23.Apr.2024

Guilty knowledge

Heather Cox Richardson's punchline from the brief update on the start of Trump's first of four criminal trials, after talking about the resurgence of unions, and the disarray of the Republican Party:

"The defense said Trump is innocent and called Cohen a liar, pointing out that he is a convicted felon (without noting that he committed crimes in Trump’s service)."

I'm old enough to remember when Michael Cohen took the bullet for "Individual 1," back when "the Boss" in Mar-a-Lago reportedly said "he loves you" and not to worry. "Everyone knows the boss has your back" he was told, as detailed in Bob Mueller's Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election.

Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 for violating election law, making an illegal in-kind contribution (the "hush money") to Trump’s 2016 campaign at the center of the current case. "Trump’s lawyers want to cite Cohen’s other guilty pleas (tax evasion, making false statements to a bank, and lying to Congress), which were unrelated to the Daniels affair," but not so much about the damning part.

Which, as Mother Jones spells out there, is that the feds identified Trump as a co-conspirator in the crime Cohen committed.

Flash forward to today, as Judge Merchan considers arguments demonstrating former guy's ongoing contempt of court. His own lawyer stipulates that +rump's violations are knowing and willful:

Blanche: "Just to set the record very straight and clear: Pres [sic] Trump does in fact know what the gag order allows him to do and not allow him to do."

So that's nice. So are Jennifer Rubin's observations (WaPo gift link) that the defendant "day by day has become smaller, more decrepit and, frankly, somewhat pathetic. ... Unable to mask his emotions in the midst of a narcissist’s worst nightmare, Trump has never looked so small, so weary and so feeble."

Earth day (4.22.24)

Indigenous knowledge

Heather Cox Richardson's daily (dated yesterday, but my morning read today) features the new Public Lands Rule, finalized last week, "for a balanced management of America's public lands," from the Bureau of Land Management, within our Department of the Interior, led by Secretary Deb Haaland. When she was confirmed by the Senate, Haaland promised to be "fierce for all of us, our planet, and all of our protected land." The new rule's concise bullet list is to

• protect clean water and wildlife habitat,
• restore lands and waters that need it, and
• make informed management decisions based on science, data and Indigenous knowledge.

"Put together after a public hearing period that saw more than 200,000 comments from states, individuals, Tribal and local governments, industry groups, and advocacy organizations, the new rule prioritizes the health of the lands and waters the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management oversees. Those consist of about 245 million acres, primarily in 12 western states.

"The new rule calls for protection of the land, restoration of the places that have been harmed in the past, and a promise to make informed decisions about future use based on “science, data, and Indigenous knowledge.” It “recognizes conservation as an essential component of public lands management, on equal footing with other multiple uses of these lands.” The Bureau of Land Management will now auction off leases not only for drilling, but also for conservation and restoration."

The organizations long keen on exploitation are of course apoplectic. HCR quotes "western state leaders" calling out "colonial forces of national environmental groups" in a little too-cute try at gaslighting, and erasure of the history behind Earth Day (which she goes on to outline).

In Idaho, nearly a quarter of the state's land area is overseen by the BLM, almost 12 million acres of public lands. (The Forest Service oversees more than 20 million acres; together, that's 60% of our beautiful state.) Check out the BLM brochure for Recreation in Idaho, or the online guide to recreation activities, for camping, climbing, hiking, riding, biking, fishing, rockhounding and more.

19.Apr.2024

The first family of crime, and its leader on trial

Speaking of our national punchline, Joyce Vance is my favorite follow of the followers of his trial, and her post after yesterday's day 3, Will He or Won't He? is a fascinating, informative read about what could happen if the defendant in question decides to testify in his criminal trial (certainly against the advice of any competent lawyers). We learn about the 1974 NY case ("Sandoval"),

"where New York’s highest court ruled a defendant is entitled to know what prior crimes and bad acts prosecutors can cross-examine them about before they decide whether to testify. Prosecutors can’t offer evidence of prior crimes and bad acts to show a defendant is of bad character or that because he’s done wrong in the past he must be guilty in the instant case. If they want to use evidence like this in their case, it has to be relevant to one of the issues. But they can use this evidence to impeach the credibility of the defendant as a witness if he testifies. In Sandoval, the court concluded that the judge should make a ruling, almost always in advance of trial, about the “permissible scope of … cross-examination concerning prior commission of specific criminal, vicious and immoral acts” before a defendant decides “whether to take the witness stand in his own defense.”

Call it his third impeachment. The twice-impeached, presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States has a record that comprises a grab bag of "specific criminal, vicious and immoral acts," it turns out. The prosecution team selected 13 sets of determined facts from half a dozen proceedings.

Here is the Sandoval notice for THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK -against- DONALD J. TRUMP for your perusal. The Facts column has ten beginning with "Defendant," which is to say Donald J. Trump. Here is the (trust me, it's) shorter (with a tiny dollop of emphasis added):

• repeatedly and persistently falsified business records, conspired to falsify business records, issued false financial statements, conspired to issue false financial statements, and conspired to commit insurance fraud by fraudulently misstating the value of his assets for economic benefit;
• testified untruthfully under oath;
• intentionally violated court order by making public attacks on a judge's law clerk despite two prior court orders not to do so;
• violated court order by failing to remove "untrue, disparaging, and personally identifying post" about the court's Principal Law Clerk from the website DonaldJTrump.com;
• committed repeated and persistent fraud in the transaction of business by fraudulently misstating the value of his assets ... in statements of financial condition in order to mislead financial counterparties and obtain economic benefits;
• defamed E. Jean Carroll in public statements [in 2019] by making false statements with actual malice;
• sexually abused E. Jean Carroll;
• defamed E. Jean Carroll ... on Truth Social by making a false statement with actual malice;
• illegally allowed his 2016 presidential campaign to orchestrate a fundraiser for the Donald J. Trump Foundation, direct distribution of the funds, and use the fundraiser and distribution of the funds to further defendant's political campaign; and
• stipulated to the dissolution of the Donald J. Trump foundation to resolve claims by the New York Attorney General of breach of fiduciary duty and waste, failure to properly administer charitable assets, improper political activity, unlawful coordination with the Trump political campaign, and repeated and willful self-dealing transactions.

The other 3 sets of facts in the baker's dozen are:

• Jury awarded E. Jean Carroll $83,300,000 in compensatory and punitive damages for defamatory statements defendant made about her;
• Court sanctioned defendant and ordered him to pay $937,989 in fees for filing a frivolous, bad-faith lawsuit[...], brought in bad faith for an improper purpose [by] a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries. He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process...; and
• [The] Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corp. [were] convicted of seventeen felony counts of scheme to defraud, conspiracy, criminal tax fraud, and falsifying business records...

Annual wellness check

My surroundings are replete with memorabilia, and work in process, using the heap organizing system you might be familiar with. It works well except when things "in process" slip into the older, sedimentary layers, and out of mind. And except for when the heaps get so high that they fall over. (I'm a careful stacker, so that's uncommon, but still.) My last three years' medical adventures generated one stack of paper more than half a foot high. Not counting the half GB in my Medical\ folder, going back to dawn of my digital time, or at least the dawn of Things Going Seriously Wrong, which I see was 2001. Last millennium, I was ok, or well enough, and shaking off the various bruises, sprains, and broken bones of growing up and growing into middle age.

Now that I'm on government healthcare, "the system" (driven by the intermediate insurance company) is surveilling me, in its remarkably intrusive, and disjointed way. (For example, nearly five decades after I quit smoking, they keep asking me if I'm using tobacco. No, I'm not going to start again. Ew.)

Yesterday, I went in for what I imagined as "my annual physical," and what seems to have been deemed the long-form, annual wellness exam. (It isn't a physical exam, the government insists. I'll have to wait for the billing to see how that turned out, but I did, in fact, get physically examined.)

The prep nurse explained that she had a long set of questions to ask me, and I volunteered answers before she asked. "Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV," I said, and whoosh, that went right over her head. "It's a +rump joke," I tried to explain. There was a bit of a chill in the room at the mention of his name, and she said, carefully, that she didn't like him. "Neither do I," I replied, and she said "good," and we went on about our business.

My three words (just three?) were Apple, Watch, Penny. (Did Apple® buy a product placement ad?!) Remember those, while you draw "ten forty-five" on this blank circle as if it were a clock face.

As I set about the jolly drawing task, gaging three-fourths of the space between imagined 10 and 11 to put the "little hand" at the right intermediate angle, I wondered aloud how they'd have to change the test when they get to the generation that doesn't know "analog" clocks. Then finished with little arrowheads embellishing the minute and hour hands.

Now then, what were those three words?

Oh snap, they didn't just pop off the stack! I remembered apple, and penny, but what was in the middle? (Why had I let myself be distracted by the clock?!) She tipped her head toward her wrist, with the jolly, multicolored digital watch she had on, and I took the hint. Watch! OMG.

I believe she gave me a gentleman's pass, but IDK, there might be a follow-up, with five words next time. Or more. Ok, who remembers the 1966 "instant success" from Jerry Samuels (aka "Napolean XIV")? Just like our current reality, there was a B-side, which was not a hit at all. Rock music critic Dave Marsh called the B-side the "most obnoxious song ever to appear in a jukebox."

Neuroticfish covered it, grimly. Here's the original audio with a new-fangled thing we didn't have in 1966, called a music video. It doesn't seem nearly as funny as it did 58 years ago.

16.Apr.2024

Hot Takes

Regular readers know how I love the Opinion section of any old newspaper. In spite of there being no apparent shortage of daily opinions, our local, the Idaho Press only comes Tuesday throught Sunday these days, and they only run opinion pages two? times a week (Tuesday and Sunday). Today's paper added a half page with something new: Hot Takes. 75 words or less, and unattributed. Once a week into print. Website interface, of course. That says "we ask that submissions be kept clean, without curse words"; the print version deprecated "slander" [sic] as well. No libel please. And you're going to have do your own spell check and stuff.

The first batch of not quite two dozen appear to lean left, which is to say the generally underrepresented direction in our fair state. (That's if you discount overwhelming public testimony in committee hearings, which our super-majority routinely ignores.) Under Legislative connundrum [sic; they fixed that for the print edition]:

"At this point the Idaho Legislature is simply embarrassing themselves. More worried about gender care and library content, than botching the ITD property transaction and the U of Phoenix deal; I guess it is the 'Sorched Earth Policy'. Come to the capitol, start a wild fire...then go home."

Go home and campaign for another term of scorched earth!

Never fight uphill me boys

Never mind the weird severed head joke, comedy comes in all shapes and sizes, as Jon Stewart shows us with a light touch on World War III, and stuff. Given the depth and breadth of disinformation these days, it's also remarkable to have geopolitical conflicts longer than our lifetimes boiled down to their essence, as in this "aside" to the Middle East:

"Listen, I hope this doesn't sound patronizing, but when we, in the West, drew your region's borders, and set you up with perfectly functioning dictatorships, we expected a little better. See, the agreement was, we would make up a whole bunch of new countries, some of which made sense, and in return you would give us your delicious oil.

"That was the deal. You give us your delicious oil... and we take it. We certainly didn't expect to get drawn into all the drama that all our actions created... And now, these wars have got us all turned around. At one point, we're helping Iraq fight Iran, and then we're invading Iraq, and now we're helping Iran fight ISIS and then we're using ISIS to help fight the Houthis that are backed by Iran. I mean, [BLEEP]."

Segue to "our trouble keeping track of our own wars," as tersely recapped by the former president-beyond-parody, wearing, of course, a red cap. I'm reminded yet again of that time I went to ColorTile for some grout, or something, and the salesperson advised me that "There's the right way, and there's the wrong way, and then there's the ColorTile way." Anyway, you remember the Civil War, which had a Blue Team, and a Gray Team, right? Now we have a Red Team. (I like the guy with the finger binocs at upper right.)

"...Gettysburg, what an unbelievable battle that was, the Battle of Gettysburg, what an unbelievable, I mean, it was so much and so interesting, and so vicious and horrible and so beautiful in so many different ways. It represented such a big portion of the success of this country. Gettysburg, wow."

Also, "Robert E. Lee, who's no longer in favor. Did you ever notice that?"

Meanwhile, in that New York courtroom (where attendance is compulsory, I understand), "Trump appears to be sleeping. His head keeps dropping down and his mouth goes slack." Or as Stewart put it, "Imagine committing so many crimes that you get bored at your own trial. 'Move on to the good stuff!'"

There's more, of course. Always more. The whole 15 minute segment is worth a look. Surprise ending no one saw coming.

Tax Day, 2024

Dabbling in A-Intel

Three slides into Professor Liza Long's lesson, "When Can I Use AI in Academic Writing?" (embedded in her latest Artisanal Intelligence substack post) she mentions some definite "tells" that might give you away if you sip from the font of garbly knowledge.

For example, do you really know what the word "exigency" means?

Yes, I do. I've known for more than four decades now, since the professor I married in 1981 was pushed off the tenure track due to a (claimed) "financial exigency" at the University of Idaho. I know what le plus ça change means, too.

It also brings back a slighly less cobwebbed memory of my early days in engineering, at our daily production meeting with an interesting mix of engineers, supervisors, and the top assembly workers sharing the issues of the day, when my use of "exacerbated" in a sentence was a show-stopper. I had to explain that it meant "to make worse," and suffer the inevitable "why didn't you just say that then?"

Some time later (years?), in a meeting with a similarly mixed group, someone else used the word, and no one flinched. So there is progress.

Anyway, if you're having an LLM kibitz into your paper, Long suggests you make sure you proofread out that part where your buddy said "as a large language model, I cannot..."

(I asked DuckDuckGo, not an LLM—AFAIK—whether I should say "a LLM" or "an LLM," and the blurbs of the top 5 hits blathered on about LLMs without answering directly. They did demonstrate a 3-2 vote for "a LLM." Margin of error. Once we stop expanding the TLA and the jargon goes fully de rigeur, "an LLM" will be correct. It reads better than it sounds. Oh, there's an idea. Ask your favorite chatbot, "how does this sound?" And if that works, ask it how it smells.)

Crime time

As you of course are aware, our former guy has the first of his four criminal trials starting today, with jury selection. (If your last name is Van Winkle, Joyce Vance can give you a quick catch-up.) After some ticket business this morning, I was looking for that confirmation email and had to check my spam bucket. It's not all +rump all the time, but pretty near. Search on the name returns 55 of the 210 messages. Hard to pick a favorite, but I'm sitting in court RIGHT NOW is nice, before (oddly) two others, I'm heading to court THIS MORNING, and then is about to speak! Be still my heart.

It may be a dark day for him, but it's pretty bright for those of us Patriots interested in decency, civility, lawfulness, and accountability.

I just have to say, that one time I registered as a Republican to (be able to) vote in a closed primary is the bloody gift that keeps on giving.

Update:
The NYT live updates, mid-afternoon here, says "Shortly before court adjourned for the day, Trump’s campaign sent out a fundraising email falsely claiming he had just stormed out of court." Par for the cheater's course.

Some are more equal than others

Sunday's Idaho Press included Laura Guido's wrap for this year's legislative session, from the leaders' perspective. The Republican leaders thought it was mostly splendid, the Democrats not so much.

Speaker of the House Mike Moyle extolled "the bill of the year," HB 521, a dreamy, egg-laying woolly milk pig of "Income tax relief, property tax relief, historic expenditures for facilities for our schools across the state, and will provide even more property tax relief because a lot of our school districts will have the funds they need to build buildings and fix issues so they won’t have to go to the taxpayer." It sounds a little too good to be true, with Idaho's per-pupil education spending reliably at or next to the bottom, and it also—grossly—violated the state's constitutional requirement that legislation be limited to a single subject. But hey, if the governor signs it and nobody sues, it's ok, right?

“Sometimes when there’s big bills like that, there’s always one little thing to complain about,” Moyle said. “... You saw that in the Senate, where a lot of them complained and then voted yes.”

Just one little thing, that state constitution. The other enduring unconstitutional goal of the super-majority is to figure out how to shift taxpayer money out of public schools and into private schools. They didn't get it done this year, but Moyle said "I assure you something will happen next year."

"Supporters of the legislation say that residents who are paying into the public school system through taxes but not benefiting from it should also get money for their child’s private school education."

Not benefiting from it, hmm. Article IX, Section 1 should remind "supporters" that the stability of a small-r republican form of government depends mainly on the intelligence of the people, and thus the legislature was assigned the duty "to establish and maintain a general, uniform and thorough system of public, free common schools." For all of us. Not just those who have children in school.

And then the grab-bag of "Social Issues," the culture war inititatives that occupied much of the legislators' time before the mad rush to sine die, mostly about "transgender issues," and mostly "open[ing] up the state to [more] costly litigation." Pooh pooh, Moyle says. It's what the people want!

“You’re always going to have to go through the court, that’s part of the process,” Moyle said. “But I also think it’s what the citizens of Idaho want.”

Moyle argued that the bills were necessary because “everybody should be treated equally. And sometimes what we find is we want to treat one group more equal than another group, and that’s where you lose me.”

Our animal farming little Napoleon alluding to Animal Farm, how absolutely, perversely droll.

14.Apr.2024

Duck and cover

Halfway through the month of April, after the last snow of winter, and trees in glorious bloom, today's guilt-review of old newspapers took me back to March 10, with most of the sections of the NYT still neatly folded and crisp. The front of the Opinion section is plasma-orange above the fold, like a smoky sunset, turning mostly darker gray below, with the white-over headline at the bottom. (So, a footline, I guess.) At the Brink, a special project intended to get us to start (or resume, if you're old enough) imagining nuclear war. The online (interactive) leads with a cartoonish abstract looking up a silo, perhaps, through the splattered exhaust of a departing missile? [Page down] and it goes (literally) dark, before popping An Introduction: It's Time to Protest Nuclear War Again. Then Nuclear War Is Called Unimaginable. In Fact, It's Not Imagined Enough. And, How America Made Nuclear War the President's Decision.

The white-on-black text turns red when you hover over a hyperlink, such as "what's at stake if a single nuclear weapon were used" (NYT gift link) in the introduction. (That item, headlined The Risk of Nuclear Conflict is Rising has a throbbing red over black full-screen splash, then a long, dark scroll before the headline—The Brink— and finally letting up to regular black text on white.)

We're within two years from the expiration of the last major remaining arms treaty between the US and Russia, and nowhere near "turning to diplomacy." Russia turned to regional war more than a decade ago, and we've mostly let that slide, while all sides are doing their damndest to run a new technological arms race.

"There is no precedent for the complexity of today’s nuclear era. The bipolarity of the Cold War has given way to a great-power competition with far more emerging players. With the possibility of Donald Trump returning as president, Iran advancing its nuclear development and China on track to stock its arsenal with 1,000 warheads by 2030, German and South Korean officials have wondered aloud if they should have their own nuclear weapons, as have important voices in Poland, Japan and Saudi Arabia."

The Brink starts with this:

If it seems alarmist to anticipate the horrifying aftermath of a nuclear attack, consider this: The United States and Ukraine governments have been planning for this scenario for at least two years.

And continues to reveal that cartoon rendition is not of a silo, but rather a suitably horrific animated rendition of "IMAGINE A NUCLEAR WEAPON IS LAUNCHED." Just a one. With something less than the explosive power of what we detonated over Hiroshima back in the day, now engineered to "fit snugly into the cone of a short-range missile." (Page down fast enough, and it's like flipping the pages of a graphic novel fast enough to make a full-color movie.) "The United States estimates Russia has a stockpile of up to 2,000 tactical nuclear warheads, some small enough they fit in an artillery shell."

In October, 2022, the Russian defense minister floated a warning about Ukraine supposedly prepared to detonate a dirty bomb "on their own territory to frame Moscow." Kind of the ultimate in projection and gaslighting, and possibly "the greatest risk of nuclear war since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis."

Oh, and "artificial intelligence could someday automate war without human intervention." Someday soon. We could recapitulate one of those Star Trek episodes right here at home before the full impact of human-induced climate change warming washes over us.

Other than that, how's your day going?

12.Apr.2024

O wad some Power the Giftie gie us

My astute readers will likely remember Robbie Burns' title, so very, very fitting at this moment in history. If it's slipped your mind, refresh yourself and enjoy Robert Carlyle's lusciously thick rendition.

Speaking of gifts, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delivered an address before a joint meeting of Congress yesterday, along with a promise of 250 cherry trees to commemorate the quarter millennium since our independence. Let's hope it can last to 2026 (at least). Kishida was an envoy to our better angels, currently in short supply, especially in that House chamber. If an hour plus of C-Span is too much, Nikkei Asia has the full text of his remarks, starting with this charming opener:

"Thank you, I never get such nice applause from the Japanese Diet. And let me introduce my wife, Yuko, who is in the gallery. The fact that I married Yuko should give you great confidence in all my decisions."

Heather Cox Richadson cuts to the chase for us, and I add emphasis:

“The U.S. shaped the international order in the postwar world through economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power,” [Kishida] reminded them. “It championed freedom and democracy. It encouraged the stability and prosperity of nations, including Japan. And, when necessary, it made noble sacrifices to fulfill its commitment to a better world.” ...

Keenly aware that MAGA Republicans have rejected the nation’s role in protecting freedom and democracy and are standing between Ukraine and U.S. aid, Kishida said: “The world needs the United States to continue playing this pivotal role in the affairs of nations.” ...

“The leadership of the United States is indispensable. Without U.S. support, how long before the hopes of Ukraine would collapse under the onslaught from Moscow?”

The right-wing extremists calling the shots, and the creature from the black lagoon of Mar-a-Lago appear to be trying to answer that question. Speaker Mike Johnson is making a pilgrimage to said lagoon, this very day.

Long-time conservative commentator Mona Charen's four books could provide a diagram of how conservatives went off the deep end. After doing comms for the Reagans in the 1980s, she blasted "liberals" in 2003 and 2005 (in the midst of our "conservative" war in Iraq), and "Modern Feminism" in 2018. Her most recent effort, in 2023: Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism. Seems more than a "drift" at this point.

Charen's column in The Bulwark yesterday is HCR's closing item, and you can imagine Ronald Reagan rolling over in his grave: The GOP Is the Party of Putin.

“Putin seems to have pulled off the most successful foreign influence operation in American history,” Charen wrote. “If Trump were being blackmailed by Putin it’s hard to imagine how he would behave any differently. And though it started with Trump, it has not ended there. Putin now wields more power over the [Republicans] than anyone other than Trump…. [T]hey mouth Russian disinformation without shame. Putin,” she said, “must be pinching himself.”

10.Apr.2024

That stinking library bill

The big Brad Little Veto Watch turned out to be a dud. I wrote emails to the governor's office urging him to veto three of the stinking bills in the heap of end-of-session legislation on his desk, HB421 (Sex == gender), HB538 (Pronouns are carved in Idaho birth certificate stone), and HB710 (the fifth try at legislating a bounty on the work of librarians). Yesterday morning, I received one reply to my three emails, boilerplate over Little's signature to thank me for taking the time, "I genuinely appreciate hearing from my constituents," and

"My office generally does not comment on legislation that is going through the legislative process until it gets to my desk. I recommend you reach out to your state legislators to express your concerns to them...."

Yeah, I know district 16's Reps. Todd Achilles, Soñia Galaviz, and Sen. Ali Rabe, and I talk (and write) to them regularly. And none of the three bills I wrote about are "going through the legislative process"; they were delivered to the governor on and awaiting the governor's signature, against the 5-day clock, on April 3d, and 4th. So, stumbling, rudely impersonal, and wrong. Other than that, how's your day going?

"Again, thank you for reaching out to my office. If you have any other comments, questions, or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out."

A couple bills were a bridge too far for our governor. SB1314, to "amend[] existing law to provide that idle moneys may be invested in physical gold and silver in certain instances, to provide for storage of physical gold and silver, and to provide for a maximum allowed investment" and SB1323, something about public utilities revised terminology and specified terms.

For the library bill, at some point, the communications director for the governor’s office refused to confirm to Idaho Education News that the governor had signed HB710 but he told Idaho Reports today, "I signed that stinking library bill." Because...?!

"He said the sponsors addressed most of his concerns from last year, and he doesn’t want to send the message to lawmakers that if they do earnestly work to address his objections he will simply veto their legislation again."

Thus the importance of being earnest in fighting the culture war.

Welcome back to 1864

Pretty sure I saw a headline like that yesterday, over one of many pieces discussing the Arizona Supreme Court declaring with a 4-2 vote that a territorial law was back in effect, thanks to today's +rump-packed SCOTUS overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. It's no small matter to cast your mind back 160 years to wonder "what were they thinking?"

Thankfully, we have a brilliant historian able to put it in context, in one of her inimitable Letters from an American. First of all, it's more about what he was thinking; during the Civil War, and while Arizona was still a territory in the wild west, "women and minorities could not vote, and doctors were still sewing up wounds with horsehair and storing their unwashed medical instruments in velvet-lined cases."

"The Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1864 had 18 men in the lower House of Representatives and 9 men in the upper house, the Council, for a total of 27 men. They met on September 26, 1864, in Prescott. The session ended about six weeks later, on November 10.

"The very first thing the legislators did was to authorize the governor to appoint a commissioner to prepare a code of laws for the territory. But William T. Howell, a judge who had arrived in the territory the previous December, had already written one, which the legislature promptly accepted as a blueprint."

You should read the whole thing, of course, but (spoiler alert!) here's “The Howell Code” punchline:

"So, in 1864, a legislature of 27 white men created a body of laws that discriminated against Black people and people of color and considered girls as young as ten able to consent to sex, and they adopted a body of criminal laws written by one single man."

9.Apr.2024

Mixed messages about your blood pressure

"How to recognize high blood pressure" was the New York Times teaser email subject. Inside, "Here's what to know about high blood pressure." And other side of the jump, the story headline is Why High Blood Pressure Matters to Your Health (NYT gift link), "And how to get it under control." As I was aware, and maybe you are too, the symptoms are “often silent.” Typically silent, I'm pretty sure. If you're up to the "severe headaches, chest pain and dizziness," you may have very high blood pressure. Don't wait for symptoms to find out where yours is!

The subheads are What is b.p. / what's normal? Why is high b.p. harmful; what leads to it; how you can reduce it. So, not much for "recognition," but the body of the teaser was good: What to know about it. Because it matters to your health. Check it out.

8.Apr.2024

Russian dupes

Don't take it from me, take it from the (Republican!) chairman of the House Intelligence committee, Rep. Michael R. Turner (OH), who said yesterday that it was “absolutely true” that some members of his party in Congress were repeating Russian propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine. Link to Puck News added:

Turner did not specify which members he was referring to, but he said he agreed with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), who said in an interview with Puck News last week that Russian propaganda had “infected a good chunk of my party’s base” and suggested that conservative media was to blame.

When asked on Sunday, Turner said he agreed with McCaul’s sentiments.

“We see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages — some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” Turner said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

That earlier story quoted in the later story has been updated to combine the two republican leaders' call-out, and "remember when," Fiona Hill testifying to the House Intelligence committee's inquiry for the first impeachment of Donald J. Trump, in November, 2019.

That was when Devin Nunes was hinting about “indications of Ukrainian election meddling.” Before resigning from Congress to become—what else!—CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group. "One of Trump's most ardent and outlandish defenders in Congress" who "parroted the president's conspiracy theories" and used his position "to try to undermine [the] investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election," and was awarded a Soviet-style, soiled Medal of Freedom for his +rump-serving perfidy.

Back in the present day, neither McCaul nor Turner named any names (McCaul said it was "obvious," "before staff intervened and asked that the conversation go off the record.") But Marjorie (cough) Taylor (cough) Greene for starters, former guy's currently useful idiot on the government payroll. Word is that the Speaker of the House might bring something up for consideration, after yet another two week recess, and in spite of MTG's Motion to Vacate on simmer. (All these recesses simplify the GOP's "do nothing" agenda, marvelously.)

Greene also made a motion (so to speak) that the east coast earthquake and today's eclipse (oh, and did you know there's A COMET IN THE SKY ZOMG?) are signs from God so y'all better start repenting. No, really, she did. The reviews weren't too positive on that. U.S. Navy veteran Jared Ryan Sears:

"So you're doubling down by saying that your God, when forming the universe over 14 billion years ago, planned out that Americans would become more tolerant and accepting of those different than themselves in 2024, something Jesus taught people to do, so God planned a minor New Jersey earthquake and a solar eclipse in order to tell Americans to vote for Trump so that we could usher in an era of hatred, bigotry, and suffering?"

Speaking of comets, 12P/Pons–Brooks is indeed putting on a hell of a show, as captured in today's APOD. Not that you'd be keeping up on my blog if you're camped out in The Path, but

"Pons-Brooks may become a rare comet suddenly visible in the middle of the day for those able to see the Sun totally eclipsed by the Moon."

Update:
"When America is weak, the world is a far more dangerous place."

So said the RNC co-chair, Michael Whatley, gaslighting a Fox News audience with the +rump crime family rep looking on, right before lumping China, Ukraine and Iran together, as if... WTF?!

The Biden Harris campaign presser (without an archive edition I could find) shared a short clip posted to Xitter, and here you go, this link to Newsweek: Trump's RNC Chair Includes Ukraine in List of US Adversaries.

The now-fully cuckolded party is openly doing Russian president Vladimir Putin's bidding.

Something we mostly agree on

Jessica Valenti: This New Poll Should Terrify Republicans; spoiler alert for the dek: 81% of Americans Don't Want Abortion Regulated.

81% of Americans believe abortion “should be managed between a woman and her doctor, not the government.”

The poll was done by Axios/Ipsos, March 26-27. Scrolling down that page (past Jack Goldsmith urging reform of the Insurrection Act before the former guy weaponizes it for his crime family), there's an item about FG juking on his pandering to christian nationalism, now saying "it should be left up to the states." Riiiight. Valenti:

"Abortion isn’t an issue of Americans disagreeing—it’s not something that’s polarizing the country, and it’s not ‘controversial’. A small group of extremist legislators are passing bans against the wishes of the vast majority of voters, forcing laws onto people who don’t want them."

What lolgop tooted:

"What I need everyone to get today that no matter what Trump says, his MAGA allies have a bureaucratic plan to effectively ban abortion in all 50 states immediately. And they will settle for nothing less."

5.Apr.2024

Into the darkness

Not to be a Heather Cox Richardson fanboy or anything, but if you're not already getting her daily in your inbox, you might want to catch up. I'm thinking of the last three issues in particular, April 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.

There is the six month delay in support for Ukraine, thanks to the ex-president's extremist toadies in the House of Representatives, chiefly Speaker Mike Johnson, preventing its vote on the bill that passed the Senate 70-29. Longer (and linked) quote from Anne Applebaum on the March 22 episode of Washington Week:

"Trump has decided that he doesn't want money to go to Ukraine, and he wants Ukraine to be weaker. There's a lot of different speculation about why that would be. Maybe he has some deal in his head that he's going to do if he wins. Maybe he imagines some kind of partition. ... He's been very, very clear that he doesn't want the House to pass this money. And there are enough people in the House who either support him or are afraid for their own seats, they're afraid of being primaried, that they have gone along with it.

"And I think that, more than anything else, explains where we are. I mean, it's really an extraordinary moment. And we have an out-of-power ex-president who is, in effect, dictating American foreign policy on behalf of a foreign dictator or with the interests of a foreign dictator in mind. And I don't think we've been through this before."

Dancing puppets in the House is not the worst of it.

On Thursday, March 28, Beth Reinhard, Jon Swaine, and Aaron Schaffer of the Washington Post reported that Richard Grenell, an extremist who served as Trump’s acting director of national intelligence, has been traveling around the world to meet with far-right foreign leaders, “acting as a kind of shadow secretary of state, meeting with far-right leaders and movements, pledging Trump’s support and, at times, working against the current administration’s policies.”

I'm not a lawyer or Constitutional scholar, but that sure has the scent of treason, doesn't it?

"Grenell, the authors say, is openly laying the groundwork for a president who will make common cause with authoritarian leaders and destroy partnerships with democratic allies. Trump has referred to Grenell as “My Envoy,” and the Trump camp has suggested he is a frontrunner to become secretary of state if Trump is reelected...

"[I]n service of Trump’s personal agenda[,] Grenell is openly charting a foreign policy road map for a Republican presidential nominee who has found common cause with authoritarian leaders and threatened to blow up partnerships with democratic allies."

You will have heard by now that Punxsutawney Paul Manafort popped up again, never mind 8 felonies (five tax fraud charges, two counts of bank fraud, and a partridge hidden in a foreign bank account) on his record. He's in discussions to return to "help" with the Republican National Convention, the NYT reported last month. Just like the RNC, it's all in the Family now.

"The lawyer who represented Mr. Manafort in that [2018] case, Todd Blanche, is now representing Mr. Trump in three of the former president’s four criminal cases. Mr. Manafort is among those who recommended Mr. Blanche to Mr. Trump, according to two people briefed on the matter."

HCR's April 2 letter ends with Politico's report that NATO is Trump-proofing weapons for Ukraine, by taking control of NATO's Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which was launched early in the war by then-SecDef Lloyd Austin and then-Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley "to coordinate Western support for Kyiv’s defenses."

April 3rd's edition takes us back to the election of 2000, that one that turned out phony as a 3 dollar bill with the help of Roger Stone and three partisan operatives who ended up with SCOTUS seats. Remember the "butterfly ballot" design? It's estimated to have "siphoned off at least 2,000 votes intended for Democratic candidate Al Gore to far-right candidate Pat Buchanan," well more than Bush's margin when the Supreme Court stepped in to stop recounting. And more.

And this morning's edition (dated yesterday), for the 75th anniversary of the signing of the NATO treaty, the post-WW II instrument to contain authoritarianism, and provide the foundation of durable—and largely peaceful—democracy in Europe. That's the treaty that irks Vladimir Putin, and former guy Trump said he didn't care about, and "vowed to take the U.S. out of, in a second term."

2.Apr.2024

Gag him

I'm reminded of a funny bit out of the mental archive I impressed upon my teenaged mind, which I see is now likewise impressed upon the Firefox widget for DuckDuckGo search, such that "firesign" offers a top-of-stack completion:

firesign theatre gag him

Yes, that's what I was looking for. Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him. Wikipedia doesn't have the whole script, but it says the single, 17 min. 48 sec. track on side two of the 1968 LP

"begins as a Turkish language instruction record, and immediately follows its listener on a Kafkaesque trip overseas. An unnamed innocent (Phil Austin) is manipulated by mysterious strangers and authority figures into situations beyond his control. (In the written script, the character is called simply "P." for Phil, a reference to Kafka's use of "K." in The Castle.)"

Is it time for Kafka yet? I missed reading him back in the day. Joyce Vance's latest includes a link to, and an invitation to read Judge Merchan's 5 page expanded gag order in the criminal case against the former president, two weeks from the start of its trial in New York.

Things that you would think would go without saying (other than in a mob trial for a murderous psychopath):

ORDERED, that the Court's Order of March 26, 2024, is amended as indicated below. Defendant is directed to refrain from:

a. Making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably forseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation or in this criminal proceeding;

b. Making or directing others to make public statements about (1) counsel in the case other than the District Attorney, (2) members of the court's staff and the District Attorney's staff, or (3) the family members of any counsel, staff member, the Court or the District Attorney, if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with, or to cause others to materially interfere with, counsel's or staff's work in this criminal case, or with the knowledge that such interference is likely to result; and

c. Making or directing others to make public statements about any prospective juror or any juror in this criminal proceeding.

Not to belabor the obvious, after describing the basis of his criticism for Trump and his lawyers, the judge notes Trump's "conduct is deliberate and intended to intimidate this Court and impede the orderly administration of this trial." Vance:

"It’s important to stop and remind oneself that this is a former president and the likely nominee of the Republican Party this year who is being characterized, on the basis of his own comments, as a threat to the integrity of the criminal justice system and the rule of law."

I'm old enough to remember when the Republicans used to pretend to be the party of law and order.

April Fools, 2024

Turn your democracy into fascism in 5 easy steps

This is not a joke, unfortunately. Robert Reich provides his stark warning in both a substack post and video form (YouTube link embedded near the end), take your pick. Trump’s 5-Step Fascist Plan. "He’s already laid each step out." And is working to carry them out as he goes.

1: Use threats of violence to gain power.
2: Consolidate power.
3: Demonize a group of people and establish a police state to round them up into detention camps.
4: Jail the opposition.
5: Undermine the free press.

It's not any sort of secret conspiracy; it's happening in plain sight. Project 2025, organized by The Heritage Foundation provides "a comprehensive transition plan to guide the next GOP presidential administration" with an extremist agenda that "represents a threat to democracy, civil rights, the climate, and more."

Just as Trump has taken over the Republican National Committee and instituted a credulity-loyalty oath, the plan calls for reinstating "Schedule F" to allow him and his cronies to remake the civil service so that it "aligns with his agenda." Dozens of large corporations are cheerfully donating to 2020 election deniers, covering their "bipartisan" bets.

ICYMI mid-January (as I did), the NYT ran an interactive, from Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark, and the founder of the Republican Accountability Project. Here's a gift link to What 17 of Trump’s ‘Best People’ Said About Him. People who served in his cabinet, and now see a second term as likely catastrophic. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Secretary of the Navy. National Security Advisors. Secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security (former 4-star Marine Corps Generals), Secretaries of Transportation, Health and Human Services, State(2), Education, a Director of National Intelligence, chiefs of staff, the OMB director (Mick Mulvaney!), the Attorney General (William Barr!), U.N. Ambassador, and yes, his own Vice President.

raveling

Tom von Alten