FLASHBACK: Some thoughts on hardening infrastructure.
Archive for 2017
November 4, 2017
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STRIKE EAGLE MOON: Fine photo.
MICHAEL BARONE: Keep Calm And Carry On:
Keep calm and carry on. Those words, though not appearing as widely on posters in wartime Britain as often supposed, are good advice for Americans now appalled by the presidency of Donald Trump.
It is widely proclaimed that he is a president unlike any other, a threat to the institutions of republican government and democratic processes, an ignoramus whose impulsiveness may lead to nuclear war.
It’s true that every president since 1945 has had access to the nuclear trigger. And Trump’s insult-laden style and constant tweeting strikes many people (including me) as repugnant and, if sometimes momentarily effective in framing issues, often self-defeating in both the short and long run.
All that said, Trump’s actions, in contrast to many of his words, strike me as comparable to other presidents. One can argue that an office designed for someone as sternly self-disciplined as George Washington is overly powerful and prominent, but no one seriously contemplates restructuring the Constitution.
On a multitude of issues, the Trump administration has operated like others replacing a president of the opposite party. His judicial nominations, starting with Justice Neil Gorsuch, have been just what one expects from a Republican president.
His appointees have reversed predecessors’ regulations: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on college and university sexual assault kangaroo courts, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on regulations aimed at shutting down coal mining.
The Trump team is operating in a target-rich environment, due to Barack Obama’s legally dubious “pen and phone” executive orders like the DACA “Dreamers” amnesty and spending unappropriated funds on Obamacare’s cost-saving reduction payments. The Congressional Review Act, a 1996 Newt Gingrich innovation that lay dormant for 20 years, has enabled narrow Republican congressional majorities to overturn more regulations than Democrats ever anticipated.
The nonstop freakoutrage about Trump was intended to “denormalize” him, but it’s had the effect of denormalizing his opposition, which would be a lot more effective if it behaved normally.
JOHN HINDERAKER: What the H*** is Mueller Investigating? And Why?
Mueller’s investigation isn’t supposed to “move beyond investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.” The Order appointing Mueller empowers him to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and…any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.” It seems that the current focus of Mueller’s efforts is lobbying that was carried out on behalf of one of Ukraine’s political factions, or, more broadly, failure to register as a foreign agent with the Justice Department by anyone, at any time. This is not what Mueller was appointed to do. . . .
And the 2012 report on “the political motivations of the Ukrainian government” relates to the Trump campaign’s alleged cooperation with Russian elements in the 2016 election…how?
The special counsel statute is a very poor idea, and Mueller’s implementation of it illustrates why. The job of a special counsel (or special prosecutor, as he was formerly called) is to hang scalps on the wall. Whose scalps, or why they were taken, is incidental at best. President Trump would be fully justified in firing Robert Mueller, but a better idea, in my opinion, would be to appoint several more special counsels to look into various Democratic misdeeds. That would bring this whole farce to a screeching halt.
Sauce for the gander usually does.
THE HILL: GOP predicts few defections on tax vote.
A day after rolling out their tax-reform bill, House Republicans on Friday appeared bullish they would soon pass the first overhaul of the U.S. tax system in more than three decades.
“It’s a layup,” Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a President Trump ally who may run for Senate in 2018, told The Hill.
“I think at the end of the day, we’re not going to lose very many members,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who is close to House GOP leadership.
Even members of the GOP caucus who often are at odds with leadership were pleased with the bill.
“Leadership did a great job on this thing,” said Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), a member of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus. “It’s pro-growth, there’s middle-class tax cuts for real.”
House Republicans unveiled their tax-code rewrite bill on Thursday to much fanfare. The bill, which totals more than 400 pages, cuts rates and eliminates tax breaks on both the individual and business sides of the code.
According to The Hill’s initial look at lawmakers’ positions, the only House GOP members who appear to be likely no votes as of now are some of the Republicans from high-tax states who dislike the bill’s treatment of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction.
Stay tuned.
BECAUSE THE RACIST STATES OF AMERIKKKA WOULD NEVER ELECT A BLACK MAN: Ta-Nehisi Coates Claims Donald Trump Is Only President Because He’s White.
ANN ALTHOUSE ON “COLLUSION” BLOWBACK: “Who started the use of this term? Who propagated it? I think it has been Trump’s antagonists. If so, it’s ironic that it now makes Trump look less culpable. I believe the term came into general use because it allowed everything to count as evidence and to cast a wide net and to generate as much suspicion and doubt as possible and deprive the newly elected President of the power and dignity of the office. Trump appropriated the term for use against his accusers, and now Obama and Hillary supporters have to worry that the public’s sensitivity to ‘collusion’ endangers their side. Sad!”
I’M LIKING THIS NEW TAX BILL BETTER AND BETTER: If House Republicans Get Their Way, These Colleges Would See Their Endowments Taxed. “Deep within the plan — look here, on Page 75 — is the language that spells out which institutions would be affected. The bottom line: Only the most-affluent colleges need worry. Colleges would be subject to the tax, set at 1.4 percent of net investment income, only if their endowment assets total at least $100,000 per student.”
Tax the rich!
November 3, 2017
SOMETHING SEXIST, OBVIOUSLY: What on earth was Michelle Obama trying to say about men?
NEVER TRUST A “MALE FEMINIST:” Former ‘Male Feminist’ Columnist Faces Multiple Allegations of Assault.
FASTER, PLEASE: Lifelong Protection Against Flu? New Vaccine Shows Promise.
MARK RIPPETOE: How Do You Hire A Trainer? Me, I get Rip to work out with me when he’s passing through town, but I guess that’s not for everyone.
NEGLIGENT MANAGEMENT: Details Emerge on Person Who Shut Down Trump’s Twitter. “In fact, employees tell the Verge this isn’t the first time a departing worker has pulled a stunt like this. ‘People have “dropped the mic” in the past and deleted accounts, verified users, and otherwise abused their power on the last day,’ says one employee, noting that none of those incidents became public.”
WHO ELSE HELPED HIDE HARVEY WEINSTEIN? ENTERTAINMENT JOURNALISTS:
In this way, entertainment reporters are in a position similar to that of sports journalists. If you look too deeply into controversial subjects, you are barred from locker rooms, denied interviews with players, and meet resistance from coaches and management. In Hollywood, studios can deny access to the set and future projects. Anger an actor and you anger the agent, then lose out on contact with all their clients. Thus a journalist has to comport herself accordingly, or find she is cut off from the very industry she is covering.
Reading this passage in Brad Slager’s article at the Federalist, I had an immediate flashback to sportswriter Jeff Pearlman’s 2008 book, Boys Will Be Boys, his look at the insanity that surrounded the 1990s-era, Jerry Jones-owned Dallas Cowboys, including “the White House,” its infamous version of Delta House, a suburban home adjacent to their practice field, rented by wide receiver Alvin Harper, and how the Dallas sports media initially ignored the story:
“It was a frat house,” says Mike Fisher, the team’s beat writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “But most frat houses don’t specialize in hookers and cocaine.”
To visualize the White House, picture a relatively nice suburban home with a swimming pool in the back and a driveway packed with Jaguars, Bentleys, BMWs, and Ferraris. Then walk through the front door (no need to knock—it was always unlocked) and check out the enormous televisions, the pool table, the wet bar, and the prostitutes (often wearing nothing but the gold chains supplied by the residents). Oh, don’t forget the handful of video cameras hidden throughout the various bedrooms, allegedly installed by Dennis Pedini, one of Irvin’s close friends. “Everything that happened in the White House I’m assuming Pedini had on camera,” says Kevin Smith. “He didn’t tell the guys they were being filmed at the time, but—surprise!—they were.”
* * * * * * * *
The first member of the media to write of the White House was the Miami Herald’s Dan Le Batard, who merely mentioned it in passing in a larger piece about partying in the NFL. “The reality is that many teams throughout the league had places like the White House,” says Le Batard. “But the Cowboys were the biggest, baddest, best, and anything they did was vastly more magnetized.” Upon reading Le Batard’s story, the Dallas media went to work. In truth, many were well aware of the White House and its going-ons, but chose to ignore the story in the name of player-press relations. “Everyone knew about it, but what are you going to do, run a story about the guys cheating on their wives with hookers?” says Rob Geiger, a reporter for KRLD radio in Dallas. “The writers understood not to write about it, the radio and TV guys understood not to talk about it, because we’d be vilified by the fans and locked out by the team.” [Emphasis mine — Ed]
It was a gargantuan lapse in news judgment. The White House had everything one craves in a story—sex, drugs, fame, football.
When word of the White House finally broke, Jones and Switzer confessed to being shocked (shocked!) that a place of such ill repute existed. The Cowboys, after all, were a wholesome operation, made up of loyal, family-oriented men like, um, Jones and, uh, Switzer who would, eh, never, ah, dream of…cheating, uh, on, eh, a female. “Jerry Jones was chasing and f***ing the same women Michael Irvin was,” says Anthony Montoya, the gofer for Cowboy players. “He was out there just as bad as anyone else. I have no beef with that, because if you can get the p***y at that age, more power to you; I’m happy for you. But Jerry saying he didn’t know about the White House is a fucking lie. A big ***ing lie. I’d get calls from the team saying, ‘Can you get X player. We hear he’s out at the White House.’
“And usually,” says Montoya, “they were right.”
As Glenn noted, linking to his column this week in USA Today on Harvey Weinstein and Mark Halperin, “For people who keep telling us how fearlessly truthful they are, they sure have a lot of ugly ‘open secrets.’”
A LITTLE REVENUE ENHANCEMENT FOR THE GOP TAX PLAN: Tax The Blue Zones!
ENDORSED: Study suggests seniors should lift weights for exercise. “Older folks who performed resistance training while dieting were able to lose fat but still preserve most of their lean muscle mass, compared with those who walked for exercise, researchers report. . . . Excess pounds significantly contribute to frailty and disability in old age, but there’s concern that dieting alone might rob older adults of the muscle they need to maintain their mobility and independence, researchers explained in background notes.”
FLASHBACK: Ken White: #MAGA or #NeverTrump, nobody should be comfortable with how federal criminal investigations work. “It represents the vast power of law enforcement — especially federal law enforcement — to turn investigations of crimes into schemes to produce new crimes.”
YOU DON’T SAY: Steny Hoyer Says Jamming Obamacare through Congress ‘didn’t work.’
The law cost the Democrats the House and eventually the Senate and cost millions the insurance and doctors they liked and forced people to buy coverage they can’t afford to use and is a regulatory mess and turned the insurance industry into unsatisfiable welfare queens and can’t be successfully implemented as written and outed Barack Obama as an unscrupulous liar… but other than that it’s worked just fine.