RFK Jr. is an anti-science, anti-vax nutcase.

This disqualifies him from being the US president. I don't have much interest in discussing pros and cons because the cons are very bad. 

This is how bad it is. Kennedy has knowingly lied when it comes to quoting scientists. He has ignored scientific evidence. He has pretended he isn't ignoring evidence. He is a zealot who hasn't stopped even when it has cost dozens of lives. That's behavior that I can't ignore, and there is no way I would support him. 

Here is the worst case I've read:

Kennedy also played a part in one of the worst measles outbreaks in recent memory. In 2018, two infants in American Samoa died when nurses accidentally prepared the combined measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine with expired muscle relaxant rather than water. The Samoan government temporarily suspended the vaccination program, and anti-vaccine advocates — including Kennedy and his nonprofit — flooded the area with misinformation. The vaccination rate dropped to a dangerously low level. The next year, when a traveler brought measles to the islands, the disease tore through the population, sickening more than 5,700 people and killing 83, most of them young children.--FactCheck.org

Here's a longer listing of Kennedy's lies and misinformation, but I didn't need to read it. I was already so disgusted. 

Image: The Unbiased science podcast

Steve Baker, citizen journalist at 1/6, and his crazy theories

Many conservatives are deeply embarrassed by what happened on January 6. They are right to be embarrassed because it was an attempted coup by mob action which luckily failed completely. However they aren't ready to do the soul searching. Instead they are searching for scapegoats, and are looking almost exclusively outside the conservative movement. It's more circle the wagons than circular firing squad or clean house. 

Steve Baker is a conservative independent journalist. It makes sense that he went to DC on Jan. 6, that he walked to the Capitol, and also followed the rioters in to document the historic event. I applaud the journalists who went there. 

Some of his ideas though are shit. He thinks that the police should have fired on protesters: 

... to some of you this will not be a popular statement — only one officer actually did his job on the 6th. The officer who shot Ashli Babbitt. 

They didn't fire, and that indicates that the fix was in. The demonstrators were allowed to run riot by those 'up the chain' who hoped to score a public relations victory from making MAGA folks and all GOPers look bad. 

It's just so cute to blame the people who let you make a complete fool of yourself, as though they have a duty to stop you from showing who you are. I don't think they have that duty in the political arena. Their duty is to present their case and let you present yours. Their duty is to have good faith discussions. Their duty is not to be underhanded, use illegal or unethical tactics. I don't even expect 100% honesty from them because 100% honesty is often punished in elections. Frankly, if the opposition wants to be foolish, that's their free choice. 

He contends that they knew how violent the protests would be and didn't exercise their ability to stop it:

I know they knew what potential existed and that they carefully orchestrated, by command-and-control actions, each step of the events that transpired. National Guard presence was not wanted on-site, too early, to not scare off the militant groups and thwart their intentions. Once it was determined the militant factions would not use overtly deadly force, (firearms), they were gradually allowed access to the Capitol grounds, steps, and then the building... The presence of riot-geared photographers, with press badges — already on site long before the conclusion of Trump’s speech — was a dead giveaway that "up the chain" officials both knew and had tipped off the media about what was to come. (Same link.)

Well, I don't agree that photographers ready for a riot was a clear indication that The Powers That Be hoped for a riot and planned for it. Instead it was simply paying attention to the general trends in rallies in the previous weeks. As I've written, I thought there would be many people attending with a high likelihood of skirmishes with counterprotesters and/or police. So it wasn't rocket science to gear up for riot situations. 

Operational Teams and Undercover Presence

Steve Baker believes that there were many special ops teams or individuals at the Capitol that day. His sources are extremely thin though. The most detail comes from his twitter thread, where he states that he saw a spec ops team involved in evacuating Ashli Babbitt. It's worth reading both of those links.

... which led me to a more detailed twitter thread, but still closely related. Jeff Rosen, the acting Attorney General, had activated a bunch of special teams that he had at his disposal. They mustered at Quantico during the weekend before 1/6, but were closer in on 1/6. This was smart, especially if he didn't tell anyone who was loyal to Trump. We obviously needed to have a lot of national guard and special ops ready for whatever might erupt on that day, and also the day/night before it. So if this is true, good on Rosen. 

If the FBI was doing its job, there would have been informants and even agents at the Capitol that day. It's nuts to think that they should have stayed completely away. It's also nuts to think that they were directing the decisions. The FBI certainly didn't choose the date of the rally. Nor did they choose the slogan Stop the Steal. The message was clear at the top, the bottom, and in between. Find a way to stop the electoral college vote count. 

Storm was coming, very clearly

Nearly everyone saw this storm on the horizon, unless they didn't look. I personally expected a lot of confrontation. Hopefully it wouldn't include kidnapping, hostages, torture, or assassinations, and my hopes were on-target. This twitter thread shows some of the sentiments being expressed in the runup. They are violent, so that was a reasonable expectation. There are more quotes here, along with a helpful timeline.

Even with all the evidence that the MAGAs planned this themselves, egged on by Trump and his cohort, some of them are still in denial. They think they were suckered by a deep conspiracy instead of by obvious conmen (to the rest of us) like Trump. This one doesn't even believe Ashli Babbitt was shot. Ashli's mother tells him to go fuck himself, and something in that vein. 

Image: Daily Journal

Extras. The GOP state attorneys general organization behaved very poorly during and after election period, and this piece pummels them.

Trump and his supporters claim that election fraud wasn't considered by the courts and his suits were thrown out on technicalities. Here's a fact check that clarifies it. Yes, a bunch as evidence was reviewed and found to be very poor quality. 

Still more covid lies

I'm frustrated and unhappy with all the covid lies that I have to fight. In another forum with too many trolls, we have liars who pretend the vaccines were/are more dangerous than the infection. 

This is muddled by problems with reporting adverse effects. Some people have tried to bump up the reporting, and some healthcare professionals have tried to cover up some serious adverse effects. It's happening partly because of societal stresses where misinformation goes viral, and people make poor choices based on the misinformation. So rare problems aren't processed as rare, but as red flags meaning the government is lying to you and you need to believe someone like Alex Jones. 

A lot of people have made really bad risk assessments when it comes to covid and the vaccines. They've been so concerned about vaccine adverse effects that they didn't consider the possibilities of grave illness or death from covid. Maybe they also wrongly thought they could take ivermectin and that would handle it. Perhaps 2-10 out of each 1000 who thought this way ended up very sick, and therefore suffered a great deal based on a poor decision. (I don't know the numbers, and it would vary a lot by age and somewhat by location.) Vaxxed versus unvaxxed statistics have shown this in many places, and especially in Sept '21 through about March '22. 

Still, I've got one very persistent yahoo who claims the vaccines are very dangerous and I'm a horribly lying unethical person. I started look into what this erroneous claim was based on, and here are some of the sources I found:

This conclusion is based on cherry-picking evidence, ignoring vaxxed vs. unvaxxed hospitalization and death rates, and concerns that the data has been censored and/or scrubbed. 

It is possible to fool with the data and make it some much more innocuous than it is. Personnel can be encouraged to report or discouraged. Coverups are definitely a known phenomenon. But it's much harder to hide a large trend because there are many more people with the knowledge of the negative outcomes. 

So I reject the idea that the numbers are completely cooked. One observation I've had is that no hospital was overwhelmed with vaccine patients, but many were overwhelmed with covid patients. 

The yahoo seized on the issue of reporting of myocarditis. This is fair. It was downplayed to prevent people being discouraged or nervous about the vaccines. One report in particular was published and then withdrawn. The explanation is actually a non-explanation. It's claimed that data in the report was removed from VAERS, the US vaccine adverse effect reporting system. I found these sources with original matter from the article: Zenodo with a download; online full article, and another article on the same topic but with a reasonable balanced conclusion. The withdrawal article by Dr. Jessica Rose and the very questionable Dr. Peter McCullough, says this in the conclusion:

It  cannot  be  stressed  enough  when  referring  to VAERS  data  collected  in  the  context  of  the COVID-19  injectable  products  that  effective antiviral responses against the nCoV-2019 virus in the  form  of  both  cellular  and  humoral  immune responses  have  been  reported  in  peer-reviewed studies  [51–56].  Because  of  the  low  Infection Fatality  Rate,  indicating  effective  and  robust immune responses, it remains unclear why multiple experimental  mRNA  vaccines  have  been  fast-tracked through conventional testing protocols and are also being fast-tracked through production and administration  into  the  public.  With  repurposed drugs  like  hydroxychloroquine  and  Ivermectin showing extremely positive results in patients [57–68], it is also unclear why these drugs are not being more extensively promoted as effective tools in the fight  against  this virus.  What  is  clear  is that  the injectable  products  are  proving  unsafe  for  many individuals and inefficacious  in others.....

This conclusion downplayed the fatality rate and the strain on the healthcare systems, and wrongly stated that HCQ and ivermectin were showing extremely positive results. This paper came from antivaxx quack doctors. Sadly, there are quacks and charlatans in every line of work. Covid was been a bonanza for them. The political atmosphere has made it more likely that people take sides based on political affinity rather than sober evaluations of data. 

Image: Imperial College London

Extras. Another issue, and this is not a lie so much as a point of disagreement. Are vaccines more dangerous for those 0-39 than covid is? That definitely was and is an issue due to the adverse effects of the vaccines, and the inability to predict who will have a serious adverse effect. It was possible for a while that myocarditis from the vaccine was a bigger danger in that age group than covid itself. It was hard to be sure. One report showed that mortality in this age group briefly went higher for vaxxed vs unvaxxed (closeup here). However, when covid mutated and started infecting more people under 40, probably this question was settled toward vaccination, though perhaps only for certain years/variants. A number of people are probably glad they took the vaccine when the variant appeared. But prediction is difficult. 

Were VAERS reports being ignored? Possibly. 

Quack doctor Peter McCullough faced the music when a certification board revoked his certification due to his false statements about covid and the vaccines. They gave him quite a spanking.

Update 8/4/26. RFK Jr. is still spreading many lies about covid and the response. He downplayed how severe the spring 2020 surge was in NYC by saying some ICUs in the city were empty. Were they? I looked it up and found this in wikipedia:

Due to rules constraining transfers and preventing 911 calls from going there, [the USTA field hospital] remained mostly empty as at least three COVID-19 patients quarantining at home died and nearby hospitals exceeded capacity. USTA also had its own ambulances it could not use to pick up transfers due to exclusivity agreements between hospitals and ambulance companies. During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, private hospitals had spare beds while some public hospitals were unable to offload enough patients to stay within normal capacity, unlike during Hurricane Sandy, when patients were actively balanced across the region. Reference.

Assorted fascinating links

I've often read about the alleged conspiracy of the CIA and contra drug smugglers to introduce a new cheap form of cocaine into black communities, and how it started with south central Los Angeles. The reporting series was done by the San Jose Mercury News. I haven't read it but instead have read the critiques of it. This is the most detailed, and it shoots down most of the theory. Black people and black communities in the US have been badly mistreated for hundreds of year, but this was probably not perpetrated on them. Many other wrongs were. 

Fighting over which organizations are the true Trumpers. Gag! For a terrible, fascistic narcissist to have organizations fighting to be his representative on earth--why would that happen? Peter Navarro claims to be the true messenger. The evil ones include the America First Policy Institute with Larry Kudlow and Bobby Jindal. They're trying to con Trump and slip in their own candidate as the MAGA heir. 

Boris Johnson got outsted from his party leadership for being a boorish liar. Why didn't Trump? Good question. 

US prisons released thousands due to covid and only 17 were rearrested. This provides lessons for who and how to release prisoners, save money, be compassionate, and make life better. 

The Michigan GOP doubles down on right wing nutters with their election of an election-fraud diehard as state chair. 

Liar extraordinaire, unapologetic hatemonger, and possibly the worst person in the US, Alex Jones is finally facing some much deserved reckoning. This civil trial, in Austin, TX, is about the monetary judgement against him. He was in contempt of the original trial, didn't cooperate to such a degree that there was a default judgement against him.

Dominion Voting Systems settled its suit with Fox News for over $750 million on the day jury selection was to start. It's hugely embarrassing for Fox. Google will help with the links, I'm sure. All The Texts Fox News Didn't Want You to Read, but you can, snicker, snicker. 

I didn't write anything about the 2022 midterm elections, which were anticipated to be a blow-out hurting the Dems because of inflation, but didn't turn out that way. Here's a report on voter sentiment just after the election. 69% think the midterms were fair. 50% hate the Democratic party. 53% hate the GOP. No one is winning a popularity contest. 

TRUMP IS FINALLY INDICTED. In New York, for fraudulent business reporting or something? Reactions are delicious. Also about Trump: he is the focus of a major political movement. This is different from life as usual because a fairly large number of people are motivated to make changes.

The House held a hearing on China which wasn't just grandstanding. The focus was that there is an existential struggle between China and the US. I have my doubts about this. China has been a country for millenia, so they're unlikely to disappear. The US is a much newer country but still almost 250 years old, and quite vigorous. Neither seems likely to disappear for any reason, much less due to another country an ocean away. 

Image: youtube.com

Whither Qanon now?

[Originally published 2/22/21. It was removed in a sweep of Qanon material but 'reinstated.' That's OK because bots are required to handle chores on the internet.]

I've been casually observing Qanon adherents for maybe 7 months now. I hadn't noticed that they were overly nuts. Some, maybe the ones held up as examples in Twitter, seemed like regular folks with good hearts. I'm reevaluating that impression now. 

It's one thing to care about children and worry that there might be pedophile rings. It's another to think that most high-ranking Democrats and intelligence folks are part of those rings. And to think that others would allow that to continue until they could all be arrested in one huge operation spearheaded by Donald Trump and JFK Jr. who is actually still alive. Not only is that idea nutty, it's rather nasty too because the Q folks have decided that one group (Dems) contains all these vile people. That's scapegoating and prejudice and an extremely harsh judgment based on the creepiest kind of evidence. 

I was somewhat worried about Q, but hadn't seen that any had committed much violence except for one wacko murder in NY. I have to reevaluate that too because it seems like Q folks were heavily involved in the mob action on the Capitol on Jan. 6. The woman shot by a police officer: a Q believer. The woman crushed in a crowd: a Q believer. A guy arrested in the Upper East Side: a Q believer. Few of them identified themselves in the crowd, but it seems that they were there. I'll be watching for the reports.

But what will Q do now? 

Q himself is supposedly not dropped a message since sometime in November. One of the people pretending to be Q, Someone Watkins who runs 8kun, is telling people to move on to something else, but thanks for these wonderful times we've had and the friends we made. Some Q folks are waking up to the likelihood that they fell hard for a hoax. A few hardcore ones are trying to hang on. Maybe some grifters will help them do it and will fake some drops. The latest is that Trump will be inaugurated on March 4 (the old date for inaugurations) and the military will round up those perfidious Dem pedophiles. Then on March 5 they'll move the goalposts again. 

Image: The San Diego Union-Tribune

Extras. Unsorted good articles on Q. An excellent analysis of the game aspects of Qanon and why it's addictive. The Hill. Washington Post. A man fingered as Q who has a feel for how dangerous it is. Qanon is the conspiracy to eat all other conspiracies. A hilarious video interview of four Qanons revealing a variety of their beliefs and also some mutual doubts. Why is Qanon popular among evangelical Christians? Distrust of news sources and faith in a divine plan. 

Update 3/3/21. An article about deprogrammers who work with Qanons. One method is getting them to remember how they started being sucked. The person is led to connect the dots of how they were sucked in, and it helps them evaluate the process more clearly. 

Update 3/4/21. The reinguration of Trump was supposed to happen today. DC didn't want to be caught off-guard again, so there was a strong National Guard contingent. Very few Qanons showed up. I've heard of 4. It looks like Qanon is dead. Now is time for the former Qanons to forget they ever believed that trash.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Qanon and rightwing nutscase, was elected to the House. A search of her social media turned up her upvoting calls for violence against other members of Congress, who weren't too pleased with their new colleague. She was promptly voted off committees. Is this a harbinger of increased partisanship to come? 

Trump tries to overthrow Congress

[Under construction. Published unfinished to get it in the timeline.]

 As much as I fucking hate Trump, I'm not sure I saw this coming, but I should have. 

Trump has been spinning lies about his huge victory for months, winding his supporters up with false tales of illegal ballots on a huge scale. It shouldn't be surprising that they exploded. 

The definitive accounts of what happened haven't been written yet. In a nutshell, Trump called for his supporters to come to Washington DC on the day that Congress was due to certify Joe Biden as the next president. Many heeded that call. I haven't seen estimates but it was more than 20,000 but not have a million. They came wound up and ready to spring. Many already planned to storm the Capitol and force Congress to certify another term for Trump. 

After a morning of speeches near the White House, Trump sent his supporters to the US Capitol to "fight like hell and if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."

Some of his supporters were already there, but when the huge contingent arrived, they broke through a series of makeshift barriers of moveable metal bike racks and chicken wire. They continued to push, fighting with the greatly outnumbered Capitol police. The mobs got to many sides of the Capitol, and proceeded to break in through doors and windows wherever police didn't put up extremely stiff resistance. 

The weaponry for each side. For the police: some with almost no weapons or shielding, not even helmets. Some with riot gear, shields, gas masks, batons, tear gas, pepper spray, flashbangs and rubber bullets. For the rioters, some with almost no weapons or shielding, not even helmets. Some with riot gear, shields, gas masks, batons, pepper spray, bats, flag poles, sharpened flag poles, fire extinguishers, and anything at hand that could be thrown. 

The capitol police were outnumbered by such an extent that breaches were bound to happen, and they did. The number of rioters who gained access isn't clear yet. I've seen estimates of 200, but I think it was many more than that. The mobs went looking particularly for Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence. Some planned only to make their case verbally, others planned to kill and enforce their will that Trump should be given a second term. 

With the level of violence and lack of respect for the law, this has to be called an insurrection and/or an attempted coup. 

Luckily it failed. Security was strong enough to escort the members of Congress to safe areas, presumably in the basement. No one in Congress, on the staff, or among the police were taken as hostage or prisoner. Had some rioter been able to take hostages, the outcome might have been different. 

As it was, about three hours after the assault started, reinforcements arrived and started clearing out the Capitol, driving the rioters out, then away from the doors on all sides, then away from the Capitol and out of the city. One rioter (a woman veteran) was shot dead inside the Capitol. One police officer died from his injuries the next day. One woman rioter was crushed in the crowds. Two other rioters died from medical issues on the grounds. 

That evening, even before all the rioters were driven out of the city, Congress resumed its session. From 8:00pm until 3:45am roughly, they debated per their rules of order and finished the largely ceremonial task of certifying the next president. So all the violence and mayhem was in vain. 

Not completely in vain. It was opened the eyes of a lot of people. The level of importance is hard to gauge right now. Two days later, when Trump continued to claim the election was stolen, he was permanently thrown off of Twitter, which had been his prime mode of communication and his podium for bullying. He was also suspended from youtube. Though he hasn't lost all his means of communication, he was so curtailed that he couldn't fight anymore. He ended up leaving his term in near silence and isolation. And disgrace. Posts about impeachment to come. 

Image: rferl.org

Extras. One former GOP senator saw this coming and said the GOP must separate from Trump and form a new party. Video here, print here. Tom Cotton, a very conservative GOP senator, called out his colleagues for going too far and serving up lies. 

Mitch McConnell played along for way too long. So he allowed the authoritarianism to flourish. 

Texts urging Trump to stop the madness on Jan. 6. Brief and very telling.

Antifa did it. Retired General McInerney, who lied about the server farm in Frankfurt where votes were manipulated, lies again about Antifa spearheading violence at the Capitol. The guy hasn't met a lie he won't speak. More important evidence that it was Antifa! Some patriots dispute it was Antifa because it was them and it was glorious. Senator Ron Johnson thinks it was FBI agents/provocateurs. 

Trump wanted a big send-off for himself from his fans. Since he doesn't have many fans in government anymore, that means the usual rally sort of thing. The military is apparently declining to give him the usual send-off. (He didn't get it. White House aides, staff, and family saw him off in small contingents at the White House and the military base. The base also supplied a podium and a band, but not ranks of troops to see him off.)

Moving testimony from a Capitol police officer who was crushed and assaulted during the riot. That wasn't all that happened to him that day. 

How many national guards were sent into Washington to quell the coup attempt? 340 guards were already working around DC before the riot at the Capitol. 1100 were called up that day. 6200 were mobilized that evening to help with tasks in the next days up through the inauguration--in case there was another coup attempt. These are numbers from the National Guard website. 

Ben Shapiro reams out the rioters on 1/7/21 for staging an insurrection and an assault on the seat of US government. It's 8/2/26 and he hasn't taken this video down, so he deserves a bit of credit for that. Here's a reference to the video in case Shapiro becomes a pussy and takes it down. 

Bizarre Voter Fraud Tale

This is incredible, and I'm going to tell it from memory. Hugo Chavez, late dictator of Venezuela, had voting software created where he could control the outcome by flipping votes to whichever candidate he wanted. This software can incorporated into most of the voting software in the US due to the potential for making money from humongous bribes. 

We know this because of the intrepid work of Sidney Powell, one-time lawyer to Mike Flynn (of Russia scandal fame). She's blown the lid off this scandal with honest-to-God affidavits, and maybe a few reports from some choice security firms. 

The software has back doors that allow people to hack in, decide how many votes to flip, etc. They can do it via the internet or thumb drives. On Election Day, the vote flipping was going along fine, except that Trump was getting a landslide of votes, and it was more than the algorithm could handle. So all the machines had to be shut down early in the morning of Nov. 4. On their startup later that day, huge number of votes were entered for Biden. That's how he stole the election.

There was also lots of internet traffic involved that went through Spain. Then, something-something to a CIA-managed server farm in Frankfurt. Luckily patriots uncovered all of this, and a crack team of special ops troops raided the server farm, captured the servers, and five were killed in the operation. This was covered up by saying they were killed in a helicopter accident in the Sinai. But the good guys captured the servers, and they'll be releasing the data showing the fraud sometime--it's not clear when. By the way, the crack troops were the 305th battalion, which is a bit odd because it's an entry-level training battalion for those going into military intelligence. 

Mike Flynn has been closely in touch with the good guys, which include retired general Thomas McInerney. Most of this information came from him. Both he and Flynn are also Qanon supporters. So these folks involved with this conspiracy theory are also gullible or opportunists who are big into Qanon shit. In some ways, that's good because it's easier to show how little credibility they deserve. 

Part of this story got blown because a name was left in the metadata in one of the affidavits. It was supposedly from a high-level military intelligence officer, but was actually from an ex-Army officer who had worked in the vehicle pool, and had attended (and washed out of) the 305th battalion. Ah, some pieces come together. 

I'm concerned that I left out some bizarre piece of this concoction, but I'll have to add it later. 

Image: flipboard.com

Extras. Possibly related, but I'm not sure. It's about software and votes shifting, and involves this gang of folks who have been pushing these stories non-stop, so close enough. Antrim County in Michigan had some sort of software problem, and it was investigated by an uber-partisan group. The real problem was failure to follow procedures, like using the correct version of the ballot when setting up counting.  

Update 12/20/20. Newsmax, Fox Business, and other media are backpedaling on their reporting about voting machines. It's because of threatened suits, and hotshot lawyers signing on. Here is Newsmax sharing some facts in a very sheepish way. 

Update 1/15/21. The American Thinker issued a retraction including this mea culpa: It was wrong for us to publish these false statements. We apologize to Dominion for all of the harm this caused them and their employees. We also apologize to our readers for abandoning 9 journalistic principles and misrepresenting Dominion’s track record... We regret this grave error.

Extra, very belated. Sometime after the election, a conservative activist in Colorado (named Joseph Oltmann) started telling a story about infiltrating an online meeting of Dominion Voting folks. Says a Dominion exec said some very incriminating stuff, but goshdarnit, he didn't record it! I lost track of this bizarre little story, and then found a link. Saved now for posterity. 

November links, including a bit of rioting

 These are non-election-related links. Not many of them, but the election didn't manage to wipe out everything.

Another shooting by police. Again my initial response is that victims largely caused the incident. But my opinion changed somewhat. Parents were having a quiet moment in their car, not breaking any laws, and the police interrupted them to ask or serve a warrant. Are there better way to handle warrants? How big a problem are warrants? I'm no longer assuming that warrants are synonymous with people of low-character. 

A great article about the New York Times. It's facing a dramatic generational shift from the boomers/GenX to the millenials. 

This is election-related, but outside of the main topic which the scramble over electoral votes. Saturday after the election (Nov. 7), street parties erupted as people decided Biden had won and they took to the streets to celebrate. A week later, Trump supporters organized a rally in Washington DC. It was supposed to be a Million MAGA March, but was tens of thousands. There were also counterprotesters, and the Proud Boys organized a showing of one or two hundred. The Proud Boys got their wish and had a few fist fights and skirmishes, but not that much. Antifa was possibly the aggressor of one incident, of fireworks used against an outdoors restaurant where Trump supporters were dining, though the fireworks were directed at empty tables. A video touted as showing violent Antifa against an old man showed only part of the story, neglecting where he attacked numerous people beforehand. 

Also election related. A Democrat has to distance himself from the socialists in the Democratic party. The level of socialism hurt a lot of Dems, but not Biden. 

Conspiracy theories. Some software research group has put together a tool and model, and it looks good. And let's just review Pizzagate in depth. 

Image: businessinsider.com

Update 10/17/2024. From Just Security, an assessment on how dangerous the Proud Boys are. 

May/June links

(Catching up on posts started a while ago. This one originally written around so long ago it's embarrassing)

The man who recorded the confrontation and death of Ahmaud Arbery, he was very nervous about his role in the incident. He tried to distance himself and wished for justice for Arbery. Now he is also charged in the murder.

Michael Flynn in the news. Transcript of his call to the Russian ambassador.  The adviser to judge says no, you can't just drop charges against someone who pleaded guilty.

Egregious incident of stalking and harassment by ebay security employees. ebay!!!!

Trouble counting lots of absentee ballots. States need to step up and make this work better.

Qanon is strange and fascinating - not what they write, but how people are responding to this weirdness and hokey conspiracy thing. More about the origin and internals in a video with a founder of 8chan (starting at 37:46).

Bolton's book, delayed by the Trump administration, showed that quid pro quo was actually standard for Trump.

According to Steve Bannon, Trump's campaign is wobbling. Trump needs to be the president and take care of the problems, like the huge covid crisis.

Interesting law ruling from the Supreme Court that concerns tribal lands. It expands the power and independence of the tribes.

Image: chicagotribune.com

Inspector General Report on the FBI

This long-awaited report was supposed to reveal the cesspit in the FBI--all those conspiratorial corrupt agents trying to prevent Trump from competing in the election or taking the power he rightfully won.

The report didn't do that. A few weeks before its release (when the final changes are being made to the umpteenth draft), Trump predicted that it would be perhaps the biggest scandal ever, reaching all the way to Obama. Beyond that, Trump is strangely vague about the contents. Trump was either misinformed or deluded. The complaints in the report encompass several teams of agents but are clustered around just a few elements of the process, primarily the FISA warrant.

It's interesting to recall what the wingnuts predicted. Trump's phones were tapped (by Obama!). His campaign was spied on. The meeting between Mifsud and Papadopoulos was an FBI or CIA trap. The Trump Tower meeting was an FBI trap. The supposed report by the Australian diplomat was a fake. The FBI was working solely with the DNC and Hillary campaign, and the rest is lies to cover up how putrid and biased the FBI had become--no professionalism, raw partisanship. (I've written recently about one such conspiracy post.)

Well, the IG report is available with minimal redactions, and it does very little to support that wingnuttery. I've read various parts of it. It concludes that the FBI had reasonable grounds to open the investigation. It seems like the IG found the stuff about the Australian diplomat plausible, and not a phony cover story. A very common phrase from the report was:

... we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced his decision.

This wording was used in regard to the opening of the counterintelligence investigation, the use of 'confidential human sources' (informants sent to collect information), or in seeking the FISA warrant to surveil Carter Page. So those texts between Strzok and Lisa Page that the conservative media pretended were so ominous--the IG didn't find that they had any operational effect. No surprise there. They always seemed to be casual texts, not messages between conspirators setting operations into motion.

The biggest issues concerned the FISA warrant, the use of information from Steele, and the handling of that information and exculpatory information. The IG report had a lot of complaints about that area. However, that is really very limited.

Just consider what wasn't in the IG report:

1. Efforts to entrap Trump advisers (as conspiracy theorists theorized).
2. Clinton or her close circle instructing the FBI.
3. The FBI gathering tons of inside strategy information from multiple taps and bugs on the Trump campaign.
4. The FBI gathering inside campaign strategy information from tapping Page.
5. The FBI sharing ill-gotten inside campaign strategy information around in the FBI. 
6. The FBI sharing ill-gotten inside strategy information about the Trump campaign with close advisers of Obama or Clinton. 
7. The FBI working with Clinton and Obama advisers on how to hamstring Trump during his transition and after his inauguration. 

How do I know this isn't in the report? Because I read through the rather boring Table of Contents (pages xx-xxviii). It's a relatively painless overview of the decidely non-juicy details.(CHAPTER FOUR: THE FBI'S RECEIPT AND EVALUATION OF INFORMATION FROM CHRISTOPHER STEELE PRIOR TO THE FIRST FISA APPLICATION... CHAPTER EIGHT: MISSTATEMENTS, OMISSIONS AND ERRORS IN THE FISA RENEWAL APPLICATIONS.) Conclusions start on page 410. That's how I found out who got their hands slapped the hardest.

From the IG report, you don't get a sense that the FBI was a den of anti-Trump activist spies. Instead they are rather methodical drudges, but they still didn't manage to follow all the very important rules, and therefore everyone involved should have their performance reviewed. This applies especially to Bruce Ohr of the DOJ. Uhhhh, that's it. Performance reviews. That's kind of anti-climactic. 

The most common complaints, besides that information wasn't included in the FISA application or renewals as it should have been:

While we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct on the part of the case agents ... we also did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or problems we identified. 

Yep, those agents didn't explain why they didn't do things the right way. So maybe they were conspiring with... someone, but they were wily enough to get away with it. 

Were there any bombshells from the IG report? None at all, unless you were counting on some juicy conspiracy revelations. Too bad for those who were, such as Attorney General and all-around toady Bill Barr. I'd say better luck next time (the Durham investigation), but I wouldn't mean it.

Some will interpret it this way.

Image: cartoonistgroup.com

Update 4/1/20. As I suspected, the kinds of mistakes/shortcuts taken in the Carter Page FISA application weren't unique, but were rather common practice for FISA applications, which the Inspector General found as a follow-up to some of his other investigations. All those tut-tutting the Page application didn't know what the actual practice is, and, horrors, some rules are kind of winked at. Ummm, I've done this myself on some of the damn paperwork on some of my jobs, so that was always my top suspicion.

Update 4/10/20. Another disclosure on a Friday afternoon. Some footnotes in the Page FISA warrant were declassified. GOPers claim that they show the FBI knew the Steele document was rubbish. The footnotes actually show that the FBI was aware that the Steele document was likely to be partly Russian disinformation. GOPers maximize the disclosures beyond what they say. Fox News goes for broke. Hmmmm, though, on a Friday afternoon. Is this a burial or not?

Amazing theorizing about the Trump 2016 campaign

We all know about Occam's razor--that the simplest explanation is usually correct. We need a pithy name for a complementary principle--the bizarre and nutso complexity that is piled high to support a conspiracy theory.

A column in National Review inspired this realization. Here's the subhead:

The State Department and an Australian diplomat grossly exaggerated Papadopoulos's claims - which were probably false anyway.

The author makes such leaps of assumption. Papadopoulos didn't know about the DNC hacked emails (true) and didn't know about any emails (a big leap). Mifsud didn't tell Papadopoulos about any emails because there is only Papadopoulos's claim about that (true, but why would Papadopoulos fabricate that?) Mifsud wasn't a Russian agent as Papa believed, but was most likely a British one (because the author wants it to be so).

When Mifsud was interviewed by the FBI in 2017, he denied saying anything to Papa about emails. This must be true because Mifsud wasn't charged with lying to the FBI. (Never mind that he perhaps wasn't charged because they couldn't prove this was a lie.) Also, the Mueller report didn't say Mifsud knew about Russian intelligence, therefore Mifsud must not know anything about Russian intelligence (because the Mueller report contain all known information and nothing is true unless reported there).

And on, and on, and on. There is no evidence Papa told the Australian diplomat about the Russian approach because the Aussie can't be trusted, and made the whole thing up.

Yes, there's more. It just keeps on this way, doubting everything except when it's convenient not to doubt something.

The only interesting possible fact in the whole piece is that Steele passed some information on to an FBI legal attache on July 6, 2016. Maybe this was before the Australian wrote his meeting with Papa for the second time, and with much more urgency due to the leak of DNC emails. It should be possible to check this. I'm certainly not taking the word of this author. Nonetheless, it is worth noting the information for future checking.

The upshot of the whole 'it didn't happen' is that there was no other information given to the FBI about Russian contacts with the Trump campaign except for the Steele shitty and questionable research.

But maybe there was... Maybe the Mifsud, Papa, and Australian connection was as reported: a solicitation by Mifsud which Papa spilled to an Australian. Shall I apply Occam's razor?

Image: amazon.com

Update 12/27/19. I checked back to see if the author had amended anything due to the IG report. OF COURSE NOT. DON'T LET FACTS INTERFERE WITH A GREAT NARRATIVE... or even a mediocre narrative. The author, Andrew McCarthy, shows again that he's a hack.

Messy questions about Ukraine

I'm not trying to derail the inquiry into Trump pressuring Ukraine for dirt on Biden while withholding aid that they sorely needed. That was horrendous, and so like Trump not to consider the legal and ethical implications.

However, I wonder about a couple issues laying around from 2016. It's pretty obvious to me that Biden's son cashed in, and that wasn't seemly. (It's not illegal isn't a compelling argument.) What about the black ledger that showed Manafort receiving millions of dollars. There are charges that it's a forgery. I hadn't thought of that possibility, but maybe we should consider it. It turned up at a convenient time, and it was payback from some Ukrainians to Manafort, an adviser to their recently departed, dearly hated ex-president.

Has the black ledger been verified? It contains a listing of disbursements. It ought to be possible to check that money leaving wherever and going somewhere else, right? I looked for information about the accuracy of the black ledging, and found nothing. So I can't say it's real or it's a forgery.

That's one piece of the GOP alternative reality we've been hearing about. Here's another: in 2016, the Russians weren't interfering in the election, it was the Ukrainians trying to help Hillary Clinton, probably with a big dollop of conspiring by the Deep State.

What else? The main reporter of the Ukraine-did-it story was a quasi-journalist named John Solomon who wrote for The Hill website. His colleagues weren't happy with him, raised questions about his journalistic standards (reasonable questions probably), and eventually he moved on from the hostile environment. I didn't find any reputable site that has confirmed his reporting though there's been plenty of time for it.

Solomon's questionable stories also had an outlet (wait for it) on Fox News' Hannity hour. Hannity (another fine journalist) is pissed now because fingers are pointing at him, and he claims he was barely involved. It was also interesting to see the ambassador Yovanovitch was removed largely due to unsubstantiated reports that she criticized Trump in private conversations. This fascinating source (news for Russian-speaking Americans) shows a picture of the letter of accusation. But, I wonder, could someone make up a story to get the ambassador removed? This gives a great glimpse into the Ukraine-did-it theory, provided by a Russian source.

Image: kyivpost.com

Extras. Sondland bristled at being called part of a rogue operation or irregular channel for foreign policy. Everyone at the top knew about it, and he was doing Trump's bidding.

Parnas (one of the Ukrainians arrested just before getting on an airplane) bragged about being on a secret mission for Trump. Supposedly he'll be cooperating with prosecutors. However,  he might be as reliable as other lowlifes are.

The new Zelensky administration in Ukraine is cleaning out the prosecutors' offices (take 3?). There are complaints that they are just trying to bury information about corruption. The link also has more about the black ledger.

Sondland runs out the clock at his House testimony while trying to avoid the obvious conclusion that Trump woud benefit from Biden being investigated by Ukraine.

The Republicans Strike Back... they hope.

Republicans are fighting against the Ukraine scandal and subsequent impeachment inquiry with all they have. They continue to push the theory that the FBI, CIA, and other departments were/are full of corrupt Dem-sympathetic officials who have illegally targeted Trump. The Horowitz Inspector General (IG) report was supposed to blow it out of the water. That didn't happen. Now the investigation by US attorney John Durham is supposed to unmask this deep state conspiracy. 

I doubt it will happen. As we saw with the Mueller investigation and IG report, almost all of the big pieces leaked well before the reports were published. So Durham will probably not have anything beyound the known bits on Comey, Strzok and Page, McCabe, Bruce Ohr in the State Department, and how the FBI used the Steele dossier. I doubt there will be any smoking gun showing that the Trump campaign was set up by the FBI or CIA, with a phony approach by Mifsud that they orchestrated. I predict that will turn out to be true as reported, that Mifsud offered info on Hillary Clinton, and the campaign was interested. That Papadopoulos drunkenly mentioned it to an Australian diplomat, who eventually reported it through channels to the FBI. 

Their grand hopes of indictments and perp walks of these heinous Dem-leaning traitors isn't going to happen. But we shall all see.

Image: youtube.com

Extra. This column points out how the GOPers are using slander as a counterattack. Lt. Col. Vindman who was injured in Iraq--has a grudge against Trump and is lying. Also, he's a never-Trumper, meaning he isn't loyal. Not loyal  to Trump--to me, it sounds like Trump thinks he's running a banana republic.

Update 2/28/2020. I never specified why I think there won't be perp walks of conspirators among the FBI/CIA/etc. There are two reasons: 1) There wasn't a conspiracy. 2) The inestigators, as much as they hope to find evidence of a conspiracy, will not manufacture evidence, i.e. lie and fabricate a case. No fake evidence and no real evidence, so no perp walks. Sorry, folks. No, not sorry. 

Epstein death cranks up the conspiracy machines

I've written about Epstein, the pedophile, before. He's a favorite of those who like to lie about Bill Clinton because Epstein was so vile in his sexual predations of teenage girls. However, people who do this rarely base their claims in fact or careful research of news sources. They usually repeat garbage without a care that it is garbage.

Now many of those same people believe that Epstein was murdered, not that he killed himself in a locked cell that he didn't share with anyone. Again, facts are simply an impediment to the story they want to believe and tell.

This article, by someone who has worked in the penal system, calls those stories regurgitated misinformation. That's kinder than I would be, as you shall soon see. Another article by a convict goes into detail of how one could commit suicide in prison, and it sounds fairly doable unless you have a minder in the cell with you, which Epstein didn't. He adds that soaping the sheet will make it move more easily and cause fractures in the neck, as the autopsy found.

Here is a piece of stupidity from Judith Miller. Of course, anyone who would go from the NYT to Fox isn't interested foremost in accurate journalism. The headline makes me roll my eyes. Miller claims it's almost impossible to kill yourself in prison? Well, there are plenty of reports of suicides in prison - did she miss those? Of course the article doesn't actually dwell on Miller's tiny knowledge of prisons, so it doesn't live up to the hyped headline. I hope Miller enjoys her dirty pay to write such trash.

So to all the people who believe so passionately that Epstein was murdered, start producing some definite evidence, like defensive wounds, payments to the guards, video even. Otherwise your tales are full of bullshit, and just plain ridiculous. And you probably believe a lot of other rubbish too. I'll be ridiculing your stupidity as loudly as I can.

Image: nypost.com

Last outpost of crazy: Three stories

Overrun Area 51. Maybe this is a fad, but will some show up on the appointed day? Some humorous predictions of what might happen.

Saliva challenge. There's definitely a new fad for licking things, returning them to shelves, and recording the antics for display on social media. Because the subpar American is that fucking immature and obnoxious.

Zombie pigs. This political commentator takes a break from the heavy stuff to reassure us that we aren't going to be overrun by zombie pig brains. I'm so glad to read this, but it's hadn't been on my list of concerns.

Image: apptopia.com

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. 

April links

Always more on Russia investigation. Now conservative media is pretending the Papadopoulus contact was a CIA asset trying to entrap him. Long WaPo article about adminstration action against Russian hacking before and immediately after the election. Also covering that period, and answering the snarky question 'What did Obama do to stop it?' Even more, though it sounds like maybe Steele gave his dossier to British intelligence and their heads exploded.

FBI scandal. I skimmed the Inspector General report on the Hillary investigation. Strzok looks bad in his handling of the Weiner laptop. Lawfare review of it.

Peace deal failure. Someday I need to write a long piece about why the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks failed. What next for Israelis in their outlook.

Gitmo holding camp. Military tribunals have failed. Slow, questionable decisions, not a firm legal basis.

2020 Election. This is BIG, and worth watching if the trend continues. A poll in Texas has Trump even with two Democratic candidates. These are named candidates, not a generic one. The rich will support Trump in 2020. Not because they like him or respect him, but because the Dems want to raise their taxes.

Midwest flooding. A long article about the Missouri River, and how our relationship to it and adjacent land use should change. Move further away, don't try to manage for navigation because it doesn't carry a lot of navigation.

Japan's economy. Japan is doing pretty well. Not a lost decade.

Trump non-news. Trump's tweeting is becoming unhinged. Is this new and repeat?

Stuff I want to remember

(Clues to my interests.)

Understanding quantitative easing. A good article, very readable, that gives an easy-to-understand analysis of QE. It asked good questions, but I ask even better questions. It tells how QE inflates the value of certain bonds. In rolling back QE, demand is lower and the bonds are worth less. True, except that QE is done with demand is especially soft and needs the boost. QE is rolled back when demand is stronger. Still, I think I have more work to do to understand the workings. QE also shelters borrowers from surges in interest rates, right? Prevents lenders from demanding higher returns.

Extreme crazy conspiracy site. The crazy flat-earth lady gets her news here. Oh, the imagination involved in spinning these tales. Microwaves are needing to cook food grown with fertilizer, but it destroys the nutrients. Ummm, wow.

Gun info database. Save the link to check. Country by coountry information.

Image: bloomberg.com

Right-wing media lie, again

The Washington Times was sued about a Seth Rich story it published, and has had to settle the case with a full retraction. That's how much work it takes to get most right-wing media outlets to correct their lies--a court case. And this might have been lucky too, because the Times made the mistake of making claims about Seth Rich's brother, who was the plaintiff.

So whereas the Times claimed that it was 'well known in intelligence circles' that Rich and his brother leaked the DNC emails, it turns out that's completely wrong.

So, is that the only punishment? The settlement is sealed, so we don't know if money was involved. However, there is no report of the Washington Times firing anyone for the mistake. That makes it like the other lies from other right-wing outlets. No one gets fired for birther nonsense, or Shirley Sherrod, or any other fabrication. There's basically no downside in conservative media for lying because no one is held to account. Yet again.

Image: the must trusted foxnews.com

Update 4/22/19. I'm still seeing comments from people who believe the Seth Rich story. It's similar to those who still believe the Pizzagate story, except a bit more plausible. This article describes how Russians laid out the misinformation and set up the discoveries of that misinformation. Right-wingers are such useful idiots for the Russians.

Update 7/23/19. Even more about how the Russians planted fake news pointing to Seth Rich as the DNC leaker, and how conservatives lapped it up. Oddly, and casting some doubt on the thoroughness of the reporting, there is no mention of the Seymour Hersh tape and its role.

Update 8/17/19. This article points out that conservative media pushed the Seth Rich lie, and they deserve the blame. I can't argue with that.

Update 3/27/21. This got lost in all the post-election activity. Fox News settled with the family of Seth Rich, and got to delay the announcement until after the election. 

August links

Alex Jones banned. The conspiracy theorist that Trump loves has been suspended on a bunch of major social media sites. A good article that focuses not on Alex Jones, but on the issues of moderation on social media. Twitter lagged behind, but it's not clear why. Lack of clarity was a theme.

Stalin's useful idiots updated. A great article by someone with a Russian name. Full of energy and unfamiliar angles. I think conservative talk radio types have been incredibly useful to the Russians, but the author points out it's not just them.

Success of solar and wind. Having excess energy due to solar and wind generation is happening more and more. Power companies may not be happy, but this is what I wanted as an environmentalist and someone who cares about the future.

China's misbehavior. China demanded and probably deserved some slack as it was developing, but it's quite a developed nation now. A former Obama administration official gives a blunt assessment that she didn't have the candor to give while Obama was in power. China also wants to make sure it has plenty of company as an authoritarian country. It's even helping Venezuela.

Reference link to save. Concerning where terrorists are most active. Great graphics with some interactive features.

Image: storymaps.esri/com