As America Declines into Self-Parody (10/26/2022)

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As the American Empire or Republic or Whatever-It-Is continues to self-destruct before entering its full-fascist period, we are required to watch one ridiculous self own after another.  Its sad to see a formerly great nation, perhaps, or at least one with some self-respect collapse into farce but here we are. Please forgive this brief narration as frankly I find the whole situation tiresome and there are others out there perfectly capable of writing about the situation, and a few of them do.  I write this post more as a form of diary.  These are the events that pollute my life and humiliate my country before the world.  

 

First, at a time when the Supreme Court is making itself illegitimate, we have our old buddy Clarence Thomas give Sen Lindsey Graham a pass.  Lindsey doesnt have to face a grand jury to testify and no doubt perjure himself because Clarence gives him a pass until after the midterms, at least.  This is the same Clarence Thomas who should recuse himself from anything related to the attempts to overthrow the US Government, an activity that his wife is well known to have participated in.  Now tell me the Supreme Court has any legitimacy, I dare you.  Their illegitimacy is so flagrant as to be insulting.

 

This on top of the Trump loose-Cannon and her "special master" makes the whole justice system seem a joke.  [As some wit put it, if you want to use the term "special master" it should be at a BDSM party.]  If you want us, or some of us, to respect the judiciary and its decisions then you have to do something to mitigate the damage that Cannon and Thomas and Alito and Gorsuch and Barret and Kavanaugh do in plain sight.  Tell us your plan.  Oh, you dont have one.  I see, thats clear. 

 

As we blunder into the midterms where is the DOJ in the effort to make the midterms a legitimate exercise in democracy, the free exercise of the franchise?  Nowhere to be found.  Vigilantes in Arizona and Republicans in state after state are working to restrict the vote and intimidate voters.  Many of those to-be-elected are so insane as to believe that their leader, the traitor who stole classified documents and got caught at it, was elected in 2020.  Guess what, he wasnt.  

 

Where are we in getting rid of the Electoral College, that fatal compromise from 250 years ago?  Our leaders are nowhere to be found. Nowhere.  Nothing.  Here we have an unstable situation where a minority can seize the presidency against the will of the people again, and force someone, maybe even Trump, on a defeated former Democracy, if that is what we were, and there is no serious effort to fix it.

 

And while the DOJ fiddles, they manage to arrest some Chinese spies, which is nice, I guess, but how about putting Trump and his minions in jail.  Nope, nothing.  

 

Totally impotent.  A complete failure.

 

This country is pathetic.

 

[And so, Boingo, if this is what you call hate speech and therefore censor me because I express my opinion, then so be it.  I dont think it is hate speech.  I think it is the honest expression of an informed citizen about the most important events in my lifetime, the collapse of the American Republic.  Golly, I guess you dont approve. ]

The State of the Midterms and War

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All sorts of things are going on and most of you who read my blog know this as well as I do.  You dont need me to tell you this stuff, and I am really averse to repeating myself which I tend to do.  But its also the case that most of us forget what happened when so there is some utility in writing some of these things down.  So a few notes for the future about the state of politics and about war.

The 2022 midterms are weeks away and you can read many analysis and predictions.  The Senate is up for grabs and could go either way.  The Republicans are expected to win the House of Representatives but it could be by a very small margin.  But whoever wins, everyone will be looking closely to see how the Supreme Court decision on Roe v Wade affected things, if at all. Will people vote who might not have voted before?   Furthermore, the pollsters have covered their ass by pointing out that they have consistently underestimated the right wing Republican vote and they have every reason to think that is the case this time.

This disturbs and disappoints me a lot.  The stakes of the midterms are very high.  If the Republicans win then all progress of legislation must stop and they will make life hell for America.  At this point, there can be no lukewarm feelings about politics in this country.  Whatever the long term prognosis for the Republican party, and for the conservative forces in this country, as they are currently represented they seem to want to destroy the country.  I know I can never forgive them.

And then of course the Supreme Court is about to let loose.  Anyone who thinks this court has any legitimacy and is not completely partisan and reactionary will find out shortly how deluded their beliefs are.

 

We have Trump, the theft of classified material, and slave judges and special masters.  Its alternately horrifying and disgusting.  Do we have a functional legal system left?  Prove it.

We have war in Europe.  We have Russia threatening to use nukes if they dont get to do whatever they want.  We have war crimes to make the SS proud.  We have the vindication of initiative and morale and precision weapons.  We have anonymous destruction of energy infrastructure to punish those who would not obey Putin. We have drones galore.  Oh brave new world to have such munitions in it.

RAND Alumni Event and Dr. Donald B Rice

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The RAND Alumni event had only a few people I knew present, but I was happy to see and be able to talk to those who were there.  Among them was Michael O'Brien, Cara McCormick and Herb Shukiar.  But most of all, I was amazed to run into Dr. Rice who was president of RAND when I was there.  I thanked him for hiring me back in those days when I was a college drop out.

 

 

Dr. Donald B Rice 

 

Simple Tasks for my Representative

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One advantage of the right wing attacks on democracy in America over the last 20+ years is the fabulous opportunity it presents to learn how the US Government and its Constitution is intended to work.  Forget what you learned in civics class, that is just the beginning of the story.  While we theoretically have some sort of representative democracy, by no means is it intended that an individual should have much influence on the government and its policies.  In fact, it is exactly the opposite: the individual is intended to NOT have much influence except in very specific and limited ways.  The process is intended to give a superficial legitimacy to whatever the elite, in their magnificence, decide to do for us, the little people.  Although one may vote for two US Senators directly and the POTUS indirectly, at least you can, depending on your skin color and whether you can afford to take time off from work, have a tiny, itsy bitsy impact.  But you dont elect judges, certainly not at the federal level.  That the POTUS and the Senate do and to the extent the process of voting is perceived as legitimate, then perhaps the judges are legitimate.

 

The only election you have even a prayer of influencing (unless you have a lot of money or are for some reason famous or inherited your elite status) is your congressman.  Therefore, if you dont like how things are going and want some changes then feel free to write anyone or contact anyone you like, but probably the only one who *might* listen to you is your congressman and even that is marginal.  The more one understands how and why the Constitution was written, the more it becomes clear that it is intended that you contact your congressman.  It might not work, in fact it probably wont, and they have very limited power, but that is how things are designed and you may as well give it a try.  Besides its entertaining to annoy them and talk to their pleasant interns who answer the phone.  Its fun! you should try it.

But for this whole shaggy mess to hold together it requires that people not get really pissed off about how things are going.  If, say, your elected representatives fail to deal with a baker's dozen of critical life and death decisions, and choose to kick the can down the road to avoid doing anything hard, then bad times may be on the horizon.  Then "the people" may get ornery and decide to hold their elected representatives responsible for solving some problems.  And if our elected swine, I mean representatives, have waited to solve those problems until they are much more difficult, well isnt that too bad?  "The people" may not take no for an answer and then things may get nasty.  Isnt that one part of the story about the so-called Tea Party.  Sure, it was funded by the right wing nuts the Koch brothers, but they would not have been able to do it unless there were a lot of pissed off people.

 

And that, I propose, is one part of where we are today.  In order to help move things along I have graciously donated my time here, on this blog, to suggest some things that need to get fixed sometime in the future.  Ha ha just kidding.  No they need to be fixed right forking now.  God bless those sweeties in the House, or the Senate or the DOJ or the Supreme Court, but they may have to take some direction now.  Right now.  Obviously they wont and in some cases they are too late.  They fucked it up and we fucked it up by not screaming louder, earlier.

 

America used to be about process and compromise.  Not any more.

 

So here are some issues that need to be addressed. 

1. Trump and his co-conspirators in the attempt to overthrow the government need to be barred from government office and go to jail.  The DOJ is only now looking into this and it is likely that Trump will declare for the presidency right after the midterms which in normal times would mean he is untouchable.  Too bad, he gets indicted and goes to jail anyway.  

2. Trump stole US government property and endangered national security.  The Trump judge moron decided without good reason to impose a delay in an attempt to get Trump off the hook.  Too bad.  Proceed with the investigation, bring the indictments, and put Trump in jail.  Right now.

3. Having the electoral college select the president is like having a spinning gun in the middle of a room of people.  It is going to get off and people are going to get hurt.  Al Gore and Hilary Clinton won their respective elections.

4. The Republicans in various states are restricting the vote.  Fix it now, you have less than 60 days.

5. Get the Trump morons off the judiciary.  

Its too bad they let the situation get out of hand, but that is what happens when you have cowardly representatives like we do.  They knew what was happening.

How to Understand Republican Arguments

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I have an approach to help understand and interpret something a Republican says in favor or against some proposition.  For example, a Republican might say that abortion should be decided by the states.  Or a Republican might in a few months say that abortion should be decided by the federal government and not by the states.  And these are the same Republicans so it can be confusing.  I have a technique that helps me understand such things and I want to share it with you.

 

Remember in the following that "all models are wrong but some are useful".  In other words, I am not suggesting that Republicans are lying pieces of garbage.  I am saying that they appear to be lying pieces of garbage for the purposes of predicting future behavior.

 

The technique is as follows.  When a Republican makes an argument such as "abortion should be decide by the states", what they are really saying is "We want to outlaw abortion and we will say any damn thing we want to attain that goal. Then when it is convenient to say something else to attain that goal, that is what we will, without hesitation, do.  We are shameless and powermad and there is no point in arguing with us because you are just wasting your time.  We dont believe our arguments either".

The Democrats, being endlessly naive and weak, fall for this trick over and over again.  Dear Democrats: please grow up.  Stop falling for this trick, it makes you look stupid and it does us (remember us? the little people?) no good.

The Heavyweight Fight of the Century!

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Ladies and Gentlemen!  Your attention please!  The fight you have all been waiting for!  In this corner we have the world champion bully, traitor and narcissist, Donald Trump!  And in this corner we have the plucky idealist, Merrick Garland!  Who will win?  

 

At last, yes you thought that this day would never come.  The Donald is such a nutty boy and his followers so incredibly loyal and stupid that they seemed to be able to overrun any of that vaunted "constitutional protection" we have all heard about all our lives.  But maybe not so much, especially with the completely opportunistic and shameless Republican party running interface for this piece of garbage.

What will happen?

Image "borrowed" from MSNBC

 

 

Legitmacy and the Supreme Court

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We started our discussion on the legitimacy of the US government here.

The basic argument is that a country or system can survive all sorts of attacks, mistakes, compromises and failures and still exist and move on.  But the elites of this or any country should not assume that they can just fail endlessly and cynically ignore the values on which that country was based. They should not think they are above the "judgment of heaven".  History is filled with examples where such a decadent system hollows out and experiences just one more shock and, to everyone's surprise, collapses into a puddle.  See the Ancien Regime of France in 1799 and Imperial Russia in 1917 for example but there are many others.

It is pride that comes before the fall.

 

The Republicans have accused the Democrats of legislating through the judiciary but of course what that really means is that it is the Republicans that plan to legislate through the judiciary.  Once their partisan justice drones were put on the bench then the Republicans knew that they didnt have to care about majority rule or democracy anymore.  They could count on their "originalists" to wildly violate jurisprudence and legislate away.

But if you are going to do this kind of stuff, then you had better be sure that your court is above reproach, and has been put in place with impeccable process. Its not just who is on the court, it is how they got there that matters, not to mention their arguments. The American People, had better believe in your integrity, boys and girls, because if they dont you are asking for trouble.  What is a justice system whose Supreme Court is seen as corrupt and partisan?  

So lets see what we have here and in no particular order.  First we have the court overthrowing the rightful winner of the 2000 election to put their right wing stooge in power even though we all know that had we kept counting the votes in Florida that Al Gore would have won the electoral vote as well as the popular vote.  Now, with George W in power, we get none other than Roberts and Alito on the court.  Then we get McConnell to refuse to evaluate and confirm Merrick Garland.  Then we have Trump, a known criminal, nominate not one, not two, but three right wing nuts to the Supreme Court.

Sorry guys, but you screwed it up.  The court is far from legitimate and now you have a failed justice system.  Well good luck with that, but it doesnt work for me.

Only Nuclear Weapons Will Save Taiwan

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Its pretty clear that the only thing that will save Taiwan is having nuclear weapons and a way to deliver them when the mainland attacks which is inevitable.  

 

What have we learned from Ukraine?  They gave up their nuclear weapons and now Russia feels they can walk all over them. Would Libya have rolled over so quickly if they had nuclear weapons.  When Iran gets nuclear weapons, wont they be all the more aggressive about expressing their regional hegemony?  Would they attempt to destroy Israel with those weapons?

Good bye nuclear disarmament.  Countries need nuclear weapons to defend their sovereignty.

Prepare to launch! 

 

Storage Area Done

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When we cleaned out the old house, there were 130+ boxes of my life that needed to be stored.  They got moved to a local storage area and I started working through the boxes.  It took 8 weeks of obsessive work to get this down to 45 or so boxes I am going to keep. The jewish books go to the local Chabad Lubavitch, the astronomy and astrophysics books go to the Joshua Tree astronomy league and the books I am not keeping go to the Little Library in Van Nuys, curated by Jill Fraser.  Some photographic gear will go to Tom Barron.  The rest, those 45 boxes, stay with me in my little apartment.  God only knows what will happen if I have to move.

 

Voter Fraud, Florida, Gross Hypocrisy

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The US is entering another round of legitimacy challenges and crisis.  As a Southerner I can tell you flat out that issues of who can vote, both legally and practically, are huge.  The history here is as ugly as you care to look.  Therefore when deSantis and Florida selectively choose felons to accuse of vast voter fraud (excuse me, 20 people?) but dont look at all the ways black people have been disenfranchised over the years, both historically and currently, then excuse me but I feel the need to say this is self-serving, right wing crap.  The next set of elections will be illegitimate because of acts like this one.  

 

This may have been acceptable in the 1930s but it is not acceptable today.

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/18/ron-desantis-voter-fraud-arrests-florida-00052753