Lex Anteinternet: D'uh: “This is a whole new concept of individuals that just want to burn the whole place down,” Mr. McCarthy said on Thursday. “It doesn’t work.” ...
In fairness, far left Democrats joined in with far right Republicans to bring the defense measure down, with the "progressives" voting against the Republican bill as it had eliminated social programs within the Defense Department which they favored.
And so the extreme right, and extreme left, joined, to shut down the government.
Comment by Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy after his party's far right blocked a bill funding the military on a procedural vote.
Really Kevin? You just realized the crowd you were running with. Yes, they want to burn the place down. You are helping them do it.
AMENDMENT XIV
Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2.
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of
President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4.
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5.
The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
It is increasingly clear that the 14th Amendment is going to be used as a legal basis to challenge Donald Trump's ability to be a Presidential nominee this election.
And legal scholars, weighting in, have read this language to bar his ability to do so. Two non-profit legal groups have made it known that they are going to be filing suits.
I suppose we should list running, at the present time, in this sad show.
President.
Democrats:
Joe Biden; the incumbent.
While a majority of Democrats and voters in general are disenchanted with the aged President, he will take the nomination absent something unexpected occurring.
Marianne Williamson.
Gadfly. Williamson mostly serves to remind voters that there are some real wackadoodles in the Democratic Party.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
As if Williamson wasn't enough of a wackadoodle. Kennedy is receiving attention, but his candidacy isn't likely to go anywhere. Known for some unconventional views.
Republicans.
Donald Trump.
The former President, who is facing multiple felony charges, but who has a large number of fanatic followers in spite of having nearly every deficit as a candidate imaginable.
Nikki Haley
In a normal election cycle, we could expect Haley to do well.
Vivek Ramaswamy.
Youngest candidate, oddly tacking to the right of Trump on some things, and getting increasingly extreme as the election goes on.
Perry Johnson,
largely unknown businessman. Age 75. Because we need more old people to run for this office.
Larry Elder
Conservative African American radio host. 71 years of age, and first time candidate.
Asa Hutchinson.
Former Governor of Arkansas and conventional, non MAGA, Republican. Age 72.
Tim Scott.
African American Senator from South Carolina.
Ron DeSantis
Governor of Florida.
Chris Christie
Former Governor of New Jersey. Blunt anti Trump candidate.
Mike Pence.
Boring, if briefly heroic, former Vice President.
Doug Burgum
Governor of North Dakota who can't muster up enough courage to discuss Trump's coup.
Will Hurd
Congressman from Texas.
Steve Laffey
A politician you've never heard of but who is apparently on the New Hampshire ballot.
Ryan Binkley
A Texas businessman and Protestant Pastor.
Green Party
Cornel West.
West would be familiar to watchers of news shows and PBS from the late 20th Century, but his candidacy here nearly reduces him to gadfly status.
American Solidarity Party
Peter Sonski
Sonski is a businessman who is the ASP's choice for President this year. The party is a Christian Democratic Party that ought to receive more attention, and would in a fairer system.
Lurking on the outside of all of this is No Labels, which in spite of the existence of third parties, threatens to launch a non-party third party run at the Oval Office. Joe Manchin is continually mentioned as its potential candidate, although the Democrats desperately hope he'll stay in the Senate.
In terms of more local races:
U.S. Senate
Republicans
John Barrasso, maybe?
The long serving Senator has not announced if he's running or not. Right now, because it's pretty obvious that Mitch McConnell is headed on to the next realm, he stands to potentially be Senate Majority Leader.
Reid Rasner.
Rasner has announced and is running essentially as a far right populist. If Barrasso stays in, his campaign will be forgotten within days of the primary election.
September 3, 2023
The Heritage Foundation and others have worked out a Project 2025 as a plan to radically reshape the Federal Government should Trump come to power.
As the Heritage Foundation would have it:
The fourth pillar of Project 2025 is our 180-day Transition Playbook and includes a comprehensive, concrete transition plan for each federal agency. Only through the implementation of specific action plans at each agency will the next conservative presidential Administration be successful.
Pillar IV will provide
sthe next President a roadmap for doing just that. To learn more about Project 2025’s vision for a conservative administration, please read our recently published book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.
September 7, 2023
Six Colorado voters have filed an action seeking to bar Donald Trump from running for election under the 14th Amendment. The complaint is a phenomenal 115 pages long and is effectively a brief.
Last Prior Thread:
Last prior edition:
U.S. Rep. Cory Mills, R-Florida, and articles of impeachment, and issue/culture fatigue
Apparently, Rep. Mills has nothing to actually do. Perhaps somebody can find something for him, so he has real problems to work on.
Most people are tired of this. And by that, I mean a Congress that is monkeying around with bills that aren't going anywhere and are of the nature of throwing gasoline on a fire. We know that this impeachment is going nowhere. We know that a recent bill to do away with the Department of Education isn't either. We know that shutting the government down, which is going to happen soon, just causes the government to lose money.
Some people out in the audience of society may believe that all of this serves to get something done, but it sure isn't obvious. Most people are simply tired. Of course, this helps whip up a pre convinced base even though nothing is actually going to happen on a lot of these things.
Relating to fatigue, on another topic I posted on, that being the upcoming Synod on Synodality, I suspect a lot of Catholics are tired of this topic:
There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."
Indeed, something of this type, although not quite of this type, lead commentator Amy Otto, in an Op Ed written some years ago, to maintain "Men Did Greater Things When It Was Harder To See Boobs". The caption on the article, which was flippant but which addressed a serious topic, if not idential one, not too surprisingly went viral.
Also not too surprisingly, this is a topic that's been pretty widely studied and the entire observational nature of this is hard-wired into men. That some don't get this is another defiance of science.
And one putting all the burden, I'd note, on men. I don't really want to be in the position of taking note of some 20-year-old woman's bare breasts, and I don't want to be seeing something that only a spouse should. But now I have, and I can't get that back, nor can she, nor can the probably hundreds of men, most with fewer reservations than me, that saw her on Saturday and whose thought went where every they let them go.
US Suicide Rates at all-time high
US suicides hit an all-time high last year
A horrific story, to be sure.
It occured to me for some reason that all things being equal, a record number would likely to be set every year, as the American population continues to grow. Having said that, the rates are very high, which is referenced in this article.
Predictably, the reporter blames it on the "growing availability of guns", but firearms have been easy to get throughout American history. Availability has grown from the mid 20th Century, which saw a lot of gun control provisions come in which have later faded, in part due to being found unconstitutional, with the 1970s probably the high watermark of that, but if we go back prior to the 1930s, we'd find that things were, in most places, wide open. Even children could buy firearms in most of the US prior to the 1950s.
What has really changed is a society within any kind of foundation whatsoever. In the entire Western World, the culture built on Catholicism, but heavily impacted by the Reformation, has seen the foundation attacked and dismantled to be instead one that's now centered on radical individualism. It's not healthy, and it's killing people. Added to that, the increasing corporatist culture work in a box life throughout the developed world, that removes people radically from nature, is levying a toll. The combination of both is deadly.
Everyone claims to want to do something about this, which seems to amount to doing something about it sort of clinically, rather than existentially.
Storm Warning
At least 55 people died on Maui. Residents had little warning before wildfires overtook a town
I really have to wonder how long a large segment of American society, and the official leaders of the GOP, are going to continue to pretend there's nothing going on climate wise. It's extremely difficult to grasp why they won't face reality on this, unless of course it's an example of worshiping money as if it was as religion.
People are now dying. Shouldn't this be taken seriously?
Without fail, one of our state's Congressional delegation comes on television or other media to promote fossil fuels and at least two out of the three like to talk about "Biden's radical climate agenda". Keeping a natural climate isn't a "radical agenda" and simply refusing to discuss this topic is foolish.
Speaking of the Maui fires, some real goofballs are claiming that it was caused by a "direct energy weapons", which they also claim the last devastating California fires were.
It's scary to realize that people who believe something so idiotic have the right to vote.
Lil Tay is not dead.
I'd never heard of Lil Tay, aka Tay Tian, aka Claire Hope, aka Claire Eileen Qi Hope, but this line from her Wikipedia entry says a lot:
Tay's father and manager sought for Tay to become more focused on professionalism, suggesting a music career for her, though her mother and half-brother encouraged her to continue her original boastful character.
Keep in mind, she hit the music scene as a foul-mouthed rapper at age 9.
That's frankly sick, and not "sick" in the good pop culture lexicology way. Her parents deserve a dope slap for letting that happen in the first place.
Whatever her legitimate name is, her story illustrates the poverty of values in the Western World. Her parents were simply shacked up over a prolonged time, never married. At some point, they separated and shared custody of the child. Somehow, they allowed her to enter into the world of hip hop, which is marked for its celebration of criminal culture and high death rate. That made the stories of her death seem pretty credible. Hardly a week goes by without some hip hop artist with a made up name dying young, in all the ways that tragic young deaths occur. Just this week, it might be noted, one such artist was sentenced for shooting another, the victim of the shooting being Megan Thee Stallion (yes, that's a made up name).
When it was revealed she wasn't dead, I wondered if it was a PR stunt. I'ts being claimed her social medial was hacked. I see I'm not the only one who was speculating on the stunt possibilities, however.
Regarding Tay, even at age 9 to 14 she's an interesting example of a certain public pseudonym phenomenon.
Entertainers have always affected false names, often due to being required to do so by reporters. Actors with Jewish names, for example, almost had to take another name early on. Paul Newman, an exception to so many rules in the acting community, is notable here as his real name actually was Paul Newman.
That's pretty much stopped as cultural prejudice of that type diminished. A peculiar modern phenomenon has been people, particularly women, of mixed Asian and Euro-American heritage adopting their Asian mother's surname as a stage name. It seems clear enough that Chinese American Tay was given the name at birth of Claire Eileen Qi Hope, i.e., Clair Hope, a pretty generic European name, and when she was drop-kicked into hip hop she became Tay Tian, or at least around there somewhere she did, taking her mother's last name. Priscilla Natalie Hartranft, a Korean American, took her mother's name Ahn, becoming Priscialla Ahn for the stage. The surprising exception is the very successful Michelle Zauner (Michelle Chongmi Zauner) a Korean American born in Korea, who has kept her given name. Zauner is the front for Japanese Breakfast, which is eclectically named, however, as Koreans are not particularly fond of hte Japanese.
I guess that takes us to Asian Pop, or maybe K Pop. It's bad, but seems huge. I don't know why. Like a lot of Japanese group, K Pop tends to be very Kwaaii
But not all Japanese music actually is:
While I should not note it, by the way, I'm going to note it anyhow. And what I'm going to note is that the children of European ethnicity people and Asian ethnicity people look very Asian as a rule.
It's simply an observation. But as a genetic observation, the genes that contribute to appearance are obviously dominant for the contributing Asian partner.
When I was in college, I knew a student whose father was British and mother Japanese. He looked very Japanese. Zauner looks Korean (and yes, I've been to Korea). Ahn also looks Korean, and Tay looks Chinese. This is merely an observation.
Last Edition:
The best posts of the week of September 3, 2023. A week in which Jim Jordan of Ohio was delivered a much deserved dope slap.
September 9, 2023
DA Wills replied to Representative Jim Jordan, giving him a dope slap.
As an aside, during the next presidential election I will remember what gas prices were before the last election and vote accordingly.
Concluding paragraph in a letter in the Tribune on something else.
That statement is, frankly, dumb. What the crap is that even supposed to mean?
Does it mean the voter is going to hope for high gas prices? High gas prices mean that Wyoming's petroleum is marketable, which means a high daily rig count. If the price is low, it means that it isn't marketable and a low daily rig count.
Does it mean that the writer is upset with Saudi Arabia and wants our politicians to do something about that? High prices usually mean Saudi Arabia is helping to keep the prices high.
Or is he mad at Putin and wants the government to be more active in bringing Putin down, the quickest way to an end of the war in Ukraine. Putin also benefits from high petroleum prices.
Probably none of these things.
The writer probably wants prices at the pump low, low, low, at the wellhead high, high, high, and other things that defy the laws of economics.
Sure, I want the things that I use to be free, for me. And the things I sell to be expensive, for everyone else, and still purchased. But free markets don't really work that way.
Unfortunately, it probably can.
Anyhow, this is a really dumb idea.
We don't have direct elections of the President in this country. . . and so now we're worried about the school prinicpals?
Lex Anteinternet: The 2024 Election, Part V. Wooing the primary voters.: June 29, 2023 Posted today only because at this point I need to update the list of candidates. As time has gone on, I've omitted a fe...
Here is what former Congressman Cheney stated:
Idiot comes from the Greek word ἰδιώτης, the etymology of which is:
Middle English (denoting a person of low intelligence): via Old French from Latin idiota ‘ignorant person’, from Greek idiōtēs ‘private person, layman, ignorant person’, from idios ‘own, private’.
Obviously, the meaning has changed over the years, but the evolution reflects an idiot being a person who is too self-involved to get a clue. And there's certainly a lot of that going around in the United States of the 2020s.
