Category: Uncategorized

Last evening (Thursday) Mike Lee—one of the 22 Republican senators who sent a letter to President Trump recommending withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement—was interviewed on PBS.  As you might expect, he asserted with a great show of solemnity that Trump’s decision was “the right thing to do” at least twice during the interview.

But what I didn’t quite expect was that the first thing out of his mouth was not about the Paris accord itself, nor was it about climate or jobs or the economy—no, it was about the way Obama had drawn the U.S. into the agreement without the consent of the Senate (as he, or course, had every right to do).

And there it was. . . another surfacing of the anti-Obama toxin that has steadily dripped through the veins of the Republican Party ever since 2008. If the Paris Agreement had been entered into by a President McCain or President Romney, do you think it would have taken such a pounding from Mike Lee, or any other of the Republican senators who have defied common sense and the will of the rest of the world?

Continue reading “It’s Not about Climate Change, It’s about Obama”

Darkening Future for Protesters

Thanks to some  dogged sleuthing on the part of investigative journalists at The Intercept, we can hear the pitter-patter of little security-agent feet taking baby steps toward a police state in the good old land of the free and the home of the brave. See:

Police State Rising

As you read the article, you may find yourself wondering, who is better entitled to be paranoid—pipeline builders  and their private police forces or pipeline protestors? OK, that’s rhetorical question, but I say it to underscore the imbalance between the two forces. The language used by security agency “TigerSwan” would be comical if it were not so darkly ominous: protestors are likened to jihadists, and combating the “anti-DAPL [anti-Dakota Access Pipeline] diaspora” calls for “aggressive intelligence preparation of the battlefield.”

Continue reading “Mercenaries Track Pipeline Protesters”

It’s as Insane as It Looks

Most of us, after we have recovered from the initial shock and horror of a suicide bombing such as the recent atrocity in Manchester, ponder the mystery of the suicide bomber. What could be the motivation for something so horrific?  Here is a person who commits an act that he knows 99.9% of humanity will consider monstrous.  It is an act done for a cause which any rational person will conclude is doomed—if by “cause” we mean the creation of a worldwide caliphate ruled by psychopaths such as the leaders of the Islamic State.

It’s irrational, and a lot more irrational than the common wisdom supposes. We generally conceive of the suicide bomber as a self-identified martyr—s/he is not crazed any more than the first wave of soldiers to hit Omaha Beach on D-Day.

Are suicide bombers “sane?” Some say that self-destructive zealots are sane if their acts are based on a belief system made legitimate by authorities who purport to translate the Mind of God.

Continue reading “Suicide Bombers and Mental Illness”

Beyond Fake News: Hidden Persuaders Shifting the Ground beneath Our Feet

Fifty years ago, Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders drew attention to the methods by which advertisers manipulated the psyches of consumers to desire certain things—in part to gain advantage over competitors selling things people needed (food, medicine, soap), and in part to get people to desire what they did not desire until the advertiser influenced them to (Caribbean vacations, cars with enormous fins, hula-hoops).

The advertising game has not changed a lot since then, and many of the devices used to influence consumers have become so transparent you’d think most of us would simply laugh—making an association between a car and an ocean wave, a candy bar and a seduction.  But somebody’s not laughing, otherwise sponsors would not be dishing out humongous gobs of money to keep the games going. (For now we leave aside the question of sponsors themselves  being duped, forking zillions over to ad agencies  for advertisements that don’t get proportional results.)

Continue reading “Goodby, Autonomy – Not That You’d Notice”

Keep your eyes open for Mad Magazine June issue with First Daughter and First Son-in-Law on the cover.

Kushner/Albert Hybrid Hits Mad Cover

Susan Collins, of All People, Engages in Double Speak: A Manifestation of Fear?

Maine Senator Susan Collins’s defense of the firing of James Comey was a very peculiar move—Collins being someone who is known for her willingness to buck the party line, in particular supporting the funding of Planned Parenthood (successfully), and voted (successfully! joined by McCain and Graham) against repeal of Obama administration regulations restricting methane emissions. (Whether Pruitt will enforce the regulation is, unfortunately another matter.)

So. . . what calls for explanation:

What’s most troubling is that an independent-minded Republican would resort to specious public statements in defense of Trump.

Continue reading “Cross Me, and I’ll Cut You Off at the Knees”

Apparently there are more than one Republican speaking out for release of Trump’s tax returns (see below).  Nevertheless, while Iowan Republican congressman David Young says it’s a “no-brainer,” the same guy refused to sign a letter from other Republicans requesting it.  Such is the climate of political fear in the Republican Party.

Intimidation is Trump’s time-tested tactic, whether it’s over Democrats, the press, the judiciary, minorities of various ethnic, racial, religious, cultural, physically or mentally handicapped, or various political stripes (nothing to do with ideology, only whether they comply with any Trumpian whim. Also members of his own party about whom he has no compunction in attacking with a tweet. He’s used to bullying and insulting people in his own business and making it work for him; it seems not yet to have occurred to him that it doesn’t work to bully everyone. (The example of Paul Ryan notwithstanding. I don’t believe Ryan fears Trump; rather he thinks he can use Trump. Good luck, )

Republicans call for release of tax returns

It seems that an increasing number of people are coming around to ther recollection that “The only thing for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing,” said by Edmund Burke in the 18th Century( if he were alive today, I think he would have included women as well).  It appears that the Republicans who are doing nothing must have something else on their minds, such as the next primary.

 

If Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s belligerent approach toward China’s activities* in the South China Sea—as conveyed in his confirmation hearing—were to continue, getting on Vladimir Putin’s good side makes perfect Realpolitik sense: squeeze China between the U.S. in the Pacific Ocean and Russia on land.

It’s not clear if Tillerson’s tough talk was mainly to cheer up hawks in the Senate during the hearing. But there’s more than just strategic thinking going into confrontation with China in the area, namely, oil and gas.

Continue reading “Why Court Russia? Look to the South China Sea.”

If you’re reading this you’re probably a Democrat, and Senate Democrats are very likely to vote against the Scott Pruitt (EPA) and Ryan Zinke (Interior) nominees, but if you can give them a nudge to prevail upon their Republican colleagues to stop these enemies of environmental regulation, it might help.

I understand both of these characters are now out of committee and going to the Senate floor. Not sure when, maybe today.

“Due to the high volume of calls,” it’s difficult to get through to a senator’s phone at all today, much less speak to a staff member. But you can comment online. Find your senators’ websites by searching on their names. Use the official sites not something pushed on you by Wow or Yahoo.

Thanks!

Mark