Not the Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy) (2010) is the oratorio based on the classic Monty Python’s Life Of Brian (1979), featuring a full orchestra and A-list singers, along with members of the Monty Python troupe, all coordinated by the inimitable Eric Idle. I thought was great fun; my Arts Editor called it genius.

If you like Monty Python, it’s worth a gander.

The best information is from experienced reporters on the ground, and that’s what Art Cullen, editor of the Storm Lake Times, can deliver about the Senate race involving incumbent Republican Joni Ernst and Democratic challenger Theresa Greenfield (D-IA) in our neighbor to the south, Iowa. Here he’s writing for WaPo:

Ernst trails Greenfield among women by 20 points in the Iowa Poll; all those votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act left some bruises; rural hospitals are on the verge of closing, and urban hospitals are shutting down maternity wards to cut costs. Duly noted.

Then there’s the court vacancy. The Republicans think this vote will help them with the pro-life crowd. I am not sure I follow that logic. In Iowa, abortion is already factored into the calculus for Ernst. People who vote on that issue have been energized and organized since 1973. They’re the reason Trump is even in the equation in Iowa. That support is maxed out, I believe.

I’ve come to regard abortion as the existential crowbar of American politics. All it takes is some incompetent, even malicious, third-rate boob running around proclaiming their pro-life credentials, and, in many parts of the country, the single issue anti-abortion voters will happily ignore the highly experienced and competent candidate who happens to be pro-choice and vote for the boob.

And then again. And again. Even among the smoking ruins caused by the boob. Thus, existentiality.

At some point, you’d think that someone has to sit down and realize that incompetency has consequences, and what lead to the incompetent getting into power needs to be analyzed, and conclusions drawn.

It seems to me that if anti-abortion was this magic position, this sacred life thing, then simply always following the rule of voting for the pro-lifer should lead to positive outcomes; when it doesn’t, and doesn’t repeatedly, that suggests that the anti-abortion position may not be the top-of-the-mountain issue that pro-lifers continually screech over.

But will that occur? I’m talking about rationality here; rationality is a tool in our toolbox, but not our essence. Someone talks about how life is sacred, and no one really wants to be the person who said, Wait, what? The social consequences can be severe. And so the herd goes trotting that-a-way.

All that said, I suspect that not only is Cullen right, but the turnout for the anti-abortion faction may be smaller than expected. This would be the result of two factors: first, the aforementioned disasters will certainly catch the attention of some anti-abortion single issue voters, and some of them will drop the latter clause, if not the former clause, and choose to vote Biden and Greenfield, even if they’re biting their tongues.

Second, the upcoming confirmation of Barrett, assuming it goes through, will ratchet down the tension about voting for Ernst and Greenfield. No open seat, why vote for the scoundrel Trump, and his henchwoman, Ernst? It’s already morally distasteful, and while there’s a distinct possibility that the next President may appoint up to four SCOTUS Justices, the fact that it’s not being talked about suggests it won’t be on voters’ minds.

So I have some cautious hopes that Trump-enable Senator Ernst will end her political career in November. The tide seems to be running that way. The bet is off if Barrett fails confirmation, though…

I was a little dumbfounded at this naive remark:

I don't get the "Trump has big debts, therefore he could be blackmailed, or do something reckless to pay them off" argument. He's always owed lots of money. He's shown no compunction about declaring bankruptcy. Why do we think it'll be different this time around?

— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) September 28, 2020

Listen, not all sources of funds are banks. Some are what we so quaintly call loan sharks. A loan shark doesn’t care if you declare bankruptcy, he just sends a dude with a rifle to make an example of you.

And Trump knows this. He already owes money up the wazoo, and he’s proven himself to be quite a foolish person, so it’s not beyond imagination that he’s into someone – say, some petty dictator – that would take great umbrage at losing money at any substantial scale.

And, of course, there’s more than one way to make an example of someone. Over the last four years it’s become clear, from the examples set by Jeffrey Epstein, President Trump, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and others, that reputation is another greatly valued possession, and while virtually no one wants a bad reputation, up there in the financially rarified atmosphere where Trump and other billionaires – or wannabes – fly, many actually value their reputation as billionaires almost as much as the billions themselves.

And this is not even foolish: Such reputations can make or break deals.

The leak of his tax returns has not had their identity revealed, which leads me to speculate that what we’re seeing right now could be the beginning of the end of Trump the Billionaire Deal Maker, as orchestrated by another billionaire – or as a very public lesson in why you pay back borrowed money. Oh, I don’t think the chances are great that either speculation will turn out to be true, and I wouldn’t put any money on either, but it’s not impossible.

It’s no secret that most movies made in the last thirty years cost absurd amounts of money.

Absurd. Megan McArdle reports that the recently released Tenet (2020), directed by Christopher Nolan, required revenues of around $400 million in order to break even, and it didn’t even get close. McArdle goes on:

Which leaves us with two open questions: First, how long will it take to get enough people vaccinated that we can once again blithely sit down in the dark with a bunch of strangers who are probably pulling down their masks to munch popcorn? In the United States, at least, the numbers keep getting more discouraging. Fewer than 40 percent of Americans say they’ll get a vaccine when it’s available, a decline that seems to be driven by partisan fear as much as medical uncertainty.

The longer it takes, the more urgent becomes the second question: Will theaters still be around when viewers are ready to go back? Theater chains are already facing a debt crisis that will become dire if they have to go another year without any significant revenue, as are the shopping malls where many of those theaters are housed. The modern movie business has been tuned to operate at vast scale, opening mega-budget blockbusters on thousands of screens at once. It’s unclear what happens if a significant portion of that capacity simply vanishes in the course of a year or two.

Parlous:

very bad, dangerous, or uncertain:

• Relations between the two countries have been in a parlous state for some time.
• I’d like to buy a new car, but my finances are in such a parlous state that I can’t afford to. [Cambridge Dictionary]

Noted in “Donald Trump Has Been Losing Money Every Year Since 2012,” Kevin Drum, Mother Jones:

Trump’s story turns out to be pretty simple. After screwing everybody in sight during the ’90s, he entered 2000 in parlous shape. What saved him was The Apprentice, which earned him a boatload of money and formed the foundation of his flurry of licensing and endorsement deals over the next few years. But as revenue from the show faded, so did Trump’s finances, and since 2012 he’s been losing money every year. Long story short, Trump has lost money at pretty much everything he’s ever done. The only exception is The Apprentice and the licensing money it enabled—which probably owes more to reality show mogul Mark Burnett than to Trump himself.

… by mere plexiglass.

Just the tongues alone are enough to inspire terror!

And yet this lady won’t do a thing about it.

My Arts Editor at work.

Arts Editor: [Cats] are Scions of Entropy.

Me: True, but are they green or blue?

AE: Eh?

Me: Are they traffic scions or hospital scions?

AE: …

The New York Times report on the tax information of President Trump, which paints him as a con man extraordinaire, would, for a rational people, be the final nail in the coffin of a politician who has proven to be little more than incompetent at his job, a showman, and a con man.

We are not a rational people.

I’m looking for just a small dip in approval ratings, if that. For the typical Trump cultist, it’s been dinned into them that the mainstream news is fake news.

They are too deeply invested to pull their support in terms of social standing and the local power structure. They might give up on Trump if they were harboring doubts, but even if they had based their support on the now-revealed lie that Trump was a successful business man, they’re in too deep. Just mention Trump’s name and they experience an endorphin rush.

And if they’ve achieved an elected position based on their support of Trump, they’ll clutch his knees all the harder. His success is their success; they’ll simply go along with Trump’s claims that this is fake news, as he claimed at a news conference yesterday.

The most interesting reactions will come from elected officials – such as members of Congress – who were already in office when Trump was elected, and have not associated themselves with Trump. So I’m not talking about Jordan or Gaetz or lickspittle Graham, but Romney, Senator Lee (R-UT), maybe Senator Sasse (R-NE), maybe Senator Sullivan (R-AK). Do they stick to the President, or do they walk away?

I’m guessing they’re too conditioned to condemn him, with the possible exception of Senator Romney (R-UT), although his decision to support Trump’s wish to appoint the next SCOTUS Justice leaves me doubtful.

The last possibility is that Senators locked in harsh reelection battles may distance themselves from Trump, but that may be difficult for some, such as Loeffler and McSally, two appointed Senators trying to win their special elections. They’ve locked themselves to Trump, and may find themselves going down with the ship.

But look for long-time Maine Senator Collins to distance herself even more. Heavens knows she’s been the most disloyal of the Republican Senators to Trump.

So … yes, I don’t expect much to come of this. Trump loyalists have too much invested. Hell, National Review, a former NeverTrump publication, this morning has lead articles headlined:

Why the Federalist Society and Other Institutions Matter (with a secondary of how the President’s success is dependent on those conservative institutions, rather than, like, his own behavior?)

New Project Veritas Video: Voter Fraud in Ilhan Omar’s District (nothing in the local StarTribune – at least not yet)

Revolution by Shenanigan (or, how the Democrats have rewritten the Constitution and will impose it on us)

But nothing on the tax return revelations. A pity. Maybe they’re just not fast. Or maybe they’re looking for the proper spin.

Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) sets fire to Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX):

Watching Amy destroy lying Ted is delicious
pic.twitter.com/R8qbx49ZLG

— Molly Jong-Fast🏡 (@MollyJongFast) September 26, 2020

... what are we going to do?
Fight, fight, fight!

One of the under-discussed, but most important functions of political parties, is keeping the kooks out. Kooks, in this case, are people who carry ideas concerning the acquisition of power, and/or the practice of governance, that are deleterious to society’s over all function.

I.e., they’d fuck society over for the advantage of the kooks, although this motivation is often hidden, consciously or not, behind any of a multitude of facades. Two that come right to mind are religion and the good of the people.

It’s become apparent that the Republican Party has failed in this primary function, and that’s why it’s sinking into the Sea of Disrepute with independents, the a-political, and the horde of former Republicans who’ve fled their sinking ship. Their total devotion to a President who appears to teeter on the edge of autocratic dementia marks them as being a collection of the power-hungry and the kooks.

Which leads to the obvious question: What about the Democrats? As they are now functioning as the de facto conservatives in the American political landscape, if they want to practice responsible governance, they must attract enough of the independent centrists and center-rights to win elections, and that means keeping their own kooks out of power. Consider this mail I recently received from a former “very conservative” friend of mine:

I have been “feeling” my way through politics most of my adult life. I listen to the debates, and I think “that side just makes sense to me”. I try to listen objectively, but I tend to agree with conservative thinking over liberal thinking. In fact, as open minded as I try to be, sometimes I want to throw my pen and say “does that liberal even HEAR what he is saying?”

And I’ve heard this refrain many times over the years from other folks. To my mind, there are two possible problems for the liberal:

1. The liberals are failing to communicate effectively, OR
2. They’re kooks (and not liberals).

And I do worry about the far-left wing, especially in light of a recent TV news report (WCCO) in which they interviewed a woman attending the brief visit of President Trump to Bemidji, Minnesota. Her statement, boiled down, was that she had voted Clinton in 2016, but, gee, the Republicans seemed to make so much more sense, so maybe she’d vote Trump this time.

Although she could have easily been a plant, and I shouted at the TV Are you fucking kidding me!, it does occur to me that if the far-left is viewed as the current or future state of the Democrats, this response, as ill-informed as it is, makes sense.

So what is it about the far-left that’s bothering me? Andrew Sullivan has been ranting about this since, oh, January I suppose. To me, since I live in the middle of the country, it’s seemed a bit obscure, as I’ve not run into any actual proponents of what’s called critical theory. For those who are interested, this incident may be an example of critical theory brought into our reality.

However, this tweet, touted by Sullivan, finally brought into focus the reason critical theory needs to be bounced around and then out of the realm of serious political discourse:

I get regular invites to debate on various platforms. I always say no.

Because debate is an imperialist capitalist white supremacist cis heteropatriarchal technique that transforms a potential exchange of knowledge into a tool of exclusion & oppression.

My standard reply: pic.twitter.com/pwuV5evBKP

— Sunny Singh (@ProfSunnySingh) September 24, 2020

Ignore the polysyllabic jibber-jabber, which I’m not dissing, as technical jargon has its place, but … here it’s just meant to distract the reader from the real intellectual abyss at the center of critical theory.

And that’s the refusal to debate.

Debate, the free exchange of ideas and critiques, is the most important part of improving one’s intellectual state, after the process of study. By the word debate, I don’t confine it to the formal, face-to-face debate, but all informal modes, all of which Professor Singh rejects with this important “standard reply”:

I would be delighted to accept an invitation in the future should there be an opportunity for a reparative and contemplative – rather than adversarial – exchange of ideas.

[Typos mine]

In essence, the use of the word reparative is an implicit insistence that her position is right and all others are wrong, and contemplative means beyond debate.

Or, to use Sullivan’s pithy summary: And also perhaps because debate is one of the most effective tools in rooting out ideological bullshit.

I think my formerly very conservative friend would be beating her head on the table if he were exposed to Singh’s patronizing statement.

But it may be worthwhile to talk about fascism at this point. I have little political science training, so sometimes I get a little confused why some labels are applied to one side of the political spectrum, but not the other. I’m aware that non-monarchical, non-theocratic autocrats on the right, who accept no limits on power or the processes of gaining power, are called fascists.

But what about the left? Often, behind the veil of Power to the people and Workers should own the means of production – slogans which have their own valid motivations – autocrats also operate, from V. Lenin to Gorbachev, Mao to Jinping, from one Kim to another Kim. Importantly, these far-left regimes gained political power through the unrestrained use of violence, both to gain it and retain it. Usually, power retention is achieved via purges, a common feature of far-left regimes.

And, swinging back to the right side of the political spectrum, autocrats also gained power through unrestrained power. Think of the Brownshirts, or the Spanish Civil War: fascists all. And purges are also a salient part of the fascist regimes, most spectacularly in Nazi Germany^[3]. Left & right, purges hide behind ideological (“capitalist!”) or religious (“blasphemer!”) curtains, but always leave their victims bereft of political power, or bereft of their lives, but the real point is that purges function as a tool of those looking to gain more and more power.

I appreciate there may be operational differences, such as left-fringe draping themselves in veils imprinted with people slogans, while fascists use faux-religious claims, but in the end they operate the same.

So let’s call them, left and right, fascists.

Each side claims to be so right that they need not debate any longer. They’re right because they say they are. And that claim is not only hubristic, but it functions as an operational bulkhead, because if you tell your followers that they need not debate with those who would critique them, but merely impose their mob politics on lesser, weaker groups – which applies both left and right – then you, the mob boss, have effectively closed off a weak chink in your ideological armor.

You’ve told your followers to be orthodox, as you define it.

Of course, it’s not a perfect bulkhead. Some people have the audacity to think for themselves. You’re better off without them.

But if the ideology of your mob is sufficiently divergent from reality, a corrective slap to the head will – eventually – occur. We saw this with the Soviet Union, as it discovered its ideological approach could not keep up with the Western approach. We’re seeing it in California now, as the climate change deniers are seeing all their specious claims going up in smoke.

It’s worth taking a moment to note the importance of debate. The point of debate is to persuade the audience, if not the adversary, of the correctness of your position: to change minds, and consequently actions. But it’s not physically violent. I chug into a debate on my own two legs, and I chug out, again on my own two legs – not on a stretcher. And that’s the most important point of agreeing to, and benefiting from, being part of a liberal political system^[1] – to accept the centrality of reason^[2], to understand that being wrong in the arena of reality and reason implies being open to changing one’s mind, and accept that engaging in political violence is utterly unacceptable and will be punished.

For my purposes, I think I finally understand what has Sullivan and other thinkers, such as Jonathan Chait, so upset for the last year or so. By discarding this key part of the liberal political system, those supporting critical theory become illiberal.

And, bowing to the power of words, I think illiberal is not strong enough. Let’s call them incipient fascists. Or just fascists.

If you think you’re beyond debate, if your goal is political power and the mob is good enough for you, you’re a fascist. Kiss your brothers on the right on the cheek before you plunge that knife into their backs. Because that’s the essence of mob politics. The knife, not the kissing, that is; I request the kissing merely as a sentimental indication that critical theorists were, once, civilized.

¹ Not be confused with “those damn liberals.” There’s a large difference between the two, and the liberal democracy properly encompasses what we today call socialists, to Democrats, to right-centrists – but not the critical theory supporters, nor the Party of Trump.

² And this is why the magical thinking rampant in many religions finds the liberal democracies in which they are embedded an uncomfortable fit. Indeed, as they stray further and further into this magical thinking, that tells them that their divinity has selected them to be important, the less and less well they fit into that democracy, until it becomes an evil that has been revealed to them, and must be replaced with a benevolent theocracy. Or escaped into insularity, where many turn out to conceal crimes by the leaders. Sometimes I wish I was a social scientist who was being paid to actually measure these tendencies, rather than just a software engineer, noticing them in passing.

³ I’ll bet you thought I’d forgotten about the Nazis.

Euchre:

… tr.v. eu·chred, eu·chring, eu·chres
1. To prevent (an opponent) from taking three tricks in euchre.
2. To deceive by sly or underhand means; cheat: euchred us out of our life savings. [The Free Dictionary]

The second meaning, above, noted in the old TV series Peter Gunn, episode Spell of Murder, in which a bartender is noting the price of a bottle of bourbon vs. how many servings he’s expected to extract from it, at what price, as he “euchres” his customers.

Which was apropos of nothing, a part of the charm of Peter Gunn.

From …

Every single hour in South Carolina, Lindsey Graham is being violently out-fundraised.

But you can help stop the suffering. pic.twitter.com/9rDS5naJ4V

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) September 25, 2020

The Official Elected Lickspittle of the United States.

A gullibility note from Paul Fidalgo at CFI:

The stereotype says that it’s older folks who fall for online scams, but when it comes to COVID-19 misinformation, it’s the dang kids: “People under the age of 25 had an 18% probability of believing a false claim, compared to only 9% of people over 65,” according to a big study from Harvard, Rutgers, Northeastern, and Northwestern (or, HRNN, pronounced “hrrrrrnnnnnnn” like when you have a stomach ache).

You’d think the natives would be better at tracking the scams than those damn chrono-interlopers.

Perhaps it’s not the medium, but the message, after all.

This made me laugh:

Image credit: A Pakistani in the Bundesrepublik

Perched on a steep hilltop in southern Germany, the striking turrets of Hohenzollern Castle rise in contrast to the rolling countryside that surrounds them. The fortress is the ancestral seat of Germany’s last imperial family. If the country still had a monarchy today, the castle’s owners would be its royal family, led by Georg Friedrich, whose ceremonial title is also his legal surname: Prince of Prussia.

Inside, the would-be Kaiser Prince Georg cranes his neck towards an ornate family tree painted on the wall behind him. He proudly describes his lineage, which traces back through centuries of kings and queens who ruled over Prussia (a once-vast area that included parts of modern-day Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Russia and Denmark) through German monarchs like his great-great-grandfather, the Kaiser who led the country into World War I.

But, along with the castle and the wealth, Prince Georg has also inherited a very public and, at times, ugly legal battle with authorities to reclaim a family fortune confiscated after the fall of the Nazis. According to Prince Georg, the vast collection of more than 10,000 items includes everything from priceless artworks to the opulent heirlooms of German history’s most powerful and important family. [CNN/Style]

But there is an interesting question coming out of this mess: how do property rights propagate from one political system to the next?

A property right, to my mind, is defined by the political system in which it exists. It defines the rights and responsibilities that go along with it. But what happens if the political system which is defining it is replaced by another political system?

Are property rights greater than political systems? I think the answer is no. Consider the change from monarchy to communism in Russia, where property rights almost disappeared – although under the monarchy, it wasn’t much different for the peasantry.

Therefore, the replacement political system gets to define how property transfers between political systems as suits its needs. That means finding rationales for its rules which fit the philosophy buttressing the political system.

In this particular case of this Prince Georg, I would tell him to go make his own way in the world. His family constituted a monarchy for centuries, and monarchies were not famed for their progressive property rights views – that is, much of what he claims is his was probably acquired through ethically dubious means. Ahem.

Then there’s the little matter of the last Kaiser, who led his nation into an utterly disastrous and unnecessary war. For this crime, if nothing else, the family fortune should be forfeit.

Sure sounds like there’s fraud out there on the East Coast … somewhere. Perhaps you’ve read about the case of 9 mail-in votes, some marked for Trump, found in a waste can in Pennsylvania? Perhaps that made you revisit the entire voter fraud issue, once again?

Relax. RawStory has a report:

Major news is coming in over the “case” of the nine “discarded” ballots from Luzerne County, Pennsylvania that President Donald Trump revealed to Fox News Radio on Thursday.

Here’s what appears to have happened, and we’re going to bullet point this so it’s easy to follow.

• The ballots were discarded by a temporary, or “contract” worker assigned to sort the mail who appears to have been following direction.
• They ballots were military ballots, not absentee or other by-mail ballots.
• The county immediately reported what happened to federal officials, who appear to have immediately politicized the issue.
• “Because these ballots were returned in envelopes similar to absentee ballot requests, elections officials opened them,” The Washington Post reports. “If the ballots weren’t then enclosed in another envelope which shielded the actual vote being cast, they may have been considered ‘naked ballots,’ a term used to describe mail ballots returned without the voter’s intent being protected.
• The Trump campaign and the Pennsylvania GOP in a lawsuit argued that “naked ballots” should not be counted. They won that lawsuit. These nine ballots appear to be “naked ballots,” and that appears to be the reason they were thrown out.

In other words, in the eyes of Pennsylvania law, they did not meet standard and were therefore discarded, per direction.

I hope this makes the mainstream media, as I’m not quite sure of RawStory’s leanings or trustworthiness. Assuming this is accurate, this appears to be a fraudulent political move by the Administration.

And so the fraud may be emanating from Trump himself, who I will now, in honor of his trying to follow in the footsteps of disgraced former President Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon, nickname …

Little Dick

Yusuf Cat Stevens on Stephen Colbert:

https://youtu.be/JBoln1TKQ8U

Listening to early Cat Stevens today, I’d say he’s matured.

TPM notes a clash between an expert and a … barstool blowhard:

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows lashed out at FBI Director Christopher Wray’s testimony to Congress in which the FBI leader rejected President Donald Trump’s bogus conspiracy theory that mail-in voting can and will lead to election fraud that would rig the election against him.

“With all due respect to Director Wray, he has a hard time finding emails in his own FBI, let alone figuring out whether there’s any kind of voter fraud,” Meadows told CBS “This Morning” anchor Anthony Mason. “This is a very different case. The rules are being changed.”

Christopher Wray: lawyer (Yale Law School), extensive government experience as a prosecutor and in national security roles. Resources: The entire fucking FBI.

Mark Meadows: Current Trump Chief of Staff; former member of the House of Representatives, representing North Carolina (7 years), no relevant experience in national security; small business owner (he ran a small restaurant, real estate development company). Resources: His fellow barstool blowhard, President Trump.

Who are you gonna believe, the guy with no experience, but blown about by political imperatives and his own ego, or the reality-grounded lawyer with scads of resources?

It’d be funny, if it wasn’t so important to get this right.

I see that attempts are being made to justify the tainting – or simple scrubbing out – of the honor and trustworthiness of the Republicans by conservative Republicans, and is best summed up by Erick Erickson’s secondary header on his email (perhaps available publicly?) on his frantic attempt to rationalize the collapse of Republican ethics and morality:

Remember Robert Bork!

Yes, I agree! Here’s the primary, even pivotal, information:

On October 20, 1973, Solicitor General Bork was instrumental in the ‘Saturday Night Massacre‘ when President Richard Nixon ordered the firing of Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox following Cox’s request for tapes of his Oval Office conversations. Nixon initially ordered U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson resigned rather than carry out the order. Richardson’s top deputy, Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, also considered the order “fundamentally wrong” and resigned, making Bork acting attorney general. When Nixon reiterated his order, Bork complied and fired Cox. Bork claimed he carried out the order under pressure from Nixon’s attorneys and intended to resign immediately afterward, but was persuaded by Richardson and Ruckelshaus to stay on for the good of the Justice Department. Bork remained acting attorney general until the appointment of William B. Saxbe on January 4, 1974. In his posthumously published memoirs, Bork claimed that after he carried out the order, Nixon promised him the next seat on the Supreme Court, though Bork didn’t take the offer seriously as he believed that Watergate had left Nixon too politically compromised to appoint another justice. Nixon would never get the chance to carry out his promise to Bork, as the next Supreme Court vacancy came after Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford assumed the presidency, with Ford instead nominating John Paul Stevens following the 1975 retirement of William O. Douglas. [Wikipedia]

[Citations omitted.]

Yes, former Solicitor-General and Nixon Hatchet-Man Robert P. Bork. A man whose moral system and understanding of the moral responsibilities inherent in our system of government were undeniably compromised.

Yep, let’s remember that it was the Democrats, and not the Republicans, who objected to the nomination of a man who obviously was willing to do whatever it was he was told to do, with no thought as to whether that was the proper thing to do. That is not a good characteristic in a Justice of SCOTUS, who often confront ideologies in governmental form. Just think of Trump’s frequent attacks on the judiciary.

Throw in the promise of a seat on the Supreme Court, which cannot be interpreted as anything but a bribe, which – regardless of Bork’s claim in his book – should have functioned as a red flag for Bork, as it would have for any person with a keen moral sense, and it really closes the casebook on Bork. The Democrats did right in rejecting him.

Yes, let’s remember Robert P. Bork.

All that said, no doubt Erickson will win this fight, because the right has made Bork into a minor deity, the man denied a seat on SCOTUS. A choice denied, not proper advice and consent exercised because of the authoritarian streak of the nominee. But, in the Platonic world of ideals, his is the losing end of the contest, because Bork wasn’t worthy of the nomination.

Yes, let’s remember the quality of the deities of the conservative kingdom. And repudiate it.

I enjoy bits of history when they illuminate today’s events, illustrating how yesterday’s decisions, foolish or as well-meaning as they may be, force people today into odd contortions. Take, for example, the fact that there are 435 members of the House of Representatives, and has been since 1929.

Other than setting a minimum of at least 65 representatives and requiring that each state have at least one, the Constitution does not specify a size for the House. But the framers intended for the size to increase alongside the country’s population, which essentially happened until 1910.

In 1910, Congress approved a reapportionment of House seats and an increase in the size of the House to 433. The membership was further increased to 435 in 1912 to accommodate the entry of Arizona and New Mexico as states. However, Congress was unable to pass legislation reapportioning the House in 1920. Congress finally passed new legislation in 1929, but it froze the size of the House at 435. That number, however, was an arbitrary cap. In the interest of political expediency, those members who voted for the limit forced their successors to represent two to three times as many constituents as they themselves represented. The cap of 435 members still exists today, and it creates a host of problems for
our representative democracy. [“Why the House of Representatives Must Be Expanded and How Today’s Congress Can Make It Happen,” Caroline Kane, Gianni Mascioli, Michael McGarry, Meira Nagel, Fordham University School of Law]

The more constituents per Representative, the less service they can provide. And then scantily populated States get disproportionate power – also true of the Senate, but there’s not much to be done there.

Of course, if the number of Representatives was increased, they’d have to grow the physical size of the House.

In NewScientist (15 August 2020) statistician David Spiegelhalter gives some clues on evaluating statistics:

There are tricks, but it’s not a simple thing. A lot of it is feeling, what I call “sniffing the number”. My first question is always “why am I hearing this number?”: to be sceptical about the motivations of the people telling you the number. Are they trying to make it big or small? Are they trying to persuade me, rather than inform me? Almost always they’re trying to persuade.

That leads to subsidiary questions. What am I not being told about? Can I believe this number? Where does it come from? Does it actually represent what I think it represents? It’s a bit like judging fake news. You often can’t tell from the claim itself; you have to look outside and see what other people are saying about it, do what’s called horizontal searching. That’s a very basic skill that you can teach people. It’s being taught in US schools now to show people how not be taken in by fake websites.

Great hints, and I think of this as required reading for any user of the Web.

There have been several reports that Republican-controlled State legislatures are quietly considering how to overturn Presidential results that displease them. Here’s Max Boot:

[Barton] Gellman reports that the Trump campaign is already “discussing contingency plans to bypass election results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority.”

What those traitorous legislators is a reminder of what happened in 2015: as Republican legislatures passed and signed so-called religious freedom bills, which were better known as freedom to be bigots legislation, corporate titans informed legislators that if those laws were not retracted nor modified, they were leaving.

Other entities, such as athletic conferences, withdrew tournaments and that sort of thing, costing States millions of dollars.

I believe that it would be much to the benefit of large corporations that have a substantial presence in States that are reported to be considering anti-democracy maneuvers in order to upend election results to quietly call up the legislative leaders and inform them that, if they engage in such activity, even if it fails, they will begin the process of leaving that State, and staying out until Republican control of the legislature is ended.

And if the leaders do not respond appropriately, then take an ad out in the biggest newspaper in the biggest city that repeats the message.

Some corporate CEOs may dispute that they have a duty to do this, but they belong to a generation of CEOs who are obsolete. Concentrating on profit for investors, without treating workers and customers as equally important, spells doom for such companies. An oppressive political climate engendered by traitorous State legislatures is not conducive to products; it is, in fact, to the advantage of corporations large and small to have a healthy political environment, by which I mean the country is dedicated to honest and humble political exchange.

So, any CEOs with influence reading this? Think about those legislatures that you can influence, pick up the phone, and give someone who thinks they’re important a polite call.

I agree with Boot:

Another story of the disaffected, from D. L. Mayfield on Religion News:

I can no longer call myself an evangelical, because what defines a white evangelical in the United States has become a longing for an authoritarian state where Christianity is prioritized and privileged.

This kind of Christian nationalism is entirely at odds with the gospel of Jesus, who told us right from the beginning that he was going to be good news to the poor, the imprisoned, the sick and the oppressed — and that he would be bad news for people who longed to clutch at power and safety and affluence at the expense of their neighbor.

I think the long-term consequences of white evangelicals longing to secure their own power and influence will ultimately backfire spectacularly — we already see people leaving the church in droves, and I expect that number to multiply.

If I am being honest with myself, I know I was kicked out of the evangelical world a while ago. I was told I could not write for Christianity Today anymore because of my stance on LGBTQIA issues. I left my church in Portland after a long and drawn-out period of trying to advocate for equality for women and the LGBTQIA community. And now I routinely have evangelicals, both in person and online, question the state of my salvation because I support the Black Lives Matter movement.

In this case, the assumptions should include what Jesus said, as Mayfield notes, but those are conveniently forgotten by those who’ve been convinced that they are poor victims – because the American way of life is changing, as always, and they’re being told it should be static.

The cult way of life leads one right into the morass of sin, the agnostic idly notes. Those who’ve privileged their need to belong and be special are those who abuse the most, I suspect.

And it remains fascinating.

That’s not a typo up there.

CME Group, the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, and Nasdaq, a global technology company serving the capital markets and other industries, today announced plans for a new futures contract on the Nasdaq Veles California Water Index (NQH2O). CME Group will launch its new Nasdaq Veles California Water Index futures contract in late Q4, pending regulatory review.

Nasdaq Veles California Water Index futures will be an innovative, first-of-its-kind tool to provide agricultural, commercial, and municipal water users with greater transparency, price discovery, and risk transfer – all of which can help to more efficiently align supply and demand of this vital resource.

“With nearly two-thirds of the world’s population expected to face water shortages by 2025, water scarcity presents a growing risk for businesses and communities around the world, and particularly for the $1.1 billion California water market,” said Tim McCourt, CME Group Global Head of Equity Index and Alternative Investment Products. “Developing risk management tools that address growing environmental concerns is increasingly important to CME Group. This innovative, new water contract builds on our strong partnership with Nasdaq, as well as our proven 175-year track record of helping end users and other market participants manage risk in essential commodity markets including agriculture, energy, and metals.” [Traders Magazine]

An implicit acknowledgement that the price of water, reflective of both natural availability and possibly hostile control thereof, is becoming a highly important and pricey component of the functioning of many industries. Futures helps smooth out risk and price.

But it’s also a signpost of the increasing scarcity of one of the fundamental basics of life, on a per capita basis as calculated not only per a person’s personal needs, but on their needs for water as it percolates throughout the industries they utilize.

Here’s the announcement:

Introducing @Nasdaq Veles California Water Index futures, a first-of-its-kind tool to help market participants manage exposure to water supply and demand risk. Coming Q4 2020.

— CME Group (@CMEGroup) September 17, 2020

I wonder what impact this has on the cost of living. Probably quite small, which in some ways is unfortunate.

There’s a lot of factors that go into earning – or at least gaining – international respect, and The Daily Beast has an excellent article on how Russia is doing just that – by clawing their way up the backs of the Americans:

A bizarre and, frankly, deeply disturbing ad from the [Russian] state-controlled RT network shows a deep-faked President Donald Trump joining the channel as an anchor. Although the wig is dodgy, the video superimposes Trump’s face onto a chubby body and plays real clips of him denigrating CNN and lavishing praise on “amazing” Russia.

The advert starts with Trump rolling up outside RT HQ in a limo and waddling to a dressing room which has the sign “Donald Trump: RT Special Host” on the door. Proudly holding up a signed RT contract which has “$1,000,000,000” scrawled across it in marker pen, the deep-faked Trump says: “It was a very nice offer from President Putin.”

The message of the advert is to not-so-subtly suggest that Putin is Trump’s personal hero and that the U.S. president is in the pocket of the Kremlin. In one scene apparently meant to show a network executive pitching shows to the deep-faked Trump, he’s handed a poster for a series called “Putin’s Apprentice” showing him standing with the Russian president. He exclaims: “I love that idea! I think I can do that!”

And the heads of other states will see that Trump won’t react to that, and they’ll read American weakness. This isn’t just a piece of odd humor, it’s just another step in dismantling American dominance and replacing it with Russian hegemony.

I would love to see reporters ask Trump for his reaction to this humiliating piece – and if he’s considered reacting to it kinetically.

Yeah, that means putting a missile into a Russian target.

“Mr. Trump, are you just going to continue to project American weakness, or will you defend American interests by, say, downing a Russian fighter?”

He might have a heart attack.