Month: September 2017

 
From Evan Sarzin at The Moderate Voice:

One negotiation theory holds that your opponent will give in if you’re unpredictable, maybe really unhinged. Take North Korea, for example. Kim Jung-Un gets people thinking that he’s a rabid dog who’s broken into his master’s cocaine stash. He may say he’d drop a nuclear bomb on the US even though he knows that we’d turn the Hermit Kingdom into a radioactive sinkhole. That’s why he hasn’t done it and probably never will. The Crazy Card works only when the other guy believes it, doesn’t know when it will happen and has a lot more to lose. Still, the lunatic might extort some lagniappe, like reduced sanctions because, well, you never know.

A career spent playing the Crazy Card against banks, bankruptcy trustees and trade creditors may convince a person – maybe a real estate developer-that outrageous behavior and the threat of self-destruction will always scare his enemies into submission. When it comes to government work, though, that particular ploy isn’t transferable.

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From T. Paine at Saving Common Sense:

Long before President Obama, specifically via his Department of Homeland Security, approved the unconstitutional directive to prevent the deportation of the children of illegal immigrants, he correctly stated no less than 22 separate times that he did not have the constitutional authority to overturn, amend, or violate existing immigration law that was duly passed. Regarding a theoretical executive branch mandate granting amnesty to illegal immigrants, President Obama specifically stated that,

“… for me to – simply through Executive Order – ignore those Congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President.”

And yet, President Obama proceeded with his un-constitutional DACA directive anyway.

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From The Onion:

“We’re never going to get anywhere in this country if you lunatics keep foaming at the mouth about some one-sided fantasyland,” said Levin, 32, who despite characterizing those who do not stand precisely equidistant between two ideological extremes as “raving fanatics” and repeatedly interrupting people before they can fully explain their “nutjob” beliefs, reportedly seems to think he is, in fact, much more civil.

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Wondering why a few conservative friends are less than impressed.

• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post renews vows of love for Free Speech TV at http://www.freespeech.org/.
   
• Infidel753 brings us a NASA produced video with the story of Cassini and the mission finale, crashing into Saturn. Spectacular imagery.
   
• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit translates the convoluted tale told by the Secretary of the Treasury about the trip he made with his wife to the heart of the solar eclipse in order not to watch it. Although they saw it kind of by accident, out of politeness to the local rubes.
   
• Good News. John McCain criticizes fellow Republicans for denying basic climate science. Green Eagle points out the bad news. John McCain has no idea of their motives. Really? It’s not obvious?
   
• @bjork55 at Bjork Report reports on the continuous emotional binge in which our President engages about Comey and the hunting witches.
   
• nojo, at Stinque, has figured out why Facebook is withholding information on illegal Russian political advertising for the Trump campaign: They can.
   
• At The Onion, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly is dealing with exhaustion from the overwhelming job of keeping our President close to a sense of sane maturity.
   
• The White House wants ESPN to fire Jemele Hill for calling out our President as a white supremacist. North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz is skeptical. As he says with a bit of sarcasm, nothing says “we’re not white supremacists,” like a bunch of white people publicly bullying a woman of color. If racism is nothing more than a rhetorical bludgeon, then insulting our president is bad. If it is a fact-based charge that can be demonstrated or falsified, we should look to evidence. Pastor Pavlovitz considers publicly available evidence.
   
• Andy Borowitz presents a compelling but unusual case proving Donald Trump is not a white supremacist.
   
• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger puts into quick graphic form just who will benefit from President Trump’s proposed tax cut. Turns out that 2/3 of the benefit will flow as a windfall to … Holy Cow!
   
• Yellow Dog at Blue in the Bluegrass presents a very quick, pithy, compelling case against Republican economic policy.
   
• Iron Knee at Political Irony seems to feel that the most rabidly anti-immigrant conservatives have trouble with personal responsibility.
   
• M. Bouffant at Web of Evil looks into competing theories on why Steve Bannon appears on camera in nationally broadcast interviews wearing multiple shirts at the same time. I kind of like the conspiracy one: television technicians tried to change the colors of Bannon, and (I suppose) all his shirts, so they would clash.
   
• Vixen Strangely, at Strangely Blogged, watched the 60 Minutes interview with Steve Bannon and was impressed enough with his appearance to seemingly suggest he audition for a remake of a television series from the 1990’s.
   
• I love the rants of Max’s Dad. This time he goes all Popeil, slicing and dicing white supremacists, beginning with Steve Bannon.
   
• The Moderate Voice relays the news: London seems to have been targeted by a failed terrorist device which subjected 22 people to mostly minor injuries. Other countries expressed support and solidarity. My President offered a rhetorical attack on England. Well, of course.
   
• Mexico has offered help and prayers to Texas before retreating to their own national damage. But as Irma follows up, with more potential trouble forming in the Atlantic, Neil Bamforth at MadMikesAmerica reports that Northern England is sending boatloads of sarcastic understatement. Nice. Could that be a reaction by citizens against our wayward president?
   
• John Scalzi at Whatever adopts the role of internet dad in a hilarious exchange with his temp-adopted writer sons. Okay, “hilarious” is editorial opinion, not solid fact.
   
• The Journal of Improbable Research discovers a study on the effect of explosion-puffed coffee on fruit flies.
   
• This week’s note in Trumpian ‘Alternative Facts’ comes from the Atlantic Magazine, with a detailed examination of President Trump’s Commission on Election Integrity. Seems the premise of the panel is firmly contradicted by the evidence presented. Turns out it really is all about voter suppression.
   

 
From tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors:

I guess that Marriott didn’t finish reading those articles about the Cajun Navy rescuing people:

HIGH AND DRY Tourists on hurricane-hit Caribbean isle of St Thomas left ‘stranded’ when Marriott rescue ship refused to let non-guests board despite having ‘200 spare seats’

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From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

One common refrain often heard in some corners of the Evangelical world goes something like this: Praise God, I have NEVER changed my beliefs. I am seventy years old and I still have the exact same beliefs I had at age twenty — fifty years ago. There is this idea floating on the backwaters of Evangelicalism that posits that change is bad, or even sinful. Pastors and congregants pride themselves in having held the one true faith their entire life, that their Christology, soteriology, ecclesiology, eschatology, rheumatology, and hamartiology is the same yesterday, today, and forever. These theological purists will also say that their behavior hasn’t changed either. The sins they were against in the 1970s are the same sins they oppose today. These “just like a tree planted by the waters, I shall not be moved” Christians believe that they love what God loves and hate what God hates; that their interpretations of the sixty-six books of the inspired, inerrant, infallible Christian Bible align closely with God’s mind; that thanks to the Holy Spirit living inside of them as their teacher and guide, they are spiritually mature people who feast on the meat of the Word of God, not the pablum most Christians eat. (1 Corinthians 3:1-3 and Hebrews 5:11-13)

In most spheres of life, learning new things and discarding old beliefs, practices, and ideas is desired and expected. Not in Evangelicalism.

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From Jonathan Bernstein:

Bernie Sanders introduced the latest version of his single-payer health care plan Wednesday, with few details and only vague ideas about financing it. Jonathan Chait, in an excellent column, argues that this means single-payer is “zero percent closer” to passing, given that many Democrats have liked the idea for years but they’ve never been able to solve the policy and political problems involved in transitioning to it.

Chait has a lot of smart things to say about Sanders’s weaknesses as a policy-maker. But “zero percent” isn’t quite correct, and in fact this episode is an interesting window into how U.S. political parties work and why they are so important right now.

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