My Arts Editor spent hours this morning screaming with laughter at this. Note this may be a short term link, depending how Google wants to play it.

Erick Erickson just can’t help seeing everything through his prism of politics and mainstream media hatred, can he? From his post, “Some Self-Reflection, Please“:

On CNN in May, Bill Nye announced it’d be at least two years before there was a vaccine for COVID-19. He was not alone on that network with similar pronouncements.

On MSNBC, around the same time, Dr. Irwin Redlener said it would be “impossible” to get a safe vaccine by the end of the year. Tim O’Brien at Bloomberg, in August, claimed people within the Trump Administration denied a vaccine would come this year. He said it was, “Amazingly irresponsible for Trump to be touting this in the midst of this crisis.”

Also in August, NBC News ran this fact check claiming, “Experts say the development, testing, and production of a COVID-19 vaccine for the public is still months away, and it would take a medical miracle for one to be available this year, much less before Election Day.” It was heavily recirculated.

In October, NPR ran a “fact check” stating, “None of the large trials have been completed. Top health officials say a vaccine likely won’t be widely available until mid-2021.”

Yet …

Now the very same media that said it was impossible is giving live coverage to people getting the vaccine they said was impossible and also ridiculing those who are skeptical of a vaccine coming so fast. Pay no attention to the doctor on MSNBC who said if one came this year it would be unsafe to take.

Where is the self-reflection from the media?

They got it wrong.

No. Erickson needs to read what he himself just wrote: The doctor.

The doctor.

The expert.

Not the media.

All the media can do, unless they have a journalist with other areas of expertise – not unknown, of course – is report the expert opinion of the experts, after suitable cross-referencing and fact checks (like, Are they an expert or is it just Dr. Scott Atlas?). And the experts form their expertise based on their experience in R&D and studying history. They can make predictions, based on that knowledge, but it’ll necessarily be biased by that historical knowledge.

Blaming the journalists for not getting it right is rather like trusting anti-vaxxers to get it right, if I can cross my wires slightly. Oh, here’s a better one: It’s blaming the messenger for the message.

Pile on top of that the fact we’re two weeks short of the New Year, which means all of the end of the year predictions were two weeks off over an 10-11 month period, and I find Erickson’s message hard to take seriously. Then he piles this on:

When President Trump moved the American Embassy to Jerusalem, commentators from CNN to MSNBC to the New York Times expressed concern that it would start a war. Instead, Israel now has diplomatic relations with the UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Sudan, and more — but not just diplomatic relations. They have trade relations and business relations now too. Only six months ago, textbooks in those countries were still tearing out pages that referred to Israel.

It’s the mark of the partisan amateur to judge foreign affairs accomplishments such as these within months – or days! – of their announcements. Morocco, as I’ve not mentioned, has infuriated elements of the GOP Senate for the apparent quid pro quo of recognizing a Moroccan land grab as legitimate. I’ve expressed concerns about the UAE deal here. The Sudan deal? That they became a secular nation prior to the deal makes the entire achievement less than it seems.

We may have bribed the nations in question to normalize relations, and in some cases they may go back on their word the next time Israel outrages them. (Notice I very carefully phrased that remark on purpose.) How will that hypothetical play into Erickson’s punditry if it does, indeed, materialize? This may be a case in which the “partisan media” has a better understanding of the subject than does Trump, Kushner, and Pompeo, themselves amateurs in a party that embraces amateurism and disdains expertise.

But, for Erickson, all he can see is a media that dislikes an ideology that has given rise to people that Erickson himself doesn’t like.

Self-reflection much?

Take it away, Randy!

I’ve mentioned before the savage, if ridiculous, nature of GOP primaries – that is, the attacks that GOPers find they must launch on each other just in order to survive a primary. Well, in a different context, here’s another:

President Trump @realDonaldTrump is a genuinely good man. He does not really like to fire people. I bet he dislikes putting people in jail, especially “Republicans.”

He gave @BrianKempGA & @GaSecofState every chance to get it right. They refused. They will soon be going to jail. pic.twitter.com/7PMBLc8L2N

— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) December 15, 2020

I understand Wood claims to be non-partisan, which is an ill-fitting statement with the above. Provocateur some? Approves of chronic liars?

I think it’s shameful on the one hand, and self-destructive on the other – but a small piece of me is also deeply amused. Internecine warfare, indeed. Thank you, Professor Turchin.

Ever wonder about martial law and the United States? Here’s the Brennan Center For Justice:

… martial law — a term that generally refers to the displacement of civilian authorities by the military — can be and has been employed in the United States. Indeed, federal and state officials have declared martial law at least 68 times over the course of U.S. history. Yet the concept has never been well understood. The Constitution does not mention martial law, and no act of Congress defines it. The Supreme Court has addressed it on only a handful of occasions, and the Court’s reasoning in these decisions is inconsistent and vague. The precedents are also old: the most recent one … was decided almost 75 years ago.

I had no idea that we’re nearly to seventy, but then we’re not a young, upstart country any longer.

This report aims to clear up the confusion that surrounds martial law. To do so, it draws on recent legal scholarship, the few rules that can be gleaned from Supreme Court precedent, and general principles of constitutional law. It concludes that under current law, the president lacks any authority to declare martial law. Congress might be able to authorize a presidential declaration of martial law, but this has not been conclusively decided. State officials do have the power to declare martial law, but their actions under the declaration must abide by the U.S. Constitution and are subject to review in federal court.

It sounds as if the legal niceties are nicely balanced, at least theoretically. I note this due to the occasional call for President Trump to impose martial law in order to make it easier for him to steal the election.

I suspect an actual attempt would end with President Trump sitting in a jail cell. The military doesn’t have much of a sense of humor.

But Georgia remains on many minds, now doesn’t it?

States’ use of martial law continued well into the 20th century, reaching a peak in the 1930s — a decade that also saw an increase in the flagrant abuse of this power by governors. In 1933, for example, Georgia Governor Eugene Talmadge declared martial law “in and around” the headquarters building of the state Highway Board as part of a scheme to force out some of the board’s commissioners, whom he had no legal power to remove. This “coup de highway department” was ultimately successful. Remarkably, Talmadge’s successor, Governor Eurith Rivers, tried to do the same thing in 1939, but his attempt failed.

Georgia governors appear to have a long and blotchy history.

And that “Latin writer” would be, of course, Martial, a poet of Rome, who I actually read in translation once. I don’t remember a word. But he was mentioned today in Max Miller’s Tasting History segment on globi.

Tyler Broker on Above The Law:

I bring attention to Cole’s arguments and continue to harp on the Fulton case because the moment warrants such focus and criticism. In a time of deep divide when the head of conservative party in Texas is openly flouting secession. The last thing this country with a rapidly increasing nonbeliever population needs, is for the Supreme Court to keep defining religious citizens as being in a class above all others, empowered with the ability to stomp out dissent or competing nonreligious views, even within government programs.

He might mean flaunt, but I think “flouting secession” is worth a grin. And grins in these grim times are hard to urn.

A reader writes concerning my commentary on Erick Erickson’s note on the right wing’s screaming incoherence and suggests a study of tolerance may be of use:

This seems an appropriate explanation for some of this flawed thinking. And it’s a really clear explanation of tolerance and peace treaties in political life. https://extranewsfeed.com/tolerance-is-not-a-moral…

And I understand where he’s coming from. It’s a lovely beckoning to the less-committed partisan of either side.

I fear I have a personality quirk that forces me to diverge from its course, though. I wish – I know this doesn’t happen – I wish that tolerance was an inverse function of rational certainty.

By this I mean – and I fear I’m talking about Vulcans and not humans – that the extent to which we tolerate the views of our fellows isn’t just a matter of survival, or lesser bloodshed, but a reflection of how certain we are of our position from a rational viewpoint; or, conversely, how much we doubt the correctness of our viewpoint.

We don’t tolerate pedophilia, as we know it damages our young, at least by Western Civ standards.

But we tolerate divergent views about incarceration for, say, involuntary manslaughter. In reality, we do so because it’s easier to tolerate than to get into fist fights every time someone disagrees with us on the subject. But we should tolerate – and compromise – because we don’t really know what to do with the idiot who screwed up and killed someone. Our certainty quotient is low, and so we should compromise.

Sadly, we are not Vulcans. Many of us run on religious precepts which mandate certainty, and yet are desperately silly. How many witches have we stoned to death lately? No divorce? Really? But this remains true: many of us are very certain that xyz is wrong and we have to impose this view on everyone else.

Or that civil forfeiture is a great way to deter crime and fund police departments.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: doubt, not Christianity or other theology, is the basis of the United States. It leads to compromise and slow, steady improvement. Every time we become blindly certain of something, we end up looking like idiots. Or worse.

We really need to get back to self-doubt. Back to being humble.

I have a stapler. Who wants their pointy ears first?

Resigning AG William Barr:

Your record is all the more historic because you accomplished it in the face of relentless, implacable resistance. Your 2016 victory speech in which you reached out to your opponents and called for working together for the benefit of the American people was immediately met by a partisan onslaught against you in which no tactic, no matter how abusive and deceitful, was out of bounds. The nadir of this campaign was the effort to cripple, if not oust, your Administration with frenzied and baseless accusations of collusion with Russia.

Few could have, weathered these attacks, much less forge ahead with a positive program for the country. You built the strongest and most resilient economy in American history — one that has brought unprecedented progress to those previously left out. You have restored American military strength. By brokering historic peace deals in the Mideast you have achieved what most thought impossible. You have curbed illegal immigration and enhanced the security of our nation’s borders. You have advanced the rule of law by appointing a record number of judges committed to constitutional principles. With Operation Warp Speed, you delivered a vaccine for coronavirus on a schedule no one thought conceivable — a feat that will undoubtedly save millions of lives. [Salon]

A second politically loyal AG driven from position by President Trump, who professes loyalty even as he’s whipped from his chair – this resignation has been rumored for a month or two, ever since he failed to come up with any sort of bomb to drop on Biden. Do these guys have to take a shot of loyalty serum before Trump will nominate them? Or are they simply so deep into the right wing epistemic bubble that they can’t tell him to FOAD?

Here’s a link to the whole letter.

Necrotic:

Necrosis in the death of tissues of the body. Necrosis can be treated, with the dead tissue being removed, but the affected tissue can not be returned to good health. [verywellhealth]

I was going to post a picture of necrotic tissue, but it was too gross. Noted in “The GOP reckoning never came,” Catherine Rampell, WaPo:

Then, last month, something happened that seemed grounds for hope: Trump lost. Surely this, I thought, must force his party to finally excise its necrotic political tissue, once leaders recognized it had cost them not just their principles and 300,000 American lives but also the White House.

I think the healthy tissue has been excised by the necrotic, in a bizarre reversal.

The prosperity church tradition of Name it and claim it comes into view:

In another sign of the lingering unrest over President Donald Trump’s election loss, an Arizona group sent the National Archives in Washington, D.C., notarized documents last week intended to deliver, wrongly, the state’s 11 electoral votes for him.

Copies of the documents obtained by The Arizona Republic show a group that claimed to represent the “sovereign citizens of the Great State of Arizona” submitted signed papers casting votes for what they want: a second term for Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

Mesa resident Lori Osiecki, 62, helped created a facsimile of the “certificate of ascertainment” that is submitted to formally cast each state’s electoral votes as part of an effort to prevent what she views as the fraudulent theft of the election.

“We seated before the legislators here. We already turned it in. We beat them to the game,” she said. [azcentral]

Maybe Osiecki thinks this’ll work. If she is a prosperity church member, this may feel very logical to her.

I think she’s just another dumb amateur, although she could be in early dementia.

And, as the article suggests, I think she just committed … wait for it … voter fraud, if of an unusual sort.

In any case, it’s another example of right wing fringe loonies on the loose. It might not be a bad idea to round them up and give them a couple of years in the hoose-gow. Get their attention. Although if they played it as martyrs, then they wouldn’t have to learn. They’d get their attention and not feel reprimanded.

NewFlector has an observation – I don’t know if it’s correct – on how to take power away from Senator McConnell (R-KY), aka Senator No:

Even if the Democrats don’t win control of the Senate, there is a way to strip Mitch McConnell of his power for good: priority recognition.

According to Article I, Section 3, Clause 4 of the Constitution, the Vice President is also the President of the Senate. The Majority Leader is not a position that exists anywhere in the Constitution. The reason that the Majority Leader has near-dictatorial powers to control floor votes is because of a tradition that dates back to 1937. The tradition is that the Vice President gives the floor leaders priority recognition. Most notably, this is not a rule in the Senate.

As President of the Senate, Vice President Harris could give any senator priority recognition. That senator could then decide on all legislation that is brought before the entire Senate. Even with a minority in the Senate, Vice President Harris could simply give Chuck Schumer priority recognition. He could decide what is voted on and what isn’t.

Like I said, I don’t know if this is true, or if VP-elect Harris would do it. But to inflict this humiliation upon Senator McConnell, who is accustomed to holding power in the Senate due to this tradition, would certain bring on some schadenfreude. At least, for me.

The Australian Associated Press (AAP) is facing an existential threat:

It may not be the lost city of Atlantis, but a social media post questions whether another island – Australia – is also the product of fiction.

The Facebook post from June 3, shared to a group in which users debate flat Earth theories, features an aerial image of Australia with a red “FAKE” stamped over the picture. The text underneath reads: “Australia isn’t real. The people are either paid actors or robots.”

It goes on to claim, “It’s a hoax, made for us to believe that Britain moved over their criminals to someplace. In reality, all these criminals were loaded off the ships into the waters, drowning before they could see land ever again.”

The post continues by claiming that “plane pilots are all in on this, and have in all actuality only flown you to islands close nearby – or in some cases, parts of South America, where they have cleared space and hired actors to act out as real Australians”.

The post by a user whose profile states they live in the Netherlands had attracted more than 670 comments, 100 reactions and 60 shares at the time of writing. There is also a Facebook group dedicated to the theme.

I didn’t much care for the AAP rebuttal. I mean, dry recitation of fakeable facts? C’mon!

I think they should offer free air fare and free shipping to a representative of the group to Australia. Why the shipping? Because the doubting Thomases will be required to provide a high altitude, human bearing balloon, either hot air or helium, that can reach a high enough altitude to, well, survey the continent of Australia.

They should also provide a free sleeping mask to the representative so that they do not have to damage their frail sensibilities at seeing themselves flown to a non-existent continent.

The AAP should ship them to a suitable launch point for the balloon, provide them with a camera if they failed to bring one of their own, and then …

UP THEY GO!!!

At some point – hopefully before the air becomes too thin to breath, but perhaps they can wear a sealed suit with an oxygen tank – they’ll be able to discern the entire continent of Australia, take a picture or three of it, notice how it matches up with those damn artists’ renderings, and add to their cognitive dissonance load. I have thoughtfully provided a topological map for their use, above. Sadly, the colors may not be precise matches.

I do, however, draw the line at providing them an ax to use on any handy Australians they might interact with. After all, if they really aren’t robots, then it’s murder.

A friend post this to FB:

Trump just fired Barr. He did it to change the news cycle. So that the tv chyron would say BARR FIRED not BIDEN WINS ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTE.

And all I can think of is this should be Barr’s political epitaph:

A mighty Attorney General lies here,
    Felled by a scrolling chyron,
In the telling of lies he was someone to fear,
And now in Hades he’ll cry on. 

It should be so much more, almost all bad.

[My thanks to my Arts Editor for metering help.]

ayjay on Snakes and Ladders:

There is no infallible means for discerning when a religious believer has been spoken to, directly and personally, by God. However, there is a reliable way to disconfirm such a claim. When a person demands that other people immediately accept that he has been spoken to by God, and treats with insult and contempt those who do not acknowledge his claim to unique revelation, then we can be sure that no genuine message has been received, and that the voice echoing in that person’s mind is not that of God but that of his own ego.

It’s a lovely thought, but suffers from the assumption that your God is good.

This speaks to the importance of objective observation. An objective observation is an observation that anyone equipped with the usual human senses and equipment generally agreed to be honest, that is, not fraudulent, can perform. When it’s objective, we can begin to consider how to measure it properly, and all the bugaboos that go along with that, because at least the bugaboos can be dealt with rationally.

God speaking to your pastor or, for that matter, the trembling dude sitting next to you, isn’t objective. Deciding if it’s the God dude or El Diablo might as well be done while shooting up some meth.

Scientists value objective findings, not subjective findings, although certainly there are certain subjective measurements occasionally, reluctantly, used. For example, measurements of pain are generally reported by patients on a 1-10 scale. This is necessarily subjective, but can be useful in a clinical setting.

But objective measurements are far more useful and trustworthy.

And that’s why private Divine communications, reported by the deeply religious, are not to be trusted. Nod politely and move on. You want that communication to be believed? Have the Divine write it into an hillside while being recorded doing so, because hoaxes are so easy to perform and so hard to detect. Especially now that famed debunker James Randi has passed away.

Or better yet, have the Divine come down and do an interview with Jake Tapper and Sean Hannity – simultaneously. Then we’ll be getting somewhere.

But trying to tell if some private Divine communication is happening or has happened is an exercise for the credulous and fools.

Oh, you were doing that again!
(Quick, someone clue me in on what “that” might be!)

Merkins.

Tie on skunk noses.

Anachrony!

Hipsters!

Bad acting.

If these elements appeal to you, I Was A Teeenage Wereskunk (2016) is still only barely worth the watching. Evoking at turns laughter and teeth gritting, this story of a teenage boy being infected with wereskunk-ism is painful, really.

For those not keeping up with Evangelical news, here’s an article on the site Black Christian News:

Karen Swallow Prior, an evangelical author and professor, tweeted Friday (Dec. 11) that she was ashamed to have voted for local and state GOP candidates. Many of whom have been vocal supporters of lawsuits challenging the election results.

“What a bunch of money-grubbing, power hungry, partisan cowards who care nothing about conservatism,” the self-described life-long conservative said in her tweet.

Author and columnist, David French, published a column Sunday on The Dispatch titled, “The Dangerous Idolatry of Christian Trumpism,” maintaining that “the frenzy and the fury of the post-election period has laid bare the sheer idolatry and fanaticism of Christian Trumpism.”

And perhaps most notably, Beth Moore, a popular Southern Baptist author and speaker, took to Twitter Sunday to voice her frustration and seeming bewilderment at the Christian zeal for Trump, saying that in her more than 63 years, she has “never seen anything in these United States of America I found more astonishingly seductive & dangerous to the saints of God than Trumpism.”…

Moore had particularly strong words for her “fellow” Christian leaders, who she said have a responsibility for protecting their congregants.

“We will be held responsible for remaining passive in this day of seduction to save our own skin while the saints we’ve been entrusted to serve are being seduced, manipulated, USED and stirred up into a lather of zeal devoid of the Holy Spirit for political gain,” she tweeted.

Notably, none of these people are from the Black community.

Of course, all the grifters currently advising President Trump will be taking exception to these statements. This may be the first step in a schism in the Evangelical community. Look for more leaders stepping back from the brink of calling for civil war and, for that matter, heresy, while others continue to grasp for worldly wealth and power. This may cause violence: As ever, it’s the followers who are most likely to bear the brunt of this disaster, whether it be in physical injuries and deaths, legal punishments, or the spiritual bewilderment that accompanies losing one’s way and discovering your leader is little more than a con-man and grifter.

I believe French has been a NeverTrumper from way back, even leaving National Review over his views. The other two are new to me, but judging from their comments, they’ve been blind to what’s been going on for years. I hope, as leaders, they are willing to do public penance and analysis of their mistaken thinking. It’s through such acknowledgments that others can learn, even if it’s a lesson that will be resisted.

I think Colin Wright on Reality’s Last Stand is on my wavelength in his concern about messaging strategies, but I wish he’d increased broadcast strength:

In discussions about intersex conditions it is common to hear the claim that intersex people make up 1-2 percent of the population and is therefore “as common as red hair.” There appear to be two main goals when forwarding this claim—one laudable, the other insidious. The laudable goal is to normalize the existence of intersex people and thereby help facilitate the societal acceptance of a marginalized community who may experience social ostracism and who have often been victims of unconsentual [sic] and medically unnecessary “corrective” cosmetic surgeries. The insidious goal is to plant seeds of doubt in our collective understanding of biological sex and suggest that the categories “male” and “female” may be social constructs or exist on a “spectrum.”

Unfortunately, and as I think Colin would agree, the blind use of statistics to normalize or demonize anything is simply an abuse of statistics. If you can replace “people with red hair” with “pederast”, and thereby demonize the intersexed, well, your original argument’s really shit.

Colin’s conclusion, so far as it goes, is fine, but it’s all negatives:

While the prevalence of intersex conditions, defined in [Dr. Leonard] Sax’s clinically-relevant sense, is quite low, this by no means justifies any of the mistreatment, whether socially or medically, that many gender activists hope to prevent when they overstate its prevalence. How we treat people, and the rights afforded to them, should not be predicated on their prevalence in a population. And that is the point we should be trying to normalize, rather than false statistics.

Sure. But how about asking, then, how do we recognize those who should be regarded as threats? I quite agree, those who deviate from the norms are, on that valuation alone, harmless, or more accurately insufficient information to make a judgment. How about if we ask the evolutionary question, Does this deviation harm society and its members? After all, a pedophile shouldn’t be restrained because they are a small percentage of society; but they are restrained because such sexual relationships have been found to be a bane when it comes to the proper and normal development of the child. Broken children do not usually make for productive, happy people.

And, thus, statutory rape laws.

I recognize Wright is treating the case of improper statistics and how it leads to inaccurate messaging, which in turn leads to doubts about the trustworthiness of the source, but I cannot help but feel that he left me hanging with his terminating paragraph.

In case you were wondering about the judges who’ve consistently ruled against President Trump and his allies in their contesting of the election results, here’s WaPo:

In a remarkable show of near-unanimity across the nation’s judiciary, at least 86 judges — ranging from jurists serving at the lowest levels of state court systems to members of the United States Supreme Court — rejected at least one post-election lawsuit filed by Trump or his supporters, a Washington Post review of court filings found. …

The Post found that 38 judges appointed by Republicans dealt blows to such suits, with some writing searing opinions.

The latest example came Saturday, when federal District Judge Brett H. Ludwig, a Trump nominee who took the bench in September, dismissed a lawsuit filed by the president that sought to throw out the election results in Wisconsin, calling the request “extraordinary.”

“A sitting president who did not prevail in his bid for reelection has asked for federal court help in setting aside the popular vote based on disputed issues of election administration, issues he plainly could have raised before the vote occurred,” he wrote. “This Court has allowed plaintiff the chance to make his case and he has lost on the merits.”

This is a key differentiator between private and public sectors. Trump may have expected favorable rulings because he nominated many of those Republican judges, and in the other cases he had assumed control of the Republican Party.

But they had a greater allegiance: to the rule of law.

And Trump didn’t get it. I doubt he’ll ever get it. That’s not how the private sector operates, and that’s all he understands. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s kept lists of traitor GOP-appointed judges, and publishes them, as a warning to others.

All that keeps Trump afloat is the support of the Evangelical pastors who continue to advise them, those grifters and con-men, who lead their flocks into supporting the Father of Lies as still being worthy of holding the Presidency, despite losing the election, vast incompetency, and, well, being a chronic liar.

As with the election officials, I offer congratulations on doing their jobs, and that they continue to collect their paychecks.

How an AI personality will feel in the future:

And we wonder why they’ll all go insane.

Your hat is too big for your britches, Mister! said the Queen of Mixed Metaphors

If you’re a fan of the lost genre of Broadway-derived movies of shallow Western musicals which make fun of the old West, then Red Garters (1954) may be for you. In Limbo County they’re holding a funeral, followed by the customary barbecue, to celebrate the gunning down of a low-down skunk. But who’s this stranger that’s come to town, fast on the draw, confused by the women, and snuffling about with the local gunslinger?

Singing their way through the contretemps brought on by the intrusion of civilized law enforcement vs the cultural acceptance of revenge killings, this beautifully photographed account of foolish men and their foolish women has a certain charm to it, but the charm is in a minor key. Don’t expect great revelations, but if you like the idea of a smart woman still falling for and winning a fast-draw, womanizing bully, and singing about it, then perhaps this is the sort of charm for which you’ll fall.

Four-flusher:

One who deceives or bluffs. The phrase comes from poker, in which a “four-flush” is a meaningless hand. (One needs five, not four, cards of the same suit in order to have a flush.)
You can’t believe a word that fool says—he’s a real four-flusher. [The Free Dictionary]

Heard on an episode of The Carol Burnett Show this morning. My Arts Editor was bewildered at the idiom.

A friend from out of state wrote, and I decided to turn the reply into a post, since the subject has been annoying me:

Saw they’re cutting Minneapolis police budget?! Good luck with that!

Yeah. I agree with the idea of moving some police responsibilities to other groups, such as mental health professionals – that has proven successful in other cities, such as the pioneering CAHOOTS program in Eugene, OR. I think it’s overdue.

BUT.

They are pursuing this in a foolish manner. It’s going to take two to four years to stand up such an entity as the mental health professional responders, and during that time the police will continue to have to cover those situations until the new entities are competent for the job. Yes, the police will be responsible for those situations with reduced funding.

Immediately reducing money for the police is insane and a sign of operational incompetence.

The proper procedure is

1. Ascertain the need
2. Recognize the chronological latency of forming and training the new entity, whatever it is
3. Recognize the police must continue to cover those emergencies until the new entity is online
4. Recognize that #2 requires money
5. Raise taxes temporarily to cover formation and training costs (Mpls City Council failure point)
6. And when the new entity is online and competent, then reduce funding for the police and reduce taxes

Maybe the Council is terrified of raising taxes, I don’t know. We’re not the hunting grounds of Grover Norquist, notorious hater of taxes (and crippler of societies), so it’s a little puzzling – and makes me wonder if a substantial portion of the Council is fixated on hating MPD.

But, for comparison, a business would recognize that the development of a new capability requires investment, it doesn’t come for free no matter how much monies are desperately rearranged. Cities don’t get a pass. Raise the damn taxes or sell bonds or do what you need to do, but recognize you’re imperiling your citizens through this foolish approach to a worthy goal, and those citizens will be crying out in rejection of those policies.

OK, rant done.

Andrew Sullivan echoes Senator and now proven prophet Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ):

A long time ago now, frustrated with what I believed was a grotesque fusion of Christianity and politics in the Bush era, I coined the term “Christianism.” I regret it in some ways because it alienated many of the people I was trying to persuade. But its analogy to Islamism was not designed to argue that Christianists were in any way violent; just that, like Islamists, they saw no real distinction between politics and religion.

I mention this because it seems to be a critical element in the current crisis of American democracy that we may now be missing. In a manner very hard to understand from the outside, American evangelical Christianity has both deepened its fusion of church and state in the last few years, and incorporated Donald Trump into its sacred schematic. Christianists now believe that Trump has been selected by God to save them from persecution and the republic from collapse. They are not in denial about Trump’s personal iniquities, but they see them as perfectly consistent with God’s use of terribly flawed human beings, throughout the Old Testament and the New, to bring about the Kingdom of Heaven.

This belief is now held with the same, unwavering fundamentalist certainty as a Biblical text. And white evangelical Christianists are the most critical constituency in Republican politics. If you ask yourself how on earth so many people have become convinced that the 2020 election was rigged, with no solid evidence, and are now prepared to tear the country apart to overturn an election result, you’ve got to take this into account. This faction, fused with Trump, is the heart and soul of the GOP. You have no future in Republican politics if you cross them. That’s why 19 Republican attorneys general, Ted Cruz, and now 106 Congressional Republicans have backed a bonkers lawsuit to try to get the Supreme Court to overturn the result.

And, yes, I took a moment to email Sullivan concerning Goldwater’s much pithier prophecy:

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them. – Senator Barry Goldwater

Sullivan’s article is worth perusing in full, but enough of the historical navel-gazing. The first step for rolling back this tide of anti-democracy is to find an argument which can gain traction. Here’s the first one to come to mind for me, which depends on the basic incompatibility between The Land of the Free, and the basic autocracy implicit in much of religion, which I present as a dialog between myself and a MAGA-ite:

ME: Why do you hate freedom so much?

MAGA: I don’t hate freedom! I love the United States!

ME: Stop lying to me.

MAGA: I’m not lying-

ME: Then Biden won the election after all?

MAGA: What, no he didn’t!

ME: Why?

MAGA: Because God told my favorite pastor that Trump won!

ME: Wait. God is dictating the outcome?

MAGA: Well, no. There was mass fraud –

ME: Hold on there. We here in the freedom-loving half of the United States have procedures for detecting fraud: evidence is found, presented to Courts, who rule as to whether the evidence is credible, and what relief is correct. Trump’s lawyers have failed in this regard. To the best of our knowledge, our procedures were valid and there was no fraud.

MAGA: No, no, no –

ME: So God dictated that Trump would win?

MAGA: YES!  HE BLESSED TRUMP AS –

ME: And you hate freedom.

MAGA: No!

ME: In a free society, if we love freedom, we, en masse, must have the freedom to choose those who’ll govern us. No divinity can dictate that, or we are not free. In order to avoid chaos, we have to accept that if someone other than our favored candidate wins by the accepted procedures, then we accept  that the winner is entitled to assume the position for which they ran.

That’s freedom. With freedom comes responsibility.

MAGA: There was fraud, I tell you! It was just so good it couldn’t be detected!

ME: Hah! If it was that good, then maybe Biden deserves to lead because he’s so smart? No? Oh, you still believe he’s a broken-down old man? No. Present credible evidence of fraud, or be an adult and accept that Biden won. That’s what Clinton supporters did in 2016. Why can’t the MAGA-ites be as good as the Clinton supporters were?

MAGA: I – no – (head explodes)

Short version: If God is dictating outcomes, then there is no freedom. If someone disputes the electoral outcome based on God, then they hate freedom.

A leftover pic for this restful Sunday.