Monthly Archives: July 2022

This next entry in the long-running series, temporarily lacking its Captain & Chairman BennieThompson due to a Covid infection, but ably replaced by Vice Chair Cheney, explores the actual struggle within the capitol. Among the more hair-raising new information is the Secret Service agents calling their loved ones to say farewell.

The testimony of Trump’s Deputy National Security Advisor Pottinger and Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews was, of course, riveting and informative, although I thought it lacked the sheer surprise and drama brought to the table by previous witness Cassidy Hutchinson.

My soul-mates are after my ass!

And, of course, the political hit job on Senator Hawley (R-MO) was sublime and delicious.

As always, go see it for yourself. These hearings are defining moments of drama in the political world of today. Don’t deprive yourself of the experience.

Keeping in mind that the Republican Party’s ideological generational lifespan is on the order of a fruit fly, here’s a sample of the next generation of Republicans.

Far-right extremist Michael Peroutka became the Republican Party’s nominee for Maryland state attorney general with a victory in Tuesday’s primary. Peroutka’s victory is a fiery red flag about the increasing extremism of the Republican Party’s base—as is the gubernatorial primary victory of Trumpist Dan Cox. In April, both Peroutka and Cox appeared at a gathering of QAnon conspiracy theorists called “Patriots Arise.”

Peroutka declared in 2014 that the Maryland General Assembly was no longer a legitimate governing body because its support for marriage equality violated God’s law, and that therefore none of the laws it passed were “legally valid and legally enforceable.”

Peroutka was a board member of the Confederacy-celebrating, pro-Southern-secessionist League of the South. At the group’s 2012 national convention, he led the crowd in singing “Dixie,” which he referred to as “the national anthem.” He quit the League in 2014 when he decided to run for the Anne Arundel County Council, claiming unconvincingly that he had been unaware of the group’s racism.

Peroutka founded the Institute on the Constitution, a Christian Reconstructionist organization that favors religious tests for public office and teaches that the government’s role is to enforce God’s law, and that the government has no legitimate authority to “house, feed, clothe, educate, or give health care to…ANYBODY!” [Right Wing Watch]

Peroutka would no doubt chase former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) out of the Party with a rolling pin in hand. He would have been a member of the Fire-Eaters had he been around during the American Civil War. It’s clear that he has no concept of Justice, just a Trust in God approach, and since he gets to specify God’s instructions, you can bet, well, it makes it easy to justify damn silliness. Don’t believe me?

VICE’s Cameron Joseph wrote about the potential for a Peroutka victory in a story published Monday. In a 2017 story for Talking Point Memo, Joseph reported that during Peroutka’s presidential campaign, Peroutka said he was still angry that Maryland hadn’t seceded in the run-up to the Civil War, praised his son for calling the Confederal flag the “American flag,” and praised his daughter for refusing to play the Battle Hymn of the Republic in her school band.

He’s a goof, a whack job, but since he’s so far to the right he should have been laughed right off the ballot and into obscurity, we can guess this is the next generation of far-right Republicans.

For readers who remember the saga of cryptocurrency company Celsius, here’s an update:

The Israeli cryptocurrency company Celsius has filed for bankruptcy, becoming the latest casualty in the worldwide cryptocurrency crash.

The New Jersey-based, Israeli-founded firm filed for bankruptcy in New York City [July 14]. Celsius said in a statement that the decision will “provide the Company with the best opportunity to stabilize the business (and) consummate a comprehensive restructuring transaction that maximizes value for all stakeholders.”

Celsius filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which allows firms to remain in operation while restricting their debt. …

Writing for the Israeli business news outlet Globes, Eti Aflalo said that Celsius used customer deposits to borrow for non-liquid investments, and that this became a problem when people wanted their money back during the recent crypto crash.

“Celsius’ big problem is that it has leveraged customers’ deposits and put it in various non-liquid investments, and so a month ago when customers began demanding their money, in the equivalent of a ‘run on the bank’ there was not enough available capital to repay all their money,” wrote Aflalo. [AL-Monitor]

Yet …

One employee of a cryptocurrency fund in Israel, who wished to remain anonymous, said that Celsius’ bankruptcy is not representative of the country’s crypto scene.

“I don’t think it’s representative of how Israel is viewed as there are many quality crypto companies and pioneers of the space here,” he told Al-Monitor. “There is a level of respect in general for Israeli tech.”

First ripple of a tsunami, or just a standard result for any industry? Time will tell.

NBC News has a report on some legislative activity:

The House passed the Respect For Marriage Act Tuesday to codify legal same-sex marriage nationwide, fearing that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court will rescind the right after it overturned Roe v. Wade last month.

The vote was 267-157, with 47 Republicans joining a unanimous Democratic caucus in supporting the legislation.

I cannot help but wonder if a rigorous SCOTUS would overturn such a law on the basis of the 10th Amendment.

Professor Richardson supplies an Earl Landgrebe group nomination:

Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who testified before the January 6 committee, has been formally censured by the Arizona Republican Party. Tonight, the chair of the party announced the censure over a number of “offenses.” The censure called for voters to throw Bowers out of office.

Quash:

To set aside; to void. As in “to quash a motion” or “quash evidence.” [Cornell Law School/Legal Information Institute]

Noted in “Republican Rep. Jody Hice subpoenaed in Georgia Trump election probe,” Dareh Gregorian, NBC News:

Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., is fighting a subpoena to testify before the Georgia special grand jury hearing evidence in an investigation into possible 2020 election interference by former President Donald Trump and others, court papers show.

Hice, a Trump ally who voted to reject the state-certified election results in Georgia and Pennsylvania on Jan. 6, is seeking to quash the subpoena from the grand jury assisting the Fulton Co. district attorney’s investigation.

Professor Richardson summarizes the Idaho GOP’s platform concerning fetuses:

And yet, on Friday, by a 4-to-1 margin, delegates to the Republican Party convention in Idaho rejected an amendment to their platform that would have permitted an abortion to save the life of the mother. The platform considers any fertilized egg a person from the moment of fertilization, even before implantation, and criminalizes abortion from that moment on as murder. The delegates did agree to exempt miscarriage from criminalization.

So, when a fetus threatens the life of the expectant mother – say, an ectopic pregnancy – should the fetus be charged with attempted murder? Threats to the life of the mother?

The fetus is a person according to them, after all.

Or should we consider the fetus, which lacks cognition and even a brain, to be possessed by some demon that requires exorcism? Should those pregnancies that endanger the health and life of the expectant mother be attended by a cleric “qualified” to exorcise demons?

Precautionary exorcisms? Sounds like a windfall for the ambitious cleric. I sense online classes in Exorcisms are an imminent business opportunity.

Serious questions. Real beard pullers, I must say.

While President Biden’s critics howl and run around about his son, how’s he doing in his primary responsibility?

Judging by the wall-to-wall coverage of the visit, with analysts hailing all the moves and gestures of the American leader, Biden clearly captured the hearts of Israelis. He managed that despite being considered a political “leftist” in Israeli terms, and an antithesis to his predecessor Donald Trump, who is more popular in Israel than in the United States. Biden was warm, attentive and sometimes funny. His love for Israel is clearly authentic and inspires trust. He is not ashamed of it, taking pride in it. Israelis love it, ignoring the fact that Biden is the last Democrat of his kind. [Ben Caspit, AL-Monitor]

But…

The “Jerusalem Declaration” signed by the two leaders during the visit, which spoke of the values shared by their countries, could become irrelevant if Israel continues its slide to the right, becoming more conservative and religious, less democratic and liberal. Israel’s distancing from the Democratic Party in recent years and from the mainstream of American Jewry is one of the most worrisome processes that threaten Israeli national security these days.

Hard to fault that after the teeth-gritting, for everyone but Trump and Trumpists, requirement that he play nice with Crown Prince and alleged murderer Mohammed bin Salman.

For those of us who prefer a rational approach to the world, this Gallup poll is somewhat encouraging:

It suggests that the Americans who once preferred the intellectually lazy position of according the Bible a literalist interpretation have given up that position for a more difficult, but satisfying position of either “inspired by God”, or “Fables.”

Or they just died off and were never replaced. Such are the ways of new generations.

Meanwhile, the closest to the atheist / agnostic position, “Fables…”, has moved from 13% to 29%.

For all that the evangelists and their literalist cousins seem to dominate discourse, they’re actually fading away in numbers, influence, and importance. Know hope.

I was struck by something Erick Erickson wrote this morning:

Now, here is the problem — that sounds good for the right. Except the right actually needs a sane competitor. The right will get intellectually lazy if the left goes crazy. And the right will further elevate its own crazy voices when it has no competition for the hearts and minds of voters.

Which is more or less what I’ve been saying for years – except the other way around. And, of course, we can point at his complete lack of reference to the January 6th insurrection, perpetrated by the right-wing, his denial of climate change “… The progressive left really does believe that climate change is dooming us. They really do think we are all going to die and they are doing their lord’s work to save us from ourselves,” and a few other factors in order to sow doubt.

But his trips off into delusion do not negate his citations of simple fact. For example, here’s a deeply unsettling nugget:

According to the far left Southern Poverty Law Center, already forty-four percent of male Democrats under fifty think assassinations of political opponents is acceptable. Those men come from a party that also thinks a human is not a human until it leaves the womb.

Only, it’s worse, because he left out more important facts from the same source:

1. Younger Democratic women are 32% approving of political assassinations
2. Younger Republican women are 40% …
3. Younger Democratic men are 54% against political assassinations
4. Younger Republican men are 57% …

The SPLC data chart.

Sure, these negate his gratuitous claim at the end of the quote. And, yes, these additional data can be spun a number of ways. But that would be ignoring the forest for the trees, and that forest is that the politically aware younger generation, regardless of attachment, has a disquieting tolerance for political assassination.

Let me repeat, regardless of attachment.

That has a dizzying variety of implications for the future. A future in which the NRA has arranged for everyone to be armed with their choice of military-grade gun, and, in a moment of truly grim humor, the CEO of the NRA, responsible for this disastrous situation, was hiding in terror on a yacht, thinking he’s a prime target.

As a side note, while I considered George Will’s recent column on youth and social media to be, maybe, doubtful, these poll results tend to reinforce Will’s points. Here’s my post on Will’s column. And then add in this WaPo article from yesterday, which covers a small collection of angry young Democrats who are convinced they’ve been betrayed by their elders, but come across as a bunch of ignorant, arrogant, lazy dweebs, convinced they have all the answers while having none of the sense that comes from a dedication to knowledge and history.

Back to Erickson, then he goes on to note the left’s autocratic streak coming out in relationship to transgenderism and a few other undeniably relevant items concerning the left.

In the end, Erickson’s post is his usual mishmash of facts, religious fantasies, propaganda, and missing facts, but it’s enough to remind me that the left, as much as it’ll scream otherwise, while playing CYA, is full of its own fantasies, blunders and denials.

A rather obvious visual allegory. The reader may fill in their favorite labels for what’s eating who.

It’s enough to make me wish for a viable third party, a party based on tolerance, not arrogance; requiring debate and discussion, and not bullying; a party with a strong plank of rationality and strong, strong support for the Establishment Clause; a party that recognizes compromise is not a weakness, but a strength, and ideological zealousness is a mark of brittleness and weakness; that science matters and should be taken seriously; that experts matter, but need to be carefully vetted and based in science; and that religious sects whose sensibilities would result in the suffering and deaths of other people, outside the sect, do not get to set law congruent with those sensibilities.

It won’t happen. Just one critique is that arrogance is considered a personal failing, not an institutional existential flaw. At least, not yet.

As always, it’s the weird shit that gets the most interest because it can illuminate the darker corners of proposed theories. Like this weird shit:

Astronomers are buzzing after observing the fastest nova ever recorded. The unusual event drew scientists’ attention to an even more unusual star. As they study it, they may find answers to not only the nova’s many baffling traits, but to larger questions about the chemistry of our solar system, the death of stars and the evolution of the Universe. …

A nova is a sudden explosion of bright light from a two-star system. Every nova is created by a white dwarf — the very dense leftover core of a star — and a nearby companion star. Over time, the white dwarf draws matter from its companion, which falls onto the white dwarf. The white dwarf heats this material, causing an uncontrolled reaction that releases a burst of energy. The explosion shoots the matter away at high speeds, which we observe as visible light.

The bright nova usually fades over a couple of weeks or longer. On June 12, 2021, the nova V1674 Hercules burst so bright that it was visible to the naked eye — but in just over one day, it was faint once more. It was like someone flicked a flashlight on and off. [News and Events (University of Minnesota)]

Sometimes I think astronomer’s minds start to burnout from trying to figure out what the hell is going on out there. After all, famed Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb figures some puzzling features of ‘Oumuamua means it’s an alien artifact.

So will this fascinating phenomenon lead to a rabbit hole? There’s more to lure them:

As the astronomy world watched V1674 Hercules, other researchers found that its speed wasn’t its only unusual trait. The light and energy it sends out is also pulsing like the sound of a reverberating bell.

Every 501 seconds, there’s a wobble that observers can see in both visible light waves and X-rays. A year after its explosion, the nova is still showing this wobble, and it seems it’s been going on for even longer. Starrfield and his colleagues have continued to study this quirk.

“The most unusual thing is that this oscillation was seen before the outburst, but it was also evident when the nova was some 10 magnitudes brighter,” said Wagner, who is also the head of science at the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory being used to observe the nova. “A mystery that people are trying to wrestle with is what’s driving this periodicity that you would see it over that range of brightness in the system.”

Hurry up with the cleverness, y’all!

When I ran across “Why Bitcoin’s Anonymity Could Soon Collapse Like A House of Cards,” apparently from The Physics arXiv Blog, in Discover, I looked forward to learning about possible weaknesses in Bitcoin. Instead, though, I was distracted by all the mistakes and typos. Shall we take a quick look?

Bitcoin’s remarkable growth in value is a curious story. Launched in March 2009 worth $0, Bitcoin reached parity with the dollar in September 2011. In November last year it peaked in value at over $60,000 and at the time of writing its worth has collapsed to around $20,000.

Remarkably vague and even useless. Are we talking total worth of all Bitcoins? Per Bitcoin? While, given the last value, I know it’s per Bitcoin, someone approaching this cold would be completely baffled.

In its early days, Bitcoin was particularly vulnerable to a kind of exploit called a “51 per cent attack”, which allows individuals or groups working together to spend the same Bitcoins repeatedly. So economists are curious about why nobody gamed the system to take more for themselves, particularly when Bitcoin’s anonymity would have protected them.

Question, question, I have a question: If you have the power to rewrite history, is it not possible to rewrite history so no one realizes it’s been rewritten? Asking for a friend.

First, some background. Bitcoin is a digital currency in which transactions are continually recorded this list encrypted so it cannot easily be changed. This forms a block. The next list of transactions includes this block which are again encrypted, creating a “blockchain”.

Well, that’s a garbled mess. My understanding is that one or more transactions make up a block, which is then added to the blockchain, which is replicated throughout the supporting network of computing platforms.

The encryption process is computationally expensive. So anybody who performs this encryption is rewarded with newly minted Bitcoin. This process is called mining.

No, No, No! Mining is a competitive process in which the first to the goal gets the coin, and the energy consumed by failed competitors is wasted. This is part, perhaps the major part, to be concerned about the existence of all cryptocurrencies using this approach.

The blockchain is published on a distributed ledger so it can be publicly verified. Any mistakes or errors or disagreements about the list of transactions are resolved by majority. This makes the transaction records secure because, in ordinary circumstances, no one individual can change the majority of the blockchain copies.

Majority what? Come on. I’m not even going to bother with a joke here.

Well, that appears to be it for typos and misunderstandings, but it really does raise questions about how well the author(s) understand the topic. I think it’s interesting that anonymization on the Bitcoin network may be flawed, but I won’t blog about it extensively until a second source shows up.

If they even got that right.

What? More news?

• Professor Richardson reminds me that Senator Grassley (R-IA) made noises about presiding over the counting of Electoral Votes on January 5th, 2020, and thus replacing VP Mike Pence, who had already made clear that he had no intention in participating in the former President’s alleged illegal scheme to stop the counting of the Electoral votes. This was later walked back by Grassley’s staff. Why is this important? His opponent in this year’s election, Mike Franken, might be well advised to use this information to tie Grassley to the disgraced former President, who is taking destructive body blows from the House investigating committee. If Grassley is successfully associated with a scheme to overturn a democratic and fair election, Iowa voters may decide they’ve had enough of Grassley.
• The release of the report LOST, NOT STOLEN: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election, by various main-line conservatives who exhaustively analyze and reject all the Trumpian claims concerning the 2020 Presidential election, may or may not have an impact on the Senate elections featuring Trump allies.
• Yay, Nevada has a poll: Senator Cortez Masto (D) leads challenger Adam Laxalt (R), 44-41, with 6 points more planning to vote independent, and 9% are undecided. This is an Emerson College Polling result; FiveThirtyEight considers Emerson College Polling to be an A- outfit. This lead seems precarious.
• Yay, Washington has a poll, too: Senator Murray (D) leads challenger Tiffany Smiley (R) by 18 points, according to SurveyUSA. This pollster gets an ‘A’ grade from FiveThirtyEight. Smiley has quite the hill to climb. Interestingly, she rates as a moderate, at least according to By The Issues (see Washington link, above), so I’m not sure if the far-right extremists refuse to vote for her, and/or if the independents are so disgusted with the Republicans that she’s catching the blowback.
• Georgia continues to get lots of coverage: the Georgia AARP conducted a poll showing incumbent Senator Warnock (D) leading challenger Herschel Walker by three points, 50-47. Those are high numbers for this early in the race. I have no idea if Georgia AARP polling is respectable or not.
• I somehow missed that newcomer Natalie James (D) won the Democratic primary and thus the right to challenge incumbent Senator John Boozman (R) in Arkansas. No polls noted as of yet, so no new drama.
• In Iowa, a Des Moines Register/MediaCom poll gives incumbent Senator Grassley (R) an eight point lead, leaving challenger Michael Franken (D) quite a hill to climb. However, FiveThirtyEight admits to no knowledge concerning this pollster, so it’s difficult to guess as to its accuracy. Franken’s challenge is certainly less than Grassley’s 35 point average victory margin.
• Finally, my current summary of seats in danger. Democrats: Senator Masto in Nevada may be the most in peril, with a 3 point lead over Adam Laxalt, although Warnock of Georgia may or may not be in trouble, and a few Democrats remain unknowns due to unconcluded GOP primaries, such as Kelly of Arizona. Republican seats in danger or worse: Pennsylvania (incumbent retiring), Ohio (incumbent retiring), North Carolina (incumbent retiring), Johnson of Wisconsin, maybe even Lee of Utah, shockingly Missouri (incumbent retiring), and Iowa, as Senator Grassley may only be up by five – eight points and has potentially very bad news looming on the horizon.

Previous, old, tattered updates here.

Speaking of inflation, Iran’s not doing so well, either:

Iran’s official inflation rate is reaching new highs. The Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) — the country’s main statistics agency — reported a monthly inflation rate of 12.2% and a point-to-point rate of 52.5% for the Iranian month ending June 21. Both are record numbers.

The monthly inflation rate reports the changes in the consumer price index — based on a set basket of commodities — within the 30 days from May 22 to June 21. An average Iranian family lost 10% of its shopping power within this 30-day period. Iranian consumers are paying 50% more for the same products compared to spring 2021. The loss of real income and purchasing power for many Iranian families is significant and irreversible. [AL-Monitor]

An annual inflation rate of 52.5% for Iran, if I understand that correctly, vs a current rate of 9.1% for the United States. I’ll be interested in the post-analysis, maybe five years from now, and not so much the frenzied claims of pundits and economists of today.

Hector:

to talk and behave towards someone in a loud and unpleasantly forceful way, especially in order to get them to act or think as you want [Cambridge Dictionary]

Noted in “Against the Case Against the Sexual Revolution,” Emma Collins, Year Zero Review of Books:

There’s a reason Rage Against the Machine’s most popular song, with its frantic repeated refrain of “FUCK YOU, I WON’T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME,” is a singularly American piece of art. And to use social justice parlance, I am tired. I am tired of being morally hectored. Exhausted, even, as I suspect many of us are. I am tired of hearing about how horrible it is to be a woman, of how being desired is traumatic instead of thrilling. I am tired of hearing about rape instead of sexual ecstasy.

Ed Simon on Religion & Politics, who I quoted for a Word Of The Day, doesn’t much care for the current SCOTUS and their biased rulings:

Regarding Carson v. Makin, Chief Justice John Roberts argued in his majority opinion that Maine had violated the “Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.” Kelly Shackelford, President and Chief Counsel for the conservative advocacy group First Liberty Institute claimed that the rulings represented a “great day for religious liberty in America.” In actuality, it was the exact opposite. Neither this ruling nor the one in [Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, decided in favor of a praying football coach, and in which the decision was flawed by a misstatement of the facts by Justice Gorsuch, IJ] was in the tradition of a vibrant American secularism; neither decision will encourage a rich agora of religious introspection and theological contemplation. Those attributes of American society which so impressed de Tocqueville will be further blunted, allowing agents of the state to give official sanction to their own personal faith to the detriment of all others. The decree of those six justices wasn’t just anti-American – it was also anti-religious.

Why?

Not only is mandated, state-sanctioned belief damaging to the government and to all of those whom the state represents, but such decisions are also destructive to religion. Drawing upon that vibrant religious tradition of non-conformism, exemplified by theologians like Rhode Island founder Roger Williams and Pennsylvania’s founder William Penn, Thomas Jefferson coined the phrase “separation of church and state.” He reflected that if God will “ever please to restore His garden and paradise again, it must of necessity be walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world, and all that be saved out of the world are to be transplanted out of the wilderness of the World.” Jefferson, the anti-Trinitarian deist, understood well the intrinsic religious value of disestablishment; in the intellectually separated quiet of non-compelled religion, there is a flourishing of faith’s flowers.

Power’s responsibilities compel attention, and thus removes attention from the spiritual elements that are the sects’ supposed reason to exist. The one that achieves power inevitably stains itself with dishonor as it finds governance, already a difficult endeavour, made near-impossible by the arrogance of men and women who think some Divinity has anointed them incapable of error.

Simon is quite right: deprived of power, sects will have a chance to grow true to their nature, whether they are Quakers or a Jim Jones sect.

A reader remarks on a potential nation-wide strike by railway workers:

I’d rather like it if they did go on strike, I think.

American capitalism needs a wake-up call. There’s a good chance I’d lose my job if the strike were lengthy, since I work for a company very dependent on cargo logistics. But the amount of abuse inflicted on workers by ever-more-cost-shaving corporations has got to stop.

Quite often I’ll run across remarks to the affect that American workers don’t vote in their own economic self-interest. This is an example just such a voter, who prefers to think of the future of the country rather than their own narrow interests.

My concern is that a strike would throw the November election back in the favor of Republicans, who are terrible at governing and national management.

A few days ago I mentioned, purely as a hypothetical exercise, the idea of impeaching those SCOTUS Justices who voted Yay in the Dobbs decision. Not for voting Yay, of course, but assenting to the use of false history, as asserted by the Organization of American Historians, in the justification of their vote. That they don’t know better, or worse do, but were desperate to reach the judgment that they did, is a condemnation of the implicit, ahem, institutional judgment by their professional colleagues that they are the best of the best^[1]. It even suggests that this group of Republican-nominated Justices might just be … fourth-raters.

I had not expected to ever bring up the subject of impeachment again.

But then along came a Center For Inquiry, which is either akin to, or an actual, “freethinkers” organization, citation of a rather horrific, within the context of the legal world, Rolling Stone allegation:

On July 6, Rolling Stone reported that Peggy Nienaber, described in the article as executive director of DC Ministry for Liberty Counsel, though Liberty Counsel maintains that this title was made up for the article, and described her instead as “vice president of Faith & Liberty,” was caught on tape confessing to having prayed with Supreme Court Justices inside the court building and inside the homes of unspecified Justices. Liberty Counsel is a prominent conservative religious advocacy group that has brought several cases before the Supreme Court, filed at least seventeen amicus curiae briefs, and whose brief was cited in the overturning Roe v. Wade.

In a letter to Chief Justice Roberts, CFI and its allies request a formal investigation into these claims, writing, “If confirmed, the allegations cast serious doubt on the impartiality of multiple justices and the Court itself.”

Impartiality indeed. A judge being buddy-buddy with people and organizations that come before that judge in one of the most solemn and important legal forums on the planet isn’t a minor oopsie! or a She told me she was over eighteen! moment, as we might hear Rep Gaetz (R-FL) use in defending himself in the near future.

No, this is a major faux-pas that a member of the Federal judiciary of the seniority and standing of a Justice of SCOTUS shouldn’t have to think twice of not doing.

So, if this is true – and it’s merely an allegation at this juncture – then this behavior doesn’t require a reprimand. It requires an impeachment and removal of all implicated Justices, and a rehearing of all cases in which the offending Justices took part.

Because, clearly, they’ve been bought off. Not necessarily with money, but there are other objects of value: sentimentality comes right to mind.

So, yep, we may be seeing impeachments of SCOTUS judges in the future if Democrats do as well as I suspect they will in November. It won’t be vengeance. It’ll be proper oversight.

And all the fourth-raters will greatly, greatly resent it.

¹ OK, OK, that’s a bit of hyperbole. The politics of SCOTUS nominations is a well-known and voluminous subject. So, yes, not all SCOTUS nominees and Justices have been considered to be at the top of their profession. While I don’t have a list of such nominees in front of me, along with their ABA ratings, names that were less than absolutely top-notch at the time of nomination include George H. W. Bush-nominated and current Justice Clarence Thomas, George W. Bush’s White House Counsel Harriet Myers, who withdrew prior to confirmation hearings, and, of course, George H. W. Bush-nominated Robert Bork, who was rejected by a bipartisan coalition of Senators, and later revealed to have taken a bribe from then-President Nixon in the form of … a promise of nomination to SCOTUS. And thus became the hatchet-man in the Saturday Night Massacre.

But I suppose this was merely an indulgence on my part.

More on anticipated European weather from the UK’s Met Office:

The high pressure near the southern half of the UK, which has been responsible for this week’s warm weather, continues to dominate bringing largely dry and clear weather for most. However, during the weekend, a developing southerly flow will allow very high temperatures currently building over the continent to start to spread northwards into the UK. Further north, eastern areas of Scotland could see temperatures in in the high 20°C in a few places, well above their average for the time of year.

And

This is the first time we have forecast 40°C in the UK. The current record high temperature in the UK is 38.7°C, which was reached at Cambridge Botanic Garden on 25 July in 2019.

Weather forecast models are run numerous times to help us quantify the likelihood of a particular event occurring and estimate the uncertainty which is always present in weather forecasting to some degree. Some models are now producing a 50% chance of maximum temperatures in excess of 40°C in isolated parts of the UK for the start of next week. Mid, to high, 30s Celsius will be seen more widely with an 80% chance we will exceed the current record.

Extreme heat warnings in cool nations is never a good thing.

⚠️⚠️🔴 Red Extreme heat warning issued 🔴⚠️⚠️

Parts of England on Monday and Tuesday

Latest info 👉 https://t.co/QwDLMg9c70

Stay #WeatherAware ⚠️ pic.twitter.com/YHaYvaGh95

— Met Office (@metoffice) July 15, 2022

Good luck to the UKers.

Latitudinarian:

: not insisting on strict conformity to a particular doctrine or standard : TOLERANT
specifically: tolerant of variations in religious opinion or doctrine [Merriam-Webster]

Noted in “Separation of Church and State Has Always Been Good for Religion,” Ed Simon, Religion & Politics:

In America, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” the First Amendment reads. But its piety was ensured by what follows that comma, for the state shall not prohibit “the free exercise thereof.” Such latitudinarian tolerance in the combination of the establishment clause and the free exercise clause was responsible for transforming America into a veritable spiritual laboratory. Tocqueville understood that the greatest aid for faith was removing it from its position of direct political power, noting that “religion cannot share the material strengths of the rulers without suffering some of those animosities which the latter arouse.” This was a lesson well understood in Tocqueville’s America. When the Frenchmen would inquire as to the reasons for such spiritual vibrancy in the New World, Americans “mainly attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country to the separation of church and state.”

It took me only … three or four months … to finish Cixin Liu’s Three Body Problem.

I was not beset by unusual activity or delays.

Its clunky style – or is that the Chinese style? – just didn’t catch my attention.

Although I did appreciate the scanty peek he gives us into the political and military swirls of the Cultural Revolution, of which I know very, very little. To nothing.

Back to Jack Vance?

Taken this morning, a fine lily.

OK, so the composition’s a bit mediocre. I LIKE ORANGE FLOWERS.

For those January 6th insurrectionists who didn’t confess and had to be convicted at trial, this may be dismaying:

BREAKING: The DOJ has filed its sentencing memo asking a judge to order Guy Reffitt — the first J6 defendant convicted at trial — to serve 15 years in prison. They argue his actions warrant a terrorism enhancement. Link: https://t.co/iIC7hexQI2 pic.twitter.com/htZJ5uhEK7

— Jordan Fischer (@JordanOnRecord) July 15, 2022

Reffitt, so far as I can see, supplied his own evidence of guilt. He was also the dude who threatened to kill his own children if they tipped off the FBI, which I believe they did. A search of his home was very unfortunate for him as well.

He seems to live to be angry at the government.

If Stewart Rhods, head of the Oath Keepers, is found guilty of treasonous sedition, what’ll be the recommended sentence? Maybe thirty years for trying to overthrow the government?

I don’t like your performance, my dear. Homer, get Chewbacca to replace her, I’ve heard he’s tired of being stereotyped.

It’s pouring rain, the road is a mudpit, the car dates from the ’30s – the 1930s, not the 2030s – and the catty couple in the backseat, a Broadway producer named Wood, and his secretary, a Homer Erskine, are engaged in their usual foreplay, while the driver, Ames, has to avoid a tree blocking the road. Forced to slog their way to a nearby house, the real question raises its head from the muck:

Is this just a house, or is it a one night only theater, purely for the seduction of Wood and his production company?

That’s The Ghost Walks’s (1934) beginning.

And it leads to an important question: If a character dies, does it matter? What if the actor portraying the character is also dead? Is it fidelity to her art?

And then her body disappears? Negative points, maybe?

For all that the script needed refinement, that the tension between Wood and Erskine is just a trifle repetitive, this is actually a bit of unexpected fun. It wasn’t laugh-out-loud funny, but it did make me smile unexpectedly, even at the climactic plot twist.

And now we’ll need everyone to go push the car out of the muck.