[kenberg]

Since my last post I looked at the morning paper. There is an article in the WaPo Mag with suggestions from various sources about what to do:

https://www.washingt...estyle-magazine

And of course there was the Gene Weingarten article, I quote the beginning:

Quote

In just a few days, we will turn the page. It will be quite a dramatic and happy page turning, like when you go from Page 55 to Page 56 in "The Cat in the Hat," where the house has been turned into a disastrous mess by Thing One and Thing Two, but the cat comes back in with a special magic car and cleans everything up in seconds.

[y66]

Leslie Jones, a standup comedian said:

Don’t know who this dude is but he broke that sh*t DOWN!! Listen especially the ones that need to hear it!!

https://mobile.twitt...671786287927296

[barmar]

pilowsky, on 2021-January-16, 15:57, said:

Which he loses if they convict him!

He loses his pension, government-paid office staff, office space, and travel allowance. But still gets Secret Service protection.

https://politics.sta...m/a/61616/13966

Hopefully it doesn't include SS protection for his kids, who don't even let their detail use their bathrooms (I just checked the appropriate law, and only children under 16 of a former President get SS protection).

[Winstonm]

Winstonm, on 2021-January-17, 10:46, said:

In some instances the havoc that has been generated must be dealt with before it is possible to move forward. I believe that is now where we find ourselves. We can try to do both, and I advocate for that approach. I am firmly against any idea of "look forward, not back" as happened with Obama after the Bush-Cheney era.

I swear I wrote my reply prior to reading this in the WaPo:

Quote

Today's reunification efforts, led by Republicans who call for healing just days after the riot, mask challenges much as similar calls did in 1865. Then, as now, we were a country divided by different values, including a contingent willing to use violence and anti-democratic means to accomplish its goals. Healing isn't possible until those challenges are placed squarely on the table and addressed. Nor is it possible when those who seek to thwart the Constitution aren't held accountable.

[kenberg]

A concern for the present coupled with the immediate past involves the troops in D.C and protection of capitols around the country. In the recent past a man was addressing a group of hotheads, encouraging them to march on the capitol and prevent the steal. There is no reason to think that they or he have changed their minds. Indeed, this man has issued a statement that what he said was completely appropriate. this person, regardless of his status, must be treated just as we would treat any person who does such a thing. Close FBI surveillance at the least, and criminal charges seem warranted.

That doesn't lessen my belief that we need to be discussing our values, what we hope for as we move forward. I imagine Democrats and Republicans can agree that we should not hang Mike Pence, they can probably even agree that a mob shouting to do so has to be held accountable. It would be nice if they could agree that encouraging such a mob was a seriously bad idea. But there are other matters where some thought and discussion would be useful.

[pilowsky]

kenberg, on 2021-January-17, 12:03, said:

Since my last post I looked at the morning paper. There is an article in the WaPo Mag with suggestions from various sources about what to do:

https://www.washingt...estyle-magazine

And of course there was the Gene Weingarten article, I quote the beginning:

[/size][/font][/color]

It wouldn't have been quite such a problem if there were only two things to worry about. Also, it wasn't raining.
How come none of these people ever take their pet dogs to these rallies - what's wrong with these people?

[y66]

Matt Duss, Foreign Policy Adviser to Bernie Sanders said:

It's helpful to consider the contrast between someone who stands up to a corrupt authoritarian who's already tried to murder him once, and someone who refused to because he feared a mean tweet.

Ted Cruz said:

Extraordinary courage.

Putin is a KGB thug & there is incredible power in shining sunlight on his oppression [of Navalny].

[pilowsky]

kenberg, on 2021-January-16, 15:16, said:

Trump has announced that he will not be at the inauguration.
Where will he be?
A guess, not entirely joking.
In some country that has no extradition treaty with the US.
The House and Senate can remove him from the presidency. A court could put him in jail

Good news! Russia has restored Parler's internet connectivity.

[thepossum]

pilowsky, on 2021-January-18, 22:27, said:

Good news! Russia has restored Parler's internet connectivity.

I don't know whether its good or bad news, what the implications are and how long any supposed freedom will be protected but yes its good news that whole platforms cannot just be silenced by a US Democrat/China tech-cartel. But then again given that our internet routes of all kinds are controlled by a couple of powerful global entities who knows whether I could access it even if I wanted to. Its rather sad when a supposed bastion of freedom reduces their trust to the level of China but I guess the eiltes in control of our world don't need to worry any more

Come to think of it for a while I have been quite convinced that everything I read or access is coming through some dodgy route, and all my OS, my applications, everything coming through the same routes and the same controls and possible manipulation of what I see

[pilowsky]

thepossum, on 2021-January-19, 03:52, said:

I don't know whether its good or bad news, what the implications are and how long any supposed freedom will be protected but yes its good news that whole platforms cannot just be silenced by a US Democrat/China tech-cartel. But then again given that our internet routes of all kinds are controlled by a couple of powerful global entities who knows whether I could access it even if I wanted to. Its rather sad when a supposed bastion of freedom reduces their trust to the level of China but I guess the eiltes in control of our world don't need to worry any more

Come to think of it for a while I have been quite convinced that everything I read or access is coming through some dodgy route, and all my OS, my applications, everything coming through the same routes and the same controls and possible manipulation of what I see

The specific problem that I have is that a Russian technology firm (story from Radio Free Europe) is behind the reactivation of an outlet that will enable Trump and his followers to continue to spread their lies about 'stolen elections'.
In real-life conversations with many people in Australia who are self-identified Trump supporters, it is a bit like talking to the 'pod people' from 'Invasion of the bodysnatchers'; they sound and look completely normal, but something is just not quite right.

The thing that is 'not quite right' is that unlike you and me, no rational argument will sway them from their fixed belief.

It's a bit like trying to explain to someone that the Dunning-Kruger effect is not real - it just sounds soo much like it should be real that people have a strong cognitive bias towards accepting the idea.

These strange beliefs are fine as long as they are not a danger to themselves or others.

What the past year has shown with total clarity is that some false beliefs are a real danger to people - even when a third of the population wants to believe them.

We have the same problem with people desperately wanting to cling to fossil fuel and therefore deny the existence of climate change.

This "belle indifference" to real problems has developed into the perfect storm of 2020 - something I learned about from an actual psychiatrist .

Perhaps we can call it 'abnormal social behaviour' - the victims are trying to make sense of difficult social circumstances and turn to theories that rely on 'faith and hope' rather than on knowledge and rational thinking: a bit like me when I'm playing Bridge.

[y66]

28 hours 36 minutes

[y66]

Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg said:

With only one day remaining until President-elect Joe Biden takes office, it’s time to look at how he’s doing on one of the biggest challenges of the presidency: filling the White House and the executive branch with first-rate people.

Biden’s picks so far have almost entirely avoided controversy, and for the most part his choices have been praised by the relevant policy experts. Only two selections have sparked much pushback. A lot of Republicans targeted Neera Tanden, the nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget, mainly because she’s been an outspoken partisan. That makes her easy to attack on the grounds that her appointment undermines Biden’s message of lowering temperatures and seeking bipartisanship. It’s probably more accurate to say that Biden is charging ahead on a mainstream liberal policy agenda while also looking to cut deals; Tanden fits in with the former, if not the latter.

The other controversy has been over Secretary of Defense nominee Lloyd J. Austin III — not for the most part for reasons of politics or qualifications, but because he’s a recently retired general and the U.S. has a history of preferring civilian leadership of the military. There have been complaints from Democrats, Republicans and many neutral experts, but it appears likely that he’ll be confirmed, and that Congress will pass a waiver of a law requiring seven years to elapse after leaving military service before an ex-officer can lead the Pentagon. Austin retired in 2016.

It’s possible there will be more controversy once confirmation hearings start on Tuesday. We’ll find out then whether Biden’s vetting team has done as good a job as it seems. Overall, however, Biden appears to have a high-quality group.

He’s also fulfilled, at least so far, his pledge about demographic diversity. In particular, Biden is shattering all records for women in the White House and in the executive branch. The cabinet has more women than ever, but it goes deeper than that. To date, 29 of the 51 announced nominees that require Senate confirmation are women — and 40 of the 64 announced positions designated as senior White House staff have gone to women. This is a reflection of the Democratic Party as it is right now. Biden and is transition team deserve credit for putting that party preference into action, and doing it without alienating important party groups or (Tanden notwithstanding) inviting attacks from Republicans.

Are there hints of trouble? Yes. Biden has so far designated 51 nominees for Senate-confirmed positions. That’s almost twice as many as the 28 that Donald Trump had just before taking office in 2017. But experts recommend that about 100 of these nominees should be ready to go by around Jan. 20, and Biden is apparently going to fall way short of that. If Biden winds up just a few days behind, that’s no big deal. However, the road gets steeper after that. The Washington Post and Partnership for Public Service are tracking the 700 most important positions that require Senate confirmation; we’ll see whether Biden falls further behind or if he picks up the pace. Each vacancy in the executive branch is a missed opportunity to influence the bureaucracy and to make things run smoothly.

[y66]

Mitch McConnell said:

This mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the President and other powerful people. And they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like.

It's never too late to do the right thing? We'll see. Still, I was happy to see this and I hope we see more of it this week.

[y66]

Matt Yglesias said:

The paradox of the 2020 race is that Trump — the least popular president in the history of modern polling — was soundly rejected by the public, and yet it's genuinely true that we came within a hair of him winning the Electoral College again.

[y66]

Yellen Tells Lawmakers That Workers Would Be Her Focus by Kate Davidson

Quote

WASHINGTON—Janet Yellen told lawmakers Tuesday she would make the needs of America’s workers her core focus if confirmed as the next U.S. Treasury secretary and ensure the U.S. has a competitive economy that offers good jobs and wages workers in cities and rural areas.

“I will be focused on day one on providing support to America’s workers and to small businesses, putting into effect as quickly and efficiently as I can, the relief in the bill that was recently passed, and then over time working for a second package that I think we need to get through these dark times,” she told the Senate Finance Committee at her confirmation hearing before a vote on her nomination.

This is so smart.

[Winstonm]

y66, on 2021-January-19, 13:06, said:

Yellen Tells Lawmakers That Workers Would Be Her Focus by Kate Davidson


This is so smart.

Trickle up?

[Winstonm]

We cannot forget that Trump dead-enders are still out there spreading garbage to the worshipful masses.

Quote

Secretary of State (and Christian dominion seeker) Mike Pompeo raised eyebrows on Tuesday when he tweeted that multiculturalism ― in a country that has long celebrated its immigrant heritage ― is "not who America is."

my emphasis

I guess in his view the only true American is white, Christian, and born prior to 1776.

[y66]

Winstonm, on 2021-January-19, 14:46, said:

Trickle up?

I hope it's the first wave of a tsunami of smart agenda setting and communication.

[y66]

Lisa Friedman at NYT said:

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down the Trump administration’s plan to relax restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, paving the way for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. to enact new and stronger restrictions on power plants.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia called the Trump administration’s Affordable Clean Energy rule a “fundamental misconstruction” of the nation’s environmental laws, devised through a “tortured series of misreadings” of legal statute.

On the last full day of the Trump presidency, it effectively ended the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to weaken and undermine climate change policies and capped a dismal string of failures in which courts threw out one deregulation after another. Experts have widely described the E.P.A.’s losing streak as one of the worst legal records of the agency in modern history.

The appeals court did not reinstate a 2015 regulation that President Barack Obama’s E.P.A. had enacted, which would have forced utilities to move away from coal and toward renewable energy to reduce emissions. But it rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to repeal and replace that rule with a toothless one.

Judges eviscerated the Trump administration’s core argument: that the only possible way to interpret the Clean Air Act of 1970 is that the federal government does not have the authority to set national restrictions on emissions or force states to move away from fossil fuel power. That argument that would have prevented Mr. Biden or any future administration from tackling climate change from power plants without an explicit new law from Congress.

https://www.nytimes....pgtype=Homepage

Trump's about to lose control and I think I like it.

[Winstonm]

Don’t know about you but I’m so excited and I just can’t hide it