Monthly Archives: October 2020

But they live on in pixels.

Inshallah:

Inshallah (Arabic: إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ‎, ʾin šāʾa -llāh), also spelled InshAllah or In sha Allah, is an Arabic language expression meaning “if God wills” or “God willing”. The term is mentioned in the Quran^{[Quran37:102]} and is used to fulfill a Quranic command of speaking on future events.^[Quran18:24] The phrase is commonly used by Muslims, Arab Christians, and Arabic-speakers of other religions to refer to events that one hopes will happen in the future. It expresses the belief that nothing happens unless God wills it and that his will supersedes all human will.

The phrase can take on an ironic context, implying that something will never happen or can be used as a gentle way of declining invitations. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “The Psychedelic Election,” Andrew Sullivan, The Weekly Dish, responding to a reader’s LOC:

We know that the Tea Party came about largely in reaction to Obama and lost much of its raison d’etat after Trump’s election. Wokeness could be a similar political phenomenon. For that reason alone, I think it is too early to say that wokeness is winning. If Trump is defeated next month, many who now support wokeness —particularly those outside of academia — will revert to MLK-style liberalism.

Inshallah!

Theologian Gregory Thornbury remarks on the mixture of QAnon, White Evangelicals, and President Trump:

With his drug-fueled “recovery” from COVID-19 on recent display after leaving Walter Reed hospital, pundits scrambled to describe what they were seeing. Joy Reid notably referred to the president’s stunt on the balcony Monday night as a “Mussolini moment.” Others saw something different on their screens. Trump’s evangelical supporters beheld a positively biblical moment unfolding before them. “Is there anyone like unto him?” tweeted evangelical radio host Eric Metaxas, echoing Moses’ post-Exodus awe at the wonder-working powers of the Lord God himself (Exodus 15:11). Shortly before his diagnosis, Kaitlin Bennett, another Trump booster, had posted a photo of herself on Twitter in a t-shirt that read, “Trump is my KING!”—not “just my president.” [Religion & Politics]

Generally, I figure religion is the shortcut to a plausible morality, but, like that unseen mole on your backside that might be cancerous, the flip side of religion comes when its theology, with its foundational element of irrationality, assumes such prominence that it drowns out the voice of reason.

So what comes next?

These days, the evangelical political imagination is so impoverished it’s not enough to see Trump as a hero or strongman fighting for them. For right-wing America, there’s only one move left: Trump has to be the Messiah incarnate.

The consecration of Trump by QAnon may be new, but religious manias are nothing new. This is ironic in the case of American religious manias, as America was originally conceived, in part, as a refuge from monarchies that considered themselves to be Chosen by God; that this refuge became infected, right from the get-go, with religious mania is disappointing, and speaks to the terror of mankind in the face of a Universe beyond our ken.

Thornbury is worried about White Evangelical fascination with a chronic and prolix liar …

As in Oz, this time around we find white evangelicals saying, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” Forget that he’s the man who cages children, a eugenicist who allegedly demands hysterectomies on immigrant women, and a demagogue who lies about the coronavirus while hundreds of thousands die. “Just hang in there,” whispers Q, standing in as the Holy Spirit. “The scrolls are about to be broken, although we but see dimly right now. Your salvation is nigh!” All you have to do is vote on November 3rd, one more time, “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh will see it together.”

Of course, I could argue that Thornbury is part of the problem. However, that would be a little cruel at this point. Watching those you consider your spiritual brothers and sisters praise, and even indulge in, behaviors that should be repulsive to them, is indicative of the fundamental confusion and disconnect from reality of the basis of his moral philosophy, and that is a hard enough blow. While he obviously, to his credit, cares for them, I doubt he’s willing to walk away from the theology that leads them down a road to metaphorical Hell.

Over the last few months, the Trump Administration has been part of deals to normalize diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, both located in the Middle East and of and officially Islamic, and now Sudan, an African nation with an Arabian-linked history, and, until recently, Islam as its official religion, but it is now officially secular. The most recent deal, announced yesterday, is noted here:

The east African country of Sudan on Friday became the third predominantly Muslim country to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel, in a deal brokered by President Donald Trump less than two weeks before the election.

Hailing the agreement as a “huge win” on Twitter, Trump claimed that more countries would follow. He also posted a joint statement issued on behalf of all three countries.

“The Sudanese government has demonstrated its courage and commitment to combatting [sic] terrorism, building its democratic institutions, and improving its relations with its neighbors,” the statement said, adding that the agreement would “improve regional security.”

“The United States will take steps to restore Sudan’s sovereign immunity and engage its international partners to reduce Sudan’s debt burdens, including advancing discussions on debt forgiveness,” the statement added. [NBC News]

This is the only real mention of what I would assume would be trumpeted as a big foreign policy victory for the Trump Administration that’s thrust its way into my consciousness; a search of the Web also found this CNN article, which I have not read. On the assumption that the mainstream media is downplaying it, I checked the National Review web site, but there’s nothing on its front page. You’d expect a “conservative” (that is, we’re right-wing fringe but we pretend to be respectable) site to be trumpeting any achievement by Trump as evidence of his competence, but no.

This all leads to the question: In the absence of a competent Administration, or perhaps more accurately a chronically incompetent Administration, and no comment that I have run across from disinterested parties, how does an American citizen without foreign policy specialization evaluate such an announcement?

Quite honestly, it’s difficult. The short answer is that you wait and watch for at least five years. Do these three countries treat Israel like any other country with which they have normal relations? Or does the old treatment of hostility, perhaps interference in external and internal affairs, continue? Keep in mind that the UAE (10 million) and Bahrain (1.5 million) are not large compared to Israel’s nemeses Saudi Arabia (34 million) and Iran (83 million), and while Sudan is quite sizable (41 million), it’s been in turmoil for decades, and is not a neighbor of Israel. This probably means none of these three countries have been actively hostile towards Israel, but only passively hostile. Exactly what that means will be country-specific.

Another two questions to ask are What was dangled to get their acquiescence, and Was the reward good or bad for the United States? Again, that second question is difficult to answer, I’ll not be glib about it. NBC News mentioned debt forgiveness for Sudan, while AL Monitor notes another important consideration:

Sudan has agreed to recognize Israel, President Donald Trump announced Friday, just after the White House said it had notified Congress that it removed Khartoum from the state sponsors of terrorism list.

As Sudan’s political system has recently changed to democracy, this may be warranted; AL Monitor also notes:

Experts say Sudan’s removal from the list is long overdue and if the country’s newfound democratic project is to succeed, it needs all the access to international assistance it can get.

I wish I knew who these experts might be, but I also do not consider AL Monitor to be so political as to publish outright lies.

Any progress on the peace front is important, even something as apparently minimal as this. I suspect it’s that minimal that explains why these three agreements haven’t had a major impact on the election. After all, the election hasn’t been about foreign policy, but domestic policy, competency, and even morality. It’s good to see progress, but frankly this is more likely the fruit of internal politics in those three nations and the political turmoil in Israel.

At some point her eyes should have been on stalks.

Mosaic (2007) is an hour and a half long Saturday morning cartoon from Stan Lee. It has unimpressive animation, leaden dialog, and a hackneyed plot. Don’t bother with it, unless you have a Marvel Comics fetish.

Our local weather forecasters are expecting frigid cold, snow, and more frigid cold. I feel the need for something else:

That’s known as nine-bark, and it sure was beautiful a few days ago.

Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel has a useful note on the blunders – to put it politely and not to speculate – of the DoJ lawyers involved in the continuing extraordinary case of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn:

Judge Emmet Sullivan just issued an order that may well destroy DOJ’s presumption of regularity (the legal principle that unless the government really fucks up, you have to assume they didn’t fuck up) in the Mike Flynn case.

He noted that on September 29, he had ordered DOJ to certify all documents submitted as exhibits in the motion to dismiss proceeding, but that DOJ had not done so. Instead, it admitted that it had “inadvertently” altered two Peter Strzok and one Andrew McCabe documents, and asked for a mulligan.

So now he’s ordering DOJ to do what he first ordered: to certify all the exhibits submitted to this docket (both those submitted directly by DOJ and those submitted by Flynn’s team) and provide a transcription and the author and date of any handwritten notes.

Along with suggesting malpractice by the Barr-run DoJ, this, too, is not only interesting, but fascinating:

First, there’s no way they can finish this by Monday. Even if the lawyers on this case were as familiar with these documents as they claimed to be, it would take more than this weekend to transcribe and double check everything. They will likely ask for an extension, one that would extend the order past the election.

If proceedings continue to drag from mistakes, inadvertent or otherwise, it’s not impossible that 2021 will begin with this case still in motion. But consider this: If President Trump loses the election, he’ll still have pardon powers up until Jan 21.

Could it cross the minds of Flynn and his lawyers to again reverse field and once again plead guilty before Jan 21, and then apply to President Trump for an immediate pardon?

As this Administration has continually demonstrated, the nuttier a maneuver may appear, the more likely it is to occur. And it also asks the leading question: What does Michael Flynn know that could hurt President Trump?

Information that might interest prosecutors even more?

I keep wondering if there’s a link between former MPD Officer Chauvin, alleged murderer of George Floyd, and the right wing nutters – especially in view of this StarTribune article:

In the wake of protests following the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a member of the “Boogaloo Bois” opened fire on Minneapolis Police Third Precinct with an AK-47-style gun and screamed “Justice for Floyd” as he ran away, according to a federal complaint made public Friday.

A sworn affidavit by the FBI underlying the complaint reveals new details about a far-right anti-government group’s coordinated role in the violence that roiled through civil unrest over Floyd’s death while in police custody.

Ivan Harrison Hunter, a 26-year-old from Boerne, Texas, is charged with one count of interstate travel to incite a riot for his alleged role in ramping up violence during the protests in Minneapolis on May 27 and 28. According to charges, Hunter, wearing a skull mask and tactical gear, shot 13 rounds at the south Minneapolis police headquarters while people were inside. He also looted and helped set the building ablaze, according to the complaint, which was filed Monday under seal.

While one can make the argument that antifa and BLM have committed some intellectual violence, especially back a few years ago when the former shouted down certain speakers at college campuses, and it’s worth asking if they are worthy of the liberal tradition that has undergirded the United States since its founding, it appears that a stronger and stronger case can be made for right-wing treachery during the Floyd protests.

And President Trump’s case against antifa grows weaker and more hollow by the day.

Ten years old, but still a lot of fun – although I’m not sure why one’s in saber gear and the other in, I think, epee gear, but both seem to have sabers.

Distinguished magician and skeptic James “The Amazing” Randi died a day or two ago at age 92, and The Onion has the followup:

Struggling to mentally close herself off from the recently deceased skeptic, local psychic Rosemary Shanley confirmed Thursday she was already sick of James Randi’s specter haunting her place of business and ragging on her from the afterlife. “I’m sitting here with my crystal ball trying to see into the future, and it’s hard enough without the ghost of James Randi hovering in front of me and whispering that I’m a fraud and a huckster,” said Shanley, adding that she tried to banish the spirit of the famed debunker and stage magician by sprinkling holy water throughout the room, but the Amazing Randi just scoffed and called the ritual “easily disproved theatrics.”

For a short while, before the ineffable currents of the Internet swept me away, I paid attention the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), and they’re still around, although I don’t know how active. Definitely one of the forces for good on the Web.

I did not watch the debate last night, as my mind was made up years ago. However, two pundits did. First, Steve Benen:

… in Trump Land, the [pandemic] that’s intensifying is simply “going away.”

The entire debate continued along these lines. In Trump Land, the Republican administration’s child-separation policy should be blamed on Barack Obama and Joe Biden. In Trump Land, Special Counsel Robert Mueller went through the president’s finances and exonerated him. In Trump Land, China is paying the United States billions of dollars in tariffs. In Trump Land, the president isn’t racist.

In Trump Land, Biden isn’t from Scranton. In Trump Land, testing is to blame for coronavirus cases. In Trump Land, the president is “tough” on Russia. In Trump Land, Biden’s the one taking foreign money. In Trump Land, the president was “kidding” when he suggested treating COVID-19 patients by injecting them with disinfectants.

The problem, of course, is that Trump Land bears no resemblance to our reality. These presidential claims weren’t just exaggerations or misleading spins; they were ridiculous falsehoods, peddled by an incumbent who should’ve been able to point to real-world successes.

And then, Erick Erickson (email):

President Trump and his team should be proud of his final lifetime presidential debate performance. That is, actually, pretty incredible when you think about it. We won’t see Donald Trump on a debate stage again.

The President made a targeted play to young black men and he remembered Pennsylvania and the swing states, going so far as to point out Joe Biden didn’t really grow up in Scranton.

He did what he had to do.

This may be part of what turns off many folks to politics – competing viewpoints in which one, or even both, is lying through their teeth. And that’s, perhaps, a reason to avoid them.

I try to be fair, but not transactional – that is, past behaviors have a part in my analysis. That’s why I’m anti-Trump: 20,000 lies are a signpost of incompetency and dangerous lack of leadership. That has played out time and time again over the last four years, from the lack of strategic thinking to his selections for Cabinet posts. His entire behavior pattern is to disregard reality.

And, as we’ve seen to our sorrow or denial, that hasn’t worked out very well.

Erickson should know this, but he continues to support Trump. There’s no real puzzle: President Trump has delivered in the judicial arena, following up on Senator Mitch “No” McConnell’s (R-KY) continual denial of seats in the judiciary to President Obama. In order to maintain his credibility with his audience, he can’t walk away from Trump, despite his clear inadequacies, lack of morality, and apparent imminent loss in the upcoming elections. To make up for this, he regards anyone who is not a conservative as evil, with the keys being abortion and socialism.

Of course, for anyone outside the right wing epistemic bubble, he looks like a babbling idiot – with about as much credibility as President Trump himself.

Kos of The Daily Kos is puzzling over the Trump advertising strategy:

Civiqs polled Nevada October 17-20, interviewing 712 likely voters, with a MoE of 5.3%.

PRESIDENT	10/2020
DONALD TRUMP (R-INC)	43
JOE BIDEN (D)	52

Biden is comfortably over 50%, Trump trails way back. A double digit Biden victory here wouldn’t surprise me. A Fox News poll in late September had Biden up by an even bigger margin, 52-41. A NY Times/Siena poll in early October had Biden winning 48-42.

The Trump campaign’s continued spending here is curious, as it’s not part of a path that current Trump campaign manager Bridgegate Bill Stepien sees as a likely one: “pathway three—the one Stepien views as least likely of the options—does not include Arizona but involves Trump winning North Carolina, Michigan and Nevada.” Don’t be surprised if you see the campaign quietly cancel its ad reservations there, as it’s broke.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: follow the money. When all the candidate and his followers value is dollars, then the motivations of their actions are different from that of earnest candidates. It’s not easy to follow the money, I’m sure, but someone in the press will figure it out, eventually, and my bet is that this is just a massive laundering operation, getting money from the campaign war chest to the pockets of those owed money by Trump – or even the Trump family itself.

And too bad about the overly trusting donors.

Fomite:

Rasmussen said epidemiologists can have a difficult time finding real-word evidence of a virus’s transmission via contaminated objects or surfaces, which are called fomites. In the case of the coronavirus, this is partly because transmission often occurs in the context of large, superspreader events, leaving researchers struggling to determine who talked to whom, and who touched what surface. “It’s not at all uncommon to not have strong epidemiological evidence for fomite transmission,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean that fomite transmission doesn’t happen.”

In fact, Rasmussen added, because we know that other respiratory viruses that are transmitted by inhalation, such as the flu and rhinovirus, are also transmitted by fomites, it stands to reason that coronavirus is likely transmitted by fomites as well. “It just may be that that’s not necessarily the dominant mode of transmission,” she said. And although it may be important for researchers to determine how long the virus remains infectious in various environments, when it comes to daily life, “I don’t think that it’s necessarily wise to be wiping groceries down.” [“Stop wiping down groceries and focus on bigger risks, say experts on coronavirus transmission,” Elizabeth Chang, WaPo]

Remember the huge Foxconn campus that was to be developed in Wisconsin? The one where people were kicked out of their homes in order to make room for it? I think former Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) and his cohorts in the Wisconsin legislature, current and former, are trying to forget about it, because it appears to be an epic fail. The Verge leads off with this spectacular opening:

HOPES WERE HIGH among the employees who joined Foxconn’s Wisconsin project in the summer of 2018. In June, President Donald Trump had broken ground on an LCD factory he called “the eighth wonder of the world.” The scale of the promise was indeed enormous: a $10 billion investment from the Taiwanese electronics giant, a 20 million-square-foot manufacturing complex, and, most importantly, 13,000 jobs.

Which is why new recruits arriving at the 1960s office building Foxconn had purchased in downtown Milwaukee were surprised to discover they had to provide their own office supplies. “One of the largest companies in the world, and you have to bring your own pencil,” an employee recalls wondering. Maybe Foxconn was just moving too fast to be bothered with such details, they thought, as they brought their laptops from home and scavenged pencils left behind by the building’s previous tenants. They listened to the cries of co-workers trapped in the elevators that often broke, noted the water that occasionally leaked from the ceiling, and wondered when the building would be transformed into the gleaming North American headquarters an executive had promised.

Granted, The Verge isn’t a Trump-supporting news source, but this is both interesting and unsurprising.

Foxconn would spend the next two years jumping from idea to idea — fish farms, exporting ice cream, storing boats — in an increasingly surreal search for some way to generate money from a doomed project. Frequent leadership changes, a reluctance to spend money, and a domineering corporate culture would create an atmosphere employees described as toxic. Many of the employees The Verge spoke with have since left the company, and all of them requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation. It has been a baffling ordeal for the people who thought they were building the Silicon Valley of the Midwest — “Wisconn Valley,” Walker called it — all the more so because so many others still believe the vision.

“All people see is the eighth wonder of the world,” said an employee. “I was there and it’s not real. I mean, it’s not. This is something I can’t talk about ever again, because people think you’re crazy, like none of this could ever happen. How could this happen in the US?”

That’s not a hard question to answer. For a political party full of arrogant third-raters, this is one of those reality moments when an entire group of people are shown to be naked – no matter how certain they are that they’re the Chosen of God.

Such people aren’t hard-nosed realists. Those who buy into one delusion often buy into many. But this ending to the “Wisconn” (to use Walker’s name) fantasy will surprise very few outside of the Party. They turned out to be just a bunch of goofball provincials who thought they knew something. Plus – if you’ll recall – President Trump, who falls into the same category.

Our era’s Teapot Dome scandal, as summarized by Professor Richardson:

… a number of senior administration officials and lawmakers from both parties are worried that the White House is fast-tracking a business deal worth billions of dollars in what is essentially a no-bid contract to a company associated with Republican operatives, including Karl Rove. The company, Rivada, wants to lease the Department of Defense’s mid-band spectrum. This spectrum is wildly valuable for the 5G market, the next-generation mobile network. Pentagon leaders are opposed to the deal since the military uses that spectrum, and they say they have not been able to study the effect of commercial use of the spectrum on military readiness. Pentagon lawyers say the White House has no authority to sell or lease its spectrum. Lawmakers of both parties oppose the deal. One senior official told CNN, “Something is really fishy about this.”

That, folks, would be known as a gusher for all the investors in Rivada, and it sounds like they’re trying to tickle that trout into their net, doesn’t it? This is emblematic of the mistake of thinking government is a business. It is is not, it is simply government, responsible for safeguarding the citizenry. When people with dollar signs in their eyes try to run it, this is what happens.

They think it’s a feast.

It’s time to get out and vote for professionals, the serious people who understand that government isn’t the enemy, but the servant of the people. It’s not a cave full of riches, but a place to serve honorably. It’s incidents like this which symbolize the debasement of the right: the prosperity churches, the relentless talk of money by Trump, and the loathing of procedures and norms developed over decades to stifle corruption.

And explains why so many moderate Republicans are endorsing Biden for President.

Nice fun:

h/t BS

After the Judiciary Committee, led by Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC), recommended the confirmation of Amy Barrett to SCOTUS, Steve Benen remarked:

But as part of this morning’s proceedings, Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) thought it’d be a good idea to deliver a little speech about how convinced he is that Republicans “did the right thing” by engaging in this obvious and ongoing abuse.

The South Carolinian began his remarks by reflecting on the events of 2013, when he and other GOP senators — in the minority at the time — refused to consider any nominees for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, regardless of merit or qualification, because the president was a Democrat.

Senate Democrats responded by restoring majority rule to the process, and Graham this morning insisted that Republicans were the victim of what transpired. Reality makes clear he has this backwards.

The committee chairman proceeded to brag about voting for both of then-President Obama’s first two Supreme Court nominees, conveniently skipping past his treatment of Obama’s third.

All of which led to these comments:

“Now we find ourselves in a situation where qualifications no longer matter. It’s about holding open seats to have them filled after the next election, and we’ve lost sight that the individuals being nominated matter. I think they do matter.”

Graham then went back to patting himself on the back for a job well done.

To be sure, the Democratic members of the Committee boycotted the hearing. Still, I can’t help but think that one of those Senators might have been better served by playing a recording of Senator Graham pledging to not confirm a Justice if primaries have started for a Presidential election.

And then a follow-on statement would do nicely:

You, sir, are a hypocrite and a liar. I hope I never have to work with you again, because you are not trustworthy, and you bring dishonor upon your name and family.

I say this not in anger, but in sorrow, for at one time you held the best interests of the United States at heart, but now you are merely a power-hungry minion of President Trump, and that is no good thing.

Followed by a stalking from the chamber.

I like a little drama with my politics.

This isn’t going to do any of our careers any good. Here, drink this poisoned tea, it’ll lift your spirits.

The Gorilla (1939) starts off nicely enough as reports of murder and mayhem committed by man and gorilla crowd the local newspapers, and Stevens, who must do something lucrative but we don’t know what, receives a threatening phone call, followed by a note pinned to a maid’s collar as she reads Shakespeare to herself in bed by someone with a very hairy arm: Stevens will die soon.

But then he hires three detectives, and the plot takes a swirl down the ol’ toilet bowl as they turn out to be Marx Brothers wannabes. Stevens’ niece shows up, fiancee in tow, and she’s the heir to … something. The imperturbable butler (Bela Lugosi) must be responsible for something, lurking like that and appearing to become invisible, yeah? And who’s this dude demanding money, and the other with the badge and suave smile?

It’s all painfully incoherent, and while I liked the maid – she’s given the zingers – she’s not enough to save a story that depends on magic and the audience’s inability to keep track of all the plot holes.

Blech.

Lunar libration:

Most of us learned in school that the same side of the Moon always faces Earth. That’s not entirely true. The Moon actually wobbles back and forth, rocking and rolling as it elliptically orbits Earth. These lunar librations allow us to “peek around the edges.” Over time, up to 59% of the lunar surface can be observed from Earth. [Spaceweather.com]

Steve Benen puts the Hunter Biden story in context:

As Rachel noted in last night’s A block, in the not-too-distant past, if the United States saw an authoritarian leader try to prosecute his domestic rival ahead of an election, we’d help lead an international coalition to denounce such corruption. Now, this is happening here.

The fact that this is happening out in the open makes it all the more extraordinary. If an investigative journalist had uncovered a private White House memo in which Trump quietly urged the Justice Department to prosecute his opponent to help him win re-election, it would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country. It would likely become a presidency-defining scandal.

But in 2020, there is no private memo to uncover: Trump, indifferent and incapable of shame, took the message to a national television audience. The Republican incumbent, for the first time in American history, is openly and desperately trying to turn federal law enforcement into an appendage of his campaign.

Which moves me to wonder: will Donald J. Trump become the first American President to be marched off in disgrace, in handcuffs?

Look: If Giuliani is shown to be little more than creating false evidence, fed to him by the Russians, under orders from Trump, it’s not unreasonable to consider Trump to be a co-conspirator in leveling false accusations of a crime. And that’s a Federal crime.

Our law enforcement agencies are supposed to enforce the law against all citizens, up to and including the President, and while he may get a little leeway when it comes to parking his car illegally, serious felonies such as this one may be enough to tick off someone like FBI Director Christopher Wray.

And I can’t help but notice that Attorney General Barr remains silent. Sick? Embarrassed at discovering the walking mass of corruption to which he’s become associated?

Preparing an indictment against … Trump?

My recommendation to President Trump? Flee to Switzerland sooner rather than later.

Yesterday we got some very light snow, which made for a couple of nice pics.

Today, the Snow Gods dumped on us. I was too busy shoveling to bother with pictures.

When chronic lying is subjected to enough intense examination, it begins to shake apart like a flywheel with a bad part that’s being run way out beyond spec. More literally, this whitehouse.gov transcript demonstrates it to a T:

THE PRESIDENT: Look at the dedication. Yeah, my doctors have already given it. You know, my doctors have given more information than has been given on any human being in the history of the world.

Q But have not given that detail, Mr. President.

Q Mr. President, can you tell us why — what your campaign strategy seems to be to call Biden a “criminal”? Why is that?

THE PRESIDENT: He is a criminal. He’s a criminal. He got caught —

Q He was the Vice President of the United States.

THE PRESIDENT: Read his laptop. And you know who’s a criminal? You’re a criminal for not reporting it. You are a criminal for not reporting it.

Q I’m asking your strategy.

THE PRESIDENT: Let me tell you something: Joe Biden is a criminal, and he’s been a criminal for a long time. And you’re a criminal, and the media, for not reporting it. Good luck, everybody. Have a good time. Have a good time.

He references no crime, he references no evidence. What little “evidence” has been presented by his allies appears extremely improbable and dubious. So he tries to skip over that part and accuse the media of being criminal as well.

And then, true to his transactional nature, he wishes that same media a good time.

This is a guy who’s discovering that chronic lying is falling apart in the face of determined fact-finding and reporting. For a man who has more or less successfully employed this strategy for most of this 70-odd years, this must be dismaying. But it’s all he knows, so he flails along, discrediting himself more and more.

Erick Erickson, far right pundit and purveyor of email, has allied with some group called The First, who is also now sending me emails. While I was intending to mark them as spam, it actually turns out they’re useful for getting the latest misleading stories from the right, such as this:

What’s Up: Possibly the biggest story of the last two weeks in the 2020 campaign swirls around Joe Biden, his son Hunter, and claims that the former VP’s son was peddling access to his father and charging millions of dollars to entities in foreign countries. Democrats have floated the theory the entire thing is a Russian disinformation campaign. Today, the Director of National Intelligence debunked that theory.

Quote: “‘Let me be clear, the intelligence community doesn’t believe that because there is no intelligence that supports and we shared no intelligence with chairman Schiff or any other member of Congress that Hunter Biden’s laptop is part of some Russian disinformation campaign,’ he continued. ‘It’s simply not true.'” — DailyWire.com

The First take: Monday’s “October Surprise” is one we believe Rep. Adam Schiff and the Democrats will not appreciate. DNI John Ratcliffe’s shooting down of the Dem’s latest attempt to push the Hunter Biden story off the front pages is not just big news, we believe it to be one of he most consequential stories of the 2020 election. We suggest you follow the timeline in the bonus story below.

Notice the adroit separation of the man from his title, and in reverse order:

Director of National Intelligence in the first paragraph.
John Ratcliffe in the third paragraph.

The responsibility of the sober citizen in the Internet Age of Disinformation is to check one’s source. That evaluative phase not only includes facts, but how they weave together.

Let’s begin with what I’ve pulled out. Start with the fact that the selection of words is an integral part of communications – and emotional response control. When it comes to Director of National Intelligence, or DNI for short, that’s really an impressive title, isn’t it? Even if you don’t know that the intelligence community is supposed to be non-partisan, it should be apparent that the intelligence community provides facts and analysis to our leaders, who then take actions based on them.

Yeah?

Well, ideally, yeah.

But, uh (you say), who’s the DNI? Oh, yeah. John Ratcliffe. OK, now that I’ve connected those dots, who’s he?

Former Rep John Ratcliffe (R-TX).

Former rejected nominee for DNI John Ratcliffe.

Partisan John Ratcliffe, with a TrumpScore of 92.5%.

Liar John Ratcliffe.

So much for the trustworthiness of the DNI, and thus do we explode the assertions that are supposedly foolproof.

All of a sudden, The First’s pushing of the story seems less dignified, even frantic. You gotta remember, the GOP, with names such as Trump, Pruitt, McConnell, Ernst, Sasse, and many others of like dismal reputation in the leadership, is burdened with people who have proven themselves mendacious and dishonorable.

“Declining conservative membership“
Gallup

Therefore, it’s necessary to paint the Democrats as being the same. If the Republicans find themselves as the only party with a bad rep, they may continue experiencing membership loss, they might even have a schism and find a second, more credible conservative party, devoted to real conservative principles, such as honesty and competency, taking them out of the limelight.

But if they can paint the Democrats as being just as corrupt, then maybe they can survive as a credible national force.

And doing this in an honest manner isn’t even a factor. The mud need only be applied, and if it requires a corrupt DNI, so be it. I’ll bet it doesn’t even sting their conscience any longer.

So, when evaluating this bit of mud, it’s best to ask:

Do you trust a highly suspect DNI, or the honesty and stated policies of Joe Biden?

We had our first snow of the season today, and another is due tomorrow. So let’s erase those sweat-inducing thoughts from our minds …