When Will We Meet Christine?

Posted by TomCat at 1:29 pm Politics

Sep 172018

As hard as I worked on yesterday’s article, the story kept developing, even as I was writing it, and just as I was publishing it, the news broke that Christine Blasey Ford had come forward and passed a lie detector test. Upchuck Snake in the Grassley [R-IA] says this is Democrats fault, because she came forward so late. Orin “Women are Inferior” Hatch, trotted out that age old saw, “She’s just mixed up.” Pervert Kava-Nazi has changed his tune. He now claims he wasn’t even at the party, where he tried to rape Christine. Let’s look at what could happen, but before we do, this is where we were when Christine first came out.

Here are ways forward.

The fight over Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination looks much different after Christine Blasey Ford came forward in a Washington Post interview and said that he attempted to sexually assault her when the two were in high school. What happens next? Will President Trump and Senate Republicans stick with Kavanaugh? Right now, we have more questions than answers. Here are the big ones …

How do the looming midterms affect Republicans’ choices? A big part of this story comes down to timing. An investigation of the allegations, as Democrats have called for, would almost certainly take at least a few weeks. And if Republicans decided in mid-October that they could not move forward with Kavanaugh’s nomination, they might not have time to choose a new nominee and get him or her through the confirmation process before the current Senate session ends in December. The Supreme Court nomination process for Kavanaugh was scheduled to last about three months — from Justice Anthony Kennedy’s resignation in late June to a full Senate vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination, which was expected in late September — at least until this news broke. So if Republicans want to move on from Kavanaugh and try to get a different nominee confirmed, they probably need to pick that person during the next two weeks in order to finish the process by the end of December.

What’s wrong with waiting till January? Well, Republicans are expected to maintain control of the Senate — they’re 2 in 3 favorites according to our latest Senate forecast — but if Democrats gain control, it’s hard to imagine them confirming a second Trump appointee to the court. So the GOP has some incentive to either fully stand behind Kavanaugh — or abandon him very quickly. Remember, the current Senate, which has 51 Republicans and 49 members aligned with the Democrats, is in operation through the end of the year. The people elected in November don’t start serving immediately. So Republicans, no matter what happens in the midterms, can push a Supreme Court nominee through until the end of the year. There would be strong criticism of Republicans if they pushed through a Supreme Court nominee in December if the voters had elected a Democratic Senate a month earlier, but Senate Republicans have ignored such norms before and I expect would be fine with doing so again for the purpose of ensuring a solid conservative majority on the Court… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <FiveThirtyEight>

Republicans still plan to vote Pervert Kava-Nazi out of committee on Thursday. Jeff Flake [R-AZ] could put the kibosh on that. I hope we get to meet Christine, under oath, soon.

There’s one thing I can tell you with certainty. I have no idea where this issue will be this time tomorrow.

RESIST!!

VOTE BLUE!!

50 DAYS!

Open Thread – 9/17/2018

Posted by TomCat at 1:28 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Sep 172018

Yesterday was such a busy day that I got to bed late and did not get enough sleep, so I’m quite tired. It’s a cool day, but it’s sunny enough that I’ll need to button-up by mid afternoon. OGIM!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:11 (average 6:37). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Religious Ecstasy:

0916-Broncos20-Raiders19

What a last seconds relief! It would have been really glum, had the lost because a couple zebras, who seemed to have Raider patches on their eyes, cost them two TDs!

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Parody Project Channel): ODE TO A LIAR – Parody of I Never Say

Brilliant, Don! There has never been a bigger liar than Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From The New Yorker: Millions of Americans do not want Donald J. Trump to text them that there is an emergency, but “very strongly” want Robert Mueller to text them when this current emergency is over, a new poll shows.

fema’s about-to-be-launched “Presidential alert” system drew a sharply negative reaction in the poll, with a majority of Americans saying that they would burn, smash, or otherwise pulverize their phones in advance of the first text that Trump attempts to send them.

By contrast, and by a wide margin, Americans said that they wanted an alert system that would enable Mueller to text them “the second he knows this shit show is over,” the poll indicates.

Dang Andy!! This year would be nice! RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From NY Times: It’s not the smokestacks that mark this part of southeast Michigan as a labor stronghold, or even the boxy union halls.

To Michelle LaVoy, a city treasurer running for the State Legislature, it’s the way people say “union” as shorthand for “decent job.”

“My husband works at Yanfeng,” Carolina Ricci, perched outside her front door, told Ms. LaVoy, referring to a nearby auto parts plant. “He’s got the union, he’s a steward. But we still struggle.”

Ms. LaVoy, strait-laced in affect and business casual in dress, doesn’t present as a working-class hero. But she is trying, hard, and her pitch has a distinctly Norma Rae vibe.

“We should be getting our fair share,” Ms. LaVoy told Ms. Ricci, echoing a refrain that many Americans are using this election year. She wants more money for roads. More money for unions. More money in workers’ paychecks.

Amen Michelle LaVoy!! Democrats need to run on what their OWN constituents need, in addition to opposing Republican policies. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

Cartoon:

Grassley and the Pervert

Posted by TomCat at 1:42 pm Politics

Sep 162018

How many of you can remember, by name, sixty five members of the opposite sex, who you knew when you were in High School, but who did not attend the same same high school you did? If you needed a document by tomorrow morning, how many of you could locate all 65, contact them, and secure their signatures on a highly controversial document? How many of you could get that document into the treacherous disingenuous claws of Chuck “Snake in the” Grassley [R-IA] on time? Republicans want you to believe that you could.

Sixty-five women who knew Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in high school have testified to his good character in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, in light of recently surfaced allegations that he tried to force himself on a girl during his time at Georgetown Preparatory School, an all-boys school in Bethesda, Maryland.

According to the allegations, detailed to congressional Democrats and reported by the New Yorker, Kavanaugh held down a girl at a high school party in the 1980s and attempted to force himself on her, covering her mouth to quiet her protests. Kavanaugh denied the allegations in a statement to the New Yorker, as did a classmate who was reportedly involved in the incident.

On Friday, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released a letter written by 65 women who mostly attended all-girls high schools around Georgetown Prep and have known Kavanaugh for more than three decades, in defense of his character. The women write:

We are women who have known Brett Kavanaugh for more than 35 years and knew him while he attended high school between 1979 and 1983. For the entire time we have known Brett Kavanaugh, he has behaved honorably and treated women with respect. We strongly believe it is important to convey this information to the Committee at this time.

…

Inserted from <Vox>

CNN covered the story as well, without pointing out how absurdly remarkable it is.

In my opinion, the Republican Reich discovered Pervert Kava-Nazi’s crime when they were vetting him, and when they couldn’t talk their Fuhrer out of appointing another pervert to SCROTUS (Republican Unconstitutional VD), they prepared a cover-up in advance, as Joan McCarter said on Daily Kos:

…Clearly, they knew this was coming and they’ve known for quite a while—long enough to round up three dozen women willing to sign onto a draft of a letter responding to allegations that had not yet been made, to say that he didn’t try to rape them. Might that not have raised a few questions for these women? Our own Adam Bonin makes a good point: “It strikes me that there are likely women out there who were approached to sign this letter, and chose not to. If nothing else, those women could tell us exactly how long this draft letter has been circulating.”

It would be helpful to hear from those women who didn’t sign on to the letter. It would also be helpful for Kavanaugh and Grassley to come clean about how long this has been in the works, and what other skeletons of Kavanaugh’s Grassley has prepared for…

The more we don’t know, the more we know that the entire Republican Reich, not just Trump and Kava-Nazi, are trying to deceive you all.

BREAKING: She went public and passed a polygraph.

RESIST!!

VOTE BLUE!!

51 DAYS!!

Open Thread – 9/16/2018

Posted by TomCat at 1:41 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Sep 162018

It’s a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb. My Broncos are entertaining the Raiders. Sadly, it won’t be televised here. May the blessed Orb shine its holy light on your team, unless they wear an eye patch. I play Pam in fantasy football. She’s already kicking my ass. WWWendy is due in less than an hour. We have lots of chores.

WWWendy was 40 min’ late today, so I’m running late and am extra pooped. She says Hi to all.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:00 (average 4:38). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube: Final Straw R.E.M. – Trump Protest Song

This was over 18 months ago, when we knew nothing about the outrages he and the Republican Reich have committed since. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From TPM: The relationship between President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis has deteriorated to the point where Trump is worried that Mattis is secretly a Democrat, according to a Saturday New York Times story.

While Trump still publicly stands by his defense secretary, the Times paints a picture of a president who is increasingly resentful of Mattis’ apolitical stance and the perception that Mattis is the only adult in the room.

For his part, Mattis is reportedly getting tired of having to be that adult. He clashed with Trump over NATO and war games with South Korea, and the hiring of national security advisor deputy Mira Ricardel has further strained his relationship with the White House.

In truth, I do not like Mad Dog. That said, if Orange Adolf fires him, there will be no adults in the room. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From Huffington Post: Former President George W. Bush is headlining fundraisers for GOP candidates facing tough challenges ahead of the midterm elections. He won’t, however, be appearing on behalf of Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from his home state of Texas, The Dallas Morning News reported.

Crawford Caligula is the most stupid Republican Resident to complete at least one four year term. But even the man that could not understand My Pet Goat isn’t stupid enough to campaign for Cruz! Go, Beto! Go! RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

Cartoon:

Bill Maher from 9/14

Posted by TomCat at 12:51 pm Politics

Sep 152018

It’s that time of week again, so here are five fine video clips from Bill’s show last night. Enjoy!

Monologue: Florence and the Ratings Machine

Trump is battening down for Hurricane Manafart!

Steve Ballmer: Just the Facts

I wasn’t familiar with this guy, but I like what I’m hearing. Kudos to Bill for his donation.

John Kerry: Truth Teller

I think that, if Republicans had not stolen 2004 for Crawford Caligula by rigging the Ohio vote count, we’d all be better off. Kerry was spot-on here.

I Don’t Know It For a Fact…I Just Know It’s True

Putin’s Pervert would love to play in Smellyanne’s shower!

New Rule: Scary Socialism

I have a good response, when accused of being a socialist. "Thank you!"

I think this was one of Bill’s best shows, recently.

RESIST!!

VOTE BLUE!!

52 DAYS!!

Open Thread – 9/15/2018

Posted by TomCat at 12:51 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Sep 152018

I have no idea why, but I could not fall asleep last night, and I dozed for a couple hours at most, so don’t be surprised, if I typo. In theory, the AC should stay off all day, but the sun just came out, so I’ll have to see if it stays.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:31 (average 5:33). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Robert Mueller Secures Full Cooperation, Guilty Plea From Paul Manafort (19 min.)

Would anyone be surprised that Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten, aka the Tweeting Traitor, is about to smell a big stinky Manafart? RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From CNN: Anita Hill called on the federal government to implement a "fair and neutral" way to investigate sexual misconduct complaints after allegations surfaced against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh this week.

Hill, who accused Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of workplace sexual harassment during his confirmation hearing back in 1991, said she has seen "firsthand what happens when such a process is weaponized against an accuser and no one should have to endure that again."

Then a law professor at the University of Oklahoma, Hill testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that she had been sexually harassed by Thomas when she worked with him at the Education Department and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Thomas denied the allegations and he was confirmed to the bench.

At the time there were three more women, who wanted to testify against Thomas. They were denied, and Republicans pushed through the confirmation instead. We need to stop Pervert Kava-Nazi first! RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From The New Yorker: Donald J. Trump placed “a large number” of phone calls to his former campaign manager Paul Manafort on Friday morning, and all of them went straight to voice mail, White House sources have confirmed.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the number of voice-mail messages that Trump left for Manafort was somewhere in the range of twelve to three hundred.

Trump reportedly continued to leave messages for Manafort until his mailbox was full, after which Trump hurled his phone across the room, narrowly missing Mike Pence’s head.

Dang Andy! What a crime! Did he really have to miss Pence?!!? RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

Cartoon:

Everyday Erinyes #136

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 9:29 am Politics

Sep 152018

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

In view of the fact that two of the charges to which Paul Manafort pleaded guilty yesterday are charges of “conspiracy,” I thought it might be appropriate to share some thoughts on what conspiracy is and why it’s not always crazy to suspect its existence. After all, people do conspire, and have done throughout all of recorded history, and probably unrecorded history as well.

It’s reasonable to suppose many of the views that are now dismissed or mocked as conspiracy theories will one day be recognised as having been true all along. Indeed, the net effect of terms such as “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracism” is to silence people who are the victims of conspiracy, or who (rightly or wrongly) suspect conspiracies may be occurring. These terms serve to herd respectable opinion in ways that suit the interests of the powerful.

The term “conspiracy theory” was popularized by Sir Karl Popper during the 1950’s. Whether or not it was his intention, the popularization of the phrase gave the concept a bad name.

Sir Karl Popper

To characterise a belief as a conspiracy theory is to imply it’s false. More than that, it implies people who accept that belief, or want to investigate whether it’s true, are irrational…. [emphasis mine]

It’s a function similar to that served by the term “heresy” in medieval Europe. In both cases these are terms of propaganda, used to stigmatise and marginalise people who have beliefs that conflict with officially sanctioned or orthodox beliefs of the time and place in question.

If, as I believe, the treatment of those labelled as “conspiracy theorists” in our culture is analogous to the treatment of those labelled as “heretics” in medieval Europe, then the role of psychologists and social scientists in this treatment is analogous to that of the Inquisition.

Those are harsh words. But then, Inquisition-like behavior is mighty harsh behavior. David Coady, the author (he’s a Senior Lecturer at the University of Tasmania, hence all the “-ise” spellings) suggests we stop using the terms. Personally, I fear it’s too late for ceasing to use the terms to make much difference. The concept that suggesting we don’t know everything about the facts behind an occurrence has become so ingrained that I suspect changing the vocabulary will merely tarnish the new vocabulary.

Instead, I would recommend establishing specific guidelines as to how to determine what kind of conspiracy theory is conceivably rational and should be investigated, and what kind of conspiracy theory is irrational and can be dismissed. Since it’s not really possible to teach “common sense,” some kind of objective guidelines are needed.

Stefano di Giovani, The Burning of a Heretic, circa 1423-1426

I just characterized a conspiracy theory as “suggesting we don’t know everything about the facts behind an occurrence,” and while that’s a vast oversimplification, it can give us a starting point. For a conspiracy theory to be worth investigation, it must concern an occurrence. It must be about something which actually happened. On this basis, it’s unnecessary to examine Alex Jones’s theory that Hillary Clinton has established a pedophile sex tourist facility on Mars. There is no evidence such a facility exists. There is plenty of evidence that human life on Mars is not possible without technical equipment so large that it couldn’t be missed, and there is no evidence such equipment exists on Mars. Therefore there is no occurrence.

Even if there is an occurrence, there is a point beyond we can reasonably conclude that no conspiracy existed and dismiss further speculation. There was an occurrence at Benghazi in which people in fact died. Knowing no more than that, it was worth investigating suggestions of a conspiracy. It isn’t any more. The occurrence has been thoroughly investigated by investigators who had a huge emotional investment in finding a conspiracy. If there were evidence of a conspiracy, it is impossible that these investigators could have missed it. But none was found. Therefore, no conspiracy. So my second criterion would be to look for the motives of any investigators who may be going to investigate, or have already investigated, such theory.

{I might point out that Traitor Tot, or someone in his crime family, is aware of this one, and he has pulled it out himself in describing the Mueller investigation as “fourteen angry Democrats.” However, Mueller is a lifelong Republican, as are Comey, and Brennan, and Strzok, and the majority of FBI agents.}

These two criteria are a start, but they also only get us so far. I’ve talked about situations where there is no evidence to support a theory. But what if there is evidence? What if some of it is video evidence? It becomes crucial to be able to evaluate evidence, and particularly video evidence.

Fortunately, since a couple of weeks ago, we have some help with this. Siwei Lyu, an Associate

Screenshot from deepfake demonstration video

Professor at the University of Albany, SUNY, has given us some excellent information about how to detect a “deepfake” video – one which has been so meticulously put together with the latest computer technologies as to “deceive even the elect.” Professor Lyu warns his main guideline is not always going to work, because deceit keeps getting better and better, but he’s pretty sure it will work at least through the 2018 election.

If you go to the link, you will find technical information worded in such a way as to make it clear to non-technical people. But the bottom line is that people in deepfake videos do not blink normally, because the fakers don’t have enough closed-eye images to duplicate the normal human blink pattern. So if you ever see a video of someone saying something kind of unexpected, watch it again (sound off if it’s barfworthy), and look for the blinks.

As Lyu says, this isn’t going to work forever. But he and his team are working to keep up, so stay tuned.

Alecto, Magaera, Tisiphone, turn you attention to us this week (and keep us in your sights at least through November 6) and give us a pinch to wake us if if we fall for something. But also, help us remember that some conspiracies are real.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE.

Friday Fun: BREAKING – NWS Bulletin on Tweetstorm “Donald”

Posted by SoINeedAName at 6:51 pm Politics

Sep 142018

In response to the news that Paul Manafort has pleaded “GUILTY” and is now working with Robert Mueller III, the National Weather Service has put out this PSA:

BREAKING: The National Weather Service is warning of the approaching Category 5 Tweetstorm “Donald”.

It is expected to reach landfall early Saturday morning.

The NWS urges all Americans to shelter in place. And to be sure they have an adequate supply of popcorn.

Phillip McCann of the NWS, echoing the president’s recent words, described the coming Tweetstorm: “It’s tremendously big and tremendously wet.”

(Which happen to be two things Melania has never said to Twitler.)

To help, they’ve provided this rating chart of Categories:

[NOTE: I shared w/ TC that I’m having a major backyard landscape renovation done. And today they cut my cable TWICE w/ their Bobcat. They spliced it together – but I’m scheduled to have Comcast come out tomorrow to be sure everything is OK. That’s why I’m so late … and limping along.]

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