MORE SENSELESS ACTS OF BLOGGERY

I’ve been too busy to blog about the Mueller report, which is probably just as well since it’s one of those potboilers that is going to be unfolding for quite awhile.

And I’m not sure what I could add, but I’ll give it a shot.

1. It’s hard to comment more on the report until we see it – which it seems every Republican in America does not want to happen. Which should tell you something about their “total exoneration” nonsense. It’s safe to assume there’s a lot of stuff in there that’s damaging to Trump, even if he can’t be actually prosecuted for any of it.

2. And in fact, we don’t really know that he can’t be, at least as far as the Obstruction of Justice part. Mueller left it open, possibly because he’d decided he went as far as he could go with it and wanted to make sure the work continued – perhaps with Congress.

3. Predictable MAGA hysteria notwithstanding, there’s now a lot of hand-wringing, soul-searching and fingerpointing about how the media got the Trump-Russia story wrong. Or did they?

Matt Taibbi certainly thinks so. Timothy L. O’Brien of Bloomberg thinks Matt is kinda nuts.

As usual, I’m somewhere in the middle. I think Taibbi is cherrypicking radical examples (Maddow, MSNBC in general, Daily Beast, Jonathan Chait’s New Yorker story, etc) to paint the entire media with the same brush, but I do agree with his overall concern – that the media had to be really careful how they treated the Mueller investigation, especially at a time when Trump is actively stoking up anti-media fervor and labelling all critical stories of him as one-sided Fake News. And in the end, many of them gave in to their sensationalist tendencies that turned out to play right into his hands.

On the other hand, the build-up of the Mueller case was as much the product of people on Twitter and social media who passed around otherwise sober stories as though they were smoking guns. Liberals and other anti-Trumpers were reading more into what was there, conflated allegations with proof, and were banking on Mueller to nail the bastard, put him in jail and save the country, even though anyone who paid the slightest attention knew that Mueller was never going to do that. His job wasn’t to arrest Trump (which he probably can’t do anyway) – it was to look into specific allegations and report his findings to the AG, who would then decide what to do with them. And even if the AG wasn’t a pro-Trump appointee, the most he/she would likely do is hand over to Congress for impeachment proceedings – which, as I mentioned earlier, isn’t going to happen.

So I think media coverage was only part of the problem.

Also, I don’t agree with Taibbi’s claim that RussiaGate was a myth that the media clung to because it was the perfect explanation for why they totally failed to see Trump’s election victory coming. It may well be the case that Trump didn’t actively conspire with Russia to win the election, but it’s already well established that (1) Russian hackers did in fact attempt to influence the outcome of the election, (2) they succeeded, and (3) there was some sort of oddball connection between Trump and Russia that Trump and his associates did not want revealed to the point that they were willing to lie to the FBI and Congress about it. Indeed, five Trump associates are now in jail precisely for doing that, and a sixth one has been arrested. You can thank Mueller for all of those, as well as the 26 Russian nationals, three Russian companies, one California man, and one London-based lawyer who have also been indicted.

Some myth.

I take Taibbi’s point that the media is supposed to respect the “innocent until proven guilty” tenet of due process, and it’s true that the media’s sensationalist tendencies tend to blur those lines, especially with TV news. But let’s not pretend there was no basis for the Trump-Russia stories, or that the Mueller report proves the entire mass media industry got it wrong.

4. Meanwhile, as you might imagine, I am not at all impressed with Team MAGA’s “Total Exoneration b/w Democrats and Fake News Media Colluded to Destroy Trump” line, complete with the authoritarian schtick of naming names, accusations of treason and making “recommendations” that TV producers think twice about booking anyone on their list.

But then I’m not the target consumer – the MAGA base is. They’ll be screaming the “baseless witch hunt” conspiracy between now and the next election, and every effort by Demos to investigate further (and the media’s coverage of it) will be presented as evidence of that – and their base will devour every word.

Taibbi argues that’s why Demos and the media really need to move on from Mueller (at least until the report is released) if they want to maintain credibility – why hand them ammo if you don’t have to? That might be true, but it’s also true that Team MAGA manufactures its own ammo, so they’d be screaming “baseless witch hunt” even if Mueller had produced smoking guns.

5. Meanwhile, there is of course also the matter of all those other federal and state investigations into a wide range of shenanigans allegedly committed by Trump and/or his minions, as well as the question of whether Trump colluded with Russia in a different way (i.e. by giving them sanctions relief for the express purpose of enriching himself even though he knew at the time Russia was attempting to hack the election).

Those should continue to be investigated and reported, of course, but as far as impeaching Trump or convincing the GOP to abandon him, you can pretty much forget it. The witch-hunt narrative is pretty much set in stone, and the GOP is all-in with Trump at this stage. In terms of election strategy, it’s probably time to stop using scandals as a weapon – Trump has essentially immunized himself from that (and it certainly didn’t stop him from getting elected in the first place).

Going nowhere,

This is dF

Trump has declared his national emergency over the wall (or lack thereof), and I only just now have found some time to blog it, but luckily this may be the easiest blog post ever, so it won’t take much of your time.

1. There of course is no emergency except for the one that exists in Trump’s empty little head. And there are no reliable facts or statistics to back that up except for the super-secret ones Trump makes up in that same head. Which says a lot, because he could only get away with this in a time where people have conned themselves into believing that any fact that contradicts their worldview or their POTUS is fake news.

2. Obviously this raises some issues over the ability of a POTUS to use otherwise legal national-emergency powers to circumvent Congress when it doesn’t give him what he wants. That said, I am generally not impressed with the modicum of Republican handwringing over this. We’ve seen this before – Trump does/says something radical/insane, some Republicans say, “Well, I don’t really agree …” then they eventually back him.

Some people have tried the “Look, if you allow this, the next Democratic POTUS will have the same powers and the precedent to use them for, say, banning assault rifles, and it’ll be all yr fault” argument. Unfortunately, we tried that back when when Bush Jr was President – he started wars all over the Middle East after 9/11 and gave himself wartime powers to curtail liberties, set up torture camps , etc to “fight” terrorism, and Demos made the same argument – “You realize if Hillary becomes President, she’ll have all these powers too, right?” Repubs didn't care then, and when Obama became POTUS they just complained about Presidential overreach as if it was never a problem until Obama took office.

The message is clear: only presidents in the Opposition Party have too much power. Presidents from your own party never ever do, even when they have the exact same powers. And they will never see the dissonance between these statements no matter how much time you take to explain it to them.

3. I don’t know what the outcome of the lawsuits will be, but I will say I don’t think it matters from a political POV because, as some have already pointed out, Trump – ironically – doesn't really want a wall that badly. He wants to be seen by his base demanding that wall and scrapping with libtards to get it so he can get cheap pops at his ego rallies. It doesn't matter if the courts rule against him, because he can simply blame the libtards, the activist judges and the fake news media. And his base will accept that.

Over the wall,

This is dF

And there you have it.

Mostly. According to FiveThirtyEight, there are still over a dozen races that are too close to call, but none will change the basic result of the Demos taking the House. They might widen that majority, and narrow the gap in the Senate back to where it was before the election. Which would be gravy. But in any case, the House is theirs.

So, a few thoughts:

1. Good for them. It’s a good sign that the (slim) majority of the country hasn’t lost its collective mind, and that white nationalism isn’t the only game in town.

2. On the other hand, the fact that the GOP won anything at all is fair warning that a major chunk of the electorate is still firmly onboard the Trump Train and its message of autocratic white xenophobic batshit. And that would be true even if the GOP lost every seat. Whichever Repubs lost, their constituents are still out there, and they’re still angry and scared. And I’m sure every little thing the Demos and the FakeNews™ media do from now to 2020 will make them even more angry and afraid. Fox News and NRATV will see to that.

3. I only had skin in the game as far as the TN race went, and I can’t say I’m surprised at the results. Apart from Memphis and Nashville, TN is firmly in Xenophobe TrumpWorld and so is Marsha Blackburn – indeed it was her main campaign message, and Trump held several of his rallies in TN to help drive that message home. Phil Bredesen was a reasonably successful governor, but that was eight years ago – a lifetime in politics – and the landscape has changed so much since then. In fact, his whole campaign strategy was to run on the issues in order to contrast Blackburn’s pro-Trump batshit – clearly the majority of Tennesseans prefer histrionic batshit. So it goes.

4. TX is not my state, but I confess I was disappointed to see Beto O’Rourke lose, though to his credit he made Ted Cruz fight for it. Granted, I’d love to see almost anyone give Cruz a walloping. But I have to admit I liked O’Rourke’s campaign style, and there’s no doubt he brought a lot of badly needed youthful energy to the base. I also admit it pains me to think that Cruz’s “Beto O’Rourke will take away yr BBQ and force you to dye yr hair and eat tofu” schtick might have actually worked. Still, it only just barely worked, so I guess that’s something.

5. Speaking of O’Rourke, he’s not the only progressive candidate who lost, but some did win, and those that lost generally didn’t lose by much. There are two schools of thought as to what this means: (1) Demos should take this as a warning that progressives lose elections and Demos should avoid them in 2020 if they want to win the White House, or (2) Establishment Demos owe their 2018 victories to progressives energizing the base in ways the Establishment couldn’t do, and they need to do more to accommodate them in 2020.

I lean towards the latter option. I don’t believe the Demos need to go fully hardcore Left to defeat the GOP – the center still matters. But it arguably doesn’t matter like it used to, and the Demos stand a better chance if they can integrate progressives into the party better – and in a meaningful way, not just an exploitative one. 

6. I know some liberals shudder at the idea of Nancy Pelosi being speaker because they associate her with the Establishment who backed Hillary over Bernie (as though we wouldn’t be in this mess if they’d nominated Bernie), or because she’s talking about bipartisanship and common ground and the Left is all: “WITH NAZIS ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME THEY SHOULD BE IN FUCKING JAIL WHAT ARE YOU NEVILLE FUCKING CHAMBERLAIN” etc and so on.

Personally I would rather see some fresh leadership from someone more attuned to the 21st century, or at least someone whose political worldview wasn’t shaped by the Cold War and Vietnam. But I’m not sure who else is available who fits that bill and has the political clout to challenge her.

7. As for the impact of the mid-terms on Trump’s agenda, to be honest I’m not sure how much of a difference it will make. Most of Trump’s ‘accomplishments’ in the last two years didn’t involve Congress at all – the tax bill is the only one I can think of offhand. He will continue to rule from the weird twisted fantasy world where his brain lives regardless of which party runs the House. And you can pretty much forget about impeachment.

Also, it's hard to call the House flip a blow to his admin when all it really does is give him a scapegoat for everything else he screws up between now and 2020. (Granted, he did that even when his own party controlled Congress. Still …)

I think any meaningful impact on Trump will depend on how willing the House Demos are to use their power to start holding Trump accountable on things like, say, his tax returns. Trump has decidedly been aided and abetted by an all too willing GOP-controlled Congress who have been happy to go along with just about every fool thing he does or says, occasionally denouncing some tweet but otherwise being unwilling to actually do anything about it. Sure, they’ll play the victim card and scream about witch hunts, but they scream that all the time, so let ‘em scream.

So it’s up to the Demos to make their victory matter. But I do think – at least theoretically – a Demo-controlled House could restore some balance to the Force if they choose to do so. If nothing else, the House Science Committee won't be run by someone who thinks rising sea levels are caused by rocks falling into the ocean.

So, you know, progress!

Disorder in the house,

This is dF

A few final thoughts about Brett “Beer Likes Me” Kavanaugh and his successful job interview:

1. I’m not surprised. I mentioned before that I didn’t really think the GOP was going to give up on Kavanaugh – partly because they clearly want him to overturn Roe Wade (Steve King is already bragging about it) and partly just to trigger the libs, I imagine. They have tended to follow Trump’s lead when confronted with criticism or protests from the left and essentially double down just to see the looks on their faces. Anyway, it seemed pretty obvious to me where all this was going.

2. Regarding the FBI “investigation”, German Lopez minces words here, but he’s on point – the only reason Flake demanded an FBI investigation (and the only reason Trump agreed to it) was so that GOP senators could say to the Demos, “Look, you wanted an FBI investigation, you got an investigation, what more do you want us to do?” That’s all. It’s obvious too that Trump limited the scope as much as possible to make sure the FBI didn’t come up with anything, but honestly I don't think it wouldn’t have mattered in they came up with actual video of Kavanaugh sexually assaulting Ford or anyone else – Kavanaugh is their boy and he’s going on that bench if they have to staple him there.

3. For me personally, what’s truly horrifying and infuriating about all this isn’t so much Kavanaugh’s past or political views – it’s the sight of the President of the United States of America openly mocking Dr Ford and essentially establishing the axiom that the real victims of sexual assault are men.

And really, that in itself isn't so horrifying and infuriating as the sight of all the people in that rally laughing and cheering him on. I’m hardly the first person to say this, but it’s true – the reason so many women don’t report sexual harassment, assault and rape is EXACTLY because of what just happened in the Kavanaugh/Ford saga.

Also, look at all these headlines here of men who actually committed sexual assault getting off light.

So yeah, the message from POTUS, his rally fans and the GOP is clear – if yr a woman who has been sexually assaulted or molested, it’s probably yr own fault so shut up and walk it off, because you might ruin the guy’s career and we wouldn’t want that, would we?

4. I also wouldn’t bank on that costing Republicans the women vote, because there are plenty of women in his crowds who either don’t believe Dr Ford or don't care, because (1) they like Kavanaugh and (2) Ford only has herself to blame for what happened. Which is depressing, but there it is. So it's probably a good idea to get out there and vote in the midterms on the assumption that the last two years do not add up to a slamdunk Blue Wave. 

5. Trevor Noah has a good riff here on Trump’s weaponization of victimhood, which of course Trump did not invent, but he uses it effectively, and men and women alike buy into it.

6. As for Kavanaugh joining the Supremes, all I can say is what I said before – his presence doesn’t automatically guarantee Roe v Wade being overturned, or giving Trump cover from prosecution or whatever. I’m not saying that won’t happen, I’m saying there’s always the chance that it won’t.

If it helps, this article from FiveThirtyEight points out that SCOTUS has a long proud history of tailoring their opinions to prevailing public sentiment – willingly or otherwise. And at the moment, public sentiment is very much on the side of protecting Roe v Wade.

That will undoubtedly upset conservatives who like to complain about activist judges who don’t stick to literal interpretations of constitutional text, but then we all know by now that those same conservatives generally as rule only really care about that when SCOTUS rules against their side, so I don’t take their complaints too seriously.

Court is adjourned,

This is dF

I started writing this post back when Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement and the big concern then was (1) Trump forced him to retire because Kennedy’s son is tied to Russia somehow (which might be true but there's no hard evidence of this) and (2) Trump’s nominated replacement, Brett Kavanaugh, is a radical Trump conservative whose sole qualification for Republicans is his ability to overturn Roe v Wade and affirm the legal power of Trump to pardon himself for whatever crimes Robert Mueller eventually charges him with.

Obviously the concerns have piled on since then, thanks to Dr Christine Blasey Ford informing us what young teenage Brett used to get up to.

So, okay, a few things:

1. Roe v Wade: personally I think Kavanaugh’s political opinions may not necessarily be an indicator of how he would rule, if only because (1) it depends on the specific case brought before SCOTUS and the legal decisions that brought it to them, etc and so on, because that’s what they tend to rule on, and (2) my experience with the Supremes has been that they don’t always vote along predictable party lines (Kennedy being a case in point – he’s a staunch conservative who legalized gay marriage nationwide). So I don’t know that Kavanaugh’s confirmation would automatically spell the end of Roe v Wade. But obviously I can’t rule it out either.

2. Self pardons: Trump has been declaring loudly that he can totally pardon himself, and that sitting POTUSes can’t be indicted anyway. The thing is, he might technically be right. We don't really know for sure because it’s never really been tested. This Snopes article has a good breakdown of the legal arguments, but the upshot is that the Constitution grants the POTUS virtually unlimited power to pardon people, and there’s nothing in there that says he CAN’T pardon himself, with the exception of impeachment charges, which the Founding Fathers™ ultimately decided was the best remedy for a corrupt, criminal president. There may be a case of applying common law (i.e. you can’t be the judge at yr own trial), but there’s no guarantee any judge will rule that way, whether it’s Kavanaugh, Kennedy or anyone else on the bench.

3. Boys will be boys: All I can really say about Dr Ford’s allegations for now is that it’s helped shine a spotlight (again) on the fact that many Republican men are really, really, REALLY bad at talking about rape and sexual assault/harassment – which is especially egregious in the wake of #MeToo, which evidently convinced Republicans that the proper response to rape/sexual assault/harassment allegations is to double down on insisting it must be the victim’s fault somehow, or boys will be boys, or the perp has suffered enough and we don't want to ruin his entire life over one transgression, and we’re sure he’s sorry about it and it won't happen again – all of which basically add up to the message that the feelings of the accused man always matter more than the feelings of his female victim. (Unless the accused man is Al Franken or Anthony Weiner, in which case by all means, ruin his life and make an example of him.)

So yeah, obviously my sympathies lie more with Dr Ford at this moment, and the conservatives defending Kavanaugh have pretty much zero credibility with me.

4. The Return Of Anita Hill: We’ve sort of been here before with Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill, which some fear will be a precedent for both how Dr Ford will be treated by the Senate Judiciary and Kavanaugh’s eventual confirmation despite her allegations.

On the bright side, according to this article, two key differences are (1) there were no women on the Senate Judiciary committee in 1991, but there are several today, and (2) #MeToo has changed the conversation we usually have about these kinds of things (except for Republican men, of course).

On the other hand, a number of Republican women have stepped up to defend Kavanaugh (not counting those 65 high-school “friends”), and one even said that even if Ford isn’t lying, so what?:


Well, sure. Every teenage boy goes through that period where he corners a girl at a party, turns up the music so no one can hear her protest and then covering up her mouth as he tries to force her to have sex with him. Everyone knows that.

So yeah, there’s a good chance that Christine Ford is going to be the new Anita Hill in the sense that the Senators are going to do their damnedest to badger, humiliate and discredit her, and the result is likely to be that Kavanaugh gets to be the new Clarence Thomas – because it does seem as though the current stance of the GOP is: “You know what? We honestly couldn’t care less if Kavanaugh rapes every woman he meets, films them all and posts them on YouTube so long as we get a guy on the SCOTUS bench who will rule in our favor.”

I might be wrong about Kavanaugh’s chances, but to be honest I think the only way he’s not getting this job at this stage is if he drops out voluntarily.

5. For the record, even before Christine Ford came into play, I personally didn’t think Kavanaugh should be confirmed – at least not with 100,000 pages of his judicial records being withheld. The fact that they are being withheld – and by Trump’s insistence – is in itself suspicious.

Redacted,

This is dF

The GOP has gone so far off the rails that George Will is urging conservatives to vote Democrat this November.

Which would be significant if not for the fact that George Will’s opinion doesn’t really count for anything in conservative circles anymore.

Why am I blogging about this?

Mainly because I have a soft spot for George Will. To be sure, I rarely agree with him on anything, but I do see him as one of the last of his breed – an intellectual political commentator with a journalistic approach, a well-read understanding of the issues, and a deep sense of classical party loyalty and a firm belief in what the party stands for (or at least should stand for). When I was growing up, Will was among that class of newspaper pundit who not only had a good grasp of the political issues of the day, but could put together a decent and logical argument for his opinions of them – complete with stats, studies and anecdotes to back up his point.

Again, that’s not to say he was right. But you knew where you stood with him, and you knew that he had at least put some thought into whatever point he was trying to make.

For me, I always felt his main weakness is that his worldview often seems to come more from reading about it rather than experiencing it (particularly when it comes to baseball). That comes across in his writing – typically for Will, his latest column reads like an A- answer to a essay question in a university class. If he was a liberal instead of a conservative he could contribute song lyrics to Bad Religion. Who else but Will would quote The Federalist papers and A Man For All Seasons in the same column, much less use words like “vitiate”?

But that's exactly why I doubt anyone in Trump’s MAGA base cares what George says. For one thing, many of them probably wouldn’t understand half of it. For another, the MAGA clan has openly and frequently ridiculed intellectual elitists for the sole crime of thinking they’re smarter than everyone else. The fact that Trump is POTUS (Electoral College weirdness and Vlad Putin’s cyber-troll action team notwithstanding) is strong evidence that the modern conservative movement prefers opinion leaders who eschew intellectual reasoning in favor of people who shout a lot, insult their opponents personally and blame liberals, feminists and ethnic minorities for all their problems.

Also, Will quit the GOP over Trump’s nomination. He also bad-mouthed Bill O’Reilly to his face. Both of which are virtual treason in Trumpland.

In other words, George Will is one of many classic GOP loyalists who have been left behind by refusing to compromise on principles. Indeed, that’s why he quit the GOP – it’s no longer the party he once supported. Will is from that classic school of post-Vietnam conservatism embodied by William F Buckley’s National Review (of which Will was editor for something like eight years) and the Reagan-era GOP that had a specific ideological vision of what conservative govt should be and could accomplish – but was also rooted in a spirit of bipartisan deal-based practicality necessary to a two-party system.

Thanks to the Dubya Bush era and the Tea Party movement – enabled by the bullhorns of Fox News and conservative talk radio (and eventually Twitter) – the current GOP now embodies almost none of those principles and has morphed into something completely different and horrible. The GOP is dead. Long live the Trump Party. They kept the brand, but it’s a completely different company now. Etc. 

Consequently, no one in the current party is going to listen to his plea to vote the GOP completely out of power in Congress. The truth is, the majority of Republicans like this version of the GOP. Also, as other people have mentioned before (and correctly), the GOP wasn’t exactly dragged unwillingly into Trump’s hate-fueled xenophobic universe of dumb vitriolic race-baiting conspiracy theory batshit. 

The bigger problem is this: convincing conservatives to vote against the Trump Party means convincing them to vote for Democrats. Any given poll shows that most Repubs would vote for Trump all over again even knowing what they know now because they believe Hillary would have been be far, far worse. So I don’t see any of these people taking a chance on a Demo – much less to punish a party they don’t think needs fixing.

Ironically, of course, this is one of those times I agree with Will – to a point. I do think that the only thing that can stop the GOP in its sycophantic tracks and trigger some kind of self-reassessment is having its collective ass handed to it in the mid-terms – badly. Ideally they should lose enough seats that not only make the Demos filibuster-proof but will also take Republicans a good 20 years to try and take back at least one Congressional house.

However, Will seems to think this would force a rethink of GOP leadership that will bring it back to its Reagan-era ideology. He sees a mid-term routing as shock therapy to save the patient.

Remember the scene in Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom when Indy is under the spell of Kali and Short Round snaps him out of it by burning him with a torch? Like that.

However, my personal diagnosis is that it’s too late for that. The GOP as we know it is gone, and it is not coming back. It’s now the Trump-Fox-Alt-White Party. A mid-term defeat will cause plenty of soul searching, for sure, but the result will be either doubling down or figuring out how to better package their message, not a return to classic Republicanism.

And it’s a moot point anyway, since – again – most people who consider themselves Republicans would much rather vote for this trash fire than for any Democrat.

Still, you can’t blame George for trying.

Will the circle be unbroken,

This is dF

We need to talk about DJ Trump and Jeff Bo Sessions and their zero tolerance immigration policy.

Because, damn.

1. The first thing to understand is that the legal situation and the process involved – and US immigration policy in general – is a lot more complicated than a lot of media reports make out. I recommend this Vox explainer and this NYT article for a reasonably detailed rundown of the nature and the history of the current policy.

The upshot: (1) This is an extension of a problem that’s been ongoing since at least the Bush II admin, (2) while there isn’t literally a policy instructing ICE to separate families at the border, there is a policy that treats all immigrants without papers as criminals, which is resulting in having their kids taken away (because you can’t keep yr kids with you in federal jail), and (3) the US govt isn’t set up to handle the logistics issues that this policy creates, which is a reason why they’re now looking at concentration camps tent cities. (More on that last point here.)

2. History aside, obviously it’s a monstrous policy for a couple of reasons: (1) obviously it's traumatic for the families, especially the children, and (2) it shows a distinct lack of empathy and humanity on the part of the Trump admin. They’re treating these people as (at best) statistics on a chart and (at worst) subhuman criminals who might as well be honorary members of MS-13 or whatever. It’s the kind of policy you'd expect from a guy who has been spewing rhetoric for the last few years about immigrants being terrorists, rapists, drug lords and animals.

3. Even if it’s just rhetoric to Trump, it’s practically gospel to his fan base who defend his policy as a law and order issue only – literally, if you happen to be Jeff Sessions, who can’t seem to keep a grin off his face when he talks about the admin’s current immigration crackdown. All I have to say about his Romans 13:1 crack has already been covered by Stephen Colbert. (Also, as others have pointed out, Romans 13:1 is irrelevant in a country that’s supposed to separate church and state.)

The whole law and order thing, for me, is mostly people trying to win an argument on a technicality – the law is the law, and if you don’t want to suffer the consequences, don’t break the law, what could be simpler? As if the “consequences” are justified no matter how extreme. All that says to me is these people see having yr kids taken away from you as just punishment for having the gall to take a shortcut in seeking a better life in the USA – and they’ve given no thought to what this actually involves doing to other human beings.

(I’ll add too that many people who deploy the “law and order” argument are also using it mainly because they do see immigrants as terrorists, rapists, drug lords and animals.)

4. For people whose fallback position is, “Look, like it or not, illegal immigration is a real problem and we need to fix how we deal with it," my response is this:

Yes, illegal immigration is a real problem (though not to the extremes that Trump Co claim), and the US needs to reform its policy to deal with it. The Big Question is how you deal with that problem, and the lengths (or in this case, depths) yr willing to go to “fix” it.

As it stands, our “fix” seems to require a certain amount of cruelty (see here, here and here) to carry out. And that means the people who carry it out – or support it – have to be okay with that level of cruelty. Whether cruelty is the intention or simply a consequence of zero-tolerance – or, even more cynically, an unfortunate but necessary political bargaining chip – it means these people think it’s okay to do this to illegal immigrants and their children. Trump can go on all he likes about having no choice because the law won’t let him keep families together – the prospect of separating them didn’t stop him from okaying the policy that is resulting in cruelty.

5. Also, regarding Trump’s claim that this is all the Democrats’ fault – that’s horseshit. What he’s saying is, “I wouldn’t have to do this if you’d give me an immigration reform bill that overturns the Flores Settlement, makes it harder to apply for asylum, allows indefinite detention and gives me my Wall™ money.”

Which is basically the same mentality as the average movie bad guy who takes people hostage and tells the hero, “Give me what I want and no one has to die – and if they do, it’s yr fault, not mine.”

It’s even more incredulous given that (1) the Democrats don’t control any branch of the govt, and (2) the current MO of the GOP is to slap together bills with no Demo input at all and force a vote (preferably in the middle of the night). And in any case, it’s insane to force Demos to vote for a bill they otherwise wouldn’t support simply to end Trump’s own cruel practice (which, by the way, it wouldn’t).

So, yeah – the situation is more complex than it looks, but regardless, Trump’s zero-tolerance policy is cruel political theater rooted in xenophobia and enabled by populist fear and racism that relies on denigrating the victims to sub-human status to justify it. It’s not just about the policy itself – it’s about the fact that too many people (from the Trump admin to its fan base and most if not all of the GOP) either don’t care about the consequences of that policy on real humans, or think that’s a small price to pay to achieve the fulfillment of their political ideology.

Theatre of cruelty,

This is dF

She had a sitcom. Now she doesn’t. Blog topic acquired!

1. I should say upfront I never watched either of her sitcoms, and that I never found her 80s standup to be all that funny.

2. Conservatives are of course getting themselves into a lather over Roseanne being “silenced” for exercising her 1A rights, etc. Tra la la.

I think what I said before about Kevin Williamson and the Intellectual Dark Web applies here: (1) yr 1A rights don’t entitle you to a TV show, or talk radio show, or NYT column section or any mass media platform, and (2) saying offensive things invites pushback and has consequences.

In mass media in particular, if you cross a line, the people who gave you that platform can take it away. We can argue all day about where the line should be – but that’s a non-starter these days, since most people tend to argue that wherever “the line” is, it should be in your favor and not your political opposition.

3. Some argue that ABC's move was Draconian because it dropped Barr for what she said on her personal Twitter account, not what she said on the show.

That's a fair point – it does seem unfair and alarming that you can be sacked for speaking yr mind on yr own time. On the other hand, we do live in a world now where if you are employed by a company and you suddenly become a Twitter sensation by – oh, let's say – being videotaped screaming at Spanish-speaking people in a restaurant, you’re not doing your company any favors by suddenly making them The Company That Employs Racist Jerks. If you become a liability to your company’s ability to do business, the company is going to sack you. Which is what happened with ABC – Roseanne’s tweet was toxic enough that ABC decided she was a liability to ratings and advertisers.

It's also worth pointing out that Rosanne Barr isn't just a clueless private employee whose racist comment happened to go viral – she's a famous person with a big fan base who has made a career out of saying outrageous things in public and on purpose. 

4. While ABC’s decision to drop the show completely may be extreme, it’s worth remembering the context in which all this is happening. Barr made a tasteless racist joke at a time when America is seeing a resurgence of white supremacists and neo-Nazis emboldened by the apparent backing of both the current presidential admin and its biggest megaphone, Fox News (which also just happens to be the most-watched TV news outlet in the country) – which understandably is alarming and infuriating to all the ethnic and religious minorities those groups want to oppress.

Consequently, when you make ape jokes about black people, you’re helping to legitimize and empower the white supremacist cause – especially when you’re someone who has Barr’s level of influence as a reasonably famous celebrity. Barr may or may not have intended that, but that’s the context in which ABC has to decide what to do about it.

5. As for Roseanne’s Ambien excuse, sorry, but no. I’ve heard that one before – “it wasn’t me saying that, it was the alcohol/drugs”. No, it was you. Alcohol and drugs don’t put those thoughts in yr head or yr heart – they release what’s already in there.

That joke isn’t funny anymore,

This is dF

When I first saw the Twitters light up about the “Intellectual Dark Web”, I thought they were talking about the “dark net” – the fabled part of the internet where hackers and child pornographers and 409 scammers and the like all hang out. (Not that the internet works that way, but why ruin a good metaphor?)

Turns out it’s not that. It’s a collective of pundits whose main mission in life appears to be coming up with extreme ways to make liberals hopping mad by proposing non-PC ideas and opinions: Sam Harris, Dave Rubin, Jordan Peterson, Christina Hoff Sommers, Ben Shapiro, Milo Whasisname, etc and so on. Whether they really believe their own schtick or not, they’re basically “professional controversialists” (as The Guardian puts it) who make a living promoting conservative/libertarian views about race, gender, religion and other sensitive topics that appear practically designed to offend liberals.

Which is nothing new, of course. What is new is that they’ve somehow united under this “Intellectual Dark Web” concept, which is basically: intellectuals who have been oppressed and silenced by liberals and their mainstream media for the crime of saying non-PC things.

And, you know. LOL?

I don’t take them seriously, of course, for a couple of reasons:

1. As mentioned above, these people are being intentionally provocative. Or at the very least they know what they’re saying is provocative, and they seem to thrive on it. So does their fanbase, which is considerable. Which brings us to:

2. For people who have been “oppressed” and “silenced” by the liberal mainstream whatever, they sure seem to have a huge audience.

So to me, this whole IDW thing looks like market positioning where one of the selling points is “the liberals are out to silence us all!” It’s an incorporation of the Bill O’Reilly Free Speech Defense, in which criticism of speech is exactly the same as denying yr right to free speech.

It’s also from the same branch as this whole conservative victim mentality that everyone hates them, mocks them and insults them for simply speaking their mind – which happens to involve hating, mocking and insulting everyone who isn’t a Trump fan with the knowledge that every branch of govt will pretty much back them up, which I already covered here.

The latest version of this: simply wearing a MAGA hat is like being openly gay in 1950. Which just goes to show how much MAGA hat wearers know about the LGBT experience in America all the way up to (checks notes) now.

Anyway. Ha ha. No.

The “Intellectual Dark Web” is a marketing stunt and nothing more. Not a single one of these people are being denied the right to say what they want, and none of them are having trouble finding an audience to hear what they have to say, or making a living by saying it.

As for the PC liberals shouting at them for saying provocative and offensive things … well, look. When you say provocative and offensive things, they tend to provoke and offend people. It kind of goes with the territory. You can’t reasonably expect provoked and offended people to not call you on that. Because would you?

I know some IDWs say: “Of course I want a response, but I want them to debate my idea intellectually, not scream at me that I’m evil.”

Which is fair. On the other hand, there’s not a lot to debate about when when yr intellectual proposition is that women should be hanged for having abortions, or that black people chose slavery and are intellectually inferior, or that the Holocaust didn’t happen (or wasn’t as bad as the Jews make out), or that liberals should literally be arrested and tried for treason, or the way to deal with incel violence is to redistribute sex so these guys can get laid, etc and so on.

To be clear, I do think one of the problems with PC culture is that too often it’s a kneejerk response with no debate at all. I still believe that if yr against racism, sexism, homophobia, etc, you need to be prepared to articulate why, because there will always be people who don’t understand what racism is and why it’s a bad thing – and if they’re being courted by the IDW or other demagogues, it’s good to be able to effectively counter their arguments. 

Then again, it’s admittedly a pointless exercise, since the IDW has a whole alt-reality information bubble to fall back on to make its case – things that are not true but they choose to believe are true. You can’t effectively debate someone when you can’t even agree on the basic sociopolitical reality in which you live. So why waste the energy? 

I’m not going to debate you, Jerry,

This is dF

A few comments regarding that terrorist van attack in Toronto:

1. Apparently many Americans are stunned that Alek Minassian didn’t die in a hail of Canadian police bullets.

Which I think says a lot about Americans.

I would add that some US cops have been known to resolve standoffs without shooting the perp 20 times (although yes, such an outcome is far more likely if the perp is not a brown person or Arab-ish looking). But it says a lot that they’re not expected to, or legally required to do so – time and time again, hearings and trials tend to conclude that American police have every right to use as much deadly force as they deem necessary to deal with suspects, regardless of whether the suspect is armed.

Which I guess is why they look at Canada and say,” Wow, I didn’t even know that was an option.”

2. Thanks to Alek Minassian, I now know there is such a thing as an “incel rebellion”. And thanks to Vox and this Twitter thread, I know what it is.

And … you know … damn.

3. Obviously the concept is completely bizarre to me. For a start, I once went for seven straight years (1982-1989) without any sex at all, and while I was unhappy with this predicament, not once did it ever occur to me to hate women and kill people.

Masturbation saves lives, is what I think I’m saying.

Seriously though, as far as I know most guys who subscribe to the incel movement don’t want to kill people either. They’re just lonely guys who genuinely don’t understand why they’re not getting any, and okay, I can relate to that. And I do think part of the problem is societal – not in the way the incels think (i.e. the sexual revolution enabled women to actually choose who they have sex with, and that’s unfair and led to class warfare or something, which is silly), but in terms of the constant peer pressure that society and the media puts all of us under to be actively sexual as much as possible, and that failure to do so makes you a loser. None of that should matter or be an indicator of yr self worth. But somehow to a degree it is. So I do think there’s something to that.

However, I just don't know how you go from there to a mass murderer like Elliot Rogers somehow inspiring a manifesto for every white guy in America who is angry at the injustice of hot girls not wanting to have sex with them. And how you go from THAT to following Rogers’ example. So clearly there’s something else going on with these guys than there was with me.

4. This also gets me to thinking about the various motives of terrorism, and how the incel manifesto sounds silly compared with terrorist groups that are resorting to violence for what they consider to be a noble cause – establishing a Caliphate to please Allah, secession from a corrupt federal system.

Compared to that, carrying out a terrorist attack because yr unfairly not getting all the sex you feel yr entitled to doesn’t make a great soundbite – especially when it’s unclear how mowing down pedestrians in a van will somehow help achieve that goal. I mean, sure, some incels have said, “See, if you Staceys had just let Alek fuck you, those people would still be alive, so how about saving more lives by coming back to my place?”

I can't help thinking if there was such a thing as an International Terrorist Convention, all the other terrorists would be embarrassed to be seen with these guys. I’m sure even neo-Nazis are like, “Um, we’re not with them. Totally no problems in that area. Not us.”

Only the lonely,

This is dF