Category Archives: Uncategorized

Sally Jenkins strikes again on the question of just what college is for:

Former Trump senior advisor and bête noire of American liberals Steve Bannon turns out to be just another third-rate … criminal:

Federal prosecutors on Thursday indicted one-time presidential aide Steve Bannon and three others on charges of taking money donated to help build a wall along the southern border, authorities said.

Bannon, Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato, Timothy Shea “and others orchestrated a scheme to defraud hundreds of thousands of donors,” according to prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.

The defendants’ online crowdfunding campaign “We Build The Wall” raised more than $25 million, with Kolfage “repeatedly and falsely assured the public that he would ‘not take a penny in salary,'” prosecutors said in a statement. And Bannon “publicly stated, ‘we’re a volunteer organization,’” prosecutors said.

But in fact, prosecutors said, the defendants took hundreds of thousands of donated dollars and used them for personal expenses. [NBC News]

Oh, sure. Maybe I’m jumping the gun. Maybe he’ll wriggle his way free.

If Trump issues a pardon, though, then it’s an acknowledgment of guilt.

And I’m not sure how this’ll play with the Trumpian base. Maybe Bannon had failed from their collective consciousness. Or maybe he’s a receding cousin of the deity, who’s being unfairly trashed.

That’s for the more delusional members.

But, in retrospect, this is unsurprising. Criminality in Trump’s associates is not a new thing. They are, so far as I can see, uniformly motivated by greed; those that are not swiftly disassociate themselves. And they find out that being intense isn’t enough when breaking the law.

Goodbye and hello, Bannon. You are just part of the entertainment. Nothing more.

Very, very silly.

But then, so is this one.

And then there’s these dudes:

I have yet to see a busker who plays the triangle.

Probable member of the House of Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who won the Republican primary to represent a safe Republican district in Georgia a few days ago, has, it turns out, been campaigning to become the laughingstock of the political world for longer than I knew, as Media Matters reports:

In the category of snake-oil medicine, you may have heard that something called oleandrin is now being pushed by members of the Trump Administration as a treatment for Covid-19. You may even be considering getting some, just in case.

Don’t.

From Dr. Steven Novella of Yale University School of Medicine on his blog Science-Based Medicine:

Let’s take a look at oleandrin specifically to see where we are with the science. Oleandrin is a chemical derived from the plant, oleandra (Nerium oleander). As an aside, many people may know this plant from the game Red Dead Redemption II, where it is plant that can be harvested and used to make poison. It is a beautiful Mediterranean plant used around the world for landscaping. Every part of the plant is poisonous, containing the powerful cardiac toxin, oleandrin. This can lead to cardiac arrhythmias and can be fatal.

But Novella is good. He’s been part of the skeptical movement – the good one, not the bad ones – for decades, so he knows when to be skeptical and when to accept. More importantly, not only does he know about the gigantic hole in FDA regulations through which dangerous supplements are pushed, he also knows the tricks of the trade of the snake oil peddler. I’m not going to repeat his words – go read them for yourself. But it’s important to get this bit out:

The science made public so far is a single pre-clinical study, showing that oleandrin has anti-viral activity against SARS-CoV-2 in a test tube (the study is pre-print and has not been peer-reviewed). That’s it. This is another common feature of the snake oil industry – tout products based upon preclinical data only. This kind of data may seem promising, and allows snake oil peddlers to claim their products are backed by scientific studies. But this kind of in-vitro study tells us very little about the activity of potential drugs in living organisms. Very, very few compounds that have “promising” activity in vitro go on to become useful medicinals.

The good ship Ethics appears to be in trouble.

In some ways, this is worse than the hydroxychloroquine scam with which Trump and his senior advisor, Dr. (but not of medicine, but of economics) Peter Navarro jumped off the Cliff of Ethics into the Ocean of Disaster. At least a small study of hydroxychloroquine had been run in living people, as I recall, as poorly designed as that study was.

This pre-clinical study is even further down the ladder all drugs should climb before being made available to the public.

But this is characteristic of the quality of people now inhabiting the Republican Party. Lincoln’s burial spin rate must be increasing as each day passes.

From a Trump Campaign stop in Arizona yesterday:

Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much. And considering that we caught President Obama and sleepy Joe Biden, spying on our campaign, treason, will probably be entitled to another four more years after that. I wanted to thank you, and Art and Brandon, you’re incredible. [Factbase]

Critical to Trump’s success in his reelection campaign is keeping his base together and confident. As evidence continues to pile up of his collusion with foreign adversaries, namely Russia, from highly credible agencies, such as the Senate Intel Committee – hardly a bastion of liberal ideological leanings – suggesting that Trump is a creature of a swamp much uglier than the one he promised to replace, it’s necessary – from his point of view – to keep the base distracted.

A classic maneuver is to loudly proclaim your confidence and your innocence, and that’s what this is all about. No doubt he is aware that SCOTUS would vote, at a minimum of 7-2, and more likely 9-0, to deny him a third term. But that’s not the point at the moment; at the moment, it’s to assert that he’s an innocent victim of forces, dark and evil, to take him down, and to suggest that he’s so innocent that he’s deserving of an exemption from a rule that applies to other politicians.

His base is excited and confirmed in its belief that he, like they, are victims – and therefore good people who would otherwise prosper if it weren’t for those dark and evil forces. They’re also too busy to investigate all these ‘baseless’ claims, all these ‘exonerations.’ Never mind the reality that evidence for a second and third impeachment is continuing to pile up, that his Administration incompetence is damaging the nation. Victim, victim, victim, gollum, gollum, gollum.

This blue whale is not happy being compared to Trump mendacity.

But there’s also risk, because as the evidence piles up, his assertions of total innocence make it more and more likely that those of his base who do, finally, at the urging of family, friends, and clergy, look closely and discover their leader has feet of the most loathsome clay, and that the culture of victimhood has little, beyond its initial sugary rush, to offer, they may finally walk away from him. A little mendacity can be swallowed by partisans of any sort; but this is a shitload dumped by a blue whale, and any ordinary member of the base, and even some of those who owe their positions to him, will stop swallowing and start walking away, once they realize this isn’t an unreasonable political lynching of Trump – but the assertions of a profoundly incompetent man.

They might even vote for Biden – or West.

That’s how big the divergence is between what comes out of Trump’s mouth and reality.

Just because I enjoyed it on Colbert.

https://youtu.be/gkmAU2U_BqE

The religious “left” is moving in on Trump’s base:

“This election is different because President Trump rejects our Catholic values and does everything in his power to divide us while our economy and health care systems collapse under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Lee Morrow, elections manager for Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice and head of the new initiative. “Catholics cannot be single-issue voters.”

For Morrow, Catholic values involve caring for immigrants, the elderly and the poor and addressing racism, among other issues.

“To be true to my Catholic faith and the teachings of Pope Francis, I have to do everything in my power to make sure that Donald Trump loses in November,” he said.

“These former Trump voters are becoming Pope Francis Voters.” [Religion News Service]

Look for Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice to be investigated by Attorney General William Barr. And probably this pastor as well:

[Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice] joins several liberal Christian groups aimed at influencing religious voters. Among them is the New Moral Majority PAC [NMM], a group co-founded this month by the Rev. Noel Anderson, a longtime faith-based immigrant rights organizer, and the Rev. Ryan M. Eller, a veteran faith-based organizer based in Louisville, Kentucky.

The group has created a digital tool geared toward getting faith leaders to endorse Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ campaign, making the endorsement blitz its “primary focus” heading into November.

Several faith leaders, such as the Rev. Jacqui Lewis of Middle Collegiate Church in New York City, endorsed Biden and Harris via NMM this week.

“The policies of a new Biden-Harris administration will be built on principles that more closely align with our Christian beliefs,” ​Anderson said in a press release.​

Look for Rev. Lewis, his church, and his compatriots to be placed under investigation by Barr, particularly with relevance to the Johnson Amendment, under which faith leaders who take advantage of tax-free status for churches may not endorse political leaders. Which makes me shake my head, as the right wing religious leaders have railed for decades against the Johnson Amendment.

Unless they’re ineffective and so don’t draw Trump and Barr’s attention.

Historically, Trump and Barr try to throw mud on anyone and any institution they don’t like. If they do attack these groups, though, they may forget that many of these groups glory in the mud – that is, the more the powerful attack them, the more they see it as a justification of their activities.

Remember the derecho that hit Iowa? Turns out Governor Reynolds (R-IA) did, in fact, ask for Federal help. President Trump’s response is a little puzzling:

President Donald Trump said he had signed an emergency declaration for Iowa to help supply federal money to help the state recover from an unusual wind storm that struck a week ago but federal emergency management officials later confirmed he had only signed a portion of the request.

Trump claimed on his official presidential Twitter account Monday afternoon that he had “Just approved (and fast) the FULL Emergency Declaration for the Great State of Iowa. They got hit hard by record setting winds.” …

A Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman said in an email that Trump had approved the public assistance portion of the governor’s request totaling about $45 million covering 16 counties. That portion of the declaration provides debris removal and repair to government buildings and utilities. He did not, however, approve the individual assistance request for 27 counties that includes $82.7 million for homes destroyed or with major damage and $3.77 billion for agriculture damage to farm land, grain bins and buildings and $100 million for private utilities repair. [AP]

At first glance, it appears to be a boot to the face of Iowans, especially the farmers. But, despite his lie in the Tweet, I suspect we’ll be seeing President Trump signing the rest of the request:

Trump is planning to visit Iowa on Tuesday, Reynolds said during a news conference, but she provided no details.

And it would not be in the least surprising if Trump signs the personal assistance portion of the emergency request at that time. It’s not that Trump has any expertise in disaster appraisal, and, given the quality of his appointees so far, I have no confidence that his FEMA head has any, either.

It’s the optics, of course.

Signing the personal assistance request in Iowa brings a sense of drama and his personal attention to Iowa. He may see this as a big win for his campaign.

How Iowans feel about being used as campaign markers is not clear to me. Perhaps this will convert Iowa independents to the Trump side. I suppose, if, in fact, he signs the rest of the request at that time, we’ll find out how much of a boost – or a drop – he gets in November.

As the Trump Administration veterans turn against Trump:

Terrified of a second Trump term. But not enough to hide in a bunker. https://t.co/Q6ojOAWbzb

— Miles Taylor (@MilesTaylorUSA) August 17, 2020

“Magical authorities.” It’s simultaneously laughable that an adult would claim such authorities, and horrifying that anyone, anyone at all, would vote for this deeply deluded man.

The Ringer covers a guy – OCD, I should assume – that copyedits the The New York Times – just for giggles:

Anyone who followed @nyttypos that day soon got a feel for the flavor of its tweets. On October 19, @nyttypos spotted a “happened” instead of a “happen” in a story about Brexit; a missing space and a picture of three people captioned with five names in a story about TikTok clubs; a missing comma and a “statue” in place of a “statute” in a story about President Donald Trump’s attempt to host the G7 Summit at his own Doral resort; a subject-verb agreement error in a story about Venezuela’s water quality; a misplaced comma in a story about Bernie Sanders accepting an endorsement from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; and a missing space between quotation marks and a quote in a story about Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Having myself been slimed by typos in a local newspaper story about students excelling at the PSATs in high school – I was the big shocker as I was a real slacker in school – as being named H Kenny White, I have a certain sympathy with this dude, whoever he is.

Still, this guy is a bit whacko. Before the copy-edit desk at TNYT was dissolved, it was manned by one hundred professionals. Now there’s just this guy.

When he corners his typo prey, @nyttypos typically screenshots the problematic passage and tags the author and/or any editors he believes may be responsible (or responsive). Although he could catch more typos with honey than with vinegar, his tweets tend toward acetic acid. “Functionally illiterate” is a go-to put-down. “It’s kind of a paradox in that if he just wants to fix the mistakes, he’s hurting his chances of doing so because reporters are probably tuning him out, maybe actually muting him or blocking him,” Bailey says. “But he’s probably building more of a following among random people on Twitter who like to see someone dunk on the Times about backward quotation marks.”

The article is more than just coverage of the dude, though. It also gives insight into TNYT. Fun!

As many pundits, including myself, desired, Congress and other governmental forces have leapt into action with regard to the Postmaster General DeJoy debacle:

The U.S. Postal Service will suspend any policy or operational changes until after the November presidential elections, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said Tuesday.

Critics claimed DeJoy was hindering the agency’s ability to accommodate an expected surge in mail-in voting, which he denied.

DeJoy, a close ally of President Donald Trump and a longtime GOP donor who was appointed in May, said he had come to the federal agency to make changes that would allow for “its long-term sustainability,” but he intended to delay those efforts as scrutiny of those practices grew — despite his view that the USPS needed a significant overhaul.

“In the meantime, there are some longstanding operational initiatives — efforts that predate my arrival at the Postal Service — that have been raised as areas of concern as the nation prepares to hold an election in the midst of a devastating pandemic,” he said. “To avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded.” [NBC News]

This is the first step towards victory. DeJoy has agreed to stop advancing along the front, but he’s already done damage to the Post Office. The following actions and retreats must continue:

1. Replacement of the equipment reported to have been removed.
2. Retraction of policies promulgated.
3. Return of personnel to their former positions.
4. Continued investigation of DeJoy by the postal service’s Inspector General.
5. Continued investigation by Congress. DeJoy, as noted, is scheduled to testify before Congress.
6. Continued investigation by state authorities.

To the last point, the NBC News article has this to say:

DeJoy’s announcement came as Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro and Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, both Democrats, shared their intention to file lawsuits against the postmaster general over his policy changes. At least 18 states are involved in the lawsuits.

When asked by reporters about DeJoy’s announcement, both men laughed and said their lawsuits would proceed.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Shapiro said. “Hopefully the American people can breathe a sigh of relief, but I will not let my foot off the gas so long as the postal officials continue to violate the law through their procedural steps.”

Bravo! But this is merely a first step.

Some analogies just don’t work, of course. I ran across this pretty thing feeding on the remains of an out of season apple.

And that was about as close as I could get.

I appreciate Admiral McRaven’s (USN-Ret.) urge to pinpoint President Trump as being dangerous:

Today, as we struggle with social upheaval, soaring debt, record unemployment, a runaway pandemic, and rising threats from China and Russia, President Trump is actively working to undermine every major institution in this country. He has planted the seeds of doubt in the minds of many Americans that our institutions aren’t functioning properly. And, if the president doesn’t trust the intelligence community, law enforcement, the press, the military, the Supreme Court, the medical professionals, election officials and the postal workers, then why should we? And if Americans stop believing in the system of institutions, then what is left but chaos and who can bring order out of chaos: only Trump. It is the theme of every autocrat who ever seized power or tried to hold onto it. [WaPo]

But, quite honestly, stories and, yes, alleged jokes denigrating Congress have circulated for decades, not just a few years. From ridiculous remarks to more controversial topics such as term limits, I’ve seen anti-Congress, anti-government email for decades – here’s one now. McRaven is quite right that Trump is the tip of the spear, but the shaft of that spear must also be part of the treatment that the Republic will require if it is to survive and prosper with a wise government,

And not be populated with a bunch of third-raters who know how to chant ‘lower taxes,’ ‘too much regulation,’ and ‘abortion is baby-killing!’, and by so doing, get themselves elected without regard to any actual competency. None of those arguments are well thought out, and yet they’re the prison bars of the GOP voter these days. They’re clung to as if they’re sources of nutrition, but, for the nation, they’re just poison.

A reader comments on the wreckage that used to be Iowa:

It was a derecho. A very large derecho: 770 miles long lasting 14 hours, starting in eastern Nebraska and traveling easterly across Iowa and Illinois. I worry that they may start occurring in MN more often. Climate change definitely involved. 115mph winds in eastern Iowa. Not much can stand up to that.

It took 250 years to hit 1°C of global warming by 2015, the fastest change in 65 million years.

It’ll take 25 years to hit 2°C by 2040.

Here’s what I was able to find, from Wikipedia, in turn from NASA.

Not the sort of curve you want to see on temperatures – unless you’re a fusion reactor developer.

And my Arts Editor reports that one of her Iowa contacts hasn’t had power for an entire week now.

Former Trump DHS Secretary Nielsen’s Chief of Staff Miles Taylor:

Miles Taylor, a former senior Trump administration official, endorsed Joe Biden’s presidential campaign on Monday, becoming one of the highest-ranking former Trump administration officials to do so. …

“Given what I have experienced in the administration, I have to support Joe Biden for president and even though I am not a Democrat, even though I disagree on key issues, I’m confident that Joe Biden will protect the country and I’m confident that he won’t make the same mistakes as this President.”

In the video, Taylor accuses Trump of directing FEMA to withhold disaster funding to California following devastating wildfires in that state because voters in that state had not voted for him for President.

“He told us to stop giving money to people whose houses had burned down from a wildfire because he was so rageful that people in the state of California didn’t support him and that politically it wasn’t a base for him,” Taylor says in the video. [CNN/Politics]

Meanwhile, far-right pundit Erick Erickson, in mail to unsubscribers on his mail list, teases for more money today:

Tomorrow, for everyone, I’ll explain what is really going on with the post office and why it is nothing to fret over. This is just a conspiracy theory loved by members of the media, so they’re treating it differently than QAnon even though it is no less nuts. If you get this, you’ll get that tomorrow. For the rest, you’ve got to click the subscribe button.

Nothing to fret over. Those weekly magazines of mine that aren’t showing up? Don’t sweat it. Meanwhile, someone with an inside view of the Administration is sounding all the alarm bells.

Erickson, for all of his claims that he’s not an apologist for the Administration, well, he is. And a bad one.

We’ve already seen a few high officials discrediting Trump, but I’m not sure I remember any of them explicitly endorsing Biden for President. Kudos to Mr. Taylor for – finally – getting up the gumption to do it. It’s the sort of thing a Responsible Republican should do.

And if this was strategically timed, all the more kudos.

An item in Steve Benen’s summary of campaign news made me think:

From a group email. The accompanying note was Be sure to watch all the way to the end credits.

If we had a metric for spontaneous creativity, I wonder if it would have increased measurably since the pandemic started.

Anadromous:

going from salt water to fresh water or up rivers to spawn: said of salmon, shad, etc. [Your Dictionary]

Noted in “These Prehistoric Ocean Animals are Still Around Today,” Ocean Currents:

Since lampreys are anadromous fish (fish that live in fresh and saltwater), they play a major role in healthy estuaries—transporting nutrients from the ocean to freshwater environments. Due to increased human disturbances, lampreys are severely declining, which has the potential to affect entire ecosystems.

The usage might be a bit inaccurate. Does the definition, as understood by marine biologists, include the requirement that the fish die after the spawning?

[h/t JN]

Apple trees – or at least the two varieties we have – are bi-annual. This is the non-productive year for ours, except, well:

I don’t keep up very well in many fields. For instance:

Via WaPo, by Lyz Lenz, a columnist for the Cedar Rapids Gazette:

Sunsets on other worlds and even stars:

More here.

The USPS story bears repetition, as Margaret Sullivan promptly does: