Category Archives: Uncategorized

For political observers, the special election for the Pennsylvania 12th district is March 13th has become important in that it’s a traditionally Republican district, considered safe,, and pits State Representative Rick Saccone (R), a Ph.D. (PoliSci) characterized as an ally of President Trump, against youthful former Marine and attorney Conor Lamb. Politico notes that Trump’s White House, no doubt stung by the Alabama debacle, wants to reverse the momentum in this typically conservative-leaning district:

After a humiliating loss in the Alabama Senate race last month, the administration is drawing up ambitious plans that will kick off next Thursday when Trump travels to the conservative district to appear with Republican candidate Rick Saccone. Vice President Mike Pence and an assortment of Cabinet officials are also expected to make trips; Pence may go twice ahead of the March 13 special election, two administration officials said.

The White House has taken an especially keen interest in the race: Members of Trump’s political affairs office met with Saccone this week. And during a Tuesday conference call between the Republican national party committees and the Saccone campaign, White House political director Bill Stepien expressed displeasure with the progress the candidate was making on fundraising. Stepien said Saccone wasn’t raising enough money and asked for an update on the campaign’s progress in the days to come.

That strikes me as some top-down directives. Does the local GOP machine not have it all under control? And what does the White House know about the local fight?

And what are these two candidates saying? Politico is admirably concise:

Saccone has presented himself as a staunch ally of the president, praising Trump for the job he’s done and vowing to help enact his policies. Lamb, meanwhile, has struck a delicate balance. While saying that he didn’t vote for Trump and pointing to his failure to pass an infrastructure bill, he has also praised the president for declaring the opioid epidemic, which has severely affected the district, a public health emergency.

In other words, Saccone is presenting as a right-wing extremist, while Lamb is reaching out to disaffected moderate conservatives, while hoping that the general liberal loathing for Lyin’ Trump will keep them on his side.

So how have things looked in the past? There’s no point in a chart because the former occupant of the seat, Tim Murphy (R), has not faced opposition since 2012, when he won with 64% of the vote. Mr. Murphy resigned in 2017 due to a sex scandal.

That said, it’s good to see the Democrats once again active in the district, because truth be told, the more a party dominates a district, the less likely the Representative is going to really be a quality leader. While driven people can improve in a vacuum, improvement is much more likely in the presence of competition, because it can become improve or die. Evaluating political performance is a very tricky thing to do, unfortunately, so this general observation does have its flaws. I happen to live in Representative Betty McCollum’s district, which is considered quite safe, and while I like her and think she probably does a good job, I do wish that McCollum faced some competition each cycle. But how well does McCollum perform? The metric? Votes on issues are a very popular measure, partly because it’s easy. How about leadership metrics?

Returning to my district, sure, there was a Republican’s name on the ballot the last couple of times – but I couldn’t tell you the name(s). Indeed, to be fair, I even talked briefly with one of them once. His language was strictly boilerplate, and if he thought that was up to snuff, he was deeply wrong.

An inactive party does not encourage the citizens to become active in the political world, and that is wrong. That the 18th district of Pennsylvania lacked a full slate of candidates was a sad mistake, I think. I hope their correction works out for them. The last thing the nation needs is another Republican YesMan.

If you’re wondering about that Fusion GPS Congressional testimony, but don’t have time to round it up and try to evaluate something outside of your experience? Greg Fallis is happy to help you out:

First, and most important, is this fact: the folks at Fusion GPS are professionals. I need to go off on a short tangent here. I spent seven years as private investigator specializing in criminal defense. From the title, people reasonably assume my job was to help accused criminals who are being prosecuted. In fact, my job was to gather facts and information and report my findings to the defense attorney. If that information supported the defendant, the attorney needed to know that; if it didn’t, the attorney needed to know that as well. I didn’t go out looking for information that would benefit the defendant or that would hurt the prosecution; I just looked for information that was accurate and credible. It didn’t matter to me if it helped or hurt the lawyer’s case. …

… Fusion hired Steele to do the sort of work Fusion doesn’t do. Most of what Fusion does is document-based. Following paper trails. Discovering relationships by delving into deep, obscure bureaucratic files and public records. That gives them solid, objective, unbiased information — a document says what it says. But the public record only takes you so far. It was also necessary to actually talk to people who dealt with Trump’s business dealings in Russia.

This is an entirely different sort of investigation. It’s less about accuracy of information than it is about the credibility of the informant. A document says what it says; people say all sorts of ridiculous shit for all sorts of ridiculous reasons. Documents can give you accurate information; people are capable of giving you very accurate misinformation, maybe by accident, maybe on purpose. This gets even more complicated when dealing with Russia and Russian agents, who are trained in actively providing disinformation.

This was Christopher Steele’s area of expertise — human intelligence. Determining who is credible and who isn’t, the degree to which the information is reliable, how much it can be trusted, what motives do people have to provide misleading information. Steele began talking to people, and what he learned alarmed him. The fact that Steele was alarmed was, in itself, alarming to Simpson.

Fallis comes at it from a liberal perspective, but, given his cited experience, he seems to be well-grounded for evaluating the information-gathering portion of the testimony. Take a peek and be enlightened.

In the realm of the trudge towards the deadly Bolo, I don’t know how often these armed drone encounters are happening, but this particular one, from WaPo, is interesting for a facet that had not occurred to me (being naturally a little slow):

A series of mysterious attacks against the main Russian military base in Syria, including one conducted by a swarm of armed miniature drones, has exposed Russia’s continued vulnerability in the country despite recent claims of victory by President Vladimir Putin.

The attacks have also spurred a flurry of questions over who may be responsible for what amounts to the biggest military challenge yet to Russia’s role in Syria, just when Moscow is seeking to wind its presence down.

In the most recent and unusual of the attacks, more than a dozen armed drones descended from an unknown location onto Russia’s vast Hmeimim air base in northwestern Latakia province, the headquarters of Russia’s military operations in Syria, and on the nearby Russian naval base at Tartus.

Russia said that it shot down seven of the 13 drones and used electronic countermeasures to safely bring down the other six. It said no serious damage was caused.

Anonymous attacks should have been obvious to me, but I’m not a military guy. So now Russia is under attack, but doesn’t know who to strike. Pick the wrong group and your prestige jogs down a point – and maybe you’ve just alienated a potential ally. If you don’t lash out, you look weak and passive. Interesting conundrum.

Compounding it is this:

The Russian Defense Ministry statement said the drones used in the Hmeimim attack came from between 50 and 100 kilometers away …

A rather sophisticated drone. Russia is pointing fingers at the United States as the supplier of the weaponry.

BTW, if you’re intrigued by Keith Laumer’s Bolo series but haven’t pursued it on the Web, here’s a Fandom site. Have at it.

Ever since Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) announced his retirement at the end of his current term, I’ve been slightly bugged by it. It wasn’t the implied hypocrisy, which comes from calling for a return to norms while still voting with Trump on hastily constructed legislation and judicial nominees; and I certainly won’t miss him because of that hypocrisy, although his opposition to the candidacy of Roy Moore for the Alabama Senate seat a few months ago, as well as criticizing Trump during his retirement speech, was memorable.

I knew the source of the irritation, but I hadn’t really felt like addressing it, although I had very briefly mentioned it in the previous post on this thread.

Then this announcement of someone running to replace him popped out:

On Tuesday, Arpaio announced he would seek the Arizona Senate seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Jeff Flake. Arpaio enters a crowded Republican field and is likely to face a barrage of attacks from Democrats and civil rights groups, who are sure to note in campaign advertisements how the policing practices he championed have led to dozens of lawsuits. [Los Angeles Times]

A convicted felon, pardoned by President Trump, an arrogant scoundrel or bigot (whichever he prefers), thinks he can take that seat? And, yet, I’m not sure he’s the worst of the bunch. Ever heard of former Arizona State Senator Kelli Ward (R)? The moment Arizona Senator McCain announced his brain cancer diagnosis, she suggested that the Arizona governor should appoint herself to fill the term. Then, from her previous campaign against Senator McCain:

Yesterday on “The John Fredericks Show,” Arizona Republican state Sen. Kelli Ward, who is challenging Sen. John McCain in the state’s GOP primary, claimed that the American government has “armed ISIS” and used over $1 billion to train and provide resources to the extremist group. [Right Wing Watch]

So a right-wing extremist OR a power-hungry “I’ll say anything to get elected” type. Her choice.

But from Flake’s announcement of his retirement:

It is clear at this moment that a traditional conservative who believes in limited government and free markets, who is devoted to free trade, and who is pro-immigration, has a narrower and narrower path to nomination in the Republican party — the party that for so long has defined itself by belief in those things. It is also clear to me for the moment we have given in or given up on those core principles in favor of the more viscerally satisfying anger and resentment. To be clear, the anger and resentment that the people feel at the royal mess we have created are justified. But anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy. [CNN]

And is it only the prospect of victory which justifies the fight, Senator Flake? Your party, your seat in Congress, is threatened with far-right extremists who espouse philosophies inimical to a healthy society. Extremists whose demonstrable wish is to bring down those non-partisan institutions of society, because their findings do not support the extremists’ positions. Extremists whose philosophies are based on theories of humanity long-rejected, with little to no theoretical support – except in the eyes of those whose view of humanity is tainted and not shared by the mainstream.

By stepping out of this fight, you give the reasonable, moderate conservative one less choice, and discourage them from your party. By leaving the high ground to the extremist, you cede any voice of moral authority. And by permitting yourself to be chased away by a President who is not, and never has been, moved by principle or common moral justification, but merely by personal pique and avarice, you tell those who might otherwise follow you that the best principle is to bow down to the bully, to crawl on your belly in response to a President who, frankly, deserves not the office he occupies.

Certainly, you might lose that fight in the primary. But by fighting in the best way possible, rather than the worst, you remind your Party in Arizona of how an honorable politician stands forth for his principles – by putting forth principles you think are good and just, and not descending to the ad hominem that currently is worn as a proud cloak by your extremist brethren.

And, hey, if Ms Ward chooses to accuse you of being an ISIS benefactor, it’s your chance to strike, and strike hard: laugh her out of the room, ridicule her out of the race. Tell her you wouldn’t dream of accusing her of the same, nor any opponent, because you’re better than her. Tell her she’s nothing more than a swamp-dwelling crocodile.

And let Arpaio sag his jaw to the ground, and creep away.

I generally try to find something interesting in every movie I watch, whether it’s a great movie or an awful movie. But the best I can say about Dr. Cyclops (1940) is that I really liked the radiation suit. It has a savory, in your face, Steampunk art flavor going for it. Its lack of expression is itself an implied menace. Delicious.

The rest of it? It’s formulaic. A mad doctor in a jungle somewhere sends for a couple of other scientists to help him identify something under a microscope, because his eyes have gone bad. They come, they identify, he thanks them and tries to send them away. Wounded professional pride makes them refuse his orders, and he traps them in his secret radiation chamber, fueled by radium he’s been mining. They wake up and find they’re about a foot tall (shades of Attack of The Puppet People!), but they courageously fight back against cats, dogs, caimans, and the crazed doctor himself, winning the day in the end.

The acting’s bad, the casting’s poor (it appears the mineralogist was just a tall 15 year old doing a bit of acting for bucks), the title is weak weak weak, the plot is fairly bad, even if there was a little morbid tension in trying to guess just how they were going to do in the evil scientist, and at one point they had the Latin American porter wearing what could only be described as a diaper. In fact, one time it’s a white diaper, another time it’s red. We saw a colorized version via the Svengoolie television show, and that wasn’t particularly good, except for the green flashes during the radiation scenes.

Avoid avoid avoid, this is just really dull. When it’s not grating, see said mineralogist. But the radiation suit could be on a poster.

President Trump campaigned, in part, by playing on the instinctual fears of the conservative base. You’d think that, regardless of how he plans to campaign in the future, he’d take steps to safeguard the nation in the future in honor of that campaign tactic. In this, though, you’d be committing the sin of thinking he’s an intellectually curious man who compulsively learns as much as he can about each issue that comes up.

Instead, he sits around and watches Fox News.

Why do I bring this up? Because Benjamin Wittes and Susan Hennessey are utterly outraged on Lawfare concerning the FISA vote. If you’ve never heard of FISA, it authorizes the surveillance of foreign nationals on foreign turf, and must be periodically reauthorized. It’s somewhat controversial for privacy advocates, but virtually everyone agrees it’s a critical tool for preventing national security catastrophes. So what happened when it came up for a reauthorization vote today?

When the history of President Donald Trump’s use of Twitter is written, there will be a stiff competition for his most destructive, most irresponsible tweet. A strong contender for that less-than-august honor came Thursday morning, when the president of the United States tweeted this:

“House votes on controversial FISA ACT today.” This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others?

[I just copied the text of the tweet, because actual tweets don’t migrate easily into WordPress.]

For present purposes, the much more urgent matter is that the president here seemed to be at least implicitly opposing reauthorization of 702—and doing so on the day the House of Representatives is to vote on the matter and when the outcome of that vote is uncertain.

Let’s not mince words here: The lapse of Section 702 surveillance capabilities, even for a short time, would constitute a full-fledged national security emergency. The National Security Agency is on record as saying that “collection under FAA Section 702 is the most significant tool in the NSA collection arsenal for the detection, identification, and disruption of terrorist threats to the U.S. and around the world.”

And then even more interestingly:

Perhaps following an early-morning staff intervention, Trump seemed to recognize his error and tried to undo some of the damage, tweeting:

With that being said, I have personally directed the fix to the unmasking process since taking office and today’s vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land. We need it! Get smart!

And then came this:

This is a sufficiently high legislative priority that the White House rushed out a Statement of Administration Policy late Wednesday night:

The Administration supports House passage of the House Amendment to S. 139, the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 provides authorities to collect critical intelligence on terrorist organizations, weapons proliferators, and other foreign adversaries that is vital to keeping the Nation safe. Reauthorizing these authorities before they expire on January 19, 2018, in a manner that preserves their effectiveness, is a top priority of the Administration.

I’ve omitted the balance of the White House statement, as it’s not germane to the point I’ll be making. So why my remark about television? I’ve seen quite a few posts recently concerning Trump’s TV habits, and Benjamin and Susan also point at a specific correlation:

But the president’s tweet followed this clip that aired on “Fox & Friends”—which Trump is known to watch. This clip also ran this morning [clip omitted, I could not view it – Hue] …

In other words, President Trump tweeted lies against his own intelligence community in the course of signaling opposition to a legislative priority of his own administration on a crucial national security priority at an especially delicate moment in time. Then he tried to take it back.

Regardless of your opinion on FISA, the larger picture has to deeply concern every citizen, Trump supporter or not, because it’s increasingly clear that President Trump simply blows with the wind. This point is being made by many commentators, but it’s worth repeating over and over. He doesn’t get his information from the best intel operation in the world, or from academics who’ve studied these subjects for decades, or from anyone at all who might have some qualifications.

Instead, he consults one of the objectively worst news sources on the planet, Fox News, and pretends that it represents some sort of deep analysis.

This time it appears total disaster has been averted, if we’re to believe Benjamin and Susan. But what happens next time the President decides to pervert an important piece of legislation, or an Executive Order, or anything under his control – say, the reputation of the FBI – in order to further one of his personal paranoid fantasies – or in response to something he’s seen on Fox News?

I ask my conservative readers, how does this make any sense at all?

It’s depressing to realize that any of our representatives in Congress do not have a deep and nuanced understanding of how our government works. I mean, you’d expect them to sit down and study it – but, apparently they don’t. Here’s an example, from TPM a few days ago:

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) said Friday that President Donald Trump “has a legitimate right to say that he was betrayed” by Attorney General Jeff Sessions due to Sessions’ recusal from matters relating to Russia, which in turn led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.

“The American people, now, are getting a taste of what people in Washington have known over this last year, and that is Jeff Sessions betrays the people who have had faith in him,” Rohrabacher told CNN’s Ana Cabrera in an interview.

But AG Sessions’ loyalty is not to the President. His loyalty is explicitly to the country, and it is his duty to prosecute anyone who may break the law – including the President.

Rohrabacher should know this. It should be tattooed on his eyelids. The response shouldn’t have been, well, maybe this will doom Sessions. It should have been, Hey, that’s immaterial. Has he betrayed the country?

Because the country and the President are NOT indivisible.

If you’re wondering how expensive last year has been in terms of weather disasters, NOAA is on the case with a useful table:

Below is a historical table of U.S. Billion-dollar disaster events, summaries, report links and statistics for the 1980–2017 period of record. In 2017, there were 16 weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the United States. These events included 1 drought event, 2 flooding events, 1 freeze event, 8 severe storm events, 3 tropical cyclone events, and 1 wildfire event. Overall, these events resulted in the deaths of 362 people and had significant economic effects on the areas impacted.

Thankfully, the death toll was relatively small, which can be attributed to scientific advances in weather forecasting, as well as responses to same. Melissa Breyer provides some context on Treehugger.com:

Last year, the US suffered an astounding $306 billion in damage, shattering all records to date.

2017 was definitely one for the books. If you felt like natural disasters in the United States were descending with unusual fury, you were correct. In fact, according to a new report by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, 2017 was the most expensive year on record for natural disasters in the country. From the parade of hurricanes and hailstorms to freezes and fires, the succession of calamities came with a price tag of $306 billion in damage.

While they adjust for inflation, the fact is that there’s more people, which makes the United States a bit more of a target rich environment for natural disasters.

Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog notes the latest in the North Carolina redistricting saga has been rejected 

In a case sure to be appealed to the United States Supreme Court,  three-judge federal court has has struck North Carolina’s congressional districting as a unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. One judge partially dissented on some grounds, but agreed with the other two judges that the redistricting plan violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Curt also fast tracked a remedy in the case, giving the state a deadline to pass the plan and appointing a special master in case, as expected, the NC General Assembly resists. …

The majority opinion by Judge Wynn is an unqualified victory for the plaintiffs, finding multiple grounds (including equal protection, the First Amendment, and the Elections Clause) for ruling that North Carolina’s plan is unconstitutional.

The result is not a big surprise given what North Carolina did here. After its earlier redistricting was declared a racial gerrymander, it came up with a new plan using only political data that it described as a partisan gerrymander on its own terms. It did this as a defense against a future racial gerrymandering claim. As the court explained at page 16, NC “Representative Lewis said that he “propose[d] that [the Committee] draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats because [he] d[id] not believe it[ would be] possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and 2 Democrats.”  If there’s any case that could be a partisan gerrymander, it’s this one.

The desperation would seem to be a clear signal that the North Carolina GOP realizes that its ideology has led to a popularity that is not where they’d like it to be. At this point, though, is there enough time for SCOTUS to come to a decision on the similar cases from Wisconsin and Maryland? Or has the North Carolina GOP managed to drag this out far enough that they’ll be able to keep their cozy jobs at the next election cycle?

An age-old tradition continues, as reported on HuffPo:

Paula White, a prosperity gospel preacher with close ties to President Donald Trump, is calling on followers to send her donations of up to one month’s salary. Those who don’t pay up could face “consequences” from God as he demands the dough as a “first fruits” offering.

“The reason is God lays claim to all firsts,” White wrote on her website. “So when you keep for yourself something that belongs to God you are desecrating what is to be consecrated to God.”

In this case, the “firsts” are money, which “supernaturally unlocks amazing opportunity, blessing, favor and divine order for your life.”

Or, in other words, God can be bought. Nothing new here, folks, keep moving right along. You’ll find charlatans like her in every century, all the way back.

Matt O’Brien for WaPo‘s Wonkblog doesn’t seem to have much use for Bitcoin and, possibly, libertarians. Besides noting the energy consumption problem I noted here, he also sees another limitation:

The first thing they don’t understand is that money isn’t just a store of value. It’s also a medium of exchange, or what we use to buy things with. And if it’s going to be much of one, then it not only has to avoid losing too much value, but also gaining too much. Otherwise, why would you ever spend it? You wouldn’t. You’d just hold on to it as long as you could in case, like bitcoin, it went from being able to buy $900 worth of stuff one year to $19,000 the next. Which, if it ever did replace the dollar, would bring the economy to a halt while everyone stopped buying anything other than the essentials and waited to become bitcoin millionaires.

To stop that from happening, you’d need to be able to increase the supply of bitcoins as the demand for them did. This is more or less what is known as “printing money,” and, as is often the case, it can be either good or bad depending on whether it’s done appropriately or not. Do it too much and you can get the type of persistent inflation the U.S. had in the 1970s; way too much and the kind of currency-killing hyperinflation Germany had in the 1920s; but too little and the economy might fall into a doom loop like the whole world did in the 1930s. Bitcoin, though, is set up under the assumption that people — or, more accurately, governments — can never be trusted to do this, and that pretty much anything that reduces the value of a currency is by definition bad. That’s why its pseudonymous creator decided there would only ever be 21 million coins, even though that hard limit has meant prices have zoomed up and down and back up again as interest in bitcoin has itself. That’s made it the best penny stock and the worst currency in the world.

I wasn’t aware of the 21 million coin limitation. Yeah, as long as humanity predicates economies on expansion, a limited currency is doomed. Once that last coin is dispensed, the relative worth of each coin will inevitably increase as the economies expand (because each coin must represent some part of the economy), and once a substantial portion of the population realizes this, hoarding will start, depending on the external context. What does that mean? That means are there alternative currencies, such as … the American dollar? If so, then we’re going to see a boom and bust cycle as value slides back and forth between the two currencies, where value means transactions taking place. Does a bitcoin represent a pound of flour – or 10000 pounds? Well, it depends on whether someone wishes to use a bitcoin or a dollar.

And if there’s not an alternative, then people will hoard, but that’ll put the brakes on the economy, so then they’ll lose value. I think. Sounds like a roller-coaster.

Hey, I’m not an economist, but Matt’s article, which is worth perusing, makes me think I made the right decision not getting into Bitcoin for the long term. Right now it appears to be a short-term game of last one holding the coin loses.

AL Monitor covers the official reason for the recent protests in Iran. It’s … us!

In his first extensive comments on the recent protests in Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Jan. 9 pointed the finger at the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, saying they planned the unrest. …

On Jan. 2, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani stated in an interview that Saudi Arabia, Israel and a number of Western countries had plotted the unrest. The protests reportedly led to the arrest of thousands of people and the deaths of almost two dozen people, who, according to officials, were killed by “rioters.” Law enforcement officials have said that a large number of those who were arrested have been freed.

Keep in mind that the Supreme Leader represents the religious interests of Islam, which is to say they guarantee the rightness of the government as a whole.

Which logically brings us to “Our Islamic government can do no wrong, so these protests must be originate with evil outsiders!”

Notice how this absolute certainty of being right is echoed in our own GOP. They have engaged in the rudest of political maneuvers, and have written the most important bills in a slap-dash manner that would have embarrassed and infuriated leading members of both parties fifty years ago, but they’re so certain they’re right, because God is on their side.

The insanity they express is gob-smacking, just as is Khamenei’s. He can’t even consider blaming himself and his supporters, because that would fly in the face of God, and they can’t do that.

So, in each case, they ride the rollercoaster into the coastal shoals below, either to dash their brains out or drown in the surf. It’ll be McConnell, Ryan, Khamenei, and Trump, all in a pile.

And yet more religious fanatics will pile in. Because that’s how you get power. First, God. Then, charge! Avoid blame, take the credit, and relentlessly climb the mountain!

In China they’ve recently introduced the concept of social credit, which is an amalgamation of some of the things you think of as credit as well as other activities, such as giving to charity or failing to pay court fines – or having friends with low social credit scores. Mara Hvistendahl of Wired has a wide-ranging and fascinating report on it:

Ant Financial wasn’t the only entity keen on using data to measure people’s worth. Coincidentally or not, in 2014 the Chinese government announced it was developing what it called a system of “social credit.” In 2014, the State Council, China’s governing cabinet, publicly called for the establishment of a nationwide tracking system to rate the reputations of individuals, businesses, and even government officials. The aim is for every Chinese citizen to be trailed by a file compiling data from public and private sources by 2020, and for those files to be searchable by fingerprints and other biometric characteristics. The State Council calls it a “credit system that covers the whole society.”

For the Chinese Communist Party, social credit is an attempt at a softer, more invisible authoritarianism. The goal is to nudge people toward behaviors ranging from energy conservation to obedience to the Party. Samantha Hoffman, a consultant with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London who is researching social credit, says that the government wants to preempt instability that might threaten the Party. “That’s why social credit ideally requires both coercive aspects and nicer aspects, like providing social services and solving real problems. It’s all under the same Orwellian umbrella.”

Thinking about this, it occurred to me that this is sort of an illustration of one key difference in the moral systems of China and the West. In the West, our moral system is religiously based and beyond the domain and abilities of the most governments to seriously affect it. In those cases where the moral system does change, at least in the United States, it has less to do with the government and more to do with popular debate and opinion. (In the past, monarchies sought the imprimatur of God, but that didn’t necessarily give them influence – only a good Army making the trip to Rome could do that. I suppose ol’ King Henry’s construction of the Anglican Church might apply, although the claim goes that he just wanted to marry someone else – which is an element of morality, now isn’t it?)

But China lacks any 3rd party moral system, if you will: it’s the domain of the Chinese government, and since the only legal occupant of the Chinese government is the Chinese Communist Party, they get to choose the moral system. I’m sure the great bulk of the moral system is akin to Western moral systems, but it’s around the edges that they can play.

And why is this? I am not aware of any religious group with a dominant position in Chinese society; Marx preached against any form of religion, and I do believe the Chinese followed right along in his footsteps. I found this bit interesting:

In China, anxiety about pianzi, or swindlers, runs deep. How do I know you’re not a pianzi? is a question people often ask when salespeople call on the phone or repairmen show up at the door. While my score likely didn’t put me in the ranks of pianzi, one promise of Zhima Credit was identifying those who were. Companies can buy risk assessments for users that detail whether they have paid their rent or utilities or appear on the court blacklist. For businesses, such products are billed as time-savers. On the site Tencent Video, I stumbled across an ad for Zhima Credit in which a businessman scrutinizes strangers as he rides the subway. “Everybody looks like a pianzi,” he despairs. His employees, trying to guard against shady customers, cover the office conference room walls with photos of lowlifes and criminals. But then—tada!—the boss discovers Zhima Credit, and all of their problems are solved. The staff celebrate by tearing the photos off the wall.

We don’t see this much anxiety, I hope.

And I feel no great enthusiasm for such a service in the United States. It feels like a hammer.

David Post of The Volokh Conspiracy has found the reply to Trump’s cease-and-desist letter to Henry Wolff, author of Fire and Fury, and his publisher, and has nicely edited it to bring out the parts which makes Trump’s lawyers look like idiots, which I will now shamelessly borrow:

Henry Holt & Co., through its lawyer (Eliz. McNamara at Davis Wright in NYC), has sent a response [available here] to Trump’s cease-and-desist letter. It’s a nicely-crafted letter, worth reading as a small reminder that excellent legal prose does not have to be incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo. Some highlights:

“[Y]ou demand that my clients cease publication of the book and issue a full and complete retraction and apology. My clients do not intend to cease publication, no such retraction will occur, and no apology is warranted.” [Note the Oxford comma after ‘occur’ – nice! It’s part of what makes the sentence sound downright Churchillian.]

“Though your letter provides a basic summary of New York libel law, tellingly, it stops short of identifying a single statement in the book that is factually false or defamatory.”

“[W]e note that you understandably cite to New York as the governing law, yet we were surprised to see that President Trump plans on asserting a claim for ‘false light invasion of privacy.’ As you are no doubt aware” – Ouch! – “New York does not recognize such a cause of action. Not only is tis [sic] claim meritless; it is non-existent. In any event, it is patentily [sic] ridiculous to claim that the privacy of the President of the United States has been violated by a book reporting on his campaign and his actions in office.” (emphasis in original)

Regarding Trump’s claim that Holt could be liable for “inducing” a breach of contract by Steve Bannon: “The law treats sources like Mr. Bannon as adults, and it is Mr. Bannon’s responsibility – not Henry Holt’s or Mr. Wolff’s – to honor any contractual obligations. Indeed, your attempt to use private contracts to act as a blanket restriction on members of the government speaking to the press is a perversion of contract law and a gross violation of the First Amendment.”

And finally, in regard to the seven pages of document -preservation instructions in Trump’s letter: “[My clients] will comply with any and all document preservation obligations the law imposes upon them. At the same time, we must remind you that President Trump, in his personal and governmental capacity, must comply with the same legal obligations regading himself, his family members, their businesses, the Trump campaign, and his administration, … including any and all documents pertaining to any of the matters about which the book reports.” That’s a nice turnabout.

Thank you, David. One of my best reads of the day. OK, so a lot of the rest was computer code…. it still made me laugh.

Fricassee:

1. meat, especially chicken or veal, browned lightly, stewed, and served in a sauce made with its own stock. [Dictionary.com]

Heard in conversation with my Arts Editor todaya few days ago. Neither of us were exactly certain of the definition.

You’d think they were an invading army or something.

How would you price one of 200+ Santa’s helpers? Authentic Santa’s helpers, dressed up as the old guy?

Maybe $85,000?

And, of course, they’re, ah, docile, which means … No longer murderous?

That’s the final, implicit question in Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010). A Finnish export, this is the tale of the consequences of a bunch of American miners working a small mountain in Lapland, Finland, home of the Sami, reindeer herders. One morning, a few Sami discover their herd has been slaughtered and eaten, much to their fury. One little boy, Pietari, who with a friend had snuck into the mining camp and seen some of the work, becomes quite worried, resolving to do some research, and it’s December 24th. Losing a herd is no laughing matter.

Krampus and some despicable children.
Source: Wikipedia (“A 1900s greeting card reading ‘Greetings from Krampus!’)

Pietari has some interesting books to use for his research, and soon he’s on to a Santa Claus who’s rather different from the jolly old fellow of old: ram’s horns adorn his forehead, and while he cares little for good little boys and girls, the bad ones, well, it’s the cauldron for them. At least in one drawing. At this juncture, my Arts Editor commented that the picture resembled what little she knew of the pre-Christian demon Krampus, as seen here on the right. Those are presumably bad children. Nice tongue.

Then it’s Christmas morning and Pietari’s father has caught something in the wolf pit trap, and that’s no wolf – it’s a dead, naked old man! At this moment, the neighbor who wears the Santa Claus costume shows up and is drafted into helping drag the corpse into the workshop. See, there’s this little problem: that trap is actually illegal. How to get around this fine point? They don’t know the old guy, so it’s the chainsaw for him.

Except he’s not dead, and they’re not murderers, so they wait for him to recover. Pietari’s not so happy, though, and manages to catch a ride into town with the local cops, who seem to be a trifle grumpy. His father pursues them and eventually catches up, where he learns of mysterious overnight thefts of radiators, stoves, and a hair-dryer. The husband of the owner of the hair-dryer blames it all on Russians, who have nothing so good. This man, who knows English, is recruited as an interpreter, as it’s obvious the old man is a miner.

And where are all the children?

Upon return, the neighbor is found outraged at having his ear bitten off by the old man. Furious, the three men and Pietari charge into the mining camp, but find it abandoned. A radio burps at them: Is the cargo ready? Is Santa Claus ready to fly? Smelling opportunity, they arrange to have the old man ready for delivery.

Sadly for the man who wants Santa to fly, what appears to be a glaive gives him a splitting headache, and, under attack by a passel of old men, the group retreats into a storage facility, where, from a block of ice thirty feet tall, there protrudes a monstrous pair of horns.

Well, this and that occurs, obstacles are overcome, and the story might even be funnier if you’re familiar with Finnish legends – I’m not, so I only laughed a little. But in the end, the group is faced with the problem of what to do with 200+ out of work Santa’s helpers.

For all that we might see the dour Finns classifying this as just a light-hearted romp, I see in it echoes of Ghostbusters (1984), because they share the theme of breaking the dominance of the Gods. These are the ancient, terrifying, brutal gods that rampaged through the lives of the helpless humans, treating them as toys or even treats – except now we must strike the word helpless, for the furious, desperate, resourceful men find a way to destroy a God, committing deicide – and finding a way to profit thereby. It’s the uplift of poor humanity from being the mat on which the Gods wiped their feet to insurgents who challenge for the right to live free of the arbitrary rules and destruction brought on by a mysterious Divine.

That gives the story more than transitory meaning. I felt the balance of the work – the cinematography, acting, pacing, story – were all adequate or more than adequate. I particularly liked Pietari, a steady little boy who sees more clearly than most. This is both tensely well-told as well as fairly amusing. If you’re in the mood for a closely observed few Christmas hours in a foreign land still latched to a foreign mythology, then this story may be for you.

I noticed today a lot of chatter about Oprah Winfrey’s possible advancement of a candidacy for the Democrats’ Presidential nomination in 2020, but I must confess I mostly did not read up on it except for the piece by Kevin Williamson in National Review. It’s easy to write useless puff pieces if you like a candidate – but you may learn more by reading someone opposed to such a Presidency. While Kevin is aware that a compare and contrast with President Trump would not turn out well for Trump, he does have an opening salvo in case of a Winfrey campaign:

Of course she is categorically unqualified for the office. But have fun imagining Republicans making that case in the shadow of Donald J. Trump, Very Stable Genius™. Oprah’s formal educational attainments are modest, whatever political ideas she has seem to be largely undeveloped, and she has an obvious and regrettable weakness for quacks and cranks of sundry sorts: anti-vaccine nuts, Dr. Oz, doctors who use Tarot cards to diagnose thyroid problems, etc. She is a one-woman public-health menace.

I have no direct exposure to Winfrey. Never watched the show, read the magazine, probably not even seen her movies (she’s made a few), nor have I researched her. Kevin’s remarks are, therefore, contingent in my view, but given that they are a little troubling. I prefer my medicine to be evidence-based, not charisma-based, and so that may be a problem.

Or maybe not. While the history of a politician is of vital importance for evaluation purposes, it’s also important to realize that adults mature and change. It’s possible that a decade or two ago Winfrey was easy prey to the quacks, but today she’s learned of their worthlessness and now disdains them.

But I don’t know.

So my real point is that current views, not past views, are the most important in the evaluation process. If she’s forceful in saying she made mistakes and no longer has any use for superstitious rot, then great; if she equivocates and mentions her great experience with a palm reader last week (shades of Nancy Reagan!), then she’s probably a poor choice for President, although still superior to Trump. But allowing ancient history to make a decision for me is undesirable.

And for you.

My Arts Editor points out, as Kevin also notes, that she’s done well going from zero to the wealthiest woman in the world, and while business skills have little application in the governance sector, a keen understanding of how to build a team of experts has a great deal of applicability. Does she understand the difference? The Executive doesn’t need to be an expert in much of anything but assembling proper people to lead the various Cabinet and other positions, a stable temperament, and a keen understanding of the hows and whys of the Executive branch. Has Winfrey studied the subject? Or is she coasting in on her fame?

This is what interviews and debates should uncover.

So we’ll see what the coming months have to show. Personally, I think it’s a little early to start the 2020 campaign, even if Trump had already filed for it before he had even assumed office.

Knowingly or not, Bob Bauer on Lawfare is laying out a strong tactic for Democratic use in the next two elections in nearly all their national races. How so? By elaborating on how the GOP is helping Trump do lasting damage to the nation:

Does it matter if the threatened lawsuit never materializes? A lawsuit is surely worse than the threat of one. Yet the threat, conveyed in the most formal terms by his legal team, is an appalling precedent to have set.

In previous posts, I have suggested that Trump displays a demagogic leadership style characterized by the pathological personalization of his office. Of primary importance are his personal ends and ambitions: those ends justify the use of virtually any means. If to make a point or to inflict a penalty for crossing him, he feels he must climb down from the presidency to threaten litigation and perhaps become a litigant with no apparent concern for the costs to the institution, then that is what he will do. Norms are meaningless to the demagogue, who delights in ignoring them or who views them, as his chief of staff recently affirmed, as an impediment to running things as he would like.

Now the problem might be seen as only Trump’s, a problem to last as long as a presidency in which this most unusual occupant routinely confuses personal whim with official prerogative. One might imagine that democratic norms will not suffer permanent damage, only a temporary bruising until the next president takes office. On a more pessimistic note, what is once done stands a very fair chance of repetition. The presidents who follow Trump may bring to government no more experience and also fall back in running the government on whatever they learned in the private sector pursuits that earned them their wealth and public notice. The “insider-outsider” dynamic of contemporary politics rewards the candidates who profess contempt for government. In their understanding of government, “norms” are simply biases built into the system, the rules by which the insiders set the rules for their own benefit.

The damage to norms may begin with Trump’s personal outbursts and inclinations, but it does not end there. The acquiescence of congressional Republicans in the president’s conduct, which has sometimes risen to active support, elevates the attack on norms beyond an expression of Trump’s eccentricities. Not a single senior Republican member of Congress has raised a question about the president’s use of threats of litigation against political adversary Bannon or media critic Michael Wolff.

Nor have Republicans dissented from the president’s suggestion on Saturday, which he has made before, that the libel laws should be revised to ease the way for politicians to sue their media critics.

The Dems have the raw material: Trump may be leading the way in inflicting damage on the Nation, but the GOP is in full sheep mode right behind him. But they need to keep in mind that the average Joe doesn’t really know much about norms or how the Executive really functions. Much like myself, past tense, most think the President, through his nominees, runs these departments, and who has ever heard of a norm.

Therefore, the Dems need to embark on an educational and then accusatory campaign. First, educate everyone, in a non-partisan manner, on how and why the Executive is structured as it is. Following that – and much harder – will be to explain and justify the norms that Trump and his Party are trampling. Think the refusal to even consider Judge Garland.

If they’re smart, they’ll use multiple media and learning styles. Even the old cartoons which explained the rudiments of American government forty years ago could provide a style for these new lessons.

The trick will be to make them completely non-partisan so that when the Trumpists try to discredit them, the independents will scratch their heads and then dismiss the Trumpists. Hell, if it can be done effectively and honestly, throw Bill Clinton under the bus.

The next step is to put a knife into the chest of the opposing GOP candidates. In the case of incumbents, the Dem ad should ask why the incumbent did not raise a fuss, introduce a bill, or do anything at all to impede the destruction of the American nation. Your Congressperson is supposed to be a strong-willed leader, but instead Trump had his way with them without the least objection! Don’t hesitate to use the sexual innuendo, because it connects to our primitive beings and reinforces the central truth of the GOP in this Congress – irresponsible loyalty to Party and Leader over their loyalty to the United States.

For those candidates who are not incumbents, if they are Tea Party members – and most will be – then simply point out that Trump and the Tea Party are one, and ask why in the world a voter would want to send a Trump partisan to Congress to continue damaging the government of the United States?

Reading Bob’s post, it brought out quite vividly the difference in outlooks of Trump vs just about previous Presidents, and that difference is their view of the Nation’s future. These norms and requirements and laws and all the constraints on the Executive are there to enhance the just behaviors of the Executive, and by so doing, enhance the very future of the United States. That is the point of all these things that frustrate President Trump.

And that is really the point of Trump – not the future of the United States, but his own immediate gratification. He seems to have no conception of a future for anyone but himself, and even that is merely how he compares with those who he conceives of as competitors, whether they’re other real estate developers or previous American Presidents.

And that irresponsible outlook is why it’s important to start dismantling the GOP Government. It’s the first step on the difficult rehab of a Party in steep decline.

Cleaned and sharpened, please.

The Bat (1959) presents a murder mystery involving a small town in which it seems many of the pillars of society are riddled with termites, but the strong-willed ladies will save the day. Mystery writer Cornelia van Gorder has rented a large house named The Oaks during her visit to an unnamed small town (possibly named Zenith, which may be inaccurate but I will assume), and the owner of the house is the local bank’s president and founder, John Fleming. John is on a vacation trip, hunting in the company of the local doctor, Dr. Wells (Vincent Price). One evening he reveals that he’s embezzled $1 million (quite a lot in those days). He intends to kill their hunting guide, and requires the assistance of the doctor to have the guide’s remains recognized as Fleming’s, and also certified as so mutilated that the coffin should be sealed. The Cashier of the bank will be considered to have committed the crime and Fleming will escape with ill-gotten gains.

Dr. Wells seems mysteriously untroubled by this criminal proposition, and speculates on the location of the money. As Fleming had actually build The Oaks, he wonders aloud if the money is hidden at the house. Fleming hears something outside, and opening the door of the cabin, finds the woods are aflame. He turns to warn the doctor, but Wells has sprung into action at Fleming’s distraction, grabbing a gun and shooting the bank president dead.

Zenith has been plagued with a series of murders in which the jugular of the victims, all female, are ripped out. One victim survives long enough to describe a human with no face and claws on his hands, possibly with wings, and so the murderer is nicknamed The Bat. Cornelia’s servants, but for the maid, Lizzie, and the chauffeur, have fled her employ because of stories surrounding The Oaks, and Dr. Wells, returned from his murderous sojourn, wastes little time in reinforcing these concerns, in a most charming way. But Cornelia is no fainting flower, but a forceful tower of good sense and the intelligence that one might expect from a hard-nosed mystery writer. One storm-tossed night, she and her maid receive a fright when the maid sees an outside door open and a clawed hand reach for Cornelia, but the door is swiftly shut and locked, and Cornelia and Lizzie retreat to their bedroom, where Cornelia evidences that she’s locked and loaded for bear.

And so the movie continues, as bodies start to pile up, hidden rooms contain more than you might think, and greed merits its old rewards of disgrace and death. This story plays with evidence and supposition right to the very end, and although I did detect two or three plot holes, the pacing, cinematography, and strong performances by the cast, especially that of Cornelia (Agnes Moorhead) and Dr. Wells makes it possible to miss, or at least disregard, those plot holes as they go flying by.

This is not a cutting edge thriller, nor will it change your life, so I shan’t actually recommend it. But if you’re craving a thriller mystery with some memorable characters, The Bat may be just for you. And it’s available online:

Factotum:

1. : a person having many diverse activities or responsibilities
2. : a general servant [Merriam-Webster]

Jake Tapper of CNN’s State Of The Union used it as he cut off Trump senior advisor Stephen Miller to end an interview:

CNN’s Jake Tapper ended a bizarre, contentious filibuster by White House policy advisor Stephen Miller on today’s State of the Union by noting, “There is one viewer that you care about right now and you’re being obsequious, you’re being a factotum in order to please him.”

I wonder if there’s a denigrative sense to factotum.

If you’re in the United States and have been wondering where global warming has gone, I have your answer: it’s in Australia.

Emergency services in southeast Australia are warning people to stay indoors as a dangerous heatwave batters the country, with temperatures so high that the asphalt on some roads has been melting.

The “catastrophic” hot weather caused a 10km stretch of the Hume Highway, near the Victoria state capital Melbourne, to become soft and sticky, causing havoc for motorists trying to enter the city.

Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania have now declared a total fire ban after blazes on the outskirts of Melbourne raged out of control, destroying buildings and threatening lives.

It took a team of 300 firefighters, 50 trucks and three helicopters to tackle one fire in Victoria’s Carrum Downs on Saturday, which threatened dozens of homes.

And another 49 bushfires are said to have been reported across the state – although many were small and easily extinguished – with 400 residencies losing power.

The state’s emergency management commissioner, Craig Lapsley, said hot temperatures had combined with dry weather, strong winds and a wind change to create dangerous conditions. [The Independent]

Welcome to Earth’s climate, a non-linear system in which more and more energy is trapped and running around madly, trying to escape. You can puzzle over these metric values …

Temperatures are expected to exceed 40°C in the southeast, with the country’s Bureau of Meteorology forecasting highs of 45°C in Penrith, 44°C in Richmond and 43°C in Liverpool, with much of the area being rated as ‘catastrophic’ or ‘code red’ by emergency services.

… or you can contemplate your asphalt melting and just take it as a sign that global climate is warming up.

I’ve decided to add a new section on the right side called Recent Keepers, which points to posts I think are particularly well done. Feel free to nominate others using the mail link on the right to me. I’ll probably limit it to five entries and rotate them as they grow old.

In the protests in Iran the GOP may foresee the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but I fear it may be a mirror as described in this WaPo report:

The unnamed woman is one of countless Iranians who say their savings have been wiped out by the collapse of fraudulent businesses and unlicensed credit institutions in recent years. Economists are now pointing to the abrupt closure of these poorly regulated institutions as laying the foundation for the unrest that struck Iran starting in late December.

“Banks are shutting down without any kind of notice, and it’s creating a huge political and economic backlash at a local level,” said Suzanne Maloney, senior fellow on Middle East policy at the Brookings Institution.

Anger over these losses came on top of years of pent-up frustration over a sluggish economy. When the government announced recent price increases and released an austere budget bill, it ignited at-times violent protests that spread rapidly to dozens of cities nationwide. Demonstrators quickly turned their fury on corrupt officials and the Islamic republic as a whole. …

“Most protests in Iran are over economic issues,” Maloney said. “What’s different is that it seems to have tapped into a deep sense of alienation and frustration, that people aren’t just demonstrating for better working conditions or pay, but insisting on wholesale rejection of the system itself.”

Note “poorly regulated.” It’s been an under-reported item that the Trump Administration has been busy loosening regulations, often or always with the justification that they a wet blanket on the economy. My worry stems from the Great Recession, which I (and a number of economists, who are far more credible than myself) believe was triggered through regulation loosening, including the repeal of the old Glass-Steagall Act contained in the U.S. Banking Act of 1933.

If we were to suffer a repeat of the Great Recession of 2008, would we once again hunker down and wait it out? Remember, when the Bush Administration rendered aid to the financial industry, that generated a lot of outrage and arguably contributed to the Obama victory and the brief Democratic dominance of Congress. Is it enough that the politicos can be voted out, or would we be facing our own set of protests over the mismanagement of the economy? After all, for the little guy (being one of them), the economy runs on what might loosely be called honor, the understanding that transactions are honest & etc. But the actions of bankers and insurance (such as bailout recipient AiG) execs were perceived, and perhaps were, less than honorable: monster bonuses in the face of miserable disaster, running companies right into the ground (see Lehman Brothers), and other such activities, often seen as execs enriching themselves at the expense of the hard-working little guy. Just voting out the arrogant assholes in the GOP might not be soon enough, visceral enough.

We could see our own set of riots if an economic crash was seen to be a result of Trumpist greed.

Parasomnia:

To see if unusual physical movements in our sleep, known as parasomnias, could correspond with us replaying things we’ve learned, researchers have started studying some of the more animated human sleepers – from those who let out light grumbles or sit up in bed, to more extreme cases when people eat, drive or even have sex while asleep. [“Night exercises: The intense workout we all do in our sleep,” Michelle Carr, NewScientist (9 December 2017, paywall)]