Tuesday, November 26, 2019

A Murder of Crows


A congress of ravens.  A parliament of rooks.

Crows have the best group pronoun.  Ravens have the most portent.
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And then the staff carried Trump....


...in a sedan chair down to the shore, so he could command the tides not to come in.


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Half empty?

Or half full? Opinions differ.

Besides, after effectively five days of testimony, the inquiry is over, right?

Nothing to see here; opinions haven't changed.  Move along, people.

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"They've been on TeeVee!"


"Don't you understand?!?  They've BEEN ON TEE-VEE!!!!!!!!!!"

And here she is on TeeVee, explaining the importance of TeeVee to the man obsessively watching this program to be convinced of his importance, because of what they say about him on TeeVee.

I'll retire to Bedlam.
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History in Quatrains



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Huh? I mean, literally....Huh?



Time...how does it work, again?
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Monday, November 25, 2019

Let's Go To The Tape!



The interesting question is:  what changed his mind.  Impeachment may not be a sure thing, but doom in 12 months seems to be more and more certain.
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I Honestly Thought...

Trump would not want this guy's criminal record scrutinized.

Now I think Trump is more delusional than I thought possible.
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Eve of Eve of Eve of Thanksgiving


Let me let you in on a little secret:

After years of being constantly annoyed and often angry about the historical denial built into Thanksgiving Day, I published an essay in November 2005 suggesting we replace the feasting with fasting and create a National Day of Atonement to acknowledge the genocide of indigenous people that is central to the creation of the United States.

....
 The most common argument went something like this: OK, it’s true that the Thanksgiving Day mythology is rooted in a fraudulent story — about the European invaders coming in peace to the “New World,” eager to cooperate with indigenous people — which conveniently ignores the reality of European barbarism in the conquest of the continent. But we can reject the culture’s self-congratulatory attempts to rewrite history, I have been told, and come together on Thanksgiving to celebrate the love and connections among family and friends.

The argument that we can ignore the collective cultural definition of Thanksgiving and create our own meaning in private has always struck me as odd.

The world doesn't revolve around you; and nobody cares.  You don't elevate yourself by being national scold demanding we all don sackcloth and ashes because you want to. Ironically, when I posted this quote it included a "Happy Holidays" message from Raw Story.  It made me think of the nuts on FoxNews decrying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Xmas!", a stupidity that found its way to our head of state, who thinks it's still a winning complaint.  By now I'd have thought at least by negative example that we'd have gotten over foisting our particular animosities on the world at large and demanding it do as we say!  Don't we have enough of that from our POTUS?  Do we really need it from private citizens, too?

And by the way, you didn't "publish" anything, you posted your whinging on a website.  And FoxNews didn't even notice. Stop giving yourself airs, and the rest of us a reason to think less of you.  I, for one, don't think of Thanksgiving as being rooted in the Pilgrims (who were hardly the first settlers) or the kindness of the natives.  I think of it as a day for family and feasting and football, the three "F's" of American culture.  I'll try not to think of tedious people like you who think the world is out of line for not doing as you wish.

Get over yourself.  The world is not here to please you, and there are larger injustices to be addressed than some silly idea of a "National Day of Atonement."  This is America; it would just be an occasion for shopping and sales, anyway.

ADDING:  in response to the comment:  the whole idea does run into Niebuhr's issue, that you can't make a nation take a moral stance because morality often requires sacrifice, and the point of a nation is to provide security, not demand sacrifice for something that doesn't contribute to the nation's security (which is the security of the citizens of that nation).  Atonement would require sacrifice of people who may believe they have nothing to atone for.  Can you force a moral stance on people, one that requires them to give something, anything, up in return?  You may ask it of them; you can't require it of them, any more than we allow a parent to withhold medical care from a child for moral reasons.  So you may complain that America should be Moral Like You, but it's a pretty selfish complaint.  Demanding it of America, is just childish.
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Can We Talk About The Trial Record Now?



Because more and more, this seems relevant if we're going to redefine "hero":
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Spot The Smartest Creature in this Photo


Three guesses; first two don't count.
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Waking to a Dog's Breakfast


This is a very tangled mess.
My only hope is that it focusses attention on what a mess Trump is making of government (military seems a particularly sacred touchstone for many who hate "big" government, but love big military), especially if this information can come out:
I recall what candidate Trump said about people coming from Mexico, and note for the record that Gallagher is a white man.

Further affiant sayeth not, because this snarled line of claim and counter-claim and looking for a "hero" in this mess, ain't worth further effort.  To paraphrase the Bard, all should be punished.
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The Morning After

Yeah, pretty much. Is America great yet?
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Sunday, November 24, 2019

He Seems Nice

Maybe one more reason Trump wants to get this case out of the headlines. Because I haven't seen many news reports about the details of the facts against Gallagher.

Of course, I haven't been looking, either. Who has? And now the discussion will turn to Spencer and Esper. Which is a pity, but what can anyone do about Trump?
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So this happened (again, via Tweet)


What, by the way, do cost overruns (?) have to do with this?  Asking for a friend.

Trump had to get his pound of flesh from this, so Gallagher retires with his SEAL status intact.  It's telling Trump thinks one more strike against the chain of command is a win; but there we are.

For the first part, this contradicts what was reported earlier:

Which makes this simply a mess, for which Spencer bears some blame:
Which makes me think Spencer's letter of termination (he didn't resign) is, and was released as, a CYA measure, which is not really a good look no matter who is finally to blame.  Except on reading it (finally!  what can I say, I'm busy!), it's clearly a middle finger to Trump, especially the paragraphs about military order and the rule of law, two things Trump clearly disdains and tramples like the ignorant child he is.  Of course, that's a good way to point away from DOD reports that Spencer was negotiating with the White House behind Esper's back.  ETTD, indeed. Still, the letter is not a resignation:
And it makes it pretty clear Trump told Esper to do it, but leave Trump out of it.  Which is the other problem here:
Which raises a more important problem/issue:
I don't know who has standing to challenge the appointment of a new SecNav (?), but this kind of quite literal lawlessness is a pervasive problem all on its own.  Trump wants to keep his (tiny) hands clean by foisting the order onto the SecDef.  Notice Trump had nothing to do with it, which is the responsibility he wants desperately not to be saddled with, because that responsibility carries with it blame on Trump for his stupid tweets in the first place, and for his bull-in-the-china-shop approach to military command structure.  This quite honestly has nothing to do with Spencer or even Esper anymore, and everything to do with Trump.  So, of course, Trump did it because of cost overruns.

Huh?

His lawlessness and disregard for law is like a stone through a plate glass window; the cracks from the initial impact just keep spreading and spreading, and the window itself is now useless and must be replaced.  How much of government and understanding of governance (not to mention military order) will we have to remove and replace (and how do we do that?) when Trump is finally gone?

Every day he proves himself not only unfit for office, but a clear and present danger to the government and the Constitution.  And he knows it, and refuses to be held responsible for it, and that only makes the matter worse.

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" I know that you believe you understand what you think I said,"


"...but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."

Or even what the words meant, that someone else said.  I mean, Truth, who knows, right, Sen. Kennedy?

You know that's going to be the response to all this.
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"Only Connect."--E.M. Forster


Which is a surprise, but also makes a certain amount of sense when you consider this:
The distrust extends far beyond the staff of the White House.  But don't make Esper a plaster saint, because he apparently was asked to resign for reasons other than Trump's tweet:


Esper may be angry at such an insubordinate subordinate.  It's a fair cop.  Reportedly the problem here is Spencer, not Trump.  So this may be a matter of trust, not of a tweet.  Will this stop here, or result in Trump making a legal order of the matter?  Inquiring minds want to know.

And yet there is a ray of sunshine in the system yet:
"... it is more important than ever that we still have places where the truth can be presented, examined and discerned."  Frankly, toying with the military chain of command is about as exciting and motivating as ignoring the conclusions of the entire intelligence apparatus of the U.S. government.  But the "smoking gun" tape didn't take Nixon down in itself, or in isolation.  It was the last straw, the thing Baker and Specter knew they couldn't defend Nixon on, the last wall that fell and left them nothing to back up against.  Nixon was going down (hell, he was in his second term); they just weren't going to let the GOP go down with him (although it did, only to get the whole of government handed back to them by Jimmy Carter and a feckless Democratic party; but that's another story).

Trump is going down; but how much damage is he going to do to troop morale, military structure, the entire function of government from top to bottom, before he does?  As I said, these questions are abstractions; it is the concrete that will do him in. 

News of this may well turn very solid and real by tomorrow.  We'll see.

Adding:
Yeah, it's gonna end as a personnel matter.  Even Trump won't go there.

And the last nail in that coffin:
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Redux Reflux

I've said it before and I'll say it again: forget the abstract, only the concrete is real.

Putin is the leader of a foreign country.  He is abstract, and his assault on the American electorate is abstract.  Yes, the conspiracy theory is straight outta St. Petersburg.  Yes, it's the rankest bullshit, as certified by American intelligence agencies.

No matter.  It's an abstraction.  Trump is concrete.  Trump is here, not way over there.  And Trump is an American politician, not a foreign leader (since when did Americans care that much about the rest of the world, especially after Vietnam?).

Likewise the Constitution.  Yes, Senators and Representatives take an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.  What political ever got re-elected on that platform, unless it was a promise to preserve, protect, and defend your right to arm bears?  The 2nd Amendment is concrete (and wholly misunderstood).  The rest of the Constitution is bafflegab and moonbeams.  It may provide for impeachment, but what political under investigation ever got drummed out of office for calling the investigation "unconstitutional"?  The common and accepted interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is actually unconstitutional.  Even Scalia's opinion in Heller doesn't do what many NRA loonies think it does.  But it matters not:  that interpretation is concrete, the Constitution itself a mere abstraction.

So politicians don't act to preserve, protect, and defend an abstraction.  They act to get re-elected, and to represent (aye, there's the rub!) their constituents.  I could throw a rock in Louisiana and not hit someone who disagreed with Sen. Kennedy.  No doubt they exist; but you'd have to hunt for them.  Of course, what politicians say when they campaign is abstractions:  but they are taken as concrete.  The media may want candidates to pontificate on arcane foreign policy issues; the voters want to know what tax breaks they can expect, and what the government is going to do for them.  Constitutional issues like "abuse of power" or even bribery or treason are abstractions; literally.  What is concrete is how any particular voter feels tomorrow morning.  Always tomorrow morning, in fact.

Putin is an abstraction.  Trump's tweets, which can bring ignominy on their targets in a GOP primary, are concrete.  The Constitution is an abstraction.  That there was no bribery because Ukraine got the money, is concrete (it's wrong, but it's concrete).  What people say is an abstraction, especially when you can take a post-modern stance that:  "Words?  What do they really mean, anyway?"  Which, according to Lewis Carroll, isn't all that post-modern after all.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
We have met the master, and we are through the looking glass.  Honor and duty and oath have always been empty words in American politics; good for using in speeches, bad for living up to.  Here the British constitutional monarchy has one up on us (not much of one, granted).  When a politician is caught in scandal, the Queen is the exemplar of governmental behavior (the royal family is another matter) and, compared to her, the politician is shamed and driven from the Queen's government (it's all her government, in idea if not reality).  We re-elect our scoundrels, and consider them bad people but at least they're our bad people.  Your people are much worse.  That isn't going to change anytime soon.  Sen. Kennedy is merely doing what politicians before him have done since the founding of the Republic and the Presidency of Adams proved the Presidency of Washington was a one-off and the eternal exception that proved the rule.  Kennedy is just dancing with the ones what brung him.

And most of those people aren't on Twitter.  With any luck, they won't be the majority of the electorate next November, either; along with disappointed Bernie backers.

Maybe we can spend more time interpreting "Jabberwocky."


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Christmas Is Coming, after all


To be perfectly clear, if you don't want to watch the video:  Nunes all but announces he will take CNN to court.

“Just to be clear, you’re saying you’re suing CNN,” Bartiromo pressed. “You’re telling me that CNN committed criminal activity?”

“It’s very likely. Or they’re an accessory to it, right? So none of this is true,” Nunes shot back. “The sad part is, I’m the last guy that wants to go into the courts, but the media has become totally corrupt that now they’re willing to actually engage and help with criminals, indicted criminals. These people are sick, and the only way they’re going to be held accountable is through the court system. And It’s the only chance I have to actually get the facts out for the American people because they can’t lie to a court.”
Of course, under the Sullivan decision, it's all but impossible to slander a public official.  That's one problem.  The other is, even without Sullivan, you can't shoot the messenger:

Aside from those constitutional and legal obstacles, there are reasons most public officials in America don't sue for slander.  One is that truth is an absolute defense, and a slander suit can just end proving the truth of what was reported, especially when Nunes won't even deny it in this interview:
The other is the matter of discovery, no matter how the lawsuit resolves:

Colorful but accurate description of what the discovery process is like in a civil case.  It would make Nunes' head explode, and it's the reason he, like Trump, has never sued anybody with enough money to make his life miserable.  Because almost nothing in civil discovery is privileged; CNN could publish almost every bit of it.

Which is why it would be such a Xmas present!
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Annotating Kellyanne

Kellyanne speaks, we listen:

“But here’s what I was saying,” Conway said. “The July 25th call [with Ukraine], the call that the whole world has had access to, the president clearly lays out what’s on his mind. It’s the day after Mueller testifies and then the president looks at it as his turn. He wants to get to the bottom of what happened in 2016. And certainly to avoid that in the future, look, we have done a great deal in our White House… to secure our elections.”

Yes, the memorandum of that call does clearly lay out what was on the President's mind:  a quid pro quo.  Ukraine gets the funds authorized by Congress if Ukraine's President goes on television by a date certain and announces an investigation of Joe and Hunter Biden.  Not conducts an investigation, and publicizes the results; just announce the investigation.  Trump doesn't care if it's true or not; he wants to see Biden deny it.  Why?  Because it helps Trump.  Corruption in Ukraine?  Eh, whatever.

“But I also don’t want the impeachment process, I don’t want members of the mainstream media — which don’t include you — to interfere in the 2020 election the way they tried in the 2016 election,” the president’s aide exclaimed. “That’s a different kind of interference and that’s dangerous too.”
This is paranoiac conspiracy thinking of the highest order, although she graciously excluded CBS from her criticism (which apparently kept Brennan from protesting, so it worked!).  How did the media "interfere"?  By not backing Trump's conspiracy theories like "Birtherism" or the "Deep State" or "Fake News!"? By reporting what he said, and how crazy it was?  No, actually, they didn't do that. Not enough, anyway.

Before allowing Brennan to concluded the interview, Conway noted that polls in swing states have allegedly turned against impeachment.

“These Democrats who are in charge of the hearings don’t represent the swing districts,” she opined. “They have to look at the polls and say, ‘There’s no appetite to impeach and remove this president.'”
Wait, I thought the President was complaining about the due process rights he claims in a House impeachment investigation (spoiler:  he doesn't have any, and the ones the House offered he swatted away).  Now you're telling me it's purely a political matter, and the swing states are all that matter?  Because the election is going to be held in December 2019 this time?  Honestly, swings in voter attention/sympathy for impeachment don't mean all that much.  We've only heard from a handful of witnesses over 2 weeks, testifying for less than a full business week in all.  You really want a 6 week Senate trial with Trump calling all kinds of witnesses to spout crackpot conspiracy theories that come from cloud cuckoo-land or, worse, Russian propaganda?  You really think that's a winning strategy?  Please, PLEASE, throw the country in that briar patch!  I'm beggin' ya!
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