Yearly Archives: 2018

If you’re wondering how expensive last year has been in terms of weather disasters, NOAA is on the case with a useful table:

Below is a historical table of U.S. Billion-dollar disaster events, summaries, report links and statistics for the 1980–2017 period of record. In 2017, there were 16 weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the United States. These events included 1 drought event, 2 flooding events, 1 freeze event, 8 severe storm events, 3 tropical cyclone events, and 1 wildfire event. Overall, these events resulted in the deaths of 362 people and had significant economic effects on the areas impacted.

Thankfully, the death toll was relatively small, which can be attributed to scientific advances in weather forecasting, as well as responses to same. Melissa Breyer provides some context on Treehugger.com:

Last year, the US suffered an astounding $306 billion in damage, shattering all records to date.

2017 was definitely one for the books. If you felt like natural disasters in the United States were descending with unusual fury, you were correct. In fact, according to a new report by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, 2017 was the most expensive year on record for natural disasters in the country. From the parade of hurricanes and hailstorms to freezes and fires, the succession of calamities came with a price tag of $306 billion in damage.

While they adjust for inflation, the fact is that there’s more people, which makes the United States a bit more of a target rich environment for natural disasters.

Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog notes the latest in the North Carolina redistricting saga has been rejected 

In a case sure to be appealed to the United States Supreme Court,  three-judge federal court has has struck North Carolina’s congressional districting as a unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. One judge partially dissented on some grounds, but agreed with the other two judges that the redistricting plan violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Curt also fast tracked a remedy in the case, giving the state a deadline to pass the plan and appointing a special master in case, as expected, the NC General Assembly resists. …

The majority opinion by Judge Wynn is an unqualified victory for the plaintiffs, finding multiple grounds (including equal protection, the First Amendment, and the Elections Clause) for ruling that North Carolina’s plan is unconstitutional.

The result is not a big surprise given what North Carolina did here. After its earlier redistricting was declared a racial gerrymander, it came up with a new plan using only political data that it described as a partisan gerrymander on its own terms. It did this as a defense against a future racial gerrymandering claim. As the court explained at page 16, NC “Representative Lewis said that he “propose[d] that [the Committee] draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats because [he] d[id] not believe it[ would be] possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and 2 Democrats.”  If there’s any case that could be a partisan gerrymander, it’s this one.

The desperation would seem to be a clear signal that the North Carolina GOP realizes that its ideology has led to a popularity that is not where they’d like it to be. At this point, though, is there enough time for SCOTUS to come to a decision on the similar cases from Wisconsin and Maryland? Or has the North Carolina GOP managed to drag this out far enough that they’ll be able to keep their cozy jobs at the next election cycle?

An age-old tradition continues, as reported on HuffPo:

Paula White, a prosperity gospel preacher with close ties to President Donald Trump, is calling on followers to send her donations of up to one month’s salary. Those who don’t pay up could face “consequences” from God as he demands the dough as a “first fruits” offering.

“The reason is God lays claim to all firsts,” White wrote on her website. “So when you keep for yourself something that belongs to God you are desecrating what is to be consecrated to God.”

In this case, the “firsts” are money, which “supernaturally unlocks amazing opportunity, blessing, favor and divine order for your life.”

Or, in other words, God can be bought. Nothing new here, folks, keep moving right along. You’ll find charlatans like her in every century, all the way back.

Matt O’Brien for WaPo‘s Wonkblog doesn’t seem to have much use for Bitcoin and, possibly, libertarians. Besides noting the energy consumption problem I noted here, he also sees another limitation:

The first thing they don’t understand is that money isn’t just a store of value. It’s also a medium of exchange, or what we use to buy things with. And if it’s going to be much of one, then it not only has to avoid losing too much value, but also gaining too much. Otherwise, why would you ever spend it? You wouldn’t. You’d just hold on to it as long as you could in case, like bitcoin, it went from being able to buy $900 worth of stuff one year to $19,000 the next. Which, if it ever did replace the dollar, would bring the economy to a halt while everyone stopped buying anything other than the essentials and waited to become bitcoin millionaires.

To stop that from happening, you’d need to be able to increase the supply of bitcoins as the demand for them did. This is more or less what is known as “printing money,” and, as is often the case, it can be either good or bad depending on whether it’s done appropriately or not. Do it too much and you can get the type of persistent inflation the U.S. had in the 1970s; way too much and the kind of currency-killing hyperinflation Germany had in the 1920s; but too little and the economy might fall into a doom loop like the whole world did in the 1930s. Bitcoin, though, is set up under the assumption that people — or, more accurately, governments — can never be trusted to do this, and that pretty much anything that reduces the value of a currency is by definition bad. That’s why its pseudonymous creator decided there would only ever be 21 million coins, even though that hard limit has meant prices have zoomed up and down and back up again as interest in bitcoin has itself. That’s made it the best penny stock and the worst currency in the world.

I wasn’t aware of the 21 million coin limitation. Yeah, as long as humanity predicates economies on expansion, a limited currency is doomed. Once that last coin is dispensed, the relative worth of each coin will inevitably increase as the economies expand (because each coin must represent some part of the economy), and once a substantial portion of the population realizes this, hoarding will start, depending on the external context. What does that mean? That means are there alternative currencies, such as … the American dollar? If so, then we’re going to see a boom and bust cycle as value slides back and forth between the two currencies, where value means transactions taking place. Does a bitcoin represent a pound of flour – or 10000 pounds? Well, it depends on whether someone wishes to use a bitcoin or a dollar.

And if there’s not an alternative, then people will hoard, but that’ll put the brakes on the economy, so then they’ll lose value. I think. Sounds like a roller-coaster.

Hey, I’m not an economist, but Matt’s article, which is worth perusing, makes me think I made the right decision not getting into Bitcoin for the long term. Right now it appears to be a short-term game of last one holding the coin loses.

AL Monitor covers the official reason for the recent protests in Iran. It’s … us!

In his first extensive comments on the recent protests in Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Jan. 9 pointed the finger at the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, saying they planned the unrest. …

On Jan. 2, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani stated in an interview that Saudi Arabia, Israel and a number of Western countries had plotted the unrest. The protests reportedly led to the arrest of thousands of people and the deaths of almost two dozen people, who, according to officials, were killed by “rioters.” Law enforcement officials have said that a large number of those who were arrested have been freed.

Keep in mind that the Supreme Leader represents the religious interests of Islam, which is to say they guarantee the rightness of the government as a whole.

Which logically brings us to “Our Islamic government can do no wrong, so these protests must be originate with evil outsiders!”

Notice how this absolute certainty of being right is echoed in our own GOP. They have engaged in the rudest of political maneuvers, and have written the most important bills in a slap-dash manner that would have embarrassed and infuriated leading members of both parties fifty years ago, but they’re so certain they’re right, because God is on their side.

The insanity they express is gob-smacking, just as is Khamenei’s. He can’t even consider blaming himself and his supporters, because that would fly in the face of God, and they can’t do that.

So, in each case, they ride the rollercoaster into the coastal shoals below, either to dash their brains out or drown in the surf. It’ll be McConnell, Ryan, Khamenei, and Trump, all in a pile.

And yet more religious fanatics will pile in. Because that’s how you get power. First, God. Then, charge! Avoid blame, take the credit, and relentlessly climb the mountain!

In China they’ve recently introduced the concept of social credit, which is an amalgamation of some of the things you think of as credit as well as other activities, such as giving to charity or failing to pay court fines – or having friends with low social credit scores. Mara Hvistendahl of Wired has a wide-ranging and fascinating report on it:

Ant Financial wasn’t the only entity keen on using data to measure people’s worth. Coincidentally or not, in 2014 the Chinese government announced it was developing what it called a system of “social credit.” In 2014, the State Council, China’s governing cabinet, publicly called for the establishment of a nationwide tracking system to rate the reputations of individuals, businesses, and even government officials. The aim is for every Chinese citizen to be trailed by a file compiling data from public and private sources by 2020, and for those files to be searchable by fingerprints and other biometric characteristics. The State Council calls it a “credit system that covers the whole society.”

For the Chinese Communist Party, social credit is an attempt at a softer, more invisible authoritarianism. The goal is to nudge people toward behaviors ranging from energy conservation to obedience to the Party. Samantha Hoffman, a consultant with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London who is researching social credit, says that the government wants to preempt instability that might threaten the Party. “That’s why social credit ideally requires both coercive aspects and nicer aspects, like providing social services and solving real problems. It’s all under the same Orwellian umbrella.”

Thinking about this, it occurred to me that this is sort of an illustration of one key difference in the moral systems of China and the West. In the West, our moral system is religiously based and beyond the domain and abilities of the most governments to seriously affect it. In those cases where the moral system does change, at least in the United States, it has less to do with the government and more to do with popular debate and opinion. (In the past, monarchies sought the imprimatur of God, but that didn’t necessarily give them influence – only a good Army making the trip to Rome could do that. I suppose ol’ King Henry’s construction of the Anglican Church might apply, although the claim goes that he just wanted to marry someone else – which is an element of morality, now isn’t it?)

But China lacks any 3rd party moral system, if you will: it’s the domain of the Chinese government, and since the only legal occupant of the Chinese government is the Chinese Communist Party, they get to choose the moral system. I’m sure the great bulk of the moral system is akin to Western moral systems, but it’s around the edges that they can play.

And why is this? I am not aware of any religious group with a dominant position in Chinese society; Marx preached against any form of religion, and I do believe the Chinese followed right along in his footsteps. I found this bit interesting:

In China, anxiety about pianzi, or swindlers, runs deep. How do I know you’re not a pianzi? is a question people often ask when salespeople call on the phone or repairmen show up at the door. While my score likely didn’t put me in the ranks of pianzi, one promise of Zhima Credit was identifying those who were. Companies can buy risk assessments for users that detail whether they have paid their rent or utilities or appear on the court blacklist. For businesses, such products are billed as time-savers. On the site Tencent Video, I stumbled across an ad for Zhima Credit in which a businessman scrutinizes strangers as he rides the subway. “Everybody looks like a pianzi,” he despairs. His employees, trying to guard against shady customers, cover the office conference room walls with photos of lowlifes and criminals. But then—tada!—the boss discovers Zhima Credit, and all of their problems are solved. The staff celebrate by tearing the photos off the wall.

We don’t see this much anxiety, I hope.

And I feel no great enthusiasm for such a service in the United States. It feels like a hammer.

David Post of The Volokh Conspiracy has found the reply to Trump’s cease-and-desist letter to Henry Wolff, author of Fire and Fury, and his publisher, and has nicely edited it to bring out the parts which makes Trump’s lawyers look like idiots, which I will now shamelessly borrow:

Henry Holt & Co., through its lawyer (Eliz. McNamara at Davis Wright in NYC), has sent a response [available here] to Trump’s cease-and-desist letter. It’s a nicely-crafted letter, worth reading as a small reminder that excellent legal prose does not have to be incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo. Some highlights:

“[Y]ou demand that my clients cease publication of the book and issue a full and complete retraction and apology. My clients do not intend to cease publication, no such retraction will occur, and no apology is warranted.” [Note the Oxford comma after ‘occur’ – nice! It’s part of what makes the sentence sound downright Churchillian.]

“Though your letter provides a basic summary of New York libel law, tellingly, it stops short of identifying a single statement in the book that is factually false or defamatory.”

“[W]e note that you understandably cite to New York as the governing law, yet we were surprised to see that President Trump plans on asserting a claim for ‘false light invasion of privacy.’ As you are no doubt aware” – Ouch! – “New York does not recognize such a cause of action. Not only is tis [sic] claim meritless; it is non-existent. In any event, it is patentily [sic] ridiculous to claim that the privacy of the President of the United States has been violated by a book reporting on his campaign and his actions in office.” (emphasis in original)

Regarding Trump’s claim that Holt could be liable for “inducing” a breach of contract by Steve Bannon: “The law treats sources like Mr. Bannon as adults, and it is Mr. Bannon’s responsibility – not Henry Holt’s or Mr. Wolff’s – to honor any contractual obligations. Indeed, your attempt to use private contracts to act as a blanket restriction on members of the government speaking to the press is a perversion of contract law and a gross violation of the First Amendment.”

And finally, in regard to the seven pages of document -preservation instructions in Trump’s letter: “[My clients] will comply with any and all document preservation obligations the law imposes upon them. At the same time, we must remind you that President Trump, in his personal and governmental capacity, must comply with the same legal obligations regading himself, his family members, their businesses, the Trump campaign, and his administration, … including any and all documents pertaining to any of the matters about which the book reports.” That’s a nice turnabout.

Thank you, David. One of my best reads of the day. OK, so a lot of the rest was computer code…. it still made me laugh.

Fricassee:

1. meat, especially chicken or veal, browned lightly, stewed, and served in a sauce made with its own stock. [Dictionary.com]

Heard in conversation with my Arts Editor todaya few days ago. Neither of us were exactly certain of the definition.

You’d think they were an invading army or something.

How would you price one of 200+ Santa’s helpers? Authentic Santa’s helpers, dressed up as the old guy?

Maybe $85,000?

And, of course, they’re, ah, docile, which means … No longer murderous?

That’s the final, implicit question in Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010). A Finnish export, this is the tale of the consequences of a bunch of American miners working a small mountain in Lapland, Finland, home of the Sami, reindeer herders. One morning, a few Sami discover their herd has been slaughtered and eaten, much to their fury. One little boy, Pietari, who with a friend had snuck into the mining camp and seen some of the work, becomes quite worried, resolving to do some research, and it’s December 24th. Losing a herd is no laughing matter.

Krampus and some despicable children.
Source: Wikipedia (“A 1900s greeting card reading ‘Greetings from Krampus!’)

Pietari has some interesting books to use for his research, and soon he’s on to a Santa Claus who’s rather different from the jolly old fellow of old: ram’s horns adorn his forehead, and while he cares little for good little boys and girls, the bad ones, well, it’s the cauldron for them. At least in one drawing. At this juncture, my Arts Editor commented that the picture resembled what little she knew of the pre-Christian demon Krampus, as seen here on the right. Those are presumably bad children. Nice tongue.

Then it’s Christmas morning and Pietari’s father has caught something in the wolf pit trap, and that’s no wolf – it’s a dead, naked old man! At this moment, the neighbor who wears the Santa Claus costume shows up and is drafted into helping drag the corpse into the workshop. See, there’s this little problem: that trap is actually illegal. How to get around this fine point? They don’t know the old guy, so it’s the chainsaw for him.

Except he’s not dead, and they’re not murderers, so they wait for him to recover. Pietari’s not so happy, though, and manages to catch a ride into town with the local cops, who seem to be a trifle grumpy. His father pursues them and eventually catches up, where he learns of mysterious overnight thefts of radiators, stoves, and a hair-dryer. The husband of the owner of the hair-dryer blames it all on Russians, who have nothing so good. This man, who knows English, is recruited as an interpreter, as it’s obvious the old man is a miner.

And where are all the children?

Upon return, the neighbor is found outraged at having his ear bitten off by the old man. Furious, the three men and Pietari charge into the mining camp, but find it abandoned. A radio burps at them: Is the cargo ready? Is Santa Claus ready to fly? Smelling opportunity, they arrange to have the old man ready for delivery.

Sadly for the man who wants Santa to fly, what appears to be a glaive gives him a splitting headache, and, under attack by a passel of old men, the group retreats into a storage facility, where, from a block of ice thirty feet tall, there protrudes a monstrous pair of horns.

Well, this and that occurs, obstacles are overcome, and the story might even be funnier if you’re familiar with Finnish legends – I’m not, so I only laughed a little. But in the end, the group is faced with the problem of what to do with 200+ out of work Santa’s helpers.

For all that we might see the dour Finns classifying this as just a light-hearted romp, I see in it echoes of Ghostbusters (1984), because they share the theme of breaking the dominance of the Gods. These are the ancient, terrifying, brutal gods that rampaged through the lives of the helpless humans, treating them as toys or even treats – except now we must strike the word helpless, for the furious, desperate, resourceful men find a way to destroy a God, committing deicide – and finding a way to profit thereby. It’s the uplift of poor humanity from being the mat on which the Gods wiped their feet to insurgents who challenge for the right to live free of the arbitrary rules and destruction brought on by a mysterious Divine.

That gives the story more than transitory meaning. I felt the balance of the work – the cinematography, acting, pacing, story – were all adequate or more than adequate. I particularly liked Pietari, a steady little boy who sees more clearly than most. This is both tensely well-told as well as fairly amusing. If you’re in the mood for a closely observed few Christmas hours in a foreign land still latched to a foreign mythology, then this story may be for you.

I noticed today a lot of chatter about Oprah Winfrey’s possible advancement of a candidacy for the Democrats’ Presidential nomination in 2020, but I must confess I mostly did not read up on it except for the piece by Kevin Williamson in National Review. It’s easy to write useless puff pieces if you like a candidate – but you may learn more by reading someone opposed to such a Presidency. While Kevin is aware that a compare and contrast with President Trump would not turn out well for Trump, he does have an opening salvo in case of a Winfrey campaign:

Of course she is categorically unqualified for the office. But have fun imagining Republicans making that case in the shadow of Donald J. Trump, Very Stable Genius™. Oprah’s formal educational attainments are modest, whatever political ideas she has seem to be largely undeveloped, and she has an obvious and regrettable weakness for quacks and cranks of sundry sorts: anti-vaccine nuts, Dr. Oz, doctors who use Tarot cards to diagnose thyroid problems, etc. She is a one-woman public-health menace.

I have no direct exposure to Winfrey. Never watched the show, read the magazine, probably not even seen her movies (she’s made a few), nor have I researched her. Kevin’s remarks are, therefore, contingent in my view, but given that they are a little troubling. I prefer my medicine to be evidence-based, not charisma-based, and so that may be a problem.

Or maybe not. While the history of a politician is of vital importance for evaluation purposes, it’s also important to realize that adults mature and change. It’s possible that a decade or two ago Winfrey was easy prey to the quacks, but today she’s learned of their worthlessness and now disdains them.

But I don’t know.

So my real point is that current views, not past views, are the most important in the evaluation process. If she’s forceful in saying she made mistakes and no longer has any use for superstitious rot, then great; if she equivocates and mentions her great experience with a palm reader last week (shades of Nancy Reagan!), then she’s probably a poor choice for President, although still superior to Trump. But allowing ancient history to make a decision for me is undesirable.

And for you.

My Arts Editor points out, as Kevin also notes, that she’s done well going from zero to the wealthiest woman in the world, and while business skills have little application in the governance sector, a keen understanding of how to build a team of experts has a great deal of applicability. Does she understand the difference? The Executive doesn’t need to be an expert in much of anything but assembling proper people to lead the various Cabinet and other positions, a stable temperament, and a keen understanding of the hows and whys of the Executive branch. Has Winfrey studied the subject? Or is she coasting in on her fame?

This is what interviews and debates should uncover.

So we’ll see what the coming months have to show. Personally, I think it’s a little early to start the 2020 campaign, even if Trump had already filed for it before he had even assumed office.

Knowingly or not, Bob Bauer on Lawfare is laying out a strong tactic for Democratic use in the next two elections in nearly all their national races. How so? By elaborating on how the GOP is helping Trump do lasting damage to the nation:

Does it matter if the threatened lawsuit never materializes? A lawsuit is surely worse than the threat of one. Yet the threat, conveyed in the most formal terms by his legal team, is an appalling precedent to have set.

In previous posts, I have suggested that Trump displays a demagogic leadership style characterized by the pathological personalization of his office. Of primary importance are his personal ends and ambitions: those ends justify the use of virtually any means. If to make a point or to inflict a penalty for crossing him, he feels he must climb down from the presidency to threaten litigation and perhaps become a litigant with no apparent concern for the costs to the institution, then that is what he will do. Norms are meaningless to the demagogue, who delights in ignoring them or who views them, as his chief of staff recently affirmed, as an impediment to running things as he would like.

Now the problem might be seen as only Trump’s, a problem to last as long as a presidency in which this most unusual occupant routinely confuses personal whim with official prerogative. One might imagine that democratic norms will not suffer permanent damage, only a temporary bruising until the next president takes office. On a more pessimistic note, what is once done stands a very fair chance of repetition. The presidents who follow Trump may bring to government no more experience and also fall back in running the government on whatever they learned in the private sector pursuits that earned them their wealth and public notice. The “insider-outsider” dynamic of contemporary politics rewards the candidates who profess contempt for government. In their understanding of government, “norms” are simply biases built into the system, the rules by which the insiders set the rules for their own benefit.

The damage to norms may begin with Trump’s personal outbursts and inclinations, but it does not end there. The acquiescence of congressional Republicans in the president’s conduct, which has sometimes risen to active support, elevates the attack on norms beyond an expression of Trump’s eccentricities. Not a single senior Republican member of Congress has raised a question about the president’s use of threats of litigation against political adversary Bannon or media critic Michael Wolff.

Nor have Republicans dissented from the president’s suggestion on Saturday, which he has made before, that the libel laws should be revised to ease the way for politicians to sue their media critics.

The Dems have the raw material: Trump may be leading the way in inflicting damage on the Nation, but the GOP is in full sheep mode right behind him. But they need to keep in mind that the average Joe doesn’t really know much about norms or how the Executive really functions. Much like myself, past tense, most think the President, through his nominees, runs these departments, and who has ever heard of a norm.

Therefore, the Dems need to embark on an educational and then accusatory campaign. First, educate everyone, in a non-partisan manner, on how and why the Executive is structured as it is. Following that – and much harder – will be to explain and justify the norms that Trump and his Party are trampling. Think the refusal to even consider Judge Garland.

If they’re smart, they’ll use multiple media and learning styles. Even the old cartoons which explained the rudiments of American government forty years ago could provide a style for these new lessons.

The trick will be to make them completely non-partisan so that when the Trumpists try to discredit them, the independents will scratch their heads and then dismiss the Trumpists. Hell, if it can be done effectively and honestly, throw Bill Clinton under the bus.

The next step is to put a knife into the chest of the opposing GOP candidates. In the case of incumbents, the Dem ad should ask why the incumbent did not raise a fuss, introduce a bill, or do anything at all to impede the destruction of the American nation. Your Congressperson is supposed to be a strong-willed leader, but instead Trump had his way with them without the least objection! Don’t hesitate to use the sexual innuendo, because it connects to our primitive beings and reinforces the central truth of the GOP in this Congress – irresponsible loyalty to Party and Leader over their loyalty to the United States.

For those candidates who are not incumbents, if they are Tea Party members – and most will be – then simply point out that Trump and the Tea Party are one, and ask why in the world a voter would want to send a Trump partisan to Congress to continue damaging the government of the United States?

Reading Bob’s post, it brought out quite vividly the difference in outlooks of Trump vs just about previous Presidents, and that difference is their view of the Nation’s future. These norms and requirements and laws and all the constraints on the Executive are there to enhance the just behaviors of the Executive, and by so doing, enhance the very future of the United States. That is the point of all these things that frustrate President Trump.

And that is really the point of Trump – not the future of the United States, but his own immediate gratification. He seems to have no conception of a future for anyone but himself, and even that is merely how he compares with those who he conceives of as competitors, whether they’re other real estate developers or previous American Presidents.

And that irresponsible outlook is why it’s important to start dismantling the GOP Government. It’s the first step on the difficult rehab of a Party in steep decline.

Cleaned and sharpened, please.

The Bat (1959) presents a murder mystery involving a small town in which it seems many of the pillars of society are riddled with termites, but the strong-willed ladies will save the day. Mystery writer Cornelia van Gorder has rented a large house named The Oaks during her visit to an unnamed small town (possibly named Zenith, which may be inaccurate but I will assume), and the owner of the house is the local bank’s president and founder, John Fleming. John is on a vacation trip, hunting in the company of the local doctor, Dr. Wells (Vincent Price). One evening he reveals that he’s embezzled $1 million (quite a lot in those days). He intends to kill their hunting guide, and requires the assistance of the doctor to have the guide’s remains recognized as Fleming’s, and also certified as so mutilated that the coffin should be sealed. The Cashier of the bank will be considered to have committed the crime and Fleming will escape with ill-gotten gains.

Dr. Wells seems mysteriously untroubled by this criminal proposition, and speculates on the location of the money. As Fleming had actually build The Oaks, he wonders aloud if the money is hidden at the house. Fleming hears something outside, and opening the door of the cabin, finds the woods are aflame. He turns to warn the doctor, but Wells has sprung into action at Fleming’s distraction, grabbing a gun and shooting the bank president dead.

Zenith has been plagued with a series of murders in which the jugular of the victims, all female, are ripped out. One victim survives long enough to describe a human with no face and claws on his hands, possibly with wings, and so the murderer is nicknamed The Bat. Cornelia’s servants, but for the maid, Lizzie, and the chauffeur, have fled her employ because of stories surrounding The Oaks, and Dr. Wells, returned from his murderous sojourn, wastes little time in reinforcing these concerns, in a most charming way. But Cornelia is no fainting flower, but a forceful tower of good sense and the intelligence that one might expect from a hard-nosed mystery writer. One storm-tossed night, she and her maid receive a fright when the maid sees an outside door open and a clawed hand reach for Cornelia, but the door is swiftly shut and locked, and Cornelia and Lizzie retreat to their bedroom, where Cornelia evidences that she’s locked and loaded for bear.

And so the movie continues, as bodies start to pile up, hidden rooms contain more than you might think, and greed merits its old rewards of disgrace and death. This story plays with evidence and supposition right to the very end, and although I did detect two or three plot holes, the pacing, cinematography, and strong performances by the cast, especially that of Cornelia (Agnes Moorhead) and Dr. Wells makes it possible to miss, or at least disregard, those plot holes as they go flying by.

This is not a cutting edge thriller, nor will it change your life, so I shan’t actually recommend it. But if you’re craving a thriller mystery with some memorable characters, The Bat may be just for you. And it’s available online:

Factotum:

1. : a person having many diverse activities or responsibilities
2. : a general servant [Merriam-Webster]

Jake Tapper of CNN’s State Of The Union used it as he cut off Trump senior advisor Stephen Miller to end an interview:

CNN’s Jake Tapper ended a bizarre, contentious filibuster by White House policy advisor Stephen Miller on today’s State of the Union by noting, “There is one viewer that you care about right now and you’re being obsequious, you’re being a factotum in order to please him.”

I wonder if there’s a denigrative sense to factotum.

If you’re in the United States and have been wondering where global warming has gone, I have your answer: it’s in Australia.

Emergency services in southeast Australia are warning people to stay indoors as a dangerous heatwave batters the country, with temperatures so high that the asphalt on some roads has been melting.

The “catastrophic” hot weather caused a 10km stretch of the Hume Highway, near the Victoria state capital Melbourne, to become soft and sticky, causing havoc for motorists trying to enter the city.

Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania have now declared a total fire ban after blazes on the outskirts of Melbourne raged out of control, destroying buildings and threatening lives.

It took a team of 300 firefighters, 50 trucks and three helicopters to tackle one fire in Victoria’s Carrum Downs on Saturday, which threatened dozens of homes.

And another 49 bushfires are said to have been reported across the state – although many were small and easily extinguished – with 400 residencies losing power.

The state’s emergency management commissioner, Craig Lapsley, said hot temperatures had combined with dry weather, strong winds and a wind change to create dangerous conditions. [The Independent]

Welcome to Earth’s climate, a non-linear system in which more and more energy is trapped and running around madly, trying to escape. You can puzzle over these metric values …

Temperatures are expected to exceed 40°C in the southeast, with the country’s Bureau of Meteorology forecasting highs of 45°C in Penrith, 44°C in Richmond and 43°C in Liverpool, with much of the area being rated as ‘catastrophic’ or ‘code red’ by emergency services.

… or you can contemplate your asphalt melting and just take it as a sign that global climate is warming up.

I’ve decided to add a new section on the right side called Recent Keepers, which points to posts I think are particularly well done. Feel free to nominate others using the mail link on the right to me. I’ll probably limit it to five entries and rotate them as they grow old.

In the protests in Iran the GOP may foresee the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but I fear it may be a mirror as described in this WaPo report:

The unnamed woman is one of countless Iranians who say their savings have been wiped out by the collapse of fraudulent businesses and unlicensed credit institutions in recent years. Economists are now pointing to the abrupt closure of these poorly regulated institutions as laying the foundation for the unrest that struck Iran starting in late December.

“Banks are shutting down without any kind of notice, and it’s creating a huge political and economic backlash at a local level,” said Suzanne Maloney, senior fellow on Middle East policy at the Brookings Institution.

Anger over these losses came on top of years of pent-up frustration over a sluggish economy. When the government announced recent price increases and released an austere budget bill, it ignited at-times violent protests that spread rapidly to dozens of cities nationwide. Demonstrators quickly turned their fury on corrupt officials and the Islamic republic as a whole. …

“Most protests in Iran are over economic issues,” Maloney said. “What’s different is that it seems to have tapped into a deep sense of alienation and frustration, that people aren’t just demonstrating for better working conditions or pay, but insisting on wholesale rejection of the system itself.”

Note “poorly regulated.” It’s been an under-reported item that the Trump Administration has been busy loosening regulations, often or always with the justification that they a wet blanket on the economy. My worry stems from the Great Recession, which I (and a number of economists, who are far more credible than myself) believe was triggered through regulation loosening, including the repeal of the old Glass-Steagall Act contained in the U.S. Banking Act of 1933.

If we were to suffer a repeat of the Great Recession of 2008, would we once again hunker down and wait it out? Remember, when the Bush Administration rendered aid to the financial industry, that generated a lot of outrage and arguably contributed to the Obama victory and the brief Democratic dominance of Congress. Is it enough that the politicos can be voted out, or would we be facing our own set of protests over the mismanagement of the economy? After all, for the little guy (being one of them), the economy runs on what might loosely be called honor, the understanding that transactions are honest & etc. But the actions of bankers and insurance (such as bailout recipient AiG) execs were perceived, and perhaps were, less than honorable: monster bonuses in the face of miserable disaster, running companies right into the ground (see Lehman Brothers), and other such activities, often seen as execs enriching themselves at the expense of the hard-working little guy. Just voting out the arrogant assholes in the GOP might not be soon enough, visceral enough.

We could see our own set of riots if an economic crash was seen to be a result of Trumpist greed.

Parasomnia:

To see if unusual physical movements in our sleep, known as parasomnias, could correspond with us replaying things we’ve learned, researchers have started studying some of the more animated human sleepers – from those who let out light grumbles or sit up in bed, to more extreme cases when people eat, drive or even have sex while asleep. [“Night exercises: The intense workout we all do in our sleep,” Michelle Carr, NewScientist (9 December 2017, paywall)]

In NewScientist (9 December 2017, paywall) Fred Pearce reviews Replenish: The Virtuous Cycle Of Water And Prosperity, by Sandra Postel, an environmentalist whose main concern are the world’s rivers. I, of course, have the gall to actually comment on what I read in the review, rather than read the book. Fred is doubtful of Postel’s thesis, which is …

At individual and civic levels, we use water with staggering inefficiency. It flows through our fingers. We could do things much better, [Postel] argues, if only we stopped treating it like a birthright that falls from the sky and more like a precious resource that sustains all life on Earth. “The water cycle is broken,” she writes. “But one river, one wetland, one city, one farm at a time, we can begin to fix it.” …

But for all her language about sharing and stewardship, Postel ultimately finds environmental salvation in the power of the dollar. She wants water to be owned, so it has a value to individuals and corporations. If they own and trade it, her argument goes, they will also safeguard it and use it well.

Her book focuses on examples where capitalism nurtures water. Most are in the US. She finds that water markets from California to New England deliver the precious resource to those who derive most economic value from it – almond farmers in California, city dwellers in New Mexico’s deserts or salmon fishers in the north-west.

I think Fred has good reason to harbor doubts, although my reasons may differ from his. Postel’s thesis is the classic libertarian position, which posits that resources which are privately owned will be nurtured and conserved by the owners, who wish to profit from those resources over the long-term. By contrast, publicly owned – or unownable, if I might coin a term – resources are subject to the tragedy of the commons, for there is no self-interest restraints on the harvesters of the resource, resulting in the plunder of the resource, even if it’s a renewable resource. Just think of the collapse and continued failure of the various fisheries around the world.

The problem with the libertarian position is its assumptions of the applicability of the ownership model, the rationality of the owners, the transmission of perfect information, and the correlation of private interests with the public good.

1. Ownership model. Libertarians and capitalism function on the notion of ownership, limited or not. This works rather well for tangible artifacts, such as houses, pencils, hammers, even computer code, because each is precisely definable, easy to identify, and has no basis for self-directed behavior. Contrast this with a natural fishery in which the fish are not man-made, cannot be easily corraled, and are apt to follow their own impulses rather than throw themselves into the nets of the fishermen.While water may not be self-directed, its essential quality to human survival combined with its behavior of raining in one location, flowing to another, and then being subject to harvesting, makes it an ill-suited subject for the model of ownership. Consider how one would apply ownership to the Nile River, as I’ve previously covered, where many countries, never mind private parties, could claim ownership:
   

   The Nile draws its water from three long rivers – the White Nile, Blue Nile and the Atbara, which flows from North-West Ethiopia to the Nile in East Sudan. The longest river in the world, the Nile stretches 6,650 kilometres and passes through eleven countries: Burundi, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The volume of the Nile’s annual flow is 84 billion cubic metres. [Future Directions International]

   The suggestion that an ownership model could be applied here appears to be risible. Many countries have claims on the contents of the Nile – how does one apportion it in a private ownership model? And then make the apportionment stick without conflict?

2. The rationality of owners. By their very nature, libertarians and capitalists tend to be relatively rational people, regardless of their adherence to ethical systems which exist outside of their immediate context. This is to say, they have a model of humanity which includes an assumption that people will attempt to better their condition through wise management of their resources. But as I’ve mentioned a time or two, humanity is not a rational species, but a species that is capable of being rational. This is a key difference. It is entirely within the scope of believability that someone with control of some resource would actually use it in a manner a libertarian, a capitalist, my reader, or myself would consider to be irrational. For example, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein cut off the flow of water to the Mesopotamian Marshes in an effort to drive out Shia Muslims in the 1980s and 1990s. For the libertarian who believes we should live in peace and compete only commercially, this bit of madness, which endangered an important ecological feature of desert-dominated Iraq, doesn’t fit into their model. And, sure, Hussein was a dictator, not an owner per se. But the example remains valid, as not everyone subscribes to a single model of rationality. Any owner, consumed with xenophobic (aka irrational) hatred for some alien group, who finds they can injure that group by destroying a resource over which they have control, may do that. And in the case of water, simply shrugging it off as a bit of self-destruction for which they’ll pay will not do, because water is important to everyone.
3. Transmission of perfect information. Rational decisions depend on information about the real world, and it should go without saying that such information is rarely perfect. A decision made in light of today’s information may be madness in light of tomorrow’s, thus endangering the central thesis that an owner will always act in their own self-interest. This is compounded by the various self-delusions so many of us seem prone to practice.
4. Correlation of private interests with the public good. The suggestion that the actions of private interests always correlates with the public good simply doesn’t work out well in the case of water, in conjunction with the points above, particularly #3. For example, Ethiopia is constructing a dam on the Nile River for hydroelectricity purposes. Seems like a wise, renewable energy move – until you consider that starving Egypt of life-giving water endangers millions of people, and risks starting a ruinous war. So who owns this water again? Or simply consider the owner who bought water rights on a river or ocean in order to jettison waste into it. Now it flows into another owner’s purview, as water tends to do, much to their chagrin when they realize the water is unusable for potables or recreation. By what right do they have to complain or even restrict the usage of the first owner? The ownership model seems highly inadequate to the challenge.

Here’s the real problem for me: I don’t have a suggested solution to offer as an alternative. I read enough libertarian thought on these sorts of things that I can see the problems with it, so I don’t really trust such suggestions. But in a world where natural resources are not equal to the task of feeding, watering, and clothing the human and non-human living creatures on it, I wonder if the only solution is going to be a reduction in the human population, probably through some ruinous and tragic mechanism, until those who are left will once again find Earth to be a bounteous world from which the essentials of survival may be extracted with little impact on the environment.

I’ve talked about the importance of rivers before here, where there has been proposals, some approved, to give rivers legal rights. Connected to this is the American Indian belief that rivers are sacred (looking through this link, I have a lot of suspicion about the historicity of their assertions, so take this link with a few flecks of salt). As an agnostic, I can’t say I much like the intellectual background of the assertion, but as a functional part of their society, it seems likely (I haven’t studied this) that this should keep a critical part of their ecological support system in a near-optimal condition. That is, rivers do not generally deliver additional benefit to humans or other creatures through the addition of pollution, so by marking them as sacred and thus implying a punishment, divine or in the real world, for those who substantially damage them, they’re relatively safe-guarded against self-interested mismanagement. I suspect that a comparison would suggest this is more effective than private ownership or the granting of “rights” by governments.

And, oh yes, I do feel the irony. I suspect it means our secular models of optimal societies are incomplete.

Both of these characters were wasted. Or perhaps they ARE wasted.

While The Living Ghost (1942) has many elements of a classic mystery, such as the missing wealthy man, his second wife and jealous daughter by the late first wife, various friends & relatives, servants, and the big mansion, it’s missing one vital element – a strongly written investigator role. Walter Craig is the missing banker, who entered his bedroom but never made it to the actual bed. After some futzing about with the police, one of the relatives suggests they bring in a private investigator, a man he knows who used to work for the prosecutor’s office and was one of their best. His name is Nic Trayne.

And what’s he doing now?

Why, he’s a professional listener. People who want someone to non-judgmentally listen to them pay $2 a session. He dresses up in a silly get-up, empties his mind, and has mastered an art that this reviewer has also mastered – the helpful grunt. For me, it goes like this – Oh, hi, you have a problem? Tell me about it. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh – Oh, you figured it out? Glad to be of help. Come back any time.

I think he has the pelt of an albino beaver on his head.

Although I must say Nic is better dressed than I.

And it’s an interesting and creative manner for adding color to a plot that might otherwise blend into all the other stories that use the other elements. The problem is that Nic, a former investigator, comes across as a scatter-brain. Do I find a scatter-brain credible as an investigator? No, and I’ll tell you why. To my mind, an investigator has to take in a number of facts, often unconnected on their face, classify them as to their criticality to the problem, and, keeping them in mind, construct a story that connects the facts and points to some conclusion. This alone suggests a mind that doesn’t leap like it’s been hit by an over-powered electrode every time someone opens their mouth. An investigator often also has to work under pressure, whether it’s time, danger, or some other factor. It’s almost enough to just have the rock-solid guy with a cig hanging from the corner of his mouth, uncaring about the world but for solving his client’s problem; it approaches genius when you see an investigator such as Sam Spade, clearly affected by a woman, still complete the investigation, sweating yet devious, and putting all the guilty away – including the dame. See The Maltese Falcon (1941) for a masterful example.

BUUUUT to return to the unfulfilled potential of The Living Ghost, although Nic initially demurs the thought of returning to investigation, the daughter, Billie, turns her wiles and intelligence loose on him and he soon succumbs – although he quickly admits he’s fully aware of her strategy. This appears to signal an interesting mind behind the silly mask of Nic – but it only really comes through once more.

Continuing onward, the missing man soon reappears in his own house – but incommunicado. He’s “cortically paralyzed,” a condition that may only be artificially induced using anesthesia and special medical gear. The police find that just such gear was delivered to a nearby house, purchased for rehab recently, and off Nic – and Billie – go to investigate. At this point, the ineffectuality of the lead character is compounded, because when Nic convinces Billie they’re trapped in the basement, she confesses her love for him, he gets in some necking time, and then admits it was all a trick. Chaos ensues, but they do find the medical gear, along with a bonus of some experimental subjects wandering the hallways.

Why did she fall for him? Beats the shit out of me. Either you write it off as one of those crazy dame things, or you condemn the scriptwriter to 20 years in the third circle of Hell. Personally, I vote for the latter. It really was jarring to see this bright, vivacious woman falling for this scatter-brain. (For those who wonder about me, I’m vague. Or so my Arts Editor tells me.)

Back at the house, and this is probably out of sequence, but one of the female relatives is a real whack-job, to the point where another relative says she’s been a member of every cult he’s ever heard of. She puts on a really good performance, suggesting that Nic is in mortal anger – and then we never see her again. So what was that all about? Just color? I was sad when she never reappeared. Especially when her eternally picked-on husband ends up dead in the garden, where incidentally Walter, the cortically paralyzed man, magically appears, manipulated to show up for reasons unknown. Maybe the TV editor decided to remainder her.

Eventually, Nic gathers everyone up for the classic big reveal, but with a twist. The realtor who sold the property housing the medical gear never met the buyer, but talked to them over the phone, so Nic arranges to have everyone record their voice on a wax record for later analysis by the realtor – but it’s a trap. Nic is ready and waiting when one of the friends shows up to kill him with a knife, and when the second wife rolls in to finish Nic off, the jealous daughter is ready and waiting and takes her down. So we learn that if Walter Craig, the wealthy banker, had died, the estate goes to the daughter – but if he’s incapacitated, the second wife takes over and can drain the estate.

So we have credible motivations, some fairly lively if not entirely vivid characters (the realtor is a real hoot and almost worth the price of admission alone), some of whom are wasted, and one investigator who shows some smarts in trapping the guilty, but is so … so … goofy that they might as well have substituted Gomer Pyle and achieved about the same effect.

And it’s not a good one.

This movie is fairly unusual for me, personally, in that it actually induced an urge to correct it. I really want to replace Nic the Investigator with someone more … substantial. He’d still need to be quirky, but something that didn’t annoy me. Maybe intrigue me. Hint at past wrongs, perhaps. The whole “professional listener” thing need not be discarded, but could be a signifier of some observation of criminals and victims over the years. And perhaps gives Billie, who needs more work herself, an actual reason to take a romantic interest in him.

Make him a real person.

Well, it won’t happen, but that’s how I feel after watching it.

BTW, I see it’s online. Maybe it’s better than the TV version we saw, but I’m not going to take the time to find out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WwDBT_CEYY

Ever wonder how to find ancient shipwrecks in deep waters? Turns out you follow the breadcrumbs:

Institute for Exploration / Ocean Exploration Trust

[Ben] Ballard says the Mediterranean seabed probably holds thousands of wrecks from the last few millennia. Still, individual boats are hard to find. In order to discover them, the researchers followed ancient trash trails.Ancient mariners often cast large clay jars called amphorae into the sea after using up contents like wine. So many were dumped that they can be followed like a breadcrumb trail. [“Wayfarers of the ancient world,” Joshua Rapp Learn, NewScientist (9 December 2017)]

Fascinating. They must keep maps of these trash trails, as such data would yield information about trade routes. Nothing obviously out there, though.

When an experiment in blood-letting goes wrong…

Camp.
Camp.
Camp.

What We Do in the Shadows (2014) is a documentary primarily concerning the existence of four vampires in New Zealand, although we eventually get to meet other members of other groups of the supernatural community. We follow along as the four are profiled insofar as to their pasts, interests, and predilections, as they propagate their kind, and how they struggle with the problems inherent in being a former human, but now a creature immune to the normal vicissitudes of a human body. Friends and family die, no more day-time lunches, dressing for a night out without a mirror, those damn vampire-hunters, that sort of thing.

I think this was very well thought out and very well done, but somehow I never really quite found my way to the proper place to really enjoy it. True, the Procession of Shame had me laughing out loud, and my Arts Editor and I laughed at a few other bits, but giving the lead vampire the stereotypical mannerisms of a gay gentleman was distracting, I think. Although seriously trying to discuss such a choice in the context of a mythological creature has its own set of existential canards, but since it is a story, if of a variety unique to our age, it does make a twisted sort of sense to argue about such artistic decisions.

Then again, I never did get into This Is Spinal Tap (1984) either, so perhaps my sense of humor is somewhat defective. Many other critics liked it, and I can understand why. But it didn’t quite trip my wire, as it were.

Your mileage may vary.

Camp.
Camp.
Camp.

The idea of frozen iguanas plummeting from trees in Miami, as promulgated by many news outlets, including the Palm Beach Post, is probably most interesting for its novelty effect:

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials said iguanas can become immobilized or sluggish when temperatures hit between 40 and 50 degrees.

This morning, it hit 38 degrees at Palm Beach International Airport and isn’t expected to climb out of the 50s today.

While you may see cold-stunned iguanas on the sidewalk or in your backyard, wildlife officials warn they may even fall out of the trees.

But it’s also a reminder that invasive species such as the iguana and another plague on Florida, the Burmese python, are not always invading their version of the Garden of Eden. A geographical area experiencing a weather extreme can end up killing a substantial portion of the invasive species if it lasts long enough, perhaps enough so that humans can finish them off. Unfortunately, this cold snap won’t last that long.

But if a weather extreme could be artificially induced, it might work. I wonder if environmentalists have considered that – at least those that haven’t yet accepted thenotion that species do change geographical ranges as a natural rhythm of the world. The drive to exterminate species alien to a given geographical area is arguably just another management scheme – which doesn’t condemn the practice, but does remind us that managing Nature is a lot trickier than many of us think it might be.

Moderate right winger Jennifer Rubin of WaPo notes that the Trump White House might be in its final days:

As for Dhillon, this actually confirms author Michael Wolff’s ongoing refrain in his tell-all book that White House advisers considered Trump to be mentally and/or temperamentally incapable of doing his job. To continue to enable and defend him, knowing he is not capable of carrying out his oath, is a moral abomination and a violation of these advisers’ own oaths to defend the Constitution and country. Moreover, if Mueller has this information, it is because Dhillon and/or White House counsel Donald McGahn are talking to Mueller. Trump will now know that he is surrounded, in his mind, by disloyal people who are helping Mueller to make a case against him.

The walls are closing in on Trump, at least with respect to an obstruction-of-justice claim. Literally everyone mentioned above may have evidence that incriminates the president. Some of these people will have personal liability and therefore may be ready to cut a deal with prosecutors. The White House is melting down.

Last night I realized I had the impression that the Trump Administration is really facing disaster on just about all fronts.

1. Former Trump best friend forever Steve Bannon is now an outcast who has “lost his mind.”
2. The recent Trumpist’s attack on Robert Mueller may actually signal the realization that he has found a treasure trove of information of mis-deeds on Trump’s aides’ part – or even himself.
3. Trump’s foreign policy maneuvers have spanned a spectrum labeled “disheartening” on one end and “disastrous” on the other, even if I do wonder if Trump’s withholding of aid to Pakistan might work out well. His failure to coordinate with Tillerson simply screams “failing amateur”.
4. Senator Grassley’s recent rejection of two nominees to the Federal judiciary, as well as the withdrawal of a third, indicates Congress may be slightly less pliant than it was earlier in this Congress. And now Senator Gardner has also expressed opposition to judiciary nominations, even if it’s an ephemeral opposition.
5. Sessions’ regressive position on marijuana will only serve to intensify opposition among Democrats and Independents. Furthermore, the libertarian wing of the GOP will loathe Sessions even more, and have less and less to do with Trump’s generally un-libertarian positions.
6. Each and every special election since Jan 2017 has illustrated the short reach of President Trump’s influence, with the latest embarrassments being the near-loss of the Virginia statehouse to Democratic forces (retained by the skinniest of hairs, a ridiculous decision by a panel of judges), and the loss of Sessions’ old Senate seat in the most conservative of states.
7. And now the release of Wolff’s book, which apparently suggests Trump is mentally falling apart, i.e., may be falling into dementia.

And, yet, all that Jennifer says, and all I noted above, may not matter. If we’re to believe Gallup (and the Gallup poll has changed from daily to weekly, starting Jan 1, sad to say), Trump has gained in popularity of late – with Trump hitting 40% for the first time in quite a while.

This suggests to me nothing particularly new, just the simple old observation that most folks don’t really know or care what happens in Washington, D.C. I think there are three groups of Americans in this matter: political groupies, who are temperamentally attracted to politics, whether it’s for base reasons of power or intellectual curiosity (I sort of fit into the latter category). A second group, which has been growing rapidly and which I also sort of fit, of those who realize that, although they don’t have much interest in politics, elections have consequences (a Steve Benen aphorism), and so they’ve started educating themselves on what’s going on, and possibly even running for state-level offices. And the third group, which is shrinking as the second group grows, of those who don’t pay attention, who vote based on inertia (“dyed in the wool Republicans“, for example). Many, many people just don’t care, as the entire political process, whether it’s fund-raising, political maneuvers, or writing laws is repulsive, a reaction often reinforced by talk radio. Add in 40+ hour work weeks, interests that have nothing to do with gaining political power (although they may aspire to positions within their hobbies), and the time that it takes to run families, and it’s hard to blame them.

But without popular support, it appears the GOP will not attempt to remove Trump from his seat, no matter how incompetently he’s run this Administration. We may have to simply run him out of town in 2020.

Or not. Trump has a physical examination coming up on January 12^th. While it’s not clear to me that this includes a mental health evaluation, if he’s suffered any sort of physical failure, such as a stroke, that might impact his cognitive abilities, that would definitely be grounds for a 25^th Amendment removal process, to my non-legal mind. I don’t care how many people, deluded or not, support Trump. If his mind is no longer properly functioning due to physical or mental problems, we need to eject him from the Presidential office. It has nothing to do with disliking his policies and everything to do with the safety of the nation.

If you’re like me, I was initially excited when I read that Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO) was going to oppose all further nominations to the Federal judiciary by the Trump Administration. But then I ran across a clarification in the Washington Examiner:

Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado said Thursday he would block all of President Trump’s judicial nominees until the administration reverses its decision to rescind a policy that de-prioritized the enforcement of federal marijuana laws.

Gardner, whose home state legalized the use and possession of marijuana in the wake of that federal policy, said on the Senate floor he was not happy with the surprise decision, especially after both Attorney General Jeff Sessions and candidate Donald Trump said they would not interfere with states on this issue.

Which is quite the come-down for me. While the marijuana issue is certainly important, the quality of our Federal judiciary is far more important. If Gardner had simply said that the quality of the nominees has been wanting and he would no longer vote for the confirmation of future nominees unless they met the highest standards, then he would have won some qualified praise from myself. I can only say qualified because he’s presumably already voted for those who have already been confirmed.

But as the Examiner’s report indicates, this is nothing more than a political maneuver. It may put Sessions’ nuts in a grinder, which of course I will applaud, but it also implicitly opens Gardner up for counter-maneuvers which may force him to collapse his own maneuvers. After all, this is not based on some moral imperative, the bulwark of successful politics, but simply to serve his own political needs, aka survival (Colorado has legalized marijuana for recreational purposes, and is a position with a great deal of popular support).

And, given the importance of a highly competent and fair-minded judiciary, it should be a moral imperative.

I don’t expect Gardner’s position to hold up over time. Either the Trump Administration will back down in order to continue to sandbag the judiciary, or they’ll find a way to force Gardner to repudiate this position – perhaps by denying aid to Colorado in the face of some disaster.

Gardner is up for re-election in 2020.