The Same Subjects Appear, Revealed As A Massive Protrusion

No Surprises Here

ED:  Big Al says dogs can't look up.
SHAUN:  That's just stupid. 'Course they can look up.
-- Nick Frost, Simon Pegg;
    Shaun Of The Dead (2004)

Mongo Vs. The Earth: You Can't See The Stars In This Position

Part of me is grateful I will not live to see just how bad it will be. I understand: this feeling is stupid, like picking up a burning coal to throw it at Something I Dislike, succeeding only in searing my hand.  I am a Dog that rushes frantically in a circle, round and around, ears laid back and wildly barking at something unseen, when it really wants the food bowl the rug the warm the dream of running, being sensate, in the World.

The carnival is enough to drive a saint mad, but we love the Lesser Lights and popcorn so. Even as we are urged toward the Exit, we will dawdle. Part of me spiteful, part of me grateful, I get up in the dark to go to The Place O' Witless Labor (they do not recognize This Holiday) and look up, to see the Big Moon.

_____________________________

For Food And Medicine, Detained Children Should Politely Beg For Annie's Mercy

As the Balloon Moon goes down, CNN suggests that Nancy Pelosi bypass The Leader and negotiate directly with the persons who provide the Leader with direction: ... when it comes to Trump's immigration policy, [Ann Coulter] and radio show host Rush Limbaugh might be the most influential voices. That's why if Pelosi wants to end this shutdown, she should start by speaking with Coulter and Limbaugh, not the President.

_____________________________

Ass Holes

The Leader, and Leader-In-Waiting Pence, made a surprise visit to the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial in Washington, D.C. this morning (video at the link below).

According to the press pool report, The Leader and Pence appeared; Leader set a wreath against the wall of the King memorial, then turned and said, “Good morning, everybody; great day. Beautiful day. Thank you for being here. Appreciate it.”

This was the extent of his remarks. The Leader made no mention of Dr. King, the significance of King's life's work or his sacrifice, and the relevance and meaning of this to Americans today.

The Leader was present at the memorial site for approximately two minutes. Immediately after his, uh, remarks, he walked away. His full trip -- including transportation from the White House, and back -- lasted a total of 15 minutes.

Pence said nothing, as usual silent in the presence of The Leader. Yesterday, on the pundit program, Sit On The Face Of The Nation, he lifted a quote from Dr. King's 'I Have A Dream' speech ("Now is the time to make real the promises of Democracy"), to support demands that the bad Democrats give The Leader his $5.7 billion to build a border wall with Mexico (HuffPo).

______________________________

The Unseen Powerbars That Be Are Cheered By The Predictable Banality

Another one smites the trust: Kamala Harris does seem to have many precious things which the Democratic National Committee is looking for in A Dream Candidate -- but the bestest one is that she's well and truly wired into the System through the big, heavy fiber optic cables that connect California's Democratic party network into the DNC and beyond, into fabled spaces where the Big Donors and Celebrated Elders live.

It feels correct to say the DNC's chosen candidate will be one they believe can sail right down the middle, a non-revolutionary revolutionary. One who still can say, convincingly, things in Caucasianspeak, and also say Po-wer To The Peep-ul; Right On! A younger, nonwhite Hillary Clinton would give the appearance of being A Centrist Savior and an antidote to four years of The Leader.

But if poling data shows America wants a feisty Older Bro, they might favor O'Rourke (Clinton Third Way likee him). But if it seems America wants a Healing Papa, a Suit to look Presidential who won't ask who's giving him his orders, the DNC may have Joe Bison.

Obligatory Cute Animal Blog Photo In Middle Of Political Opinionizing
(Note: Bison Cannot Look Up)

A Bison presidency could be eight years of great photo ops. Getting America back "for all the people", getting in step with the New World Ordure, and cleaning all the crayon scribbles off the walls of the White House. America would be allowed once again to feel good about appearing to be a sovereign nation -- and, oh yes; a democracy. Right!

Ocasio-Cortez = Person Of Color, but too Boatrocker.   Gillibrand, Warren = too white.  Gabbard = Person Of Color, check; but Who? and, she has that little scandal.   Bernie = too old, and (like Ojedia, Delaney, Yang, Castro) too male.   O'Rourke is too also male, but also too What?  Kamala is POC, decisively not Bro, not too Boatrocker, and already looks good in a suit.

________________________________

Obscenities Of Which We Have Not Yet Been Informed

Oxfam International reports that the combined personal wealth of the 26 richest individuals on the planet is $1.4 Trillion -- equal to the net wealth of the 3.8 Billion poorest people on Earth (CNN). There are ~ 2,200 Billionaires world-wide, with a combined personal net worth of $9.1 Trillion.

Oxfam has been reporting these same statistics for a long time -- and suddenly, when something like the Occupy movement, or the Yellow Vest protests appear, pundits gawk and wonder: where did that come from? Why're people so angry?

"None of this is to say that the 0.1% – holed up in their resort and fenced off from the world with roadblocks and men toting sharpshooters – don’t care about the immiseration of others. At Davos ... the New York Times reported that among the summit’s attractions was 'a simulation of a refugee’s experience, where [conference] attendees crawl on their hands and knees and pretend to flee from advancing armies'. The article continued, 'It is one of the most popular events every year.' " [UK Guardian]

 __________________________________

A Random Bark

The Leader Is A Liar

In the mainstream media, reports continually say that The Leader makes "misstatements," or that his speeches and social media comments contain "inaccuracies" or "misleading" information -- but (with few exceptions) the media does not often say, simply and clearly, Donald Trump is a liar.

That sentence is accurate. It is not a distortion. The evidence that Trump lies is plentiful. It is not a politically-motivated attack, or invented -- he says things that are not true, every single day. It is a statement of fact, as real as gravity and 2+2 = 4: Donald Trump is a liar.

So -- whenever the subject of The Leader comes up -- everyone in America should begin their side of the conversation by saying, Donald Trump is a liar. Then pause, then continue.

Members of Congress, when asked by reporters about The Leader's latest antics; Left talking heads, discussing Important Topics on Washington Week or 'Meet The Press'; or opinion writers composing their latest columns; all should begin with the same first sentence: Donald Trump is a liar.

It needs to be repeated, over and over and over -- because The Leader is a liar.  Donald Trump is a liar.  It should be said straight, and clear.

__________________________________

MEHR, MIT HUHN INS FOTO:  I just really like this graphic.

Big Fat Liar: Missy Sara, Shamed By The Chicken

____________________________________

Just Repeat Things With Fierce Conviction

And The Future Will Be Fun For You

What will that future we hear so much about look like?  The Usual Suspects conduct Business As Usual: Nancy Pelosi is recaulked, mainbraces spliced and buffed to a high shine, and redelivered to the House as Speaker-To-Animals*. Chuck Schumer remains Democratic leader in the Senate. Together, they are the leaders of the Democratic party. While they talk inclusion to the 40-or-under crowd of "New Democrats" entering the House, Chuck 'n Nancy do represent (Left) entrenched interests, and will make sure those interests (not necessarily the People) are represented.

Chuck 'n Nancy will say The Same Things Over And Over Again With Fierce Conviction ("This [fill in blank] is a new low for the Republicans"  "Americans will not stand by while [fill in blank] takes away [fill in blank] and puts [fill in blank] at risk" "The President needs to [buh buh buh] because the American people are sick and tired of [buh buh buh]").

These responses are inoffensive, and the legislation they will pursue is bipartisan and centrist. They are the Kind and The Good. And the Republicans know they will do this and be this because that's the Democrats' side of the legislative dance.

However, the Republicans -- They are the Vicious, Vengeful, Unpredictable, with the Avarice of a Child, like The Leader. They know their side of the Dance is to kick Dems to the curb every chance they get, to be greedy and rapacious. The Leader wants war -- and until he can force the Iranians to attack U.S. naval units in the Gulf, the Democrats will have to do.

Republican leaders, like Senate Majority Yertle the Turtle (such an Especial Turtle) and the newly-appointed House Minority Leader, Sean Hannity, will continue to spout whatever little things come into their heads ("Speaker Pelosi is a syphilitic mulatto"  "Those different from us are Demons"  "The Democrat party will make multiracial dating compulsory" "Republicans have reduced the deficit by 60% since Leader took office" ). These things will be repeated, over and over, on 'Fox 'n Friends'. 40.2% of Americans will say they believe them.

The Leader signs a Prestidential Order making it compulsory to begin every sentence with a reference to Him ("Our Leader, who is wise and good, loves us, and yes I do have the data on progress in the new regional project").  42% of Americans say they welcome the new requirements, which will "teach a lesson about loyalty" to others (undefined).

CNN would report on this with comment, but Missy Sarah sends them to the Principal's office and gives their chair away to a representative of the Neues Völkischer Stoltz Jungen Daily, and its editor, Horst Whitemale. "Stop lookin' at my chins," scowls Missy Sarah, as she slyly opens her second box of crullers that morning.

Only the American Infrastructure Act will have support from both political parties --  and to celebrate its passage, Schumer, Pelosi, Turtle, and Hannity hold a joint press conference to trumpet a "new spirit of bipartisan cooperation for the American people." Chuck 'n Nancy smile for the cameras.

Leader will sign the bill at a ceremony in the Rose Garden. Leader speaks for one hundred and one minutes about His brilliance, His sagacity, His many gifts to the world: promises kept. "I made a good deal," says Leader. "We'll be handing out contracts soon; lot of people I know will do good work for the American people. Jobs. Lots of businesses making money. I know a lot of them." Sean Hannity takes the opportunity to call the Democratic party "the party of predation". He also smiles his winning smile.

The Leader began his campaign for reelection on November 7th, 2018. At a rally in Watertown, South Dakota, Leader will hint slyly that liberals should be taught 'a lesson', and when the Stoltz Jungen attack a forum held by the Soros Foundation, The Leader -- appearing at another daily rally in Murrkopf, Indiana -- will shrug, stretching out his arms and Big Hands™ and say, "Maybe the Soros people shouldn't have been there? Ya know?" to the raucous laughter and delight of the adoring crowd.

Later, He refers to reporters covering the event as "predators" -- "Don't people hunt predators out here?" asks Leader. "I dunno! Just thought they did!" In the following weeks, random shots are taken at 278 news vehicles, nationwide; thankfully, no one is injured.

Chambers Whittaker Pumpkin, baldo stand-in Attorney General, receives The Special Counsel's report on Russian election influence in 2016, and involvement of The Leader's campaign and The Leader. Pumpkin reads the report and fires Mueller in a tweet to the Völkischer Stoltz Jungen Daily.

Pumpkin puts the report in a drawer and spends the rest of the day playing golf with the CEO of a corporate defendant in a Justice Department civil action. The following week, the government announces it will not pursue the case; Pumpkin will later be seen driving around Georgetown a new Ferrari GTC4 LussoT.

It takes 36 hours for the report to be leaked. It shows that The Leader and others conspired to Want and to Take, Because They Could. It recommends the indictment of 158 Russians, Roger Stone, and a few others. Leader Jr., and Kushy, are shown to have solicited or allowed Foreign Powers to affect the election.

In an oft-repeated quote, The Leader will be reported to have said, "I don't give a [redacted] -- I want it. That's all that matters and [redacted] the [redacted] People." Melania Trump, attending a 'spa day' with Louise Hinton, appears in a custom-made Alexi Queen coat with "Scott Free" printed on its back.

Release of Mueller's report will trigger obligatory hours and hours of shouting and keening and media. Many people will stop to watch the Shiny Object on teevee for hours. Advertising time will be sold for very high prices. Much money will be made.

In the end, the Republican majority in the Senate rejects the House's Bill of Impeachment. Yertle The Turtle (such an Especial Turtle), standing next to Mikey Pence, Inquisitor In Chief, will tell the media, "Don't care what they want. They should go back where they came from." Yertle makes comments to a Fox anchor, but will refuse to answer questions from the "predator press". Another round of random shootings of news vans occurs across the country.

_______________________________

UND: MEHR, MIT 'WIR SIND SCROOD':

We are so unquestionably scrood scrood scrood.

________________________________

* The "Speaker-To-Animals" reference will be instantly recognizable to readers of Larry Niven's 'Ringworld' series of science-fiction novels. For those unfamiliar with it, the term will will mystify, confuse, and possibly enrage.

In The Epistemic World

Wherein We Are Shewn How The Sausage Is Made

Politics: So Many Choices.

____________________________

GOP Confident Kavanaugh Is Cleared
-- CNN Headline, October 4, 2018

...By “epistemic world”, I mean a broadly shared framework for knowing [where] emotions, moral sensibilities and reason are all informed by certain values, either consciously or unconsciously...  When our epistemic world is threatened, we feel ourselves being undone. As a philosopher, I am inclined to see [the nomination of Kavanaugh] as a war between two epistemic worlds.

In the first world, privileged white men get to do with impunity what other men at least have to think twice about, and for women who dare to speak of them, the punishment is swift and devastating. ... In the second epistemic world, the default position is to believe [the] women who make sexual assault allegations...

Much of the media spectacle around the Kavanaugh nomination has made it seem as if the epistemic battle is about the truth... Kavanaugh’s supporters want to be sure that what is at stake is not truth, but meaning. It isn’t really about who you believe, so much as which epistemic world you believe in.

Will the first epistemic world retain its power to determine the status of such happenings, to determine what they mean, how they matter? ... make no mistake -- the “old” world ... is right here, right now, and despite the remarkable gains of the #MeToo movement, it controls every branch of our government.

-- Bonnie Mann, "Trump’s New Taunt, Kavanaugh’s Defense and How Misogyny Rules"; New York Times, October 3, 2018 (Minor edits for clarity)

______________________________

A Simulacrum Of A Pretense Of Caring

...A predatory society doesn’t just mean oligarchs ripping people off financially. In a truer way, it means people nodding and smiling and going about their everyday business as their neighbours, friends, and colleagues die early deaths in shallow graves.

The predator in American society isn’t just its super-rich — but an invisible and insatiable force: the normalization of what in the rest of the world would be seen as shameful, historic, generational moral failures, if not crimes, becoming mere mundane everyday affairs not to be too worried by or troubled about...

Seen accurately. American collapse is a catastrophe of human possibility without modern parallel. And because the mess that America has made of itself, then, is so especially unique, so singular, so perversely special — the treatment will have to be novel, too. The uniqueness of these social pathologies tell us that American collapse is not like a reversion to any mean, or the downswing of a trend. It is something outside the norm. Something beyond the data. Past the statistics.

It is like the meteor that hit the dinosaurs: an outlier beyond outliers, an event at the extreme of the extremes. That is why our narratives, frames, and theories cannot really capture it — much less explain it. We need a whole new language — and a new way of seeing — to even begin to make sense of it.

But that is America’s task, not the world’s. The world’s task is this. Should the world follow the American model — extreme capitalism, no public investment, cruelty as a way of life, the perversion of everyday virtue — then these new social pathologies will follow, too.

They are new diseases of the body social that have emerged from the diet of junk food — junk media, junk science, junk culture, junk punditry, junk economics, people treating one another and their society like junk — that America has fed upon for too long.

--  Umair Haque, "Why We're Underestimating American Collapse"; Eudaimonia&Co., January 25, 2018

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Democracy Means Someday You Can Do It Too

Mr. Trump won the presidency proclaiming himself a self-made billionaire, and he has long insisted that his father, the legendary New York City builder Fred C. Trump, provided almost no financial help.

But The Times’s investigation, based on a vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records, reveals that Mr. Trump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day.

Barstow, Craig and Buettner, "Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father", New York Times, October 2, 2018

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Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Ogg Ogg

The Oldest Friend Asks: "Why do you undercut your writing with humor 

that detracts from whatever your point is?"

Golden Days

America has a thriving mutual support network of family trusts and estates. The Trump administration is serving their interests well. What caught the headlines in Mr Trump’s tax bill last December was the cut in the corporate tax rate. Private wealth also had plenty to cheer. The bill doubled the floor at which people must start paying inheritance taxes.

Couples can now shelter their children from paying a cent on the first $22 million of what they inherit. The previous floor was already high, even by America’s standards. [In 2000, only] 2% of American estates paid any estate tax. That has now fallen to [ 0.01% ], according to the Joint Committee on Taxation...

...Mr. Kavanaugh boasted that he had “busted a gut” to make it to Yale, and benefited from “no connections”. In fact, he attended a Washington private school that churns out Ivy League material... Mr Kavanaugh’s grandfather studied at Yale.

Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Kavanaugh offers a cracked reflection of society. America’s elites do not like what they see. It distorts their world as they like to see it: meritocratic, fair-minded, and politically correct. Each in their way presents a grotesquerie of America’s less noble side.

In Mr. Kavanaugh’s case, it is the slipped mask of a man trying to imitate Lady Justice. In Mr. Trump’s it is a president who reinforces an economic structure that sustains them.

--  Edward Luce, "Donald Trump and The Golden Age Of America’s Oligarchy," Financial Times, October 4, 2018

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Is She Big Is She Moving Is She Hellbound

America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: America is always on the move. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn't standing still.
-- e. e. cummings, May, 1927; as quoted in George Firmage's A Miscellany (1958)

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But, It Mimics Nature

In 2011, the Swiss Institute of Technology (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule [ETH], Zürich) released a comprehensive study of the ownership structures of ~43,000 transnational corporations.

The ETH determined that all of them were owned by just 147 corporate entities, which they referred to as a 'Super Entity' -- and 75% of them are financial corporations (Vitali, Glattfelder and Battiston, "The Network Of Corporate Global Control", ETH Zürich, 2011)

... But don't grab a pitchfork and head to the nearest Occupy protest just yet. Systems researchers say this isn't the result of an Illuminati-type global conspiracy, but rather a natural force to be expected.
"Such structures are common in nature," complex systems expert George Sudihara told NewScientist.

The researchers say that while there's nothing wrong, in and of itself, with the concentration of capital in the hands of a small number of companies, when those companies become too interconnected, they can cause chain reactions that can harm the economy.

--  Daniel Tencer, " 'Super-Entity' Of 147 Companies At Center Of World's Economy, Study Claims", Huffington Post Canada, October 24, 2011

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Keep Them From Noticing The Fire As Long As Possible

What will trigger the next crash? The $13.2 trillion in unsustainable U.S. household debt? The $1.5 trillion in unsustainable student debt? The billions Wall Street has invested in a fracking industry that has spent $280 billion more than it generated from its operations? Who knows.

What is certain is that a global financial crash, one that will dwarf the meltdown of 2008, is inevitable. And this time, with interest rates near zero, the elites have no escape plan. ...

An emergency clause in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 allows the Fed to provide liquidity to a distressed banking system. But [After the 2008 Crash] the Federal Reserve did not stop with [providing banks with] a few hundred billion dollars. It flooded the financial markets with absurd levels of fabricated money. This had the effect of making the economy appear as if it had revived. And for the oligarchs, who had access to this fabricated money while we did not, it did.

...The global financial system is a ticking time bomb. The question is not if it will explode but when it will explode. And once it does, the inability of the global speculators to use fabricated money with zero interest to paper over the debacle will trigger massive unemployment, high prices for imports and basic services, and a devaluation in which the dollar will become nearly worthless as it is abandoned as the world’s reserve currency...

...Given the staggering amount of fabricated money that has to be repaid, the banks need to build greater and greater pools of debt. This is why when you are late in paying your credit card the interest rate jumps to 28 percent. This is why if you declare bankruptcy you are still responsible for paying off your student loan, even as 1 million people a year default on student loans, with 40 percent of all borrowers expected to default on student loans by 2023.

This is why wages are stagnant or have declined while costs, from health care and pharmaceutical products to bank fees and basic utilities, are skyrocketing. The enforced debt peonage grows to feed the beast until, as with the subprime mortgage crisis, the predatory system fails because of massive defaults...

--  Chris Hedges, "Conjuring Up The Next Depression", TruthDig, September 10, 2018
     (Links Added)

______________________________________

WALLACE GLADSTONE: ... And now, here's a contingent of our heroic POWs, many of whom spent years in prison in Hanoi, courageously resisting the persistent efforts of their North Vietnamese captors to brainwash them into thinking that the United States is run by a tiny clique of criminals, dominated by powerful business interests; bankrolled by huge, monopolistic corporations working hand in glove with the CIA in a campaign of intrigue at home and abroad.  

BARBARA MERKIN: Jesus, why do they bother?  

GLADSTONE:  Oh; I don't know, Barbara.  

-- "Impeachment Day Parade Coverage", Chevy Chase (Gladstone), Rhonda Coulett (Merkin); National Lampoon's Missing White House Tapes (Blue Thumb Records, 1974)

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Trumplandia Three

Bark Bark Bark Bark

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? ... You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! ... There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immutable, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars... which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today... 

...There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only [ Apple], and [Google], and [Facebook], and [Microsoft], [Bayer, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, Disney, AT&T] and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today... We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. 

--  Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty), Paddy Chayefsky's "Network" (1976, with updates)

____________________________

The current news regarding Mr Cohen and Manafort's convictions aren't necessarily as  significant as some (e.g., A Work Colleague) believe they are.

AWC:  (Walks up) Hey; how ya doin? I'm pumped.
DOG: Why?
AWC:  (Pause) You don't watch the news?
DOG:  A couple of scumbag fixers are being processed through our System Of Justice™. One got convicted, the other pled out. That's all that's happened. Unless aliens landed.
AWC:  Okay; I'm not even going to discuss it. This is the beginning of the end of Trump! You just want to shit all over it!
DOG: This is only the second half of the third inning. Two runners got retired trying to steal bases. Cohen and Manafort couldn't hit that well, but still got on base and then thought they'd cheat and got tagged out. They were puffed-up, small-time fixers who believed they were better Players than they were. They thought they were Ty Cobb and Ted Williams and they weren't.
AWC: Okay, I get it.
DOG:  No, you don't. Let me push this a little further: this is just the second half of the third inning -- in this game. There are like about eighty games left to play in the season! Trump is still in office. The GOP is still Führertreu and still runs the Congress, and Stevie Bannon is still hung over and shedding his facial skin all over Hungary. It's a little soon for the forces of Peace and Justice to be saying, "It's over! We're taking the Pennant!"
AWC: You're just saying this because I wanted a sane woman to be president.
DOG:  Not really -- but, hey; I've never successfully carried a baseball metaphor this far through a conversation before. I feel pretty proud of myself.
AWC: The BBC is reporting Cohen can give Mueller information on a conspiracy with the Russians.
DOG:  Uh-huh. It's still the bottom of the Third -- in one game -- and we're not even talking about the Democratic party, or international politics, or economics yet.
AWC: (Walks away)

________________________________

I'm capable of being a selfish, venal Dog. The taste of Schadenfreude as Trump's lies twist around the axle of his public life is tempting and sweet: it's satisfying to watch that bloated punk flail and bellow as he becomes stuck in the Tar Pits. But -- as satisfying as that is, bigger things are at stake and Trump's hair and family and public antics have never been the real show.

The Right-wing media echo chamber -- the true fake news -- has spent over thirty years repeating, again and again, that America's central, federal government is a lying oppressor, a tool of liberal one-worlders out to steal our Rights. It's broken, unresponsive. Individual state governments could do a better job...

On the Left and the Right, people know Trump is an abusive boss, a Crap Daddy, a blowhard and a rich fuck-up. They expect him to behave like one. And everyone hopes this, uh, situation will just resolve itself -- somehow -- with the same dramatic arc as a network television program: the Bad Guy gets his way; then, eventually Hubris brings him low. Everything is resolved. And, most important of all, life goes back to normal.

Except, we don't live in a television program. Even so, the drama is entertaining.  And Trump feeds on it, hour by hour -- he's the center of all attention.

One thing about Manfort's conviction, and Cohen's guilty plea, both on multiple counts is the solidity, the concrete reality, of the events. They can't be denied, called 'fake', or lied about. They're a reminder to Trump that his control is an illusion.

_________________________________

Even so -- no matter what happens to Trump; or to Republicans, Democrats, the Alt-Right and Social Justice Warrior activists -- all the major issues in American politics and the society that were raised and on display during the 2016 election cycle have not been addressed.

And, our national problems are being played out against the backdrop of a global ideological struggle -- between 'Brexit', anti-immigrant nationalism and repressive quasi-fascism on the Right; Kumbayah-neoliberal-globalism, or Socialist-quasi-communism, on the Left.

Whatever happens to Trump in America may affect that debate (e.g., it might help discredit the myth of nationalist, strongman rule), but despite his trade tariffs, his jackass behavior with the UN, the EU and NATO; despite his bromance with Kim Jong Jong; Trump's downfall won't resolve it.

__________________________________

(Finally, even if the current situation develops into a question of Impeachment being raised -- I don't like quoting myself, but I've already barked about this:)

...any charges brought by a special prosecutor must be referred to the United States Congress. The House Judiciary committee would hold hearings to determine whether the charges against the president were impeachable offenses. 

Unless the November midterms change the balance in Congress, the Judiciary Committee may still be dominated by Republicans. 

Partisan politics may rule; the Right has run roughshod over the country to get what it wants, so they may shut down any inquiry and to hell with the media and the People. If they do, that's an end to it.

There will be CSPAN coverage of the committee sessions, and video clips of Democratic members crying that this is the darkest day in America since the Civil War -- that will be true, but it won't matter. Trump, vindicated, Tweets for days, strutting and preening. Ivanka goes shopping with Louise Linton and they have a 'Spa Day'.

_________________________________

But, let's say the Judiciary committee does hold full and transparent hearings. They vote to refer the matter to the full House (here, the Rules Committee would determine how debate and voting would proceed). A simple majority (218) is required when voting on Articles of Impeachment. This means 192 Democrats have to find twenty-six Republicans to join them. It's possible -- but if the vote falls strictly along party lines, it will fail.  That's the end of it.

Trump crows over his 'success', his 'win', in a never-ending series of press conferences, takes a full week off in New Jersey and golfs every day, making Impeachment jokes to the neutered press. President Vladimir Putin of Russia calls Trump to congratulate him.

_________________________________

So, let's assume Articles of Impeachment actually pass in the House and are referred to the Senate for the president to be tried. When Clinton was tried in the Senate, there were hours of debate and plenty of grandstanding; the same will happen here. The spectacle will 'consume the nation', but remember -- it's theater. Get some popcorn, but I wouldn't spend extra money for the really good kind.

A two-thirds vote is required in the Senate to convict a president on any charge. 67 Senators voting 'Aye' on any charge results in a conviction, which also means a vote to remove the president from office.

If Trump were tried in the Senate, it's probable that, like Clinton, the number of Senators voting to convict would not reach 67. Trump would be "shamed", as Clinton was -- but he remains in office, and that's the end of it. 

The thing about public shaming:  the person being punished has to feel as if the penalty actually means anything. Trump would care less about being disgraced as the third president in history to actually be tried for Impeachment in the Senate. For him, "not getting a two-thirds vote" and remaining in office equals "winning".  

Perversely, Trump would feed on a 24-by-7 news cycle being focused on him, for months on end. After the vote(s) fail, he will bellow, preen, strut, and celebrate with an all-night party at More-Lego, attended by all the bottom-feeding, alt-Right and white supremacist glitterati, flown in at government expense -- and with a manly, affectionate embrace from surprise guest, Stevie Bannon. President Vladimir Putin of Russia will send flowers to Melania.

_________________________________

MEHR:  NETT u. SPASS!!

If I'm going to be self-referential, might as well trowel it on. From the wayback machine:

[Trump's] campaign depends on tapping the kind of inchoate rage that we see or experience on the street, or at work. If Trump were to win, it would mean a period of social and political dislocation in America which no one in memory has experienced. I could make a joke about a similarity with H.P. Lovecraft's return of Chtulu and the Old Ones, but in fact nobody knows where it would all lead. 

__________________________________

Random Barking: Wondering

Wandering

Murrika: Enshrouded; Lost; Guided By A Trickster (Foto: Joseph Beuys u. Coyote)

Big Box Of Terror 
In conversations with friends over the past few weeks, we admitted experiencing an uneasy, underlying sense that The World had fundamentally changed in a way we can't fully grasp, validate, or prove. We were the same, but everything around us had shifted, slightly -- like a kid's party game, where you guess which items have been moved on a table.

The Oldest Friend came close: "It's like I went to bed one night, and woke up in an alternate universe that was just a little bit different than the one I went to sleep in. Nothing immediately definable -- it would be like discovering there had never been Abba-Zaba Bars, or the original 'Star Trek' ran for three seasons, not two. I'm fine; I'm okay -- but, the World feels 'off', different -- 'stranger in a strange land'-ish.

"That's completely subjective, I know," she said, "but it takes a while to go away, and it's pervasive."

While all of the people I spoke with defined that experience a bit differently, there was common agreement that we perceived some difference between ourselves and The World that hadn't existed before -- which led us to feel mildly alienated from everything, except possibly each other.

________________________

When we said The World, we didn't mean the planet, the natural landscape. Climate deterioration aside, the Natural World seems to be solid, abiding. 'The World' we referred to is the one built out of social fabric, stretched on a framework of collective relationships and stitched together by the cultural Ways our society accepts and agrees to in those relations. It was in that world we felt, suddenly, out of place.

_________________________

The Girl Who Refused To Be Mrs. Mongo said it reminded her of the Cold War -- what it meant to live in the knowledge that nuclear war was possible (guess what? It still is). It was an understanding we kept, down in the basement of our consciousness, jammed in a dark corner, along with the box that has the big, yellow label with red lettering -- Terror: Or, we are Mortal and Death is Mystery.

There were times down those years when we woke up in the middle of the night after a particularly bad news cycle, thinking what if the sirens just went off? Now (the people I spoke with agreed), nearly every morning when we get up, we wonder what new outrage has been committed, what new boundary was crossed, while we slept. We come awake expecting bad news. One way or another what we're really thinking is What? What Has Trump Done Now?

Someone noted, 'Trump is the new Cold War' -- meaning, like that time in our collective past, he has become the symbol and avatar of that dark corner in our own basements. His antics are a reminder that The World is just a construct, and the control we think we have over the Natural World is an illusion. Trump is the embodiment of unpredictability.

As a 72-year-old, Trump has to know that he will not live forever. Spasmodically, he acts out and splatters America with his own feces, then revels in the disgust he provokes, the impotent anger of others, all to feed an endless hunger for validation to avoid the Big Box Of Terror at the center of his own being.

________________________

So I wake up in the 2:30AM, sometimes with the Terror, sometimes not. I remind myself that we're animals, hard-wired to survive -- and self-conscious animals, who understand that our lives are finite, and demand answers.

Our world (the actual one around us; the perceived one in our heads) is changing.  It has always been unpredictable in its details -- but not in our beginnings, rites of passage, ecstasies and sorrows, and our end. No one, alive or dead, can say why we came to be or where we're going -- but we demand our Reason Why, even if it's not possible.

And I remind myself: all of our Details are in The Stories. It's why Gilgamesh. It's why Homer and Herodotus, Chaucer and Pope; Dickens and Melville. It's why statuary and panel and canvas and paper, camera, movement and words on a Stage. It's why music from Cantos to Paart, Bach to Ravel, Joplin to Pere Ubu -- and all of it bent to the virtuous effort of telling the Story of What Happened To Us When We Went Through It. All of our details go; only the Stories remain.

I considered this, and because I'm only a Dog and not a philosopher, passed my observation on to friends in the version used at the Soul Of America: Be Kind, Motherfuckers. They could get behind that.

_____________________________

This Bathroom Is Occupied

I'd picked up Peter Fritzsche's 2016 book, "An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler", now out in paperback. Browsing it at a bookshop, I was idly looking for resonances with the perspective that we're living in an occupied country, under Trump and his creatures. As if the nightmare were something alien, forced on us by an invader.

I do actually know better. My life in America is not even remotely similar to the European experience between 1939 and 1945. As swinish, bloated and mendacious that Trump and his crew are, they aren't foreign invaders. They don't speak a different language. And they aren't nazis  -- though some of  Trump's "fine people" parading in Charolettesville last year would like to be.

I'd like to say Trump's government doesn't demand your identification, perform roundups of civilians, make it easy for companies to provide the population with food, water, or products which are unsafe. But they do these things, and much more. And while Trump and the opportunistic leeches he's dragged in his wake are not nazis, there are people in America who are treated by that government as if nazis had landed -- primarily, the Usual Suspects: immigrants, the marginalized poor, people of color; LGBTQ Americans; women.

You know the drill. None of this is news; we see it on television or online, every day. But so long as it isn't happening in more affluent neighborhoods, or to your friends and families or you -- Meh. Doesn't concern us. Have a beer. Watch the Big Game.

_______________________________

In the 1970's, I visited Europe. Walking through cities I noticed (with surprising regularity) something rarely seen in America -- it seemed a significant percentage of adults in their late forties to early sixties had serious facial scars, eye patches or glasses with one darkened lens; crutches, missing limbs.

At a bus stop on a warm morning in southwestern Germany, a man stood waiting, wearing a Tyroler hat, a topcoat and gloves. His face was a smooth mask of shiny, oddly pink skin, which made discerning his age difficult. His nose had been reduced to a smooth bump. Plainly, he'd suffered serious burns -- except around the eyes, where a pilot or air crewman would have worn a set of goggles. I must have been staring; the man looked over at me, took in my non-European appearance and clothing, and said, "Good morning," in a British-accented English.

I nodded back, said nothing, and so missed the opportunity for an insightful conversation with someone who at the least had an interesting personal story. He also might have confirmed what I was already guessing: that the European experience of the Second World War seared everyone by degrees, civilian and military, the persecutors and persecuted, right down to their souls.

Those who weren't killed in occupied Europe continued to experience degrees of cruelty, humiliation, betrayal, anxiety and uncertainty, at levels that would have been unthinkable before 1933 -- and all because it became acceptable and popular in Germany to believe ideas which first became policy, and then law.

One aspect of the Holocaust is as a teaching moment for humanity about intolerance and hate, and where it can lead. Fritzsche's book shows clearly what the power of belief can do to individuals, and groups, in even more detail than any other look at the period I've seen -- something I didn't think was possible. Using only contemporary documents and writings, he shows how The Leader in an authoritarian system provides permission to his followers for accepting astonishing levels of violence (if not committing it), and how he becomes a psychological scapegoat for the violence should it all go bad later.

America's history has already burned us, as Europe's before WWII had done to its own cultures and societies. We aren't living in an occupied country, but we are changing (“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig... but already it was impossible to say which was which”). We run the risk of being seared down to our souls (as Europeans were, over twelve years of nazism) by whatever at the moment seems to be coming.

I'm not sure what it will feel like to live here, when the country gets to wherever we're headed. We can try to be kind, first; perhaps that's all we can do. Perhaps it's the only real act of resistance, in the end.

__________________________________

Random Barking: Don't Know Much Psychology

Musings Of An Ex-Cigarette-Smoking Man

Research into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder made clear that physical, neuro-chemical effects occur when people experience significant traumatic events, evoking a "fight-or-flight" response, which is a function of our DNA; as hardy meat puppets, we're hard-wired for survival.

Neural pathways created in the brain are triggered when, later, people perceive -- subconsciously, for the most part -- that they're in circumstances similar to that original event, reliving, replaying (and actually reinforcing) the same emotions they experienced in it.

As a definition, PTSD was first used as the Vietnam War began winding down (for America, anyway), and only became a medically-accepted diagnostic category in the early 1980s. The Veteran's Administration was quick to adopt that addition to the DSM-III, but not necessarily to act on it or treat it.

My Dog Trainer (who specializes in PTSD, and has been in the Biz since the mid-70's) agreed that the relationship between trauma, brain chemistry, and cyclic reinforcement of bad experiences is likely.  I've worked with them for a while, and a something we've talked about occasionally is the effect of broad social or political events on the mental health, and trends, in culture and societies.

______________________________

In college I was introduced to Loren Eisley through his autobiographical All The Strange Hours. He was born in 1907, and was already in his early twenties during the Depression. There was no way he could describe experiences in his life, on his way to becoming an anthropologist, without mentioning that historical event.

In trying to understand The Depression, any statistics are useless. Every anchor-point that defined a person's place in a community, their sense of identity and self, was threatened. The anxiety people felt (a constant fear in anticipating more loss, shame, powerlessness; death) went on, every day, for years with no end in sight. 

People adapted -- as organisms, that's what we do. But their spirits were bent by the gravity of events, and the effects rippled out through their lives, because that's what History does. 

The political Right has purred for years that FDR's 'social experimentation' after his election "really made the depression 'Great' ".  The truth is, a Republican-led government left 'the markets' to sort themselves out without interference. The Oligarchs of the day didn't care; their lives remained much as they always had been. They left the People on their own.

Herbert Hoover believed in a rugged individualism, where strength built character. Asked decades later how he dealt with critics who blamed him for the Depression, Hoover quipped, "I outlived the bastards". Meanwhile, people struggled to adjust and survive. Until Roosevelt was elected and tried to do something, anything, they did so without hope. 

_______________________________ 

Eisley never spoke about what The Depression did to people directly. America is composed of physical places, but also it's very much a geography of the mind: Eisley described hopping freights and moving through Hobo Jungles, towns of the Great Plains, writing sketches of the people he met there, dislocated physically and mentally by The Crash. One night, a hobo told him what he believed was the great lesson of life, hoping Eisley would get it: "Men beat men, kid. That's all there is."

Something in those side-glance references to America during those years reminded me of  late-evening conversations I'd overhear as a child, between my parents and their peers. When they'd talked through current events, surface details of their jobs and days, they worked down to the big events, to the Second World War. Reminiscing in that layer could take time.

Among married couples, the men watched their language (for the most part), and only made brief mention of the details of their war if they'd served in a combat arm. The wives talked about waiting, home, families, radio news, and finding work.

If the talk went on long enough, someone would finally mention The Depression, and something about the conversation took on a different character. The War was something to be proud of, and their voices were energetic, confident, talking about it. And it rubbed off on the children: attending the first day of First Grade, when roll was taken some children answered 'Present' or 'Here'; but a good number of kids responded, "Yo!"

But our parents sounded like distinctly different people when talking about the Depression. I don't remember details -- but sharing these memories sounded different. I could sense a current of uncertainty passing between them, a helpless fear; survivors reliving a disaster that came out of nowhere, and repeating every memory sounded like thank god we got through it; I never want to see anything like that again.

______________________________

Reading Eisley sparked a connection for me between the America after 1929, and my mother's compulsive saving of string, rubber bands, pencils, tin foil. How she seemed to expect bad news or a worst-case end to anything; a stock response was, "You never know". My father, despite a level of professional success, bonuses and good reviews, worried that his job was always in jeopardy; his favorite phrase was, "Get with the program".

There was no apparent reason for either of them to live as if anticipating the ceiling would collapse, but they did. And, children talk -- we discovered our parents had similar motivations, fears, even memories. They all had their own Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder -- and the veterans in particular.  One friend's father was a survivor of Corregidor, the Bataan death March, and four years in a Philippine POW camp. Another kid said quietly his father would wake up, shouting for a long-dead shipmate, several times a week.

______________________________

It seems obvious that people are affected by the events they live through; that trauma marks us, and it's obvious what we're living through, now, is having the same effect. Never mind the details; we all watch the news. Many people more intelligent than I am present an analysis of What It All Means every day. I only bark about it.

I keep remembering the opening section of a John Gardner short story, "John Napper Sailing Through The Universe" (1974): he and his wife arrive home after a party, full of drink and making their way up to bed. Gardner has a sad vision of the future: ...fumbling, helping each other as we must... [We] take our teeth out. I'm ninety-two. The planet is dying -- pestilence, famine, everlasting war. The nation's in the hands of child molestors. True Dat.

All I'm considering at the moment is how the echoes of the history we're living through continue to affect us, rippling out across time. How just being in the room when something happens -- seeing an image, hearing something shouted or whispered -- shapes perception. How, like gravity from some body unseen in space, experience bends how we act in the world, and our expectations of it.

_______________________________

And now, something completely different: Socio-Political Commentary!

________________________________

An Illusion In Our Simulated Lives

Presence And Absence

Triumph Of The Shill:  Yesterday morning's news, that Rex Tillerson had been fired as Secretary of Oil State by The Bloated Raving Skunk OUR LEADER, to be replaced by Mikey Pompeo.

Rexi had been tipped off by Whitey Haus Chief O' Staff, General John Kelley, to cut short a State Department trip to Africa. Rexi was flying home when informed of a new Tweet from THE LEADER: "Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! ... Congratulations to all!"

But, Rex is really rich, so it's all good. Yay!

And the world yawns. The daily disintegration of the Murrikan government, such as it is, surprises no one any more. We're suffering from Outrage Burn Out, and it's only been fourteen-plus months. Classical Rome must have been like this -- another day, another advisor banished from the Glory That Is THE LEADER -- or resigning, like Gary Cohn, who last year was described as "the most important man in Washington".

Gary effectively gave up the opportunity to replace Lil' Lloyd Blankfein as Chief Squid at Goldman, to serve THE LEADER. Someone else looks set to seize that role, now, and poor Gary probably bitterly regrets this, now, given that the Bloated, Raving Skunk person he chose to follow was lovin' him some white supremacists and nazis in Charlottesville. But Gary's rich -- so, s'all good. Yay!!

Gary will be replaced by an old teevee personality who once briefly served in the Whitey Haus of Saint Ronald The Dim. And he's supposed to be rich, too. Yay!!! USA! USA!

_________________________________

(Modified Image - Original Photo: Maranie Staab / Reuters)

A Democratic candidate won, by the narrowest of margins, an off-cycle race in a Congressional district which voted overwhelmingly for THE LEADER in 2016. The Democrat was running against a very vocal supporter of  THE LEADER. Pundits everywhere strive to make the claim that they know what these results mean.

At work, I have an encounter with My Very Own Hilliaryite Colleague, who deigns to speak with me now, to discuss this.

MVOHC:  It's proof of a resurgence of the power of the Democratic party.
DOG:  If you say so.
MVOHC: Oh, come on. Put it together with Alabama and Virginia. We're coming back, and the mid-terms are going to be a huge upset.
DOG:  This race wasn't as cut-and-dried as you think. You think it was about a rejection of Trump, or Republicans, or conservative values? Lamb was a Center-Right Democrat; he wasn't an #Occupy organizer or a marcher for A Woman's Right To Choose. Look at his positions.
MVOHC:  Fuck you.
DOG:  I'm just saying: The politics of any Congressional elections are very local. They're not necessarily a bellwether for the mid-terms. The Democratic Party hasn't figured out what it is. It hasn't said what it's for. Until it can do that, it's a sham.
MVOHC: You are completely fucking delusional.

28 Trumps Later
____________________________________

Stephen Hawking died yesterday. For a moment, that news was a surprise -- until I realized with a leavening shock that every person of significance in my world is aging. As I am. That, and the illusion of the permanence of their presence (like the illusion of my own) are things I take for granted. Man; the things we do to create a sense of continuity.

Out for dinner with The Girl Who Refused To Be Mrs Mongo, we toasted Hawking. We made the stock observations about him -- that he was born on the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death, and died on Einstein's 139th birthday; that, even with the physical suffering and limitations of ALS, he became one of the great Cosmologists and scientific minds in human history, and seemed to keep a sense of humor about himself.

 Another Mensch leaves us: Now he knows what we do not.  The Girl  sipped her wine at dinner and observed, "[Hawking], we needed. Why couldn't it have been [THE LEADER]?"

___________________________________

America Wants Its Guns And Jesus

Parkland, Florida: 17 Dead

Yet one more mass killing.

I understand what gunfire and injuries caused by weapons mean. In 2012, when twenty children -- 20 children -- were murdered at Sandy Hook, projecting my own experience into a situation involving the deaths of five-year-old children -- five-year-old children -- I thought this, finally, would be the event, the tipping point which would cause us to turn in collective revulsion, and something would be done about gun violence in America.

But it wasn't. And in the six years since, we've had Virginia, and Denver, and Florida (No. 1), and Washington D.C. And San Bernardo. And Texas. And South Carolina. And.

Every time this happens, it becomes Just One More Of Those Things That Happens. And, I've said it before: these incidents always happen Somewhere Else in this big Nation of ours -- until they don't. And Our Corrupt Whores Complicit In Homicides Sainted Politicians do nothing.

Our Bloated, Raving Skunk Sainted Leader says it's about mental illness -- guns don't kill people; it's the crazy nutjobs who do that.  But Our Sainted Leader can shut the fuck up and be damned: as I've said and unfortunately will go on saying, none of these incidents are about Operator Error.

And because I've said it before, here are reprints from 2015, and 2014, and 2012, after (then) yet another mass killing. And another.

And while the massacre in Norway in 2011 didn't occur in the United States, the connection between gun violence and right-wing consciousness is clear -- more of a threat in America than the rest of the 'developed' world.

_________________________

Virginia

I've already had to repost my thoughts about Sandy Hook after yet another rampage by some angry nutjob.  I'm not going to do it every time we see the effects of combining Angry Nutjob with Firearms, or I'd be reposting it every week.  But I will quote myself:

Only in cases like Sandy Hook does our national debate begin and end with, "Guns don't kill people; the people using them do". And that's it -- Pilot Error, essentially, is the public finding; and any other meme is just filler in the media. That, and people repeating, "It doesn't happen every day."

I'm sure that fact is a comfort to the extended families of twenty children, who died because they were shot with high-powered handguns. Twenty children...

What happened in Sandy Hook yesterday has happened before -- in Columbine; in Denver; In Virginia; in a mall in Seattle last week; at a Dairy Queen in the Northwest. There may not be massacres, but annually there are many multiple-victim, firearm homicides in America.

And they will keep happening, until something changes about how firearm ownership and possession is discussed, and regulated, in this country.

The debate is not about Operator Error.  It's not about something that happened "over there" in another city or state. It's about twenty dead children.

 Per Reuters:

Two journalists, reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward of Roanoke CBS affiliate WDBJ7, were shot during a live interview on Wednesday by a disgruntled former station employee who later killed himself. The woman who was being interviewed was wounded and hospitalized.

Parker's father, Andy Parker, urged state and federal lawmakers to take action on gun control, especially to keep firearms out of the hands of people who were mentally unstable... "How many Alisons is this going to happen to before we stop it?"

The United States had about 34,000 firearms deaths in 2013...  with almost two-thirds of them suicides, according to the [CDC]...

The last time there was a push at the federal level for tighter gun control was following the massacre of 26 people, mostly children, at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012... [the legislation] was rejected in April 2013 by the U.S. Senate, including by some lawmakers in [the] Democratic Party.

________________________________

Norway

I want to say this, right up front: In the United States, domestic terrorism is in fact committed by those on the Right. Period.

Don't agree? How many dirty hippie leftists plotted to destroy the Federal Building in Oklahoma City? How many bombs have been set off by "left-wing extremists"? How many family planning clinic doctors and nurses have been stalked and murdered by Buddhists? Or Progressives? Come on; how many?

How many organized groups of dirty hippies (some with illegal heavy weapons) publicly hail Marx and Lenin and claim they are "at war" with an illegal, 'occupation' government? How many churches, and alleged 'pastors', preach messages of exclusion, intolerance and hate towards Evangelicals? How many radio stations in America spew out a never-ending stream of hatred and bile towards conservatives, caucasians, and christians?

How many? How many?

_______________________________

Sandy Hook

 (Photo: AP, via The New York Times)

There are no real words for what happened in Connecticut, yesterday. There is plenty to say about how it happened.

I overheard someone at work (a classic gun nut owner who believes Negros persons of color will overrun his part of the planet) observing that "this [presumably, massacres committed by unstable individuals with firearms] is the new normal".

On PBS' The News Hour, a professional psychologist asked to comment said (and I'm paraphrasing) that "It's important to say... this kind of tragedy doesn't happen every day... that schools really are safe places."

I reject the first comment. The second remark made me think: This fellow doesn't go to many Inner City schools, then -- massacres with 27 dead don't happen every day, that's true; but there are shooting incidents, and kids packing, and metal detectors, and education occurring against a solid backdrop of poverty and violence, every day.

The psychologist on News Hour was, I thought, trying to suggest themes parents might pass on to reassure their children (Don't worry, Timmy; It Can't Happen Here) -- that planes can crash, but the odds of going down in one, or having one crash on top of you, are hugely in your favor. And largely, that is true.

But planes do crash. Ships sink. Trains collide and buses plunge. Whenever that does happen, there are NTSB investigations, reconstructions and root-cause analyses. There are discussions with engineers and manufacturers about what to do to lessen the chances such a tragedy doesn't happen again.

Only in cases like Sandy Hook does our national debate begin and end with, "Guns don't kill people; the people using them do". And that's it -- Pilot Error, essentially, is the public finding; and any other meme is just filler in the media. That, and people repeating, "It doesn't happen every day."

I'm sure that fact is a comfort to the extended families of twenty children, who died because they were shot with high-powered handguns. Twenty children.

I've owned firearms; at various times because I was required to carry them, but afterwards had no sane reason to keep them. I don't want them in my home.

We live in a world of high anxiety, and there are persons who want to exploit those feelings of danger, threat, and imminent disaster:  Gun manufacturers, and their lobby, the NRA, are at the top of the list.  Mike Huckabee and the rest of his fellow Xtian evangelical ilk; there are 2012 World-Enders, predicting massive earthquakes and crustal displacement and 'coastal events', and ultimately few survivors.

There are White Power fascists, and Survivalists, and the people who manufacture and sell them freeze-dried food and plans for bunkers to shield against the EMP bursts from North Korean-launched warheads, detonating high above the USA.

What happened in Sandy Hook yesterday has happened before -- in Columbine, in Denver; In Virginia; in a mall in Seattle last week; at a Dairy Queen in the Northwest. There may not be massacres, but annually there are many multiple-victim, firearm homicides in America.

And they will keep happening, until something changes about how firearm ownership and possession is discussed, and regulated, in this country.

The debate is not about Operator Error.  It's not about something that happened "over there" in another city or state. It's about twenty dead children.

Along those lines are two, other very pertinent observations -- one, a part of the discussion at TPM Prime:

Memekiller:  ...for me, it's all about the NRA. I'm anti-NRA, not guns, and am offended by the strangle-hold they have over our politics. And I'm angry that Democrats have ceded the issue, only to have the NRA, if anything, put twice as much effort into unseating Democrats and Obama who, if anything, loosened rules on guns ...

... And the gun culture the NRA fosters... Would the prevalence of guns be as frightening without the culture of paranoia and conspiracies they perpetuate? It's not just about freedom to own a gun. The NRA culture is a cult of xenophobia and insanity. They don't seem to be aiming their message at responsible gun owners so much as the disgruntled and those prone to paranoia. They are less about developing an advocacy group than they are about assembling a well-armed militia of the mentally unstable.  

And the other, at The Great Curmudgeon :

Broken

Our discourse, that is. Fortunately, we have DDay trying to repair it.

Just to pick at random, here are a couple headlines at the Hartford Courant site just from the past 24 hours: Woman Shot, Man Dead After Standoff In Rocky Hill. Armed Robbery At Hartford Bank, Two In Custody.It’s not that school shootings like this are abnormal. They are depressingly normal. The fact that there were no shootings in one day in New York City recently was seen as a major achievement, which shows you how desensitized we have become to gun violence as a normal occurrence of daily life.Just a reminder. The NRA is an industry lobby for the gun industry. The industry that makes consumer products largely designed to kill people.  Not deer. Not rabbits.

People.   

by Jay Ackroyd (@jayackroyd)

_____________________________

Trumplandia, Too

Bark Howl Bark Howl Bark Howl Bark Bark

An associate animal Skypes at me:

...BTW, they're not going to let anything actually happen to Trump. He's the perfect fall guy while they carry out their master plan. They've wanted to dismantle the safety net. They have the idiot in chief, they run the congress, and it's a golden opportunity.

-- The Big Pilgrim Chicken

Since November of 2016, Trumplandia has been chaotic, unpredictable, covered by mud and a stinking fog. Waypoints which all of us (and our allies, and our enemies) have relied on as solid landmarks to navigate into the future are hard to see, or are being erased.  Compasses are no longer reliable. Facts and Truth are Whatever The Leader, Or Those Who Speak For Him, Say It Is.

Despite that, some major shapes of the place we inhabit have become clearer over eleven months.

• Trumplandia -- for at least the next decade -- cannot be relied on by other nations to participate in anything, unless it benefits Trumplandia, even when failing to do so allows other Empire wannabes to step in. Even when the lives of others are at risk due to climate or environmental breakdown (look at what happened to Puerto Rico, and they're Americans), or war. Look somewhere else for assistance with the next Ebola outbreak, child vaccination program, or emergency famine relief. The Department of State, independent and essentially nonpartisan, will continue to shrink -- diplomacy is so overrated.  Trumplandia will regard itself in the mirror, and revel in its self-created beauty, because Freedom: USA! USA!

• Here at home, all the groundwork to de-fund the infrastructure of health, education, and the national welfare has been laid -- for at least the next decade. Healthcare and education can be left to privatization and 'market forces' -- if you're not sick, don't worry! And children only need to know enough to sign their names, and be able to offer trays of treats to Our Wealthy. Programs to support human beings in real need will be reduced or eliminated, because Republicans "have a rough time wanting to spend ... billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger and expect the federal government to do everything". Social Security and Medicare are next, because older and sick people apparently won't lift a finger to help themselves, either -- they'll have to learn to pull themselves up on their own, just like Our Leader did.  

• And, our Financial Industry needs less and less regulation. We need new innovation in investment vehicles, opportunities for growth! And the manufacturers of products don't need so much regulation, either; it's all so complex and expensive for them! So, whatever. Because Freedom!

• Our Elite and Wealthy are being provided with even more benefits, and treats. It will take time (too long) for the peasantry 'regular' people to realize what this means for them, and that Trumplandia has become shabbier, less inviting and welcoming; kind of like Pottersville. But they will watch their teevees (excited over the next Big Game!) and convince themselves that the world isn't shabbier, meaner, colder, harder. No! It's The Same As It Ever Was -- but more Biggly Huge! Gonna Be Great, Let Me Tell You! 

• Environmental concerns in Trumplandia don't exist; climate breakdown is fake. Industry and jobs, new strip mines and private residential developments -- and more service staff to soothe and do things -- anything -- for Our Wealthy. And when disasters strike; well, it's simply god's will. The survivors won't lift a finger to help themselves and expect the government to do everything, anyway.  But; look, you stupid peasants; the business of Trumplandia is Business. Water quality, air quality; food safety; it's all burdensome and unnecessary. The future is for "the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies".  Regulation just takes away from that investing! We don't need it! Because Freedom! USA! USA!

• The system of justice in Trumplandia is being set, judge by judge, to reflect the values of its creators -- so that even if things changed, and next year every Right-wing buffoon were voted out of office, there would still be Right-wing judges to prevent reversal of the Will of Our Elite and Wealthy. And as below, so above -- the Right wants new Supreme Court vacancies for the all-Republican Congress to fill. And who can deny The Right its every desire?

• There is no movement to renew the national infrastructure. There's certainly no government funds, federal or state, to pay for it. And corporations have no interest in funding even a portion of a national, WPA-like effort. But, Trumplandia will have it's Wall -- even the one being quietly erected between Our Wealthy, and everyone else. And, we're being shown by example that Trumplandians should be building walls between each other. It's a nation for the strong and competitive, not the weak. Who needs 'em? Workhouses. Surplus population; you know. USA! USA!

A war might slow this trajectory -- but only if it's a military exchange that involves direct damage and casualties in the United States. Then, no one will be paying attention to the alt-Right's new culture -- we'll be trying to find our balance in a new Trumplandia, one that more closely resembles a police state.  And if the military action is just another distant conflict in the Forever War, it will doubtless be ignored by the majority of Trumplandians -- unless the casualties are significant.

An economic crisis could affect how Trumplandia develops, but only by accelerating the damage to the culture. Even without a Recession, the costs of what Trump and the Right are doing will begin to fall on inner cities and on people of color, first -- possibly while Trump is still in his first term.

When people begin to react out of desperation (because they understand: there are ways to be owned, even if you're not bought on the block at public auction), how quickly will Ferguson-style protests move from "unlawful assembly" to become 'terrorist acts'?

And, there will always be money in the budgets for police departments. Always.

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But wait: people say, this will change; it has to change.

They expect big gains for Democrats next year -- with everything that's happened, how could the Dems lose? Or, people hope for a miracle ending to this nightmare, that Trump could be impeached.

Historically, it could be argued that it's possible: in a midterm year, with an unpopular president in office, large gain of Congressional seats for his opposition tend to follow. And, the Democratic leadership claims their base is energized for an upset. They all but say Look, we have to win, because just look at what Trump is doing! Voting for us is a vote for sanity -- we're the only alternative!

However, their party has no real leader, no compelling spokesperson who can communicate the reality of what the Right is doing, why that's important, and offer concrete alternatives. After the chaos of  2016 and Clinton's ugly dominance of the DNC (because Obama helped leave the party effectively bankrupt), the Democrats are fragmented and without a coherent message. Very bad timing, for them.

When we do finally hear a message from the Democrats, it won't be a populist or socialist one. The DNC strategy is to characterize the Republicans as radicals; the Dems believe they will win by appearing to be the calm, rational, inoffensive Center -- and their candidate will appear as just that.

But, none of this changes the truth of the midterm math: To shift the balance in Congress, Democrats need to win nationally -- and primarily in strongly Republican districts. Without a galvanizing candidate or a strong message, can they do this? Or, is it more likely that the Right loses a few seats but continues to dominate all three branches of government?

< spoiler >

But, consider: Do you actually believe that the current American political structure does more than prop up a status quo which does not believe in providing collective security, protecting collective rights, or doing collective anything for its citizens -- beyond ensuring they participate in a cycle of  labor to earn money, to purchase goods and services, and provide unearned income for Our Wealthy?

Does anything about the preoccupation with material acquisition, celebrity, and constant stimulation in our culture (but not only ours) strike you as absurd, out of balance? That for decades you have gotten up every morning with the hollow feeling that you are being lied to, and manipulated, on a scale so huge that it frightens you to think about it? 

That what things you may have, and what you may do, are being defined by individuals who do not see you as a human being with a Life, but only in terms of what amount of value you can produce for them, over X years, before you die? 

< /spoiler >

The old-line GOP has made a Faustian bargain in backing Trump, in order to achieve everything they've wanted for the past forty years by brute force. They're doing it. They're also counting on The Center in Trumplandia to be Sheep, as usual, who won't notice what they've done until it's too late. And, when it turns out their plans were lies and worse than lies, the Right will just blame someone else -- Democrats, immigrants; terrorists.

The old GOP is also hoping they can outmaneuver the alt-Right, and maintain control of the Republican 'brand'; maybe they can. Keeping Our Leader happy is part of that balancing act with the alt-Right Brownshirts -- so McConnell and Ryan and the rest support Trump, for now.

But if the "Russia Thing" begins to heat up, and serious enough charges are brought against Trump directly, that could change. But impeachment is not likely -- the Democrats don't have the power in Congress, and the GOP may see saving Trump as the cost of saving the Republican party, and themselves.

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The "Russia Thing"; let's walk through it:  The special prosecutor's investigation of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and agents of the Russian government to influence the 2016 election may result in three possible conclusions:

• One, that collusion was probable, but not provable. A number of middle- and lower-level Trump campaign operatives (like Manafort, Gates and Papadopolous) are charged with crimes uncovered in the course of the investigation (such as making false statements to the FBI, money laundering, etc.) but don't necessarily tie to the election, and the case stops there.

• Two, that some level of collusion with Russian agents may be proven, and/or a conspiracy to cover it up afterwards. The collusion/conspiracy involves Trump's inner circle (e.g., Jared; Don, Jr.; Bannon; Carter Page; Sessions, Bannon), and some are indicted -- but no one rolls over on The Capo, and the case stops there. 

• Three, that collusion with Russian agents can be proven; indictments of members of Trump's inner circle occur, and eventually Trump himself is charged -- most likely because he asked for Russian help to affect the election, or conspired to obstruct investigations into it.

The first and second scenarios are Shiny Objects. They'll attract attention, make good theater, and allow broadcast media to charge higher advertising rates. But they won't have much practical affect on the direction of country, and certainly won't impact the Elites.

The third scenario is more serious, because it will inevitably escalate into a symbolic, Culture War confrontation -- between rule of law, and rule by America's political Right; between Justice and Oligarchy. That can alter politics, and even give Our Wealthy pause (admittedly, though, not much).

_______________________________

Something to consider: American intelligence agencies (primarily CIA, NSA, and FBI [historically responsible for counterintelligence within the U.S.]) had been aware of the hacking, and other activities at issue, since August of 2016. All agreed that Russian intelligence, at Vladimir Putin's direction, were the perpetrators. They reported this to then-president Obama and, in a very unusual move, released a sanitized version of their analysis after the election in December, 2016. 

The intelligence community used multiple sources in that investigation, and it's standard not to comment on what methods were used -- point being, the CIA and NSA may have definitive proof that persons now in the White House have committed offenses, and not be able to present it in open court or to a Congressional subcommittee without revealing how they obtained it. 

The new CIA Director, Trump appointee Mike Pompeo, may not be anxious to reveal information, either. He has been unclear what the agency's position is on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

_______________________________

If Trump were accused, his attorneys would assert (as they already have) that a sitting president cannot be indicted. That would provoke a Constitutional question and move directly to the Supreme Court.  Like Bush v. Gore, it would likely end with a 5-4 decision in Trump's favor, a terrible precedent.

[Note: Thanks to the Big Pilgrim Chicken (Roo -- "Who Are You?" "Airborne!") for correcting my errors in describing the impeachment process. My prior version stated that the House Rules and Judiciary committees would each have to agree by vote to refer the charges to the full House of Representatives. Wrong.]

Whether the question of indicting a sitting president is raised or not, any charges brought by a special prosecutor must be referred to the United States Congress. The House Judiciary committee would hold hearings to determine whether the charges against the president were impeachable offenses. 

Like the rest of the Congress, the Judiciary Committee is dominated by Republicans. Partisan politics may rule; the Right has just run roughshod over the country to get what it wants, so they may shut down any inquiry and to hell with the media and the People. If they do, that's an end to it.

There will be CSPAN coverage of the committee sessions, and video clips of Democratic members crying that this is the darkest day in America since the Civil War -- that will be true, but it won't matter. Trump, vindicated, Tweets for days, strutting and preening. Ivanka goes shopping with Louise Linton and they have a 'Spa Day'.

____________________________________

But, let's say the Judiciary committee does hold full and transparent hearings. They vote to refer the matter to the full House (here, the Rules Committee would determine how debate and voting would proceed). A simple majority (218) is required when voting on Articles of Impeachment. This means 192 Democrats have to find twenty-six Republicans to join them. It's possible -- but if the vote falls strictly along party lines, it will fail.  That's the end of it.

Trump crows over his 'success', his 'win', in a never-ending series of press conferences, takes a full week off in New Jersey and golfs every day, making Impeachment jokes to the neutered press. President Vladimir Putin of Russia calls Trump to congratulate him.

____________________________________

So, let's assume Articles of Impeachment actually pass in the House and are referred to the Senate for the president to be tried. When Clinton was tried in the Senate, there were hours of debate and plenty of grandstanding; the same will happen here. The spectacle will 'consume the nation', but remember -- it's theater. Get some popcorn, but I wouldn't spend extra money for the really good kind.

A two-thirds vote is required in the Senate to convict a president on any charge. 67 Senators voting 'Aye' on any charge results in a conviction, which also means a vote to remove the president from office. If Trump were tried in the Senate, it's possible that -- like Clinton -- the number of Senators voting to convict would not reach 67. Trump would be "shamed", as Clinton was -- but he remains in office, and that's the end of it. 

The thing about public shaming:  the person being punished has to feel as if the penalty actually means anything. Trump could care less about being disgraced as the third president in history to actually be tried for Impeachment in the Senate. For him, "not getting a two-thirds vote" and remaining in office equals "winning".  

Perversely, Trump would feed on a 24-by-7 news cycle being focused on him, for months on end. After the vote(s) fail, he will bellow, preen, strut, and celebrate with an all-night party at More-Lego, attended by all the bottom-feeding, alt-Right and white supremacist glitterati, flown in at government expense -- and with a manly, affectionate embrace from surprise guest, Stevie Bannon. President Vladimir Putin of Russia will send flowers to Melania.

____________________________________

That's Right: Thousands of hours of media time, millions spent on investigating and attempting to punish that useless bully, and it all may come to nothing. The alt-Right will use any Impeachment attempt to fuel an agenda of bigotry and violence. Trumplandia will be a nation more bitterly divided than at any time since 1860 -- and that's exactly what 'patriots' like Mr Bannon want. Leaving the United States more internally divided and preoccupied is certainly what Mr Putin would want. 

Many things can happen, surprising or not. But at the moment, Trumplandia appears like a business, a property obtained in a hostile takeover -- and the corporate raiders who grabbed it are busy selling off its assets, diverting the proceeds into offshore accounts; treating the employees left like serfs; roaring with laughter at their great, good fortune, congratulating themselves as Winners! as they make fun of everyone else -- whom by their definition are Rubes, Suckers, and Losers!

How it all ends? I hope I'm wrong.

______________________________________

MEHR, MIT EIN TAUFZEREMONIE:  

Washington (Reuters) - President Donald Trump told Arab leaders on Tuesday that he intends to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a decision that breaks with decades of U.S. policy and risks fueling violence in the Middle East. 

...Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan’s King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, who all received phone calls from Trump, joined a mounting chorus of voices warning that unilateral U.S. steps on Jerusalem would derail a fledgling U.S.-led peace effort and unleash turmoil in the region.