Unsightly Mental Blemishes

On Religion Dispatches former evangelical Chrissy Stroop addresses the changing power of the evangelical narrative:

Evangelicals also understand the power of narrative, which is why they’re so concerned with controlling the stories the public hears not only about themselves, but also about those of us who leave evangelicalism and tell the truth about how it has harmed us, criticizing evangelical theology as well as the racism, misogyny, anti-LGBTQ animus, and culture-warring politics that theology bolsters. As evangelicals’ own story of engaging politically out of serious concerns about morality and “sincerely held religious beliefs” has lost influence with the public because of the transparent hypocrisy they displayed through the Trump years, space has opened up for a shift in the national discussion that includes a sympathetic hearing for ex-evangelical stories and perspectives. Shifting the national conversation, as elite evangelicals and right-wing political strategists are well aware, lays the groundwork for shifts in politics and policy.

That’s what’s really at stake here. The possibility of a more equitable America, one that affords full rights to members of the groups that evangelicals tend to ‘other’ and disparage, is the last thing the vast majority of white evangelicals, who have a pathological need to feel superior to others, want. Here’s hoping the fairer journalistic approach to evangelicals we’ve seen in recent months, which bolsters civil society and democracy instead of undermining it through the normalization of extremism, will continue.

A narrative, which Stroop observes is a story and one of the strongest ways to teach each other, is necessarily part fiction: at its best, a simplification of often complex situations in order to highlight the moral lesson which is presumably being presented.

When critics of a narrative, whether they’re prominent figures such as former evangelicals, or absolutely obscure such as myself, point out inconvenient facts, we’re trying to falsify the narrative. Whether it’s through absurd conclusions such as a requirement to attempt surgical procedures that have not yet been invented, or the January 6th insurrection itself, these facts are the cracks in the narrative – facts that, we think, will falsify that narrative.

And the persistent and overwhelming evangelical support of President Trump in the face of a level of mendacity hardly seen on the American political scene is one of the biggest boulders breaking that story. As I’ve told readers & friends, the evangelicals have brought this on themselves: abandoning important principles in response to relentless messages concerning dubious moral assertions and constitutional rights, and their own endangerment in a culture of emigres.

They are, in fact, in danger: brought on by their own hypocrisy and poor reasoning skills.

Stroop thinks the narrative is beginning to slip from the evangelicals fingers. If the 20-somethings continue not to join the evangelicals, I think Stroop will have been proven right. As that generation has the least invested, they are the most likely to make honest judgments and follow through on them.

On this dormant thread, how the following story affects your opinion of North Carolina is up to you:

Last week, there was a major development in a high-profile political controversy that has roiled North Carolina for the better part of a decade. And unless you are a state political news junkie, chances are you heard nothing about it.

There were no press conferences, no major statements given by prominent leaders. The news, though incredibly significant, was almost immediately forgotten in the breathless 24-hour news cycle.

I’m talking, of course, about voter fraud—or more accurately, the lack of it in North Carolina.

Federal prosecutors announced the end of a four-year investigation into longstanding Republican claims of voter fraud in North Carolina the other week. Their findings were significant—but not in the way they intended. After years of searching, including “dragnet-style” subpoenas of at least 44 counties and multiple state agencies, sophisticated data mining, invasive audits of state voter rolls, hundreds of hours of professional staff time and more, investigators were able to find almost no evidence of voter fraud at all.

To be precise, out of about 5 million votes cast and 7 million registered voters, investigators were able to charge a grand total of 41 people with some form of fraud.

In virtually all cases, they appeared to be simple human error: regular people, including legally documented residents with green cards, who simply did not know they were ineligible to vote. Despite their best efforts, investigators were completely unable to substantiate claims of “pervasive” or “systemic” fraud. North Carolina’s elections system worked almost perfectly in keeping ineligible voters from casting ballots. [Bill Reeves, Cardinal & Pine]

The North Carolina GOP can always blame the investigators, though.

Right?

The investigation was carried out almost exclusively by Republicans themselves. Former President Trump’s own appointed US attorneys in our state were its leaders. They were assisted during most of the investigation by Republican appointees at the State Board of Elections, including its director and general counsel. Yet despite all the years of claims about an epidemic of voter fraud, investigators were able to find essentially no evidence of it.

While Reeves goes on to declaim about the utter waste of money this turned out to be, I’m not so sure I agree. For me, this is reassurance for the North Carolina Democrats that the returns they’re seeing at elections are, in fact, the truth. That, in turn, lets them fine tune their message delivery systems – and their message.

And the next time a North Carolina GOPer opens their mouth to whine about voting fraud, they can be asked just how many more times the election process must be investigated before they’ll accept that they’re just not that popular anymore.

While reading about the incredible financial haul Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) achieved in the last quarter, I was struck by Steve Benen’s description of her actual work, ah, load:

The New York Times recently ran a good report on the “new wave” of congressional Republicans who are “more interested in brand-building than lawmaking.”

A growing number of lawmakers have demonstrated less interest in the nitty-gritty passing of laws and more in using their powerful perches to build their own political brands and stoke outrage among their opponents. The trend has contributed to the deep dysfunction on Capitol Hill, where viral moments of Republicans trying to troll their colleagues across the aisle … generate far more attention than legislative debate.

Greene, in particular, celebrated her status as a lawmaker that has very little to do. After boasting that she’s been “freed” from having to do actual legislative work, the Georgia Republican added, “If I was on a committee, I’d be wasting my time.”

The amount of money is dismaying – not in the light of her radical position, but the fact that she’s not doing her job.

As she admits. She’s not representing her constituents’ needs.

During her upcoming reelection – assuming she runs again – the first word out of potential voters’ mouth should be What legislation did you work on and what did you contribute? How does that apply to the needs of your district?

If she dares lie, she should be called out on it.

And if she says, Well, nothing, but … she should be cutoff at the But and reprimanded by the voter asking the question.

To the extent that she receives support in her district at reelection time, that correlates with the amount of Civic Dysfunction is present in her district.

But it was Lincoln’s Republicans who first provided the justification for investing in the nation. In the midst of the deadly Civil War, as the United States was hemorrhaging both blood and money, Republican lawmakers defended first their invention of national taxes. The government had a right to “demand” 99% of a man’s property for an urgent need, said House Ways and Means Committee Chair Justin Smith Morrill (R-VT). When the nation required it, he said, “the property of the people… belongs to the [g]overnment.”

— Professor Heather Cox Richardson

Quite the thing for a Republican to say. But I do wish Richardson had given a source for context.

The press is a societal sector that is separate from the private sector, and yet it is often run as if it was simply another private sector entity: demanding profits, open to be sold to a big offer.

And sometimes seeing its core mission, to report the news, biased by ownership.

So there may be even more significance than already credited to this deal to save the venerable Baltimore Sun:

… a coalition of wealthy business executives has put together an 11th-hour offer to buy not just the Baltimore Sun but the entire Tribune Publishing chain that a special committee of the Tribune’s board said Monday “would reasonably be expected” to beat out Alden’s offer. The all-cash proposal from Stewart Bainum Jr., chairman of Maryland-based Choice Hotels International, and Wyoming-based Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss, is valued at $680 million, about $50 million more than Alden has proposed paying.

The duo then plans to sell many of the individual papers to local owners. Bainum is primarily interested in the Baltimore Sun, where he has told associates he wants to expand the newsroom. Wyss has told colleagues he plans to invest in the Chicago Tribune, according to an executive who is familiar with the discussions. [WaPo]

And then?

And so they launched their campaign. A petition to return the Sun to local ownership and run it as a nonprofit organization received more than 6,000 signatures, including from CEOs and Baltimore cultural icons such as Cal Ripken and John Waters.

The idea of journalism as a non-profit operation reduces the pressure to run a profit, while still permitting the important notion of charging a fee. Long time readers will recall that I regard free news to be, potentially, the equivalent of cotton candy – it may taste good, it may cater to what you want to see as news, but it will almost certainly give you a warped view.

By paying a fee, there’s an implicit contract between the news source and the reader. Of course, the audience must be honest; walking away in disgust simply because the news doesn’t cater to their desires is not being honest. But upon finding that the news source isn’t being honest, failing to pay and refusing to read it then becomes the feedback mechanism by which the news source measures its excellence – or lack thereof.

The advertising model, taken to an extreme, removes the notion that a news source must be measured on journalism excellence and substitutes profit, clicks, and the rest of the trivia of the current technological age. The non-profit approach helps take the focus off of money, if not entirely, and returns to the question of how to measure excellence to its traditional form: what make for an excellent free press, and not an excellent private sector entity.

I encourage all of my readers to subscribe to at least one traditional paper. I subscribe to The Washington Post, myself.

The National Rifle Association’s (NRA) bankruptcy is now in court, and executive vice president Wayne LaPierre has made a rather mind-boggling admission:

Embattled National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre feared for his safety after mass shootings in recent years, forcing him to take refuge aboard a friend’s luxury yacht, the gun rights advocate testified.

LaPierre made the admission in a deposition connected to the NRA’s bankruptcy case in Dallas.

“They simply let me use it as a security retreat because they knew the threat that I was under. And I was basically under presidential threat without presidential security in terms of the number of threats I was getting,” LaPierre said.

“And all of us were struggling with how to deal with that type situation with a private citizen with the amount of threat that we were having. And this was the one place that I hope could feel safe, where I remember getting there going, ‘Thank God I’m safe, nobody can get me here.’ And that’s how it happened. That’s why I used it.” [NBC News]

And just how bad was it?

“I actually thought that given the security threat that I was under and the fact that NRA was — was at almost a loss as to how to protect somebody with the amount of threat that I was having, that — that my work and the threat that came with it, this was — was a place that I could go and be safe, and it was related to that that I — that I — that I did it,” he said.

DEFCON level “incoherent,” evidently. Just like being under a Presidential threat makes any real sense at all.

Look, what I want to know is Who’s doing the threatening? Is this a bunch of big, bad liberals? Or are the Russians angry that the American populace is heavily armed and Putin can’t risk an invasion?

Or is another member of the NRA board looking to move up in the organization?

LaPierre can’t stand the thought of actually living in the society that he’s helped to create, and that’s all kinds of weird, but it makes sense, given the character of the conservative movement. Absolutists, short-term thinkers who seem to put profit over people.

Or a peaceful, sane society.

I’m left to wonder if that’s LaPierre in a nutshell, or if was taking bribes all along and didn’t consider that his advocacy would lead to society of which he wants no part.

Long term cognitive dissonance.

Yesterday, The New York Times came out with a report on the money collection strategy employed by former President Trump during his reelection campaign, and today the former President fired back. It’s an interesting reflection on the President’s religious upbringing:

“Before our two campaigns, 2016 and 2020, Republicans would always lose small dollar donations … Now we win, or do very well, because we are the Party of Working Americans, and we beat the Democrats at their own game.”

“We learned from liberal ActBlue – and now we’re better than they are!”

“In fact, many people were so enthusiastic that they gave over and over, and in certain cases where they would give too much, we would promptly refund their contributions. Our overall dispute rate was less than 1% of total online donations, a very low number. This is done by Dems also.” [Graham Allen]

So how bad was the refunds?

While some refunds in national campaigns are common, Trump-Pence 2020 ultimately had to refund $122 million to contributors, which is unheard of: the then-president, the RNC, and their shared campaign accounts “refunded far more money to online donors in the last election cycle than every federal Democratic candidate and committee in the country combined.” [Maddowblog]

And how did this happen?

To briefly recap, the Times found that Team Trump, facing a financial shortfall, set up a default system for online donors: by adding easily overlooked pre-checked boxes and opaque fine print, the then-president’s operation was able to fleece unsuspecting donors for months.

Not surprisingly, banks and credit card companies were soon inundated “with fraud complaints from the president’s own supporters about donations they had not intended to make, sometimes for thousands of dollars.” Some donors even “canceled their cards” just to make the recurring payments to Trump stop. [Maddowblog]

Is this the telltale sign of a common thief? In isolation, yes, but in context?

It’s not.

This is the prosperity church theology in action. In that morality system, the acquisition of money will put you higher in heaven and in the world’s social register^[1]. Misrepresenting the funds involved and ignoring the victims is just part of the game.

But that’s not the only facet involved. Back to Graham Allen for more of the failed President:

“In yet another highly partisan story, the failing New York Times wrote a completely misleading, one-sided attack piece this weekend that tried to disparage our record-setting grassroots fundraising operation during the 2020 campaign.”

“Except for massive voter fraud, this was a campaign that was easily won by your favorite Republican President, me!”

Trump just sounds like a tired, demented old man here, as he repeats the prosperity church mantra:

Those who lay claim to victory actualize it …

He hopelessly batters away at the reality that he lost, that all of his judicial appeals failed, and that his popularity has begun to fade away as more and more voters decide he was responsible for the January 6 insurrection.

In Trump’s view, he’s acting in accordance with the moral system he learned from the church. What distinguishes an individual’s good morality system from an individual’s bad morality system is how it affects the society in which it is functioning. We’re seeing Trump’s prosperity theology tearing this country apart, even more than his narcissism. It attracts grifters, con-men, and all nature of third- and fourth- raters who have first-rate ambitions. See the shambling wreck of Matt Gaetz, for example.

And Trump will never stop so long as he can twitch a finger. His Divinity has far too much power, in his mind, for him to ever challenge it.

¹ The social register is an old reference to social status. It’s also a reference to an actual publication that continues even today.

Bringing closure to this story concerning the use of Oracle Java APIs by Google’s Android operating system, Google wins in the last court of appeal, SCOTUS:

Google’s copying of the Java SE API, which included only those lines of code that were needed to allow programmers to put their accrued talents to work in a new and transformative program, was a fair use of that material as a matter of law.

This is a reversal of the findings of the Federal Circuit, and also a cause for a lot of relief out there in programmer land, as I suspect a finding for Oracle would have thrown up a legalistic fog that would have put a lot of dollars at risk.

For those not remembering this thread, here’s the SCOTUS summary:

Oracle America, Inc., owns a copyright in Java SE, a computer platform that uses the popular Java computer programming language. In 2005, Google acquired Android and sought to build a new software platform for mobile devices. To allow the millions of programmers familiar with the Java programming language to work with its new Android platform, Google copied roughly 11,500 lines of code from the Java SE program. The copied lines are part of a tool called an Application Programming Interface (API). An API allows programmers to call upon prewritten computing tasks for use in their own programs. Over the course of protracted litigation, the lower courts have considered (1) whether Java SE’s owner could copyright the copied lines from the API, and (2) if so, whether Google’s copying constituted a permissible “fair use” of that material freeing Google from copyright liability. In the proceedings below, the Federal Circuit held that the copied lines are copyrightable. After a jury then found for Google on fair use, the Federal Circuit reversed, concluding that Google’s copying was not a fair use as a matter of law. Prior to remand for a trial on damages, the Court agreed to review the Federal Circuit’s determinations as to both copyrightability and fair use.

It’s a bit mushy for a technical professional.

Incidentally, the late Jeff Prothero, aka Cynbe ru Taren, once told a story that, as a young programmer, he was working in a new language (Loglan I believe), writing a parser for it, and ended up in court with the language inventor, squabbling over whether he was legally permitted to write such a thing. The Loglan Wikipedia page does mention some applicable legal troubles, but doesn’t go into detail.

These didn’t photograph very well, but here’s one bunch.

Erick Erickson was recently hired to fill the late Rush Limbaugh’s seat on the radio, but he’s keeping up his blog postings as well. This one caught my attention:

The problem here is Conservative, Inc. is largely broken. Too many grifters have invaded the movement and too many conservative organizations are beholden to the Fortune 500. Likewise, too many supposedly principled organizations are now all about one man’s bidding in Florida and a vocal group of conservatives is all about nihilistic destruction of the American way of life convinced the left has already destroyed the country.

I’m not sure unity can be found.

The problem is that unity doesn’t solve brokenness.

Erickson’s almost right, the conservative movement is broken. Its base has been trained by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and many others to believe the liberals, their fellow Americans, are evil: They’re socialists, that abortion is evil, that anyone other than the white Christian nationalist community are lazy slugs, compromise is evil, our enemies can’t possibly be right, God is with us, etc. They’re given incomplete, even false, information and then try to operate on that.

Doubt it?

More than two-thirds of Republicans say the 2020 presidential election was invalid, according to a new survey.

The poll from the R Street Institute, a free markets group, found that 67 percent of Republicans view the past election as invalid, compared to 23 percent who believe it was valid.

About half of all Republicans said they believe their votes were counted, while 42 percent said the system is corrupt and that their vote “probably doesn’t get counted anyway.”

“President Trump’s rhetoric seems to have had a profound impact on his base’s outlook on the election,” said a memo from the Tyson Group, which conducted the survey. “Across all regions, our participants by and large opposed alternative voting methods, believed that those methods opened the election process to fraud, and felt that the 2020 election result was invalid.” [The Hill]

Everyone else knows, as group epistemologists, that Biden won. Not this crew.

Unity might help the conservatives win elections, but it doesn’t fix the movement. The problem with the movement isn’t that Too many grifters have invaded the movement, it’s that the movement is systemically vulnerable to grifting. President Trump is probably the best grifter I’ve ever seen, and the vulnerability to his lying, the lack of rational thinking, and the perversion and moral depravity exhibited by the conservative movement isn’t illustrative of a fractured movement, but of a deathly sick movement.

And that’s what Erickson doesn’t recognize, outside of occasional flashes of insight. He thinks there’s still fundamental and overwhelming goodness, but there’s little evidence of it.

We’ve seen rational conservatives leaving the Republican Party in droves, while the leaders that are left are, quite frankly, less than impressive. Former Speaker and supposed policy wonk Ryan (R-WI)? Not very bright, as he didn’t understand how insurance works. Alleged candidate for the Supreme Court and current Senator Mike Lee (R-UT)? Doesn’t connect a well-regulated democracy to prosperity, having suggested on more than one occasion that democracy isn’t that important. Senate GOP leader McConnell (R-KY)? Hasn’t passed a single impressive piece of legislation. It doesn’t take much skill to rubber-stamp judiciary nominees and refuse to bring Democratic legislation to the floor. Representatives McCarthy, Gaetz, Gohmert, Gosar, Jordan, Greene, Cawthorn?

Not a legitimate leader in the bunch.

The Republicans are turning into a brittle husk of anti-abortion polka dancers, anti-gun control jiggers, and the single-issue voters that worship those positions. That’s the product of the culture that Erickson, Gingrich, the clerics White, Copeland, etc (see Friendly Atheist for acrid tastes of that crowd) have, together, engendered.

I wish Erickson could understand that being forced to go around armed because of danger from members of his own Party is a symptom of a deep rot in their moral positions.

But Erickson is speaking a little truth to his audience, and that is what may get him fired from his job. The longer he tells them they’re broken, the most disconsolate and angry they’ll become.

I’m thinking Erickson may not last long in Limbaugh’s old seat. A lack of advertising dollars will shoot him down.

This is what happens when one side tries to inappropriately define an issue, and the other side is, well, so much better:

Buttigieg is the FOX viewer whisperer.

pic.twitter.com/rCiq8ZwC7s

— Chris Andersen (@ChrisAndersen) April 3, 2021

Buttigieg is the Transportation Secretary, not the Car Secretary. Trying to make him into that just leaves a gaping hole for the Democrat to hit, and hit it he does.

A couple of weeks ago I expressed concern if we do not raise taxes to pay for the American Recovery Plan, which has been passed, and the upcoming infrastructure bill. Apparently, the American public agrees that we need infrastructure renewal – and we should be responsible adults and pay for it by raising taxes:

Will the package pass? While the House remains under Pelosi’s firm thumb, I don’t think there’ll be much to worry about in that chamber. The most progressive members of the House have seen Biden and Pelosi explode out of the gate on priorities they like, and I expect those that would be most discontent have received advice that getting a slice of the cake is better than no cake at all.

The Senate is a steeper hill to climb. On the Democratic side, again the progressives have been more or less happy with the treatment of their priorities, as led by Senator Sanders (I-VT). On the other end of the spectrum, the Democrat’s most conservative member, Senator Manchin (D-WV), while preferring bipartisanship and exhibiting a notable lack of political savvy, has also stated he wants a big, big infrastructure package, presumably because of the economics of losing Big Coal to Green Energy’s advance will put pressure on a West Virginia economy that is heavily dependent on that industry. Of the two motivational forces, my guess is the latter will win out, if put to the test.

Republicans remain the big question. Some Senators, of course, such as Kennedy (LA-R), Daines (R-MT), Risch (R-ID) and Hyde-Smith (MS-R), will remain hopeless dead-enders. They will cling to the ideological tenets which brought them their prestige and power because that’s what they do – and they see the world in static terms.

But others are not so rigid. Murkowski of Alaska is already known to be dubious about her membership in the Republican caucus. She may provide the input into an infrastructure bill that Manchin would value. She might vote for it. And, importantly, Alaskan voters approved a new format for Senatorial races in which a single ‘jungle’ primary is employed, from which the top four advance to the general election. This dilutes the power of party zealots and increases the incumbency power of Murkowsi, who, almost ten years ago, exhibited her clout with the Alaskan general election voter by winning as a write-in candidate after being defeated in the GOP primary. Having also voted for conviction in the second Trump impeachment trial, much to the dismay of her home town party, her relationship with them is probably a trifle fraught.

Collins of Maine might consider voting for an infrastructure package, as she was the least loyal Senatorial Republican to former President Trump during his term in office, and at her age she may be considering the nature of her legacy.

And a surprise vote might come from Senator Capito (R-WV), if suitably courted by her state colleague Manchin and Senator Schumer (D-NY), for the same reasons that Manchin will vote for such a bill. While she does have a TrumpScore of 92, Ballotpedia says:

Based on analysis of multiple outside rankings, Capito is a more moderate right of center Republican Party vote. As a result, she may break with the Republican Party line more than her fellow members.

Given her overwhelming reelection victory last year, her position can be presumed to be secure, and she might venture outside of her comfort zone on this issue.

But that’s not enough to overcome the Senator filibuster rules as currently formulated. While the reconciliation process may be an option, in my opinion, the Democrats should convince Manchin to either junk those rules, or reform to force obstreperous Senators to actually get to their feet and start talking, as filibusters used to be formulated.

Democrats need to show confidence that their policies are winners, and that they can translate that winning into electoral success and increase their sliver-thin lead in the Senate into something more substantial. Given the lack of Republican leadership, and their clinging to Republican tenets shown to be failures, this shouldn’t be too hard.

Several other corporate citizens are taking a stand against the Georgia election laws bill passed earlier this week, and perhaps most notably is Major League Baseball (MLB):

Major League Baseball announced Friday that this season’s All-Star Game and draft will not be held in Atlanta in response to Georgia’s recently passed laws that placed new restrictions on voting.

The new host city for the July 13 game has yet to be announced, according to the league.

“Over the last week, we have engaged in thoughtful conversations with Clubs, former and current players, the Players Association, and The Players Alliance, among others, to listen to their views,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “I have decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year’s All-Star Game and MLB Draft.” [CNN]

Governor Kemp (R-GA) is very upset:

“Today, Major League Baseball caved to fear, political opportunism, and liberal lies,” Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said. “Georgians – and all Americans – should fully understand what the MLB’s knee-jerk decision means: cancel culture and woke political activists are coming for every aspect of your life, sports included. If the left doesn’t agree with you, facts and the truth do not matter.”

Shall we count the trigger words? I see liberal, cancel culture, woke, with bonus points for citing facts and truth. That’s how to talk to your base, now isn’t it?

So who’s lying? I’m no lawyer, so I have to poke around to see what more experienced folks think. WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin has a law degree and here’s one of her takes on it; Peter Stevenson, also of WaPo, who does not appear to be a lawyer but hopefully consulted same, presents a summary:

A close examination of the language in the law shows it does contain new restrictions on voting; some are likely to make it disproportionately more difficult for poorer voters and voters of color to cast their ballots.

It’s also correct that there are ways in which the law expands voter access, particularly in ways that will be visible in rural areas.

The context is important of course: This is playing out in the wake of Georgia’s swing to Democrats in the 2020 presidential election and the ensuing baseless charges of fraud from the Trump campaign and its allies. Republican lawmakers in the state — as many of their counterparts across the country have — quickly began drafting a bill critics say is a political reaction from a party beholden to Trump.

And, to my mind, that last paragraph is the most important. It resonates with me as an engineer. Engineers are people often admonished Don’t fix what isn’t broke! because that might end up breaking something that was working before. In fact, breaking something is not only a non-zero probability, it’s often a rather larger-than-comfortable probability.

And there’s no evidence, as duly established by former President Trump, his lawyers, and the court system working in concert, of any systemic ballot fraud, of anything being broken. If you’re a believer in democracy.

Stacy Abrams, no doubt bête noire to the Georgia GOP for having led the organizing effort for the Democrats in Georgia, says she’s “disappointed” in the MLB decision:

My full statement on @MLB All-Star Game: #gapol pic.twitter.com/mq4DauVQ8B

— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) April 2, 2021

But I have to say it’s worded in such a way that I cannot call it horrified or appalled. Sure, she legitimately mourns the loss of business and jobs for Georgians, but this is really about pressuring the GOP legislators.

And, to be honest, this MLB reprimand – and let’s not mince words, this is a nasty reproving stare by MLB, just as happened to North Carolina in 2016 when they passed an anti-transgender bathroom usage law, and the NBA moved their All Star game out of Charlotte, NC, in reaction, which many credit that act with the revocation of said law a couple of years later – is a far higher profile move than many other corporate citizens can make. Every time a baseball broadcaster opens their mouth, there’s a good chance something about the MLB All Star game being moved out of Georgia because Georgia isn’t treating its citizens right, will come popping out.

Getting the word out to other companies to think twice before expanding to Georgia.

So while CNN may think Abrams has reproved MLB, I don’t think so. I think she’s using this decision to remind the Georgian GOP that they may be committing political suicide with this move; moreover, MLB and Abrams are reminding them that there is time to fix this mistake. Abrams is saying she’s up for forgiveness and that she supports Georgia businesses and people.

Redemption is an important part of the American landscape, but it requires admission of error and repentance. I will be very interested to see if the Georgia GOP blinks, admits error, apologizes and fixes the mistake – or if they dig in their heels and continue to prop up the Big Lie that, somehow, Biden cheated his way to victory. If it’s the latter, we may see the composition of the Georgia legislature change.

And that would be a shock to the GOP nationwide.

Out on the prow of the Titanic, she thought. It’d be just like this – bad lighting, too much blue light to sleep – all the comforts of home.

High Life (2018) is a puzzling bit of incoherent dark science fiction which raises more puzzled eyebrows than it does questions.

An unnamed spaceship is on its way to visit a black hole for research purposes. The problem? There’s no real researchers on board; instead, everyone’s a criminal, and not the nice kind, either. At the head of the pack is the ship’s doctor, who has atrocities of her own on her mind even as she tries to use the ship’s crew to breed children in the high radiation environment of outer space. It’s not clear why she’s trying to do this, other than maybe the technical challenge of it all, but she’s hardly a Mr. Spock sort, so that doesn’t really fly.

All of which raises the question of Why spend the resources involved in building a ship with a propulsion system capable of reaching 99.9% the speed of light when you’re sending a crew who could easily remain on Earth, housed in a prison? After all, none of them have superpowers or have committed particularly horrific crimes. They could stay on Earth. What a waste!

And it’s not as if I like to have every single question wrapped up by the end of a movie, but I do like to have a few credible possibilities for those unanswered questions. There seems to be no such supposition here.

In any case, the one celibate crew member ends up fathering a daughter as they approach the black hole, while the rest of the crew find various ways to end their lives, which means only Dad and the daughter are around when they find …

… a sister ship full of dead and dying dogs is also approaching the black hole.

I’ll bet you didn’t see that one coming, did you?

Neither did I.

It’s all kinda too bad, because these are actors committed to their art, along with the film crew, but the story is just too full of holes to really find believable credible. There’s little to learn here, and if there are allegories, they’ve escaped from the aquarium, and generally this is just a big bummer of a film without the morality tales that come with good film noir.

Yes, I did finish watching this, but I’m not sure I should have.

The wreckage of the World War II American destroyer USS Johnston, one of the small warships that, in October of 1944, took on a desperate Japanese naval fleet made up of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers when they surprised an American fleet of small carriers and destroyers, including the Johnston, has been found. The action was desperate and heroic, and the Johnston and her crew has long been an exemplar for me of going into the teeth of the impossible and making it merely improbable. Most of the small carriers escaped, and the nearby American land forces came through unharmed. It was as if a can of soft peaches came equipped with savage teeth – and the Johnston was the lead fang in driving off the Japanese fleet.

What I didn’t know is conveyed in the WaPo article’s title:

Wreckage of long-lost WW II ship, sunken with its Native American skipper and half its crew, identified

I was unaware of his heritage. In honor of his leadership and sacrifice:

[Captain] Evans and 185 members of the crew were lost, and he would become the first Native American in the Navy to receive the Medal of Honor.

There’s little more I can say in their honor.

Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is trying to get out ahead of the issue, I suppose, of Covid-19 passports. He’s issued an Executive Order:

WHEREAS, so-called COVID-19 vaccine passports reduce individual freedom and will harm patient privacy; and

Uh, no it doesn’t reduce freedom. It makes that freedom rather more safe than otherwise. Ooops, sorry about the interruption.

WHEREAS, requiring so-called COVID-19 vaccine passports for taking part in everyday life … would create two classes of citizens based on vaccination; …

NOW, THEREFORE, I, RON DESANTIS, as Governor of Florida etc etc

That is, I’m tired of typing, so I’ll summarize it as forbidding any Florida government entity to issue vaccine passports or share a COVID-19 vaccination record, and any Florida business to require such a passport for doing business.

So, in part, your health privacy, if you live in Florida, on this one single matter, is far more important than the requirements of public health – that is, you may spread your possibly fatal, and highly contagious germs, far and wide, all with the approval of Governor DeSantis.

Now, suppose a variant appears in Florida that retains or even increases the R number – that is, the likelihood of being infected – and makes the death rate far worse. Say, MERS worse, like, 30%, rather than the 1% we see now. That’s the risk that comes with every single infection.

This executive order cripples any efforts to stop that from happening.

This order appeals to those who nurse resentments against being told what to do in matters in which they have no expertise, and, while it may be a way to gather up votes in the 2022 Florida Governor’s race – or the 2024 Presidential race – it takes unacceptable chances with the public health and national security.

And gives me another reason not to visit Florida, nor take Governor DeSantis seriously. As if I needed more.

Symposium:

an occasion at which people who have great knowledge of a particular subject meet in order to discuss a matter of interest:
a symposium on European cinema [Cambridge University]

Noted in “A Toast to Ancient Greek Wine Drinking,” Professor Kathleen M. Lynch, Archaeology Abridged – Short Lectures, Archaeological Institute of America:

The ancient Greeks took their wine drinking seriously. The symposium was a drinking party for men with rules and expectations. They kept the group small so that all could participate in a single conversation, and the wine flowed, but watered down so that the drinkers stood on the edge of tipsy and drunk. Naturally, a formal drinking event needed special equipment, and in fact the symposium inspired the creation of the majority of ancient Greek pottery shapes. We will consider the importance of a “set” of pottery, its decoration, and the role this peculiar group drinking event played in the social life of ancient Athens. We will peer into the cupboards of a late Archaic house from downtown Athens to see the symposium in action. Feel free to bring a glass of wine!

Well, golly. Maybe if I’d known about the wine I’d have tried to make a few symposia back in the college days. That sounds like a lot more fun.

Another businessman thinks he’s up to hold elective office:

Northwest suburban businessman Gary Rabine, an ardent supporter of Donald Trump who turned his family’s driveway paving business into a multimillion-dollar business services group, on Tuesday announced his bid for the Republican nomination for governor.

Rabine, of Bull Valley, pledged a pro-business administration that would seek to relax many regulations in an effort to spur business and job growth, while seeking cuts in taxes he contends have led to an exodus of Illinois jobs and residents. [Chicago Tribune]

Never held office? Then it’s a good idea to sound like you know what you’re doing –

Asked by a reporter if he believed, as Trump has falsely stated, that the election was stolen due to fraud, Rabine said, “I’m not smart enough to understand what was the end result, whether it was stolen or not, and I would never say that.”

Oh, crash and burn.

Not smart enough to have an opinion, much less a defensible or even intelligible opinion, on the most important political issue since Watergate? Then why in the world do you think you’re qualified to be governor?

If you read the article, he’s all about the socialism of the Democrats. No sense of having any sort of insight into how to run the State of Illinois.

I haven’t paid attention to Turkey in a while, but given that President Erdogan is still in charge, this is unsurprising:

The turbulence rattling Turkey’s financial markets since the shocking removal of the central bank governor March 20 has caused significant losses for foreign investors, threatening to further scare them away at a time when Turkey badly needs inflows of foreign funds to stabilize its nosediving currency.

In the week prior to the turmoil, foreigners had put about $500 million in fresh investments in Turkish stock shares and treasury bonds, according to central bank data, while another $1.3 billion in “hot money” came from currency swaps between foreign and Turkish banks. The foreign investor portfolios totaled $70.7 billion, including $28.9 billion invested in stock shares, $10.2 billion in government and private-sector bonds and $31.6 billion in bank deposits. The swaps, meanwhile, were estimated to have reached $24 billion. In sum, foreign “hot money” in Turkey totaled nearly $95 billion when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fired central bank governor Naci Agbal with an abrupt overnight decree, less than five months after appointing him to the post in a bid to curb a mounting trend of dollarization in the country. …

In the ensuing havoc in the markets, stock shares plummeted, yields on government bonds rose and the lira slumped more than 10% against the dollar, meaning significant losses for foreign investors. A clearer picture of those losses will emerge in mid-May when the central bank releases balance of payments data for March. [AL-Monitor]

A government amateur and a theocrat. Not a good combination.

Erdogan’s aides have only added to the air of uncertainty. In a television interview March 22, the head of the presidential finance office, Goksel Asan, said, “Only the president knows why he replaced the central bank governor. He could share the reason if he deems it necessary.” Senior presidential adviser Cemil Ertem, for his part, said the frequent replacements of central bank chiefs could be the result of “brainstorming outside economics.”

Petulancy is as good an answer as any in a situation like this. And if I were an investor and looking at this, I’d be quite devastated at the idea that this was personal whim, or dislike, or something of the Turkish President.

We can look forward to more like this.

Antinomianism:

Antinomianism (Ancient Greek: ἀντί, “against” and νόμος, “law”) is any view which rejects laws or legalism and argues against moral, religious or social norms (Latin: mores), or is at least considered to do so. The term has both religious and secular meanings.

In some Christian belief systems, an antinomian is one who takes the principle of salvation by faith and divine grace to the point of asserting that the saved are not bound to follow the moral law contained in the Ten Commandments. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “EVANGELICAL TROLL ERICK ERICKSON TRIES TO THEOLOGIZE CANCEL CULTURE. FAILS.” Daniel Schultz, Religion Dispatches:

Salvation is never “regardless of others.” It’s true, for example, that Paul instructs the Philippians to “work out your own salvation in fear and trembling,” but that’s a way of saying “mind your own business” and even that advice comes in a community setting. Christian scripture and theology is abundantly clear that salvation is for the world, not individual believers without respect to the people around them. Otherwise, we would have justification for antinomianism, and that’s surely not what Erickson wants.

Someone else annoyed by Erickson.

During the recent election, I called for more involvement from our invisible citizens – that is, the corporations who like to fund our politicians. Specifically, I suggested that the move towards autocracy embedded in Texas v Pennsylvania, the relentless but equally ridiculous specious claims of systemic fraud, the claims, revealed to be false, ranging from the corruption of voting machines (still asserted by Trump ally Mike Lindell even today) to, well, all the alleged corruption symbolized by Sydney Powell’s assertion of a revelation called The Kraken, subsequently retracted in the face of a lawsuit, would be bad for business.

To some extent, corporations came through. Sports teams offered their venues for voting on voting day. Other companies offered to let their employees work as vote counters and still be paid.

In the wake of the recent widely condemned – on the left – passage of what is characterized as a voting restrictions law in Georgia, symbolized by an egregious rule against bringing water and food to people in line, had led those working for laws that gave more opportunities for voting rather than less to entreat the corporations to join the team again.

And so I waited. And waited. Their was no real reaction, leading to activists to setup a plaint of concern, as WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin noted:

So far the response has been lukewarm, and unsatisfactory for Abrams and other voting rights advocates. Abrams was emphatic in her demand that corporate America get into the fight. “There were businesses that were silent in the election for whatever reason. But there should be no silence from the business community when anyone in power is trying to strip away the right to vote from the people,” she said on a call Tuesday, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported. She added, “There should be not a single business owner in America who is allowed to be silent about the theft of the right to vote from any American, because that means you are standing with an ethos that was a near coup attempt in the United States. I know that sounds a bit overblown, but I can’t see it any other way.”

Pressure has been ratcheted up by other groups:

“Hey Coca-Cola! The Freedom to vote tastes good to all Georgians,” one of the billboards reads. “Join us: STAND UP for Georgia.”

And, finally, we may be seeing some movement by a Georgia-based juggernaut:

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp launched a counterattack on Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian Wednesday afternoon, just hours after Bastian said the voting bill Kemp signed last week was “unacceptable,” “wrong” and “based on a lie.” …

“I need to make it crystal clear that the final bill is unacceptable and does not match Delta’s values,” said the statement to Delta employees from CEO Ed Bastian. “After having time to now fully understand all that is in the bill, coupled with discussions with leaders and employees in the Black community, it’s evident that the bill includes provisions that will make it harder for many underrepresented voters, particularly Black voters, to exercise their constitutional right to elect their representatives. That is wrong.”

Bastian’s statement continued, “The entire rationale for this bill was based on a lie: that there was widespread voter fraud in Georgia in the 2020 elections. This is simply not true. Unfortunately, that excuse is being used in states across the nation that are attempting to pass similar legislation to restrict voting rights.”  [CNN/Business]

Kemp responded, ineffectually:

“Today’s statement by Delta CEO Ed Bastian stands in stark contrast to our conversations with the company, ignores the content of the new law, and unfortunately continues to spread the same false attacks being repeated by partisan activists,” said Kemp’s statement. He defended measures to require official IDs such as drivers’ licenses, before people can vote. pointing out that before a passenger can fly on Delta – or any other airline – they must produce a photo ID.

A few fraudulent votes will not result in the deaths of hundreds or thousands, as can happen with a plane. Comparisons are a tricky business, especially when the one domain contains documented problems and dangers that the other lacks.

“Mr. Bastian should compare voting laws in Georgia — which include no-excuse absentee balloting, online voter registration, 17 days of early voting with an additional two optional Sundays, and automatic voter registration when obtaining a driver’s license — with other states Delta Airlines operates in,” said Kemp.

Which is another way of saying, Ouch! Why are you beating up on us!

What comes next? Keep an eye on the news. We won’t be seeing titans like Delta or Coca-Cola pulling up stakes and leaving – but they can always suggest that their next big project won’t be in Georgia.

The 2015 reaction to Republicans Acting Badly.

Pressure from other organizations is also possible, as Jennifer Rubin suggested a few days ago. We saw the same happen to Indiana a few years back when it passed legislation threatening the rights of LGBTQ people. We may see more of that.

Companies need to keep in mind that there are more opportunities for profit in a free society, not one that works to limit the franchise unfairly.

Regarding today’s earlier post regarding Rep Gaetz (R-FL), a reader points to a Rachel Maddow segment on Gaetz’s political ally who’s now in trouble of all sorts:

And notes:

You should watch this video clip. I think Gaetz is guilty as hell, given the company he keeps.

And it could be both guilty as the rumors charge and a victim of a political hit job. Greenberg seems to be quite the arrogant slimebag, and, while I haven’t paid that much attention to Gaetz, his behavior during his tenure in office has not inspired feelings of wellness. He feels more like a wind-up attack dog than a mature legislator.

Just like a political machine member.

I was going to skip over the scandal suddenly enveloping Rep Matt Gaetz (R-FL), partly because of a lack of time, and, quite honestly, an inclination to apply the legal axiom Innocent until proven guilty in the case of sex crimes, the pleasures of salacious gossip notwithstanding. For those not aware of it, The New York Times reports:

Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida and a close ally of former President Donald J. Trump, is being investigated by the Justice Department over whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him, according to three people briefed on the matter. Investigators are examining whether Mr. Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws, the people said.

But Gaetz himself touches on my suspicions on the matter, which what little I’ve read seems to be mostly ignored,, as reported in WaPo:

[Gaetz] appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show to explain his side of the story.

Here’s what he said, in full.

“What is happening is an extortion of me and my family involving a former Department of Justice official. On March 16th, my father got a text message demanding a meeting, wherein a person demanded $25 million in exchange for making horrible sex-trafficking allegations against me go away. Our family was so troubled by that, we went to the local FBI, and the FBI and the Department of Justice were so concerned about this attempted extortion of a member of Congress that they asked my dad to wear a wire, which he did with the former Department of Justice official.

“Tonight, I am demanding that the Department of Justice and the FBI release the audio recordings that were made under their supervision and at their direction, which will prove my innocence and that will show that these allegations aren’t true. They’re merely intended to try to bleed my family out of money.

“This former Department of Justice official tomorrow was supposed to be contacted by my father so that specific instructions could be given regarding the wiring of $4.5 million as a down payment on this bribe. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that tonight, somehow, the New York Times is leaking this information, smearing me and ruining the investigation that would likely result in one of the former colleagues of the current DOJ being brought to justice for trying to extort me and my family.”

Or, Someone’s out to get me!

And this would not surprise me. The Republican Party is in its end game, and while it’d make sense it’s filled with those outside of society’s norms as well as out on the edge zealots, this is also the time where the knives come out among the power players, fighting over the crumbs that look to get smaller and smaller as the Republicans become less and less relevant, RINOing out competitors with abandon – or besmirching their reputations with hints of sex crimes.

So if Gaetz thinks someone is out to get him – especially in view of the fact that the investigation began during the Trump Administration – I’m willing to keep an open mind and look at this as more evidence of internecine elite warfare.

At least until more evidence comes in.

With the Ever Given refloated and on its way and the crisis over with, here’s the VesselFinder view of the Suez Canal:

Compared to before:

It brings home the importance of the Suez Canal to international shipping.