Unsightly Mental Blemishes

I like it.

IHS Markit has a publicly available report on the impact of the derecho that hit Iowa a couple of weeks ago here. It sounds a trifle grim.

Biblioclasty:

Book burning is the ritual destruction by fire of books or other written materials, usually carried out in a public context. The burning of books represents an element of censorship and usually proceeds from a cultural, religious, or political opposition to the materials in question. [Wikipedia]

But apparently not always. Noted in “The Ege Manuscript Leaf Portfolios,” Greta Smith and Fred Porcheddu, Denison Library:

In the late 1940s, longtime Cleveland resident and art historian Otto F. Ege selected fifty medieval manuscripts from his personal collection and removed several dozen individual pages from each one. He mounted each leaf onto a large paper mat using tape hinges, and added a descriptive label to the mat. He then put one leaf from each of the fifty component manuscripts into a durable portfolio box; each of the resulting boxed sets thus contained a different leaf from each of the fifty original manuscripts. Forty boxes containing fifty leaves each were made in this way, and were offered for sale to university and public libraries around North America.

Sample page.

This was an extraordinary thing to do. For centuries, the act of biblioclasty (literally, “book-breaking”) has been reviled–in most people’s minds there exists an urge to protect books, especially old ones, and to view cutting pieces out of them as nearly acute a crime as burning them outright. But Ege’s impulse was actually a largely altruistic one. He had devoted his career to teaching book arts such as decoration, typography, and layout design to the general public, and he believed that the transformative beauty of medieval book decoration could inspire bookmakers today to greater heights of creativity. He authored dozens of articles on this subject in art education journals, and loaned materials to public book exhibits regularly. His “Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts” portfolios were part of his longstanding commitment to populist art education in North America.

If you happen to know of one these portfolios in private hands, Denison University may want to know. See the above link.

How about some poker Friday night, Fred?

King Kong vs Godzilla (1962) is a cheerfully awful entry into the Godzilla and King Kong mythologies. It’s populated with a positively silly plot unworthy of detailing; a King Kong who shoots electrical current out of his hands and has, shall we say, British teeth; mostly awful special effects, with the minor exception of a really effective giant octopus; and acting unable to cover for all of its shortcomings – the island native girls dancing to keep the big ape quiet was a trifle disturbing.

The best part may have been the end, which didn’t actually try to be definitive. Godzilla just disappears, while King Kong heads for home.

Blech.

… rain must fall.

On The Volokh Conspiracy, Professor Ilya Somin analyzes the Democratic proposal for growing the federal judiciary to handle the growing caseload:

The good news about the Democratic platform is that it does not endorse any plan to pack the Supreme Court. That includes not only straightforward increases in the number of justices, but also such workarounds as “rotation” of justices (advocated by Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primaries). …

Things are less clear when it comes to the lower federal courts. Here, the Democratic Platform says the following:

Since 1990, the United States has grown by one-third, the number of cases in federal district courts has increased by 38 percent, federal circuit court filings have risen by 40 percent, and federal cases involving a felony defendant are up 60 percent, but we have not expanded the federal judiciary to reflect this reality in nearly 30 years. Democrats will commit to creating new federal district and circuit judgeships consistent with recommendations from the Judicial Conference.

Conservative activist Carrie Severino and my co-blogger Randy Barnett denounce this as court-packing. By contrast, prominent left-wing legal commentator Ian Millheiser sees it as a “timid” plan that “will do little to counter the GOP’s grip on the federal bench.” …

If the Democrats really are serious about limiting themselves to politically neutral adjustments to deal with rising case loads, they can address that problem in ways that more clearly avoid court-packing. One would be to institute the new judgeships on a staggered schedule over time. For example, one-third of the new judgeships recommended by the Judicial Conference could be instituted immediately (say in 2021 or 2022), one-third in 2025 (after an intervening presidential election), and one-third in 2027 (after an additional intervening congressional election). That would ensure that many of the new judgeships will take effect only at a time when we cannot currently predict who will be in power.

I think this would actually be counterproductive. Imagine each Presidential election cycle, where both sides know that a victory let’s them appoint a pack of new judges. If the Republicans continue to be single issue voters who make the judiciary their ticket, well, it’ll just make for frenzied election seasons.

I think the Democrats should instead take the high road. Pass the necessary legislation, with or without Republican support, and then nominate and confirm – or not – quality judges.

Not ideologically preferred judges.

And get their qualifications out there for Republicans to chew on. When the predictably hysterical right wing commentators lose their minds and label them all socialists, point out that they’re not. As part of the overall campaign strategy, put out commercials comparing the pundits’ hysteria with the actual facts of the judges.

Let the hysteria strangle itself.

And face it: a percentage of the population will stubbornly close off its brain to rational argument, to the idea of chasing down facts, in preference to believing their favorite opinion-leader, whether their name is Coulter, Hannity, or Limbaugh. You can’t win them, so don’t try.

But for those are doubtful, these commercials may be persuasive.

UMB will be getting its first theme upgrade since we opened up 5+ years ago. Any visible changes may or may not be intended. Let me know of any serious problems.

Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation, is frustrated with Democrats and their tactics:

I literally do not know how the Democrats got through an entire section on immigration [Wednesday] night without mentioning the Muslim ban, or the 5-4 Supreme Court decision to uphold it. I do not know how they talked about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, highlighted people who have been denied access to the program, and yet did not mention that the court’s decision to allow the program to continue hangs by a thread or that the Trump administration has indicated that it will violate court orders anyway. The omissions are insulting, not just to the Muslims who have been banned or the Dreamers who have been terrorized, but also to the thousands of lawyers and good people who fight the administration and descend on airports and border crossings to defend what rights immigrants still have left.

Without having watched much of the DNC, I suppose it’s frivolous of me to respond, but quite honestly, I don’t think presenting the problems of not “controlling” the federal judiciary really fit in with the Democrat’s approach to this election. I believe the Democrats have the same mind as do I: this isn’t an election to defeat the Republicans, say 51-49%.

That won’t do.

The Republican Party, or the corrupt zombie that’s zig-zagging across the landscape wearing its old clothing, needs to be so badly crushed that it can no longer be taken seriously in its current form.

And citing judicial concerns can easily lead into complexities not suited to a virtual national conference. Worse yet, it implies a rough equality of moral standing which does not exist. By excluding judicial issues, and by reference the entire immoral “single issue” citizen, they avoid inculcating that poison into the intellectual blood stream of the viewers, who might have had a very strong negative reaction to it.

The pivot of the Democrats isn’t “how bad is the judiciary going to become if we lose.” That’s negative. They need to shine a light on how good things will be if the Democrats are put in charge, in place of the immoral and corrupt Republicans.

This is a new situation, and I think the Democrats have taken proper advantage of it.

Republicans have legions of single-issue voters who cast their ballots purely because of the Supreme Court, because that’s what those voters have been told to do. They have been told for a generation that the way to get the things they want—whether those things are homophobia, sexism, white-minority rule in a soon-to-be majority-minority country, or the simple joys of shooting black people who run past your house—is to gain absolute control of the courts. To the extent that Democrats have fewer voters who are willing to hold their noses and vote because of the courts, it is because Democrats never put in the work of explaining how their policy goals require liberal judges to uphold them.

And those Republican single issue voters are the precise voters to blame for the current shithole we find ourselves in, for reasons I refuse to repeat yet again. I, for one, cannot countenance Mystal’s implicit call for the Democrats to develop single issue voters as well. Shall we be overwhelmed for grossly corrupt and incompetent legislators from both parties?

With the infusion of young energy into the Democratic Party, now is exactly the time when the work should be done to explain how control of all three branches is necessary to achieve progressive aims. When I talk to young people, a lot of times the only cases they’ve heard of are Roe v. Wade and Citizens United. Too many people don’t know that D.C. v. Heller created, for the first time, a personal right to gun ownership for self-defense and must be overturned to have any meaningful weapons ban. Too many people don’t know that the conservatives’ attempt to rewrite “Chevron Deference” is their way to attack any environmental regulation ever passed again. Too many people don’t know that “codifying Roe v. Wade” is useless when the name of the game is reimagining Planned Parenthood v. Casey to make abortions functionally unobtainable even if the right to have one still technically exists.

Sure. But the DNC was not the place for it. These sorts of things need education through the media and through dedicated class time. How you do this, I don’t know, but then I’m just a slacker, out of date software engineer.

First rule of engineering: Please, oh please, don’t make things worse by fixing the problem.

Last year that behind the garage tomato plants were spectacular. This year?

Mediocre.

We still expect some good pickings, but the last couple of years it’s been as if the garage was to be overwhelmed. This year, not so much.

Ted Bundy: Charming, but …

I think this election will be unlike any that I’ve personally experienced, either at local or national levels. Previous elections were about ideology, policies, and sometimes competency: the meat of what I consider good governance. A country needs honorable politicians who pursue policies which encourage the public’s goods: peace & prosperity.

But this election is less about those things and more about the more basic facet of governance:

Morality.

Basic morality – honesty, integrity, fidelity, sobriety, humility – is the issue of this election, unlike any other in my lifetime. This is both an individual and collective mandate:

Individually, which candidates, incumbent or otherwise, have acted in accordance with basic morality? Who have taken their duty to country with all due seriousness, and who have permitted their loyalty to entities other than country influence their behaviors to the detriment of the public?

Collectively, which entities, by which I mean parties and their allied groups, have encouraged behaviors in accordance to basic morality, and which have not? Which entities seem to be made up of high-minded individuals, and which seem to be led by power-hungry people who happily abandon basic morality if it brings them gain?

People who have read my blog know my vote will be straight-line Democratic, not because I agree with all of their views or view all of those candidates positively, as I do not make the mistake of demanding purity, but because, as an independent voter, I recognize the Republicans, both local and national, have become terribly disconnected from basic morality. For the first time I won’t be giving consideration to their positions; in my estimation, the current leadership of the Republicans, or the Party of Trump, as they style themselves, has become hopelessly incompetent, at best, and must be expunged.

Yes, there’s nothing new in the above, so if you read this blog, you know my stance. But over the last couple of weeks it’s been increasingly clear that this election is a different animal, an election concerning morality rather than policy, about the behaviors of the candidates – not their policies. It seemed necessary to recognize and enunciate this difference.

That is, if you’re planning to vote Republican – it’s no longer a question of what do you know that I don’t?

It’s what’s wrong with you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s for the more delusional members.

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

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

Very, very silly.

But then, so is this one.

And then there’s these dudes:

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

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

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

Don’t.

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

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

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

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

The good ship Ethics appears to be in trouble.

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

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

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

From a Trump Campaign stop in Arizona yesterday:

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

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

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

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

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

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

They might even vote for Biden – or West.

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

Just because I enjoyed it on Colbert.

https://youtu.be/gkmAU2U_BqE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s the optics, of course.

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

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

As the Trump Administration veterans turn against Trump:

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

— Miles Taylor (@MilesTaylorUSA) August 17, 2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bravo! But this is merely a first step.

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

And that was about as close as I could get.

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

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

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

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