Tucker Carlson - Again; Supreme Court Nominee

Tucker Carlson took a brief break from cheerleading Putin's invasion of Ukraine Friday to comment on President Biden's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson - claiming Biden chose her solely on her appearance (dog whistle alert - she's black).  

Judge Jackson is one of the most qualified Supreme Court nominees in a generation.  She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, then graduated Harvard Law School cum laude (Note to Carlson's audience - those are GOOD things).  She clerked for the Supreme Court, served as a public defender, vice-chair of the US Sentencing Commisssion, and has been a Federal district court judge, and most recently as a judge on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes the nation's capital, and is considered the most important of the circuit courts. 

Let's take a look at Mr. Carlson's resume.  He was sent away to a boarding school in Switzerland when his father married an heiress to the Swanson frozen food empire ... but was kicked out.  After an undistinguished college career, he tried to join the CIA, but was rejected.  He has since had an undistinguished career at a Faux News network, spouting nonsense.  

When he says Biden chose Judge Jackson solely because of her appearance, he is projecting.  What he means is that he hates her for that ... as do many in his audience.  

https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-says-joe-biden-chose-scotus-pick-basis-appearance-1682937

Trump & Ukraine Invasion

It is not the abject, obsequious followership expressed by the former occupant of the White House that is most dangerous; it is that fully one-third of Americans witness this lick-spittle kissing Putin’s ass, yet somehow still imagine him to be a leader.  

If Churchill, Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy had possessed the strength of our Putin protégé, the Iron curtain would have ended up somewhere in the Atlantic.  

Trump’s hold on his cult is strong; if he endorses this invasion, the members of that cult will just drag their knuckles and nod affirmatively.  And Putin’s hold on Trump is strong; as long as Trump toes the line, Putin’s oligarchs won’t call in those hundreds of millions of dollars of bad loans - and may even help him assume office again.  

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/world/europe/trump-putin-russia-ukraine.html

NEVER FORGET!

 NEVER FORGET!!

One year ago today, our nation's Capitol was violently invaded and occupied for the first time since the British army marched in and set it on fire in 1814.  

This time it wasn't a foreign military force, but an insurrectionist mob; attempting a palace coup in support of a sitting president, who—for the first time in our nation's history—refused to yield power in a peaceful, dignified manner, after being decidedly beaten at the polls.  

The mob had been whipped to a seething froth by the lie—repeated constantly, but without proof—that the election had been somehow 'stolen'.  This lie persisted, despite the fact that the elections in many of the disputed states were managed by Republicans, and that no evidence whatsoever—then or now—has supported this  fiction.  But evidence means nothing in this case.  This belief has more in common with cult ideology than with any rational position.    

The British were chased out of the country soon after burning the Capitol in 1814, and the crisis passed.  But last year's invaders—along with a large cohort throughout the country that was with them that day in every way but physically—still dwell among us.  The lie that  angered that mob continues to be promulgated, and believed.  For Republican politicians, it has become a loyalty test to affirm this ludicrous claim.  Loyalty to Donald Trump, and to this lie, has now replaced alignment on any principle, any issue ― or to reality.  Any elected Republican who strays from this paranoid fantasy, risks alienating a core party constituency, dashing any hope of re-election.  Few have been willing to risk it. 

No, the danger is far from passed, and could well get far worse before it gets better.  The faithful believe now as strongly as ever - even more so, as they see it ridiculed and systematically discredited.  Cognitive dissonance leads true believers to cling ever more tightly to fantasy, as the grip of contradictory reality is tightened.

Voltaire wrote, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."  The seeds of danger are sown, germinated, and are thriving.  How it will manifest is not entirely clear ... except that it will.  

Coups d'état are no longer something that only happens elsewhere, in nations that lack strong institutions to prevent them.  It clearly CAN HAPPEN HERE!  It did, a year ago.  We ignore this at our peril. 

If Rittenhouse Were Black

Consider, in your own mind, and your own heart, the following scenario:

Look at the known facts of the recent case involving Kyle Rittenhouse.  Not the conjecture, but the indisputable facts.  Replay the scenario, replacing Rittanhouse with a young man who shares all his attributes, except that he is black.  This man becomes concerned with civil unrest in the state adjacent to his own.  He arms himself with a loaded AR15, and inserts himself into the midst of the unrest.  A couple hours later, within a violent, confusing environment, he has shot three people, two of whom have died. 

What do you see different in the aftermath?  Would this young man be treated the same?  Would he be granted bail, and allowed to return home in another state? 

I ask these questions provoke introspection, not to begin a heated conversation.  There are, no doubt, legions of commentators ready and willing to answer these for you.  My intent is just to suggest you consider them yourself.  I likely will not respond beyond posing these questions. 

Democrats and the Big Tent

I am as frustrated as anybody that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema stand between us and passage of a very large, very valuable legislative program.  

It's not completely clear what kind of compromises it would take to get them on board, but they need to be brought on board - and neither will yield to coercion.  If they say it needs to be reduced to $2.0T, or $1.9T, it's time to trim to that, get the legislation passed, get shovels in the ground, and begin healing the party ... and the nation. 

Manchin and Sinema were not elected by the Democratic Party, but by the majority of voters in two fairly conservative states.  Their push-back on this spending bill is not a sudden change of course for either of them - but is consistent with their record, and the stated positions that got them to the Senate. we should consider the possibility that those who angrily complain that these two are not 'real' Democrats might convince them that that is the case ― leading them to look for a new home outside the party.  If either of them does that, Mitch McConnell would overnight retake his former seat as Senate majority leader, and the $3.6T package will be reduced, not to $1.9T, but to zero.    

This will be a victory for ideological purity, and not settling for 'half a loaf', but a devastating, long-term setback for the progressive agenda I value, and which is the stated goal of those who most strongly oppose compromise.   

Scenario - Invasion of the Identity Snatchers

Consider this scenario ... 

You get a Facebook Messenger note from an old buddy.  He says, "I love that picture of your old Camaro you posted!  Check out this one I just saw today!"  

You can hardly wait to see the car he mentioned, so you click the picture, and sure enough, it's a Camaro.  

Almost immediately, your computer starts acting funny.  It's really slow, and sometimes won't open files, or go to web pages you select.  Your friends start asking you why you are sending them spam Messenger texts.  

You suspect these may be related, so you contact your friend to ask about the picture he sent.  "I didn't send you a picture of a Camaro!", he insists.  "Sure you did.  You even mentioned the picture of my first car that I posted a couple days ago, that you liked." 

"I remember liking that picture of your first car, but I didn't send you any pictures today!"

Then who the hell did?  

A North Korean bot did.  

How did is know I loved Camaros?

Because you told it, when it asked about your first car.  And when it saw that your friend 'liked' your comment about your Camaro, so it knew just who to pretend to be to get you to click the link that would surrender control of your computer.  

All these quizzes seem fun.  But if a total stranger came up to you on the street and asked you these same questions, would you just answer them, or would you keep on walking?

Ironic Nanny-State

Ironic, isn't it, that the states that are most parsimonious with rental assistance, food aid, welfare, or any other human services—because they say the government has no business interfering in people's lives—discover their inner nanny-state when it comes to private individuals doing something that violates the religious sensibilities of those in power?