Joe Biden.

This is personal to me. It moved me and almost brought tears to my eyes. 

This is the Joe Biden we need. And we can't let him forget that. 

 

We are a nation of Immigrants

[Sorry I have been so silent. Difficult times for me. But I will suddenly have a little more free time, to post what I have been meaning to post.]

I go through phases of being into Gogol Bordello, so I'd forgotten about this, but it seems pretty goddamn fucking appropriate right now.

get ready Trump: you'll be going down soon enough.

Preventing American Citizens from Voting is the most Anti-American thing our politicians are doing right now

I don't care who you are or what your party affiliation is, if you are not outraged by the fact that our politicians are doing everything in their power to prevent our fellow American Citizens from voting, then you are unquestionably anti-American, anti-democratic, anti-Constitution, and definitely unpatriotic.  Yes, these disgusting voter suppression tactics are clearly targeted at Democratic voters; but they will undoubtedly also affect plenty of Republican voters and prevent them from voting too!  But it just doesn't matter what their party affiliation is, because voting is a fucking Constitutional right—not a privilege, but a right—that every single American citizen has, and that no politician nor government official should ever be allowed to stand in the way of.  (What does the Constitution actually say about voting rights?)



And by the way, the fact that citizens convicted of a crime in 48 states have their voting rights taken away, either temporarily or permanently, is also, I would argue, un-Constitutional and anti-democratic.  Criminal disenfranchisement laws are just plain unjust.  So what if you've been convicted of a crime?  You are still a human being and you are still an American citizen, and therefore you still should be owed the same basic right to a voice as every other American citizen has.  Because the right to vote, along with the right to free speech, is fundamental to the very nature of our democracy.  Because both the right to vote and the right to free speech are fundamentally about having the right to a voice, each citizen having an equal voice, and that that voice cannot and will not be silenced by any governmental force, because doing so is nothing short of antithetical to what a democracy is.

"But, but, but,... Putin says it wasn't Russia!"

I never thought I would be moved to make such a crude and vulgar statement here, but,

Wow, Trump, you are fucking pussy.

For all your talk of strength and being a man, you are the most cowardly coward the world has ever seen.

You are weak.
A crybaby weakling.
A fucking joke.

Sad!

Trump pulls U.S. out of the Iran Deal

Why is Trump suckling off Netanyahu's teat?

John Dean on Trump

John Dean's perspective: Trump has already exceeded everything Nixon did, and is now much more intimately involved in the coverup than Nixon ever was: "Trump is Nixon on steroids and stilts."
Sure, he's a contributor on CNN, but with all due respect, considering the role Dean played in Watergate, what he has to say is certainly worth listening to and taking seriously for consideration.  His authority on the matter is not without some credibility.

2020

Okay, I get why tons of people are in favour of Oprah running in 2020…
In the very least, I will say this:
We were extremely concerned about Trump's conflicts of interest. Now, if there's anyone who actually has what you might want to call a powerful business / financial empire – as opposed to someone who merely desperately tries to convince you that he does – it's Oprah.

So, shouldn't we be just a tad bit concerned about Ms. Oprah's conflicts of interest?

Evolution, the fall of U.S. life expectancy, and journalists vs. the government

Ya, it's been far too long since I've written anything. For now, I wanted to share one of my new favourite podcasts, and share episodes from two other podcasts because the topics and discussions are deeply fascinating and important.

This Week in Evolution
Admittedly the topics and discussions are very science-heavy and can get rather technical – these are real and practicing scientists after all – but if you have enough background knowledge to follow it and understand both what they're saying and the implications of it, it's great stuff.
I also appreciate that they talk about scientific practice, i.e., what scientists actually do, what it's like working in this or that lab with a team of other scientists, how scientists collaborate with each other, how they get funding, the process of writing up their findings and getting them published, what fieldwork is like, the kind of equipment they use, their methodologies, and perhaps most importantly, when they get things wrong, when they make mistakes, when things turn out very differently from what they expected, etc., and how they proceed forward from that, what they learn from it, what silver linings they find, what new questions are opened, and so on. And of course, much of that is coming from their own personal experiences as scientists. Getting that "side of the story", so to speak, can be very helpful and eye-opening to the rest of us non-scientists to understand science better. (And I use the word "science" there as a catch-all term to include: scientists, scientific practices, scientific research, experiments and studies, scientific findings, scientific publications, scientific hypotheses, scientific theories, scientific claims, scientific knowledge, the applications of scientific findings and scientific knowledge, etc.)

An episode from Vox's The Weeds: Why is U.S. life expectancy falling? Plus, political elites are biased about what they think the general public thinks; and, why pushing for unpopular policy is bad for democracy.
Very thought-provoking stuff there.

An episode from The Intercept's Intercepted: All the news unfit to print: James Risen on his battles with Bush, Obama, and the New York Times
From the intro:
"James Risen is a legend in the world of investigative and national security journalism. As a reporter for the New York Times, Risen broke some of the most important stories of the post 9/11 era, from the warrantless surveillance against Americans conducted under the Bush-Cheney administration, to black prison sites run by the CIA, to failed covert actions in Iran. Risen has won the Pulitzer and other major journalism awards. But perhaps what he is now most famous for is fighting a battle under both the Bush and Obama administrations as they demanded — under threat of imprisonment —the name of one of Risen’s alleged confidential sources. In the end, Risen prevailed and refused to testify and he was not locked up. But during the course of his case, there were rulings that could have far reaching implications for journalists, particularly in a climate where the president of the United States is characterizing news outlets as enemies of the people, contemplating arresting reporters, and is conducting at least 27 leak investigations. All before the end of his first year in office."

Enjoy!
But more importantly, think!

It's beautiful to watch, isn't it?

Donald Trump, you are going to go down in flames. And while the whole world is watching.

[You love being the center of attention, don't you?]

Finally! A journalist speaks up about the Podesta emails to defend fellow journalists.

I am so glad to see that someone finally wrote about this! It has been frustrating to see so many people making a ridiculous big deal about a journalistic practice that is both fairly common and very effective as a method for getting "the goods" to write great pieces of journalism that we're all grateful for revealing to us the kinds of things that we all want to know about. Those and other journalists don't at all deserve to be lambasted for the kind of behavior revealed by some of the Podesta emails; they're doing their job, and they're doing it well, and at the end of the day, you get to benefit.

WikiLeaks and the Oily Washington Press, by Jack Shafer, senior media writer of Politico
Some noteworthy excerpts – of which the very last line is my favorite:

The toadying behaviors are driven by the power relationship between the news media and an administration or campaign. I would bet that many establishment reporters tiptoed around the Romney people as well, and asked them pretty-please for interviews. It’s a certainty that many of them bowed to George W. Bush when he was in the White House. Not saying it’s right. Just saying it is. […]

The primary reason Washington operators can dictate the terms of engagement with Washington journalists is that the true insiders are few and the journalists are many. […] [L]ong before the invention of email, journalists routinely donned false faces to charm their sources. They pretended to be sympathetic, they feigned interest in their sources and their families, they fawned, they socialized with them, fed their egos and remembered their birthdays. If you were a Washington journalist, you would, too. […]

Lesson learned, maybe Washington journalists will stop over-relying on email and return to the time-honored audio burn-bag that is the telephone to court and seduce and exploit their sources. Meanwhile, over drinks, they will recover soon enough and laugh at your petty ethical concerns.

I would like to draw your attention to a particular phrase the importance of which could very easily be missed. In the second half of the first sentence of the middle excerpt: the true insiders. There is an important reason he uses the word 'true' there.

Conservatives and their Conspiracy Mythology: Hurricane Matthew

I don't even know what to say about this. Maybe I don't need to say anything, because it speaks for itself.
The reason I am posting this is because the same sort of thing can be said about so many other conspiracy "theories" (read: myths) about the government (or whoever) having complete and total control over information on some topic or other.

Despite what certain conservatives would like so much for you to believe, because they're sure you must be stupid enough, Weather forecasters can't manipulate hurricane warnings, because the whole fucking internet is watching, and if one single iota was out of place, you can be damn sure someone would notice and the internet would blow up about it.

I am willing to bet that a lot of the "alt-right" and other such individuals don't even believe one tenth of the bullshit they try to feed the general public. They're just using their followers as tools, nothing more.

Mass Deportation? Out of who's pocket?

Whether or not Trump is genuinely serious about the mass deportation of 11,000,000 illegal immigrants, what I don't understand is:

Why is no one throwing the question to his supporters: who the hell do you think is going to pay for that?! 'Cause it's going be expensive as hell, you do realize that, don't you?

Even his supposed wall that he claims he'd make Mexico pay for, you do realize that what he's proposing is that the wall will be built, and then somehow he's supposedly going to convince Mexico to pay the bill, right? So who the hell do you think is really going to be paying for that wall?

And while I'm at it, let's talk about what he claims concerning the military. (I'm astounded that military personnel aren't appalled and insulted about what he says here.) Because he claims that he would also "beef up" the military big time. But again, who the hell do you think is going to pay for this so-called "beefing up" of the military?!

But, why does the military need "beefing up" anyway? He claims the military is ragged and thin, and is relying on old, shitty equipment that hasn't been replaced in decades, because they haven't gotten money from the government, so they're basically "starving" and they can't get access to the latest technology.
Excuse me?
If that isn't complete horseshit, I don't know what is.
The United States of America has the most powerful and most technologically advanced military in the world. And one of the most important reasons why is because our government, for decades, has been willing to pour billions upon billions of dollars into it! The military doesn't just have access to the latest technologies, the military is often the raison d'être for a lot of the latest technologies! Because the Department of Defense is one of the biggest contributors funding scientific research and development! (And mostly for the development!)

I'm not all patriotic and I'm not some worshiper of the military, so it's not like I have some personal interest or desire in talking up how awesome our military is. This is just the reality, and you don't have to look hard to find it!
The trash Trump talks about our military is so full of insulting bullshit, it's horrendously shameful and a disgrace.

But at the end of the day (or the end of this entry), the question remains: who the hell do you think is going to pay for this supposed "beefing up" of the military? Seriously, do any of his supporters ever wonder these things? He goes on and on about how much money the Democrats have spent and added to the national debt, and yet the shit he says he's going to do as president would cost ridiculous amounts of money!

Not to mention the money and lives he would cost sending us to war with Daesh, since he claims he'd make sure we completely demolish them. But I've talked about this before.

Dear White America,

Which Form Of Protest Do You Actually Prefer?

In Defense of Protest

So, everyone is talking about 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick sitting in protest during the national anthem before a game. And it's apparently pissed off a lot of people, including a lot of people who are or were in the military. It's the same old refrain: "Thousands of soldiers have died and are dying defending our country. How dare you be disrespectful!"

But what exactly does it mean to say that soldiers have died and are dying defending our country?

Before giving an answer to that, I think it would be worthwhile to take a look at our not so distant history. (But perhaps distant enough that too many people have forgotten.)
The Vietnam War.

Let's imagine it's 1970. And let's imagine Kaepernick is the 49ers quarterback then. And, before a game, he sits during the national anthem. How would people react? Of course, before you can even begin to think about answering that question, you have to know enough of the history of that time and what the political atmosphere in this country was like. I daresay, even before he could announce to the world what his reason was, a lot of people would already applaud his defiance. But, after the game, the reporters run in, and he explains that he sat in protest of the Vietnam War. Immediately, a whole lot more people would applaud him.

But, would anyone be outraged and say to him, "How dare you be disrespectful! Thousands of soldiers are dying out there defending our country!"? No. I am very confident in saying that no one would say that, least of all, someone in the military. In fact, if anything, soldiers would cheer.

Because I think damn near everyone would agree that it wasn't the U.S. soldiers fighting and dying in Vietnam who were defending our country. Between 1965 and 1975, it was the protesters who were defending our country.

Trump will mean that America goes to war, with boots on the ground

(The article is from the beginning of the month, so before Rubio was forced to drop out (which is unfortunate).)

"The chances of America entering a new ground war in the Middle East will significantly increase under a Republican president. Their style would be more forceful as they rely more on American military power as an instrument of change."

I don't think many supporters of Trump and Cruz stop to consider at all what the consequences would be if their stated intentions about Daesh and other Islamist extremists were actually carried out. (There's a good reason you should call them Daesh instead of IS or ISIS or ISIL: it's an insult, due to a play on words in Arabic.)

If you support Trump, then you support sending huge amounts of our sons and daughters into war, a ground war, not a war fought at a distance, but boots on the ground.

Want to try to guess how much money that's going to cost? Where do you think that money would come from, eh?

But the price tag gets higher.
Consider the fact that our incredible advancements in medical science have actually made it very difficult to die in war. Soldiers are surviving from injuries that we used to think would be impossible to survive.

To begin with, it'll cost a lot to get the all the medical needs set up over there on the ground to treat soldiers as quickly as possible. You need everything that the absolute best hospitals in the world have.
And, of course, you need the people working your war hospitals, and unlike normal hospitals, these won't ever be under-staffed, because these are the most efficient hospitals in the world.

Next, consider what it's going to cost in healthcare when these wounded soldiers come home and need continuing medical care, many of them for the rest of their lives. Remember that, if it's now more difficult to die in war, far more soldiers will survive, and thus, far more soldiers will come home with serious injuries that require a lot of medical attention over the following years, or for their entire lives. Where's the money for all of that going to come from?

Not to mention the psychological impacts that all of that will have on soldiers and their loved ones. Which means, of course, even higher healthcare costs for mental health. (One of the very, very sad consequences of so many soldiers actually surviving has been an incredible rate of suicides amongst them. That needs to change. Because that and any other psychological suffering that they don't get help for should not be the "thanks" they get for having fought for this country.)

The utter failure of people in this country to think about consequences and how things play out in the real world…

[Be careful what you ask for…]