More Nancy McClean

Nancy McClean in Santa Fe - March 2018

Holy Fuck

"...afraid of an alert informed activated majority..."

I don't know how to embed this, so just go to Bob Cesca's Patreon page and listen - or download.

Do it. This is more important than most anything else you'll do for a long long time.

Interviews From Earth One

Buy this book right fucking now:

New Product

A gaming chair - available at fine retail outlets everywhere from $129.99.

And for whatever it's worth now, here's Dennis Miller being prophetic, from a bit way back in the 90s - when he was still pretty funny, having not yet turned into the whiny-butt pussy "conservative" he is now. Bless his heart.

Today's Tweet

I was unaware of "Shared Omnipotence".  The intertoobz is awesome.

This is a classic narcissistic
CULT LEADER move called
Shared Omnipotence which says
“if I go down we all go down, everything is destroyed”@duty2warn @DMRDynamics @Lawrence @RonaldKlain @JRubinBlogger @StevenBeschloss @HoarseWisperer https://t.co/flRV4AMAPQ

— Dr. No 🧠 (@SethN12) August 29, 2018

Today's Birthday

August 29, 1924 Dinah Washington, hall of fame blues and jazz singer, was born. Three of her recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame as having “qualitative or historical significance.” pic.twitter.com/YbTkCQ7Ww8

— Merrell R. Bennekin (@MerrellBennekin) August 29, 2018

Dinah Washington:

I Choose To Be Encouraged

From Pew Research, on July's primaries:

Still waiting on the numbers from last night.

Today's Bluff-N-Bluster

Because he's a small man, 45* behaves like a small man.

Shane Harris & Josh Dawsey, WaPo:

The White House reaffirmed Tuesday that former CIA director John Brennan has been stripped of his security clearance, after Brennan said earlier he has yet to receive formal notice about the matter.

“The President’s order went into effect immediately, and Mr. Brennan no longer has access to classified information,” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said.

Earlier this month, President Trump announced in a statement read by his press secretary that he had revoked Brennan’s clearance, citing Brennan’s criticism of the administration and alleging that he had abused his position.

Paperwork to formally revoke the clearance has been “delayed,” a senior White House official said, without offering any explanation.

- and -

The White House was prompted to clarify the status of Brennan’s clearance after he appeared on television earlier in the day and said he was still unclear about his status. As a former CIA director, Brennan was allowed to keep a clearance in case current agency leaders want to consult him on classified matters or seek his advice.

“The only thing I’ve heard about my security clearance from the government is when [White House press secretary] Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at the podium that my clearance had been stripped,” Brennan said on MSNBC, where he is a national security analyst. “I’ve not been contacted by anybody at all either before or since then. So whether or not my clearance has been stripped, I’m still uncertain about.”

One of the great things about "the deep state" is that there are people who know how to make the thing work the way it should - ie: doing the right thing - even tho' there are more than a few who're willing to do the wrong thing in service to power for the sake of power (ie: The Daddy State).

I've done more than my share of government bashing (sometimes warranted and sometimes not). How are we supposed to know what's going on when a part of the government's job is to make sure nobody knows what's actually going on? (Again - sometimes warranted and sometimes not).

Anyway, it's kinda interesting that a fair percentage of Berkenstock-Americans are adamantly defending the CIA and the FBI these days.

But this little dustup, while potentially very problematic, appears to be more of the same old bullshit TV drama that 45* pimps every fucking day.

And that right there is a big part of the dilemma that the Press Poodles have to contend with. They can't ignore Cult45, even tho' that's prob'ly what needs to happen.

A large and growing majority will be very glad to see these clowns dumped in the woods wearing nothing but their undies and thick layers of tar and feathers.

Let's Review

Examine almost any "argument" from almost any Republican, and there's a better than even chance you're going to find a logical fallacy.

Listen to 45* - notice how often he prefaces the stoopid shit that falls out of his face with "Many people are saying".

Or when practically any given "conservative" tries to make his case by starting with "the American people want / believe / are with me...".

The Bandwagon Fallacy (aka: Appeal To Popularity) is what an awful lot of these clowns think of as a bedrock principle. Their position is the right one because everybody says so.

(Try to remember these 2 things. 1: The Ford Pinto was once the most popular car in America. And 2: Those nice fat sales numbers didn't keep the gas tanks from exploding)

Here's the one our "Christian" friends love to use:

...which ties in nicely with:

...and way too often leads right into:

...or:

A sub-heading under Tu Quoque is False Equivalence (aka: What-About-ism)

One of the big ones is:

The Anecdotal Fallacy is enshrined forever in The Myth Of The Welfare Queen. The new iteration shows up all the time now in the crap about "Illegal Immigrants Are Murdering White Girls".

It goes on and on and on.

Get 'em all: Your Logical Fallacy Is

Or: Information Is Beautiful

Driftglass Reminds

"Everybody in the whole world is fucked up except you and me - and I'm beginning to wonder about you."

Referencing The Power Of Nightmares is always a treat.

Driftglass:

Or, as one low-born, bootless blabbermouth once said about Mr. Greenwald's Purity Cult back when daring to say such things in public would get your Liberal card revoked and your readership cut by 1/3...

...once purity itself becomes all you care about -- once  it becomes a distillery race to see who can get to 100% -- the chicken farmers are never far behind:

The main Islamist group in Algeria, the GIA, ended up being led by a Mr. Zouabri, a chicken farmer, who killed everyone who disagreed with him. He issued a final communiqué, declaring that the whole of Algerian society should be killed, with the exception of his tiny remaining band of Islamists. They were the only ones who understood the truth.

And from my perspective, do you know what the saddest sentence in the entire New Yorker article is?

It's this:

 Leading American progressives -- speaking off the record, and apologizing for what they describe as cowardice -- call Greenwald a bully and a troll.

So everybody knew, but nobody said anything, because all the clever dogs on the inside decided to play it safe and lay back in the cut rather than risk the wrath of Spleenwald Horde.

Welly, well, well, well.

Sure doesn't sound much like "leading", especially to someone like me who was out there taking it in the teeth every day for saying true, important and unpopular things about Mr. Greenwald while my so-called allies chose to hide in the hedges and haystacks.

Here's the rest of the paragraph:

One told me that “he makes everything war.” The spouse of one of Greenwald’s friends visualizes him as the angry emoji. On Twitter, he has little use for agree-to-disagree courtesies, or humor: he presses on. More than one tweet has started with “No, you idiot.” He’ll tweet “Go fuck yourself” to a user with twenty or so followers. A few years ago, Greenwald had a Twitter disagreement with Imani Gandy, a legal journalist, who tweets as @AngryBlackLady; another Twitter user, in support of Greenwald, proposed to Gandy that “Obama could rape a nun live on NBC and you’d say we weren’t seeing what we were seeing.” Greenwald replied, “No -- she’d say it was justified & noble -- that he only did it to teach us about the evils of rape.”

Today's Pix

A Parody

Radiohead's Creep, ala 45*:

Silent Sam

I looked it up. Julian Carr's dedication speech is a lulu, and all I need (for now - until some better argument comes along) to be sure that the idea behind these Giant Participation Trophies was the desire to reinforce White Supremacy, hiding it behind the lofty-sounding idea of states' rights - which is really just denying the need for balance between the power  of the states and the power of the federal government.

Historian and educator Hilary Green, PhD - Univ of Alabama - put up a complete transcript:

(excerpt)

And I dare to affirm this day, that if every State of the South had done what North Carolina did without a murmer [sic], always faithful to its duty whatever the groans of the victims, there never would have been an Appomatox[sic]; Grant would have followed Meade and Pope; Burnside, Hooker, McDowell and McClellan, and the political geography of America would have been re-written.

It is not for us to question the decrees of Providence. Let us be grateful that our struggle, keeping alive the grand principle of local self-government and State sovereignty has thus far held the American people from that consolidated despotism whose name, whether Republic or Empire, is of but little importance as compared with its rule.

This beautiful memorial is unique in one aspect. I have participated at the unveiling of several Confederate monuments, and have intimate knowledge of a great many more, but this is the first and only one in which the living survivors have been distinctly mentioned and remembered, and in the distinguished presence I desire to thank that Daughters of the Confederacy, in the name of the living Confederate students, for their beautiful and timely thoughtfulness.

The duty due to our dear Southland, and the conspicuous service rendered, did not end at Appomatox[sic]. The four years immediately following the four years of bloody carnage, brought their responsibilities hardly of less consequence than those for which the South laid upon the altar of her country 74,524 of her brave and loyal sons dead from disease, a grand total of 133,821.

It is true that the snows of winter which never melt, crown our temples, and we realize that we are living in the twilight zone; that it requires no unusual strain to hear the sounds of the tides as they roll and break upon the other shore, “The watch-dog’s bark his deep bay mouth welcome as we draw near home”, breaks upon our ears—makes it doubly sweet to know that we have been remembered in the erection of this beautiful memorial. The present generation, I am persuaded, scarcely takes note of what the Confederate soldier meant to the welfare of the Anglo Saxon race during the four years immediately succeeding the war, when the facts are, that their courage and steadfastness saved the very life of the Anglo Saxon race in the South – When “the bottom rail was on top” all over the Southern states, and to-day, as a consequence the purest strain of the Anglo Saxon is to be found in the 13 Southern States – Praise God.

I trust I may be pardoned for one allusion, howbeit it is rather personal. One hundred yards from where we stand, less than ninety days perhaps after my return from Appomattox, I horse-whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds, because upon the streets of this quiet village she had publicly insulted and maligned a Southern lady, and then rushed for protection to these University buildings where was stationed a garrison of 100 Federal soldiers. I performed the pleasing duty in the immediate presence of the entire garrison, and for thirty nights afterwards slept with a double-barrel shot gun under my head.

With pardonable pride I look upon the grand record of my Alma Mater, near whose confines I first beheld the light; in whose classic halls three of my sons have graduated and a fourth is now a student, and where my brother and three of his sons also matriculated. The glorious record of this seat of learning is embalmed in affections of our family.

A brave soldier, a devoted son of the South, an honor graduate of this grand old University, led the brave phalanxes of the South fartherest [sic] to the front, up the bloody, slippery heights at Gettysburg, along the crest where death in full panoply with exultant glee held high carnival – I bow my head while I mention the name of the chivalrous J. Johnson Pettigrew – the Marshall Ney of Lee’s Army.

Permit me to refer at this point to a pleasing incident in which that distinguished son of the South, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, had the leading part. A year or two ago diplomas were given by our University to all the students who had interrupted their studies to enter the military service of the Confederacy. Mr. Wilson, then President of Princeton University delivered these diplomas. One man only of the Class [handwritten – that Matriculated in 1862] wearing the Confederate uniform, came forward to receive that highly prized token. It was the humble individual who now addresses you. At the dinner, later in the day, Professor Wilson greeted me with the remark that in many years nothing had so much touched and warmed his heart as the sight of that Confederate uniform.

Today's Tweet

There simply is no depth of depravity or petty vindictiveness that 45* can't squat low enough to get under.

Camera shot facing south over the White House - you can see the flag at the WH at full staff while the flags surrounding the Washington Monument are lowered pic.twitter.com/xT2KdPLgpB

— Karen Travers (@karentravers) August 27, 2018

For my own bad self, McCain was not the star-spangled hero he's being made out to be.

The first 30 years of his life were way too typical of how an excessively privileged punk behaves.

And the last 30 weren't great either - The Keating Five, Iraq, Sarah Palin - these are not good indications of consistently sound judgement.

But he went a pretty good distance towards redemption on more than a few occasions too. He reflected on some of his positions, and made public statements about being wrong. And I'll always remember him standing up to a decidedly stoopid woman at a campaign event in 2008, telling her straight out that Obama's a decent guy - an American he happens to disagree with.

So John McCain did some good things, and in the end, we all knew he had feet of clay - just like the rest of us.

He doesn't deserve a sainthood, but he earned a damn sight better than what he's getting from Cult45.

How Stuff Works

Just stir the shit. Get people lathered up and tell them their problems are all because of "those other people".

Yes, He Did

45* needs all the humanizing he can get - but he just can't stop stepping on his own dick.

Slate:

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump visited children at a hospital in Columbus, Ohio as part of an effort to call attention to the way the opioid crisis affects infants. Plus, it’s always a good idea to have a photo-op with kids at the end of a no good, very bad week. For politicians it’s “a time-honored tradition,” writes Esquire, “sitting in tiny desks alongside adorable kids in hope that the guileless innocence on the little faces surrounding them will take some of the heat off of their craven politicking.”

Yet things didn’t go so well for Trump this time. The president and his wife joined the children in an arts-and-crafts activity that involved coloring in the American flag. But it seems Trump didn’t quite color his flag right. A photo posted on Twitter seems to show that the president colored in a blue stripe on the U.S. flag.

I think it's possible one of the kids tried to tell him he did it wrong(?)

Today's Tweet

Sometimes, social media works the way society in general should work - it knocks down people's shittiness a peg or two.

ALL HANDS ON DECK.

"I just want to let you know what a nigger you are." -Jeffrey Whitman, owner of Uriahs Heating, Cooling, & Refrigeration in Columbus, OH

Jeffrey Whitman, in his own company vehicle, chased a Black man all the way to his home to repeatedly call him a nigger. pic.twitter.com/BMh3bHHBCS

— Shaun King (@shaunking) July 25, 2018

Mr Whitman is complaining that the horribleness of people sharing the video online has "ruined" his life".

No, dummy - what ruined your life was that you willfully forgot (ie: stoopidly ignored) what your grandma always told you: "Don't do anything that you wouldn't wanna see in the newspapers tomorrow".

BTW - this idiot had no qualms about being recorded because he's become convinced that everybody thinks like he thinks, and so nobody will mind that he behaves like a racist asshole.

Gee, I wonder what gave him that idea.

Kara Swisher

On Real Time with Bill Maher:

"...(social media) wasn't hacked by the Russians. They just walked right in and used them exactly the way they were intended to be used."

"...move fast and break things...well you've broken a lot of things, now what're you going to fix?"

I think I've got me a new crush.

Deep Tho't

A woman on the bus asked me, "What is Mansplaining?"

This could be a trap - we've been staring at each other for a good 3 minutes in total silence, and I can feel myself starting to sweat.

Today's Editorial

The proper ladies of the Mormon Church wish to point out that their church-anointed senator done shit the bed.

From The Salt Lake Tribune, Saturday:

By Mormon Women for Ethical Government

Dear Senator Hatch,

As an organization of over 6,000 women, many of whom are your constituents, share your faith, and have worked closely with you and your staff, we are dismayed at your continued defense of things that are fundamentally indefensible. Knowing that you aspire to be a man of honor, we are puzzled by your frequent wresting of truth and logic as you excuse our current administration.

You defended President Trump when he retweeted anti-Muslim videos. You minimized evidence that Donald Trump Jr. had met with a representative of the Russian government about information that could influence the election, saying it wasn’t “relevant.” You defended the president’s endorsement of Alabama Senate candidate, Roy Moore. You defended President Trump again, even after initially denouncing his remarks that “both sides” were to blame in the deadly alt-right rally in Charlottesville last August, when in a later interview with KUTV you called the president a “good man” and placed the blame on his detractors and the media who “distort” what he says.

We do acknowledge and appreciate the few times that you have called the president out. We applaud your courage when, for example, you disagreed with his criticism of Germany earlier this summer and when he recently called former White House Staffer, Omarosa Manigault Newman a “dog.” But again on Wednesday, in an interview with The New York Times, you minimized the testimony by Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, given under oath, that he had been directed by President Trump to break the law. And then, using what can only be characterized as fuzzy and twisted logic, you attempted to justify Mr. Trump’s alleged deplorable and criminal behavior by saying: “I think most people in this country realize that Donald Trump comes from a different world. He comes from New York City, he comes from a slam-bang, difficult world. It is amazing he is as good as he is.”

What?

So we are to excuse Donald Trump — the president of the United States, the holder of the highest office in the land — from possible High Crimes and Misdemeanors because ... he is from New York City? And, therefore, presumably, just can’t help himself? That is an insult to all New Yorkers. (And we won’t even get into the fact that Trump hardly grew up in the slums and had one of the most privileged of all upbringings.)

The truth is, some of our finest are from New York City — including Lady Liberty herself (an immigrant, actually — from France — but a New Yorker now for 132 years) whose uplifted torch still stands as a beacon of hope and freedom and as a call to the world to “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” It’s a wholly preposterous argument that we should cut our president some slack because he’s from NYC, or anywhere else for that matter.

Would you have excused Bill Clinton’s misconduct in the White House because he was from Arkansas? (And we won’t take this occasion to explore the hypocrisy of excusing the behavior of an individual based on where he is from when that same individual is bent on incarcerating or banning from entry into our country people who come from far more treacherous and deadly places.)

Sen. Hatch, our common faith teaches us that truth matters, that decency, honor, integrity and virtue matter. One of the basic tenets of our religion states that “we believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men.” As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we try in all we do to emulate our Savior. We all fall short, of course, but our heart’s purest desire is to follow Him, to act as He acted, to live by His teachings.

Christ, our gentle master, taught us to love one another, to care for the poor and despised among us, to tell the truth, to be meek, to hunger and thirst after righteousness, to be pure in heart, to be peacemakers, to reach out beyond socio-political divisions to embrace all our sisters and brothers, and to come unto Him. These are our most deeply-held beliefs and aspirations, and we know that they are yours, too. Please do not defend behavior that flouts these values. You can finish your long career as a servant of the people by standing strong for truth, honor, and decency. We ask you to do so.

Sincerely,

Mormon Women for Ethical Government

Sharlee Mullins Glenn, Diana Bate Hardy, Melissa Dalton-Bradford, Megan Seawright and Lisa Rampton Halverson are part of the leadership team of the nonpartisan, grassroots organization, Mormon Women for Ethical Government. Mormon Women for Ethical Government is not affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We do, however, honor and sustain the Church’s leaders and doctrines.

Let's Be Clear

Poppy Bush bailed on the NRA when they put up the ads about "jack-booted thugs of the federal government". And the Republican base turned against him when he made pragmatic decisions on things like women's rights and tax policy.

Bush43 screwed the pooch on Iraq, and again on Katrina. (There's a strong probability that his action/inaction on both were in keeping with the Repub policies, BTW) And then, even though he pushed thru 2 ginormous tax cuts, and he set up a very effective way to syphon tax dollars into the pockets of Big Pharma (again in accordance with "conservative" policies), the GOP has since snubbed that guy so hard, they don't even invite him to their conventions.

Barbara Bush died and 45* was asked to stay away.

Wanna look into the GOP's warm fuzzy feeling towards Mitt Romney?

And now another very prominent figure in Republican politics has died, and the McCain family has told 45* they don't want him at the funeral.

We know the Dems have their own troubles, but they're not eating their own like the Repubs are doing - so how do we get "both sides are the same - they're all alike" out of this one?

But then - along comes the news that the DNC has changed its rules regarding the Super Delegates thing.

NBC News:

The reform package, pushed by DNC Chairman Tom Perez and allies of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, among others, passed overwhelmingly by voice vote at the DNC’s summer meeting here — two years after the process started.

Perez and others hailed the outcome as momentous, saying the reforms will help welcome new people into the party by reassuring them that their vote will never be overruled by the party leaders who can vote for whomever they want for the presidential nomination.

“Today is a historic day for our party,” Perez said. “We passed major reforms that will not only put our next presidential nominee in the strongest position possible, but will help us elect Democrats up and down the ballot, across the country.”

The change will prohibit superdelegates from voting for president at the party’s 2020 convention, unless the outcome is already assured or it deadlocks, which hasn’t happened in decades. The vast majority of superdelegates sided with Hillary Clinton over Sanders in their primary fight two years ago.

- and -

The new rules will also make caucuses more accessible by requiring state parties to accept absentee votes, addressing concerns that the caucuses are less democratic than primaries because they require people to physically attend the events in order to participate in the presidential nominating process in their state.

A number of state parties are already considering replacing their caucuses with primaries, with some state party chairs here predicting the 2020 nominating contest will feature many fewer caucuses than in 2016.

It's being touted as a big deal and a vast improvement, but we just have to wait and see what actually happens. At this point, we have only the speculation of good things to come.

One annoying little voice in my head says, "Congratulations, Dems - you're now one step closer to the kind of mob rule we're seeing on the Repub side".

Have Some Pie

Jonathan Pie:

Friday Tunes

Reina del Cid

The Fall
It's Gonna Hurt
Stay Away From Me
Syrup and Honey
Medium
Death Cap

Brain Science

Raw Story - Bobby Azarian:

As a journalist and a cognitive scientist, I often write about the psychology underlying the seemingly-nonsensical and unwavering support for President Donald Trump, and a very common response in the comments section goes something like, “It’s not that complicated. They are racists, plain and simple.”

While that may be true for a portion of Trump supporters (and perhaps Trump himself), is it really simple? What do we mean exactly when we say someone is racist? An even better question—what are the neural and psychological characteristics of a racist mind? By analyzing the pathways in the brain that underlie racist thought and behavior, we can better understand how this nasty bias is created, and potentially, how to mitigate it.

First of all, how do we know that racial biases actually exist? While some may claim that they have no biases, a clever psychological experiment provides objective evidence supporting the notion that the vast majority of us do. In the implicit bias task, participants are shown words on a computer screen like “happy” and “fear,” which they must categorize as positive or negative. What results have consistently shown is that if a black face is quickly flashed before the words, individuals will be faster to correctly categorize negative words, while the same people will be quicker to correctly categorize positive words when they follow white faces. These troubling findings suggest that over 75 percent of Whites and Asians have an implicit racial bias, which affects how they process information and perceive the social world around them.

However, this bias is subconscious and implicit. Whether or not it leads to overtly racist attitudes and behavior depends on an interplay between different brain areas—specifically those that create feelings of fear and promote tribalism, and those that help us regulate and suppress those bad instincts.
- and -

The problem is, not everyone has a healthy functioning prefrontal cortex, and these people are the ones whose biases control them. They cannot reason those fearful surges away because they lack the cognitive mechanisms that normally allow people to do so.

So yeah - they are the whiny-butt pussies I've been trying to ya they are. And it seems part of the cause for it is that they're a might brain-damaged as well.

I think one conclusion that isn't changed by this newer information is that while most rubes may have an organic predisposition for bias - and an inadequately developed mechanism for coping with it - a lot of them are racist assholes because they choose to be racist assholes.

Today's Tweet

It should seem weird that this didn't get more coverage. The fact that it didn't makes me worry even more about "normalization".

There's no more dog-whistling, folks. He's now pushing outright white supremacist propaganda. https://t.co/LGH4iWXyGh

— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) August 23, 2018