Blowin' With The Wind

Samantha Bee

On becoming a "catastrophist" - there was never any likelihood that Obama was going to do the horrible things the wingnuts insisted he was going to do. He never said he was coming for anybody's guns, or that he was banning Christmas, or that he intended to destroy capitalism, or take over the healthcare industry or nationalize the car makers, or anything else. But that's what "conservatives" insisted was actually happening - they weren't just saying watch out for this or that - they said that's what Obama and the Dems were doing.

Obama never did it; Obama never said he'd like to do it if he could; and none of Obama's surrogates ever said or did any of that shit either.

But Glenn Beck sure as fuck said that's what Obama wanted to do. Glenn Beck said that's what Obama said he wanted to do.

And now we've got Glenn Beck retreating to the sheltering arms of False Equivalence.

Beck is saying Samantha Bee is doing the same thing he did, and for no better reasons than he had.  He's inviting the inference that Trump hasn't actually said he intends to "open up the liability laws" (eg), clearly implying that he'll go after people who criticize him.  Beck is ignoring the fact that one Trump surrogate has said Trump's detractors will "bow down before him", and that Kellyanne Conway has issued veiled threats of legal retaliation for opponents and press people who "should be careful what they say about Mr Trump".

The list of shit Trump has actually threatened us with is long and a matter of record.

So, yay Glenn Beck? Fuck that noise.

Yes - we have to get together to push back as hard as possible, but all is not forgiven or forgotten, Mr Beck.  You stood up and yelled "Fire" without cause and for no reason other than filling your bank accounts. Now that we have reason - and really good reason - you wanna make nice and start fresh? Fuck off, Uncle Fucker - your apology tour isn't even off the ground yet.

Fact Averse Knotheads

My morality starts with my commitment to care about what's true and what's not true.

Michael Shermer in American Scientific

Have you ever noticed that when you present people with facts that are contrary to their deepest held beliefs they always change their minds? Me neither. In fact, people seem to double down on their beliefs in the teeth of overwhelming evidence against them. The reason is related to the worldview perceived to be under threat by the conflicting data.

Creationists, for example, dispute the evidence for evolution in fossils and DNA because they are concerned about secular forces encroaching on religious faith. Anti-vaxxers distrust big pharma and think that money corrupts medicine, which leads them to believe that vaccines cause autism despite the inconvenient truth that the one and only study claiming such a link was retracted and its lead author accused of fraud. The 9/11 truthers focus on minutiae like the melting point of steel in the World Trade Center buildings that caused their collapse because they think the government lies and conducts “false flag” operations to create a New World Order. Climate deniers study tree rings, ice cores and the ppm of greenhouse gases because they are passionate about freedom, especially that of markets and industries to operate unencumbered by restrictive government regulations. Obama birthers desperately dissected the president's long-form birth certificate in search of fraud because they believe that the nation's first African-American president is a socialist bent on destroying the country.

In these examples, proponents' deepest held worldviews were perceived to be threatened by skeptics, making facts the enemy to be slayed. This power of belief over evidence is the result of two factors: cognitive dissonance and the backfire effect. In the classic 1956 book When Prophecy Fails, psychologist Leon Festinger and his co-authors described what happened to a UFO cult when the mother ship failed to arrive at the appointed time. Instead of admitting error, “members of the group sought frantically to convince the world of their beliefs,” and they made “a series of desperate attempts to erase their rankling dissonance by making prediction after prediction in the hope that one would come true.” Festinger called this cognitive dissonance, or the uncomfortable tension that comes from holding two conflicting thoughts simultaneously.

Two social psychologists, Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson (a former student of Festinger), in their 2007 book Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) document thousands of experiments demonstrating how people spin-doctor facts to fit preconceived beliefs to reduce dissonance. Their metaphor of the “pyramid of choice” places two individuals side by side at the apex of the pyramid and shows how quickly they diverge and end up at the bottom opposite corners of the base as they each stake out a position to defend.

In a series of experiments by Dartmouth College professor Brendan Nyhan and University of Exeter professor Jason Reifler, the researchers identify a related factor they call the backfire effect “in which corrections actually increase misperceptions among the group in question.” Why? “Because it threatens their worldview or self-concept.” For example, subjects were given fake newspaper articles that confirmed widespread misconceptions, such as that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. When subjects were then given a corrective article that WMD were never found, liberals who opposed the war accepted the new article and rejected the old, whereas conservatives who supported the war did the opposite ... and more: they reported being even more convinced there were WMD after the correction, arguing that this only proved that Saddam Hussein hid or destroyed them. In fact, Nyhan and Reifler note, among many conservatives “the belief that Iraq possessed WMD immediately before the U.S. invasion persisted long after the Bush administration itself concluded otherwise.”

If corrective facts only make matters worse, what can we do to convince people of the error of their beliefs? From my experience, 1. keep emotions out of the exchange, 2. discuss, don't attack (no ad hominem and no ad Hitlerum), 3. listen carefully and try to articulate the other position accurately, 4. show respect, 5. acknowledge that you understand why someone might hold that opinion, and 6. try to show how changing facts does not necessarily mean changing worldviews. These strategies may not always work to change people's minds, but now that the nation has just been put through a political fact-check wringer, they may help reduce unnecessary divisiveness.

And here's the formula again:

The probability for a TRUE argument goes up in the presence of confirming evidence and the absence of conflicting evidence.

The probability for a FALSE argument goes up in the absence of confirming evidence or the presence of conflicting evidence.

All that said, there's practically no point arguing anything with somebody who demonstrates he doesn't care about what's true or real or factual.

hat tip = Facebooker Gretchen Lynn Demarah

For The Solstice

I love Christmas, but y'know, not everybody's in the same place for this thing. So let's give a little shout out to the marginalized - people feeling a bit left out - the nutballs and weirdos amongst us. Cuz they deserve a little loving acknowledgement too.

Today's Clusterfuck

I really don't know that much about it, but hey, this is a new era - The Golden Age of The Dunderhead - so knowing nothing qualifies me to make all the decisions, right?

It looks to me like Trump intends to throw in with Putin and Assad, and just bomb the whole thing flat.  Of course, that's the kind of thing Trump loved to say during the Scampaign® with all that crap about what a lousy leader Obama is on this one - something Grampy McDumfuck and Huckleberry Butchmeup are flogging again - which leads me to believe he has absolutely no intention of following thru on it (Mr Unpredictable, remember?).

Here's the thing: You take a Rent-Seeker like Trump and put him in charge of the US military, and you get the ultimate REMF.  Add Trump's thin skin, short temper, a propensity for revenge while hiding behind bogus "Information Sources", and you get a guy who makes lotsa bad decisions, which makes for lotsa dead people.

It's nothing but a transaction to Trump - Cost/Benefit - he gets paid while you do the work. He collects the tribute while we pay for the funerals.

Because it bears repeating: This isn't politics. This is a fucking robbery.

Triggering

The abuser's technique of "Gaslighting" explained - Suzanna Weiss.

1. ‘I Never Said I’m a Perfect Person’

If anybody ever responds to your concerns about them by saying that they never claimed to be perfect or that nobody’s perfect, be very, very skeptical.

If “I’m not perfect” were a real defense against criticism, nobody would ever be justified in criticizing anyone’s behavior. But obviously, things don’t work that way. If they did, people could just avert jail time by pleading imperfection.

2. ‘This Is Nothing More Than a Distraction From the Important Issues We’re Facing Today’
These comments aim to convey to Trump’s critics that they’re blowing something out of proportion.

This type of gaslighting comes up a lot in conversations about social justice: “How could you talk about eating disorders when some people can’t even afford food?” “Who cares if queer people can get married when in some places, they’re killed?”

3. ‘This Was Locker Room Banter’
Dismissing something that hurt another person as a joke or otherwise not serious is textbook gaslighting.

4. ‘She’s Playing That Woman’s Card’

Accusing someone of playing a card, like the “woman card” or the “race card,” is also an example of gaslighting because it implies that someone’s trying to find a problem because the problem they’re seeing isn’t real.

5. ‘I Think It’s Pure Political Correctness’

When equality and justice become mere “political correctness” and political correctness is portrayed as a threat to free speech, every social movement becomes subject to attack.

Keith

"...when you see something stoopid, call someone stoopid."

After Electoral College fail it's up to us. Refuse to call him POTUS, refuse to forget Russia, refuse to "move on"pic.twitter.com/ZtC8olNAXk

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) December 20, 2016

It All Comes Back To You

The Whole Krugman

 

Paul Krugman - NYT

Many people are reacting to the rise of Trumpism and nativist movements in Europe by reading history — specifically, the history of the 1930s. And they are right to do so. It takes willful blindness not to see the parallels between the rise of fascism and our current political nightmare.

But the ’30s isn’t the only era with lessons to teach us. Lately I’ve been reading a lot about the ancient world. Initially, I have to admit, I was doing it for entertainment and as a refuge from news that gets worse with each passing day. But I couldn’t help noticing the contemporary resonances of some Roman history — specifically, the tale of how the Roman Republic fell.

Here’s what I learned: Republican institutions don’t protect against tyranny when powerful people start defying political norms. And tyranny, when it comes, can flourish even while maintaining a republican facade.

On the first point: Roman politics involved fierce competition among ambitious men. But for centuries that competition was constrained by some seemingly unbreakable rules. Here’s what Adrian Goldsworthy’s “In the Name of Rome” says: “However important it was for an individual to win fame and add to his and his family’s reputation, this should always be subordinated to the good of the Republic … no disappointed Roman politician sought the aid of a foreign power.”
America used to be like that, with prominent senators declaring that we must stop “partisan politics at the water’s edge.” But now we have a president-elect who openly asked Russia to help smear his opponent, and all indications are that the bulk of his party was and is just fine with that. (A new poll shows that Republican approval of Vladimir Putin has surged even though — or, more likely, precisely because — it has become clear that Russian intervention played an important role in the U.S. election.) Winning domestic political struggles is all that matters, the good of the republic be damned.

And what happens to the republic as a result? Famously, on paper the transformation of Rome from republic to empire never happened. Officially, imperial Rome was still ruled by a Senate that just happened to defer to the emperor, whose title originally just meant “commander,” on everything that mattered. We may not go down exactly the same route — although are we even sure of that? — but the process of destroying democratic substance while preserving forms is already underway.

 

Consider what just happened in North Carolina. The voters made a clear choice, electing a Democratic governor. The Republican legislature didn’t openly overturn the result — not this time, anyway — but it effectively stripped the governor’s office of power, ensuring that the will of the voters wouldn’t actually matter.

Combine this sort of thing with continuing efforts to disenfranchise or at least discourage voting by minority groups, and you have the potential making of a de facto one-party state: one that maintains the fiction of democracy, but has rigged the game so that the other side can never win.

Why is this happening? I’m not asking why white working-class voters support politicians whose policies will hurt them — I’ll be coming back to that issue in future columns. My question, instead, is why one party’s politicians and officials no longer seem to care about what we used to think were essential American values. And let’s be clear: This is a Republican story, not a case of “both sides do it.”

So what’s driving this story? I don’t think it’s truly ideological. Supposedly free-market politicians are already discovering that crony capitalism is fine as long as it involves the right cronies. It does have to do with class warfare — redistribution from the poor and the middle class to the wealthy is a consistent theme of all modern Republican policies. But what directly drives the attack on democracy, I’d argue, is simple careerism on the part of people who are apparatchiks within a system insulated from outside pressures by gerrymandered districts, unshakable partisan loyalty, and lots and lots of plutocratic financial support.
For such people, toeing the party line and defending the party’s rule are all that matters. And if they sometimes seem consumed with rage at anyone who challenges their actions, well, that’s how hacks always respond when called on their hackery.

One thing all of this makes clear is that the sickness of American politics didn’t begin with Donald Trump, any more than the sickness of the Roman Republic began with Caesar. The erosion of democratic foundations has been underway for decades, and there’s no guarantee that we will ever be able to recover.
But if there is any hope of redemption, it will have to begin with a clear recognition of how bad things are. American democracy is very much on the edge.

 

Read Paul Krugman's blog: The Conscience of a Liberal, and follow him on Twitter, @PaulKrugman.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

Security Details

I liked it a lot better when the only guys who had their own private armies were Bond villains.

Politico:

But Trump - who puts a premium on loyalty and has demonstrated great interest in having forceful security at his events - has opted to maintain an aggressive and unprecedented private security force, led by Keith Schiller, a retired New York City cop and Navy veteran who started working for Trump in 1999 as a part-time bodyguard, eventually rising to become his head of security.

Security officials warn that employing private security personnel heightens risks for the president-elect and his team, as well as for protesters, dozens of whom have alleged racial profiling, undue force or aggression at the hands Trump’s security, with at least 10 joining a trio of lawsuits now pending against Trump, his campaign or its security.

--and--

The Trump associates say Schiller is expected to become a personal White House aide who would serve as the incoming president’s full-time physical gatekeeper, though he might not be able to offer his boss the wide range of services he has in the past. For instance, federal law prohibits anyone other than law enforcement officers from bringing firearms into federal buildings, and there are even stricter rules about who can carry on the White House grounds or around Secret Service protectees. Schiller had been armed at times early in the campaign, but it’s unclear if he continued carrying a firearm after Trump was granted Secret Service protection in November 2015.

Even after the arrival of Trump’s Service detail, which typically marks the end of any pre-existing security arrangement, Schiller never strayed from his boss’s side.

The associates say Schiller provides more than just security. Trump has been known to ask Schiller’s opinion on all manner of subjects. When people want to reach Trump, they often call Schiller’s cell phone and he decides who gets through to the boss.

Trump just can't help but pick these fights - in his typical Passive Aggressive style - even to the point where he's saying he doesn't trust the professionalism of an agency sworn to serve - people who're trained to take a bullet if that's what's necessary to protect The President, no matter who that president is or what they do or don't have in common with that president.

Trump's overpowering paranoia and his self-obsession continue to make this whole mess more of a mess. 

Today's Tweet

It's one big freak show and we're Front-Row-Center

CRAZY SURVEILLANCE VIDEO: Sex store employees fight off armed robber by throwing adult toys at him. @ABC7 at 4pm pic.twitter.com/E8QbuxJkEX

— Rob McMillan (@abc7robmcmillan) December 15, 2016

hat tip = MockPaperScissors

All That Boring Policy Stuff

From The Intercept:

As CEI sees it, efforts to address the affects of pollution from fossil fuels on our climate are really a “war on affordable energy.” Bizarrely, the report uses a decline in global death rates due to extreme weather since the 1920s to justify the continued burning of oil and coal and its claim that carbon-based fuels “increase life expectancy.” While fossil fuels have unquestionably kept many people warm over the past century, alternative energy sources can also provide plenty of heat — and have the additional appeal of reducing the likelihood of extreme weather events.

Get ready for a new and even more intense round of "what do you want, a job or a new park  5 states away where only the welfare-moocher hippie elites get to go and play?"

Just to put out some push-back points:

1. the burning of fossil fuels to create some heat in the winter isn't the only thing contributing to a decline in the number of deaths due to bad weather
2. burning fossil fuels isn't the only way to create some heat in the winter
3. don't be fucking daft

There is something sublimely immoral about dangling a job in front of me, and tying the prospects of my landing that job to my willingness to help you create the conditions that will eventually make me too sick to work.

Proper, appropriate regulations are necessary to protect capitalism from the Capitalists.

SNL

Mind And Body

Beyond Words

"Aleppo is a place where the children have stopped crying." Scenes of sheer terror and grief in the last hospital in the last days of Aleppo pic.twitter.com/sy1NgjD4gY

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) December 16, 2016

Informed Comment:

After Aleppo, Russians prepare to defy Trump re: their Iran Alliance

the left-leaning Lebanese newspaper al-Safir [Ambassador] reports that the armed resistance to the regime of Bashar al-Assad in the East Aleppo pocket is finished. Reports from Wednesday morning say that the ceasefire that Russia and the regime signed onto in hopes that the few hundred hold-outs among the guerrillas would leave has now broken down amid heavy fire. Civilians also continue to flee the areas under rebel control, though the humanitarian corridors promised by Russia appear never to have materialized. The plan had been to allow some rebels to flee to Idlib, where the rebels led by al-Qaeda have a perch. Nevertheless, hundreds of rebels attempted to flee East Aleppo, as did noncombatants.

The Russian victory in Syria against fundamentalist Sunni Arab militias was made possible in part by Iran. Russian fighter jets simply bombing from on high would have been useless. It was Iran that directed the Lebanese Hizbullah and the Iraqi Shiite militias to join the fight, backing up the some 35,000 to 50,000 Syrian soldiers who remain and have not defected. The Russians gave these forces air support, bombing rebel positions until the Shiite militias and the remnants of the Syrian Arab Army could over-run them.

Nobody has any real idea what's going on in Syria except that Putin is reaping benefits by way of adding Client States to his sphere of influence, so it makes sense to me that Trump is on board - wherever there is crisis, there is opportunity.  It makes sense because it makes money, and the element of human tragedy provides Trump et al plenty of cover by allowing them to blame Obama for the whole mess (and notice, we're back to blaming Obama for everything now that Hillary has been dispatched - convenient, it ain't it?).

This looks a lot like we're taking the rise of the Authoritarians to a new level.  On a few occasions, we pay some lip service to the people caught in the middle, but the point for these assholes sounds pretty simple: 

"If those people were worthy of survival, they'd be strong like us. They aren't strong, so they're not like us, so they're not worthy. Let the snowflakes and the women and the libtards worry about weaklings - we're too busy being awesome, so fuck 'em."

Today's Pix

Daddy State Survival Manual

Lesson 1: How to bust outa those ZipCuffs thingies.

Playing God

I saw a critter suffering today.
I watched and watched and watched some more.
And then I walked away.

Today's Tweet

Have you noticed the GOP considers "treason" something only possible by women or minorities? #TrumpKnew

— Tea Pain (@TeaPainUSA) December 18, 2016

The Wealth Gap Just Gets Worse

Both Bernie and Hillary tried with this, but the message was never enough to cut thru the frenzied clutter of the Trump Chaff Machine, plus the Voter Suppression that the GOP has been working on for 20 years, plus the Kremlin, plus the FBI, plus the Rat-Fucking and the Fake News and and and.

From The Institute For Policy Studies:


Key findings

Just 100 CEOs have company retirement funds worth $4.7 billion — a sum equal to the entire retirement savings of the 41 percent of U.S. families with the smallest nest eggs.

This $4.7 billion total is also equal to the entire retirement savings of the bottom:

• 59 percent of African-American families 
• 75 percent of Latino families 
• 55 percent of female-headed households 
• 44 percent of white working class households

On average, the top 100 CEO nest eggs are large enough to generate for each of these
executives a $253,088 monthly retirement check for the rest of their lives.

Among ordinary workers, those lucky enough to have 401(k) plans had a median balance at the end of 2013 of $18,433, enough for a monthly retirement check of just $101.

Of workers 56-61 years old, 39 percent have no employer-sponsored retirement plan whatsoever and will likely depend entirely on Social Security, which pays an average benefit of $1,239 per month.

With nearly $3 billion in special tax-deferred accounts, Fortune 500 CEOs stand to gain enormously from Trump’s proposed tax cuts on top earners.

If President-elect Donald Trump succeeds in cutting the top marginal tax rate from 39.6 percent to 33 percent, Fortune 500 CEOs would save $196 million on the income taxes they would owe if they withdrew their tax-deferred funds.

Unlike ordinary 401(k) holders, most top CEOs have no limits on annual contributions
to their tax-deferred accounts. In 2015 alone, Fortune 500 CEOs saved $92 million on their taxes by putting $238 million more in these accounts than they could have if they were subject to the same rules as other workers.

Michael Neidorff, the CEO of Centene, a provider of health plans to Medicaid recipients and other low-income Americans, has nearly $140 million in his deferred compensation account, up 658 percent since the 2010 launch of Obamacare.

The retirement asset gap between CEOs mirrors the racial and gender divides among ordinary Americans.

The 10 white male CEOs with the largest retirement funds hold a combined $1.4 billion, more than eight times more than the 10 CEOs of color with the largest retirement assets and nearly five times as much as the top 10 female CEOs.

Resist

Robert Reich in AlterNet

As the era of Trump approaches, some of you are succumbing to the following four syndromes:

1. Normalizer Syndrome. You want to believe Trump will be just another president—more conservative and pompous than most, but one who will make rational decisions once in office.

You are under a grave delusion. Trump has a serious personality disorder and will pose a clear and present danger to America and the world.

2. Outrage Numbness Syndrome. You are no longer outraged by what Trump says or what he does—his incessant lies, his cabinet picks, his bullying, his hatefulness—because you’ve gone numb. You can’t conceive that someone like this is becoming president of the United States, so you’ve shut down emotionally. Maybe you’ve even stopped reading the news.

You need to get back in touch with your emotions and reengage with what’s happening.

3. Cynical Syndrome. You’ve become so cynical about the whole system—the Democrats who gave up on the working class and thereby opened the way for Trump, the Republicans who suppressed votes around the country, the media that gave Trump all the free time he wanted, the establishment that rigged the system—that you say the hell with it. Let Trump do his worst. How much worse can it get?

You need to wake up. It can get a lot worse.

4. Helpless Syndrome. You aren’t in denial. You know that nothing about this is normal; you haven’t become numb or stopped reading the news; you haven’t succumbed to cynicism. You desperately want to do something to prevent what’s about to occur.

But you don’t know what to do. You feel utterly powerless and immobilized.

Millions of others feel equally powerless. But taking action—demonstrating, resisting, objecting, demanding, speaking truth, joining with others, making a ruckus, and never ceasing to fight Trump’s pending tyranny—will empower you. And with that power you will not only minimize the damage that is about to occur, but also get this nation and the world back on the course it must be on.

If you find yourself falling into one or more of these syndromes, that’s understandable. Normalizing, numbing, becoming cynical, and feeling powerless are natural human responses to the gross absurdity and genuine peril posed by Trump.

But I urge you to pull yourself out. We need you in the peaceful resistance army, starting January 20.