Month: June 2018

• This week’s note in Trumpian ‘Alternative Facts’ comes from The New Republic, where Alex Shepherd learns from watching Jake Tapper how journalists can deal with Trump’s parallel universe. One possible flaw. It seems to involve journalists doing their homework in advance of interviews. Sounds like a rare occurrence.
   
• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post suggests that the Trump administration’s migrant policy puts it in violation of kidnapping laws.
   
• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit is impatient with my President’s impatience with lawful due process. Has to do with some irritating technicality about Constitutional protections covering everyone equally.
   
• Max’s Dad is sickened by a picture of a crying little girl, and by those who call it fake news.
   
• M. Bouffant at Web of Evil perceives historical parallels after an ICE agent is ordered to lie, resigns instead, squeals about it to journalists, but finds the interview interrupted by government agents.
   
• Glenn Geist at MadMikesAmerica sees much to be ashamed about in the SCOTUS endorsement of Donald Trump’s thinly disguised Muslim ban. It isn’t a Muslim ban if it’s called a Muslim ban and bans Muslims but the words “Muslim ban” are not actually printed in the Muslin ban.
   
• driftglass stomps all over conservative Ron Fournier again. Fournier says Putin couldn’t have created a more pro-Russia US president in a lab. driftglass points out that Trump was carefully built by the Republican Party.
   
• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger looks at the polling and tells us how Americans see what political parties care about whom.
   
• At Stinque, NOJO clings to our last, best hope of salvaging anything of what remains of our country after Republicans finish trashing the place. Past performance suggests they will do just that before January if they lose in November. But NOJO finds some glimmer of encouragement in a superb race in Texas, and a great campaign video, as a couple of small indicators.
   
• Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson notes that election expert Larry Sabato sees a trend toward Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin, formerly endangered. James doesn’t entirely like Sabato’s methodology.
   
• Vincent is sort of back at A Wayfarer’s Notes and, in his own poetic way, suggests that the compassionate and the predatory sides of humanity are the Yin and Yang of life. Would help explain God, Satan, Trump, and mosquitoes I suppose.
   
• Dave Dubya has some good FOX News, in photo form. Even better, it’s not the cable network. More like honest wildlife.
   

 
From Green Eagle:

The lead story from the Washington Post today! The lead story!

“Liberal hostility toward Trump aides could galvanize the GOP base…

Recent displays of anger directed toward members of the Trump administration — such as the White House press secretary being asked to leave a Va. restaurant and a speech by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) — could play into the president’s hands.”

Do you ever remember any of the mainstream media truly concerned that the avalanche of hatred directed nonstop by Republicans toward Democrats for decades could galvanize the Democratic base? Never. Because, in fact this headline article is not a kindly meant warning to the Democratic party that a howling mob of millions of Republicans might attack them because some pathological Republican liar is kicked out of a restaurant. No, it is in fact a barely veiled threat that if Democrats do not shut up and take a few more decades of that abuse, the mainstream press, even its most allegedly responsible members, is going to go on a campaign to accuse Democrats of being loathsome subhumans, while as usual ignoring the monstrosity that the Republican party has become.

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From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:

Ayn Rand observed:

The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value.

Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible.

Why impossible? Think of the psychology that altruism leads to in practice. If my first duty is to live for others, then not only am I putting the one life I’ll ever have “on the back burner”; by logical extension I must conclude that it is other people’s first duty to live for me. Put more directly, each of us has no moral responsibility to support ourselves materially or spiritually, because that is other people’s responsibility. On the contrary, each of us has a moral right to other people’s time, effort, and property, because it is their responsibility to support us. In other words, altruism turns us all into predators, where any person with an unfulfilled need, unsatisfied want, or penchant for bad behavior can rightfully demand that other people fix his life. In practice, then, every person represents a threat to everyone else. What measure of kindness, good will, or respect is possible in a world where each of us is surrounded by moochers and predators? What measure of kindness, good will, or respect is possible under a moral code that encourages, as an ideal, that each of us to become a moocher or a predator?

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From The Onion:

“Do you know how humiliating it is to try and derail someone’s comment only to have them finish it in front of the entire room? You’ve been talking for three seconds, for Christ’s sake! It’s almost enough to make a guy feel like what he has to say isn’t way more important than whatever she was already saying.”

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From Infidel753:

The biggest news from yesterday’s Democratic primaries was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘s surprise victory over establishment heavyweight Joe Crowley in NY-14. A socialist who refused corporate donations and whose platform is uncompromisingly progressive, Ocasio-Cortez won by a 15-point margin despite being out-fundraised more than ten-to-one. This mostly reflects the fact that she was a much better fit for the district, which is urban and heavily Latino. Its voters have spoken, and spoken clearly.

This creates a test for the party establishment. They need to make it clear that they will support the candidate the primary voters chose. That might seem like a forgone conclusion, but remember that the DCCC, at least initially, failed to extend support to Kara Eastman, another progressive candidate who defeated the establishment’s choice in NE-02 last month. We can’t afford to have anyone playing those kinds of games when their preferred candidate doesn’t get nominated.

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From The Journal of Improbable Research:

Developing successful products aimed at dogs might not always be as straightforward as it may seem :

“Because dogs cannot speak, traditional behavioral methods may be inadequate to reveal what dogs like or dislike.”

But, according to the website of Dog Star Technologies LLC, newly developed methods involving fMRI scanning (combined with machine-learning algorithms) might be able to provide neuromarketing insights for dogs’ true preferences.

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Jeremy Finley is the author of fictional work The Darkest Time of Night

From Jeremy Finley at Whatever:

It came, truly, from fake news.

When I set out to write the fictional story of the disappearance of a U.S. Senator’s grandson, and how it’s linked to unexplained vanishings across the globe, I knew I wanted the central conflict to be a clash of deep-rooted reality and the supernatural.

What I didn’t realize, though, was how a constant strain in my professional life as a reporter inadvertently slipped into the part of my brain that writes fiction.

Against all intentions, my speculative thriller was born from the very controversy over the catchphrase I have come to despise.

That realization felt like a sucker punch. The term “fake news” is the equivalent of nails on the chalkboard for the embattled journalism industry.

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From David Robertson at The Moderate Voice:

The collective wailing and gnashing of teeth that you hear is coming from Democrats who want SCOTUS justices to legislate from the judicial bench.

From Politico:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld President Donald Trump’s travel ban, a major victory in the administration’s quest to restrict the flow of immigrants and visitors into the United States. . . The latest version of the ban levels a range of travel restrictions against five majority-Muslim countries — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen — as well as North Korea and Venezuela. Chad, another majority-Muslim nation, was removed from the list in April.

There are at least 50 Muslim nations in the world. The travel ban affects only 5 Muslim nations. If President Trump were really anti-Muslim, then the ban would affect all Muslim nations.

“The Proclamation is expressly premised on legitimate purposes: preventing entry of nationals who cannot be adequately vetted and inducing other nations to improve their practices,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. “The text says nothing about religion.”

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From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is a psychopath. Duterte’s approach to drug abuse and trafficking brought the praise of American sociopath Donald Trump, but most governments rightly condemned him for murdering addicts and traffickers alike. Duterte sees himself as a Filipino version of President Trump. Trump admires thugs, autocrats, and dictators, and I suspect if it weren’t for the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law, the president would likely behave as Duterte does. Imagine how Trump would resolve the immigration problem if he were unencumbered by law and public opinion.

Last Friday, Duterte riled up Catholics and Evangelicals in a televised speech shown on CBS News when he said:

Who is this stupid God? This son of a bitch is then really stupid. How can you rationalize a God? Do you believe?

[Duterte lamented that Adam and Eve’s sin in Christian theology resulted in all the faithful falling from divine grace.] You were not involved but now you’re stained with an original sins [sic] … What kind of a religion is that? That’s what I can’t accept, very stupid proposition.

Perhaps Duterte knows the Christian God better than offended Christians think he does.

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From Cato’s Julian Sanchez:
 

An unarticulated subtext: there aren’t enough sincere Trump believers who are smart or competent enough to staff a functioning government. They need a lot of cynical careerist grifters to keep the train chugging. Shaming tactics are ultimately targeting those people. https://t.co/0yhXcf15vV

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 26, 2018