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August 09, 2024

Third party and independent news update Aug. 9

Reminder for readers: The filing period to become a write-in candidate in Texas runs through Aug. 19. Specific information about presidential candidates here. The Secretary of State's office usually takes a few days to verify this and then releases the list at about the end of the month.

OK, now to news.

Shock me that Brainworm Bobby would be lying about the success of his campaign, but he is! Ballot Access News notes his lies about allegedly collecting more petition signatures than any other independent presidential candidate in history. Reality, per BAN? He's barely in the top five.

Related, also from BAN? Minor party and independent ballot access is tougher today than four years ago.

Also, why does Brainworm Bobby, alleged environmentalist, hate bears?

==

Brainworm Bobby is on Texas ballot as independent.

==

Claudia de la Cruz and veep choice Karina Garcia, the Party of Socialism and Liberation's ticket, have also officially been nominated by the Peace and Freedom Party. Per Mimi Soltysik eight years ago, this also underscores completely the splinter-fragmentation of parties of the left.

==

Thanks to Democrat brainwashing, many Merikkkans do believe "democracy is on trial" or similar, per an AP-NORC poll. That's a poll that ignores third-party and independent candidates as well as Democratic efforts to keep them off the ballot. It's also a poll with nothing more than the vague label of "independent" beyond "Republican" and "Democrat." Meh. I don't know if NORC was the only one with a hand in the design; if AP were consulted and didn't say boo, shame.

==

In a broadly similar vein, Mondoweiss talks about the presidential choices that Arab-Americans in specific face in this election. It does get to the third-party world about halfway through, with a Jill Stein mention.

It also, without calling it outright hypocrisy, notes that many of these voters get called single-issue voters. That's probably above all by the tribalist "Vote Blue No Matter Who" #BlueAnon, but may also include anti-abortion single issue voters, or broader tradwife / tradfamily ones.

==

In case you're wondering, aChase Oliver also opposes the genocide.

==

I excerpted Jill Stein's Veep panderfesting into a separate post.

==

I excerpted Scott Ritter, convicted pedophile, and hypocrite on non-duopoly issues, talking about having burgers with Brainworm Bobby, into a separate post.

Brainworm Bobby news with Scott Ritter bonus!

You can't beat that, can you?

I had planned on running this as part of the third-party and independent candidate roundup that's coming up later this afternoon, but, like Jill Stein's Veepstakes pandering, had to pull this out into a separate piece.

Scott Ritter is officially a fraud (beyond the other ways in which he's a fraud and his cult among the "more credulous precincts of the left," to riff on Jeff St. Clair [it may be the pseudo-left] ignores) by breaking bread with genocidalist Brainworm Bobby.

(Update, Aug. 23: We mean, that is, Ritter was breaking bread with Trump-endorsing Wasted Space.)

When called out for it? He said:

To which I said:

That statement of his, right there, shows what a hypocrite Ritter is. Contra the fanbois, there likely was semi-legitimate reason to suspend his passport a month ago, and to have the FBI raid him Wednesday. Even Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dmitri Peskov had a guarded, and distant, statement about the passport suspension.

In a second response tweet I said he could cozy up to Jill Stein or Claudia de la Cruz instead of Brainworm Bobby. No, Scott, you're a hypocrite. (I'm unaware of him backing third-party or independent candidates in previous elections.) Or Chase Oliver, who also opposes the genocide in Gaza, opposes aid to Ukraine, and in general opposes the US imperium, and presumably, nuclear saber-rattling.

As for the fanbois cultists? There's them out there who deny that Ritter was ever convicted, ever served jail time, or ever was arrested more than once for his pedophilia. Like this one:

Sorry, but Wikipedia is all over your ass on this one. Actually, not sorry. Here we go:

Ritter was the subject of two law enforcement sting operations in 2001. He was charged in June 2001 with trying to set up a meeting with an undercover police officer posing as a 16-year-old girl. He was charged with a misdemeanor crime of "attempted endangerment of the welfare of a child". The charge was dismissed and the record was sealed after he completed six months of pre-trial probation.
Ritter was arrested again [emphasis added by me] in November 2009 over communications with a police decoy he met on an Internet chat site. Police said that he exposed himself, via a web camera, after the officer repeatedly identified himself as a 15-year-old girl.
The next month, Ritter waived his right to a preliminary hearing and was released on $25,000 unsecured bail. Charges included "unlawful contact with a minor, criminal use of a communications facility, corruption of minors, indecent exposure, possessing instruments of crime, criminal attempt and criminal solicitation". Ritter rejected a plea bargain and was found guilty of all but the criminal attempt count in a courtroom in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, on April 14, 2011.
In October 2011, Ritter received a sentence of one and a half to five and a half years in prison. He was sent to Laurel Highlands state prison in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, in March 2012 and paroled in September 2014.

Boom! The nutter surely knows better and is trying to pretend the 2001 incident is the only one that happened. (I don't think they're that ignorant, unless it's willful ignorance after others besides me have called them out, and in that case it's not ignorance, it's self deception.)

And, lest the nutter claim that 2009 was a "heavy" misdemeanor? Corruption of minors, the first charge I Googled, when it's sexual in nature, is a felony in Pennsylvania.

==

 That said, Scott's "burgers with Bobby," IF it happened in the past month, would be about the closest thing to a public appearance for Brainworm Bobby in that time, as he's been largely AWOL. That's just one of several reasons why Wasted Space dropped out. His failure to pivot to Kamala, his cash burn rate, and his increasingly bizarre public statements all added to that.

Watergate at 50: Nixon resigns, August 9, 1974

I'm old enough to remember his speech from the day before. And, as discussed in the run-up to the first 1960 presidential debate and how Jack Kennedy outfoxed him on the use of TV makeup, how Nixon looked so pasty, pale, and clammy while reading that speech, and sweaty as well.

Well, we've gotten a number of books about Watergate in recent years, but I'm going to start with an oldie that I read just last month. These will be excerpted Goodreads reviews:

To Set the Record Straight: The Break-In, the Tapes, the Conspirators, the PardonTo Set the Record Straight: The Break-In, the Tapes, the Conspirators, the Pardon by John J. Sirica
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Solid 4-star as a personal angle and first-draft-of-history take on Watergate by the man who was, more than anybody other than Nixon himself, at the center of the storm.

It has normal first-draft limitations. We know so much more about the backstory today.

And, the real reason no fifth star? Page 212:
But it seemed fairly clear that the Constitution prescribed that Congress, through the impeachment process, should have the primary jurisdiction over a president who committed criminal acts.

NO. And I don't care if you're John Sirica. It neither says nor implies that. And, this is also the bad thinking behind the Nixon-era opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel within the Department of Justice that sitting presidents can't be indicted, an opinion only, advisory only, that Robert Mueller stupidly bought into.

Rather, with the Constitution making clear that the penalty for conviction upon impeachment is limited to loss of office, I see it as implying that impeachment is an adjunct to criminal charges for an officeholder who won't remove themselves. (Congress can expel its own members; it must impeach judges and executive officials.)

And, that said, while Ron Jaworski getting the grand jury to name Nixon an unindicted co-conspirator was good? IMO, better would have been indicting Nixon under seal.

===

The best of the more recent books? This:

Watergate: A New History

Watergate: A New History by Garrett M. Graff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A great book on overall organization, first (with one exception noted at bottom). And a great book overall, also with one exception.

The chapters are relatively short, about 10 pages each, each on one individual small subtopic. They’re grouped within larger sections. The narrative moves along smoothly, something a mix between journalism and history.

Second, this book earns its rating on one chapter alone. And, that’s “why did Watergate happen?”

In the chapter Third Rate Burglars, in less than 10 pages, Graff lays out each of the five reasonable main alternative interpretations to the traditional one, that it simply what Ron Ziegler called it: a third-rate burglary, bungled, by people with overactive imaginations. No. 1 is is the first of “hidden dirt” theories. This first of those three theories is that the burglars were looking for financial improprieties, possibly funding for the DNC convention. A subplot version of this is that they were trying to see what financial dirt Dems had on the GOP. Theory No. 2 is that sex was the hidden dirt. This says they were looking at dirt allegedly related to a DC call ring. This one, also, like No. 1, had “both ways” possibilities, starting with John Dean’s future wife, the then Maureen Biner, allegedly connected alleged escort Heidi Rikan. It was broached in the book “Silent Coup,” which Graff noted spawned lawsuits by both Dean and Liddy. Theory No. 3? Says the CREEP was trying to see if the DNC had its own ITT problem, or the possibility that Dems, like Republicans, were getting illegal campaign financing. It too has a “both ways,” and on this version of the theory, CREEP was trying to find out how much the DNC knew about Nixon getting money from the Greek military junta. Theory No. 4 is the most conspiratorial, and borders full conspiracy theory. It’s based on McCord and Hunt being (ex)-CIA, and says that, possibly at the instigation of Richard Helms himself. Helms and Nixon had “issues” with each other since the Bay of Pigs. Graff notes that Hunt was one of the biggest liars of the break-in itself and the early cover-up, and that McCord can’t be fully accounted for during all of the night of the burglary. Theory No. 5 is … interesting. It’s that the DNC and/or DC police already had some inkling of something going down and sprung a trap. I find it even more in the land of conspiracy thinking than No. 4, and also even less plausible. No. 4, in turn, is not mutually exclusive with one or another of 1-3, and especially not with No. 3, as the CIA would have information of its own on the Greek colonels.

In the end, though, I think the “official” explanation is still the best.

(deleted for space)

Other things new to me? Outside of Watergate itself, it was that John Mitchell was the lead contact with Anna Chennault in the 1968 campaign. And, that it wasn’t Spiro Agnew contacting her contacts from New Mexico in the last week before Election Day; rather, something got garbled, and it was John Mitchell contacting her from New Hampshire.

Not new, but further confirmed? John Dean has struck me as a duplicitous weasel LONG after he came clean. His book several years ago on the new Nixon tapes release confirmed that for me. This book only adds to that impression. (Hold on to that.)

The one tidbit on not so good organization? Sometimes, things are “dropped out.”....

Now, the one error of interpretation, which ties in a sense to Ted Kennedy’s take on ITT. It’s arguable that Anna Chennault’s operation was the start of Watergate. That said, this was NOT treason. It was a material, non-paper violation of the Logan Act. No doubt about that. But Graff errs in calling it treason.

===

I've read one modern bio of Nixon. And, Ev Thomas was decent.

 Being Nixon: A Man DividedBeing Nixon: A Man Divided by Evan Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A sympathetic, but not hagiographic bio, and a good one.

Thomas gets a few early-Nixon things right that most people don't know are the case.
1. Helen Gahagan Douglas' Democratic primary opponent first came out with the "pink lady" and comparing her record to Vito Marcantonio, Socialist Congresscritter from New York City. Murray Chotiner just has the idea of printing their records side-by-side and on pink paper.
2. Adlai Stevenson had a slush fund bigger than Nixon's in 1952, and it was used for a lot more ethically edgy purposes. For that matter, Ike, though not already an elected politician and thus technically not having a "slush fund," was getting a fair degree of personal aid from campaign funding. (Thomas doesn't mention that one.)
3. On the 1960 campaign, he doesn't go into detail (would be hard to prove) whether either candidate cheated. That said, in Illinois, the state GOP was known for its own shenanigans downstate. But, it's clear that he thinks studied neutrality is best.
4. He gets all parts of the 1968 backdoor from Nixon to Thieu correct, as well as noting that, post-election, Hoover incorrectly claimed LBJ had bugged Nixon's plane.

Watergate? I agree with him that Nixon didn't order the original burglary. That said, if John Mitchell had some idea about it ... Nixon couldn't have been surprised by it. After all, he had mentioned breaking into Ellsburg's psych himself.

Thomas is also right that Nixon sometimes WAS unfairly treated by the media, as well as the Georgetown-area "smart set."

And, I had not read before that a Special Forces unit ordered to go from South Vietnam into Cambodia to do "clean-up" after Nixon's first bombing of Cambodia mutinied. Interesting.

===

And, you can stop holding on. Here's that weasel himself, John Dean:


The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew ItThe Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It by John W. Dean
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

One doesn't need to crib a Roger Stone interview, as one person on Amazon did, to find problems with this book.

Indeed, per the nonpartisan Nixon Tapes website, one can read about Dean blaming his previous book's editor, the well-known Alice Mayhew, for allegedly inserting material into his previous book, a claim she has called an "L-I-E."

As with previous Dean writings on Watergate, there are two main questions:
1. How much is he whitewashing Richard Nixon?
2. How much is he whitewashing John Dean?

On the first, we can see that at play in the opening pages of the prologue. Dean contrasts Nixon and McGovern's approaches to Vietnam, and makes it look like McGovern wanted to cruelly, callously abandon South Vietnam. But Dean never mentions Nixon's late-1968 violation of the Logan Act with his contact via Anna Chennault with South Vietnamese leaders, encouraging them to reject the Johnson peace plan.

Nor does he note, in his brief discussions of Nixon's orders to burgle the Brookings Institute in 1971, that what Nixon sought was NOT (or not just) a copy OF THE Pentagon Papers, but copies of Lyndon B. Johnson's intercepts of Nixon campaign contacts with Chennault, which he (wrongly) suspected were held there.

Beyond that, while Nixon may not have technically ordered the June 17, 1972 burglary of the Watergate, with the burglaries of Daniel Ellsburg's psychiatrist, the discussed burglary of Brookings (even though not carried out) and other things, it's clear that Nixon's general marching order to the Committee to Re-Elect the President indicated no stone should be unturned in doing this. Given that the idea, under Project GEMSTONE, was first discussed in January 1972 and that both Dean and Jeb Magruder were parties to such discussions, at a minimum, the fact that neither of them alerted Nixon to this, or if they did, he didn't squelch it, show that Nixon himself, contra Dean's claims, must be considered as at least an indirect father of the action.

....

At the same time, of course, he's sought to polish his own apple vs. other key players in the Nixon Administration in general and Watergate in particular.

By ending the narrative at July 16, 1973, and putting what happened after that in just a few pages of appendix, Dean's able to do that. The flip side of him turning state's evidence is that, before Nixon could show that he would be disloyal to him (or others), Dean acted first, rather than taking the fall, a la Haldeman and Ehrlichman.

In turn, that shows that this book is still missing psychological elements, starting with those of Dean himself. How does he feel about being the first larger player to jump the sinking ship of the man he still tries to connect to the Goldwater version of Republicanism?

And, to the degree Dean is still trying to cover for himself or his old boss, or both, the death of Colson 2 years ago [as of the time of the book's publication] made it another bit easier.

Finally, Dean's one appendix, on the 18-1/2 minute tape gap, serves nothing. After narrowing down the list of likely erasers of the tape, Dean refuses to look at any one of them as more likely than the others. He even claims it's not that important; real, professional historians would certainly disagree. He also gets coy on exactly what was likely erased, after giving some general parameters.

This isn't quite a one-star book. It does fill in some edges and corners. And it sheds more new light on the character of Dean, even though that surely wasn't his intention.

I'll take a look at the new Brinkley book on the tapes to see if it shines any important new historic light, but it appears even more wooden than this book.

===

Speaking of conspiratorial? There's good old Jefferson Morley:

Scorpions' Dance: The President, the Spymaster, and Watergate

Scorpions' Dance: The President, the Spymaster, and Watergate by Jefferson Morley
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Decent at best, plus a BIG asterisk ...

The "decent at best"?

There's really not a lot new here for people who know a lot about Watergate, especially if you read or have read Graff's book. In fact, Morley's overall thesis, that the CIA was quasi-involved, but not directing anything, is covered by Graff.

The big asterisk? Even though he claimed he's no longer one a few years ago, Morley is still a JFK conspiracy theorist. (I blogged about his non-denial denial.)

It starts on page 51 with a full chapter there in this chronological book, covering Nov. 22 and the immediate aftermath. Then there's most of a chapter in the middle of the book, re Nixon telling Ehrlichman to drop "Bay of Pigs" on Helms. Then part of a chapter near the end. Then the epilogue.

In the first spot, Morley clearly states he believes four shots (minimum) were fired at JFK. The first, that missed and hit the curb beyond the limo (at least he's following eyewitness testimony and evidence). A second that hit Connelly. A third that hit Jack in the body. Then, later, a fourth shot that hit Jack in the head.

In the third spot, he talks about various "framings" of interpreting the assassination. He won't come out straight and say the CIA did it, but that sure appears to be his angle. (deleted)

There's enough decent stuff around the edges, and the conspiracy theory isn't front and center, to rescue this from a 1-star, but that's about it, and it's obviously using Watergate, per psychological counseling, as the "presenting issue" to wedge in JFK. It still got my BS label, too.

===

 One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard NixonOne Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon by Tim Weiner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Decent to good overall, but no more than that. Probably a 3.5 star, but since the Goodreads average is over 4, I rounded down.

It does have a good updated basic overview of the Nixon White House, updated after the release of new tapes of his and grand jury testimony.

But, it's only basic. Surely, it could have been better than this. Others note "quick and dirty."

I really didn't learn anything new about Watergate. I did learn bits new about Vietnam, or more explicitly, the illegal attacks into Laos and Cambodia. And, some things from any basic account of the Nixon years, like the Allende assassination, aren't here.

Also, Weiner came off as an unrepentant Cold Warrior in his introduction. That was likely going to lose it a star right there.

He also has historical errors here and there. The biggest, off the top of my head, is claiming executive privilege started with Ike or Truman. Nope. Try George Washington. The House wanted papers from Jay Treaty negotiations and he refused because only the Senate is involved in treaties. Any good bio of Jefferson will tell you that, re Aaron Burr and other things, he strongly invoked executive privilege.

View all my reviews

August 08, 2024

Israel doubles down again on warmongering

Israel's assassination of Ismail Haniyeh is having plenty of fallout in most circles that are not either US wingnuts or Kamala is a Zionist Cop #BlueAnon. Part of the fallout is Iraq's government again calling for the US to leave Iraq, and again being ignored, as both the left and right hands of the US imperium duopoly have done for years.  

Jeremy Scahill has much more for the Charles Kuffner #BlueAnon lackeys of the world. Ken Klippenstein chips in with a new note.

Also on Substack, Murtaza Hussain talks about the possibility of an Israel-Iran war.

Vaguely related? Michael Moore has no problem with being a genocide whisperer in general, along with no problem turd-polishing Dementia Joe's decision to stand down. Moore's long, clearly been a tribalist for the the left hand of the duopoly, but he's now reached a greater degree of fabulism than he ever showed in any of his movies, and to reverse the old cliche? That's a high bar to hurdle.

Biden's term limits on SCOTUS justices — still unconstitutional, contra Chris Geidner and Brennan Center

I pulled this from the Texas Progressives weekly roundup to run it separately.

Law Dork analyzes the Biden/Harris Supreme Court reform proposal. There, Chris Geidner ignores that the term limits part is surely unconstitutional without amendment. (An active justice/senior justice model, rather than flat term limits, as discussed by the Brennan Center, might pass muster without amendment.)

However, per Wiki's page on senior status, it appears that this is a voluntary, "opt-in" provision. A judge at the district or appellate level can only be forced into senior status if the chief judge deems they have a disability. Yeah, the Angel Hernandez "umpire" of the Supreme Court is going to do that to Clarence Thomas. Sure.

And, beyond THAT? The Brennan Center doesn't tell you the dirty secret. We ALREADY have that senior status for the Supreme Court! Here, from that same Wiki page.

In 1937, the option was extended to Supreme Court justices, although justices so electing are generally referred to as "retired" justices rather than having senior status. A senior justice is essentially an at-large senior judge, able to be assigned to any inferior federal court by the chief justice, but receiving the salary of a retired justice. However, a retired justice no longer participates in the work of the Supreme Court itself. That same year, Willis Van Devanter became the first Supreme Court justice to exercise the option. Since this option became available to Supreme Court justices, only ten have died while still in active service, the most recent being Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18, 2020.

This is sad. It's clear the provision is voluntary and applies only to judges who have already decided to retire.

The primary author, Alicia Bannon, clerked for Sotomayor. So, beyond sad, this is tribalist. Geidner claimed that coment to that end on his site was "nonsense." Well, he's a tribalist, too. And Law Dork, if not him personally, have been tagged in a Twitter follow-up to my original comment to Brennan and Bannon. I called Geidner a BlueAnon a month ago and once again, he's proven me true. Indeed, per a search of my blog, though the term didn't exist then, Geidner was a BlueAnon FIFTEEN years ago. Then, he was DEFENDING Dear Leader claiming that Slick Willie's indefensible Defense of Marriage Act wasn't that bad, and co-defending Barney Frank making the same claim. It's no wonder Kuff loves him.

So, once again, this is clearly all tribalist, and that's how and why Chris Geidner richly earned being called a #BlueAnon. It's more surprising that the likes of an Elie Mystal signed off on this. But, not totally surprising. He knows where his duopoly bread is buttered at The Nation. But, you're wrong too.

That said, Biden's reforms aren't the be-all and end-all. Eliminating the idea of justices hearing all cases en banc is another, per Steve Vladeck's book. Expanding the size of the court to, say, 13 so each appellate court has a justice "riding circuit" with no doubling up is another.

Interestingly, and where the graphic came from, a site called "SCOTUS Term Limits" was launched back in 2020. Way back then, it peddled the same bullshit that we're now getting today, the claim that "during good behaviour" allows term limits without an amendment. At least it wasn't tribalist on it.

Steven Calabrisi at the Volokh Conspiracy gets the issue right, and cites British common law back to 1761. Sadly, he goes wingnut-libertarian tribalist in claiming this attacks an independent federal judiciary.

Wrong. Rather, contra both originalists and librul originalist Constitution interpreters, just as the "Founding Fathers" (Rush Limbaugh voice) did not envision California with 60x the population of Wyoming (vs Virginia with 12x that of New Hampshire) on electoral votes, nor machine guns as "weapons," nor computers and social media on free speech, they didn't envision a significant chunk of Americans, including judges and justices, living into the second half of their octogenarian decade.

Side note: whenever a libertarian, without explicitly identifying with a capital L, calls out Democrats on something like this, it's a tell they're actually a Republican.

Term limits is the right thing.

But, there's only one way to get there.

==

One last side note: Though both Congresscritters and Presidents of both parties pretend to know the Constitution, this couldn't of course be applied to current justices as its an ex post facto law. (The same would be true of an amendment, IMO, at least unless that language was written into the amendment.)

I say this because our alleged constitutional law scholar president signed into law, and willingly, a bill of attainder against ACORN.

August 07, 2024

Jill Stein, Veep panderfesting?

Jill Stein, Veep panderfesting? Say it ain't so, but per Al Jazeera, she's getting somebody to ignore her boundless investments hypocrisy as she talks up her Veep choices:

The candidates are Abed Ayoub, executive director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC); Amer Zahr, a Palestinian American activist; and Jacqueline Luqman, a journalist and activist.
All three have been vocal critics of Israel and the US’s unflinching support for the war on Gaza. Stein, a physician and activist, herself is a longtime supporter of Palestinian rights.

First, the first of these would be the executive director of the group that, per Independent Political Report, did NOT include anybody to the left of Stein in its internal presidential preference poll.

In addition to the above, the first and second are both from Michigan, home of Stein's lesser-evilism based 2016 recount. And, it WAS lesser-evilism based. It was only some time after it was launched that some Stein flaks and flunkies explained on the then-active GP official Facebook group that she couldn't have asked for a recount in a couple of other close states. Stein herself didn't mention that at the time of the recount.

If she causes Michigan to break for Trump and that's his margin of victory over Harris, will Stein do another lesser evilism recount?

Texas Progressives talk juvenile justice, free speech, more

SocraticGadfly eyeballed the Department of Justice investigation of the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, especially the Gainesville State School.

The Trib says being a rural wingnut in a natural disaster means distrusting state and local as well as federal governments, with the problem compounded by lesser infrastructure. Know what? I don't feel sorry for these folk, including in my part of Tex-ass.

Do kids have a right to get a Facebook account without parental consent and without Hucksterman age-IDing them, or will the Lege's Porn Hub-like bill on social media stand? The state's being sued over it. I haven't combed through every detail of SB 18, but, if it's not TOO restrictive, it could stand.

Texas State at San Marcos is muzzling pro-Palestinian free speech based on Gov. Greg Abbott's spring executive order trying to force that. Per that second link, Hillel has become nothing but Zionist shills. Too bad Kuff still hasn't written about pro-Palestinian protestors, even in his Houston backyard.  

Off the Kuff looked at the July campaign finance reports for a group of Democratic legislative candidates.

Laura Pressley is at it again.

The oil patch is now officially Tex-ass' version of Pacific Gas and Electric. Unregulated power lines in the oilfield are believed to have caused multiple Panhandle wildfires. So far, per the piece, state Legiscritters have little inclination to take regulatory bill-writing action next year. As for people on the ground, if you keep voting for people like this? Know what? I don't feel that sorry for you.

A lawsuit over the state's un-air-conditioned prisons has gone to court.

CenterPoint's generators deal with Life Cycle Power is drawing plenty of of scrutiny. Time will tell if that of Dannie Goeb is real or faux.

Tex-ass wingnuts hating on Ill Eagles continues to undercut the future of the Pecos cantaloupe.

Harris County Democrats have erased Sam Rayburn.

Seymour Hersh talks about his effort to track down Lt. William Calley to break the My Lai story. Calley, who died earlier this year in obscurity, only had his death publicly reported last week.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project said Mayor Whitmire’s press conference announcing a new Houston Police Chief ignored preservation of democracy as an essential public safety issue. 

 The Texas Signal attended a call on "Trump abortion bans". The Lone Star Project compares Ted Cruz's weirdness to JD Vance's. 

The Dallas Observer asks how megachurches whose pastors have been accused of sexual misconduct can move forward. 

Boycott Valero.

 Reform Austin tracks the Texas connections to Project 2025.

August 06, 2024

Ex post facto judgmentalism over Hiroshima

An apparently three-year old (as of 2023) NPR interview with Lesley Blume, author of "Fallout," stimulated this issue in my mind, unless Fresh Air reinterviews her every year (which is possible). I blogged-ahead this 11 3/4 months to post it on the 2024 anniversary of Hiroshima.

(That said, the book itself, per 1- and 2-star reviews, seems to be little more than a rehashing of John Hersey, and her other books look like fluff.)

Per the 2021 interview (bits of which I heard last year), the amount of "you knows" by Blume would be irritating. Also, it seems she is really not THAT insightful about the Manhattan Project. 

But, I digress. Back to the main point.

And, that is that at the time the bomb was dropped, then the second one on Nagasaki (adding it as more than a throw-in, as you shall see), the Manhattan Project scientists, while by this time having a general sense of the dangers of radioactivity, via colleague Marie Curie, what was starting to become known about the so-called "Radium Girls" and more, they had no idea of the exact radiation dangers of a U-235 bomb. And, setting aside its limited natural occurrence due to beta decay, since plutonium is an artificial element, they had even less than no idea about it.

With plutonium even more than U-235, they had no idea of exactly what fissile daughter elements would spill out in what proportions, what exact wavelengths of gamma radiation would occur and what substances in Nagasaki this might irradiate with further fallout, etc.

JSTOR talks about this ignorance:
The tremendous explosive power of the A-bombs was stressed, even celebrated, but officials worked hard to keep people ignorant of the terrible effects of radiation poisoning, effects which seem to have surprised many who worked on the bombs and ordered their use.
There you go.

At the same time, the ignorance wasn't total, as Slate notes; however, it did admit of definite degrees. I quote:

Before the bombs were dropped, most scientists assumed that blast and heat would be the dominant effects. Radiation would be a footnote; anyone who received a lethal dose of radiation would be close enough to the explosion to die from the blast or the heat.
Again, there you go. That's for the more credulous precincts of the left, or on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the more obtuse precincts. That's especially true, since from Lesley Blume through Jeff St. Clair at Counterpunch and on to Gar Alperowitz, Thomas Frank and "Downfall," with a great add-on by Marc Gallicchio at "Undefeated," have your number.


August 05, 2024

The end of an era is approaching at Southwest / Southworst

Last month, the semi-legacy airline announced it would end its famous open seating policy next year. 

Now, first, the seating isn't totally "open." You can pay Southwest to upgrade, if not to an assigned seat, at least to A-section boarding, first of all. Second, families with pre-teen kids not already in A section by how early they checked in automatically board between A and B so parents can keep together with their kids.

The biggie? Does this mean the "bags fly free" domino will drop next?

"Activist" (more vulture-like) investors, led by Elliott Investment Management, have been pushing for this.

If Southworst charged for a second checked bag but kept the first free, I could definitely in summer, possibly in cold weather, find a way to cram all my stuff in one bag. If it started charging for even a first bag?

Well, then, I start looking at Travelocity as well as Southworst's website.

(Update, Sept. 5: Some sort of other shoe may be a lot closer to dropping.)

In a recent Facebook discussion with my brother, he said that "bags fly free" just covered up high prices and that for him, from St. Louis, American was actually cheaper to Orlando. (He didn't say how many, if any, checked bags he had.)

Well, to do a comp to my recent vacation trip, I checked American's prices from DFW to Sacramento a month out from now.

Prices themselves? Even. 

But, American wants $40 one-way for the first checked back and Travelocity didn't even list a price for a second.

So, as long as bags fly free, I fly Southworst — on-time problems and all.

It DOES have that, though. In the past three-plus years, I don't think I've had a single flight, and I know not a single summertime flight, with a delay of less than 15 minutes. This trip? 45-plus, both ways. I think it was crew on the return trip. I know it was outbound. The feds won't let you fly without a copilot.

It was funny, something related to that.

That outbound flight was July 19, the date the Crowdstrike update caused problems for other legacy airlines. (Not sure if anybody considers Southworst "legacy," but it is at least semi-legacy, per top of the piece.) A bunch of people at D/FW couldn't get rebooked on a Double A flight, weren't getting enough compensation of whatever, so hopped over to Love Field.

One of them said that he thought maybe Southworst used Linux and that's why they weren't hit.

I didn't tell him, knowing their history with their crappy crew scheduling software, that it was more likely their flight scheduling system was simply too old to accept the latest Crowdstrike upgrade.

Finally? Southworst PR? You ARE a "semi-legacy," at least. Fifty-plus years old.