Monthly Archives: September 2019

Murmuration:

For real:

A Billionaire Dinosaur Forced Me Gay

Too bad the summary is a trifle meh:

The year is 2014 and dinosaurs have gained control of the world economy due to exceptionally accurate stock predictions. After graduating from NYU with a business degree, John is hired to be the assistant for one of the largest trading firms on Wall Street. His boss, the CEO of the company is highly regarded as the best businessman of the century. Only difference is that he is a dinosaur!

Crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside?

Yep, that’s a spider with a fly carcass.

From CNN:

An explosion has caused a fire at a Russian biological research facility that’s one of only two centers in the world known for housing samples of the smallpox virus.

The blast occurred Monday during repair work of a sanitary inspection room at the Russian State Centre for Research on Virology and Biotechnology, known as Vector, near the Russian city of Novosibirsk in Siberia, the center said in a statement.

One worker was injured in the incident and is being treated in intensive care for burns, Russia’s TASS news agency reported.

In its statement, Vector said that no biohazard material was being stored in the room where the explosion took place. The city’s mayor also insisted that the incident does not pose any biological or any other threat to the local population, according to TASS.

The fire broke out when a gas cylinder exploded on the fifth floor of the six-story laboratory building in the city of Koltsovo. The blast caused windows to smash but there was no structural damage to the building, TASS reported.

And why should I trust the Russian government’s assurances?

Image source: Wikipedia

Anagenesis:

Most anthropologists agree that A. anamensis is the ancestor of the later species A. afarensis. It is both slightly older and slightly more ape-like.

However, Melillo and her colleagues are now questioning the standard story for how A. anamensis gave rise to A. afarensis, which is widely thought to have been our ancestor.

Many believe this happened by anagenesis. “That’s when one species is evolving and gradually wholesale turns into another species,” says Melillo. “You just see some trends in time, and all of a sudden there’s no more of the ancestral species and we only find the descendant species.” The transition from A. anamensis to A. afarensis has been “one of the strongest cases for anagenesis in the fossil record”, she says. [“We’ve finally found a skull from one of our most important ancestors,” Michael Marshall, NewScientist (7 September 2019)]

I wonder how many species which leave appreciable clues in the fossil records are not geographically dispersed, or, is there a strong link between geographical dispersion and a presence in the fossil record, or is it just the luck of the draw?

I’m thinking it depends on the ecological needs of the species. If the needs are not of an environment which results in a high percentage of fossilization, then your species may not ever be found and studied.

Take that as you may.

I hope he has the old magic. From The Far Side official website:

A new online era of The Far Side is coming!

Still by Gary Larson, or does he have a creative team helping?

Larson was one of the guys who made the unthinkable thinkable, who explored human dilemmas by having them happen to ducks, dogs, and cows. Does he still have it in him?

Can’t wait to find out!

The rush to blame Iran for the drone strike on Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil processing plants seems to be accelerating. However, in the latest WaPo article on the incident, I couldn’t help but notice this paragraph:

A U.S. assessment found that 15 structures at Abqaiq were damaged on the west-northwest-facing sides — not the southern facades, as would be expected if the attack had come from Yemen.

Not being up on the political geography of the Middle East, I pulled up a map of the area from worldatlas:

West-northwest of Saudi Arabia includes a lot of countries, most of which would either strain to launch an attack of this sort, or would prefer not to get involved.

But then there’s technologically advanced Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s political future is hanging in the balance, as Mazal Mualem notes in AL Monitor:

Some media outlets described the clash that erupted in the Knesset Sept. 11 between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Arab Joint List Chairman Ayman Odeh as “unusual.” Apparently, what made it so “unusual” was the idea that Odeh could walk right up to the prime minister while clutching his cellphone and start filming him up close in the most annoying manner. It may have lasted all of a few seconds, but it seemed a lot longer.

This heated encounter took place just as Netanyahu stepped down from the podium after delivering his “camera speech.” It was a sophisticated campaign speech, promoting the Camera Bill (for placing cameras in polling stations). A speech that summoned all the demons on the right by playing on their attitudes toward Israel’s Arab population. It also succeeded in painting Yisrael Beitenu Chairman Avigdor Liberman as collaborating with them. Netanyahu went a step too far, even by his own standards, by inciting against an entire sector of the population, but the political crisis he is facing is real, at least as far as he is concerned. What this means for him is that as of now, nothing is out of bounds.

Mualem makes the additional point concerning Netanyahu’s methods: “… that summoned all the demons on the right by playing on their attitudes …” In other words, the Prime Minister is a fear-monger who will stop at nothing to keep his position, even if that means endangering innocents and the world economy. By increasing tensions in the region, he reminds Israelis who has kept them relatively safe over the last decade, and who can continue to do so, and then he watches the votes roll in for him and his allies.

As an election ploy, it’s a bit extreme, but worse has been done in the past. And I have no evidence, I merely note how this is convenient for Prime Minister Netanyahu, and, as a close ally of the United States, he’s unlikely to suffer even a reprimand from the Americans for this activity. All he needs to worry about is the Saudi Arabians retaliating, and given their alliance with the United States, it’s doubtful that it would be military. However, it might still occur, simply through other means – but Netanyahu may think he can counter that. Or be out of office by then.

And it’s worth remembering the Iranians seem to be more plausible culprits. Seem to be. On The Resurgent, David Thornton makes another good plea to consider Iran as guilty:

President Trump does not want war with Iran. The president is essentially an isolationist who wants to bring American soldiers home rather than dispatching them to a new front. War with Iran, if it did not reach a rapid and successful conclusion, would also complicate President Trump’s reelection campaign. The problem for Trump is that the Iranians sense that he does not want war and realize that this gives them an opportunity to run amok.

If credible evidence surfaces of Iran’s complicity, then this makes a great deal of sense – and challenges Trump. But that evidence has not yet been presented.

Our lone Hibiscus gave us another flower the other day.

And then the next day….

So short.

The problem with Veronica Mars (2014) is in the title. No, it’s not the wrong title, but the right title, because this movie is all about Mars, her troubled ties to her old high school in Neptune, California, and not really anything else. And that’s fairly dull.

Mars’ one time friend and classmate Logan Echolls finds himself suspected of murder by the lazy, corrupt cops of Neptune when he is found next to the electrocuted body of a woman with whom he was associated, another high school classmate of his and Mars’, now known as Ruby Jetson. Ruby was a well-known singer and celebrity, so this is a high profile murder case.

At his request, Mars, who has graduated from law school and is looking for a high-powered job to cover the costs, flies home to help investigate it. She had assisted her father for years as a private eye, and so she brings a certain level of expertise to his case. She checks out Logan and begins her investigation, runs into problems, expresses her continued hostility towards old classmates, and notes how just about no one in her class has really grown up. Eventually, it comes out that, sometime after graduation, a group of her classmates, including Ruby, had a party on a boat during which one of them died. In order to avoid the questions and shadow that such an incident were to cause, they dumped the body into the ocean.

And now someone is blackmailing them.

Well, someone else is killed, another seriously injured and then framed for attempted murder, and her own father is seriously hurt – but we never learn who’s responsible for that particular incident, and in fact that’s more or less dropped like a hot potato.

The problem? There’s little to learn from the murders. It’s all about Mars and her relationship with her sordid little town, and how she can’t help but return there. Sure, it’s not unusual to focus on the good guys in dramas like this, but the best focus on the bad guys and how they hold some attraction for the good guys. It becomes a moral struggle.

Mars’ struggle? Whether she’ll take that high-powered job at a big time law firm, or if she’ll stay in Neptune and split the private eye business with her Dad.

And that’s dull. There’s no denying this is well acted, and there are some sharp, fun exchanges, but there was little chance to predict who dunnit, as the perpetrator appears conveniently out of nowhere. Again, it’s all about Mars.

So, too bad. Meh.

Conflagration has long been a noun applied to the Middle East, a nexus of vast oil supplies, national rivalries, and clashing religious ideologies. Such bloody incidents as the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (1990) certainly contributed to the reputation of instability the region has earned. But this weekend’s attack on the Saudi Arabian oil processing facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais, besides its literal correspondence with conflagration, also contributes in the metaphorical sense of the word.

Once again we see competing claims, and, at least for myself, the mendacity the Trump Administration has displayed since before Trump became President makes it very difficult to understand the true nature of the attack, and that uncertainty leads to a more generally elevated concern over what might happen next.

Here’s a CNN-provided summary of some of the competing claims:

A Yemen armed forces spokesman was quoted by the agency as saying the Houthis successfully carried out a “large-scale” operation with 10 drones targeting Saudi Aramco oil facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais.

But preliminary indications are that the attacks Saturday that disrupted about half of the kingdom’s oil capacity did not originate from Yemen and likely originated from Iraq, according to a source with knowledge of the incident. The same official said the damage was caused by an armed drone attack.

Which official? Is s/he trustworthy? Was it Mike Pompeo?

We call on all nations to publicly and unequivocally condemn Iran’s attacks. The United States will work with our partners and allies to ensure that energy markets remain well supplied and Iran is held accountable for its aggression

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) September 14, 2019

Source: Wikipedia

There’s no shortage of players motivated to cut the Saudis off at the knees. The Yemen Houthis are in an active war with the Saudis, which makes the Aramco oil processing plants legitimate targets, and so if the Houthis are, in fact, responsible, then this is simply another tactic designed to drive the Saudis out of the war. Given that the Saudis, under the leadership of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), plunged into this war (or “intervention”), began this particular incident in March 2015 under the premise that it would quickly resolve in their favor, it would be clear that the Houthis, using cheap technology and innovative tactics, are practicing asymmetrical warfare to great effect.

If the Houthis did, in fact, effect this attack.

Despite Secretary Pompeo being a member in good standing of the untrustworthy Trump Administration, his assertion that Iran is responsible is not unbelievable. Iran, after all, is laboring under American sanctions designed to bring the Iranians to their knees, renounce all nuclear arms and energy, and, in a probably unstated aim, cause regime-change in Tehran. Oil is Iran’s primary export, and the American’s primary target for sanctions. Reducing the world oil supply would certainly return the pressure on the Americans to ease up on those sanctions.

It’s worth noting that this may be an unofficial Iranian act. Iranian politics are polarized in a way that would be familiar to Americans; while both the Reformists and the hard-line Conservatives are deeply religious, the former believe that talks with the West, and in particular the United States, are necessary, while the latter believe defiance, particularly through meddling in Mideast politics, is a necessity. The two sides spend a lot of time bemoaning the moral degeneracy of the opposition. I could easily see a Conservative entity, either private or the Revolutionary Guard or allied agency, supplying the weaponry and expertise required for the attack, as a gambit to pressure and discredit the current Reformist government.

And that leads to thoughts about entirely private, pan-national terrorist organizations. Guns help level the playing field between large and small groups; drones are another element that can level the playing field, amplifying the importance of military intelligence and technological skills to damage and destroy targets with little risk to those employing them. These successful attacks on the Saudi oil processing facilities may be the work of a terrorist organization, either directly or by supplying the Houthis, stirring up mischief in hopes of taking advantage of the chaos to accomplish their private ends. Without more information, though, speculation on this possibility is pointless.

Finally, while some might proclaim this to be the proof that drones can be used by the oppressed to rise up against their oppressors, drones are, like most weapons, agnostic tools. That is to say, their efficacy is not dictated by the ideology of their users, but the situation in the field, and the skills of their operators. And the latter may shrink if they are equipped with strong artificial intelligence, a possibility that does not fill me with feelings of wellness, as I’ve mentioned before numerous times on this thread.

Better than just about anything else. Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/CjY0mm-xiLY

Update: I wish I had been one of the runners.

With regard to the controversy concerning the National Weather Service (NWS) being ordered to lie to back up the President, I see in yesterday’s WaPo that Neil Jacobs did in fact protest the order to inform the NWS to back up the President’s tweet and not contradict him in the future, and that now he’s trying to repair the damage:

Neil Jacobs, the acting head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, sent an all-staff email Friday afternoon in an apparent effort to repair damage from an unusual Sept. 6 statement that sided with President Trump rather than agency weather forecasters. …

The Washington Post learned Jacobs and NOAA chief of staff Julie Kay Roberts were involved in crafting the statement, which admonished the Weather Service’s Birmingham office for speaking “in absolute terms.” However, Jacobs fought issuing such a statement and also tried to block the paragraph that called out the Birmingham Weather Service office but lost both those arguments, according to two people who spoke to The Post.

I’m not inclined to apologize for my suggestion that Jacobs resign in disgrace. Jacobs should have resigned in a public display of defiance, protecting the critical importance of the independence of NOAA and its devotion to integrity, and not the emotional and political fragilities of the President. He also may have laid the blame for that mistaken order at the feet of whoever gave it, reportedly Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

That said, I can and do acknowledge that he may see himself as a moral bulwark against the President’s unethical desires, and serves the Nation better quietly working to preserve the independence of those agencies in his purview, rather than making a splashy flame out in the atmosphere.

In the closing line of his email, Jacobs touched on that very topic: “Our team is committed to upholding scientific integrity.”

I disagree with that judgment, but I can see it.

This is the time of the year when our cleome shines. Cleome is an annual that sometimes will reseed, and these are the result.

Part of an occasional series examining President Trump’s progress against Candidate Trump’s promises.

The promise: Candidate Trump promises to return coal miners to a Golden Age of jobs by reopening closed coal mines.

Results So Far: This time-series from the St. Louis Fed illustrates progress in restoring coal mining jobs:

Giving President Trump the benefit of calculating from the employment low of 48,400 in Aug 2016 to the latest numbers of July 2019 of 52,500, I calculate a rise of 8-9% in employment for the coal industry over that three year period. I can not consider that a return to any golden age, seeing as the job total of 52,500 is 70% below the high of 175,200, set in May of 1985.

This comparison is, of course, unfair, as modern machinery inevitably displaces some jobs, hopefully those that are most dangerous. But the fact remains that President Trump has not engineered any great recovery in coal mining jobs. To reinforce this fact, consider these recent remarks by United Mine Workers Of America President Cecil Roberts:

Cecil Roberts said at an event in Washington that his message to Trump and others running for president in 2020 is: “Coal’s not back. Nobody saved the coal industry.” He said coal-fired plants are closing all over the country, calling it a “harsh reality.”

But this is not for a lack of effort. The coal mining industry is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and regulation often receives a majority of the blame for the failing coal industry. When Trump took office, he nominated Scott Pruitt to lead the EPA, and Mr. Pruitt was confirmed by the Senate. Prior to this position, Mr. Pruitt, as Attorney General of Oklahoma, had apparently fought the EPA at the behest of fossil fuel companies. With what are anti-EPA credentials, his nomination would appear to be partial fulfillment by President Trump of the campaign promise, if we accept the implicit “I will try …” which goes along with many political promises to the electorate.

While EPA Administrator, Mr. Pruitt attempted to repeal or otherwise neutralize many regulations, which actions were then contested in court; he has been considered to be ineffective, due to his sloppy approach to his task. We’ll leave the particulars of Mr. Pruitt’s dubious performance while in his position for other times, places, and commentators.

Another effort made by President Trump is on the consumption end, as he attempted to transcend market forces by ordering Secretary of Energy Rick Perry to research how to keep coal-fired (and nuclear) power plants up and running. Mr. Perry’s proposals? Reordering of priorities in favor of research on so-called “High Efficiency Low Emissions” coal-fired power plants, which were also supported by the Obama Administration, while cutting the priority on development of carbon capture technologies. This is generally considered disastrously inadequate in the face of climate change. Perry also suggested a simple bail out and escape from the free market, as the climate change Desmog Blog reported:

Conservative rancor toward the free market in energy systems was on full display this week, as both Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and coal magnate Robert Murray made loud, unapologetic calls to subsidize coal-fired power plants.

“We don’t have a free market in the [electricity] industry, and I’m not sure you want one,” Perry said Monday at the BNEF Future of Energy Summit.

Speaking on Tuesday, Murray, CEO of the country’s largest underground mining company, said that Perry “has to approve” an emergency bailout for coal and nuclear plants in order to “ensure the resilience, reliability, and security of the grid.”

The desperation of the Secretary and the industry was palpable in that report. Republicans do not lightly throw the free market under the bus.

Returning to Candidate Trump’s promise, it may simply be that he is attempting to swim up a waterfall. From the US Energy Information Administration:

Note the share of coal is 13%. Mark Sumner on the progressive site The Daily Kos, a former worker in the coal industry, produces more facts:

This is the hard truth. In 2000, coal generated almost 53 percent of all the electricity in the United States. By 2009, that was 45 percent. In 2014 it was 39 percent. One year later, it was 33 percent.

Look at that last number. Coal’s contribution to the electrical picture dropped by 6 percent in a single year. That didn’t happen because of rules on carbon pollution that were never even made. It didn’t happen because of regulations on water pollution that never went into effect.

It happened because fracking for natural gas has made that fuel extremely abundant, and generators of electricity would much, much rather deal with gas than coal.

From 53% to 13% in 19 years suggests a substantial and negative trend line. Mr. Sumner also has this observation on cutting regulations that should alarm any advocate for more coal mining jobs:

If Congress repealed every environmental law and every safety law that affects coal mining tonight, you know what would happen tomorrow? There would be fewer coal jobs. And fewer still the day after.

In fact, the regulations that Trump is repealing will make that happen faster. The rule that was changed on allowing more coal waste in streams won’t make new coal jobs. It will allow mining companies to replace underground mines with mountaintop removal mines. Those mines use far fewer people. When Trump signed that document and handed you the pen, what he was repealing was coal jobs.

Was President Trump truly trying to fulfill Candidate Trump’s promises when cutting regulations? It’s hard to know, because Mr. Trump, despite his claims of being the most knowledgeable person in many fields of human endeavour, does not appear to actually be cognizant of many details in self-proclaimed fields of expertise. It is possible he advocated for that particular regulation repeal without realizing he would hurt those he had promised to help.

Or perhaps he, cold-bloodedly, did know. It’s a judgment for my reader to make.

The Bigger Picture: But the better question to ask is whether or not Candidate Trump should have ever made promises to the coal miners in the first place. Regardless of claims by the industry known as King Coal, coal is widely considered as a very dirty energy source, emitting ash, mercury, uranium, and climate gases with abandon. Its ease of availability and provision of jobs, even those of exceptional danger, are no longer an adequate counterweight to its negatives of pollution in a world which is heavily overpopulated. Coal does not scale up.

Candidate Trump may have promised to bring back coal mining jobs, and made some attempts to do so, but success would have guaranteed more deaths through pollution, and a more miserable world overall.

The best reading of the evidence is that Trump made an attempt to fulfill his promise, but was ineffective in doing so, and probably should never have made those promises in the first place. In a world where coal is becoming less and less appropriate as an energy choice, Candidate Trump should not have encouraged miners to stay in their shrinking professions.

In a complex topic such as this, my reader may come to a different conclusion, but to my eye it appears clear that, regardless of his attempts to fulfill his promises, this promise was ill-considered and a mark of poor judgment by the candidate, and now president.

Remember Comet ‘Oumuamua? Another object apparently falling into the broad classification of Not from these parts has appeared, and is called Comet Borisov. Here’s a depiction of its trajectory from Jet Propulsion Laboratories:

In a press release:

The new comet, C/2019 Q4, is still inbound toward the Sun, but it will remain farther than the orbit of Mars and will approach no closer to Earth than about 190 million miles (300 million kilometers).

Spaceweather.com has more details:

There are thousands of comets in the Solar System, but this one is special. Comet Borisov is interstellar. The newly-discovered comet is following a hyperbolic orbit with an eccentricity greater than 3.7. This means it is unbound to the sun. Indeed, Comet Borisov is moving 30.7 km/s (68,700 mph) too fast for the sun’s gravity to hang onto it. It must have come from the stars.

This is the first time an interstellar visitor to our Solar System has clearly shown a tail due to outgassing. The only other known interstellar visitor was ‘Oumuamua in 2017-2018, a cigar-shaped object with no visible comet-like emissions.

Because Comet Borisov is still just entering the solar system, astronomers will have plenty of time to study it in the months ahead. Is it truly interstellar? What are comets from other solar systems made of? Answers to these and many other questions are forthcoming.

I’ll be looking forward to more details over the coming months, and while I assume there’s no space vehicles in position to approach it, we may be able to get a better view of it than we have so far.

This report in WaPo is disturbing:

I love these ultra-violet pictures of flowers.

More at Craig P. Burrows Photography. His ultraviolet work is here.

Emily Lakdawalla of The Planetary Society regularly provides updates on the status of various intra-solar probes of all nationalities. Here’s part of her latest:

Parker Solar Probe is racing away from perihelion number 3, which it passed on 1 September, and will fly by Venus for its second time on 26 December. The Spitzer Space Telescope, advancing ahead of Earth in its orbit, is nearing the end of its mission; it will be shut down on 30 January.

Asteroid Ryugu is near perihelion, which takes it closer to the Sun than Earth. The asteroid is too warm for Hayabusa2 to do any further touchdown activities. Late this quarter, Hayabusa2 will begin its journey home. …

For the space enthusiast, The Planetary Society is a delightful way to contribute and gain some insight.

For those of us who require more than just enthusiasm, keep in mind that one of the ways to avoid plague and famine brought on by overcrowding is to expand the amount of available, usable real estate. While the territory being explored is not directly usable, we’re learning, and that’s the start for gaining access to that territory. I’ll omit the traditional citation of Secular Cycles …

From my Arts Editor:

Limone Cello Chinchillas

If you know any aspiring bands who despair that Vampire Weekend’s already been sucked up, this is an offering for you.

Gary Sargent in The Plum Line missed the best response to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s statement concerning the loss of funding for his home state’s military base Fort Campbell’s middle school expansion:

McConnell himself had previously boasted of funding he had secured for Fort Campbell families. Yet subsequently, McConnell voted to uphold Trump’s national emergency, which will now take funding away.

So how does a McConnell spokesman justify this? By saying: “We would not be in this situation if Democrats were serious about protecting our homeland and worked with us to provide the funding needed to secure our borders during the appropriations process.”

And Sargent goes with this:

That’s a stunning statement, once you unpack it. Democrats are to blame for the emergency taking funding away from people, because Trump responded to their refusal to fund his wall by going around Congress!

To be as clear as possible, an elected member of that body is claiming other lawmakers in that body are at fault for Trump’s corrupt circumventing of them, because they represented their own constituents’ will, rather than give Trump what he demanded, to fund something Trump himself has privately admitted is all about giving his supporters something to chant about before reelection.

For me, there’s one simple fact: the Republicans held the entire Federal legislature for the first two years of Trump’s term. They failed to fund Trump’s wall.

Own it, McConnell. Stop being a child about the entire situation. Trump’s wall could have easily been funded, the Democrats couldn’t have done a thing about it. If you or former Speaker Ryan had a problem with it, then speak up. Explain yourself. Give up the whole political animal thing, because no one’s impressed with it.

The entire team politics excuse doesn’t work with the American people. How do we know this? I thought this Morning Consult poll to be quite interesting:

That’s an immense red disapproval line, and the Morning Consult verbiage seems to imply the data comes from Kentucky voters, not nation-wide.

Well, my cautious hope that maybe North Carolina could climb out of its toxic hell has been dashed.This is in connection with the NC GOP’s determination to override Governor Cooper’s budget, as noted earlier, Business Insider provides the basic story:

Republicans in the North Carolina House of Representatives stunned their Democratic colleagues on Wednesday by holding a surprise vote and passing a controversial budget while many of its members were absent.

The Republicans overrode Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the state budget with a 55-9 vote, while colleagues were absent from the floor during a 9/11 memorial ceremony.

To override the governor’s veto, the Republicans needed to secure a three-fifths majority vote among those present. Local news outlets reported that Republicans in the state had been trying for months to override Cooper’s veto and seized an opportunity on a morning typically set aside to honor the 2,977 people killed in the 9/11 attacks 18 years ago. …

Democrats also said they were tricked by Republicans into believing there would be no vote in their absence. House Minority Leader Darren Jackson said at a press conference that the House rules committee chairman told him the chamber would hold no recorded votes on the floor until 1 p.m.

No doubt, the NC GOP is congratulating itself on its cleverness. But there are always consequences to doing mischief, and a reader sent me to the Charlotte Observer’s, in which the editorial on the matter says it all:

NC Republicans’ shameless theft of democracy

Another reader sent me this link to a video of North Carolina educators reacting to the GOP’s maneuver.

The NC GOP seems to have either made a bet with itself that handing a barrel of tar and feathers to the NC Democrats is not dangerous, or they simply executed this risky maneuver because they’re fixated on their goal of overriding the veto.

And why is it risky? These are at least two-fold:

1. They’ve signaled that they are untrustworthy in future politics. Why should the Democrats try to work with them when they become the majority party? And why should the citizenry of North Carolina consider them to be an honorable party, even the Republican voters? The date of 9/11 has been made into a virtual sacred national day, like it or hate it; the use of it in this underhanded way brands every North Carolina GOP legislator who voted for it as dishonorable and untrustworthy.
2. They may think they’re pro-business, but their very underhandedness signals to the business world that they cannot be trusted. Sure, some businesses will approve, but those businesses run by wise professionals who have a holistic outlook on the future will take one look at this maneuver and write North Carolina off their list of probable places to work.

The North Carolina Republicans seem to be startlingly blind, which, I am forced to admit, marks them as a bunch of second- and third-raters.

Which is a phrase I use depressingly often for one of the country’s major political parties.

[h/t Arts Editor, RWK]

While reading a Pro-Publica article on Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, this bit put me in mind of the activities of the Soviets and their notorious relation-of-convenience with the truth:

Parscale and his fees have attracted an unusual amount of attention, but they’re only part of the story. He has also spearheaded what appears to be the Trump campaign’s takeover of the RNC to the benefit of the president — and the seeming detriment of other Republican candidates. Other presidents have consolidated control over their party; similar criticisms were made of Barack Obama. But the extent of Trump’s takeover is unprecedented, according to experts. They say it inflicted damage on Republican congressional candidates in the 2018 elections, and could do so again in 2020.

One previously unreported example: Since Trump’s election in 2016, critical “voter scores” — sophisticated polling-based analytics that the RNC provides to party committees and candidates — have conspicuously omitted an essential detail for any down-ballot race: how voters in specific states and congressional districts feel about Trump. Republican insiders believe these analytics are being withheld to try and prevent GOP candidates from publicly distancing themselves from the president or leaking unfavorable results that embarrass Trump.

Indeed, after V. Lenin, truth became merely another item to be manipulated, Pravda being both Russian for truth and the newspaper organ of the Soviet’s Communist Party, the one and only political party of the Soviet Union. It’s only competition – and it turned out to be deadly – was reality, which gave the lie to Soviet claims of crop harvests, when Soviet science and management failed.

Similarly, Trump’s campaign organization is carefully ensuring Trump remains top dog in all possible ways, because that’s his basic ego-requirement and how he discourages challengers to his supremacy. He cannot simply order their deaths, as did Leader Stalin, but he can leave them in the dark.

Or so he wishes. The crucial difference between Trump and the Soviet Union is that he cannot control the free press. He can denigrate it, he can accuse it of lying, but the fact of the matter is that he does not control the information for the entire American population. He endeavours to keep his base in their little cocoon of Fox News, but, like the Soviet Union, reality has begun intruding in the form of poor farm exports and former Republican members blaring out their displeasure for Trump.

Thus, we’re seeing the very long slide of the Republican Party continue. We can trace it back to when it was the Party of Lincoln, the home of slavery abolitionists, and the home of the victorious President in the Civil War that resulted in the abolition of slavery. As the decades passed since then, though, the South had its revenge on the Republicans via Nixon’s Southern Strategy, which brought in former and current KKK members and the like, debasing the party until the Democrats, once home to the pro-slavery Fire-Eaters, became the leading Civil Rights major political party.

The Republicans, who long touted themselves as the redoubtable anti-Soviet party of the American political system, now find their leadership now imitating Soviet practices: information control, equality of falsehoods to truth, and the naked pursuit of power over justice. I don’t think we’re about to see them spouting rhetoric espousing the nationalization of various industries; I believe the tactics of political dominance are neutral as to the political system using them, even as they are diagnostic of the pathological, or evil, nature.

I think and hope it’ll end just as badly for them. The deceptions are stomach-turning, even as they deceive each other. And I can’t imagine how they can degrade themselves next, unless we catch Jerry Falwell, Jr. actually frenching Satan. Gak.

There were two special elections in North Carolina for seats in the House of Representatives. The first was to replace the late Walter Jones (R), and resulted in the Republicans retaining the seat in a convincing victory, roughly in line with previous Republican victories.

The second special election was also a victory for the Republicans in NC-9, but this was something of a nail-biter as Republican Dan Bishop beat Dan McCready by only 2 percentage points. This special election was compelled when the NC Election Board refused, unanimously, to certify the election, due to apparent election skullduggery.

Typically, Republican victories in NC-9 are quite a bit larger, although one must account for normal incumbency advantages; in 2018, the incumbent, Robert Pittenger, had been defeated in the GOP primary by Mark Harris, who saw his victory set aside by the Election Board and refused to run again.

However, we can balance that with the fact that President Trump came to North Carolina and held a rally for Bishop. For all that this is typically a strongly Republican district, and Trump came to rally the base, Bishop won by only two points.

I’m tempted to add this to the latest Gallup Presidential Approval poll results, which are certainly not encouraging for Trump. However, without more evidence of a downward slide, it’s an overreach to proclaim that Trump’s popularity is in permanent decline. I think he’s dying of a thousand cuts, as the electorate has discovered that running the country based on appearances, with little regard for the meat and potatoes, results in emotional fatigue and general disfavor.

But Trump has awakened the moral warriors of both the left and the right. By this I don’t mean the cultural warriors of the last three or four decades, who cry out about abortion, sexuality, and other matters, with the purpose of using them to manipulate voters. Rather, I’m talking about folks such as Warren on the left and Sanford on the right, people who may have strong principles, but also recall that governance is a serious matter in which compromise is often an honorable procedure, not a surrender to an enemy.

This awakening, the shining of light into the dank corners of both Parties in search of those who are self-dealing and unserious about governance, may be the most important result of Trump’s time in office. His ghastly depiction of how corruption doesn’t serve the interests of the nation is an important part of the national story.

President Trump has acquired a third challenger in the GOP Presidential primary: Former South Carolina governor and Representative Mark Sanford. Governor Sanford acquired notoriety during his stint in the South Carolina governor’s seat for disappearing for a couple of weeks, claiming he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail, when in actuality the married man was visiting a paramour in Argentina.

He refused to resign when the scandal became public, but termed out of office in 2011.

Governor Sanford had been a member of the House of Representatives prior to being Governor, and after being a governor, he returned to the House in a 2013 special election. He left the House when he was defeated in the 2018 primary; the general election was then promptly lost by the Trumpist who beat him, Katie Arrington, to a Democrat in a district that had been reliably Republican for years.

Clearly, Sanford has plenty of experience with both ups and downs. His TrumpScore?

Indeed, his criticisms and disagreements of President Trump were widely credited with his failure in the primary. The Party of Trump is unable to tolerate critiques of their Great Leader.

President Trump’s intra-party approval rating is 88%. Nevada, South Carolina, Kansas, and Arizona GOP parties have canceled their nominating contests, giving Trump early, automatic victories. So why is Sanford running?

Former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (R) announced exclusively on Fox News Sunday that he will challenge President Trump in the Republican primary. #FNS #FoxNews pic.twitter.com/2xwdSGpW0d

— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) September 8, 2019

From the Post & Courier of Charleston:

“I think we need to have a conversation on what it means to be a Republican. I think that as a Republican Party, we have lost our way,” Sanford said in his interview with Chris Wallace in Washington. …

He is basing his run on a warning that the Republican Party is at an “inflection point” after three years of the Trump presidency, though he is making attention to the ballooning national debt his focal point.

“We need to have a conversation about humility,” Sanford also said during the interview as he noted Trump’s penchant for commenting by tweet “is not leadership.”

Sanford does not have a realistic chance of winning at this stage of the game, although if Trump is forced to drop out, he, Walsh, and Weld are then in a commanding position relative to undeclared candidates such as VP Pence. Given Trump’s age and disturbing behavior, which hints at mental pathologies, this is not an unthinkable scenario.

But, on a deeper level, a flawed man may be bringing important questions to the Republicans, demanding by their very existence an answer. Both Trump and Sanford have committed adultery, so the offense can no longer be used as an excuse to ignore Sanford by the members of GOP; the sheer hypocrisy would cause meltdowns – or the sudden appearance of a laughing Satan.

Those questions won’t reach all of the Republican base; many will ignore Sanford as the not-Trump. There will be limited sympathies between Sanford and the base, as both his TrumpScore and his summarization by On The Issues illustrates. Here are the charts of Sanford and Trump:

Governor Sanford

President Trump

However, he’ll still be a voice of sanity and, perhaps, even morality for a political party that has become a debased ghost of what it was before the advent not of Trump, but of Gingrich and his crowd. He’ll keep pricking away, and we may see the more moderate edge of the Republican Party throw up its hands and sit this election out.