Month: February 2020

 

From The Roanoke Times:

Why would a legislator file a bill to do something he doesn’t want done?

With all of the talk about taking down statues, Walker decided to file his bill about Byrd. He acknowledged it was more tit-for-tat rather than about a statue memorializing Byrd, who is well-known for his painful role in Virginia’s history.

Byrd is considered the architect of Massive Resistance, a set of policies that aggressively pushed back against racial integration of public schools following the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.

“If we’re going to do this, then I’m going to request to remove the Harry Byrd statue,” Walker said. “He was a Democrat and advocated for Massive Resistance.”

Quite a few Democrats said they looked forward to voting for Walker’s bill.

“I’d love to vote for the bill,” said Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax.

Walker didn’t want the Byrd statue taken down, so he requested that it no longer be considered by the legislature.

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From Mark Bear in MadMikesAmerica:

U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy wants me, his constituent, to know that Nancy Pelosi is complaining about the Senate trial while also saying she and the House did not do their work to impeach Trump.

Senator, I honestly do not know whether you think people such as myself are ignorant, or simply sheep who are willing to buy your BS spin. Every person in this nation KNOWS that every single impeachment trial in the history of our Union had witnesses and testimony. However, this one, due to you and your Republican colleagues providing cover for Trump, did not.

Also, every person who took at least one course on Civics—apparently one more than yourself—knows that the Congressional hearing is likened to a Grand Jury. That is, Congress merely finds probable cause, and it is the Senate who has the trial. And let’s not forget: Nearly 76% of AMERICANS wanted to hear from witnesses, but you and your fellow colleagues, said “No.”

Hey, your party went as far as admitting Trump did the deed but claimed his actions are not impeachable since he, Trump, believes it in the national interest that he gets re-elected. Good luck stopping him from a third term. Because you guys just laid the foundation to keep him permanently, and you do not seem to care one bit. Why?

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From PZ Myers:

I am dismayed at this emerging story about fraud in science. It stars Jonathan Pruitt, a professor at McMaster University who studies variation in individual behavior and how it affects group behavior. I’d heard of him since he’s doing a lot of work in social spiders.

He built up several productive collaborations, in particular with Kate Laskowski at UC Davis, sharing data with her that she used in several publications. That’s where the story turns dark, because Laskowski later examined the data in more detail and found multiple examples of blocks of data having been duplicated, padding the data set with more replicates than were actually done. He’d actually passed her a poison pill that tainted all the work they’ve done together; her papers are no longer trustworthy, and she has retracted them.

Laskowski is being heroically restrained in her reaction to this betrayal — I’d probably be throwing things and saying lots of not-nice words. Pruitt also seems to be peculiarly blasé and detached from the problem, conceding that there are serious problems in the data set, but not offering any explanations about how this has happened (again, if some of my data were found to be bogus, I’d either be furious and trying to track down the source of the bad data, or, if I were guilty of doing the duplications, I guess I’d be trying hard to deflect.)

There’s a lot of discussion and dissection of this issue going on, and most of it seems to be rightly concerned with making sure Pruitt’s coauthors aren’t hit with serious splash damage. At some point, though, there has to be a reckoning, and the source of the contamination tainting so much work will have to be dealt with. So far, everyone seems to be strangely cautious and circumspect.

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• In MadMikesAmerica, Peni Delina Petard explains to insulted Trump supporters why calling them stupid avoids less flattering judgments.
   
• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger posts two sentences that prove impeachment was never about overturning the will of the people.
   
• Jon Perr at PERRspectives goes to alternate history as new President Barack Obama entices Israel to smear Mitt Romney with a phony investigation then obstructs congressional oversight.
   
• The great Nan Yielding takes the Trump claims of Presidential power and applies them to past presidents.
   
• In Scotties Toy Box, Scottie takes a look at the overarching Trump argument that the Senate is about to confirm, that the president can order his opponent arrested as long as he thinks it’s in the national interest. That principle lets one individual, by the end of this year, turn us into a banana republic. Turns out that person does not even have to be my president.
   
• Green Eagle notes one of the more scary things about Bolton revelations.
   
• Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged is less than impressed with the courage and reasoning of Senators Lamar Alexander and Lisa Murkowski as they figure out how they will refuse to allow witnesses and still call it a trial.
   
• Those interested in the abuse of presidential power, the national interest, and the future of democracy are not alone. Andy Borowitz reports that El Chapo has been following impeachment procedings and is outraged that his trial included witnesses.

Continue reading “Dumb Trumpsters? Impeach, Alternate World Obama, Power, Bolton, El Chapo”