by the executive branch, which has decided obstruction is a winning strategy. Even investigation as part of a (thoroughly constitutional) process leading toward impeachment proceedings would be hampered by Trump et al. simply saying, “Nuh-uh.”
Because, ultimately, who can compel him to do otherwise?
The GOP in the Senate has already declared any impeachment indictment from the House would be DOA — indeed, that they would make it as quick and kangaroo of a dismissal as humanly possible. Which means impeachment is largely for making the case to the public that, in 2020, they must force Trump to go (and, ideally, the Senate GOP majority).
Assuming Trump doesn’t say “Nuh-uh” to that (“Fake voters! Fraud! SCOTUS, back me up there!”), too.
I’ve often said (over the last two years) that our system has depended on people, if not wanting to do what is right, at least being blocked by shame from being seen to do what is wrong. The Trump Administration, led by the man at the top, has decided that shame is for suckers, have basically set up a challenge to our system. “Nuh-uh. What you gonna do about it?” Trump gets away with it backed now by a friendly Senate and having gotten enough trucklers (confident in possible pardons in extremis) into important roles in Justice (and, he presumes, SCOTUS), has essentially declared himself beyond any checks from Congress, even when backed by force of law (and certainly if backed by tradition and public shaming).
Interesting times.
Do you want to know more? Contempt of Congress: the House will vote next week – Vox
Team Trump’s actions toward the PRC are becoming more aggressive.
Mike Pompeo’s blistering condemnation of China’s past actions on this 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre[1] — and China’s double-barreled retort — highlight a steadily deteriorating relationship between the US and China. It’s occasionally belied by the “Xi is my bestest friend (after Kim!)” rhetoric from the President but, coupled with the escalating trade war and tensions in the South China Sea, it’s more than a little ominous.
With this President, though, one always has to wonder. Would these storm clouds disappear if China satisfied Trump on something flashy, like trade? Or, conversely, is it setting up Trump to be the Great Hero against the Chinese Menace (since support for his escalating tariffs and and their economic disruption is tepid at best)?
In other words, how much of this is driven by authentic resistance to actual deplorable behavior by China — on human rights, on maritime law, on economic issues — and how much is a convenient excuse to beat the war drums (against yet another nation) so as to rally the country just in time for a presidential election …?
We will, doubtless, find out in the coming several months.
Do you want to know more?
[1] To be fair, an absolutely legit statement on Pompeo’s part.
Should disrupting pipeline construction draw multi-decade jail terms? (No.)
I have no great problem with punishing those who vandalize pipelines, either during construction or, especially, during operation.
States and the feds moving to punish protesters that impede or disrupt construction with multi-decade prison terms? Yeah, that seems (sadly typical) pressing of the government’s thumb down on the scales in favor of a highly lucrative (and controversial) big business.
I mean, it’s not like there aren’t other laws on the books — for vandalism, for trespass, etc. — that can address such protesters in a more balanced fashion. But twenty years? That’s beyond penalties for Assault with a Deadly Weapon (felony) using a machine gun.
Do you want to know more? Trump pushes up to 20 years in prison for pipeline protesters – ThinkProgress
Very cool map of the US with the most-searched-for-on-Wikipedia person name associated with each city (born, grew up, etc.) shown.https://t.co/ymE7wbimdw
— ***Dave Hill (@Three_Star_Dave) May 30, 2019
Very cool map of the US with the most-searched-for-on-Wikipedia person name associated with each city (born, grew up, etc.) shown.
https://t.co/ymE7wbimdw
What name in Wikipedia associated with your town is the most popular search topic there? Fun stuff.
Trump is an unreliable advisor, because he’s an unreliable person.
How can the Brits possibly trust a potential future deal with the guy who says he'd walk away from any deal he didn't like? https://t.co/Egf0IEfj9W
— ***Dave Hill (@Three_Star_Dave) June 2, 2019
How can the Brits possibly trust a potential future deal with the guy who says he’d walk away from any deal he didn’t like? https://t.co/Egf0IEfj9W
Trump advises the Brits to ditch the EU without a deal, but then suggests he has a great deal for them.
Why would anyone trust someone who suggests that deals can and should be broken if you don’t like them to make a deal with you that you can count on?
Pizza is a better morning meal than a bowl of cereal, says at least one nutritionist.
Pizza! Breakfast of Champions! https://t.co/iovqMJqNnC #health #pizza
— ***Dave Hill (@Three_Star_Dave) May 30, 2019
Pizza! Breakfast of Champions! https://t.co/iovqMJqNnC #health #pizza
Sure, it has more fat than a bowl of cereal (even with whole milk). But it has a lot fewer carbs, less sugar (no mid-morning crash), more protein (feels more filling), and is a wash as to calories.
Just … heat it to a decent temperature, please. We’re not barbarians.
