Ken Paxton: Show trial in reverse? Or not totally?

IF even one-third of Democrats voted to acquit on Article 8, and even more than that on other charges, why were even here for half these charges? Why weren't they dismissed at the initial vote to do so? Senators had that 4,000-page dossier from House impeachment managers in advance of the trial, along with other materials. (I had thought Robert Nichols had voted to acquit on some of the charges, per bad audio, but he did not.)

By the time we got to Article 9, which had a similar vote of 18, a positive majority, to acquit, I knew we were done.

Article 16 and others also got an actual majority in favor of Paxton, not just a minority of above one-third, on a 16-14 count.

My Senatecritter, Springer, voted to acquit on all charges. (Scratch the "just about"; as with Nichols, I blame bad audio, which even Patrick was noting, and I posted this right after his tirade was done.) I had hopes that, when he voted against dismissing all charges on the initial motion, then voted against confining discussion of the evidence to Paxton's current term, that something might actually happen.

And, it didn't. Show trial in reverse.

(Update: Springer has since blamed Dan Patrick for not telling the Senate whether it was following civil or criminal trial procedures for standard of guilt. Interesting. Perhaps a bit disingenuous; did any Republican, or Democrat, ask if unsure? Otherwise, the Tex-ass as well as US Constitution specifies that the penalty for impeachment is limited to loss of office; that should indicate to inquiring minds that it's a civil proceeding. Of course, Springer also said that he has friends on both sides of the division; that said, like a Whig in 1856, Drew, eventually you'll have to pick one.)

And, conservatives who talk about wasting taxpayer money? If Senators had voted to dismiss the half the charges a majority voted against anyway, you would have cut the trial time in half, saved money, and not given us a show trial in reverse.

And,. I mean that literally, an actual flip of a Stalinist show trial. It walks, talks and quacks like a bunch of Senate Republicans, whether individually or collectively, thought in advance that Warren Kenneth Paxton was innocent, but, to satisfy the general public or whomever, figured he had to be put in trial. Was there higher-yet coordination? You know, from Christofascist Tim Dunn and his minions?

Add in Birdwell's motion to dismiss without hearing four articles held in abeyance and it looks even more that way.

Next thought? Brad Parscale and his wife blew a bunch of Dunn's (or whomever's) $50 a tweet social media walking-around money for nothing.

Thought after that? Especially on the House side of the Lege, what's the fallout going to be between the Dunnites and under Dade "Dade" Phelan, the last shards of the Straus/Bush wing? Will their division become even more brutal? 

Related? Goeb concludes by reminding all 30 (or 31?) senators that they can enter a written statement on the trial over the next 72 hours. He then made his own.

Says House sent articles on "very short notice." (Insert sound of bus getting ready to be backed up?) Then salutes senators in general, including above all the rules committee. Salutes their "time clock" idea. Wanted "to protect the integrity of this body ... this great chamber." (That actually went out the door long ago.) Then talks about wanting to present "full picture." (Bus revving up?) "With all due respect to the House ... we didn't need to be told how important the vote was. ... Your vote will be remembered." "No time to study the articles." "In the past ... the House [was transparent]." (That bus just went into overdrive. )

"In the next regular session, we should amend the constitution on impeachment." (The senate didn't take more than two weeks for the trial.) Then wants the part about a required step-down to be amended as well. Cites both Clinton and Trump impeachments. "Millions of dollars have been wasted on this impeachment."

Update: I'm calling Danny Boy's bluff on amending the state constitution.

"I'm going to call for a full audit of House money." "One difference? We didn't hire a huge outside team." (See what I said above.)

"We are the envy of the world [with other Great State of Texas BS]." No you're not. And, some of us who are here still hope to move on.

Since that statement, he and Dade Phelan have traded shots with each other.

And, per the plaint in the top graf, if not one third or more on some charges, Democrats weren't unanimous on most them. THAT then said, though, one-third of the Democratic caucus voted to acquit on multiple charges. And, speaking of, Royce West said he saw some GOP votes Per the Trib, only two Democrats voted to convict on every charge.

And, a full roll call is here.

Article 4 only had TWO guilty votes. Article 8 wasn't much higher with 8.

And, 10 days later, there's so much more to talk about.

COVID doomers in general and #BernAnon attacking Leana Wen

So, Dr. Leana Wen reportedly has COVID for the third time, and a column where she talks about lingering pneumonia but does not actually use the word COVID about herself is being used by COVID doomers in general, and some #BernAnon, as ground for schadenfreude attacks on her.

This isn't new, sadly. She was being attacked a year or more ago. And, in that case, not by nutters on Twitter, but fellow MDs, masters of public health people and so forth, even though she's nowhere near a Martin Kulldorf or other Great Barrington types.

As for me? I am a follower of hers on Twitter, but, that said, I follow a lot of people without hanging on their every tweet.

THAT said, I read her book early this year and 5-starred it.

The attacks, as noted, aren't new. I've mentioned her here before, vis-a-vis attacks by "The People's CDC" and fellow travelers, once, and a second time. And, though I didn't mention #BernAnon in either, I have elsewhere on "COVID gotcha" in general, not just once but twice, that one just earlier this week. And, yes, that is a real thing just as much as #BlueAnon. In the first, I mentioned these people's lack of nuance, which the attacks earlier this week only exemplify.

The worst Dem nightmare for both 2024 and 2028?

A week ago, I talked about "The worst GOP nightmare for both 2024 and 2028." It of course centered on former president Donald Trump's multiple criminal indictments, how they are not affecting so far the 2024 GOP primary set-up but almost certainly will undercut him in the 2024 general, and wonderings about how that might play out into 2028.

Well, now, I posit a Democratic flip side, and it's centered on Warmonger Joe Biden's health and related issues.

Dems are still, even the Pergressuve Cuck-us and the Fraud Squad, marching in lockstep in Ukraine that Warmonger Joe being that doesn't hurt inside the party, and probably not to a big degree in the general. Ditto on Israel-Palestine, where even the Fraud Squad is doing minimal resistance but not much more. Ditto on climate change, where all Dems ignore the reality of Oilmonger Joe — and that he's imitating Sarah Palin in part because the war he's monged in Ukraine is hitting global oil supply.

No, none of that hurts in the Democratic primaries, by and large, and he'll release more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve next summer if he has to, on that issue, even though he's already depleted it a fair degree.

It's his health, with a possible side of Hunter Biden.

Let's focus on the health.

He is over 80, but more than the age itself, its the physical fallout from that, things like falling asleep at public events, making incoherent comments at others, including guest receptions for major foreign leaders, and sometimes, yes, looking like he's in the first stages of dementia, at about the same age at which the Reagan family announced that Saint Ronald of Reagan had Alzheimer's. 

The issue for the Democrats' 2024 cycle? Contra wishful thinking by an occasional Fox News nutter, or a national commenter for the non-Fox portion of the MSM noting his limited campaign announcements, etc., he IS running. Now, if he dropped dead, I guess the establishment would pivot to Kamala Harris, unless some big money people have a Plan B lined up already. The superdelegates will not vote for, and the insider money will not back, Marianne Williamson, and will not bet on RFK Jr. in spades.

If he doesn't drop dead? Like Poppy Bush with Dan Quayle, but not like political bosses with FDR and the Wallace-to-Truman switch, he can't afford to dump Harris.

So, he gets re-elected in one of the overall worst elections in American history since Pierce-Scott in 1852. Or Buchanan-Fremont-Fillmore in 1856.

And, then, he drops dead sometime in his second term, or worse, Dems face the 25th Amendment and what it was invented for (it was NOT invented for Trumpian-like megalomania), with the Kamala Harris ineptitude just as real, in all likelihood, in September 2026 or whenever, as it is today or was two years ago.

And, that hangs over the 2028 Democratic primary process.

Have fun with that.

William Jennings Bryan — the original Bernie Sanders

A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan by Michael Kazin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was on about page 120, the run-up to the 1904 Democratic convention, when the light bulb turned on:

William Jennings Bryan was the 120-years-earlier predecessor to Bernie Sanders, on the legend even more than the reality, and related to that, the degree to which many peddled the Kool-aid or drank it for themselves, often long after the reality differed clearly. This includes the two protagonists. (Kazin may not like that comparison; for more on why, see the end of this extended review. See also my new Substack looking more explicitly at the sheepdogging angle.)

That said, this is one of those books that is both provocative and problematic at times. And, as is the norm with such books, I’ll have a greatly extended review on my blog. What I have here is the basics of what I learned new about Bryan as well as a basic-level critique.

Trying to rate it is also problematic. I do think this is well researched (Kazin also notes former recent, as of the 2007 date, biographers), but not necessarily well analyzed.

I don’t think I had read before about Bryan volunteering to serve in the Spanish-American War. Even if he saw no combat, it did look hypocritical next to previous anti-American statements.

That said, Kaplan gets some Spanish Empire wrong. The Philippines as well as Cuba and Puerto Rico were still a part. So was Spanish Morocco and Spanish Sahara. Bioko and Rio Muni, later united as Spanish Guinea, were held in equatorial west Africa.

As for his service, as a volunteer, why didn’t he resign before the 1898 midterms? Bryan obviously doesn’t tell us, but it’s another spanner in the spokes of his bicycle.

And, supporting the treaty? Wow. And, the Senate approved it by just 2 votes to spare. Bryan said, in essence, that we should follow Kipling’s adage and adopt the white man’s burden but shuck it quickly.

Then, after 1900, buying a rural mansion that in today’s terms would run at least $500K? Multiple guest rooms. Dining room that seated 24. Servants. (Peak Bryan was making $2K/week on the Chautauqua circuit and more besides. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator says $2K, in 1913, its earliest year, would be $62K today. Per week. Just for a dozen weeks of summer, $750,000 a year in today’s terms..)

1904? Not endorsing Hearst. Sure, Hearst’s womanizing was already known, but Bryan had shown himself a semi-hypocrite on imperialism already. Hearst probably wouldn’t have blocked Parker, by the 2/3 rule still in effect then, anyway, but maybe? Before people shifted votes after initial first ballot tallies, Parker was just short; Francis Cockrell, Bryan’s endorsee, was third. That said, all the shifts were Hearst defectors.

LaFollette had a newsletter, like Bryan’s The Commoner, but it didn’t explicitly promote him. Battling Bob missed a turn there, but, given his speaking style, what I’ve read about that, and other things, not a surprise.

Kazin believes the legend of Taft as conservative, which is only half true. For example, he doesn’t mention that, rather than “trimming” on the tariff, Taft traded tariff reform for getting the 16th Amendment out of the Senate. Nor does he mention that TR never tried tariff reform and that he didn’t push the 16th Amendment, either. As part of that, he’s also wrong about Gifford Pinchot. Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book on Taft and TR has a more nuanced portrayal. He also could have learned something about Nellie Taft, while there, per a bio of her . (Kazin’s book came out a full year later, and while Kearns wrote later than him, the door had long been open for revisionist Taft studies.)

That said, supporting the 1898 treaty foreshadows Bryan carrying Wilson’s water in Mexico before resigning over the Lusitania. And, carry that water he did.

There are other vignettes here, such as just how conservative TR was, claiming Bryan had “socialistic and communistic tendencies” in 1900. The claim, and the demagoguery, surprise nobody who knows the reality of Brownsville 1906.

Bryan was coopted by acceptance of Secretary of State. Wilson knew that.

Bryan's first big oops was not on Mexico but Federal Reserve. He did get Wilson to accept government oversight, but, with individual banks controlling the regional feds, especially the NY Fed, that was hollow. And, he was told that at the time. The remaining Populists and rising Progressives wanted something like the original, not watered down, Bank of North Dakota on lending requirements for the Fed, board of directors, etc.

Mexico/Caribbean? Bryan shared Wilson's paternalism. And, such it was, even if it shed the worst of GOP dollar diplomacy. It was the same paternalism Bryan showed in the Philippines.

WWI? Wilson hoped Bryan would resign already by end of 1914, reportedly. Kazin doesn’t tell us if Bryan had heard about that.

That said, Kazin misses the mark on Wilson as fake neutral, and being a fake neutral not a real one relatively early after the start of the war. He talks briefly about submarines not doing cruiser warfare as violating international law but says nothing about the same for blockade by extension and food as blockade weapon, even with his admiration for British law in general. Kazin notes later that the Lusitania was carrying munitions as well as passengers, but not that it was armed with guns more than big enough to sink a submarine if it surfaced. He lost a star right there. (He doesn't ask if Wilson knew either one at the time.)

Would siding with Bryan "have prompted a political rebellion"? Questionable. I don't know about Republicans, but most non-Southern Democrats west of the Mississippi in 1915 were still isolationist. He then claims the NY World spoke "for most of the American press" when it called German response to Wilson's diplomatic note "the answer of an outlaw." The World War I coverage in this book doesn't speak well for Kazin's handle on WWI in general, despite him writing a book about pre-US entry peace issues.

I had suspected Kazin would land here when, in his chapter on the 1912 convention, he indicated that Bryan plumping for Wilson instead of Champ Clark was a good thing. Yes, Clark was more parochial than Wilson, but he was opposed to WWI. (As Speaker, he didn't vote on the declaration, but his opposition was known. His son was an isolationist senator in the run-up to WWII.)

In Kazin's "War Against War," long review here he partially redeems himself — but not totally.

Sadly, as Kazin notes a bit in his Bryan bio and may cover more there, antiwar Congresscritters were ill-organized. A bill to block traveling on British ships wasn't introduced until 1916, and then, Thomas Gore et al had no answer to Wilson alleging they were making foreign policy on the fly.

Kazin redeems himself more fully at the end of the chapter: "In retrospect, he was quite right to oppose American entry into the Great War. It was not a conflict that history has justified."

But NOT totally fully. See what I said above about his thoughts on Bryan plumping for Clark as well as Wilson. And, going beyond what he said about “not justified,” it not only wasn’t justified for the world, it wasn’t justified for the US, even if Germany had still decided to smuggle Lenin into Russia.

Back to Wilson on the war. The reality is that, before the Luisitania, Wilson had, essentially, willingly made the US a “non-combatant co-belligerent.”

(I recognize I've gone a fair bit into Wilsonism, but, this is a very serious issue. Both as a matter of ethics, and even more, as a matter of governance and the American future, more than Vietnam, more than the Mexican War, overall, more than Iraq, too, this was the biggest foreign policy error in American history. And, it semi-directly set the stage for Iraq.)

As for history and alt-history, Bryan's unwillingness to either battle Wilson's renomination (with the two-thirds rule in effect, he might have succeeded in blocking it albeit without his own nomination) or run as a TR-type independent reinforced that he had nothing to offer but platitudes. And, John Reed type mocking aside, hadn't this long been true? (Some Progressives pushed to nominate Bryan after TR said no, but ultimately, they had only a Veep nominee.)

Re the 1916 campaign? This is the first time I've seen the claim that Debs passed on the Socialist nomination due to health. If true, he wouldn't have run for a Congressional seat, either, would he have? His later imprisonment did wreck his health, but he still stood for the 1920 nomination from his cell. Of course, he would have been in the cell anyway, but, it seems that he stepped aside in 1916 for other reasons.

On Scopes? Kazin claims his violation of the Tennessee law was UNintentional. Really? Sidebar: He grew up in Bryan's hometown of Salem, Illinois. Per Wiki, Bryan spoke at his HS graduation, and claims that Scopes was laughing. Per Wiki, the truth on the case may be not that it was an unintentional violation but that there was NONE — as in Scopes may not have taught any evolution that day. (If you're going to challenge legend, you should do it right.)

The big issue is how much Bryan was motivated by opposition to evolution by natural selection, ie, Darwinian theory, and how much by social Darwinism, and how much or how little he distinguished the two. Kazin never really addresses that how much/how little issue. And, while a fair chunk of touters of evolution also touted social Darwinism, even in the natural sciences, many did not. The same is likely true, to a lesser degree, of upper-class conservative politics. And, it's certainly true of liberal Christians. This is another less than total coverage by Kazin.

Was Bryan a fundamentalist? In the fullest sense of the book "The Fundamentals," no, but in a narrow sense, yes. In a vaguer sense, just like the members of the conservative wing of Lutheranism in which I grew up? Yes. Bryan might not preach hellfire to or about Catholics in public, but who knows what he thought in private. He was a biblical literalist. So, Kazin's "no" must be taken as a split verdict. The problem is, that Kazin doesn’t note the difficulty with analyzing Bryan as a fundamentalist today apples in a self-referential way. Just as Bryan didn’t have the politics of today’s fundamentalists, the fundamentalists 100 years ago. The lynchpin of “The Fundamentals” was not politics, but German-based higher criticism. Though we don’t have layman Bryan on record about higher criticism, he surely rejected it.

To wrap up, it seems that Kazin has a soft spot for Bryan — and enough of one that, on fundamentalism, and a few other things, he gave him a bit of a pass. (Other critics here have said that he does that with Bryan's racism, too. One or two other critics argue the other way, but even an occasional Southern politician explicitly denounced the Second Klan, for example.) Bryan leading the effort to BLOCK Klan condemnation in the 1924 Democratic platform does get mentioned, as does his undercount of Second Klan membership, but? "Mention" is all it gets. 

Here's another way of presenting it, and why I don't think this charge against Kazin is too harsh.

To look at a direct political contemporary? Eugene Debs evolved on many things, including race. (His original union, the American Railway Union, was segregated at first.) In prison — the WWI-related imprisonment, not his early one — he had his eyes opened about racial sentencing disparity — and talked about it.

Bryan never evolved.

Beyond the review, for today?

Kazin is a DSA Rosey, and per his Wiki bio, I am assuming some sort of sheepdogger against non-duopoly leftists. Given that, it's no wonder he doesn't want to compare Bryan to Debs more.  And, related to that, I forgot that he had a less-than-stellar essay in Myth America. This Slate piece has more. And, that is why I suspect that Kazin wouldn't like the light bulb of this non-duopoly leftist seeing William Jennings Bryan, and his legend vs. reality, closely paralleling that of St. Bernard of Sanders. And, his latest book, of last year, "What it Took to Win," appears to be sheepdogging writ large across party history, per at least one 3-star review. Per others, it seems like, per Dolly Parton, he tried to pack 10 pounds of potatoes in a 5-pound sack.

Beyond the review in general, thoughts that I had stimulated?

One thing I don’t get is why Sanders hasn’t pulled a Bryan and left the Senate and hit the rubber chicken circuit long ago. He, and even more I think, wife Jane, with the multiple houses and other things, like them some money. And, especially if he had done it before now, and very especially if he hadn’t fallen on his sword in 2020 for “his good friend Joe Biden,” Bernie probably could make half as much a speech as ex-presidents do. He would easily rake $500K a year if he wanted to.

Alt-history: Had Debs run again in 1916, he probably would have gotten enough additional votes in California and North Dakota alone to tip those states and the election to Hughes.

On the Great War? With a President Clark, he probably would have protested both British and German violations of international naval law. Britain would have decided the blockade with risk of sub warfare was better. (Germany had relatively few subs in 1915.) In response? Clark might have done like Washington and Adams in the 1790s, or Roosevelt in the 1930s, and issued a neutrality proclamation, then worked to get Congress to do even more, especially before the Lusitania. That would have specified no Americans on British ships. It would have specified no US government guarantees of “credits” by House of Morgan to Britain. With that, the British and French might have crumpled before Germany felt the need to smuggle Lenin. Hard to say.  

Anyway, that gets back to the review. If you really think WWI in general was that bad, and also think the US shouldn't have gotten involved (something that Kazin does NOT expressly say, so I'm not sure of his stance) then you can't let Bryan tilting the 1912 Democratic nomination pass in silence. (Nor can you let his susceptibility to Wilsonian flattery pass in semi-silence.) 

Update: Historians who know better, like Lawrence Goodwyn, would also like a word with Kazin about 1896 and the Populists.

View all my reviews

Pocohontas Lizzie Warren vs. Smelling Musky Elon vs Nat-Sec Nutsacks™

Per Lizzie Warren, who took an ax, and gave a Cherokee 40 whacks, vs. wingnut trollmeister farm owner Elon Musk, on Ukraine and Starlink?

First, to go beyond Josh Marshall responding to a slobbering neoliberal former admirer of Smelling Musky, the real problem is neoliberalism and the military and the national security state.

Ed Snowden taught us this, or he should have taught us this, when he said, in essence, "No, I didn't work for the NSA; I really worked for Booz Allen, etc." No and yes. Yes, as in you really worked for privatized contractors, but they had been contracted by the NSA. Per old Glennwald the libertarian (Mises Caucus type) himself, 70 percent of each national security dollar is spent on privatized contractors. (Let's also not forget, per Mark Ames, that Snowden was probably about as pure as the driven slush.)

And, THAT is the problem. I think a fair chunk of Americans both conventional "conservative" and "liberal" would shit bricks if they knew how much of the federal government were privatized. Most leftists have at least almost as much inkling as me and do shit bricks. Many L/libertarians do as well and many of them probably think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

As long as the likes of Lizzie Warren and sheepdogger St. Bernard of Sanders support DoD and NSA/CIA budgets with this privatization, along with liberals of less fakery and conservatives, nothing will happen. In more subtle ways, Booz Allen, DynCorp, Fluor etc. may themselves be directing government foreign policy because of the stranglehold they have. Or Pierre Omidyar, to whom Glennwald gave 90 percent of the Snowden file.

The related point is that many people like this; it makes proxy wars easier if the proxy assistance is privatized. And, I think the pair above probably think that, too.

Next? Per the first link, whether that really was Musk's belief at the time, he claims that he cut off the Starlink assistance re a possible attack on Crimea is he feared Russian nuclear retaliation. If true, it would make him smarter, or at least, more thoughtful, than Nat-Sec Nutsacks™, even though that's often a low bar to hurdle. And, since Josh Marshall is in bed with them along with Sanders and Warren, his tune won't change either.

As for the #MuskIsATraitor hashtag on Twitter on Sept. 12? It's the same evidence-free BlueAnon bullshit that we heard six years ago claiming Trump was a traitor.

Let's start with the constitutional definition of treason, since #BlueAnon is usually liberal originalists like Akil Reed Amar and loves to fetishize the U.S. Constitution as much as he does, as well as fetishizing what I'll call, per another book of his that was semi-dreck, "constitutional common law.". So:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Musk's baseline defense against the claim is that there is no declared war by the US, ergo, for constitutional purposes, Russia is not our enemy.

You might counter, "but Aaron Burr." I counter that he was acquitted. (That said, the alleged would-be secession shows that Confederates could indeed have been tried for treason, as, per Chief Justice John Marshall's restriction on the Burr charges, the CSA waged war and Burr did not. And they probably should have been.) And, both that and ex parte Bollman show that, rightly, the federal court system in general has taken a narrow view of what constitutes treason.

Note: It is, yes, possible, that some people are using "traitor" or "treason" metaphorically. To them, I say: Stop it. This is nothing to be metaphorical about. Others, I suspect, believe this literally. Specific to Musk on Ukraine, stop it, and stop being fellators of Warmonger Joe in general.

Texas Progressives talk Paxton, Metromess, water, more

First, the Paxton trial. Per my updates added to last week's "final overview" piece, I correct my previous "three weeks" guesstimate to a month or so.

More Klyde Warrens in the Metromess? The idea for ones by the Dallas Zoo and by the Farmer's Market sound great; the one for white folks in McKinney will probably take precedence on many people's push. It would also surely take the most money, going UNDER Texas 5 and thus not being a "deck park."

Here's who's running to replace Bryan Slaton.

Texas reservoirs running low on water will be the new normal with climate change. So, why do folks like the Texas Water Development Board and Dallas Water Utilities want more of them, especially ones built on wide, shallow creeks and subrivers? Like the Bois D'Arc Reservoir.

Drought shows new dinosaur tracks at Glen Rose. No Ken Ham around to look for new human tracks to go with them.

Odessa thinking it can make itself a tourist center! Yeah, and you can make the no trees at Notrees grow, too.

A slight majority of Tex-ass supports Strangeabbott's cruelty to Ill Eagles.

EPA inspector general admits agency is not enforcing benzene rules at refineries.

Off the Kuff looks at the push to make driving someone to another state for an abortion illegal. 

SocraticGadfly talked about the 14th Amendment and its current applicability (or not).

Neil at Houston Democracy Project noted that Houston Council At-Large #1 candidate Conchita Reyes is the 4th candidate to add protection of democracy to their campaign website after talking to the Project. Ms. Reyes came into the discussion with the Houston Democracy Project with a strong commitment to freedom for all already on her mind. 

The Eyewall takes stock of the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season so far.  

Your Local Epidemiologist gives a parents' update for the fall. (She doesn't note that severity of COVID cases is low so far, and that, even if a hot summer drove people inside, last summer was as hot, and that yes, in part, the uptick is due to the start of school.)

The Fort Worth Report looks at drug shortages at their pharmacies.  

Evil MoPac shows what the key players in the Paxton impeachment trial look like they do for a living.

Once more unto the COVID doomers (and #BernAnon) vs COVID wingnuts breach

A week ago, I wrote about that Cochrane Review study of early this year that didn't claim all that much and certainly didn't claim what its Great Barrington-associated lead author said it did.

I then started venturing further and realized I'd written more than too much.

But, I'm picking that up here.

COVID wingnuts are going to wingnut. Zeynep Tufekci said she things part of the antimasking reaction is due to many of the early rules being dumb. That may be part of it, but, I think it's a smaller, maybe much smaller, portion than she claims. A much bigger portion? Tribalism, and wingnuts, tribalism fueled by politics. And, given that she's a sociologist, I don't "get" that she didn't pick up on that angle.

With doomers? I think it's a variety of psychological reasons, from my guesstimates, but with some, I think it is fed itself by tribalism, too.  And, it goes beyond "just folks."

DOCTOR Kent Sephowitz, and an infectious disease specialist to boot, talking about "potentially lethal" paper money? Oh my fucking doorknob. First, given that it's agreed-upon, except for a few wingnuts probably trying to troll rather than promote fringe-of-fringe science, that COVID is airborne, worrying about money (or other "surfaces") is SO 2020. (Beyond that, he looks like a younger, slimmer Ben Stein. Probably comes off as one, too.)

The Skeptical Raptor may be dipping his toes in Doomer water, too. First, WHO has labeled many variants in the last two-plus years "variants of concern." Many of them turned out not to be. (He does, at least, note the "small sample size" of just nine cases with this particular variant.) Second, while he talks about hospitalization rates, he doesn't talk about death rates. See both in the following paragraphs, starting with addressing both him and Sephowitz on severity issues.

So, let's drive out bad science with good, from a doctor in Tex-ass no less but NOT Peter Hotez? Or Peter Hopium? This:

Dr. Nikhil Bhayani, an infectious disease physician with Texas Health Resources, says the latest COVID symptoms are similar to a common cold.

Is indeed the bottom line. (To refresh regular readers and advice new ones, months ago I called Hotez a "#BlueMAGA tribalist, grifter, gaslighter.")

So, stop dooming, and stop being a Tar Baby to wingnuts' Brer Rabbit. And, #BernAnon, stop trying to use this, these lies (they are) about a surge) to own Joe Biden. 

I know, I know, in both cases, I'm trying to vaccinate you against misinformation and that doesn't work. For the doomers, per the better angle of "preaching" or emotional appeal, I'm not sure what will. Realistically, I would "preach" acceptance, turning their anger into better self-protection, and noting that for a variety of other illnesses, from, say MS to recovery from strokes or lung cancer which also have respiratory concern, there are no special societal public health concessions, either. But, before I leave, I'm going to slip back into "vaccinate" mode. Two of the most common "comorbidities" associated with Long COVID are over/misdiagnosed. But, back to the emotional angle. If it's "wanting to be heard"? That ties back to cancer recoverees and others. In a nation of 330 million and growing, there are lots of people wanting to be "heard" on lots of issues.

For the #BernAnon, I guess writing Bernie in as the Green Party candidate for president might float your emotional boat. Yes, that's snark, lest any of them think, "Hellz yeah." The likes of a Pat the Berner, who I don't know if he's an actual Green now or not, probably would lust for that.

Otherwise, even though I'm in a rural-ish area, it is still "exurban" and I'm just 30 miles away from a city of 200K and county of 900K that is a satellite of the Metromess, in turn. I see no reason as of this time to mask up. And, given that I got the J&J, no reason to subject myself to a relatively ineffective mRNA booster.

A new JFK conspiracy theory and book (updated)

Secret Service agent Paul Landis, releasing a book eight years after he first decided to talk to ONE person, former Secret Service director Lewis Merletti about allegedly finding an "extra" bullet from the JFK assassination, has sparked Vanity Fair's James Robenalt into conspiracy theory.

There's many problems, to expand on what I said on Twitter.

First, the framing. "Camelot" didn't exist; if you accept that premise, you're less likely to believe in conspiracy theorists.

Second, Ockham's Razor. The idea that Landis wouldn't have had said SOMETHING to some other SS agent and then have them play "telephone" and say something before 2015? Let alone something of this leaking, not from Landis necessarily, but from Parkland engineer Derrell Tomlinson or someone else. And, in reality, contra Robenalt, claims about Tomlinson are full of problems, per Fred Litwin. In addition, the issue of whether that bullet was CS 399 or not, and what Tomlinson identified as such, leads conspiracy theorists to trip over their own untied shoelaces.

In addition, the idea that Landis' memory, self-admittedly PTSD-influenced, would still be pristine 51 years later when he finally decided to talk to Merletti? Questionable. As is the idea of how such a bullet would be the real "pristine" or "magic" bullet (I see what I did there) and stay in place on the top of the back seat of the Kennedy limo while hauling ass to Parkland. As is the idea of how it would "jump" from Kennedy's stretcher to Connelly's (I see what I did with that), that's not explained.

Related? We have ethical problems. The Cleveland paper reports Robenalt helped write the book; not spelled out in Vanity Fair.

And, per Peter Baker at the NYT, given Landis' PTSD, an even bigger problem:

James Robenalt, a Cleveland lawyer and author of several books of history, has deeply researched the assassination and helped Mr. Landis process his memories.

I smell a conspiracy theory rat, or to be more polite, if not a full believer, then a "fellow traveler." Robenalt does call himself Landis' "confidant" at Vanity Fair, but says nothing more — despite the NYT story being linked. (Frankly, that comes off as a pro forma linking, once VF heard the NYT was doing a piece.)

And, the ethics problems aren't entirely Robenalt's. They're Vanity Fair's, too.

Beyond that, per the NYT, I'm with Posner on this, on the memory issues, even if they weren't "processed":

Gerald Posner, author of “Case Closed,” a 1993 book that concluded that Oswald indeed killed Kennedy on his own, said he was dubious. While he did not question Mr. Landis’s sincerity, Mr. Posner said the story did not add up. 

“People’s memories generally do not improve over time, and it is a flashing warning sign to me, about skepticism I have over his story, that on some very important details of the assassination, including the number of shots, his memory has gotten better instead of worse,” he said. 

“Even assuming that he is accurately describing what happened with the bullet,” Mr. Posner added, “it might mean nothing more than we now know that the bullet that came out of Governor Connally did so in the limousine, not on a stretcher in Parkland where it was found.”

Posner has MUCH more at his Substack. Additional details there that lead me to further question this book.

One, Landis HAS BEEN interviewed before, more than once, and Robenalt never mentions that in the Vanity Fair piece.

Two, per what Landis told the NYT, he has weird theories about how bullets can operate, even for conspiracy theorists.

Three, he notes Landis gets the "two gurneys" idea wrong, along with the timeline of when JFK's body was being removed from Parkland and more. He also notes that, as he said in "Case Closed," that Kennedy's and Connolly's stretchers were never side-by-side in Parkland. He notes that Tomlinson bumped into one of two gurneys, either Connolly's or one next to it that was NOT JFK's.

Four, Posner speculates that is looking for his slice of fame. One thing I think Posner is missing is that Robenalt might be looking for HIS slice of fame.

Five, Posner has more, elsewhere on his Substack, in an interview with Michael Smerconish. He talks about "a kernel of truth" but rejects the "embellishments."

He also tells Smerconish that he heart Clint Hill interviewed by NBC. Hill said there are "inconsistencies and problems ... contradictions" in the book.

Posner also adds, in a reply to another commenter, this:

author Gerald Posner Sep 10 Author Hi Laura, I was thinking about your dad and how utterly horrified he would have been to think that a Secret Service agent might have found a bullet in the presidential limo, and that instead of immediately notifying his superiors, he put it in his pocket and then later left in on an empty gurney at Parkland Texas has a new law as of Sept 1 that eliminates the statute of limitations for tampering with evidence in a murder case. It’s meant to help resolve decades old cold cases. I don’t think Landis is aware of that law.

I'm sure neither Landis nor Robenalt is aware of that.

What else is there to say?

Third (on main thread numbering) other details? Per "Case Closed," it is not "conjecture" that people were hit by concrete fragments. It's reality. So is the idea that the it was the first bullet that missed, from Oswald rushing his first shot. With that, there's plenty of time for Oswald, trained at Marine "marksman" level, to have fired as he did, "pristine-Landis" bullet aside. (Robenalt's claim that Oswald couldn't have fired as fast as he did itself seems to be aside from Landis' extra bullet claim and is just wrong.)

Fourth, referencing the autopsy as though it were pristine, yet wrong? No. Everybody knows it was botched and rushed because it was done at Bethesda at Bobby's insistence.

Fifth, living in the Metromess most of the 2000s, as in 2000-aughts. I've been all around Dealey Plaza. I've been up to the museum. I've been to Dealey Plaza on a Nov. 22 and seen representatives of different conspiracy theories trying to evangelize each other. That's how I know this would not have been THAT hard of shooting for Oswald, the man who had previously almost killed Gen. Walker. 

Sixth, to another angle on Ockham's Razor? If you believe Oswald was one of the shooters, why would an outside conspirator use him, unstable as he was, with another shooter? And, Lee certainly didn't start a conspiracy himself.

To me, it sounds as if "processing memories" might involve exploitation. Robenalt has not been on my JFK conspiracy theory radar screen, but I'll have to google more.

Robenalt sounds a bit more sketchy, gullible, or something, on one other big issue, per his Wiki page, namely this:

Together with John W. Dean, President Richard Nixon's White House Counsel, Robenalt created a continuing education program on the national level called "The Watergate CLE."[3] This continuing legal education program, which was launched in Chicago in June 2011, has Robenalt teaching legal ethics and the representation of an organization under new Model Rules 1.13 and 1.6. John Dean plays the role of a fact witness while Watergate is used as a case study.

I personally think John Dean's ethics and honesty vis a vis Watergate smell like three-day-old dead mackerel on a sidewalk. And I speak from previous experience reading Dean write about Watergate. (I will add that it is possible an older Robenalt eventually repented of younger-age gullibility about Dean.)

And, related to that, Posner did say "kernel of truth," but he was focused on Landis, not Robenalt. I'll keep the header as I have it, from what I said about Robenalt quite possibly seeking new fame as well.

Update: The Dallas Observer has a decent weigh-in.

Overall? I stand by the title. Landis may not be an active conspiracy theorist, but per Posner, he has mentioned people running around the grassy knoll. That, added to this, leaves him open to the charge, at a minimum, even if that's not his primary motivation.

And Robenalt seems ethically sketchy overall, even if I can't find anything in his past to nail him down as a conspiracy theorist.

But, re-reading Peter Baker's piece, he sure walks, talks and quacks like a conspiracy theory duck. And, on journalistic ethics? There's a failure by Baker to push him more on what he meant by "processing" Landis' memories and other things.

Carl Sherman makes late jump into Ted Cruz race

Carl Sherman, liking his jump from local, Best Southwest politics to the state level to replace Helen Giddings, is indicating he's going to be the third Dem to want the right to run against Ted Cruz. Not sure how much of a primary chance he has with the late start, but we'll see. The Monthly has more. 

What I don't get is why he doesn't or didn't instead look at doing a small scale bit of carpetbagging and running for Colin Allred's House seat.

I mean, Allred's in the Senate primary to the finish line, so he's going to be replaced by somebody. 

Next: Who's running for Sherman's state House seat?

Tex-ass constitutional amendments: Just Say No!

To quote Nancy Reagan's most famous line, that should be your answer on most of these. I'll give an overview of the whole schmeer here, with breakouts for at least some in days and weeks ahead.

Proposition 1: "Right to Farm" — Just Say No. This is a virtue signaling POS par excellence which is actually vacuous beyond its virtue signaling.

Proposition 2: Child-care property-tax exemption. Just say no, but less loudly. Sounds good, but many day care centers are run by churches, and this would only further favor them.

Proposition 3: "Wealth tax." Just Say No. Virtue signaling in that the state constitution's prohibition of an income tax would likely be legally interpreted as already blocking this, plus, wealth should be taxed!

Proposition 4: Homestead exemption. Just Say No (yes, even you Tex-ass #BlueAnon, or #BetoNon [pun there]) for a variety of reasons. I'll have a breakout.

Proposition 5: Texas University Fund. The amendment sounds arcane, but the background issue is not. This would mandate another payout from the rainy day fund which the #wingnuts don't want to tap whenever it really needs tapping. Plus, there's Tex-ass government censoriousness of universities on the rise. So, Just Say No.

Proposition 6: Texas Water Fund. Until we have a Texas Climate Fund, until Strangeabbott, Goeb and the Lege treat climate seriously, Just Say No, especially as this amendment specifies that 25 percent of the bucks MUST go to new water projects. In other words, Tex-ass leaders don't want to read Ed Abbey's "growth for growth's sake is the theology of the cancer cell."

Proposition 7: Texas Energy Fund. Everything I just said in spades, plus ERCOT, Dan Patrick and Wayne Christian. JUST Say No. Will have a breakout.

Proposition 8: Broadband Infrastructure Fund. Sounds good on paper, but the Tim Dunn following mouth-breathers who have moved to some exurban areas that will benefit from this shouldn't be rewarded so easily. Plus, it's arguable this gives the Comptroller's office too much free play.

Proposition 9: State retirees' COLA. Sounds great. But, Just Say No because the Lege is limiting its use of COLAs to just this. Will likely have a brief additional breakout, either stand-alone or tied with Prop. 4.

Proposition 10: Medical facility property tax breaks. Just say no. It's another carveout, plus in the COVID and post-COVID days, what's to stop the Lege from giving some ivermectin quack a tax break?

Proposition 11: El Paso conservation districts. At least on the surface, this is the "exception that proves the rule" of my header. Seems legit and for something good, and El Paso is often treated as the state's red-headed stepchild. Yes is OK.

Proposition 12: Abolish Galveston County treasurer. Usually, every other year, we have an amendment for some jinglebob size county to get rid of its constables. (We actually should abolish the office statewide, but that's another story.) Why is a county this big wanting to get rid of its treasurer AND why does the amendment then go neoliberal and say the county can contract for outside services? JUST say no.

Proposition 13: Increase the mandatory retirement age for Tex-ass judges and justices. I'm torn on this one. I don't like mandatory retirement ages for elected officials in general. I also don't like Tex-ass partisan judicial election system. I also don't like singling out one branch of government for mandatory retirement ages. So, I'd rather leave the current system in place than give judges a slight nudge while keeping the rest of the problematic current system in place.

Proposition 14: Texas Parks and Wildlife conservation fund. Fuck, no. Per Fairfield Lake, I WILL have a follow-up on this.