Category: Politics

The stupidity to which American citizenship condemns us all.

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Degeneracy at the New York Times

Source: Opinion | Dems, Please Don’t Drive Me Away – The New York Times

If a thinking man like David Brooks is seriously claiming that the Democrats somehow need to convince him not to vote for Trump, then he is effectively confessing that he is every bit a degenerate as Trump.

I so wish the Times had let Mr. Brooks’ career die along with the Weekly Standard, the weasely “magazine” published by cronies, for cronies whence Mr. Brooks arose like so many other primitive thinkers. Instead, the Times gave Mr. Brooks a second life, and this is how he thanks the times: by publishing a veiled defense of a degenerate president.

Thank you, New York Times. Thank you for being the beacon of enlightenment.

Dave, I speak for all Democrats when I say none of us wants you in our party. Thanks to Trump, there is a very special place–complete with Big Macs and caviar–for spineless degenerates like you.

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Giuliani Justifies Being Ignored

Given how frequently Rudy Giuliani contradicts his own testimony, the amount of air time he gets is baffling. Had any witness responded so erratically to US attorney Giuliani, he would certainly have been condemned by that prosecutor. Hence, the generosity with which media outlets still permit Mr. Giuliani to lie, prevaricate, equivocate and, on occasion, insult is a mystery. Since Mr. Giuliani’s dishonesty is a certainty, perhaps it’s the entertainment value of the strained facial expressions that punctuate every bogus testimony of his is the draw. Presenting such a catastrophe of a personality as entertainment goes far in explaining why viewers are flocking to Netflix and Amazon Prime. At this rate, broadcast media’s audience will look an awful lot like the President’s constituency: extremely meek and gullible; in a word, provincial.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani backtracked on Monday from earlier comments that Trump pursued a business deal to erect a tower bearing his name in Moscow throughout 2016, saying his statements “were hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the President.”
— Read on www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia/giuliani-backtracks-on-comments-trump-sought-moscow-deal-throughout-2016-idUSKCN1PF26A

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Only Russia Can Rescue California GOP

The poll, which is linked in the article below, looks legitimate, with most Los Angeles area television stations identified as the sponsors. An apparent new-nazi is the most popular Republican candidate in the California 2018 senate race.

It is difficult to determine whether candidate Little is benefitting from the ignorance of Republican voters in California or from their genuine malice. Either way, the California Republican Party can only hope that Russia will be unveiled as the financial backer of Little so that it can call the candidacy “fake news”. Barring such a revelation, the California Republican Party’s self destruction will be complete if this clown emerges as their candidate in the fall senate election. It is a necessary outcome to the pandering the GOP has made to the basest factions within its base, yet it is unlikely they will change their pandering.

Source: Neo-Nazi running as Republican polls second in California Senate race

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May Rick Santorum Prove His Bravery

Source: Rick Santorum: Students should learn CPR, not seek gun laws – The Washington Post

On CNN, Mr. Santorum glibly states:

“They took action to ask someone to pass a law,” he said of the demonstrators. “They didn’t take action to say, “How do I, as an individual, deal with this problem?”

I fervently and sincerely hope that Mr. Santorum gets to set an example for these young students by placing himself between the crazed gunman and the innocent students the next time a mass shooting is attempted. That will positively deal with the problem.

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Rex Tillerson, R.I.P.

Rex Tillerson built Exxon into the most valuable company on earth until it was eclipsed by Steve Jobs and Apple. Tillerson built Exxon into the most capable oil exploration and extraction outfit in the world; so capable that Putin had to grovel with you to extract Russia’s oil. You rescued Exxon from the laughing stock of the Exxon Valdez and burnished it into the most heralded name in the history of the oil industry.

You brought the negotiating skills you acquired in the process of signing colossal deals with the world’s biggest corporations, governments and despots to serving your country. You deserve so much more than a petty tweet from a man who can not grasp what you have accomplished. Though I cannot solute you for the lies you propagated about global warming for a brief part of your Exxon tenure, I salute you for your amazing business prowess and apologize to you on behalf of this rude regime. I remind you, sir, that this regime in no way represents the people of the USA, as abundantly manifested by the POTUS’s massive popular vote deficit.

A legendary career felled by a nitwit’s tweet. How incredibly sad. I’m not so sure you would have fared better were you a coal executive.

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Where are the Borders in the Computing Cloud?

Nominally, the case (linked at the end) is about “privacy”, but the underlying questions are far deeper and far more relevant to anyone who is using any form of “cloud” service: Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, Twitter, Microsoft, etc. The government insists that it can access data belonging to a suspect even if that data is stored on a server in another country, but the service company, Microsoft in this case, insists that it cannot provide that data because that act violates the terms under which it operates its servers in Ireland. The question is, therefore, where is the virtual border drawn? Is material belonging to an American subject but stored on a server in a foreign country under a foreign account that was created in that country subject to US law or the laws of the country in which the account was created. A question in the affirmative leads to the following conundrum.

“If U.S. law enforcement can obtain the emails of foreigners stored outside the United States, what’s to stop the government of another country from getting your emails even though they are located in the United States?” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer, said in a blog post on Monday.

Where is the line drawn? Does the account belong to the person and, thus, subject to the laws of whichever country in which the person is residing, or is the data owned by the provider and, thus, subject to the laws of the country in which that provider is operating? If the former, then, indeed, foreign countries can have free access to data stored on American servers. This will please Chinese officials who want to identify dissidents. If the latter, then some country–perhaps Ireland–may well become a haven for data akin to the way Switzerland is a haven for money. Neither branch of the dilemma is particularly satisfying. Not solving this problem is an invitation to disaster in the not too distant future as our data slowly come to represent the totality of our existence.

What do we  want as users? Do we want our data to be ours, or do we want to relinquish control to technology companies in order to relieve ourselves of the responsibility of living with the consequences of the data? The breakneck pace of progress in technology doesn’t leave much time for the deep discussion that the subject demands. When the shit hits the fan, it’s going to get really messy. Wear your best virtual rubbers.

Source: U.S. Supreme Court to decide major Microsoft email privacy fight

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Political Parties and Political Jokes

David Letterman’s Top Ten Lists were masterpieces of comedy. If he had a top ten list titled “Top Ten Signs Your Political Party is a Joke”, then the number one reason would almost certainly be “Your most popular candidate is Write-In”.  The results are still fresh, but that outcome is not likely to change for the American Independent “Party” in Ventura County. The screen grabs below show that candidate Write-In is the top vote getter for this political “party”.

As of this writing, the total votes cast in Ventura County were 81,991. This means the American Independent Party received 1.3% of the total votes cast, The Green Party 0.2%, and the Libertarian Party 0.5%. These statistics and the popularity of the respective write-in candidates overwhelmingly support the notion that the majority of the people in the AIP are the ones who erroneously confused its name with the unaffiliated voter designation. They likely wrote in Hilary Clinton or Bernie Sanders as a result. The math then means that the AIP chosen candidates garnered a mere 0.4% of the vote.

Does this make the Green Party a joke? After all, a hoax played on the public is attracting more votes than a party that has been active for over 20 years.

The strangest thing is that the Libertarians–people who are so obsessed with their own point of view–miraculously found enough consensus to support one candidate.

Of course, since none of these parties seems to have attracted more than 1% of the vote even statewide (results are all the way on the bottom, with 22% of precincts reporting), every single one is, frankly, a joke. We Americans like power and powerful parties. We seem to like it that way because we enjoy complaining about them. The fact that we distance ourselves from idealists who will undoubtedly irreparably disrupt the scantly orderly society we have  speaks volumes the wisdom of the American masses.

Unless there is a President Trump.

On second thought, maybe the greatest joke is a party that traces its roots to the abolition of slavery has managed to select a bigot as its leader.

Write-In is the most popular American Independent Party Candidate. The members are so independent that they can't reach consensus.
Write-In is the most popular American Independent Party Candidate. The members are so independent that they can’t reach consensus.
The Green Party is faring slightly better than AIP. Write-In candidate still registers, but it's the runner up.
The Green Party is faring slightly better than AIP. Write-In candidate still registers, but it’s the runner up.
Libertarians are almost looking like a bona fide party. The Write-In candidate is also the runner up but by a much larger margin than the Green Write-In candidate.
Libertarians are almost looking like a bona fide party. The Write-In candidate is also the runner up but by a much larger margin than the Green Write-In candidate.

 

Dem total

1559505

61.7%

GOP total

936721

37.1%

AIP

14235

0.6%

Green

4508

0.2%

Peace & Freedom

1438

0.1%

Libertarian

9482

0.4%

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Shkreli is sued over his $2 million Wu-Tang Clan album

Marin Shkreli is proud of–even smug about–every single act that distinguishes him as a singularly depraved, morally bankrupt and rude human being. The fact that the governing boards of several large corporations have appointed this idiot to run their companies is probably even more shocking. When will the focus of the investigations shift to the incompetent or corrupt corporate boards that betray their shareholders’ interests by giving this imbecile employment?

$2 million for a Wu-Tang Clan album? Are you kidding me? Maybe corporate America should focus on eradicating such stupidity from its ranks before it starts complaining about federal government waste.

Or, maybe the SEC’s sluggish expurgation of such morons from corporate ranks should be the only Federal inefficiency that the corporate world should bemoan.

Martin Shkreli faces a new legal headache, a lawsuit claiming that his $2 million Wu-Tang Clan album contains illustrations ripped off from a New York artist, who now wants the former drug executive to pay for them.

Source: Shkreli is sued over his $2 million Wu-Tang Clan album

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Teachers learn to shoot after Peshawar school attack | Video | Reuters.com

Teachers learn to shoot after Peshawar school attack | Video | Reuters.com

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre, the official stance of the National Rifle Association, as stated by its leader, Wayne Lapierre, was

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

Implied in the NRA claim is the notion that the United States is a nation as lawless and hopeless as Pakistan; so much so that teachers are being trained with firearms in order to prevent further massacres. The NRA implies that the US government is so inept and so corrupt that it is incumbent upon schools and private citizens to protect children from madmen. The NRA argument is that the United States is a third world country, like Pakistan, where lawlessness rules.

Given that the above video is the embodiment of what the NRA is advocating, it is unequivocal that the NRA is the hopelessly outdated organization that is impeding progress in the United States.

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Freedom of the Press

Hong Kong democracy protesters defy tear gas, baton charge in historic standoff | Reuters

 Freedom of the press is taken for granted in the West, but one struggles to remember the last time the American press took a principled stand against the government. A striking example of this is cited in the above story.

Publishing tycoon Jimmy Lai, a key backer of the democracy movement, joined the protesters.

The New York Times famously buried a story about the NSA’s illegal exploits under pressure from the Federal government. The Times had every right to publish the story, and it had all the resources it needs to defend itself against any accusations the government might bring, but it caved to the government bullying. In Hong Kong, in contrast, in defiance of an autocratic government, the publishing magnate is willing to risk his own life, not just his fortunes. The New York Times and The Washington Post haven’t shown this kind of moxie since the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandal. The hippies were right, it seems. We should look east for leadership and inspiration.

Jimmy Lai’s participation in the Hong Kong protests should remind us that freedom of the press is worthless if the press has no balls.