Unsightly Mental Blemishes

Here I asked what had happened to the NRA in the last election, and moments later I ran across this from WaPo:

Bill Powers, the executive vice president for communications at Ackerman McQueen [the NRA’s former PR and advertising firm], said the financial statements lay out the NRA’s steady decline as the organization faced a raft of defectors questioning LaPierre’s leadership, and as more of its money went into scorched-earth legal battles to defend LaPierre. “You have just seen an election where the NRA was sidelined,” he said.

Their latest tax returns are summarized thusly:

The tax return shows membership dues falling 34 percent in 2019, to $113 million. [NRA spokesman Andrew] Arulanandam called those figures “dated information.” He said that donations and grass-roots support are “surging” and that the NRA added 300,000 members in the past six months.

Maybe someday the NRA will return to responsibility, as it was before LaPierre. Only time will tell.

Remember Michael Flynn, frantic to retract two guilty pleas, as aided by the DoJ’s decision, made after the ascension of William Barr to Attorney General, to discontinue their prosecution of Flynn for lying to the FBI?

It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon. Congratulations to @GenFlynn and his wonderful family, I know you will now have a truly fantastic Thanksgiving!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 25, 2020

My question is this: can someone be preemptively pardoned when the trial hasn’t terminated? I mean, pleading guilty sounds like the end, but he had not yet been sentenced, and with his attempt to withdraw his guilty pleas, it sounds like he’s now going to admit to being guilty anyways, even if it’s forced on him by Trump’s action.

If it’s valid.

I wonder if Flynn could file to repudiate the granting of the pardon as invalid as he’s not, in his pleadings, no longer guilty.

In any case, Trump just looks a little bit more corrupt. I wonder how Judge Sullivan will react. I would be deeply surprised if it’s not with complete contempt for Trump.

Ruth Hopkins of the Lakota Sioux summarizes the contributions of Native Americans in the recent election in Business Insider:

Natives make up about 6% of the population of Arizona, or 424,955 people as of 2018, and the Navajo Nation has around 67,000 eligible voters. This election, the Navajo had a 97% voter turnout. President-elect Joe Biden won the three counties that overlap the Navajo Nation with 73,954 votes. President Donald Trump received a mere 2,010 votes.

Most precincts located on the Tohono O’odham Nation were above 90% for Biden, and the territories of the Hualapai, Havasupai, White Mountain Apache, Gila River, San Carlos Apache, Pascua Yaqui, Cocopah and Colorado River Tribes were 70-90% for Biden. Biden currently leads in Arizona by 11,935 votes with 98% of the votes tallied — a margin slimmer than the Native voter turnout.

Tribes in Arizona also helped flip an Arizona Senate seat from red to blue as former astronaut Mark Kelly unseated Republican incumbent Martha McSally.

Hopkins points out that similar results apply in Wisconsin. I hope the Biden Administration begins the hard work of straightening out relations between the Native nations and the United States, which have been screwed up and murderous since before the United States came into being. The recent SCOTUS decision regarding criminal jurisdiction in Oklahoma is a start. I hope it continues.

And I might point out that the Native Americans seem to have a better grip on what it means to have a just democracy than does the White community, at least in Arizona and Wisconsin.

Rev. Warnock’s not afraid of flinging poo in his Georgia Senate runoff race:

I told you the smear ads were coming, but Georgians will see Sen. @Kloeffler’s ads for what they are. pic.twitter.com/0sgU8ndC63

— Reverend Raphael Warnock (@ReverendWarnock) November 24, 2020

Concerns about democracy being a viable governing system continue to flow:

Krzysztof J. Pelc, a political science professor at McGill University, said Trump’s refusal to admit he lost and the GOP’s reluctance to publicly rebuke him suggest that the Trump phenomenon will not end when he leaves office.

“The spectacle of the past weeks implies that even if the White House becomes more open to greater cooperation with its allies, it may simply be unable to act on those good intentions,” he said.

“The great lesson that U.S. allies have drawn from the past four years is that the American ideals of democratic freedom and openness rest on a fragile basis. American political institutions have proven more delicate than most international observers thought. As a result, we are always one election away from U.S. commitments coming undone.” [WaPo]

Add one part essence of Gingrich [Newt], two parts bad intellectual thinking [abortion], ten parts water, mix vigorously. Find Donald Trump at the bottom of the glass [worm], put in office with a host of enablers [Congress], despite overwhelming goodness of the water [3 million vote victory at the polls for Clinton].

Four years later, swear God told you Trump should be reelected, jump up and down, speak in tongues [Copeland, White, et al]. Foster outrage with lies. Compare symptoms of Democracy’s decay with arsenic poisoning.

OK, so that’s a little noir. Honestly, every governing system requires work, whether it’s Communism (see how hard China works to keep its citizens in line), monarchies (spreading the idea that the King has been touched by a Divinity), theocracy (which bloody-handed Divinity are we worshiping this year?), or Democracy (why should I respect the ideas of my fellow citizens when I’m so obviously right?).

But Pelc, above, has a point: if America is going to be changing course radically every year, then why should we be trusted? And, implicitly, isn’t this also possible for every other democracy?

For decades, the two big political parties worked together to lead the nation and the world towards shared goals of freedom and democracy. It began to fall apart when the Soviet Union broke up, no longer constituting an existential threat to the United States, and then Newt Gingrich began preaching power politics, and disaster has been befalling America ever since.

It’s just part of the job to refute the Gingrich Doctrine for those who believe in Democracy, I think.

It appears extending Professor Turchin’s secular (> 100 years) analysis of agrarian societies’ behavior in the elite part of society during the disintegrative phase to the post-industrial United States is roughly accurate:

Last week, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin went further to divorce the government from supporting the economy in this perilous time. He announced that he was suspending the Treasury’s lending powers at the end of the year, taking away a crucial backstop for businesses and local governments. He is also clawing back from the Federal Reserve about $250 billion appropriated under the original coronavirus relief bill in an apparent attempt to keep it out of the hands of the Biden team. That money will go back to Congress, which would have to reappropriate it in another bill to make it available again, which the Republican Senate shows no sign of being willing to do. Republicans have expressed concern that the Biden administration could use the appropriated money to bail out states and local governments, which by law cannot borrow to tide them over. [Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From An American]

Welcome to the “internecine wars” among the elite that Professor Turchin observed historically occurred again and again. And, unless you are a member of the elite, you are the fodder. And if you are elite, you may still be the fodder. In many historical cases, the losing side of the elite didn’t just lose power, or even their status – they lost their lives.

And the Republicans really don’t have a leg to stand on in terms of government structure. Among the many roles of the Federal Government is that of managing and providing resources during times of national crisis. Think World War II – were the States expected to each provide a response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor? No, it’d be simply ludicrous.

Steve Mnuchin and wife photographed with their God.

Similarly, strong leadership and extra resources in the time of pandemic is the role of the Federal Government. Republicans who try to defend this move will be made to look foolish. Mnuchin’s maneuvering appears to be the blatant pandering of a weak, weak man. Professor Richardson isn’t the only one to recognize this damn sillinesss for what it is, as she notes:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce objected strongly to Mnuchin’s actions. In a public statement, it said: ““American businesses and workers are weary of these political machinations when they are doing everything in their power to keep our economy going. We strongly urge these programs be extended for the foreseeable future and call on Congress to pass additional pandemic relief targeted at the American businesses, workers and industries that continue to suffer. We all need to unite behind the need of a broad-based economic recovery.”

If the Republicans continue these political wars, they may find more and more of their allies are walking away. This may turn into a long and drawn out political suicide maneuver. The Chamber of Commerce is obviously worried, and, for that matter, what happened to the National Rifle Association (NRA) during the last election? I didn’t hear a thing about them. I have to wonder if they have effectively dissolved under the management of their long time leader, Wayne LaPierre. The actions of numerous sports teams to make their facilities available for voting in the recent election should also be a warning to Republicans that their social utility is under reevaluation by substantial portions of the corporate world – and may be found wanting.

Even moves in the last few years to downplay the primacy of investors and recognize the importance of workers and customers in the corporate world, contested as that rearrangement of priorities may be, signals that the Republican Party, and its allegiance to the almighty dollar, are becoming increasingly untied from the American mainstream.

This scorched earth retreat of the Republicans in the wake of their loss of the 2020 Presidential election may not work as well for them as it did for the Soviets in World War II.

In The Atlantic, Professor Eric Muller pulls apart the question of whether or not President Trump can preemptively pardon himself:

Article II of the Constitution says that the president “shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Did you catch that? The president has the power not to pardon people, but “to grant … Pardons” (emphasis added). So the question is not whether Trump can pardon himself. It’s whether he can grant himself a pardon.

That might seem like an odd way of putting the question, but it’s linguistically important. On the one hand, some actions can’t be reflexive—you can’t do them to yourself. Think of surrendering, relinquishing, or handing over something. These verbs entail a transfer to someone else; the actor can’t also be the recipient.

On the other hand, countless verbs do leave open the possibility of reflexive meaning. If, for example, the Constitution had empowered the president not to grant a pardon but to announce a pardon, one would be hard-pressed to insist that the president could not announce himself as a recipient.

And word choice is what the law operates on.

Assuming his lawyers find Muller convincing, I’m guessing there’s a good chance that Mike Pence, assuming he’s agreeable to a quid pro quo, will become President #46 and the shortest tenured President ever, and will be granting a preemptive pardon to his predecessor.

This will put Pence in a commanding position to run for any position available to him, as the Trump cultists will owe him big-time. He has, after all, been a supportive vice president all along, echoing lies and propaganda as required, and this will be a ticket to continued prominence, particularly if he were to be interested in a Senate seat from his home state of Indiana.

That still doesn’t protect Trump from State-level criminal investigations, but it reduces exposure to the point where Trump may feel safe enough to stay in the United States, and not light out for, say, the Seychelle Islands.

And that might work out well for state prosecutors.

The superb lyrebird:

Incidentally, I’m reading The Bird Way by Jennifer Ackerman at the moment.

Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons comments on the special fears he believes the GOP harbors concerning Rev. Warnock’s (D-GA) Senate campaign in Georgia:

But there’s a reason for GOP alarm. “Republicans see Rev. Warnock as a direct threat to their ability to hijack a gospel that prioritizes caring for and loving our neighbor no matter how or if they pray,” Sarah Riggs Amico, who ran for Georgia lieutenant governor alongside Stacey Abrams in 2018, told me. “Republicans are right to be scared: Voters of faith know authentic presentations of the gospel build up God’s creation rather than tear others down as Kelly Loeffler and the Trump GOP have done.”

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, who has led the revival of Dr. King’s Poor People’s Campaign and has become the leading face of social justice-focused Christianity in America, told me that Warnock’s campaign is an example of moral fusion organizing, which addresses poverty and systemic racism simultaneously with moral language. This type of organizing, he believes “helps people see how the lies of divide and conquer tactics are used to pit poor and working people against one another so that the extremely wealthy — people like Rev. Warnock’s opponent — can stay in power and serve their own interests.” [CNN]

In other words, Warnock’s authenticity, his refusal to manipulate Scripture to generate distrust and even hate, a practice we saw in the last election in many places of the country, are thought to be recognizable by the electorate – much to the dismay of the conservatives involved in those efforts.

R. G. Ingersoll

Which, bizarrely, reminds me of 19th century free-thinker Robert Green Ingersoll, who, I read in the biography The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought, by Susan Jacoby, was raised in a devoutly Christian family, but upon reaching his majority, became a free thinker and lawyer. His upbringing may have alienated him from his faith, but it also brought him mastery of the materials of Christian theology, and he became famous for his speeches in which he’d expose the contradictions of the Bible, as well as the plumb silliness it contained.

And he’d do this throughout the Bible-belt. Was he chased out of the towns and cities by outraged citizens?

No!

His speeches were sell-outs, and he was practically adored. He shone a light from a new angle on one of the central texts of their lives, and, I’m guessing, they appreciated the new angles – or, perhaps, his willingness to point out the flaws of a text that they, themselves, were too shy to do themselves, but were more than happy to discuss afterwards.

He may not have been a favorite of those clerics benefiting from the hierarchy, but for those earnest in the faith, who really wish to understand, Ingersoll provided knowledgeable material to chew on – even if he had himself given up on the faith.

And, in a way, Warnock is bringing his traditional, yet new, light to the text. Certainly, he won’t reach everyone, but given the apparently small gap between Republican and Democratic voters in Georgia and elsewhere, and the unhappiness I occasionally hear from the ranks of the Republicans’ religious flank, another, more authentic interpretation of the Bible, rather than the empty entertainments of this clown or that oaf, may be more than welcome.

And sway the votes.

Minnesota Public Radio rebuts Jennifer Carnahan:

Minnesota Republican Party Chair Jennifer Carnahan claimed Thursday night that the state’s 2020 election showed “extreme abnormalities and statistical variations from Minnesota’s historic voter trends.” But her examples are either off-base, vague or flat-out wrong.

Carnahan begins with a general claim: It’s “unusual” that President Donald Trump did worse in Minnesota in 2020 than 2016, despite putting much more effort into winning the state this year. This is relatively vague, so it’s hard to firmly prove or disprove.

Still, while it’s true Trump put a lot more effort into Minnesota than he did in 2016, it’s also true that Joe Biden put more effort here than Hillary Clinton did. Combine that with a national collapse in support for third-party candidates, and national polling indicating that Biden as a Democratic candidate was more popular than Clinton was, and the idea that Biden might do better isn’t absurd.

MPR goes on with some discussions of long term trends, but, really, Carnahan and MPR are ignoring one signal event.

The 2018 election.

And all you really need to know are the names of these Representatives: Omar, McCollum, and Craig. These three women comfortably won their races, and for Craig, it was an achievement greater than simply oustering back-bencher Republican Rep. Jason Lewis. Minnesota’s Second Congressional District had been held by Republicans all the way back to 2000, which is far back as Ballotpedia goes.

And it wasn’t that Lewis had any new scandals attaching to him. It was that the Second District voters had had enough of the risible incompetence of President Trump, and Lewis did nothing to disassociate himself from Trump. He was a Trump adherent, having ridden in on Trump’s coattails in 2016, following the retirement of Rep Kline (R-MN). Craig’s win in 2020 indicates the continuing disgust with Trump present in the Second District.

The Twin Cities is the key to state-wide races, and Minneapolis & St. Paul had, by and large, become appalled by President Trump’s decisions and behavior. It made it easy to reject him by a large margin, as MPR points out.

Carnahan’s remarks may signal her strength of commitment to the Trump cult, but that doesn’t mean much when the cult leader is a pathological narcissist, and it gets worse when the realities of 2018 are resolutely ignored by Carnahan.

The MN GOP should immediately and forcefully require her resignation for its own good. And if it can’t bring itself to do that, it should take that as a signal that it is a broken and possibly irremediable organization, doomed to flounder more and more as the years pass and voters realize that their magical thinking does no one any good.

If you take this seriously:

Kenneth Copeland and followers put their hands on their heads, pray to God, "Bald spots I call you gone! Hair grow!" pic.twitter.com/EmDcda1rsH

— Christian Nightmares (@ChristnNitemare) November 19, 2020

However, at some point near the beginning I feel like he says “Here’s my latest schtick.” I’d hate to think he’s just sophisticated entertainment and not a grifter.

For those who can’t think of any reason not to have a theocracy, try this on for size:

Among the various ways a soul can be sucked out of a mere mortal, this one isn’t the worst.

Perhaps the worst part of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) is this ungainly title with which it is saddled, and, no, she does not have fifty feet. It is, otherwise, a noir karmic tale of what happens when a man listens to the devil on his shoulder and abuses a woman who loves him, and, in turn, what happens when a woman persists in loving a man she knows is cheating on her.

She becomes a 50′ tall woman and beats him to death. If only that happened more often.

Parts to look out for – and, in some cases, this is a warning – the papier mâché giant arm; the marvelously portrayed, even charming, giants; this guy with no sex appeal who’s being slobbered over by two women; the deputy sheriff who made my teeth itch; the escapee Rover from The Prisoner.

And the devil on the dude’s shoulder, who never pays for her evils. Which is rather how instigators of evil acts often end up – maybe disappointed, but punished? No, it’s the gullible who get the plunger up the kiester, don’t they?

Special effects range from bad to fab; the plot is good; acting is more than competent. I won’t recommend it, but this was far, far better than I was expecting.

Sidney Powell’s career is certainly up & down, isn’t it? Yesterday, she was linking Hugo Chavez and communist money to voting machines while working on the Trump Campaign’s legal team.

Today?

President Trump’s campaign said in a Sunday statement that Sidney Powell is neither a member of its legal team nor a lawyer for Trump in his personal capacity. [Axios]

Not precisely unemployed, but she appears to have lost a big client. Or never had him as a client. I’m going with the former, because she wouldn’t have allowed near the podium if she wasn’t a member of the team in the first place.

So what’s going on? Either Trump’s cult just couldn’t swallow that particular conspiracy theory – which I doubt – or Powell fufilled her role, and, in a classic passive-aggressive maneuver, she’s been discarded and the Trump Campaign, having injected yet more resentment into the cult, can now say that, no, they weren’t responsible, it wasn’t them, no no no.

I’m going for the second. I wonder if she received a bonus from the Trump Campaign – or was promised a bonus but won’t receive it.

I became curious as to how the popular vote gap vs Electoral College gap played out and charted it, starting with FDR’s last election:

First, I should note that the subjects of third party candidates and faithless electors are treated here by ignoring them for charting purposes, and removing their numbers for calculation purposes. In other words, all calculations are carried out with only those numbers won by the top two finishers. That said, there’s a surprising number of both in just the 20 elections recorded here.

So is there anything to learn here? Generally, the Electoral College acts as a magnifier of popular vote gaps; the Trump/Clinton contest, and to a much lesser extent, the Bush/Gore contest, are not a trend, but outliers. But it’s worth concentrating on them nonetheless, because they are also evidence that the Electoral College, slanted as it is toward giving smaller states more power than larger states through the inclusion of a mandatory two votes plus those votes for all Representatives, which can also be unfair in favor of the least populated states, should be replaced by a direct vote.

As this chart doesn’t track either Parties or ideologies, it’s hard to say if the electorate is changing over time all that much. Certainly, Reagan’s two elections were blowouts, but that appears to have been the high point of the Republican Party, and I doubt that it’s rational to suggest the Republicans of today would even recognize the Republicans of the 1980s as more than distantly related cousins – if that. I suspect that there’d be little respect for Republican President Abraham Lincoln, either.

And it’s fair to say that the Democrats have been on a Presidential hot streak beginning with the Bill Clinton’s victory in 1992. Since then, only Kerry’s loss in 2004 was a “real” loss. Clinton, Gore, Obama, Hillary Clinton, and now Biden have had substantial showings, which should have resulted in at least seven terms of the Democrats holding the White House – and the 2004 contest might have also gone Democratic if Bush (II) had lost the Electoral College in 2000.

That dwarfs the three Republican terms of Reagan and Bush (I).

Does this reflect an ideological shift in America, or lower-quality candidates offered by the Republicans? Trump certainly rings the bell for the latter category, but Presidential elections are not just about ideology, but swirls of personal reactions, religion, and many other factors make this a difficult analysis.

And one that I shan’t continue.

So, I made the chart mostly for my own amusement. If you extract something from it, let me know.

Mickey Kaus has run across an explanation for the divergence between Presidential election results and downballot results that is interesting:

Why did the Democrats win the Presidential vote but do so poorly in everything further down on the ballot — Senate, House, and state-level races? There are a lot of theories: a) Republicans liked Republicanism, and conservatism, even Trumpism, but they didn’t like Trump! b) Swing voters liked Biden but were turned off by left wing Democratic themes — “defund the police,” Medicare for All, cutting edge progressivism on gender dysphoria in 8-year olds, etc. c) Voters in general wanted Congress to be a check on a Democratic executive.

All plausible. But what if the explanation is something simpler and less profound — mechanical even? The essential idea was proposed by veteran campaign reporter Walter Shapiro. It’s based on the idea of “roll off,” the tendency of some voters to vote for candidates at the top of the ticket while leaving the nether regions of the ballot blank. Here’s Shapiro:

A tentative theory: Ballot-rolloff is greater than normal this year because the Biden campaign pushed early voting by mail — and a larger than usual number of voters didn’t feel that they knew enough about down-ballot races to vote on them.

If this is true, what more explanation do you need? Dems simply made a strategic mistake: They pushed early, mail-in and absentee voting, which may have won them the presidential election but which also brought them a bunch of voters who, in their rush to rid America of Trump, left the other parts of the ballot untouched — with the result that, below the presidential level, Dems got their clocks cleaned.

And that ties in with my own concerns that mail-in ballots that must, by law, arrive by Election Day in order to be counted are an impairment of voter’s rights in that those who can, and do, choose to vote at the election booth have more time to evaluate the candidates and whatever news comes forward late than do those voters who choose, or are constrained to using, mail for their ballots.

And, given my doubts that voters are that much into the political bloodstream, which Andrew Sullivan is unfortunately wont to believe, it’s more congruent with the facts on the ground than the grandiose reads of pundits of all persuasions. Voting one or two months before Election Day may make the Democratic challenger barely known, so when, say, Joni Ernst’s name pops up on the Iowan’s ballot, they know her as the incumbent Senator, while the challenger is hardly making ripples.

Despite what the polls say.

Combine this with tremendous turnout and answers that may have been random, and the down ballot disappointment for the Democrats may be better, if not perfectly understood.

Glenn Greenwald seems to be confused about how to label groups that transform from one ideology to another when it comes to a surge in calls for the suppression of certain books:

It is important to note that [ACLU lawyer Chase] Strangio’s views are mostly definitely not shared by everyone at the ACLU. Many of the group’s more traditional free speech advocates still prioritize its civil liberties principles over liberal politics and liberal political causes. As I noted when I defended the organization in 2017 for its free speech representation in Charlottesville, the ACLU has defended Milo Yiannopolous against the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s refusal to allow ads for his book, and this year publicly defended the National Rifle Association against the efforts by New York State General Letitia James to disband it. …

But for numerous reasons, the ACLU — still with some noble and steadfast dissenters — is fast transforming into a standard liberal activist group at the expense of the free speech and due process principles it once existed to defend. Those reasons include changing cultural mores, an abandonment by millennials and Gen Z activists of the long-standing leftist belief in free speech and replaced by demands that views they dislike be silenced (which in turn causes Gen X and Boomer managers and editors fearful of losing their jobs or being vilified to succumb to this authoritarianism); and a massive influx of #Resistance cash donated to the ACLU not in the name of civil liberties but stopping Trump and the Republicans, much of which was used for political rather than legal staff-building.

I consider a commitment to free expression to be a core principle of anyone who is a member of a liberal democracy, so saying … is fast transforming into a standard liberal activist group at the expense of the free speech and due process principles it once existed to defend. … is really quite the contradiction in terms. A liberal group against free expression is not a liberal group; it is decidedly illiberal.

Is this important? Of course it is. Central principles motivate actions; actions define groups. If some liberal group no longer defends free speech, then it’s time to label them as illiberal. They don’t like that, then let them defend their actions. That very discussion, honestly undertaken, often serves to bring to the fore the problems that some position-of-convenience will bring to that organization’s accomplishment of its mission.

Liberal is not an empty label, it brings a large bowl full of meaning with it. Such words are often deployed with cunning care by the deceitful, and is probably one of the more enraging practices that humanity engages in.

That was one helluva of a party trick. Can you make my little brother reappear next?

Remember Me (2014) is a television mini-series which might as well be taken as a story, as it’s not episodic, but simply a longish movie. This is a cross-genre tale, combining elements of a murder mystery with the crotchety old man genre and the supernatural, and it uses these elements to gradually tell a story which doesn’t let on where it’s going, which is fairly delightful. Tom Parfitt is an old man who decides to fake a fall down the stairs at his house. Taken to the hospital, he begs his way into a retirement home, taking none of his possessions with him.

None at all.

So a junior retirement home employee, Hannah, takes it upon herself to bring him a few clothes from his nearby home. At the retirement home, his newly assigned social worker goes to his room to help settle him in, and, amidst what appears to be an earthquake, is flung bodily out the window. As she’s up a couple of floors, this all ends abruptly and unpleasantly for her.

And Parfitt isn’t too happy, either.

But things gradually become odder and odder. Why did Parfitt, who’s obviously not handicapped, looking to enter a retirement home?  Why do sea shells keep showing up? How much longer before Hannah explodes from the stress of a dead mother, alcoholic mother, and dependent brother?

And how long before the cop actually takes a swing at his boss?

But when an Indian lady keeps showing up in photos ranging over 130 years, that’s where we begin looking at the rents in the fabric of reality, who made them and who’s paying for them. And it keeps the audience’s interest right to the end, twist upon twist. Is old man Parfitt even a functioning adult?

Done by the BBC, it exhibits the quiet competency we expect from British productions, and the thoughtfulness that comes from eschewing crazy action movies. While it wasn’t so compelling as to rate a recommendation, as I can see some audience members finding it tiresome, we greatly enjoyed it and are happy we stumbled across it.

And now, for no discernible reason, a tree.

You’re welcome.

Scrofulous and twatwaffle:

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said, “Donald Trump is a scrofulous twatwaffle.”

As a public service:

Scrofulous:

1. Literally, relating to scrofula (tuberculosis (or TB like bacteria) of the lymph nodes, particularly of the neck).
2. Figuratively, morally contaminated and corrupt.

twatwaffle (plural twatwaffles)

(slang, derogatory) A contemptible person.

H/T DB.

Or a better post title might be Cannibalism on the right.

Tucker Carlson

To summarize from yesterday, Fox News host and National Enquirer issue in human form Tucker Carlson expressed disappointment that Trump Campaign lawyer and specific story from the National Enquirer Sidney Powell, bold purveyor of bizarre campaign conspiracy theories, had not provided evidence for her bizarre claim concerning a conspiracy involving Dominion Voting Systems vote counting machines, the late Hugo Chavez, communist money, etc. All on its own, this is notable for Carlson actually trying to do professional journalism, rather than just making shit up.

Now comes the cannibalism.

Oliver Darcy notes the backlash for Tucker Carlson daring to inject the least little bit of actual mature judgment into his coverage:

Traitor. Globalist. Sellout.

Those weren’t the insults reserved for a CNN or MSNBC anchor on Friday. No, those were the insults aimed at conservative media darling Tucker Carlson. In what feels like the most severe moment of backlash since his Fox News show premiered in 2016, Carlson is fielding criticism from the right. …

But what is remarkable is that, ever since he called out Powell, Carlson has been the subject of denunciation by some on the right. His mentions on Twitter have been flooded with disappointed viewers saying that they feel betrayed by him. Right-wing websites have homed in on the controversy. And pro-Trump internet personalities have criticized him for having the nerve to challenge Powell.

Powell herself retweeted accounts attacking Carlson, including one that said Carlson had thrown “one of his Fox Globalist directed temper tantrums” and is “owned by The Syndicate.” During a Friday morning appearance on Maria Bartiromo’s show, Powell bashed Carlson as “insulting” and “rude.” [CNN/Business]

Of course, the first response is schadenfreude mixed with karma, but I think this is more important than just that. This is the reaction of people deep in the thrall of magical thinking. One of magical thinking’s distinguishing features is the excision of any requirement of actual evidence. There is usually some requirement of logic (the magic comes from bizarre assumptions) or adherence to an ideology or theology, but evidence? It is, at best, a subjective requirement, as in God told me to take child brides!

Sidney Powell

And that’s a marked characteristic of the far-right fringe that has taken over the conservative movement these days. They wish the societal narrative includes, say, Powell’s silly-ass theory constructed wholly in her imagination, and therefore it is. Someone popping their delusional bubble, even a personality generally considered friendly to the movement, marks them as a target.

Speaking of marking someone, this tendency to credit magical thinking over such mature thinking as requiring actual evidence really suggests people who’ve become unmoored from reality, people who’ve either never gained, or lost, a certain level of intellectual maturity.

Now, slipping into my own little puddle of conspiracy theory, I have to wonder if a substantial portion of those threats are coming not from sincere, earnestly believing people, but instead from provocateurs of either the foreign or domestic varieties. It’s not so much stirring the pot as in reinforcing a narrative, strengthening a fence that keeps the conservative movement under strict control. Someone said something about evidence, and if evidence is ever taken seriously, then those who are benefiting from the absurdity of the Trump Campaign claims will be in deep, deep waters. Their sources of income, power, even prestige might disappear.

And, therefore, Carlson becomes a target, using agent provocateurs to begin the harassment and discrediting. Indeed, it raises the question: is Carlson’s run as a Fox News host imperiled? If he apologizes and tries to rejoin the magical thinkers guild, as in fact he attempted to do already (“… [Carlson] pointed out his coverage of the Russia probe and how he never rules anything out — even UFOs.”), will he salvage his career?

Only time and his actions will tell. I have little doubt that he’ll drop his requirements of evidence if that’ll keep his career alive. But will that be enough?

Or will they be using a fine olive oil to sauteé Carlson’s ass for dinner?

Dr. Jonathan N. Stea in Psychology Today:

The Plural of Anecdote Is Misinformation

Remember Sidney Powell, General Michael Flynn’s lawyer, who committed a lawyerly faux-pas at a hearing in early October? She admitted updating President Trump when, apparently, she should not have.

She’s now on the Trump Campaign’s legal team, and she’s managed to make Fox News‘ Tucker Carlson mad at her:

Back in the day, then-Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) became a canker on the hide of the skeptical community by using his position to promote, what is called in polite company, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, but is better known as a center for promoting medical quackery. Was Senator Harkin a scientist or medical doctor? No. He was trained in government and economics, which is good, but doesn’t qualify anyone for making judgments on medical science.

These days there’s lots of amateurs who couldn’t stand the professionals and are now mucking around like … well, there’s so many analogies. None of them complimentary. In any case, I’d like to point out that the particularly execrable Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) has decided to partake of the Harkin platter:

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) is claiming the CDC & bureaucrats are "scaremongering" so that people won't use hydroxychloroquine. pic.twitter.com/cuf0IYf8id

— The Recount (@therecount) November 19, 2020

And, no, it’s not “Dr. Johnson, the prominent infectious diseases expert and epidemiologist.”

It’s “Ron Johnson, account.”

It’s hard to take that wailing seriously, unless you’re willing to go see if Johnson has any fingers in the hydroxychloroquine pie.

And I’m going to guess the skeptical community doesn’t have enough fingers to point at all the quacks, charlatans, ignoramuses, and the simply greedy who’ve wormed their way into government.