January links

Energy sector revolution. A long article summarizing important changes in the energy sector in the last decade. A must-read when I have time.

India riots. An anti-Muslim immigration law was a slap at a religious minority in India. How far will the Indian government go in its authoritarian policies? It seems that India might erupt, considering the much worse than typical fighting, even at universities.

Friction with South Korea. Short, focused summary of our strategy with South Korea and why tough love is a mistake there.

A critique of Trump Mideastern policy. This is written in stark terms without hyperbole or catastrophizing. Pretty refreshing, really. No, the world isn't going to end, but could we please have a bit of coherence? Actually, though, foreign policy tends to be incoherent, maybe because there are truths that you can't say out loud.

A prediction about Iran. I like it when someone makes a definite prediction because you get to test whether it comes true or not. Here's a prediction that Russia will end up mediating between Iran and the US. Ummmm, I don't think so. If we were all angels, that might happen, but we aren't even close, so no deal.

Boeing behaved badly. And they put it into emails! They're thrilled they got to avoid costly training. Too bad about the deaths lack of training caused. Come on, folks, be realistic and care about safety more than the bottom line because lack of safety is going to kill your profits.

Media whitewashes Trump. Not completely, but they often don't show how batshit crazy, angry, or insulting he is. People ought to know this before they vote again.

Epic story of Trump's temper. Top military and civilian officials tried to school Trump on international relations and learned instead that his opinions are fixed, and anyone who disagrees with him is stupid.

Martin Luther King. For his holiday, lots of anecdotes about how King listened to the ideas of others, often leading to his finest moments.

Image : abcnews.go.com

November - December links

I wrote more posts in November than in any other month in the past year. The collection of links aside from the Ukraine scandal are paltry. Not much new in America.

Surprising Arizona politics. A tough, nasty, bigoted sheriff prompted many Latinos to run for elected office. This is another sign of the self-correction in the American political system. (But is it enough?)

Illegal gun sales. By law enforcement officials. Did they trust that the guns wouldn't be used on fellow police?

2nd amendment rationale. A viewpoint on the 2nd amendment, including its racial aspects. It's inspired me to look into the background of the 2nd amendment and try to sort out the contradictory arguments.

The GOP southern strategy. An article from back in 1970. It's the typical NYT style with a lot of side trips, but very interesting, focusing on the strategist who foresaw the realignment of voters.

How Kamala Harris failed. She lacked a clear strategy beyond being intelligent, black, and female.

Centrism is deluded. This article makes a strong case that there's no chance of working with Republicans. However, that's not the only reason to support someone like Biden or Buttigieg. Another reason is that those further left may not be able to win, not worth taking the chance, or just too socialist.

Flynn facing sentence. Mike Flynn tried to delay his sentence by promising he'd cooperate more with the Russian investigation. Then he fired his lawyers, brought in a new team to push the deep-state conspiracy narrative, and attacked the people he's supposed to cooperate with. The judge is not amused. A shorter version of the newstory and a longer version.

Media bias measured. Well, I'm not sure how the determination is made, but this site lists how biased a media outlet is, and how factual the reporting is. Plus it gives examples when there are issues with factual reporting.

Trump talking points. Someone allied with Trump launched a special site just for those holidays spent with your stupid liberal family members. It tells zipperheads how to argue, just in case they haven't watched enough Hannity lately. Are these good arguments? OF COURSE NOT. When do Trump supporters care about the quality of their arguments? Blather and blind, willful assertion are fine by them.

Image: snowflakevictory.com

Weather-gate and Trump's stubbornness

Trump lies again and again. This isn't a surprise by now, but it's getting dumber. Trump made a mistake by saying Alabama was in range of a hurricane. Instead of correcting his mistake, or just letting it go, he doubled down repeatedly. It got too much media coverage because it was such foolish behavior. Even cowardly agencies under his thumb got involved.

It's hard to say what was the worst part of this unnecessary debacle. It wouldn't have been at all bad if it had ended with this (after Trump erroneously said Alabama could be hit):

[The] Birmingham office of the National Weather Service, in response to a flurry of calls and inquiries, issued a correction on Twitter, saying, "Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian." -- GQ magazine

But, nooooo, Trump couldn't let that stand. He couldn't admit even a tiny mistake. He had to blather (incorrectly) that Alabama had been a very likely target in the storm, including nonsense that there was a 95% chance of Alabama being hit at one point in the modeling. That was Trump being his usual fucking egotistical maniac self. 

Then Trump marked up an official weather service map to include Alabama. This is almost like changing the answer key on a test. Trump is so divorced from the truth that he'll pretend official information doesn't say what it says. And of course he used it as another skirmish in his war on the media, particularly CNN. 

This is all a game to Trump. The guy has no respect for truth or science, just for power. I'm absurdly eager for a break from this stupidity.

Wait, where did that black line come from?

Image: newshounds.us

Update 9/9/19. A number of officials in the weather/oceanic agency are loudly standing up for the scientists and accurate reporting and are pointing out how the mealy-mouthed communications supporting Trump are wrong. It looks like they are daring Trump to fire them. I don't think they'll be fired because it would be too obvious. How will Trump react? We'll see.

Update 9/11/19. An opinion column on this debacle with a some new info. The Secretary of Commerce ordered the support of the naked prez on pain of beheading, or similar. Sigh. Truth is not an option. 

Attack on media? Not quite...

I've shown my bias in the title, but why hold back? An antifa group attacked a supposed journalist in Portland, Oregon, the site of frequent clashes between antifa and white nationalist groups. They fight there so often that it's the place to go with you want a street fight, which is one reason it keeps happening. Fight Central will draw the fighters.

Ted Cruz, that paragon of integrity, called for an investigation. It's odd that cells of antifa has been protesting all over the country and there's finally an incident that conservatives can seize on. However, not many are, and I wonder whether they know that it's not going to be a good narrative for them.

When watching the video, you can see Ngo (the supposed journalist) alone within a group of antifa. A couple milkshakes are thrown at him, silly string sprayed on him, a few punches thrown, and lots of yelling. He walks away. Walks, not limps... Those antifa protesters are so incompetent that they can't even beat the shit out of him. It might a pitiful contrast to the video of white nationalists beating a black man in Charlottesville. Though maybe we should be grateful that both victims walked away, and assailants didn't do as much harm as they might have. (Actually, no, we shouldn't be grateful. These assaults were wrong, and we aren't 'lucky' they weren't worse.)

However, the journalist (Andy Ngo) has been working on provoking the antifa group for months. His coverage is slanted, and according to reports he taunts the protesters to provoke a reaction. So he finally got something physical? Oh, SHAME!!!

Portland definitely seems to have a problem stopping all these protests, riots, and fights. Maybe at some point I'll read something that points to why the violence has gotten so entrenched there while other cities have been able to avoid that. Until then, I'm not swallowing the conservative narrative the antifa is the huge danger they pretend it is. People engaging in street fights - yes, but a serious danger to the country, NO.

Image: amgreatness.com

Extras. More on Portland. Are the Portland police cushy with the right-wing groups? Maybe. Ngo's journal doesn't have the highest ethics either. No surprise to someone like me who watches the media.

Update 8/18/19. Portland was again the site for major protest, led by the Proud Boys and aimed at the mayor and his coddling of antifa. The specific complaint was that there were no arrests yet in the Ngo beating. A leader of another alt-right group surrendered for arrest the day before the protest. The charges stem from a group of alt-right folks descending on a bar after hearing a tip that some antifa folks were there. A large fight ensued, during which a woman was beaten and her vertebrae broken.

What the Dem/FBI/DOJ conspiracy looks like

Since I follow mostly MSM outlets about the election and Russian meddling, I didn't realize there was a full-blown alternative narrative. This alternative isn't as crazy as Pizzagate because it has a number of data points (facts) supporting it.

The big picture is that the FBI, DOJ, and other intelligence agencies were run at the highest levels by personnel who wanted Dems to win the 2016 election, and who acted in dishonest, biased, and corrupt ways to help with that goal. When the Dems lost, they acted to stymy the incoming president (Trump) with fake, trumped-up charges.

These charges, if accurate, are extremely serious. We definitely don't want our government agencies deciding who wins an election. That's for the voters to decide.

The theory is that top DOJ, FBI, CIA, etc. officials were biased and acted illegally. So who is being accused:

James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr (his wife), Brennan, Loretta Lynch, Hillary Clinton, Obama, and possibly Trump appointees Rob Rosenstein and Christopher Wray. Also involved were the personnel at FusionGPS, Glenn Simpson (the CEO, I think), and Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer.

The theory goes that the high-level Dems got the FBI, CIA, etc. to send adjuncts to entrap people in the Trump campaign, make it look like there were ties between Russia and Trump campaign personnel, start a witch hunt, dirty Trump, and hobble him.

Supporting this view are these actual data points:

1. Strzok and Page's text messages (depending how much weight you give them)
2. The Clinton campaign paid for Steele's research, which produced the Steele dossier.
3. Steele was also hired for a couple months by the FBI to continue his research.
4. The Steele dossier was leaked by Steele in September 2016 in an attempt to discredit Trump.
5. The Clinton campaign and the FBI hid their connections to Steele.
6. The Steele dossier was used to justify a FISA warrant to track Carter Page, a former Trump advisor.
7. FusionGPS also worked with the Russian lawyer involved in the Trump Tower meeting.
8. After Comey was fired, a friend of his leaked documents alleging that Trump made improper demands on him, and these raised concerns and calls for a special counsel. 
9. Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel on his own authority since his boss, Jeff Sessions, had recused himself.
10. One of the intelligence agencies paid Stephan Halper to meet with Trump campaign advisors and try to covertly find out information from them.
11. Several of Mueller's investigation team had ties to the Clintons and/or made donations to Dems.

These are the known, undisputed data points. In the reckoning of some theorists, this points to a conspiracy in the intelligence community to hobble Trump by accusations, leaks, and investigations.

However, this theory ignores many other data points, like the DNC being hacked, purportedly by the Russians. Of course, maybe you can't trust the intelligence agencies to be truthful about who did the hack. But there certainly was a hack, and the stolen info was disseminated by Wikileaks. So the Russia investigation cannot be a total con jobs, since the hack was real.

Also real was the Trump Tower meeting, and the Trumps' attempts to hide this meeting and what the subject was. Many connections between the Trump campaign advisors and Russians are not disputed, like contacts with the Russian embassador. Mike Flynn lost his job for lying about his connections. Jeff Session suffered well-deserved embarrassment and was forced to recuse himself as Attorney General overseeing the Russian investigation because of his amnesia related to his contacts.

This article from The American Conservative explains the two highly disparate ways of interpreting these facts, calling them 'narrative A' and 'narrative B.' Narrative A is that the security services followed up properly on reasonable suspicions, and did their patriotic duty. Narrative B is covered here--that the intelligence services conspired to spy on the Trump campaign and disable Trump as president.

I'm definitely a believer of narrative A, but I can see how the narrative B support that narrative. However, I have these good reasons to doubt that narrative:

1. Page and Strzok were lovers sending casual, low-significance texts to each other. These were simple texts, not part of a conspiracy that has no other paper or electronic trail.
2. Steele got some things right in his dossier, such as Carter Page going to Russia and having meetings with high-level officials.
7. The Russian lawyer from the Trump Tower meeting was paying FusionGPS for work it did for her. She and/or her clients paid FusionGPS; they didn't pay her, so she wasn't an employee of theirs.
8. Comey's notes, far from being unusual, are very typical documents written about any non-trivial meetings.
9. There was a huge uproar after Trump fired Comey, and even many Republicans were calling for a special counsel appointment.
10. It is not unusual for a counter-intelligence investigation to use operatives like Halper in hopes of finding out significant helpful information.
11. Mueller chose for his team people whom he had worked with in the recent past, including in private investigations. He also chose high-ranking FBI officers. This is normal. 

This leaves some fairly major suspicions, like the Clinton campaign and the FBI both hiring Steele, and then hiding this information. Come on, people, you're not going to be able to keep a secret like this. You need to come clean, and do it early.

Nonetheless, I still believe the narrative that the intelligence services needed to check out the activity of the Russians and possible connections to Trump, and they did their duty.

 Image; tennesseestar.com

Extras. Some sources supporting the conspiracy narrative - Investor's business daily: Ohr connection, IBD: McCabe 25th amendment testimony, IBD: Investigation started before election, Gateway Pundit, major pusher of the theory. GQ calls it a theory out of thin air, but I've shown that there is substantial data to support it, though not enough for me to think it's the best interpretation of the data. Barr doesn't call it treason. GOPers and their mistakes/lies about the Steele dossier and FISA warrant.

Update 7/11/21. I missed this news item from a news-heavy period during the election campaign. The Trump-loyal head of intelligence declassified some notes and memos from John Brennan about the Russia scandal. The memos/notes are from July 2016, and the declassification was 10/6/2020. In July 2016, Brennan knew about the Steele dossier, shared info about it, and said it should be used for legal proceedings, including FISA warrants, only with prior approval. I'm not sure how prior approval could be enforced, so that's dubious. Some conservative are claiming this shows Brennan thought the Steele dossier was worthless, but that's a stretch. What did Brennan really think--lots of conflicting speculation out there. 

Lies, damned lies, and GOP lies

The Mueller report is finally out. As I wrote earlier, there weren't many surprises. Most of the information had been revealed either in the press or in indictments. As I noted, the MSM has been fairly accurate and good at self-correction, at least from what I've seen and how I've interpreted it. Maybe when I read hyperbolic speculation, I shake my head and move on, not remembering MSM declarations that Trump worked with Russia. My impression was that most reporters and most left-of-center folks were waiting for Mueller to sort it out. Of the regular commenters I knew on Bloomberg, only two were declaring that Trump had conspired. That leaves most of them not expressing that opinion.

The GOPers/conservatives were usually exaggerating what others said, and they were definitely still doing it as the report was released. They accused others of being WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, while failing to notice what others had actually said. Frankly, I don't know how often talking heads on CNN or MSNBC declared that Russia owned Trump. My guess would be that they hedged. I asked my sweetie, who is more left than me. My sweetie expected about 50% chance of a conspiracy where there was enough evidence to indict. So maybe I'm not in touch with those further left without being the looney left.

1. So the first GOP lie is that all of the left prejudged Trump as guilty and are now pretending that they didn't do this. <------- LIE

Another GOP lie is that the MSM hasn't been reporting the facts. In fact, the MSM has been out front on this. I recall the NYT reporting on the Trump Tower meeting. Reporting a bit, waiting for the Trump team to respond, which it did usually with a cover story replete with lies. Then the NYT would release a bit more, and finally it released the emails of Trump Jr. that showed what was going down.

Now I expect a certain amount of spin from the presidency, but a news org should be as honest as it can be (an idealistic hope). However, there is no comparison. The MSM was telling the truth here, and the administration was lying. This was repeated over and over. That's one reason why I wasn't surprised by the Mueller report - because I followed the news, mainly through online MSM sources, and they were very accurate.

2. The MSM spread FAKE NEWS about the investigation. <------- LIE

Should I move on to some of the crazier lies? Maybe so, and turn the rest of this post into a rant against the lies.

3. All the Russian contacts were entrapment attempts by the deep state FBI/CIA. Cue the search for rumors that each contact actually was aligned with the deep state, not the Russians.

4. The Steele dossier was believed by the left. (No, it was labeled from the very beginning as unverified in screaming letters.)

5. The left took over the CIA, NSA, FBI, State Department, and God knows what else.

6. They all conspired to create this Russian hoax and try to overthrow Trump.

7. The coup was orchestrated by Clinton, Obama and their minions all over government and the MSM.

7.1 Obama didn't do anything about the Russian hacking and interference while it was happening, and instead spied on Trump's campaign.

8. Clinton, Obama, et al are going to jail in a streak of rightful payback.

9. Mueller is part of the deep state and hired Cllinton lackeys to help with the frame job.

10. The Mueller report found there was NO COLLUSION AND NO OBSTRUCTION AND NO EVIDENCE OF WRONGDOING by the Trump campaign.

11. The Dems are going to continue with the hoax because the coup attempt can't stop.

12. The real enemies of America are the Dems. Russians are preferable to them.

Image: twitter@Rob_Rogers

Extras. The FBI warned Trump about contacts with Russians. GOP liars deny this.

Update 4/23/19. I just found an example of GOP lies. Here's an article full of speculation, but it's not labeled as speculation. It's not attributed to unnamed sources (presumably vetted), which news organizations with ethics use. Instead, it's presented as ... um, fact? The big assumption in the article is that the woman Russian lawyer at the Trump Tower meeting was working for FusionGPS to entrap Trump campaign leaders. They also state (wrongly, if I'm not mistaken) that the Trump Tower meeting was used as evidence to secure a FISA warrant. I've looked at the redacted copy of the FISA warrant and didn't see anything about the Trump Tower meeting. I suspect that the author was making it up or repeated unsubstantiated rumors floating around Wingnutlandia.

Update 6/14/19. Trump had an interview with ABC news and he flat out lied about telling McGahn to fire Mueller. Read his lying words.

Charges against Judge Kavanaugh

If one person comes out with a story about Brett Kavanaugh with a lot of gaps in the details and no witnesses, it's not too credible. When the count gets up to four people, it becomes more credible. Now there are over 8 people on the record with their names and what they witnessed. It includes drunkeness, aggressive behavior, and sexual aggression toward women. And that doesn't count numerous people who wouldn't release their names.

I find the charges against Kavanaugh plausible, but that doesn't mean much. It means he might well have been there and he might physically have been able to do the actions he's accused of. I don't believe arguments like 'it's not within his character' or 'she's so honest there's no way she's lying.' Those arguments aren't convincing to me unless I peronally know the extreme credibility of the character witness. Why? Because 'it's not within his character' has been said about too many serial killer, serial molesters, etc.

So the charges are plausible. It's also plausible that Ford is lying or mistaken. That's why the investigation is important. It's not going to be easy. Many people are not going to want to talk about their wild times in high school or college. If they're conservatives, as many of Kavanaugh's supporters are, they may not want to reveal his dirty past for political or tribal reasons. If they were friends, they may want to remain silent and loyal. That makes it hard for Kavanaugh to clear his name. The suspicions will linger. There's no way around that. It's an injustice built into suspicion, and it's impossible to remove it from people's brains.

If Christine Blasey Ford is lying, she figured out quite a cunning lie to tell. It's one that fits the pattern of Kavanaugh's partying. She's obscured details like where and when to make it harder to disprove. But she's done it in ways that are somewhat believable. I do have a couple problems with her story, which is her not remembering how she got to the house and how she left. Particularly not knowing how she left, I'm left wondering if she went back into the party. I wonder if she's leaving out details that which might undercut her story of how traumatized she was. It's also possible that she dissociated, and lacks the memory for that reason. Or there could be other reasons her memory is poor. I'm not an expert on memory, and I'm not sure anyone is expert enough to sort this out. Of course, a strong reason to conclude Ford hasn't fabricated the story is that she told her therapist and husband years ago, with therapy notes to confirm that. It's hard to fabricate a lie in advance.

This is one of those times when an infallible truth serum would be so helpful. I wish I could ask them both, and get the real story, not the one sorted and selected for the audience in the American public. But that's not possible, and we humans are such cunning animals. We aren't to be trusted. So what to do? We're left trying to make judgments in our imperfect ways. That's life.

Image: dailykos.com

Extras. This will be very long because I did a lot of research and want to save the info I found.

Transcript of Ford's and Kavanaugh's testimony. Julie Swetnick's sworn complaint. And another from another client of Avenatti. Decoding Kavanaugh's yearbook entry. Lots of references to sex and especially drinking. A letter from Kavanaugh to his friends about Beach Week, with lots of details and insider info. About Mark Judge's books.

Tucker Carlson and very sloppy argumentation. Weaknesses of Ford's story, and ignoring its strengths and supporting info. Biased assessment. As counterpoint, defending youthful mistakes--of privileged white guys, but not others.

Run down on two of the allegations. Rather complete at the time, so good detail. Private school culture at that time and place. Some sources fully identified. Also this article, which talks about gang rapes which weren't called gang rapes. A first-hand account by the author, so a named eye-witness. However, the parties are from the mid 1980s, so a few years after Kavanaugh graduated.

More people remembering Kavanaugh very drunk.  And more, with a follow-up. Others asked not to be named. A police report of Kavanaugh involved in a bar fight while at Yale, discrediting one of his character witnesses. Witnesses about Kavanaugh: Liz Swisher, Christine Keating, Lynne Brookes, James Roche, Charles Ludington, Elizabeth Rasor, Daniel Livan, Sean Hagan, Kerry Berchem, Kenneth Appold. Other named participants who should be thoroughly interviewed (which didn't happen) Mark Judge, Leland Keyser and Patrick Smythe. Also Renate Dolphin because she might have some very interesting stories to share.

A very critical analysis of Kavanaugh's testimony with numerous lies and evasions pointed out. Plus a companion piece on why Kavanaugh would be a harsh, rotten justice.

Inspired by Ford, a woman reveals her rape at a frat party many years ago. Is it fair for him to have to face consequences so many years later? Is it required that the survivor just let it go?

The very rigid rules for reading the FBI report, which forbids 'characterizing' the information. Looks like the FBI investigation is brief, limited, and a whitewash.

Update 11/5/18. A Republican consultant remembers being anger and aggressive at a conference meeting with Ken Starr. She's very disappointed with GOPers sweeping it under the rug.

Still searching for neutrality

I've wanted to find unbiased news sources for a long time with no luck. On my primary goal, at least. However, my latest look yielded some interesting sites.

AP news may be the leasst biased source. I'll be checking it out regularly for a while.

Media Research Center has some reasonable reporting on the influence of George Soros, and how biased many news outlets are, including ProPublica. However, its associated news site cnsnews.com is terribly biased too. Way to show us how to combat bias. With more bias, I guess.

Numerous hits directed me to a site as bad as InfoWars. It's called YourNewsWire.com. Especially bad/funny/sickening is its science news.

AllSides.com - I'll be checking for whether it's a fair source.

FAIR says it's been challenging media bias since 1986 (the same year as my epiphany about media bias). I'll less hopeful about this. Articles are geared more to media issues.

Reuters is supposed to be less biased than Bloomberg. I'll be checking out their commentary section to see if that's true. It would be great to find incisive commentary that doesn't follow party lines, and preferably skewers party line.

Unfortunately, no breakthroughs. Sigh.

 Image: quora.com

The Roy Moore saga

I'm late writing about this story, but that's OK because the themes of the story are timeless. (I'm also going to be more free-form in writing.)

Roy Moore is a former judge in Alabama who displays a lot of the worst characteristics of evangelicals. He thinks God is on his side. He thinks he's right and anyone who agrees with him is wrong. His beliefs are more important than American law. He thinks he's right when he defies court rulings, laws, whatever. He's been removed from the Alabama Supreme Court twice (TWICE!) for this kind of behavior. The first was for refusing to remove a stone statue depicting the Ten Commandments. (The order was due to that whole 'separation of church and state' nonsense.) The second time was for lying about his directions on how to handle (errr, avoid) marriage for same sex couples, which the US Supreme Court approved a few years ago.

So, although he was controversial, he ended up as the GOP nominee for Senate for a special election in Alabama to replace Jeff Sessions, who left the Senate to become Attorney General. This shows yet again that too few regular people vote in primaries. People shouldn't be so lazy because primaries are important for getting the best possible person in the office.

The GOP had the main primary and then a run-off between the top two. Only after this process were there national reports alleging that Roy Moore had chased, bothered, and even molested at least one 14-year-old girl when he was single, a prosecutor, and in his 30's.

This isn't news to me. I hadn't heard it about Roy Moore, but I've heard it before and even witnessed it with my own eyes. There are too many men who take liberties with women as though men have prerogatives and women must simply comply and supply. So I'm not disposed to believe a man's denials. But beyond my own bias, the preponderance of the evidence is against Roy Moore and with his accusers. There is a pattern, plus there are plenty of people confirming that he gave unwanted attention to teenage girls. There's even a video of a male worker at a store in the mall talking about Moore being banned from the mall, including the name of the police officer to contact if Moore came around. This isn't a guy with an ax to grind, so his story is very credible and very damaging to Moore. The denials are Moore and his friends circling the wagons. Again, this is typical entitled male response (actually, circling the wagons is typical of many groups).

Moore, just as one might expect from a self-righteous person, denies the reports and calls his accusers liars. What is much more likely is that Moore is an abject liar himself.

Only one Republican that I can point to has acted honorably, and that's Senator Richard Shelby. He clearly said that Roy Moore isn't a good candidate, that he wasn't going to vote for him, and that Alabamians shouldn't vote for him. Most other GOPers were weasels about Roy Moore.

The good news is that Roy Moore lost. That's a good reflection on the majority in Alabama, and what a pleasant surprise to give the rest of the country. The Dems were very happy because there hasn't been a Dem senator from Alabama in 20 years. The Republicans aren't completely upset because Roy Moore is a loose cannon that they won't have to worry about, so a bit of relief for them.

Image: al.com

Extras. Lots. Breitbart lies about the inscription in a yearbook. It was clearly a combination of different writers, so this isn't a revelation... to anyone with a working brain. Breitbart then whines about being labeled liars. Another woman shows a greeting card from Roy Moore, who dated her when she was 17. Check out the handwriting.

Fox News interview with a pretty fair analyst. The anchor is trying to skew things, and it's interesting how the info about Sen. Shelby is buried at the end. Probably no accident. Roy Moore never conceded the election (because he's God's choice, you know) and even tried to prevent the certification of the election. He wasn't successful because there is a reality beyond Moore's belief systems. Thank God for that.

December links

I collected a bunch of links in November but didn't get to write about them. Here they are. As usual, an interesting bunch.

White nationalist bad behavior. I'm not sure why this struck me as important, but it did. It turns out that a white nationalist who was caught on video repeatedly shoving a woman at a Trump rally has also been involved in organizing white rallies. This includes Charlottesville. Maybe this detail will be important sometime, but I hope not. On a related note, extreme violence at neo-Nazi rallies didn't start at Charlottesville. This report from 6/26/16 shows that it started over a year earlier. Seven were stabbed at a rally in Sacramento.

Roy Moore bad behavior. Roy Moore is the notorious judge in Alabama who has twice substituted his superior knowledge of God's will over the judgments of higher courts. Now he's running for Senate, and has been accused by several women of chasing them when they were teenage girls and he was in this 30s. He's called them liars, which is the traditional patriarchal response. This video shows an interview of a worker who knew of Roy Moore being banned from a mall in the 1980s for that behavior. Doesn't look like this guy is lying. Updating--another woman who dated Moore when she was 17 is sharing her story, and a card that looks very much like Roy Moore's writing.

Senator gets fed up. Humorous story about Sen. Orrin Hatch getting tired of being accused of wanting to cut taxes for the rich. Well, if he doesn't like the accusation, maybe he should stop repeatedly performing the action of which he is accused. If you don't want to be called a wife-beater, stop beating your wife. Ever.

Was Trump's election racist? This is a long article, but I liked the last third. That part starts with "History has a way of altering villians..." It argues that perhaps whites in the US can't see their own racism even as it worsens in a very scary way. I don't know if I agree, but it's definitely worth keeping in mind.

Why care about a crime 25 years ago? I started reading this article about the conviction in a genocide trial, and my initial reaction was that European justice is too slow and too weak. Then my focus changed, and I was surprisingly happy that this murderer was forced to face justice. He didn't get to escape justice as so many others have.

Immigrant gangs. No, this isn't just a conservative talking point. This is real. Maybe the MSM is mostly burying this information because it's not a story that fits their political bias.

Congressmen have sex. Joe Barton was getting divorced, but he was still interested in having sex with women. Sounds normal to me. He actually sent some nude selfies to some women (not out of the blue). Sounds like the 21st century, right? However, it's trouble for a congressman. Unfortunately, TMZ scrubbed their copies of the pic. It's what you'd expect for a guy his age. This ought to be a non-story, shouldn't it be?

Conservative sting bad behavior. Project Veritas, an organization that exposes liberal causes in not so honest ways, tried a sting on the Washington Post, but was caught instead. Their operative concocted a lie about Roy Moore, was discovered, videotaped, and written about at length. James O'Keefe, the swarmy head of Project Veritas, of course isn't going to be honest about this.

Deregulation improves economy. According to The Economist, the major decrease in new regulations during the beginning of the Trump administration has been helping the US economy. No shit, Sherlock.

Interesting factoid about Israel. The Greek Orthodox church is one of the major landowners in Israel. I never thought about it, but it makes sense. What if it has owned land there for nearly 18 centuries? What are the implications when the church sells some of its holdings?

Media bias in one picture and two stories. Picture below. Malia Obama, bad girl or embattled?

Image: news.google.com

October roundup of links

GOP releases a tax plan outline summary thumbnail. In keeping with GOP inability to deal with reality including policy making, the tax plan is 5 pages stretched onto 9 pages. It doubles the standard deduction! Cheers! And quietly takes away exemptions. It's the usual cake for the wealthy with a bit of frosting for the middle class. A good list of misleading sales pitches.

Admitted fake news author dies.  He wasn't trying to be a con artist, but rather a satirist. But, according to him: "[Trump's] followers don't fact-check anything — they'll post everything, believe anything. His campaign manager posted my story about a protester getting paid $3,500 as fact. Like, I made that up. I posted a fake ad on Craigslist."

Fake news generators on Facebook outed by Facebook. At some point, most reality-based GOPers will have to stop pretending that there wasn't Russian interference in the US election. Facebook announced more than 3000 fake ads were purchased by accounts that appear to be Russian.

The new world order that didn't happen. Interesting thought. The world was supposed to gradually accept American values by acclamation amid peace and prosperity. Ooops, it didn't happen. The inevitable wasn't inevitable.

Amazing short summary of Islamic terrorism. Maybe it's too simple, but it holds together in my opinion.

The media misreports probability. The problem includes how media reports weather predictions and the 2016 election predictions. The fact of uncertainty isn't clearly conveyed.

Critique of  The Bell Curve. The 1994 book contained the thesis that blacks were genetically cognitively inferior to other groups. The book caused an uproar. Cognitive scientist formed a committee and wrote this critique of what was wrong with the book and its handling of evidence. I've had to refer to this critique several times.

Image: fivethirtyeight.com

Links (1 of 2)

My tabs overfloweth.

Decoding anonymous sources. A good guide from Lawfare. How to interpret what reporters write, indicating how many sources they have and where they are. A good news organization follows these unwritten rules. Bad organizations pretend they follow the rules, but actually make up sources, use known unreliable sources, misleadingly edit and quote, and don't fire reporters and editors who don't follow good standards.

Now, one of those sources. Seymour Hersh is implicated in the Seth Rich-to-Wikileaks story. He claims it's just a rumor. I should dedicate a post to the Seth Rich story, but I'm too lazy. Briefly, Rich was a low-level staffer at the DNC or Hillary campaign and was killed in his DC neighborhood. Cue the conspiracy theories. Fox News got ahead of itself and coerced a contributor to say stuff he didn't actually believe, prompting him to sue. Seymour Hersh is involved because he is supposedly the source of some of that info. There's a tape of Hersh talking about the case. Strangely the tape begins and ends abruptly. I have suspicions that Hersh contradicts or says it's mostly his speculation. I haven't trusted edited tapes since Shirley Sherrod as smeared. Nonetheless, Hersh isn't saying what he knows. He ought to clear it up since the concern about a conspiracy is important here.

Sheriffs as the supreme law. Here is another right-wing idea to counter big, bad government. The concept is that the sheriff, being locally elected and accountable, is the supreme authority in a county, and doesn't have to enforce national laws. Remember Bull Connor and this doesn't seem so good. Joe Arpaio is supposedly an advocate for this idea. Luckily, he lost his last bid for reelection.

Another worrisome tactic to watch. Using Freedom-of-Information requests to undermine and sue small local school districts. Tactic supported by Steve Bannon. The goal is mirky, but maybe it's hidden in the settlements.

Russian election interference (another example). Something to watch. Fake accounts on Facebook bought ad time from Facebook. The purchase was automated, so even Facebook didn't know it was happening. Parking this timeline of Russia interference denial here. Hoping I can find it again.

Image: bostonglobe.com

Antifa and the MSM

I don't remember what month I first heard of Antifa, which is a loosely organized anti-fascist organization. I do remember how I heard of it. It was mentioned by some right-wing commenters. They implied Antifa were leftists, so I looked up what Antifa was. I thought it was probably some imaginary conspiracy group, like the elitist pedophile ring Hillary runs.

It turns out that Antifa isn't a figment of a nutjob's imagination. It's real, and my usual news sources (Google News with occasionally visits to American Conservative, National Review, Fox News, and Breitbart) had failed me.

I'm not sure why the MSM had barely reported on Antifa until August. It's not that Antifa didn't make appearances. They were involved in the Berkeley riots, and I was certainly aware of those. They were also involved in property destruction on Inauguration Day, and various other demonstrations.

However, the MSM wasn't mentioning that Antifa was a group, and wasn't emphasizing how protesters were violent and coordinated in dress and action. Was the MSM giving cover to Antifa? We probably won't find out unless reporters and/or editors talk about either their lack of knowledge or their suppression of information.

I've been able to confirm the lack of coverage by the MSM through a Google search. From December 2016 to March 2017, the top mentions of Antifa USA are by (in order): Al-Jazeera,  The Guardian, the BBC, The Nation, and Hot Press. In contrast, the top mentions of Antifa USA today are by: USA Today, Facebook, Wikipedia, CNN, The Daily Wire, and The Atlantic. It's definitely a failure by the MSM that the media sources of right-wingers are faster on the information than the MSM is.

It's not that Antifa was totally unknown in the MSM. Here's an article from the New York Times dated 2/2/17 that reports on Antifa. Yet Antifa wasn't referenced in this WaPo article. I recall arguments about whether the violent protesters were students or not, whether they were outsiders who took an opportunity to vandalize. News organizations didn't seem to know... or perhaps a few reporters did, but the information didn't percolate up to the top editor and anchors.

Right wing media perhaps wanted to pretend the violence was by typical leftists, not a violent fringe. Left wing media perhaps wanted to pretend that it wasn't an organized group of violent anti-fascist protesters. Nor were there organized, violent groups who tried to close down Trump rallies. Those anti-Trumpers were individuals who were concerned about Trump's rhetoric, not an organized violent fringe.

Now Antifa is too well known. The MSM still isn't investigating its ties with BLM organizations. They don't delve too far into their communist views, or how they fight violently even when confronting non-violent opponents, or how they're happy to destroy corporate property. Conservative media is pretending Soros, Antifa, and BLM are all one and all violent. Who can you trust? No one.

By the way, this may be the closest thing to the Antifa motto:

You fight them by writing letters and making phone calls so you don’t have to fight them with fists. You fight them with fists so you don’t have to fight them with knives. You fight them with knives so you don’t have to fight them with guns. You fight them with guns so you don’t have to fight them with tanks.

They do seem to emphasize the fighting. Let's enjoy some violence for a noble cause... or close enough.

Image: redspark.nu

Extras. According to this video, a lot of Antifa are sociology majors who want to be heroes but don't know much about fighting. That fits with what I've seen. Antifa disrupt a peaceful rally in Berkeley.

A bundle of important stories

Conservative media fabrication revealed. This should be so big. Fox News fell for a peddled fake story about (murdered) Seth Rich and Wikileaks. Now there's a suit, and the papers filed contain a wealth of evidence about how the lies got on the air. Update 8/2/18. The suit was dismissed by the judge for not being egregious enough--not rising to the necessary standard of 'intentional infliction of emotional distress.'

CNN skews its reporting. "Federal investigators ... seized on Trump and his associates' financial ties to Russia as one of the most fertile avenues for moving their probe forward... The web of financial ties could offer a more concrete path toward potential prosecution than the broader and murkier questions of collusion..." This is supposed to be an investigation, not a fishing expedition bent on prosecution. CNN seems to have forgotten that.

Sessions skews his condemnation of leaks. Great story with analysis of a logical trick that Sessions uses. He probably does it knowingly.

Lies are the family business. Donald jr. lied about a meeting with a Russian lawyer. Well, lied at first and then told the truth. It turns out Donald sr. lied about it too. Is anyone surprised?

Stats about the cost of tax deduction. This is important hard information. What costs the government more: mortgage interest deduction, 401K's, or the earned income tax credit? It didn't know, and I was a bit surprised.

Trump the wimp. Putin is disrespecting America, and what is Donald doing about it? Why?

Image: thecoldplayer.deviantart.com

Another roundup of links

What to do about North Korea. This is very tricky, until you realize that the answer from history is obvious. Sometime last year I spent many hours listening to a podcast detailing the history of nuclear strategy. From that I learned that you don't go crazy and make a pre-emptive strike. You sit down and sanely wait things out. That's how the least number of people will die--hopefully none will die. A friend from South Korea was relieved to find an American who gets it. Here's a great article that explains most of the situation, and it only takes minutes to read. As someone who has spent hours and days reflecting, I endorse the article. As my friend says, a pre-emptive strike would mean the destruction of all of Korea. I vote for a waiting stance, and hoping no one fires the first missile.

Black Lives Matter. A good but painful article by Jamelle Bouie on the acquittal of a police officer who shot a black man. Bouie explains that there is fear, and fear will be considered a valid reason. Makes me wonder if there's any way out.

Meme goes viral and then the shit really hits the fan. Trump tweeted out a tasteless meme of himself beating up a CNN logo. A freelance journalist identified the original creator. The journalist is pelted with violent threats. There's pushback against CNN for threatening to out the creator and extorting an apology from him. (I'm sure about the ethics of CNN threatening to out him, but his apology reads like actual, honest, well-deserved contrition.) Finally, there is the Daily Stormer, laughing at the journalist and all the threats leveled at him. Basically, they act like threats are completely justified. That should be enough of this slimy underbelly of American culture.

Real assessment of fake news - retractions. Finally, a believable story of what CNN and other MSM have gotten wrong in the Russia megastory. It should come with a reminder of what they got right, like Flynn lying, Sessions lying, Russia hacking here, there, there, and there...

Voter fraud that looks for real. Here's a report on voter fraud in Virginia. Unfortunately, it's written for outrage instead of clarity. However, it looks like Virginia has had several thousand illegal votes in the past seven years, perhaps more.

How to punk Trump. This is a guide for Putin on how to fool our foolish president. I'm not overly worried because Donald doesn't stand by his promises, so any promises he foolishly makes to Putin won't matter.

Important ACA factoid. This is an important nugget. The medical risk profile of people in the individual market isn't getting worse. That means healthier people aren't being driven out--if this report is true. No death spiral yet. We will have to see how it pans out.

Image: speedwealthy.com

Short: Blame Obama for Russian interference?

When I first heard this talking point, I thought the Trump camp had gone nuts. Why would anyone blame Obama when Trump was the one complimenting Putin and jokingly asking him to do more hacking please? Trump was the guy who was defending the Russkies, saying that it could have been any hacker, implying it would be presumptuous and wrong to punish the Russians. So it was Trump giving comfort to the Russians, certainly not Obama.

Somehow, though, this idea was a very popular talking point, at least among the right-wing parrots commenting on the political blogs I read. Of course they aren't a good source for information, or true information, at least.

So I found this article on the topic fairly detailed, but perhaps a bit one-sided. Yes, it mentions that the US was trying to work with Russia on some major issues, like the Iran nuclear agreement, but doesn't probe whether a more robust response to Russian behavior would have scuttled those important initiatives. I have to wonder about the choices that were made, but I certainly can't conclude based on the available info that Obama was wrong.

Image: pinterest.com

Spin cycle

There is lots of spin in news. Any impeachment speculation that doesn't include a huge dose of "it's not going to happen with the GOP in charge of the House" is spin and completely unrealistic.

This example of spin I normally wouldn't have seen, but I was reading an article with an interesting headline, but that ended up with almost zero content. (Arrggghhh, the horribly low standards for news writing and reporting.) Here is what caught my eye:

Image: insider.foxnews.com

So I'll deconstruct this.

10A - A very important issue of diplomacy going south among the Gulf states. Real news.

2P - Reasonable to cover and analyze Comey's testimony.

8P - Fake news flogging of the trumped up Fast + Furious scandal.

9P - Spin to make conservatives feel superior.

Notice what makes the prime time. Thank you Fox News!

So many links

I have too many links to do justice to each of them, so I'll just blast out a post and save them for posterity.

The obligation to listen. Great story by Andrew Sullivan reminding us that we need to consider all opinions. Each opinion tells us something important. I firmly believe it's wrong to summarily dismiss the heartfelt beliefs of other people.

Not repealed yet. In March it looked like the GOP wouldn't figure out how to compromise and pass a replacement for Obamacare. This article reminds us that the Senate still has to work on it. I think they will get it done, and I suspect it will follow the House model.

Fired by Trump. Lawfare is an excellent resource. One article on Sally Yates testimony about warning about Michael Flynn. Two companion articles about the relationship of Trump and the fired FBI director James Comey. One from the New York Times, the other from Lawfare. The Times article is the easier read.

Oh, the irony of Trump calling anyone else a 'nutjob.' Even more irony that he's saying it to visiting Russian ministers. It's amazing that Trump believed he could make the Russia investigation go away. What a fool he is.

Report on Russian hacking. I'll be reading the unclassified version of the report about the Russians hacking the DNC. It's on my list and pinned to my browser tab. I'll get to it, I promise.

Questionable intelligence. I'm not sure I believe this claim: "We just got a huge sign that the US intelligence community believes the Trump dossier." Saving it just in case it's true. I'm still very dubious.

Russian Good Times. Finally, I just have to laugh about the Russian Times complaining about the journalism of anyone else. I'm saving a closer read for later, but I just had to check if there is a comments section. Yes, there is, and what a window into hell it is. I'm sharing it below.

Image: rt.com

Horrendous media transgressions--not

I've read so many people claim that it was just terrible how the MSM favored Clinton, and flagrantly colluded with her campaign.

I'm not naive enough to claim that the MSM is fair and unbiased. I frequently see a liberal bias there. But I wondered about charges of collusion, with journalists breaking ethical rules to help Clinton. The only example I heard about before the election was Donna Brazile providing Hillary with a heads-up on one question at one campaign event. Yes, it was unethical, but there's no way it was a huge deal and a huge advantage.

So how bad was all the other collusion? Did it amount to an unfair advantage?

Finally, I found a list. From Breitbart:

WIKILEAKS REVEALS LONG LIST OF MEDIA CANOODLING WITH HILLARY CLINTON

It lists nine incidents, including the leak of the question. It includes of couple of instances when a reporter emailed ad ideas to the campaign or its advertising agency.

Really, all of NINE instances.

This is pigeon feed next to the bias of the MSM, and next to the bias of the conservative media. It's so incredibly ironic that Breitbart thinks this is horrible, while their lack of critique of Trump's numerous insults, ludicrous boasts, history of cons and bankruptcy is not an issue of ethics.

If we're going to talk about unethical and biased behavior by the media, let's talk about what really happens on practically a daily basis. Let's not pretend a list that doesn't even reach a couple dozen cases makes an ant's worth of difference compared to the daily skewed news of hundreds of media outlets.

Free from bias, free from ethics

Image: breitbart.com

Extras. Here's a list of damaging info about the DNC related to Bernie Sanders. It may be a partial list because document dumps were ongoing. Again, mostly small stuff, nothing like stuffing the ballot box, buying votes, or violently assaulting opponents.

Various Trump links

Trump is dominating the news even more now than when he was campaigning. There was a spot of good news today. His pick for top national security adviser is praised in this article, with the caveat that honesty may mean he stays on the job only two months. Well, let's be optimistic and hope for much longer than that.

Corey Lewandowski, Trump's former campaign manager (with similar lack of tact with women), doesn't seem to agree with Trump's statement that his administration is a well-oiled machine. He says that Trump is trying to get a lot done, but his subordinates are a disappointment. Um, who hired them? Did he not choose well? I guess the blame has to land on Trump one way or another.

One hope I have for the new national security adviser is that he'll have a healthy distrust of the Russians. The Russian connection to many things Trump has me very worried. Pence might be visiting Europe and trying to reassure our NATO allies, but he's the VP, not Trump. Who really knows what deals Trump might be inclined to make? I take this article with a pinch of skepticism, but it does discuss the patterns that are so very worrisome.

And, as always, Trump attacks the mainstream media. The press isn't reporting on terrorist attacks. They are enemies of the American people. So far, his attacks are words only. If they turn to deeds, such as banning news outlets, launching trumped-up investigations, or inciting violence, then he will have gone into dictator-mode.

Oh, the irony! A huge purveyor of fake news...

Image: youtube.com

Extras. Bob Corker, who sounds like a reasonable person, on his hopes that Trump will 'evolve.' Will Trump provoke a constitutional crisis by refusing to abide by judicial decisions? So far, he has obeyed while complaining very loudly. A more detailed article about the new pick for top national security adviser. How and why the CIA should cozy up to Trump, and the dangers if it doesn't work. The Anne Frank Center blasts Trump for not standing up to anti-semitism. The twitter responses are quite the window to accusations and counter-accusations.